Following the base layout on his HUD, the Slayer had quickly made it to the indicated level by sliding down the turbolift shaft's wall and barreling through the doors. This was only the second highest level, one of the most secure floors.
There had been resistance, of course, on his warpath to Jiro's office. Not like it slowed him down. Stealth was no longer in effect, which the Slayer appreciated. As capable as he was, he much preferred "the straightforward method."
The Slayer didn't even need to use guns here; the Weequay thugs were no match for a hand chop to their necks. Or torsos, really. It was messy, but there were few ways of slaying which weren't.
Currently, he was standing in a shallow pool of blood, having just redecorated that section of the hallway with Weequay insides. But he wasn't paying attention; the Slayer was squinting at his HUD at the news. Jiro and the crate were splitting up!
The crate was in one turbolift heading for the bottom floor. Jiro and the bearded, ragged man were racing for the other set of turbolifts on this level.
Turning in the proper direction his map provided, the Slayer dashed to intercept them.
After a turn to the right and another to the left, he spotted a flash of brown cloak disappear around a corner on the far end of the hall. The Slayer sped up, skidding to a halt once he came to the hallway intersection.
Sure enough, the open turbolift shaft was at the end. The far-uglier-in-person Jiro was rushing in, and he pointed at the Slayer. "Worm! Hold him off!"
And the doors shut with a soft beep.
Worm? Some nickname. The Slayer eyed the tired old man who stood between him and the closed turboshaft. He looked far worse for wear than the base's cameras had previously shown. His exposed upper torso was muscular, but looked beaten, like pounded beef, and his cloak was made of sad, ragged sackcloth. He carried nothing but a metal tube in one hand
Worm spread his arm to the side, his face emotionless. The silver tube suddenly snap-hissed, and a humming, meter-long white blade surrounded by the color of grass ignited from the end. The green tip bit into the metal wall, scorching a black line in the surface. The Slayer inclined his head with intrigue.
"That is a lightsaber," VEGA informed in his ear. "A bar of blazing hot plasma that can deflect blaster bolts. It is the primary weapon of the Jedi."
So this would be his chance to see what they could do. The Slayer put up his dukes; the blade looked dangerous, but was surely nothing his suit couldn't handle.
Worm spun the lightsaber in an intricate flurry as he stepped near, and the green blade narrowly missed the Slayer as he juked to the side. His fist lashed out at Worm's hand, and the lightsaber handle flew behind the Slayer, deactivating.
Then it reignited on its own accord, buzzing and growing louder. The Slayer turned in time to see the blade spinning like a buzzsaw, and the blade bounced off his upraised arm before returning to Worm's hand with a smack.
Worm's fist shot out this time, and the Slayer managed to tank a blast of… not air, but pure force, like a shockwave passing over him. He had endured worse. But the Slayer was intrigued by what he had seen so far; enhanced reflexes to keep up with his movements, telekinesis, blasts of energy. If the Night Sentinels had Jedi in their corps, perhaps Hell would not have devoured their world.
The question was, what was one doing acting as a pirate's servant?
Worm angled the open pommel towards the Slayer next, and an identical green blade snap-hissed from that end as well. Windmilling it with both hands caused sparks and scraps to erupt from the scratched ceiling. Worm leaped, spun, and cut down harmlessly on the Slayer's crossed arms. Uncrossing them threw Worm back, flipping once before landing in a crouch.
The Slayer charged. Worm's eyes widened right before the Slayer's fist would have hit him in the face, and with a shift of his hand, the Slayer's arm grazed his cheek instead. One lightsaber blade caught the Slayer behind the knee, and the other cut into his elbow– again, doing no damage to the Praetor Suit.
Amazement was going through the Slayer's mind nevertheless. The telekinesis actually worked on him– to a small degree, but it was still something. If someone was sufficiently strong in the Force…
The Slayer quickly disengaged from the poor old man and dashed his entire body into the turbolift doors. His sheer momentum was enough to heavily dent them. The Slayer turned to see Worm charging too: whirling his sabers in a blindingly fast X, it was enough to shred anything in its path.
So the Slayer double-jumped straight up right before impact. His fist punched a grip into the ceiling, letting him hang there for a second as Worm's lightsabers effortlessly cut through the durasteel turbolift doors. Debris, glowing orange, pinged against the floor, and Worm looked up with panic.
The Slayer dropped a foot in front of the Jedi, straightening his leg into Worm's chest. The old man was punted straight into the turbolift shaft, banging into the wall once and falling out of sight. The Slayer calmly walked to the edge of the shaft and peered over.
