“We’ve got a few new entries to the codex!” Bookworm announced over the ricketing of the tram.
“We’ve got gargoyles and cueballs now. We’re filling this up fast, huh?”
Anakin heard him, but processed it passively.
He braced his feet as the small, well-lit tram screeched into the station in the next building.
“Next stop, power plant,” the calming announcer stated.
“Master?” Ahsoka piped up, and Anakin turned to look down on her.
“Gree was wondering why the emergency batteries for internal lighting and basic functions weren’t working. You think it was because they were destroyed by the demons, or because they were running for too long?”
“Could be either. But the emergency batteries should last way longer than three days.” Anakin shook his head.
“Demons. Sithspit, Ahsoka, are we really calling them this?”
“Master, if those things aren’t demons, I’m not a Togruta.”
The doors to the tram opened, and the clones on either side of the two Jedi surged out, sweeping their rifles hither and thither.
Anakin and Ahsoka filed out once they were all out.
Anakin gestured at something invisible as they walked near the rear of the company.
“It’s just that if this really is a case of actual demons, then… Well, can Jedi pull punches against demons?”
“I can’t say I’ve faced demons before, so I don’t know.”
“This wouldn’t be the same kind of war if it was,” Anakin declared, hands in his robe’s pockets.
“Battle droids don’t take much to disable, and you don’t actually kill them. Cad Bane or Ventress or Dooku– they’re still living beings, they still carry the Force. Even Grievous. But if these demons are resistant to the Force and live only for violence, and everything about it screams the Dark Side and a twist of life itself, that means they shouldn’t technically exist. Can anything even physically exist outside the will of the Force?”
“…What are you getting at?” Ahsoka sounded concerned.
“I’m saying, if Jedi obey the will of the Force, then if something comes along that’s a threat to the Force, it should be destroyed. As thoroughly as possible.”
Ahsoka didn’t say anything in response, so Anakin fell silent too.
The clones began to file into the power station, and Anakin allowed Ahsoka to go in front of him.
Once everyone else went in, Anakin followed.
The winding dark hallways inside weren’t much different from the storage facility’s hallways.
Occasional blasterfire and piercing screeches from further up told Anakin the vanguard had encountered fodder demons– the imps and zombies.
He concentrated, trying to sense through the Force– not where specific signatures were, but where holes in his perception were.
Anakin felt a sudden displacement behind him, and he spun and whipped his lightsaber out, igniting and de-igniting it right as it split a zombie in half diagonally.
It fell at his feet, glowing on the cut.
Anakin turned back around, blinked at the sudden light of his saber, and tried to re-adjust to the dark.
“Something wrong, General?” a clone asked from ahead.
“Zombie,” Anakin grimly reported.
“They can come out of nowhere.”
A gurgle up ahead accompanied a surprised yelp, followed by three blasterfire rounds.
“This one had nothing but one arm,” Commander Keen loudly said.
“Make sure it’s dead!”
The clones pressed on, occasionally putting down more zombies.
It wasn’t much longer before they passed a doorway and came to a far more open area, overwhelmingly dark save for the dim red emergency lights inside and the piercing beams of the clone’s lamps.
Just like the rest of the facility, it reeked of blood and filth, and wherever the clone’s headlamps shone, they revealed desecration and destruction.
There were four enormous square generators that were at least two stories high on either side of the column.
The party filed between the generators, but Ahsoka hurled herself to the top of the right generator, and Anakin leaped in one bound to the top of the left.
Anakin looked down.
He sent a pulse through the Force that washed over the generator.
The one he was on was dark and quiet, but relatively undamaged; just shut off.
The house-sized one ahead, though, had an enormous hole caved into it by something big and nasty.
That wouldn’t be up and running for quite some time.
“Ahsoka,” Anakin called.
“Is your generator in working condition?”
“No,” Ahsoka reported.
“But the other one might. I’ll check.”
Anakin could barely see in the dim darkness, but he didn’t need to.
He reached deep into the Force, letting it seep into the machine beneath him, feeling the complexities that made up the generator…
There.
A power coupling.
Anakin concentrated.
The different components of the shut-off generator began to flow together and snap into place, like the pieces of his models.
Cables aligned and plugged together, screws came back into place, and power switches restarted themselves.
Finally, as the last parts clicked together, a deep whirr and windup thundered beneath him, and the undamaged lights above him turned on in an instant.
Anakin blinked hard, trying to adjust to the new white lighting.
It didn’t take long.
“How long’s yours gonna last?” Ahsoka called from her generator.
Anakin saw her waving at him through the hissing steam and residual smoke of the power plant’s destruction.
“I dunno. The more the merrier,” Anakin called back.
“Get yours up while the others clear the room.”
As Ahsoka bent down and started to do just that, Anakin stepped over some pipes and cables and peered over the edge of his vibrating, house-sized power generator.
The clones and Jedi two stories beneath him were fanning out and spreading into every corner of the generator room.
Luminara was heading her troops to the right of the room, and Jaro Tapal was forging ahead, between the generators.
Rex and the 501st were spreading to the left.
______________________________________________________________
Captain Rex was a sensible man.
Being a soldier and a strategist, he dealt strictly with the material and the physical.
And so, when these terrors from the depths of human imagination actually came to life, Rex was having a hard time wrapping his head around it all.
With Hardcase and Kix right behind him, Rex peered around the corner of a ruined generator, swishing his blaster pistol side to side.
No zombies here, just bodies sprawled in old blood mixed with melted machine parts.
Or, at least, what looked like bodies.
Rex chose to not fire into them just yet.
He might need his tibanna gas for more zombies or monsters later.
Zombies.
Rex was tempted to groan in exasperation.
This was not what the simulations on Kamino had promised he’d face.
Zombies.
Undead, pathetic, animated things, shambling for human prey.
But, hey, maybe it was just the result of an experiment gone wrong, maybe a serum or gas or something.
The imps were perhaps aliens, and so might the Hell knights.
But the gore nests were where things started to get fuzzy.
No alien discovery in history had recorded instances of those things happening.
