Chapter 9: Crawler Commandeers
Jaral was referring to the fact that she needed to contact rebel command to authorize the strike on Lothal. First of all, they needed to contact the Constantinople and hope that the ship could act as a mean to link her with Yavin 4.
April 16.
After spending hours putting together a communicator similar to a radio box, while the rest of the resistance movement gathered in the new refuge, Jordan was trying to contact the Constantinople via his omni-tool, while Sabine was trying to boost and stabilize the signal.
"Bridger to Constantinople, come in." the Captain insisted once again, but only statics followed.
"Adjusting frequencies." Jinx said mechanically.
Their patience was slowly depleting, but luckily, this time they answered.
"Raniza here, Captain, are you ok?" the worried voice of the First Officer came through.
"I'm all right, First Officer, so is the rest of the team." he reassured.
Raniza sighed. "What happened down there? You disappeared only to pop up again on the other side of the planet." she said.
"Kinda of a long story, but that's irrelevant, now. We need to give the Grand Marshall a direct link with Rebel Command, have you found a solution?"
"Engineer Sparky and Private Salazar had an idea, I'm patching them through."
After a few seconds of silence, the voice of Salazar and the robotic voice of the Geth that the crew called 'Sparky', rang up.
"Bridger Captain." Sparky said. "We would like to offer a solution regarding the Empire jamming the Constantinople's communications."
"I'm all ears, lads."
"Okay," Salazar intervened. "our problem right now is that the Empire has found a way to block our quantum communications. Even if they still can't intercept them, right now the only way to call anywhere out of the system is to hijack the imperial frequencies on our own."
"So what is your suggestion?"
"If Bridger Captain and the Rebel allies could acquire an imperial communication device, our platform could replicate the communication permits and allow the Constantinople to call Rebel Command, then acting as your repeater to allow Bridger Gran Marshall to establish a direct connection."
The rebels looked at each other. Not long after, the transmitter started squealing.
"What's happening?" Jaral asked.
"I think we may have found our device." Sabine said with a grin. "I'm picking up something transmitting nearby."
"Jinx, can you track it?" Jordan asked.
"Only marginally. The Constantinople's scanners should give me a better view of the situation."
"Raniza, connect Jinx to the sensors."
"Right away, sir." the Asari replied.
Circa a couple of minutes later, a hologram appeared on Jordan's omni-tool.
"It's an ore crawler." Jinx explained. "It's sending a Mining Guild signal and they're operating under the Empire's jurisdiction. If we can hijack it, we should be able to establish the connection we need."
"Then let's get to work." Jaral concluded and she materialized her armor.
"Wow, wow!" Ezra intervened. "You need to stay here and call Command as soon as we are ready."
"How, if the crawler will not be here?" she asked sarcastically.
"She has a point, Jaral," Kanan agreed. "this mission will be risky, you can't expose yourself."
"Guys, for the squadron to be ready and to arrive here they will need four, yes four rotations. If I have to wait that you guys bring back the crawler before I can speak, then we are simply going to waste time."
Nobody else could raise an objection, because nobody else had considered that the rebel squadron would need that much time to travel all the way from Yavin while avoiding the most patrolled hyperspace routes.
"All right," Jordan stood up. "but you're going in only when the area is safe, and you're staying close to me."
She made a lopsided grin. "Feel the need to hold my hand, dad?"
"I have ten years of parenting to recover." Jordan quipped. "Including making sure that you don't die."
The others chuckled.
"Ok, we got a plan, let's make sure to carry it out." Ezra said.
"A Mining Guild crawler shouldn't be much defended. At most we should find some security droids." Sabine commented.
"Even better. If you and me approach with the jetpacks, they won't see us coming." Ezra said.
"Jinx, when we get there, make sure to jam their comms as well." Jaral instructed.
"Affirmative."
After leaving Jai in charge of the camp, the Specters, plus Ryder and Jordan, mounted on the land-speeder and started the travel toward the signal.
The trip was quite short, merely 25 minutes, before they entered in sight of the columns of smoke left behind by the crawler. They dismounted from the speeder and went on the edge of a small ditch to take a look.
In front of them stood the crawler, which moved thanks to repulsor technology, while two giant flamethrowers on the front side strip raked the surface of raw materials, which was the reason why so much of the planet was burnt.
