Chapter 17

They found a tunnel near the exhaust vent and followed it into the facility. The narrow curved tunnel was dark with the only lamination being the glow sticks they each carried. They were on guard and opened to the Force as they navigated down the long length and peered upon the strange pit like formations along the cavern wall. Jaina looked around and felt a very odd sensation through the Force of a familiarity she could not even begin to explain.

Kyp sensing her confusion and growing apprehension glanced questioningly at her, "You okay?"

She turned her intense eyes to him and said uncertainly, "I—I don't know. You don't feel anything?"

Kyp shook his head, "Like what? Danger?" He added and immediately pulled his lightsaber off his belt and looked around. She was making him nervous.

"No. It's almost like I should know this place. It's like something happened here." She was quiet for several moments.

Kyp was more concerned than before, "Is it from your vision?"

She shook her head and concentrated then she quietly said, "It's almost like this place has an importance to—to me in being."

"In being? What is that supposed to mean?" Kyp asked with more frustration than he intended but he was not at all comfortable in the dark tunnel whether it was Jaina's apprehension or his memories of being in the Kessel mines he was unsure.

She shook her head again as much to response to his question as to clear her head and senses. "I have no idea. Just forget it."

Kyp pinched his brows together and stared at her. "Okay. But you were the one who brought it up."

She didn't respond to him; she was still trying to get the feeling out of her head. Suddenly, her danger sense spiked the same time Kyp's did and they ignited their sabers at the same instant.

The four large winged creatures attacked them from the dark pits that were along the walls. Jaina and Kyp quickly disposed of them leaving one dead and the other three shrieking as they licked their injuries and limped away. The Jedi were taking calming breaths and searching the dark when ten to fifteen more attacked from all directions. They quickly reduced their numbers and the remaining dark winged beings finally gave up and flitted away shrieking.

Breathing deeply, Kyp looked around and deactivated his blade when he saw and felt no more danger. He said, "Guess that was the welcoming committee."

"Well, let's just hope there's no more." Jaina responded as she cautiously deactivated her lightsaber. She wrinkled her nose as she toed one of the dead grotesque creatures with her boot. "What are these things? They are almost as disgusting as the Killiks."

Kyp looked at her with surprise and smirked, "Don't know but I thought you liked bugs."

Her response was to glare at him and quietly say, "Well, sometimes they were better company than you." She pushed ahead of him and started down the tunnel again.

Kyp immediately regretted his response as he felt her hurt at his jibe and followed her, "Hey, I'm sorry for that," He caught her arm and she looked up at him. "Let's get out of this tunnel it gives me the creeps."

"Yeah, me too."

Finally, they came to the end of the tunnel and were faced with a metal door, "Sithspit!" Kyp exclaimed as he glanced around trying to find the door controls.

Jaina found the panel first and turned to him, "We need the code—"

"Yeah, right. Stand back." Kyp glance at the control then pulled the blaster he was wearing and shot through the casing. As the ensuing sparks and smoke cleared, the door screeched open. He grinned lopsided at her and quipped, "Since when? Learned that one from your dad."

"Show off," she scoffed as she stepped through the opening only to find a sharp drop off as the floor ended. They stopped and gaped at the massive antique factory machinery all in motion and clanging noisily. Huge kettle-like vats were moving under an opening from which red-hot metal alloy was being poured into them. Conveyer belts directly below them was moving in different directions criss-crossing each other as massive machines connected to the belts moved in chopping motions to either pound, press or cut the cooling alloy into droid parts.

"Sith, look at his place," Kyp said incredulously as he peered around.

"This place is ancient. How can this turn out battle droids? It's a dump."

"Yeah." They were quiet again for a few moments as they looked for a way down the fifteen or so meters to the factory floor. "Doesn't look like there's an easy way down. We'll have to jump."

She met his gaze, "Great." Levitating herself was never a strong skill of hers.

"Here, we'll do it together. You lower me and I'll lower you." Kyp smiled at her and turned to her. They pulled the Force to them and pressed their palms together. "On the count of three—one—two—jump!" They stepped of the ledge and used the Force to gently lower the other down to the floor.

Once settled Jaina pulled the datapad from her backpack and powered up the map of the facility that the Imperial sources provided of the Clone Wars era factory. She pinpointed their location with the geo-locator and began to look for a way out of the factory to the control room where the central computer would be found. "There, that will lead us to a stairway. The control room is on the sixth level above us," she pointed to the left and headed in that direction with Kyp following behind keeping a leery eye out.

