Chapter 21: Assault
Marina wasn't really sure how to react to the installation's defenses abruptly exploding, not to mention the sudden and carefully timed arrival of several shuttles disembarking a small army of people sporting a startling array of weaponry. The best she could manage was to climb back to her feet, shake the dust off her armor, and try to look like she knew what she was doing.
Fortunately, the very criminal devaronian masquerading as a petty criminal took the lead. "Yes, ahem, as you can see, the defense towers won't be a problem. Now, if you will excuse us, we must carry on with our mission against our common enemy." And with that he gestured to the rodian and walked right past them.
Marina itched to do . . . she didn't know what, but she felt like she ought to be doing something. But before she'd had time to really consider, the Exchange agents had disappeared.
Bao Dur picked himself up as well, though eh kept his eyes, and his weapon, pointed towards the facility. "Well that was . . . unexpected. What do we do now? We still need to find a shuttle."
Marina gave herself a shake. Right. Shuttle. "And no matter what those Exchange goons say, I don't believe for a second that they wouldn't turn on us the moment we let our guard down. It looks like the only shuttles are in there, but I'd bet good credits the Exchange will blow up Czerka's shuttles the second they find them. We need to beat them to the landing pad."
Kreia frowned. "It is not wise to run between two battling kaath hounds, little one."
"No, it isn't . . . unless the only escape is on the other side. Let's face it—whoever wins, they'll be on high alert. We aren't sneaking through, and whether isn't a small army of Czerka or a small army of mercenaries, the three of us alone aren't fighting our way through. That means we have to go now, while they still have someone else to shoot at.
Bao Dur smiled. "There's the General I knew."
Marian grimaced, but ignored it. She had bigger problems to deal with. "Let's go. Kreia, you're the Jedi here—you lead the way and see if we can avoid most of the fighting."
Atton frowned as another mercenary was cut down ahead of him. The tide was shifting. It hadn't changed, not by a long shot, but it was a bad sign. In a normal land war combat operation you advanced quickly until your rate of exchange started to dip, then you stopped and forted up to hold your gains until reinforcements arrived, or enemy reinforcements were diverted elsewhere with a fresh offensive. Ideally both.
But this wasn't a normal op—it was a single, crushing blow to decisively destroy the opposition, not hold or control anything. And in that kind of op, the single most important factor was momentum. Keep them off balance, from bringing their superior numbers, knowledge of the terrain, and the other defenders' advantages to bear. They needed to be going faster, snowballing the advantage, not slowing down. And they were losing it.
The merc commanders seemed to know it, too, judging by the increasingly vocal demands to keep pressing forward into the confusing maze of Czerka structures he heard over the military grade tight-beam com he'd taken from a merc's body. And then another voice cut through the chatter.
"Lead, Nine, HVT located, say again, eyes on High Value Target, sector 3."
"Nine, this is Lead. Confirm HVT on site. Secure if it falls in your lap, otherwise forget it—Continue with primary objectives."
Atton swore. There could by any number of people the Exchange considered a high value target, but he knew. He knew exactly who, and what, was out there right now.
Marina jerked back behind cover with a hiss of pain as a heavy blaster bolt reflected off her armor. The transfer of that much raw energy kicked like a mule even as it burned, and if she hadn't half-recognized the Force's warning in time to pull back and keep the blast from hitter her square on . . .
"More of Czerka's soldiers approach from our left. We must depart . . . quickly."
Marina nodded absently in Kreia's direction and tried to think over the thunder of Bao Dur returning fire. Whatever anyone had intended, the fight had devolved into a chaotic mess. Already they'd been saved twice by someone attacking whoever was shooting at them from the other side. They couldn't keep this up any longer.
"Break right and head for the primary facility," she shouted to be heard over the incredible noise.
Something heavier than a blaster rifle, something that sounded depressingly similar to a crew-served repeating blaster, opened up and Bao Dur rolled further behind cover as a cloud of pulverized ceramacrete rained down on them. "You sure, General? The mercenaries are making a lot of ground over there."
"I know, but we'll be cut to pieces if we stay between them any loner, even with the Force. At least the Exchange wants us alive."
He nodded. "Give the word, ma'am."
