Amber lights pulsated as the maintenance turbolift declined. A team of Taldryanites had arrived at the Citadel to investigate the depths of Cloudhaven Fortress. Amber turned to flickering crimson as they reached the lowest, still accessible level. Worn-down gears screeched as it slowed down.
“We’re here, and this is where I’ll leave you.” An accompanying Engineer punched in the codes to open the metal doors. “Good luck!”
A sizable decontamination room revealed itself. A heeled boot tapped clanged on the durasteel floor as a tall, black-clad woman stepped forward. Her masked head turned towards the rest of the group. “Prepare yourselves, past this room, there will be heat and radiation awaiting us.” With a long nail, the Governor pointed towards the row of protective radiation suits lined up in front of lockers. A pressurized blast door and cooling units protected the isolated space.
The Sith walked in to pick up a Radiation Detector, and with a hiss of air, sealed her suit and facemask. “Stick close to each other and move fast. We might find more dangers the further down we manage to reach.” Her aristocratic tone came through despite the modulation.
Meshita was used to aristocratic tones. Once you spend enough time around Anders, you kinda just learn to tune out how annoyingly grating it can be to like… ninety-nine percent of the rest of the galaxy. What she was not prepared for was the shiny, seemingly latex-clad woman with lips as black as space.
What even was she!? A hybrid? Some experiment gone wrong? (Or very right, depending on interpretation) Nonetheless, she’d found herself gawking at the behemoth beside her.
Oh. Right. Radiation.
It was times like these that Meshita was glad to have vacuum sealed not-so-rare beskar. She walked into the room, blatantly ignoring Alaisy’s demands to stick together whilst whistling a happy little tune to herself.
“Hellooooooo” She called out, seeing if anyone would answer.
Jorm shook his head as he followed the ceiling-scraper named Alaisy out of the lift, one step behind yet another Mandalorian the Clan Summit had attracted.
Hello, Scrapheap, my old friend… he whistled tunelessly to himself as he inspected the walls, rivets, and cut of the bulkheads - details he had neither the time nor the formally educated expertise to appreciate on his last visit.
Looking inward, Jorm could not feel the ambient radiation directly, but he did feel cells warming up and bursting when hit by a stray particle. Long-time exposure or higher doses would certainly cause visible rashes with the list of fun side effects escalating quickly - however, that was a problem for those who spent their time training in the wrong skills or the Mundane, like the aforementioned Mandalorian calling out her “Helloooooooo” into the darkness.
Frakk off, he thought in the direction of his damaged tissues, and the injury did as coaxed by the Force.
“Dunno about y'all,” the Kiffar called out to the rest of the group, “but I’m not gonna slow myself down with a bright yellow balloon hazmat suit lined with tinfoil, no matter how precious.”
He took the rebreather mask and air tank off one of the suits instead.
“I don’t recommend breathing in whatever’s down here, though. Lung flushes suuuuuuuuck!”
Meshita tilted her head, turned to Jorm and placed her hands on her hip. “Sounds like you have some personal experiences with that. I’d ask for details, but I’m not sure I wanna know.”
The Mandalorian nodded her head, giving a thumbs up to the rest of the team, but mainly it’s leader, <@188018248241905664>.
“No answer. Yep. Everything is frakked down here.”
Jorm snorted out a chuckle.
“I wouldn’t expect anything less. After all, I parked it here.”
He tore the scavenged suit apart at the seams and extracted the chromium foil that constituted its radiation protection, then wrapped himself in the silvery material.
“STATEMENT: DROID INFILTRATION MODE SLASH MANDALORIAN COSPLAY ENGAGED,” he blurted out in robotic monodrone and stiffly waved his arms, “AWAITING ORDERS!”
Cassandra glanced around, taking in the surroundings. The red light was definitely fitting for the scenario, and she was glad she opted to wear her full armor for this mission.
“I read the report,” she started, giving a glance to Jorm as he scavenged, but before he spoke his robotic monodrone talk. “Definitely an impressive endeavor, to be sure.”
As he began goofing around, however, she lightly shook her head with a chuckle. “Execute Order twenty-six, Jorm-droid.”
Circe stared at the display of Jorm’s silliness and grabbed one of the suits and dressed herself in it. She didn’t care what the others would think of it, but she sure as heck wasn’t going to become a glow rod when she got out of here.
Meshita tutted and slowly shook her head. “Seriously, guys. Vacuum sealed armor is so in right now. Its forty-two ABY! Get with the programme. You know what I mean, right greeny?”
<@417336769181122562>
Circe looked her up and down before staring at her face, her suit halfway on. “Don’t call me greeny again.” With that she continue putting the suit on.
Right place right time, or exactly the opposite, it was still too early to say. Either way, the unexpected offer to join something like this that reeked of adventure was too much for Jeckt to pass up, and he had jumped on the opportunity. He listened to the banter from the others as he took one of the suits and put it on, smiling inwardly to himself. These were quite the characters. This would be fun.
“Wow…” Meshita shrugged at the display of hostility. “Tough crowd. Speaking of tough, and I’m just asking for a friend… does anyone know how blasters, explosives, and jetpack react to radiation?”
Dasha searched for a suit fitting of her size, or so she assumed is her size, before putting it on. She didn’t say much of anything with her mind focused on the mission.
“EXECUTING NOW: ORDER 26: ANSWERING FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS THAT REALLY SHOULD HAVE BEEN ADRESSED IN THE BRIEFING;” Jorm blurted out and turned to the Mandalorian girl.
With a twitch of his head, he abandoned the monodrone, opting for a grandmotherly voice that got an additional replay-like quality from the chromium foil over his face.
“As a rule of thumb - no racial discrimination against our thumbless friends intended - hard radiation splits up molecules, which has much more noticeable effect in liquids as they become diluted over time. Examples of affected technology are such devices which use liquid fuels or energy cells working with an acid or gel medium,” Jorm rattled off middle school knowledge.
“Solid molecular structures like plastics and other chemical products will also suffer from this effect, albeit slower since liquids are more prone to brake and catch radiation particles, suffering additional splits along the way. Additionally, radiation will commonly interfere with technology based on magnetic radiation, such as short-range comms, and disturb computing processes on unhardened systems.”
“STATEMENT: KOWLEDGE DISPENSED. AWAITING FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS!”
<@837236610684813342>
“So, basically, we should get out of this sithspit before our stiff breaks? Got it. What’s your orders, Deedee?” <@188018248241905664>
“If we do face droids further down, hopefully the same speaks to them. It would be so much simpler if we just had droids doing random things. Such as having a philosophical debate with Chancellor Na'trej about stiffs and radiation effects? Or about the usefulness of an arc spanner?”
Natsu quickly put on a suit since she did NOT want to know what that radiation can do to her, thinking to herself. ‘I might be a Zeltron party girl but even I don’t want to play around with radiation poisoning, that stuffs no joke.’ After putting on the suit she turned to <@61385159655559168>. “I have to agree with you there madame, hopefully we don’t have to resort to violence but I won’t hold my breath on that.”
Jorm stiffly walked over to a gently glowing computer console while making sirring noises along the way, not done with the droid act.
He extended a foil-wrapped digit to the screen and touched it, to no effect.
“INQUIRY: UNIT DASHA-UNDERSCORE-TALUS, RECORDS TESTIFY TO YOUR AFFINITY WITH TECHNOLOGY. PLEASE ACCESS THIS TERMINAL TO ACCESS CARTOGRAPHIC AND HISTORIC MATERIALS!”
<@77213354619318272>
The team was ready, with everyone prepped in one way or the other. “From this point onward, time is of the essence.” Alaisy tapped in a code at the console with a long nail to unseal the decontamination lock. An alarm blared as the large, round metal door opened. A smaller, shiny, all-chromium room revealed itself with another blast door shut in front of it.
