I don't believe this. A 9,000 word chapter. I just... Wow.
Anyway, sorry for the long wait. I had quite a bit of stuff come up in life, but now I should have ample time to write. I'll have a daily word goal implemented, which should help speed things along.
Without further ado...
"Is everyone okay?!" Leia asked, slowly getting up from the floor. "Hobbes, what do you see?"
"Oh! Oh! I'm not ready to die!" 3po's voice came from somewhere. Hobbes looked at the human forms stumbling to their feet around him, outlined in green from his perspective.
"Everyone's alright," he confirmed, looking around at everyone stumbling about. He felt his back and tail calm down again, their raised hairs receding. "Lando, do the controls work? What happened?"
"Everything's dead," Lando said, feeling the controls and testing them. "I think the main power's shorted out. We can jumpstart it with 3po's help. Hold on- I've got a flashlight here somewhere." Pulling one out of his belt, he pushed the switch and bright, white light filled the submersible. Hobbes winced, his pupils constricting to slits, and then the light moved away.
"Bring 3po over here," Lando said, stepping over to the same power socket that they had used a few minutes prior for slipping through the mines. Hoisting 3po up, Hobbes helped him over to the electrical panel, and they reconnected him to it. Lando then moved back to the front, and yanked on the restart handle. The lights flickered back on, and the controls came back to life. The renewed hum of the oxygenator's filters allowed Hobbes to take a deep breath.
"Oh, I really do hate when that happens," 3po announced unhappily, recovering from the electric shock that had coursed through him when they had restarted the sub. "Now I really do think that one of my wires has shorted out."
"I think you'll be alright," Leia said, stepping close to the controls, where Lando had once again taken his seat. "Lando, I need a report on the submersible's systems. What happened?"
"Well, I have good news and really bad news," Lando said.
"Let's hear the good news first," Leia said.
"Most of the systems look like they're working properly. Ballast tanks, lights, all electrical components except for the sensors. They're not responding."
"And the terrible news?"
"Our propulsion system is trashed," Lando said. "Looks like the water pressure destroyed it. Maybe it was that error from earlier or something else- I don't know. Main takeaway: Three out of our four propellers are broken, and the fourth one works, but it's locked in a certain position."
"Then we're not going to get out the way we came in," Leia said. Without proper propulsion, they couldn't maneuver back through the minefield. Lando shook his head, confirming Leia's statement. Hobbes felt a sinking pit in his stomach, realizing that they were now trapped. The minefield, which had been such an obstacle against them getting in, now kept them from getting back out.
"Well, we're already forty-five minutes behind schedule," Leia said. Hobbes could tell that she was swallowing her own sudden anxiety. "Let's keep moving. We'll think of something on the way… What's the temperature of the pipe?"
"120 degrees Standard," Lando reported. "The empire should notice something, soon. At least, I hope so. If they don't, I'll have to detach the sub."
Thankfully, a minute later, the rising temperature of the pipe flattened out at 133 degrees and almost immediately began to lower. For minutes they waited, the number on Lando's temperature readings dropping one by one. Finally, Lando said, "52 degrees standard. We're good to enter."
"Everyone, grab your gear," Leia ordered, opening up the equipment locker and grabbing night vision equipment and a pair of curved cutting torches about two feet long. Moving over, Hobbes grabbed his own torches, his carbine, and his grenades, which were the only things that he had put inside. Once they had all taken the equipment, Leia said, "Lando, start the cutting process."
'The cutting process' was the next part of the infiltration phase. The docking ring had a special design that gave it the ability to cut out the grate that sat between them and the other side of the pipe. Using two powerful cutting beams that rotated around the circumference of it, the ring could slice through. At Leia's directive, Lando nodded and went over to the controls. A few button presses and taps later, a loud, mechanical whirring filled the sub. Then, a soft clang as it connected with the vent, and after that, the ear-splitting whining and hissing sound of metal being cut with the beams. For a few seconds, they waited, and then the sound stopped.
"We're good," Lando announced.
"Alright," Leia said. "Open the door."
Lando nodded and opened the pressure-resistant door that separated the inside of the sub from the grate. Its unique design folded inward, taking up minimal space, and a sudden blast of hot air struck Hobbes that disappeared a few seconds later. Startled, he approached the six-foot tall grate along with Leia, and they unclipped their cutting torches. The grate, due to its size and the shape of the pipe, couldn't be placed down, so they did the next best thing. Activating their torches, they began to cut the grate into strips, which they could then move out of the way.
The bright, centimeter-thick blue laser melted through slowly, the grate's thick metal resisting it with all that it could, but eventually, the job was done, and he used his foot to kick the metal strips down, creating a hole. Again, a blast of air made him jolt, but it subsided and he crawled further in while Lando and Leia cleared the metal strips away. The vent was not roomy in the slightest- a tube roughly six feet in diameter and height. He could barely turn around. It was still very, very hot as well, and he had to blink several times to keep his eyes from drying out.
Turning, he exited the vent and said, "The vent's clear. I need the thermal scanners." A second later, 3po held them out.
"Once we find the electrical room, we cut through the vent and attach the EMP," Leia said. "3po, we need your help with that, so come with us. Once we go loud, I need you-" she looked at Lando- "-to guard the electrical room and save us our exit. Everyone ready?"
"Well, we've come this far," Lando said.
