Muunraker/Chapter 9

Muunraker

Chapter 9 Divide and Conquer

As the Durasteel Rancor headed for Kalee, the five MI5 operatives, Moonreaper, Funkistann, Taproot, Kapanen, and Bont, gathered in one of the larger rooms aboard the freighter. Shasta had a holo-image in the center of the room. It was a blue-print of the layout of the underground base on Kalee where Bont and Europa had been held captive.

"So, you're telling me your friend Valeria gave you this?" Pandolfo asked, pointing at the holo-image. "How was she able to get it?"

Shasta shrugged. "She didn't say. But she's got resources. She could probably get us anything we wanted."

"And why is she not MI5?" Bont added, implying that Valeria would be an excellent agent with her skills.

"I've asked her to join many times, but she refuses," Shasta answered. "I don't know why. I know she likes working alone, but I don't know." Without wasting any more time, Shasta moved the conversation back to the mission at hand. "Okay, so the idea is to sneak into the base and find out exactly what the hell Drax is doing."

"Sneak in?" Europa questioned. She waved a hand toward Bont and said, "We just got out."

"Yes, but look," Shasta pointed to the top level of the 3-dimensional holo-map. The top level had protrusions all the way around it, almost like a spider web design. The lower levels that went underground were more compacted than the top. "Judging by the height and position of these protrusions here on the ground level, they're probably different entrances. And there's five of them, one for each agent."

"You-sa want us-en to separate and go in alone?" Gruu inquired.

"Yes," Shasta said, turning to her Gungan counterpart. "I figure we can trip their alarms or alert them some how to our presence simultaneously at all five of these entrances, separating their forces. Drax's guards can't all converge on one spot because they'll be infiltrated on all five locations. They'll be dividing their numbers, allowing us to slip past them more easily."

Bont was rubbing his chin in thought. "If we manage to slip past them stealthily, it just might work."

"Then we'll head for the control rooms," Shasta pointed toward the center of the holo-image, "which I would guess would be around this area. A central location."

"From there," Pandolfo started, "we could take control of the base."

"Plus dig through their computer banks for more info," Shasta added. She glanced around at her fellow agents. "Everybody willing to do it?"

Everyone nodded.

"Alright," Shasta said. "Let's get this guy."

- - - - - - - - - -

Later, when all five agents were stationed at their respective locations around the entrances to Drax' base on Kalee, each one of them only found two guards. Through MI5's training, they were easily dealt with. Europa, Shasta and Pandolfo simply shot at them from a distance, whereas Bont walked up to them and started fighting. Gruu, on the other hand, took a different approach. Being opposed to killing them, he used Jedi mind tricks to make them walk away from their post. Timing their infiltration plan perfectly, each agent entered the base simultaneously.

Deep within the compound, an alarm sounded in the control room. The northern entrance had been breached. Another alarm alerted the workers to a second breach at the eastern entrance. The other three were then breached almost instantly. The control room was pandemonium. The security officers were yelling orders into their comlinks telling the guards to head for the entrances. Some guards were confused, as they were being told by two different people to head to two different places.

The plan was working.

As the five MI5 operatives ventured deeper into the complex, they met little to no resistance. Pandolfo and Gruu happened to meet each other as they each rounded a corner. "Ah, Pandolfo," Gruu said when he saw his friend.

"Gruu! Looks like everything's going according to plan."

Just as Gruu was about to say something in response, a door slid open next to them. A Human guard appeared and gasped when he saw them. Just as he raised his blaster, Gruu swiped at it with his lightsaber, chopping the blaster in half. The guard was surprised by the sudden attack and stumbled backward. Pandolfo then jumped at him, knocking the Human to the floor. He threw a few punches into the guards face until he was unconscious.

Gruu, putting away his lightsaber, looked around the room. It was an office of some kind. There was a computer terminal on the desk, so Pandolfo headed over to it. "This looks like it may have some info we could-- Damn. There's some kind of security encryption. I'll see if I can hack it. Cover that door. This may take me a few minutes."

- - - - - - - - - -

Shasta had made it to the central part of the complex and found what she assumed was the control room. As the door slid open, she swung her blaster around the room, killing the three guards that where standing watch. The room was lined with rows of computer consoles and there were numerous techs working each terminal. Sure enough, it looked like a control room. She loved being right.

