Sword of Shiraya
The blade twisted. Lorn felt the motion before he saw it, an angular jerk that turned agony into the threat of ruin.
Sarad tried to take his hand, a finishing blow masquerading as flourish. Lorn reacted with what little strength he had left, releasing the vibroblade and yanking his hand back. He caught the serrated edge across his palm as he staggered away. Flesh tore, blood followed, but the hand stayed intact.
He reeled, stumbling backward into the soot-thick air, his vision tunneling as the adrenaline surge faltered. His entire body protested: the gaping wound in his chest, the sliced hand, the tremble in his legs. He couldn't keep this up. Sarad fought like inevitability itself: measured, clinical, unrelenting. Lorn was raw nerves and stubborn instinct.
Sarad closed in again, low and driving forward like a beast with discipline. Lorn's saber lifted in a one-handed guard, but he was slow. The shoulder ram slammed into his gut like a battering ram, and his knees buckled. Only the Force kept him from hitting the ground.
Then, Lorn's comm hissed to life in his ear. "Banshee Actual, this is Vanguard Actual..." It was Lesha, her voice wrapped in static but clear enough. "...Target priority." He barely had time to process the words before the sky opened.
A thundercrack split through the haze overhead. Then came the shriek of something fast and close. A beam of red light screamed down behind them. The building adjacent to the square erupted in flame, a full wing of it collapsing inward like a folding paper fan. The concussive blast swallowed the plaza in smoke, flame, and shrapnel. The shockwave threw Lorn sideways. Dust engulfed everything. The entire battlefield disappeared into a chaotic hell, and he couldn't see anything.
He hit the ground hard, rolling across uneven stone, his saber still clutched in his good hand. Sparks spat from the hilt as it struck a piece of rebar. He coughed, lungs full of powdered concrete and smoke, but then saw motion: shapes, figures. They were Republic troopers. A corridor had opened.
Through the haze, red visors blinked into life as First Company poured through the barricades. A cluster of them shouted commands over comms. Somewhere amid it, he saw the shimmer of a protective sonic shield, just visible around a retreating group near the square's edge. The LZ was live. It was now or never.
He rolled to his knees, breathing through clenched teeth. Pain bloomed with every heartbeat, but the Force now whispered with insistence, a different kind of urge than desperation. He ran, low, fast, crooked like a wounded animal. His saber blade flickered out as he moved. There was no glory in it. Only survival..
He reached the corridor. Republic troops moved past him, flanking in tight formations. One recognized him and shouted his name, but Lorn barely registered it. He collapsed against a wall inside the route, finally giving in to the agony pulsing through his entire body. But he was alive.
And now, others could fight.
---
Elsewhere:
The Dimok militia had heard the tank's screams. They'd seen the freezing charge land, watched smoke choke its upper decks, and witnessed engineers vanish into vents. Civilians threw satchels into its joints, and entire squads swarmed like insects too fast to squash.
But when the bombers came, the entire square shuddered. The sound arrived first, a tearing of the sky, sonic ruptures that made the air vibrate. Then the flames came. The first pass scorched a line down the tank's side. The second hit its rear plating, chewing off a wheel and sending debris clattering across nearby rooftops. The Juggernaut shrieked, a deep, metallic moan that was almost alive in its misery.
Republic fighters wheeled and screamed above like divine predators. But the tank didn't die quietly. It retaliated, turrets firing in all directions. The heavy rotary cannon carved buildings in half. Alleyways lit up as suppression fire tore through stone and flesh alike. The square became a graveyard of collapsed facades and burst light fixtures. Fires spread, turning the sky to ash.
The Dimoks broke for cover. Sewers, side tunnels, basements long abandoned, anywhere to escape the killzone. Dozens didn't make it. Rip soldiers cut some down with precision, while others vanished beneath falling debris. But not all of them fell.
When the firestorm passed, smoke still roiling through the square, a cluster of Dimok militia emerged from the sewer mouth near the western block. Some limped. Some crawled. Others rose like shades from rubble, bearing old rifles and faces streaked with soot. Their eyes locked on the emerging Republic corridor. First Company had secured the exit.
Militia leaders pointed, waving the wounded and civilians toward the opening. Some pulled survivors on hover stretchers. Others carried the wounded in their arms. Then a rallying cry broke through the Square, a guttural, desperate bellow as a Dimok sergeant waved the tattered remains of their city's flag and pointed toward the President's last position. They surged toward her.
Dozens of Dimoks surrounded the delegation, weapons raised in protection rather than aggression. The people of Sepan 8 closed ranks around their President, pushing toward the corridor that Grandmarshal Tarot had opened with fire and fury. One child, soot-covered and carrying a salvaged Republic comm unit, walked beside the President like a shadow. An old woman dragged a broken field beacon behind her, its light flickering in tune with her heartbeat. They moved as one, through fire and war, toward freedom!
