And There Was Another✔️

Chapter 42: Purge

They reached the end of the office complex without running into any further problems.

Seth had very serious doubts that this would last, though. It sounded like a war was being waged beneath the surface of this uncharted island on Lotus Prime, and again he found himself dangerously close to feeling sympathy for the Sith. Having to fight these things was pretty awful. But they'd brought it on themselves. Then again, how many of them here were just soldiers? Techs? Probably most of them.

Did that make it okay? At this point he sure didn't think so. But how many of them had gotten in under false pretenses? Or genuinely didn't think the Sith were that bad? Like, they actually thought it was a matter of ideological differences, and they thought stuff like the Dark Side and blowing up Taris and mass slaughter were just Republic propaganda? He didn't know if he could ever stop hating the Sith, but a begrudging kind of sympathy might not be out of the question. He pushed these thoughts away as he heard a whirring noise coming from up ahead, something mechanical, and it set his internal defenses on edge.

"Wait here," he whispered.

They were now in the hallway that the terentatek creature had come from, nearing its end, which terminated in an open door. He crept up to it and peered slowly into the room beyond, ready for anything. Ideally, anyway. Another transition room and their next real stop waited. It was a security checkpoint that had been shredded by what looked like a huge assault. He spied a pair of assault droids patrolling the area, and felt a cold stone settle into his gut. They were definitely of a higher grade than the ones he'd killed in the tunnel.

They sported blades and flamethrowers. Even as he was watching, something shrieked wildly and dropped from an overhead ventilation grate into the room. The nearest droid slashed out with a terrifying speed and chopped terentatek clone into two parts, slicing through its upper chest. As both halves hit the floor, the other droid turned to join the assault and they both loosed sprays of fire onto them.

Well, there was no time like the present, Seth thought as he found himself wondering when and if he should attack them, and lobbed another fragmentation grenade into the room. It landed between them and they both immediately twisted around to face him. He shouted as a hot blast of fire jetted out at him and he fell back.

"Droids!" he called, rushing back towards the other two.

He joined them as an explosion ruptured, then skidded to a halt and whirled around, rifle raised. Almost immediately, one of them emerged in the hallway, and the other was right behind it. They didn't look all that damaged.

"Oh crap," he muttered, and opened fire.

Nova and Maya joined him, Maya blasting away with the pistol she carried. They peppered the droids with blaster bolts, hosing them down and laying as much as they could into them. But these things were built tough. As they drew close enough, both droids opened up with their flamethrowers, forcing them back.

Maya cursed and then suddenly threw her lightsaber at them. It twisted through the air and sheered expertly and cleanly through one of them, making a diagonal slice and chopping off its head, right arm, and part of its chest. The thing stumbled as her saber arced back around and then cut off the head of the second one as it came back to her waiting hand. Both of them staggered, firing their flamethrowers randomly now, before collapsing into a heap of twitching metal. With a grunt, Maya sent a blast of the Force down the hallway, extinguishing the flames.

"Come on," she said, and hurried on.

Seth and Nova ran after her. They managed to make it through another crossroads, and then down one other hallway before they ran into another problem. As they approached the end of the corridor, something shrieked wildly and then a surge of blaster fire responded. The shrieking took on a different quality and abruptly cut off. The blaster fire fell away.