As a wave of at least thirty members came at them with vibroblades and other cutting tools, one thing dawned on Briza's mind. The bounty hunters only attacked with vibroblades, like fencing was the only fighting tactic they knew of, despite all of the explosive equipment they were carrying. That and the fact that the remains that now lay scattered all around the floor, gave her an idea. Although the force bobbles of each member was nothing to sneeze at, she did manage to activate one of the grenades on the first member in the wave.
KABOOM! Was the loud sound that followed, echoing throughout the hallway. As a result a chain reaction of detonations had taken down half of the advancing Syndicate members. But those that remained unhurt, were within striking distance of the three Zabraks.
The three siblings blocked and parried a dozen vibroblades coming their way. But despite the onslaught of Syndicate members, the Zabraks held the line, in truth the hunters were being cut down one by one by quick precise counters. Both Tikala and Mathorn had been trained in the art of Trakaka, a fighting technique where you turn off your lightsaber in mid swing, and turn it on upon impact, cutting at the hand wrist or the handle of opponents blades, quickly disarming the opponent. Something a vibroblade couldn't do.
Both the Jedi lightsabers were built with Trakaka fighting in mind. Mathorn's lightsaber had a temporary rapid dis ignite-ignite switch built in, for the ease of use in the heat of battle.
Tikala's lightsaber had various adjusting switches for split second intervals in lengths and widths, she had a masterpiece of a double bladed lightsaber. However, she could barely take any credit for it's unique construction. Taken from the blueprint of an old sith dual saber design that Master Buz, her keldorian mentor found, and built a replica off, to see how it would work in practice. Plus some of its constitutions, parts, alignments and balancing, was done by Grand Master Satele Shan. Even her long time Twi'lek friend Mile'giko had helped in building it's metal shroud. In the end, the only thing she had made entirely herself was the blade's two focusing lenses... Building stuff is not exactly her specialty.
While Briza could somewhat hold off the attackers on her end. She could clearly see her jedi siblings had a much better handle on their enemies. So she decided, a change of strategy was in order. "Tikala! Mathorn! Keep them at a distance. I´ve got an idea."
Without asking for clarification, both Jedi maneuvered to defend their Sith lord sister. It was at the risk of being surrounded, but they both took the chance nonetheless.
Briza wasted no time on her part. First she tried to use the force to distort the surrounding force presents, with the intention of blocking the syndicate members external force connection. As that only seemed to do minor slow downs on their enemies, not enough to really change the tide in battle, so she went with plan B. Stepping up on a heap of the dead bodies to gain some height, she raised both her hands above her siblings' heads and unleashed a spread of an electric looking red forcedrain down upon her foes.
The spread of darkside red energy engulfed the nearest bounty hunters and also siped some of the members down the corridor. Briza was literally draining their force energy and tearing at their life-force, drinking it up like a blood sucking parasite.
On one hand the Jedi now had to carefully avoid the carpet of red force drain over their heads, on the other the fight was becoming very one sided. The mindless foes were now barely capable of attacking, let alone defending themselves against the elegant swift strikes of a lightsaber.
With the force bobble of their enemies more or less evaporated, Tikala decided she wanted to end this with less bloodshed. She used the force to lift their foes up in the air keeping them steady, leaving her sister to drain the remaining energies of the syndicate members.
Mathorn could now deactivate his lightsaber. He gathered the vibroblades that lay scattered on the floor, while their remaining enemies were helplessly hovering above his head.
"Briza stop! Please don't kill them." Tikala pleaded, as she was afraid that her sister would drain their life-force dry.
Briza reluctantly stopped her use of force drain. "I know, we need a few to interrogate." But as she stopped, the force presence that had possessed the Bounty hunters faded away, leaving behind only lifeless husks.
To Tikala, this was a gruesome feeling, all these people now lay dead in front of them.
"They are all dead?! We didn't kill them... Did we?" Mathorn realized, as he searched the now dead syndicate members.
