Hey, everyone! Sorry about the long wait. With school starting up again, things to get done, and not a lot of time to do it every day, I've sort of neglected writing any further. During June and July I was cranking out chapters like there was no tomorrow, and now I have spent almost two months making... 3/4 of a chapter.

Yeah, the chapter below is actually not finished, but I decided to split it into two parts as It was getting kind of long, and I still have two other writing projects that I want to work on.

So, again, so sorry for the wait. I hope you find this chapter enjoyable. SmarmySmirk out.

Director Egard Soron was a man of little patience, prone to frustration. And it definitely showed when his base had suddenly been infiltrated by a mere child.

He had looked back through the doorway before it had closed, and saw the boy- most likely of the rebellion- dash to cover behind a TIE fighter's wing with straw-like, spiky hair, and a blaster in hand.

How had he come this far without any of my troops spotting him? He wondered, angry.

And just when things had been looking up, too! A new squadron had been created, ready for shipment. A rebel had been captured, and might give him the crucial information he desperately needed! If he played all of his cards right, he would be seen as the man responsible for finding and eradicating the Rebellion's fleet! He might even become Grand Moff one day!

And now, all of his aspirations were threatened by a puny little boy. He wanted to scream.

"Sir," one of his subordinates asked. "Shall we still bring the prisoner to the-"

"Yes!" he exclaimed, and stopped. "You, you, and you," -he pointed at three of the five death troopers accompanying him- "bring that stubborn creature into interrogation! I-"

"Sir!"

Soron turned and was met by another one of his subordinates. "Trooper DT C-17 has not answered his communications," the officer reported. His- his last order was to secure the control room…"

Soron's rage boiled in him, covered by a practiced mask of furious calm which made the officer tremble. He turned to his squadron.

"You three, get on with transporting the prisoner!" he ordered. "The rest of you, follow me!"

A few minutes earlier…

Aghast, Calvin stared at the video footage of Project Blackwing's experiment gone wrong. His breathing fastened as he heard the screams of the unfortunate damned, the inhuman screeches and growls and-

He shut it off, not finding the willpower to keep on watching.

What was being done here, in this facility's underground laboratories… It was worse than anything he had ever heard of. The Death Trooper program…

Calvin forced himself to calm down. He began counting his breaths, telling himself to slow down.

It's fine. He assured himself. Deep breaths and… everything will-

His heartbeat increased once more as he heard the room's door open.

Reacting fast, he swiveled and leaped to one side, pulling his pistol as he did so. Two blaster bolts flew past him coming from the tip of a Death Trooper's carbine, hitting the chair and causing it to topple. Not wasting a second, Calvin retaliated, his first shot taking the trooper in the leg and the second one scoring on the inhuman soldier's wrist. The Death Trooper staggered and dropped his carbine, before looking up and launching himself at Calvin. The two collided and the trooper brought Calvin down with him, his hands moving for the boy's neck.

Panicking, Calvin tried to counter the movement, but quickly realized that he was no match for the soldier's augmented strength. His armored hands clasped around his enemy's neck and began to squeeze. Alarm bells started going off in his head as his air was cut off. Soon he would be dead, and Hobbes would be lost!

Hobbes…

The vibroblade! Calvin realized, and let one hand fall to his waist. With snakelike speed, he ripped the blade from its sheath and plunged it under the Death Trooper's helmet, into his neck.

But the trooper kept squeezing, seemingly unfazed by the fatal wound. Using the rest of his strength, Calvin pressed the button to activate the blade's vibration.

That did the trick. The trooper let one hand come up to his neck, allowing airflow to reach his enemy. With newfound resolve, Calvin wrenched the blade to the side, immediately slicing through more of the neck and sending flecks of blood spitting out of the gash with every vibration. Slowly, the life drained out of the soldier, and he became still.

Pushing the trooper off of him, Calvin attempted to stand, but the best that he could do was get onto his knees before a terrible wave of dizziness impacted his head. He took slow, deep breaths, and counted to ten before attempting to rise once more.

He succeeded, still wobbly and slightly trembling, and looked around. His blaster pistol had fallen out of his grasp during the fight, and he quickly snatched it up again. A fleck of inky blood hit his cheek, making him jump. Looking back at the dead trooper, he realized that he had left his vibroblade in the soldier's neck, and blood was still being thrashed around everywhere due to the knife's vibrations. He slowly knelt down and tugged carefully at the ringing blade until it slid out.

