You hear the load whine of powered tools as you pass in and out of consciousness. You can’t be sure but you may also hear the hum of a ship’s engines. You start to hear mumbling that slowly becomes clearer until you can hear someone talking.
“…does this part even do! It’s useless. No it’s less than useless it’s taking up space valuable space. You two see if you can find the same part on the other arm.”
Another voice this one almost recognizable says, “Alright Nemo cut it open.”
The first voice noticing you are awake says, “Layla greet our guest we are busy.”
A more mechanical third voice, Layla who apparently is a droid though you sense no droid near you, says, “Welcome master Ellac Conrat, you are aboard the freighter Argentum Baet. How may I serve you?”
Ellac grimaced as he drew a deep breath; His whole body ached, and the throbbing in his head had devolved into a mild migraine. “Where-,” he groaned, trying to sit up. “Where am I?”
“On the Knights of Allusis freighter Argentum Baet, accounting code HN-5002. You are en route to a Dark Jedi Brotherhood medical station run by the Aurora Collegium of Sciences in the Therasintas system. We are in hyperspace,” Layle said in a female melodic and mechanical tone.
“You are being fixed by me. You’d both be dead if I didn’t get to you,” Arnid said as Layla finished, “Your stupid droid kept saying ‘Query: Why won’t you die?’ and shooting at me so I stunned him and removed his power core.” After he finished speaking Arnid went back to working on Ellac’s arm.
As Ellac tried to push himself up, he found his mechanical arms had been removed from his body. Lacking the strength to wrestle himself up, he resigned himself to resting, laying his head back on the bed.
Taking another deep breath, he let his mind wander back to the fight on the Godless Matron; He hadn’t expected Eeno to be able to push him into a full rampage, and now he was paying the price for drawing on that power.
“The last person to ‘fix’ me ended up turning me into a battery,” Ellac stated dryly.
“Yes and they were an idiot I will do it correctly.” Arnid stated as he finished up on Ellac’s left arm. “Did you know that your left leg was slowly releasing durasteel into your bloodstream? I don’t know if that was from the fight or earlier than that.” Arnid walked over to his makeshift operating table and started attaching the arm.
“I’m not surprised.” Ellac said, the memory of his previous surgery rising from his subconscious. He flinched instinctively as Arnid touched his shoulder to begin the reconnection.
“You will feel a small shock as the connection initializes given what you have apparently been through it should feel like nothing.” Arnid touched the arm to your already repaired shoulder then using the hydrospanner attachment he had on his right arm he tightened the connection. There was a small shock almost like when you touch static electricity.
Eeno came through the door to the once storage room now serving as a makeshift med bay. “Layla is doing great on her maiden voyage.”
“Why thank you master Eeno,” Layla said.
“Hey, what did I tell you about calling me master?”
“Sorry knight Eeno. Master is my coded basic it is hard to change it.”
“How are you doing, you know I haven’t caught your name, if I did I probably lost it when you almost choked me to death,” Eeno said no malice in his voice. Actually his tone was almost humorous definitely light.
“You mean before you were about to shoot me?” Ellac replied, lacking the playful tone.
“I think my blaster was on stun at that point. We cou-“ Eeno was cut off by Arnid
“The amount of untreated damage to your body I doubt a blaster bolt would have killed you. Especially since it most likely would have hit some cybernetic with that random of a shot. I could have saved you from that easily.”
Ellac grunted, musing to himself that that shot would’ve also pushed Ellac to crush the Chiss’ windpipe. “My name is Ellac, I’m a member of Clan Scholae Palatinae,” he answered plainy. “Your turn.”
“Eliwufe’en’ofmo, non-Chiss call me Eeno. Knight of the Jedi Order of old for all that’s worth, member of Clan Odan Orr more modernly. Good to meet you. You’ll excuse me if I don’t shake your hand I have seen what cybernetics can do when they weren’t built correctly.”
“That was one time! One! These won’t do that. Your magic senses got you out of the way anyway.” Arnid said now back over working on Ellac’s right arm.
Ellac flexed the servos in his newly attached arm, readjusting to the odd feeling of having a pseudo-limb. “You would have lost your hand had I got a hold of you in our match,” Ellac interjected, clenching and extending his fingers, surprised to find that he had been de-clawed.
“I could fix that” Arnid quickly cut in.
“I don’t doubt it,” Eeno said ignoring Arnid’s comment, “You are quite the fighter. I think you’d have won that much earlier if the electric cage hadn’t been there.”
