“Well,” Malg said, drawing one pistol and his rifle again (and feeling rather silly for putting them away), “I think we’re near the Command Center, since I know the engineers live closer to it so they can repair critical systems more easily. Of course, the Command Center is also probably where we’ll find the most resistance.” He held his engineer’s keycard in his other hand. “The Command Center is likely where the camp commandant is directing the guards from. We both know they’re probably radioing for a relief force, but if we can get there, we can give the all clear to the Imperial city nearby and call off the reinforcements, which gives us time to breathe and get everyone out of here.” Malg walked over to the blast door, saying, “Unfortunately, the Imps aren’t stupid, and they’ve probably entrenched their position with every heavy weapon they have. The prisoners have numbers, but the Imps have autoturrets, grenades, and...well, probably stuff I haven’t seen yet.” He turned back to Zena. “I’d imagine the prisoners want their revenge on the camp officers, so they’re probably going to push for the Command Center too. The problem is, the prisoners have numbers, but they’re only beings. Their morale will eventually break if enough of them die.” He looked at the two organics. “You were able to get them to rebel in the first place. You’re going to be the best at keeping them from breaking. And between the three of us, we might be able to punch a hole in the defenses and end this battle.” “You don’t have a layout of the building? We should try to find one if we can.” The New Republic commando stated as she checked her blaster rifle quickly before they headed into what was likely to be another furious firefight. “If we move quick enough we can hopefully call off the reinforcements. But yes, they’ll likely have a perimeter around the command center. It will be hell to breach through it but we will. We just have to hope the chaos outside aids us. Absolute worst case scenario I can radio Republic forces above and request air support.” Zena added, hoping she wouldn’t have to do the latter. This operation was supposed to be more on the secretive side, she didn’t want to potentially disrupt the main assault from the bulk of the New Republic forces. “Let's move, any prisoners we see we’ll do our best to assist.” The sergeant stated assertively with a nod then stepped through the door nearest to them. As she peaked around the doorway she noted a lack of stormtroopers on the end of the hallway. Though she heard a near deafening amount of blaster fire reverberate through the halls. “Move slowly, call out any plastics you see.” As the trio shifted out of the room on their way through the building the sounds of combat drew nearer. Zena posted herself against a wall, then peeked around it swiftly. Another hallway split to the side where a small group of prisoners were desperately trying to push down. They were dropping like flies as the encamped stormtroopers on the other end had set up several metal crates as makeshift cover. As she turned around the corner one of the prisoners, a Gran in prisoner rags stared at them, then spoke. “Its suicide. We can't break through. Thank Mother Doellin you’re here.” The alien spoke, his words filled with nervousness. He tightly held a discarded Imperial E-11 blaster in his six fingered hands as he saluted. “Private Uleen Bieduss of you’re a lifesaver for breaking us out.” “Sergeant Vale of the Vorn Tiger squad. The job isn’t done yet, stop throwing bodies down that hallway. We’ll try to lead the charge through.” The rugged Aldeerani commando stated, glad to have ran into a former Republic soldier. Who knew how long the poor Gran had been there. “We could probably blow right through it, any suggestions Malg?” Malg pointed to the Stormtrooper utility belt he was wearing like a bandolier, and the white cylinder in front of his left shoulder. “All Stormtrooper utility belts come with a single thermal detonator. Thanks to my shields and armor, I’m the best here at taking blaster shots, so I’m gonna be the droid to throw it. If they somehow survive, it’ll probably blow up their cover in the process. Then, before the smoke clears, I want at least five of us to shoot down the hallway at full-auto. I’ve used E-11s before, and they’re best at close-quarters fights inside confined spaces, like this hallway here. If we fire them on minimum settings, they’ve got 500 shots each. 100 on max. We won’t give them time to think. By the time the smoke is gone, they should all be dead. And if not, our job will be a lot easier.” He rifled through the pouches of the utility belt. “One, two, three--huh. Four spare packs