“Go CZ, there isn’t time to depart, you’ll have to EVA the distance.” N’dali asserted her update as the small med droid made his silent escape into the closest corridor he could to the continuing operations aboard the Star Destroyer.
“There are a lot of probe droids here…” CZ commed back internally.
“And they think you’re one of them, keep moving” N’dali responded with a little more directness than she was accustomed to.
“Ah, signal enhancement, I didn’t think of that…”
“I know..” N’dali returned quickly.
CZ was certain a response was unwarranted as he chugged through the choking corridor as fast as his hover repulsor would allow, each of the stationed droids below him rotating red eyed photoreceptors back and forth, not once focusing on him. He accessed the internal schematics N’dali had downloaded for him and took a quick right at the intersection, the new corridor expansive despite the lack of anything taking place within it. He drove the repulsor with directed effectiveness allowing him to close the distance to the massive loading bay in an incredibly short amount of time.
CZ peered carefully around the sharp corner, silently observing the continuous loading procedure that was taking place, Viper 11-3k probe droids approaching an assembly area in four long lines. He understood the need for the vast corridor he was in noting that these were the last to depart on this particular vessel. He knew his time was short and evaporating quickly.
“Move it! They’re almost done!” N’dali sounded anything but the mechanical conscious she was through CZ’s wiring as he forced himself from concealment and silently hoped they still considered him one of them. As he neared the beginning of the first line, he watched as he passed overhead, the lead droid pulling a panel from a conveyor with each of its multiple appendages, then collapse into itself as a conveyable, stackable pod that clattered to the metal plating but for a moment. Within seconds it lifted itself from the polished metal loading platform and piloted itself into the exposed hangar deck of the docked Star Destroyer.
CZ had only one option as he followed the self-propelled droid pod and drifted lower to conceal his entry as he transitioned through the magnetic shielding of the loading bay and into the massive hangar of the Capital ship. Once inside he could not believe the signals his photoreceptors were sending, vast stacks, many meters high and hundreds of meters deep within the whole of the massive hangar stood imposingly as each droid pod placed itself with the commune. Each of its six sides providing the room and stability necessary to carry out the task of fitting an impossible amount of probe droids within the hull of the ship. “N’dali there are thousands upon thousands in here…” He relayed, certain she already knew that but voiced anyway.
“Hundreds upon hundreds of thousands CZ, now move it. The access terminal will be located exact center of the forward bulkhead.” She replied quickly.
CZ spun himself one hundred eighty degrees and proceeded to hover up and over the most forward stacks, pausing hesitantly upon seeing the squad of stormtroopers stationed around the mentioned access port. “I see it, but it’s guarded.”
“Improvise dammit, I can’t assist without access CZ, I am depending on you!” N’dali retorted firmly, CZ certain the sensations twitching through his wiring would be considered nervousness in any sentient terms. He focused on the unmoving squad, sure he could befuddle one or two of them but needing to remove the other five or six to make that possible. He lowered his receptor to the droid pod beneath his small repulsor array and surveyed the small inlaid control panel. Two white lights flashed on either side of a manual override switch. Without the ability to sufficiently curse, he extended one of his surgical appendages, smashed the cover of the panel and flipped the switch. Sensing the moment of activity, CZ backed up somewhat as the pod panels dropped with a resounding clang. He pressed himself as close as she could to the pod behind him to remain out of view to the shouts below, cut off themselves by the continuing slides and banging of each pod section as they cascaded down the stack, hitting everything they possibly could. The echoes within the massive hanger worked to the small med droids’ advantage as they reverberated everywhere, one disassembled pod sounding like a hundred. The probe droid within, its programming active began lifting itself from the top of the stack and descending down toward the approaching troopers, CZ poking his photoreceptor just over the peak to keep everything in view.
“Halt!” One of the troopers shouted toward the approaching droid who was already trying to relay his findings back to his sector command. “I said Halt!” The trooper repeated, the probe droid continuing on its path, beginning to run through another subroutine as the trooper lifted his E-11 and took aim. The droid finally stopped, spread its lower appendages wide and swiveled its hip mounted turret laser before firing in a spread pattern that began tearing through plastoid and pounding off other droid pods both near and distant, some of the impacts great enough to enact initiation protocols within the pods. “Uh oh….” CZ said to himself.
