One Hundred and Thirty-Nine
Posted on Sat Oct 17th, 2026 @ 5:33pm by Darth Serus & Bomoor Thort & Mentis & FA-1S
Edited on on Sat Oct 17th, 2026 @ 6:18pm
4,508 words; about a 23 minute read
Chapter:
Chapter IX: The First Verse
Location: CEC Industrial Complex, Coronet, Corellia
Timeline: Evening (Local Time), Day Twenty-Two (concurrent and after "The Common Corellia")
“ZZRI…ATION: The Cresh-Nine corridor has been... zzzstricted. Proceed along Cr... zzzven...”
Mentis pressed the micro-earpiece further into his good ear and frowned.
"Faze, repeat that."
A burst of static answered him before the droid's voice returned.
"ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: The signal…zzz degraded. One moment."
The transmission disappeared entirely for several seconds. Mentis could hear only the distant thrum of machinery through the corridors around them as he hurried after his companions.
Then, a beat later:
"CONFIRMATION: Signal adjusted," FA-1S returned. "Interference levels throughout the facility are considerably higher than projected. Communication quality should now be improved."
Improved was perhaps a generous assessment, but at least the words were mostly recognisable.
"REPETITION: The Cresh-Nine corridor has been restricted. Proceed via Cresh-Seven. ADDENDUM: The Jawa Reave has now disabled several security-card verification panels further ahead. You should pass through them before the system initiates a hard reset."
Mentis nodded to himself, immediately realising the droid neither saw nor likely cared.
"Understood."
Ahead of him, Bomoor and Serus continued striding through the corridor without breaking pace.
All three had abandoned their usual attire in favour of inconspicuous civilian clothing. Long business-style tunics in muted corporate colours concealed their builds well enough amongst the thousands of workers moving throughout the industrial complex, whilst slightly looser cuts around the waist and sleeves helped disguise equipment that no legitimate employee should have been carrying.
Serus wore a tall hood, concealing his facial modifications as best as he could in darkness. Bomoor left his face uncovered, though his cold-focussed gaze and surprisingly vigorous pace for an Ithorian made his disguise just as unconvincing as Serus’. Mentis looked considerably less conspicuous than either of them as he followed behind and, fortunately, most passers-by seemed too occupied with their own business to pay the trio any attention.
"Cresh-Seven," Mentis called. "Faze says the original route's blocked."
Bomoor glanced upwards at the illuminated junction marker approaching ahead.
"That’s coming up on the right," the Ithorian remarked, "We’ll peel off and pick up the route from there. Anything else?"
Mentis echoed Faze’s warning:
“Reave has disabled the security access in the corridor but it won’t hold for long before the system resets. We should...”
He broke off mid-sentence. Ahead, Bomoor and Serus subtly adjusted their pace, having sensed it too.
A short humanoid rounded the corner from a corridor on the left. The approaching employee barely looked at them as she continued towards the opposite junction carrying a datapad beneath one arm.
Mentis heard a burst of static.
"REQUEST: Clarify situation," FA-1S requested. "Your walking speed has decreased by twelve percent."
The worker's eyes flicked briefly towards Mentis.
He immediately looked away.
"Not now," He hissed.
The woman gave him an odd look before continuing on her way.
A few seconds passed and they were safely alone again.
"Why," Mentis asked quietly, "Am I the only one wearing the earpiece?"
Bomoor didn't even turn around.
"Because my ears don’t fit the earpiece and it doesn’t play nicely with Serus’ implants.”
Mentis frowned, vaguely remembering something about that when the earpiece had been thrust at him on the Raptor.
“Yes, right…”
"I have quite enough machinery attached to my skull," Darth Serus observed, his synthesised voice kept as deliberately low as the mask would permit.
The corridor narrowed ahead, terminating at a reinforced security door set between two polished sections of durasteel wall. A pair of inactive card readers flanked the entrance, their displays dark.
All three slowed.
There was a moment of uncertainty as Bomoor reached out a hand towards the door plate.
