As the Vanguard's ramp lowered, Kadira limped out into the snow once more. Her knee was beginning to feel better since she had applied the bacta, but putting weight on it was still painful.
"Next time you get to go in the tunnel with the nasty pests and the homicidal senator, Ran," she muttered. "I'll stay behind and get shot at in the base."
She had put the Vanguard down behind a rather large snowdrift that was less than a kilometer away from Ran's base. She had seen nothing from the air to even hint at what state the base might be in, making her more than a little apprehensive.
It didn't take her long to reach the entrance she had disarmed the guard at when she had first arrived planet-side. Cautiously she dropped into a crouch, moving slowly and quietly. What had been a small entrance had been blasted wide enough to fit the Vanguard inside. Apparently Ran had closed a sturdy set of durasteel doors once Kadira had left for the tunnels, but they had been reduced to twisted pieces of metal hanging from a shattered frame. Whoever had invaded this place had obviously been using some pretty heavy ordinance, and using it well. Kadira swung her rifle down from her shoulder as she stepped inside, her HUD automatically adjusting to the darkness. Whatever had blown through the doors had also knocked out most of the lights. She could feel the slick ice beneath her booted feet, causing her to move even more carefully than she might normally have done. Kadira looked around, rifle pressed against her shoulder in case the attacker was still nearby. She was forced to step around more than one pile of debris, careful to move silently. The whole base was a disaster. Parts of the roof and walls had caved in, and those remaining were scorched with signs of blaster fire. Kadira could hear the few supports still left groaning under the weight of the snow and ice that was waiting to cave in on the rest of the place. All the equipment had been destroyed, either by the falling debris or well thrown grenades. Even the durasteel pieces of flooring were pitted and scarred. More than once Kadira found herself stumbling over some unseen obstacle or dip in the floor.
"Is someone there?"
Kadira spun, her rifle pointed in the direction of the voice. Slowly, she moved closer, her finger hovering over the trigger. She wouldn't put it past her copycat to leave a recorded sound to lure any rescuers into a trap. When she came around a pile of debris, she found the young guard she had disarmed the last time she was here. He was leaning against the debris, his arm cradled over his chest. Lowering her rifle, Kadira rushed closer, dropping to her knees beside him and placing her hand on his arm.
"Bucket-head…" he murmured in recognition, his eyes tracing the scars of her helmet. "She said you'd come back here. Said to tell you… tell you that you'd lost the game…"
"K'uur," Kadira ordered. "I don't give a hutt's eye what she said," she added, forcing herself to keep her voice light. Gently, she took his arm and pulled it away from the wound in his chest. Seeing it she winced, then reached into her belt for a pressure bandage. It had obviously been made by a vibroblade, probably a small one. Nevertheless, he was lucky. It could have been much worse.
"This is going to hurt," she warned before pressing the bandage to the wound. The young man blanched, but locked his jaw and remained silent. "Do you know if anyone else survived?" she asked, moving his hand so it was holding the bandage in place. He needed to get in a bacta tank, but she had to find Ran before she could get this man back to her ship.
The guard shook his head, still gritting his teeth. "Most… of the others were killed in the blast."
Kadira shook her head. "Ran commed me after the blast. Do you know where he went?"
The guard looked at her, seemingly trying to remember. "She… shot the others. Anybody left alive."
Kadira clenched her jaw, silently cursing in every language she knew. What kind of hut'uun did this?
"You have a name?" she asked, trying to force his mind away from the carnage he had probably witnessed.
"Tyron," he said, nodding once.
"Ok, Tyron. I need you to put pressure on this bandage; can you do that for me? I need to look for Ran, just in case. Then I'll get you to my ship where we can take care of that wound."
Tyron nodded and Kadira squeezed his shoulder gently before moving away. She brought her rifle back up as she searched, though she was guessing the attacker was long gone. Most of the people she found were beyond help, causing her to grip her rifle harder. This was wrong, all of it.
A low moan caught her attention and she scrambled towards it, her feet slipping on the patches of ice that covered the floor. She spun around a corner, rifle up, only to find herself staring down at the barrel of a blaster pistol. Looking past the muzzle, she saw Ran, his jaw clenched with pain. One leg was trapped under a support beam, though it looked like he'd been trying to dig in the icy snow around it to free himself. He was twisted around at an awkward angle, his hand shaking as he held the blaster. A gash in his forehead explained the matted blood in his hair and eyebrows.
"Ran, it's me. It's Kadira," Kadira spoke, lowering her rifle slowly and removing her helmet so he could see her face better in the dark. There were no lights here that would let him recognize the details of her armor like Tyron had.
"Force, Kadira," Ran breathed out a sigh of relief, lowering the blaster.
"How in the world did you manage to avoid getting shot?" Kadira asked, moving around his other side to inspect his trapped leg. "Almost everyone else is dead."
"I guess our copycat was in a hurry. I'm pretty sure I blacked out when the support came down on me. By the time I was conscious, she was already on the other side of the room," Ran answered, his voice dark. "She must have taken me for dead."
Kadira glanced up at him for a moment before focusing her attention back on his leg. "How likely are your pants to catch on fire?" she asked, looking down at the flame launcher she had equipped to her left gauntlet.
