Last time: The fighting started. Cien helped get the researchers underground.
Now: Cien and Mariss have an idea io help.
Chapter 21- Last Shot
Kyr walked backwards as the rest of the marines fell back with him, his carbine up as he took shots at the raiders that were coming up at them. Tac and QT hadn't been able to get into a position to lay down fire support, the fighters that had been providing close air support for the enemy were also harassing the Shadow and Shades in the U-Wing, and they were barely holding on as they were apparently being swarmed while still trying to get in and support the Coppers and the Marines. He had told them to wave off, to get to orbit and come back down with the 19th. They should be safe in the temple for however long was necessary.
"Is that the last of them?" Cien said, running up to his side and deflecting some blaster shots.
"Yeah." Kyr said over a rapid staccato of blaster bolts from his own rifle. "You see where Scamp and Nova are?" He asked her over the sound of battle. There was also a ton of dust in the air, obscuring everything.
"Over here," Scamp answered as he jogged up to them. "Nova's got a little surprise in place for the raiders if they get too close. We just need to make sure all of our people are on this side of it. Have you seen Troy?" He asked them, a hint of worry in his tone.
"Wynnie reported he'd been hit but they were making their way back. Kelce went to go help, they were over on the right flank." Kyr said.
Even though they couldn't see his face due to the bucket, he relaxed at that. "Alright, good. Anyone got any ideas on taking those blasted fighters out? Cause I'm getting really annoyed," Scamp said.
"I think we just wait for Valiant to arrive with the rest of the cavalry once everyone's safe in the temple." Kyr groused. "Bubbles will get a kick out of how cute they are."
Scamp snorted at that. "Alright, then we hold this position until they get here. I'll call Sulam and see what their ETA is." He placed two fingers to his bucket and stepped away to call his wife.
At that moment, Kelce ran up with Troy at his side, who was holding his right arm. Wynnie was beside them, shooting her rifle at the raiders to give them cover as they made it to the encampment.
"You okay Eltee?" Kyr asked loudly.
"I'll be fine, sir," Troy answered, out of breath.
"I've given him something for the pain, but once we get inside, I'll need to patch it," Kelce informed them.
"You guys get downstairs, we'll hold off up here and cover you till you're down." Kyr said, nodding to the three marines that were still at his side. "We'll be right behind you."
Troy and Kelce nodded, heading for the entrance. Scamp came back over.
"They'll be here in four hours," Scamp informed them as he laid down a few shots of cover fire. "Are we ready for the surprise?"
"Yeah, that's everyone back to this final line." Kyr said.
"Okay," Scamp said then spoke into his comm. "You've got the green light, Nova. Light that fuse and get your ass to the temple."
"Sir, yes sir!" Nova answered, gleefully. She really did love making big explosions. "Fuse is lit. Get to cover!" She called through the comm as they saw her running over to them.
"Osik! Get down!" Kyr said, pulling Cien down with him, recognizing how gleeful Nova was.
Scamp followed suit. And when she got close enough, Nova dived down as a series of explosions went off in a line like a chain reaction. Soon a wall of fire blocked the raiders from them as the earth quaked and the loud bangs filled the air. The tremors calmed after a moment as bits of rocks and dust and ash fell on them. Scamp looked up to see if the surprise worked.
"Whoo!" Nova cheered as she clapped her hands at the sight.
"Nicely done Nova." Cien said.
"Yeah." Kyr cheered.
They heard the sound of rumbling repulsors as they saw the outline of the corvette moving in closer to them through the dust and smoke that choked the field now.
"Oh, osik." Kyr said. "Everyone downstairs, now!" He yelled out.
Scamp scrambled to his feet, taking off into a run towards the temple entrance. He grabbed Nova by the arm as he ran by her and hauled her to her feet before she even had the chance to move as she was still staring at her explosions. Once on her feet, she ran after him. Wynnie was right behind them.
"Do we go take care of that now?" Cien asked at Kyr's side, readying herself for a fight.
"No, we go hole up and wait for the 19th." He replied as they started moving backwards, trying to keep up a stream of covering fire as more raiders started pushing past the explosions, trying to get to them after the brief respite.
"Kyr, we can take-" She started.
"The 19th will take care of them." Kyr said sternly.
Cien looked at him and ground her teeth under her helmet. She covered him with her lightsaber as they made their way back. Kyr knelt at the excavation, covering everyone's retreat down the lift shaft. Cien stood at his side, deflecting blaster bolts away. Nova climbed onto the lift first, her hand hovering on the button waiting for the others to go down. Scamp climbed on next.
"You guys go ahead, we'll take the next one." Kyr said over his shoulder, the lift was overflowing with Nova, Scamp, Wynnie, Kelce, Troy and the three marines.
"Be careful, Colonel," Nova said as she hit the button and the lift descended down into the temple.
