The next few days drug on for what felt like forever, as time had slowed to an intolerable and painstakingly sluggish pace. For the majority of the time all Deidra heard was deafening, ominous silence. Though as the days passed the still air became frequently punctuated by the intermittent screams and howls of whoever had the pleasure of being tortured down the corridor from where she anxiously waited.
Although she had received a few hunks of bread accompanied by few muddy cups of water, mosty she wasn't able to eat. Every time she thought she might be able to stomach it there would be another blood curdling scream causing her to lose her appetite. Amidst it all, the dirty sour water she forced herself to drink only just kept her from the brink of crippling dehydration.
Not helping matters, was how she longed for a shower. Even a change of clothes alone would have sufficed. But in all reality, it ranked very low on her list of worries. Though between desperate thoughts and horrid screams she couldn't help but loathe the feel of her sweat-matted dress and undergarments. They had only been made more uncomfortable by the water that had dried stiffly into them, making her chaffe terribly.
Between all the unplesantries of her current situation, she had attempted to sleep on the stone floor since the cell had been void of anything even slightly forgiving to rest against. For the most part sleep had become fleeting. Instead her mind had been kept alert, even when her body ached for rest.
Because her body may have been stuck in a cage but more often than not, her mind was with her grandmother. She wished and hoped she would get to see her again soon. She knew Thea well enough to know she would be in stitches, completely lost with worry and grief. Deidra could feel within herself, the echo of those same things.
Day after day she might have felt hunger claw at her, were it not for the adrenaline keeping her bursting at the seams with restless energy despite far surpassing exhaustion. The only thing she could feel past her own heart frantically and feintly rattling behind her ribs was the dehydration that began to grow cruel, making her lips feel dry and her breaths labored.
But as the days came and went, the occasional cries and screams from down the hall that had become more frequent, also grew in volume and desperation. On the morning of the fourth day in captivity, she scrambled close to the door of her cell, pressing her ear up against it to hear more of what she really didn't want to hear at all.
A scuffle, followed by a crash. Then tortured words. "No, please, I swear, that's all I know," a man's voice cried out past ripped and abused vocal chords.
Then there were grunts along with the repetitive thud of flesh being met with blunt force trauma. Deidra's stomach began to feel sick. She thought she might have thrown up, had she anything in her stomach.
Then there was another voice, that of the man who had interrogated her when she had first awoken. Just as he had with her, he spoke softly. The annunciation of his words wasn't distinguishable from down the hall. Though she could feel something in her bones, a resonance of a terrible feeling winding up her spine and limbs.
It told her to run, to escape. Only that was impossible. It only made her feel more terrified and helpless instead as she was unable to bend to the animal will from deep within her biological code.
Then more thuds and cries sounded out as the rebels words were met with silence from their captive. And then, nothing.
But footsteps began to grow louder and more audible as they came closer to the corridor. The sound of a body being drug against the rough stone floor could be heard as the door to the hall creaked open on rusty iron hinges.
"Put him in the cell, and get me that girl," the man commanded.
"I don't know, Saw, I think this one's dead," another voice called out, questioning and unsure. "Maybe we should put him in a bag, instead."
A pause.
"No, he's still breathing. If he dies later, oh well," Saw said gruffly, completely unaffected.
Deidra pulled back from the door just in time before the guard slammed it open, tossing Yaron's battered body in beside her. Her eyes went wide with fear as she saw him leaking red everywhere, his body littered with bruises and lacerations. Before she had a moment to kneel by his side and help quell the bleeding, two of the rebel cohorts reached down to hoist her up and out of the cell rather forcibly, not waiting to ask her to move of her own volition.
She craned her head back to look at Yaron as she was rushed down the hall. She could feel the imminence of death in the air, the slick of bloodied hands on her skin. It was the blood of the man who lie bleeding out in the cell, most likely dying.
"He-he's going to die, he needs a doctor!" Deidra shouted, wrenching away from the hands that refused to let go. "I can help him, let me help him," she begged, her mind struggling with the concept of treating any life so carelessly.
"If he dies, that's his own problem. You need to start thinking about yourself, Deidra," Saw said smoothly as she was led back to the chair at the center of the round room.
