At opposite ends of the corridor, an IG-100 and an AZ-15 security droid have rounded the bend. Renci points out a stairwell entrance across and down the hall a ways, then slips across to it low and fast. The IG-100 ups its speed, crawling across the wall and ceiling to close the distance in an unexpected fashion. Once Renci is across and through the door, Renn makes the dash as well. The AZ-15 was waiting for the second Rebel operative to show and is prepared with its missile launcher. It fires a gas cylinder down the hall, which does actually hit Renn. It does not activate, though, and he catches it on the ricochet. As he enters the stairwell, he calls, “More evidence fer ya!” as he tosses the canister up to Renci. She snatches it out of the air and tucks it into her backpack. “Maybe this is what killed the prisoners,” Renn suggests.
The stairwell holds a tight spiraling set of very steep steps. Eschewing the stairs themselves, Renci starts parkouring off the walls and railings, rapidly increasing her vertical distance. Renn goes to grab a rail to follow suit, but a hail of blaster fire from the AZ-15 hits the wall right there. A spray of duracrete shards cuts up his left hand and arm as he yanks them back. As he runs up the steps, he shouts into his comm, calling for support from the rest of their fictional party, identifying their current location and the nature of the hostiles. The AZ-15 falls for the ploy and stops shooting long enough to communicate the new threat to its own allies elsewhere in the base, but it is literally at Renn’s heels on the steps.
At the top of the long flight, Renci pauses to take a drink, thinking, Hydration’s the most important thing. But then she takes a glance at the activity in the stairwell below and revises that: No, in a chase, running is the most important thing. At the base of the stairs, the IG-100 struggles to keep up with the pace, and its own attempts to parkour overtax its systems. It begins sparking from exceeding its specs and backs out of the stairwell.
Renci bursts through the door beyond the stairs into a hangar full of derelict surface vehicles, Mira flying close above her. Renn follows a few beats later, blood trailing down his left arm. Just behind him is the AZ-15, which Renci has started thinking of as Azzy. All the maintenance droids pause what they are doing and turn to watch. Renci sees on the upper level of the room that the other security droid, Iggy, successfully anticipated their destination and has entered by another route… probably a nice, relaxing turbolift. Iggy continues sparking as it steps over to a computer terminal and begins to close the garage doors. They screech and groan and move too slowly for Renci to care about right now, not with Azzy so close to Renn. She fires some shots past him, trying to deter his pursuer.
A bunch of tubes and cables hang from the ceiling of the hangar, and Renn considers for a moment whether they might be strong enough to swing from. He yanks one, which just draws it lower, but that works, too. He keeps tugging them down as he runs past, pulling them into the way of the droid behind him to slow it down and give himself some cover. The AZ-15 fires another gas canister, but this one also fails to deploy its payload. Renn figures these droids have not been getting regular maintenance since the staff left the base.
From the upper level of the hangar, Iggy steps out onto the mountainside. When Renci comes racing out the opening below, it tries shoving boulders down at her from its higher vantage point. She shoots above it, trying to accomplish the same goal as she races down the incline.
Inside the hangar, the AZ-15 moves to a computer terminal to try to close the door just in front of Renn. He has to dive to get through in time. As he rolls back up to his feet and starts a controlled slide down the loose rocks, Renn sees that beyond the scree is forest. “Get ta the tree line!” he yells down to Renci. “We can fight them there.”
“Fight them?!” Renci shouts back. “We can lose them there! JT had to fight one of these guys. You ever get stabbed by an electrostaff? It’s not a good time.” She sees Azzy come out of the hangar, barrelling down the mountainside just behind Renn. Iggy descends as well, still far off, but coming in towards her from a different angle. Renci enters the forest, crashing through the underbrush, hoping to lose the droids.
Behind her, she hears Renn: “Ya can keep runnin’ if ya want, but I’m—” His voice cuts off suddenly mid-shout, and then Renci hears the metallic clang of something impacting a droid at high speed, but she did not hear the rifle go off….