Standing up, Calvin deactivated the knife and sheathed it before turning back to the control panel, a new goal driving him, and a new plan quickly forming in his mind. He sat himself on the swiveling chair, which was still smoking from the shots traded by him and the trooper, and searched until he found the controls to lock the door.

With the entrance properly barricaded, Calvin now felt safer and darted over to the Death Trooper's corpse, looking for something he had noticed on the stygian soldiers a while before. He methodically collected several items on the trooper's belt, including two smoke grenades and a walkie talkie, and then found what he was looking for.

A small USB-like device, cylindrical in shape and colored a smooth plastic alabaster tone. Calvin snatched it up and rushed back to the console. If he could bring this information back to the rebellion, it would surely help in some way; surely reveal this dark truth! He brushed his fingers over the dials, levers, and buttons, moving from one end to the other, until he discovered an access plug for the USB-stick.

"Perfect," he grinned, and jammed the stick into the slot. He quickly moved back to the main screen, and his grin widened as the imperial files came online. He wasted no time in selecting the files that correlated with Project: Blackwing and Project: Sophisticated (the latter being the advanced form of the original Death Trooper program), and uploading them to the USB.

"Okay…" he muttered. "Click, Select: Drag… Bring file to USB… Repeat…"

After a few more repetitions, all of the files had been selected, and Calvin hit enter. A few seconds passed, and nothing happened. A few more passed, and still nothing occurred.

"What'sa matter?" he exclaimed. "Why didn't my screen change?!" Angered, he slammed his fist down onto the console.

Suddenly the screen changed to all white, and for a moment Calvin feared he had broken it.

Then it turned to a picture of static before displaying a loading bar. Under it read: Transferring Data. 2% complete.

Huh, he thought. That was just like on TV.

Suddenly, a crackling sound came from outside, prompting Calvin to whirl towards the locked entrance door, his heart pounding. He automatically unclipped his blaster.

For a few seconds, nothing happened.

Then, a bright and blinding light speared through the top of the door, and began to cut its way through, electric spikes flying in all directions. Panicking, Calvin looked back at the screen.

Transferring Data. 23% complete.

Load faster! Calvin mentally screamed, and looked back at the door. The cutters were a quarter of the way through. He raised his blaster and moved back to near the USB. As soon as it was done, he would dive for the vent and scramble to safety, the location of Hobbes stored in his memory.

The cutters had gotten halfway through.

Transferring Data. 56% complete.

Nervous, he tried to calm himself down by taking deep breaths. In… Out… In… Out…

He stopped and looked back at the door. The cutters were almost there.

78% complete.

Just a few more feet, and the door would be open.

88% complete.

Calvin raised his blaster, and put a hand on the USB. The light was practically at the bottom of the door. Almost there… almost-

Transferring Data. 100% complete. Please Remove Data stick.

Calvin withdrew the data stick and made a leap for the vent just as the door was shoved open. A small, black cylinder was thrown into the room; a flashbang grenade.

Calvin wriggled into as far away as he could, and then reached up to clasp his ears. But it was too late.

"BANG!"

He cried out, the sound overwhelming his eardrums and disrupting his hearing. A wall of air seemed to slap him from behind, and for a dozen seconds, he was disoriented and helpless. All he could do was lay there and hope that he had gotten far enough into the vent.

A few more seconds passed, and the constant ringing subsided. Immediately he picked up the garbled sounds of the death troopers' voice scramblers. A familiar voice said, "There! Check the vent!"

Gasping, Calvin began to wriggle further into the vent when a firm and solid hand clasped his ankle, and began pulling him back. In the suddened panic, he dropped his blaster.

Panicking, he tried to shake his leg free while furiously attempting to gain a handhold, but the vent's sides were too smooth.

"Pull him out!"

Yelling and kicking, he did his best to prevent the trooper from doing just that, and pulled out his vibroblade. Not bothering to activate it, he twisted as far as he could and plunged the knife into the trooper's wrist. A garbled shriek corrupted his ears, and the iron grasp loosened just enough. Not wasting a millisecond, he launched forward, clasped his pistol, and twisted once more.

