Kommissar Fin grimaced as he saw the Jedi's shuttle land.
"What does that meddling girl want now!?" he grumbled. He was never fond of the Jedi's interference. The plan had to move forward, and such scrutiny of the operations around the mines jeopardized his ability to please his bosses.
Profit was progress, after all.
Ahsoka Tano stormed off the ship almost faster than the dock could lower. A few low level administraters were there to greet her.
"My Lady, what an unexpected pleasure-"
She was not in the mood for small talk but remained polite.
"-I'm afraid it's not entirely pleasant for me to be here. A surprise for all of us, but I need to speak to your superiors."
They followed Ahsoka meekly towards an industrial building of monstrous size near the dig sites.
The Kommissar scoffed and turned to his cohorts, Separatist renegade Dr. Nuvo Vindi and an older gentleman who calmly smiled as the Kommissar panicked.
"What do we do? We can't tell the Jedi about the experiments! We'll be ruined! How can we stop her, De Nomolos!?"
The older man just popped a cracker treat in his mouth as he sat at his opulent desk.
"Let her come. This investigation will be fruitless anyway."
Dr Vindi giggled I think we should let her investigate! Let this Jedi, Ahsoka Tano, find out...for herself!"
Vindi and De Nomolos chuckled, and soon, even the Kommissar was enjoying the idea.
"Dr Vindi, given your past transgressions on Naboo, I think you should leave for the operations center to monitor progress of our waste deposits. Make sure the dumpings are going as scheduled." De Nomolos waved him away.
Dr Vindi bowed and exited.
Ahsoka entered the corporate offices of Nomolos De Nomolos, and was not intimidated by their large gruff security guards as she walked past them to get on the elevator.
She leaned to her com link.
"Barriss, I'm in. I'll keep you posted. Star phase II of the plan. Come in to check their records while I distract them away from the offices."
"Understood." Barriss replied. Using her Jedi stealth, Barriss exited the shuttle as guards were distracted by popping noises she created with the Force. Barriss reached the building wall and cut a square into it as discreetly as possible.
She walked calmly into the main office
"Jedi Commander Tano! We are honored. What do we owe this surprise visit?"
"I'll get right down to business." Ahsoka stood before the two men "I've been getting reports of unsafe practices and deaths of miners at this installation. I need to confirm right now that you are doing everything necessary to keep the safety standards up!"
"Of course, we are!" De Nomolos smiled "I think some of those reports are mere exaggerations by a bunch of trumped up enviromentalists. The danger of these mines is minimal. And the deaths...well, they are very few."
"I contacted several Jedi and Senators to help with the investigation in the offices of Coruscant."
Ahsoka looked at De Nomolos with overconfidence.
The old man kept smiling while the Kommissar frowned, curling his mouth in polite disgust.
"Now, now...there's no need to bring the Jedi into this. Nor the Senate" De Nomolos said in a deadly quiet tone.
"I think it is necessary, to find out if there are any injuries the company has been hiding or casualties off the record. If there are health violations going on, I intend to put a stop to it!"
"Would you like a tour of the mine, perhaps?" The Kommissar smiled with malice "You can see for yourself there are no tricks, no misleading agendas."
She thought for a moment "Show me."
The Kommissar took her to the mine with two other miners and let her board the lift going down.
"Show the good Jedi how the mine really works." He ordered the miners.
They went down hundreds of feet.
"Just stay close to us, M'am. It will be quick and easy."
Ahsoka looked at her companions. they were gruff, dirty men who finished a long shift and they looked exhausted.
"Have you experienced anytrhing strange or extra ordinary at the mines?" She asked them.
"Well, a couple of the guys were found dead, with a sickly green color on their bodies. The medics tell us it's just rare gases, but it is a bit off. And no one reports it to the home office, not with that big shot De Nomolos in charge. Still, we can't just leave for a new job. We have families to support."
They reached the bottom and started out into well lit tunnels.
"These are the main tunnels" One of the miners led the way "There haven't been many incidents along here. We usually use the digging machines to do all the dangerous work."
"Where are the men who were turned green found?" Ahsoka asked.
