The sky rumbles; the land quakes. Fire and smoke; lightning and thunder.

Anakin guns his TX-130 fighter tank at top speed as Major Rieekan's attack convoy speeds across Sullust's seared ground. Less than an hour ago, Captain Pellaeon dropped the armored battalion off in a dormant caldera two dozen klicks behind them, the landing camouflaged by the planet's everpresent volcanism and the raging storm currently slashing the lava river-crossed land with dry lightning. The victory in space was only the beginning. Now they're on the move, every vehicle at full throttle, and Anakin can see the target far ahead, just visible against the smoky dark of the storm. The Sullustan energy conversion tower, the great black-stone menhir keeping up the planetary shield domes across Sullust, preventing the capital ships from bombarding the planet from orbit. One target and the world's fate is sealed. One ground battle for it all.

The core of the armored fist is the juggernauts—each goliath dozens of tons of steel and strength, colossal ten-wheeled tanks twice the size of an AT-TE walker and packed with weapons systems. They cruise along the broken flatlands at over a hundred kilometers per hour, their wheels alone towering over Anakin's fighter tank. Painted visages of monsters and demons and scantily-clad Twi'leks decorate their frontal cowlings, each tank rolling along with names like Mammoth and Hustle Hutt and Boot Camp Baby. The array of swift, nimble, sleek fighter tanks dart between the sixteen juggernauts like falcons, and a whole contingent of infantry support platform speeders zip about the perimeter of the formation, keeping the flanks secure. Move fast, hit hard. There is no room today for hesitation. This battle will not slow for anyone in the convoy.

In the sky above, one of the supporting gunships roars overhead. The side door opens and Obi-Wan leans out, one hand clinging to a ceiling grip as he looks out at the blasted landscape. "That power conversion tower is the key to our invasion," Obi-Wan shouts over his comm as he looks down at Anakin's fighter tank. "Master Secura and Master Vos's divisions have already engaged the main Separatist army outside of the nearby factories. They're buying us time, but not much. We have to get in, take the shield domes down, and get out to give the cruisers in orbit the go-ahead for bombardment."

"Keep it tight, all units," Major Rieekan says over the comm, commanding from the trailing juggernaut. "We're passing through their outer ray shield bands. In a minute they're going to know we're here."

"Prep for company, men," Anakin says. He pounds his fist on the tank cockpit's ceiling. "Fives? Hope that trigger finger's warmed up."

The veteran clone trooper laughs from the fighter tank's turret. "It's always itchy, sir."

"Passing through the shield now," Anakin's co-pilot, Fives's fellow advanced recon commando Jesse, says. "Can't wait to see the party they've set up for us."

"Can't believe you brought this joker along, General," Fives snarks. "Don't go getting us killed, Jesse."

The ray shields don't so much as slow down the speeding caravan; designed to ward off airborne and orbital weapons, they're nothing but a blip in the sensors for the tanks. Once they're through, Jesse runs his finger over his scanner and says, "Multiple contacts in the distance. Hailfires, tank droids. AATs. Whole load of turbolaser turrets guarding the tower, too. Set us up a whole shooting gallery."

"That's what we're here for," Anakin says. He taps the private comm channel. "Ahsoka? You got it?"

"Almost there," she says. Her fighter tank leads the formation, Rex riding in the turret, clone medic Kix her co-pilot. "Detonating in five, Master."

Five, four—three two one. Then a series of explosions blossom in the distance, red and gold flame mushroom-pluming above the fiery ground. The end result of a team of clone commandos setting up detonators along outlying defense turrets the previous night in secret; now the droids' first line of defense falls without a shot. "Good work. That's one obstacle down," Obi-Wan says.

"Contacts lighting up on sensors!" Jesse says.

"Don't fire until they're on top of us," Rieekan orders as the convoy thunders over the burnt ground, the storm overhead intensifying as spears of lightning slam into the lava rivers and obsidian plains.

"Keep it tight, men!" Rex adds.

Anakin clutches his throttle and grits his teeth. The adrenaline hits his veins and the war drums of his mind thump in rhythm with his heartbeat. Up until a few hours ago, he hadn't had a big battle since the crushing defeat at Ziost. One success in the books with the victory in orbit. But he wants more—he wants an enemy he can see, a face he can recognize, a personal duel to settle the scoreboard after Grievous left it tilted. Enough waiting. Let's get in there.

He doesn't have to wait but a few moments more. "Bandits! Bandits!" one of the gunship pilots yells as the aircraft break off into evasive maneuvers. A second later an air-to-air missile hits home, blowing a gunship apart as Separatist droid gunboats blast past the battalion like comets.

"Green light, green light all units!" Rieekan roars as the battle is joined. "Support craft, engage at will!"

