"Does it bother you, Ventress, to know everything you have missed out on? Everything you could have been a part of? Oh, and such a part you could have played. For all that has occurred, you were a good apprentice. You served me well, and had Sidious not ordered me to do away with you, I would have kept you by my side."

Dooku is enjoying this. Breaking down Malicos was a matter of brute force; crafting Sae into a Sith was a matter of manipulation. But Ventress, she is a much more delightful beast. Without the taint of the Jedi to stain her, the darkness has made a home in the deepest burrows of her heart. Even though it has been some time since Sidious ordered Dooku to kill her, some time since she last stood with the Dark Side, that darkness has never left. Just transformed. Morphed into different shapes, twisted and weaved and adapted as Ventress bounced from one role to another in a galaxy where she has no true place where she belongs.

Except at Dooku's side. And he will have her there again, not by force, not by manipulation, but by the gifts she will be unable to deny. In time. As much time as it takes.

For now, she remains delightfully resistant even after days and days of torment in the Ziost base's dungeon. Good. Let her squirm in that prisoner's rack that inflicts ceaseless electric shocks that keep her from focusing or sleeping. Let her writhe and spit at Dooku with every word he says. It only deepens her hate and brings her one step closer to kneeling before him again. And every moment is a unique satisfaction. Dooku would not miss it for the loyalty of a dozen fallen Jedi. "Despite what Malicos told me of your defeat on Mandalore, I know the power within you. Despite your failure to defend Dathomir against General Grievous, I know you offer a fight that is without peer. And I know what you can become, for I can see everything. Who you were. Who you are now. Who you will be."

"You didn't know enough to finish me off the first time. You didn't know anything about Savage Opress until it was too late," Ventress hisses, straining against her restraints.

Dooku chuckles. "Savage Opress was nothing more than a distraction. A dead one, now."

"No loss."

"Indeed. He was an animal. A strong beast, but he would never have grasped the power here on Ziost," Dooku says, pacing before Ventress as she glowers. "But you can."

"Enlighten me."

A lie, of course: Dooku has never seen even a glimpse of Asajj Ventress in any of his visions from the Celestial, even in visions he has seen since Malicos brought her back into his life. She is an enigma, a black hole in the Dark Side in which power seeps but little comes out. He wants to draw it out of her, though. Even with Sae and Malicos, Ventress has the potential to surpass them both and become his greatest apprentice.

Possibly. Because he will not stop with her. He will not stop until he has more Jedi kneeling before him like Sae and Malicos do. And despite the disappointment of Sullust, Skywalker remains the prize. There is no one stronger. No one better suited to serve the Dark Side. But not yet. Skywalker is the apex of Dooku's ascent, and until then he will keep climbing. "Despite your homeworld, despite your temporary allegiance with Mother Talzin and the Nightsisters, you are not a daughter of Dathomir," Dooku says, his voice deepening. "When I first found you on Rattatak, you were a broken woman. You have never had a home. You have gone from place to place, never sure of the future, never certain of what misfortune would befall you next. There was never any stability. No security. No guarantee you would see tomorrow. Just pain and loss." He draws so close to her that he can feel her pained pants. "I can change that. I have the power to wipe away the fog of the future. And it can be yours."

"If that's what you think I want, you're losing your touch," Ventress growls.

"Lie to my face all you wish. I can see through you. I know what eats at you in the quiet dark. I can peer right through the holes in your heart. You will never find that home, Ventress. Not unless you embrace it. Only when you take what I offer and stand beside me, where you belong…only then will you be whole."

Ventress snaps at him, and Dooku backs away, smiling. "Your lies are less than convincing," she says.

Dooku opens his mouth to answer, but his commlink flares up with a private transmission. Grievous. With a grin he holds up the comm so that the visual capture will include Ventress in the transmission and answers. "What is it, General?"

"You," Ventress seethes as Grievous's holographic form materializes.

Grievous looks taken aback at first, but after a moment he tilts his head back and cackles. "Ha! She finally resurfaces," the cyborg taunts. "Dathomir is still as dead as I left it, Ventress."

"You'll be just as dead once I get my hands on you."

"Enough," Dooku interjects. "In time you two will be working together again. Grievous: Tell me what you need."

Grievous cocks his head at Dooku's assertion, but he moves on to his report: "We have finished securing Corsin, and my scouts have set up forward operating bases on Bogden's Burial Moon. The Republic has pulled their advance forces back to Arkania. At your command I will take my fleet and crush them."

