Chapter 9
Location: Republic Cruiser Redemption, Orbit over Hrill
Rey woke with a start but she found herself in a cell with a pair of large and powerful cuffs on her wrists in front of her as she laid in a cell by herself. The door in front of her was coated in glass with thick durasteel bars providing real strength. The girl was still in her flight suit, nothing but the orange suit and her black boots, her weapons, gear, and even whatever rations she may have had were gone. Rey's hair was a mess, and she was incredibly sore. The cell she was in was just one of many along a row. She looked through the glass-encased bars and got to her feet and saw a Marine with their EL-18 slung over their shoulder, casually walking from cell to cell, looking inside at her.
"Your friend's awake," he said over his shoulder.
"Hey!" Rey yelled, pounding on the door's glass, "Hey! What the hell?! Why are you doing this?"
The man turned around in response, and smirked back at her.
"You're in the way doll," the man replied.
Rey decided to give him a bit of a shove, and through her hands out at him. But a sudden electric shock coursed through her arms and then into her body. All of it came from the cuffs. Rey stumbled back into a crouch on a knee. This was something Rey hadn't seen coming.
"Those cuffs we got from an First Order supply ship, they're force-inhibitors. Any use of the Force gives you a rather sudden and violent shock. Don't try it again if you like to be conscious, it'll only get worse as you keep trying."
Rey lashed out again, this time the shock put her on her butt, leaving her gasping for breath. The Marine laughed and just walked on, and Rey heard a tap from the wall. There was a grate on top of the wall that allowed air to filter amongst the cells.
"Rey," a voice from the next cell called over, it was Shriv, "You okay?"
"Never better," Rey groaned, leaning up against the wall.
"That guy betrayed us, he's taken over the Resistance, he arrested Leia."
"No!" Rey cried out, scrambling up to the wall, "He can't!"
"He can, and he kinda did, he's not the ally that we had thought we'd find."
"He's a warlord, that's what he is," Rey growled, and started pacing, "He's a bloody tyrant!"
To lash out she through her cuffs against the wall, making a loud clang that gave her a nasty shock that made her yell in pain and collapse completely. Then she looked down at her cuffs and saw the state of them, they had a pair of lights that were only just flickering right now. Blinking away the stars floating in her vision she could make out Shriv and now Kare calling out to her.
"Rey, hey you okay?" they called out.
"They've got force-inhibiting binders on me," Rey managed to get out as she got back onto her knees, "They shock me whenever I try to mess with them."
"So maybe you shouldn't…say…bang them against a wall?" Shriv replied.
"Rey, force-cuffs have very sensitive sensors in them, you bang them around and bite the bullet you could damage them enough to use the force," Kare whispered out to her, "Temmin once told me that."
"Hey pipe down!" a guard nearby yelled at them.
"Just keep working on them Rey," Shriv whispered through the vent, "We're not in binders like you are, we'll get out of here soon enough."
"Easy for you to say," Rey growled as she rolled her eyes, knowing that this process was going to be quite painful, but if it got her and the others free it would most certainly be worth it.
Location: Resistance Base, Planet Hrill
Lieutenant Connix was being very quiet, walking around the base's island with a geographic mapping tool was just a cover. The cover was simple and easy to overlook, there were many more officers on base now, and many times more enlisted personnel. The young officer knew that she'd be able to slip away and complete her self-imposed task before too long, at least in time to be able to get back to her actual assignment of supply inventory, an assignment that most of the original Resistance members were relegated to so they'd stay out of the way and be under constant surveillance.
As she walked Connix made sure to check behind her to be certain that no one was following. Occasionally she would stop and do quick scans, logging the pertinent information for use in case she had to explain her absence. She'd dabbled in military engineering so she had enough know-how to be able to talk her way out of interrogation should she be forced to explain herself. But having the actual data would go a long way was well. The majority of the officers above her were more concentrated on results, not so much the politics of Resistance and Republic.
