The First Clue

[Azreala]

Azreala moved in behind Hydra. Quickly coming to her side and assist to hold up Talzin, blaster in the free hand.

"If I remember correctly the floor runs in a giant swirl of a circle. We should eventually swing back to the elevator soon enough. I think."

They turned a sharp corner and found a hall with six doorways three on each side. There was no indication of which one was the right way to go, and the footsteps behind them were getting louder. All three girls looked in confusion as to which door to take.

"Pick one and go. If it's a dead end, we hid until we can move again.

[Rogue]

"You stay here, don't need you slowing me down if I pick a wrong door." Hydra left the dying prisoner without a backwards glance and strode into one of the doors at random. It was a dead-end room, but the contents made Hydra smile wickedly.
Tubes and valves peppered the far wall, and a small sign described the various pipelines and hydraulics therein.
"Well, throwing this wrench into their precious cogs should help us out a bit."
She pulled out a shaped, timed charge from her utility belt and attached it to the biggest, most important pipe.
Pressing a button, the timer began to beep as it counted down, and Hydra scuttled out of the room, slamming the door shut behind her and leaning against it with all the weight of her back.
She glanced down at Talzin, who was sitting wearily on the ground.
"Don't go in there," Hydra said.
A moment later, a thunderous boom resonated through the door and walls, and the already dim lights began to flicker noticeably.
Hydra smiled again. This was fun.

[Azreala]

Azreala looked down at Talzin, and realized just how little time the woman had left. Lying half-dead in Azreala's arms laid the key to her future.

"Are.. Are they safe?"

The weak cracks of the woman's voice only pierced deeper into the Angel's heart, as her mind drew back to the small girl she rescued from the guards a few days back...

"Your husband and daughter are safe. They sent me to bring you home."

"Good. You will tell them, I tried?"

Azreala knew she would never see this woman's family again and her heart grew heavy. It was now or never.

"Your daughter spoke of an Angel. Do you remember her? Where she came from?"

"A..Angel? I.. I remember.. so, small..and bright."

"Where did she come from?...Talzin!"

"The litte Angel from Sriluur. The miracle... Tell them..I lov-"

A loud bang came from the room Hydra had been messing with. Azreala looked up and saw Hydra's beeming face, and turned to pick up Talzin and move on.

"She's dead."

[Rogue]

The smile turned into a scowl. "Dead?? Did you at least get the informatino out of her you needed?"
Hydra peeked back into the room she had just blown up to admire her handiwork and quickly held up a sleeve to her mouth, coughing as thick, acrid brown smoke bellowed out like a tidal wave.
She slammed the door shut and waved away the smoke near her face. "Knew I should have brought along my enviro gear," she said to herself.
Turning back to the Angel and the corpse, Hydra looked down her nose at the body. "Wouldn't want this whole excursion to be a waste."
She shrugged.
"At least she won't slow us down anymore. Let's get out of here."
Hydra brushed past Azreala and continued deeper into the compound.

[Azreala]

Azreala would mourn later. She pushed herself from the ground and started to run after Hydra, at least now they could move faster.

"I'm not sure where we are anymore! these hallways are all starting to look the same."

Azreala couldn't see smoke any more, and could hear the distant yells of the guards dealing with Hydra's wreckage. They at least had time to think for a moment.

"Count the turns... since the floor plan...One more turn at the end of the hall and we are outta here!"

I think. Azreala ran down the hall, and ran straight into a guard falling flat on her back. Good new was, there was only one of them. Bad news, the fall knocked the blaster out of her hands and his was pointed right at her.

[Rogue]

Two blasters fired at once: The guard's down in the direction of Azreala's head, and Hydra's at the guard's shooting arm. He stumbled back as he was hit, and his blaster bolt streaked wide above Azreala's head.
He looked up with a primal energy of both fear and exhilaration at Hydra, and she pointed her blaster right between his eyes.
"Step back from her."
Looking as if he was fighting with himself internally, he stepped back, eyes darting around, and glancing at the blaster on the ground.
"Don't," Hydra said simply as she shot that blaster into uselessness.
Faint noises could be heard in the distance. The other guards would find them soon enough. "How do we get out of here? Tell us quickly, and I might leave all your skin intact." She pointed her off-hand at the guard, and the small opening of the flamer in the wrist peeked menacingly at him.
He stammered out a few directions to the nearest lift, and Hydra bowed--not too deeply--"Thank you." She indicated a path around and behind her with the end of her blaster, and he sidled to the spot, hands visible and nonthreatening.
"Turn around." He did.
Hydra pulled a vibroblade from her boot--and before he could turn around to fight back, she hamstringed him. The guard crumpled to the ground, a screech spewing from his mouth like the blood from the gashes in his legs, and Hydra bent down to pick Azreala off of the floor. "Come on Miss Attus, it's not our day to die quite yet. I hope you remembered the directions." Hydra remembered the directions herself, but didn't want the runaway slave to feel too useless.

