Swallowing hard against whatever was blocking his throat, Hunter pressed himself back against the pillar and tried to lean away from the slowly cracking egg. He was hemmed in on all sides. Above him were the fluttering and clinging warriors, and behind him were the wall and pillar. The line of undead shifted incessantly, directly in front of him, the hatching Geonosian queen was to his left, a pair of guards on his right –

The continual motion and sound from all different directions, in such an enclosed space, had been making his head feel muffled and strange for some time, but it was rapidly getting worse. Each tearing crack from the three different eggs sounded louder than it should, drowning out the constant humming of beating wings for an instant.

Hunter twisted his hands hard against the cuffs in an attempt to bend the metal, but he couldn't get much leverage. The inability to do anything but watch grated on his nerves, and the unspent adrenaline buzzed in his veins. Biting his lip, he looked at his companions to distract himself.

Across from him, Cody was leaning forward against his bonds. The commander's face was pale, but his expression was as stern as ever. As for the general, he was glancing from one occupant of the room to the next. His gaze never stayed on any one thing for very long. Hunter wondered if Quinlan would be able to do anything . . . well, Jedi-like . . . to get them out, or at least to keep them from being eaten long enough to give Cody time to act.

Hunter had heard some pretty crazy stuff about the Jedi, most of it from Wrecker, who was intrigued by their abilities. So far, though, it didn't look like the Force-powers they had were very useful in situations like this one. Quinlan hadn't been able to really act since the three of them had been captured. Maybe it was because he had to use his hands to guide the Force.

A crunch of shell against sand caught Hunter's attention, and he glanced sideways at the ground, then at the egg. By now, the upper half of the queen's damp, skeletal brown body was free of the confines of the shell. Sharp mandibles clicked slowly together as she looked around the room, blinking a weird, milky film away from her eyes. Then, she continued to fight her way out of her tiny prison, not seeming to care when the wet, bedraggled wings that hung down her back snagged against the rough edges of the shell.

Hunter winced in disgust and looked at Cody. The queen next to him was nearly out of her egg, clawed forelimbs digging into the sand as she jerked her heavy body the rest of the way forward. Dead Geonosians were turning as though to restrain her. When she lurched forward one last time and came fully out of the shell, Hunter suddenly noticed exactly how big the queens were. The eggs were about the height of a clone trooper, but as the queen uncurled her body, he realized that she was at least three meters in length, if not more. The long, curved stinger which protruded from her abdomen tapped erratically at the ground.

Her head twisted on a spindly neck to observe the Commander, who narrowed his eyes and shifted.

Hunter knew that Cody wasn't likely to panic and trigger the explosive he'd been holding next to his skin, but he still found himself tensing. Wait, sir – don't set it off yet!

The queen opened her mouth, and her wings buzzed once as she crawled forward. Instantly, the undead warriors was swarming her, physically clinging to her neck and torso in order to keep her on the ground and away from Cody.

Hunter watched them tensely. The queen near Quinlan was taking a long time to emerge, but the one hatching just beside Hunter was making quick progress now, tearing through large portions of the shell with her spiny forelimbs. Only seconds later, she wriggled free, straightened to her full length, and crept a few steps forward. She had four front legs, but her abdomen dragged on the sandy floor.

Then she turned and saw him. Her liquid-wrinkled lips cracked open, and she let out a shrill predator's scream. The sound was so piercing that Hunter cringed all over, turning away in vain in an effort to protect his ears. Blood dripped from his nose, and he gave his head a hard shake. That was just great – the last thing any of them needed right now was for the queens to smell blood.

The queen next to Cody screamed back, and then the third one joined in. Hunter hunched his shoulders, coughing silently against the blood sliding down his throat. An undead Geonosian shuffled up from behind him, echoing the cry at the queen before shoving her forward and away from the pillar. It was joined by its fellow undead, and multiple pikestaffs scraped gratingly against her carapace as they forced her towards the empty floor in the center of the ring.

They were going to fight until there was only one survivor. Then the winning queen would devour them, and Hunter couldn't do a thing to stop it. He slumped against his bonds, hanging his head to keep from inhaling blood as he tried to calm himself.

Keep it together. . . Come on, think straight. Breathe – breathe . . . Slowly, his heart stopped slamming in his chest. He had to think of what he had available to work with. No weapons. His hands were securely bound. His two teammates were also restrained, but Cody had an explosive and Quinlan –

Screeching hisses broke his focus, tearing his attention back to the ring.

