Myrah's escape... by unusualsuspex on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

The streets of Mashan were very much like those on any other urbanized planet; on the whole, clean - or at least in the areas that mattered to the local authorities. It was apparent however that the dock areas did not fall into this category, which was not a disappointment to Myrah Challiss who had found that the cluttered and debris strewn back alleys had provided her, so far, with cover from the searching stormtroopers.

Myrah, who had been born on Mashan, was momentarily amused to think that her place of birth would now likely also be the place of her demise. While she naturally wished that this was not the case, it had more to do with the timing than the location. At the age of 27 she had no particular wish to die, but the information that she carried was of such import to the nascent Rebellion that being taken alive by Imperial forces was not a likely outcome.

Myrah stilled her breathing and carefully drew a broken piece of styrofoam over her head as the muted buzz of stormtrooper comms grew closer.

“TT-171, Sector 4 covered, no sightings. Now moving to Sector 5.”

While she couldn’t hear the response from her hiding place, she watched in relief as the pair of stormtroopers moved on past the crossroads and began their co-ordinated search for her in the warehouse district beyond.

Counting in her head, she waited for two minutes before daring to move lest she give away her position. She was on the verge of popping her head around the corner for a final check when pain unlike anything she had ever felt before shot through her thigh. Her reaction was both involuntary and loud as she grabbed at the immediate source of her agony – a garbage limpet. The hand sized, chitinous creature was often found attached to the overflowing dumpsters around the port area where it would unobtrusively feed on the detritus discarded by the crews and passengers of visiting vessels. Normally, of course, a person was unlikely to voluntarily lie in the refuse for 30 minutes or more. This particular specimen had obviously sensed warm protein and immediately latched on to her thigh with its fore pincers. The garbage limpet suddenly became the least of her problems though as the stormtroopers who had so recently passed by had reacted to her sudden outburst.

“It’s somewhere over there! I heard it!”

The second trooper glanced in her direction briefly. “We just searched through there, it’s probably just one of those Ferals we’ve been finding.”

The first trooper hesitated just long enough for the second to jump back in.

“Look we’ve still got two sectors to cover...”

“Ok, ok.” The first trooper didn’t seem totally convinced but finally shook his head. “Let’s move on.”

They were barely out of view before she released a guttural grunt of pain. She had to get this thing off her before it attached with its primary mandibles and began to feed.

Drawing the blaster from beneath her, she saw that the power cell read just under 80% so hit the eject button allowing it to drop into the palm of her hand. Placing the blaster within easy reach, she gripped the cell with the contacts pointing downwards, gritted her teeth, and slammed the contacts between the first two plates of armour.

The power coursed through the head of the creature causing it to first tighten its grip and then release as its internals were fried, the stench of burning flesh making her gag. With a final, pitiful squeal, the limpet fell smoking to the floor. Myrah quickly slapped the power unit back into her blaster before pulling a sterile dressing from her flight suit pocket and applying it to the wound with a quiet hiss of pain.

She considered her next move. Time now was of the essence if she was to stand any chance of reaching her ship alive, let alone escape. She had already planned her exit route which would take her via the currently disused Terminal 7, under the service ramps directly to the landing pads, a route that would provide both cover and speed. She saw no reason to change that plan.

Myrah stood slowly and carefully so as not to disturb the refuse that had hidden her so far. Nothing moved around her and the only sounds she could hear came from a distant pack of Ferals. Twilight was falling across the starport, and lights would soon be activated although she knew that darkness could not be counted on to hide her. The sensors built into the helmets of the stormtroopers could pierce the gloom instantly. As long as she could remain close to the cargo containers or adjacent equipment, their mass would hide her.

Flitting from crate to crate she finally reached the service road that circled around the end of the disused terminal and paused to catch her breath. In the quiet between arriving and departing ships, she heard a distant buzzing and electronic squeal that turned her blood to ice.

Dammit, a probe droid!

Her chances for a clean escape were slowly evaporating as more forces were drawn in to pursue her. Within the echoing canyons of the storage yard, it was almost impossible to pin down a location or distance on the droid, but it was an Idiot’s Array that stormtroopers would be in close proximity. Her concern now was that the Imperials would simply shutdown all departures from the spaceport so the longer she spent hiding instead of moving acted against her.

