Veronica reached the entrance to the third basement level in no time and came face-to-face with the rebel group.
"Who are you?" Huck asked warily, eyeing the black-robed stranger. "That's Guli Gina's cloak, isn't it?"
"Yes. I'm a friend of Amir," Veronica replied without lowering her hood. If she wanted to keep living on Coruscant, she couldn't afford to reveal her identity.
"Amir? He's here too?" Huck's eyes lit up. They had just resolved to force their way through the blockade—this was welcome news.
"He's holding off an Inquisitor so I could come help you," Veronica explained.
"So reinforcements have arrived. We attack now," Huck muttered to himself.
"Attack? You're storming the next floor?" Veronica asked.
Huck paused—there was something oddly excited in the black-cloaked girl's tone. Or maybe he was imagining it?
"Step aside. Let me try out my new weapon," Veronica said, peering down the corridor. The stormtroopers at the far end had formed a solid defensive wall.
She leaned out from behind cover and extended her mechanical left arm. From the side of her arm, a barrel deployed and erupted with fire—not the crack of a blaster, but the thunder of a gunpowder-based round. A high-caliber bullet packed with compressed propellant rocketed toward the stormtroopers.
BOOM!!
The explosion echoed like thunder through the corridor, the stormtroopers' ears ringing.
A grin crept onto Veronica's lips. She remembered Amir's words when he helped install the cannon:
"That blaster that just goes 'pew pew' is for fun—this is art."
Now she was starting to understand what he meant by art.
Before the smoke even cleared, Huck and the others were already charging through the breach.
The stormtroopers who took a direct hit were all down. The rest, disoriented by the shockwave, were clutching their heads and struggling to recover.
The rebels moved with deadly precision, picking off stormtroopers behind cover one by one and steadily dismantling the defense.
"Call Jeda—tell the ship to move in now!" Huck ordered.
They quickly stormed into the third sublevel. Some rebels stayed behind to clean up the remaining troopers and restrain the terrified researchers.
Huck led a small squad to unlock the cells holding the children.
"Don't be afraid—we're here to rescue you." His words were gentle, but the fury in his chest roared louder with every child he saw. He knelt in front of a boy and took his arm—it was covered in injection marks.
Just then, a cabinet door creaked open, and a man in a lab coat crawled out.
"Freeze!" barked the bespectacled rebel, immediately training his blaster on the man.
"I—I surrender! Please don't shoot!" the researcher cried, shielding his head with his arms as he crouched lower.
"Let's waste him. Scum like this don't deserve to live!" the glasses-wearing rebel growled.
"No! Please! I—I can help save the children! Just give me a chance! Please—put down the gun first!" the man sobbed, practically groveling.
Huck frowned. "Talk. Now."
"They—they've all just had various bio-cells implanted. It... it wasn't me—I was just following orders." The man slowly lowered his arms, still not daring to meet their eyes. "If... if the experiments go as planned..."
"You've got some nerve calling this an experiment! Huck, he's done for. Let me finish him!" snapped the rebel.
"Wait, Thomas. Let him finish." Huck's gut was churning. Guli Gina and her brother had been rescued before anything happened. But these kids—they had already been used as lab rats.
A terrible feeling twisted in his stomach.
"If the process isn't interrupted, and the bodies don't reject the cells... there's a 50% survival rate," the researcher muttered, his voice low and distant. "But if you stop it now, the odds drop to less than 5%. Their immune systems will start attacking everything indiscriminately. It'll start with fever... then full-body inflammation..."
Huck's face turned to ice.
"You have another way to save them, don't you?" he asked, slowly raising his blaster until the barrel was inches from the researcher's forehead.
"Please! Completing the procedure is their best shot! I—I can help! Don't kill me!"
Some of the younger children had already started crying. The older ones hugged them tightly, but it wasn't enough to chase away the fear.
"You're really going to trust that bastard?!" Thomas demanded through gritted teeth.
Huck's mind felt suspended in the void. A weeping enemy. Crying children. A cold blaster in his hands. His comrade's angry voice.
There wasn't time to freeze. He had to decide—now.
Fifth Brother shook off the spider drone's shock and charged Amir with even greater speed, cutting off his chance to press the attack on the injured Seventh Sister.
Amir felt his strength fading. The Inquisitors had superior power and technique. Every block demanded perfect timing.
Their saber skills were elite, honed through brutal training. If not for Amir's sharp instincts and reflexes, he'd have been bisected long ago.
After dodging one heavy strike, Amir jumped back and braced himself, gripping his saber with both hands. He was panting, heart pounding like war drums.
"AAAHH!!" the Seventh Sister roared, clutching her saber in her left hand as she charged. Amir's blade hadn't just severed her mechanical right hand—it had sliced into her remaining arm as well. The pain had driven her to the brink of madness.
"That Fifth Brother is way stronger than she is," Amir muttered as he deflected her strike. Her left hand lacked power—he could tell.
"I have to hold these two off. If they flank the rebels with the Dark Side, it'll be a massacre."
"But if I charge in recklessly, they'll cut me down. I just need to last... until help arrives…"
Zenn! Zeng!
Amir's lightsaber clashed with both of theirs. The combined impact threw him back—his lightsaber flew from his hand.
He rolled twice to absorb the fall and stopped on one knee.
He looked up at the two Inquisitors.
Then slowly… he raised both hands.
.
.
.
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