Chapter 2: Forges of Ithyari

[Drake 53]

Looking around futilely, for anything explosive, Tak said, "I'm afraid not."

There was a row of windows above the nearest wall with an open door and stairway leading from the bay floor up to that level. There looked to be an array of computer stations beyond the windows.

"Layla, I want you and Arlan to go up there," Tak said, pointing to the upper control room. "Slice into the computers and see where they moved the plasma. Failing that, find something else for us to blow up. This smells like a trap."

No sooner did he speak those words than the two supposedly deactivated Boomer droids rumbled to life. Immediately the group bolted towards the exit but the blast doors slammed shut in their faces.

"Fierfek!" shouted Takeshi. "Get upstairs, now!"

The two wardroids lumbered forward, training their secondary blaster arms on the group. Two streams of rapid blaster fire peppered the ground where the Revenants had just stood. Now they were sprinting headlong toward the stairway. In a second, they were through the entry and up the stairs. The locked door at the top was easily bypassed and they were inside the control room before the Boomers could start firing up the stairs.

Tak ran a hand through his short brown hair. "Well, on the plus side, those things are too big to come up the stairs. On the downside...stay away from the windows." There was an audible whine from the other side of the glass. "Get down!"

The four Revenants dove for cover behind desks and work stations as a plasma burst smashed through the windows and turned the forward computer terminals to molten slag. A second burst followed, putting a blackened crater into the durasteel ceiling.

"Use one of the stations farther back," Takeshi said to Layla. To Arlan he asked, "Any way you can shut those things down? Those bay doors are our only way out."

[Rogue 4]

"On it!" Layla kept low, ducking behind cover as she headed to one of the farther computer terminals. She ducked down next to it and brought up the main screen with her left hand, keeping her blaster in her right. "Please tell me it's not password protected---" As a pop up hit the screen she cursed. "Of course it is."

She reached for the datapad on her belt.

[Drake 53]

"Let's see if we can't slow them down a bit," Tak said to Atuarre. The big Trianii sniper snarled a grin.

The two of them moved, in a crouch, to either side of the shattered and slagged row of windows. Peeking out the corner, Tak saw the two Boomer droids waiting patiently for the team to make their move. The droid closest to him shifted its blaster arm. Tak ducked back down as the rapid stream of bolts flashed by above his head.

"This might be a little challenging."

Atuarre only chuffed in laughter.

Tak nodded to her and, at the same time, they lobbed a pair of grenades at each droid before leaning out to open fire.

***

The Captain turned to Jya and said, "When you see a sign that says something about fuel, let us know. We need to keep moving."

They continued on down the dimly lit corridors. Aeric used his recall of the factory layout to direct them left and right despite the barely legible door and hall markings. Jya also helped by confirming directions and calling out whenever a wall marking read 'Fuel Storage' combined with a big direction arrow.

Aeric thought to himself, The farther we go into this place, the more my 'I have a bad feeling about this' sense tingles. He decided not to share that thought with the rest of the team.

I'm going to need Jya to superhear an ambush waiting for the team around a corner. Depending on what Ayingel decides to do, this may or may not be the moment Szen gets injured.

[Bad furday 57]

Jya led the group down the corridor, scanning the hallway for signs. Eventually, the corridor intersected with two others at right angles.

Looking at the wall facing them, Jya turned to say something to Aeric. Her expression went from elation to shock; she backed away from the intersection and flattened herself against the adjoining wall.

The other Revanants followed suit.

"Jya, what is it?!" Aeric's 'bad feeling about this' sense was creeping up to his lungs.

"The wall ahead of us says ' Fuel Storage: Authorised Personnel Only' and has an arrow pointing to the left. I...sense an ambush waiting for us around the corner at the end of the left hallway. I don't think they saw me, but that's why I got out of the intersection."

"You...sense this ambush?" asked Aeric. " You're not Force sensitive, are you?"

"No," Jya smiled " Someone dropped their powerpacks on the floor. I'm sorry, I didn't have time to count how many there are."

Aeric groaned inwardly. Great....just what we need..

* * *

"It'll take a few moments to shut them down!" Arlan yelled to Tak over the screech of blaster fire. " I have to do it remotely!"

