A/N: It took me a while to decide who to follow in this most recent chapter, because all the characters we have been following are on the other team, but I still wanted to get into what was happening with the others. So, since Kanan is not my strong suit, here's Echo, dealing with everyone's shenanigans (per usual)!
My writing process for this chapter was kind of a mess, so I hope it turned out all right! (Please tell me if it did. That would be most appreciated.)
Echo watched as Hunter led Tech, Crosshair, and the two kids down the blackened slope, towards the road to the factory, and out of sight. He knew splitting up like this would bother their sergeant. It hadn't taken Echo a very long time to realize just how protective Hunter could be over his squad, especially after the war. Still, he was sure Hunter and the others would be just fine on their own.
Sighing, Echo turned back to where Kanan, Zeb, and Wrecker were back to watching the movement in the facility from their vantage point on the ledge. He still wasn't entirely sure if this "plan" would work. After aiding the townspeople from Das'tor, their supply of explosives had taken a big hit. They didn't have enough supplies to pull it off, especially after splitting their remaining resources with Hunter's team, tasked with taking out the facility. At least, not yet.
Also, they had no idea how many troops were stationed at the quarry, and the shipyard on the other side of the quarry where they planned to make their escape.
As Echo hunkered down between Kanan and Wrecker, Kanan clicked his pair of macrobinoculars to a higher setting.
"There," the Jedi said, nodding to the far side of the quarry. He offered the binocs to Echo, who then lifted them to his eyes. Across the gaping chasm, obscured by stacks of crates, there was a dark pane of transparisteel carved into the face of the quarry. "That's our target."
"But I thought we got to blow the place up!" Wrecker whined, and Echo let out a heavy sigh. Sometimes, his squad's one-track mind drove him crazy.
"We will," he replied evenly, shifting his view to the shipyard just outside the quarry. He passed the binocs to Wrecker. "As soon as we get enough explosives to do it."
"Ooooh. Right."
Wrecker finally handed the binocs to Zeb, who growled, "how are we gonna get in anyways? They've got guards everywhere."
Now that Echo had seen it up close, he realized the Lasat was right. Every hundred yards or so, a stormtrooper in dull white armor stood keeping watch. Slipping by them would be no easy task. But Echo had accomplished more difficult missions in his long and wild career.
"Over there." Kanan pointed to their left, where the droids trundled back and forth, depositing their cargo into the transports' crates. As Echo followed the Jedi's gaze, he found himself examining a tall, dark tower that looked out over the entire quarry, standing like a sentinel on the edge of the abyss. "If we can take out the watchtower, we take out their eyes in the sky."
"And their communication systems," Echo added. Above the tower, he could just make out the thin silhouette of a communications array. "Take that out, and it might just buy us the time we need."
As Echo spoke, Kanan had begun nodding along. "It's not a bad plan, but how are we going to set the explosives once we get in?"
Wrecker laughed and cracked his knuckles. "We can take care of that."
"That's a plan I can get behind," Zeb growled from beside Wrecker, baring his pointed teeth in an intimidating grin.
Echo exchanged a long look with Kanan, who looked just as weary and exasperated as Echo felt, as the two bruisers shared a laugh.
"Alright," the Jedi said as Echo, Wrecker, and Zeb followed him suit, "Let's go."
Around the corner, Echo heard a surprised grunt of pain, followed by a muffled shuffling noise.
"All clear!" Zeb's voice came loud and clear over the comms. Clutching his pistol tighter, Echo followed Kanan as he rounded the corner, Wrecker right behind him.
As one, Echo and the others stopped, craning their heads up to look at the dark, looming tower, now illuminated only by harsh, fluorescent flood lights. Sunset had come as a relief for the team as they had crept closer along the wall surrounding the quarry and its buildings as quickly and quietly as they could, but the darkness had given them the cover they needed to move completely undetected.
Now, as Echo stared upwards, he found himself feeling grateful once more. Scaling the tower in broad daylight would have taken some serious skill to pull off. But mostly luck. Of which they were severely lacking.
Kanan turned to Echo with a sly grin, before asking, "ready? We move fast."
A sense of deja-vu tugged at the back of Echo's mind, but by the time he had placed the memory, the Jedi had disappeared, jumping half-way up the tower in a single bound. Zeb let out a low chuckle at Echo's surprise, then began making his own way up, claws easily digging into the wall instead of using a grapple.
