Crash

It probably was a bad idea.  No, it was a bad idea.  But he was going to run with it nevertheless.  The people in the city where Breen had most influence weren’t the types who would be eager to go up against him.  They were also being brainwashed into thinking that he was their savior of sorts after defending them from swoop bike gangs and other thugs.  

Corvan knew better.  He had done some scouting around and seen how things seemed to operate too timely to be mere coincidence.  Nabbing one of the gang members and threatening him with his knowledge of duros anatomy and where inserting a knife blade would hurt the most until he spilled what he knew had helped too.  It was a series of stepping stones from there.  

First, he had to get into the Compound, and that involved getting past the guard shacks and the ray-shields.  A lot of complicated factors.  That was why he chose to go with explosives.

Second thing was to not tell anyone at all about what he was up to.  If they knew, they could be collateral if he was caught.  

If he was caught.  

He had no plans of being caught so he made no contingencies for it.  The plan itself wasn’t all that complicated either, which was why he didn’t think he would need to think of any worst case scenarios.  The only worst case scenario would be if he got himself blown up too, and he wasn’t going to let that happen.  

Getting in was easy.  More than easy.  After causing some public agitation by running into a squad of battle droids and Breen’s men and running them over with a speederbike he hijacked from the front of a cantina, he was apprehended and taken into custody at the nearest compound, which just so happened to house a good deal of their weapons.  If they were smart, they would have realized this.  Corvan was the sort who wouldn’t give up without a fight, and had displayed as much in earlier encounters.  But those were in different locations.  Him being calmly led to the facilities should have set off all of their alarm bells.  Breen wasn’t exactly hiring the brightest and the best for his grunt work, and he seemed to be getting the battle droids with the lowest logic processing units.

Things were quiet until he was inside the ray-shielded walls of the facilities.  To say that all haran broke loose would be an understatement.  

The ranking officer of the squad--a former thug now turned Sep--was a brute, but he still had the same weak spot as did every other human under that armor.  A couple hard jabs to the throat and he was on his knees, gasping through a collapsed windpipe while his fingers scrabbled at his throat.  Corvan used the wall of the turbolift to gain some momentum as he jumped on top of the squad leader’s back, boot heels squeaking along the side of the chamber before he rammed his foot in the face of the second-in-command.  That man slammed into the turbolift wall with a hard crack.  Out cold.  He was able to palm a blaster off the one who was quickly finding he was unable to breathe and shot the three battle droids that were part of the escort in their elongated heads.

The ‘cuffs hung loose on one of his wrists, a loop swinging freely as he retrieved any and all explosives off of the fallen men and started strapping them on.  Why bring in your own weapons when you could have the enemy provide them for you?  He snatched his buy’ce from one of the stiff hands and pulled it on over his head, feeling more at ease now that his face was hidden again.

First stop was the security grid.  A few bombs were placed around the shield and power generators, arranged in a smiley face.  He left a couple of destroyed droids behind too but no one would notice those right away.

He sent the turbolift towards a level with the least amount of activity and made a hasty exit, picking his way around crates upon crates of blastrifles, E-Web missile launchers, and a lot of other nasties that would soon be melted slag.  He only encountered one person while planting the bombs, a soldier who seemed to be on guard duty.  Corvan knocked him out with the butt of the blaster he had stolen and dragged the man behind a stack of tall crates well within the shadows of the storage space.  Risking shooting him meant noise and setting off the explosives while he was still within the blast radius.

Corvan stripped the explosives off of the unconscious soldier and laced them around several crates of some particularly volatile grenades.  As a last thought, he dragged the man into the ‘lift and brought him up with him to the motor pool.  When the door slid open, he held the soldier up as a meat shield to avoid being riddled with blaster holes.

“All I want is a speederbike,” he announced, walking his hostage who was slowly regaining consciousness through the complex as an assortment of battle droids and wets trained their guns on him. “If anyone tries anything then this whole place is falling down on your heads.”

He turned his hand over where it was locked around the soldier’s neck to show the detonation device, red lights blinking.  That got him the appropriate reaction as the men stiffened, alarmed muttering emanating from them while the droids followed him with their blasters.  Corvan grinned from within his buy’ce.  Good.  They knew to behave themselves then.  

“They’re not gonna let you walk out of here,” his hostage grunted as their footsteps clacked on the durasteel.

“Watch.”