The last time she was here, she had been all but blinded by a harsh and unforgiving light. Now she could see the brick work that made up the walls and floor of the windowless room. All of it dirtied with pools and splashes of crimson and bits of viscera. The chair she was being shackled to, much to her repulsion, was wet and soiled with bodily fluids.
All of the horror was lit by dim ambient light that shone down from mock-skylight fixtures and warm fluorescent bars that were attached higher up on the walls. The amber and sepia tones they cast only made the blood spilled look that much more gruesome. Though as she looked around, she regarded the rebels in the room with a certain measure of fear, realizing Saw along with the others no longer hid their faces behind scarves.
"You lied to us, Deidra. I told you before, this didn't have to be difficult. But you've forced my hand."
"I didn't lie, I swear. There must be some misunderstanding." Deidra plead, looking intently into Saw's wild and unforgiving eyes.
"Yesterday morning a squad of stormtroopers lead by a high ranking Imperial officer was seen at your residence. Your grandmother certainly looked to be having a cordial enough conversation with them." Saw said, studying Deidra's reaction.
Her face twisted with confusion. "I have no idea what any of that is about," she said in earnest. "I swear, there must be some sort of explanation."
"Oh, indeed i'm sure there is. Why don't you enlighten us? I'm giving you just one more chance to tell us what you know." Saw said, stepping closer, his hand resting over his holstered blade threateningly.
Deidra's heart began to race uncontrollably as her chest began to restrict. She shook her head in disbelief, feeling an unsettling distance grow between herself and the situation that unfolded. "This is a nightmare," she whispered near inaudibly. If only she could will herself to wake up.
"Just tell us what you know, it can all be over." Saw said reassuringly this time as he leaned in close, trying to coax out any intel he could.
Deidra sat in silence for a moment, unsure of what to say. If she falsified any information, the rebels would find out. It wouldn't gain her any favor, surely. But they wouldn't believe the truth, either- that she honestly didn't know anything.
As she sat in indecision Saw grew impatient. Displeased with her silence he struck out, backhanding her hard causing her to gasp sharply. Deidra's head snapped to the side as a small trickle of blood sprang from where her cheek had split from the impact.
"What intel have you pushed for the Imperials?" Saw asked again, still no aggression to his voice as he gently thumbed over the break in her porcelain skin.
"I haven't-" Deidra started, and was interrupted by another backhand, this one stronger and harsher than the last.
"We're past the point of playing games, Deidra," Saw said with a gentle cadence to his voice.
Deidra began to hyperventilate, straining her neck away from the cruel man who leaned in again threateningly. "I know right now, you're thinking of all the ways the Imperials are going to punish you for betraying them. But they're not the ones you should be afraid of," Saw said as he took her face into his hands roughly, forcing her gaze to meet his crazed stare that spoke to his unhinged state. "It's me you should be afraid of."
"And trust me, I get it. We killed your family. I know what it's like to lose everything, too." He said as if he were trying to find common ground between the two of them.
This time Deidra willingly glared back at him with an angry stare of her own. Saw smiled. "You want to kill us for it. You would do anything to make us pay for what we did. Even if it means working with Imperials. You said it yourself, after all."
Deidra's glare intensified in ferocity, her anger underwritten with fear and distress. There was nothing she could say to make them believe her and she knew it. Suddenly she realized, there was no way she was ever going to get out of here alive. But she couldn't give in to thinking that way, she wouldn't allow it. No, there still had to be a way, surely. This couldn't be it, could it?
"You're still not going to talk, are you?" Saw remarked, somewhat impressed. "That's fine, we have ways of making people talk." He added as he pulled back, releasing her face from his grasp as he turned to talk to one of the rebels who stood at the fringes of the room.
"Lux, get me the nerve stripper." Saw ordered casually as he was silently obeyed.
Deidra's insides churned as she trembled. She closed her eyes in fatigue, suddenly feeling faint. Immediately Deidra cursed herself for being so weak. They had hardly touched her at all and already she was wilting like a cut flower left out to wither away. Was she really so fragile? No, she would fight it. She would fight everything they tried on her until her last breath.
Though she couldn't help but feel a wave of nausea sweep over her as Lux returned with a small boxy device in hand, wires jutting out of it, coiling everywhere. The man held another box in his other hand, clear plastic to show smaller needles and instruments within.