"Let's go," Leia said. One after the other, with Hobbes in the lead, the four of them began crawling. Hobbes held the thermal scanners in front of him to look around for the electrical room, which, due to its undoubtedly active use of electricity, wouldn't be very difficult to spot. The heat inside closed around them like a thick blanket, its weight present in the very air that they breathed. Hobbes remembered Tatooine, and hours of putting one foot in front of the other as his fur heated up terribly. This was almost as bad. He found it difficult to breathe. Looking back, he saw sweat run down Leia's face, looked back ahead, and then thought of something.
"Hey, Leia," he said. "Can I ask you something?"
"Is it important?" Leia asked.
"It's important to me," Hobbes said. It had been nagging him since they prepared to slip through the mines. "Why did you…" He hesitated.
"Go on," Leia said.
"I thought you hated me and Calvin. That you wanted us gone for good."
"That's right." Leia's voice had a slightly sharp edge to it, now.
"So why did you console me when we were outside of the minefield?" Hobbes asked, slowing for a second to look at her.
"Am I suddenly unable to show sympathy just because I'm furious with you?" Leia asked. Her voice softened. "I know how important Calvin is to you."
"I'm sorry," Hobbes said. "About not telling you."
Leia didn't reply.
The pipe continued in a straight line for a few minutes, before suddenly branching off. Making a decision, Hobbes went right, noticing more electrical activity that way.
"Wait," he whispered, coming to an abrupt stop a minute later, after one or two more turns. There's some sort of room right on the other side of the vent. Three people inside.." He handed the scanners to Leia who looked at it herself.
"This is it," she said, and unclipped the cutting torches. "We'll give them a second to leave… As soon as they do, I'll cut through. Hobbes, 3po, I need you both to rig the EMP. I'll lock the door. Got it?"
"What if they don't leave?" Hobbes asked.
"Then we cut a hole and throw in a flashbang," Leia said, and looked at the thermal scanners again. "Hopefully they'll leave," she muttered, more to herself than to them.
On the other side of the vent, the head technician of the facility knelt by a plastoid rectangle covered in electrical gauges, lights, plugs, and switches, accessing a maintenance panel and fiddling with some wires and a screen. Behind him stood an electrician and a guard, armed with an A280 blaster rifle.
After a bit of tinkering, the head technician stood up and said, "Two possibilities. Either, there's something blocking the vent's exit which is trapping the heat, or there was an unexpected power surge from the planet's magma layer that's shorted out the geothermal plant. One end or the other."
"It's getting a bit chilly already," the electrician said. "Do you think that this might be sabotage of some sort?"
"If that's the case, you can bet that Director Va'ata won't waste a second in rooting out the culprit. I'd hate to see what happens to him then," the technician muttered. "Alright. Sloan, Taul, go to the Geo-plant and send me a reading of the recent power surges."
"Yes, sir," the electrician, Sloan, said, and both of them left the room to carry out their orders.
Returning to the electrical box, the technician continued checking the sensors, wondering if there wasn't somehow a problem with the vent's shutdown switch, when a noise made him look up.
For a moment, he listened intently, before refocusing his attention back on the sensors. Then he heard it again- a sort of muffled scrape, so quiet that it could have been a trick of the mind. Curious, he moved over to the vent, a part of which passed through the room on one side, and listened again. Another scrape, a bit louder, now. Confused, the technician placed his hands upon the warm vent and placed an ear to the metal surface. A few seconds later, he heard a sharp click.
"SZzzzap!" A bright blue, steady flame speared through the vent, exiting out of the side of the technician's head. He fell, the beam slicing through his cranium, and another flame appeared, both of them hissing as they cut a small circle in the vent. A few seconds, then a leg forcefully kicked it open. Immediately, heat filled the room, and out stepped Leia, checking the area with her blaster pistol, sweat leaking across her brow. Satisfied that the room was clear, she moved over to the door, and closed and locked it. There was undoubtedly some sort of log entry for the action, but it would be too late to be of any use in stopping them. "Clear!"
Behind her climbed out Hobbes and Lando, and finally 3po. Hobbes began to skim over the panels and large, rectangular electrical boxes on the left side of the room.
"Whoo!" Lando breathed. "It's stuffy in there."
"I found the maintenance panel for the main electrical control switches," Hobbes said, and looked at 3po. "Alright, tech-man, tell me what to do."
The EMP that they would use to temporarily black out the prison was a three-foot long device, rectangular in shape. Inside of it, nine separate rods were housed, each one containing twenty-six ionium crystals connected to high-voltage cables. The cables snaked out of one end of the EMP, and could be fitted to any type of electrical system. At the other end, an activation button was linked up to a standard battery. When the button was pressed, the battery would send a large package of power that would be fed through the crystals. Their unique relationship with electricity made it possible for them to amplify the electric current sent through them, annihilating themselves in the process. The suddenly hundredfold-magnified current, kept in check by the cables, would be sent straight into the black site's main power system, overloading it.
Hobbes shuddered at the thought of so many volts coursing through him. The EMP was encased in electrically-insulated material for safety, but still…
"Good," 3po was saying behind him. "Then take the cable and attach it to the plug there. Yes, the orange one. Be certain to lock it in place. Is it locked in? Yes? Alright."
A minute later, with confirmation from 3po that it was now primed, Hobbes rose and stepped away from the EMP.
"Listen up," Leia said. "When the EMP goes off, nothing will work. Doors, lights, locks… I don't want the door to this room left open after we activate the EMP, and I don't want a hole cut in it for the imperials to get through, so here's what we're doing. Me and Hobbes will open the door, get out, and close it behind us before Lando fries the power. 3po, I want you back at the sub for when we return and have to get out quickly. Remember the way back?"
