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| - “Here, take this one.” I tossed a Bryar pistol, still in its holster, to my Sorrusian companion. We were inside the Hell’s Call, going through my considerable onboard armory. He caught it, looked it over curiously for a moment, then began to connect the holster to his belt. “It’s a modified Bryar rifle, sawn off to be a pistol in size. It packs a punch that can tear through a stormtrooper’s armor with ease.” He looked at the weapon again. “And have you considered getting in by stealth?” I turned to look him in the eyes. He couldn’t see mine, since they were still hidden behind the T-shaped visor of my helmet. “Of course I have. It’s getting back out I’m worried about. And I’d rather you have a weapon and not need it than having you need a weapon and not have one.” He nodded. “I guess that makes sense.” I turned back to the armory, moving weapons and armor aside until I found what I was looking for. I pulled the package out and tossed it to Sterlo. “Set of light armor. It’s not nearly as strong as mine, or as strong as stormtrooper armor, but it gets the job done. I’d prefer you didn’t die in the first firefight.” He opened the pack and moved some of the plates aside, checking it out. “Thanks,” he muttered. “It’s as sentimental as I get. You might as well get used to it.” I pulled out another weapon, a compact pistol. “Hold onto this weapon as well,” I said, tossing the piece to Sterlo. “You’ve gotta be kidding me; isn’t a sawn-off rifle enough?” I shook my head. “You can never have too much firepower, as far as I’m concerned. I’m going in with two WESTAR-made blaster pistols and a blast cannon, plus my armor’s assorted weaponry. And it’s not for you. Naelah will need something to shoot with as well.” He cocked an eyebrow. “I thought you said she would be tortured, do you seriously think she’ll be able to shoot anything?” “It goes back to the firepower again. Spread it around amongst the group so they can’t take out all the weaponry at once. And even if she’s in bad shape, she’s bound to have weapon training as the daughter of an Imperial Moff. I’d prefer she had some defense as well.” “Oh.” He had pulled the chestplate out of the bag and began belting it on under his leather jacket. I went back to going through the armory locker. I pulled out a few small weapons for my wrist gauntlets and pulled them out of the locker. Dart shooter, compact DUR blaster, cutting torch, flame projector, and a few other assorted surprises. I took my gauntlets off and sat down in the pilot’s seat, grabbed a small work tool from a bag under the console and began taking apart the panels on the gauntlets to install the weapons. I glanced back at Sterlo. He had the duraplast plate attached to his front and had started putting on his shoulder plating, this time over his jacket. Interesting choice. He interrupted the stark silence. “You brought Naelah to the Empire from Coruscant… why are you going after her again?” I sighed. I didn’t like explaining my motives to people, but I guess he deserved an answer. He was my partner, for the time being, and I’d prefer earning his trust over having to watch him every second, waiting for him to try killing me again. “I don’t work for the Empire, at least not officially. I’m not above doing odd jobs for Imperial officials on the occasion, but I don’t have any sort of contract with them that buys my loyalty. Naelah’s father, Moff Tieres, had contacted me while I was on Coruscant, taking care of a gang of scum for an official there. He asked me to find his daughter, who had run off a year or so ago, and return her to Bilbringi. I didn’t know why he wanted her at the time, and I didn’t ask. It wasn’t my business. As we returned here, we were brought aboard a Star Destroyer in orbit, and that’s when an Inquisitor got involved.” His eyes widened again, perhaps in fear for the girl. Everyone knew the reputation of the Emperor’s Jedi hunters. If they went after you, you were seriously screwed over. “An Imperial Inquisitor,” I continued, “can wield the Force. This one, though I haven’t ever heard of her individually, radiated power like a fusion reactor. She’s taken a personal interest in Naelah, probably meaning the girl is strong with the Force. Her father doesn’t want to see Naelah become a twisted version of the Force witch, Lunais, and requested I prevent that by any means necessary, and see her to the Rebellion safely.” Sterlo nodded. By now he had both shoulder plates secured and was putting on one of the armored gauntlets. “I really can’t picture Naelah being evil,” he murmured, almost to himself. “Things happen. A lot of Jedi fall prey to the dark side. It’s nothing unusual.” He had his first gauntlet one and was putting on the second. “As interesting as this conversation surely is for you, we have more immediate things to discuss.” I plugged the data card Moff Tieres had provided me into a data reader and tapped a couple of keys. The small holoprojector I had installed as part of tactical planning aboard the ship came to life, bringing forth