The three queens, all fully out of their shells now, had finally caught sight of each other. Their glaring eyes were bloodshot, still half-blind from the protective film that was only just starting to dry, and they clawed savagely at their undead bodyguards in an attempt to reach each other.

Cody and the Jedi were both looking at Hunter now, an almost questioning worry in their eyes. Hunter eyed them before realizing that he must look awful. The stupid nosebleed probably made it look like his whole face had been cut.

He met Quinlan's gaze and tried to shrug, stopping when the movement sent jerking prickles up his spine. Don't worry about me, General, just worry about how we're going to get out of here – if we've even got a chance of getting out of here. . .

There was another call, this time from the leading warrior, whose right forelimb was still covered with blood. As one, the dead Geonosians that had been holding the queens back stepped away.

All three of them lurched forward. The one beside Hunter scrambled to attack her fellow queens, clutching at one with all four limbs and twisting onto her back in an attempt to stab her stinger into her opponent's body.

Then the undead spread out, enclosing the ring, and it got harder to see. The living warriors buzzed into the air and clung to the ceiling and walls, careful to keep a safe distance from the battling queens. The undead, though, shifted around, pressing and shuffling as though they also wanted to observe the fight.

Excited chitters filled the air. Sand was churned up by the combatants, drifting into a haze that hovered a meter from the floor, obstructing the prisoners' view of the queens even further.

Hunter met Cody's gaze over the heads of the undead. What do we do, sir? he thought, wishing he could ask him directly. He could have shouted the question in this din, and Cody wouldn't be able to hear it.

From Hunter's vantage point, there wasn't much that he could see over the heads of the mass, even though he caught quick glimpses between the bodies of the undead as they constantly pressed and shuffled, as though looking for good spots from which to view the deathmatch.

Excited screams rang out. Enraged screeches. Pained shrieks. Clawed limbs scrabbled in the sand and scraped noisily against the tough exoskeletons that all Geonosians seemed to share.

The dozens of noises, the dizzying motion that he could both see and feel through the walls and floor, the smell and taste of blood – his, Cody's, and the Geonosians – all of these were beginning to gather in Hunter's head, making it harder and harder to function.

Not this – not again, not now. Hunter gritted his teeth and tried to breathe through it. He'd had this kind of thing before, and knew how to handle it – but it was so, so much worse now than it had ever been. Before, he'd been able to fight his way out . . . now, he couldn't move. That was by far the worst part.

It wouldn't stop. He was trapped. They were all trapped. He couldn't do anything about it. They couldn't escape. The vibrations were beginning to ache in his bones, itching for release. Hunter twisted, pressing himself against the pillar as hard as he could, but the cool stone only gave him a moment's relief.

Then one of the queens let out an abrupt, warbling scream, and Hunter caught a glimpse of her curling in on herself, her entire body filled with stab wounds from the others' stingers. Then her body thudded heavily to the sand, shaking the floor, and an even stronger smell of death pervaded the atmosphere.

The warriors beat their wings rapidly as they shrieked in frantic excitement, some hovering down from the ceiling before drifting back up. Every pulse of movement in the air made Hunter's head ache from the inside, and the constant shocks of adrenaline to his system made it physically agonizing to stay still and silent.

He couldn't – he couldn't –

The tension building unbearably inside his frame clutched at the inside of his ribs and throat until it was hard to focus on anything but the pressure. Hunter let out a few panting breaths, but it didn't help. As he gasped, the air brushing against the inside of his teeth hurt badly.

I can't – I can't –

He couldn't see Cody or Quinlan anymore; his vision was closing in. The sounds and sensations from all around made him feel as though he were shrinking, like his skin was too small for him. Suddenly frantic, Hunter ducked his head and let out a desperate cry. He could barely hear his own voice, though. It didn't counteract the external pressure at all, and in the end, it made things worse.

As the cry faded, Hunter realized with a jolt of panic that he couldn't fill the crushing hollowness in his chest that his yell had left behind. The itch returned, stronger than before and more unbearable, gathering between his shoulders and pinching his neck until the only way he could ground himself was by scraping his fingernails against the sandstone pillar. Squeezing his eyes shut, he pressed the back of his head against the pillar, just waiting for it all to stop.


Something was seriously wrong with Hunter – even if the bloodcurdling yell he'd let out hadn't given it away, Quinlan would have been worried. Apart from the sudden nosebleed, the sergeant had been twitching and jerking in place for half a minute now, eyes shut and his head turned hard against the pillar.

Quinlan himself had never been claustrophobic, or prone to sensory overload, but between one thing and the next he was having a hard time breathing. Yeah, he thought. Those enhancements of Hunter's have to be painful down here. . .