The very notion of it turned Rex’s stomach; in all his time training and in the Clone Wars so far, nothing equaled the carnage and gore he was seeing now.
But this couldn’t be actual Hell, it couldn’t be!
Because it was so inconceivable, so overwhelming, that the odds of it happening…
Rex’s foot grazed a dead man’s fingers, and Rex looked down with equal parts pity and disgust.
Now that the remaining lights were back on, Rex wasn’t sure if he liked it or not.
Now the viscera and destruction all around him was far more pronounced.
He could see bodies burned beyond recognition tangled in electrical wires and bisected halves of technicians lying in their own gore.
Bloodied skeletons with intact eyeballs sat upright, leaning on the walls, and drippy, ropy gore was hanging from small grips in the wall.
Rex even spotted the occasional body of a clone trooper sprawled on the ground, their armor shattered, bloodied, and torn.
Rex’s boots were caked with red already, and every step he took deeper into this cursed place just reinforced the idea that this was not going to end well.
Behind him, Hardcase peeked into the bloodied, rusty ruins of the generator.
He made a thoughtful sound, then reached inside and fished around for a few seconds before taking his hand out.
There was a little clone pilot trooper action figure in his gauntlet, and he admired it briefly, then quickly stuffed it into his ammo pouch behind his back.
A small chime accompanied the flicker of a hologram, and Rex instinctively pointed, then lowered his blasters.
Sure enough, it was just a blue figure materializing from a small holopad on the edge of the room beside a ruined exit.
It was a Republic officer, young and spunky, with a happy look in his eyes and a broad smile on his face.
It seemed to remain there even as he spoke.
“Here at the UAC, we don’t just embrace the future—we tear it from the jaws of the abyss and force it to work overtime. Due to budget funneling into the labs, however, overtime pay has been discontinued. Thankfully, you will still work 20 hours a day, seven days a week. We are all in this together as a big, happy family. Thank you for your service here at the UAC.”
Rex blinked.
He blinked again.
He turned to Kix beside him, who made an exasperated sound.
“What even is this place?” Hardcase demanded, hoisting his heavy Z-6 to alleviate the pressure on his arms.
“What’s the Republic even doing here?”
“And why are they so blatant about their, ah, decisions?” Kix finished, glaring at the hologram.
It had faded away by then.
“Cutting pay, mandating overtime? That’ll take a toll on any man.”
“We’re dealing with zombies here,” Rex reminded Kix.
“I think overtime is the least of their worries. Were they aware of this zombie outbreak at all?”
The hologram flickered to life again with another chime, and the same Republic officer reappeared, with the same fake smile and exaggerated corporate optimism in his voice.
“Remember: If you see a fellow employee being torn apart by a demon, do not attempt to help. Your productivity is more valuable than their survival. Because you are defined solely by your efforts as slaves to build a brighter tomorrow.”
Kix made an outraged sound as the hologram slowly disappeared.
“When we get back to Coruscant, Rex, I’m filing a report against the UAC. This alone is grounds for their termination.”
“Well, then… better make sure to record it,” Rex suggested.
And a bad feeling seeped into his gut.
The UAC representative had also referred to these monsters as demons.
They might be deceived too, but could it be, could it genuinely be, the real deal of Hell they were talking about?
Kix stomped over to the hologram and bent down to examine the electrical chips inside.
But as he approached the doorway leading out of the generator room, there came a familiar shuffle and a soft gurgle from the hallway that made Kix freeze.
Rex turned to face what Kix was seeing.
A clone trooper was in the door frame, turned so only his side was available to see.
But there was blood spattered all over his armor, and his movement and gait was stiff and unnatural.
The blaster drooping from his hand was limp.
Rex squinted from beneath his helmet.
“Trooper. Turn to face me.”
The trooper did.
Half his helmet was gone, cracked open and exposing the cold, grey clammy flesh beneath.
Dried blood trailed in four rivulets down the trooper’s front.
The trooper hissed and growled something indistinguishable, then raised his blaster.
Rex fired before he did.
Blue blasterfire poured from his pistols, only marginally stopped by the dilapidated clone trooper armor and the zombie’s natural resistance.
The zombie trooper’s aim went wide, making the rest of the troopers duck, and as he finally collapsed in a clatter of armor, Rex’s hands were trembling.
Three more zombie security clones were behind him, and they, too, raised their guns and began firing.
Kix and Rex dove for cover.
Hardcase moved into position after his Z-6 warmed up, and with the three zombies packed tightly in the corridor leading out, it was like shooting fish in a barrel.
Five seconds later, all three of them were mowed down, never to move again.
Fives rushed over to Rex’s position, his pistols raised.
Upon seeing the problem solved, Fives snarled something, hands drooping down.
“That’s bad.” He raised his voice with authority.
“If the zombies turn out to be troopers, everyone, open fire first. They’re not your brothers. Not anymore.”
Rex’s arms finally came down.
He let out a deep, drawn sigh.
“Not the first time I’ve had to do that. The Rishi moon, remember, Fives?”
“All too well,” Fives grimly replied.
Anakin suddenly dropped from the top of his generator two stories up, splashing some blood onto Rex’s shin guards.
Anakin winced at the sight, then turned his attention to the zombified clone troopers.
“Rex, please don’t tell me that was what I think it was.”
“Zombie security,” Fives grumbled, sheathing his pistols with a slip of leather.
“Sir, if these things are intelligent enough to use weapons, our job just became a lot harder,” Rex observed to Anakin.
“I noticed,” Anakin glumly said.
“Doesn’t change the fact that we should move forward. These engines and reactors are doing well, but we should explore the rest of the building to ensure the power is going to the rest of the base.”
Fives and Rex turned to each other, nodded, and went to inform the rest of their troopers.
______________________________________________________________
Cal Kestis could easily see the similarities between Master Luminara and Barriss Offee– one was simply a refined version of the other.
Both were gentle, graceful, and seemed to almost float above the gore and carnage littering the floor.
The hem of their garments were bloodstained, but barely rippled with their movements.
