Chapter 6

Over Their Heads

The Republic Embassy had some dark-colored Jedi robes. Apparently, the nonstop espionage game had netted them a couple of Dark Jedi apprentices, and the Sith's head diplomat was also a master of their Force discipline.

Kairi, Juhani, and Bastila walked right up to the front gates of the Sith Embassy and the bored-looking man in uniform who was sitting at the controls. With their access code, they got only a raised eyebrow as they were ushered inside.

From the other direction, a the Sith negotiator, an icy-looking woman, saw the contract and gave Carth and Canderous a look of intense scrutiny, as well as noting the contract. When all was clear, they were taken to a transport going to the Sith base. The negotiator asked few questions, but was taking the time to brief them on the assignment. The hangar bays were vulnerable, and mercenaries had their uses since they needed as many hands as they could afford processing and guarding the kolto. She expressed a concern about "Republic treachery" and "security changes."

Carth kept his mouth shut, paying more attention to the transport's control configuration, and the route they were taking. They might need to use one of these to make a fast getaway.

At the back entrance, a T3 unit, a Twi'lek girl, and an elderly human man walked up to the on-duty droid and inserted their passcard. Sure enough, the card was valid and the droid was not very bright – believing them to be temporary replacements for their usual janitor.

A protocol droid escorted them to the visitor's lounge on the west end of the base. They were to wait for Commander Grann, the base's security chief. As they took their seats at the table, Juhani tapped her fingers on the table.

"Perhaps this may end peacefully," Juhani said. "Though these are Sith, they are diplomats and politicians. There is a slim hope of reasoning with them."

"I hope so," Kairi said. "We're on shaky ground as is. I would hate for a diplomatic incident to be caused. Still..."

Bastila brushed off her robes. The dark color made her quite uncomfortable, reminding her too much of fallen Jedi. What was worse was how Juhani and Kairi wore them so naturally. They made for an interesting pair, at least. Juhani could be a firestorm of emotion, loving or hating with equal ferocity. Kairi was quieter, a calming influence, but no less passionate about the same things.

Easy...too easy...She kept herself apart on the ship. She had to. Still, it hurt more than she wanted when Kairi confronted her. Certainly, being bonded to her wasn't comfortable. No matter how much she could control her emotions, there was no evading the empath. Of course, Bastila was disappointed, but the disappointment was not for the reasons Kairi thought it was.

Kairi thought she had no business being a Jedi. The truth of the matter was that Bastila had no business being the one to guide her, a fact becoming more obvious each moment.

"You're tense. It's becoming obvious," Juhani said.

"I suppose I am," Bastila admitted. "Why not, considering where we are sitting."

"I wonder if it is customary for the Sith to keep visitors waiting," said Juhani. "Or..." She bolted from her seat, sniffing the air. "Elements!"

As if on cue, the vents opened and greenish gas started spilling into the room. Barely able to see, the women started to cough and gag.

Carth and Canderous had been brought to Commander Grann, and allowed him to drone on about the Republic (it was taking Carth considerable willpower not to let loose with his own tirade). Canderous, for his credit, was looking quite bored.

The door to the security office slid open and a redheaded woman saluted Grann. "We have intruders, sir."

"What? Why is the alarm not sounded? What is...?"

The woman smiled in a way that made Carth very uneasy, like a firaxa shark encountering bleeding prey. "There is no need. I've seen to them."

Grann was highly annoyed and motioned Carth and Canderous to follow him as they marched into the adjoining room. One wall was covered with monitors, and an enormous security desk was before them.

"Their pass code was out of date. It was enough to get past the idiot at the first gate, but not good enough for me."

Carth looked up at the monitors. One of them riveted him - the west lobby. The room was starting to fill with gas, and three figures inside were choking on it. He gasped when he saw who they were.

They made a good show, using the floor polisher, and old-fashioned brooms to make their way from room to room. A utility droid and a couple of low-level janitors were practically invisible, especially with a culture that treated the powerless as sub-sentient anyway.

