Chapter Text
It had to be Plan 99. There was no other alternative.
Tech was oddly content as he felt gravity pulling him toward Eriadu's core. He couldn’t see the sky train through the mist surrounding him, but he knew his actions would have allowed the car carrying the ones he cared for most to reconnect and carry them to safety.
Relative safety anyway.
They were still easy targets. It was bad enough they were under attack while traveling in a straight line with no escape pods. Now, they were doing it without his assistance.
Blasting the hinge connecting himself and the dangling rail car to its twin gave them at least a chance at survival. The odds of any of them living through the next two minutes had he and the car stayed attached would have been less than one percent.
Tech didn’t have two minutes.
Bragging to Omega about being able to think clearly in stressful situations may have been a mistake. This was a level of terror he had never felt at any point in his entire life.
Turning his head, he looked down to weigh his options. The mist thinned just enough to reveal a serpentine shape far below, but the presence of white flecks along its course could only mean one thing—rapids. Rapids meant rocks. That wasn’t good. Rocks were instant death.
He flattened himself to be as wind-resistant as possible and met up with the falling car within moments. Planting his feet on the car in a deep crouch, he disengaged the cable at his belt and pushed off as hard as he could into a streamlined pose, launching himself toward the trees lining the bank of the river. It was not ideal, but he would take trees over rocks any day.
He attempted to slow his descent by again flattening his body, but he knew his odds would only be marginally improved by his efforts. In what he was almost sure would be his last moments, he closed his eyes and focused hard on the faces and voices of his family. He wondered what their grieving expressions would look like once they got to safety—if they got to safety. Then, there was Crosshair. Would he ever know what they tried to do here for him so he could be rescued? Tech hoped he would. That would mean they got him out.
The crash of the train car hitting the rocks a few meters away caused his eyes to fly open without his permission—just in time for a blanket of deadly green to fill his vision.
The next few moments were a blur of pain and pressure.
Tech couldn’t begin to guess at how many branches he hit before he finally felt the pop of his arm being wrenched from its socket, the result of a branch catching his falling mass by the leather pouch on his arm. His momentum continued despite his trapped limb, twisting him so that his face hit the tree at an angle that shattered his goggles and fractured the orbital bones beneath. He barely registered the snap of the branch before he landed hard on the forest floor.
Everything was spinning and sparkling when he regained consciousness.
He heard voices. Kaminoan voices. He knew that wasn’t right.
Not knowing how long he had been unconscious unnerved him. He knew they would be looking for the crash site. He needed to move, which was difficult when everything hurt so badly. He managed to pull himself to the tree that both saved his life and tried to kill him, sitting back against it to assess his condition. It wasn’t good. He removed his helmet with his only useable arm and then ripped the useless goggles from his face. One eye was on its way to swelling shut, and the other wasn't faring much better. His legs were fine, but his arm would be a problem. He knew adrenaline was the only thing keeping him conscious and used that to his advantage as he shoved his arm back into the socket.
It shocked him that he didn’t scream.
When he was finally back on his feet, he hobbled over to what was left of the car and its passengers to find a weapon to defend himself. He dropped his helmet at the sight. The bodies were smashed. Many were in pieces. It was too much to take in his condition. He braced himself against the mangled car and vomited the remnants of his last meal on Pabu into the rushing water.
He felt himself on the edge of panic. The Empire would be there soon, and it quickly became clear that even if he found a blaster, there was no way he could see straight enough to hit anything with it.
It took several deep breaths, but eventually, his training kicked in, and a plan began to form. The horrific scene before him contained one good thing—chaos. Chaos, he could work with. In fact, it was where his exceptional mind shone brightest.
Many more deep breaths and another forceful expulsion into the river were required before he could put his plan into action.
He removed his upper armor, then pulled the armor from what was left of a stormtrooper—a simple task since the body involved had neither legs nor head—and replaced it with his own, sending the dead man’s armor down the river where the rest of him likely wound up. Then he looked down at his helmet as it lay by his feet. It was a mess, cracked beyond usefulness like his goggles. He smashed it against a rock with his good arm to cleave what was left in two, leaving the larger piece in the shallows and sending the other down the river. It was a grisly effect but a convincing one.
Now General Skywalker was talking about Admiral Trench. That wasn’t right either.
He needed to get out of there. His head was pounding, he was hearing people who could not possibly be present, and he could barely move for the pain. There was no way he could run. He nearly fell at every attempt to put one foot in front of the other. And given that his current breathing could best be described as labored and ragged, hiding silently wasn't a viable option either.
Then it hit him. He could use the river.
Tech always enjoyed the calming sound of rushing water. He suddenly appreciated this river for another reason. This one was fast. Very fast. He could use that to his advantage. In his state, he knew the odds were high that he would drown, but his chances of survival were better in the fast-moving current than standing next to a blood-soaked crash site waiting to be captured.
After one last disorienting glance skyward toward the last place he saw his siblings, Tech grabbed a large piece of driftwood from the shoreline and used the line in his belt to lash himself to it. It was a terrible plan, but it was all he had left. He could feel himself fading. He stumbled into the river and surrendered himself to the mercy of the current, content to end up anywhere but here.