The floor shook as the two grenades went off. Arlan covered his head, incase the ceiling fell in...again.

Their strategic location coupled with the extreme danger the droids presented meant that Arlan couldn't simply flip their power switches by hand.

Reaching into his pack, he pulled out his datapad, and two automated limpets.

Plugging them one at a time into the pad, he gave them their instructions, and then disconnected them.

As the Boomer droids might fire on anything being thrown at them, Arlan sent the two micro droids scuttling across the floor.

When the pair reached the droids, they began crawling over the surface of each one. Arlan had instructed the limpets to plug into each droids' service terminal and initiate shut down. Should that not be effective, the two would either force a memory wipe, or infect their host's systems, neutralising them.

"Now?" yelled Tak, turning to Arlan. A hail of blaster fire answered him.

"Soon!" assured Arlan, looking at his datapad.

Another moment passed.

"Now, I think." Shielded by a row of computer terminals, Arlan threw a piece of debris in the direction of the Boomer droids.

The only response was silence.

[Drake 53]

"Okay," said Aeric in a whisper, more to himself than the others. "Let's backtrack a bit. There was another corridor behind us. I think it turns and connects with the corridor ahead. Hopefully it's behind the ambush." To Szen and Nima he said, "I want you two to stay here. When I click the comm twice, start firing around the corner. You'll be the distraction while Seven and I take them out from behind. If they make a move towards you, don't stick around. Retreat back around to our position."

Aeric and Jya left Nima and Szen, making their way back down the corridor they had come. It wasn't far before they ran into the adjacent corridor. Following that one a short way, it took another turn, leading back toward the ambush. Aeric glanced around the corner for half a second. "Clear," he said.

The pair moved down the corridor, this time slowly and cautiously, ready to open fire if anything stepped into their sight.

***

Tak cautiously peered around the window's edge once again. Both droids stood motionless, their burning red photoreceptors having faded to black. Taking a chance, he stood, moving out into the open. Neither Boomer brought a weapon to bear.

With a sigh of relief, he made a quick self-check for injuries. One of the closer plasma attacks had left a few scorch marks, on his body armour, from splashing slag. Looking to Atuarre, he saw that she had several burnt patches of fur and skin but was already applying some bacta salve.

"Good work, Arlan," Takeshi said with a smile. "Even though you may not be the best pilot or blasterfighter, your skills are a constant benefit and life saver for this squadron." Looking to Layla, he asked, "What do you have for me, Legs?"

[Rogue 4]

A blaster if I ever see yours pointed in my direction. "Working on it." Layla said, typing away on the terminal. "Terminal was password protected, and even my slicer program wasn't prepared for the password to be 'nerfburger 54'"

Her face was focussed as she worked with the panel. "I can't believe this, they're not even in the system!" She exclaimed in frustration. "Not even in the---"She blinked twice. "Oh, that's interesting."

Tak raised an eyebrow. "What is it?"

"Well it turns out that there's a mining complex under the mountain here..." Layla's gray eyes danced as she looked up to him. "I can't quite remember...exactly how explosive is baradium again?" She smirked.

Edited April 5, 2008 by Rogue

[Drake 53]

Tak's eyes widened as a smile crossed his face. "It's what makes thermal detonators go boom. How much are we talking about here? If we can get our explosives to the baradium deposit, the explosion could be enough to take out the whole complex."

[Rogue 4]

"Now that's karking sweet." Layla said, bringing up a 3 dimensional diagram of the projected amounts of baradium found in the mine. Most of the diagram was red, with a few green spots thrown in. "The red areas signify what I'd like to call the BBP..."Big Boom Potential."

[Vergere 1]

Brier meandered a bit longer before getting rid of all her explosives, then returned to the dinner to eat very tasty food - on the Imperials' bill, of course - until she got the signal to blow it all. As boring as the conversations were, she was much more comfortable up here being Intel than down on the ground getting shot at.

[Ender 8]

Jaim kept driving until he was on the edge of where the jungle opened up onto the plains. At that moment, somewhat predicatbly in Jaim's mind, his fuel ran out.

