Escape from Jakku

Serina

Serina groggily opened her eyes and tried to take in the scene around her. When her vision focused she could see the barren waste of Jakku and the burning wreck of a transport. Was that her transport? She could vaguely see the outlines of the other transports barreling off into the distance without her. She looked to her speeder, still mostly in one piece, and groaned. She trusted Aimee, but they had always said if you want something done you need to do it yourself.

She flipped her speeder and studied the damage. Nothing extensive, with enough power to get her to her friends and take care of the ones that took her out of this fight. She cycled through her comms waiting for anyone to pick up.

"Sturas here, I read you."

"Gimme a sitrep, Sturas."

"Honestly? Bad. These guys have their guns leveled at our heads and I don't know when they're going to make a move. Transport 3 is down and-"

Sturas cut out and Serina began to panic. She slammed the throttle and sped her bike up, causing it to sputter and whine. After about 10 seconds Sturas's voice came back over the comms.

"Serina, are you on the move? Your friend is doing something either incredibly dumb or incredibly smart, you need to get here ASAP."

"What's Aimee doing?"

"She's trying to board Transport 4."

Serina closed her eyes, mouthing out a prayer to the Force or anything listening. She took the speeder to full speed, the low wine now a loud screech as she went to save her friend.

Gasus

Gasus supposed he should have expected this. As he tried desperately to get away from the lock the other transport had on them. As a Shadow Trooper he wasn't used to things going wrong. Assassinations planned out over a month, surgical strikes on an enemy thought over for a week. Everything that could go wrong accounted for, no room for improvisation. His team would get in, follow plan perfectly, and be out before people ever knew. Even the on-the-fly plan of taking care of any witnesses at the stolen shuttle was executed perfectly. Uncertainty terrified him, which is why the situation he was in now filled him with a kind of dread he had never felt before. Sturas had gone to the turret but he stopped her, any sudden movement from that turret would escalate the situation beyond where he wanted to take it. He just hoped someone else came up with a plan before he had to.

"And you're absolutely sure you saw Sam get on Hadar's transport when Aimee got off?"

"Yes, Gasus, I'm sure, for the third time."

More silence between the two of them. It wasn't helping Gasus's rising anxiety.

"We need to do something, Gasus."

"Sturas I would absolutely love to, but we're cut off from them completely. They can hear us over those comms, anything we plan they're going to hear."

"Anything?"

"Any-you just told Serina about Aimee."

They both looked forward, neither blinking nor saying anything.

"I'll get into the turret."

"That's a pretty good idea."

Aimee

Deep breaths. That's all Aimee could think when she jumped to the top of the transport. Deep breaths as she ducked and weaved around the turret that was swinging wildly to try to get its sights on her. The other transports had fallen back and no one was firing at them, which meant that there was 2 people in on this operation. One working both turrets and one driving. Two she could work with. Deep breaths.

She unclipped her rifle and took a few potshots at the top of the vehicle. Nothing damaging, just enough to scare them. She heard yelling below and saw the hatch open. Thinking quickly, she took the thermal detonator from her armor and lobbed it into the hole. There was more screaming and clashing as Aimee accepted what was to come. She didn't mind dying if it meant Serina could live happily and away from the Empire. She smiled and closed her eyes and waited for the end to come and for the explosion to engulf the transport.

There was clanging below and a sharp scream followed by a loud explosion, but she didn't feel her body incinerate. She looked behind the transport and saw the mangled frame of a blaster cannon and a twisted smoldering corpse. She was too distracted to hear the hatch swing open behind her. Aimee felt a sharp pain in her side as she was pushed forwards into the turret, almost falling off. She grabbed the barrel and tried to pull herself up, and through tears of pain she could see a large white figure advancing rapidly towards her. Before she could clear her eyes the figure pulled her up by the hair and put its hand around her throat. She could make out what looked like a Stormtrooper helmet, but with a design painted on she had never seen before. Her vision slowly faded as the the figure's grip tightened.

Serina

Serina was horrified. She knew people would die on this expedition, but she never imagined this kind of brutality. She watched her friend throw a grenade into the wayward transport and shrieked for someone to save her. For anyone to swoop in and help her, but no one had to. She saw through the open back of the transport a young Stormtrooper with armor painted in blood catch the grenade and look back at the large man driving. The large man wasted no time in throwing the kid out of the back of the moving transport, knocking the baster cannon out with him. She heard the boy scream all the way up until the explosion.

Now, the same large man stood on top of the transport, slowly choking the life out Aimee. Her bike wailed in protest up until the moment she jammed it into the frame of the transport. She climbed off the bike, disoriented but determined. She took out her thermal detonator and stuck it to the ceiling and pulled herself up onto the top. The bike's collsion had jostled the transport which threw the man off Aimee and they were both recuperating. The Stormtrooper, with the same blood painted armor, found his footing before the wheezing and sputtering Aimee could find hers and went to grab her again.

He moved towards Aimee but stopped in his tracks when he saw Serina's gun trained on his skull.

"So, you're the one who caused all this trouble."

His breaths were labored, his voice seemed distorted. The infliction was off and the pitch of his voice varied wildly from word to word.

"Why are you doing this?"

He pulled off his helmet and Serina saw why his voice sounded the way it did. There were metal cables in his neck leading to what looked like a metal lower jaw poorly concealed in synthetic skin. Every breath he took, she could see a tube in his neck pull fill with a dark liquid, it looked like somebody had done a cheap Nar Shadaa alley patch cybernetics job. His eyes looked wild as he produced a thermal detonator from his person.

"My turn."

Serina barely heard Sturas yell to get down through the her heart hammering in her ears. She slammed onto the hard metal, pulling Aimee, who had made it to her knees, down with her. She felt a large blast and an intense heat on her back, then nothing. When she opened her eyes, she looked at the large man, a blank expression on his face. His armor had been melted away on the side, as had some of the cybernetics he had installed, exposing a cracked clear casing through a melted and warped metal shell that was leaking black fluid. His arm now ended halfway to his elbow and he began coughing up the black liquid. Serina saw what looked to be the bottom portion of his arm clutching the detonator.

There was little time to act and Serina tried to capitalize. She heard Gasus saying something about coming to get her but the move to grab the detonator was almost a primal reaction to save her and her friend. Her reaction to the sharp hit the now one armed man was also equally as primal. He reared up to punch again and Serina threw a quick jab at the cracked liquid container, showering her with the disgusting smeling liquid. She heard the beeps quicken as the transport shuddered. Gasus had made it.

Gasus's transport ran up alongside transport 4 and Serina pulled Aimee across. She sat, clutching Aimee's shaking frame as she cried, and watched the man turn to look at her and fall off the transport as it blew up. She watched and made sure nothing crawled out of the wreckage until it grew to a dot on the horizon and the transport stopped.

"Why did we stop?" Her voice seemed hollow and distant.

"Ma'am, we're here."

Serina turned and saw the shuttle and broke down in tears alongside her friend.