Worm had fallen three levels, but had gripped onto the edge of the shaft, still holding his ignited lightsaber. But he deactivated one blade, then leaped to one side of the shaft. Worm seemed to bounce to the next side, gaining altitude with each wall jump.
The combat shotgun appeared in his hands. Three sticky bombs were fired in quick succession onto potential holds, and they all exploded half a second apart, hurling the midair Worm back down the shaft. Smoke began to fill the shaft, preventing sight. The Slayer couldn't see the bright green lightsaber through the darkness, though.
"The crate is in transit across the base grounds," VEGA calmly informed after a few seconds of calm. "Its handlers are about to enter a spaceship."
The Slayer gritted his teeth. So he couldn't do everything at the same time. If he retrieved the crate, Jiro would get away, and vice versa. And there were still the prisoners to consider.
But in an instant, the Slayer's decision was made. Hondo had emphasized the crate as being of utmost importance. And the Slayer prioritized life above all else. He couldn't leave the base without them. Plus, Jiro could wait; undoubtedly his pride would make him pursue the Slayer on his own accord.
So he turned away from the scene of the fight and blazed back down the maze of hallways.
The base's perimeter was on high alert; Glup Shitto could see the turrets atop the buzzing electric fence swivel right to left. Guard lookouts atop the fence were scrambling to look in every direction. Word of mouth traveled far, even without an alarm going off.
Glup Shitto was halfway up the retractable stairway of the waiting Hutt shuttle when–
"Oi, ser," his Nikto bruiser called behind Glup. "What're we gonna do with 'im?"
Glup sagged his head as he walked; did he really have to respond? "Betray him, of course. Jiro's usefulness to the Hutts can easily be replaced. You're evidence enough."
"...Er, thank you ser," the bruiser hesitantly replied. Glup couldn't tell if he was saving face or if he was really that foolish. "Could that one li'l crate really be enough to force Hondo to join the Hutts? What if 'e fights to get it back?"
"We'll crush him," Glup darkly declared, tightening his grip on Hondo's crate handle. He reached the top of the stairs and entered the shuttle.
The instant they were out of the system, he would peek inside. What in the galaxy did Hondo Ohnaka consider so precious with this crate?
The engines of the shuttle roared to life the instant his bodyguards followed him inside, and the stairway promptly folded back into the ship's chassis. It began to hover off the ground.
The level was sparsely lit and still occupied. Any spare Weequays he happened to sprint into simply ceased to exist the instant he impatiently, without stopping, batted them into the walls. Blood spatters soon covered his limbs.
Following the HUD map led him to skid to a halt at one end of a hall with a wide ceiling-tall window way on the other end. Through the permaglass, the Slayer could squint and see right through, down to the main grounds of the base and the electric fence beyond.
An unnatural long shuttle with wide vertical and horizontal wings was slowly rising from the far field below. This must be the ship with the crate!
The Slayer barreled to the window, drawing out the rocket launcher. The shuttle was at eye level, turning away to leave.
He closed the distance of twenty meters in one second, and jumped at the last possible moment.
A blast, a shatter, and the Slayer burst through the brittle glass. He seemed to hover there in midair for a second, surrounded by hundreds of blinding shards reflecting the cold sun and the explosion from his rocket launcher.
The lock-on burst sent three missiles spiraling into the shuttle's side, wing, and engine– bam, bam, boom! Tilting from the impacts and blossoming flames, the shuttle began to spiral in a dangerous, unstable hover.
The Slayer fired once more, straight down. The lightspeed-calculated angle of the kickback sent him shooting up and into the cockpit of the failing shuttle. Once more, the Slayer broke glass, smashing into both of the screaming pilots.
The Slayer got to his feet on the slanting surface; both of the pilots had been instantly killed on contact, and their hands had been on the controls. The shuttle was now angling precariously towards the ground, approaching closer every second.
Quickly now, quickly! The Slayer launched himself through the pilot's cabin door, ending up in a luxurious private cabin now ruined by his burst through the door. Red fur sofas lined the walls, and an upturned dark wood table against the far wall was obviously supposed to have been in the room's center. Two men were in this room: a regal-looking representative, and a hulking bodyguard with a rotary chaingun. A body was lying on the ground, holding a similar weapon.
Rapid blasterfire pinged against his armor from the bodyguard that hadn't been killed in the blasts. One shot from his EMG pistol, and that bodyguard dropped too. That left only the elegant representative, gripping tightly to his sofa and clutching the pink-and-green crate to his chest.
"Hell take you!" Glup Shitto cursed.
The Slayer couldn't help but grin. He sure hoped it would.
Zap.
