Chapter Ten - "A Real Short Trip"
Once more creeping up behind set of crates after set of crates, ship after ship, Calen found himself no closer to locating any sign of Ordos. This was a stupid plan, and he knew it well. Knowing Tessa, the rest would be taking off the moment they got that transport running, no questions asked. Some allies! Of course, Calen supposed he couldn’t blame them. To be a member of the Rebels was a death sentence, so perhaps he was in good company. It seemed even this far out in the galaxy, the War wasn’t something that could be so easily avoided. Stuck in the middle of it now, he made the choice to save Ordos, if he could.
The deck was still crawling with Stormtroopers, all searching. Calen watched their patterns, did his best to get through them without arousing suspicion. The lights were apparently on his side (either through Dax’s machinations or poor maintenance as had been with the stairwell’s coolant system), but how long would that last? How long could he creep from shadow to shadow to find what he sought? How long could-his eyes caught the movement, seeing the older man moving to a docking control terminal.
‘What is he doing?’ Calen thought, watching him manipulate the interface. It began to loudly shriek out yet another alarm.
“There he is! Stop right there!” A Stormtrooper was drawn to the sound and received one of Ordos blaster shots to the head for his trouble. Three others were moving in on him, Ordos ducking behind the lowered ramp of a freighter to avoid their fire and return with some of his own. Calen immediately began to rush forward, hoping to assist him in his defense and get him to the transport without further incident. It was then that Ordos managed to take out not one, not two, but all three of his attackers in rapid succession. It was then that the old man noticed him.
“You shouldn’t be here! Go, now!” Ordos snapped.
“I was just trying to-” Calen started.
“Go, to the transport! Get out of here!”
“I’m not leaving you behind!”
“Like Hell you aren’t, boy! Go!” Ordos shouted. Calen was taken aback. “Don’t make me put some fire behind that.” Ordos warned, lowering the blaster to face the younger man.
“This is insane!” Calen protested.
“Go!” Ordos roared, then gasped as a blaster bolt tore through his hand and forced him to drop the weapon. Calen turned just in time to have his own shot from his grasp, luckily with only the weapon itself harmed. He turned, too, to see a familiar visage coming down the way toward them, flanked at either side by Stormtroopers in black armor - an elite guard.
“Well, well, well…” Ayro’s black eyes stared at both of the men. “I do not believe this is your holding cell. We should rectify that.”
“Why did you have Caius killed?!” Ordos snapped. Ayro backed slightly, his eyes going wide. The troopers flanking him raised their blasters, but Ayro’s raised hand stopped them from opening fire. “Answer me, you son of a bitch!”
“I? Kill Caius?” Ayro snorted. “Hardly. The affairs of the Gauntlet and that worm Daheel are not my concern. They are merely convenient pawns.”
“Wait, what?” Calen asked.
“Haven’t figured it out, have you, boy?” Ayro asked. “I have made effective pawns out of the Gauntlet and out of Critus’ little band of fanatics.”
“What?!” Calen snapped. ‘That’s insane! The Empire shouldn’t be working with criminals and zealots!” Ayro threw his head back and laughed.
“Who makes better pawns than those willing to die for their cause, Darkhaven?” Ayro asked.
“That’s what they all are. Pawns to you.” Ordos said.
“A position you’ve found yourself in before, haven’t you?” Ayro snorted. “Tell me...does the boy know about your record?”
“That’s ancient history.” Ordos replied.
“Is it?” Ayro asked. “So CT-983 is…?”
“A dead man.” Ordos cut him off. Calen stared at him, his eyes widened.
‘CT...that’s an old Republic code. That’s reserved for…’ Calen’s thoughts were cut off as Ayro spoke again.
“Well, you are quite right, after today.” Ayro snorted, lowering his arm. “Take aim.” He ordered, and his troopers obeyed. It was in that moment, that small split second that Calen’s mind went back to the incident on Skorr II. The place where this had all started. How he’d pulled that blaster back into his hand. Yes, he was sure of it now. When the Gammorean had stabbed him, and his need had been most dire, he’d done it. Could he do it again? His eye had caught a thermal detonator on the belt of one of the Troopers. Maybe it had been a trophy taken from a fallen enemy. If he could pull it from the chain it rested on...if he just…
He tried to reach out, his hand raising. “Fire!” His eyes snapped open and he ducked down, reaching for his blaster and aiming a shot right at the detonator in question. The blaster fire from the opposing side ended as a bright light seemed to engulf them. Even Ayro’s screams of rage were drowned out by the deafening explosion. Calen rolled backwards, keeping his eyes from the blinding light until he was sure it had passed...and delighted to find that he’d only been lightly singed by the experience.
