As soon as it completely hit her brain that he was all right, Mara slumped down in the straight-backed chair. Her energy had seemed to abandon her, and she tried to stand up. It took her two tries before she stood up completely straight. Her small light blaster on her left arm seemed to be too heavy, but she took a few seconds to try and regain some strength, and then walked to the door.
She opened it cautiously, and closed the heavy door behind her. There seemed to be hardly anyone in the halls, and she proceeded quickly through the hallway. Easily enough, she found a turbolift, and belatedly realized that a lockdown had been implemented. She tried to hide the disgust she felt. Only doctors and druids with Security access codes higher than Level B would be able to use the turbolifts. The lockdown lessened the chance that someone—terrorists—could utilize the lifts. It would have been child's play to hack into the Security system, but Mara knew she needed to get to the roof as soon as possible. That left her the stairs.
About ten meters away from the lift she found the door leading to the old-fashioned railed stairs. She hit the control panel and the door slid open. Sure enough, she was only on Level Six. The MedCenter was ten stories. She began to run up the stairs.
Talon Karrde hid behind the momentary shelter he'd found. He had commed Mara at least seven or eight minutes previous to this, but she had yet to appear. Aves should be piloting the Skifter to this roof any second now, but if Jade didn't show…he couldn't risk the rest of his crew. He hated to have to do that, but if Mara didn't turn up in time, she'd be left behind. Most likely she'd find another way out (he'd learned to never underestimate the former Emperor's Han) and then he'd send another ship back for her. He still didn't like the second scenario, though.
He could hear the whines of blaster far below him, and he placed a hand on his own BlasTech. Not many had paid him any attention as he ascended to the roof, and he had discarded the worker's uniform a few steps back. He kept the flesh-colored gloves on, per Jade's orders. She told him to never keep his eyes focused on anything for more than two seconds at a time, and to always wear the gloves. His shoes were cheap and easy to discard; his clothes covered with oils from other ships, and his face was partially covered by the cap. His goatee was dyed a greyish brown, which also masked his own DNA. Mara Jade had come prepared for everything.
The blaster shots seemed to be getting closer, and he could feel the general restlessness of the crowd. Then he heard the door behind him slide open. He spun, hand on his blaster, ready to draw.
Mara found she had some Force reserves left, and she used them to keep her face disguised. It was a trick Skywalker had used, to slightly change her facial characteristics until they were easily forgotten. She had been using this guise since she'd entered the MedCenter, and although it had taken some energy and concentration on her part, she knew she had to keep it up. She rounded the stairs towards the ninth floor, and the door opened.
She ran towards the other side of the stairwell and pulled her small blaster. At the same second as the lightweight weapon reached her hand, she felt a blast of energy pierce her left leg, and she dropped to the ground. The guard was aiming for another wounding blow, but she shot the blaster right out of his hands. She then shot again, deliberately missing him but burning a hole in the control pad. The door slammed shut, and the guard was suddenly cut off from her. She tried to put weight on her left leg, and managed to limp up the rest of the stairs. She didn't know whether to completely drop her facial disguise in order to finish making it upstairs, when she pushed against the door to the roof.
Karrde spun towards her, and she nearly fell to the ground. The pain in her leg flared up. He grabbed her before she could hit the ground.
"What happened?" Talon demanded. Mara aimed her small blaster and fried the control panel for the door. It wouldn't take much for the Guardsmen to blast it open, but it might delay them a few precious moments.
"Met some…guy on the stairs," Mara said. "Assholes shot to maim, not to stun."
She could feel a vibration in the air, and she looked up. Karrde examined the blaster bolt wound on her leg.
"You'll need bacta for this, Mara. He got you good."
"Yeah, well, we'll worry about that once we get out of here," she said between clenched teeth.
She heard pounding on the door, and then a voice yell out something. She also noticed a sound that almost made her stop breathing. The easily recognizable X-wings. And almost covering their sounds was a larger ship, one she recognized as the Skifter.
Karrde helped Mara to her feet, and then dipped his shoulder for her to lean against. They half-ran, half-limped to the descending freighter. The X-wings were still in the distance, but closing the gap quickly.
As soon as they reached the already lowered ramp, Karrde tried to push her up towards one of the crew members, and then pulled himself up. He hit the controls to close the ramp.
"Go!" he yelled. "Get us out of here!"
Mara pulled herself up against a bulkhead and tried to push herself up on her one good leg.
"Mara, stay back here. That's an order, Jade," he added, before she could argue.
The ship accelerated, and Mara tried to find something to hold onto. Karrde rushed to the bridge of the ship. The youth who'd helped her up pulled her to one of the nearby rooms, and then tried to buckle her in with the safety restraints. She buckled herself in, and told the boy to do the same.
The freighter jerked and shuddered under the combined blasts from the X-wings. Mara thanked whatever gods the X-wings had no ion cannons to disable all the electrical systems.
They cleared the atmosphere, and Mara wanted to curse that she couldn't see the battle. She could help if she was up there. Instead, Karrde orders her to stay in the back, like this young boy.
She hadn't even looked at her leg yet, but the cauterized wound was worse than she'd originally thought. She hissed in pain. It didn't look like it had hit her bone, but it got very close. The young man looked around for a medkit, and tried to reach it without releasing the safety straps form his body. Mara glanced at it and knew it normally would have been easy to grab it with the Force, but she was so exhausted…she barely even knew when the Skifter jumped to hyperspace.