However, if they were caught accessing a terminal, or in the restricted areas of the base, their cover would be blown. That's why Jolee's lightsaber and a hold-out blaster were hidden inside the droid's modified compartments.

They started by cleaning the officers' quarters, including the one that was the residence of the late Elassa Huros. They found what they were looking for inside a locked drawer that came open with a little "persuasion" from Mission.

"A datapad? What's on it?"

Jolee studied it. "Everything. Looks like they wanted to turn Sunry into the double agent."

"Well, the files I found at the Embassy did confirm that Sunry was working for Republic Intelligence, but not more than that. So, you're saying both of them had the same idea?"

Jolee chortled in disgust. "And why should that surprise you, Mission? Two governments at each other's throats, stuck on a neutral world where they can't attack directly. Makes sense that they would attempt back-stabbing instead."

Jolee took the datapad, slipping it in his pocket. "Looks like we got what we came for. Let's start getting out of..." His voice trailed off.

"What?"

"Tee-Three, hand me that lightsaber. We've already been discovered."

Part of Jedi training involved the ability to withstand potentially lethal conditions. After two minutes, the greenish gray gas had filled up the room and tainted the air. Being the one with the smallest body weight, Kairi was already starting to feel the effects. A bit of knowledge swam up from the void of her mind – thanazine gas. It was a favorite method of execution among the Sith, and a powerful agent of chemical warfare – able to down an entire battalion in three minutes.

She narrowed her stiniging eyes (already drawing heavily on the Force to keep the toxic effects at bay), and pulled the spikes from her hair. In desperation, she threw it at the window, hitting right at the shatterpoint, the glass cracking in a spider-web pattern, and a corner of the coated glass falling inward to leave a hole the side of her hand. The second blade jammed in the small panel near the vent, causing it to go into emergency shutdown and cut off the flow of poison gas.

The sudden rush of sea air into the room swept some of the gas away. It bought them a little time, but not much.

He had to do something!

Just him, Canderous, Grann, and Grann's sadistic assistant.... the rest of the base could be dealt with later. Judging from how fast the west lounge was filling up and becoming smoky, subtlety wasn't an option.

A glance at Canderous, acknowledging with a slight nod of the head. For only a split second, Grann turned his back, and that was enough. Carth pulled his blasters and shot Gran dead. His assistant fell to the blasters a moment later, but only after jabbing the alarm.

The alarms went off, the din of bells and sirens and locking of doors. Carth dove for the terminal. He had limited skills, but Mission had supplied him with a few spikes he used to jam the terminal.

"C'mon...come on...come on."

"It's too late, man. They used thanazine, and they've been in there with that gas..."

"Shut up!" Carth roared with a vehemence that shocked even him. He willed himself to look away from the monitors, and focus...just focus on the computers. He felt an odd peace wash over him as he worked the controls, the universe narrowing down to the set pattern of controls, and he knew what to do.

"Teja!" Canderous breathed in amazement. "They're still alive."

Carth shuddered and looked up from the terminal. The door was now open, as were the air vents, the gas being sucked out as fresh air was pumped in. Bastila was first seen, her saber blazing as she motioned to the others. Juhani was helping Kairi to her feet, waiting until she'd found her balance before the three of them charged into the hall.

Alive!

The door slid open. A cadre of Sith soldiers ran into the room, demanding surrender.

"You don't know us very well, do you?" Canderous was raising his hands in what looked like a surrender gesture, but Carth knew Mandalorians a little too well for that. Concealed in his armor were small switches and hidden panels. He saw something shoot into Canderous's fist as the Sith guards ordered them to drop their guns and go against the wall

As soon as he saw his opening, Canderous took it, spinning around and plunging his palmed knife into a guard's neck. From his other hand, he tossed a half-dozen small cluster bombs - no bigger than a pebble, but with enough firepower to blow off a man's leg.

Boom!

The impact set all of them slamming into the walls, but the Sith were directly beneath the blast. Their leader was in several bloody pieces, and two others were collapsed against the wall, their armor crumpled like a spent ration can. The other two were stunned, and easily dispatched.

