Aggressive Negotiations

[Astrid Gray]

"Quite. Being ejected out into the vacuum of space isn't exactly recoverable." Astrid grew silent as she stared at the vent, arms crossed against her chest, fingers idly tapping away. "The ventilation system on this level, and the ones above are sizable enough given they have to accomodate for the potential of large crowds of people on the upper levels. But you're right in that they start thinning out the lower you get on the station. Less people, only a few engineers, and even then the majority of them are droids that well...don't need air to work."

As she rambled on, she caught Kaili looking at her. Astrid chuckled lightly.

"In my line of work you learn how to memorize and compartmentalize information, be it significant or small." She sighed after that, turned around so she was leaning against the wall and facing the blonde. "We could potentially use the vents to get down to a lower level, but we'll quickly have to abandon that method after a couple. The best bet would to take the elevators, which isn't exactly desirable. Although..."

Once more it seemed as Astrid got lost in her thoughts again, her fingers tapping in more of a coherent pattern this time.

"We passed through a four-way junction on the way here, one of the other directions leads to an elevator that should take us to the lowest level before Engineering. From there we'd have to find a secondary lift to reach the remaining levels." Astrid opened her eyes again, looking at Kaili. "Unless the 'big mastermind' behind this has a large amount of pirates on payroll, their numbers have to be lighter the further down we go. Their focus has been on keeping all the station's population locked up." Which likely meant that if they were any defences between them and that, then they'd be robotic in nature. Although that thought did give Astrid another idea.

"How far can you take our little friend before losing connection, if that even is a thing with the Force?" Astrid crouched down and scooped the spider drone into her hands. "We could send it up into the ventilation, guide it downwards and scout out the levels as we ourselves descend."

[member="Kaili Talith"]​

 

[Kaili Talith]

[member="Astrid Gray"]

Whether intentional or not, Kaili had set herself up for that one. Her nerve pinched for a second as Astrid mentioned not being able to recover from getting spaced. Technically you could, Kaili even knew someone who had, but the cost for it had been… A lot. Yeah, that felt like the best way to put it. As Astrid made her point and rather peculiar understanding of ventilation shafts known, Kaili threw her a surprised look. Not every journalist was this experienced in infiltration, or so Kaili assumed. Yes, there were some that went out of their way for a scoop but those people usually didn’t live to tell the story either or had gotten by dumb luck. It was arguable whether or not this meant that Kay was in over her head or if Astrid was either lucky or had peculiar interests to say the least.

At least her plan was sound.

“There is a limit. Distance makes it harder to focus and maintain the connection, not to mention the hardware in the device I connected it to.” Kaili said and nodded. “We could use this little peep as a distraction, too. Send him first and then-”

Heavy footfalls echoed down the corridor, most likely heading towards the ruined comms panel where the droid that was now in their possession had last reported sightings of foes. Judging by the way they ran and the amount of steps, a dozen well-armed soldiers were a fair assumption. Which, in reality opened up that one option. The more crazy option that had the slimmest chance of succeeding, yet at the same time…

“We could ambush them.” Kaili said and knelt down to make herself smaller. “Your leg-swords, my fists.” She peered over Astrid’s shoulder towards the direction of the elevator. “Elevator risks exposing us to them.”

Finally she looked over at the ventilation entrance.

Oh right, that was still an option.

“Hide?” She asked and turned back towards Astrid as the screws started to come undone with the faintest of groans.

 

[Astrid Gray]

Astrid cursed quietly, of course it couldn't be that easy. Her knowledge of the Force was limited a best, and that wasn't even touching on it's apparent interaction with technology. With a limit to the distance, they wouldn't be able to simply send the droid down a floor to scout it out - not effectively anyway.

They'd have to be physically on the level in order to do that.

Her musings were interrupted by the sound of pirates rushing down towards the nearby communication room.

Their choices were getting more limited...

Kaili was right in that the elevators weren't the right choice. No doubt whoever was behind this, had eyes on who and what was moving around the station. And using one of the elevators would just heavily disadvantage them. Confined in a small space, with basically only one exit that can be easily obscured by several armed pirates.

Astrid let out a frustrated sigh.

"The vents it is then, we'll use them to navigate down a floor or two. Once there we should hopefully have a clearer path to bottom."

Meanwhile, the pirates had reached the Communications Room, two individuals leading the charge as they shifted into the room with weapons aimed and ready. The others remained outside, guarding.

"There's nothing here, Boss."

"Nooo, really? You don't say." The voice in their ears was distorted but deep, and very sarcastic. "Obviously they've moved, likely still on that floor. Spread out and find them!"

Unfortunately for them, by the time they would've caught them, the duo were already gone. With the grating unscrewed, Astrid had hauled the spider drone up into the vent first. She followed after that, making the executive decision that Kaili was the better choice to cover the rear. Astrid knew she probably couldn't handle a fight better than the blonde. Fortunately, their escape was swift enough that they were gone, grating replaced too, before the first pirate found the dead-end.

