Rise of the Teenage Conquerors

Episode 1.13

"K-one-zero, all troops disengage. Run for your lives!"

Leana glanced down at the comm and then out of her viewport, at the remaining walkers. A lot of the speeders were veering around; Luke had crashed his speeder and was on the ground, positioning himself under a walker in order to take it down.

"Well, that's it," Egan said heavily. "The battle is over. Let's head back, Leana."

"No," Leana said, continuing to survey the field.

"What do you mean, no?" Egan demanded. "Leana, they sounded the retreat signal!"

"Yeah, but I'm not retreating yet," Leana shot back. "There're some more walkers we can take care of first."

"I'm the gunner, and without me, you wouldn't be able to take down these walkers," Egan said angrily. "Turn around, Leana."

"And I'm the pilot," Leana shot back. "Without me, you couldn't shoot these walkers."

There was a moment of silence before Egan said, "I could stop shooting, and you wouldn't get anywhere in this battle."

Leana rolled her eyes. "And I could crash this thing, and you literally wouldn't be going anywhere after that, would you?"

Egan didn't say anything. Leana veered the speeder toward one of the walkers, making sure it was different from the one Luke was currently in the process of taking out. "What options do we have for attack?" she asked.

"Hmm," Egan said, still sounding annoyed. "We've out of tow cable, so we can't use that line of attack. We've got the guns, but they did nothing earlier, so they're useless. Leana, there's nothing we can do!"

Leana gritted her teeth. "There has to be something we can do." Dammit, Luke's still out there doing stuff, so there's got to be something I can help with! "Come on, Egan, we can still help the cause!"

"The cause died out five minutes ago," Egan told her flatly. "Leana, give it up! We follow orders, okay?"

Not now, we don't. She banked to the right, circling over the battlefield. They were the only remaining speeder to be seen, aside from the crashed ones, smoldering in the snow below. "The Rebel cause is not dead, Egan."

"The battle is," Egan insisted. "Leana, come on! We've lost the base, we've lost this fight - what more are you trying to lose? Our lives?"

Leana felt her anger rising. "Look, pal," she started, twisting around instinctively in her seat. "I don't know -"

Her incensed retort was cut off by the flash of scarlet lighting up her viewport. She jerked back around to face the front as warning lights lit up her console.

"Hold on," she muttered through gritted teeth, gripping her controls tightly. "We're going down!"

If Lucas was here, he'd make what I just said into a Fall Out Boy quote.

Leana shoved all thoughts from her mind, focusing on their descent. She was quickly losing control over the speeder but had to make one last ditch effort to save herself and Egan. Just a little more...a little more....

The white bank of snow and ice loomed before Leana and she yanked back on the controls, managing to get the nose to level out before the bottom slammed into the ground, skidding through the snow. The white spray covered Leana's viewport as they spun, eventually coming to a halt half buried in snow.

"What the hell," Egan managed.

"We're alive!" Leana said.

"For now!" Egan exclaimed. "I told you we should have gone back."