I slump down on my bed, guilt pumping through my veins. Not just for the brainwashed army I was forced to kill on Coruscant – what about the guards on the space station we broke Adriav out of? They no doubt had families to go back to. Families that are now grieving.
I've been so caught up in my own mission I've been completely missing the bigger picture. We need to take out Darth Asinis to make the galaxy a better place. Killing hundreds of people on the way to that isn't going to help with that. There is some relief in that I only killed them because they tried to kill me, but at the same time I'm supposed to be a Jedi. Innocent people should not die at the hands of a Jedi.
I always knew I was never cut out to be a Jedi. Jedi's need to be calm, respectful of galactic matters and incredible combatants. I wouldn't call myself any of them.
There's a whooshing sound as my door slides open, Tara walking in and sitting beside me before the door slides shut again.
"Don't beat yourself up, kiddo."
At times I forget almost everyone on my team so far – except Bardo and Charlotte – are older than me. Being given full control of the ship makes you forget things like that sometimes.
"We all do things we ain't proud of. Me, more than anyone. Fuckin' hell, I've killed more people than I can remember, innocent people too. A lot of times I was hired to take out Jedi's. I did it without a second thought. What does that make me?" Tara says, a hint of regret present in her voice.
"It makes you an assassin. You were a weapon, not a killer. You were hired to do things. I did it all on my own accord." I reply, deepening my face into my palms.
"If anything that makes it worse. You're independent, you can make choices for yourself. Damn, I hate thinking back to it but back when I was with the Sith I had no direction unless I was being given a job by them. I wasn't a person, like you said I was a weapon. Whereas you, you make decisions for yourself to get jobs done. I could never have done that when I was your age."
Her words are soothing to some extent. But still they in no way make up for the lives I have taken.
"I suppose I should apologise to Loyus." I whisper, standing up.
"Apology accepted."
My head whips up to look at the speaker in my room as Loyus's prude voice booms through the intercom.
"Loyus, were you prying on me the whole time?" I groan, folding my arms. I hear her curse herself as she realises she's blown her cover in the stupidest way possible before replying.
"Er – possibly." She starts, clearing her throat, "Only the important stuff. Anyway, moving swiftly on, meet me in the pilot's cabin, we have important matters to discuss."
"Prying is a Sith's habit." Tara laughs as we enter the pilot's cabin, returned by a harsh look from Loyus.
"Tara should know." I add, nudging her. We both try to contain our fits of laughter as Loyus stands before us, a directing a firm glare at us.
"Sometimes I forget that it is you captaining this ship, Miss Fenn." Loyus hisses, twirling around to face out of the glass at the front of the pilot's cabin. Mak seems more pleased to see me than Loyus does, jumping up out of his chair and waddling over to me.
"Bera-bera!"
I grin at his attempt to say my name, reaching down for him to jump into my arms.
"We can't let ourselves be drawn away from the bigger picture. I have the next dossier here." Loyus says, pulling out her tablet from beneath her robes and scrolling through it.
"Zon Synn. He's a Kiffar." She mutters, turning to look at me.
"Wait – Zon who?" Tara asks, stepping forward and taking Loyus's tablet from her. A smug look spreads across her face as she bursts into laughter.
"Oh wow! This guy was an old ally of mine back when I worked for the Sith. I had no clue he broke away from them too." She grins, handing Loyus her tablet back.
"So, do you think he'll be an asset to the team?" Loyus asks her, continuing to scroll through the various dossier's she has collected.
"Do you really think I would have worked with someone that's weak?" Tara replies, sitting down in the free co-pilot chair and pulling a headset on.
"Let's roll."
"Any idea where he's likely to be?" Bardo asks Tara as we leave the ship, entering the planet 23 Mere. I'd always thought this planet had a weird name.
"He's probably trying to lay low, to keep out of the way of the Sith, y'know?" She replies, before bursting out into laughter, "Ha! That was a joke. He was a friend of mine, I don't hang with people that lay low. He'll be at the nearest bar, I guarantee."
I breathe out a sigh of relief that it won't take too much searching, walking off of the bridge of the ship on to the ground. The second my foot touches the ground of the planet I get a chill, not even having a chance to look up to see what it is exactly giving me a chill.
"What the hell?"
Adriav's words almost mirror my own thoughts as we look up at the city. The colony of Rasputa's Honour is usually bustling with people, heading out to do their business, especially in the huge market area. But now...
"It's abandoned." Tara whispers, a sense of deep confusion within her voice.
"Not quite." Loyus adds, walking down the bridge leading into the colony from the ship after us, as we all look into the distance, trying not to be blinded by the sun.
"Ah, hell." Tara mutters under her breath, resulting in an uncomfortable nudge by Oona who clearly doesn't appreciate cursing. In the distance, a group of around ten armoured guards begin to march towards us. They aren't clone troopers, they aren't droids... They're just people in armour. They won't be too much trouble.
