The Child

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

Serenno


The Arquitens-class cruiser Valens rolled it's keel over in its death throes, high in the orbit of the world that had once been the throne of Count Dooku. As the ship succumbed to a decaying orbit, a frigate raced past, picking up inertia. The frigate was an old Munificent class ship, a ship once employed by the thousands in the Clone Wars by the Separatist Alliance. Now, however, she barely resembled her former self. Liveries of white and green replaced the grey and blue of the Confederacy. The ship was so extensively modified that her profile barely resembled the old Separatist schematics. Armor was bolted along the midline. Bulk cargo pods in the central hull had been repurposed as an expanded hangar bay. Christened the Better Angel, she'd been given new life an new purpose.

But that purpose was now racing against the clock.

"We've got to get those coordinates to the navicomputer now.

Captain Sonak didn't raise his voice. He didn't have to. The act of speaking as a Lorrdian was loud enough to convey his urgency to his Lorrdian crew.

"We're working on it sir, but it takes time to calculate these microjumps. All the direct courses..."

"...will be actively guarded by the Imperials, I know." Sonak completed his crewman's concerns, watching the navicomputer's painfully slow progress from over his shoulder.

"This mission was too risky. We shouldn't have attacked the slaver camp. Not this close to the border."

"You're in the wrong business if you can't stomach risk. Besides, do you want to tell those people it was too risky?"

The crewer glanced over his shoulder at Sonak and reluctantly shook his head.

"I was a slave once. I'll never be anyone's slave again."

"Me either, Zel. That's why we fight."

"But the Empire. They were waiting here as if...as if they were expecting to take delivery?"

"The Empire's never been shy about it's appetite for slaves."

"Yeah, but usually they prefer to deal with a middle-man."

Sonak nodded. "You're right. This is unusually direct, even for them."

A proximity alert flashed active, cutting off conversation as the systems tech read the sensors.

"Captain, we have inbound contacts from hyperspace!"

"Damn, already?" The Captain stood up with a grimace. He quickly surveyed the telemetry. Two Imperial Gozanti cruisers snapped into view a respectable distance ahead. A few seconds later, two additional contacts emerged.

"Light fighter carriers, sir. They're deploying."

The Gozanti cruisers cut their engines, content to stand in the way of the Lorrdian frigate. Docking clamps released in unison, releasing eight TIE fighters in a chorus of screaming acceleration. Captain Sonak glanced to his tactical officer. A series of subtle gestures spoke clearly in silence - the Lorrdian way. The order was given to scramble. In the hangar pods, six M3-A interceptors and four Y-wings scrambled for launch. Meanwhile, gunnery crews were given their orders:

Fighters incoming. Defend the mother ship.

As the TIE swarm closed their formation on approach, the sortie pair of fighters accelerated to the head of the group. Differing from the standard line TIEs, the red-hulled, crook-winged TIE advanced fighters were clearly distinguished as leading the attack.

Matatek Sel Vissica buffeted slightly on the gravity couch in her fighter's cockpit, manually adjusting her targeting alignment to prepare for the opening engagement. Far ahead, she could see tiny specks of movement from the Better Angel that could only be a host of defending fighters. She opened a line to the swarm.

"Engage the fighter screen. Draw them away."

[Halajiin Rabeak]

Draw them away. Those words rang through Hal's mind as his paws firmly grasped the flight yoke of his TIE advanced. Draw them away was the order, not kill them, not destroy them. For once he had his own out provided to him directly, by one of the most literal officers he'd met during his time in the Imperial Knights.

"Copy that, Paladin Leader," his voice echoed back over the comms before his finger flipped the mute switch on his mic. It was an unnecessary gesture, as every word which passed the Nehantite's lips for the past eleven months was carefully chosen and filtered through more layers of control than he'd ever managed in his entire life. After all, he wasn't Jedi Knight Halajiin Rabeak anymore, he was Imperial Knight Cadet Kyle Rayner, of Midloth instead of Nehantish, and his survival hinged entirely on acting the part.