Briza had a puzzled expression, as she glanced around the corridor. "No, their energies vanished, before I could have otherwise drained them unconscious. As if the dark energy was the only thing keeping them alive to begin with."
"This feels like the same thing that happened to the poor personal, back on the space station, where we initially met." Tikala informed them, in a heavy heart.
"We can at least be sure we are on the right track." Briza commented, a bit too dryly for her sister's liking.
With a heavy sigh, Tikala replied, "Let's search the place for clues to my master's whereabouts."
"I'll get Terrow down here. He should be able to hack the data core and scan it for useful information." Briza told them and reached for her comm unit, to issue the order to her brother on the surface.
Tikala nodded in acknowledgement, as she began to search the place for documents containing contracts on Jedi kidnappings.
That left Mathorn with a sense of... what should he do now? For a start, he found a room next to him, where he laid all the vibroblades he was carrying for no reason. Next he decided to search the now dead bounty hunters for information or other valuables. When he got tired of doing so, he decided to raid the kitchen for snacks.
After a lengthy search through the syndicate archives, Tikala finally found what she was looking for. A document that detailed the bounty to capture Jedi Master Feuis Buz, requested by a collector going by the name Psiron. With a ridiculous high sum of three billion credits of this bounty alone. "What a huge bounty! What does this Psiron want with my Master?!" As she continued to read, she found strange information specifying a force hampering black rock, supposed to be provided to aid whoever would take up this bounty. But the whereabouts of where the jedi had been abducted to, was not clarified anywhere. Only the location of the rendezvous, where Darth Imperious had already ventured, were vaguely mentioned.
In the meantime. Briza and Terrow, plus some of the Twi'leks, had restarted power to the datacore only and sliced their way into the system. Once they had access, a secure line was established all the way back to Imperial intelligence on Drumond Kaas, where all the data were thoroughly analyzed.
As Tikala had finished reading the documents on her master's kidnapping and copied what she needed, she looked around for her siblings. She found her big brother dining on a large green leftover cake from... what seemed to be several days old by the look of it. "How can you just eat... other peoples food?! " she asked, a bit too perplexed for her own liking.
"Why can't you? This would go to waste otherwise." Mathorn explained his reasoning, and continued. "Seriously! The cake tastes a lot better than it looks."
"A war has broken out and we have indirectly killed dozens of people and... and you just..." Tikala had to calm herself before she would otherwise yell at him in anger.
"Worrying on an empty stomach, is just not my thing." Mathorn replied in defense, with the mouth full of green cake.
Both of their comm unites beeped showing a message from Briza stating, 'We are moving out.'
As they were on their way back to the surface, Tikala noticed a lot of dead syndicate members lying around. Some of them had been violently choked to death and others had been decapitated by lightsabers.
"I didn't kill any!" Mathorn quickly responded to save his innocence, as Tikala was looking at him and his elder sister with sadness and reproach.
"They were mindless slaves! Most of the killing was in self defense anyway," Briza protested irritatedly, in the fact she apparently had to explain the situation.
"There is no death, only the Force." Tikala muttered in a low voice, trying to calm herself.
Briza just shook her head in response to this nonsense, as they approached the top of the building.
The rocky planes of Ord Canfre.
On their way back to the ship, which unlike the last time when they were sprinting at high force enhanced speed, this time they just walked at a steady pace, as haste didn't serve much purpose anymore, in addition fatigue was beginning to show in the group.
As they continued forward, Tikala got a sense of strange beings getting closer to them. "It's an Akk-dog," she uttered at the first sight of these lizard like dogs.
"Akk-dogs?" Terrow instantly grabbed his electrobinoculars to get a better view of these reptiles. "As far as I remember, it's native to this planet, a predator that hunts in large packs. I see more are appearing."
"I sense they are force sensitive," Briza concluded, as she felt these beings responding to her presents.
Mathorn could now see a dozen large creatures appearing all around the rocky field. "Are they friendly? I don't feel like becoming dinner."
