STAR WARS: RETROSPECTION- Puppets

The sound crescendos as its source grows nearer.

Within moments, men in jumpsuits walk single file out of the maintenance shafts. They are workers on the Alpha Station. Some carry heavy tools, but most are unarmed.

They thump their boots against the floor or their hands and tools against the wall in rhythm, causing the Tap. Tap. Tap. to fill the room.

Their expressions are blank, their eyes rolled back into their heads, their jaws slack.

"What have you done to them?" Kay asks incredulously.

"They've joined with me," the Puppet Master says, folding his arms across his chest. "I give you the opportunity to do so willingly..."

Tanic smothers his fear with confidence in Kay. He tries to regulate his breathing enough to start moving again.

Kay takes a step back. Keeping her lightsaber pointed towards the Puppet Master, she offers you a spare hand.

"Are you alright, Tanic?" she asks. "Can you stand?"

"My offer stands!" the Puppet Master persists. "Will you join me?"

Kay shoots him a wary glare, then looks to you for your answer.

"Who - who is he?" Tanic gasps as he cluthces her hand to stand. "I won't surrender myself to him!"

"Nor will I," Kay responds, pulling you to your feet. "Now, do you think you can run?"

The workers weave their way around the room, keeping to the walls. Tap. Tap. Tap. Very soon they will have the entrance, and your exit.

"Shall we retreat?" Tanic asks, as he makes sure he can move upright.

You can move just fine, but you're somewhat out of breath.

"Absolutely," Kay says. "Go!"

With that, Kay pushes you towards the exit and starts running herself, evading the corpses of the Garel troopers on the floor.

Tanic runs, disigniting his lightsabre.

The Puppet Master laughs as you make a break for it. Kay uses the Force to activate the door mechanism, causing the blast door to slide away just as you reach it. You slip through before the workers have a chance to stop you.

But this does not deter them from giving chase. They become a wave of human bodies, throwing themselves down the stairs after you without a sound other than their heavy breathing.

"We have to get to the ship!" Kay shouts. She keeps her lightsaber out, keeping it pointed in front of her should anyone try to bar your progress.

Tanic follows close behind, attempting to use the Force to close any doors behind them.

It is difficult to focus on anything other than running, your head still swimming from the near-suffocation that the Puppet Master dealt you. Not a great many doors as there is, other than emergency blast doors that are operated in the control room...

You sprint down the stairwell that carries you to the lower levels of the Alpha Station, closely pursued by the silent workers. Ahead of you, more workers burst from behind doorways and leap out from behind machinery, trying to cut you off. Kay, still pulling you along, simply weaves through the masses until you reach the docking bay.

"Inside, quickly!" she says, shoving you towards the door as she turns towards the workers with her lightsaber.

Tanic runs into the ship, heading for the cockpit, to get it in ready for takeoff.

Kay steps in behind you and shuts the door. As soon as it closes, she sets to welding it closed with her lightsaber, melting the door into the frame. In the darkness of the icy hangar, the molten metal burns warm and bright.

She steps back to examine her handiwork. The door is thick; without blaster weapons or your noble weapons, the workers will not be able to breach it, and there are no maintenance entrances into the bay.

"We can't leave," Kay says. "Not yet."

"We should. Bring back reinforcements. Authorise stronger weapons."

Kay deactivates her lightsaber, replacing it at her belt.

"No," she says, firmly. "Destroying those that this Puppet Master has set against us is not the correct path. Can you not sense how horribly wrong this situation is?"

The workers claw and slam against the door, but they do not cry out or scream or make any other noise whatsoever. Eventually they give up, realizing that they will not be able to breach... and settle into the rhythmic Tap. Tap. Tap.

"What do you suggest, then, Master?" Tanic asks. His confidence is low: Jedi Knights aren't supposed to run away.

(Sorry about the ridiculously long time between posts, Rex.)

(No problem.)

Kay holds up a hand, as if pausing the conversation, and moves over to the starship you took to reach the Alpha Station. She goes through her equipment for a moment, eventually retrieving a cylindrical device. It has a grip at one end with an activator matrix, like a lightsaber, but the other end is a conical, perforated club.

"We must use nonlethal forms of subdual," Kay proposes. "These are innocents that this Puppet Master has corrupted! Do you have your pistols?"

Tanic produces them, his face set.
"What do you want me to do?"

"Can they be set for stun?"

Tanic thinks for a moment. "If you give me a moment, I can probably adjust the power cells."

I guess he takes some tools and quickly takes apart his pistols to expose the power source, then makes them less powerful...?