Dawnbreaker Episode Split Destiny/Part 15

CHAPTER 43

In the meantime, the Karas cruiser and the Interdictor were continuing to exchange fire, the larger and much more heavily armed RTSE warship having very obvious advantage.

"Status report." - Bakov intoned calmly from the bridge command chair.

"Shields are at 61%, captain... we've just broken through theirs!" - the officer and the Tactical station called out from the starboard crew pit.

"Both enemy TIE Fighter squadrons neutralized, sir... we've lost only four Gavrans, of our three squadrons." - the officer added.

"Acknowledged. Detail the fighters to selectively target the Interdictor's weapon emplacements." - Bakov replied, not a trace of strain in the voice, as he thought, with a slight smirk:

"This is not even a proper challenge... but an acceptable shooting practice, I suppose."

During that time, Havox and the troopers have arrived to the main armory, where one of the troops pointed to a suit of armour, almost identical in appearance to the standard RTSE trooper armour, except for a noticably different shade of the helmet visor, capable of full IR vision in addition to standard night-vision mode, an inconspicous module attached to the belt-pouch - low level personal shield emitter, and a small insignia of RTSE Special Forces on the chestplate. Placed next to it, a scoped ZR with a grenade launcher attachment, and a quartet of thermal detonators could be seen.

"There you go, Major... top-of-the-line Commando armour, and your weapons, after less than one week aboard! I guess it really pays to have Deathstrike think so highly of you..." - the trooper exclaimed enviously.

"Indeed it does." Havox chuckled, then added with an appropriate hand gesture, "Try coming this close to beating her and maybe you'll find yourself in higher esteem as well."

The former merc began putting on the armor, seemingly able to do it with ease after having used Stormtrooper armor for years, even long after he had deserted the Empire.

"Want a quick crash course in different functions of the armour, sir?" - the other trooper asked.

"Sure." Havox replied simply.

"Okay... do you see a graphic indicator in the corner of your visor's HUD? It's off, meaning the visor's set to standard vision. Now, can you feel a small button on the underside of your helmet? That's the vision mode change switch. Press it once, and you'll set the visor to Nightvision. Press it twice rapidly, and it's set to IR vision - something our armours don't have, actually. Press it three times, and you return to standard vision." - the first trooper said.

Havox tested out the functions, finding them to be similar if not superior than the ones he had his old Stormtrooper helmet modified to have.

"Impressive." he mused.

The second trooper caughed to get Ty's attention, before speaking:

"Now for the part that really makes me green with envy, Major... see that little oktogonal box attached to your armour's equipment pouch? That's your personal shield generator! The shield''s rated to withstand two ZR blasts... meaning up to 4 E11 blasts or 6 blaster pistol ones! You have three buttons on it, when you want to activate the shield; Low, Medium, and High intensity. On Low, the shield only protects from blaster fire and electrical effects. On Medium, it'll also absorb fire attacks, like flamethrowers. On High, the intensity's strong enough to actually take one Thermal Detonator explosion at close range or a two second contact with a Lightsaber! It'll also protect you from plasma grenades and such."

"Just watch it... the higher the intensity, the less time the shield will last once active, Major! On Low, it'll last for one minute. Medium cuts that time to 30 seconds, and High again cuts it in half to 15 seconds. Once it's out, or breached by weapons, it takes 5 minutes for the emitter to recharge." - the soldier finished.

"Very good." Havox commented, smiling slightly behind the helmet visor, "Anything else?"

"Nope. Orders, Major?" - the first trooper replied, straightening to attention.

Meanwhile, the Interdictor's damage was already crossing into critical range, falling below 30%, with the Bekrija's shielding still at 38%, hull intact.

"Not a challenge in the least, Lady..." - Bakov commented dryly to Deathstrike, now standing beside him at the forward bridge viewport, staring at the burning Imperial ship in the distance, with the flood of violet turbolaser fire from the Bekrija still converging on it, increasingly sporadic green blasts coming back their way.

"Indeed, Captain... true challenges shall await us when we reach our destination - the Shadow Empire. This was merely a shakedown session for tha--" - she replied with a smile, before suddenly being cut off by a tense report from one of the portside crew pit officer:

"Inbound hyperdrive signature detected, Captain!"

Before either Bakov or Deathstrike could reply, there was a flicker of pseudomotion, and a massive arrowhead shape of an Imperial Class 4 Star Destroyer came to interpose itself directly between the Bekrija and the crumbling Interdictor.

"What in blazes..." - Bakov began, staring agape at the mightly warship, before his training took over, and he snapped around to the helmsman:

"FLANK SPEED! Now! Get us over that thing and back in a line of fire with the Interdictor! We must take it out so we can jump back to hyperspace, before we're taken out ourselves!" - just as the first flashes of turbolaser fire began emerging from the Star Destroyer, rapidly increasing in volume.

"Detecting fighter squadron launches from the Destroyer!" - another officer called out.

"Have our fighters move to intercept, any bombers being a priority!" - Bakov barked back, before turning to face Deathstrike again...

...only to catch a glimpse of her, vanishing at a dead Force Speed enhanced run out of the bridge entrance, with a Force message:

"Maintain the situation here as best you can captain... I shall organize the boarding teams to head across to that ship and attempt to disable it's fire control! We will not last long against that."

"Tell me something I DON'T know..." - he muttered, turning back to the viewport.

"Shields at 14%, Captain! They're collapsing!" - the engineering officer reported after ten seconds.

Suddenly, the Karas cruiser stopped dead in its tracks, before it could get clear of the SD and in the line of fire with the Interdictor - as the Star Destroyer's tractor beams snagged it.

"Set our tractor emitters to 'repel' mode! QUICKLY!" - Bakov roared, knowing even as he said it that it was most likely a futile attempt, with the Karas cruiser's tractor beams being considerably weaker than the opposing Imperial Star Destroyer's.

"We'll see if we even get a chance to launch any assault shuttles now, before we are floating in space as debris..." - he thought, looking out at the massive 1600 meter long behemoth, almost twice the size of the Bekrija, face set in hard lines, as the shields collapsed, and first reports of hull damage began sounding out.

Just as Deathstrike got out of the turbolift on the garrison deck, the ship began to shudder more pronouncedly, and she knew the shields were gone... a knowledge supported by a ship-wide internal-damage alert klaxon alarm, that began blaring a second later. She smirked grimly to herself...

"Bite your tongue, Natalija... bite your tongue. I may well have jinxed us with that last overconfident comment I made..." - before stretching through the Force to address all the Acolytes aboard, to assemble for a briefing.

Twenty-three decks below, Ty and the troopers also picked on the change in the ship's behavior, and the alarm...

"Looks like something's going wrong." Havox observed, since he and the troopers had no knowledge of the events outside, "Move to the hangar, now!"

"Their shields are down, Sir. Destruction is immenient," the senior officer reported to the ISD4's Captain.

"They're jamming our communications, though. Must be some important cargo they're carrying. Be prepared for a boarding party," the Captain stated, his face set in stone.

"Boarding party?" the officer asked.

"According to SE Intel, those wannabe Sith like to use boarding parties when they're in jeopardy. In case you haven't read the new SE Protocol, we are supposed to be on the lookout for them whenever we engage the RTSE!" the Captain growled, not in the mood for questions.

"Status of the Immobilizer?" he asked, forcibly calm.

"Nothing yet. They're communications are jammed, too. From the looks of them, I'd say the ship is irrepairable."

"They'll be missed," was all the Captain had to say.

Down in the hangars of the ISD4, the ship's companies of Shadowtroopers were assembling, as per SE Protocol. Having only had a few minutes, they were still rushing back and forth to their posts.

Less than 10 minutes later...

"Sir! All our Gavrans have been destroyed... though they've taken out their bomber squadrons!" - the tactical officer reported to Bakov, over the increasing din of alarms, and fires on the bridge.

"Good... but it will only delay the inevitable." - Bakov thought, literally feeling the Bekrija starting to come apart at the seams.

"Hull integrity at 47% Captain! We've got hull breaches across multiple decks, and we've lost all weapons in Quadrant 3! Broadside firepower down to half!" - one of the others shouted in dismay.

"What is the status of our boarding parties?!" - Bakov shouted to the ship's security officer.

"The Lady has assembled and briefed all the Acolytes aboard, and they're on the way to the hangar bays. Meanwhile, I have two full platoons of troopers boarding every Assault shuttle we have, as well! But with their shields over the hangar up - it doesn't make any difference! We have to get through their hangar deflector screen to board that ship, sir!" - the officer replied.

"Focus all remaining firepower on their lower section! NOW! Can we move down slightly, or do the tractor beams still have us?" - Bakov asked.

"They still have us, though our repelling efforts are preventing a full lock. We have some vertical freedom of movement, sir... for now." - the engineer nodded.

"Shift us below their plane as much as possible, and like I said, focus all possible firepower on the hangar section! We won't be able to get through their shields as a whole, but we might open a hole in the hangar deflector screen, at least long enough for our shuttles to dock!" - before adding:

"And start launching the assault shuttles as soon as they're loaded! I doubt many of them will even make it through the defense fire and their fighters, but at least some will... and all it would take is two of them boarding, if one of those is the one where the Lady and the Acolytes are aboard, to give those Imperial dogs a taste of horror!" - Bakov roared with glee, even if he thought grimly:

"Not that it will make much difference to us... I have a feeling this may very well be the Bekrija's last battle. And mine, as well..."

Just as if to punctuate his thought, a report suddenly came from the portside crew pit:

"Hull integrity at 33%! They're targeting our engines and reactor section, sir!"

"Ty! Do you read me?!" - Deathstrike's urgent voice came across Major Havox's helmet commlink, as he, the two troopers, and a squad more with them, raced down the rapidly crumbling, burning corridors and hallways toward the main hangar, and one of the 10 assault shuttles there, all being loaded with troops and Acolytes by now.

On the way, they passed many injured and dead crewmen, and overheard an automated computer warning tone, fizzled with static:

"WARNING... fzzt ...FUSION REACTOR CORE... fzzt ...COMPROMISED, REACTOR... fzzzzzzzt ...CONTAINMENT AT... fzzt fzzzzzzzt ...21% AND DROPPING. BREACH IMMINENT."

"Copy m'lady, we're almost to the hangar." Havox responded, then added the obvious, "This place is falling apart fast!"

"Yes... not quite the way I intended for this mission to proceed. And those Imperials will pay for it in blood, if I have anything to say... or do... about it!" - her voice came back, laced with cold anger.