a blue-colored, three-dimensional schematic of the Imperial government complex to life. It showed the governor’s residence, a square building that had the quality of a barracks, several defensive turrets, and a landing platform. “This is the Imperial Government Complex. The Moff’s residence, and the building that contains the Empire’s main prison and communications hub and the like, is the large building there.” I pointed to a small, almost ribbon-like set of lines. “These are a set of secret passages between the buildings and the landing platform. One tunnel also leads out of the complex and into the nearby woods. That’s our first major point. We will enter the passages there, under the cover of night, and work our way to the actual building proper.” “We’re going to do this at night?” “Yes. I was sure I was being clear when I spoke.” “Yeah, but why can’t we do it during the day?” “When the majority of the garrison is awake and fully alert, and a fully-trained Imperial Inquisitor is up and about? Are you stupid? I’d like to get in and make it out alive. You don’t get paid if you’re dead.” “But they wouldn’t expect an infiltration during the day.” “But they wouldn’t expect one at any time. Lunais no doubt has the place locked up tighter than a Huttese vault. There’ll be guards about, but they’ll be minimal. The typical night patrol across the grounds, but they still will have difficulty seeing at night, making it easier to slip by if needed. Plus, we’re underground in passages known only to the Moff and his senior subordinates. Anyways, I’ll continue. “We will enter the building in one of the sublevels, about three stories underground. We will work our way though the more obscure hallways and other secret passages until we reach here.” I pointed out one of the towers of the large building. “The prison complex is located on the higher levels of this tower. It allows the prisoners to be held with little chance of escape. There’s one way into the tower. The only other way out is down the side of an obsidian slope nearly thirty stories up with no windows or handholds or anything. It’s a fairly secure location.” “How do we know which cell she’ll be in?” “The Moff was gracious enough to provide us with security clearance into the computer network. I have his login and passkey, allowing me access to the computer system and into restricted access areas if needed. We can get her cell number from the computer.” “It all seems pretty easy. Any potential problems along the way?” He was smarter than he looked. Most people wouldn’t have asked that sort of question. “Yes,” I answered. “The one way into the tower is going to be the biggest probably. They could easily choke it off with a couple platoons of stormtroopers, which would end our night pretty quickly. I’m hoping we can either fool the security cameras with an optical trick I know, or shut them down completely if that proves impossible, when I access the computer system. Also, the guards in the prison complex are likely to be more alert. Lunais has probably informed them several times over that they’re guarding a high priority prisoner. They know the price of failure, and probably will be more alert because of it. And, finally, we will probably have to shoot our way out. We won’t be able to return to the spaceport, which means the Hell’s Call isn’t our way out. Fortunately, there’s almost always a shuttle at the landing platform. We’ll return to the sublevel and into the tunnel network to get to the landing platform. We can commandeer a shuttle to escape the planet.” “What about the Star Destroyer in orbit? Will we be able to evade a Star Destroyer and its TIE fighters until we can jump to lightspeed?” “We have to worry about three Star Destroyers. Lunais has a whole task force up there, with enough ground troops and assault vehicles to pacify a heavily-defended planet like Bilbringi. It’ll be tricky, but it can be done. Lambda-class shuttles are pretty heavily armed, but they’re not all that maneuverable. We’ll probably end up holding off a swarm of TIEs before we can jump to lightspeed.” He nodded. “It’s a pretty thorough plan. Does it cover everything we can run into?” “Absolutely not. There are always unknown variables involved: computer passkeys not working, Naelah can’t walk and we’d have to carry her, no shuttle. We can work around that if the eventuality occurs. I’m good with winging it if we have to.” He nodded again, then brought his hand to rest on the butt of the blaster belted at his side. “Ok. When do we start?” I walked back over to the armory locker and grabbed out my final piece of equipment: a Merr-Sonn JT-12 jetpack. While not has heavily armored as the comparable Z-6 manufactured by Mitrinomen, it had a concussion warhead built into it. It could come in handy. I attached it to my back plate and turned back to my Sorrusian partner. “We start now. I have a rented swoop bike we’ll take out of town to the forest, and then work our way back towards the government complex on the edge of the city. We should be in position to move before nightfall.” He walked