Suddenly, her comlink beeped. "Well that certainly is strange," she said with genuine surprise. But it would have to wait; she'd check the comlink when she was safe aboard her ship and in the peacefully silent sea of space.

[Azreala]

Azreala ran to the turbolift and pulled out her handy dandy access chip and swiped it as quickly as possible. The doors opened and the second they were wide enough Azreala pushed Hydra in. As the lift closed and started to rise they could barely here the clamor of guards coming down the hall. It was then that she realized how exhausted she was as she slipped to the floor and began to breath. She couldn't wait to get back to her ship and get this mask off, it was hot and stifling and she believed that her people needed to be free.

[Rogue]

Hydra stood with her hand on her hip. How did Azreala think she was going to escape and be free? Oh, right--Hydra laughed to herself without indicating anything on her stony face--she didn't realize that her only destination was back in Hurri's strong, manly, dreamy arms. Alive and well, thank you very much.
Staring up at the ceiling, Hydra said out loud "I hope this thing takes us to the surface. Or at the very least reception."
Almost as if she jinxed the technology, the elevator came to a sudden halt. "Oh kark me forward, sideways, and backwards."
The doors opened to a vast, nearly pitch-black room.
"Maybe we can just... press the button and call the elevator again to take us further up." Hydra stepped into the blackness and fumbled around for a power switch on the walls. Her hands found something and she flipped it.
Rows upon rows of narrow spotlights shined onto the floor, illuminating an endless army of... ships? They looked like they were giant, breathing Rancor-esque creations in the vague shape of ships? "What in the name of chaos..." She peered closer. It almost looked like it could be made of Yorik coral, but no Yuuzhan Vong technology had been seen in the galaxy for centuries. "Why would INCOM...?"
The 'ship' closest to them shuddered and an eye opened on the side. A wheezing, unsettlingly low-pitched voice rumbled from some unseen orifice. "Help... us... legged ones..."
"Okay kark this," Hydra said, backing into the turbolift. "I don't care how many guards there are down there, we're not going this way."
She indicated for Azreala to stand back from the doorframe before she could push the lift down a floor or two.

[Rogue]

Hydra grabbed Azreala by the elbow and pulled her into the turbolift, palming the doors shut as fast as she could allow. For the first time in memory, she shuddered. The turbolift began to descend.
Even though the whole thing had happened just about a minute ago, it already felt like a hazy dream in a distant past. It deeply unsettled Hydra, and she swore to investigate further, even if that goal wouldn't further her current ones.
But the most disturbing thing was that Hydra couldn't pinpoint exactly why she felt so bothered by what she had seen. What had she even seen? Some sort of sentient... ship? In pain, with a voice so full of hopeless desperation and longing it had become quiet. She could deal with screaming protests, with weeping protests, but the depth of whatever in space that creature was feeling was felt so tangibly in its voice, Hydra didn't know now to respond emotionally.
The doors opened to an empty hallway. It looked like barracks--quarters for the guards, or other people? Hydra stuck her head through a few doors and saw a distinct lack of military equipment and the stench of dirty combat clothing. Someone was living here, maybe scientists? 'Whatever,' she told herself. At this point she wanted to get off this forsaken planet as bad as the Angel.
"Look, there's a lift up that way," she gestured. There was even a sign above it that read "SURFACE".
They entered the other turbolift, and as the doors closed, Hydra noticed her heart hadn't yet begun to slow down.

[Azreala]

Azreala sat as numb as the first moment she saw...whatever she thought she saw. She couldn't even begin to process what was happening around her. The pain in the voices she had heard etched into her every being and she felt as if it would pull her apart. The haze around her moved as she felt Hydra pulling her through the maze of the compound and onto another turbolift.

"What the KARK was that?"

Azreala slipped to the floor recovering from the bombardment of information happening all around her. As she rose higher from the earth below, she calmed herself and refocusing on her mission at hand.

The turbolift opened out into a village square much like where she had met Talzin's daughter. Talzin's daughter, the girl she could do nothing for. Azreala swore right then and there she would help out that little girl one day.