Connix stopped at a clearing, one that was familiar to her, and she dropped her large satchel off of her shoulder, and slid it over underneath a red-leaved batch of bushes. A hand shot out and snatched it from beneath it, and she nodded to the person she'd dropped the satchel for, and continued on her way. Underneath the bushes in a hollow carved there by a collapsed tree trunk Finn pulled open the bag and took inventory of what he had now, a canteen, a few meal bars, and now he had a blaster rifle, a helmet, and a vest as well as an identification card. Connix hadn't let him down, she'd gotten him everything that he'd needed, and now he had to get to his rendezvous with the squad they'd recruited back on Chandrila who were pretty much exiled to the north end of the island to build an outpost inside a cave, there he'd at least be safe, those people weren't the former military members of the majority of the personnel, they were the staff members of the Mothma household who'd drawn the ire of their new commanders after the coup and were pretty much sent away to stay out of the way of the real work.
Finn had seen that group, they were hardly even able to be called soldier material, much less dangerous. More than likely they'd been seen the same way by the Republic military officers now searching for him. He would just have to walk the few hundred meters and then ascend the steep hill to the cave they were burrowing into and he'd be somewhat secure amongst the company of the other outcasts. So that was what he was going to do.
He got the gear on, and stood up, keeping a clear view around him and then got to the well-worn path that would take him to the cave and the squad. He was there quickly, only seeing a pair of engineers working on drilling down into a thump. It must've been a tunnel entrance, but Finn didn't stick around to find out. The man just walked along, and then got to the steep trail and started ascending. The cave came into sight after he heard the sounds of work, the sounds of axes cutting wood and shovels digging into the ground. He saw the squad hard at work, one of their number on watch at the cliff edge overlooking the forest canopy that the cave was just above. He saw Finn coming, and yelled out.
"Who goes there?!" the amateur soldier asked.
"It's me," Finn whispered, "Keep your voice down."
"Sorry Finn," the man nodded, "Just uh…didn't know who you were."
"That's the point," Finn replied, walking up and looking around, "What're you guys doing? You heard anything?"
"Nah, nothing, none of us have any contact in the base aside from an officer who occasionally shows up to be sure we're still here."
"Nute right?" Finn asked as he looked back out over the foggy rainforest towards their main base, which even through the fog they could just make out the mountain.
"Yeah, hey you remembered my name?" the young former groundskeeper smiled.
"Of course," Finn responded, "So, what's the project?" he motioned over his shoulder.
"We're building it up, the cave entrance. We were told to make it home, so we're doing what we can with it. We'll have a wall up, cover it up with dried mud and grass and heat it until it's brick-like and have a pillbox in it. We've got sleeping bags, and we're working on better quarters, but we've only got what we can make. No generator, barely any tools, we're just left here to wither on the vine," the man grumbled, sourly.
"Maybe we can work that to our advantage?" Finn asked, a plan forming in his head, "There's got to be more than just this squad that's drawn the ire of the Admiral and his supporters. We had over eight hundred people with us when he showed up, there's gotta be more that aren't happy with this."
"Finn, you're talking about challenging that guy and his Marines? Are you crazy?"
"Not challenging, not directly. Stir resentment, yeah, undermine his subordinates, definitely, challenge, not yet. Not until he does something that makes the perceived consequences of challenging him seem better than existing under his command," Finn whispered, knowing that there was no way that they could replicate his coup.
"And just what would he have to do to make people believe that?"
"Get him to crack down, hard, and turn it into the kind of theater that paints it as the cruelty of a warlord rather than the actions of an officer."
"That seems like the same plan as getting bit by a rancor so you can pull his teeth," another of the resistance members piped in, "Are you crazy? If we do that then what'll happen to us?"
"I didn't say it was us he was going to crack down on," Finn replied with a smirk under his helmet.
Location: Republic Cruiser Redemption
Rey was almost there, the constant banging every so often had succeeded in weakening the cuffs' internal power supply to the point that she would be able to fight through and force the cuffs off. Their inhibiting effects would no longer keep her locked into the cell once that happened. She waited to listen for the guards to be far off and she raised her cuffs over her head and then smashed them against the floor. Instead of a single massive shock it gave a sputter, not even a shock, and then she felt the cuffs loosen.
