Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Star Wars. And there's no point trying to sue me, I never have any money. (And my apologies to AoK2TC and Nihongo and blacksphinxmoon and everyone else who likes my story. I KNOW YOU'RE OUT THERE! THERE MUST BE MORE THAN TWO PEOPLE FOLLOWING THIS! Ack, sorry about that, got a little carried away. Anyways, I didn't intend to end the last chapter where I did, I intended to make both chapters 19 and 20 as one chapter. But it was way too long, so I broke it up. They're still the longest two chapters so far though, I hope you enjoy them)
Cryos awoke in the dark. He wasn't quite sure where he was, but he knew that there was something cold and hard pressing against his back, the only tiny bit of light was pale purple and coming from a pair of tiny circles a few inches from his face, and someone was saying his name.
He slowly dawned on him that the purple circles in front of his eyes were eyes. The owner of those glowing eyes was the same person saying his name.
Then in a flash, everything came back to him. The attack on Coursant, Kentra, the booby-trapped room, and that last fleeting glimpse of the Rebels fighting a losing battle against a far superior Imperial force.
"CRYOS!" Kentra suddenly screamed his name, snapping him out of his thoughts. "Help me." She insisted. "I can't move, and I don't know how much longer we can last before the air runs out!"
Cryos took a quick evaluation of the situation. The ceiling had come down on him, but both he and Kentra were ok. For now at least. When the ceiling had hit Cryos's back, it had bent. Forming the space where he and Kentra were huddled. It had bent so far that the ceiling had formed an airtight seal with the floor all around them.
He tried to push it back up, but it was useless. Cryos was pinned by the ceiling, and stuck on his hands and knees straddled over Kentra.
"Cryos, please do something." She pleaded.
"There's only one thing I can do." He told her. "Hang on, this is going to be a rough ride."
"What are you going to do?"
"Go super."
"What?!?"
"No time to explain, just get ready."
Cryos began to power up. Past anything he had used outside a training session in years. All the way to Super-Sayian. The tiny space in the metal was suddenly filled with bright green light radiating from his body. His hair stuck turn the same green color and up wildly, ripping the leather strap that held it back. His eyes turned a pale purple, almost the same color as Kentra's.
Kentra, however, saw little of this. She had her eyes shut tight, and her scream of fear was drowned out by the sudden roar of the air trapped in there with them whipping around at a hurricanes pace.
Cryos moved and with one shove, lifted the ceiling back up to where it should be. There was a squeal from the hydraulics behind the walls and the pressure from the ceiling stopped. He still had to hold it up against gravity, but it was no longer at all hard to do.
He used his tail to get Kentra's attention. Just nudging her a bit until she looked up. Kentra climbed to her feet and looked Cryos in his now-purple eyes.
Then she kissed him.
Cryos had been kissed before, of course. Kissed and more, much more. But this was special. His knees had never buckled like they did now. He almost dropped the ceiling back down on them both.
It was several more moments before he could talk again. And he didn't want to say what he had to, but he had to say it "Uh, Ke-Kentra?" Now it was his turn to stutter. "I don't th-think we should do this right now."
She wasn't any happier about it than he was, but she understood. Turning away from him, she said "What now?"
"I don't really know." Cryos answered as he looked out into the hallway where the Rebels had gone. It was now empty, nothing left behind but scorch marks. No way to tell who had won, or where everyone went.
Looking at the room around him, he saw Elfour. She had been crushed by the ceiling. Her outer casing was now more oval than round, and the glass that formed the lens of her 'eye' was cracked. He looped the chain on his tail and picked her up. But she was silent, broken. He felt oddly sad considering how often he had contemplated smashing the little noise-box himself. He knew that she was only broken, and could be fixed, but it still felt like she had died.
As for Kentra's blaster rifle, it was in little, flat pieces on the floor right where it had been dropped. No hope at all of repairing it.
Cryos used a tiny narrow focus beam to melt the edges of the walls to the ceiling. He gave a moment for his weld to harden, then led the way out of the room.
There was nobody there. Cryos had Kentra climb back up on his back so she wouldn't slow him down if a quick escape was needed, and crept down the hall. When he arrived at a intersection of two hallways he heard boots coming toward him. Reacting fast, he jumped up, pulled an air-duct cover off the ceiling, and shoved Kentra through before following her into the ventilation system.
It was dusty and cramped, but safe. Cryos Waited for the Stormtroopers to pass by and was just about to jump back down into the hallway when Kentra heard something. Princess Liea's voice echoing down the air duct. Cryos heard nothing but the fans going, but Kentra was sure, so he followed her.
