-Shouldn't be here-
"Start evacuating the area." Luke lifted the comm as sirens began sound, maintenance crew who had been watching the strange gathering starting for exits, the 701st Deck Officer starting forward- probably to offer assistance; the whole company were theoretically his personal bodyguard. "Mara?"
Her voice came back reassuringly quickly, "We have a three-stage explosive device, connected into the defence and navigation shields - the connections to propulsion seem to peter out. There's no timer, it's a remote trigger device."
"Can they isolate the frequency, put up a dampening field?"
"No, it's receiving a constant signal; the moment it stops, it'll trigger automatically. They say about twenty minutes to diffuse it."
-Shouldn't be here-
"Too long." The whisper in the centre of Luke's mind was connected to every fiber of his body now like a live wire spiking, ever more demanding, spurring for action "This one will blow first. Evacuate everyone from that area and seal it. Do what you can to protect and re-route the defence shield system and get the bomb squad down to..."
.
In the access corridor nine storeys away and to aft, Mara frowned as she listened to Luke's order, hearing the tension in his voice. Grabbing the bomb-squad commander by the shoulder and gesturing for them to bug out, she turned to walk quickly down the corridor as they gathered their tools and specialist 'droids. From a distance, she heard an unknown voice over her comm as someone walked closer to Skywalker, 'Sir, the next hanger is 'tech storage. There's no device visible in there.'
"It's in the cavity." Skywalker's voice was tight with unease. There was a long pause, then... "BACK!!"
The distant explosion still held the power to rock the floors even at this distance, setting decompression warnings off in sequence, Mara's heart rising into her throat...
.
Luke frowned at the comm as Mara spoke, passing on a string of orders as the Security Officer stepped towards him, "Sir, the next hanger is 'tech storage. There's no device visible in there."
He glanced up, senses on edge, threat blaring out through the Force, "It's in the cavity..." Everything twisted with a spike of alarm so extreme that he flinched beneath it, "BACK!!"
The bomb detonated, the wall exploding outwards-
Already deeply immersed in the Force, Luke dragged it in so ferociously and so intensely that it seared through him, cutting like a knife-
In that same instant he threw it out, hands outstretched, creating two shields, one close to the bomb, the second to deflect the force of the massive blast in an arrowhead about himself and the small group of officers and troopers behind him, the power pushing him back, feet sliding against the smooth floor, massive chunks of debris thrown out about him as if they were leaves in the wind, glancing off invisible defences, embedding in walls and deck and docked ships. The floor below the bomb wrenched away, fissures ripping out, tearing solid ground from beneath his feet in a fraction of an instant-
Luke fell unprepared into the TIE hanger bay below, the shock of the blast and the massive drain of countering it leaving him stunned, darkness drowning his awareness-
The second blast detonated as he fell, the shockwave throwing him back mid-air, hurling shattered fragments toward and about him, propelling him into the side of a heavy transport which scraped across the already debris-littered bay into others-
He was oblivious before the brunt of the impact broke bones.
Chapter 6
Mara came bursting into the bay, having run at full-tilt across and up several levels, the turbolifts down as the emergency systems had closed airlocks and forced her to backtrack again and again until eventually she'd taken to entering hard-wired override codes to release blast doors and airlocks, claxons blaring throughout the ship as she did so, her heart in her mouth, adrenaline burning her throat.
She entered a scene of total chaos, black smoke roiling up to gather at ceiling-level, small fires being attended by 'droids and humans alike, the thin air aiding them, though the atmospheric shields had cut in to maintain the ship's integrity, emergency systems pumping oxygen into the choked air to make it breathable again.
Many people were down - troopers mostly, medics already in attendance. Everyone capable of standing was gathered near a huge fissure ripped through the floor from the site of the blast, the space behind which was strangely untouched, the perfect floor still parade-polished. Mara ran forward, desperately scared, wildly hopeful that Luke would be stood there...
Everyone looked down through the gash in the floor, organic steel girders and power cables twisted back to spike into the massive Deep Storage Bay below, it too damaged by the blast, fighters and transports thrown back or over, dragging massive gouges into the soot-streaked floor, a mass of unsalvageable scrap. Below and behind the huge fissure which now cut through the two bays were a large group of people, gathered about a single spot. Mara climbed down the twisted wreckage, still hot to the touch, jumping the final few feet into the storage bay, running forward, pushing through the throng-
Luke lay crumpled on his back, Hallin and a team of trauma medics already there, his eyes closed, face blackened, a long deep wound running from close beside his right eye down past his cheek and through his lips, seeping blood over his face and into his hair and onto the scuffed, grubby floor.
Was he breathing? She couldn't see him breathing...
Hallin was positioning a clear tracheotomy frame to his throat with frantic, brittle efficiency, a second medic holding a massive laceration to the side of his neck together, dark, arterial blood pumping from between his fingers. Hallin pulled the release free and slapped the insert forward forcefully, the tube cutting a neat hole in Luke's throat, the back of the clear, curved frame instantly red with blood.
Skywalker's stomach hitched twice as Hallin leaned in, listening, then his chest heaved in a breath and the medic immediately leaned back, "It's clear. Quickly please."
A third medic leaned in, pressing conforming medical strip over the tracheotomy form, taping it to Skywalker's neck as Hallin took a powered field ventilator and attached it to the cleared tube.
Still he didn't move, didn't react. Didn't open his eyes.
Mara dropped down beside him, reaching out her hand, afraid to touch him. "Luke?"
The name, so rarely spoken by her, brought Hallin's eyes up momentarily in surprise. Then he was all business again, taking the IV needle as the second medic set up an intravenous feed. "It's bad- he has massive blood loss from his neck, blunt force trauma to the skull, multiple fractures and internal haemorrhaging. He's hypovolaemic - we can't wake him - he's going into shock."
Mara gently touched his shoulder, his left arm bent awkwardly away.
"Please- don't move him at all." Hallin warned, glancing at her now, belatedly realising how much this was affecting her.
His eyes went immediately back to his patient, mind completely focused. It was a hard thing, to be a personal physician, and have a friendship with the one you safeguarded. He'd spent so long worrying that this would happen- now that it had, he was at once on fire and strangely calm. "We need these people to get back- there's a trauma capsule on its way. I need to get fluids into him before we can move him or we'll lose him right here from multiple organ failure." He glanced up, "Mara- Commander Jade?"
She stared at him blankly for several seconds, all colour gone from her face, then seemed to realise where she was and rose quickly, turning on those about her, "Everyone back! Get back - give him some room."
.
She spent the next fourteen hours stood outside the Peerless' main surgical bay as medical capsules were brought in, some carrying wounded, others carrying those long past any help.