Dawn of Defiance: The Traitor's Gambit (part 4)
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Jebet launches herself forward and grabs Maya by the coveralls. She half-swings, half-drags Maya toward the bar and neatly steps behind her, so that Jebet is now between Maya and her pursuers. The loud chatter of Path's slug-thrower rifle rings through the cantina, but the navy squad continues their advance, blaster bolts flying.
"This woman is a wanted criminal for offenses against the Empire!" yells the leader. "Anyone cooperating with her will be subject to the same fate!"
"It's not the first time I've shot at your kind," Path mutters.
By this time, Beejax also has his pistol out and has joined the fight. Customers scream and scramble for the exits, dive into the bathrooms, or if all else fails, take refuge under tables.
Path catches Nalon's eye and motions toward two men at the bar who look surprisingly calm in the midst of the chaos. Their black armbands proclaim their membership in the Commission to Protect the New Order. "Nalon! Cops."
The COMPNOR men are focused on Maya. One seems to be speaking into the collar of his jacket, while the other is drawing something small and silvery from his pocket. Nalon hesitates for only the merest fraction of a second before shrugging. "Oh, to the Outer Rim with the Empire," he mutters, and chucks an energy ball at them.
The ball goes wide as one of the COMPNOR men moves to tackle Maya, only to crash limply to the floor as Rima takes him down with a well-aimed bolt. Maya is pinned beneath his body. His companion barely has time to pull out his palm-sized holdout blaster before being shot by Nalon.
Jebet swings her stun baton at the nearest member of the naval squad, and he drops like a stone. Rima levels her pistol at another of the men. "You saw what I did to your buddy at the bar," she says calmly. "Step back now." He freezes momentarily, and in that space, Jebet stuns him with a smooth, twisting flourish--a classic lightsaber technique.
Maya manages to wriggle free of the dead COMPNOR informant and crawl behind the bar . She collapses against the wall next to the bartender, who prudently ducked down there as soon as the shooting started.
Slugs and blaster bolts continue to fly. Nalon and Beejax are both bleeding from minor wounds. Finally, only one man remains standing, with Rima pointing her blaster at him.
"Throw down your weapons and surrender, unless you want to go the way your friends did."
Instead, the man turns and sprints through the cantina doors. Realizing that he cannot be allowed to get away and raise an alarm, Path shoots him in the back as he runs onto the Promenade deck.
Although this buys them a little time, the group knows they had better not linger. They pause only long enough to grab fresh weapons from their fallen foes--holdout pistols for Rima and Nalon, blaster carbines for Path and Beejax. Meanwhile, Jebet runs behind the bar to find Maya. "Is there a back way out of here that you know about?" she asks anxiously.
"Behind the bar, through the kitchen," Maya gasps out. She is very pale, and she clutches her side as if in pain. Jebet helps her to her feet as Path looks over the bar.
"We need to get your friend out of here and get off this place," he says.
Jebet nods. "Does anyone have any medical supplies?" she asks in a low voice.
"I'll look at her when we're outside," Rima promises. The party makes their way as quickly as possible through the kitchen and into a back hallway. As Rima kneels to check Maya's injuries, they hear the sound of more booted Imperial feet entering the cantina.
"Do you know anyplace we can go where they won't find us?" Jebet asks quickly.
"Let's get back to the apartment," says Maya, wincing as Rima carefully probes her ribs.
Beejax slings his new blaster carbine over his shoulder and begins disassembling his old pistol. In response to questioning looks, he explains, "If I can jam the internal mechanism, it will create a cloud of smoke. It should confuse anyone who tries to come after us."
Nalon sticks his head around a corner and beckons Path to join him. Pointing to a service passage leading onto the crowded Promenade, Nalon asks, "You think we can get over there in good time?"
"Let's do it."
Path and Nalon head toward the Promenade, motioning the group to follow them. Rima desperately slaps an emergency medpatch onto Maya's injured side, but it comes off almost immediately. Deciding to wait until they are safe before trying again, she pulls Maya's arm over her shoulder to help the injured woman along. Beejax gives up on the blaster pistol with a sigh and takes Maya's other arm.
Jebet hangs back as the others turn the corner. She makes a small motion with her hand, and the cantina's garbage cans move in front of the back door. A moment later, the cans are noisily pushed aside as a new squad of Imperial navy burst out of the kitchen. Jebet makes another small hand gesture as the first man emerges. He points in the opposite direction from the way the party has gone. "After them!" he shouts.
