Part Two:
The Assault
Chapter six:
Bags of air inflate throughout the cockpit, cushioning us as the ship hits the building below with a scream of tearing metal. Despite the safety features, the impact still throws me across the pod, roughly slamming Doggs into the wall along the way. I swallow the bile that's emerged in the back on my mouth. Smoke lazily drifts through the cabin.
"No way through here," Edwin calls up. Rubbing the bruises on my elbows, I crane my neck around to look at him. He's jabbing at the door to the main compartment. "I think the door is jammed."
"The girl's down there," Doggs says, pressing a wrist against his bleeding nose. "We've gotta get her out before this wreck gets anymore inhospitable."
"Or any more stormtroopers can pay us a visit," Edwin agrees.
"Guess we ought to take the long way around," the pilot yanks a lever, and the ceiling of the cockpit hisses open. "Emergency exit," she smiles. "Don't leave home without it."
I follow her, climbing out into the sunlight. It is nothing more than a short hop to the ground, the ship had mostly gone through the roof into a suburban, and now-partially collapsed, storefront.
Doggs is the last to emerge from the ship, after given Edwin a leg up. The boy still clutches his holorecorder. He turns and tries to climb back into the ship as soon as we see the silhouette in the sky. The TIE fighter we hadn't shot down is coming about for another pass. I'd hoped it would have thought we'd perished with the ship and decided not to spend any further effort on us. No such luck.
Green energy beams rip up the rooftops in front of us as the TIE fighter comes straight toward us. The other three take cover, but I've had enough of that. I'm done. I feel done. No more running. I shoulder my rifle and take a deep breath.
I sense. I feel my surroundings; reach out to the TIE in my mind. I smell its fuel, feel the heat of its engines, hear the heartbeat of the man behind the throttle. I raise my rifle up to my shoulder and close my eyes a split-second after I pull the trigger.
I can feel the life the life leave the TIE pilot as my blaster bolt splits his skull. I laugh as I see the look on his face in my mind's eye.
And the TIE still screams toward us. Towards me. It's not stopping, why would it? It's nothing more than a huge metal projectile now. I fire again and again and then my rifle is spent, the blaster's energy pack depleted. I shrug off the gun and throw it aside.
I raise my hands, palms out, fingers splayed, and exhale. Why not? I feel the TIE in my mind again, sense every facet, and visualize what I want. I reach deep inside and deep outside too, casting and projecting my mind. There's heat on my face for real this time, not just my mental manifestation of it, and I open my eyes.
The TIE hangs. The fighter is suspended in the air just above me, just before me. I've got it; I'm holding it, carrying it. It's not that I'm not touching it. Just my body isn't. My mind holds it, wraps all around it. The force. That's what people call this. I rear it back and throw. The TIE smashes down through the roof of the building across from me and compacts into a tangle of broken gray and black.
Edwin, Doggs and the pilot come out and join me. "That was really stupid," Edwin says.
"Eh?" It wasn't exactly the reaction I'd expected.
"You were fine, I mean this machine," he raps his knuckles on his recorder. "Couldn't get it booted up in time."
"Nice going, kid, very nice," I'm not sure which one of us Doggs is referring to. "There's some stairs over there, let's use them."
As we enter the staircase, the pilot of our crashed vessel takes my hand and shakes it. "I've decided I'd like you to fly with me on every mission I'll ever have from now on for the rest of my life," she explains, "That'd be great."
"Mm," I say.
"Just look up Antilles, Syra in the duty roster and you'll know which girl to throw ships out onto the ground with," she suggests. "If you want of course, I'm not ordering you or anything."
"Of course," I say. "I'm sure that's far from the last TIE fighter I'll be throwing on the ground."
The back end of our ship had burned shredded and generally crushed most of the store's homemade merchandise. At least it seemed as though the shop had been closed at the time, making our landing a lot less messy. From the ragged, jagged and dismantled look of our thrusters, this ship wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon. Unlike the Rebel fleet, they were probably revving to go. I figured we'd have to hijack some other form and transport and head on up out of the atmosphere, the sooner the better.
"Hey, little girl," Syra called through a long slit torn through the side of the hull.
"Primith," I told her.
"Primith," Syra corrected. "Are you alright."