“Lucky for you that the cage was there then,” Ellac said matter-of-factly, using his new arm to help him sit up as he swung his legs over the edge of the table. “And I’ve survived much worse than shock fences.”
“I can see that, what happened to you?” Eeno said
For the first time in the conversation, Ellac cracked a smirk. “Ever seen a Rancor up close?”
Arnid stopped turned around and glared at the man, “Yes. Those were not caused by a rancor. I’m not sure what got your eyes and your limb’s connections are too ripped up from whatever madman built those things that only just pass for cybernetics. Otherwise you have lightsaber scoring, I think I found a blaster burn, some vibroblade cuts. The works for what I would expect from a dark wizard.”
Ellac ran his metal hand over his burn-scarred scalp, letting his fingers trace the bumps and pits along his head as his hand moved down to the blindfold over his eyes. “See this?” He lifted the blindfold, revealing what was easily most scared part of his body: A deep gash had been etched from right above his left brow through the chasm that had once been his eye socket, down to his left cheek. Overlaid on that scar, a crisscrossing pattern of scratch marks streaked across both of his eyes from the middle of his forehead down to his cheeks on both sides. “This gash on my left eye was from a Rancor; The crisscrossing scratches were from me when my other eye was taken,” he said, slipping the blindfold back into place. “And my armor and limbs were the work of one of the only creatures in the galaxy that might be more of a monster than me.”
“On the topic of your eyes,” Arnid moved on ignoring that he was wrong, “when we get to the medical station they can get you set up with some nice cybernetic replacements. Until then I can make you a metal plate to put there so that will not get reinfected. The area is very weak to a lot of bacteria and you could lose a lot more than just your eyes if some rotting disease got in there. While the plates are off now, with my modifications the rest of your body should be pretty much immune to bacteria.” With that Arnid started to place the armor back on.
Eeno waited until Arnid was done speaking to ask, “You consider yourself a monster?”
“Just finish fixing my arm,” Ellac said, standing up. His repaired legs clicked under his weight, adjusting to movement for the first time. “Do you have water on this ship?” Ellac asked, ignoring Eeno’s question.
Layla answered your question, “It is in the kitchen. Exit this room and turn right, walk until you find a small cross section and turn left. It will be the first door on the left.”
The ribbed plates of his armor pulled at his skin as he stretched, the sudden pain of it triggering the instinctual reflex to begin drawing on the Dark Side.
Silently leaving the room, Ellac followed the corridor as Layla instructed, coming to the cross section, but decided to follow the hall straight on rather than to the kitchen.
Stepping into the garage, Ellac felt his way along the wall until he had found what he was looking for: In the corner of the room, HK-98 stood lifeless.
After Ellac left the room and the door closed Arnid said, “Delta seven bravo.”
Layla responded to the command with, “Layla will cease monitoring this room. Say the command zeta delta seven in any room to reactivate my monitoring.”
“You added the system commands to the first version. I thought you said you wouldn’t have those until version 2.”
“I did and was going to but I had the code done so I put it in once I realized I had whoever that is on my ship. Who is that?”
“He is a member of the brotherhood.”
“Oh yeah like that Vincent guy who tried to kill you.”
“If he wanted to kill me he had plenty of opportunity already.”
“If he loses control again? I saw your battle.”
“I think we are about equals in combat with you here we can subdue him.”
“I am not a fighter.” Arnid said under his breath. More normally he continued, “I finished his right arm just after the start of the conversation. Is it safe to give it to him?”
“I think it would be fine. It’ll be safer to have him calm.”
“That is not reassuring. I had reinstalled his claws as retractable before I realized that he was what do you call it a sith? I am not telling him how to put them out until he is leaving my ship. His lightsaber is in that crate over there.”
Over in the garage Layla asked Ellac, “Master Ellac, I thought you wanted water why have you come in here?”
Ignoring the computer, Ellac slipped his hand under the main chassis of his HK unit, his fingers feeling around for the switch to his backup power supply.
The switch clicks and nothing happens. “That droid tried to kill master Vus. He disabled it temporarily don’t worry he got a copy of its personality and memory in case of degrading from having no power core. The power core and backup power core are both in the storage room alongside your lightsaber.”
“Useless again,” Ellac muttered under his breath at HK, retrieving his hand from the droid. “Why am I not surprised?”
Making his way back to the hall, Ellac processed what Layla had just told him. “Why would you tell me where he put my lightsaber?”