to the boarding ramp. “Well then let’s get going, eh?” He strode down the ramp into the mid-afternoon sun shining above the landing pit. I followed him out and sealed the Call, realizing I’d probably never get a chance to use it again. I activated the ship’s self destruct, arming it to detonate by remote or proximity alert. No one would ever get to use it again either. I followed Sterlo out into the city, where he waited by the parked swoop. I mounted it, started the engine, and as soon as my partner mounted behind me, gunned the engine toward the edge of the capitol, noting that tonight would probably be the best adrenaline rush I’ve had in some time. Weary from days of ongoing torture, I finally let myself be overcome by an unconsciousness that seemed to slip into the room as soon as the Inquisitor had vacated it once more. It was strange, the way she took a particular interest in me, but at the moment I could hardly clear my head of this fog that seemed insistent on drowning me in tiredness. Swooning, I dropped to the cold, hard ground and vaguely heard my legs hit the duracrete floor with a slap. Somewhere within me, I felt a spasm of pain that blossomed from my stomach and radiated throughout the rest of my body. Pulling my legs to my chest, I curled into a fetal position and started rocking; hoping desperately that the pain would just go away for once. My vision was becoming clouded over by crimson and that was when I gave way to what was anchoring me to the floor. And then I did something I had not done since running away one year ago: I started crying. It wasn’t for the anguish that seeped through my body, and somehow the tears I began to shed somehow dulled the pain and allowed me to clear my mind. But I then realized what I was crying for: the loss of a family life, the loss of my father to the Empire, and the loss of my mother, sister and everything else I once had. Over the past year I had become a hardened girl, but as soon as I returned back to Bilbringi, it was hard to forget about your past when you were right where it all took place. You would breathe the air and smell the scent you used to smell during your childhood, or you would see how the sun rises differently on this planet compared to Coruscant, or you could just feel the comfort of being back home; those things somehow managed to crawl under my façade and bring up flashes of my childhood, where everything was so right. How did everything grow to become so wrong? Shuddering, I realized the spasm of pain had passed once more and I was able to sit up, amidst feeling every bruise on my body. I blinked slowly and took in my surroundings, checking and checking for something that would help me get out of this bloody place. That, more than anything else, is what I wanted to do right now. I quickly wiped my eyes of the remnants of my tears, and put my hands on the wall behind me; using it to help me up, I was finally able to stand, albeit shakily, and get a better look of the cell. Circling around twice, keeping my hand firmly on the cell wall, I was able to spot weaknesses and strong points in the duracrete—some of which I could use to my advantage. Turning back to my corner of the cell, I padded over and sat back down on the cold, wet floor and resumed thinking about an escape plan. It would be easiest if I had outside help to get me out of this bloody cell, but I would have to make do with myself. And the Force. The thought rang through my head like a clarion bell, swiftly clearing my head of all other conscious stream of thought. I felt something strange itching to be released and I could hardly keep it down. Suddenly, I began to look around the cell once more, and yet again my eyes fell on the door. It had to be possible for me to bend the Force enough to open that door; it just had to be possible. Scrambling to a standing position, I walked over to the durasteel door and concentrated on it, and attempted to focus everything I had on opening that bloody door. Not really knowing what I was doing, I laid my hands on the durasteel and tried to command whatever power I had inside me. After standing there for at least five minutes with nothing actually happening—no significant damage to the door, no clicking of a lock, no anything— I cursed loudly and stumbled backwards into the cell. Merely focusing on the door had drained me of the energy I had, and my stubbornness to get out of the cell had also been weakened. Standing in the center of the cell, I merely watched the door for the longest time, and then collapsed into a heap. Swiftly, I brought my knees to my chest and rest my chin upon them, still staring at the bloody door. It vexed me, everything about it—everything about the cell, and the Inquisitor and the Empire— everything vexed me. I wanted to escape so badly I could taste the want on my tongue, but I couldn’t get anywhere. Seething in frustration, I finally managed to crawl back to my corner and I sat in brooding silence for awhile, and suddenly sleep was crawling up me, sucking me into its hazy stupor in such a way that it resembled