Angstpril: 10. SACRIFICE (milk battalion adventures)
@whumpril - day 10. Shiver | Breathless | "I'm scared."
Cold, hard hands painfully gripped my wings and jerked me off balance. An electrostaff crackled into my unprotected side, and I let out a cry of pain.
“Surrender, Jedi," a robotic voice ordered. I twisted to look behind me. A second Magnaguard had arrived next to the one I was fighting, staff ready to strike.
I looked around. Pat was unconscious a few meters away from me on the ground. The odor of burned fur from when the Magnaguard had struck him lingered in the air. Rema was struggling, similarly trapped by a dozen droids. Aheka was far away, fighting back to back with Cayan against a swarm of droidekas.
If this went on, we'd all be captured, or worse.
No.
A shout echoed as Cayan fell to the ground, overwhelmed by the Droidekas. Aheka rushed to protect him, but the distraction cost her a wound on her left shoulder. I shivered. Had Aheka failed to parry the next blast, Cayan would have been dead.
My Flock won't end here.
I struggled to escape the grip, stretching and flapping my wings as hard as I could, but it stayed firm. My only reward was another order to 'surrender', and a meeting with the shocking part of the electrostaff which made my body spasm and my mind fuzzy as I could do nothing more than cry out in pain. My wings began to burn where feathers had been twisted and pulled, their roots carelessly tornappart by the metallic hand that held me prisoner. Still, I refused to give up.
Not on my watch.
Eyes narrowed with determination, I relaxed my whole body.
The sudden shift gave me enough momentum to twist out of the grip, abandoning a patch of dark red feathers to the magna droid. I hadn’t preened for a while anyway.
I wasn’t fast enough to dodge the second magnaguard’s electrostaff, however, and I collapsed back onto the ground. Shivers rocked my body as liquid fire rampaged freely through my veins.
A loud thump made the whole room vibrate. I noticed in awe that one of the magna guards had joined me on the ground, a smoking hole through its main processor. I sent a grateful glance at Rema, who smirked back from her pile of droids, blaster still in hand.
Calling back my two fallen lightsabers, I twirled on the remaining magna droid. Watching the hateful thing falling in detached pieces on the ground after the torture it gave me brought no small amount of satisfaction, and I chirped mockingly at it.
The world was spinning, my body complaining as I twirled it too fast, too soon, back into the action, but I didn't care. Another purple lightsaber slash ensured any droids in Rema's vicinity she hadn't already destroyed were done for. Then, I jumped over Pat's prone form. A light probe showed he had no serious injuries, and my wings sagged in relief.
A few nudges through our Master-Padawan bond ended up enough to wake him up. Aheka and Cayan soon arrived, the latter supported by my Master, a limp to his pace. The Droidekas they had faced were all gone, destroyed by Rema, Aheka and Cayan's combined effort. We knew the peace was only momentary, however, and that soon, more Separatist droids would swarm the base to stop us from taking the plan data we had come for.
The small data disc weighed heavy in my pocket. Hopefully the magnaguards’ electrostaffs hadn’t broken it.
“We need to go,” Aheka said as she arrived at our level. As if to confirm the urgency of her order, steps rumbled from the hallway.
I pushed Pat into standing and running, right behind the three others. As always, the Togorian felt far too light under my push, but in this precise situation, it meant we could go faster.
Fire blast grazed us from behind. They were close. Too close. I opened my wings in an attempt to speed up, only for a shot to pierce my coverts. I stumbled under the spike of pain, the injured appendage immediately folding back. I gritted my teeth as I pushed on my legs to keep running. Unlike humans, my species wasn’t made to run, our lower bones weaker, our muscle mass organised differently. I had no choice however: when spread, my wings made too big of a target.
The Force flared in warning, and we jumped behind a crate. The next instant, a frag grenade exploded where Rema had stood a second before.
I looked at the army advancing towards us. There were a few dozen regular droids, led by a strategic droid and another couple of MagnaGuards.
“There are too many," I growled. "We won’t make it.”
Aheka put a soothing hand on my shoulder.
“We need to trust the Force.”
The touch was warm, comforting. Under it, the tensed muscles somewhat melted despite the tense situation. I leaned into it. Aheka's presence pulsed faintly against mine, warm. A soft promise that my Flock was here, with me.
That they were alive.
But trusting the Force without action had never led to anything.
(The Force hadn’t stopped three Initiates from getting captured into slavery. It hadn’t saved Scel’s Master, and it hadn’t stopped the war.)
I nodded at her, all the while shifting away from her touch.
(I had always been a better liar than people believed)
When we left the crate and got back to escaping, I slipped the data disk into Pat's hands. He looked at me, surprised, but didn’t have time to ask before we ran for our lives once more.
The droids were closer this time, less than ten meters away, but soon it wouldn’t matter. From what I remembered of the blue prints, there were a couple of security doors we could force shut nearby. Then, there was a hallway directly to the exit.
"Left!" I shouted at the next crossroads.
Confusion filled the Force: as a straight line, the left hallway wouldn’t give us any cover before the first door was closed. But we all knew to trust each other in battle, and the whole group changed course as one.
As soon as I saw the door control panel, I thrust my shoto at it. Alarms blared as the panel broke, the security doors appearing from the walls to close slowly. Too slowly.
I winced, knowing I wouldn’t be able to cut through the more problematic part of my plan.
Knowing the droids chasing us wasn’t what stopped me from communicating it to my Flockmates.
When the droids appeared by the corner, I spun and Force-pushed them. The door lowered by a few centimeters. Aheka, Cayan, Rema and Pat were still running, at a distance, but closer to the exit by every second.
"Sinvulkt? What are you doing?" Rema howled as she noticed I had stopped in my tracks.
"I'll join you soon!" I promised back. If she waited too long, she would get trapped between the security doors. Without any way to escape, she'd be a sitting duck, soon to become a dead womp rat.
Like I would probably soon be.
More droids appeared behind the one I had pushed. I pushed them again, but my Force push lacked, winded by battle and injuries. Without any other option, I flared my wings wide open to protect the Flockmates running behind me.
Shots met skin where I failed to parry, my whole wingspan too large for me to protect efficiently. I fell back behind the second security door, then the third, but every time, enough droids managed to pass before it closed that I stayed in a difficult spot. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place.
The fourth one was the good one however– I dove through the last half-meter opening. I was dirty, bloody and wounded, but finally safe from droid fire.
Until one of them cut the door open.
The fifth security door boomed as it closed shut. I flinched at the loud noise. I could always try to cut it open with my lightsaber, sure, but Separatists had the nasty habit of making Jedi-resistant doors. I could cut through it, but not faster than specialised droids would cut or open the third door.
I was a sitting duck.
The Force disagreed.
Following its whispers, I raised my head and looked at the ceiling. The bars of a vent shaft glared back at me.
I jumped back on my feet, adrenaline pumping through my heart. My injuries had long gone numb, a negligible variable in the wide game of life. With a few flaps, I was in the cramped tunnel, the Force acting as my guide.
Time to get out.
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