A/N: Sorry about the delay in getting this one out. I couldn't decide on what kind of background music I wanted for over a day, then it just sort of clicked together. My recommendation for exploring the Sith base is the Mako reactor theme from FF7, and the fight with the Sith governor is the Encounter theme from Metal Gear Solid. There's a not-so-subtle nod to Star Wars Republic Commando in here. Incidentally, one of the commandos in that game, Scorch, is voiced by the same guy who did Carth.
"Just take these credits and get out of here," Kagi told the Twi'lek receptionist. "It's about to get real messy in here, and you don't want to get caught in the middle of it."
"You got that right, stranger," she replied, pocketing the credits. "The Sith have been making my life a living hell since they got here. It's about time somebody stood up to them."
As the receptionist ran out the door they had opened, Mission vaulted over the desk and started hacking into the computer terminal. Kagi, Zaalbar, Bastila, and Carth formed themselves into a screen around the young girl, facing the three doors leading out of the room.
"Okay, this is looking bad," she said, flipping between security camera images. "We've got Sith and droids all over the place, plus one really big droid guarding an elevator. Chances are that you'll have to take that elevator down to find the codes."
"Is there anything you can do to even the odds?" Bastila asked, looking over Mission's shoulder at the images.
"That depends."
"On what?" Carth asked, not taking his eyes off the eastern door.
"On how badly you want the Sith to know we're here. I can start blowing things up to lessen their numbers, but chances are I'll wake up a whole garrison doing that." She paused for a moment, her fingers running over the keypad, and then she called back, "There. I've uploaded a map of the base, so at least now you'll have some semblance of an idea where you're going."
"That's a start," Kagi said. "Anything else you can do?"
"Give me a second." Pause. "Okay, I think I can remotely shut down all the turrets and droids from here without raising an alarm."
"Do it."
Her answer was silence for several moments as the room filled with the sounds of her fingers hitting the keys. Then, "Okay, got it. You won't have to worry about turrets or sentry droids. There's still the little matter of all the Sith running around, however…" She entered a few more commands. "Okay, I've shut down the shield on that big droid and opened the elevator doors, too. The droid itself must have an autonomous network; I can't shut it down from here."
"Excellent work, Mission," Kagi said, looking at the map on his datapad. "You've done more than I could have hoped for. You stay here and see what you can do to keep helping us. Zaalbar, T3, stay with her. The rest of us are going hunting."
"Got it," the Twi'lek girl replied, calling the astromech droid up beside her to help with slicing the system. She picked up a comlink from the desk and tossed it to the commando. "Here. I'll call you if I get anything."
"Thanks," he replied, palming the device. He approached the north door, Bastila and Carth in tow.
The door hissed open silently, revealing an empty corridor beyond. Waving his comrades forward, Kagi advanced into the corridor, his eyes shifting between the three doors before them. As soon as Bastila was through, the door hissed shut behind her.
"The door on your left is the medical room," Mission's voice called from the comlink. "The next right is some kind of security center. Nothing to see there; I've remotely locked out that console from here. The door straight ahead of you leads to some sort of detention area. I don't see any guards, but that's just all the more reason to be cautious."
Moving slowly, Kagi advanced toward the far door, bypassing the others. As they neared the door, he flattened himself against the bulkhead. Carth immediately followed suit, and Bastila did the same shortly thereafter. Sidling up the side of the wall, Kagi slid his hand into the infrared sensor beam, triggering the door open. Two sentry droids were directly in front of them, but they were hunched over, deactivated. He ignored them.
Signaling for Bastila and Carth to stay put, he crept up to the very edge of the door. He saw no Sith on the west end of the room. Holding his breath, he listened for any activity on the side of the room he could not see, but heard only the hum of a force cage. He shifted his blaster rifle to his left hand and drew his vibroblade, poking it out gently around the corner and angling it until he could see what was on the other side of the room. He didn't see any Sith, so he sheathed his vibroblade and motioned the others forward, then stepped into the room.
