Once again, sorry for the long delay between chapters. Real life demanded its share of my attention, and, to make matters worse, I discovered Arcane on Netflix. Going down that particular rabbit hole ate up all of my free time for nearly a week, though man was it worth it. It was probably the best series I've watched in the past two years. If you haven't seen it, go watch it right now. Seriously. I can wait. Stop reading and go watch television.
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Okay, you're back? You've stopped crying? Good. Now we can continue.
Thanks to everyone who has left a review for this story so far. As of the last chapter, this story has passed 500 reviews, something I never seriously thought would happen on my first foray into writing fanfiction. I'm so grateful for the support, as well as for how little moderating I've had to do in the review section. I think I've only had to delete one review, and that was only because whoever left it was just promoting their own story. Don't do that, and thanks to all the rest of you for not being assholes.
As always, please donate what you can to help the people of Ukraine if you have not done so already. Things are bad there, and they're only getting worse. Every little bit helps.
Now, on to the chapter.
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Chapter 26
'How the hell did this happen?'
That one thought kept echoing over and over in Mace Windu's head as he sprinted as fast as he dared through the labyrinthine hallways of the Black Sun hideout. How did this happen? How did he let this happen? Over and over, the same question pushed its way into his mind, but he ignored it. He had something more important to focus on.
That being the bond with his Padawan. A bond which now echoed with pain. A bond which, the sly voice of fear whispered, seemed a bit fainter than it had just moments ago, a bit weaker. Almost as if Naruto were-
'No!' He crushed that thought before it could even fully form and pushed himself even faster. 'He will be fine. You just have to hang on. I'm coming for you, Naruto, just hang on!"
OoOoOoOoOoOoO
30 minutes earlier
Thump thump.
Naruto's heartbeat pounded loud in his ears, a constant drumbeat that punctured the relative silence all around him.
Thump thump.
Despite how on edge he was, their infiltration of the Black Sun base was going well. He was almost disappointed at how bland and featureless the secret hideout had proven to be. So far, it seemed to consist of a single long, slightly damp corridor. If not for the pervasive sense of suffering and evil that seeped from the very walls, he would have guessed that they were in the wrong place. The place seemed abandoned.
Thump thump.
As if summoned specifically to prove him wrong, the faint sound of voices drifted down the hall from ahead of them. Mace instantly held up a clenched fist, and the entire group froze.
"Twenty meters ahead, door on the left," he said. Naruto spotted it half a second later and reached out with the Force.
"I sense a small group, maybe three or four. Probably guards."
Mace nodded, having probably sensed the same thing. "They do not know we are here. Naruto, take three men and neutralize them. The rest of us will hold this position."
"Yes master," Naruto said, and gestured to the three Royal Guards nearest to him. "You three, with me. Set your weapons to stun. If we take them by surprise, then we won't have to kill them."
Thump thump.
Together, the four of them crept towards the door. As they got closer, the sounds from behind the door grew louder and resolved into what was obviously a raucous discussion. From what he could hear, Naruto guessed the men were gambling. It made sense; he supposed. If they really were guards, then they were likely bored out of their skulls. The base's outer defenses would theoretically alter them to anyone who got within a dozen kilometers, and that wasn't even mentioning that the whole base was supposedly a complete secret. They probably saw guard duty as little more than an extended break period.
'Well, it would be a shame if someone didn't come along and teach them the error of criminal ways,' he thought with a hidden smile.
Thumpthump thumpthump.
His heart beat faster with anticipation as they neared the door. He could sense the tension in the air, like something bent nearly to the breaking point and waiting to snap. The anticipation was always the worst part for him, and everything about this place set him on edge. Even with his empathy as muted as he could manage, the nearby suffering and death was an irritating grain of sand lodged in the back of his mind; itching and prickling and wrong, wrong, wrong.
Thumpthump thumpthump.
When they reached the door, after what felt like a geologic epoch, Naruto noted with some relief that it looked well maintained. That was good, as it meant it probably opened with very little noise. He signaled the men to stack up behind him and readied himself to open the door.
