Author's Notes: This chapter perhaps should have been longer, but I just wanted to get it done. Apologies for being away for so long – I've been a bit blue as of late and haven't been in the mood for writing anything, but I've got my rear in gear again, and am doing my best to get back on top of things! Thanks for your continuing support!

Seung Mina: Dirty? Or just vicious? ^_^ what can I say – it's my nature.

Layren: Sorry to have to keep you waiting for so long! And I'm glad that you're enjoying the fic! ^_^ Thank you for your comments!

Merrymoll: Ah, overload, part of the etiquette of Fanfic.Net. ^_^ But we'd complain if it wasn't here at all, right? There're less laughs but more action for the time being, now.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

A Test of Faith

Chapter 11

Serenn blinked at the claw that pointed toward him – it carried a most unwelcoming aura about it for some reason. The hall was completely silent again, and when Serenn swallowed, he was certain he could hear it echo from off the cavernous walls about him. Allyaah and Qui looked between Dooku and Captain with a numb uncertainty, complete at a loss as to what to do (when the odds are three-to-three thousand, indecision can often take a hold of you). Infact, it wasn't only Jiao and Jinn who had their eyes pinned upon Serenn – the entire hall seemed to be beholding him, like some kind of lab experiment, waiting for him to blow…

"What?" he finally managed to ask, his head continuing to pound.

Captain, in one frighteningly swift movement, hauled Serenn up by his robes, hooking it about the twin barbs at the tip of his fore claw plate, before slinging him over the table. Dooku yelled as he soared through the air and smashed, with tremendous force into the unyielding, solid stone floor, skidding to a halt at the victorious drone's tripod of legs. He grunted, looking at the floor with hatred toward its lack of conciliation, his headache intensifying, before it finally and fully sunk in that someone had actually thrown him – yes, him – across a table!

Growling, he launched himself to his feet and pounced backward away from the drone, his agility belying his gangly stature. "What is this?" he yelled.

Allyaah and Qui-Gon had by now leapt from their seats, arms held about them warily, the natural deliberations of 'fight or flight' buzzing through their minds; 'flight' really wanted to take hold, with the overly blatant fact that they were faced by thousands of stupidly loyal Colicoids hammering them unremittingly in the mind, but 'Fight' was putting up an admirable opposition – when push came to shove, however, there was really no alternative. Fight was the only option.

The drone stepped toward Dooku, claws held up.

["Do not kill him!"] Captain squealed, ["He mustn't die!"]

"Someone please tell me what on Coruscant is going on!" Serenn bellowed, drawing his lightsabre hilt from his belt and switching the blade into action. The green glow of his weapon lit up his face and body, and the drone that had been approaching him seemed momentarily startled, hesitating in its pursuit. Its tiny, black eyes watched the strange weapon warily, mesmerised by its majesty.

["He must not be killed!"] the Captain repeated sternly.

Allyaah looked about, noticing that the entire throng of Colicoids assembled in the hall seemed to be edging toward them en masse; it seemed that Dooku was valuable to them, and that they were to act as one in order to prevent his escape, or worse, his death. She swallowed – she didn't know what to do.

"What's happening?" Jinn cried as the entire hall seemed to close in with the steadily advancing coleopteran creatures.

Allyaah couldn't reply – she edged back, taking Jinn with her by the shoulder, her free hand hovering over her sabre hilt. The beetles didn't seemed to be paying her and the Padawan much attention now – they were all converging on Serenn, though keeping their distance as the green laser-sword burned brightly, and potentially fatally, toward them all.

"Allyaah, what's going on?" Qui-Gon continued, his voice breaking in desperation; his eyes were fixed on his mentor as the sea of shells closed round him like a pack of ravenous Nexu; "We've gotta help him!" He tried to break forward, but Jiao tugged him back; "That won't help, Qui," she warned him, "You know how dangerous these creatures are…"

Qui grasped his lightsabre hilt and activated his own green blade, "I'm dangerous, too," he growled angrily. There were squeals from the Colicoids near the Padawan and startled jumps as the advancing beasts realised that the boy, too, had a mysterious humming, glowing weapon.

Allyaah would have stopped him from drawing his weapon if she'd had time, but, either way, she was at a loss as to what to do about the circumstances. She shook her head, trying to calculate how to get to Serenn with the least amount of hassle and slaughter – but there didn't seem to be a way of doing this without both hassle and slaughter.

"We can't just stand here!" Jinn continued urgently; Allyaah met his wide, desperate gaze, and saw the hope and urgency within his eyes, saw how he was looking up to her to do some thing to save the man who had raised and trained him these past few years, the man he'd have no qualms about calling 'father'.

Her resolve hardened – sometimes, there was no choice. And attack was the best form of defence. She drew her crystal-blue sabre into her hands, and activated the blade, standing en garde beside Qui-Gon. More Colicoids now reared back from the two not-so-important Jedi, and began to form a circle about them, both mesmerised and intimidated by their weapons.

