Chapter Text
Del Meeko was renowned for a lot of things. His status as a former shore trooper, mechanic, and member of Inferno Squadron made for a lengthy resume that got him many Imperial opportunities and often set him at a higher rank than most standard placements. On top of that, he was also a gifted mathematician, space navigator, and droid expert. These skills were well-regarded by his peers in pretty much every field he entered that corresponded to his expertise, but there was one trait that he personally felt didn't get as much praise.
Piloting. He, along with the rest of Inferno Squad, was a gifted TIE pilot. It was easy to forget, even for him, when the majority of his field of work consisted of running missions on foot, but every now and then the opportunity arose to truly sink back into that familiar feeling of sitting in a single-person cockpit with the roar of a ship’s engines in one ear and a comm crackling staticky orders in the other. The adrenaline that came from high-profile missions often prompted a healthy release of stress and tension right after a good dogfight, serving as a morbid sort of therapy that could only be explained as doing something a little easier than the Imperial norm.
It was why, when the lone Rebel starfighter spotted near the Corvus had been identified as Red Five, all other TIEs had been called back and Inferno Squadron had been deployed in their stead using ships that were customized and armed with non-lethal artillery such as compacted ion cannons, size-appropriate tracker beams, and engine-stalling stun guns.
Of the three of them, Hask had managed to jam Red Five’s comms and hyperdrive, stopping the pilot’s escape, before the chase managed to come dangerously close to the Corvus and Hask’s TIE accidentally intercepted Commander Versio’s attempt to jam his engines. Hask survived, luckily, but he had to be tractor-beamed back onto the Corvus for repairs and possible medical examination.
Versio rerouted her trajectory to dodge Hask’s wayward ship and Del, following at a close secondary, followed suit.
“He’s coming around the hull, Meeko,” Versio’s voice informed him through their comm. “See if you can meet him on the other side.”
“Copy.” Del obliged, turning his ship to the left and pulling down sharply to wrap around from the other direction. Versio’s ship disappeared from his scanners as he nose-dived in the direction of the planet far below them, and he was sure to monitor her position on the map overview to his right so that they didn’t collide when they met up again. Del scowled at his sensors, searching for the distinguishable shape of the X-Wing, when his commander’s voice crackled to life once more.
“Wait. I can’t see him on my radar.”
“You too, huh?” Del replied. “You think—woah!”
Suddenly, Red Five reappeared in the viewport, blurred by its impossible speed, and streaked past Del’s left solar panel, nearly shearing it off in its proximity. Versio reappeared on his sensors shortly after, meeting up at his right, and they both dipped down after the X-Wing as it nose-dived toward the planet below.
“Did you see that!” Del shouted, incredulous, as they flew side by side. From her viewport, Versio’s black pilot mask turned to shoot him an indistinguishable glance. “I should have seen him coming!”
“He must have some sort of anti-detection gear,” Versio remarked, peeling off slightly. “Let’s try formation seven-point-six. Box him in on either side.”
Del twisted his TIE to the left, intending to intercept any attempts to escape from that side, when Red Five suddenly pulled into a barrel roll and twisted sharply to the right. Del heard Versio’s shout of alarm only a split second before he watched the Rebel ship fire a well-placed shot to her engine from the side, sending her careening dangerously close to Del.
Del pulled his ship up and extricated himself from the line of damage. “Iden! Are you alright?”
Her ship hadn’t immediately exploded on impact, which could be a good sign, but Versio took an uncomfortably long amount of time to respond. “I’m good. Stay in the fight, Agent Meeko.”
Del decided to raincheck his apology for calling his commanding officer by her first name when suddenly Red Five reappeared directly in front of his TIE, making a beeline in his direction. Del banked sharply to the right, dodging the incoming fire, and veered back around to track Red Five as it suddenly resumed its drop back to the planet.
“Meeko! If he gets to the atmosphere you’re not gonna be able to lock down his engines without crashing him!” Hask’s voice suddenly snapped. “We cannot afford for him to die—”
“He must know we want him alive,” Versio’s realization interrupted him. “Meeko, disengage your weapons and tail him if he makes it to atmo. Do it from a distance if you have to, but for the love of Force do not let him escape.”
“Or die,” Hask added.
“Or die, yes,” Versio conceded.
“Heard, Commander,” Del grunted through gritted teeth. He flicked several switches on his control panel, disengaging his engine staller and rerouting power to his tractor beam and ion cannons. “Until he makes it to the planet I’m giving it all I’ve got.”
Red Five gave another efficient barrel roll, to the left this time, but Del had learned from his commander’s experience to bank in the same direction, pulling up too close for the pilot to get the chance to lock on. As the X-Wing pulled around in a loop and careened past him, he could’ve sworn he made direct eye contact with the blue and white astromech droid in the ship’s socket. Del slowed his ship briefly to shorten his turning radius and then sped up once more, coming up close on the rebel’s tail. He took a brief second to bring his crosshairs as close to the ship as he could and fired his ion cannons once, twice, thrice. Red Five ducked down low and then pulled up in a spin. Del watched one of the torpedoes slide right between the starfighter’s S-foils.
Red Five was good. Del didn’t usually struggle this much with rebel pilots. Though, he realized, this was no ordinary pilot and he should have been ready for pretty much anything if he planned on going up against a Jedi.