Echo sighed as he reached for the grapple attachment on his belt. Some things never changed, did they? At least he wasn't being thrown all over the place, like Rex. Enjoy the little things, he figured.
As Echo fired the line up into the tower and tugged it to check that it was secure, he heard a shifting behind him.
"You know—uhhh—that's really high," Wrecker stammered, lurching a half-step backwards as he craned his head upwards, "are—are you sure you don't—uh—need a man on the ground? Yeah! I could stay here an—"
"Wrecker."
"…Yeah?"
"You'll be fine," Echo said, patting his larger brother unsympathetically on the shoulder before grabbing the line and following Kanan and Zeb up the tower. Over the comms, he heard Wrecker gulp loudly, let out a defeated groan, before grabbing onto the line and beginning his own ascent. Echo couldn't help the fond smile that crept onto his face. No, some things never changed.
By the time Echo had pulled himself all the way up the line, Kanan and Zeb had already snuck a glance of the inside of the tower.
"There's half a dozen of them in there, by the looks of it," Kanan said in a low voice as Echo clambered onto the narrow ledge, which was barely a meter in width. Just inches above their heads were the transparisteel panes of the watchtower. "Three stormtroopers, one officer, all the rest are workers."
"So what are we waiting for? Let's go bash some bucketheads," Zeb growled, cracking his knuckles. Wrecker probably would have joined in, if he hadn't been clinging to the wall for dear life.
"On my mark." Kanan peeked cautiously over the wall and held up three fingers. "Three…"
Echo pressed himself up against the wall, clutching his pistol closer to his chest. They had to be quick and quiet about this, breaking through the transparisteel. If any of them didn't make it in, it would long trip down, and alert any guards near enough to hear.
"Two…"
His legs tensed, preparing for the jump.
"One!"
With a mighty, invisible shockwave, the panes shattered inward. Echo was inside before the shards had even hit the floor, as he stunned an officer hovering over a control panel. He wheeled around to take out another figure, only to dive out of the way as a blaster-bolt went flying past him and into the console behind him. The stormtrooper was out in a second as Wrecker charged in and slammed into him full throttle. Well, he was definitely going to wake up with a headache.
And just like that, the room was cleared.
"Echo," Kanan called to him, stepping over the shards of glass littering the floor, "let's give ourselves some cover. Shut the place down."
Echo blinked. "Now, sir?"
"You heard me. With the power out, we have the shadows and a distraction." Kanan started towards the lift and gestured to Wrecker and Zeb to follow. "I'm going to get a head start with the others. Meet us outside the tower once you get it shut down."
Echo sent Kanan a brief nod, and the Jedi, Zeb, and Wrecker disappeared into the lift. Wrecker would be just fine with Kanan, Echo reassured himself. Besides, once the power went off, it wouldn't take the Empire long to figure out they'd been infiltrated, and they needed as much time as they could get.
Taking a deep breath, Echo plugged himself into the data port, flipping through program after program until he found the one to the power generator.
"Gotcha," he muttered to himself, before overriding the firewall easily. With a resonating humming noise, the lights in the facility faded out. But before he disconnected from the port, Echo paused at the log of guards currently stationed at the quarry. Curious, he checked it briefly. It was fewer than he had expected, only two platoons. Apparently, their luck wasn't as bad as he had thought.
Task completed, Echo spun around to get to the lift, before realizing that with the power off, it was effectively out of order. Well, that's just perfect. Sighing heavily, he stepped over unconscious bodies, and began the long trip down the stairs.
Just over a minute later, Echo arrived at the ground level, out of breath and cursing himself, the galaxy, and the Force itself. He was getting too old for this, blast it!
"There you are!" Wrecker all but shouted when Echo came through the door, ignoring the cautioning looks he got from the rest of the team. "What took you so long?"
Echo huffed. Questioning my life choices, is all, he answered to himself.
The team stiffened as several hurried voices came into range. As one, they silently agreed that it would be best to get out of there as fast as they could. Silently, they crept away, staying close to the wall as they made their way towards the storage room where they would pick up additional explosives.
By the time they reached storage, the mine was in total disarray. Several alarms had begun to wail several minutes, and it was still going when they finally arrived at their objective. The chaos kicked into a higher gear as workers and stormtroopers alike rushed to get the power back up and running. It was the perfect distraction.
