Hearts of Rebels | Star Wars Fanfiction

Chapter XX

The three rebels raced through the crumbling corridors of the rebel base with the golden protocol droid lagging behind them.

"Move your feet, will ya?" Han grunted, practically dragging Rhea along. She huffed gripping onto his shoulder more.

"It's a bit hard, when each step hurts,"

Only a few feet or so into their next corridor an explosion rocked the hallway. Han shoved Rhea forward so he could grab Leia and pull her back, toppling onto each other. C-3PO had lagged enough to avoid it altogether.

Rhea stumbled forward from Han's push and slid across the icy ground. Enough ice and packed snow tumbled down into the passageway to block it off completely.

Leia jumped up, pressing herself against the blockage whispering an Alderaanian prayer for her friend to be alive.

"Rhea!? Are you okay?" She called. Holding her breath, waiting for an answer. Eventually, a groan answered her.

"Fine. Are you guys alright?" Rhea questioned. She wiped the snow off her face as she pushed herself up, using the wall as a brace. Han was speaking to someone, most likely the pilot of the transport, since the two were blocked off from Rhea's side.

"We're alright," Leia answered. With each rebel's concerns answered they brought themselves back to the situation at hand. Rhea could hear heavy footsteps get closer to the cave-in and assumed it was Han.

"We can't break this down. Come on we gotta get outta here," She heard his voice through the ice.

She took a couple of steps back and surveyed the hallways, more were blocked off from the explosion. A mental map popped into her head as she figured out the quickest route to the hangar. She looked back to the cave-in and spoke her plan with haste.

"I'm going to try to get to the hangar. I'll find Luke if I can and meet you at the rendezvous,"

"Alright, be careful!" Leia yelled. She heard two sets of footsteps rush off after, and the metal ting of C-3PO's feet as his worried calls echoed down the halls.

Taking a deep breath to relax her nerves, Rhea started down the first corridor as fast as she could with her heavy ankle splint. Panic started to well up in her as she heard the distinct Imperial voices that were distorted by their helmets bounce off the snowy walls.

She couldn't tell where they were, but she tried not to trouble herself with the thought she would stumble into a garrison and be blasted to oblivion. For reassurance, she whipped out her blaster pistol and gripped it in front of her, ready to leap into action.

At last, the twelfth corridor she had limped through the end widened up to reveal the hangar. Only two Y-wings remained whose pilots would never return to them. A few mechanics who didn't have enough time to escape scrambled about as a squad of stormtroopers flooded through the opposite entryway.

This wasn't Rhea's ideal escape, but she could make do with her odds. She dashed to her X-wing. The other had taken off without her, along with the transport she was supposed to have guarded.

Her rusted astromech with worn, dark orange accents sat just behind the X-wings cockpit. He swivelled his head and whistled in glee. She had grown close to the little rust bucket in her three years of being with the Rebellion, a wave of relief flooded through her as she saw her little friend was still functional.

R2-K5 trilled frantically as the mechanics were blasted down and the Imperials decided to target Rhea next. She had already climbed into the cockpit, kicking the ladder off her ship with her good foot.

"Don't worry about them-" She threw her hand up to avoid a blaster bolt that skimmed her ship's control panel, sparks flying everywhere. "-Just start the blasted ship!"

She threw herself into the seat and yanked the X-wings canopy down. Only letting go when she heard the whistle of air as it sealed itself shut.

The whine of battered engines filled the hangar, soon enough all the stormtroopers had directed their fire onto Rheas X-wing. She switched switches and pressed buttons, her hands zooming across her control panel. The fear from her first dogfight above the Death Star had returned to her for the first time.

The engines were finally fired up. She pulled on the yoke of the ship. The X-wing lifted shakily as its legs hit crates, unbalancing the ship.

"I don't care if they're up, Kayfive!" She yelled at her astromech as he beeped his concern of the rattling ship. She steered her ship forward, lining it up with the entrance of the hangar. The engine's power blasted towards the stormtroopers, knocking a few off their feet.

"Full power, Kayfive! Let's get the hell out of here and find the others,"

The blue light of energy from the engines grew bigger, with a boom, the X-wing revved up and zoomed out the hangar unharmed, for the most part. After being half a mile from the base, Rhea let her shoulders drop letting her body relax.

"Alright, buddy. See any other X-wings or rebels hanging about?" She asked R2-K5, her tone filled with newfound relaxation. She let a small smile form on her face as she realised she had escaped.

It grew even bigger when R2-K5 confirmed to her that a few smudges on a faraway mountain were, in fact, X-wings and their pilots. She hovered above the fighters as she waited for them to lift off.

She let out a sigh of relief as an iconic disk-shaped smugglers ship zipped past them. At last, the X-wings slowly rose and sped past her. They grouped up after they exited the atmosphere and one by one, they disappeared into hyperspace. R2-K5 imputed the coordinates readying the starship for hyperspace.

"Hold on, Kayfive," Rhea pushed her helmet's visor up and locked it, watching the last X-wing. It turned the opposite direction of the rendezvous point, its engines revving as the ship got ready to enter hyperspace.

"Can you calculate where that X-wing is going?" Her droid let out a series of beeps and whistles as it did its duty for its pilot. R2-K5 directed a series of letters through the ship that filed out onto the console screen in front of Rhea.

"Dagobah?" Rhea wondered aloud, reading the words on the screen. Confused for only a second, Rhea blinked in realisation as the X-wing blasted off into hyperspace.

It was Luke's ship, so he survived the Imperial attack and had decided to go searching for this Yoda. R2-K5 beeped curiously as she turned her ship around.

"That's Lukes ship, Kayfive. If he is going off on some journey to find this Jedi Master, he might as well have some help. Set course for Dagobah, Kayfive," The droid let out a satisfied beep and plugged in the new coordinates.

Pulling a lever, the stars in the distance turned to streaks of white and the blackness of space turned into a mix of blue hues as Rhea entered hyperspace.

༺✧༻