The Xarren Escape (Plundering the Stars Book 2)

by James David Victor

  Chapter 10 (JINX)

  Rayvan led us to the comms center, which was even bigger up close than I thought. Three or four stories of slick metal walls and very few windows. I guessed when there were three suns, keeping it windowless kept it cooler, though paying for cold air shouldn’t have been a problem for the almighty Elarri Empire.

  We came to a side door without any guards present, but there was a noticeable ceiling camera in a glass dome right above the door. I kept my head down, trying to look defeated. Rayvan kept her imperial helmet low, though it hardly mattered since it covered her face completely. Gold dome with a black visor that ran from ear to ear and small black slits for air filtration and breathing. Gaudy and ugly in my opinion, but that was the imperials for you.

  As Rayvan had predicted, the keycard worked. I was surprised how easy it was, but I supposed the horror stories of imperial brutality were enough to keep locals in line. Even Xarren wasn’t stupid enough to send someone after them.

  Yet here we were.

  The inside was bright and clean, too metallic and smooth. Lots of gold trim and imperial insignias everywhere, in case you forgot you were inside an imperial base.

  Several times, we passed some guards and officers, who all gave us a look, especially Beleak, but they saw our restraints and didn’t question things. I had a feeling that we wouldn’t have that luxury forever. We turned down a hall that was devoid of imperials. We’d traveled down several twists and turns and even a few sets of stairs, but I had no sense of direction, nor any idea of where we were heading.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” I asked Rayvan.

  “Yes.”

  I frowned, my eyes drilling holes into the back of her helmet. “How do you know where to go?”

  “Shouldn’t that have been a question you asked before we infiltrated a highly-secure imperial listening and communications post?”

  “M-maybe. But that doesn’t answer the question.”

  She sighed. “You really wanna know?”

  “I feel like I should, yes.”

  Rayvan stopped and turned back to us. “I used to be an imperial soldier when I was young. Only joined up for a year when I was sixteen. I stole a bunch of weapons to sell so I could help my father with his debts. They never found out it was me, but they nearly did, so I deserted. Which is a death sentence. I know all their procedures and how they operate.”

  I blinked. “Y-you’re risking so much being here.”

  She shrugged. “My imperial past notwithstanding, breaking into an imperial base is punishable by public execution. The risk is the same.”

  That didn’t make me feel any less grateful, but I forced a thin grin and nodded. “Well, thank you, Rayvan. Lead the way.”

  She nodded back. Down the next hall, we passed another patrol who just nodded to Rayvan before we came to a stairwell. We started up.

  “The main comm array and listening center is on the top level. If your friends were on the other side of the galaxy, I might suggest going there, but the odds are they’re still within Imperial Space if I had to guess, assuming…you know.”

  I gulped. “Yeah.”

  “There are several other comm rooms scattered along the level below the top. A lot less foot traffic. Only issue is that once we’re up there, it will be very odd for me to have three cuffed intruders when the holding cells are on the bottom floor.”

  “Did you work here?” Amara asked behind me.

  There was a long pause before she answered. “I did a month-long rotation here. Enough to know my way around. This was before I started skimming from the armory.”

  I grunted. “Why couldn’t you have mentioned this before? It would have really relieved my stress.”

  Rayvan looked back and flashed me a smile. “I like to keep people guessing about me. Opening up really isn’t one of my strong suits.”

  “I hate you right now.”

  She kept on smirking. “Come on, we’re almost there.”

  Two more flights and we were there. Rayvan opened the door with her keycard and it snapped open. A short curving hall greeted us. We started down it but didn’t get more than a few steps before footsteps sounded around the bend coming toward us. There was nowhere to go, so I again kept my head down.

  A moment later, two imperials came into view. They didn’t go past. Instead, the two imperials stopped us, just as Rayvan predicted. “Hold,” the one on the left said. He was half a head taller than his friend. “Who are these…people?”

  Rayvan stood at attention. “I caught these three just now. Intruders. I think they were trying to steal information.”