“Did you not know, master Ellac?” The melodic but somewhat monotone voice asked
Ellac paused for a moment in the hallway. “No. The good doctor forgot to bring it up. What can you tell me about your masters?”
“Master Vus is done repairing your other arm. He attempted to turn off my surveillance of the storage room but the command created a logic loop which caused it not to function. They are talking about you presently. Mast- knight Eeno thinks keeping you calm will make them safer master Vus thinks you are something called a,” the melodic voice stops for one word and is replaced by a recording of Arnid, “Sith,” it returns to her mechanical voice, “and while he has reinstalled claws to your hands he is not going to tell you until you leave to keep himself safe from you.”
Ellac looked down at his new hand, considering the information. “What about Eeno? He said that he’s from the old Jedi Order.” He didn’t know much about the Chiss race, but he doubted that they aged slowly enough to stay in their prime for all these years. “How did he end up here?”
“Eliwufe’en’ofmo was born thirty three years before The Battle of Yavin. He was frozen in cryostasis twelve years before the battle of yavin. He was thawed forty four years after the battle of yavin by Jon Silvon. Notable names from the time before he was frozen include; Xald Urvax, Greys, Ballad, Saw Gerrara, Bail Organa, Mon Mothma, Tarre Visla, Draco Tirafus, Threx Frittin, Sheev Palpatine, Darth Sidious, Mace Windu, Darth Vader and Salina Ferrin.”
“Cryostasis…,” Ellac echoed to himself. ‘That explains his combat ability,’ he thought. To be able to survive this long wouldn’t have been easy, even before being frozen. Still, from the sounds of it, they weren’t confident in their ability to take him head-on, and he was going to make sure it stayed that way.
Following the original path to the kitchen, Ellac filled a cup with water and made his way back to the cargo hold.
Back in the storage room. “What is a Sith is it like an evil Jedi?” Arnid asked Eeno.
“No not exactly, Sith is a religion like the mandalorians are a religion. While the Sith are a splinter sect of the Jedi we share almost no similarities,” Eeno answered.
As Ellac entered the room Arnid asked, “What does their religion tell them to do?”
Ellac paused in the doorway, looking to Eeno to see how he answered.
Eeno looked at Ellac then turned back to Arnid and considered his answer for a very long moment. Finally deciding on an answer he said two words, “Gain power.”
“Freedom,” Ellac corrected, sipping on his water as both of the men looked at him.
“Freedom from what?” Arnid asked.
Ellac paused, tuning his senses to locate the distinct Force signature of the Christophsis crystal housed within his lightsaber. Feeling its presence in a crate on the other side of Eeno, Ellac turned his attention back to the conversation, stepping back over to the makeshift operating table as he leaned against its edge. “Let me ask you a question,” he said, looking at Arnid. “Why do you have those cybernetics?”
“I don’t actually know, not for sure. My first memory is from just three years ago I had them then. I think I was born with a defect that’s what I was told anyway.”
“What if you could find out the answer?” Ellac said. “Would you take that chance?”
“No. The memory of the past is just that, past. I do not need to know who I was, what I was or who did this to me. I am who I am now. Those memories they might tell me I am someone else. I don’t want to be someone else.”
“‘The past is past’,” Ellac echoed, taking another sip of his water. “And what about the future? Had I been playing for blood, you would be pouring over his corpse instead of my arm right now,” he said, pointing at Eeno. “You would have lost him, and there would be nothing you can do about it… Or so you’ve been told.”
“What would it cost? Nothing comes free. Did you not use the same power fighting and now hours later are still exhausted? If that small thing drained that much the cost of a life must be astronomical.”
“The answer to that question is up to you; What is his life worth to you?” Ellac looked over at Eeno. “How about you? How many people- friends- have you lost in your life? Your Master, your own soldiers… How many people are you going to lose until you decide to do something about it?”
“I have done something, I survived. I am their legacy. I live and I fight to honor them. Peace, it is my goal as it was theirs. How can peace brought by darkness stand? I have seen your ways. The way a dark lord rules. Fear only keeps the weak in line,” Eeno answered.
Ellac paused for a moment, letting the words air. “Fear is the response of cowards who don’t have the courage to take action, and that is why they are ruled over.” His tone darkened as he spoke. “And before you give me your ‘world peace’ speech, let me remind you that your Order has sat back and watched the galaxy burn time and time again, and even the best of you couldn’t create a peace that lasted more than a few years before it crumbled in your hands, and the rest of the galaxy had to pay for it.”
