The ancient lightsaber itself was only barely kept under Tan'ya's control with a supreme effort in the Force, being right over the high pressure area where the gasses were rushing out.
When Tan'ya cut the final piece of the door away, there was no one left inside to fire on her. They'd all heard the alarms blaring and fled to the armory to find pressurized suits.
...
Of course Tan'ya wouldn't give them time to do that. She and her men quickly bored their way through the ship, beelining for the bridge. The captain saw her and her men approaching on his security feed, and Tan'ya felt fear growing inside him as she came closer and closer. He wasn't wearing any protection, and he was terrified of her cutting through the door.
He turned, issuing new orders, and Tan'ya saw the ship's heading change. Instead of moving away from Serenno's gravity well to jump to hyperspace, he was now desperate to get into its atmosphere.
Too little too late. The Captain was unbalanced, panicking. His thoughts were desperately searching for a way to survive, as he hurried over to an emergency kit and tried to pull on the folded up plastic vacuum suit inside. All across the bridge, his crew followed his example, abandoning their posts in a desperate scramble for the emergency suits. Tan'ya didn't give them time.
It took a minute to cut through the bridge door, during which the men inside who hadn't got their suits sealed in time choked in pain as the gasses in their bodies expanded rapidly, rupturing their lungs. Blood vessels across their bodies burst and froze over, as they desperately clawed at their suits seals, trying to close them. The Captain had moved first, and barely managed to get his suit closed in time. Overcome with blind panic, he raised his blaster to fire at Tan'ya only for her to force his blaster towards the ceiling.
He squeezed the trigger hopelessly without a target, desperately using two hands to try and force the weapon down even as he blasted the ceiling, showering the deck with fragments. With her free hand, Tan'ya reached out and pulled at his ankle, breaking the man's finger on the blaster's trigger guard as his full weight was suddenly yanked away from the stationary floating firearm. Kicking and screaming behind his mask, he was dragged across the deck towards her. She let his blaster drop to the floor and drew her lightsaber, its crimson blade flickering to life hungrily. He flailed desperately, ankles slipping on the deck as he futilely tried to scramble away right up until he was pulled straight onto a blade of burning plasma.
It was only after he was dead that Tan'ya put away the lightsaber, and strode straight to the security station. The ship's two dozen remaining marines had just finished swapping to pressurized armor, and were regrouping for another assault on the bridge.
Tan'ya quickly opened up a comline to the remaining enemy marines and whatever other personnel might be listening.
"This is Tan'ya, advisor to the Defence for House Serenno. We have taken the bridge, and are now prepared to offer you terms of surrender."
"This is Bosun Borunda of the Latch." She heard a weequay voice reply, sardonically. "Captain, now I guess. And thank you for the promotion." He chuckled at his own joke, turning to look up at the camera and swaggering with a massive automatic blaster raised above his shoulder in one hand. "Me and my boys would rather die fighting than get taken by your savage animals, you inbred blueblood. Don't worry, when I get up there I'll show I taste better than your daddy."
Clenching her jaw, Tan'ya searched about the bridge until she saw the life support station. It didn't take her more than a few moments to switch off gravity in that section of the ship. The pirates in the armory bounced about in confusion for a few moments, until Tan'ya remotely opened the closest external door, and vented them into Serenno's upper atmosphere. Half a dozen had managed to desperately cling on to the armory racks or a door handle, but the majority were now freefalling hundreds of miles towards the planet's surface.
After a few moments when the air pressure stabilized, Tan'ya closed the door and switched the gravity back on in that section of the ship. The few pirates who'd survived fell to the ground, including Bosun, who'd lost his blaster and had barely managed to hold onto the door frame.
"This is the Advisor to the Defence for House Serenno. We are now prepared to accept your unconditional surrender."
...
Colonel Gon Seith was fifty four years old, surrounded by younger men, and watching through the darkened visor of his helmet as a jedi's lightsaber cut through a Corona's interior door. They warned him, even before he left Coruscant, they lectured him that speed would be the first thing to go. Then it would be his stamina, then his skills, and finally all he would have left in his body was power, before that too disappeared.