"I'm here," Primith calls faintly. "My leg hurts really bad."
"Don't worry, we'll get you out," Syra tells her. "I think. Hopefully."
"What about that other soldier," Edwin asks the crack in the hole.
"I don't think he's doing so well," Primith says, "He got thrown really hard. He's not moving. I can barely reach him, but what I can touch is really, really sticky. I think its blood."
"Okay," I call to her. "I'm here. You're safe."
"I think," Doggs says grimily, pointing out the main doors, "There're some folks here who beg to differ."
A big gray speeder had just pulled up in front of the shop, and dozens of stormtroopers poured out of the back.
They tromp up the steps and through the doorway on their big white boots, though a series of blaster bolts from Syra and Doggs take some of their number out of commission.
We fall back toward the stairs, but the Stormtroopers cut us off with a hail of energy bolts, forcing us to take cover against the frame of the ship we'd driven through the ceiling.
"Of all the times to be out of grenades," Doggs curses. A blaster bolt scores a jagged slice through the armored hull over my head. Syra fires and stormtrooper sprawls, holding his leg in agony.
"What's going on out there?" Primith voice drifts from the belly of the ship. "Are we under attack?"
"You could call it that," Doggs calls to her, firing his weapon, "Please stand by.
Syra takes a blaster bolt through the arm and falls with a scream. Edwin catches her and lowers her gently to the ground. I check out her wound. She'll be fine if we can get her to a good medic and large supply of bacta in the near future. This is becoming less and less likely, the stormtroopers are closing in despite Doggs efforts. They're going to overwhelm us and kill us all.
So I might as well force it.
I reach deep inside me. It's still there, a sleeping beast that's just as fierce when I wake it as it was with a TIE fighter falling out of the sky toward it. I feel the force. I sense every detail; feel every emotion from everyone in the room. Almost two dozen troopers. One side doesn't stand a chance, and for the life of me I can't decide whether it's us or them.
Edwin checks his blaster, makes a move to open fire again, but I put my hand over his, pointing his gun downward. I tap the holorecorder on his lap. "I have a feeling you're going to want to catch this."
I close my eyes, but I can still see. I crouch and then propel myself upward, jumping, kicking off the hull of the damaged vessel.
I am airborne far longer than I have any right to be, landing with my boots planted right on a white armored chest. As the Stormtrooper falls under my weight, I fire once to each side, holding out a blaster in each hand. I kill two men before finishing off the one below me.
I stand tall and fire my blaster pistols before me, behind me, on every side and angle. The troopers are so slow. Their bolts hang in the air, creeping toward me at a cautious pace, unable to redirect as I step out of the way. They can't touch me, not unless I let them.
And I don't let them. I let them die instead. That's what I can see, only death. The chinks in their armor, the weak spots, the vitals. My vision focuses, I home, everything else blurs together. I put a blaster shot in every sweet spot I can find.
It's only a second or two till the enemy fire forces me to move. It feels like so much longer. I leap to the side, flip, my legs swing over my head, and I land in a crouch, shooting upwards. I dive forward, roll, slam into a Stormtroopers legs, knock him over, kill him, stand, leap, slam my heel into a white armored head.
I land and dart behind a trooper, wrap my arms around his neck as I shoot him up under the chin with my left hand, frying his brain. My right arm is out, my trigger finger pumping, troopers go tumbling. The body I hold collapses against me, and I let it shield me, his armor catching their shots. I kill at least three more men. I wonder how many I'm at now. I haven't been counting, haven't been paying attention to how many are in the room. A lot less, I'm sure.
A stormtrooper I am aiming at falls a second before my shot can nail him. There's a knife in his neck. I raise an eyebrow. I didn't throw that.
More combatants flood the room, join the fray. Youth wearing torn clothes and spiky jewelry, different races all covered with tattoos, piercings and the substance-abuse enhanced grunge. They're all kinds of armed. Some fire blasters, some swing chains and clubs, some have both. At least one carries a modified blaster cannon, literally blowing the troopers apart.
Before long every stormtrooper is dead, and I'm standing alone, surrounded by bodies and the blaster barrels my old gang is pointing at me.
It's been awhile since I've seen any of the Jayze.