"We call that section the East Tinto, since we are mining under the Tinto plateau. When the men were being infected by the green stuff, it was sealed off. Haven't had any more men affected by it."
The other mner continued "We have had poison gas accidents, some cave ins, and an elevator malfunction. But this green stuff...it was horrible."
"You think it's an infection?" Ahsoka looked down the cave tunnel with her flashlight.
"It may have been...chemical. Some of us speculate De Nomolos was dumping toxic wastes down here."
"But that's illegal!" Ahsoka reacted.
The miners shrugged "Can't prove any of it now. That place is sealed. Nobody goes there."
Ahsoka called up Barriss on her com link
"Barriss, come in."
"I'm here, Ahsoka. I'm in the main computer library, downloading the files of activity at this facility!" Barriss whispers her excitement.
"Get all the information you can on all incidents from the East Tinto section of the mine. I think the company has been disposing of their waste materials there."
"I'm looking now." Barriss typed up the research with fast fingers.
Ahsoka and the miners had heard a noise behind them
"Is that the lift?" She started to worry.
The other miners rushed back "The lift is being sent back up!"
They reached the landing where they arrived. The lift that brought them was being raised.
"They're leaving us!" Ahsoka gasped.
The miners were concerned but did not panic "No, we're in the main shaft. More miners will be coming with the next shift. All we have to do is wait."
She did not relax too much, realizing that anything could happen, be she felt better knowing the miners were not scared.
"Barriss, I'm sort of stuck down here, but I will be up soon. Get the information and get back to the ship."
"Are you going to be okay?" Bariss heard noises outside the computer library as she asked, making her even more alert.
"We'll be fine. I'll see you soon, my lo-...my friend."
Ahsoka and Barriss felt a wall of loneliness in this mission, and Ahsoka almost broke her feelings through, her unspoken feelings.
Barriss smiled. To just hear Ahsoka almost say it, she could fly a million miles, and swim through the deepest dangers. Just to hear those words.
Barriss heard the door to the library open, she stayed hidden under a computer desk as two armed men walked to a computer terminal o the other side of the room.
"Dr Vindi!" One raised a communications link on the terminal. "New orders from De Nomolos. You are to start flooding the main mineshaft with the excess waste barrels. All traces of the Jedi are to be wiped away. The Kommissar and De Nomolos will open a new dig on a different part of the plateau. There's plenty of places to dig!"
Dr Vindi responded gleefully "It will be a delicious end to this pest!"
Barriss gasped "Dr Vindi!"
She waited until the guards left before going to a window, and could see Vindi at the mine entrance, observing as a large transport started dumping large barrels of waste down the elevator shaft.
"Ahsoka! Come in!" Barriss called out on her com link.
"Did you get the download?" Ahsoka asked, alarmed by the tone of Barriss' voice.
"Get out of there! Dr Vindi is involved in this! He's dumping waste down the entrance! You've got to find a way out!"
Ahsoka looked to one of the miners as he stood by the elevator. "Everybody, look out!" she shouted.
Barrels of toxic waste were now smashing against the walls on their way down, and smashing against the ground, splashing everywhere.
The first miner was doused in green chemicals and started coughing and gasping. Smoke was rising from his skin as it burned in a chemical stench. He was dead in seconds.
"Don't touch the green!" She told the other miner. He backed away in terror.
"They've led us down here...TO DIE!" He panicked.
Ahsoka took the scared miner and they went deeper into the tunnels to get away from the chemical spill flooding the shaft, burning the floor and walls like a powerful corrosive acid.
"Barriss, get back to the ship! If I'm not out in 30 minutes, you have to get away and warn the officials, warn Senator Amidala."
"Ahsoka...I won't leave you!" Barriss remained calm, but was apprehensive. "I know you will find a way out!"
Ahsoka and the miner ran deeper down into the dark. "Get to the ship, Barriss! Be ready! You've got to be the one to escape!"
Barriss had a sick feeling in her stomach, like she was never going to see Ahsoka again.
"No!" Barriss ran out of the library and through the corridors, trying to find a way to her.
Ahsoka and the miner wandered in the mine. They heard noises in the deep.
"Is there anyone else here besides us?" She asked.
"No, the next shift was not ready to start. Who could be down here?" He waved his flashlight ahead.
