Private Catch of the Day

[Caulder Dune]

244Core – Relali
First Order Maximum Security Prison

The doors peeled open, and in strode Darth Adekos, as if he owned the place. He supposed he would, soon enough. Given enough time, and indirectly, of course. But for now, the alarms were blaring obnoxiously in his ears, and red lights flared as a regular annoyance.

Far be it for him to let that throw him off his professional groove, though. He brushed some soot from one of his shoulders, marching briskly over to the security desk, bearing down on the petrified clerk seated behind it.

“Hello there,” he said, in his usual formal manner of speaking, “I’m here to procure a certain prisoner. Perhaps you can assist me.”

The clerk stammered inarticulately, going on about how he’d sealed the doors, why did those open like that just now, they would have detected any attempts to overwrite or slice, why did they just pop open like that, etc. The usual rigmarole.

Adekos spoke over him, as easily as if he were just talking to one of his own employees. “Force Sensitive female, possible Sith ties, special containment unit. You know the one.”

It was towards the end of this description that Adekos heard clicking – the distinct clicking of a panic button. One of the clerk's hands was practically glued to the underside of the desk by now, mashing the thing to near death.

For his part, Adekos looked hurt. “Are you... Calling Stormtroopers?”

The clerk swallowed, and nodded his head slowly. Up. And down.

“Well. I never.” Darth Adekos gave a resigned, regretful sigh. “We’ll return to this discussion soon enough.”

He unclipped his lightsaber from his belt.

 

[Qora Tel Alam]

So far as a prison cell went, the First Order kept its inmates in a lap of luxury. Especially if they suspected Force play.

Siva Cortez had not been a difficult apprehension. CEO and Founder of Cortez Industries, the raid on her HQ had gone rather smoothly for them, all things considered. The security hadn't fired a single shot, no one came out bleeding, and the woman in question went without so much as a fuss. Some might have even commented it had been too easy.

Interrogation had needed no form of coercion, Miss Cortez told them everything they wanted to know in clipped, intelligent detail. For all the laws of humanity she'd managed to break across the galaxy with her projects, the hallmarks of a psycopath weren't screaming in the obvious. The Order had everything it needed and, likely, thensome. Gobs of advanced nanotech just waiting for a project lead to take over. Trouble was, there weren't a whole lot of people in the galaxy that operated in the nanotech industry at the Cortez level.

What to do with the guilty party?

They apparently had settled on letting her rot in silence. There were worse fates some might say, and at least the amenities were better than any of her previous stints in a cage.

In silence she waited, a veritable fusion bomb just anticipating the next call to arms. Weren't no need to hurry, she had all the time in the world.

 

[Caulder Dune]

As far as choruses went, these stormtroopers were awful. Every single one of them was off-key. And they weren't even singing, just groaning and rolling about on the ground, knocking aside the pieces of their halved and quartered blasters.

Some of them had lightsaber scars up their chests and legs - not nearly deep enough to kill. Others had scorch-marks from reflected blaster fire in their chest. But it was all the same to Adekos, his lightsaber retracted into its hilt. "Lovely show."

Darth Adekos turned, looking back to the clerk. Poor fool was still clicking the panic button. He raised an eyebrow.

The clicking stopped. "Down that hall, third right, Cell D-8."

Now was that so hard? Adekos nodded a curt thanks and made his exit, pausing only to kick a blaster pistol away from the stormtrooper stretching for it.

"Take a hint, soldier."

---

From within her cell, Qora Tel Alam would hear the muffled sounds of blaster fire, shouting, and eventually silence. And then the eye-slat on her reinforced cell door would slide open, revealing the unsettling cybernetic eyes of Darth Adekos. And she would also probably hear the alarm now. Loud. Blaring. Very diconcerting.

Adekos peered around the cell, sniffed with contempt, and finally settled on Siva. "Siva Cortez, of Cortez Industries?"

He was clearly waiting for confirmation.