"Assuming any of us get out of here alive..." the former merc deadpanned, "There better be ships ready to go, because we're not gunna have much time once we get there!"

Havox and the two troopers were now in a sprint, trying to traverse the collapsing corridors, now less than a minute away from the hangar.

"The assault shuttles are already primed for launch, and I've distributed the ship's company of Acolytes between the two that are to launch at the center of the formation, SC's 4 and 5. It should provide added protection for them. I'm already in the hangar, at the SC-4's ramp! There is just enough room left in that shuttle for you and your pair of escorts... any other troops with you shall take one of the other shuttles. Expedite your arrival!" - Deathstrike replied urgently, before the link closed.

A moment later, the computer voice came again:

"REACTOR... fzzzt... fzt ...CONTA... fzzzzzzt ...CONTAINMENT FAILURE... fzzzzt... fzzzt... FUSION... fzzzzzzzzzzzzt ...OVER... fzzt ...OVERLOAD IN... fzzzzt... 3 MINUTES."

A nearby support beam collapsed, right after Havox and the two troops in the lead passed under it, flattening the three troopers just behind them, reducing the squad to 9 troops, aside from Havox and his escorts.

"HULL BREACHES ACROSS ALL DECKS, SIR! We've lost the main stabilizers, and life support! Hull integrity below 10%--" - the engineering officer screamed at Bakov, just before his console exploded, killing him.

"MAINTAIN FIRE AT THEIR HANGAR! AS LONG AS POSSIBLE! Shift all remaining power into structural integrity!" - Bakov roared, as the din of alarms and screams became near-deafening, half the bridge on fire.

Through the forward viewports, he could see large sections of his ship breached, burning, and exposed to vacuum, more and more debris spewing from them, as the unremitting hail of fire from the ISD continued, and the Bekrija began to disintegrate under the barrage...

"YES! Their hangar deflector screen is compromised, sir! The shuttles will have a chance..." - the tactical officer shouted back, moments later.

Practically running for their lives now, as wall panels were being blown across the room, Ty and the troopers finally reached the hallway directly connecting with the hangar door. The dash down this hall proved even more perilous, as large parts of the ceiling began to collapse, while steam, sparks and fire were bellowing out of the walls. Several more troops were killed, before the group arrived in the hangar.

"Ty! Over here!" - a Force message came into Havox's mind, directing his attention to one of the Assault shuttles halfway across the cavernous hangar, with Deathstrike's slender figure standing just in front of the boarding ramp.

At that exact moment, a rather large section of hangar ceiling came falling down, directly above her shuttle. From Havox' pespective, the large piece of debris appeared to slow down as it fell, then abruptly shifted direction, landing beside the shuttle, as Deathstrike applied Force Push to deflect it - barely.

Behind, the bluish sheen of the hangar containment field, keeping the vacuum out, was flickering wildly, apparently losing power by the second...

"Hurry..." - she added to his mind.

"MOVE!" Havox barked at the remaining Sith Troops, as he was already dashing toward Deathstrike's shuttle, the two other troopers soon hot on his heels.

"GET IN! The rest of you, take SC-7!" - Deathstrike shouted to Havox and the pair of troops in the lead, motioning the rest away from the shuttle.

As the three came abreast of her, she joined them up the ramp. Almost before they were even all the way up the ramp, it began to close, the shuttle lifting off.

Half a minute later, the shuttles were in space - eight of them, the other two destroyed by the collapsing hangar. All around them, the universe was a stroboscopic lightshow of violet and red turbolaser fire... the violet part of it diminishing more and more every passing moment.

Adopting a blockade-advance formation, all defense turrets ready, the eight shuttles set a course for the ISD's underside, as Imperial fighters were already on them...

"All Mentalists, scramble the enemy pilots as much as possible, and give advance warning to our shuttle pilots of any inbound runs!" - Deathstrike Force commanded to some of the Acolytes on the two center shuttles, four of them who were Mentalists.

Then she leapt up the passenger bench, and added to Havox:

"I'll take one of the turrets... Ty, if you think you can shoot better than the shuttle's targeting computer is capable of, take one yourself! I'm commanding all the other Acolytes to do the same!" - already vanishing down the nearby hatch to one of the ventral turrets.

The former merc only had marginal experience in a ship turret, but he figured even that would be better than an automated system, so he took up position in one of the other turrets and immediately targeted the closest Imperial TIE.

Even though turret experience was relatively foreign to Deathstrike as well, with the Force to draw on for premonition and anticipation, and once she settled in, her shots were almost surgically precise, consigning the first strafing TIE Hunter to oblivion within moments.

From the turret, she also had a good view of the Bekrija... or what was left of it. The burning, twisted wreckage of the Karas cruiser was dead in space, bridge tower destroyed, the last sporadic turbolaser flashes from it diminishing.

Seconds later, the ship's fusion core breached, and the doomed warship flew apart in a massive fireball, slowly fading into diffuse embers.

"For Blood, and Death, noble True Sith warriors..." - she muttered, also adding a half-forgotten Nightsister death-cry, in her mind:

"Kel'jja Sei Rij'zaal..."

As Havox watched the same explosion from his turret, he couldn't help but think:

"I've gotten out of worse... but that was pretty damn close."

He was jolted back into reality when a TIE blasted the shuttle several times from above, having been missed by the other gunners. The former merc managed to hit it in the wing, sending it spinning out of control.

Meanwhile...

"Sir, the Karas has been destroyed. Communications has been restored," the senior officer reported.

"Is the hangar secured?" the Captain demanded.

"Affirmative, Sir. If anything comes in, we'll destroy them!" the officer bellowed.

The Captain shook his head.

"No. Don't kill them. I want them alive. No doubt Lord Harrington will want to interrogate them and find out what they are doing here," he said.

"Yes Sir!" the officer said, and relayed the orders, as the Captain looked over at Comms.

"Get a line with the Decimator. Lord Harrington will want to be present for this one," he ordered.

With a nod, the Comms officer began tapping through the various encoded transmission frequencies of the Decimator, Lord Harrington's flagship.

In the hangar, most of the ship's Shadowtrooper's were braced behind cover, watching the shuttles get closer and closer. At the estimated landing spots of the shuttles, several Reborn Shadowtroopers, equipped with the Force and a lightsaber, activated their cloaking fields, while up at the viewport, the Sergeant in charge of the garrisons stood with a steady line of snipers to his front, a row of automated terminals controlling the ship's autoturrets to his left, and to his right stood a Sith Knight, who in reality was the one calling the shots, with the Sergeant serving as his communication device.

Looking through macrobinoculars at the shuttles, the Knight stood motionless, while the Sergeant scanned the assembly down below.

After awhile of being shot down, the automated TIEs were ordered to return to the Star Destroyer. To the people in the shuttles, it wasn't clear exactly why this was happening...

"They're... retreating?" Ty wondered aloud, "That isn't very Imperial-like."

With the TIEs no longer attacking, Havox got out of the turret and returned to the main part of the shuttle.

"This smells like a trap..." Deathstrike thought, seeing the abrupt Imperial retreat.

Noting the shift in tactics on the Imperials' part, she decided to vacate the turret and return to the troop bay of the shuttle, her Mentalist Acolytes already having informed her that almost half the Imperial fighters were droid-piloted. The fighters have proven only marginally effective against the Assault shuttles, taking down only a pair, while almost two entire squadrons of them were destroyed by the defense fire in turn.

Havox was already back there, as the voice of the shuttle pilot suddenly came over the intercom:

"Now for the hard part, folks... getting through that ISD's anti-fighter fire! Those turbolasers were too slow to track us, but anti fighter turrets are a whole different story."

"Prepare yorself, and the troops, for deployment, Major! We're going in, and HARD!" - Deathstrike remarked to Havox, before vanishing up the narrow aisle to the shuttle's cockpit.

"Move aside, pilot. I'll take over from here." - she commanded the shuttle pilot.

The woman looked up at her inquisitively, before protesting:

"With all due respect, Lady, you're not rated to fly shuttles! This isn't a Gavran, that can be flung all over space to evade anything thrown at it. This beast needs a whole different touch. And I--" - before Deathstrike cut her off abruptly:

"You don't have the Force! I do. And I HAVE flown in a shuttle simulator once. Not the preferred vessel for evasive maneuvering, but it shall suffice. And it'll require some tricky evasions to arrive at our destination more or less intact. Now do as I say and vacate the seat!" - she growled, making it abundantly clear she wouldn't tolerate any further questioning of her orders.

"Yes, milady..." - the woman replied hastily, picking up on Deathstrike's tone.

Sitting down, grabbing the twin shuttle yokes tightly, and stretching out through the Force, Deathstrike added:

"Take over the engineering console and be prepared to shift more power to the shields as required. All emergency power to maneuvering thrusters!"

"Acknowledged." - the pilot replied crisply, as the rangefinder on the control board dropped below 2 units from the ISD, and it's anti fighter turrets opened up on the six Assault shuttles approaching it, Deathstrike's SC-4 in the center, still in the best condition of the lot, it's shields nearly at full strength.

Letting the Force guide her actions, Deathstrike began weaving the shuttle through the red firestorm, the craft moving with unlikely grace for something of its bulk and class. Her Force premonition allowed her to perceive the shift in aim of the ISD's gunners, and react accordingly, before the shift was even made, and as a result, only one in a dozen shots actually connecting with her shuttle.

Most of the other shuttles weren't as successful, however.

And the Lady's shuttle was not quite out of harm's way yet...

Out of several small pods located next to a few of the point defense cannons, concussion missiles began firing, these small and fast enough to track a fighter, let alone a shuttle. But these weren't just any concussion missiles, as the Sith boarders would soon find out...

"Blast it..." - Deathstrike thought with a scowl, noting the two shuttles to her starboard torn to pieces by the concussion missiles.

"DIVERT MORE POWER TO THE SHIELDS! And shift the aft shields forward to double the intensity!" - she exclaimed to the pilot, before setting the shuttle's turrets to auto-fire on the incoming missiles.

"Got it... not sure if the shield generator can take that kind of strain for long..." - the pilot nodded tensely, flicking switches furiously at the engineering board.

"It won't have to be for long..." - Deathstrike muttered, stretching through the Force as hard as she could, diverting some of the missiles' flight paths, while also sending a Force message to all the Mentalist Acolytes again:

"Reach out to those fighter pilots still returning to the ship, and compel them to attack the missile pods!"

