The Lights Are Out
"So let me get this straight. This man tried to kill you with military droids, then attempted to barter scraps of information in exchange for Anna's life. And now he's having us break into a top-secret Imperial facility for him? And you're actually going through with this?"
Cere's eyes are glaring so wide Anna's worried they might pop clean out of their sockets. Greez, to his credit, seems only mildly concerned for his own safety as he answers.
"Look, I know Hans. He's a slimeball, but he's got an addiction for the Empire's dirty secrets worse than death-sticks. I'm not saying I trust him, but we're after the same thing here." His gaze flits over Anna before settling on Cal. "That being said… I ain't too keen on flying blind into the belly of the beast, either. You sure there isn't another way?"
Cal shakes his head.
"Cere's database is the best we got aside from this, and it's not enough."
Cere turns the narrow rod of the scomp drive over in her fingers, her lips curled into a grimace.
"This whole operation reeks of a trap. How do we know this thing doesn't contain some kind of virus that just shuts the whole ship down and leaves us stranded in space so Hans can come collect the bounty on our heads?"
Greez grows a shade paler at the prospect. The image of Hans's emotionless smile rises behind Anna's eyes, and she shudders. She certainly wouldn't put it past him.
"Can we get the data inside the drive without plugging it in?" she ventures. All eyes in the cockpit turn to her, and she flashes a nervous smile.
"Cal?" Cere asks.
BD-1 emits a series of rapid beeps from his position crouched on the edge of the cockpit dash.
"He says he can try, but he'll have to take it apart," Cal translates.
"Then that's what we have to do," Cere replies with a firm nod. "We can't risk exposing the Mantis's systems directly to Hans's tech."
"Fine, fine. Do what you need to do, just tell me where we're going soon so we can stop floating out here in the middle of nowhere twiddling our thumbs!" Greez gestures out the cockpit glass at the featureless void beyond. "I'm getting cabin fever already."
Cal nods.
"Come on, then, let's see what's inside this thing."
Cal picks the scomp drive from Cere's hand. BD-1 makes a deft leap from the dashboard and lands on his shoulder, his tiny feet scrabbling for purchase. Anna lets out a giggle at the little droid's antics. As BD-1 trills something that has Cal chuckling and patting his head, she wishes she understood droid-speak so she could have caught the joke.
She doesn't realize she's staring until Cal catches her gaze. Immediately, she glances away, pretending to be intently studying the kitchenette. From ache in her cheeks, she's probably been grinning like a madwoman, too.
"You uh, want to come help with this?" Cal asks.
"Sure!" Anna chirps, hoping her face isn't as red as it feels.
She follows close behind as Cal rises from his seat and makes for the engine room. As they enter the corridor leading past the sleeping quarters, Cal turns to her with his lips pursed.
"Hey, sorry for what happened back there with Hans. You holding up okay?"
"I'm great!" Anna winces at the high pitch of her voice.
In truth, she's still shaken by Hans's parting words. Arendelle. That name feels right somehow. The man's enigmatic eyes burn like green torches in her memory.
How much more does he know about her past that he held back?
"I-I'm fine," she amends sheepishly, half to convince herself. "I mean, we got what we needed, right?"
"Well, don't jinx it yet," Cal says with a wry shake of his head.
Their feet strike hollowly on the steel flooring of the engine bay. Cal sets the scomp drive down on the bare-metal table in front of the hyperdrive, clearing aside bits of scrap and gleaming nick-nacks that look like they might be lightsaber parts. BD-1 clambers over his shoulder and hops onto the workbench, projecting a fine laser grid as he begins scanning the thin piece of metal.
"What do you think, BD?" Cal asks, pulling a tool from his belt that looks to be some cross between a welding iron and a laser cutter.
The droid shuts off the grid, hopping from foot to foot as he chitters excitedly. Cal laughs.
"Alright, just tell me where to cut, buddy."
The tool spits white sparks as Cal sets its tip carefully between the exposed computer chips on the scomp drive. His tongue sticks out in concentration as he squints down at the device, adjusting his movements as BD-1 issues an unintelligible string of commands beside his hand. Anna's curiosity piques as she watches the movement of his fingers.
