Chapter 6 – We Won't Go Quietly
Location: Oovo IV, Imperial Maximum Security Prison in the Outer Rim
Time: 4 Years Before the Battle of Yavin
The year spent on Oovo IV had shown Ash and Art that the weak were filtered out, killed and taken advantage of by those who had the power. It wasn't about adapting to prison, no, give anyone enough time in these walls and they could do it. This was about making prison adapt to you. Owning other inmates, hell, owning guards. Having a say in what comes in and out of the facility, drugs, weapons, you name it. Oovo IV was the ultimate social experiment, a snapshot of what the rest of the galaxy was full of, people fighting their way to the top, no matter the cost.
Today was the day. The day the inmates had been dreaming of since their incarceration. With the right connections, the right timing, the planets seemed to align in the perfect storm. Art had made himself, along with two other cunning inmates, a chief architect in one of the most elaborate and violent prison escape plans the galaxy had ever seen. Lying in wait, all those months, those grueling months of hard labor, horrible food, mundane tasks, and the unbearable boredom of one's cell, all leading up to this.
Most of the scrutiny from the guards came during the prisoners' time in the cafeteria and in the rec yards, when they were allowed to roam around and converse with one another. It made it more than a little difficult to make business arrangements happen during these times. Due to this, the prisoners from all different cell blocks devised a primitive but effective means of transporting goods and messages without as much of the risk of being caught. Bed sheets were torn up and tied together to make ropes, which could be flung across far distances or to cells below, with their intended items attached. This was their first step in the plan.
Some of the prisoners were going to be the have-nots of this day, certainly not everyone could get what they wanted. By now, most of the prisoners had been made aware of the soon-to-be riot, but not all. A Bith named G'ont had been in the hole for a few weeks, and was already making enemies within these walls. He had a small crew scattered through the different cell blocks, and was well known for cheating inmates on their drugs and for ratting out others to the guards. The consensus amongst the rest of the prison's population was to volunteer G'ont and his men to lay their pathetic lives down for the rest to make their escape.
Using the previously mentioned delivery system, deals were cut with G'ont's crew for a big drug deal that would span all of Oovo IV. However, the packages delivered wouldn't exactly be the kind of spice they were hoping to receive. To Ash, it seemed somewhat wrong, however he knew that if someone had to go, it might as well be them. He'd convinced Art to spare the life of Volt at the beginning of their imprisonment, and now that same prisoner was one of Art's closest associates in this grand scheme.
The other prisoners, several thousand of them, from many different species and walks of life, sat in their cells, anticipating the commencing of the first step in the riot. They'd all know it the second it went down, there was no mistaking it. Ash and Kai were ready, but extremely nervous and unsure of their fates.
"This is it, man." Kai said, hands shaking in anticipation.
"Stick with the plan, and we'll be alright..." Ash reassured his friend, "When we link up with Art and the others, they'll get us through the rest of the plan. If anyone can successfully break out of prison, it's Decimus and his guys."
"Yeah, you're right..." Kai said.
"You still thinking about getting back with the Rebellion after this?" Ash asked.
"If there is an after this. I was up all night thinking about it. The Rebellion stood for what was good, but a lot can change in a year, who knows if they still fight with honor and dignity? I've been so preoccupied with this plan of escape that I haven't had much time to think about continuing my career with the Alliance." Kai said.
"There'll be plenty of time to figure that out once we're free." Ash said with a smile.
The signal came very suddenly, funny, the prisoners had all been expecting it, knew what it was to sound like, but to actually hear it was a completely different thing. It made their plans so real. Throughout the different cell blocks, the prisoners had attached improvised explosive devices to the ropes and had them delivered to G'ont and his men under the guise of them being shipments of drugs. Simultaneously, the explosives detonated, killing off the spineless and untrustworthy Bith and his men, but more importantly, triggering the fire suppression system that had been installed in the time of the Republic.