While Jaro Tapal was off with Commander Keen and the rest of the 13th Battalion scouting ahead, and the 501st troopers following them from behind, Cal hung around Barriss as she, Luminara, and the ten 41st Elite Corps troopers exited the main power room and into the public halls.
These were used for the movement of equipment and engineers working on various closed-off areas of the plant.
Racks of tools were leaning against the wall and lying on the ground in equal measure.
Small carts lay shattered, their contents spilled across the floor.
These industrial halls were wide, dully lit, and painted teal, not at all like the dark red of the engine rooms they just left.
Blood trails stained the cratered ground, punctuated by dead bodies and parts of bodies.
Lights in the high ceiling were shattered, their pieces scattered on the floor.
Wires dangled from the ceiling alongside desiccated, upside-down bodies.
Their empty eyes and gaping mouths filled with old blood was on Cal’s eye level, and he shuddered as he passed one by, unable to take his eyes off it.
“Whatever comes,” Luminara said from the front, and her voice was like music in this dark, dank environment, “you must not fear. It locks you in place and leaves you vulnerable.”
Cal couldn’t help but see Barriss’ face contort in thought upon hearing that.
Wasn’t she supposed to be the loyal, unquestioning one?
“Hey,” Cal quietly offered, sidling beside Barriss.
“Hey, are you okay?”
“I don’t see how anyone could be,” Barriss bitterly replied in a small voice.
Her eyes came to a charred body sprawled on the ground, singed beyond recognition.
She tenderly stepped over it, but the hem of her garment caught on part of the crust of his arm, and it crumbled away like dust.
Barriss made a disgusted face as this happened.
And Cal suddenly felt very stupid.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got your back. If those imps and the Hell Knights were the worst this place can throw at us, we’ve got this in the bag!”
“Perhaps,” Barriss conceded.
“But I fear that is not the case. Can’t you sense it? More and more, I get the impression that we truly are facing demons. It’s bigger than me. Than all of us.”
“I mean… you were never that big to begin with,” Cal remarked, shrugging.
He smiled faintly.
“It’s endearing.”
Indeed, Barriss was only 5’5, and as she turned her head up to Cal, she frowned.
“You’re not much taller.”
“Of course not. I’m enormous.”
Barriss rolled her eyes and clasped her hands as they walked.
“You’re impossible, is what you are.”
“Hey, maybe,” Cal tacitly admitted.
His hands were up in mock surrender.
“Maybe. Thank you for noticing.”
Barriss snickered at that, and Cal felt a sense of accomplishment burn in his bosom.
Their footsteps were clicking on the tiled floor, occasionally splashing into a fetid puddle of old blood.
It was likely quieter than Cal imagined it, but every movement was still loud enough to set him on edge.
Everything echoed slightly on the walls.
There was no sign of Master Tapal and his forces anywhere.
Beside Luminara, Commander Gree made a disgusted sound as he passed a Rodian body halfway melted into the wall.
Cal could see the forest-green trooper lean in close to Luminara as he whispered.
“Sir, this kind of situation is unprecedented. When we run into something we can’t handle, what’ll we do?”
“That entirely depends on what it is we’re facing,” Luminara quietly answered, her voice subdued from the horrible surroundings.
Movement from up ahead drew Cal’s eyes up, and Gree quickly pointed his DC-15 at it before slowly lowering it.
“This place gives me the heebie-jeebies,” Gree muttered contemptibly.
Indeed, it was just an engineer’s bloodsoaked upper half which had just fallen from the top of a shelf he had been flung up on.
Cal eyed it with a regretful, disgusted look as he passed it by; the engineer’s skin had been flayed and his exposed muscles burnt black.
As they reached a barely-lit intersection littered with burnt craters and torn-up junk, Cal saw a hologram blur to life in one of the corners.
It was the overly cheery UAC representative, and his tone continued to be overly corporate and upbeat.
“If you see unleashed demons approaching, please remember to save your work and file a last-minute productivity report. This data is important to us. But you are replaceable and very much mortal. We appreciate your continuing forced cooperation.”
“They’re rather straightforward, aren’t they?” Barriss sadly remarked once he was done, glancing at the bloodied hologram displayer on the ground.
“Makes you wonder just what was going on in their minds,” Cal said aimlessly.
“If you have the words ‘unleashed demons’ in your script without hyperbole, you might wanna stop what you’re doing.”
Barriss wasn’t amused.
She merely gestured all around them.
“Can you feel it, Cal? The void this place leaves? I… don’t like it. Our masters taught us that the Light Side of the Force is created and sustained by life. But this place, these, er, demons, are full of death. Pain, suffering, hate. More than anything I’ve been exposed to as a padawan. So much so that they’re a hole in our perception of the Force.”
Cal indeed could feel it.
And it scared him more than he wanted to admit.
Why were there creatures in the galaxy that were absent of this fundamental thing?
How could such a thing have come about?
Or just a hole in the Force entirely?
Cal didn’t know the difference.
The UAC representative’s hologram chimed back on just as they were about to move past it.
“Hazard pay has been discontinued. Slaves facing demonic encounters should refer to Section 8.4 of the UAC Employee Handbook: ‘Personal Survival Strategies.’ In the event of an injury from these encounters, remember that unauthorized bleeding is a Class-B workplace violation. Please report all blood loss to your supervisor.”
Bookworm, trailing behind them, snorted at the absurdity of it, then bent down and scanned the hologram, recording the message it had just sent out.
“Are you capturing everything?” Cal asked Bookworm, stopping and looking behind him.
“Course I am, kid,” Bookworm said, after the scan was done.
He stood up and nudged aside a piece of scrap metal with his boot.
“This whole place is full of surprises. Don’t want to leave any detail unwritten.”
“Do you think this is Hell we’re dealing with, Bookworm?” Barriss softly asked; she had lingered beside Cal.
“It’s all but confirmed by now, but until it actually is…”
Bookworm sighed and drooped his shoulders.
Cal couldn’t see under his green-painted helmet, but Cal could easily infer the expression he was making.