Thumpthumpthumpthump.
He tapped the control panel and opened the door. As he had thought (hoped more like), it slid open with hardly a whisper. None of the people in the room seemed to have heard it, if their continued conversation was anything to go by. Still, they would notice quickly enough, so there was no point in hesitating. With swift, near silent steps, he slipped into the room.
Thump thump.
It was odd; he noted idly, how it was both anticlimactic and also immensely satisfying to finally step through the door. On the one hand, nothing had really happened. On the other hand, he was finally doing something. The danger was here; he was in it, and there was no place Naruto felt more comfortable than in the middle of everything.
Thump thump.
There were four men in the room, all of them sitting around a table playing cards. Naruto thought it might have been sabaac. They wore the typical dark, hard-wearing clothes of Black Sun foot soldiers working away from their usual domains. A double-barreled blaster pistol, the distinctive sidearm that Black Sun operatives favored, hung from each of their belts. Two were human, while the other two were Falleen. All of them had cups in front of them, and the sharp stench of alcohol hung heavy in the air.
Thump thump.
It took Naruto less than half a second to take all of it in, and he didn't even break his stride. In the span of two heartbeats, he was within striking distance of the nearest guard. As he pulled his hand back to deliver a stunning blow, one of the other guards finally noticed him. The shocked man jerked backwards and opened his mouth to shout a warning.
"Wha-"
He never got past the first syllable. His shout turned into a strangled grunt when a stun bolt caught him full in the face. He twitched violently and collapsed backwards over his chair. Nearly at the same moment, Naruto knocked his target out with a swift blow to the base of the skull and two more stun bolts took out the last two men. The whole affair was over in less than a second.
Thump thump.
"Tie them up. We don't want them going anywhere," Naruto said. The Royal Guards immediately moved forward and restrained the unconscious gang members with stun cuffs while he collected and disabled their weapons. A quick search of the unconscious men revealed a half dozen hidden vibroblades and holdout blasters, which he promptly relieved them of. With that done and their targets successfully restrained, Naruto and the three Guards moved back into the hall to reconnect with Mace and the others. Once he was in front of his master, Naruto gave his report.
"Four men, all unconscious and restrained. It all went smoothly. No one heard a thing."
Naturally, at that moment, a wailing alarm split the air and red lights began to flash along the walls. A solid-looking blast door slammed down over the room he had just left with a resounding thud. Another one closes behind them, cutting them off from the only exit. Old instincts born from years of pulling pranks and getting caught delivered the next words straight into Naruto's mouth without consulting the rest of his brain.
"It wasn't me," he said, and blushed when he heard himself. For what had to be the thousandth time, he found himself profoundly grateful for the way his mask hid such things from the world. No wonder Kakashi had such a reputation for being inscrutable. The mask had done most of the work for him. Mace cocked an eyebrow but did not comment.
"They must have recycled their surveillance system," he said. "We need to move; now!"
It was too late, though. Even as Naruto made to follow his master's order, a series of sharp cracks echoed down the hall. What he saw next made his blood run cold. Large sections of the walls collapsed into the corridor, revealing row upon row of crouched B1 battle droids, dozens that Naruto could see, all armed and activated. With a series of mechanical whirs and clicks, the droids stood up and stepped into the hall, their blasters already sweeping around to target the intruders.
"Take cover," Panaka shouted, but Naruto could tell in an instant that it wouldn't do any good. They were stuck in a featureless hallway with no corners or alcoves. There was nothing to take cover behind, no shelter from the deadly blaster fire that was sure to come their way. They were stuck in a kill box with no way out.
"Naruto, with me," Mace shouted, shocking his Padawan into action. "Shield them. The rest of you, take those droids out, quickly."
Master and Padawan stood side by side and activated their lightsabers, bathing the walls in orange and violet light, and not a moment too soon. The droids opened fire, sending a hail of red death lancing towards them. Instantly Naruto's world narrowed down to those bolts, his blade, and the Force. His arms moved almost before he commanded them to, batting bolt after lethal bolt into the floor, the walls, the ceiling, and even back into the droids themselves.
