Solid Thunder

[Cato Fett]

He shouldered the rifle by its strap and hugged his hands around her face, willing her to ‘unseen’ the dead sprawled by the emptied vat and arrayed almost poetically near their failed, stiffening subject. That was cold-gutless, he thought, gently pulling young Laira to the module portcullis. Expiration smell, the death-odour, cloy, warm, and sickly, wafted thickly now. The chamber resembled a morgue, with dimmed glowstrips and sterile decorum, surfaces either laminate plastics or brushed stainless steel and depthless chrome. The subjects still swam in their amniotic vats, turning weightlessly in sleep. He took Laira out into the grey hallway. Air smelled cooler, fresher and not so close. The laboratory shut in their wake as emergency locks hissed and sunk the thick door plating into the entry frame.

Cato worked to bring her senses in order. Handkerchiefs wiped the blood on her hands, her throat. Her uniform was sullied with a long stain soaking down to her belt. It hugged the cloth to her belly, abdominal muscles clenching with her short, hard breaths.

You’ve no shame, he thought. You gunned down unarmed technicians on a whim. I did, yes, he knew, so I am rendered a hypocrite. Could I trust them with our backs exposed? No. Would you sacrifice them again for the girl’s safety? Yes. Would you trust the agents of the enemy, all proven callous and greedy, contemptuous of their betters? What about you, his conscience surged? Do you not hold the Mand’alor and his council in scorn? Do you not loathe every man and woman bearing the colours of the Watch? With Mandalorian blood shed, would you be so brave to turn your back to them in trust, to prove your honour over theirs? Would they not cut you down to ensure the safety of their own? Because you’ll never bend the knee, and you’ll never give them respite, because you think you know better.

So, what now, his heart asked? Cato looked down into Laira’s face. I don’t know, he thought. I don’t know. I am nothing.

When one handkerchief became too soaked, he fished another and kept scrubbing. Her tears wet the cotton; blood painted the fibers pink. After the third, her palms, face, and throat were fair and clean. Still, heavy footfalls were sounding from close by. There were faint mechanical whines of heavy-set servos taking and distributing the powered, armoured weight of something immense. They had to move on. But Laira felt rooted, still distraught. Words contorted over themselves in sentences he couldn’t make sense of. She was a warrior coming to grips with the weight of killing.

Gently, his hands came up and under her jaw. Thumbs wiped under her eyes, massaging her cheekbones, fingers kneading into the skin of her nape. Occasionally, [member="Mala"], his Squib companion and ward, hyperventilated on him. Touch and warmth helped quell the episodes. Sometimes. He hummed a ditty until the sound reached her. They met, eyes somehow touching through the black glasteel visor.

“Listen,” He said. “We’re gonna get ice-cream. First, we drop a few things off and then we go. Alright? We’re gonna get you something in just a little while. You stick with me now. We’ll get you whatever you want. Just stick with me. Alright?”

The footfalls now broke like thunder in their ears. An obvious tremor shook up through the floor plate and access grilles. Long, smooth shadows previewed the approach of a revenant coming down along their section of hall. Cato cycled his HUD, sweeping through meagre floorplans detected via acoustics. He couldn’t tell what was behind them further along on their floor.

“Stick with me, yeah? Okay. So, run. Run,” His voice rose. Cato rammed a fresh magazine home into the rifle feed, thumbing the bolt-catch release. “Run!”

[C E A S E H O S T I L I T I E S] The Dark Trooper said. It was unearthly and tall in charcoal power armour, coming around the passage corridor like something inexorable. Servo-joints groaned under weighted effort in spite of fluid posture and undaunted locomotion. It levelled an immense assault cannon down at them. [S U R R E N D E R I M M E D I A T E L Y]

[member="Laira Darkhold"]

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Laira looked up at Cato, partially because he forced her too but mostly because she was in desperate need of some direction at the moment. She'd broken her father's one rule about killing another person. Do it because its right and keep emotions out of the equation. Not only that, but she had been forced to actually see another person die. When in the cockpit it was different, there was a detachment to the act that she had now been forced to watch and feel in the Force so closely and personally.

She looked up into Cato's T-Visor and buried her face in his chest while he tried to comfort her and get the Ranger moving once again. She was starting to actually hear what he was saying, the back ground noise of metal being slammed against metal in a thunderous stomp of moving parts. Laira nodded at Cato, "Okay." She muttered, gripping onto the edges of his jumpsuit and letting him help her off the tile floor with, stifling a sob as she stood and started walking with him.

The knife stayed on the floor where she had dropped it. The princess just couldn't bring herself to pick it up and sheath it on her leg once more, still wet and slick from the blood of her victim. Grey eyes closed hard-shut while he lead them from the room, refusing to look upon his or her handiwork, to see the scientists and doctors strewn on the floor, their blood pooling beneath their deceased monstrosity.

The horrid stomping continued to close, but Laira wasn't paying it any attention, she just wanted to make it all go away. To turn back time two minutes and let Cato be the one that did the deed, let him do what he had done so many times before. To let her keep her innocence. Laira had known when she joined the Resistance that there would be death and suffering around her at all times, that everyone would carry a weight of it on their shoulders. But for whatever reason it had never occurred to her that she would bear that same burden of responsibility like the others.

Without looking she rolled a Thermal Detonator into the room while Cato was preoccupied with whatever was coming for the unlikely duo. She didn't bother telling him, just rolled the explosive on its way knowing that it would erase the evidence of her crimes and maybe if the blank, dying eyes of that old fat man were disintegrated she would be able to forget them.

Suddenly, the Mandalorian was telling her, urging her to run. All she wanted to do now was but distance between herself and that room, so it wasn't very hard to comply. Her eyes snapped open and she understood way he was desperate for her to run.

The being before them had no presence in the Force, even droids had some presence. It spoke with a heavy robotic monotone, the deep echo only made more sinister by the dark colored steel armor it wore. Standing over two meters tall and half as wide, the humanoid being leveled a six barrel assault cannon at the pair of intruders. Her eyes went wide and suddenly she was moving as instructed, but not away back towards the room, soon to be filled with superheated inferno, towards the creature.

Laira had already closed half the distance when she remembered Cato, that she had basically immediately left him behind to fend for himself. A single instant was all it took to decide whether to leave him or fight with him.

She resolved to fight.

