Star Wars Episode I: The Knight Awakens

Chapter 9: Knightfall

The cool, misty morning made for good concealment, as Jake neared the church from the rear. He sensed Kory and Mick were nearby, now all that stood in his way was Bane and his band of goons. They had a sizable force move in as he watched, while night fell. The shooting spree that had been going on up the road about a quarter of a mile off had died down.

"If my vision was showing me the real time battle, this is their second night at it... and still no sign of Bane," Jake said to himself. At that moment hollow booms carried throughout the darkness, followed by slowly falling orbs of greenish-white light. "Mortars... they're using illumination shells..."

From high above in an evergreen tree in the central courtyard separating the church from the forest road, Jake hung upside down keeping surveillance on the hostile movements on the ground. It begun pouring down rain, and the light from the vehicles, buildings and street lamps casted shadows of splintered light on the tree, yet Jake was never seen.

There was a gated checkpoint on the right, where the road went up into the mountains. On the left, vehicles packed the dirt road as they transported ammo and soldiers back behind the fortified tree line that went all the way down to the logging site.

The troop movements were nothing, if not predictable. The Jedi padawan had gathered the only reason SDC hadn't yet broken through was due to poor intelligence... if only he had a radio! All Jake had to do now was wait for Bane to come out into the storm. He was getting fed up with waiting, though.

As he continued to recon the area, he saw something he really didn't like: a humvee came screeching around the corner from the lumber yard, stopping dead in its tracks in front of the church. Two mercenaries emerged from the front doors, the driver and passenger. They opened the back doors, and out came an unconscious Mikaylah and an exhausted but protesting Kory. The mercs ripped them from the humvee, dragging them inside the small building next door to the church.

"Damn!" Jake swore under his breath. This changed things drastically... Now his tactics were gonna have to change. "Well... this went from elimination to rescue pretty damn quick. I have to get them out of there..." he muttered. "But if I act too quickly, I'll be proving master Kenobi right, I can't afford to be reckless... need a plan..."

~

Inside the shed, Kory was being interrogated by Bane's second in command, Deadshot. After a particularly painful whap in the gut from a steel pipe, Kory began to laugh.

"What's so funny?" Deadshot asked. Kory stopped laughing, looking up to his captor in a deadpanned gaze. "Seriously? You wanna talk now?" Deadshot recoiled in mild shock, then smirked as the beatings continued. "Think you're real funny huh? I'll show you."

thunk!

"Grff! Urgh..." Kory swallowed the lump in his throat. 'Good thing Mickey isn't as big of a smartass as me. I hope she's alright' he thought as he prepared himself for the no doubt long night of whack-a-mole with his present company.

Mikaylah was in the back room, chained to a chair. As she regained consciousness, her slowly unblurring vision cleared to show her the primary objective she had been sent here to eliminate: Bane, the leader of the rebel group that she had been briefed on. The raid the night before where her SDC detail had been decimated was the only explanation of who it was before her.

When she and Kory were initially captured, one of the mercenaries had bellowed "Who is the special agent in charge of this operation?" The man had parted the swarm of the mercenary forces like the Red Sea as he walked towards them, so she guessed he was a high ranking member of Bane's army. When no one spoke, he drew a Beretta pistol and jammed it into Kory's temple. "No!" She screamed. The merc turned his attention to her. "You?" He simply asked. She nodded as his attention turned to her.  "You have the honor of being Bane's guest tonight. I shall take you to him."