Chapter Forty Seven

Harry kept up a running commentary of what was going on as the ship zoomed through the atmosphere towards where he was pointing. They took a while to actually find the palace, it blended in with the surrounding mountain so well and there was a bit of a sandstorm going on at present as well. Fay however dealt with the sandstorm, reaching out with her Force powers to gently shunt it around the palace, though the effort was rather power consuming. That much air and controlling that much power was very draining over that wide area.

Even as she did so, Dooku noted several antiair guns popping up around the palace, training in on them quickly. Dooku brought the ship down, its heavy weapons, two turbolaser turrets set into the front of the patrol craft opening fire on the antiair weapons. But Jabba's palace also had a shield, which flared into existence a second before the bolts impacted.

The ship and the palace exchanged glances blows for few moments before the ship was down past the antiair gun's envelope. The ship's shields had been pounded flat, and its sides scorched but it was generally intact. A moment later the three Jedi and Lily were outside. The palace's shields however were still up, cutting them off from the entrance to the landing bay.

Several people had come out onto the bay's small observation deck, and began to fire at them, but Dooku almost absentmindedly blocked the blasts with his lightsaber, while Harry did so with some difficulty. This was the first time he'd faced people with blasters with his lightsaber after all. However as the seconds ticked by, he got better at it which Dooku noted with approval.

Fay had no lightsaber and took refuge behind the two other Jedi. But she also was a master of telekinesis. She reached through the shield grabbing the ships inside the docking area, including the massive, and very ugly in her, opinion ship that was probably Jabba's personal yacht. Then she wrenched her hands apart, and suddenly the ships were flying every which way, crashing and blasting against one another people and the walls of the hangar Bay resulting in a massive crashing boom and shriek of tortured metal.

One of the ships smashed into the side of the shield generator, and the shield sputtered and went out, allowing the Jedi entrance. Lily had already zoomed ahead, eager to scout out the territory.

She came back quickly as they moved through the dock, pointing at the entrances one after another. "That one goes up, there looks to be several security positions up there for antiair fire, they were manned, but the troops from them are coming down. This one goes down into some kind of receiving hall, eventually anyway it whines for several stories. That one leads to in a giant elevator, given what I know of Hutt physiology I suppose that is the entrance the slug with pretensions of grandeur uses to get around. Those two lead to deeper into the palace." Lily reported.

"Aayla is in that direction," Harry said pointing down slightly to the right on a diagonal from his current position while Dooku dealt with the last few defenders in the hanger bay. "She's freed a few slaves, but most of them are either too drugged or too docile to be of help and now she's just holding the corridor leading into the slave pens. It apparently shared a security post with the prison cells. In Aayla's words a prisoner was just a slave in the making."

Harry scowled angrily, spitting to one side and Dooku grabbed his shoulder, shaking him lightly. "Calm yourself padawan, remember anger leads to the Dark Side. Righteous anger as you are feeling is well and good, but it can be a door to less controllable forms of anger."

"Yes Master Dooku," Harry replied, calming down slightly.

"Good," Dooku said clapping a hand on the young man's shoulder and smiling down at him approvingly. If his first padawan had seen that look, he might well have keeled over in shock, but that was neither here nor there. "Now come."

"We should probably cut those people coming down from the turrets off so they can't attack us from the rear," Master Fay said, breathing in deeply. Moving the ships like that on top of her earlier exertions had tired her out for a moment. Reaching forward with her own Force powers perceptions, Fay felt several dozen minds everywhere, some of them racing down corridors to them.

"Harry!" she said crisply, pointing at the several of the corridors he Lily had explained. "Block those up."

Dooku watched interestedly as Harry nodded. Instead of using the debris and moving it all into place however he simply conjured up several large blocks of stone filling the corridors with them. "Why didn't you do use the debris?" Dooku asked, his eyes narrowed. Material creation, astonishing and yet another sign that Yoda was right to allow Harry and Lily their head as he did.

"It's all interconnected Master and fouled up with one another master. It was simply easier to conjure them up like that."

"For you perhaps," Dooku said with a faint tick of his lips, amused at the boy's powers. The fact that he had already begun to experiment himself with them and looked forward to learning further had something to do with his amusement of course. "For now let us move. Even with your powers we can't afford to be bogged down Padawan."

Harry inclined his head in acknowledgement then moved forward with Master Dooku with Fay bringing up the rear.

As they moved down from the hanger bay the Jedi ran into several security stations, each with a few guards and automated defenses. Jabba might have thought himself secure out here but he was also a paranoid slug. And he had a small army of toughs on call. The only things that allowed the attackers any advantage was the way they were attacking, the fact Jabba's troops couldn't surround them, and their Force powers.