He was dimly aware of the Guards behind him, flattened against the walls as best they could to avoid those shots which made it through. Not all the blaster fire in the hall was from the droids. Plenty of it came from Panaka, Typho, and their men. Their careful, methodical shots steadily brought down droid after droid, filling the air with the acrid smell of burned wiring and scorched metal. It was not enough, however. For every droid that fell, there was another ready to take its place.
He was also dimly aware of his master standing barely two meters away on his right. Mace's violet blade may as well have been a solid wall of energy. He reflected the bolts back so fast it seemed he sometimes had to wait for the droids to catch up and send more his way. He didn't scatter them harmlessly into the walls, either. No, he returned them with a lethal precision that had already turned nearly a dozen droids into scrap.
In contrast, Naruto was barely keeping up. He had the speed, certainly, and the Force to guide him, but he was feeling his lackluster defensive skills now. His style favored offense, but offense was not an option right now. He could not spare the focus he would need to take the fight to the enemy, not with the men behind him to protect. Indeed, he could hardly spare the focus needed to berate himself for ignoring his master all the times he had told him to improve his defense before working on his offense. In the deadly dance he found himself in, it was all he could do to stay one step ahead of the droids.
"Where the hell did they get all these droids?" He shouted, not really expecting an answer. To his surprise, though, he got one.
"They must have found an old Trade Federation transport from the Occupation," Typho shouted back. "They left hundreds behind when they pulled out."
"How many droids?" Mace asked, having apparently overheard them. Nothing on his face betrayed that he was blocking the combined fire of a platoon of battle droids.
"If it was a fully loaded carrier, and they took them all, then they could have as much as an entire battalion here. That's over 7,000 battle droids."
Naruto inhaled sharply, and nearly missed his next block. That was definitely more droids than they could deal with, even if they didn't have to worry about saving the hostages. Still, behind his trepidation, he could feel something niggling at the back of his mind, the beginning of an idea that he couldn't quite tease into life yet.
"Look on the bright side. At least they're just droids," one of the Guards said. Naturally, at that moment, things got worse.
A half dozen Black Sun soldiers pushed their way through droids and took up positions near the front of the line. Each had a double- barreled blaster pistol, and unlike the droids, they had excellent aim. The twin bolts from their unique weapons were difficult to block, especially with the rest of the fire from the droids, and they knew how to coordinate their shots to force gaps in the Jedi's defenses. Within a few seconds, their strategy proved successful, as first one Guard, and then another, fell to the ground with sizzling holes burned through where their faces had once been. For the second time that mission, the stench of burned blood and scorched flesh filled Naruto's nostrils. He frowned as he felt their lives wink out, and his grip on his lightsaber tightened with anger.
"We can't stay here," Mace yelled. "Push forward."
Apparently he meant that literally, as he thrust his hand out and unleashed the most powerful Force push Naruto had ever seen. The front line of droids was pulverized into scrap by the strength of Mace's blow. The rest fared little better, being blasted off their feet and flung back down the hall in a shower of sparks and shattered armor plating. The Black Sun soldiers did not escape, either. They tumbled back right along with their droids and landed in a stunned, bloodied heap amidst a pile of broken metal bodies.
With the incoming fire abruptly cut off and the Force shrinking his already lightning-fast reaction time down to nothing, bordering on negative, it took only a fraction of a second before Naruto sent his own Force push down the hall. While not as powerful as his master's, it certainly wasn't lacking strength. The walls shook, the lights flickered, and the remaining droids went down beneath a storm of flying scrap and raw power. It was when he saw one of those pieces of scrap, a bent comms antenna from one of the droids, that the half-formed thought in the back of his mind finally resolved into an actual idea. As soon as the hall was clear, he turned to Typho.
"Hey, you said these droids came from the Occupation, right?"
"That's right. What of it?"
