43ABY Level 1077 Coruscant
The all too familiar low hum of ion engines grew louder as a vessel with razor sharp triangular wings touched down on the landing pad. With mechanical whirring the ramp extended. Light reflected from the black clad figure that emerged from the state of the art TIE/SB.
Click-clacking drowned out the sound of spewing vents, sparking circuits and shadowy whispers. A group of dock workers sought out the shadows, but halted in place as a cloud of emerald and black appeared next to them. One of them dropped their tools and peered up with wide eyes, while his colleagues bolted in separate directions. The Weequay’s limbs trembled as he lost track of his so called friends.
Hiss
The cloud dispersed into smoke, swirling and forming into the tall figure he saw exit the space vehicle before. The mechanic’s heart was lodged in his throat, he couldn’t move, or swallow. There was an energy radiating off of this entity that he had never felt before. It struck his core, his soul. Every thought of defiance was bound and silenced. This one demanded obedience. And then came the words…
“Make sure she stays intact.” The voice was a reward and a threat for being chosen, tinged with low-pitched allure the dock worker had never witnessed before.
All his eyes saw was a black void, a domed visor without expression. Yet he swore the mask was a face all by itself. His hand opened up against his will and accepted a rectangular object from the large claw that reached out. He blinked slowly and the world around him reappeared. All he could think about was safeguarding the vessel this monster had arrived in.
There was a safe house nearby, provided by the Brotherhood. Aphotis would meet with the whistleblower, Ce’celia Lathos, and her eccentric allies there.
Well, this was an interesting turn of events. There Adalinde was, enjoying her well earned time off, when all of a sudden she was summoned. Can that be believed? Her? Summoned!
The audacity of it. The sheer gall.
Except it had been the Deputy Grand Master who had done it. For him, she supposed, she could begrudgingly accept.
Adalinde had leaned upon the man heavily during her ascent to Grand Inquisitor. Why would she not? Opportunities are to be seized with tooth and claw. And besides, she deserved it. It was owed to her by right of birth. Anyone who thought otherwise should have been simply born better themselves.
So, despite mostly picking and choosing her own missions at that point, Ada had accepted the summons and the subsequent assignment. And that, dearest captive audience, is how Ada had come to be where she sat: lazily perched upon several cushions of what passed for a couch in that safe house with one knee raised and her fingers rolling a bouncing spark of crackling energy between them idly. Across from her, Ce'celia Lathos watched the crimson haired woman with concern…especially since her icey cold stare met the whistleblower’s gaze unblinking.
Perhaps the others would finish arriving and they could get a move on it.
Coruscant. With every step he took, he could feel the city sinking into his skin. Alex hated this place, in a dull, under-the-skin kind of way. He had been to many places throughout the galaxy over his long years, and no place stank in quite the same unique way as Coruscant. Even through the heavy, custom Mandalorian Rally Master armor he wore, the filth seemed to permeate.
Striding confidently through the streets toward the safehouse rendezvous, he kept his sensors and his eyes out for even the slightest hint of threat or danger. There were hundreds of dead-end, run-down cesspools of villainy around the galaxy, where any random person on the street would stab you in the back as soon as look at you. But here? On Corsucant, they would greet you, look you directly in the eye, and smile at you the whole time they were slipping in the knife.
“I certainly hope we can deal with this quickly,” Alex’s casual drawl slid forth, removing his helmet as he strode through the door of the safehouse and stowing it in the crook of his arm. “The longer I stay on this planet, the more I feel like I am just going to begin vomiting and never stop.”
The door hissed open. The operative stepped inside like she’d done it a hundred times before. Without sound. Without hesitation.
Socorra looked like the fight had followed her in. No gloves. No heavy armor. Just scorched hands and a long jacket that still smelled like blaster fire and recycled caf. Her blacks were worn but tight. Vambraces, faded and functional. Everything about her said this wasn’t her first cleanup.
One eye, sharp and ice-colored, cut across the room. The other was hollow, scarred, and unapologetically visible.
She found them as expected. Ada, composed but coiled. Not the bluffing type. Alex, already inside, leaning against the wall like he’d been watching the room long before she arrived. Two constants. One variable. She could work with that.
The door hissed again. Louder.
Bootsteps echoed, deliberate in every clack. Black and emerald cut across the floor. Aphotis entered like someone who’d never been told no, or had learned to savor it when she was.
The air changed. Socorra didn’t react. She knew the terror song and dance by heart.