“Ordos! C’mon! Let’s-” Calen looked over to find that Ordos was slumped back against a bunch of crates that had been knocked over either by the explosion or by his impact into them. “Ordos! Hang on! We’ll get you back to the shi-”
“No…” Ordos managed out as Calen slipped an arm under his shoulder, lifting him up. “I’m done.” Ordos’ torso looked like it’d been blasted and burned, his prison uniform ripped to shreds by the blaster fire he had taken to the chest. “Looks like my number’s up, kid. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t talk like that, we’re getting out of this.” Calen said.
“Keep up the fight for me.”
“We can do it together. We’re gonna get back to Karideph. We’ll see this through. We have to.”
“Promise me.”
“We can-”
“PROMISE ME!” Ordos shouted out with great effort.
“You know I will.” Calen said to the man slumped against him. “But you will, too. We both will. Alright?” He kept moving. There wasn’t much chance to sneak around, he knew. And even Dax wouldn’t be able to distract everyone for so long. They had to move, and they had to move now.
“I’m sorry.” Ordos said, finally.
“There’s no need for that.” Calen told him. The transport was in sight.
“I wasn’t saying it to you, kid…” Ordos’ voice dropped lower and lower as he spoke. Calen was standing within feet of the lowered ramp when he realized the old man was lying dead against him. He pushed through it, his heart pounding as his body was pushed into full alert. He didn’t even hear the blaster fire hitting the hull of the ship as he pulled Ordos’ body aboard.
“I hope you’ve got this thing working!” Calen shouted down as he laid Ordos down on the floor for the moment, having nowhere else to set him.
“You better believe it!” Tessa shouted back. Calen rushed into the cockpit to see that Tessa had taken up the navigation terminal, Rook was sitting in one of the twin pilot chairs, and Niyasa was minding the engine control terminal. That left one seat for him, foregone conclusion. “Where’s the old man?”
“He’s dead.” Calen said simply, checking that everything was good to go before they took off. “If you’ve got those access codes, punch them in. We need to get out of here. Now.” He said, grabbing the yoke and lifting them up from the platform.
“Doing it now.” Tessa said as she began to punch in the code. The docking bay was still circular to adhere to the curve of the station, so Calen made his adjustments with acceleration, moving along the curve as best he could with the ship’s bulk. The proximity alarms were going haywire as Calen still managed to avoid colliding with other ships that were docked, if only just. “The tower’s scrambling TIEs.” Tessa’s words proved true as the sensors were picking up several brand new vessels in pursuit.
“Rook, does this tub have any weapons?” Calen asked. The Wookiee’s growls and barks were understood as positive, even if the words were not. “Let’s put them to some use. How long until we hit the doors out?” Within a split second, the lasers had warmed up and were firing on the TIEs, which quickly broke into a more staggered formation to avoid the barrage.
“At our current rate of speed...fifty-eight seconds.” Niyasa reported.
“The code’s still going through!” Tessa shouted. The ship was tossed as some lucky laser blasts tore at the back.
“Shields are holding.” Niyasa chirped. “Ninety-four percent.” Another hit. “...Eighty-seven.”
“Let’s not give them the opportunity to fail.” Calen said, pushing the ship forward. The bulky craft tore its way through to its target, which came into view as they passed the next part of the curve. It was a straight shot out from there, all they had to do was get there before it was too- “The lockdown is still on!”
“I’m working on it!” Tessa shouted, working frantically with the lines of code at her terminal. “The uplink still hasn’t gone through!”
“Forty seconds.” Niyasa said.
“We’re gonna end up a lot flatter!” Calen shouted back to Tessa.
“I’m trying!” Tessa snapped, working. “There, resending!” At the current rate of acceleration, there was surely no way they could stop in time...Calen closed his eyes, embracing himself for the end.
