The message was short.
[Retrieve the data I require and perhaps some samples too. Location to be given upon acceptance of the task.]
The pay offered wasn’t phenomenal, no better than a courier fee but the name attached bore some weight.
[Signed, Titius Osseus, RD]
To some, he was well known. To others, two clicks on a Holonet terminal painted a grim picture of a lunatic.
Slicing 3+ : || Currently held at a blacksite location of his own making under orders stamped by most of the Dread Council ||
Do you choose to accept?
The few applicants that replied were not only capable but perhaps a little overqualified but hey, if they were okay with the pay, all the power to them.
The facility they were directed to was perhaps the ugliest excuse for a medical research center in the galaxy. The grey coloration on its exterior was unsettling to look at just by how boring it was. The only interesting point was its position. It was flipped, its top pointed directly at the planetary surface below it. In all communication and references, it is simply referenced as The Facility.
Aliso, Joss Homestead
“Hey Kaycee! Wanna go do a quick mission?” Kalen hollered to the repogrammed security droid from balcony after reading the details mission posting he just saw on the Bro-net.
“I’d be delighted to master. Shall I pack a full combat load sir?”
“Might as well, looks like a bit of a milk run, but better have it then need it.” The Jedi replied before going inside and asking for his pregnant fiances permission to ‘go play at his friends house.’.
Eevie leaned back in a chair, spinning it around in boredom. She wanted something to do, anything to break the monotonous week she was in. A ping on the holonet drew her attention.
“Hmm…retrieve data…samples…location given when accepted? I think not.”
With the ease of a well seasoned hacker she sliced the message, revealing its hidden details.
“Oooh…a blacksite ay? And the pay is??? What? Nope. Im worth far more than that.”
As the Sephi Mandalorian was about to decline the job offer a noise drew her attention. A man walked into the room. Gareld…the man who’s been vying for her attention ever since their almost drunken tryst two weeks prior. She was so glad she kept enough sense to not go to his room. She hadn’t drank since.
“Hey Eevie! So, what do you think, wanna revisit our favorite bar and get a dr…”
Eevie’s finger slammed the accept button instantly.
“Oh sorry, I have a job I gotta go handle. Real important stuff, you know how it is. Bye!”
Addyn'nephs sat in The Sprawl, crimson eyes scanning the various data-feeds fed back to him through his various agents and accomplices. A chime in the back of the room alerted him to the arrival of a guest, a holo rose beside his wrist to present the figures of Couer and Severin Xand traversing the hall towards his data center. A wave of his hand over the holo unlocked the door for them.
“Report?” He asked as they entered.
“Back-channel work order. Interesting client.” The half-Kessurian male responded as he handed a datapad to his sister.
Couer crossed the distance and wrapped herself around the Chiss, placing the datapad in his hand.
“Apparently the madman from Plagueis, Titius has put out a call for some hands.” The pink Kessurian whispered.
“The Hand of Dread hiring hands? This job’s a trap. Is there something unique enough for me to be personally interested?”
“Pay’s fragged, location’s nondescript ‘given on arrival’, well-known war criminal doing the hiring. Either this is an attempt to flush out a bounty hunter, which serves you as well, or the site is legitimate and he’s trying to keep a low enough profile to keep scalpers off,” Severin countered, “I can gear up and take the job with minimal risk.”
“No.” Addyn stopped him with a two fingered wave, a BX-series droid rousing from the corner of the room.
“I’ll step out this time.”
And there they were, a motley crew on a Sheathipede, soaring down to this upside down research facility or whatever it was.
Kalen had never met Titius, though he had encountered several of his droids on a few occasions. No one had ever told him why the guy was being held in ‘indefinite detention’ , and he’d never asked. As far as the eternally naive Jedi was concerned, he was just helping out a clanmate.
“So uh this a bit of an eclectic list of data and samples here. Do we want to divide it into lots, and just start cross things off?”
His buddy Blackhawk snorted a chuckle, the only person he was sure he knew that was aboard, though he did vaguely recall meeting Eevie in a drunken haze at a bonefire or or other social gathering before.
“What? It seems easy enough.” Kalen said.
“Its Titius, we’ll probably have to kill everyone there before we get access to the stuff.” Someone said off to his.