“I’m scared to find out. Maybe the UAC’s just mistaken about these creature’s origins. I want to avoid it for as long as possible. Because if this really is Hell we’re dealing with… what can a guy like me do?”
“Fight,” Cal said instinctually.
“If actual demons’re coming at me, I won’t just twiddle my thumbs.”
“Yeah, I know that, kid,” Bookworm dismissed as they resumed walking.
“I’m a soldier, of course I’ll fight. But it’ll probably all be in vain. A trillion more demons are in Hell. The one who’ll really save the day is gonna be some Jedi, and…” Bookworm shrugged.
“Look, I’m just being realistic.”
“Hell is basically real,” Cal said.
“Realism just got thrown out the door.”
Bookworm laughed humorlessly and glanced down at his datapad again.
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
He didn’t say anything more after that, and Cal couldn’t help but feel a small twist come into his gut.
What, precisely, was a trooper like Bookworm supposed to do in the face of such reckless hate?
The hallways got darker and dimmer, and Cal withdrew his lightsaber and ignited it for a small aura of blue light around him.
Barriss soon followed suit.
It only made the gruesome sights that came into their views a surprise, and Cal found his heart going into his throat on more than one occasion upon seeing the sticky remains of human beings on the walls, or a jagged pentagram etched into the wall with something heavy and sharp.
Luminara and Gree, up ahead, halted.
Cal and Barriss stopped, and so did the detachment of nine clones behind them.
“I sense a void ahead,” Luminara reported.
“But I’m not sure what it is. What kind of monster.”
“Well, then, let’s kill it!” Cal exclaimed, hoisting his lightsaber.
“Wait!” Luminara ordered, holding a pale green hand out.
“You cannot rush in, young one. Not without knowing–”
A shuffle accompanied the toppling of scrap metal, and several ruined zombie bodies, still dressed in lab coats or UAC uniforms, rose from the wreckage at their feet.
Barks of alarm and blaster shots soon followed, and the zombies in their midst were soon down, but from in front and behind, zombies and imps soon emerged from the darkness, shrieking and gurgling.
Luminara’s bright green saber was out in an instant, and she severed a zombie at the waist.
“Padawans! Get to the rear! Protect our troopers!”
Cal urged Barriss with a hand and leaped to the wall, ran along it at an angle, and leaped off to land in a crouch in front of the blasterfire the clones were pouring into the undead forces at their rear.
Included in their emerging ranks were more undead clone Zombie Security troopers, opening fire just as Cal landed.
Cal’s saber spins managed to keep any of the Z-sec’s shots from hitting the troopers behind him.
Blue bolts ricocheted off his saber, hit the walls with explosions of sparks, and occasionally struck the zombies shambling towards him.
Bodies stumbled to the ground, imps dropped in midair, and the zombie troopers, despite being tougher, were going down with their own blaster bolts.
Cal registered Barriss to his side, having evidently pushed through the clones instead of wall running.
Two zombie troopers in the narrow hallway, however, were carrying M3 Bulwark blast shields– reinforced plasteel plates of metal with a little viewport near the top.
No matter how many blaster bolts impacted them, they were resilient enough to take a beating.
How, exactly, these zombies got smart enough to use their weapons and armor, Cal had no idea.
Two thermal detonators flew over Cal’s head from behind, landing behind the shield zombies and into the mess of fallen demons.
Two seconds later, they erupted in a thick shower of gore and metal, stumbling and faltering the two shield troopers.
Cal took the chance to speed forward into the fray and decapitate one.
A zombie lunged at his head and hit him, which Cal responded to by severing him in half and blowing the two parts backwards.
He barely deflected the torrent of blasterfire that the shield trooper was directing at him.
But the zombie’s new angle was such that he was now exposed to the blasterfire of the clones, which shredded him to pieces in short time.
Cal seized the zombie’s shield with the Force and hurled it down the hallway, bisecting two imps in bloody flashes before embedding in the wall and keeping one dead imp upright.
Cal held up the second shield with the Force as well, but upon seeing no more zombies, he dropped it with a clang on the flaming, debris-strewn hallway floor.
“Forward, Padawans!” Luminara encouraged, chopping her green blade in the direction they were going.
“Master Tapal may be in trouble!”
As Luminara led the charge to catch up with Master Tapal, Cal hurriedly tapped his comlink while he ran.
“Master! Come in! Are you all right?”
The sound of blasterfire and sizzling chops was heard over static on the other end.
Cal could only assume the worst.
He picked up speed, leaving Barriss behind.
Anakin could hear Ahsoka’s comlink chime to life, as well as Barriss’ frightened voice on the other end.
“Ahsoka! Are you hurt?”
“What happened?” Ahsoka demanded of her comlink as she, Anakin, and the 501st clones began jogging through the ruined corridors.
“Master Tapal’s in trouble! Cal’s trying to figure out where he is right now! We need your help, now!”
“Come on!” Anakin barked behind him.
“We need to catch up to the others!”
Ahsoka and the 501st needed no more encouragement.
They picked up speed, barely avoiding tripping or slipping on gore and wreckage.
They just needed to go in the same direction as the other Jedi had been, right?
But the signal of Ahsoka’s comlink grew more and more static as they ran.
Anakin’s breaths were labored and came through clenched teeth as they rounded another corner.
A hologram representative sprang to life in the corner, but they moved past it quickly before it could say anything.
Anakin soon spotted the bodies of bloodied, zombified clone troopers, their blaster wounds still steaming.
Shouldn’t they have run into the others by now?!
Anakin turned another corner and began dashing with the Force, leaving the 501st behind with Ahsoka.
A powerful double door soon greeted Anakin, grey and ceiling-high, spattered with blood and pockmarked by scorch marks.
And through it, Anakin could sense dozens of life-forms fighting and could hear blasterfire.
Anakin made a fist, and the door crumpled in the center.
The hole was large enough for him to dive through, which he did, and he rolled to his feet.
Anakin found himself in the power plant’s energy export center.
It was a large, cavernous open space lined with terminals on the far walls and aging yellow lights far above him.