Twisting her inertia and its force upon her the Redhead broke into a power slid along the left wall of the corridor, superheated plasma searing into the wall behind her as the droid moved to dismantle the charging intruder with a stream of powerful laser cannon blasts. But at least it wasn't paying attention to Cato anymore. Laira pushed off from the wall and jammed her foot outwards to catch the being in the side of the knee with a hard kick while she slid past it, twisting mid air to land in a runner's starting position on the opposite side of the dark armored being.

[member="Cato Fett"]

 

[Cato Fett]

With Laira’s acrobatics, the fight was joined. Cato was still forced into a backpedal, firing intermittently, 7.62 rounds cascading across the Trooper’s forward torso plates. Its armour overlapped fiendishly, denying clear assault lines on the vulnerable joint motors, and its speed was monstrous. It bulled round, stamping and swiping at Laira with end of its barrel-cannon. He wondered how it governed itself: organic or machine intelligence? How did it process choice and option? What’s the key to unlocking you, you ugly di’kut?

Its threat assessment cycled between the Mandalorian and the Pilot. Laira’s sheer agility confounded its lethality in close quarters, its bulk unwieldy trying to twist and keep up with her gymnastics. The rotary assault cannon spun, blitzing the corridor walling in plasma bolts, ripping out panelling and exposed sub-system wiring. Cato threw himself low under its firing arc and blasted another half-second spurt of slug-ammunition up under one of its arm-pit joints. The steel warped slightly under impact, rounds ricocheting inside the torso cavity. He fired again and blew off a power-feed line and an attached coolant lead, sparking off ladders of arcing electricity and super-cooled frost. The Trooper made a sound akin to a bellowing groan, turned its rotary barrels to the floor. Cato felt the world detonate around him, flaring heat scorching flesh even through the armourweave layer, stealing his breath as the air turned scalding. He forced himself through ungainly hops and slid under the Trooper’s chassis. Blood dragged on the tiling in his wake.

Up, you sow-gutted fool, up! That discharge has milked out his visual sensors! Now, now! Cato let the rifle drop out of his hands, groping for the thermex charge still taped to his waist. He blinked through smoke and blinding tears; pain was riding up his spine. The charge packet was held with strips keeping industrial adhesive wads safe from drying. He ripped the flimsiplast, punched the detonator to prime the charge, and hucked the pound of explosives onto the back cuirass housing. Cato was sprinting back along the corridor, reaching out for Laira. “Other way, other way!”

[member="Laira Darkhold"]

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Laira wasn't much for direct applications of the Force. Most of her abilities were about affecting herself, though she could manage the occasional pyrokinetic display. As super heated plasma whirlled to follow her after the princess's gymnastics, she had little choice but to drop to the floor and start rolling to the side. And roll she did.

However, one exotic ability she possessed was altering how gravity effected her, altering her orientation to gravity. Up could become down, or in this case one of the walls could become down for her, allowing her to just keep rolling up the side of the wall while it strafed the tiling where she had just been. It, or its computer quickly registered the armed Mandalorian to be the higher threat. Without obvious weapons on her person beyond a pistol and blade, the gun-wielding warrior popping shots into its thick layered from quickly rose to the top of the chart over the svelte redhead with acrobatics.

One of the ricocheting slugs Cato fired bounced off the cybernetic beast, tinging off the wall Laira was sliding down and caught her in the arm, causing her to yelp from surprise and a trickle of blood to seep from the wound. Much of its power had been dissipated, but it was still metal buried into her arm suddenly and from an unexpected angle.

The first explosion rocked the corridor, Laira having forgotten about throwing the thermal detonator entirely, she still didn't exactly remember doing much after the man had come in the room, like she had been inside her body but not in control of it. Cato slid under the wounded monster, blood following him. He was hurt, something had left him injured in the seconds Laira had been occupied with surviving. And he was urging her to turn and keep running. Laira's hand reached to grab his to haul him along behind her if need be, but as soon as her fingers grasped his hand her legs began powering her away from the behemoth and down the nearest turn-off she could find.

[member="Cato Fett"]

 

[Cato Fett]

The turn-off sped them towards a shuttered maintenance hatch sealed with emergency ribbon. Cato’s rifle-fire shattered the locking mechanisms and cascaded shock through its servo-gears, sliding the hatch back into the jamb. He forced Laira in first and climbed after her through a narrow closet thick with fiber-optic bundles and snaking cabling, still machinery running hot in the silence, indicator lights flashing in their peripherals. Hoarse, modulated screams chased after them. Cato craned his helmet round to see a massive gauntlet punch in through the hatchway, clawing to reach them. The heavy claw-digits retreated, replaced with the rotary-end of its plasma cannon.

Past the entry, the closet opened into a high staircase hugging close to a narrow well. They’d just climbed to the initial landing in time, when the Dark Trooper opened fire. Lancing plasma globules ate through the first iron-grille steps and melted into the walling beyond. Sympathetic eruptions traced up through the well as wiring fired and smouldered. A roil of choking smoke followed up, billowing under the landing platforms, choking and stinging. Mammalian programming was overriding its cortical implants. They could hear the Trooper raging below, discharging more fire and rocking the staircase. Sunk-bolts broke from the durasteel panelling. The staircase was beginning to twist and buckle under its own slowly freeing weight. They sprinted and climbed harder for it, panting against the smoke.

When they reached a secure landing, Cato paused them and stared back down the well. Blue-on-white plasma was firing off deep beneath, lighting the smoky oil in cyan and cerulean. When it figures out it’s stupid to keep trying to fit through the lock, it’ll charge up through the primary floor and cut us off again, he thought. Cato freed the detonator-controller from his webgear. Hesitated. A pound and a half of military grade thermex was like the caged breath of dragons. An ounce could kill a standard airspeeder and everything surrounding it within five metres. Yet, he thought simply, it’s not time yet to die. Cato depressed the thick detonation switch.

A shudder. And then a wall of light rocketed up through the shaft. Sound walloped into them, roaring like scram-jet after-shocks. It threw Cato off his balance and tossed him back against the next stair steps, ramming pain up through his backbone and collar. In its single instance, the violence burst and then silenced itself. Debris turned in the air, raising clangour off the walls. The shaft floor was a pool of molten duranium and burning cabling. The Dark Trooper, though unseen, was silent.

Cato stuck his head over the rail, tipped his helmet, and spat. “…Let’s take this stairwell up. Maybe…” He coughed through a lungful of smoke. “Maybe it’ll open onto the ground floor. …I’ll be surprised if that thing’s not dead. Come on!”