With some effort, the party managed to squeeze in. Behind them, the seal shut with luckily no one caught in between. Air hissed as the last gateway lay bare a waiting room, with some damaged benches, plant pots with dead vegetation, and sterile, white lighting. Whirring and mechanical tapping could be heard in the distance.
But most obvious of all, it was hot, really hot.
The tall Governor stepped forward, heels tapping on duracrete, and turned to face the party. Her radiation scanner was making a slow clicking sound. “As you may have guessed, the sheer heat is why we could not make it further down.”
Her shimmering second skin seemed to shift and coil the light around that it reflected. It was seeped in Dark Side energy trying to keep radiation at bay, like corruption fighting corruption. “We need to find a way to cool this place down.”
Dasha waddled over with her suit being obviously a bit loose on her small frame yet somehow it seems properly done up to protect the stunted Sephi.
The thick gloves slowed her typing so it seemed her typing was more methodical than normal.
She would clamber after the group quickly.
“I can ask Anders to come if you want? He has a habit of draining the life out a room,” Meshita was perhaps the oy one amused at her own joke. “OK, seriously, why the frakk is it so hot? Can we not just make a vent of sorts? You have lightsabers, right?”
Alaisy’s eyebrows flattened behind her mask as she turned her head towards the Mandalorian. “Did it cross your mind that punching holes in reinforced, bulkhead walls may not amount to much?” A gloved hand glided over the hallway wall next to her. “We also have to make sure that it actually allows heat to dissipate, and not increase instead. Think water, ice, cool air. And perhaps a weakened section, or cooling units. The mountain may hold some surprises for us.”
Meshita huffed, placing her hands on her hips. “Well excuse me for trying to be helpful. Honestly, some people are so unappreciative.”
She continued walking besides Alaisy, pouting behind her helmet.
Circe shook her head slowly. Surely weakening constructions wouldn’t be the best solution to solve this problem… it would rather make them bigger.
“Has there been plans to cool it down here? I’m sure it has been known for a while that the temperatures have been rather high here.”
Aphotis’ head turned to Circe. “We need a short-term solution for now. Scientists and engineers have not been able to make much progress. And we are here to learn more of what can be done if anything at all.”
“Well, good luck,” Jorm dropped the act, “Tin Girl’s right on the money, though I doubt she knows why.”
“Wait, I am?‘ Meshita perked up as Jorm faced Alaisy’s disapproving stare head-on and continued.
"Station this size’s gotta vent, it’s too massive to just radiate excess heat. And when it came down in this here volcano, a lotta vents got clogged by the rock, and half of the rest is trying to blow heat into an enclosed space, best case. Worst case, they’re open to magma and letting heat in, he explained.
"Smart play would’ve been to just rip it out with the Starhawk’s tractor” - Jorm threw a sidelong glance at Cassandra - “but we can’t let people think we’re nerds, aye?”
“Very enlightening, but is there something actually useful you’d like to add?” Alaisy’s tone itself got close to cooling the room down.
“Sure. Look for local air vents and recycling substations and nick any pressurized coolant lines so they spray,” the Kiffar replied, “It’ll buy us a few minutes of moderately toxic cold and make everything worse later. Other than that, we could blow every elevator shaft wide open and pump cold air in from the outside, but that’ll push hot air full of radioactives out.”
He smiled up wickedly at the taller woman through the visor of his salvaged mask.
“Your world. Your call.”
Once Mr Know-It-All had finished his ramblings, Meshira crossed her arms across her chest in triumphant fashion.
“I mean, yeah! Of course I am!”
It was a small victory, but she’d take any win no matter where it came from.
“Indeed ripping it out was a consideration, however based on the reports filed by my predecessor and numerous geologists, if we did that we would rip off the bandaid that kept the central core of the moon in check from erupting out into sky. We already have issues with magma flows in the Shada Jungle and melting of the heart lake due to smaller fissures funneling heat out of the mountain.” Cassandra added to Jorm’s comment. “One idea presented was if we can get low enough, bar the severe and extreme heat we have to deal with first, was to find a way to dislodge the reactor and let it drop into the moon’s core. Then the radioactivity would be contained within the center of the moon. How’s that for nerd, for you?”
Meshita sighed and slowly shook her head. “Nerds…”
Jorm blinked slowly.
“So you have issues with pressure and heat from within the moon boiling over, yes?”
“That’s what I said,” the blonde woman confirmed.
“And one idea is to add another high-power source of pressure and heat to the mix by dropping core,” he inquired.
“I am glad to see your hearing is fine, Chancellor,” Cassandra confirmed.
Jorm snorted. “Shoot whoever proposed it. That’s a recipe for a homegrown supervolcano. A radioactive one too. You do that, this station will pop like a cork.
He winked at Cassandra. "Or don’t; Chyron will gladly build you a few arcologies to live through the disaster!”
She tossed him the datapad for him to review. “You’d be correct in that it’d be a bad idea…except the core is dead. You saw to that yourself when you fractured it and brought the station down, which its power has been draining these last several years. At this point, it should be right at depleted which is why our people have managed to descend this far down and why there is minimal power except what’s been established above with generators and a new energy source.”
She glanced around the room to see if there was anything that might be useful at this stage. “And if we get down there and find it isn’t, then of course, we shift ideas.”
“If the core was dead we’d all be roasting in solar wind, and the mantle wouldn’t still spew magma. Shoot the whole team.”
“That…is part of the mystery, actually.” she said as she leaned against a wall and crossed her arms. “Every routed path that confirms a core connection is returning nearly nothing in response, diagnostics the same way. According to those, the core has less than half a percent of energy remaining while the rest has gone completely dormant most likely having leaked into the surrounding environment, thus the radiation levels, and the remainder washed into the moon’s magma core and dissipated throughout its entirety. Yet, you’re right. The mantle still is pushing magma out for some reason and the droids that have been seen before haven’t ran out of energy despite having finite reserves given the amount of time that has passed.”
Meshita began tapping her foot on the floor impatiently. For a group of people surrounded by literal radiation and deathly heat, they certainly liked to spend their whole time talking and not doing a whole lot.
Oh yeah.
Republic.
She almost forgot about that.
“Well, I for one think we should get moving before Jorm-bot over here gets covered in more pimples than he can get rid off with space magic and our equipment goes kaput.”
The black-clad Sith didn’t stick around listening to the entire reasoning or mechanics. Instead she took a hint from Jorm. With a crack-hum she activated her reserve lightsaber and began stabbing any non-operating vents, forcing any coolant to spray out.
“Woo!” Meshita cheered. “That’s more like it!”
“Well, I guess you know what you are doing…” Circe said as she walked towards a different set of non-operating vents and running them through with her lightsaber.
“Let’s hope.” Cassandra said to Circe as she started to do the same as she went down the hallway, igniting one of her red and blue mixed-color sabers to do so.
Between the slashing and buzzing of lightsabers, the intensity of clanking metal intensified. It seemed like something was reacting to the mess they were making.
So either the diagnostics are fucked, we’re being deceived, or there’s some Force Frakkery ongoing, Jorm concluded to himself while watching the impatient women go to work.
I’m just on vacation here, but in her case I’d pick a stretch of land I hate and start drilling valves.
Then something caught on the edge of his perception. Just for a fleeting moment, but enough to immediately draw his attention, and he tried to find it again.
Hisses and creaks filled his ears. Sprays and moving lightsabers dominated his sight. And those slight vibrations under his feet…
He turned and grabbed Dasha by the shoulder.
“You. Terminal. Maps. Now.” Then he lifted the scattergun to his shoulder, loaded with monstrous slugs for the occasion, and closed the gap to the vanguard.
If there was anything to be felt, Meshita couldn’t hear a damn thing over the sound of the lightsaber next to her damn ear.
She saw Jorm-bot move and grab Dasha, however. “Whats got you so worked up all of a sudden?”