"Sorry," Canderous said mockingly to the corpses on the floor.

"So much for negotiation," Bastila said curtly as they made their way through the base. They'd already killed the guards sent after them, and Kairi had used her computer skills to seal off the main floor of the embassy, reducing the amount of enemies they would have to deal with.

"It's a good thing Carth and Canderous sprung us from the trap," Kairi said. "I sensed them," she said by way of explanation.

Legions of droids poured out from the corridors, from panels. The three worked as though they were on one mind as they fused Force Abilities, sabers, and combat training to cut a swath and continue.

It was like an obscene dance, and they made the most of it. Juhani's forthright slashing with the saber, Bastila twirling and leaping with all the precision of a dancer. Kairi's style was somewhere between, liberally peppered with Force powers and playing off the other two.

A pile of scrap metals marked their trail through the Embassy. Kairi's eyes grew unfocused for a moment as she motioned the other two to follow.

"This way. They need help."

There wasn't a way to access base security from here, but by now the alarms were going off. Jolee took point, and sure enough there was a cadre of guards waiting for them. Jolee put out his hand, shoving them back with a jolt of the Force. T3-M4 used a stun ray to render them unconscious. Mission skipped the hold-out blaster and instead dove for a blaster rifle, shooting another guard coming up behind Jolee.

"Thanks."

"No problem!"

"Tee-Three," Jolee said. "Get us to the control room. We need to aid our friends."

With a melodic tone of acknowledgment, the little droid made a beeline for a door on the far end of the corridor.

Carth and Canderous also had their hands full. Ducking behind doorframes and blasting away with all they had, Carth had lost track of how many Sith had been sent against them only to fail in their task.

Falling back to a more defensible position, Carth jammed the override on a door, the two of them backing into a supply room. That didn't stop the siege, though. They were trapped now.

Mission, Jolee, and T3-M4 barged into a small room at the end of the corridor, startling the two technicians on duty. Before they had time to sound an alarm, they were taken down by lightsaber and blaster rifle. Mission ran up to the first terminal while T3-M4 plugged directly into the grid, using the droid port.

"Let's play," Mission said as she started to work the controls. "First, let's make sure those guys that we stunned won't wake up for a little while longer...Then, let's..."

T3-M4 unplugged itself from the droid port and whooped loudly as it rolled to the far end of the room. A broken droid that looked like a dead kinrath was sprawled in the corner. Pulling the data module from it, the little droid rolled up to Mission with the module in its claw, reminding her of a friendly pet bringing back a thrown stick.

"Whatcha got, little guy?"

A set of off-key warbles and chirps explained.

"That's the data module? Great!"

The men sealed off the door and reloaded. They heard the sound of lightsabers not far behind the guards trying to break down the door.

"Dark Jedi," grumbled Carth. "Just what we needed."

"This is a good battle," Canderous said. "The best kind. Outmatched, deep in enemy territory, and with a kinsman at my side. If we meet our end here, we die well."

Carth had to think about that. Was it really so long ago they faced each other as mortal enemies? "No argument here."

The sounds outside the door became eerily quiet as the telltale burning of a lightsaber started cutting through the lock. The men drew their guns, got into position, and prepared to make a last stand.

Clang! The metal center of the door clattered uselessly to the ground, and the door slid open.

And it was the most wonderful sight Carth could recall. Kairi was smiling. She was mussed-looking, her robes had been ripped in several places, and scorched from blaster fire in a couple others, but she was alive and well. Equally battered, and equally alive, were Juhani and Bastila.

"You could try using a com link, ladies," Canderous deadpanned.

"Ours were shorted out by the gas," Kairi said. "Sorry."

Carth's comlink went off. "Hey, guys. I see you, but you can't see me!"

He laughed and answered. "Hey, Mission."

"We've got what we came here for, but the Seklath authories are on their way. We've got to get out of here if we don't want to get in even bigger trouble."

