“Let me get this straight. You know about a secret prison where captured Jedi are tortured in the Mustafar system. But, you don’t know exactly where it is, just that it’s not on Mustafar itself,” Hunter summarized the previous proceedings. It had been a few days since we were welcomed by the unexpectedly large fleet in the Yavin system. Thankfully it didn’t take that long to convince the Bad Batch to come aboard. I suspect part of that came from the guilt of allowing their Jedi friends to board the Lucrehulk-1 alone.

The capital ship was massive. It certainly dwarfed my fury, which itself was close to the size of a house. My small transport barely took up any space inside the ship’s spacious hangar and that was only one of many bays.

Our group made an odd assortment sitting around the round holotable on the Lucrehulk-1’s bridge. Billaba, with the help of fancy surgical droids and top-of-the-line bactatanks on board the ship, was able to attend, though she needed a cane just to enter the room. Her young padawan stood behind her seat, still doing his best to protect and assist her. Across from them the various of members of the Bad Batch crowded around the table save for Crosshair who, like a typical brooder, leaned against one of the windows and stared out into space. I sat in the captain’s seat, flanked by the siblings. Across from me sat Acting High General Telro, newly returned from his ship recovering sortie.

That was another spectacle. It shocked me enough to find a fleet waiting for me. I was floored to wake up the next day to find two recusant dreadnaughts, a trio of omni-support ships, and four more munificents entering our system. It might have even had me worried had TX not been positively, well not joyful, but certainly a droid equivalent when his communicator picked up Telro’s channels.

“Yeah that sounds about right,” I replied as I tapped my fingers on the table.

“And you want a small strike team to infiltrate it, even though you now have an entire fleet under your command?” Crosshair asked without turning around.

“Two reasons. First, these ships are worth more than our targets, especially since I have no way of replacing them. Second, I don’t want the place leveled from a massive firefight. If there is a jailbreak, they will just increase security, but if there’s no fortress left they may just pick a new black site,” I explained.

“So, what’s the plan?” asked Hunter.

“Well, Merrin will get us in close. Then I figure it’s up to Tech and Echo to grant us entry to the place. After that, Wrecker, Alha, and I will take point while you, Alhoy, and Crosshair back us up,” I replied.

“Wait, how is that girl supposed to get us close?” questioned Tech.

I turned over to Merrin who was seated on one of the consoles and engrossed in a datapad. Upon feeling my gaze, she looked up. “Feeling up for a demonstration?” I asked.

She nodded before vanishing from sight in a flash of green light.

“She can do that for my entire ship. As you can see, we won’t have an issue getting up close,” I explained.

“Do you have any schematics or blueprints?” asked Echo.

“Isn’t that your job? I mean that’s the whole point of bringing you slicers along. Well, that and all the other tech-related issues,” I replied.

“What kind of forces are we going up against?” asked Hunter.

“Not sure the number but expect a fully staffed garrison along with purge-troopers and inquisitors,” I explained. “Purge troopers are clones specialized in killing Jedi and the inquisitors are mostly Jedi turncoats,” I continued upon seeing their confused looks.

“Traitors?!” Caleb said incredulously. Billaba’s expression darkened at the idea.

“Definitely; some are. I’m pretty sure the Grand Inquisitor didn’t take much to convince. For others, it’s more like being broken or brainwashed,” I replied.

“If that is the case, then I have a duty to try and heal them,” said Billaba.

“Me too!” said Caleb with enthusiasm.

His sentiment was met with various forms of no from everyone at the table save for Telro, who offered, “Jedi padawans are exceptional fighters.”

“Not the time, Telro,” I complained. “Besides, I’d rather have both of you on the first shuttle to Alderaan.”

“I must insist. This is my duty as both a master and member of the council,” she replied.

I folded my arms and said, “I won’t be taking prisoners, I won’t be talking these people off the edge.”

“You just said it’s not their fault,” said Caleb.

“It’s not a rhakgoul’s fault either,” I replied. “Maybe they’ll see the light if you offer a hand or maybe they’ll cut it off. It’s not my job to babysit you while you offer mid-battle therapy,” I explained.

“Regardless, it is my duty to be there,” she replied.

“Perhaps,” I replied noncommittally before pivoting. “Telro will take a small group of three munificents close to Mustafar. If we absolutely need an extraction, he should be able to aid us. Any other questions?”