  It was hard to tell what he was thinking due to his helmet, but I had the sense that the imperial wasn’t buying it. “Then why do you have them here? You know holding is on the bottom floor.”

  “I just caught them, just caught them, on this level.”

  “Then why are you walking away from the stairs and grav-lifts?”

  “I, uh, got turned around and—”

  Amara grunted. “Enough of this.” And before any of us could blink, she pounced. Amara punched him, which sent him flying with a cry before he landed in a heap down the hall. Before the other guard could get his rifle raised, Amara whirled and kicked him in the head. The force of it threw him against the wall with a loud bang, denting it.

  I just blinked at the scene. Zarthians sure were scary in combat. It was a wonder they weren’t in control of things. Good thing they were mostly peaceful.

  Amara bent over as she caught her breath and scooped up the guard’s keycard. “We need to move. Now.”

  “So much for stealth,” Rayvan mused.

  “Let’s be honest, with Jinx and I, that was never really an option.”

  “That’s fair.”

  “Enough talk. We must keep moving. The imperials will know we’re here soon,” said Beleak, grounding us back into the moment. He was right. We’d knocked out two guards on patrol and now these two. It wasn’t a big base, so it was only a matter of time before we were found out. That wasn’t even considering the possibility of hidden cameras catching us. The absence of any alarms told me that, in that regard, we were safe so far.

  Rayvan undid mine and Beleak’s shackles. No more point in them now. He scooped up a blaster and handed it to me.

  “Can you handle one?” he asked.

  I looked from him to the rifle then back to him. His eyes were piercing. “I, uh, I don’t know…”

  “If we come under fire, I need to know you won’t be a liability.”

  Yes, I would. But I couldn’t tell him this. He and Rayvan didn’t need to worry about me when we had enough to worry about. So, I took the rifle from him. I just hoped he didn’t notice how much my arms were shaking. It was a lot heavier than I thought.

  “I can do it.”

  He fixed me with a hard stare. “Good.” It was very intimidating. This was definitely the warrior side of his people talking, not the gentle side that I’d become accustomed to and quite fond of.

  With us all armed except for Amara, who was a walking weapon herself so it hardly mattered, we continued on. Literally right around the bend was a door that led to our destination. So, so close to getting there without arousing suspicion. Oh well.

  Amara took the lead. She pressed her keycard against the reader, the door whooshed open. She rushed in.

  And was a blur as she caught the three comm officers inside by surprise and pummeled them to unconsciousness. Every single time I saw her in action, I was amazed. If only I could do that… Things would have been a lot different for me.

  She slapped her hands together. “Okay, good to go.”

  Rayvan whistled. “Well done. Now, let’s hurry this up. Time is not on our side.”

  An understatement, to say the least.

  Amara sat at the controls and started flipping switches and adjusting dials. There was some static and a high-pitched whine as the radio signals kicked on and she searched the long-distance frequencies. On th
e console, she typed in a series of numbers: the hailing frequencies for the Diego and the Sanara.

  A tritonal beeping played on repeat as it searched for their frequency. And kept searching and searching and searching. Minutes past. Too many. Too long. No reply. This was it. They were gone or captured, and we’d done all of this for nothing. I wouldn’t see K or Pivek again, and I was going to be captured and killed by a bunch of damn imperial jerk wads who thought they were better than me.

  But then, the hailing beeps stopped, and we got some static. And in that static was a voice that wasn’t very clear, but it was a voice all the same. My breath caught in my throat. Still, the voice was unintelligible.

  “Can you clean it up?” Rayvan asked.

  “I’ll try.” Amara adjusted some of the dials ever-so-slightly. And it worked. The voice suddenly came through clear.

  “Hello? H-Hello? Who is there?”

  It was Ketellin’s monotone voice. I almost cried.

  “I cannot hear you. There is a lot of static. This is the Sanara. Is that you, Amara? Yan?”

  Amara scrunched her face in concentration as she fiddled with some of the controls. “Hold on… Hold on… Can you hear me now?”

  “Amara? It’s so good to hear your voice!” K exclaimed, which was about the most emotion I’d ever heard out of him.