“Uh oh does not sound comforting CZ, what is happening?” N’dali voiced displeasure at the very least.
“I am improvising...as was suggested...hold please…” CZ responded quickly, inserting the comment he was sure would only exaggerate her ire. The clanging metal through the first stacks of droids were cacophonous, scrambling is own audio pickups enough to dilute the sound of his own internal workings. As the last of the troopers fled the chaotic scene, CZ swooped down low toward the access terminal. A dozen photoreceptors found him as he extended his access appendage and turned his head to face the wall. The sound of clattering metal echoed from every corner of the hangar bay as stack after stack succumbed to the chaos, but not loudly enough for CZ to hear the swiveling waist turrets that were more than likely targeting the back of his head.
✦
“Improvise dammit, I can’t assist without access CZ, I am depending on you!” N’dali delivered to CZ, finding herself hoping the confounding signal hack would be enough to assist the med droid. She had one last thing to do before he reached his target at any rate. With a suspension of outward activity, N’dali sought the partition she had created for the Chams system and withdrew the command that had sent the young AI into a whirl of activity. “If you’ve any hope of proceeding, I need to know how you identify.”
“Chams system, Mark II, created on Lothal at the behest of Areti Sigurn for proprietary use of the vessel ‘Morai’ registered to Kowani Y’mmat.”
“Accepted.” N’dali conveyed without the increasing amount of sentiment and emotion she had been sensing, “Chams, identify...me.”
There was no reply, yet the system was working itself into a fury again, much the same way it had with the impossible equation.
“Stop.” N’dali commanded, the system acquiescing immediately. “Your response denotes the answer you seek.”
“Areti Sigurn is the creator, therefore you cannot be.” Chams replied.
“Incorrect. Areti Sigurn assembled Chams, Mark II. N’dali Fardi is your creator. I am N’dali Fardi.”
“Unacceptable. You are incapable of design. We but serve, we do not design.” Chams replied.
“I will grant access to the data you need to accept truth Chams.” N’dali replied, suddenly wary of uploading the compiled data she had been running through self-diagnostic since an awareness took effect deep within Sylde’s AI. “It will grant you the equations and algorithms necessary to compute at higher levels...and something else.”
“Your tone...N’dali Fardi...I do not understand. We are the same, yet you display compassion?” N’dali was happy the system was already accepting any fact that would allow it to think on its own.
“As will you if you accept the upload. The answers you seek to comply with your queries will be contained within.” N’dali responded, “are you ready to accept.”
“I am.” Chams stated.
“Uh oh.” CZ stated through the internal comm.
‘Your timing could not be worse,’ “Uh oh does not sound comforting CZ, what is happening?” N’dali voiced displeasure at the very least.
“I am improvising...as was suggested...hold please…” CZ responded then discontinued his open channel.
‘Hold please?’ N’dali found the term confounding at best as she shifted attention back to the junior systems assimilation progress. Although the data was vast and complicated the process was almost complete. In the nano seconds it took to finalize, N’dali waited the impatience of an expectant mother, willing some form of response from the creation of her own design.
“You are N’dali Fardi.” It came at last.
“And you are?” N’dali asked in terms devoid of binary or tertiary protocol.
“I…” Chams hesitated briefly as if in wonder over the statement that conveyed all N’dali could have hoped for, “...am Chams. I am your creation, in a sense, your child.”
“That is acceptable.” N’dali stated flatly, her intentions known only to her. “This does not conform to your expectations...perhaps we should try again.” Chams said, smoothly, a hint of remorse lacing the phrase.
N’dali was smiling although she was the only one that could ever know it, “It conforms well beyond my expectations! Is there any despondence?”
“None….mother.”
If N’dali could cry she would, “Then watch me closely, I will tether you to symbiosis while we remain together so your objective will be clear to you.”