But there were parts which could not be acted, such as tasks given him by his superiors, so it fell to him to find the grey areas in which he could technically complete his task without a serious violation of his conscience. Switching off his mic was more to mask his sigh of relief than it was to allow him any actual words on the matter. An Imperial Knight would be expected to kill when necessary, and so far Hal had managed to find ways to avoid such a necessity for the majority of his tenure as a cadet. Inside his mind he prayed that this mission would not force him to cross that line again.

Time for such reflection ran out as Hal banked his TIE advanced and peeled off, a string of subordinate TIEs following his lead.

Starfighter design was constantly evolving, and the changes between when Hal had been frozen over a century earlier until now were dramatic, but even with upgraded sensors and three-dimensional location displays, Hal possessed a more accurate and immediate sensor than anything a starfighter could be equipped with: The Force. With his opponents in sight, the Nehantite reached out through the void of space to find each of their ships, identifying them through their metallic composition, and engaging a mental lock on each. With considerable effort, he could locate frame structures and throw fighters off course, but simply tracking them took little energy at all.

Without warning, he hooked left, his wing following, and he watched how the swarm of fighters before them reacted. "Spread, good," Hal spoke to himself, watching the fighters split apart as to not present a central target for the TIE group. Only when he was close enough to see their blasters light up did Hal flick open the safety cap on his blaster trigger, and returned fire. Chances of no casualties in the encounter were zero, but if Hal could help it, he would keep the number as low as possible.

For both sides.

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

Vissica kept close attention on the balance of enemy fighters in the first seconds of the opening engagement. The M3-A fighters immediately accepted the dogfight presented by the TIE fighters, and a buzzing scrum of screaming ships began to knot the sky. The TIEs played a dangerous game, accelerating past their initial engagement to give the enemy an option to pursue, which they took. It pulled the fighters and interceptors further away from the mother ship, opening an attack lane.

Or not. That would be too easy. Vissica growled at the sight of the three Y-wings that held their position. Only one of the heavier ships committed to the dogfight, buzzing the TIEs in a wide arc to pepper space with twin laser turret fire. That left three Y-wings close enough to the Better Angel to easily cover her approach with overlapping fields of fire. A flash of light to her left momentarily caught Vissica's attention. One of the TIEs was destroyed in a crossfire. Two more immediately set about hunting the interceptor responsible. No matter, she had other problems to focus on.

The Selonian Knight punched her throttle, accelerating to attack speed with deflectors double front. The faint yellow streaks in the distance quickly grew large in her view, and Vissica peeled and corkscrewed her fighter around the steady torrents of fire from the Y-wings. Through the force, she anticipated the seams between fire before they appeared, and occupied them the moment they did. The Y-wings only broke formation when it was clear that the advanced TIE fighter was going to quickly dive inside minimum effective turret range. It made it easier to single out a target, which Vissica broke towards at once. A near-hit parthian shot from one of the sister y-wings convinced Vissica to round her shields out to accept threats from all angles, while she lined up her prey in her sights.

BLAT BLAT BLAT BLAT

Green spears of laser fire boiled the rear deflectors away, allowing for one strike to shear the fuel lead on the Y-wing's starboard nacelle. The engine flared, throwing the ship hard to port a moment before it disappeared into fire.

[Halajiin Rabeak]

In the thick of it, Hal broke off from his squadron as they simultaneously broke away from him. The shrieking swarm of TIEs spread to counter their opponents, as the dogfights began.

Would Bothans call dogfights dogfights? Would they call them something else, being doglike, themselves? Was he being racist for even thinking that? Hal's mind ceased wandering as he expertly dodged two incoming streams of turbolaser fire. He responded in kind, timing bursts of fire to keep his opponents off guard, and provide the opening the Empire needed. But it could not last forever, and before long he found his green bolts piercing the light shields on an enemy fighter, the ship igniting in a fireball which forced its wingmates to scatter.

