As with the Remote's memory banks, the datapads carried by Atton, Captain Hart, and each of the squad leaders contained all the information necessary for their mission, most importantly the codes that Atton had originally gotten from Bao-Dur. They were also supplied with detailed schematics of Singularity Base, but they had no real need of them. Their route was pretty well marked by a trail of Sith corpses. For every three or four maimed bodies in gleaming armor, there was the wreckage of one sentinel droid.
They marched or jogged through corridors, junctions, and rooms, blinking and wrinkling their noses as they passed through patches of white smoke that bled from the smoldering walls. They made a racket as they went, their boots crunching through fields of shattered glass and fragmented metal, kicking half-melted droids or mangled bodies or dropped weapons out of their way. But even through all that racket, they could make out the hell's song of laser fire that echoed down from the security zone.
Despite the amount of punishment they could take, the sentinel droids' tactical sense and maneuverability didn't match up to those of organic soldiers. So each barricade of Sith troopers they blew through still managed to whittle them down, until finally the last of them were doing what they could to help soften up the last of the defenders at the security zone, where the first waves of Republic troopers had already taken over the fighting.
Minutes passed. Along with Captain Hart, Atton had been stuck near the back of the company, because he was special and not expendable, and that was just the way it was in an army. He wasn't exactly being treated like a Jedi—they always liked to lead from the front—but he was supposed to be their trump card, the tie-breaker in case the enemy brought any Force-users of their own into play.
And he knew they would, at least a few, because he could sense them. As for exactly how many, and where… Like a single pair of footsteps in the middle of a stampede, or a few stray embers blowing through a forest fire, he found it impossible to pick out their Force signatures with the firefight going on up ahead. Malachor itself probably had something to do with it, but at any rate it was just too loud. Too much was going on. Meetra had talked about echoes, sharing the poison she'd gotten from the old witch, but when you were right next to the source of the echoes, they were just plain noises.
Hopefully the kid back at the LZ had fresher ears than he did.
Up ahead, somebody stumbled and almost tripped after stepping on something. The next few soldiers after him kicked the something against the wall, and as Atton passed he saw that it was a severed Sith trooper's head, anonymously encased in its armored helmet. He looked at Captain Hart, who looked back at him and gave a little shrug. Atton realized that the officer was younger than himself, and briefly wondered how much younger.
And the next thing he knew, he was there. He was a guy with a blaster following another guy with a blaster who was following another guy with a blaster who shouted, "GO!" and the force of a direct order carried them around a corner and into the line of fire.
Security Zone C was murderously simple. Most of the large, rectangular room was partitioned into five narrow aisles, each supporting a series of scanning devices that scientists, operators, and other personnel were supposed to pass through before entering MSG Control. There was no cover to speak of for either side; desks, screens, and security arches had long since been shot or blown to pieces, reducing the aisles to two-way shooting galleries, where the best anyone could do was crouch and hug the wall or crawl across the carpet of mangled machinery and smoking corpses.
The squads of Sith troopers down at the end had to be low on ammo and weary from the onslaught they had been weathering, but they had the luxury of staying still as they flooded the smoke-hazed corridor with blaster fire. Meanwhile the Republic army bled its way down the aisles meter by meter, stepping on or between bodies and debris, returning fire and slinging the occasional frag grenade. The guy in front was shot so that the guy behind him could make it another few steps before he got shot, so that the guy behind him could make it a few more. It was the familiar, eon-old logic of the unit: men died and the army went on.
Staying in line, Atton brought his rifle up and charged in, as fast as one could charge on that awful terrain. Going step by step, he fired up the corridor at enemies that only his intuition, or the Force, could really see. Even as he started in it was evident that the resistance was crumbling—the defenders were saving their shots. They had held the line against fifty men in this strip alone… Or how many red-clad bodies was he stepping on and over? Who was counting, except for generals and the like? But on some level numbers did matter—it was just like pazaak, except the totals went up into the hundreds or thousands instead of twenty. Throw as many decks on the table as you can fit.