<@414705077484257280> <@77213354619318272>
“Eh, just a fluke. Thought I felt metal steps for a second, but it’s probably just Alaisy’s heels.”
“I just had a thought, is it possible for a rougue Droid to hack the sensors and falsify readings?
Jeckt listened to the conversation more intently than he appeared to as he slowly walked around the room. As others began to cut vents, he simply took in what he could of his surroundings alongside listening to the detailed explanations being given. Hearing Jorm’s sudden alarm and draw of his weapon, Jeckt paused. He heard him brush it off a moment later, but he’d spent enough time in inhabited caves and trap filled ruins to know that caution always warrants further consideration when your gut alerts you to danger. He didn’t know the kiffar well enough to know if his gut was trustworthy, but he did know they weren’t bringing anyone green on something like this.
He walked carefully around the room, listening beyond the standard sounds of machines whirring. And there it was. Just behind the wall, something else. He quietly but quickly moved up to the wall and rested his head against it for a brief moment. Something else was making noise behind it for sure, something not quite rhythmic enough to be the facility simply functioning. He drew his rifle and turned to Jorm.
“He’s got the right of it. We’re not alone.”
“Huh so that little feeling at the back of my head telling me we were being watched was not paranoia? Good to know.”
“Before you ask that feeling only showed up when Jorm got on high alert.”
Jorm grinned at the other man.
“So I’m not bonkers on this one? What did you find, and where?”
He tapped Meshita on the shoulder as he asked to draw her in.
“Oh, we’re being watched, are we?” Meshita grabbed her WESTAR blasters like the good little Mando she was and twirled them on her fingers. “Well, it was VERY FRAKKIN’ RUDE NOT TO ANSWER MY HELLO!!!”
Once the slashing of sabers and initial hissing of coolant died down, the party could hear mechanical movement behind the first two rooms. One such sound was definitely scrubbing the floor. Another was the distinct bumping of a metal chassis into furniture. A low-pitched GONK was also audible.
Even over Meshita’s yelling.
“Right, Rogue Droids Force sensing utterly useless from the get go.”
“Shush,” Meshita said, placing one finger to where her lips would be under her helmet. Forcies really did rely too much on their space magic sometimes. “Listen for treads or footsteps.”
Natsu quickly followed suit, in this case any advice from a Mandalorian was to be taken as gold. “Sounds like they are in the next room.”
“Any ideas on how to get to them?”
“I have an idea.” Alaisy walked in front of Natsu and punched the console. A door slid open. The first room was filled with about a dozen GONK droids, and a few scrubber droids with their charger wires attached to the battery droids. Somehow they were fully charged, but lacked any distinct programming.
Natsu blinked. “That works. But this is just weird.”
“Not entirely useless, though.” Her heels tapped the duracrete floor as she walked up to one of the GONK droids. She patted it and with some effort steered it towards the door. The first one went through, and then she steered another out. It ended up walking into the wall further in the hallway. But at least there was now enough room to reveal a charging station. The scrubber droids spread out in panic, trying to spray foam over the coolant. Unfortunately, their foam supply had run out and they stood there pretending to be useful.
“Huh…” Meshita placed her blasters back in their holsters. “That’s disappointing.”
Natsu just stared at the scrubbers in confusion. “Yep definitely weird.”
Jorm shrugged and opened the opposite door.
Might as well pretend being throrough.
A slightly smaller room opened up, with one charging station and a whole bunch of B1 and B2 droid parts. Every chassis had at least one piece missing, a head here, a torso there, a leg, etc. Some cooling vents still looked functional but were switched off.
Meshita chuckled to herself as she entered the room. “Hey, Jorm-bot. Need any parts replacing?”
<@414705077484257280>
“You wouldn’t mind? They look like your family after all,” Jorm stabbed back, then turned back to the group.
“Incomplete droids, CIS types, scavenged for parts.”
Natsu walked over and activated the cooling vents, more cool air in a heat induced area is always a good thing.
“…scavenged by what? Nothing living has been down here yet except us, and the droids that were here at least according to older records didn’t have the individual capacity to be capable of that.” Cassandra asked, mildly confused. “And the bigger question, now that we’ve confirmed they do indeed exist down here, how do they still have power after all this time?”
Something wasn’t adding up, she knew that much.
Jorm pointed at the charging station in the other room.
“Stick your finger in there and find out. Either you’ll find out that the diagnostics are kark, or you’ll get possessed by some ancient Dark Side crap only heard about in old Alchemy tomes. Either way it’ll be fun!”
Natsu gave Jorm a deadpan look. “ your idea of fun and my idea of fun are two very different things.”
Not even bothering a response to his idiocracy, she merely looked around the room taking everything in as she considered. She then began moving down the hallway towards the next room, pressing the button to open it.
Jorm winked back at the Zeltron.
“Give me a few days, you’ ll learn to love it.”
The door slid about ¼th open and then got jammed. The pad wanted to electrocute Cassandra, but it too short-circuited before it could.
“Highly doubtful.”
It wasn’t exactly blast door material, merely a thin sheet of durasteel. Electricity buzzed and crackled around it, but the room behind the malfunctioning post was lit brighter than the others.
“Anyway to pry that door open?”
She sighed, and with the force amplified her strength as she grasped onto the door to pry it open.
As the door literally slams its way open, buckling in multiple spots as if she were a she-hulk, she takes in the interior of the room by looking around before she enters, just in case. What was here?
Two large tables full of droid parts, and power tools lying next to them. All of the equipment is powered on and it looked like it had been in use recently. Three large cabinets loomed in the back of the space, locked up tight.
On Cassandra’s right side, all the way in the back, there’s another door. Red and white stripes signifying its importance. Lettering in basic spells out “Warning: Anti-freeze”
Heavy clanking could be heard in the hallways past this room. It was as if a single tap was amplified about five times, almost like a group of military personnel walking in formation.
Jorm slithered into the room past Cassandra’s bulky frame and picked up an arc-spanner.
Once held in his grasp, the object had few secrets before him.
“Used. Mechanical hands, probably more droids. Outright on a schedule. Every two hours, and those are…” he paused as he registered the clanking from the hallway “…up.”
Jeckt lowered but kept hold of his rifle and began walking carefully but purposefully along the hallway as others began checking doors. Not attempting to open anything closed, he simply tried to walk the stretch as far as he could to get a glimpse of what awaited them, checking corners to make sure he wasn’t in anything’s line of sight before he turned it.
Jeckt pulled his head back in time to avoid the notice of the droids, but he knew that they were about to round the corner and he likely wouldn’t have time to both warn the others and for the team to set up before the droids spotted them. And given the situation, he imagined they’d shoot just about anything organic on sight. He cursed under his breath and let out a loud whistle to his team, then aimed his rifle around the corner, firing it off in its scattergun mode at the approaching droids.
Meshita was going to make a comment about how right Jorm was. Her family didn’t want her anymore. After all, she’d removed her helmet to save her sister’s life and how was she repaid? By being excommunicated, spat on, and shamed. No-one was allowed to remove their helmet. No-one was above the creed.
She thought saving her sister’s life was more important.
Nope.
Not even Liana agreed. She wanted nothing more to do with her after saving her goddamned life.
Frakk em all. To hell and back.
“Your not wrong there…” Meshita muttered under her breath before following after Jecht down the hallway.
Natsu quickly made her way to Jecht. “How many?”
Meleu had hung back from the rest of the group. His towering might and itchy finger on his saber hilt was not going to be much help to the more cautious of the group ahead.
The sound of projectile rounds quickly reached the ears of the Sith, who hurriedly made his way towards the excitement.
The blast spread around the hallway, hitting a pit droid square in the eye, and bursting into a pile of scrap. Two B2’s on the front row were scraped by the ensuing barrage, pushed back slightly from the impact. Burn marks adorned the once-white walls.