"Not quite yet," Dooku says. He looks up to Ventress. "You see? We are so close to victory. The Republic and the Jedi will soon be no more. Do you not want a part of that triumph?"

"I want nothing of your poison," Ventress snarls.

Dooku chuckles. "Grievous, move your fleet to Bogden and hold there. I will be joining you personally for our offensive against the Core."

"As you wish, Count Dooku."

He ends the transmission and turns to leave. "Everything you have ever wanted waits at my side, Ventress," he says. "All it requires is your word."

"You'll never get it."

"We will see. Never," he murmurs, "is a long, long time."


It is here that the storm converges. Here that the great cyclone in Ziost's sky swirls about, this centerpiece, this compounding of the Dark Side so thick and strong that Anakin can almost breathe it in. Down in the valley below a series of squat buildings sprawl around a pyramidal mount. Little moves down there save for what the wind whips about, but there is something: A small shuttle. As Anakin watches on from his vantage point halfway down one of the encircling peaks, the shuttle roars away from the base, challenging the storm overhead and peeling up into its lashing cloud layer.

Then it is gone, and the base is still yet again. A Separatist shuttle. Somewhere down there is Dooku's source of power. And based on the sight of that snow-covered pyramid—and on the Dark Side pulling every which-way on Anakin's instincts—he knows just where to go.

He makes his way down the cliffside methodically, picking his way across gouges in the rock and searching for secure footholds in the icy conditions. Careful: Time is not a problem right now. Rushing in will only trip any security measures Dooku has inevitably set up—if Anakin doesn't trip himself and fall down the sheer ledges around the valley, especially with the storm battering him as he descends. Foot by foot. Hand by hand. Take it slow.

It feels like hours, but at last he makes it down to the valley floor, the skin on his hands chafing and his thighs burning from the descent. He pulls his traveling cloak tighter around his shoulders and lopes towards the base's outskirts, hunched low and ducking from rock to rock to avoid any sentries or probes. And there, the first: A pair of battle droids stand guard just inside of an electronic sensor fence pole six feet high, blaster rifles loose in their hands. Anakin drops to his stomach, crawling along in the snow as he strains to make out the droids' chatter under the howling of the cyclone.

"He left?" one battle droid tells the other as they look out into the snowstorm. "Well, where's he going?"

The other droid shrugs. "How should I know?"

"So who's watching the prisoner?"

"How should I know that, either?"

"Ah, no one ever tells us anything."

Prisoner. Hm. Anakin reaches for his lightsaber, but as he wraps his hand around the hilt he thinks better of it. Whoever the nebulous "he" is who left—Dooku or otherwise—Anakin is still surrounded by the enemy on all sides, deep in the heart of their territory with no chance of getting backup. Best to do this quietly. If he can get on and off Ziost without drawing his blade at all, so much the better.

He waits for the grumbling battle droids to wander off to his right before advancing on the security fence. Typical construction, nothing fancy: Human-height sensor poles placed at regular intervals to detect infiltrators or other trespassers. Basic, but only the outermost layer of protection at most installations. That also makes it easy to defeat for a Jedi, however. Anakin backs up, takes a running leap, and jumps. He flips in mid-air, vaulting higher and clearing the sensor pole by a full foot before landing softly in a snow bank on the other side. One problem down.

Problem two comes quickly. A hovering spherical drone lurks ahead, drifting slowly to its left while casing the ground with a scanning beam. Anakin drops prone once more, chin buried into the snow. He could let it pass, wait for it to continue on its path. But he's a warm-blooded target in a frozen landscape, and if that drone's using thermal imaging—almost certainly one of its scanning types—it will pick him out in an instant.

Time to improvise.

Pulling off his cloak, Anakin lays it out beside him and dumps snow over it. Not enough to slow him down, but enough to chill the hardy cloth enough to at least diminish his profile. Before the drone can investigate the movement, however, Anakin grabs a rock off to his left with the Force, lifts it, and hurls it at another rock. He can't hear it all over the storm, but the drone can: The moment the rocks collide it pivots, scanning beam alight as it jets over to see to the sound. Quickly Anakin pulls on his snow-chilled cloak, fighting back the cold as he scampers forward with the way suddenly clear. Focus. It's only a chill. You can survive the cold. You can't survive a base full of enemies bearing down on you.