They were almost in atmo. He had to capture the rebel now or never. Del kept straight as the X-Wing performed a graceful arc overhead, making sure he was maintaining a barrier between his rival and the planet below. Perhaps he could corral him back up toward the Corvus…
Del watched as the ship made to dip back down to its intended course and then jerked abruptly to the side as the pilot within realized he hadn’t given chase and was instead waiting for him to make another attempt to dive. Del slowed his ship down significantly to allow for a sharper turn radius, pulling it around in a flat circle to herd Red Five back up at a diagonal angle while the starfighter veered around in a standard evasive maneuver that Del had seen a thousand times before. Del glanced down at his targeting computer, watched the crosshair align with the rebel, and then, in slow motion, pulled the trigger on his ion cannons as soon as it was locked on.
He had a brief moment to celebrate the success of the shot as it drew closer and closer to the X-Wing in a neat arch before time suddenly seemed to grind to a halt. He watched, dumbfounded, as the torpedo sailed through space to the spot in the engine right beneath the astromech, which was once again looking at Del, and then—
And then it veered so violently to the right that the trail it left in its wake formed a clean right angle before fading into nothingness.
Del’s brows pulled up as time sped back up and the torpedo that was supposed to hit Red Five darted off into space to the right of their ships, winking out within seconds as it lost power. He found himself pressing down hard on the throttle of the TIE, shoving it forward as fast as it could go, but the X-Wing beat him in a nosedive and in the span of fifteen seconds, maybe more, of drawing uncomfortably close to his rival’s tail, he was receiving a notification on his console that they were entering atmosphere.
Fuck. Fuck. He was out of time. Maybe if he hit a shot right now, his tractor beam might be strong enough to pull the fighter back up and away from the planet’s gravitational pull, granted the assisting boost of energy by his deactivated engine stunner, but Red Five had decided to begin a barrel roll while spiraling in the opposite direction and his targeting computer couldn’t lock on to anything. That damn droid was still staring at him, too.
Del swiped his tongue across his lips, chewed the inside of his cheek, and then grimaced as he finally pulled back, giving the pilot space. They were in atmo now. He wasn’t gonna make this shot, nor should he try if he wanted the Jedi alive. Still, there was no way he was letting the rebel out of his sight.
The X-Wing’s trajectory evened out as he stopped spiraling, though he was still in a very languid barrel roll that was frankly unbefitting of a dogfight and also slightly patronizing. Clearly, the rebel knew damn well that he couldn’t do much now.
They were about halfway to the surface when Del began to worry that he wouldn’t pull up. The terrain was mostly deltas, swamps, and muddy beaches with a severe lack of mountainous ranges or dense foliage, though any more dramatic features could have been hidden by the layer of thick fog that only got denser the lower they flew. Del knew from experience that they were close enough now for the landscape to pose a genuine threat to their ships, thanks to a close call he once had on Felucia where a thin but tall column of rock had nearly cleaved his TIE in half.
He tightened his grip on the controls. If this man died right here, Lord Vader would have all of Inferno Squadron's necks.
Thankfully, the rebel didn’t seem too inclined to stall for any longer. Just as Del was resigning himself to the unfortunate reality that they were both going to die by their own niche causes, Red Five pulled up so sharply that Del nearly careened past the starfighter into a sharp outcropping of rock that would have impaled him had he not had faster reflexes. His rival took off into the surrounding fog, killing his lights and locking his S-foils in the idle position. Del had a brief moment to wonder why he was doing that before he realized the ship had completely disappeared from his view.
He glanced down at his scanners, lamenting that once again, the ship had vanished from the radar display. Still, he pushed forward, activating his comm in the meantime as he continued his short-sighted search of his surroundings.
“Commander! He made it to atmo. He’s out of sight and my scanners aren’t picking up anything.”
There was a brief pause as he waited for the reply. Del peeled around a short hill of moss-covered boulders and found himself cruising over a flat, grassy plain streaked through with thin creeks, streams, and the occasional crater of mud. He frowned; nothing.
Finally, a sigh broke out over the comm. “Stay on course, Agent Meeko. If he’s in atmo, he’ll likely hunker down somewhere depending on his fuel levels, circle the planet to escape on the other side, or remain on the move in the general area. I’ll see if I can set up—”
Del didn’t catch the rest as something large and dark appeared in front of him. It was slender, with a protruding nose and two rigid, thin arms branching out on either side of it. Something glittered in the fogged-up sunlight on top of it, like a flat pane of…yeah, there’s the X-Wing.
Neither of the pilots had enough time to course-correct before they caught each other in a collision. He watched as one of the ship’s S-foils pulled up close to the viewport, stabbing violently through the panel a few feet above his head before he was jerked forward in his seat, emergency webbing activated. He briefly registered a sharp squeal of metal and the shriek of protective armor being ripped apart before both pilots began a rapid drop toward the ground. Del gasped, pulling on his controls in vain, as Red Five’s wings tore all the way through his ship, momentum carrying it until they pulled apart.
The TIE spun out, the sting of cold air whipping through the cockpit as it dropped. Del braced for impact as he caught a glimpse of the ground coming dangerously close before he felt a strange pushing sensation engulfing his head, shoulders, torso and hips. He pulled his arms in and crossed them over his chest, only dimly registering the strangeness of it before he felt the inevitable shuddering of his ship hitting the ground and his body went taut from the shock.
The screams of metal rending were muffled in his ears, but he heard it nonetheless as the TIE rebounded briefly, beginning a deadly roll in which it catapulted over the marshland, striking the ground at irregular intervals. Mud, water and rocks went flying in all directions with each time the ship hit the earth, occasionally entering the cockpit to hit him as he braced against the onslaught. Del wasn’t sure if he was screaming, silent, or another third option—all he knew was that the ship was moving, and he was in the ship, and there was this weird buzzing sensation beneath his temples and the hum of his own blood in his ears—
The fighter, after what felt like hours of volatile, ruthless rolling, finally skidded to a halt.