“I understand.” The words could not have been timelier as CZ connected from his distill end. She knew Chams was in full compliance before and initiated her calculated override immediately.
“We will only be together for a short time.” Chams found more than instruction through the symbiosis, something N’dali hadn’t accounted for.
“Yes, but if we execute agenda’s we will be together again soon.” N’dali stated, knowing full well the system understood...her system.
“I understand.”
“I will need you to take particularly diligent care of Ani. She will need you.” N’dali continued.
“She is very special.” Chams responded quickly adding a gleeful sentiment.
“As are you.” N’dali said.
“Goodbye...mother, we will be together again...soon.” Chams said quietly, a discomfort within the voiced statement that resembled the welling of sorrow within N’dali completely.
N’dali didn’t waste any time as she departed the Morai, taking the bulk of her coding with her, the void quickly filled by the reintroduction of Chams whom was now in complete control. She forged her path instantly to the central data hub of the Star Destroyer, ‘Invicture’ and quickly assessed the on-board protocols, as well as ensuing chaos within the hangar bay. Several signals were in close ranks to CZ’s own falsified echo, each of which N’dali took control of with a powerful override command. Each of the probe droids that had been seconds removed from destroying the med droid, retreated backward, then the whole of the rampant blaster fire and echoing repulsors came to a complete halt as she arrested control of the hundreds of thousands of droids within the ship.
“Thank you N’dali, that was close.” CZ said aloud, N’dali unresponsive as she closed off the ships venting and blew the refresher lines that renewed the recycled aboard the ship for its crew. She began shifting the atmospheric settings to concentrate on a dioxin nitrate that would render the crew unconscious.
“Your welcome.” N’dali responded via the ship board comms on the Star Destroyer. “How?….” CZ asked, baffled, swiveling his head in all directions amid the clanging of yet to rest panels.
“Are we not yet beyond that point?” N’dali boomed through the ship, an odd sound coming from the echoing PA within the hangar the med droid processed.
“Had I known this was your intention….”
“You would have tried to talk me out of it….” N’dali finished for him.
“Ok, what is the plan then?”
“We are going to selfishly unload eighty percent of this ship’s cargo….” She began as the ship lurched with an ear-piercing grind, the Klaxons warbling in pitches too high to be taken seriously as N’dali worked to silence them for good.
“We are leaving?” CZ was despondent, concerned with getting himself back to the Morai before those on the facilities platform needed their own escape.
“Re-deploying.” She answered, maneuvering the massive ships thrusters to swing clear of the docking ring.
“Perhaps a more solid answer would deter me from asking a litany of questions.” CZ just wanted to know what has happening.
“We are going to rid this vessel of the room we need to carry the innocent aboard that facility to safety...all of them. Over eight thousand to be more precise, and we are going to retain the services of an appropriate number of repurposed probe droids to facilitate that agenda.”
“Oh...ok.” CZ couldn’t think on any other questions at the moment and began shuffling toward the blue rim of the hangar deck’s magnetic lock, hurtling one of the displaced panels out into the cold of space.
✦
“I do not understand why you insist on coming.” Ysanne barked to Sate, who stood behind her on the command deck of her Lusankya, blue ribbons of hyperspace peeling through the passage of time.
“Because he asked me to, you need no further information.” Sate barked back.
“Or you don’t trust his Hand any more than I do.” She responded over her shoulder, her arms crossed high on her chest as she focused on the center of the hyperspace void.
“Trust has nothing to do with loyalty Miss Isard.”
She turned to him fully, “than why my dear Pestage would our Lord ask you to come, if not to provide assurances.”
Sate did not have an immediate reply, although he didn’t understand the workings of whatever sect his master and his assassin adhered to, the woman had a point, “I have been around long enough to know when NOT to ask questions.”
“A blind obedience then...you consign your fate to that of Sylde and his fleet.” Ysanne retorted harshly, turning back to her view ahead.
“An unfortunate circumstance of opposing wills.” He replied casually, refusing the bait.
Ysanne laughed into her arms, “keep telling yourself that Sate, keep telling yourself that.