He is quick enough, however, and the drone thorough enough in its security check, that by the time it returns to its position Anakin is already past. Still he hunkers down, tossing a fistful of snow over his shoulders and hood to keep his cover. No need to take needless risks when he's so close to the base.

The third challenge is both the simplest and the most complex: A locked outer door. No R2 to plug in and slice the thing, and trying to hotwire the control terminal and hotwire it would likely set off alarms. Throwing a look over his shoulder to ensure he hasn't been seen, he looks over the terminal to try and finagle a way in. It's a fairly common credentials-based system backed up with biometric marking identification for specified guests—neither of which he can pass by. When he considers drawing his lightsaber and simply cutting a hole in the door, a better idea strikes. This is Dooku's base. Dooku isn't going to waste time with credentials or biometrics or anything else. He's simply going to open the door—and if he can, Anakin can.

He reaches out with the Force. There: The locking mechanism. It's a hefty lock, several different triggers in place all holding the heavy door in place. Focus, focus. Too much for a Padawan or a Jedi weak with the Force. Not even close to difficult for Anakin when he hones his attention, however. He pushes the lock until it gives way, hears the turning and grinding of gears—and then, with a slight push of the Force, opens the door and lets himself in.

Warmth. Dry air. Forgetting himself for a moment in his haste to get out of the frigid outdoors, Anakin lets down his hood and shakes out the snow. Then he looks up, eyes probing for cameras. Now is the part where his caution will only do him so much good. High-security installations involve extensive surveillance tucked into minute detectors to the point that only detailed camouflage or a good cover story can defeat them. Anakin has neither. Now he can only trust his instincts—and hope he finds what he's looking for before Dooku or his people find him.

"Gotta be some sort of an archive somewhere," Anakin murmurs. The pyramid—that's the power, he can feel it. But Anakin isn't running into the house of the Dark Side before he's had a chance to check things over. If Dooku has by chance discovered him, he'll have traps waiting inside that pyramid. He'll know that's where Anakin is headed.

The base first, then. It's standard prefab fare: Grey walls, spartan décor, steel furnishings, white military lighting. Odorless air. A tiny buzzing in Anakin's ears just barely noticeable. Wiring, maybe. As Anakin moves down vacant hallways and into an empty personnel lounge, however, he meets no one. The battle droids and sentry probes arranged outside are nowhere to be seen in here. No Dooku. None of his other Dark Side people, like that lightsaber-wielding woman on Sullust. No one.

As Anakin puzzles over the absence, however, he feels a tug in the Force. Not in the direction of the pyramid, he feels, but inside the facility. Deeper inside. And below. Throwing caution to the wind, he follows Obi-Wan's age-old advice and trusts his instincts. Pursue the feeling. See what the Force has in store. See what Dooku's left waiting for you.

Following his gut down several hallways, he descends into what can only be a dungeon. Dark, imposing rock jutting out from the walls and ceiling. Recesses into the stone reveal only darkness. No prisoners down here, however. No one but echoes and ghosts. Who did Dooku design all these things for? Jedi? Anakin runs his hand over the stone. Cold, rough. Inadvertently he upsets a loose stone when his boot, sending it skittering against the wall. The sound echoes throughout the void. Anakin reaches for his lightsaber, eyes darting.

"Come back for more?" a voice drawls from lower in the dungeon. "Decided Grievous was better off without you after all?"

Anakin narrows his eyes. That voice. He has not heard that voice in some time, but he still knows it. And he knows it is not the voice of a friend.

He draws his saber, keeping the blade unlit but running his thumb over the activator. Advancing from cell to cell, he pauses before each one, glancing around the wall into the empty darkness beyond, expecting company. Where are you?

Finally he reaches the last cell at the end of the hall. Sparking pink light glows from within. Anakin stops at the dividing wall between cells, readies his lightsaber, takes a breath, and moves into the open.

Immediately he stops when he sees who the cell imprisons. He lowers his weapon, shakes his head, and with a wry grin says, "Really?"

"Skywalker?" Ventress says. She sighs. "Somehow my day has gotten even worse."


As far as shortcuts go, Tamri thinks, this is the longest one she's ever taken. "Kesh, are you sure this is a shortcut?"

"Yes," Kesh calls back from down the steamy engineering tunnel deep in the automated maintenance bowels of Ahto City. "I did use to live here. Well, not here specifically—"

"Way to make that clear," Avea grumbles, walking alongside Tamri.

"A lot of kids used to run around down here when I was young. Relax. We're going the right way."