"Yes, Princess Leia," 3po said. "The directions are stored in my central processing unit, I-"
"Then make your way back," Leia said. "Lando, according to the thermal scanners, it looks like the main cell area is a short distance away from here. I don't want the imperials to already have flashlights on and searching for intruders in the dark once we get there, so I want you to wait for a minute to give us time to get there. Got it?"
"Loud and clear," Lando nodded.
"Then everyone, set your watches for fifteen minutes. That's how long the blackout should last before the power reserves regain control," Leia said, and set her own watch as Lando and Hobbes did the same.
"Oh, and Lando, come up with some way, any way, for us to get to the surface without our propulsion," Leia said. Lando nodded, and began to say something when the door buzzed angrily as someone tried to open it. Everyone whirled around, silent.
After a few seconds, a voice said, "Sir? Is everything alright? I have the data you requested."
"Hobbes, get ready," Leia whispered, and moved over to the control panel. "3po, go back to the sub. Lando, ready?"
Lando nodded, his hand hovering near the EMP's activation button and his other hand holding his pistol as 3po stumbled back into the pipe. Leia put her hand on the controls, and Hobbes unholstered his two blaster pistols, his heart thumping.
"Sir? Sir, answer me!"
Leia pressed the controls, and a technician and a guard appeared, their confused faces relaxing for a moment, before their eyes shifted to Hobbes and then his pistols. The guard moved to raise his weapon.
Four blaster shots sounded as Hobbes speedily jerked the triggers. Both men fell, the guard's rifle clattering out of his hands. Immediately, Hobbes moved into the hallway, stepping over their limp, smoking bodies, and scanned it for more imperials. Seeing none, he looked behind him to see Leia stepping out of the room, her own pistol, a defender model, in hand. She looked at him for a second, before her head turned and she snapped up her weapon. Two blasts from her defender hit an imperial just arriving around the hallway's far corner square in the chest. Hobbes' ears swiveled as shouting came from somewhere in the prison.
They scanned the hallway again. "Clear," they both said at once.
"Lando," Leia said, turning to look at him. "Close and lock the door and count to sixty, then fry the place."
"Got it," Lando said, and walked over to the door controls. A moment later, they slid shut, locked, and Leia said, "Lead the way, Hobbes. I'll hold the thermal scanners."
Handing over the scanners, Hobbes holstered his pistols and unslung his carbine, switching off the safety. Together, they moved briskly down the hallway, weapons raised, Leia holding the thermal scanners with one hand while covering their backs with a pistol in the other. Nearing the corner of a hallway, Hobbes slowed as Leia checked for any heat signatures lying in wait for them around it. At her nod, Hobbes rounded the empty corner, and both of them kept moving. As they did so, Hobbes tried to remember what had been said about the main part of the prison.
It was a shaft, cylindrical, that went down a certain number of levels, with a certain number of prison cells on each level. Said cells were situated on the outer walls of the shaft, and a tower in the middle of it hosted the guards and prison controls. It gave them a 360 view, so that all prisoners and prison cells could be simultaneously observed.
"Two imperials, just around the next corner," Leia murmured, looking through the scanners. A flash of movement immediately appeared around the corner, and two hasty blaster bolts fired as though the imperials had heard Leia's whispered warning, which should have been impossible. Seeing a black, armored foot retreat behind the corner, he felt his blood run cold as he realized that they were Death Troopers.
This must be a very important prison.
Helmets and blasters appeared again, and Hobbes instantly dodged as the troopers' weapons spat tibanna. Peppering fire from Leia's pistol forced him back, and both of them took refuge in the slim cover of a doorframe to one of the doors in the hallway. Hobbes turned out of cover, and pulled the trigger once, twice, thrice. The shots only served to keep the troopers behind the corner. Somewhere, harsh voices were coming closer to their location. They needed to keep moving! Sparks bounced off of the doorframe as the death troopers fired again.
The lights unexpectedly went out. Without warning, both parties were suddenly thrust into blackness. A white-noise whirring that hadn't been apparent before switched off.
Immediately, Hobbes and Leia dived to the ground, as the death troopers dared to come out of cover and lit up the spot where they had just been. In the confusion of the dark, Hobbes found himself at an advantage with his night vision, and his next shot took one of the troopers in the leg. He stumbled, before the other one grabbed him and pulled them both back behind the corner. Itching to keep moving, Hobbes' paw grabbed at one of the flashbang grenades on his belt, unclipped it, and pushed the activation rotor. A red band of light appeared and a high pitched squealing sounded on the grenade as Hobbes threw it, shouting, "Flashbang!"
The flashbang bounced off of the wall, around the corner. An explosion of starlight came and went as quickly as a camera flash, and then Hobbes was sprinting for the corner, Leia right behind him. Hobbes turned, raising his weapon to finish off the assuredly dazed troopers, only for a strong hand to grab the barrel and wrench it out of his paws. Surprised, Hobbes barely managed to avoid a blade spearing straight at his eye. Shots fired somewhere behind him as he grabbed the death trooper's knife arm and neutralized it, only for the trooper to use his weight to bring them both to the ground. Hobbes growled as they both grappled, his inhuman adversary trying to overcome the raw strength of a tiger. Suddenly, the knife attempted to strike again, this time coming only a few centimeters from his chest. For another second they struggled before a blaster shot pierced through the trooper's head. The body went limp, except for the hands wrapped around the knife, which even in death, tightened.
Throwing the soldier off of him, Hobbes scrambled to his feet to see Leia scanning their surroundings. She then turned back to Hobbes. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah. You?" Hobbes breathed, shaking.
