Star Wars: Rise of the Battlemage - Chapter 311 (Patreon)

Before the droideka could bring their heavy repeating weapons to bear, Ahsoka shouted through our comms for everyone's attention. Considering she was the only one with real experience with these walking turrets, I was eager to hear what she said.

"We need to get explosives into their shields," She explained. "Use your grenades, I'll guide them in! Deacon, help me."

I quickly pulled out one of my grenades and waited for a breath, the rest of my team doing the same. When everyone had their explosives in their hands, Ahsoka nodded and shouted. 

"Now!" 

After activating the explosive device and rolling each of them forward to the stairs, Ahsoka reached out with both hands, closing her eyes to guide each one with the Force. I cast telekinesis separately in both hands, snagging my own grenade and Tatnia's in the glowing bronze colored spell, guiding them in smoothly while Ahsoka controlled the rest. One of the grenades, the one thrown by Vaz, wiggled from her control, but the rest rolled true, reaching the edge of the stairs and falling down. They fell through the blue, humming bubble of protection around each droideka, and after a moment's delay, they detonated. 

The explosions tore through the large, dangerous droids, popping their shields and sending shrapnel everywhere. A chunk of torso and leg slapped into the last remaining Mandalorian, slamming him onto his back. Vaz, seeing the chance to put the last of her father's killers in the ground, dashed forward to finish him off before all of the droideka chunks had settled.

Meanwhile, I waited a few beats for anything dangerous to appear. When nothing did, I turned to finally address our real target.

"You bastards!" Thaan called out. "Do you have any idea how much those droids cost! I had to outbid a Hutt! A karking Hutt!"

"Yeah, yeah, sure, so sad," I said, approaching the holoprojector. "It's time for you to come out, Thaan, and face the consequences of your actions."

Rather than respond, his projection winked out, and the large hall was finally quiet. I shook my head with a chuckle and looked around, checking on the rest of my crew. I needed to heal a few bumps and rattled heads, but otherwise, everyone was fine.

"Will we be able to find him?" Vaz asked, wiping down her vibroblade and sliding it back into its sheath.

"Don't see why not," I assured her, casting Clairvoyance.

The path extended out from my hand, and rather than curling down the steps and out to one of the halls, it instead ran towards the throne. I frowned, following the path until it curved around the now cracked and broken chair, only to watch it disappear into a wall. This time, there was no tapestry to hide behind, as it appeared to be solid stone. 

"Dammit… another hidden doorway," I said, shaking my head. "Ahsoka, can you feel anything?" 

"...Maybe?" She responded, her uncertainty plain in her voice. "The darkness of this place is making everything difficult. I still feel in danger… I don't know."

I frowned and nodded, casting detect life. The spell wasn't always the most useful, as it didn't include a lot of information, but in certain cases, it was perfect. Sure enough, as the magic actualized, I could see a faint glowing form through the wall. 

"Well, at least it's not an escape tunnel," I said, pressing my hand against the wall. "Ahsoka, let's try cutting through this, it doesn't look like it's metal."

It took five minutes to burrow a hole into the wall, during which we came close to giving up and exploring the underground bunker more, in hopes of finding an alternate entrance. Suddenly, as Ahsoka and I worked to carve and cool chunks of stone, we finally reached the mechanisms that slid the thick chunk of stone to the side, as well as the final metal panel. Ahsoka made quick work of that, and we stepped into a new room.

It was a much smaller space, even more heavily modified than the hall and throne area. There were holoprojectors and consoles along the wall, security displays showing rooms in the home above and throughout the entire underground facility. While I was sure Thaan had already gone over it with a fine-tooth comb, I was excited to take a look around as well. 

It was clear that Thaan had created a command center of sorts in the safe room, while turning the other corner into a bedroom and living space. I could see crates of supplies and more tucked in around the room, and the bed looked slept in enough that I was pretty sure Thaan lived there.

Meanwhile, Thaan stood in the corner, holding a large blaster rifle, clearly piss, but also mostly terrified. He didn't have time to say any, as Vaz pushed past Ahsoka and me, approaching the man who ordered her father killed with no hesitation. 

