It was a dark and stormy night. The large moon of Panna threw
lingering orange shadows across the towers of the stark and foreboding metal
prison building. A few constellations Rungs recognised twinkled overhead. His
homeworld of Rinn was out there somewhere, glittering green against the velvet
blackness. The Tin Tin Dwarf chittered to himself, cleaned his whiskers and remonstrated
with himself for not sticking to thinking about the task in hand, which in this
instance was an audacious prison break. Reegesk had told everyone he was in a
retirement home. Pfui! That would have been easier. Panna's prison complex was
all hi-tech and vaunted new machinery, relying on complicated electronic
systems and sensors to be nigh on impregnable. But it wasn't heavily guarded by
humans, and that might well be to Rungs' advantage.
Although he looked like oversized vermin and possessed the
aroma of damp woodchips, the Tin Tin Dwarf was an incredibly intelligent being.
He had patiently perused the schematics of the prison complex on a piece of
tattered paper in a darkened booth in the corner of Ackmena's cantina and had
memorised every power conduit and control outlet in the place. He hadn't even
let the bartender's insane bouts of awful singing distract him. Not that he
would ever dare tell his beloved mentor Ackmena she couldn't hit a note; he was
an intelligent being after all.
Having easily breached the perimeter, Rungs scampered through a
few ventilation shafts - which were an incredibly useful sci-fi cliché he noted
- located the main power bank and chewed through the lighting and electrical
cables, immediately disabling the doors and plunging one particular wing of the
prison into darkness. This section of the prison building housed the dissenters
and thieves, and one particular resident who had shown the audacity to pick
Palpatine's pocket and steal his only photo of Darth Plageius. The two guards
in corridor 9D9 shuffled uneasily as the red emergency lighting came up.
Reegesk was huddled on his bunk inside a spartan cell half way
down the detention corridor. He was curled inside his huge tatty brown robe as
always and singing rude songs about the Emperor, just to annoy his captors.
Nuffin got Reegesk down; not being a member of one of the most hated species in
the galaxy, smelling like trash, having no morals: nuffin. That's what his
bitches liked about him most.
The guard outside Reegesk's cell didn't see the access hatch in
the ceiling above slide aside or notice anything amiss until Rungs had leapt
onto his shoulders and bore him to the floor of the corridor. The guard
screamed 'ermahgerd!' and
tried to bat the giant rat away. The other guard unholstered his blaster but
the agile Tin Tin Dwarf swiped the man to the ground with one swing of his
mighty tail then perched on the man's chest to keep him down. The first guard
had soiled his underwear and passed out with terror. In that order.
Reegesk peered through the bars of his cage at the commotion.
'Whoa! Dis is well wicked! That guy shit himself. It stinks in
here, man.'
'Row ow ow row!' Rungs bid Reegesk loudly.
'You don't have to tell me twice bro, keep calm and swindle
Jawas. Dat's my motto, dat is. Long time.'
Rungs' dexterous claw punched in the correct code on an
adjacent panel and Reegesk's cell gate swung open.
'This is a sugar-coated rescue, is well sweet bruv.'
'Row ow. Row ow ow!'
Reegesk instantly leapt on the guard, who began whimpering in
fear. Reegesk's beady eyes glittered maliciously under the shadow of his fabric
hood.
'You scared, homie?'
The guard nodded slowly.
'Is it cos I is Ranat, innit?'
Rungs was impatient to depart: 'Row ow!'
'Okies. Let's split this joint. I miss me some Owl City on the
radio and toking on a doobie dat's wide as Bob Marley's leg.'
Rungs was in agreement on that one. The furry pair scampered
for the exit. The first guard was stirring now and summoning up some bravura,
aimed his blaster after the two oversized mice. But even as he squeezed the
trigger Rungs and Reegesk vanished around the corner. Reegesk hurled a couple
of finely honed insults back at the guard.
'Can't catch me homie, innit! You is too slow bro!'
There was a battered YT-1300 Millenium Falcon class starship
parked up in the staff docking bay. It didn't take the murine pals long to
bypass the security codes and get on board the empty freighter.
Reegesk was twitching with excitement: 'oooh, our very own
miloonium falcow. We can goes on adventures and solve crimes and do madcap
things now, bruv!'
'Row ow ow ow!!'
The freighter lifted off and trailing a blue particle tail of
light shot past Panna's waxen moon, then turned left and vanished amid the galaxies.
Neither Rungs nor Reegesk knew how long the journey had lasted:
they had put 'Fireflies' on the boom box and cranked it up to max, broke out
some emergency absinthe from the freighter's glovebox and proceeded to get as
high as possible on a little stash of contraband Reegesk had found in one of
the many pockets of his robe. As the space shrooms and amphetamines kicked in,
the furry pals chittered happily and hallucinated like fuck. Reegesk hit the
hyperdrive and the newly re-christened freighter Ratfinities made the jump to
the appropriately named lightspeed. As Rungs and Reegesk sang songs of the
Rebellion and victory and nights in Ackmena's Cantina, they even saw God wave
at them through the windscreen.
Their adventures had only just begun!
Ermahgerd! Gerd!
