Private Breakout

[Amos]

"Hate is the only honest emotion. Everything else is performance."
-Darth Malgus​

Alarm klaxon's blared at an almost constant pace. The usual bright white lights of the prison had shorted out only to be replaced with bright flickering red. Dozens of faces opposite him pressed themselves against the cold durasteel bars of their cells, clamoring, shouting, yelling in a mixture of desperation and glee. None of them had any idea what was going on, a riot, a stabbing perhaps, but it didn't really matter. To the denizens of this prison any sort of change was significant, something to be hailed. The constant tedium of their lives was misery not because they were caged, but because of the routine.

Whatever this was, at least it was something new.

Amos did not join the clamoring rabble. Not because he was any calmer than they, but because the bars of his cell were kept from him by the thick red of a ray shield. The constant thrum of it had driven him near to madness. The monotonous sound of his boot steps being the only noise that broke up the hum as he paced back and forth.

Three weeks he had been trapped here now. Three weeks they had kept him within these four walls.

Like a caged Vornskr Amos paced back and forth, eyes flickering up the distant hallways as he searched for something, anything.

He did not know what was going on, but he knew that it would present an opportunity. A guard would come to check the halls eventually, and if the man was foolish enough might present him an opening. Amos had tried before, of course, the first time they had brought him a meal. He'd nearly escaped then, only stopped by the quick hands of the second guard. An unfortunate event, but now that he knew about his cells electrified floor it wouldn't fool him again.

An explosion suddenly rocked the facility all around them, a distant scream echoing out as the durasteel plates beneath their feet seemed to shiver and bend for a moment. Amos' steps came to a sudden stop, silence running through the wing as dozens of shouts and cries were suddenly cut with curiosity. Every head turned to the left, towards the center of the prison, towards where the explosion had rung out. For a moment the lull lingered, expectation drawing hardened men into stillness.

It didn't last.

"It's a break out!" One of the cretins opposite him shouted, the desperation clear in his voice. "Smash the walls! The bars! Everything!"

Chaos erupted as nearly every prisoner turned and grabbed what leverage they could. Benches smashed against bars, pieces of beds were ripped off the walls, and the sounds of shouting were drowned out by the noise of a thousand criminals attempting their escape.

 

[Hedda Vosk]

Negotiations had failed.

The explosion had not been the cause of rage, but rather the necessary escalation born of consequence. There was a prisoner here, a man of great interest to her father's work and a man who was, more importantly, for sale. Vosk Biologics had made the bid, then been outbid for a sum that crossed the threshold of acceptability.

This required an in-person intervention, a necessary dialogue between the parties to reach a reasonable arrangement for custody of the prisoner. They did not see reason. She laid a firm but fair hand on the administrator, and the fool had overreacted. Hedda had no intention of ending his life; it was needless, but when he activated the alarm and the accompanying autoturrets, she had been left with no choice.

He had been demoted to human shield in swift order, and in effect, had ended his own life as a consequence. This is what her report would later say.

The report would also be sure to mention the prison's corner cuttings, for when she had dragged the carcass over to the cell bank that fed the defence grid and put her lightsaber through it, she had inadvertently caused a significant explosion. Inelegant. Careless. There was no other way to describe trying the defence grid to the main power feed. Frankly, she was surprised there hadn't been a catastrophe sooner. A matter of time, really.

It had become a personal retrieval.

Grabbing a panicked guard, some inept boy barely out of his teenage years in, no doubt, his first ever job, she had been as direct as possible:

"You will take me to the prisoner, you will deactivate the security measures, and then you will live to go home. Do you understand?"

He had agreed, hands trembling and mouth failing to find dignified words and led them against the flow of traffic and into the maelstrom of blaring alarms and the strobe of red lights. The animals that were still behind their bars hooted and hollered, smashing what little furniture they had in a frenzy of excitement. Those fortunate enough to have their cells opened by the power-management disaster surged past them, either with escape on their minds or grievances to settle with newfound freedom.