He moved past some military-grade speeders and four AATs, heading for where the speederbikes were corralled.  All the while, the soldiers and droids kept their blasters pointed at him, the battle droids moving to the forefront to take the brunt of the attack should one happen.  Corvan spotted a vehicle at the front of the pack, nudging the man he had in his grip to get on as he scooted on behind him.  It felt as though he was showing one of Haylen’s kids how to operate a ‘bike with the guy sitting up front as he was as he moved his hands over the controls and started it up.

“Nice and easy,” he murmured, sending the speederbike gliding out of the hangar bay as the battle droids cleared a path.  

“You’re dead, Mando,” the soldier growled.

“Shut it and keep your hands where I can see them.”

Some technicians hastily got out of the way, their dark uniforms contrasting with the sea of tan.  If a firefight started, they’d be goners with no protection whatsoever.  As soon as they were out on the duracrete, he mashed the button on the device.  Explosions erupted from the compound, the ray-shields flickering then winking out of existence entirely.  Corvan sent the speederbike towards the nearest gap and shot through the hole.  The blaster fire started right about then.  Guess they didn’t care too much for their companion now that it was total mayhem.  Corvan flung the soldier off and only glanced behind to see the man rolling over and over as he saw his buddies mounting up on the rest of the speederbikes.  Among them were a couple of droidekas, wheeling and dodging in between the ‘bikes.

Several more explosions ripped through the compound, giving the ground a firm shake and sending a blast of heat against his back.  Corvan leaned forward, nearly flattening himself on the speederbike as he dodged trees waving from the explosions and debris that came flying his way.  Lucky for him that the compound was out in the jungle, well away from the populace.  Oh, there were others closer to the city limits, but they were for show.  This was where they kept most of the goods when they needed to send in some muscle to quell any uprising, and where Breen stockpiled extra arsenal off the books to filter out to the gangs and crime families.  Two-faced barve.

Corvan didn’t feel too bad about the men who were now either blown to bits or would require extensive treatment in the bacta that Thyferra was so famous for exporting.  Most of them had been hired from Breen’s own criminal organization that he had been so careful about sweeping under the rug when he gained his new position of power in the Separatist Alliance.  They were thugs who would have gotten slotted in a fiery shootout sooner or later.

The feel of heat brought Corvan back to reality as he glanced over his shoulder to see his pursuers gaining on him.  He snapped off a few shots in their direction, actually pinning one in the shoulder and causing him to go flying off as his speederbike rammed into another.  There was a beautiful explosion and he was suddenly down to ten instead of eleven angry men chasing him.  Plus the droidekas that were gaining ground quickly.  He wove around trees, coming in too close at times, doing his best to make himself as small of a target as possible.  Something nipped his calf, causing him to pull his leg tighter against the chassis.  Movement showed on either side of him as he saw two of them trying to pen him in.  

He released the pedals by lifting his heels and watched as eight blurs went on ahead.  Corvan opened up on them with his blaster, then swerved to the side and down an embankment, branches clawing at his beskar and scraping noisily across his helmet.  Thank the Force for the natural cover he had on this planet.  He continued to weave his way down the sharp valley, avoiding rocks and fallen trees acting as obstacles.  He didn’t see the log until the last moment.  It was covered in moss and looked for all the world like ground cover.  The front sensors caught onto the protruding log and caused the speederbike to flip.  Corvan hung on and cut the engine, hoping that might keep it from exploding upon impact.  

He tumbled with the ‘bike, seeing sky, dirt, the tips of his boots and flailing hands.  There was a loud wrenching sound and he felt the vehicle yank itself from his grip.  Probably for the best.  A handlebar smacked the side of his head, the saddle banged him in the shin.  He came to a rest against a tree, dirt settling on and around him and the world still spinning.  Blood pounded in his ears as he slowly came to grips with his new predicament.  From the way he was positioned, he could feel that he was pinned in place.  The crumpled speederbike pressed against him was an even bigger clue to that.  Corvan tried moving and felt a stab of pain in his side.  He had the uneasy feeling that he didn’t want to look down to see what the cause of it was.  But he looked anyways.  One of the metal rods that made up the ‘bike was sticking into him, having punctured the flight suit.

Blood was already pooling around the injury site, turning the blue fabric a deep maroon.  Corvan tried to push the chassis away but it was lodged in the dirt and roots around him.  He heard the distinctive sound of other speederbikes and twisted his head up.  He was disguised by the foliage and had fallen far enough down the valley so that he was hidden from sight.  The vwoorp of his pursuers was soon gone as they continued towards the nearest town to see if their quarry had decided to hide out there.

