Chapter 50
"The deeper we go the more unsettled I become." Juhani commented dryly.
"You and I both," Revan said.
"That makes three of us…" inserted Bastila.
"Pretty sure that's makes all of us," Carth added to which all nodded in absolute agreement. "Well maybe not the droid."
Despite her division of the ranks it was decided that Jolee would stay with the ship and the kids rather than go with the other men. There was still a visible rift between Bindo and Onasi and right now that was something the team did not need.
So HK was reassigned to team Rancor.
"Good to know Robes aren't the only ones jittery about all the fracking water." Canderous added with a hint of more than sarcasm in his voice.
It was at a four-way junction of the tunnels that the companions parted ways.
The constant drop-drip-drip of water leaking from rivets leaked by the pressure of the ocean depths was like the underlining chattering of unheard voices in the dark depths of the undercurrents of deepest waves.
The stale air of the tunnels felt more cloying as the companions made their way through the artificial rabbit warren, and made more claustrophobic by the bodies of dead humans scattered about on the durasteel floor like so much carelessly discarded litter.
Some looked gnawed upon.
A closer inspection revealed that it was blunted teeth that tried to take chucks of flesh out of the bodies.
"Selcath." Juhani said. "It appears that merc is correct, that the Selcath had gone mad."
"You don't have to be mad to take chunks of meat out of an enemy, just ask Big Z." Revan said in gallows humour. "He tried to eat one of his Gamorrean captors back on Taris- took a chuck of meat right out of the arm of one of the green piggies."
Bastila made a disgusted noise at the very notion of emerald long pork products, while Juhani had another reaction. The Cathar smiled with pointed teeth. "I am no stranger to the more carnivorous diet, but I draw the line at consuming sentients."
Revan smirked. "Good to know." It was dark humor to be sure but the situation called for a certain amount of distancing from the grimness of their discovery.
Other bodies carried no such molestation other than very precise blastershots to either their heads or to their chests.
Bastila knelt down on the floor mindful to keep her knee out of the puddle of water and blood that pooled around the body. These wounds were created by droids."
Revan frowned. "Okay the sonic emanations make the fish-men and sharks go bonkers but the droids? That doesn't make sense. Someone had to play with their programming and remove their mobile inhibiters… probably the mercs attempting to keep the Selcath at bay. It also means we keep our shields constantly active and our Force barriers up." The former Dark Lord of the Sith passed along the information on the bodies they had found.
*Yeah we found the same here. Trust me Whelp, our shields were up as soon as we got off that tin-can that pretended to be a sub.* Canderous commented dryly. *So now we got man-eating-fishmen. Just fracking great. And I suppose you Robes still wanna help them, even if they are hawk-bat(shit) crazy?*
"If at all possible," Bastila responded. "If not, then the most humane death possible."
*Yeah, yeah, nice clean deaths. No disintegrations. Ordo out.*
"I suppose we can count his willingness to comply as a small favour," the human turned to her other female companions. Both of them gave non-committal shrugs. Perhaps it was simply the best solution to the problematic issue of the mad selkath. She highly doubted they would be given much choice.
They had not gone more than seven meters when fingers of the Force rippled into the Jedi and warned them of very present danger.
Four lightsabers hummed to life. Questions of what caused the emanations to vibrate to did not give way to hesitation. The blades were held aloft and the Jedi gave themselves sufficient room to create a guard from blasterfire yet not bring harm to their fellows.
Four patrol droids must have been set to act against anything that came in range of their sensor range.
The blasts came in rapid fire— and precision aimed.
Bastila's duel-yellow blades swirled in a figure-eight. Any Jedi knight could wield a single blade. Only a true blademaster could use the weapon first designed by the Legendary Dark Lord Exar Kun. Unless one was in perfect attunement with it, the weapon could be as deadly to the wielder as to those who were in opposition of the twin sabers.
Bastila was extraordinary talented in wielding the duel-saber, she managed to repulse the blaster-bolts back to one of the droids. The bolts slammed back into the droid's chassis in smouldering pockmarks.
Revan swirled the power of the Force around her, and in a fast moving blur leapt up and over two of the droids' heads in an Ataru-form style jump. It was an exhausting form, but one of the most effective against multiple enemies. The Falling Leaf technique, which including the Hawk-Bat swoop, a move the former Dark Lord had used in the battle arena back on Taris.