She nodded to herself, her mind made up. Taking one last look around the yard, she sprinted across the service road towards the service door that she had rigged earlier. She allowed herself a sigh of relief that no alarm had been raised and grabbing the door’s manual release, she pulled hard. The door obligingly opened towards her, but as if in spite, the lock cover that she had jemmied earlier flew off into the encroaching dusk to clatter noisily amongst the cargo containers.

A moment’s false hope of silence was shattered by muted voices and the increasing noise of pursuit. Deciding to abandon stealth for speed, Myrah ducked through the door and turned to fire a bolt into the locking mechanism, effectively slagging the mechanism and sealing the door. She realised this would only be a temporary barrier so quickly sprinted up the stairs leading to the deserted concourse above.

She had barely reached the landing when a blinding flash of light and the concussion of a blast blew debris up the central stairwell momentarily deafening and blinding her.

Bursting on to the concourse, she ran as fast as her injured leg would allow, gritting her teeth against the lances of pain shooting up from her thigh towards her hip. Ducking left and right between the planters that contained shrivelled and untended trees, she aimed for the entrance to the underpass. Through the glass panels to her right, she saw the fleeting shape of a freighter heading inbound to the nearby landing pads and used the noise of its repulsorlifts to cover the sound of her escape. Finally she spotted, off to the left, the entrance to the underpass.

Just a few more seconds she thought. Run!

It was seconds that she wouldn’t be granted however.

“STOP! OR WE WILL FIRE!”

Out in the open now, Myrah knew the shot would be an easy one to take, even for a stormtrooper, but she didn’t intend to make it that easy for them. Ducking to the left, she raised her arm and snapped off two quick shots behind her, having no time to aim them. She simply hoped that her shots would spoil the troopers’ attempts to target her.

“STOP IN THE NAME OF THE EMPIRE! THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING!”

She had taken three more steps and the entrance was mere metres away when she was lifted from her feet by a blow that she would never recall feeling. As if in a slow-motion dream, her collapse to the floor seemed to last minutes rather than seconds, the red bolt of energy that had pierced her arm left behind a glowing firework display on her retina. By the time she crashed into the decking, she had ceased to be concerned.

The second stormtrooper had removed his helmet the minute he saw the woman blasted by the first trooper’s shot. “Dammit man, what are you doing!!?”

The first trooper was horrified, still kneeling where he had been when he had fired his shots, his own helmet now in his hands. “It was set to stun I swear!”

“Does it look like you stunned her? You idiot!”

The first trooper’s face suddenly turned pale as the import of what he had done began to sink in. “Oh no... I blew the door...I...I never reset to stun! Oh sh...”

He was roughly dragged into the shadows on the deserted concourse as his comrade shook him. “You knew the order was stun and recover and that came from way up the chain.” Even his eyes had now taken on a haunted look. “You know how He reacts to failure...”

By now, the shooter was catatonic and his comrade shook him violently.

“LISTEN!” he shouted, and immediately regretted his tone. “Look this is what we’re going to do,” he continued, trying to force a more reasonable tenor into his voice. “We didn’t call this pursuit in, right, so nobody at control is aware that we had her cornered...” He eyed the smoking body with some trepidation as he continued. “There’s no security cam coverage up here since they closed it, so nobody will ever know that we were here. We just need to get out and carry on with the patrol as if nothing happened...”

His partner shook his head, stunned as to the repercussions his error could cause.

“We need to move now. This will end up looking like just another disagreement between smugglers that got out of hand, but we... have... to... go!”

He grabbed the other trooper’s arm, managing to get the shaken man at least to his feet, then guided him towards the exit. “Remember, we saw nothing and nobody. Probably just one of the Ferals.”

His partner nodded wordlessly and replaced his helmet, the internal air conditioning turning the sweat on his face and neck an icy cold. As they once more entered the stairwell, he knew that despite the other trooper’s conviction, this was not going to end well.