Two days had passed since the announcement and Barriss had not seen Cayde since, she figured he was working on cyber countermeasures should the invasion lead to a prison break, she couldn't be certain. The bombardment stopped within hours of starting, from what she could hear from the guards when they brought the priority prisoners down to her cell bock, General Grevious had led an attack on the Senate building. That was two days ago, today however, the clone guards came down and inspected the cells of those already residing in the hidden wing, as well as the new priority class prisoners. She assumed this was only temporary, as the prisoners of that class already had their own cell block.

Cad Bane for example, nearly everybody in the Republic knew his face at this point, he would cause even greater problems to the galaxy if he were to escape. The same could be said for the other criminals brought in with him; Nuvo Vindi, Aurra Sing and Whorm Loathsom.

All thoughts were interrupted when a squad of clones came marching down the corridor, led by the only other non-clone officer Barriss had seen in this secluded block. Captain Pryde was essentially the opposite of Cayde. Humorless, cold, calculated, he certainly lacked the ability to show emotion other than anger and disappointment. Even as he spoke, his delivery was flat and emotionless, almost droid like. "Guards, escort the priority class prisoners back into general population. The crisis is over"

"Whatssa goin on?" Tanuk demanded, his only remaining eye fixed on the captain.

"If you must know, alien, not that the information will be of any use to you down here. The planet was under attack by the confederacy of independent systems and the chancellor was kidnapped. Thankfully due to the efforts of the Grand Army of the Republic, our men infiltrated the capitol ship and rescued the chancellor." Pryde announce with still little emotion. Tanuk was sure he could sense some condescending tone in his voice, however.

A faint voice could be heard at the far end of the corridor "I thought the Jedi rescued the chancellor…"

Pryde stood straight and snapped his head towards the clone trooper at the only exit of the high security prison wing. "Trooper!" he shouted, the first real emotion they have seen on the captain, rage. "Come here." He asked, his voice once again calm and collected.

Hesitantly, the red and white guard made his was to the captain, the other clones looking at each other before stepping clear, giving the lone guard a clear path to his superior. "Y-yes Sir-"

A singular shot from the captain's pistol fired right through the clone's chest plate and put the other side as he collapsed to the ground. The other guards stood in a mixture if shock and reluctant obedience, Slick jumped from his bunk and jolted towards the ray-shield "ARGHHH! I'LL KILL YOU!" He clenched his hands into fists and slammed at the shield of his cell before being electrocuted and falling to the ground, his own anger blinding him to his limitations within his cell.

"Hmm, no. You won't" Pryde informed the unconscious clone before clasping his hands behind his back and headed towards the exit. His squadron of guards follow closely behind with the priority class prisoners in tow. Dozens of footsteps passing the dead trooper on the ground between the cells as crimson red blood drained into the grids on the floor.

Barriss couldn't believe what she had witnessed. That was murder, there was no other word for it. To kill a subordinate simply for contradicting him, he was abusing his power. She only hoped someone would be back down to take the body of the trooper away, to give him some sort of burial. All five prisoners could do nothing but wait.

Hours had passed and no one came, no maintenance, no meals, no counseling, nothing. Any one of them would assume Pryde had left them to starve when all of a sudden, the distant sounds of blaster fire could be heard coming from the level above the hidden wing. Brytt and Ordera stood ready for whatever may come their way despite being confined to their cells, Slick was only just coming too after being electrocuted, Tanuk simply laid in bed knowing that no one would care what happens to them down here. As for Barriss Offee? She had attempted to meditate, to block the outside world from her mind, to create a calming aura to spread to her fellow inmates to ease the tension.

But the force would not allow it, instead a sudden sense of dread passed through Barriss' mind and body, her heart sank, her breath felt sharp, knees weak, sweat dropping from her forehead down the bridge of her nose before falling to the cold metal floor of her cell. She collapsed initially and struggled to regain her strength to stand again, something was wrong. Very very wrong.

The sound of heavy footsteps bounced around the hall as Barriss looked up to see a silhouette of a large square and two legs moving rapidly underneath. 'I must be losing my mind' she thought to herself until her vision cleared to see Cayde rushing towards the five cells while pushing a large elevated container. Without saying a word, the cyborg lifted his arm and extended his hand out as if to wave, five small red holograms emerged from his palm before quickly changing to the colour green. All Ray-shields had gone offline, Cayde then opened the container to reveal an assortment of weapons and gear "Suit up. Quickly!" he ushered.

