(Aargonar)
The landscape of the land was dry and dusty. The desert and mountains stretched for miles around. A lone ship came out of the sky, hovering over a low-lying flat plateau before touching down.
"Think they got the message?" said Bruck.
"I sure hope so," said Taran. He cut the ship completely off.
"You're coming with us R3, you don't have to guard the ship this time," said Taran. The astromech droid whistled happily and followed Taran and the rest of them. The Mandalorians, armor on and weapons readied, exited as well. Once outside, Bruck closed the latch door to the ship, sealing it. Everyone had their various weapons ready. The Jedi teens wore their cloaks over there apparel, Lux wearing one as well to conceal himself.
"Are you all ready?" said Taran. Everyone nodded. They all knew what was at stake. Stealth and secrecy was prime, and if that failed their individual combat prowess was next in order to achieve success. There was no turning back now, not when they are committed.
As a group, they set out across the desert plain. Taran knew they were just a few clicks out from the fortress, but thought they would have seen it by now. They had come up from the south so as not to be spotted and give their presence on the planet away. As they continued to walk, Taran began to see various objects on the ground they tread. He saw metal pieces as if they had belonged to droids of some kind.
The parts continued on until Taran saw the head of a battle droid unit protruding from the ground, half-buried. A few yards away, Taran saw the scarred, worn-down helmet of a clone trooper. He reached forward and picked it up, staring at the T-visor. All around them was evidence that there had been a battle here, with more droid parts around them and the discarded armor of clone troopers.
"I forgot there was a battle here," said Tia, looking at a full set of armor next to half of a super battle droid.
"Once we pulled out, the Separatists built the prison since this planet really didn't have much strategic value," said Bruck.
"It's the perfect place for a prison. The Republic wouldn't waste resources to try and conquer a planet that doesn't offer anything significant in return," said Lux. Taran placed the helmet back down and kept walking, looking at other articles and debris from the past skirmishes that had engulfed the planet. The remains of a walker lay on the surface, its gun pointed off to the west. Whether it was aiming it before it was downed or it ended up like that after the damage would never be known. Other destroyed vehicles were scattered at various intervals in their path.
The younglings looked at battlefield debris with shock and awe. They had seen fighting before, but never on a scale like this. A sudden wind blew the wreckage of an AAT, sending out a haunting sound that scared Byph immensely, causing him to back into Katooni.
"It's okay," said Katooni, trying to soothe her friend. Ganodi walked faster to catch up to Taran, carefully stepping over the scattered remains of a droideka.
"What are battles really like?" she asked, quiet enough for only Taran to hear her. Taran stopped, turning to look down at her.
"Chaos. Loud, bloody chaos. You think you're fighting side-by-side, but it only happens rarely. Most of the time, it's just you and everyone else," said Taran. "I hope this war is over before any of you see real combat. I've seen things, tings you would not be able to get out of your minds forever." Ganodi nodded, understanding what he meant. To be honest, she had hoped to never see full-fledged battles like Taran had seen. Taran turned around and kept walking, picking his way through the wreckage of an LAAT.
It took them twenty minutes to clear through the old battlefield. It was then that Korkie realized that they were on a plateau. It only took him a look over the edge to find that out for himself.
"Taran, I think you all should see this," he said. They all came over to the edge he was at, and hurriedly took cover in the shell wreckage of an AT-TE, which gave them the perfect view of the prison below.
The prison was a large, hulking mass of black durasteel. It was layered like a ziggurat with a square base, but circular tower, with about three levels in all. At the base were four entrances leading to the outside. Around the fortress tower was two perimeters. The first one was a large wall with anti-personnel gun emplacements in eight parts to provide interlocked fields of fire between them. There was a large courtyard area, giving about 300 yards of space from the base of the tower to the wall. The last perimeter was an electric fence, with electricity zipping between multiple electric rods. They offered only 5 yards of space, and it was definitely meant to keep intruders out. There was only one entrance into the prison, and it was heavily guarded by battle droids and droidekas, as well as being between two of the gun emplacements.