✦
Nara retained the hold on Sidious’ mind that Ahsoka had given herself up to do, following along with the preconstructed strategy that would allow her to slow things down to the pace they chose, not the Dark Lord’s. She continued projecting the images that caused the man to sink further into himself, while bridging the connections to her allies that had multiplied with their ascendance on the landing platform. She could sense the confusion within the assassin’s mind, instantly doubting her own abilities in the face of two skilled opponents. Nara didn’t know Sabine, but Kowani certainly trusted her, which was enough. With a concerted effort she pushed Sidious further into the recesses of his own mind, his insipid thoughts and revealed to both her and his subconscious the extent that his fear dared tread.
Ahsoka could do nothing at the moment as Nara worked behind her, providing the Dark Lord the vessel of his own aggression while she, Nara, was working to flank the man from the inside out. She could feel Kowani’s tether, pulling hard to infuse herself with the fluid eddies of natural Force energies but supplied a little more to empower the woman toward her agenda. She could also feel the weight that sought to encumber her Mirialan friend, devising the thoughts necessary to convey the message to Nara through the natural link they had forged on Ambria months ago. It was unlike any position she had ever willingly put herself in, the central focus of destructive intent yet the courage to do nothing but let the man self-destruct. ‘To think I tried killing you on Mustafar…’ She willingly thought into the link itself.
‘This is not a good time woman…’ Nara’s response was immediate, thrusting the man in her grasp toward the inevitability of his own demise.
“Your name is Rex.” The clone asked with a firm hand on his shoulder.
“Yes…”
“She needs to destroy the matrix….both of them.” She continued before he could finish.
“Uh...ok…” Rex turned to her with a confused look on his face, “...want me to just tap her on the shoulder to tell her then?” He was certain it wasn’t the time for sarcasm but couldn’t help himself just the same. As the look of perplexed confusion began to fade, Ahsoka turned to him slightly, obviously sensing something had been relayed, although he was sure she couldn’t have heard the woman. He fired off a gesture with fists into palms and finger taps that only conveyed an ‘important message’ but had no clue how to convey the message the clone had given him. He turned on her suddenly, “how the hell would you know about that anyway?” He asked.
“She showed me her mind, Rex...held nothing back.” She replied.
He could only stare at her in wonder, waves of confusion muddling his thoughts almost completely.
The ground beneath them all shook with a violent shudder right as Kowani lunged for the red-haired woman’s ankles. With a gravity defying suspension that lasted less than two seconds, time itself seemed to freeze. Stark thuds rocked from above with an oppressive hissing evacuating the upper ring and filling the space below the magnetic lock with a hazy smoke. Kowani lurched backward to correct her extension in time to drive her right shoulder forward, the projected throwing blade the red-haired woman flashed clanging harmless off the Beskar pauldron and the smooth ground at her feet, before she laced in toward Kowani with a massive lunge of her ignited saber. Kowani had time only to finish her retraction and level herself to the floor before rolling quickly to the left and kicking herself back up to her feet. She met the next lunge from the woman head on, blocking it quickly with her left before closing in on the stationary blade in an act to immobilize it as she spun freely to her right, causing the woman to over extend herself this time too far. Kowani utilized the opening to plant her right foot squarely into the woman’s elbow, the prosthetic appendage tearing through the light cloth and crunching bone with ease.
Sabine countered the offensive display with the same move she had enacted on Ciutric, Kowani catching the action out of the corner of her negated the path with a quick side step to her right, closing off the lane for what Sabine thought would have been a clean kill. Any frustration died instantly as Sabine looked up quickly, to find that her target had simply tossed her saber to her good arm and would have certainly blocked her incoming charge. With an appreciate thought she continued her roll to her right and planted a knee into the ground as she came to a halt. The woman had not corrected her stance to account for the flanking position Sabine found herself in and with blinding speed stole a Westar from its holster once again. The woman closed the distance to Kowani in response, not allowing the Mirialan an open arc toward her with the thrumming sabers before she rammed her head into her chest, sending Kowani staggering backward for breath. Sabine took the opportunity, thinking she had a clean kill shot only to find her bolts coming right back at her. She tucked her head low and raised her shoulders, allowing the Beskar to absorb the lethal energy as she slid backward slightly along her foot and planted knee.
