The Lieutenant opens his eyes and sees the rocket plummeting on the AT-ST's front, severely damaging the medium blaster cannons. The walker staggers in surprise, fire and sparks spew out ceaselessly from the fresh wound. Its gears groan in pain and strain as they try to help restore balance. Lieutenant Mateen sighs in relief, softly saying underneath his breath, "Thank you." He picks himself back up, despite the sudden spike of fatigue, and runs towards the farthest cover with missile tube in hand.
His teammates quickly follow suite with missiles and cleaning fluid in hand as the AT-ST frantically uses its remaining blaster cannon on its right side to fire at their small silhouettes. All it hits is charred, blackened debris and a hidden gas vent. This causes a large cloud of smoke to pour out, giving the rebels even more cover against the tired mechanical beast. B'el Sah brings out her blaster pistol and the commander motions to the other soldiers. "Stay low, follow us and wait of my signal."
As the chaos ensues, the two Stormtrooper groups combine as one, take cover and unleash laser fire on Officer Tallon's position. The PR officer ducks further down to avoid their suppressing fire. Lana is practically invisible to them and she plans to take advantage of that on Officer Tallon's order.
As B'el Sah and the core team move further to the entrance, she sees an exposed power conduit. She halts the group and looks back at her datapad and from what the schematic shows that's the prison's geothermal conduit. She goes over to Commander Po Har, "Commander, I've found a strategic weak spot on the prison's walls." "Show me," he responds. She gives him the datapad and shows him the conduit's place on the schematic.
Then points to where it currently is and its state: rusted, unkempt, unshielded, and 45 meters behind the five imperial soldiers. "Sir, I suggest while the Stormtrooper squads are still distracted we take this conduit out. The facility's main functions will cease to have power, and any opposition inside will be forced to come out." Commander Po Har nods in agreement and gives her the go.
B'el Sah coordinates with the rest of the core team where to concentrate their fire on when they advance further. Once they're in position, the commander gives the signal and they open fire on the conduit. And to the reconnaissance officer's amazement… every single shot misses. Commander Po Har gives a deep sigh and motions the group to go into a dash towards the door before the Stormtroopers realize they're there. "We'll just have to risk it," he groans to himself.
The troops follow and don't look at B'el Sah's general direction out of sheer embarrassment. They go on as if nothing had happened. B'el Sah face palms and mutters to herself, "More hopeless than Stormtroopers," and goes into a sprint to catch up to the core team. Luckily for them the Stormtroopers are still preoccupied with the distraction team's direction to notice their presence.
During this, Officer Tallon's cover is getting riddled with blaster fire to where he is crouched as low as he possibly can. Lana looks over to the PR officer, short comms him and says, "I'm going in." She takes the metal scabbard off her shoulder and unsheathes her vibro-longsword. After discarding the sheath she vaults over the volcanic rocks she hid behind, and charging at them from their right. Her blade hums and blurs violently from its concentrated kinetic energy. She drags the sword down on the ground; it tears into the smoldering earth before she brings it up for a diagonal slice. The first Stormtrooper within her range gets cut in two uneven halves.
Armor pieces, blood and electrical sparks flying everywhere mixed with a piercing scream. Before the Stormtrooper next to him could fully react, she decapitates him. Once she gets the remaining three's attention, she instantly moves into a defensive stance. The blood on her blade soon evaporates with a sizzling sound. The remaining three Stormtroopers stare in horror by the unexpected, close quarters attack. "What the hell!? Fall back! Get the AT-ST!" They shout hysterically when backing away from the grisly sight Lana had created. Their blaster rifles shakily aimed towards her.
To add more to the chaos, Officer Tallon dives out of what little cover he has left; he picks up Lana's scabbard, and fires another shot before sliding into cover again. The blaster bolt whizzes past Lana's head and nearly hits a Stormtrooper's right greave. Lana turns and glares at the PR officer when he quickly looks back up and sees his shot did nothing but nearly kills his ally. He just gives her an apologetic shrug before going back behind cover and she refocuses her attention back on her prey.
"All set, Lieutenant," said one of the lieutenant Mateen's teammates after they prepped the missile tube. He nods and looks over their current cover with missile tube in hand. The AT-ST's silhouette cautiously makes its way through the blinding smoke as he readies another shot. As that's going on, the remaining Stormtroopers took the distraction Lana's ally made in order to fall back. They are soon greeted by the rest of the rebel squadron. Lana begins chasing down the Stormtrooper nearest to her, shouting, "Not so fast!"
