“Good” Arnaut said, hovering over the terminal, “It seems they are using older style gun platforms, these require that cartridges of the Tibanna gas be loaded into each gun prior to firing, each cartridge probably holds no more than three shots, although chances are they only hold one. These gas cartridges are kept in a secure room with three entrances at the bottom level of the base, one entrance is the load elevator that takes the cartridges to their gun platforms, the other is a loading entrance that opens directly to the outside, and the third is a maintenance entrance on the bottom level.”

“Ooh! Oooh! Pick me! Pick me!” Snipes said, jumping up and down, his mood as jovial as ever. Arnaut ignored him.

“We’re going to blow this up; if they’ve no ammo they can do no damage. However, we’re also going to need a way off of here, Snipes, Carnon, Tnepres and Jenn, you are charged with securing our exit. I don’t care what or how; just get us out of here. The rest of you will come with me and Kanderin to blow up their munitions. Lets go, we have no time.”

The squad nodded and muttered affirmatives. Snipes took a second to glance around to each of the people with him. He waited for the rest of the Wraiths to round another corner before nodding to the group, silently asking ‘ready?’. They all were. Snipes nodded again and turned around and lunged into a sprint, the other three close on his heels. He’d taken a second to burn the path from where they had been to where they were going into his mind. He lead the group to a small maintenance room, from there they wordlessly climbed into maintenance ducts. They only followed the ducts a short distance, just enough to find an exit at a lower level.

They exited into another maintenance room; Snipes took a second to look around, it was dark, but not too dark to see, there were just various tools and pieces of broken equipment lying around.

“Lost?” Tnepres asked.

“Nope, just catching my breath. We’re headed to the hanger, wonder of wonders, it’s down the hall another three hundred feet. I’m wondering how we got this far, of course thinking about it this Strontium guy, he doesn’t seem the sort to even remember maintenance ducts exist. Obviously never did field work.”

“It’ll be heavily guarded then.”

“Aye, this ain’t the one we came in through, I think this one will probably be full of Lambdas and the such. Mostly shuttle craft. Strontium may have already been here too and ran away in one, doubt it though, he doesn’t seem that smart.

“Ah well, everyone ready?”

They all nodded, they were weary, even Snipes was weary although he wasn’t the sort to show it. This mission was dragging on too long. They needed to get out soon anyway, fleet had to be bearing down on them place pretty quick. Snipes rubbed the faceplate on his helmet since he couldn’t rub his face; then nodded to Carnon to open the door.

Carnon did as he was told, Snipes and Tnepres spun out of the door at the same time, making sure both sides of the hall were clear. Snipes only had the C-10 he’d pulled off the guard earlier, but it would have to do. He signaled to the others ‘this way’ and carefully led them towards the hanger. The area seemed strangely abandoned, not a single pilot or guard in site. The movement to the door was easy.

Snipes and Tnepres took up positions on each side of it, ready to open fire if the need arose. Snipes hit the button to open the door. It seemed to take forever opening. However once it finished it revealed an almost barren hanger, only two ships lay in it. A Theta-class and a Lambda-class. Snipes elected the smaller Theta and stepped inside the hanger.

Kanderin groaned,pulling himself out of the rubble that used to be a ceiling.

"I knew I should of been a bartender" He sighed, scratching his neck, before reaching around for his comlink. "Wraith squad, report"

A mixture of voices, both male and female responded. Kanderin deliberately picked out Fraot's voice and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Next time Arn, let's not search the bodies"

A few people laughed, but no real reply came through.

"Arn?"

"I think he's dead Kand. I saw the roof...collapse on top of him" Dixon spluttered back.

"That's not funny Dixon. Seriously, where is he?"

"He's not joking Kand, I saw it too" Tnepres added.

Out of the smoke, Wraith squad started to form around him. All still wore their dark black armour, which usually made them seem very unhuman. However, even with visors in place, it was easy to tell that emotions were running very high.

No one spoke for quite some time. Every mask pointed towards Kanderin, hoping for an order, a witty comment, anything to take their mind's off their Squad Leader. He had nothing to satisfy them. He was trained for this sort of thing to happen, for a worst case scenario to strike and for him to be forced to take control. He just never thought it would happen. And although he would never admit it, he was scared. He looked up at Snipes and Virius, two veterans that he trusted would already be coming up with ideas. But they also, were vacantly looking back at him. Without Arnaut, he was the squad leader.

