Slight warning in this one for the accidental outing of a trans character, because there's precisely one braincell here and it's not in use. Also cliffhanger warning.

The only good thing about the situation is that it means they've got a decent idea of where Ventress is during all of this.

Unfortunately, that location is in the refinery with the troopers, which is far less good, but Jocasta pushes that aside for now. Knowing where Ventress is is good, it means that they know she's not in the mines with the Khormai, so Kit and Master Tauht can likely handle that situation alone and leave the refinery to them.

Five Jedi of various skill levels could be considered a little bit overkill, but given that aside from the small clone squad Jocasta and Plo had brought with them they'd only be getting a few more clones to help out, Jocasta felt it was acceptable to load the team with Jedi instead.

Besides, it's only unfair when the enemy is doing it.

The fact that Imik and Thy would be joining them with the Seeker after they'd scouted out the mines some makes Jocasta feel a little better about everything as well. The clones in Plo's battalion were wonderful and competent, they'd be able to handle the more in depth scouting of things. And it would mean that the main battalion still had all of their various ships available since they wouldn't be sending any of them over to drop off the extra clone helpers.

And while they waited, they could scout themselves.

Jocasta makes a point to come back into view a little ways away from the troopers, drawing herself out of the shadows and shaking herself out. That particular technique always feels a little like walking in sludge, and not even hot water showers helped make that go away, but she is used to dealing with the feeling.

"Pretty much certain that Ventress is in there." She reports, folding her arms into her sleeves. "The place is covered in xari when you get close enough to it- I'm honestly almost impressed, it's an extraordinary show of control to confine the Dark in such a way."

"How so, Master?" Clicker asks.

"Darkness has a tendency to spread." She explains, letting Plo draw her into his side again. It helps a little with the sludgy feeling, and she presses fondness-gratitude-amusement. "It's fuelled by pain and suffering, after all, and with that, the more of it there is the more that there will be."

"Isn't that the same thing?" Timer asks.

"Not quite." Jocasta shrugs. "I mean, yes, but also- when a person is in pain or suffering, they often lash out, yes? Even when someone is just trying to help."

"Like snapping when you're grieving."

"Exactly." She reaches out and squeezes Boost's hand. "It's passing on the pain or suffering, and so it spreads. One person is hurt, they lash out, another person becomes hurt and will oftentimes lash out at others, too, or fight back. Suffering spreads. And that's the sort of thing Sith like, in the end, because the more people are suffering the more power they have, so the more people suffer and the more it spreads."

"It's a cycle."

"Precisely. And, for us, it's also a beacon."

"Master?"

"The Force is Dark here, it's xari." Purposely, this time, she lets her words echo, the Force component of the Dai Bendu ringing pain-sorrow-fear-Dark. Clicker gasps, and Plo shivers slightly; even the troopers seem to recognise it, from the way they shift uneasily. "Which is something that we can sense. And usually, we'd sense it from quite far away, too; pain and suffering stand out uniquely because they're such bright emotions- which is strange to say of things that are Dark, I admit, but it's hard to explain otherwise. So the fact that Ventress was able to confine the Darkness here is actually rather impressive."

"I wonder how she learned that…" Plo muses.

Jocasta is acutely aware of the fact that Dooku is her teacher, suddenly, mostly because if Ventress knows this then Dooku likely knows this, too, and that just brings to mind more questions as to how long Dooku has known how to do this and what else he might be able to hide with it.

Shoving the question down and to the side, she leans a little further into Plo and looks to Sly as they speak.

"So you're sure Ventress is in there, Gen- um, Madame?"

"Madame is fine, and yes, either she's there right now or she was there very recently." Jocasta confirms. "Unfortunately I can't tell you much about the base itself; if I get too close there's a chance Ventress will notice me, and I certainly don't want to give a sii time to prepare."

"No, that would be problematic." Plo agrees. He inhales, likely about to say more, but whatever he was preparing to add is drowned out by the distant rumble of a ship.

Fortunately, the Seeker is quiet, one of the few in the Temple specifically designed for that that aren't taken out by Valehnan on the semi-regular, so Jocasta isn't too concerned at how close to the agrocite facility they're landing.

