Star Wars: Tails of the Old Republic

Chapter 004
Endar Spire – Dark Jedi

"What are you doing?!" Trask shouted.

Tails didn't answer. The adolescent fox stretched out his namesakes, both of which began glowing with a fiery, golden-yellow aura. The air crackled between them, and they both suddenly flattened into living blades. In his mind, Tails already plotted his course. Like a hand compressing a metal coil spring, Tails scrunched himself into a ball. Trask lay down covering fire, but couldn't score any hits. The silver-armored Sith momentarily forgot about the little orange furball, and turned their attention to the wounded Republic soldier.

That instant, Tails struck. Like a bolt of greased lightning, Miles Prower shot between the Sith troops, bouncing off consoles, chairs, walls and support columns, whipping his tails about all the while. Tails made a complete arc around the bridge, zig-zagging to, from, and around the hapless goons. The Mobian did not employ great force into his strikes; rather, he delicately nipped at his opponents' forms, his living weapons slicing through their armor like so much tissue paper. In less than ten seconds, the fifteen Sith soldiers occupying the bridge were either dead or incapacitated. Tails landed were Trask was crouching. His twin tails returned to normal: soft and poofy.

Trask's mouth hung open, totally speechless. He eyed the blood dribbling off of the boy's tails.

Outwardly, the adolescent fox put on a mask of serenity, but inside, his heart was shattering. He couldn't believe he had just been party to the violent deaths of several dozen people. Yes, they were all trying to kill him, but the reality of his actions horrified him. Never before had he been thrust into a situation when he had to kill his way out. He had always been aware of the destructive force he commanded, but he had always used it against Robotnik's machines – not living people!

"Bastila isn't here," Tails remarked. "Neither is Carth; we'd better find a means of escape before our enemies outside turn this ship into space debris. How's your shoulder? Can you move?"

Trask gulped, and got to his feet. He looked... afraid of the boy. "H-h-how?"

Tails sighed. "It's called Chaos. I'm a Chaos wielder, like many of my friends on Mobius. Now come on, we probably don't have any time to spare!"

"R-right, there should be escape pods just beyond that starboard bulkhead!"

"Good. I'll take point."

'Or rather, continue taking point', Tails thought to himself.

Despite not being familiar with any of his surroundings, Tails had stayed slightly in front of his Human ally this whole time. Was he really trying to shield Trask? Perhaps, but it's not like the six-foot-tall hominid could hide behind the four-foot-tall vulpimorph. The young Mobian desperately tried to keep his mind off the lives he had just snuffed out, but it proved impossible. He kept remembering all the dead friends he had failed to protect...

They hurried through the next set of hallways, though with Trask's injury, it was more like a brisk walk. Several Sith troopers attacked them; Tails cut down each one. They paced down a long corridor, when Tails stopped abruptly at an adjacent bulkhead door.

"What's wrong, Tails?" Trask asked nervously.

"There... is something behind here. I feel... a huge concentration of Chaos energy behind this door!"

Unthinking, Tails reached up and touched the override switch. The bulkhead flew open, and a Human clad in an obsidian black robes, a head taller than Trask, smirked wickedly.

"Yikes!"

"Damn! Another Dark Jedi!"

"Well, what do we have here? A wounded Republic rat, and a furry little freak show!"

Without warning, the Dark Jedi's staff-like weapon activated, and a crimson blade emanated from both ends of the hilt, and the black-clad Human bolted towards Tails, aiming to decapitate him.

Tails almost didn't react in time! The Mobian fox fell over backwards, twisting away from the energy blade. He lost five whiskers, and the entire left side of his face felt hot. Seeing a narrow opening, Tails jabbed the man in the ribs with his elbow.

"OOF; how the HELL did you avoid that?!" the Dark Jedi roared furiously.

Miles Prower cursed silently as the man lunged at him again, twirling his weapon at blinding speed. It took every ounce of mental concentration for Tails to dodge his swings and thrusts. Tails couldn't use his twin appendages to attack, either; he had to employ them as counterbalances in order to evade properly.

The boy ducked, jumped, twisted, twirled, spun, curled, kicked, fell, rolled, leapt, bounded, bolted, flipped, and writhed every which-way in a futile effort to keep himself in one piece. Once, twice, thrice Tails was nicked by the Dark Jedi's lightsaber, leaving black stripes were fur and flesh used to be, burning right through his clothes and armor. Not once did the Human leave an opening the adolescent Mobian could exploit. Tails knew he was losing.

'Sonic... help me!'

"Hold still, mutant!"

Suddenly, the Human thrust a palm in Tails' direction, and an invisible wall of energy smashed into the boy's chest with the force of a high-speed truck. Tails felt his ribs implode.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!"

The force of the energy wave caused the ninety-pound fox to sail across the corridor before crashing into a sealed bulkhead. Completely winded, Tails collapsed onto the deck, blood gushing from his nose and mouth. He couldn't move.

"Well, that takes care of you. Now where'd –"

Two incendiary grenades rolled right under the Jedi.

"Oh, SH—"

The grenades detonated, and the dark-robed Human was engulfed in flames as he flew several feet. His face became an emergency brake, and he lay momentarily stunned.

Trask hobbled over to where Tails lay and picked the Mobian up in his arms. Trask's shoulder burned in protest.

"Come on, son! You're not dead yet! We're getting the hell out of here!" Trask declared. Tails only gurgled, then erupted into a fit of coughing and wheezing.