I'm not the only one who thinks so. "It's been awhile," says Galen, stepping out to face me. I reach out to feel his mind. What was once so soft and pliable has gone hard a callous. That is just a blaster in his belt and he isn't happy to see me.
"Drop them," he says.
I don't drop anything. Least of all my blasters.
"Drop your pistols," says Galen.
I twirl one of them in my hand.
"Old habits," I look him in the eye.
"Die hard," Galen finishes, and nods to the corner where Doggs and Edwin are being held captive, restrained by a few large human and Rodian youths, jabbed at with several weapons. Doggs in particular put up a fight, if his assorted bruises are any indication. Syra lies at their feet, also at gunpoint though she's mostly delirious from pain.
I can probably shoot down their captors, the Jayze holding them prisoner. However it would be hard to do so and avoid death myself. Not a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
The force was retreating now, where my awareness and abilities had been heightened, I now just felt exhausted, drained, spent. I toss my pistols to the sandy floor. I rake a hand through my sweaty hair, look around at my old gang, not a one of them is as angry as Galen. They remembered me. They'd even follow me. Obey me if he was gone. They respected power, strength. That was part of what had drawn me to them in the first place. Sever the head, become the head. I could do that.
"You did this," Galen accuses me. "You brought the Empire down on us. You betrayed this planet. You betrayed us."
"Betrayal?" I ask. "I'm still fighting the authorities every day, every way. Just a whole lot more effectively now. We're getting to them now. That's what this whole debacle ought to show you."
"All I see is one little bitch who only cares about herself."
"I was missing my true calling, yeah," I admit. "But there's not a Jayze who wouldn't look out for number one if they got my chance, am I right?" I wave at the surrounding gang members. "I saved your asses before, remember? When I came back from that tour? We're even."
Galen takes out his gun, points it at my chest. "With them maybe, not with me. You cast me aside, you played me, and I'll never let anyone get away with that."
"So you're going to shoot me down like a coward?" I ask. "Who's doing the casting aside now."
He steps toward me, still pointing his gun, saying nothing.
"You always were a bit a slow," I say, "Hell, there's a reason why I brought reading material to bed every night."
A little exaggeration goes a long way, anger flashes across his face, and I strike before it leaves. I grab the pistol, twist it from his hands, jab it up under his neck. "Not that I'm bitter," I tell him, "You were always good for a little practice." I shove him back with my palms.
Holding up his gun for my gang to see, I eject the power cell. With the metal stock in my hand, I swing my fist, punching Galen full across the face. He stumbles to the side, his mouth all bloody. I toss the rest of the gun into the dust.
"You all deserved better," I shout at my gang. "Any one of you could have been me. I'm going to save every last one of you."
That's when a huge hornlike blast of sound deafens us all. A large transport ship sporting heavy cannons hovers above the street, a blue Rebel symbol imprinted on its side. A woman's voice booms from the ship, "Put down your weapons and step away from the Rebels or you will be fired upon."
"I play for the big boys now," I tell the Jayze, and they hesitantly set down their weapons.
"We are pulling back," the ship shouts, "The Empire is razing this planet, bombers are one their way to every major city even now. You are welcome to enlist in the Rebel Alliance and come with us, or stay here and die."
There's not a single member of the Jayze that doesn't swarm into the back of the transport. I flow right in with them, and stand in silence for a moment, drifting back and forth on my heels. A few Rebel soldiers return to the transport with some heavy cutting tools, and my sister Primith who they just liberated. Doggs, Edwin, and Syra are all whisked away to receive medical attention, attention I refuse. I look around for Galen, but all I see are some drops of blood splattered on the leather seats.
"So how'd I do?" Zanna steps into the bay to join me. I recognize her voice now as the one over the loudspeaker.
"You satisfied me for sure," I say.
"Thanks, I figured I had to do my part, and when you got shot down I managed to throw my reputation around to come down and pick you up."
"So we lost the planet?" I ask.
"What'd you expect? Of course we did, but it was a hell of a fight and the Empire is down a whole lot of Star Destroyers. How about you, did you get what you came for?"
"Half of it."
"I'm sorry," Zanna makes a face. "They'll pay in time. Any good stories for the troops?"
"That," I say, "Will not be an issue."