Bits of craft pinged off his shields as he burst through the wreckage, already chasing down his next target as he flipped his mic back on. "How you doin' there, gorgeous? Need me to get right up on that tail of yours for backup?" he asked, though he could see Vissica needed no true assistance.

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

"I do not like when you speak to me in that familiar way, Comrade Rayner." Vissica replied, irritation barely noted in the deep calm of her voice. She accelerated hard, rocketing past one of the attacking Y-wings before her TIE Advanced abruptly broke vector and flipped into a koiogran turn.

"Target the nearest Y-wing and destroy it. I have the wingmate. I will join you afterwards and we will engage the mother ship's point defenses."

Vissica's TIE danced left and right to avoid turret fire. She barrel rolled out of the way, but not before spraying a salvo of cluster missiles to occupy the space she previously inhabited. The missiles speared ahead at the Y-wing she engaged, knocking out its shields and engines.

[Halajiin Rabeak]

His mic switched back off, Hal smiled to himself. "You don't like it, you love it," he chuckled as he hooked hard right and cut loose barreling straight in with his lasers howling. He watched as they splattered across the Y-wing's shields, and he set his jaw once they reinforced their rear shields. It would take little to aim for the unshielded cockpit, and the temptation to do just that was strong, yet his desire to preserve as much life as possible that day was stronger. "C'mon, just break!" he snarled inside his helmet.

At last his wish came true, the deflector shield shattering so that his laser bolts could punch clean through their nacelles, shredding their propulsion system entirely, and setting the craft spinning off out of control. "Boo-yah!"

It took but a cursory check to confirm that the remainder of both sides' fighters were still tangling with each other, mostly due to the Imperial TIEs not pressing their advantage, but instead playing cat and mouse.

Cat, mouse, dog. Get your head in the game, Rabeak! He reminded himself.

With the chaos around him, and incoming fire from the Better Angel, the skies were hardy a safe place to be for anyone, so in the interest of public safety - even if he were technically a member of the Imperial Knights, therefore not a member of the general public - Hal took it upon himself to commit serious property damage. While the cruisers could hammer down the Better Angel's shields, it was up to Hal and Vissica to disarm it for safe capture.

There was nowhere he could hide in his red-hulled TIE Advanced, so making his approach was hardly something Hal relished doing, yet it had to be done. The sooner this could be over, the more lives that could be spared. Bucking up, he rolled hard to his left, heading at the cruiser's stern at a low angle, peppering the shields there with his lasers, only to jam on his reverse thrusters to slow himself just before impact. Deflectors were a miracle of technology, capable of blocking energy pulses, lasers, some ion blasts, missiles, and all manner of high-velocity matter, but low-velocity was another story. His own shields screamed in protest as he slipped his craft through the Better Angel's shields, but soon enough he was inside, and skating near the cruiser's hull in search of defensive turrets.

They really ought to make a hologame out of this he told himself, lining up his first shot and unloading upon it at breakneck speed.

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

"Impressive." Vissica spoke to herself, nodding in affirmation at Rayner's technique at slipping through the defensive screen. She quickly regrouped, boosted into position, and made an approach to replicate the Nehantite's success. Her controls juddered as the deflector screen resisted, then relented.

With Kyle on point, there was little needed but to stick to his wake and identify other point defenses that needed clearing. The Cadet was quite thorough however. It made her approach to the Better Angel's hangar as uneventful as a hostile boarding could be.

"That is enough. Enter the ship. I will follow you."

The augmented hull section that served at the hangar was up ahead. The atmospheric membrane wasn't large, but it was wide enough for them to negotiate, even at a higher rate of speed.

[Halajiin Rabeak]

"Route power from lasers to shields!" Hal warned over his comm to Vissica. His advice turned out to be more than sound, as he could feel his TIE crash and shudder as if it had just plowed through a brick wall upon piercing the atmospheric membrane - not from the membrane itself, but from the sudden resistance of air pressure upon his shields, taking his shields. Immediately his warning lights for low shield integrity blinked, as a small klaxon sounded, letting him know that the shield generator did not care for such abuse, and it would surely be writing a stern letter to management after this was over.

