Front Gate
Violet Beauregarde strolled out calmly between the gates of the rebel fortress, unable to resist the opportunity for a bit of theater. She had originally been intending to exit through the air vents with the rest of her team, but it had been prudent to alter her route in order to reach the man that she now approached. Casually walking between the soldiers rushing past her into the fortress, she drew up in front of the division commander. He towered over her, a steel giant in a Goliath exosuit; even without the armor, however, he was a massive specimen of a man, his height and musculature artificially augmented during his growth. His jaw was heavy, his skin fair…with blonde hair and blue eyes, he was the very embodiment of the Aryan ideal. This man, this Germanic titan, was General Augustus Gloop. Even Violet paused for a moment as she stared up at the face behind the exosuit's visor; having heard of Gloop's erstwhile replacement, she had known he would look different. But the change was still…shocking. "My Lady," Gloop acknowledged, bowing as best his armor would allow.
"Status, General?"
"Ve have control of ze upper caverns, and ze surviving rebels are in full retreat. Undoubtedly, zey are moving to evacuate as ve speak."
"Don't worry about that. They won't make it far. General, I want to initiate Omega Protocol immediately."
Gloop's face froze for a brief instant. "Ze Empress does not intend to take prisoners?"
Violet smiled coldly. "Do you have a problem with your orders, General?"
Gloop shook his head. "No, My Lady." He switched to his suit radio. "All units, zis is General Gloop. Vithdraw to ze upper caverns and don respirators. Ve are initiating Strike Protocol Omega." Violet walked away, clearly satisfied, and Gloop could only watch as the helicopters approached, lethal tanks of chemicals held in position beneath their bellies. Soon, those chemicals would be pouring through the rebels' ventilation system…and none of them would survive. Gloop might have felt a brief instant of horror at what he was about to do, but he never acknowledged it. He had sold his soul a long time ago.
Military Sector, Corridor D12
The other four Loompas had not gone terribly far before there was an explosion behind them; no one said anything, but a significant glance passed through the group. They reached the elevator to find it functional and deserted, and the lift quickly whisked them down to the lower cavern. The evacuation was just now getting fully underway, hundreds of civilians funneling into the passage from the upper levels. A few Resistance troops were out in front, leading the way toward the tunnel…only they were still too far away to see what was already becoming horribly clear to the Deepstar crew. "It can't be…" RP-18 said quietly, but it was. The evacuation tunnel had been collapsed by a massive explosion, leaving only a tiny gap where a piece of steel rebar held back the rocks. And the worst was still to come. As Jonesy and the three survivors of Deepstar watched helplessly, a series of rapid explosions crackled along the walls and ceiling of the passage to the upper caves…and the true horror of what was about to happen became clear. There was no time to speak, no time to act; as if in slow motion, the passage folded in on itself, untold thousands of tons of material thundering down onto the fleeing multitudes. The charges had been intended to completely seal the passage, and they performed their job admirably. A cloud of dust filled the cave, blinding and choking the four Oompa-Loompas.
"What do we do?" Jonesy finally coughed, his voice scarcely above a whisper…they were the only four left alive in the lower cavern, trapped between two cave-ins, but there were at least two thousand people above them, now trapped at the mercy of the enemy.
The horrible truth was clear. "There's nothing we can do." And though SC-80 hated himself as he said it, the fact was simple: The Resistance has lost. But we still have a mission to carry out. "This way!" he said sharply, turning away from the terrible sight of the collapsed cavern to the lower tunnel. "I think we can squeeze through that gap up there."
"Are you mad?" RP-18 asked mildly, the Doctor's composure never broken regardless of what he might have been feeling. "Even if we could get through, there's no way that our equipment…"
"IT'S THE ONLY WAY OUT, DAMMIT!" The Captain turned, roaring the words with absolute fury. "UNLESS YOU WANT TO TRY TO GET OUT THROUGH THE AIR VENTS AND GET SHOT TO DEATH!" Instantly, his tone softened. "I'm sorry, Doctor…"
"No," RP-18 replied, "You're quite right. Lead on, Captain."
101 had already reached the top of the debris pile and was hard at work trying to widen the miniscule opening…but then he stopped cold. A distant alarm screeched, barely audible from their present location. 101 looked at the Captain. "That's the contamination alarm. Shit!"
It took a split-second, but then the Captain realized the full ramifications of that statement. "MOVE, NOW! THEY'RE GASSING THE PLACE!" Again, he felt a horrible pang of guilt and regret as he looked back at the collapsed passage from the upper caves…whatever was flooding down might be mere tear gas, or it might be the agent of a full-scale extermination. But there was no way to stop it, no way to help those people. The only thing that mattered now was to survive. He could not have said afterwards how they made it through the blocked lower tunnel; the tiny opening that remained did not seem sufficient for even an Oompa-Loompa. But through sheer desperation they clawed and squeezed their way through, abandoning their rucksacks and everything but the clothes on their backs. That…and the all-important ten-pound note. They were blind in the darkness, working purely by feel; they might have been in the passage for five minutes or an hour, but at last light broke above their heads. Filthy, torn, and bloody, they emerged into a burning vision of hell. Much of the forest around the exit tunnel was on fire, swarms of helicopters alternately putting out some blazes with water while starting others with their munitions. In the sheer chaos, they slipped away easily. SC-80 found himself wondering at the sense of detachment he felt…once he had made the decision to go through with the mission, to reset the past and escape this place, it no longer felt real. The mission is all we have left. We will succeed, and then none of this will ever have happened. But then he looked at Jonesy's face, the horror in the other Loompa's expression evident even as they ran for their lives. To him, though, this is all real. It's the end of the world. SC-80 swore quietly and mashed the entire issue back into the furthest corner of his mind. To hell with the philosophy of time travel…let's just get home.