[LotS] Blitzes towards a group of spies

Isval shoved her team toward the narrow hatch that led to the docked ship-an escort boat, she saw. Eshgo would be able to fly it.

"Go! Go!"

Drim stumbled and fell. Isval helped him up, and as she did she glanced back the way they'd come. She could not halt a gasp. Far down the corridor, she saw Vader leap down from a walkway ten meters above the deck. He hit the ground in a crouch, the red line of what could only be his lightsaber clutched in his fist.

"Come on, Isval!" Faylin said, tugging her shirt.

"That's him," Isval said, her voice robotic.

Faylin pulled her shirt. "Him who? It's time to go, Isval!"

But Isval thought of Pok, and had no intention of leaving. She'd gotten her team out. Her work was done.

"Get aboard and get it fired up," she said to Faylin. "Go now."

"Isval...," Eshgo said.

"Get it fired up!" she said, and drew her blasters.

Vader was forty meters from her. He stood up straight, towering over the crew near him. He was looking right at her, his lightsaber held at his side, and she could feel the weight of his regard pressing against her like a punch. He exploded into motion, moving toward her at preternatural speed, his strides devouring the deck space between them. Crew scrambled out of the way at his approach, his dark form knifing through them.

She raised her blasters and took aim, shooting as fast as she could pull the triggers, scribing the air between them with lines of red energy. Vader didn't slow his sprint and his lightsaber was a blur as he came on, deflecting her shots in all directions. A few came back at her. One hit the pallet and sent tools skittering along the deck. Another scorched the bulkhead beside her, but still she fired.

The crew in the corridor panicked, scrambling in all directions. An officer got in Vader's way, slowing his approach for a moment, and Vader tossed him aside with his free hand as if the man weighed no more than a child.

"Isval!" Eshgo said from behind her.

Vader was twenty meters and closing.

She was shouting, firing, but her shots could not get past the line of his lightsaber. She didn't understand how it was possible, until her own words came back to her: Vader was not a man.

But she refused to stop, she couldn't.

"For Pok!" she shouted with each shot. "For Pok!"

Six minutes said the computer. Vader closed to ten meters. She fired again and again and again, screaming. Blaster shots from somewhere else in the corridor pinged off the bulkhead-stormtroopers, maybe.

Strong arms wrapped her from behind, picked her up off the deck-Eshgo.

"Stop!" she yelled, trying to twist her body in his grasp so she could keep firing. "What are you doing?"

"I'm saving your life!" he said, and carried her through the docking port door as blasterfire slammed into the jambs.

The moment he got her on the other side, he set her down, punched a button, and the huge hatch slid closed. She turned, teeth gritted, and caught a last glimpse of Vader before the door blocked her view-still rushing toward them, blade in hand, cape flowing out behind him.

She reached for the control panel, thinking to hit the button to reopen the hatch, but Eshgo shot the panel with a blaster.

She whirled on him, her fists clenched around her blasters, standing on her tiptoes to put her nose to his.

"You had no right-"

"You saw what I saw! He's not going down to blasterfire, Isval! He'd have cut you in half!"

As if to make the point, the energized blade of Vader's lightsaber burst through the hatch, just missing Eshgo's abdomen. They bounded back out of reach as the heat from the weapon started to redden the metal.

They stared at each other for a moment, breathing into each other's faces.

"You're right," she said, slumping. "I know you're right. But don't disobey an order again. Come on."

They piled into the escort boat. Drim already had the engines online. He gave way to Eshgo, who took the pilot's seat while Isval strapped into the copilot's chair.

"Who or what was that?" Faylin said.

"Vader," Isval said. "Vader."

Faylin cursed and Isval could only agree.

"Disengaging docking clamp," Eshgo said, and the boat floated free of the doomed Star Destroyer. "We're away. And there's Ryloth."