Back then her mind catalogued the move as the Salmon-leap. Revan had used the three-dimensional space Ataru's form demanded—jung su ma, rapid spin: ton su ma, a somersault: and en su ma, a cartwheel. The former Dark Lord used all three moves in conjunction with the Force to leap higher and jab faster than opponents can react, as well as to keep tired muscles energized until the end of the battle.
The Nagai slammed her shorter blade up to the hilt into the neck joint between its head and shoulder unit. Sparks flew from ruined chest compartment where there was once a head as lubricating liquid squirted out in a reddish-oily mist. Even before the chassis fell to the ground in a puddle of its own hydraulic fluid the Jedi dove over the droid, tucked into a fluid shoulder roll, and came up solidly in a movement too quick for even photoreceptors to follow in a form known as Rancor Rising.
She brought the right-hand blade up between the droid's thighs hard using her leg muscles to augment the strike as she pushed up from the squat to a standing position. The force of her strike bisected the droid from its crotch right through the top of its head. There was a hard-metallic screech as the droid came apart in two halves.
The Light Side bloomed in Juhani: the power of it resonating like white lightning; all her years of training guiding her actions. Time seemed to slow, to stretch. Juhani spun towards the droid on the outside and snapped her right hand horizontally at chest level. Her sapphire blade sheered through the droid's forearm and blaster riffle and clattered to the floor. With her left hand she stretched out and Force pushed the body down the length of the hall were smashed against the bulkhead denting it. What remained of the droid's chassis slammed to the floor in a metallic thump and did not rise again.
The empty silence that followed the battle weighed heavily on the combatants. It was as if someone suddenly muted the blaring speakers and sub-woofers in a cantina. Only in the distance was the constant— and insistent drip-drip of freezing ocean water seeping into the facility from the seams in the metal ceiling of the hallway.
Drip-drip. Drip—drip. Drip-drip.
The Jedi looked to one another and questioned whether to go to the east room or head north. The east room was closer, therefore the answer obvious.
East it was.
The trio of Jedi used their connections to the Force to sense life beyond the blast-door. They were awarded for their diligence; there was indeed life to be found. Five beacons of life flared sickly', in the Force.
The door opened and five mad Selcath rushed the interlopers. Their gargled rabid screeches reverberated in the stillness, raping the eerie dead silence with their rage. Blood and ichor dripped from their elongated mouths; their minds still aware enough to use their weapons.
The Jedi, on the other hand, were the antithesis of this berserker rage, their heartbeats even and slow, their breathing calm. Each of their bodies was aware of the danger, aware and in control.
Two of the Selcath, both with large spots mottling their green-blue scales, rushed Revan.
She dropped down on to her left knee.
Guided by the vibrations of the Force, she thrust outwards with the shoto-blade, its emerald plasma beam sticking the Selcath at the knee joint, slicing through it swiftly and evenly. The flesh was instantly cauterized.
The stench of seared flesh immediately permeated the surrounding air.
Revan tucked into a forward shoulder roll and used the momentum to come to her feet, spinning the purple blade over her head and decapitated the second fish-man from behind.
Heedless of the fate of his fallen comrades, a third fish-man charged for Bastila, armed with what looked to be a chain. The make-shift weapon whirled over the Selkath's head like the propeller of a gyrocraft. The heavy links lashed towards the human but Bastila spun on her right foot and slammed her left heel into the Selcath with a powerful side-kick stopping her assailant cold.
She dropped into a squat, spun the lightsaber like a scythe and sickled the Selkath cleanly at the knees by the mark Mou kei. A forbidden move against living opponents, Bastila's hindbrain protested such a dark forbidden action. Even still, it was most effective and expedient, another part of her mind reasoned, silencing the argumentative protests. Besides, hadn't Revan just done the same? Had her lover not also preformed Sai cha when the Nagai beheaded her assailant?
Legs gone, the frenzied male collapsed to the ferrocrete floor, as Bastila twisted again and spun the weapon into a form known as Niman. A form most favoured by the Jedi Consulars and those that used twin blades.
Her stance defensive-waiting.
Four down one to go.
In the same breath Revan engaged her two opponents and Bastila the oncoming third, Juhani sprinted forward, double somersaulted over the heads of Jedi and Selcath alike, and landed with the feline grace known only to the Cathar.