"Why do you only wear one glove?" she blurts out.
Finishing the cut, Cal glances up and shuts off his tool. The scomp drive splits into neat halves on the workbench as he lets go.
"Could you pass me those wires behind you?" he requests flatly.
"What, these?" Anna twists awkwardly to reach for the other end of the table.
"Thanks."
Cal begins to position the ends of the wires inside the pieces of the scomp drive, attaching them with careful spot-welds from his tool. Anna shifts from foot to foot in the continued silence.
BD-1 chirps.
"Yeah, I heard her, BD," Cal replies.
"You don't have to answer if it's a personal thing, I get it," Anna adds quickly.
Cal lets out a sigh, flashing her a halfhearted smile.
"Sorry. It's not really personal anymore, but old habits are hard to break."
He looks back to the workbench, focusing on laying the other ends of the wires out on the tabletop.
"Could you pass me that emitter, by the lamp?" he asks without looking up.
"This tube-looking thing?"
"Perfect."
Cal sets upon the hollow cylinder of metal with his tool, cutting and welding in a flurry of molten sparks, attaching the wires in precise intervals along its length until the emitter is fully grafted to the scomp drive by a tangle of copper. He steps back to inspect his handiwork.
"What do you think, little buddy? Want to try hacking this thing?"
The droid trills excitedly, folding back the toes of his right leg to extend the tip of his scomp link.
"Be careful now," Cal warns in a playful tone as he fits the repurposed emitter over BD-1's leg. "Don't know what's in there."
As the droid's holoprojector flickers with lines of binary, Cal finally turns back to face Anna. Placing his multitool down on the workbench, he yanks off the thick glove covering his left hand with a quick motion.
Anna fights to keep her expression neutral at the sight beneath. Helpless to stop them, her eyes run down the pale skin of the back of Cal's hand as it puckers and pits in long gashes, the layers of scar tissue growing so thick toward his fingers that she would barely have been able to recognize the flesh as human. His ring and little finger are missing entirely, replaced by black, skeletal steel. The Jedi turns his hand over under the lamplight, bringing the ragged skin of his palm into view, stretched taut over the metal replacing the bones of his lower hand.
"After the Purge, I worked as a scrapper on Bracca," he says quietly.
"The ship-breaking yards?"
Anna's eyes widen. She considered looking for work there herself during more desperate times, but the rumours of what happened to the girls in the ghettos kept her away.
"Yeah. They lay off scrappers for less serious injuries all the time. Put my hand in the wrong place during my first year, got half of it sheared off. I thought that was it, that I'd have to hit the hyperlanes again. But a friend of mine, Prauf, spent a year of his own savings and got me a new hand. Barely even knew me at the time, but I guess he really liked me."
Anna watches the delicate mechanisms in Cal's prosthetic fingers as he curls them inward toward his palm.
"I wore the glove to hide the injury from my supervisors. Guess I just never felt like taking it off after I left."
Anna tears her gaze away from Cal's hand, focusing on his eyes instead.
"Do you ever visit your friend back on Bracca?" she asks quietly.
Cal shakes his head, avoiding her gaze as he pulls the glove back on.
"Prauf is dead. Sacrificed himself trying to protect me from an Inquisitor the same day Cere and Greez rescued me. It was… it was for nothing. I was found out immediately anyway." His words are barely above a whisper now. "If I'd just… if I'd turned myself in and fought from the start, he'd still be alive."
Anna's chest feels tight. Impulsively, she darts forward and wraps Cal in a tight hug.
"I'm so sorry," she mumbles into his shoulder.
His body stiffens in surprise, but he doesn't pull away. He smells of engine grease and Greez's cooking. After a second, she feels him reach around and pat her gently on the back.
BD-1 chirps twice from the table and she lets go immediately, clasping her hands sheepishly at her waist. She tries not to dwell on how fast her heart is racing. Cal holds her gaze for a few breaths, emotions flitting through his eyes too fast for her to read.
"Yeah. Yeah, me too," he finally says in a low voice.
BD-1 chirps again and Cal turns back to the table.
"Yeah, I heard you the first time buddy,"" he laughs. "What you got?"
