Private Bootlegger Boogaloo

[Arkyn Rane]

Arkyn found the generators easily enough, after bluffing her way past a few scattered patrols and one particularly mouthy protocol droid. She was an old hand at thinking on her feet, and generally much preferred it to overwrought plans.

The power generators were a little taller than her, arranged in a circle around a central control unit. She pulled out her omnitool and got to work, sliding off the unit's control panel. She increased the power flux by tweaking the overflow regulators in the capacitors, setting the circuits to gradually overload.

Quickly and carefully, she placed one detonator on the furthest generator from the door, then another on the opposite side of the room, both set to the max blast radius- twenty meters each. With luck, the whole base would go up in flames, distracting the Brotherhood long enough and thoroughly enough to help her escape from the planet. She linked the detonation mechanisms to her datapad, then left the room to return to the entrance hall and meet up with Sorr and R5.

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​

R5 led Sorr to the small room from which he could access the facilities secondary computer system and overwrite the security systems and the turrets, as well as any droids that were linked to the command node in the central system. Unfortunately, there was no way to remotely deactivate the jammers, but if Arkyn managed to blow the facility, as the droid assumed was her plan, they wouldn't need to.

While Sorr got to work, R5 linked to the security feeds to take the lay of the land. The command room was emptying, as the single remaining squad of Scar hounds in the entire facility left the room to patrol the base. And he saw Arkyn headed back to the entrance hall, strolling very casually through the entrance hall.

Judging by the path the Scar hounds were taking, they'd arrive in the entrance hall at the same time.

"Don't you have a transmission for me to decode?" R5 asked Sorr in chirping binary. "You're as slow and dimwitted as my master." The droid rotated his head, his version of rolling his eyes. "Speaking of my master, she's about to run into a squad of Scar hounds. Hurry it up, won't you?"

Sorr Kortu

 

[Sorr Kortu]

Sorr forgot how snarky Astormech Droids can be.

He remembered working with one during junior flight school: An R2 unit who was a bossy know it all, he would constantly fill the translation screen with orders telling Sorr to maintain distance from a target, to reroute power to shields whenever the Starfighter so much as a scratch by a mineral. Sorr hated the R2 unit to the point where he wanted to jettison the little guy into virtual space. He kept insulting him, saying that he is a geek, a scruffy looking nerf herder. Sorr was nearly driven to madness.

"I'm sure Arkyn will love to hear the chit coming from your verbal modulator." Sorr muttered taking out a small datapad. He grabbed the plug from next to the Holocomputer and began to slice in "All right." Sorr looked at the information presented. "This is a simple UNIT system," Sorr muttered continuing to type in the datapad. Gonna use the scramble key to bypass the electronic locks......"

The datapad began to upload data displaying the multiple signals. "Okay! I'm in!" Sorr said. "There's a lot more activity between nobles than I expected!"

Arkyn Rane

 

[Arkyn Rane]

Arkyn arrived at the entrance hall with little fanfare. There was a squad of scar hounds passing through from the opposite corridor when she arrived. The group- nine scarred, savage looking warriors in ratty, piecemeal armor wielding serrated blades and clunky heavy blasters- paused as one when they glimpsed her.

The scar hounds looked at Arkyn. Arkyn stared back, forcing down a rising tide of panic. She could almost taste their suspicion.

“What’s your identification number, trooper?” The largest one asked, his face hidden beneath a half-helm.

“…”

They palmed their weapons. The swords, not the blasters.

“Your number. Trooper.”

Arkyn upped her blaster and fired, trigger finger like lightning, retreating back around the bend. Where the feth are those two?

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“I imagine entire libraries and museums could be filled with all manner of phenomenon beyond your feeble organic expectations. Move aside adolescent flesh-bag.”

Still ported into the security systems, R5 jacked himself into the communication logs, then very rudely used one of his many grapple-arms to reach in Sorr’s pocket and snatch up the coded transmission he’d received.

The droid made short work of the codes, and located the source of the message within seconds.

“Baroness Aurene Kaas, head of the Free People’s movement.” R5 uploaded everything the Maw had on the Baroness, including directions to and a map of her estate. “Come now, boy. My master needs us.”

Sorr Kortu ​

 

[Sorr Kortu]

A wide smile formed on Sorr's face when he saw the information of Baroness Kaas. He knew who Aurene Kaas was, she fought alongside his Dad during the Omega War. If there was noble family who would be eager to fight, it'll be Aurene's. "Got it!" Sorr said staring at R5. "I know a shortcut that can take us to her estate. I've taken the route a couple of times mainly to avoid the boring dinner parties."