each. Yeah, we won’t run out of ammo if we can find more of these. Anyway,” he said, putting it back on, “In a confined space like this, we can’t miss. And every one of those plastics is going to be carrying another detonator. We can repeat this trick as many times as we want as long as one grenade survives each time.” He looked to the others. “Thoughts, everyone?” “Sounds perfect. The only way we’re going to be able to get through their defenses is by blowing right through them. Using their own grenades is a smart move as well.” Zena replied with a smirk and a nod as she took in the droid’s entire plan. Next to her Dakkar seemed to be in agreement as well, a mischievous smile on Yuzzem’s face at the thought of blowing up even more Imperials. “My men and I will be right behind you three, all of us are itching to show those plastic boys what we can do.” Private Bieduss spoke with passion. A half dozen prisoners turned insurgents sat at the ready, each clinging onto E-11s. The light of the Rebellion never died within the prisoners, even as the Imperium mistreated and beat them in the labor camps. They were all craving some proper revenge. “On your move Malg, once those detonators go off we will lay into those plastics.” Sergeant Vale added as she glanced at the Republic aligned droid. She was very glad to have stumbled upon him. “Alright,” Malg said, steeling himself. “Here goes nothing.” He ripped the cylinder off of the belt, moved over to the corner, peeked over (getting a blaster bolt to his shield for his trouble), and rolled the stormtrooper thermal detonator into the corridor with significant force given the awkward angle. Then, slipping his blaster pistol around the corner, he fired one heavy shot at the baradium-core code-key detonator. Stormtrooper detonators were different from normal detonators. They were designed not to go off unless a very specific code was entered by the trooper carrying them, and the buttons were unlabeled to make it even harder for an enemy to guess the code and use it against the Imperials. Unfortunately, some crazy Imperial weapons designer put goddamn [i]thermite[/i] in the casing. And to his credit, this was a rather insane trend throughout the thermal detonator’s history. Thermal detonators were either made of thermite or axinite. Thermite was, in essence, a black sand-like material traditionally made of metal powder and iron oxide. In other words, metal and rust. It didn’t matter what metal you used, the result would be the same. A devastatingly-powerful incendiary mixture that, when exposed to a spark, burned at half the temperature of a yellow star, at about 2500 degrees centigrade. And, as iron oxide had oxygen in it, thermite effectively had its own oxygen supply, meaning that it would burn in any conceivable environment as long as there was enough heat to keep the combustion reaction going, even underwater. It could even burn in a hard vacuum if it was warm enough, which was probably the thought process behind using it in grenades that would be brought onto spaceships. Unfortunately, this was the baradium-core code-key thermal detonator’s fatal flaw. Thermal detonators worked much like hydrogen bombs, putting a core of radioactive material in intense enough conditions to induce a fusion reaction and cause a small-scale thermonuclear explosion. However, they did this by bathing a baradium core in energy. A blaster bolt could partially emulate that effect, and when coupled with the thermite in the casing igniting after being shot with a bolt of extremely-hot plasma contained in a magnetic field (the magnetic field itself probably doing a number on the internal electronics)...well, the results weren’t pretty. And “not pretty” was an apt way of describing what happened when Malg shot the white cylinder directly in its center of mass. As the stormtroopers behind the metal crates began to realize what happened and ran for it, a sharp-eyed observer could see the white core being pierced for a fraction of an instant as red-hot flames began to spread across its surface, the white coating of plastoid over the thermite-infused casing bubbling and melting under the heat. And then, a microsecond later, a blinding white flash lit up the room and a deafening explosion was heard as the baradium core inside went to fusion, blowing the metal crates outwards behind it and killing a few stormtroopers from the impact alone. The corridor walls buckled under the force of what was effectively a tiny hydrogen bomb, and dust and metal blew everywhere as everything nearby was coated in droplets of burning thermite and molten plastoid hot enough to char bone as the hallway fizzled and smoke billowed out