Star Wars_ The Old Republic_ Revan - Drew Karpyshyn [44]
Revan brought the Hawk in low again, but this time he throttled it back to half speed. The swirling winds still made for a rough ride, but at least he’d have more time to react if something went wrong.
“See if you can do something to give our sensors a boost,” he said to T3.
The little astromech chirped with pleasure and extended a small probe from a panel in his side to interface directly with the Hawk’s systems.
While T3 worked, Revan began a standard search pattern with the original coordinates for the camp at the center. Taking the Hawk around in ever-widening circles, he spiraled outward, letting the sensors scan the ground for signs of life. Suddenly T3 began beeping excitedly. Canderous leaned forward to look at the scanner’s display.
“I think your droid’s got some rust on the brain,” he said. “I don’t see anything.”
Revan knew better than to doubt the little astromech. “Can you enhance the image?” he asked T3.
T3 responded with a low whistle, and a second later a static-filled thermal image appeared on the screen. The details were difficult to make out, but it appeared to be a small collection of tents and temporary shelters built against the leeward side of a small mountain of ice and snow.
“Could be them,” Canderous admitted, reaching out one of his massive hands to give T3 a friendly pat on the head. The droid squawked an indignant protest, and he quickly pulled his hand back.
“Doesn’t look like there’s a landing strip at the camp,” Revan noted. “See any place for us to touch down?”
The display zoomed out as T3 adjusted the Hawk’s scanners to pan rapidly back and forth across the snow. A few seconds later they zoomed in again.
“Perfect,” Revan said with a smile. “Nice work, Tee-Three.”
“Uh … that’s not a landing strip,” Canderous cautioned. “It’s a giant snowdrift.”
“With the landing gear shot, we’re going to need something to cushion the blow when we hit the ground.”
“You really think this’ll work?”
“Sure,” Revan replied. “But you’d better strap yourself in, just in case.”
Canderous scrambled to lock in his safety belt as Revan sent the Hawk into its descent. T3 scooted across the cockpit to the metal braces anchored to the floor and locked his wheels in with a metallic thunk.
Fighting wind and gravity, Revan struggled to keep the damaged ship level as he took it down. Seconds before they touched ground, a blast of wind grabbed the Ebon Hawk and pitched it hard to starboard. Revan jammed the stick to port, desperately trying to keep the ship from flipping over. It slammed into the snowbank at a forty-five degree angle, carving a fifty-meter-long trench in the powder before finally coming to rest.
Looking through the small cockpit window, Revan could see nothing but blue-white flakes; the entire front half of the ship was buried in the drift. But the sensors indicated that, apart from the already damaged landing gear, the Hawk had survived relatively unscathed. More important, so had its passengers.
Revan carefully unbuckled his safety belt, knowing he would have bruises where the straps had dug into him during the collision. Beside him, Canderous was doing the same. T3 simply unlocked his wheels from the braces and rolled free.
“I guess sometimes it’s not so bad being a droid,” Canderous groaned as he stood up, rubbing his right shoulder with his left hand.
“You mean like when you’re marching through a blizzard?” Revan asked. “This snowdrift’s at least five kilometers from the campsite.”
Canderous only grunted in reply.
While the big Mandalorian gathered the gear and supplies for their trek from the cargo hold, Revan and T3 ran diagnostics on the Hawk to determine the full extent of the damage.
“Doesn’t look too bad,” Revan commented when they were done. “Think you can fix it up while we head off to the camp?”
T3 beeped twice.
“It’s going to be hard for you to keep up out there in the snow,” Revan reminded him. “Besides, someone