Chapter 5
After their initial meeting, Sekava was surprised how often he came across Zaren. It seemed like the Twi'lek was following him around everywhere, trying to find a reason to mess with him even though they never noticed each other before they met in Hashi's room. On his way to telekinesis class taught by a young Zabrak Sith Lord that went solely by Ced, Sekava found himself shoved sideways into some other students. After he calmed the angry students and helped them pick their things up, he saw Zaren disappear into the classroom with his entourage. Zaren's friends, whose names Sekava had not yet learned, snickered as they followed him in.
Sekava finally moved his way into the class, and found the last available seat – right beside Zaren. No doubt rested in Sekava's mind that the Twi'lek had planned the situation when he saw a broad grin greeting him.
"Good," Ced said in is unnaturally mellow voice that seemed out of place among the Sith. "Now that we're all here I would like you to work with the person beside you. One person will try to lift an object, while the other will try to prevent the other from doing so. Begin."
"I hear you're not too bad with TK, Sicky," Zaren commented once the noise level in the class escalated. "But you're just a little kid in it compared to me."
"We'll see about that," Sekava said, lifting a rock on the desk with his mind and looked at Zaren expectedly.
A slight tap with Zaren's mind dropped the stone with a solid thud on the desk.
"Too easy," Zaren yawned, and lifted the rock. "Your turn."
Sekava assessed the rock with the Force, stretching out his perceptions. He could push the stone down and try to overpower Zaren, which may be possible, or...
He cocked his head on an angle, looked Zaren in the eye with a smirk, and sent the befuddled Twi'lek soaring against the nearest wall.
"What was that?" Ced called out in an unusually harsh voice amongst the class' chorus of laughs. "Sekava, what did you do?"
"I made him drop the rock," Sekava explained, pointing to the rock now sitting peacefully on the desk. "You never said how we had to prevent them from lifting it."
Ced told the class not to attack their partner, but to focus on the partner's control over the object.
"Smart, Sicky," Zaren sneered as he pulled his chair back up to the desk. "Real smart. Your turn."
Sekava lifted the rock, and again he found he found himself unable to pick the rock up for more than a second.
"Ha!" Zaren grinned. "Beat that. My turn."
Zaren lifted the rock and spun it on two axes to show off. Sekava assessed the Twi'lek's attempts, and decided he would try to use his telekinetic abilities to push the rock downwards. He gave it a good hard shove, the mental equivalent to a downward push with the palm, and was rewarded by the rock moving three-quarters of the way to the table. Zaren gasped in surprise, and shoved back as hard as he could. The rock found itself caught between both men's push, not budging more than a millimetre in either direction. A few moments later, the rock shattered under the stress of two strong minds pushing against it in opposite directions. The shards fell to the desk as neither could telekinese that many small objects at one time.
"I suppose that's a tie," Zaren reflected bitterly.
"I don't know," Sekava grinned. "It looks to me that the rock is down. Well, what's left of it."
"Cute," Zaren sneered. He got up in search for a new rock to use.
In Zaren's absence Sekava took a moment to reflect on his past failures, and what happened when he was forced to drop the object. He had sensed a small push against the part of his mind that he used with telekinesis, a subtle nudge that distracted him long enough to break his concentration.
If it worked against me, maybe it can work for me, Sekava thought. When Zaren returned with a new rock, he placed it on the table and Sekava focused on lifting the rock. Sekava stretched out with the Force and sensed the part of his own brain that was being used to hold the rock up. He knew he may not be able to overpower Zaren for long based on their previous attempt, but it would provide a good start.
Zaren had slapped the rock down again before Sekava even finished looking.
Hey there, little guy, Sekava thought at the telekinesis part of Zaren's brain once he finally found it. Now how do I distract you?
He thought to his class on illusions and mind tricks, recalling a lesson about distracting the eyes, how one had to make them see a desired illusion to fool them. He decided to use that same technique, making that tiny part of Zaren's tiny brain think the rock had been lifted, making its need to work disappear. Being lazy, like all of nature, the little section of brain accepted Sekava's illusion that the rock was being lifted, and it relaxed itself with pleasure that its task was being completed.
The rest of Zaren's brain had absolutely no idea why the rock would not lift itself, as hard ask he focused on it.
"Something wrong?" Sekava asked with happiness at the look of extreme frustration on Zaren's face.
"What are you doing?" Zaren demanded, angry at Sekava's success against him.
"Aside from winning?" Sekava asked, happy that Zaren was utterly baffled by his eyes telling him what his brain told him was not true. "Not much. What are you doing, aside from losing?"
-
Roshi was sitting beside Darth Treulos in the co-pilot's seat staring out at the asteroid field when Lanos and his counterpart on the other team, Gerik, entered the cockpit. Lanos stopped to look out at the field himself, momentarily startled by the sheer chaotic beauty of the asteroids as they tumbled their way through their self-destructive existances. Occasionally two or three would impact each other and send out a starburst of mineral rich rocks that glistened in the distant starlight. Amid the asteroid field was a red-grey oblong planetoid that was their destination.
"Hey Lanos, we're just about there," Roshi said cheerfully. "We're almost in position to contact the base."
"Excellent," Gerik said, dressed in his red armour and flexing his hands in anticipation for the upcoming battle. "My team is ready to deploy."
"So's mine," Lanos growled. "But don't forget that we go first."
"We will stick to the plan," Gerik replied, angered at Lanos' apparent insubordination. "Just make sure you do as well."
