While it was certainly interesting to have been exploring a home away from home of one of his ancestors, Ben knew that there was no further time to explore who Hego Damask was once he sensed Vestara Khai's presence in the system. He had just told Captain Ford and Five-U to stay put in the bunker of Damask as he rushed outside to confront his ex-girlfriend, his lightsaber out and blazing in his hands.
His back at the entrance to the bunker, Ben was facing the Faux Harla with its landing ramp lowered to the ground. Vestara was just stepping off of it in a very leisurely manner. When she was finally off the ship, she just looked to Ben wryly, as if she were unimpressed with the front that he intended to put up.
"You killed Jaina and Jag, didn't you?" he growled angrily.
"Sorry about that," Vestara replied sarcastically. "But it was either me or them. And I chose me."
"Just as you always did," he responded harshly.
"And what's so wrong about that?" Vestara asked. "Personally, I like being a smart coward rather than a dumb hero. It keeps me alive a lot longer."
"If you wanna stay alive longer, then you'll surrender yourself to me and I take you in for all the crimes you committed, Khai," Ben said.
Vestara smirked. "I didn't say I was that cowardly," she said before whipping out and igniting her own blade. "I don't intend to kill you, so I'll go easy on you."
"Don't expect the same from me," Ben said before charging forward.
.
When Kyp, Octa, and the four Knights entered the underground caverns with their lightsabers blazing, they all stopped abruptly at the sites of several broken, bloody Chiss bodies littering the ground in front, behind, and to the sides of them. Some of the Chiss even had their skin missing in various places, leaving only the dull red of their eyes to allow for a passerby to identify them as Chiss.
No wonder the blockade wasn't hearing back from their soldiers within Reonoq's undergrounds.
In spite of her Jedi training, Dressi screamed out loud and flailed her arms in reaction to these grizzly sites. Ohga quickly calmed her down by placing an arm on the Gungun's arm. "Relax," Ohga stated in a hushed tone.
"Oh, moi moi, thanks," Dressi said. "I get really nervous when I see things like this."
"I understand, Dressi," Ohga nodded.
"Why do you not rely on your own training to calm yourself down, Jedi Binks?" Octa asked.
"It runs in my family," Dressi said. "I can't help it."
"Well, you better learn how to," Kyp interjected. "Otherwise, you won't last long down here." His tone was completely serious.
Dressi swallowed hard at this.
"We need to split into two teams," Octa declared. "Kyp, you take the Cella brothers and go that way." She pointed ahead. "I take the rest and go this way. Agreed?"
"Agreed," Kyp responded before the Bith Knights began following his lead.
"Ooh, meessa have a bad feeling abouta this," Dressi said as she turned with Octa and Ohga down the opposite direction from Kyp and the Bith.
"No argument there," Octa said, not taking her eyes off the dark path before her.
On the opposite side of the cavern, Kyp and the Cella brothers turned left at the winding corner and continued to find several more bloodied and bleeding Chiss commando corpses riddling the pathway before them. Other than that, there was nothing else for several meters before a rightward corner would no doubt lead to more nowhere, Kyp thought. Regardless, even with the absence of a visible threat from sight, sound, or the Force, Kyp and the Bith Knights beside and behind him continued to advance with caution, stepping warily past the corpses that were already stinking of decomposition.
Halfway through the corpse-filled cavern, Kyp's danger sense flared up like a nova. But before either he or the Cella brothers could react, Killiks suddenly popped out of the ground, the ceiling, and the sides of the cavern like pimples on an adolescent human. They immediately swarmed the three Jedi before they had a chance to defend themselves with their lightsabers. Kyp and the Cella brothers fell to the dusty ground screaming in agony as the Killiks began chewing on their flesh, the Jedi's lightsabers scuttling away from their grasps as they were being devoured.
Naturally, the sounds of the male members of the team were heard by the females, who stopped dead in their tracks and quickly whirled away from the path they were taking. They then sprinted down the way that Kyp, Pom, and Dom took, but before they could turn the corner that they followed, Octa, Ohga, and Dressi were instantly set upon by more Killiks that popped out of the walls, ceiling, and ground. And like the male members of the team, neither of the females had any time to defend themselves as they were set upon by the Thuruht members, and their lightsabers rolled from their hands and out of reach.
Pom and Dom were the first ones to go, given that their Bith flesh was very easy to pierce through. Their screams died along with them as their blood flowed from their now-fleshless bodies. Ohga, her skin similarly as sensitive, also died fairly quickly. Dressi was the last one to die, and had one been so desensitized to violence in general, one would be glad to hear the Gungun's rather annoying screams put to an end along with her life.
Fortunately, since their skin was the most durable among them, Kyp and Octa were able to wrestle past a few of the Killiks eating them and each used the Force to recall their lightsaber to one of their hands. Upon activation, they didn't hesitate as they began hacking through Thuruht bodies. The cavern's litter of bodies now grew with Killik remains to add to the corpses of Chiss, Bith, Muun, and Gungun. After half a minute, Kyp and Octa were finally free, but they had to muster what remained of their physical strength and what remained of their strength in the Force to disallow the pain from consuming them like the Killiks were just doing.
Octa was the first to push herself up to her feet, since she was being eaten for less time than Kyp. She staggered over to his downed form, the both of them moaning and groaning from the pain they just suffered and the flesh they lost. While Octa had lost flesh on her left thigh, right knee, both her biceps, combined with losing an earlobe and a portion of her right cheek was gone, Kyp didn't look like he could get up, since his legs were entirely dry bone, and gaping wounds riddled his arms. Octa mentally remarked how Kyp could keep quiet after all this; he must've been really strong in the Force.
"Leave me here, Octa," Kyp croaked, restraining himself from screaming. "You have to get Allana. The future of the galaxy depends on it."
"Neither of us are in any good shape to continue this mission," Octa countered as she slowly and painfully bent down to haul Kyp up on her shoulders. Standing back up was probably more painful, but Octa wouldn't let it get to her. "We have to abort, Kyp. I can try this again some other time." Even Kyp knew it was obvious that this was his very last mission ever.
Octa then turned back to where they came from and began to painfully shuffle toward the stairs that led back up to the ruins of the Celestial Palace. Each step up, Octa had to further suppress the pain that burned in her legs because of the sections of skin that were missing. But that still didn't stop her from using her free hand to reach into her pocket and take out her comm unit.
"Master Skywalker," she said after activating her comm.
"Go ahead, Master Ramis," Luke replied.
"Kyp and I have to abort the mission," she said. "We can't go on; we're in need of serious medical attention."
"What about the Knights with you?" Luke asked.
"They're dead," Octa said.
"Then this has all been for nothing," Luke said in a defeated tone. "All right, we'll send down an escort to retrieve you and Kyp, Master Ramis. Skywalker out."