"Alright, a toast to Senior Sergeant Arnaut, the best Squad Leader Wraith Squad has ever known"

"Here here" The squad replied.

"We've wasted enough time" He continued, pushing up his visor slightly and brushing his hand across his face. "We cant get through here now, let's head into the other hanger and see if we can find another way around"

"Wraiths! Disperse!" Snipes yelled, snapping his fingers.

The reaction was instantaneous, Snipes, Tnepres and Carnon each went running in a different direction. The Wraiths were faster and considerably more clever than their counterparts in the battle. Snipes himself ran around behind some empty crates, the blaster fire ripped around both sides, so Snipes climbed up them, each box he easily took with a step and when he reached the top he jumped, releasing a spray of fire from his C-10. It wasn't enough to actually hit the commandos, but it made them hesitate, that precious second Snipes stole to dart to the wall, concealed behind one of the pylons holding the roof up. Snipes pulled his last grenade from his belt. Then swore because it was only a smoke grenade, a high tech smoke grenade complete with little electronic devices designed to throw off smoke canceling visors, but still just smoke grenade. He shrugged though and tossed in anyway, the cover would give the Wraiths an advantage.

As soon as he heard the hiss from the smoke grenade he sprung out of his cover, spraying the pistol madly in his left hand. It ran out of ammo right as the smoke started really clouding the room. Snipes dove to his left, sliding across the ground on his stomach. Snipes took a second to change the view-mode in his helmet to cancel out the smoke, the electronic devices had little if any effect on the storm-commando helmets due to some complex design that Snipes never understood properly, hence why he'd been issued one.

He pushed himself up from the ground in time to see a figure roughly ten feet from him through the green haze the helmet made of the black smoke. It was looking around, confused, it played with its helmet as Snipes sneaked up, then pulled it off. It was a woman. She looked similar to an ex of his. His natural reaction was to jump at her from behind and twist her neck until it broke. This proved to be exactly the right thing to do when he jumped at her from behind and twisted her neck until it broke. Once he was certain she was quite dead he grabbed up her weapon. It was a little bigger than the guns he liked. The term penis envy came to mind. He almost snickered, but remembered he was in a fight and dropped into a crouch.

There was an explosion, Snipes couldn't see where, or how, but he did see the smoke billow outwards, then waft back to where it had been. He stayed cautious, but it seemed to have little if anything to do with him.

He looked around, he could vaguely make out the shapes of two more, he raised the gun up to his shoulder, looked down the sight and squeezed the trigger. Then missed. The shot flew straight through the smoke and there was no commando, a second later a different, smaller commando popped up, identified as Tnepres on his HUD. He made a rude gesture and Snipes laughed. Then he pointed. Snipes spun lower and readied his weapon, but he was too late, he felt it yanked out of his hands as one of the enemies assaulted him. Snipes didn't hesitate though, as soon as he felt the tug he had released the gun and sprung to the side, he twisted around the trooper and pulled a knife from his boot. The enemy commando made the mistake of turning just his head to follow Snipes instead of his body, Snipes sunk the knife into an artery on his neck. Snipes visor made the liquid green as it spewed out and he clutched at his neck. Snipes kicked him once as he fell down.

The smoke began to clear as Tnepres and Snipes regrouped under the Theta shuttle. The ventilation system kicked in and the smoke disappeared in almost no time. There was almost a line of dead commandos, some were in more than one piece, Snipes assumed a blaster bolt and a thermal detonator had possessed intersecting fates, the only one left was being beat to death by Carnon with his own helmet. Snipes prodded Tnepres in the shoulder and pointed. Mirthful chuckling drained out of their helmets before Snipes motioned for Tnepres to go help him.

Snipes was going to concern himself the Jenny and the silly one and their silly duel. It was still going on, although both combatants were looking worn and bloodied. There was lots of kicking and punching and biting. Snipes shook his head in disgust. He was all for fighting, but there were more dignified ways to do it. Like with blasters. Some people just lacked sophistication.