All the sympathy in the galaxy wasn't going to help, though, if Quinlan couldn't figure out a way to get himself and Cody and Hunter out of here before too much time passed. As soon as one queen had emerged as the victor – well.

He could use the Force, but not easily, not without the use of his hands – and though he'd been weakening the metal of his cuffs, he wasn't able to put enough leverage against them. Not only that, but something was telling him to wait until the right moment. . . Too bad he didn't know when that moment would be. First Cody had been badly injured – Quinlan cringed at the memory – and now Hunter. Well, he wasn't injured, really. Maybe. But he also wasn't doing well, unless looking like he was having a seizure counted as doing well.

Blast it, why can't I help?

The two remaining queens were still wrestling on the ground, their long bodies churning up sand as they fought, jabbing at each other with their stingers. Suddenly, the larger of the two reared up and slammed her weight onto the other, who fell onto her back. Her wings vibrated and buzzed uselessly against the floor as she was stabbed repeatedly through the abdomen and torso.

It was over.

The excited chittering died away into an expectant hush. Then, half-dried wings fluttering behind her as she rose to her full height, the victorious queen turned from the bodies of her sisters and locked her foggy gaze onto the warriors that clung to the roof.

The Geonosians responded with a burst of noise and motion that rose sharply into shrill, whistling calls of approval.

Quinlan clenched his fingers against his cuffs as the queen fell onto her forelimbs again and skittered a few paces towards him. The death match was over, which meant that it was time for the victor to claim her prize – a living victim.


As the queen crawled rapidly towards the Jedi, Cody wrenched at his cuffs again, in part to vainly test their strength – for at least the thirtieth time – and in part to assure himself that the thin explosive he had hidden hadn't disappeared.

It was still there . . . of course it was. Cody twisted his wrists harder, trying to slip two fingers into his left sleeve. He had a weapon, so there was still a chance. A small one, but a chance all the same.

The material of his blacks rubbing against his injuries was aggravating them, but he couldn't stop. The queen was only a meter from the Jedi now, who had pressed himself back against the pillar as hard as he could.

Before Cody could grasp the explosive, though, the leading warrior let out a shrill series of clicks and guttural sounds, and the queen stopped in her tracks. Slowly, she turned her head, letting out a hiss of displeasure.

The warrior gestured sharply, as though giving a command or returning her challenge. The queen snarled, and then the leader waved his pikestaff so that it whistled through the air. For a tense moment, during which nobody moved, the two Geonosians glared at each other. The whole room seemed to be holding its breath.

In the end, though, the queen was the one who gave in. Shaking her head viciously, she clacked her mandibles together and backed slowly away from the Jedi.

She may have won the match, but she wasn't in charge yet. . . why not? Cody wasn't sure if the 'why' mattered or not; in his experience, though, knowing who held the authority in any given situation was always relevant.

Satisfied in his victory, the lead warrior gave another order, punctuating his words with brief gestures. Every undead in the room moved forward together, clutching at the bodies of the defeated queens with half-decayed limbs. Laboriously, they began to drag them from the room.

The queen followed them to the doorway and stayed there for several seconds, as though waiting for something; then, abruptly, she turned back into the room, wings buzzing in short, impatient spurts.

When the leader only gestured her back towards the door, she let out a warbling call of anger and skittered towards Hunter, who tensed all over.

Cody, already struggling to reach the explosive, strained his arms even harder, but he was already reaching as far as he possibly could.

Before the queen could reach Hunter, several of the warriors who had been clinging to the ceiling and walls descended to the floor in front of her. Instantly, though, the queen charged at them, and they fluttered safely out of reach, leaving the sergeant unprotected only meters away.

Quinlan twitched, as though he'd tried to jerk forward and been brought up short by the ropes that wound around him. But the movement did something, because the queen hesitated, angling her head at him for an instant.

Before she could resume her attack on the sergeant, the Geonosian warriors, who had been clicking to each other, descended all at once, pikestaffs pointed at the angry queen. She backed away, shrieking angrily, as they jabbed at her. This time, after they drove her to the central doorway, they surrounded her and kept her in place.

The queen called out angrily again – but then a soft sound of footsteps, overlaid by some sort of tangled slithering, approached, and she quieted.

Cody looked past her to see a pair of large Geonosians entering the room, carrying between them a writhing nest of brain worms. They set it before the queen, who lowered her head. Two thin appendages at the back of her neck reached forward, touching the worms.