As they entered a little deeper, they found another horrifying discovery.
"WORMS! Giant worms!" Ahsoka gasped.
The worms were burrowing through the tunnels, into the walls, and in the ceilings and floors of the mine.
And they glowed a horrible green.
"Sometimes, we find the worms in the fungus down here, but never THIS big! They're supposed to be harmless!" The miner panics!
"All that dumping!" Ahsoka realized "They've adopted to the chemicals in the dumping and it made them grow! And now they are eating everything they can find! LOOK OUT!"
Ahsoka yelled a warning, but the miner was in such terror at the sight, he turned to run down a tunnel, but was surrounded by the worms. They all took turns slurping their tongues into his head.
They were drinking his brains.
Ahsoka pulled out her saber and started killing them as they crawled towards her.
"Barriss, the chemicals are not only poison, they have mutated the worms in the soil, in the mines. This whole facility is contaminated with illegal dumping. There must be thousands! Thousands...of brain worms!"
Ahsoka ran through the tunnel towards the east Tinto section. There was a small spark of hope that maybe it could still be a way out.
She was wrong. The tunnel was crudely blocked off by rubble, an imposed explosion. It was only a matter of time now. The brain worms, mutated by the waste, would dominate the mines, and her only hope of completing the mission would be in Barriss' hands.
But Barriss was not ready to give up. She had memorized the files, and part of that was a map to the mine. She realized Ahsoka's only way out was the East Tinto section.
The great irony was that the entrance to that section of the mine was built upon. The main building she was in held the tunnel to East Tinto. The whole building was designed as another cover up. But Barriss knew where to go.
Dozens of droid guards that surrounded her in the corridor as she made her way to the mine entrance.
"Ah, a second Jedi! How clever!" De Nomolos laughed from a safe distance.
"You thought I would never notice Commander Ahsoka Tano as a distraction while you infiltrated our headquarters. You underestimate my intelligence!"
Barriss furled her brow. Delayed from rescuing her friend, her lover. She was now more irate than scared.
"I'm giving you one chance to make this right. You can help me rescue Ahsoka and face punishment for negligence, don't turn this into murder! I'm begging you!"
De Nomolos and the Kommissar laughed.
"Oh, such spirit! But we can't have you reporting our activities! Count Dooku would be displeased, right Kommissar Fin? Besides, I like murder! And it is delicious when it is a Jedi!"
The droids raise their guns, and De Nomolos savors the moment.
"Killing one Jedi is a joy...killing TWO in the same day...that is a luxury!"
"FIRE!" Kommissar Fin shouted.
But, in their enthusiasm, they failed to realize the hallway was FILLED with droids, and only one Jedi, a Jedi that was quite nimble.
Barriss jumped away with incredible agility as the droids blasted each other. Her light saber was a fury, knocking a path to the mine entrance that had been hidden by the building.
De Nomolos, perturbed that Barriss got away, went to the intercom in the hallway as dozens of droids chased her.
He not only connected to Barriss' communicator, he connected to Ahsoka's, to maximize his gloating and intimidation.
"Run, little girl! Run! There is no place to hide! Your cowardice only delays your death and there is nothing that can stop the death of your pathetic friend. Pity you were both so easily tricked! I expected better from Jedi!"
Ahsoka's heart sank "Barriss! Get out of there! You can't stop him by yourself...and you can't reach me...Get out of here. Barriss..."
The chemicals now started hovering in a gas, and Ahsoka was choking. She could see the mutated brain worms coming for her. Hundreds of them, digging through the tunnel towards her.
"Barriss...Gardez mon amour. adieu."
There was silence for a moment. Then, there was a long pile of dead droids on the way to the mine entrance.
There was also a horrible noise that followed Ahsoka's words, and trailed along that pile of dead droids.
The noise of when a good Jedi goes to war.
De Nomolos and Kommissar Fin started fleeing to the control bunker at the top of the building, but they could still hear the Banshee wailing. They could still hear the slaughter of dozens of droids. She was going to do the impossible...and then she was coming for them.
Demons run with failed guns
Night will fall and drown the suns
when a good Jedi goes to war.