"That means that they need a central computer to control them. That's how Anakin beat them before, by destroying their command ship. If Black Sun has set up their own droid command system…"
"Then all we need to do is shut it down and the droids will follow," Mace broke in. "Excellent thinking, Naruto. We need to get to their central control room. It is the most likely location of that command system."
"We'll need to find it first," Panaka said from where he was kneeling by one of the fallen Guards. "How are we supposed to do that in time?"
Mace glanced at the ceiling, where thick cable conduits ran in rows. "These wires must control the security systems and blast doors. They will route back to the control room. All we have to do is follow them. Now hurry! I can hear more droids coming this way."
Naruto could also hear the menacing clank of metal footsteps getting ever closer. The hard walls bounced the sound around too much for him to accurately judge distance, but as far as he was concerned, they were too close already. He started off down the hallway, following the conduit with Mace and the others right on his heels. As he passed the downed droids, he occasionally swiped his lightsaber to destroy one that was still moving. The last thing they needed was enemies at their back. He could also do without the enemies at their front, but he supposed life was just full of disappointments.
As they ran, he spotted more blast doors cutting off certain sections of the base. Fortunately, none of them had so far blocked their path to the control room. Naruto wasn't sure how he felt about that. While it was nice not to have to carve through a blast door, he was not thrilled at the idea of them going where the enemy clearly wanted them to go. When he voiced his concerns to Mace, the man's reply was less than comforting.
"It is either a trap or it is not. Either way, shutting down those droids is our best chance at completing the mission."
Naruto winced at the bluntness of the statement, but found that he could not disagree. Whatever trap they may or may not be walking into could be survivable. The endless hordes of battle droids that would eventually surround them would not be. Escape was not an option, and standing their ground was pointless, so forward was the only option.
'Besides, it might not be a trap after all,' he thought. 'Maybe they just wanted good fields of fire for the droids. This hall barely has any turns after all. It's not like all the other passages were blocked, either. Maybe they ran short of blast doors and there's just one right outside the control room. Hell, maybe-'
He didn't have a chance to complete that thought, however, because right as he rounded a corner, the Force sent him a warning. It was just in time too, because he suddenly found himself facing another platoon of droids, this one easily one hundred strong, with another four Black Sun soldiers leading it at the front, all of them lying in ambush. He was moving too fast to stop in time, so he shouted a warning to the Guards, put on one last burst of speed, and jumped.
His sudden leap took right over the first volley of blaster fire, and his momentum carried him over the head of the foremost soldier. As he passed over the startled Falleen's head, he tucked into a front flip and brought his lightsaber down in a single, short slash. The orange blade cleaved through the soldier's head vertically, back to front, from mouth to crown. Something sizzled, and the sickening smell of charred meat permeated the air. The man didn't even twitch. He just crumpled like a limp rag, and the flash boiled remnants of his brain spilled onto the floor in a gently steaming pile of gore.
Naruto had no time for revulsion, however. His momentum was still carrying him forward, and he had to capitalize on it. He completed his flip just in time to ram his boot into the face of the next Black Sun soldier. The man's nose broke with an ugly crunch, and a mix of blood, spit, and teeth flew from his mouth. The force of Naruto's kick sent his unconscious body lying into the legs of the front row of droids, tripping them up and sending two of them crashing to the ground.
As he landed, Naruto deactivated his lightsaber and ducked into a roll, thus passing underneath the next round of blaster fire. In one fluid motion, he reactivated his lightsaber and sprung up from his roll with two wide slashes around his whole body. His blade hummed, sparks flew, and the five droids nearest to him collapsed, their limbs and torsos sliced through. He stood with a triumphant shout, having carved straight through the front ranks of his would be assailants in barely two seconds.
It was then that Naruto realized his mistake. In his rush to engage the enemy and stymie their ambush, he had let his impromptu charge carry him too far into the droids' formation. He was surrounded, with at least one hundred droids to his front and sides, and the last two Black Sun soldiers behind him. All of them had blasters leveled at him.
"Aw stang." He inhaled sharply and tightened his grip on his lightsaber. Time seemed to slow. He could see the droids' fingers tightening on their triggers, millimeter by millimeter.