If they weren’t hostile before, now they certainly were. Their blasters extended from their wrists and they began charging after Jeckt, while the remaining two pit droids ran the other way.
Meleu proceeded towards the engaged group ahead of him. Jeckt had pulled back to the safety of the group after firing off a volley from his rifle - still eagerly aiming it in front.
The first of the droids, an aged and now-scarred B2 Battle Droid rounded the corner with both arms parallel to the ground, ready for vengeance against its aggressors.
Simultaneously, Meleu was athletically gliding towards the action in an oddly arrogant and non-chalant way. His right hand still tickling his saber hilt as he leaped forward onto the first droid.
He broke his fall on top of the droid with a blast of telekinetic energy that shattered the droid’s torso, and with it, the electrical components inside.
Still crouched on top of the now-downed droid, Meleu’s caught the gaze of another B2 opponent behind the first.
His next action was swift, his saber hilt snapped from its holster into his right hand. Still crouched, the crimson hue of his saber sang to life and immediately met the legs of the second B2 droid, severing the droid’s movements and bringing it to his knees. The Sith stood up. With a second swing of the saber brought the end of the droid’s existence - its head completely detached from the body.
The Force once again was to save Meleu’s life. A barrage of blaster bolt fire rained down the corridor to the lone Sith who preemptively rolled backwards, into a safe haven back again around the corner.
Meleu, now safe and out of breath looked up to Jeckt,
“Good work. That was fun!”
Circe followed the rest of the team and watched the others taking care of the droids. So far it seemed like they didn’t need extra help with dispatching them. So instead she glanced into the room were Jorm was standing.
As soon as the noise began, Cassandra’s focus immediately shifted back outside. She exited the room as several additional rounded the corner and began firing. With a stare and her palm facing outward toward the droids, the blaster bolts instead stopping their movement and going right back at the droids, one of them getting knocked over after being pelted with the bolts.
Meleu regained his composure immediately. He stood up with his saber afront and back against the wall - ready to get back into the action.
He had witnessed Cassandra having her fun and was eager to join back in, but thought it was best to leave the others to have some quick and easy entertainment.
While the B2 droid was marred by its own blaster bolts, it was much better at taking a salvo than a lightsaber’s blade. It stood back up and looked ever more menacing with its singed metal chassis.
The droids may not have been putting up much of a fight so far, but the facility itself was not so easily dealt with. After much of the coolant ceased to spray out of the destroyed ventilation devices, the heat built up, and so did the radiation.
Clicking increased in frequency on Alaisy’s radiation monitor. She adjusted the volume on her voice modulator. “This fight is not our main concern right now, the radiation is getting out of hand.” The tall Sith ignored the combat and went into the room where Jorm was. The crimson and white door. “Jorm, get that door open, blow a hole in it if need be.”
<@414705077484257280>
Alaisy’s tail swung from side to side, dissipating heat as much as it could. Her will was set on the Force, and her living alchemical suit swirled within the Dark Side as it revitalized the damage from the radiation as fast as it could.
Meshita was torn. Did she attempt to help against the droids? Or did she need to answer Alaisy’s call? Sithspit was getting hot, and fast! She could feel the sweat dripping from her face beneath her helmet.
“Alaisy, everything alright over there!?”
Meshita settled on a question instead.
“One open poison locker, coming right up,” Jorm confirmed and drew his lightsaber. The captured rod of sun sprang forth from the handle and cut an oblong circle into the object of Alaisy’s disdain, the center of which he promptly kicked into the room beyond and followed suit.
“No, it is not alright Meshita, we need to keep moving and find a way to cool this facility.” Alaisy pointed at the hole Jorm just made for them. “For now, let us put the anti-freeze to use and see if the water still runs, so we can mix it and turn it into coolant.”
<@414705077484257280>
“Did the rads get to your head already? Anti-freeze ain’t coolant, it’s just toxic booze that you can distill into something slightly less toxic on long journeys!”
He inspected the vats and lockers in the room.
“Oh look, overpressured line,” he called out over his shoulder when he found a pressure gauge, “guess it’s cooking somewhere. If we start that cycle up, best case we equalize the heat a bit. Remember, no way to vent unless you hate this continent!”
“This might sound like the radiation did do its work on me. But it may have weakened the structural integrity. That could work for us, or against us.”
“Honestly, whatevs,” Jorm replied, distracted by the sounds of battle on the other side of the wall.
“Aint gonna do us any…” he started, then snapped towards the far wall between two vats and lanced his lightsaber not just through the wall, but the heavy droid chassis beyond, “good.”
With Jorm piercing the chassis of the B2 furthest away from the group and Natsu electrocuting the already weakened one, there was only one last droid left standing between a pile of scrap.
Meleu stood dutifully firm against the radiation, but the heat building up in the room was slowly forcing a leaking sweat from his forehead inside his mask.
Perhaps a little bit uncomfortable, he moved slightly back away from the final B2 droid that had come around the corner - his saber in a defensive stance.
Dasha was annoyed she couldn’t use her datapad since the radiation would fry its circuits. Instead, Dasha was just following the group and keeping an eye out.
With what Jorm mentioned, Dasha got quick to work on manipulating any and all controls nearby.
Natsu felling sweaty and nauseated quickly sent out a Force Lightning at the last battle Droid causing it to temporarily malfunction allowing her to quickly finish it off with her Lightsaber. “Right last Droid down and we have to deal with an increase in radiation, not fun.”
With the last of the B2’s felled, the way through the hallway was now clear. Two pit droids made their way out, and there was no telling where they went or what they did. Somewhere nearby to the northwest there was also an overpressured water pipe, possibly worth investigating.
Temporarily the radiation seemed to dial down at least, having only been excessively high for a short amount of time. It was still hot, but the heat seemed to be congregating somewhere else for the time being.
Meshita’s eye was immediately grabbed by the two scampering pit droids. “HEY! Get back here!”
She immediately gave chase, following them wherever they may venture.
The pit droids ran as fast as their little legs allowed, somehow barely avoiding bumping into each other before they split off to two different rooms.
Meshita decided to follow the first droid into the room it went into.
It was quiet in the crimson-lighted room. Too quiet. The moment both of her feet were planted inside of the room, the door shut itself. And another opened. A hatch above Meshita opened. There was the sound of many little metal legs above her.
Two B2’s awaited her, one bumping the pit droid on the snoot, forcing it to compact itself. Four B1’s followed with a cacophony of “Roger, roger’s.”
A Battle droid commander with its yellow stripes realized its superiority. “Roger, roger, hands up!” It shouted to Meshita.
Hearing the commotion ahead, Meleu gave chase to the Pantoran who foolishly followed the pit droids blindly.
Perhaps some more fun for Meleu.
Meleu arrived only a second too late as the door to the crimson room shut in front of him. The other door ahead of him in the south opened up. Two assassin droids and a duo of droidekas soon awaited him.
One climbed onto the wall to the left, while the other climbed onto the right. The droidekas activated their shields.
Meleu moved backwards in a rolling motion, smoothly away from the impending threat from the walls either side of him.
The droidekas ahead would be untouchable for now, their shields impenetrable from the range the Sith found himself at. Or so he thought.
His saber pointed defensively towards the threat ahead in his right hand, a flurry of blaster bolts sailed past him.
Guiding his left hand over to the assassin droid to his right, he flung the droid from distance off of the wall, slamming into one of the droidekas behind - temporarily causing it to lose its defensive shield.
The Sith continued to move backwards, vigilant of the threat ahead.
The IG unit slowly clambered off of the droideka and sidestepped away from it. Its head twirled, aiming its many optics at the Sith. It made for a dash, hoping to get behind him. The droideka reactivated its shield and pivoted its blasters back in position.
The assassin droid still attached to the wall noticed its fellow IG unit’s tactics and made spider-like motions to create more distance between it and Meleu.
