Chapter Sixty Eight

Elsewhere in the base, Aayla and Quinlan had broken off from the Wookies, moving forward mostly by guile and Force Cloak for a time. They wanted to get to the central control center, which would hopefully have a map or surveillance screens which they could use to better control the advance of their troops.

They ran into several hard points, areas protected more by fully automated turrets than anything else, but were able to hammer them under quickly. Quinlan had developed a certain faculty with illusions, and used said Force technique to flummox the turret's limited computer systems. He made them actually see one another as enemies at times, or simply fire in the opposite direction, letting one or the other Jedi in close. Once close, Quinlan used telekinesis to take out the turrets, and Aayla used her own skill with wind assaults to do the same.

The two of them paused near where they thought that Master Fay had said the control center was as Aayla's eyes went far away for a moment. Quinlan looked at her, then around, letting his Force Cloak fade. Both of them would have seemed as if they were slowly fading into reality if anyone else had been in this sector to see them, but there weren't. They had just passed several groups running in the opposite direction, though. "Harry?"

Aayla nodded. "He and the Wookies with him are running into major trouble: a full company of mercs. They seem to have set up around their living quarters or whatever and are holding them back." She scowled a little, shaking her head. "He and a few Wookies are holding them while others are searching for ways to flank, but it doesn't look good. His arm of the assault is slowing down."

"Let me check in with Master Dooku…" Quinlan muttered, pulling out his communicator and dialing the assault's commander. Despite the walls of the base interfering with the signal, he got through eventually.

"The space station is ours, though we are dealing with a few ships trying to escape from the base. Foolish of them, since we now control the orbitals, but a predictable response from such swine. I am sending down half of the Wookie troops we used here along with several of the Nabooan starfighter pilots," Dooku reported. "We are going to see if any of the slaves are able and willing to fight for their freedom. After that, we will push out further from there to join up with Padawan Potter's command."

There was a moment's pause as Dooku opened up a line with Fay, who was able to help Aayla and Quinlan regain their bearings in relation to their target, the control center. They had lost their way slightly thanks to the haphazard nature of the base's architecture and needing to reroute around a large band of pirates.

Realizing the two were close, Dooku promptly ordered the two of them to continue on their way. "We want to capture the leader of this operation if at all possible, which given Master Fay's assault should certainly be possible. Continue with your mission, Knight Vos."

"Understood," Quinlan replied, and gestured Aayla to continue as the sounds of battle got closer, the roar of the Wookie battle cries carrying very well through the corridors of the base. Despite not running into many more pirates save a scattered handful, the two of them continued to hear the sounds of battle coming closer, then further away, but always present.

More than once Aayla paused, frowning as Harry and his forces ran into more organized resistance. The company of mercenaries, a group which used a hand clenched over a red rose as their symbol, which none of the Jedi had ever seen, were now acting like a rallying point for the defenders, and the Wookies were becoming bogged down everywhere. Despite that, the battle was pretty much a foregone conclusion since the joint assault force controlled the orbitals, though the defenders didn't seem to realize it.

About ten minutes later the two of them arrived at the control center, finding the massive hatch leading into it strangely empty. The control center was a lavishly appointed room, with a lounge chair of all things in the middle, gold inlays here and there, and elegant, nearly serpentine style light fixtures in each corner. The communications gear was built into one wall to look like so many windows, and there were three small recesses set around the room which catered to an equal number of computers with soft seats built into them.

But for all of that, it was empty of their target. There were two dead women, both humans, there, neatly killed with their necks snapped, their bodies draped over two of the small recesses. They didn't look like pleasure slaves. They wore normal spacers' clothing and blasters at their belts, but they hadn't fought back either.

"Some kind of internecine argument, perhaps?" Quinlan mused, but then he was distracted by what one of the screens was showing. A group of Wookies was about to be ambushed from several sides. Moving over to the screen he pulled out his communicator as he saw which area of the base that was, quickly discerning where that was in conjunction with the two major avenues of the attack.

He quickly began to bark orders into the communicator, finding and warning that group of Wookies that they had trouble coming. Then he watched as the group of Wookies turned and, instead of digging in or falling back as he suggested, turned around as one, and charged into the attackers behind them, rounding the same corner the pirates had hoped to round in turn to surprise them.

Two Wookies fell before they were within reach of the pirates. The pirates, seventy men of dozens of different races, didn't stand a chance after that, the Wookies taking them to pieces quite literally.

"Yes, well, that works too…" Quinlan mumbled, rather stunned. He had never seen someone's arms actually ripped off before, let alone seen said arms be used as flails against other people afterward.

Shaking his head, Quinlan glanced away from the screens looking around the control center. "I don't think either of these women was the leader of this organization, and there are three substations here. That means the other operator must have somehow dragged their leader away, somewhat more selfless than I would expect of pirates. But then again I didn't expect to see women in such high positions as these two must have, either."