Carth thought for a moment. "Mission, can you open the north wing?"

"There aren't any exits on the north wing."

"I...I know that," Carth said. "But when I was in the security room, I saw something there we need to do."

"On it...simple!" She said. "It's open, but..."

"It's okay. You and Jolee get out of here. Meet us back on the ship. Carth out." He cut transmission.

Carth explained. "The north wing's sealed off. Canderous and I couldn't get in. What was worse was the security camera." He announced grimly. "I saw what they're using the wing for. They're training those Selkath kids as Dark Jedi."

"Kairi and I will accompany you then," Bastila said. "Canderous, Juhani, I would like you to meet up with Mission and Jolee. Make certain that module gets to the embassy. If we...if something should happen to us, the safety of that recording is paramount to the Republic."

Canderous glanced over to Kairi, who nodded her agreement.

"Very well, then," he said. "Good luck."

It was deathly quiet in the north wing. A simple enough explanation was that they had already dealt with the majority of the Embassy guards, but there was something else that wanted them to come to it, rather than sallying out to meet them.

The wing was roughly square-shaped, the first door being to their left. Kairi saw it and let out a strangled cry, her hand going to her head like she was in pain. After a moment, it passed.

"Death in there..." she said.

Carth opened the door and tightened his grip on the blasters. It was pitch black in here, and he had his pistols up, just in case. The smell of the room was of death and chemicals - rotting fish. He could feel the hair on his arms standing up. Using his elbow, he triggered the lighting switch.

Carth was no stranger to death - twenty years of service to the Republic, two wars, and countless battles gave him a view of it too often. The sight still made him ill. Bastila shuddered and looked away.

Four young Selkath were lying on the floor. This room had once been an infirmary. Now, it was an abattoir. The walls were stained with green-yellow Selkath blood, and sticky, congealing pools of it rested beneath the dead. Spent canisters of drugs, and blood-stained instruments were everywhere - scattered on counters or the floor.

He heard Kairi's sharp gasp behind him and she dove to the side of one of them.

"He...he...still alive, barely. Come on..." she whispered as she tried to will life back into that broken body. Carth knelt across from her, pulling a medpack from the wall and doing what he knew how to do with the Selkath's wounds. Carth felt a small round object being pressed into his hand.

Unfocused green eyes opened. "Tell...tell Shasa the Sith..."

"Tell her yourself, friend. Just hold on," Carth said. "Hold..."

The body convulsed and went limp, and Kairi's sharp cry cut the air. "No!" She was grimacing in pain as the last of the Selkath's life fled, gritting her teeth to pull back and taking shuddering breaths to steady herself as Bastila pulled her to her feet.

"I...I couldn't save him."

"The Force willed it," Bastila said quietly. "Sometimes there is nothing to be done."

"The Force hadn't a damn thing to do with it," Carth said sharply. "Come on."

Bastila led the way, Carth to her left and Kairi on her right. They searched through the wing, opening doors and searching the room for anything of value. At least they could confirm that this was a place for training Dark Jedi - the evil in this place seemed to ooze down the walls. They looked into training rooms, lockers with practice sabers, a bay for demolished practice droids.

The door at the end of the hall opened for them as they approached it. Waiting for them were two Selkath apprentices flanking a human man in Dark Jedi robes. Bastila and Kairi pulled their sabers, taking defensive stances. Carth pulled his guns, the anger at this Sith blazing through him like a battle stim.

"Well, now," he said. "Allow me to introduce myself, Sith Master Gai Davder. You may have thwarted the other traps in this base and the cannon fodder I had on guard, but you have come to the end, now...Jedi."

Carth started to warm up the blasters. "You're going down for what you did to those kids."

He threw back his head and laughed. "I convinced them to come, and they stay willingly once they have. No one leaves the Sith...alive, that is."

"Master, allow us the honor of helping you kill these intruders," said one of the Selkath.

"As you wish."

The Selkath students wielded blades, but the master had a bright-glowing saber. Bastila chose to face him while Carth concentrated his fire on the larger of the two Selkath.

