Raina froze. She couldn't help it. All her training, and when she came up against the collapse of her deception, it was like all her possible responses piled into a dam in her mind. Vector, beside her, seemed to have a similar conflict. He could lie right now, probably, and even when his eyes were black he still had a surprising skill for letting others make assumptions for him. Still, if they were questioned…
Raina's hand moved to her blaster.
A guard stepped out of the administration room and yelled over the alarms, "get in, quick! Gravity's about to kick in!"
The men around them ran for the door and Vector and Raina followed. Raina's father, left standing down the hall at the scanners, yelled something indignant at being left.
The moment Raina entered the administration room, withi its one wall of transparisteel and three others covered in computer terminals and monitors, one of the guards slammed the door behind her.
Outside, Darren Temple buckled to hands and knees, then slowly lay flat as gravity overpowered him.
The same must be happening all over the facility, to every prisoner and guard not in a designated safe room, the med bay, or the same room as the grav generator.
Doctor Lokin, wherever he was, would not be near one of those.
"Third time," one of the guards spat. "The frakking third time that white-skinned beast has triggered a lockdown. I say we let the turrets do their job and say she left us no choice."
Raina and Vector shared a look. Raina's was a bit more frustrated, while Vector's was more exasperated, but they both said the same thing: "Kaliyo."
The guard officer misinterpreted their looks and snapped at the man who'd spoken, "that woman is a prisoner of the Empire. We've been given instruction to hold her until she is properly interrogated, and we will not shirk our duty!"
On the monitors, guards in safe rooms busily dressed in full anti-grav powered armour suits. Some, who hadn't made it into those rooms, lay in the halls. As for the prisoners, every one lay on a bunk in his, her, or its cell. Except for two: Raina's father, and a spitting angry Kaliyo Djannis.
Somehow, it warmed Raina's heart to imagine the language Kaliyo must be hurling at her captors. For a lying, untrustworthy cutthroat, she had her moments.
Vector murmured, "three escapes?"
A quaver entered the officer's voice as he tried to defend himself. "All unsuccessful, of course. We-"
"How unsuccessful?" Raina interrupted in a tone she'd heard often in the Chiss Ascendancy. She pointed at the monitor that showed Kaliyo in a hallway that was empty except for two guards lying near her, quietly bleeding. She was still stubbornly crawling forward, a couple centimeters at a time. "Where is her cell? When was her first escape? How long does it take your guards to collect the prisoners? Why, after two previous escapes, are there still guards caught outside of their safe rooms?"
The coldness in her voice at the end reminded her of Hoth in a few ways, not least how the guard officer clearly suppressed a shiver in response.
"Ah..." The man looked to Vector as if asking for help, but Vector's inhumanly blank gaze was focused elsewhere, on one of the monitors. Raina followed his eyes, and fear mixed with revulsion at the scene within.
A body, white-coated and grey-haired, writhed and rippled on the floor of an area labeled 34B. A part of Raina's brain reported that this was close to the facility's main power generator, and another part took control of her mouth.
A sudden, sharp wave of her hand dragged the gaze of everyone in the room back to her. She raised her voice slightly and asked, "how did the prisoner escape each time? Have the batteries in the suits been recharged? Have those staff caught in each lockdown received medical check-ups? What of the prisoners? Have engineers maintained the grav generator after each lockdown?"
Now, every eye in the place was glued to her. Mostly in fear. Suddenly, everyone was more worried for their careers, dead-end as they were, than about the prisoners.
Fortunately, the officer was one of those people who started talking when he was afraid. He began to babble excuses and answers as best he could, desperately trying to avoid blame for how much he'd missed, yet without anyone to pass the buck onto.
It was a fruitful, if unorthodox, interrogation. Cipher Nine would have been proud. She learned that there hadn't been time to charge the anti-grav suits between Kaliyo's escape attempts, which meant they probably wouldn't last through another lockdown. The turrets hadn't been activated because several prisoners were too valuable even to risk stun bolts on. The grav generator had not seen additional maintenance. Nearly half of the guard staff had been injured in some way, and therefore those currently working were overworked and largely without spare medical equipment. Because of this, extra medical check-ups weren't possible.