"This day just keeps getting better and better..." he rasped, spitting out blood. He opened the hatch of the vehicle and climbed out, standing unsteadily on the jungle floor, leaning against his now useless transport. His body seemed to ache all over. He knew he had broken at least a couple ribs, among other things. He needed help, and soon.

As he slid down to the ground to consider his next steps, he didn't even notice the small personal transport flying overhead...

[Ayingel 24]

Szen waited with Nima in the original corridor. Szen moved a little closer to the wall to try and hear anything. Lowering her breathing, so as she wouldn't be heard, she slid closer to the corner. Her eyes widened as she heard them; there had to be more than ten of them. She was certain Nima heard them too because she was backing up herself. Szen clicked her comm, hoping the Captain or Jya would get the hint. Dammit they're getting closer! Szen abandoned her spot by the wall to move faster. Nima was close to running.

"You there! Stop!" Nima and Szen didn't stop.

Szen looked back and saw it coming. She couldn't tell what class it was, but the grenade neared the ground close behind them. She turned around and and fired at the ambush. She continued backing up to get further from the impending detonation. Nima had begun firing further back and as she heard the blaster going off, Szen lost all sense of time. She kept firing, but her eyes widened as she heard the click and saw the explosion. Szen kept firing as she tried to back up more but she knew she wasn't fast enough.

[Princess 35]

Nima saw the gernade and saw that there wasn't much time until it detonated. She fired a few more shots down the hallway before running as fast as she could. She grabbed Szen's arm and pulled her along as she ran, but she stumbled and lost her grip on Szen's arm and landed a little further down the road. "Sithspit!"

[Drake 53]

Tak looked at the monitor over Layla's shoulder. "That's enough to take out this entire mountain." Pointing to one section of the on-screen map, he said, "Right there. That looks like a droid access shaft to the mines. Now, I would bet that these Imperials are using excavator droids to do their dirty work down there. Ah, and it just so happens that those particular droids are brought in for daily maintenance and cleaning in a room just down the hall."

***

Once Aeric's comm started click frantically, he and Jya looked at eachother and broke into a run. He swore under his breath once the shouting and firing started at the other end of the hallway ahead. This wasn't supposed to happen! Aeric shouted in his mind.

The floor plating shook with a grenade detonation.

At the end of the corridor, behind the ambushers, Aeric and Jya came around the corner blasters firing.

Aeric heard himself shouting amidst the cacophany of battle. "Come get some, Imperial scum!"

[Bad furday 57]

Several of the attackers turned and began firing at Jya and Aeric. As there was nothing to use for cover, both of them knew that they had to make

their shots count.

"You keep after those two. We'll take these!" snapped one of the ambushers to the rest of his squad. He turned to give orders to his remaining men,

and Jya shot him in the face.

The others' Imperial training caused them to ignore their slain comrade, and concentrate their fire on the Revenants facing them.

Dodging and weaving, Aeric picked off the two kneeling on the floor. Jya swiftly took care of the remaining two standing behind them.

"Alright, after the others now!"

Aeric and Jya ran after the Imperials, who were pursuing Nima and Szen.

[Ayingel 24]

Szen heard the noise of the blasters and yelling, but couldn't figure out which was coming from where. Everything just seemed to be a blur of colour from all around her. Suddenly, everything was in focus all at once. Szen noticed that she was further back into the hall than Nima. "The blast must have done that," she said to no one in particular. Szen started getting up to fire, but something felt wrong; she looked at her right side and screamed in horror.

[Drake 53]

There were three Imperial ambushers left and all three of them walked slowly up to the two Revenants. They had their blasters trained on the Twi'lek who had hers trained on them as she knelt over the injured woman. Clearly a medic, the Twi'lek had her bag open next to her and a hypo full of pain meds in hand.

The injured woman was in rough shape. She had several burns across her body and a few nasty shrapnel wounds, including one in her side and eye.

"Now now, pretty one," said the leader of the ambushers. He was a large and rough-looking Imperial. "No need for that blaster. We want this young lady to live as much as you do. Now, just put the weapon down and we'll make sure no more harm comes to either of you." He grinned, revealing two rows of immaculate teeth.

One of the other Imperials, a tall and stern officer, gave his best attempt at a reassuring, tight-lipped smile. The third ambusher was young but his emotionless and cold expression revealed that he was far more dangerous than he looked.

