The Iron Dawn Pt. 3: Never Split the Party

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Editor’s Note: It’s Friday, so that means another installment of The Iron Dawn. You can see part 1 here and part 2 here. Take it away, Kate!

Kami’atra nodded acknowledgement to Kibur. “Then we certainly must carry out this first task with haste – quickly, to the third floor!” he exclaimed as he opens the door to the stairwell and began racing up toward Page and the undeniable sound of blaster-fire. The steps did not seem terribly shaky, but he instinctually clung to the sides of the staircase with no desire to throw caution to the wind.

He slowed his pace as he neared the doorway to the third floor and peered out the small window into the corridor.  There was the imminent flash of blasters from the left and two more droids “running” (at a very slow pace within human standards) from the right to bolster the diminishing forces that were barraging the good Lt. in the next room.  From here he could not envision at all how many droids were blocking the concerned doorway; however, based on the tempo of the fire-fight, it couldn’t be too many – perhaps a half-dozen or so.

After the droids passed from the right and proceed down the hall, Kami’atra reached for the door’s control panel to open it slightly, but he was immediately shocked with little more energy than a static charge. His mind flashed to a good memory of doors back home with hinges, handles, and NO electrical circuits…  He reached for the controls again, and although he wasn’t shocked, the door wouldn’t open.

Kami’atra called down to Bax in as quiet a tone he could manage in the echoing stairwell, “Bax, I seem to have run into a jammed doorway here; I need your expertise!  Page’s assailants are just down this hallway and slowly gaining reinforcements.”  He watched what he could through the window while he awaited his friends’ approach.  He remained with blade in hand for the slim possibility that they may be discovered through the racket of the attack.

After exchanging banter and blaster fire with his mechanical adversaries, Lt. Page resumed communication with the team, this time with a little more anxiety than the last time. “Not to be rude or anything, but you guys can show up anytime now! I’d sure hate to bring down the party myself,” he stated, while gripping a frag grenade off his belt and smiling a little to himself.

Irulan raced up the stairwell and stopped behind Kami’atra. “There’s no time for expertise! Page needs us!” she said impatiently, yanking her lightsaber from her belt and turning it on. She stabbed it straight into the door’s control panel and received a terrible electrical shock, causing her to reel backwards against the wall. The control panel sizzled and hissed, but the door remained stuck.

“I think,” she said rather shakily to Kami’atra, “you may be right after all. Bax?”

Bax came loping down the hall, all four limbs slapping the metal flooring. His lungs panted heavily. “Damn security droids!” he shouted. “Watch my back!” Galloping on only three legs, he lifted his satchel off his shoulder and whirled it around, lobbing it ahead of him. The bag slid toward the door and violently bounced off the metal surface.

The satchel practically exploded with life as three St-00Ge class pit droids popped up and out of it. Behind Bax, the J-9 Worker droid L-Span-G78, or “Span,” came tumbling around the corner with red lights dazzling around him. A single shot grazed the droid’s cheek and sent his head spinning on axis.

The three St-00Ge droids began to wander around aimlessly. “M-0!” Bax shouted. “Let’s get that door open!” The leader of the three little droids started chattering in binary. Over their shoulders, even through the gunfire pinning the heroes against the door, the binary chatter of Span could be heard in response. Bax slid up to the door and tore open the satchel, pulling out a hydro-spanner. “You three better watch my back if you want this door open,” Bax said to Irulan, Kiber and Kami’atra.

Bax gave his instructions to Span, who talked back to Bax through M-0. Then, Span took hold of the consol and slowly, carefully pulled it out of the wall, wires still attached. Bax reached in with the hydro-spanner and pulled it back out as sparks flew. “Joppa!” he slammed an angry fist down on the top of Q-lee, closing the small droid into a bulbous disk, and shoved the disk into the wires. Then he turned to M-0. “Looks like we do this the hard way. M-0, tell Q-lee to find the Phonic Resonator.” The small droid started chattering in Binary again.

Around the corner five security droids appeared, blaster rifles at the ready. Their massive forms made them look like plus-sized R2 units with arms and legs; mindless automatons built only for killing.

As he prepared for the combat to ensue, Kami’atra stepped protectively, Kami’ken in hand, between the security droids and Bax.  Kami’atra then recited, in Miralukese, an apothegm calling for Divine protection over his companions as he steadied his grip on the hilt of his blade in defense of the technician at work behind him.

“Team, report! What’s going on out there?” the Lt. yelled to his companions over the comlink.

“Alan, I’m afraid to say that we’ve run into an obstacle in the stairwell next door to your compartment.  The door is locked and we’re under attack as well.  We’ll make quick work of these automatons and free you momentarily!!” Kami’atra replied in swift oration.

On both sides of the door the droids opened fire, laying down a hail of blasterfire, pinning the heroes in place. A few shots impacted against the wall near Bax, who kept working. Page was forced to duck behind a heavy crate to avoid getting hit. All of the shots were wide, but not by much.

The Lt., gripping his custom repeater in one hand and a frag in the other, said to himself, “There is no way I can use a frag with the team so close, not to mention it might bring the whole place down around our ears. I for one am not interested in dying for some credits.” After pondering for mere seconds, the Lt. re-clipped the frag to his belt. “I guess we’ll do this the old-fashioned way.” Gripping his repeater securely with both hands, he quickly moved out of cover and surveyed the room and the position of his assailants, then resumed cover in his original position. He observed five droids in a sloppy cover formation.