Rey's eyes widened as she looked at them, and sure enough they were rattling, the lights were off, and she decided to give it a try. Envisioning the cuffs' internal locking pin she focused, no shock came as it started twisting and then it popped and the cuffs fell off her wrists and hit the deck. Immediately that drew a response, the sounds of boots hitting the metal deck started coming towards her, and Rey lifted both hands as if she were in the lower pushup position, and waited, focusing on the large door in front of her. She'd channeled a lot of pent up emotion and knew what she wanted to do. The Marines came sprinting over with blaster rifles raised and Rey threw her hands forward, and both men smashed violently into the wall and slatted door of the cell across from her.
Neither man remained conscious, and Rey lifted her hand again, and waved it to the side, and once more the physical object in front of her rattled in attempted compliance. She tried again, lifting her hand and waving it to the side the door screeched a bit as it came slightly open, the mechanics fighting her Force-assisted attempts to escape.
"Third time's the charm," Rey mumbled to herself and did the same thing, focusing even harder this time and the door came a third of the way open, just enough for her to shimmy through. She did so, and was free. Rey collected one of the Marines' weapons and fished around for his key card, and found it. Going cell to cell she opened the doors, and sure enough ten other Resistance pilots walked out, and all knew that their jailbreak was happening.
"Nice job," Poe said as he reached for the last weapon available, the second Marines' pistol, but Zay snatched it before him.
"Sorry Poe, I think I might know-hey!" Zay smirked but Shriv snatched it.
"And who taught you?"
Zay pouted a bit as Shriv led the squadron of pilots out towards the exit, and Rey used the key card of the men she'd knocked out to open the door. It was just in time to see two more Marines running in, but completely unaware of their proximity. Because of that Shriv shot both men square in the chest with the stun setting on the pistol he now wielded. The other members of the team now scavenged more weapons, and Poe found the arms locker and wedged it open and started passing out blaster pistols, the modern version of his trusty Glie-44.
"Okay, we won't have long before they lock down the ship and sweep us back into those cells, let's get to our fighters and get back to Hrill," Poe ordered the team as he snatched a comm that was tuned into the shipboard security frequency.
"How far are we?" Rey asked.
"If we're still on the same ship, and I'm pretty certain we are," Temmin started, and pulled up the ship's schematic on the console in the center of the guard room, "We're quite some distance away."
"So what?" Poe asked, "We just need to be smart and get from here to there without being noted as escapees. This tub will have pilots all over the place, it shouldn't be that hard for most of us to blend in."
"Key word there, most of us," Shriv then pointed at he and Zay, who weren't in standard uniforms like Poe and the others were.
"Well, how about them?" Rey asked, pointing at the two unconscious Marines, "They're here aren't they?"
"Okay, I hate to do it but I'll do it," Shriv accepted the decision, holding his up to relent.
"Let's get those other two tied up and quiet," one of their other comrades suggested.
It didn't take long before they were ready to get going, and two by two they left to avoid attention. The ship wasn't that crowded, many crew were too busy to know who they were and Poe was able to keep a low profile. Rey stayed just behind him along with Zay and Shriv, with the other pilots staying near, but not too near to draw attention. An officer walking towards reading from a data tablet got Poe's attention, and he nudged Rey.
"Salute when I salute, no hello's, just step aside a bit, salute, and keep walking," Poe whispered, getting a nod and a nervous sigh from Rey.
The officer got into range for a salute, and Poe snapped it off, quick and clean, no fuss and no trouble. In response the man just returned the salute lazily and kept walking without so much as a word or a glance in their direction. They all followed the same pattern until they reached the hangar. But when they did a shocking sight caught them, Marines.
"Oh crap," Poe whispered, seeing the two in front of them, but they couldn't stop.
"What do we do?" Zay asked.
"I don't know, but we can't leave if they close the shields," Poe said.
