In the wake of the Battle of Nancora, the planet was evacuated by all remaining Collective forces and the grand foundries of the Technocratic Guild rigged to explode. In their haste to secure their own homeworlds, the Clans retreated swiftly as well, leaving few forces to sift through the rubble of the utterly hostile world that had cost them so many lives to conquer.

But amongst those desolate ruins, hidden beneath layers of shattered permacrete and bent durasteel, one molten heart continued to beat a ragged pulse. Rumor has it that a rogue overseer refused the order to self-destruct, or that perhaps a cell of Technocrats have returned in secret to the planet to relight the fires of industry. Whatever the truth, Foundry Kappa-37 continues to belch its acrid smoke into the Nancoran skies from beneath piles of rubble and debris.

What is found here no longer resembles the production line it once was. Bubbling vats of molten durasteel and slag shift atop rickety rails on unmanned carts, piloted by seemingly no-one. Sudden ventings of scalding hot acids spout from cracked pipelines and vents, bathing the surreal scene in a sickening greenish tint that mingles with the rust red corrosion that permeates the bare durasteel skeleton that still somehow survives beneath the wasted surface.

What purpose all this industry serves is anyone’s guess, but in such turbulent times, gaining control of such an asset would be of vital importance to anyone’s war efforts, for the automated lathes and assembler arms left behind are more than capable of manufacturing any desired munition from blasters and shells to cybernetics and starfighters. If one can wrestle control from the half-finished cyborgs that still roam the hallways, dare the perils of the assembly line and make their way to the central control room, still hanging perilously suspended above a giant crucible of molten durasteel, they can bend this arrhythmic heart of production to their whim — or finish what the Collective had started.

Deezn Jarok slid down a durasteel beam to the twisted remains of a catwalk below, working his way through the ruins of the Technocratic Guild. He scanned the area around him, a look of disbelief on his yellow-green face. The crater spread out as far as the eye could see in all directions. It was difficult to imagine there had been buildings standing in this place and he wouldn’t believe it had he not seen the footage of the attack. One could have easily mistaken this place for a junkyard. Bent metal and concrete lay in massive, multi-layered piles, dangling precariously. It looked as if a strong gust of wind could reshape the entire area. The sky above was lava, orange and burning, plumes of black smoke the ghostly tendrils of a decimated people. The destruction had been absolute, a testament of the might of the Dark Brotherhood.

Yet, somewhere beneath their feet, lay a great foundry waiting for them, the technology of the Technocrats theirs for the taking. Deezn could squeal in excitement had he been alone.

The scrawny Rodian moved like a womp rat slinking through garbage with the Nautolan, Aylin Sajark, in tow. He looked back over his shoulder to the green-skinned, tentacle-crowned woman and held his hand out to help her climb down. She flashed a grin and jumped past him, ignoring his offer outright. He chuckled, it was all he could do to hide the shame. She had more experience running missions than he did and there he was gesturing at her as if she was some damsel in distress. If anything, he was the one that needed to be helped. She was babysitting him, there were no two ways about it, even if she was kind enough not to say so. He didn’t feel too bad about it, though, and he had to admit that the company was more than welcome. He reckoned that he'd already be crushed under the rubble if it wasn’t for her. Dead under the rubble before starting his first mission. His cheeks were darkening at the thought.

A small milicreep droid slithered by her side, darting in and out of sight as it worked its way through the debris. His own droid, D3-C0Y was flying overhead. The sentry droid looked like he would fit right in with his exposed chassis and half-covered wiring. The droid gave off a sarcastic beep which, in binary, meant lovely place.

"Your people did this?" Deezn asked over his shoulder.

"Our people, Deez," answered Aylin. "You're one of us now."

He beamed at her. She was right even though he hadn't fully processed the notion yet. It hadn't been a week since they'd met up at a bar on Chyron where she made him an offer to join her organization and work with her. Now, he was half-way across the quadrant on an ambitious mission full of excitement and danger.

So much danger.

“We should be able to gain access down there,” Aylin announced, pointing to a gaping hole in the rubble.

“That looks about right,” Deezn said as he knelt near the edge. He leaned forward on his hands, peering down inside. Past the twisted metal, through the darkness and the occasional arc of electricity jolting from severed live wire, he could just make out a faint red glow. It looked like it came from an emergency back-up light.

Just as planned.

He unclipped a grappling hook from his belt then fired at the ground point blank. The arrowhead bit into the rubble with a thud. After a couple of tugs on the cable he nodded and motioned for Aylin to climb down first. She didn’t move. Instead, she stared at him with her dark eyes, head tilted, a crooked smirk splitting her features.

“You go ahead,” she said with a dismissive tone and an equally dismissive wave of her hand, “Watch out for live wires.”

Deezn laughed, “Okay, then. See you down there.”

