Chapter 15
"Here goes nothing," Andover enthused, turning hard right around a hill. Before him, Hanna city acted as a backdrop for the planet's new Civic Center. Though originally designed as a public events center, it was recently acquired by the Empire and modified into government offices.
He was taken aback by the sheer size of the place. Andover hadn't been to the capital in exactly six years, and neither had his sister. But he was expecting something a little more... shall we say, harder to break?
Flying perpendicular to the design, he fired a concussion missile at a glass-only part of the building's superstructure. Immediately after, he lobbed two concussion bombs against the durasteel facade. The explosions shook the funnel-shaped tower to its core.
Andover throttled the airplane away from the scene, sparing a quick glance towards Brionelle Memorial Military Academy as it was overtaken by an enormous fireball. A mushroom cloud slowly rose from the building as the main Academy building collapsed. A haze of dust sat in the air, ruining an impeccable blue sky all around it.
He suddenly noticed a pink and white parachute against the dark, smoky background. Squinting, he could make out a very familiar design on the parachute...
Avramova kicked the air feebly, struggling to take in oxygen without inhaling smoke. The once-proud Grand Hall of Brionelle Military Academy was destroyed, collapsing as her crash and explosion had wrecked the lower levels of the facility.
The originally-slanted roof looked like a puzzle when you first open it. No one would have had any idea what this smoking gray pile of rubble once was. She tried not to think of all the people who died as the floors collapsed. Maybe six hundred, or seven hundred in this one building? Surely thousands of casualties now laid around the complex, injured, maimed, and possibly dead.
Avramova was so nearly traumatized by that realization that she didn't realize that she had landed upright on a chunk of duracrete. Subconsciously pulling out a switchblade, she slowly cut through the wires.
How could Andover destroy life so easily? The thought, mortified that she was now a mass murderer. How could he? How could I?
She coughed, momentarily bringing herself back to reality. She then lifted her left foot, which was close to a small fire, and placed it on top of a nearby durasteel beam, which was grotesquely bent and misshapen.
Sawing through the last parachute cable, she watched as a ground fire ignited the parachute. When it had finally turned to ashes, she pocketed her knife and began the trek back to safe ground.
She noticed a nearby duracrete shack, which was probably a sentries' post or something like that. Trotting quickly over the rubble, she investigated the small cube-shaped building. On the other side there was a door that was hanging from the lower set of hinges. Pulling the black door open, she looked in and saw that it was an entrance to a stairway.
The smoke cloud had gotten progressively thicker as she looked in. In the minute since she crashed, everything had gotten darker and more opaque. Looking around, she took in a deep breath.
That was a mistake, she thought, coughing. Now desperate for clean air, she practically dove inside. Slamming the door shut behind her, Avramova flipped a nearby switch and bright overhead lights lit the stairwell.
Taking in her surroundings, she noticed that everything was very bleak. The walls were painted white, as were the landings and ceiling. The steps, which she began descending, were plain, unpainted durasteel.
She decided to go to the lowest landing and then try to find a way out through the hangar levels. Her flying shoes, which were made of very thick leather, were incredible loud in the stairwell. She could hear echoes of her own footsteps.
Avramova leaned up against the wall on one of the landings, stopping to formulate a plan. She knew the hangars were slightly east of the building she was in, and the open ends faced southward towards Hanna.
She was in the northernmost stairwell, as the doors were only on the southern landings. With that in mind, she took a step toward the next set of stairs, only to fall to her knees as the ruins shook once more.
The rebel force had arrived.
She winced and waited for the last flyover before standing.
"Holy shit!" Dak exclaimed. "Half of the military academy is a pile of rubble!"
As if agreeing with him, a fuel tank exploded below them.
"Focus, Rogue flight," Luke called over the radio.
"Luke, the Chandrilan Civic Center is on fire!" Mara pointed out.
A chorus of gasps and whistles filled Luke and Mara's cockpit, but the pilots soon returned their attention to the mission.
As they approached Hanna City, a hovertrain filled with members of the Chandrilian Resistance set itself down on a deserted section of the Capital District's main avenue, about 500 feet away from a crowd of government workers, who had run out of their buildings in terror. Luke dropped away from the cover flight of X-wings, and four troop-filled Alliance shuttles followed him. They all landed at the other end of the mass of people, enclosing them. Luke threw up his fighter's canopy, and he and Mara vaulted onto the ground. Luke ignited his lightsaber as Mara brandished her blaster; the Alliance landing party spread out behind them.
Luke and Mara shared a grin as the encircled crowd of Imperial workers held up their hands.
The mission had been executed flawlessly.
Avramova was nowhere near their line of thought. The exploding tank of tibanna gas shook what was left of the building to its core.
The next landing downward collapsed from its duracrete frame, and she was now unable to continue downwards towards the hangar bays.
Scratching her head, she looked to her landing's door. Big red letters on the side said "Level D." She was still thirty feet above the desired Level A, and at least three hundred meters off to the side. Out of options, she pushed open the door and found herself in a room that was obviously devoted to communications and intelligence. All four walls were covered in computer screens and instrumentation.