Still, Sabine quickly spotted what they wanted: a long-range communications transmitter installed at the top of the crawler. Perhaps it alone could reach Yavin, but it was better to first contact the Constantinople so that Darvos could encrypt the transmissions. Even though Jaral knew that Thrawn and Iulius were expecting an attack, Hera and the attack force would have had a much easier time if the Empire didn't know exactly when they would leave.
The group mounted back on the speeder, with Sabine and Ezra crouching on the back end of the vehicle, ready to jump into action. Ryder drove among the scorched earth left behind by the crawler, approaching from the rear of the vehicle, where smoke, dust, and the deafening sound of the machinery would easily conceal the noise of the rocket propellers.
"All right, you lovebirds." Jaral teased them. "Let me see how you fly together."
Under the helmets, the two smiled and then rocket-jumped away. Navigating on the left side of the crawler, they reached the gangplank that united the two sections of the ship, quickly spotting a security droid patrolling. The two waited for it to turn around a corner, then landed behind said corner and Ezra used his omni-tool to overload the machine's circuit. Its head blew up as a result.
"Sector is clear." he said into the comlink, while Sabine watched his back.
Ryder lifted the speeder up, bringing it right next to the gangplank, allowing Kanan and Zeb to jump over. Then Jordan jumped, and just to satisfy his own whim for what they said before leaving, he tended a hand to Jaral, who shook her head and indulged her father.
While the group finished disembarking, another droid came out from the rear section and was about to cross the gangplank, but Sabine quickly drew out one of her pistols and got it right into the head.
With that out of the way, the group proceeded to the command room, guns out. However, nobody was there to stop them. All they saw was a Trandoshan, not particularly big for his species, with his feet on the control panel and who was humming and vibing to a song in his earphones.
The group easily surrounded him without him noticing. Then Zeb lifted one of the earphones.
"I like that song." he joked, making the Trandoshan squirm in panic, but the Lasat grabbed him and lifted him from the ground, putting him in front of Jaral.
"Hello there." the woman said.
"Pirate scum." the Trandoshan hissed before quickly pressing a bracelet on his left wrist.
An alarm started blaring and the crawler suddenly shut down, its engines died and it fell to the ground.
"Sabine, shut out that alarm." Kanan ordered and Sabine got at work, using her omni-tool to find the shutting frequency more quickly.
The Trandoshan kept struggling, but Zeb still managed to hold him, for the moment. Then the lizard hit him with an elbow and eventually managed to get out of the Lasat's grip, but he was simply knocked down by one of Jordan's punches.
Meanwhile, Sabine managed to shut down the alarm. Jordan put the Trandoshan into Zeb's hold once again and destroyed the transmitter that was sending the alarm.
"Do you have any idea who you are mess-ing with?" the scaly guy said menacingly.
"The Mining Guild." Jaral replied dryly. "Now you better shut your trap before we get to more drastic measures." she threatened.
Then, the comlink of the ship beeped and a male voice resonated into the room.
"Guild Control to Crawler 413-24. You've activated your distress beacon and ceased output. Is there a problem? Do you copy? Over."
"Ha!" the captain of the crawler exulted. "You're done, thieving scoundrels."
Zeb reinvigorated the hold, but that didn't solve the problem.
"No, Zeb, let him speak." Jaral said, surprising everybody.
"Guild Control to Crawler 413-24. Respond immediately." the controller now said more urgently.
"Yes, respond…" the Trandoshan gloated. "you don't want my people to come, I ass-ure you."
The alien didn't notice that Jaral had her omni-tool lightened up and near his mouth.
"Is it enough, Jinx?" Jaral asked.
"Affirmative."
She pushed some of the holographic button. What she had was a software that could replicate the voice of anybody as long as there was a vocal sample of the subject.
"Ezra, this one's on you." she said.
Ezra dematerialized his armor and cleared his throat.
"Be my guest." Sabine joked, leaving the controls to him with an exaggerated gesture of showing the way.
Only imitating the hissing in the voice of the alien, Ezra started talking.
"S-orry. The crawler has malfunctioned." then hissed.
The Trandoshan gasped. "Is that what I sound like?"