The already shielded droideka fired off another salvo, placing its back against the wall, next to the door.
Meshita slowly raised her hands, doing exactly as the droid commanded.
Then pressed a button on her left vamvrace, releasing a swarm of miniature missiles towards the larger-than-life sized battle droids. They exploded upon impact, scattering parts across the room in spectacular fashion.
The Mandalorian grabbed her blasters and held one towards the last battle droid and one towards the Millicreeps. “You know, I can do that again. I suggest you call them off.”
“Uh, get her!” The yellow-painted B1 commanded the other leftover B1, who simply looked on confused. The trail of millipedes stopped dropping down, only two making it down to the floor at Meshita’s boots. The others simply peered down and then turned back.
Aided by the Force, time slowed for Meleu, allowing him to fine tune his next steps. A flanking manoeuvre from the assassin droid behind him had to be dealt with first.
Seeing an opportunity, he foresaw what would happen, similar to a master of Pazaak. It begun with another barrage of blaster bolts that approached Meleu from the droideka ahead.
With a swift flick of the wrist, the blaster bolts deflected off of the crimson-hue blade wielded by the Sith into the direction of the IG unit behind him. The bolts crashed into the upper right shoulder of the assassin droid, setting it momentarily off balance but not severely damaging it.
In a motion that looked like something out of those space-western Tattooine holofilms she adored so much. She never looked down the barrel of her blasters as she destroyed one millicreep and the other sulked away in fear.
That’s right. Run.
“Now then. If you don’t want to end up scrap like your friends, I suggest you tell me what I want to know.”
The moment it realized there was no way out it went into apoptosis. Its little legs simply fell off its frame as it came apart. The B1’s collapsed into a pile. “Uh oh, not like this. Farewell.”
The Mandalorian Just stood there for a moment. That was a shame. She hadn’t gotten to use her bad cop routine in a while. Oh well.
She shrugged and went on inspecting the room, smirking to herself behind her helmet. That’ll teach droids to think they were better than her!
It was then she had an idea. Where the hell was her commlink, she needed to contact <@77213354619318272>…
SLICE
Meleu had enjoyed his party trick from a second before too much. The other IG unit had leaped from the side to attempt a reaching slash at Meleu, catching his right shoulder, inflicting a flesh wound through his robes.
“DARN IT!” Meleu shouted, reactively spinning around to let gravity do its work to allow the assassin droid to fall behind him.
Rage filled the marauding Sith, he instinctively launched an anger filled side kick into the back of the now-landed assassin droid, forcing it to the ground.
—————————————- Feelings of anger, hatred and pure fury filled the Sith, but the power of the Force controlled and channeled these thoughts into a juggernaut-level of strength.
The IG droid tried to scramble to its feet. To no avail. Meleu’s previous defensive stance automatically had transferred into an aggressive, this-man-means-business position instead.
In a whirling and cyclonic move, the Sith hurtled his body over the rising assassin droid to meet it face to face. The eye contact did not last long. A clean horizontal slicing action with the buzzing-red saber blade of the Sith caught the metallic neck of the droid immediately.
Before the droid had even fallen, Meleu spun back around again, now facing the remaining assassin droid further down the corridor. The marauding Sith continued his chase for death, whether it was his own or someone else’s.
He cared not to face this final IG unit in melee combat, the Force was flowing through him better than it ever had before. A surge of telekinetic energy expelled itself from the Sith in the general direction of the droid ahead, sending it flying into the back wall of the corridor, finally embedding the droid within the wall.
The droid stopped moving.
The blaster fire from the droidekas however, did not.
Meleu could feel his own strength waning, and whilst impressed with himself, realised he needed to make his way to safety - and he did - beginning his escape back to where he had come from.
“There it is!” Meshita grabbed her personal commlink and placed it against the mouth of her helmet. “Hey, Dasha? Mind coming to find me? Could use your slicey slicey hands for something.”
<@77213354619318272>
“Hell if I know, I’ve got an engineering degree, not a plumber’s certificate. By the way, do you enjoy pissing luminiscent colors? I can arrange that without the radiation poisoning.”
With a twirl of his fingers and a moment of focus, Jorm took control of the water spray and forced it back into the pipe.
“You patch it up now.”
Natsu then proceeded to reignite her Lightsaber and bring the blue plasma blade to bear, then used Telekinesis to put the two have of the pipe together. She then brought her Lightsaber slowly down to the pipe to weld it together.
“Thanks I’m going to take a breather real quick let me know if you need me for anything.”
Dasha could feel her commlink go off but couldn’t reach it so she was walking while trying to catch up to the others while her gloved hands were trying to slap and hit herself on a certain part of her… basically coveralls as she tried to activate her comm link.
Meleu turned the corner into safety. He needed rest, to level his head, and most importantly some help - which he would never usually admit to.
He rolled his sleeve up to reveal his commlink underneath.
“Hey guys, could use a hand over here! Thought you guys wanted some fun!”
The black-clad Sith tapped on the side of her helmet. “Do not tell me you chased after your quarrel instead of eliminating them at the spot?” A modulated voice replied to Meleu.
First, she was going to open those cabinets. With a crack-hiss the crimson blade erupted from her hilt. Aphotis pressed the burning plasma diagonally through the lock to not damage any contents.
She spotted a bunch of metal plating, adhesives, chips, and servos. Nothing shone more than chromium, and there were some thin sheets there.
Useful
“Is your suit still sealed?” Tir'eivra answered the rhetorical question as she took the materials with her.
. The pipe mended miraculously as pressure subsided and the water became noticeably colder. Strange. A loud cracking, hissing, and whirring came from the northwest, beyond the walls and rooms, almost as if metal bent and twisted.
Natsu may have felt momentarily relieved after sipping the irradiated and warmed-up water earlier. But it was going to make her sicker in the long run as radioactive particles were ingested with it.
Circe tilted her head when Alaisy didn’t check the other closets as they could have information or other useful items in there as well. So she walked over towards them and opened them in a similar way as Alaisy had done before her, opening both of them and checking them for useful or vaulable items.
Meleu’s chirpy tune soon changed into a more dour note. He had been sweating before, and perhaps he had thought it was from the heat in the rooms and the physical exertion from before. This was different.
He slumped against the wall, unsure of himself and how he was feeling. Sweat profusely dripping out of every pore, soaking his robes.
The assassin droid had cut through his suit. Radiation was slowly seeping through the small gash and affecting him.
He needed help. Not to fight - to survive.
He weakly called over comms.
“I really need a hand over here..”
In the right-most cabinet, most of the items she found had (warning) labels on them, with clear instructions written in Basic. Activated carbon filters, sediment filters, cationic and anionic isotype filters, and more chromium plating. Cylinders that could be layered stood up at the bottom, neatly arranged.
In the left-most cabinet, she could find small cooling units, fitted with refrigerants and coils, compressors, condenser coils, and evaporator coils. They were portable, even with handles included. Of course, they would be most effective near some active ventilation, but their potency was great.
Now if only there were some GONK droids nearby to power them…
“On my way, you sound a like nerf in mating season. Hold on.” Aphotis increased her stride with the materials firmly held under her arm.
Metal heels tapped on the duracrete floor as Aphotis made it to the other side of the hallways. The Governor studied the slumping Sith. “I do not have anything that will help with the contamination that has already seeped in, but perhaps we can mend it enough to keep it from getting any worse.”
She removed the cap from the adhesive bottle and placed it next to her. “Stay still and hold this over here.” She gave Meleu a sheet of chromium lining. With some effort, she pulled the fabric together at the tear and stuck the chromium onto the suit.
“This is going to make you a little inflexible over here, but it should keep you safe once we can filter out the decontaminants.” Her hand ran over her shiny black tail. A milky liquid dripped from her hand that she ran over the chromium. She used it to create an airtight seal around the area of the suit.
