Fire Across the Galaxy
part 3
Author's note: Whoa, this took me nearly a day to write, mostly because listening to music while writing isn't the best of ideas. Oh well. Try listening to the Force Theme from star wars while reading the first section of this part/chapter. Hope you enjoy and am I the only one who is overly excited for tomorrow?
TIE fighter: a Imperial designed starfighter decorated in hues of gray, white, and black. TIE fighters were meant to be used by the Empire's top pilots and were vehicles of great destruction.
What a TIE fighter was not meant to be: a stolen, rebel owned starfighter decorated in vivid shades of orange, yellow, and green amongst it's usual hues of gray, white, and black. A TIE wasn't meant to have patterns of checkered black and white next to the outside of it's cockpit. A TIE wasn't meant to have streaks of yellow among a background of orange spray-painted onto it's cockpit and wings.
Yet, there it was, a stolen TIE fighter before a array of white rocks emerging out of the ground like horns with purple stripes. Standing before the TIE, decked in her usual pilot uniform, stood a twil'lek. Emerald eyes narrow as they glance from a Lasat, to a Mandolorian, to a human boy. "Hera, you're not planning to use our TIE to go onto Tarkin's Destroyer?" The question emerges from Sabine, sparked as her amber orbs tried to take in the sight of Hera, arms crossed, standing before the stolen TIE. "I actually am, Sabine," The answer was short and solid, daring anyone to question Hera's motivation. Once Hera made up her mind, no one could challenge her. If Hera had put her mind to rescuing Kanan this way, then she was going to rescue Kanan this way. No one could stop her.
"Hera, you can't plan to sneak onto a destroyer, alone!" Zeb protests. Pale white, fur laced arms, decked with muscles and crossed with stripes of lavender, raise into the air in protest before sinking downwards to cross together across his chest. Zeb's protest rings through the rebel's ears and minds. Hera would be killed or captured if she went alone onto the destroyer. If..if her fellow rebels went with her, they could stand a chance against the Empire and it's array of stormtroopers. Not a big chance, but, a chance never-least.
White sparks of light dance in the twil'lek's emerald eyes as they dance from rebel to rebel, "I wasn't planning on going alone." Hera's arms drop from their crossed position to hang on her side, swaying as she spoke again, "You need to decide now. In or out."
A moment's hesitation and then.. "I'm in." A faint smile dances upon Hera's lips as she gazes warmly at Ezra. Ezra's head was lifting upwards slowly, his Zaffre blue eyes staring confidently at Hera's emerald ones. Sabine, her helmet resting upon her hip, head up high, her hair, streaked with hues of blue and orange, swaying in the light breeze as she confirms to Hera, "I'm in." Now all eyes were upon Zeb. He alone hadn't announced if he was in or not. If he would try to rescue Kanan from the clutches of the Empire or leave him to perish in the Mustafar system. Orbs of luminous green stare at the ground, lost in the land of thoughts before their owner finally makes a decision. "I'm in."
C.C
Row after row of stormtroopers bathed in their trademark shining, pure white armor and helmets and the glow of fluorescent lights, line the landing platform. A row in the center of the troopers had been stripped of any armor wearing soldiers and there stood three figures. Crisp, tan uniform freshly pressed, gray hair streaked with pure white and combed over his high, wrinkled forehead, stood Grand Moff Tarkin, governor of the Outer Rim. Hands clasped behind his back and his watery, gray eyes staring ahead, Tarkin was in his best element for the arrival. Flanking his side were the commander of the Destroyer and the Inquisitor. Acid yellow eyes, pale, lined skin, black armor coating his body, the Inquisitor's spine stood straight, allowing him to tower over the Imperials. All the mistakes, all the failed times he had tried to capture the Jedi would be forgiven in the eye's of his master now. The Jedi was captured in metal and steel, his wounded body forcing his mind away into unconscious. There was no way for Jedi to escape now, surrounded not only in metal, but also by stormtrooper after stormtrooper armed with blasters. The Inquisitor had done what his master wished.
The shuttle landed like a ghost upon the sleek, black platform. Backs were straighten, blasters were raised as the shuttle's landing platform deceases. A soft click echoes through through the room as metal meets metal. The clicks of a pair of boots at work was the only sound heard through the room. It seemed everyone held their breath as another being's breath rattles through the room, bouncing off the sleek, gray walls and reeking in's rattling tendrils into stormtrooper's ears. Standing before them now, coated in black armor and machinery, stood a man who could not even be called a man. More machine then human, the being surveys the rows of orderly stormtroopers before stopping on the Inquisitor and finally on Tarkin as he forms a sentence,
"Lord Vader, welcome."
