EPISODE I - EIGHTEEN: Within and Without

Commander Dex Balagon hated everything today. He hated the way he felt when he woke up; he hated the rain; he hated that he was feeling as though Silara Narvo might be doublecrossing them; he hated that moment he beat that officer into a bloody pulp; and most of all, he hated the feeling he was losing control of the mission. Everything had gone smoothly so far, but he had that nagging feeling that all of it would go to hell at any moment.

Adria caught a flash of that expression on Dex's face. "Something the matter?" She scanned his visage to see through any denial he might try to foist on her. They'd worked together too long for her to not be able to read him.

"I have an extremely bad feeling about this." Dex didn't have the energy to mask his feelings right now. Between the issues that come from his illness and his fatigue, he didn't bother. "Keep your guard up, team." He nestled into the wall and drew his blaster close. The rest of Trickster squadron followed suit and steeled themselves to whatever lay around the corner.

Irie and Etler made themselves small, tucking themselves closer to the cold wall and retreating their heads into their shoulders. The old woman reached past Paloame and tapped her husband on the arm. She motioned to his blaster, but he just shook his head. Etler didn't feel confident in his ability to not shoot at Dex or the other pilots should the situation arise.

Balagon took a breath and closed his eyes, opening them and pointing his pistol ahead of him as he rounded the corner into the next passageway. The nozzle of his Glie-43 landed squarely in the chest of a senior First Order officer. The officer's eyes grew wide and Dex responded by discharging a shot into him.

The Aporothi couple slid down the wall into crouched positions, which caused Pal to lose her footing when she repositioned herself to fire. She fell to the shiny black floor with a thud and a crack. She'd injured her elbow! Irie panicked and reached for the fallen girl. In doing so, she almost gotten shot by an energy beam that came from a platform across the way.

The flashes of light coming from below caught the eyes of a squad of stormtroopers who were too far away to land any shots with precision, but still close enough to possibly hit one of the intruders.

"Fall back!" Dex kept firing into the hallway ahead, felling stormtroopers and officers who were responding to the commotion. Adria knelt beside Dex, firing her EL-16HFE rifle and adding to the sudden body count.

Dom and Jaimos grabbed Paloame and helped her off the floor. The Ansons remained unmoving, tucked against the wall and covering their ears. The trio bringing up the rear responded to Balagon's order to fall back, taking Paloame to safety while dodging blaster fire. Adria fired a few shots up to the platform with the armor-clad troopers and managed to hit one. During the momentary break in the fray, she noticed more soldiers gathering on platforms closer to their position. She resumed firing ahead as Dex looked behind them. He motioned to the trio, who was safely out of the direct line of fire.

"Get out of here!" Energy bolts and explosions sounded around them, obscuring Balagon's words. 

Dom Browhar mimed a what? in response. Dex aggressively waved them back.

"Get Zip and get out of here!" He knew the only way he and Adria could proceed was forward. Perhaps the other three could make it out of the installation and to safety.

Adria nodded to Irie, who grabbed Etler and began to push ahead behind Dex. They carefully stepped over the litter of dead bodies in the corridor. Irie grabbed an orphaned stormtrooper blaster rifle off the floor. She'd seen a trooper or two ready one for a shot while making threats against the workers. She was confident that she would be able to get it charged and armed. In doing so, Etler found himself more confident of the pistol he was brandishing as well.

"I hope they manage to find their way out of here," Adria blurted out loud.

Dex peered around the corner into next junction. "I have no doubt that they'll be fine. We need to continue forward and get to that switch." He started to get that feeling again. "Let's step it up a bit-- I'm not enjoying this hallway."

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Browhar led the charge down the corridors from where they'd come. Jai kept Paloame between them but kept turning his attention behind them to make sure they weren't being pursued. The trio hit the control junction where Dom had reprogrammed the security camera feeds. It hadn't taken them long to return to that room, given how long it took them to reach the location where they were discovered.

Dom's pack kept colliding with the walls of the narrow access hallway, causing him to nearly lose his footing several times along the way. That wouldn't be good if he tripped and Pal was to fall on her elbow again. Dex's 'fresher, he thought to himself as they passed a door. This meant that they were nearing the sewage processing station.

The point of light ahead of them started to grow larger and the sound of the ventilation turbines grew louder. Soon they emerged into the familiar space.

"Zip!" shouted Jai.

The little droid shot out of his hiding space and howled in surprise. His dome spun wildly as he attempted to take in the visual information of who was present and who was not. He rolled forward, beeping and hooting at Dom. He saw Pal looking pained, arm draped around Jai's neck for support.

"Come on, Zip! We're getting out of here."

Zip wasn't satisfied with the lack of information he was getting, which caused him to unleash an angry stream of sounds on the trio.

Dom summarized. "We got separated. Dex and the other three are continuing ahead. They're alright--as far as we know. We were ordered to get out of here."

Realizing this wasn't much of a plan, ZP-QA protested.

"I dunno--we'll... improvise?" 

The pain in Paloame's elbow grew more intense, which caused her to become irritated by the conversation. The words made it feel like time was slowing down. An anxious feeling tightened her chest, causing her to gasp for breath. "Shut up! Let's just get out of here and figure out what our options are once we're outside!!"

This sounded reasonable to her compatriots. Zip put on some speed and hit the exit ahead of them. He'd unlocked the door by the time they caught up to him. Unfortunately, the rain hadn't stopped, but in addition to that, it was dark outside. The lights on the tarmac struggled to keep anything illuminated in the darkness that seemed to swallow everything. Still, up ahead, Dom could make out the silhouettes of a couple TIE fighters.