An instant before they opened fire, though, a violet thunderbolt of pure destruction blitzed through the droids and soldiers, sending metal limbs and destroyed blasters flying. Before Naruto's very relieved eyes, the whirlwind of purple resolved into his master, moving as Naruto had never seen him move before.
He had always known, on some level at least, that Mace held back during their spars. It only made sense, after all. The man was trying to teach him, not flatten him into the ground. It was only now, watching him move like a wildfire, dangerous and untamable, that Naruto started to get a sense of just how much his master toned down his skills when training with him. It looked as though Mace had ten arms and five lightsabers; his blade was moving so fast. Every strike turned into a block, turned into another strike, turned into a stab. If a droid did not fall to his whirling blade, then a blow from the Force smashed it to pieces. It was ferocity and grace and violence elevated into art, and all Naruto could do was look on in awe.
The Royal Guards made their own contribution to the fray. With carefully aimed shots, to avoid hitting their Jedi allies, they rapidly whittled down the enemy numbers one droid after another. It was only after one of their shots took out a droid that had been aiming for him that Naruto snapped out of his shocked trance. Two-thirds of the droid platoon already lay in ruins, but there was still plenty left for him to do. After a quick glance at the battlefield, he reached out with the Force, grabbed hold of the dismembered droids laying all around him, and sent a wave of scrap scything across the ground.
His attack knocked the legs out from under half of the remaining droids. Before they could recover, he rushed forward, drawing level with his master, and swiftly dispatched the fallen droids with two long, low sweeps of his lightsaber. The moment he had finished, he pivoted to strike at what remained of the squad his master had engaged, scarcely a dozen droids. With two Jedi bearing down on them, one of them Mace Windu, the poor droids lasted all of four seconds, and then it was over.
OoOoOoOoOoOoO
When the last droid fell to the ground with its head severed, Mace deactivated his lightsaber and took stock of his surroundings. First, he made sure his Padawan was unhurt. Naruto had reacted with admirable speed to the sudden ambush he had stumbled into, but he had also placed himself in just about the worst position he could have.
'He still reacts rashly when surprised. I will have to drill him in rapid tactical decision making,' Mace thought, before he turned to check on the rest of the men.
Sadly, he saw as he turned around, the droids and the Black Sun soldiers were not the only casualties. Naruto's warning had apparently come too late to save one of the Guards whose body lay crumpled on the ground, limbs akimbo, riddled with blaster fire. Mace sighed when he spotted the body.
"We need to keep moving. We must be close by now, and staying put is a death sentence. If any of the soldiers are still alive, cuff them. Then we have to go."
Only one of the Black Sun foot soldiers, the one that Naruto had kicked in the face, was still alive. Lieutenant Typho, his face drawn with grief and anger, roughly turned him over and bound him hand and foot with stun cuffs. Once he was done, the whole group set off once again. This time, however, they moved with greater caution than before.
Even with their slower pace, it did not take long before it became obvious they were nearing their target. More and more cables lined the ceiling, branching in from side passages and blocked off rooms. Mace, with the Force enhancing his hearing, could detect the distinct hum of powerful computers churning away ahead of them. As they got closer, less than a hundred meters if he was any judge, he could also hear voices. Most of them were men, a mix of harsh Outer Rim human accents and the more lyrical cadences of Falleen; exactly what he would expect of a Black Sun base. One voice, however, stood out to him.
It was female, human if he had to guess, and that alone marked it as anomalous. Most criminal gangs were infamously misogynistic, and Black Sun was certainly not an exception to that rule. From what he knew of their operation, women were scarce, and those who did exist were mostly Falleen. Even more surprising than her presence, though, was that she was giving orders. He could hear her, whoever she was, demanding reports on the location and status of what he could only assume were other droid patrols. Somehow, she seemed to be in charge.
Strange as all of that was, something more was bothering him. Mace could have sworn he recognized her voice. He could not place it, not with her voice muffled by distance and intervening walls, but some instinct told him he ought to know who she was.