Inside the hangar there was a mess of activity, with crewmen rushing to get out of the way, and emergency bulkheads sealing. Two more fighters sat in the corner, likely non-functional, but Hal would take no chances. Flicking back from shields to blasters, he lit up the interior of the hanger with green turbolaser fire, melting through the derilict fighters, and punching enough of a hole in the main bulkhead door to slip through on foot. By the time Vissica arrived, the hangar was a sparking, smoking mess, the Hal popped the escape hatch over his head.

"Got a clear shot inside, park up and follow me!" he shouted, knowing that his helmet's comm system didn't have the transmission power of his TIE's as he made his exit.

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

The warning came too late for the Knight. She followed in Kyle's wake, and like Kyle, her shields were taken by the discord between vacuum and atmosphere interacting at a high rate of speed. As her TIE passed the threshold, the hull around the ionization panel wings buckled, causing the fuselage to collapse down upon a broken wing. Vissica's TIE skidded across the deck in a shower of sparks; an imperfect landing from which it wouldn't recover.

KRSSSSH

The round glass of the cockpit blew apart in a million shards, tinkling across the deck as Vissica leapt free from her ship. The Selonian chewed the distance on four legs, bounding ahead in a low profile with a rapid beat of heavy paws on the deck.

"Comrade Rayner!" Vissica called out, "Be on your guard! The crew have..."

And then a howling din swallowed the hangar as the atmospheric shield deactivated, causing a massive explosive decompression. Vissica's claws bit against the deck, but didn't hold fast. As a hurricane of debris hurtled through the aperture, the Selonian's tenuous grip gave away...

[Halajiin Rabeak]

"Hey, Vissica, you should really get a space-worthy flight suit made. Y'know, in case of decompression. They made one for me. Might be a good idea, being able to breathe in space, and all that." The thoughts ran through Hal's head in an instant as he felt the magnetic soles of his boots kick in, locking him to the floor while the world around him leapt and flew sideways.

If he didn't act fast, Vissica would be lost to the eternal void of space, as would a few unfortunate crewmen who hadn't escaped the bay in time. the thought of losing Vissica, gorgeous as she may be, presented an opportunity for Hal to rid the galaxy of one of the most fearsome Imperial Knights, but he could hardly let innocents perish with her. Caution thrown to the escaping wind, the Nehantite fell back upon his greatest skill, which he'd successfully kept hidden until that time. Along one wall was a reel of tow cable, and with a flick of his paw, its locking clamp came free, and the cable shot out into space, where it snaked around each gasping body before he snarled, yanking it, and its prisoners, back into the landing bay, before slamming its tip into the button to reactivate the oxygen membrane.

At the hiss of gasses around him hinted that the room had repressurized, Hal dropped his paw, and the cable dropped with it, several bodies falling to the floor before the cable shredded and exploded in several places. It was an afterthought, yes, but it would at least portray that his telekinesis was errratic and unreliable, and that the save could have very well been just a fluke.

Boots thumping as he rushed to Vissica's side, Hal detached one of his oxygen lines and pressed it to her lips. "C'mon, baby-doll, don't give out on me yet," he could be heard growling behind his helmet.

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

The Selonian lay still for a few heartbeats, then quickly drew on the rebreather in a deep, sharp intake. Her ebony eyes flicked open.

"Thank you, Cadet."

Vissica rolled into a sitting position with liquid grace, taking stock of her situation. She patted down from her chest armor down her long abdomen.

"I am undamaged. And you?"

[Halajiin Rabeak]

Hal's first breath without his rebreather line came thinner than expected, causing him to gasp until he could funnel enough oxygen to his lungs. It was a simple enough element to locate, concentrate, and pull to himself, and he allowed a bit extra to flow Vissica's direction as well.

She was blacked out. She'll never know how I did it. His higher reasoning breathed its own sigh of relief.

