Classified Imperial Base
Armory
Daro
LST: 06:06:06 // DAY: 20
RC-5570
"We have an Echo-Sierra-4-16-3 in effect!" A voice erupts on the base's PA system, "I repeat an Echo-Sierra-4-16-3!"
Mech stops his patrol around the empty armory looking past the update that had just been sent to his helmet.
The doors swish open behind him. Two soldiers in Kataran armor come rushing in.
"Captain IC-Fifty-Five-Seventy?" Says one.
Mech nods. The number is correct but the IC identification is new.
"Dirk." He touches a hand to the visor of his helmet.
"Slug," says the other in half second synchronization.
"Do you have any idea what's going on?" Mech says recognizing the escape drill name from the update he didn't get to finish reading.
"New procedures, sir. Someone is trying to escape."
Mech switches to a different comlink circuit and says, "This is Captain Mech on an open channel, does anyone have eyes on the target?"
"TK-Seven-Sixty is on Level Six heading towards the armory." Comes the reply in Mech's identical voice.
"Copy that," Mech says, "I've got two troopers to intercept. Mech out."
TK-760? Mech makes a note of the trooper designation. He could have sworn he heard it before. He tries to recall where, but like a half-remembered dream, it slips further and further from his comprehensive grasp.
"Argh!"
Mech brings up his eyes and spots Dirk's arms clawing at the bottom of a locker as he disappears around its corner.
"Dirk!" Slug says rushing over and leveling his blaster down the aisle.
"Wait!" Mech says but as the word leaves his mouth a body of scratched and gritty armor collides with Slug's chest.
The two bodies go tumbling. Mech raises his blaster attaching the PEP stun muzzle but can't get a bead on the AWOL TK-trooper.
"Stand down Seven-Sixty!" He says.
The TK-trooper strangles Slug from the rear as he claws at his helmet. Mech still can't hit the trooper without hitting the commando. Slug stops struggling. The TK-trooper dives back behind the lockers and Mech fires a stun round.
It misses.
Captain Mech flanks the isle with his blaster at the ready, but as he comes around, the only one there is Dirk, sprawled out on the floor. His blaster pistol missing. Mech crouches next to him keeping his eyes up as his fingers check for a jugular pulse.
He nods to himself confirming Dirk is still alive. He stands, steadying his blaster.
He blinks switching to squad comms. He says, "Mech to Tapcaf. We've got two commandos down in the Armory."
"Copy that IC-Fifty-Five-Seventy. I'm on my way." The transmission clicks. Strangely there's no red indicator light.
"TK-Seven-Sixty, this doesn't have to be complicated!" Mech's voice booms out of his external audio. He checks his sights down another aisle. Clear.
He continues, quietly stepping with his boot heel first and letting his foot roll to the toes. He listens for footsteps or the charge up of a blaster pistol.
Where is he? Mech casts his gaze to the tops of the lockers. The overhead glowpanels shut off plunging the room into darkness. The ground lights click on dimly lighting the walkways. He changes visor filters and spots a thermal reading on the other side of the next row of lockers.
A long metal pole rolls out from behind the isle. He steps over to the electrostaff aiming his blaster down the row.
At the end of it, purple electricity ignites into the sparsely lit armory. The pulsing purple reflects off white trooper armor. The eye lenses don't connect to the frowning mouth like regular clone trooper helmets. It wasn't the familiar T-slit visor. Mech's HUD IDs him as TK-760. The man stands there a moment and then bows.
Mech blinks confused.
TK-760 then slides into a stance setting his feet into the floor.
Mech doesn't drop his blaster and rolls his boot over the staff, flicking it into the air like he'd do if he were kicking the ball in a match of meshgeryoa. Instead of hitting the ball against his chest, he catches the pole just as the other trooper's attack comes crashing down.
He strains against TK-760's electrostaff and activates his and shoves him back.
Mech twirls his staff in one hand and fires a PEP round with the other. The blast hits the trooper's chest. He falters a step backward.
Mech doesn't let him recover and twists the electrosaff out of his hands. The staff goes flipping into a locker and clatters to the floor ringing through vibrations. He jabs the pulsing purple electricity towards the trooper.