"You are not going to set me on fire, Kadira."
"I was actually going to try to melt the ice, di'kut," Kadira responded dryly. She stood up and put her shoulder against the beam. "Guess we'll do this the hard way. When I start to push, pull your leg out as fast as you can, cityboy. Got it?"
Ran nodded and Kadira shoved her weight against the beam, gritting her teeth as it started to inch upwards. She felt like her knees were just about to give out when Ran let out a triumphant shout, yanking his leg free. Kadira let the beam go, wincing and rubbing the knee the kretch had stung. Ran pulled himself to his feet, hobbling slightly as he walked.
"You're going to have quite the scar, cityboy. I'm sure all the ladies will think it looks quite roguish, you'll be very popular," Kadira observed, settling her helmet back over her head.
Ran lifted his hand to touch the gash, wincing slightly.
"Let's get out of this place," he said grimly, and Kadira nodded in agreement. They moved carefully, using Kadira's HUD to avoid slipping on the ice. They helped Tyron to his feet as they reached the door, careful of his injury. Kadira supported him and gave directions to Ran on how to reach the ship as they walked. Their progress was slow, thanks to their injuries and the difficulties the slick ice presented. When they came in sight of the Vanguard, Kadira stopped in her tracks, staring.
"Sithspit. You have got to be joking," she handed Tyron over to Ran and sprinted towards her ship. She rushed up the lowered ramp, taking only a moment to glance at the keypad. A slicer's spike had been inserted and left behind, no doubt in haste. Kadira didn't stop to pull it out, knowing it had done its work. She took the steps up to the second level two at a time, bursting into the room where the senator had been. Sure enough, the force cage was empty and deactivated. Another spike had been thrust into the controls and Kadira knelt beside it, allowing her HUD to do a scan. As she expected, it was Imperial in make, only issued to someone with high clearance. High enough quality to bypass the Vanguard's security systems, no small feat. With a muttered curse, Kadira yanked it out and went to see if Thorn's cage showed the same signs of tampering. When she palmed open the door, she stopped short, startled to find Thorn still in his cage. He lurched to his feet, eyes wide and mouth open, but Kadira had already palmed the door shut once more.
She passed Ran on her way to the cockpit, but waved off his questions, instead pointing him to the med bay.
"Get yourself and Tyron patched up. I need to see something."
Ran nodded, seeming to realize she hadn't reached any conclusions.
Typing commands into the data system, Kadira brought up the security files. Leaning forward, she watched the screen carefully, feeling her anger slowly growing.
"Aruetyc,"she snarled, slamming her hand down. "You betrayed us."
Kadira stalked from the cockpit into the cargo hold. Sliding a hidden panel, she punched in a code and watched as a small compartment slid out of the wall. It was only slightly bigger than the size of a standard datapad, meant to be used to hide just such a thing. Kadira snatched the one she had placed there after locking the senator and Thorn in their force cages. She had taken it from Dain, not wanting to leave the woman anything that could be thrown at Kadira's head again.
Kadira flipped through it rapidly as she walked up the stairs and into the data room on the second level of the ship. Everything was in code, something that seemed only to confirm Kadira's suspicions. Plugging the datapad into one of the computers, she almost didn't hear Ran enter the room over the computer's quiet beeps.
"Is she gone?" he asked, his voice quiet. She thought she even heard a note of defeat in his tone.
"She's gone," Kadira confirmed, still bent over the datapad, entering commands into the computer now scanning it. "But there was an Imperial issued slicer in both the ramp and the controls to her force cage."
"So the Imperials took her," Ran concluded, rubbing his face with one hand. "Most likely an agent, judging from the equipment they used."
"Wrong."
Ran looked up sharply. "You just said-"
"I know what I said, let me finish. Thorn knew your plan, start to finish, which means someone leaked that information. Your base was hit in a professional style, a contract killing. Dain was let out of her cage while Thorn was left behind. Our copycat knew exactly where to look for the senator. Dain was also too good with a blaster. She shot me in the back, in the dark, and almost hit me in the head when she fired again. When we were escaping the tunnels, her aim was always dead on. She recognized the make of my rifle as well as the fact I was using an anti-armor attachment. She nearly shot me again when I was about to enter the codes to the ship after we got out of the tunnels. Her accent was Coruscanti, though it was faint. She's probably had some training to disguise it-"
"You were paying that close of attention while being chased by kretch down a tunnel?" Ran interrupted, brows raised.
"She shot me, Ran. Mando'ad draar digu. A Mandalorian never forgets. But that's beside the point. Pair those things with the security feed that shows her leaving willingly with our copycat and searching for this datapad…" she tapped the datapad she was scanning with one finger, looking up and fixing her gaze on Ran. She waited for him to connect the dots, curious to see if he reached the same conclusion she had.
Ran let out a slow breath, running one hand through his already disheveled hair. Finally, he spoke.
"By the Force... She wasn't taken by an Imperial agent."
Kadira shook her head. "She is one."
A/N: Thoughts? I love to see reviews :) They seriously do make me smile like an idiot.
One more chapter on its way :) More of an epilogue, really :) Don't worry, Kadira and Ran will be back in the next story ;)