"His shot grazed my hip," she said, motioning to the other trooper- the one that Hobbes had shot in the leg. "It burns, but I'll be fine. If we stand here any longer, the lights will come on before we can get back here with Calvin. C'mon!"
Grabbing his carbine, Hobbes vented it and checked his watch. Twelve minutes.
Both of them kept going, running now to make up for lost time. Another turn. No one in sight. Then, both of them found themselves before a closed door, and Leia took out her cutting torches. Slicing a line straight down the middle of the door, she grabbed at it with gloved hands and strained, pulling one side open. Hobbes added his strength, and together, they pushed aside the heavy obstacle. Both of them moved slower, now, clearing the last bit of hallway, before they finally emerged in front of their destination: the prison cells.
The shaft was larger and deeper than he imagined. In the center was the guard tower, a tall thing with stairs and catwalks ringing it that spiraled down, and several observation and control rooms protected by blast proof glass and thick doors. Imperials were rushing all about, confused and following blind orders, their bodies outlined in green. Looking around the outside, Hobbes noticed the cell doors- about twelve on each level, of which there were five. If all five levels consisted of only cells, then that meant… Sixty cells. Each outer level was rather wide, probably because each prison cell took up a lot of space. The metal staircase in front of them led down to the topmost cell level. Four catwalks connecting the central tower to the outer rings of prison cells were on each level. Giant vertical metal support beams stretched from the very bottom of the shaft to the ceiling, preventing the whole thing from collapsing. Somewhere in one of those cells was Calvin.
"Leia, do you see him?" he asked.
"Not yet…" Leia muttered, looking through the scanners. "I'm checking the doors but… there! Level Three. He's in a cell on the other side of where we are. Does that look like him, Hobbes?" Looking, Hobbes saw a small figure, curled up in a cell, nodded, and muttered, "And we're on Level Five with about eighty imperials between us and them. How are we going to do this?"
"We can sneak through them," Leia said. "They're disoriented and it's as black as ink in here. They can't see us, and we can see them. Follow my lead."
Suddenly, a flashlight turned on somewhere.
"And what about that?" Hobbes asked.
"Avoid them," Leia said. "Let's go before more turn on."
Slowly, the two of them began moving, rushing down the metal stairs that led to the first, topmost ring of prison cells. Just as they exited the stairs, a flashlight neared from beyond one of the large metal support beams, and both of them quickly took refuge in the corner where the beam connected with the railing. A second later, three guards ran past them, focused on what the flashlight illuminated in front of them, and climbed the staircase. Hobbes noted that they were going the way that he and Leia had come- hopefully not to check the electrical room.
Suddenly, as they were about to continue past the beam, a bright stream of light turned on, and for a moment, Hobbes thought that the prison was powering back up. The lights began moving in a wide circle, slithering over the railings and cell doors. As it passed, Hobbes turned to see a searchlight, hand-held by an imperial on top of the guard tower. The guard slowly swung it around, meticulously searching each and every prison cell. Seeing one of the four catwalks that connected the cells to the tower up ahead, Hobbes thought of something. They might be spotted, but the guards would be focused on the outer cells, not the tower itself.
"Leia, let's get to the guard tower, out of the beam," he said. "We'll get spotted here."
"Agreed," Leia said. "Wait for the searchlight to pass around again.
A few seconds later, the light passed, and both of them broke out of cover, sprinting for the catwalk. They entered it, and were about halfway to the other side when a trio of Imperials ran up the stairs ringing the tower, all of them heading for the catwalk and all of them holding flashlights. In a split second, Hobbes knew that they weren't going to make it to the other side before the guards reached the catwalks and shone the flashlights in their direction, and they didn't have enough time to get back to the other side and hide. They had only a few seconds. Looking at Leia, Hobbes could see that her thoughts were the same: they were about to get caught.
Suddenly, a flash of madness. Grabbing Leia's arm, he said, "Hold on tight," and jumped over the side of the railing, off of the catwalk.
For a stomach-churning moment, both of them fell, the bottom of the shaft more than a hundred feet below them. Hobbes stretched out an arm, looking up and seeing a handhold but not quite grasping it. For a second, his mind considered the worst, and he thought that his paw had missed it. Then it connected with cold, hard metal, and he and Leia were jerked out of their free-fall state, now hanging from the underside of the catwalk, connected only because of a lucky metal bar that happened to be there.
Looking down, Hobbes could see the shock and sudden terror on Leia's face as she clung to his other arm, and had no doubts that his own face mirrored her expression at that moment. Both of them were silent as the footsteps of imperials made the catwalk vibrate slightly, flashlights shining in every direction but straight down.
Still recovering, Leia hissed, "Are you crazy?!"
Hobbes didn't reply, gasping as he struggled to maintain a good grip on the metal bar. With Leia weighing him down, it wasn't easy.
"Well, what now?" Leia asked.
Looking around, Hobbes could see that they hadn't been detected, at least. Imperials were still stumbling about. Looking down, he saw Level Four below them, its four catwalks directly aligned with Level Five's. The distance between the catwalk right below them and the one that they were hanging from seemed to be about 20 feet. It would hurt, but he could definitely survive that.
"Climb onto my back," Hobbes said, looking down. "I'll drop down to the next catwalk."
Leia gave him a skeptical look, but grabbed his shoulder and pulled herself up. Wrapping her arms around his back, she asked, "Now what?"