Boy did Aurene love to throw lavish parties and it was the stand around gossiping and sipping champagne kind of party. Sorr remembered nearly falling asleep a couple of times trying to endure how Aurene would explain in explicit detail how she took down a Sith Lord with her bare hands. Sorr had to admit listening to it the first time was epic but after 40 it got really repetitive. Seeing the troopers approaching Arkyn, Sorr took a deep breath. "Hey R5," Sorr said. "Tap into the Brotherhood battlenet and find out who's the commanding officer of this area. I have an idea. We're going to use the Holoprojector to create an imitation of the officer and have them go to the hangar."

The young man quickly ran towards Arkyn with R5 not too far behind. He skidded to a stop seeing Arykn being interrogated by troopers as he took a deep breath. "Sir!" Sorr said. "I'm not sure if you have heard but the fighting in the space hangar has become a mess! Our soldiers need back up on the double! I've received explicit orders from the captain to send your unit to assist!"

He motioned R5 to come over to deliver the holo message.

Arkyn Rane

 

[Arkyn Rane]

They palmed their weapons. The swords, not the blasters.

“Your number. Trooper.”

Arkyn upped her blaster and fired, trigger finger like lightning, retreating back around the bend. Where the feth are those two?

Unfortunately for Sorr Kortu , Arkyn was already shooting the Hounds when he came around the corner. His words fell on deaf ears. If he paid attention, he'd notice that three of the Hounds had already been shot dead. The remaining six lingered in the open corridor, swords barred. They were blocking the door.

"Kid, what the kriff are you doin'?!" Arkyn yelled. "Less talky, more shooty!" She leaned around the corner and squeezed off a few more rounds, keeping the Hounds at bay. "It'd be nice if you helped out, R5. I didn't fit you with those micromissiles for siths and giggles you know!"

R5 trilled and honked. "I was waiting for the boy to die. His processors are worse than yours."

Arkyn rolled her eyes. The little astromech wheeled out into the open. From around the corner, she heard the scar hounds laughing. That'll be their last laugh.

"What is this?" one of the Hounds bellowed. "An astromech?! Ha!"

She heard the high pitched wine of half a dozen whistling birds screeching through the air, then came a sharp boom as they detonated. Quickly, she peeked around the corner. The lot of them were dead. R5 had aimed for their heads. Ruthless little bugger. She barked out a laugh and retrieved her coat from the side room, quickly changing back into her usual garb.

"Found your noble, I take it? Let's get the kriff outta here then. We don't have much time."

 

[Sorr Kortu]

"What?!" Sorr was flabbergasted at the blaster bolts whizzing everywhere. He always preferred the non-violent approach, but it seems all of his friends and associates just love to get in a good scrap.

"Fine!" Sorr took out his Blaster Pistol shooting one of the soldiers in the head. As he crumpled onto the ground Sorr began to sprint down the hall firing blindly towards the remaining soldiers. One bolt pierced a soldier's neck while the other hit him on the eyeball. "Follow me!" Sorr yelled heading back where they came in.

The young man's eyes darted towards an alleyway to the right as he skidded towards it. "This way!" Sorr shouted entering the narrow alleyway and shimming through the brick wall until his feet felt a large metal lid. Kneeling down, Sorr removed the lid and began to drop down. "Come on you bucket of bolts!" Sorr snarled at R5 before his gaze turned towards Arkyn. "In the sewers!" He said.

Arkyn Rane

 

[Arkyn Rane]

Sorr Kortu wasn't a bad shot, when he managed to hold on to his blaster. Arkyn followed him out of the facility, glad to finally be back in her own threads.The trooper armor was too restrictive, and a touch musky.

Outside was complete chaos.

Arkyn stood in an alley adjacent to the facility, Nnerb and Sorr crowded behind her, studying the building. As she watched, the turrets turned towards the security gate. Good job, R5. She glanced back at Nnerb and Sorr."Go and gather some of your resistance pals," she told the Sullustan, "as many as you can, and be quick about it. We're gonna need a diversion when it's time to leave."Nnerb nodded. "Right, a diversion. I can do that."

She slipped her DG-29 from it's holster, took a deep breath, then sprinted towards the fence. "Deactivate the fence, R5...now!"The laser-links flickered off just long enough for Arkyn and Sorr to pass through. R5 beeped at her angrily through the comm. "Save the turrets for when we need them." She ducked behind a transport. The guards at the gate hadn't noticed a thing. "I've got a better idea anyway. Reprogram their targeting functions to shoot at the building, then put them in a timed sleep mode. Set it to five minutes. That should be enough time to reach you."

The power generators were a little taller than her, arranged in a circle around a central control unit. She pulled out her omnitool and got to work, sliding off the unit's control panel. She increased the power flux by tweaking the overflow regulators in the capacitors, setting the circuits to gradually overload.

The fence had short circuited from her tinkering with the power regulators, and the automated turrets were firing away at the building, pelting its walls with superheated bolts of searing plasma. Nnerb had managed to gather a sizable force of resistance fighters, about two dozen, give or take a few, and with no fence to stop them and no turrets to shoot them, they'd managed to slaughter all but a few of the skeleton patrol left behind. Idly, Arkyn fired at one of the guards hiding behind a blaster-scorched container. The man fell, dead.

