We made it back to base in one piece despite several close calls on the winding roads. We made it back into the main room to find Talen standing beside an officer, who turned to face us when we entered. Talen smiled at us and gestured to the man with a sweeping motion of his hand, "Allow me to introduce Major Jarrus Venn. Major, allow me to introduce Breaker Squad of the Coruscant Guard."

Major Venn was an average-sized man, middle-aged, unassuming, clean-shaven face. If the rumors I had heard about him were correct, he was also a Seppie - or he was at one point. By that point, all I knew was that he was pinned up in Republic Intelligence, and if he was somewhere, so were the Seppies. He stood beside Talen by the holomap and was pointing something out when the Beroyas and my squad walked through the entrance of the building. Talen turned to face me at the same time as Venn.

"I see you found our Mandos," Talen grinned as Orar passed him by and messed up his hair.

"Quite the little party you have going on here..." Grek nodded slowly as he moved up beside Red at the table.

"Allow me to elaborate on the situation at hand..." before Talen finished, a Magnaguard appeared from the tent flap and I am ninety percent sure everyone in there had a gun trained on it in the first second we noticed it. It made no move to attack or even defend itself, it just looked at all of us and stood there before its eyes went to Venn. "...but not before I introduce his rather interesting friend, IG-198."

"He prefers the name Izvoshra," Venn supplied and the droid made its way across the room and settled silently behind him like a massive looming metal shadow. "He's with me by choice."

"Wasn't aware clankers had choices," Grek growled as we all begrudgingly holstered our weapons.

The droid fixed him in its gaze, "I was unaware that Clones had any either."

Grek looked ready to shoot the droid had Talen not intervened, "Alright, enough of that. We have a mission to do."

"Apologies, Master Jedi," Izvoshra replied with an incline of its head before he fixated its eyes back on us. The lack of trust between everyone in that room was palpable.

Venn coughed and stepped forward, glancing briefly at us before he pointed to the point on the map where Kote and Orar had shown us the entrance earlier, "We are well aware of a mining operation occurring here being performed by the CIS. We think they're attempting to find a deposit of fuel of some kind to power new designs for droids. They were beginning to develop them before I left."

"These droid designs were brought to our attention by Major Venn," Talen began as he pulled them up onscreen with a flick of his wrist. They were in the prototype phase, but they would be no less deadly in practice if they were anything to go by. The things were behemoths, and the amount of power needed to keep them running was going to be insane. "The power needed to make these droids work for extended periods is immense," Talen put a voice to what we were all thinking. "They'll be needing something that works for extended durations at high capacities, and we believe that this mining operation is where it is all beginning."

Trill had entered the room while he was speaking and stepped up beside him with a confident smile as he pointed to one of the entrances. "This," he began, "is where most of the activity is going on. We've labeled it Mine Number Eight. According to locals, it was abandoned almost a decade ago when the mine was stripped. They have absolutely no idea what's going on or what the Seppies are looking for."

"That's where we're going," Talen nodded and looked around at us. "We'll be departing tomorrow morning at daybreak. May the Force be with us."

Talen departed with Trill and left us in the room with Venn, who turned his attention to us. "I know you don't trust me," he began as he shut off the holoprojector, "but I'm hoping that Padawan Jall's faith in me gives you a little bit of security."

"Not really," Red admitted with a forced smile.

"Seppies aren't on my list of people to trust," Tor also narrowed his eyes at Venn as Grek nodded in agreement.

Venn frowned and turned to Izvoshra, "Listen, I'm Onderonian before I'm a Separatist. I wouldn't even call myself a Separatist, honestly. I fought where Onderon told me to fight, but when y senator was murdered, things changed. This war wasn't for Onderon. It was for an oligarchy that was getting something out of it."

"Look who's being noble," Grek leered and Venn narrowed his eyes at him.

"Don't stand there and pretend that you're any different from me, Clone. Talk about how great the Republic is all you want. Orn Free Taa still grows fat while is people are sold into slavery by Hutts and Zygerrians, you have a whole faction of slavering warmongers that oppose peace talks whenever they happen, and last I checked... Kamino is getting rich on selling glorified slave soldiers." That last part stung, but Venn said nothing else as he gestured for Izvoshra to follow him from the room.

