Commander Hebbin and his company met them outside the airlock. The commanding officer of the Hyrim's marine compliment was a grizzled Zabrak veteran who had made his name leading the team that stormed the flagship of the Dread Masters back in the war and, along with Jedi Master Kaedan, had captured the seven notorious Sith Lords, though reports were confused as to what had happened next. After the Treaty of Coruscant, he had been re-assigned into semi-retirement heading security aboard the Hyrim, a twist of fate he had taken in his stride with typical military stoicism. He saluted sharply as Quintus and Aelia approached. "The men have been briefed, Master Jedi, and we're ready to move out at your command. Those slavers won't know what hit 'em".

"Excellent, commander," replied Quintus. "Once we've secured the docking bay, split the troops into three teams. Aelia will take the first to capture the bridge, and I need you to lead the second to secure the engine room, just in case some fanatic tries to trigger the ship's self-destruct."

"Yes, sir. And the third?"

"The third will go with my Padawans to liberate the slaves in the cargo hold." Quintus turned to Rheni and Livia, both standing attentively at his shoulder. "Be careful. The prisoners will be frightened, and their guards may well decide to put them beyond rescue. You need to get there in time to stop any harm from coming to them, understand?"

Rheni nodded, reading his teacher's earnestness through the Force. "Yes, Master. We'll get them out safely."

"Good. I'll be back on the bridge, meditating." Quintus turned back to the company. "Move out. And may the Force be with you all."

There was something beautiful about the efficiency with which the Republic military operated, a reassuring competence born out of years of experience in boarding and capturing a dozen different enemy vessels. Two Bombtroopers, each armed with a bag of nanoexplosives, rushed forward and planted their charges on carefully selected points on the enemy's airlock door. Their task completed, they quickly retreated behind the formed-up ranks of the advance party where, at a word from their Commander, they detonated. Before the newly atomised particles of the door had finished settling, the front line had moved forward, laying down a thick barrage of suppressive fire. Go in fast, go in hard, and never give the enemy the chance to rally themselves. Basic military tactics, but they worked.

The airlock was cleared in a matter of moments, and the next two waves of Republic troops flooded through the still smoking door to back up their comrades, headed by Aelia and the two Padawans. The fight was heating up in the rest of the docking bay as a motley assortment of pirates from various species returned fire with an equally motley assortment of blasters. Blaster bolts filled the air, flying in all directions, illuminating the bay with blue, red and green light as they pummelled armour, scorched flesh, and bounced off Jedi lightsabers.

Blind as they were, neither Rheni nor Livia could quite appreciate these finer points of pyrotechnics. To them, one blaster bolt felt very much like another, whatever the colour. But where their non-existent eyes failed, the Force came through. Every combatant- pirate, marine or for that matter Jedi- was a shadowy blue outline on the canvass of the Force, lacking in visual detail perhaps but each infused with a distinct aura and wrapped in a spectrum of thoughts, feelings, and secrets, utterly personal and utterly unique to them. Each a candle, aflame with life. And with each blaster bolt to find its mark, with each vibroblade that aimed true, another candle was snuffed out, its colours leaking back into the endless symphony of the Cosmic Force, lost forever in eternity.

The legendary Jedi General Jaric Kaedan had once told his class, in his customary gruff manner, that no initiate could ever truly understand the depth of a Jedi's respect for life in any form until they had stood on the field of battle and seen for themselves the destruction such death wrought in the Force. He had been right; on his first battle, Rheni had stood paralysed as he beheld the carnage surrounding him, so that if Master Alde had not been watching his back he would have been cut down there and then. Livia, even more sensitive than her brother, had actually passed out and spent the next day in the medbay. Now hardened by experience tempered with Jedi discipline, both Miraluka could overcome their difficulties, though their fierce respect for life remained. So as their lightsabers weaved their gracefully efficient arcs, the two Padawans dealt out disabling but decidedly non-lethal blows. A severed arm or leg, a lightsaber hilt rammed against an unhelmeted forehead, whatever removed the opponent from the equation but not from the land of the living. All life was worth preserving. Even pirate life.

