With the communications completely shut down, a large weight was lifted off of our shoulders. According to Racer, none of the open links we had interrupted were close enough to Tatooine to bother us, and only one of them had even realized something was wrong. That meant that we were more or less free and clear of outside reinforcements coming to stop us. With a set number of people we needed to kill before we were done, the situation had stabilized significantly.

  We were no longer under threat of being overwhelmed or being outgunned by starships coming in as support.

  Our next task was important, but only because it would greatly reduce the threat level we were facing, which honestly was already within bearable levels. With the main power core disabled, a significant part of the infrastructure would shut down, including any integrated weapon emplacements. That would ensure it was safe for our freighters to come in, as well as take out any internal lighting systems. Anyone without the ability to see in the dark would be at a significant disadvantage, assuming we managed to pull it off.

  Leaving the corpses where they were, since at this point we were beyond that, I led the crew to one of the circular room's large windows. We had to pry it open with a conjured battleaxe, but once we could get through, one by one, we jumped. First, we landed on the flared disk structure that lay below the communication room dome, before making our way to the side sliding off.

  Our new target was the short tower beside the one we were jumping from, as the power generation systems were somewhere deep beneath it. The temptation was to aim for the walkway, which connected the shorter tower to the main structure, but there wasn't much point, as entering the tower there would mean we would still need to descend through almost half it. There were lower, much more accessible access points dotted around the cylindrical tower. One of those would be our way in.

  We fell all the way to the sandy, rocky ground, our repulsor lifts firing at the last second to keep our descent as quick and silent as possible. Once we had all landed, we pushed around the shorter tower, eventually spotting a good entrance point. We flew up into a window similar to the one we used to enter the comms tower, cut directly into the tower's stone structure. This one led downward, connecting to a shallow spiral staircase, which ran around a thick central pillar. Above us, we could hear people talking, echoes of conversation barely reaching us. We seemed to be just below the populated area.

  After a moment to orientate ourselves, I led everyone downward. I would turn invisible, walk down, and check if it was clear before tapping twice on the central stone pillar, prompting everyone to descend. When they got close, I would recast Invisibility, which gave off just enough light and shimmer to be noticed, prompting them to stop and let me scout ahead. Eventually, we did reach the bottom, where I had to dispatch a pair of guards who were watching over an underground intersection. Thankfully, there were more downward stairs, leading to a newer addition to the structure, which was encouraging.

  We continued to descend, silently killing a handful more guards, before arriving at what Racer was certain was the power generation system. This was heavily guarded, with nearly twelve armed mercenaries stationed around the facility. Unfortunately for them, my invisibility didn't fail when I dropped something, it took a much more significant action to interrupt the spell. That meant I could easily walk around the facility, dropping half a dozen explosive devices into various places, before leaving without setting off any alarms, or alerting any guards.

  I cloaked myself in my Illusion spell before stepping into the core room. It was, frankly, a fucking mess. Miru would probably stroke out if she ever came here, so I made sure to take a picture to show her. I'm sure it would be a lot easier for her to take, knowing we had already blown it up.

  I managed to get in and out of the room with only a single misstep, recasting Invisibility while not completely hidden. One of the guards managed to spot the shimmer and glow, and wandered around to check what he had seen. Thankfully, by the time he made it to where I was, I was completely invisible again, so he simply walked away.

  When I finally left the large underground room, my utility belt was significantly lighter. Once I made my way back to them, I led my team back up and out of the underground facility. Once we were in the spiral staircase, we stopped, as it was clear of activity, and the stone steps made it easy to hear people coming.

  We had completed our second objective, the power system could be taken out whenever we wanted. Now, it was time to start clearing out the entire structure. We estimated that Jabba would have at least a thousand mercenaries on site, but there was a significant chance the number would be much larger than that. We would have our work cut out for us either way.

  We also had to keep an eye out for the Hutt himself, as we had plans to kill him to set off the chaos we needed to escape the planet. I didn't know if he would be useful before we killed him, but it was worth a try.

  "Alright, does anyone have any last-minute words before we kick this the fuck off?" I asked, looking around at my crew. When nobody said anything, I tapped my comms and connected to Corvak. "Present prepped, pause for effect, one minute."

  "Understood," He responded simply.

  The likelihood that anyone was listening, especially now that the comms room was cleared and disabled, was small, but talking in code still seemed like a good call. Once Corvak confirmed the timeline, we started rushing up the stairs, stopping just out of sight of the more active area, by the stairs that led to our original entry point. While it was very unlikely that I had placed enough explosives to make it happen, there was still a nonzero chance that the explosion that destroyed the power core would collapse the tower, in which case I wanted to be nice and close to an exit.

  With one last look around at everyone, I pulled out and clicked the detonator, clipping it back to my belt before the tower shook. Seconds later, an almighty wave of pressure and noise washed over us. Even with the protection of our armor, it was still enough to rock us back.

  Even as we recovered from the pressure wave, the lights went out for the stairwell, plunging it into darkness. For a moment, it was pitch black, before emergency lights kicked on, dotted on the stairs. Each one was just bright enough that, if you were careful and took it slow, you could use the stairs. They were not nearly bright enough to fight by, which meant anyone we clashed with was now nearly blind. Compared to us, as our helmets kicked into night vision mode, and it suddenly looked like the lights were back on.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  "Let's move!" I called out, pulling out a blaster rifle that was strapped to my back and checking the ammo counter, before leading the charge up the stairs.

  I didn't usually use or even carry a blaster rifle, since my magic was obviously superior, and I normally no longer cared about showing it off. For this mission, however, our identities needed to remain a secret, since we couldn't afford to connect it back to Nirn and drag our people into a deeper conflict. That meant no visual magic for me, and, perhaps even crazier, no lightsabers for Ahsoka. She, too, was using blasters, though she was using two blaster pistols, a pair of Westar-35s that were a gift from Sabine.

