//------------------------------// // 15: The Rescue (I) // Story: Empire and Rebellion // by Snake Staff //------------------------------// The moment Twilight heard the reverberating clangs of blast doors throughout the Imperial facility slamming themselves shut, she moved. There was no time to waste, and so she sprinted out of the forest and across the cleared land as quickly as her two legs would take her. The Imperials had been considerate enough to virtually level the ground around their base, which helped quite a bit. Before she had even made it halfway there, a man in the green-grey uniform of an Imperial Army trooper ran into a space between one of the two buildings, only to catch sight of her and abruptly stop himself. “You there!” the man called, leveling his blaster rifle at her. “Halt!” Twilight didn’t bother to reply, instead reaching immediately for one of her holstered pistols. She had hoped to get a little closer, but one couldn’t have everything. The man saw what she was doing in an instant and pulled the trigger of his own weapon. Two red blaster shots flew through the air towards the alicorn, who threw herself to the ground and rolled forwards. The two shots sailed overhead, hitting the ground behind her and kicking up clouds of dirt. She managed to get a grip on one of her blaster pistols as she moved. Just as the roll came to an abrupt end, she jerked it upwards and returned fire. Once. Twice. Three times. Twilight was no grand marksman – indeed, in her practice sessions she’d proved an average shot at best – but she had a secret weapon. She wouldn’t use any visible magic save in the direst of circumstances, for fear of in any way implicating her homeworld, but there were other ways to take advantage of her training. Long ago the Royal Guard had developed an enchantment for use on their weapons, considerably increasing their odds of striking the intended target. While it wasn’t perfect and two of her three shots went wide, it did mean that the final shot struck the Imperial in the throat. The man went down, killed immediately. As she ran, Twilight tried hard to repress the sudden feelings of guilt and nausea that threatened to rise up and overwhelm her. She had just killed another thinking being! Sure, he was an enemy, and had tried to shoot her, but did that make it alright? He had parents, surely. Did he have brothers? Sisters? A wife? Sons or daughters? Had she just orphaned someone, somewhere? She remembered the loss of her own parents – not something she wished even on an Imperial. She shook her head and grimaced, trying her best to put those thoughts under wraps for the moment. She had a mission to fulfil, and moping about would not help anyone, least of all the dead man. Twilight pushed herself back to her feet and continued her mad dash for the compound. She had just made it to one of the gaps between buildings when she spotted another pair of Imperial troopers rushing across the courtyard/landing pad in the compound’s center, no doubt running towards the sound of blaster fire. Unfortunately for the alicorn, it seemed that the two humans had spotted her at around the same moment. Both raised blaster rifles and snapped off shots without hesitation. Twilight hurriedly backpedaled and ducked behind a building corner. She winced as the blaster bolts impacted on its durasteel frame in showers of sparks. She stuck her head and hand around the corner to return fire, but her aim was poor and all her shots missed. Twilight ducked back behind the building to avoid the Imperial’s own shots. She had cover and they didn’t, but they were trained soldiers and she was an amateur with enchanted weaponry. They had the advantage. She fired several more shots around the corner without even bothering to look, and from a painful grunt it sounded as though she’d managed to at least wing one. “All units!” she heard a trooper shouting above the blasterfire, presumably into a comlink. “There’s an intruder in the south quadrant! An armored female in-” While he talking, Twilight seized the advantage and shot the man dead in the face. He crumpled, but she had no time to rest. A return shot from his partner blew off a substantial chunk of her armored right shoulder pad. The alicorn crouched back down, wincing at the residual heat she could feel from the glancing hit. She kept a low profile while several more blaster bolts slammed into the building, scorching the durasteel and raining sparks down on her head. The moment the fire let up, Twilight stuck her head and gun out again, only to pause. The remaining trooper of the Imperial Army had turned tail and was retreating in the opposite direction. She hesitated, not wanting to shoot a man in the back. Who knew how much choice he even had about being here? Wasn’t two deaths on her conscience enough for one day? The