"Now we fall," Hobbes said. Taking a deep breath, he felt Leia's fingers dig into his fur and skin, looked down at the empty catwalk below them, and let go.
He hit the catwalk hard, slamming into it and causing a terrible amount of noise. The whole thing shook hard, and someone somewhere shouted, "What was that?"
Ignoring the lancing pain coursing through his bones and muscles, Hobbes felt Leia get off and ran for the guard tower. Imperials were running about, flashlights closing in on them. They got to the other side and flattened themselves against the tower just in time as armed guards ran in front of them and took up position at the end of the catwalk, unaware that Hobbes and Leia were just behind them. Quietly motioning for Hobbes to follow, Leia began sneaking down the stairs to Level Three.
Rounding the tower, they were just about to exit the stairs when a guard rushed past them, his attention focused on the prison cells. But as they continued on, he turned and shined his light around. Hobbes and Leia just barely managed to get around the side of the tower, but a second later, the guard rushed back down the stairs to investigate, apparently having seen something. Hobbes acted fast, spearing a paw out and gripping the man's throat. He slammed him against the tower as he attempted to scream, and squeezed until he heard the crick of a breaking windpipe. He heaved the struggling guard over the railing, and threw him off. He fell, unable to utter a squeak, and folded in half upon hitting the railing of another set of stairs further below. A large clang rang through the area, and then a crack as he fell to level one.
Shouts of alarm began coming from level one, and Leia said, "Keep going. C'mon." They both continued, flattening themselves against the tower two more times as confused imperials moved past them. They were so close that he could see the serial numbers on their holstered blasters. The facility was a little brighter with a dozen flashlights now on, but luckily it was still dark enough for them to keep sneaking.
"Guard down! Level one!"
"Sounds like he fell!"
"Prisoner escape!"
"C'mon! Let's go!"
They moved quickly, now, around the platform of level three, and stopped, looking across the catwalk that led to where Calvin's cell was.
"Which one?" Hobbes asked.
"That one," Leia pointed, looking up from the thermal scanners. "Three cells to the right of the bridge."
Hobbes looked around at the prison, where alarmed guards were now checking every single part of the prison shaft. With each passing seconds, more flashlights clicked on.
"If we go over there, we'll be seen," Hobbes said, as a beam swept across the cells in front of them, assisting his assertion. "We need a distraction… something to keep the imperials busy while you cut through the door."
"Your smoke-and-flashbang grenades," Leia said. "Do you have them?"
"Yes, but that would draw attention towards-" Hobbes stopped. "Oh, I see."
"Throw them far away. Distract them. Say something to confuse them, too," Leia said, as Hobbes unclipped two of his grenades- a flashbang and a smoke.
"Alright, here we go." Arming the smoke grenade, Hobbes threw it as far as he could. With his ears he heard a few tiny clangs as the grenades landed on the other side of the cell area, away from Calvin's cell, and soon, people began shouting as smoke filled the other side. Then, arming the flashbang grenade, he threw that, cupped a hand to his mouth, took a deep breath, and shouted, "Prisoner Escape! They're armed!"
The grenades detonated, and the place descended into chaos. Somewhere, a blaster fired. Guards, heeding the call, rushed to the smoke to contain the 'breach.'
"That won't fool them for long," Leia said. "Go!"
They made a break for the cell, rushing across the bridge, heading towards Calvin's cell. As they turned into the cell area, they nearly collided with a guard. Reacting quickly, Hobbes grabbed the man and threw him sideways, screaming, over the railing. Leia reached the cell, unclipping her cutting torches, and slammed them against the door. The blue flames began melting the metal while Hobbes stood guard, he quickly checked his watch. Six minutes left.
Suddenly he saw the large beam of the lamp swing around again, and, seeing that hiding this time was futile, brought his carbine up, took a few seconds to adjust his aim, and fired. The light broke, shutting off with a few sparks. He could see the imperials beginning to regroup, realizing that the smoke was just a trick. They began searching again, and Hobbes knew it would be only seconds before someone shined a light in their direction.
As Leia kept cutting, emotion tried to spread through him- excitement and hope at seeing Calvin again, but he forced it down. He could feel that later… now wasn't the time.
"I'm through!" Leia exclaimed, and kicked at the circle that she had melted. One time. Two times. On the third try, the circle gave, falling into the cell, and both of them jumped in the darkness of it, searching around.
"There!" Leia pointed at a cot on the far side of the cell, on which lay a familiar figure. Hobbes immediately rushed over to Calvin, but as he got a better look at him, he drew back. "Oh, god…"
Calvin's time in prison had brought him suffering. Dark rings lined his eyes, and his skin was shivering, burnt, and covered in bruises all over. His nose looked a bit crooked, his lips were discolored and torn, and sweat made his arms glisten slightly. "Calvin?" he whispered. "Calvin?"
Suddenly, his eyes cracked open just a bit, revealing more red than white underneath. His eyes widened a bit more as the pupils focused on his shadowy form, and he slurred, "Hobbes?... you- you…"
"Hey, hey. It's okay," Hobbes said, tears welling up in the rims of his eyes. "We're going to get you out of here." He turned to Leia and handed her his carbine. "I'll carry him. Take this and cover our escape."
Turning again, he carefully picked Calvin up. As he did so, his left ear twitched. A small sliding of a boot against the ground reached him. His eyes widening, he spun around, adjusting his hold on Calvin so that his other arms could go for one of his pistols.
Too late. A light, bright as the sun, blinded him, and the arm that went for his pistol instead went to shield his eyes. Somewhere behind him, Leia yelled, "Kriff!"