Marina wasn't consciously aware of her reflexive grimace—she was peeking out with every sense she possessed. The fresh contacts she'd felt came into view of Czerka and the heavy repeater was abruptly shooting somewhere else. "Now!"
Marina led the way, firing blindly towards the Czerka lines while sprinting towards where she was pretty sure the mercenaries were in the part-trained, part instinctive half-crouch that kept her as low as possible. Kreia and Bao Dur's footsteps pounded after her, strangely discernible over the chaos. Bao Dur stumbled and gasped something between a groan and a scream, but he didn't go down. They rounded a battered duracrete corner and slid to a stop behind a support pillar, gasping for air and trying to take in their surroundings now that they were out of the direct line of fire. She had the front, and the place had already seen combat, but nobody was immediately visible, so—
"Contact! Drop your weapons, now!"
Marina slid around the pillar and behind a shattered office desk, exposing herself to anyone down the walkway ahead of them, but putting it between her and that voice while her brain tried to catch up. There, she'd missed a stairwell to her left and two mercs were well positioned with a clear view down on them.
Damn.
She opened her mouth to respond but inhaled a lung-full of dust and coughed instead, just as more blasterfire erupted. Marina scrunched down as low as she could get, trying to breathe.
"Are you alright?"
What? She peaked out again to make out someone up the stairs standing over the mercenaries. Had he stood them down? Or . . . he'd killed them both? She strained to see more clearly while she coughed, as he looked almost familiar . . .
Bao Dur disengaged on the far side, covering the rear, and slid in behind the pillar, quickly noting the merc position, lined up a shot, and fired. The man took it in the chest and collapsed in a heap.
Oh well. "Keep moving, we might just have broken past the merc line. Keep going to the factory!"
Kreia paused. In the midst of the cacophony of combat with its roiling emotions and sensations, she sensed something . . . Yes, she knew that twisted, gnarled soul. Interesting. Perhaps she had . . . misread the man. It seemed he might hold some use after all.
She thought a moment more, considering, then nodded. "Wait, little one. That man—he felt familiar, did he not?"
The young Jedi looked back briefly, warily. "Maybe. Why?"
"I believe we know him."
Marina grimaced. "Now is not the time to be cryptic you old—Atton? That was Atton?"
Bao Dur backed into them, still covering the rear. "General?"
Marina sword. "Bao Dur, the man you just shot, go see if he's still alive. If he is, bring him. We'll cover you. Then we'll try to breach the factory and decide what we'll do from there."
Bao Dur didn't question orders. Instead he darted out, ignoring the tearing pain in his side, as Kreia and Marina opened fire to cover his mad dash up the stairs.
Atton's eyes popped open with a gasp, which interfered with the scream that tried to break out as someone ripped his chest open. All that came out was a choking gag. He tried to move, to get away from the pain, but something had him pinned to he floor.
Captured.
He bucked wildly, veins bulging, eyes flicking back and forth blindly. And then his brain started to work.
"—still, dang it, we're trying to save you!"
He recognized who was holding down his shoulders. Someone else was trying to put a kolto salve on the blistering mess of his chest, but that didn't matter. It was her. Of course it was her. Who else could it be?
Why couldn't she have just died and freed him from . . . from whatever the hell was wrong with him? He wanted to rage, to lash out, to destroy, but the anxiety, the need to find her was quiet again, his mind quiet and finally, blissfully, empty once more.
It was hopeless. He couldn't escape, not now, maybe not ever. And if he killed her, he might never be free of her. No, his only hope was someone else killed her for him, killed her in a way he couldn't have prevented.
He stopped struggling against the Jedi's grip while tears of pain and frustration threatened. The light of freedom at the end of the tunnel faded. Faded to a tiny white point, then vanished entirely. He was trapped.
But he'd been trapped before and survived. He would survive again. All he had to do was sink, drown himself in nothing, ride out the storm until it was safe to come out once more. He would get through this—not even the Jedi could stop him for long.
Marina released Atton's shoulders slowly as Bao Dur finished tying off the bandages. "Atton . . . I didn't' expect to see you. What are you doing down here? And why were you with the mercenaries?"
"And," cut in Bao Dur, "who are you?"