"This is just like that star destroyer." Kyr said at her side as he laid down cover fire, and the raiders closed in on them.
"You remember that star destroyer very differently than I do." Cien said, glancing up at the corvette as it approached.
"I'm sorry if I was being too bossy before." Kyr shouted, trying to be heard over the blaster bolts.
"Now's not really the time!" Cien said, trying to keep up with the one hundred or so soldiers that were closing on their location.
"They down yet?" Kyr asked.
Cien glanced over, she was still standing, and she had a better view. "They've just about reached the bottom." She said, watching the winch winding the lift down.
"Okay, let's head down." Kyr said, "you first."
"Go, I'll cover you!" Cien said, trying to keep up with the storm of blaster bolts.
"Come on!" Kyr said as he started backing away, she stayed near his side. He slapped a proximity charge on the framework for the lift as they passed, and then he just stepped backwards falling down the shaft, and she followed. Before they hit the bottom they both ignited their jetpacks, arresting their fall and settling at the bottom where the lift was waiting. Cien cooly walked into the library, and Kyr followed, leaving the small study room and stepping out into the library proper where the marines were already stacked up to keep the entrance secured. Kyr glanced back at the entrance and pressed a button on his gauntlet. A muffled explosion came from the top of the shaft. "That should slow 'em down." Kyr said. "Can you close that door panel?" He asked Cien.
"Yeah." Cien used her saber to cut the webbing off, and then she lifted the door panel in place, sealing it over the entrance so, hopefully, the raiders might have to spend time trying to figure out where the entrance was in the small room to the rest of the temple.
"Is everyone okay?" Kyr asked, trying to get a sitrep.
"We have two seriously wounded and three dead. But it appears everyone else is accounted for," Scamp said. He removed his bucket and wiped the sweat from his brow.
Kyr grimaced under his helmet but just nodded as an outward reaction.
"Are you two okay?" Kelce asked from a nearby desk where he was treating Troy's shoulder. The boy winced when Kelce wiped at the wound with an antiseptic wipe.
"I'm fine." Cien said, taking her buy'ce off in this relatively safe space. "I'm going to go check in with Mariss and Doctor Jhaq'sun and see if the archaeological party is okay." She said as she walked off.
Kyr followed her with his gaze, slightly worried, but she seemed fine. He let out a breath knowing she was relatively safe down here. He walked over to where Kelce was treating the wounded. "You okay Eltee?" He asked.
"I'm alright," Troy said, glancing up at him as Kelce wrapped up the wound.
Kyr nodded. "Scamp, you need me for anything? If not I'll go camp out at the door with the rest of the welcoming party."
"No, go ahead," Scamp said. "Just let us know when the party arrives." He said with a smirk.
Kyr nodded, "I'll make sure you get an invitation." Kyr said as he walked away.
Cien walked over to where Mariss was, Doctor Jhaq'sun was quietly talking with some of the other archeologists, trying to calm them all down. "Is everyone okay?" Cien asked. She glanced up, and a bit of dark humor passed through her, realizing they were taking shelter near the section dedicated to military history and conquests.
"Yes, everyone is just shaken up," Mariss said, nodding as she came over to Cien. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah." Cien said. "I closed the door behind us so that should buy us some time, and the marines have fortified the door. We might think about moving everyone deeper into the temple though, in case the raiders make it in."
"Okay," Mariss said. She looked at the others. "And you're sure there isn't another way out?" She asked, quietly.
Cien thought for a moment. "The main entrance to the temple was on the East side, that way." She nodded, "but that would just open out into meters of lava. I don't know of any entrances other than that." She said, more annoyed than anything.
There was suddenly a deep, booming explosion that rattled everything in the temple. Dust from millennia of collection was suddenly disturbed, and rained down on them from the shelves of the library.
Cien glanced upward, sensing the raiders overhead in a vague way. And she heard the temple, emitting the same sort of alarm in the Darkside that she had heard from the other when they attacked. It had the eerie feeling that the temple itself was crying out in pain.
Mariss flinched at the explosion. "Oh no… that didn't sound good." She looked to Cien. Panic etched on her face as she tried to remain calm. "Please tell me this place has some sort of defense system. I trust those marines and all, but there must be something."
"I feel like the defensive measures would be the Sith acolytes and lords in study here available to murder anything they didn't want being here." Cien said, distractedly, trying to think.
There was another explosion, a bigger one, that sounded through the temple and dislodged even more dust that showered down upon them. Cien held back a snarl. This was not a situation she relished being in. Sitting here, waiting.
"Wait, what about that panel in the reliquary?" Mariss asked as if a lightbulb went off in her head.
"The…" Cien stopped, thinking. "The one with the mural?" She asked.