Zeb put a hand on his mouth, but Jordan decided that it was time for a drastic solution and used the omni-tool to inject a paralyzing agent. Soon, the reptiloid stopped moving, and Zeb let him fall. Even though he could still move his eyes, the toxin was a neuromuscular inhibitor, meaning that his nervous system was temporarily disconnected from the commands of his brain.
"Operator 94-34, do you need assistance?"
"Negative, Control. The engine flared. We had to s-hut down everything, but we will up and r-unning again very s-oon."
"We'll send a team for technical assistance, Crawler 413-24," the Controller answered.
Ezra almost panicked. "No need, Control. Control, do you copy?" he said, but the transmissions had been closed.
"Well, that could've gone better." he commented as he turned around and Jaral shut down the vocal distortion.
"I thought it was pretty good." Zeb said to console him.
"We better get to work." Kanan added.
Sabine removed her helmet and went to the controls of the communications device. "This unit's older than I thought. It may take a while to boost this thing power enough to reach even the Constantinople."
"Jinx, let's give her a hand." Jaral ordered as she stepped closer to the panel.
"That's weird." said Sabine. "Someone activated the inter-vehicle comm. There's a signal coming from the rear section of the crawler."
"Me, Jordan and Zeb will go take a look. Get that signal and watch him." Kanan said, and the three men left the room.
Following the gangplank they had landed on, the three men reached the rear section. Jordan entered first, his assault rifle pointed. They found themselves walking on another set of planks that oversaw the engine room below them.
"Zeb, cover us." the Captain instructed. "Kanan, with me." and the Jedi nodded.
After finding a ladder, Jordan and Kanan descended it. The room was filled with steam and other less innocuous smokes, but luckily Jordan had his helmet on. He couldn't use the thermal visor, though, because there were too many sources of heat in the room, so he had to rely on the movement sensor and his eyes.
A figure passed running in front of the two of them, Kanan put a hand on his blaster, while Jordan pointed his rifle.
"Get out of there, now!" he intimated.
From behind the various engine units, some workers with the Guild's clothes timidly peeked out, but when they saw Jordan pointing the rifle, they got behind their covers again.
"Please, don't hurt us." one of them asked shaking.
"Slaves." Kanan realized.
Jordan lowered his weapon. "It's okay. I'm Captain Jordan Bridger, of the Legion. You're safe, now." he proclaimed.
"Finally!" a familiar voice screamed happily. From the steam emerged a Devaronian with a broken horn. "My friends have come to rescue me!"
"Vizago?" Kanan asked, while Jordan looked puzzled, since he still hadn't met the Devaronian.
Vizago went to put an arm around Kanan's neck energetically and, while the slaves came out of hiding. Most were curious about Jordan's armor.
"I told the others how the Empire banished me to this monstrosity for helping you rebels." Vizago narrated. "But I knew you would not leave me here to rot."
"Right…!" Kanan tried to sound enthusiastic. "Right."
Vizago made a brief laugh. "I told them the foreman would be no match for a Jedi."
"Foreman?" Jordan and Kanan asked in unison and the sound of a vibro-whip rose from behind them.
They jolted around and saw another Trandoshan, but this was one of the regular ones, big as much as Zeb was and definitely stronger than the captain of that crawler.
The foreman whipped his weapon toward Kanan, who ignited his lightsaber only for it to be grabbed by the whip.
"Let's hope you're right." Kanan commented to Vizago.
A moment later, the foreman managed to pull off the lightsaber from Kanan's hands, but then Jordan intervened, shooting a stun shot from his omni-tool against the Trandoshan, who lost his weapon as well and growled in confusion.
Kanan recalled his saber with the Force and ignited it, however, Jordan put an arm horizontally.
"No, Kanan, this one is mine." Jordan said with an almost excited tone, then he dematerialized the rifle inside the omni-tool and deactivated his armor, remaining in his fatigue uniform.
"What are you doing?" Kanan asked confused. Zeb, who had brought himself on a position where he could see them, looked baffled as well.
Jordan cracked his knuckles and made a lopsided grin. "It's not everyday I get to fight someone of my size seriously. What do you say, big lizard?"