"It's just that we've been going for a while," says Tamri.

"It's a big city. Nothing out of the norm."

Avea laughs. "I'm gonna say that next time I lead someone hilariously off-course," she mutters just loud enough for Tamri to hear. "'So what if you were trying to get to Alderaan and I took you to Tatooine? It's a big galaxy.'"

Their verbal jousting is not helping, Tamri thinks as she trudges through the sweat-inducing, chemical-stinking tunnel. Mechanical red lights from below the grated floorboards are their own illumination in the otherwise dusky passage. Automated loader drones run along rails in the wall, ferrying supplies and gear between workstations in Ahto City's industrial lower levels.

She should've gone with the other group. We should split into two groups to investigate everything, she'd suggested once they'd all gotten back from Baron Bonamma's party and had time to regroup and reconnoiter, reviewing the intelligence they'd collected. One group to scout out the submersible facility Dominion had uncovered in the manor's security system. The other two surveil the private warehouse—spacedock, subport, freight yard, whatever the Baron was truly doing there—deep beneath the city's sunny, tourist-appealing upper levels. The sparkling top levels seem a world apart down here, with no trace of the glittering-sea views, eye-catching commercial hubs, and pristine, vegetation-decorated open spaces of Ahto's friendlier confines. The subport was also far below the upper levels, but at least the route there—Kesh's suggested route that, given that she's the Selkath of their group—wound around the outer hull of the city, providing a view of the sea. Nothing so cramped and dirty as this.

Like being on Nar Shaddaa again. "I hope the others are making better progress," Tamri murmurs.

"The boy, the clone, the droid, and Neelotas. Meanwhile us three stooges from Telos are tromping through this dump," Avea mutters. "We should've drawn straws to pick teams."

"We're not drawing straws."

"We could've at least used Falco. He doesn't talk and he can shoot well. Those guys have firepower. Between the three of us, it's just me and my rifle in case we run into trouble."

Tamri looks at her incredulously. "I have a lightsaber, you know."

"Yeah, at range equals zero. Back when I was with Echani Command, none of us commandos would've ever charged a Jedi swinging one of those things. We would've shot at you from five hundred meters away. Only idiots run up to a lightsaber-wielding Jedi and fight in melee."

"There's a lot of idiots in the galaxy, then."

Avea smirks. "Those war droids back on Mandalore, that was real firepower. Just carved up those Separatist battle tanks, boom-boom-boom. Should've gotten Bo-Katan to lend us a few."

"Yeah, I'm sure that would've gone over well."

"Seriously, though, if the Baron throws a bunch of guys with flamethrowers or slugthrowers at us, how much use is your lightsaber really? It's not like it deflects bullets."

"That's what the Force is for."

"The Force conjures up bullets, does it?"

"I can hear you two back there. I have a gun too," Kesh calls out over her shoulder.

"That's nice," Avea replies.

Kesh throws her a dirty look. 'You can stop your bitching, at least. We're here."

She throws open a hatch in the floor and sunlight pours in. Tamri shields her eyes. "Finally. Fresh air," she says. "What're we breathing in here, anyway?"

"No idea," Kesh says, dropping down out of the hatch.

"And she's our guide," Avea grumbles, following her down through the hatch.

Tamri drops out onto a rickety metal catwalk. A hundred meters below rolls ocean waves, a dead drop straight into the sea. Her gut churns as she looks down. "Uh, this is safe, right?"

"It was back in the day."

Avea rolls her eyes, mouthing we're dead. As Kesh leads them forward, however, a sight from behind catches Tamri's eye. "Hold on," she says, stopping Kesh from getting too far ahead. "There's something back here."

"Huh? What?"

At first Tamri thinks it's a worker snoozing on the job, maintenance crew slacking off for a paycheck. But if they were maintenance crew, they're no longer on the payroll: It's a dead body. "A Selkath," Tamri says, moving up to the corpse. The unfortunate victim lies straddling the catwalk railing, his legs lolling off the side and dangling over the drop, his arms drooping beside his head, his eyes dry, cracks lining his cetaceous skin. "He's been here a while."

"How did he get here?" Avea asks.

Tamri looks up. Above gapes a wide hole in the metal underside of the city, large enough to fit a V-Wing through. "Is that a trash chute?"

"It's, uh, a bulk disposal outlet. Usually for treated sewage or waste from kolto refining," says Kesh, eyes flitting between the chute and the dead Selkath. "You wouldn't throw a corpse in that, though."