“Oh, another one of those types of jobs, gotcha.” Kalen pulled out his blaster and checked its power cell.
The Facility sat in the upper atmosphere in all its grey magnificence. Vaguely disk shaped, it had very little protruding from its bottom, lending itself the appearance that a plateau from planetary surface had simply ascended. Its topside was more populated with flat snaking passageways edge to edge but the overall station looked closer to a holopuck than a facility. For a medical facility, there was far less bustle present than there should have been. Nothing challenged the approaching crew, no fighters deployed to intercept. The station just hung there in the upper atmosphere.
The platform the shuttle was hurtling towards seemed to be the only reasonable spot to set down.
“Brace yourselves a bit, this might be a little bumpy.”
He replied as Laoch, his red and black Keeradak dug its claws into his shoulder.
Weyr began to descend preparing to land, winds whipped about causing the shuttle to jolt about, but Weyr focused himself as he compesated for the wind and continued the landing process. After a few moments, making sure the landing gears where now out, he guided it down carefully as he could.
Screeeeennchhh!
As the ship made contact with the landing pad, he could hear a bit of scraping as the ship finally touched down. Looking out the window, he saw that the nose of the shuttle was hanging out in the atmosphere, however they had landed.
“Well folks, bit rough, I think I might have lost some of my paint job, but we made it.” He chuckled mildly as he turned off the engine.
“Welcome to the facility, really hope that despite our scrape landing, I wasn’t too loud and announced our presence, but I guess we only have one way to find out right?” He then stood up and made his way to the side to open the door and hit the button.
Outside the shuttle, there was a flat panel the length of the pad inset into the side of the featureless block that sat on this side of the complex. No access panels or other features stood out immediately.
Unbothered, Addyn'nephs stayed seated. His BX-series adjusting itself only slightly as the vessel began to grind to a halt, an annoyed huff escaping its vocoder as the ship stopped. The Chiss raised a hand to stop the droid from speaking its mind, Bogan knew it would have a lot of commentary on the haphazard landing, and unlike himself it didn’t have the capacity to keep itself tight-lipped about it.
He would wait for the others to exit before he prepared his gear and made for the exit, a hollow grin on his face.
No access panel, no problem. Blackhawk reached out with the Force. The panel responded. It responded too well. The door slammed upward much faster than anticipated. And with much more kinetic power. Unfortunately, the facility itself, due to age, shoddy construction, bad material, or some combination thereof, tore open. Not completely, but enough that any atmosphere the room held went rushing out of the landing bay and adjacent room. Blackhawk winced. “Oops.”
“Welp, no air, no problem Blackhawk” Weyr replied giving a slight amused smile. “ Who here doesn’t have a space suit or some form of armor to help them breathe air? I have an interesting way to get past this little accident but can only do one other person besides myself.”
“Uh, me. I can hold my breath pretty good, but I dont have a suit.” Kalen said, as he hadnt retrofitted his grandfathers old Jedi General Armour with any sort of EV capabilities.
Addyn dropped his hand and the BX-droid beside him spoke up, snide and cutting.
“I thought we were working with the best of the best, sir? Can they find the tit on a Thala-siren?” It snipped as it moved and allowed its master to stand.
“Diamonds in the rough, Bix, diamonds in the rough. You’re going to find not everyone working for this low credit-point are going to be geniuses.” The Chiss responded as he checked his gear and realized—
“Bix…”
“What?”
“Where’s my Enviro-suit?”
“What?”
“Where. Is. My. Enviro. Suit.”
“I, uh, put it away. You said anyone working for ‘The Madman’ was either well prepared or insane. I batted for the prior.”
Addyn sighed and cupped his face in his hands.
“Apparently my BX-Series is trying to kill me. I don’t have a suit currently either.” He groaned as he gathered his equipment and stared at the droid, which shrugged for its part and followed after him.
A loud whine began to emenate from the now very open portal to the Facility. Sparks flew from the damaged frame as the door attempted to move. Inside the room, a KX unit was repeatedly pushing a button behind a wide console. Each press sent more sparks skittering across the floor and out to the landing pad.
Oddly, some sparks arced out and flew up towards the planet.