The commander watched, both intrigued and a little disgusted. He assumed she was establishing a – mind-link? – or something similar, with the brain worms. It would make sense – she was supposed to rule the Hive, so she'd probably have to have command of all the undead . . . which must mean having command of all the worms that controlled the bodies.

The realization that several Geonosians were approaching distracted him from the strange sight. Instantly, he stopped his useless efforts to reach the explosive and instead turned his wrists inward, afraid the Geos would feel it through his sleeve. Their bony hands closed around his upper arms, and he was freed from the pillar and dragged towards the center of the floor.

Before he could even attempt to fight, he was hurled to the ground, landing on his side next to Hunter. Cody twisted onto his back and tried to take stock of his surroundings. A few meters away, Quinlan was struggling violently against the four warriors who clung to his arms, pulling him towards the center of the room.

Cody watched silently, continuing to twist his hands against the cuffs despite how his shoulder burned at the repetitive, tiny movements he was able to make. Without the pillar restraining his movement so much, he was able to work his fingers beneath the sleeve – he was very close to the detonator – just another centimeter . . .

The Geonosians wrestled Quinlan to the ground on Cody's opposite side. Pinning him on his back, they cuffed his hands in front of him and held him in place, holding him easily by the ankles and elbows despite how he jerked and struggled.

The room was almost quiet, except for the faint fluttering of wings, and the shifting of sand as the commander's teammates continued to struggle against their captors.

Then the worms were taken out of the room, and the queen turned to face them.

Quinlan abruptly went still, cuffed hands resting limply against his stomach as he leaned his weight on one elbow and observed the queen through narrowed eyes.

At almost the same moment, Cody's reaching fingers finally closed on the edge of the small explosive. He drew it towards his hand, letting it stay just beneath his cuff, then turned, resting most of his weight on his left side. Closing his eyes for a moment, he measured his breathing and thought deliberately through his options. Setting the explosive off might give the general the time he needed to escape – and to get Hunter out. . . assuming that Cody could throw it far enough to not kill them.

If Quinlan could throw the detonator with the Force – if the commander could even get it out from behind his back . . .

"Cody," the Jedi whispered unexpectedly. "Wait."

Cody obeyed and went still, just in time.

The queen had reached them and was leaning over Hunter. One of her long, flexible antennae brushed slowly across his forehead, clinging despite how he jerked away. Cody held his breath when the queen opened her mouth, but she didn't bite Hunter. Instead, she maneuvered around the sergeant and approached Cody. The thin antenna covered in short, bristle-like hairs dragged against his forehead and face, and he had to struggle to remain motionless.

Again, though, she didn't actually attack. She moved on to Quinlan, who stared determinedly past her at the ceiling while she repeated the procedure. This time, she buzzed excitedly, then towered over the Jedi, forearms clasping and plucking at each other as she chittered through spiny teeth.

She found her prey, Cody realized.

Before he could move, the queen lunged.

With an inhuman burst of speed, Quinlan wrenched both arms free of the guards' grip and twisted sideways. Her teeth closed hard on his left forearm, and he let out a gasping cry – but already he had hurled a Force attack at her.

Abruptly, the queen withdrew, spiny teeth covered in blood. She stood as though in confusion for an instant before screaming furiously at Quinlan.

Hunter was once again fighting against the warriors who held him on the ground; but Cody, holding the explosive behind his back, hovered one finger over the activator and waited. The general could use the Force still, which meant that while he dealt with the queen, Cody had to stay ready to kill as many warriors as possible – just in case there was a chance.

"Hunter!" he snapped in a low voice. "Get ready!"

The sergeant went still immediately, taking in the situation with a quick, encompassing glance.

Quinlan shoved himself up on one elbow again and threw the guards aside with a sharp gesture of his cuffed hands. At the same instant, the queen ducked towards him and her mandibles gripped the sides of his neck, keeping him in place as her teeth snapped at his head.

The Jedi slammed both fists into her throat. The queen released him and reared back, and Quinlan clenched his hands. The massive Geonosian fell onto her forelimbs and shook her head hard, letting out gagging clicks in the back of her throat as the Force squeezed it.

If he could just manage to kill her . . . Cody watched, tense all over, as angry screams and shrieks sounded around and above them.

Hurry, General –!

Then every warrior in the room descended on the Jedi and the clones.


Chaos erupted around Quinlan and his companions as the Geonosians went berserk in a frantic attempt to protect their queen. He'd stopped throttling her – that was supposed to be a diversion, but not like this! – but the warriors hardly seemed to notice. Instead, they crawled over him, clutching at his face and limbs. Two covered his mouth and nose with their cold, scaly hands, and he hurled them back in a panic.