The group looked around at each other, before everyone seemingly shook their heads.

“Then get a good night’s sleep, we leave early tomorrow,” I said. With that, everyone went their separate ways save for Telro, who requested my time afterwards.

“Sir, according to my calculations, installations like this are often guarded by at least a venator. The field success rate of munificents against such a ship has been quite low,” the droid reported.

“Fine. Boot up the simulator and we’ll see what you’ve all been doing wrong,” I replied.

Alha’s blade flashed down from above her head in an admirably powerful cut. Yet, it was easily redirected by Merrin with inhuman speed and precision. Almost immediately after the two blunted blades clanged together, Merrin was already redirecting her shorter sword into a thrust. Alha took longer to recover and was forced to clumsily dodge out of the way long enough to bring her blade back into a guard position.

Then they clashed again. This time the conflict was initiated by Merrin’s uppercut. With recently trained precision, Alha dodged back then through muscle memory, she automatically counterattacked with an impressively quick slash. The speed of her blade was able to catch Merrin off guard who didn’t have her defense ready. Nor was she able to step out of the way, and instead she received the heavy blow into her padded side. It staggered her, though from the muffled sound it made upon contact, I could tell it didn’t do any damage.

The two had been at exercising together for most of the day and that was the first hit Alha was able to land. Had Merrin been attacking at full strength from the beginning, it never would have gotten this far, but it was a clear example of Alha’s improvement. She didn’t let the details bother her either, as she jumped up in the excitement and let out a triumphant yell.

Merrin was often cool-headed, but she was also a teenage dark side user. So, she wasn’t above revenge. As they got ready for their next bout she smiled before small trails of green magical smoke began to emanate from her body. She was no longer restraining herself and in an expertly quick move, she struck Alha’s chest with a strengthened blow. It knocked the larger woman to her butt, and Alha left out a frustrated huff.

“I think we’ll call it there,” I said from the landing ramp of the Fury. The two of them had claimed a large section of hangar space around the ship as their sparring grounds for our time on the Lucrehulk-1.

Though it definitely wasn’t a Sith tradition, the two shook hands before removing their practice gear. That was my own rule, a carry-over from my time playing sports as a kid. I’m not sure if it helped reduce the tensions that often came with fighting, but it didn’t seem like it would hurt.

“Are the others ready?” asked Alha once she made her way over to me.

“Yeah, they’ve already docked the Marauder, so hurry it up,” I replied. She and Merrin picked up the pace at my prodding.

With everyone on board, the Fury left the massive freighter-turned battleship and docked with one of the three cruisers that had broken off from the rest of the fleet. Once we were locked in, Telro alerted us of the impending hyperspace jump and we were off.

With the blue lights of space passing by Alha joined me on the bridge. Without saying a word she drained her water flask and slammed it down onto one of the counters. “Is it weird that I often want to pull out my vibrosword and wipe that smirk off her face,” she asked me after a few moments. Besides 2V, we were the only ones in the area.

I looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Possibly. Would you act on that want?,” I asked.

“No, No I…” She paused and thought for a moment. “I’m thankful that she is willing to even help make me stronger I suppose,” she finally said.

“Intrusive thoughts are the norm for those who follow the path of the dark side. Sometimes it is harmless or even worthwhile to act on it. Most of the time they are just noise that must be ignored,” I explained. “Sure, it may give you satisfaction in the moment, but why not try and kill Merrin?”

She looked at me like an incomprehensible alien. “She’s just a kid and it would be wrong!” she hissed.

“Exactly, but examine this more logically,” I replied. “For example, remember when I chose not to kill those bandits?”

She nodded.

“They were slavers and thieves preying upon the poor. They deserved punishment, even death. Why do you think I chose not to grant it?” I asked. “I certainly wanted to. In that moment, I knew it would fill me with a feeling of power and catharsis.”

“But you chose to hand them over to the republic?” she asked.

“Yes, but why?” I prodded.

“Because it was wrong. They were defenseless?” she asked, suddenly unsure of herself.

“Well, no. It didn’t really matter that they were defenseless. But yes, it went against my own code. I wasn’t some judge or executioner. Besides, would your brother have volunteered the two of you if he thought I was some bloodthirsty murderer?”

