Aayla Secura moved through the corridors like water—fluid, precise, unstoppable. Barriss followed half a step behind, her lightsaber ready but not yet ignited. Commander Bly and his three ARC troopers—Lucky, Cameron, and Flash—provided tactical support, their DC-17s tracking potential threats with professional efficiency.
They encountered resistance, of course. Ultron drones appeared from alcoves and ventilation shafts, weapons charging. But the team had found their rhythm. Each engagement lasted seconds—lightsabers deflecting blaster fire back at the source, clone troopers placing perfect shots through optic sensors, the whole unit moving as one organism.
Speed was everything now. The alarm was screaming. Ultron knew they were here. Every second wasted was another second for the AI to organize a proper defense.
Bly hefted Coil over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, the rescued clone too weak to walk on his own. The commander didn't slow down, keeping pace with the Jedi through sheer determination.
They rounded a corner—
Drones, half a dozen of them, arm cannons already raised—
The machines twitched, jerked sideways as if struck by an invisible fist. Before they could recover, Hope materialized in the air above them, her boot coming down on a drone's head with enough force to cave in the metal.
Scott appeared at ground level, using a judo flip to hurl another drone over his shoulder and into the wall hard enough to shatter its chassis.
"Good timing," Aayla said, relaxing her Force grip.
"Cap and Quinlan's teams are keeping Ultron busy," Hope reported, shrinking back to normal size. "But that won't last forever. We need to move."
"Agreed." Bly gestured his men forward. "Let's clear these cells."
They split up, moving with purpose. Each cell door that opened revealed more prisoners—clone troopers mostly, in various states of malnutrition and injury. But their eyes held hope when they saw their rescuers.
Scott and Hope distributed the shrinking devices they'd brought—small wrist-mounted units that would let them reduce everyone to manageable size for easier extraction.
"Put these on," Hope instructed, moving from prisoner to prisoner. "When we give the signal, press the button. You'll shrink down and we can get you out faster."
As they pushed deeper into the detention block, the nature of the prisoners changed.
Civilians. Refugees from worlds Ultron had conquered. Spacers who'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time. And—
"Oh, hell," Cameron breathed.
Children.
A Togruta girl, maybe seven years old, pressed against the back wall of her cell. A human boy who couldn't be older than ten. Twin Twi'lek girls clutching each other.
Some were alone. Others huddled with adults who'd tried to protect them. Four or five had been kept together in a larger cell, at least spared the isolation.
"What kind of monster experiments on kids?" Cameron's voice shook with barely controlled rage as he helped the Togruta girl out of her cell.
"The kind we're going to stop," Flash said, his tone flat and cold. Professional anger, channeled into purpose.
Hope and Scott exchanged glances, their expressions mirrors of horror. Hope knelt beside the children, her voice gentle despite the chaos around them.
"You're safe now. We're getting you out of here."
"Soldiers," she called to the freed clone troopers. "Form a defensive perimeter around the children. Nothing gets through. Understood?"
"Yes, ma'am!" The response was immediate, unified. The clones moved into formation without hesitation, creating a living shield around the most vulnerable.
More cells opened. More prisoners freed. Some cells were empty—ominously so. Others held people who'd been waiting, hoping, praying for rescue that they'd probably stopped believing would come.
But one prisoner remained elusive.
"FRIDAY, Karen," Aayla said, activating her comlink. "Can you locate Master Piell?"
"Already searching, General Secura," FRIDAY responded.
"Found him," Karen added a moment later. "End of the corridor, fifty meters ahead. Isolated cell, reinforced door."
Aayla caught Barriss's eye across the detention block. The younger Jedi was helping clones out of cells on the opposite side, her movements efficient despite the exhaustion showing in her Force presence.
"Barriss! Master Piell—end of the corridor!"
Barriss nodded, passing her current group of rescued clones to soldiers rushing up from behind. She moved toward the indicated location with renewed urgency.
Aayla turned back to continue coordinating the evacuation—
And stopped.
The man in the cell before her was wrong. Not a prisoner. Not exactly. Something else.
"Admiral Tarkin," she whispered.
Wilhuff Tarkin stared at her with one working eye. The other was a dead, milky orb, non-functional. His left arm had been completely replaced—not with a prosthetic, but with something integrated. Metal emerged from his shoulder, plates fused directly to bone and muscle. His chest bore the same modifications, chrome spreading across his torso like a technological infection. His legs were intact but laced with metallic striations—veins of circuitry visible beneath the skin.
He'd been partially converted.
"What did he..." Aayla couldn't finish the question.
