The Shadows of the Past Trilogy
Episode 9: Nemesis of the Force Part 12
In the Korriban Clone Facility, Kika accesses a computer while Li stands guard. “And…we’re good. Notify Bannick,” says Kika.
Li switches her com on, using something like Morse Code. Aboard the freighter, Bannick receives the message and presses a few buttons to transmit the signal to the rest of the attack fleets. Each of the ship captains aboard their flagships receives the transmission and nods at their officers. The attack on the cloning facilities begins.
Inside the lab facility on Korriban, Zelia reaches a store room and pops the cargo container open. IG-14 steps out, handing Zelia her blaster carbine. Zelia’s armor and other equipment rests just beneath the droid. A satchel of charges is also seen there. “We just received the signal,” she says. “Enemy transmissions have been disrupted. Time to start blowing things up.”
The droid activates all of its weaponry, smoke rising from its flamethrower. “Excellent!” he says in a very sadistic tone.
In the central lab, Stalker and his ST units are positioned around to form a defensive perimeter. The last of the Nemesis disease is being moved out of the lab by laborers. Stalker, in the meantime, is downloading the entire database into his own memory core. He is plugged in via an extension that comes out of his wrist almost like a dagger. The screen shows the download is 98% complete.
An explosion suddenly shakes the building. Stalker’s head tilts up at the sound. Then, it turns towards one of the other units. Immediately, all but two of the ST units charges out of the lab. Stalker disconnects from the database and begins walking with the other two, escorting the Nemesis crates.
In one of the other labs, Zelia, with satchel of charges slung over her shoulder, and IG-14 toss a few grenades, and another series of explosions rocks the building. Several Zyn troopers come charging at them, and the two dispatch them rather quickly. They are no match for Zelia’s modified carbine and IG-14’s blaster cannon.
And then, all at once, the ST droids arrive, flooding the way both in front and behind. Zelia pauses, looking at IG-14 for a moment through her helmet visor. Without a word, the two turn back to back. Zelia drops smoke grenades in front of her as IG-14 drops them in front of him, and the two begin firing through the smoke clouds. The ST droids charge up the hall. Like the Super Battle Droids of the Clone Wars, wrist lasers spring out and begin firing into the cloud.
In the cloning facility, alarm sirens sound as Kika and Li make their way down a hallway. “Alert! Alert! Intruders in the…” Static cuts off the voice. “Intruders in the...” Static again. All security staff…” The voice is suddenly replaced by Kika’s. “EVACUATE!” Then the original voice returns. “…the facilities. All…” Then the voice becomes too garbled to understand. Kika’s voice is heard over the coms once more. “EVACUATE! GET TO YOUR EVAC SHUTTLES! FOLLOW EMERGENCY EVACUATION PROTOCOL 4942781! CORE MELTDOWN IMMINENT!!!!” Kika and Li exchange glances, smiling. Then they pick up the pace down the hall.
But then, Zelia’s voice comes over the com. Kika grabs it. “What’s wrong?”
“Saydra’s Royal Droid Guards!” Zelia snaps, her voice garbled by the sound of rapid blaster fire mingled with fast movements. “We need backup!”
“Royal Guards!” Kika shouts back. “But…what are THEY doing here?”
“Do you mean those things we ran into on Klatooine?” Li says, looking horrified.
“Yes!” Zelia snaps. “They’re all over us! A WHOLE lot more of them!”
Zelia ducks under the swing of one of the ST droids as its vibroblade, pulled from its back sheath, nearly takes off her head. A moment later, she comes up to blast another right in the head with her carbine just as it is about to come down on her with its blade. Zelia's shot, however, barely penetrates the droid’s armored face plate, and it staggers backward a few steps. A second later, Zelia kicks another in the back, sending it stumbling in another direction.
Boom! A hole explodes into a wall nearby. “Master!” IG-14 cries, gesturing to the hole. Then the two dart through it and into an adjoining room, ducking and spinning through the mess of still active ST droids to get there. The ST droids follow hot on their trail.
Zelia taps her helmet com as IG-14 hits the door switch on a door in the room they just entered. “We’re running out of steam!”
Kika rushes back down the hallway in the direction they had just come from. Already, she and Li are forced to weave their way around evacuating personnel. “I’m on it!” she shouts into the com.
“What’re you gonna do?” asks Li, looking panicked. She likewise weaves around people.
“Try to take over auto-turrets. Also, the Zyn like to use droid operated fighters,” she replies as they run at full speed. “I’m going to hijack them with some of Elya - er - Amelia's codes.”
