Public First Day At School (Core Worlds)

[Dylan Marsek]

Tags: Alina Tremiru | Darth Strosius | Venn Kolis | Karkosuchus | Aaran Tafo | Silas Westgard | Joseph Torson | Alexander Garrick | Vector Monk | Xzinn Dronnol | Jasper Kai'el​

"Dylan, you're up. Get in, grab what you can, get out. Don't engage with anyone if you can help it."

The young mercenary gave a curt nod of his head before responding to the transmission <”Copy that,”> he said, confirming he had received the transmission from their employer for this contract. Switching to his squad’s comlink channel, the kid spoke to his fellow squad mates as he reached for a clacker detonator from one of his pouches from his webgear. <”Hey boss, we got the go ahead!”> He said as he looked back over his shoulder inside the damp and grotty sewage tunnel. Two squads of four mercenaries, clad in jet black armor with seemingly no patches or insignia to identify their allegiance, stood crouched in a single column inside the sewer. Jogging to his squad and joining them, the kid crouched down with the clacker detonator in his hands as a malcontent grunt sounded off over the mercenaries’ com circuit.

<”About damn time!”> Tower growled loudly as he finished inspecting the heavy universal repeater in his hands. <”Let’s get this karkin’ over with. Tired of sitting with our thumbs up our asses and doing nothing for the past two hours! The karkin’ stink is unbearable! How are we gonna wash this chit off us when we get home?”> The disgruntled, sniveling merc said. Although their helmets had filtration systems to purify the air they breathed, it only kicked in once the suit detected noxious gas such as Dioxis. They had no choice but to put up with the unbearable stench.

<”Well, you don’t smell so different so at least you should be fine.”> the young merc’s battle buddy, Aiden, quipped in response to Tower’s whining. A series of muffled chuckles followed from the mercs, adding up to Tower’s disgruntlement. <” Ohyou piece of-”>

<”Stow it, children,”> Skif said sternly in a commanding tone; he was among the seasoned of the bunch. Everyone from the group respected and heeded the words of men like him, especially the greenhorns like Tower, Dylan and Aiden. At his command, the dimly lit tunnel plunged into momentary silence once more. Glancing at their explosive specialist at the far back of their formation, Skif gave a curt nod of his head, signaling for the kid to detonate the charges and create their entry point into the site below. Nodding back, the young merc shouted as he squeezed the detonator clacker three times. <”Fire in the hole!”>

With a muffled thud, small to large chunks of ferroconcrete from the damp ground and walls tore free. A cloud of brown-ish, dark green dust kicked up as the ground beneath their feet shook with a rumble; the explosive specialist successfully blew up a large hole on the ground in a controlled explosion with some Flex-5 Detonite tapes he had set up as they had waited for the go-ahead from their employer.

Their squad leader gesturing at them to stand up, the mercenaries rose from a crouch and walked slowly to the hole as the cloud of dust settled. Having created their insertion point into the ruins down below, the squads began preparing their ropes to rappel down below. Gear clacked and shuffled as they prepared.

Reaching for a blue, ultra-high intensity chemlight from the webgear over his chestplate, the tube cracked in the kid’s hands. Dropping it down the hole, Dylan watched it hit the ground a few moments later. <”Some fall…”> he said casually. <”How far down’s that? Twenty meters?”> he asked as he turned around, checking the harness of his battle buddy, as he checked his in return.

<”More like thirty,”> Skiff corrected him. Couching the particle rifle by the hip level with his right hand as he firmly grasped the rope with the other, the squad leader turned to look at the group of mercs under his command. <”Okay lads, down we go!”> The cable rasped and rustled as the seasoned merc disappeared into the hole. Following his example, the group of mercs joined him.

Muffled thuds of combat boots resounded in the pitch-dark, derelict hallways of the ruins; light from the glowrods attached to either their helmets or their rifles shifted from sector to sector, lighting up the hallways and rooms as they slowly and cautiously made their way towards a lab in the complex, occasionally halting to bypass the boobytraps they detected; their comms fell silent ominously, with only short bark of commands on a few occasions from their squad lead reaching their ears. Anticipating to come under fire or take contact at any moment by an enemy unknown, they were all on edge.

The place sure gave all of them the creeps.

Soon enough, the group of mercs finally reached their point of interest without incident. Walking through the doors into the trashed lab, Skif ordered Theta Squad to hold position outside on overwatch as his own searched the room for the items of interest. <”We don’t have all day and I’m sure as chit I don’t want to stay here more than I’d like so hurry it up, lads.”> Wordlessly complying, the young mercs dispersed into the room in a hurry, as the veteran squad leader occasionally observed them from a distance, mostly keeping an eye on the doorway to his rear.

