Kara King & The Beyonders: The Nightwind Glyder Heist

Chapter Thirteen:

Exfil

Time to Supernova: 15m

Kara King & Canis Odo

Kara spoke with Gita the whole way through. Spoke being figurative term on both sides. Their whispers carried through almost like unhindered speaking thanks to the small implants all The Beyonders had. Gita needed someone to keep her awake but that need ended just ten minutes ago when Canis gave word that the emperor and his entourage were leaving.

Kara wished she could have taken a photo of Gita, or that WHR4 could have at least and sent it to her but neither was possible. Someone else would have to wake the droid and Kara wasn’t about to let this thing out of her sight. Not for one second. Not when they were this close to the payout.

“Crown.” Kara was so deep in thought she hadn’t even heard the call from Canis. “Crown, are you there!”

“What? Yes, I’m so sorry.”

“We’re leaving this site.” There was a long pause. “Gita and-”

“Well go on now. Leg it or you’ll miss your ride.”

Another long pause. “Commander. We can wait-”

Kara shook her head even though she knew he couldn’t see. “No use. You know as soon as they get weapons up or whatever kind of tech they can use to retaliate or jump, they will.”

“If you don’t make it?”

“Quit your faffin’ about. Just get on to the Ersatz and we’ll handle everything later.”

*****

Canis was worried about the commander. Her English idiosyncrasies were long buried under the brainwashing her father and the best imperial academies he could afford. But they were just that, buried. Underneath mountains of proper education and upstanding imperialism was a core of exotic adventurism and an inquisitiveness that came from the few years Kara had with her mother. When she was most agitated, exhausted, or scared those more primal aspects of her mother seemed to come out more.

Canis was worried about his commander for all these things, but he couldn’t let the crew see that. If she didn’t make it, he would be acting second and he needed to think of the crew more than anything now. Canis turned back to face Gamlok who was slouching back in a chair, bored out of his mind. “Time to go.”

The Morae jumped up. “I thought you’d never say those words!”

Canis looked around the room. This was the second security point they went through. It had been about twice as staffed as the first and the male lieutenant they had met prior commanded it. “I think we’ve done enough damage. Let’s try to get out of here without any more conflict, shall we?”

Canis took one last look at the security cameras. Almost all of the emperor’s entourage was with him. All except for Councilor King. He was on the bridge both dealing with technical difficulties which Kara and WHR4 had left for them and trying to identify the Beyonder’s location. The female lieutenant they had met early was with him, diligently going over some data on a terminal. She looked to be giving commands to other security members between scans of the terminal screen.

“One more thing, Crown. Your father is definitely still looking for all of us, and there’s one more major security threat in play. Keep an eye out.”

Canis ushered Gamlok out of the security point. “Stay down this hallway for half a klik. We should hit a main checkpoint and then the doors to that reception atrium.”

Gamlok took note, sped up and then kept pace to maintain a five second lead on Canis down the hallway.

Canis beeped into the comms again, “I need eta’s.”

“Fixer is already back on the ship. Warming things up for you.”

Gita sounded out of breath. “Best guess for us is ten to fifteen. We ran into a bit of trouble just outside of the emperor’s suite. Decided to reroute down the stairs instead of the lifts.”

“Smart move,” Canis responded. “There’s a security officer watching us, I think. You’re going to need to speed things up though. Can’t risk calling it too close.”

“Fixer here. If the hallways have subroutines to shut any blast doors during a power outage, those passes I gave you should suffice to get you through.”

“Fair enough, Canis responded over the general comms. Still, lets try not to-” A plasma bolt shot through the air past Gamlok and narrowly past Canis. Both of them did a shuffle as if ducking for cover, though there wasn’t any in the clear hallway.

Two guards stood resolute in front of The Beyonder’s getaway point. Gamlok fired off two shots causing them to disperse and hug the walls. Canis hid, crouched behind Gamlok, and heard the sound of radio static. “No. No! Damnit!”

Canis got up and quickly rushed the guards, firing wildly away at them. Two shots crazed the wall on the left before finally landing a searing blow on that guards leg. Canis looked to the right and saw a bolt of plasma coming right for him, but it never made contact. A large puke green wall of a man rushed over and took the blast in his lower back instead. Gamlok’s protective hug around Canis weakened allowing him to break from the Morae’s piston like arms. Canis leaned out of his cover and fired two blasts focused squarely on the guards chest.

Just the once guard remained on the left. They didn’t attempt to fire off at the slowly approaching Aranakean. They simply finished their call for help over the radio. The guard never heard the affirmative response for aid come in. Not that the female lieutenant didn’t respond, he was just dead before her call to action blared over the radio.

Canis moved back to take care of his ally. Gamlok was trying to gasp for air.

“I can’t, I cant breath.” It sounded as if the air had been knocked out of his lungs but the reality was much worse.

Canis scanned the Morae, finding the source of the problem. Morae lacked lungs. Instead, they were like some species of lizards which absorbed oxygen from the air when it was available. They had an organ in their lower back which could store about an hour’s worth of oxygen. If the organ was damaged though it would put the Morae’s body into a dangerous circular path. Their body would trick itself into thinking that its oxygen absorbing abilities weren’t working properly and they needed to breathe orally. When they breathed orally however the oxygen would go to the damaged organ to be processed, dispersed through the body, but unfortunately wasted. Effectively, the body would trick itself into thinking it was breathing when it was suffocating.

Canis had to think quickly. He could attempt to knock his friend unconscious, possibly causing his body to revert to the default operating status and absorb oxygen through the air. That or his next bet would have to be getting Gamlok onto the Ersatz as quickly as possible. They had some medical equipment there that could help him out temporarily until they made it to the Faux or worst case scenario, The Beyonder’s off the grid doctor on Neradiil.

Canis looked at the Morae and judged that any situation in which he could knock his ally unconscious would take too much time. “Come on. We need to hurry. This is going to hurt.” Canis got underneath Gamlok’s arm, stood him up as his crutch, and applied pressure to the wound.

“Oracle, we’ve made it back to the Ersatz. Where are you? What’s your eta?”

The pair didn’t have time to move or hide the bodies. Fortunately, when the door wooshed open, nobody was looking. Instead, all their eyes were facing the viewport. They were cheering and chanting in unison. “5… 4…”

“We’re on our way now. We need medical systems up first, we’ll be coming in hot!”

“3…2…1!”