Moments later, some of the last returning TIE's shifted vector, and began firing on the missile launchers of the Star Destroyer, their pilots under the influence of Force Domination, taking some of the pressure off the shuttles.

Now under 1 unit away, the three surviving Assault shuttles, SC-1, 4, and 7, were on direct approach to the hangar bay, Deathstrike's SC-4 in the lead, still in the best condition of the lot.

Inside the hangar, the Sith Knight watched Deathstrike's shuttle closely, noticing its advanced maneuvering for its size and standard agility.

"That pod must have a Force user in it. And a powerful one," he said, his Sensing powers not apt enough to detect Deathstrike at this range, "Whatever information we're looking for is in that one. Let it land."

The Sergeant looked at him like he was crazy.

"Let it land...? Sir, need I remind you that as you said yourself, there is at least one powerful Force user in there?" he asked cautiously.

The Knight cast an annoyed look in his general direction, and then said, "Switch off the lights."

"How many?" was the Sergeant's next question.

"All of them, you ignorant toad," the Sith responded.

"Why?"

"Just do it already!" the Sith shouted, slamming his binoculars to the floor in fury, shattering the lenses.

"Damn it!" he snapped.

"How close are we?" Havox, suddenly appearing at the entryway to the shuttle cockpit, inquired urgently, "I've got us ready to roll back here!"

Deathstrike didn't bother to answer the question, as the massive hangar bay of the Star Destroyer filled virtually the entire forward viewport, less than 0.25 units away. She only smiled at the former merc:

"Close enough, dear... get ready for a hot welcome!" - sensing a massive ambush in the hangar bay.

Meanwhile, another shuttle had fallen prey to the ISD's defense fire, bringing the remaining total to only 2 - Deathstrike's SC-4, and SC-7, the latter heavily damaged, spinning out of control as it raced ahead, and plunged directly into the open hangar port.

A massive explosion followed, inside the hangar itself, and Deathstrike nodded grimly to herself, sensing that at least three dozen Imperials were caught in the blast, and killed, as the shuttle's explosion made a mess of their defense perimeter in the hangar.

"Excellent! Even in death, that pilot had given us an advantage!" - she thought, SC-4 only moments from entering the hangar.

"Set the turrets for suppression fire, - we shall need their cover as we disembark!" - she ordered the pilot.

"At once, Lady!" - the woman replied, flicking several more switches.

Havox was already back in with the rest of the troopers, bellowing at them to ready their weapons and brace for impact if necessary.

The Sith seemed totally unfazed by the explosion, and actually seemed rather joyful.

"Good. They'll think they have an advantage... Maintain positions..." he ordered, looking through a new pair of binoculars.

With the hangar still totally blacked out, only the Shadowtroopers were able to see at the moment, but the Sith had confidence on them to bring whomever it was on that pod into custody. And even as he thought it, he knew they had a tremendous numbers advantage, not to mention the defense turrets and the main two compacted turbolaser cannons in the hangar itself - once that thing landed, they could destroy it at any time. Of course, it would cost a lot of SE lives if they were too close...

At that moment, SC-4 breached the hangar's containment field and came to a hard landing, skidding across the flat deck, a shower of sparks trailing in its wake, as it overran a half-dozen more Imperials. The turrets were already firing, tracking anything moving inside the hangar, as well as fixed defenses like autoturrets and static barriers.

Deathstrike was already out of the cockpit, racing down the aisle, through the troop bay, and to the landing ramp, while using the Force to flick the ramp-open switch, her double-bladed saber out and active, an eager battlefield grin on her face.

"Time for the kill!" - she sent a Force message to all the Acolytes aboard - 6 of them. Three Warriors, an Assassin, and a pair of Mentalists.

Before the ramp was halfway down, she was out of the shuttle in a Force Jump, also applying Force Seeing to counter the darkness, landing in the midst of the four Stormtroopers, who were so caught by surprise, that they had not even gotten a shot off, before being dismembered in a blurred crimson flurry. Ducking and rolling to the side, she evaded a thrown saber of one of the Shadowtroopers, before rushing directly at him in a blur of Force Speeded motion, before his saber had even finished returning to his hand. By the time it did, she was on him, with a complex combo of slashes and stabs, overwhelming his guard and decapitating him in less that ten seconds.

Meanwhile, the Acolytes had engaged other Imperial troops and Shadowtroopers, their diversity giving them an edge. The Mentalists scrambled and stunned the enemy, while the Assassin applied Force Blinding to add more confusion, as the Warriors engaged them directly. In less than another 30 seconds, a full platoon of Stormtroopers and several more Shadowtroopers met their demise, with only a single Acolyte loss, one of the Mentalists.

Only then did Havox and the RTSE troops, 20 of them, emerge, and join the fray.

"Use your Nightvision visor modes!" - Deathstrike found time to send them a Force message, now engaged in a vicious duel with a pair of Shadowtroopers.

Meanwhile, the shuttle's turrets were still firing, preventing the enemy from consolidating their position and organize an efficient defense.

"Hit the lights," the Sith ordered.

The lights came on, and to the amazement of the regular RTSE troops, the entire hangar was filled with SE personel - close to 350 Stormtroopers, with nearly 30 Shadowtroopers. In the back were two TIE Maulers, some nasty-looking turrets, and in the middle was a compact turbolaser, aimed directly at the shuttle, its barrel glowing red, ready to fire at any second.

The Sith's voice came over the loudspeaker as the two sides engaged:

"Cease and desist your petty squabbling immediately, or we WILL destroy your shuttle, and you along with it!" he roared, as the Stormtroopers in the middle and rear assumed a combat formation and the Shadowtroopers activated their lightsabers.

CHAPTER 44

Deathstrike only smirked to herself, finished with her pair of enemies, sending a mocking Force message to the speaker, whom she identified as one of the hated "false" Sith:

"Free advice, whelp - if you intend to kill someone, DO IT! Don't give them advance warning. Not that you shall get that chance - because I'm coming for you!"

With that, convergent fire from two of the shuttle's turrets struck the turbolaser, blowing it to smithereens, also taking out over thirty troops in the vicinity of the explosion, as the turrets continued their indiscriminate firing across the hangar, one of them tracking on one of the TIE Maulers in the distance.

"Havox! Take one of the maintenance exits from the hangar... we don't want to face them here in the open! Take the Acolytes with you for tactical support... I shall deal with that false Sith idiot myself!" - Force Jumping toward the vent grate on one of the hangar walls, slicing it open and crawling inside.

Heeding Deathstrike's order, Ty and the surviving RTSE troops - 12 of them - retreated into one of the maintenance corridors, the four remaining Acolytes joining them.

At the same time, a dozen more Shadowtroopers and almost a hundred Stormtroopers had fallen prey to them, and the assault shuttle's still active turrets. However, the second TIE Mauler's fire had finished off the shuttle, only moments later - by which time the RTSE forces have retreated from the hangar fully.

"She's coming for me," the Knight stated, instantly receiving the message. But he had a plan in case a Force user came for him.

Sensing her in the vents, he drew his lightsaber, and called in his Guard from the next room - ten Shadowtroopers, six with standard lightsabers, and four with doublesabers. 3 of the 10 were highly effecient in the Force, and could hang with nearly anyone in a straight up fight if the odds stacked for them, which in this case, they did...

Replying to her Force Message, the Sith said, "Come and get me, True Sith whore!" then ended the mental link.

Havox and the cadre had advanced a ways, before sealing door behind them, the merc trusting Deathstrike would be able to find her own way out of the hangar.

"Our only chance is to disable the ship's tractor beam, then steal a ship in the foward hangar or slip into some escape pods and hope we can make it to a planet." Havox stated urgently, talking specifically to the Acolytes, "And even with the tractor beam down, we'd still have to worry about point-defenses and starfighters. But so long as the tractor is active, any attempt to escape would be useless."

"Escape pods would be futile anyway, Major... since our duty is to get away from these Imperials, and reach the rest of the strike force! That means finding a Class 1 hyperdrive equipped ship, and commandeering it, that can catch up with the Fleet Admiral's armada. All the ships in the strike force have Class 2 hyperdrives. I'd say one of the scout craft in the forward hangars would qualify... if we can get there. And when the Lady takes out that Sith pretender, the enemy should be in a disarray!" - the highest ranking Acolyte, one of the Warriors, replied.

"I'm Pallera, by the way." - the woman introduced herself.

Havox only gave the woman a quick nod of acknowledgement, before immediately returning to the matter at-hand.

"We may not have a choice. There would still be a chance of stealing a ship planet-side if we managed to get there, but obviously commandeering something in the forward hangar would be preferable. We don't have much time, so disabling the tractor beams will have to be done quickly." the major responded.

He gave the remaining Acolytes a brief once-over, before speaking up again.

"All of us going to take out the tractor beam at once would be inefficient and would give the Imperials more time to fortify the forward hangar. Do any of you feel confident enough to handle this task while the rest of us move on the hangar?" he asked.

"I will go." - another Acolyte, a male Assassin one, said softly, before adding:

"Let's just say I have a... talent... for not being spotted. Where is the main tractor control?" - he asked Ty.

As Havox began explaining where the Acolyte needed to go, the Imperials were preparing to blast open the door that sealed them out.

"We should stay on the move... won't be long before they break down the doors." - one trooper, one of the two talking with Ty earlier, both of vhom were still alive, muttered.

Ty had just finished telling the Acolyte and managed to catch what the trooper said.

"Right. Let's go then!" he barked, "Keep alert; we don't know what sort of traps the Imps already have laid!"

The group moved on, the Acolytes ranging ahead and pinpointing pockets of Imperial forces, harrassing them and wearing them down, while telling Havox and the troops their exact locations via Force messages, so they could move in and finish them off while they were preoccupied. It was a textbook example of efficient, effective combined-unit tactics, and the RTSE group was making good progress in their advance toward the forward bays, only taking three more losses, all of them troopers, while disposing of over two dozen more Imperial personnel so far.

One of those was one of the troopers with Ty before, leaving only the second one - one with chauvinistic attitude.

Meanwhile, the Assassin Acolyte was halfway to tractor control, using much the same manner of travel as Deathstrike, via maintenance corridors and vent shafts, trying to attract as little attention as possible, while ambushing and taking out those Imperials he couldn't avoid.

So far, the Imperials' lack of coordination, efficiency, and impaired response time was working well to the infiltrators' advantage.