Given that <@77213354619318272> was so rudely not answering her call, Meshita decided to take matters into her own hands. Seriously! Who taught that Sephi her manners? The Mandalorian had half a mind to give whoever that was a piece of her mind.
Regardless, she approached the closed door and banged on it with her fists as hard as she could.
“HELLOOOOOO!? ANYONE OUT THERE!?”
Meshita backed away from the door. OK, OK. There had to be something here that could open this damn door, or some way she could escape. There just had to be!
The Mandalorian took notice of the large droids that seemed to be lay dormant in their capsules. She’d never seen anything like them before.
Meshita saw a big, red button. She knew she shouldn’t press it but… it was big… and it was red.
“Ooooh what does this button do?”
She pressed it..
With a loud hiss, the sarcophagi opened. Yet, for some reason, the mechanical constructs stayed still. Their large heads seemed to have cube-shaped holes in them. All of their parts seemed to be constructed out of thick, durable metal, coated with a thin layer of chromium. It was almost as if they were cherry-picked from other droids.
Meshita raised her arms. “Rise, my droid minions!”
Nothing happened. Perhaps something in the room nearby would activate them.
Meshita dropped her arms. Well, that was undramatic. She behan to search for a way to activate them. Who knows? Maybe they could be used to their advantage?
If not? Then… Well… She’d cross that road when she got to it.
<@188018248241905664>
Circe looked at all the equipment and frowned slightly. All of it could be useful, especially those filters. Grabbing the filters and reading the instructions she started to put them together for later use.
“I found some cooling units here, they might be useful as well if we find a way to power them,” she called out to the others. “Also found filters, which I’m putting together now.”
With the instructions, Circe had no trouble putting the filters together. Perhaps they could help Meleu out with his predicament, or be hooked up to the water source for a safe supply of potable water.
As Meshita found her way to the smaller room she could see the doorway was clearly rigged, despite the low light. Along the dotted line were disruptor coils that could be avoided if she were to cover the sensors with something.
Meanwhile, Dasha somehow managed to connect the call and heard the familiar beep. “HELLLLOOOOO?” she tried to call through layers of clothing.
Meshita fumbled for the comlink, nearly dropping it into the disruptor coils.
That would have been disastrous.
“Hey, girl! Took you long enough. Been trying to get a hold of you. Where you been!?”
“Thank you,” were the simple words of the Sith, words that Meleu uses with caution and a rarity.
Potentially saving his life, the Governess was now owed a favour with Meleu.
“I think I’ll stay here until I gain a bit more strength. I’ll be fine alone, go back and find the others.”
He still had his back slumped against the wall, but had more of his wits about him now and hopefully enough strength to deal with any adversaries that appeared.
“Hold on a sec…”
Meshita tucked her commlink away and activated her jetpack. She soared well over the traps, gliding across the hallway with practiced ease and precision. It was just like jetpack training back home with her family, right back in the good old days…
No, none of that right now.
She landed, seeing the pit droid about to push a button. Meshita grabbed her blaster. “Hey… I wanna press that.”
<@188018248241905664>
The pit droid holds its little mechanical hands in the air and steps away. Then it makes a bow and finger guns at the button.
“Good boy,” Meshita walked up and patted the little droid on the head. “I like you.”
The Mandalorian grabbed her comlink. “Heads up, <@77213354619318272>. I’m about to press a button and have no idea what it’s about to do.”
Then she pressed the Force-damned button.
Three items were sucked out of the nearby cabinets. There were sounds of metal clanging and a low hum above both Jorm and Meshita’s heads. Then each item was inserted into the sarcophagi of those strange amalgamations of the droids Meshita had seen before.
With a hiss and flop the heads of those B2-like droids began glowing bright crimson. They were rising up, and surprisingly much larger than an actual B2 droid. They had two large arms, but also a small one with a flamethrower sticking out from one side and a plasma cannon on the other side. A missile launcher was built into each of their shoulders.
The pit droid simply sat in a corner and crossed its arms proudly.
Alright, enough lollygagging, Jorm collected himself and in short order cut through the wall he had stabbed through earlier and into the smoldering wreckage of droids.
He turned left, ignored the closed doors to the west, and rounded the corner to the east where he found Alaisy looming over Manny or Marty or whatever was the Sith’s name.
“This the front,” he inquired, to which the tall woman shook her head.
“No. Meshita is further,” she replied.
Meleu coughed and added, “Near the end, door on the right!”
“Thanks,” Jorm replied and moved on, passing even more droid wreckage until he reached the mentioned, sealed door.
Hey, I wanna press that!
The sentence barely caressed his consciousness, so slight he was unsure if he heard it or felt it through the Force - but it fired his adrenal glands about as well as a speeder crash, snorting a Deathstick, or triplets speaking in unison: Foursome?
His hand shot down into his pocket, drawing and unrolling the roll of detonite tape he carried in place of a key ring, and guided by the invisible grip of Jorm’s mind, it plastered itself onto the door in a messy tangle.
He didn’t risk the time to clean it up, but pressed himself against the wall just as he heard - dfinitely this time - I’m about to press a button!
And so did he.
Yet, nothing happened. He eyed the tape and found the blasting cap sparking, but the tape didn’t go off - probably already deteriorated by the ambient radiation.
Son of a Rodian two-decicred-whore, he cursed inwardly and armed a thermal detonator, but stopped himself short of attaching it with peaked ears.
The B3 Ultra Battle Droids screeched “Exterminate,” with their collective low-pitched primitive vocal decoders. They were hulking weapons of mass destruction. And all of their bodies turned to the small room with Meshita in it.
Two aimed their rapid-fire forearm blaster cannons at the room. And the middle one locked on to the lifeform inside, missiles were going to be spilled out of its shoulder.
The man at the gate was ignored for the time being.
The middle droid locked onto Meshita in seemingly no time at all. High explosive missiles spilled out of its shoulder in rapid succession. The other two droids had their mechanical arms raised up and began blasting away at the room with reckless abandon.
The pit droid left in there was blown to smithereens.
The durasteel of the room wittled away from blaster burn marks, holes and then entire plates were swept away by the missiles.
In the cover of the cacophony ringing out, Jorm drew his lightsaber and burned a fist-sized hole through the doorframe.
“FRAAAAAAAAAK!‘ Meshita activated her jetpack as the missles soared towards her. The cacophony of death in blaster and rocket form narrowly avoided her as they collided with the pit droid, destroying it and the area around it.
Damn, she was gonna adopt that little thing to annoy BUDD-E. Oh well.
From her vantage point, she activated her vambrace, wrapping it around the legs of the droid on the left.
"Ha! Got you!”
The droids, however, were not amused and unleashed their explosive barrage of rockets and blasters again.
“Ah, kriff…”
This time, there was nowhere for her to go. She shitvher eyes and braced for impact. The blasters pinged off her beskar armor, but the missiles? They hit her with enough kinetic force to send her careening to the floor.
Thankfully, it worked in her favour. Her sudden velocity tugged on the droid she had her cord around and pulled it down along with her.
The Mandalorian slowly rose back to her feet, bruised, blood dripping from gaps in her armor where the missiles had struck, but she was very much alive.
The big problem? All the droids pointed their weaponry at her again.
“OH. COME ON!!!” Meshita released an exasperated roar.
She started to feel… funny. Not in a good way either. She wasn’t hurt that bad, was she?
When she glanced down, she had her answer. Her suits vacuum seal had been compromised and was allowing radiation to seep in uninhibited.
Hey, I wanna press that!
I’m about to press a button!
Adjacent yet separated from the firestorm within, bathed in radiation and flush with a fresh spike of adrenaline, Jorm had a moment of clarity.
I’m certainly not quite normal, but I’m not the crazy guy who will unintentionally wipe this party here. SHE is.