[member="Laira Darkhold"]

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Laira ran, clutching Cato's hand like a vice as she moved, hauling him behind her as fast as he was capable of running. Wires and shelves of computer banks blocked their escape on either side as the pair ran from the Dark Trooper, its heavy mechanical fist tearing through machinery, servos whining as it clamped down on thin air, only barely missing Laira's Mandalorian companion.

She kept moving, a massive pressure filling the back of her skull as the cybernetic freak leveled its multi-barreled plasma cannon into the hole the beast had made with its fist. Without being able to aim or see its shots trajectory, the creature was woefully inaccurate. However the bolts fired by the cannon rained showers of sparks on the redhead and Mandalorian as they detonated into computer banks, arcs of electricity discharging all across the room. Laira began moving up the steps taking them as fast as she could, having to hold the railing to keep herself from over taking the stairwell with each turn.

Beneath her heat and a shockwave erupted as Cato depressed the detonator to his explosive charge, blasting the mandalorian against the next set of stairs and knocking the wounded princess to the grating. Grey eyes peered open through the smoke and sparking lights, looking at her hands, feeling her cheek. Her hands were burned, but not badly. Just enough that her palms would be tender and blood trickled from a cut on her cheek, just beneath her eye. Overall her worst wound remained the one in her arm from Cato's gun.

He stood slowly, his own injuries having left him bloody and bruised. It didn't stop the redhead from grabbing him and squeezing him tightly with a hug. "I'm sorry Cato." she whimpered hands gripping the back of his jumpsuit as her face buried in his chest. "I didn't mean to." The redhead pulled away just enough to look up at the T-Visor that covered his face, her eyes big and round, redness still present from her tears, putting on her cutest face. "You didn't have to shoot me."

[member="Cato Fett"]

 

[Cato Fett]

“…What??”

She pulled at the wound on her arm, pushing singed fabric out of the way. The cut was an angry weal swollen with a bullet fragment embedded in the flesh. Ultimately superficial, Cato knew, the shrapnel hadn’t cut into major blood vessels and only stung because all wounds stung and there was nothing for it. He cursed, pulling a small canister from out of his harness and got Laira to hold herself still for a moment. A thin lacquer sprayed onto the cut. Analgesic effects began numbing the site, working into the flesh, until the subcutaneous tissue felt like a thin cake of jelly resting atop the humerus. He tore off a long strip of emergency bandaging, wrapping it around her bicep.

“I didn’t shoot you, oritsir,” He said. “That’s a ricochet. Laira, that’s a ricochet, I would never - - “

With little else for it, he returned her embrace and clutched her in. Cato let her weep, said nothing for it. It’s pain, stress, and guilt, he thought, so let her have it out until her chest’s hollow. She needs perspective on violence but you’re not the one to tell her. Because you’re Mandalorian, you first killed at ten, that back alley in Aian Taun putting a tanto through that beggar pederast’s throat, and now killing means two things: necessity and honour. What does that matter to her? Ignoring pain stitching up into his skull, Cato held young Laira tighter against her warm sobs, sitting back on a bracket of grille-steps. He was glad for the warmth roiling up from below; it blended the dampness slowly washing down his frame from unseen wounds and broken flesh where the plasma fire had ripped and boiled at him. The adrenaline was ebbing. His will enforced alertness and energy. It was nothing to bleed and pain could only touch him if he allowed it. Cato wished that was something he could impart.

“…Karma is karma,” He said finally. He spoke into her rich hair. “There is Tao and the Infinite. And that’s all there is. Shh, shh, don’t think about it. It’s not for any of us to know. That man was temporary, as am I and as you are too. It was your karma to face and destroy him. It was his karma to be there to meet his end. He’s gone now and in forty days, he’ll be reborn elsewhere. Maybe as someone. Maybe as a stone. Or just a breath of wind. Just like you and I will be, one day. …Okay, ad’ika? Shhhh… It was just a ricochet, alright? Come on… You still with me?”

[member="Laira Darkhold"]

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Laira's face scrunched with some confusion, "What?" Perhaps he was talking about their physical being or something else, maybe he believed in a different religion than she that she simply didn't understand. In truth, she didn't know any of the names he had spoken and her thoughts on reincarnation were a bit off from most people. "Reborn?" Shaking her head she looked up at his pale T-Visor. "I'm going to become One with the Force and haunt you for shooting me." She cocked a wry smile, to lighten the mood a bit. "I'll haunt your rock if I have to."

In honesty, her own mortality was an alien concept that was constantly proven to be such. Every near death experience or stroke of luck and skill only reinforced her belief in her immortality and invulnerability. This was just an arm wound that Cato seemed to think was a ricochet and Laira was unsure but willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in these dire times. Her concerns and worries about the bald man in the room seemed so long ago, but they kept replaying in her mind. It troubled her greatly, and she would probably seek comfort in Cato's arms when they had a chance, however primal survival instincts taught her that they needed to keep moving.

"You are hurt, here." She offered him a simple crystal on a leather-bound cord. Nothing especially ornate, but it held power. Her aunt Rianna Ar'klim and father had made the amulets, little crystals imbued with her aunt's healing powers. Wearing one was every bit as good as being submerged in bacta for medicinal purposes without all the hoses and tubes and being suspended in a tank that bacta required. "It'll help, trust me." She looped the cord over his helmet and let the crystal rest on his chest, running her hand down his stomach deliberately.

Red eyes and tear stained face, blood still marring her shirt and trousers, some of the red on her hands still the princess waved at the stairs, "We need to go. You said up?" She was vulnerable and he was everything she needed right now. Every ounce of her being wanted to escape this place and never look back, but they had a mission to achieve and if they didn't someone else would be sent in their place. It was now or never. She could be vulnerable once they were safe, for now she needed to be stone.

[member="Cato Fett"]

 

[Cato Fett]

“Elek. Yes, up we go.” Cato said. At least the crystal imbued or encouraged his endocrine system to produce numbing agents in greater quantity. He tested the spry in his reach and physical mechanics, satisfied he could act and move without discomfort or pain inhibiting. He then led the way up the maintenance shaft, still pausing to glance below. The fire pool was cooling into a twist of sharp, warped steel. That Dark Trooper was nowhere to be seen and the bedeviling footfalls that rampaged through the facility had fallen silent. He dared to believe he’d killed the thing.

Killed the Trooper and wasted their thermex. Now, the objective of sabotaging the installation totally was in real jeopardy. Cato juggled possibilities, still ascending the stairwell, leading with his rifle and checking counter-lines of enemy assail facing them at each landing. They could search for an in-house armory. Procure whatever explosives were stored on hand, then deliver them to key structural points that could be collapsed. What did an installation like this run on for uninterrupted power? A generator bank? A central reactor? Could those be sabotaged?