"Heavily guarded, I'm shocked," said Taran, sarcasm heavy in his voice. Bruck took out his pair of electrobinoculars to inspect the base for any signs of a weak point. It took him five minutes of scanning before he was done.
"There is one way," said Bruck.
"Since there's no way of going over, we can come up from underground. Taran, you can use your Earthbending to move us into that courtyard. Once we reach the surface, one of you guys," he said pointing to the Mandalorians, "can create a distraction. Do you have poppers?"
"Poppers?" said Amis.
"Sorry, EMP grenades," said Bruck.
"Oh yeah, plenty," said Soniee.
"Good. The guards from the entrance will leave and inspect what's going on, leaving us time for R3 to get us through the entrance and get inside. From there, I'm not sure," said Bruck.
"I like it," said Taran. "Once inside we need to work in teams of two so that we don't draw too much attention. Finding Ahsoka is key, but something else is on my mind."
"What's wrong?" said Petro.
"If this is a war prison, there's the huge probability that there are our men in there," said Taran.
"Taran, I'd like to free them too, but we don't have room on the ship for them. It looks like there might be hundreds, even thousands of prisoners in there. Even if we can free them all, we'd be leaving them to get slaughtered if no one comes to save us," said Tia. Taran thought about it. Tia did have a point. He didn't want to just leave them if no help was coming.
"Alright. Find Ahsoka, but if it looks like help is coming, start freeing everyone," said Taran. "I really hope they got that message. It's only my second time using that network." The others nodded.
The nine Jedi jumped off of the plateau, using the Force to cushion their fall. The Mandalorians and Lux used their extension cables to get down to the bottom. Once they were all on the ground level of the fortress, Taran bent a hole through the earth to make a tunnel. They jumped down ten feet before Taran began to bend the tunnel towards the grounds of the prison. It only took a few minutes to bend the tunnel to exactly where they needed to be. Bruck sensed for signs of any droids above them. Finding none in their immediate vicinity, he nodded.
Taran crumbled the earth over them and sent it down to make sure no one heard, or noticed immediately, the hole in the ground. The other Jedi used the Force to slow down the piles of earth and placed them in various places of the tunnel to not shore it up. Once they were placed down, they climbed up.
Gungi looked out first, finding two battle droids near the entrance, and a squad of battle droids led by a super passed by only five yards away. Gungi brayed to Katooni. She nodded.
"Korkie, Lagos, pass me your grenades," said Katooni. They reached down and passed her one each. She moved them up to Gungi and Byph. Looking out, the two placed the grenades on the ground and pushed them forward towards the squad. Once they were at there feet, they set them off, the EMP burst from the combined grenades raced up through their circuitry to their hardware, which sputtered out from the overload, causing them to fall to the ground as one.
"Hey, whats wrong with you guys?" said the battle droid guard, coming forward to the disabled squad along with its other guard.
"Go," said Bruck once they passed. Rapidly, they all made their way out of the hole, R3 using his jet boosters to fly out. Taran stayed behind, covering up the hole in the tunnel, and putting a rock on the spot to remember the location. He stood up and ran towards the entrance. When he got there, R3 was already at work hacking into the entrance. It only took him a few more seconds, a clicking sound resonating before the doors opened for them. Hurriedly, they all rushed inside, R3 closing the doors behind them, hurriedly rolling in as the doors closed.
The entrance lead to a central hallway, where a security monitor lay. A battle droid was carefully monitoring it, checking for signs of any intrusions. Lagos moved in, running rapidly towards the droid.
"Ah! Intrud-" said the battle droid before it was tackled, Lagos snapping its head off. The others rushed over to her, Taran going to the monitoring screen. Taking out his hacking device, he hacked into the main security system. It only took him a few seconds breaking the codes and reaching the mainframe to get the desired results.