All of the cell doors slid open in unison, much to the shock and horror of the guards, who realized that the monsters they'd kept in line for so many years were now all free, every single one of them, and that not one of them had surrender on their minds as they stormed out of their cells, ready for blood. Ash and Kai rushed out of their cell, knowing full well that no matter the outcome, they wouldn't be returning. They spotted Art and his men amongst the chaos, making their stand against the extremely unprepared squad of guards who acted as the prison's first line of defense.
In a move that reminded Ash greatly of their fight on the Veiled Lady, he and Kai rushed to aid Art in the fight, punching and kicking the guards into submission. It felt good, the guards weren't nearly as intimidating when they were being swarmed by bloodthirsty criminals. The orange jumpsuit clad inmates quickly pummeled the first batch of guards to death within a matter of seconds.
"This is it, bro!" Art said with a grin.
"Just like old times." Ash replied.
Moloch, the group's Trandoshan friend, entered the fray as well, armed with a bloodied shank.
"It is great to finally fight by your side, my friends..." Moloch said, "This is the day I've been waiting for."
"Indeed, and to think this is what it took for us to truly come together and break our former rivalries." Volt said as he too appeared on scene.
"Officer Higg should be here with the munitions any moment now." Qotak said.
"Officer Higg? The crooked guard? What the hell does he have to do with this?" Kai asked.
"He's our inside man, we were able to bribe him with some help from Black Sun..." Art said, "He's the one that gave us this chance. He's supplying us with the weapons we'll need! Ah, here he is!"
Flanked by two of his more trusted corrupt guards, the middle aged Officer Higg entered the cell block pushing a crate full of weapons straight from the armory. Stacked full all the way to the top with assault rifles, pistols and batons, this was exactly what turned their plan from a dream into a real possibility. Higg, who had sympathies with the Rebellion, decided to become a prison guard to undermine the Empire's authority over some of the Alliance's members who were incarcerated at Oovo IV, making him the perfect catalyst for this riot.
"Load up, boys, the rest of the guards will be far more prepared than these guys were." Higg said as he helped the prisoners unload the weapons.
"We'll have to kill the ones who get in the way," Art said, "you're okay with that?"
"Damn straight." Higg said.
"Alright, let's get moving! We've got a time table here that we can't mess around with!" Art said as he and the other prisoners stormed out of the cell block, Ash and Kai close behind.
With the help of Higg, the tactics of the guards were far easier to counter. The prisoners barged into the cafeteria, which was still in the process of being locked down and fortified. The unprepared guards were forced to make do with the progress they'd made as the prisoners began their assault, laser bolts flying from both sides. Bodies collapsed all around, but the prisoners' daunting numbers made their casualties less of an impact on their chances. Ash and Kai took the right flank, while the intimidating Decimus and his men took the left flank, using plenty of cover to maneuver around the guards and blast them from behind their ranks. They were making good on time, their numbers still looking good, and with plenty of dead guards, things were so far, so good. The cafeteria was a mess of blaster burns, corpses and debris. Scavenging the body armor and weapons from the dead guards, the prisoners made their way to the next section of Desolation Alley.
"How you holding up?" Art asked.
"Hanging in there, you?" Ash asked his two friends.
"Never better." Art said with a smile.
"Feels like my days in the Rebellion, only not with the noblest bunch of fighters." Kai said.
"Heard that." Decimus, the towering Aqualish, said as he walked by.
"No offense, Decimus!" Kai said with a nervous laugh.
"We'd best keep going, the other guards have had more time to dig in to their posts." Boelo said.
"He's right, the hardest part has yet to come!" Higg said.
With that, the merry band of killers used their might to breach the blocked doors of the cafeteria and into the halls, where they opened fire on the heavily dug in guards. The guards were now using heavy duty riot gear, including energy shields, single-personnel walkers, and heavy repeater cannons. They hadn't made it easy on the prisoners, minimizing the amount of cover on the inmates' side while maintaining their foothold on their own side.