The staircase ended with another maintenance hatch. Cato covered Laira until she’d ‘persuaded’ the locking mechanisms to give. The hatch shoved on its servos into the jamb housing and he led out into a bright hallway of white laminate and cold light. His HUD pinged acoustic returns, overlaying the readings with previous digital maps drawn up of the ground floor. They were west of what was, presumably, the main entrance and lobby. He considered their strategies; beat around sore through the facility until they could download blueprints, then risk a charge against remaining enemy forces to take their armoury, if they had one, or accost a data terminal, siphon information pertaining to the super-soldier program, exit the facility, board the Shadow, and use its heavier ordnance to bury the place.

Cato put the options to Laira. “It’s either or,” He said finally.

[member="Laira Darkhold"]

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Laira glanced down into the mess of burning and twisted metal below them as the unlikely pair continued up the stairwell. She didn't know whether to be glad the creature was dead and gone or if she should be sad it might have been an unwilling slave they had been forced to put down because of its heavy programming. She had heard once that cyborgs could be given programming like a droid, but even that they could have put the creature out of its misery if that was the case.

"Um, well if we fight another trooper it'll be up to you." The 'Cloaked' outside had been Force-Dead, but Cato hadn't struggled with them heavily. They may have been a test-bed. A simple first batch to test their process at severing beings from the Force to protect them from mental influences. Now they seemed to have expanded the process to involve cybernetics, heavy power armor, and internal power sources.

"As long as you promise not to shoot me again, we go for the power core. We can pull some of the failsafes and rig it to blow. If we have to we evade, elude, and escape." She knew there were air defenses in place for a place like this. At least a squadron of TIE's, likely a few ground based defenses and a small shield. All were things should could overcome with the right attack squadron, but there was little she could manage in an antique gunboat missing half its ordnance behind enemy lines.

"So come on." She tried a smile, finding it a little difficult to get back to her old self. Her hips didn't quite swing they way she thought they used to, her eyes didn't feel like they shined in the dark, and she just didn't feel like she could have any man she wanted right now. Regardless, the redhead and the Mandalorian began moving deeper into the hexagonal fortress.

[member="Cato Fett"]

 

[Cato Fett]

They burned through a dozen data-spikes at a locked terminal on their way to the central lifts. A final, harsh plunge through Imperial ICE dredged up facility blueprints, floor-by-floor schematics, with rough approximations of where defense workings should be installed, alongside suggested personnel, guard compliments, safety fail-safes should an unthinkable breach occur. Cato reloaded the magazine to the rifle he hated, the pistol he loathed, wishing for proper armour that could provide needed protection with hampering required motion. They left the cubicle ante-chamber, turned north along a white laminate passage-way, and assaulted an inner lobby.

A dozen stormtroopers argued its ownership from behind erected barrier plates. Cato routed them, harrying their positions with launched fragment-grenades that ricocheted, impacted, and broke their formations. Fog cannisters and stun bomblets added to the confusion, Cato rushing through the smog and firing at careening figures tripped up by their dead. The Type-03’s muzzle flared against temporary dark, smashing back pale things milling and groping for cover. Shell casings rang knell-like off the tiling over muted groans. When the acrid fog-banks cleared into the ceiling vents, Cato was behind a low station desk, manipulating turbo-lift permissions.

“That was messy,” He admitted, then crumpled the console panel with a fist. Behind his shoulder, a lift-cage whined open. “Far too messy. It’s bad dying like this. Always very bad. …Come on,” Cato said, thumbing at the lift. “That’ll take us close to the power generator stations, if we don’t end up there directly. Then we’ll melt this place in on itself. Still with me?”

[member="Laira Darkhold"]

 

[Laira Darkhold]

"Yeah, I'm still with you babe." Laira responded, pulling herself from the hiding spot she had picked while Cato handled the direct combat. She wasn't very well equipped for direct engagements at a distance, with just a pistol. In melee, against standard troopers she could hold her own if she blitzed them suddenly, but at a distance they held an advantage over her. Luckily Cato was a master of combat, the sound of his rifle barking out shells was often followed by a little light disappearing from her senses.

She got on the lift with Cato and punched the button to send the lift towards the main reactor. A place this large doing biological experiments and maintaining its defenses would need a sizable reactor, at least Laira thought as much. "Auspex is picking up some gravitic anomalies. They could be using danger rooms with variable gravity to train their subjects." Heavy Gravity Rooms weren't especially uncommon, she'd spent time in them when she was growing up and her father maintained himself in one constantly, but it would explain some of what the Imperials were up to.

So far they had discovered that the installation was bringing possible recruits here and had started an initial wave with some form of Vong-spawn serum that made them numb to the Force followed by some physical training and cybernetics. Recently the Imperial Scientists had added a much more potent serum to include some gene therapy and much more cybernetic enhancement in order to make the process 'more cost effective'. Apparently the Vong-Serum was exceptionally expensive to produce for the scientist and didn't keep long enough, or remain stable without mutation long enough, to manage large quantities.

The lift stopped and opened with a ping, and the doors sprung open to reveal a darkened corridor running on the occasional dim light fixture overhead. Power conduits ran on other side and on the ceiling of the rather large hallway, probably three meters tall and as much across set as a hexagon of sorts.

Laira stuck close to the armored Mandalorian with her, more for the sensation of safety and comfort he provided her than a desire to use him as a human shield. The Princess still had her danger sense which told her something was down here, something meant them harm, but not what or where it was. "Come on, conduits lead that way," she pointed, glancing at the sensor auspex to realize that was also where the strongest gravitic distortions were originating from.

[member="Cato Fett"]

 

[Cato Fett]

He noted curious details; the close, staticky air, the absence of living personnel besides maintenance droids idling on stand-by protocols, the discharges of dry heat from the heavy trunk cabling, and a thickly lingering sense of danger. Cato checked and rechecked his rifle’s charging bolt, the magazines to the gun and his pistol, and eased Oilseller on his belt so it rode a little closer to reach. He paused for Laira to grip his shoulder, then began gently pacing forward along the hallway.