The Silly One had her back to Snipes as he strode up. Snipes thought Jenny yelled something about staying out, but Snipes just grunted. By that time The Silly One wasn't blessed with enough warning and Snipes picked her up by the back of her shirt, when she tried to swing her silly weapon at him he reached out and broke her wrist. She yelled and Snipes twisted his arm around so that he was face to face with her. Apparently she had possessed another silly weapon she swung at him, he blocked it with his right arm and the armor around it, then grabbed the hilt and twisted it out of her grasp and tossed it away.

He just looked at her in the face for a second, then, "You suck." He tossed her aside, she reached out to stop herself, but with the wrong arm. She landed on the broken wrist and screamed out in pain. When Snipes walked over to her she was curled around the wrist, no doubt the pain was quite sever. Snipes kicked her in the stomach.

"Get up."

She scrambled to her feet, but before she could get balanced Snipes kicked her down again.

"Not that far up, now crawl." Snipes delivered another kick to her face. He was a little upset.

He guided her into the back of the Theta with kicks and yells and the occasional warning blaster shot from a salvaged pistol. Jenny had been stuck with the task of making sure each of the commandos were dead, Tnepres and Carnon were checking the ship over for traps. Snipes was busy being a rat bastard.

The inside of the ship was very simple, probably had been used to carry high risk cargo around, but whatever that cargo had been it was nowhere in sight now. Snipes dragged The Silly One into the middle of the area on the left side. He pulled on a couple of the beams running the length of the interior until he found one of the support beams. Then he smiled at The Silly One. Balling both fists together he swung his arms down on her temple, knocking her flat on the floor, unconscious, probably with a serious concussion. He reached under the expanded metal flooring and pulled up a length of chain.

In preparation Snipes used his pair of detention-cuffs and then borrowed Tnepres set. He cuffed her arms and legs, then used a pen torch to melt the locks together. Then he wrapped the chain around each set and the support beam. Then after a few minutes he managed to find some couplers for the chains, then he used the torch to melt those together so that none of the chains or cuffs were  capable of being removed. If the Wraiths had to abandon ship she was out of luck.

By this time Jenny had reported back and the rest of the squad had helped gather up the equipment from the fallen commandos. There was a goodly pile of weapons and grenades. Snipes found a pistol he liked and shoved it into his holster, as well as what looked like a trandoshen suppressor. Snipes smiled and tucked in into his belt. The Silly One was still asleep, so Snipes let her be, instead he had the weapons and such piled in the cockpit where he started up the ship. Tnepres was sitting behind him on the ball turret in the rears controls and Jenny was across from him on the Navigation Station not actually navigating. Then again, maybe she was navigating the stationary ship. Snipes just shrugged. Carnon was watching the prisoner, from a distance, not that she could do much more than bite, and Snipes had commanded that if she tried that (or were to talk) he was to break her jaw. Carnon was too new and too likable to disobey.

Everything went silent as the comlink on Snipe's belt began to beep. It had to be coming from the other half of the squad, and that meant either very good, or very bad news.

"Snipes here"

"It's Kand" The response came.

"Oh hey, how's things going?"

"I have absolutely no idea how things could be worse"

Snipes laughed, although Jennabelle and Tnepres couldn't help wondering whether it was one of nerves. Although Kanderin spoke as fluently as ever, his tone was somewhat morbid.

"Let me guess, you ran into more of the special ops?" Snipes asked.

"No, they were regulars. But they got Arnaut"

"As in kidnapped?"

"No Snipes, as in dead. There was an explosion and he was crushed under the roof. I'm in charge for the remainder of the operation. We're complete our objective and get up to where you are, but for the record, for this mission at least I'm placing you as our ASL, if something happens to me, you abandon the operation and take the Wraith's home"

"That's not Wraith procedure Kand..." Snipes responded, still somewhat stunned by Kanderins formalness.

"I don't have time for you to argue with me Snipes, you heard my orders. And secondly, if you come across any more resistance, stay away from their bodies, some have rigged their heart monitors up to detpacks, they could take a whole hallway out"

"Whatever you say Kand. Good luck"

"Kanderin out"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Here's the lift" Gio pointed towards it.

"A lift would be too easy for them to rig, we take the stairs" Kanderin responded, already striding down the hallway. He still held a vice like grip on his electrostaff, he couldn't help feeling sorry for anyone unlucky enough to run into him right now. He stood a very good chance of being ripped in half.