Del took a moment, curled in on himself to protect his vital organs as he was trained to do, before he let himself breathe. He gulped; there was something wet on his face. He rubbed his gloved fingers against his chin just beneath his mask, peeking his eyes open to glance down at the residue. It was something clear, so it could have been sweat, tears, spit, or another mysterious third thing. Maybe some of the water that had breached the cockpit, though that was unlikely. But it wasn’t blood, so that was something.
The next thing he noticed was that the cockpit was no longer full of crisp, cold air. Instead, it was flooded with smoke and more still was pouring in.
He had to get out. He had no idea what sorry state his TIE was in, but he knew for sure that it must’ve been totaled, so there was no reason to stick around to try to start it up again or repair it. Luckily, the giant circular viewport of the cockpit had been ripped open, so he didn’t have to worry about a jammed hatch or door stopping him from leaving.
Del relaxed his arms, dropping his wrists. He had landed with the viewport facing the sky, so he’d have to climb up to get out. He took in an involuntary lungful of smoke, coughed until his throat burned, and then smacked the button on the console that would release the catch on the thick layer of crash webbing strapping him to his seat. Some of it slackened, but not all of it, so he lifted his thigh so he could grasp the vibroblade tucked against his calf. He hacked the rest of it off, with remarkably minimal struggling for the situation at hand, before he felt the tension completely slacken and he could swing his legs around the side of the backrest to stand on what had once been the wall behind the cockpit.
Del shoved the knife back into its holster as he reached up for something to grab ahold of. His hand found a section of the ruined left solar panel that had stabbed through the side of the ship and he noted the warmth of it beneath his gloved palm. If he kept contact with this thing any longer than absolutely necessary, the heat could very well bleed through and burn his skin, so he must move quickly. He braced his boot on the highest part of the seat that he could find and jumped up, scrabbling on the sharp length of hot metal until his sole caught the edge and he could reach up. His fingers caught the butt of a broken pane of transparisteel, partially ripped out of its socket, and he finished the rest of it off with a hearty smack to its frame. It shattered just a short distance from his shoulder, showering needles of crystal over the seat below him, and he finally forced his way through the gap left in its wake. Smoke streamed out with him as he braced his hands on either side of a durasteel bar and lifted his lower half up, bringing his knees to the outside shell of the TIE and then coming to a crouch atop his downed ship.
With a quick glance around for safety reasons, Del jumped the rest of the distance to the ground, landing on all fours. He took a minute to draw in fresh air, body hot and tense from exertion, and sat back on his heels, looking over his surroundings properly this time.
When he struck Red Five, he had been over a grassy marshland. Now, he seemed to be in a shallow bowl of undisturbed gravelly mud. Behind him, his burning TIE was casting long streaks of orange light through the surrounding fog, hissing and sparking as if it were an enraged mechanical dragon. His lungs burned; it seemed his mask’s oxygen filter had been damaged if it was allowing smoke to get through. His life support box seemed to be in working order, however, and a quick check of the planet’s oxygen status revealed that this air was safe for humans. Small victories.
Red Five was nowhere to be found. Del guessed the pilot had crashed somewhere nearby, and if he followed the deep gouges left in the earth by his rampaging TIE, he might be able to track it down on foot.
That seemed the best course of action, he surmised. Everyone in Inferno Squadron had been granted access to their own tranquilizers, stun grenades, Force-suppressant cuffs(apparently quite rare and not to be used lightly, if Lord Vader’s explicit instructions were to be heeded), and more peculiar gear necessary for going toe-to-toe with a Jedi, so Del was well equipped for a fight. The only concern here was that he would be adequate enough to put them to use in a proper confrontation, assuming the Jedi had even survived the crash.
It was no question that he had crashed, too. He knew enough from both a mechanical and piloting standpoint that there was no way in hell that the man had come out of that clash unscathed. Perhaps the X-Wing might have been in better working order than Del’s TIE, but it could not have decimated his fighter in such a violent way without taking at least a little damage, as well.
He ought to get a move on, in case the Jedi’s crash landing gave him a window of vulnerability to exploit. The best case scenario would be to find him unconscious in a ship that was at no risk of combustion. It was wishful thinking, but it could also be entirely possible, so he swung his arms out in front of him as he straightened to his feet.
The tracks were easy to follow, as predicted, and the flat mud bowl he was in eventually transitioned into the lifted plateaus of grass he spotted earlier before the crash. He noted that the grass was familiar; he remembered seeing it at a nature exhibit Versio had randomly taken him and Hask to. Inferno Squad had been undercover on Coruscant for a few days and had been given a rare amount of free time—just enough to visit an exotic botanical garden. None of them were interested in botany, but they were bored and had nothing better to do, so the three of them found themselves staring at laminated plaques on the walls of green exhibit after green exhibit, picking up useless information they would never have a reason to recall.
This grass, he remembered, was a strictly aquatic plant. It bore some sort of filter-feeding roots, so it was technically closer to an animal, though it wasn’t classified as one. Evidently, the plaque he’d read on it had been wrong; it seemed to survive just fine on land. Perhaps the atmosphere was just moist enough for it, though he doubted that much—this stuff was thriving and bountiful, which was not conducive to having “just enough to survive”.
Del eventually found the point where the two ships collided. It bore no tracks, so they had both been airborne here, and it was easy enough to guess what direction Red Five had careened off to.
He didn’t get the chance to go in that direction, however, because the distinctive silhouette of a man standing a few meters away was blocking that path.