Two red bolts hit the man in front of Atton, one right after the other, the first burning into his chest, then another passing through to put a pock mark onto a wall which was already black with them. The man fell forward like a ragdoll, and like a soldier, Atton stepped around him, replying to the Sith on his behalf with a semi-controlled burst of fire.
The squad Atton had come in with, what was left of it, was two thirds of the way down the aisle. As bolts tore into the wall around him and showered him with shards of metal, he got a sense of a bigger, fist-sized metal thing, also in midair. He couldn't see the frag grenade at all, or hear it as it landed among the corpses a meter ahead of him. Slowing his steps just a little, he scooped it up with his mind and flung it back down the aisle. The Sith didn't see it either. There was no scream to take cover, just an ear-gouging popping noise, a lull in the enemy fire, and more smoke.
One more meter, then another. Fire, suppressing fire, return fire, duck, move. Atton didn't smile, didn't even think about it at all in the moment, but in a way, playing war again was fun, at least for the time it took him to advance down that aisle. No lightsabers in sight. He had the Force, but there were no philosophies. No old friends, nobody really to care about. No love, no hate. No Jedi, no grand designs, no plans, no Meetra. Just him and soldiers and a few lines of fire and a million ways to die.
The next thing he knew, he was out of it. The partitions ended, and the Republic army finally disgorged itself into the last section of the security zone. What appeared to be the final pocket of defenders was bunched up behind a couple of impromptu barricades formed by overturned machinery, which were now rickety and half-gutted by damage. As they fell under a deluge of red fire, a smattering of stray bolts went behind them and dissipated harmlessly against the dark gray face of the last barrier before MSG Control. It was a circular blast door, large enough for three people, formed by pointed wedges of five-inch duramentium plating which joined in the center.
The noise of battle died along with the Sith, leaving only footfalls, coughs, and the clicks and murmurs of equipment. Hovering close to the aisle's opening, Atton checked his rifle's power cell as troopers swarmed, taking up new positions and leveling their weapons at the blast door. Not far away he saw Captain Hart surveying the carnage with grim satisfaction, a comlink held up to his mouth. "We'll be inside MSG Control soon," he was saying. "Reed, how's it looking back there?"
Atton was just about to pull out his own comlink when there was a mechanical roar as the portal ahead of him opened, its teeth-like segments retracting into the wall. It wasn't even halfway open when Republic troopers started spraying it with laser fire. Several arms flicked into view from the other side, flinging grenades between the disappearing metal teeth. One was neatly severed by a single bolt from someone's heavy rifle, but others followed up, and metal spheres bounced and rolled into the room, sending troopers diving for what little cover they could find. Somebody shouted, "SONIC!" Letting go of his rifle, Atton ducked and covered his ears.
He willed the Force to shield him from the worst of it, but wasn't sure it did. Though he was a good way off, the bursts put a little ring in his ears, and a rough, tingling wave of energy rattled his bones and turned his stomach upside-down. Looking up, he saw that the troopers who had been caught by the blasts were still in one piece, stumbling or crawling, deafened, away from the door. That was a bit puzzling. Non-lethal sonics didn't seem like a Sith weapon of choice, unless they were desperate.
Then again, desperate was exactly the right word to describe the Sith troopers—the real last line of defense, surely—who were practically shouldering past each other as they came barreling out of the opened blast door. But the room was still full of Republic troopers, and getting fuller, and their laser fire shredded the brazen counter-attackers almost as fast as they appeared. Atton felt no pity at all as he took up his rifle again and started chipping in, and he soon found that he had reason for his stridency. The Sith had tossed a few smoke grenades as well as sonic ones, and the entire wall began to disappear behind a billowing white cloud.
But the Republic army was unfazed; there couldn't be another whole garrison on the other side of the door. They simply declared total war on the cloud, flooding it with such a thick onslaught of fire that it flashed like a bloody red lightning storm. Squinting against the dazzling mess, Atton again fell back on his intuition and the Force to pick out his targets.
