The entrance was unguarded, save one young brill in partial Terror Trooper armor. Rey had no issue with taking him out, and was already trying to work the door when he finally fell. She was panting, too. Sweat rolled off her in sheets. The blaster wound was giving her a delayed sting. She took a moment to learn against the massive building, regaining her breath. If the pain remained present, she gathered, she would live. The alternative, as always, was death.
What happened back there was bizarre. Didn't expect any part of that to work… It was too easy, wasn't it? Couldn't have been on purpose, it happened because one turned on the other. For me. Why?
She couldn't find an access mechanism - anyone with dependance on a constant guard might've placed the only mechanism inside, where someone could look down on the entrance and decide who would be let in. After a moment, looking up gave her view of a long oyostalk: the viewport from the inside. She'd need it to see her - not just that, but see her as friendly.
No matter what she would face, she knew she didn't have long. Just as well. But she'd need to get in. Would she have time to put on the guard's equipment?
If he's any indication, just a few bits will do. The mask, probably.
She turned, stooped beside the body, felt around for that mask. If she remembered right, there were two pieces to it. After a moment, she pulled both out of the guard's satchel. She put the mask on first, then the helmet over it, with some injury- or magnic-related clumsiness. How anyone could function through this was a mystery to her. It hummed faintly against her skull.
Tentatively, she took a few steps back and waved to the oyostalk. It turned itself downward to examine her. With any luck it would avoid seeing the injuries or non-regulation weapons.
She didn't have luck. She had a droid who could sneak into Net Station Tower Ash and plug into the door latch mainframe.
Beep beep beep.
She had to smile at that one. As she entered the facility she tossed the First Order helmet to the dust.
Inside was a bit deserted, almost spooky. The ever-constant hum she might as well have forgotten about suddenly lifted. She'd never heard her footsteps click against the floor quite like this before. The walls were colored in a strange way, not exactly intimidating but undoubtedly alien. Several hallways converged here, in some kind of front room.
Bee Bee rolled up from somewhere on her right. Still dragging Charlie behind him. How they hadn't gotten caught, she could only amount to "a bit of blending in".
"Where's the transmitter room?"
"We have the schematics. Keep up if you can," Charlie explained. Bee Bee turned rapidly, beeping once, and headed down the center corridor. Rey had seen the occasional framed picture before, but now she saw holo stills everywhere! And she recognized so many from various transmissions: the destruction of Death Star I. Vader and the Master Windu. Revan's two selves. The Clone Army.
Then doors started popping up. Most were locked. Not so much as a gonker pulled by them. She'd been in many a dead place before, too, but never one which should have been alive. A place like this, even to her, simply couldn't be operated without even this hallway being occupied to its fullest.
She brought her staff out, ignited it. This was deliberate. They might even be following a very Jakkui habit now: letting an enemy simmer before ambushing...
"Engdod vji dil'ii Empirosa!"
"For His Supremacy!"
And the battle resumed. Blaster fire exchanged from Everywhere to Everywhere Else. Junker's impulse kicked in and Rey was running, crouched low but still in full exposure of blaster fire. Bee Bee was still ahead of her. Green bolt crossed her vision one way, red and purple bolts another - or maybe the color said nothing of direction, which was most likely. If only she could do something crazy, get the two factions to either shut up or fall down; that would be nice.
Then she turned into one room in particular, and the civil war was left at the door, it seemed. And this room seemed to be completely unimportant. Hardly even maintenance, as there were hardly any cleaning supplies, only a drain-thing in one corner that she'd never seen before, could only guess at its function.
"Can't transmit from here," Rey commented aimlessly.
"No kidding. Good news is, we have ventilation." She glanced up without needing to really look.
"No, that won't fit me."
"It won't have to." But, in several ways, that was a lie. She would not sell them short by delivering them most of the way, primarily.
"I go with you. Simple as that." Beeeep. "Now, how do we get over there?"
Charlie needed a moment to deliberate on that. The light pattern on his dome looked to be blinking more slowly now than before. Bee Bee looked on at the computer in… concern? For a droid, to a junker, that seemed paradoxically complex, yet touching in some strange sense. Someone who cared for another. Either the broken pyramid on the ground didn't notice, or else didn't acknowledge that she could see.
"Ya see up there? That's our way through. Climb up, do a couple Arkimedians and drop near a transmission console. From there we clear the room, plug in, press 'send.'"
Simplified in Rey's mind: Simple plan, tricky execution.
She nodded. Outside, something decently large went off, most likely a grenade. One glance up at the ceiling grating told her the fast-talking droid was right. Not even with all the technologies yet unknown to her would she trust a full-sized human in there. And in most cases, why would a human ever be in there, outside right now.
There were people in the transmitter room. People everywhere. The droids - both of them - would need ample time, concentration and safety. Or even just one. Redundancy and all that. Someone was smart enough to know all would not go well.