“You asked what Sith believe…,” Ellac said, turning back to Arnid. “We believe that peace is a lie; That chaos cannot be stopped, only mastered.”
“I won’t give you a speech,” Eeno said calmly, “I will just ask you a question, who told you that the Jedi ignored the burning of the galaxy, who told you the peace did not last?”
Ellac set his cup down on the table beside him. “I thought I was supposed to be the blind one. What happened to the Republic you used to serve? The Rebellion?,” he asked. “Why is it that we just went to war?”
Eeno leaned forward, not caring if he angered the Sith now, “The Sith. You think the Jedi couldn’t build a lasting peace while the Sith’s empire your kind’s mastery over chaos it lasted twenty four years. The Jedi’s era of peace lasted a millennia. If you think the Sith could build a lasting empire look at history. As bad as you think the Jedi were at it the Sith were one hundred times worse.”
“You both want the same thing,” Arnid cut in, “controlled chaos. Why don’t you work together?”
“Careful, Jedi… That sounds an awful lot like contempt,” Ellac sneered before turning toward Arnid. “The Sith don’t play the same game; The Jedi are the ‘paragons of justice’, and shackle themselves to it…,” he said. “But the Sith… Power is the only rule we follow.”
Ellac looked back over at Eeno. “If you have a problem with it, then do something about it.”
“So you lied when you said you seek freedom?” Arnid asked too caught up in the moment to consider the consequences of his question.
“Did I?” Ellac countered. “I told you I wanted freedom… You assumed that our definitions were the same.”
“Definitions don’t change from person to person. If your true desire is anarchy calling it freedom is a lie,” Arnid offered back. As he finished the ship dropped out of hyperspace.
Ellac’s cup shook ever-so-slightly on the edge of the table as the ship finished its jump. “‘…Through victory my chains are broken…’,” Ellac quoted. “Is it anarchy to want to be free?”
Arnid barely heard Ellac’s response. It had already been too long for them to have been out of hyperspace without having a transmission from the medical station sent to them. Because of this realization Arnid’s mind went into what he called digital thought. Thinking faster than an Arkanian, or any Humanoid for that matter, was capable of. He turned on his internal transmitter to hail the station but was met with a transmission on a frequency he had only seen used once. “Titus,” he said out loud before going over to the crate that contained the parts to Ellac’s lightsaber and droid taking out the bag the held them and throwing it at Ellac. “Nemo get his other arm on. Layla wake Lazy up.” Arnid left the room without waiting for any responses. He went to the comms station and tuned it to the frequency he was picking up so he could hear the transmission there better. It was a collection of command codes that gives the sender control over most droids produced after industrial automaton made the R6 line. Most droid brains that is which includes computers. The droids they have on the ship should be immune due to their age and Layla too because Arnid had not built her with the core command. Arnid knew of a project The Collective was working on, Project Titus named after its organizer, Durrelios Titus. Project Titus was an intelligence gathering operation to collect all of the codes from the droid manufacturers and create a data stream that could take control of the brotherhood’s droids and computers. It was in its final stages of development when The Collective was disband by the armies of the brotherhood. Titus must have survived, Arnid thought.
Back in the storage room there was a strange sight. An astromech putting a man’s cybernetic arm back together.
“Titus?” Ellac asked, catching the bag that Arnid had tossed at him, finding HK-98’s power core and the pieces of his lightsaber inside. Looking over at Eeno, Ellac raised a hairless brow. “Desperate, are we?”
Beside him, Ellac glared down at the R3 demanding that he lay down so that it could reattach his arm. “I will tear your dome off if you short anything,” he warned, complying to the droid’s instructions.
“I have no idea who Titus is but it has Arnid spooked. You couldn’t see it but it looked like he had seen a ghost.”
Nemo lined the arm up and used his own hydrospanner to tighten the connection. The same small shock indicated he was done.
Layla spoke over the ship’s speakers, “Master Vus desires the three of you to join R5-S7 in the garage and repair the assassin droid there.”
Ellac stood from the table, testing his new arm with an intense circular swing. Looking back down at Nemo, Ellac gave a satisfied grunt to the droid. Snatching the bag up from the bed, Ellac led the group out to the garage.
The three went to the garage and Nemo asked for the power cores. As the R3 repaired the HK assassin droid Ellac put his lightsaber back together.
