Forty Days in the Wilderness (Sicarius)

[Ashin Varanin]

Entirely legitimate business had brought Selka, as a high-ranking, low-responsibility figurehead of a Silk rep, to Nkllon. Silk operated HALCYON hypertransit modules in this system, and in several systems nearby. Tangential to that business, here she was, far away from the plodding mountain that was the Nkllon mining centre. Here she was in a rad suit, beside a similar figure in a similar rad suit. Behind them sat an enclosed and rad-shielded speeder; it would melt like chocolate in the sun forty days from now, and its cargo of tools with it. Ahead of them, in the dubious shade of a rocky outcropping, a round horizontal hatch rested almost flush with the ground. Her portable sensor registered an odd layered composition to the hatch. Based on standard procedures for the new breed of Jedi vaults, the lock would be a disc tumbler model, totally analog and virtually unpickable. Lock, hinges, and outer plate were all ardanium, strongest when irradiated, and far too hot to touch. Sustained contact would damage their suits.

The hatch was the first of two dozen separate barriers between them and an unknown prize. Arrangements had been made; they wouldn't be missed.

Forty days until apocalypse.

[member="Sicarius"]

 

[Sicarius]

The other figure stood quietly and gazed at the door before them. It was only two meters in diameter and shaped like a ship's hatch, but he didn't need a scanner to know that this would be the most complex, and easiest, of the job before them.

Rarely did someone make a vault or safe or secure area with the concept that the door was to be the strongest point. Those who truly desired to keep their secrets hidden and secure made the door look like the most difficult obstacle. The true dangers lay behind the door. Traps, deterrents, and all manner of dangerous and deadly things could be emplaced or rigged behind the door. It was the thieve's tomb, the cutpurse's catacomb, the burglar's barrow.

It was a challenge in the making.

The door wasn't much to look at from the outside. Just a hatchway. The scanner, however, told a much different story. Despite the data and the make of the door, it was a simple lock. Perhaps not the simplest lock, but a simple lock nonetheless. A disc tumbler lock, to be precise.

It was a curious choice of locking mechanism, but perhaps that was the lure. A simple lock to a complex door and behind lay death and silence. A truly tempting challenge was at hand.

With a nod at his companion, Sicarius pulled a small bag from the speeder and got to work. He only needed one tool for this part of the job. With luck, this would go quickly.

[member="Selka Ventus"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Sicarius"]

Among their supplies, one of the most crucial was a comprehensive stock of radiation dampening foam. The brutal heat of early Nkllon evening would melt it almost at once, but there were other solutions. She'd brought sheets of lead (liquid) clad in desh-terenthium, sheets in various sizes, very heavy. With effort, she wrapped a long narrow one around the lock. Once insulated from Nkllon's lethal radiation, the ardanium lock would be structurally weaker -- easier for Sicarius to work with, if he went with a certain one of the plans they'd discussed. He'd have to be a little more careful with the drill, lest he breach the wrapped radiation shield and flood the lock with molten lead, but the slightly asymmetric aperture was still the size of her fist, enough to reveal the entire lock and then some -- he had plenty of room to work with.

 

[Sicarius]

Sicarius carried no drill and no cutting tools with him for this part of the job. Instead, all he carried was a simple item. It looked to be the size of a small handle with a few rotating sections and a tiny, thin portion at the tip. He did not need to cut or break the lock to get inside.

He would pick the lock.

Disc tumbler locks were nigh impossible to pick without the proper tools. The same tool that he had brought today.

He noted the strip of material covering the lock and nodded to his partner, Selka. Without her, he'd not be here today and may or may not have been a crispy bacon strip if he'd come alone by now. With the knowledge that the door and lock were both hot enough that touching them would be a Bad Idea, Sicarius carefully set himself up just before the door and lock and eased the tool into place.

With a casual exploring probe of the tool, he nodded once and grunted to himself. He held up the fingers of his off hand to Selka, his thumb tucked against his palm. Four minutes, it meant. He'd be able to get the lock in around that time.

The door was meant to intimidate, not as the primary defense. Otherwise, why put a disc tumbler lock on the thing?

[member="Selka Ventus"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

The Force revealed nothing about the lock; nullification resin, liquid with ambient heat, shielded the lock beneath the ardanium. Her Scanpack, though heavily obstructed by the radiation and multiple layers of...something...revealed a vertical structure beneath the hatch.