The stairs descended quickly, much to Kanderin's annoyance they had no choice but to slow down, the corridor seemed to resemble a cliff face more than a staircase. Although the logic behind it was very clear, it very resistant to attack. Half of a regular group of terrorists would fall right down the stairs and break their neck on the concrete floor.

"There's likely to be a guard station down here somewhere" Kanderin called back. "We don't have time to plan this one, but we have the element of surprise - they probably wont be expecting us to come down here. Have your weapons ready, they wont stand a chance"

"Aye sir" The squad responded.

"Sir" Kanderin mumbled "That feels weird"

As soon as the desk came into view at the foot of the stairs, Kanderin fired a shot towards a man crouched over something on the ground. It hit him in the side of the head, completely severing it from his shoulders and rolling it several feet away. He pointed the pistol to the next human like figure and began to pull the trigger, before pulling his trigger finger anyway.

"What happened here?" Kanderin spun around, in time to watch the rest of the squad shrug.

All around them, bodies littered the floor. Some wore the dark black armour they had begun to familiarise with, although most simply wore common uniform. On closer inspection, most of them wore very deep stab wounds, only two or three seemed to fall to blaster bolts.

"Be on your toe's guys. There's someone else in here besides us, and they're very, very dangerous"

Slowly tiptoing over the heaps of bodies, they made their way down the hallway. Around the corner, even more bodies met them. One in particular caught his attention, sat upright with dark vacant eyes staring down towards them. A metallic blade was still leaking blood from the side of his neck.

"Snipes?" Kanderin whispered into his comlink.

"Aye?"

"Have you come down to the ammunition depot ahead of us?"

"No, we're still sat on this ship waiting for you" He responded.

"Uh oh..."

He pulled himself around the next corner. He was silent. Deadly. His form melted in with the shadows, making him practically invisible. He was the epitome of the silent hunter. Trained extensively, drilled unendingly, he was no stranger to the workings of stealth operations. There was a hiss behind him as the thermal grill locked back into place. The two bodies stashed behind it would remain unfound for a while. Maybe forever. Which was good. He knew now that he was being followed by someone or someones. Best not to leave a trail too wide for them to follow. He wiped down his bloodied blade and sheathed it again, moving through the hall, leaving barely a trace that he’d been there at all.

The emergency lights had since gone out, their short batteries dying after the original lighting failed to come back on. His knife had taken out the generators on this level. Of course, he’d been able to cover his tracks well, and the station’s maintenance crew, what of it was still alive, hadn’t found the exact problem for the lighting failures yet. He’d always been able to cover his tracks.

The guard in the next hallway barely let out a strangled sigh before the knife in his throat made it impossible to make any vocally sounds at all. He was still kicking and jerking when his attacker passed by and ended his misery.

It wasn’t that he liked killing, he thought, wiping down his latest victim’s blood. But he’d been trained to kill. It came…naturally. He did it without feeling, without passion. He simply killed. And that’s all there was to it.

The air seemed to get heavier and his breaths shorter. His vision darkened for a second and he slumped against the wall for support. After the spell had passed, he ripped out a stim and injected it into his neck. He tossed the empty case away and breathed a ragged sigh of relief. The pain in his side had passed, turning into a cold numbness, but the wound was taking a lot of blood. He looked down at where the shrapnel had caught him in between his armor segments. The material of his suit was dark crimson, dripping slightly.

He was dying. The lack of pain told him that much already. The bomb had put a nasty chunk of shrapnel in him and it was bleeding him out. He was dying, but he wasn’t dead yet. There was still the mission. He gasped in two more quick breaths and moved on.

There were more guards in the next room. He moved in quickly, tearing out the throats of the first two before they turned around. The third got a look him just before the knife went through his eye. The fourth and last dropped, the knife through his spine still causing the muscles to jerk and spasm. He was in. He was at the ammunition room at last. He took a step forward.

The trip-line went off, and the emergency protocols locked into place. He barely managed to clear doorway before the giant slab of metal slammed down, effectively cutting off the room from the rest of the station.  He cursed his stupidity. He hadn’t realized that the enemy troopers had been rigging the ammunition room, waiting for the Wraiths. And he’d almost gotten locked out as a result. He was in now, though. Around him were crates and crates of the tibanna gas shells that were waiting to be sent up to the cannon. It was a bobm waiting to go off. He could blow this place and complete the mission.