under the withering heat and explosive force of a dangerous fusion reaction. Malg’s shields withered and died under the sheer heat of the explosion, but thankfully, the miniscule quantities of baradium used in a thermal detonator didn’t tend to leave dangerous levels of fallout due to some accident of baradium’s atomic structure, and the droid’s tough armor helped protect the unarmored prisoners behind him. The explosion had also blown a sizable hole in the ceiling, resulting in a convenient outlet for the smoke, but it still wouldn’t be healthy to go through that without protection of some kind. “Damn Malg, that was beautiful.” Sergeant Vale stated in a tone which conveyed extreme delight at the result of the explosive ‘experiment’. She had her helmet on snuggly but still felt her ears ring for a few moments as she peaked around the corner of the hall at the aftermath. “Thank you! I’ll be happy to do a repeat performance if I find another!” the droid replied. The armored New Republic commando led the charge down the smoking corridor after the retreating stormtroopers. She raised her A280 upwards as she darted forward then unleashed multiple blaster bolts down the mutilated corridor towards the fleeing plastics. Dakkar followed behind her, having ripped some cloth from a deceased prisoner to use as a makeshift face cover. His fiercely thick fur would be able to withstand the quick trek through the brutalized hallway. The rebellious prisoners would be the last ones to follow down the hallway, several of them holding their hands over their ears for a few more moments as the corridor stopped shaking. Thankfully, Malg could simply shut off the microphones in his ears, and the smoke wouldn’t be much of a problem for a being that didn’t breathe. His medical computer, however, calculated the likelihood of the breathing ones in the room getting asthma or miner’s lung, and it wouldn’t be healthy to keep doing that. “Keep up the pressure! Give them no quarter.” Zena hollered as she stepped carefully over some of the fallen stormtroopers unlucky enough to be caught directly in the explosion. She squeezed the trigger of her blaster a few more times, doing her damndest to allow her makeshift team to get enough of the way down the hallway. Malg had drawn his two blasters and his E-11, and the combination of two pistols and a full-auto rifle meant that he could throw an absurd quantity of bolts at anything that moved. His E-11 blew three holes in a trooper’s chestplate as his left pistol shot out another’s helmet lens and his right pistol mangled yet another trooper’s arm, subsequent shots from a nearby prisoner putting him down. Of course, most of the shots simply missed, but in a tight corridor and this many guns, he didn’t even really need to aim, and filling the air with that many bolts had a use all the same: It made for a great distraction! As the team moved down the corridor, blasters raised, they came to a very, very heavy blast door, with a second door on the right side of the hallway. “We’ll have to breach it--” was all Malg was able to say before the door on the right burst open, and the biggest, most terrifying battle droid he’d ever seen charged straight for him, quickly body-slamming him into the wall and applying a pile driver’s worth of pressure to his chest. He heard a cracking sound, and his processor was filled with damage reports that he wasn’t even in the state of mind to analyze. The heavy wall behind him actually [i]sported a new spiderweb crack[/i] as the dark-gray, twelve-foot-tall, stormtrooper-headed droid reared its fist back to punch him right in the face, rattling his photoreceptors and temporarily blinding him as his “eyes” shut down for a brief moment. When he could see again, from the Imperial droid’s right wrist now extended a sinister energy blade that went straight for his head, but Malg grabbed its forearm with his labor droid arm and held it back, putting all of his modified mechanical muscle behind it. However, it was clear that even the sheer brute force of a labor droid’s arm wouldn’t be enough to hold back the battle droid for long, and the shock had made Malg drop all of the blasters he was carrying. In response, Malg tried to gouge out the battle droid’s left photoreceptor with one of his claw-like medical droid hands, but it responded by snapping the spindly 2-1B arm like a twig. Malg screamed, a horrible noise that sounded like an astromech droid being crushed to death by an industrial press. To make matters worse, Stormtrooper boots could be heard clomping down the halls. A relief squad was rapidly moving in from the rear in a pincer tactic. They’d be here quickly, and while a squad