Until the siren stopped abruptly, and the floodlights turned back on.
"Get down!" Hissed Kanan, and they all ducked behind the crates piled just outside the storage room, in the now starkly illuminated walkway.
"I made sure they couldn't've powered it up for a while. They must have a backup power generator," Echo muttered, peeking over the crates to make sure they hadn't been spotted. Internally, he berated himself for not even looking for a backup generator. Granted, he'd been in a bit of a hurry, but it was still a major oversight. One that might land them in a whole heap of trouble.
"It'll be fine," Wrecker replied, in anyone else's equivalent of a stage whisper. "We're here, aren't we?"
"Yeah, we're here." Echo turned back around and peered across the walkway to inspect the door to the excess storage. It didn't seem like the safest place to keep a huge pile of highly unstable explosives, but hey, it made the job easier for them. Exactly where he expected it to be, Echo spotted a data port just to the left of the door, opposite the control panel.
"You're clear," Zeb growled, and Echo dashed the rest of the way, kneeling just before the data port and inserting his scomp link. As he worked, Kanan, Zeb, and Wrecker crouched at the sides of the doors, ready to rush in as soon as Echo was ready.
"And… go!"
In a flurry of movement, the team charged into the open door. Echo scanned the room for any other signs of motion, but the room was empty, except for them. Without prompting, Wrecker began stuffing his pack with the bags of explosives piled into crates against the wall.
"Grab as much as you can, as quickly as you can," Kanan said, joining Wrecker in shoving the packets into their bags. "Just be careful."
"Yeah, yeah," Wrecker grumbled, "careful. Right."
Echo rolled his eyes and opened his own pack. In a few minutes, his bag, along with all the others, were filled to the brim with enough of the clear packets of explosives to blow half the quarry into orbit.
"I think that'll do it," Kanan said and hauled the pack onto his shoulder. "Let's get out of here."
Echo easily pulled on his own pack, surprised at how light it was, and followed Kanan to the door. Just as Kanan was reaching out for the control panel, the doors slid open.
"Hey! You're not authorized to—!"
Before the stormtrooper could finish his sentence, Echo fired a stun blast simultaneously as Wrecker. As the guard collapsed, the trooper behind him had just finished activating his comm. Zeb charged, easily dodging a blaster-bolt, and slammed his fist into the stormtrooper, who crumpled to the ground in an unconscious heap. But they were too late.
An alarm, similar to the one before, began to wail, and beams of spotlights began to slide across the quarry towards them.
"Go, GO, GO!" Echo shouted, urging them forward as stormtroopers and security guards began firing at them, bolts colliding with the wall behind them. As one, they began to sprint down the walkway. Looking over his shoulder, Echo watched as stormtroopers abandoned their posts to give chase. When he looked forward again, he saw three stormtroopers step into their path. Bracing himself, he barreled right over one, narrowly avoiding crashing into the ground. He kept running. The guards' surprised yelps signaled to him that the others hadn't considered stopping, either.
A blaster-bolt whizzed just over his shoulder, so close to his face that he could feel its heat. Echo desperately searched for somewhere, anywhere they could take cover, but the wide pathway was mostly clear, to make a path for the carrier droids.
The carrier droids…
Ahead of them, one of the massive droids trundled forward, container empty, completely oblivious of the heated chase going down around it. Echo's gaze flitted beyond it, to the support beams and blasting area the droid was nearing. That was it.
"Cover me!" Echo shouted and redoubled his efforts to catch up to the droid. He didn't dare look back, in case he was to trip, but could hear the others begin laying down cover fire as he ran. It wasn't too hard to reach the droid; it was much slower than any of them, creeping along at a steady pace. Slowing to a jog, Echo grabbed for a handhold and hauled himself up above the droid's treads.
Hastily ripping off a panel, his eyes flickered over the tangled mess of wires and inner workings. With a curse, Echo began searching through the wires. Where is Tech when you need him?
"Ha!" Echo crowed in triumph as his hand found a thin, red-coated wire. He fumbled hastily with the wire cutters attached to his belt, something Tech insisted they all carry, and cut that wire, and another, black wire in one quick movement. Almost there…
A blaster-bolt scorched the metal just inches from his head and Echo almost startled backwards off the droid. Growling profanities to himself, he clumsily twisted the wires together and ducked to avoid another bolt.
