The door slid open, barely a crack and the EMP grenades flew in.
The explosions sent silent waves of electromagnetic energy rippling through the server room. Sparks showered from nearby electronic components. Lights flickered and died.
The militants rushed inside, weapons raised, ready for the fight of their lives.
They stopped.
The room was empty.
Nothing. No servers. Just bare walls and a cold floor, like an abandoned warehouse waiting for demolition.
Something was very wrong.
"Captain, we've been tricked!"
"Wait."
The captain's voice cut through the confusion. His head swiveled, scanning, calculating.
Then his eyes widened behind his visor.
"Not good. Retreat! Now!"
They spun toward the door, but the laser corridor had already changed.
Panels slid open in the walls on both sides. From the darkness beyond, new shapes emerged.
Rows upon rows of them.
Destroyer-class combat robots. The latest models.
"Destroyers!" someone shouted.
"Retreat! Fall back!"
Red laser beams filled the air.
These were not the movie versions, the ones that couldn't hit a stationary target at ten paces. These robots fired with cold, mechanical precision. Every shot found its mark.
The militants' expensive personal shields absorbed the hits, glowing bright with each impact.
Without them, every single soldier would have been dead in the first volley.
"Form a defensive line!" the captain ordered, diving behind cover. "Contact the drivers, tell them to prepare for extraction!"
The team moved like a well-oiled machine. They established a firing line, exchanging volleys with the Destroyers to slow the advance.
Meanwhile, the communications specialist patched through to their evacuation team outside.
"Dog, Dog, this is Bone. Please respond."
"Bone, Bone, this is Dog. Receiving."
"Dog, we've been ambushed! Get here now and pull us out!"
Outside, the pilot code-named "Dog" swallowed hard. He looked up.
A thousand meters above the High Claw building, the Star Destroyer hung in the sky like a metal thunderhead.
Its main cannons glowed with warm-up energy. Swarms of Hornet drones circled in holding patterns, jamming devices already active.
"Bone, Bone," Dog said carefully, "you've all turned into dumplings. There's no way through →_→"
The captain stared at the ceiling as if he could see the massive warship through all the floors and armor.
His expression was not surprised. It was resigned.
Before they came, they all knew this was a death mission. No one had said it aloud.
They had prepared contingencies for every scenario except the one where they simply weren't allowed to leave.
Now the truth was bare.
None of them were going home.
Death was not a possibility. It was a schedule.
✦••┈┈••✦••┈┈••✦
The captain reached into his pocket and pulled out a small detonator. He closed his eyes, his thumb hovering over the switch.
Thud.
He collapsed, unconscious.
The team froze. Standing behind the captain, one of the militants—Yam—lowered his fist. His knuckles were red.
"Yam! Why did you knock out the captain?!" someone screamed.
Yam's voice cracked with emotion. "I'm only twenty-five! I don't want to die!"
"This mission was never meant for us to survive!" another argued.
"So what? We've lived this long for this. It's our destiny." That was San Gou, his voice heavy with bitter acceptance.
A different voice cut through, Er Gou, shaking his head. "No. San Gou, you're wrong. No one is born to die."
"I want to live. Don't any of you feel the same?"
Silence fell over the team.
Unless they had been truly brainwashed, and none of them had no one actually believed they deserved to die.
The instinct for survival was universal, hardwired into every species in the galaxy.
"Er Gou," someone asked slowly, "what are you suggesting?"
Er Gou pointed toward the window, toward the Star Destroyer, toward the Hornets, toward the army of robots that surrounded them. "I want to surrender."
"Are you insane?"
"They'll never let us off easy."
"Even if we go to prison, our employer has ways to silence us."
Er Gou shook his head again. "No. Not to the authorities. To *him*. To the guy who runs High Claw."
Another pause. Then a new voice, skeptical: "Er Gou, we're just cannon fodder. Why would someone like that want us?"
Er Gou pointed at the Destroyers outside, then up at the sky. "Look at this. A Star Destroyer. Hornet drones. Destroyer robots."
"All unmanned. This king, he either really trusts machines, or he's short on manpower. Maybe both."
"How can we guarantee he'll trust us?"
Er Gou tapped his temple. "One chip. That's all it takes. A man who can build all this can certainly build something to keep us in line."
"Think about it, brothers. We're a solid special forces team. We've completed dozens of missions together with perfect coordination."
"If this weren't a suicide run, I wouldn't even be suggesting this."
His words landed hard.
Every mission before this, dangerous, had still offered a *chance*. A sliver of hope. But this raid was different.
It was a trap from the start, and they had walked right into it.
All of that, they might have survived.
But there was one thing Er Gou couldn't shake.
The lightsaber in the captain's hand.
Every civilized being in the galaxy knew: the lightsaber was synonymous with the Jedi.
A Jedi's weapon was never far from them, lost ones were always recovered. For their captain to possess one meant, beyond reasonable doubt, that a Jedi was dead.
And killing a Jedi was not just a crime. It was a curse.
There were rumors, whispered in dark corners, that Jedi could reach back from the afterlife. That they did not rest.
Er Gou looked at his brothers, seeing the same fear reflected in their eyes. "You all heard what that lightsaber means."
"I'm going to try to survive. Whatever you decide, I won't blame you."
He walked to the side of the room, laid down his weapon, and sat on the floor. Waiting.
The atmosphere turned heavy. The remaining militants exchanged glances, uncertain.
Then San Gou, the same one who had spoken of destiny, walked over to Er Gou. He glanced back at the others, then dropped his own rifle.
"I'm going to trust you," San Gou said. "Even though every time we play cards, you drive like a delivery droid."
He sat down beside Er Gou.
One by one, others followed. Rifles clattered to the floor. Armored figures sat in a loose semicircle, their weapons abandoned.
But not everyone.
A handful of militants refused. They looked at the Destroyers outside, then at their former comrades sitting on the floor, and shook their heads.
They would fight to the end.
They threw a final EMP grenade to slow the Destroyers' advance and sprinted toward the window.
Raising their rifles, they fired at the glass~
Crack. Crack. Crack.
The bullets ricocheted. The glass didn't even scratch.
The militants stared in confusion, wondering why their guns had betrayed them.
Then they looked down.
The floor beneath them had been a mirror all along. And in that mirror, they finally saw the truth.
Rows and rows of robots stood behind them, not just the Destroyers at the door, but an entire army. Hundreds of them.
Their red electronic eyes glowed with cold, mechanical indifference.
The militants who had chosen to fight never saw the shots that took them down.
Er Gou and San Gou watched their former comrades fall. They hugged each other tightly, too terrified to move, praying the robots wouldn't look at them.
The Destroyers surged forward, stepping over the bodies, and raised their weapons at the two remaining figures.
Er Gou closed his eyes.
This is it.
✦••┈┈••✦••┈┈••✦
About ten minutes later, several armed figures walked out of the ground floor of the High Claw building.
They moved quickly, climbed into several ordinary flying cars, and merged into the endless traffic of Coruscant.
The cars did not flee. They simply drove.
Inside one of them, Er Gou stared out the window at the glittering city. San Gou sat beside him, still pale.
Neither spoke.
Ahead of them, the traffic flowed on, oblivious to everything that had just happened.
And somewhere above, in the shadow of the Star Destroyer, a pair of unseen eyes watched them go.