man raced into another space between buildings, and Twilight let him go. After a few seconds had passed without anything else happening, she got back to her feet. There were still prisoners to be freed, and the princess knew exactly where they were supposed to be. She had, naturally, memorized the floorplan of this place before coming her. Still clutching her pistol in one hand, Twilight resumed her run, racing across the courtyard towards- “Urgh!” There was a flash, and then it felt as though someone had swung a wrecking ball directly into her sternum. Twilight hit the ground hard on her back, the world spinning around her. She lay there sprawled out, dazed, and blinking, trying to clear her head. It took the alicorn a few seconds to realize from the faint smoke trailing up from her armored chest plate that she’d been shot. Thank the gods the armor had done its job. Twilight lay still, eyes darting from here to there underneath her mask, seeking the source. She did not dare try her luck again. It took her a moment, but her eyes settled on the form of an Imperial Army trooper stepping cautiously from his refuge. She grimaced as she identified the same man she had so shortly before allowed to live. So much for mercy. The trooper walked cautiously across the courtyard and towards her prone form, his blaster rifle carefully trained on her. His head frequently darted from side to side, wary of allowing himself to fall victim to the same trap that had just claimed Twilight. For her part, the princess simply played dead, waiting for the man to come within optimal distance. Closer… Closer… Closer… *blam* Twilight jumped involuntarily as another blaster shot rang through the base. She winced, expecting to find a great hole inside herself. But it was the Imperial who toppled over forwards, a smoking wound in his back. “Huh?” Twilight pushed herself into a seating position, her arms trembling with the effort. Blearily, she looked around for the source of the shot. “Twilight!” a very familiar voice called out to her. “…Spike?” she managed, her voice weaker than she had expected. “Are you alright?!” the baby dragon came rushing out from the same gap she herself had so recently been in. A blaster rifle, looking comically outsized next to him, was clutched in his claws. “I thought you were dead!” “What are you… doing here?” Twilight asked, shakily resuming her feet. “I told you to wait back with the ship.” “And I said you could use my help,” Spike said. “And I was right!” “I had it… under control.” Spike just looked meaningfully at the scorched hole in the chest plate over Twilight’s heart. “Sorta…” The baby dragon folded his arms and raised an eyebrow. “…Where did you even get that thing?” she indicated the blaster rifle. “I pried it off the first bad guy you took down,” he explained. “…Nice shooting,” Twilight admitted, before shaking her head. “But you still shouldn’t be here! It’s too dangerous!” “I am here,” Spike argued. “And I’m going to stay here until we do this thing!” “No, you are not!” Twilight put her hands on her hips. “Go and wait in the speeder, at the very least!” “Yes, I am!” “No, you’re not!” “Yes, I am!” “No, you are most certainly not!” There was a pause. “Hey,” Spike said. “You do remember that the longer we spend arguing, the better the chances are of the Imperials breaking out?” “…” Twilight froze. It was a good argument. Spike’s grin told her he realized it as well. “Fine,” she grumbled. “But mark my words, mister, when we’re through I’ll make sure that you regret coming here.” Twilight turned and began to sprint towards the building where the prisoners she was after were being held. Already, she was beginning to give the sliced computer instructions to open its blast doors. “I’d have regretted it a lot more if I hadn’t,” Spike said quietly, before hurrying after her. Considering the action outside, getting inside the small prison had proved surprisingly simple. The five-man squad of troopers assigned to guard the place had been on patrol in some of the building’s outer corridors when Twilight had triggered the emergency lockdown, and had consequently been sealed apart from the actual occupied cell block. The banging of their fists and shouts for help could be heard echoing throughout the building, along with the occasional blaster shot. Twilight paid them no mind. The alicorn went up and down the cramped hallway lined with cells, opening each one and moving onwards to the next without pause. Slowly but surely the prison’s occupants trickled out of their cells when they realized that no Imperial was coming in for them. Fourteen in total, they were humans all, mostly men with a handful of women in the mix. The majority bore the hard, aristocratic features common to Serenno, though at least two appeared at first glance to be off-worlders. One of