"Is this really a good idea?" Mike asked as they passed through the blast doors and into the eastern tunnel. "Splitting the group up when we're outnumbered a thousand to one?"
"Four tunnels, four teams. You have a better idea that wouldn't take us a month to search this place?"
Mike sighed but said nothing.
"Then let's get moving," Josh said. Despite his words, his eyes followed Becki across the chamber in the opposite direction.
"Thought you were in a hurry to get going," said Mike, noticing where Josh's attention was focused.
"Right. Let's go." As the two entered their tunnel, Josh pulled his lightsaber from its holster and rested his thumb on the activator. Mike caught the movement from the corner of his eye and frowned disapprovingly.
"You're not planning on using that thing unless you absolutely have to, right?"
"We seem to have very different definitions of 'absolutely have to,' in case you haven't noticed."
Mike glanced down at the unlit lightsaber in Josh's hand again. "So how many lives has that thing taken already?"
"I don't know, Mike. It's not like I keep score." Josh said absently as he examined a heavy metal door they were passing.
"Could have fooled me. I thought you'd be putting notches on the handle or- What is it?" He broke off when he noticed Josh looking around strangely.
"Does this place seem awfully empty to you?"
Mike frowned. "Now that you mention it." He took the hand scanner out again, pointing it both ahead of them and back in the direction from which they'd come. "I still have some strong power sources more or less in this direction."
"More or less?"
"Give me a break. I didn't design this place. Anyway, it seems like anything that could generate that much power would have some people around it."
"You'd think."
"Besides, I'm just as happy not to be fighting our way through every inch of this place."
"Afraid I'd be trying to earn more notches for my saber?"
They followed the scanner through several more random turns until they found themselves at the end of a long, straight corridor, much narrower than the main passageways. The ceiling was low - Josh could almost reach up and touch it - but the hallway was nearly as brightly lit as the desert above them. Steel bar doors lined both sides.
"A prison?" Mike wondered aloud.
"Makes sense, I guess. Every military base needs a brig."
"They must have serious discipline issues here if they need a brig this big." Mike wandered farther into the prison corridor and peered into the first cell. Eight dirty men shared the small space, sitting listlessly on the four beds and the floor of the cell. Most had bandages on some part of their bodies, and one had his arm in a sling that seemed to be made of torn bed sheets. For all of their reaction to Mike's presence, it seemed they might have died unnoticed and been left sitting right where they were.
After a moment one of the battered men did look up hesitantly, and Mike recognized him immediately. "Khalil!"
"Lieutenant!" Khalil almost seemed happy to see Mike as he clambered to his feet. "What are-" He was cut off midsentence when his entire body suddenly flew across the cell and smashed face first into the steel bars with a dull "Ugh!"
Josh had joined Mike, and stood with his hand outstretched toward the prisoner. "Kkalil! You slime!" he said as he advanced on the man behind the bars.
"Josh, wait," Mike began, but Josh's hand struck out like lightning between the bars and wrapped around Khalil's throat. Mike lunged forward a moment too late, and managed only to get a grip on Josh's forearm.
"You sold us out! Sahhar has the shield because of you!" Josh's grip tightened and Khalil gasped desperately for air.
"Please!" Khalil begged with what little breath he had left. "I...can..." he gasped as Mike shouted Josh's name and struggled to pull his arm away from Khalil.
"Explain!? You don't need to! You turned the shield over to Sahhar! You told him about our countermeasures! Millions of people almost died, Khalil, because of you! Why don't you explain that!"
Khalil was well beyond the point of trying to talk. When his eyes began to roll back into his head, Mike shouted, "JOSH!" at the top of his lungs.
"WHAT!?" Josh shouted back as he turned to glare at Mike with a look of pure rage.
"Look at him! He's in prison. Is this what Sahhar would have done to him if he'd betrayed us?"
Josh looked at Khalil, really looked at him, for the first time. Aside from being a deep purple, his face was a mass of cuts and bruises. Dried blood from a cut along his temple streaked the left side of his face. Both eyes were blackened and the parts of his body visible through the tattered remnants of his clothing were no better off than his face. Reluctantly Josh released him with a none-too-gentle shove that sent him stumbling back.
Khalil managed to keep his feet, but only barely. He kept a careful distance away from the cell bars as he rubbed at his throat and sucked in great lungfuls of air. After a long minute he looked up at Mike gratefully. "I thank you."
"We do need answers," Josh cut in before Mike could respond.
Khalil took a careful step back toward the front of the cell and took another long, steadying breath. "I met with the Magician's men as you instructed me. It seemed all was going well at first, but they discovered your.what did you call it? Your counter."
"Countermeasure," Mike said. Josh nodded.
"They discovered it almost immediately. They had technology much like yours, and they knew the part I carried wasn't as it should be." Mike seemed to decide he could trust Josh alone with Khalil for the time being. He walked off down the cell block, surveying the other cells. "They took me prisoner and brought me here."
"It looks like they stopped somewhere along the way," Josh said.