Saw pulled over a small metal table and chair, scraping them across the rough stone ground causing a terrible screeching to fill the air, perhaps with intent to make every experience as miserable as possible. The look on his face suggested as much. Next he positioned the chair directly opposite Deidra, with the table off to one side. Lux set the device on the table with care, the box of attachments clunking down beside it.
Without a word and still sporting that satisfied smug look on his face, Saw began configuring the device methodically, as if he had done it a hundred times over. Only a few moments later he switched the device on. Immediately it filled the room with a high pitched whirring as it charged up. Even the sound of it was ominous, alone.
"Lux, steady her," Saw ordered as the rebel came around her side, forcing her hand into a splayed position taking care to hold her middle finger steady. Without any other word or question Saw plunged the instrument's needle deep into the tip of her finger.
Immediately Deidra gasped, grinding her teeth as she resisted the cry that wanted to escape her tightly held vocal chords. First, it was only the stabbing pain of the needle, which was unpleasant enough on its own, but she held herself fast against it. But only seconds later the sensation spread like icy lightning in a dendritic pattern through her hand and arm up into her shoulder. She couldn't hold back the tortured cries any longer as the cold burning grew to a hot searing pain that spread over every inch of the skin of her arm, lighting up every nerve with unimaginable pain.
Her body began to convulse against it as she cried out. What might have only been a few seconds felt like an eternal hell within itself before Saw pulled the needle back out of her finger, only a small bead of red showing from all the burning pain that had been inflicted. Even still it felt as if her blood had turned to acid, corroding through her tissue from the inside, out. Her eyes poured involuntary tears that she blinked through, struggling to catch her breath while she could.
"Shh, shh," Saw cooed, wiping her eyes with a small cloth he withdrew from one of the many pockets on the side of his trousers. "There, there. It'll all be okay. Just tell us what you know and this can all go away."
Deidra's body still shook, tremoring from the core as she fought against her jaw that had locked down on her, as she tried to speak. "I-I… I'm not… I don't…" She stammered, still blinking through the free flowing tears that cascaded down her swollen face.
"Take your time. Tell us everything." Saw said patiently, leaning forward in his chair to examine her with interest.
"I don't have anything to tell!" Deidra cried out, her voice still unsteady. "I'm sorry, i'm not who you think I am!" She plead, body shaking now from fear of what they would do to her next.
"You know, i've got to admit. You're a whole lot tougher to crack than I thought you would be." Saw said, nodding his head in acknowledgement, voice still sounding slightly impressed. "Your associate started spilling before we even laid a hand on him. Makes me wish you were working for us, instead."
"I swear i'm not working for-"
Saw silenced her with a rough bloodied finger pressed to her tear-swollen lips. "Shh, don't insult my intelligence, sweetie," he said, shaking his head as he reprimanded her in his ever gentle, caustic voice.
Then he turned to the rebel who stood just behind the chair, ready and waiting for orders. "Lux, again." Saw commanded, turning up the frequency dial a few notches before plunging the needle back into her skin.
After what felt like forever, but was only a few grueling hours later, Deidra had become near despondent, her entire body screaming with hellish pain. Saw circled the chair she was bound to, visibly frustrated.
"Obviously this isn't going to work like I thought it would. We're going to have to go about this… some other way…" he said open-endedly, running a hand through his sweat-matted hair.
Saw switched his attention to Lux. "Put her back in the cell while I figure out something else…" He commanded with a wave of his hand. Immediately Lux took to unbinding her and hoisting her up over his shoulder. Clearly he had done this enough to know when the subject in question was no longer able to move on their own. Deidra didn't think she could move an inch if she tried. Though moving was such an effort, she wasn't even about to try.
If she were any more coherent she might have resisted being picked up and carried like a sack of Corellian potatoes. Though she no longer held any ounce of tenacity or fight in her tortured body. The life that kept her soul alight felt as if it were waning, as she wondered if she would actually find a way out of this horrible place at all.
It was an odd feeling, one that only added to the despair that had begun to take hold in her mind. The thoughts that suggested she might never see the sun again, never behold her grandmother's kind smile, became more real than she would have liked to admit. Everything about who she was, who she had been, felt like it was slipping away from her in what was seeming to be her last harrowing hours.