Vector took the initiative and began giving out orders. His emotionless features and calm voice commanded the room in a way Raina had to work for. He ordered an emergency shut-down of the grav generator the moment Kaliyo was back in her cell, and for all spare power to be siphoned towards recharging the suits as quickly as was safe. Turrets and blaster pistols were to be set to stun so that a reduced guard complement could safely imprison the population. All injured guards, as well as those caught in lockdowns, would be shipped off-moon to receive proper medical treatment. Half the remaining guards would be given leave to rest, and the prisoners would begin a round of check-ups. Vector would personally observe the reprogramming of the turrets while Raina dealt with a re-organization of the prisoners in preparation for the changes.
And with that, everything fell into place. They'd get Kaliyo and Darren where they wanted them, quarter the number of guards in one fell swoop, and render the lockdown system all but useless.
Raina almost felt like dancing a jig.
Almost. There was stil the matter of Doctor Lokin, who'd shifted to rakghoul on the very premises.
With luck, they'd all survive that decision.
The lockdown lasted an interminably long time. At least it was possible to prep the injured for evacuation while the gravity was on, since the med bay was shielded from its effects. When it finally ended, the guard officer – Officer Burlin, apparently – sent out his orders and caused the mass evacuation of the facility.
Raina nodded once, sharply, then led Officer Burlin and three guards out of the room without a word. Vector would take the rest to the security controls and supervise the reprogramming of the turrets. It wasn't quite as effective as shutting down the facility's power, but with a few killik fingerlings, it could be nearly as effective and much more subtle.
The walk to the prisoner's quarter wasn't long, but it was oppressive. The walls were still far too close, and with the silence of the guards, Raina noticed an eerie scratching sound through the walls. She forced herself to ignore it as her mind raced to figure out all the variables left in their plan. Raina was good at pointing out flaws in schematics and protocol, but now that they were out of a room where she could browbeat an unsuspecting officer, would she be able to keep up the charade? What about Doctor Lokin? He was missing, leaving them without any backup and a teammate unaccounted for. Vector had been… how long? Almost three hours now without his connection to the nest. He'd warned that the experience was uncomfortable for him. How much longer could he last? They'd expected to be in and out already. How long could this go on?
Raina could have led the way to the prison blocks from the blueprints she'd studied, but she wasn't so prepared for the cell block itself.
It was loud.; Prisoners filled cells as far as the eye could see, and all of them were yelling, some at the guards, some at each other, and most just yelling in general about Kaliyo. Her escape attempts were making her pretty unpopular among the prisoners, who had to spend hours held to the floor every time a lockdown occurred.
This was the prison that was quickly evacuating most of its guard personnel Vector and Raina might have misjudged the situation.
It didn't matter. There was one mission objective. Cipher Nine wouldn't be stopped by a few complications, so they couldn't be, either.
"Where is the escapee, Officer Burlin?"
Burlin paled slightly, likely imagining his visiting officer being attacked by one of his prisoners. "Kaliyo Djannis has been placed in solitary confinement. For our protection."
"Bring her out."
This time, the officer went completely white. "M-ma'am, Kaliyo Djannis is a dangerous alien. She-"
Raina sent him a glare she'd learned from Kaliyo herself, one that said the guard officer knew his place beneath her, but didn't understand how far beneath her that was. "I am more than capable of defending myself should your facility prove inadequate yet again. Be grateful Hyllus and I care enough for the Empire to ensure this facility runs smoothly before our departure. It may be the only thing that saves you from execution for incompetence."
She had to suppress a wince as Burlin quailed and hurried to do her bidding at the same time. Between bureaucracy and the terror of the Sith, threats like hers were effective, but too cruel to be easy.
The three guardes and Burlin moved quickly to the end of the cell blocks, ignoring the cells close on both sides with the contempt of experience. The one prisoner who tried to grab for Raina stared down her blaster for a second of stunned surprise, then retreated to his cot.
Maybe she was imagining it, but Raina thought she might hear the scratching again as they left behind the main prisoner area, even with the noise that still carried down the halls.
The isolation cell itself was plain and somehow even smaller and more cramped than the other cells looked. The three guards, and two others who'd been standing at the door, all pointed their blasters at it. Burlin also had his hand on his blaster pistol, though he hadn't drawn it. None of them moved to open the door. Honestly, she didn't blame them.
