33 – An All Right Rescue Part Four
"I'm not going to kill you, guys. You're just going to go to jail and then trial, that's completely different!" I called out to the running bunch of scientists as the HK lightly jogged behind them.
I could easily overtake them, sure, in a single bound, but I didn't want to freak them out anymore. They're all going into jail cells and then bigger ones when I give them to the Rebellion – what, you didn't think
I was going to deal with them for any longer than I had to, did you – but there's no reason I have to hurt them badly to do it. Sure, it was kind of crazy that some of them had willingly worked on what were nothing less than extermination weapons but I wasn't going to outright execute them.
And yeah, I get to be inconsistent. I used to be human. We do and think contradictory things all the damn time.
On the other hand, I was pretty sure that only Xux would get exonerated if I dumped all the evidence I'd found on them. There were the requisite entries and reports that were all obviously tailored to Daala's paranoid wishes and demands. But then there was the other stuff. Because the idea that incredibly intelligent people like this wouldn't be able to create private logs that they would never let Daala see is ludicrous. For god's sake they figured out a way to make suns explode into supernovas and helped invent the Death Star. They aren't
stupid. Just…really amoral and excited to see their weapons used. The student of the primary architect of the Death Star shared the guy's enthusiasm for creating weapons of masss destruction – and the subsequent usage of them. A lot of these guys
wanted and
enjoyed the knowledge of what these things did to planets. Except Xux and her wonky delusions that it was all for peaceful purposes.
Still, I'll give them a trial, if only because I'm pretty sure that the Rebellion would execute them anyway. The Empire would probably say to the public that they did if I handed them over and flooded the holonet with the evidence but instead they'd just be spirited away to some new installation or another in some secret place. Maybe Byss. Or maybe Palpatine could kill them but would then just transfer their minds to new clone bodies so that he can make it look like they were just punished. There weren't any other major polities that could be said to represent the people so the Rebellion it was. The Chiss certainly wouldn't want anything to do with the situation at all except maye to use them to dvice new weapons for them to use for themselves.
"I'm sure that you'll all get a fair trial!" I tried calling out to them again but they've just gone on ahead and locked themselves in a room.
I bring the droid to a halt before the door. Pretty sure it could tear its way through but that would probably hurt my whole 'not going to hurt you' image that I've just decided to try and emphasize. Continued attempts to initiate dialogue are met with stony silence though I can watch through the cameras as they try to activate the panels and various other electronics in the room. Which…I've turned off completely except for the lights. Now, if this was a show, I'd assume that they would somehow combine their brains and create something which actually could pose a threat to my droids…but I'm not that inclined to let that happen. So I'm back to one recourse, really.
Talking to them.
At least the 'fight' with Daala was going better. In that she can't hurt me but I can hurt her, as she discovered. The armor was a pretty damn good idea but she hadn't planned for one thing – I didn't need to shoot her to kill her. Instead as she ranted and raved and shot at the droids I just had them continue to advance and push her back further and further. Let's see…she's tried blasters, better blasters, the best blaster on the station except for the ones that my guys are holding, and then various explosives. Cryo grenades, flame grenades, electric things, ion blasters, ion bombs, and at one point she tried atmospheric decompression by exploding one of her own hallways.
I had mag locks though so it's fine.
She's starting to look a little tired, yeah? Hair all unkempt, breathing hard, suffering from dehydration from all the exertion she's been undergoing by running around in that suit. Guess there isn't a lot of opportunities for cardio when you're on a space station surrounded by black holes and various gravitational anomalies.
Seriously. She's gone into the armory and is throwing enough firepower at me that she could have killed a far larger force a couple of times over…if they weren't me. Pretty well made barricades for one madwoman too.
"Daala, come on. I'll make it quick."
"The Empire will never surrender!"
"You're not the Empire. You're one lady who slept her way to the top."