Meanwhile, Serenn swung his sabre about him in a circle, trying to ignore his aching head, trying to focus his blurring sight; the Force had been trying to warn him about something, trying to tell him about something…it involved blood and life, and he didn't like the sound of it at all, but he had a feeling that, whatever he had been warned against, was now approaching him at a head-on run.

Then suddenly, the entire hall froze – there was an almighty squawk from the rafters above ('They carved rafters into their ceiling…?' Qui-Gon pondered briefly), and everyone looked up simultaneously; Captain seemed to draw back in dismay and elicited his form of an angry sigh. Hundreds of Colicoids now descended from the roof above, their hue completely different to that of the present Colicoids, being bright green and yellow, their forms also seeming more streamlined. Chaos took control of the scene as the ambush took place, and everywhere, virtually all that could be seen was brown Colicoids fighting yellow-green Colicoids!

["The Simara Nest!"] all the dignitaries, that had been perched at the table, seemed to scream in tandem in various pitches and styles, ["Get them! Kill them!!"] And the masses obeyed like clockwork.

Serenn was baffled. As the crowd that had closed in on him dissipated to fight their green-hued kin, he was again left, within the centre of the gigantic commotion, to fight the drone that had been ordered to take him in the first place. He feinted a jab toward the drone – with lightning-quick reflexes, it managed to leap back with daunting speed and agility, despite its injuries from its recent brawl. Dooku swallowed – Colicoids were indeed hardier in body than humans.

Allyaah and Qui-Gon were trying to keep out of the way of the rolling and fighting Colicoids that surrounded them – they had unwittingly sliced several in two after the mêlée and taken hold, many coming too close for comfort and ending up on their blades' ends. Seeing so many Colicoids locked in vicious combat was unnerving to say the least, and many of them possessed a towering amount of strength when compared with their Jedi visitors, plus had a great vertical advantage, reaching a good seven feet tall in height.

Even though the two were armed with their lightsabres and attention had been diverted from them in the affray, Allyaah and Qui-Gon now had more chance of being run over by a rolling beetle than they had of dying on the end of one of their claws.

"This is embarrassing…" Jinn murmured, it coming natural to him to try and lighten the moment, "We get all wound up and ready to fight, then some 'gang' takes all the shine away, and we get ignored completely…" Qui-Gon followed his speech with an automatic sidestep, just in time to let a Colicoid whiz through the space he had just occupied. He stepped back into it once it had passed, shaking his head, "Typical," he added.

"Well, shall we save your Master, or what?" Allyaah inquired, calmly ducking to let a Colicoid (or part of one) fly overhead.

"Let's go!" Qui-Gon yelled, swinging his sabre before him and making a path in the direction he'd last seen his tutor in.

Captain's eyes hardened as he glared at the figure of Dooku, watching the tall Jedi continue to keep the advancing drone at bay; ["He must not die,"] he murmured to the crested dignitary, who cowered behind him, slightly to his right, ["He must live."]

["Then bring him in quickly, or the Simarans will take him!"] the pusillanimous dignitary returned.

Captain swung to look at him, ["You think they suspect?"]

["Their spy networks are advanced…"]

Captain paused for thought, ["Then we shall put him…'to sleep'…"] he concluded. He gestured to another Colicoid, who rolled off quickly in another direction, out through the rumpus.

Colicoid squeals echoed all round the hall, but Captain knew as well as any that the Simara Nest didn't just send their Colicoids into unfriendly territory without meaning; the Colicoids from the Simara Nest were fighting as a distraction for something else, and Captain theorised that the three Jedi were somehow involved in this 'mission'.

Swiftly, the Colicoid he'd sent off on an errand came back, sporting some fancy-looking pipe in his dexterous claws. Captain merely nodded toward Dooku, squealing at the drone, who was still vainly trying to get closer to the Jedi, to back off for a moment; the Colicoid raised the pipe.

One Simara Colicoid tried to finally take control of the situation and get his objectives sorted; he landed on the dignitary table after leaping tremendously from the ground, and yelled to his comrades, ["The humans! Get the humans!"]

Before Allyaah or Qui-Gon could quite reach Serenn, both trying desperately to push through the crowds, they were rapidly swept off their feet by a pair of speedy Simarans, who gathered them up in their claws, deactivated their sabres and took the metallic hilts up in their jaws.

"Master!" Jinn only had time to cry as he writhed in the beetle's grasp, "MASTER!!"

Then, in a mere matter of seconds, the two ambushing Colicoids rolled up, clutching the two humans into their shells with them, and spun away.

It was the distraction Captain had wanted. Dooku turned in dismay and anguish as he watched his fellow comrades carted off like luggage; "Qui-Gon!!" he yelled, trying to respond to his Padawan's call, but his voice, however thundering it was, could not be heard as the chaos about him drowned it out.

With his back turned, it was only a matter of seconds before his senses told him that he was too late. There was a whisking noise behind him, like that a traditional arrow would make having been released from a bow, and he felt a sharp jab in the back of his neck. He cringed, barking out in pain. It wasn't long before the world spun, and he fell into darkness.

TBC…