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| - Well, not being easy was an understatement. A huge, ground-shaking understatement—and that was only the half of it. Here I was, a simple-minded Sorrusian who had never cared about Imperial troopers— Until now. “So you’re going to blow up the barracks?” I cried in disbelief as we started running. “Do you realize how idiotic that idea could turn out? I mean, you really don’t seem to comprehend that we’ll have a huge layer of dirt and—” “Stop worrying,” he replied, cutting over my outraged protests. Surprisingly, the Mandalorian could run pretty well despite his suit, I was shocked and impressed, even though I hated to admit it. “Oh, of course I shouldn’t,” I retorted sarcastically. “I’m not going to get buried alive by rock at all—nope, not Sterlo.” Glaring at the back of Piroc’s helmeted head, I awaited the ever-so-knowledgeable person’s response. “You’re a Sorrusian,” Piroc said in a bored tone, and if I could see his face I was sure I’d see him rolling his eyes. “You can squeeze out a lot easier than I can.” “But I can’t get out if a rock squishes me,” I snapped back and groaned as I saw his fingers itching toward something in his pocket. “What are you doing?” I demanded as soon as I saw this tiny gesture. “Do you ever shut up?” he responded bitingly. “Yeah, when my life isn’t in danger.” I fixed the back of Piroc’s helmet with a glare, but the Mandalorian wouldn’t have noticed anyways, his fingers were still moving toward his pocket. “You aren’t going to blow it up.” “Yes,” He replied calmly, finally pulling out a small metal detonator. “I am. Do you want to get the girl back or not?” He glanced back at me, and I’m sure his eyebrow was quirked underneath that helmet of his. “We can do this in some other way,” I panted desperately as his fingers moved over the metal piece deftly. “There’s got to be a better way—a safer way—a way where we won’t get killed!” Grumbling angrily, I moved even faster to try and catch up to Piroc. “No.” And without another word, his finger hit the bright red button. And that’s when everything went to hell. Sitting idly in my cell, with nothing but my own torment to comfort me, I gazed at the dull duracrete walls and wished desperately that something would help me. I didn’t want to be in this bloody cell anymore, and I certainly didn’t want to face the Inquisitor’s sickly sweet face again. Just the thought of her purely innocent face with eyes like the devil made my skin crawl—no, that was definitely something I wasn’t looking forward to. But maybe I wouldn’t have to wait so long. Suddenly, as if in answer to my prayers, a huge, rumbling cacophony of noise reached my cell, and the entire room was shaking. Thank the Force I was sitting, otherwise I would have tumbled over without a moment’s notice, but I really don’t think I would have cared. At this moment I was too surprised and excited to care much about my own well being; all of my energy was focused on whatever the hell that noise was. It sounded like a distinct—a distinctly large explosion occurring somewhere—where ever I was anyways. But still, this explosion lifted my spirits to a nearly unreachable height, and I hoped fervently that it had to do with someone trying to rescue me. For the first time in a long time, a small smile crept into the corner of my mouth, and slowly I began to feel anxious. Already the adrenaline was pumping through my veins and it was beginning to clear my head. Although, I highly doubted I would be able to do much good in a fight. Grimacing, I glanced down at my bruised and cut up body and after I heaved a sigh I leaned my head back against the duracrete wall. Well, I thought wryly, at least this might be my day to escape. The roar of the explosion hit me and the Sorrusian like a pillowcase full of soap bars. We were blasted off our feet by the massive shockwave roaring up the tunnel. I felt myself get lifted up off my feet and hit the ground in a clatter of beskar plates. My helmet’s audio filters kicked in, blocking out the glaring roar of the explosion blasting up the tunnel. I could feel the flaring heat racing over me and up the tunnel even through my armor. Suddenly, it was over. The deafening blast had faded, and the heat was diminishing, I stood up, shaking off a fairly decent layer of dirt and rocks that had been shaken loose from the ceiling, and looked around for Sterlo. He was pretty easy to find. His pile was probably bigger than mine had been. All I could see of him was a lone arm. I sure hope it hadn’t been blasted off his body. I wouldn’t hear the end of it, if he hadn’t lost a ton of blood. I grabbed his hand and pulled, satisfied to find it was still attached to him, yanking him clear out of the pile. He looked pretty dazed. “Are you good?” “What?” He shouted at the top of his lungs. Damn it, the blast had probably done a number to his hearing. My helmet protected me from it, but he had been unprotected from it. His hearing would hopefully come back in time, but I didn’t have time for this right now. I grabbed the front of his jacket and pulled him after me up the tunnel. We ran up the tunnel to the entrance to the Governor’s Residence. I glanced in, and I could see I had been right. The stormtroopers had gone, probably sent to secure the outer grounds from further attack. I walked right in, the deafened Sorrusian behind me. I pulled my blast cannon off the shoulder strap from my back, holding it in front of me, ready to fire at the first hostile that poked his head out of a side room. Behind me, I heard the rustle of Sterlo’s jacket as he snapped out the Bryar I gave him as an armament. The hallways were deserted as we snuck through the hallway to the prison tower. I was following the floor plan in my helmet visor, and just before the blast door closing off the