of Stormtroopers wasn’t an issue on their own, their positioning could give the Imperials a decisive advantage. “What the fuck?” The Rebel commando had hollered as she watched the menacing, powerful droid slam into Malg and begin to pummel him. She and her team had been fortunate enough to not encounter this type of wicked Imperial creation before but they had heard tales of their ferocity. They were damn Jedi killers. “Light that thing up Dak, get it the hell off Malg!” Zena hollered as she raised her own blaster, then unleashed a volley of blaster bolts into the machine’s side. She aimed carefully to avoid hitting their new droid friend. Private Dakkar did the same, as he crouched then fired his heavy blaster rifle at the Imperial mechanical monstrosity’s legs. Their objective was less to kill the imposing machine but rather to get it off the New Republic droid. From the other side of the hallway she heard the distinct sound of Stormtrooper boots clanking down the hallway towards their position. Their main objective at the moment was to bring down the massive droid but they couldn’t let the other Imperial forces flank them. “Bieduss, you and your men have to cover our asses. Take care of those plastics, private!” She barked as she stepped backwards, to position herself out of the line of fire from the approaching trooper while Dakkar did the same. Their combined shots slammed into the enemy droid with furiosity. “Ay ay sergeant! Let’s get those bastards!” The Gran replied with passion as he called out to his six man team of escaped prisoners, armed with stolen Imperial arms. She had faith in them, having fought through the true brutality of the Grand Imperium. The Purge Trooper battle droid was an early result of the Dark Trooper program. It was heavily-armored, and could resist lightsaber slashes. It would take more than a barrage of blaster bolts to bring it offline. But that didn’t mean it was invincible. The barrage of blaster bolts slammed home, the sizzling plasma causing pockmarked burns on its leg joints. Not enough to pierce the thick armor plating, but enough for the extreme ambient heat to play merry hell with its leg motors. It stumbled back from Malg, and was forced to its knees as the affected motors temporarily overheated, muttering a curse in Binary that Malg understood all too well. Wincing in pain as his mangled arm flopped uselessly at his side, Malg grabbed one of the pistols he’d dropped off of the ground and leapt onto the Purge Trooper’s back, wrapping his stronger lower arms around its neck. Droids didn’t need to breathe, but that didn’t mean that going for the neck was useless, a fact Malg knew from his time in the wastes. He wrenched the Purge Trooper’s neck as far to the right as he could, the Imperial machine shouting in a synthesized voice as it reached for its neck to try and pry off Malg’s hands. But Malg had leverage, and the Purge Trooper knew this. As its legs recovered, it tried to back up into the wall to slam Malg into it again. The impact caused yet more damage to his torso, but Malg held firm. The Purge Droid tried to activate its energy blade, but Malg shoved his blaster pistol right into its temple and pulled the trigger three times, stunning it. Then, with a sickening noise that would make any droid who heard it understandably wince, Malg snapped the Purge Droid’s neck servos, causing its head to hang limply. It was still active--all Malg had done was damage a non-essential part--but now even getting its bearings would be difficult as the droid could only look at the floor. It staggered drunkenly as Malg then used his more claw-like hands to go for its photoreceptors, just as he’d done previously. His modified claws, however, couldn’t quite pierce the high-end materials used in the construction of the droid’s photoreceptors. While their droid friend wrestled with the hulking Purge Trooper the two New Republic commandos watched intently with their blasters leveled. They had to cease their firing on it so they didn’t hit Malg by accident. Behind them the prisoner team handled the backup stormtrooper squad sent after all of them. Each of the freed prisoners were former New Republic personnel, they could fight damn well even clad in dirty prison jumpsuits and armed with ‘seized’ Imperial blasters. As Zena watched the two machines wrestle before them she silently cursed, partly worried about the brave New Republic droid as he clawed at the Imperial war machine. As Malg snapped at the Purge Trooper’s neck the two soldiers found their opening. Sargeant Vale narrowed her eyes then squeezed the trigger as bolts sprayed off to slam into the shoulder mounted rocket rocket launcher. Meanwhile