Junctions they covered simultaneously, Cato to one corner, Laira the other, edging out to glance for enemy troop or security emplacements. The core felt naked. Anxiousness was creeping up into his nerves, threading synaptic decisions with split-second doubt, and he knew if he did not conquer the worry he would perish. Get Laira killed as a consequence. Cato reached into the infinite, balanced between tao and zen, surrendering preconceptions. He dealt with what was. And that was bare hallways bereft of standard defenses. Yet, when they paused and he looked at the idling protocol androids, they all would be caught staring back. He consulted an overlaid floorplan on his visor screen, turned north, past three further junctions, onward against an electronic, discordant hum.

Soon, they discovered signs of evacuation. Work stations abandoned in haste, flimsiplast scattered in nail-biting alarm across the flooring, upset styrene caf-holders that’d splashed negligently over console monitors still stuck at their shutdown cycle prompts. Surveillance cams, boxy and monolithic in the old Imperial style, whirred and tracked them from hall to hall. Cato paced them with care, assailing each new passage or chamber for obvious and peripheral dangers, using Laira and the three-sixty-degree view-cam aboard his helmet. He still wished for clan fighters or trained Bushi. Half a dozen of us, he thought, and we would pick a garrison apart. I miss Asahi. And Honoghr. Would Laira come with me to visit if I invited her? Yes, but as your friend. Just as your friend. But isn’t that good enough?

Hexagonal siding smoothed into a kind of architrave air-lock separating the power-plant. Entry required biometric combinations, primarily print and pupil readings. ‘False Eye’, ‘False Touch’, and field security overloaders convinced the input terminals to rescind lockdown measures. The air-lock cycled open. Charged air crackled and pricked the small hairs of their napes. Through the portal, impressions of oscillating machinery, fell blue-light, cascades of electric-ladders, and a subsonic hum that hurt the meat of their diaphragm. Cato stalked in, framed in dark colour. A ghostly halo coruscated over his shoulders and helm. He swayed and panned with the Type-03, stepping deeper into the energy hum.

[member="Laira Darkhold"]

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Laira glanced at her sensor auspex every few steps, looking at the energy readouts and gravitation fluctuations. A mild electromagnetic field distortion was being emitted from within the room. The redhead held onto Cato's shoulder, gripping it tightly when the doors opened. She had expected a massive cavern many stories deep to house such a powerful energy source however the blast doors and emergency seal opened to reveal only a small central orb, maybe two meters across held in suspension by a repulsor field.

The door opened into a circular room surrounding the orb with computer banks and energy relays on all sides of the walkway, only about eight meters in diameter. Beneath the core was an opening and a shaft down into the unknown depths, possibly a catasphrofic disposal valve for the reactor core held above it. Above them there was a circular catwalk, accessible by a pair of split staircases on either side of the room. At a glance Laira could see that most of the power conduits were maintained and directed from above.

The pair slipped into the room, the doors remaining locked open. The computer panels were all still operating and so Laira let Cato manage sweeping the room while she started rummaging around through files. His rifle swept from side to side, each small maintenance cabinet thrust open and checked for any stragglers.

"Cato, they've been experimenting with Isotope-five weapons. This is a prototype miniaturized power source." Her grey eyes squinted while she skimmed through files for keywords. "Looks like they used Iso-five portable generators to overclock their cybernetic toys and weapons." Not a bad strategy if you didn't mind strapping a several ton-equivalent bomb to each warrior and hope it didn't get rattled around too badly. It looked like the Imperials had managed to stabilize the micro-generator enough for practical use, furthermore they hadn't done anything other than make a single set using the micro-reactor.

Laira grinned, "Cato, all the files are kept here. This is the server database. I can flush it."

The first thunderous stomp resounded down the corridor, just as menacing as the first time she had heard it.

Her fingers began trembling with each dreaded footfall. She thought about opening up the database and trying to do a data-purge but that might take hours. And they would be lucky to have minutes before the thing reached them, and only if it stopped. Instead, the redhead closed the gate to the reactor shaft so that it couldn't fall if it overloaded. "I need some time Cato."

A deep mechanical voice echoed down the corridor. "C̦͡ ͏̰͉͓͇̱͕O ͕̖̥̖M̭͚ͅ ̳E̯̙̩̙̲ͅ ̜̼͢O̘͙ ͙̰͘Ų̝͍̯̫̫ ̠͔͖ͅṬ̫̺̘̤͕͞ ̘̦̖͖,̴͖͖͇̪ C̛͎̜ ͚O҉̝̗͎͔ M̪̰̝ ͍̤͖̙̞͉E̶ O͇͕͓̥͙͍͜ ̶̤̟͎̤̳̻͚U̲͡ ͙̪̠T̴ ̴͍͉̘͈̞̹̝,̭̹̣̱̳͎ ̶͓̳̮͔̖͇W̧̮̗̳͔ ̟̩̺̮H̤̻̫͈̬͎ ̜͎͎ͅE̢͓̪͍ ̸R̹̤̠̠̘̰ ̵͇͚̼͙̥̥E Ṿ͚̬͇̯̲ ̬͔̟͉E̫͙͎͎͉̼͡ ̳̝̗̜̮̀Ŕ͓ ͔̯̤̳̪Y̨͉̙̩ ̜͔̲ͅƠ̟̲͎̰̯̟͚ ̷U̻ ͏̩̼̰͎͕̹̝A͚̠̻̹̟̪͈ ͍̪̤̤̪̖̖R̴͕̬͚̠͖ ͚̣̟̬̲̣ͅE ̵̟̫!̡͕̪̦̳̰" This time it carried an


eerie inflection, almost an attempt at human tones garbled by machinery and electronics.

 

[Cato Fett]

“All the time in the world,” Cato said and pushed the rifle-stock back tight against his shoulder. He left Laira to the generator chamber, returning to the small pseudo-lobby dominated by the portal architrave. Broad cover was lacking, save for the frame of the next hatch leading out to the wider floor. Cato slipped in close by the jamb and peered out, instinctively resetting action bolt for his Type-03, waiting for the coming to presence to show and present. The voice had scalded his nerves, raked dull razors up the meat of his spine. Human, yet not. He watched the mouth of the far corridor junction, slipping the firing-rate to full auto.

