The escape from Dock 9 - a mediocre tale

The marketplace is a wreck of overturned stalls and scattered fruit crates. Panic ripples through the crowd as people shove for the exits, and in the center of the plaza, a rebel soldier is backed hard against a transport speeder.

Zoey Terraj slips into the fringe of the chaos, eyes catching on the soldier’s empty hands, the hovering data-pad, and the tight ring of armed thugs tightening around her.

Two of the gang’s enforcers peel wide, cutting off the speeder’s front and the alley beyond it. Their leader keeps laughing, but his hand stays near a compact blaster at his belt.

The pad is her leverage. The speeder is the only clean exit.

A sharp electronic chirp cuts through the shouting as the data-pad flashes once in the soldier’s hand, waiting for a command, while the circle of armed bodies closes another step.

Zoey slips low along the speeder’s blind side, using the overturned stall as cover. The gang leader’s glare stays locked on the rebel soldier, not on the driver’s seat she reaches for.

She folds into the cockpit, fingertips already finding the ignition housing and the manual override beneath a dust skin of spilled market grit.

The portable deck wakes with a muted pulse. Zoey bridges the panel, and the speeder answers with a low internal whine instead of dead silence.

The engine light blooms to life. A cargo clamp on the rear hitch snaps loose with a metallic clack, and the transport rocks as power comes online.

The gang leader whips toward the sound, too late, as the speeder’s controls come alive under Zoey’s hands and the escape route opens.

Zoey yanks the speeder’s nose sideways, the chassis skidding in a tight arc. Dust, fruit crates, and market scraps blast outward in a ragged spray, forcing the gang line to break.

The Rebel Soldier lunges for the opening as the rear hatch swings easy under the loose clamp, and Zoey kills the drift just long enough to make the step count.

The soldier catches the edge, hauls herself aboard, and the speeder settles under both their weight. Behind them, the gang leader stumbles back from the thrown debris, cursing into the sudden wall of dust.

One enforcer tries to cut the lane, but the spinning wake and overturned stall pin him in place. The alley mouth is no longer theirs.

As the cockpit clears, a small courier tag slips from the soldier’s sleeve and skitters across the console, its sealed Imperial routing mark catching Zoey’s eye.