Sparks

Chapter Twenty-Two - The Rescue

The four of us crunch through the dirty snow in the ship junkyard as the alarms continue to screech in the distance.

"Wait." Sabine, leading the group, points out two Stormtroopers guarding the back entrance to the spaceport. She stops us behind an abandoned ship. "Willow, I thought you said that this entrance was safe," she hissed.

"Normally..." I whisper back.

"Again, that's exactly why we should've gone over the plan," Erica pointed to the flames lighting up the starry sky. "If we had planned everything out, we could've avoided a scene like this, and in Raydonia of all places!"

"I don't think bombing the lumber storages helped," Ezra glared at Sabine. "Before we left Jack's, I thought you told Zeb that we needed a small distraction to get us in the spaceport!"

"That fuel supply stores all of the Empire's electricity for their ships and weapons. Now it'll be a breeze getting into the Complex."

"Also half of the civilian's heat," I mutter under my breath.

"Okay. We can argue about this later." Erica pointed to the wall along the entrance. "We're going to go around and find a weak point in the wall to climb. Hopefully around Bay Eight."

When the Stormtroopers are fixing on a sparking panel (Ezra waved his hand at exactly the same time when the fuse blew, odd but a coincidence) we run and press ourselves to the steel wall that fortunately blocks the biting wind.

"There's a couple of weak spots in the wall over here. Best one is between Bays Six and Seven." White clouds come out of my mouth alongside my words.

Slinking along the wall Ezra talks to a "Chopper" through his comm about getting the Ghost ready to leave. Chopper is a droid apparently as only binary responds, which translates to something about a Phantom that returned.

"Hate to eavesdrop, but a Phantom?" I step over a frozen puddle, that Sabine skids on behind me, catching herself on the wall.

"Our other ship. You know binary?"

"Grew up around it. My parents were droid mechanics." I add, "He um, added a few interesting words to that..."

"Chopper likes to paint, um, colorful pictures with his words." she snickers as I stop us at a piece of wood covering a withered hole. I move it aside.

"You'd think they'd check for these kinds of things if the Empire is so tight on everything else around here," Ezra notes.

"Yeah, you think. But half the people here can't even fly a ship so it balances out." I go through the hole, and a sleek blue ship stands in front of me. Bay Seven, according to a mark on the exit. I wave for everyone behind me to keep moving.

~<-*->~

Agent Novar entered her office as her guard, DX-610, informed her that she had an incoming transmission. Novar thanked her and sat down at her desk. DX-610 was always punctual, a perfect replacement to her previous, flustering guard who was unceremonially dismissed to Sanitation.

Novar often thought about promoting her, but then DX-610 could no longer be a guard. Perhaps in a few weeks, then she would scout out another.

She accepted the transmission and the Third Sister's silhouette appeared, in the snow. "I tracked down the girl three days ago, but I was unable to engage. She sensed my presence and kept moving until today when I found her again."

"Her last known location?"

"Outside Apartment Complex 653 with two adolescents, one male and one female wearing Mandalorian armor, and one adult female. They ran towards the center of the city. I was unable to pursue them because the girl, the boy, and the woman sensed my presence."