The two charges detonated a split second apart, blasting the walkway from its supports as it twisted and tossed us in all directions. I couldn't see much immediately after the explosions, temporarily blinded by the flashes. All I heard was the heavy whump as I landed hard on my back, Tops whistling frantically as he fired his boosters midair...and Cordira's penetrating scream was silenced a moment later with a deafening crash. I was so stunned, and my lungs refused to work because of the sudden trauma, turning each second into moments of sheer agony and panic. I couldn't move, I couldn't even think until I was finally able to gasp, desperately drawing in as deeply as I could to fill my chest. I had to cough roughly to force it all back out, but just thankful to be breathing again, I continued, nearly choking each time. Still in a daze from the fall, I moved carefully to test my arms and legs, sure I had broken at least one of them. Nothing protested, though, and once the room stopped spinning, I sat up and looked around me.

I had just barely landed on a narrow outcropping, and if I moved much more, I was in danger of falling even further. The stone under me, glowing the same bright blue as everywhere else, was surprisingly dry, but just as cold under my hand as the water-chilled air was on my face. I angled myself just enough to look down to the right, but I couldn't see anyone below me. When I began to look over my left side, though, Tops flew up right in front of me, startling me so much I almost lost my balance. Thankfully, he didn't look to have taken much damage, having been able to maneuver around the falling debris.

"Tops! Where's Dad? Where's Cordira?"

The hovering astromech zoomed aside and turned to look down toward the pool at the cavern's floor, whistling anxiously, and I saw why. Almost completely submerged but resting atop a shallow shelf at the pool's edge, Dad was laying on his back, his head only lolling side to side with the waves still cresting from his impact. I couldn't tell if he was still breathing, or if he was even still alive from my position so far away.

"Get him out of the water!"

I watched in paralyzed fear as Tops rapidly obeyed and landed in the water beside Dad, extending a long, mechanical arm from his torso to grip his jacket and drag him away from the pool. Once he was clear, I didn't even have to give Tops the order; the droid quickly returned to Dad's side and carefully rolled him up from his back, roughly turning him onto his stomach to hopefully give him the jolt he needed to start breathing again...

Until I heard his choking coughs echoing up to me, I wasn't sure it had worked. He sounded like he was coughing up lungfuls of water, but he remained face-down on the glowing, rocky floor.

"Dad!"

Finally moving, he brought his arms to his side and propped himself up, continuing to cough as he turned over and sat up. He seemed just as dazed as I had been, looking numbly up in my general direction. I waved to get his attention and yelled for him again.

"Derek? Are you...okay?"

He was slowly coming back to his senses, but he sounded as weak as I would have expected after nearly drowning. Though he was still insensitive to pain, as he had been since I was very young, he wasn't invincible. Surely he had some kind of injury from the explosion or from falling from that height; I could already see blood running down the side of his face.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Can you see Cordira?"

He looked around blankly, but when he stopped, I knew he had found her, and she was directly underneath me. Without waiting for any instructions from him, I spotted a ledge to my right that was just wide enough to land on...but it was much further down than I had judged. I landed so hard on my feet, I thought they would've shattered from the stress, but I determinedly kept going to the next ledge below to the left. My foot slipped out from under me as I reached it, cracking my knee on the wall beside me, but nothing was going to stop me. I had to press on.

I must have zigzagged down more than four hundred meters to get to her, though I didn't know I had at first. Almost to the cavern's lowest level, I barely avoided landing atop the mangled remains of the walkway, and it wasn't until I saw her boot under it that I realized she had been crushed by it. In a state of panic and shock, I jumped around to the side, pulling loose debris from the pile when I could. When I finally cleared enough of the wreckage around her to see more of her...I felt my heart stop beating. The blasted walkway had fallen to the ground upside down, bent slightly and hovering just centimeters over her, but two durasteel support rods had pierced her, literally pinning her to the ground. She was slightly rolled onto her right side, and one of the rods penetrated her left lower abdomen at her waist, and the other was embedded in her left leg.

I froze, terrified. I had never seen such an injury, and I had no idea how to help it. Though she wasn't conscious, she was miraculously still breathing, yet I was beginning to fear that none of us were going to make it out of this mysterious tomb alive.

I turned back toward Tops and Dad and was surprised to see Dad on his feet, though he had to keep a hand on Tops' dome for balance. Soaking wet, he was shaking as he slowly stepped closer, but his eyes sharpened as he saw the look on my face. He and I both knelt down beside Cordira, determining what could be done for her, and thankfully, he could think more clearly than I could as he sized up the rods, carefully gripping them to gauge their thickness.

"Tops, can you cut through these?" When the droid whistled affirmatively and rolled into place beside us, Dad turned to me. "If we cut them loose from the walkway, we can at least get it away from her. I'm worried that if it shifts...it'll hurt her even more."

I nodded as I began shedding my jacket, covering her with it to protect her from the sparks that were about to fly. As Tops extended a small saw to the first rod, the one in her leg, I braced myself under the portion of the walkway that hung over her upper body, squatted down close to her but with my back against the durasteel, ready to accept its weight if it gave way. The saw's screeching echoed about the cavern tortuously, but it didn't take as long as I thought it would. As Tops cut all the way through the first rod, the wreckage gave a sickening lurch as it shifted a few centimeters sideways, but not down. When nothing else moved, though, I let go of a breath I hadn't realized I had been holding, nodding to Dad and Tops that I was ready for the last cut.

The second one, though, seemed to take an eternity to slice, as if the twisted mess of durasteel was determined to not surrender its captive. Dad even lined himself up beside Tops, holding on to the other end at Cordira's feet. I tensed all my muscles, preparing myself for quick action if needed...

The rest of what happened, I could only attribute to my unrefined Force abilities and sheer will to prevent any further harm to her. With the second rod cut, I felt the tremendous weight nearly smother me into the ground, but the more I focused, the more I pushed back...the lighter the load became. With Dad directing the opposite end, I fought with all my might, and then...the wreckage tumbled away harmlessly, sending dramatic crashes echoing through the cavern.

Severely weakened by the exertion I had hardly been conscious of, I collapsed to my knees just beside Cordira, catching my upper body with my hands. I couldn't draw deep enough breaths from what seemed like minutes, and my vision turned black, but when I could finally see again...I could tell she was beginning to wake up.