Measuring Up

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

”I wouldn’t worry about it.” Kurt said almost nonchalantly, though he began to hear his heart thundering inside of his ears. ”Surviving is a bit of a talent of mine.”

True enough.

He’d managed to make it through some situations that most would find daunting, though he didn’t claim to be anything special. A small smile touched his face as he glanced up at the door, a reminder of something his friend Alistair had said to him once. ”We Tatooine lads are born to survive.”

The statement was unfortunately marked by the sounds of a loud plasma torch beyond the doorway. A second passed, and then a bright blue and red frame sprang from one corner of the door. The burning torch cut through the metal like butter, and Kurt couldn’t help but grit his teeth. Fingers stabilized the blaster.

“No...no kark this.”

A glance back saw one of the guards drop his rifle and run, the man sprinting off in the other direction as fast as he could.

That doesn’t bode well. Kurt thought to himself as the door exploded and blaster fire began to arch through the air.

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

His lightsaber stayed deactivated. Instead he focussed on the panic in the air. If they fled in a rush it would be the end of them all. Giving the game away too early would give the imperials time to adjust their tactics to the presence of a Jedi.

The first trooper was cut down. The second stumbled through before being pelted with bolts on the ground. The third took several glancing blows but his armour held.

It was difficult to focus through the din of battle. Trextan tried to soothe the fears of the guards around them before they broke in the face of a determined, organised assault.

The fourth and fifth tried to squeeze though the gap and Trextan hit their shins with a light telekentic strike. An invisible tripwire that sent them tumbling and stopped the momentum swinging their way.

He waited for his moment and kept alert for the grenades he expected to be sent their way before long.

They were survivors, those from Tatooine, he thought to himself despite the situation.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

Kurt wasn't quite as smooth as Trextan in the heat of battle.

The Stormtroopers made it easier by pulling through the small opening, but with blaster fire hailing over his head and breaking apart against the metal behind him Kurt couldn't help but wince every now and again. Still, he kept himself as controlled as he could. He would wait, and watch, every time Trextan moved Kurt would look for an opportunity. When the young man wove out of his line of fire Kurt squeezed the trigger of his blaster. The searing heat would strike home, or close to it each time.

He couldn't help but think about the last time he'd fought Stormtroopers.

It had been with Kaile, back when they'd found that bunker. He still remembered it fairly well, the odd experience of pretending to be officers, the clones that they had found...everything that had gone tumbling since. A frown settled on his lips, the memory was still more than seared into his skull. Him and Kaile running, the adrenaline, finding the Coil. All of it seemed to flash through his mind as he squeezed the trigger once, then twice.

He saw two silver orbs fly through the opening. "Thermals!"

It was all Kurt managed to croak out before he ducked behind a nearby wall, hoping that he'd be far enough away from the implosive blast.

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

There was another reason, beyond surprise, that his saber had remained deactivated. Catching an object with the Force wasn't easy. The Force was an abstract thing, it's connection with the material world abstract. Reaching out towards quickly moving objects and stopping them took all of his concentration.

His eyes screwed shut. His hand swiped at the air as if he were trying to bat away an annoying insect. The two detonators reverse course. He had aimed to put them through the hole in the docking bay doors. Instead they bounced all rolled to stop two feet away.

There were cried as they went off. The notion of automotons being within those suits dispelled. The best of the blast swept over him, leaving one cheek feeling raw.

On the other hand they had just blown a wider opening to the docking bay. As well as into the decks above and below them.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

"Well shit." Kurt said out loud as he poked his head back up from behind the makeshift barricade. There was a brief pause in the action as the troopers pulled back, dragging charged pieces of armor that had once been living men.

The thought made his stomach turn slightly, but he pushed it away almost as soon as it came. Being a pilot you never truly saw those that you shot down. You saw an explosion, rarely a parachute, but you never saw the bodies. It was easy to ignore that you were fighting other living and sentient beings. Easy to think that you were just fighting a faceless machine, but those yells? The way that the troopers bodies became nothing but ragdolls? That wasn't as easy to ignore.

Kurt frowned, glancing up at Trextan.

"Time to start pulling back." He said quietly, spotting half a dozen Stormtroopers coming around a corner and heading towards the gaping hole that had been left within the blast door. He squatted down for a moment and picked up the rifle that the fleeing guard had earlier discarded. "Quickly."

