Jedi Fugitive (The Bad Batch)

82:

Astera:

The hallways soon gave way to a larger room that probably was once the centre of the base. It had to have been where the bombardment had hit - a huge hole gaped in the ceiling of the room, twisted and warped pieces of metal littering the bottom, which looked to have become some sort of swamp with thick, viscous liquid that bubbled over the torn pieces of metal. I eyed the bubbles warily - something lurked under the opaque waters. I didn't even have to use the Force to know it.

Wrecker groaned from beside me again, holding up a hand to his helmet like he was trying to block his nose. "I didn't think it could smell any worse, but I was wrong."

It was too late to stop myself from inhaling; the putrid stink slammed through my nostrils, the filter in my helmet doing absolutely nothing to dampen the smell at all. I choked on a gag, hurriedly taking several shallow breaths through my mouth to clear out the lingering stench. "That is awful."

"We're in agreement on that." Hunter's words were laced with disgust as he peered over the edge at the gurgling liquid below. Deke however, was focused on something across the swamp, pointing his flashlight at a terminal on the other side, half hidden by a torn apart rafter and, mercifully, intact.

"There's the console. Come on." He'd leaped down onto the sheet of metal below us without waiting for our response, the thud of the impact echoing loudly in the silence. Three more followed as we dropped down after him, copying each of Deke's movements as precisely as we could to avoid touching the swamp waters.

The broken rafter on top of the terminal was the last thing in the way - I raised my hands, lifting the sheet of metal with the Force. It screeched in protest as I shoved it away, bouncing off other debris with loud clanging noises before finally hitting the water, where it immediately sank, bubbling furiously as it disappeared.

Wrecker pulled Gonky off his back, the droid gonking in confusion and tottering around to take in his unfamiliar surroundings as Hunter pulled a connection wire from the terminal and handed it to his brother. The console lit up the instant it was plugged into Gonky's back and Wrecker patted the top of his chassis encouragingly. "All right. Do your thing, little guy."

Hunter connected his datapad to the console and got to work, only to straighten and turn back the way we'd come when metal groaned loudly from behind us again. There was nothing there, and the Force hadn't warned me of anything yet, but I knew better than to doubt his senses. "Something's coming. We need to make this quick."

"I-I-Is it more of those things?" Wrecker asked nervously, reaching for the giant knife sheathed on his leg.

"No. Something... else." Hunter glanced at me meaningfully, and I nodded, reaching out with my mind to feel for the presence he'd registered before me.

I could feel it as soon as I'd dropped the mental walls separating me from the Force of the planet, looming, unnatural and... big. So big its presence felt like it was pressing in from all directions. Whatever Hunter had sensed coming wasn't the slither vines or the creatures it had spawned. "He's right. It's definitely not the vines. We should make this quick."

"I'm familiar with the system," Deke told us, still working at the buttons on the console. "Give me some time. I'll see what data I can pull up."

Hunter handed him the datapad without further hesitation and pulled out one of his blasters, moving for the edge of the platform we stood on. Wrecker and I did the same with our own weapons, blasters in one hand, Wrecker's knife singing in his other and the sound of a lightsaber activating cutting through the quiet again. All three of us were squarely focused on the entrance across the swamp, sure that whatever threat was approaching would be coming from the way we had.