<”What the kark even happened here, anyway?”> Tower casually inquired as he went about sifting through a bunch of broken datapads and holo books on top of a counter, looking for anything useful.

<”Damned if I know,”> Aiden said as he checked the terminal in front of him. The lab equipment, as well as the terminals were all trashed. Prying open the terminal and revealing the damaged circuitry underneath, the young tech specialist continued the chatter. <”Hard to tell if the damage occured during a firefight. You see any signs of strug-”>

<”Hey, this ain’t an episode from NCIS: Coruscant,”> Skif sternly interrupted, helping them shift their focus at the job at hand. <”Pipe down if you got nothing useful to say.”>

Nodding in silence, the inexperienced bunch got back to work. <”I got some holo-drives here in functioning condition,”> Aiden said after a moment passing in silence, after thoroughly inspecting the terminal before him. Reaching for his slicer tools from one of his pouches, the young merc went about removing the holo-drives from the terminal carefully.

<”Well chit, got nothin’ here- hold on,”> Tower said as he continued to sift through the pile of broken datapads, checking if one or more of them were undamaged. Raising one before his helmet visor, the screen of the datapad in his hands glowed with a blue hue. <”Well this works… but it seems to be encrypted.”>

<”I could decrypt it once we’re out and headed to the rendezvous point,”> the tech specialist said as he removed the last of the holo-drives from the terminal, placing them all carefully inside a metal container to keep them safe.

<”Alright, I’ll hang on to it then.”> he said as he turned off the screen and tucked it into an empty pouch on his web gear. A small stack of holo-disks and a few data-sticks catching his eyes, the mercenary reached for his assault pack. Unzipping it open, Tower quickly went about putting the holo-disks and data-sticks into his backpack.

Reaching for a strange item from one of the metal wall shelves before him, Dylan silently inspected the object in his grasp. It certainly matched one of the descriptions they were provided by their employer for the items of interests they were after; artifacts of some kind. Their nature unknown to them.

It wasn’t long after he began to hear incomprehensible whispers as he continued to hold the object in his hand.

Spooked, the kid quickly turned around; the buttstock of his particle blaster rifle couched and tucked at the hip level, the young merc scanned the room with the glowrod attachment of his rifle, looking for the source of the whispers. Gritting his teeth as he saw no one in the room but his squadmates with their backs turned against him, confusion and fear slowly began to take hold of his mind; the incomprehensible whispers slowly grew louder.

<”You found something?”> the young merc gasped and recoiled in fear as he felt Skif’s grasp over his left shoulder. Snapping out of it, the whispers subsided. Turning to look at him, the young merc could feel the veteran’s puzzled, inquiring gaze. <”I-I found this. Think it’s one of the things we’re looking for?”> the kid inquired as he held his hand out towards his squad leader, with the artifact still within his grasp. Nodding in silence, he patted the young merc’s shoulder. <”Yeah. Nice work, lad.”> he said as he stepped away from the kid and turned to the others. <”Right, we done here? Lads?”> Confirming the artifact was among the items of interest, the kid quickly reached for his metal container as the squad leader spoke, and placed the artifact and a few other objects that appeared similar to it into the metal container before closing and sealing its lid shut.

<”I’m done, other terminals are toast. Nothing useful in them.”> Aiden reported as he packed up quickly and stood up. <”Found a few scrolls aside from a bunch of holo-disks and data-sticks, but other than that, zilch.”> Tower muttered as he reached for his massive universal repeater, turning away from the counter, walking towards Skif and others at a relaxed pace.

<”Ookay, we got what we came for,”> He said as he nodded towards Dylan; the young merc attached the metal container filled with artifacts at the backside of his cartridge belt, over his right hip. <”Let’s get out of here. Come on,”> The man said as he walked out the lab; the particle blaster rifle kept at a low-ready stance. Gesturing at members of Theta squad, the mercs regrouped on the veteran squad leader as they went back the way they came towards their insertion point.

<”Dylan, what was the com frequency of our employer again?”> He asked as he scanned his surroundings in vigilance while on the move. Sparing him a glance as the young merc followed him closeby. <”Channel four, frequency sixty point eight.”> he answered. Nodding his head in a silent expression of gratitude at the kid, the veteran tuned into the frequency, and spoke over the comlink.