“Wraiths, Wraiths, do you copy?” There was nothing but static, probably due to the thick shielding of the room. Either that or they were all dead. Not a very good prospect.

“Wraiths, do you copy?” Still static. He tapped the comlink once and tried another channel.

“Wraiths, Wraiths. Do you copy? This is Jan’re. Do you copy?”

* * *

Despite all their efforts, all their guns, all their weapons, all their tactics, Arnaut wasn’t dead yet. His left leg ached like something fierce since the round had taken a nasty chunk out of it. He’d put an entire clip in the frigger that had done that. His chest plate had been crushed by some Elite troop carrying a shock hammer of sorts. Not so badly as that it didn’t function, but it pushed painfully across his already bruised chest. Arnaut put quite a few rounds in that little frigger too. And used his hammer to smash in the skull of his comrade. Not too bad an exchange, but every time Arnaut had to drawn in a half-choked breath, he wished it could’ve gone better.

His helmets internal sensor systems of inertia dampers were all out of wack. The shot that had clipped the side of his helmet had been way too close for comfort and reminded Arnaut that he wasn’t invincible. Just an inch to the right and he’d have been lying in the middle of some frig-forsaken hallway, sans a head. Great way to die, he fancied.

He was damn tired of the hallways of the station now. He’d seen way too many, killed way too many already. He was pushing his way toward the ammunition room, killing everything in his way, going about it in a very gung-ho way. It didn’t come without a price, as his wounds attested to, and frankly he was surprised to still be alive. But that didn’t slow him down one bit at all. He was determined to get there.

The hallway widened into an antechamber with two small potted plants, two comfortable looking chairs, a desk, and two very, very dead bodies. One was slumped in a chair, head leaning back at an odd angle, eyes staring at the sky. There was one wound, a knife wound, right through his throat. Whoever had killed him had been good.

The other was slumped on top of the desk. Killed by the single knife wound in the back of his skull. Very good, Arnaut said to himself. Whoever they were, Arnaut dearly hoped that their paths didn’t cross anytime soon. He moved through and out the other side, this time a bit more cautiously.

His comlink crackled once. It had been nothing but static since the explosion, but now it stuttered. Arnaut turned it up so he could hear it better.

“…opy. Wraiths, Wrai…’re. Do y…copy?”

“Jan’re? Jan’re, is that you?” Arnaut blurted out. It was the first Imperial he’d heard from since the explosion.

“Sarge? Is…you? Boy am I gla…hear your voice!”

“Where are you? I’ll be over to your position as soon as I can. How are you holding out? Have you met any resistance? Any other Wraiths? Where are you again?” Arnaut asked quickly.

“Erm. That’s…ong story.” Idly, about a hundred meters of metal and wiring away, Jan’re tapped on the reinforced bulk of the ammunition room door. It was solidly shut.

“Probably not the best of places,” he replied over the comlink.

OOC:

Alright, yes, Jan're has got a dirty lil' secret. Not to mention that he's alive and kicking. We are, say, two to four posts from the end. I might even finish it with my next post. We'll see. Either way, this story is in it's last moments.

OOC:

Bed. Tired. Story done. Will fix tomorrow. Enjoi.

The station was falling apart. Arnaut knew that now. He’d tried to ignore it, but now, it was too obvious to ignore. As if the crack splitting the hallway in two wasn’t enough, the constant creaks and shakes that the entire station gave were quite alarming.

Smoke poured from spidery cracks in the walls, choking the hallways with noxious fumes. Arnaut had his rebreather on fully automatic now, and all he could taste was the stale, strained air coming through his helmet. The taste was almost as bad as the smoke, he thought sourly. Visibility was a problem too, and, with as much smoke as there was, his helmet was having a hard time filtering it all.

As he made his way through the winding halls, he met very few soldiers. The ones who weren’t dead were either bleeding profusely, choking on the fumes, or both. He didn’t waste any ammo on them. They were dying quickly enough already. Even fewer than the ones he found actually noticed him and recognized him as an enemy trooper. They didn’t care any more. They would take one glance at Arnaut’s black Imperial armor, nod as if it was the most common thing in the universe, and go back to dying in the way they found fit. None tried to stop him, that was for sure.

