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Eden was drowning.
Tides of brutal resentment drag her down, suffocating her thrashing body in their poisoned waters. Disgust claws at the fibre of her being as her gaze drawls across instruments of experimentation, of torture, strung throughout the room — the lack of humanity displayed proudly. Lining the walls are some sort of bacta-like tanks, though their purpose was a mystery to Eden; her mind ruminating upon the cruel possibilities. The tanks had become more akin to coffins; corpses of creatures only vaguely resembling something that once had life floating lifelessly within them.
"You said this was a forward operating base." A slither of horror creeping out beneath her lowly uttered words, Eden directs her vaguely accusing words toward Greef — eyes never straying from the haunting sight before her. It was supposed to be a straight-foward task — rig the Imperial stronghold to blow, then escape with copious amounts of time to spare. Nothing, however, had unfolded as they'd hoped. First, it was the 'skeleton crew' Greef had spoken of turning out to be a fully-staffed crew of Imperials, and now, this.
Unease radiating from his tone, Greef responds, "I thought it was."
"No, this isn't a military operation," Cara concludes, "This is a lab."
"But for what?" The question plaguing Eden's rushing mind is uttered aloud, dread dripping from her every word. Had this been were the onslaught of the Imperial's troopers that'd nearly defeated them come from — is this were they would have taken the child? By the mere appearances of things, it looked as if this lab had been used as some sick experiment upon life itself; an attempt to outsmart the very essence of creation. If so, why did they need the child?
The same urgent curiosity raging within the ex-shock trooper's mind, Cara determines, "We need to get into the systems and figure out what's going on."
Mythrol hesitates, "What about the reactor–"
"Do it." Eden's interruption slices through his words like ice, her every syllable stern. There was no choice — they needed to discover what had caused this lab to be of utmost importance. To know what made it worth the risk of keeping it functional. Sensing Mythrol's reluctance, her voice raises to something similar to a shout, ordering him, "Do it!"
A frantic nature to his movements, Mythrol hastily obeys, stumbling toward the lab's control panel. A few muttered apologies escape him as he nudges aside the freshly deceased bodies bent over the terminal — the two troopers having attempted to purge their systems upon realising they'd been compromised.
