Star Wars: Dar'Aliit

Chapter Thirteen: Big Picture

20 BBY Capital of Roche

"R3, talk to me," I lunge off the rooftop and hit the other one rolling. I've cleared a second street and I'm hurting. The bolt that pierced my shoulder armor a few blocks back stings, but I keep moving. I can fire one handed.

Another map pings up. The droids are moving toward the last bridge. It looks like that tactical droid is planning to cut us off.

The chatter in my ears tells me it's working. Fang Company has heavy casualties. Addie is doing everything he can to reduce the impact on the civilians, but they're getting spread thin. We have to put an end to this.

I pant and crouch on the edge of the roof. Shading my eyes I can see the tanks moving down the street. They've got a couple of squads on them, so I jump down, land hard, and bust in a window with my elbow. Someone hidden inside screams. I clamber through and put a finger to my helmet.

A quick glance around tells me enough. One kid. Two dead parents. Poor thing. I walk over to where a little girl is curled up under a table and crouch down.

"Shhh, shhh, I'm here to help."

The little girl is mortified. She stares at my faceless helmet and I'm not sure she can tell me from a droid.

I pull it off, wincing, and she blinks as if realizing I'm human. Her hands stick out. She's probably no older than ten. "Where's my mommy?"

I don't know if I should offer to hold her or not. I don't really have time, but I have to make sure she's safe. I glance around. She's hiding well under this table, but if the droids bust back in here and she screams again—

Her hands no longer reach for me. She's looking at my helmet and trying to figure out how it works. Clearly she's a bright kid, just scared out of her mind. She's distracting herself from everything outside.

I push the helmet toward her and route chatter to my comm before muting it. Wouldn't want her to hear the desperation of the outside world right now. "Hold onto this for me, okay? Keep it safe, and don't make a sound. I'll get it when I come back."

She nods and curls back up. I stand up and grab a blanket. "Here," I drape it over the table so it obscured her from vision. She won't see the corpses this way. Poking my head under, she looks up, still shaking.

"Have you ever played forts?" I ask. Maybe that's a silly question. She's a normal kid.

"Hide and seek?" she offers.

"Sure," I manage a smile. "You hide, I'll seek."

That gets the mildest giggle out of her. "But you already found me, mister."

"Well hide here, and I'll pretend I don't know," I say.

She nods rapidly and wraps her limbs around my helmet. I head out.

It's a massacre in the streets. There's white plastoid everywhere and civilians too. I swallow bile and keep moving in the alleys, crouching behind walls, and finally I can see the main body of them. Fang Company, or what's left of it, is holding them back on the north and south. According to the map on my wrist comm, the tactical droid has to be here.

I know I'm supposed to bring the droid in, but I'd like to smash its head to smithereens.

Crouching low in another alley, I take stock of what I have. Low on ammo, low on grenades. I can't get through an army alone.

A deeply tanned face with white stripes appears in a window beside me and I almost curse aloud.

It's a man, older than me. He looks side to side, and then opens the door near the window that leads into the alley I'm hunkered down in. He ushers me inside. I follow and the door slams shut behind me.