Blaster bolts whizzed by Tre Nulo's head as he stood on the top ring of the Geonosian arena. Reinforcements had arrived for the republic and he smiled dryly at the realization that his contract with the Confederacy of Independent Systems had just reached it's end.
The man slowly pulled up the hood of his robes and smirked as he stepped back into the shadows of a tunnel that led deep into the Geonosian hive. He knew the tunnels well after working in this hellhole for months as quiet guard to exterminate the threats that mere droids could not, and felt a rush of adrenaline at the sounds of battle behind him. He'd left just as the first LAAT had landed, a stroke of good luck on his part as moments thereafter he probably would have been beheaded by Dooku.
Such was the life of a mercenary. Tre had worked for both sides leading up to this point as an assassin or a bounty hunter, eliminating several of the Separatists' key masterminds and three Jedi. He worked all his jobs under the guise of another, recently deceased, bounty hunter, and changed his fake identity regularly so nobody knew who he really was. Tre Nulo was a nobody, a farmer from a planet in the outer rim that few knew existed and even fewer cared anything about.
Tre pulled out his blaster pistol, a sturdy, slightly modified K-16 and silently cursed himself for not bringing more firepower. He had a gut feeling that something was going to go wrong, and yet he ignored it. It didn't really matter to him, stealth was his primary objective anyway.
The tunnels he ran through were mainly empty, usually emergency exits or maintenance shafts as he approached the hangar where his ship was kept. He darted quickly, making as little noise as possible as he looked around for Jedi or Geonosians who would not approve of his presence. After five minutes of stealthy running he came across the door to the hangar. One of his fingers hovered just above the trigger to the blaster as he tensely opened the door.
Nothing. Silence was the only thing that met him as he swerved into the cavernous room, the dim lights barely illuminating the walls. Explosions could be heard resounding from the outside and every time another sounded the walls shook and dust spilled down from the ceiling. Fortunately for Tre, the mouth of the hangar did not face the battle, and such there was no one in sight.
He quietly slipped off to his ship, a ship so heavily modified that Tre himself couldn't remember what it was originally. It was aptly named Sorrow's End, as all who fought it had their sorrows, or lives if you were being less poetic, ended. Sorrow's End was a light transport ship that bore a striking resemblance to a starfighter and carried with it enough firepower to live out a siege for months. Tre had just boarded when he heard voices coming from outside, a sound that froze him in his tracks.
"Quickly! We need to hurry if we want to catch the bugs unaware!" came a voice from the opening of the hangar. Tre squatted down, glancing around nervously to see who had interrupted his escape. It was a Twi'lek surrounded by a squad of what appeared to be humans wearing hard white armor. All of them held blasters except for the Twi'lek, who wore the telltale robes of a Jedi and carried with her an unignited lightsaber.
Tre had no quarrel with them, though he did wish that the soldiers of the Republic would just hurry up so that he could leave. If they found him it would be really hard to explain why a human in his late twenties and armed with enough weapons to destroy a small army would be here on Geonosis at the sight of a Separatist base."Come on... Just eave already..." he muttered.
There was a moment when the soldiers walked right past Sorrow's End and Tre tightened his grip on the blaster, but they quickly passed without so much as a second glance. Tre let out a breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding and rested the back of his head on the control panel behind him, accidentally activating the ship's external lights.
"Crap!" he whispered loudly and shut off the lights with as much speed as he could, but the damage had already been done. The soldiers cautiously surrounded the ship, blasters out and ready to fire. The Jedi motioned to two of the soldiers and ordered in a cautious tone, "You two come with me, the rest of you watch the outside to make sure nobody leaves"
Tre groaned and opened up a small hatch that led into the ship's wiring system before closing it back up and readying his blaster. At least he had the element of surprise. He could hear the soldiers and Jedi enter the ship and begin to search. Tre took solace in the fact that they wouldn't find anything incriminating, he never took trophies or kept records of any kind onboard. The most offensive thing he had was some explicit music files.
The soldiers continued their search, uncovering his cache of weapons and personal belongings, but he could tell from the tone of their voices that they were still very suspicious. They sere making their last rounds of the ship when they passed the hatch behind which Tre was hiding, their footsteps echoing down the hallway. Suddenly one set of footsteps stopped and soon the other two had as well. Tre could hear faint whispers coming from outside, but couldn't discern what they were saying.
The hatch clicked and Tre fumbled with his blaster and dropped it out of surprise. 'And I'm supposed to be a professional' he thought as the hatch was opened.
"Exit the compartment immediately and provide identification" said one of the soldiers in armor, pointing his blaster at Tre. Tre grunted and pulled himself out of the crawlspace and remembered at the last second to at least act nervous. He pulled out a datapad he had attached to his belt and pulled up one of his fake identities on it. "Here you go" he said in a nervous voice, "That's my information".
The soldiers looked it over, and passed the datapad to the Jedi. She looked through it for a couple of seconds before handing it back to the troopers. "You know your stuff." she said in a cold tone, "This nearly fooled me, I'll give you that, but you're mind says otherwise".
"Jedi can't read minds" Tre responded, dropping the fake nervousness. To him there was no point, he could take them anyway.
In one fluid motion Tre grabbed one of the soldiers' guns and rammed it into the Jedi's face, sending her sprawling. He fired twice into the chest of the trooper who was still armed, leaving smoking holes in the white armor. The second soldier jumped and landed on his back while Tre was momentarily distracted and Tre struggled to shake him off. He stumbled around as the soldier's arm closed around his throat and he felt himself growing dizzy, but he fought through it and slammed his back into a wall, causing the trooper to lose his grip.