In the control areas, above the main hangar bays, not too far from the main monitoring room where the Sith Knight was holed up...

"He said that schutta was coming... she must already be somewhere nearby by now!" - a stormtrooper remarked to the rest of his squad, on-station there, along with a pair of cloaked Shadowtroopers.

"Can it, Private... when she gets here, you'll know it." - his squad leader replied tersely.

"Are you so certain of that, soldier-boy?" - Deathstrike thought to herself with dark amusement, now directly above the squad, in the vent shaft, her mind-block preventing even the Shadowtroopers from sensing her, their actual Force sensitivity decidedly limited.

With her refined Force Seeing power, she could see through the bulkheads at short range, and she had already visually pin-pointed everyone in the vicinity, Shadowtroopers included, as bright aura-enhanced shapes, visible to the last detail. And since she could see them, she could affect them...

Force Deadly Sight.

Focused only on the Stormtroopers, since she knew the Shadowtroopers would sense the Force at work on them, she started superheating their skin - slowly.

At first, the troops didn't pay too much attention, only squirming slightly in place where they stood, as she moved slowly on, toward the vent hatch in the adjoining corridor, maintaining her Deadly Sight.

A minute passed, and the troops were now visibly fidgeting, as one of them muttered in a strained tone:

"What the... what's going on? Feels like I'm cooking inside this armor!"

"Shut up... it's probably nerves..." - another replied, but sounding no less strained.

"Would you all focus on the task at hand?!" - one of the Shadowtroopers now remarked in annoyance, noticing the troopers' inexplicable discomfort.

"YOU try focusing on anything when your skin feels like someone's pouring acid on it, Shadow-creep!" - another stormie snapped, his temper already frayed by the effect.

"How did you address me, trooper?!" - the shadowtrooper asked ominously, ending his vigilance and stepping close to the stormtrooper.

"Leave him alone!" - another stormtrooper growled, stepping behind the shadowtrooper.

"ENOUGH, all of you! There's probably something wrong with the environmental system in the area. I'll check with Engineering..." - the other Shadowtrooper, a female one, stopped the rapidly escalating argument, stepping to the wall communications panel...

...and at that exact moment, all of them occupied with either the burning sensations, or arguing, or contacting someone across the comm, no-one was actually paying anymore attention to their surroundings - especially the small, unassuming doorway leading to the maintenance corridor Deathstrike had come out of the vent into.

"Fools..." - Deathstrike thought, face spread into a wicked grin, as she made her move, moments after ending her Deadly Sight effort:

She was inside in a flash, without the slightest sound made, and none of the troops even woke up to the fact she was there, until three rear-most Stormtroopers suddenly heard a snap-hiss sound of an activated lightsaber... a half-second before all three were bisected in two in a blur of crimson haze. The next stormie only had time to turn his helmeted head partway in the directon of the commotion - before the tip of Deathstrike's boot struck with shattering force under his chin, ripping the helmet cleanly off the rest of the armour, and exposing his face - while she was already in midair traverse, bringing the heel of her other foot sideways to his neck.

With a soft crack of a neck broken sideways, the trooper collapsed to the deck, dead.

One of the Shadowtroopers was by then finally reacting in full, as his lightsaber came to life, and he threw it at Deathstrike, in a spin. She anticipated, hopping upwards in a a horisontal evasion, the glowing blade passing a decimeter beneath her, with a flick of a wrist of her free hand, the other one holding the saber. An assassin knife swished through the air to bury itself to the hilt into the Shadowtrooper's left eye, and he fell with a moan forward to the deck, dead.

Deathstrike landed back on her feet just in time to deflect a rapid flurry of shots from the remaining Stormtroopers, redirecting two of them back at the source, and killing two more of them. By then, the second Shadowtrooper was onto her, in a blur of Force Speed enhanced motion, with a flurry of slashes and stabs. The remaining troopers ceased their mass-fire, and began taking careful aim, not wanting to endanger the Shadowtrooper.

"Let's see how well you fight without surprise on your side, wench!" - the woman snarled, trying to overwhelm Deathstrike's guard with sheer number of attacks.

"Not my preferred fighting method, but... certainly better than you!" - Deathstrike replied, staying rock-calm and focused, backpedalling steadily, while she adopted an advanced defensive Shien lightsaber form, allowing her to defend in melee AND deflect any blaster shots fired toward her at the same time, and parried the Shadowtrooper's frenzied, yet predictable attacks. Deliberately, she did not apply Force Speed herself, since it would hamper her overall focus on the wide scope of the battle, and make her an easier target for the five remaining Stormtroopers, one more killed by a reflected shot in the meantime.

Until suddenly, almost to one of the walls, she stopped, taking advantage of a brief instance when none of the troops could get a clear shot at her, trapping the Shadowtrooper's saber in a brief, half-second saber-lock... as her right foot snapped to connect with the woman's knee.

The Shadowtrooper barely had time to shriek in pain, as Deathstrike spun around, impaling her through the chest with the opposing tip of her double-saber.

"Oh... how I missed the pleasure of a battle to the death with a Force user! And today, this woman is the fifth one I had slain..." - was her brief, near-ecstatic thought, crimson/emerald eyes blazing.

The rest of the fight lasted less than six seconds, as the remaining Stormtroopers were killed by their own reflected fire.

Not even breathing hard, Deathstrike stepped over the corpses toward a computer terminal, and keyed for an overview of the control section. A graphic rendering came on the screen, showing all the areas, including the main monitoring room. Stretching deeply through the Force, she could sense a large focal point of Force power there.

Another key allowed her to access that room's security camera, which the Knight neglected to deactivate or disable, giving her a full view of the assemblage waiting for her there...

"Mmm... there you are, coward! Barricaded in a hole with your lackeys, instead of coming out to meet me in battle. Pathetic! And you actually think I would be so foolish as to walk into such an obvious trap?! Unlikely..." - using the control to pan the camera around, taking in the details of the room.

One critical detail caught her attention, and she smiled viciously:

"Let's see if I can lure you out, my dear... like a bantha to a slaughterhouse!" - turning away from the console, and leaving at her usual silent run.

However, the tide of battle was about to change drastically in favor of the Remnant, in the form of a single Stormtrooper who actually knew what he was doing...

Sensing the commotion nearby, the Sith Knight began to feel a bit uneasy.

"Maybe I should have doublechecked and made sure of my surroundings..." he thought, his lack of field experience catching up with him.

By now, Havox's squad had made it about three-quarters of the way to the forward hangar, but Imperial resistance was stiffening, as by now they had figured out what the RTSE survivors were up to. After a few firefights with Stormtrooper squads and autoturrets, which resulted in a four more troopers and one of Acolytes being lost, the group now was almost at its goal.

"No doubt they'll have a party waiting for us in there." Major Havox suggested, "What we need is another route inside beside the main door..."

As Major Havox and his squad walked down a hallway, they caught a glimpse of a lone Stormtrooper at a control panel, protected by a ray shield, looking right at them.

Giving a casual salute and pushing a button, Major Havox and his team was surrounded by a similiar ray shield, as a hyperfrequent noise was released down the corridors, inaudible to human ears but designed to scramble Force focusing - similiar to Ysalamiri. Of course, this was a double-edged sword, as the Shadowtroopers could no longer use their Force abilites, as well. They were trapped where they stood. And from out of every nook and cranny came the Stormtroopers - a well-executed ambush. The wide hallway was filled with Stormtroopers in seconds, all of which took up positions surrounding the shield, with at least five guns trained on every head.

From a doorway came the ST Commander, easily recognizable due to the shoulder patch and different armor plating.

"Drop your weapons, Rebel scum!" he demanded.

"When the shield lowers, kill the Acolytes and the troops! Leave the fancy one," he ordered, then promptly left the area, knowing it was going to turn into a bloodbath.

"Heh... that'll be the day..." - one of the Acolytes remarked contemptuously, not letting the sudden mental strain to show on his face, referring to the Commander's request to them to drop their weapons. Then he added:

"What are you waiting for, Imperial cowards? You heard your brave boss, who scurried away to hide in some hole... take us out - if you CAN!" - in an utterly mocking tone dripping with contempt, as he activated his lightsaber, and snapped it across the ray shield with a sharp electrical discharge effect, in a gesture of challenge.

"So... which one of you gets to die first?" - he growled.

None of the Acolytes, even the two Mentalists, whose effectiveness without the Force was minimal, showed any fear or hesitation whatsoever, all of them True Sith warriors to the core, as they adopted similar ready-stances, relaxed and prepared, glaring in open contempt at the Imperials, despite the hopelesness of the situation.

The seven remaining RTSE troops weren't nearly as blase about the prospect of death, but their professional discipline prevented them from expressing any doubts, at least out-loud, as they dropped to one knee in unison, setting the ZR carbines to full auto, and taking aim.

"Well... we all have to go out someday, right? But I'll take down at least three of these Stormie punks before I hit the deck!" - the surviving trooper who was with Ty earlier thought, face set in a grim mask beneath his helmet, rifle steady in his hands.

"Only wish I'd have gotten the chance to have that talk with Deathastrike... I was wrong in my attitude. She's kriffin' good in a fight, and an effective leader, and I have to respect that. I doubt we would've even made it to this ship in one piece without her! Hope you make it out, Lady..." - he reluctantly added a thought.

Meanwhile, Deathstrike had reached the point of interest she saw through the camera in the Sith Knight's room - a warning sign on the wall, denoting the presence of high explosives in the vicinity.

It didn't take her long to find it - a large proton torpedo storage/preparation bay, just beneath the control room where the Knight and his entourage was, obviously a facility where heavy ordnance was prepared for loading it into the bombers in the hangar. To her surprise, the area was relatively lightly defended - only with a mag-sealed blast door, protected by four Stormtrooper guards and a turret above it. Taking out the turret first, by setting her double saber to a single blade only, and throwing it, she applied Deadly Sight to keep the troops off-balance until the blade returned to her hand. Once it did, the troopers were killed within moments, most of them from their own reflected bolts.

Then, she stabbed the blade at the blast doors, beginning to cut through them... as she sensed a large number of people inside, but very few senses that indicated soldiers or warriors...

"Maintenance personnel, mostly... civilians with perhaps a few sidearms! There shall be no honor in slaughtering them - but they ARE the enemy, nonethless. And enemies exist to be slaughtered, or conquered! More to the point, they would try to stop me..." - she thought grimly.

Less than half a minute later, the doors gave way under her blade, and she leaped through...

