Turbolaser fire cut through the sky like lightning from a storm. The night had been quiet - so quiet that Jedi Knight Aru Naus had began to wonder if their plan would even work the way it was intended to.
It felt as if the plan would work. If they were not all blasted into pieces first. She could sense the apprehension of her teammates around her. A few of them wondered if they had made the right decision, joining this team. The right decision in trusting their lives with her.
The twi'lek checked her crash webbing for what felt like the hundredth time since the battle had began. She had never intentionally been shot down before, and the thought of it still wasn't particularly appealing. She concentrated on silencing these thoughts, knowing that her team mates' anxieties would only feed off of her own.
The Jedi was in one of several dozen ships of spread out across the hanger of the Absolution. Her GA-12 Blast Boat was battle-scarred and blackened, but supposedly it still functioned. Of the nine person team, hers was one of two craft designated to be escape vehicles. Fearing that their larger size would attract more fire on the way down, each of the escape vehicles only had one passenger inside.
Escape. Now that's getting ahead of ourselves. Aru's lekku gave a nervous twitch as the Absolution sustained another heavy hit. She reached out to her friends around her, trying to convey a feeling of preparedness - to make them feel ready. It would not be long now.
Her silent count down reached it's end and she bowed her head, gripping the sides of her seat tightly. Distantly, she heard the sounds of the explosives going off. She could almost visualize it in her mind - the piercing white light tracing it's way along the underside of the strike-class cruiser. The controlled demolition would rip the hull apart down the center, sending the ship falling in two directions. As it fell, the charges planted near the hanger would blast it open, spewing ship after ship into a free fall inside the planet's atmosphere.
The team felt relatively calm around her, given the circumstances, but one in particular still seemed unable to control their apprehension. She could feel it pulsing between them all - spreading like errant electricity through calm waters. The rest of the rest of the team was doing their best to stay focused, but she could feel the distraction growing.
Aru bowed her head and let the stillness of the force quiet her racing thoughts and feelings. It came over her like cold water muting a flame, stifling any insecurities or stress she had about the situation around her. She knew that whatever happened next, was the will of the force. The empty blackness displayed through the view port in front of her served as a perfect foundation on which to build her trance.
The Absolution gave a massive mechanical roar as it split down the middle. The ships inside the hanger were rocked from their resting places - some even moving so far as to smash in to others. The Jedi felt a momentary spike of fear ebbing in from those around her, but quickly extended the reach of her own inner peace to engulf it. Once she had ensured that she herself was locked into a state of peace, she began to extend the feeling outwards - gripping her team with the calm stillness of her mind. It smoothed over the rough patches of doubt and anxiety, finally unifying them all in one linked sense of security.
The ship finally reached the approximate altitude and the final charges detonated. Their ships were sent reeling within the hanger, and for a moment the twi'lek woman considered the fact that not all of their ships would survive the destruction of the Absolution. She heard the roar of the wind and finally saw a sign of what was to come - massive clouds traced in gold and purple as the day's last light slipped away. Her view of the outside was only a quick glance - a flash across the viewport in front of her as the Blast Boat spun wildly across the metal floor.
Briefly, Aru caught glimpses of her team mates - their own crafts spraying sparks as they to were sent scraping wildly around towards the edge of the hanger. She dug deeper still into her calming trance, letting the wild spinning of her ship and the images through it's viewport fade away from her mind as she continued to hold together a peaceful connection between her team. The rest of them seemed to be following along well, despite that wild action.
In seconds, the rest of the hanger had disintegrated around them and they were now all tumbling free through the Takodonian atmosphere. The sky showed one massive flash of blue light after the other as lightning, laser fire, and proton torpedoes all mixed to create a storm of chaos around them.
As the Blast Boat hit the open air, Aru felt the sensation of her body being pulled upward. Gravity seemed to lose it's effect over anything inside of the ship. There was a massive crashing sound from the rear of the ship as one of the storage containers broke lose of it's hold. She could hear the sound of their weapons and survival supplies being strewn across the cargo area, but did not let this bother her.
Concentrating with everything she had, the twi'lek woman did her best to wrap the small ship completely within her will. She felt her team mates do the same in each of their respective vehicles and, as they fell, she began to get a decent idea of where they were all at in relation to each other.
Of the two dozen damaged space craft being released from the Absolution as it was blown apart, four of them carried members of the strike team. Aru tried to relay a feeling of togetherness as she imagined their crafts drawing closer to each other. She could feel the others pushing for the same, hoping to arrange the ships so that they would land near each other.
All around them, the sky erupted into crimson light. Clawcraft swarmed the fallen ships and they began to sustain heavy fire. Within seconds, two of the craft had been completely decimated. She felt no cries of pain or shock through the force, and for the first time Aru smiled to herself. The Chiss seemed to be picking off exactly the ships they had intended them too - the nicer, new-looking craft that had been programmed to power up as they hit free-fall. Their enemies were quite obviously picking and choosing what they shot down, relying on their scanners to tell them which ships had power - and their eyes, telling them which ships looked as if they could be a threat.
As the ground rushed up to meet them, the Clawcraft gave one final run through the group of falling ships. A fresh wave of blasts peppered the group, strafing some of the occupied ships and destroying a couple more of the others. Then, the squadron looped around and headed back for the battle above.
Now! Aru sent the thought out with urgency, hoping they would all understand what she meant. She reached up to small silver device strapped to her vest. As she pressed the top button on it, a massive parachute erupted from the rear of her ship. Her downward momentum pulled strongly against the camouflage parachute - the front end of the ship was whipped forward as the rear end's descent was slowed. The Jedi slammed hard against her crash webbing restraints - putting them to more of a test than anything previous had.
Aru sighed in relief as she counted three other parachute bursts. She could feel her allies' descent slowing with her own, and a second later she could hear the abandoned ships begin to crash land. Smashing against the vast, abandoned forest below them, the empty ships crackled through tree lines or scraped against metal as they met the debris of the Absolution.
In her joy, the Jedi had nearly released her own ship from her control. She realized suddenly that the treeline had become very close. Quickly, she did her best to focus her will and tried to pull up on her vehicle through the force - hoping to at least cushion the final few seconds of her fall.
The grey blur of stormy skies transformed into the rough-and-tumble green of trees smashing beneath the weight of her ship. After only a second of this, a sharp crack signified that Aru's ship had found the ground. It was the last thing she heard before she blacked out.