Fives unloads his first turret blast of the battle and hollers, "You want some, clankers? Line on up!"

Anakin keeps the throttle to the max as he pulls to the left to engage the Separatist armored line. A pair of hoop-wheeled Hailfire droids rumble past, peppering one of the juggernauts with missile fire. The big tank's hull flares, electricity flashing from the warheads slamming into the bolted-on planks of reactive armor, but it rolls on. Anakin drives his fighter tank around, brackets one of the Hailfires, and shouts, "Jesse—give it to 'em!"

Jesse slams down on the ordinate trigger. A pair of anti-armor shells burst from the fighter tank's twin launchers and split the Hailfire droid apart, its wheels flying away as the central fuselage explodes. Anakin surges straight through the flames.

"Saw that one!" Fives shouts.

"Don't get comfortable. Way more coming in," says Anakin.

Overhead, a gunship dips and dives to its right as a droid gunboat homes in on its tail. "Lotta fire up top," Obi-Wan's pilot says.

"Heavy one-one, break left," Rieekan says.

The gunship fires a smoky flurry of flares and banks as its pursuer shoots. The tracking air-to-air missiles go for the flares and miss, and as the droid attacker zeroes in for another shot, Rieekan's juggernaut opens up with anti-air fire from its dorsal rotary laser. Struck, the droid gunboat spirals out of control, slamming into the ground with a blast of debris and fire. "Nice shooting, Major," Anakin says.

"Hope you're not stopping to watch, Skywalker," Rieekan says. To the battalion as a whole he adds, "All forces, do not slow down. Engage on the move. We need to get to that tower."

A Hailfire droid banks away to break free from Anakin's pursuit. It hops over a gouge in the rocks, accelerates, and takes a wrong turn at the wrong time as Rieekan's juggernaut runs it over, flattening the droid beneath its wheels. Anakin veers around the juggernaut, gliding past a burning ISP speeder and firing point-blank at an AAT. The Trade Federation tank thunders about, its turret firing over the top of Anakin's fighter tank, its armor holding against the laser barrage. "Come on!" Fives shouts as he hits it with shot after shot. "Go down!"

The AAT slams the fighter tank with an explosive shell. Anakin grits his teeth and jams on the accelerator. "Keep up the fire, Fives," he says. "We gotta outmaneuver this guy."

He rushes past the AAT, throws the braking thrusters, and spins as the tank slides. The Federation vehicle is too slow to counter the move: Anakin slips in behind his opponent, the AAT's vulnerable rear exposed. He shouts and fires. Laser bolts rip out the vehicle's repulsors and it collapses, smoking, sparking. A moment later a passing gunship's laser beam rips the AAT's hulk in two.

Anakin moves past the burning vehicle just in time to watch the ground erupt right in front of him. A wash of rock, earth, and lava flies up, and it's all he can do to wrench the throttle to his left to avoid the blast. "Artillery shelling us from the base!" Rieekan says. "We have to get in there! All juggernauts, open fire!"

The big tanks barrage away with their main turrets, heavy laser fire rattling out to counter the turbolaser blasts now thundering in from the Separatist tower's defensive emplacements. Anakin maneuvers around the burning wreckage of the first juggernaut to fall, slams on the accelerator, and rushes across the open terrain amid a wolfpack of fighter tanks converging on the tower's defenses. A well-placed turbolaser blasts spears the fighter tank right in front of Anakin, battering his craft with debris. "Don't hold up!" he shouts.

Jesse unloads a salvo of high-energy shells as Fives pounds away in the turret. The first turbolaser emplacement explodes, and Anakin banks around the eruption with Ahsoka's tank right behind. "Battle droids popping out of that trench up front, Master!" Ahsoka cries over the comm.

"I see 'em. Run 'em over if you have to."

True to his word, Anakin plows through the first line of infantry, droid parts splattering across the tank's viewscreen. He shoots past the second trench, firing away with both laser cannons as a barrage of surface-to-air missiles fire out from the base's turrets, keeping the gunships at bay from making an attack. "Fire's too heavy. Gotta break away!" one of the gunships calls out.

"We need that attack!" Rieekan countermands. "Our tanks can't keep up with those emplacements for long."

"We're dead against those missiles, Major!"

"Major, drop the infantry," Anakin says, stepping out of his role as a tank commander and on the hat of General Skywalker. He does outrank Rieekan, after all. The major is no slouch at war, but sometimes the personal touch is required. "Once they're out, get mobile with the juggernauts and keep the emplacements busy."

Rieekan pauses. "What's your plan, Skywalker?"

"I'm going in," he says. He taps the roof. "Jesse, Fives, I'm bringing us in as close as we can get and then I'm getting out. Fives, you take over the piloting for me. Get clear and help out the tanks."