...to find the area filled with hardstands, proton warheads on them, over fifty people in Imperial maintenance outfits around them, along with a few low-ranking officers with blaster pistol sidearms, some staring in fear and shock at the slender, wiry, shapely, yet intensely athletic tatooed woman in a revealing leather outfit, holding a double-bladed red lightsaber, who was now standing in front of the glowing circular hole in the heavy doors.

"Sound the alarm! NOW!" - one of the officers exclaimed toward a pair of maintenance workers closest to the alarm panel.

Force Jump.

They never reached the panel, as Deathstrike flew through the air to land directly in front of them, skewering them both with a single slash of her saber, before she fully touched the ground.

"I don't think so." - she hissed, in a voice that was deceptively calm, her eyes taking in the entire expansive room in a single, all-encompassing glance.

"A killing ground..." - was her only thought.

A second later, the slaughter began.

To anyone listening from outside the bay, to the death screams, howls and pleas for mercy of the many, it would have seemed that pandemonium itself had broken loose inside, and that reference wouldn't be far from the truth.

In the end, less than a full minute later, the bay was almost empty of life, save Deathstrike, just finished using Drain Life on one of the last people alive inside, to regenerate a blaster graze across her right thigh, the air inside reeking with the stench of seared flesh, the deck littered with dismembered and blasted corpses from one end of the bay to the other.

Only a pair of maintenance personnel remained alive, shuddering in a corner, staring transfixed at Deathstrike, those two obviously fresh recruits, or even unwilling conscripts, probably still not out of their teenage years, a man and a woman.

She approached them, and spoke quietly, as they tensed even more, and cast an imploring gaze at her, their faces white in anticipation of death.

"Get out of here. Both of you." - sensing their mute terror easily, and knowing they wouldn't even think of sounding an alert.

One of them simply nodded, more of a quick jerk of the head, before stuttering:

"T-thank you..." - not making eye contact, before grabbing the other and taking off at a dead run toward the exit.

"I shall not kill children... enemy or otherwise. I will NEVER go that far!" - Deathstrike thought, face set in hard lines, brutally squelching the blood hunger that had reared its head more than slightly during the carnage.

She stepped over the corpses, to the center hardstand, and used her lightsaber to slice open the proton warhead covering, then slicing one of the safety wires inside, setting the warhead to overload, to explode thirty seconds later. Knowing that the chain reaction would set off all the other warheads in the bay, she quickly darted out of the area, using Force speed.

"Well... it seems I was wrong about needing to lure him out! He can stay right there, above the bay, and be blown to a red mist... and a rather sizable hole shall be created in their precious Star Destroyer!" - she thought to herself, with an evil grin, getting on a turbolift, and taking it upwards, as far away from the blast radius as possible.

However, her grin abruptly faded to a scowl, as she began to sense the predicament Havox and the advance team was in.

The Knight, sensing Deathstrike going by them, onward and upward, scowled.

"AFTER HER!" he bellowed, rushing to an adjacent Turbolift, with the saber-wielding Shadowtroopers in tow, while the Stormtroopers, not sure what the Knight was talking about, followed. The Sergeant stayed in the room, alone.

The ray shield lowered, and the Stormtroopers and RTSE troops instantly opened fire, with the seven men being killed in less than three seconds, having taken out 12 Stormtroopers themselves.

The Mentalist Acolytes, not being well-versed in physical combat, managed to deflect the shots of and kill four more Stormtroopers and advance about six feet before they were mowed down by another squad from the flank.

Another Acolytes, the one who challenged the Imperials verbally, was faring much better, having killed six Stormtroopers by himself, when a lucky blast struck his wrist...

Major Havox, having activated his personal shield moments before the ray shields went down, had managed to kill a half-dozen Stormtroopers himself. But he had been struck by a handful of stray shots, as the Imperials were apparently trying to avoid killing him. Knowing they'd be switching to stun and targeting him as soon as the last of the Acolytes were killed, and also being aware of the torture he'd wind up going through if captured, Havox knew he had to make a move.

The hall was relatively empty, save for grated ventilation shaft several meters behind where Havox now stood. There were Stormtroopers standing between him and it, but that was his only choice. After loading a fresh clip, the former merc turned and charged back down the hall in the direction he had come, firing his blaster full-auto. Two Stormtroopers were immediately taken down, a third being blasted a couple seconds later.

At the same instant the Sith Knight was inside the turbolift, two other Shadowtroopers making it in time, the proton warhead below went off, it's 30 seconds delay expiring...

The liftcar was kicked upward by the shockwave, activating and sending the Knight and the two Shadowtroopers away safely, while all the rest were consumed by the detonation, along with nearly everyone else in general hangar vicinity.

Outside the ISD, a massive hole was created in the hangar section of the hull, the hangar itself turned to shambles, debris spewing outside.

Deathstrike sensed that the Sith Knight and the pair of Shadowtroopers have escaped the blast and were on her tail...

"Good! I shall get to kill you personally, after all, false Sith whelp!" - she thought.

At the same time, the last surviving Acolyte, the one who challenged the Imperials in the first place, mortally wounded, with another shot catching him in the stomach, in addition to the one he took to the wrist, which also destroyed his lightsaber, lunged at the stormtrooper nearest to him in a final, desperate attack, bowling him over, ripping the helmet off of his head and sinking his teeth into the man's throat like an animal, before worrying off and tearing out the trooper's windpipe, killing him.

"RUN, MAJOR!!!" - he barely had time to scream at Havox, before a blast caught him in the back, killing him.

With the RTSE troops and Acolytes in the hallway, and most of the Stormtroopers, down, more Stormtroopers came from around the corner as the Commander re-emerged.

"AFTER HIM!" he roared, hearing Havox in the vents.

Six Stormtroopers pursued Havox into the vent system directly, while the Commander and the rest of them took an alternate route to where the vent would end up.

The last Acolyte, the Assassin one sent to disable the tractor beams, still had no idea what was happening, too far away by now to sense the disaster that befell the advance team, out of range of his limited sensing ability. Killing a pair of Stormtroopers guarding the tractor power coupling, he set to work, disabling the tractor beams.

Suddenly, Deathstrike's Force message reached him:

"Zoran, try and go into hiding... we are soon to be overwhelmed! Don't do anything to draw attention to yourself... you could be instrumental in rescuing us if we are captured."

Face briefly twisting in shock, the Acolyte nodded to himself, stopping his efforts to disable the tractor beam, and vanishing into one of the maintenance corridors, on the lookout for a good place to lie low for the time being.

The Sith Knight and the two Shadowtroopers stumbled out of the turbolift, and were immediately greeted by several Storm Commandos, another Shadowtrooper, and five or six Stormtroopers.

"What in the Force just happened?!" the Knight demanded.

"That schutta just took out our bomb bay and blew a hole in our ship," one of the commandos reported.

"Follow me. We'll find her," the Knight ordered, quickly putting the incident out of his mind.

At the same time, Deathstrike's turbolift arrived, only moments after the one the Sith Knight was in, on the very same deck, the same section of it, in fact, less than 50 meters away in a direct line, but at another corridor.

She and the Sith Knight immediately made Force contact...

"I see you are simply unwilling to face me on even terms, are you? And you think of yourself as a Sith... you have no conception what being a Sith means. So be it... I love a challenge, little boy!" - she sent him a mocking Force message, as she could sense more reinforcements joining him.

With that, she quickly made her way to the engineering control station on that deck, killing the pair of techinicians on duty there, and using her lightsaber to destroy the main power relay for that deck, plunging the entire deck into total darkness, all electrical power going out.

"Darkness and shadow are my allies in battle... or a hunt, in this case! Mmm... and like any good huntress, I LOVE my prey." - she thought, almost unwillingly letting her Nightsister blood take over, ecstatic desire reflected in her reddish-emerald eyes, applying Force Seeing, alongside her mind-block, although the latter wouldn't be all that effective in concealing her from the Knight, his Force sensitivity considerably higher than that of the Shadowtroopers, and starting her prowl for the Sith Knight and his lackeys.

Deathstrike had underestimated the Force and mental capability of the Shadowtroopers, however. The Mind Block did affect them, but they were still able to use the Force to see quite clearly, and one of them could faintly sense her.

The Knight was a different story entirely. He wasn't affected in the slightest, save for his eyes now being useless. Applying his own Mind Block that extended to his own troops, the Shadowtroopers and Commandos that is, he and the three Shadows set off toward Deathstrike, with the Knight keeping to the walls with the Shadows, the Commandos following suit, and the Stormtroopers foolishly rushing down the middle of the hallway.

"What is it with Stormtroopers? Such a menacing term, yet they are generally so pitiful... my friend Ty excluded, or course. I almost feel sorry for killing them. Almost..." - Deathstrike thought, faintly amused, as she reached the intersection ahead, sensing the advancing group clearly now.

While she could charge in and annihilate them without breaking a sweat, she could also sense the more formidable foes following in their wake, opting for a more circuitous approach instead, in an attempt to wear them down first...

She waited until her Force Seeing vision could detect the converging Stormtroopers clearly through the bulkhead, before applying Force Grip on the last one in line - carefully measured, so the choking reflex would cause the trooper to depress the trigger of his rifle accidentally, as she could sense his finger already pressing the trigger halfway, the trooper's anxiety very clear.

And it worked... as the trooper suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, making faint choking noises, at the same time as he depressed the trigger - hitting the trooper directly in front of him in the back, killing him. Moments later, he himself died as well, choked by the Grip.

As the front-most trooper turned reflexively around at the commotion, he suddenly went rigid, with a sharp intake of breath... before slowly falling to his knees, then to the face, dead, as the lead Shadowtrooper's Force vision could see a faint glimmer of an assassin knife protruding from the back of his neck, just in the space between the bottom of the helmet and the torso plate.

Beyond, only a brief blur of shadowy motion could be seen, darting past the intersection, not turning toward them...

In reality, Deathstrike's plan was deceptively simple...

She had simply moved past the intersection into the cross-corridor, after throwing the knife to kill the Stormtrooper, with intent to catch the rest of them in a point-blank melee, where her advanced Teras Kasi training and refined lightsaber expertise, coupled with the darkness of the surroundings, which suited her best, could be put to immediate, and most efficient use, just as they would round the corner, in pursuit of her.

"Three down... just under a dozen more to go..." - was her fleeting thought, flexing briefly, as she settled in to wait, hugging the wall next to the intersection tightly, in a very low-crouch stance, lightsaber out and ready, but not active.