TK-760 blocks the staff with a yellow glowing vibroknife. Mech counters by twirling the staff around. The trooper swats it with a vibrodagger cutting off the end.
Mech retracts the electrostaff and fires a couple of stun rounds as a distraction and brings the staff back down on the other side.
The electricity makes a loud ZAP as it collides with the cartosis weave of the vibroblades. The impact jars Mech's muscles. Conductive energy binds the weapons together for a moment before exploding in a ball of white.
Mech is thrown backward. His visor automatically tinting against the light. For a moment he feels nothing beneath his feet. The floor slams into his back. He goes skidding. The metal loudly scraping against his armor.
Coming to a stop, he slowly blinks away the blurriness as a loud ringing blares in his ears. Groaning and feeling his empty hands, he spots his blaster beneath a bench. He paws at it a couple of times before his fingers finally grip the handle.
He groggily gets to his feet aiming the blaster at TK-760. The trooper had been blown into a stack of supply crates which collapsed on top of him.
Mech stumbles over to the trooper. He activates the anti-grave on the crates and pulls a couple off the pinned trooper.
He checks for a pulse on the trooper's neck. He can feel a faint thu-thump thu-thump against his fingers almost as if the trooper has heart palpitations. Looking over his gritty armor, he recognizes it as the one who had woken him up in the med bay. He holsters his deece reaching for a pair of stuncuffs on his belt.
The trooper's hand wraps around his wrist. Mech flinches having second thoughts about dropping his blaster. A couple of fingers on the trooper's hand are charred black and smoke swirls off of them.
"Mech," she faintly says.
The Captain pauses realizing TK-760 is a female. Clone troopers aren't female. Her hand drops streaking blood down his forearm gauntlet.
Mech considers putting the stuncuffs on her anyways but his gut instinct rules out protocol. He hesitantly reaches over and carefully removes her helmet.
He knew it wasn't a clone trooper but to his surprise, a face of red and black stares back at him. Black voided eyes groggily squint at him. Glistening red from her busted lip glides into the scar across her chin. For a moment Mech sees Cardshark staring back at him as blood drips from his mouth. The same desperate expression in his golden eyes.
A wave of memories crashes down on him making his shoulders tense for impact. The Order, the recall to Kamino, the redeployment, Daro, Captain Rex, massiffs, inhibitor chips, ECHO-2...
"Tai'ika...," he says breathlessly.
She half laughs. Her white prominent incisors contrast against the colors of her face. "I think I have a concussion," she says groaning and licks the blood from her bottom lip. She rubs her forehead misplacing the bandana that covers her cranial horns.
Mech can't help but sigh for the gladiator who knows how to take a hit. He didn't realize how much he missed her snarky remarks.
"I'll make this up to you, I promise," he says and shoves her helmet back on her head, "But I'm guessing we're in the middle of busting out of here?"
"You guessed correct," Taipan says her voice in his helmet's audio. She struggles to get to her feet.
Mech unholsters his blaster and puts his arm under her shoulders and pulls her to her feet.
She grunts taking a deep breath.
"Can you stand?" Mech says eyeing the armory door.
Taipan nods. "I think so. I got lucky, my hands didn't get blown clean off." She straightens and growls loudly; Mech's helmet audio automatically muffling it.
He steadies her and looks for injury. Red runs down her left shin guard. "Tapcaf can look at that leg when he gets here. Until then this will help the pain."
Mech steps in front of her taking out a sharp from his limited medikit supplies. He injects the painkilling medicine into her thigh just above the knee between the armor plates and tosses the sharp to the side. He places his hand on her shoulders and gives her a quick Keldabe kiss. Their helmets making a soft thunk.
"Before we leave I got to get something." Mech points to the door. "Watch my six."
"Yes, Captain," Taipan says, "Sparkstick and Hardcopy should be waiting in Hangar Oh-Five."
