Z suggests that Ree talk to Endek about her father's family, and also just to make sure he's okay. He was at the Alderaanian memorial, after all, and no one has heard from him since. Ree says, "God help Drath if he's already caught him."
The plan is for some of the crew to sneak into Drath's base to check for hostages, while Onna, SARR, and INON fly the ship.
Oola gets into the computer and finds two cells with ysalamiri. There's no video feed. The base contains fifty people. She can route around most of them on the way down to the prison bloc, except for five guards on the cells in question. While Oola disables the alarms on the cells, the others lob stun grenades into the hallway, tie up the guards, and lock them inside. The two cells hold the Solo twins, who decide they're coming along to help.
Drath is in the throne room surrounded by twenty of his people, along with Maul, the other Zeltron, Ventress, and two other Dark Siders. Oola scopes out the situation. Drath seems to have prepped the place specifically to keep the crew from messing with things. Their only options are direct assault or major distraction. But Oola spots something about one of the guards--it's actually Sareth Fenn (who makes a DUST hand signal at the camera)!
With a bit of thought, they decide to go straight in. Oola will do what she can to work the system. Zan takes on Maul; Ree calls Drath. Z wants to fight Ventress. They plan to hit the Zeltron with teh love potion, and the Solo twins will gang up on one Dark Sider, while Kedrihm'Val covers the other. "Ahem!" Dalt cuts in, realizing he hasn't been factored into the plan. "I shall help the children!"
Turns out, Sareth brought Jude and Evan along for the ride! The three of them clear out the left half of the room real fast. Jude takes one of the Dark Siders. The Jedi deflect blaster bolts while Z clears out a sweep with his flechette launcher. "Come get some sweet, pale-face!" he yells at Ventress. She charges him. Kedrihm'Val bounces across the room off the backs and heads of soldiers, knocking them out. Ventress Force-lobs one of their unconscious forms at Z, who crows, "Oh baby, I don't need no gifts!"
Kedrihm'Val takes out two more guards, then a Dark Sider leaps at him. Evan and Fenn wipe out another section of the room. Z and Ventress leap at each other, colliding in mid-air. Lydia faces off against the Zeltron. Dalt and jaina run behind Fenn toward Jude's opponent.
Oola starts shutting down the security. SARR is shreeding the base from outside, making the whole place shake. His laughter rings out across the comm system. Oola spots an incoming fleet--Drath called for backup--and points them out to SARR while she turns the base's defense on them.
Ree leaps over a stunned trooper Drath tries to trip her with. Jude Force-lightnings the Dark Sider in the head, reducing him to charcoal. "Don't do that, kids," Dalt tells the twins, while he wipes out a trooper of his own.
Kedrihm'Val caves in the other Dark Sider's ribs with three crushing blows. Zan and Maul, again, fuck each other up. Oola zaps incoming ships, but there are a lot of them. While Ree closes with Drath, having to dodge just about every flying thing in the room, Zan cuts Maul in half, then immediately engages with the trooper behind him as Maul jumps bodies. "Ugh, lame!" he exclaims.
Ventress, meanwhile, has wrecked Z's jet pack and gun belt. He attaches a detonator to her waist, which hurls her into the wall.
A random trooper tries to run. Oola sees a super star destroyer's shadow fall across the sensors, and squeals in glee.
Kedrihm'Val jump-kicks Ventress, then pummels her. Zan slashes Maul across the stomach, while losing an arm himself. Z leaps over and executes Maul from behind, on his way toward Ventress.
Maul jumps into the fleeing trooper. "No way," Zan groans. Evan shoots him.
The Solo kids see the trooper pull a lightsaber. Dalt trips them with his cloak before they can intercept. "that was a really gay flourish, sir!" Jaina cheekily tells him.
"I'm your only hope against the True Sith, you know," Drath tells Ree.
Kedrihm'Val knocks out Ventress. "PRIMAL JEEEUSTICE!" Z crows. Lydia takes off the Zeltron girl's hand, while Zan and Maul each account for a hand of their own (or each other's). Zan's quite literally disarmed.
Ree nails Drath hard enough to stagger him. "I'm trying to save everyone!" Drath argues. "My people are happy to sacrifice themselves for my glory!"
Z takes Maul's other hand. Zan loses his left leg, but Maul loses his chest.
Aaaaand an unconscious guard sits up. Lydia beheads him with a well-aimed lightsaber throw. SARR comes in, dragging the shredded remains of an escaped guard, just in time to help Zan. "I had a feeling someone was going to get Mauled," he quips.
And Ree beheads Drath. Oola takes a picture and sends it to his fleet, which stops fighting. Their only live prisoner is Ventress.
