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That was until they ran into the mercenary company. Despite its leader apparently being among Master Fay's victims, this group had enough training and coordination to make a real fight of it. Worse, they'd had time to get over their initial shock at the attack and had put it to good use, fortifying their barracks area.
The first Harry learned of this was when he rounded a curve in the corridor several hundred feet away and three stories down from where he had teleported in and walked into a hail of quad laser and blaster fire. There were even a few disintegration beams in there, and his hurriedly erected Force Shield spluttered under the impacts, shimmering in midair like a violent rainbow.
Harry hadn't been quite quick enough in getting his shield up, and one of the Wookies fell to the ground with a roar, his leg having taken several blaster bolts, and another simply died, falling back, his head and upper body smoking from several impacts. Despite that, the wounded Wookie was still firing back from the floor, which nearly killed one of his fellows when it bounced off the inside of Harry's shield. He stopped immediately, looking rather sheepish, if an eight foot tall, furry monster could be said to look sheepish.
"We live and learn!" Harry grunted in reply to that look. He held his free hand up in front of him palm outward, as he held the shield in place while trying to concentrate on something else even as the fire re-doubled against his shield, making his head swim. Dammit! Teleporting people like that really did take it out of me. Harry noticed, however, that the ceiling in this area was quite a bit higher than other areas had been. "I don't suppose any of you have grenades?"
No sooner said than done, several dozen Wookies threw grenades up and over Harry's Force Shield, and Harry used the Force to direct them forward into the mercenaries' position. They went off in a long string of explosions, taking most of the mercenaries out at once, including all three of the team operated quad lasers.
Harry let his shield fall, and the Wookies charged forward to finish off the survivors as he breathed in deeply, closing his eyes and shaking his head as he got in touch with Aayla mentally, before pulling out a communicator and warning Master Fay and Master Dooku about the mercenaries. Hearing that Master Dooku was nearly finished with the space fortress was good news, and Harry sent one Wookie to help his wounded fellow back to where the slaves had been housed before moving forward again.
After that, however, it became increasingly difficult for Harry and the Wookies with him to make any progress. Not only were the corridors becoming less and less uniform and with less cover, but the mercenaries were practically everywhere now! Here and there two or three of them would lead larger groups of pirates which, though easier to deal with, pinned the attackers in place while other attacks were made entirely by the mercenaries, and the mercenaries had better weapons and better coordination. If it wasn't for Lily scouting before them, Harry would have lost a lot of people by now to ambushes or envelopments.
As it was they were continually getting bogged down, which was allowing the defenders to bring their greater numbers to bear more and more often.
After one such battle which cost three Wookies their lives, Harry ripped his communicator off his belt angrily, taking a brief moment to banish the grief-fueled anger he felt before speaking. "Master Fay, I'm losing people here. I request that I be allowed to open my bag of tricks further," he said, the terminology they used for the Force abilities Harry, Aayla, and Fay had developed that had not yet become mainstream even among Clan Saa.
Master Fay's response was quick and somewhat admonishing in tone. "Harry, you shouldn't have to ask. If someone's life is on the line, secrecy should go by the wayside immediately."
Harry nodded, shamefaced. "Sorry, Master. I suppose I'm still a little leery thanks to that trip to Coruscant and all of the secrecy."
"Understandable, Harry. Now go get them," Fay said, a tone of faintly amused irritation in her voice. Master Fay did not like combat at all, and she liked the fact that Harry, the boy she saw as a son, did and was more than willing to throw himself into combat even less. "I would only recommend that you keep your…explosive abilities…and your transfiguration and conjuration to yourself."
"I can do that, Master." Harry hung up then, cracking his neck and rolling his shoulders for a moment before looking around at the Wookies all around him. "Move forward behind me. Guard my back and sides. I'm going to hit this group in front of us as hard as I can, though as with my teleportation I ask that you keep what you see me do to yourselves."
Before the Wookies could ask what he was talking about, Harry pushed forward, racing down the hallway, his lightsaber up and his Force Precognition active. It had been active throughout the battle so far, but the sheer number of people around them and the environment had badly impacted his ability with that technique. Definitely need more training in that. Back to school, I suppose. However, I do have other tricks up my sleeve.
Lily came through a wall just ahead of him. Only Harry's skidding for a second stopping him from running right through her, and Lily rapidly shook her head. "After this curve the corridor splits in two, and they've got cannons set up to both sides, plus a small troop in the middle where it splits to draw you in. Worse, unless you want to double back several hundred yards worth of corridor, there's no way around."
"So we go through," Harry said, smiling up at her. "Master Fay just told me I was kind of silly not to start using all of my powers already."
"You were, but I thought we were keeping most of that a secret anyway."
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