With a wordless shout of fear, Thaan opened fire, a barrage of blaster bolts smacking into Vaz, who ignored them and continued to move. When she was close enough, she grabbed the rifle, tore it out of his grip, and bashed him in the head with the butt. As he stumbled back against the wall, a trickle of blood leading from his forehead, the Shistavenen tossed the weapon to the side and pulled off her helmet. Thaan's eyes went wide as he immediately recognized her.

"No… No! You're supposed to be in that prison!" He shouted. "How did you get out!?"

"I've been free for a long time," Vaz responded. "Seems that whatever friend you bribed to stuff me into that hell hole didn't tell you I broke free." 

"Alright... Listen, Vaz, you gottaa understand. It was just business, your father knew too much!" He tried to explain. "I could have had you killed as well! But I showed mercy, that-"

"That prison was far from mercy," she said, grabbing his jacket, lifting him clear off his feet, and slamming him against the wall. "And now I'm going to show you the same mercy you ordered your lackeys to give my father." 

She pulled her fist back, punching the man in the face, slamming his head back against the wall. She struck again, and again, and again, turning his face into an unrecognizable bloody mess. When the man sagged, consciousness or death finally taking him, she dropped him to the ground, pulled out her pistol, and shot him over and over, thirteen times exactly. When she was finally done, she holstered her pistol and picked up her helmet, sliding it back over her head, all without turning around.

I approached her from behind, patting her shoulder. She sagged slightly, pausing before turning around to face us.

"You good?" I asked. 

"I… will be," She eventually said. "Thank you." 

"Hard to say no when it's such a good deal for us," I responded. "But seriously, I'm glad we could come in and give you some closure." 

She nodded, and without glancing back at the smoking, beaten corpse, walked out of the room. I gave Tatnia a look, nodding out after her, and my second in command left to go with her. Once they were gone, I tried to use the comms to contact Racer, who was still hiding in the shadows of the massive hall. When all I got was static, I frowned. 

"Can you guys reach Racer?" I asked, looking at my team, but got only negative responses. "Huh. You think it's because we are so far down?"

I stepped out of the panic room and called out to the heavily modified astromech. After a moment, I could hear him whistling, and a few seconds later, I spotted him in the darkness. With a burst of speed, he came floating quickly down the hall with his repulsor ring. When he reached the top of the stairs, I gestured back to the throne. 

"Got something you need to look at, buddy," I said, walking after him as he rolled forward. "Something wrong with your comms?" 

I got a whistle and chirp that I could tell was a negative, which I couldn't help but frown at. I followed him into the back room, the small but powerful droid immediately hooking himself into the largest, most powerful-looking console, the one that most of the others were hooked up to. After only a few seconds, he let out a long, mournful whistle, spinning his dome top to look at Nal. The short droid let out a series of whistles before Nal could translate. 

"He said Thaan had a jamming signal up," Nal explained. "That's why we couldn't get Racer up on the comms. The stone and earth block the comms from the surface, and the projector blocks us here."

"Jeeze, that bastard really was paranoid," I said, shaking my head. "Focus on getting into his accounts, Racer, I want to get the hell out of this Sith pit." 

Ahsoka nodded in agreement from beside me, shivering a bit as she did. Racer let a confirming whistle, spinning back around to focus on his work. After about twenty minutes, Racer confirmed that he had drained Thaan's accounts, a process that was only so easy because this was the heart of his operation, even more so than I had suspected. He then turned off his remaining defenses. As he did, half of the projectors and consoles went dark, the systems they controlled no longer powered. By that point, Julus and Mara had left the back room as well, leaving Nal, Ashoka, and me waiting for Racer to finish. Thankfully, we didn't have to wait much longer,

"He said he's just about done," Nal confirmed. "He had a few more surprises in his house, and some down here, but we managed to drive through them without triggering them."

"Was there a trap in the elevator?" I asked.

"Yes," Nal translated, Racer whistling and beeping. "It was a gas, though, not an explosive. Wouldn't have worked on us."

"Huh, then call it down for us," I said. "No reason to waste the charge on our repulsor packs."

Again, Racer confirmed my directions, his dome spinning around lazily. A minute later, he gave a victorious beep, pulled his scomp tool out of the console, and shuffled away from it before clunking forward and rolling out of the room. I gave Nal a look, the Duros shrugging before following the droid out, Ashoka right behind me. 