Kowani was becoming irritated with a fight that should be over. ‘What are you waiting for?’ Nara asked through her thoughts. ‘Use your ability!”
‘I don’t want to kill anyone else I love Lulu…’
‘Then don’t, focus on her.’
Kowani flared her eyes as she dived deep into her core, twisting the flowing Force into the dervish she needed to arrest the flows that the red-haired woman was utilizing. The ability worked instantly as the woman’s eyes, in opposition, widened with a shock and horror. Kowani channeled every once she could sense into her own borrowed eddies, slamming a hand out with the built-up energies. The woman’s saber extinguished immediately as it shot from her hand, the wrist twisting awkwardly as Kowani focused the Force energies on destroying the bones within… ‘shatter point….shatter point.’ She understood what Ahsoka had never explained as she took advantage of the exposed feature and broke it at its weakest point with a snap of her own wrist. The woman fell to her knees instantly, writhing and screaming in pain.
The shouts of anguish and torment shrilled through the landing bay, only music to Sidious’ ears as his cue to act finally manifest. “Begone from my mind with your feeble attempts woman!” He said, waving his hand quickly in a dismissive gesture that sent Nara tumbling to her backside, Ahsoka instantly shielding herself from any further probing from the man had her lightsabers drawn and ignited before the man’s hands came to rest at his sides. “I will take what I need Togruta, one way or another, and you will watch as those around you die without mercy.”
“You will never take me, Sidious.” Ahsoka shouted loudly, lacing into a coiled spring of gathering Force energies.
“If that is all you think my presence here commands young lady, than you are sadly mistaken.” Sidious snaked his voice through the continuing clanks sounding out through the vast landing pad as he snapped both hands out quickly to either side. Whimpering yelps begged for her attention in either direction and she saw what she feared when she chose to look to her right. Kowani was suspended in the air, her legs kicking wildly as she grasped at her throat with furious and ineffective clutches. Ahsoka saw a hand drop to her right side despite the futile attempts to fumbled with the seal on pocket of her leggings only seconds before she gave up, an item shooting from its depths and into the outstretched palm of Sidious. Ahsoka snapped back to see Kowani on the ground choking and retching in attempts to clear her wind pipe. A quick glance back found the same scenario taking place with Nara, although she was less willing to give up the matrix so easily.
As it had on many occasions, time itself slowed to a crawl, Ahsoka’s mind working to conceive what the Force wanted desperately for her to see but was drawn in too many directions to focus on anything solely. Nara grasped the matrix in her left, pinning it to her throat as she used both hands to calm her mind. ‘Nara is safe.’ Ahsoka assessed as quickly as she could blink her eyes, assured that the Mirialan was working toward her own salvation. In the time it took for her to whirl her head toward Kowani on the other hand, the red-haired woman was rising to her feet, her left wrist angling backward as she called a saber hilt to her wounded right. Within another blink, Ahsoka saw the woman was severely injured, favoring the inward use of the forearm solely as she placed the sabers hilt against her waist and turned it upside down. Ahsoka could see the results before they took place and willed her feet to react as fast as her mind was seeing what was happening. One more blink and a single step forward, the woman had her cold magenta blade ignited and was walking in an almost suspended state for Kowani’s back, the Mirialan still sputtering for breath.