When Hobbes lowered his arm, he found themselves surrounded by blaster-wielding death troopers. A trap, he realized. The sound of boots hitting the ground outside heralded the arrival of prison guards, who flooded in with blasters and shock prods. Looking at Leia, Hobbes saw that she knew the futility of their situation, her hands raised above her head. Still, a fire burned in her eyes as they darted around, searching for an avenue of escape. Hobbes' blaster lay on the ground at her feet.
For a few more seconds, nothing happened, until suddenly, a distant noise captured their attention. A light came from outside, brighter than any flashlight. The noise came closer.
The lights turned back on, and Hobbes squinted along with the rest of the room's occupants. He checked his watch. They were still supposed to have four minutes left. Looking around, all he could see was a clean white… white everywhere. This whole room was designed to be torture itself. Hopefully Lando was still safe and hadn't been captured…. Or killed.
Troopers in the circle surrounding them parted, allowing a final figure to step through the hole. Her face came into the light, and he noticed the freckled face, the red, cropped hair, and the intelligent, almost curious steel eyes that zeroed in on him and Calvin. Looking at her rank, he realized that he was looking at the prison's warden.
She turned and stared at Leia for a while, then scrutinized Hobbes' imperial carbine, slung over his back, and finally said, "You're rebels. Figures about right."
She looked back at Leia. "What doesn't figure is why one of the leaders of the rebellion is getting their hands dirty in a prison break. Are you stupid or reckless or both?"
"I stick by my friends," Leia said, returning the stare, and Hobbes felt a pang of guilt.
"Must be some friendship," the warden said, letting out a dry chuckle, and looked at Hobbes. "Now, who are you?"
"Who are you?" Hobbes shot back, snarling the words. "Did you torture Calvin?"
The woman scrutinized him, seeming to realize something. "Are you Hobbes?"
"Did you torture Calvin?" Hobbes demanded.
"In my defense, I gave him ample opportunity to tell me what he knew. The decision to go through the pain and the agony was his," the woman pointed out.
"He didn't have a decision," Hobbes growled. "Leia, she looks familiar. Do you know who she is?"
"You probably remember her from briefings, or from images of her father," Leia said. "This is Amela Va'ata," she replied. "Daughter of Fleet Admiral Jermaiah Va'ata." She looked over at Calvin, then back at her. "I can see you've inherited his cruelty."
"I'm not cruel," Amela said, her face even. But Hobbes could see a tic in her eye muscles. "I just have a job to do."
"A messy job," Leia spat. "Fitting that a station like this would go to the bastard offspring of the man whose fleet caused the Purge of Mandalore."
Hobbes had heard stories about the Purge of Mandalore, known by survivors as The Night of a Thousand Tears. Orchestrated by Moff Gideon, carried out by the aforementioned admiral. The home of the Mandalorians was now nothing more than a planet of radioactive glass.
"A planet of bloodthirsty assassins," Amela said, but Hobbes noticed that Leia's comment had quite an effect on her. Her breathing was shallow, her pulse high. Anger swelled behind her eyes. "As for the station, well, someone has to do it," she said, taking a step towards Leia, who was covered by several blasters. "Anyway, who are you to speak to me about 'messy'? You do the exact same thing to your captives. You murder, bomb, and raid to fuel your rebellion!"
"We don't purge an entire civilization because they might fight back," Leia retorted. "You don't help anyone by torturing opponents of the Empire, you propaganda-filled, fascist demon."
Hobbes had never heard Leia use such insulting language, even against imperials, and he was becoming both nervous and confused. It was quite apparent to Hobbes that Amela did not respond kindly to insults and challenges against her beliefs, and he was certain that Leia saw it too. So why antagonize her when she had twenty blasters pointing at them?!
Amela took another step forward, her eyes smoldering with fury. "If you say one more word, I'll have your limbs shot to pieces." Another step forced Leia to move back. "So what are we to do?" Amela asked. "Let you hurt our people? Let your actions in the stars go unpunished?"
She leaned in, inches away from Leia's face. "You terrorize people, and I protect them."
Then, as she leaned back and turned around, her lips beginning to issue a command, Leia moved with such unexpected speed that Hobbes barely saw it. In a blink her left hand speared forward, wrapping around Amela's neck as her right hand grabbed one of Hobbes' pistols and drew it from its holster. One of the two death troopers in the room fired, but Leia had already moved her head, and the bolt screamed past her throat. Another blink, and she had Amela held at gunpoint, ready to kill her at the slightest provocation.
"Don't move!" she shouted, and whispered in Amela's ear, "I can squeeze this trigger hard enough before anyone in this place can shoot me dead… Count on that."
With one foot, she kicked Hobbes' carbine over to him and said, "Pick that up and let's go. We're getting out of here."
"Smart," Amela muttered. "But I don't care if I die as long as we capture you. Guards!-"
Realizing that they were about to be shot anyway, Hobbes did the only thing that he could think of. Shifting Calvin over to one arm, he grabbed one of his remaining grenades from his belt and primed it. The high-pitched, electrical alarm screamed in accordance with the flashing red light on the device, freezing the whole room.
"Listen up!" he shouted. "If any of you make a single move to shoot, we're all dead. D'ya hear? We're all dead, and you get nothing! Not me, Calvin, Leia, or your own lives!"
"You're bluffing," Amela hissed.
"I'm a terrorist, that's what I am," Hobbes said, keeping his thumb firmly on the detonation switch. "My loyalty is to the Rebellion, and the Rebellion always! If I die to save it, then so be it. This explosive contains 150 grams of Baradium, enough to obliterate everything within thirty feet!"