A hailstorm of energy blasts flew towards the prisoners. Shoving Ash into cover and exposing himself to the gunfire, Moloch returned fire with his automatic rifle, determined to take as many of them down as he could. Within a matter of moments, however, the Trandoshan crashed to the ground, having caught a shot to the neck. Ash quickly lifted the lizard's head, trying in vain to clear the dying prisoner's airway. Moloch tried with what little life he had left in him to speak, but couldn't form the words. Instead, a frail gasp escaped his lips as the light faded from his eyes and his head slumped back, dead.
"I'm sorry, Ash..." Volt said, "I want you to know that what my people and I did to him, when we beat him all those months ago, it was nothing personal to Moloch. He was an excellent fighter and I admired him."
"Thank you." Ash said quietly.
"Should have stayed in your cells, scum!" a guard barked.
Perhaps out of a need for retribution, or perhaps out of desperation, Ash and Volt fired from behind cover madly, knowing full well the odds of actually hitting their enemies this way were quite low, but the suppressing fire would surely aid the other prisoners who had a much greater position in which to attack.
It seemed that at least one prisoner would die every second, collapsing from the barrage of blaster bolts fired mercilessly by the Imperial guards. To these dead prisoners, the fight was now over, but to their brethren, their deaths only fueled their rage and desire to escape. The small walker in particular was quite the nuisance, being too heavily armored to be taken down by small arms fire, and firing so quickly that it seemed to cut through the prisoners like butter.
"Surrender now and you will be spared." an Imperial guard called out over the prison's intercom system.
"Shut it, you bloody fierfeks!" Volt called out as he reloaded his blaster rifle.
The fight would have been over in a matter of moments, but Higg had informed the prisoners that in the event of a full scale riot such as this, the guards were trained to flank through the different entrances of the cafeteria to cut off the prisoners' escape if they were to fall back. Having anticipated this, the prisoners waited for the guards to make their move, and when they did, they sprung a trap of their own, mowing down the guards who had attempted to sneak behind their ranks.
With the bout of confidence they needed, the prisoners were able to push through the guards' defenses, cutting them down without mercy. The injured guards were quickly stabbed and beaten to death by the bloodthirsty inmates. The walker, however, still remained active, and continued blasting holes in the frenzied inmates. Using the others as his living shields, Decimus charged towards the walker, eventually making his way past its cannons. He leapt onto the walker and pounded on the cockpit's hatch with all his might, screaming like a madman. It didn't take long for it to give way, showering the pilot with glass and metal debris. Decimus proceeded to drag the pilot out and toss him onto the cold, metal floor. Jumping from on top the walker, the heavy Aqualish crashed right on top of the pilot, who screamed in agony as his attacker proceeded to tear the man's arm out of its socket and smash him in the face with it.
The other prisoners looked on, some with looks of horror, some with looks of encouragement, as Decimus raised his foot and brought it down on the pilot's head, squishing it into oblivion. They had done it, the best fighting force Oovo IV had to offer, laid to waste by their former captives, but only at a great cost. The dead bodies of the prisoners piled up so high that those who remained had to literally climb over them to continue the fight.
"Damn..." Ash said as he looked around at the carnage, "this is the price of freedom I guess."
"We've got this, boys!" Art said as he finished off a guard with a shot to the face.
"It's a straight shot to the ships from here!" Higg said.
"What about the other halls? There's like three more corridors we'll have to clear!" Boelo wondered out loud.
"Not anymore," one of Higg's men spoke up, "we depressurized the path ahead, the guards that were in there are surely dead."
"That's right, all we have to do is restore atmospheric pressure and make it to the ships!" Higg said, "The only section ahead we didn't have the clearance to depressurize was the barracks, that'll be the last shot the Imps have of stopping us."
"Well alright then, let's get moving, we're so close!" Qotak shouted.
