Hunter dashed out onto the overlook, biting back a curse when he found no trace of the miners he'd been chasing down. Those kids were slippery, and they knew the mine better than he did. He wouldn't be surprised if they'd slipped through some side passage he hadn't seen.
"The hyperdrive is nearly online," Tech informed him through the comms. At least that was one bit of good news. He unhooked his handheld from his belt and activated it with a sigh.
"I lost our spies." Movement on one of the bridges caught his attention; he was no Crosshair, but his eyesight had been enhanced enough that he could see the three kids from earlier, along with a number of sentry droids and some large figure he assumed was Mokko. The miners must have gone to fetch him when they'd escaped. "And they called in backup."
On the bridge, Mokko advanced on the closed garage bay door, calling out loudly to ensure the intruders within could hear him, "It appears we have uninvited guests! Care to show yourselves?"
They must have been listening in, because the door opened promptly, and two men burst out, dressed in armour and wielding blasters. Slowly, they advanced down the bridge to meet him, their blasters never wavering from their target: him.
"So you think you can come here and steal from me?"
"Technically, this ship belongs to us." Tech was not impressed, and he took no measures to hide it. It had no effect on Mokko though, the male only grinning cruelly.
"Not anymore! And I'd rethink the blasters. One stray shot, and we're all done for!"
"We don't miss," was all Wrecker growled in response.
Mokko only laughed. "I believe you, but I think you'll reconsider."
He pointed skywards, and the clones, including Hunter, suddenly became very aware of the screams from above. Very familiar screams. They turned their attention upwards, seeing a sentry droid dragging a violently struggling Omega towards the end of a broken bridge. Another one held Astera, the former Jedi's own efforts to free herself weaker than they should have been. Hunter tracked the lethargic movements, the way her feet stumbled as the sentry threw her against the side of the railing, forcing her spine to bend so she hung precariously at the edge. Something was wrong with her.
The droid holding Omega jerked to the edge of the bridge, her boots slipping off the broken planks before she found her footing again. The threat was clear. If either droid let go, they would certainly fall. And there was nothing to stop them from plummeting straight into the molten chasm below.
Mokko's cybernetic claw snapped, the male's face mockingly triumphant. "Lower your weapons, or they go over."
Tech and Wrecker glanced at each other briefly before reluctantly lowering their blasters. Hunter, on the outlook far below them, stowed away his weapon too, reaching for his grappling line and gauging the distance between him and the broken bridge. He could make it. There was enough line for him to grab Omega before the droid could throw her off. But there was still Astera...
"Trespassing and attempted theft." Mokko's savage smile seemed permanently fixed in place now, growing wider and wider as he thought himself secured in his victory. "Ten years in the mines seems like a reasonable punishment, if you survive that long. Take them below."
The miners started forward, hands out and ready to grab Tech and Wrecker, the pair of which shared another glance, unable to do anything. The threat to Astera and Omega aside, these were only kids, and they couldn't fire on a bunch of kids.
"Stop!" Benni appeared in the doorway of the control room, Tech's datapad clenched tight in one hand. Mokko barely even spared him a glance, too fixated on the clones in front of him.
"Not now, kid. I'm busy."
"You lied to us, Mokko!" Benni shouted anyway, more to the other miners rather than Mokko himself. "The ipsium's not degrading! You've been cutting us out and keeping the profits for yourself!"
Mokko stiffened, panic flashing across his face for a brief moment before finally turning to Benni and pinning him with a glare. "That's a lie. Don't listen to him!"
"You never cared about us at all. And I have the proof right here!" He held up Tech's datapad, lines of text from the profit reports scrawled over it.
"Let me see that." Drake took the datapad from Benni, scanning it only briefly before he crossed onto the bridge, approaching Mokko with a thunderous expression. "What's going on, Mokko? We toil down in the mines while you enjoy the spoils?"
The other miners straightened, finally heeding Benni's warnings and all facing Mokko simultaneously, similar expressions of betrayal and anger on each of them.
"I was taking my share!" Mokko protested defensively, seeing the other miners advancing on him instead. "None of you would have survived without me! Don't forget that!"