He hooked the cable of the grappling hook to his utility belt, threw his legs over the edge and lowered himself feet first into the hole. He kicked away from the wall, loosing the cable as he dropped several meters at a time. He rappelled down, bouncing along the walls of the sinkhole half a dozen times before his boots finally reached the bottom. The ground was uneven, chunks of metal and duracrete crumbling away beneath him, tumbling down a slope towards the source of the emergency light. He tugged on the rope twice to let Aylin know it was her turn. When he saw her silhouette appear against the fiery backdrop of the sky, he turned his attention to his next task.

He moved down the slope, keeping steady with one hand on the walls of compacted debris. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness he was glad to see that they had been right in their assessment. The schematics of the factory suggested the foundry had multiple aeration ducts and exhaust ports and though most of them had been buried, with D3-C0Y’s help they managed to pin-point the location of one that remained accessible. Sure enough, there it was, a portion of the factory’s exhaust port stood before him, visible through the debris. He knew it was sheer luck, too. By all likelihood, an air pocket beneath the ruins had collapsed, creating the sinkhole and exposing the port. Still, there was no sense worrying about what was and wasn’t a lucky roll of the dice. He had a job to do. He reached around the back of his utility belt and unhooked his trusty arc welder. He pulled his polarized goggles from his forehead over his large, bulging eyes and got to work.

With a pull of the trigger, the arc welder hissed to life and Deezn began cutting through the metal grate.

Aylin followed Deezn down the slope to where he was working on the grate. Suddenly, she glanced back as she got the feeling someone was watching them, but she saw no one there.

Who would be down here with us?

Trying too hard to make out if someone or something was there made her nearly jump out of her skin when the grate fell to the ground.

“Uh… sorry,” Deezn apologized as he heard the yelp from his friend. He put his torch away. “The way should be clear now.”

Aylin nodded, and motioned to him to continue on, “Keep a watchful eye… I've got a feeling we are being watched.”

The Rodian frowned. “Are you sure?” he asked as he crawled through the opening.

“No, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be extra careful.”

The Nautolan followed after him and checked her datapad. Siky had gone on ahead of them, sending information of what he found. Tucking her datapad away, she and her Rodian friend crawled further down the narrow pathway they found.

All seemed to be going well until a loud, creaking could be heard and a sudden shock ran through the duct. The part that Deezn was leaning on gave away, making him slip forward into the abyss. A thin squeal escaped from him as he tried to get a hold of something. Aylin quickly grabbed hold of his pants and braced herself so that they wouldn’t slip further.

“Not good!” he yelled as he stared into the darkness below him.

“Hold on, I will try to pull you back.”

She wiggled herself back and tried to pull Deezn along. Even Siky tried to help pull him back up, chirping to them both to encourage them. The Rodian was doing his best to push himself back. It took them some time, but they finally made it back to the stable part of the duct.

“Another way?” Deezn asked.

“Another way,” Aylin said with a nod.

They backtraced their way and took a different turn. This time, the duct stayed in one piece and through it they were able to get closer to their point of interest. Peering down the grate the Rodian saw something that resembled a repair room. Taking out his torch and goggles, he cut a hole in the grate, which clattered down with the last piece cut.

Slowly, he lowered himself through the hole and landed onto the table with an assortment of parts. He quickly moved off the table to make space for Aylin, and looked around the room. Most of the equipment had been broken or taken apart.

The Nautolan slowly followed him and looked around the room as well as she hopped off the table.

“Look at this,” Deezn said as he pointed to a largely disassembled droid, “What kind of droids were they making?”

“Not the friendly kind… Come let’s move,” she said as she moved towards the door and tried to open it. It had gotten stuck after only sliding open a small portion. She tried to push it open further, but it wouldn’t move. When Deezn noticed, he quickly came to her aid and together they were able to open it far enough to slip through.

As they moved through the corridors, Deezn couldn't stop thinking about that strange disassembled droid; its claw-like appendages, the one, head-sized lens that covered its optic sensor, the sheer size of the chassis. He sure was glad it was in pieces. It looked none too friendly. Since he’d seen the droid, he'd had this gnawing sensation that they were being watched. He frowned at Aylin as she led the way down the poorly-lit hallway, her steps those of a prowling Loth-cat, shoulders hunched and ready to react at the first sign of danger. He scrubbed at the back of his neck. He puffed his cheeks and blew the air out of his snout, then shook his head. Her cautiousness was getting under his skin. That was all. He shouldn’t think more of it. They were alone.

Alone. Yeah.

He pulled the blaster from his holster as if that would reassure him. It didn’t. Still, even if he wasn't the kind who went looking for combat, he reckoned he should be ready for it. Nothing worse than walking into a firefight with your blaster still in its holster, Bale Andros used to tell him. He sure wished that big, old, loud-mouthed merc was there with them. But he wasn’t. If any of those droids showed up, he had to be prepared.