C.C
"In position, specter 2," A whisper, definitively female, drifts down the alley. At the end of the alley, cloaked in darkness and blue moonlight, crotches a figure in mandolorian armor and helmet. "Copy that, specter 5. Carry out the plan and Zeb should meet you above the depot," A woman's mature voice whispers back, echoing across the metal alley. "See you soon, specter 2," The final message came from the mandolorian as she slowly rose, emerging silently from the web of darkness. Moonlight reflects off her armor as the mandolorian, leaping from shadow to shadow, races down the alley, illuminating patterns of deep magenta, bold orange, and rich red. Moonlight shines upon the T-Visor as the mandolorian ducks around a corner. In-front of her now stood a roughly eight feet high, thick wall built out of steel. This was no problem for the mandolorian as, with a smirk playing across her concealed face, she took a few steps back with paint-splattered, knee high boots, and sprints at the wall. Before impact, she springs and, catching the top the wall with her hands, pulls herself up.
Before her sat TIE fighters in neat rows. Moonlight reflects off the windows of their cockpits and casts long shadows of darkness across the depot. Stormtroopers in gleaming, pure white armor, blasters in hand, stride up and down and between the TIE fighters, patrolling. A smirk found itself inside her helmet as amber orbs, hidden by a T-Visor, leap gleefully from TIE to TIE. She could already see the sparks of red, orange, yellow and maybe even blue that would soon engulf each TIE, turning the dull shades of gray into something worth looking at. Pulling out a bomb, Sabine Wren gazes across the TIE depot, remembering when she had stood in this exact spot it seemed so long ago.
C.C
A pair of feet dance silently across the depot, leaping from shadow to shadow, TIE to TIE. As gloves splashed in bright hues move from cockpit to cockpit, quietly attaching bomb after bomb, Sabine could almost see the colorful explosion that would soon engulf the dull depot, could almost smell the scent of burning metal, could almost hear the denoting ring before the explosion ripped through the air. A smile found it's way onto her lips.
Her work finally complete, Sabine pauses in front of a TIE's wing. Unconsciously, her hand moves to grasp a paint-splattered spray can. A bright orange phoenix is born upon the TIE's wing. Wings spread upwards, head high, the phoenix symbols the hope for a better future, for the rebirth of the Republic. Months ago, Sabine had stood in this same depot and had painted a phoenix. Now, she did it again.
"Hey you!" A stormtrooper shouts at the sight of the mandolorian. Her and her phoenix stood out amongst the dull shades of white and gray, like a spark of color in the dark of night. The spark of color whirls around and two figures in armor now stood across each, one clothed in blinding white and black, the other in vivid hues of orange, magenta, and red. "You again!" The stormtrooper shouts again, recognizing her. Who wouldn't? In her vivid armor and trademark phoenix paintings, no one would ever forget Sabine Wren, mandolorian and rebel. "Nice of you to remember me!" Exclaims Sabine. A moment later and all that remained of her was the phoenix, it's wings extended upwards towards a better future.
C.C
It was a game of cat and mouse. But, who was the cat and who was the mouse? Were the stormtroopers chasing Sabine, the cat and Sabine the mouse? Or was it the opposite: Was Sabine the cat as she lured more and more stormtroopers, and were the stormtroopers the mice?
C.C
"We have you surrounded!" And they did. Sabine, perching like a multicolored bird upon a rooftop, her helmet pointing downwards to gaze at the troopers before her. More and more rays of deadly light shot upwards, aimed at the mandolorian, lighting up the depot. Straightening, a smirk etched across her features, unnoticed by the stormtroopers, the mandolorian shouts, "You got a little better." The mandolorian soars through the air, amidst blaster fire, and lands, feet first, upon the ground.
Leaping, first onto a stormtrooper, knocking him to the ground, aided by her own force and the weight of his armor, and then onto the stair to the top of a TIE. Sprinting up to the top of the TIE, she stood like a bright phoenix against the dark drop of the night-sky, "But I got a lot better.
Emerging as silently as a ghost, a Imperial transporter looms up behind Sabine. Turning to wave at it's driver, a lasat, the phoenix leaps from TIE to TIE before, swinging around on one of it's columns, she boards the transport. "Bye-bye, bucketheads!" Was the last sentence the stormtroopers heard from the mandolorian as she descended upwards into the hidden depths of the transport.
The iconic ringing of a bomb fills the air, it's warning heard by all. "Not again," Grumbles a stormtrooper, remembering all too well the last time the rebel made a visit to the depot, "Everyone excavate!" Only a few troopers had time to turn and start to flee before explosion after explosion rips through the air. TIE after TIE engulf into flames as stormtroopers are sent flying through the air, tossed away by the force of the explosion like limp rag-dolls. Smoke drifts into the sky above the depot, marking Sabine's fiery artwork.
As the transport soars through the smoke and outwards into the night-sky, the smoke curls into the shape of a bird. For only a mere second, a phoenix soars through the night-sky, born from ash and flames.