Not surprisingly, there is chaos on the Promenade in the wake of the cantina shootout. Path, at the head of the group, looks around cautiously before leaving the service passage. Shadows on a wall tell him more Imperial troops are about to round a corner to his right, so he leads the group left. Nalon quickly pulls himself up to an overhead ledge so that he can watch for pursuit from above and warn the group if necessary.
In response to questioning looks as they half-drag Maya out of concealment, Rima puts on her most confident manner. "Step aside! This woman needs immediate medical attention!" she barks, hurrying Maya forward as fast as possible. The crowd parts reflexively to let them through, perhaps assuming Maya is a casualty of the cantina fight--which is not far from the truth. Meanwhile, Nalon runs around the perimeter of the room via the ledge, while Jebet catches up belatedly from the hall.
The Promenade exit is in sight when a hiss from Maya draws their attention to a new obstacle. Standing by the hallway opening and watching them with interest are two more men in black COMPNOR armbands.
Path catches sight of an unattended computer terminal on a nearby wall and slips over to it while Rima nods to the COMPNOR men in a way that manages to imply she would shake their hands if only she had a hand free. "It's all right," she tells them briskly. "We've filed an 87-P, and now we need to move the asset within the allotted two-hour period..."
Rima continues rattling off procedure codes with the fluency of someone who has spent years in government service. With a few quick keystrokes, Path creates a communications alert supposedly triggered by a sighting of suspicious individuals in the main dock. One of the COMPNOR informants touches his ear as the message comes through. With a few polite words to Rima, they hurry off in the direction of the main dock, passing directly under Nalon without glancing up.
Only a few curious bystanders remain now, the rest having formed a crowd near the cantina. Jebet and Beejax find themselves under the disapproving stare of a particularly formidable-looking elderly human woman in a peacock-blue wrap. "Um...it looks like trouble back there," Jebet offers, gesturing weakly in the general direction they came from. "You'd better go help them!"
"Yeah, it's really bad!" Beejax adds helpfully.
The woman merely sniffs and turns her back on them. Gratefully, they take the opportunity to run after the others, who have already moved some distance ahead.
"You sure they not be waitin' for us at the apartment?" Nalon asks Maya in an undertone.
"Can't promise," she gasps, clenching her teeth as she stumbles, "but I can't think of anywhere else to go."
"It's not her apartment, it's her friend's. They might not have tracked it back an extra step," Jebet suggests.
Nalon's eyes narrow thoughtfully. "Still, this not be a bad time to sneak in the hangar and hijack a ship."
"We could get shot down if we do that," says Jebet.
"There's something very important I have to tell you first," adds Maya. Her face has a definite greenish tinge, and she looks as if she can't stay on her feet much longer.
"The apartment, then," Jebet says with a nod. "But we should scout ahead and not just barge in blind."
"All right, I go on ahead." Nalon bounds soundlessly down the hall ahead of them.
Fortunately, the hallways are empty for the rest of the distance back to the apartment. Once inside, Maya collapses onto a couch, wincing in pain. She lies with her eyes closed, biting her lip, while Rima finds a medpac in her gear and applies it. Meanwhile, Nalon runs down the hall outside, leaving tracks in the dust and scraping a bit of paint from a pipe to plant signs that someone has gone past recently in a careless hurry.
By the time he returns, the stims and painkillers in the medpac have taken effect; Maya is able to sit up, and some color has returned to her face. The others are gathered around, clearly waiting for Nalon's return before hearing what Maya has to say. Once he takes his place, they all turn to her expectantly.
"Thank you guys for patching me up," she begins. "I think I'll be okay now until I can get to a bacta tank."
Rima waves away her thanks modestly. "Well, I'm a bureaucrat, not a doctor, so it's just a patch."
"There's something very important that I need help with." Maya glances at Jebet. "What do you think? Can I trust them?"
"Now? Yeah," Jebet says with conviction.
"We've kind of all burned our bridges, I think," adds Rima.
"Do you want to tell them where you know me from?" Maya asks Jebet.
"Well, I know you were a Republic officer," Jebet answers, choosing her words carefully. "You briefed me and ... some other people for a mission."
"What branch?" Rima asks.
"Intelligence," says Maya. "What I haven't told you is that I'm still in intelligence. Officially, I left the army before the Empire started; unofficially, I've been attached to Alderaan intelligence ever since then. I'm here to make an important pickup. I got here a few weeks ago. I've been blending in, establishing cover so no one would connect me with it, but I'm not in any shape to go and make that pickup now. I'm going to need you guys to help me with this."
"What's the pickup?" asks Jebet.
Maya pauses for a second, looking around at them with eyes brightened unnaturally by the stimulants. "All right, if any of you have any doubts about this, I want you to back out out right now, because once I tell you this, there's no going back."
