"Who put you in the cell, anyway?" she asked, typing away on the computer, trying to get more information out of it. Little white pieces of paper poured out the side every couple of minutes.
"Don't know," Axel shrugged. "Woke up in there with the Ironside. You'd be better off to ask him."
"Robert. My name is Robert," said the Ironside. They all looked at him blankly. “But everyone calls me Fox.” He dropped his head down and looked at the floor.
“So you don’t mind if that’s what we call you then?” Miranda asked.
“No,” he said. “Fox is fine.” He hissed the last word through his teeth. He took off his helmet to tussle his hair. It was the first time Miranda had ever seen him without it. It kind of took the edge off, made him go from being a piece of equipment to an actual human being. For some reason she was expecting him to look like Eric; that somehow becoming an Ironside made you look like a handsome jerk. But no, his features were very different from both Adam's and Eric's face. His hair, for one, was blond. It fell limp around his round face. The roots were black against his sun bleached skin. His eyes were a deep brown and shaped like brush strokes that carved out calligraphy letters.
Miranda blinked. She paused, waiting for him to continue. He didn't.
“So Robert, how did you guys end up in the cell?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“We fell back. The ship separated and we fell back onto a ledge on one of the lower docks. We would have kept falling if we hadn't caught on it.” He paused; his brow creased in thought. “Don’t know how long we were there. Couldn’t move, being strapped in. Didn’t know how stable it was if I unstrapped. Three droids came down from above. Hovered in the air and then opened fire. I couldn't get out of my harness in time before the things shot. I thought for sure we were dead.” He stopped talking, not wanting to remember what waking up from death feels like.
“Go on,” Miranda encouraged him. She needed as many details as possible if she was going to have a chance of forming a plan or finding Eric.
“When I woke up in that cell... It must have been some kind of stunner. I knew we were still alive because I was still in my suit. And the tech was still operational. If partially damaged from the fall.”
Miranda nodded, continuing her search on the computer. Now that she had a clear path to the landing bay, she was searching just in case. Just in case Eric had survived too.
Axel whistled. “Must be some stunners if they get through Ironside armor.”
“I found him,” Miranda said, cutting off what Axel was going to say next.
“Found who?” Adam asked, looking at her screen of ones and zeros, not able to read any of her printouts.
“Eric.”
Adam looked at her, trying to understand what she was saying.
“Our leader, the other Ironside we came with. I found him.”
There was a clicking sound from down the hallway.
“Time to go,” she said. She grabbed the stack of papers out of Axel’s hands and made a left turn down the hallway, away from the noise.
The rest of the group filed in behind. She had a plan. She had a map, she was going to find Eric, and then they were going to get off this rock with the prince, just like he had wanted from the very beginning.
Chapter 15
“Here's the deal,” Miranda said. “This is the hangar where they're keeping active shuttles. When I made this recording, it showed only one operational shuttle. That’s the good news.” She pointed to some of the ones and zeros on one of her pieces of paper, hoping that the outline of symbols meant as much to them as it did to her. Adam looked on in interest. Axel still wanted to put distance between him and this paper stuff, just in case maybe it exploded. Miranda didn't let it slow her down.
“Now, what I know for sure, is that this entire area has the largest concentration of humans on this planet, to include Eric. He's being kept on the shuttle. That’s the bad news. Most likely,” and she tried to emphasize this point, “it is the last shuttle, and our only option for getting off this rock.”
Adam sighed.
“That leaves us with our second problem,” she said.
“Our second problem?” Adam asked. Miranda nodded.
“They have weapons,” she stated. The three others looked from each other and back to her. “I'm assuming that all of your weapons were taken,” she added to be helpful. The Ironside hung his head. Adam shrugged his shoulders and the gunner scratched the back of his head.
“My weapon was attached to the vehicle,” Axel said. ”If you want I can go see if they are still there.”
“No thanks,” Miranda said. Most gunners weren't issued a private weapon. They were just put in front of whatever gun was in the shuttle or ship that they were being transported in.
“Adam, of course, being a captured prisoner, you had your weapons stripped before arriving on planet,” Miranda said. She turned to Fox. “That leaves you, since I didn’t have any on this mission to begin with.” She looked expectantly at the Ironside. The poor guy shook his head.
“Droids knocked us out after the fall. They must have stripped me clean. All I've got is my tech gear,” He said.
Miranda nodded, accepting all this.
“If we're going to have any chance against the rebels, we need weapons,” she said. They agreed. She flipped through her paper until she got to another page. “I printed this out.”
All three of them looked expectantly at her since they couldn't read what was on the page. “This is where the armory is,” she said, pointing to a box. “That is where we're going next.”
“I’m ready to blow this joint,” Axel said. Adam gave him a look. “What?”
Miranda headed off down the hallway.
“Be quiet, stay alert,” she said. “And let's make it out of here.” She didn't know when she became the go-to leader, but without Eric, somehow she felt like it was her responsibility to get these guys home.
The planet twisted and turned around them in left and rights. It was meant to be a maze. Every once in a while, they would have to flatten themselves against a wall because of a droid. But they hadn't seen a rebel soldier yet.