Driven by unheard screams, the last Selcath took no notice of the dead, only the need to kill and feed. The Cathar had gained its attention. He pivoted on his ankle, readying to lunge. As he sprang upward, Juhani was ready for him. Spending time on the Khoonda plains facing off against kath hounds gave her a somewhat predatory awareness.
She turned off her blade, stuck out with the Force and lifted the rampaging male into the air. He was stopped, suspended as if by strings caught in the wind. With almost careless ease, Juhani flung her captive into the far wall near the corpses of the five maddened Selkath they only recently happened upon. There was a sinking crunch as bone and muscle met durasteel. The limp form toppled wetly onto the mutilated bodies of the gnawed-upon mercs. Ironically fitting, a part of Juhani thought, as she turned disgusted eyes away from the carnage that had been the final meal of the Selcath.
The ziiipp-shupp of three sabers disengaging signaled finality to the conflict. Perhaps sixty seconds elapsed from start to finish. No one said anything for a moment.
What was there to say?
It was in that choking stillness that the three of them heard a very faint scratching coming across in an empty room adjacent to the chamber they were in now.
Cautiously, the trio of Jedi moved nearer the cause of the sound, but their sabers remained in place on their belts. Fear had not insanity pulsated from the room.
"Probably another merc," Bastila surmised correctly.
There it was again- a faint scratching sound. Three faces looked at one another then to the locker. It was definitely coming from within.
Almost as if the occupant sensed he had visitors, a muted voice muffled out in near hysteria. "Is somebody out there? Fishy, fishy? Coming to eat me too? Hee hee heee. You can't get me, little fishy. Not in here. I'm safe behind my walls."
"We're not Selcath," Juhani said softly. "Those that were here have been dispatched."
"Come out so we can speak, you'll be safe within our company," said Revan.
"Indeed. We are Jedi Knights sent by the Republic to investigate what happened here." Bastila added.
"Investigate?" the male voice seemed to give pause… then laughed. "You're just like the others—fodder for the Selcath. Walking fish snacks. Chomp, chomp, chomp—if you can run you, might be fast food!" the male descended in to hysterical laughter. He sobered a breath latter, his voice was still pitched in fear. "When the Selkath went insane and started killing everybody I locked myself in here! I'm safe in here. Nothing can hurt me in here! No fishy food for me!" the mad laughter bubbled up once more.
"What made the Selkath insane?" Juhani pressed. She looked to the mangled corpses of mercs and the dismembered bodies of their assailants
"Don't know. Go ask them. Ha—ha—ha-haaaaa!" the male in the locker seemed to catch up to his giggles. "When the demon screamed, it shook every mind in the station. WE fell to the ground, but survived. Hahhhahh haaaaa. Fishy, fishies, though, they just got hungry!"
"Come out of there and we will protect you from the Selcath," Bastila pressed.
"No, no, no, no, no..." the laughter descended into sobs. "That's what the others said. Mercenaries like you. But they're dead. The Selkath ate them! Lunchie—munchie! Only the ones left in the south part of the base might still be alive, where the kolto is. Few fishies there! But many, many fishy in between- in the water!"
Revan gestured to the locker, "Let him stay there. He'll come out soon enough, hunger or the need to relieve himself will force him to."
Fishy man must have heard Raven. "Ha—ha—that's what you think! Fishy think that too. These walls and door are six centimeters... no twelve centimeters of durasteel! I'm invulnerable behind my walls! Nobody's getting in here!" Fishy man descended back into the manic laughter. He repeated over and over that he was not going to be fishy-food. "You can't harm me; fishy can't harm me in here! I'm invincible!" the mad laughter burbled up a last time.
"Leave him to his fate. You cannot force help upon someone who readily rejects it." Revan turned and left the chamber. From what information, they had gleamed from the first merc they encountered, something had caused the firaxon Progenitor to scream in pain. That sonic boom, according to Fishy-Locker Man shook the entire Hrakert Station and caused the Selkath within and the sharks outside to become utterly- mindlessly insane.
"Bye-bye. Go look for fishy people. They'll chomp and bite, chomp and bite. Food for fishy—that's you."
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Darkness hid half the corridor, the other half illuminated in shuttering pulses by lights struggling to maintain connectivity to the grid. Emergency lights bloomed green where they worked, flickered weakly where they didn't. The constant dripping of water leaking in from weakened rivets and durasteel panelling became a constant reminder how vulnerable the companions were.