The former Courier motioned towards Trextan, raising the rifle and squeezing the trigger.

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

Time to act. Kurt took up the abandoned rifle. That was probably a good choice; the sidearm Trextan had been carrying wasn't designed to puncture full battle armour at range.

The young Jedi took a step in the opposite direction, trying to remain mindful of how far back the next cover was. With a snap-hiss his silver-white blade stretched into life.

Grenades spewing clouds of smoke were rolled into the corridor. The first troopers still caught sight of his lightsaber before the clouds grew thick. Red bolts lanced through the clouds in his direction.

With guards falling back behind him, Trextan went out of his defensive sphere to pick them out if the air. He didn't worry about deflecting them back, just forming a shield for those behind.

He only put himself in the line of fire fire three seconds before holding out his right palm. A ripple ran through the clouds, making the telekentic wave visible to the naked eye. There was a clatter of armour on metal deck and Trextan turned and ran for the next echelon of defence.

The secret was out. His presence was likely already being discussed on one of those destroyers.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

Kurt squeezed the trigger of his new rifle again and again.

The weapon was ironically an old E-11, the sort that stormtroopers had used centuries ago. Millions of them had been manufactured, probably billions actually, and most of them had been spread to every corner of the galaxy. They were reliable, decently accurate, and familiar to Kurt. His hands were wrapped tight around the weapon as he carefully shot around Trextan, backing himself up and slowly reversing his way through the hall.

His eyes didn't leave the wall of stormtroopers that was slowly coming towards them, not until he felt a hand on his shoulder.

A curse erupted from his lips and the former Courier half whirled around. "What the kark?!"

The blaster rifle in his hand half turned towards whatever had touched him, but before he could pull it up he found the guard Captain standing behind him. The man's face was about as pale as could be, sweat was dripping from his forehead and there was a blaster in his hand. Oddly enough Kurt hadn't expected the man to fight, his experience with authority types wasn't exactly the best. To his credit though the man looked as though he were prepared to stay the course.

"They found a maintenance tunnel! Your plan won't work!"​

Poodoo. The thought hit him instantly.

If they found a maintenance tunnel it would mean they could get pretty much anywhere in the station. It would take them time...but not as much time as carving their way through the defenders. It also meant that there was no place to fall back to, not if they wanted a chance of getting out alive. "Kid! Trex..."

What the hell was his name? "Trextan!"

It struck him just as a bolt soared over his head and nearly missed him.

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

He skidded to a halt, one hand grasping the lip of a doorway to pull himself out of the line of fire. The stormtroopers had been quick to push on and tried to find a foothold within the station. They had to make the troopers pay for every meter of ground. Perhaps with the resistance they were putting up and the sight of a Jedi they would take the time to regroup and replan. All the defenders of the station wanted was time. All of this however hinged on their being a safe route off the station. He hoped they didn't have an interdictor they could bring in.

Trextan had come to a halt on the opposite side of the corridor from Kurt. Keeping his shoulder pressed to the archway he turned at the call of his voice.

"What is it?"

It wasn't the most polite way to signal that he was paying attention now, but there were short on time. Formalities were not for the battlefield.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

"They found a Maintenance shaft!" Kurt called out just as a blaster shot flew into the wall beside him, a brief spark and a black scorch mark causing him to wince slightly.

This entire event had reminded him why he'd become a pilot and not a marine. He wasn't really meant for battle. He could shoot, sure, but his heart was thundering in his ears and every blood vessel in his body felt as thought it was about to burst. A deep breath filled his lungs and he quickly continued.

"Going to try to cut us off." The former Courier half leaned around the corner, squeezing the trigger of his rifle and sending three bolts flying down the hall. There was a random cry as one of the shots struck a trooper, more luck than skill. "We have to lead them away from the civilians!"

Of course what he was saying in simple terms was easy to understand; they had to be bait.

Fighting the troopers in a close off hallway, delaying them here was no longer going to work. The troopers could cut them off and surround them, cutting off their escape and likely reaching the civilians before Trextan, Kurt, and the Guards could do anything. So they would have to lure the Imperials to another part of the station, pull them off the civilians and allow them to escape.

Risky, but...the right thing to do.

