Not long after that, I was guided over to my own potential guide, who was notably hanging out a good distance away from the stall and other jawa guides.
He was easy to spot… since they were elbow deep into what looked like a heavily modified hoverbike, judging by the large engines haphazardly attached to it, the way it tilted to one side, and in general looking like it was held together with space duct tape, spit, and hope. Also, even from behind it was hard not to notice all the cuts, tears, and scorch marks all over the jawa's robes along with how twitchy they seemed. In general, this jawa gave off very gremlin vibes… which I admit was making me a little nervous.
"(That Tik of jawa, very spirit-touched)," my guide said before walking off. "(Not jawa need much luck)."
"Thanks…" I would help but mutter as I turned back towards my potential guide, took a deep breath, and stepped forward in order to grab their attention. "Hey there! I was told that-"
"(Parts to go fast?! You have?!) Tik spun around very fast to look at me, making me notice his left mask lense was cracked, hydrospannerin hand and shaking in excitement. "(Will trade good for parts!)"
"No, I'm actually here-" I tried to answer, only for Tik to visibly lose interest and turn away from me, going back to working on his hoverbike. "Uhhhh, I was told that you were the one to talk to if I wanted to get to Ten Mile Plateau before the day was over? I really need to get there fast and-"
"(FAST?! Tik do fast!)" the jawa spun to face me again. (Tik fast jawa! More fast than not jawa! Always fast!)"
"Great, I need that, and-"
"(Fast zoomer!)" Tik suddenly yelled in excitement and rushed past me, belining for my speeder and examining it all over. Not in the usual jawa way of figuring out how they could possibly take and sell it off either, but seemingly to actually appreciate it. Maybe a bit too much, judging by how he was feeling it up. (Yes, zoomer fast! Make go go!)"
"Yeah, it's mine," I explained as I walked over. "As I was saying, I was told that you were the best chance I had to get to the plateau in a reasonable timeframe. I'm willing to pay for your expertise, so what do you-"
"(Trade zoomer! Tik guide not jawa to tall, flat rock! Dodge poison giants and speed tribes! Fast go by!)" Tik demanded in an excited tone of voice.
"You want my speeder? Not credits?" I couldn't help but ask in confusion.
"(Good zoomer! Hard find, want trade! Get from not jawa when Tik job done, yes?)"
My gut reaction was to say no… but honestly, if this deal went well, I could easily trade up to a better speeder overall. Besides, it was hard not to find the little jawa's desire for the speeder a little endearing, even if he seemed just a bit unstable. Besides, I doubted I would be able to get the smell out of my speeder's seat after a drive through the Scraplands after all this.
"You know what, sure," I nodded, much to Tik's delight. "Get me safely through to my destination and back out again, and I will happily trade you my speeder. So, how should we-"
"(Trade agreement! Go zoom now!) Tik declared, rushing back to his hoverbike and quickly started to put it back together. (Go fast, dodge death, live life!)"
"I… alright," was all I could say as the jawa rapidly fixed up his ride and then hopped on it, gunning the engine and making it whine a great deal, making it look like it could snap forward like a rubber band at any moment. "Wait, right now?"
"(Yes! Now, do fast! No stop! Fast as fast! GO GO GO!)" Tik said while gunning his engine again, making me worried the thing might explode if it didn't release its stored up power soon. "(On zoomer!)"
"Okay, okay, I'm going!" I said as I rushed to climb on my own speeder and made sure everything was strapped in tight. "Okay, now-"
I didn't even get to finish my sentence as Tik gunned his engine again, only this time he released his brakes and shot off into the distance.
"Hey! Wait up!" I yelled after him and gunned my speeder's own engine, quickly accelerating after him and nearing max speed already… but somehow the little jawa's hoverbike was still ahead of me! "Slow down! We-"
"(Never slow! Slow death! Fast life!)" Tik yelled back with an unhinged laugh. "(Follow close! Never slow! Never back look! No don't die!)"
"That tells me almost nothing!" I pointed out as we quickly approached the Scraplands proper and headed towards a narrow path among all the trash. "Is that way safe?!"