Classified Imperial Base
Armory
Daro
LST: 06:32:45 // DAY: 20
Taipan
Taipan finds her damaged vibroblades re-sheathing them as she balances her weight on her right leg while her left toes hardly touch the ground. Her hands are charred and singed from the explosion. Black soot bursts up her forearm guards. She realizes her left ring and pinky finger are shorter than before. A drop of blood falls, silently splashing on the durasteel floor.
"Perfect," she says under her breath.
She rips off a strip from the sleeve of her torn blacks quickly wrapping her fingers together. Pushing aside the stinging in her palms, she draws the blaster pistol taken from Dirk. She almost feels bad for the commandos but they'll live. Maybe one day RYNO Squadron will find them after they've been decommissioned.
"Let's go," says Mech.
Taipan glances away from the door and Mech is dragging two large black rectangular crates with a LJ-50 conc rifle slung over each of his shoulders.
He pops open the lid and says, "Get in."
"This wasn't part of the plan," Taipan says nervously peering into the crate.
A couple of commando helmets stare back at her amidst other armor plates. Grey, blue and yellow markings set them apart from the plane white kits she's used to seeing.
Mech opens the other crate placing the conc rifles on top of a couple of extra deecees, an assortment of ration supplies, and what looks like grenades in varying shapes and sizes.
"Plans change. You've only got two good limbs," Mech says shutting the lid on one crate and goes to the other situating the commando plates to the side creating a little pocket. "Take off your armor and I'll stack it on top. No one will even know you're there."
Normally Taipan would argue about being shoved inside a box but, if all goes well, she knows Sparkstick and Hardcopy are waiting for them.
She pulls off her helmet and strips her armor. Mech watches the doors. She sits down to take off her boots. As she takes off her left shin guard she breaths out through her teeth. There's a sharp white object jutting through her blacks. She glances at Mech whose visor is angled to her leg.
"Captain!"
Taipan looks up leveling her blaster pistol and spots a commando jogging into the armory. Red sigils on his shoulder plates.
"Think you can reset a fibula bone?" Mech says casually and lowers his deece. His hands checking it over.
"Is that a trick question?" The commando medic says kneeling down next to Taipan. He takes off his helmet handing it to Mech.
Taipan leans back on her hands watching the familiar medic use a pair of laser sheers opening her blacks and pulls them away from her shin bone.
Tapcaf looks at her like just another soldier needing medical attention, he slicks his hair back and his eyebrows knit together in concentration. "Lay back. Mech hold her down."
Taipan stretches out on the floor as Mech takes a knee next to the medic. She feels his hands pin her shoulders to the floor. He'd removed his helmet at one point and looks at her with concern swirling in his grey-blue and brown eyes.
Then his face hardens like a flip of a switch. His voice is all commanding. "C'mon gut up."
Taipan feels compelled to nod and smirks at him to let him know she'll be okay.
"On three and it's going to hurt," Tapcaf says.
Taipan takes a deep breath, jaw clenching hard in anticipation.
"Three!"
The bone makes a loud crunching POP and Taipan screams.
Her voice bouncing around the large armory walls. She does her best not to squirm under Mech's hands feeling Tapcaf bandage her shin.
"Done," Tapcaf says sitting back on his heels, "That'll do for now until we get on the shuttle out of here. A dip in a bacta tank would do you good too."
Mech leans back mimicking Tapcaf and Taipan sits up. She paws at the tears at the corners of her eyes and a snarl curls her lips.
She mumbles to herself. "I can see it now, written on my tombstone. 'Here lies Taipan the Viper. Death by supply crate.'" She sighs holding her head. "I can survive being eaten alive by an Acklay but a stupid supply crate gets the better of me."
Mech half laughs. "You took that better than most of us. Should've seen Sparkstick when he mangled his pinky. Tapcaf told him to drink water and walk it off. C'mon let's get moving."
Taipan nods and climbs into the crate curling into a fetal ball careful not to hit her broken leg. The tooth necklace around her neck makes a tink as it hits the baseboard.
She looks up at Mech who carefully puts her armor on top of her. His helmet obscures any facial expressions.
The lid shuts engulfing her in darkness. She opens her eyes wide looking at her hands in front of her but she might as well have been trying to see with her eyes closed.