“Right then,” Bomoor rumbled, “Let’s see if he managed it.”
Bomoor pushed.
The door swung inward immediately without challenge.
"He’s pretty good," Mentis observed, allowing a small smile to creep across his face.
"I never doubted it," Bomoor replied, tone unconvincing.
The earpiece crackled.
"QUERY: Has the security door failed to open?"
Mentis rolled his eyes.
"No. It’s fine. We’ll keep moving"
They slipped through the doorway before the opportunity could vanish.
Beyond, the nature of the facility began to change.
The heavy industrial atmosphere of the manufacturing levels gradually faded behind them. The constant vibration of massive machinery became more distant with every step, replaced by quieter ventilation systems and the muted hum of climate controls hidden behind pristine wall panels.
The corridor itself began to gently climb. Long transparisteel windows appeared intermittently along one wall, revealing glimpses of the vast industrial complex below. Freight movers crawled between massive assembly halls whilst suspended transport lines threaded through the enormous structures like veins in a living body.
Unlike the bare utility corridors they had traversed thus far, this section was noticeably cleaner, brighter and considerably more expensive. Decorative lighting lined the ceiling, corporate artwork adorned the walls and the floor beneath their boots no longer showed decades of industrial wear.
Bomoor glanced upward at the nearest sign.
EXECUTIVE ADMINISTRATION
--
STRATEGIC OPERATIONS DIVISION
--
SENIOR MANAGEMENT SUITES
"Looks like we're getting close," he murmured.
Somewhere on this level lay the executive offices, which Faze had identified as the most effective point from which to cripple this branch of the cult's operations.
They knew nothing of how the cult operated here or who was orchestrating it. Only that enough cultists, resources and influence seemed to be converging here that dismantling their operation here could permanently cripple the cult’s ability to recover from their recent losses.
The thought should have brought Mentis some comfort, knowing that he might finally see the end of those that controlled his life for so many years. Yet something weighed heavily in his mind:
Axion would never allow it.
"Faze," he whispered, retreating to the task at hand.
The earpiece responded immediately.
"ACKNOWLEDGEMENT."
Mentis looked along the corridor ahead and the rows of offices branching off on either side.
"We're entering the executive section."
“INSTRUCTION: Good.” The unit replied, “Now, the office you are looking for is that of the Chief Operations Officer. The terminal there has the highest correlation of key-word data parsing in the facility. If you arrive within forty-five seconds, you will synchronise with Reave's distraction with approximately ninety-one-percent accuracy.”
Serus' attention shifted from Mentis towards the corridor ahead as Faze supplied the final direction. Forty-five seconds was little enough time without wasting any of it in discussion, and the three of them continued through the increasingly refined administrative levels at the same purposeful pace they had maintained since leaving the industrial floors below.
Whatever Reave had prepared elsewhere in the complex began almost precisely when promised. The first indication was not an explosion, nor anything sufficiently dramatic to distinguish itself from the ordinary violence of heavy industry. Somewhere beneath them, a warning tone sounded through the structure, followed by another from a different direction and then the distant grinding complaint of freight machinery being brought unexpectedly to a halt. Through the broad internal windows overlooking the lower manufacturing levels, Serus caught sight of one automated cargo train stopping midway across an elevated guideway while several loaders beneath it froze in place, forcing workers to scatter around a rapidly developing obstruction.
A pair of private security personnel waiting beside the next executive junction reacted almost immediately. One raised a hand to the communicator against his ear, listened for only a few seconds and then departed with his companion towards the nearest bank of lifts.
Neither gave the three strangers approaching from the opposite direction more than a passing glance.
Serus watched them disappear.
"Subtle," he remarked. "For Reave."
The door ahead released before they reached it. One of the access readers beside the frame was dark, while its companion displayed a harmless green authorisation signal entirely inconsistent with the fact that none of them had presented credentials. Serus allowed Bomoor to pass through first before following, the Ithorian's bulk briefly filling the doorway while Mentis slipped through behind them and the panel closed once again.