Lieutenant Mateen fires immediately when the smoke dissipates. The missile crashes into the walker's right side, almost hitting the remaining blaster cannon, and nearly causing it to trip on the uneven, rocky terrain. The lieutenant quickly motions for his fellow troops to now follow him, this time to the back of the walker. As the AT-ST finally regains its footing, the comms inside its cockpit flare up, "There's rebels at the door! They're surrounding us! We need assistance!" The pilot and gunner start arguing with each other on where to put their attention towards.
Lana closes in on the Stormtrooper farthest away from the others; he lays down suppressive fire at her but she dodges his shots effortlessly. When close enough the swordswoman does a downward strike on the hapless soldier. He tries blocking it with his blaster rifle. Her sword slices through it with little resistance, but the blade didn't connect to its intended target. The Stormtrooper quickly raised his right bracer up to soak the hit, nearly slicing his forearm in half, and sending shocks throughout his body. The trooper falls to the floor screaming in pain and frantically tries moving his seizuring legs to crawl away from Lana.
She was about to give the finishing strike before Officer Tallon runs in. He tosses her sword's sheath to the side and shakes her shoulder to get her attention. She turns her head and he says while pointing at the other two Stormtroopers, "Don't bother; chase the others down; I'll take care of this one."
Lana reluctantly nods and runs towards the last two Stormtroopers. She also comms in Officer Tallon to sarcastically say, "Nice shot by the way." Officer Tallon ignores her jab and focuses his attention on the injured Stormtrooper. He points the blaster pistol to his helmet, "Now, would you kindly answer some questions for me?" The trooper raises his working hand in defeat and nods.
Back at the prison doors, the last two Stormtroopers have just come into contact with the rebel squad. B'el Sah immediately starts working on slicing the console and orders the troopers to open fire. They hesitate briefly and look over to the reconnaissance officer. "B-but ma'am, L-Lana's… and Officer Tallon are right behind them." B'el Sah pauses and looks squarely at the troops with the most intimidating gaze they've seen from her, "Then don't miss," she says with frightening authority.
"Y-yes, ma'am," one of them says nervously. One of the troopers gulps and some of them begin sweating more profusely as they all form up. The commander raises his hand and tells them to wait until they're in close enough range. The imperial soldiers fire a few shots while still running but they hit nothing. As soon as Lana is out of their line of sight he shouts, "Open fire!" Blaster bolts rain down on the remaining two Stormtroopers and they crumple to the ground with little resistance.
Just as the rebels opened fire on the remaining imperial troops, the AT-ST's copilot has the walker's grenade launcher fire off a concussion grenade at the squad. The grenade lands in the middle of them and someone quickly shouts, "Grenade! Hit the deck!" One trooper throws himself on top of the grenade as everyone else disperse and it blows through his chest – slightly muffling the still deafening sound. The blast sends him flying and he plummets backwards towards the blackened earth. The rest of the squad are hit with debris and shards of metal and bone, but no serious wounds were received.
As everyone picks themselves up and reorganize, Officer Tallon helps the surrendering Stormtrooper up and escorts him to the prison doors. His blaster pistol only centimeters away from the soldier's back as he cradles his broken forearm. Lana assesses that the situation is somewhat under control: she gets her scabbard from where Officer Tallon placed it, sheathes her sword, and slings it back over her shoulder.
She makes her way back to the prison's doors and B'el Sah orders the rebels to clear the way for her. Lana brushes her fingers over the console's keyboard and faint glimpses of imperial officers and Stormtroopers entering the repeated entry code enter her mind. She punches in the code and seconds later the red light next to the doors beeps and changes to green. The doors begin to slide open with a loud, grating creak. Both the commander and B'el Sah shout to the troops, "Everyone in! Hustle, hustle! Let's go! Let's go!" B'el Sah stops to look over at Lana with a small smile and her normally harsh gaze softens, "Excellent work, bounty hunter." Officer Tallon hands off the prisoner over to one of the other soldiers and stands next to Lana.
Lieutenant Mateen had his support move to opposite positions and lay out suppressing fire to redirect the walker's attention after they saw the grenade fly. All while he readies another shot. The walker suddenly stops all activity and the hatch pops open with the pilot waving his hat in the air.
"We surrender! Please, stop firing," the man shouts as he slowly exits out of the walker with his arms raised. Lieutenant Mateen's support move out of their hiding spots and comms him, "I think they've surrendered, sir." The lieutenant stands up and leans the missile tube on a raised bit of rock and basalt. He takes out his macrobinoculars and sees the pilot and copilot getting out of the AT-ST – the copilot throwing her helmet aside. He says without any emotion, "Understood," before putting away the binoculars, gets the missile tube back up and aims.