“Oh dear well this is certainly quite a predicament. And of course, I forgot to grab another suit for hazardous environments. Plus can only do one other person.” He began to think a moment. “Well if it is only that room that has no air, perhaps I can transform one person at a time Get them to the safe spot, though question posed is Mr. Blackhawk gonna try to be more careful with doors? Also not to mention, if we have to run from something.Hmm.”
Kalen almost laughed but then realized there was no air a a breathable concentration outside of the shuttle they were in.
“I’ll hoof it. Kaycee, just make sure you get me some O2 if I pass out.” He nodded at his aging reprogrammed security droid.
“Of course sir, as always, I will cover you with suppressing fire.” The droid replied.
Kalen sucked in what little air he could, ran and leap from the shuttle to the hatch Blackhawk and just blown, he also pulled his lightsaber from his belt, but didn’t ignite it
His droid dutifully followed with the customarily slow plodding steps of a K series security droid.
Weyr’s eyes widened. “Well go time it is then.” Concentrating, he focused Addyn and himself. “You may feel a little strange, Addy but you will still maintain your intelligence, just in a more batlike form.” His hands glowed as light surrounded him and the Sith. After a few moments, both had morphed into a pair of Mynock bats. Immediately, Weyr flew after Kalen, hoping he could reach air before he passed out.
“Always one or more to be daredevils.”
Blackhawk sighed. Everyone has to do things the impulsive way. At least one of them had thought to turn themselves into something that could survive the vacuum first, though he did have to chuckle at Kalen for just jumping out of the shuttle. Blackhawk closed his eyes, focusing for a moment. Everyone felt a tug as they “fell” towards the door when gravity suddenly asserting itself in that direction
Addyn adjusted to the shift in his form with a mild amusement, then turning to his droid and gesturing for it to follow him as he walked on his forelimbs toward the exit of the craft and propelled himself out of the craft towards the door. Once Bix joined and they both drifted towards the doorway, the annoyed Mynock-Chiss took in the view of open space around them, looking up (or rather down) to the planet below them as Blackhawk’s manipulated gravity guided everyone down.
A series of disasters waiting to happen. I feel it now.
Aisha had enjoyed the free ride-along offered by her comrades on this quest for some non-descript cool medical device, by some Plagueian dude named Titius. She wasn’t so “in” on the inner workings of the Brotherhood, mostly resigning herself to the company of the former Regent, Zxyl Bes'uliik, and other nerdowells with some subtle links to her criminal underworld past.
Nah, for Aisha, this was all about the chance to examine that medical device… and she relished a chance to have fun doing it. Although the Underworld Cyberngeneticist had forgotten her flask, a seriously damn shame, she intended to make the most of it. And it looked like her comrades already had.
She herself was thankfully encapsulated in her MandoMedic Beskar'gam, it’s fine crimson asymetrical circuit pattern contrasting with the dull amethyst purple plating. Her telescoping beskar spear, Adiir, was secured to her back tip-up via her jetpack in it’s collapsed configuartion, a single Mandalorian Vambrace adorned her right wrist, and two custom purple and gold WESTAR-35’s saddled each hip.
She’d mostly stayed quiet during the trip, not really her style - though she was hyper-focuse on this new game she found and had unsaddled her crash-webbing when they landed. When Blackhawk just… opened that facility door and let all the air escape, her mouth opened - a little shocked.
Okay, the spoonbender made a mistake. That’s fine, every sentient has their faults. She smiled cooly beneath her helmet as they formulated their plan afterwards.
But then. BUT THEN. Kalen just opened the shuttle door and WENT FOR IT! She sealed her armor, and then joined the others as Blackhawk did some weird thing she didn’t really understand… a tugging sensation pulling her frame towards the door as if gravity had shifted. She didn’t resist or make her own way there, but DID use her jetpack in very minute bursts to pick up Kalen on the way to the hangar bay’s airlock…
Aisha was still relatively new to this whole “being a Mandalorian” thing, but she was honestly giving it her best shot. Her choice to use very small bursts and Blackhawk’s re-centered gravity on the bay door paid off… She wobbled her way to the airlock, grabbing Kalen by the back of the belt with her left arm as she went on by and speeding along their travel to their destination. Once they landed she eyed up that malfunctioning KX-series Security Droid from their gravity landing, Before it could mangle the panel further, she drew one of her WESTARs and fired two shots in its direction.
