You and Echo continue to crawl further into the vent, and even deeper into the shipyard dock on Ord Mantell. This ventilation shaft was large enough you could both crawl on your hands and knees next to each other, but you staggered so your shoulder pads wouldn't scrape the sides. The heat was unbearable and you felt moist in ways you didn't think were possible.

Thankfully you had arrived at the connection point you were looking for, a droid access port within the ventilation shaft. You had thought Tech was joking when he first mentioned it, but it made more sense now that you had come through. This shipyard was so large that its maintenance was mostly handled by droids. As Tech put it "Droids need more access ports to communicate. Therefore they should be in locations that droids operate within, regardless of the human capacity to reach them".

This access port is one of the many strewn throughout the shipyard for the airflow-droid crew and thankfully standard-make just like Echos attachment arm. Yet another reason he had been chosen to crawl for half a mile inside a shaft. It is true that Tech could have found a way to attach to this access port, but it would be 'easier' for Echo.

As the panel came into sight you could hear Echo exclaim "about time, let's get this over with".

"You're telling me" you chuckle back and both of you sit down near the panel. Echo sets himself up, and plugs in his arm, freezing in place. You watch his body language grow rigid and you report back to the team "we are in".

"Great work" you hear Rex praise.

"Nothing new on our end" you hear Fireball's voice, "They haven't noticed anything".

"My systems also indicate no alerts" Tech's voice comments.

"Are we coming out the same way we came in?" you ask, secretly hoping Tech would direct you elsewhere.

"Affirmative".

--Great-- you think and look back over at Echo. The heat still made you uncomfortable and sitting still didn't seem to help at all. You slipped off your helmet, wiped your neck and forehead and tried to relax. --this should only take a few minutes right?--

Around 20 minutes later Echo detaches which draws your attention back to him. "Got through the first segment" he explained over the comms, pulling a storage device from his side pouch and shoving it into the terminal "Need a little bit more time to get deeper" .

"Anything good?" you hear Wreckers voice followed by Gregor "it's pretty boring out this way".

"Lists" Echo replies over the comms, "going in deeper to see if I can find those locations".

"Be cautious" Tech's voice returns "encryption could cause the system to reject you. The droid access points are tied to the main computers for information access not retrieval".

"Yeah yeah" Echo replies out loud so Tech couldn't hear him and he plugs back into the system. You settle back down against the ventilation shaft wall and wish you could nap to pass the time. You uncomfortably shift around in the maintained heat but are happy to give your aching knees a break.

Unfortunately Echo should have listened to Tech's warning because it was only a few minutes before a system warning went off and shocked him. It wasn't enough to kill him and he quickly pulled out from the port as soon as he felt the electrical current. But you had been frightened when you suddenly saw him seizing and shaking.

Echo muttered a few curse words under his breath "It locked me out".

"Then you had better retreat" Hunter instructed, "Take what you already have and get out of there".

"Quite advisable, the security may not have noticed the blip howev--" Tech had been adding on before the sound of a blaring alarm cut him off.

"Too late for that" you reply over the comms before turning to Echo "Let's get out". You throw your helmet back on and are quickly crawling with Echo back through the shaft. Since your presence has been alerted to the entire building you were no longer trying to be stealthy and were covering ground much faster than the couple of hours it took you beforehand. Your armor clanked along the ventilation shaft floor and you were both short of breath as you crawled quickly back along your route.

Up in a tower on the south side of the shipyard Tech was looking over the systems he had hacked into. There wasn't too much control of information since he had come from an outside source but he continued to monitor what the system was sending out the remainder of the base. Rex was leaning anxiously over Tech's shoulder, concern written across his face as they tried to figure out what they should do next.

"They haven't traced your location yet" Tech radioed to the two of you "There is a high possibility you can make it back to the North East end before they search the vent systems".

"Sure" Echo replied back "how high?"

"About 45%"

"Good enough" Echo grunted and the two of you continued along as fast as possible.

"The troopers are starting to stir up on the North end" Fireball reports, "their moving security forces inwards."

"Remain observant" Rex replies "don't engage".

You're over half way back now, and start to feel the adrenaline wear off. The weight of your tired arms and legs is starting to grip you, and your knees are sore from crawling again. The rest you had gotten at the panel had helped a little, but this swift crawl was quickly wearing you out in this heat. You start to feel light headed, in fact, more than just sore ... really light headed. It was getting harder and harder to crawl causing you to slow down and you turned to see if Echo was having the same feeling.

"You okay?" you asked over your shoulder and noticed Echo had stopped entirely.

"I don't know," he replied, leaning back on his knees and sitting up.

"Hey Tech" you say over the comms, as you also sit back on your legs and feel your body grow even more sluggish. "Whats ... what's going on?"

"What do you mean?"

"The tunnels" you say as the front of your head and eyes start to hurt. The heat had already made breathing feel difficult but now it hurt ... really hurt. "there's something in the shafts".

