Chapter 52 – Vorzyd V, part 3
Around the same time when the Ghost crew left for Vorzyd V. Onboard Home One, Ketsu Onyo was walking through the ship. She 'happened' to come by Bruce Banner's room, which she knew to be currently empty, as she had seen Dr. Banner teaching Jesse, the shy kid. Checking to see if there was anyone coming, the young woman quickly sliced the controls of Bruce's room and entered it. Looking through his room, she could ascertain that the man was truly a minimalist, not even having a bed in his quarters. But what astounded her were shelves on each wall of the quarters. Each shelf had unique glass figurines placed, oh so very carefully on them. Ketsu approached one such shelf and using her gloved hands, she picked up one of the glass figurines, admiring it.
"Ahem", a voice grunted behind her. Ketsu's eyes widened in fear and she proceeded to put the figurine back on the shelf. As she was placing it, the voice said, "To the left."
Following its direction, Ketsu turned around to see the Incredible Hulk, Dr. Banner's alter-ego frowning at her with his arms crossed. Thankfully he was wearing a jump-suit. Hulk and Ketsu looked at each other for a moment.
"We never speak of this.", Hulk said pointing to the glass figurines. Ketsu nodded quickly and started to leave. Hulk stopped her gently, he then walked to another shelf, gingerly picked up a glass figurine from it and handed it to her. The figurine was that of a unicorn.
Ketsu thanked him, mumbled a quick apology and left his quarters blushing slightly. She and Sabine were going to have a talk later, as an idea came through her head.
Back in Vorzyd V, the group led by Fenrir had found the underground laboratory. There were stormtroopers around, whom Fenrir had knocked out and had instructed the others to wear their uniforms.
"How am I supposed to wear this?", Zeb grumbled. Fenrir then sighed and snapped his fingers, as he did so Zeb's appearance altered to that of a human.
"Woah!", came the reactions of Sabine, Ezra and Zeb.
"Hurry up.", Fenrir spoke, "This spell will last for 30 minutes."
Zeb quickly put the armour on and then the four of them started navigating the lab. On the way, they saw the fire-goblins, just as Fenrir had described them, but Zeb grumbled, "Ugh, these guys smell!"
"Quiet!", Fenrir whispered. Turning a corner Fenrir instructed the tree of them, "Don't harm any of those little pests."
"Why not?", Sabine asked.
"Yeah, why not? They don't seem that dangerous.", Zeb said.
"Goblin vengeance is legendary. These guys can adapt very quickly. If you attack them, then there is a high chance that the people of this planet would suffer the consequences of your actions, so please no attacking or provoking the goblins.", Fenrir whispered urgently.
"Works for me.", Ezra said, while Sabine and Zeb nodded. The four then made their way to the communications room, where Fenrir and Ezra quickly knocked out all of its Imperial occupants almost immediately. Thankfully there were no Goblins in the room. Sabine quickly plugged into the computers to access information.
"Well, they are working on an Imperial project named "Project Blacksabre". You ever heard of anything like that?", she asked but saw that both Fenrir and Ezra were distracted by something.
"I hear something.", Ezra said, hearing a weird noise.
"As do I.", Fenrir said. Turning towards Sabine he asked, "Have you got the information?"
"Yep, copied all the data on this terminal.", She answered.
Fenrir then led the group towards the source of sound that he and Ezra were hearing. Entering the chamber ahead of them, they saw two green, nearly 7 feet tall beings. They were highly muscular, had pointy ears and sharp teeth protruding out of their mouths and had long brown hair. In the same chamber were containers housing something big.
Fenrir signalled the three behind him to stop and hide behind the containers.
"Well this is a problem.", Fenrir said as the two green beings were talking loudly to each other.
"What are they?", Zeb asked.
"Orcs.", came the answer.
"What do we do?", Ezra asked.
"Wait for them to leave. Check the inside of this container and then run like hell.", Fenrir said.
"What? We're going to run, just like that?", Sabine asked.
"Orcs, I can handle. Goblins, I might be able to handle. But Orcs and Goblins together, I can't handle.", Fenrir said.
"You have backup.", Zeb grunted.
"They're gone. Open the container.", Fenrir said, ignoring Zeb's comment. Ezra used the force to open the container and heard the same weird noise again.
"Vibranium.", Fenrir said. He and Ezra were still looking at the container, with Ezra finally breaking the silence with a gasp, "Holocrons."
Fenrir then turned to the others and said, "Keep a lookout." The others nodded at this. Fenrir then raised his hands, his mould floating towards the centre of the room. In a flash of a second, all containers in the room were sucked into Fenrir's mould, who then brought it back to his hand and grasped it very tightly. As the others turned towards him, they saw Fenrir grunting, "Well, this is a bit heavier than I thought. Time to go."