The crate lurches and starts to scrape on the floor.
"Tapcaf, grab that side. We'll stack 'em," says Mech, his voice muffled by the crate, "And follow my lead."
"You remember," says Tapcaf.
Taipan feels the crate shift leveling out. It slightly rocks moving forward.
"I remember..."
She faintly hears the marching of boots and indistinguishable commands.
"Where are you going with that?" Says a voice that lacked the gruff accented voice honed with the smoothness of a sharpened blade which is iconic to the clones of Fett. It was Rojas, Blue Two.
The crate stops and hits the ground.
"The perpetrator is on the loose and escaped the armory," says Mech, "Could be heading to the ship hangars by now."
The lid pops open trickling in light. Taipan remains statue still holding her breath.
Someone shuts the lid.
Mech says, "Get yourself to the armory. There are two commandos who need to be transported to medical."
"Yes, sir," says Rojas, "C'mon Rodriguez."
Two sets of boots sprint away. TK-troopers are as stupid as they look. Tapcaf, the medic was standing right in front of them.
The crate is lifted off the ground again. An armor piece digs into Taipan's ribs as the box transverses forward. There's a beep from a keycard. The weird gut jerking of the turbolift pulls her side into the bottom of the crate.
Her helmet comms go off above her.
"TK-Seven-Sixty was spotted heading down towards the hangars," says Mech, but she can't be for certain it was his voice and not another commando. Comms interfere with subtle details in pitch and tone.
The comms hiss back a response. "IC-Eighty-Five-Fifty-Two and I, Thirty-two-eighty-six, have secured and grounded any potential ships of interest."
Sparkstick and Hardcopy made it to the hanger. Taipan thinks clenching her jaw against the damage to her limbs. Clone soldiers are good at following protocol.
"Copy that, Lieutenant. I'm on my way with extra munitions. Fifty-Five-Seventy out."
The lift lurches and the crate starts moving again. Her mental map of the place goes out the blast doors as the darkness mixes up the directions. Laying on her side didn't help either.
The crate turns, pauses then keeps moving.
Beep.
It was a keycard and they zip down another 'lift. It lurches and the crate continues its journey around corners and straightaways.
Suddenly an explosion goes off and the crate falls to the floor. Her temple smacks hard into the side sending stars across her vision. She stifles a growl of pain rubbing her head into the box.
An alarm begins blaring as a series of explosions rattle the sidewalls.
Of course, Sparkstick couldn't leave without blowing something up. Incoherent yelling and blaster fire erupts outside her metal coffin.
A loud voice, sounding a lot like Admiral Rampart, crackles into her helmet comlink. "Incompetent soldiers! Why are you opening the hanger doors?!"
I guess someone found him. Taipan smiles to herself. I wish I could've seen their faces.
Multiple transmissions start overlapping each other one coming from her helmet and the other through her forearm gauntlet digging into her side. It is mostly clone troopers.
"Spark, watch out!"
What sounds like zipping insects spatter against the sidewall of the crate. The walls shutter. Adrenaline makes her skin crawl but there's no outlet.
"Captain down! I repeat Captain down!"
"Fire Protocol states to open the exits in case of a fire."
"I see him. Throwing aerosol."
Something metal hits the durasteel floor and rolls sounding like a grenade. Taipan cringes waiting for the explosion. Her heartbeats thudding against her neck and skull. A loud and long hiss takes the explosion's place. A faint smoke-like aroma fills the crate.
"Hardcopy on your six!"
"Don't you think it's kind of convenient," says Rampart, "That the only ship to not explode was my shuttle!"
"Move! Go-go-go!"
Taipan balls her fists helpless to do anything but listen to the chaos. Did he say Captain? Mech! The crate then goes tumbling. Armor plates jabbing further into her ribs with each rotation. Her head slams into the sidewalls again causing her brain to throb. She groans despite herself. The crate skids to a stop and then is lifted off the ground and it moves quickly over an incline. This time it gently touches the ground.
The roar of a ship's engines penetrates the crate's walls and the floor starts to shift.