Tech checks back over the security logs and responds back to you. "Get out of the vents. They've activated an airborne security measure".

"Figured that out" Echo replied with a cough.

"You will need to exit the vent and escape the shipyard along the terraces" Tech continued "The airborne pathogen they are using should not kill you".

"Of course there's a should," Echo sighed with another cough.

You pull up the map on your arm again, "next vent is still 10 ft away".

Echo rallied himself and started crawling, patting your shoulder in encouragement "come on, we can't stop now".

Even though your body was begging you to give up you knew Echo was right, and you got up on your hands again to keep going. Both of you tried to breathe more shallowly to avoid taking in more of whatever they released into the air, but it was difficult to control your breath with the heat and exertion. You found yourself gasping and coughing more than once.

You end up crawling behind Echo and find the intake vent your map indicated.You want to sigh in relief once it was in sight but at this point you were feeling faint, battling a migraine and could taste blood in your mouth as you tried to breath.

It was small, only one of you could go out at a time and it was screwed shut from the outside of the vent. It offered some hope of escape, and there was no way you were going to make it further in this condition.

You push your hands against it, feeling your arms grow weak and having no effect on the grating. The cooler, clear air was so close to you yet so far away.

Echo presses his back against it , using as much of his weight as he can. It bends a little but still isn't budging.

"What is this made out off?!" he angrily coughs and then turns to push against it with his legs.

You copy his position, both of you kicking desperately at the vent as your condition continues to worsen. The soreness feels so much worse, and you know your kicks are not enough even with the progress you've made. The vent cover is loosening and bent in some places but the angle and strength between the two of you doesn't seem to be working and it is nowhere near open.

"Shoot" you hear Echo's raspy voice say "why won't it give way already?!?"

"Are you out of the vent?" Rex asks but neither of you reply.

Your vision is starting to swim, your hands and legs tingling and you can still taste blood in your mouth as your body strains to breathe through your parched throat. You feel a sense of foreboding take over your mind --you are going to die here--.

You thought you didn't have anything left to give, that this was it, but you relax and feel yourself meld with the force. No longer a thought process, no longer thinking about escape, you are just acting. Your own will to survive. You rally yourself one last time, and feel your legs strengthen from your connection to the force. "One more time" you say out loud, and Echo strikes with you at the vent cover.

With your added strength the vent cover dislodges and falls off with a clank to the floor. For a moment you two continue to sit there, shocked that it was finally out but Echo quickly grabs your shoulder and pushes you out.The floor is thankfully only seven feet away so the tumbling fall hurts but doesn't break anything. You want to help pull him out but once you're on the floor you're not sure you can get up. Echo throws himself out after you and lands near you with a *thump* and an 'ouch' onto the floor.

You and Echo both rip off your helmets and breathe in the air around you. Your migraine pains lessen and you find it easier to breathe. Your throat is still dry, and your body aches in ways you hadn't felt recently. If there was some way you could just remain here for a few hours and recover you would absolutely just remain on the cool landing pad floor.

"Echo, Y/N, report" Hunter says over the radio his voice sounding more concerned than usual.

"We're out" you gasp "just ... give us a minute".

The radio silence had sent everyone into a tense pause and after your reply both Hunter and Rex sighed as only captains do with Gregor wiping his sweat brow in relief. Tech seemed unchanged, but he unclenched his jaw once he knew you were alright. Wrecker had been holding onto a rock which he accidentally crushed in relief making Fireball jump.

You looked over to Echo as you caught your breath "hey".

"Hey" he replied, laying on his back and looking up at you "come here often?"

You just chuckled and started to pick yourself up "come on. We still need to get out first".

"Right" Echo sighed and got up also.

The area you were in was dusty and under partial construction but you could hear troopers running about somewhere. As you stand again you slip on your helmet and try to help up Echo who is currently using some questionable scaffolding as a crutch. Both of you readied your weapons as the sounds of boots came closer and soon a pair of TK troopers came running around the corner and started shooting at you.

Thankfully it was only the two of them and the construction around you offered some cover from their blasts. The gas had taken some effect since your vision was spinning and your shots missed their target a few times but you and Echo still managed to stun them. You carefully stepped past them and headed into a larger area of the ship dock . You could see more TK troopers coming and running about on higher terraces within the ship dock. Despite your haggard body Echo and you start running down the long ship landing pad. Your lungs were still burning, the taste of blood was still in your mouth and you could feel your body refuse to move. However, if you kept standing there you were definitely going to get caught.

This shipyard was huge compared to other buildings you had been in, and it vaguely reminded you of the Jedi temple with the large open spaces and high ceilings. You were running past all sorts of Imperial ships, droid pit crew, pilots, and other troopers. You dodged a transport vehicle that quickly stopped and turned around to chase you. You and Echo were definitely sluggish as you ran along, your strides varying and your speed is 'less than optimal'. Thankfully there was so much loose stuff strewn about that you could easily just shove boxes or scaffolding and create challenging obstacles for those pursuing you. The alarms were blaring, Echo and you were dodging about causing absolute chaos, but you were getting somewhere.