The very helpful KX droid slumps over the console like a discarded doll, its eyes flickering out as it slowly let out a “Wel…om..to…theooooooo…”
The room remained exposed to space. There was twin units making outrageous noise as they were venting air. Something was beginning to glow and smoke on their rear.
Aisha kinda cocked her head to the side for a sec, and then holstered her pistol. She made her way over to the console, examining it as the room started to fill with smoke - okay, also not good. Was it just a single button on this console, was there a screen, something she could intereact with? ANYTHING?
Aisha looks at Kalen. Looks at the others. Then lifts the cover and pushes the red EMERGENCY button.
The environment turned briefly blue as an environmental shield enveloped from console out to the landing pad. A loud bang sounded as one of the glowing objects gave out and belched smoke around the exterior of the shielding.
A warning message appeared on the console, indicating the loss of air scrubber 1. A second warning dropped in adding that the room was appropriate for breathing. A countdown ticked down merrily beside it.
After slowly expelling air from half full lungs and then nearly a minute of delirium, Kalen’s whited out, star filled vision began to fade and he was able to draw breath again.
“Oh that was really dumb…” the Jedi gasped and choked as he caught breath his laying, sprawled on the deck, next to the console at Aisha’s feet.
“My galaxy, what gives? I thought this place was in the atmosphere.”
“Upper atmosphere pal, upper.” he heard someone say as he rolled over and looked around for his sabre and blaster.
“You dropped these Master Joss, I have retrieved them for you.” Kaycee, his nanny-like SecDroid said as he bent over and offered them back.
“Thanks bud.” Kalen grunted as he got to his feet.
“So I guess just knocking on the door and asking for the stuff is off the table now, eh?” Kalen said to Blackhawk as he regained his wits.
“Shall I scout the corridor, sir? I love scouting corridors.” The always pleasant droid, Kaycee, replied.
A loud thump sounded as Bix adjusted its descent through the artificial gravity well and crashed into the platform beyond the rest of the gathering group of— what would one even call them, mercenaries? Around the droid, Mynock Addyn adjusted to his flight-capable form as he swooped through the void before alighting next to the droid, wings folded. As Bix started toward the environmental shielding, Addyn turned his head side to side in an attempt to better adjust to the Mynock’s vision.
Disconcerting. He thought to himself before he started to walk behind the droid,
It took a few moments to find purchase on the smooth surface, but once he figured out the grasp of the “knuckles” at the wrist of the wing, he began to pull himself along until he was through the environmental shielding as well and meandered among the others.
Weyr had made it to Kalen and landed beside him. Using his telepathy, he messaged Kalen. “So the atmosphere is safe then to breathe for the moment I take, seeing as you are not suffocating anymore. I would advise next time to remember a suit if you can. If the next bit is safe as well for breathing, I can transform Addyn and I back to our normal selves. I just want to be sure beforehand.”
“I unno if breathable, zi’d think so. Kaycee go check it out.”
“Oh gladly sir. Right away.” The reprogrammed security droid walked over to one of the interior hatches, pushed the access control and waited as it wooshed open. It was clearly pressurized based on the readout of the little panel, and Kaycee stepped through, look to his left and right.
“Oh, hello, we are here to retrieve some items and information for our employees.” The droid said conversationally to whomever was standing down the hallway from him.
Kalen pulled out the lightsaber he had just hung back on his belt, but didn’t ignite it.
<@348547724628721695>
The hall was poorly lit and completely unoccupied, stretching on for quite a stretch. The droid’s inquiries reverberated back at them in a mocking echo.
Back at the panel, the countdown began pulsing a dull orange with each descending digit. The readout read 180.
“That’s consoles counting down. I don’t think thats a good sign…” Kalen said.
“Shall I continue my reconnaisance sir? Please.” The K series sec droid asked.
“Yeah make it quick, start grabbing stuff on the list. We got less then 3 minutes before…something.” The shout as Kaycee stomped down the corridor deeper into the facility.
A door finally slid open as Kaycee stomped by and a very short Ugnaut began yell-snorting at the droid.
“What in the abyss is all that noise! I am trying to do work in here you know!”
Back at the open concept foyer, the timer hit 10 and the shield keeping the party safe began flickering and shrinking.