Ally and the Wolf Chase

Ally and the Botcher

The quiet beeping of service droids and their accompanying flashing lights filled the darkness of the building. The seventy-story tall atrium at the center carried the beeps around the building like an amphitheater. With no humans about, the droids filled the space with a symphony of their own. Quiet and peaceful but beautiful.

With a percussional crescendo, the glass roof of the atrium broke open, red alert security lights flashing on, highlighting the atrium as the invading air speeder fell tumbling down from above. The rider flipped switches and pushed buttons, restarting the speeder and slowing its decent into a controlled dive. Engine roaring, the speeder corkscrew-dived towards the ground level. The cleaning droids scuttled out of the pathways and doorways as security drones flooded all floors of the building. Red lights came on throughout the building, outlining the drones.

"Halt, intruder, or we shall fire." Security drones lined the balconies that made up the atrium walls; cameras clicking, recording the speeder's decent and its helmeted rider.

The rider responded by raising a hand signal: the galactic sign used by angry individuals to express non-compliance.

"Fire at will." The atrium was flooded in pulsing stun blasts. Blue arcs of energy all aimed at the falling speeder and rider.

The rider steered in a chaotic dance, avoiding the bolts, almost spinning out of control several times with the tight turns. As the speeder gracefully landed and sped down a hallway, two laser blasts shattered what was left of the glass ceiling.

A cruiser, lights flashing, dived directly behind the blasts, straight for ground floor. Leveling out, it fired blasts down the hallway the speeder took, at the same time flipping onto its side, it squeezed down the hallway leaving a trail of smoldering wallpaper and carpet.

Ally sped her cruiser up, winding through the maze of hallways - not looking out the windscreen, but at the map display above her dash, the tight turns and narrow hallways taking all her concentration, allowing her only a few poor shots at the speeder. She paced it now, taking an occasional shot down a connecting hallway, herding the speeder to a dead end.

Ally sucked in a breath as she turned the corner herself, just as the speeder blasted through the "wall" of bay windows, jumping the gap into a parking garage across the way. Two more laser blasts took out the support beams on either side of the window so the cruiser would fit. Ally followed the speeder flipping right side up to land in the garage, lasers blasting and empty air cars going up in smoke as she missed.

Ally swerved around the smoking cars and wheeled into the turn to go up the garage levels trailing the speeder, more blasts chasing its tail around the tight bends. The speeder made the turns smoother than the cruiser, putting distance between the two so Ally aimed strait up and fired. The short cut caused massive explosions, but got her behind the speeder again. The only problem was too many supports were taken out; the place was collapsing around them.

Falling slabs of flooring and support beams tumbled around Ally's cruiser and the speeder. The rider took out his laser rifle and started shooting his way to the top floor as well, using falling debris to bounce his way to the top. Ally followed, heading straight up on a parallel course, shooting her way free of the collapse, dodging falling air cars and blasting through the many levels of the garage.

"It's a good thing there are no life signs around." The deadpan voice crackled through Ally's speaker.

She gritted her teeth and held back her anger. "Well, maybe if your schematics were correct I wouldn't have to keep improvising!"

BAM. BAM. Two air cars knocked into Ally's cruiser. "Stop Distracting ME!"

She quickly spun back onto her trajectory to make it through the hole she had made. Scraping through, she cursed her inept partner. "Why can't you get anything right?"

A warning siren went off. Ally's dash lit up and the top floor came crashing down on her cruiser. Eyes squeezed tight, Ally clutched the trigger for her lasers, explosion ringing her ears.

Above the planet on the Sassafras Spice, Howie Little sat up in his chair in the Navcom room.

"Ally?" His voice barely broke a whisper. It wasn't his fault the schematics from the city's data plant were old copies; he just barely was able to hack it before Ally crashed into the office building.

Howie scanned Ally's location again, trying to find her signal. Yeah, she was a pain to work with and completely uncontrollable but he didn't want her death on his head. Too much paperwork. His fingers and hands flew over the controls, trying everything to punch through the interference the collapsing garage was creating.

"Ally? Ally?" His voice got louder and higher pitched with each second he didn't get a response.

Fire, smoke and debris covered the cruiser as it burst through the last level of the building. Lasers still firing, Ally searched for the speeder and spotted it crashed on the roof of a nearby building. Ally steered over to the roof, lasers flashing after the fleeing suspect.

Though now on foot, he was diving behind cover and returning fire. Ally landed to pursue on foot. Jumping out of her cruiser, she dashed behind cover and shot at the suspect. Blue arches from her pulsar flashed against red pulses from his laz-rifle. He shot to kill; she shot to capture.

The lights danced about the roof top, intermingling and setting things on fire. Ally pulled her laz-pistol and took aim on the water tank on the rooftop. Trying to put out the fires, Ally opened the tank up. The explosion rocked the roof and sent both of them tumbling.

Ally flew head over tail across the roof, ears ringing. The world became a deafened blur of fire and smoke.

The suspect recovered first and took aim, sending red bolts after Ally. Ally ducked and rolled to avoid his last shots and spun to fire back.

"Freeze!" Stunning shots rained down from above as they were surrounded by local authorities. Ally stepped out to identify herself.

BANG. BANG.