At the same time, the Republic had sent its forces to Kashyyyk. The invasion had been finally greenlit thanks to a separate Fulcrum transmission stating that the Empire was about to impose even more restrictions on the Wookies who were already on the breaking point.
Commander Rex was leading the ground assault in the Northern Hemisphere, along with Wolfe and Echo. Clone Force 99 was away on a special assignment, accompanied by Cassian Andor and Jyn Erso. They were to investigate the sudden loss of transmission from Coruscant and the rumour that the Emperor was no longer on the Capital.
The Republic forces led by Rex were pinned by five four-legged walkers and Imperial bunkers. Air support was not coming, so Rex spoke in his comm, "This is a code green. I repeat, a code green. We're pinned down, transmitting coordinates, now."
A few moments after he said this, came an unearthly roar and the Hulk fell from the sky straight into one of the Walkers, tearing it apart completely. He then jumped towards the second walker, pushing it to the ground, quickly ripping it's head out and throwing it at Walker 3, destroying it in the process. Walker 4 and 5 followed the same fate, while the pinned down Republic forces were cheering at the green behemoth, who simply grunted and walked, literally walked through the Imperial bunkers as if they were made of paper.
Back in the sketchy bar, where the first group was. Kanan looked at Hera, who was awfully quiet. Ahsoka and Tarre sat on her other side. Kanan then looked at his chrono-meter and said, "It's safe to say that no one is coming."
"I agree. We should go back.", Hera said. The four then paid for their drinks, got up and left the bar. As they left a bar and passed by an alley, Tarre stopped. Ahsoka was about to ask, when they heard a voice from behind them, "Nice hair, Viszla."
"We've been made. Go, get the Ghost ready for take-off and contact Fenrir.", Tarre whispered. He then turned around and said, "Mediveh, how nice of you drop by.", his tone dripping with contempt and disgust. The three saw Tarre facing the source of the voice – a seven-foot-tall green being, with long brown hair, red eyes fuelled by the dark side, muscular body and teeth protruding out of his mouth. Tarre then snapped his fingers and the three – Kanan, Hera and Ahsoka were teleported to the Ghost.
"Ugh, I hate it when he does that.", Ahsoka groaned. The three got on the Ghost and as they were about to get the ship ready and contact Fenrir, they heard a whooshing sound and saw Zeb, Ezra and Sabine on the floor in front of them. Zeb (back in his original form) was about to retch right then and there, but stopped himself. As the three got on board, Kanan asked, "What happened?"
Sabine started to explain, "We infiltrated their lab, got some intel. Fenrir then stole containers filled with Holocrons and the Vibranium metal, the same one that Tarre and Fenrir's moulds are made out of. As we were about to leave, we were ambushed. Then Fenrir snapped his fingers and here we are."
"The similar thing happened to us. For now, lets go pick them up.", Kanan said.
"Get to your positions.", Hera barked an order, piloting the ship towards Tarre's last known location. Once they got him, they would find Fenrir, she thought. As she flew the Ghost, two Tie fighters appeared on their scopes, and were soon joined by a whole squadron.
"Haar'chak.", Sabine yelled in her native tongue. Hera employed some excellent maneuvres, avoiding blaster fire while Kanan and Ezra were firing at the Tie fighters. As they were doing this, a red white and blue shield sailed past them and hit one of the Tie fighters destroying it immediately. It was followed by Fenrir, who had jumped and landed on the Ghost's hull. Using the force, he pushed one fighter into another and called his shield back. He then created a barrier around the ship, as there were some odd shaped 3-feet tall fiery creatures that had followed Fenrir. The barrier made by Fenrir had repelled those creatures back to the surface, knocking them out cold.
"Ugh, those little critters.", Zeb groaned.
"Don't shoot at them. Otherwise they will start attacking mercilessly.", Ezra said through the internal comms.
"Acknowledged. Now, we just have to find Tarre.", Hera said as she did another maneuvre. Fenrir was using the force to remain attached to the ship's hull. As they got close to Tarre's position, they saw the blind angel fighting three of those green muscular creatures. The Ghost was in an inverted position. As it got closer to Tarre, Fenrir extended his free hand and Tarre grabbed hold of it. The ship then reoriented itself, and a whooshing sound followed. After that the cockpit doors opened and Tarre and Fenrir entered.
"Excellent flying.", Fenrir said.
"Thanks.", Hera said, "Chopper make the calculation for the jump. I want us ready to go once the ship gets out of the atmosphere."
Chopper beeped and got to work. Once the ship got out of the atmosphere, they made the jump to hyperspace.