"You are trespassing on land under martial law. You will be taken into custody immediately!" The leader shouts to us.
I retract my statement about them not being too much trouble.
"Er-" I start, unaware what to make my next move us. Surely they're harmless – I could take them out easily. But I'm trying to be on my best behaviour.
"I don't have time for this." Loyus hisses, swinging around and returning to the ship, shortly followed by Bardo, Tyrik, Marduk and Oona. I shoot a cautious look at the leader of the guards before myself turning and preparing to walk back into the ship. Before I can even take a step, however, there's a searing pain in my spine, spreading throughout my body. A violent shriek escapes my lips as I drop to the ground, realising I'm victim to an electroshock gun. I look over at the rest of my allies; Tara, Adriav, Charlotte, and Or'osson are all on the floor next to me, their bodies violently shaking as a direct result of the electric pulses that come from the gun.
I summon all of the energy in my body to look back up to the ship to see Loyus running back out along with Oona, both holding out blasters in preparation to defend us. Behind me, I can hear the electroshock gun firing up again. There's no way Oona and Loyus will be able to fight against that.
"Run! Get out of here Loyus!" I scream, before I black out.
"Beka? Beka!"
I'm awoken by a concerned Or'osson standing over me. He offers me a hand, and I reluctantly take it.
"Frotz!" I groan, as my body rejects all advances to move, forcing me to summon all of my willpower to make myself stand up against my screaming muscles.
"Oh my stars, what happened?"
I slowly turn my neck around to where the voice came from, my ears seemingly still unable to differentiate voice from voice. Tara slowly sits up, rubbing her back as she does so. My eyes are still adjusting to the light, so I shut them for a moment, to try and allow myself to recover from whatever just happened.
When I open my eyes again, I see where we are in full detail. A padded cell, seemingly, that I thought was only for the most violent of prisoners. What we're imprisoned for, I have no idea.
Charlotte is still seemingly passed out, so I usher for Or'osson to go wake her up. Tara and I slowly half walk, half crawl over to the door at the front of the cell to see if we can make out what's going on.
"Hey!" I shout, coughing in between breaths as I realise how dry my throat is. Unsurprisingly, there's no reply, so I decide the easy way out is to just cut through the door with my lightsaber. I reach down for it, and my hand is greeted with a frightful handful of air.
"Weapons! The slime suckers took our weapons!" I shout to Or'osson, which he returns with an already knowing nod.
"You didn't think they'd be dumb enough to leave us with them, do you?" He replies, with a slightly panicked grin on his face. Charlotte curses at Or'osson as he drags her up off of the ground to her feet, almost falling over a couple of times before she manages to get her balance.
"Ugh, my head." She groans, cupping her face into her hands. She lets out a second, much longer groan, before peaking one eye out between the gaps of her fingers to look over at us.
"Do I want to know what's going on, or do I just go back to sleep and wait for the others to come get us?" She says, sitting back down next to Adriav who I can tell Or'osson has no intention of waking up – it would be his death sentence, most likely.
"All I remember is a group of guards, a sharp pain, Loyus and Oona, and then I blacked out." I reply, shrugging my shoulders and sinking back down the wall to the ground.
"I say we sleep before we take a plan of action." Charlotte suggests, and I instinctively want to agree, before I remember the others are probably worried sick right now.
"You have no idea how tempting that sounds. But we really need to move. Er – Tara, you wake Adriav up." I say, with a pleading grin at Tara.
"Why me!" She whispers.
"Well frag, am I that bad?"
I breathe a sigh of relief as I see Adriav wake up on her own, realising none of us will have to sacrifice our lives in order to get her awake.
"Don't answer that." She hisses, pointing at each of us individually. I shake off her remark, reaching for my ear to see if I can contact the others through the intercom.
"Aw, c'mon, they took the earpieces too?" I sigh, punching the cushioned floor several times before letting out a long groan and kicking my legs out. I realise how childish that must have looked to everyone else, and quickly regain my posture.
"It's usually Loyus that makes the incredible war plan, whatcha' gonna do now little girl?" Adriav smirks, standing and walking to the centre of the room, herself beginning to search her brains for any glimpse of an escape method. I realise that I'm nowhere near as smart or experienced as Loyus, so in desperation, I get back up and trudge over to the door of our cell.
"Here's my incredible well-thought out plan of action." I sarcastically grin, beginning to punch and scream on the door. I can hear everyone sink in embarrassment behind me, except for Charlotte, who seems to have gone back to sleep amid the chaos.
"Here's an idea, why don't you just blast the door down using the force?" Tara asks, folding her arms. I notice how intimidating Tara and Adriav look when standing together. I make a note to keep them away from each other.