Kiili is first out- he's not even supposed to be here, she'd expected him to stay with Kit and Master Tauht- bounding down the ramp before it's even properly open and landing firmly, pointing at Jocasta before shifting to also point at Plo. "I'm stealing yer boy."

"Which one?"

"Sinker."

"Absolutely not." Jocasta retorts, as she feels Boost startle-flinch.

"But Madaaaame!" Kiili wheedles. "He's so smart! And he's great with tech, and he doesn't question what I'm doing when I'm doing something most people find weird!"

"Congratulations, no." She repeats. "You're not stealing a clone from his battalion just because you like him, Kiili."

"Jooooo."

"No." She says firmly. "If you're that atara then either get a clone company of your own or head down to the Crèche and take the opportunity to get a Padawan. I'm sure there's plenty that'd work well with you." Though that would also mean the possibility of having two Kiili in her Archives and she's not sure her heart could handle the stress…

"But that's so much work, Madame! I could just take Sinker and not have to deal with breaking in a youngling to my ways!"

"Knight Kiili, I regret to inform you that I cannot allow you to steal Sinker." Plo says, sounding amused. "Perhaps taking Jo's suggestion and getting a Padawan will help you?"

"Urgh, fine." Kiili grumbles, finally dropping his arm. "Yer helping me with them."

"Of course." Jocasta confirms. "A Padawan is a child of their Temple as much as their Master, after all."

"Good, great, grand, glad we sorted that out." Imik grumbles, coming down the ramp now that the coast is clear. "Can we get on with things now?"

"Of course." Plo nods, waiting for Thy and the small contingent of troopers- another ten in total, none of which Jocasta recognises though one or two of their patterns look familiar- to join them. "Jo's been scouting around a little, and we're certain that Ventress is either there currently or was there very recently, but she's not the priority target."

"Which doesn't mean you shouldn't try to put a bolt in her if you see her, just that she's not the one we're looking for." Jocasta interjects. Perhaps it's not very Jedi-like to wish for the young woman's death; by all reports she is very young, perhaps barely old enough to be considered for Knighting, and of course those who are Fallen should be given the chance to leave the Dark and heal, but at the same time, the amount of pain and suffering Ventress has caused people- not just the clones but everyone- is untenable. Some of this attitude likely comes from years as a Valehnan, where her go-to response to such evil was to eliminate it, but it does not mean that such a response is necessarily wrong.

The joys of moral dilemmas.

"We've not been able to get much on the actual base itself, though, since getting too close means that Ventress might sense us."

"From what Jo has said, there's no sign of any Khormai being kept as slaves here. It appears they're using this as a staging base more than a refinery."

"Bit concerning, that."

"Potentially they were intending to capture the other base as a refinery."

"Or they might've been using this base for a time, then stopped, or they've moved any Khormai being kept as slaves here back to the mine to make that faster instead..."

"So, given that we're dealing with a crazy sii, three teams of two with trooper backup?" Thy suggests. "Me and Kiili, Plo and Clicker, Jocasta and Imik?"

There's twenty-four clones, so each of the groups end up being even, and after a few minutes of shuffling they end up organised and set up with entry points to the agrocite facility. Boost ends up in her team, and perhaps she should talk to him about that level of attachment but since it's not exactly impacting the mission at all- if anything it's probably helping, since he's not worrying about her as much- she finds she rather doesn't care.

"Onwards, then." She grimaces at the feel in the Force- slimy and sludgy and damp and cold- then trades a look with Imik and draws her 'saber, leading the way.

There is nothing about this base that makes Jocasta feel in any way better about the current situation.

Presently, their group has been waylaid by a much larger group of droids; so much larger that Jocasta is mostly limited to deflecting blaster bolts away while her troopers return fire and thin the crowd. She's actually resorted to Soresu, rather than her preferred Form V, because while Shien is good at deflecting Soresu was made for that- Shien was an adaptation because people had felt Soresu was too passive, and generally she agrees with that, but right now pressing forward is less important than surviving.

Imik appears to have the same feeling, settling into the smooth stillness of Soresu as well and deflecting the bolts- mostly into walls or down the corridor, but some of them are reflected back at the droids to help her boys clear them out.