There had been only one intervention required on her part, when one escapee lunged for her terrified escort, only to find themselves one leg lighter and clutching at a cauterised stump where a knee should have been. She kept her lightsaber ignited from then onwards, the red blade melding into every second beat of the flashing lights.

Eventually, they stopped at the cell holding a man who matched the exact physical build her dossier described. Tall, lean, tribal markings. Still, she was nothing if not thorough.

"You are Amos, correct?" Darth Vollend asked matter-of-factly, looking the man up and down in an appraisal she did not bother to hide. She did not yet allow the guard to free him, holding the young man by the back of his uniform collar. "You are being placed into my custody. I am going to advise you against any foolishness now; I do not require you unharmed."

---

Amos

 

[Amos]

Amos stared without word as he watched the woman approach. His expression a steel mask as the length of her lightsaber caused the already red lighting in the hallway to burn a little brighter. It was not his first time seeing that light, it was not the first time he had heard that constant thrum. It called out to him even through the sound of the ray-shield. A different sort of song than the one that kept him trapped.

The men still trapped in their cells opposite him let some of their screaming die down, shock and fear drawing over their features as they recognized what stepped before them. Only a fool couldn't recognize a Sith in this galaxy. They ruled the core, parts of the outer rim. They had warred over systems and planets for decades and centuries. Few men in this place were brave enough to stand against those who had true power. A fact Amos learned only a few days after his arrival.

So when the Sith spoke, her words did not need to be shouted. They rang loud and clear beyond the ray-shield.

As he listened, Amos simply stared at her. His eyes trailed up and down her body, drawing slowly over her and the lightsaber she held. He studied, evaluated, and decided. His gaze slowly leaving her before landing on the Guard she held.

The man seemed to shirk away from his gaze. "I'm Amos."

He confirmed, still staring at the man Hedda clutched by the back of the neck.

"Open the door." It was not quite a command, though not a question either. More of a statement of fact. As though some silent bargain had already been struck in his mind. He had no idea what this woman wanted, but he was sure he could pay whatever debt it was in short order. "I'll go with you."

 

[Hedda Vosk]

She thought that, given the possibility of escape, any man in here would have said he was Amos.

However, since most of them didn't match his physical description, didn't need an additional security measure to keep them contained, and seemed entirely unbothered by her presence, the man was guaranteed to be who he said he was.

"You heard him. Deactivate the ray shield and open the door," she instructed into the guard's ear, still holding the back of his shirt. "Try to run, and you'll lose something you'll most definitely miss, and I will drag you back here to do as you have been told." She then released him to his task; his hands held a vicious little tremor, the back of his shirt damp with perspiration.

Her attention returned to Amos, whose focus on the guard had not gone entirely unnoticed. "Eyes on me; he is not your concern."

A few seconds passed, and the ray shield sputtered before finally dying. Then the cell door opened. Hedda stepped aside, gesturing for the prisoner to take his freedom.

Freedom in her custody, of course.

---

Amos

 

[Amos]

Amos was like an unmoving pillar. Standing in one place as the guard slowly began to approach the ray shield. His steps were tentative, slow, even as the Sith behind him urged him forward. The echo of her lightsaber trapping him in a place he did not want to be. For a moment, it seemed as though the Guard was about to open his mouth.

Then he thought better of it.

The ray-shield dropped away in front of Amos, the silence of it leaving only the hum of Hedda's lightsaber. Moments later the bars which trapped him fell to the floor. Disappearing one by one.

A ghost of a smile flickered over Amos' features, just barely tugging at the edges of his lips. His eyes finally returning to his saviors. "No. He's not."

The smallest twist of his hand followed his words, and a loud crack echoed as the Guard's head twisted almost three hundred and sixty degrees. The sickening sound echoing over the buzz of the SIth's lightsaber followed by a loud thud as the man's corpse struck the metal plating on the floor. As he fell Amos stared into the woman's eyes, stepping out of the cell and over the newly made remains.

"We should leave." He stated matter-of-factly.