S̫̖̝̣̙̦͢͡ͅ ̸̢̱͞T͔̥͈́̕͡ ͎͉̠͓̀Ę̶͕͕ ̦̬E͈̦̱̘͕͎ ̶̮̰͙̻͇̥͓̳L̞̗̟̗͕̙͟͝ͅ ͖͎̰̦̭̮ ̧̛̳̝͖Ḁ͢ ̜̣̭̟́͠ͅB̴̗̪̘ ̜̰͖̖͡I̛̠͘ ͏͖̻̝̕͢D̢̠̤͔̝̬͈̦̝͝ ̨̜̹̩͙̩̪E͚͙͍̘ ̢͕͉S̢̺͙͝ ͕̟̲̟̙ ̡̺L̸̪͉͙̯͉ ̢̱̜͇̦̫̪̜̖̕͠O̢̞̬̱̹̪̯̩͟͠ ̛̩̖̤̦̹̻͡N̨̟̗̤͓̼̥ ͍͉ͅG҉̳̪̬̙́ ̥̙̣͕͉͟͠E̴͎̺̼ ̡̮͖̱R̻͉͢ ̞̙̬ ̷̸̺͚̟͝T̡̛͍̗̗̜͙̩͔ͅ ̰̙͖͠H́҉̘̞̳̗̹̲͢ ̷̵̶̼̘̟͔A̧̭̩̱̰̺̼͔̻̕͘ ̛̫̦͚̪̪͘N̜̮̱̫̫̝͙̞̕͡ ̴͍͙ ̢̯͚̯F̱̮̫̘̥̺̟͝ ̝͈̟͈L͝҉̻͕̘̭̠ ҉͇̻́È̼̟͍̤͔̳̪̀ ̢̛̲͚͙͙̩̗̣͈S̫̠͔̻̗̘̯̼̕͜͠ ̭̰̰H̶͍͖͖̩̣͉̕ The voice capered. It crossed round the junction and strode into view.

The Thing was tall, human proportioned, elegantly sleek compared to the Dark Trooper’s bullish composition, and wholly terrifying. Its casement was a mixture of exposed, black synth-muscle bonded to armour plating, holed with induction ports, heat sinks and bleed-off exhausts. The face was a skull-facsimile, human modelled, ridged with a crown of rough metallic spirals somehow broadcasting a miniature grav-field. Shrapnel circled in a blasphemous halo. Its eye sockets were emptied, the toothed jaw unhinged in a permanent expression of fleshless screaming. Sick, cold light poured from the back of its throat, nasal cavity, and eyes.

It looked unarmed. An experimental prototype, Cato wanted to guess, loosed to kill them. The Thing stalked closer, gait almost stumbling and clutching at its brow. He exhaled, pinned it in his iron-sights, squeezed and held rifle trigger in. Gunfire burst in a hard, unflinching stream. ‘It’ hardly reacted: particle shields cycled to full power and the slug-bullets ripped and cascaded aside. Cato followed with propelled-grenades, bursting heavy heat and concussive impacts across It’s shielding bubble. The Thing walked on, unperturbed, replying very simply to the assault. One still hand raised, pricked with electric discharge. Shrapnel debris was called from the tiling, bullet fragments pulled into a hovering ‘cloud’ held suspended under its palm.

Cato barely pulled from the jamb in time. The morsels hosed at killing, mag-line speeds. The jamb and hatch frame disintegrated, torn to glowing slag, wrecked servo-motors disentangling and collapsing onto the flooring. He got to a knee in time to watch It shrug into a quickening sprint. It’s voice rasped though its jaw stayed fixed in a scream.

Ņ̵̺̙̦ ̵͈̙̳̞̠̕ͅO̟̳̲̬̬͎̮͈ ̶̯̫̤̬͈̝̗ͅW͍͎͙̤͕͜ ̴̮͓͙̬͇̱͇ ̧̧͕̖͓B̤̹̫͔͚̖͇͡ͅ ͈̻͢ͅE̵̹͙̗̕ ͓͍ ̶̼̣͍̙̯̭̤͘S̸̨̮͡ ̸̷̬͓͓̥͈̠͜C̦̮ͅ ̡̯̞̤́Ó͉̀ ̴̦̤̻̬̜̪̼͕͜U̯̦͢͠ ̠̰͍̦̯̣R̲̹̤̝ ̛̦̟̘̲̺͖̺̮̱͠E̶̱̹͉͚͓͡ ̵̛̼̪̞D̢̯͖͟

Laira’s back was turned; busied with several mounted console banks, manipulating the solid, mercury-esque core hanging in suspension to overwhelm itself. Deja-vu struck Cato; looming helplessness, tragedy unfolding right before him and he hadn’t power to stop or alter it, forced to feel caged by personal weakness while witnessing the death of something beautiful, powerful, and cherished.

Saijo V’s landscape hurtled up at them, Yuna’sif bleeding across from him in the gunship’s troop hold. Senses twisting. Scram-engines railing and tearing free from g-force. Duty was: save her. Then impact jarred and for what felt like a different lifetime, he knew nothing.

Cato stood. Loosed the long sword Oilseller from its sheathe. And hacked at and engaged the Thing at extreme close range. The lobby broiled behind Laira as bodies clashed and hurtled from wall to wall.

[member="Laira Darkhold"]

 

[Laira Darkhold]

A shudder of fear ran up the redhead's spine, but she was almost done with her task. There hadn't been time to tell Cato what she was planning, hadn't been time to plan. Instead she was simply acting, he couldn't afford for her to freeze even though she could hear the rifle fire from his machine gun. Laria knew it was his, it had a softer sound than others. It was familiar. Lots of things about Cato were becoming that way. She wasn't able to gain access to what she wanted through the software, numerous securities protecting it from simple setting but she had known that.

Explosions of micro-grenades rocked the corridor outside the room. She managed a glance over he shoulder to see Cato firing and diving for cover while the Mandalorian was assailed by a yet unseen robotic monstrosity. Her imagination ran wild, wondering what could it be, what it could look like, but she kept on her duty.

With a click she was able to reroute one of the power conduits back into the reactor core. One conduit wouldn't cause it to go critical, and even if it could, the fail-safes in place would keep it from detonating. However the emergency disposal hatch was closed and locked, and the conduit was cycling back through the liquid mercury-like reactor. With that much energy diverted back into little orb the radioactive isotope would be asymmetrically charged and primed. She knew what she was doing, she was making a megaton bomb out of the installations high volatile reactor in as few steps as possible.

Robotic whines and servos snapped, screeching and grunts erupted from behind her as she finished with the console, forcing her to take a look at what was happening. A sickening skull plated cyborg was hacking and slashing at Cato's guarding blade. The flash of personal shielding protected its head and torso from the Mandalorian's strikes and blows with his blade.

'Hang on, Cato. Mama's comin.' She thought, her legs pumping her as fast as they could to the core, slapping her last explosive on the outer shell and priming it. The detonator was timed for three minutes, hopefully enough time for the pair to beat this thing and get away before the big boom. Three minutes also bought the energy loop enough time to destabilize the reactor core so that the explosion would be gravitationally and electromagnetically charged.

