Head Straight
Corik headed down the hallway in front of him, only glancing at the way Jethra went as he decided against it. The hallway in front of him was long, but he could see the stairs at the end that headed down to the front entrance. He looked down the steps as he came to them.
He saw the front entrance door up ahead; the blast doors had been closed on it. Blaster fire from outside caught his attention. They couldn’t be making headway with regular blasters, They would need a ship’s firepower to blow the door open. He saw around the walls a dozen or more men, all crouched with weapons pointed at the door, waiting for the moment it would blow open. Corik joined them, taking a position just at the bottom of the stairs on the right. He felt the mass of the heavy repeater in his hand. He knew it would be awhile before anything would take him and this powerhouse down.
He waited, and after a few minutes of nervous jittering and anticipation it happened. The sound of ship cannons boomed just before flames burst out the hallway and white shards of metal flew of where the blast door once stood. Droids began piling in, shooting in a frenzy wherever they could. The smoke from the explosion had created a mist around the hallway, making it hard to see anything.
Corik reacted quickly, holding the trigger on the repeater aimed straight at the door. Countless yellow beams of energy sped at the door, almost too fast to see. He heard the mechanical breaking sounds of the droids as they cracked under the fire of the weapons of the whole group. However, after minutes of this, Corik’s ammo had been depleted almost fully, and the droids were still coming in. He didn’t know how much of a rubble heap there was on the floor, but he imagined it was big enough to cause obstruction from the number of droids they must have already fried.
As he analyzed the fallen droids in front of him, he noticed the symbol each had on its chest. A yellow ‘C’ stood bright in the center of the jet black armor. Peculiar, though Corik had never seen it before.
When Corik had finally emptied the repeater, the rest of the group began crumbling under the weight of the droids. There were just too many. Corik watched as lasers nailed the man just in front of him, and two others across from him. He decided sitting around would do him no good. He dropped the empty repeater, grabbed the blaster pistol from the man who had just fallen, and sprinted up the stairs and back to the center.
There were a few others further down the hallway that began firing as the droids came in range behind Corik. Corik kept running though, back to the center hallway. He looked to his left and right, both had men retreating just as he had. Suddenly, Corik felt a rumble and a thump on his chest as he saw the large explosion coming from the right side towards the turrets. Jethra he thought amidst the incredible boom in his ears. It seemed he was gone, for only three had made it back since the explosion, and none of the faces were Jethra’s. Corik fell to the ground, overcome with emotion. He felt tears form in his eyes.
A peculiar sound awoke him from his state. He saw off to the right, two men in dark cloaks walking down the hallway from which the explosion came. One held in his hand what Corik instantly recognized as a lightsaber. The sound had come when the Jedi turned it on. They say it could reflect lasers and pierce any substance imaginable, except that of another lightsaber. He didn’t like being on the opposing side to one of those.
A few men tried firing down the hall at the intruders, but the bolts were instantly deflected by the one with the active saber. One of them came back and hit the shooter in the chest, sending him to the ground. Corik’s thoughts trailed back to Jethra. These are the men who killed him Corik realized. He wanted nothing more than to fry their brains with his pistol, but he knew it was not possible. Just as he was about to give up hope he felt a tug on his arm.
He looked up to see a young man who was perhaps only a few years older than him. “Come on!” he said “I’ve got a small ship we can escape in!” With that he took off down the hall Corik had originally come from. Corik followed, not thinking about the peculiarity of it all. The man stopped by one of the bay doors and opened it after putting in a set of numbers. He motioned for Corik to head in, which he did. Corik saw the ship. It was a small two man fighter. It could be operated by one, but it was certainly easier for two. Now he understood why the man had looked for someone to come with him.
Corik heard a blast in from the direction he had come and looked to the young man still outside as he hit the floor, apparently dead. Corik couldn’t take this anymore. He hit the switch for opening the hatch doors above him and flung open the cockpit. After a quick glance at the controls, he realized it wouldn’t be as hard as he imagined with just one pilot. He hit the ignition as he closed the cockpit, and pulled the throttle upward. In a few moments he was on his way out of the station and into the sky. He knew he couldn’t relocate; his whole planet was under attack. No, he needed to find a new home. Without further thought he set a course for space, and breathed a deep sigh.