‘Whoever that guy is who talked to Adam back at the cell,’ Miranda thought, ‘certainly got it right. They’ve already left planet, or are in the middle of leaving planet, leaving all of these prisoners to rot in an area of space that has been left for that very purpose by the Galactic Empire.’
As time stretched, Miranda wondered how many of these places were still floating around, left to their own devices, abandoned and useless. Leaving their prisoners to rot to death.
She found the door to the armory. It looked like any of the other doors. If she hadn't had her map, she wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between it and any of the cells that they had passed long since.
“Here we are,” she whispered to the boys while pointing towards the door. They slumped over; one to the left, looking down the hall, and one to the right as she whistled necessary beeps for the control panel and typed in the sequence to open the door. She was getting pretty good at this. It might have been old tech, but hey, it was at least something she was useful at. The door slid open and Adam stepped inside. The room was near bare. A single backpack, a helmet, the odd laser pack or two, three short-range blasters on the far wall, and a single cannon that could cut the whole side off a shuttleship hanging above them. The rest was empty. There where shelves for everything a normal imperial armory should have, just with nothing in them.
Adam took very little time to pull everything off the racks, strapping different things to his back, testing each of the weapons to make sure that they were chargeable or could hold the necessary charge.
He then proceeded to bring things out. He handed a single blaster to Miranda, the cannon blaster, and a side blaster to Axel. To the other Ironside he handed the third blaster. He kept a small pack and a laser sword and some sort of backpack gun that Miranda had never seen and might be o
lder tech than even her planet kept.
"It's like someone knew just what we needed and left it here for us," he said to her. "It’s old, but it's still good."
"This stuff is classic!" Axel said, his mouth gaping.
"Let's just hope it fires accurately after all these years," said Fox. He let the gun warm up under his fingers. The bright orange lights pulsed across the barrel.
Miranda nodded. At least now they were armed and had the ability to go after Eric.
"Hanger's five floors up and over," she told her crew. Adam took the lead. She took up the middle. Axel and Fox were at the rear with their guns at the ready. It was almost as if they were in an Ironside sandwich given the fact Adam was an Ironside, even if he wasn’t in full uniform.
As they approached the hangar the lighting seemed to get brighter, as if closer to the top of the planet, the more the sun penetrated through the corridors and cracks. Miranda used her blaster to shield her eyes. Not the best move, but the gun seemed to do the trick. Better than putting it down, she reasoned.
“I would just like to know who built this place,” Axel complained. “Must have been a bunch of idiots not to put any labels on anything.”
‘Or geniuses to hide them all where human prisoners couldn’t find them,’ Miranda thought.
“Keep moving,” Fox barked. “I’m getting an off feeling about this place.”
Miranda rolled her eyes. They were in the corridors of an abandoned prison; of course he was getting a bad feeling.
Adam raised his hand, bringing them all to a stop. He motioned them to get their backs up against the wall.
The first shot whizzed past Miranda's head, barely missing her. Her eyes followed it in slow motion. The green light made a blast mark on the back of the wall where her head had been. Another shot passed by her ear. She could feel the heat of it redden her face.
Miranda’s legs melted from beneath her. The two Ironsides positioned themselves on either side of the door. Careful to aim, shoot, pullback, aim, shoot, pullback, rotating back and forth between the two of them. Miranda watched everything as if the world had turned to water with her legs.
“They don’t have any big guns,” Axel pointed out from his position on the left. Adam nodded. “You ok?” Axel said above her. Miranda nodded, unable to understand the words. Everything was so slow. Axel crouched next to Miranda. He put a hand on her shoulder and shook her gently. His gun was in the other hand, ready to fire if needed.
“Just breathe,” he said.
“Breathe,” she repeated.
“Axel, you’re up,” Adam announced. Axel nodded his head once, slung his gun around the corner and blasted away. Boom, boom, boom, boom.
The heavy rain of fire shook Miranda to her bones. She didn't know how Axel could handle all that pressure. Her ears were ringing and she wasn’t the one firing the thing. It was hard enough being behind him. She couldn’t imagine what it was like in front of him.
Adam made the motion to move forward. Axel kept up his suppressive fire. Miranda got back up into her Ironside sandwich. She got her gun out, pushed the safety off and put it up in a firing pose just in case.
Shots rang out around her. But the Ironsides held up their suppressive fire while moving from one stack of cargo to the next. It kept the rebels’ shots wide or out of range.
Miranda crouched behind another load of covered cargo. The landing bay was littered with them. It was making it easy to duck, hide, and weave their way to the shuttle craft.
Pew pew. The sound of laser fire created a melody of its own around her, reminding her of the danger. If any of those shots landed that would be it. She would be dead.
The hanger was marred black with different pockmarks. Each a reminder of what was really happening. They were in a fight for their lives. And if they didn’t make it to that ship... Miranda put the thought out of her mind.