"Experiments." Tarkin's voice was a rasp, each word clearly painful. "He wanted to see how much augmentation a human could survive." He looked down at his mechanical arm, flexing fingers that shouldn't work but did. "Even the strongest will has limits. I found mine."
Aayla moved to his side carefully, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder—the organic one. "Can you walk?"
"I don't have much choice." There was dark humor in his tone. "Either I walk, or I die here."
She helped him stand. The moment his weight shifted to his legs, Tarkin's jaw clenched, teeth grinding together. Sweat beaded on his forehead. His legs trembled, the merged technology fighting against biological nerves.
"Admiral—"
"Your sympathy is noted but unnecessary, General." Tarkin's words came through gritted teeth. "If I fall behind, leave me."
"With respect, Admiral," Aayla's voice carried the gentle steel of someone who wouldn't be argued with, "I'm a Jedi Knight. Your safety is my responsibility—whether through my power or your own stubbornness. Now let's get you out of here."
She supported him out of the cell. Tarkin's eyes swept across the rescued prisoners—clones, civilians, children. All of them carrying the same expression: a hunger for justice. For revenge against what had been done to them.
He understood that hunger. Felt it burning in his own chest.
"General Secura." He had to pause to catch his breath. "Where will you take them?"
"Working on that detail," Scott said, helping a pair of children past them.
"The Avengers." Tarkin's working eye tracked the small man. "I'd heard rumors. Didn't believe them until now."
The Citadel shuddered. Violent enough to throw people off balance, send loose debris clattering from the ceiling.
"Sounds like the others are having fun," Flash observed dryly.
"Which means we need to move faster," Bly said. "Come on, people! Let's go!"
At the far end of the corridor, Barriss stood before a door that didn't match the others.
It was lower than the rest, requiring descent down a short ramp to reach it. The metal was different too—chrome rather than the dull gray of standard cells. And it hummed with power, a low vibration that she could feel in her bones.
She reached out with the Force, trying to manipulate the locking mechanism.
Nothing. The door was shielded somehow, resistant to her influence.
Fine. The direct approach it was.
Her lightsaber ignited, blue plasma casting harsh shadows. She drove the blade into the seam between door and frame, feeling resistance immediately. This wasn't standard durasteel. Something harder. Denser.
But lightsabers could cut through anything given time, and Barriss had just enough patience left.
The blade carved a ragged circle, metal glowing white-hot before finally giving way. She kicked the section inward, creating an opening just large enough to step through.
The room beyond was circular. Sparse. A single table in the center, and sitting at that table—
"Master Piell."
The Lannik Jedi Master was small, wizened, his face lined with exhaustion. But when his eyes opened, they were sharp. Alert. Undimmed by whatever Ultron had done to him.
"Padawan Offee." His voice was rough from disuse. "You came."
Barriss rushed forward, her hands moving over him with healer's instincts. No obvious injuries. No visible modifications. Relief flooded through her.
"It's not just me, Master. The Avengers are here. General Secura. Master Vos. Clone battalions. We're evacuating everyone."
Piell's expression softened fractionally. "My men? Are they—"
"Safe. We're getting them out now."
"Good." He pushed himself to his feet, moving stiffly but under his own power. "The others. How many have you found?"
Barriss hesitated. "Others? Master, we've rescued dozens of prisoners, but—"
"No." Piell's remaining eye fixed on her. "The other Jedi. I can feel them. You must be able to as well."
The cold dread that had been lurking at the edges of Barriss's awareness suddenly rushed forward, overwhelming her senses.
She could feel it. That wrongness in the Force. That corruption she'd been sensing since they entered the Citadel. She'd thought it was just the dark side residue, the accumulated suffering of this place.
But it wasn't.
It was a Jedi. Or what was left of one.
"You sense it too," Piell said quietly. Not a question.
"Where..." Barriss's voice cracked. "Where are they holding them?"
Piell pointed toward a section of wall that looked no different from any other. "There. Behind that barrier. I've been trying to reach them through the Force, but..." He shook his head. "Whatever Ultron did, it's blocking me."
"You..." She swallowed hard. "You want me to go?"
"We need to know, Padawan." Piell's voice was gentle but firm. "If there are Jedi prisoners, we can't leave them behind."
"I'll—" Barriss took a breath, steadying herself. "I'll check. You should evacuate with the others."
"I'll be right behind you," Piell assured her. "But Barriss—be careful. Whatever you find in there... it may not be what you expect."
The warning settled over her like a shroud.
Barriss turned toward the wall Piell had indicated, her lightsaber still ignited, and tried very hard not to think about what "not what you expect" might mean.