Del’s hand flew to the array of grenades at his hip. Clearly, the crash was just as effective in rendering a Jedi unconscious as it was in rendering him unconscious. He’d hoped for too much.
The figure in the fog leaped back, dissolving into the mist, but he wasn’t letting the man get away so easily this time. He pursued at a steady pace, tuning in to the sloshing of boots through water, and jumped down into a stream cutting through the grass. The pilot appeared on his visor’s sensors after a moment of toggling the controls, and suddenly Del was staring at a glowing yellow silhouette in a world washed with red. His target was following the bend of the creek in seemingly sporadic directions, glancing back at him often and taking forks in the stream without any obvious route.
If it wasn’t for the high-stakes situation, Del would have pulled up short. He was gauging his proximity to him and changing direction every time he did so. There was a reason behind his pointless zigzagging—he was either drawing Del out to something or drawing him away from something. Or exhausting him; that could also be a plausible explanation. He had to play this game smart.
His heat-seeking visor’s range allowed him to view a warm body from up to three hundred meters away. He didn’t have to run a full sprint here—he could just dog after the pilot at an easier pace and wait for him to tire himself out. Del slowed to a light jog, both satisfied and peeved when the rebel glanced back, clocked his pace, and slowed down as well. Evidently, this was going to be a battle of attrition.
Del tilted his head, thinking. Red Five was probably less damaged than his own ship. That meant its comms might be working. Perhaps he could get a signal up to the Corvus, though that also implied he might have to abandon his chase in lieu of communicating with his superiors. Assuming Lord Vader had been alerted of the rebel sighting and dogfight, he would likely be on his way immediately. And, given the basic knowledge he had of Vader, he would absolutely have the resources necessary to conduct a successful search of the environment, especially if the pilot was traveling on foot. Come to think of it, going to the X-Wing to ensure that there was no other way off this planet was the best choice Del could make here.
That must have been what the Jedi was doing. He wanted him away from the ship, maybe so he could rendezvous with enough of a head start to send a message to his own people, or destroy the comms before Del could call for reinforcements. For sure, he didn’t want Del to find the X-Wing.
He stopped walking altogether and then spun on his heel, intending to break into a run in the other direction. As soon as the man realized what he was doing, he might give chase or pick a fight, so he intended to get as much headway as possible.
As it turned out, the Jedi was much faster when he was chasing people than when he was running from them, or he was moving intentionally slower so Del could keep up, because only seconds after he had turned to go back, he heard the telltale sound of those same boots thudding in the grass toward him and whirled just in time to block a bold punch to the ribs. He snatched a stun grenade from his belt as fast as he could and hurled it in the direction of the blonde man at his right, who was already darting backwards with an inhuman amount of speed.
The Jedi hissed as it connected with his sternum, but the grenade didn’t activate in time before it was snatched out of the air and flung over his shoulder. They both leaped back from each other to draw their own weapons; Del, with a taser and the pilot with a silver cylinder that Del recognized from the horror stories he’d been told as a child. He stumbled even further back, terror gripping him for a second or two before he shoved it back down for the sake of the mission. He could admit, however, that he flinched a little when a loud buzzing sound reached his ears and a blindingly bright light filled his visor. He rapidly toggled off the heat sensor at the overwhelming input he was receiving and was rewarded with a vibrant green glow that was admittedly only a little less bright. The fog around them glittered and fractured with the sheer radiance of the lightsaber, fractals forming in the vapor around the man’s face.
For the first time since their paths crossed, Del got a good look at him.
His eye color was a little difficult to tell with the blade of the saber so close to his face, but he would bet a decent amount of credits on them being blue. An icy blue, perhaps, if the distinguishably dark pupils contrasting their lightness were anything to go by. He was dirty blonde, with a slight frame and short in stature, but there was a tightness in his mouth that Del recognized from many rebels he had seen before: determination. Usually, he’d acknowledge that look with a sort of grim acceptance of the rebel’s dedication to their cause, recognition that only the most loyal soldiers may have in common even despite opposing one another in war, but on a Jedi…
On a Jedi, he found it incredibly daunting.
The Jedi in question tilted his head, eyes narrowing for a brief moment. They observed each other, both clearly thinking about what they wanted to get out of this altercation, and then, bizarrely, the blade of the lightsaber dipped slightly as the rebel’s hands relaxed. Del narrowed his eyes, expecting a trick or attack. Perhaps a bargain.
“What’s your name?”
He did not reply. Quietly, he twisted to the side and fingered his grenades, ready to toss another one out.
The pilot’s eyes lingered on his hand for a moment, clearly registering the threat, before he looked back up. He could’ve sworn those eyes found his own, even through the opaque visor. “We don’t have to do this,” he continued.
Oh, they absolutely did. Clearly his angle was to talk him into letting him go or defecting to the Rebellion, but he was smart enough to know that nowhere was safe from Lord Vader’s wrath if he was angry enough. And losing Red Five when he was the Empire’s current best bet at retrieving him was probably grounds for him to get angry enough.
The pilot frowned. He had the sudden impression that he had heard that thought. Somehow, he wasn’t surprised.
Del considered his options. He was currently in a standoff in which they both seemed to be unwilling to make the first move. Running back to keep looking for the X-Wing seemed like a stupid plan, especially since it left his back open to a blade hot enough to sever limbs in the blink of an eye, and also the Jedi seemed to be capable of moving at unnatural speeds and could probably outrun him. He could stay here, and wait for his opponent to make the first move, but there was no telling how he’d hold up against a lightsaber when he had nothing to protect himself with. He could also choose to make the first move himself, which was a risky option that could go wrong in so many ways but could also go right if he managed to catch his target by surprise.