The Trandoshan growled ferociously and prepared his claws before jumping against the Legionnaire, who dodged easily the first strike. He dodged another couple of slashes before delivering a jab to the Trandoshan's face that made him stumble backward.
The foreman shook his head quickly and this time screamed in rage, assailing Jordan once again. The Legionnaire parried two slashes headed for his head, until the foreman got impatient and simply punched him in the stomach. Jordan didn't flinch.
"Is that all?" he said with a mischievous chuckle.
The foreman now looked frightened. It was clear that he wasn't used to fight people on his level. He quickly ran for the ladder and climbed up, followed by Jordan, who wasn't about to let him go.
The foreman managed to reach the gangplank connecting the two sections of the crawler before Jordan managed to reach him and grab him from the suit on his back, and now he had no other choice but to fight.
Desperation usually makes a fighter stronger and quicker, but that's something Jordan knew perfectly, and knew how to exploit the over-eagerness of his opponent, waiting for the right moment when a failed blow would unbalance him to strike back.
Eventually, it was Jordan's turn to hit the Trandoshan in the stomach, making him stumble and hit him with a quick sequence of punches that had the slave-master smash against the handrail with his back. Jordan then put his hands around the alien's neck, using his upper body's weight to prevent the Trandoshan to break free, despite how much he desperately squirmed.
"This is for all the people who suffered because of you, reject of a worm." Jordan whispered angrily.
He recalled one of his past battles, when he was still in the Milky Way and had just turned 18, thus becoming an official member of the Legion. His first mission ever was to participate in the rescue of a group of colonists of the Attican Traverse who had been raided and kidnapped by a band of slavers from the Terminus Systems. The rescue went well, with the band completely wiped out, but Jordan saw the conditions of other prisoners who had been in the stronghold for months, and that experience had carved into his heart a visceral hatred for slavery and all who exploited sentient beings for personal profit.
It wasn't just a case, because the Imperial Federation had a strict policy against slavery, which had only been intensified under Empress Benedetta's reign. The Federation refused to maintain diplomatic relations of any kind with worlds in the Terminus that still hadn't formally abolished slavery, and expeditions against bands of slavers in the Terminus like the one Jordan participated in where everything but rare. By large, all the citizens of the Federation had a very negative conception about slavery.
Thus, Jordan had no remorse when he squeezed harder and broke the slave-master's neck, leaving his body lifeless. Then Jordan grabbed it and rolled it over the edge, making the body fall toward the surface, hidden by the fumes of the crawler.
The Legionnaire took a breather and reactivated his armor, right when he noticed that the workers had come out of the engine room and had observed the fight from a gangplank down below. When the slave-master fell in front of them, they started cheering for Jordan, while Kanan and Zeb reached him on his level of the crawler.
"Remind me never to make you angry." Kanan quipped.
From below, Vizago said loudly. "You see that? Those are my friends!"
In a couple of minutes, the workers reached the upper gangplank as well, just in time for Ezra to show up.
"Dad, that was fantastic!" he said excitedly.
Jordan groaned. "You saw that?"
"From the security cameras. Jaral wanted to check on you, but it looks like you had everything under control." then he took a look at the workers and was greeted by Vizago.
"Ah-ah, Bridger, my friend! So this is your real dad? The one you have been looking for for years?" he asked jovially.
Ezra, however, was a bit confused. "Vizago? Wow, that's a surprise."
A realization came to Vizago's mind and he gasped in horror. "Now I see...you did not come here to rescue me. Betrayed! Oh, I knew I should've given you up!" he said and crossed his arms in front.
"Yeah…" Kanan said cautiously. "but we are here now."
"And we are rescuing you." Ezra added with an innocent tone.
"Guys, I need you up here, now!" Jaral exclaimed.
As soon as the group, including Vizago, came back into the control room, they found Jaral and Sabine looking in the distance with two binoculars. The captain had previously been locked up by Ezra into one of the two closets at the sides of the crawler, after stunning him once again because he was coming back to his senses.
"Those aren't Mining Guild vehicles." Jaral said. "It's the Empire. Two gunships, likewise the same amount of infantry squads.
"It's still not too late to abandon ship." Zeb commented.
"No, we still have to contact Rebel Command." Jaral replied.