"It's done!" he all but shouted into the comms, as he edged towards the empty bin the droid was carrying. One handed, he shimmied his backpack off of his shoulders, activated a timed detonator, and swung it heedlessly into the bin.
60 seconds.
"Throw your packs in!"
"What?!" three sets of voices shouted in response.
Echo twisted to return fire when another bolt whizzed just past his shoulder. A stormtrooper fell as Echo's shot hit its mark. "Just do it! It's rigged to blow!"
The others began to backpedal towards the droid, where he was firing off shots in rapid succession, attempting to cover their retreat as much as possible.
"Have I mentioned I you're my favorite vod before?" Wrecker asked Echo as he caught up with the trundling droid, firing off a volley of shots before swinging off his own pack and tossing it up to Echo.
With a chuckle, Echo flung the bag into the bin. "I don't think so, no"
"Well, you're my favorite vod."
Then, Echo heard the distant roar of ships' engines and froze. Tie-fighters. The others seemed to have heard it too, as Kanan hurriedly passed his pack to Echo, skillfully deflecting a blaster-bolt at the same time.
"Time to go."
"I'm with Kanan," Zeb seconded, anxiety seeping its way into the edges of his usually gruff voice. His backpack was the last one into the bin.
45 seconds.
Jumping down from the over the droid's massive treads, Echo joined the others on solid ground once more.
"How are we gonna get to the shipyard?" Wrecker bellowed, narrowly dodging a blasterbolt
From their scout-out, Echo remembered having seen several ladders set into the walls so that workers could travel up and down to different levels and hurriedly began searching for one. The shipyard was located outside of the quarry itself, but if they could make it out, they'd be almost there already. His eyes landed on metal rungs on the wall.
"There!"
Kanan sprinted ahead to the ladder and skidded to a halt just in front of them. "Go! I'll cover you," he shouted. Zeb was the first to jump onto the ladder, scaling it faster than any of them could. Wrecker went next, clumsily trying to fire off shots while climbing.
30 seconds. Echo's stomach flipped. They were running out of time.
"You go," Kanan ordered, "I'll be right behind you."
With a nod, Echo fired off a few more shots before shoving his pistol into its holster, gripping the wrung and beginning his ascent. Initially, it had been a struggle doing certain tasks with his cybernetic arm, but after years of practice, he scaled the ladder as quickly as Wrecker.
"C'mon!" Zeb called down to Kanan as he gave Echo a hand up. "It's about to blow!"
Three.
Deflecting one last volley, Kanan looked up towards them and jumped the majority of the length of the ladder.
Two.
As soon as Kanan reached the top of the ladder, Zeb hauled him clear of the edge.
"Get down!" Echo cried, flattening himself to the ground, armor colliding with the concrete.
One.
A massive explosion rocked the quarry, slamming into Echo like a wave and causing his vison to go completely white as his visor attempted to compensate for the sudden brightness. The ground beneath them rumbled dangerously, and Echo felt himself sliding towards the ledge as it began to crumble. His stomach dropped before the debris did.
Wrecker's strong hand shot out to grab his armor before he could tumble off the edge, and his brother heaved him back to safety with a grunt. Scrambling back from the unsteady ledge, Echo stopped to catch his breath.
"Thanks," he said to Wrecker in between breaths. Wrecker let out a low grunt in response.
For a moment, they all waited, panting as the dust and debris settled. When the dust finally cleared enough, Echo crept closer to the edge of the now demolished wall. Another tremor rocked the ground, and he had to steady himself as he looked out on the destruction.
Kanan let out a whistle of admiration. "I think it worked."
And he wasn't kidding. As Echo scanned the quarry, he realized that one of the major support beams of the level had been totally demolished, causing the walls to crumble and a massive landslide to cover the entire Western side of the quarry. Not only that, but it had caused a chain reaction with the other explosives already in place or stored elsewhere around the area.
"I think so, too," he decided.
Just before he heard a click behind them. Echo turned to see several platoons stormtroopers, blasters all trained intently on them.
"Put your hand up, rebel scum."
A/N: Oh no! Busted! Whatever shall we do? You'll just have to wait and see. ;) I hope I got Echo's characterization right, because it's been a while since I wrote something in his perspective (Breaking the Ice). On that note, this chapter went through a lot of drafts, so please! Tell me what you think of it!
This is Bubblez, signing off for now.