Should the ocean come flooding in there would be no escape. A Jedi passage came to Carth- he once heard Revan say when she was still the hero general that lead the Republic to victory against the Mandalorians: "Nothing is as soft as water, but who can withstand the raging flood?"
He could not help but stare out at the large bay windows "Who indeed? Sure ain't us."
"What was that Orange Coat?" Canderous looked over his shoulder at Onasi.
"Nothing," a hapless shrug. "Just thinking we're fracked if the ocean decides to invade."
The old Mandy shuddered, looking out of the same window that held Onasi's gaze. "Yeah, thanks for that. I was trying not to think of that shit."
"Critical observation: windows in a pressurized environment are structurally unsound. I never understood organic desire to play themselves into deliberate danger. Amendment: Windows on a starship do not belong either. An appropriate viewer and holographic projections can adequately depict the galaxy and track enemy movement."
"No one asked you, clanker," Ordo said, but found himself agreeing with the assassin droid. Why did they need big bay windows that overlooked the ocean floor?
The farther they went, the more bodies lay in their path. Onasi stepped over them when he could, Ordo and HK didn't bother- both of them stepped on top of them. With every passing meter, the musty fog of bile and stale sweat only increased in potency. If things were this bad in the access passage how bad would it be in the lab sections-it would be a nightmare down there.
Carth wondered if the mercs had sealed the whole thing off and waited for both techs and ravenous Selcath to die.
"Statement: You didn't ask for this either, but I should point out in the room thirty meters to the right, there are four lifeforms. Correction: three lifeforms."
"That's either really good or really bad…" Carth uttered.
"So just like every other day then," Canderous murmured.
Cautiously, the trio approached the room, weapons drawn and held at the ready. From within they heard strangled, agonized growls, mixed with a horrifying, slobbering sound of something or rather somethings eating.
Greedy and breathless; slurping and crunching.
Without speaking, the warriors communicated the need to use grenades. By that same silent agreement, they grabbed the plasmas. Rather than throwing them like a skyball, they rolled them on the ferrocrete floor like a bowling ball.
At the sound of clattering the Selcath lifted their elongated heads, turned with mouths dribbling blood and gore. They looked down at the red orbs- and blew up- along with whomever they had been gorging on.
"If it's all the same to you Orange Coat, I say we just blow these cannibals wherever we find them. Screw trying to play all nice."
"You won't get any arguments from me." Carth shook his head, tying to keep his gag-reflex from rising and littering the floor with his vomit.
"Correction: in order for the fish meatbags to be cannibals they would have to be eating their own kind. They're not, they are eating other meatbags."
Carth groaned, he hated the term meatbag. He didn't know why Skye tolerated it. Looking at the carcasses he couldn't ignore the irony of the droid's statement: meatbags indeed.
"Come on, we've got more rooms to clear, find environment suits and some means to get past those damned sharks out there to get to the Star Map." Carth turned away from the carnage.
"Ha! No, we need to find those things for the Robes. Let them traverse the waters and go get the map."
"'Let them traverse the waters?' I'm surprised you're not ready to fight those mad sharks, seems just your thing." Onasi deliberately goaded the Mandy. Not to antagonize the other man into any altercation, but as a means to distance himself from the milieu of utter madness seeping out of the nightmarish room.
Canderous spun on his heel and pinned Onasi with a glare. "I'm no coward, but I'm not stupid. Fighting those creatures out there without any weapon- even a raw blade of a vibrosword- is stupid. I relish in bare-knuckle fighting, beating opponents to death with my own hands. Done my fair share of it to, beast and sentient alike. But those things out there need another approach. Besides, it takes someone with the Force to open the Star Maps."
They had walked a few meters back the way they came and Canderous paused looked behind him and it occurred to him just what the Orange Coat had done and why. He'd seen it often enough when he was out on those fracking patrols for Davik Kang in the Under City back on Taris.
His men would get into verbal-scuttles after putting down a few rakghouls, mostly as a means of distraction. If they thought about how to piss one another off they didn't have to think about how one of those white-skinned-eyeless monsters might have bitten them. Or how that they in-turn would then descend into madness, convert into one of those slathering, toothy, mindless things and start gnawing at another body's innards. Slurping up guts like spaghetti while the victim was still alive.
He looked at the Republic toady and shrugged. Onasi was no coward either, the Mandy admitted. Just unnerved by what he saw. Ordo hated to admit it to himself, but so was he. He never imaged in his fifty-plus years that he'd ever see fish-men with their slurping speech and pacifist hearts start eating people. Better they turned into rakghouls. At least then they'd looked the part of a monster in some damnable horror-vid.