But Ce’celia flinched. She shrank into her seat, datapad twitching in hand like her nerves couldn’t keep still. Socorra stepped forward and dropped a scorched Brotherhood insignia onto the table. It landed with a soft clink.
“This what they use now?” Her voice was low and dry, shaped by the Black Sands she came from.
The woman didn’t answer.
“You lying or rehearsing?”
Only Ce’celia moved, panic bleeding through every fidget.
“Pick one.”
She froze. Then startled, like someone had thrown a switch in her skull.
“1077-Besh,” she said quickly. “Old grid. Two-man access. I only know the route to the hub. Bhoc changed everything else.”
Socorra wiped something from her knuckles. It left a streak.
“Not useful yet. Keep going.”
She pressed her palm to the table, fingers curling under the edge.
“You didn’t come here for redemption,” she said quietly. “You came because you ran out of moves.”
The weight of Aphotis’s presence pressed in around them. Socorra didn’t interfere. She let Ce’celia feel every inch of it.
Then she spoke again, with the calm of someone who’d walked this moment before.
“Tell her what you tell me. Same order. All of it this time.”
She turned slightly. Just enough to give the floor to Aphotis.
“If she stalls, burn it out of her. Just keep the pieces I need.”
It wasn’t a challenge or a command. It was permission. Her hand pulled back, but her stance didn’t shift. Socorra had already traced three exits, two dead ends, and one thread that held steady. She didn’t need the Force to see it. Just pattern, precision, and history.
Hiss
The tall woman’s mask expelled air sharper than before, almost as if it was in agreement to Socorra. Every twitch, every scent, every heartbeat that Ce’celia’s body produced was registered. A profile was formed. First came the spice, tingling on Aphotis’s tongue, followed by bitter soot with a grainy texture. A long tail flicked with such speed and anticipation that it created a whistle.
Images began to form of a Trandoshan and his ruthless violence—the robbery. Projections started to flicker to life in the dancing light reflected on the Sith’s black suit and domed visor. Visions of people screaming, blood spraying, innocents becoming collateral. The portrayals of the teal-skinned Twilek’s fear made manifest.
The Enforcer’s deep emerald eyes stared into the Mistress’s second skin, pupils dilating, reliving the horror, over and over again.
“I-I can go with you, to show you the way. It must be stored on the server I’m thinking of, but I’ll remember when I see it, I-I hope. Please, stop!”
The heaviness in the air lifted.
“It is not much, but I can piece it together. She is a liability, though.” Socorra’s voice remained cold.
“Any deeper and the nerve-strands will begin to unfold. This will have to do.” Aphotis’s modulated voice was cordial and judgemental, pleased to have harvested another trepidation for her Garden.
Adalinde’s head tilted in curiousity as she observed the others’ discussion. “I ‘ave no interest in babysitting zis—” the Grand Inquisitor’s blue eyes bore into Ce'celia’s before she continued. “Dead weight. 'Er knowledge may be required but 'er skills? I zink not.”
The red-haired aristocrat started to stand with fluid, measured grace. Like a serpent uncoiling before its prey. Coming to her feet, she tugged at the edges of her fingerless gloves. Then, she froze. Another head tilt. As if a thought had just popped into her head. “Perhaps she can be wired in, so to say? Remotely? Wiz a vidfeed and communicator?”
Even though it was her idea, Ada seemed outright disappointed by it. She ruined her own fun, and that was just the worst.
If Alex’s eyes rolled any harder behind his visor he could’ve seen the back of his skull. Stepping away from the wall he had been leaning against, he rifled through some shelves for a moment before approaching Ce’celia with a blanket and a steaming cup of caf.
“I apologize profusely for my compatriots. Some of them are apparently still coming to grasp with their knowledge of Galactic Basic and do not understand that ‘informant’ and ‘prisoner’ are not the same words. And her?” Alex pointed over his shoulder with a thumb toward Adalinde as the Twi’lek accepted the cup from him. “Well, if your blood does not run quite the same hue of blue as hers does, she does not consider you relevant as a living being.” He placed the blanket over her shoulders as the warm caf began to soothe the nerves that had been run so raw by Aphotis’ ministrations.
“It is a rather salient point, though. Do you think, were we to set you up with the gear, you could guide us to where we need to go remotely? No sense putting yourself in danger - though I am quite certain you have dealt with more than your fair share of dangerous situations in your time - when the four of us are rather specialists in the matter of danger. Some of us at being the danger,” a subtle tilt of his helmeted head toward Aphotis, “some of us at weathering it.” He thumped a balled fist against his chest plate in emphasis as the dirt-covered, bedraggled criminal slowly nodded her head in agreement to the proposal.