The administrative section beyond bore little resemblance to the working complex through which they had entered. The corridor was broad and unusually quiet, its walls broken at intervals by transparisteel panels overlooking both the shipyards below and the industrial district beyond them. Decorative illumination replaced the exposed utility fixtures of the lower levels, while recessed displays carried CEC production figures, historical imagery and carefully curated scenes of Corellian commercial achievement. The air itself seemed cleaner, cooler and deliberately removed from the smells of hot metal, lubricants and thousands of workers that permeated the manufacturing floors.
It was not yet the rarefied territory of the corporation's highest executives. The offices here were functional rather than palatial, occupied by senior administrators, logistics directors and departmental managers whose authority extended across portions of the immense complex without placing them amongst the handful of individuals who actually controlled it.
More importantly, Faze's analysis suggested that one of those offices contained what they needed. The door identified by the droid bore the restrained designation of an operations director whose name meant nothing to them. It opened under Reave's compromised access without resistance.
The office within was empty. Someone had left hurriedly enough that a half-drunk cup remained upon the edge of the desk and a jacket hung over the back of one chair. Three broad information panes floated above the primary workstation, displaying freight allocations, personnel rosters and a shifting sequence of production schedules which looked entirely mundane until one remembered how much of Axion's organisation had apparently disappeared into precisely such mundanity.
Serus entered and moved immediately towards the windows rather than the terminal. From this height, the demonstrations below could be seen far more clearly than they had through the enclosed corridors. Rival masses occupied several adjoining plazas and transport approaches around the industrial complex, the colours and banners of Coalition and Centrality supporters divided by lines of Corellian security which appeared increasingly thin against the numbers pressing around them. Traffic had ceased along two of the broad avenues nearest the complex and several trams stood motionless at stations that should have been disgorging evening commuters. Blue-white flashes occasionally punctuated the crowds where stun weapons were being discharged, while news drones hovered above the disorder at carefully calculated heights.
Bomoor and Mentis also entered, the former drifting over to examine the nameplate and credentials on the office wall, while the latter beelined for the terminal on the desk.
Sliding himself into the desk chair and centring it with the middle screen, Mentis tapped the terminal to wake it and found that the owner had left it unlocked.
"Good news. It's already logged in," Mentis announced, wrenching into his pocket to produce the small interface spike Faze had asked G2 to synthesise, "We won't need to use the password decrypter first so can skip straight to the data upload."
Faze's voice echoed back, slightly drier than usual, "QUERY: Is this what passes for security in your era? You have all these new encryptions yet lack the awareness to utilise them."
Mentis waited and Bomoor turned to look at him, raising an eye muscle slightly as though to query what was happening.
The droid's voice returned.
"CONFIRMATION: I am now ready for data upload. Mentis, please insert the data spike."
The Rattataki complied and slid the metallic spike into the interface ring, which accepted it without resistance and it rotated into its locked position with a gentle click.
Outside the layered window, the muted sounds of a disturbance were just becoming barely audible and the Force users could sense the rising tension.
Serus stepped aside from the workstation, leaving Mentis access to it and allowing the earpiece connection to Faze to become the more important instrument in the room.
"Tell your machine," Serus said, the faintest emphasis placed upon the possessive for Mentis' benefit, "that Reave has delivered his opportunity."
His gaze moved once more towards the apparently mundane schedules and account structures hovering over the desk.
"Let us see what CEC has actually been moving."
Mentis frowned and wrestled the earpiece out before setting it down.
"Hold on, why don't you speak to him directly," he answered.
Adjusting a small switch on the earpiece, the light hum of the comm became audible to the whole room.
"Faze, did you hear that?" Mentis queried, "Sounds like Reave has initiated his first distraction in the industrial complex. Are you monitoring it?"
Faze replied immediately, although he was a little sharper than default, "CLARIFICATION: This unit is currently focussed on the data stream you are transmitting. PRIMARY ANALYSIS: This is indeed the terminal that has been routing all the data but it is, in reality being used as a relay node for another terminal in the building. SPECULATION: It is unlikely this terminal's owner is even aware of the transmissions being routed through."