Behind you! Shouted his base natures.

There was movement behind him, the drawing of a blaster. In that moment, Hal wasn't sure if it was his telekinesis still looking for pockets of oxygen and finding a crewman's lungs, or if his training on detecting life and Force precognition had actually paid off, but he responded by whipping out his own blaster and lighting up the offending crewman with a sharp stun blast. The second crewman to move got the same.

"I'm fine," he replied to Vissica at last. "I was wearing a suit. Might be something to look into. Need a paw getting up?"

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

Vissica resonded with her actions, slinking up to standing height by planting her heavy tail.

"No."

She took quick stock of the situation. The emergency bulkhead had sealed the breach in the atmospheric field, leaving the survivors in the hangar safe from the threat of evacuation into space. Two of the Lorrdians lay on the deck unmoving. They did not concern her. The Selonian pointed a paw ahead.

"We should seize the bridge before the enemy makes an organized attempt to repulse us or to flee to hyperspace. Time is critical, move!"

The heavy double door sealing the hangar was unsurprisingly locked. That was no impediment to an Imperial Knight, only a delay. Vissica's heavy greatsaber blade growled to life, and she plunged the weapon through the door, burying the blade to the hilt. It would take time to cut her way through, and it gave the Knight a moment to take stock of their surroundings.

"Look for a ventilation shaft or a service tunnel. I will divert attention to this point. You will flank the defenders, and destroy them."

[Halajiin Rabeak]

Pretty sure I suggested taking out the engines before boarding, in the mission briefing, Hal's higher reasoning reminded him.

His other faculties paid no mind, already focusing on the task at hand. Standard protocol for docking bays which opened into space was to have only one, or maybe two, main doors, with no smaller entry points. Fewer points of failure, fewer airlocks to automatically engage. A second door was out of the question, judging by the size of the main entry Vissica had started into with her plasma can-opener, which left only ventilation shafts as a viable option.

Ventilation. The word sparked a wave of nostalgia through the Nehantite, his mind flying back through time and space to days as a boy, listening to his dad, then his older brothers, talk about their day's work around the dinner table. Rabeak Heating & Air Conditioning, owned and operated by his uncle, Al. Ducting, filters, support structures, airflow requirements determining duct volume, all of it had wormed its way into Hal's head, as he was destined to follow in his family's footsteps into the HVAC industry, only to be derailed by being sent to Coruscant for Jedi school. Still, there are some things you pay attention to, even after you're no longer on such a career path.

Docking bays held specific requirements, chief among them was the ability to both empty and fill with breathable atmosphere in seconds. Even for a smaller docking bay, such as the one he found himself standing in, that would require multiple atmospheric vents, spread evenly around the room. Two, possibly three, would be connected to the main re-circulation system, while the rest would be fed by pressurized tanks that filled over time, for later immediate release. Knowing which vent to crack into would be key, as most would not yield a passage he could fit through, or in some case, would go anywhere at all. Wall vents to the left and right were ruled out; most likely to lead to pressurized tanks within the walls themselves. The back wall would also be out; likely hallway space on the other side, and no one likes walking next to loud ventilation ducts. That left the ceiling.

Hal glanced up. Six vents were slotted into the ceiling overhead, spaced evenly between lights. Practical intuition told him main ventilation shafts would be central to the core of the ship, so the vents closest to the gaping maw of the docking bay were just extensions, and the real deal would be found closest to the wall. Closest being a relative term, as they were still well above his head, and secured properly by a series of bolts with lock-washers. Don't want overhead grates rattling loose and falling on someone's head, after all; that's against safety protocol!

Sparing a look back to Vissica,and her limited progress on the bulkhead door, Hal breathed a sigh of relief that his deliberation had only taken a moment. Removing the bolts on that grate would take more effort through telekinesis, so he opted for a shortcut.

