It was a simple plan. Clear our the crew quarters. Bring out each prisoner one by one and transport them to their new accomodation, under guard. There was just a small problem.
The prisoners were gone.
Instead, Luna found a hole in the side of the bulkhead, and the shackles, artfully arranged into a rude gesture. This annoyed Luna to no end - not just for the arrogance of it, but because, if she were ever captured, had planned on committing a similar act of defiance in her escape.
Jumping down into the hold, she saw that the hole was a simple, crude pulling apart of panels and dismantling of several struts to enter into an adjoining engineering crawlspace.
'Lock down the ship!' Face roared when Luna told him this. 'Vix! Get the droids to lock down the starfighters! Mara, make sure they don't get onto your- oh she's gone already. Twitch, secure the cockpit. Kai and Ro'vena, secure the arms lockers. Garan, Tarrik, secure the engine room. Everyone else, double up and sweep the ship, top to bottom.'
Everyone scattered to their respective jobs, Luna and Cora pairing up and heading to the starboard wing to secure the turbolaser first, then the medbay, where they found Fenn sleeping peacefully. They had just passed Vix and his contingent of droids as they set off to manually clamp the starfighters when Cora stopped in her tracks.
'What's wrong?' Luna asked, sweeping her blaster around, checking her surroundings. She had quickly learned to trust Cora's extrasensory abilities.
Cora frowned. 'We're in the wrong place.'
'Where do we need to be?'
'I don't,' she paused, and in that moment the other Nexus provided the answer as blaster shots echoed from the armoury in the port wing. Luna raced into the cargo hold, heading straight there. 'No, wait!' Cora called after her, but Luna was already at the entrance to the port wing. Quickly enough she was joined by Vix, Face, Garan and Tarrik. There was no sight of Kai and Ro'vena. The stormtroopers, poking out of the armoury just off to the side of the turbolaser cannon kept up a blistering hail of blasterfire that covered the connecting corridor in scorch marks. Luna, standing at the entrance of the corridor, could barely risk looking in without risking getting hit. Smoke billowed in front of her, obscuring the entrance to the armoury. All that she could see was the flashes of red blaster fire. Face planted himself to on the opposite side of the entrance. He risked leaning out to get off a few shots but jumped back as the stormtroopers answered threefold, leaving his jacket smoking snd singed.
'Sithspit,' he cursed, examining his arm. 'Just a graze,' he assured Tarrik, who was immediately by his side. The doctor, Luna noticed, was unarmed, and yet there he stayed.
This is not good, Luna thought to herself, mentally taking an inventory of their munitions. What worried her most was the crates of thermal detonators and explosives, which could tear a crippling hole in the side of the ship. 'Garan,' she called, 'I need you to check the emergency airlocks in this section. Make sure we don't risk decompression from battle damage.'
'On it.'
Luna looked beyond him as he set about his work, pulling away a panel in the wall beside her, and saw Cora. She stood in the middle of the cargo bay, not quite in direct line of sight from the armoury, but not exactly out of danger from a stray blaster bolt, either. She had a look of severe concentration. With a quick backwards glance to the armoury, Luna dashed over to her. Vix took her spot.
'What's wrong?' she asked, and then louder as the blasterfire picked up in intensity.
'This isn't right,' she said, then scrunched her eyes shut. 'Everyone is feeling so much, I can't concentrate,' then she turned her head away, down to the engine room.
