Project Boussh: Storm's End
by Josh Nolan

Ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight.

Two Ewoks were dead, one now lacking a head, the other with a char-edged
hole blown through its torso.  Josh's face was stinging from where a
near miss had burnt off part of the bacta patch, exposing his burns to
the smoke-filled air.  Blasters in both hands, Josh sought to stem the
black-and-white tide that threatened to engulf his squad, but fresh
troopers swarmed into the gaps.  One-eleven, one-twelve...

A cry went up from the Ewoks behind him, and Josh risked a quick glance
over his shoulder, still firing.  <Let's go!> yubbed one of the Ewoks,
beckoning at Josh furiously, firing wildly past him into the mass of
troopers charging up the corridor once more.

"Fall back!" cried Josh, backing away from the troopers, the massed fire
of the entire squad forcing the enemy to drop to the ground or duck into
side passages.  "Move!"  One-thirteen.

Obediently, the Ewoks broke the line and sprinted away down the
corridor, trying to find a more defensible position.  Josh continued to
back away, raining burning red death on the troopers, ignoring the
inaccurate return fire that was all they were able to muster against the
onslaught.  One-fifteen, one-sixteen.

Josh risked another glance over his shoulder, and saw the Ewoks
disappearing around a corner - then one of his blasters ran out, buzzing
angrily as Josh's finger continued to squeeze the trigger.  Josh threw
the useless hunk of metal to the side, and began firing as rapidly as he
could with his remaining blaster, picking up his pace away from the
troopers - and then the other blaster ran out.

It took the troopers down the corridor several seconds to realise that
their opposition was out of ammunition, in which Josh could have covered
an impressive amount of ground away from the troopers.  Since, instead,
he had stooped to scoop up some blasters from the bodies of some fallen
troopers, he was very much a viable target when the stormtroopers opened
fire.

A blaster bolt slammed into the floor just below his head, and the rock
exploded, ripping Josh off his feet and leaving him sprawling against
the wall.

*******

Sergeant Dratsab Roop cheered as the human member of the intruders fell
to the ground, writhing slowly.  "Trooper Erbas, make sure of him.  The
rest of you, let's make sure those little fuzz-buckets don't come back
in a hurry.  Move!"

Roop winced when only four troopers responded to the order - the
furballs had run up one hell of a tab, but Roop would eat his helmet if
he wasn't going to give them payback.  He shook his head, looking at the
remains of the forty-odd bright-eyed young men who were now only so much
cooked meat.  "Rebels," he spat, anger and hate turning the word into
the most vile epithet he'd ever uttered.

"Sarge!" called Trooper Reddof Erbas, crouching above where the Rebel
had fallen, his armoured fingers resting on the side of the Rebel's
neck.  "He's still alive, Sarge!"

Roop rolled his eyes behind his helmet - the Mendellian conscripts were
certainly brave in their defense of their homeland, but they were as
green as they came.  "Then fix it, Trooper," he barked back, and Erbas
stood up with guilty speed - then the Rebel's eyes flicked open.

Suddenly, chaos broke out - there was a hissing, spitting streak of pink
light, Roop's energy sensors went berserk, Erbas fell to the ground in
two pieces but not without absorbing several shots aimed at the Rebel.
The Rebel was somehow on his feet, wielding Erbas' blaster as well as a
bright pink lightsabre.  The world slowed down to a crawl, and Roop
fired at the Rebel, but his blaster moved too slowly, too slowly.  The
lightsabre lopped Eno's head clean off and sliced a diagonal from Owt's
upper arm to his hip, while two rapid shots from the blaster claimed
Rebmun and Oremun.  The Rebel seemed to pirouette past the stray shots
the troopers had squeezed off, and slowly swung his blaster around
towards Roop.

It occurred to Roop even as he wrestled with his sluggish blaster that
he would be giving the Rebels no payback for today, or at all - and as
the unblinking eye that was the muzzle of the Rebel's blaster stared
Roop in the face, some part of his mind realised that when the
blasterbolt melted the armour's faceplate, he would, from a certain
point of view, eat his helmet.

As the eye of the blaster blazed scarlet, Roop began a silent prayer to
the Emperor that was snuffed out halfway through, never to be finished.

*******

"How many levels are there in this place?" panted Kristy, keeping a
paranoid watch on the approaches to the guard station.

"Tede says there's at least seventeen," replied Becki, anxiously
glancing over Morwen's shoulder at the computer screen.  "Apparently Etu
Atner, the Dicator about a century ago, wanted to evolve a superior
mushroom."