"Not to mention this crawler has long-range communications and we could use it for our attack." Ezra added.
"Right now, it's unarmed." Zeb objected, holding the deactivated vibro-whip that he stole from the engine room. "No match for those gunships."
"Yes, but maybe we can pull this off without fighting." Ezra replied calmly.
"So I get you have a plan?" Kanan asked.
Ezra turned around. "Vizago get on the captain's chair. Zeb, you have to pose as the foreman, let the Empire believe everything is under control."
"Me? A slave-master?" Zeb asked offended, but Ezra insisted.
"Just put the helmet on."
Right then, the comlink beeped. "Mining Guild vessel, transmit security codes, now."
The two aliens complied with Ezra's instructions, though Vizago grumbled. "By the moons of Gozgo, I hope this works."
The comlink beeped again. "Repeat, transmit security codes, or we will open fire."
"Wait a second." Jaral whispered to the Devaronian. She got on his side and used her omni-tool to send the codes, which Jinx had found while working on the communication panel.
"Uh, this is the captain 93-94." Vizago said into the comlink. "Transmitting security codes."
The gunships stopped at around 20 meters from the front of the ship.
"The Mining Guild reported a security alert for this vessel."
Sabine turned to Ezra and whispered to him. "Hey, you sure Vizago won't turn us in to save himself?"
"Too late, now." Ezra simply noted.
"That had been a slip on my part." Vizago said. "There was an issue with the engines and I accidentally activated the alarm, but we're fine. It's all fine, how are you doing?" he said innocently.
"Prepare to be boarded." the imperial dryly replied.
"No, no, no, no, that won't…" Vizago tried to say, but Jaral put a hand on his shoulder and shook her head, understanding there was no way to chase them away with words alone.
"All right, to your positions, Ezra, Kanan and Sabine get into that closet, me and Dad will watch over the captain." Jaral instructed.
"And if the Empire looks in there?" Zeb asked.
"We can literally become invisible, Zeb. We will find a way." Jordan quipped.
Jaral went to open the closet and her heart skipped a beat.
"Where is he?!" she exclaimed.
However, the sound of the gunships landing on the open space right out of their door, convinced her to drop the matter, for the moment. She and Jordan hid in the now empty closet.
As they heard Vizago distracting the stormtroopers outside, the Legionnaires realized that the small Trandoshan had opened one of the air vents and slipped into it. Wherever he was crawling right now, they didn't know.
Still, Vizago managed to convince the troopers that there was no problem and a few minutes later, the gunships lifted again.
"Good job, Vizago." Ezra complimented. "You haven't lost your game."
"Like Mother said," he replied proudly. "once a scoundrel, always a scoundrel. But we have another problem."
"He has gone into the ventilation shaft. The problem is, where is he crawling?" Jaral asked.
"Guys, I think I got it." Sabine said from the comm panel. "Transmitting to the Constantinople...now."
But when she touched the button, the panel crackled and a few sparks came out of it.
"Transmitter's lost power?!" Sabine exclaimed, banging a fist on the panel.
Then the voice of the captain spoke into the communicator of the ship.
"I told you not to mess with me. You may have duped those Imperial s-uckers, but you won't fool the Mining Guild."
"That sneaky little lizard." Zeb commented.
"Jinx, can you trace his signal?" Ezra asked.
"He's using the ship's intercom. However, the access point he's using is into the main reactor, in the rear section of the crawler." the AI said.
Ezra looked at his father and the two nodded before dashing out of the room and toward the door on the other side of the gangplank. Ezra tried to push, but that didn't work.
"It's magnetically sealed." the young man said after taking a look with the scanner inside his helmet. "I can't cut through."
"Stand by." Jinx said on his omni-tool, as the two processors that were with Jaral in the control room were working to divert enough power to open the door.
After no more than 10 seconds, the two pieces of the door slipped away, opening the room for the Legionnaires. Ezra kept the hilt of his lightsaber in his hand while Jordan preferred to take out his pistol, an M-6 Carnifex, extremely lethal in an enclosed space like that.
"We need to restore power." Ezra said. "Where do I go, Jinx?"
"That panel on the left side." the AI said, highlighting the console on Ezra's visor.