Four force cages were lined up along the opposite wall, and the third contained a Duros. Narrowing his eyes, the commando approached the cage. There was something familiar about that Duros…
"You there, human," the alien said as he approached. "Remember me? You helped me once before when the Sith were trying to arrest me. Outside your apartment. Do you remember?"
"Yes, I thought you looked familiar," Kagi replied. "I suppose they caught up with you?"
The mournful-looking alien nodded. "Yes, they caught me moving the Sith corpse out of the apartment complex, and now they're going to execute me. Can you get me out of this cage?"
"Certainly. How do I do it?"
"Switch all the panels on that wall to the red 'off' position," the Duros answered, pointing to the opposite wall. "Of course, switching one panel will switch the two next to it."
Kagi scoffed. "I hate those kinds of puzzles."
"Me, too," the Duros agreed. "But this one has the highest stakes. If you accidentally switch them all to green, my cell's termination program will activate."
"Okay, just hang on," the commando said. "I'll get you out of there."
He turned around and approached the wall panels. There were five of them, and the first, third, and fifth were green. As he stared at the panels, he rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"I do so hate these games," Bastila said, walking up beside him. "I never could solve one without making a mistake."
"Yeah, they're pretty tricky," Kagi replied absently. He pointed to the third panel. "If I flip that one, the pattern will be green, green, red, green, green."
"Are you sure that's safe?" she asked. "One mistake will kill this poor Duros."
"I'm trying to think," he replied, holding up his left hand as though he was on the verge of an intellectual breakthrough. "Then I flip the first panel and it'll be red, red, red, green, green."
"Then you flip the last panel and they're all red," Bastila said, catching his line of thought. She smiled proudly at him. "Brilliant."
"Eh, not really," he replied, stepping forward to try and hide his suddenly-flushed face. "Back in commando school, all I ever saw in demolitions training was red and green. I can do most anything with those colors." He pressed the switch of the center panel, and the colors changed exactly how he had predicted.
Bastila watched silently as he confidently hit the first panel, the colors again following his predetermined statements. She stepped forward, taking it upon herself to switch off the last panel, causing all of the panels' lights to flash red. He glanced over at her, and she gave him a wry smirk.
Behind them, the force cage's energy field shut off, and the Duros stepped out of it. "Thank you again, human," he said. "I do not know what you are doing inside this military base, but I am grateful. Once again I owe you a debt I can never repay."
Kagi waved it off. "Do not trouble yourself with that, Friend Traveler," he replied. "Assisting you was payment enough."
"Kind words, Traveler," the Duros said. "It pleases me that there are those in the galaxy like you, who help others with no thought to themselves. Now, I will leave before the Sith catch me again. Good day, Traveler."
As the Duros left, Bastila turned a warm smile to Kagi. "That was very noble of you," she said. "Does your kindness know no bounds?"
"Only in regards to you," he replied with a grin. "I can't possibly come up with enough ways to infuriate you."
She raised an eyebrow. "Oh, you're trying to infuriate me, are you?" she asked, smirking. "If that is the case, then I suggest you try harder, Mister Vayun."
"Hey, if you two lovebirds are done, we've still got work to do here," Carth said, an amused tone in his voice.
Kagi turned a wry grin to the pilot. "Jealous, Carth?"
He laughed. "Don't be crazy."
The sudden grin that Kagi flashed him told him that he'd been caught in a trap. "So somebody would have to be crazy to like Bastila, eh?"
The Jedi raised an eyebrow, giving the two men a dangerous look. "Is that so?"
"Hey, he said it, not me!" Carth said, holding his hands up placatingly.
"Wuss," Kagi said.
"Suck-up," the pilot shot back.
"Children," Bastila hissed. "Work now, petty insults later."
"Yes, Mother," Kagi said, then jumped forward out of the range of her open-palm slap. Snickering, the commando made his way to the westernmost door.