Raina strode to the door, then picked the smallest guard and handed him her blaster. She turned to Officer Burlin, who'd realized what she was doing and was picking his jaw up off the floor.
"If the prisoner somehow overpowers me," Raina spoke in that casually confident way Cipher Nine used, "you will shoot both her and myself, and Hyllus will sign my order of execution for incompetence posthumously. Now, open the door."
One of the guards did so, obediently, and Raina walked in to see her crewmember.
A shape flashed in the dim room and, predictably, Kaliyo leapt at her intruder.
"Stop!"
The power of the Force – what little Raina had to bear – slammed into Kaliyo. For somebody like her, it barely caused hesitation, but the familiar feeling was enough to make her stop.
Kaliyo squinted in the hallway's light and almost spoke before Raina cut her off.
"Kaliyo Djannis. My name is Warrant Officer Raina Mawsk. I've been made aware of the problems you've caused since arriving at this facility, and I intend to ensure they will not continue after my departure. Come with me."
Raina looked back, once, when she reached the door, and saw Kaliyo holding back a confused laugh, but the rattataki schooled her features and made to follow.
Internally, Raina was screaming at herself that none of this could work, that they'd all be caught and killed any moment, but Burlin seemed too shocked to question her.
Raina led them all the way to the end of the cell block, to the last cell before the facility's guard quarters, med bay, armoury, and other assorted necessities. When she reached the last cell, she turned to it and said, "get these prisoners out of here. And find Cipher Three, the prisoner we just brought in. He will be Ms. Djannis' new cellmate."
Officer Burlin looked ready to protest, but Raina fixed him with a glare and said, "Cipher Three is the only prisoner of this facility unlikely to hold a grudge against Djannis. We need all the space we can get. Bring him. Then start moving those prisoners furthest from her into these cells. I want only those cells closest to the guard quarters populated, four to a cell. Once that is done, enact the guard shift changes and begin medical procedures on the prisoners. Maybe then this place will finally be respectable again."
They hesitated. Probably too much information at once.
What would and Imperial officer do?
"Now!" Raina barked, "or I will have you thrown before Moff Phennir!"
They moved. Quickly.
In spite of ample motivation, it took hours to move half the prison population. Vector joined them after deactivating the facility's grav generator, though he was beginning to look haggard and distracted. Just as worrying was the continued absence of Doctor Lokin. Other problems cropped up, too. The prisoners in transit had three close fights that had to be dealt with, guards who were supposed to be on duty were disappearing as the evacuations continued, and it turned out one of the safe rooms had malfunctioned, damaging the anti-grav suits and injuring the guards inside.
Raina had asked about the scratching, if perhaps the facility had vermin. Of course the guards she'd asked had denied it, but their tone seemed sincere.
Not that any of these were really problems for the Sanguine End's crew, but somehow Raina still got a sense of foreboding. Something was wrong, or about to go wrong, and she had no clue what. It was disconcerting, because everything seemed to be going well. As soon as Doctor Lokin got in touch, they'd take Kaliyo for interrogation and Raina's father for a medical check-up, and divert to the ship and be gone before anybody could do anything.
Vector returned after a moment alone to reconnect with the hive looking no better than when he'd left.
"Hyllus," Raina whispered, glancing from him to an impatient Kaliyo, "can you last much longer?"
Vector took seconds to respond, and his only answer was, "I serve as needed."
That didn't sound like a yes to Raina, but Vector continued before she could say anything. "There is something wrong. When I… reconvened, I felt… guards are disappearing."
"Yes," Raina whispered patiently, making up her mind for them to leave with or without the doctor. "Some deserters are leaving with the evacuees."
Vector shook his head, but didn't reply.
Raina stood and approached the guards in Kaliyo's cell. "You and you," she said, pointing. "Open the cell. My partner and I will be leaving soon, and we intend to have our chance at interrogating the prisoner before then." She pointed at the last guard. "You, take the other convict to the med bay. He might as well be checked out while Djannis is out of her cell."
The guards didn't even question her. By now, they were accustomed to her bidding. Honestly, Raina didn't much like the feeling, but the grin Kaliyo shot her said the mercenary was enjoying it.