Bomoor loomed closer, having concluded his inspection of the nameplate.
"I would agree," he hummed thoughtfully, "Unless our cult conspirator is masterminding as a mid-level data analyst, it doesn't feel like we've found our target. I do not sense the touch of the cult on anything in this room."
Mentis thought for a moment, reaching out himself for a moment, wondering if he could sense anything Bomoor could not. The Rattataki had, after all, known Axion's ways for most of his life unlike the Ithorian or his Human companion.
The administrative systems around them continued operating with the calm indifference of a corporation too large to recognise the significance of any single room. Workers moved through adjoining corridors carrying datapads and sealed cases, doors opened and closed under ordinary authorisation and the building's ventilation continued its almost inaudible circulation of conditioned air. Whatever Faze was extracting from the terminal remained invisible to the wider facility, and Reave's manufactured disruption below seemed to have settled comfortably into the category of industrial inconvenience.
Outside, however, Corellia was becoming less cooperative. One of the security lines bordering the western transit approach suddenly bowed backwards beneath a concentrated surge from the crowd. The motion travelled through the mass of demonstrators like pressure through liquid, compressing those nearest the barricades until banners dipped, bodies disappeared from view and several officers were forced to abandon their positions simply to avoid being swallowed by it. Another contingent of security personnel moved in from an adjoining plaza, shields raised, only for a second crowd to begin pressing towards them from the opposite direction.
Something flew. At this distance, the trio could not identify it, as it then struck amongst the security line. The flash that followed was considerably brighter than a stun discharge and a portion of the crowd recoiled violently, then surged again with renewed fury.
Mentis' trace broke as he was drawn back into the heaving mass of violence that sat outside the windows.
Bomoor pushed forward, resting a hand on Mentis' shoulder for just a moment as he passed to look out of the window. Mentis was not sure what it meant - the Ithorian's actions had been more erratic of late but perhaps he had intended to steady his troubled mind. But the moment passed as quickly as it came.
"We seem to have arrived at the boiling point of this unrest," Bomoor noted, before adding, "As ever."
Serus' organic eye remained fixed upon the avenues beneath them, making no comment.
The first audible change inside the building followed less than ten seconds later. A low tone sounded throughout the administrative level, smooth and almost courteous despite the urgency it represented. Several wall displays changed simultaneously, replacing corporate notices with an amber security instruction informing personnel that all non-essential movement between operational sectors had been suspended. Employees were ordered to remain within their assigned departments until further notice and to present identification upon request.
A second message followed almost immediately. Western access had been closed and several transport links had been suspended. Private security personnel were now being redeployed internally to support site control.
Serus turned slowly from the window. Until that moment, three figures moving purposefully through CEC's enormous administrative network had been merely three amongst thousands. Reave had removed the obstacles that might otherwise have forced closer scrutiny and Faze had guided them along routes selected specifically to avoid concentrated security.
Now, nobody was supposed to be moving at all, and footsteps approached along the corridor outside.
Serus' attention shifted towards the door before the figures became visible through its narrow transparisteel panel. Three CEC security personnel were advancing towards the office, their dark armour considerably cleaner than that worn by the exhausted public-order officers outside and their equipment carrying the expensive, angular lines increasingly associated with the likes of GalactaWerks manufacture.
Serus stepped away from the window and allowed the hood to settle further across the respirator and external photoreceptor beneath it. Bomoor remained nearby, neither man making any obvious move towards the weapons concealed beneath their civilian clothing.
The door opened. The first contractor was Human, perhaps in his forties, broad enough that the armour sat naturally across his shoulders. His eyes travelled quickly over the room before settling upon the three visitors.
"Evening." The politeness carried no warmth. "Site movement restrictions are now in effect. I need to see your identification before anyone leaves this office."
