Chapter Text

The deed was done. The’s head flew from his body, separated by the intense power of two lightsaber blades connecting at his throat.

Allah Gold rushed over to D the Superior. With a wave of his hand, he used the wish power to undo the cuffs binding D to his chair.

“You make out quite good,” D complemented. But Allah Gold barely heard him. His mind was a whirlwind of emotions, even of guilt. He looked down at The’s decapitated body. It was not the way of the Hopeless Situation Warriors to kill an unarmed prisoner. With sickening clarity, Allah Gold could see what this was.

A crime.

He had become a war criminal.

As if he could real Allah Gold’s thoughts, D the Superior immediately chimed in to convince Gold that he had made the right choice. “Make him on the hoof, very dangerous,” he declared regarding the now deceased The.

“To, but he is not just a prisoner!” Allah Gold sighed, overwhelmed by the whole situation. “I should not kill him, this not agree with!”

D, in all his manipulative talent, knew the exact words to convince Allah Gold otherwise. “This very nature,” he declared. “He hewed away your hand,” he continued, referring to the last time The and Gold had met, a battle which had ended disastrously for Gold. “You also kill certainly he revenge. The business of revenge is very familiar. Remember you to have ever tolded me your mother’s. Still, there are those Pathetic People.”

D truly knew how to strike at Allah Gold’s weak spots. He knew that Allah Gold was still angry over the loss of his right hand, cut off by The’s lightsaber years ago on Geonosis. But more importantly, he knew that Allah Gold had been hurt deeply by the death of his mother at the hands of the Pathetic People, a savage, backwards tribe of violent sandpeople on the planet of Tattoine. And beyond Allah Gold being deeply distraught, D also knew about how Allah Gold had succumbed to the dark side of the Wish Power the night he came across his mother’s bound, lifeless body, about how he had murdered the entire village of Pathetic People.

To put to rest any remaining doubts Allah Gold had over The’s death, D told him that “we must leave now. Otherwise, they all at worry.”

Allah Gold immediately snapped out of the trance like state he was on, so deep in his thoughts, and began moving towards the elevator. But he would not ever leave his friend and mentor, Ratio Tile, behind. He quickly walked over to where Tile was lying unconscious, the piece of balcony that The had pushed upon him trapping him against the floor. Fortunately, Allah Gold felt a pulse. His mentor and teacher was still there.

D, on the other hand, had no time for such sentimentality. “Do not take care of him,” he ordered Allah Gold, “Otherwise and too late.”

But to Allah Gold, it was never too late to save a friend. He quickly used the wish power to extract Tile from the debris, and lifted him upon his shoulders. “We can’t throw down him,” he told D firmly.

***

Meanwhile, on the bridge of the Airship, Space General was not yet aware of the death of The. “Beat, we are great and black influences!” he crowed, about to give the order to jump into hyperspace. Suddenly, the Neomodian captain of the ship shouted “Give your runway!” as a Gram Republic Venator-class Destroyer appeared out of nowhere, cutting off their escape route.

This Venator was commanded by none other than the Good Elephant himself, one of the greatest Naval Officers of the Gram Republic. While men like Admiral Wullf Yulareen might be more tactically intelligent, and men like Admiral Darkin might instill more discipline in their crews, none could match the boldness and sheer determination of the Good Elephant.

Indeed, while most of the other Gram Republic ships were forming a defensive corridor around Coruscant, the Good Elephant’s Venator had broken through the Abruption Doctrine lines, and was now firing a broadside at close range against Space General’s own flagship.

As the two airships locked into a deadly duel of artillery fire, D and Allah Gold (carrying Ratio Tile on his back) struggled to remain on their feet. The deck rocked and pitched back and forth as laser shells made their explosive impact.

Space General’s ship was taking heavy damage. So much, in fact, that the ship began plunging headfirst towards the atmosphere of Coruscant. This was a bad situation for all aboard, but it provided a certain advantage to Gold and D. The massive elevator shaft which had been such a pain to ascend was now turned into a horizontal hallway. Taking advantage of this development, Gold and D began running forwards as fast as they could, hoping to reach the hangar in time to escape the airship before it became a burning deathtrap.