"You might," murmurs Tamri, inspecting the body. "He's desiccated. Malnourished and skinny. I'm gonna guess dehydration killed him." She runs her hands over his neck. "There's markings on his neck and wrists. He was bound, maybe."

"Run afoul of the wrong crime boss?" Avea suggests. She peers over the railing. "Guess he was supposed to drop into the sea. Oops."

Kesh shakes her head. "There's no real organized crime up here in the city. A few loose gangs, but that's about it."

Tamri frowns. A question has been eating at her mind ever since they arrived, and now is the opportune time to ask. "Kesh, why aren't there more Selkath in the city?"

"What do you mean by more?"

"I've seen maybe five Selkath total since we got here, and one of them was Isard's messenger. This is your homeworld. I'd expect to see a few more than five Twi'leks if I went to Ryloth."

Kesh rubs her arms. "Well…topside's not really where we go."

"What's that mean?"

"Most Selkath live below the surface. Ahto City's mostly for offworlders. Trade and governance and the like."

"Didn't you grow up in the city?" Avea says.

"I was born up here. But I'm not like most Selkath. Most never even see the city. That's why there's not many of them."

Hence why Avea called this planet a dump back on Telos, Tamri thinks. Offworlders set up their home in the city, bring a few Selkath like Kesh around to keep it running, and turn it into their little ocean paradise to sell to bored tourists from the Core Worlds. Meanwhile the natives are repressed under the waves and forgotten about by the galaxy at large, only given attention when the industrial interests of Ahto City need to harvest kolto. Little wonder why any Selkath would want to escape this stratified society. "So that's it?"

"Well, sort of," Kesh says, looking uncomfortable. "There's still a good deal of Selkath topside, even if it's only a small percentage of our people. At least there should be. I haven't seen many of us, either."

"So something's still missing," Tamri concludes, looking over the body. "Hm. Is there any way up that disposal chute?"

Kesh points behind her. "It actually links up near the maintenance ducts below this warehouse we were going to. There's a ladder back that way."

"I'm sure that's no coincidence. Something tells me the Baron, the Taths, and the lack of Selkath are all tied together. Maybe even part of what Isard was going on about," says Tamri. "Let's keep going, then."

They make their way up the workers' ladder into another maintenance shaft. Winding through tunnels and ducts, they weave around the outer edge of Ahto City for the better part of an hour until they at last slip out of a vent and drop down into a vast, hanger-like open space. A cargo-transfer yard, Tamri thinks given the closed steel shipping containers stacked two-high beside a crane that overlooks the ocean below. A submersible retrieval crane. "This is the Baron's warehouse, then," she breathes, looking around.

"Look way on the other side," Avea says, her voice low as she points across the hanger to the far end a hundred meters away, where a trio of gravity suction hooks lie at rest. "Those are starship tethers. That must be the starship dock that Dominion found."

"So bring up cargo by sub in these crates, offload it after running the subs by the subport, then wait for a starship to come and pick them up for transport offworld," Tamri surmises. "There's a lot of crates around."

An understatement, that. The hanger is every bit the freight yard Dominion called it, a great bay capable of housing a large freighter with room to spare. Over a hundred of these identical, bulky crates litter the bay, with a smattering of dockworkers—Niktos, Klatooinians, typical spacer sorts—moving between them. From their high perch by the vent Tamri can scope out the whole area. Little security that she can see. The Baron must be confident that few people outside of his own crew know of this place.

"What's in the crates? Kolto?" Avea says.

Maybe. Based on Isard's briefing, this Tarkin who has split off from the Republic controls Thyferra and the bacta trade. Controlling kolto as well would completely corner the medicinal market, shutting off the Jedi and the Separatists alike from their most effective medicines. Kesh doesn't look convinced at the idea, however. "That would be a ton of kolto. Outside of tourism, kolto's the only reason we survive as a world," she says. "We already export a ton. We'd be draining Manaan dry with so much more."

"I'm gonna have a look," Tamri says.

Avea grabs her arm before she can drop down to the yard floor. "What are you doing? The last thing we need is to tip anyone off that this place is compromised."

"Do you plan on getting caught?" Tamri asks. When Avea only scowls in response, she shrugs. "You and Kesh stay there. I'm just gonna look."

"They're probably locked," Kesh says.

"Yeah," Tamri says, patting her lightsaber. "So?"