Tanuk, Brytt and Fon slowly walked out of their cells towards the container and began grabbing their belongings. "Why are you doing this?" Fon asked, grabbing his beskar armour.

Cayde didn't say a word at first, not until Slick slowly got up from the floor and stumbled to the doorway "Slick, stop!" He shouted while raising a pistol at the clone trooper.

"What are you doing?!" Barriss demanded, trying to step between the two.

"Somethings not right with the clones! They've been ordered to execute all Jedi, Barriss! It's only a matter of time before they come down here to kill you too. I've sealed the door for now but we won't have much time, it's like they're possessed. They've already started executing prisoners, it's like they're cleaning house! There's a riot up there, I think even some prisoners have managed to escape, it's hell up there. So, suit up and get ready to go!"

"possessed?" The clone asked.

Barriss looked over at Slick who was just as confused as he was scared. "What do we do with him?"

"I don't know… Slick, can you tell me why they'd do this?" Cayde asked, the gun shaking slightly in his hand.

"No, sir…but please, if my brothers really are what you say, then I want to come with you to free them"

Ordera barked in "We don't have time for this! If he betrays us, I'll kill him myself, but we need to go now! How are we getting out, Durann?"

Cayde hesitated for a few seconds before lowering his gun and lifting a grate beneath his feet. "This vent leads to the entire prison complex so we'll navigate our way to the hanger, get a ship and leave Coruscant." He then lowered his cybernetic arm down to the vent and disabled the Ray-shield within.

"Why are you helping us?" Brytt spoke up. "I mean, I get you don't want us executed, but why help us at all?"

Vayde looked around nervously, he had just released the five most dangerous criminals in the Galactic Republic. "Look... I've spent a very long time getting to know you all. I know you're not bad people, not really. You did what you thought was right, what was just. I'm not going to let your lives be wasted."

All prisoners nodded before assembling in front of the vent as Cayde passed them all weapons. For Tanuk, Fon and Brytt, he had given them all rifles and told them to head straight once they descended into the vent, but paused when Slick stepped forward to receive his weapon "No, not you. Not yet." To this, Slick just glared before heading down into the vent.

As Barriss approached, Cayde reached behind and removed something from his belt and handed it out to her.

'A lightsaber?' Barriss thought upon first glance, but no. She couldn't feel any sort of residual force energy emitting from this handle, nevertheless, she accepted this devise and held it up. At the press of a button, a two-foot poll extended from the handle, and at the end of this rod was a small circular device which crackled with electricity. "A stun baton?" she quizzed.

"I thought you should have something vaguely familiar to what you're used to. Now, I want you following up behind Slick. If he tries anything, just stun him with that. Do you trust me?"

"What choice do I have?" Barriss mused before brushing past the officer and climbing down the shaft. A brief smile appeared across her lips for him to see before her face dropped to that of fear and worry as she passed.

"I have a bad feeling about this" She said to herself.

The group were lucky that the ventilation shaft was as large as it was. Even with Brytt's naturally large Houk physique and his body armor on top of that, he still had plenty of space to turn around if he wanted. Tanuk followed closely behind being the tallest of the group, he had to crouch slightly when walking straight towards what he hoped was a hanger. Despite missing one of his eyes, Tanuk was a skilled pilot with an excellent field of vision, his remaining eye being able to move in many ways that most species could not. He missed the freedom that flying embodied for him, Gungans rarely left Naboo and those that did often found themselves overwhelmed by galactic civilization. But not Tanuk, he tried living outside his home world, hoping to set an example of how independent they could be from the Naboo.

Fon, Slick, Barriss and Cayde followed from the rear "Brytt, make a left and we should be below the tertiary hanger" Cayde whispered.

"How many hangars does a prison need? Too many makes for an easy escape." Fon asked curiously.

"Primary hanger is for prisoner transfers, secondary is for basic deliveries, tertiary is where high profile prisoners like yourselves got brought in. You wouldn't have seen it yourself due to being blindfolded upon entry" He explained. "Okay stop, we should be there. What do you see?"

Brytt leaned forward to stare up through the grate in the hanger floor "Can't see much" he said bluntly.

Tanuk shoved passed him "Out meesa way. Meesa gonna looky" He addressed as he poked his eye up through the grate and looked around. Only to see a pair of Coruscant guards in front of a Republic gunship.

"Theressa only two of dem"

"We need to be careful. All of us climbing up through the hatch will make us target practice. We need a diversion" Barriss advised to the group. Her role as a Jedi commander coming back to her on that brief instant.