After observing the battle ground, the Lt. crouched and ran to the flipped table in the middle of the room, while taking fire from the droids closest to him. After reaching the offensive position, he took aim with his repeater on “number five” and sent a barrage of blaster fire at the puny machine, reducing the enemy to mere scrap.

As the droid’s blaster-fire careened past him and narrowly missed Bax while he worked, Kami’atra adjusted his position accordingly to shield the busy tech. In a swift redirection of energy as the droids’ attempts failed, he slashed the air in the direction of the nearest four attackers in the stairwell. The Force flowed single-mindedly toward his desire from the arc of the Kami’ken, striking the droids with Force energy and dispatching them toward the downward stairway.

“My soul has dwelt too long with ones who hate peace. I am for peace; but when I speak, they are for war!” Kami’atra exclaimed out of the overflow of energy and adrenaline from within him. “We must make quick work of these foes if we are to assist in the Lt.’s escape and complete this task.”

Irulan drew her lightsaber and attempted to advance towards the droids, but weakened by the force of the electric shock, she stumbled backwards in dizziness as blackness threatened to enclose her vision. She rested momentarily against the wall, recovering.

On Page’s side of the door, two droids moved up to the rubble closest to him, while two others advanced to the spot of the fallen one. The droids all fired, one shot hitting Page across the chest, though his armor dissipated most of it.

On the other side of the door, Bax continued to work furiously at opening the door, as Kami’atra threw the droids back, knocking them down the stairwell. One could hear the clattering of them falling down the stairs, one on top of the other.

“Let’s pick it up, Bax,” said Kibur over his shoulder. “They’ll be back soon.” He put his comlink to his mouth. “Page, old buddy, you doing okay?”

After sustaining the blaster impact to his chest the Lt. steadied his breathing and replied to his old friend. “Kibur, I’m still here! My party is in full swing and I am dancing in close quarters with these droids. Currently engaging them with suppressing fire, but I have two droids three meters away on the other side of a bulkhead and another two in flanking position on my left. Get through that door and you will have perfect position on them!”

Meanwhile, Kami’atra turned to Irulan with a compassionate visage.  “I am sorry that I hadn’t the chance to recover you sooner, although I am proud of your attempt to fend off our foes in your shocked state; very brave of you, Irulan.”  He stretched out his hand to help Irulan steady herself.

As Kami’atra grasped her forearm, Irulan could feel strength flowing steadily back into her. Steadying herself once again, she smiled gratefully – “Thank you, Kam. Brave, and stupid. Leave it to the girl to stick a lightsaber into an electric socket.”

Kibur began grabbing some rusted barrels and pushes them towards the stairwell. “Gimme a hand, Kam.” Kami’atra turned back to assist Kibur in his task. Kibur grabbed another barrel and placed it beside the others; Kami’atra retrieved another in like fashion.

Just then, Bax’s small droid came wiggling out of the crawl space with a burned out . . . object. “Give me that!” Bax cried. He pursed his lips and stared at it for a moment.

“Wait. No! This is a. . . Ugh! I’ll do it myself.”

Bax placed both gauntleted hands inside the panel, and put his other limbs against the wall, heaving with all his might. The entire panel tore off the wall with a scream. The panel on the ground, Bax stared into the space, then, with one swift motion, thrust his hand deep into the wiring. He let out a little yelp as a shock ran through him, and with a twist of his wrist, the door shuddered open a few inches, and stopped.

“Why you piece of absolute junk!” Angrily, Bax raised his ion rile and fired it into the wiring. An explosion of smoke spewed out of the wall and the door popped and heaved itself open 18 inches more.

“There,” Bax said. “Exactly what I wanted. I overrode the Firelocks to act in reverse. They open if danger is detected instead of closing.” He paused. “I wouldn’t stand in the doorframe for too long though. I don’t know how long it’ll last.”

“Way to go, Bax!” Irulan said. Darting past him into the room, she ducked behind the overturned table nearest the door and paused for a moment. Then she pushed to her knees and opened blaster fire on the two droids on the side of the room.

Her shot hit the first droid with force, blasting its robotic head from its trunk. It spun around wildly for a moment like a chicken with its head cut off, before crumpling in a heap on the floor, electronic parts hissing and popping.

Irulan slid back down, her back to the table. “Page, are you ok?!” she shouted across the room.

Taking advantage of the final droid’s surprise of watching its partner reduced to a headless pile of scrap, the Lt. lined up his repeater and quickly dispatched it before it could aim its blaster. The droid stumbled backward, and with a sense of satisfaction, the Lt. blew on the front of his weapon, as if to remove a small amount of carbon from the barrel.

He placed his back against the bulkhead and called out to Irulan, “Glad you could make it. I’m doing great,” he said sarcastically, as he lightly touched the blaster burn on his armor. “Watch yourself, there are two more droids in here!”

Bax slinked in the door and raised his ion rifle at one of the droids. The shot fried all the electrical circuits in its cortex. Its legs buckled and its trigger synapses fired wildly, riddling the droid next to it with blaster shots as it fell to the ground.

Back on the other side of the door, Kibur took the barrels and shoved them down the stairs, hearing them crash and clatter over the droids at the bottom. “That should keep them,” he muttered. He turned and headed for the blast door.

Just as he reached it, it slammed shut, cutting him off from the rest of the group. “Blast!” he shouts. He picks up the comlink. “You guys are going to have to go on without me. I’ll work on getting this door back open and catch up.”