"Okay," said Taran, putting his device back in. A hologram of the prison appeared.
"According to this, there are seven levels of the prison, eight if you count this level. There are three levels up here, but the rest of the prison is located below ground It doesn't say anything about high-priority prisoners, so in short she could be anywhere in here. Right now, we need to know who's splitting up with who to take an individual level."
It took them little time to figure out who they went with. Bruck suggested that each pair have one Force user and a non-Force user.
Bruck with Korkie: Level 6
Zatt with Lagos: Level 1
Katooni with Soniee: Level 3
Byph with Amis: Level 2
Taran with Lux: Level 7
Tia with Gungi: Level 5
Petro with Ganodi: Level 4
R3 whistled something to Taran.
"Are you sure? I don't want you to stay here by yourself," said Taran. R3 whistled again and went back to the security monitor.
"R3 will watch over us from here and keep security forces busy long enough for us to get back, and hack into doors we need to get into. Hook up your comlink signal to him." They all took out their comlinks and put them on R3's frequency.
"Be careful little guy," said Taran rubbing R3's dome. R3 whistled and hooked back into the system.
"Alright, let's go guys."
Taran and Lux stealthily moved through the ventilation shaft that would lead down to the seventh level. Taking an elevator down there was too high-risk, and the amount of droids and other personnel in the prison would have made it extremely hard to get through undetected. Besides, they knew they couldn't blend in as droids.
"Do you do these kind of things most of the time?" said Lux as they crawled through the shaft
"Every blue moon," said Taran. They kept crawling until Taran came up to the end, which led into a large circular basin which had other shafts leading off to the various levels. This was the central ventilation room, which connected to every part of the prison.
"Okay, I'm going to get on the side. Once we do that, get on my back," said Taran.
"What?" said Lux.
"Relax, I can Metalbend," said Taran.
"That's not what I...never mind," said Lux. Taran rolled his eyes, getting his meaning, as Lux crawled and hooked his arm around his neck to fasten himself as he swung around, holding on by hanging off of Taran by the shoulders. Taran began the slow but steady climb down, his hands acting like magnets to the metal to keep them from falling.
"Sorry for being a burden," said Lux.
"You're fine Lux," said Taran, concentrating fully on making sure he didn't fall.
"May I ask you something?" said Lux.
"Do you really want to ask me this now?" said Taran.
"Well, it's kind of important," said Lux. "I'm sure you know this already, but I just want to confirm it. I like Ahsoka."
"I know, I already figured that out," said Taran. He really didn't want to hear that, especially now. As he thought on it, he could feel the dark energy trying to rise, but he kept it under wraps.
"But the thing is, she likes someone else," said Lux. Taran stopped.
"She...said that?" said Taran.
"Yes, she said it the night she left," said Lux.
"Did she mention who?" said Taran.
"No, but she knows that the person she likes was really hurt when she left, and was probably trying to find her," said Lux. "I really care about her, and I know that whatever makes her happy is what I should be happy about."
Taran thought about it for a few moments before resuming the climb down. He made the rest of the climb in silence as Lux reminisced that night.
"Are you sure you have to go?" said Lux.
"Yes. My friends need my help. Once I get them the things they need, I'm going to go back to Coruscant," said Ahsoka.
"Okay, but be careful. You know I couldn't forgive myself if something happened to you along the way," said Lux.
"I know, but I'll be fine. I can't thank you enough Lux, for helping me to see things better," said Ahsoka.
"You're welcome Ahsoka," said Lux. The two stood in awkward silence for a few moments before Lux moved forward.
"Are you sure this is what you want?" said Lux, taking her hand. Ahsoka nodded.
"I'm sure," she said. Lux stood directly in front of her. Ahsoka felt a rush of emotions well up inside her. Lux leaned down to kiss her. Ahsoka felt her heart rush for a moment, and nearly would have returned it, but she stopped herself.