"Zip!" he called out. "It looks like there are a couple of ships up there." He motioned in the general direction of the fighters. ZP-QA, having enhanced optical sensors could make out the TIEs more easily than Browhar or any other unenhanced human life form was capable of seeing.

Splashing through the puddles, Zip stood beneath one of the fighters for a moment. The rest of the team caught up with him within moments, only to discover the TIEs were locked to the tarmac by landing clamps. The little droid scooted around them, frantically looking to find a control panel to release them.

"Well, that's just great," Jai lamented. "Landing clamps! Who uses landing clamps on stationary surfaces?"

Paloame didn't look up. The rain made her feel weighed down by her wet clothing and it magnified her fatigue and the ache in her broken arm. She was losing confidence in the mission and a part of her had this nagging feeling that this was all a setup. Did Silara Narvo lead them into this place just to have them fail? To be killed? It didn't matter now. The team was split up. Dex and Adria were headed deeper into the complex and they were out in the middle of the landing field in the rain, trying to boost a couple of locked down TIE fighters.

Dom scanned his surroundings for a solution. "Obviously they do! Well... does anyone have a suggestion?"

"Maybe we should go ask someone to kindly release these clamps and let us take these ships?"

"That's great, Jai."

Paloame couldn't take anymore. "Would the two of you shut up? We're wasting time and we're going to be caught!"

During the moments of search and indecision, ZP-QA wheeled around the nearby structures, looking for any potential solutions to the issue at hand. Rounding a corner, be discovered a scomp interface. A few calculated turns of his link arm raised the boarding platforms adjacent to the craft. Disabling the landing clamps proved to be a bit more challenging.

Dom and Jai exchanged bewildered looks as the platforms rose from the tarmac to meet the entrance hatches of the awaiting TIEs. With a hiss and a loud metallic snap, the landing clamps released themselves from the bottoms of the solar arrays. The pilots whooped and cheered in light of their sudden turn of fortunes.

The little grey astromech slid across the wet permacrete and beeped a cheerful stream of sounds, heralding his success.

"Zip!" Dom shouted with gratitude and relief. The droid spun his dome in acknowledgment and shined his holo-emitter light up the platform, directing them to get inside the ships. "I think it's going to be cramped in there, but we don't have much of a choice. You need a boost?"

ZP-QA made a noise that could be perceived as a "no" and engaged his attitude jets. The cylindrical droid flew up and landed at the top of the platform, awaiting one of the pilots to join him. Dom climbed up the ladder and joined him. Jai assisted Paloame up the ladder to the second platform. ZP-QA transmitted a signal which opened the cockpit access hatches on both fighters.

Upon entering the vehicle, Dom discovered that these fighters were two-seaters. He popped back up and shouted over to Jai and Pal. "Hey! I have good news... these fighters are equipped with a rear-facing gunner station."

Jai smiled. "I guess this won't be so bad at all. I'm gonna get Pal inside and get her strapped in and we'll get out of here."

Just then, Pal could see some sort of movement coming across the field. She couldn't make out what was heading their way, but she knew it couldn't be good. It had to be troopers and they must've been tipped off by the release of the landing clamps. "We need to go. They're coming!"

Dom dropped back into his seat and strapped himself in. ZP-QA locked himself into the gunner position and frantically beeped. The pilot flipped a couple ignition switches and attempted to familiarize himself with the controls. The layout of the controls was largely intuitive. It only took moments for the repulsorlifts to kick in and lift the ship off the ground. The second fighter followed suit. Over the onboard comm system, they could hear the chatter coming from the squad of stormtroopers heading to the wayward TIE fighters. 

"Stop those ships!" ordered the commander.

The white armored troops raised their rifles and began firing at the fighters as the pilots struggled to get them situated and heading skyward. A blaster bolt hit the command pod of Jai's fighter and threw it off balance. Jai readied himself and told Paloame to hang on. He engaged the thrusters, which pushed the craft forward at an impressive rate of speed.

Dom spun his TIE fighter around to face the squad below him. He began to fire bright green energy bolts at them, sending soldiers flying in every direction and leaving the ground under them pockmarked and burned. When Dom engaged the engines, the fighter shuddered momentarily before blasting into the dark sky.

"Jai, are you receiving me?"

"Yeah, you're coming through loud and clear."

"I'm hoping these fighters will get us past those old hulks up in orbit. If we can get past them, we should be able to jump to hyperspace and rendezvous with Feege and Niono at Brudall."

"We're entering space."

"Yeah... here comes one of the checkpoint cruisers."

"....and they're firing on us."

"You think they were tipped off?"

Jai chortled. "I want to know how they manage to get any transmissions from the ground to those ships when everyone else has trouble getting a squeak off that planet!"

"Relays, probably. Okay, get ready to make the jump to lightspeed."

Paloame's voice crackled faintly through Jai's headset microphone. "Are we there yet?" It made Dom smile.

"We'll be there in a little bit," Jai reassured her. "Just get some rest back there."

The Star Destroyer failed to land a shot on either fighter due to the sheer speed at which they were traveling. These were something new--something unfamiliar to the Resistance pilots. It was a shame they would have to ditch these rides before heading back to D'Qar. There's no telling if the First Order would be able to track them and uncover the location of the Resistance base.

Dom issued the command. "Make the jump in five... four... three... two... one."