Khalil nodded, wincing as the motion tugged at some of the cuts and bruises that covered his face. "The Magician.had many questions."
"What kind of questions?"
"Mostly about you and," Khalil nodded in Mike's direction, "your friend."
Mike returned after making a complete circuit of the cell block. "Vickie's not here," he said quietly.
"Did he say anything about Vickie?" Josh asked Khalil. "The other Jedi who was with us, the-"
"The Magician," Khalil said, "was more in a mood to ask questions than to answer them."
"This place is large enough there may be many of these cell blocks," Josh said to Mike. "And they would probably have a more secure area for interrogating high-value prisoners." If Khalil was offended at being called low-value he showed no signs of it.
"Can you feel her?" Mike asked.
Josh took a deep breath and closed his eyes. They opened again a few seconds later as he shook his head. "No," he said apologetically.
"Neither can I," Mike said. Then to forestall the obvious question, he added, "Even without my full Jedi powers I could usually feel her presence. It was the bond we shared."
"I'm sure you could, if she could open herself up to you enough for you to share her power."
Mike, tired of the subject, turned back to the man behind the bars. "Khalil, who are these people?" he asked, indicating the other cells. "They look like they've been here for months. I tried to talk to some of them, but I don't think they speak English."
"You are British," Khalil said. "Many of them would not speak to you even if they did. Even as Saddam's prisoners they blame your countries for the condition of theirs." He sighed. "Many of them have been here for months. These men built this place. Not for a job, you understand, but because other men forced them to, with guns. They were brought here from all over the country, whether they wanted to come or not. Their mothers and wives and daughters were threatened if they didn't cooperate, and those who tried to escape were forced to watch as the Magician's men proved they did not make idle threats." After a second's pause to acknowledge the disgust on Mike and Josh's faces, Khalil continued. "They were fed well, at first, to keep them strong for work, so many were glad to cooperate. They have told me that at first they ate like princes, far better than most in Iraq can dream of.
"Of course, as the project came to an end the food did not come as it had, and some began to understand that they had helped to build their own prison."
"But surely it took a lot more people than this to build something this size," Josh said.
Khalil barked out a sharp, caustic laugh. "These you see here," he said, "are the survivors. For most this place was not a prison, but a tomb."
"But why-" Mike began, but stopped when he saw that Khalil's eyes had gone wide in fear looking at something over Mike's shoulder.
Mike and Josh followed Khalil's eyes to see Darth Sahhar approaching from the far end of the cell block. Sahhar said nothing, but his eyes were fixed on Josh and Mike as he walked walked slowly and deliberately toward them. He was dressed again in a close fitting head-to-toe black combat suit and carried his unignited lightsaber loosely in his hand.
"Oh shit," Josh said.
"What is it with the Sith and black, anyway?" Mike asked.
"Have you seen your wardrobe lately?" Josh replied.
Khalil was shaking like a leaf now, backing away from the bars of his cell into the shadows at its rear. Several of the other prisoners were also moving farther into their cells, showing more life in their fear than they had in their indifference.
"We've got to get these people out of here," Mike said.
Josh looked around the door of Khalil's cell and noticed a metal bar than ran to the top of each cell door in the hallway, and then connected to a piece of machinery attached to the wall next to the cell. Mike kept his eyes on Sahhar as Josh ignited his lightsaber. He smashed the blue blade through the equipment on the wall, throwing a shower of sparks in every direction. A second slash sent an acrid smell into the air and some fluid running down the wall, and all the cell doors sprang open.
Sahhar continued his grim march toward the Terra Group agents, and as Josh turned back to face him again, he too lit his lightsaber. A feral grin spread across his face, with the red of his lightsaber reflecting on his teeth.
Not a single prisoner had moved.
"GO!" Josh shouted. "We'll protect you!"
Khalil was easily the most uninjured prisoner, and he also had the good fortune of having Josh and Mike standing between himself and Sahhar. After only a moment's hesitation he bolted from his cell and through the door the two agents had entered earlier. A few of his cellmates followed, joined by prisoners at the other end of the hallway behind Sahhar. In moments the hallway was a writhing mass of humanity as every cell emptied at once and the former prisoners pushed toward the doors at either end.
In the confusion Josh lost sight of Sahhar. When he next caught sight of him, the Sith was turning back toward the door at the opposite end of the hall, the one he'd come in through unobserved a moment earlier. His lightsaber flashed out, cleaving the nearest prisoner in half above the waist. Without even looking, Sahhar slashed the short-bladed lightsaber back and forth, into and through any flesh that got in its way. A chest was opened diagonally, a severed arm fell dully to the floor, a running prisoner fell on their knee as their shin fell in the opposite direction.
"Come on!" Josh said to Mike, and they set off after Sahhar. They pushed their way through the crowd of fleeing prisoners as best they could, but more than a hundred men were pushing the opposite direction so their progress was achingly slow. Even weakened from months of abuse and malnourishment they made up for in sheer numbers what they lacked in individual strength.
