Ashnenvisk, Bothawui-4
By the time Tav and Sey'les arrived within sight of the police station, Tav was certain Sey'les was insane. His fur swirled with nervousness while he whistled, struggling not to stare as he stood alongside her on the street corner.
She had already talked to someone called Veryk for five minutes, who Tav could only guess was Sey'les's imaginary friend. During this time she seemed to come to the mystifying conclusion that Rysh had not reported to the police station, had gone home instead, and was not going to report her for assassinating the First Secretary of the Combined Clans.
After a moment's pause, she stood at the door of the police station, trying to peer through the windows. When that amounted to naught, she began shaking it. The building was completely empty, and Sey'les now seemed to be confused about other matters.
["Veryk, I don't understand,"] she said, sticking her snout into the sky as if talking to the clouds. ["The only way to fix this mess is for me to go back into lockup… Do you think you can convince them that my attempt to buy a blaster was innocent once the station opens up again?"]
She paused for a moment, as if listening to a reply Tav could not hear, then growled in a more nervous tone. ["Respectfully, you keep saying that. You say you can't interfere in the timeline? Didn't you interfere already?"]
Tav tapped his foot impatiently while Sey'les took another long pause. I am still bleeding.
["Oh,"] she said, then turned to Tav with a shrug. ["I guess we're going to the hospital. You're still pretty banged up."]
Tav sighed despondently. On his side, the blood had dried in the patch where a stitch popped off.
["Don't worry, it's only a ten minute walk. Follow me."]
As they walked around the block, Tav couldn't help but notice that the streets of Ashnenvisk were markedly empty. Another convoy of conspicuously marked vehicles passed, but no civilians. Now that Tav was thinking about it, the fact the police station was empty at 1400 hours was even stranger.
Breaking the eerie silence was only the distant rumble of vehicle engines, wind, and now something else.
A droning noise filled the air.
["LAATs…"] Sey'les muttered. She stood still and looked up to the sky. Seven LAATs flew by overhead in a wedge formation.
["They seem to be going to the hospital,"] Tav growled. ["Maybe the Republic is—"]
"Vulture droids!" Sey'les yelped in Basic. She grabbed Tav's sleeve, yanking him along to a side ally.
["Vulture droids?"] Tav asked, looking up at the LAATs. He couldn't see any Vulture droids, but something had spooked the Republic transports. All seven had broken formation, and two LAATs were releasing flares.
A moment later, a bright blue sphere emerged out of nowhere, cutting through the sky until it collided with one of the LAATs. The transport exploded, rattling the windows up and down the street as its wreckage careened out of the sky.
"Transport down! Transport down!" Sey'les yelped, dragging Tav along into the road. "Muun Leader moving to the crash site, ETA—"
Tav yanked Sey'les back up onto the sidewalk and snarled in Bothese. ["What are you doing?! We need to get off the street!"]
Four ARC-170s zipped by faster than sound, kicking the snow off the rooftops of the shops and shattering windows as they set off sonic booms.
Fur flat in fear, Tav covered his ears for a moment. When he let go, his ears were ringing but he could still hear. Sey'les was looking him in the eyes, but the expression on her face told him she was not actually paying him any attention at all.
Disconcertingly, Disconcertingly, she seemed to be speaking to someone else entirely.
"I know! I know, Veryk. Look, I know I am not in the Republic Navy anymore. I don't know what came over me…" She paused for a moment, as if listening to a response that Tav could not hear. "The Separatists Veryk! Why are they here?! Is it about what happened on Merj?"
Not knowing what else to do, Tav put both his hands on Sey'les's shoulders and began shaking her. Speaking in Bothese didn't seem to catch her attention, so Tav tried out his best Basic.
"SEY'LES! STOP TALKING TO YOURSELF! WE NEED TO MOVE!"