I grin at my allies as I realise that would have most likely been the most successful method all along, as I begin to channel the power of the force through my hands.
"Sithspit!" I scream, as my force blast is repelled by an invisible forcefield and I am thrown backwards into Adriav and Tara, and the three of us land in a heap on top of Charlotte.
"If only I could record with my eyes." Or'osson sighs, looking at the heap of self-proclaimed femme fatales.
"If you could I'd gouge your eyes out." Adriav replies, throwing me off of her across the cell and standing up. I'm tempted to just lie there with my face dug in to the soft, cushioned floor of the padded cell for a few hours until my remaining allies in the ship come to our rescue, but I am seemingly not given a choice in the matter as Adriav grabs my arm and drags me up.
"Rude." I hiss, avoiding the glare she returns me with.
"Now what do we do?" Charlotte asks, the five of us seemingly out of ideas.
"You wait for me to hack into the ridiculously weak systems of this place and disable the barrier preventing you from blasting your way out with the force."
A grin implants itself on my lips as Tarth's voice comes through the speakers of the cell. It only takes seconds for us to hear the sound of the technology creating the barrier being shut off, and I prepare myself to blast through the door again.
"Stand back." I tell my allies, thrusting my arms forwards and channelling my force power into the door, blasting the door off.
"Easy enough." Adriav says, walking past me and out of the door first.
"First things first, we get our weapons back!" I tell Adriav and the others, walking out of the door to examine our surroundings. It's a pretty run down prison, rusting metal making up the walls and floors with glass cells holding various prisoners. It looks as if our padded cell was placed there completely out of the blue.
"Zon!"
Tara runs past me towards a cell directly in front of us, staring at who I guess must be Zon Synn. At least he might be able to tell us what's going on.
"Tara Fury?" He grins as I walk over to join Tara, "Damn, never thought I'd see you here. You've got to get me outta' here."
She nods instinctively, running her hands over the glass.
"What are you doing?" I ask her, as she continues to caress the glass.
"Look, if you're gonna' be as good as me at breaking outta' places, you've got to know how to get out. This kinda' cell has an invisible keypad. Once I find that, I can- ah!"
I expect her to begin typing in a hacking code, but instead she uses the heel of her boot to smash through it, causing the door to slide open.
"These damn prison systems always were too weak for me." Tara laughs, embracing her friend.
"Follow me, I know where they took your weapons. It's the same damn place they would have taken mine." Zon says, running down the hallway into an opening with us following. Before I even have a chance to realise that there's guards there, Zon and Tara have knocked them all out with a combination of headbutts from Zon and swinging kicks from Tara.
"Awesome." Adriav grins, as the guards drop to the floor.
"Any idea what's going on?" Tara asks Zon as he pulls open a door, leading to a not very well stocked armory, possibly because the only weapons in it are ours.
"Finally." I grin, picking up my utility belt and re-fastening it to my waist, clicking my lightsaber into place. Charlotte finds our earpieces in a drawer and hands them back to all of us, and I quickly fasten mine to my ear and press the button to see if I can contact back to the ship.
"Bardo? Tarth? Loyus?" I ask, waiting for a reply. It takes several seconds and I hear a frantic scramble as somebody rushes to the ships intercom to reply, but better late than never, right?
"Ah, you found your earpieces then?" Tarth says through the intercom. I breathe a sigh of relief.
"Yeah, don't be too relieved just yet, wait till you heard what Loyus has found out." Tarth adds, and I brace myself for the worst.
"Ah, Miss Fenn, nice to know you're still alive and kicking." I roll my eyes as Loyus sarcastically greets me, "You might not like what you're about to here."
"Loyus, if you're saying it, I never like it."
"Shut up. Now, those guards we saw, they said the colony was under martial law. By who? Take a wild guess."
"So the guards were his brainwashed army." I sigh, thankful we didn't kill any of them.
"Correct. Now, I have known this for approximately three hours while you were, er – napping. And in that time Oona has done some research. I believe, if we can get an antidote that Oona created into the colonies' ventilation systems, we may be able to reverse the effects of Asinis's brainwashing."
Reverse Asinis's brainwashing? If we can do that, we'll be taking a massive leap towards defeating him.
"Got it." I reply. I was unaware of how smart Oona is, with a scientist that can work out something that impressive in three hours...
"Oh, and before you get too impressed and expect me to do things way beyond my abilities, I've been working on that antidote since I joined your team a few days ago." Oona says through the intercom.
Ah.
"Now, Oona and I will go on foot to the ventilation systems. Bardo and Tyrik will come and assist your allies in keeping the guards off of us. You will create a forcefield around us to protect us from any stray blasts. Got it?" Loyus firmly says through the intercom.
"Got it."