Corvan struggled to push the destroyed ‘bike away again, pressing his heels into the ground and trying to ease himself up, and was rewarded with even more pain.  He dropped to a sit with a grunt, feeling the sweat beading on his forehead as his breathing started to grow quicker.

Udesii, udesii.  You panic, you die.

He smacked the back of his head against the trunk of the tree he was stuck against with a groan.  He didn’t escape being blown up, or possibly caught and tortured, just to bleed out here.  His scratched fingers fumbled over one of his belt’s pouches, pulling out a small hydrospanner, the sort used for fixing little things.  He never used it before, but if he could unscrew some of the bolts on the speederbike where the rod had impaled him, maybe he could get himself out.

It was slow going.  The humidity of the jungle made not only his fingers sweaty, but added to his discomfort, as if having a metal rod in his side wasn’t bad enough.  He had to pause frequently, removing his helmet and flicking himself in the face to keep himself from passing out.  By the time he had dismantled enough of the vehicle to wriggle free, Thyferra’s moons were high in the night sky, the stars twinkling above and nocturnal creatures chattering away all around him.  Corvan knew better than to yank the rod out.  He had heard of beings panicking and pulling things from their bodies only to bleed out faster.  So for now, he had to have the thing lodged in his side and try to move around as normally as possible.

He’d lost the blasters when he crashed, so he had to go without any long range weapons.  He only had his knives on him.  That was fine.  He was more comfortable with those anyhow.  Now to trudge his way back to the town he called his temporary home and see if his ex would help him out without falling over.  Piece of uj cake.

The first step he took had him tripping over speederbike debris and forcing the rod in deeper upon impact.  Excruciating pain and then nothing.

When he came to, it was still dark out.  A long string of Mando’a swearing leapt off his tongue as he pushed himself to his shaky feet and started his trek, shoving his buy’ce on so he could see more clearly with the macrobinocs.

---

By the time that he arrived at Haylen and Duross Platt’s back door, it was in the wee hours of the morning and he was on the verge of falling over.  He rapped softly on the durasteel door, gripping the frame and leaving bloody handprints along the edges.  Footsteps sounded from inside, along with tired mumbling.  The door slid open and Duross stood framed in it, wearing a light shirt and shorts that said he had been roused from sleep.  It wasn’t unusual for Corvan to show up at their home at odd times.  He called their couch his bed and freely pilfered from their pantry.  Him showing up with some fresh bumps and bruises was normal too, but not in such a bad shape as he probably looked.  Duross’s expression of annoyance had quickly shifted to one of shock.

“Hey, I got in a little accident,” Corvan rasped, trying to keep his tone lighthearted. “Think you can get your wife to yank this rod out of me?”

It was probably then when he really did faint.  He must have woken up at some point when Haylen was working on him, because every nerve on his left side screamed for mercy and he started to twitch, making a noise that was more suited for a wounded animal.  He could only take so much before his body dragged him back under and everything was peaceful again.  There were some instances that felt like fragmented dreams in which a stranger's voice spoke by his head and Haylen urged him to sip on water, saying he was dehydrated.  He knew he was dehydrated.  She didn’t need to reiterate it to him.  He sucked down at least a glass and went back to sleep before she bothered him again sometime later to drink another tumbler of the clear liquid.

Corvan swam back to the land of the living to the smell of food.  He rolled his head over, taking in a deeper whiff of the scent.  It smelled like fried nuna eggs.  

“What’s for breakfast?” he croaked.

“You mean lunch,” came Haylen’s voice from behind him. “You slept most of the day.”

“Yeah?  What else is new?”

He often went two to three days without sleep before crashing for an entire day to catch up on the rest he missed.  Haylen was used to that by now.  She came around the couch so he could see her, holding a glass of water in one hand and a plate of scrambled eggs in the other.

“You had us worried,” she said, sitting on the edge of the low table and holding the glass out for him to take. “That hole wouldn’t stop bleeding.  You’re going to have to take it easy for a while, if you can manage that.”

Corvan took the glass and started gulping down the icy water, pausing long enough to breathe in between hydrating himself.

“I’ll try.  Thanks for helping, Hayl,” he said, then set the glass on the table and snatched the plate of eggs.

Haylen was watching him carefully, green eyes slightly narrowed as she laced her fingers together over a knee.

“I know about the Separatist Compound getting blown up.  Breen is calling for your head.”

Corvan focused exclusively on the plate in hand, avoiding meeting his ex’s accusatory gaze.  He could feel the bandages wrapping around his middle, and a dull throb at his side where the metal had been sticking out of hours earlier.  She must have tended to the leg too since there was a pleasant cooling sensation where he had gotten shot there.