The moment they got away from the noise of the cell block, Riana heard the scratching, scraping sound again. It seemed to come more often now, but always seemed just at the edge of her hearing. Well, she wouldn't have to worry about it much longer. The room Raina had selected was past the guard quarters, almost to the administration room. From there, it wouldn't be far to get out of the facility.
Entering the interrogation room was a surreal experience. There was a part of Raina that had always feared being on Kaliyo's side of this, in a small room with two Imperial officers leaning over a desk with manacles attached to it, and guards standing just outside the door.
Fortunately for Kaliyo, it wasn't an official interrogation room – that was past the cell blocks and one floor down – so the manacles were just handcuffs and the desk wasn't even bolted to the floor.
Even more fortunately, the two Imperial officers were more than accommodating. As soon as the doors closed, they undid the handcuffs and sat down across from Kaliyo.
Kaliyo took one look at Vector and said, "you look like poodoo, Vector. And what's up with your eyes?"
Vector gave a tired grimace. "Related factors, I'm afraid. Some ability to dissemble was necessary for our plan. I accommodated as best I could."
That earned a raised eyebrow from Kaliyo. "I? Yeah, you're somehow less freaky with the black eyes. What's the plan for getting out of here so I don't have to look at you anymore? And where's the boss? Seems like this is his job."
Raina retrieved an earpiece, stealth generator, and blaster from Vector's bag, since he didn't seem in much condition to get them readily. "We're going to sneak you out of here. My father will join us on the way from the med bay, and we should be gone before they figure out the lockdown isn't working. Cipher Nine… is serving to distract the Star Cabal from our situation."
Kaliyo growled and slammed a hand against the table. "That hutt! He said he'd be here!"
"He is doing what he can," Vector said. There was a little heat in his weary voice. "He bears more risk than we, making a target of himself for our true enemies."
"And I guess he couldn't spare the old man," Kaliyo grumbled.
"Ah," Raina wondered how to explain to Kaliyo Djannis, Cipher Nine's most rabid protector, that their leader was alone against an enemy who'd out-maneuvered them at every turn. "Doctor Lokin-"
A yell from outside the room caught her attention and she stopped, half-worried and half-relieved. She gestured vaguely for Kaliyo to look imprisoned, then went to open the door.
"Rakghoul!" came the yell, quickly growing louder. "Rakghoul! In the prisoner's area!"
Doctor Lokin had been found. Blast. It wasn't like him to be caught somewhere so obvious.
Raina drew her blaster, dragged Vector out of the room, and signaled for a guard to follow her. He did so, reluctantly.
A woman came around the corner, red-faced but still gasping, "rakghou..."
Raina scoffed. "Rakghoul? Here? You can't expect me to believe that."
"It's true," the woman gasped, raising a hand and pointing past them, away from the cell block. "We have to acti-"
"Capture it," Raina commanded. Her mind raced, trying to figure out how to get the doctor out of this situation. "No killing. Follow me."
She strode past the guardswoman before she could say another word, Vector and a guard straggling behind her, struggling in the moon's natural low gravity. In her earpiece, she heard Kaliyo asking, "rakghoul? Are you serious? Is this the old monster's idea of a distraction?"
Raina didn't reply. She couldn't think about anything except trying to figure out some way to explain the rakghoul in the station that wasn't the truth, that Raina's ship had brought it.
"Hurry," she barked. They couldn't afford to let Doctor Lokin die. He was a monster, but he was a good man. He'd helped her and Cipher Nine and Vector time and time again. He deserved to live through this.
She doubled her pace.
What she expected to find at the cell block was a dozen terrified guards surrounding one angry rakghoul. That was not what she found, not by a long shot.
The first thing she heard was screaming, and a lot of it. It must be the prisoners, and it probably meant that Lokin was not obligingly under control, and even more likely to get shot. That was bad.
The second thing she heard was the growling, scratching, roaring sound of… no. No, it couldn't be. It must be a trick of the hallway acoustics.
Raina turned the last corner and stopped with the speed of somebody witnessing the inevitable.
There were not a dozen guards surrounding a single rakghoul. There were a dozen rakghouls mauling the last surviving guard. There were more of the grey, disgusting beasts along the hall, too, and probably down the corridors across the cell block.