Instantly, the weight seems to disappear from Cal's shoulders, leaving Anna wondering if she'd imagined it. BD-1 beeps triumphantly as the hologram projected from his eye flips to several long strings of numbers. Cal claps.
"Coordinates and the security codes. Nice going, BD!"
Cal rubs the top of his companion's head fondly as he removes the makeshift connector from BD-1's scomp link.
"Hey, don't go getting too cocky now," he teases as the droid chirps another rapid message. "We still don't know if they work."
Anna's heart leaps to her throat.
"Are we going, then? To the database?"
She's so close. The answers to a lifetime of questions are waiting for her at those coordinates. Cal glances back at her and his expression turns somber.
"This is going to be dangerous, Anna. We don't know what we're going up against out there. Are you sure you still want to do this?"
Something about the way he says the words gives Anna pause, but not out of fear for her own safety. Slowly, her eagerness sputters. She's known these people for less than a week, and during that time, they've done her nothing but favours… and now she's asking them for a favour so big the realization makes her take a physical step backward.
Memories of her argument with Cere two short nights ago send sharp stabs of guilt through her stomach. This really isn't her decision to make. These people owe her nothing.
"Yes, I'm sure," she says quietly. "But you've done enough for me. You all have." She draws a slow breath. "Give me the coordinates. I'll find a way there myself."
Cal's brow furrows immediately.
"No way. You heard what Hans said. There's no time. The database will jump soon and none of us will ever find it again."
"Cal, why are you doing this?" Anna's eyebrows angle upward and she lets out a cheerless laugh. "You've lost so much already. Cere's right. You don't have to do this for me. This isn't worth the risk."
Firm hands—one gloved, one bare—grip her arms just below the shoulders.
"Yes, this is. This is about more than just you or me. The Force brought us together, I'm sure of it. Whatever's in your past, it could be important. Like, fate-of-the-galaxy important."
"What? How can you know?"
"Call it a feeling." Cal lets go of her, letting his arms swing down to his sides. "Look, I can't explain it. There's just something about you, Anna. Something… different. I want to help find out what it is."
Similar words coming from Hans chilled her to the core, but with Cal they send warm tingles up her back.
"But the Empire…" she protests weakly.
Cal cuts her off with a crooked smile.
"I've been fighting the Empire for years. I can handle some stormtroopers and encrypted data."
Anna feels a relieved grin break across her face.
"So we're sticking together, then?"
"Looks like it." Cal folds his arms over his chest, tilting his head back toward the cabin. "Let's go find this flower of yours."
BD-1 hops twice on the table with a shrill cheer, and this time Anna's laugh is very real.
"The signal stopped transmitting."
A soft chuckle.
"Of course it did. It was only a matter of time before they took apart the transmitter."
"The Inquisitorius will not be pleased."
"Direct your troops to the database. They'll be there soon."
"And if they're not?"
"Come now, have you no faith in an old friend?"
"Hans, I swear, if you're double-crossing me-"
The click of a severed comm link.
"Dropping into realspace in three… two… one."
Anna presses her hands into the bench beneath her as the ship shudders, the ethereal patterns of blue light splashing in from the windows snuffing out in an instant. Her shoulder strikes the hard metal wall and for at least the millionth time this week she wishes the Mantis's cockpit had an extra proper chair.
Her discomfort is quickly forgotten when she sees the jagged boulders of ice sailing in droves beyond the cockpit glass. The smallest are barely the size of her hand; the largest rival the size of an Imperial star destroyer. The nearest drift so close she feels as if she could reach out and touch them. The captain yells something in a language she doesn't understand—probably a swear word—and she feels her stomach drop as the ship lurches in a wild manoeuvre. There's a rattling sound on the hull like pebbles tossed down a drain.
"Didn't think to warn us we were flying into a comet field, did you, Hans?" Greez growls to himself. "This paint ain't cheap!"
"At least the debris will keep us hidden from Imperial proximity sensors," Cere remarks through tight lips. "For a while."
"How are we supposed to find the space station in this?" Anna groans, her eyes flitting from rock to frozen rock.
