The shield ricocheted off the corridor wall with a metallic clang, spinning through the air before slamming into a battle drone's central processor. Steve Rogers caught it on the return, the familiar weight settling against his forearm as sparks showered from the destroyed machine.
"Sitrep," he called into his comm, voice cutting through the cacophony of blaster fire and electronic screeching.
Behind him, clone troopers advanced in tight formation through corridors choked with wreckage. Abandoned drone chassis littered the floor, their optical sensors dark and lifeless. Scorch marks painted abstract patterns across the walls—evidence of firefights both recent and past. Destroyed turrets hung from the ceiling like mechanical corpses, some still embedded in the durasteel where explosive force had driven them.
"This is Vos." Quinlan's voice crackled with static. "Delta Team's en route to regroup with the others. Place is crawling with drones—like kicking over a bantha's nest."
"Aayla? Scott?" Steve pivoted, shield raised, as another wave of drones rounded the far corner. "What's your status?"
Silence stretched across the channel. Too long. Steve exchanged a glance with Natasha, who'd pressed herself against the wall, her pistols tracking potential threats with mechanical precision. The clone troopers around them shifted, weapons ready, training overriding the growing tension.
"Yeah, Cap." Scott's voice finally broke through, but the usual self-deprecating humor was conspicuously absent. Something heavy weighted down each syllable. "We're... we're here."
Steve deflected an energy bolt with his shield, the impact reverberating up his arm. The shield arced through the air again, taking down the offending drone before returning to his grip. "Scott, what happened?"
"We have a problem." Aayla Secura's measured tones replaced Scott's. "A significant one."
"Talk to me."
"Ultron's been capturing people." Scott's voice held an edge Steve hadn't heard since the battle at Sokovia. "He's... converting them. Turning humans into his drones."
The words hit like a physical blow. Around Steve, clone troopers faltered mid-step. One soldier's aim wavered. Another's breathing quickened, audible even through his helmet's filters.
"He's controlling former Jedi," Aayla continued, and for the first time since Steve had known the Twi'lek Master, her voice carried the weight of true horror. "Children. The younglings from Jabiim. Ultron took their lives and twisted them into something... unrecognizable."
Steve's jaw tightened. Beside him, Natasha's expression remained carefully neutral, but her fingers white-knuckled around her pistol grips. They'd been there. On Jabiim. They'd fought alongside those kids—bright, eager, full of potential. The memory of their laughter, their determination, flashed unbidden through Steve's mind.
Now Ultron had desecrated their bodies. Made them weapons.
"Your current position?" The words came out flat. Cold.
"We've cleared the detention level," Aayla reported. "All prisoners extracted from the cells. We found Master Piel and Admiral Tarkin. The Admiral was..." She paused. "Ultron had begun the conversion process before we reached him."
"Where's Barriss?" Natasha asked, her tactical mind already sorting through implications.
"Treating the wounded." Scott's voice gentled slightly. "She's not injured, but Nat—she's not okay. None of them are."
One of the clone technicians crouched behind a destroyed turret, data slate glowing in his hands. "How many prisoners are we talking about?"
"Dozens, at least," Scott replied. "Maybe—"
"Try nearly two hundred," Hope van Dyne's voice cut in, crisp and precise. "Ultron's been stockpiling subjects for his experiments. We need extraction now."
"Agreed." Steve gestured for his team to advance. "Make for the original rally point. We'll converge and evacuate everyone before—"
"Negative, Captain." Commander Bly's voice interrupted. "That route will funnel everyone straight through the heaviest drone concentrations. They'll be waiting for us. We need an alternate egress."
"There's a hangar bay adjacent to the detention block," FRIDAY's synthesized voice chimed in, calm and analytical. "Mr. Lang and Ms. van Dyne can guide the prisoners there. Their shrinking technology should allow them to reactivate a gunship undetected and ferry everyone to a safe distance."
"Assuming they survive Ultron's fleet on the way out," Hunter added grimly.
Steve caught his shield mid-flight, ideas already forming. "Vos, you copy?"
"Reading you, Captain."
"Change of plans. Take Delta Team back to our ship. Get it to the hangar bay—the one near the detention level. Everyone else converges there with the prisoners."
"Understood." Steve could hear the shift in Quinlan's breathing as the Jedi began moving. "Delta, on me! Double-time, boys—let's move!"
"Clock's ticking, people," Steve declared, raising his shield as fresh blaster fire erupted from the corridor ahead. The distinctive whine-and-crack of energy weapons filled the air. "Time to run."
They ran.
Somewhere in the bowels of Ultron's castle-fortress, two groups navigated separate mazes toward the same desperate goal.
Aubrey's breath caught when she saw him. Even with the helmet obscuring his features, she recognized the paint scheme, the way he carried himself. "Coil!"
The clone captain barely had time to acknowledge her before the Padawan crashed into him, arms wrapping tight around his armored torso. For a moment, protocol and discipline vanished. Coil's hand came up to rest on her head—a brief, wordless acknowledgment of shared survival.
"Stay close to me," Barriss ordered, her voice carrying an authority that cut through the chaos. "Both of you."