From the outside, the soldier's companions witnessed several flashes of red illuminate the vent, and the trooper's body went still. By the time the others had removed their comrade's corpse, and looked into the vent, Calvin had already vanished, the metallic sounds of his wriggling lost in the artificial tunnels.

The sound of the alarm had Hobbes perk his head up, and his downcast expression was momentarily replaced by a glimmer of hope.

Had Calvin made it into the building? He rushed over, off of his cot and pressed his ear against the heavy durasteel door of his cell, striving to find a single sound that might show if or where Calvin could be in the base right now.

He heard nothing.

Disappointed and frustrated, Hobbes began walking in circles around his small cell, attempting to decipher what his best friend was doing right now. What would he do now that he had been discovered?

How did he get into the base anyway? He wondered, and came up with three options.

One, he had snuck through the hallways, evading detection by ducking behind corners and in rooms. But with the numerous droids, death troopers, stormtroopers, and other imperial assets walking through them, he thought that the chances of Calvin making it were pretty slim. Hopefully the boy had realized that.

Two, he had used the vents, which seemed like a plausible option… except for two things. One, these imperial vents were smaller than the ones on the rebellion (though Hobbes couldn't be sure that went for all of the vents), and Calvin might not fit. Two, each access point seemed to have a grate covering it, and unlike the ones on the Rebel ships, these ones were bolted into place.

And the third and final option, Calvin had flown the Y-wing to the base in a surprise ambush, and was now attempting to wreak as much havoc as humanly possible so that he could get to Hobbes' cell easier. But the base must have TIE fighters and AA turrets! Plus, Calvin wasn't that great of a pilot, judging from their crashes in both the wagon and the sled back home.

But whatever method his friend had utilized, he had now been found out.

Sighing, Hobbes concluded that, as long as he was stuck in this cell, he could do absolutely nothing. Frustrated, he sat back down on his cot.

Kinda like a fairytale, a weird part of his brain conceived. Calvin, the valiant knight, going to rescue the proverbial Damsel in Distress!

And so he waited. Minutes passed, and the alarm had softened slightly. He heard several metallic footsteps walk just outside of his cell, but they receded as fast as they came.

He hated being the damsel in distress.

Suddenly, he heard something. Coming from… where did it just come from? He looked around, and then another sound, like a minute muffled clang coming from… the vent.

"Could it be-"

The sound of his cell door opening made him whip around, and before him stood three death troopers, carbines raised, cautiously approaching. Hobbes saw that one of them was carrying electro-cuffs, and quickly deduced that they were going to bring him somewhere… the torture chamber?

The thought sent an unpleasant, rippling shiver through his body. His muscles tensed, and his fur extended as two of them moved closer to him, the other covering him with a blaster.

"Whoa, there-" Hobbes tried to say, backing away and raising his arms, but a trooper cut him off with a forceful, encrypted voice and reached out to grab his arm. Immediately, the tiger wrenched free, and the Death Trooper tried again, this time backed up by his pal. Together, they lunged forward, each one taking an arm and pinning it to the side wall of the cell.

Panicking, Hobbes growled and tried to break free, but the inhuman strength of the soldiers pushed him back, this time with more force. Struggling furiously, his eyes widened at seeing the third trooper pull back a bolt on his blaster, setting it to stun, before beginning to raise it.

"No!" he yelled, and struggled harder. "No!"

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Hobbes saw the grate on the vent fall off, and a black, cylindrical device was tossed out onto the ground. The resulting clank caused the troopers to stop and look.

Silence.

Then, a blast of light momentarily blinded him, and the next thing he knew, a thick cloud of smoke enveloped him and his vision was severely limited. Coughing profusely, he noticed bright crimson blaster bolts being fired from both sides, refracting off of the smoke particles and enlarging the flashes.

Then, a trooper in front of him went down, and Hobbes could see him. Spiky blond hair, a jacket, brandishing a blaster pistol!

"Calvin!" he shouted with joy, and saw the boy's blaster cut down a second soldier.

Suddenly, he felt a pair of armored arms wrapping around his stomach. Yelping, he threw himself to one side, intending to use his weight to bring the trooper down, but the strength of this soldier was too great, and instead he felt the tip of a blaster touch the side of his face. Helpless, he was dragged over to the door as Calvin turned and saw the predicament. Hesitant, the boy raised his pistol.