"Keep your eyes peeled, it can't be far," Cal says. "If it's even here, that is," he adds in a quieter tone.
Greez continues to thread the gauntlet of icy debris with careful twitches of the flight sticks. Anna squints through the hail of comets, trying to pick out any structures from the formless clusters.
"Look, down there!" she suddenly shouts.
She dashes into the cockpit and points to a spot in the distance, where a glint of dark durasteel shines from the deep shadows beneath a hulking spherical comet.
"That looks like a space station to me!" Greez replies with a grin.
The debris field outside the window rotates dizzyingly as the captain pulls on the control sticks. As Greez guides the ship closer, Anna makes out two thick rings rotating lazily around a narrow central rod adorned with rectangular protrusions.
The database. It's really here.
"The coordinates worked," she breathes.
"Broadcasting the security codes now." Cere types rapidly at the comms station, her brow furrowed in concentration. "Let's hope these work too, or things are about to get messy."
"I miss that witch's voodoo stuff," Greez mumbles nervously as his hands tighten on the joysticks. "Being invisible is really nice."
The cockpit lapses into a tense silence as the station continues to grow larger through the glass.
"This is odd," Cere says with a hand on her headset. "No identity verification, no callsign check, no escort fighters… just an automated message echoing back the security codes."
"The station is unmanned," Cal says abruptly. He laughs, mouth agape. "Of course! Why waste soldiers guarding something that nobody's supposed to find?"
The station is huge in the window now. Greez rotates the ship to align with one of the massive rings, and as Anna watches, a rounded rectangular entrance bleeding sterile white light cracks open before them. She holds her breath as the hangar's maw moves forward to swallow the Mantis. The hull whines with the familiar sound of the yacht configuring into landing mode as the pitch of the thrusters falls, bringing it to rest gently on the polished hangar floor.
For a long moment, everyone sits frozen, staring intently out the cockpit window. The interior of the hangar is small, with barely enough space to fit the length of the Mantis. The walls are a muted grey, lit evenly by bright lights in the ceiling. Anna waits for the single hangar door in the far corner to open, expecting a legion of stormtroopers to spill out and demand their arrest.
Nothing happens for what seems like eternity.
"The codes worked, too," Cal finally utters in relief.
"I wouldn't count on that," Cere replies darkly. "As you said, this place is probably unmanned. There could be a squadron of TIEs coming to intercept us as we speak."
"Let's not overstay our welcome, huh?" Greez says, punching a button on the dash. The exit ramp opens with a hiss. "Alright, Cal, this is your schtick. In and out, make it quick."
Anna bolts up from her seat as Cal rises. He immediately raises a hand.
"Stay here, Anna. BD-1 and I got this one."
"Oh no you don't." She shakes her head so vigorously her braids whip her in the nose. "I'm coming with you. This is my past we're talking about here."
Cal seems like he's about to object. Instead, he slumps his shoulders in defeat.
"Fine. Follow close and stay quiet. If I tell you to run, run. You got that?"
Anna nods quickly before dashing for the exit, hastily tying her bandanna over her mouth and pulling up her hood as she goes.
"What was the first thing I said?" Cal groans.
She hears BD-1 chirp as Cal follows after her, his lightsaber jangling with his footsteps. Reaching the bottom of the ramp, she slows as her feet meet the black hangar floor. Her boots make faint imprints on the pristine, polished surface as her footfalls echo crisply off the hard walls surrounding her.
The cleaning budget for this place must be insane.
"Doesn't seem like anyone's been here for a while," Cal remarks as he draws abreast, raising an eyebrow at the ground. As they approach the door at the end of the hangar, his hand moves to hover over his lightsaber. "Stay on guard."
Anna jabs her finger at the control panel beside the door, only to have it light up an angry red. Cal's hand comes to rest on her shoulder.
"BD's got the doors."
The little droid clambers up beside Cal's ear, extending his scomp link into the circular port underneath the panel. With a few quick turns and a happy trill, the diagonal seam of the door slides open. Cal moves forward with his hand raised, poking his head cautiously into the hallway.
"Looks clear, let's go," he whispers.
