Chapter 3: The Harbinger
The four of us ran through the airlock and onto the Harbinger, when Kreia suddenly stopped.
"Something is wrong. I sense no one on board."
"You sense no one board? Do you sense any assassin droids trying to sneak up on us?"
"Everyone here has been slain, yet there are few signs of battle, no carbon scoring, no blaster fire. This place has been hit by assassins of a different sort."
"Then what the Hell are we doing here? We need to get off this ship. We were better off in the facility! And you two are supposed to be Jedi? You're both pretty poor examples of Jedi if you ask me."
"Oh really? Just what exactly have you learned about the two of them that lets you evaluate them so quickly? And what's your example of a Jedi, anyway?"
Before Atton could say anything more, Kreia spoke again. "If the assassin machine was correct, we cannot reach the hanger. Be silent, I need to think for a moment."
"Look, I don't mean to cast another shadow on this, but it wouldn't matter even if we do get to the Ebon Hawk. We'll need the orbital drift charts to make it past the asteroid field, unless you want the shortest flight of Peragus ever recorded."
"I actually do want that, but not in the way you're thinking."
Suddenly Meetra spoke up. "Well how did this ship get here?"
"Well they'd have to have the asteroid drift charts in their navicomputer in order to make it here."
"So why don't we just get their codes? That way we can escape with the Ebon Hawk."
"Well, we'd have to get to the bridge, and then…well, I guess that's the biggest problem we'd have to face."
"That is a sound plan for the moment. We should head there now."
But Meetra didn't move at all. For a brief second she froze in place, as if she were in another state.
"Our enemies gather while we wait here," Kreia said, her impatience showing clear in her tone.
Meetra snapped out of her trance and turned towards us.
"I'm sorry, Kreia. Atton's plan was good. Let's head to the bridge and get the drift charts."
"Alright, but this won't end well. Trust me," Atton said worriedly.
As the four of us began moving, I turned towards Kreia.
"Uh, we could have just started walking towards the bridge. I think she would've gotten the message," I told her. Kreia turned to me with her lip curled into a sneer.
"We cannot lead her. Ultimately she must walk her path, as you must."
The bridge wasn't too far from where we started. It was immediately to our right, and the navicomputer was located at the very front of the bridge. We were quickly able to download the orbital charts. The only planetary coordinates listed in the charts were for Telos. Meetra was about to lead us back from the bridge when Kreia stopped her suddenly.
"We should check the ship's logs. We might be able to find out what happened."
As Meetra scanned through the logs, I added, "It might be a good idea to upgrade our weapons, too. I don't think these mining lasers will do us much good once we're out of here."
There were four recorded logs. The Harbinger had picked up a distress signal from a freighter under attack by Sith forces, and the Harbinger moved to intercept, only to find the Sith warship empty, save for a single corpse, which was placed in a kolto tank. Then an unusual noise was heard from medlab. A woman screamed followed the sound of glass shattering.
"I have come for the Jedi," a gravelly voice shouted. Meetra cringed at the sound of his voice. He was coming for her.
"We need to get out of here now," I said nervously. "Whoever said that is probably still on board. And if he's after you, he probably won't want us making it out of here alive, either."
"You don't have to tell me that," Meetra said with a shudder. The four of us ran out of the room as fast as we could and back through the corridor where we arrived. Once we reached the end of the corridor, I stopped suddenly. I knew what was about to happen. The other three noticed me and turned back.
"What is it? Why are we stopping?" Atton asked me.
Without saying a word I started running again, past the three of them. As I reached the door that led to the briefing room, I unsheathed my vibroblade and began swinging it wildly in the air. Doubtless the three of them thought I was crazy.
"What the Hell are you doing?"
Before I could answer, four masked Sith assassins in dark robes deactivated their stealth field generators, drew out blood red lightsabers, and moved to attack us. I didn't particularly like the idea of facing all four of them at once, so I turned and ran back towards the group.