How had they done this? The halls were perfect shooting lanes. And Lokin. Where was Doctor Lokin?
A rakghoul took a running leap at one of the cells. The prisoners inside screamed as the bars bent and buckled.
Had Raina bothered to contemplate the implications of that, she might have hesitated. Instead, both she and the guard raised their blasters and opened fire. The corridor lit up with blasterfire and the rakghouls' skin flashed and sparked like a festival sky.
To little effect. The rakghouls turned to face them and charged. Raina put another three bolts into the leading one before she realized it wasn't working. Then she grabbed the guard and ran, pushing Vector ahead of them. Whether the low gravity slowed down them or the rakghouls more was impossible to say, because she wasn't wasting time looking back.
A safe room. They needed a safe room. Where did the schematics say-
"This way!" Raina yelled, turning a corner so fast she glanced off the corridor wall. This time, she had to grab Vector and drag him with her, and suddenly he was lagging behind and she caught a glimpse of the rakghouls catching up.
The safe room was meters away. They could make it. They had to.
No. The door was closed! Of course it was, it was a security necessity. But now, of all times! In the time it took her to reach the door and pull it open, she heard Vector roar in pain.
He's vaccinated, she thought. He'll be okay.
The guard with them nearly bowled her over getting into the safe room, but Raina had to see what had happened.
Vector, eyes pitch black, turned from a pair of rakghouls struggling to get up off the ground. They were tangled up, without much leverage in the low gravity, but they certainly weren't hurt. No matter. Vector had his extra seconds. It took only one for him to get through the door and for Raina and the guard to pull it closed behind him.
There wasn't time to catch her breath. Raina keyed her commlink to Kaliyo and her father. "We've got a problem. There are rakghouls loose in the facility. They're immune to blasterfire. Vec-"
"You're infected," said a voice. The guard.
"No," Raina started, turning to see the man holding a gun on Vector. To his credit, he looked regretful, but determined.
"Wait!" Raina held up her hands. Her eyes darted to the blood seeping from Vector's leg. He had been hit, and he wasn't healing as fast as usual. His eyes were grey again, and distant. "We've been vaccinated. He just needs kolto and bandages."
It was true, to a point. Doctor Lokin had vaccinated the whole crew against his particular strain of the virus, but he'd only guaranteed immunity for three generations. The virus adapted too fast for more. If the rakghouls outside hadn't been infected by the doctor or somebody he'd infected, who knew what might happen?
The guard looked at her, then went back to watching Vector, suspicious. "Why would you be vaccinated? I hear most vaccines don't even work, so-"
"Listen, uh..."
"Brys."
Raina tried to focus past Kaliyo's voice in her ear.
"Brys. Our work takes us all across the galaxy. Our doctor likes to be prepared. It was a while ago, but everyone on our ship has gotten more thorough medical preparation than you can imagine. Hyllus has a good chance of getting through this, if we just patch up his leg."
The guard frowned uncertainly and gestured at Vector with his blaster pistol. "And you? What've you got to say for yourself?"
More of Kaliyo's chatter from the commlink, and something from Darren as well. Raina tuned it out. Right now, she was trying to help save Vector's life.
What Vector said wasn't exactly helpful, though. "What she says is true." In his defense, he was tired, bleeding, and disconnected from his nest for more than half a day. That didn't make his tone any less likely to get him killed.
Brys stared at Vector skeptically.
Then a new voice came on Raina's comm, the imperious and synthetic voice of Scorpio. "There is new information concerning Cipher Nine's mission against the Star Cabal-"
"Hey," Kaliyo's voice interrupted, "a little help here!?"
Unperturbed, Scorpio continued, "Cipher Nine is dead."
For an instant, Raina's brain got caught trying to process that idea. In that instant, Vector's eyes blackened and he surged forward with a cry of, "no!"
Brys screamed and pulled the trigger.
Raina moved as fast as she could, but her mind had shifted gears too many times in the last few minutes. She was nowhere near fast enough. By the time she her hand closed on the blaster pistol, the bolt had already hit Vector in the chest.
He fell backwards while Raina struggled to take the weapon from Brys. She almost had it when it went off again.