"The command center and reactor area will be on your right as you make the corner," Mission said over the comlink. "A barracks will be on the left."
"You think the codes will be in the command center?" Kagi asked.
"I doubt it. I've sliced all the computers on this level, and there's nothing that even remotely resembles launch codes anywhere on the network."
"Still, I say it'd be worth it to blow out their reactors," the commando said. "Put this base permanently out of commission."
"With us still inside it?" Bastila asked, horrified.
He shook his head. "No. I'll set up a remote detonator, and I won't blow it until we're well on our way off this planet."
"How exactly are you proposing to do this?" Carth asked. "Do we have anything capable of putting a dent in those shielded reactors?"
"Well, no," the commando replied, shrugging slightly. "But being a military base, there might be something here we can use." He keyed the comlink. "Mission? Can you run me an inventory of the base, see if they have some large-scale explosives in an armory?"
"Give me a sec," the slicer said.
The three Republic fighters took up positions along the sides of the corridor as they waited, covering each others' backs. After only a few moments, the comlink chirped.
"Okay, the door at the very end of the hall is the armory," Mission informed them. "Logistics manifests indicate that they're carrying a large supply of permacrete detonators and proton cores. Definitely stuff big enough to bring down this base."
"Excellent," Kagi said, standing up and moving toward the door. "I'll take it all."
"All?" Carth repeated. "Isn't that a little much?"
"First thing you learn in SpecForces demolition training, Carth," he replied, trying to slice open the locked door. "Always use 'P' for plenty."
"Are you sure it's not 'P' for planeticide in this instance?" the pilot shot back.
"Ooh, nice one," Kagi said with a snicker. "Planeticide. I'll have to remember that."
Bastila shook her head. "Boys and their toys…"
After a few moments, Kagi swore and kicked the armory door. "Too secure," he pronounced. "I can't get it open."
"What about your demolitions bag of tricks?" Carth asked.
"Don't want to risk attracting attention with the noise."
"Let me try my key," Bastila said, the smooth snap-hiss of one of her lightsaber blades igniting accompanying her words.
The two men hastily made room for her as she walked up to the door. She smirked at Kagi as she reared back and drove her blade fully into the center of the door. The metal around the point of penetration immediately glowed white-hot and began melting. Slowly, she twisted the lightsaber in her grip, causing the heat to radiate out and send chunks of melted door oozing to the ground.
Finally, she had melted away a significant portion of the door, enough for them to pass through. She pulled back her lightsaber and deactivated it, smiling proudly at her comrades.
"Impressive," Carth said.
"She learned that from me," Kagi replied, his arms crossed over his chest.
"My way was easier," she said, hooking the weapon back to her belt.
Shaking his head, the commando stepped up to the door, crouching long enough to disable the mine on the other side of the door, then stepped into the armory. He quickly began rummaging through storage containers, ignoring almost everything.
Finally, he opened up a vertical locker and looked inside, and his features immediately broke into a predatory grin. "Jackpot, baby," he said. "There's enough explosives in here to level a couple square kilometers."
"Surely you're not thinking of using all of it, are you?" Bastila asked. The concern, and the fear, in her voice was evident.
He shook his head, not looking at her as he rummaged inside the locker. "Definitely not. If I blew all these explosives, I'd change the face of this planet. No, one proton core should be sufficient. We're going to have to clear out the reactor room first. I don't want a stray blaster bolt hitting one of these cores and setting it off, and I wager neither of you do either."
"No argument here," Carth said.
"What is the plan?" Bastila asked as she watched Kagi pull a proton core from within the locker and gently set it on a nearby desk.
"Well, there's the gung-ho way, which I don't suggest," he replied. "There's the sneaky way, which would be very difficult, judging by the map dimensions and security camera view of the command center. And then there's the cheap way."
"The cheap way?" she asked.