Then things went real wrong, real quick.
At first it was just the occasional mirror-armored body that would flop out of mist, riddled with glowing wounds and missing the occasional limb or head. Then they started running straight out with suicidal velocity, drawing some fire before sprawling on the ground halfway to the Republic troopers. Then corpses started rolling or catapulting out, twisting in midair and landing among their startled opponents.
As confusion and dismay spread through the ranks and the rate of fire decreased, Atton noticed that the smoke had turned red, but not from the flashing of lasers. It was a solid tinge, he realized, cast by a series of lights from within, lights that were moving to the fore…
And he knew what was coming.
As his hearing returned, he picked out Captain Hart's voice again. Glancing back, he saw the officer shouting orders to his last squads who had finally arrived, having them set up defensive positions. But a bunch of them were facing back the way they had come, to cover the rear. That could only mean one thing. Reed and his men had failed, and they were about to be caught in a pincer.
Atton returned his attention to the front just in time to see a dozen black-garbed Sith warriors come charging out of the expanding smoke and into the midst of the Republic troopers. Their red lightsabers traced whirling arcs before them—first through air, then through flesh and bone.
A Human Sith Acolyte in loose black garb appeared right in front of Atton, his red lightsaber slicing through Atton's blaster rifle right before where his hand was on the barrel. Whether or not the Sith Acolyte recognized him, it was a safe bet that he expected Atton, like any common scrapper, to drop what remained of his weapon, run backwards, and trip over a corpse or something and fall on his ass. It was for this reason, and for many reasons like it, that Atton still made sure to dress like a common scrapper.
In the next fraction of a second, while the Acolyte was still winding up for his follow-up slash, Atton rammed the still-glowing, yellow-hot end of the rifle into his eye. The man dutifully screamed, and as he reflexively tried to complete his swing, Atton stayed inside his reach and hit him again, this time smashing his nose. His balance and momentum gone, the man fell on his back, and Atton followed him down and slammed the rifle against his skull repeatedly until it seemed a good bet that he wouldn't be getting up again.
Around him, the security zone had reached a new level of pandemonium. The initial charge of the Sith had broken the Republic ranks, scattering troops in all directions amid bursts of reflected blaster fire and the furious dopplering hums of lightsabers.
Of the dozen or so Sith who had charged in, it looked like they were mostly Acolytes, with a handful of Marauders thrown in. The former were known by their standard black tunics, rudimentary Force training, and unparalleled recklessness. The latter, being the Sith's aspiring dueling specialists, had more years on them, superior speed and control, and wore light armor on their torsos and forearms. Just about all of them had single hilts, but a few of the Marauders were twirling two lightsabers through the mayhem.
True to the stereotype, they showed no tactical thought or teamwork skills at all. As they slashed or deflected blaster shots at whatever soldiers happened to be right in front of them, it was clear that their battle precognition was the only thing saving them from accidentally hacking each other to pieces. Their wrath and glee spilled into the Force as they flung themselves about the room, reveling in the chaos and confusion. They were less like fighters on a battlefield than kretch in a feeding frenzy.
To their credit, the Republic troopers bit back as hard as they could. Some strafed around the saber-spinning attackers, putting them in crossfire, while others drew vibroblades and went at them man-to-man. Maimed troopers who lay sprawled among the bodies used their last seconds to pull out backup pistols or take-you-with-me grenades, or even just to grab at a black boot and maybe trip one of the bastards up. Sith died, and they died like they always did, arrogantly amazed to find themselves tumbling down smoking or bloodied or in pieces just like anyone else. Even so, for every one of them it was a dozen or more troopers—just like how, a lifetime ago, it had been a dozen or so troopers for every measly Jedi.
Looking up, Atton saw another, taller silhouette coming through the smoke with lightsaber held to guard. He sprang to his feet and tossed the ruined blaster rifle ahead. Without slowing down at all, the Acolyte deftly sliced it in two and emerged from the cloud, revealing himself to be a Cerean, whose oversized head accounted for his greater height.