Avramova smirked gleefully, pulling a black hard drive out a case strapped to the outside of her shin. Her eyes flickered to the power gauge near the doorway. She kicked the glass cover, ruining it. She did the same to a nearby screen which displayed live streams from all nearby cameras. Then, she plugged one of her hard drives into a jack on the room's center console. The hard drive, which was adapted from a datapad, conveniently had a touchscreen. It read: 2,781.9 GB ready for download.
She whistled in amazement. She could only think "wow." She tapped the screen, and it began to transfer all of the information.
As the hard drive was working, Avramova kicked in a plate of glass covering a fire extinguisher that was mounted inside the wall. Using it as a hammer, she began to smash all of the screens. After the room's center console pinged, signifying the download, she similarly destroyed all the computers.
She removed the hard drive from the computer, and put it inside the back pocket of her flight suit. Then, realizing that the fire extinguisher could be used as a defensive weapon, she picked it up. Besides, it had her fingerprints. She didn't want pinpointed by the Empire as a terrorist. That was her brother's job.
Having done everything she could in that room, she threw open the inner door and turned left. After wandering eastwardly for a few minutes, she finally found a sign that indicated where the main hangars were. In front of her there was a walkway that hung thirty feet off of the ground; she was now at the side of the maintenance bay, which was adjacent to the hangars. Avramova reasoned that she was now only a hundred feet away from them, and thirty feet above from the hangar floors.
Then she heard the signature snap-hiss of a lightsaber igniting. Terrified, she spun around to see a girl not much older than herself holding a red lightsaber.
Most of what Avramova knew about lightsabers she had learned in the past week, when her brother brought home the lightsabers of the two Emperor's hands that he had slain. But she rarely believed what he said. Andover was prone to stretch the truth.
Besides that, she knew only two things about lighsabers. One-it is the weapon of a Jedi or a Sith. Two-If the saber is red, RUN!
Her eyes went wide, and she bolted onto the walkway suspended over the chasm.
"Are all rebels this scared?" Shira Brie asked, spinning her lightsaber around.
"What makes you think I'm a rebel?" Avramova asked evenly.
"You are projecting rather loudly," Shira commented. She began to say something else, but Avvie interrupted.
"Look, you got the wrong person," she said.
"I do not," Shira countered. "The Emperor has taken a personal interest in you. That is grounds enough for an arrest."
"Bull shit," Avramova spat. "If you possessed any cognitive ability at all..."
"Silence, you rebel cur!" Shira shouted. "All you are doing is delaying your death. Soon your kind will be completely eradicated and peace will return to the Empire."
"Surely you do not believe that," Avramova cried. "Look at all the evils the Empire has caused. Look at Alderaan. Or Caamas!"
"I am beginning to lose my patience with you."
Avramova smirked, boldly commenting, "Aw, first your sanity, now your patience? I guess that's what happens when you are ordered around by a pale lizard who has apparently never heard of plastic surgery!"
Shira let out a terrifying Force-scream and attacked her.
Andover heard it from ten kilometers away. He pushed his plane's engines even harder, speeding to his sister's aid.
Luke and Mara heard it too. Confirming with each other through their mental bond, they both climbed back into their fighter to save their friend.
Avramova's blood ran cold. She barely had any time to react, but still managed to set off the fire extinguisher. Shira was stopped by a freezing cold stream of white gas. Still on the walkway, Avramova nearly fell backward from the red tank's thrust. Her opponent, however, was much less lucky. Shira was thrown backwards by the concussive force of the fire retardant and landed back in a collapsing doorway, pinning her right leg when the beam fell. Her lightsaber, which was kocked out of her hand, was launched into the air.
Avramova laughed out loud, walking towards where the walkwaly joined the wall. She was about to step off and finish her opponent when the saber fell in front of her, slicing through the bolts that held her up.
The supports gave way, and the walkway collapsed, Avvie with it. As she fell those fateful thirty-five feet, she tried to move herself into a safer position on her piece of walkway. But it was all in vain, and she hit the duracrete floor hard.
She was out cold. She remained unaware as a robed figure lifted her body up onto a stretcher and carefully rolled her up a ramp into a silver shuttle. The hangar doors opened, and the shuttle left behind the chaotic, burning academy for the safety of space.
DUH DUH DUUUH!
Hello folks and thanks for continuing to read this story.
Next chapter will be the last to feature the Casimir siblings. Then, you can relly expect to see the LukexMara stuff coming. I think the story has advanced enough for something like that to happen. In your REVIEWS, feel free to write what you think happens to Avramova. If you are rght, I'll give you a virtual cookie.
I'll give you a hint; she'll be fine. I just had to write her out for a while.
And I'm sorry about all of the updating delays. School is really hectic, and that is priority #1. But I'll still try to deliver ASAP.
Thanks,
-ClaptonJr.