"How about the room before this?" Slick asked. "If I take one of you prisoner to the hanger, that'll at least buy the rest of you time to get behind them"

"Well why don't we all go through there?" Fon asked. "Take them both at once"

"That won't work. All guards here have access to the alarms through their armor. They'll be quick to active them if we all went in at once. Slick and another one of us can go in as a distraction while the rest of us sneak up and disable them"

Cayde then looked between Barriss and Slick "There's a chance I'm already on their wanted list so it can't be me. Or you Barriss, those troopers will shoot you on sight. Besides, I'd rather have you here in case we need you to do a little Jedi mind trick should the distraction fail"

Barriss didn't react to this well. The force felt strange to her at this moment. She'd been struggling to meditate ever since her imprisonment. And that feeling of dread and defeat just a few minutes ago? She was still internally recovering from that. Yet she didn't want to admit that she couldn't do it. "I'll do what I can" she commented.

"Guess I can do it; I can take a hit anyway" Brytt interrupted. Squeezing past the group. "You commin, clone?" The Houk asked as he was about to hand his rifle over to the trooper. Only for Cayde to rush and snatch it off of him.

"What are you doing?!" Slick hissed so that the guards wouldn't hear his outburst. He tried to reach for the rifle at first, then immediately lowered his hands as a show of trust.

Cayde's index finger on his cybernetic arm unfolded into a miniature utility arm which plugged into a side port in the rifle. "I'm setting this to stun. I'm also setting it so you can't change it. I still can't trust you yet, Slick. Maybe after this, who knows?" He shoves the weapon back to the clone, causing him to instinctively wrap his arms around it like a newborn.

Slick hadn't forgotten the feeling of his armor; he was lucky the officer even brought it for him considering. He guessed somehow, he knew he might need the clones help. Slick had to leave his helmet behind with the others. Aside from the helmet, there wasn't a huge difference between phase 1 and phase 2 armour. Of course, he had only seen it on his guard when the uniform changed last year. That was another thing he worried about, this plan seemed good in his head at first, but now the clone trooper found himself thinking about everything that could go wrong. Why was his armor plain white? Where was his helmet? Why is he transferring a prisoner by himself? To the outside world, he managed to hide his emotions, appear to be calm and focused. Still though…

As the door to the hanger opened, already this didn't look good. One of the guards was stood directly over the access hatch. They'll notice anyone trying to climb out for sure. The two troopers snapped to attention and immediately raised their weapons towards the pair. "Halt trooper! What are you doing with this prisoner?"

This was it. "I have been ordered to transport this prisoner to the secondary facility, sir"

The two troopers looked at each other before looking back at the duo. "There is no record of a prisoner transfer. Who gave you this order, trooper? And where is your helmet?"

Brytt didn't say a word. He didn't even glance at either trooper, he just kept his gaze focused on the hanger door. But this time, he couldn't help himself "Ha! This lousy excuse for a soldier dropped it scared when I said I'd eat him!" He then proceeded to lick his lips looking at both guards.

They stepped back ever so slightly, looking to each other for confirmation before repeating "Trooper. Who gave you the order?"

Slick didn't show it but he was panicking. He only knew two higher ups in this prison and Cayde was wanted among them. "Uh, Captain Pryde. Sir"

One trooper raised his weapon slightly while the other lowered his own and raised his hand to his helmet. "I need to call this in"

As the four wanted individuals watched as their plan began to fall apart, Cayde panicked. "Barriss! Do something!" He hissed.

Barriss raised her hand, closed her eyes and reached out to the force "You will not contact Pryde"

"I… will not… - what?" The trooper looked down.

That one moment. That moment of dread, of fear, everything slowed down. Barriss' eyes darted all around her, it was if time slowed down but her mind was still going as normal. She had a few seconds to think. What was happening? Was this a new force power? Why didn't her mind trick work? Has her descent from the light somehow left her weakened in the force? What was she going to do?

She knew.

Instinct kicked in as time resumed. Barriss quickly reached for her stun baton and poked it through the grate, shocking the guard. Simultaneously, Brytt ducked for Slick to fire a concussive blast at the second trooper.

As everyone emerged from the vent, Cayde walked up to Slick and held out his cybernetic arm. Slick passed the weapon back to the cyborg, only to have him push the gun back. "No, Slick. I was trying to say thank you"

"Oh" Slick realized as he quickly shook his hand. Cayde then took the gun and altered the setting back to normal. As the duo turned to the gunship, Tanuk ran towards the cockpit.

"Oooooh, meesa like!" He exclaimed in excitement.