Sure enough, less than a minute later, they stopped at another air-vent cover. Through this one he could see Liea, Luke, Han, and Chewie in cages with heavy metal bars. Liea was screaming herself horse at four armed Stormtroopers and their overweight Imperial commander.
"Kentra," Cryos said, "stay here." She didn't argue.
Cryos burst through the air vent and knocked out the Stormtroopers before they could even react. The Commander tried to run, but he was old and obviously hadn't kept himself in shape. Cryos tripped him up with his tail, wrapped it around his ankles, and lifted him, upside-down, into the air. The man screamed as his fat face turned redder and redder.
But Cryos had more important things to worry about than the old man's screaming. He watched Kentra crawl from the air vent before turning to Luke and the others in their cells. They were all staring, again.
Han was the first to speak. "We thought you were dead, what happened to you?!"
"Your hair!" Liea commented.
Cryos took a moment to figure out what they were asking. Then suddenly realized that they had never seen him in Super-Sayian mode. His muscles were bulged, his eyes were purple, and his hair was still bright green and sticking up. He was lucky they recognized him at all.
"I'm just powered up," He reassured them, "it's still me, but now I'm stronger." He bent two bars on each of their cells to let them out, then asked, "Where are the others?"
Chewie roared a question that Cryos's translator microbes handled easily.
"Lets just say it'll take a lot more than a falling roof to keep me down." But Chewie wasn't satisfied with the answer. "I'm alive, I'm letting you out, and I've got a plan. Do you really want to stay in there?"
Chewie wasn't happy, but argued no further.
"If it makes you any happier," Cryos powered down. Back to his normal power level.
Cryos turned back to the Imperial Commander, who by this point had turned red as a tomato and was out of breath from yelling. Cryos was pretty sure he'd cooperate, but just to make sure…
A demonstration was called for. Cryos pulled one of the bars from the now empty cells. Turning back to the Imperial, he held the bar up and the man recoiled. When it became clear to him that Cryos wasn't going to use the bar as a weapon, he uncovered his eyes.
"Lets say this bar us you." He held the bar up where the man could see it. Now, if you cooperate, I won't hurt you. But if you refuse…" He twisted the par into a pretzel, then crushed it into a ball with his bare hands. The Imperial turned a little less red. If he had been right side up, he's probably be a dead-white color.
"Now," Cryos continued, "What's you name, rank, who are you in charge of, and what happened to the other Rebels you captured?
The Imperial Commander tried to look tuff, but for an upside down fat man, that's kinda hard to do. But he still answered the questions. "My name," He paused, still out or breath from yelling, "My name is Grand Moff Barkan. I command this bunker. Everything here is under my control. We captured you Rebel scum and brought your leaders here for interrogation. All the others are in another holding cell awaiting execution." He got a nasty smile on his face. "But you'll never get to them in time. You have to go through the Command Center to get there. And it will be impossible to get there undetected. They'll kill all of you and the prisoners before you even get halfway."
Now Cryos put on an evil smile. "Oh, we'll get there. YOU'RE going to lead us."
"I would die first." He said with a shocked look on his face.
"If you really want to, but it'll be easier this way." Cryos whipped his tail and flung Grand Moff Barkan across the room. As the man sat up, Cryos raised his arm and started pressing buttons on his wrist. There was a whirring sound, a flash of light, and suddenly, Cryos was a perfect copy of Barkan.
The real Barkan was speechless. "But- what- how?"
"It's amazing what you can do with a little hologram, isn't it?" Cryos picked the Imperial up and threw him into the last undamaged cell. Turning back to the others, he said "Here's the plan: Kentra, Luke, Liea, and Han. Take the Stormtroopers armor. It won't fit Kentra or Liea very well, but it doesn't have to be too convincing. Just good enough for us to slip past."
"Then what?" Han asked as he started stripping the armor off one of the troopers.
"We're going to tell them we're taking a prisoner to be executed. Then we'll walk right past them. And you've got the best part." He said looking at Chewie. "You're the prisoner…"
Twenty minutes later, Cryos, in the guise of Grand Moff Barkan, led the way to the command center. Followed closely by four Stormtroopers, (Two of who had armor a few sizes too large) and a Wookie prisoner with wrist binders that weren't quite snapped all the way shut.
When they got there, the guards saluted and opened the door. As soon as 'Grand Moff Barkan' entered the room, everyone snapped to attention. A young man at a computer console said. "Grand Moff Barkan. It is an honor to have you back here at the Command Center. Is there anything we can do for you? Perhaps escort this prisoner to the execution holding aria?"