The girl who believed in the goodness and kindness of others felt cheated by the cruel reality that took the place of her ever beholden illusion. There was no final breath of courage she could call on, and even if there were it would do little to change her situation. She would need a miracle to escape this place alive, and she wasn't sure she believed in those.
And as comforting as it might have been, it was too late to stew in regret. Not even the bittersweet of what might have been could tame the heavy reality that crushed her chest, making it difficult to breathe.
Once Lux had pulled the door to her cell open, he tossed her down without a thought to her comfort, then quickly slammed the door behind him. Deidra's body ached and screamed as she wriggled away from the corpse that lie at the center of a sticky puddle of blood. Her dress, her once beautiful, ornately woven dress now sodden with mud and filth, and now the cold coagulating blood of the man she had only met a few days ago. The one that had seemed to be nice enough, though clearly nothing had been as it had appeared.
Retreating from the wide pool of red that had taken up too much of the space in the cell, Deidra pressed her back up against the wall. She lie on her side gazing out at what surely would sooner than later, be her fate as well.
As she lie in her catatonic stupor, her body gave a startled jolt as she heard angry shouts from down the hall suddenly break the still air. Deidra wavered between straining to listen, and shutting everything out entirely. The part of her that had already surrendered to her horrendous circumstances told her to just let it go, that nothing mattered anymore. The part of her that housed the tiny spark of life that refused to give up, compelled her to listen.
There were frantic voices mumbling and whispering, a few growls and noises of protest in response before a man's voice spoke up- one timid and undermined by fear. "It's too risky, we can't send out one of our own for the sake of more leverage. Not now, with the first Legion turning the city upside down! You know what their presence here means, Saw. Our time is up! We should get out of here while we can!"
"We've got to find out what this girls importance is to the Empire. If she's important enough for Vaders own troops to show up looking for her, that means we're onto something big! We would be fools to give up now!" Saw insisted, his oddly punctuated voice grinding out words as he asserted his dominance over the situation.
"Where the first Legion goes, Vader is never far behind. Is that what you want? If he finds us, we're all as good as dead, or worse! Any intel we've gained will have been for nothing." The voice retorted, a trifle more steady this time.
Deidra's heart dropped, unsure whether to be afraid or hopeful. At best she was feeling a mixture of both churn uneasily in her stomach.
Vader's troops were here, on Onderon? Looking for her? Deidra immediately wrote it off as another misunderstanding. No one was looking for her besides her grandmother. Certainly not Vader's troops.
Darth Vader wasn't real. Not to the common folk of the Empire, certainly not to her here, or ever. Sure she had heard the name whispered here and there. He was the mysterious man harold both as valiant hero of the Empire, and ruthless warrior. The latter descriptor had been attached to strings of rumors, mostly told by light of campfire, or in bedrooms as younglings would whisper of monsters lurking in the shadows. The most feared of all being the dreaded Dark Lord. The man who left a trail of dead bodies wherever he went, who made all fear him with a simple glance of his amber yellow stare.
Yes, his face had been plastered all over the holo-net in the early days of the empire. The head of a large and sweeping propaganda campaign to get soldiers to enlist in the Emperor's grand army. He had been the object of many young girls' and boys' wild fantasies alike, just as he had been the villain of too many scary stories. But among all of the chatter and talk, he had become nothing more than a myth. Something for people to rally behind, or to fear. In the case of Darth Vader, often times it was both.
But Deidra had never given much thought as to his actuality or existence, and certainly had never imagined his own personal Legion being sent to retrieve her from the clutches of unruly rebel scum. Though it did sound like something out of one of those propaganda campaigns, the more she thought about it. Not that she had much time to think on it at all, as she strained her ear even harder, dragging her body to the door to listen closer, even as her nerves echoed that terrible pain that had been forced through them for hours on end.
"We've come too far to give up now, Lux. And for what? For a handful of intel, things we mostly knew already, or assumed to be true? No. Everything here points to something bigger, something huge. Giving up now is not an option." Saw said, his voice growling and undulating mechanically.
"I'm telling you, it won't matter if we're dead. You've got to think this through, Saw." Lux entreated.