The corridor is darker than the hangar. Clusters of rounded slots stretch up the walls to the low ceiling, emitting a diffuse white light that reflects dimly off the same black flooring. The strips of light are positioned at regular intervals, following the gentle arc of the station ring into the distance. Cal walks ahead of Anna on the balls of his feet, his knees slightly bent, his shoulders tense as he scours the walls with wide eyes. The station is eerily silent apart from the soft tapping of their feet.
They come to an intersection with a corridor branching off toward the center of the station. A sign jutting out of the ceiling proclaims Central Access in bold lettering. Anna shares a glance with Cal, who nods as he peeks around the corner.
"Clear."
This corridor is short and narrow. Anna's excitement grows as her eyes settle on the single terminal on a pedestal down at the end.
This is it. The terminal grows in her vision, and her breathing quickens. Her legs pull her along until she's running, her heart thudding in her chest as she flies down the hall.
She reaches the terminal and taps frantically on the keypad, watching as the holoprojector flashes white as it powers on. A screen appears in front of her, displaying a gently rotating image of the Imperial crest. There's a small window to the exterior in the wall above the terminal, and she can see one of the long struts connecting the ring to the center structure come alive with a trail of amber indicators down toward the core. Her breath comes quick and shallow as she waits desperately for some kind of menu or search field to appear.
Instead, a simple message flashes on screen: Insert authorization key.
Damn it.
"You really need to stop doing that," Cal hisses from behind her.
"You said it was clear!" she hisses back.
Cal blinks at her, his expression shifting between exasperation and humour. He settles for sighing through his nose.
"Can you get past this?" Anna gestures to the holoscreen.
Cal places his hands on his hips.
"BD, slice this thing open."
The droid hops from Cal's shoulder and onto the terminal, reaching his leg into the large circular port to the right of the keypad. The pieces of the keyhole begin to rotate under the droid's careful movements. The message on the holoscreen fizzles out to be replaced by rapidly scrolling lines of gibberish.
"Is that supposed to happen?" Anna whispers out of the corner of her mouth.
"I'm not sure, Anna. Gotta admit, this is also my first time hacking a top-secret Imperial database," Cal deadpans.
Anna's eyes begin to blur as she tries in vain to follow the dense columns of characters flitting through the air in front of her nose.
"What do you see, BD-1? Anything about a Crocus? Or Arendelle?"
The droid lets out a shrill beep that sounds vaguely annoyed.
"What'd he say?" She whirls to Cal excitedly.
"He said he's one tiny exploration droid trying to simultaneously decrypt and search through several hundred years' worth of raw data, and that he's doing the best he can. Have some patience."
"He said all that with one beep?" Anna gapes.
"No." Cal smiles slyly. "I'm sure that was the gist of it though."
Anna snaps her mouth shut, folding her arms over her chest and frowning fiercely back at Cal—before realizing her face is still covered by her bandanna. She glares at him instead.
Abruptly, BD-1 emits a long string of rapid notes. Immediately, Cal dashes to the terminal.
"You onto something, buddy?"
Then something shifts. BD-1 chirps again, but Anna isn't listening anymore. Sweat slicks her palms as a deep sense of foreboding takes root in her heart.
A shape moves behind the holoscreen. She squints, leaning around to get a clear view out the window. Her breath stops.
"Cal," she says slowly. "Cal, we have a problem."
Cal silently follows her finger out the viewport at the triangular silhouettes of the Imperial shuttle approaching from the other side of the comet. Its pale hull gleams in the faint starlight. There's a creak of leather as Cal's gloved hand clenches into a fist by his side.
"Shit," he hisses, fishing a comm chip from his breast pocket. "Cere, tell Greez to fire up the Mantis!"
"Cal, what's going on? Do you have the data?" Cere's voice is grainy coming out of the tiny speaker.
"We got company," Cal says grimly. He shuts off the comm, fixing Anna with a hard look. "Get back to the ship, now."
"But the data-"
"We'll worry about the data. Go." His tone leaves no room for negotiation.
She pulls her blaster from under her cloak, taking another quick glance out the window. The shuttle is gone. She begins to run.