Elevated walkways crisscrossed above.
Empty conveyor belt systems at waist level rumbled.
Pipes as wide around as a normal person curved and snaked on the walls, darkly colored and stained with rust and viscera.
Just like the rest of the UAC, craters in the marble floor and shattered wreckage adorned the energy export center.
Conveyor belts were smashed to pieces and lying in piles of rubble.
Bodies and body parts littered the ground, smearing gore on the floor and retaining the horrible stench the rest of the UAC had had so far.
And Master Jaro Tapal was engaged in a full-on firefight inside.
Imps scattered under withering blue blasterfire from Tapal’s forces, hiding behind the cover of an enormous mass of fallen rubble.
Winged gargoyles hovered in midair and spat globs of acid at dispersing clones.
And a vanguard of zombie clone security was pinning the Jedi down.
Two fresh yellow-painted troopers were sprawled on the ground, unmoving.
Anakin’s lightsaber blazed to life as he rushed into the fray.
He was vaguely aware of Ahsoka’s arrival at the doors just behind him.
“General Skywalker!” Jaro Tapal cried, his blue saberstaff whirling in an elaborate flurry.
Six blaster bolts were redirected into zombie’s blast shields.
“Get behind their position!”
Anakin nodded and began moving, bisecting any imps that came within arm’s reach.
His arm came up to his mouth.
“Master Luminara! Come in! We’ve found Master Tapal. He’s already taken casualties!”
Ahsoka and the rest of the 501st, meanwhile, got the double doors open and began pouring fire upon the hovering gargoyles, redirecting their attention and letting Master Tapal and the 13th attend to the ground forces.
Anakin weaved through them all, cutting imps and zombified troopers in two with extreme prejudice.
Anakin wasn’t sure how, but his head was suddenly full of both chaos and focused fury.
It was like facing the Huttslayer back on Concordia: these vile things needed to be taught a lesson, in the most direct and permanent method he knew.
He leaped onto a ruined conveyor belt and delivered a firm kick to the face of an imp at his boot level.
Anakin’s blue blade whirled around him in a blazing defensive shield that blocked several fireballs before it lashed out and beheaded another imp.
He clenched with the Force.
A crater appeared in the midst of a group of zombie security– Z-secs– faltering them and making them easy pickings for the 13th troopers.
Anakin could hear Captain Rex speaking urgently into the comlink in his wrist.
“Master Luminara! Trace these coordinates, now! We’ve found Tapal!”
But only static and the sounds of combat were heard on the other end.
An imp leaped for Anakin from behind.
But Anakin sensed it coming before it even came off the ground.
And Anakin, his left hand swirling his saber in a defensive shield, spun atop his high ground and launched his right fist forth at just the right time.
His mechanical hand pierced the imp’s tough leathery skin.
Aided by the Force, it then emerged from the imp’s back.
A thick spray of blood shot out of the shrieking, squirming imp, stuck on Anakin’s arm.
From only a short distance away, Ahsoka yelped in shock.
Anakin hoisted it up on his fist, holding it prominently in the air.
He flung the dead imp off his bloodied arm, and it struck a Z-sec carrying a shield.
The shield trooper just bounced the imp off and stayed firmly on his feet.
Anakin seized the shield trooper through the Force and pulled.
The trooper was yanked thirty feet right to Anakin, his shield way out to the side, and Anakin thrust as he came within reach.
His saber blazed through the trooper’s ruined armor effortlessly, then carved up through his skull vertically.
Commander Keen was out from behind cover, laying down suppressing fire on a group of Z-secs.
He had picked up a blast shield, which was absorbing the blasterfire returning to him.
He had downed three of them already, and was in the process of shooting down another when an imp shrieked from above, descending on him.
Keen caught the imp on his upraised shield, sending the stunned imp sprawling.
Keen followed it up and slammed the bottom edge of the shield into the imp’s neck, decapitating him.
More blaster bolts jolted the shield.
Keen looked wildly around, spotted another imp in the rafters, and lead his shots along the imp’s path until several bolts caught him and sent the imp falling from the ceiling.
Only three gargoyles, half a dozen imps, and a few roaming zombies were left in the export plant– when suddenly, six bright orange flashes appeared from both below on the ground and high up in the rafters.
When they died down, six Hell Knights had materialized, roaring at the sky.
And even more flashes followed.
The one closest to Anakin ripped a chunk of ruined conveyor belt out of the ground and hurled it at Anakin.
Anakin dove to the earth as it sailed by, then charged the Hell Knight.
The Knight in return began charging.
But Anakin sensed a glob of neon green acid spit about to land where his foot was going, and he dashed to the side.
This made the Knight close in quicker, and he backhanded Anakin hard enough to throw him fifteen feet.
The Knight then directed his attention to Master Tapal and Ahsoka, who were each fending off a Knight of their own.
The clones, meanwhile, were training their guns on the faraway imps and gargoyles.
Anakin skidded on the tile with a screech of leather, spun at the end, and instantly cut through three Z-secs at once.
They fell with glowing orange cuts in their armor.
He flicked a hand, and the surface of one large crate erupted in a shower of metal splinters that sent three imps flying.
The fourth and final imp who had scrambled back to his feet on the crate was instantly grabbed by Anakin’s hand, who threw him onto the tiled ground hard enough to stagger him.
Anakin stomped on the imp’s neck, hard, with a released snarl that decapitated the imp.
A Hell Knight dropped from one of the higher pipes and charged for Anakin’s back.
Sensing his void in the Force barreling at him, Anakin spun his whirring saber behind his back as he turned, eventually bringing it to his front and using the momentum to forcibly split the Hell Knight’s arm in half vertically, through his fingers, up his forearm, to the Hell Knight’s elbow.
Anakin ripped the saber out of his arm, disemboweled the Knight with a swipe, then cut up and heavily down to behead the kneeling Knight.
“Master!” Ahsoka called, and Anakin turned to see her pointing her lightsabers at the open blast doors.
“More demons, incoming!”