Atton pulled himself up to a sitting position gingerly, not quite masking the flashes of pain shooting through him even through the numbing effect of the kolto. His armor was a ruined mess, and even then he'd been lucky. "The Exchange gave me a job, and I did it. Forget about me, iridonian. I'm just a pilot. Nobody."
Bao Dur didn't seem particularly put at ease. Atton just stared coolly at the man, he suddenly recalled, that had just shot him.
"Right," broke in Marina, "that's it for introductions. Atton, in case it's not blindingly obvious, we broke into the old Telosian factory and barricaded the entrance. It's not great and it won't hold for long once they stop killing each other out there, so we need to move deeper inside—everyone said the Telosians were unarmed when the Sith moved through, so this place was pretty covert. There must have been some sort of hidden distribution method for whatever they made here. If we're lucky, it will be a disguised shuttle pad. So that's the plan. Let's get moving and then we can get out of here and out of this damned system for good.
She climbed back to her feet. Bao Dur shot her a questioning look, obviously a long way from trusting this "friend" that had shot his mercenary buddies in the back. Marina shook her head and started walking, blaster at the ready.
That wasn't a conversation she could really afford to have right now—especially because she had more than a few doubts herself. Atton . . . so he hadn't run after all. But if he hadn't, why jump back in when he'd had a choice? Or had he tried to run and gotten wrapped up with the Exchange? Why board a last-minute mercenary assault? Surely he couldn't have done it to find her again? Because that was genuinely insane. He'd long since paid off any debt he'd owed her, and people around her didn't tend to survive very long.
Hell, she didn't trust any of them. And Kreia, the only one she was confident would try to keep her alive, she trusted least of all.
She thrust all that aside. None of it would matter if she wandered in front of a nervous Czerka employee with a blaster in the next few minutes lost in pointless thought.
Factory. Escape. Right.
For all her tinkering with machines and familiarity with the arms these factories produced, she had almost no experience with an actual industrial production line. What struck her as most strange was that she could see several production runs just from where she was standing, but they weren't much like what she would have imagined. Instead they were huge metallic boxes, easily 10 meters a side, with what must be a materials input feed coming in from above, and a product line dropping down through the ceramacrete floor. The actual assembly process must have taken place inside in fantastically compact sequences. Ah, there, a tiny droid scuttled in through an air intake valve. Well, if there was no need for large, clumsy sentients to have access, then no use in wasting space, right? Just have your baby droids run maintenance, and you could set up more runs per meter of floor space. Shoot, at that size, you could just about import the whole thing as a block unit, no need for assembly, and no local workers to spill the beans to the press.
That also meant the place was disturbingly empty. In fact, there seemed to be only two doors, apart from the entrance, in the huge space. One, up a short stair that overlooked the floor, was clearly a control room. The other was big, with at least two legit, physical locking mechanisms. Without high explosives, or her old . . . without high explosives, which they didn't have, that left the control room.
"Cover the entrance, I'm going to try to unlock the door." She didn't bother to wait and see if they complied, instead jogging over to the control room. What she found there was . . . disconcerting. A tap on the screen brought up the main control panel, just like that. Whatever security ID features were there, they'd already been circumvented, doubtless by Czerka, who'd left the console logged in. Right there was the command to open the interior door, labeled "classified." but they'd left it locked and closed. Why?
The only reason she could think of was that it was dangerous somehow, and they hadn't been able to get past the security somehow. Well, it was face the unknown, or certain capture or death hanging around, and in the end that wasn't really a choice at all. She punched it, and below the locks ground into motion.
Whatever secrets the Telosians were keeping buried down there, possibly even the reason the planet had been put to the torch, they were about to come face to face with. Marina couldn't say she was looking forward to the experience.
A/N Hey everyone. I am not, in fact, dead. Getting caught up in work after my long absence re-taking the BAR in this state. I guess I got overconfident passing it the first time back in Utah :/ This is a short chapter, but it was a natural stopping point and there isn't one for a little bit after this, and it was either post something now, or wait for a quite a while longer, and I figure something is better than nothing. It's trickier than I thought trying to get back into the story and pick up with the right tone. Does it feel right to you?