"Hope the others aren't having this much trouble." They grumble, catching another bolt. Jocasta agrees; Thy and Kiili would suffer quite a lot with this sort of opposition, given both of their unusual 'sabers. Though possibly Plo and Clicker would handle it much better in some ways; Clicker would be limited by the amount of space but space becomes secondary when your primary battle tactic is to take Shii-Cho, apply it to Jai'Kar, and then become a plasma blender with two saberstaffs. If anything Plo would be the liability in that situation.

"On the plus side, with this much opposition we're probably going the right way." Boost points out from her other side, waiting a moment before firing two bolts at one of the nearer droids.

"Right way towards what, though, remains to be seen." Jocasta sighs a little, then reaches for Imik.

She makes her suggestion, because it's possible that a combined Force Push would make this a lot easier to deal with. They agree, because it's logical that knocking down a large enough amount of the enemy would make it easier to handle the rest. Both of them reach out, and shove.

Half the droids go down, thrown backwards into their fellows, and she can tell without much thought that a few of them have actually been disabled by that.

"On guard." Imik instructs, before diving in.

Much as Jocasta hates to admit it, Imik is the one who's better suited to this. She can be Cin's favourite sparring partner all she likes; that's still duelling, and nowhere near the sort of unrefined chaos that a battlefield is. When she returns to the Temple, she'll have to speak to Cin about setting up some kind of training yard against multiple enemies with blasters that can be used to mimic this kind of battleground. It might not be much help, but even a little bit more practise might save lives.

Imik cuts through the droid squadron quite easily, helped along by the fact that many of them are already on the floor just waiting to be taken out entirely, and their troopers prove that they're all too used to Plo doing the same by firing around them smoothly.

There's a few minutes pause after the droids are destroyed, mostly to make sure that they are all destroyed and also to make sure there isn't going to be another swarm of the damn things crawling around the corners, then both of them form up at the front of the squad and proceed forwards.

Not very far, though, since shortly after and around a few corners they run into a locked door that Bite needs to slice them through. Not unusual on its own, since they'd encountered a few such doors on the way in, but Jocasta notes that this one takes a little more work to get through; not much, but given that this place was a refinery it's enough to tell her that this area would usually be used for something important.

As has been the case for every single door they've passed through thus far, stepping beyond it means that the xari around them shifts, what Jocasta can and can't sense warping slightly as the Darkness wraps around them and adjusts to the environment and presence of people. Not unusual, for the Sith, though more commonly found in well-used Temples than temporary bases. It is, again, almost impressive, though also completely disgusting and not something that Jocasta in any way actually admires.

The shifting Darkness does reveal some things, however- in this case, it reveals five minds, all seeped in pain- both wung and ehnoct- and fear. Jocasta doesn't recognise four of them, but the fifth…

She barely bothers to spare enough time to check that things are clear before she's moving, lightsaber igniting and carving through the locked and heavy door in such a way that it allows her to wrench the entire thing off with the Force and drop it in the corridor further on.

As expected, four of the clones are unfamiliar. It doesn't help that they aren't in their armour, so she can't even see if she knows their paint patterns; one of them has slightly longer hair than the norm and is pressing down on their shoulder, where a wound is slowly dripping blood; two of them look fine but are definitely dealing with some kind of injuries, based on the way one of them is unconsciously holding their wrist and how the other is being very careful breathing; the fourth is the worst, missing a leg, and she can hear Imik inhale sharply behind her as they move inwards.

Jocasta is mostly focused on the fifth, though, who's being pressed against the wall by the one with the injured wrist and has very obviously stopped dead at the sound of lightsabers- not even the one with the missing leg has reacted that poorly, though the one with the shoulder wound has stepped in front of their sibling.

"Wolffe." She says, deliberately not stepping closer. She can feel how they all react to that; Boost strains behind her, suddenly desperate to push forward but resisting for the moment because he trusts her, the four other troopers in her group that are from the 104th stiffening as well and the three from the Devil Dogs immediately going on guard so the 104th can have their moment; the four unknown clones in the cell tense even further at the knowledge that she knows their Commander by name- defensive, and not unreasonably so, but it's twining with the fear and pain to make them paranoid- and draw up ranks. The one pressing Wolffe into the wall seems like they're quite prepared to jump her in defence of their siblings, which is admirable if incredibly stupid since all they know about her is that she has a lightsaber. Fear makes stupidity out of even the best beings, in the best circumstances, and while she isn't one to ever judge on a being's quality she can and will declare these far from the best circumstances.