"No. We're following the plan. You'll head the op. Just don't get caught, and don't catch a tail. It's just business as usual." Saw said, his fearsome voice begotten by the finality of his decision.
"I still say this is a bad idea." Lux said, audibly fearful of executing whatever it was they had planned.
"You'll do as I say," Saw said threateningly. "Or are you a deserter?"
"Back off big guy, I know the plan. I just don't agree. Is that treason in your book, too?" Lux shot back, voice unabated by whatever fear had been there before.
"Just get it done, and fast." Saw snapped back, annoyed. Footsteps retreated, tamping further and further away until there was only silence again.
Deidra racked her mind in an attempt to make any sense of what she had just heard. Perhaps her mind had dulled after so much pain and torture, because she couldn't make heads or tails of it. All she held onto was the fleeting hope that maybe, just maybe someone was out there looking for her. Though if that were true, they had to have been wrong about it being Vader's troops.
If the first legion was really on Onderon, they must have been after something else. Maybe hunting down the already dead Imperial spy. Still, that could benefit her if they could manage to track him down. Deidra found it nearly painful to allow herself to hope such things. But in spite of it, she did. She didn't want to give up yet, even if things seemed so grim.
A sizable stretch of time passed in silence, the only audible sound beyond her own breathing being the dripping of water that had started to fall from the stone ceiling, down into a small puddle that had formed in the far corner of the cell.
Lulled into a trance like state by the rhythmic dripping of the water, Deidra drifted off into an unconscious state, only awoken when the door to her cell was being thrown open again. Two of the rebels came in after her as she lie unmoving. This time they grabbed at her arms and hair violently as they drug her out. She cried out from the shock of sudden violence, her voice tattered and ragged from too much screaming from the torture session earlier that day.
Clearly they had no patience. She tried desperately to pick herself up only for the rebels to pull on her hair and shoulders harder as the skin of her kicking legs scraped against the rough stone floor. This time when she reached the interrogation room she was thrown to the floor instead of shackled to the wooden chair that sat at the center.
Deidra willed herself to get up, only managing to scramble to her knees before being knocked down by a kick to the ribs. She looked up at Saw who stood over her, his ever smug and satisfied face glaring down at her. Then she looked to the center of the room.
Her heart pounded in her chest with both anger and desperation as she saw her grandmother shackled to the chair in her stead, already roughed up by the brutes who had brought her here.
"Grandma!" Deidra screamed out, her vocal chords grinding against one another as they felt as if any moment, between the tension and abuse, they might snap.
"Deidra! Thank the heavens you're alive!" Thea cried out. Even in these circumstances, her weathered face shone with one of her beautiful genuine smiles. It pained Deidra's heart to see Thea's thin lips bloodied and her delicate face bruised. Her insides churned with desperation when the old woman's eyes poured over with tears. "I thought you were dead," she said, her voice breaking with her confession.
"Let her go!" Deidra growled, her deduced state made even more so by seeing her grandmother in such a way.
"Sure, sure. I'll let her go. But first, you'll tell me everything there is to know about the operation you and Yaron were running." Saw said, kneeling down at her side, placing a hand on her shoulder that caused her to shudder with revulsion before snapping away from the contact.
Deidra composed herself well enough, looking up into Saw's eyes with as much furocity as she could muster. "I told you, I don't know anything! You rebels truly are a dull bunch, aren't you?" She said, as cuttingly as possible, only earning a sadistic smile from the man who glared back at her.
"Yeah, I thought you might start off with something like that again," he said on the edge of wry amusement as he looked over to Lux who stood at Thea's side.
Saw gave him a small nod. In turn, Lux pulled his hand back, slapping Thea across the face hard causing her to give a startled cry. Though in spite of it, she didn't seem to be too shaken. Deidra's heart gripped in her chest, knowing that her grandmother was putting on a tough face for her, just as she had always done.
But Deidra couldn't stand it. She didn't want her to have to be strong like this. It ignited a burning rage in her chest that drowned out all of the fear she had once felt for her own skin. "You monsters! If the seven hells exist, you'll burn in them forever for the things you've done!" Deidra roared, scrambling to reach Thea only to be kicked back down.
"Just tell us what you know. It can be so simple." Saw said, standing over Deidra's seething form. "I don't know why you have to make everything so difficult."
