The Adventures of Nomi Darklighter

Chapter 80 - The Rescue Attempt

She ran down the hallway in search of the cell Dash was in while her friends engaged in a firefight with the surviving stormtroopers.
Finding a terminal, Nomi danced her fingers across the display until she found Dash's name and cell number. She rushed to the cell, pressed the switch, and the door hissed open.
The prisoner inside tilted his head towards the door. Nomi stifled a cry as her dead-eyed husband looked in her direction.
The Imps had tortured and blinded him.
"Are you finally taking me to the execution?" He asked hoarsely. "You're just doing me a favor. I'll welcome death as a friend."
Nomi slowly approached her husband.
"Why don't you say anything? Are you afraid of a blind man?"
As she stood in front of him, tears came to her eyes. Bleeding from numerous wounds, Dash was generally in poor shape.
"Oh, Dash, what did they do to you?"
The blind man on the cot raised his head to listen.
"Nomi?" The voice had sounded like hers, but there was no way she was here, he thought. "What cruel game are you playing with me, Iceheart?"
By now the noise of battle had stopped.
The young woman knelt in front of her husband and put his hands on her face. Rendar felt her face with trembling hands, but as he stroked her hair he pushed her away.
"You're not my wife," he said angrily. "My wife has wonderful long hair. Who are you? Did Iceheart send you to torment me in my final hours?"
"I'm really Nomi, your wife. Please believe me, Dash," she said in a pleading voice.
His answer was sharp.
"I don't believe you! You lie!"
Nomi became desperate. How could she prove to him that she wasn't a fraud?
"Don't make it so difficult for me, Dash. We have to get out of here."
He turned his head in the direction of her voice.
"Prove to me that you are my wife," he finally said. "There's something only the two of us know. If you really are Nomi, you can tell me."
Nomi knew that time was short and thought feverishly what her husband might mean. She breathed a sigh of relief when she thought she knew what it was.
"You mean the forest lake on Anoat where you taught me to swim. No one knows about it but us, Dash."
Hearing her reply, a faint smile lit up Dash's bruised face.
"It really is you, Nomi. What a grace to hear your voice and feel your touch one more time before I die."
She wondered what he was talking about.
"I came to save you, Dash. We're in a hurry," she urged, standing up.
Her husband shook his head and didn't make any move to follow her.
"No, Nomi, it's useless. What do you want with a blind man? I would only be a burden to you. Let me die here."
Nomi stared at him in disbelief. Dash had given himself up completely.
In desperation, she yelled at the man she loved with all her heart.
"I'll never give up on you, Dash! Do you think I made my way through to leave you now? I'll not stand by and watch them kill you! You're no burden to me, Dash! Please don't give up! When we were married on Endor, I swore I would always be with you. I will not break this oath no matter what."
Finally, Rendar rose.
"You'll have to guide me, Nomi."
His wife took his hand and slowly led him out of the cell.

Despite Dash's blindness and weakness, they reached the waiting friends after a relatively short time.
Thankfully, Dash couldn't see his friends' dismay at his condition. Talon Karrde was the first to recover from the shock.
"We have to hurry, Nomi. Surely reinforcements are coming soon," said the smuggler and looked for an escape route.
Nomi nodded and pointed down the hallway.
"This way! We should be coming to another turbolift soon."
Because of Dash's blindness, their progress was slow. He was very weak from the torture and leaned heavily on his wife. She took her comlink and contacted Leebo.
"Leebo...do you read me?"
"Loud and clear," came the faithful droid's immediate reply.
"Get the Outrider ready and take her to the landing platform of the Imperial Palace. We're on our way."
"Copy that, Nomi. So you got Dash?"
"Yes," came her curt reply, before disconnecting and pocketing her comlink.

When they got to the turbolift, a squad of stormtroopers was waiting for them and immediately opened fire. The reinforcements had arrived earlier than expected.
Nomi pushed Dash to the ground.
"Stay down and don't move," she said, activating her lightsaber to protect her husband.
The stormtroopers fired at her, considering her an easy target, but she deflected the laser bolts and the troopers were hit by their own shots. The smugglers also returned fire. There was utter chaos and the hallway was filled with the sounds of battle and the screams of the dying and wounded.
Salla shouted something as she fired at the stormtroopers, but over the noise none of them could make out the words. As she repeated the words, Nomi finally understood.
"There's no getting through, Nomi! We've got to try somewhere else!"
The former Rogue Squadron pilot shook her head as she deflected another blaster bolt.
"There's no other way, Salla! That's the only turbolift left on this level after I blew up the other one!"
Talon Karrde raised an eyebrow at that.
"Didn't you say you know what you're doing? Looks like you managed to cut off our only escape route, Nomi! We're trapped here like womp rats!"
Nomi found it difficult to think straight. There were 15 levels up to the palace's landing platform. There had to be a way other than the turbolifts to get there.
Finally a thought occurred to her.
"This way! There must be a staircase here!"
She helped Dash to his feet. It wouldn't be easy for her husband to reach the level with the landing platform. But first they had to find the stairwell. Nomi drew her blaster because it would have been too risky to wield the lightsaber while supporting her blind husband. She fired at the stormtroopers while moving along the wall, looking for an entrance to the stairwell. The others followed her, firing salvoes at the enemies.
There were thick clouds of smoke in the hallway and it was hard to see.
Finally, Nomi found the entrance to the stairwell and opened it. One by one her friends entered. Once everyone was in the small entrance to the stairwell, Nomi helped Dash before slamming the door shut and destroying the lock with her lightsaber. She hoped their opponents wouldn't immediately notice which way they'd disappeared.
"Hopefully it will hold them up for a while," she said before turning to her husband, who was slumped on the steps in exhaustion.
"C'mon Dash, we have to keep moving. They'll soon find out where we went."
Her husband shook his head.
"I can't, Nomi, leave me here. Without me, you'll manage to get out alive. I'm good for nothing. The Alliance won't need a blind man."
"We're not leaving you here, old buddy." Lando Calrissian took Dash's hand. "We'll get you out of here even if we have to carry you."
With that he took Nomi's husband on his back and slowly began to climb the stairs. It was a painstaking climb, with the men of the rescue team taking turns carrying Dash on their backs.