The ST droids continue pursuing Zelia and IG-14 through the halls of the Korriban Lab Facility. Like Li and Kika, they are also forced to make their way around evacuating staff. This slows both them and the ST droids down. IG-14 looks a bit worse-for-wear with sparks flying out of various panels. It appears he has been blasted and/or cut up pretty badly. Zelia also looks a bit banged up, her armor dented and even slashed open in a few places. Streaks of dried blood can be seen on her armor. Blaster burn marks also riddle her suit.
They round another corner and come upon a squad of clone troopers who all begin to fire upon the two instantly, Zelia ducks and rolls, just narrowly avoiding getting hit by the volley of blaster bolts, while IG-14 dives against the wall and issues forth a jet-stream of fire right at the troopers. Zelia comes up and begins slamming her fists into clone troopers just as the jet stream ends, her shock gloves activating with bouts of lightning each time she connects. A few moments later, they are through the squad, but the ST droids dart around the corner behind them.
And then, all at once, a turret drops out of the ceiling right at the end of the hall. Seeing it, Zelia and IG-14 drop and roll again, but the turret is not aimed at them. Instead, it lights up the hall, blasting into the first few ST droids. People scream and run for cover. The turret’s blast is powerful enough to finally drop the droids it manages to hit as sparks cascade out of their chests. A moment later, the remaining droids rain death upon the turret, blowing it to pieces.
Zelia and IG-14 then round the next corner. “Thanks Mirage!” Zelia shouts over her helmet com.
“Doing what I can,” Kika’s voice comes back over the com in reply.
And then, they round another bend and find more ST units blocking their way. They are cut off! Seeing only a single door nearby, Zelia grabs IG-14 and pulls him through. Slamming the door shut, they barely manage to lock it before the ST droids slam into it. Zelia blasts the locking mechanism.
Looking around the employee’s lounge they just entered, Zelia notes, “There’s no way out. We’re trapped.” She then taps her helmet com again. “Mirage. Any time now.”
Kika is frantically at work on a computer. “Sorry, Zee! Some other techie is attempting to undermine me. I’ve been a bit busy here. Oh HECK no! It's one of Saydra's droids. It's freaking slicing the systems as fast as I am!" She is sweating from the strain. "Just need a few more minutes and the cavalry should arrive.”
Just then, several clone troopers enter the room Li and Kika are in. “We’re out of time!” Li shouts at Kika, and she begins firing at them.
“Just keep them off of me,” Kika replies, dropping into a crouch but still frantically working at the computer. As Li continues laying cover fire, Shadow is seen appearing and disappearing, attacking the clone troopers and distracting them while Li hits them from a distance.
Back in the employee’s lounge, the sounds of the ST units blasting at the door can be heard quite well. “I’m not sure we have minutes either,” Zelia says. “More like ten seconds.” The door can be seen starting to overheat.
“Okay! Okay!” yells Kika over the com. “I’m working on it!”
On board the freighter, Bannick watches as a huge convoy of cargo containers are being brought out of the lab and are being taken towards Saydra’s personal ship. Personnel are flocking swiftly out of the facility on every side of the convoy, hurrying towards awaiting shuttles and transports on the airstrip. As he watches, Bannick sees Stalker and the other two ST droids follow behind the procession. He slams his fist against the control panel.
He then switches on his com. “We’ve got problems. I think they’re taking the Nemesis disease off world. There’s a whole lot of crates…”
“Who gives a whiphid's behind about the Nemesis disease right now!” Zelia snaps over the com. “I’m more worried about the dozen or so ST droids about to stick vibroblades into me.”
“I’m almost done!” Kika yells, also over the com. “Give me just a bit longer.”
Bannick looks at the com and then back up at the shipment. He then races out of the cockpit, grabs a tracking device from amongst their gear, and he rushes on his way down the ramp, heading as fast as he can for Saydra’s ship; trying to look as inconspicuous as possible even though he's going in almost the opposite direction as everyone else.
As he goes, a flight of Darts is suddenly seen streaking through the air. They take nose dives right into the two facilities creating a series of explosions. Bannick instinctively throws his hands up over his head to shield himself as he witnesses the strange scene.
Back in the employee lounge, the door blows open and Zelia unclips her thermal detonator. She immediately activates it and tosses it right through the opening just as the first ST droid begins to make its way through. “Down!” Zelia cries, and she and IG-14 drop behind an overturned table. A moment later, a massive explosion engulfs the entire room and hallway beyond.
But a few of the heavily armored assault droids survive. Immediately they pick themselves up and are about to fire at Zelia and IG-14 through holed out sections of the room’s walls. But then, the sound as of a series of missiles streaking towards their destination pierces the air, growing louder and louder. A moment later, Darts smash through the ceiling of the facility at various locations, one of them crushing the ST units with its nose and sending debris flying everywhere. There is an explosion, and Zelia and IG-14 drop back beneath the overturned table just as the flames envelope everything.