"I told you, you have the wrong person!" Deidra said, taking her tone back down a notch to implore him. She would do anything if it meant her grandmother's safety.
Saw bent down, taking a fist full of her hair in hand to wrench her face close, untill she could feel the heat of his skin on her face. "Let go of me!" Deidra shouted, pulling against his grip, only to be yanked back harder.
Saw's piercing gaze cut right through her, as his stare penetrated to the very depths of her soul. All she could feel from him was raw, untamable, unyielding brutality. He was an immovable object, or perhaps an unstoppable force. Either way, there was no changing his mind, even if things had played better to her side.
As he stared her down, meaning to intimidate, she could feel pieces of his heart and psyche, broken and wild. For a fleeting moment, she swore she could feel inside of his mind. The deep sea of wild hatred, wells of sorrow covered by anger and ruthless action. But her focus was shaken as he opened his mouth to speak, growling low with base anger.
"If you're really no one special, why is Vader's personal squadron turning the city upside down, looking for you?"
"You must be mistaken. There's no reason they would be looking for me," Deidra said honestly, a tone even less aggressive than before.
Saw's invasive gaze became disgusted as he tossed her aside, throwing her to the floor once again before turning to Lux. "The stripper," he said with a summoning gesture. The rebel underling took to pulling the metal table and chair over to where Thea sat, and began assembling it as Saw had when Deidra had been in Thea's place.
"No no no, I swear I don't know anything, please just leave her alone," Deidra started, hands before herself in a prayer pose as she begged on her knees.
Saw ignored her. "Start on the highest setting, Lux," he said as the machine whirred up again, that sickening nauseous whine buzzing in her ears.
Before Deidra could scream for him to stop, or even breathe at all, a small beeping began to ring out. Along with it, a red light blinked near to the door opposite the one that led down to the cells. Saw's crazed stare flitted over to Lux, who looked back at him with a certain amount of fear in his eyes.
"You said you weren't followed!" Saw accused, outraged.
"I-I didn't think we were... I don't think we were!" Lux shouted back.
Another rebel spoke up from the back of the room. "It doesn't matter now, the proximity alarm has been triggered. We've got to salvage what we can from this and get out of here," the woman said pragmatically as she slowly came forward.
"She's right, we've gotta get out of here." Lux retorted, his voice a shade less terrified that he had been a moment earlier. "Let's just kill the both of them and leave, we won't be able to take them with us."
"What?" Deidra said in a small voice, her eyes darting back and forth between the two rebels as Lux pulled out a small blaster that had been holstered on his hip.
"No! We can't kill them now, not when we're so close! We have to take them with us. The intel is too valuable to lose!" Saw retorted, as the woman who stood by began to anxiously tap her foot.
"This is no time to discuss this," the woman added impatiently. "We have mere minutes to get out of here alive before Vader's fist comes crashing down on us!"
"Kill them now and let's get out of here!" Lux shouted, demanding. "Or i'll do it," he said lower, holding the blaster to Thea's skull.
"No!" Deidra shouted, rising up to her feet, or at least trying to, only to be kicked down again by Saw's boot.
"Don't forget who calls the shots, Lux. Stand down." Saw said, hand hovering over his own blaster.
"Lux!" The woman rebel shouted out. "Don't be stupid!"
Lux looked back and forth between the two other rebels before holstering his weapon. "Whatever you say, Saw. I just hope it doesn't get us killed."
"We'll talk about this little stunt later, Lux. For now get grandma out of this chair and ready to evacuate with the others out the east tunnel. Annita, you take care of the girl. Aside from the two prisoners, it's standard procedure. Don't forget your training. Especially you, Lux." Saw said, adding the last bit with a cutting stare towards his dissonante colleague.
Lux gave him a sharp glance in return before unshackling Thea from the wooden chair. In the next heartbeat both Thea and Deidra had black hoods pulled over their faces, and blasters pressed against their backs.
"Don't give me a reason to shoot either of you. I won't hesitate, no matter what Saw says. I'm not risking you falling into enemy hands." Lux growled spitefully as both women were yanked up and pushed forward down the unfamiliar hallway and through a junction of corridors that were equally foreign.
