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Part 8
Rubbing tired, gritty eyes, Wes leaned against the wall beside his door. Yet again, a pallet-laden droid glided past him. The trips were thankfully getting shorter; this cargo was from the last transport, almost completely unloaded. After Navik's "misfortune" (Wes smirked to himself) the disgruntled Quarren had taken himself off to his truck, muttering. The two crew members had decided to brave their commanding officer's wrath and had tottered off to find another entrance. Which meant that the last hour had been blessedly, tediously quiet. At least the unloading gave him an excuse to stand outside in the free air, instead of being stuck inside his stuffy little bay staring at the walls. Or rather, boxes.
Brun MkAliver, the sensible driver who had assumed control when Navik disappeared, wandered back over to the door, extending a datapad. "We're almost done here, Major. If I can just get your signature here for --"
MkAliver was interrupted as a snarling whine split the calm night air. Growing quickly to a roar, the noise resolved itself into the engines of several large swoops, zooming up the avenue fronting the base at suicidal speeds. The souped-up speeders flashed past and then executed sloppy turns, coming back around at the line of hovertrucks.
"What the -- get down!" Wes shouted, shoving MkAliver to the ground as one of the riders produced a blaster and started shooting into the air, verdant green laser bolts stabbing upward into the overcast sky. In moments, several blasters opened up, some firing into the air, some taking potshots at the line of transports. Their riders whooped and yelled, raucous cries carrying faintly over the shuddering engine growl of the swoops.
Wes raced for the nearest gap between trucks, blaster in hand and fumbling for his comlink. He threw himself to the ground, landing hard on his stomach with a grunt. Tucking close against the closed loading door of one of the transports, he scanned the open boulevard and hit the comlink's transmit button. "Emergency, emergency, swoop gang attacking at Base Entrance Gamma-8, I repeat, swoop ga--"
He was abruptly cut off as one of the riders buzzed his position, flashing past barely two meters away. He sighted without thought and fired, burning paint from the swoop's tail end, then flung up his left arm to shield his face as hot thruster wash rolled over him.
Coughing and blinking dust from his eyes, he looked up just in time to catch the rider of an orange-and-red swoop pause to take better aim, fire at something, then aim and fire again. The sharp whine of his blaster bolts were immediately followed by the shattering of glass. Wes felt his guts clench in anger; the Sith-begotten womp-rat was shooting windows out of the trucks. Some of the drivers were probably taking shelter in those cabs.
Snapping his blaster up, Wes drew a bead and fired just as the rider goosed his engine. The bolt aimed for his chest instead clipped his shoulder. The jockey lurched in his seat, wobbling off course but accelerating away.
Wes started to track him, but ducked as a blaster bolt from another direction slammed the side of the transport sheltering him. Whipping his head around, he saw a humanoid on a poisonous green swoop skidding to a stop in the middle of the avenue. Raising a large automatic blaster pistol, the rider cut loose a short burst just as Wes locked onto him and fired. The humanoid's laser bolts dug into the ground just in front of the major's position, dazzling his eyes and kicking duracrete chips back into his face. Wes's first shot sparked off the swoop's handlebars; the second took the rider in the left side of his chest, sending him flying backwards off the end of his bike.
The other swoops milled in confusion for a second, their riders shouting unintelligible words at each other, and then boiled in toward the transports, weapons blazing. The air above Wes was instantly rent to shreds by a storm of flying light. Gritting his teeth, Wes pressed as close as he could to the hovertruck's rear door and kept shooting as fast as he could pull the firing stud, feeling the hissing passage of a laser bolt only centimeters above his shoulder, flinching from the sudden shower of breaking glass as they nailed the transport's window --
-- as suddenly his single blaster was joined by a wave of heavier fire from his left, the direction of the warehouses. The swoops all pulled around and shot off in the direction they had come from as three military speeders sped up the avenue in their wake, forward blaster cannons roaring. In seconds, the sound of engines was fading, echoing weirdly off the artificial canyon walls formed by Coruscant's towering buildings.
The beleaguered major, no longer pinned down, still held his position for several long seconds. He scanned the area one last time, blaster up and at the ready. Only the crumpled form of the humanoid rider he had shot down, the green swoop humming peacefully in the middle of the avenue, and the gnawing, anxious anger in the pit of his stomach remained to tell him that anything at all had happened.
Continued in Part 9...