A second Human remained near the doorway, already removing a compact verification unit from his belt, whilst third stood slightly behind him. Unlike the others, he was not looking at Serus - his attention had settled upon Mentis, and then onto Bomoor.
The change in him was minute enough that an ordinary observer might have missed it entirely. His shoulders did not tense and his hand did not reach immediately for a weapon. There was simply a momentary stillness, followed by the careful redirection of his gaze back towards the Rattataki.
Serus felt something else within the man - recognition. It was not certainty yet, perhaps, but enough.
The private contractor nearest the desk extended his hand expectantly. "Identification, please."
Behind him, the third man's fingers began moving towards the communicator at his collar. Serus killed him before they reached it.
There was no warning movement and no spoken threat. The Force closed around the man's cervical spine with abrupt, concentrated pressure and twisted. Bone broke with a hard internal crack, his head jerking violently to one side as every trace of strength disappeared from his body. He collapsed where he stood, armour striking the floor heavily enough that the verification unit in his companion's hand dipped instinctively towards him.
Serus killed that man, as well. The second security officer had scarcely begun turning when another invisible grip seized him beneath the jaw and snapped his neck backwards with considerably more force than the first required. His blaster cleared its holster by perhaps two centimetres before his fingers relaxed around it, and he folded onto the polished floor beside his superior.
The third was already moving. Serus sensed the man's awareness sharpen in the same instant his own power reached for him, crude resistance gathering around the security officer's throat before the invisible pressure could settle properly into place. The apparent cultist recoiled hard, one arm rising instinctively across his chest whilst the other tore his weapon free, his connection to the Force neither strong nor refined enough to challenge Serus but sufficient to buy him the fraction of a second the other two had never possessed.
Serus did not attempt the same attack twice, though. His right hand swept sharply across his body and the Force followed the movement with overwhelming violence.
The Cultist left his feet and he travelled sideways across the office with enough speed that he had no opportunity to turn before his face struck the reinforced wall panel. The impact shattered bone with a wet, ugly report that carried through the otherwise immaculate room, his skull rebounding from the surface before the rest of his body crumpled beneath it. Blood spread across the pale material where his face had struck, and the weapon dropped from his hand several moments after he did.
The entire exchange had consumed only seconds, and Serus remained motionless afterwards, his raised hand gradually lowering whilst the respirator continued its measured mechanical rhythm beneath the hood. His attention settled upon the last man rather than the two dead contractors nearest him, searching through the rapidly fading presence for any doubt about what he had sensed.
There was none, though; one of Axion's adherents had been standing inside CEC security armour.
Serus stepped towards the fallen Cultist and regarded the ruin of his face without any obvious reaction. Whatever position the man had occupied inside the organisation, he had known enough to recognise at least two members of the Red Raptor crew on sight and possessed sufficient Force sensitivity to respond to an attack before it had fully formed. That made his placement within the private security force considerably more than opportunistic camouflage. The corporation had clearly not merely been infiltrated from above.
The Sith's gaze shifted once towards Mentis before returning to the ruined Cultist against the wall. "They recognised you," he said. "And they knew to look for an Ithorian with such a Rattataki, too."
Mentis was already on his feet, hand lingering over the spot of his concealed lightsaber, while Bomoor slid forward and arched over as he regarded the fallen men.
"A pity about the other two," he spoke the words, although seemed merely to be going through the motions, "I don't think they knew their companion was anything other than another employee. Still..."
He brought himself upright and eyed Serus' golden organic eye, "...there was no time to explain the situation and it is paramount that we maintain our subterfuge."
He stepped over to the bloodied armour of the deceased, concealed cultist and stretched out his fingers, manipulating what threads of the Force still clung to the body.
"Seems like a fledgeling acolyte," the Ithorian announced dismissively, "Either inexperienced or with low Force sensitivity. They could be hiding people like this all through the complex. Who knows how many?"
There was a faint chirrup from the earpiece on the desk.
"ANSWER: This unit knows.
All heads turned to the tiny object in synchrony.
