Star Wars Tyranny on Teth

Chapter 23

Rhodes stepped into the dark, cold hallway. He had his hand hovering over the hilt of his lightsaber, ready to fight at any moment. Once in the center of the hallway, he stood still, staring into the darkness.

He had been on Separatist ships before as part of strike teams with his clone squad but never had a ship been so quiet.

Lena and Twitch casually stepped into the frigate wondering why Rhodes had paused. They waited for a second, glancing back to the Kestrel to see Rose peering curiously into the hallway.

She shrugged at them, also unsure of what Rhodes was thinking.

Rhodes eventually relaxed, motioning for Lena and Twitch to follow. He ignited his lightsaber, and the hallway became brightly lit with a green hue. The trio headed down the hallway as the door to the docking ring could be heard closing behind them.

Lena was getting anxious, silently walking behind Rhodes. "Why are we going so slow? Let's just complete the mission and get out of here. This place is giving me the creeps."

Rhodes shrugged off the comment and continued along until he reached an intersection in the hallway. One hallway headed to the left while the other kept going straight.

Rhodes stopped and turned to look at his team. Lena rolled her eyes, still annoyed that Rhodes had not responded to her comment.

"The reason that we are being cautious is that normally, these ships are crawling with battle droids. A normal one of these frigates can have hundreds of battle droids piloting it. I guess I shouldn't be surprised seeing as though the war is over, but this ship seems to be running on a skeleton crew."

Lena grinned and said, "Then we should have no problem defeating Dev. Let's go already!"

Lena tried to continue down the hall but paused when she realized there were two paths. She turned back to Rhodes while scratching her head.

Rhodes sighed and said, "First of all, 'we' aren't going to defeat Dev. I am going alone."

Lena's excitement ran from her face upon hearing Rhodes' words. "What! Why are we even here then?"

Rhodes shook his head and sighed. "I have a special mission for you. Just defeating Dev won't entirely solve the problem. The droids aboard this ship will still follow the last given orders. We can't afford the chance of the droids still destroying the village or else this mission will have been for nothing. You can reach the main reactor through this passage to the left. The way should be self-explanatory. Lena, I have faith that you will be able to find the way. Once you two are there, use what is left of Twitch's thermal detonators and rig them to explode once we leave the ship. Once you are back to the docking ring, check my status on the commlink. If you do not hear from me, get out of here and blow the ship up. You two understand?"

Twitch nodded in agreement while Lena turned toward the correct hall, not bothering to acknowledge the orders. The two disappeared into the darkness of the hallway.

Rhodes, confident that they understood the plan, continued down his own hallway.

The old frigate creaked as it moved through space.

Lena led the way while Twitch followed close behind. "Hey Twitch, do you know where we are going because I really don't? Rhodes' cryptic words are really getting annoying."

Twitch shrugged, pulling his blaster off his back to carry it in front of him. "Hmm, I'm not too sure. Captain Rhodes told us just to go down this hallway, but I have never been on one of the ships before. During the Clone Wars Abie and I served under Saw and Steela Gerrera on Onderon. I have fought droids before, but our fight never got into space at all. I can, however, destroy an armored assault tank but that seems irrelevant at this point."