There was an odd smell in the air, something metallic. The floor that had once been stone was now dusty and then became damp, a coating of mud collecting on her shoes. The ones she wore had never been intended for use beyond formal settings, so she stumbled to keep up as she was pressed further into the unknown passages, the mud doing her no favors.
Then suddenly there was blaster fire in the corridor behind them, sounding as if it came from around a bend. The thud of bodies hitting the ground, and boots falling in fast behind them echoed next. Shouts of men, soldiers, pursued their location. Deidra's heart flushed with hope at the sound of it.
In a scuffle, the two rebels that held blasters at Deidra and Thea's backs took to firing bolts in the direction that the troops marched in from. Taking the opportunity, Deidra took her hood off and hastily turned to Thea, taking hers off as well.
The corridor they were in was dark, dimly lit by overhead fluorescent lighting. It looked like an abandoned mining tunnel, endless darkness in the direction behind them where the lighting stopped a few meters ahead. In the opposite direction a group of rebels including the two that had been charged with their survival, and blaster fire, stood between themselves and the soldiers that ensued.
Little cover existed between the two lines of fire, causing bodies to drop quickly, especially on the side of the rebels who were left without armor. The white, hard-plated shell that encased each Imperial soldier made them near impervious to blaster fire.
As fast as she could, Deidra took Thea and shielded her as she moved over to take cover behind a half blasted mining cart that had been put on its side and since had been left to collect dust. She took to peaking out around the torn metal corner of it, looking for an opportunity to break through to the other side, to their supposed rescuers.
Thea shook Deidra's shoulder, breaking her attention away from the battle that raged on only meters in front of them. "If we don't make it out of here, I want you to know-"
Deidra cut her off. "We are going to get out of here, grandma, we just have to get to the soldiers at the other side," she explained as level as she could without bursting into tears, the weight of every terrible thing she had experienced in the last several days finally coming to a head.
"I'm just glad you're alive," Thea said, glancing towards the blaster fire and back at her granddaughter.
"Let's keep it that way so we can talk about it more later," Deidra suggested with a desperate chuckle just before she pushed Thea aside with her own body weight to avoid a singing blaster bolt that just barely grazed the side of her head. "Now stay down until I say run, understand?" She spoke, wincing at the stinging pain that lanced on the side of her skull.
Thea answered with a silent nod as Deidra continued to watch the battle play out. Her heart sank as the Soldiers in white were now flanked by another squad of rebels from behind. These ones were still not nearly as well armored as the Imperials, though they managed to scrounge up some crude pieces to help even the playing field.
The additional forces even though poorly armored, were enough to overwhelm the stormtroopers. The rebels simply outnumbered them. Being barraged from both sides, the Imperials began to fall, one by one. Rebels from all around began to cry and holler for victory as they moved in on the last few. Deidra hoped the win would be a fleeting one. Before she had much time to despair, a hand came over her shoulder.
Already on edge, Deidra gave an involuntary yelp before spinning around to see another squad of troops. These ones were clad in special black fatigues, probably to remain incognito. The troop leader waved them back as they retreated into the darkness.
Thankfully, none of the rebels had been alerted by her startled cry. The two of them rushed off, a wave of relief falling over Deira's tortured, exhausted soul as the squad enveloped them, placing them at the center of their protection.
But still, they weren't out of the thick of it, yet. However being surrounded by the troopers, specialists in their ranks most likely, she did feel slightly better about their chances. And they did manage to stay unnoticed by the rebels for the most part, until the squad of white-clad troopers had all fallen. The large group of rebels that had amassed to overtake them began to follow after the stealth team that had whisked Deidra and Thea away. Too soon, blaster bolts went buzzing through the air, entirely too close for comfort.
And then the two soldiers at the rear of their detail fell, each taking a fatal bolt. Apparently their stealth suits were not as well equipped to take damage as their white armored counterparts. The rest of the squad fell back a few steps forming a line between the rebels and Deidra and Thea. While holding line dutifully, the soldiers continued to retreat for the exit, firing a volley of blaster bolts into the ever-thinning group of rebels that chased after them.
The squad reacted with impressive accuracy. Deidra watched over her shoulder in awe as they kept on falling back into the darkness. Even as all around them was black, brilliant blue and red lights of blaster fire cutting through the darkness, the troopers picked off the pursuing rebels one by one. And then, Deidra could see a light growing closer at the end of the tunnel.