Fives pounds on the roof. "Will do. Jesse and I got this."

"Ahsoka?" Anakin calls out over the comm.

"Already heard the plan from the major. I'm following in with you," Ahsoka says.

Anakin grins. Same as always.

He rushes forward, spitting laser fire at any battle droids in the way before sliding the tank to a drifting halt. Then he unbuckles his seat restraints, shimmies past Fives in the turret, and steps out into the dry, acrid air. Smoke and sulfur; crackling flames and hammering thunder. No time to think about it. He launches himself free from the fighter tank, ignites his lightsaber, knocks aside the first shot that comes his way, and cuts an unlucky super battle droid from its nape to its hip.

A droid to his left falls as Ahsoka rushes towards him. "Where're we going?" she says as she lines up shoulder-to-shoulder with him, both sabers—new and blue—at the ready.

"Forward. We gotta get in there," he says.

Obi-Wan's gunship braves the missile fire and rakes the droid lines as it comes in for a drop-and-go. "Master!" Anakin calls out.

Stepping out of the ship with his weapon at the ready, Obi-Wan waves them forward. "Come on!"

Shoulders rising and falling, arms pumping, blood surging—Anakin sprints at the tower base. A whole platoon of battle droids guard a pair of blast doors, firing at will, Anakin's lightsaber just quick enough to repel their assault. Then a missile flies in and blows the droids apart, a blackened, blasted scar left behind on the blast door's frame. Obi-Wan hits the wall first, pressing his back to the metal as Anakin and Ahsoka pound in after him.

"Up there," he pants, pointing his lightsaber at the angular pinnacle of the tower. "There's got to be some sort of command-and-control system for the power grid up there."

"Let's not waste time, then," Ahsoka says, driving one of her lightsabers into the blast door. "Just a sec."

Obi-Wan shakes his head. "That's your teaching," he says to Anakin.

"Hey, if it works—"

"I'm hardly complaining. But once inside, we need to split up," Obi-Wan continues. "Sullustans love their redundancies. Preliminary intel said there's likely to be an emergency regulator deep in the station, somewhere near the generator core. If we don't also hit that, we won't take those shields down."

"And the turrets? They're tearing up the tanks."

"That's a problem, too. They'll have their own control station," Obi-Wan finishes. "Each of us needs to handle a target. We have to hit everything at once, leave the droids no chance to converge on us while the battle's hot."

"I'll take care of those guns," Ahsoka says through gritted teeth as she burns through the blast doors.

Obi-Wan nods. "I'll handle the controls at the tower's top. Anakin—"

"Core. Got it," he says. "Ahsoka?"

"Through," she says. She withdraws her lightsaber, aims her foot, and kicks in the burnt metal with ease.

Anakin raises his eyebrows as she slides In through the new hole without hesitation. Some strength in those new legs. But whatever she can do, he won't see it in action now. To the tower's core. The mission comes first, and every second he wastes is more time for Rieekan, Rex, Fives, and the battalion to falter before the gun emplacements.

Best not dawdle, then. He follows Ahsoka and plunges into the dark heart of the tower.

"He is here."

Sae looks up as the tower rumbles—although whether that is from the thunder or another artillery shell from the attacking juggernauts, she does not now. Outside, a wave of surface-to-air missiles volley out and pick off one of the gunships trying to line up a clean blow, forcing the others to scatter. They didn't bring enough force to the surface, the Republic. They were lucky in orbit. Then they thought that diversionary attack at the nearby factories would be enough. Yet Dooku told her he'd seen them attack here, told her of the battle that now ensues all around. The gift of foresight. Dooku—and the Celestial—gets it right again as one of the juggernauts takes a turbolaser bolt to exposed patch of hull and explodes. One by one the Republic's numbers thin.

And now Dooku raises his chin, his eyes half-closed, a faint smile playing across his lips here in the topmost chamber of the tower. "Who's here?" Sae asks.

"Anakin Skywalker," Dooku murmurs, his fingers tightening into a fist. "He knows they will lose the battle if they merely attack outside. He has come inside to finish the job. I will meet him."

"You want me with you?" asks Sae.

Dooku presses his lips together, his eyes clenched as if working out a problem in his head. "No," he murmurs. "A strong warrior you are, but far stronger is he. There is no Jedi like Skywalker. And once we have turned him to our cause, there will be no Sith like him, either."

"How do you know he'll turn?"

Dooku looks her in the eye, his expression betraying complete confidence. "I have foreseen it."

He walks off to the turbolift at the back of the room, pointing behind him as he goes, his black cape swirling in his wake. "I will reveal to Skywalker an important secret that very, very few in this galaxy know. And when he sees the truth, when he sees in whom he placed his trust for so many years, he will understand. Ensure the Republic forces do not get a foothold, Sae. Repel any attempt of theirs to seize this tower."