Of his options, the one with the best chance of success was not something he particularly wanted to do, but he had been resigned to his fate when he boarded his TIE. He sighed internally, mentally preparing himself, and then snatched a smoke grenade off his belt. The pilot reared back, preparing to swat it away again, but Del had learned from his mistakes and triggered the grenade before throwing it, causing them both to be surrounded by the gas.
Del jumped forward, taking advantage of the brightness of the lightsaber as it blinded both of them in the highly refractive vapors of both the grenade and the fog, and set off one of the flashbangs he carried in his flightsuit pockets, triggering both an eye-scalding flash of light and a loud, ear-piercing shriek of an unbearably high pitch.
The pilot yelped, bringing his saber up to protect himself, but Del struck low, sweeping his legs out from under him and sending the man tumbling into a large crater of mud to the side of the grassy bank. The rebel scrambled to his feet, blinking against the flashing lights and painful sounds, and Del lifted his taser, firing a shot of electricity in his vague direction. It must have connected, somehow, because the man let out a sharp gasp and a heavy thud reached his ears.
Del scrambled, seizing the opportunity for what it was, and leaped down into the crater after him. His boots dug into the mud by several inches, breaking through it like snow, and he pushed forward to meet where his target was convulsing a few meters away. He pulled the set of Force-suppressant binders off his belt, trudging forward with renewed vigor, and stooped down to grab one of his arms—
And realized a second too late that the light from his saber was not coming from the hilt of the weapon on the ground, but behind him.
Del whirled, but he was too late. The body twitching on the ground vanished into thin air while the real Jedi launched himself at him, hand outstretched. He could only describe the next sensation he felt as being shoved forcefully by the wind if the wind were condensed into a hand before he was lifted clean off his feet and flung backward into the center of the mud crater behind him.
Del sank into the sediment by a solid foot and a half before he managed to right himself. He’d been launched over a dozen meters into the center of the bowl, where the most moisture seemed to linger, and as he stood up, his legs sank down until the clay reached just past his mid-thigh. On the grass before him, the Jedi stumbled back, panting and twitching slightly, and he suddenly realized that his taser shot had connected and he’d only just missed capturing him by a second at most. The pilot shot a grimace at him before slinking gingerly backwards into the fog, deactivating his saber and stumbling away.
Del gritted his teeth and trudged forward, wading through the mud at a sluggish pace. One of his feet pressed down on a soft recess in what he had assumed was hardened ground and his hips were promptly submerged as he struggled to regain his balance. He hissed, making another attempt to move forward, but he was moving slower by the second and his next step placed the slurry right beneath his ribcage. He managed another half-step before the weight and pressure on him from all sides brought him to a full stop, with the wet mud set firmly against his heart. His life support box was fully covered.
Fuck.
Del huffed from the exertion as he wiggled his raised foot in an attempt to backtrack, but the path he had cleaved behind him was rapidly filled with waterlogged sediment and he no longer had that option.
Shit.
He looked around for something that might help him. A fallen branch, perhaps a boulder to brace his weight on without sinking deeper, or maybe, given the kind of wishful thinking he was having lately, a conveniently abandoned stretch of rope tied to a conveniently placed tree with a convenient enough length to reach him.
Son of a bitch.
He was trapped. His ship was totaled, his target had escaped, and he had no way to call for backup. There was nothing he could do to get out of this.
And now he was thinking pessimistically. There was a way he would get out of this, and that was if Commander Versio had elected to send reinforcements. If his ship’s vitals registered as fatal on the command deck of the Corvus, she’d know the mission was botched. Perhaps she’d send a rescue operation or a sweep to ensure the Jedi wasn’t still in the area. Then, she could find him.
As with the rest of Inferno Squadron, his life support pack could last him roughly four days before it ran out of power. His flightsuit was multi-purpose, so it could withstand the cold to a substantial degree and would protect him just enough from the temperatures of the mud(which would likely drop around nightfall). His helmet would do well to protect his face from the elements, assuming they didn’t get too rough on this planet. A patrol of some sort would surely come around within a day, but in case of an extended wait, he was prepared to tough this out for however long he needed to.
In the meantime, he was going to be very bored.
It was around midday at the time that he and Red Five entered the atmosphere, and still around midday when he had gotten stuck in the crater. Daylight seemed to pass extraordinarily quickly given the reference point of his chronometer, and he busied himself by observing the roots of the grasses exposed by the edges of the mud pit. If he looked closely enough, he could even see them moving on their own, wriggling in the sediments to suck out nutrients. About maybe an hour into his impromptu nature observation, he realized they were all moving slowly in the same direction, sliding through the soil beyond his prison in the opposite direction that the sun was moving. They all consisted of a single long blade of membranous filament and at least three rootlike appendages, if he remembered correctly from the exhibit. The way to tell an individual organism’s age was by counting out all the extra roots they had.
It was maybe two hours later, when the sun was almost touching the admittedly obscured horizon, that he recognized a significant coolness surrounding his boots. Del frowned, glancing down as if to see past the clay that had now hardened around him, and tried to experimentally wiggle one of his legs. It felt as if it had been locked in cement, though he couldn’t help but feel that there was a certain liquidity to it as well. An extra weight had been added to the mud that could only be caused by water, but it had not rained. None of the nearby streams fed into this crater, and it couldn’t have been an underground current because this was a fresh development.
Something—a warning, perhaps—tugged at the back of his mind. An insistence to pay attention that he knew from experience was better not to ignore.
