Across the Universe | D. Djarin

The New Republic

"Go, go, go! Back to the ship!" Din urged us. I still couldn't force my limbs to move. I felt like I was trapped within my own body.

A hand landed heavily on my shoulder and pulled me to face away from the spiders. Din's visor was looking directly at me, he had the child in his arms and the egg tank slung over his back.

"Come on, run!" Din yelled

At the sight of my partner, I quickly snapped out of my daze and began to run. The lady was up ahead of me, clearly she had started running while I was frozen to the spot.

Din's footsteps behind me were not the only sound I could hear. The noise of hundreds of spiders chasing after us made it even harder for me to get air in my lungs. I tried to block it out, but the sound of the largest spider crashing through the ice was echoing loudly around me.

Din ended up running alongside me while the lady fell behind us slightly. She obviously wasn't used to running as much as we were.

Suddenly, several spiders dropped down in front of us. Din slid to a stop and I dug my heels into the ice so I wouldn't slide into the spiders.

Din brought out his blaster and shot at the spiders that were in our way. I quickly scrambled at my side for my own blaster, my fingers fumbled against the strap that held it in place as I couldn't stop shaking. When I managed to unclasp the strap and pull out my blaster, the mother spider stuck its long, sharp mouth into a hole behind us and shot out a multitude of webs.

Din wrapped his hand around my arm and pulled me down with him, dodging the webs that were shot at us. He then let go so we could start to run again. The webs and spiders had herded us in a different direction.

My heart was beating so heavily in my chest that it was almost the only thing I could hear. It drowned out the noise of the spiders close at our heels.

Something leapt past me and I jumped harshly, I clutched my chest from the sudden movement but it wasn't one of the spiders. the lady had dropped down onto all fours and began to hop along the ground. She was moving much faster this way and I wondered why she didn't do that before.

The ice cracked above our heads and a leg dropped down from the ceiling. The mother spider's leg almost Impaled the lady but she managed to stand up and get out of the way. The spider struggled for a moment before it pulled its leg back out of the ice again.

Once our path was clear, the three of us took off running again. We didn't want to risk another leg coming through the hole that has been made.

I could hear the mother spider's spindly legs tapping heavily against the ice above us as it chased after us from above. My breathing was coming out in harsh gasps as my lungs burned for air.

Din threw his hand over his shoulder and a quiet beeping flew past my ears. I didn't dare to glance back to see what he had thrown but I had enough weapon experience to recognise the sound of small explosives.

My theory was correct as a bomb went off behind us. I decided to brave a glance behind us and immediately regretted it. Orange flames erupted in a chaotic manner as icy debri fell to the ground. The explosion had caused the ice under the mother spider to break, it fell down to our level and collapsed to the ground. I prayed to the force that it was dead.

Hundreds of little spiders began to descend from the ceiling on webs. My skin crawled at the sight of them. Din and I aimed our blasters and began to fire at them. I took a small amount of satisfaction from shooting and killing them.

A hissing noise caught my attention and I glanced over at Din. He had his arm raised outwards as the fire from his vambrace began to charge up. A large column of flames shot out from his wrist and burnt the spiders. I averted my eyes from the bright flame. It was a stark contrast to the dark caves.