"And if they get inside?"

Dooku turns in the turbolift. Right before the doors close, he says, "I suggest you do not let them."

Then he is gone. From the wide windows, Pella watches the battle unfolding outside. "We're crushing them," she says to Sae. "Forget letting them come in. We should just go out and mop them up."

"No," Sae mutters.

"Why not?" Pella says, frustration flashing on her face. Just a kid itching for some action beneath that black-tunic Sith veneer. "Lord Dooku said to handle them."

Sae smirks. Lord Dooku? Someone's trying too hard to acclimate to her new life. "Look out there," she says, pointing out of the window. "What do you see?"

"The battle?"

"Obviously, damn it. What you see are clone troopers. Not just tanks. They're dropping infantry, setting up to breach our defenses with manpower rather than firepower. Our turrets can make hash out of their armor, but they're too slow for the clones."

"So…"

"So go down to the weapons control station and make yourself useful," grumbles Sae. "They're going to want to take our guns offline to give their armor cover. Don't let them."

Pella huffs. "What're you going to do, just sit here?"

"Maybe I will. Maybe while you're busy, I'll run back to the ship and fly off on a damn vacation," Sae says. "Or maybe the Republic isn't stupid enough to throw everything they have at one target, and we need reserves to ensure we're not caught off-guard. Don't get stupid now, Pella. Or if you've always been stupid, then stop. It's a battle, not a game."

"Fine," the girl says, glowering at Sae. "I'll stop them, then. You'll see. So will Lord Dooku."

"Listen, if you get overwhelmed—"

"I won't."

Sae grabs her arm as Pella jogs to the turbolift. The girl recoils and leaps back. "Listen, and stop running ahead," Sae snaps. "Fall back if you have to."

"I'm not—"

"If you fail, are you better off alive or dead?"

Pella twists her foot and rubs at a spot on the floor, looking away from Sae. "Okay."

"Okay, what?"

"Okay, I'll be careful."

Sae lets her go without another word. She shouldn't bother, she thinks as Pella enters the turbolift and the door whooshes shut. The girl is nothing to her. She's not Tamri. She's so much dumber than Tamri. Plus, they've been together only a few weeks. They don't even know each other. Sae doesn't care what happens to the girl. She can't care. Not again. She can't have something else to lose. Stop thinking about what happens if you've just sent her off to get killed. Stop it. Get it out of your head. Stupid. Why are they even in this position?

She kneels down on the floor, clenches her fists, and closes her eyes. Obi-Wan is down there, and the Force has such a knack for these fateful little moments. That damnable thing, the Force. Like armor that equally protects and cripples her. She can never escape it. Not before. Not now. Not later, if Obi-Wan can't just up and kill her already and get it over with. Not a minute of her life where she can just breathe without the maul of Light and Dark hanging over her head.

But she knows she won't escape this thresher of a world that easily, and the Force will never let go of one of its champions. And the only thing to do in the face of the injustice of a sadistic world is to get angry. Dooku was right about that. Even if that means crossing blades with an old friend. But was Obi-Wan ever really a friend, or was that just another trick of the Force?

When she opens her eyes, the illusion of Adi Gallia is kneeling in front of her and smiling. "They're going to make you pay," Sae's old master says, "for who you've become."

"Haven't I paid enough?" Sae murmurs.

Master Gallia smiles. "No. Not yet you haven't."

"Dead bodies, blasted ships, no lights—this is a perfect start to a crappy horror holonovel."

Tamri sighs. "Kesh, can we please not think about that and just try to figure out what's going on in this place?"

"I would actually like to hear more," Dominion says as the crew of the War Maiden files off of the ship into the wrecked hanger bay of the Taths' Concordia base. Somewhere a pipe is hissing, faint, soft, like a tiny bug buzzing by Tamri's ear, the irritation just loud enough to be audible over the crashing of the waterfall outside the hanger entrance. There's an odd metallic smell in the stagnant air. Iron. Something else too. A rotten tinge that stings the nose.

"The rest of us wouldn't. We're here for a job," Falco grumbles, pushing past Dominion and Kesh. Scarlet and black armor clads the former clone commando from head to toe—certainly not Republic standard. The clone commando life gone and replaced by service to Armand Isard and the intelligence apparatus. He looks like a phantom in what little outside light illuminates the dusky hanger.

At least Tamri can agree with his sentiment. "He's right. Something tells me we're not going to have a welcoming committee come to meet us if the hanger's in this shape. We need a plan."

As she speaks, Ventress's gunboat swoops into the hanger bay and settles down beside the War Maiden. "What about her?" Korkie says, holstering a blaster pistol and gesturing at the gunboat. "Hope she's not going to make us trouble now after getting us through the Separatist lines."