Part 5
Jebet launches herself forward and grabs Maya by the coveralls. She half-swings, half-drags Maya toward the bar and neatly steps behind her, so that Jebet is now between Maya and her pursuers. The loud chatter of Path's slug-thrower rifle rings through the cantina, but the navy squad continues their advance, blaster bolts flying.
"This woman is a wanted criminal for offenses against the Empire!" yells the leader. "Anyone cooperating with her will be subject to the same fate!"
"It's not the first time I've shot at your kind," Path mutters.
By this time, Beejax also has his pistol out and has joined the fight. Customers scream and scramble for the exits, dive into the bathrooms, or if all else fails, take refuge under tables.
Path catches Nalon's eye and motions toward two men at the bar who look surprisingly calm in the midst of the chaos. Their black armbands proclaim their membership in the Commission to Protect the New Order. "Nalon! Cops."
The COMPNOR men are focused on Maya. One seems to be speaking into the collar of his jacket, while the other is drawing something small and silvery from his pocket. Nalon hesitates for only the merest fraction of a second before shrugging. "Oh, to the Outer Rim with the Empire," he mutters, and chucks an energy ball at them.
The ball goes wide as one of the COMPNOR men moves to tackle Maya, only to crash limply to the floor as Rima takes him down with a well-aimed bolt. Maya is pinned beneath his body. His companion barely has time to pull out his palm-sized holdout blaster before being shot by Nalon.
Jebet swings her stun baton at the nearest member of the naval squad, and he drops like a stone. Rima levels her pistol at another of the men. "You saw what I did to your buddy at the bar," she says calmly. "Step back now." He freezes momentarily, and in that space, Jebet stuns him with a smooth, twisting flourish--a classic lightsaber technique.
Maya manages to wriggle free of the dead COMPNOR informant and crawl behind the bar . She collapses against the wall next to the bartender, who prudently ducked down there as soon as the shooting started.
Slugs and blaster bolts continue to fly. Nalon and Beejax are both bleeding from minor wounds. Finally, only one man remains standing, with Rima pointing her blaster at him.
"Throw down your weapons and surrender, unless you want to go the way your friends did."
Instead, the man turns and sprints through the cantina doors. Realizing that he cannot be allowed to get away and raise an alarm, Path shoots him in the back as he runs onto the Promenade deck.
Although this buys them a little time, the group knows they had better not linger. They pause only long enough to grab fresh weapons from their fallen foes--holdout pistols for Rima and Nalon, blaster carbines for Path and Beejax. Meanwhile, Jebet runs behind the bar to find Maya. "Is there a back way out of here that you know about?" she asks anxiously.
"Behind the bar, through the kitchen," Maya gasps out. She is very pale, and she clutches her side as if in pain. Jebet helps her to her feet as Path looks over the bar.
"We need to get your friend out of here and get off this place," he says.
Jebet nods. "Does anyone have any medical supplies?" she asks in a low voice.
"I'll look at her when we're outside," Rima promises. The party makes their way as quickly as possible through the kitchen and into a back hallway. As Rima kneels to check Maya's injuries, they hear the sound of more booted Imperial feet entering the cantina.
"Do you know anyplace we can go where they won't find us?" Jebet asks quickly.
"Let's get back to the apartment," says Maya, wincing as Rima carefully probes her ribs.
Beejax slings his new blaster carbine over his shoulder and begins disassembling his old pistol. In response to questioning looks, he explains, "If I can jam the internal mechanism, it will create a cloud of smoke. It should confuse anyone who tries to come after us."
Nalon sticks his head around a corner and beckons Path to join him. Pointing to a service passage leading onto the crowded Promenade, Nalon asks, "You think we can get over there in good time?"
"Let's do it."
Path and Nalon head toward the Promenade, motioning the group to follow them. Rima desperately slaps an emergency medpatch onto Maya's injured side, but it comes off almost immediately. Deciding to wait until they are safe before trying again, she pulls Maya's arm over her shoulder to help the injured woman along. Beejax gives up on the blaster pistol with a sigh and takes Maya's other arm.
Jebet hangs back as the others turn the corner. She makes a small motion with her hand, and the cantina's garbage cans move in front of the back door. A moment later, the cans are noisily pushed aside as a new squad of Imperial navy burst out of the kitchen. Jebet makes another small hand gesture as the first man emerges. He points in the opposite direction from the way the party has gone. "After them!" he shouts.
Not surprisingly, there is chaos on the Promenade in the wake of the cantina shootout. Path, at the head of the group, looks around cautiously before leaving the service passage. Shadows on a wall tell him more Imperial troops are about to round a corner to his right, so he leads the group left. Nalon quickly pulls himself up to an overhead ledge so that he can watch for pursuit from above and warn the group if necessary.