"Time to even the odds!" I shouted, using one of Atton's attack phrases. By the time I reached them, Meetra and Kreia had drawn the own blades and moved to engage the assassins in battle. Atton stayed back and tried to pick them off with his blaster. He had already managed to shoot down one of them, so each of us could take on one on our own. I locked blades with the middle one. I tried to overpower him with a single blow, but he quickly blocked my attack. I countered by pushing my attack to my left, leaving his right side exposed. With his guard lowered, I kicked him in his shin, causing him to stagger back. Before he could counter attack I ran him through the chest with a quick strike, and he collapsed lifeless to the floor. Immediately I moved to the assassin on my right, forcing him to fight two of us at once. He quickly blocked my attack, but couldn't move his saber quickly enough for Meetra, who promptly ran him through. Kreia had already finished off the other Sith by that point. I motioned to the fallen lightsabers.
"Pick up their sabers. There are probably more of them here, and I don't think we should just leave those behind. Plus if you're both Jedi, you're probably more used to fighting with lightsabers anyway."
"I think it would best if you took one for yourself as well," Kreia said. I whirled around towards her. She simply held out one of the lightsabers towards me. Meetra and Atton were both staring at me.
"What did you say?"
"Take one for yourself. You will have use for it in due time."
I calmly took the lightsaber from her hand and attached it to my belt. Now armed with lightsabers, we made it down to the crew quarters. We ran down a long hallway past several rooms before Meetra stopped and turned to a door on her right.
"Are you alright?" Kreia asked with concern.
"I need a moment. This was my room."
"This was your room? When?"
"When I was stationed on the Harbinger," she answered.
"We don't have much time," Kreia reminded her. "Whatever you need to do, make it quick."
We waited for a few minutes while Meetra went inside her room to obtain a few personal items. Once she emerged from the room, she turned towards me.
"The armory is on this level, if you want your new weapons. Unfortunately, medlab, and mostly likely our assassin, is also on this level, so we'll have to make it quick."
"Wasn't that already the plan?"
"I suppose it was."
"Then let's hurry."
There was a door at the end of the hallway. The door led to a small room with doors on both sides.
"Fortunately the hallway wraps around medlab, so we don't even have to-"
Her voice was cut off by the sound of igniting lightsabers.
"Aw, hell no," I muttered, igniting my own. Normally I would have been excited about wielding a lightsaber, but I had to push that thought aside while we were fighting. Even though a vibroblade could stand up against a lightsaber, I felt a lot more confident using my own lightsaber against them. Meetra and Kreia were much more proficient with lightsabers than I was. They both cut through the Sith with little effort. Once all four of them were cut down, we grabbed their lightsabers, too.
"Guess we're not going to be short on lightsabers by the time we're done here, huh?" I said casually to Meetra.
Meetra gave a small laugh and gestured to the door on the right.
"We can take either one of these doors around the medlab. The turbolift to the engine level is on the opposite side. Since the armory is on the right side, we should go through this one."
We ran through the doorway and along the circular corridor. There was another closed door at the end of the corridor. Unfortunately the door was locked and more Sith assassins confronted us as we turned around.
"I will silence them," Kreia said, reaching out with her right hand. Suddenly the four of were thrown back by a burst of energy and crashed into the wall, lifeless.
"Why didn't you do that earlier?" I asked rather annoyed while picking up their lightsabers.
"What sort of lesson would that teach you?" she asked me, equally annoyed.
"The door on the other side will be locked, too. It's standard procedure. The only way to the turbolift is through medbay. I just hope whoever that was in the ship's log isn't waiting for us."
"Doubtful, judging by the looks of things," I said.
Meetra turned back to me. "Huh?"
"If he's responsible for all this, I doubt he's just going to wait for us to come to him. It sounds more like he would look for us himself, face us directly. And if that's the case, he's probably not in medlab still."
"Which is why we cannot stay in one place for too long, we must keep moving," Kreia added.
"Like we're not already in a hurry to leave?" I muttered under my breath.
As I had guessed, medlab was completely empty, save for a broken medical droid. But once we made our way out of medlab, we were assaulted by four more Sith assassins, only to deal with them quickly. Meetra pointed out that the armory was straight ahead, and we could still search for some better weapons. Kreia kept watch by the door while the three of us placed every single blaster and grenade we could find into our packs. We also found three sets of armor, which I quickly gathered was the equivalent of what the game called the military suit, medium-class armor. Once we were finished changing, we quickly got to the turbolift and down the engine level. We had only taken a few steps forward when Atton shuddered.