The longer you ran the less you believed you could escape. The runway seemed to go on forever, there were constantly more ships, more droids, more TK troopers and more construction in your way. --How the hell are we going to get to a terrace?-- you think to yourself, dodging behind another stack of boxes.

"I suggest a secondary attack" you could hear Techs voice.

"Roger" Fireball replied, and a few minutes later you heard an explosion in the distance.

"Hehe, got em" Wrecker laughed.

"Their definitely paying attention to us now" Gregor added on.

There were still some troopers coming after you, but the forces were now split between your escape and the attack that Gregor, Fireball, Hunter and Wrecker were now taking on the North side. The alarm sound continued to blare above you but a voice declared "There has been a terrorist attack on the North Wall! All personnel, defensive positions!"

You found out later that Fireball and Hunter had attached detonators to one of the speed bikes and Wrecker had thrown it into one of the ship landing zones near them chosen by Gregor. No doubt Wrecker had volunteered on purpose. As soon as the explosion went off the three of them were raining down blastor fire to draw more attention and take out as many TK troopers came their way as possible. Whichever was the bigger short term threat would most likely get all of the securities attention, thus they needed to appear as a bigger problem then you and Echo running through the hangar.

You and Echo had started to slow down even more, ducking between cover locations and venturing more into ship docks then along the main stretch.

"This ship yard keeps going on forever" you comment and Echo nods at you as he shoots back at the oncoming security that was still pursuing you.

You keep your back against the box you are currently hiding behind and you try to think through the sluggishness and pain currently in your brain. --Tech wants us to get to a terrace. But the terraces loop around the building, so we would just be running on the outside instead of along the inside. It's better but still a long distance--

You hear a loud crunch as a small transportation vehicle drives over a stunned security guard and you and Echo move locations again. --The terrace still seems like our best option... what if.. Yes. We haven't got much choice--. You pull up the map on your wrist and drag it down to the area you are generally in. --yeah, that could work... if we're lucky--.

"Do you trust me?" you ask Echo over the sound of blastor fire.

He looks at you through his visor, a bit confused about what you mean. "Uhh, yeah?"

"I'll need you to hold on" you say, "I've got a way out, but it's going to be crazy".

"Okay" he replied and you grab his forearm quickly and start running towards the side of a ship landing pad you were on.

Tech had advised you to run along a terrace to return to the city, but there were terraces across multiple levels. There probably was a good way to go between them but since you were looking to just get out that didn't matter right now. Your plan is to go out the side of the shipyard dock opening and use the terraces to descend back towards the city. You were past the ravine by now so if you actually survived the jumps you'd land back into the slums and make your escape .... In theory.

Echo seems unsure but his reluctance doesn't stop either of you from jumping out of the space dock opening into nothingness.

The next terrace is a short fall below you and you use a little force push to soften your landing and keep either of you from breaking your legs. The TK troopers are still in pursuit and so you continue to run to the edge of that terrace, look down and jump again. Echo is much more reluctant this time but the terrace walkway below is along the outer wall so you jump out and down to reach it.

Again you hit the floor with a thump, feeling the shooting pains in your legs and the gasp of air in your lungs. The force was helping, but in your condition there was only so much you could do.

There is one walkway below you around the outer wall near the city. Thankfully you hadn't been at a higher level within the shipyard. This one was going to be harder and you could feel Echo pause but you looked back to him and pulled him with you anyways.

The alarms were distant and faint now, the sounds of shooting and battle growing quieter as you fell to the final walkway. This one was further then you thought and you tried to use more force but it only helped a little. Echo tucked and rolled out of habit, and you tried a similar move to a less effect.

This walkway was on the same level as the city paths and was paved with rock instead of the metal construction of the shipyard walkways. You were on the ground now, and could feel Echo pulling on your arm trying to get you up.

"Come on, we need to disappear" he told you before radioing over the comms "We're out, but you'll have to come find us".

You let Echo pull you up to standing and you start to speed walk into the slums and dark alleys of the city before you. There were plenty of people out enjoying their nightlife and you two walked along the edge of these crowds before turning off into a tight alley and settling down behind a dumpster container of some kind. You couldn't see anything from where you had thrown yourself down, and Echo plopped down next to you.

It was so dark, cold and shockingly quiet you were worried that at any moment you'd hear the boots of your pursuers. You felt Echos arm wrap around your shoulders and you scooted closer to him. His head leaned back against the rock wall of the building you were against and you rested your head against his shoulder, the padding of your helmet making the position slightly more comfortable.

Finally you could rest, and you and Echo remained huddled together in the darkness of the alley way as your body finally gave way to your mission fatigue. The taste of blood was fainter now, but your lungs, mind and everything ached. The tingling hadn't faded from your extremities but your eyesight was growing dark as you shut your eyes and gave in.

--thank the force-- you think to yourself as you slip into a tired slumber.

~~ End of Chapter ~~