  I was definitely going to try and convince her to keep at least one of them on her after this.

  We ran around the staircase twice before we finally arrived at the first landing, almost running head-first into a group of at least twenty panicking mercenaries. Four of them, probably those who were already on guard, were already making their way to the stairs when we showed up. Rather than let them recover from the surprise, we opened fire, tearing them and anyone else holding weapons down.

  What happened after that was the start of an incredibly one-sided fight. We slowly climbed the tower, wiping out guards one after the other. Between the extremely low light level and the sudden bright flashes of the blaster bolts, most guards were too stunned to even come close to fighting back. Eventually, we rose up to some sort of living quarters, though the doors were thick, and we were killing way too many guards for a normal living space. Not to mention, it smelled terrible, with body odor and worse, the stench almost singing my nose.

  "Slave quarters," Vaz guessed after finishing off a wounded guard with a clean shot to the head. "What should we do?"

  "... leave them alone for now. We can't afford to split up already," I said after a moment of thinking. "They are safer inside anyway. We can secure them later, once the Palace is clear."

  We passed the slave quarters and arrived at an observation platform, a large open floor with windows all around it. Support pillars dotted the floor, but other than that, it seemed they were using it as a storage floor, as well as a way to look out over the dunes and surrounding area. We quickly cleared that, the guards there almost putting up a fight as Tatooine's three moons filled the room with light through the windows. Still, they were outmatched, and we ended up killing a lot as they tried to run. I would feel bad, but having just passed through the slave quarters, my mercy was mysteriously missing.

  Once the observation floor was clear, we continued upwards, quickly clearing the upper floors. The top floor was an open ring, with some smaller weapon emplacements and dozens of guards. This was our toughest fight yet, as not only did they have access to heavier weapons, but the moonlight was bright enough to see by and to keep blaster bolts from being blinding.

  Thankfully, a few well-placed grenades, so well-placed that it was almost like someone was controlling them with their mind, made quick work of them. Each explosive was a limited resource for the mission, but each one took care of a potentially dangerous hard point, so it was worth it.

  Once the open-air observation area was clear, we gathered up and took a moment to top off our weapons while I contacted Corvak.

  "Corvak, we cleared the squat tower and are about to move to the central structure," I explained. "How are you guys doing?"

  "We just finished the hangar," He responded after a moment. "The doors are disabled, but the hangar was larger than we predicted."

  "Then we are both about to move onto the central structure?" I asked, continuing when he confirmed it. "Then how about this..."

  After a quick conversation, we decided my team would clear high, and his team would clear low, focusing on the first floors and tunnels under the Palace. I honestly had no idea where Jabba's throne room would be or where the slug himself would be, but we both agreed whoever found him would lock him down somewhere secure.

  With our new task decided, my crew gathered up and leaped off the side of the tower, our repulsors carrying us across to the main building, where we landed on an upper walkway, and the slaughter began again.

  Slowly but surely, we cleared more and more of the Palace, killing hundreds of guards and mercenaries. By the thirty-minute mark, we had begun to realize that the main threat was not the people shooting us, but from the battle fatigue. Even with me stealthily casting respite to keep everyone going, it was clearly taking its toll.

  After an hour, we broke comms discipline from sheer boredom. We refrained from using names or anything that might give our identity away, instead opting to critique each other's form and comment on any mercenaries that stood out to us, which, considering Jabba's colorful hiring habits, happened quite often.

  At the two-hour mark, I introduced the I Spy game to the crew, and Vaz went on a five-in-a-row streak.

  In total, it took us three hours to clear the several floors we were in charge of, working our way down to the floors that Corvak and his people cleared. After that, as they moved into the underground, we cleared the bottom two-thirds of the comms tower and began double-checking areas we had already been, sweeping for threats who were waiting for us to let our guards down.

  Meanwhile, as we moved, Racer generated a map of the whole Palace with his scanners, filling in the blanks and marking down areas of interest. As we went on our second sweep, we made note of anything worth taking with us, putting together a list of priorities to be loaded up into the freighters when the time came.

  We were just about done with our second sweep, which was thankfully much quicker than the first one when Corvak contacted me through the comms.

  "We located Jabba," He said simply. "Caught him trying to fit himself into some sort of secret escape tunnel that leads to the hangar."

  "Guess no one told him you took care of that. Well, bring him somewhere big enough to talk to him, but not anywhere he would have spent a lot of time," I explained, worried he might have traps set up. "And be careful. He is a slippery one."

  "That won't take long, Boss, we are just outside a large hallway."

  "Great, get him there, and I will meet up with you," I explained. "Don't be afraid to zap him a bit to get him to listen to you."

  "Will do."

  "Alright guys, they found Jabba, I'm gonna go have a talk with him," I explained to my crew. "The majority of threats are dead, keep making the rounds. Tell any slaves to keep calm, and keep marking the good stuff with Racer."

  The team nodded and quickly moved on, while I cast Clairvoyance, the glowing trail leading me off, heading for a stairwell to the lower levels. It took a few minutes for me to navigate the tunnel and confusing architecture, even with my Clairvoyance, but eventually, I found Corvak and two other Mandalorians, standing around a corpulent wiggling Hutt. Said Hutt was very clearly not happy, shouting in Huttese at the Mandalorians.

  "The Great Jabba the Hutt is willing to pay twenty percent more than you were offered... if you guide him to his speeder and help him escape," The droid beside Jabba explained, translating for the slug, while the Mandalorians looking around as if they wanted to be anywhere else but here.

  "Jabba, you fat fucking slug!" I called out, walking down the hall and stopping in front of the biggest criminal leader on this side of the Galaxy. "Enjoying your evening?"