Hurrying down the halls and into the next section of the prison, Ash could see that indeed the guards here had all been killed quite suddenly, quick yet horrifying deaths from being exposed to the harsh, airless climate of Oovo IV. Their corpses lined the halls, trampled by the prisoners as they continued on their way, ready for their taste of freedom.
With Higg leading the way, Ash and the other prisoners came upon a massive room that seemed to power most of the facility. A massive metallic structure with an eerie green glow was the center piece of this section, long walkways connecting the different sections of the prison to this structure were going to be their ticket out of here.
Stepping over more of the guards' corpses, Higg waited until everyone was on the walkways before activating them. The ground shifted slightly under their feet as the walkways began to rise up several stories. The prisoners all looked around, hoping that thinking about the platforms rising up faster would actually make them do so. As it climbed up the stories, inching closer and closer to their freedom, they were able to breathe for the first time since the riot began.
"You've all fought well," Volt commended, "I am proud to fight alongside the lot of you, my brothers."
"You too, Volt." Art replied with a smile.
"We just might pull this off..." Kai said with a glimmer of hope in his starry eyes, "we might actually get out of here!"
"Of course we will, bro." Ash said as he put his hand on the Rodian's shoulder, "these Imps made a mistake thinking they could keep us down for good."
"I just want to see Rodia again, just one more time..." Kai said, "hard to keep hopes up around here, until now that is."
"Well we can make that our first destination when we bust out of this joint!" Ash said.
"Thanks man." Kai said.
Several blaster shots rang out, striking some of the prisoners and sending them falling off the walkway and to their deaths. With next to no cover, the prisoners crouched and returned fire on the guards who were positioned higher up around this structure. With just as little cover of their own, the guards began to slowly fall back as many of them found themselves being gunned down.
"Looks like we've got some leftovers!" Ash said.
"They must have come from the barracks!" Higg pondered out loud.
"Doesn't make a difference to me!" Art said.
Finally, the platform reached the highest level of this massive power chamber. The prisoners disembarked the walkway and headed for the nearest doors.
"We'll split up," one of Higg's men said, "half of you will go with me to Landing Pad 3, the other half will take the old podracing track to the clearing where the rest of the ships will be."
"The Imps will be forced to divide their efforts." Higg said.
"Our chances of escape shall be maximized." Volt agreed.
"Good luck out there, boys." Higg said as he saluted his men.
With that, Higg's two remaining men disembarked, trailed by half of the prisoners, including Boelo and Decimus, as they headed for one of the doors on the left. The remaining half, composed of Higgs, Ash, Art, Kai, Qotak, Volt and about fifty other inmates, headed into one of the doors on the right. Approaching the door, they quickly realized it was locked.
"Nobody's been in this part of the prison since the days of the Republic." Higg said as he swiped a high security clearance card through the door's access panel.
With that, the door slid open, revealing a massive tunnel that was plenty wide for all of the prisoners to traverse. Littered with dust and fallen debris, the once great race track which once hosted some of the greatest and fastest pilots in the galaxy now lay derelict and abandoned for decades. To their right, a massive core tunnel, once filled with a bright white light and spinning interior, was now an empty husk, stripped of its value and a cold reminder of the Empire's rise. To their left, at the end of the long tunnel, freedom, a clearing that contained the ships they needed for escape. Though they could not yet see the end of this tunnel, which lay around the slight bend of a corner, they knew it was their ticket to freedom. Quickly, they headed down this massive tunnel, the sounds of their feet echoing seemingly endlessly.
"How long has this part of the prison been abandoned?" Kai asked.
"Since the formation of the Empire..." Higg replied, "Even when this prison was under the jurisdiction of the Republic, they allowed pod races outside the confines of the prison, I guess they figured it was remote enough to avoid the collateral damage associated with the sport."
"Must have been quite a show." Ash said.
"It was." Higg admitted, "The Empire cracked down on it though, they shut it down immediately, and the track's been like this ever since."