"ELABORATION: Filtering out legitimate employees, there are one hundred and thirty nine staff members that this unit has flagged as cult operatives or supporting acolytes. One hundred and forty if I am incorrect in my assumption that you just terminated one individual on the list."
Mentis seemed to keep shifting his expression between concern and confusion.
"None of the enclaves have anywhere near that number of members," he gripped at the fabric of the office chair and pushed it in towards the desk, "Even if you count the thralls, we would never gather above twenty people in one place."
Serus received the figure with little outward reaction, although its implications were considerable. A hundred and thirty-nine suspected adherents would have constituted an extraordinary gathering within any of the enclaves they had encountered, yet their presence here was not necessarily evidence of an organisation growing in strength. Quite the contrary. For months, the crew of the Red Raptor had dismantled the Cult's sanctuaries, eliminated its servants and interrupted the peculiar arrangements through which Axion sustained his influence. The Jedi, too, had allegedly inflicted their own damage elsewhere. It was entirely conceivable that the concentration here represented the consequence of those successes, with surviving personnel and resources gathered into fewer, more defensible institutions. There was some vindication in that, although Serus found himself increasingly preoccupied with the greater revelation.
Tibanna and ersatz Kaiburr crystals on Bespin, political manipulation on New Alderaan and Corulag, the extraordinary reach of their influence throughout Hutt Space and the Outer Rim, and now this vast industrial concern on Corellia. What had once appeared to be disparate enterprises were becoming recognisable as components of something considerably more extensive, even though they had always suspected this and Mentis had indicated as such. It was an unsettling prospect, not least because so much of it appeared capable of operating without the immediate supervision of a priest, prophet or warrior. The destruction of another enclave would mean little if the financial and industrial apparatus seemingly responsible for sustaining the Cult remained intact. They could not afford to leave Corellia having merely added another collection of bodies to their victories. It also made his own paltry efforts with the likes of Sleheyron seem pale by comparison.
His attention wandered from the terminal towards an ornamental sculpture occupying a recessed alcove along the opposite wall. It was an expensive-looking piece, fashioned from polished black stone and worked metal, its abstract contours apparently intended to suggest some lofty corporate virtue or commemorate an important achievement in Corellian engineering. Yet there was something disagreeably familiar about the arrangement of its forms, the peculiar relationship between the ascending shapes and the spaces deliberately preserved between them. Serus studied it more carefully, his remaining organic eye narrowing beneath the shadow of his hood. He had seen something remarkably similar amongst the carvings and ritual ornamentation of the Cult's previous establishments, where such arrangements had possessed an altogether different significance. Here, divorced from their religious context and presented as fashionable decoration, they might have attracted no more attention than the commendations and historical photographs adorning the surrounding walls. Whether the office's legitimate occupant understood the resemblance was impossible to determine. Perhaps he had purchased it without appreciating its significance, or perhaps the sculpture had been placed there by somebody who understood it perfectly. Either possibility spoke to the extent to which the organisation had insinuated itself into the ordinary workings of the corporation.
The Sith Lord turned from the sculpture and considered the comparatively modest office once more, recognising the absurdity of imagining that an undertaking of this complexity could have been orchestrated by some obscure administrator amongst CEC's innumerable middle managers. The resources required to accommodate so many people, manipulate personnel assignments, move extraordinary quantities of equipment and conceal the financial arrangements underpinning it all demanded influence at a considerably higher level. There would be directors, financial officers and senior executives whose authority extended well beyond the manufacturing complex itself, and somewhere amongst them, perhaps even above them, somebody had permitted Axion's servants to build their machinery into the corporation's own. Whoever possessed that authority represented a far more valuable target than the hundred and thirty-nine individuals identified by Faze. Serus returned his gaze towards the workstation, the measured respiration of his mask momentarily the only sound he contributed to the room.
"Whoever is responsible for this operates considerably higher than the owner of this office," he observed at last, knowing full well the others would have made the same deduction. "Let us find and end them quickly. I have no intention of allowing everything we have accomplished to be undone by a bureaucrat."
TBC
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