Sorr, frantic, darted away from the chaos to dive into a manhole. "Come on, you bucket of bolts! Into the sewers!"

Arkyn's face twisted into a bemused frown. Was he bonkers? "Yeah, no way kid." She pulled a slim datapad from the pockets of her coat and wiggled it in her hand. "The building is primed to blow. I've got the detonator right here. And when it blows, those sewers are most likely going to collapse. You're going to be trapped in tons of stone and poo." She gestured towards the open fence, the resistance fighters- even from here, she could make out Nnerb's flabby Sullustan face. "How's about we just walk out?"

The facility was a tall, ugly building that gleamed gunmetal grey in the low evening light. The area around the building was cordoned off by a laser-link security fence, the length of which was patrolled by a single pair of troopers- two more stood at the entrance to the facility, beyond which was a long walkway framed by parked transports and massive shipping crates. There were turrets on columns placed strategically around the wall, plasma cannons by the looks of them.

"Or we can take one of those transports."

R5 agreed. The Baroness's estate wasn't exactly in walking distance.

 

[Sorr Kortu]

Whenever Sorr was panicking everything tended to turn into a blur, his head feels as light as a Lead Ballon and his brain felt like it was being sat on by a Bantha. He misread the situation AGAIN and now he made a fool out of himself in the middle of a Brotherhood occupied base. How wonderful. "All right!" Sorr mumbled sheepishly when Arkyn chastised him on how the sewers were full of not so sanitary items. "I'll follow your lead then! But I must tell you that Empress Teta's sewers are some of the cleanest and well-maintained sewers in the Galaxy! I know, I've used them to navigate through the city when I was a kid!"

It was said that every noble in Empress Teta chit gold. It was testament of their fart snuffing but with an emphasis on sanitization, they might not be wrong. "Let's take the transports to the Baroness," Sorr said. "As soon as we're away, we can blow that building to kingdom come! That should distract every single Brotherhood soldier in the vicinity."

Hopefully distract the entire army wouldn't that be lovely?

Arkyn Rane

 

[Arkyn Rane]

"...But I must tell you that Empress Teta's sewers are some of the cleanest and well-maintained sewers in the Galaxy! I know, I've used them to navigate through the city when I was a kid!"

"One of the cleanest places where sentients flush their droppings," Arkyn said drolly, idly shooting at the few remaining Maw troopers. She could almost feel their resolve wavering. "The people of Empress Teta must be proud."

"Let's take the transports to the Baroness," Sorr said. "As soon as we're away, we can blow that building to kingdom come! That should distract every single Brotherhood soldier in the vicinity."

"Now you're speaking my language, kid."

The two took off for the transport, a wide, streamlined airspeeder with a magcart coupled to the back, and just in time. As Arkyn threw herself into the driver seat, a squad of droids came marching out of the facility, hounds fanning out behind them. When Sorr and R5 were secure, she revved the engines and floored the transport through the useless fence and up into the sky lanes, decoupling the magcart with a flick of a switch.

"And bye-bye base!" She pressed the holoscreen of her datapad and braced- a moment later, the facility went up in a glorious explosion of flames. The noise was deafening.

The ride after, however, was mostly quiet. The Mawites in the sector were in disarray, the victim of a hundred different strangely coordinated attacks by the resistance. And, according to whispers R5 had picked up on secure channels, allegedly a flotilla of GA forces and Jedi were on their way to Empress Teta to liberate and reclaim the planet.

All the more reason to get the feth of the planet post haste.

The Baroness' palace was grand and opulent, a sprawling compound of brilliant white buildings and open courtyards, separated from the rest of the city by a high wall. R5, wisely, had sent word that they were coming back at the base. The guards let them in after a precursory check, confiscating their weapons at the gate- only most of their weapons, in Arkyn's case. She didn't raise much of a fuss- she'd have her pistols back soon enough, if things went her way.

The Baroness was waiting for them in a waiting room fit for a queen. Aurene Kaas was a tall, regal woman with clearly exotic ancestry- her dark skin was dappled with patterns like a panther's pelt, her eyes were a shining, liquid gold all the way through, and small, delicate horns crowned her head.

Arkyn graced the woman with her patented roguish grin, and bowed. "A pleasure to meet you, your Magnificence. I must say you have a truly lovely home. Very chic." She paused and gestured to Sorr. "My friend here has something he'd like to say to you. He's a passionate lad, so bear with him. Where's your 'fresher, if I may?"

Aurene inclined her head and gestured vaguely- a guard appeared to lead Arkyn away. The Baroness then turned her attention upon Sorr, one long, delicate eyebrow raised in what might either be annoyance or amusement, and waited