"(No place safe! Less death more fast! So fast!)"
I wasn't able to respond much more to that, since soon afterwards we were flying down a narrow path through the surrounding trash and I desperately needed to keep my eyes forward and focused on following Tik so I didn't lose him. As it was, I was barely keeping up with the crazy little jawa!
Also, I quickly learned to appreciate my speeder model's strong turning ability, cause the second we left the narrow path I had to very quickly turn to my left or else I would have totally flown off the edge of a rusty cliff into a very acid filled lake.
"Holy shit!" I screamed as I found myself nearly hanging off the edge and looking down before quickly turning away and trying to calm my heart while chasing after Tik. "Thanks for the warning!" I yelled sarcastically.
"(No warning give, but warning give now! Fast, no slow!)" Tik yelled back as he gunned the engine up a rusty ramp and jumped over a gap above the acid below, landing on the other side with a few kicked up sparks.
"Oh fuck!" I screamed as, fighting against every instinct I had to slow down since I wasn't sure if I'd be able to in time, I sped up my speeder as much as possible and quickly found myself going airborne for a second before landing on the other side of the gap with slight thud and kicking up a few sparks from the bottom of my speeder scraping against the metal all around us. "What the hell was that?!"
"(Fast jump!)" Tik yelled back happily.
"No, I meant why did we have to-" I started to ask, only for a red blaster bolt to come from nowhere and hit the ground in front of me, causing me to swerve a little in response. "What the fuck?!"
"(Speed demon tribes!)" Tik responded in an excited tone. "(No stop, only fast!)
I dared to look behind me, only to pale in horror as no less than a dozen speeder bikes seemed to come out of the metalwork all around and after us. There were a variety of models in use, most of them looking beat up, subject to slapdash repairs, and even some that looked like custom models using different parts of many others, but what really got my attention were the riders, since they looked like a bunch of gasmask wearing post-apocalyptic raiders! With leather looking outfits with spikes all over them and everything!
Most of the speeders held two or more raiders on them, either sitting behind the driver or sitting in sidecars bolted onto the sides, and nearly all of them armed with blaster pistols or crude melee weapons. Oh, and all of them were screaming for blood in a variety of languages that my PUT was having a hard time keeping track of with all the yelling in the air.
"What the hell did I walk into?!" I screamed before yelping as I had to dodge out of a way of a crudely made and rusty looking spiked club by one of the riders. "Bitch!"
I didn't really think about it, I just pulled out my blaster with my right hand from its holster and fired a stun blast at my attacker. At this close range, he couldn't dodge the blue ring of energy and it knocked him out over the front of his speeder's controls… which caused it to spin out and flip behind me, crashing into another speeder and sending bodies flying.
I didn't really have time to process all that as more and more poorly aimed blaster bolts were headed my way, a few of them tagging parts of my speeder as I focused on moving as fast I could to dodge and outrun my pursuers while occasionally firing stun blasts back at them. Oh, and I couldn't forget the crazy assholes trying to beat me to death with clubs and other instruments, that wasn't fun.
Thankfully, I wasn't the only one fighting back.
In between speeding and fighting for my life, I noticed Tik zipping around and between speeder bikes, blasting them with what looked like an ion blaster judging by how whatever hit by it either shut down and spasmed with electricity. All the while I swear I could hear the jawa laughing like the madman I was quickly realizing he was. I had truly gone and ignored a good warning, and I regret not taking that earlier jawa's advice of just walking away.
"AHHH! Fuck!" I yelled out as suddenly something hot and painful tagged me in the left shoulder, making me realized I had just been fucking shot! I could only pray my armorweave protected me from most of the damage, but it still fucking hurt like hell and nearly threw me off my bike! "You asshole!" I screamed, as I raised my blaster over my shoulder and fired blindly behind me.
I had no idea how long this chase and fight went on for, fear and adrenaline truly made it hard to really to keep track of things like time. It all became a blur of speeding, blasting, making sharp turns, dodging strikes, speeders crashing and occasionally exploding, occasionally jumping more gaps, balancing over narrow paths above pools of acid, dodging raging fires, and more. All I knew that the second I slowed down for a second, I would die, so I never stopped pushing my speeder's engine to the fucking limit.
