10. Egara

The shuttlecraft complained when we re-entered the atmosphere.

Fire leaped over the windows and trailed over its external shell.

Something crunched, snapped, and then splintered off completely.

I shut my eyes and ignored it all.

I wasn't sure the craft would survive the trip.

But that didn't matter.

What mattered was finding Agatha.

I had spent less than ten seconds staring at the emptiness of space.

The only thing emptier was the hole left inside me, an emptiness I had lived with my entire life.

All the booty in the world couldn't fill it.

Neither could the accolades of being the most fearsome pirate in the galaxy.

Only she could give me meaning.

Agatha.

She was my only chance to turn my life around, to do something else.

I only hoped it wasn't too late.

I had no plan of how I would break into the prison, how I would locate her.

None of that mattered either.

The craft screamed and I gripped the base of my chair with both hands.

I must have looked like a ball of molten fire as the shuttlecraft streaked across the night sky.

Within seconds, the fire was doused and I was falling head-first into the giant sand dunes below.

I seized the controls and pulled up, easing the shuttlecraft into a gentle glide.

Far below, the frozen ocean splayed out before me as far as the eye could see.

"Locate Ikmal prison," I said.

"Ikmal prison located," Computer said.

A holographic skin dropped over the windscreen and a three-dimensional image swelled from it, revealing the contours of the desert below.

A beacon alighted in the far distance, a simple yellow arrow pulsing on the horizon.

I brought the shuttlecraft down closer to the surface, hugging it as closely as I dared.

I peered at the undulating waves and focused on heading toward that beacon.

The prison guards had the use of land vehicles.

There was no doubt in my mind they would have used them and returned to the prison far faster than we had escaped it on foot.

It was a miracle they hadn't discovered us before they had.

And, small though it might be, there was still a chance they hadn't yet reached the prison.

As I sailed overhead, I noticed a few pinpricks of light on the surface dotted like acne on a teenager's face.

I reduced speed and pulled in closer.

I couldn't make it out with my naked eyes.

"Computer," I said, "zoom in on those fires."

Computer brought the images up on screen.

A flurry of fires had been tossed across the sand like breadcrumbs.

A handful of fabric fluttered like ghostly apparitions.

It made no sense.

Why would anybody come here to camp?

My answer came in the form of a vehicle trapped in the sand.

Its front corner was buried deep in a sand trap.

I recognized the vehicle type.

It was what the prison guards used when they made their rare trips into the desert.

Could Agatha be down there? I wondered.

But where was the movement?

Where were the drones buzzing overhead?

At least one would have spotted me and pitched in my direction, scanned my underside to pick up the vehicle's identification number.

But there were no drones.

It was eerily quiet without those buzzing hornets overhead.

And there.

I noticed something, half-buried in the sand.

It was…

It was…

Dear Creator, no…

The blood froze in my veins.

A body.

The armor glowed brightly in the roving moonlight.

"Computer," I said in a hoarse voice. "Zoom in on that fire."

Computer brought the image closer until the sprawling mass made sense to my eyes.

A dry and shriveled and black form.

Vines.

A Desert Flower had attacked them.

It had attacked and killed some of their number.

But there had to be at least half a dozen prison guards.

And that wasn't counting the drones they had at their disposal.

There could only be one form of Desert Flower that could do this to such a heavily armed crew.

The Desert Monarch.

I shut my eyes and shook my head.

Oh, Agatha, I thought. What have you got yourself into?

Upon initially discovering the prison guard camp, I'd been excited.

There still might be time for me to save Agatha.

But that time had just been cut drastically short.

The Desert Monarch was a formidable opponent.

You could destroy it, if you knew how.

Did these prison guards know how?

It didn't appear so, not with the dead bodies strewn about the campgrounds.

"Computer," I said. "Find the camp occupants."

"Searching…" Computer said.

Computer scanned the curves of the sandy valleys tossed by scurrying feet.

If I was on the surface, perhaps I could track them myself, but I had no intention of wasting more time than necessary.

The image suddenly shifted forward, following a series of footsteps, and lines that looked like scars across the desert's surface.

I put the shuttlecraft into drive, turned the controls, and pursued those zigzagging lines before Computer validated the tracks.

Was Agatha the cause of those markings?

Had she learned from her last encounter with a similar creature?

And did she have a weapon to hand to hack at them in case they seized her?

Dare I even hope for such a thing?

I increased speed and the shuttlecraft responded quickly.

It took one minute to find the Desert Monarch.

It wasn't the easiest thing to lose.

It was perched upon the peak of the tallest sand dune but the details were hard to make out.

"Computer, switch to night vision," I said.

The screen shifted, turning multiple shades of green, illuminating the scene in much clearer detail.

The Desert Monarch tossed a prison guard into its open maw and set to dragging the half a dozen or so others toward it.

I gauged each of the victims to ascertain if they were Agatha.

Most gleamed with the same polished armor that identified the guards.

But not that figure.

It was being dragged across the smooth surface toward the gaping maw.

The figure didn't struggle.

Either the figure was dead and couldn't move or they knew holding still was their best bet.

Please tell me it's the latter.

Time would tell.

But not much time.

The snapping mouth swallowed another body and reached for the unmoving one…

I had to stop the monster.

I checked my surroundings for a weapon I could use, something I could drop in the monster's mouth and blow it to hell.

But the merchants had already stripped it of its weapons.

There was nothing left.

Nothing except…

I peered through the windscreen at the unmoving figure, closer now to being consumed.

I could care less about the prison officers but that one small figure…

And I knew in my heart, I had no choice but to carry out my plan.

I'd done some crazy things in my life but nothing quite as mad as this.