"Don't worry about her," says Tamri. "Master Kenobi matched us up to get us past the Separatists. Unless it was battle droids who blasted this station apart, she's done that. Anything more is up to her. Unless she starts attacking us, I'd leave her be."

Ventress hardly looks in the mood to chat as she exits her ship, scowling at the devastation littered all around. "Quite the research laboratory you came for, Padawan," she growls to Tamri as she toes a mangled torso caught under a fallen piece of ceiling debris. "Complete with blunt force trauma and casualties. I'm feeling the hospitality."

"I…I wasn't expecting this," Tamri stammers. "I didn't know we were going to walk into the aftermath of a massacre."

"I think you don't know a lot of things," Ventress scoffs. "At least Kenobi's credits went through."

Dead bodies and debris aside, the hanger bay reveals few clues as to the fate of the Tath facility until Avea finds an employee directory on a computer terminal near the hanger turbolifts. Some trace of emergency backup power must still spark in the station's nerves, because blue holographic light throws back the darkness and a three-dimensional layout of the base shimmers into coherence before the group. "Whoa. Big base," Kesh says as she looks over the directory. "Bigger than back on Telos. They have all sorts of habitation and residence areas here. Everyone must have lived on-site."

"It must go down hundreds of meters into the ground," Falco says, tracing the map halls with his finger.

"We're not here for a treasure hunt. We have things to find," says Avea. She points to a clustered series of rooms and corridors at the heart of the installation. "What's this?"

"Power?" Neelotas suggests.

Ventress shakes her head. "Try reading," she growls, pointing to a holographic label. "'Wet labs.' You said this is a breeding facility for Killiks, Jedi?"

"That's right," Tamri says. She looks to Dominion. "Right?"

"Correct," the human replica droid says. "This facility exchanged live and deceased specimens with the Telos installation in return for genetic data and optimization for breeding batches. They were, as far as I—and Yurica Tath—knew, perfecting the Killik creations on Telos, while this facility handled optimizing production and live specimen development."

"So as much a biological factory as a lab," Ventress murmurs. "Except one manufacturing long-thought-extinct insects for shock troopers. But I doubt that's all that's going on here."

"Potentially," Dominion says. "Each Tath cell operates on a need-to-know basis, and—"

"I was not asking your opinion, droid."

Tamri holds up a hand to stop Dominion. The last thing she needs is Ventress remembering her old Dark Side ways—if they are indeed "old"—right when all of them are cluttered around in lightsaber range. "Hold on, this place must have had hundreds of staff, along with anyone else in the residence areas," she says. "We should look for survivors, first. They could tells us what happened here, and maybe clue us in to the rest of this puzzle."

"Look all you want. I'm going down to those labs. We don't know who shot this place up. If it was Dooku and the Separatists, the labs are where they'd have started. It's the only place here with real value, as far as I can see," Ventress says, already turning away.

"Wait—we shouldn't break off."

"I move faster alone."

"Do you even have our comms frequency?"

Ventress smirks, as if the thought of calling for backup is quaint. "If I have anything interesting to tell you, Padawan, I will find you."

"Woman's right," Falco says as Ventress heads off. He gestures to a wide, open area near the lowest part of the facility. "Furthest turbolift on the right heads right down to that big vault-like pit. Storage and supplies. Also security HQ. Might be an armory. I want to see what they were prepared for."

"Do you—"

"I don't need company. I have your transponder. I'll call you when I learn something."

Tamri waves at him helplessly as the clone tromps off. This is not going to according to plan. Frankly, she'd hoped to find an intact installation, and then use Kesh and Dominion's institutional knowledge to hoodwink their way through whoever might meet them. Finding the place blown apart wasn't the idea. It certainly isn't the idea, either, for them all to split up. "If there's danger, we'll be better off together," she protests to Falco's back."

"No. We'll cover more ground in small teams," Avea murmurs, eyes scanning the map. "Pairs or threes. Dom, there's a server access node just three floors down from here. If Sem's on the employee roster, could you find out there?"

"I could, Miss Vigaro. If your nephew is indeed here."

"Then that's where you and I are going. Gotta at least see."

"Wait. We can't just leave anyone still alive to their fate," Tamri tries to argue.

Avea shakes her head. "I didn't come with you to save some Tath lackeys. I told you what I'd come along for," she says. "Don't let me stop you, though."

"We'll call if we find anything, unlike that Ventress woman," Kesh assures her.