X

Marolosa sat at the desk in his stark office when the signal beeped. He looked up to see a sentry droid of his own design standing at the opening door. The droid stepped into the office and Marolosa's natural blue eye narrowed in a menacing expression while the mechanical one stared taking in information the human one missed. He said in a rich deep voice, "Yes?"

"Master, there seems to be an intrusion in Sector 24A," the droid responded in an emotionless mechanical voice.

Marolosa hit the keys on the computer that would bring into being a hologram of that particular sector. His human eye squinted as he gazed at the image that appeared over the holoplate.

Then the corner of his left upper lip curved upward which bared his teeth. His lower jaw had been replaced with one of metal as was most of the right side of his face and skull. Marolosa's living brain still remembered when he could smile. He had melted more than one woman's heart with it when he was totally human. He had been quite a womanizer at nearly two meters tall, shoulder length curly sandy blond hair and bright blue eyes. He was well respected and actually feared in the world of smuggling. He had acquired quite a fortune, building on the pittance his father had left him after he had him killed.

He had a real life before that Jedi squadron attacked his ship outside of Nal Hutta. That was nearly thirteen years ago. The rogue Jedi squadron of fourteen fighters attacked him, blowing his ship up and causing him to escape in a pod that didn't launch quickly enough and was caught in the blast.

He couldn't remember the actual explosion. But he was discovered by one of his lieutenants several minutes later and was told that he was burned and broken and barely alive. The young subordinate took him to Naboo and turned him over to a droid designer relative who promptly began to rebuild him. It would not have been so bad if that uncle knew anything at all about cyborg technology, a lapse in knowledge he eventually paid for with his life.

One month later he awoke in terrible pain to find over half of his body had been replaced with cyborg parts. All of his limbs were gone and ones of alloy, wires and gears were in their place. His right side of his head and face and his lower jaw were now cold unyielding metal. But worst of all was the pain and confusion of the transplanted computer processor in his damaged right side of his brain. He wore silver and black body armor that reminded him vaguely of Darth Vader.

He watched the two figures as they moved into the doorway to the main stairway and remembered that first year when he nearly went mad from the constant pain and the continual bombardment of information from the computer part of his brain. It took him another six months to learn to only process the needed information and how to interface with what was left of his living brain.

Eventually, he was able to regain his operations, but not before he thanked the young lieutenant who risked his life to save him by killing him with his own two hands. That same lieutenant who had his father's blue eyes and sandy blond hair, his height and good looks but had inherited too much of his mother's compassion and honesty for his own good. The son who had ran the business with hopes of becoming a partner after his father's incapacity ended. He was thankful to be alive; it was the way in which he now had to live that was a fate far worse than death; a life of which he could never forgive his son for condemning him to.

However, during the war, he did find it very profitable to be in a self exile on Naboo and let his other lieutenants run things. His organization became one of the best in the Peace Brigade while those barbarians the Yuuzhan Vong ravaged the galaxy. He often wondered what they would have thought if they had known one of their most trustworthy and resourceful Brigadiers was the ultimate abomination of human and machine. Fortunately for him, even his lieutenants did not know his identity which allowed him to sit back and watch as many of them were rounded up in the years following the war and executed for war crimes. In the past six years since the war he had been able turn what was left of his smuggling and pirating outfit into an organization as big and powerful as the Black Sun had been in the days of the Empire

"Master?" the droid questioned.

Marolosa looked up from the hologram and his musings and said in almost an awestruck tone, "I've waited thirteen years for today. Finally, I will have my revenge." He looked back down at the figures of a beautiful female and that of Jedi Master Kyp Durron and a harsh mechanical laugh erupted from him that was both mirthless and hysterical. Then he turned his attention to the droid and said menacingly, "Capture them but do not kill them. I want to play with them for a while to see what they are up to. I need to come up with a plan of how best dispose the galaxy of Master Jedi Kyp Durron once and for all. But first, I need to find out who the beautiful young woman is and what she means to him. She may prove to be very useful in Durron's torture and if she is Jedi, which I assume she is, it will pleasure me further to rid us of one more of them as well." He then turned back to the hologram, an insane gleam in his left blue eye.