Sahhar had settled into a gruesome rhythm. A round overhand chop to the right curved around into an overhand chop to the left and so forth, continuously fueled by the momentum of his arm. Although the blade met flesh nearly every time it fell, it encountered nothing to slow its momentum. Sahhar progressed toward the exit not only by going in the same direction as the prisoners at his end of the hall, but also by separating the prisoners from any of their body parts that got in his way. A trail of lifeless and burned but oddly bloodless flesh followed in his wake.
Josh saw they wouldn't reach Sahhar before he reached the other doorway. Still he and Mike pushed through the running, shoving tangle of men as quickly as they could.
Sahhar reached the doorway at the end of the hall one step behind a fleeing prisoner. He twisted his lightsaber through three roughly diagonal slashes and the man fell to the floor screaming in pain. Sahhar lunged for something on the wall beside the opening, and a thick metal door with an equally thick window in the top slammed down from the ceiling. A thud from behind them told Josh and Mike the same thing had happened at the other end of the hall.
The human wave headed for the door abruptly halted and the stampeding prisoners exchanged dumbfounded looks ranging from confusion to renewed terror. Sahhar's face appeared in the window, split by a malicious grin of cruel glee. A moment later a soft hissing sound like air escaping from a leaky tire filled the cell block. Dozens of heads turned wildly, trying to find the source of the noise, but Josh spotted it instantly.
A cloud of green mist formed around the low ceiling and began to drift slowly lower. Josh drew in a deep breath and held it, drawing on the Force to extend the time before he would need another. The prisoners saw it, too, and pushed, shoved, and trampled one another in their panic to reach the closed doors at the ends of the cell block.
One look at Mike said he was almost ready to join them. His eyes were wide and his hands trembled even as he fought to remain as still and calm as possible. By holding his breath and not expending too much energy he might outlast the prisoners who were even now beginning to fall, but without the Force he would eventually succumb to their fate.
I said I would protect them, Josh thought. Even the ones who annoy the shit out of me. He wasn't sure he could share his connection to the Force with Mike the way Vickie did, but without it Mike had only moments to live. Josh reached down past his conscious mind and into his very soul, finding all the defenses he had built against Mike over the last year few weeks, all the resentment and all the irritation and all the anger. He picked them out and held them up to examine in the light, and then let them go like the mist falling around them. As they fell away he poured his own strength into reaching out to Mike in the Force and opening himself fully to the connection. He felt the moment that Mike reached back and accepted the lifeline of the Force like a drowning man in a choppy sea.
Josh felt Mike's presence in the Force blossom from the spark of an ordinary human to the flame of a Jedi as he used it to draw his final breath out beyond its physical limit. Mike nodded to him gratefully and he returned the gesture, neither foolish enough to risk words in their present situation.
Only a few seconds had passed but already the cell block was littered with bodies, and more joined them every moment. The few prisoners who remained alive were standing on the bodies of the dead piled up at the end of hallway, throwing themselves and each other at the impenetrable door that kept them contained in the prison turned slaughterhouse. Josh lit his lightsaber and threw his arm out to yank them away from the door with the Force. They fell among the corpses as he came to the door, raising his lightsaber straight out in front of him above his shoulder. He drove it with all his might at Sahhar's face in the wire-reinforced window separating them from the clean air outside the cellblock, but the blade bounced off without leaving so much as a chip in the glass.
Sahhar's cruel smile widened as Josh hacked futilely at the door, the window, the seal between the door and the wall, the ceiling, the floor, and any other potential source to draw fresh air in to the cell block. Then the point became moot as the last prisoner tried one last time to struggle to his feet before collapsing on the bodies of his fellows.
With no one left to save, Josh let his lightsaber hang loosely in his hand at his side and glared at Sahhar through the window. All of the hatred that burned within his heart he poured into his furious stare, imagined it burning the eyes right out of Sahhar's head. The young Sith just smiled all the more, and his apparent mirth only made Josh's fury burn hotter with each second. He knew he was being goaded, knew Sahhar was trying to make him angry, but he didn't care. Cool, calming feelings reached out to him from his connection to Mike, but he shut them out before they could take root.
Then Sahhar was gone from the window, disappearing off to the right side of the door and leaving Josh glaring at an empty space. When Sahhar didn't return he switched off his lightsaber and surveyed the cell block that was now a prison for only two men. The bodies, and cauterized body parts, of the original prisoners lined the hallway three deep in some places. Those who fell to Sahhar's energy blade were probably the lucky ones; the ones who had fallen victim to the gas died clawing at their throats and faces. Long scrapes and deep scratches oozed postmortem blood from those bodies.
After a few minutes of Josh and Mike contemplating ways to escape the cell block - silently, still, in case the gas was still in the air - the doors at either end slid open on their own. The Terra Group agents blinked at each other in surprise before rushing out the door Sahhar had escaped through. There was no sign on him in the hallway, of course, but Josh immediately turned in the direction he had gone.
"Those energy readings are this way," Mike said, pointing in the opposite direction.
"Sahhar went this way," Josh said simply.
For once, Mike didn't argue.