<”This is Skif, reporting in. Items of interest are within our possession. We’re enroute to our insertion point. Meet you at the rendezvous, ma’am.”>

 

[Alina Tremiru]

<”This is Skif, reporting in. Items of interest are within our possession. We’re enroute to our insertion point. Meet you at the rendezvous, ma’am.”>

Alina let out a sigh of relief. Turned out having a back up plan was always a good thing. She'd pause her mad dash to hold up her wrist, click on her own com. <"Perfect. Keep away from the Jedi. I'll meet with you soon."> Alina turned her gaze towards the other Sith, flashing a grin. Well, they weren't going to make it to the underground temple today, but they weren't leaving empty handed.

"We retreat. Scatter and leave. See you in friendly space."

Then she left.

Darth Strosius | Dylan Marsek | Kalzok | Xzinn Dronnol | Venn Kolis

 

[Kalzok]

Kalzok was a little sad that someone got to the artifacts before him. He knew he would get a fair share from Alina's "contractors", but in truth, his goal really was to see the old complex. Well, if nothing else, he now knew he could easily gain access in the future, and he had the schematics.

While the others scattered in different ways, Kalzok went deeper before cutting through an old tunnel that led to a blocked exit. Apart from ensuring he took a different means of exfiltration, it also allowed the Loremaster to make sure that the more obscure paths in the schematics really did exist. As he flew past the winding stairs and into the next corridor, he stopped, then turned and faced the wall. He looked wistfully down the sewer. He would have liked to see the old temple at least once, but Kalzok knew he had time to return.

He did not ever intend on dying.

He punched the wall, and plaster and concrete broke open to reveal a passageway.

"Source corroborated," he muttered as he stepped through, heading through a dark passageway that had not seen life in centuries.

As Kalzok crawled out of a sewer grate, bursting through a river of sludge, he cursed himself for taking this career path. See the galaxy, dominate your foes, learn arcane secrets! Yeah, good job if you can have it.

To ensure the Bar'leth university groundskeepers would not be hard-pressed to explain the creation of new holes in the sewer tunnels, Kalzok was careful to reform and fix the holes in the sides of the passages, sealing up the old tunnels shown in the schematics.

As Kalzok emerged into the sunlight, Oppius was already there, waiting.

"Go return this card, I don't think I'm in presentable shape," he muttered. Oppius complied with a salute. Now outside the library, Kalzok looked up at its edifice, thinking of nothing in particular on this pleasant sunny day.

Tag: ~~Fin~~

 

[Jasper Kai'el]

University of Bar'leth​

Gone. All of them were gone. Just as Jasper had his lightsaber ready to engage what he assumed to be five Sith at once, they had scattered as quickly as they had made their move. Whatever they had wanted, it could easily be assumed that they already had it.

"Blast!" Jasper shouted in frustration.

Once again, he had been useless. Jasper made his way back over to Lana, who was doing her best to put up all the books that fell over. As he did, the exile pulled the book he had snagged out of his pocket, flipping past the cover to skim through the abstract...

---

In the following, one can expect to be learn all their is to know about the process of Memory Flash Imprinting, including but not limited to; Intended use in subjects, common behavior in recipients, history of flash imprinting's development, and side effects most commonly found in clones who have undergone this process.

---

Nothing about inheriting memories through some Force means. Just a book about cloning, much to Jasper's dismay. Then, in a moment of self contemplation, the cogs in his head began to turn. What if, by chance, Jasper was not who he thought he was? What if he was someone else entirely? Suddenly, almost as if the Sith were a mere diversion from this revelation, the exile had found himself standing at the edge of a rabbit hole. If he was going to understand the dreams he had been having, all he could do was leap.

Hey, are you okay? His friend asked him.

"I have no idea."

---

Fin​

 

[Dylan Marsek]

Tags: Alina Tremiru | Darth Strosius | Venn Kolis | Karkosuchus | Aaran Tafo | Silas Westgard | Joseph Torson | Alexander Garrick | Vector Monk | Xzinn Dronnol | Jasper Kai'el​

<"Perfect. Keep away from the Jedi. I'll meet with you soon.">

<”Copy that. Skif out.”> he acknowledged as he gave a curt nod of his head. Switching back to squad comms over the com circuit with the touch of a button on his right wrist computer, the veteran merc continued to walk at a brisk pace with his squad in tow. <”So, what was that all about back there?”> He inquired in a hushed tone as he shot a glance at the young merc walking beside him. <”Everything okay, lad?”>

The kid remained silent as he pondered his answer. He was unsure why he heard whispers there back in the lab. Others had seemed normal, unaffected by it. Skif also did not appear to have heard it too. If he had, they would have known it then. Putting the pieces together, he logically assumed it was the artifact he had briefly held in his hand that was the source of the whispers.

