Star Wars_ The Old Republic_ Revan - Drew Karpyshyn [110]
Once they were out of sight and earshot of the guards, Scourge stopped and turned to address them. “This could complicate things,” he said. “Nyriss wouldn’t have asked after the others if she wasn’t growing concerned. I had hoped to avoid her until the Emperor made his move, but if I put off seeing her now it will look suspicious.”
Scourge had spoken to the Emperor just that morning; Meetra imagined it would take at least another day or two before he assembled his forces to strike at Nyriss.
“I’m not letting you out of my sight,” she warned him. “If you meet with her, Tee-Three and I had better go with you.”
“Ridiculous!” Scourge spat. “I would never be so insulting as to bring one of my personal slaves into a meeting with someone of Nyriss’s rank.”
“Then you’d better think of something fast,” Meetra said. “Because if this all goes sour, I’m going to whip out my lightsaber and start chopping off heads.”
“I could bring you if I was presenting you to Nyriss as a gift,” Scourge said. “But then there would be no reason for me to keep you close by.”
“Forget it,” Meetra snarled.
T3 echoed her sentiment with a shrill squawk.
“Then what do you suggest?” Scourge demanded.
“Take me to Revan now,” Meetra said. “I’ll take my chances on fighting our way out.”
“I didn’t bring you here so you could throw your life away. And I have no intention of becoming a martyr.”
Meetra was about to fire back another angry retort when the stronghold was rocked to its foundations by a very loud explosion coming from somewhere off to the east.
“The Imperial Guard,” Scourge gasped. “They’re here!”
Alarms began to ring through the corridor, mingling with the sounds of shouts and running feet as Nyriss’s people responded to the sudden attack.
Meetra reached up and yanked the slave collar from her neck, hurling it across the floor. T3 mimicked her by popping off his restraining bolt.
“The dungeon is this way,” Scourge said, quickly putting their now-pointless argument behind them. “Follow me.”
The explosions continued as he led them through the twisting passages. They were coming from all sides; obviously the Imperial Guard had the entire stronghold surrounded. Based on the frequency and size of the distant explosions, Meetra guessed they were using an artillery assault to try to breach the walls at multiple locations. Males and females ran past them in both directions, some rushing to join the fray and others scrambling to safety. The unexpected attack had caught Nyriss’s people completely off guard. They were in disarray, their efforts to defend the stronghold uncoordinated and disorganized.
“I would have expected someone on the Dark Council to put up better resistance,” Meetra said as they turned a corner and raced down another hall.
“The security chief and three of his top lieutenants aren’t here to rally them, thanks to you,” he reminded her.
They rounded another corner and confronted the first real sign of any kind of counterattack. Eight soldiers led by a lightsaber-wielding Sith acolyte had taken up positions in the corridor roughly ten meters away from a large, smoking hole in the wall.
As the smoke cleared, dozens of red-uniformed soldiers poured through the breach, armed with blaster pistols and electrostaffs.
Nyriss’s people opened fire, mowing down the first wave. Those in the ranks behind never even slowed. Driven forward by their furious devotion to the Emperor, they charged the enemy line with a reckless disregard for their own safety.
Had the defenders held their ground and continued to fire, they might have survived several more waves. But their morale was shaken by the berserker mentality of their attackers, so instead they broke ranks and tried to flee. None of them succeeded.
Three were taken down by blasterfire, shot in the back as they turned to run. The other five, including the acolyte with the lightsaber, were swallowed up by a sea