"Someone has to stay behind, keep the shield doors open," one of the others sighed.
"We'll stay, distract them, and then you and the others make a break for the fighters," Temmin suggested, "Rey get in front," he said, putting the Marine-disguised Rey in front of them, "And sorry about this."
He then drew Rey's blaster pistol and smacked her upside the helmet with it. She stumbled to the side as the other pilots rushed past her as Shriv ducked down next to her and Poe and Zay were likewise assaulted, all them wearing the Marine uniform and helmet to make them impossible. Their comrades rushed past them, and Temmin declared out loud and for all to hear.
"For the Resistance!"
It was cheesy, loud, and did the trick. The other Marines around the hangar door raised their blasters and ran at them and were almost immediately downed by stun shots fired from the stolen blasters. They rushed past Poe, Rey, Shriv, and Zay, all of them now more than a little shaken by the sudden attack. Rey was more than a little annoyed.
"That wasn't very nice…" she grumbled unhappily, sitting up and scrambling to her feet as the sounds of fighting got to their ears.
"No, but it gave us a chance, quick," Shriv ushered them all to their feet and the four ran into the hangar to see a scene of chaos, pilots and crew were rushing about with more than a few on the deck, stunned.
"Get to your fighters, now," Poe yelled, running towards the row of fighters he recognized as theirs.
"Poe!" Rey yelled, seeing a few BB units on the side of the hangar, theirs, BB-8 in particular was easily visible.
"Buddy!" the squadron commander smiled, and ran over, seeing a restraining bolt attached to his droid friend, he kicked it off with a couple kicks of his boot and then BB-8 jumped to life, spinning about, beeping madly as he deployed his electronic self-defense weapon.
Rey did likewise, kicking off her own droid's restraining bolt and the little droid beeped to life and Rey knew it was time to get going.
"Rey!" Zay yelled, and fired at a squad of Marines rushing inside the hangar with her pistol.
"Poe, get outta here, we'll cover you!" Shriv urged them, and Poe grabbed Rey and pulled her towards the fighters through a crisscross of stun blasts.
The two weren't shot at initially, but then when they got to their fighters the two were seen and shot at. Rey helped her little astromech into its place in the T-70 X-Wing and started climbing up the ladder. But when she was about to jump down into the cockpit a lancing burning pain ripped through her left hip from the door where a Marine fired at her and missed his intended target of her ship to disable it.
"Rey!" she heard Poe yell out in concern.
The young Jedi collapsed into her cockpit, gasping in pain as she hit the buttons to start the ship as fast as she could. Her hands shook as the X-Wing powered up and then slid up into her seat and tried lifting off. The left wing of X-Wing dipped awkwardly as she tried to get control. But the pain was searing, the smell of her cauterized wound filled her cockpit.
"Rey," she heard over her cockpit's comm, "Rey tell your droid to plot a jump to my coordinates, now!"
"Okay…" she said, blinking away the white flitting into her vision as she worked her way into control and started to push out through the exit to the hangar behind Poe. But she couldn't do it. Something else was driving her to her actions. Rey began manually typing in a set of coordinates, she didn't think, she didn't examine it, her hands just did what she felt had to be done. It was as if a different set of hands were working with Rey just watching as the X-Wing accelerated out into open space. Rey lost consciousness as she pushed the hyperspace lever forward.
Poe watched Rey, but didn't see her acknowledgement of her having copied her hyperspace jump solution. BB-8 was more than a little insistent that she hadn't done so. But then as he watched the other Resistance fighter shot away into hyperspace. Without much hesitation Poe shot into hyperspace himself breaking free of the large MC85 Cruiser's tractor beam lock. They were gone, but they weren't going to the same place.
Not my finest work, but I just needed to get this done so I can progress the plot. I have plenty of ideas for how this will progress, and have lots of excitement for the next chapters. I hope I'll be able to get this going again now that I have time again.
Next Chapter Preview: The drama on Hrill begins, and the escapees reach their new destinations.