Arnid entered the room as the HK droid powered up. Speaking quickly he said, “assume everything here is hostile. Droids, medical equipment, computers, doors, a member of the collective has apparently escaped. Ellac I am a collective turncoat I don’t care if you want to kill me because of that, you need to know. Also your claws, to engage them consider the word piercing. I met the creator of this program he was determined to make a program that used an enemy’s own computers against them. His name was Titus and he led Project Titus,” there was a thud as the ship landed, “we cannot leave here without purging this program it could spread and have the collective win anyway.”
Finishing with his lightsaber, Ellac clipped the weapon to his belt. “If they can control machines, then the droids should stay here,” he said, turning to Nemo and his HK unit that had just been rebooted. “HK,” he called.
The assassin droid’s photoreceptors flashed red as he came online. “-die, you metal-mingled meatbag!,” he shouted excitedly.
The crew stared at the droid as it looked around, equally confused.
“Supplication: Ahem. I’m terribly sorry, Master. I was in the middle of dispatching a rather sorry excuse for an organic-“ HK-98 paused mid-sentence as his sights landed on Arnid. “…who seems to be keeping company with us now. Hurrah.”
Ellac looked back at Arnid. “Where exactly are we?”
“The Therasintas system and our droids have different command codes they will be fine.”
“So what’s the plan? How do we purge it?” Eeno asked Arnid, checking his gear instinctively.
Arnid checked his blaster tentatively before slipping it back into his holster. “I need to get to the central system at the core of the station where I can destroy the program.”
“You’ll need a diversion,” Eeno said. “Wait for us to draw them out and then you slip past them.”
Arnid nodded as he stepped toward the boarding ramp controls.
“No,” Ellac said.
Arnid paused, looking back at the Sith. “I don’t understand, what do you mean ‘no’?”
“One of us should go with you in case you run into any opposition,” Ellac said. “HK, you go with Arnid.”
HK took a step back in surprise. “Supplication: Oh no, Master, please don’t send me with him. I would much rather stay and fight by your side. Oh, please let me stay, Master.”
“You’re going with Arnid,” Ellac repeated, glaring at his droid. “Keep him alive.”
“We need to get moving,” Arnid said, activating the ramp controls.
Outside the ship, a hodgepodge platoon of cybernetically augmented soldiers, heavy loader droids, and security series droids formed a loose semi-circle a few paces back from the lowering boarding platform, about fifteen in all.
Leading the charge, Eeno descended the ramp first, his lightsabers ablaze. The platoon open-fired on the Jedi, who poured all of his concentration into deflecting the blaster fire.
Behind him, a double-bladed lightsaber came flying over his shoulder in a crimson red blur. The blades howled as they ripped through two of the droids. Dashing down the path that his lightsaber had cut for him, Ellac pushed the enemy ranks, seizing the barrel of a blaster rifle from the nearest cyborg as he ripped it out of the Rodian soldier’s hands. With a decisive kick, Ellac launched the soldier into the security droid behind him, toppling them both over.
Focusing his attention on his nearest target, Eeno redirected an incoming bolt directly through the head of a loader droid as he continued his defensive dance. Flashes of red, blue, and green lit up the hanger as blasters and lightsabers sent bolts streaking in every which way. Moving his attention to the next target, the Chiss repeated the tactic, dropping one of the enhanced soldiers.
Dodging a bolt from a nearby attacker, Ellac extended his wrist, firing his fibercord whip around the neck of one of the heavy loader droids, yanking on the cord, causing it to stumble forward, its large foot stepping directly on the soldier and security droid that had toppled over, crushing them under its weight. Still having the droid by the neck, Ellac sprinted headlong at it, sliding between the gap between its two legs. Finding his footing, he yanked on the cord once more, pulling the metal beast itself headfirst into the floor.
Disengaging one of his lightsabers, Eeno drew his blaster pistol, firing between deflected shots until all of his attackers had fallen. Lowering his guard for a moment to take a breath, a strange feeling clawed at the back of the Jedi’s mind, drawing his attention to the other side of the skirmish.
Turning to determine the source of this feeling, he saw Ellac standing over the mangled bodies of droids and soldiers alike, and in his hand, the last of the cyborgs, hoisted into the air by a single metal arm. The soldier squirmed against Ellac’s grip, desperate for air, but something else was grabbing Eeno’s attention: The color in his face was draining in an unnatural way, the blacks of his eyes fading grey, and suddenly, Eeno realized that the man wasn’t suffocating, but rather being drained of his lifeforce. “Let him go!,” the Jedi shouted.