The cortosis weave prevented Kairi from doing damage to the young Selkath's sword, but her dueling skills were far superior. Ducking and dodging, she struggled to disarm the apprentice. "Master Gai," of course, almost seemed to mock Bastila as he casually parried and leapt out of the way of her attacks.

Gai laughed and made a gesture in Kairi's direction. She suddenly found it hard to move! Fear blasted into her brain and threatened to split her head apart! The Selkath apprentice raised his blade, trying to finish her off, when two shots from Carth's blasters took him down. While she still could not move or fight, she waved Carth on towards the Dark Master.

Gai was holding his own against Bastila, going on the aggressive now. Bastila struggled to dodge his skillful attacks – swipes at her legs, jabs for her torso. Seeing Carth out the corner of his eye, one hand left the hilt of his own double-bladed saber and made a choking motion.

Carth would never forget what hit him. It was like someone was punching and grabbing his larynx at the same time. His lungs spasmed like they were about to explode. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't move! Black and red spots swam in front of his vision as he struggled mightily to try and reach that foul man. How dare he do this? How dare he twist those kids...torture those others. Trying to pull in air was impossible, and moving was taking all the effort.

"Stubborn fool, aren't you, man?" he asked.

Certain it would be his last action, Carth used the last of his strength to rapid-fire his blasters and hope it did some good.

It did. While the shots were clumsy, they forced the Dark Jedi to dodge, and one of those shots, he miscalculated, striking him in the shoulder, and disabling his right arm. Seeing their chance, Kairi and Bastila rushed him, and proved to be too much. Kairi finally finished him off with a stab through his back, and he dropped to the floor. She knelt next to him, exhausted from the battle.

Gai weakly turned his head, getting a close look at Kairi's face. He let out a wheezing gasp.

"My...my Lady? What..." the rest was lost in a death rattle. A paralyzing fear gripped Kairi's heart. It was not the ramblings of a delirious man, but clear recognition.

Carth started to recover the instant the Dark Jedi perished, but he was still having a coughing fit peppered with swear words so lewd it actually made Bastila blush.

"Bloody keffing -"

"Gather your strength. Force choke's a nasty trick, and usually fatal!" she said.

"Ah, I've got a tough hide. Thanks...thanks to you and Kairi for taking him down." Another fit of coughing. As soon as he was able to take air into his lungs and speak without a fit, he accepted Bastila help to get back on his feet. Kairi still hadn't moved from the fallen Sith Master.

"Kairi, what is it?" Bastila asked, concerned.

Kairi looked down at the dead Sith. "I don't know...I don't know yet."

Mission's door slicer took care of the locked door. They were in the master's private room now, and Carth whistled at the opulence of it. Embroidered pillows, silk sheets, and an ornate chest at the foot of the bed, a chest that Kairi managed to pry open.

"Such decadence," Bastila said with distaste.

"Yeah," muttered Carth. "Lies under these sheets at night and dreams of galactic domination, I'll bet. But guess he just had to make do with hurting kids. Not sorry that bastard's gone."

"Oh...oh, dear," Kairi said, pulling a datapad out of the chest, and handing it to Bastila. "Dark Jedi were just the beginning!"

Bastila looked it over. "Corrupt the best and brightest of Selkath youth, use them to establish a puppet government, and...well, I'm certain Ahto City authorities would like to know this."

"Hold it!" A Selkath voice cut through the room. "Why have you killed Master Gai? What are you doing in his quarters?"

A half-dozen adolescent Selkath blocked their only exit. Their apparent leader was a female who had a vibroblade in her hand. She looked at them warily, but otherwise waited for them to make a move. Kairi started to reach for her lightsaber, but Carth held up his hand.

"Are...are you Shasa?"

A scowl. "Yes...and who are you?"

Feeling quite foolish, Carth introduced himself. "My name's Carth...Carth Onasi. Shasa, your father is worried about you. He wanted us to investigate before the Sith turned on us."