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

His face screwed up, failing to grasp the implications of what Kurt was saying about a maintenance shaft. He swore under his breath in a distinctly un-jedilike fashion. He tried to stretch out with his senses and find the stormtroopers moving beneath them. A barely perceptible shake of his head signalled his failure. The Force was too difficult to follow. Fear, anger, death all made the field agitated. It coalesced around them, making it hard to read.

He let a touch of frustration slip through. With barely a thought he yanked a door from its hinges. The metal object went spinning down the corridor at waist height. It almost cut the stormtroopers it struck in two. A brief gap in the return fire followed.

"Can someone get us down there?" he called over the corridor. If the maintenance corridor was tight he could wreak havoc on a few squads of stormtroopers. Most soldiers were well trained to take on Force Users. But a narrow corridor was not the place to do it. In an open battlefield a few repeaters could cut even the most agile Jedi down.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

"No you idiot!" Kurt called out to him, reminding himself that he was basically dealing with what he was five or six years ago.

Being a hot head was easy, running in and fighting was the simple solution. He'd already seen that Trextan was capable of with that lightsaber, he knew that he could likely take on a few dozen stormtroopers alone, but that wasn't the problem. The problem was that they were outnumbered.

Sure he could cut down the men in the maintenance shaft, but by the time he did that Kurt and the Guards would be overrun by those in the hangar bay. There was no winning plan here, not when the Imperials outmatched them twenty to one. Fighting was the wrong move here, as much as he hated to admit it. "They'll overrun us."

Part of him couldn't believe he was the responsible one here.

"We need to lead them away." A breath filled his lungs and he practically jumped across the hall, slamming into the bulkhead next to Trextan with a silent oof. "Pull them towards another edge of the station away from the Civilians."

He grabbed the kids harm and pulled him close. "We're bait."

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

There was a hot flash of anger at the insult. He had heard those from Naboo could be quite stuck up, but this wasn't what he had expected.

As Kurt took cover he risked another glance down the hallway. He could see at least one trooper with a heavy scattergun. That was either here because it was a standard boarding weapon or because it had been on the shuttle and was terribly difficult to stop with a lightsaber.

"Who are we leading away?" He asked bluntly. "The ones in the tunnels or this attack?"

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

It was a good question, and one he didn't have an immediate answer to.

Blaster fire was still splashing against the walls, and his mind was really only half focused as he tried to think of a solution. His lips thinned. Just running away wouldn't work, one group would follow them and then everyone else would just blast their way through the station. No, they needed something better, something more...

His eyes flicked to Trextan's lightsaber. An idea swirled in his head and slowly Kurt peered around the corner. He spotted one of the dead troopers, a man that had managed to get closer to them than any of his compatriots. "I need his helmet."

The former Courier said to Trextan.

"Can you get it?" He knew well enough how the force worked, he was pretty should the young man could just...yank it, though hopefully that wouldn't mean the stormtroopers head came with it.

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

"That's not an answer," Trextan quietly protested. But instead of continuing he closed his eyes and sighed. He didn't reach out with his hand; his control was better than that. His right hand could still be seen moving as he stretched out with the Force.

The body jerked and twitched, Kurt's fear threatening to come true. Finding a clasp was more easily said than done. It was literally doing it with his eyes closed, but the Force was a more fickle sense than his fingertips.

The helmet came free and followed a straight and assured path to the youth's hand. He handed it over.

"How far through the tunnels are they?" He asked a guard.

"We don't know, they've done something to knock out internal sensors."

Trextan was about to reply when he finally got an idea what the royal guard was after. If it wasn't enough Trextan was going to have to go hunting for an officer.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

Kurt took the helmet, his fingers latching around the white of the armor for a moment. He glanced inside of the bucket, finding there was a small spot of blood on the inside of the visor. He couldn't help but frown, using a bit of his shirt to wipe away the crimson liquid. "Alright."

The former Courier flipped the helmet over in his hands and turned it over onto his head.

There was a brief moment of silence, and then the systems sprang to life. HUD, Coms, and everything else immediately flashed in front of him. He heard chatter from a dozen different squads, the voice of a commander, and then the interjection of a counter-order. He frowned for a moment, listened, and then looked at Trextan. He took a breath, knowing that what he was about to do was about as stupid as he could get. They were making themselves a target, the target.