Clenching tighter, the Sith continued to siphon every last drop of energy that he could from his victim until, with a shallow gasp, the soldier had been dried up. Tossing the cyborg husk to the side, Ellac turned back to meet Eeno’s furious gaze.
“What was that? What in blazes did you do to him?” Eeno yelled before shaking his head and saying, “Never mind tell me later. We should go break more clankers.”
Using the distraction Arnid and HK-98 exit the hangar. They find mostly easily destroyed 2-1B surgical droids who had gone mad from the program. What was more concerning was the thing they did not find. The hall and the waiting rooms, offices, and as they go further in, medical care rooms were empty.
’Where are they?’ Arnid thought. He almost asked it out loud but decided he liked the assassin droid quiet.
As they got deeper there were less and less droids. They did not run into any more of the cybernetic abominations which struck Arnid as odd.
Finally the silence was broken by HK-98, “Query: Why are there no flesh bags here?”
“Don’t call humanoids flesh bags,” Arnid said spotting a terminal and walking over to it.
“Query: What should I call flesh bags then?”
“Humanoids maybe? Maybe care to recognize their species and use that.”
“Statement: I am not designed to recognize species and hoomandoid does not sound evil enough.”
“Humanoid,” Arnid pronounced each syllable very clearly. He searched the system trying to find, there it was. Life-sign sensors, operational. Fifty nine life forms detected. While he was reading it the number ticked down to fifty six ’the force users must be doing well.’ The next thing he found was what he was looking for. There was a map of the station with a life-sign detector overlay. Seven were in each of the other three hangars none left in the hanger the Baet was in. The rest of the life signs were in the center of the station. ’Standard complement of the station would be twenty two, plus any patients which I’ll check if there were any next. With few assumptions there will probably be twelve cybersoldiers and Titus in the server room. Now to check the patients, cryostasis, cryostasis, more cryostasis. Cryostasis doesn’t show up on the screen and tracking apparently, this station also seems to be a deep freeze for those with a disease not yet curable. No live patients outside of cryostasis. Noted.’
Eeno’s comm link pinged and he answered turning it load enough Ellac could hear as well.
“I need help here, most of their force is in the server room. I’ll hold out here just go down the hall I went in we are in an office about half way down.”
HK-98 cut in after Arnid was finished saying, “Query: Master would you like me to call other flesh bags flesh bags or hoomandoids?”
“Hu-man-oids,” Arnid said again.
“And Titus?” Ellac asked, not acknowledging his droid’s query.
“I can’t say for sure, but based on all available data, he will be there too.” Arnid punched a command into the terminal on his end, causing the comm link to chirp. “Eeno, I just sent the station’s map and life-sign readouts to your comm.”
Switching on the comm links’s holoprohector, a map of the station flickered to life in translucent blue light; Pocks of red dots scattered themselves over the projections, with the largest cluster of them lighting up the server room like Arnid said. “I see them… Looks like we’re going to have to fight our way to the central command terminal,” Eeno said.
HK-98’s metallic voice cut over the comm again. “Cautionary: Master, I am finding something very odd about how little resistance we have been facing. I suspect that we are being led into a trap.”
Ellac paused to consider the suggestion; It was obvious that it was a trap, but what kind of trap this was was still unclear. “We’ll continue as planned; Let’s regroup, and then we’ll carve a path to the central terminal.”
As the pair of Force weilders made their way to join back up the others, Eeno broke the silence. “I don’t like how this is getting under Arnid’s skin. He’s never like this.”
Their footsteps rang through the empty hallways as Ellac left the question to hang.
“Alright, no, that’s enough!” Eeno commanded, falling out of pace with Ellac. “Look, I get that you don’t like anyone, but my friend is about to walk into what is probably a trap, and he needs help. You’ve already proven that you know how to fight, but if you’re going to keep working against me, then I don’t want or need you here.”
Again, Ellac let the words hang for a moment before turning to face his Jedi companion. “You’re right.”
Eeno blinked, trying to process what he just heard. “What?”
“You’re right…,” Ellac repeated. “I don’t like anyone. I don’t care that this is a trap, and I don’t care that Arnid could die.”
Eeno’s chest heaved, his thumb instinctively sliding toward the ignition switch of his lightsaber before Ellac raised a metal hand to interrupt him.
“But that doesn’t mean that I want him dead. Why do you think I sent HK with him?”