Kedrihm'Val notes that the piles of Sith stuff are absent, and there's no sign of cloning tech. They might see Maul and Drath again, after all.
They find a holovid recording of Drath killing Sent after Sent rants about being Palpatine's son, while Maul applauds mildly. That gets saved for broadcast.
But Kedrihm'Val realizes something: Onna's on the base, and she has no protection against Maul's body-jumping. There's no answer when they try to comm her, so Ree and Kedrihm'Val take off in pursuit. When they arrive, they find that INON already stunned her. Kedrihm'Val Force-lights her to eject Maul, and Ree sucks him back into his rock.
After all that, they call the Jedi Temple to report. Luke's comment on Sent: "Monologuing! The Emperor loved to monologue."
Kedrihm'Val and SARR are drenched in blood (the only two who don't use either distance weapons or cauterizing laser swords). They thrust Ventress into a cage with some ysalamiri. They head out of orbit to dock with the Ace in the Hole, Lo Tser's custom-stolen super-star destroyer. He greets them with a warm welcome for his daughter. "We'll drop you in the space lanes. It'll give me time to yell at my daughter for only sending a message. 'There's a Sith fleet coming.' " Noting that Kedrihm'Val truly needs a shower, he hands him a bar of his favorite soap. "Here, I find this gets blood off great."
They find the Dark Harvester on the base. That comes back with them, in hopes they can find a way to fix that mess. Z is worried about the truly prodigious amounts of evil stuff they keep leaving at the Temple. Kedrihm'Val agrees. The plan is to store the Dark Harvester at a secure base instead. Zan gets tossed into a bacta tank for a couple of days.
Ventress's apprentice and the Bothan Dark Sider are still unaccounted for. They do retrieve Drath's computer core, which has some decent tactical plans against the True Sith. It's not evident what he planned to use the Dark Harvester for, but he had some plan for it. It'll take a while to examine all the files.
Oola gives Sareth Fenn a Krayt pearl pendant. He asks what they'll do with the two months they've got before the True Sith are ETA. "Thrawn has agreed to help," Kedrihm'Val tells him.
"Alright, what do you plan to do with the month and a half?"
Kedrihm'Val asks whether the True Sith's path intersects with Ree's world...and yep. But first it goes straight through the Core.
Ree thinks about learning more about the Ancients. Kedrihm'Val doesn't trust them. "They played dominoes with the galaxy," he points out, recalling the legend about the True Sith and the Architects in a game about life in the galaxy. But they can dig up archaeological stuff on the Architects.
The plan is for some of the crew to sneak into Drath's base to check for hostages, while Onna, SARR, and INON fly the ship.
Oola gets into the computer and finds two cells with ysalamiri. There's no video feed. The base contains fifty people. She can route around most of them on the way down to the prison bloc, except for five guards on the cells in question. While Oola disables the alarms on the cells, the others lob stun grenades into the hallway, tie up the guards, and lock them inside. The two cells hold the Solo twins, who decide they're coming along to help.
Drath is in the throne room surrounded by twenty of his people, along with Maul, the other Zeltron, Ventress, and two other Dark Siders. Oola scopes out the situation. Drath seems to have prepped the place specifically to keep the crew from messing with things. Their only options are direct assault or major distraction. But Oola spots something about one of the guards--it's actually Sareth Fenn (who makes a DUST hand signal at the camera)!
With a bit of thought, they decide to go straight in. Oola will do what she can to work the system. Zan takes on Maul; Ree calls Drath. Z wants to fight Ventress. They plan to hit the Zeltron with teh love potion, and the Solo twins will gang up on one Dark Sider, while Kedrihm'Val covers the other. "Ahem!" Dalt cuts in, realizing he hasn't been factored into the plan. "I shall help the children!"
Turns out, Sareth brought Jude and Evan along for the ride! The three of them clear out the left half of the room real fast. Jude takes one of the Dark Siders. The Jedi deflect blaster bolts while Z clears out a sweep with his flechette launcher. "Come get some sweet, pale-face!" he yells at Ventress. She charges him. Kedrihm'Val bounces across the room off the backs and heads of soldiers, knocking them out. Ventress Force-lobs one of their unconscious forms at Z, who crows, "Oh baby, I don't need no gifts!"
Kedrihm'Val takes out two more guards, then a Dark Sider leaps at him. Evan and Fenn wipe out another section of the room. Z and Ventress leap at each other, colliding in mid-air. Lydia faces off against the Zeltron. Dalt and jaina run behind Fenn toward Jude's opponent.
Oola starts shutting down the security. SARR is shreeding the base from outside, making the whole place shake. His laughter rings out across the comm system. Oola spots an incoming fleet--Drath called for backup--and points them out to SARR while she turns the base's defense on them.