Tor clenched a fist beside me, and under his breath, I heard him murmur, "We are not slaves."

For a second, I had to wonder if he was right or not. Sometimes it was hard to tell.

*

We had all awoken a lot earlier than I think we meant to, and before long we were all assembled in the hangar waiting for Talen. Even Venn had shown up early with three droids in tow. A B1 and B2 stood behind him arguing quietly while Izvoshra stood next to him, its red lenses surveying the room and its head on a constant swivel. Trill and the others had shown up just after us and were standing in a small pod to our left. They ran through gear checks in silence, and I saw Cobalt shoot us a look before he put his helmet on. I had no idea what it was about, but Trill caught it too and rolled his eyes before he flipped his helmet in his hands and put it on with a flex of his shoulders. Even the Beroyas had shown up. Kote and Orar had moved to stand by us, but they kept to themselves. It didn't take a genius to feel them eyeing up Venn and his droids from across the room.

No one spoke to each other. It wasn't coming out of animosity so much as it was anticipation. There was a palpable feeling in the air that was often the case before missions, and when Talen showed up, it was as if it intensified. He showed up in armor with his lightsaber clipped to his side. Much to my surprise, he had a helmet up under his arm, and I glanced between his own and the markings on the helmets of Jent squad. They looked like Zabrak tattoos all painted in the bronze-rust that the legion seemed to have picked out as their official color scheme.

"Nice helmet," I gestured to it with my chin when Talen arrived and he smiled.

"Painted it to look like Master Kolar," he smiled and held it up for us to see. Dotted lines across the cheeks, between the brow and up the forehead, and an arch around what would be the hairline, all topped off my jagged points to show where horns would be. "I thought it was cool. He thought it was funny," he shrugged before he looked over his shoulder at Trill. "You ready?"

Trill nodded, "Always."

Talen stepped into the semi-circle we had formed and looked around to be sure everyone was there, "Alright. Today we make a move on Mine Number 8. We have a lot of ground to cover, so we'll get moving out as soon as we wrap up here. Our mission today is to infiltrate and figure out precisely what it is that the Separatists are looking for here on Zeffo. Major?"

"Scout report that the area is quiet for now. Don't know how much longer that'll last," Venn supplied after a brief consultation with the B1 droid behind him.

"Alright," Talen nodded and then turned to us, "Cobalt, Kando, Trill - you three will be coming with me once our boots hit the ground. The rest of you will hang back with Major Venn. His security is the top priority on this Op. Seku," he turned to the Twi'lek and her crew, "I need you to run sabotage."

The rest of the Clones seemed beyond unhappy with the development, but no one argued, much to my surprise. Seku relayed her orders to the team in Ryl, and Talen put on his helmet before he nodded at us to get moving. We all piled into a transport ship manned by none other than Hipshot and began making our way to a hill some distance away from the mine that was to be our LZ.

We dropped down onto the hill and broke into our teams. We were following behind Talen as we made our way into the mine shaft, and before long we were finding ourselves in one of the main personnel areas. It was eerily quiet and the soft glow of the red backup lights gave an ominous feel as we walked our way through the seemingly silent halls. Talen finally held up a hand as we hit the doorway into the room which had once been used for storing massive amounts of mined ore. For a moment, none of us quite knew why they stopped until the slow creaking of droid joints.

We snapped into action. Talen ignored his lightsabers and the green lit up the dark room. He burst ahead of us, batting away blaster bolts and the like as we sprinted along behind him with blasters at the ready. We were making short work of them, all things considered, and when we really looked at it, there weren't many of them to begin with. Trill was keeping close to Talen like I was, but Cobalt had broken away and was taking care of any of them that tried to pull a flank. Cobalt was more than impressive in action. There were some Clones that seemed to have been born and bred to be ARCs, and he was one of them. He had all of the clankers down before we even finished clearing the hill, and he glanced back over his shoulder at us with a nod, "Done."