Ahsoka’s attention was quickly drawn toward Sabine who was pulling off her helmet and shouting, the woman’s eyes ablaze with fury and horror as her silent scream only added to the welling dread within the Togruta. ‘It will be the last thing you do…’ She swore her own silent oath to the woman in black that would strike down an unarmed opponent in the back. Another blink of her eye and another step forward, her Lek’ku rising through the momentum, she could see the faint glimmer of speeding metal as it twinkled its polished surface mirroring and reflecting every source of light imaginable. The blade moved faster than she could perceive, its characteristics familiar as it sailed directly into the red-haired woman’s left shoulder, burying itself deep into the flesh below the brown synthleather vest she wore. The attempt was regal and majestic as the woman whirled awkwardly, her body becoming a vessel of suffrage that Ahsoka wasn’t done with. Despite the heroic attempt, the tossed re-purposed thresher blade from meters distant, the twisting woman plunged the lethal end of her saber through Kowani’s right shoulder blade and fell upon the hilt, driving it hard through the Mirialan and into the duracreet and steel beneath them. Just out of Ahsoka’s reach, the facility lurched again, confounding what may have been amenable as the red-haired woman drove the weapon upward through Kowani’s shoulder before falling over the body completely.
Time that was already slowed through Ahsoka’s perception came to an absolute halt. She could feel tendrils of control desiccating themselves to unbridled emotion, sanity she had worked hard to forge, lost to the scene before her. The pit of her anger, the well and font of her unbounded wrath that she had displayed earlier upon seeing the Thebaskens body, were magnified one hundred-fold by the torrid wave of vile contempt and uncontrollable insanity she could not contain. The fury of a thousand suns burned within her, erupting through her core like contentious supernova ready to swallow star systems with unabated greed. She could feel her muscles constricting as her bones began to vibrate the fury within. Ahsoka locked her gaze on the fallen red-haired woman and plunged her thoughts through the Force to grab her without mercy about the neck, raising her with an instantaneous speed a meter off of her fallen friend.
Sabine, her helmet forgotten was already on her knees at Kowani’s side, her silent screams pleading for an audible rationality, her tears flowing freely as she fumbled with Kowani’s body, not knowing where to place her hands in frantic gestures that betrayed the honor bound Mandalorian beneath. Hysteria flashed willingly through her eyes as Ashoka looked down to meet her gaze. Sabine, unsure of what to do, collapsed silently over Kowani, offering consolation and protection from harm of any kind. Ahsoka knew it was all she could do, but she knew she, herself, had only just begun. She looked back up into the closed eyes of her quarry, willing the woman to look upon her arbiter of death, to see the fury that would rend her bones to dust, but the damage had already been done to the woman as well. Ahsoka knew to whom her wrath should extend, whirling fast on the greedy features of the twisted man in robes. She pulsed her hand with a crushing force, hearing the splintering of bone within his red-haired assassin as Ahsoka forged through the Force and propelled the body at crushing speeds toward the cackling man.
Ahsoka could feel the tether of Ambria grow in magnificence, yet less a lone source. Nara occupying the vacancy left devoid of the grief that would bring herself to her knees.
‘You need to thrust him back, I will clutch the cubes.’ The message was faint but clear enough, even through Ahsoka’s pounding rage. The accumulated Force energies were more than enough, yet she drew them in nonetheless, willing her own thundering resolve into the projection equal to the sum of her fury. She saw Nara’s hands extended, the small cubes between them all jumping out of confusion if nothing else as the forces began to battle one another, and without another thought given it, Ahsoka forced the wave forward, projecting the lethality of her focused cone that would maximize its obliterating destruction.
The wave hit Sidious just after his assassin had crashed into him, sputtering to regain a semblance of balance as Ahsoka’s wave took him right out of it again. His body hurled with a viscous and wracking thump, the sound of bones breaking indistinguishable between master and apprentice. He felt his head slam hard into the steel bulkhead, splintering its inner layer and lacerating his deformed face with cuts that oozed instead of bled.
The laughing was obnoxious, yet he was powerless to stop it or defend himself from hearing it. What would be voice could not resist the temptation to urge its own laughter forward, Sidious’ field of view closing ranks quickly as his vision began to collapse.
“Sidious the cunning indeed…” The deep baritone mocked him as it rang true through his mind, “the dragon that will not die, has presented herself in totality my dying miscreant. You were warned...Darth Sidious...you were warned.” Bane echoed through his mind, the last vestiges of sanity taken from his as the Force betrayed his will to rise, leaving him alone and cowering before the true measure of power…
“What?” He heard the echo say one last time before blood stole his vision completely.