Ash blasted up from a nearby creator in the trembling ground of the ancient mining tunnels. Omega jumped to the side to avoid the scorching heat, tumbling into Hunter as she did so. His arm reached round to catch her and held her steady as he scanned for a way to get to the ship.

Communications were down for some reason and in the rising heat, Omega feared for her other brothers that hadn't made it to the ship yet. There seemed to be no life on board the vessel. No light, no movement, no door open and no one waving them in with the usual yelling when a job went terribly wrong like it had today.

Why hadn't they opened the hatch yet? Were they even alive? Did they make it back? Had too much of the toxic gas down here gotten to them when they encountered the first vent opening?

She and Hunter had been in a different location when the gas started to leak their way and the coms went down. Neither knew where their brothers were or what had happened. All they knew was the job was scrapped the moment that alarm started sounding, echoing eerily into the empty mine.

Breathing heavily through her respirator, Omega clung a little to Hunter. The floor of the great cavern beneath the ship glowed a deathly orange and yellow.

Hunter gathered Omega up as the ground beneath them heated impossibly fast as well, weighing the best options.

Another blast of ash burst under the Marauder and the ground beneath it crumbled.

"NO!" Omega cried as the ship dropped from view, still utterly dead in the water and no signs of life. Her fingers tighten around Hunter's neck and she felt a blast of heat rise from the newest hole in the ground where their ship used to be. She thought she was going to burn alive.

Not wasting time, Hunter turned and ran, sprinting as fast as he could back the way they had come through the narrow tunnels not made for humans. They had been created by a smaller race, closer to Omega's size.

"What are we going to do? Where are the others?! We have to go back for them!" Omega cried, knowing how silly it sounded, and yet so desperate to save her brothers.

Hunter didn't answer, instead he was punching buttons on a control panel next to the lift system. His face was set in a grim line that made his tattoo look even darker.

The door to the last one slid open, small and cramped. That wasn't going to work! Hunter wouldn't fit.

"Hunter-" Omega was cut off when her brother tossed her in, the bow on her back clattering against the back of the lift as she stumbled. Immediately he closed the door behind her.

Clawing frantically at the keypad, Omega all but screeched, "HUNTER! What are you doing!? You can't…you can't just stay here! I don't want to leave you! Please don't make me leave!"

The tube shaped lift was barely big enough for her to fit and she bashed her head on the top of it.

"I'm sorry, Omega," Hunter said, crouching down so they were eye level. "I can't let you die here. You're safer on the surface, and I'll never fit in there."

"NO!" Omega cried. "Let me stay! I want to be with you! I don't care! I don't want to be away from you! I need you! You promised to always be there! We have to save the others! I can help!"

"I'm…I'm sorry kid," Hunter told her, looking over his shoulder as the ground rumbled dangerously again. He sensed something she couldn't. Honey brown eyes found her own, pinched and grieved, staring into her soul as though it were the last time they would do so. "We love you…so much. Remember that."

He smashed the final key on the panel and sent the lift shooting for the surface, away from the building eruption far below and away from her brothers.

Shrieking as she lost sight of her brother, Omega rammed her little fingers into the keypad, begging desperately when the machinery buzzed, letting her know she had been locked out. An alarm sounded just as she got closer to the surface, miles and miles from where her brothers were still trapped without a ship.

An enormous eruption was imminent and while Omega was now a safe distance from the site, her brothers would not survive.

Smashing at the button on her communicator, Omega pleaded, "Tech!? Echo?! Wrecker?! Hunter! Can anyone hear me!?"

Silence.

"Please!" She cried into the communicator, stumbling from the tiny lift when it came to a halt with no clue where she was. "Please answer me!"

There was nothing, no reply at all.

"Please, Hunter I-"

Far in the distance, a huge cloud of deathly black, green and purple ash exploded into the air, and not a few moments later, the ground shook violently in the earthquake that followed. From where she stood, Omega could see the fire and destruction raging above the crest of the planet's surface.

All words failed, sticking in her throat as she watched, holding her communicator and hoping against hope to hear one of her brother's voices crackle through to her, telling her they were safe, telling her they were alive.

Ten minutes passed. Then twenty, and still, no matter how many times she tried there was no answer. By the time thirty minutes had passed, Omega's false calm crumbled, along with all her internal reassurances to herself that they were just fixing the communications, or they were just getting the ship up and running, they would be there at any moment for her.

Panic bubbled up, denial and rage all at once, crushing her lungs. Behind her she heard the telling sound of imperial ships screeching towards the old mining site. The explosion must have got their attention. She wasn't safe here anymore.

Taking one more desperate look toward the rising black cloud in the distance, Omega stole off into the jungle, scared, alone and with a sickly growing feeling that she would be from now on.