"Come on Orange Coat, let's clear more rooms for our boss. The Whelp wants us to help these poor mother-frackers, then let's do it by given 'em a bit of peace." He held up his carbine riffle and waggled it in the air. "Best thing for 'em." There were better ways to distract a mind, Ordo knew. Shoot the mother-frackers before they had a chance to sink any teeth into you. Besides, killing monsters was good for the soul. Wasn't that why they were going after Ol' Tin Jaw in the first place?
Onasi nodded. "Best thing for them," he repeated.
After a moment Canderous said, "Bet you won't sushi look at in the same manner."
Carth snickered despite himself, "Ah man, that's disgusting."
"Firaxa-fin soup?"
More laughter. "Fish Fingers?"
"Fish and Tuber-Chips?"
"Stake Tar-Tar?"
Ordo coughed, "I always was a rare man, too. Bloodier the better. If it still mooed on the plate, fine by me. Never minded blue meat either. Until now."
"Too soon?" Onasi smirked looking at the older man, grateful for the jests.
"Naw. Just wished I thought of it first."
Both men chuckled leaving HK-47 quite baffled. He never understood the male meatbag tendency to bond over the subject matter of carnage and death.
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It didn't help that the next corridor leading from where they were and where they needed to go was flooded in ankle-deep, freezing ocean water that had their feet feeling numb even through their rancor-hide boots. The only illumination came from their lightsabers in multi-colour cones of light that stretched only one-and-a-half meters.
"At the very least, we'll hear if anyone tries to sneak up behind us." Revan said, trying to grasp at any thread of silver lining.
***It was following them to satisfy whatever undying urge drove it forward.***
Rage.
Murder.
Hunger.
Something moved in the water. It's just another body part, don't think about it, done let it... Bastila felt a scabby, clay-cold hand reaching up out of the pile to seize her ankle. She sucked in a hitch of breath and wrenched her leg free, almost losing her balance and falling. Only her Jedi reflexes prevented her from taking a tumble. Looking down, the body that reached for her was a half-dead Twi'lek male, and almost half of his lower half had been gnawed upon—no gnawed through. His small intestines spooled around his waist like coiled, slippery-greasy rope. His tongue, a thik slab of meat in a mouth filled with sea water.
'Kill me' his eyes pleaded, as his lips tried to form the words that clogged in his too-tight throat. There was no real life in him. Saving him wasn't going to be possible; the best thing was to finish him, with a quick and clean cut. Wordlessly, the Jedi agreed to end it. A quick snap-hiss from her golden lightsaber and it was over.
Three faces looked at the dead man and then back to one another. Another job needed doing. On top of recovering the Star Map and neutralizing the crazed Selcath by any means required. The Jedi, now by that same unspoken agreement, were to salvage any merc and researcher that crossed their paths - if possible- or if not, offer them a clean death. Well perhaps not them directly. This newest assignment was passed on to the men.
The Jedi's first priority- as always- was to find the Star Map.
Revan's mind flashed to a mission that now she didn't know if it were a true memory or something created by the Jedi Masters or a bit of them both just amalgamated somewhat. The mission was during her tenure as a 'Republic Military Sscout' or perhaps as far back as some mission when she was a Padawan for the first time. She didn't know. But the memory held fast.
The intel was the mission. While infiltrating the enemy stronghold she chanced upon a chamber that held several slaves. Had she saved the slaves she would have changed the lives of several people- over a 100 thousand. The intel was the priority though; was all that mattered. Freeing the slaves would have alerted the enemy that a Jedi/Republic spy was on the premises and endangered the greater scope of the mission. The slaves had not been freed. For the sake of the mission, for the greater good- the fate those several dozen or so" lives had to be forfeited to the slave pens.
At the time Revan (or was she Skye?) hadn't regretted doing what was required. A few lives sacrificed and the greater number of lives are saved. It was the ruthlessness of calculus and the right call. Didn't mean she had to like it, she simply didn't regret it.
The same was true now. Fortunately, this time there were alternatives.
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"First she wants us to try and save them, now we're on a fish hunt. A fracking sweep and clear job. This is something for recruits to start on, not seasoned warriors," Canderous shook his head, disgusted. "I'd say I'd love to know what's going on in her head, but sometimes I don't think even the Whelp does."