She makes it three strides before the lights at the end of the corridor shut off with a hollow click. The clicking increases in volume as a wave of darkness propagates forward section by section until the entire hallway is engulfed in black. The terminal powers down behind her with a stuttering whine. BD-1 lets out a surprised cry.
"That's our cue to leave," Cal states quietly, unclipping his lightsaber from his belt. "Come on."
They run down the corridor side by side, their breathing deafening in the absence of the electric hum of the lights. Cal reaches the intersection first and Anna almost runs into his outstretched hand in the darkness.
"Something's coming," he whispers.
Anna grips her pistol tightly, her eyes flitting wildly, trying to pierce the opaque gloom. She shivers—was it this cold on their way in? The sense of foreboding grows until her chest feels much too small to contain her panic.
A calm, granular voice pierces the still air.
"Cal Kestis."
All the lights turn back on simultaneously, flashing deep red as the repeating falloff of an emergency alarm begins sounding from everywhere at once. Three matte-black figures stand in the mouth of the corridor opposite the direction of the hangar bay. Two of them wear the same armour as the black trooper from Sakiya, both wielding long marksman rifles.
The third figure is clad in a tight Imperial uniform wreathed in black capes. Her pale hair drapes freely down her back in a long braid. She wears no armour except for the polished mask concealing her face, its contours lit from below by the crimson lights.
"Run." A blade of green plasma bursts from Cal's hand with a harsh blast.
But Anna can only stare transfixed as the woman sweeps back her cape and extends her arm out perpendicular to her body, holding a metallic rod with a semicircular guard wrapping over her knuckles. A scorching blade of blood red issues forth from the weapon with a shriek like the air itself is being torn apart.
"Get the girl," the woman orders calmly. "The Jedi is mine."
The sight of the red lightsaber shakes Anna from her trance. She bolts down the corridor just as the trooper on the right tosses something dark and metallic in her direction. The device bounces once off the floor before exploding in a violent electric blast that sears the air right on her heels. She almost loses her footing as the shockwave knocks into her from behind, but she manages to keep running. Ears ringing, she looks over her shoulder in a daze in time to see green meet red in a blaze of light as Cal parries a swing from the masked figure.
A beam of red melts a smoking trail into the floor at her feet. Another zips under her arm, setting embers alight on her shawl with its proximity. She keeps running. She can see the white light of the doorway to the hangar down the corridor. Just a little farther.
A shot flies over her shoulder, exploding on the doorway right as she reaches it. The force of the blast throws her to the floor, and for a moment she scrambles blindly as her vision swims with spots.
As she tries to push herself up, something hard and blunt strikes the back of her head, throwing her world into starburst and pain. A booted foot presses into her back.
"You're a feisty one, aren't you?"
The trooper's voice drips with venom through the voice modulator. She sees the approaching boots of the second trooper in her peripheral vision as the first grabs her roughly by the wrists, twisting the blaster out of her grip.
"Go help with the Jedi, I've got- gah!"
Anna catches herself as the hands grabbing her suddenly let go. Twisting onto her back, she just manages to roll out of the way as the first trooper collapses with a sizzling green lightsaber blade protruding from the center of his chest. The second trooper turns to face down the hallway, his rifle raised.
Her fingers skitter across the floor until they grasp the familiar handle of her blaster. The fire mode is still on lethal, but there's no time to worry about that. Clenching her jaw, she aims the barrel square at the trooper's chest and squeezes off three shots. The man lets out a garbled scream, crumpling to the floor with a gaping hole carved in the side of his chestplate.
Skittering backward on her elbows, she sees Cal pull the half of the lightsaber embedded in the first trooper back into his hand, reuniting it with the other half with a deft twist.
Honestly, at this point she wouldn't be surprised if that thing also fired blaster bolts.
A gust of freezing air washes over her. A cluster of wicked crystal spears erupts from the floor at the Jedi's feet. Cal throws himself backward through the air, avoiding impalement by a hair's breadth before landing on his hands and knees. The masked woman steps into view from around the bend, lightsaber in one hand, the other held in a clawed fist in front of her.
One thing's for sure, she does not want to get into a fight with that lady.
