Star Wars: The Good Ending

Rex

    "What do you mean, 'not here'?" Rex demanded.
Hunter shook his head and gestured to a door. "She hasn't been in there for a while," he pointed down the corridor, "Looks like the Sith Lady took her somewhere else, the spire where the Jedi were taken. There's nothing we can do from down here."
    Rex audibly sighed, his nerves feeling stretched to their limits. They just got here and the plan was already going wrong. He had to trust Anakin and Obi-Wan to get Ahsoka out of wherever she was now.
    "Ok, what about the kids?"
Hunter brushed a hand along the wall and pointed down the corridor with two fingers. "They're still down here. That way."
    Without needing to be told what to do next, Hunter took off running down the hallway, the rest of the group quickly following suit. They swiftly and quietly dispatched of the repurposed commando droids as they went, constantly on the move to dodge security and tripping alarms.
    Hunter made a few more twists and turns before stopping in front of a reinforced durasteel doorway. "They're in that cell," he said, tapping it a couple times.
    "Tech, you think you can get that open without tripping any alarms?" Rex questioned.
    "Obviously. However-" he stopped, tapping in a few sequences, "This door is heavily encrypted, it appears only a retinal scan can unlock it. I can bypass it, but it will take a while."
    "Do it. Echo, scomp into the system and see what you can find out, you four fan out and keep the coast clear." Rex directed the rest of them. Hunter and Crosshair moved to one end of the hall while Omega and Wrecker took the other, no doubt looking for any more patrolling commando droids.
    Rex pressed his comm, sending the signal to Anakin that they found the kids. Tech tapped and typed a bunch of sequences, none of which seemed to be going through. Omega stopped what she was doing and turned to Rex, like something had just dawned on her. "Anyone else think it's weird that there's only droids here? No other prisoners, no gangsters, nothing."
    Hunter paused and turned to look at Rex, his expression impossible to guess under his helmet. "That's-" he trailed off, hesitantly crouching to the floor and placing a hand on it. Almost immediately he jumped back to his feet, looking pretty panicked. "Wrecker, get that door open, now!"
    "But the alarms-?" Rex started, before Hunter cut him off. "Detonators. This whole base is set to-" suddenly a series of massive explosions wracked the facility, blacking out the light fixtures to be replaced by blood red emergency alarms. It felt like an earthquake had taken place, and once the tremoring stopped, the deafening noise of the structure breaking away from the cliff face, breaking apart as it slid towards the ocean of lava.
    Before Rex could react, Wrecker had already drawn his sword sized knife and jammed it between the door panels, heaving with all his strength to rip them apart from each other.
    Rex's commlink cracked to life with Anakin's voice. "Rex, are you there?"
"Yeah sir, we found their cell, we're working on getting it open, what the hell is going on?!"
    Rex breathed a slight sigh of relief when he heard Ahsoka's voice on the other end of the comm. Anakin sounded out of breath and winded when he answered, "It was a trap, this whole thing. You- to- here-"
    "Rex, all our exits are gone. The only way out is up." Echo relayed.
"How long do we have?" Rex asked, swallowing hard.
    "Less than seven minutes, the lowest three stories are already completely submerged. I can slow it down, but not by much."
    "Do what you can. General Skywalker, do you copy?" Nothing. Straight radio static. "Sir? Anakin?" Nothing. Omega suddenly came tearing from around the corner, nearly smacking into the adjacent wall. "All the commandos are closing in on us. We need to go, now!"
    "Well this is just fantastic!" Crosshair yelled angrily, quickly landing a headshot on the droid directly behind Omega.
"Get that door open!" Hunter ordered, tossing Rex his knife, "We'll buy you as much time as we can." With that, he and the others disappeared leaving Rex with just Wrecker and Echo. The general considered trying to help Wrecker, who seemed to be struggling a lot for someone who could lift a gunship.
Instead, he used Hunter's vibro blade to rip the control panel off the wall to reveal a confusing series of wires and circuit boards. Rex pulled off his helmet to try and see them better, but couldn't tell them apart, and he guessed he didn't really have time to figure it out. Against his better judgment, he slashed through the wires, causing the panel to short circuit and explode in a shower of sparks.
    The door snapped open and Wrecker stumbled backward, catching himself before he fell through. The cell was completely dark, and fairly small, and for a horrifying moment Rex feared Hunter was wrong, and it was empty. "Go away! Leave us alone!" came a small, scared voice.
He flipped on his flashlight to see two toddlers cowering in the corner. A little girl who looked to be sheltering her brother. She looked roughed up, but otherwise unharmed. She blinked a few times, adjusting to the brightness, when her face lit up. "Rex!" Leia exclaimed excitedly. Luke jumped up, nearly tripping over Leia. "Where's Soka?! The red lady took her!"
Rex hurriedly jammed his helmet back on and picked up Leia in one arm and Luke in the other. "Ahsoka's with your dad, she's ok," he assured them.
He sprinted out the door and passed Luke off to Wrecker to free up his other arm. "Hunter, we're gone! Let's go!"