"Everyone just stay where you are," she said to the frightened techs. Looking at them, she noticed most of them were Twi'leks. And none of them seemed to be carrying any weapons on them.

A door on the opposite side of the room suddenly slid open. Shasta aimed her blasted. She hesitated when she recognized the face of the person entering.

"Whoa! Whoa! It's me!" Europa put her hands up to stop Shasta.

Shasta lowered the blaster.

"The control room," Europa commented. "You were right."

"Comm the others," Shasta said. "Let 'em know we found it."

- - - - - - - - - -

Bont was creeping down a corridor when Europa gave the message. Bont stopped when one of the doors slid open. He saw a female Twi'lek exit. Her skin was a purple-ish color, sort of a pale lavender. The startled Twi'lek gasped when she saw him. She didn't appear to have any weapons, so she wasn't one of the guards. He couldn't bring himself to shoot a pretty thing such as her.

"Come on," Bont said, grabbing her arm. "Inside." He shoved her back through the door, glancing both ways down the corridor making sure he wasn't spotted. The room was small with a row of vid-screens and a console with lots of buttons and controls.

"You're not one of the guards," the Twi'lek commented, deducing he was behind all the alarms and confusion within the base. "Who are you? Why did you break in here?"

"My name's Bont." He happened to notice there was a little bit of bruising around the her wrists. Almost as though she was cuffed or shackled recently. Couple that with the fact that she was a young female Twi'lek... She could possibly be a slave. "What's your name?"

"Holly. Holly Goodlekku."

"Are you a slave here, Holly?"

She hesitated for a moment. Then, "Yes. And I was using the confused guards as a diversion to escape, until you got in the way."

"We'll get you out of here safely," Bont told her as he reached for his communicator.

- - - - - - - - - -

Back in the control room, Shasta and Europa heard Bont's voice say, "Drax has Twi'lek slaves working for him."

"Yeah," Shasta responded, looking around at the Twi'lek computer techs. "We kinda figured that."

"Another reason to nab Drax," Pandolfo added over the comlink.

- - - - - - - - - -

"Got it. I managed to hack a terminal in one of the private offices. I'll let you know what I find," Pandolfo said into his communicator.

Gruu was reaching out with the Force, searching for anyone who would be approaching.

"Interesting," Pandolfo mumbled. "Looks as though Drax has been running his own private bank."

"That explains the wealth," Bont's voice responded. "I knew it wasn't just vornskrs."

- - - - - - - - - -

"You know," Holly started, "the guards will be back any minute."

"Where is Drax?" Bont demanded, looking at all the data on the screens.

Holly pointed her thumb to the vid-screens behind her. "He's on a ship headed for the space station."

Bont spun his head around to look at her. "What space station?"

- - - - - - - - - -

"Uh, guys?" Pandolfo said into the communicator. "I think we have bigger problems now." He was looking at an image of a space station on his screen.

"Let me guess..." Bont's voice said. "A space station?"

"Yeah," Pandolfo responded. "And it's got some form of massive ion cannon."

"Fabulous," Shasta said sarcastically.

- - - - - - - - - -

"We've gotta get to those ships to stop Drax," Bont told Holly.

"You need a security card to get into the hangar."

"Can you get us through?"

Holly pulled a card from her pocket.

Bont said into the comlink, "I've got a tech that can get us access into the hangar. I'm sending the hangar's coordinates to you now. Meet me there. We're heading for that space station."

- - - - - - - - - -

Moments later, Shasta and Europa were the first to arrive at the doors leading to the hangar. There were a few guards they dealt with fairly easily. They waited for the others, keeping the area secure.

A few corridors away, Pandolfo was looking at the coordinates Bont sent to his datapad. The hangar was a good distance away from the offices they had found. "It should be just around the next corner," Pandolfo reported.

"Good," Gruu said, glancing behind him. "Because me-sa is thinkin' there are some guards headed dis way."

As they rounded the corner, they bumped into Bont and the Twi'lek woman.

"Come on," Holly said, pointing down the corridor. "It's down this way."

Bont pulled Holly along with him. Pandolfo followed closely behind. Gruu was picking up the rear, lightsaber at the ready. He could feel the other beings getting closer to them. The guards were coming. They reached the end of the corridor to find Shasta and Europa surrounded by a few dead guards.