The pirates fought with desperate ferocity, but the marines they were up against had cut their teeth driving back Sith Commandos. A rabble of slavers with aftermarket blasters posed little difficulty in comparison. After a fierce but brief exchange of blaster fire, the pirate lines began to break as they ran for the doors separating the docking bay from the rest of the ship. As the marines gave chase one pirate, a burly Weequay, darted through the doors and thumped the control panel on the opposite side. Through the closing gap and over the protesting cries of those pirates who had not yet reached safety, he raised his blaster and put a bolt of blue plasma into the control panel on the opposite side, frying the circuits. Then he ran.

The remaining slavers came to a stumbling halt against the now sealed bulkhead. Some hammered uselessly on the durasteel door. Some threw down their weapons and began trying to surrender. A few, braver or more stupid than the rest, raised their weapons and prepared to go down fighting.

Aelia, however, was having none of that. The pirates' blasters and blades were pulled out of their hands with a flick of her wrist, and when one tried to charge the marines with just his fists, the Jedi Knight lifted him into the air with the Force and slammed him back against the bulkhead, knocking him unconscious. The others gave up pretty quickly after that.

The marines dealt with the prisoners, cuffing them and sending them to the Hyrim's brig under guard, whilst the Jedi saw to the door. Aelia examined it closely. "Hmm… what do you see, Padawans?"

One of the few edges Force sight had over the real thing, in the physical department at least, was an ability to see straight through even the densest materials. To a Miraluka, the door and all its workings were laid bare, as clear and obvious as the electrical and magnetic fields that flowed through it like blood flowed through organics. Behind the door, they could just about discern the shadowy figures of yet more pirates crouched in the corridor beyond. Their fear was palpable, and more so their hatred.

Neither Rheni nor Livia were particularly gifted with technology, but the Force at least offered some basic, instinctive guide. Everything was a pattern, and patterns could be discerned. "Electromagnetic sealing, Master Aelia," concluded Rheni after a few moments. "Pretty standard high security, really."

Beside him, Livia reached out and placed her palms gingerly against the durasteel, trying to get a better sense of things. "The polarity could be reversed through the Force, Master," she said. "It would take some time, though."

Aelia shook her head. "Time is something we, and more importantly the slaves, don't have. Commander Hebbin?"

Hebbin stopped what he was doing, which was supervising the last of the prisoners, and came over. "Yes, ma'am?"

"Can we blow the door down like last time?"

Hebbin laughed. "Stars, no, ma'am. This door is made from re-enforced durasteel with nano-carbonite plating. The amount of explosives needed to blow it down would take the ship with it. We'd be sucked out into space."

An audible snap-hiss, and the Commander recoiled instinctively as green fire leapt from the lightsaber hilt in Aelia's hand. "Very well. We'll have to do this the old-fashioned way."

Even with three Jedi cutting through it at once, the door proved infuriatingly stubborn. These pirates must have pulled of one hell of a heist to afford it, Rheni mused, as he forced his saber through it by yet another unyielding inch. It was hot work, in more ways than one, but eventually a large rectangle had been carved into the durasteel, its edges glowing softly with molten slag. Aelia motioned for her two charges to stand back, then focused the Force and thrust her hand forward. Five tonnes of durasteel were sent flying out the door and down the corridor behind it. Livia grimaced, less from the deafening clanging now echoing through the doorway and more from the destruction she felt the speeding debris wreak in its wake. More lives lost, however cruel.

There is nothing like a huge chunk of durasteel, shooting like a bowling ball down your ship and scattering your comrades in its screaming path, to cause a distraction, a distraction the Republic boarders capitalised on shamelessly. With any semblance of organisation gone, the pirates in the next room were easy pickings for the highly trained marines. Even as those quicker on the uptake than their fellows fled back down the corridors, away from the Jedi and their troops, the last dregs of resistance began to collapse under the weight of the Republic assault, and before long the survivors were being escorted back out the ship and to the brig whilst the Jedi split their remaining team in three and took their separate ways. For a brief moment, Livia heard the gentle voice of Master Quintus, wishing her one last may the Force be with you, and then she and Rheni were alone with their marines, fighting their way through a densely packed ship's corridor towards what they hoped was the cargo bay. With a bit of luck, and the Force willing, they would make it there in one piece.