The second Imperial's smile switched to one of alarm and surprise as a slender pair of hands grabbed his chin and forehead. With a viscious twist, the tall man's neck snapped and he fell limply to the floor. The other two Imperials turned to see what happened, finding a beautiful, brown-haired human woman standing between them.

The ambush leader started to swing his blaster around to fire at the woman but hesitated as he felt something press against his back. His eyes widened in shock as blaster fire ripped through his chest. He tried to roar in pain and outrage but suddenly lost the strength to do so. When one of the blaster bolts seared through his heart, the large man fell.

The young Imperial was already on the brunette woman. He pointed his blaster at her and fired. Amazingly, the woman dodged the shot and kicked up hard, knocking the blaster from his hand. Grunting, the small Imperial backed up, pulling a vibro-dagger from a sheath at his side. The woman switched to a defensive stance, pulling out a blade of her own.

Aware of the woman's companion, another man with a blaster, the small Imperial attacked quickly but with dealy skill and precision. The woman was not caught unawares. She was good at hand-to-hand combat. Very good.

***

While Jya and the young-looking Imperial ambusher took deadly swings at eachother, Aeric moved over next to Nima and the injured Szen. The Captain could tell that Szen was in trouble and needed to get out immediately.

"Stabilize her as best as you can, Nima. You and Jya will need to get her out of here while I continue the mission."

[Mara 29]

Kaden felt a little uneasy as he and Aston hovered around the detonated building. There didn't seem to be any life around. Well, none besides those destroyed in the explosion. He would have assumed someone would have gotten an alarm off after the hangar blew, before all the communications arrays had been shot apart.

Trying not to think that the place was deserted, acting as a decoy, he did another flyby over the former building, having Artie scan the area for anything, as Aston kept an eye on the clearing. Just in case.

Something about this all didn't seem to fit with Kaden.

[Rogue 4]

Nat was trying to find a solution to Jaim's problem when he saw a few blips enter the edge of his sensor range. "Group! We have incoming from the North. I count four eyeballs heading our way."

[Mara 29]

Artie whirred, noticing the incoming TIEs as well.

Kaden almost found himself thinking "it's about time," but quickly dismissed those ideas as he banked his fighter around to meet them. He quickly marked down the four blips on his screen.

"Six, unless you find an opportune time for your last torp, we'll have to take them done with lasers.

Form up on my wing. And stay alert. There may be more."

* * * * * * * *

A handsome young man with blond hair exited his shuttle after landing at the nearest spaceport to the New Republic Starfighter Command HQ on Coruscant. He glanced nervously around himself before closing the ship up and straightening out his clothes. Trying to dress more like the rest of the galaxy's latest fashions surrounding the upper class in order to blend in, he felt out of place. Of course, it didn't help that this was his first trip off his native planet, but he had a mission to fulfill. And he would do it to his fullest potential. No matter how long it would take.

He checked to make sure he had everything he needed on his person, then started off into the spaceport to look for a transport to the HQ.

Edited April 11, 2008 by Mara

[Ender 8]

Jaim heard a crunch in the brush behind him. The only possible explanation that Jaim could come up with was that the Imps had tracked him.

"Well, all good things come to an end," he said softly.

He steeled himself as he heard the person coming closer. He couldn't believe who came around the nose of the transport.

"You're really lousy at this, aren't you, Adarra?" she said.

Jaim nearly had a coronary. "Jysella? Didn't you retire?"

"Tried it, didn't work out. Too quiet. I was working on a job in the capital when I saw you, and, knowing you, I figured something exciting was going on. Come on, I'll give you a lift."

She helped him to his feet, and slowly eased him back to her shuttle.

"My flight leader's gonna be looking for me." Jaim said.

"Don't worry, I've got it covered," she replied.

With that, Jaim slipped into a deep, blessed sleep.

[Bad furday 57]

Jya didn't take her eyes off the young Imperial. He had lunged, and she had parried his attack skillfully. It was obvious that he wanted to finish her

as quickly as possible, and then go after the captain. Jya would not allow this to happen.

The time to hit him is when he blade is already connected to mine

The young Imperial gave a sneer, and attacked again. Jya intercepted his blade with her own, and then quickly kicked his weapon hand with her foot.