Ree leaps over a stunned trooper Drath tries to trip her with. Jude Force-lightnings the Dark Sider in the head, reducing him to charcoal. "Don't do that, kids," Dalt tells the twins, while he wipes out a trooper of his own.
Kedrihm'Val caves in the other Dark Sider's ribs with three crushing blows. Zan and Maul, again, fuck each other up. Oola zaps incoming ships, but there are a lot of them. While Ree closes with Drath, having to dodge just about every flying thing in the room, Zan cuts Maul in half, then immediately engages with the trooper behind him as Maul jumps bodies. "Ugh, lame!" he exclaims.
Ventress, meanwhile, has wrecked Z's jet pack and gun belt. He attaches a detonator to her waist, which hurls her into the wall.
A random trooper tries to run. Oola sees a super star destroyer's shadow fall across the sensors, and squeals in glee.
Kedrihm'Val jump-kicks Ventress, then pummels her. Zan slashes Maul across the stomach, while losing an arm himself. Z leaps over and executes Maul from behind, on his way toward Ventress.
Maul jumps into the fleeing trooper. "No way," Zan groans. Evan shoots him.
The Solo kids see the trooper pull a lightsaber. Dalt trips them with his cloak before they can intercept. "that was a really gay flourish, sir!" Jaina cheekily tells him.
"I'm your only hope against the True Sith, you know," Drath tells Ree.
Kedrihm'Val knocks out Ventress. "PRIMAL JEEEUSTICE!" Z crows. Lydia takes off the Zeltron girl's hand, while Zan and Maul each account for a hand of their own (or each other's). Zan's quite literally disarmed.
Ree nails Drath hard enough to stagger him. "I'm trying to save everyone!" Drath argues. "My people are happy to sacrifice themselves for my glory!"
Z takes Maul's other hand. Zan loses his left leg, but Maul loses his chest.
Aaaaand an unconscious guard sits up. Lydia beheads him with a well-aimed lightsaber throw. SARR comes in, dragging the shredded remains of an escaped guard, just in time to help Zan. "I had a feeling someone was going to get Mauled," he quips.
And Ree beheads Drath. Oola takes a picture and sends it to his fleet, which stops fighting. Their only live prisoner is Ventress.
Kedrihm'Val notes that the piles of Sith stuff are absent, and there's no sign of cloning tech. They might see Maul and Drath again, after all.
They find a holovid recording of Drath killing Sent after Sent rants about being Palpatine's son, while Maul applauds mildly. That gets saved for broadcast.
But Kedrihm'Val realizes something: Onna's on the base, and she has no protection against Maul's body-jumping. There's no answer when they try to comm her, so Ree and Kedrihm'Val take off in pursuit. When they arrive, they find that INON already stunned her. Kedrihm'Val Force-lights her to eject Maul, and Ree sucks him back into his rock.
After all that, they call the Jedi Temple to report. Luke's comment on Sent: "Monologuing! The Emperor loved to monologue."
Kedrihm'Val and SARR are drenched in blood (the only two who don't use either distance weapons or cauterizing laser swords). They thrust Ventress into a cage with some ysalamiri. They head out of orbit to dock with the Ace in the Hole, Lo Tser's custom-stolen super-star destroyer. He greets them with a warm welcome for his daughter. "We'll drop you in the space lanes. It'll give me time to yell at my daughter for only sending a message. 'There's a Sith fleet coming.' " Noting that Kedrihm'Val truly needs a shower, he hands him a bar of his favorite soap. "Here, I find this gets blood off great."
They find the Dark Harvester on the base. That comes back with them, in hopes they can find a way to fix that mess. Z is worried about the truly prodigious amounts of evil stuff they keep leaving at the Temple. Kedrihm'Val agrees. The plan is to store the Dark Harvester at a secure base instead. Zan gets tossed into a bacta tank for a couple of days.
Ventress's apprentice and the Bothan Dark Sider are still unaccounted for. They do retrieve Drath's computer core, which has some decent tactical plans against the True Sith. It's not evident what he planned to use the Dark Harvester for, but he had some plan for it. It'll take a while to examine all the files.
Oola gives Sareth Fenn a Krayt pearl pendant. He asks what they'll do with the two months they've got before the True Sith are ETA. "Thrawn has agreed to help," Kedrihm'Val tells him.
"Alright, what do you plan to do with the month and a half?"
Kedrihm'Val asks whether the True Sith's path intersects with Ree's world...and yep. But first it goes straight through the Core.
Ree thinks about learning more about the Ancients. Kedrihm'Val doesn't trust them. "They played dominoes with the galaxy," he points out, recalling the legend about the True Sith and the Architects in a game about life in the galaxy. But they can dig up archaeological stuff on the Architects.
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