Purge (Star Wars)

Patience

Up in the tower, Ilyana continues to provide cover fire as he defends the other's retreat. Watching him fight, she is reminded of the first time they met in the mines. Staring down someone like that in battle is intimidating enough to her, so to the stormtrooper it must be utterly terrifying. A few of the blaster bolts had managed to get past his defenses so he raises a hand and uses the force to freeze the crowd long enough for BD-1 to toss him a stim pack. On his own he is an impressive warrior, but together they are unstoppable.

Just then, a tie fighter screams overhead and makes for the transport as it is lifting off. Ilyana takes aim but misses the first shot. Undaunted, she takes a breath and aims again, this time her shot lands true. The tie begins to smoke and is forced to make an emergency landing among the buildings to the north, which allows the transport the time necessary to escape.

Ilyana turns her attention back to Cal's fight. He has been able to hold the troopers at bay so far but they have kept coming and now there are too many for him to handle alone, in the open. He retreats into a warehouse on the opposite side of the shipping yards from where the troops had advanced. That should provide enough of a choke point to make them more manageable, so Ilyana takes the chance to reach for her comms intending to call Merrin for support. But then she hears it; the scream of another tie fighter coming up from behind her and she looks back just in time to throw herself to the floor of the parapet as it opens fire. The weapons fire pummels the exhaust cylinder, collapsing the metal and stone around her and completely burying her beneath it.

"Cal, come in. You missed your check-in," Cere's voice crackles, dull and distant, over the comms device. Ilyana coughs from the dust and the ringing in her ears rattles her back to consciousness.

The comm device had been knocked from her hand when the tower collapsed and is now lost beneath the rubble, but she can still feel her rifle in her hand. She begins to move, the rubble heavy but not thick enough to fully pin her down. She is able to scramble out from under it, bruised, bleeding, and covered in dust but otherwise unharmed, she extracts herself from the debris. She steps over the rubble toward the edge of the walkway but only manages to catch a glimpse of the warehouse Cal had retreated into when the scream of the Tie Fighter comes from behind her, returning for another pass at the tower. She spins around and quickly raises the rifle, taking aim and praying it hadn't been damaged. She pulls the trigger. It works! The fighter's stabilizer explodes into a shower of sparks and sends the fighter into a spin. As it screams past the tower, she reaches out to it through the Force to change its direction, shoving it into the crowd of stormtroopers she had glimpsed outside of the warehouse. The explosion engulfs the troopers and reverberates through the air but the warehouse remains standing.

"Come in!" Cere's voice rings out again but there's no response.

Cal didn't answer.

An unexpected dread and urgency takes over and without stopping to catch her breath, she flies back down the tower. She had seen the troopers gathered around the front of the warehouse but she can't recall whether or not they had still been fighting.

Did they catch him? Is he alive?

She races past smoldering bodies and wreckage of the Tie Fighter in the street. Fear threatens to take over again; what will she find inside? Yet another Jedi she failed? Her fear is replaced with fury for those who may have killed him. She slows her pace as she approaches the wide doors of the warehouse and changes her rifle to close quarters configuration. With a deep breath she bursts into the warehouse, rifle raised, ready to take on whatever forces are still inside even if it costs her life, but she doesn't have to fire a shot.