Instead of answering her, Kagi lifted the comlink up and said, "Mission, can you reprogram and reactivate the droid in the corridor outside the command center?"
"Sure, give me a second."
They waited in silence for a moment, then something crossed Kagi's face, and he lifted the comlink again. "Wait a second, scratch that idea. I've got a better one. Could you slice in a false reactor leak? Not only would it clear out the command center, but damn near the entire base, too."
He could hear the grin in the Twi'lek's voice as she replied, "Now that is a good plan. It'll just take a sec to generate the false leak, then slice it into the sensor logs…"
No sooner had she said this than a Klaxon alarm began to ring through the air. The trio quickly ducked into what cover they could as the doors to both the command center and the barracks slid open, allowing three Sith troopers and three officers to run as fast as they could toward the exit out into the main Taris city. Not one of them looked back at the armory.
"All too easy," Kagi said with a grin as he stepped out of cover, the proton core tucked under his left arm.
The commando made his way into the command center, wary of any Sith forces that may have been left behind. Always count on the Sith to station some unimportant grunts to guard key facilities in an eminent reactor meltdown.
Fortunately, that was not the case here; the command center was deserted. Smiling, Kagi crossed to the far side of the room, passing between the two computer stations and kneeling down between two bulbous projections on the wall.
"Coolant chambers," Carth explained to Bastila as the commando went to work. "Coolant gas is extremely combustible. The blast from that proton core would be amplified by the gas and be enough to take out this entire facility."
Bastila nodded, watching with a bit of apprehension as he worked, afraid of the consequences should he fail to rig his explosive package properly. Then, to her utter horror, she heard him mutter to himself, "Was it red, red, green or red, green, red?"
"And he's supposed to be the demolitions expert?" Carth said to her, the tone in his voice indicating that Kagi's statement had been nothing but a joke.
Finally, Kagi stood up a few moments later, tucking an object into one of the pouches on his utility belt. "There, all set. All I need to do now is trigger that detonator and this place'll be scrap." He turned to his companions and grinned. "Let's go get those codes, shall we?"
The three of them made their way back toward the interrogation chamber, heading east toward the position of the elevator on the map. The Klaxon alarm cut off abruptly as they passed through; Kagi nodded appreciatively at Mission's thoughtfulness to shut off that blasted alarm.
They encountered no Sith troopers as they walked through the east corridor, and just before they reached the door at the end, Mission's voice called over the comlink, "Remember guys, there's a big assault droid in that next room. Be careful."
"We got it covered," Kagi replied as he primed an ion grenade in his left hand, then stuck his foot into the sensor beam of the door.
It slid open silently, and beyond, the assault droid reared up, reacting to the intruders. Quickly determining them to be hostile, it advanced toward them, see-sawing its way along using its single massive support leg and both arms for locomotion.
Before it had even begun moving, Kagi had already thrown his ready ion grenade at it. The grenade exploded against the droid's head in a shower of electrical energy, sending a wreath of bolts sparking over its form. This only momentarily slowed the droid down, and it swung one of its arms directly at the commando.
Kagi rolled under the arm, coming up behind the droid and filling its backside with blasterfire. Carth was likewise hammering it with both blaster pistols, while Bastila ducked inside its reach, the one activated blade of her lightsaber arcing up to sever the droid's arm.
Taking attacks from two sides, from both range and right in front of it, the droid screeched as its central processor, still lagged from the ion grenade, attempted to compute the best course of action for it. Meanwhile, more blasterfire hammered it, and Bastila's lightsaber curved back around, driving completely through its head.
The droid shuddered once, then collapsed to the ground, its weight tearing itself free from Bastila's lightsaber. She didn't deactivate her lightsaber; with a tilt of her head, she indicated the open elevator door behind Kagi.
Nodding, he stood and stepped into the elevator, swapping power packs for his blaster rifle as he waited for Carth and Bastila to join him. Once they were in, he pressed the engage button, steeling himself for whatever laid ahead as the elevator slowly took them down.