He heard the trooper's garbled voice, and from the slight motioning of the gun, he deduced that the trooper was warning Calvin. If you shoot, your friend will die.

But unbeknownst to the Death trooper, Hobbes was slowly shifting his one unchecked arm, close to the barrel of the gun.

"Hobbes," Calvin warned, having noticed the movement, "don't do anything stupid."

"This coming from you?" Hobbes nervously joked, and made his move.

With as much speed as any tiger could muster, Hobbes' paw streaked like greased lightning towards the blaster barrel and pushed it away from his head, which was, at the same time, moving the other direction. The death trooper, caught off guard, reacted a millisecond too slowly in firing the blaster. With a clear line of fire, Calvin barely took a microsecond to aim, and squeezed the trigger.

The shot took the death trooper in the head, punching through the armor just above the visor. A sizzling sound resulted as the intense heat melted the spec-ops soldier's face. A foul, burning stench rose out from the hole, and the body fell over against the doorframe.

Recovering from the intense action, both friends stumbled toward each other and embraced the other, smiles on their faces.

"Calvin!" Hobbes exclaimed. "I can't believe you found me!"

"You shoulda never thought otherwise," Calvin said, grinning, and stepped back. "There was this elevator-"

"This way, men!" a distant voice sounded, interrupting the best friends' reunion. Calvin's grin faded, and the mood once again switched to serious.

"Here," he said, picking up and holding out one of the Death Troopers' carbines. "Let's get outta here."

"Lead the way," Hobbes responded. "I'll be right behind you."

Slowly poking his head out, Calvin affirmed that the hallway in which the cell was located was empty. Emerging, he motioned for Hobbes to follow him and took off at a controlled run, his blaster raised and ready for action.

Hearts racing, the two rounded a corner, moving in the direction of the exit. This hallway was also clear, and for the slightest moment, they let down their guard.

Unfortunately, the pair of K-X security droids chose that exact moment to come through the prison's main entrance at the end of the hall. It took less than a second for them to spot the two friends and raise their rifles.

"Watch out!" Hobbes warned, though it didn't help much. He swiftly grabbed Calvin and leaped behind a nearby stack of crates even as red blaster bolts flew straight towards them. He and Calvin hit the ground hard, but were quick to recover and began firing back.

"Shoot, that was close!" Calvin exclaimed, and fired.

"Nice pun!" Hobbes retorted, and sent dozens of tibanna projectiles zinging towards the droids. Suddenly, two of them hit the left robot, one hitting it square in the duresteel joint for a knee, and the other landing on the android's exposed metal midriff. It faltered, dropping the rifle and falling to all four of its appendages.

"Now! Shoot the other one!" Calvin exclaimed, and he and Hobbes immediately focused their attention on the other automaton, taking advantage of the fact that its companion was momentarily downed. Blaster shots tore through the second droid's joints and head, and it fell on the floor like a bag of cement. Not wasting time, Hobbes sent several more rounds through the first K-X's head, finishing it off.

"Awesome work, Hobbes!" Calvin cheered, and began to advance further. "Let's keep going!"

About to acknowledge the statement, Hobbes stopped when he spied the blaster rifle that the now-dead droid had used.

"C'mon, Hobbes," Calvin called behind him. "We gotta get out of here!"

"Gimme a second," Hobbes said, and bent down to pick up the rifle.

"Hobbes," Calvin exclaimed, "we don't have a second! What are you… OooooOOOHH!"

Having resumed their escape, Hobbes grinned as he held two guns under his arms. One stemming from the Death Trooper, and the other from the security droid. This'll definitely come in handy. He thought, and raised the two weapons as they rounded a corner.

The hallway was empty, and Calvin and Hobbes sprinted over to the other end where a closed blast door blocked their path. About to inquire on what to do next, Hobbes' words were stopped short of the lips when Calvin drew out one of those cylindrical USBs and stuck it into a slot in the control panel. The blast door opened.

"Huh," was all that the tiger said, and the two resumed their run.

Another hallway lay behind the blast door, and Calvin seemed particularly excited, his eyes focused on the blast door at the end of the tunnel. That, though unbeknownst to Hobbes, was the door that led into the vehicle depot. If they could get past that, then they'd have a straight shot at getting out via the elevator.