"You're going with her too?" Tamri says. Blazes, she'd be as good as useless without her Jedi connection. As a youngling she was only a small child, never entrusted with anything like real leadership. With Sae, Tamri only ever followed her master around. Even on Telos, she, Kesh, and Avea all had a common goal. But now they have their own agendas, and Tamri has no idea what to say. Is this leadership? Is she supposed to give them a speech, rally them together? "Hang on—"

Neelotas grabs her shoulder. "Let 'em go, little wizard," he tells her. "The bald woman and the clone can handle themselves, and, frankly, something tells me you won't miss them if they do run into trouble they can't handle. The other three can watch out for each other."

"I just don't think it's a good idea when we don't know anything about what's going on," Tamri says, gripping the hem of her Jedi tunic.

"That's what you came to do, right? Figure it out? Gotta do the learning part first. Besides, if there are any survivors and you want to go save them, you better hurry. Don't let them slow you down. Have a little confidence. Sae woulda told you to just get on with it, rather than worrying about what everyone's doing."

Tamri looks down at her feet. It feels strange having Neelotas, a former pirate of all people, giving her advice—but maybe he's right. He was there with her and Sae all that time from Belderone to the asteroid base, after all. He knows what kind of trouble they can get up to. "Okay."

"Okay? Okay," the Nautolan says. "As for me, I'm staying with the ship."

"Wait, what?"

"Someone has to make sure we have a way out. Besides, the Selkath was right. Place is right out of a horror holonovel. Bodies and black everywhere. Have fun. Don't wait up for me."

Tamri presses her hand to her forehead and frets. Well, what's she supposed to do, then?

But she's not alone. Not entirely. Next to her, Korkie clears his throat and says, "I thought you were supposed to be the one in charge as the Jedi."

"I guess not," Tamri murmurs—but she's thankful he hasn't run off too. At least someone's still around. "I guess…uh, you and I are stuck together, huh?"

"Great," Korkie mutters. "At least you're talking sensibly. If there are survivors, we have to try and help. At least look for them."

Tamri's heart lifts, if only a little. One, at least. One person here will walk into the dark with her. Jedi are expected to face their fears whether together or alone, to be strong, brave, attuned to the Light—but in truth, Tamri wants anything but to square off with the fright of the black unknown all by herself. Even one person having her back makes all the difference. The void is too vast, too mighty, to face alone—and no one should ever have to. "Yeah. Um—thanks."

He pulls his blaster pistol; there is no hesitation in his eyes. "Sure. Now let's go."

The turbolift hisses and scrapes on the dregs of emergency power as Tamri and Korkie ride it down to the residence quarters. A single white light flickers on and off, buzzing and spitting, clutching to life. The lift itself creaks and whines. It's as if whatever dismantled this place tore the very soul out of the facility, and even the machinery is struggling to hold on to the last vestiges of life. Tamri swallows hard. Focus. Focus. The Force is with you. It is always with you.

The doors open with a groan some twenty-odd levels down. Beyond is the pitch-black unknown: Emergency power clearly is failing here in the living zones. Tamri reaches down to her belt and takes hold of what she's missed for too long. She is a Jedi, and every Jedi is one with their weapon. Maybe it is not her original weapon, not the one she started with, but it is hers.

She raises her lightsaber, ignites the green blade, and lets the light of the Jedi throw back the darkness—

—and illuminate a floor full of mangled, maimed bodies.

"What in the—" Korkie starts.

Tamri catches her breath. Torsos. Limbs. Heads. Bits and pieces of people—a dozen, dozens—are scattered around the spartan, steel-walled turbolift foyer as if a bomb went off, or a trooper haphazardly fired a flechette launcher at point-blank range. Blood pools on the floor, stains the walls—it's even on the ceiling. Chairs and benches are toppled. A side table has been cleaved in too as if chopped by an axe. And there—an uneven, savage gouge in the wall, a blade hard and strong enough to scar the durasteel. The air reeks of death and rot; so fetid and swamp-like is the gory miasma that Tamri can taste it.

The worst part of it all is the dead silence. This is a tomb.

Korkie waves his flashlight over the abhorrence while keeping his gun level. "There must be twenty—more," he breathes.

Tamri holds her lightsaber up with one hand while covering her nose with the other. That horrible stench. Her heart pounds. Her mind empties, coming and ending before ever having a chance to cohere. "They're all clustered around the turbolift doors. They were trying to get out. Trying to get away from something," she says, her voice trembling as she kneels beside a corpse. "There's no blaster marks. Nothing clean."

"Torn apart," Korkie murmurs. "Like by an animal. Or a monster."

Tamri slips on a glistening shred of viscera; she loses her balance, stumbles, and grabs Korkie to keep from falling. It's fresh. This wasn't something that happened weeks ago; it may have been as little as hours before they got here. A day or two, tops. Was it all sudden? Was it just lucky timing that Tamri and the others arrived here too late to be massacred themselves? Or were there survivors huddling about and trying to escape their attackers for days and days, until eventually their fortune turned sour? "I don't think it was the Separatists," Tamri whispers.