And I refuse to be wiped by her antics.
He turned the endcaps of the white cylindrical Stormtrooper-issue thermal detonator in his hand to adjust the settings. Explosion radius: six meters. Timer: three seconds. Intensity: MAXIMUM PLUS.
“To whom it may concern,” he muttered, “catch.”
And then he dropped the armed detonator through the sizzling hole and ran like hell.
The droid that was pulled with Meshita as the cord had tightened around its legs also caught the majority of the blast from Jorm’s thermal detonator. It wasn’t going to be able to get up anymore.
Meshita was not in a good mood. Her Clan had told her the stories of the Clone Wars, how droids such as these had torn apart what little settlements remained on Mandalore. How droids like these had taken the lives of many.
Not her.
Not today.
Wrist blasters primed and ready to strike her, she grabbed her WESTAR Blasters, one in each hand. She had an itchy trigger finger that needed scratching. She struck first, destroying the wrist mounted blasters on the droids before continuously striking them in their chassis over, and over, and over again.
By the time she was done, they were little more than scrap. Meshita hobbled over to them, and pulled the trigger on them again, both out of vengeance and out of security. Like hell was she going to take chances.
“Ugh… I don’t feel too good…” her blasters felt hot. She holstered them and staggered over to the door. “Hello? You still out there?”
<@414705077484257280>
Natsu made her way out of the room and down the hall, she was regretting drinking the water from that pipe now. Grabbing a med pack she found started to make her way to Jorm.
Circe grabbed all the filters and other stuff and started to get out of the room towards where the seemed to have disappeared too.
Dasha heard the message then heard the commotion. With a sigh, she did the awkward bulky waddle to join up with presuminably the others.
Meshita banged on the door. “Can anyone open this? Seriously?”
She groaned and slid down, nursing the burns and bruising on her arms where her suit had been compromised.
Jorm heard the banging and the Mando’s dampened voice from the corner.
He shrugged and got out his comm, hitting the BOOM-button for the failed Detonite Tape again just for fun, and was rewarded with a much less abstract and very much enthusiastic BOOM!
“OY,” he erupted, “OPEN SESAMESHITA, MWAHAHAHAHAHAR!”
The door was no longer an obstacle. Whether Meshita could still hear anything was a different story. But she was going to need to get some help with the radiation that had gotten through her gear. Luckily, the radiation and heat were lowering.
The Governor and the rest of the team made their way further into the hallway. Somehow the air was no longer scorching, and the radiation was no longer making the scanner go haywire. Cooler air was coming from the northwest. According to the rough schematics Aphotis had received, that way should simply lead to the bulkhead walls, and then solid rock from Mount Arreat. It should.
When Natsu finally caught up to Jorn she heard the BOOM and a door erased from existence along with the frame and a large section of wall. When the smoke cleared she say Meshita on the floor bleeding through her armor, Natsu quickly made her way to Meshita with the first aid to stop said bleeding. “WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED!?” She exclaimed.
“Natsu,” Meshita raised a hand. “If I have one bit of advice for you, ALWAYS be wary of red buttons…”
“Aren’t you color-blind?”
Meshita tilted her head slightly. “I am?”
“Let’s just say the neurologists will have a field day with you if you ever make it out.”
With the radiation levels dropping and the high temperature inside the tower subsiding, Meleu had regained the majority of his strength.
Curiosity got the better of him, whilst a chunk of the group had gone to revisit the area of his prior showdown with the droids, he decided to wander alone to uncharted territory.
A room just around the corner from him had its door wide open.
He strolled inside, unsure of what to make of the surroundings. There were not any hostiles in sight, nor anything Meleu could immediately make out as interesting - although two different monitors that sat on desks either side of the room could give him some extra information about the importance of the room.
Meleu made his way over to the desk on the eastern wall and began to put his detective skills to the test.
The room was noticeably colder than the hallway. There were cracks in the walls to the west and there was a nasty draft coming from there. Sounds of rattling mechanical instruments could be heard and the howling of wind?.
The monitors had been keeping track of their movements all this time, relaying it to encrypted lower levels of the facility. The only thing Meleu could find out was that any excess power still remaining in the Fortress was siphoned downwards.
It was interesting, someone - or something had been living here this whole time, tracking and recording them, but for what purpose?
The security droids that they had encountered so far had been tough to deal with, and that was only on this single level. The kind of security that lay deeper within the structure was worrisome to Meleu.
The hairs pricked on the back of Meleu’s spine as the Force radiated through his body.
To his west, he could sense the feeling of being outdoors. Lifeforms, a cool breeze and zero radiation could be felt in Meleu’s mind.
With his attention no longer on the monitors around the room, the Sith cautiously, but eagerly, made his was over to the western wall.
The door was closed but the wall structure to its right seemed thin, or weak. Meleu couldn’t make out which.
Perhaps this was the way through.
He looked down towards his feet. A thick cable made a path from the room he was in towards whatever lay on the other side of the wall.
“Screw it,” Meleu relayed the words in his head out loud to the empty room.
He took a couple of steps backwards, before charging at the wall with his shoulder - the full strength of his body behind it.
That was a mistake.
He flew through the wall, which left a Meleu sized hole behind. He crashed and tumbled on the other side, having overcompensated the strength required to break through the structure.
Meleu struggled to his feet somewhat, shaking off a slight pain around his body, before casting his eyes around the room.
The weakened wall broke apart as he burst through it. It seemed to have been weathered down over time, possibly by moisture and a constant fluctuation of hot and cold.
He found that it wasn’t easy to get back on his feet, the duracrete floor was frozen over. A huge hole presented itself in front of him in the bulkhead walls.
The space he found himself in was out of power. Malfunctioning water pumps sprayed heated water like endless fountains. Some of them had severe burn marks on them. Much of the moisture crystallized in the air, shimmering in the light coming from the tunnel ahead of him.
There was also a pulsing amber light coming from the room south of him. Its door closed.
Circe veered off from the rest of the group to go see what the others are up too and to see if they needed any help.
Meleu struggled to his feet, managing to find somewhat of a grip underfoot on the iced surface below.
Whatever he had expected on the other side of the wall, this was not it.
It was perhaps a little bit too much for him to handle alone.
He could sense and hear that the bulk of the group had followed him into the room behind, probably eager to see what the wild Sith was getting into.
“Uh guys, you might want to see this!” He called back through the Meleu shaped hole.
“I’m no surgeon, but I bet you a trugut that we’re better off cauterizing that wound,” Jorm stated with a smile and re-ignited his lightsaber.
<@837236610684813342>
“Good new the med pack has something for that and is painless so that Lightsaber of yours is not necessary.”
“Come near me with that lightsaber and I’ll take the glowy end and shove it up where the sun don’t shine. Turn you into a walking, talking, fluorescent Jorm-bot.”
Meshita then turned to Natsu. “Thanks. I think I burned myself a little bit too. Got any of those cooling gels?”
The Sephi quickly caught up with the other part of the group and tilted her head at the conversations going on between them.
“Doesn’t seem to bad if you can act like that,” Circe said as she watched the two. “Though I could give you some better healing if you don’t mind Force tricks, like all the other Mando’s seem to do.”
Meshita held out her arms to Circe. She most certainly did not mind. “Gimme.”
“Fortunately yes, just don’t ask me to use my head at the moment.”
“They just love their mando'tory brain damage,” Jorm interjected.
“Don’t need to. As long as your hands work,” Meshita stood still, letting the two healers get to work.
She silently found it ironic how she was being deemed the crazy one by Jorm of all people.
“Yeah, Force Healing is a lot better than what the med pack can provide. I however have not been able to learn it yet.”
Meleu decided to press on ahead. The near-blinding light was beckoning him. Carefully, he meandered his way along the icy floor and various obstacles in the way between himself and the opening in the wall.