The young man headed for the panel and started the sequence to reactivate the energy and the transmitter, but all of a sudden, Jordan turned on his right, aiming at the roof, and shot a bolt.
The noise produced by the Carnifex was loud, but it did bring down the corpse of the Trandoshan, who fell from the roof with a giant hole in his chest.
Ezra was just turning his neck to look at the scene, while his hands kept moving over the panel.
"I hope you'll never use such methods to educate me." he quipped.
Jordan folded the pistol and attached it to the magnetic seal on his left hip.
"You're almost 18, Ezra. I don't have much else to say about your education." Jordan replied in kind.
Ezra chuckled. "Yeah…almost."
"May 1st, right? It's just two weeks from here." Jordan remembered.
"I'm still not sure I learned your calendar, but yes, it's in two weeks."
"Good, perhaps Lothal will be free by then."
"That would be the best gift I could ever hope for...after getting you and mum back, two years ago, of course." Ezra joked.
Then he finally finished the sequence and the whirring of the engines came back into the ship.
The two Bridgers returned outside of the command room, where the rest of the group was waiting for them. Just in time to see Ryder join them.
"We made a believer out of you yet, Ryder?" Kanan said with a joke.
"You're getting there, Kanan." the former Governor replied with a chuckle.
The comlink beeped. "All right, we linked with the Constantinople and beamed a signal to Rebel Command, now to wait for an answer." Sabine informed.
"Guess this crawler belongs to us, now." Zeb said happily. "Maybe we are pirates, after all."
Ezra made a lopsided grin and looked at the part of the prairies that had been spared the destruction of the crawler.
"At least these plains have been spared. For now."
"That is not all you spared." Vizago told him. "I know you did not come here to rescue me, but I am grateful nonetheless."
"And we're grateful to you, Vizago. For not turning us in." Ezra said seriously, then turned toward the small group of workers they had liberated. "You guys are free, now. But we could really use your help for Lothal."
"Count us in." one of the workers replied, and judging by the faces of his companions, he was speaking for all of them.
"As for this vessel," Vizago suggested. "it is obviously in need of a new captain."
"I think I know just the pirate for the job." Ezra chuckled while nudging the Devaronian on the elbow.
Vizago chuckled.
Sabine ran out of the cabin all of a sudden.
"We're receiving a transmission!" she exclaimed.
Everybody rushed inside, especially Ezra. Jaral was standing in front of the microphone with a deadly serious face. Sabine went back to seat on the chair to keep the connection running smoothly.
"Glad to hear from you, guys." Hera said happily. "Rebel Command wants to speak with the Grand Marshall."
"Patch them in." Jaral replied calmly, straightening up with her hands behind her back.
Ezra could feel her heart fighting between enthusiasm and hesitation, so he put a hand on her shoulder and passed positive thoughts to her.
Not long after, the voice of Mon Mothma broke through.
"Grand Marshall, it's good to know you're okay."
"I'm fine, Madam. Are our squadrons ready for the strike?" she asked.
"Pilots and relative starcrafts are on stand-by. We're waiting for your order."
Jaral's heart suddenly started pounding much stronger. This was it, the thing she has worked so hard and so long to realize was happening. The attack on the factory, the first phase of the liberation of her planet and, perhaps, of the entire galaxy.
If the attack was going to succeed, they would open the way for the Federation and their powerful fleet. Finally they could turn this minor resistance campaign into a full-scale war, with a real chance at taking down the Empire.
But if it was going to fail, her people would die, and the Rebellion would be condemned to slowly wither away under the blows of the TIE Defender project. And if the Rebellion perished, the Milky Way could have been the next.
She steeled her resolve and pointed her gaze firmly toward the microphone like she was facing Rebel Command at that exact moment.
"Have all wings report in. The attack is confirmed. I repeat, the attack is confirmed."
While everybody in the room struggled to keep the enthusiasm from exploding, the Grand Marshall kept giving instructions.
"Send Phoenix Squadron to the attack. When you reach the Kamdon system, send a signal and we will start ground operations. General Syndulla, you're in charge of the air strike."
"Aye, aye, ma'am." Hera said, she herself barely controlling her enthusiasm and confidence.
That said, Jaral turned around, her back still straightened, and walked away, ignoring the enthusiastic atmosphere.