Private Dakkar unleashed a volley at the enemy’s legs, hoping to help knock it down a step. “Keep at it, Dak! Once its down for the count his fight becomes way easier!” Zena exclaimed as she continued to fire off bolts at the droid’s shoulder. The well trained commando’s marksmanship skills came in very handy for this very moment. “Don’t let them through!” Private Bieduss hollered on the other side of the hall as the prisoner force’s battle intensified. He tucked behind a crate in the hallway right after dropping a stormtrooper, adrenaline surging through the Gran’s veins. The prisoner team was doing well, having entrenched themselves to provide cover for the others. It was time to end this. As Malg’s vision stuttered and his systems let out alert after alert, he knew he couldn’t keep this up much longer, But he was a hardware modification genius, and every system had its weaknesses. When he’d shattered its neck servos, he’d pushed a piece of armor plating in the back of its neck out of alignment, leaving a fatal chink in the armor. It was all he could do to hold on, though, as the Purge Droid tried everything it could to shake him off...but Dak had damaged its legs, sending it to its knees again. This gave Malg the opening he needed. He jammed his B-1 arm into the thing’s neck and started ripping at its vulnerable wiring and circuitry. The Purge Droid began to spasm and jerk, yelling electronic gibberish as Malg quickly began causing severe damage, and it culminated in the medical droid ripping out the main power cable in its spine, instantly bringing it offline. Malg held up the sparking cable like a macabre trophy as the purge droid, with a final shudder, collapsed to the ground, an inert hunk of metal. The prisoner squad, by this point, mopped up the remaining stormtroopers, save one who, with a rather improper declaration of “HOLY SHIT!” got to his knees, put his hands on his head, and quickly stammered out a surrender after seeing what just happened to the base’s resident superweapon. Malg got off the disabled purge droid’s back, and shot it in the head one more time for good measure, before he himself almost collapsed, barely supporting himself by grabbing the wall. “Fucking...hell…” he said, “...That bastard did a number on me. I think I’ll live--I don’t bleed like you guys do--but I need to be the one to call off whatever reinforcements they send.” He pressed a hand to his chin, as if confirming what his systems check already told him. “Thankfully, my vocabulator’s intact. I think I can mimic the commander’s voice.…” He looked to the blast door leading to the command center, still sealed. “We’ll need to do something about this. Got any explosives?” “Of course I do.” The lead commando stated with a wide smirk. The impressive display from the droid had earned him Zena’s respect. She wasn’t sure how they would’ve gotten by that mechanical monstrosity if not for Malg. She shifted towards the door, then reached into a metal case on her back contained several explosives, triggerable by a remote detonator. As the ragtag prisoner squad across the hallway finished off the marauding stormtroopers she diligently set up to blow the door right off its hinges. There was no telling how many more troopers would be awaiting them behind this blast door but she did not expect too many, it seemed most of the plastic boys had been sent out to quell the prison riots. After one quick final check another smile onto the Alderaani’s face as she stepped back. “Here we go!” Sergeant Vale added clearly, her gloved thumb hovering over the switch as she gave one more look towards her two companions. Having back far enough away she set off the explosives. A resounding boom echoed through the corridor as the blast door ignited in a mix of flame and smoke. As the aftermath of the detonation cleared the team could see a small, surprised group of Imperials reacting to defend the command center. The blast door sat several meters away from the doorway on the floor, pulverized as she had knocked it right off the hinges. “Let's finish this!” Zena exclaimed as she charged into the room, blaster raised towards the small group of Imperials. Three officers clenching blaster pistols while two more stormtroopers scrambled to get behind cover. It was child’s play compared to the Purge Droid. Malg half-stumbled into the room, once again loaded for bear, with his rifle and his remaining pistol (what with only having three working arms left) tracking two separate targets. Malg may have been horribly injured--hIs prized diagnostics computer (the most important component of a 2-1B for doing its job) might never be the same again without replacing it