Back with Li and Kika, Kika shouts, "Shadow! To me!" The animal complies just as several other Darts smash through the ceilings, one of which tearing into the hallway where the clones are, smashing into them and carrying them along with its wreckage and ruin. From Kika’s computer, she and Li stare at the aerial image of smoldering Darts and the damage they have done to the facilities. Both are holding their breath as Shadow bounds up to them. Then, Kika flips on her com. “Zee? Do you copy? Please tell me you copy?”
“I can’t believe you just did that?” says Li. “I can’t believe you…you just…”
“Shut up!” says Kika, panicking. “Zelia’s transponder is still active. Maybe she’s just unconscious. Zee! Do you copy?”
And then, a weak voice is heard over the com. “Zee here…wha…what did you just do? Drop a building on me or something?”
Both Kika and Li look at one another in relief. “We’re on our way to help you. Don’t worry. We’ll get you out of there,” says Kika. “I set the security alert systems to register that the core is melting down, but we have time - about three minutes - before they realize it's a farce, and by then we can have charges planted on the core and...”
In the lounge: “Ne…negative,” says Zelia. She tries desperately to pull herself out from under massive chunks of debris. IG-14’s arm can be seen resting atop the debris, no longer attached to him. There is no other sign of the droid.
Zelia gets her head clear, still breathing through her damaged helmet. The visor is shattered open by her right eye, and her right eye is bloody and swollen shut. She stops struggling for a moment. “Just stop that ship." She chokes and sputters. "Don’t… let that disease get off world. I'll worry about...setting the charges.”
Kika only continues to stare at the image as if something else is speaking to her. “But you…you’re hurt. You’ll die or worse.”
“If that disease gets off world…many more will die,” says Zelia, breathing heavily but struggling to sound better than she really is. “The disease is part of our mission. Don’t worry about me. I’ll get Ziggy and I out of here after we set the charges on the core. Just stop that ship.”
Kika then switches off the com, a look of determination setting in. She turns to Li. “I’m going after Zelia and Ziggy,” she says. “Find a starfighter. Don’t let that ship get away.” She then looks at her datapad and points Li in the right direction. “Starfighter hanger’s not too far from here.”
Li nods, a look of wild excitement in her eyes. “I won’t let you guys down. I swear!”
Kika smiles. “This is the moment you’ve been dreaming of, Li. One fighter against a million. One slim hope for the galaxy.” Then the two part ways.
Bannick reaches Saydra’s assault transport and slaps the tracking device on. He then turns to head back for his own ship when one of the other two ST units that was with Stalker suddenly appears, blocking his escape. It reaches for him to grab him by the throat, but Bannick tumbles backwards just in time to escape. Hitting the ground, he rolls immediately to his right and onto his feet. Then he whips his blasters out. The ST unit swats one of the guns aside, but Bannick continues to grip it as he fires with the other. The shot bounces right off with no effect. A split second later, the droid swings at him with its fist while the other hand unsheathes its vibroblade.
People scream and run to give the combatants plenty of room. Bannick barely dodges it all, and then he takes off at a full run for his own ship as he fires both heavy pistols back at the droid. The ST droid follows, shrugging off every bolt that hits it. Behind, the last of the crates is loaded into Saydra’s ship, and Stalker boards it with the only other ST unit.
The ST droid chasing Bannick suddenly stops running. It lines up a shot, but Bannick notices and dives, rolls and comes back to his feet, narrowly escaping death. He fires back several more times. Then seeing a nearby group of crates, he dives behind them as the droid rapidly hits everything in the vicinity.
On the other Zyn worlds, the Republic ships devastate the cloning facilities, destroying them utterly. All four groupings of Republic fleets are seen completing their portion of the mission. They then regroup, each attack fleet respectively.
Aboard one of the battle cruisers, an officer approaches a New Republic admiral who was only briefly shown during Kylo Ren's trial. “Shall we give the order to move the fleet to Korriban to assist the Felderra Dragons?”
“Negative,” says the admiral sharply. “By the time we’d arrive, we wouldn’t do them any good.” It is obvious he is just making an excuse.
“But, Sir!” the officer replies. “Our fleet would likely be there within the hour. It's only a small jump. We could…”
The admiral regards him with disdain. “Are you questioning my orders? Issue the command to the other attack fleets. We return to Manaan. We have our own borders to protect. The safety of the New Republic is far more important than a ragged band of mercenaries.” The officer then salutes and heads off to issue the orders. In the end, the four New Republic attack fleets - all significantly smaller - launch into hyperspace, leaving Zyn space.
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