the men grasped Twilight’s shoulder firmly from behind. “Who are you?” he asked. “Your rescuer,” she said, voice distorted by her mask. “I mean, what’s your name? Who sent you?” he looked at Spike. “And what’s that?” “He’s a friend,” Twilight bristled, shoving his hand from her shoulder. “And none of the rest matters right now. We need to get out, and quickly.” “Fair enough,” the man nodded. “I’m Jason Sylkes, by the way.” Twilight looked around at the other humans, who if they weren’t already making a break for the exit seemed to be looking at them. “You’re the leader of this group?” “You could say that.” “Then get everyone together and follow me. We need to get moving.” “You heard the lady!” Sylkes raised his so it echoed prominently in the confined corridor. “Let’s move! Hustle!” Twilight easily forced her way to the fore of the little group by virtue of being both their rescuer and one of the only two carrying a gun. The return trip back through the building proved as simple as the entrance had been, and by the time they reached the open exit the alicorn was beginning to feel somewhat upbeat about this whole thing. Which, naturally, could only portend disaster. A red-faced man rang back into the prison building, huffing and sweating. “We,” he pointed backwards. “Have a problem.” “What is-” Twilight started to ask, only to have her question preemptively answered by a strafing of laserfire along the courtyard and beyond. The explosions shook the ground under her feet, and she stumbled briefly. She was not alone. “He’s here early,” Twilight said, looking up. “Damn.” Agent Kallus of the Imperial Security Bureau was not a stupid man. He knew, from the moment that Outpost FS-523 failed to promptly respond to his shuttle’s hails, that something was amiss. Though he had arrived for the prisoners early, as was often his habit, the small garrison should still have been able to rouse itself to respond. “Take us in slowly,” he ordered the Lambda-class shuttle’s pilots. “Shift into a circular descent pattern. I want a scan of the outpost before we touch down,” Kallus said. “And increase power to our shields,” he added as an afterthought. The tri-winged shuttle slowed its descent through Serenno’s atmosphere, taking time to focus its keen sensors on the Imperial facility below. Data came streaming in rapidly, neither durasteel nor forest able to offer significant barrier at such short range. “Sir, we’re picking up numerous lifeforms within, but…” one of the uniformed pilots paused. “Power throughout much of the outpost appears to be shut down. Its communications are operational but silenced.” “Hmmm…” the ISB Agent stroked his chin lightly. “Are there any vehicles outside of the outpost’s bay?” The pilot checked the sensor feed again. “Yes sir,” he reported a second later. “There is a speeder not far into the surrounding forest. Further, visual scopes are picking up what appear to be several corpses in the uniforms of the Imperial Army, as well as more than one being outside in prisoner jumpsuits.” “A rebel prison break,” Kallus declared, his brow creasing deeply. “Lieutenant, commence a strafing run at once. Target that speeder and any escapees in the open.” “At once, Agent,” the man answered. The shuttle’s crew went to work immediately to implement their superior’s orders. The Lambda embarked on a steep dive from its spiraling orbit, directly at the facility below. The two forward double laser cannons spat deadly red energy as soon as they came into a safe range. Fiery explosions blossomed beneath them, consuming at least one fleeing prisoner and gouging blackened holes into the permacrete of the landing pad and durasteel of the nearby buildings. Continuing its run, the shuttle fired into the lush forest, reducing centuries-old trees to splinters and setting the area ablaze. The rebels’ speeder, to Kallus’ satisfaction, caught a direct hit from the shuttle’s cannons and exploded at once into a spectacular fireball. “Signal the Stormbreaker for reinforcements,” he said, affixing his ISB-issued helmet on over his light brown hair. He referred to the Venator-class Star Destroyer in orbit. “Inform them of what is happening here. And then set us down on whatever’s left of the landing pad.” With that, Agent Kallus left the shuttle’s cockpit behind, returning to the passenger compartment in the rear. It had been prepared by the ISB to receive criminals and traitors, but at moment it also housed four of the Empire’s elite: the white-armored Stormtroopers. They sat up straight at attention as he entered. “Grab your weapons and follow me,” Kallus commanded, reaching for his back to grab hold of his own weapon. A slight tremor indicated that the Lambda had touched down as he spoke. The hiss of the landing ramp opening behind him confirmed that impression. “We have rebels to crush.”