Carth hated to admit it, but the Mandy was right. More and more it was as if Skye were two very different people. Maybe she was just struggling between being a Jedi and her former life as a scout where she was required to slip in, play a bit of 'dirty pool' and slip out. It had to mess with the mind. Perhaps more than the Nagai was prepared to face. Add that to a monastic Code that practically demanded celibacy and falling in love with a fellow Jedi – which of course was against the Code.
On top of that, Bastila was changing too. No doubt it had a lot to do with the Bond between the Jedi more than just their illicit love affair. But there was something more, something else, as if she were tapping into a shadier side of the consciousness a sentient can take and still be on the side of the Light. It was almost as if Bastila was becoming more like a Shadow Agent - the Left Hand of the Republic. If not for being a human Carth, could have sworn it was Bastila- not Skye- who was raised by the Dark Sisterhood of Dathomiri in service to the Night Mother.
As for Skye, she was becoming more and more the leader that Revan ever was. Though still a Padawan as far as the Jedi were concerned, Skye was much, much more. She was in everyone's eyes- at very least those on the Ebon Hawk- nothing short of a true Jedi Knight. Those they came across did not call Skye Ravensong, "Master Jedi", simply to wax poetic politeness.
They meant it.
They felt it.
Also, despite their numerous confrontational interactions, Carth had to admit (if only to himself) that he too saw Skye as much more than a Knight. He saw her as a true Jedi Master. Not unlike the Revanchist, long before her fall to the Dark Side and rebirth as a Dark Lord of the Sith, when she was a true hero of the Republic.
Carth looked to from the droid to Mandalorian and sighed. "Yeah well, the job isn't going to be done standing here bitching about it. Whether you want to admit it or not Ordo, the Republic needs to win this war. Without this facility to make the kolto for our guys on the frontlines, the Sith will move in.
"And if you think Ol' Tin Jaw will be as generous with you Mandies as Ulic Qel-Droma was, then you're not as half as smart as you think you are. Malak will destroy your people as much as anyone else he sees as a threat. When he was with the Revanchist back in the War, there was a lot of battlegrounds lost to him when he was still 'Squint'. Just because he went to the Dark Side doesn't mean he's changed his hatred for the Mandies any more than Revan had when she became the Dark Lord."
Canderous shouldered is heavy riffle and puffed out a long-suffering sigh. "That you're idea of a pep-talk, Onasi? Cuz it needs work- and I'm not all that interested. But you're right, Tin Jaw needs to go down- and yeah, you're right; he'll finish the rest of the true clans off because we sure as hell won't become slaves.
"Any Mandalorian stupid enough to take up the Silver, ain't no Neo-Crusader any longer. They deserve to die because they sure as hell don't deserve to wear the armour any more than those throwbacks in the Shadowlands did. Be doing the Universe a fair by cleaning it of stupid. Come on, we're wasting time flapping our gums when we should be sweeping the place."
"Exasperated Aside: It's about time." HK chimed in.
Without waiting for the others to catch up, the assassin droid headed down the corridor only to pause after fifty meters before a large blast door on his left.
There the droid paused, waiting for instructions, flanking the right side of the door; this time Carth took the left, leaving the point position to Canderous. They didn't even wait to see what was within. HK's sensors picked up no life signs but there were faint signs of unusual electronics.
Which meant droids.
HK made a short adjustment to his CPU, emitting a short energy pulse to jam the sensors. Sonic and ion grenades were rolled in by all three combatants. The room exploded in ear piecing wails as the sonic blast crippled enemy sensors and shielding, and the ion blast crippled the patrol droids' circuitry long enough for the team to get the jump on them.
In those precious too few nanoseconds, the team curled around cover, targeted the mechs and fired indiscriminately at their center of mass- at least two of them did, Carth used pin-point precision shots to their heads.
Suddenly, a new sound of heavy metallic feet hit the ferrocrete flooring. It had been in hibernation mode. Once the smaller droids were down, the larger mech activated. Its head turned on a swivelled neck that connected it to the main chaises which resembled the thorax of a very large insectiod beast mounted on quadruped spider-like legs.
The shields withstood the initial attack, but then the heavy mechs always had superior shielding to standard issue patrol droids that were nothing more than a mechanized extension of the Manaan police force.
Canderous and HK activated their own heavy shielding and consternated heavy fire on the battle unit, distracting it as Carth very carefully rolled a droid-popper under the unit with just enough kinetic force to slip past the shielding without bouncing off.