Multiple hull breaches made getting to the ammo room nigh impossible. Every few hallways, a bulkhead door would be slammed shut, isolating a part of the station opened up to the void. The station probably looked like one of those odd blocks of cheese you bought from street vendors, Arnaut mused silently. The Imperial fleet was making a real mess of the station, and, for the most part, they were unhindered. Jan’re, in locking himself inside the cannon’s ammo room, had also locked off the much needed ammo for the cannon itself. It had gone silent half an hour ago.

The rest of the stations defenses had been in disarray already, after the Wraiths journey around the station, and were caught totally off guard when the Imperial fleet arrived. That wasn’t to say that the fleet wasn’t having a hard time - there were other sections of the shipyards – just that they were able to tear that section to shreds.

Arnaut groaned as he reached another door, solidly shutting his next route. He detoured to the left and wasted five precious minutes finding a way around the breach. During the time, he checked his comlink again for any signal from the rest of his squad. He didn’t get anything but static. Not really surprising, either, considering that the communications had been hard before. Now, he’d be surprised if his signal went more than five meters. He’d lost contact with Jan’re, the only Imperial he’d been able to reach in the first place, almost as soon as the assault had began.

He cleared a huge hole in the decking – he could see all the way to the level below through it, even with the smoke – and began to run through the halls. If he kept the pace he had been at, he would’ve surely ended up dead.

As if to prove his point, a ways down the hall he was in the roof collapsed in a flaming ball of wreckage. Arnaut half turned back to watch the spectacle unfold before sprinting off again, into the smoke and deeper into the station.

The transition came so fast, Arnaut had to stop and do a double take. One moment he was running through the shattered hallways and the next he was in an almost pristine room. The artificial, white lighting hadn’t been cut out, and, for the most part, it hadn’t suffered at all from the fleet bombardment. This was deep in the station, out of the reach of the fleet. It almost seemed to be part of a different station entirely. Arnaut could still feel the vibrations but they were…weak. Muted, almost, by the depth he was at. He took two steps forward cautiously, still expecting the whole room to collapse in on himself at any moment. Nothing happened, and he sprinted ahead once more.

He didn’t have far to go. The ammuniton room was just around the corner. Skidding to a halt, he gazed upon the bulkhead door that awaited him. It was immense, designed to contain an explosion of all the tibana gas in the room just beyond. There was no way he would be blowing through it any time soon.

He tried his comlink. Certainly, with the help of both Jan’re on the inside and Arnaut on the outside, they could open the door.

“…sir?” came the garbled response from the trooper on the other side of the door.

“I said, we’re getting out of here,” Arnaut repeated.

“…rest of…ad…” The message came as a jumble of incoherent words, punctuated by brief bursts of static.

“I didn’t catch that, could you repeat?”

“Wher…of…squad?”

“I haven’t seen them in an hour.” There was a pause.

“…dead?”

“Not that I know of. I haven’t heard from any save you. As soon as we can get you out of there, we can get out of here. Hopefully the squad is doing the same thing.” Jan’re agreed somberly and Arnaut got to work.

Arnaut pried the panel off the door controls. The controls had required a nine digit long passcode which Arnaut wasn’t in the mind to try and guess. Whatever the troopers had done, they had done it thoroughly. Arnaut kicked one of them angrily as he passed by their bodies on the floor. Causing trouble even in death.

With the help of some of the tools in his pack, Arnaut managed to reroute some of the power from the power grid over to the door, which apparently had been cut off. It wasn’t like the rest of the station was using it, as damaged as it was.

Arnaut cut the chip out which had linked the locking mechanism on the door to the control panel. A few short seconds later the door slid open. Jan’re strode out confidently, looked slightly weary, but definitely not as battered as Arnaut.

“Survived the worst of it, eh?” Arnaut asked.

“I have my ways,” he said simply. Arnaut eyed him suspiciously as they moved out.

The station was near death. Half the halls weren’t breathable. The rubble caused large hills of twisted metal and wiring or giant pitfalls, sometimes falling as many as three levels below. The very few living soldiers they found were in gas masks and rushing the same way as them. Anyone exposed to the air now either got a lung-full of noxious gas or a lung-full of nothing at all. A damaged, tinny comm system for the station listed off  sections sealed off in a dull, monotone voice. Every now and then it was list a successful escape pod launch, but those were becoming fewer and farther between.

