"Biem Hoa"republican base, astroport.
Jay entered into the locker room with lightsaber forward. There was no one there.
"Damn it!" She thought. "I wasted too much time and the ship had to leave..."
She was surprised, however, because she had not heard a take-off noise while she was crawling in the ditch.
She turned off her sword and examined the room. The suits hung on hangers on a rack in the middle of the room. At the back of the room there were washrooms and a shared shower room. About ten lockers lined the walls.
She walked over to the suits and saw with relief that they weren't multi-layered suits like she wore in attack ships, but a lighter type, designed to retain a certain comfort for long flights. The helmets were placed on mannequin heads mounted on the wall like a collection of strange trophies.
She winced when she saw that these helmets had a flip-up visor but no oxygen mask. No way to hide her face.
"I'll have to spend all my time pretending to blow my nose" she said listlessly.
She looked for an outfit that fit her size and chose a light green jumpsuit. She read the name on the chest.
"Cai Seida". A woman pilot like me. "I hope you'll bring me luck"
She put down her rifle, and quickly undressed, keeping a lightsaber close by.
She was about to put on the suit when she heard the door at the end of the corridor slam. She quickly put the suit back on, grabbed her weapons and clothes and went to the back of the common shower.
She then realized that she had forgotten her shoes under the bench. She sighed deeply as she pulled the safety off her rifle.
"Hopefully they won't notice it" she thought. "If not, too bad..."
The noise got closer and she realized it was two people. The benches creaked and she listened to their conversation.
"They keep threatening me ! It's been four hours since I should have taken off!"
"Yeah. But between the blackout and the mess with the shuttle, we couldn't pretend nothing happened"
"Meh, once the hangar was open I could launch in 30 seconds..."
"Sure. And who would have fixed the thrusters afterwards? You're not on your X-wing right now!"
"Well, well... In the meantime, I need to piss"
"Okay, I'm going back to the ship. Hurry up"
She heard the mechanic's footsteps decay as the pilot took off his suit. This done, he went into the toilet and she heard a cataract sound.
"How can they be so loud?" she wondered.
She set her rifle to non-lethal fire then stepped out of hiding. She spotted the toilet and stood in the blind spot of the door. There was nothing more to do but wait.
Finally the lock turned green and the pilot exited. As soon as he passed the door, she fired.
In the confined space of the room, the snap sounded deafening. The pilot received the shock full in the chest, staggered but did not fall.
"That's not possible" Jay thought to himself. "The guy's built like a tree trunk"
The pilot looked at her, frowned and pounced on her. She stepped back, bumped into a locker, and fired a second time. The discharge hit him in the face and he collapsed.
"Phew" she sighed. "I'd have bothered to finish him with a lightsaber..."
She pricked up her ear, but heard nothing abnormal. Apparently her two shots hadn't been heard from the shed.
She looked at the pilot and the suit he had put on the bench.
"I'm still having a lot of problems..."
Indeed, the difference in stature was obvious, while the suit was a bright orange where Jay had only found a green suit in her size.
"Subtlety is lost upon me" she told herself as she put on the outfit she had chosen. It will be necessary to go without finesse.
She put on her helmet, put on her face the cloth she used to clean her weapon, and went out into the corridor with her rifle on her shoulder and the lightsaber in her fist.
In the locker room, the pilot she had knocked out started to grunt and move.
Both carriers hovered over the shuttle and turned on their searchlights. Ropes were thrown and ten soldiers and an officer rappelled down while the five Imperials were held in aim by the on-board weapons.
In the harsh light that crushed the scene, they were disarmed, shackled, and seated cross-legged where they were. Portable lights were then turned on and the carriers landed on neighbouring sites.
This done, the officer ordered the soldiers:
"Keep them aiming and move back against the shuttle"
The ten soldiers did so. Without a word, the officer examined the scene. He looked for a long time at the two dead teraplites without touching them. He also saw Yegor's body, but didn't pay it the slightest attention.
Finally he asked Bujac: "Where did that come from?"
"I don't know" replied the former Jedi. "We were ambushed trying to take the shuttle when it attacked us..."
The officer saw the mutilated arm.
"A prosthetic, huh? It's a Jedi thing..."
Bujac didn't answer.
He turned to the soldiers and pointed to one of them.
"You, go back to the base and bring me the surgeon and two... not three cryo chambers. I want to keep these bodies for analysis"
Bujac thought to himself, "This doesn't smell good. This guy's not a standard officer"
He looked at his stripes more closely and saw the green strings on his collar.
"Intelligence agent" thought the defrocked Jedi. "They must suspect something..."
The soldier had barely left when the officer continued:
"A man to watch the prisoners. The rest of you, line up and sweep the ground to the fence. And walk straight! I don't want blurred traces!"
"They'll soon find something to do" Blom murmured.
"Good" replied Julius. "The more time they lose, the more Jay will get ahead..."
Indeed, calls began to pour in.
"Officer, I found a severed foot!"
"And me, a fourth body! Or rather fourth bodies..."
"There are also footprints to the fence!"
"Ouch" Bujac thought. "It's getting messy..."
The officer said to the soldier who remained on guard:
"Watch them. At the slightest gesture shoots without warning. I will see"
He was careful to walk in the footsteps of the soldier who had made the first call, joined him, and saw the severed limb.
"It's not the same team. They all have their feet over there..."
He continued in the trail to the next soldier who was stopped in front of the teraplite that Jay had cut his throat. The infantryman showed him the body and said in a strained voice:
"What's that, officer? Some new Imperial trick?"
"No, I don't believe it is"
He leaned over the body, still without touching it.
"It's odd, he was killed in two different ways. Both near the shuttle succumbed to blaster fire, but not this one"
He heard a call from further away, just against the fence.
"Officer, there's a firing post here. And a charger!"
He went forward again and reached the drainage ditch between the site and the fence. The soldier who had called him was on the other side of the trench. He showed him the accumulator.
"Not a common weapon..." he said.
The soldier pointed to the sheds: "The footprints go in that direction"
An R-Wing was taking off.
"I fear the worst" said the officer then with a wry grin.