Luke blew out a short, dismayed breath. "I had no idea."
"I don't think anyone does," Jyr commented. "The Rakatan did well to erase all evidence of their existence."
"Not all," Luke added.
Jyr raised an eyebrow. "Download a full schematic, if possible," he said to the female tech.
"No problem," she said, furiously tapping keys on her handheld. A moment later the pyramidal facility appeared where the holo of the dragon had just disappeared. The tech frowned. "I can't get any detail below level 1578…"
"Secured?" Jyr guessed.
"No…I'm not getting a code prompt. I think they were omitted."
"Is there…" Jyr began to ask when a pounding thud reverberated from the far wall as one of the doors slitted open half a meter. "Back to the door," he yelled, jolting upright and reaching out to a piece of debris with the force. "Luke, get them back to the surface," he said, flinging his arm and the console in the direction of the partially open door.
The console hit the ground a dozen meters short and slid forward, stopping as it hit the open crack. Another piece of junk followed two seconds later, then another, and another, even as the door ratcheted up another half meter.
The techs ran back to their point of entry, half tripping over the cluttered floor as they grabbed their packs and glow rods. The Wookiees roared in frustration and anticipation of battle while Luke herded the group back the way they came. When they were all in position, he force-gripped the door and began to slowly push it up, even as a loud crash sounded behind them.
Jormukkar dropped to the ground and fired several bolts beneath the door, but they merely impacted the far wall. The droids had repositioned themselves.
Luke felt the door lock in place overhead. He ignited his lightsaber and jumped outside. "Let's move!"
Jyr felt Luke's presence move off down the corridor, but he didn't have the luxury of visually confirming his party's departure. Droids were spilling under the half-raised door and breaking through his improvised blockade, but that wasn't the worst of it. Two large mechanical hands were visible under the door, raising it slowly upward to reveal a huge bipedal droid.
Before it could get the door fully raised, Jyr raised his left hand and unleashed a torrent of force lightning at all the droids in the opening and the legs of the ubber-droid.
He didn't relent, and pumped wave after wave of energy into the droids, lighting the chamber more brightly than the flood light was capable of doing. The bluish-white pulsating light interfered with Aer-ki's vision, but he could still feel the droids before him. He could feel bits and pieces of his electrical onslaught pass through their impossibly tough armor and fry internal circuits one by one. He could also feel the internal pathways redirect around the damaged areas and return the droids to functionality.
Finally he relented. The blinding aura began to fade from his overwhelmed eyes even as one of the leading droids jerked a leg forward…then awkwardly retracted it back again. Behind the frozen droids, more scurried about. Some went off elsewhere, probably chasing Luke and his group, but many waited in place while a few more began to wedge their way between their disabled brethren.
The massive droid suddenly reactivated and the door lurched upward and locked into place. Two massive, shoulder-mounted weapons fired at Jyr the moment they were clear of the door.
The Jedi dashed sideways, dodging the twin ion blasts, and returned the favor with the force version of an ion cannon…known simply in the archives as 'destroy droid.' Not a very good name, as far as Jyr was concerned, but it was an apt description.
However, with this frustrating armor, it was more like 'stun droid,' as only a portion of the blinding white blast penetrated the battle plates, which were even thicker on the large droid. It froze in place for about ten seconds before walking forward and raising a forearm mounted blaster in Jyr's direction.
In those ten seconds of impunity, Jyr picked up two of the spider-like droids and threw them back into their brethren…then pushed them further, plowing over some twenty more droids. With them momentarily off balance, he turned around and lifted the largest piece of debris he could find and flung it at the massive droid just as it came back to life and targeted him.
The desk-sized control console hit the droid's torso and knocked it back into the corridor, where it crushed two spider droids as it fell onto its back.
Jyr blocked a blaster bolt with his lightsaber then reached out and dismembered the attacking droid, pulling out all seven of its limbs with satisfying 'pops' accompanying each joint break. The droid dropped to the ground, but still fired at Jyr from its central blaster mount.
The seven limbs floated up off the ground and shot backward as projectiles, impacting any droid in site. Aer-ki darted off to the right and ran back to their entry point into the chamber. He passed through the door that Luke had opened and blasted a force wave down the left wing of the corridor, knocking two pursuing droids back twenty meters.
Jyr ran to the right and flung another droid ahead of him up over his head and back towards the others. He held his ignited lightsaber in his right hand as he ran, just in case he needed to deflect another bolt. He didn't feel any more droids ahead of him, but non-biologicals were notoriously difficult to sense at a distance.
Running in a blur of motion, Jyr rounded the corner into the massive outer 'tunnel' and saw the techs nearing the ladder far ahead of him. He didn't slow as he turned the corner, instead he arced the turn and lept up sideways on the far wall, running a few steps laterally until he bled off enough centrifugal force for him to straighten out and return his lengthy strides to the smooth, dull floor.
He caught up to Luke as the last of the techs disappeared up the ladder. His fellow Jedi launched a mass of energy from his palm that passed within a meter of Jyr and impacted a droid turning the corner behind him. It froze in place, one leg extending out in front of it yet not quite touching the floor in a paused step.
Jyr reached the opening and jumped straight up, grabbing the edge of the circular opening with his fingertips and pulling himself up into the alcove, completely bypassing the ladder.
Luke jumped halfway up then grabbed the ladder and climbed the rest of the way to the top. There the two Jedi waited for the droids to cluster around the base of the ladder. They didn't attempt to climb up which, based on their design, Luke didn't think they were physically capable of doing.
He jerked back from the opening as a blaster bolt sliced past his face and scarred the top of the alcove. Both Jedi retreated back to the circular door with the force lock and stood in the opening, leaning against opposite sides. They kept an eye on the ladder while glancing to the swarms of Alliance personnel and Wookiees that had flooded into the room.
"Post sentries at this doorway," Jyr ordered one of the Wookiees. "If anything comes up that ladder you are to retreat from the opening and push the door closed. Inform me immediately if any change, no matter how slight. We can't let these droids make it to the surface."
The slightly taller Wookiee rumbled his agreement and replaced Jyr at the opening. Luke followed his friend back to the surface and plopped down against the trunk of one of Kashyyyk's massive trees. Jyr sat down cross-legged next to him.
"Your thoughts?" he asked.
Luke blew out a quick breath. "I sense a great deal of importance here, but I can't put my finger on it."
"The vault, I think, is something that we should investigate."
Luke raised an eyebrow. "I don't think we can make it all the way to the lower levels…at least not right away. If we make several droid killing expeditions we might be able to wear down their numbers to a manageable level."
"I got the impression from the holo that there's a droid factory below that will replace any that we kill," Jyr said.
Luke frowned. "In that case I don't how we can get down there…unless we can sneak by?"
Jyr considered that. "It's worth a try. I'll have the Alliance send us a couple of their most advanced stealth field generators."
Luke smiled. "Actually, I had something else in mind."