‘Aim for the tops of the spires on either side.’ Calen heard the voice...Niyasa’s voice. Just as he had heard Critus’ voice in the Temple on Pergitor. ‘Do it now! We don’t have much time!’ Unlike then, Calen listened. Switching off the targeting computer, he maneuvered the controls as quickly as he could to hit the targets as described. The laser blasts went off, and both sections of wall they hit exploded into a macabre flash of light and color. The blast doors that held closed the bay were forced open, sliding open just as they approached.
“We’re clear!” Tessa exclaimed in surprise. Calen, too, was elated. “Setting a course for Karideph and preparing the jump into hyperspa-” The ship was jolted again as something else hit it.
“Shields down to sixty-six percent and falling!” Niyasa shouted. “And the engines are offline.”
“Get ‘em back!” Calen shouted.
“Working on it!” Niyasa quickly patted her way down to the far end of the cockpit and exited out into the corridor.
“Tractor beam!” Tessa growled, slamming a fist against her console. “Shields down to forty-four percent...and we’ve got TIEs coming our way.” Again and again, the ship was rocked as it floated, dead in space. “Have we still got weapons?”
“Not without power.” Calen told her. “The auxiliaries aren’t going to keep us flying, much less fight back against anything.”
“Shields at forty-three percent.” Tessa said, reading the slowly dimming terminal. “No, wait...thirty-eight…”
“Niyasa, c’mon!” Calen yelled.
“Thirty-three...twenty-six…”
“Don’t need the countdown, thanks!” Calen snapped. “Start charting a path through hyperspace for when-” The engines hummed back into life. “There we go!” With power restored, Calen took aim and fired at the point of origin for the tractor beam. Three laser blasts saw it blasted into atoms and the ship freed.
“Path charted. It’s gonna take us right over Gesaril!” Tessa said.
“Awesome!” Calen said, more than happy to punch it. Even with their course correction, the TIEs remained in hot pursuit. They remained well within the sensors. “Any luck with the shields?”
“Not so much.” Niyasa said as she came back up, resuming her spot. “I could only stabilize it at twenty-two percent. It should be enough to get us out of here.”
“Should?” Tessa asked.
“Statistically speaking.” The Mrlssi coughed.
“Well, it’ll have to do.” Calen said, moving along the path that Tessa had programmed in, making variations every so often to get out of the way of the attacks. They were cresting within the outermost layer of Gesaril’s atmosphere as they took yet another hit.
“Eighteen percent!” Tessa shouted. The entire ship and everyone within it suddenly lurched forward...and then stopped. “What in the hell?”
“We’ve...stopped.” Calen said. No matter how much he accelerated, the vessel would not move. They were caught again. “That tractor beam can’t possibly have this great a range!”
“It’s not a tractor beam.” Niyasa chirped. “How are you not feeling that?” It was only then that Calen realized the question was directed at him.
“Me?”
“The TIEs are breaking off engagement.” Tessa said. “That’s at least one problem solved.” Suddenly, an alarm went off. “Oh, spoke too soon…”
“Engines are failing!” Niyasa reported. The whole ship was being pulled downward toward the nearest center of gravity - the planet of Gesaril...
The crash that followed was sudden and violent. Niyasa had barely kept the ship together through what seemed like sheer dumb luck. The shields failed thankfully just after they’d fallen through into the atmosphere proper. Calen had done his best to steer them toward a clearing in a sea of large, gnarled tropical trees. He’d missed it by several kilometers as the Imperial prison ship tore through the terrain, taking down tree after tree as they bent and snapped beneath its massive bulk.
The crash webbing had deployed. The ship had finally, finally come to a stop, surrounded by the jungle that it hadn’t destroyed in its descent. Calen finally allowed himself to breathe again. He could feel every muscle aching from how he’d been jarringly thrown around, but he was alive.
“Niyasa? Rook? Tessa?” Calen called out. The lighting coming through from Gesaril’s sun wasn’t sufficient to illuminate the whole of the cockpit. Calen theorized that they must have landed at some point in the late afternoon.
“I’m alright.” Niyasa’s groan could be heard behind him. Rook’s growling could likewise be heard, though muffled somewhat. Looking back, Calen witnessed the Wookiee having been slammed back into his seat by the crash webbing.
“Tessa?”