"Nice work," Talen nodded, and I could almost see the ARC swell with pride at the compliment.

Talen motioned for us to wait and went on ahead, leaving us in the room with the droid bodies. Trill looked over at me and then at Cobalt, "Does anyone feel like that was too easy?"

Cobalt nodded slowly and unholstered his DC-17s again, "Yeah. Yeah, I do."

I followed suit, "Think we just waltzed into a trap?"

"Wouldn't be the first time," Cobalt sounded more exhausted than anything else.

Talen stopped a couple of yards ahead of us and I saw his thumb go to the switch of his lightsaber. "Everyone... move back. Now."

We were lucky we moved when we did of the spider droid that crashed through the ceiling would have been a bigger problem than it already was. Trill groaned beside me, "There's always a bigger Clanker!"

"Pretty decent rule to follow," I replied with a laugh as I saw Talen ignite his lightsaber and give me a look that told me he was about to do something slightly drastic.

Sure enough, he bolted forward and slid underneath the droid, taking a swing at its legs. The sound of ray shielding being smacked made all of us collectively groan as Talen slid up in front of us and stood up, taking up a defensive spot between us and the droid. He was managing to deflect most of its bolts, but he was getting that look on his face that made us realize that this wasn't going to be easy. I finally saw him lower his lightsaber and turn it off as the spider droid began to charge up a shot.

"Kid, what are you doing?" I shouted as he clipped it back to his belt.

"Tal!" Cobalt screamed as the laser began to glow a bright red on the front of the droid's snout.

There was a beat of silence as we all watched him reach out with his arms and the droid began to shake. It beeped nervously as its top began to spin about and attempted to find out what was happening. The droid began to lift off the ground as Talen raised his arms. I could see him straining to keep the droid in the air as he snarled out, "Hit the eye!"

I reached and grabbed my rifle off my back, took aim, and shot. The glass dome around the eye shattered under the impact and the droid made a groan as Talen dropped his arms and let the hulking menace collapse to the floor with a dying whine. Talen staggered slightly before he looked at us, "We need to find the others."

The mining tunnels were a maze, but the one good part was that they were essentially unchanged from the old holomaps we had, and despite the slippery slopes and mildly dangerous drop-offs, the going wasn't terrible. More than once Trill swore when his foot hit an icy patch, and more than once Talen had to catch one of us who slipped with his magical Force powers to keep us from careening over into an endless pit of darkness. Finally, the cave walls were showing signs of opening up.

We ran into the opening and found the second group finishing off their own clanker problem. My eyes went first to the battle droids that belonged to Venn. They had formed up back to back with Grek and Kote, of all people, and were blasting the droidekas off cliffs from afar. The B1 was calling out firing angles for the B2 and for Grek, who was using a rocket launcher to take care of the ones on the other side. Meanwhile, the others were taking care of the more immediate problem.

Izvoshra and Red were handling the close quarters combat along with Cube and Vex while Umbra finished off any snipers with his own rifle. I didn't see any sign of Seku and her people until I saw explosions in distant tunnels and the Twi'leks emerge from the rubble looking rather pleased with themselves as Talen broke off and began leaping up onto the upper levels of questionable looking stone to start helping clear out unwanted guests up above.

My attention had gone back to Izvoshra as we ran to help, however. The droid moved with the grace of a predator, and I couldn't deny that there was a part of me that was wholly impressed by that. The standard run of the mill droids didn't stand a chance against this optimized murder machine that was spinning a vibrostaff at them. Even Venn was putting an effort in, more than most non-Clone officers I had known, and he was keeping pace with us at the least and stuck close to his droid.

The thing that got all of us was watching Talen slide down from one of the icy slopes overhead and launch himself directly over a droid. With one smooth motion, he cleaved its head from its shoulders and hit the ground straight on his feet. The way he wheeled around with his saber was almost like watching someone dance. The kid had gotten a lot better since Ryloth, I had to give him credit.

"What in the hell was that?" Orar shouted as the last of the droids fell bleeping to the floor.