“Well then,” Alex turned to face his assembled teammates, clapping his hands together before spreading them wide, “it sounds like we have a friendly guide in our ear, and the path before us is clear.” He gestured toward the doorway out of the safehouse. “Shall we go see what trouble we can get ourselves into?”
While the others talked, Socorra pulled up what few internal layouts she still had from before Bhoc changed the grid. Her fingers moved quickly, tracing old paths from perfect memory. No slicing, just recollection and rising irritation. Too many gaps and assumptions. The operative wasn’t waiting for failure. She saw it unfolding and was already building around it.
The plan was incredibly reckless, but the Good Mando–Bad Sithsters routine at least earned a flicker of amusement.
“So…we pinning t'is op on hope and datapad twitch?”
Socorra slipped a backup key into her vambrace. If the feed failed, she’d carve her own way in.
The redhaired woman’s idea was sound, albeit terribly boring, and potentially even merciful. And then came the incessant ‘balming-of-the-wounds’ by Alex Draconis himself.
Aphotis’s eyelid twitched, but even she could recognize that Ce’celia ate up his words and intentions.
Her electric-blue eyes returned to Socorra.
“According to my droid’s data, the next transport will arrive soon. It is civilian, so expect to see some jitters from its passengers.”
Eye-ronic chimed in with beeps and boops, letting the Brotherhood squad know the exact landing zones and estimated travel times. A triplet of smaller remotes hovered out from under one of its triangular wings and kept subtle watch on Ce’celia.
~~ ~~
Half An Hour Later Level 1077 Coruscant Data Center 0337
Ada exited first, having elbowed one of the passengers for almost the entire trip there. Socorra slipped out almost soundlessly and unseen. Everyone had been morbidly quiet, except for Alex Draconis. He seemed to keep the majority of the travellers safe by stemming any questions about the nature of that tall gloomy woman or any of the weapons carried by the rest.
‘Props’ he had said. For an event. They believed him, and nobody truly wished to question them.
Annoyance exuded from every facet of Ada’s being. Public transport? Unconscionable. And yet, they had taken it.
In the time it took them to make it to Level 1077, Ada had decided where this ‘team’ stood in her hierarchy of least favourite things.
It wasn’t low.
That said, the mission was still very much a mission. Biting at her bottom lip before letting out an annoyed huff, Ada tried to take stock of their surroundings before keying up a comm that had been linked up between their crew. “I am to assume we are doing zis, ‘ow you say, stealth?”
Alex glanced down at himself, clad head-to-toe in beskar and not exactly cutting a subtle figure as they proceeded into the grime-ridden underhive that was Level 1077. Denizens of these lower levels tended to pay attention to their own business and not spend a whole lot of time looking at others, but they were clearly actively doing so to the bizarre group which had just arrived. They stood out like a sore thumb - not only because of the gear they carried and the way they carried themselves, but also because they weren’t caked in the detritus and filth that rested like a second skin over everything down here. He turned, now striding backwards at the same pace as he had been moving forward, and the clank of his vambrace and gauntlet clattered forth as he raised one arm in a ‘thumbs up’ toward Ada.
“Sure. Stealthy. We will see how long that manages to last.”
Socorra stepped off the transport like she hadn’t just shared space with three dozen breathing liabilities. A packed hovertrain with dozens of witnesses. Ce'celia better keep the feed clean.
Ada moved first. Socorra trailed a few steps behind, slipping into the angles left in her wake. The rest followed. Loud or quiet didn’t matter, they were all visible now.
She veered low and left, instinct pulling her toward the shadow of a parked vendor stall near the far wall. Hood up, face half-lost in shadow, she adjusted her angle against the glass. It wasn’t a reflection she watched, it was what moved behind the movement. Vantage points. Blind spots. Patterns.
The data Ce'celia fed them barely matched her memory. Too much had changed, and Ce'celia didn’t sound steady. Socorra didn’t say so. She didn’t trust the plan, but she trusted her own preparation.
She keyed her comm, her accented voice just loud enough.
“Ce'celia miss a beat, we improvising. Plan for it.”
The operative moved again, skirting the walkway’s edge as three loitering workers watched from under a busted streetlamp. She catalogued them while scanning the rust-sealed side door just beyond.
Three exits. Two dead ends. One time thread that held. She moved with purpose, already charting the split before it came.
