Pt 2: Ki'zx was curled up in the small space between his bed and the wall when his cell door opened. The guards were always displeased with him when they found him there, but anything that could delay the inevitable. It had taken them a good deal of time to find a device capable of causing him pain through his carahide, but once they had found it... They wouldn't listen when he said that he didn't know where Met Call was. As for their other demand, he was beginning to wonder, quietly, in the depths of his mind, if the machine they wanted him to build could really be that bad. Of course, it would be truly horrifying. Maybe that weakness was why Met hadn't told him where the /Eclipse/ was heading next. Maybe that was why Met hadn't come to rescue him and never would. He was too weak. Maybe that was how the Empire found him. Met was tired of caring for him. "Ki'zx? Is that you?" It was an unfamiliar voice. Human female. Friendly. He peaked out to see an adolescent human female kneeling down and smiling reassuringly. Behind her were several figures in clone armor, but they didn't look like any clones he had ever seen. "It's alright, Rise sent us. She gave us this," She opened a pouch on her belt and pulled out a little octopus, one he knew as Sheev. Ki'zx held out his hand and let Sheev squibble over and wrap himself around it. Met had come for him. He still cared. "Can you walk?" The gruff-looking one who appeared to be in charge. Ki'zx unsteadily stood up, gently patting Sheev on the head. His blood was rushing too fast around his body. Maybe Met could help slow it down. "I think so." "Great. Let's go." They met up with Rise and Met right out of the cell and Ki'zx saw why they hadn't been the ones to break him out. It was right next to the truly staggering piles of unconscious stormtroopers the pair had taken out and the reinforcements coming around the corner to replace them. At a nod between Master, Apprentice, and the clones set Rise covering rearguard and Met taking the lead through the prison. The next fifteen minutes came in a scream of winding corridors and near-fatal near-misses. At one point Ki'zx felt a blaster bolt deflect off of his skin, and not for the first time he was glad his carahide was so thick. At last, they came to the exit. Or, at least, they came out of the building. Rather than a path into the mountains or a ship, the ground ended a few paces from the window they jumped out of and dropped off into thick, white, impenetrable mist. Rise touched her comm, "Zaf, are you in position?" Zafra must have responded, because Rise nodded to Bilbo and the clones, "I'll send up a signal when I'm ready to catch you." And then she jumped out into the fog. A moment later, a stun-ring came up through the mist. The odd cyborg-clone was the first to jump out into the air. The larger clone shuffled tentatively to the ledge. "Do I have to?" "Yes," The leaner one came at a run behind him, grabbing his arm and plunging them both into the fall. The lead clone grabbed the girl and followed, leaving Ki'zx alone with Bilbo. "Ki'zx, you're going to have to jump." "I-" Ki'zx hesitated, looking into the fog. "I'll catch you. Ki'zx, we're running out of time." That much was true, the Imperials were closing in. He knew Bilbo could see him through the Force, but what if he fumbled the catch? Or he chose to fumble it and just let him fall. "Ki'zx, do you trust me?" No. No one with any amout of sense did. Bilbo's own Padawan didn't trust him. And yet Ki'zx remembered trusting his life and his identity to this man more times than he could count. Bilbo held out his hand, "We'll go together, ?" Ki'zx froze, half a beat, before he took the opened hand. At least this way Bilbo had his own self-preservation to think of when saving him. It wasn't trust, exactly, but it was what it could be. Bilbo's hand tightened, and then they were in open air. First: Previous: Next: Last one!
This is the final part.