"An ambush," Izvoshra replied flatly as it disengaged its vibrostaff and turned to Venn. "Major, I will continue to scour the perimeter for any signs of more intruders."

"Good. Take Clank and Arevee with you," Venn nodded at the droid and it slinked off to join the B2 and the B1 waiting off towards the one tunnel where all three of them vanished when the IG arrived. Venn turned back to us and then looked at the collapsed ice caves where we could see the occasional stray body part from one of the dead workers. "Whatever they were mining, it must have been..." He trailed off when he looked over and saw one full canister sitting in the cart. He reached over and picked it up as his eyes widened and he turned to Talen, "I'm getting this back to base for a full analysis. If we've found what they're looking for, we may know how to stop them."

*

We had made it back to base and settled in for the night when I decided to take a walk and found Talen sitting cross-legged on an outcropping. His eyes were closed and his hands were rested palm up on each of his knees. The look of pure serenity on his face made it hard for me to believe that we were in a combat zone of all places. I made my way over and knelt down beside him. One of his parting suggestion to me had been to learn how to meditate, and I had been trying. It worked a little bit to an extent. Made it easier to focus sometimes when I really needed to think. It was a little thing, a small nightly ritual I had taken to doing when the barracks had gone quiet and the rest of my brothers were asleep.

Talen didn't say a word as I rested my own hands on my thighs and took a long steadying breath before I closed my eyes and joined him in contemplation. I didn't have the whole Force sensitivity thing going for me, but the way it felt in the air around him was something that was so peaceful that nothing I could do to describe it could do it justice. I'll try, though.

Think about walking along the edge of a lake. Everything is quiet and still, there's no war, no conflict, just serenity. You can hear the water lapping at the stones of the bank, you can feel the breeze that comes off of the water's surface pushing against your skin. It's cool, soft. Nature runs its course around you, but everything is just right. It's natural. It was at peace. That sensation, that feeling of belonging and wholeness, it just came over me and put me at ease in a way I had never felt before. For a kid that was supposed to be a stoic Jedi, Talen seemed to fling himself wholly into the Force like it was his mother. All of his emotions, his fears, his joys - all of them swirled in the air about him and vanished when he meditated like this. I knew he was sharing his calm with me. he wanted me to feel what he felt, even if I couldn't feel it the same way.

"We're all connected, you know," he spoke after what felt like an eternity between us. I opened my eyes to find him still sitting in the same position, but his eyes were turned out across the horizon of Zeffo and reflected the light from the various lamps around our makeshift base. "It's how you can feel what I feel."

"You let me feel it, though," I replied as I also turned my gaze back out over the horizon. "I don't have any of those special powers like you, after all."

Talen stayed quiet for a beat before he replied, "I wish you did." It made me look back at him to find him looking down at his hands, which had since moved into his lap. "I wish you could see the world as I do, see how much you actually matter."

"Tell that to the Senate."

I meant it as a joke, but when I looked back at Talen I saw him glaring down at his hands. "I won't let them kill you all," he spoke with a conviction as he turned to me. "You're people. You matter. Your lives are a part of the will of the Living Force, and what some of those senators want to do to you is a crime against it."

"And if the Jedi Council chooses to enforce it?"

"Then the Council is wrong," he looked back at his hands and unclipped his lightsaber from his belt. He held it in his hands, turning it over and over before he looked at me, "My first master was an Umbaran woman named Jeeda Kosem. She was an Empath, too. When I was a youngling, I was afraid of other people. I was scared to reach out and touch them because I felt everything they did. When I was out with one of the Masters, I felt all of the emotions of a man dying of hunger. I felt his pain, the stabbing agony of famine when he reached out and grabbed my arm in a desperate attempt to get food. I was in so much pain and I was so afraid. He was dying." He stopped turning the lightsaber and looked down at it, "She touched my shoulder, and the pain was gone. The fear remained. Other masters said I needed to learn to control my fear and my powers, but no one wanted to take me. I was poor with a saber. Not the best youngling in wartime. Master Kosem didn't care. When she touched my shoulder, I think we both knew we were meant to find one another."