When it blew, they had maybe (at the maximum) one forth of a second before the shields readjusted and adapted. Canderous and HK switched to rapid fire, allowing Carth those very precious heartbeats to use one of Zaalbar's adhesive cryo-frag cluster grenades. The package flew directly to its target, hitting the droid directly on its octagonal thorax and detonated just as the shields cycled and adapted, but with the shielding in place the explosion was self-contained. The heavy droid faltered on its spindly legs and fell in a shower of sparks.
After the slight skirmish, the trio had a chance to look around them. The room, like many they had passed through- including the hallways, was constantly dripping water in from the ocean. Littered on the floor alongside the puddles were bodies of dead Republic soldiers.
Carth moved to the bodies, not sure his stomach could handle another gnawed upon corpse. But he was spared from purging his already empty stomach. These men and women died by blaster fire; caught no doubt by the very droids the trio had just destroyed.
Canderous scowled at the bodies. "This is why you don't put faith in droids."
He touched a body with the tip of his boot.
"Says the man who regularly rode Basilisk War Droids in planetary drops."
"Never said droids weren't handy, I just don't trust clankers."
"Barely Contained Bored Commentary: My former masters would agree with that sentiment, as their orders resulted in me directly or indirectly ending their existence."
"Every day you make a good case to have you deactivated, HK." Carth growled.
"Condescending Statement: and yet I still remain active. Snide Rebuke: fortunate for me that my continued activation isn't contingent upon your whims Commander Onasi, but rather by Mistress Ravensong's."
"I wouldn't worry so much Orange Coat; the Whelp was smart enough to replace his restraining bolt with I believe upgraded programming that prohibits him from taking lethal action against any of Ravensong's allies." He punched the other man in the arm, in what might have been seen as male-bonding. "So long as you're friendly with the Whelp, the rust-bucket won't take action against you," the older man smirked and moved on.
"Come on we have more Fishies to put down."
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The trio of Jedi passed by a large bay room, seeing the skulking sharks swimming back and forth as if they were waiting for the food to come outside. Their minds flitted back to the man in the locker, prophesizing they were going to all end up fishy-food.
Nothing cemented that more than when the three entered yet another chamber and this one was already occupied by:
All Selcath.
All mad.
All with blood on their lips.
All now moving in on them.
The Jedi pulled back to a more defensive position. One they could control. The locker room had several crates, lockers and duroplastic storage units containing several supplies. According to the schematic T3 downloaded into all their comms-systems, this was where the extra enviro-suits and sonic emitters were stored.
Problem was, if they ventured into the chamber there was no other way out but the way they'd come from themselves.
From all sides came an army of the mad.
"Ground yourselves!" Bastila ordered and leapt up onto one of the oblong duroplast containers.
"Bas what are you going to do?" Revan asked, even as she too took purchase on one of the containers- as did Juhani. As soon as they were safely off the floor, Bastila directed pulses of Force Lightning- not at the surging and relentlessly hungry fishes- but at the puddles of water.
At first the arcs of light were green but the more power she poured into the lightning, the more purple it became. The Selcath died by the dozens, all screaming as they fell writhing in agony.
"BASTILA!" Revan cried out, "what the hell are you doing?"
She forced leapt from her container to the one near her lover.
"Bastila, you must stop!" Juhani protested. "This is not the way of a Jedi!"
Revan snatched Bastila's hands. For a moment, lightning coursed around both bodies, wrapping around them until they both fell from their perch. Fortunately, they landed on a section of the ferrocrete flooring that was miraculously devoid of water. The landing caused Bastila's concentration to falter and the surge of lightning emanating from her fingertips died.
The Selcath were nothing more than smoldering corpses.
"What was that?" the former Dark Lord demanded.
"Our survival." The Jedi Sentinel answered.
Revan only stared in astonishment.
Juhani looked sick. Of all the Jedi to be tempted by the Dark Side, Bastila Shan was the least likely candidate in the Cathar's judgment.
To see this now... after her own temptation with the seductive power was heartbreaking.
"Bas... that wasn't the only way."
"No. But it was the most efficient." The Jedi rose to her feet, stretched her hand out to Revan and helped her up. Once the Nagai was standing, Bastila touched her beloved's angular face, and then touched her lips to the older woman's. "Do not worry for me, Emma Vhenan." Bastlia deliberately used the Nagaian word for 'my heart'. It was a term of endearment Revan had used with Bastila in their more private moments.
