Each of the four officers had grabbed the nearest subordinate as they dashed aside, then threw themselves right or left with all their strength.
Half the detachment made it to the furthest edges of the blast-zone created by the pair of sonic grenades, but the other half clutched their heads and dropped in boneless heaps.
Those who'd escaped most of the punishing ultra-sonic attack proved to be made of surprisingly stern stuff thought. Their movements were drunken and fitful for the present, but already they were beginning to fumble about on the ground for dropped blaster-rifles.
...
All of this happened in less than a second and a half. Stock grenades used four second delay detonators, but as Ventress and Yaddle had both proven on Tynna, that was plenty of time for an attentive Force-sensitive to devise a counter even if you resorted to magnetic locking.
Learning from that encounter, I'd opened up quite a few grenades to learn how they actually functioned.
Once I understood how they worked in detail, it hadn't been hard to find and purchase after market motion-and-proximity sensors I could install myself.
Once a grenade was armed, there was a 1.5 second "safe" delay, then it went off the instant it came within ideal effective coverage of a moving target bigger than a small child.
It quadrupled the expense, but now that I was a Jedi Knight, I had access to a significantly more robust Temple account I could draw on for mission-requisite goods and services.
Padme and Gregar were just beginning to react to my sudden presence between them and Ventress, when our respective lightsabers hissed to life simultaneously. One glance at the woman before me was enough to know she was aware of what had happened to her back-up without so much as a glance in their direction.
The damaged droideka began firing at me just as she blurred forward, however. My Third Sight showing me she meant to take advantage of my need to deflect the droid's blaster-bolts to get past me to my charge.
All things considered, it was a pretty good idea. I just managed to get my blade back on-line for a weak horizontal parry of her leaping downward cut after sending three bolts back in the droid's direction, but caught a boot in the midsection for my trouble.
One of the reflected bolts narrowly missed, and another splashed off the intermittent shielding, but the third scored the plating of the droideka's chest-plating. It didn't seem to do much damage, but the impact rocked the machine back onto it's rear third leg. Momentarily sending it's return fire hissing just over our heads.
Captain Typho already had already drawn his own S-5 blaster, and he fired on the move at the damaged droideka. Hurrying Padme toward the ship as I was sent skidding backward a few meters with a quiet grunt of pain.
Again, Ventress tried to cut me off from my charges, and again I was there ahead of her. Driving forward into a blade-lock, I used her against cover from the droideka, and yelled "Now, SP-C1!"
The slicer-droid drifting back in the direction of the skiff sent out a signal that was picked up and relayed to the ship's infinitely more powerful comm-array. In turn, said comm-array sent out a signal to the two dozen melon-sized ion charges.
All of which I had spent the afternoon persuading various Neimoidians with the right to enter certain locations around the landing complex to conceal them near any major generator or significant power-conduit they could find.
Ostensibly, the various technicians and maintenance-workers had additionally been persuaded the totally-not-E.M.P-causing devices were actually portable sensor-suites intended by the office of the Secretary-General of the Defense Legion to prove officials in charge of the landing complex were actually stealing power.
I might have been the Chosen One, but even I couldn't outright convince people to sabotage their own infrastructure. Persuading them to betray "criminals" in the hopes of promotion and profit though? Not precisely easy, given the sheer number of suggestions I'd had to make, but well within my capabilities.
What little artificial light there was in the immediate area died without fanfare. Replaced a couple seconds later by even more spotty emergency lighting.
The big landing-control tower went through the same cycle of complete darkness and it's emergency-lights activating, but the big pay-off were the four turbo-laser turrets on each corner of the landing-complex. The imposing quad-barrels all slumping from straight-ahead standby to point downward.
It would have been impossible to actual cut off power to the actual turbo-lasers themselves, of course. No one with that kind of access I could have found in the time I'd been allotted would have been likely to be the sort vulnerable to mind-tricks.
They were still fully operational. It's just their immediate point of control was the landing-tower, and it had just lost main power. I was distressingly confident that somewhere, soon, there existed a primary control for these turbo-lasers.