Play the minus-four card, puts us at fourteen-nine… As Atton drew one of the pistols from his belt and brought it to bear, he felt the Force guiding the approaching Sith Acolyte's movements and syncing them up with his own. The Cerean's grip on his lightsaber shifted, angling it so the blade would send Atton's blaster bolt right back into his face.
Which would have worked out just fine for the guy if not for the fact that Atton had drawn a sonic pistol, not a blaster, and unfortunately the difference between those two weapons was something you had to take the time learn on your own—Force precognition wasn't so hot on little distinctions like that. The lightsaber absorbed some energy from the blurring silver orb, but it still came out the other side well enough to smash the Cerean's chest cavity and blow him off his feet.
Atton coughed and moved back from the smoke, relying on his own battle precognition to keep at least a few millimeters between him and stray blaster fire. Having his own lightsaber out would have made that hazard easier to manage, but it would also draw a lot of attention, so he stuck with just the sonic pistol. Briefly, he wanted to put the weapon to use at the scanning aisles where more Sith, or at any rate somebody who wanted him dead, were coming from behind. But there was no way he was going to get there quickly with the battle this thick.
Ultimately, the Republic troops' survival depended on simply whittling the Sith's numbers down fast enough, so Atton decided not to be picky about which one he killed first. The lightsabers had his targets marked out for him, but they were erratically moving targets, and with friendlies routinely stumbling in front of them, he had to spend more precious seconds on aiming than he would have liked.
He took down two just in time to see a fresh gaggle of Human Sith Marauders appear out of one of the scanning aisles, stomping their way through the dismembered remains of the squads who had tried to hold them back. Their lightsabers weaved a dazzling shield against incoming blaster fire. One of them—the biggest, meanest-looking one, who was also a dual-wielder—caught sight of Atton as he brought the sonic pistol to bear and wisely sidestepped, allowing the sonic orbs to flash past him. At the same time one of his comrades tracked a frag grenade that someone had tossed to their feet and telekinetically threw it back into the midst of the firefight. But apparently they had missed a second one, because the Marauders all scattered in a rush of Force-leaps, prompted by a last-minute warning in the Force—just before another grenade went off right behind them. A single Marauder who had been at the rear of the group fell on his face, the back of his armored torso and the back of his unarmored head pocked with shrapnel.
The Sith Atton had shot at landed ten paces away, a distance which Atton was decidedly less than thrilled about. Just as he fired again, his pistol tried to jump out of his hand, and his shot went wide. He tried to brace himself with the Force, but then the gun took off so fast that his arm might have gone across the room with it if he hadn't let go. Looking about, he saw an Acolyte coming for him from the right, a leather-faced Weequay, shouldering and slashing Republic troops out of his way.
He came in fast and made a long-reaching stab for Atton's chest. Atton drew his lightsaber and slapped it aside at the last second, then backed away. The Acolyte pursued, following up with several more jabs. Atton kept his distance as he parried, mimicking his opponent's one-handed, I-like-my-personal-space style. Makashi wasn't really his thing, but he knew it when he saw it.
A few more seconds and the Sith Marauder closed the distance, slashing with both blades, one high and one low. Atton hopped just out of range, then strafed and put the Weequay between him and the Marauder. He pushed with the Force, hoping to throw the Acolyte into his partner, but the Acolyte flipped into the air, and the invisible wave of energy instead hit the Marauder, who was only slowed down a step as he absorbed it.
The Force warned Atton as the other Sith landed right behind him, and he retreated again, keeping the flurry of their blades ahead of him. The Marauder's fighting style was straightforward enough—slash two or three times a second until you've killed something—but he was taller than Atton, and strong enough that Atton could scarcely block his attacks one-handed.