With the explosive planted it was time for her to get into the fight, or get out. Cato was holding it off as best he could, but it was stronger and faster than he was, better defended too. He wouldn't make it alone, but what good was she? Staying would only increase the likelihood they were both killed by the upcoming detonation. Running away would ensure her survival.

No...

Cato would not have left her and she couldn't leave him. Laira crossed her arms before her and started running, pumping the Force through her legs to accelerate her as fast as she could possibly move, slamming into the creature like a missile as soon as an opening presented itself. She had hoped to crash into it and send it smashing into the far wall, but that's not how it worked out.

Instead the creature half stepped out of her way and twisted, pushing her trajectory into the wall with a robotic hiss. She could taste copper in her mouth, struggling to rise as the monster stomped on her ankle, hard. Laira felt the bones crush, shattering her ankle and tearing the ligaments that held it together.

[member="Cato Fett"]

 

[Cato Fett]

The power redistribution was already chaining sympathetic cascades through the individual chambers. Panels and tiling burst with half-melted cabling shields and wracked coolant piping, showering the lobby in static arcs and sparking bolts. The Thing loomed over Laira’s crumpled frame stuck in the lobby corner. She was bruised with a burst lip and swelling across the crown of her hair, her ankle viciously torqued with protrusions split through the skin. Air warped and roiled around Its hand, shards of its unholy halo pulling and orbiting round its shielded knuckles. The mag-field charged, shrapnel quaking before firing, It almost giggling with exultation.

Cato upset the kill. Oilseller struck, catching Its wrist and sliding up, winding the limb out until it was locked in a knot across the blade flat. He levered the Thing back, briefly managing control, simultaneously sweeping its feet out and smashing the anvil of his palm up under Its jaw. The cyborg was driven down, scoring a heavy notch across the tiling. Cato backpedalled, the monster rising and its attentions switching to reengage with him.

It’s power dwarfed base-line human capabilities and Cato was without cybernetic augmentation. He felt it drive him back, parrying desperately for maneuvering room, shaving sparks off its long gauntlet plates. It jabbed, missed just barely, punching a ragged wound through the wall panelling before clubbing Cato across the lobby. He skidded into a tucked roll, halted with his boot toes, jabbed with Oilseller to briefly ward it back until he could leap back into an offensive kata. It briefly lost the initiative; strikes rained, warding through Its defense routines, catching the gaps in plating that opened deepening wounds. Cato wasn’t certain it could be slain. Not conventionally. When the cyborg ran out of room to retreat, it would redouble its efforts and this time, perhaps, he wouldn’t be able to fend it back.

It’s not alive, a thought scolded. No vital organs to rupture, no blood vessels, no bile, without nerve and fear and anxiety. How might a machine be stopped? How can you halt a wagon, the way you may cripple a tank? Destroy locomotion. Attack its means to operate! Cato exhaled and in the stillness of an eternal second, regarded It, karma, all things now and were, with the wholeness and oblivion of insurmountable Tao. The Thing charged. And he took it to pieces.

Cato stepped from its attack lines, slicing as it struck, the vibro-edge of Oilseller drawing deep into the synth-flesh and vulnerable metals constituting its ball-joints. The right forearm separated, bounced aside underfoot. He targeted the left knee and ankle, jabbing his sword down between the joint and protective cap, artificial ligaments burning as he twisted and popped the femur from the shin bones. Oilseller’s point then drove up, into the pit of the left arm, severing brachial fluid exchange and spongy faux-cartilage. The arm hung by thin epidermal plastics, weighty and useless.

The maimed Thing hopped ungainly, attempting to renegotiate its withdrawn mobility. Cato’s heel snared the back of its remaining knee, walloped to the tiling. It rolled about, trying to snake free, possessed of undaunted energies that were artificially convinced it could prolong survival. The Mandalorian knelt and pressed his weight against the centre of It’s spine. And then drove Oilseller through its backlit skull-cap without ceremony. The Thing loosed atonal gargles, thrashed in expiration, before at last powering down. Smoke chased after Cato’s sword as it withdrew and sheathed away.

He staggered to Laira’s side. “Don’t move. Don’t move!” Cato sternly added. Over his shoulder, the power-plant chamber rippled with spilling light and strange micro-striations in the air. The temperature was bending between sweltering to glacial. He thumbed for a small tri-derm needle patch on his chest rigging; rolled back her pant-leg, ignoring the destruction of her ankle bones, smoothing a patch of skin with his thumb before ejecting six thousand micrograms of endorphin analog. The pain would crack apart like melting ice glass. Before long, she wouldn’t feel below the knee.

Beneath his helmet, Cato was clammy with sweat and cold urgency. More panels burst from the wall. A mechanized voice rolled onto public intercom and voice a canned message warning of some imperilling criticality event. Cato barely heard it; his hands cradled Laira’s neck, trying to feel for contusions and swelling.

“Come on, ad’ika, we gotta go. Right now. I’m going to lift you and run. Alright? Don’t sass me for this one, we can’t wait on that ankle,” He said. Something far off shuddered with explosion. Overhead, the ceiling rafters and support stanchions bulged in, stress fissures spidering down the walling. They weren’t going to make it. Cato’s hold on her was close and serene.

[member="Laira Darkhold"]

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Laira could do little more than watch the beast and Cato counter one another back and forth, driving each other back only for the other to surge and regroup. Had any other person been fighting the creature they likely would not have survived, Laira had certainly been less than useless throughout the short conflict. If she hadn't charged, if she had of conserved and used her mobility to her advantage rather than attempt to disable it with raw blunt force trauma she might have been able to help beyond clutching her leg and watching Cato power through blow after blow.

But it was over, smoke and acrid burning blood emanated from the skull wound. At one point, that had been a living human brain in the machine, merged with cybernetics to the point it was little more than a droid. Cato was rushing to her side, hoping to offer her some aid. His hands began feeling her spine, but he wouldn't find anything. She was battered and bruised, banged up a little but fine other than the sickening array of complex fractures in her leg and foot. "Cato, Cato. You need to go. If you hurry without me you might make it. I set a detonator to blow the reactor. You have about two minutes to get clear. You can make it on your own." What was she saying? Did she really think she couldn't make it out?