“Uh...did someone get the number of...whatever that was?” Tessa’s voice groaned out from her seat, covered in the crash webbing as well. Calen quickly pulled himself free and went over to assist her in removing herself. She jerked from his hands as he did so. “I’ve got it!”
“Geez, take it easy! I was trying to help!” Calen held up his hands, palms open to her, in protest.
“Well, I don’t want any help from you!” Tessa snapped as she pulled herself free. “We go through all that mess back in the prison and now we’re on a quarantined planet for who knows what reason with a crashed ship and no real means to fix it, so we’re probably going to die here!”
“Tessa, we-” Niyasa started, having gone over to pull Rook free.
“I really don’t think you should be giving me any grief!” Calen replied. “After all, it was your codes that weren’t working to get our escape route open! I thought you Rebels were supposed to be experts!”
“You both, we ought to-”
“How dare you even talk to me like that?” Tessa snapped at Calen. “I’ve done plenty of ops that went along just fine. If you hadn’t brought back those Stormtroopers, I would have had time to take the lockdown out when we were still on the deck! But you had to bring them back after running off on your suicide mission and-”
“HEY!” Niyasa shouted, getting the attention of both. “This isn’t helping! Let’s figure out exactly where we’ve landed. I may have an idea.” With that, she headed back for the rear door and...it didn’t open. “Rook, do you mind?” The Wookiee lumbered over and pressed against the door, forcing it to slide open. “Right. Thank you.” The furry creature growled and nodded. “Now...if I remember correctly, there are at least two speeder bikes in the cargo hold. Provided they still work, we can use them.”
“Speeder bikes aren’t going to give us the parts we need.” Tessa insisted.
“In a sense, they will.” Niyasa said.
“What in the hell do you mean?” Tessa snapped, clearly still irritated.
“Take five, Tessa. You and Rook can stay here, Calen and I will go out.” Niyasa told her.
“Out where?” Calen asked.
“Out.” Niyasa pointed a claw toward the cargo hold. Calen did not look back to Tessa, though he could feel her eyes on him as he moved past her. “Don’t take it too hard. She’s not in the best of moods.”
“That I can sympathize with.” Calen muttered as they moved down the corridor...and found the body of Ordos once again. Calen stared at it. It had clearly been thrown around by the crash, showing some heavy bruising. It was strange to Calen, in death the man seemed...peaceful.
“We’ll tend to him later.” Niyasa told him. Calen didn’t like the thought of just leaving it...him...there.
“No, I want to bury him.” Calen said. “Or set a pyre. Something.” The Mrlssi hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
“I think there’s some ignition fluid we could use.” Niyasa intoned. “Just need some wood.” Calen pressed the button to activate the rear hatch, which opened and provided a ramp downward. Behind them, where they had come, deep uprootings of the ground were filled with utterly destroyed trees.
“I have a strange feeling that isn’t going to be too hard.” Calen said darkly. Over the next few hours, Calen did indeed gather several bunches of wood with Niyasa’s help, eventually, even Tessa and Rook came out to join in. They laid Ordos out, after stripping him of all by the tunic and leggings he wore, upon the makeshift pyre and set it ablaze with the fluid. Calen stepped back, watching the flames leaping up to consume.
“I’m sorry, Calen.” Niyasa said, offering a small, sad smile. Calen wasn’t sure how to answer her, or even if he was capable. At the moment, words were lost to him. Now, he was the last one of the crew of the Dawn. Caius, Burke, Santo, Beedee, and now Ordos had been consumed by this adventure. For that night, he resolved, he’d just stare at the fire and remember. Hours had passed and it was well and truly dark when Niyasa spoke again. “Tomorrow, we’ll have to go out.”
“And do what?” Calen asked. The tears had been shed, quietly. He felt the looming weight of fatigue upon him, not remembering the last time he had gotten a restful sleep. The worst part of it was the knowledge that this wasn’t over. Tessa and Rook already had returned to the skeleton of a ship they had. Niyasa gestured for Calen to follow her, and he did so. It was safer than remaining outside at any rate.
“Look for our way out.” Niyasa said. “I wouldn’t worry. The Force is with us.”
“The Force?” Calen asked.
“You have a lot to learn, Calen.” The Mrlssi said as they ascended the ramp. “But yes, Calen Darkhaven. The Force is with you.”
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