No one listened, still approaching Mokko with no signs of stopping. The sentry droids took up positions on either side of him, electricity crackling to life on their batons. But two guards would only do so much against such a large group. Mokko had one card left to play, and now was the only time to do it.
"Throw them over!"
Hunter raised his knife and prepared to throw.
*******
Astera:
The thing with droids like these was that if I let them get their arms around me, it was over. They were vulnerable to blaster shots, but it was hard to find a weak spot on them with nothing but my hands. Especially when I had to deal with more than one. Without armour or weapons, I'd been outmatched and outnumbered, but it hadn't stopped me from trying to fight them anyway.
I'd lasted all of three strikes before one had managed to land a hit on me, its electrified baton jolting my entire body and causing me to falter. With that opening, it hadn't taken long for the rest of them to subdue me, jabbing me with those weapons until I was on the floor, woozy and half conscious from the repeated shocks. Omega hadn't tried to resist after seeing me taken down so quickly, but still the second droid had grabbed her just as roughly as they handled me, locking its hands around her wrists and dragging both of us out the door. Even now I was still struggling to fight against the droid pressing me backwards, fatigue from the jolts wearing on my sore muscles.
"Throw them over!" The droid holding me down drew me back, the mechanisms in its arm winding up in preparation to shove me over the railing. Adrenaline spiked through me and I hammered at it with renewed vigour, desperation making my movements sloppy. Omega's shouts in front of me grew more pronounced as the droid holding her prepared similarly, both hands taking hold of her wrists and hauling her towards the edge.
"Astera!" I didn't register who'd shouted, only saw the blur whipping through the air towards me. Whoever had thrown the object had been too far to ensure it would cross the distance - I reached out a hand, calling desperately to it and changing its trajectory just before it started its downward curve. Hunter's knife flew towards me instead, spinning end over end in flashes of deadly metal and the hilt thudding neatly into my palm.
I was twisting the instant my fingers wrapped around it, bringing the vibroblade down hard on the closest part of the droid I could reach; its arm. Sparks flew and the droid staggered backwards, its severed arm dropping away from its body and letting go of me.
I landed on the ground in a crouch, twirling Hunter's knife and dimly registering Omega catching hold of the sentry holding her, grappling with it determinedly before pulling it off the bridge with her.
"Omega!" I started for the edge of the bridge, ready to throw myself off after her, only to be distracted by the other sentry droid taking a swing at me with its remaining arm. Scowling, I ducked under it fluidly and leaped, locking both legs around its torso and driving the blade into its neck.
The droid seized instantly, spasming violently and its knees folding out from underneath it. I jumped from its body moments before it could collapse facedown to the bridge, shoving it over the edge with the Force for good measure before running for the edge of the bridge with my heart in my mouth. Omega wasn't stupid; she would have had a reason for willingly jumping off the bridge, but it didn't stop the panic crawling up my throat when I peered out over the edge, half afraid I would see her falling into the molten lava below.
Her head popped up over the edge, Hunter helping her back onto the bridge before crawling up himself. Only then did I notice the grappling hook wrapped around the railing, and understood why she'd thrown herself off. She must have seen Hunter coming to save her.
"Damn it, Omega, you scared the hell out of me!" I grabbed her by the shoulders and made a big show of checking over her. She was free of injuries, save for a band of red around her wrists where the droid had grabbed her. It definitely could have gone worse.
"Sorry," she said sheepishly, though somehow not really sounding sorry at all. "I didn't really have another choice."
"I know, kid. It was quick thinking. Good job." My eyes met Hunter's over her head, watching us with an inscrutable expression. I offered him his knife, and he took it back, exchanging a wordless nod before the three of us returned our attention to the situation below. There was nothing we needed to say.
"Take care of all of them!" Mokko seemed to have finally realised he'd lost control over his miners, and his sentry droids readied themselves, electricity crackling at the ends of their batons. The miners faltered at the sight of the activated weapons, and even from up here, I could see the genuine fear on their faces. I didn't want to think about the number of times those batons had been used on them.
