Astralis didn’t much like summer. As large as he was there tended to be an inordinate amount of sweating any time the ambient temperature inched above twenty five degrees. Here on Tatooine the summer seemed exceptionally brutal what with two suns and all. His armor was stacked in the seat of the landspeeder and his skin felt baked under the scorching twin suns; it was way too hot for armor. He raised the dusty and hot metal macrobinoculars to his eyes and scanned the dunes to the East, looking for any sign of the Tuscans that had been following him for the bulk of the afternoon. Not surprisingly, he saw no sign of them. He sensed several of the in that direction but still was unable to verify their position visually. “Still no visual confirmation” Astralis heard his own voice come through the comlink in his ear. He knew that Furios was well aware of the exact position of the raiders as well as any other living thing within a few hundred kilometers - the benefit of having ships scanners at your disposal.
“Still keeping their distance, nothing to worry about” Furious’ electronically enhanced voice spoke into Astralis’ comlink earbud. Reassured, the giant knight thumbed the throttle and coaxed the speeder Eastward. After a few more kilometers of featureless, heavy dunes, Astralis decided it was too damn hot and he needed to stop and cover his skin from the hammering suns. He slowed the speeder and engaged stationary hover, reached over to the seat next to him and grabbed his gear bag, and stood up next to the speeder. He set his bag on the hood and untied the closure strings, opening the round top of the bag. He reached inside and pushed his hand through the gear, searching for his shirt. He definitely didn’t want to put his armor back on and he didn’t feel it particularly necessary. He hated to think of how miserable the summer heat would be without his force-control of his body temperature. He found the right-fitting, once-white undershirt over his head, deftly maneuvering his fingers around his long hair instead of tangling them in it. Once the shirt was covering his torso, he thought of a question for Furios. His mic and earpiece were still in place, so he said to the desert “just how hot is it here, Furios?”
“Not that hot, really. About thirty-five degrees” Furios replied. “You think this is bad, try running this mission in the summer”.
“What? This is summer” Astralis’ tone was slightly unsure and he was not able to hide the incredulity he felt.
“No, apprentice - it is late autumn” the earpiece stated with the voice of Furios.
“Truly? Asked Astralis. This is why I hate Tatooine, he thought. With his bulky mass of scarred muscle and his high-motor body, he was well suited for colder environments. What kind of axial tilt must this forsakes desert planet have in order to have such dramatic seasons? Astralis decided he’d had quite enough, autumn or not. He reached his right hand into hip pants thigh pocket and found the retrieval beacon. He pressed the activation stud on the beacon and closed the string on his gear bag. He tossed the bag into the speeder, reached down into the door panel and grabbed his water bottle. He leaned against the side of the speeder and took a long pull from the cold bottle. Autumn? This is autumn? What a terrible thing summer must be. He pictured Hoth as he heard the atmo thrusters of the shuttle coming to pick him up.