His boot crunched down on something. He raised his boot to find an old blaster, then a hand, then the rest of the dead trooper it was attached to. His breastplate had been carbonized. Deezn noticed the scorch marks on the walls around them. He sat back on his heels next to the carcass and poked at it with the barrel of his blaster. He wondered who it was under that helmet.

“I think he’s been there a while,” said Aylin from up ahead.

“Recognize the armor?” he asked.

“Not one of ours that’s for sure,” she answered. “Wasn’t the Technocrats either.”

“Some scavenger like us, maybe?”

“Might be. Doesn’t matter now,” her voice was growing impatient. Or was it worry?

Deezn left the body and hurried to catch up with her. They rounded a corner to more corridors. Aylin let out an exasperated sigh. He reckoned he was too worried about big bad droids getting the jump on them to be impatient. Then he heard it. Down the hall from them, there was a low but clear thump in the distance.

"Aylin," he whispered. When she looked at him, he held up a single suction-cupped finger to his snout. She nodded.

There it was again, a clunking sound, repeating with the regularity of a working hydraulic arm. Or a walking droid, he thought. He could also make out the faint hiss of compressed air being vented. He squinted against the darkness and thought he could make out a faint orange glow ahead of them. A shadow passed through the light.

He took the lead, pushing past Aylin. Knees bent, he moved in silence, blaster at the ready. He tried to ignore his shaking hands. The sound grew louder and louder as they drew closer to the orange light. It got to the point where it was deafening, each thump now an earth-pounding boom. A shadow danced in the orange light, a constant movement that reminded Deezn of pistons raising and dropping, hammering in a constant rhythm. They reached a doorway, stuck half-opened like the previous one, and pressed his back to one side of it as Aylin took cover on the other. She nodded. He peered inside and his jaw dropped.

The Foundry was a work of technological art the likes of which Deezn had never seen in his life. He'd been around machinery all his life. Back on Chyron, his folks were factory workers and he too had worked his fair share of assembly lines. To call the room vast would have been an understatement. The ceiling reached half-way back up to the surface and he could barely make out the other side of the room through the sea of machinery, moving parts and cables. A veil of steam clung in the air, the orange light of ovens and smelters casting an ominous, almost volcanic glow. The sound inside the room was almost painful to his ears, a cacophony of countless sounds shoving and pushing into his ears like civilians at a market sale. It was almost overwhelming. The moving parts, the pistons rising and falling, the conveyor belts unfurling, it was enough to make someone dizzy.

“Wow," he heard Aylin gasp. He looked over to her, his snout split by a bewildered grin.

"I think we hit the jackpot," he said.

"And then some," Aylin squeezed through the doorway into the room, danger all but forgotten. Deezn was right behind her almost jealously, as if he feared she might cheat him out of his share of the bounty. He knew it was unfair to think this way, Aylin was nothing if not trustworthy. He hoped she thought the same of him. Eager to say something, anything, he said, "I wish the rest of the crew was here.”

“You and me both, pal,” she admitted, a hint of sadness in her voice.

“So, huh, what now?"

"Now, we take control," she answered. She flashed a grin in his direction, her eyes like lava in the light of the Foundry.

He scanned the industrial space and it wasn't long before he spotted what had to be the control room for this section of the factory. It sat at the center of the chamber, a level above where they stood now. It had a circular bay window from which he could wager one could see the entire floor, and a network of suspended catwalks from it, criss-crossing above the working area. He could imagine Technocratic overseers watching from these vantage points as their workers slaved away below them like insects. He tapped Aylin on the shoulder and pointed to the control room. "I reckon that's where we're heading."

"Good catch," she said, immediately setting off towards a nearby elevator platform. "Let's go."

A blaster bolt exploded against the wall where Aylin had been standing a split second before. Deezn yelped as they both ducked for cover behind the first thing they could find. In his case, it was an empty, upturned barrel. Heart pounding in his ears, he peered out over the barrel to make sure his partner was alright. Thankfully, she was. Rifle now in hand, she was searching the room for their attacker. Her milicreep droid was nowhere to be seen. A large machine stood between Deezn and the shooter, breaking their line of sight. He moved carefully, keeping low and slipped around to the opposite side of the machine where he hoped to have a better angle. Blaster ever at the ready, he climbed over the cable unit then hopped down on the other side of the module. A bolt shrieked past him, forcing back into cover. He peeked out again but more blaster fire kept him put.

Pfassk. Not good.

He couldn’t see anyone, only machines and more machines. There was too much visual clutter and too much movement, making it impossible to pinpoint the location of the shooter. Wherever she was, he hoped Aylin was using the opportunity to flank them. Deezn leaned out of cover, firing in the general direction where he believed the shots were coming from. He didn’t have to wait for a response. Crimson bolts lanced out from the factor, missing him by a hair’s breadth. The shooter might as well have been a ghost.