He was holding a smoke grenade.
"Lead the way, Leia," Hobbes said, and the two began moving out of the room, Hobbes clutching Calvin tightly against his chest with one arm. The guards, even the death troopers, reluctantly parted and allowed them to exit the room. But all the time, they kept their weapons raised, ready to exploit a single slip-up. As Leia exited the room, she yelled, "Nobody shoot! We have your warden captive! Shoot, and she dies! Stand. Down!"
All along the stairs and platforms, stood dozens and dozens of guards, all unsure of what to do. Slowly, Hobbes and Leia moved along the prison cells, towards the catwalk. Behind them followed a score of imperials watching them like vultures about to swarm a carcass. Leia forced Amela onto the catwalk, still holding Hobbes' pistol to her ear. In Hobbes' arm, Calvin groaned again.
"Even if you get out of the prison, you'll never escape the planet," Amela said. "There's-"
"Shut it," Leia ordered.
"I wonder if Hobbes really does have the grit to activate that grenade," Amela said, ignoring her. "Maybe we should see."
"Maybe you should," Leia said. "Out. Of. The. Way," she demanded to a trio of guards that were blocking their path. After a second, they moved, their hate-filled eyes slowly following their movements.
They made their way up the first set of stairs, ordering more imperials out of the way. All the while, Hobbes felt shivers going up and down his spine. At any moment, one of the more fanatical guards might just fire despite the consequences, just to see a leader of the Rebellion die. But then again, most of them didn't exactly know that she was-
"Hobbes…" Calvin rasped, and coughed. "...Missed… you…"
"I missed you too, buddy," Hobbes said, his attention split. "Don't worry. You'll be safe soon."
Calvin nodded, and his eyes drooped. Suddenly they opened and he grinned lightly. "It'ss kinda funny… isn' it? How you're saving me now?"
"Uh, huh," Hobbes murmured, still watching the imperials. They began climbing the second set of stairs. "Here, just rest. Everything's okay."
"No…" Calvin whispered. "No. Oh, god… I'm sorry, Hobbes… I…"
Confused, Hobbes focused his attention solely on getting out of their current situation. As they kept moving, he grew increasingly anxious with each passing second, believing that someone would at any second shout, "Now!" and that would be the end of them. The dozens of blaster rifles pointed at his head and chest didn't do much to soothe him. Neither did the incessant screaming of the grenade. Finally, they came to the top of the last staircase, and found themselves at the top of the prison shaft once again. From every platform and from in the tower, Imperials watched them start to move into the hallway.
How would they even get back to the surface? Their engine was done for. TIE interceptors would be in the air. The U-wing might be already gone by the time they got there.
Suddenly, Leia stumbled, and for a second, Hobbes nearly had a heart attack as the Imperials all took a simultaneous step forward. Leia recovered, and the guards halted.
It was like they were carrying a lead wolf, surrounded by its pack. A single misstep, just one mistake, and they were dead.
Rounding the last corner, Hobbes glanced at where the electrical room was. There, a trio of guards were attempting to cut through the locked door with a torch. Looking up, they all froze, then went for their blasters.
"Don't!" Leia warned. "Back off. Now."
As the three guards realized the situation, Leia moved Amela over to the door, and said, "Lando! Open up!"
It took about ten seconds, but the door finally opened, and Lando appeared, his blaster drawn. "What did I miss?"
"Get ready to close the door, Lando," Leia said. "Hobbes, you go in first."
That was the mistake. As Hobbes backed into the electrical room, neither he nor Leia had realized what the death troopers and Amela had. The wall between the room and the hallway was thick. Protective. And Hobbes had just taken it behind cover, which gave the Imperials (and Amela) a chance to live and capture Leia, who was still in the hallway. His eyes and ears detected a few things at once. First of all came the almost unnoticeable sound of Leia's grip slackening just a bit, and the adjustment of a trooper's stance. Amela's posture shifted, and the fur on his back came up. His body acted before his mind, and he dropped Calvin and threw the grenade.
At the same second, Amela struck like a coiled snake, using a freed arm to push the blaster to the side, while at the same time jerking her head out of the way. The shot missed, Amela pushed out of Leia's grip, and one of the Death Troopers fired, his shot taking Leia high in the shoulder. She tried to launch herself back into the electrical room, but stumbled. And at that second, she knew that she was dead.
Until two arms wrapped around her, and with a forceful motion, pulled her through as the imperials fired. She cried out in agony as perhaps half-a-dozen shots destroyed her legs and feet. The grenade detonated as Hobbes dragged her into safety, obscuring everything with smoke, and then Lando closed the door.
"Oh, no," Lando murmured, noticing Leia's wounds, smoking as heat incinerated her blood vessels and skin. He went to something out of his medical pouch, but Leia exclaimed, "No! Just- go! They'll cut through in- in no time. Let's get out of here!" Her voice was torture to listen to, stuttered with hitched breaths and exclamations of pain. The smell of burning flesh made him gag.
"You carry her," Lando said. "I'll take Calvin and cover our rear."
Hobbes nodded, and grabbed Leia by the shoulders. With Lando's help he got Leia through, into the heating pipe, and she grimaced and grit her teeth. Her tenacity was astounding.
The blasters quickly stopped firing, and a second later, the cutting torch appeared again, slicing through the rest of the door as they disappeared in the pipe. The shouting of guards and computerized voices of Death troopers became clear, and a second later, a flashlight entered the pipe. Lando fired his blaster pistol as he crawled backwards, covering them. They turned the first corner of the pipe.