He did not have to wait long to solve the mystery of the woman's identity, however. As they rounded the next corner, the control came into view, not even ten meters away. Ten Black Sun soldiers were visible through the doorway, but he could not yet see the mystery woman. He crossed the distance in an instant and ignited his lightsaber, Naruto and the remaining Guards right on his tail.
"I am Master Mace Windu of the Jedi Order," he shouted the moment he entered the room. "Lay down your weapons and surrender, and you will be tried fairly."
He had little hope that anyone in the room would actually surrender. Members of Black Sun were notorious for fighting rather than going to prison, and everyone involved in this operation had to know that, if they were arrested, they would never see the light of day again. Despite that, Mace still had to give them an opportunity to avoid violence. He was a peacekeeper, not a soldier. If he did not at least give them a chance, then he was no better than a common thug.
As he had expected, the moment the word Jedi came out of his mouth, the room exploded into chaos. Each of the Black Sun gangsters, and he counted twelve now, pulled out a blaster, took cover behind the nearest available solid object, and opened fire. Panaka, Typho, and what was left of their men dove for cover of their own, while Naruto began deflecting fire away from their position. All of that registered in the back of his mind, though, because could finally see who the mysterious woman was, and why he had recognized her voice. There, standing across from him on the other side, smiling and relaxed, was Jenna Zan Arbor.
His mind raced. No wonder he had recognized her voice. The infamous scientist had been terrorizing the galaxy for over a decade now. From bioterrorism to narcotics manufacturing to experimenting on sentients, her list of crimes would take hours to read. She had engineered plagues, caused famines, and tortured multiple Jedi. Her dossier was required reading for any Jedi taking missions in the field, and in every encounter she had proven herself to be a deadly, devious foe. The last Mace had heard, she was imprisoned in a penal colony near Belasco. Clearly Black Sun had freed her, probably to use her skills in whatever experiments they had used to turn the kidnapped citizens into brainwashed assassins.
If Zan Arbor was here, then she would have a plan. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan's reports had mentioned that she was never without a backup plan, and she had a distressing fondness for traps, coupled with a total disregard for collateral damage. Given her skill set, it was entirely possible the entire planet was at risk. If her reputation held true, then she would have no qualms about wiping out the whole of Naboo if she thought it would help her escape.
Even as he ran through what he knew of Zan Arbor and tried to formulate a plan to capture her, however, she made her move. Without breaking his gaze, she reached for her left wrist, where he now saw she wore some sort of keypad. Before he could do anything to stop her, she pushed a couple of buttons and grinned triumphantly. Mace tensed, bracing for some sort of trap, an explosion, anything, but nothing apparently happened. Nothing blew up. No swarms of lethal droids burst from the ceiling. No clouds of poison flooded the room. If not for her satisfied smirk, Mace would have suspected her plan had failed. He did not detect anything.
Apparently his Padawan did, however. A moment after Zan Arbor activated her wrist computer, Naruto stiffened and his head snapped around to stare at one of the side exits of the control room. Mace looked, but he could see nothing significant about the open doorway. It came as a surprise to him, therefore, when Naruto suddenly bolted towards the door at top speed.
"The hostages!" He cried as he ran out of the room.
"No, Naruto! Wait!" Mace made to pursue his Padawan, but found himself having to block a sudden barrage of blaster fire before he could take two steps. Zan Arbor had produced a blaster from somewhere, and was firing as fast as she could at him. It only slowed him for a second, two at the most, but that was all it took. With a crashing thud he felt all the way in his bones, a heavy blast door slammed shut over the doorway Naruto had just run through.
"Sorry, Master Jedi, but he'll have to play on his own for a little while," Zan Arbor said, her voice saccharine sweet but laced with malice. "I'm afraid you have other things to worry about."