Nontheless, she was under no illusion that she could actually win at large... not against the resources the Imperials could bring to bear at their leisure, and with the rest of her team almost completely wiped out. However, she was adamant on killing the false Sith Knight, before she would be captured or killed herself, since his very existence was an affront to the philosophy of the True Sith, perhaps even more so then the Jedi themselves.

"At least the Jedi can be respected, adhering to a specific code of honor, as we do. But those miserable, power-crazed, cowardly Dark Side slaves, who sully the term Sith by calling themselves that - they are lower than vermin! And have to be exterminated as such, wherever found." - she reflected with utter hatred, thinking of Palpatine and Vader, her opponent here being cut from the same cloth as they were.

Havox had gone a ways into the vent when he came to a cross section, with vents going four directions horizontally and one going upward.

"A grappling hook would be nice now..." he said to himself as he looked up.

Hearing the pursing Imperials behind him, Havox quickly went to the right, proceeding a ways before he came to T-section, where he turned left, still hoping to eventually come out somewhere near the forward hangar.

Unfortunately for Havox, as he was soon to find out, the main vent system passage ways, which he was in, all came out at the same place, with only Mouse Droids and other small droids, like repair droids, being capable of going up or down the actual airduct shafts. And at the exit of the vent system waiting for him was the Stormtrooper Commander and his squadron...

Before Ty reached the end point however, he decided to deal with the troopers pursing him. He continued around another corner, then turned himself around and trained his blaster back in the direction he came, the sound of the Stormtroopers growing louder as the came nearer.

The Stormtroopers followed Deathstrike right around the corner, however, the Sith Knight and the Shadowtroopers, as well as the Commandos, well-versed in RTSE attack methods, had a fairly clear picture of what she was planning.

The three Shadowtroopers went at different angles first, with two Storm Commandos each between them, EE-3 Carbines raised and ready. The group came around the corner at precisely the same time, not giving Deathstrike the opportunity to catch any of them off guard.

The Sith Knight, at the rear, using the fullest extent of his senses, stayed back slightly, but had his saber ready in case they were attacked, prepared to fight to the death. But then he remembered that he was supposed to take her alive...

"How the shivat do I do that?!" he thought, just as his senses picked up at least 23 more Stormtroopers and three more Shadowtroopers converging from the upper levels...

The remaining two Stormtroopers in the lead, never even had time to scream, as a crimson fire suddenly sliced through them both in a flash. Before one of the Storm Commandos could snap up his weapon, he was killed as well. At that point, Deathstrike suddenly rolled to the side, anticipating the point of aim of another Storm Commando, while also ducking the saber swipe of one of the Shadowtroopers. As the blade passed over her head, the Shadowtrooper was left open for a split second - enough time for Deathstrike's own blade to carve him across the lower abdomen.

With a moan, he collapsed to the deck, dead.

Taking a step forward, and parrying the two attacks of the remaining pair of Shadowtroopers in a flurry of crimson motion, Deathstrike stayed very close to them, using them as interference against the remaining Storm Commandos, as they couldn't risk opening fire in the darkness without a very real probability of hitting one of the Shadows by mistake. At one point, she was left with a pair of seconds of breathing room, her parrying slashes forcing both Shadowtroopers back for an instant, one of them with a shallow scoring burn across his chest, and she used it, applying Force Pull on the Storm Commandos, ripping three rifles out of their owners' grasp, and bringing them to her saber to be sliced in two. That left only two armed Commandos left, as the Shadows were back upon her.

"NO! I don't have TIME to fight these two... more of them could be coming up behind me at any time! I want that pretender's head!" - she thought angrily, referring to the Sith Knight, Force Jumping over the two Shadowtrooper's heads, trying an overhead slash as she did so, which almost caught one of them, but he ducked in time, as she came out of the jump in a low roll, one of their sabers catching her in a graze across the side, but only making her hiss, relishing the searing pain.

The reflexive twin blaster shots from the two remaining armed Storm Commandos came perilously close above her, before her saber blade found them both, and found herself directly in front of the Sith Knight, just as she rolled back to her feet.

She made a quick slash at his face, which he parried high, leaving him open to a vicious hammer-kick to solar plexus, which sent him stumbling back in pain, gasping for breath.

At that point, the two Shadowtroopers tried to rush back into the main corridor to assist the Knight, but Deathstrike was faster, making a powerful Force Push effort to delay them, as she sliced her saber blade into the ceiling, and the many pipes running along it, counting on the assumption that at least one would have something flammable running through it.

That assumption was correct...

...as suddenly, a cascade of coolant fluid started pouring behind her to the deck, instantly ignited by her saber blade, creating a literall firewall, ever-expanding, as more coolant flowed out and was ignited, separating the Shadowtroopers and the disarmed Storm Commandos from her and the Knight, one of the Commandos actually being slow on the pullback, and consumed by fire by now, roasting in his armour.

She smiled wickedly at the Knight, taking a step forward, with the blazing wall of fire behind adding a surreal tone to the scene.

"Alone at last, my dear... no more unwelcome guests!" - she intoned eagerly, with a soft menace, as the pain in her grazed side still flared, only fueling her motivation, twirling the double-saber briefly in a propeller-like motion, and adopting a ready-stance, before the Knight attacked, mostly recovered from the painful blow.

"Bring it on, schutta. I look forward to the Shadow Empire's victory over your pitiful 'True Sith' Empire AND those Ekatra whelps!" the Knight shot back, before rushing forward, activating his lightsaber and attacking with a wild volley of slashes across the slender woman's defense, which were easily blocked, as she kicked-back at him, forcing him away for a moment.

Quickly shrugging off the pain, he went to thrust-stabs and cross-slashes.

One by one, the Stormtroopers rushed around the corner, all six of them.

Havox almost laughed at how easy the Imperials had just made it for him, as he picked them all off one by one. Although they managed to get a few shots off, one glazing the former merc's armor and slightly burning his arm beneath, though not enough to produce any significant pain. Havox then continued down the vents, eventually arriving at the end, which was covered by a grate.

The outside of the grate seemed to be a vacant armory room, and drew no suspicion from the merc-turned Major.

"Well, that's a surprise... he actually KNOWS how to fight relatively decently! Not something I would expect from a Dark Jedi..." - Deathstrike thought, recognizing the Knight's form as a mix of basic Shi-Cho, with some wildly berserk Juyo elements in it, powerful, but unrefined.

Currently, she was applying a moderate, neutral Makashi form, as she wanted to get a feel for her opponent first, parrying and reciprocating his wildly fast, powerful, yet unsubtle and predictable slashes and cross-cuts.

"But he is trying TOO hard..." - she added, abruptly shifting her form to Soresu, defensive form, adopting a closed, economical defense, which his powerful attacks, but lacking finesse, couldn't penetrate.

A minute passed, and the Knight began to wear himself out, trying in vain to find a crack in Deathstrike's Soresu, his attacks becoming noticeably less focused. Flipping over his head in a brief Force Jump, to mask another shift in stance, Deathstrike switched to Ataru, aggressive form, as she landed again.

She parried and completely deflected his next attack, an upper-diagonal slash to the left, the parry being powerful enough to disrupt his faltering form, and send his saber blade out of position to be quickly brought back to blocking position, as she pivoted, bringing the other end of her double-saber toward his right-side ribs. The Knight anticipated stepping back in a flash... but not quite fast enough, as the tip of her blade scored along his abdomen - a 2 centimeter deep slash, not exactly skin-deep, but not terminal, either.

As the Knight staggered in pain, she followed through with a snap-kick to his temple, which wasn't quite enough to knock him out, the Knight being quite tough himself, as he staggered sideways, slamming to the side-wall. Following through, Deathstrike tried a finishing saber attack, but the Knight blocked it - barely, as the two became engaged in a saber-lock.

They stood there, straining against each-other, but the Knight's effort began to falter, being wounded, and in a negative lock posture to begin with, as he blocked the attack. His saber blade began falling away slowly to the side, as Deathstrike's advanced forward...

At the same time, however, the burning coolant fluid was beginning to eat away at the main plasma conduit for that deck, below the grating on the floor. And Deathstrike was completely unaware of that, focused on her near-defeated enemy.

The Knight didn't notice, either, as he was too busy fighting for his life.

With a surge of a strength, he shoved her doublesaber away, breaking the lock, and instantly leaping to the side to avoid her instinctive slash to where he was just standing. But her slash did hit a pipi on the wall that was filled with now-scalding how water, heated by the plasma coolant. The instant it made contact with the air, it vaporized, singing the Knight's back and arm, and burning a portion of Deathstrike's face and chest, due to the lack of clothing she was wearing.

Attempting to take advantage of what he thought was a momentary distraction, the Knight landed a right cross to her temple, with the hilt of his lightsaber providing extra impact...

"AAAHHH!" - Deathstrike screamed briefly, dropping her saber, which clattered to the floor, depowered, this kind of pain slightly too much even for her, but her deeply-rooted anticipation instincts were still up to the task, as she was already leaning her head away at the moment the Knight's right cross connected.

The motion severely lessened the power of his blow, though it was still enough to make her see a few stars and blur her vision for the moment, along with splitting the skin there slightly.

"Now you've pissed me off..." - a berserk though flashed through her mind, along with a flash in her eyes.

Before the Knight could withdraw his hand, she caught it with both of hers, then pulled hard, but only with one, as the curled fingers of her other hand snapped out to grab the Knight's throat in a highly advanced clawgrip piercing throat-hold, as she literally ripped out his windpipe upon withdrawing her hand, the organ dangling in her clenched fist. But the move was so fast that the Knight was still alive actually, though unable to breathe anymore, as he swayed where he stood, eyes glazing, blood gushing from his ripped-open neck.

Instead of finishing him off, she simply shoved him into the fire wall behind...

"BURN, PRETENDER!" - she screamed with glee, mixed with considerable pain she was in, as the unfortunate Knight was literally burned alive, silently, as he was no longer capable of making any sounds at all, with a missing throat. Moments later, his charred, burning corpse collapsed to the deck, fully engulfed by fire.

Only then did she smell the telltale stench of vaporizing rubber and plastic polymers - and her gaze fell toward the floor grating, and the plasma conduit there, which was beginning to glow red. Her eyes widened...

"Oh... NOT good!" - turning away to run down the corridor, while Force Pulling her saber hilt back to her hand.