They met the first Wraith a little over twenty minutes after they’d left the ammunition room. Arnaut clambered over a pile of twisted metal reaching up nearly to the roof, just managing to squeeze through the narrow gap at the top. On the other side, even his smoke-filtering visor couldn’t get rid of the thick fog. It was nearly pitch black. Arnaut slid down cautiously as Jan’re came up behind him.

“How close do you thick we are?” Arnaut called back over the crackle of flames and the occasional fizz of frayed wires.

“The last intact map I saw said we shouldn’t be too far. Maybe another ten minutes, if we keep the pace. And don’t detour.”

“I hope this thing holds together that long,” Arnaut commented patting the metal wall next to him. With a shriek of grinding metal, the wall gave way, and Arnaut leapt back. Separated by a barrier wreckage, Arnaut could just barely make out the adjacent hallway. The smoke began to flow into those much clearer hallways, and the overall visibility became much better. There were shapes on the floor. Black, spec ops armored shapes.

“Oh frig,” Arnaut said, bounding over the distance where the wall had once been. Dixon, Carnon, Giovanni, and Kanderin lay sprawled on the ground, in various states of unconsciousness. Arnaut hoped they were unconscious. Arnaut rushed over to Carnon, the closest trooper, and rolled him over. He was bleeding a bit from his side, and his helmet had a nasty dent in it, but other than that he appeared to be fine. And he was breathing. Arnaut administered a stim.

“S-sir…what…w-what happened?” he asked dazedly, coming to.

“I was hoping you could tell me,” Arnaut replied.

“We were heading…for the ammo room…and…there was an…explosion…and then I blacked out,” he said, still somewhat stunned. Arnaut looked up to see Jan’re reviving the other three. He gave Arnaut the all clear signal. They’d live. If they got out of the station, that was.

“Can you stand?” Arnaut asked, turning his attention back to Carnon.

“Y-yeah…I think.” He wobbled up to his knees, then his feet, catching himself on the wall when he slipped once.

“S-see?”

It was another ten precious minutes before all of them were in any quality to move. Their going was slowed now, because the four still could not run or even walk very fast without collapsing. Luckily for them, the hangar was just a few hallways away. In reality, it would’ve taken a while to wind through the crisscrossing halls, but the damage had made it possible to simply walk through where walls, floors, and ceilings had once been.

They rushed into the hangar, battered, bruised, dazed, and alive. Snipes already had the shuttle running and was just a few moments from leaving when they came into the hangar.

“What kept you?” he yelled over the din as the six men filed onto the shuttle.

“Just get us out of here, we’ll explain when we’re safely aboard the Dominion.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

The shuttle rose out of the hangar and flew off into the void of space. Now Arnaut could finally see what the station looked like from the outside. He was amazed that he’d just been alive in it. The entire outside was blistered, splintered, and broken, bombarded by the full brunt of the Imperial fleet. Gas vented off into space from more holes than Arnaut could count. The place where the cannon had been was long since destroyed, and the empty husk of the cannon’s main turret hung dead in space. In the midst of it all, yet more brilliant green turbolaser blasts struck the station, adding to the already substantial damage.

“Tie fighters coming in fast, eight o’clock position. They don’t look too happym” Snipes’ voice came over the speakers. He sounded worried.

“Broadcast our signal to them.”

“Static interference from the station’s making it impossible! And it doesn’t help that this ship’s a piece of junk.” Arnaut heard a loud bang from the cockpit as Snipes hit some part or another of the consoles. Arnaut ran to join him.

“Have you tried on a different frequency?” Arnaut asked. Snipes gave him a cold glare. “Alright, alright! So this is how we’re going to die? Killed by our own fighters?”

“Guess so,” Snipes frowned. The TIE’s started to fire, green shots licking the ship. It rocked as the shields spluttered. Snipes tapped the button for the signal again. And again. More shots rocked the ship. Again again. The shields failed. Again. The ship rocked uneasily. Again. And then the TIEs were pulling back.

“We made it through! We made it through!” Snipes yelled triumphantly.

“You are one lucky squad. We almost shot you down,” the TIE’s wing commander came through on the comm. “Welcome back from Hell.”

“Good to be back.”