“How bad was the damage to my insides?” he asked, leaping topics as he pushed around a piece of egg with his fork.

“You’re down a kidney.  I had to call in an actual doctor to help once you blacked out when I tried to twist that rod out of your side.  He stopped the bleeding and removed the organ and closed you up.  He said it was pro bono after he heard what you did.”

“Wait, how did he know--?”

“Corvan, you’re this town’s worst kept secret,” Haylen sighed. “What were you thinking?”

He fixed her with an unamused look, sliding the plate of half-eaten food onto the table beside her.

“Shab, I don’t know, Hayl.  Maybe that if I blew up a cache of Breen’s arsenal, then he couldn’t keep selling it on the Black Market and continue to terrorize the people he’s supposed to be protecting.  Or that taking out some of his thugs he gave permission to bully the populace wasn’t that bad of a bonus either.”

“What would you have done if you were caught?”

“Escaped.”

Haylen threw up her hands with an exasperated noise.

“Corvan!  Be realistic!”

“I am!” he snapped, leaning forward and instantly wishing he hadn’t as an explosion of pain surged up from the injury site.

He dropped back on the couch, grinding his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut.

“It could have been worse, you know,” Haylen muttered.

“By “worse” you mean me being dead, right?” he asked matter-of-factly.

There was a long pause.  Corvan cracked an eye open to see that Haylen had looked away, her lips pressed together and her brows furrowed while she rubbed at the space between her eyes.

“Well I didn’t die,” he retorted.

“But you could have.”

“But I didn’t—Osik, what do you care anyways?  You’d be down one less freeloader.”

Haylen practically exploded on him as her voice raised once more, her pink cheeks flushing darker.

“You’re my friend!  I don’t like it when friends act crazy and do things to get themselves killed!”

“Sithspit, you make it sound like I wanted to impale myself.”

Haylen’s eyes narrowed on him as she jabbed a finger in his direction.

“You planned on blowing up that compound and you didn’t plan on getting out.  That’s a suicide mission.”

Corvan wriggled to prop himself up on an elbow, pressing a palm over the bandaged part of his abdomen.

“Okay, first of all, I knew I’d get out, I just didn’t know how.  And second, if I got stuck in there, I would have had my beskar on and it can take a lot of heat--”

“You’d still get cooked in that armor,” Haylen shot back.

Corvan only grinned.

“Just a little.  Medium well at best.”

Haylen’s glare cut him off before he could proceed with any more jokes about cooking and meat.  Stang, was she really that upset?  

“I don’t tell you how to be a nurse or how to raise your kids,” he said carefully. “So I’d appreciate it if you don’t tell me how to run my life.  It’s how I roll, all right?  I like living life on the edge.”

Haylen pressed the tips of her fingers together, eyebrows furrowed.

“There’s being an adventure-seeker and then there’s being just plain, stupid reckless.  I’m sorry but you’re in that second category.  Corvan, I’m speaking to you as a friend--a worried friend--you need to try to tone this whole one man army thing back a couple hundred degrees.”

Corvan could feel the heat collecting in his chest, a scowl forming on his banged up face.  His voice started to steadily rise despite himself as he leaned forward on an elbow, ignoring the blaring of the wound.

“Maybe I could if some people didn’t hide in their homes or sit on their shebse and wait for other people to lead a rebellion single-handedly.  Yeah, I know, it’s the Seps, but it’s not like I’m fighting kriffin’ Dooku and his entire fleet.  Osik, I’m not even asking for acknowledgement, I just want people to do something besides being Breen’s dupes!  I’m only doing this so people like you and your family can be safe--!”

Shab, he’d said too much.  Haylen was staring at him now, blue eyebrows raised.  Corvan rolled onto his back and clapped his hands over his face.  Yes, she had dumped him, but that didn’t mean he stopped caring for her.  Five years and he was still holding the torch.  Kriffing pathetic.

“I’m feeling tired.  You don’t mind if I go to sleep now, do you?”

Not exactly subtle, but he was never subtle, now was he?  He heard Haylen get up and gather together the plate and glass.

“Sure,” she said, her voice sounding more subdued. “Don’t go wandering off.”

“You’ll know where to find me,” he muttered, sliding his fingers so he could steal a glance at her between the slats.  

Haylen had a sort of distracted look on her face, her brows slightly pressed together in that certain way that said she was deep in thought.  Yes.  Well, maybe it was time to find another couch to sleep on once he was on the mend so things didn’t get any more awkward than need be.