"No no, that's quite alright." Cryos told him. "I'll do it myself."
As he got halfway across the room, Cryos realized that he had no idea which way to go. Well, I'll just guess. Picking one of the doorways, he went toward it, but was interrupted by an "Uh, sir?" from behind him. Turning, he saw the young Imperial looking at him. The holding cells are THAT way." Pointing at the other door.
Cryos tried to bluff, "Of course it is, I was just testing you." But when he heard the sound of blaster safeties clicking off, he realized this game was over. "KENTRA, NOW!" Kentra aimed the blaster she had taken from the previous owner of her armor, and fired, again, and again, and again. But she didn't shoot to kill. The stun bolts she shot only paralyzed. These people knew too much about the Imperial defenses to kill. They could tell the Rebels a lot.
The whole thing was over in five seconds. With everyone unconscious on the floor, they left and went the way the young Imperial had said. In the next room, All the other Rebels sat in their cells, looking depressed.
Kentra started to raise her blaster again, but Cryos stopped her. "These Stormtroopers," He told her, "they're like robots. They'll do whatever their commander tells them to do. Let me try this my way." Then as an afterthought, he said "But keep that thing ready, just in case."
"ATTENTION TROOPERS!" Every Stormtrooper stopped and stood at attention. "I have new orders for you. Open the cells."
The Stormtroopers looked confused. One of them stepped forward and said "Sir, are you sure you want-"
"Of course I'm sure you fool! Open the doors!" Cryos did his best impression of an angry old army man. And apparently, it worked. The Stormtroopers opened the cages and let the Rebels out.
"Now," Cryos continued. "Put down your weapons." For a moment, none of them moved. "THAT'S AN ORDER!!" Every last one of them dropped their guns. "Now, into the cells, lock yourselves in." Surprisingly, they all did it without even a fight. That Stormtrooper training must really destroy a person's willpower.
Cryos savored his moment, and made sure all the Stormtroopers could see him before he turned his hologram off. Some of them looked angry, others had no reaction at all.
The Rebels on the other hand, were throwing a party. There was a whole lot of cheering and laughing, until the alarms started going off.
There was no warning, none at all. The alarm just started blaring in a very annoying tone. Then it announced: "Auto destruct procedures engaged. Ten minutes to detonation. Have a nice ten minutes."
Rushing back to the Command Center, they saw that the young Imperial officer who had figured out Cryos was an imposter had set off the self destruct timer. Kentra shot him again before he could do any more damage.
The Rebel hacker team worked to deactivate it, but it was useless. The whole circuit was fused nothing they could do.
But Cryos had one last card to play. He told Kentra he's be right back and powered back up to Super-Sayian mode and took off. Crashing through the ceiling, and the next one, and the next, until he was back above ground. Zipping into the sky, he started looking for Draco. When you needed to break something really good, Draco was just the lizard to do it.
Draco, unfortunately, was nowhere to be seen. In fact, an Imperial shuttle was dropping down through the whole in the shields even as he watched. I don't know why I thought Draco would be here. Or why I thought he would listen to me.
Cryos began to power up a beam to destroy the Imp shuttle, when it suddenly exploded on it's own. And from the fireball crashing downward, flew Draco.
I don't believe it… Cryos thought. He actually listened to me, or did he? Something's up here.
"Draco! Get over here now!!" Draco fluttered over a little wobbly.
"Yyyeeessssssssssssss?" Draco asked, stretching the syllable out as far as he could.
Something's wrong. Cryos thought again before he finally realized what it was. HE'S DRUNK!
"Draco! Have you been drinking coolant again?"
Draco wobbled and said, "I haven't not been drinking coolant."
"Great, he's completely drunk." Cryos muttered. "Well, I've got no choice." He grabbed Draco and flew back down to the bunker with him.
Cryos flew back into the bunker just in time to hear "One minute until detonation, have a nice minute."
He shoved the hacker team out of the way and started doing his own work. Ripping the keyboard off the control panel, he exposed the circuitry. He held Draco up and said "Draco, I know you don't listen to me normally, but listen now: We need ice! Really cold ice. Enough to short out a bomb."
Thankfully, Draco did it, and started breathing blue fire all over the circuits that controlled the bomb.
But the countdown continued, "Detonation in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, Have a nice day!"
Everyone in the room cringed, but nothing happened. Draco had frozen the bomb!
The cheering started up again, and even the three people who had hated Cryos before were getting into it. Draco collapsed onto the floor, completely unconscious, and Kentra leapt into Cryos's arms.
Cryos nodded to her, "Now's a good time." And they kissed each other as the celebration went on all around them.