We made our way back to the elevator, peaking at several of the things that were on display. If half of what was written on the labels for the pieces of art, jewelry, and other things were right, then we had already gotten a sizable chunk of the credits we were looking for.

After a few minutes, we step into the turbolift, the large space easily carrying all of us, even with the hole in the middle. I gave Tatnia a nod, and she activated the turbolift, which slowly began to rise. 

"Alright, once we get to the top, I'm going to call in a transport," I said, rolling my shoulder. "I want us to pair off and do a few loops of the premise, scare off any looters, and make sure there aren't any secrets waiting for us. Make note of anything valuable you see."

I shook out my arm, pushing another healing spell into the shoulder that had taken the brunt of the Mandalorian slug. I was pretty sure it was psychosomatic, as I had already dumped a few spells into it by this point. Either that, or the armor was even more deeply damaged under the indent I had discovered while we were waiting for Racer.

After I had finished explaining the plan, the lift went quiet, and the trip to the surface went slowly. As we were about a minute into the ride, Ahsoka looked up, her shoulders starting to tense. 

"What's wrong?" I asked, immediately picking up on her change in mood.

"We… the darkness from the bunker is fading as we leave it behind," she explained. "But… there's still danger. Something big, something…oh my gods. How could I miss him!?"

"What? Miss who?" Julus asked, sounding nervous.

Silence settled over the lift, Ahsoka going quiet for all too long.

"Ahsoka?" I asked, nervousness now in my own voice.

"Vader. Darth Vader is here," She said, her voice empty. "He is pulling back his presence, and what was leaking out was covered by the bunker. I couldn't feel him..."

"Did he plan this?" I asked, mostly rhetorically. "How could he…"

"Someone must have betrayed us," Tatnia pointed out, her voice tight. "Not to Thaan, but to the Empire."

As we continued to rise, our comms started reconnecting to the surface signals, and what we heard was not good. Most of our transports had already retreated mid-heist, our ground teams on board. They had pulled back along the planet's surface, staying out of range of the three star destroyers that were now in orbit. A partial relief ran over us as we learned that nobody had been captured or killed, and that our forces had safely pulled back. But we were still under the range of the SD's, and while I was glad they weren't the Executor, it was still way too much for the 1st Fleet to engage in seriously.

We were alone on the surface, the only team not out of their range. And judging from how Ahsoka was feeling, Vader was right on top of us. We had seconds, and we were currently trapped going up, with nowhere else to go.

"Okay. Here is the plan. Tatnia, lead the team all the way up the stairs and away," I said, silencing them as I raised my hand, fighting to ignore the dread rising through me as fast as the turbolift. "Don't argue. Lead the team away, capture some sort of ship. I don't care what it is or how you get it. Then you come back. If we don't respond, you fucking leave. Do you understand?"

"Deacon…" 

"I am not having our ships pull into a range where they can be targeted. We might be able to sneak around a bit, especially if we distract Vader so that he can't pass on orders, but they will be sitting ducks coming in from the fringes of their range," I explained. "Tatnia, do you understand?" 

"...Yes." 

"Good," I said with a nod, before turning to Ahsoka, who was staring upwards, though not nearly as steeply as before. "Ahsoka. Ahsoka!"

She flinched a little and turned towards me, and even though I couldn't see her face, I could tell she was deeply unsettled to say the least.

"Ahsoka, we can do this. We don't need to beat him, we just need to hold him off," I explained. "He is powerful, yes, but he isn't a god. He can be defeated, and he can sure as hell be held off until they come back to pick us up. We. Can. Do. This." 

For a moment, I was worried she wouldn't react, and that I was going to send her off with everyone else while I stayed behind to fight Vader alone. But thankfully, as I talked, she straightened up, standing at her full height. When I was done, she reached down and unclipped her lightsabers, holding them in her hand. Finally, she nodded, and behind my helmet I smiled, though it was a tight, grim thing.

Just a few seconds later, the turbolift stopped, and its doors opened. We stepped out, Ahsoka and I leading the way. We climbed the steps, taking our time as we did before we climbed the last ones. -

And there he was.