Scrambling to her feet, she dashes for the hangar as the sharp grinding of clashing lightsabers resumes in earnest. She bursts into the hangar bay, waving her arms frantically as she spots Cere standing on the Mantis's exit ramp. The ship's engines are already on, the hot exhaust wind blowing her hood off her head.
"Anna, where's Cal?" Cere shouts over the roar of the engines, leveling her blaster at the doorway.
Before Anna can respond, the Jedi in question comes flying into the hangar, landing hard on his back and skidding across the floor with his lightsaber still raised. The masked figure leaps after him, and Cal uses both hands to block the blow as her red saber cleaves downward with terrifying speed. Directing his opponent's blade to the side, Cal throws up his gloved hand and pushes at the air, knocking the woman away from him in a fluttering of capes.
Sparks fly as the woman drives her lightsaber into the hangar floor to slow her backward momentum, carving a molten groove into the polished surface.
The shriek of a blaster sounds beside Anna as Cere opens fire. The masked woman feints to the side, dodging the first bolt while methodically pulling her blade out of the ground. Anna's finger tightens on the trigger and she fires two shots of her own in quick succession. For an instant she's certain the woman stares straight at her from behind the expressionless mask.
The lightsaber whirls in lightning-fast arcs. Anna's first bolt flies into the ceiling. The second flies straight back at her. She dives into the ship for cover, clutching her shoulder at the searing pain as the plasma beam grazes her skin.
Right. No more shooting at anyone who has a damn lightsaber.
Her ears pop at a loud blast, and suddenly Cal's dashing up the ramp, his chest heaving with exertion.
"Take off! Take off now!" he shouts.
Anna nods, stumbling her way into the cockpit.
"Greez, we need to-"
"Yeah, I heard him too, kid! Hang on to something."
The whine of the engines climbs as the captain flicks switches frantically. The hull shudders.
"Greez, why aren't we moving?" Cere yells as she and Cal tumble into their seats. The Latero jerks on the flight sticks to no avail.
"No, no, no, what's wrong with the landing gear?" he mutters.
"Greez, look!"
Dread pits in Anna's stomach as she points out the cockpit glass. Fingers of white frost crawl inward from the edges of the window like frozen vines. The hangar beyond grows thick with sharp crystals of ice, scratching the glass as they swirl around the masked figure in a miniature hurricane. The pounding pain in her skull from the butt of the trooper's rifle intensifies the sight of the blizzard.
"It's the Inquisitor, she's doing this somehow," Cal states grimly.
Anna really doesn't like the note of fear in his voice.
"Fire the cannons! Break her concentration!" Cere commands, rushing forward to stand beside the pilot's seat.
The walls of the hangar flash bright blue as the guns beneath the Mantis's bow scream to life under Greez's trigger finger. Thick laser bolts strike the ground around the woman, sending up plumes of smoke and shrapnel that momentarily obscure her from view.
"Come on, come on," Greez mumbles under his breath, pulling hard on the flight sticks.
With a shuddering creak, the ship jerks free of whatever was fixing it to the ground, listing dangerously before Greez manages to get the pitch back under control. The dust and snow is blasted aside by exhaust wind, revealing the masked figure supporting herself on her hands and knees between four craters carved into the floor by the ship's cannons.
The woman rises from the ground, her tattered capes billowing around her. The dark mask tilts up to glare straight into the cockpit. One lightsaber blade ignites in her hand—then a second, from the other end. She begins to advance, the blades spinning faster and faster until they form a blazing disc of crimson light in front of her. Greez looses off two more shots, only for the cannon bolts to ricochet off and explode on the hangar walls.
"Aw, come on, is that thing even legal?" Anna groans.
BD-1 lets out a shrill falling tone.
Then she's grabbing onto the back of Cal's chair for dear life as Greez guns the engines and yanks the Mantis backward. The figure of the woman shrinks rapidly, momentarily framed by the hangar entrance before the station is flipped out of view as the captain initiates a wild 180-degree turn.
"Hope you got what you came for, kid," Greez shouts, his hands flying in a blur over the buttons on the dash, "because we ain't coming back!"
The comets outside the window drag into infinite streaks of light as the Latero punches the throttle to the floor.
Man, was this chapter fun to write.