EPISODE I - TWENTY-NINE: CROSSROADS / CROSSFIRE
Going out in a blaze of glory was never how Irie Anson expected to spend the last moments of her life. She knew this was the end and felt comforted that she and Etler would be together no matter how it happened. Etler never really gave it much thought until right at this moment. He was busy flipping switches and pressing buttons as Irie called out the instructions Adria left for them and cued each system to perform in a way it was not designed. He wanted to feel sad--maybe anxious, even, but there wasn't any time for that. He was fully aware that it was down to him and his wife to complete this mission for the Resistance.
The Resistance! Irie reflected back on her happy, but rather uneventful life. She glanced up and saw her husband, not as the old man that he is, but rather as the young man he was and remembered the first time she met him. She smiled and then she started to cry. She was angry that the First Order had come to their little world and upset everything--that they'd come down, raped the planet of its unique life-giving force and wiped out most of the organic lifeforms that inhabited it. All at the same time, Irie felt hopeful. She hoped that this frantic activity in the little control room would restore life as they knew it for all of the Aporothi still alive today and those who would come after they were gone.
"Are we almost there?"
Elter kept his hands on the control panel but turned around to see Irie's tear-streaked face. "We're almost there!" He paused before watching the one readout crawling to the overload position. "I love you!"
Irie couldn't hear what he'd said over the banging coming from the other side of the blast doors and the din of alarms in the room. "What?"
Etler's head dropped and he began to sob. "I said," his voice cracked. "I said 'I love you'!"
Her mouth hanging agape, Irie stood there, behind the control desk, all actions stopped. "I love you too, but we're running out of time!" She started running her fingers over the keys and paused again. "I'm sorry, my love. I know you love me and I hope you know how much I love you. I couldn't have imagined this life without you. I... I don't think I would've had any life without you. I'm thankful that it's the only life I've ever known and I'm grateful that we are together at the end."
The old man nodded and turned back to the last screen. An indicator flashed ready and Etler Anson punched in the final sequence. Turning back to his wife, he gently smiled and declared, "this is our end, but I'm hopeful that this is just the beginning of something better for our home and for the galaxy."
Irie triggered the system to shut down. In doing so, an odd silence fell over the sector. The audible pressure of the shield generator's humming ceased as did the noise of the First Order soldiers trying to break into the control room.
The silence was quickly replaced by the sound of an ever-increasing whoosh of air that was being sucked out of the corridor and the control room. Etler ran to Irie and wrapped her up in his arms, and lowered them both to the floor. They sat in the corner of the room, holding each other as the oxygen left the room and retreated down the gaping hole that led to the planet's core. Their bodies were pulled across the floor, but they clung to each other, determined to be together until the very last moment. And that moment stretched out forever and life slowly faded into the blackness.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
In a nearby area, Captain Bardet Tanga's turbolift was stopped mid-trip. The ancillary functions of the base began to deactivate, bringing venting systems, temperature regulators and turbolifts to a halt. Fortunately for him, the car stopped on a floor and the door opened. He too felt the air being pulled from his vicinity and he knew that he might not escape with his life unless he headed away from the epicenter of the looming catastrophe.
"Kark!" he exclaimed, looking desperately for a way out. His steps were labored as the air currents pulled him in the direction of the flow. Tanga knew that if he could make it behind one more blast door and shut it, he would be closer to a successful exit.
He spotted a partially closed one just down the hall and to the left. He pressed onward toward it, each footfall more difficult than the last. He felt himself slipping backward ever so slightly as he neared his destination. Tanga grabbed the edge of the door and pulled himself through. Once on the other side, he was able to activate the emergency closure mechanism which closed the blast door and temporarily halted the rush of air. He began to run toward the hangar to see if there was anything left there to fly him back to the Star Destroyer awaiting him in orbit.
Far behind him came the sound of the massive structure that hung on the edge of the gaping maw pulling away from its moorings and beginning its descent into its destruction. The sharp creaks and rumbles grew increasingly louder as less and less held it in position.
Bardet knew he had to move quickly. Running down an adjacent corridor, he saw workers and soldiers scattering to other avenues of escape. At the far end of the hallway, he spotted an intersection of corridors, joining together in an area with high ceilings and crimson banners which sported the First Order emblem. Instead of opting for that route, he proceeded ahead and toward what he though was the location of the shuttle that brought him to this forsaken despot.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Adria and Dex found themselves in the middle of an intersection of corridors with high ceilings and red banners adorning the walls. The banners prominently displayed the insignia of the First Order. It was impressive and it made the two Resistance fighters stop in their tracks. They independently considered the possible reality of seeing flags of a similar style flying over the population centers on every planet of the galaxy if the Resistance wasn't successful in convincing the Republic that the First Order was a real and present threat.
Almeida waved the nozzle of her rifle in the direction of their escape route. The claxons continued to blare and echo through the massive hallways of their current location. Dex was first to notice the change in the atmosphere when he ran and headed to an adjacent passage to his left.
"You feeling that?"
Adria nodded. "We really have to go."
"Yeah, we can't hang around here much longer or we're going to be permanent residents of the substrate of this planet."
A massive exodus of Aporothi workers ran past them, heading in the other direction. This gave the pair a reason to pause and wonder if they should be following them rather than forging their own route to safety. They looked at each other and elected to run the way they were already going. The pair put on some speed, disregarding the possibility that they might run into a contingent of troops along the way. At this point, it didn't matter. If they didn't make it to a safe place, they were going to be dead anyhow, so it was better to take their chances.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Up in the sky, Niono Barg could see signs of collapse around the area of the shielding unit. He wasn't sure of what he was looking at, but it certainly made sense as that was the intended target.