The Weequay was more sparing in his attack, waiting for Atton's saber to be tied up with the Marauder's before flashing in to stab at his arm or shoulder. Suddenly, though, he broke off, twisting and bringing his blade to the side just in time to catch a few blaster bolts from some far-off Republic soldier. He was devious about it, angling his blade to send one of them toward Atton, but Atton, who was never good at accepting gifts, deflected it toward the Marauder, who in turn swatted it into the floor.
The unseen soldier didn't fire again. Just as the Weequay began to turn back to the duel, Atton reached with the Force and pulled a blast of power at him from behind, knocking him onto his knees in front of his partner, who recoiled and narrowly avoided maiming him with his lightsabers. The Acolyte braced himself against the floor with one hand, preventing a rougher landing, and managed to block as Atton made a lazy downward slash at him.
While both their sabers were crossed over the Weequay's head, Atton drew one of the blaster pistols from his belt and shot him in the face. Most Acolytes really were just chumps if you knew what you were doing.
Marauders, not so much. Before the Weequay's blade had even winked out, Atton's other friend had hopped over his late partner's corpse and continued driving him back with a punishing round of blows. Atton let go of his pistol as it was sliced in half. Blocking two-handed put him at less of a disadvantage, but the Sith still had all of the fight's momentum. Falling back on muscle memory for the swordplay, he mentally enveloped his surroundings in the Force and imagined painting his opponent with a targeting laser.
One after another, fallen weapons and chunks of debris sprang from the ruined floor and launched themselves at the Marauder from all sides. Gritting his teeth, he ducked and twisted this way and that, dodging or slicing the impromptu missiles out of the air. Though he managed to keep one blade in the duel, it cost him when a detached helmet missed his other saber by the width of a maalraas' whisker and glanced off the side of his skull.
Leaving off the telekinetic attack, Atton took his cue and swung a power blow at the Sith Marauder's head. But even with his eyes squeezed shut in anguish, the son of a bitch caught Atton's blade between both of his own, just inches before his forehead. They closed in on each other and pressed, lightsabers squealing and hissing, white plasma sparking as the power cells warred with one another. Sweat ran down their faces—and blood down the Marauder's—as they shifted and twisted their grips, jerking the weapons a few inches one way, a few inches another. Just one good nick on a shoulder or a face, and the duel wouldn't last much longer after that.
Atton felt like his wrists were about ready to crack, and his knees began to bend as the Sith bore down on him, a guttural howl muffled behind his gritted teeth. The lightsabers drifted closer and closer to his face until the death-light of their clash filled his eyes. As he fell to one knee, he desperately shunted upward, leaving the Marauder's weapons crossed right over his head, his white-knuckled grip just barely keeping the sizzling blade of his own lightsaber from splitting his brain in two.
His mind racing, he turned his eyes upward, trying through the haze of energy to get a clear look at exactly where the red blades were. At least, he was pretty sure they were right above his head, and not just level with his skullcap…
Deciding he didn't have much brains left to lose if he was wrong, Atton thumbed his lightsaber's power button, and its beam vanished. Being suddenly offered no resistance, the twin blades swung wide, missing Atton's skull but perhaps taking some hair off the top. Before the Marauder could recover his guard—or his wits—Atton reactivated his saber and sliced him in half down the middle. He winced, watching the pieces fall in opposite directions, adding yet more grisly ornaments to the floor.
He slowly stood up, pulling the Force into himself to soothe his aching joints and recover his strength, and to get a sense of where the battle around him had gone. The first thing he noticed was how the background noise of blasters and other weapons, though still present, had drastically reduced.
"Rand!" somebody shouted. "Help!"
He turned. Between him and the blast door stood a cluster of vibroblade-toting Republic soldiers, facing outward as a ring of Sith circled them like rock-vultures. One of them, another Marauder, broke off and sauntered toward Atton. "You can have these pups," he scoffed. "That traitor's mine." Despite his words, two more Acolytes disengaged and trotted after him.
Bringing his lightsaber back to guard, Atton stepped between the pieces of the Marauder he'd killed. Lucky, he thought. I'm just a lucky guy.