Indeed, through the entrance was rushing incoming imps, Z-secs, shield soldiers, and three Hell Knights.
They were being driven, however, by the distinct sounds and flashes of blue blasterfire behind them.
And sure enough, Master Luminara and the two other apprentices soon appeared, with their clone reserves behind them.
At any other time, he would have welcomed their arrival.
Anakin bellowed and swept his bloodied arm.
A thin blade of Force blasted out and instantly bisected the line of imps and Z-secs headed his way.
Blood spattered the entire back of the floor behind them.
Anakin then surged to the nearest Hell Knight.
He ducked under his wild haymaker, then pierced the knight in the heart and ripped his saber out horizontally, hurling the knight to the floor.
An imp leaped from the rafters, and Anakin, spotting it, seized it through the Force.
Anakin oriented the imp so he was facing head down and brought his arm down hard enough to slam the imp into the floor and shatter half a dozen bones in the imp’s body, including his skull.
Anakin vindictively kicked the imp’s body as he sped to his next target.
This target, another Hell Knight, pounced for Anakin.
Just as the Knight came down, Anakin dashed behind it, and as the Knight impacted the earth with a heavy slam, Anakin sunk his lightsaber deep into his armored back with an equally heavy pierce.
The Knight stumbled, and Anakin intentionally jiggled his blade inside him.
The Knight screamed, falling to his side.
Anakin took his saber out and stomped on his third-degree wounds before decapitating him unceremoniously.
Ahsoka’s Hell Knight was lunging and swiping at her, who always ducked and weaved just out of the way each time.
Deep black lines were etched into the Hell Knight’s skin, and he was bellowing in pain and rage with each movement.
Ahsoka’s face was pulled in strain, but she had gotten where she wanted to: beside one of the enormous pipes running along the wall.
Ahsoka leaped atop the horizontal pipe and swiped her saber on it.
A spray of liquid nitrogen hissed out and blinded the Hell Knight, slowing his movements and keeping him in place.
Helpless, the Knight gradually froze under the jet of pure coolant, growing little white crystals all over his burned and battered body.
And a few good shots from Captain Rex shattered the Knight’s skull.
Jaro Tapal, meanwhile, was fending off his Hell Knight with long lashes of his humming blue saberstaff.
Tapal eventually met the Hell Knight’s fist with his own, coated in a bubble of Force.
The Knight’s arm was blasted to the side, leaving him open to a shattering uppercut with his other hand, holding the saberstaff.
Having stunned the demon, Jaro Tapal twisted and impaled the Hell Knight with the saberstaff.
Tapal ripped the saber out of the Knight’s ribs, then kicked the dead Knight just to make sure.
One of the final two Hell Knights ran at Master Luminara.
This made him susceptible to blasterfire from three different angles as clone troopers began hosing him down.
Before long, the Hell Knight was succumbing to its injuries, on one knee and one monstrous hand.
This gave Luminara the chance to zip to his side and dip her green saber hilt-deep into his ribs.
Anakin looked around before turning his gaze to a piece of debris lying beside him: a long piece of square cement with three snapped-off rebar sticking out of the end.
Alerted by a roar, Anakin turned to see the final Hell Knight, barreling down on him like a gorilla.
Anakin quickly snatched the debris piece with the Force and shot it like a missile into the Knight’s face.
The three long metal rods jutting out swiftly cracked into the Hell knight’s skull hard enough to make him spurt blood, coating the entire debris piece with the runny stuff and faltering the Hell knight.
Like the other one, he was instantly on his knee.
Anakin seized the opportunity–and the Hell knight’s head through the Force–and forced him to bow.
The debris piece banged on the floor hard enough to drive the rebar into his face even deeper.
More blood soaked the debris piece.
The Hell knight bellowed again, but weaker.
Anakin roared, drew the Knight’s head back, and made him bow once more.
This time, the exposed rebar disappeared completely into his thick skull.
The body toppled to his side, and Anakin came beside it and kicked it once.
No sign of life was present.
That took out the last of the large fry.
As the last few zombies were put down, Anakin spotted Ahsoka timidly approaching him and the fallen Hell Knight.
“…Master?” Ahsoka asked.
She tremblingly reached for his arm, and Anakin couldn’t help but spot fear in her countenance.
“I-is everything all right?”
Anakin exhaled heavily and sheathed his lightsaber.
“I’m fine, Snips. I’m not mad at you. It’s the demons.” He kicked the Hell Knight’s body again.
“Even if they aren’t actually from Hell, they’re still demons.”
Luminara Unduli came beside Anakin next.
Her countenance showed only concern.
“Skywalker,” she quietly started.
“I could feel your anger from across the room.”
“Yeah, what of it?” Anakin darkly asked, turning away.
“Surprise, Master Luminara. Demons, and all that.”
“I was not going… Skywalker. I want you to breathe deeply in and out. Through your nose, and out from your mouth. We need you to be prepared for the next room.”
Anakin’s face twisted at the advice, but he obeyed nonetheless.
The disgusting smell of rotten meat came with the nasal inhales.
He gradually calmed down, but he still remained looking away from Luminara.
Her green hand softly rested on Anakin’s arm.
“Thank you, Skywalker. We’re lucky to have you here.”
Anakin, momentarily startled by the affirmation and unsure of how to respond, just nodded.
“Yeah. Thanks. Let’s get moving.” He raised his voice to Jaro Tapal.
“How many casualties have we taken?”
“Ox and Trowel are down,” Commander Keen spoke up before Tapal could.
Keen’s tone was regretful.
“A Hell Knight and a gargoyle surprised them.”
“Any losses on our side?” Anakin asked Rex next, turning to him.
“We’re all fine, General.”
“We only lost one,” Master Luminara solemnly reported on her end without being asked.
“We had to leave him behind.”
Anakin couldn’t see the faces of the clones Luminara was commanding, but he could sense their fear and regret.
Anakin suspected the rest of the Jedi could as well.
And it stunk that it was the case to leave the bodies behind, but there was nothing else they could realistically do at the moment.
“…Let’s get to the tram,” Rex finally decided.