There was a low-hum and the sound of heels click, clacking disappeared. Aphotis hovered several inches above the ground as she activated her repulsor belt. It did not hide the occasional snapping of her second skin when it folded against itself, nor did it quieten the hissing of her mask. So the logical solution was to keep a safe distance from the only subtle one here, Socorra Erinos.
Aphotis saved the checkpoints on the map via her helmet when the Operative chimed in.
“One entrance? The other two are not viable. Does that check out, Ce'celia?” The shimmering black-clad woman’s voice carried confidence, willing to trust Socorra’s eyes at least.
There was the sound of static and a delay before the Twi'lek answered, “Uhh, blast! They must’ve barred one of the exits I was planning for, but other than that it is correct,” there was unease in her voice, “I do remember noticing that the guards stayed very close to the doors, too close. Perhaps you can use that to your adva-.”
The tall Sith clicked off the comms before Ce'celia could finish her sentence, “So, an explosive entrance it is! I have always wanted to set something off on Coruscant.” She rummaged through her symbiotic layered Envoy containers and pulled out a triangular and round object.
Her electric blue eyes darted toward Ada and Alex, “I have a mine and a thermal detonator here. Do we have anything more powerful?”
“More powerful than a thermal detonator?” Alex cocked his helmeted head and you could just tell that his eyebrows raised behind his visor. “I would take to imagine the plan is to blow down the door, not bring the level above crashing down on our heads.”
He casually reached down and rested the heels of his hands against the grips of Honor and Glory, still riding at his hips. According to the intel, the guards clustered close to the doors so blowing it down should take out most of them - maybe all of them if luck were on the team’s side this day - but any that weren’t would be disoriented and unprepared. In other words, easy to gun down before any danger faced them.
“You let me know when you are ready to blow it down and I will take care of anything left standing behind it.” He turned slightly, addressing the other members of the group. “There will be a lot of smoke and confusion and a rain of blaster fire when this kicks off. Probably a good opportunity for someone to slip in unnoticed if any of us plan to remain hidden - a good plan to have, since it could always be useful to have someone on backup that these vermin do not know about if we find ourselves too deep in the fire.”
A lascivious grin passed over Adalinde’s features for a fleeting moment before it spread into an almost crazed smile, all while her icey gaze flit around her. It seemed stealth wasn’t going to take after all. Perfect. For her. Not anyone else.
Not that they’d matter.
She quickly found her lightsaber in her grip and coiled behind Alex’s silhouette, rocking from side to side as she waited for the entrance to appear. “I am not one for hiding,” she hissed out, not willing to volunteer for that aspect of the plan. She wanted the rush. The thrill of the hunt and pain.
Ada’s hiss echoed. “I am not one for hiding.”
Socorra crouched near a rusted vent, syncing the timer through her vambrace. “And I am not one for noise.”
They stared. She stared back.
“I feel seen,” Socorra muttered, deadpan. Then, amused, with a buttery side of wry, “Right. Clearly loud role is taken. Karkin’ chaos vorpaks." She, too, enjoyed a good explosion on occasion.
Alex was right. if the blast was loud, and their fire louder, Socorra should be able to slip through the breach before the guards could scream. Her fingers found the familiar hilts of Oblyvyn, her beskar sword and dagger set, and she moved into place beside the blast zone. The Socorran desert woman steadied herself with a breath, her body and weapons poised like a sand viper.
"Count it out for me,” she said to Aphotis, her eye forward.
The tall Witch inclined her head at the three.
“Thermal detonator it is then. It will be set to maximum volatility,” there was a hint of amusement in her voice.
Aphotis’s claws twisted the circular device all the way, setting it to a short timer.
“Three, two, one…”
She stepped into the open and rolled the explosive over the base of her tail, until it coiled around the orb. A powerful flick of her tail sent it flying at the door. She stepped back. It bounced off. Baradium ignited into a plume of fire as the thermal detonator hit the ground.
..3..2..1.. Alex stood just at the edge of the blast radius, both pistols aimed toward the door. As the explosion went off it ripped away the door. And most of the wall the door was in. And a little bit of the wall next to that one. Subtle, a thermal detonator was not. But then again neither was Alex, as sizzling bolts of screaming hot plasma tearing through the air were eager to prove.
A measured, even stride toward the smoking remains of the doorway as his heavily armored form made an enticing target and a hard-to-ignore distraction for anyone still standing on the other side. A scream from within told him that at least one of his shots had found purchase with somebody who hadn’t gone down in the blast, but there was no way of knowing just how many others may still be capable of firing back. Fortunately that wasn’t his concern as he strode confidently into the smoke and dust and raining rubble still following the aftermath of the detonator - if he got shot it meant somebody else on the team didn’t, and that was most of his job after all.
