High Heavens (Star Wars - Luke Skywalker)

XXXIX - False Victory

Mara dashed through the forest at the helm of the group. The eight of them tore through the trees, Denit just a step behind Mara to lead them back to where he, Oja, and Kirrie had been ambushed. 

At a clearing, Denit came to a halt, causing the rest of them to skid to a stop, too. The remainders of a fight had been scuffed into dark marks on the ground, burned into the tree trunks by blaster bolts. 

""They went that way," Denit said through pants, pointing north. Towards the Imperial encampment. "I couldn't catch them. I-- I tried--"

Tiernan put a hand on his shoulder before Denit got too far. "It wasn't your fault, Denit. So, how do we find them now?"

To everyone's surprise, it was Wynora that spoke up first. "I can see tracks," she said, gesturing where Denit had pointed. 

A few of the others started. It was rare that Mara ever heard more than a few words from the girl. Wynora tapped the side of her cybernetic eye to answer their silent question. 

"Alright. Then we follow Nora," Alek said. 

With that, they were running once more. Wynora led them with Alek  mere paces behind her. Mara almost couldn't believe how easily Alek kept up with her. He vaulted over ditches and weaved between trees like he could see them coming before the rest of them... and, well, with what little Mara knew about the Force... maybe he could. 

They moved a breakneck speed. The forest turned into a blur of green around them. There was no other choice. If they wanted to catch the Imperials before they made it back to camp, they had to be quick. Mara just prayed that they didn't have a speeder with them, or this would all be for nothing--

"Up ahead!" Alek called out. 

Mara squinted. She saw nothing at first. Then, a pin-sized flash of white breached the green forest. Her heart leapt. A surge of strength brought her to the edge of the forest. She crashed out of the tree line and came to a skidding halt at the lip of a ravine. It was the same trench where she first met Tiernan and the others. The trench stretched out before them like an open gash in the dirt. Ahead, scorched earth from the Empire's excavation stretched out to the distant base on the horizon.

At the bottom of the hill,  two stormtroopers struggled to wrangle a pair of kicking and biting girls. Oja and Kirrie wailed and pounded against their captors, who were flanked by a squadron of five. 

A speeder waited on the opposite side of the trench. If the Imps made it to that speeder, then Mara and the others lost those girls. 

The second they saw them, Denit and Odessa yelled out in concord:

"Oja!"

"Kirrie!"

The stormtroopers rounded towards their position. Mara shouted for everyone to duck just as a volley of red lasers streamed through the air towards them. 

Mara rolled behind a tree for cover, clutching her blaster against her chest. Time to make a plan. "Odessa, Tiernan lay down cover fire from the tree line! Everyone else--run, and run fast! Do not let that speeder get away!"

She didn't need to ask anyone twice. Tiernan and Odessa unholstered their sniper rifles, and at the slightest relent from Imperial fire, Mara threw herself down the hill. The others followed her, crashing like boulders. Lasers zipped over their heads from both directions. 

The ground shook with an explosion, and Mara looked up to see the Imperial speeder go up in flames. One of their snipers landed a hit. In the wake of the explosion, Mara raised her blaster, firing off two hits at the stormtrooper holding Kirrie. On her left, Strata shot the one trying to drag Oja away. In rapid succession, Zotee and Denit finished off the other three, leaving not a single white-plate standing.