Two neatly placed bolts pierced the heads of the droids before they could move, the bodies pitching sideways into the chasm. Tech and Wrecker lowered their blasters at the end of the bridge, savage triumph showing clear on Wrecker's expression. Mokko, having lost his last line of defence, snarled and raised his cane, his cybernetic claw snapping. "I'll deal with you myself!"
Bluster and talk seemed to be all Mokko had though. He swiped his cane at the first approaching miner with little success, and promptly overextended himself on the second try, losing his balance and tumbling over the railing with a hoarse scream. He managed to catch himself at the last second, the only thing preventing his fall the very precariously hooked cane in the railing.
"Grab my hand!" Despite all his crimes, Benni rushed for him anyway, throwing his hand out towards the male hanging off the side of the bridge. Mokko looked up at him, fear morphing into a cruel expression as his cybernetic arm reached for the boy's outstretched one.
Benni cried out as Mokko's claw closed around his fingers, digging into the skin with an intensity that looked painful, even from here. But Mokko didn't use the opportunity to pull himself up - instead he pulled Benni down, the kid saved only by Drake grabbing his shoulders to roughly anchor him in place before he was yanked after Mokko.
"You never should have crossed me, kid!"
Omega gasped beside me, a hand reaching out automatically for Benni even though there was nothing she could do. Her other hand found my arm, squeezing tightly as we watched the boys grapple with Mokko, neither side managing to gain the upper side.
I outstretched my own hand and focused where Mokko and Benni's hands were joined, forcing the claw to snap wide open and release Benni's fist. Without it, Mokko's grip slipped off his cane and he fell, screaming, into the depths of the chasm below. His body was swallowed by the smoke, but his screams continued, echoing off the rock walls before they were finally, mercifully, silenced.
Benni stood shakily, the other miners clustering around him as they all stared blankly into the pit together, where Mokko had disappeared. On the higher bridge, I nudged Omega and guided her away from the edge. "Come on, Omega. Let's go check on Benni."
*******
The rest of the repairs went smoothly - some of the kids even offered to pitch in, helping put pieces of the ship back in their place under Tech's watchful eye.
I snapped the last piece of armour into place on my boot and stretched on the Marauder's steps, relishing in the comfort of the familiar weight. The only thing missing now was my lightsabers - I still hadn't had a chance to discreetly get them back from Hunter yet.
"Good to have you back!" Wrecker laughed and swept Gonky up in a hug, the battery droid's feet wiggling in the air as he gonked similar sentiments back to Wrecker. For once, he didn't seem to protest against the large clone picking him up, as glad as the rest of us to be reunited.
"Here's your stuff." Benni pulled up his hovercraft beside an approaching Omega and Hunter, the bed loaded with a number of crates and junk. Hunter didn't look convinced however, putting his hands on his hips with a glare.
"All of it?"
"Yeah, don't you trust me?" He grinned at the clone and took a bite of some fruit he'd snagged from Mokko's personal stores. With Mokko out of the way, the miners had finally had what looked to be their first real meal in years, something that wasn't that disgusting soup they'd been forced to share. It had painfully reminded me of the time the Republic's ships had brough relief aid to the Twi'leks on Ryloth - the look on their faces when they'd found real food was just too similar.
Hunter glanced meaningfully down at Omega and then me on the ship, as if reminding him he had betrayed her and I to Mokko.
"Okay, that's fair," Benni acquiesced. "But it's all there."
Hunter took the hovercart from him, pushing it towards the entrance of the ship. I got up and descended the steps, intending to start loading our stuff back on the ship.
"Here." He reached into his pack and pulled out my lightsabers, offering them to me. "Figured you might want them back."
"Thanks." I took them, rubbing the back of my neck almost sheepishly before sliding them back into place in my holsters. "For holding onto them."
"Of course, Commander."
There it was again. Commander. It was only the second time he'd called me that recently, and I knew it was supposed to be light-hearted, but I couldn't help the way my heart fluttered, or the way my cheeks warmed.
I grabbed the nearest crate before I could do something stupid and hauled it up the stairs, trying and failing to smother the wide grin spreading on my face.