with a brand-new one (all those annotations in its memory banks, potentially down the drain!), and the shield generator was out of commission until he could seriously get to work on it for a week or two, not to mention his broken arm--but he could still track a moving target just as well as he could originally. There was a reason he survived on Tatooine for so long, and it was because his reflexes were ungodly fast with the modifications he sported. In a smooth motion, he aimed for the unarmored Imperial officer on the left with his pistol, blowing a sizzling hole in his chest and sending him to the floor with a single well-placed shot. The E-11 aimed for the Stormtrooper on the same side, a flurry of blaster bolts piercing his helmet before he could get to cover. Malg had done this as he was moving, crouching behind a computer console, but not before a lucky shot from the camp’s commandant hit his leg. Thankfully, the durasteel held, but durasteel wasn’t Beskar iron, and it was a miracle he didn’t suffer serious damage. As the damaged droid attacked so did both the New Republic commandos, with rapid precision Zena raised her blaster rifle at one of the other stormtroopers then squeezed the trigger. A trio of shots rang out and slammed center mass into the soldier. Private Dakkar steadied his own heavy blaster rifle as he aimed at one of the officers. He grunted and unleashed a volley of laser bolts towards the Imperial. A moment later the officer fell to the floor with a bang, a wound burn through his collar and chest. As Zena turned towards the last standing Imperial in the room, another officer, drastically unfit to be taking on a trio of trained soldiers. The squad leader’s finger hovered over the trigger, about to end the man’s life before he dropped his blaster pistol and his hands shot upwards in surrender. “Stop, please!” The officer nearly begged, fear of death evident on his clean shaven facial features. He was younger than the others, likely a newly promoted officer stuck overseeing this prison camp. Another sentence desperately spewed from his mouth. ”I give up, let me live and I’ll tell you anything.” The sergeant paused for a second, then shook her helmet head. As the officer was about to mouth another plea for mercy the sound of her blaster firing filled the room. A second later the final Imperial hit the floor with a fierce hole burnt into his chest. “That’s all of them.” She then stated as she tucked her rifle back into the holster on her back. She approached the center of the room where several consoles were located, in front of them was a large glass window which gave them a glimpse of the entire prison camp. Fires and destruction filled it. “I think the breakout was a success,” She said to the other two in the room, a bit of relief in her words even though she knew this was not the last step in their operations today. She then turned her helmeted gaze towards her damaged droid companion. “Can you get anything from the command console, Malg? Information? Plans?” Malg was a bit disquieted at what Zena did, seeing as she’d technically committed perfidy, but, on the other hand, well, even that junior officer had been complicit in his torment. The Imperials certainly didn’t care about any rules of war, so it could be argued that the Republic didn’t need to either. He’d have preferred it if Zena had been the bigger woman, but there was nothing he could do about that now. Either way, not the time to bring it up. Without a word, he produced a scomp link from his chest, thanking whatever god was listening that it survived the fight with the purge droid, and plugged into the computer console. “Slicing Isn't my specialty, but let’s see what I can find,” Malg said as he got to work. Thankfully, he [i]did[/i] have a few slicing programs stored in his memory banks at all times, and an Imperial prison camp wasn’t as important as, say, an Imperial data center. The cybersecurity here wasn’t as strict as it could have been. It took a while, but the military-grade slicing programs helpfully provided by the Republic eventually broke into the commandant’s account. He now had complete control over everything in the base. He almost felt like a god among droids. But first, business. “Well, they sent out a distress signal about fifteen minutes ago and troops are en route to the camp as we speak. Let me fix that real quick.” Malg knew the camp commandant’s voice patterns well. After all, the commandant loved to ‘inspect’ the mine and make sure that ‘discipline’ was applied ‘appropriately.’ For the prisoners, that usually involved a brutal punishment, summary execution, or worse. He’d heard the bastard’s voice at least once a day for the last few weeks. Mimicking him would be easy. Malg opened a comm channel to the commander of the incoming relief force, saying in the commandant’s voice, “This is Commandant Kren Ryloth. Fortunately, we were able to contain the uprising and have successfully maintained control of the mining facility. We have eliminated the Republic team responsible for the insurrection and quelled the remaining prisoners. We won’t be needing the relief force, Commander. We have it from here.” “Are you sure?” came the reply of the Imperial on the other end. “You had a complement of Republic droids, didn’t you? If I had taken control of an Imperial camp partially staffed with captured droids, I’d have one of them mimic your voice and call off the relief force.” “I--” was all Malg managed to say before the commander cut him off. “Kren, you know full well how much it costs to mobilize a force to save your incompetent hide,” the Imp snapped. “These gunships don’t fuel themselves. Why should I not at least verify that your camp is safe before I call off all of the troops and assets I dragged out of the base to fix your mistake, and let the general know you almost failed to contain a bunch of unarmed Republic prisoners [i]and then[/i] tried to waste Imperial resources by preventing me from making sure I’m not talking to a goddamn [i]droid![/i]” “First of all, they’re all memory-wiped and have had their masters changed. They serve us now--” “YOU HAD A JUNK DROID WITH YOU, AND YOU EXPLICITLY TOLD THE HIGHER-UPS THAT YOU REFUSED TO MEMORY-WIPE IT BECAUSE OF HOW UNSTABLE YOU FEARED IT WOULD BECOME!” “--[i]and the junk droid was destroyed in the fighting, you idiot![/i] He was taken out by the purge droid I kept in case of a situation like this. Did you [i]really think[/i] I didn’t have an insurance policy?” “Oh. You had a secret purge droid. [i]Of course.[/i] So why were you so desperate on the comms?” “...It’s one droid,” Malg said, irritation creeping into ‘Kren’s’ voice. “It might have been powerful, but there’s only so much an old battle droid can do against an entire camp of angry prisoners armed with our own weaponry. I wasn’t sure it would work. The team responsible got all the way up to my command center blast door before the purge droid managed to kill them all, including the junk droid, who had followed them, [i]probably[/i] to do what you’re so worried about! From there, the rest of the prisoners lost their will to fight, what with the entrails of their special-forces stooges decorating the corridor walls. So will you stop this conspiracist madness and just [b][i]GO HOME ALREADY?![/i][/b]” “Fine,” the voice on the other end said bitterly. “Just [i]one[/i] little question and I’ll turn around and fly back to base, [i]‘Kren.’[/i] [b]What’s. My. Name?[/b]” Malg thanked his lucky stars he’d already sliced the console and wasn’t relying on simply talking into the radio without any information. It took him only a fraction of a second to search the comm logs to see who Kren had been talking to previously, which clearly the commander hadn’t accounted for. “Phato Kyralis,” Malg said. “Very well,” Phato said, clearly mortified. “I guess you’re Kren after all. I’ll return to base. Goodbye.” The line went dead. Malg whistled. “Well, that was stressful. Glad that’s over. In any event, they’re bracing for a New Republic assault on the planet. This camp is pretty unimportant in the grand scheme of things, and they already sent over their reinforcements in preparation. Not like it did them any good,” Malg said with a sardonic snicker. “However, they were concerned about the prisoners kept on the planet being turned into additional manpower for the invasion, so...oh. Oh Maker.” All the mirth he had earlier was gone. “They were going to execute the Republic prisoner population of the entire planet and scrap the Republic droids to boot. However, the executions were to happen only after the Imperials had shipped out this month’s supply quota, since killing all the prisoners would cripple the planet’s ability to get it into Remnant hands. That gives us about...28 hours of leeway. We need to get everyone off of this rock [i]yesterday.