 

[Qora Tel Alam]

From where she lay on the cell bed her gaze could settle upon the figure in the doorway unimpeded. Brows raised, the woman couldn't help the faint look of alarm at the sudden cacophony outside her door. If she seemed startled at all, it was less in the manner of feeling threatened and more in unexpected but not unpleasant surprise. A hand pressed into the mattress beneath as she sat up, legs smoothly swinging to set bare feet upon cold floor.

She gazed upon him for a brief moment, taking in the glint of unnatural eyes, the palor of his face, the cut of his figure. He a man in charge of most things in his life, she assessed, including his strict diet.

"Just Siva Cortez, now," the woman replied clearly but without raising her voice, "if you're here for business, Cortez Industries is no more."

 

[Caulder Dune]

"Wonderful," Adekos said, and gave a sympathetic little sniff. "A shame about the business, though. My condolences. One moment, please."

All too well, he knew what it was like to lose a company. He was also something of an expert on losing in general, as it happened. He shut the eye-slat and gave a nearby control pad a pointed look. It lit up and, despite the full breadth of its lockdown protocols, did as instructed. There was a gentle ka-chunk as the maglocks disengaged, then a steady hiss as the hydraulics unlocked and kicked into gear.

The door slid open, as if responding to the simple swipe of a keycard.

Darth Adekos was standing there like a man running late for a meeting - shut-off lightsaber in one hand, the other massaging his temple. "I'm in need of someone of your talents, thus the jailbreak. Would you like a gun?"

He didn't actually seem to possess one. But a little ways off, Behind Adekos, an Imperial officer was propped up against a cell door, grunting and cradling the charred stump that, until recently, had contained his hand.

The hand itself was a only a few centimeters away, still coiled around an impressive looking pistol. Custom engravings and everything.

 

[Qora Tel Alam]

Seemed it did not take the gears of the galaxy to churn out a new cog for her. Just as before, so again. Siva watched the door open with glacial silence, brow furrowing just slightly as the man came fully into view. Stark, clean cut. Clearly a man of business. The chiaroscuro of his pitch ensemble against his ghostly pale skin and shock of white hair wasn't something easily overlooked. The woman's eyes flickered in the fresh swathe of light from the hall and she stood with smooth purpose, walking toward the door and holding out her hand.

"Yes, I would."

Such cogs so rarely fell into place so easily. So quickly. Another inmate might have questioned this jailbreaker's motive, the proposed employment, anything. But the power was in her ability to make her own choices, so she chose to escape execution at the possibility of a different sort of imprisonment.

 

[Caulder Dune]

She stood up and moved towards him, and Darth Adekos was immediately made to realize Siva Cortez was... Taller than normal. Lean figure, moved with a certain clarity of purpose. Definitely not the sort of person who usually ended up in bland prison jumpsuits. Not a flattering look on anyone. This was a woman he could see eye-to-eye with in more ways than one.

What an absolute catch.

"Wonderful," he said, not that he sounded terribly surprised enough by her answer to really be enthused by it.

Adekos held out a hand of his own, and the officer's pistol came to it. He shook the severed hand off unceremoniously and passed it off to her, before his lightsaber sprang back to life. "I'll recommend you stay behind me, if you're inclined."

Never pass up an opportunity to use a Force Sensitive as a shield. That had always been his motto, and he'd survived this long. Nominally. Darth Adekos moved at a brisk pace down the corridor, pausing only to peak around the corner, ensuring the coast was clear.

"I read the reports. About Cortez Industries," he said, off-hand, as if discussing the weather. "I'm curious as to how things transpired from your point of view."

 

[Qora Tel Alam]

"By all means," she checked the safety on the pistol, eyes trailing the glow of the lightsaber, "lead the way."

With the weight of the blaster pistol in hand, the woman turned a gaze gleaming like honed steel after her mysterious rescuer and followed. At her height and stride she found no trouble keeping just off his heels, though the cold of the floors stung at her bare feet. Siva came to a stop with her back to the wall behind him at the junction of halls, eyes pining when the man raised his molten weapon and his question.

"The reports would be...conclusive," she replied, voice strained over faint bitterness, "my company has been very naughty for a very long time and someone with the gumption and power to do something about it finally did. Is there something in particular you wanted to hear about? I was forthright in my interrogations."