"I take it this is the tech you found?" Shasta commented. Pointing her thumb toward the locked doors, she said, "Open it, and hurry."

As Holly swiped the card, the double-doors clicked and slid open. They continued into the hangar. Gruu was the last one through the door. Guards rounded the corner at the far end of the corridor just as he stepped through. They began firing at him. Gruu deflected the blaster bolts one after another until the door slid shut. He then jammed his lightsaber straight into the control panel next to the door, frying it. "Dat will keep dem from getting in."

As he turned toward the others, he noticed that they were all surrounded by guards. The guards, blasters trained on the six of them, formed a half-circle around them. The MI5 operatives had their weapons aiming right back. It was a stand-off. There were twelve guards. MI5 realized they were outnumbered two-to-one.

The silence was broken when one of the guards spoke into his communicator. "I've got the intruders in the hangar bay."

"Good," a voice responded back. "Kill them."

"Now what?" Europa asked.

"Remember our divide-and-conquer plan?" Shasta asked back.

"Yeah."

"Let's do that."

As the fire-fight started, the MI5 agents scattered in different directions, ducking, dodging and rolling out of the way. Bont pulled Holly with him. Gruu headed straight for the guards, deflecting bolts as he went. When he passed by the guards, he slashed at them with his lightsaber, killing two. He hated killing. It was against everything the Jedi stood for. But he was an MI5 operative and had a license to kill. The two organizations to which he belonged contradicted themselves. He only killed when it was absolutely necessary. And in this situation, it was absolutely necessary.

Each agent found cover behind crates or whatever they could find as stray blaster bolts went everywhere. Gruu was using the Force to throw crates at them. Then he used the Force to pull the blasters from their hands.

Behind a crate, Holly grabbed hold of her left arm. Bont noticed a blaster bolt wound on her shoulder. "Crap. Hang on."

"It hurts," Holly gritted through her clenched teeth.

Bont looked around to find the nearest ship. Directly across from them was a YT-1210 light freighter. "They'll probably have some bacta stored in there." He grabbed his communicator. "Everybody, head for the light freighter. We're gettin' outta here."

Bont turned back to Holly, who was grimacing. "The ramp is down," he told her, pointing to the ship. "Run for the ship. I'll cover you."

"But--"

"Go!"

Holly got to her feet and ran for the ramp, fighting through the pain. Bont popped up over the crate and let loose a barrage of blaster bolts causing the guards to duck and take cover. When Holly entered the ship, Bont back-peddled after her, still firing at the guards.

When he reached the top of the ramp, he could see the other MI5 agents heading for him. Giving them cover, they entered the ship one by one.

"Everyone okay?" Europa asked.

"Somebody get to the cockpit!" Bont yelled. "Close this ramp and fire up the engines!"

Bont, Shasta and Pandolfo fired back at the guards while Gruu ran for the cockpit. Within moments, the ship was started up, lifted off the floor and heading across the hangar. The guards fired up at the cockpit. The ship was heading for the open blast doors. One of the guards hit the controls to close the doors, but he was too late. The ship managed to slip through before they shut.

- - - - - - - - - -

Flying up into Kalee's upper atmosphere, bacta was applied to Holly's wounds.

"Okay," Pandolfo said. "We managed to survive the ground complex, but what about this space station?"

"I don't suppose Valeria has blueprints for that," Bont commented.

"What exactly is goin' on in dis space station?" Gruu asked, turning to Holly. "Is Drax choosing sides in da Huk War?"

"I don't know what's happening up there," Holly responded. "I'm only a tech. I didn't have authorization for that."

Europa said, "Once we get close, they're gonna know we're not, ya know, them."

"The space station has a tractor beam that will reel us in," Holly said. "Getting into the docking bay shouldn't be a problem."

Shasta said, "We'll just have to make it up as we go along."

"Wait a minute," Europa said. "If they know we've infiltrated their base, broke into the hangar and stole a ship, they'll alert the people aboard the space station that we're coming."

"No they won't," Pandolfo said confidently. "Once I found out they had a space station, I disabled their communication links between it and the ground base."

Bont gave him a brief pat on the back. "Smart thinking."

"That's right," Pandolfo added. "I'm awesome."

Chapters: Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | Epilogue