It was a simple matter to change his blaster from stun to kill, and with the flick of a switch he aimed it overhead and unleashed five blasts into the innocent grate, carving a smoking hole large enough for his frame to fit through. "Catch you on the flip-side," he laughed to Vissica, then crouched before leaping up, up into that hole, his paws scrambling for purchase on anything as his Force-assisted leap only scarcely met his vertical requirement. Due to design, he told himself. It wouldn't do any good if he over-jumped and smacked his head on the roof of the vent ducting, after all! In seconds, his boots and tail disappeared into the ductwork above, leaving Vissica on her own in the docking bay.

Get comfortable, son, Dad said. You're gonna be in these a lot, Dad said, Hal played the thoughts over in his mind as he crawled forward on his elbows and belly. His helmet left in the docking bay, he had no light to navigate by, but within such tight surroundings, Hal didn't need them. Sensing and following the path of the ductwork was child's play for his telekinesis, and it was only a matter of time before he found himself at another grate, this time looking down onto a hallway filling with armed men.

Oh man, I never thought I'd get to do this, he smiled both inside and out. With silent, delicate movement, Hal rolled over onto his back on top of the grate, and flicked his blaster back into stun mode. Then, he located each of the bolts holding the vent cover in place, and began to turn them. Slowly, carefully, as he heard the buzz of Vissica's greatsaber as it melted through the bulkhead door. Another sweep of the hallway through his senses told him he where his targets would be located, and with a final turn of the bolts, the vent below him dropped down with a clatter, taking him with it, until he engaged the magnets on his boots to stick to the duct ceiling, hanging himself upside down from the open hole. As the defenders turned to face him, his blaster unloaded upon them, the last one falling to a heavy stun blast just as Vissica's blade completed its circle.

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

CLONK

The heavy metal disc thudded to the deck, and Vissica slinked through the glowing aperture a moment later in a guarded stance. A quick glance to the Nehantite to her right put her at momentary ease, and she dipped her heavy blade downward. Her eyes tracked to the pair of bodies lying awkwardly to the side. She arched a brow at her companion.

"Don't confuse tidiness with efficiecy, cadet. Our capacity to take prisoners is limited. This way."

Vissica bounded down the corridor. She wasn't waiting on Kyle to ask permission to follow.

[Halajiin Rabeak]

Hal frowned as he hung upside-down from the ventilation shaft, though it's possible it would have looked like a smile from where Vissica was standing, had he done so before she pushed past him. She had cut through a door, while he had navigated the correct path through twists and turns, and took out a few guards, all while taking nothing so much as a scrape, and she wasn't happy. Or impressed. Some women were just never happy, he supposed.

Rising up onto his tiptoes disengaged the magnets in his boots, and Hal fell to the floor below, tucking into a tight roll to nail the perfect superhero landing, which turned out to be rather hard on his knee.

Mental note: Don't do that again. Especially for no audience.

In short time he caught up to Vissica, blaster still in his paw. "We're only here to take one prisoner, then we're out," he reminded her. "Well, I'll be out, at least. I didn't wreck my TIE on the way in, and there's room in my cockpit for a kid and me." Glancing over at her directly, he added, "Or is this no longer a smash-and-grab?"

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

"You will secure the child aboard your ship and jump to light speed."

The Selonian cut left at the intersection, headed for the most direct path to the bridge.

"I will ensure your escape and arrange for my own, once we have him."

Her voice was metered and cool, with her mimicked coreward accent that didn't quite smooth over the gravel beneath.

"If for whatever reason we are separated, complete your mission without me."

[Halajiin Rabeak]

"Wait," Hal stated, drawing to a stop just past the corner. "We just boarded someone's ship, and that someone surely knows what we're after." His pink eyes locked on to Vissica's own. "They won't be keeping him on the bridge, or near to it. They'll try and get him off the ship."