"Yes, it was perhaps a rash decision, but have we not made many of those along the way? Did you not use pheromones and multiple frag grenades to destroy a rancor? This is no different. Those Selcath's minds were no different than that of your 'Fido' in the Under City or the countless rakghouls you had to destroy in that forsaken forgotten part of Taris. Their minds were gone, they could not be returned to sanity." She swept her arm out to the very dead Selcath. "Death was their freedom. Besides, there is no death; there is the Force, and now their souls can rejoin their Mother Ocean and be born anew."
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Laying down suppressing fire, Canderous cried, "Fall back! I said, fall back!"
Even as they moved back towards the main hall, another surge of crazed Selcath came out from the northern corridor, cutting Carth off from the others.
"Dammit Orange Coat!" Ordo raced into the mass of mad Fishmen. He may loath the Republic officer, but Carth Onasi was a part of the squad and you don't leave a man behind if he can still kill the enemy at your side.
"Just pull me out of the bodies," Carth pulled from his utility belt three stun grenades used for crowd control. He yanked all three pins from the small munitions and tossed them into the mass of green and blue bodies. The blast hit hard, concussing most of them, while others were knocked out cold. It was enough of them for HK to rush in, snatch the Republic meatbag who had fallen to the floor as well, sling him over his shoulder, then sprint back to cover, opposite the Mandy meatbag.
Canderous unloaded his heavy repeating blaster until the energy pack was depleted; he dropped it and used both of his disrupter pistols. The bodies that fell were nothing more than ash.
"Now this is getting fun!" Ordo chuckled and then pulled back to a position of strength. He holstered the pistols and picked up his rifle. Outnumbered, small odds; hell this was a day at a fun park. All Ordo needed was a gundark to make the day complete.
Just as he thought that a firaxon shark slammed his body into one of the great bay windows overlooking the ocean floor. With a snarl, the Mandalorian turned to the window. "No one invited you, guppie!"
The shark hit the window once more. Hard enough to crack the duroplastic. Canderous's eyes boggled. "Oh crap."
Was that damned-able thing smiling? It was! That fracking shark was grinning- a large, toothy grin. Canderous stared for a moment. The shark seemingly swam away only to come back with a vengeance to hit the window a third time. This time water started to dribble in from the cracks.
"By Mandalore's hairy balls, I got a bad feeling about this."
Onasi was still out cold from his stunt with the stunners. Didn't matter. "HK get your tin ass into the next room and fortify it. We're about to have several thousand gallons of problems on our asses."
The droid looked to where the Mandy-meatbag's eye was drawn to the weakened structural point.
"Consensus: I agree with that assessment."
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"Did you feel that?" Revan turned to her fellow Jedi.
They both nodded.
"It felt like it came from inside the facility." Bastila said.
Revan activated her comm-unit. "All teams report! Report!"
*We're crackling static all good here, Skye.* Mission said.
*We've had crackling static seal crackling staticbulkhead doors. Grandpa Candy said trouble crackling static. Something crackling static shark crackling staticwindow.*
"Damn, we're getting a lot of interference, must be all the sonic dispersal. Whatever is causing the Selcath and sharks to go mad is cutting into our comms," Revan said to her fellow Jedi.
To Mission she said. "If you copy: stay put. Secure any hatches you need to. Evacuate if you absolutely must."
*Sorry crackling static didn't copy. You want us to evacuate? crackling static No way doing crackling static Notcrackling static behind.*
"Revan, you may as well give it up, we can't use radio comm-links." Bastila placed a hand on her lover's arm.
"Maybe not, but there are other ways to get a message across," she took her wrist unit from her gauntlet, a few very small tools from one of the pouches on her utility belt and started to tinker with the comm-units wiring. "Love, hand me yours," she said with such casualness it almost took her by surprise. More so when Bastila did so with a gentle smile on her bow-shaped lips.
"Vocal transmissions may not be get through but this will," she began to tap against the connection inter-link causing the LDS to blink in a series of long and short dashes. It was a code known to Republic soldiers and Jedi alike, so both Carth and Jolee would be able to easily translate the message their leader was leaving them.
'Proceed with caution. Take no further chances than necessary. We are moving forward. Evacuate if need be. We have the suits and the sonic emitters. We are proceeding to the Star Map.'