The darkness in his mind slowly faded away as Jorec regained consciousness. A warm liquid had pooled underneath his left hand. Blood, he thought as he struggled to open his eyes. But is it mine? He then became aware of a sharp prodding on the left side of his neck, the prodding of two fingers that seemed to want to silence the heartbeat in his neck. Moving out of self-preservation, Jorec opened his eyes and quickly grabbed the hand of his attacker.
The hand attempted to pull back from Jorec's neck, but the supposedly dead prisoner continued to keep his grip. A panicked scream came from the hand's owner. Through the red emergency lighting of the cellblock, Jorec could see the face of a human male standing over him.
"Let go of me!" the human exclaimed as he attempted to pull Jorec's hand off of his wrist. "I was only trying to help you!"
"What happened?" Jorec asked as he released the hand. The human shook his wrist and stepped back a meter from Jorec. Jorec raised himself up into a sitting position, oddly feeling very little pain.
"I think we crashed," the man replied. "And you were dead… You weren't breathing and I couldn't find a pulse. Then the next thing I know you were attacking me!"
Jorec got up to his feet, noticing the pool of blood that had formed underneath part of him from several other sentients that weren't as lucky as himself. "Apparently you didn't check well enough," Jorec said as he wiped his hands off on his prisoner's jumpsuit. "I'm obviously still alive."
"I think he kind of figured that out himself, what with you nearly breaking his other arm," replied a high-pitched voice from the far wall. Jorec looked and saw a creature about a little over a meter tall standing near the door of the cellblock. The creature appeared to be light-colored in the red lighting, and had two sets of arms emerging from its midsection. The lower pair of arms were crossed across its chest, while the upper pair gestured towards the two humans.
"Sorry about that," Jorec apologized to the other human in the room. "I'm… Jorec Merridon," he said after a slight hesitation.
"Conspiracy," the man replied, giving the sole charge against Jorec that the computer terminals had reported. "I'm Banth Alloan, conspiracy, aiding and abetting known enemies of the Empire, etc."
The four-armed alien, whom Jorec had now identified as a Xexto, spoke up next. "My name is Rinoco Teves. Apparently, the Empire decided that I was a little too outspoken against them. Hence the treason charge you probably saw on the computer terminal. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm trying to get this door open."
Rinoco turned back to the control panel on the door and began using all four of his hands to type in commands in the keypad. Jorec turned to Banth after looking across the room one last time.
"Is anybody else still alive?"
"Not that I know of, unless any of the others know your little trick," he replied.
I don't think they do, Jorec thought before actually speaking. "What about outside of this cellblock? Will we run into a fully armed group of Stormtroopers after Rinoco opens this door?"
"We'll find out right… about… now," said the Xexto as he entered a few final keystrokes. With a slight hesitation the doors slid open, sending Jorec and Banth towards a hiding place. A beam of white light emerged from the opening, and Rinoco quickly glanced outside of the cellblock and into the hallway to freedom. "Okay, it looks like it's safe," he said as he waved his lower right arm towards the hallway.
Jorec took the lead, slowly walking down the lit hallway, on a careful lookout for anything that might attack him and his two companions. Rinoco followed next, all of his arms ready to attack any hostile intruder. Jorec saw the closed door that no doubt led to a control room of some kind, he motioned towards the door's control panel and watched as the Xexto began his work.
"It's not even locked," replied the Xexto as he opened the door.
Jorec walked into the room through the opened door, and nearly vomited at seeing the sight of the body of what once was the warden of the cellblock. With the exception of the gruesome sight in front of him, the room was empty. Gray fuzz came from computer monitors showing security cameras that had been knocked out during the crash. One monitor offered a swinging view of a monochrome floor, every once and a while showing the bottoms of what appeared to be lockers. Finally, the floor began to reach towards the camera and the view went gray as it crashed to the floor.
Jorec took an empty seat next to one of the still functioning computers, and quickly brought up the database. "Hey, everybody. I think I've found our next place to go… Try to find this section's Evidence Room, according to the schematic it should be a few doors down." A smirk crossed his face as he looked at what appeared to be a virtual arsenal. Blaster pistols from almost every major manufacturer, several droids and/or droid parts that had been confiscated, a few vibrodaggers, and most importantly; one piece of evidence that was marked only as "Restricted." That'll be my lightsaber, Jorec thought. He could only hope that all of the weapons were in perfect working condition.