Tre turned around and shot the man in the face before turning back to where the Jedi now faced him, her green lightsaber mere inches from his face. He could hear the hum of the deadly weapon and feel it's heat against his skin, though he still stood, unafraid.
"By the order of the republic, I command you to drop the weapon and identify yourself!" the Jedi spoke with authority, anger clear in her voice. She wanted to kill him, but her code made it impossible unless he'd done something far worse.
Tre smirked and let the blaster slide out of his grip and clatter to the floor. "Who cares about my name?" he said clearly, "Not you. You'll probably just kill me afterwards". He had found from experience that the best way to annoy a Jedi was to insinuate they were murderers, and he intended to make full use of that fact. But first he'd have to get himself out of this situation. For anyone else that might prove quite a challenge, but for for Tre, a man who had spent his entire life pretending to be a multitude of other people, that wouldn't be a problem.
Step one: create a personality; something simple, complication would make it more unbelievable. A simple man pulled into this by Dooku's lies, that would do. Step two: a motive; to prove that he was a hero,someone the galaxy would be proud of. Fame was always a good motive. And finally step three: a name; Clay, that would work. It wasn't too different from his own name, which would make it that much easier to remember. All of this was calculated in his head in a fraction of a second.
"I'm a Jedi" she responded, "I don't kill. Now tell me your name or I might have to rethink my career choices"
It was an empty threat, but Tre knew that in order to get out of this situation with any semblance of a chance to escape he would have to play along.
"Okay" he said, letting defeat slide into his voice, "My name is Clay. Just don't kill me".
The Jedi smirked. Tre inwardly grinned, she was falling for it. With any luck he'd be put onto an easily escapeable prison shuttle. "Well then Clay" the Jedi said, "What are you doing here? Same deal as before, tell me or I may as well break the Jedi Code".
"I'm here to make the galaxy a better place, to help get rid of the evil Jedi." Tre responded, trying his best not to give the answer too soon. "Dooku was right, you are willing to kill anyone who gets in your way".
The Jedi looked at Tre for a few moments, as if processing what he had just said. She activated her comlink and spoke into it, "Change of plans troopers, we've got a prisoner".
It took a lot to stop Tre from smiling even the tiniest bit, the pan had gone off without a hitch. Perhaps in another life he would have made a good actor. He soon found himself surrounded by soldiers as the squad continued clearing the mostly empty hallways. From what Tre could gather, the main fight was going on outside,but many of the main officials were still in the complex. He couldn't tell what expressions the troopers had due to their helmets, but the Jedi glanced at him from time to time with an expression that could kill a Wookie.
The silence was incredibly awkward without much speaking apart from the occasional order from the Jedi to the squad. They were efficient, but the search itself was dull and pointless. Tre was not impressed by how long it was going to take to get him into a prisoner transport ship, but was willing to wait in order to have minimal security.
Unfortunately fate had other plans for Tre. The squad of Republic soldiers had the great misfortune of running into a large armed escort of the main officials who were fleeing the complex. Blaster bolts whizzed by his head as the droids all fired their blasters, aiming for Tre as well as the troopers and Jedi. Two soldiers went down immediately before the squad managed to duck into a couple different hallways.
Tre dodged a blaster bolt and landed facefirst next to two troopers who had their backs up against a wall. Tre peered around a corner and was immediately forced to duck back to avoid a barrage of blaster bolts.
"How good is your side now?" one of the soldiers asked him in a sarcastic tone, "As you can see they don't give a damn about you anymore".
Tre doubted that the droids gave a damn about him in the first place, but instead seized another opportunity to escape. "Can you pass me a blaster then?" he asked, raising his voice to be heard above the gunfire.
The trooper he was talking to chuckled, "No way, you're just gonna shoot me and return to your side". The other trooper peeked out from under cover and fired a few times before taking a bolt to the chest and falling over dead.
Before either of them could react, a fragmentation grenade bounced inside the hallway where the two men were taking cover. Tre quickly and instinctively threw it back and ducked to the side as the resounding explosion shook the hallways and scattered the Separatist forces. "How about that blaster now?" Tre asked and the trooper reluctantly handed over his fallen comrade's weapon. "Don't make me regret this" the trooper said simply.
"Fall back!" the Jedi ordered from where she stood and began pulling with her a soldier. The Republic troops fell back swiftly with Tre and the trooper he'dbeen talking to providing cover fire. Once out of the line of sight of the droids, the Jedi frantically led them down several halls and up two levels until they found a small abandoned war room in order to catch their breaths.
"Who gave him a blaster?" the Jedi demanded angrily, pointing at Tre.
"Uh, that was me" the trooper he'd sheltered with said nervously.
"And you thought that was a good idea, why?"
"Well you see, he threw back a grenade, which was probably the reason we were able to escape." the trooper responded, "And he did help cover our retreat..."
The Jedi turned to Tre and said in an authoritative tone, "Clay, give me one good reason why I should allow you to keep that blaster."
"They tried to kill me too." Tre said, seizing the moment, "And to think that I trusted them..."
The Jedi looked sympathetic for a second but soon turned back to the troopers, "Only five of you left, six with Clay, and Seven with me. Fuck."
"I know a way out of here" Tre offered, "It's easy enough and it could take us right to the main battle, though I can't guarantee where we'd be on the battlefield".
"Well general?" a trooper asked, "What's the plan?"