Others had already swarmed him, though, and Quinlan realized with a rush of fear that he'd lost sight of the others. He flipped onto his stomach, ducking his head to protect his eyes from the claws of the Geonosians, and crawled forward – but made it only two steps before collapsing beneath the combined weight of the warriors that were piled on his back.

"Cody!" Hunter's shout was muffled, barely audible amidst the warbled cries and shrieks and the scraping of wings and bodies against gritty sand.

The Commander didn't answer, and the Force stirred strongly around Quinlan, the pent-up energy and fear of the past hours coiling around his core.

He restrained it instinctively, not wanting to kill Hunter or Cody. He had to find them, and then he could release it. But the near-stampede continued, and the flurry of living and dead forms in the Force, combined with the violent motion and sounds and sights all around him, made it impossible to discern any one being.

He tried to get up, and the Geonosian queen's forelimbs slammed into the sand beside his face. He dodged too late, and one of her claws gashed open the skin right next to his eye. Jerking to his knees in a panic, Quinlan threw the Force outward in a violent surge, realizing even as he did so that he hadn't managed to find Hunter and Cody first.

Don't – don't! He tried to withdraw the attack, but it was too late. His panic had transformed itself into pure energy, and it arced out with the Force to slam every creature around him into the hard walls of the cavern, killing many and knocking out others, the bodies stacked haphazardly in twisted heaps against the walls. The brunt of the attack focused on the queen, lifting and hurling her back against the wall so violently that she was crushed. The queen's dying scream rattled in the Force as her tenuous connection with the undead was abruptly severed.

Inhaling sharply, Quinlan fell forward onto his cuffed hands. He gulped in another breath, choked on a lungful of sand, then rasped, "Cody?"

No answer. He coughed again and staggered clumsily to his feet, grabbing at the pillar as he nearly collapsed. "Cody – Hunter!"

Something chittered behind him, and he turned sharply. A dazed warrior fluttered into the air and aimed a clumsy swing with its pikestaff. Quinlan let the blow land on his cuffs, splitting the chains, then wrenched the weapon away and killed the Geonosian before using the spear's tip to slice the cuffs around his ankles.

"Cody!" he shouted, peering through the dust-filled chamber. Blast it, where was his lightsaber when he needed it? He reached out, using another Force-push to clear the worst of the sand from the air. "Hunter –!"

A shift of limping movement caught his attention, and he twisted on his heel to see a familiar form in white-and-gold armor getting up near one of the piles.

"Cody!" Quinlan called again, hurrying over.

The commander glanced at him, then went back to whatever he'd been doing. It took Quinlan a moment to realize that Cody was digging through the bodies, jerking them aside regardless of whether they were living or dead.

Oh. . . Somehow, Quinlan had managed to bury the poor sergeant beneath dozens of Geonosians.

Good thing the queen didn't end up on the same side of the room. Quinlan grabbed Cody's wrists and stabbed the humming tip of the staff into the chain between his cuffs. Once his hands were free, it only took a few more seconds to find Hunter, who was half-conscious and fighting his way out of a dying Geonosian's clinging grip.

Without speaking, Cody and Quinlan each grabbed one of Hunter's hands and tugged. He tumbled onto the dirt floor and flipped onto his back, where he lay trying to catch his breath.

Quinlan used the pikestaff to cut Hunter's cuffs for him, mumbling to himself as he did so. "That could have gone worse."

Hunter groaned once and rolled onto his stomach, then pushed himself painfully to his feet. Even though he looked as bad as Quinlan felt, with scratches and smears of blood on his face and arms and torso, he gave a faint, adrenaline-fueled smirk of agreement.

But Cody, who looked even worse, simply glared at Quinlan in sheer irritated exhaustion. "We're not out of this yet, General," he said, pulling the detonator out of his sleeve.

". . . Yeah, I know." Suddenly serious again, Quinlan tapped Hunter on the arm and pointed towards the far wall. "Grab your armor, Hunter – Cody and I are going to find a route out of this anthill."

The living Geonosians in the room were – well, they were alive, but barely. Some of them flickered into death even as Quinlan crossed the room towards the passageway which led back up the way they'd come, but he ignored the sensation.

"This passage is clear," he said quietly, pointing into the hall.

Cody nodded and armed the explosive. That was when they heard the shrill cries of the undead rising from behind them.

"Uh, gents?" Quinlan glanced over his shoulder at the dark corridor across the room. "I think it's time to go."