Now this was more like it.
No sooner had Alex started blasting did Adalinde crouch low and charge forward, a look of absolute crazed glee upon her face and lips spread in such a wide smile that it threatened to split her face. She threw herself into both the fight and the battle rage, the heat of power spreading throughout every cell of her body. Adalinde snaked around Alex, still low to the ground, and was greeted by a flurry of blaster bolts. The hot, searing plasma scorched across the flesh of her right forearm in a glancing blow. She cried out, a mixture of joy and pain. Her sanguine blade cut through the smoke and dust where she had seen the flash of blaster barrels. She could sense the enemies all around her, but these had her focus. After all, they struck first.
Clearly, whoever this was wanted to be first in line.
Ada felt the almost imperceptible slow of her lightsaber as the deadly blade cleaved through flesh, armour, and the hope of a long life. She cackled and stormed out of the dust cloud, finding a semi-shattered table that the blast had hit. Rage still powering her, Adalinde kicked up the large debris before puching it mid-air—with all the strength she had. A loud crash rang out as she took out another target.
Alex pushed through, pistols bright and loud. Ada stormed past him in a blaze of red saber, rage, and ruin. The corridor bent around her like she owned it.
Socorra moved with them, silent, angled low and skirting the noise. Dual beskar Oblyvyn split in her hands: Olys Corellisi-named sword for clean cuts, dagger for the short work, and a dozen small blades for throws.
A guard’s focus latched onto Alex’s plasma thunder. She slid behind him, spine split, blood on the deck. Another shape lunged. She caught him mid-step, dagger to gut, blade turned, throat opened before he could shout. A throwing knife flicked from her palm and found the next throat in line. Her dagger stayed ready, warm and familiar in her grip.
The Sith caught Ada’s laugh, bright and feral. For a moment, she envied that. The blaze, the scream, the raw rage. Socorra had been a marauder herself before the incident at Hapes. A long coma’s atrophy put that to bed.
Maybe one day. Still, mad respect.
Right now, this was reality: three threads. Two traps, one clear. She wanted the controls, the kill switch.
Behind her: Alex’s gunfire, Ada’s crimson hymn. Aphotis loomed in after, her only rush to drink from the fear of the fallen before their last gasp. Her mask hissed under the crack of blaster fire and saber arcs. A guard slowly crawled away, leaving a trail of crimson, and the Witch grinned.
Oblyvyn sang high and low between the chaos. Socorra moved on, slipping through the shadows.
Scattered but progressively lessening blaster fire continued to hail around Alex as he stood confidently in the middle of the smoke and chaos, each of his own heavy blaster pistols systemically weaving through the air to unleash hot plasmic death toward what enemies still remained…even if he couldn’t see them between the remaining dust and debris of the detonator explosion and his foes having wisely decided to take cover. Most of the incoming fire was missing him as well, the gathered enemies still recovering from the shock and intensity of the assault they found themselves under. A couple bolts had found their mark so far, but did little more than scuff the heavy beskar plating which ensconced his form.
“This is lovely, of course, but only really serving as a distraction! I will take care of what is left up here, you lot get in deeper and find that server. I will follow-” a blaster bolt impacted his helmet, cutting him short and jerking his head to the left and eliciting a grunt. He raised Glory and returned fire to the unfortunate sod who was not wearing a helmet - and very quickly no longer wearing a head. “As I was saying before I was so rude interrupted,” a hail of blaster fire from his twin pistols punctuated his speech, “I will follow shortly once I have cleaned up and keep an eye out for any other trouble coming to investigate our little explosive entrance.”
“Got it!” was Socorra’s short and swift reply. Somewhere in her mind’s compartments she chuckled in response, but her primary was busy, already miles ahead.
Smoke still clung to the corridor, but the operative moved through it with ease, her memory filling in where her vision faltered. The loud klaxons could be heard in between rounds. A hard a turn and there- half-jammed into the wall just past the last killzone- was a secondary console lit in blinking red.
It was an old model. Industrial, ugly, and perfect.
Socorra holstered the dagger and crossed the floor low and silent. Fingers danced over the controls, calling up maps, signal feeds, and authorization prompts. A few strokes brought up the local alarms. They were locked and rerouted.
Of course.
The woman drew in a breath and leaned into the console’s edge like it owed her credits. She was no longer a slicer, she now had people for that. But her memory was unbroken and perfect. Her mind pulled up schematics from four systems ago with similar builds, similar blind spots.