"Guys, I think we've got some results happening below us!"
Dameron, heading in the opposite direction, was unable to spot what Barg had his eyes on. "What, what, what? What's going on?"
Pal swooped in to get a look at the show. "I see it!" she shouted. "Looks like the ground is sinking, Crash."
"Is that what we wanted?" asked Snap. "Is that what was supposed to happen?"
Browhar cut into the conversation, forming up with Barg and Lam. "That's what we hoped to do, so I think we did the thing."
"What about Dex and Adria? Did anyone pick up a signal from them? Did they make it out?" Feege inquired with more than a touch of concern in his voice.
"Nothing yet, but keep scanning all comm channels," instructed Dom.
Poe interrupted the conversation and signaled his squadron to begin their ascent back into space. "Okay, guys--it looks like we've cleaned up the skies for you and I'm not picking up any additional targets taking to the air. We're gonna keep this one off the books if you know what I'm saying."
Jaimos chuckled. "Yep! You were never here."
"Well, you know how the general wants us to limit our aggressive interactions with the First Order, so we definitely need to keep this quiet," Jess Pava acceded.
Snap Wexley pulled up alongside Pava's ship and closed his s-foils to prepare for their journey back to D'Qar. "Obviously you needed the help, so this couldn't be avoided, but like Jai said, we were never here."
"Copy that, Blue Squadron. See you back home!" Dom rocked his ship to bid them a farewell and a thank you. "All Tricks keep your channels open so we can get Silara out here quickly to pick the ground team up as soon as we make contact with them."
Dom and the other pilots stayed low, surveying the ground below them for any sign of Dex and his team.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Things started to look familiar, but then again, everything in this whole blasted compound looked the same. All the walls, the corridors, the lights--everything! Unfortunately for Dex and Adria, all of it was also beginning to fall to pieces around them, and fast. Adria was more than certain that they'd come down this hallway on their way into this nightmare. Dex acquiesced in her belief and agreed to proceed in the direction they were headed. They'd already barely concealed their presence from numerous squads of troops and personnel who were either doing damage control or were trying to evacuate, so Dex figured that taking a wrong turn couldn't really be all that worse. More Aporothi laborers vacated their stations, looking for a quick way out and momentarily confused the two of them.
Within a few minutes, Dex and Adria found themselves on the narrow walkway in the refinement sector. They hadn't actually entered the corridor from that walkway, but they happily accepted that it dropped them somewhere they knew.
Dex pivoted and pointed down to the opening at the far end of the gantry. "Yeah, we went in down there when we were getting shot at."
"Do we want to just stand here talking about this until we get discovered or do we want to get out of here?" Unimpressed, Adria wrinkled her nose.
A piece of equipment shook loose from somewhere above them and barely missed the edge of the gantry on its way down. Dex looked up to see if anything else might be on its way to join it. "Shot... crushed... at least our death options are starting to open up for us. Let's just go."
"You lead and I'll follow!"
Expediting their exit, they ran past the control room with the security camera feeds and down the tight access corridor with the 'fresher where Dex took out the officer whose uniform he was still wearing. The recollection of the altercation made him feel dirty and somehow criminal again. He thought he'd left that feeling behind, but no, he hadn't.
"The bright light up ahead," Balagon shouted. "That's the environmental control unit!" A funny feeling came up inside him. He stopped and turned to see Stormtroopers charging clumsily down the tight hallway, blasters armed and shots being fired.
There was nowhere for them to take cover, so the only option was to run and hope the onslaught on troops had terrible aim, which thankfully, they did. Blaster bolts struck the ceiling and the occasional wall brace. A lucky shot that discharged from the rifle of a Stormtrooper that tripped and fell missed Adria by a hair. That was too close! The light ahead got larger and larger as they neared the massive room.
The two fleeing Resistance soldiers spilled out into the sewage reclamation chamber they briefly called "home" upon entering the base. Dex looked down the access corridor to see the troops still in pursuit. He motioned to Adria that she should continue heading for the door on the far side of the room. He too ran after taking a beat to see how much space they had between themselves and the First Order.
Balagon stopped halfway across the room and focused his aim on the access corridor opening. Adria made a sudden stop to see why Dex wasn't behind her. At that moment, they saw the Stormtroopers emerging en mass. Dex fired off a couple shots, which caused them to retreat back into the safety of the hallway.
"Get the door open!" he directed his compatriot. Dex knew couldn't hold the troopers' advance off forever. He examined the room for a solution. After discarding a couple of less-than-stellar ideas, he suddenly remembered Zip's obsession with the scrubber unit. He took aim at the apparatus and waited for the Stormtroopers to charge out of the hallway. By not firing back, Dex allowed them time to muster up their courage and pour out into the chamber.
The white-clad soldiers didn't spot Balagon tucked behind a piece of equipment along the far railing. Dex again honed in on the machinery, lined up the shot and fired one energy bolt that struck it where it mattered the most. The casing flew off because of the pressure released from the pipe. It struck several of the troops. The rest of the squad stopped in their tracks to see what was happening. A deep rumble filled the air as the strain caused by the imbalance within the unit sent tremors throughout the room. That same imbalance caused the content regulator to rupture, sending raw sewage out to the pool. The force of the foul geyser pushed the remaining Stormtroopers sinking into the murky depths below.
Pleased with the outcome, Balagon hauled himself up and ran outside to meet Adria on the tarmac.