She had made it only six steps, before there was a brilliant white-silvery flash behind her, as the conduit ruptured. For a brief moment, as the plasma shockwave swept across her, sending her into unconsciousness, she thougt she felt... cold, which was, in fact, the effect of her already overloaded nerves.

The entire corridor collapsed, along with a sizable portion of that deck, sending her limp form plummeting down, to land at the bottom of a trash compactor area just below that deck. The dirty water and debris cushioned her landing, keeping her alive, as she lay unmoving there, burned, bleeding and battered, her left leg broken on landing.

The late Sith Knight's ripped-out windpipe was still clenched in her right fist.

Havox waited a moment, listening for any activity. Hearing none, he kicked out the grate, seeing as there wasn't a more stealthy way to open it. He emerged a second later.

Havox was instantly swarmed by Stormtroopers, and had nearly 20 E-11's trained at his head in a manner of seconds. At the back was the same Stormtrooper officer.

"The jig's up, Rebel. Surrender, or die," he intoned darkly, pulling his own piece - a Westar blaster. How he got it was anyone's guess.

"No way out of this one... not now." Havox said to himself, looking over the room and seeing nothing he could use to his advantage, "A chance may present itself later. And they've probably got their blasters set to stun anyway, so I might as well stay awake so I can watch for chances to escape on the way to the cell, rather than simply let them drag me there unconscious."

Without a word, the former merc dropped his weapon.

The Stormtroopers promptly took him into custody.

Compacter maintainance workers heard the splash, the went inside the compacter to investigate.

"By the Force..."

"That's one of those infiltrators!"

"What's going on here?" a Shadowtrooper snapped, coming up behind them with a squad of Storm Commandos.

The workers stepped aside, and the Shadowtrooper's eyes widened under his helmet. The workers might not have recognized Deathsrike, but he certainly did.

"Get her to the medical bay. Confiscate her lightsaber, and keep her under paralysis drugs until the Decimator arrives," he ordered.

Deep in the bowels of the Star Destroyer, in one of the vacant maintenance rooms, Zoran, the Assassin Acolyte, and the last member of the RTSE group still at large, had sliced into a computer terminal, and was watching via the cameras as Deathstrike was being carried away from the compactor, before switching to a different channel, and overhearing a report from the stormtrooper commander regarding Major Havox's capture.

"The Lady was right... it could well be up to me to make a difference now... when opportunity presents itself." - he thought grimly, face set in an unreadable mask, before he disconnected his interface, and vanished through one of the vents, back into hiding.

CHAPTER 45

UNKNOWN PLANET, UNKNOWN LOCATION... 14 HOURS LATER

Ultra-high security detention facility, deep beneath the surface...

"There is no such thing as a no-win situation, my apprentice. That is just a term, used all too often, to mask one's lack of ingenuity." - one of Lord Darkon's many dictums came to Deathstrike, in a fevered nightmare she was having.

With a gasp, she jerked, and snapped out of the dream. She felt terrible, a splitting headache permeating her brain, indicative of the massive amount of drugs that were used to keep her sedated, Glancing down, she could see that her broken leg was mended, with bacta patches and bone stabilizers, and her burns were treated.

"Taken alive... by the filth of the Shadow Empire, and caged, without a fight! YOU PATHETIC VERMIN!!!" - she yelled in sudden rage, leaping up from the cell's cot, and shaking the durasteel bars of her cell violently.

The outside of the cell was a small monitoring room, with and indentical cell just beside hers, Ty Havox just rousing from his sleep by her yell... and a single youngish, middle-ranking Imperial officer, his standard duty uniform looking uncomfortably tight on him, as his upper torso was literally ripped with muscle, sitting at a computer terminal behind a desk, in the room's center. He glanced up, with a mocking smile:

"Ah... I see you've finally come out of it, True Sith slut. What's the matter... your accomodations not to your taste, 'milady'? Don't worry, schutta, you'll get used to them." - he chided.

"Let me out of here this instant, Imperial, and I'll consider letting you live." - Deathstrike growled, glaring at him, but her gaze also lingering on his physique, as she licked her lips slightly.

The officer just crossed his massive arms in expectation, his mocking grin staying the same.

"Fine... have it your way." - she added, inscensed, attempting to apply Force Grip on the man.

However, the instant she stretched through the Force, a searing burst of pain jolted throughout her body, feeling as if her nerves were set on fire. She collapsed with a scream to the metal deck, shuddering for a moment, even if the Nightsister in her actually enjoyed it, before she pulled herself back up. Feeling to the side of her neck, she could touch a small implant imbedded in her skin there. She grabbed it, in preparation to try and yank it out, when the officer's voice intoned:

"A-a... I wouldn't do that, sweetie, unless you want to lose your head - literally. The inhibitor's rigged with explosives. Just a little something to insure your good behavior while being our guest." - he sneered.

"What is that device?!" - she asked, forcing down her anger.

"The thing reacts with any attempt you make to draw on the Force, sending out some kind of electrostatic surge through your nervous system. That's as much as I know, and need to know about it. Like declawing a wine-cat, eh? You're quite helpless now!" - he replied, the mocking tone staying the same.

Deathstrike gave him a sweetly menacing smile, at the same time as she suddenly slammed the doors of the cell with a kick, hard, making the officer jerk slightly.

"Come over here, big boy, and test that assumption." - flexing briefly.

For a couple of seconds, the officer seemed ready to take her up on the challenge, cracking his knuckles, as he thought:

"I could probably snap her neck like a twig..." - before the latest intelligence report he read about Deathstrike came to mind, and he reconsidered...

Face darkening, he pulled out a small device from the pocket of his uniform, pressing a button.

"AAAGGGHHH!" - she screamed, falling to her knees, as the implant sent another surge, more powerful, the officer clearly able to control it remotely, as well.

"You think I'm stupid, huh? I know what you can do, you vicious little whore! You've made a bloodbath on our ship, killing close to a hundred people yourself! You'd do well to keep that mouth of yours shut... there are three higher settings on this thing, you know. I can make you beg for mercy!"

"You wish..." - a thought flashed through Deathstrike's headache, the pain only goading her as she leaped back up and hissed, gripping the bars:

"When I get out of here, I shall break every single bone in your body, coward, and you'll still be alive when I'm finished."

The officer scowled, adjusting the setting and releasing another surge, even more intense.

"AAAAIIIAAAAGGGHHHHH!!!"

But the pain did nothing but inscense her even more, as she lost control completely, face turning dark red with anger, leaping back up and rattling the bars:

"I'LL SKIN YOU ALIVE AND EAT YOUR HEART!!! You hear me, whelp?! I WILL EAT YOUR MISERABLE HEART!!! Come on, do it again! DO IT!!! I love pain! I LOVE IT!!!" - she ranted, in an utterly frenzied, screaming fury, trembling in rage, but also with an audible trace of masochistic pleasure in the voice.

Then she started kicking and slamming into the doors, in berserk, if futile, attempts to break them down, her screaming turning incoherent, and increasing in pitch, to ear-popping levels.

This savage display puzzled the officer, as he flinched, actually making him slightly uneasy, but also measuring her carefully, as he lowered the control for the moment, thinking:

"Sithspit... she's kriffin' insane! And SO hot... Fine, have it your way, wild girl..." - setting the control to maximum, about to release a surge that would render her unconscious again.

At that moment, Havox, a little shocked himself, having never seen Deathstrike like this, even when they were fighting each other last year, chose to intervene...

"Hey bud, you better be careful!" the former merc cautioned, "You don't want to do something to damage her... and you know what electrical currents can do to the brain! I'm sure your superiors wouldn't be happy to find you fried their prized prisoner."

Ty's admonition couldn't even be head over Deathstrike's berserk histrionics, however.

"HEY! CALM DOWN OVER THERE! YOU'RE NOT HELPING ANYTHING!!!" Havox bellowed in Deathstrike's direction.

"This creep is going to need help when I get my hands on him!" - she snarled back, still frenzied.

"I'LL KILL YOU!!!" - she yelled, turning back to the officer, who seemed ready to press the button.

"You're not killing anything behind bars!" Havox shouted back, "All you're going to do is get your nerves fried, then you won't be able to stand up, much less fight anyone!"

Deathstrike was literally choking on her anger, as she started to retort:

"I... I... I'll..." - before she swallowed hard, closing her eyes and making a supreme effort to force it down.

"Perhaps you're right..." - she muttered exhaustedly, slamming the bars once more with a kick, before sitting heavily back on the bed, gasping for breath after the exertions.

"Heh... that's a good girl." - the officer chided, lowering the remote controller.

Deathstrike didn't rise to that, or say anything, staring rigidly before her, but she thought with cold rage now:

"You're dead... you just don't know it."

"Forceusers." Ty softly muttered under his breath, sitting back down on his cell bed.

It all hadn't gone like he hoped. The Imperials kept him well guarded the entire time since his capture, clearly not wanting to risk any sort of escape attempt. Now with Deathstrike in their hands, they'd only be devoting more security to guarding them both. Even worse, Deathstrike's advantage through the Force had been neutralized, making it seem even more impossible to find an alley through which to escape.

But the officer still wasn't finished with his taunting...

"Hehe... quite a vicious little animal, is she? Still, I sure wouldn't mind having her... once she got tamed a little!" - he remarked to Ty, with an arrogant, comdescending chuckle, taking a couple of steps closer to Deathstrike's cell, appraising her closely.

She didn't even twitch, still staring directly in front, as if in trance.

"About 2,5 meters away now... just take a couple more steps closer, and you're mine, scum!" - she thought, only bringing her legs a few centimeters more under her, ready to leap up in a semisecond.

Havox didn't reply, rather just watched the officer.

"Idiot. He's getting too close to the prison bars... Hasn't he ever watched holomovies?"

The officer smirked.

"What's the matter, hot stuff? Don't like me, eh? Did I hurt you too bad? Trust me, I know how to give a lady a good time..." - he growled, eyes literally undressing Deathstrike, as he took another step closer, lulled by her seeming apathy.

"1,7 meters... take another step, and you shall give me the time of my life, dead man." - she thought, fuming on the insde.

Still, she had not moved, with only a slight twitch of her right hand, as she stiffened the fingers to a wedge.

"I've gotta see this." Ty thought, sliding to one side of his bed to make sure he had as good a view as he could get.

"Cat got your tongue, gorgeous? So much the better, heh... you wouldn't need a tongue for what I'd have in mind for your mouth..." - the Imperial grinned, taking another step...