For another few minutes, they made their way through the maze, until, finally, they reached the submersible, 3po urging them on as they came closer. "Almost there! Oh, my! You all need medical attention immediately!"
"Lando, close the submarine door," Hobbes said as he brought Leia through. "Put Calvin on the floor and treat his wounds. I'll do the same for Leia."
For the next few minutes, Hobbes did everything that he could. He poured bacta slave onto the wounds, cleaned them, gave Leia a painkiller, and wrapped her legs up with bandage. Most of Calvin's wounds were nerve-related or internal, so Lando could only administer painkiller and give him water. Still, it seemed to help. He opened his eyes, and, looking around, said, "Guys…"
"It's gonna be alright, Calvin. We'll get you out of here," Hobbes said, looking up.
"Wait…" Calvin murmured, noticing the person treating his wounds. "Lando?"
Lando looked up, and gave him a sad smile. "Couldn't let myself be a coward, kid."
"Huh," Calvin whispered.
"Okay, I think you'll hold up for now," Hobbes told Leia. "Is the pain manageable?"
"No," Leia said, and grimaced. "Just… Lando, did you come up with something to get us out of here?"
"Yes! Happened in a flash of inspiration, I tell you. I thought of it as the guards started cutting through the door. I guess I think better under pressure," Lando said. "See, we still have one working propeller, which gives us enough movement to bump around. And since the cables tethering the mines are tripwires in and of themselves, all we have to do is bump into the cables, detonate the mines, and float out through the hole."
"Lando, I love you," Hobbes said.
"What?"
"Let's try to get to… to the surface as quickly as possible," Leia said. "We're still on schedule to be picked up if we go. Now."
Lando hurried to the pilot's seat, and powered up the submersible. As the vehicle detached from the pipe, Hobbes watched water flood into the prison. There was a safety measure, he knew. The pipe would close up before the water reached the prison, and he was glad at that- he sure didn't want all of those prisoners to drown or asphyxiate in their cells. Still, he knew that the geo plant's shutdown would majorly disrupt the information-gathering and land Calvin's torturer, Amela, into a whole lot of trouble. He found some satisfaction in that.
"I must tell you how glad I am to have you back, Calvin," 3po said.
"Thanks, 3po," Calvin said, grinning, before hissing in pain. "Darn stupid gol-danged daughter of a psychopath!"
"Oh, my," 3po murmured.
"I'm guessing that's your description of Amela Va'ata?" Hobbes asked, sitting down beside him.
"You're… darn right," Calvin said, and grinned. "It's good to- to see you again, ole buddy."
"You too, Calvin," Hobbes smiled, and gave him a loose, cautious hug. Tears pooled in his eyes.
"Contact in three, two-!" Lando warned. Then, a bump, and all of them heard a distorted boom. The explosion rattled the sub slightly. Lando steered the sub around again, and repeated the process. Another bump, another explosion, until there was a sizable hole in the minefield.
"So," Calvin said. "What's going on, exactly?"
"The propulsion on our submersible is busted, and we needed it to get back out of this here minefield, so Lando proposed bumping into the cables with our one working propeller to create a hole above us so that we can-"
"What kind of prison break is this?"
Hobbes laughed, and then, to his surprise, began crying, tears breaking out like a busted dam.
"Hobbes… what's wrong?..."
"Nothing," Hobbes said, wiping his eyes. "It's just… you. The same ol' Calvin."
"Ain't nothing gonna change that, Hobbes," Calvin mumbled.
"Okay… pressurizing ballast tanks now," Lando said. A moment later, there was a whoosh as water was ejected from the ballast tanks, and then the sub began to rise.
"Steady…" Lando murmured, looking up, threading the needle… again. The sub slowly drifted up, through the hole.
Finally, Lando let go of the controls and sighed in relief. "We're clear of the minefield. We made it."
"Lando, if there's one lesson that I've learned, it's never to say-" Calvin began.
A hundred explosions sent tremors through the sub, sending everyone tumbling. Then, something audibly broke, almost like a large industrial pop, and an alarm blared. The creaking and twisting of metal drowned out everything else, and Hobbes hyperventilated as he looked around, scared and sure that he was seconds away from death. Then, things calmed down around him and the lights in the sub switched to red. With a start, Hobbes looked up from the floor at the depth gauge, and his blood flash-froze at seeing the water depth lower. They weren't going up anymore, but were now sinking at a horribly agonizing pace.
The whole sub suddenly began to tilt, and Hobbes slid to the wall, along with 3po, Calvin, and Leia, the latter two crying out as they hit it. Another few seconds, and the entire sub impacted something… the side of the sea mountain, before scraping against rock and sliding off, deeper into the water.
"What happened?" Leia asked, looking at Lando who was still strapped in his seat, now lying upon it at the 'top' of the sub.
For a few seconds, he didn't speak. Then, in a shaky sort of voice, he said, "The minefield just detonated... a-all of them. The shockwave ruptured one of our ballast tanks. It- it wasn't the sub's fault… We can't rise… we're sinking!
"How long until we reach maximum safe depth?" Leia asked.
"Five minutes?" Lando guessed, his voice conveying what they all felt. Horror, and despair. "We're going to slowly sink, until the sub starts to collapse from the water pressure. And then we implode."
Thank you, Mando-vet and Toolazytoologin, for your reviews! I'm always delighted when I see a new one.
SmarmySmirk out.
:D