Circe put her items down and laid her hands on the wounds of Meshita, before closing her eyes and concentrating on the Force to help mend the wounds.
Jorm left the three women to themselves and instead turned his attention towards the next door.
Slightly touching the keypad, he opened his mind and was rewarded with a tingling sensation in his fingers. Following the itch, he punched in an eight-digit code and was rewarded with the door panels sliding open with a quiet hiss.
On the other side, two Droidekas awaited him, blaster arms raised and distorted by spheres of coherent energy. A third destroyer wasn’t facing him and a small pit droid jumped with blinking sensors, but they were not of immediate concern.
Jorm’s hand shot up and his subconscious mind raced through tracks burnt by long practice and bloody experience. His focus sharpened and the Force, connecting everything and always at his fingertips, dislodged the left- and rear most Droideka from the ground and pulled it towards the Kiffar, violently bouncing off his more frontal brother in bronzium along the way.
“Hoy, here’s a get-well-present,” he yelled and tossed the droid over his shoulder towards the terrible trio.
He darted forwards, intending to break through the second ready Deka’s shield and tear it apart, but the bubble of harnessed energy burst and expanded, knocking everything close by away - in his mind’s eye, heartbeats before reality caught up.
He planted his feet and extended his glowing saber, piercing and dissolving the energy shockwave on his plasma blade. The shockwave forced the air from his lungs and his hair stood at edge in the static, but he held firm.
Then he broke through the turbolence and cut the Droideka apart, a clean diagonal through the spine-shoulder joint.
Finally, he followed up by stabbing the last of the destroyer droids, still turned away and shieldless, thoroughly shaken by its brother’s desperate defense, length-wise through the spine.
“Watchu looking at, nightpot,” he asked the pit droid, “you think I’m gonna let you clean this mess up?!”
Much like the room and consoles Meleu found not long ago, the room Jorm stood in streamed all the recorded data down, deep into the Fortress. And then the systems shut down.
A number in Crimson was blinking, counting down from 30. Meanwhile, the blast door further south refused access down to the next level due to excessive heat and radiation.
During this time, Dasha finally caught up in her comically large radiation suit thanks to the cooling temperatures. “What… did… I… miss?….”
“Oh now that’s just cliché as frakk,” Jorm exclaimed and called on the Force again, pulling the defiant little pit droid towards him while it clawed at the wreckage to escape its fate, and hit it square on the nose to turn it off.
Collecting his trophy, he beat an expeditious retreat from the room.
Meshita felt the vibrations reverberating throughout her body. “Hey! What’s going on over there!?”
“Hey! Do you want to get healed up or not?” Circe hissed at her, “Cause if you want it, you need to sit still!”
She silently listened for the briefest of moments to allow Circe to do her thing as the functioning droideka came at them. With a loud groan, Meshita clenched her fists.
“I swear, <@414705077484257280>, if we get out of this alive I’m going to kill you myself!”
“Not much. I think Chancellor Asshat over there likes explosions more than I do, though,” she glared for half a second before returning her gaze to Dasha. “You holding up OK?”
Looking up from her position she extended one finger at the droid and let out a torrent of electricity at it, raking it with lightning. The droid made some odd movements before stopping to work completely.
“You can kill Jorm after you are fixed up enough to go about again,” Circe warned her and went back pouring healing engery into her.
“Catch me if you can,” Jorm laughed at the women as he ran by them, “but mind the countdown!”
The resulting explosion shook the complex, but it did not weaken its integrity. The bulkhead walls stayed intact, but it further blocked their way southeast.
Not that it would’ve offered a way down anyway. The team would be hard pressed to find any information on what had been collected and sent down to the unknown.
Dasha gave 2 thumbs up before looking around to see what she could do. She decided to go to check the recently zapped Droideka to see if she could salvage it’s transmitter for slicing reasons.
Circe muttered under her breath and held out her hand towards Meshita, she didn’t care how much she would protest, but this was faster then hoisting her around. With her other hand outstretched towards the bundle of goods she lifted them all up and started to run towards safety, pushing her load in front of her. It was going to cost her, but better safe then toast.
Dasha was literally a little load, squeaking in surprise as she went from 0 to flying as she was snatched.
“My hero!” Meshita swooned as she allowed herself to be pulled to safety.
Circe rolled her eyes as she continued to run and push everything forward until she rounded the second corner and let everything drop. She fell to her knees as she world became a haze from the extended use of the Force.
“Give me… a moment…”
Jorm was waiting around the corner.
“Hello there, little thing,” he beamed down at Dasha and lifted a finger to forestall an answer, instead waiting for the room diwn the corridor to explode and the noise to pass.
“This right here is Mister Boopenbeep,” he told the diminuitive Sephi and shoved the folded and deactivated pit droid into her arms.
“Why don’t you get to know him and find out what stories he has to tell about this place?”
Losing immediate interest, Jorm turned on his heel and walked towards the ominous draft of fresh air that hadn’t graced the corridor minutes earlier.
Meshita grabbed Circe’s arm and put it around her shoulder and began to follow Jorm. “You can rest when we are out of here! Where the hell is everyone else!? Jorm? You seen Alaisy? Meleu? Jeckt? The Chancellor?”
“Nope,” he yelled over his shoulder, “but I guess at least one’s responsible for the fresh breeze and the others thirst for it too!”
Meshita unwittingly had dragged Circe with her on the search for the others.
Natsu repacked the med pack and followed Meshita and Cirice.
They broke into the room where the rest of the team were.
“Have no fear, Meshita is here! With Circe. And Natsu.”
<@188018248241905664> <@726917162136109117> <@236498422855630850> <@417336769181122562> <@1087501385978892370>
With everyone gathered in the rather chilly room that Meleu Karthdo had discovered, they were left with little choice other than to move on. As he had previously discovered, there were signs of life within the icy passage.
The overpressurized pipes and extreme heat had wreaked havoc on the structural integrity. It had been a small wonder that Natsu and Jorm had managed to fix the water flow after all of that.
“This certainly looks exotic, an ice cave within Mount Arreat. Let us check it out, and do mind your step.” Governor Aphotis used her heels as ice picks as she walked up to Meleu.
“Are we finally ready Govenor? I’ve been waiting for this pack of lazy folk to catch up for a while”.
Meleu gestured over towards the likes of Meshita and Cerce.
“Let’s get to it!” The Sith gleefully proclaimed.
He unclipped his saber from his hilt, cautious of any danger through the unknown ahead of the group.
Alaisy inclined her head at Meleu, slightly taken aback by his sudden spurt of energy and enthusiasm. She made a gentle bow and hand gesture to lead him towards the broken bulkhead walls, into the cave. And then she followed with short steps, feeling out the ice first.
A distant roar greeted the chipper Sith as he wormed along the icy stalagmites.
Dasha nodded and had fiddled and chatted with the droid for a time in hopes of having it just tell them all the info Jorm wanted. She tried to be delicate even with the oversized protective gloves on. Though she’d semi-aimlessly walk/jog behind the others so she wouldnt be left behind.
Meshita was keen to get the kriff out of this isolated space, so followed Alaisy and Meleu into the admittedly chilly winds.
Oh well. The cold never bothered her anyway.
A loud roar boomed through the icy tunnels, then another one. Looks like something had noticed them and they weren’t happy about it.
“Hey, Slicey Mcgee, you might wanna work your magic on that pit droid while we DEAL WITH WHATEVER THIS IS NOW!”
Meshita readied herself for mortal combat and cracked her knuckles.
<@77213354619318272>
Jorm inhaled deeply and lifted the breather mask.
“RAAAAAAAAAWR!!!”
He backed his verbal reply to the unseen creatures by two booming shots from his scattergun.
With his mask replaced, he loaded two of his incendiary shells to the top of the feeding tube.
“Any bets on how much whatever that is likes fire?”