Kristy shot a quizzical look at Becki.  "And having seventeen levels
underground would help... how?"

Becki shrugged.  "Beats me.  Etu died shortly after all the excavation
was finished, though, so we never got to find out what his mushrooms
were going to be like."

"No good," growled Morwen at the computer, which was now displaying a
plain blue screen with a few lines of text.  She glanced up at her
wingmates, and said, "Looks like Microsoft put some extra-strong
security into this system.  I can't even press a key without the blasted
thing crashing!"

"I think we should get moving," offered Kristy, worry creasing her
brow.  "I've got a bad feeling about this."

Morwen grinned at Kristy, then fell serious again.  "I was thinking the
same thing.  One of these things has to have Quiara's location."

Becki fingered her piccolo uneasily.  "I'm guessing they'll have a lot
of droids around there.  We sure haven't seen anywhere near the number I
did on the way out."

"Maybe since you got out they've stopped -" Kristy began hopefully, but
broke off when something occurred to her.

"If they've stopped using them, then that means we'll have more stormies
to worry about," finished Morwen worriedly.

Becki shifted her blaster uneasily.  "And high C's aren't much use
against them."

********

Josh crept quietly down the corridor, trying to trace the sounds of
speech he could vaguely make out.  He reached a corner and glanced
around, only to duck back as quickly as he could.  A guard station lay
about five metres around the corner, and a full squad of nine
stormtroopers were in position around it.  Fortunately, most of them
were paying attention to something in the centre of the station,
apparently ignoring their sensors as well.

"Is there any way to install Quake 3 on there?" one of the stormtroopers
was saying.

"It'd be slideshow city," replied a female voice, trying to sound
nonchalant.  "And then there's the stability issues, which I doubt the
platform can support."

A comlink crackled to life.  "Command, this is Squad Five-Six Alpha.  We
have lost contact with the intruders, sir.  They'd rigged up a blaster
trap with string, and we've lost them."

"Is there really a bunch of aliens attacking the Palace?" asked the
female voice, with only the slightest hint of a quaver.

"I'm afraid we're not at liberty to discuss that, ma'am.  But we're here
to protect you."

"All units, this is Command.  Keep your sensors hot, the intruders are
around somewhere."

"Roger," said one of the troopers in a bored voice.  He apparently
stopped speaking into the comlink then, as he continued, "I'd like to
see the Rebels get this deep into the -  Sithspit!  Let's MOVE!"

Josh took that as his cue - he ran out into the middle of the corridor,
carbines blazing, and two stormtroopers were dead before they could turn
around.  Unfortunately, three of the enemy were already in position to
cover the corridor, and deadly red bolts began to blaze down the
corridor.  One-twenty-six.

Josh had not stopped moving, though, and the shots went wide, though one
crystallised his shirt over his left ribs.  Still running towards the
wall, he drilled one of the enemy's heads with both blasters -

He was in the desert again, keeping one step ahead of the stun bolts
kicking up red dust in his footprints, and he realised they would catch
him if he kept moving the way he'd been going.

"Terror is your ally," whispered the voice through the comforting haze
of the bacta trance, "By not flinching from enemy fire, you show
yourself to be superior to your enemy."

"Ooryl has always thought Ooryl is more effective in a lightfight if
Ooryl has not been shot," the Gand was saying as he helped Josh up out
of the dust once again.  "You would do well to follow Ooryl's example."

"A soldier must be willing to die for the cause, or the cause itself
will die."

- and turned his head to face the wall.  He put one foot on the wall,
placed the other a little higher, and kicked off.  He sent himself
flying backwards through the air, his body parallel to the floor, firing
wildly with his blasters.  One shot actually caught a stormtrooper
behind the two spewing blaster fire towards him, and Josh's maneuver
carried him safely over the footsteps of the enemy's fire.  Was it
one-twenty...?

Josh slammed into the rock floor awkwardly and hard, one of his ribs
cracking under the impact.  Josh continued firing, catching one of the
enemy in the knee, but the remaining shooter calmly took aim at the
Australian -

A blaster bolt screamed out of nowhere and tore into the side of the
stormtrooper's torso. The whine of the blaster bolt was shortly joined
by the screeching battlecries of Ewoks as they emerged to flank the
guardpost.  Josh struggled to his feet and pumped a shot into the
stormtrooper who was writhing on the ground, clutching where his armour
had been melted around his knee.