"Lux, I think you're a good guy, but...I can't do this," said Ahsoka.
"Why? What's wrong?" said Lux.
"I love someone else, more than I can bring myself to say. I already probably hurt him more than words can say when I left, and I want to stop hurting myself as well," said Ahsoka. Lux was a bit saddened by this, but he still respected her wishes.
"I hope he loves you the way I do," said Lux.
"He does, at least I hope he still does," said Ahsoka, her eyes saddening as she remembered the day she left.
Lux looked at Taran as he continued the climb down.
"Could it be him?" he thought. He had already narrowed it down to know it was a Jedi, but didn't know which one. As he thought about it more, the more that his suspicions it was Taran increased, especially after the events the day before.
Taran reached down to the very last shaft in the central ventilation room.
"This might lead to level 7," said Taran. Lux climbed in first, carefully getting onto Taran's shoulders and stepping off from them to get in. Taran followed in next. The two kept going until they came to a vent gate that lead into a hallway. Carefully looking around, Lux grasped his fingers onto the grate and carefully popped it off, pulling it into the shaft. He jumped out first, followed closely by Taran. The two hugged the walls on opposite sides of the corridor, using their senses for any signs of security droids in the area. Every little sound made them jump before they kept moving.
At length, they up to a ray-shielded hallway on their left that lead to what looked like prison cells.
"R3, lower the ray shields on level 7, block A," said Taran. He heard him beep once and the ray shields shut off.
"Thanks," said Taran. They hurried in, peering through the slit in each cell door. To his shock, Taran saw clones, four person cell squeezed into a tight space with only metal slates drilled into the wall for beds. The room was only big enough for them all to stand up and move roughly two feet from each other. They were dressed in ragged, all-black prison uniforms, and looked as if they were starving.
Taran backed away from the slot, sitting down along the wall between the two cells, horror evident on his face.
"I can't just leave them like this," he thought.
"Lux, we gotta get them out," said Taran.
"Taran, you know we can't. There's too much risk," said Lux.
"Look at the men in there and tell me what you see," said Taran. Lux looked in again, getting a closer look a them all. The clone who looked at were thin and sickly. One of them was coughing violently in his sleep, that is if he was sleeping. Lux pulled back from the slate, looking at Taran.
"You see it too. This place isn't holding them; it's killing them," said Taran. Taran went to the door, willing his chi to the necessary areas to metalbend the door open. It wrenched free, being flung to the other side of the corridor.
"What?" said one of the clones, getting up from his cot. He had a tattoo of a proton torpedo on his cheek. The others got up in shock as well.
"Relax and keep calm. My name is Taran Cyneran," said Taran.
"I recognized you commander Cyneran. Name's Rocket. 64th Mobile Corps, 351st Legion under General Choi," said the clone "This is Scope from the same company, Link from the 5th Armor Battalion, and Richter. Pardon me sir for asking, but what are you doing here?"
"We came in to extract a high-value target from here," said Taran.
"Not to break us out?" said one of the clones.
"I wish we could, but we don't have enough space on our ship for everyone," said Taran. "I sent a message for an evacuation, but I don't know if they got it." The four clones then looked at each other as if in silent conversation.
"Then sir, we'll break out of here regardless," said Rocket.
"But what if help doesn't come?" said Lux.
"Then we'll go down fighting. You don't know what it's like here. Everyday we're near starved and brutally treated. Anything, even death, is better than this," said Scope.
"We'll help you get whoever it is you need out," said Link. Suddenly. they heard the clanging of metal feet hitting the ground, getting louder by the second.
"Quick get inside," said Taran. "You too Lux." All five of them got in as Taran sealed the door, making it acceptable in appearance,. Before he could go, an electric shock paralyzed him before he could even realize what was going on.
The torture droid stood above him, a squad of battle droids near him.
"Send word to the warden, we have a prisoner," it said.