  I laughed and keeled over, hands on my knees, out of breath. “Materelle preserve me. Thank goodness.”

  There was still static, but we could hear him fine. “What happened? Is it just you?”

  “No, no, it’s me, Jinx, and some new friends. I don’t have time to explain—” Just then, the low, silvery lunar lights cut off and red flashing lights started pulsing, accompanied by a blaring alarm that was so loud it made my bones rattle. “Okay, we definitely don’t have time.” We just about all cursed at the same time, except for Beleak.

  “What is that sound?”

  “I said no time, K! Can you transmit your coordinates?”

  “Yes, hold on.”

  It took far too long for this process. There was a lot of beeping and a download bar appeared on the screen after Amara inserted a nearby data-chip into the console. Who knew what sort of information was on it or whether they could track it, but we could worry about that later.

  “Wrap it up!” Rayvan yelled.

  “Don’t rush me!” Amara barked back.

  Finally, after an excruciating amount of time, the download finished with a satisfying ding! Amara removed the data-chip and tucked it into her pocket.

  “You received it?” K asked.

  “Yes, now we have to go! Signing off!”

  “Good luck. Hope to see you soon,” he said before she cut him off.

  She jumped out of the chair and started for the door. “Okay, let’s not waste any more time.” And we didn’t. We took off at a run, lights flashing and sirens blaring. We stormed into the hallway, expecting to be met by a squad of soldiers, but there was no one, just the same duo that we knocked out.

  Which meant something else had triggered the alarms. Perhaps our transmission? Or they found our patrol? Or something else all-together? Could have been good or bad, best not to dwell on it.

  Rayvan took charge. “Follow me, I know how we can get out of here.” Because of course she did. She led us down the same hall we came. “We’ll take the stairs again. They’d lock down the grav-lifts, but you can’t lock down stairs.”

  “They can lock the doors.”

  “I don’t need that type of negativity, my dear Amara.”

  We charged down the stairwell for three whole flights until we hit the ground floor. The doors were not locked, which was some sort of miracle that I wasn’t about to question. But as we came out of the stairs, we were met by the same squadron of imperials that I’d been expecting earlier. Guess they were just a tad late.

  “Halt!” yelled one with some multicolored trim on his armor, denoting his higher rank.

  “Nope!” Rayvan yelled back, taking a sharp right. We followed. They opened fire. All hell broke loose. I’m sad to say that I squealed. From there, we put on a long chase as we tore through the base, taking turn after turn, running into imperials left and right. Sirens still screaming. Red lights still flashing. My heart still ready to explode out of my chest.

  Blaster bolts pinged against the walls around us, some not even close and others just missing my feet or zipping over my hair. I ducked as best I could, but I felt I would be cut down at any moment.

  We rounded a corner, which gave us some brief relief from the barrage of fire. Rayvan pointed ahead. “Hangar ahead! We can jet out of here and meet up with your friends, assuming we don’t get blown out of the sky.”

  Yeah, that wasn’t a pleasant thought.

  “What about the speeder?” I asked.

  “Leave it! We can come back for it later.”

  Just then, our pursuers came around the corner behind us and opened fire again. A bolt came so close to my arm that a stinging burn singed my elbow. I yelped and flinched but kept on running.

  Amara returned fire behind me. Down the hall, I heard a cry as someone was hit. That was good, a downed soldier would buy us some time. We made it to the hangar doors. Rayvan fumbled for the keycard at her hip. It took painfully long, but finally, she unclipped it and opened the door. It slid open.

  The hangar was a large space of reflective black metal and bright lights that hurt the eyes. Small imperial fighters were docked in circular bays along the walls. Maintenance crews and pilots ran about as the sirens blared even louder from above, echoing in the space. Calling it deafening would have been a massive understatement.

  “Keep going! I’ll buy you some time!” Amara shouted as she used the door for cover and fired back at the pursuing imperials.

  Rayvan grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her around. “No, you idiot. Shoot the door controls. That will lock the system.”