“General Tapal, have you checked the export center for proof that energy’s running to the rest of the facility?”
“No,” Tapal answered simply, folding his massive arms.
“We only ran into combat here.”
Anakin circled his head about, seeing the carnage and devastation littering the floor and walls.
He didn’t doubt Master Tapal’s word.
Looking some more through the Force, Anakin sensed a small control terminal at the further end of the room.
Striding over, Anakin examined it.
It was small and simple, with exposed wiring from a torn panel in the side.
Anakin knelt down and fiddled with the wiring a bit.
After some simple re-plugs, the terminal chimed to life again, and lights blinked on inside the terminal.
Anakin’s fingers flew over the keypad, and after a minute or two of buffering, the confirmation came through: power was running to the rest of the Bracca facility.
“Power shouldn’t be a problem anymore,” Anakin declared, stepping away from the terminal.
“Now all we have to worry about is demons. Hooray.”
“It’s not just demons, sir,” Rex glumly said, approaching Anakin.
His helmet was under his arm like a sports ball.
“We just examined the tram station at the end of the room, and we discovered a complication.”
“Because we haven’t had enough of those already,” Anakin muttered.
“Indeed,” Rex resigned.
“There’s a blast door at the end of the next tram stop– the refinery. It can’t be opened except with either a keycard which we don’t have, or from the refinery’s inside, which we can’t get to. Until that door opens, we aren’t going anywhere.”
Anakin’s head inclined up.
Outside the bloody glass windows, massive distribution pylons rose higher and higher out of sight that pulsed and hummed with contained fury.
Cables and pipes strung from them trailed into the distance, past the edges of Anakin’s sight.
“Oh, no.”
“Sorry?” Anakin asked mildly.
“That look in your eye. I’ve seen it before.”
“Why, Rex. What are you talking about?”
“It’s one of those Skywalker plans, isn’t it?” Rex asked.
“Seems impossible, usually is, but you pull it off anyway?”
“Something like that,” Anakin admitted.
He shrugged.
“You up for it?”
That same concerning look came into Rex’s eye.
“Of course I am, General.”
______________________________________________________________
The records hall reception was as trashed as the rest of the center so far.
More splintered wooden desks and shattered marble craters, more bloodstains and half-eaten, rotting body parts.
Obi-Wan was, in that moment, thankful for the Jedi technique of holding breath.
Obi-Wan stroked his beard as he studied the remnants of the rectangular atrium.
His gaze drifted from the left to the right, upon the lingering carnage and broken bookcases.
The only light came from the clones’ headlamps and the glowing runes etched into the walls.
And, just like that, the lights kicked on.
Fluorescent white and red-tinted glows came from the ceiling, illuminating the mess and making Obi-Wan take another few steps back as he took in the carnage more clearly.
“Finally,” Boil muttered from behind Obi-Wan.
“Thought they’d never get to it.”
A few clone troopers, in both orange and maroon, made audible gasps or yelps of surprise, turning Obi-Wan’s head.
He pushed to where several clones had gathered, and pushed one aside to gaze at the sight.
An array of recording computer monitors were only showing pentagrams on their loading screens.
And the machines were bleeding.
Oily, slick red blood emerged from under buttons and dials, and trailed slowly in rivulets down the metal sides and pooled around the sides.
Written above the monitors was a message, haphazardly traced in jagged lines and written in blood.
The end is near.
Obi-Wan’s eyes watered just by looking at it.
After a few captivating moments, he took a small step back and ushered the rest of the spellbound troopers.
“We have to go, now.”
Even as they walked away, Obi-Wan knew that the message lingered in the eyes and minds of the troopers who had seen it.
The small group passed by the receptionist desk, past the shattered glass of the security gates, and into the pried-open record vaults.
There were no enemies inside the vaults but a few roaming zombies that were quickly put down.
Obi-Wan’s head turned up.
The records hall was vast and tall, with little vertical, blue blinking lights all over the circular interior.
A few selectors with extendable robotic arms remained stuck on the walls, but seemed intact.
And a holographic monitor in the center of the records hall had chimed to life upon their entry.
“Whoever’s best at computers, start pulling up every classified file the UAC has,” Kit Fisto ordered his maroon-colored men.
One of them, with a pair of dice painted on the sides of his helmet, strode to the monitor, cracked his fingers, and began typing.
A constant chatter of clacking keys arose.
The arms on the walls soon began jerking to life.
More typing.
Some exasperated sounds arose from the typing trooper.
And then…
“There. Finally. The security’s down,” Dice declared.
He began browsing the list of documents.
“Generals, what do we want to see first?”
“Just pull up plenty of tabs,” Fisto said.
“Let’s get… the lab reports and accounting records to start with.”
Dice did just that.
The appropriate files were extracted from the walls by the mechanical arms and brought down slowly to chest level.
Cody slowly took one of the datapads out of the grips and scrolled it for a moment.
“Here we go,” Commander Cody said, passing the datapad over to Obi-Wan.
“The UAC’s accounting record report. You’ll probably understand it more than me.”
Obi-Wan looked down at the glowing screen and examined it closely.
______________________________________________________________
NOTE: THE FOLLOWING IS MEANT FOR UAC BOARD OF DIRECTORS ONLY.
ALL NUMBERS ARE IN GALACTIC REPUBLIC CREDITS.
