Duracrete and durasteel rumbled all around her as Adelle held the barrier of Force protecting her. She barely heard Aselia Verd 's voice in her comms, something about wasting their time here. Adelle ground her teeth as chunks of debris large enough to crush her slammed into the shield of will instead.
“Shabuir, I just said that,” she hissed. The floor below her shook then gave way, crumbling where the edge of her focus ended. Adelle dropped and rolled, the barrier flickering briefly as more of the desctruction fell on top of her, burying her. Had the Diarchy soldier made it out alive? If he’d been as fast as he had dodging what she’d thrown and shot at him, Adelle was fairly certain he’d be fine.
It felt like forever until the roar ceased, trailing into trickles of dust and small pieces of debris clattering as everything settled. Adelle called on more of the Force to ensure that the wreckage around her wouldn’t collapse on her when she released her shield. Cautiously, she released her hold on the Force, breathing hard. Some of the pieces shifted a little but held, encasing her in a small dome of what was once floor and pillar and wall and ceiling.
Her escape plan out of this had been vague before and she now regretted not giving it more thought.
Adelle looked up at the debris above her. A small pinprick of light pierced through the chunks threatening to be her tomb. So there was a hole she could potentially use to escape the building… or the rubble that used to be a building. Adelle called the Force to her hand, using the other to prime her jetpack.
This is not what she had anticipated using the Force for today.
Chunks of wreckage erupted from the top of the destroyed building and Adelle shot into the sky a scant second later. A reinforcing bar of durasteel caught the side of her calf on the way out, the armorweave holding against the slice but the pressure still tore through skin beneath. She winced but kept flying, calling her basilisk to her position with a command. As it flew past her, Adelle reached out a hand and caught onto its flank then pulled herself into the seat.
Aselia was already several klicks ahead, weaving between AAA gunfire. Adelle followed, flying a little riskier to close the gap and provide support as needed.
The Mandalorian comms crackled to life.
Osik. With the fighting as fierce as it was, many of the medical teams were busy along the frontlines. She was the closest medic.
“En route to your last transmitted location,” Adelle said, tracing the frequency back to the comlink the message came from. She opened the private channel to the Verd. “Peeling off, ne vaabir ash’amur.”
Adelle banked her basilisk down and around, flying away from her vod and towards the location of the transmission. AAA fire flashed around her as she flew evasively towards the base of the placement. Of fething course the soldier was there. Couldn’t have been anywhere safer. The basilisk’s shields flickered as it took a few hits and Adelle adjusted strength, putting 75% of the power into the forward shields. She flew low and dropped from the basilisk as close to the soldier that called in medevac as she could.
Slugs from heavy guns ripped through the debris around where she landed, a couple grazing her right arm and side, scoring her right pauldron, before she put up a stasis field to catch their bullets. The soldiers stopped firing when they saw their bullets hang mid-air but advanced towards her position. Adelle used her other hand to blast the bullets back at them and followed with a second Force push to knock them far from her. Whether they lived or died was not her concern at the moment.
“K’aranar,” she ordered her basilisk. The war droid landed a dozen meters from her position, drawing fire and answering with its sonic canon. Adelle vaulted over debris from destroyed buildings and flaming Lucrehulk, sprinting to the fallen Mandalorian.
“Medic, hold still,” she said, identifying herself. She placed a hand on his breastplate and used the Force to diagnose his injuries and affirm what he’d called in. Broken nose, she could see that, fractured ribs, minor injuries. But he was hemhoraging and had a punctured lung. And from the look in his eyes, at least one concussion.
He wouldn’t last the ride back behind the frontlines.
There was no time to use Art of the Small to supplement Force Healing. Adelle poured her Life Force through the physical connection into the Mandalorian’s body, simultaneously pulling the rib out of the injured lung and healing the puncture. Sounds of battle crashed all around them and the rumble of Lucrehulk debris still impacting the city faded as she focused on stopping the bleeding, healing the worst of the damage. She barely heard the ear-piercing screech of her Jai’galaar basilisk over the ringing in her ears.
Finally, the bleeding stopped and his lung was functional. Adelle let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, the world suddenly rushing back in.
“C’mon, big guy, time to go,” she said, using the Force to enhance her strength and pull the soldier upright. She helped him stagger to her basilisk, used the Force to put him in its seat, then found straps to tie him down and hold him in place.
“On me,” she commanded, and ignited her jetpack, angling back to the relative safety of behind the Mandalorian frontline, basilisk and wounded soldier in tow.