A couple seconds later the four of them came tearing around the corner, closely followed by a fast moving slosh of molten magma. Right as they broke the threshold, Echo sealed the door, barely closing off the lava. Rex was already sweating up a storm, and could feel the temperature getting higher and higher. The door had begun to creak and melt already, barely holding off the molten rock. Echo tossed Rex a couple of breathing masks he promptly put on the twin's faces.
Wrecker appeared to have already cut them an escape route in the ceiling, and started by handing Luke to Omega and boosting her up onto the next level. He then took a little too much pleasure in throwing Crosshair to safety, followed by Rex and Leia, then the rest of them.
They kept moving and were fortunate enough to spot a staircase as the lava started bubbling up from the floor as long lines of cracks and fissures spread along the walls. The facility had settled onto the bottom of the lava lake, and submersion had slowed for a little bit, at least until the bottom of the ruined structure started melting and caving in.
They kept losing precious seconds to commando droids determined to slow them down. Inside it was beginning to feel like an oven, and it was only their armor's cooling systems that kept them from passing out from the heat.
The problem was that the facility was falling apart around them, and Echo had just barely missed being crushed by a support column and Wrecker nearly fell through the floor. The power kept flickering on and off and the whole place was a constantly melting death trap.
They had managed to climb to the 12th level, but by that time they were all exhausted and near delirious with heat and dehydration. Whether they wanted to or not they practically collapsed onto the floor while everyone tried to catch their breaths. Hunter gently set Leia on the floor before promptly falling against the wall.
Crosshair yanked helmet off and practically hacked up a lung. It had kept a vent of volcanic gas from melting his face off but messed up the filters pretty badly, and he didn't seem to be doing too great. Echo scomped into the system for a few moments before dejectedly disconnecting. "The main entrance is gone. The only place we can go now is the spire."
"Great. More climbing," Crosshair gagged before he continued coughing. Omega had taken off her own helmet to wipe the sweat off her face and patted her brother's back, trying to comfort him as best she could. She looked at Rex and he was struck with the reminder of just how young she was. She wore an expression of weariness and a certain resignation, but still looked hopeful. "We can make it. We've made it this far," she said, although she sounded more like she was trying to convince herself rather than Crosshair.
    She helped him to his feet and everyone followed, suit, ready to keep forging ahead. Hunter jumped up and slung Luke on his back then turned to Rex, the visor of his helmet reflecting the harsh glow of the red atmosphere. "After you," he said.
    They moved inward, away from the outermost walls of the building, towards the central tower. The destruction had slowed, but the base's structural integrity was rapidly deteriorating. The power flickered on and off as various generators came on and offline. The general was beginning to feel a bit claustrophobic, like they were walking into a trap. Leia had her arms wrapped tightly around his neck, but she looked like she was struggling to stay awake, probably from the heat.
    "Just hang in there, ok? It won't be too much longer," he assured her. She just nodded and looked ahead of them, her father's stubborn determination glinting in her eyes.
    Eventually, the power died completely and they resorted to flashlights, the corridors black as night. Distant crashes and bangs echoed through the halls, but other than that it was unnaturally quiet, safe for their footsteps. Hunter had passed off Luke to Wrecker pretty far back, and was walking in front with Tech as he led them to the spire.
    Suddenly he stopped and looked around, something that was never a good sign. He turned and shone his flashlight back at Rex. "Do you hear that?"
    "Of course not, only you can," Crosshair responded irritably, Echo quickly elbowing him in the arm.
    "More commando droids?" Rex asked.
Hunter shook his head and cocked it to the side, like he was straining his ears. "No, something else," he fingered the hilt of his knife and fell in step with Rex, bringing up the rear, "We should probably keep moving."
    They walked for a few moments before Hunter suddenly stopped in his tracks, but it was too late. Leia screamed, and something behind Rex sprang out of the shadows, its enormous metal claws poised to strike. He tried to dodge but wasn't fast enough until someone else shoved him out of the way, knocking him to the floor and getting dragged off in his place.
    "Hunter!" Omega screamed. She tried to take off after him, but something from the ceiling crashed onto her, pinning her to the floor. Spider droids. Two more sprang out of the darkness, one onto Crosshair and the other onto Echo. Rex pulled his blaster from its holster, crouching over Leia to try and protect her as best he could from their attackers. Spider droids didn't get used much during the war, on account of how expensive they were to make, and they were most effective in close quarters, not on a battlefield. Eight long, triple jointed legs protruded from a central disk like body, each one as long as Rex was tall, and sharp and enough to stab all the way through someone.
    Omega drove her knife through the central visery lens of the droid, causing it to short circuit into a shower of sparks as Rex shot the one that landed on Echo.
    She kicked the massive droid off with a grunt and spared Rex a second to look at him.
"I'm going after Hunter. We'll meet you at the spire," She stated before disappearing back the way they came. Rex considered ordering her to stop but knew he'd be wasting his breath. He knew Omega would sooner die trying to find him then leave Hunter behind. He also knew if anyone could find him, she could, but he worried if or not there would be anything left to find. Wrecker yanked a spider droid off Crosshair's back and flung it into the wall, smashing it to pieces. Rex almost allowed himself to feel hopeful, but then he looked ahead and his heart dropped. Over a dozen red eyes stared back at him through the darkness.