Laser blasts sizzled past. Adam signed for them to move forward again. Miranda forced her legs to stand up and move. She was not going to die here. There was a body sprawled on the floor. She had to roll over the top of it or be tripped into the line of fire. The smell of cooked meat hit her nose.Vomit rose in her throat. She held it back. They might have been rebels, but they were still people. And if she let it get to her right now she’d end up just like them.
As they passed another set of crates she noticed a smoking set of gray-black trousers with tons of pockets. She wished that her uniform had pockets like that. Maybe that was the best thing about being a rebel. They could wear cargo pants to hold all their stuff.
A blast missed her head by inches. The heat of it sizzled her cheek. Mirand ducked down just in time to see two rebels run for the ship's gangplank. It rose into the air. The rest of her team was too busy trying to suppress the fire to notice their only way off this rock lifting off.
“They are going to get away without us,” Miranda screamed over the noise. There was no sign that Adam or Fox had heard her. They kept moving forward, ducking behind empty cargo crates. Trying to make a hole towards the ship. Two rebels were using the ship's gangplank to hold them back. Miranda could feel the cold burn from the flight engines gearing up for takeoff.
Miranda stomped her foot and screamed, “They are getting away!” Adam yanked her to the ground, a blaster bolt singeing the top of her head. Fox shot back, knocking the rebel off the plank.
“Get your gun up and be ready,” Adam said, shoving her blaster into her chest.
Miranda sat there stunned. She’d just almost died. If Adam hadn’t pushed her out of the way, she would be another smoking corpse filling this place.
The gangplank floated above their heads now. The ship made a one eighty in the air as the last of the rebels cleared back from the closing door. Adam swore. Miranda felt like doing much the same. The ship door closed all the way out of reach. Axel fired some of his cannon shots, but nothing landed. The hull of the ship meant to protect from the dangers of space, the hand cannon doing nothing to its shell.
They all watched the ship rise higher and higher away from them.
“Too late,” Fox said. “We were too...” His last word was cut off by a boom. A wave of energy from the explosion washed over them, knocking Fox to the ground. It pushed Miranda back off her feet. She felt her head collide with the edge of a cargo crate. Her eyes teared up and everything went fuzzy.
Chapter 16
“What in the Empire’s long reach just happened?” Axel asked. He’d been the farthest back, laying down suppressing fire with his cannon of a gun so the wave had missed him.
“It blew up,” Adam said. He was on the ground like the rest of them. Just sitting there. His body thrown back into the pile of crates he'd been maneuvering around when it happened. The imprint of his suit pressed into the wood. In as much shock as everyone else. He sat there unmoving, the words coming out, but nothing with them. “It just blew up.”
Miranda wanted to say something, anything to make it better. But it wasn’t better. The ship, their way off world, had exploded right before their eyes. She couldn’t piece the puzzle together. It made no sense. They had gotten away. Were ready to push off world. There was no reason for it to have exploded.
“Fox, report,” Adam said. The poor Ironside lay face first in the dirt. He tried to speak but the ground absorbed the words. He tried to roll over, only to get stuck halfway on his side.
“System armour still operational, but its malfunctioning. Shrapnel penetration in the back panel and right leg.” There was a long pause as he moved his leg testing its functionality. “Nothing penetrated the arm, but I won’t be space walking in this suit any time soon,” Fox said.
Adam nodded. “Axel.”
“All charge packs are used up,” Axel said. “Might be something we can scrape together from here, but it looks like the rebels took everything with them. Probably added to the boom.”
Adam nodded again. “Miranda?”
It was less of an order and more of a question. Was he actually worrie
d about her? She looked into his masked eyes and winced. Two of him swam in and out of her vision. She tried to stand but she couldn’t find the ground.
“Miranda?” he asked again, some urgency in his tone.
“She’s been hit,” Axel provided for her. She wanted to tell them she was fine. That it was the impact with the crate and not anything else. That the world was just spinning, but if that they gave her enough time, she really would be fine, but no words came from her mouth.
"We need to get her to a med bay," Axel said. The two Adams in front of her nodded in agreement.
"The only med bay is up on the ship," Fox pointed out.
"And the only way to the ship just blew up in front of us," Adam added.
"Either I got off a very lucky shot..." Axel reasoned.
"Or their own people rigged it to blow," Fox finished for him.
"All great questions," Adam said, "that don’t help. Facts: our ride is shot and the only person that can communicate with the computer systems here is in need of medical care."
That's when she heard it. A faint beeping sound of a Type One Droid. At first she thought it was just the ringing in her ears. But no. This was a beep boop that she'd heard far too many times before to ever confuse it with a concussion.
“Oscar!” Miranda cried. The little droid rolled into her line of vision. She'd never been so happy to see him in her entire life.
“Beep beep boop,” he scolded her.
“Yes, I know,” she tried to say back, but the words came out slow and slurred. The little droid rolled up to her head and stuck out a tentacle-like arm. There were two of them in Miranda’s vision, but she couldn’t trust that. She couldn’t trust anything she was seeing at the moment. An arm touched her head. The thought that she’d never seen anything close to arms on the droid entered her mind and just as quickly left it.
She felt a small prick at the side of her head. It hurt, but nothing compared to the pain she was already in.
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