"Yes. It had some lightning mural with it and then I remembered you used lightning earlier. Could they be connected?" Mariss asked, eagerly.
"Let's go see." Cien said, turning to return to the reliquary.
"Danyir, we'll be right back," Mariss called over her shoulder as she followed Cien.
"Okay." He said, looking up at them.
"Guys! We got incoming!" Cien heard Kyr's voice echo through the library. Over on the far side, she could see Scamp forming up with Kyr and the marines at the door to hold them off.
"We need to end this." Cien said in an almost fuming breath as she quickened her pace.
Mariss just nodded as she followed her.
Hurrying down the long steps they reached the reliquary as above them they could hear the sounds of blaster fire starting. Cien walked to the platform, trying to ignore the sounds of the fighting above.
It had the same two contact points as the holocron vault on Morgaul, but the wall in front of them just had the mural on it, no visible vault or opening. She tentatively stepped up on the slightly raised platform, the contact points before her.
Mariss remained at the foot of the platform, nervously looking between Cien and the entrance to the room. "You can do this," she finally said after a moment.
Cien glanced over her shoulder at her, and put her hands to the contact points. With a deep breath, she let loose a charge of Sith lighting that sparked from her fingers and palm into the contacts. But nothing happened. She channeled more, a roiling storm of lighting that danced and sparked back to her beskar gauntlets as she gritted her teeth. A holographic display flickered to life in front of her as she tried to concentrate. Somehow, she also had an awareness of what was around the temple. Almost as if she was seeing through the temple in some way, through the Force, able to sense what was happening. Able to sense the fighters still flying formation around the building. Able to sense the raider's corvette as it hung above, and the huge crater that was underneath as they were sending turbolaser bolts into the ground where the main entrance should be. Able to sense the raiders as they swarmed the lift entrance, and Kyr, Scamp and the marines trying to hold them off.
She gritted her teeth, channeling even more power. The Sith lighting roiling back across her gauntlets as she channeled it into the contact points on the wall, and she could feel a power rising within the temple itself. Some dormant defense mechanism, that had never really been used, built to defend against a Jedi attack that had never come. She surged more power, and she cried out slightly, trying to get it to the point where it would finally be able to strike. She pushed harder, sending more power. And a bolt of lightning leapt out from each of the spires, collecting like a great storm in the center of their towering forms, before leaping out at the fighters that hadn't thought to try evasive maneuvers. Two of the fighters that hadn't evaded in time exploded. The spires were having so much energy channeled into them, that they were amplifying her own lighting into something terrible.
Another flight of fighters turned, trying to attack the spires. She gritted her teeth and sent another burst at them. She focused her attention down at the soldiers, trying to break through the entrance, and she sent a storm of lighting down at them, the electrical tendrils lancing through the men and dancing across their bodies as they cried and screamed out, falling to the ground in smoking ruin.
A proton bomb hit one of the spires, damaging it somewhat, but not enough, the stone was an incredible material. She turned her attention back to the fighters. Sending out another gout of lighting at them, and they careened away, disabled as the electricity played havoc with their systems. The rest of the fighters all formed up, swarming the spires, trying to take out this unexpected threat. They buzzed around her awareness like annoying wasps, and she swatted at them. Some exploding, some careening away. All of them succumbing to this terrible trap the Sith had laid with this temple.
She focused on the ground, where the raiding soldiers were still there. Some of them had survived, and they were trying to just get away at this point, having had enough of this job. She let them run.
The corvette gained altitude, trying to get into a position to bring its turbolaser turret to face the spires. She attacked it, and it faltered, slight, but she should feel that its shields were able to absorb most of the damage. She breathed deeply, and surged more power through the system, crying out in pain as she did so, and the Sith lightning roiled around her suit of beskar, around the platform as she channeled more energy and it fed back into her.
Before she fell to the ground, with smoke wafting from her flight suit, she had the satisfaction of sensing the lighting tear through the corvette and seeing it rend from bow to stern by terrible electrical energy that created massive explosions up and down its length.
"Cien!" Mariss cried as the shock of watching what she did before it wore off in an instant. Mariss ran forward and knelt down beside her. She hesitated in touching her as she wasn't sure if her armor was hot to the touch. Taking the risk, she did and tried to shake Cien awake. "Please wake up! Cien!"
Kyr came running down the stairs. "Cien!" He called out, rushing to her side as he dropped his carbine. He took his helmet off and looked at her with fear in his eyes, and looked desperately back up the stairs. "Kelce! Hurry!" He shouted.
Mariss looked up at him, tears falling down her face. "I'm sorry! We came down here because I remembered something about these panels. And Cien used her lightning and destroyed those ships. And… and…" She rambled, hyperventilating.
Kyr ignored her, "Kelce!" He shouted back up the steps, then turning back to look down at Cien.
OH NO! CIEN! REVIEW!