Part 27: Prison Fights and Battle Plans

"Too soon!" Ben shouted as he summoned his sabers from his sides, activated the neon blue blades with a snap-hiss, and parried someone's amphistaff while attempting to dash down a slick corridor. Soon, like every Yuuzhan Vong member of Hul Rapuung's 'team', Ben found himself fending against two warriors. I really wish Sheng and Jacen are here. I've been out of practice for a year! How do you expect me to fight off two of them?

Ben's thoughts were interrupted when he tripped over a dead body and hit his head against a wall. One of his opponents took the opportunity and lashed out at the Jedi with a hissing amphistaff. In order to avoid a lethal bite to the head, Ben rolled, tripped the warrior, and hit an oddly colored spot on the 'wall' with his hand.

The ceiling began to release thud bugs and the warrior Ben tripped made the mistake of flailing his arms. He took one of the bugs in his armpit and dropped dead. Ben's other opponent, an average-sized, young man, dove for the apparent switch, but forgot to look after his amphistaff, which he held in his left hand. The creature was in whip mode and Ben vivisected it with one of his half-length lightsabers. Then, with an upward thrust, Ben drove his weapon through the Yuuzhan Vong's palm and into the forearm.

The young guard barely shut off the weapons before someone delivered death from above and stopped his heart with a rock-hard amphistaff.

"Where is Jysella Horn?" Hul Rapuung, the one who finished off Ben's share of the fight, demanded. Ben glanced around and saw that every prison guard in sight plus half of his apparent friends were sprawled on the corral floor, either dead or unconscious.

"Forget about them. They all welcome the Blessed Release." One of the remaining fighters picked himself up from the mess of flesh and spoke. Ben struggled to scramble to his feet on the slippery prison floor, but then saw an amphistaff sticking out and he helped himself up.

"They're down and then left." Ben touched the Force and then directed. The Jedi threw off his remaining boot and his socks as soon as he stumbled past all the bodies. With the Force as his compass, Ben found the cell that held his cousin, Crest, and Jysella.

Cut us out of here, will you? Jysella touched Ben's mind through the Force and asked. Without waiting for an answer, she showed him the circle that Sil left on their side of the wall. Ben concentrated on the air in the circle that Sil cut and positioned his sabers at two opposing points. With the added strength of the Force, the Jedi traced and deepened the circumference.

That'll do. Now move aside. Jysella ordered when she sensed the completion.

Ben sighed and complied. "Get back." Obviously, Jysella had learned more than the ways of the Force from his cousin. The circular portal hit Ben's side of the damutek with a thud. Much to Ben's surprise, the three girls met him while reclining on the slab of coral. They then lifted their feet out of a rather awkward looking hole in the floor.

"Ben! You're really alive!" Sil squealed before attempting to climb out of the cell and onto the piece of coral.

"You just had to come, didn't you, Flames? We were getting rather comfy in there. I mean, one of your Jedi friends blasted a nice hole and all we needed was a bucket of warm water." Grinned Crest.

"It's a Skywalker thing." Ben shrugged.

"Allow me to elaborate. Your cousin, who's about sixteen years older than you, had quite an adventure with his older brother, who's about the same number of years older than him." Jysella grinned and bounced her playful glance between Ben and Hul Rapuung, who barely began to emerge from the dark background.

"And you knew this without telling me, Jeedai Skywalker?" The former warrior roared.

"You interrupted me when I was about to. It's nothing unexpected; strange things happen around me."

"Very well, I did. It is a shame we did not meet under better circumstances." Much to everyone's surprise, the old warrior offered his right hand, which Ben took.

"So you won't kill us?" Stammered a wide-eyed Sil.

"If I was your enemy, your friend would be long dead."

"My utmost apologies, ally."

"Oh no! We'd better…" Ben suddenly remembered the information he received from Sheng Lah and the trumpet creature. He was interrupted when one of Rapuung's fighters bolted toward the cell with an urgent message in Yuuzhan Vong.

"Get on the raft! It's acid-proof. This place is flooding with stomach acid! I knew we disturbed this thing when we cut through the wall with lightsabers!" Jysella interpreted and added a comment of her own as she jumped up and landed neatly on the slab of coral. Ben, Crest, Sil, and Hul Rapuung quickly followed suit. The three surviving members threw themselves at the new, Jedi-made barge, but the two in the rear were not fast enough and collapsed under a tidal wave of sizzling acid. The third person, who spear-headed the run, leapt onto the only empty slot on the raft as the corrosive liquid set the raft afloat.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Hul Rapuung produced a lightsaber stud and handed it to Jysella, who nodded her thanks and then activated the weapon.

"If I know anything about these prisons, that was a maximum security cell." Jysella muttered as she cut out piece after piece from adjacent walls of the complex and handed them to the two Yuuzhan Vong.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Asked the puzzled, young warrior, the only survivor of the group sent to rescue the Jedi leader.

"Improvise." Replied Rapuung as he drove each end of his amphistaff into a piece of the wall and began to row through the acid.

"We'd better go to the Place of Bones. Nom Anor is Yu'Shaa." Ben blurted as soon as the group began to see even the slightest hint of outside lighting. As the group reached the outside, they met the four warriors whom Ben pinned at the exit, but a flood of acid reduced them to sizzling, skinless, flesh. Sil and Crest, both quick to take advantage of the situation, each plucked an amphistaff from a dying warrior. Together, the two girls hauled in a vonduun crab chest plate.

"Place of Bones?" The puzzled people on the raft stared at Ben in unison.

"Sheng told me through the Force. I have a feeling he means they're there." Ben explained.

"You are in close association with Sheng Lah? The Sheng Lah of our people?" Hul Rapuung asked.

"Yeah."

"Never mind that." Jysella said as soon as the acid washed the barge out of the prison damutek. "Sil, Ben, go with my warriors and take care of Nom Anor. I'll meet you up at the Place of Bones and bring enough huun cloaks to cover us all."

"Not so fast. Someone needs to fly into that thing in the Senate Hall and I, as an apprentice, should join my Master at the base of that palace. If every Jedi besides us three is where they're supposed to be, Ben should herd a mob into your Supreme Overlord's palace." Sil objected.

"What do you know, Princess?" Crest asked.

"A lot. Sheng's supposed to scout this area and then blow Lady Cha's command tower, and we can't help him much. Father's group's taking the citadel, which is guarded. To make his job easier, you should take a crowd in and cut down the guards. I heard they're tougher than most troops."

"Alright. Scratch the old one. Crest, can you fight hand-to-hand?" Jysella turned toward the soft-skinned, blonde Hapan. When Crest shook her head, the sole Jedi Knight of the group continued. "Then you and Sil come with me and get those supplies. Princess, take all but two cloaks and get on the first of these giant bat things you see. Crest, are you a good pilot?"

"That I am, Jedi."

"Good. You and I will fly our speeders into that World Brain thing and do whatever the
Alliance wants us to do. The rest of you will get that Nom Anor, take our friends back before any one of them gets killed, and get them to the citadel."

"Speeders?" Crest asked.

"Yup. I got some of the fastest speeders on the planet."

"Big cousin Jysella, I don't normally say this, but I think you're nuts." Sil mumbled.

"Between two Jeedai goddesses…" The young warrior at Hul Rapuung's side gasped.

"Just wait 'til you hear the rest of this, little cousin. The huun cloak will make you invisible, so you can sneak into the citadel and get us a map. When you think the time's right, give Ben a holler in the Force and bring in our people."