Trask ran as fast as his legs could carry him, Tails slung over his good shoulder. He was just about to turn into the next open bulkhead, when a powerful gust of wind swept him off his feet. Trask fell on his arse, and Tails landed on top of him.

"Leaving so soon?"

A somewhat burnt Jedi sped towards them, double-bladed lightsaber ready for a killing stroke. Trask panicked and became paralyzed with fright; Tails had re-gathered enough of his marbles to realize what was about to happen. Unable to think of a better solution, Tails collected all of his remaining Chaos energy and channeled it into his tails!

The Sith swordsman swung with all his might, but a Chaos-imbued tail rose to intercept the blow, the other plunged into the floor as an anchor. Sparks sprayed in every direction as the Dark Jedi's lightsaber reacted violently with the raw Chaos energy flowing through Tails' tail. He was actually parrying the lightsaber!

The stench of charred meat and cooked fur filled the Mobian's nostrils, and he could feel his tail going numb. Thrusting to one side, Tails managed to knock the saberstaff out of the Jedi's hands. Leaping onto the man's torso, Tails began pummeling the man's face with his fists. The Dark Jedi fell on his backside, and tried to claw the fox off of him with one hand, and reached across the floor for his fallen lightsaber with the other.

Miles felt a hand grab him by the scruff of his neck.

"Wha...? HEY!"

Trask Ulgo immediate tossed the boy through the open bulkhead.

"Tails, find the escape pods! I'll hold him off as long as I can! I've seen the true potential you have; you will be FAR more valuable to the Republic than I ever could be! Now, go! Find Bastila! Guard her with your life!"

"No, Trask don't! NOOOOOOOO!"

With that, Trask sealed the bulkhead and busted the control panel. Pulling a concealed shortsword out of his armor, he turned to face his opponent. By this time, the Dark Jedi had already retrieved his lightsaber.

"Come and get some, Sith scumbag!"

On the other side of the bulkhead, Tails pounded the door, weeping angrily.

"No! No, no, no, NO! I've failed... I failed again! I failed... to protect him..."

Tails headset chimed again, and the same man as before appeared on the eyepiece.

"Miles Prower, can you hear me? This is Carth Onasi. I'm tracking you through the Endar Spire's life support monitors. You are the only other Republic soldier left alive on this ship. Bastila has already escaped, and now there is only one functional escape pod remaining. I can't hold out much longer! You must hurry to my coordinates with all speed, or I with have no choice but to leave you behind! Please, Miles, hurry! You're nearly here!"

Miles "Tails" Prower wiped the tears from his face and limped to Carth's coordinates as fast as his broken body would let him. The boy tore off his ruined shirt and vest so he could move faster, wincing from his lightsaber wounds.

As he rounded a corner, he found a single Sith soldier standing patrol near a door. Putting on as much speed as possible, Tails ran at him, and the goon barely noticed the diminutive furball pounce on him. With his one good tail, the boy looped it around the man's shoulder and wrenched his limb out of its socket. Putting another loop around his torso, Tails lifted the man off the floor and bashed him face-first into the wall until he didn't move.

After opening the door, Tails was fired upon by two more soldiers. Crouching low, the boy quickly weaved back and forth across the floor, and before the first soldier could react, he jumped into the man's face, pounded the daylights out of his skull, then surfed his head down to the floor. As the second soldier turned, Tails scooped up the first man's rifle and shot him.

"Be careful," Carth said over his headset. "There's only one more room between you and the escape pod bay, and there's a whole squad of Sith troopers on the other side of that door! They're trying to break through the bay security door. In another minute or two, I may need to launch without you!"

Tails leaned his back up against a wall to pant and wheeze. All his strength and stamina was gone now, and his will was too badly broken to continue fighting.

"You need to find some way to thin their numbers," Carth continued. "You could try repairing the damaged assault droid next to you, if you know how; or, you could use the computer terminal to access the Endar Spire's security systems and use them against the Sith. Hurry!"

With a groan, Tails pried himself off the wall, and he struggled not to fall as the room spun from dizziness and the ship heaved from enemy fire. He noticed the humanoid robot near him and was bemused by how similar it looked to one of Eggman's robots. He pulled off the damaged metal plating where it had been shot, and was astonished by how complex it all was inside. He didn't think he could fix the damaged components without the proper tools and parts, so he left it alone.

The computer terminal was more promising, even though the interface was all written in bizarre alien glyphs. He saw live security footage of the squad of soldiers on the other side of the door, trying to break into the escape pod bay. Unfortunately, all the security systems appeared to be corrupted, and he didn't know if that was from damage or malicious software overriding the systems. All commands to activate the defense turrets failed, but he saw one possibility: a damaged electrical transformer.

Thinking quickly, the boy shunted as much power as the terminal would let him, and the power conduit started to overheat and spark violently. One of the soldiers noticed and tried to inform his commander, but by the time the CO looked, it was too late. The transformer exploded, and bright arcs of electricity danced across the room, killing or incapacitating everyone inside. Then, the whole room went dark.

Tails went inside and scooped up various items from the fallen bodies, then the bay door opened.

"You've made it, just in time!" said Carth. "Come on, this ship is about to be blown to smithereens, and that pod is our only ticket out of here! We can hide out on the planet below for a while. Come on!"

Carth sort of shoved the battered Mobian into the escape pod. With a considerable bang, the pod shot out from the ship just as the Endar Spire blossomed into a raging inferno and exploded. The last thing Miles remembered was the shockwave hitting the pod.