"C'mon, Hobbes!" Calvin goaded, grinning. "We're almost to the-"

"Over there!"

Calvin turned and yelped at seeing several Death Troopers, led by an officer, enter from an adjoined hallway. He pivoted and zigzagged back to the blast door's frame, scrambling behind it for cover as crimson blasts sizzled through the air. Hobbes did the same, taking cover on the other side, and both friends retaliated with intense firepower, seeking to dislodge the sable soldiers from their positions.

But the Death Troopers retaliated with fierce opposition, and both parties were stuck in a firefight as one tried to outshoot the other.

"What now, Calvin?" Hobbes asked, frantically venting his carbine before firing once more. "We're caught between a rock and a hard place!"

Calvin's mind brainstormed furiously, trying to come up with an answer. If only they had some cover to move to, but the hallway was devoid of any crates or crevices in the walls. Why didn't he think to take those smoke grenades from the dead troopers in Hobbes' cell?

Grenades… he realized.

"Hobbes, I've got a plan!" he shouted so as to be heard over the sounds of blasters firing.

"Go ahead!" Hobbes yelled back. "I'm interested!"

"Try and give me some cover!" Calvin exclaimed. "I'm gonna try and hit one of the grenades on the troopers' belts!"

"Better than nothing!" Hobbes shouted back, and raised both blasters. "On three! One… Two… Three!"

The tiger turned, coming out of cover and dropping on one knee as he did so. The motion saved his life as blaster bolts whizzed just above him. A millisecond later, and both of Hobbes' guns were spouting ionized bolts of red, disrupting the troopers and downing several. So focused were they on attempting to kill Hobbes that they didn't see the tip of Calvin's blaster sneak out from behind the door frame.

Taking his time, he lined up the shot on a death trooper's belt, making sure that he wouldn't miss. A few more seconds…

"Calvin," Hobbes yelled, "hurry up!"

A few more seconds…

Suddenly, the trooper turned an inch and for a fleeting moment, the shot was all too perfect. Calvin gently squeezed the trigger.

The speeding shot soared through the air, striking square on the side of a soldier's stygian belt and connecting with the several grenades that hung there. The hallway erupted with explosions and blinding blasts of death and disarray, and a thick fog of smoke filled the passage.

"C'mon, Hobbes!" Calvin shouted. "Let's get 'em!"

Hobbes nodded, and slowly advanced into the cloud of monotone gray, one rifle under each armpit. Calvin followed suit, leveling his blaster and unclipping his vibroblade.

Together, the two held their breath as much as they could and continued further, adrenaline levels at the max. It was one foot in front of the other, until one of the two sides encountered the other.

Then, suddenly, a shape, like that of a dark angel, rose out of the smog and raised a deadly electrical baton. But before it could strike Calvin, a shot from Hobbes' carbine sent the soldier crashing to the ground.

More forms appeared before Calvin had the time to catch his breath, and instead he dived down low so as to strike with his vibroblade unexpectedly. Hobbes meanwhile, kept their attention diverted with a volley of shots. Another trooper appeared in front of Calvin and he instantly drove the blade into his neck, sending blood gushing everywhere, and covering his hands. He pulled it out before the trooper could bring his hands to his neck and fired at a second shape. The shot hit the person in the chest and an unencrypted scream reached his ears. He had shot the officer.

Hobbes, meanwhile, was having the time of his life downing troopers left and right. At some point there must have been reinforcements, because regular stormtroopers began appearing in the smoke. He was happy to deal with them as well. Together, the two tore through the opposition, landing shots and severing blood vessels until, only seconds later when the smoke cleared, the hallway was cluttered with deceased and convulsing imperial bodies.

Both took a dozen seconds to gather themselves together and recover from the fierce action that had just transpired. Calvin however, excited, recovered sooner and once more looted several grenades from the motionless forms of the Death Troopers.

"C'mon, Hobbes," he panted, and resumed his run to the vehicle depot's blast door. "There's an elevator on the other side of these doors! Keep going!"

Hobbes, though tired, ran after him, and as they neared the doors, Calvin stuck the USB into the control panel to open it. Now, Calvin had figured that the depot would only have a few troopers stationed there, like it did the last time he had gone through the place.

He was wrong.