She drops down to the ground, staying low and keeping her eyes peeled for threats as she dips beside the submersible retrieval crane. Scampering to the nearest storage crate, she asses her options. A computerized lock, sealed behind an environmental dome to waterproof it. She could break the seal and try to hack it to open the crate, but that would take time—and no matter what, opening the crate's going to leave a trail.

Take the easy way in, then. She draws her lightsaber, ignites the green blade, and stabs it into the crate.

Immediately a disturbance comes from within. Tamri pulls back, puzzled. Is there something alive in there?

Thinking better of her tactics, she jabs her saber into the locking mechanism instead of the crate's hull. It takes only a moment before the computer sparks and dies and the lock gives way. Tamri focuses, grabs the crate's door with the Force, and heaves with all her concentration.

It budges up slowly. More noise from within. Panicked gurgling sounds. A bubbly, wet noise that might be language. Tamri peeks around the opening she's made, holds her lightsaber up for light—and immediately jumps back.

Selkath. Dozens of them, all crammed into cages within the crate and grasping at the bars, at each other, at her. Wet, wide eyes staring back at her. Fingers outstretched as if seeking to take hold of hope. "What the f—" Tamri starts.

Avea slides up behind her. "The hell?"

Tamri is too shocked to say anything. She only points, and Avea—Kesh in tow behind her—looks inside. "Oh, gods."

"What," Kesh mumbles, her eyes wide, "what are they doing? What is this?"

Avea answers quickly: "It's a slaving op. I saw something like this back on Eshan once. They're probably rounding them up on the seafloor and sending them offworld to some desolate hole."

Tamri swallows hard. She's no stranger to this either. This outer darkness, one of those lowest of horrors that she's seen in the galaxy. Nar Shaddaa and the other Hutt worlds overflow with this sort of misery. The destruction of the sapient spirit. The rendering of life as nothing more than the exchange of credits. It sickened her the first time she saw it with Sae years back, and her feelings haven't changed. "There might be a hundred of them in there," she murmurs. "And there's a hundred crates probably in this place. Just right now. How long has this been going on? Where are they sending them?"

"Reeks of the Taths," Avea says. "This is the sort of soullessness that Arkanians get up to. Just like with my family."

"I don't care who's getting up to it," Kesh spits, still looking inside at the captive Selkath. "I don't care."

Tamri takes her hand. "Easy," she says. "It's just us three right now."

"Tam, they're—"

"I know, but if we do anything right now, they'll still be in there, and we'll be shot down out here," she says. It doesn't take the Force to sense the heat rushing through Kesh. "We're gonna fix this, okay?"

"How?" Kesh stammers, jabbing her finger at the crate, rage electrifying her words. "How?"

"We have to learn what's going on here first. Trust me. Once we—"

She's stopped by the signal of her commlink. She curses and grabs Avea's shoulder. "Keep watch. And—" she looks back to Kesh— "just keep watch."

Avea eyes the comm. "Keep it to a whisper."

Tamri ducks behind a sealed crate, trying not to think about the poor souls inside. "What?" she hisses into the comm.

The first sound to answer her is blaster fire. Then Neelotas pants into the link, shooting continuing as he speaks: "Yeah, got a bit of a problem here, wizard."

Tamri's heart plummets. "What's going on?" she gasps, trying to keep her voice low.

"We go the sub depot, got some good stuff, but—" he stops to unload a barrage of automatic fire before continuing— "I don't know what happened, but we got surrounded quick by bad guys. We had to split up."

"What?"

"I caught up with the droid, then with Falco, but the boy—"

Tamri's mouth runs dry. She tries to speak, chokes on her words, and only manages to say, "What?"

"I don't know what happened to Korkie. Buncha uglies were converging on the last place I saw him. Droid's trying to get a fix on whether or not he popped his emergency transponder, but I'm a little busy right now to check on that."

"Get out of there. Just get out," Tamri says, ending the call. The last she hears is the sound of gunfire, a roar from Falco, and nothing more. "Oh, don't do this to me."

Hurrying back to the others, Tamri jabs at the vent they entered through. "We have to go."

"What about—" Kesh starts.

"The others are in trouble. And Korkie's…" she stops, trying to fight off the anger billowing up inside her. You should've gone with him. You shouldn't have split up in the first place. This is all your fault. Your fault. Yours. You can't stop hurting the people you care about. First Sae, now Korkie. "We have to go now."