"I can't believe you made us take our weapons back to the ship." Adriav curses, handling the taser I made all of my allies use as if it were a rotten piece of meat.
"No more deaths of innocent people on my hands, sorry Adriav."
She grunts at me in reply, which I simply shake off.
"Ready!" Oona shouts, running down the bridge of the ship towards us, with a vial in her hand.
"Great, let's roll." I reply, creating the forcefield around myself, Oona and Loyus, just in time too, as the guards seem to have clicked that something is not quite right and suddenly show up, blasting at my allies. Adriav says something under her breath involving me and her taser, but I brush it off knowing she'll feel better with it in her mind that she didn't take too many lives today.
Who am I kidding, this is Adriav we're talking about.
"How did you know what to put in the vial?" I curiously ask Oona, eyeing the purple vial that matches the colour of her skin.
"Well you know, I have been in the world of medicine for several years now. You just pick skills like this up. To make it, it's simple really, you just need some flesh of a brainwashed person, some root of arabskull plant from Coruscant's black market-" She prepares to continue but I cut her off.
"I'll stop you there." I grin, trying to look like I understand even a little of what she just said.
"To put it simply, I'm Nautolan, we're an intelligent species."
I only nod my head in response this time.
"It's just there Beka!" Loyus points out, quickening her pace and signalling for me to do the same. I begin to run but instantly feel drained, realising the day has taken it's toll on me and I won't be able to keep the forcefield up for much longer.
"Hurry, up." I groan, almost out of breath as I use every last drop of energy in my body to keep the forcefield up, my energy depleting each time a blaster pistol fires at it. We reach the colonies' ventilation systems finally, and I drop down to sit up against the wall, still holding up the forcefield. Oona and Loyus begin to type in like crazy, realising that their cover won't hold for much longer.
"I don't know how much longer I can hold this."
Almost simultaneously to my words, I hear a noise shoot through the ventilation system as Oona throws the vial into it, and instantly a purple fog begins to pump out into the colony.
"Finally..." I mutter under my breath, dropping the forcefield and desperately trying to return to a normal pace of breathing.
"I guess it's time we returned to the ship!" Loyus grins, proud of our work. Oona helps me up, and the three of us begin to walk back to the ship.
"The colony of Rasputa's Honour are eternally grateful for your help. They've taken measures to increase their security say Asinis's brainwashers attack them again, although it's unlikely." Zon tells us.
"So how long were you on that planet?" Tara asks him, clearly happy to have someone she knows on board.
"C'mon Tara, you know as well as I do that as soon as we leave the Sith they view us as a target. You joined the Alliance and had their protection but y'know that's just not my style. I went there because it's the last place they'd look. When I saw Sith ships coming down, the first thing I did was hide. I can hold my own just as much as you can, but against an army that size? Not so much. Except, they began taking the people to their ship by force, and when they came out they were brainwashed. Most of them were taken away but a few stray that Asinis had decided weren't worth the bother were left behind. And that's when they started rounding up the few that Asinis hadn't caught and locking us up. That includes you guys."
I nod as Tara and Zon prepare to leave the briefing room.
"Welcome to the team, Mr Synn."
Get on your knees and let the games begin
Bow to your queen and I will crown your head
'Cause I can make you every inch a king
Before I do tell me, tell me what's in it for me?
I need someone young, willing and able
You need someone old enough to know better
I want you to
Do my dirty work, do my dirty work, oh
Do my dirty work, do my dirty work
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, c'mon
Do my dirty work, do my dirty work
This chapter was named after Dirty Work by Halestorm.
The latest addition to the team is Zon Synn, the Kiffar Master Thief, that like Tara, also has a past with the Sith.
Last chapter I asked you Except for Bardo and Beka, who on the team so far do you think would be most likely to take Asinis down in a one-to-one
Hazardous by Instinct: I'd have to pick Orosson
WidowOfFury01: Hmmmm... I'm gonna say Loyus.. just cos if she got angry she'd call her endless armies to trample him lol.
Alice the B-Rabbit: I think out of all the characters maybe Loyus could take him on but I'm not sure about taking him down.
I'm actually surprised that I got four reviews (one person forgot to answer the question, tut tut.) after such a long hiatus. I'm so glad you guys like the story so much to stick with it after such a long time. That makes me really happy. The team is nearly complete now! In fact, I think there's only three or four people left to recruit, however the next two chapters I will be recruiting two characters per chapter, and after that, the real action begins...
I hope you're ready, because these characters are about to go on one hell of a fight. Some will make it out alive... Some will not. Your undying support, of course, means your character stands a much better chance at survival.
For next chapter, I'm going to ask you If you were Beka and were Captain of the ship, who would you make your second-in-command out of the so far recruited combatants?
Thanks so much for reading and reviewing, I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it, until next time, goodbye! X