Nevertheless, it is Wolffe's reaction that she focuses on. His breathing stutters to life, in the fast rhythm of someone terrified, but the emotions rising in him hope-wonder-fear-disbelief-reluctance-incredulity-terror tell all the story she needs.

"Agisti, foh paqor." She says gently, moving slightly forwards. Just enough to let Imik in properly, though they stop at her side for a moment as they take it all in. "It's all friends, I promise."

"Ahran?" Wolffe asks lowly, lifting his head, and oh. A part of Jocasta beams at his use of the word- other than Boost, the only time any of them had called her ahran had been when they'd first learned the word, asking for context over the slightly dingy holocomm. She knew they called Plo buir when they were in private- and sometimes not only then- but they spend most of their time with him; she doesn't begrudge them the fact that they needed more time to settle with her, no matter her relationship with Plo.

But the majority of her is fixed on his face.

Beside her, Imik takes a sharp breath, and Wolffe's eye jumps to them for a moment before going back to taking in every detail of Jocasta's face like a man drowning.

Eye, singular, because his right eye is gone, the thin shiim tearing through it and leaving a burned scar in its place.

"I'm here, Wolffe." She assures. Abruptly, he pushes off the wall, worming his way out from behind his sibling with the injured wrist and darting for her. He stumbles almost immediately, the pain from his injury disorienting him, and she takes a few quick steps in order to hold him up and against her chest as the troopers around them startle. "Careful, paqor, honestly."

"Ahran." He repeats, leaning heavily on her. Much like Boost, his height makes it hard for him to press himself against her side and hide, but he certainly makes the attempt, and she smiles sadly, running a hand down his spine.

"I'm here. Let's get you all back home, shall we?" She glances over all four of the other troopers as well. "All of you. Plo's waiting expectantly."

"Thank you, General." The one with longer hair and a shoulder wound says, slowly easing their way out from in front of their sibling with the missing leg. "Gritt's the worst off, other than the Commander, we did what we could but-"

"And I'm sure what you could do was quite sufficient." Jocasta assures. She's not sure any of her team has any sort of Force Healing ability, nor does she know if any of the 104th troopers that came with them are medics, but she can feel the trooper- Gritt, in the Force. They're in a lot of pain, but they feel bright enough that she's not worried about them fading.

A few hours more and she might have been, but for now, they're doing well enough that she doesn't think they'll lose them.

"Boost!" She calls, raising her voice towards the door. "Get in here and help your siblings, foh paqor!"

"Coming, ahran!" He calls back, stepping in. "Bite's comming the other groups, letting them know they can start drawing out again. Buir might try and come find us, though."

"He can try, given the xari in this place I'd be surprised." She grimaces, and reaches with the Force to tap his shoulder when he looks around the room with a grimace and pale face. "Come here and take your elder brother, Boost, please."

"Sure." He comes over at her prompting and wraps an arm around Wolffe, taking his weight from her. "Hey, Commander."

"Boost." Wolffe sounds wrecked, leaning into his side. "How-?"

"Everyone else is good, Sinker's back with the main battalion still, ahran brought a team with her and ended up getting involved in all this. One of them's a great slicer, apparently, he was able to find you by using Sinker's comms to search for yours." Boost fills in quickly, as Jocasta steps away and the other troopers either file in to help their injured siblings or stand guard. "We've got things, other than getting you all out of here there's not much left to do."

"Good job." He sags.

"Do any of you have medical training?" Jocasta asks lowly. The group that came with her shakes their heads.

"Lip's the only one with medical training that came with us, and he's with General Koon's group." Bite tells her. Wolffe makes a vague noise.

"Inci's got some, she's new but she's good."

The trooper with the longer hair and the shoulder wound startles slightly- presumably that would be 'Inci', which sounds more like a nickname than an actual name but Jocasta can rarely tell with the troopers. The sense of fear in the room gets mildly stronger, and a moment after Jocasta feels a shimmer of recrimination-fright-horror-worry from Wolffe.