"I told you your father would get suspicious, Shasa!" said one of the other Selkath youth. "He always hated the Sith."

"My father does not understand," Shasa said. "He's blinded by his own prejudice! The Sith are teaching us mastery of the Force. Our alliance with the Sith will being strength to Manaan and the Selkath people."

"They lied to you," Carth said. "What they really want is the planet - and they wanted you to get it for them."

Shasa made a noise of contempt. "Republic propaganda. The Sith are the victims of lies and half-truths. They're not monsters - no more so then the Republic. The Sith have promised to guide us in use of the Force as a sign of good faith. And once the Republic is defeated, the Sith have promised to withdraw from Manaan and respect our independence."

"What they've taught you is a terrible curse," Bastila said. "If the Republic is defeated, the Sith will enslave this planet."

"Spare us your lies," Shasa said. "The Sith have treated us with respect and honor. You speak as if we're being held prisoner here, but we can leave whenever we wish. Our friend Galas chose to leave and he was returned to his home safely."

"Shasa, what if they aren't lying? Remember what happened on Taris..." reminded another cadet.

"Yes, certainly you must have heard of the destruction of Taris. It is your 'honorable' friends that committed that atrocity," argued Bastila.

"Taris? How do we know if THAT's the truth, either?" She looked at them in challenge. "If the Sith are such monsters, then prove it to us. Surely there is some evidence of the horrors they are said to commit."

Keeping one hand up to show good intentions, Carth reached in his pocket and pulled out the round object that the dying Selkath gave him. He passed it to Shasa.

"I found a young Selkath dying of torture," he said. "He gave me this. There was...there was nothing we could do for him."

Shasa accepted the pin and held it up to the light.

The first cadet recognized it. "Shasa, this is the pin I gave Galas when we were children. There is blood on it."

"You could have found this anywhere," she said. "For all we know, you killed him!"

"The Sith tortured him to death. Shasa. You know this to be true," Kairi said. "The training your master gave you should be enough to let you know we tell the truth."

"Shasa, I believe them. How else could they have found this pin?" the first cadet said.

Shasa hung her head and lowered her weapon. "I didn't want to believe it, but I can no longer deny what I know to be true. Galas is dead and the Sith are responsible."

"There is more," Kairi said, handing Shasa the datapad.

"Shasa - this is the master's own datapad! Look, they're telling the truth," said the second.

She gasped - a rasping, bubbling sound. "I...I cannot believe it, and yet the evidence is right before me. The Sith wanted us to betray Manaan! I must apologize for doubting you. The Sith truly are as evil as you claim."

"We must report this to the Ahto City authorities!" demanded a third cadet.

"Yes, we must report this at once," Shasa agreed. "We thank you, human, for showing us the truth. You have saved us from a terrible mistake."

Carth nodded. "Better you know the truth."

Bastila smiled wryly. "You have been saved from more than you know. Given time, the Sith would have turned you fully to the Dark Side, and you would have betrayed your world gladly. "

Shasa motioned to the others. "Quickly, my friends, we can stay here no longer. We must flee this foul embassy and warn our people of this plot."

Bastila, Kairi, and Carth followed them out.

The cadets were able to escape detection on the way out, but the humans were not. Leaving by the front entrance, they found themselves quickly surrounded by a dozen Selkath and an equal number of assault droids.

"Humans, you are placed under arrest of the Ahto City Civil authority!"

"Whoa, whoa. You've got the wrong folks here," Carth said.

"Though the Sith Embassy here is considered sovereign territory of the Sith Empire, we have been monitoring an alarming number of weapon discharges and detonations from the base. Inquiries to the staff of the Embassy yielded no response. It would seem contact had been cut. Our cameras recorded you and your party entering the base shortly before contact was lost and the fighting began."

"Do you wish us to make a statement?" Bastila said.

"None are needed. It is the conclusion of Ahto City authority that you are responsible for the disturbance here and you are hereby placed under arrest. You will come with us to await your trial. Now, don't attempt to resist or we shall resort to overwhelming force."