The door slid open, and Calvin's body jerked back in shock and surprise at seeing dozens or storm- and death -troopers running about the area. They all turned at seeing the door open, and snapped up their rifles. Calvin lunged for the door controls, and quickly shut it as the troopers let loose a volley of blasts.

"Don't keep going!" he yelled, and backtracked away from the closed entrance towards Hobbes. "We need a new plan!"

"Is there any other way-" Hobbes began, when a giant explosion sounded from behind them. Smoke and duresteel was propelled inward, and the two friends suddenly found themselves engulfed by a shroud of unbreathable fumes. Coughing and gagging, Hobbes' ears managed to make out words amongst the disorienting sounds.

"...cease fire, rocket troopers! Men, proceed with caution!"

Ignoring the smoke, Hobbes dropped one of his weapons, turned and scooped up Calvin to carry him to safety at the end of the hallway, when something caught his attention. A door built into the side wall. Looking back, he realized that the smoke was rapidly receding, depriving them of their cover. Already the ghastly silhouettes of imperial soldiers could be seen.

Making his decision, Hobbes dragged the still-coughing six-year-old over to the door, and reached for the controls.

"Over there! Open fire!"

The doors slid open and Hobbes pushed Calvin inside of the room at the same time as the troopers pulled the triggers, and as the tiger dashed inside, a red bolt sheared across the side of his midriff, singing off fur and creating a painful burn.

"Gah!" he yelled, and stumbled inside of the pitch black room. Gritting his fangs, he pushed the pain aside and threw himself at the door's panel. Pushing the correct buttons, Hobbes saw the door slide and lock shut just before the troopers could get in.

Another close call, he thought and stumbled to the ground. Thanks to his night vision, he could discern the location of the light switch, as well as several large, bulky shapes further inside. A few coughs quickly decided the spot where Calvin lay, and Hobbes called out to him.

"Calvin?"

"Yeah, H- Hobbes?"

"You okay?"

"Yep," Calvin affirmed. "Just a little shell shocked."

A sudden pounding on the door caused both of them to jump.

"Hold on," Hobbes said, and limped his way carefully over to the light switch, firmly grasping the handle. "I'll get the lights."

He pulled it down, and the whole place lit up, causing Hobbes to wince and put an arm over his eyes. After a few seconds, both of them had become used to the light. And when the glare died down, in front of them were dozens of imperial vehicles!

"How is it that our luck has held this long?" Calvin grinned as he marveled at the different vehicles. There were several Scout Bikes, which they had been told were used for reconnaissance and, well… scouting, all neatly lined up in several rows. A pair of bulky, powerful tanks were situated near the back, and a couple of heavily armored landspeeders were cluttered up against the wall.

"So… you said that there was an elevator on the far side of that yard?" Hobbes asked. "One that we can use to get out of here?"

"Yeah," Calvin confirmed. "That's how I got in."

"Well, we can definitely use this stuff to get over there, right?" Hobbes asked, gesturing to the vehicles. "There's gotta be some way to hotwire these things."

In response, Calvin smugly held up the USB-like control stick he had acquired. "Who says we need to hotwire anything?"

"...Oh, don't tell me that this thing can activate tanks as well?" Hobbes sighed, before grinning widely.

"Shall we find out?" Calvin asked, and rushed over to the vehicles. "What vehicle are you thinking of taking?"

Hobbes thought for a moment, and reviewed their options. It quickly became apparent to him that a Scout Bike wouldn't cut it. It was fast. Too fast for the depot's size, and had virtually no armor. Which left the tank and…

"The landspeeder," he decided.

"Why so?" Calvin asked.

"Well, the tank is heavy and protected and powerful," the tiger admitted, "but with so many imperials, not to mention the rocket troopers that took down the door, the tank seems like a bad bet. Not only that, but this thing is slow as a snail."

"Good point," Calvin agreed. "The Landspeeder it is!" With that, he climbed out, and prepared to open the garage's door, which led outside to the rest of the vehicle depot.

"Wait just a second!" Hobbes called out.

"What?" Calvin asked. "The imps outside are gonna blow that door open any second now!"

In response, Hobbes pointed over to the other side of the garage, where a couple of launchers were propped up against the wall.

"Ooh!" Calvin nodded, and smiled even wider as the tiger quickly ran over to arm himself again. He seemed to have a thing for stealing imperial weapons.

Anyone notice the Spaceman Spiff reference?

:D