"Be ready for anything," he warned them.
After a moment, the elevator doors slid open again, revealing a short corridor with a closed door at the end. Rifle raised, Kagi advanced.
"Wait," Bastila whispered, laying a hand on his shoulder. "I sense a strong presence in the Force on the other side of that door," she said.
Grimly, Kagi put away his blaster rifle, drawing his combat vibroblade from its boot sheath. Carth likewise switched weapons. Kagi took a deep breath, meeting eyes with both his companions, then turned and stepped into the sensor beam.
On the other side of the door, a silver-armored man was standing up, calling a double-bladed vibrosword into his right hand from across the room. Kagi swore; this was definitely some sort of dark Jedi.
"Who dares to break my meditation?" the Sith asked. He paused, scrutinizing Kagi closely. "Wait. I sense the Force is strong in you. Very strong." He laughed aloud. "Who would have thought a Force adept could be found on this insignificant planet? But your talent is no match for a disciple of the dark side!"
"Uh, yeah, right," Kagi said, flicking his vibroblade dispassionately. "Hey listen. Just for once, can we skip all the Jedi versus Sith propaganda and just get down to it?"
The Sith chuckled. "Very well. If you're so anxious to meet your end, then I shall be happy to oblige you. Certainly my master will award me with my lightsaber once I kill you."
With that, the Sith leapt forward, his vibrosword slicing through the air to come down at Kagi's head. The commando rolled out of the way, the blade passing inches above his head. Coming up on his knee, Kagi brought up his vibroblade, intending to drive it fully into the Sith's kidneys.
Anticipating his move, the Sith deftly slid one of the blades in his sword into Kagi's path, then mule-kicked the commando in the head while their blades were tangled. Turning the kick's energy into momentum, Kagi rolled back several feet, coming up into a crouch before standing and moving back into the fray.
As that was occurring, Bastila had struck at the Sith, her yellow blade casting harsh lights from his armor. The man caught her blade with his, twisting his weapon to tangle her lightsaber for just a moment, long enough for his left fist to catch her in the jaw, sending her sprawling.
Flipping his vibroblade into a reverse grip, Kagi snarled as he saw Bastila go down, leaping forward to slice open the back of the Sith's neck. But again, his enemy was one step ahead of him. The governor spun through a kick to the side of Carth's head, sending the pilot rebounding off a near wall, then turned and seized his left hand out toward Kagi.
The commando felt an invisible force grasp his body, lifting him into the air and holding him in place. The Sith smiled maliciously at him, then made a flicking gesture with his left hand. Suddenly, he found himself flying backwards at high speed, straight toward the wall of monitors that had been on the far side of the room.
He felt glass fragments and metal smash into his back and head, then darkness.
---
Bastila pulled herself to her feet, twisting her lightsaber around her hand, then rushed the Sith governor. Just as before, he easily blocked her strike. Then he twisted his body halfway around, bringing his other blade down to block Carth's blow.
Spotting an opening, Bastila suddenly surged forward, getting her right shoulder up under the governor's left elbow and pushing up with all her strength. His arm shot out of line and her lightsaber snaked in, driving itself full to the hilt in the Sith's chest.
Just as quickly, she withdrew her lightsaber as the Sith's vibrosword clattered to the floor. As Carth knelt down to search the Sith's corpse, Bastila switched off her lightsaber and attached it to her belt, a cold feeling of dread crawling into her stomach.
"Where is Kagi?" she asked quietly.
Carth glanced up at her, shrugged, and resumed his search.
A flash of color to Bastila's right drew her attention, and she looked to see Kagi crumpled on the floor, his face hidden between his arm and the grating. "No!" she cried, rushing over to his side. She dropped to her knees beside him, cringing as she saw the broken bones protruding from the back of his neck, and the pool of blood beneath him.
He wasn't moving.