"Quit your bickering," Darth Treulos ordered, and then pointed at Roshi. "You, fool, contact them."
"Only because I live to serve the Sith," Roshi said sarcastically, flipping the transmit switch before she could retaliate. "Attention Black Vornskr base, this is the slave ship Gweedos with the shield technicians you requested out of Nar Kreeta. I am transmitting our creds. Please transmit docking and navigational instructions."
"Gweedos, this is Black Vornskr control," A miserable woman's voice responded. "Please wait while we check your credentials. Do not go anywhere or our defences will open fire."
"Acknowledged," Roshi transmitted and sat back.
"Can you be any less annoying?" Darth Treulos scowled at Roshi.
"Hey, I said I'm sorry," Roshi said defensively. "I know we got off to a bad start, but I'm willing to start over."
"If I could invest for every time these two try killing each other," Lanos said to Gerik. "I'd make Fett look like a poor kid on the street."
"Shouldn't they have answered by now?" Gerik grunted.
"Don't know," Roshi said. "I'm picking up some serious comm traffic going on around the planet."
"This doesn't look good," Gerik said. "Let's get out of here."
"Relax," Lanos said, calm as a napping sandpanther. "They're obviously not…"
"…going to let us get out of here alive!" Gerik growled. "We should leave while we can."
"We'll be fine," Darth Treulos sneered at Gerik. "Go back with your team."
"Gweedos, this is Black Vornskr," The woman's voice returned. "Please follow the nav beacons. If you stray from the path, you will be destroyed by our satellite defence grid."
"There you go," Lanos said smugly.
"What satellites?" Roshi asked, setting the navicomputer to identify the beacons that were being activated and looking at Darth Treulos. "You never said anything about satellite defences!"
"Must be new," Darth Treulos said. "We'll have to figure out how to take those out, too."
Ten minutes later the ship came down on final approach, and they finally saw why this base was so feared. Fifty high-powered defence turrets, fifty ion cannons, and six planetary shield generators were readily visible to the naked eye on the top of a mountain. Inside the mountain was the pirate base, and Roshi suspected there to be underground torpedo launchers and a plethora of other hidden weapons.
As Darth Treulos manoeuvred the ship into the docking bay, they saw over a dozen cargo ships being loaded up with various forms of contraband, and at least two dozen snubfighters. In all, it appeared to be a shipping operation of at least a thousand people.
"Wow," Lanos commented, looking at a stack of crates being loaded onto a ship. "I haven't seen that much spice in one place since before Kessel was taken over by the Imps."
"Get to the loading ramp," Darth Treulos ordered as she settled the ship onto the docking bay floor. "They don't look like they enjoy waiting."
Roshi and Lanos left to collect their gear and wish Garik's red-armoured troops well, and then joined the rest of their team at the boarding ramp. A moment later Darth Treulos appeared with her equipment bag and she lowered the ramp. Seven guards were waiting with blasters pointed them, and an eighth holding a datapad.
"Credentials?" The one holding the datapad held out a hand without looking up. Lanos stepped forward to supply a datachip with their details. She slapped the chip into the receptacle on the datapad, and a moment later she handed it back.
"Welcome to the Black Vornskr base," She finally looked up and the guards dispersed. "This way."
She led them down some winding corridors and up several floors to an empty room with a holographic model of the base already active.
"This is a schematic of our base," She pointed at the bottom of the model to four boxes proudly. "These are the power generators far below the surface, the backbone of our quadruple redundant power system."
She then pointed to the top at six glowing blue boxes.
"And these are the shield generators. There are six generators total, and we can be completely protected with just two running, but quite safe with only one."
She pressed a button, and one of the boxes turned red. "Generator Four is why we asked you out there. We can't seem to get it to stabilize since our installer decided to try running away and got himself vaporized by our defence net. Get it running, and we'll pay you well. Fail, and we won't."
"Yeah, yeah, we'll get it going," Lanos said, ignoring the implied threat and trying to act like an impatient cocky engineer. "How do we get out there?"
The woman pressed some more buttons, and a corridor lit up leading to an airlock about two floors above, then she handed him a keycard.
"Pressure suits are in the cabinet behind you," She said. "This will get you through the airlock. Don't forget to close the airlock door on the inside before you open the outside one."
"Why, what will happen?" Roshi asked, drawing a very odd stare from her.
"What do you think will happen?" She asked.
"I think the big guy behind you is going to knock you out so we can go blow up your shield generators."
"You…wha…?" She barely had a chance to turn around to face an elbow mashing her jaw hard enough to twist her head around the way it came and cause her body to crumple to the floor in a twisted mess of arms and legs.
"Annoying woman," Trigger grunted. "Let's blow something up."
"Suit up, everyone," Lanos ordered, locking the door and returning to his duffel bag. "Squeak, plug in and find out whatever you can about that satellite defence network."
Darth Treulos pulled out a comm link and tuned in an encrypted frequency.
"Team One, the generators are below as we suspected," She announced. "They have four generators so proceed with Plan A; we're working on Plan C."
"Acknowledged, Team Two," Garik replied. "We're going after the power generators."
A few moments later Squeak found what he was looking for.
"The defence grid is remote activated," He explained as he hastily affixed his armour with Roshi's help. "There are three communication disks on the surface that can each send out the activation command. Without a steady stream of commands, they fall inert."
"Excellent," Lanos said. "That'll be our secondary target. Let's move out."