tower I turned into a side room, Sterlo sliding in behind me. The room was small and occupied by a desk setup. And on the desk was our ticket to Naelah: one computer terminal linked to the Imperial network. I sat down at the desk. Sterlo stood by the door, weapon still drawn and ready, as I began typing into the terminal. “Hey Piroc, how quick can you get into the network?” Sterlo’s voice was lower now, hopefully meaning his hearing was back. “Will the explosion buy us enough time?” “I’m counting on it,” I replied. My gloved fingers tapped against the keys, quickly typing in the passcodes for the Moff’s personal server. His security clearance should give us access to anything in the network. They all proved to be correct, and I was in the system. I called up the prison roster, quickly scanning for Naelah’s name on it. Found it. “She’s in Cell 211,” I told him. “Well let’s get going then,” He said indignantly, already eager to throw himself into heroic mode. “Hold up. There’s something else I still need to do.” I called up the security network and quickly overrode the settings on the tower’s camera system. “Oh come on, what else could you possibly—” I continued tapping at the keys. “I’m rerouting the camera systems to continue playing a shot of the corridors in a loop. The footage will play over, but the time stamps will continue to change as normal in a security shot.” “Ah,” He said quickly, dropping his head in mute embarrassment. “Sounds…err…difficult.” I hit a few more keys and pulled away from the computer terminal. “Not terribly. You can learn a trick or two from a good slicer. They know how to get around a computer system.” I stood up and grabbed my blast cannon, and the two of us went back out into the main hallway. The blast door wasn’t too far away. We got to it and we covered the two hallways that led to different parts of the citadel from the door. As Sterlo continued covering all the halls, I went up to the keypad by the door and tapped in the security code from the Moff’s datapad. The keypad beeped, and the door slid open with an ominous hiss. “This is where the fun begins,” I muttered. Today was definitely a good day for someone to die. I was going to make sure I wasn’t that someone. Blast cannon raised and Sterlo behind me, I crossed the door’s threshold and into the tower. Yes, that was definitely an explosion I heard from somewhere outside my cell. Though the sounds had now dimmed out, I was more than jumpy with anticipation; the adrenaline pumping through my veins was less than desired, but I didn’t eve care at this point. But it didn’t help that I was having difficulty moving. Gritting my teeth in frustration, I struggled once more to climb up the wall and get into a standing position. Unfortunately, the screaming pain in my legs wouldn’t allow me to do that. Trembling again, I fell to the floor and my hand hit the duracrete with a slap so hard it made me wince, but that was nothing compared to the ferocity I felt rolling around within me. “Curse it all to Mustafar and back!” I spat at the wall angrily. “If I don’t regain usage of these limbs, I can’t move and escape!” I began grumbling incoherently, anger reeling me into its hot appendages. I felt a weird numbing sensation trickling down my thighs, but paid it no heed; I just let myself succumb to the wet, angry tears that were now rolling down my face in droves. I had had it in this Force forsaken place! I didn’t want to be here anymore! Slowly, things began dawning on me as I finally let my petulant teenager angst roll away from me as quickly as it had come. Finally, I began to see that someone was coming for me—that much was obvious. Why else would there be an explosion if not for a distraction? Several hardcore months in Coruscants lower levels had taught me well, and I knew that this was going to be a crucial time. And damn it, I had to be ready for it. Piroc, after doing his fancy little trick with the cameras, had led the way out of the room and together we were making our way down a hallway that would supposedly lead us straight to Naelah. In a small portion of my mind, I wondered why Lunais wouldn’t have kept Naelah in a higher security prison, but maybe there was something going on that we didn’t understand. “Whatever you do,” Piroc growled from ahead of me. It was obvious he wasn’t feeling too comfortable with this situation; too easy, he would say. “Don’t mess this up. Getting Naelah out is going to be hard enough as it is, so keep focused.” “I already know that,” I responded bitingly and fiddled with the Bryar in my hands. “I’m not some idiot, Piroc; you might want to keep tabs on that fact.” The bitter tone in my voice surprised me, but I said nothing more on the subject, and neither did he. We had a mission to accomplish after all. Suddenly, without any notion of time passing, we were sprinting down the hallway, looking along the walls for the numbers that would indicate Naelah’s cell. Any kind of serenity I had felt before—however slim that might have been—had vanished and my adrenaline was now surging through me, making me edgy and restless with anticipation. I didn’t know how much longer I could deal with— “Stop moving,” Piroc hissed suddenly and pulled me against the wall, trapping my forearm with one of his gloved hands. “This is going to be more difficult than I thought.” Glancing left and right, seemingly assessing the situation, he apparently saw what he was looking for. “Alright, we need to move twice as quickly now. We don’t have the cover of that distraction anymore.” Piroc might not have been able to panic, but I was certainly more than able. Looking at him with wide eyes, I muttered, “You said we’d have enough time to get Naelah out—” “Apparently I was wrong,” He snapped in response. I could only imagine the frustration he was feeling with himself