"No, I think that's pretty clear," says Korkie. Tamri looks up to him. His jaw is set, his eyes narrow, a touch of anger crossing his face. He does he stay so firm at the sight of all this? Tamri saw horrors in the depths of the underworld with Sae, but that was always with her master there to shield her from the worst of it. To help her up, keep her heartened.

But there's no going back to that now. She is here in the midst of this dark heart, and she can't turn around at the first tragedy. Sae always said to keep going. "There has to be some sort of clue," she says. "Something that can tell us what happened."

They move on through the atrocity. Nightmare hallways put to dreamlike green light by Tamri's saber. Squelching wetness underfoot. Odd lumps of shadow in the corners of Tamri's eyes; she dares not look. And that smell. Always that smell. Iron. Rot. She wants to vomit.

The halls are small here, familiar, communal. The Telos facility this is not: The residence halls make this base feel as much a long-term living arrangement as a research installation. Digital calendars on the walls, the displays vacant without power. A cheeky vulgarity graffitied onto the door of a worker's quarters; below it is a brushstroke of a blood. A potted palm still intact, perfectly positioned next to a pair of legs missing their body. Whatever carved through here sought vengeance on the workers. Either vengeance—or this was mad rage, savagery most primal, the sort of anger stewing at the birth of stars and the rending of the cosmos. An old, old fury.

"Here," Korkie says as they step out of the apartment corridors and into a commons, a sort of village square for the subterranean facility. "Huh. Looks almost familiar."

"Familiar to what?" Tamri says.

Korkie points to the angled ceiling, the geometric design of the support columns that line along the walls. "That's old Mandalorian design," he says. "I've seen it in history books back when I was a cadet. There are even some old, old barracks in a few cities that still have that sort of style."

"Barracks?" Tamri says, looking around. The square is wide and open, metal flooring, metal everything. Hard and cold in its uniformity. "It's like an assembly square, or a forum. You think this was a Mandalorian military base once?"

"Maybe a long, long time ago. Hundreds of years, maybe a thousand or more, back when our people thought war was life," he says. "Maybe these Arkanians you and the Jedi are chasing appropriated it and repurposed it. Although why here and not—" He stops. Raises an eyebrow. Looks at his wrist commlink. "Huh."

"What?"

"I got a…a strange reading on my comm," he says.

"Strange how?"

Korkie shakes his head. "I dunno. It was a frequency that…well, they wouldn't know I'm here. And we're too far underground anyway to pick up anything like that."

"Who is 'they?'"

He brushes off her question. "Let's just stay focused," he says. "It's not like we're taking a nice stroll here."

If only. There are fewer bodies here, but the corpses strewn in the square are older, the rot immediately visible. The first victims in the residential wards, she thinks. They've been dead longer. Days left to molder. It certainly smells like it. She moves to examine one of the bodies, but her comm's beeping stops her. "Jedi?" Falco calls out over the comm.

"Falco?" she says to her wrist link. "Did you find something?"

"I reached the lower levels. Security, armory, more," the clone says over the comm. "There's, uh…a lot going on down here."

"What kind of a lot?"

"Some old, old, war material. Mandalorian, I think."

Korkie steps closer. "What do you mean?"

"I don't entirely know what it is; wouldn't recognize it if it weren't for all the blasters and other guns stashed around here. A lot of bodies; some odd-colored blood I can't place. I think security might've tried to make a stand here. I was taking a closer look—emergency power's still mostly on around here—but I'm not alone."

"Did you see someone?" Tamri says, her breath catching.

"No. Not saw. Heard. And I don't think it's someone who's going to talk," Falco says, his words coming slow. "They…it was, eh…noises I've never heard any kind of intelligent being make before. I'm keeping my eyes open."

"We can come down—" Tamri starts, but the comm dies. Only static answers her. "Falco?"

But a noise makes her stop. She raises her lightsaber, the green light just enough to keep the black at bay. Korkie's flashlight slashes through the darkness. Jagged shadows; wraiths and shades play along the walls in the glow of Tamri's blade. The light twists and contorts. The black creeps in on oily tendrils and phantom limbs. The air thickens in Tamri's chest until it is molasses, every breath like gasping in a swamp. Only their heartbeats and breathing, and the hum of the lightsaber, shatters the silence—until an odd, low gurgle sends goosebumps marching along Tamri's arms. A short chitter; a high-pitched whistle. Then all is silent again.

"What was that?" Korkie breathes.

Tamri is afraid to know.

She only realizes that she's trembling when she speaks and her words shudder: "W-we can't stay here," she stammers. "We have to keep moving forward."

