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“This just keeps getting worse,” Hobbie says, peering around the corner, and for once Wes has to agree.
There’s a full squad of stormtroopers still between them and the ship: not great, but not the worst odds they’ve ever faced. That, they could handle; the real problem is going to be the two E-Web repeating blaster cannons set up to cover the hangar entrance, positioned so there’s no plausible approach that’s out of their line of fire.
“Could we go over the roofs?” Tycho suggests, keeping his voice low.
All four of them look up, gauging the distance from one roof to the next. The hangar is across a wide avenue from their current hiding spot in an alley, too wide to cross at rooftop level without equipment they don’t have. If they could get across on foot, though, further down on a less closely-guarded block... Wes risks leaning out, glancing up and down the road, and ducks back in to report, “I think we could do it. From the north side-– the hangar wall’s lower on that side, too.”
“Not a lot of cover up there,” Wedge says. “But if we’re very good, and very lucky...”
“Well, the good news is, we are very good,” Wes says with a grin, and then pats the blaster pistol riding at his hip and adds, “And we make our own luck.”
“Speak for yourself,” Hobbie mutters, but he does stand up and check his blaster’s charge, evidently resigned to his fate. “All right, what’s the plan?”
It almost works. It comes so, so close to working. They don’t try to leave the perimeter the stormtroopers have set up, just move down a few blocks, split up, and cross the road one at a time in the busiest intersection they can find; that part goes fine. They get up onto the rooftops okay, too, scrambling up with the help of a parked delivery speeder and a drainpipe, and the path they find from building to building is so easy, and so unguarded, that Wes is almost having fun.
Then Wedge, out at the front of the group, vaults up and onto the flat roof of the building that’s right up against the hangar wall, and something clicks under the heel of his boot and instantly there’s a commotion on the street below, a lot of shouting and a couple of wild shots snapped off in their direction. Wedge, most exposed, drops flat; the rest of them, still on the next building over, dive for what little cover they can find.
Wes ends up sharing the space behind a cooling unit with Tycho; he can just see Hobbie a few meters away, tucked behind a chimney. He risks a look out into the street, squeezes off two quick shots toward the stormtroopers, drops back into cover with a grimace. “They’re moving the E-Webs. If they get a clear shot on us...”
“Yeah.” Tycho cranes his neck, waves as if he’s trying to signal something to Wedge-– no use even bothering with the comlinks, they’ve been jammed since the Imps caught on to their presence and cordoned off the spaceport. “Sithspit. Well, I’m open to suggestions.”
“Ship’s guns would even things out against that cannon.” Wes chews his lip. “You go forward, I’ll cover you from back here, and you and Wedge drop in and get to the ship.”
Tycho nods. “Which gives us the firepower to cover you and Hobbie catching up to us. Or come around to pick you up, if you’re really pinned down. Think you can keep them off us long enough?”
Wes gives him a sharp-toothed grin by way of answer, drops to his elbows, and starts crawling toward the forward edge of the roof.
He gets off three shots, and drops three of the troopers below, before any of them spot him. Then there’s a lot more shouting, the stormtroopers scattering for cover of their own, and Wes drops flat again and crawls rapidly backward, away from the streams of blasterfire converging on his position. Ahead of him, Tycho’s reached the next roof, taking advantage of the stormtroopers’ focus on Wes to make the jump and land flat on his belly next to Wedge, and out of the corner of his eye he can see Hobbie creeping out of cover to take up a firing position on the other edge of the roof; Tycho must have paused long enough to give him the five-second summary of the plan.
Hobbie starts shooting, and the troopers are briefly thrown into confusion again, redirecting all of their fire toward him-– they must think the first shooter has moved that way. It’ll only fool them once, but it’s a solid opportunity; Wes waits, watching Tycho and Wedge make their way forward, and opens fire again as soon as they reach the hangar wall, sowing renewed chaos as the stormtroopers realize they’re dealing with two shooters and hopefully keeping them busy enough not to notice Wedge and Tycho making the leap into the open-roofed hangar.
There’s no blasterfire from inside the hangar; that’s probably a good sign. He keeps shooting, focusing his fire on the two troopers wrestling the first of the E-Web cannons into position on the opposite side of the street; one of them falls folded up around a gut wound, the second drops with a blaster burn across his right thigh, and Wes grins to himself.
There are a lot of troopers, though, more than the one squad they saw initially-– they must have drawn backup from the perimeter guards. Even with the two E-Web operators down, someone else will get it firing in a matter of seconds, and the other cannon won’t take much longer to get into position. Wes catches Hobbie’s eye and points-– go now, you’ve got a few seconds clear-– and then starts shooting again, this time just a general spray of suppressing fire, discouraging anyone from leaning out of cover to take a shot at Hobbie as he makes the unsheltered jump onto the next roof.
One brave or stupid stormtrooper leaps out toward the E-Web as Hobbie’s sprinting for it, takes one wild shot that misses him entirely, and as Wes bares his teeth and snaps a shot in his direction, stomps hard on some piece of equipment at his feet–-
-–and a portable shield bubble pops up around him, protecting the gunner and most of the workings of the blaster cannon itself.
“Great, I’m dead,” Wes says aloud, and glances back and forth, gauging the distance to the hangar wall. It’s maybe a hundred meters all told, but even at a flat-out sprint, that’s more than enough time for the E-Web gunner to find his range, and with the shield bubble up there’s no chance of taking him out before he can start firing...
There’s a flash from down by the hangar entrance, and suddenly the second E-Web, being carried across the street by two troopers, goes up in a ball of flame. For just a split second, Wes gapes-– then it occurs to him that one of the others must have gotten to their freighter’s guns, and that maybe he’s not dead after all, and he grits his teeth, rises to a half-crouch and sprints for it as the E-Web and a half-dozen blaster carbines open up on him.
Halfway there, he feels superheated air on the back of his neck, a shot sizzling by too close for comfort, and he ducks lower and sprints harder, takes the jump down into the hangar at a dead run. He lands hard and rolls to his feet, scrambles across the hangar and up the boarding ramp, and he's laughing with the sheer rush of having survived as he barrels straight into Hobbie, pins him against the bulkhead and kisses him, hard and urgent.
It’s a long moment before Hobbie puts his hands on Wes’s shoulders, gently pries him off. “All right?”
Wes takes a shaky breath and laughs again. “Yeah. You?”
“Fine,” Hobbie starts to answer, and then Wedge bellows from the cockpit, “If you two are about done, I could use someone in the rear turret, we’re about to have some company!”
“On it, boss,” Wes calls back-- but he steals another quick kiss before he goes.