She knew. Hopping on one leg, even with his help Laira would be lucky if they made it to the turbolift before the installation was blow into orbit by the reactor detonation. Tears welled in her eyes once more, "Its okay sweetie. I'll be fine." He was a smart enough warrior to know that she wasn't going to survive without him. Cato may not have been Force sensitive, but he wasn't an idiot. He had to know she was out of tricks and she had nothing left to show off or break them out. He also had to know he would be extremely lucky to make it out in less than two minutes.

The clock just kept counting down on them while he looked her over. What was he going to do? What were his friends or family going to think if they just never came home. "Godspeed Rebel." She smiled through the tears, her hand pushing him gently away from herself.

[member="Cato Fett"]

 

[Cato Fett]

He kept working mechanically. The break needed rotation in order to splint correctly. The endorphin analog should have been sweeping a kind of numb joy up her leg in soft, flesh-pink waves, disassociating the sight of her loose foot being slowly turned. He pushed, and then locked the heel into place with a telescoped metal rod retrieved from his emergency med-kit. Bandage wrapping secured the splinting rod and he moved to pick her off the floor. Abuse rained on his helmet; what was he doing?! Let her go! Fists pummelled at his shoulders and a particularly brutal palm-heel strike rattled his sternal plate. Go! Go, you simple, dense fool! Time is running with a vengeance and survival depends now on sheer self-interest. Can you really carry your tired weight, the weight of a wounded woman in your arms too, and still make it to the lifts? And if those bastard machines are wrecked, can you make the pell-mell sprint up the evacuation stair-wells? Did he not know…?

That the young and foolish always perished first…?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdgsccbMzAo​

It was beginning to stink with ozone. The decking behind them, nearest the core-room, were warping inward. Convex shards of steaming metal whipped past, embedding in the walling. Cato tested her weight against his arms before wordlessly snatching her from the floor. She was held cradled now, appearing like a warmaiden on her bridal night. He dug his boot toes into the decking and began sprinting. Disregarding that he was spent from battling the Thing at close-quarters. He ached from the combat, bruised down his torso-trunk, with pain shooting up his arm-stump where it was beginning to twist in against the prosthetic attachment. He began the breathing exercises as he ran. Already, an endorphin flow was carrying down his bloodstream.

They reached the lifts in the second lobby after a blink. Fire was erupting from one elevator shaft through the sealed turbolift doors. Another was malfunctioning, doors guillotining together. Third and last refused outright to open and appeared depowered. Successive, unseen blasts shivered through the decking without pause. Cato growled something hideously foul in Mando’a, turning to the emergency stairwell. This door refused him too. He adjusted Laira’s squirming weight, loosed a timed roar, and brusquely knocked the hatch down out of its jamb and frame.

Burning debris floated down overhead from compartment fires. Smoke gusted, bubbling at the shaft’s summit, thick enough that ink-thin traces of ash and soot were sliding down the walls. Cato mounted the steps, two at a time, still breathing in time with his stride. His cardio-vascular system was suffused with oxygen. Lactic acids were still building on his musculature; natural safeguard, to keep him from unintentionally destroying the muscle fibers through sheer exertion. Veins throbbed visibly up his throat and he was sprinting up and along like a soaked hound. He carried her up, past the second landing, finally pausing at the sixth.

“We’re going home,” Cato gasped. “It’s a duty… That we try… And see… That everyone comes home…” And again, he readjusted her burden against his shoulder and began plodding on. Alarm klaxons shrieked in time to flaring emergency lights. Darkness fuzzed around the edges of his one eye. Scallops of flame licked at them as they passed further and further upwards. All the while, Cato hadn’t lost count of the timer.

They were not going to make it.

[Yes. We. Will.] Cato all but cried out.

[member="Laira Darkhold"]

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Sometimes, when death was certain, people gave up. They gave into despair and self-pity, they surrendered. That wasn't exactly Laira's style but she was smart enough to know when her chances were out and her time was up. Normally she was a stubborn, head-strong fool who would keep getting up time after time, blow after blow, until her opponent gave up or she simply couldn't. But, it wasn't just about her right now, there was no fight she could get up and have that would save her friend.

The only thing that might have saved him was leaving her and he had refused. He stayed with her, set her leg and hefted her body up in his arms. Her arms wrapped around his neck to help him distribute her weight and her head leaned against his chest like she had done that night on Kothlis. He was panting, heart pounding as the Mandalorian carried her along the corridors. He was wounded, had been fighting, he was still fighting.

What was it in the princess that had resigned her to die? She would never have accepted it if she were alone. Every ounce of Laira's body would have driven her to run on shattered ankle until she was safe of dead, but not this time. Something about Cato made her feel comfortable, and knowing he was going to die because he didn't have it in him to let her go was heart-warming.

No, it wasn't that he didn't have something. He still had the heart to keep going despite all the odds, despite all logic tell him to leave her behind to better his own chances. He still had the heart to stay for her.

Laira wasn't a quitter, she would go on until the end but Cato was going faster carrying her than she could hobble. He made it to the turbolift, kicking the lift button. Nothing. The timer just kept ticking down while he kicked the doors to the evacuation stairs on and began climbing them as fast as he could.

She gripped his jumpsuit tightly, hugging herself to him while the ran. "I'm glad you stayed for me Cato."

Three. Two.

She held her breath, squeezing tightly and thinking of home, of all the places she had adored and how they had shaped her life and made her into the person she had become. She thought of the words her father had told her to repeat to herself when she felt broken and unable to go on. 'I am not done' he had said, four words that had driven him onward across three decades of fighting. Four words that had helped him find redemption on the Planet of the Force when he was forced to face his own inner evil.

Laira's expression turned grim and determined. There was only once chance, one trick she could try. The Princess had never attempted anything as difficult or as complex before, but it was the only thing she had left and there was no chance it was going to work, but she couldn't just give in.

One.

Fire and death erupted beneath them, the force of the initial shockwave blasting through permacrete and steel, disintegrating everything in its as it rose behind the pair. A burst of energy erupted from Laira's broken body, surrounding the pair in light the instant before the shockwave slammed into the pair.

Suddenly all was replaced.

Where steel and permacrete had surrounded them, there was now open air as they suddenly appeared about ten feet above a white snowy mountain, one of many in the range that stretched for miles above an evergreen forest well below.

Laira would have liked the planet had she been conscious, but the force of the exertion had taken its toll on the young princess. Everything for her was black and stopped. Her heart had ceased beating, her eyes rolled back into her head, and breath did not enter her lungs in the instant they transported, everything stopped for the princess.

And then they were falling together to Saijo.

[member="Cato Fett"]