Or he was getting paranoid and maybe it was just the static of his helmet comlink, crackling into his ears. The voices were incomprehensible, after all. They sounded like whispering, but now looking back at it, he was not so sure about that anymore. Maybe it was the paranoia of having traversed some ruins in complete darkness, with just a glow rod as his light source, helping to illuminate his surroundings to be able to see better with his helmet night vision. Aside from the glowrods they had attached on the modular hardpoints of their rifles and helmets, there was no source of light in the ruins for their night visions to function as intended. It required a little bit of light to work, after all.

<”Yeah,”> He finally answered, having decided to write off the whispers as his paranoia getting the best of him for this instance. <”Yeah. I’m okay, boss.”> he said as he followed the veteran squad leader's movement step by step as they followed a safe path over the pressure plated tiles. Stepping on one of them would trigger a mechanism to seal off the room they were in, and fill it with noxious gas, as far as their scan of the room had told them.

<”Very well. Stay frosty, lad.”> he said without looking at the kid right behind him; stepping into safety, the veteran merc rounded the corner in the dark hallway. A few dozen meters ahead of him, rays of dimmed, green-ish light shone down into the ruins; their ropes hanging from over the edge of the large hole they had made. Reaching the ropes not long after, the mercs scaled the ropes after securing their harness to the cables, ascending into the sewage tunnels from the ruins.

The automated manhole cover swiveled open from inside the sewage tunnels with a metallic rasp. Expecting squads Acklay and Theta’s return, having been notified by Skif over the comlink, as well as aware of the time table they were operating with, Wolf held the rifle in a relaxed manner in his hands as he shouted his part of the password he was supposed to mutter upon making contact with one another, to confirm it really was them. Even though he knew it was his fellow colleagues, it was procedure after all; they did not leave much to chance. <”Rotten Meiloorun core.”> he said as he watched the veteran merc emerge from the manhole and into the spacious, derelict blind-alley. <”Dead Womprat.”> the old merc shouted back as he pulled himself up from the manhole. Reaching forth and grabbing him from his left bicep, Wolf helped him up as others began to emerge from the manhole shortly after Skif. <”You guys smell worse than a corpse sittin’ three weeks under blistering heat.”> Wolfe quipped, barely suppressing a gag as the awful, putrid smell hit him.

The man shrugged as he made his way towards the two black air speeders at a casual pace. <”This is nothing compared to Coruscant’s,”> he stated as he hopped in the car. <”Hah, since when did you become a chit expert?”> Wolf jokingly asked as he made his way to the driver’s seat beside Skif, signaling Omega squad to mount up as he walked. <”Ever since my damn contracts started taking me down into the rotten guts of a planet,”> he said nothing but the truth as Wolf hopped on the driver’s seat, concluding the short lived banter. As Dylan, Tower and Aiden hopped into the air speeder their squad lead was in, Skif raised his right wrist computer in front of his helmet visor, quickly checking the time.

<”Right on time and no nasty encounters. Just the way I like,”> he muttered to himself as he lowered his right forearm and looked over his left shoulder, at the three younger, inexperienced mercs sitting in the passenger seats. The air speeder’s engine purred to life as he turned to look at them. <”Nice work today, lads. Solid stuff.”> He said, complementing his men, appreciating how smooth the op had went.

<”Thanks, boss.”> Tower said, as he went about stretching his legs and relaxing while the air speeder took off, headed to a rally point where their freighter awaited them to get off world and reach the rendezvous point. <”I can’t wait to hit the shower once we’re on board.”>

<”Same.”> Dylan said as he casually looked out the window; his rifle casually cradled in his hands with the trigger finger resting on the receiver.

<”Tower,”> Aiden said as he turned to look at the big guy sitting right beside him to his left. <”The datapad?”> he asked in anticipation as he reached forth for it. Remembering what the tech specialist had said back in the labs, the big guy quickly reached for the recovered datapad from one of his pouches on his chest rig, and passed it to Aiden. Getting to work in silence and without wasting any time, the young tech specialist began decrypting the recovered datapad with the help of his custom slicer datapad.

Shifting to get more comfortable on the seat and leaning his back against the seat some more, the young demolitions expert closed his eyes, trying to get some shuteye after today’s work as they exfilled safe and sound.

–End–​