“Probably not,” she replied.

“Sometimes it is your code, sometimes it’s just logic. Whatever you need to stop yourself from listening to those thoughts is an important part of not becoming some dark-addled idiot like Malicos,” I replied. This was a lesson I knew from my memories as Zaros. While those around him, or me, became ever more crazed by the dark side. A select few like Darth Marr were able to bend it to their will and not the other way around. Many saw it as a weakness, hell even Jaesa made it seem like I was some sort of light side reformer in the empire. That itself was kind of embarrassing. Every time I spared somebody, she made it seem like I was some paragon of virtue.

“I guess that makes sense. Wait, then why did you spare Malicos?” she asked.

I looked at her with a smile. “If the time comes for you to take a lightsaber, he’s a perfect candidate,” I explained. “Besides, humiliating him gave me far more pleasure than killing him would have.”

You have to hand it to Separatist intelligence they were pretty efficient. Had the CIS not been hamstrung by Dooku and Sidious the entire time, they might have stood a chance at winning the war. Throughout it they made detailed maps of the rim, even the most obscure and worthless systems received surveys in the name of the war effort. One such system brought us exceptionally close to Mustafar. It wasn’t much. There was no infrastructure, just a few asteroid belts and gas giants floating around a small red star. It was an exceptionally short jump to Mustafar. Since the system was now an imperial black site, it meant that its defenses weren’t spread out to surrounding systems, or at least this specific system, in order to maintain its secrecy. Once we were settled in, we sent out a probe droid to inspect the place and then got ready.

By the time the Bad Batch transferred to my ship, the probe was back and relayed basic information about the system. Most importantly, Fortress Inquisitorious was on Nur, a water moon in the system. Had I remembered it was underwater, we probably could have narrowed the information down without the probe. There was a single venator in the system, though from the image it was already stripped of its red paint and instead showed off a pure imperial grey.

We jumped into the system, just on the edge of the gravity well and made sure to hide behind a set of asteroids. Then it was all up to Merrin.

“You got this,” I said before my more human nerves got to me. “You do have this right?” She seemed confident enough when I brought up the idea the first time. Even though I knew she could do this at some point, she was far younger than in the game.

“Of course. I once veiled a family of rancors to scare…Ilyana,” she replied. She rarely talked about her fallen friend, and it seemed like we just backdoored our way into a heavy conversation.

“You get this done and the next thing on the list is Shelish,” I replied as I put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

Merrin sat down upon a mediation rug, closed her eyes, and began the ritual. Much like in the game it involved chanting an incantation over some type of crystal talisman. Green tendrils of smoke spread out from her and leached into the hull of the ship. After a few moments, the chanting stopped but Merrin remained seated and concentrating on the stone.

“Did it work,” asked Wrecker who lumbered over and would have grabbed the girl's shoulder had I not slapped his hand away.

In response, Merrin’s eyelids squeezed shut harder, but she gave a nod.

From there we flew straight for Nur. It was unnerving enough to get near a massive capital ship with such an impressive armament. It was worse to pass underneath it in order to enter the atmosphere of the moon. We got past the ship without incident though.

Our descent was slow and uneventful, though everyone’s nerves were still on edge. We may have been invisible, but there was a still a chance a rogue scanner would pick us up.

Finally, almost dreadfully slow the ship made it to the surface. Entering the water made our previous pace look like top speed though. So as to not kick up massive ripples in the water, I had to creep down at a snails pace in order to submerge it. Then it was a matter of laying the ship down on an underwater bank that was low enough to keep it hidden from the air.

The effort clearly drained Merrin. She was breathing heavily, and her face was scrunched in concentration. I patted her on the shoulder and said, “That’s enough, think you'll be ready to go when we get back?"

In response, she released her spell and laid back onto the rug. After a moment she opened her eyes and gave me a nod.

With the ship safely underwater the landing party geared up and stepped into the airlock at the back.

“You can fly right?” I said to Caleb. I was the last one to step into the airlock.

“Of course!” he replied.

“Then keep the comms open kid, if anything crazy happens we may need you to swing by and pick us up,” I said.

“You can count on me!” he said with a smile.

With that I closed the door and put on my aquata. When I turned around, everyone else looked ready, so I pressed a few buttons and water began filling the room.