"Get off me, Tav," Sey'les grunted, shoving him back. She looked up at the sky and turned her back to him. "But Veryk, if the droids bomb Ashnenvisk, all of your followers will die. We will all die—you have to stop them! Oh, the hospital? Huh…" she paused once again, now looking towards the hospital.
In spite of himself, Tav followed her gaze. Off in the distance, a red laser blast from a Vulture droid stopped in mid air, shimmering as it collided with a shield enveloping the hospital.
"I am sorry I doubted you," Sey'les growled worriedly.
Tav was torn between running away as fast as he could from this lunatic towards the hospital or trying to save her. Before he could decide, Sey'les leapt onto his back, shoving him face-first into a pile of dirty snow. While Sey'les was short, even for a Bothan, she was surprisingly stocky.
"GET DOWN!" she screamed, right into his ear.
Ears aching, Tav snarled, flashing his teeth as he tried to squirm out from under her. But then the world shook.
A nearby explosion hit them with such force that the shockwave threw Sey'les off his back. He pressed his face flat against the cold snow and bent his elbow up, blocking his face from any potential shrapnel. While the air heated up to the temperature of a blow dryer, Tav froze, not daring to open his eyes. The all-too-familiar crunch of crumpling metal pierced his ears, bringing back memories of the starship crash he was caught up in just yesterday. When the crunching and screaming metal noises ended, the softer rustles of flames echoed in his ears from somewhere nearby.
I am on fire, Tav thought with a panic, screaming as he opened his eyes. He sighed with relief, fur twirling with mild embarrassment.
The air was hot, and the reason why sat just twenty meters up the road, where the wreckage of an LAAT gunship blocked the street, laying upside down.
Remembering Sey'les, Tav spun around. "Sey'les? SEY'LES?! Golms Fire!" Running up to a figure lying on the ground a few meters away, he dropped to his knees.
Sey'les was lying on her back, eyes wide while she stared into the sky with snout hanging wide open. At the center of her chest, an ember burned through her coat sending smoke into the air.
Tav had seen the look before. Dead, with the emotion of her last moment of life frozen on her face. She had died screaming.
Why did she sacrifice herself for me? Tav wondered. Why would she kill the First Secretary, spare me, then give her life for me—one of the few beings who could report her? Why—
Falling backwards into the muddy post-explosion snow-melt, Tav let off an animalistic shriek.
Sey'les sat up from the ground, then jumped up with an angry grunt. Looking like she suddenly knew exactly what to do, she grabbed a blob of mud from the ground and patted it onto the center of her chest. The small fire which had been burning her shirt was extinguished.
Gasping for air, Tav squatted on the ground with his head between his knees, panting.
When Tav was a young pup, his pet Tooka had been badly electrocuted climbing up the post of an energy fence. It seemed like it was dead, but a few minutes later woke up shrieking and scratching. Having once experienced this with a Tooka, though, had not prepared him for experiencing it with a full-grown and angry sentient being.
"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Sey'les yelled, driving her boot into Tav's thigh. "What type of psychopath just stands there while another person is on fire?! I was on fire!"
"I did not know you were alive," Tav whimpered. "You looked dead."
"Did you think I wanted to be cremated? You ungrateful turd. You—" Sey'les looked like she wanted to kick him again, but stopped herself. "Kriff it." She reached down to lend Tav a helping hand, but Tav flinched, expecting her to strike again.
When nothing happened, Tav took Sey'les's hand and stood up, gazing back up the street towards the crash. The flames had subsided somewhat, and the cool polar air was beginning to creep back in.
Another explosion in the distance caught Sey'les's attention. "To the hospital."
Carefully forging a path on the sidewalk around the wreckage, Tav and Sey'les emerged on the other side. With the smoke blowing the other way, it was now possible to see the sky once again.
A fierce dogfight was still ongoing between Republic and Separatist fighters. ARC-170s, Z-95s, and V-Wings were in a pitched battle with Vulture Droids, Hyena Bombers, and Tri-Fighters. Most of the LAATs seemed to have been shot down, with the pair of survivors sweeping their beam cannons across the sky in an attempt to defend themselves.