In response to questioning looks as they half-drag Maya out of concealment, Rima puts on her most confident manner. "Step aside! This woman needs immediate medical attention!" she barks, hurrying Maya forward as fast as possible. The crowd parts reflexively to let them through, perhaps assuming Maya is a casualty of the cantina fight--which is not far from the truth. Meanwhile, Nalon runs around the perimeter of the room via the ledge, while Jebet catches up belatedly from the hall.
The Promenade exit is in sight when a hiss from Maya draws their attention to a new obstacle. Standing by the hallway opening and watching them with interest are two more men in black COMPNOR armbands.
Path catches sight of an unattended computer terminal on a nearby wall and slips over to it while Rima nods to the COMPNOR men in a way that manages to imply she would shake their hands if only she had a hand free. "It's all right," she tells them briskly. "We've filed an 87-P, and now we need to move the asset within the allotted two-hour period..."
Rima continues rattling off procedure codes with the fluency of someone who has spent years in government service. With a few quick keystrokes, Path creates a communications alert supposedly triggered by a sighting of suspicious individuals in the main dock. One of the COMPNOR informants touches his ear as the message comes through. With a few polite words to Rima, they hurry off in the direction of the main dock, passing directly under Nalon without glancing up.
Only a few curious bystanders remain now, the rest having formed a crowd near the cantina. Jebet and Beejax find themselves under the disapproving stare of a particularly formidable-looking elderly human woman in a peacock-blue wrap. "Um...it looks like trouble back there," Jebet offers, gesturing weakly in the general direction they came from. "You'd better go help them!"
"Yeah, it's really bad!" Beejax adds helpfully.
The woman merely sniffs and turns her back on them. Gratefully, they take the opportunity to run after the others, who have already moved some distance ahead.
"You sure they not be waitin' for us at the apartment?" Nalon asks Maya in an undertone.
"Can't promise," she gasps, clenching her teeth as she stumbles, "but I can't think of anywhere else to go."
"It's not her apartment, it's her friend's. They might not have tracked it back an extra step," Jebet suggests.
Nalon's eyes narrow thoughtfully. "Still, this not be a bad time to sneak in the hangar and hijack a ship."
"We could get shot down if we do that," says Jebet.
"There's something very important I have to tell you first," adds Maya. Her face has a definite greenish tinge, and she looks as if she can't stay on her feet much longer.
"The apartment, then," Jebet says with a nod. "But we should scout ahead and not just barge in blind."
"All right, I go on ahead." Nalon bounds soundlessly down the hall ahead of them.
Fortunately, the hallways are empty for the rest of the distance back to the apartment. Once inside, Maya collapses onto a couch, wincing in pain. She lies with her eyes closed, biting her lip, while Rima finds a medpac in her gear and applies it. Meanwhile, Nalon runs down the hall outside, leaving tracks in the dust and scraping a bit of paint from a pipe to plant signs that someone has gone past recently in a careless hurry.
By the time he returns, the stims and painkillers in the medpac have taken effect; Maya is able to sit up, and some color has returned to her face. The others are gathered around, clearly waiting for Nalon's return before hearing what Maya has to say. Once he takes his place, they all turn to her expectantly.
"Thank you guys for patching me up," she begins. "I think I'll be okay now until I can get to a bacta tank."
Rima waves away her thanks modestly. "Well, I'm a bureaucrat, not a doctor, so it's just a patch."
"There's something very important that I need help with." Maya glances at Jebet. "What do you think? Can I trust them?"
"Now? Yeah," Jebet says with conviction.
"We've kind of all burned our bridges, I think," adds Rima.
"Do you want to tell them where you know me from?" Maya asks Jebet.
"Well, I know you were a Republic officer," Jebet answers, choosing her words carefully. "You briefed me and ... some other people for a mission."
"What branch?" Rima asks.
"Intelligence," says Maya. "What I haven't told you is that I'm still in intelligence. Officially, I left the army before the Empire started; unofficially, I've been attached to Alderaan intelligence ever since then. I'm here to make an important pickup. I got here a few weeks ago. I've been blending in, establishing cover so no one would connect me with it, but I'm not in any shape to go and make that pickup now. I'm going to need you guys to help me with this."
"What's the pickup?" asks Jebet.
Maya pauses for a second, looking around at them with eyes brightened unnaturally by the stimulants. "All right, if any of you have any doubts about this, I want you to back out out right now, because once I tell you this, there's no going back."
Part 5