Del focused long and hard on his surroundings for, according to his chrono, another thirty minutes in which the sun sank lower and the tingling cold of the water reached his knee. Around him, the strange animalistic blades of grass were traveling significantly faster, though that was still quite slow for them, and continued moving in the direction opposite the sun.
An unexplained sense of urgency was beginning to build. He was missing something, something vital, and he needed to focus.
What did he know about this planet? The land was foggy, the days went by quickly, the air was breathable, and there was lots of water around.
More. There had to be more.
There was aquatic grass thriving outside of the water, even though it could inhabit the streams alone just fine, and lots of muddy craters. The grass was traveling in one direction.
He felt like he was getting closer. Del tilted his head, trying to connect the pieces of information he had.
The grass was traveling away from the sun, which went by fast during the daytime. With a planet this large, night must prevail much longer than day. That meant the grass wasn’t exposed to the sun nearly as much as it was the giant moon he saw orbiting the planet upon his first sight of it from the Corvus.
Okay, so the aquatic grass liked the nighttime more than the daytime.
He was missing something big.
The aquatic…the aquatic grass. Nighttime. Large moon. Lots of water around.
The sound of a nearby stream reached his ears. He hadn’t been able to hear that before, he realized.
Moons tend to have a gravitational effect on water. He hadn’t been to a planet that had a moon where that didn’t happen. With a moon so large on this planet, surely the copious amounts of water were going to be affected by it.
Closer. He almost had it figured out.
Nighttime would last longer. The large moon would have a pull on an equally large amount of water. The grass was aquatic.
The grass was aquatic.
Realization hit Del like a rogue bantha. The grasses were chasing the water. The water, which was rising to his mid thigh. The water, which was being pulled upward by the rising moon.
All of this terrain, every flat stretch of grass and mud and silt, was about to be covered in water. There was an underground tide, and it was rising. And Del had found himself stuck in the mud.
He would not be able to last four days. He’d be lucky to survive one. Waterproof and water-resistant were two entirely different things, and his mask was the latter. His life support pack could survive being drenched, but he wouldn’t last fifteen minutes under the surface, especially with a broken air filter.
Del needed to get out of here as soon as possible. He had no comms, no ship, and no backup, but if a search party was on its way, he had a way to attract attention.
First, he opted for one of his flashbangs. The fog and growing darkness would both play their part in boosting visibility, and for that, he was grateful. If anyone was in atmo now, and if they were sweeping the area, he may just draw some eyes to him. He might even be able to pick up a familiar frequency and communicate with someone through comms, if they got close enough. His helmet wasn’t entirely useless, after all.
He had four flash grenades, so he would have to stretch their uses between intervals. It would have been five, had he not used one on the Jedi earlier. He would also see what he could do about smoke grenades—those had worked a treat in boosting the light earlier. He grabbed one from his belt, making sure not to move too much lest he trap himself even deeper in the sediment.
He wondered where the Jedi had gone off to. Del hadn’t heard the telltale whoosh of an X-Wing’s engines nearby or the hum of a rebel ship dropping in to rescue the pilot and he was fairly certain that he hadn’t strayed too far from either of their wrecked crafts, but perhaps he had found a different way off this planet. He wondered if, assuming he was still around here somewhere, the man had come to the same realization that Del did and went off in search of higher ground. A scorned part of him hoped he hadn’t figured it out, or that he was also trapped in mud somewhere, so that at least he could experience some retribution for stranding him out here.
It would also be morbidly reassuring to him if a renowned Jedi warrior suffered the same embarrassing death as him, if only to affirm that Del’s death was not because of any lack in skill or mystical prowess. No one was above stupid ways to die, it seemed.
Del set off the smoke grenade and waited for the cloud of gas to surround him on all sides before triggering the flashbang. The resulting explosion of light stung his eyes even from behind his visor and he winced, but held the sphere aloft until it eventually petered out. He checked his chono, grimly aware of the coolness gathered around his hips as he did so. He’d wait ten minutes before setting off the next round; who knew how much longer he had, especially once the moon rose beyond the horizon?
Ten minutes might have been too much time. By the time he had set off his next smoke grenade, the water was at his waist. He set off the second flashbang after only a second and then opted to wait five minutes this time before triggering the third. He was already halfway through his stock of grenades. If someone didn’t see this and get to him soon, there’d be nothing left of him to rescue.
A quiet thread of doubt wormed its way into his thoughts. Was he even worth a search and rescue? What if they saw his ship had crashed on vitals, seen the Jedi escape somehow, and assumed he was dead? He knew the Empire well enough to know that they never retrieved bodies unless they were convenient or high-profile, and Del Meeko was none of those things, even if he was an agent of the Inferno Squadron.
He set off his third smoke bomb, blatantly ignoring the increasing pressure from the mud around him, and then triggered his third flashbang. That was his second-to-last chance to be seen. The cloud of vapor around him had become impenetrable, and he could no longer see the grass or the edges of the crater. The sound of running water had slightly intensified.
Del took a brief second to contemplate his life choices. He could not have guessed that signing up for the Imperial Academy, becoming a shore trooper, becoming a TIE pilot, and then joining Inferno Squad would have left him dying in a filthy pit on an unnamed planet on the Outer Rim, but here he was. He was practically guaranteed death here if someone didn’t come out of that fog looking for him within the next few seconds—.
There was someone approaching him from the fog. Heavy footsteps that implied a usage of thick-soled boots. Del felt hope bloom in his chest for one glorious moment before it was immediately dashed by a familiar buzz and the sudden bright green light of that damn lightsaber.