Barriss did not stop, but became so in tune with the Force and the driving pain in her heart, she did not think or stop as she smashed her way through droid guards to the mine entrance and jumped down the elevator shaft. Falling in the darkness, she could only see the tears blotting her eyes, not even afraid of crashing into the ground. She could sense the bottom, and controlled her descent with a slow levitation until she touched the floor.
True Love flies into darkness high
Dawn will break the Devil's stake
When a good Jedi goes to war.
Barriss ran, ran with untapped strength, using all her efforts to navigate the darkness, until she came to the wall of rubble.
"AHSOKA! AHSOKA!" She called out.
She could hear Ahsoka coughing, and sensed she was almost overwhelmed by the poison. She could also sense the horrible creatures getting closer.
All of her love and sadness, all of her heart's desire and fears were brought to the breaking point.
She cleared her mind of all things except her truest love. With a final banshee's wail, she threw every last ounce of energy of the Force into that wall, shattering it.
Barriss ran to Ahsoka, who lay in the dirt of the floor. She was not moving.
"No, Ahsoka, no! Please! You can't be gone you can't! I don't know how to...what to do...Ahsoka...Don't die..."
Barriss was falling apart. Ahsoka gently grabbed her hand, barely breathing.
Barriss locked eyes with her and let her healing go into Ahsoka's body through their hands.
Barriss wiped away her tears "I know I should have finished the mission, and you will yell at me later, but I don't care! I'm actually looking forward to being yelled at, and demoted, and thrown in prison, and yelled at again!"
Barriss looked up and saw the swarm of brain worms crawling towards them. Thousands of worms almost two feet long, eating and tunneling and harvesting their way through the walls.
Barriss picked Ahsoka up and started carrying her back to the elevator shaft. Barriss picked up her communicator, and changed the frequency back on De Nomolos.
Just as he had patched into her communication with Ahsoka, Barriss patched hers into the entire facility communications network.
"By order of the Republic and the Jedi, I am shutting down this mine and putting it under quarantine. All miners are to evacuate for your own safety!"
She walked fast as the worms burrowed behind her, following her.
"De Nomolos...I am bringing judgement day to you!"
She walked to the elevator with a solid stare, cradling Ahsoka.
"SHUT DOWN THE ELEVATOR!" De Nomolos screamed in a frenzy. He thought he could destroy the Jedi, but he had underestimated both of them, and his fear of the mythical Warriors made him panic.
The Kommissar was now in full panic as well. "I want every droid up in the command center! NOW!"
The top floor of the building was a fortress.
Barriss tried the elevator, but power had been cut off.
The worms burrowed closer and started to eat away at the support all around the building's foundation.
Barriss looked down at Ahsoka, unable to wipe away one of her tears because her arms were full.
"Avec tout mon couer..."
Barriss kissed her truest love as the worms started to swarm all around the shaft.
Barriss lifted up in a levitation, still in her embrace with Ahsoka, her kiss. No matter how the day would end, they were together.
In minutes, she was at the top and landed safely. Her soft lips parted from Ahsoka's and Ahsoka smiled even though she was still weak from the chemical gas.
The buildings foundations started to rumble and shake as the swarm below ate through the dirt and walls.
Barriss walked to her square hole, and calmly exited as parts of the building collapsed around her.
Everything was falling to pieces, and droids were heard screaming and being crushed as sections of the building collapsed into the darkness of the East Tinto mine shaft.
The Kommissar and De Nomolos screamed as they, too, felt the building collapse around them, swallowing them down into the worm infested ruins of the mine.
Barriss walked to the shuttle as the entire building vanished. The swarm was also destroyed. Crushed by their own hunger.
The miners, innocent pawns in this Separatist scheme, were fleeing into orbit, escaping the disaster. Even Dr Vindi had wisely fled in his own escape shuttle. Ahsoka looked up and thought of the two men who perished because of her. Ahsoka's guilt would haunt her, but she hoped the Republic would soon make things right for those who suffered here.
Barriss laid Ahsoka in a medical bed with care and caressed her face, telling her to sleep. She went to pilot the shuttle to safety, but her heart dwelt on Ahsoka.
For now, they had succeeded. In Love and in War, all was fair.