[/i]” “That's not much time. But luckily the Republic fleet isn’t far, I just hope the uprising didn’t trash all of the transports. We could stow as many prisoners in those vehicles then drive away from the camp and call down evac for everyone.” The lead New Republic commando stated as she glanced out the window behind them, the exchanges of blaster fire having stopped outside on the grounds. “That’s not the best thing that they were predicting an assault from the Republic. Means they’ve likely enforced the city and their territory even more than before,” Zena added with a headshake, though she was not that concerned considering the sheer strength of the New Republic attacking force that’d rain hell down on the Imperium here. “But there is still the other camp we have to liberate. Its likely the Imperium has put extra eyes on that one, despite your convincing chat with that Imperial. Also when we blow this labor camp to the sky.” “Sarge? Are you there?” She heard a familiar voice slip through her in helmet communicator, it was the second in command of her commando team, Corporal Keeg. “This is Sergeant Vale, I’m glad as can be to hear your voice. How are things on your end?” She replied as Dakkar looked at her with a long blink. “We’re all accounted for, Vebb took a shot to the arm but he patched himself up. We cleared out every plastic in the camp and planted the bombs. Took some prisoner casualties sadly, but we still freed a lot of them.” The Duros replied firmly. “I’m glad we could save as many of them as we could. Are those Imperial transports still in working shape?” She posed the question, hoping for an affirmative answer else they’d have to get creative. “I believe so, might have taken a few stray shots but didn’t go through the plating. Why, do you we need them?” “Oh yes we do. Get every freed prisoner you can on them, put some on the transport we took in too if you have to. Then once we’re far enough away I’m going to light this place up. Gonna call in evac for every man we rescued and continue our operation on.” The veteran soldier said, fire sparking in her brown shaded eyes as she thought of watching this camp go up in flames. Malg had been silent. Many droids lacked the facial motors necessary to emote the same way organics did...but the gloom was evident just from looking at the way his shoulders slumped. “...We...won’t be helping the other camp,” Malg said. He sounded like he was struggling to even say those words. “The other prison camp already tried an uprising, and failed. They--they were slaughtered. 1,538 Republic soldiers and 296 civilian personnel whose only crime was helping to keep our lights on, all dead.” “Those damn Imperials! We weren’t quick enough.” The special operations commando exclaimed, her voice filled with rage. A gloved fist smashed into the large glass window in the front of the command center. While it did not shatter through the impact left a sizeable mark on the glass. She then leaned forward against the window, inhaling deeply as she rapidly processed all of those lost souls. Failure was a rarity for the highly talented Alderaani, when it happened it hit her like the crushing jaws of a Krayt Dragon. The soldier figured the other camp must have gotten word of the uprising conducted here, it was enough to light the flame in their hearts and rise up. Even without the aid of a team of Republic insurgents. They were all brave souls, she’d make sure those Imperials responsible paid when the New Republic wrestled control of this world back. He unplugged the scomp link, letting it retract into his chest. “I got everything I could off of their servers. I’ve unlocked all the doors, opened all the cells, and disabled all the security systems. We can move freely, and so can the prisoners.” He turned around, still limping, but walking with a renewed purpose. “I’ve taken the records of everyone who was imprisoned here, everyone who died here, and where people who used to be here were transferred to. I know what they went through, what they were killed for, and their last whereabouts. I can’t bring them back, but with these records, I can at least give some closure to their loved ones and help find those who got moved somewhere else. Now let’s get everyone the hell out of here and burn this godforsaken camp to the ground.” “Thank you Malg, at least we can give their families something. They’ll know they went out as true heroes of the New Republic. We did what we could here and at least we freed some of them. It's gonna be beautiful watching this place go down in flames.” Zena replied as she walked towards her new droid friend, then patted him on the back thankfully. “Keeg, get everyone onto those transports. We’re out of here. The missions changed, something happened at the other Imperial camp. We’re going to get out of here, burn this camp down and contact the fleet.” The squad leader exclaimed through her commlink before the trio made their way out of the command center. Bodies of slain Imperials filled the prisoner camp, accompanied by some New Republic personnel who fought fiercely in the uprising. With the fate of the other camp Sargent Vale didn’t feel like this operation was a victory.