Balance Sheet
Assets
Cash: 1,245,000,000
Accounts Receivable (Bracca Scrapper Guild Debtors): 87,450,000
Argent Energy Reserves: INFINITE (Allegedly)
Demonic Specimens (Classified): 5,600,000,000
Weapons Development Inventory: 8,320,000,000
Property, Plant & Equipment (Bracca & Hell Facilities): 13,750,000,000
Research & Development (Hell Portal Tech): 4,250,000,000
Total Assets: 33,252,450,000
Liabilities
Accounts Payable (Demonic Entities): INFINITE (Ongoing negotiations)
Legal Settlements (Wrongful Death Lawsuits): 9,500,000,000
Compensation Payable (Next-of-Kin Settlements): 3,250,000,000
Facility Damage Repairs: 1,600,000,000
Loan Payable (Bracca Government): 5,000,000,000
Demonic Containment Expenses: 2,400,000,000
Unpaid Salaries (We say we’ll pay them, but we really won’t): 5,000,000,000
Unpaid Taxes (We say we’ll pay them, but we really won’t): 6,502,450,000
Total Liabilities: 33,252,450,000
______________________________________________________________
Income Statement
Revenue
Galactic Republic Taxpayer Funding: 32,750,000,000
Weaponry Contracts (Military & Private Sector): 7,500,000,000
Portal Access Fees (Corporate & Government Clients): 2,000,000,000
Classified Revenues (Demonic Exploitation & Bioengineering): 1,000,000,000
Insider Trading: 500,000,000
Total Revenue: 43,750,000,000
Expenses
Research & Development (Argent Manipulation & Portal Stability): 6,750,000,000
Operational Costs (Bracca Facilities & Hell Infrastructure): 5,400,000,000
Security & Containment Failures: 9,000,000,000
Legal Fees & Settlements: 4,000,000,000
Marketing & Recruitment (High Employee Turnover): 2,100,000,000
Bribes (To Keep Operations Calm): 1,250,000,000
Human Sacrifice Temple Construction: 800,000,000
Total Expenses: 29,300,000,000
Net Profit: 14,450,000,000
Notes: Despite an alarming increase in employee fatality rates, UAC remains highly profitable due to strong and consistent subsidies of taxpayer credits from the Galactic Senate.
______________________________________________________________
Statement of Cash Flows
Operating Activities (Cash Inflows)
Government Subsidies: 32,750,000,000
Contracts: 7,500,000,000
Portal Leases & Dimensional Research Grants: 2,000,000,000
Total Operating Cash Inflow: 42,250,000,000
Investing Activities (Cash Outflows)
Facility Expansions (Bracca & Hell): (7,500,000,000)
Weapon R&D (Plasma & BFG Divisions): (3,400,000,000)
Classified Investments (Demonic Cybernetics and Sentient Experimentation): (2,800,000,000)
Total Investing Cash Outflow: (13,700,000,000)
Financing Activities
Dividends Paid: (3,500,000,000)
Loan Repayments (Bracca Fund): (1,200,000,000)
Total Financing Cash Outflow: (4,700,000,000)
Net Cash Increase: 23,850,000,000
Ending Cash Balance: 1,245,000,000 (NOTE: Why isn’t this higher? Because most liquid assets are being funneled into personal purchases like the latest Sorosuub speeders, Twi’lek hookers, and spice to snort in executive meetings.)
______________________________________________________________
Final Notes for the UAC Board of Directors
Employee Retention Initiative:
Despite high turnover due to demonic-related casualties, recruitment remains strong due to generous life insurance benefits (terms and conditions apply).
Demonic Containment Costs:
Over budget.
Again.
Further research into “Controlled Demonic Collaboration” is underway.
We assured senators that rumors of unethical research studies are slander and libel (according to our HR & PR statements).
We have investigated ourselves and have found no evidence of corruption.
Classified Investments & R&D:
Research into weaponizing demonic entities continues to yield exciting opportunities.
Experiments with hybrid demon-human cybernetics are ongoing.
Results pending.
Future Growth Strategy:
Expand Argent Energy harvesting into deeper layers of Hell.
Explore “ethical” demon-human hybrid workforce possibilities (Legal still reviewing this).
Kidnap (Read: Recruit) more volunteers for the human sacrifice program.
Acquire additional military contracts for BFG prototypes and cybernetic demon soldier programs.
We hope you go to Hell one of these days!
______________________________________________________________
The longer Obi-Wan read, the more his brow furrowed and his mouth drooped open.
A small burning sensation flared to life in his gut.
The blatant honesty within the document halfway tempted him to laugh and halfway tempted him to retch.
This was taxpayer’s credits on the line!
And more than that!
Lives had been lost, and many more had been injured.
The UAC might be very financially profitable, but it was morally bankrupt.
Obi-Wan’s grip on the datapad tightened.
“I, er… imagine it’s not good,” Cody observed, evidently spotting his facial expression.
Obi-Wan drew his head up from the datapad and shook it.
He set the datapad down on the ruins of the desk.
“Seems like our suspicions were correct. These are demons. From Hell.”
Cody let out a long sigh and held a hand to his helmet.
“So. That’s that, then.” He made a consternated sound.
“This is what we’re dealing with.”
“The accounting report clearly states it,” Obi-Wan backed up.
“Along with many other things. The UAC’s also been involved in fraud, abuse, insider trading, and gross incompetence, among other things. We need to scan this as proof of their involvement, and show it to Chancellor Palpatine. Hopefully he can cut funding to this program and…”
Obi-Wan trailed off.
He turned around.
He could sense other signs of life!
Human life, just outside the vault door!
“What is it, sir?” Cody asked.
Obi-Wan just stretched his hand forth to the gaping-open entrance of the records vault.
“Come inside. We won’t hurt you, we know you’re not with the demons!”
It took a few seconds.
But finally, two people walked in, their hands up.
Clone blasters appeared in hands, then lowered cautiously.
One was a woman who was stout, bespectacled, and had a very square face, accustomed to sneering.
The other was a lean, thick-haired young man with a tall face accustomed to grinning.
Both were in haggard uniforms, stained and ripped, and their faces were lined with want of food.
“You must be the rescue team!” the woman croaked out.
“We heard you coming, but we weren’t sure–”
“Patience, Ellanda. Let’s give them some room first,” the man eased, patting his hands on her arm.
Commander Nyx looked them dead in the eyes through his clone helmet.
“What are you two doing here?” he slowly, suspiciously asked.
“Ah. Deepest apologies. This is Ellanda Sheyl. And I’m Korin Aphra.” The man smiled and spread his hands invitingly.
“It’s an honor to meet you at last, General Kenobi.”
The original formatting of the accounting records was much better on Fanfiction.net and Archive Of Our Own.