a leech almost. I shivered at the thought of a leech sucking my blood, but soon I could do nothing more than fall into said hazy stupor, with resting my weary soul as the only thing on my mind. The world was a bright green in the privacy of my helmet. The night-for-day function lit up the area at the edge of the forest, allowing me to see it as if it were day, though green-tinted. I could see the entrance to the tunnel network of the compound, a small grey bunker made of ferrocrete, standing in stark contrast to the forest around it. Out beyond the woods, nearly out of eyesight, walked a patrol of two Imperial Army troopers, still alert as ever despite the late hour. They couldn’t see me or Sterlo, as far as I could see, which was a vast improvement over other missions I’ve done. We might just pull this off. “Do you see anyone?” Sterlo asked. He had no vision-enhancement equipment, so he was nearly blind in the dark of the woods. “Two Army troopers. They don’t see us.” “And are you completely certain of that?” he replied sarcastically. “If they had,” I muttered, “we wouldn’t be discussing it. We’d be shooting our way past a platoon of them.” “Ah, of course.” “The bunker is maybe 100 meters ahead and slightly to the right.” I pointed off in the direction directly towards the entrance. “We just need to get over there quietly and we should be good.” I wasn’t usually one to worry, but to me, it was amazing a Dark Jedi like Lunais hadn’t sensed the tunnel network. It was surprising to me, and honestly, a little suspicious. But there was no way Lunais could know we’re coming… Right? “Well then,” Sterlo responded. “Let’s go.” “Not yet. Wait for the soldiers to continue on.” I heard him groan. “Piroc, I’m really not one to sit around,” He informed me agitatedly. “You’re a kriffing Mandalorian! Can’t you take them?” “I’m hardly invincible,” I snapped. “And neither are you. If you want to risk getting us both killed, you can stay here. I didn’t get this far in life by being a completely clueless moron. You don’t go tearing your way into an Imperial base, especially one occupied by an Inquisitor. Stop being stupid and use your head, assuming it isn’t completely filled with air.” I could see via my helmet’s peripherals that Sterlo’s head hung in shame. Finally I got to the gung-ho Sorrusian. I didn’t need him to get me killed. It wasn’t going to do Naelah any good. “Sorry,” he muttered, almost under his breath. “I know this is really important… it’s just easier for me to live life… well, differently.” I looked at him. “I don’t mind that. Just don’t be completely stupid. And you can’t take life too seriously anyways.” He looked at me, a confused look on his face. “Why?” Beneath my helmet, I smiled. “You don’t get out of life alive anyway. Why bother?” Sterlo smiled and laughed. “You could look at it like that.” I looked back up the hill towards the spot where the two guards had been. They had begun to move away from us, back towards the complex to continue their rounds. “Now we move.” I made a quick motion with my arm. “Go.” Sterlo took off, quickly covering the distance between our cover and the bunker entrance. I followed close behind, trying to be as quiet as possible. We reached the bunker, and I quickly glanced it over. The door looked pretty thick, probably a meter of solid durasteel. There was a keypad on the doorframe, no doubt to input a passcode for entry. I activated my helmet’s data reader and brought up information from the Moff’s data card. I found what I was looking for in less than a minute: a 6-digit code. I punched the keys and with an almost-ominous hiss, the door slid open. “I believe that would be our invite inside,” I said. “Keep close. There’s probably no lights.” He nodded, and we both plunged into blackness. Unfortunately the sleep I tried to garner from my utter weariness had faded away as quickly as it had come on. Unable to sleep off my exhaustion, I grumbled to myself and pulled myself up to a standing position; at once, I began to pace. However, pacing wasn’t nearly enough for me; I needed to sprint through the busiest streets of Coruscant or something like that, anything like that. If I spent one more minute in this tiny, cramped cell my head would explode. But that idea was quickly crushed as I tripped and fell to the floor, hardly aware of what happened in that brief minute. Pulling my torso up, I twisted around and looked behind me to see if I had tripped on anything in particular, but my search proved to be fruitless. There was nothing but me and duracrete in this stupid, good-for-nothing cell. Groaning, I pulled my legs forward and realized that they felt like deadweights. No, I thought desperately, panic cleaving my thoughts into incomprehensible pieces. Oh Force no, I’m not— they’re not— I’m not paralyzed am I? But I was able to breathe a sigh of relief as I gently prodded my legs and pulled them up to my chest. Just tired… just tired is all. Shaking my head, I couldn’t help but smirk at me, jumping to silly conclusions. I almost never jumped to silly conclusions; I was rational and