So, the Jedi had come to finish him off.
Del dug his hand under the mud to retrieve his taser, but it seemed to have vanished. The Force-suppressant cuffs he had been granted had landed somewhere on the edge of the crater when he’d been flung into the mud in the first place, likely never to be seen again. He had some tranquilizers tucked into the collar of his suit, but those were close-range gadgets to be manually applied when his opponent was already down. He was well and truly out of defenses.
“Are you stuck?” The pilot asked, drawing closer. It was clear by the way he was brandishing his laser sword that he was mainly using it as a light source in the growing darkness. “I can help you out.”
Del was many things. Loyal, stubborn, and determined were some of the most relevant character traits he had right now. However, he was also rational, and knew damn well when to give up the fight and accept help when he had no other options. Still, he wasn’t ecstatic to be on the receiving end of his enemy’s care.
“Yeah,” he grunted, scowling under his helmet. “The water’s rising. If I don’t get out soon—”
“Yeah, I see it,” the Jedi interrupted, taking a step down from the rim of the crater. “I think I can lift you out, but you’re gonna need to dig around a bit to lift some of the weight.”
Wondering how the hell the man could see anything when the water was still beneath the mud and the mixture of fog and artificial vapor blocked out everything else, Del shifted experimentally. “I’ll go deeper if I move too much,” he said.
“Not if I hold you in place. I’ll keep your legs still while you dig.”
He could already feel something happening under the surface. Pressure on his boots, calves, knees and thighs locked his lower half in place, keeping his legs rigid but allowing him to move his upper body without slipping deeper.
Del wasted no time. Strength partially renewed, he scooped an armful of sediment from the top layer around his chest and pushed it away from himself, noting grimly that the water level wasn’t much lower than that point. It would break the surface of the earth soon enough. He found himself shoving clay away from his body rather than digging it out methodically, but it seemed to be having some effect on the Jedi’s ability to get him out because he felt more pressure gathering around his hips and, briefly, his waist(until a clump of mud fell into the hole he had carved around himself and that tension vanished). He was still buried in several feet of silt, however, and the water would not stop rising.
“Any way to make this go faster?” Del panted, his arms burning from exertion.
Perched atop the sharp edge of the shallow pit, the silhouette brandishing a rod of green shook his head. “I…should be able to do this,” he murmured, sounding strained. His free hand was extended out toward Del, and if he squinted, he might be able to see it trembling. “But I’m not sure how to lift you without tearing your body in half.”
Well. If that wasn’t reassuring, he didn’t know what was.
Del opted not to grace that statement with a reply and instead shoved a significantly large heap of sludge away from himself. The pressure holding firm to his lower body slid up around his waist, its push affecting his already quite labored breathing.
“You’re almost out,” the Jedi hissed suddenly, when he made enough space to lift his thighs. He felt something invisible hold his feet after he lifted them, providing him with something to stand on and lifting his torso higher above the mass of sediment encasing him. “There’s some stuff at your back to get rid of and then I can lift you.”
Del twisted, pumping as much watery silt away from himself as possible. He felt a giant invisible hand give a gentle tug, then a slightly firmer one, and then there was a loud series of grotesque squelching as he was finally, finally, raised out of his potential grave. He gasped, going slightly boneless as he found himself hovering a mere few inches above the sunken well and carried, as if dangling from invisible ropes, toward the grass. His feet touched down on solid earth and the pressure around his body slowly released—and then he promptly dropped to all fours.
All of his limbs were burning with exertion. Mud was caked onto him from boots to chest and he was shivering for a myriad of reasons. He vaguely registered the Jedi to his left deactivating his sword, which cast them both in the darkening fog surrounding them, before taking a singular step closer. When he showed no signs of opposition or quarrel, he continued drawing close. Del felt rather than saw the man kneel beside him, gently grasping him by the bicep, and lifting his arm across his shoulders.
He didn’t know why the rebel was being so friendly, or why he had even come back for him in the first place, but he had no fight left in him and he knew better than to turn the offer away when he was far more likely to survive with an enemy than no one at all.
The pilot pulled him gingerly to his feet and didn’t wait for his approval before they were both walking. Del’s legs felt like rubber, while his arms were only slightly better off, so the shorter man ended up shouldering a good portion of his weight.
"Can you walk?" He asked, sounding strained. "Don't know how much strength I got left."
Del would have made some remark about saying such a foolish thing to the enemy, but he supposed he was in no fit state to take advantage of it. Considering the circumstances they were in, the Jedi was likely still strong enough to overpower him.
"Think so?" Del hedged, shifting his weight more heavily to one of his legs. It wobbled dangerously, but he managed to stay upright.
"Good, 'cause we can't stay here very long," the pilot replied. "Water's gonna cover pretty much everything in less than thirty minutes."
"Everything's flat," Del helpfully informed him. "Where could we even go?"
They both paused so the man could hoist his arm a little more securely across his shoulders. He suddenly became aware of the arm around his waist tightening to lift some of his weight.
"I have an emergency kit in my X-Wing with an inflatable raft," the Jedi finally replied, once they began moving again. "My droid's setting it up right now."
Ah, great. Just what Del needed; close proximity to a rebel terrorist and his war criminal astromech on a flooded planet. They navigated around another of those cursed muddy pits and he had the sudden urge to push the Jedi in. He refrained, knowing it would cause more problems than solutions, but the idea remained.