Aayla shuddered, the very idea of women being involved in slavery bothering her. It wasn't the first time she had come across such examples, of course, but it still made her shudder. Worse at times, the women who became part of such organizations were often even more horrible than the men in dehumanizing their victims.

He turned to look at Aayla who had been examining the body of one of the two dead women. "Aayla, see if you can track whoever it was down. They can't really get away, but capturing them here and now will be much easier than if they attempt to escape using a hidden ship or something similar. I'll stay here and do what I can to direct the battle."

"Understood, Master. Don't worry, I'll find them," Aayla replied, eager to show once more that she could operate on her own despite her young age.

As Quinlan returned to the screens and began to transmit instructions or warnings, Aayla exited the control center, looking around for a moment. Unlike most control centers, this one didn't abut any intersections. The last intersection they had passed through was a good five hundred feet or so away. But we didn't see anyone coming for, what, two minutes or so? Nor did we hear anything over the noise of combat… Hmm…

Searching around with her hands and the Force she found a panel in one of the metal plated walls that moved under her light push, which it should definitely not have done if it actually abutted the outside of the base. "Ah ha!"

Using her lightsaber she cut into the wall there cautiously, first making a hole large enough to poke her head into. Not that she did. Instead she conjured up a small mirror and used that, though the precaution was unnecessary. No one tried to take a shot at her. After that she cut an opening for herself, idly wondering how the owners of the base had operated the secret panel, but deciding it didn't matter. Once her doorway was cut, she moved on, racing now, ignoring her Force Cloak in lieu of speed.

OOOOOOO

At first Harry had had trouble catching up with the lead Wookie groups who had set off while he was still teleporting in their fellows. Evidently the Wookies did not know the meaning of "hurry up and wait," just "hurry" when it came to combat. He did eventually catch up, however, and through judicious use of Force Shields, Force Telekinesis, and his lightsaber, Harry was able to keep all of the group he joined both pointed forward and alive despite numerous attempts by the thugs they were facing to either encircle or pin them down.

That was until they ran into the mercenary company. Despite its leader apparently being among Master Fay's victims, this group had enough training and coordination to make a real fight of it. Worse, they'd had time to get over their initial shock at the attack and had put it to good use, fortifying their barracks area.

The first Harry learned of this was when he rounded a curve in the corridor several hundred feet away and three stories down from where he had teleported in and walked into a hail of quad laser and blaster fire. There were even a few disintegration beams in there, and his hurriedly erected Force Shield spluttered under the impacts, shimmering in midair like a violent rainbow.

Harry hadn't been quite quick enough in getting his shield up, and one of the Wookies fell to the ground with a roar, his leg having taken several blaster bolts, and another simply died, falling back, his head and upper body smoking from several impacts. Despite that, the wounded Wookie was still firing back from the floor, which nearly killed one of his fellows when it bounced off the inside of Harry's shield. He stopped immediately, looking rather sheepish, if an eight foot tall, furry monster could be said to look sheepish.

"We live and learn!" Harry grunted in reply to that look. He held his free hand up in front of him palm outward, as he held the shield in place while trying to concentrate on something else even as the fire re-doubled against his shield, making his head swim. Dammit! Teleporting people like that really did take it out of me. Harry noticed, however, that the ceiling in this area was quite a bit higher than other areas had been. "I don't suppose any of you have grenades?"

No sooner said than done, several dozen Wookies threw grenades up and over Harry's Force Shield, and Harry used the Force to direct them forward into the mercenaries' position. They went off in a long string of explosions, taking most of the mercenaries out at once, including all three of the team operated quad lasers.

Harry let his shield fall, and the Wookies charged forward to finish off the survivors as he breathed in deeply, closing his eyes and shaking his head as he got in touch with Aayla mentally, before pulling out a communicator and warning Master Fay and Master Dooku about the mercenaries. Hearing that Master Dooku was nearly finished with the space fortress was good news, and Harry sent one Wookie to help his wounded fellow back to where the slaves had been housed before moving forward again.

After that, however, it became increasingly difficult for Harry and the Wookies with him to make any progress. Not only were the corridors becoming less and less uniform and with less cover, but the mercenaries were practically everywhere now! Here and there two or three of them would lead larger groups of pirates which, though easier to deal with, pinned the attackers in place while other attacks were made entirely by the mercenaries, and the mercenaries had better weapons and better coordination. If it wasn't for Lily scouting before them, Harry would have lost a lot of people by now to ambushes or envelopments.

As it was they were continually getting bogged down, which was allowing the defenders to bring their greater numbers to bear more and more often.