"Quickly, before we are joined by our new friends…"

Azreala pushed herself up and tried to distance herself a little from Hydra, hoping to lose herself in the crowd. Blending in, she noticed not too far off the building that she recognized as the spaceport. Her paced quickened with the new hope of getting off of this planet and this day that seemed never-ending.

[Rogue]

Hydra followed behind Azreala thinking to herself 'I'm sorry gorgeous, but any delusion you're going to make it back to your ship is going to be quickly shattered.'
But then she second-guessed herself. Those experiments were nothing she wanted to be a part of, and yet they were almost assuredly under the direction of the Empire. Why would the Empire do that?
True, returning the runaway slave girl to the Hutts had nothing to do with the Empire--or did it? She needed to build up her reputation again so she could rejoin the Mandalorian ranks, but to what end? To once again try to convince her people that joining the Empire was a good thing? The Empire brought security and stability to the galaxy, and even though their methods could be tough, Hydra had seen in her life that most sentients needed a slap on the face to understand a message they perhaps didn't want to hear.
But this seed of doubt rooted deep within Hydra, and now her conviction--her ultimate distant sight upon which she had set all of her goals--had faltered.
As they passed by a large spire-topped tower, Hydra grabbed Azreala's elbow. "Listen, Azreala," she said, purposefully choosing to use her real name, "I don't know about you, but I need to know what we saw in there was real, and what in space it was in the first place. I don't know what you plan to do after we leave, but--" Her sentence was cut off by a sudden commotion coming from the tower.

[Eth Erzin]

continued from here

Lents took a deep breath, and threw with all his strength his cross-saber through a plasteel window and watched it soar over the crowd gathered below. In the split-second before the authorities noticed and took aim in the sky, Lents braced himself and plunged through the empty windowspace after it.
He reached out in all directions with the Force and felt the cross-saber beyond him, the ground distant below, and the building rapidly receding. But even as he slipped away from its presence in the Force, he pushed against it to brace himself upwards, and his hands slid down towards the sensation of the ground far beneath him. As it ran ever slightly beyond his reach, his fingertips tingled as they fought to keep it at bay.
It started to reach up and pull him towards it, and Lents reached forward, pulling his cross-saber to him and using its momentum to roll forward and approach the ground at an easy angle.

The whole process lasted but a few heartbeats but in that time Lents had achieved Force flight ever so fleetingly. He felt drained as he neared the ground, and it was all he could to cushion the impact running through his shins and spine. The shockwave caused those nearby bystanders to stumble backwards, and as Lents looked up to make his escape, he came face to face with a very tall masked person and a steely-eyed Mirialan dressed as a Mandalorian.

Vaardo?

[Azreala]

"What in the kark?" Was that a Jedi? He unmistakably had a lightsaber in his hand, and his robes were very different from anything she had ever seen. The armor through her off though, so did the size of him. Azreala didn't even think they existed anymore. "He's soo...tiny." She thought out loud.

Another smaller explosion went off by the docking bays. Azreala's mind quickly turned to her ship, and the droids that waited inside of it. "Kah dyst!"

Without another glance at the jedi or Hydra, she ran as fast as her legs could carry to the 'Victory.

[Rogue]

Vaardo looked, sneering, at the Omwati who landed before her. Almost certainly a Jedi, given the stunt with the lightsaber and his clear display of Force powers. She thought she recognized him from somewhere, but in the heat of the moment, she couldn't quite place her fingers on it.
His chest, where did he get a Mandalorian breastplate like that?
In these times, the Jedi and the Mandalorians were not friends, especially given Hydra's relationship with the Empire, so for this Jedi to wear the armor of one of her brothers offended her deeply. With cold intent, she whipped a blaster from behind her belt and squeezed off a rapid burst of shots at the Jedi, then turned and bolted after Azreala. She couldn't afford to lose her--or even risk coming close. Her sentiments of curiosity from but a moment ago vanished into a fleeting wind, Hydra fell back to her instinct: to protect her mark and stick to it like stink on a bantha until it could be delivered.

[Azreala]

When Azreala got to the port she had no time to focus on the confusion and flames among her. She knew the bounty hunter was right behind her. Seeing her ship and its lack of damage led to some relief of the pressure, but she knew she wasn't off the planet yet. Only then would she be safe. Quickly running up the runway of the 'Victory, she screamed for B2 to start closing it as she made her way inside. As the door behind her shut, my-LOM was waiting for her at the entrance.

"I hope we have all the supplies we need LOM because we are leaving-NOW!"