If she couldn’t bypass it, she could kill it and possibly open doors while she was at it.
She reached into her belt and pulled one of the knives.
“Trigger this, and I throw you into wall myself,” she muttered to the console. Then she jammed the blade hilt-first into the panel seam. Sparks started jumping, and the klaxons and blinking red lights died.
Socorra barely had time to step back from the shorted console before the hiss of hydraulics echoed behind her. First one shape appeared, then two.
Combat droids.
Kark!
The first slammed into the corridor wall where she’d stood a second earlier. She spun out of reach and ducked into the recess around the console, effectively pinning herself.
Socorra jammed her finger at her comm. “Can one of you loud bastards come help?”
The reply came not as a voice, but a scream.
Ada’s scream.
It roared through the corridor with savage joy. The droids turned too late. A red blur tore past the cubbyhole, and a moment later: crunch-snap-sparks. Screaming metal. Droid parts flew past the opening like someone had thrown an industrial grinder into a scrapyard.
Socorra blinked.
“Do.. do you want to get drink later?” she asked, only half joking. She wasn’t even sure if Ada had heard.
But somewhere in the haze of smoke and shredded circuits, she swore she heard laughter.
Socorra exhaled once and kept going to the mainframe, which was much easier now that Ada had carved a path of carnage.
The chaos was all the cover needed to get the job done. Socorra managed to find the mainframe unmanned. As good a first step as any. As she began tapping into the system, numbers and symbology flashed across the screen. It was almost like a conversation as she negotiated her way through the system.
Another roar reverberated as Ada must’ve found another group of targets. Blaster fire rang out, the rhythm of it clearly from Alex’s heavy blaster pistols.
That was good. That meant more time.
However, it was getting closer. That was decidedly not good. Hissing to herself and making a face, Socorra made the decision even as various data directories scrolled across her vision. There wasn’t time to find the specifics. She had to take it all.
Working quickly, Socorra established a relay and began the transfer of the video files through the HoloNet to several waiting drop points. Better to have redundancy, after all. Her eye scanned the screen as the various progress bars filled in, only to have her full attention snap to the door as a bloody and burned silhouette blocked out the light.
Adalinde’s chest was rising and falling in heavy, ragged breaths for several moments, a weary look passing over her features, before she managed a quick sweep of her hair and a long sigh. Her icey gaze focused on Socorra with the barest hint of her predatory grin. “Wine,” she hissed, then chuckled as if to a joke only she was privy to. “Since you offered.”
The staccato rhythm of blaster fire from down the hall slowed and finally came to a stop, to be replaced by calmly-paced bootfalls and a frantic scurrying alongside them. Alex came up behind Ada along with a Rodian frantically flailing his arms to attempt to break free of the tight headlock the Mandalorian had him held in. The opposite fist, clad in decorated beskar casually swung back and forth in a fluid motion, impacting into the green-skinned face over and over again at a pace that suggested it was little more than an afterthought to the warrior.
“Front room is all clear, it seems, though I cannot say for how long that might hold true. I would quite prefer us to be on our way sooner rather than later. How are we doing on the server?” A random swing brought an open hand up to make contact with Alex’s helmet - not enough force to have any real impact but an annoyance all the same. He glanced down at his captive stress toy, shook his head in disappointment, and slammed a knee into the ganger’s gut. A huge whoof of air escaped and the flailing settled down, though the Mandalorian’s casual punches continued to land though the pace was starting to slow. Alex was clearly beginning to lose interest both in the violence and the situation.
The lights dimmed as the final transfer completed, leaving only the cold hum of a spent machine.
“Wine - if it’s expensive,” Socorra said with a dry smirk toward Ada. She turned back to the console as Alex arrived and keyed in one last command to fry the system. Nothing fancy, just what the spike had preloaded. They had what they came for.
“A winery, so yes,” Ada replied.
Socorra sheathed Oblyvyn and stepped over wreckage, bodies, and scattered droid parts as she rejoined Adalinde, Alex, and Aphotis.
“In that case, you’ve got a little blood…” she motioned to Ada’s face.
“So do you.”
“Oh.” She shrugged and kept walking.
“We are done. Let’s go home.”
They left with minor inconveniences and plotted course back to Arx.
Still on Coruscant, Ce’celia’s voice crackled faintly through the comms.
“Hello? Is this—hell—can anyone hear me? I think the blast might’ve knocked out—hello? Anyone?”