The burning green line of Master Sturn's lightsaber moved down slowly, droplets of molten metal falling to the deck beneath it. Their enemies would know the second the door dropped. If the jedi loses concentration for even a moment, a single grenade falling through that hatchway would kill them all.
When he was younger, he was with Coruscant Security's Tactical Response, and he thought that was a dangerous job. He thought he was the toughest, baddest man on the planet. It had been his wife who persuaded him to retire. It was time to take up Dooku's offer, and step away from the danger. Take up a nice, easy job defending a Count in the Outer Rim, like any Jedi would ever really need him for protection.
Nothing he ever did in the service was even as remotely as dangerous as this.
By far, the most dangerous second of Seith's entire career was when Sturn finished cutting, and the metal door from its frame fell forwards. The second it did, a grenade tumbled into their drop ship, and Seith kicked it with all his might. It wasn't a good kick. The grenade bounced against the wall and skittered into the Corona's interior, and Gon just barely grabbed Sturn out of the door frame, pulling him back, before the explosion went off.
Throwing the shocked Green Jedi behind him, Gon poked his head into the smoking corridor, and blasted even before he had a target. In his hands was a crude machine of wood and metal pipes, and it didn't send out heated plasma, but a burst of smoke and metal pellets. Through the din, he might have heard someone scream, or maybe that was just his ears ringing from the explosion.
The scatterguns were primitive, crude. But they fired in a wide arc, and so had a good chance of hitting even when he didn't have a target. His blast fired, Gon pulled back and another man fired his scattergun down the corridor. Then a third man did. It would have been nice if they hit someone, but right now that was less important. The smoke released by each shot would be the only cover he and his men had when they had to charge up the corridor.
Leaning behind the door frame, Gon switched to his short barreled repeating blaster, flicking the lever to full auto. He swallowed once, holding up a hand to prevent the next man from shooting his scattergun, and then activated the thermal view in his helmet. The smoke from the grenade and scatterguns filled the corridor completely, but with his thermals he could see the blaster bolts flying down the corridor towards him. The corridor ended at a Tee shaped intersection, and he could see four of the bastards glowing red hot as they poked their heads out to fire blindly.
Storming a ship. Storming a blasted ship!
Idiot. What was he doing storming a ship?! He was supposed to be semi-retired!
Concealed by the smoke, and firing with precision, Seith's blaster struck one of the pirates in the shoulder, and a spray of hot matter coated the wall behind him. The man's severed arm smoked on the ground, as Gon fired again to keep their heads down. With all of the enemy hiding, there was nothing left to do but push in.
Without having to give the order, his men fell in behind him, charging forwards, though holding their fire to avoid hitting him in the back. One of the pirates poked his blaster around the corner, firing blindly, but luck was on Gon's side, as his own bursts struck the wall next to the man's hands, and the hot sparks made him pull back with a yelp.
Finally Gon was in close, and came around the edge of the intersection to find the four pirates facing him, armed with blaster pistols. He was sure he was dead in that moment, even as momentum carried him. His burst managed to strike the injured pirate cradling his wrist, but Gon's shoulder slammed into the wall, and he knew this was the moment he died.
Then the Jedi leapt around the corner, blade flicking out in precise slashes to bounce the shots aimed at Gon back to those that fired them. All the pirates were cut down in the blink of an eye.
Gon called out. "Keep moving! Don't give them time, keep moving!"
"Colonel, you're wounded!" Sturn turned to him, concerned. "I didn't sense that grenade, the thrower must have shielded-"
With the blood pounding in his ears, Gon didn't even hear him at first. "I said, move soldier! Go! Go! GO!"
Hopping like a private discovered slacking, Sturn hurried down the corridor, men closing ranks behind him in formation. Only then did Gon glance at his hand.
Oh. Turned out he had been hit. Half his hand was missing, his smoldering pinkie and ring finger visible on the ground beneath him.
With no time to waste, Gon used his good hand to fumble a syringe out of his medkit, and inject himself with bacta. Then he slung his blaster over his shoulder, and swapped to his pistol.
He wasn't retired yet, and he still had a job to do.
...
Apparently, chapters write themselves faster when Power Stones are involved. Who knew? Feel free to test the theory go ahead, toss a few my way.
...
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