With that, she pressed another button on her keypad. A previously hidden door hissed open behind her, and she turned and fled through it before it closed behind her. Before she vanished completely, however, Mace spotted a shatterpoint forming around her. It was big, obvious, and screamed danger and importance. Something about her escape was going to put a lot of people in danger unless he stopped her. Mace scowled and turned to Captain Panaka, who was crouched and using a crate as cover.
"Find that droid control center and shut it down. I have to go after her." He left no room for argument in his voice. Sure enough, Panaka frowned but nodded. Once he was sure the man understood his orders, Mace charged across the room, blocking any blaster fire that came near him. When he reached the hidden door, he did not even hesitate. It was nowhere near as robust as the blast doors were, and he could see its shatterpoint clearly. Without breaking stride, he lashed out with a punch, channeling the Force as he did so. The door shattered into a dozen pieces, and he was already through the new opening before the first shard hit the ground.
OoOoOoOoOoOoO
Naruto wasn't sure why his master had been so shocked and wary when he saw the strange, blonde woman in the control room. He hadn't recognized her, but clearly Mace had. Whoever she was, as soon as she fiddled with that keypad on her wrist, he had felt an overwhelming wave of pain and fear coming from the hostages, accompanied by a sharp sense of danger. Ever since he had first felt them back in the swamp, he had been distantly aware of the hostages, but it had been a quiet sort of awareness, like a dull, irritating buzz. He didn't know what that woman had done, but that buzz had exploded into a deafening shriek that drove all thoughts but one out of his head. He had to get to the hostages now.
Mace had yelled at him to wait, but he couldn't. He couldn't wait. There were people in agony, and he refused to let them suffer in this dank hellhole for one second longer than he had to. Not when he could do something about it. He had made a promise, after all.
He followed the sense of fear and pain down the twisting hall. There were no markers to give directions, but he didn't need them. His empathic senses were screaming so loudly that he might as well have had a glowing sign pointing the way. As he drew closer to where the hostages were being kept, his keen ears picked up the faint sound of screaming, along with the crackle of electricity. A faint whiff of ozone tainted the air, and he redoubled his speed. If there had been any thought of caution in his head, it was gone now, replaced by a desperate determination to save the innocent civilians from whatever torture Black Sun was subjecting them to.
His furious sprint came to a grinding halt when, once again, he nearly ran straight into another group of battle droids. There were only a dozen this time, but he still wanted to scream with frustration. He didn't have time to be fighting a bunch of stupid machines. Every second he delayed was another second the hostages were suffering.
The lead droid, identical to the others save for a few painted yellow highlights on its exoplating, noticed him almost immediately, and raised its blaster.
"Halt," it said in a mechanical whine. "This is a restricted area. All units, opennn… ffiiiirrreee…"
To Naruto's amazement, before he could set about slicing the droids into tiny pieces, the droids all drooped and dropped their weapons. The leader's vocoder wound down, and, as a unit, the entire squad collapsed where they stood. It took a moment for Naruto to realize what had just happened.
"Heh, way to go Typho," he said as he started off down the hallway again, still following the pain of the hostages.
After a few minutes of running, the Force guided him to a closed door at the end of a hallway. The screams were clearly coming from behind it, as was the wave of agonized fear. He did not want to take the time to slice into the controls and open the door properly, so instead, he carved a rough portal into the door, just big enough for him to clamber through. Even the few seconds it took to do that grated on his nerves. He was so impatient to get through that he didn't even notice the sting of hot metal when he brushed against the freshly cut edges.
The moment he was inside, he noticed the cause of the screaming. There were row upon row of cages, each with a person, some human and some Gungan, chained up inside. The chains were sparking with electricity, and each prisoner was writhing and screaming in agony. The assault upon his senses, both physical and Force-based, was enough to drive him to his knees. It took a moment for him to push through the horrible din and stagger to his feet. Even then, he had to grit his teeth against the empathic onslaught. It felt like someone was blasting his mind with burning hot sand, slowing wearing him down until there was nothing left but pain. He had to find some way to end this, and quickly.