A loud pitter-patter drumbeat hits the hull of the Lambda shuttle, assuming the commandos managed to commandeer Rampart's ship. The crate slides across the floor as the ship makes a steep ascent.
"Shoot down that shuttle!" Rampart yells into the comms making the speakers crackle and pop.
"Sir, protocol states that we can not shoot down your shuttle."
"Forget protocol! Just stop them!"
Ka-crack-BOOM!
Thunder rattles the ship and the box shutters around her.
Another voice relays into the channel. "Sir, the ship is out of range. Remaining TIE fighters have been deployed."
Her helmet hisses with static and then clicks off. She sighs closing her eyes. A zinging radiates up her leg and into her hip. She holds her throbbing hand closer to her chest and curls up tighter, suddenly exhausted.
The swish of a door meets her ears. A hint of worry prickling her scalp.
"We've cleared the atmosphere, sir," says a muffled and distant Hardcopy.
At least she thinks it's Hardcopy with his definitive and steady voice. He always sounds like he's stating facts.
"Hold your current course," says Mech authoritatively.
Taipan smirks. Commandos.
He continues, "And make sure there are no hidden trackers on board."
"On it."
"Sparkstick, get a hold of Rex on frequency Foxtrot-Uniform-Lima-Charlie-Romeo-Uniform-Mike."
"Copy that."
Footsteps approach the crate. Then the lid pops open. Blue light trickles through the armor pieces. One by one the weight of them is taken off. The one digging into her ribs is finally removed.
"Hope you didn't get too banged up," says Mech peering into the crate with excited colored eyes.
Taipan manages a growl of pain as she slowly sits up. "No thanks to your shipping and handling." She crosses her arms on the side of the crate. "I want a refund."
"I am happy to oblige," Mech says taking a knee next to the crate. He smiles revealing perfectly white teeth, genuinely happy.
Taipan suppresses a smile but she can't stop the corner of her lip from twitching. The frown comes easy as she notices all his upper armor had been removed and replaced with a bandage wrapping. She nods at his chest tilting her head in question.
"It's nothing," Mech says brushing off the bandage.
Hardcopy walks by flipping a wrench in the air and catching it in his palm. He says, "Someone took a blaster round for me."
"Only 'cause someone was bottled with two left feet," Mech says shaking his head.
Taipan smirks at their sibling banter. She didn't have siblings and always found it amusing how these men could say such sarcastic things that would normally offend regular folk and yet they remain inseparable. She watches Hardcopy disappear through a door.
She feels a hand go to the side of her neck. She flinches catching Mech's ghostly eye. She leans into his surprisingly un-callused thumb as it gently caresses her cheek. Commandos do wear gloves all the time so it's not all that surprising. He leans in pressing his forehead against hers.
"We did it," he says whispering, "But the fight isn't over."
"Always," she says closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, "And never."
"Do you know why my name is Mech?"
"Why?"
"I've got a knack for calling things before they even play out. Astromechs are programmed to never be wrong. I'm never wrong."
Taipan opens her eyes and Mech's nose is touching hers. A question knitted in his brows.
"I'm glad I was wrong about you."
She smirks remembering what Sparkstick, Hardcopy, and Tapcaf wanted her to do in an attempt to shock Mech's memories back.
"Go for it, soldier boy," she says.
The words hardly escape her lips as he cuts her off. His soft lips press against her rough busted ones. She leans against him as his sturdy arm wraps around her waist. His body is warm against hers without the armor plates. She breaths in, his lips parting and meeting back against hers. Her bandaged hand goes to the side of his head feeling the bacta patch under her forefinger. He hums holding her closer and then he pulls away.
Mech looks at her a moment, cheeks flushed. "I like the horns."
"I hated the bandana," Taipan says sensing a warmth in her ears.
"That's too bad. It was mine." He exaggerates a playfully hurt expression. "I guess I'll take it back now."
"No." She leans away to keep him from taking it off her head.
Mech's face goes blank. She smirks half-laughing. For a moment he looks confused but then he starts to chuckle with her.