"The Jedi is heading towards the southern escape pods!" That was on the opposite side of the station, away from the hangar where the Civilians were gathering but also reachable by himself and Trextan. "He has some kind of...some kind of artifact! Oh no he's turning on us...Help! He-"

Kurt cut himself off, taking off the helmet and smashing it against the wall before he finished.

There was a bright spark, and then he looked at Trextan. "That should be enough."

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

Trextan gave Kurt a flat stare. "That was the pan then," he stated in a deadpan tone. It was the first expression that anyone who knew Jacen might have recognised. There wasn't always a great deal recognisable between the two in terms of mannerisms. He had grown up without seeing much of the man from the age of ten, but a sense of humour started to develop early.

He had expected Kurt to listen in before the radio could be cut from the network to work out where the troopers were heading. This was mad. He really had meant bait.

Trextan gave a shake of of his head but couldn't help a smile.

"Which way is South?" he asked. One of the guards pointed across the corridor again. Great, across the line of fire once more.

"Hold fire!" Trextan shouted. With the Force he churned up all the smoke to try and make some cover. "Go," he hissed before darting across to the other side. Now they had to get into position quickly and find some troopers to hammer home the rouse.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

"I didn't say it was a good plan." Kurt commented before Trextan began their little journey.

Listening to the radio would have been smart, and Kurt might have thought of it, but the adrenaline was pumping through his veins and the battle was at it's height. The former Courier wasn't a soldier, he wasn't a battle commander, and he most certainly wasn't a Jedi.

This, all of this, was not something Kurt had ever really prepared for. He had always been a more relaxed person, running from problems instead of trying to combat them. That was who he was. He had a good heart, but sacrifice wasn't in his nature. It was why he was still confident they would get out of here, why he had absolutely no intention of giving himself up to the Imperials. No, in his mind there would still be a way out at the end of this. In his mind he'd be snuggled up in bed with Jamie by the end of the day.

As smoke billowed in the hallway Kurt refocused himself. "Right."

A breath filled his lungs, and then he darted forward.

"This way!" He knew the station well enough, he'd been here more than once in his time as a Courier. Their path would be a quick one, heading south in the station and charging them directly towards where he knew Stormtroopers would try to cut them off.

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

There was such a lack of situational awareness here. It was enough to make him feel a touch of anxiety. Trextan was used to working with Alliance squads who kept in constant communication. This was more like Kaeshana. That place hadn't ended well for him. He felt a twinge from fingers he hadn't felt for years.

He sensed the troopers before he heard their voices, filtered by helmet modulators. It was a small group. They leapfrogged over each other down an abandoned corridor.

"We need a route back around to the hangars," he said. The thought only just coming to him. He stepped out into the cross section, lighting his saber. He blocked just two bolts before slapping the switch on the blast doors telekentically.

"That should get their attention."

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

Kurt pulled the trigger twice before the door closed, the loud sound of metal slamming together echoing throughout the hall.

It seemed odd to him that this was the first time he really fought side by side with a force user. Jamie had told him quite a bit about Jedi and how they acted, but she'd never actually used her power next to him, at least not when he'd been conscious. The same truth went for Kaile, and the Jedi that he'd seen while serving in the Republic. He frowned for a second, his lips thinning as he looked towards the blast door that Trextan had forced closed.

"Not necessarily." The former Courier said as he considered his weapon.

The powerpack of the old e-11 was running low, though he had enough for a few blaster shots still.

"If we pull enough of them they'll send a ship." He knew Imperial tactic well enough. No matter if it was the Sith in charge or someone else they never seemed to change. They went ahead, forcefully and as quickly as they could. Imperials were always a single minded bunch. "An officer maybe."

Kurt glanced at Trextan. "I'm thinking that's what we need at this point."

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

Trextan didn't understand. He remained in the corridor with his saber in his left hand and his right balled into a fist. His brows furrowed in concentration as he drew the Force to him.

Part of him thought it would be easier to just stay quiet and seem wise. Nod his head and follow the royal guard. But given the situation it wasn't the best idea, he decided.

The door slid open again and his right hand opened and shot forwards. The air shimmered as the strike rushed down the corridor, sending stormtroopers tumbling.

"Why do we need an officer?" He asked, before getting out of the line of fire before the troopers could rally.