After one such battle which cost three Wookies their lives, Harry ripped his communicator off his belt angrily, taking a brief moment to banish the grief-fueled anger he felt before speaking. "Master Fay, I'm losing people here. I request that I be allowed to open my bag of tricks further," he said, the terminology they used for the Force abilities Harry, Aayla, and Fay had developed that had not yet become mainstream even among Clan Saa.

Master Fay's response was quick and somewhat admonishing in tone. "Harry, you shouldn't have to ask. If someone's life is on the line, secrecy should go by the wayside immediately."

Harry nodded, shamefaced. "Sorry, Master. I suppose I'm still a little leery thanks to that trip to Coruscant and all of the secrecy."

"Understandable, Harry. Now go get them," Fay said, a tone of faintly amused irritation in her voice. Master Fay did not like combat at all, and she liked the fact that Harry, the boy she saw as a son, did and was more than willing to throw himself into combat even less. "I would only recommend that you keep your…explosive abilities…and your transfiguration and conjuration to yourself."

"I can do that, Master." Harry hung up then, cracking his neck and rolling his shoulders for a moment before looking around at the Wookies all around him. "Move forward behind me. Guard my back and sides. I'm going to hit this group in front of us as hard as I can, though as with my teleportation I ask that you keep what you see me do to yourselves."

Before the Wookies could ask what he was talking about, Harry pushed forward, racing down the hallway, his lightsaber up and his Force Precognition active. It had been active throughout the battle so far, but the sheer number of people around them and the environment had badly impacted his ability with that technique. Definitely need more training in that. Back to school, I suppose. However, I do have other tricks up my sleeve.

Lily came through a wall just ahead of him. Only Harry's skidding for a second stopping him from running right through her, and Lily rapidly shook her head. "After this curve the corridor splits in two, and they've got cannons set up to both sides, plus a small troop in the middle where it splits to draw you in. Worse, unless you want to double back several hundred yards worth of corridor, there's no way around."

"So we go through," Harry said, smiling up at her. "Master Fay just told me I was kind of silly not to start using all of my powers already."

"You were, but I thought we were keeping most of that a secret anyway."

"Not from the Wookies. They can be trusted to keep my abilities under wraps, so long as I don't use the real high-end stuff."

"And most of these thugs are for the rope anyway. That's why they're fighting so hard," Lily said with a nod. She leaned down, her ghostly lips briefly touching the scar on Harry's forehead. "Give them hell, luv."

Harry chuckled, then raced forward, one hand up flashing out with a wide-angle stunner which impacted two of the seven men that made up the forward position Lily had seen. The others opened fire, but Harry used his lightsaber to good effect, blocking or deflecting blaster bolts directly back at the shooters.

Then he gestured towards the ground with his free hand, making a pulling motion. Here the ground was the stone of the planet rather than metal. The ground underneath the defenders shuddered and jolted up into spires, shattering the defensive position, heaving the two ferocrete blocks they'd been using as shields to one side as others smashed directly into the defenders' bodies.

Racing forward Harry stopped directly before the position where he would have come under fire from both sides of the corridor. With his free hand Harry slowly gestured, lifting both the people of the sacrificial position and the ferocrete blocks and their weapons up into the air before hurling them down one side of the corridor.

From that direction muted screams of shock and astonishment came, and Harry barreled down the other hall, lashing out now with flashes of flame, fire darting forward like an arrow along with wind blasts sharp enough to shear through metal. A moment's concentration spent staring over the heads of the defenders on that side, and suddenly Harry disappeared from before them, appearing on the other side already twirling around. His hands lashed out again with waves of stun bolts, and suddenly the choke point was filled with nothing but the groaning of the wounded.

The Wookies had charged forward on Harry's heels and now spread out down both sides of the choke point, and Harry nodded. "Make certain that someone with a communicator is going the opposite direction so they can call in if they run into trouble." Then Harry smirked impishly, a clear challenge. "But for now, try to keep up!"

That won him a roar of approval from the Wookies, and they thrust their weapons in the air hooting and hollering before Harry turned back and raced on.

For the next several moments, Harry barreled through the defenses like a rhinoceros in a china shop, expending his Force techniques like water, ignoring the fact that he was beginning to get quite tired as he went. Eventually the Wookies, with the aid of the new arrivals from Master Dooku's command, encircled and then broke into the mercenary company's barracks. Shock, fear, and consternation had done their work, and the defenders were never able to fully organize themselves again. Harry's sudden and overwhelming assault had shattered them.

This was a good thing, because just as the last defenses of the mercenaries' barracks went down and the Wookies poured through, Harry had to lean against the wall as feelings from Aayla burned through their link with sudden power. Shock, concern, then something like grim determination. "Aayla, what's going on?" he asked, reaching through their link quickly.

"I'm busy Harry!" Aayla shot back, her mental voice terse with tension.