right now. “Lunais must have sensed us get inside. Probably had some techs take a look at the computer system, which means we’re locked out of the system. You still want to get her out, don’t you?” The caustic tone of his voice was obvious, and he wasn’t doing much to try and cover it up. “Look, man, that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do from the moment I touched foot in Bilbringi. She’s the reason for what I’m doing.” Even as I said that, I noticed it would sound a little strange if an outsider were listening, but Piroc was no outsider here. Plus, he wouldn’t really pay any mind to what I had said anyways. “Great, then we keep moving to find that damned cell,” He said with angry sarcasm. Fixing his blaster, he moved forward down the hallway, obviously expecting me to follow him unquestioningly. “You’ve got a team here, Piroc,” I reminded him, using my Sorrusian skills to move in front of him. “You may be the leader, but you’ve got someone else you can rely on here too. What can I do to help?” Stopping in his tracks, Piroc merely regarded me for several seconds, obviously contemplating what to do with me. My stomach fell through the floor. Maybe that wasn’t the question I wanted to ask. Damn it, I cursed silently to myself. I had noticed the small recording light on one of the security cameras flare back to life, which meant we had no cover anymore. It was all about speed and better firepower from here. If I were Lunais, I’d probably send a team of stormtroopers to cover the exit out of the tower. One way in and out never looked so horrible. But right now the important thing was getting Naelah out of the cell she was locked in. We raced down the hallway of the detention center, looking at the numbers on the doors until we found 211. As he did before, Sterlo covered both sides of the passageway with the Bryar. I accessed the door’s lock, and we were locked out. All the passcodes had been changed. It just kept getting worse. There were only two options: blow the door open, which could hurt or kill the girl, or slowly cut my way through. Judging by how things were going so far, time wasn’t really a luxury we had right now. I reached into my satchel and pulled out a roll of thermal tape. The Sorrusian looked at me for a second. “What’s that?” This wasn’t going to go over well. “It’s thermal explosive tape. It’s designed to effect rapid entry through a security door.” “What?” Sterlo’s eyes just got as big as a Hutt eyeing a cargo hold of jewels. “You’re blowing the damned thing open?” “We don’t have time for me to cut our way in. Right now we’ve got to do it as fast as possible, or we’re all going to get killed, which means we went through all this trouble for nothing.” I rapped my knuckles against the door three times, and I got three cautious knocks back from the inside. “Naelah, if you can hear me in there, get as far away from the door as possible and cover your eyes.” I started putting the tape along the edges of the doorframe as Sterlo continued to cover the hallway. I hooked the detonator up to the tape as the roar of blaster fire opened up from down one of the hallways. Sterlo dove into the alcove of the doorway alongside me, stuck the Bryar out and started to return fire. “There’s going to be a slight problem,” he said. “Really? Didn’t notice.” I thumbed the activator on the tape, and as it blasted the door inwards I drew one of my WESTAR blasters and fired down the hallway. A squad of stormtroopers, nine in total, was working their way up the hall, using the alcoves of the doors as cover like we were. It was a shame they still managed to keep so close together. I pulled out another thermal detonator, a Class-C model, thumbed the arming switch, and tossed it in the direction of the squad of troopers. I could hear the squad leader shouting at his men as the grenade hit the deck and exploded. “Piroc, she’s hurt!” Sterlo had the girl in his left arm, trying to hold her up, keeping his right arm free to shoot. Despite the agony she had to be in, she could recognize a name when she heard it. “What the hell is he doing here?” Her voice was bitterly angry, but I couldn’t really blame her for that either. As I returned fire at the four stormtroopers remaining in the hall, I heard Sterlo tell her that it would take a bit to explain and we’d all talk later. I aimed at one of the troopers and fired, hitting him square in the face. His helmet flashed and smoked from the shot as he fell. I fired at another trooper, arming his own thermal detonator, and hit his hand, detonating the grenade he was about to throw, and a second shot hit him in his chest, dropping the now one-armed trooper to the deck. Sterlo managed to hit a third stormtrooper, blasting three rounds into his chest. I shot the fourth as he shot at us, his shots tearing into the wall near us as he dropped dead. “Come on. We’ve got to get out of here.” “What? Don’t you guys have a plan?” Naelah asked with her haughty attitude I had noticed back in the cantina. I was not in the mood to put up with it. “Yes, we had a plan. A pretty damn good one too. But your Inquisitor pal ruined it for us.” I jogged down the hallway, the other two keeping up despite Naelah’s obvious pain. “We need to get back to the tunnels and to that shuttle.” “You’ve been using the tunnels?” “Your father was kind enough to provide us with a floor plan. We used the tunnels to get in here.” “And to blow up the barracks,” Sterlo added unnecessarily. Naelah looked at both me and Sterlo in turn. After a few days in Imperial custody, she was probably happy to see something besides an Inquisitor and stormtroopers, even if one of us was responsible for landing her there in the first place. “Well, if you want to use the tunnel system, there is another way out.”
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