headstrong, not an impractical fool. Force, I’ve got to get out of here. Looking straight up I let a huge, built up breath escape my half-closed lips. What in the galaxy did I do to deserve this? No, tears might not have been pricking the back of my eyelids, but I was certainly feeling the desperateness of my situation. “I’ve got to get out of here,” I said to no one in particular, and looked down at my forearms; covered in angry red welts from the numerous torture sessions I had been put through—many of them still fresh in my mind—they sent something burning through my mind. Looking over the rest of my body, I saw fresh cuts, bruises and scrapes all over—all of it as sickly as the next and I couldn’t help feel an ache spread throughout my entire body. “I can’t let her do this to me anymore!” I shouted out loud, and heard my angry voice reverberate off the duracrete walls. But just looking around the cell I knew that task was impossible. I had no means of getting out on my own, and certainly no outside help. The only person who knew that I was stuck in some forsaken cell in the bowels of Bilbringi was my good-for-nothing father. He wasn’t going to do anything to help me now. Grumbling in frustration, I slid back to the wall so I could rest my head against it and get lost in my own rage. Nobody was coming for me, nobody was going to save me, and I wasn’t even going to be able to save myself. I was as good as dead, unless I joined the Empire which was not a possibility. And being adamant about that would cost me my life. Darkness. Boy, was that a complete understatement. No, it was more like plunging into the center of an abyss and never knowing if you were going to make it out alive. I couldn’t see an inch in front of me and that alone made me uncomfortable, but the thought that we were pressing in on Imperial soldiers, where an Imperial Inquisitor was housed made me even edgier than I already was. “I can hear you from all the way up here,” Piroc grumbled from ahead of me. “You sound like a herd of kriffing banthas. Keep it down.” Decked out in his Mandalorian armor, he could be considered the pure image of absolute rigidity and there was definitely an aura of control that generated fear around him where ever he went. “Well, sorry.” But he’d have to be decked out in a lot more than Mandalorian armor to scare me. Taking a moment to compose myself, I started moving more quietly and slithered along beside him. “That better?” I asked sarcastically. He didn’t even flinch. “Yes.” Biting back a witty reply, I forced myself to focus on the situation at hand again and realized that we were coming up on a lighted area. Blinking in shock, I glanced at Piroc and saw him hesitate ahead of me for the briefest of moments before continuing to pull ahead. “Shouldn’t we—” Shaking his head was the cutting response I received, and instantly I fell silent. Together, the two of us moved ahead, skirting the edge of the light and he fell back almost at once and then I saw the reason why: A squad of Imperial stormtroopers, white armor gleaming in the low light of the chamber ahead of us, stood guard by the entrance. “And how,” I hissed in the lowest voice possible. “Are we supposed to get past these guys?” Eyeing the stormtroopers warily, I backed further into the shadows. “Follow me,” was his only reply. As far as I could see, the break-out had just been blown straight to hell. No less than a dozen stormtroopers stood right outside the entrance into the complex. There was no way both Sterlo and I could drop a dozen of them without alerting the rest of the garrison. This was bad. I reactivated my night-for-day vision and started searching the tunnel system around me. There was one other passage, branching down to our right and down slightly. I drew my blaster and headed down the tunnel. “Where are you going?” Sterlo asked. Hell, I wish I knew. At this point, I was winging it. We needed a distraction. Then, it clicked. “This tunnel branches off a bit of ways ahead. One tunnel heads down to the landing pad, and the other to the barracks building. We’re gonna need a distraction, and a big one. Ever play with thermal charges?” I could tell by the puzzled look on his face that he hadn’t. “Basically one of them can level a small building and cause a good deal of damage to the surrounding real estate.” “Sithspawn,” he cursed. He picked up on what was going to go down. “The tunnel will cave in! We could get trapped!” “We won’t get trapped. You can set it up on a timer or a remote detonator. We’ll be using the remote.” I opened one of the satchels on my jumpsuit and pulled out a compact cylinder. We advance farther ahead down the tunnel to a branch in the path. I gestured down to our left. “We’re going to level the barracks. We’ll detonate once we’re safely away. Once everyone is running like crazy trying to figure out what the hell is going on, we’ll sneak in and get the girl. Simple.” I looked back at Sterlo. He caught my gaze and held it. “I somehow think,” he sighed, “it won’t be that easy.”
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