By now, the inmates' numbers had dwindled to about a hundred or so. It was a good thing they were so close to their objective, considering how many casualties they had burned through already, there wasn't much left to sacrifice. As they got further and further into the tunnel, however, they could hear that a firefight lay ahead, not too surprising considering that was to be their exit point.
As they rounded the corner of the tunnel, their view of the escape was clear. The atmosphere in this section had been maintained, thanks to Higgs and his men. Five rusty ships, all owned by mercenaries and bounty hunters recruited by Black Sun and other various criminal organizations that the inmates belonged to, were standing their ground against the Imperial guards. Auto-cannons, E-WEB blasters, combat droids, and even the hired guns themselves fought back against the guards, knowing full well the cargo they'd be transporting would either make them rich or dead.
"That's it, boys!" Qotak shouted with glee, "I told you they'd be on time!"
Indeed, Qotak's connections had made this part of the plan possible. Through careful vetting and plotting, he was able to hire the right people for this job. He had done his part, they just had to actually reach the ships alive and escape in time before the Star Destroyer had a chance to take them all out from orbit.
More blaster fire rained down on the prisoners, who sprinted faster than any of them had thought possible. Several, of course, were unable to outrun the gunfire, and were struck down so close to their objective. Tripping over one of his comrade's corpses, Kai fell face first onto the ground, losing precious time. However, he found himself lifted up to his feet, turning to see that Volt had stopped to rescue him.
"Keep moving, Kai!" Volt said out of breath.
"Thank you!" Kai said graciously.
"Everyone split up," Qotak ordered, "Higgs and I will take this one, Ash, Art, Kai, take some of the inmates and go to the next ship! Volt, you take the remainder of the men to the third ship! Then we can all earn our freedom!"
"Sounds good!" Art said.
Soon, a handful of the other prisoners who had split up earlier arrived on scene, with Higgs' men leading the charge to the ships. Also met with heavy resistance from the Imperials, the men did their best to direct the prisoners to their respective ships before boarding the fourth ship. It seemed every single guard who remained alive on Oovo IV had reached this clearing and were doing everything in their power to stop the escape. The momentum of the riot seemed unstoppable at this point, however.
Ash, Art and Kai sat down in the cargo hold of their ship, with about twenty other prisoners, all packed in like Dac sardines, all ready to finally put Desolation Alley behind them firmly in the past.
"You trust these guys?!" Ash asked as he pointed at the cockpit of the ship.
"Qotak does, they're his people after all!" Art replied.
With that, the ship quickly took off, the cargo hold erupting into applause and cheer. With smiles on their faces, Ash and Art dropped their weapons and embraced one another, being able to finally call themselves free after three years of being the property of various owners. As he looked out the viewport, though, Ash saw that two of the ships were still grounded, and were being boarded by the Imperials.
"That's Volt's ship!" Ash shouted as his heart sank.
Indeed, the third and fifth ships, respectively, were now hopelessly trapped on the surface, as blaster fire could be seen inside the cockpits of the two stranded ships.
"Good riddance..." Art said with a grin.
"He was on our side, man!" Ash said.
"Yeah and he saved my life!" Kai said, "That shit with him in the past was over and done with!"
"Yeah well I didn't forget about it. Someone had to go down, keep the Imps occupied." Art said coldly.
"Wait... did you sabotage their ships?" Ash asked as he took a step back.
"I didn't, no. The owners of those two ships work with the Hutts, they were hired by Qotak to be sacrificed, not with their knowledge of course. The men we hired, the ones who saved the rest of our lives, they sabotaged the other two ships, good thing they did too, it'd make our escape a lot harder if they hadn't."
"I can't believe you..." Ash said.
"Now Volt and his men are dead, they trusted us." Kai said.
"That's why the plan worked." Art responded.
With their victory now bittersweet, even the other prisoners seemed uncomfortable, with uneasy looks on their faces. None of them wanted to look Art in the eye, for fear that they too would soon be double crossed by this mastermind.