"I have a bad feeling about this."
"No, really?" I asked sarcastically.
"Why, what's wrong?" Meetra asked, ignoring my comment.
"Can't you tell? Something's about to get real bad, real quick."
"About to get bad? We've been jumped by who knows how many Sith assassins, we still haven't run into that…thing from medlab, and we're still trapped in the middle of an asteroid mine field! And none of that was bad," I asked incredulously.
"Well then we'll have to be careful, but we need to keep moving."
"Alright, but this won't end well. Trust me, when it comes to staying alive, I'm rarely wrong."
We continued to run forward until we reached the intersecting tunnel. Meetra stopped suddenly, shuddering. She slowly turned to her left to face an open doorway, and saw Darth Sion standing at the end of the corridor, lightsaber at the ready. He began to walk towards us slowly.
"I came to warn you, Jedi. You know not what path you walk," he said in a low voice.
"I think we've found our assassin," I said, for some reason feeling a need to state the obvious. Kreia brandished one of the lightsabers.
"This battle is mine alone. I am not defenseless. He cannot kill what he cannot see, and power has blinded him along ago. Run, I shall be along shortly."
She turned and ran to the door to face Sion. The door closed behind her. We had no other choice but to keep moving. After checking a few rooms, Meetra opened the door to the engine room. Once we entered the engine room, she accessed a computer and opened the engine hatch. Atton looked at her incredulously.
"Tell me you're joking. We are not crawling back into Peragus through the fuel line, are we? That's just crazy."
"And the last few hours haven't been crazy? You need to trust me, Atton."
"Alright, but I know I'm going to regret this."
"You'd regret staying behind even more," I added, walking ahead.
Before we reached the entrance, Meetra screamed, dropped to her knees and grabbed her wrist.
"What's wrong? Are you alright? Damn it, hold on! It's only a little farther! Don't give up on us now!"
She stood up suddenly.
"What happened?"
"I don't know, but we need to keep moving."
"Alright, if you're sure."
Atton turned and let us back through the fuel line. We found a small metal case and a droid near an entrance valve.
"It's a utility droid, looks like it's been hit with an ion charge and dumped here," Atton explained.
The droid beeped to like once he saw us.
"I know, we ran into the 'protocol droid,' too. Are you alright?" Meetra asked.
The droid beeped in affirmation.
"Alright, let's go."
With T3 now in the group, Meetra picked up the case and led us through the fuel depot. After fighting our way up the ramp through several droids, we shut down the containment field at the top of the ramp went straight to the entrance to the hangar bay. Atton ran straight for the door, trying to find a way to open it.
"This door's magnetically sealed. I can't believe it. The ship's right out there and we can't get to it!"
T3 quickly realized the problem and gave off a series of beeps before going up the ramp and replacing the parts to open the door before rejoining us. We fought our way through another long set of droids and finally made it to the Ebon Hawk. Atton and I ran straight for the cockpit, while Meetra stopped in the main room to find that Kreia had somehow made it aboard before we had. Once she was done checking on her, Meetra went for the turret to repel the Sith who were trying to board the ship. Finally the engines were ready and the ship flew out of the facility. The ship was immediately hit by enemy fire.
"The Harbinger is trying to fire on us. If it hits us, we're dead. But if it misses us, we're dead, too. That's great odds," Atton said grimly.
"Can't we jump to hyperspace?"
"Not with all these asteroids around."
"Can't we destroy them?" Kreia added, suddenly appearing from the main room.
"That'll take out the entire asteroid field, the colony, and probably us."
"It's too risky," I said.
"And there might be someone still alive on the facility. We can still get out of this," Meetra added.
"Hold on, this is going to get a little rocky!" Atton shouted.
Just then, one of the blasts from the Harbinger hit one of the asteroids, causing it to explode violently. We all sat at the edge of our seats as the explosion set of a chain of explosions from the other asteroids. Suddenly enough of the asteroids had cleared for us to enter hyperspace safely. I collapsed into the co-pilot's chair while Atton stood up. A long conversation was coming.
…