The response is an unintelligible scream and fifteen ion grenades. If my droids didn't have hardened systems and internals that were built up by a civilization's tech base that is preposterously above her own that would absolutely have worked. And now that I review my memories that's actually a bit mean of me.
"All right, I was a little wrong on that part. Sexism is a terrible thing, especially in a galaxy spanning military that somehow nevertheless manages to stock itself with troops. You were exceptional at your officer trials…and slept your way to the top."
Now she's set up a heavy blaster carbine…turret…thing. Huh, records say it's some kind of experimental weapon for infantry. And…now she's firing.
"Seriously, gargling that wrinkled old genocidal windbag? I could see myself blowing up a planet if it were totally lost to tyranids or something. Orks, perhaps. But a peaceful little ball of civility and diplomacy? Really? It's no wonder that Tarkin died when the Death Star blew up."
"You lie!" She accompanies her claim by pulling out another blaster rifle to start shooting at me with
two guns now.
"Nnnope. Here, let me play a reconstruction."
Memory accessed, speakers on the droids turned on…
"Evacuate? In our moment of triumph?"
Then the sound of the explosion.
"Look on the bright side. He was vaporized pretty much instantly…I think."
Now her screams are a mixture of rage and what I guess is grief. A bit of denial in there too.
…yeah, I've had enough of this.
One of the least scuffed droids advances into the armory, and there she is in her soot streaked glory. More than a little manic. See, part of the reason I haven't actually taken her down until that point was because for all of my own weapons….her shit was pretty on lock. The quantum crystalline armor beat out all of what I had equipped my droids with so basically this was going to have to go down in melee range. She's pretty fast in this quasi-power armor – and I know about the Dark Trooper project so the Emipre isn't fully incapable of stuff like that – so I didn't see the point until she was sufficiently 'cornered' you know?
Then she does something a bit surprising. When the droid reaches for her she tries to suicide grunt me classic Halo style.
"You'll never take me alive!"
Then uh, well, you can figure what happened next. A kaboom.
Of course, the problem is that both of us are a bit more durable than that, and I guess she didn't think of her armor at the time. I'm assuming she hadn't thought of that because what little part of her expression I can see through her helmet is a bit surprised. Actually, I could probably –
I could have hacked this armor fifteen minutes ago. It barely takes a drop of effort to swarm its systems and lock it down.
Son of a
bitch!
I keep missing stuff like this.
Ugh.
No one can know I messed this up so badly.
She's trying to struggle away but with me locking the armor she's pretty darn helpless. Helmet disengaged, and my droid can just outright take it off of her now. Even now she's pretty tenacious, waggling her head back and forth as if that's going to do something.
"You know, I'm going to try and make this quick."
"You won't have me, whoever you are. I'm trained to resist torture! The secrets of the Empire will never pass my lips!"
….who the hell did this lady think I was?
"Uh, I'm sure that's great for you – well, the training was probably unpleasant – but I don't really know if it's going to be of use to you right now."
Annnnd now she's just down to wordless snarling.
Ahhhh fuck this. I'm done.
Is this what it felt like to deal with FTL? This overwhelming sense of 'I just want to
leave'? Oh, my poor metal non-existent heart, Faith you poor soul.
At least the wookies weren't a goddamn problem, because fuck this. I'm just going to have the scientists wake up on the
Justice because I am
leaving this place! Yeah sure they scream as the door is ripped open but to heck with it!
Stun bolts for everyone!
"I will never surrender, the Empire will
never surrender
, and-,"
I relish the sound of her head turning to pulp as the Solid Snake puts its fist through her skull. I'll take her armor, but I just…ugh.
It's not twenty more minutes before everyone who needs to be is aboard, the fabricators are poking at the armor, the Death Star Prototype's engines are activated, and I am
leaving the Maw.
Thank
god.
I can't wait to dump all of this on the Rebellion and just go back to simpler times.
The Death Star though…that's going to Hub.
…might need to have the Vengeance come over and install some more engines to speed things along.
In the immortal words of an orc peon:
Work Work.