As they went Fay would reach out, using her unique abilities to shut down the minds of anyone trying to circle around them from the various side corridors or soothing the minds of the various slaves, telling them to be calm or ready to leave, the whispers of her words seeming to come from their own minds. After all, while this might be a rescue operation for one particular Twi'lek girl, there was no reason why they couldn't save all the other slaves here. This, Harry and Dooku's ability allowed them to make progress regardless of what the defenders tried to do to stop them. In particular the lesson to never use grenades against Jedi was proven time and time again.

Eventually the Jedi worked their way downwards into the main hall where they found several hundred people waiting for them behind hastily erected defenses. There was a moment of stillness as the three Jedi stepped from the corridor out into the open of the which ended as Jabba shouted in Huttese from his position at the back of the hall on his grav sled. A droid stood nearby translating his exhortations to his troops. "Get them, kill them, a million credits to whoever kills a Jedi! You will pay for this effrontery Jedi!"

Using a bit of Force power on his board to project his voice over the sounds of battle Dooku let his and Harry's shields take the flurry of blaster bolts as he shouted. "Jabba the Hutt! Have your people stand down, or they and you will die! We are here to retrieve our fellow Jedi. Submit and you will live!"

Master Fay shook her head at the wording, but Master Dooku caught her motion. "Jabba won't back down whatever I say. He can't, given this attack on his place of power and retain face in front of his minions. But we can use this moment as a bit of a teaching tool for any survivors. They attacked Aayla and Quinlan the moment they realized they were Jedi. I mean to point out the fact that attacking Jedi whatever the reason is a very bad idea."

"Never! Invaders to my home, you will all die here!" Jabba said in his own language, and he once again exhorted his people to press their attack.

Dooku sighed, moving out into the corridor from the hall, his lightsabers up and protecting him as Harry powered his own lightsaber down, and began to conjure up fantastical beasts and creatures, sending them forward to do battle with the horde. He also began to use illusions, after all his opponents weren't Jedi or all immune to such things now.

Despite his bluster Jabba was already retreating as the Jedi moved out of the corridor into the hall, his people retreating too. The reason for this was apparent as a massive doorway across the hall from their entrance way opened, and a giant Rancor roared out, heading towards the first targets he saw, which happened to be the Jedi.

"Oh my," Fay murmured, stepping around Harry quickly, and raising her hand. What would've taken any other Jedi at least a few moments and some concentration took Fay a bare second of looking into the beast's eyes. Its charge stumbled to a halt, and it leaned down, snuffling at her hand. The blaster bolts coming from the far end of the whole trailed off and all of good the goons could only stare in shock as their lord's trump card was dealt with so easily.

"He's a local boy, aren't you pretty one?" Fay murmured, rubbing under the thing's chin.

"Kind of ugly though?" Harry quipped, leaping onto the rancor's shoulder and then off it, his lightsaber activating as he hurled it forward, covering himself in a shield as the blaster bolts once again began to rattle.

"Never let your lightsaber go like that in battle padawan, it is showy nonsense!" Dooku shouted as he raced around the rancor although he could not argue with the results. Harry's lightsaber had cut into several quad lasers along the hallways ceiling, before returning to his hand, slipping through the Force Shield that protected him.

"Yes Master I'll remember that," Harry said glibly, and Dooku spared a moment to promise himself to smack the fool boy upside the head later before they were in among the defenders, hacking them down.

OOOOOOO

"Mother Lily!" Aayla said, grinning at the Force Ghost shoved her head through the wall along one corridor. "Does that mean Harry's nearby?"

"They're in the main hall Aayla," Lily replied, giving the girl once over. Aayla had been tagged by some rock shrapnel on one shoulder, and seared by a near miss along her leg, but that was all the damage that Lily could see. She breathed a sigh of relief, moving forward to give the girl one of her ethereal hugs, which Aayla didn't return, since her hands were full of lightsaber. She doubted that stabbing Lily with them would do anything, but she wasn't about to find out.

"You're looking magnificent my dear," she said, leaning back and taking in Aayla's form less clinically now. Of course over the Hypercom most of what the participants saw was face, so this was a first time Lily had seen Aayla's entire body in years, and to say that she was going to be a beautiful looking woman was an understatement. At 15 she was already attractive, and still has some growing to do.

"I'll show you the way," she said, turning and moving as Aayla and went back to cutting open doors for the various slaves, urging them to follow her.