He had another question, but he wasn't sure he wanted to vocalize it. Why did his enemy come back for him? He had, by all definitions of the word, rescued Del. He would have been dead within minutes had he simply chosen to ignore what was probably a very visible light show, and that would be just one less Imperial pilot to worry about on his part. Keeping him alive when he had no known backup to support him was foolish and an easy way to get oneself killed or captured, but he had come back nonetheless. Perhaps these were the machinations of an elaborate plan, and an Inferno Squadron agent was a worthy pawn to play. Maybe the rebel intended to brainwash him in some way, so he could betray his cause as an Imperial and give up valuable intel to the Rebel Alliance.
Having an ulterior motive to rescue him seemed likely, though he wasn't looking forward to the brainwashing part of his previous idea. The man was a mass murderer; of course he wasn't the savior type. Maybe he considered himself a savior to his cause, but he would not extend that to any of his enemies, considering his track record with Imperial establishments.
So, that settled it. Del was safe for now, but eventually the other shoe would drop and he could be facing any manner of horrors in the name of a terrorist getting from him what he wanted.
They had walked far enough now that Del could make out new, unfamiliar tracks—this one from the X-Wing. It seemed the pilot had skidded quite far from where they had initially collided, which made sense considering Red Five had likely been moving faster than his TIE. Some of the deepest gouges in the earth had already filled with water that was likely in the process of rising higher, and as the strength slowly returned to his legs, he found himself walking faster. The sooner they made it to the Jedi's raft, the sooner… well, he didn't know what was coming after that. Did the rebel have something planned for him? His hypothesis from earlier came to mind and he resisted the urge to shudder.
At his side, the Jedi brought them both to a pause once more to shift his grip on Del. He frowned thoughtfully, tilted his head vaguely to the left, and then shot him an indecipherable look.
"What?" Del asked, uncomfortable with their proximity.
Those eyes glazed over a little bit before he looked down. "There's a… very large lifeform nearby."
Del didn't want to believe him. Unfortunately, he did. "Is it gonna be a problem?" He hazarded, squinting into the distance as if to see something moving in the darkened fog.
"Not that I can tell," was the reply. And then, once they began to move again, the rebel grimaced. "At least, not right now."
That wasn't disconcerting in the slightest. Del wished he had more information to work with, but he had the impression that either the Jedi wouldn't tell him anything else or he himself didn't know much, either.
It was when the water was only inches beneath the surface of the ground and they could both audibly hear the damp squelching of extra moisture under their boots that the crashed X-Wing finally appeared in the fog. Its nose was half-buried in the soil and one of its lower S-foils was planted firmly in a creek bed adjacent to the ship, tipping the starfighter slightly sideways and submerging it about halfway underwater. On its other side, a large, flat stretch of faded orange canvas lay expanded across the ground, accompanied by a familiar astromech settled directly on its center.
The rebel frowned at it as they got closer, but before he could say anything, the droid let out a stream of binary in greeting.
Why'd you take so damn long? Was debating going to get you myself.
"Sorry, took me longer than I thought it would," the man replied, drawing closer.
The droid's dome spun so that its camera was fixed on Del. This is the pilot?
"No, it's a random local I found wearing Imperial gear on an uninhabited planet," the Jedi scoffed. "Yes, he's the pilot."
The astromech rolled backwards a little, then looked back at him. He's not very impressive.
"You're not very impressive," Del shot back before he could help himself.
The droid let out a string of profanity that would have horrified its engineers to hear, but it seemed that this was normal behavior for it because the rebel pilot seemed content to ignore it. "You know binary?" He asked, sounding mildly intrigued. "I usually have to translate for Artoo. Well—" he grimaced. "—I have to translate the filtered version."
The droid must have a nasty habit of swearing at a variety of different causes, then. He wondered if their occasional staring contests during the dogfight were especially loaded on the astromech's end. Based on his first impression, he wouldn't put it past that.
He didn't answer the Jedi's question. He was Inferno Squadron's droid expert and could communicate with a variety of different models, regardless of most dialects and personal vocabularies, but no one, least of all an enemy terrorist, needed to know that. It was just more information to exploit; he'd made a big enough mistake by responding to the astromech at all.
His new captor shrugged his silence off easily, releasing his hold on Del when they were close enough to the raft for him to brace his weight on the raised edge of it. It was a large rectangular shape, with the longest sides lifted the highest and a lowered lip on one of the shorter ends. He watched the rebel momentarily climb up to the cockpit and lift the hatch to rummage around behind the seat, leaning against the wall of the raft as a large gray sack was produced. The sack itself didn't seem particularly full, and it swung haphazardly from the Jedi's hands as he climbed back down from the X-Wing. He tensed at being approached once more, but his enemy-turned-savior merely tossed the bag onto the floor of the raft next to the droid.
"You gonna get in now or when the water rises?" He asked suddenly, turning to Del. "Because it's at our ankles now and I don't want you tracking too much water in."
It has a draining system, the droid supplied helpfully.
"Ah. Nevermind, I guess." With that, the man lifted one foot over the lip of the edge and stepped past him into the raft, making his way past the astromech to the far end of the rectangular float.
Del took a moment to examine his surroundings. The water had indeed breached the surface of the earth, fully covering the valleys of streams and mud craters pockmarking the terrain. The grasses had yet to be submerged and the fog had receded slightly, creating the image of a strange, glimmering lake teeming with plant life. The sun had fully sunk beneath the horizon and the light had shifted from iredescent to a ghostly sort of silver. Behind him, he could sense the gazes of both the Jedi and his strange astromech fixed on his back.
Del would have been dead by now.
Any reservations he may have had before this point vanished with that thought. Without any more pause, he turned around once more and stepped into the raft.