She half-turns, checking him over quickly to make sure nothing's wrong, then turns back to Inci. "Well, given that she's also injured at the moment, it's likely better that we get you all out of here and back home so you can all be checked over."

Imik, from where they're standing beside Gritt with Inci at one side and Sly at the other, grunts. "We've got some stuff on the Seeker, so we can at least try and deal with some of it."

"And Thy's no Healer but her brother is, so she might know a few things." Jocasta adds. "So let's get out of here. Bite, you commed Plo?"

"And General Kiili." They confirm, touching their vambrace. "Just a message, didn't want to risk distracting them with a call or it failing, but they'll probably start moving out now."

"Excellent job, dear." She smiles brightly at them, which makes them startle, then turns back to the injured troopers they came to rescue. "Boost, if you're able to handle Wolffe, and Sly, if you can carry Gritt, that sound be the most effective way to get everyone out. Assuming you three can walk well enough?"

"We'll be fine, General!" The one with the injured wrist says boldly. She tuts a little.

"Not a General, my dear, Master or Madame is much preferred. Technically Madame is correct, I was here on Archives work, but I think by this point we might have shifted rather a ways off of that goal." She muses. Imik laughs, a sharp and bitten thing, from where they're helping get Gritt onto Sly's back.

"You got that right, Madame." He says. "Certainly wasn't what any of us expected to be getting into when we were told to come to Khorm for a tenday."

"Not boring, though."

"Got me there."

"I'm fine, damnit Boost-"

Jocasta turns again to see that Wolffe is very weakly fighting Boost, trying to keep him from shifting him to his back. "You are most certainly not." She tells him, perhaps a little sharply given how he freezes and shudders. She consciously softens her tone. "If you want to try walking with the rest of the group, that's of course your prerogative, but understand that that will only slow everyone down given your injuries, and that won't help anyone."

Wolffe grumbles but relents, letting her help him onto Boost's back.

"Thank you, foh coveri paqor." Wolffe, proving to her quite effectively that it isn't just Boost who's been obsessively studying the Dai Bendu primers, no matter what he likes to claim, grumbles some more.

"'M not that young."

"And I am ninety, Wolffe. I assure you, you are quite young to me." She says tartly, before turning to the rest of the group and leading the way out of the cell. "Now come on, let's get you back home."

They barely make it ten feet when the door at the other end opens and the corridor fills with a red light.

Regarding that bit about Ventress being young; I did the math (and you know I'm invested when I'm actually doing math to make sure things line up) and depending on the dates you take you have a decent range of ages. According to Wookieepedia, the Canon Ventress birth year is 50BBY, so according to that at the start of the Clone Wars she's 28. Which... isn't awful. It's not great. But it's not awful.

But then you pull up Legends, which is also where I originally got this info from.

In Legends her birth year is 43-39BBY. So to get her age for Clone Wars, you take either 19 or 22 (19 for the end of Clone Wars, 22 for the start, because Episode 4 is 19 years after Episode 3 and Episode 2 is 3 years before that) off of those numbers.

On the high end, with a birth year of 43BBY, Ventress is 24 at the end of Clone Wars and 21 at the start.

On the low end, she's 20 at the end of Clone Wars, and 17 at the start.

I had to go scream into a pillow about that for a while when I realised.

So anyway I'm using upper end Legends Ventress here, so she's around 21. Because making her 17 would've probably killed me a little, all being told.

Other notes;

At this point this fic could practically just be 'Jocasta Nu and the Neverending Tendency to Lecture', seriously, I did not intend for her to be this talky about things.

The technique Jo's using is the Shadow Armour, or at least something similar to it. I am allowed to do what I want. (If you want more details on that, it's on Wookieepedia under 'Force Cloak')

Dai Bendu

Xari- Darkness, as in Dark Side of the Force

Sii- Sith

Valehnan- Jedi Shadow (literally 'mastery of physical darkness' or 'mastery of being unseen')

Atara- capable of having/generally having children, means that you are ready to have children, adopted or blood

Wung- pain (physical)

Ehnoct- pain (mental)

Agisti, foh paqor- Hello, my child

Ahran- parent

Shiim- a wound made with the edge of a lightsaber blade

Foh paqor- my child

For coveri paqor- my young child

Mando'a

Buir- parent