Glup toppled and slid on the leaning floor towards the Slayer's feet, a burned hole in his head. The crate also tumbled to the Slayer, who caught the handle in one hand; whoever had designed the crate had managed to keep it sealed expertly. He deposited the clunky thing into hammerspace, along with his pistol.
A sudden explosive impact made the Slayer stumble and fly into the left side of the shuttle wall, along with lots more debris thumping to either side of him. The shuttle must have finally crashed, though the Slayer didn't know where. Splinters and metal shards blasted across him, and the entire sofa, up on the opposite end, detached from its bindings and fell right to the Slayer.
One punch turned it into half a dozen splintered parts.
He stood up. Debris and burning parts showered off him. Bloody body parts from the three men were sticking up out of the jagged piles of metal and wood. Along with their weapons. One of the blaster chainguns had been heavily bent, but the other seemed intact.
The Slayer reached over and snagged both. The destroyed chaingun he put into hammerspace for spare parts. The other he hefted as the weapon was designed to be. The weight was familiar and not a big deal; he could easily wield one in both hands if he wished.
Surely the guard wouldn't mind if he borrowed it, right?
"Worm!" Jiro barked into his comlink. Spotting another security camera at the end of the subterranean hall, he blasted it to smoking scrap with his sidearm. "Come in, filth, where are you at?"
Static again. Jiro huffed and swiveled back to face the winding tunnels he came from. The intruder had obviously seen him go into that turbolift, but he could sense no sign of pursuit. He wouldn't even need to try; the intruder was not exactly subtle. Could Worm have really finished him off? That was the only likely explanation as to why the intruder wasn't hunting him.
But that still didn't explain Worm's radio silence. Perhaps the intruder had given as good as he got.
Creaking, groaning. It came from the way he had come, absorbing into the earthen walls.
Jiro locked up. He took one silent step, then another. He came to the bend in the tunnel and peeked around the corner.
The turbolift shaft embedded in the rock wall seemed bent in somewhat. A banging noise came from behind it. Jiro eyed it with bated breath.
Then a green lightsaber blade pierced the door and began to cut in an orange glowing circle.
Jiro instantly felt revulsion come over him. Feeling scared, from Worm?! And the fact that he was here…
Once the hole had been cut, Worm awkwardly stepped through without burning his sackcloth cloak. Upon seeing Jiro's hateful expression, his eyes dipped. Jiro was happy for that much.
"You fool," Jiro breathed. "Why did you not respond to me on the comms?"
"I was close enough that I would see your face again, master," Worm surged out. "I beg your forgiveness."
Jiro's lips thinned, then he nodded. "Forgiveness. Yes. I would. If…" He suddenly gripped Worm's white hair near the scalp and bent him down, causing him to cry out in pain. "...you had slain the intruder! Worm, I order and you obey."
"He was, ah, ah! Resilient to my lightsaber! Gah!"
"And this stumped you? You think lightsabers are the only things that can kill? I have an explosive in your neck, in case you've forgotten. And the next time you fail, I'll detonate it!"
Worm whimpered and grabbed at the base of his head. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, master!"
Jiro snarled and let go of the old man. After a few moments, Jiro deeply inhaled. Patience. "Worm, you have the Force. This alone puts you in the five percent most powerful beings in the galaxy. You need to remember how you felt when Nerissa was unjustly slain. How powerful you felt then, how full of rage you were. It was enough to crater the earth, and it will overcome all your enemies. Rage is your weapon. Rage can make Hell tremble! And here I thought you had it."
"I do!" Worm insisted. "It's just that feeling that way so strongly, after being a Jedi for so long…"
"Ah yes, Jedi. Don't feel any emotion, don't surrender to temptation. Don't be a sentient being. Be a piece of trash instead, floating down the river of life, surrendering your will. Is that what you are, Worm? Trash? Even worms make choices, at least they live for something, even if it's nothing more than crapping out dirt! Do you want to be more than the filth you are?!"
Worm had bowed his head. He didn't say anything.
Jiro huffed in amusement. "Must be hard deciding that, huh?"
"I do," he croaked.
"You do what?"
"I want to be more than trash. Master."
"Then if you want to be more than trash, you will accompany me to my allies' war bases to summon reinforcements. If push comes to shove, we will bombard that intruder so deep into the earth, the worms will feast on him for years."
Worm's mouth twisted at the mention. But he just nodded, and he followed Jiro as he jogged back on his path to the storage cave.
Jiro counted his blessings as he went; he could have instead taken the turbolift near the prison cells. Then Worm would see that his precious Nerissa was still alive, and then his lies would all be for nothing.