While exhausted from the day's misadventures, Tav couldn't help but wonder what the Republic's strategy was. Darting through the empty streets, he would look up and see progressively fewer and fewer Republic vessels. The remaining vessels were increasingly outnumbered.
Things seemed hopeless for the Republic until an Acclamator emerged from the clouds, firing its light laser cannons down at the Vulture droids. The vessel pulled into position in front of the sun, eclipsing the entire town.
Are they trying to save Ashnenvisk? Why? What could be so important here?
Tav was pulled out of his thoughts when Sey'les guided him through the entrance to an empty carpentry store yelling "TAKE COVER!"
Obeying this time without protest, Tav covered his head. A low mechanical engine noise rumbled in from outside. Tav dared to take a peek.
It was yet another convoy of navy-blue painted Ж-marked vehicles.
"Sey'les, they haven't attacked us yet," Tav growled. "I don't think the SpyNet could possibly have any idea you killed Niyusk. They seem to be just as confused as we are. I say we keep moving."
Tav expected the next thing he would hear would be either agreement or disagreement from Sey'les. Instead, every surviving window in the store shattered simultaneously as another explosion tore through the street.
With his arms lifted slightly so he could take a peek, Tav had just enough time to cover his eyes from a million shards of glass which bounced off the cuffs of his sleeves. His nostrils were not so lucky. Several shards bounced under his slightly-lifted arms, slicing painfully into his wet squishy nose.
Joining Tav's howls of pain, were the cries of dozens of injured and burning SpyNet operatives, struggling to dismount from their vehicles. Five made it out of the rearmost APC, before a torpedo hit it from overhead, causing the loudest explosion yet.
As the APC at the rear disintegrated, the speeder van in the middle of the convoy was pitched up into the air, landing directly in front of the storefront windows.
"Get up!" Sey'les ordered in Basic, pulling Tav to his feet. She ran into the nearest aisle, sprinting as quickly as she could.
Flames leapt from the burning convoy to the store, rapidly spreading to the wooden products lining the aisles.
The sharp pain in Tav's nose seemed to go away as he too sprinted as quickly as he could, following Sey'les towards the back of the store. They emerged onto a loading dock facing a wider industrial street.
Coughing, Tav spat out a wad of blood and lifted his hand to his nose.
"Don't mess your nose," Sey'les said. "You'll probably make it worse… Veryk? I am a bit busy here, oh…"
Not again, Tav thought with dread. More talk with her imaginary friend.
Despite the appearance of the assault ship, strikes from the Vultures and Hyenas continued slamming into the streets, disappearing behind buildings before exploding in red fireballs.
Tav wasn't too worried that he and Sey'les were targets. The droids seemed to be targeting the SpyNet convoys. So long as he and Sey'les kept their distance from the convoys, they should be able to make it to the hospital.
Just as Tav's eyes once again fixated on their destination, he was caught by a gust of wind and a new rumbling noise. This wasn't the sound of an explosion, but something new Tav hadn't heard before.
Six grey ships, about the size of LAATs, cut through the sky overhead. They hovered low over the building tops, avoiding the dogfight. Each one had a saucer-shaped component in the back behind a thinner, more rectangular 'head' bristling with guns. Below the nearest one, Tav could make out large torpedo launchers on either side of the saucer section.
"HMPs!" Sey'les snarled. "The hospital!"
Tav's heart sank as the droid gunships neared the hospital. With that firepower focused on the one shield generator in town, Tav could only assume the worst would happen.
"No look!" Tav growled hopefully. The HMPs split their formation, circling around the hospital rather than flying straight at it. After a few seconds, they pitched up, increasing their altitudes and ignoring the hospital and all targets on the ground completely. "They're not targeting the hospital!"
"Nope," Sey'les sighed, pointing up at the Acclamator, now under concentrated attack from the Separatist craft. "They're not."