Back in the bridge of the airship, “chaos” was not a strong enough word to describe the mess that was happening. “Stabilize the airship!” the Neomoidian captain was screaming to his droid pilots. “Stabilize the airship,” one of the droids repeated, trying their best to obey an order which appeared impossible to them.

It took Space General’s forcefulness to overcome the incompetence of his captain. “Start all engines,” he ordered, fuming that the Neomodian had not thought of this first. Soon enough, the sudden increase in power to all the airship’s engines began to do the trick, and the airship managed to level itself out again.

This was bad news for Allah Gold, however. He could sense through the wish power this new shift in the gravitational sensors of the ship in the direction he didn’t want it to go.

The “hallway” that he and D we running down almost instantly became a vertical elevator shaft once more.

Reaching for something, anything, to stop the sudden freefall, Gold managed to latch on to a piece of wiring. He felt a weight on his leg. Looking down, he saw that D had just managed to grab on to him with one arm, and was now hanging on for dear life.

And to make matters even more complicated, Ratio Tile began waking up.

***

Ratio Tile opened his eyes to find himself staring at what he strongly suspected was Allah Gold's butt. It looked like Gold’s butt—well, his pants, anyway—though it was thoroughly impossible for Ratio Tile to be certain, since he had never before had occasion to examine Allah Gold’s butt upside down, which it currently appeared to be, nor from this rather uncomfortably close range. And how he might have arrived at this angle and this range was entirely baffling.

Looking around to try and understand the situation better, he made the very wrong choice to look down, towards the abyss and horrifying (if quick) death that awaited if Allah Gold’s grip on the wire weakened.

“Relax,” joked Gold, trying to find humor in even this terrible situation, “this situation we saw many.”

But Ratio Tile was not in the mood for jokes. Especially when he was looking at an elevator rapidly freefalling down the shaft, ready to crush all three of them within seconds.

“R2, let elevator stopped!” ordered Allah Gold through his transponder. But Reach the Man would never be able to stop the elevator fast enough.

“A day after the fair, jump quickly!” advised Tile. As they jumped, Gold managed to shoot a grappling hook towards a ledge. Using that anchor point as leverage, he pulled himself, Rile, and D into a hallway just as the elevator passed rocketing past them.

“See can also must not find out the exit,” urged Tile. “The airship returns at fly.”

***

One of the droids in the command bridge of the Airship was watching the security cameras. He saw the three Gram Republic officials running down one of the hallways of the shit. Immediately, he understood that not only was The not able to kill them, that they had also somehow survived yet another elevator shaft misadventure.

“Superior,” he timidly told Space General, “they have escaped a day after the fair!”

“I SHOULD REALLY FEEDS YOU ALL DOG!” growled Space General, as he slammed his robotic hand against a console in rage.

It was not over for these Gram Republic officers, however. Space General was disappointed in his soldiers’ incompetence, but he had planned for it as well. The Hopeless situation Warriors would not escape his airship alive.

Back in the hallway, as Gold, Tile, and D continued running towards the hangar, they were suddenly trapped by a laser shield which activated around them, preventing them from moving any further.

“What is the row!” cursed Ratio Tile.

“I said, toing have the patience” said Allah Gold, trying to calm everybody down.

“Good, of patience,” mocked Ratio Tile sarcastically.

“To, the R2 came right away, then can make we out,” explained Gold.

Reach the Man did seconds after Allah Gold made his prediction. But he was nto alone. Chasing after him was a whole squad of super battle droids. As Reach the Man looked frantically around for an escape route, two more droid squads quickly came at him from all sides.

“Raise the hand!” one of them ordered. Reach the Man tried to use his built in zapping device, to negligible effect. The droid officer responded by knocking the astromech to the floor with one kick.

“Do you have what to want to say?” Ratio Tile asked Allah Gold dryly.