[member="Kaili Talith"]​

 

[Kaili Talith]

[member="Astrid Gray"]

Frustrated pirates. Kaili grinned at the situation as she took her seat in the ventilation shaft and looked over at the others. Or at least as much of it as she could muster. Covering the rear meant a certain disadvantage to face-to-face communication and all that. Voices being a very directional method of talking and all that. Very, very directional. It was good to really consider just exactly how directional it was and the hazards that came with speaking both too much and too little. Especially when someone also considered just exactly which type of rear Kaili was to cover.

Her own. Definitely her own. Well, obviously Astrid’s too, but that was sort of implied in the whole ‘if I cover my own back, I have hers covered too.’ Because safety in numbers, naturally. Nothing else. Kaili averted her eyes behind her and focused on picking up anything Astrid said as they slowly made their way up the ventilation shafts.

“So you said you had a habit of crawling or otherwise going through these tiny cramped spaces, right?” Kaili said, speaking away from Astrid before she turned around to see the upcoming intersection. “Because I have to be entirely honest with you? Not entirely sure where we would go from here.”

Gentle winds seemed to flood from the right which most likely meant that it was in the direction of whatever provided them with air. After all, it was highly unlikely that it came from the outside. The temperatures in this shaft also seemed to grow colder from up ahead, yet warmer to the left. Kaili awaited Astrid’s decision with her eyes looking very much back towards the way they had just come. It was better that way, for her. Kaili. Because, well, communicating by voice was bound to attract more attention from potential undesirables such as pirates or otherwise literal vent rats. Did you know that there were some rats that actually preferred to live on space stations? Kaili hadn’t either, but she sure had found it fascinating when she first read about it!

There was plenty of more fun space station trivia she could think of in this situation. Like, for example, that some stations have built in food processors that run on packs such as carbohydrate and protein packs? Sure did! She should tell Astrid that.

No, wait, she shouldn't.

 

[Astrid Gray]

The duo and droid's journey through the stations lower ventilation system was practically unimpeded, aside from the small moments of awkwardness. The space was cramped, incredibly so. Just enough room to crawl forwards, and maybe turn around if it was absolutely required. But the feeling of claustrophobia was ever present within Astrid. She didn't have a deep-rooted fear of it, but that didn't do anything to squash the feeling she was going to get stuck.

It cemented her relief over choosing to go incognito for this outing. No way would one her more outrageous outfits have fit through this.

Silence remained as they continued onwards, in part because there were still pirates patrolling the station. Every now and then, at least for the first few levels, they'd have to stop all movement as a group crossed down the hallway beneath them.

Once it was all clear, they continued. With their weirdly awkward follow the leader situation. The small spider drone leading the way, but technically it was Kaili controlling it while at the same time taking up the rear as Astrid remained in the middle.

"At least you have something of a good view..."

The comment had slipped from Astrid's lips at one point, muttered but still very much audiable in the cramped space. She made no other comments following that, whether she realized she had spoken out loud or not.

She was in a cramped space, with the air was getting more stuffy every minute they remained in the ventilation. Even someone as uptight as Astrid could be would start unravelling a little.

Fortunately they hadn't encountered any sheer drops along their journey. There path took them down gradual slopes in the ventilation, followed by a stretch of narrow space, a bend, and then down another slope as they got further down into the station. A repeating pattern that was easy to follow.

Eventually, they had arrived at their destination, a single ventilation grate that was overlooking a hallway below. Astrid hoped this was the correct location, But even if it wasn't, one way or another, she was getting out of this cramped space.

"This should be the last level of the station before Engineering. Let's send out little friend through the vent to scout the hallway."

If Astrid's theory was right, there shouldn't be any pirates this far down into the station.

Though that said nothing of anything else being present.

Kaili Talith​

 

[Kaili Talith]

“Yep,” An awkward cough burst through Kaili’s lips at the ‘good view’ remark. “I suppose, or- yes. I-”

A patrol passed and Kaili found the needed strength to simply shut up and let it go. Her heart was in her throat, her blood feeling ready to burst through her nose as they traversed the cramped ventilation shaft. It was hard not to notice the worry Astrid would have, but it wasn’t really mirrored by Kaili herself. Perhaps it was one of the benefits of the force. If she got stuck she could pull herself out of it, Astrid… Not so much.

As they arrived Kaili nodded in what was most likely an unseen sign of agreement and the little droid would crawl out the grate to take a look around. For the first time in a long while Kaili would get the chance to look at her holo-device as it projected the droid’s view to her wrist.

“Looks clear.” She whispered. Something passed down the corridor and Kaili instinctively reached out to stop Astrid from moving. It was a slow realization before total panic. “Sorry!” She hissed. “Sorry, I am so sorry. Just don’t move, okay?”

Her hand let go and Kaili brushed it off on the side of her hip in a hurry, her cheeks burning red with a nearly palpable sense of embarrassment practically radiating off of her.

“They seem to have disappeared.” A pirate said as they passed.

“It’s a space station, unless they spaced themselves I don’t see where they could have gone.” The other responded.

As some time passed and the corridors went quiet, the droid would begin to open the grate. The two women jumped out and Kaili decidedly took point, approaching a corner and then throwing a glance around it. It was clear, their destination being just down the hallway.

Her cheeks were still burning, but she turned towards Astrid nonetheless.

“How do you want to do this?”

Astrid Gray