"I found it!" came the booming voice of Banth, loud enough to possibly attract the attention of any living guards.
At least we'll have weapons to defend ourselves, Jorec thought as he walked towards the Evidence room. When he arrived at the room, Banth had already entered the room and was struggling to open one of the lockers.
"They're obviously locked," Banth said as he examined the locks. "I think I know how to unlock these things, go get that warden from the other room."
A look of disgust crossed over Jorec's face as he remembered the mangled corpse. "OK, I'll get it…" He returned with Rinoco, both of them dragging the gray-uniformed warden's body towards the first locker. They struggled to position the warden's right thumb into the identification slot, all three survivors held their breath, each hoping that the ID slots couldn't tell the difference between the living and the dead. Three sighs of relief sounded as the locker hissed open, revealing a sealed bag containing what appeared to be a fairly new model Blastech pistol.
Banth's healthy hand shot in between Jorec and Rinoco, grabbing at the bag and claiming its contents as his own. Hope he doesn't do that with my lightsaber, Jorec thought. Speaking of which, how am I going to explain that to these people? Enter in another forced trust with someone? Might as well be truthful, he thought. I'm going to need lots of practice for when I return to Selvernos…
"Please be a vibroknife, please be a vibroknife," Rinoco pleaded as he and Jorec dragged the body to the fifth locker. All four of the Xexto's arms were burning with fatigue. His wish was granted…
All three of them sat on the floor of the evidence room, dividing up the several blaster pistols and the energy cells. Jorec eyed the solid-colored bag in the middle of the pile, avoided mainly due to its unknown contents. If there was a time where he could safely grab it and reveal the lightsaber hidden within, it was now when the blasters weren't loaded.
"There's something you all need to know about me," Jorec said as he reached for the bag. "I was charged with conspiracy, and convicted without a trial."
"We were all convicted without a trial," Banth replied. "What's that have to do with anything?"
Jorec opened the bag and reached his right hand in. "I'm sure you've heard several stories about people like me, and they're probably all false," Jorec said as he pulled the metal cylinder out of the bag. "I'm sure you've heard about what this is."
Rinoco seemed shocked at the revelation, but no hostile moves were made.
"A Jedi, huh?" Banth asked. "That explains the whole 'not having a pulse' stunt you pulled about an hour ago. Healing trance, right?"
Jorec looked even more shocked than Rinoco after Banth's words. "How do you know that?" he asked.
"Conspiracy, aiding and abetting known enemies of the Empire. That included Jedi, about ten years ago."
"I don't care what you, there's an old saying," Rinoco said as he loaded energy cells into his two blasters. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
"Glad I know that can trust you," Jorec said. If what you tell me is true, he added mentally. I guess I have no choice until I get off of this rock. Although I have a feeling that telling Lia won't be this easy… It was then that something struck him inside his mind, a sense of something he hadn't felt for nearly nine years. There was danger approaching, and it would be upon them soon.
"We've got company," Jorec said as he quickly rose to his feet after grabbing a loaded blaster.
"We should have known we weren't the only survivors," Rinoco said as he spun all four of his blaster pistols in his hands. "And what's the blaster for? Don't Jedi mainly use lightsabers?"
"At the moment, after not having used my lightsaber in about eight years, I'd say I'm a far better shot than I am a melee fighter."
Banth fidgeted his blaster pistol in right hand, knowing that he would be much more useful if he had full use of his primary hand.
Outside of the hall, the twelve Stormtroopers slowly limped towards their target, hoping to find any prisoners and quickly subdue them without being overcome by their own wounds. The leader had already removed his helmet, and with his free arm wiped the blood off of his brow. His eyesight was hazy, and he knew that he couldn't fight well with the concussion he had, but he had to persevere until the rescue ship arrived. He saw the trail of blood that led into the Evidence Room.
"Be alert, men," the commander spoke to his troops. "They're armed. I only hope the Jedi was killed… When the door opens, open fire. All prisoners must be eradicated."
He stepped toward the door, his rifle ready. And when the door opened, the battle began.