Eeno’s red eyes squinted in scrutiny of the Imperial’s question. “Not wanting him dead is not the same thing as caring.”
Ellac let his hand drop back down to his side. “I told you before: Save the bleeding heart speech; If you’re looking for a friend, go find another clan. But for now, you have an ally while our goals are aligned. If that’s not enough for you, then we can have a rematch right here, right now…,” he said, turning back to continue down the hallway. “…But you had better not miss a second time.”
“Which one of you two idiots should I shoot to stop this?” Their bickering had blinded both of them to their position just a few meters from the room Arnid was at. He had his blaster out and pointed at the Sith but his eyes were on Eeno. HK-98 pointed his blaster at Arnid but was stopped as Arnid commanded, “Base one-nine-nine” prompting the droid to enter sentry mode. ’Something as old as an HK unit is very easy to manipulate, unlike Layla,’ Arnid thought as the droid started to walk off down the corridor. “You two fight another war between your oh so precious cults and watch the galaxy burn I guess. Or y’know we could stop the galaxy from being taken over by a madman. If that is not too much to ask?”
Ellac’s brows pinched together as his Assassin droid marched past him without so much as an ‘Objection:’. “How did you-?”
Arnid kept his blaster trained on the Sith. “I’m very good with machines… Now, do I have your attention?”
“Go on,” Ellac responded plainly.
Shooting a look toward Eeno, Arnid lowered his blaster. “Eeno, you’re with me; Titus will be expecting me, and he knows that you and I would be traveling together. You…,” he said, turning back to Ellac. “…are going to be the ace up our sleeve. Find a position to strike, and wait for the right moment, but do not make a move until Titus does.”
“And my droid?,” Ellac retorted.
“I activated his sentry protocol; He’ll keep roaming the nearby corridors to keep our flanks covered. Any other questions?”
Eeno looked at Ellac, then back to Arnid. “I know you well enough to know you’ve thought about it, so what’s Plan Besh if things don’t go as planned?”
Arnid’s pale eyes stared sternly into Eeno’s visor. “We destroy the station.”
The Chiss opened his mouth to argue, but quickly shut it again. He knew that if this was his backup plan, then Arnid had already made the calculations for every other option. “Well then, let’s make sure things don’t go wrong.”
Arnid and Eeno kept going the direct route. Once they got to the door Arnid counted to five, having tracked Ellac’s walking and running speed knowing he would be getting to his door about now. The door opened and the trap was sprung.
There was no ambush, no explosion. A ray shield trapped Eeno and Arnid could see that the same had happened to Ellac at the door he chose to the right.
“Ah ze prodigal son returns,” an older man was standing before him. Receding, greying black hair was above a face. A face with pale white eyes staring back at Arnid. It was like looking in a mirror but seeing himself old. “I trust you see our similarities? It is not a coincidence.”
Arnid tried to raise his hand to aim his blaster at the man opposite him. His arm did not move.
“You are trying to shoot me correct? It is what I would do,” the old man said, “You cannot kill me. You vere designed incapable of it.”
Arnid forced himself to think. Forced himself to enter that state he so often desired. He could hear his own heart pounding then it slowed. Thump, ’three cybersoldiers one Titus, twenty two staff where are the other nine?’ Thump, ’the staff are completely emotionless, shouldn’t they be scared?’ Thump, ’was Titus part of project willpower? Willpower the project I was almost in, the stripping of a person’s free will. It couldn’t be that.’ Thump, ’the shields they have to be a new addition. Look for anything out of place.’ As he makes his decision he hears the thumping speed back to its normal pace, or rather his mental speed slow. As he returned he saw a panel next to the door Ellac was trapped at. He raised his blaster and fired releasing the trapped Sith from his confines.
The wall of red energy flickered as the power wained from the ray shield.
“Kill ze Sith!” Titus commanded, stepping back to hide behind his cybersoldiers.
The server room erupted with blaster fire as they open up on Ellac, but the Sith’s weapon was already in hand; Stray bolts tore through computers and personnel alike as Ellac effortlessly knocked them away with his double-bladed lightsaber. An outstretched hand commanded the Force, ripping the blasters out of the cybersoldiers’ hands as he marched toward them.
Eyes wide, Titus scrambled for the door as Ellac ran through his body guards without breaking stride, but something tugged at his heel, yanking him off his feet.
Ellac drew his clenched fist back, dragging the old man back into arm’s reach.