She took a moment to memorize the hologram that Bee Bee showed her of their route.
"See you on the Otherside."
She opened the door and stepped out into the crossfire.
A good junker is never unprepared. Crouched behind a cracked-open door, she saw where the blast sources were - where there's a path, there's a target. She had her staff, and maybe she could try something with that razordisk. Plenty of others before resorting to limbs and teeth.
She pushed the door fully open with her back, almost twirling 'round to throw the disk. Just its sight was distracting enough for a time. Seasoned Imperial operators were less liable to jump at something like that, but the newer Terror Troopers had to hold fire for a moment - a moment is the only weapon you ever have. Rey contemplated that line as one of the troopers jumped and then was still. She could've been a traveling philosopher.
Forgetting the momentary aid, the razordisk was not at all surprising to Imperials who'd seen idiors attempt raids before. With that added distraction, they became easy pickings for a barely-adult groné with an electrostaff. She took a couple more blaster bolts, most of these just scrapes along the arms.
She bolted with what bolting strength she had left to the right door, searching for the desired marker. "Red door, marked as П." After some searching and anxious gunfire from behind, she found it, and pressed the manual lift button. Druggishly, it opened like a set of jaws. She saw two very confused-looking kids - around the same age as her - suddenly spring from their seats with blasters in hand. But both were too startled to even fire before she dispatched them in turn. In her mind's center, she was an insignificant little beetle, blown farther and farther from the nest. She wouldn't drift for much longer.
She punched the button she assumed would shut the door. It was the right one - the jaws clamped down. The door was Hevin-black on the other side.
Confrontational, almost paranoid: "You can come out now." And when the grate clattered to the floor she wanted to jump. She gasped, turned with staff in hand.
"OW!" Charlie, obviously, dropped first. He bounced like a broken cymbal. A spark or five fliszed through the air. Bee Bee was more graceful, seeing as he was constructed with a grappling hook. He eased himself to the floor and must've beeped silently to Charlie, because the severed dome had a retort at the ready.
"Yes, I know. Rey, could you, uh…" He let the junker finish the thought. She walked over to the droid, and picked him up. His light arrays were dimming. There was a sad little hum radiating off him.
"Aw, don't stare! Just set me down on the console nearest the holomonitor, Beebee can handle the rest from there."
"Why you - you in particular?"
Without any moving parts, the dome clearly articulated a gallows grin.
Hitting the floor from the ceiling, even when you have no nervous system, is never not painful. Charlie could barely feel it, but it hurt all the same. What was left of his frame rattled like expired bones.
Beebee floated down next to him.
"Could've brought me down with you."
Yes, but that wouldn't have been as fun.
"Now, when did you get a sense of humor?"
As the Order fleshbags would say, "I learned from the best".
The junker was showing visible signs of exhaustion. Those wounds didn't look too good. He didn't "feel" good either.
Pain is, naturally, a way to quickly detect and identify injury, in a way that no fleshbag can ignore. Droids have that all there, but it's more like they're being told, rather than feeling much of anything. As a human, his pain would be unignorable. What would that be like, he wondered?
He caught Rey gawking at him.
"Yes, I know. Rey, could you, uh…" Get me to the console, please.
She stood over him for a moment. Then picked him up. Her lift was a little unstable. The rate of her breathing was erratic.
"Aw, don't stare! Just set me down on the console nearest the holomonitor, Beebee can handle the rest from there."
From the floor: So you're sure it has to be you?
His high-frequency response: You know as well as I do what this'll do. Heroism's a fleshbag concept too, isn't it?
Yes.
He was laid on the console table. Beebee cabled his way up from the floor, rolled beside him.
Are you just going to sit there all day, or are you plugging me up?
The gyromech's response was to pop out his interface module. He rolled over to the main hardware panel and began pulling. Charlie saw the junker girl pull up a chair and sit down. Now she's feeling it, he commented inwardly. She might have less time than I do.
How close are we to hooking up?
Beebee: Dissectimg data cables now. You won't believe the images I'm seeing here! Do many So many things restricted by the Order! Give me thr - ... Getting something from surveillance feed. We don't have that long.
Charlie, in Fleshbag: "Rey, we've got trouble on the horizon!"
She raised her head to gaze at them. He wanted to ask Beebee what her heat readings were.
The girl lumbered up out of the swivel chair and picked up her staff. She was sluggish the whole way.
Blasterfire outside.
Rey reached down to the two kids' bodies to take the pistols from their hands. She'd seen them used before, never relied on them herself. She'd have to now.
Charlie wondered if he felt some belated allegiance now. Those two were First Order conscripts, as was typically the case. Either way, they were the enemy, just as the Imperials and Order thugs fighting over this station were enemies to them all.