The twi'leks that accompanied them began to feel uneasy at the quick movements of these large eyed beasts, with color ranging from rusty red, to lime green.
"They are harmless." Tikala quickly reassured them all. "These native creatures are very friendly to humanoids," she calmly informed, as eight of these Akk-dogs casually strolled towards them.
As Mathorn got a better look. He found them surprisingly appealing. "If they are friendly? Can I have one of those as a pet? They look cool."
"Absolutely not!" Briza cut off immediately. The thought of having one of these overgrown lizards running around in her house, didn't sit well with her.
The small group of Akk-dogs was just a stone throw away. Luckily for the nervous Twi'leks, they didn't seem interested in them at all. It was only the Zabraks that made the Akk-dogs curious, they simply sat down, patiently awaiting a response from the travelers.
"If you befriend one, it will make a force-bond with you." Tikala told them, as she patted the nearest on the head.
Mathorn didn't hesitate, he reached out to a small orange Akk-dog, who in turn took a step towards this horned humanoid. "Their skin is smooth and very warm," Mathorn commented happily in surprise.
Terrow too, felt a little tempted. "Just for once," he muttered and decided to pet a large brown.
It didn't take long before the rest of the herd joined in. The three zabraks were now at risk of being pushed to the ground, as the affectionately large beasts were more than happy to get the attention. Both Tikala and Terrow gladly let them get closer, but keep it modest. Mathorn couldn't help but to let three of them push him down, he was laughing and hugging the stuffing out of these lizards. While the last one made several barking noises, staring up at Briza. Trying to get the attention it wanted, this enormous dark yellow reptile even tried it's best puppy dog eye impression.
Briza whole heartedly ignored the pleading Akk-dog. She found this entire situation perplexedly ridiculous... and hated every minute of it.
"This is fun." Mathorn exclaimed in joy "I know what to name them! The brown one is Jonathan, the green one is of course Urr'tah, the little one red can be Mile'giko. The gray one is Reniuz, the orange is Quti'mebo"
"You want to name them after our friends and comrades?" Tikala asked, a bit puzzled. "Wouldn't a pet name be more appropriate?"
"The long lime one is Satele. And the large yellow one over there, is Buz." Mathorn pointed to the yellow one, who started to seem sad and lonely from the neglect the Sith lord was giving it, despite trying so hard to seem cute to the red zabrak.
Suddenly! A bust of dark energy erupted, scattering the Akk-dogs out of sight in all haste, fearing for their lives.
"You made a darkside forcefield?!" Tikala shockingly realized, as she could feel the dark energies vibrating around themselves.
"That was cruel Briza!" Mathorn angrily retorted.
Briza glared back at the jedi. "SHUT UP! We have wasted enough time already!"
"HOW CAN YOU BE SO VILE TO THE LIVES OF OTHERS!? LIKE THE MEANS OF PROGRES GIVES YOU THE RIGHT THE DO AS YOU PLEASE WITH THE FATE OF LIVING BEINGS!" Tikala yelled angrily, her frustration clearly overflowing.
To Briza however, Tikala's soft claiming voice, sounded more cute than anything else. This little jedi just looked adorable when she shouted her angry feelings. She couldn't decide whether to get annoyed... or laugh out loud.
Mathorn tried his best to be supportive of his jedi sister, but he had trouble withholding a chuckle.
Terrow just kept calm, not taking sides in this. Instead he looked to the confused Twi'lek and made sure they did the same.
"I allowed the Twi'lek slaves to stay! I will hear no more complaints!" Briza retorted in return, in a harsh commanding tone, but with a hint of giggling clearly audible.
Tikala wanted to use the force to emphasize the point ...as her words definitely didn't have the intended impact on anyone… but she got the better of herself and cooled down. "Now was not the time to start a lengthy debate," she concluded and used the force to calm down, once again this very day.
There was a thick silence, as they ventured back to their ship and left this planet behind.
