Jedi Fugitive (The Bad Batch)

86:

Astera:

Hunter and Crosshair were thrown off their feet by the force of the wyrm's eruption, bellowing to the sky and its body thumping down hard on the ground again. Ice splintered under its weight, spreading quickly and destabilising the surface - the packed snow underneath the Remora groaned and sank inwards, the ship's weight too much for the broken surface to hold up.

The two clones scrambled to their feet and started to run for the compound, The wyrm screeched again and dived under the surface, thick ridges rapidly appearing where it gave chase after them. Hunter and Crosshair had a head start on the wyrm, but it was a lot faster than they were, and the gap was rapidly closing.

"Hurry!" Echo waved a frenzied arm, Batcher hurtling inside the outpost with Crosshair and Hunter hot on her heels. The storm of ice and snow kicked up by its movements was also right behind them, looming above them and threatening to swallow them both at any second.

I threw up my palms as the two of them dived in, the Force rushing out in a rippling wave and forcing the wyrm back just enough for Wrecker to force the doors shut with a squeal.

It slammed head first into the doors a second later with a screech of pain, the loud bang echoing off the walls and shaking the entire compound once again as dust rained from the ceiling and the lights flickered. Somehow my muscles locked down even further, the clones around me adopting similar tense positions

"I guess we know what the perimeter sensors are meant to keep out," Omega said nervously, just as the wyrm slammed into it for a second time. The structure rattled violently again, all of us stumbling to our knees as the lighting cut out completely and plunged us all into darkness. It had knocked out the power.

"Can't you calm it with your Jedi powers or something?" Wrecker demanded of me, thumped his own flashlight on with five others following suit and illuminating the faces of the clones around me. "Like you did on Kashyyyk?"

"That thing will eat me before I can get close enough to it!"

"Great. What now then?"

"No chance of digging out the ship with that thing out there." Hunter was already on his feet, a hand grasping my own and pulling me up as well as I dusted off my armour with the other hand. Echo nodded in agreement, already halfway to the terminal even as he said his words.

"We have to restore power to the sensor beacons." He didn't bother trying to turn it on from the terminal - the main power grid had likely been damaged in the wyrm's attack, and there was no way we were getting it online from inside the outpost. "There's a fuse box for the reserve energy grid in the back of this compound."

"One of us needs to get over there and reset the grid manually," Crosshair cut in.

Wrecker, as usual, was all too quick to volunteer. "I'll do it."

"And I can get the defence system reactivated once power's back!" Omega added, her arms around a still agitated Batcher and trying to calm her down.

"We'll have to draw the creature beyond the sensors before they reboot," Hunter said firmly, "or we'll be trapped inside the perimeter with that thing."

"I'll handle it." Crosshair and I spoke at the same time, glancing at each other in surprise. Why would he choose the most dangerous mission?

"Not alone. We'll do it together." In the urgency to deal with the wyrm, Hunter seemed to have forgotten his grievances with Crosshair - right now, they were just a team again, running a mission that needed to go right at all costs.

"You sure about that?" Crosshair's challenge seemed to remind him otherwise however, and Hunter scowled once again, displeasure once again back in place.