As they were only meters away from the mouth of the tunnel, the rebel count had fallen to two, both of them firing blaster bolts aimlessly towards the mouth of the dark corridor. Just before the troopers could put down the last of them, Thea gasped, falling forward hard into Deidra.
Deidra fell forwards from the impact, then quickly righted herself to see her grandmother on the muddy ground, clutching at her chest where a bolt had burned right through her fragile body.
Deidra rushed over to her side, holding her grandmother in her arms. The life in her eyes was fading quickly as her hands trembled, clutching onto her granddaughter for dear life.
Time had seemed to slow around them as Deidra looked on in horror as her grandmother struggled just to breathe. In her shock, a single tear fell down from her eye, splashing on Thea's wrinkled cheek as the old woman smiled up at her sadly.
"Don't forget to live," Thea gasped as the last of the rebels had been put down, the air that had once been rife with blaster fire becoming erily still.
"Grandma, stay with me, please," Deidra begged fruitlessly as her core began to tremble.
"I… I…" Thea trailed off, her last words forever unspoken as the light that was once the fabric of her soul had died out, leaving only an empty vessel, broken and bleeding in Deidra's arms.
"No," Deidra whispered, as the ground beneath her began to tremor, as if it could feel her pain. "No," she said loud and more firmly as the corridor now began to quake as rock and debris started to fall from the ceiling.
"I'm sorry miss, but we have to leave, this passage is not stable," one trooper said apologetically, grabbing her arm and pulling her up as her grandmother's body lie unnaturally still on the ground below.
"We can't just leave her!" Deidra yelled over the noise, larger rocks tumbling from the ceiling of the corridor as the rumbling grew louder. Suddenly, a cascade of falling debris began to fill in the tunnel from the far end, rushing towards them at a frightening pace.
Just as Deidra reached down to grab Thea, a cluster of boulders fell on top of her body, leaving her completely buried under the rubble. No longer in the business of asking or persuading, one trooper took her forcibly by the arm and pulled her out as the rest of them ran for the exit. All of them had just made it out by a fraction of a second before the entire tunnel collapsed into a mess of boulders and rock.
Deidra stood facing the collapsed mining tunnel, promptly falling to her knees in disbelief.
At a time she thought she had lost everything. When her mother, father, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles had all died in the market bombing all those years ago, she didn't think it was possible for anything to hurt worse. She spent all of her days trying to move past it, trying to be the best person she could be for them, to honor their memory. She thought the worst had already happened, that it could only get better from then.
But the worst hadn't happened yet, and only now had she truly lost everything. As her beloved grandmother lie dead, broken, buried forever underneath too much rubble to ever sort through. She knelt there, equally broken in spirit.
"I'm sorry miss, we have to keep going," one soldier said remorsefully as he placed a consoling hand on her shoulder which she promptly shrugged away.
"What are you talking about?" Deidra said angrily, all but growling at the man.
"We have to continue on to Coruscant. With all the commotion, you probably don't know. You've been summoned to the Imperial palace." The trooper explained as softly as he could.
Her gut wrenched. She couldn't leave, not with her grandmother stuck under all this rubble. It didn't feel right. If she left, she would be leaving Thea, forever. But she was gone already, and nothing was going to change that.
"I-I can't leave her here," Deidra cried, curling up against the rock that spilled out from the collapsed tunnel.
"Take your time, ma'am. But eventually, we are going to have to leave. And i'm under strict orders to see you to the Imperial palace." The soldier spoke understanding yet firm.
She didn't have any words to answer with, as she could only feel the gaping hole in her heart consume her. She had thought it had been her way of life, the apothecary holding her together all this time after the loss of her family. She had been wrong. The apothecary, helping people, it only meant something because of Thea. Without her, nothing had meaning.
"Ten minutes and we have to start heading out if we are going to make it back in time." The lead soldier said kindly, keeping a respectful distance.
Deidra scoffed. "Oh? What happens if we don't make it back in time?" What could possibly be so important?
In a measured voice, one that held a certain amount of fearful tension, the soldier answered.
"It's never wise to keep the Emperor waiting."