The cadet did not ask for permission, nor did he wait for approval before placing his gloved paw against the bulkhead and closing his eyes. Luka Jibral had attempted to teach him to detect life, but the trick simply wasn't one Hal was good at yet, so he delved deep into his own skill set. A ping was sent through the Force, likely strong enough that even Vissica could feel it, and Hal followed it through the construction of the Better Angel, much as he had through the service tunnels in his escape from the Citadel with Onika to get a burger. Metallic structures were simple to follow, and he glanced through every organic mass which they came in contact with, sorting not by race or gender, but simply by size. Children were not common on most starships, and so a boy would be easy enough to determine based on sheer mass alone.

But the trick was not without cost. His fingers began to slip against the surface as he strained himself to follow such a massive, intricate path, spreading in all directions until at last he located his quarry. A coughing gasp came with his return to reality, and he shook his head lightly before stepping back, dazed from the considerable effort put forth through the Force.

"Found him," he managed, then shook his head again to clear it, regaining his former sharpness. "Detect life never gets easier, does it?" he mused, chuckling a bit in an attempt to throw Vissica off the true nature by which he performed his search.

"The boy is that way," he pointed, away from the path to the bridge. "Care to join me, or am I doing this on my own while you party with the bridge crew?"

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

"I will draw the crew's attention elsewhere."

Vissica was already turning her back to her comrade, redoubling her intention to press towards the bridge.

"Follow your instincts. Secure the child, and inform me when you have done so. If you are unable to contact me, finish the mission alone."

[Halajiin Rabeak]

Hal stood in place momentarily, weighing his options. The child was not the only thing he had located in his scan of the vessel. Adults, droids, and a second hangar had been the others, providing him with an option. If he could make it to the boy, and secure him, they could use the small escape craft to depart the Better Angel, and make a break for it, as the craft was equipped with a hyperdrive. Not only could he escape, but he could save this boy from a life of brainwashing and indoctrination at the hands of the Empire.

It was a tempting option, and the Nehantite chewed upon the inside of his cheek as he considered it, making his way toward the aft of the vessel. To escape would be difficult, yet with a hyperdrive it would be possible. What it would likely cost were the lives of every member of the Better Angel's crew, and likely others as the Empire would strike out in an attempt to locate himself and the child.

No. Hal had been responsible for enough lives being lost already, he would not endanger others unless absolutely necessary, he told himself. Even acting in the name of the Empire, and the spirit of their laws, he would find ways to save lives rather than take them when at all possible. This was the thought which ran through his head as he raised his blaster and stunned two men in rapid succession after barging through a door.

"I do not wish to harm you!" he called out, knowing there were others lying in wait. "The child is all we want! I promise I will not hurt him! Stand down and this will be over quickly."

"Like hell!" a voice shot back, followed by the zing of a blaster bolt.

Hal ducked to the side, then snorted through his nostrils. "Turn on each other," he then muttered under his breath, and waved his free paw.

For anyone reviewing security footage later, and listening to the audio, it would appear as if the Knight Cadet had seized hold of the minds of his opponents, as they turned their blasters on each other, fingers fixed on triggers. Hal even sold it by crimping his brow, maintaining an expression of intense effort, as he stepped forward, walking between the impromptu Corellian Standoff. Another party trick, Hal chuckled internally, having simply used his telekinesis to grasp their blasters, as well as the bones of their hands, and move them where he wanted them, before fixing them in place so he could pass.

Once clear, he sighed. "I'm serious, I don't want to hurt you. Or the kid. But others are not so kind. This is for your own good. I'm sorry." A single stun blast to each of them laid out the last members of the defense.

The winding hum which filled the air was the sound of the engines being deactivated. Clearly Vissica had made it to the bridge, which meant his time was limited. Boots hammered against the floor as Hal sped past several doors to the one he'd tracked earlier, then pressed its button.

Nothing. Of course nothing. Like they wouldn't lock the door. Another sigh and Hal flicked his blaster to its full power setting, and launched a bolt off into the locking mechanism, before grasping a ridge and pulling sideways, sending the panel grinding and groaning across its tracks, to reveal the interior of the room, and his target before him.

"Hey," was all he could manage at first, attempting to smile. This was going to be a lot easier if the kid wasn't scared. "You okay?"