The detention block had become controlled pandemonium. ARC troopers Lightning, Cameron, and Lucky moved through the crowd with the efficiency of seasoned professionals, organizing the able-bodied, supporting those who could barely walk. Commander Bly coordinated everything with clipped commands, his presence a stabilizing force.
Hope van Dyne and Barriss Offee worked the rear guard while Aayla, Master Piel, and Scott—currently at twenty feet tall—spearheaded the advance. Ultron's drones descended like a metallic storm, but they shattered against the combined might of Jedi, Avengers, and the 327th Star Corps with almost contemptuous ease.
"Keep moving!" Steve's voice boomed across the comm. "Forward! Don't stop!"
"Faster!" Hope shouted from behind, her voice carrying over the din of battle. At human size, she wove through the crowd, urging stragglers forward with a combination of encouragement and sharp tactical assessment.
Aayla and Master Piel led from the front, their lightsabers singing through air and metal. The Padawans—or what Ultron had made of them—came at them in waves. Some still retained enough human features to be recognizable. Others had become grotesque hybrids of flesh and machinery. A few had been so thoroughly converted they were indistinguishable from standard drones.
Aayla's jaw set with each necessary strike. Master Piel's ancient face remained impassive, but his blade work carried the weight of profound sorrow.
"Hangar's just ahead!" Aayla confirmed, cross-referencing the technician's data slate with directions from FRIDAY and Karen. The corridor opened abruptly, spilling them onto a series of landing platforms.
Coruscant's perpetual city-glow stretched to the horizon. The wind whipped across the open space, carrying the industrial smell of the planet-city. Freedom, tantalizingly close.
"They'll be on us in seconds," Aayla warned.
"Fortify this position." Master Piel's command was absolute. His diminutive form became a nexus of power as the Force answered his call. Cargo containers, debris, structural elements—all rose into the air and stacked themselves with geometric precision, forming improvised barricades across the platform's entrance.
"Children, move!" Hope guided the youngest prisoners toward the far end of the platform, away from the inevitable breach point. Her engineer's mind catalogued weak points, fields of fire, escape routes. "Stay with the group!"
She caught Barriss's eye. The Mirialan Padawan nodded once. Hope launched into the air, repulsors carrying her toward the front line.
The barricades held for perhaps thirty seconds.
Then Ultron's forces hit them like a tidal wave.
Drones poured from the castle's depths—flying models, ground units, and the horrific converted Padawans. They came without regard for losses, without fear, driven by Ultron's relentless programming.
"Hold this line!" Aayla's twin lightsabers became a whirlwind of green and blue light. One blade split a drone lengthwise. The other decapitated a converted subject too far gone to save.
Admiral Tarkin fought with cold, mechanical precision. He'd claimed a blaster rifle from somewhere, and he used it with the skill of someone who'd seen too many battlefields. But his eyes remained fixed on his left arm—the mechanical replacement Ultron had grafted to his shoulder. The metal gleamed under the platform lights, foreign and wrong.
Each drone he destroyed, each shot he fired, carried the fury of violated autonomy. His face remained an icy mask, but the blaster's power setting had been cranked to maximum.
Barriss moved like violence incarnated. Her lightsaber deflected incoming fire with textbook precision, but her Force techniques held nothing back. Drones crumpled, crushed by invisible pressure. Converted subjects found themselves hurled bodily into their comrades. Her face twisted with each execution—images of the younglings, of what they'd become, burning behind her eyes.
The rage and grief made her faster. Deadlier. Each block and strike carried the weight of personal vendetta.
Aayla fought with both lightsabers gripped in a two-handed stance, the green and blue blades weaving patterns of destruction through the mechanical horde. She'd trained for years to master dual-blade combat. Now that training expressed itself in elegant, lethal efficiency.
Scott—still towering at full giant-size—swatted drones from the air like insects. Flash and Cameron perched on his shoulders, their blaster rifles providing covering fire for any angle Scott's massive hands couldn't reach. The ARC troopers had turned the Avenger into a mobile weapons platform.
"On your six, Scott!" Flash called out, squeezing off three rapid shots.
"Thanks—got it!" Scott's hand came around, crushing the flanking drones.
"Contact rear!" Cameron swiveled, his rifle barking. "They're trying to circle!"
Then Steve's voice cut through the chaos: "Sorry we're late. Ran into some traffic."
His team emerged from a side corridor, shield leading, clone troopers in perfect formation behind him. The effect on morale was instantaneous. Clone soldiers cheered. Civilians found renewed strength. Even some of the Jedi allowed themselves small smiles.
Several troopers moved to the barricades, dismantling sections to allow Steve's team through.
"Nice of you to join us, Cap," Aayla called, deflecting a blaster bolt past his head.
Steve grinned, shield already spinning toward the next target. "Yeah, well—when you've been doing this as long as I have—"
"You two are impossible," Natasha muttered, though her lips quirked as she caught Bly's knowing look from across the platform. The clone commander's shoulders shook with silent laughter before he returned to coordinating fire sectors.
The technician did a quick headcount, data slate updating in real-time. "We're missing people. Vos and Delta Team haven't made it back yet."
Aayla's montrals twitched—sensing danger, reading tactical possibilities. Her voice carried across the platform: "Get reinforcements on the comm. We need support, now!"