Star Wars: Episode X - The Rescue Mission

Chapter Fifteen: Destruction

The first hit on the data storage unit at the R & D base where they had just freed Dorlan went quickly. Ben stepped through the portal first and fried the security cameras. The security observation room notified the guards outside the door, who came through swiftly, but Rey deflected their blaster bolts—and those of the officer on duty, probably the woman who had called out for Cherrik earlier—with her saber and quickly dispatched them. More guards would come, but Rey didn't need much time. Already familiar with the room from having been there before, she placed the charges rapidly, dashed back to the portal, depressed the button on the detonator remote (which had been programmed for a five-second delay), stepped back through the portal, and watched the conflagration commence.

Neither Rey nor Ben expected anything different from the second hit, but when they looked through the portal, the data storage area turned out to be larger than they expected, and Rey would have to travel farther to plant the charges. The whole cavernous room and its towers of data banks had to be destroyed; if it wasn't, the schematics might survive somewhere in an undestroyed data storage module.

As before, Ben winked out the security cameras. Rey came through, ready with one saber in her hand and the other on her belt. She placed the first two charges before being seen, but unfortunately, there was an upper level here that ringed the room around the towers, and security droids began firing from above as well as from the ground floor level as soon as they spotted her. Forgetting about the charges for the moment, Rey deflected blaster bolts from several directions while using her other hand to slam droids into the ground and walls.

Ben ran to the entrance and sealed the door shut, preventing any backup from coming in that way. Though his bond with Rey gave him more strength in the Force than he would have on his own, he still chafed at how relatively weak he was in his current disembodied form. He wanted to be fighting out there next to her, saber in one hand, crushing droids with the other, but he couldn't. What could he do for her?

Human security teams were entering from the upper level. Able to go anywhere he desired, he jumped up to that level and sealed the doors there, too. Then he jumped back down next to Rey. "I'm going to try to plant some of the charges," he told her as used the Force to lift the flap on her bag and take out a single detonator. He levitated it to the far side of the room and pushed it against the base of a data storage tower, then turned it on.

When he returned to Rey, she was still fighting but had managed to move to the next location where they wanted to plant a charge. Ben took out another one and stuck it to the support pillar for her, activating it. "I got this one planted. Move on to the next!" She nodded and started angling for the next data tower, which was becoming easier to do now that the ranks of security droids and soldiers had been significantly thinned. However, Ben could hear soldiers trying to force open one of the doors. Time was still of the essence.

Ben lifted another detonator out and took it across the room. As frustrating as his weakness was, it was nice not having to worry about getting hit by any blaster bolts. Rey finished off the last of their opponents and planted a few more charges herself, but then the main entrance doors opened up and stormtroopers poured through.

Rey's head snapped around to look at the door in alarm. Ben's voice sounded in her mind. "Get back through the portal! Leave the last few charges for me! I'll place them, then you can reach back in for just a second to press the detonator!"

"Will do!" Rey took the last three charges from the bag and laid them on the floor, then ran quickly for the portal, deflecting blaster bolts with both sabers as she ran. She leapt through the portal, and none too soon, as stormtroopers had breached the upper level doors as well, and were just moving into position around the upper floor's railing.