"Okay, but," he says digging around in the crate. His hand comes out with something folded in his palm. "I've got a better one."
He unfolds it into a bandana sized cloth. A large white insignia resembling the Empire's symbol covers most of the black fabric.
"It's pre-Empire," he says folding it into a strip, "The symbol of the Republic." The middle circle remains in the dead center of the folds. "May I?"
Taipan smirks at him. He's always asked for permission. "Sure," she says and takes off the other bandana. She ties it around her wrist hiding the Imperial insignia.
Mech carefully ties the bandana around her head. She watches his eyes as they concentrate on tucking the knot. This time she feels his fingers press the creases just under her horns.
Mech wraps his arms around her and takes her out of the crate.
She inhales a breath of air through her teeth. "Not so tight," she says.
"Right," Mech says.
He sets her down gazing into her eyes. Then they light up. "I almost forgot." He kneels back down rummaging in the crate.
Taipan leans all her weight on her good leg glancing at her bandaged hand. Funny, a piece of me will always be on Daro. Something glints catching her eye.
She looks up and Mech is holding a shiny shirt with leather strips on its hems. Grinning she reaches out rubbing the small chain links of the shirt. "Where'd you get this?" She says.
"Commandos are resourceful," he says handing it to her. "Sorry, I couldn't recover anything else."
She gratefully takes it. "It's okay. The stormtrooper armor kind of grew on me. Can't see much out of the helmet though."
"Mech," says Tapcaf stepping into the cargo bay. "Nice to see you, Tai'ika. But we have three TIEs in pursuit."
Taipan nods a greeting at the medic as she finishes ripping off the sleeves on her blacks. Seeing her tattoos out in plain view again sends a play of pride in her chest.
As Mech walks towards the cockpit, he says, "That's okay. We'll be long gone before they come within blaster range." He beckons for Taipan to follow.
She pulls on her chainmail shirt trailing behind the commandos. The metal is cold against her skin. She pulls the tooth necklace out from behind the shirt. Mech slides an arm around her helping her walk into the cockpit. She limps up behind Sparkstick and Hardcopy who are at the controls.
Sparkstick glances back then does a double take. "You look good in chainmail," he says pressing some buttons on the console.
Hardcopy subtly peers over his shoulder but doesn't say anything.
"I think this belongs to you though," says Sparkstick holding out a white shoulder plate.
Mech accepts it and hands it to her. Taipan smirks shaking her head. She runs a thumb over the battle hydra sigil. The vibrosword in its talons is reminiscent of her Zabrak mentor. "I think I saw some armor with blue markings on it. Mech, you know anything about this?"
She senses Mech's reassuring presence right behind her. He says, "Nope."
Sparkstick glances back over his shoulder. "No way..."
Tapcaf steps into her left peripherals. "I can't believe you actually were able to recover our old kits."
"Nothing but the best for RYNO," Mech says placing a hand on the small of Taipan's back as he stands to her side. "Hardcopy got any news you'd like to share?"
Without looking up, the squad technician says, "Would you like to know the name of your mentor?"
Taipan blinks. How would he know?
Hardcopy chuckles seeming to read her mind. "Nothing is ever truly a secret. You just have to look in the right places and connect the right pieces."
"Okay?" She says curious to know but afraid of what it might mean. Maybe he buried his name for a reason. She straps on her mentor's shoulder plate. "Hit me."
"Cabur Tal'onidir."
Guardian. To give blood. A protector who sweats blood by going the extra mile.
Taipan adjusts the straps. "Fitting."
"Well then, Taipan Tal'onidir," Mech says wrapping an arm around her waist, "You don't want to miss this view."
Taipan leans into him to take the pressure off her leg and follows his gaze staring into the inkiness of space. The stars glinting in the darkness.
"Lightspeed coordinates set," says Hardcopy his fingers dancing over the buttons. "Rex didn't tell us where we are going."
"I hate surprises," Sparkstick says pushing a lever forward on the console. "Entering lightspeed."
The ship seems to stall for a moment. Then the stars begin streaking out one by one from the center point of view and the ship launches into a tunnel of incredible swirling blue.