The fire began seconds after the shuddering of the first impact. Stenches of melting plastics and burning metals were carried through the tiny cockpit in waves of black smoke. 'my friends, what have I done? ' The Jedi master felt another volley of laserfire hit the rear of his Delta-7. The following explosion shoved his body forward, slamming it into his contol panel. 'Not like this.' Plo Koon clenched the muscles around his mouth and forced himself to ignore the rapidly rising heat, concentrating on the Force, as if reaching for the embrace of an old friend. He thought he heard the comm crackling through the sounds of fire and overlapping explosions, and shuddering , tearing metal. "I'm so- genera-," then the fire consumed the atmosphere that remained in the cockpit and the resulting vaccuum collapsed the ship inward.

Grasping the Force and willing it into shape, Plo pushed back against each concussion wave, chunk of dismembered ship, and bout of flame as they flew at him, allowing his thick, Kel Dor skin to endure the many bits of shrapnel and relatively minor burns he could not spare the effort to stop. He felt the rapid increase of pressure as the wrekage that contained him plummeted to Kato Nemodia below. Plo shoved the breaking contol panel off his legs with the Force and pushed the fibroglass cover off of the cockpit. The ensuing rush of atmosphere into the cockpit caused what remained of the ruined starfighter to explode outward, not far, but enough to allow Plo to free himself and twist his body to face the approaching ground. Flaming wreckage plummeted around him, and he focused on extracting himself from the bulk of it with rapid pushes of the Force. It became a dance, dodging a moniter here and deflecting an engine there. He wove through the metal and emerged above the crumbling shell.

One of the great bridges that connected the cities below was maybe a thousand meters away. He had to slow his decent, or survival thusfar would be wasted.

Not breathing, Plo gathered strength, feeling the Force build potential energy as a tightness in his chest

Then he let loose the power. Some padewans called the action a "Force blast", or some other adequetly descriptive term, but the name given to it by the archives was simply, "Release."

The rush of energy shoved him away from the wreckage and pushed against the atmosphere, bringing him to a momentary halt midair. Then he began falling once more. He drew power to himself once more but this time focused the blast dwonward. The bridge was 500 meters now and he loosed the energy again. As he restarted his fall, a buikding pressure behind him caused Plo to turn his head in time to see the plasteel panel before it slammed into him.

The Jedi's body felt the impact as a slap first, but soon seemed to him as to have the consistency of bacta. He could hear nothing over the roar of passing atmosphere, nor could he feel any pain thanks to his body's coping mechanisms, but Plo could only assume that he had several shattered bones and severely damaged other critical structures. Unable to move due to the momentum of the plasteel and unsure his body would be capeable of movement anyway, Plo guessed the bridge was 200 meters away, close enough to begin seeing horrified expressions on the faces of the fleeing beings below him. 'not like this'.

Every bit the Jedi Master, Plo marvelled that of all the functions his body could still preform, tears built under his goggles. 'not like this'

And every bit the Jedi Master, who sat on the Council and led armies, renowned for his telekenetic abilities, Plo Koon hardened his reslolve and reached out with the Force. 'not like this'.

The bridge grew closer and closer but Plo paid it no mind, focusing on himself and his plummeting plasteel trap. There was a terrible sound of destruction below him as the main disaster of a starship hit the bridge. The shockwave was what Plo waited for. 150 meters from his own firey end, the shockwave pushed against Plo at the same time he grasped the plasteel panel and willed it to stop.

The wave knocked it to the side and slowed its decent slightly, so Plo was no longer pinned beneath it, but still held against it at an angle by momentum. He doubled his efforts to hold the panel and felt it slow. 'not enough' he realized, and channeled his efforts differently. Plo used the Force to push himself off the panel, sliding to the edge and recieveing a huge gash across his chest before getting free.

50 meters and Plo retreated inside his mind. 40 and his speed was halved. 25 and he righted himself, merely drifting down as if on a breeze. 10 meters and he changed the direction of his decent, going first around the bridge, then under it.

He drifted to one city or the other, more concerned with landing than with where. Finally, dozens of meters below the bridge, below the evidence of his troop's betrayal that burned upon it, the Jedi came to rest in a dirty tunnel, on one of the lowest levels of the city.

And there, the Jedi Master laid on cold stone and prayed to the Force, 'not like this'.