Though his vision was blurred with tears, he desperately cast around for something, anything, that might end the electric shocks. For a long, terrible moment he couldn't find anything, but at last his eyes lit on a computer console set into the far wall. Walking towards it felt like trudging through toxic mud, but he doggedly put one foot in front of the other, arriving with every step to ignore the stabbing lances of pain and fear and helppleasehelp that were tearing into his psyche. He had no idea how long it took him to reach the terminal, but when he finally did, he had to lean on it for support, else his legs would have given out. He couldn't take any time to catch his breath, though. Every moment he delayed was another moment that dozens, maybe hundreds, of innocent people were still being tortured.
When he looked down at the console, he almost cried in relief when he saw it was not encrypted or secured in any way. There was a simple digital dial, currently turned all the way to the red, along with a series of buttons and status screens. He reached down and turned the dial back all the way to zero. The effect was immediate. The harsh crackle and snap of electrical discharge vanished, and the deafening screams quickly faded into a mix of relieved sighs and pained whimpers. More importantly, though, the tide of agony that had been threatening to drown Naruto receded back into a more manageable trickle. He sagged with relief and had to fight the urge to slide to the floor and rest. He still had to get the hostages out of their cages and back to medical care in Theed.
Before he could set about doing that, however, something smashed into the side of his head, hard. Stars exploded across his vision, and his whole head felt like someone had set it on fire. At the same time, a sharp, painful shock ran through his entire body, and his muscles spasmed and locked up. He fell to the ground in a heap and had to fight to stay conscious. There was a high-pitched ringing in his ears, and his thoughts slipped and spun out of his grip while his vision swam in and out of focus.
Through his haze of concussed pain, Naruto could see a pair of boots step into his field of view. He tried to make some sort of move, though whether it was to fight or escape, he was too dazed to tell, but his limbs were still twitching and unresponsive. He could hear someone speaking, but he couldn't make out the words. Everything was fuzzy and distant, and his mind was a jumbled mess. He could see the cages in the corner of his vision, and he thought they were important, but he couldn't remember why. Had he been doing something with cages a minute ago?
One of the boots kicked him roughly in the shoulder, turning him so he was facing up at the ceiling. Naruto thought it might have hurt, but he was already in so much pain it was hard to tell. Instead of cages, now he could see a man standing over him, holding a stun baton. Was that why his head hurt so much? It seemed likely. The man was human, with pale skin and light brown hair, dressed in simple, but well-tailored clothes. He had an unremarkable face, the sort you might see a hundred times a day and never remember. Indeed, everything about him was forgettable, from his hair to his eyes. His bland, unmemorable face was currently twisted into a cruel grin, though, and even with his head still filled with mud and fire, Naruto found that grin unsettling. What was worse, though, was that he could not sense the man through the Force. Not at all. No life force, no emotions. It was like he didn't exist.
"Wha… who…?"
The man leaned down, and his grin grew sharper, crueler, more predatory.
"Hello, little Jedi. My name is Granta Omega. It's good to meet you."
OoOoOoOoOoOoO
Yes, another cliffhanger. Before you break out the torches and pitchforks, hear me out. I originally had this and the next chapter as on, single unit, but it kept growing and growing until it was just too large to publish as a single chapter. This was the most optimal spot to split the behemoth into two, and the cliffhanger just sort of showed up uninvited. It wasn't my fault, I swear.
Anyway, for those of you who guessed that Granta Omega was involved, well done. To the one (I think) of you who guessed it was Jenna Zan Arbor, also well done. For those of you who have no idea who either of those people are, they're Legends villains. Jenna is a (mad?) evil scientist who has repeatedly put entire planets in danger to make money. She hates the Jedi, but also likes to study the Force; usually by kidnapping and experimenting on Force-sensitives. Granta Omega is the son of a Dark Jedi, and he blames the Jedi Order for his father's death. Both of them are brilliant, probably insane, and very, very dangerous. I've also mentioned Granta before, which should give you a hint as to why he is here now.
Guesses are welcome, along with any questions or comments you may have. Just drop them in the review section, and I will try to respond to as many as I can. Thank you for reading. See you next time.