 

[Caulder Dune]

"I meant the news reports," he clarified. "I haven't read whatever documents or transcripts these flatfoots have typed up on the matter."

The way was clear, so he picked a direction and went down it. Judging from the scorch-marks, and the occasional downed stormtrooper to step over, it seemed Darth Adekos intended to leave the way he came. "Fascinating that you only say someone. Do you not know who brought the First Order down on you?"

They arrived at a blast door, but it didn't open as they approached. These rank amateurs had locked it again. As if that had stopped him in the first place! Old habits, one supposed. He waved his hand at the control pad again, and it responded just as her cell door had. Signals that weren't transmitted were received, and the maglocks disengaged with a heavy shunk.

He clicked his tongue as he waited for the door to peel itself apart, "Not even a guess?"

 

[Qora Tel Alam]

"This venture of my life has, like many before it, reached a very promising pinnacle and end," she said while her eyes watched his hands wordlessly command the security protocol of the doorway to cease and desist.

"I do not care," she replied flatly, "moreover I despise guessing games." The last words filtered through a bitter tone of distaste. She followed him through the doorway, the blue of her eyes glitching a flash of acid green as her foot made contact with a blade sitting open on the ground. The woman froze, lips drawing thin over a jaw clenched tight from the pain.

"Why ... ?" the question was strained and exceptionally unclear as to whether it was directed at her foot's terrible misfortune or his curiosities.

 

[Caulder Dune]

"How forward-thinking." Adekos nodded solemnly.

Promising pinnacle, ignominious end. How heartrendingly relatable. He might have shed a tear, if not for the fact that his cybernetic eyes lacked the ducts for such expressions.

He surveyed the lobby as they entered, finding the desk had been abandoned by the clerk. Those wounded stormtroopers still capable of walking had fled, and more than a few had abandoned their weapons and vibroblades where they fell. Adekos turned back to Siva, finding her standing stiff, jaw clenched. He raised an eyebrow, glanced down, and then back up.

No bleeding. Please, no bleeding. Adekos was uncertain either of them could afford what indignity would arise if he had to physically carry her.

"Oh, don't let me spoil your outlook if you've already moved past things. Grudges are a terrible thing to keep," said Adekos, who carried so many grudges he occasionally had to notate them.

 

[Qora Tel Alam]

What should have been a minced whine of pain turned into a mechanically grating snarl. Siva bent awkwardly at the waist and curled her leg upwards, free hand reaching to grab hold of the combat knife and pull it from the bottom of her foot.

There was blood. It oozed and dripped and patted against the floor. The woman's pale complexion silvered momentarily beneath a flashing light, reflecting it in a metallic gleam as before their very eyes the open wound pulled itself shut. No more blood.

"Ouch," Siva hissed, flinging the knife off to the side and pressing a tender but healed foot back to the ground. A piercing glare of glacial blue settled on the man, giving no indication that grudges were of any bother to her. "What are your projects you need me for?"

Forward thinking indeed.

 

[Caulder Dune]

Adekos observed with no small amount of horror as Siva yanked an entire combat knife out of her foot, inhaling sharply, almost like it was his own foot on the line. One of the many reasons he favored the lightsaber was because it was not so prone to causing a bloodbath. Instant cauterization was not just high tech, but hygienic.

Civilized, in a word.

He frowned as she tossed the blood-spattered knife away, her wound sealing shut at a greatly accelerated pace. Cortez Industries nano-machines at work, no doubt.

Darth Adekos looked almost taken aback by her question, as if some form of decorum had been breached.

"Do people generally only come to visit when they need you for something?" He asked, "My condolences. But there's no need to discuss that here, as it were..."

He trailed off, then gestured for her to follow as he led her out of the lobby.

 

[Qora Tel Alam]

Attributing to all of life's many roads, Siva could not think of a sentence that summed up everything it amounted to so well.

"Yes," she replied flatly, pointed teeth showing just behind her lips in a show of discontentment as he dismissed the conversation. The woman stood back to her full, towering height and settled a frigid stare on the man as he moved to make their exit of the facility. Muscle bound like steel lacing along her spine.