Three stormtroopers were crouching inside the guardpost, using its
concrete walls as cover, their attention fully occupied by sniping at
the screeching Ewoks. Josh dropped into a crouch, checked the charge on
his blasters, drew a deep breath and charged.

One of the stormtroopers noticed him coming, and swung his blaster
around, but ducked back into cover when Josh began raking the post with
fire.  Josh leaped to the top of the wall, spraying fire into the enemy
- one fell, then another, then the last fell, twitching as the top of
his head was sheared off by the blaster bolt.  Then he turned his
attention to the stormtrooper's former charge.

The woman was dressed in civilian clothes, and was huddled as far as she
could go from where Josh stood, staring at him with eyes wide with
horror.  *Civilian collaborator.  She deserves the same as the rest.*
Josh took careful aim at the quisling's head -

Josh knelt in the dust, trying to support himself with his shaking arms
as he dry-retched some more.  The body of a young man lay a metre away,
his head burnt off above the eyebrows, twitching and uttering
meaningless syllables like someone in a religious trance.  On the man's
shirt was a depiction of Luke Skywalker on a throne, with the words,
"Jedi Rule the Galaxy" emblazoned underneath it, and the cold night wind
continued to blow, uncaring.

Ooryl crouched in front of him, the Gand's insectoid face radiating
concern.  "Now you know," Ooryl said quietly.  "Killing is never a good
thing.  That it is sometimes necessary does not mean that we should
enjoy it."

- and removed his finger from the trigger.  *Shoot her!* screamed the
stormie, *Shoot her now!  Traitor!*

*No,* said Josh inside his mind.  *I was here before you.  All you are
is a voice.  And I'm not listening any more.*

"What's your name?" he asked, lowering the blaster and lightly jumping
down from the top of the wall.

The woman stared at him disbelievingly, and Josh suddenly realised he
looked a mess.  Even if he hadn't had to fight his way in, the bacta
patches would still make him look like the Phantom of the Opera.  "I'm
not here to harm you," he said as gently as the adrenaline in his system
would let him.  "I'm Josh.  Who are you?"

"I... My name's Redna.  Redna T'Syb," the woman stammered, the events of
the last fifteen seconds still sinking in.

"What were you doing here?" Josh asked, and a look of terror briefly
flashed over Redna's face.  Josh put his blasters down and held up his
empty hands.  "I'm just curious.  I'm not going to hurt you."

Redna flicked her gaze from the now-still forms of the stormtroopers and
back at him.  "I - I was fixing their computer systems."

"What was wrong with them?" asked Josh, settling back against the
opposite wall, ostentatiously leaving the blasters between them.

Redna apparently surprised herself by laughing.  "What wasn't?  The
amount of software conflicts they've got, I'm surprised they worked at
all!"

*********

"Terra Three, Terra Five.  Quiara's on level eleven.  Cell
thirty-eight."

"Five, Three.  You've got her?"

"Nope.  I just found out where the cell is.  I had a bit of help, to be
honest.  But there is one thing...  Was Quiara pregnant?"

"WHAT?"

"Well, um... it's just that I found the records that cover cooking and
food transport... and Quiara's getting about fifteen meals a day
directly from the Admonitor."

"Five, One.  Why the question about her being pregnant?"

"If she was having quadruplets, it might explain why she's eating for
five?  It was kind of a joke, I guess."

"Five, Two.  Negative.  Jokes have to be funny."

"Geez!  Sorry, okay?  By the way, if you see a woman, about
mid-twenties, escorted by a couple of Ewoks, be nice to her, okay?
She's been having a really bad day, and she's got an important mission."

"Mission?  What kind of mission?"

"The kind where she goes home and tells her family she loves them."

"Awwwwww..."

"Yeah, I'm a soppy bastard.  The poor girl was doing tech support today
- and she's the one who got the info on Quiara.  If it is Quiara.  But
she's a civilian."

"Five, One.  We've got all that.  Were you going to join up with us?"

"I'll see what I can do, my Prophetess, but I'll try and keep any
stormies that might be left busy.  You'll be okay?"

"We should be.  If all else fails, Three'll blast a high C.  That ought
to annoy them, at least."

"Take care, you three.  Five out."

Kristy keyed the comlink and shivered slightly.  "'My Prophetess.'  I
love to hear an Australian boy say that.  I can pretend it's Russell
Crowe."