“I can’t see them,” he called to Aylin but there was little chance she could hear him over the banging and the hissing of the working plant. He fired again, blindly, if only to keep their attention on him.

Something fell near him with a boom. Deezn veered to find himself face to face with a massive droid. It stood twice as tall as he was and three times as large, with claws for hands. It moved on all fours with surprising agility. The lens glowed a fiery orange. Something caught his attention. An eye. Two eyes. Organic eyes. He gasped and recoiled at the sight of them, falling to his back against the machinery even as the metal beast lunged at him. Deezn dodged left as a claw pierced the machine behind them, causing a plume of smoke to erupt. He scampered away on all fours, shooting blindly behind him as he ran away. He couldn’t shake the eyes from his mind, wild eyes, wide and hungry, not fully sentient, but organic nonetheless. He had been mistaken before with the disassembled droid. That wasn’t an optic lens and this was no droid. It was a visor. That thing was a cyborg, a monstrous amalgamation of flesh and machinery.

It lumbered after him, its feet and claws thumping against the floor. He turned to face it, raised his blaster but it lunged at him again with speed that believed its hulking frame. It screamed as it stabbed at him, a sound somewhere between a roar and a siren. Deezn threw himself aside to evade the claw then scampered backwards on hands and feet, his buttocks scraping the floor. The cyborg whirred and moaned as it jabbed at him again and again. He fired his blaster point blank into the metal beast but the bolts bounced off the plating as if it was beskar. With a scream of his own, sounding more like a whimper than a roar, Deezn unclipped the stun grenade from his belt, tossed it down at its feet and dove for cover, hands and blaster over his head. There was a detonation and a shockwave of electricity. The cyborg collapsed.

He rolled to his back, aimed for the visor and fired. The shot hit home, leaving a smoking scorch mark where the eyes had been. Distant blaster fire caught his attention. There were more cyborgs and Aylin was under attack.

He jumped to action.

Aylin was back peddling, jumping over and ducking under attacks thrown towards her by the cyborgs. She needed to find a way to stop them before the catwalk ran out.

Think, Aylin. Think!

Then she remembered that she had packed a few grenades. With one hand still firing shots at the massive cyborgs, her other hand searched for the right grenade.

“Eat this!” Aylin yelled as she threw the grenade at them.

A moment later, an ion explosion short-circuited the cyborgs. Loud clunks were heard as they fell over. Glancing behind her, she gulped, her foot was only an inch away from the end of the catwalk.

“Glad I didn’t become a BBQ dish,” she said as she wiped her brow.

Stepping away from the edge, she looked around to see if she could spot Deezn somewhere, but she couldn’t with all the machines and smoke between them. She hoped he had the same idea as she had and that was to go for the master control room.

Silky chirped as the catwalk underneath her groaned and buckled sideways. Grabbing hold of the railing, she felt the catwalk tilt even further and swung her over it.

“Deezn! I could use some help!” She yelled as she held onto the railing for dear life.

Lucky for her, Deezn had heard the catwalk breaking and gingerly looked at what was causing it. That was when he saw Aylin dangling underneath it.

“Hold on!” Deezn yelled as he made his way towards the robot arm near her location. Quickly he jammed his slicing pike into the system and started to overwrite the controls so that he could manipulate the arm.

“Hurry!” yelled Aylin, panic clearly on her voice as her fingers began to slip.

Just a moment longer! Deezn told himself as he worked the system. Finally he got the arm moving.

"Deee…" Aylin screamed as she fell and with a thud landed on the arm. "Ooof!"

Deezn quickly lowered the arm to the floor so that Aylin could slide off it safely.

"Are you alright?" He asked

His Nautolan friend rubbed her chest and belly, "it's going to leave a mark, but at least I'm not fried."

They both had a chuckle and looked towards the control room.

"Quick! I hear more stompers!" Aylin said as she dragged a stumbling Rodian after her.

They both ran up the stairs and landed face first against the door as it didn't open. After some swearing and fidgeting with the mechanics, the door finally opened.

"Go get the data! You too Siky!"

Aylin stepped back outside and used her DC-17m to shoot the incoming droids off the catwalk. She shot at those above and below her, and that was when she spotted a way out as well, though she was sure Deezn wasn't going to like it.

"Hurry! It's getting too crowded here and I only have a few shots left!"

Siky chirped as it ran up her leg and Deezn followed suit, holding up a datachip.

"Got it!"

"Good, put it somewhere safe so that we can get out of here," Aylin commanded and started to get to the otherside of the catwalk, blowing up a few more droids as she did. Her last shot was saved for a hatch.

"This way!" She said as she jumped into the small chute.

"Why?!" Deezn complained as he got in after her.

Both of them landed out of harms way in a heap of trash.