Diaries of a Jedi Knight: Dark Forces part 6

In the aftermath of our strike on the Gromas, the Empire discovered where we were getting our information: Crix Madine, the Alliance’s man on the inside, was captured and sent to the detention facility on Orinackra. Jan set the Crow down near the prison, and warned me that this wouldn’t be a walk in the park. She was right of course, but I didn’t have time to try and sneak in - Orinackra was where the Empire sends prisoners to die, and Madine would be high on the list for execution. It was a smash and grab mission, one with very little intel.

The stone valleys made for an excellent hiding place for the Crow, and all I needed to do was follow the Stormtrooper patrols back to the only known entrance. The prison was built into the cliffs, and the front door was accessible only through the use of a hovering platform that shuttled between the two sides of the crevasse. The patrols led me straight to the checkpoint, and I still had the jump on the two Imperial Commandos guarding it.

I called the shuttle and restocked my ammunition from the armory there. A commando was travelling on the shuttle, but a quick blast from the repeater rifle sent him into the rocky abyss below. The shuttle paused briefly at the station, and I began to think that I’d been discovered. It shuddered into motion, and I sighed with relief: the easy part was over, now I had to find Madine and get out with him without bringing the full might of the Empire down upon us.

The platform docked at the other side, and the doors remained shut. I looked around, and noticed the access panel across the gap. Two Stormtroopers turned, unaware that I wasn’t invited. They died unaware, and I jumped over to the platform to open the door. The panel opened the doors for a brief period, and I jumped through via the shuttle. Inside, a platoon was caught off-guard and I managed to take them out with a thermal detonator and a few shots from the repeater rifle. I revelled in my luck, though I knew it was running thin.

I moved down the corridor to the left of the entrance, and noticed cracks in the wall. On closer examination, it looked like the wall had been patched up quickly to block the entrance to a room. Taking cover around the corner, I threw a thermal detonator at the wall and exposed the hastily hidden room. It was a white room with a table in the centre, and a control panel which opened a section of wall in the previous room. This led to further inside the prison, so I lowered myself slowly into the corridor.

This led to a large mostly empty room, and I managed to sneak through to raising platform at one end without attracting any attention. At the top, commandos guarded an elevator down to the cells and didn’t notice me coming. What we knew of the place, we suspected that Madine would be on the first floor; the one directly below me now. The elevator didn’t go there, so I took it to the floor below that. I was greeted by a Stormtrooper guard, and a room full of proximity mines. I set them off, sheltered by the elevator, and that attracted a lot of unwanted attention. Every guard on this level converged on my location, but I had some mines of my own.

With the floor cleared, I found nothing of any use. I used the elevator again, dropping down to the fourth level. There was a patrol walking past the elevator as I exited, but fortunately I was quicker with my blaster than they were with theirs, and after wrestling with the last trooper the corridor was clear. The first room to the left looked empty so I moved around the looping hallways. This led to a magnetic lock: a force field that stops anything passing through and deflects blaster shots. On the other side stood Stormtroopers, and at the sight of me they opened fire, their shots reflecting back and killing each other.

I moved back into the empty room and saw a vent in the corner. Climbing in and activating my IR Goggles, I saw a timed activation switch. I ran for the doorway, slipping past as the lock reactivated. I was in a prisoner processing wing, and I couldn’t deny the possibility that Madine may have been in one of these cells. I cleared each cell one at a time, revealing only some disgruntled Grans. I returned to the elevator and continued downwards.

The fifth floor looked to be mostly computer terminals, and I cleared through with few interruptions. I reached the east elevator at the end of the corridor and took it up to the floor we suspected Madine was being held on. The door slid open to reveal a large blast door that opened as I approached. Two Officers were in the office to the right of me as I entered the checkpoint, and I was able to kill them through the window. They each had a keycard with a prison cell code on it, but nothing that would let me open the other side of the checkpoint into the cell block. I would have to find another way around.

 

I studied plans of the prison on the computer terminals in the checkpoint office and saw that I could get into the cellblock through a maintenance doorway. To access it, I would need to climb through the elevator shafts, but that would be easy compared to fighting a Dark Trooper! I ran back to the elevator and took it back down to the fifth floor, and then sent it back up to the third floor - a floor I didn’t explore. I headed back through the floor to the west elevator, and took that back up to the top floor before sending it back down to the second floor.

I attempted to access the maintenance door to the right of the elevator, but it was locked. I scouted around and noticed another cracked wall, and - like earlier - throwing a thermal detonator opened it up. I stepped inside and walked through to a low door, dropping into the elevator shaft behind it. There was another low door, and I pulled myself through it to get inside the eastern elevator shaft. Walking across the top of the elevator, I climbed inside a tunnel that led to a sewage crushing room, and had to carefully jump across the moving platforms to reach the level one maintenance door.

The door slid open, revealing a corridor adjacent to the cell block with a small gap to peer through. I saw a half dozen Commandos patrolling, and I managed to fire my blaster through the gap to incapacitate three of them before they took cover. I searched for an exit into the main hallway, narrowly avoiding a mine guarding the door. One of the remaining Commandos had hid in the alcove of the door I opened and lost balance as the door opened; I shot him, and searched the corridor for the rest of his squad.

They had run to the main access door, the one that I couldn’t open earlier; they were banging on it, trying to attract the attention of the now-dead Officers outside. I smirked as I fired two shots and silenced them. I entered the codes I stole earlier, and the door behind me opened Madine’s cell. I radioed Jan calling for pick-up and escorted Madine back to the Crow, leaving a prison now overrun by the prisoners.