"We're not alone, either," Korkie says.

Tamri steps back, her lightsaber probing the darkness. Another step back and she bumps into Korkie. They turn in surprise; her hand brushes his ever so briefly. Warm. Strong.

Then a shadow shudders in her peripheral vision and she whirls about, lightsaber raised.

Nothing. Nothing but the black.

"Come on," Korkie says. "If there are survivors, they aren't here. This place is a death trap."

"Avea and her group shouldn't be far," Tamri says. "Let's—"

She doesn't finish. Korkie's flashlight roves through the black and stops beside one of the columns lining the wall. Behind it, very clearly in the light, is a pair of black, glossy eyes.

Tamri's stomach lurches so hard it almost spills out of her throat. She lowers her lightsaber. Korkie fires a blaster shot. The eyes pull back behind the column right before the blast.

"Oh, no," Tamri murmurs. She turns about, hands in a death grip around her lightsaber hilt.

She aims her blade at a column. A head pokes out from behind the cover. Angular snout. Chitinous brown shell. Facial mandibles like razor crescents. As soon as the light shines on it the wraith pulls back, back into the darkness, back into the depths Tamri may not see. A wet, high-pitched whine comes from the far side of the room and she throws a look over her shoulder, just in time to see Korkie's flashlight catch a shadow rushing from behind one pillar to the next, cover to cover. A bone-chilling noise halfway between a chuckle and a sob echoes from Tamri's right. She waves her lightsaber, waves it back—another head pokes out, retreats away into the darkness. She can't even tell how many there are. One? Two? A dozen?

Then Korkie's flashlight catches one of the assailants pulling around from behind a pillar—and Tamri locks eyes with her first Killik.

It's almost as tall as Korkie, slender, a long thorax and a longer abdomen, brown, hard, shiny. Spiky protrusions of exoskeleton irregularly jabbing out from the shell. Spindly legs and spindlier arms—two of the former, four of the latter. Its lower two arms end in dexterous grasping hands, but the upper arms are slashers, weapons unto themselves, limbs ending in hardened chitin like spearpoints. The Killik does not rise and let her inspect it, however—it lowers itself into a charge, howls like a crazed animal, and lunges.

Then it feints, steps back, and dodges behind the pillar as Korkie shoots—just as another Killik veers out from Tamri's right and charges in silently. She catches it too late: It lowers its head like a battering room while she and Korkie are focused on the bait. The Killik slams into Korkie, driving its skull into his abs and knocking him down. Tamri whirls with her lightsaber. She is fast; the insect is faster. It darts away as she slashes, blade whipping through air, cutting nothing.

"Korkie!" she cries, grabbing his arm and helping him up. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, just knocked me down," he pants. "How many?"

"I don't know!"

Another feral cry; another head pokes out from behind cover, and Korkie fires another shot. The Killik darts back again. Another lure in front of Tamri: She lowers her lightsaber and the Killik retreats. Careful, these attackers. Careful, cautious, strategic. Testing, tempting. Korkie catches one climbing up a pillar; he fires, hits its foot, and elicits a piercing shriek as the Killik drops down and ducks behind cover. Another feints, retreats, feints again. Now Tamri is looking on all sides, up and around. Time stops; her blood burns; her thoughts empty into the vacuum. Her life and her lightsaber.

Then, just as a Killik moves to attack only to bait Korkie's blaster fire again, a fellow assailant curls around a pillar and shrieks like a banshee as it charges head-down. This time Tamri is quicker. She moves around Korkie, flowing like water, mind empty, heart blazing. Her lightsaber thrums. Light cuts down the darkness. Her blade chops through the Killik's thorax and the bug comes apart, exoskeleton burning from the cauterizing wound, a revolting smell spilling forth like the seepage of some vile witch's brew.

Korkie turns and catches another Killik trying to capitalize on the distraction. He hits in the abdomen with his first shot, the second clipping the Killik in the head as it tries to dart away. It shrieks, howls, falls silent and still.

All around is movement and chittering. The walls themselves seem alive. Tamri stands back-to-back with Korkie, her lightsaber her everything. No time for thoughts. No time for fears.

A massive shadow shudders at the far end of the quad. Korkie darts his flashlight over, and Tamri gasps.

It's a Killik twice the size of the others, its limbs like tree trunks. It lowers to the ground on all sixes like an acklay, rumbling and spitting. Where it came from Tamri does not know, but this new arrival does not even try to hide. It steps into the light of her saber without hesitation, without fear.

Tamri takes a step forward. She clenches her teeth, two hands around her blade's hilt as she aims her lightsaber forward in a swordmaster's stance, left foot forward, right foot steady, shoulders squared to her foe. She will not fear, either. She will fight.