  Amara’s jade cheeks turned a darker shade. “Oh. Yeah, right.” If we weren’t in a life or death situation, I would have laughed. Amara wasn’t often wrong in a combat scenario. Still, she did as Rayvan suggested and shot the control panel. With some sparks, the door shut tight.

  “That should hold them for a bit,” Rayvan said.

  “Yeah, but now we have to deal with them.” I pointed ahead of us. We were on a short catwalk a few feet above the hangar before it dropped down to the hangar floor. The sirens were so loud that our blaster bolts and words were drowned out, so all the imperials were still scrambling without so much as throwing us a glance. That was a blessing.

  Near us was a fighter, and I didn’t see any pilot near it, but they could have been below. “I probably should have asked this earlier, but can anyone fly a fighter?” I asked.

  Amara strode past me. “I can, just cover me while I get this baby in the air.”

  I would’ve been surprised if I hadn’t remembered that she’d once been a… Well, ‘terrorist’ was probably too harsh. A revolutionary was more accurate. It all depended on who was telling the story. But she had actual combat experience, so it was no surprise she could fly.

  We stayed low as we crept towards the fighter, hoping the guardrails would hide us, though Beleak stuck out no matter how small he tried to make himself. But soon we were in front of the fighter. Old gold colored with copper trim, it was shaped like a diamond with two massive fins jutting from the top and bottom. It would be a tight squeeze, but we’d fit.

  The door to the cockpit was open, which was a little too convenient. We realized why too late. Just as we reached the door, a mechanic stuck his head out, eyes wide with confusion, raised white tattoos along his cheeks and temple rippling as his brows furrowed.

  “What— Hey! Over here! Intruder! Intru—”

  He was cut off when Amara punched him in the nose. It snapped with a sickening crack, though I knew she was holding back. With her Zarthian strength, she could have caved in his skull if she wished. He slumped over. We were in the clear.

  Except
we weren’t. His cries had been heard over the sirens.

  Blaster bolts started soaring around us from below. I yelped and threw my hands over my head. Rayvan and Beleak didn’t hesitate as they immediately returned fire. Amara wanted to join them, but she had to get the ship running. But before she did, she turned to me, gripped my shoulders, and made me look her in the eyes.

  “Jinx, I know this is scary, and I would never want to ask you this, but I need you to help them cover me. Those imperials are going to come through that door at any moment and they’ll overrun us before I can get us in the air. Can you do that?”

  Her gaze was so intense, too intense. I was shaking. I didn’t want to do this, but everyone else was always risking their lives for us, for the mission, while I hid and cowered. I had to step up. Letting my friends down was not an option. So, with a deep breath and a painful swallow, I nodded.

  “Mhm.”

  Amara offered me a smile. “Good.” She picked up my rifle from where it sat nearby and placed it in my hands. “Put the butt of the gun against your shoulder and hold on tight. It kicks. And you don’t need to kill anyone, just aim in their direction and fire. That’ll be enough to keep them in cover.”

  “I-I’ll do my best.”

  She released my shoulders and patted my cheek. “Your best is enough.” Then she left me and hopped into the cockpit.

  I could do this. I had to do this. Materelle forgive me and give me strength.

  So I took a deep breath, braced the butt of the rifle against my shoulder, and popped out of cover. Below, the pilots were scrambling towards us, blaster pistols drawn. The mechanics fled for cover. Rayvan and Beleak fired beside me without hesitation. The pilots fired back, but neither side was really coming close. Which I supposed was the point of covering fire.

  No more delaying it. I sent up a prayer and pulled the trigger.

  The kick wasn’t as great as I thought it would be. Green blaster bolts shot forth, high over the ammo crates the pilots were hiding behind. None of them came close to hitting the imperials, but it was enough to make them duck for cover.

  My heart pounded so fast and my arms quaked. Just aim above them, Jinx, I thought. No one needs to die. I let off round after round, bolt after bolt sailing over the pilots. Not all though. I was not a skilled shot, so some hit the ammo crates and a few pinged against the floor and the fighters behind them. A couple came very close to striking the imperials, which I didn’t want, but at least it kept them honest.