"What projects," she repeated herself with a tone that suggested she was not prone to doing so nor given to doing it a third time.

 

[Caulder Dune]

"Yes," she said, as flat and as deadpan as could possibly. Siva might have seen the Umbaran cringe if she weren't behind him. Darth Adekos would have offered additional condolences, if only he had any left to dispense. Only empathy remained, and he tried not to give too much of that out.

"Tragic," he remarked.

Adekos was quiet for a time. They exited the building, following a short, fenced-off path to a landing pad. An elegant shuttle was waiting for them, guarded by an ungainly, sinister droid. Both were pocked by scorch marks, and the pad itself was littered with dead-or-dying stormtroopers. Busy day. Busy life.

The ramp of the shuttle descended at their approach, and the droid wordlessly turned and marched aboard.

"I have several nanomachine-related projects that I believe would benefit from your consultation," Adekos eventually answered, stopping at the foot of the ramp. "I will give you a large sum of money and, I don't know, a château on Cantonica. Sound amenable?"

 

[Qora Tel Alam]

The woman's eyes flickered a bright, electric blue for several moments, the optics shifting as she took in the droid and the ship before her. After a moment, dark eyelids fluttered closed in a quick, successive blink and her eyes returned to their prior glacial hue.

"I do not do consultations," she replied scathingly, as if he just asked Leonardo DaVinci to consult on someone else's poor attempt at a masterpiece. It was in dreadfully bad taste.

 

[Caulder Dune]

Darth Adekos had already half-turned and was ready to board his ship when Siva made her declaration. He turned, a little slowly, and raised an eyebrow at her.

"Not even for... Two châteaus?"

If it sounded like he was mocking her, it might have been because, yes, that was exactly the case.

Without waiting for a response, he continued, "I suppose you could stay here. But if Siva Cortez - formerly of Cortez Industries - is beneath lending her expertise, I can't imagine how she'd feel being left destitute and stranded on this backwater."

 

[Qora Tel Alam]

It was possible, in moments like this, to mistaken the woman for a droid herself. The expression of granite did not shift, not even a nano-meter. What he said was true. She had nothing left to her name other than her reputation, her knowledge, and her rather exceptional skills. If nothing else, Siva shifted briefly to turn her gaze to look about her surroundings, she was now free to do as she pleased. In a galaxy overrun by technology there was absolutely nothing but opportunity ripe for the taking.

She saw no downside to this.

In fact...

The woman blinked at him, turned, and began making her way to another landing pad and the ship sitting upon it unattended.

 

[Caulder Dune]

Adekos watched her go with a grim expression and furrowed brow. Maybe he shouldn't have skimmed the psychological profile after all. See a woman with a bob cut and you'd think the rest would fall into place. No such luck. As usual.

She'd have to find a way through the electrified perimeter fence that encircled the landing pad they currently occupied. But somehow he doubted that would be much impediment to a cyborg of any stripe, much less Siva's.

"Oh, what?" he called after her in an increasingly annoyed tone. "Are you going to fly yourself past the blockade? In a prison transport?"

The way he described it, she might as well be taking a loaded down garbage barge. Adekos clucked patronizingly.

"They'll have you back down here in no time."

 

[Qora Tel Alam]

The perimeter fence posed no impediment. Stepping up to it, the woman extended a single hand to grasp at the mesh wiring and the resulting electric charge was immediate. Spikes of hot blue and white arched up her arm, webbing across her figure and lancing through the air, following the bridge across her shoulders and down her opposite arm.

There it collected in a vehement mass of energy at the tips of her fingers. At first a chaotic cloud of power, then growing into a great glowing orb. The energy continued to surge until it engulfed her entirely. She became the energy, and then with a resounding crack of thunder she disappeared.

And reappeared in a secondary shockwave on top of the ship inside.

Siva shuddered, sparks spraying off her shoulders, and slowly brought herself down into a kneel. Raising her right hand, gathering the remaining energy, the woman punched down through the shell of the ship.

The engines rather suddenly roared to life.