...and Deathstrike moved.

"1,2 meters. Last mistake, pig..." - she thought in a semisecond, leaping on her feet, the leap carrying her right next to the bars, in a half-crouch.

Before the officer even had time to focus his eyes, her right arm snapped out, the wedged fingers catching him below his right ribs in a piercing-strike. With a grunt of pain, he reflexively curled forward slightly, toward Deathstrike - just as her left arm shot out to grab him behind the neck, before she pulled him toward the bars, his head protruding between two vertical ones, while the throat was compressed by a horisontal one just below the level of his head. She pulled even harder, using both hands now.

"Kkkkhhh..." - he choked, as he brought both hands up in an attempt to grab Deathstrike's arms... but she was much faster, abruptly releasing his head, instead grabbing his right arm as it came up, and pulling it inside the cell, through the bars - before pushing it sharply to the right and leaning into it, using the bars themselves as leverage.

"AAAHHH!" - he screamed as his right arm was broken outwards at the elbow, reflexively reaching his left arm in, in an attempt to force Deathstrike to release his right one - which was exactly what she wanted.

Still leaning against his broken right arm, her right leg snapped up hard, just as his left arm was fully inside the bars, catching it in a heel-kick at the nerve cluster on the inside of the elbow, paralyzing it momentarily.

Quickly wedging his broken right arm between the bars diagonally, so he couldn't pull it out, Deathstrike grabbed the left one, still limp from momentary paralysis, and broken it the same way she did the right one, using the bars as leverage and leaning hard into it. Then she wedged it in place just like the right one.

"Aahhh... aah." - the officer groaned in pain, both his arms useless and trapped between bars, looking to Ty like he was crucified with his back facing outwards.

"Now, my dear... you were saying something about having me? Looks like I have you, though... and it did not have to be like this, if you had simply released me in the first place." - she hissed sweetly, before suddenly pushing him away from the bars, causing more pressure on his broken arms.

"And DON'T flatter yourself, whelp! You have it where it counts, but I'm NOT interested." - she growled, thinking:

"Especially after that attitude of yours! Mmm... even if I actually liked the pain - slightly."

"AAAAAHHHHHHHH!" - he screamed in agony for a handful of seconds, before she stopped pushing him away, and he sagged in relief back on the bars.

With that, Deathstrike began coldly:

"But it's too late for that now. Let's take this in order, shall we? Where are we, do you have a keycard to these cells, and how do I remove this thing from my neck? Your death can be quick, if you answer me immediately, or slow, as I force each answer out of you through agony. But I PROMISE, you will tell me everything I want to know. Gratefully."

Havox started to say something, but quickly cut himself off.

''"If I point out that more guards could show up at any minute, he might clam up and try to stretch this out longer in hopes of getting rescued." he told himself, "Let's just hope she can get him to blab quickly."''

"Nhhh... why should I say anything if you'll kill me anyway, Sith?! Please... for what it's worth, I didn't mean what I said to you - I was just kidding around! I apologize... sincerely." - the officer groaned pleadingly, pressed against the bars to try and lower the pressure on his broken arms as much as possible.

Deathstrike's eyes flashed briefly.

"Your sense of humor could use some work, Imperial... and your advances, as well. Fortunately for you, I rather liked the pain you gave me... so I'll accept your apology. If you answer me quickly, and I like the answers, I won't kill you." - she said, partly because she actually meant it, and her fury had diminished by now, partly because she could hear in the officer's voice that he meant what he said, and partly due to a short timetable, with more Imperials likely in the vicinity.

"You promise?" - the man asked, not convinced.

"Yes... yes, I promise. Now start talking!" - she replied impatiently.

Okay... okay, the keycard for the cells is in my pocket..." - he began, eyes motioning to the left pocket of his uniform pants.

Deathstrike reached in, and pulled out a small, flat chip-card, which was the same size as the reader she could see next to both cell doors. She tossed the card to Havox, since she couldn't open her cell at the moment, with the officer attached to the doors:

"Catch!" - she exclaimed to Ty.

Havox caught the card, though he had stretch a bit to reach it. Not wasting any time, he unlocked his cell door and exited. First thing he did was grab the Imperial's sidearm, which he then trained toward the main door.

"We're... we're in a high-security detention facility on Kalee, about half a kilometer beneath the surface." - the officer continued in a strained voice.

"Well, that means we've got a little ways to go upward." Havox deadpanned, handing the key card back to Deathstrike.

Deathstrike didn't take it, however, her attention remaining on the officer.

"Which brings us to the last question... how do I get this BLASTED thing out of my neck?! Because it will drive me insane!" - she growled, getting close to the officer's face.

"I swear I don't know! I'm just a guard, the medics were the ones who implanted that thing! All I know is how to work it... AAAGGGHHH!!!" - his sentence turned into a scream, as Deathstrike pushed away again, with a hiss:

"Remember what I said? That I won't kill you ONLY if I like the answers to my questions?! I don't like this one... and my instinct tells me you're hiding something. My instincts are RARELY wrong, Imperial!"

"Aah... I'm telling the truth... AAAH! Please... there's a medbay on this level... aah... maybe the chief medic would know more! All I can give you is the remote controller - but it can't be used to shut it off. Aaaahh... the thing has to be removed to stop zapping you if you try to use the Force! I swear it..." - he blurted through the moans.

Deathstrike let out an annoyed sigh, but could tell that the officer was being honest.

"This thing will drive me insane if I don't get it out... and I think it's also responsible for this BLAZING headache!" - she thought.

"You'll live, like I promised." - she said simply, before stabbing the fingers of her left hand in the base of his neck on the left side, and the nerve cluster pressure-point there, rendering him unconscious in an instant.

As the officer collapsed limply to the floor, she untangled his arms from the bars, then nodded to Havox to unlock her cell. Just as he did that, she again started to finger the implant, getting an almost overpowering urge to yank it out - before remembering what the officer said about it being rigged with explosive in case of tampering.

Picking up the implant's remote controller, she scowled, and muttered:

Let's find that medical bay, Ty... I HAVE to get this thing out, or I'll lose my sanity! You have no idea what it is like, having the Force, yet not being able to use it at all, like the situation I'm in now. I feel like I'm being choked inside my mind!" - in a voice that made it clear how much mental pain she was in.

"I suppose I wouldn't know." the major admitted, "Let's get moving then."

"I suppose that short stint with the artificial force from the SE wouldn't really give an accurate picture. I'm glad I let that crap wear-off; I'd much rather be able to take care of myself rather than rely on supernatural power." he thought.

Although Havox toyed with asking Deathstrike a couple questions, he decided to focus on getting out of the Imperial base first.

Just as the two of them started toward the main doors, something caught Deathstrike's attention... a small surveillance camera in one corner of the monitor room. She grimaced, just about to remark to Havox...

...as the doors suddenly opened, and Stormtroopers began piling in - four of them. They snapped to a perfect line, E11's aimed at the two, Havox aiming his appropriated blaster pistol back their way, before the leader intoned:

"You're not going anywhere, prisoners! By authority of Emperor Harrington, you will return to your cells at once!"

"Harrington? I recall reading about him in RTSE Intelligence files, but I didn't know he commanded the Remnant - on the SE and the Gatekeeper's behalf, I assume. They might even be related by blood... though I'm not certain of that." - Deathstrike briefly thought, but quickly dismissed it, focusing on the more immediate situation.

She was unarmed, over four meters away from the nearest trooper, and two of the rifles were aimed at her, the other two on Havox. Her gaze flicked across all the objects in the immediate vicinity, finally falling on the table the officer sat at earlier, only slightly over a meter away, a datapad lying next to the terminal. The datapad was Imperial-style, quite large and sturdy, with metal casing and hard edges, reinforced by durasteel lining.

"Thrown hard enough, that thing could get through a Stormtrooper helmet visor..." - she thought, lips twitched into an unnoticable smirk, before turning her head fractionally and whispering in Havox's ear:

"Draw their attention as much as you can..." - knowing that with two rifles steady on her, she couldn't anticipate both opening shots quickly enough without the Force, and with the headache still gnawing persistently at her overall focus and coordination.

Ty weighed his options. He could shoot one of the troopers aiming at Deathstrike first, giving her a better chance to go for a weapon, but also leaving himself open. Or he could blast one of the troopers targeting him, which ment Deathstrike would have to dodge two blasts at once. Deciding Deathstrike must have something in mind, Ty opted for the former.

Havox only had to move his wrist slightly and the looted blaster was trained on the head of the inner-trooper focused on Deathstrike. A single blast to the face, and that trooper was flying backward, dead before he hit the ground.

By the time the trooper was still in the process of hitting the ground, Deathstrike was already in motion - feigning a false move forward, to make the second trooper aiming at her anticipate in that direction and fire - as she actually only sidestepped toward the table, snapping up the datapad, the trooper's blaster bolt passing beside her. With a sharp flick of her arm, the datapad was sent flying to crash through the helmet visor of the outer trooper targeting Ty, a split-second before the man fired... the blast going wide as a result, missing Ty.

"Aahh!" - the stormie screamed, bringing his hands to his head, as pieces of the shattered visor imbedded into his eyes, blinding one of them.

At the same time, the second trooper aiming at Deathstrike shifted his aim, and fired at her again - but she anticipated the point of aim, deftly twisted aside, and made a foot-to-foot traverse... simultaneously dodging the blast, which passed between her outstretched legs, and getting point-blank to the trooper at the traverse's end.

With a leverage-twist, she ripped the E11 out of the trooper's grip, while tripping him with her left leg and bringing him in the line of fire with the second trooper, who was shifting his aim from Havox to her, blocking the shot. That trooper hesitated for an instant, before realizing he can't get a shot and turning to aim at Ty again - just as Ty's blast struck him down, after he had already dealt with the second one, the one Deathstrike blinded.

She brought the hind end of the E11 upwards, beneath the trooper's chin, ripping off his helmet and dazing him for a moment by the blow, before dropping the weapon, placing both palms of her hands to the opposing sides of the trooper's head, before he could bring his arms up in defense. Then she twisted sharply to the right.

With a soft crack, the trooper's neck was broken, and the man plopped to the ground without a sound, dead. Before he even finished falling, Deathstrike had picked up the E11 again and moved to the doors.

"Let's go." - she intoned to Ty, the entire battle having lasted just over six seconds, total.

Havox couldn't help but smile slightly as the two resumed their trek toward the medbay.