One which would be reengaged just as soon as the people in the tower realized the extent of the sabotage and called for help. It had been the best I could do with five hours to work, and even this much wouldn't have been possible without Artoo's help.
That little super-droid seemed to be able to slice anything short of hardened military networks like a lightsaber going through, well, anything. He'd found names, work itineraries, schematics, and organized it all into one easy-to-digest series of holograms.
"What happened to For Knowledge and Defense, Never Attack, Jedi?" Ventress hissed as she tried to disengage. Only for me to loop my lightsaber beneath hers and circle with her. Her left foot snaked out to try and slip behind my right to trip me, but I kicked it back down.
Rather than answer her taunt, I raised my voice to say something more meaningful. Watching as she spun aside and away like a flitting shadow. Forcing me to begin deflecting the destroyer's fire once more, as my withdrawal was slowed to a crawl by the need to keep her from getting past me.
"Ky Narec was a hero and a great Jedi. I mourn his loss, and think of him often. If-" I stated with real sincerity.
Only to be cut off by a hissing buzz as the Force shrilly screamed, as Ventress snapped "Ky Narec knew nothing about people, nothing about the galaxy, and less than nothing about the Force's true nature! He was weak, and he tried to make me just as weak as he was! I need hear nothing from the likes of you, Jedi. Nothing except your screams as you beg for mercy!"
Involuntarily, my eyebrows shot up at this unfocused rage. My lightsaber was a streak in the air before me as I deflected one bolt after another. Bounding into a series of back-flips as Ventress came ahead with a low-mid-high routine which was badly telegraphed.
This wasn't the tightly controlled operator I'd met on Tynna, or the crafty assassin who'd plagued Obi-Wan and Anakin throughout the Clone Wars. At least not for the moment it wasn't. Ventress felt like I'd imagined Maul would feel. A simmering caldera of rage, always on the verge of an eruption.
Our sabers crossing diagonally as I landed and squared up a couple dozen meters closer to the ship, I eyed the half-dozen legionnaires now up and staggering up the road in our direction.
They weren't shooting yet because of Ventress's proximity, but this was going to get bad if I were still here when they found an angle to all join their fire to the droideka.
Worse, I could sense another far larger contingent of soldiers hurrying up from the south. Behind me, I could hear the skiff's repulsor-lifts having finished powering up, but there was still a hundred meters between me and the ship.
Asajj's grin was a demented, feral thing as she taunted "What's the matter, Jedi? Feeling the jaws of the trap closing around you and your little Senator?
Already, the security-platforms will be reorienting to fire on a certain J-type skiff. Even if you managed to elude me by some miracle, where exactly do you think you're going?" She came ahead before even finishing her question.
Intent on pinning me in place. Keeping me defending myself from her and the droid until either the legionnaires gathered in enough numbers to tip the scales, or our window here in the landing-complex closed.
Near enough the ionization made some of my hair lift, ship-grade guns spoke once, then again, and one final time. Erasing a damaged droideka from existence, and sending the group of recovered legionnaires scrambling for cover.
At my feet, I saw a spike impact the ground. The silver cable attached to it leading upward and behind me to the skiff now nearly forty meters overhead.
Ventress realized what was going to happen, but I flung out a hand and Pushed as I grabbed the cable. It was a weak effort due to my more pressing need to reinforce my off-hand. elbow, and shoulder, but it forced her to drive her saber into the ground to prevent her being hurled off her feet.
She only skidded backward maybe seven or eight meters, but Captain Typho timed his auto-reeling of the ascension-gun's line perfectly. Snatching me off my feet and into the air even as Ventress leaped after me.
Pulling up my legs, I poured strength into my left arm and pulled myself horizontal with one arm by the line as it drew me in. Our sabers clashed three times at the apex of her leap, but then she began to fall back toward the ground, as I was hauled aboard ship by my aching arm.
Scooping SP-C1 from the air the moment I touched the rear ramp, I turned to flash a grateful smile at the Captain, then I was past him in a flash and headed for the cockpit.
We weren't out of this yet by any means.
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