All my mind was filled with was a mix of fight and flight, nothing else mattered.
"(Poison giant lands ahead! Make ready!)" Tik suddenly appeared at my side and yelled, knocking me out of my fugue state to yell some kind of swear at the batshit insane jawa for getting me in this mess or maybe ask what the hell he was talking about, only to notice the large engine on his hoverbike was full of blaster holes, trailing smoke, and on fire! "(Stay fast!)"
"Your engine's about to blow!" I yelled in response, making the jawa look back and confirm that was the case. "You gotta bail!"
"(No slow! Slow death!)" Tik said, which was confirmed by the blaster shots and shots that still followed us.
He was right, if we stopped even for a second those raiders would overwhelm us, the only thing keeping us alive was the fact we were moving so quickly. But if Tik's ride exploded, I would be stuck in the middle of the Scraplands with no guide and would likely die out here without him. So the only solution was…
"Jump! I'll catch you! Just jump!" I yelled at Tik, and to the jawa's credit, or just plain natural craziness, he didn't hesitate to do just that.
He quickly stood up and leapt from his hoverbike and over to my speeder, with me catching him with one arm and being extremely thankful he was so small and light enough for me to do so, making it feel like someone tossed a heavy sack at me rather than a full person. And without its rider, his hoverbike slowed and quickly went out of control, smashing into a raider bike and then violently exploding, making me feel the heat and even a few bits of metal shrapnel hit my helmet.
Tik settled in front of me and quickly pushed my hands off the controls, taking over in driving both of us while putting his ion blaster in my now free hand.
"(Tik drive fast! Not jawa shoot!)"
Not needing to be told twice, and no longer needing to focus on the road, I did just that, blasting any raider that got close enough with stun and ion bolts to keep them off of us, sending them tumbling off of or crashing their rides into the surrounding trash or into each other. Still though, it seemed that no matter how many we seemed to blast more and more just kept on coming! Something had to break this stalemate eventually, and I was worried it wouldn't end in our favor.
Of course, in all the action I had forgotten Tik's words about 'poison giants' and never really figured out what that meant… but I quickly learned.
"WAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!" loudly roared out from multiple sources and I looked forward to quickly notice the source, which made me wonder if I was currently pissing myself because charging right at us were a half a dozen very pissed off giants.
More specifically, a bunch of several meters tall, scaly-skinned, and sharp-toothed savrips swinging around huge clubs and moving at scary speeds in our direction as they set out to kill whatever entered their territory, which included all of us at this very moment.
"(Hold tight!)" Tik yelled as, in a maneuver I had no idea how he pulled off, tilted the speeder close to its side and nearly parallel to the ground as he quickly dodged the huge crude club swung our way and which barely grazed the top of my helmet. Meanwhile, the club continued its journey and smashed directly into the speeder chasing after us, crumpling it inwards and flinging its rider off with bone shattering force.
Tik quickly righted us and kept speeding forward, not slowing down for a second.
While processing what the heck just happened, I turned back to see the raiders and savrips go out at it in one big ball of violence. Speeders and raidings were being smashed apart and thrown around by the huge lizardmen, some of the latter even being bitten into, while the raiders who were able to speed around them in time blasted at the thick-skinned creatures in an effort to take it down. Each side focused so hard on killing each other, they didn't even pay attention to us as Tik sped us both away at high speeds.
I had no idea how the fight would play out, and we didn't stick around to see it, but all I cared about was that we had somehow survived the shitshow and I could finally attempt to breathe normally again.
"Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, I can't believe we lived through all that," I commented out loud.
"(Cause we fast! Fast is life!)" Tik said, and before I could go off on the jawa about his 'go fast' lifestyle put us in this mess to begin with, he pointed ahead. "(Tall, flat rock! Make fast to go soon!)"
Just as Tik said, standing tall even among the massive mounds of garbage and rusty metal, a very wall plateau stood before us like an oasis in the desert, with the notable remains of a structure on top.
Despite everything, we had reached our destination.