The center of the Armand Isard Correctional Facility's roof exploded, leaving a smoking hole thirty meters in diameter that allowed a dozen rappel lines to cling to on its circular edge by their grappling ends. The masked mercenaries on the other ends of the rappel lines, which had been shot out by their ascension guns, rocketed up to the roof and they, along with their escaped convict, headed for the transport shuttle at one ledge of the roof.
Once the mercenaries and their charge were close enough, the side of the shuttle opened up to reveal an empty passenger cabin suited for dispatching a whole slew of commandos onto a battlefield. All thirteen of the prison escapees plunged into the opening of the shuttle, which then closed once they were all aboard, and it zoomed off into the sky of Coruscant, activating its cloak to make sure that it would lose all pursuit.
Inside the shuttle, the escaped convict, a pale-skinned female humanoid, looked around to the masked mercenaries around her.
"Thanks for the breakout, guys," Aurra Sing said. "But may I ask where we're going?"
"Your talents are in need, Miss Sing," the mercenary across from her said. "And the Hapes Consortium is just where you'll put them to use."
"Didn't have a good experience in the Consortium," Sing replied, crossing her arms across her chest in scrutiny. "Who's the client and what's the job?"
"You'll know when we get there," the mercenary replied evenly.
Sing sighed. She knew she should be grateful to these mercenaries for busting her out of prison, but considering the last time she took a job in the Transitory Mists, she ended up in a cell aboard the Anakin Solo so she could be incarcerated back on Coruscant.
She only hoped that, whatever it was, even if it was going after the Hapan Chume'da again, wouldn't land her back behind a locked durasteel door.
.
Half a dozen vornskrs were feeding on the burned corpses of three unidentifiable figures - two vornskrs for each body - before one vornskr from each corpse received a blaster bolt in the head, dropping their lifeless bodies to the ground. The remaining trio of vornskrs perked up when they noticed their dead mates, but before they could flee, they were also all given a blaster bolt each in the head.
Seeing that the predators were neutralized, the three Jedi who killed them, blasters still in hand, stepped out of the nearby bushes on Master Lowbacca's lead and walked up to the corpses to regard their burned and half-eaten brethren. The three of them - Lowbacca and Jedi Knights Radd Minker and Turi Altamik - stood there silently for a while out of respect for their fallen.
Lowbacca turned and gave a brief roar. Three human males then appeared from behind some trees before the Wookiee bearing hovering medical tables. The men carefully picked up the mutilated Jedi bodies and placed them on the tables. Then, at Lowbacca's nod, they all began to hurry back to the shuttle provided by Booster Terrik for just this purpose.
.
Tenel Ka, seated in her throne, allowed the representative from Terephon prattle on about taxation problems on that world for several minutes before the doors to the throne room were swung open, interrupting the representative.
"Your Majesty," a male news bearer announced with a closed commlink in hand, "Galactic Alliance Chief of State Gerila Shesh wishes to speak to you."
Tenel Ka thinned her lips in hesitation. "Come here and activate the comm."
The bearer nodded and rushed over to kneel before his Queen Mother and activate the commlink, allowing the features of Chief of State Shesh to come to life in a blue hue.
"Queen Mother Djo," Shesh said, "I have requested to speak to you, as I want to let you know that I will be arriving at Hapes in two days with a Galactic Alliance fleet."
"What for, Chief Shesh?" Tenel Ka inquired.
"To convince you to release your hold on the Jedi Order," Shesh answered.
"And why would I want to do that?" Tenel Ka asked.
Shesh grinned. "We'll save this discussion for when we actually meet in person, Your Majesty. But for now, just know to expect a Galactic Alliance fleet hanging over Hapes in a couple days." The Chief of State then ended the communication between them.
.
"Five-U, get over to the cockpit right now!" Ford said in the audioreceptor-to-audioreceptor communication between them.
Dropping the powerbrush into the bucket of warm, soapy water on the corridor deck, Five-U pushed himself out of the smuggling compartment, which still had residue of the burned Jedi corpses, and hurried over to the Mindabaal's cockpit.
When he arrived, Ford showed him an image on his datapad, which was a "Wanted: Dead or Alive" dual holopic of the two droids, each of them listed as being worth twenty-five thousand credits. It was a public image on the HoloNet, as Five-U could see from some small lettering at the bottom right-hand corner of the image, and it said that the holopic was owned by Captain Booster Terrik of the Errant Venture.
"Well, there goes a major source of income," Five-U said sardonically.
"It's more than that now, you idiot!" Ford exclaimed. "Now that we're wanted fugitives, I somehow doubt the Jedi and their allies, like Terrik, are going to leave it at that! They're going to go after my finances, which could not only ruin Lord Plagueis's work on taking over all of reality, but we won't have a cent to bail ourselves out!"
"So what the hell are we going to do then?" Five-U asked, mildly panicked. "We can't go back to Coruscant now, the authorities will be all over us!"
"We've got to hide somewhere before we can contact the Master," Ford agreed. "But where can we go?"
They both thought for a moment before Five-U exclaimed with, "Wait! I've got an idea!"
