The Paradox of Moatia Rhaden

Season One Episode Five

The control center was not in the center of the ship. The name lied. It was almost all the way across the ship from where they were.

After several twists and turns down the gray halls, and lots of ducking and hiding from battle droids, they were finally close to where the control center was supposed to be.

Moatia really just hoped it wasn't another closet.

"No droids," Zap whispered from the corner they were hiding behind. Moatia didn't want to imagine how stupid they looked, all leaning over each other and peeking worried glances at an empty hall.

"We should go then," Moatia said, "I want off this garbage ship. We shou-"

Just then, Zap's comm made several crinkling noises, "Sir," It was a droid's voice.

Curse clapped his hand over Moatia's mouth and as she pried it off, the voice continued, "We found an escape pod attached to the ship."

Oh no. Blast.

"We should have dumped it," Zap hit the front of his helmet with an open palm. Curse whispered a word children should never hear.

"Well, release it into space. Now those rats will have nowhere to run." Moatia didn't recognize the voice of the Admiral, it was probably just a random Separatist general. Hopefully it wasn't Dooku or someone super skilled and important. That would be awful. Their luck couldn't be that bad, right?

Then the Admiral's voice crackled again: "Send reinforcements to the control center! Now!"

Ugh.

"We better hurry," Zap hefted his blaster, "I just cleaned this thing. Don't wanna get it dirty."

"This way!" Curse pointed to the left, and they set off sprinting. Moatia hated running.

They stopped checking carefully around corners as they ran. The separatists already knew where they were. Moatia still used the Force to make sure each hall was clear. Just because they were discovered didn't mean they needed to be dead.

They got to the control center too late. There were too many droids standing guard.

"The two droid poppers won't take them all out," Curse said grimly.

"Even if we destroy these droids, they'll just send reinforcements. We can't fight the entire ship and win," Zap added.

"We... we could," Moatia struggled for an idea. This is why she came on this mission, wasn't it? To provide ideas? Well, that was another failed plan. She had nothing. Desperately, she looked around the dark hall.

There!

A vent was just across the hall from where they were standing, and Moatia was willing to bet that at some point it led into the control center.

"That vent," Moatia pointed at the vent, "Does it lead into the control center?"

"I... I mean probably?" Zap shrugged. Moatia noticed that his armor was painted with jagged, lavender lines. They almost looked like lightning bolts. 

Curse pulled up the map of the ship and zoomed in on the red dot that portrayed their location. He zoomed in some more and traced a bunch of lines with his finger. Moatia went cross-eyed trying to follow him. So she gave up and peeked around the corner again, waiting for droids to show up and start shooting at them.

"Looks like it goes in," Curse said, the blue light of the hologram reflecting off of the black paint of his helmet. His was decorated with a bunch of words scribbled in aurebesh and a few scribbled in other languages. On the forehead of his helmet in giant, bolded letters, Curse had written his name.