Finally they had reached the level with the landing platform.
Nomi hoped Leebo would be there with the Outrider. She cautiously opened the door and peered out. The young woman saw Dash's freighter and stormtroopers standing next to the YT-2400.
"And what are we doing now?" Talon whispered in her ear.
"We'll improvise," she answered smiling while taking a thermal detonator.
"What are you up to?" Karrde looked at her as if she were a particularly interesting insect.
"Like I said, we're improvising," she replied before stepping onto the landing platform.
Holding the thermal detonator in her left hand and her activated lightsaber in her right hand, she slowly approached the stormtroopers, who had their blaster rifles trained on her.
Seeing the thermal detonator and the lightsaber, their commander gave them a hand signal and they lowered their blaster rifles.
Nomi stopped a few meters away from the stormtrooper commander.
"As you've noticed, I'm holding a small thermal detonator in my hand," she said loudly for everyone to hear. "You know what happens when something like this explodes, so I suggest you let us go."
Nomi guessed that the commander's eyes, hidden behind the visor of his helmet, darted between the thermal detonator, her lightsaber, and her face, which reflected her all-or-nothing attitude.
"If you activate the thermal detonator, you and your friends will die too," said the commander, seemingly unimpressed. Then he pointed to the lightsaber. "You are a Jedi."
Nomi nodded her head, keeping a wary eye on the stormtroopers standing beside her commander.
Suddenly the commander shifted his blaster and fired on his troopers. The men didn't have a chance to react and within minutes they were dead on the ground.
Nomi couldn't believe what just happened. She stared at the commander, who removed his helmet and looked her straight in the eye.
"A Jedi saved my mother and now I could return the favor. I thought all Jedi were destroyed. Seeing you and your lightsaber was a surprise. You must hurry," he said and looked around nervously. "Could the Rebellion need a guy like me? I'm tired of the Empire and its lies."
Meanwhile, Nomi's friends had entered the landing platform. Talon supported Dash, who could barely stand.
"The Alliance always needs good men," Calrissian replied instead of Nomi. "We'll take you with us. You made the right decision."
Nomi deactivated her lightsaber and pocketed the thermal detonator before taking her comlink and calling Leebo.
"Open the hatch and lower the ramp. Everything's ok, Leebo."
"Copy that, Nomi," the droid replied and followed her order.
One by one, they entered the Outrider along with the new rebel, who settled on the bench in the mid section of the ship.

Talon immediately went into the cockpit, where Leebo sat in the pilot's seat. Once the smuggler settled into the copilot's seat and strapped in the droid started the Outrider's engines and took off while Nomi walked Dash into the small bunk, where she carefully guided him to the cot. The former mercenary dropped exhausted onto it and sighed.
"We're almost there, Dash. If all goes well, we'll be on our way to Anoat in a few standard minutes," Nomi said, looking into her husband's dead eyes.
"Nomi, Dash," Talon's voice came over the intercom. "Hold on tight, we should meet their patrol ships soon and then things can get a little rough. It's difficult to maneuver through all the skyhooks, satellites and anything else that's around."
"I'll be right back, darling."
Nomi gave her husband a kiss before going to get the medpac to clean his wounds and get him some painkillers. On the way, she heard Talon's voice again.
"Lando, Salla, you two man the laser turrets. Enemy fighters incoming. Damn, I didn't think our escape would be discovered so quickly."
The freighter was rocked by the first hits, but the shields held.
Nomi almost lost her balance on the way back with the medpac, but managed to break her fall.
She entered the bunk where her husband lay apathetically on the cot. It hurt her to see him like that. She carefully began to treat his wounds. Every time she touched them, Dash winced. In the distance, she heard the sounds of the laser turrets as Salla and Lando fired at the TIEs.
"I'm grateful you got me out of there, Nomi." Dash took his wife's hand and kissed it. "Now I can die in freedom."
"Why are you talking about dying, Dash? We will have many more happy years together."
Her husband shook his head.
"No, Nomi. There is no happiness for me anymore. I can't stand being blind and dependent on others for help," Rendar said with bitterness in his voice.
Nomi got scared when she heard that.

Another hit shook the Outrider. If this continued, the shields wouldn't last much longer.
"Please don't give up, Dash. There will be a way to help you. Medicine has already made great advances. Believe me, I'm sure you'll be able to see again soon."
At that moment there was a jolt and cheers came from the cockpit and laser turrets.
She heard Talon on the intercom. "We just made the jump into hyperspace, Nomi. We will be on Anoat soon."

They actually made it. But the hardest fight was still ahead of Nomi.