He cried out in shock as his hand relaxed its grip on the vibroblade. The weapon went clattering against the corridor wall.

Jya dispatched the Imperial with a killing blow to the neck, then ran over to check on Aeric, Nima, and the injured Szen.

[Drake 53]

Aeric looked up at Jya when she ran over. "I'm going to need you to get Szen and Nima out of here. Once outside, activate your emergency comm beacon. That will let Captain Fae know she has a pickup. Go into the woods and hide until she gets there."

Jya nodded her head, understanding what the Captain was telling her. "You're going to need these then, sir," she said, removing the pack containing the explosives needed for their mission.

"Good. Nima, is it safe enough to move Szen?"

The Twi'lek medic glanced up at him for a moment before returning her attention to their fallen comrade. "I've sedated her and stopped most of the bleeding. I don't think there's any serious internal damage but I won't know for sure until I get some more time with her. I wouldn't normally recommend moving her but...staying here would be bad news for all of us."

Aeric nodded, giving them a tight-lipped smile. "Get moving then. I'll see you outside."

Jya gave a salute and Nima followed suit, keeping her bloodied glove from touching her face. Aeric returned the salute then turned away then set off at a jog down the corridor toward the fuelling station.

I may very well die here, Aeric thought to himself. One more good thing before I go then.

***

Once they had sliced open the blast doors to the ordnance bay, the group of Revenants, under Takeshi's command, left and made their way further down that corridor until they found the mining droid maintenance room. Upon entering, they found the entire place automated. The mining droids, appearing similar to overgrown spiders, would come up from the mines through a hatch. They would immediately get picked up by a machine arm and set into the series of interconnected machines that would clean, monitor, repair and maintain the droids before setting them back down before another hatch, leading back down into the mines.

Nudging Arlan with his elbow, Tak said, "Let's get to work."

Edited April 11, 2008 by Drake

[Rogue 4]

Layla tracked the whole process, whistling. "If there's one good thing to say about the Imperials, they're efficient. Sexist, speciesist, and genocidal, but efficient."

[Mara 29]

As the four TIEs zoomed in towards Kaden and Aston, Kaden didn't mark specific targets, figuring on just picking off the closest ones, leaving the left for Six. Plus, a small part of his mind was thinking that they wouldn't have time to list of targets in a little longer.

He sped his X-wing ahead and barrel-rolled to stay moving, letting his lasers loose on the whole flight of eyeballs. After Kaden flew past, he noticed some damage on one of then and quickly turned back around for another pass. He wanted to keep them in his sights and off his back end.

"Artie, full power to forward shields."

Throttling up, Kaden hoped to catch one or two of the TIEs off-guard from the back before they also turned around to face the two X-wings. He quadded his lasers and blasted one part before the other three came around.

As they came up to meet each other, Kaden silently prayed to the Force that Aston could keep up with him and that he himself would not forget his wingmate. Because farther and farther into the dogfight, he was farther and farther into his element, and he knew that he would start reacting quicker, forgetting about everything but his targets.

A second TIE exploded and Kaden flew through the debris cloud and spun around in a roll to come up behind the remaining two. Aston followed to his port side and they both battered the eyeballs with their lasers.

"Keep an eye on your sensors, Six. We may have more company," added Kaden after they were once again alone, each having dispatched the last two TIEs.

[Princess 35]

Nima kneeled down beside Szen. "Let me double check these bandages and then we can get her out of here. I've stopped all the obvious and main bleeders, but I don't want anything coming loose and us having to stop on the run. I had enough trouble getting the bleeding to stop this time, I'm worried if she starts bleeding again."

Jya nodded and guarded the pair as Nima tightened the pressure dressings. Nima brushed Szen's hair back away from the damaged eye. "Hang in there Szen, I'm gonna get you through this. Jya, grab my bag, I'm going to pick her up, and we're going to run for it when I say so. It's going to be awkward and I'm not going to have a free hand for my blaster, so the shooting is all you." Nima braced herself, and grabbed Szen in a fireman's carry. "Let's go!"

The trio started heading out of the facility the way that they came, figuring that there'd be no remaining Imps in the way.