Rolling onto his back, Titus gazed up at the mangled man standing over him, stricken by the up-close look at the mural of old scars and new cybernetics. “Truly… You are a vork of art,” the Dr. said, looking back over at Arnid. “Marvelous…”
Reaching down, Ellac grabbed him by the throat as he attempted to dig his non-existent claws into his prey. ‘“…and while he has reinstalled claws to your hands, he is not going to tell you until you leave…”’ Layla’s voice replayed in his mind. “Arnid… Tell me how to activate my claws.”
Lost in the flood of thoughts and emotions, Arnid blinked for a moment before processing the question. His pale eyes drank the scene in as Titus had finally been brought to his knees, and suddenly, his earlier apprehensions about giving the Sith his claws back vanished. “Just think it, just like how you use the Force.”
Ellac’s head cocked slightly to one side as he considered the information. Concentrating his thoughts on his hand, vibroclaws sprang out from the tips of his fingers, immediately piercing deep into Titus’ neck.
The old man gasped in fright and pain as blood began to seep down his white uniform, kicking and scratching helplessly to break free from the iron grip. A desperate grab snagged the blindfold at Ellac’s eyes, pulling the cloth away to reveal the hollow sockets that lay beneath crisscrossing claw marks, invoking another frightened yelp from him.
Rising to his full height, Ellac dragged the Dr. across the room back to Arnid, tossing him at the base of the ray shield at the younger Arkanian’s feet.
Eeno was trapped behind a the shield, knowing it was near useless to try to stop it. He sat down cross legged and closed his eyes, focusing on controlling his every breath and heartbeat. He had found using his ability in this was soothing. His danger sense jerked him back but it appeared nothing was wrong. The door in front of him had closed and the shields around him were still up, the one at the door must be on the other side. Then he tasted something sweet and almost like the air on Mustafar, it had a sulfur taste to it. It began to be hard to breathe, he took off his helmet and grabbed at his bag to get to his rebreather. He found it but the world was already fading. The last he saw was a young man who looked almost like Arnid but had a scar across his face.
Titus looked between the two men before him. In the midst of bleeding out and coughing blood, the fear drained from his face and was replaced by laughter. “Than you for giving me ze Jedi.” Were his final words as his life faded away.
Arnid feeling no emotion looked up. Past Ellac, though he would need to tell Ellac to clean that hand the blood could short his circuits if it dries inside. Twenty two people were in here still alive. He finally focused on Ellac, “We need to get the Envoy Corps here and tell them that collective agents are on the hunt for Jedi.” He turned his comms system on, “Layla a ship out there is about to jump to hyperspace please track its route.” He looked back at Ellac, “You can either stay here and leave with the envoys or you can come with me, your choice.”
Tying the blindfold back over his vacant eyes, Ellac could sense Eeno’s presence fading as his kidnappers’ ship made the jump. Looking down at the corpse at his feet, the Imperial frisked Titus’ pocket, finding his administrative code cylinder. “Find HK and get back to the ship; I’ll catch up after I’ve destroyed the program.”
Arnid skeptically looked him over for a moment.“I should handle the program.”
Ellac ignored him, moving over to the central terminal. Plugging the code cylinder into the computer, he began punching the command input for the station’s self destruct protocol. “Run.”
Arnid’s eyes went wide as he realized what the Sith was doing but was helpless to stop him from this side of the still active ray shield. “There are still people on this station.”
“I said run.”
Realizing there would be no stopping him, Arnid complied reluctantly, heading off back through the halls to find HK.
Sirens blared as Ellac activated the protocol, leaving minutes to clear out before the station blew itself to oblivion. Turning to get back to the Baet, Ellac paused for a moment, looking back over at Titus’ body as a nagging feeling surfaced in his mind; He hadn’t consciously realized it earlier, but Arnid’s signature in the Force was uncannily similar to the late Dr.’s, and it seemed like Arnid had noticed it too. Knowing that he had wasted any buffer time he might have had, Ellac picked up his pace to regroup with the others.
On the Argentum Baet, Arnid had already primed the engines, lifting off the ground at the precise moment that Ellac’s foot had reached the ramp.
“Master Vus, I have tracked the route of the ship that took Master Eeno; Jump calculations are complete,” Layla said.
Throwing the throttle, the ship launched out of the hangar. “Hold on to something!” Arnid called as Ellac entered the cockpit. Easing the hyperspace controls forward, the stars stretching into ribbons of pale light that streaked past the ship as it rapidly accelerated to light speed.