"Looks like a straight drop down, maybe with obstructions of some kind. Gravity's their friend here and they know it. I seriously doubt we'll have a nice easy climb of it. The tube's too wide for chimneying, and I doubt there'll be so much as a ladder. I don't trust repulsors in there, not with this much ambient radiation and potential electric interference, and I'm doubting synthrope is rated for the temperatures I'm reading in there. Unless they've been kind, we may have to rely on metal cable." She adjusted the Scanpack. "There's a structure at the bottom, extending at least five meters into the rock. Beyond that, nothing I can read."

[member="Sicarius"]

 

[Sicarius]

The pick clicked and clacked in the lock. Disc tumbler locks were tricky, but not impossible. The trick was to have the right tool, which he did, and to know how the locks were made.

It was a simple device whose inventor's name was long forgotten. The concept was simple. Rather than a line of tumblers that could be raked - where the lockpick was dragged across the bottoms of the tumblers to find their 'sweet spot' - or slowly set into place with pressure and tension by someone picking the lock, the mechanism relied on a series of discs. Each disc had a set axis and a corresponding 'catch' or divot that the key caught to turn the discs. Each disc, in turn, had a small divot cut into the outside of the circumference that would, when turned by the key, catch a simple rod to the side and remove it to release the lock. Without the proper key, the discs wouldn't turn the proper distance and wouldn't align properly to release the rod inside.

In between each of the discs were spacers designed to keep the discs from grinding or grating. This kept the lock from seizing or the discs from misaligning when the key was used. A thin and specially designed lockpick could twist the discs in place until the divot cut into the metal found the rod. The thin 'tip' or 'head' would 'set' the disc in place while the base, just big enough for the lock's entry, would place tension on the lock itself, thereby keeping the set disc where it was. The spacers left just enough space to turn the lockpick this way and that to find the proper fit for the next disc, which allowed the lockpick to slowly turn the discs one by one.

The trick was to set the first and last discs. These released the rod when all the divots on the discs were aligned and therefore were the most important discs to set. With an inaudible click and the slightest shift in the lockpick itself, Sicarius set the furthest, and last, disc into place. He placed a bit of tension on the lock itself to keep the disc firmly in place and started to shift to the next disc by turning the pick in the space between the two discs inside the lock. From the tiny markings on the lockpick, it seemed there were ten discs to set.

"We'll trust the metal cables, then," he said as he worked on the lock. "Did you remember magnetic clamps? I have a feeling we may need them. I highly doubt it'll just be a straight repel down. There may be alarms or obstructions, as you said. Can your scanner detect those at all?"

[member="Selka Ventus"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Sicarius"]

"I brought four clamps - one plus a spare, for each of us. They'll mate to the cables, too, so there's that. As for the scanner, it's a Levantine Scanpack -- motion sensors to two-fifty, metal sensors to fifty, comms and decrypt to fifteen hundred, life signs seven-fifty, geomatic to two-fifty, fields five hundred, power generators five hundred. Even got a medical scanner in it. Only trouble is, it's not rated for this kind of background radiation. I'm getting the full geomatics picture down to two-fifty, but this shaft is much deeper -- much, much deeper -- than the Scanpack can read accurately. The fields and generators function is picking up power sources, small ones, looks like every...forty meters."

 

[Sicarius]

Click-clack. Click-clack.

The minute shifts in the handle of the lockpick told him that the right angle had been found for the next disc. With a slight twist of the wrist and painstaking care, the lockpick began to turn ever so slowly. Unlike the holovids, lockpicking took time and precision. It wasn't like the holovids and movies where the thief picked the lock in seconds. It took a bit of time and knowledge to do it right and to do it quickly. Sure, you could rake the lockpick over the tumblers in a standard lock and it might work, but with more complex locks, raking the lock only made you look like a fool.

Sicarius turned the tool slowly and surely until he felt the telltale signs that the disc had found the rod along the proper divot. It was a subtle catch or twitch. More felt than heard and more understood than felt. Some thieves spoke of the locks jumping or clicking when you found the right spot, but well made locks rarely moved or made noise. No, it was the 'feel' of the lock and the practice of the thief with his lockpick. You 'felt' the catch rather than heard it which, honestly, was the sign of a good thief. Thieves that relied on audible or tactile cues alone never amounted to much aside from the occasional bounty or prison cell.

With the next disc set in place, he put a bit more tension on the lock to keep the disc where it was. From there, he shifted to the next spacer area to figure out the angle of the next disc. He only had eight more to go and the lock was open.

"Two each should suffice, though depending on what those electrical signatures are, we might have to do something... tricky," he said as he worked on the lock with the patience of a saint. "Any idea what kind of electrical signatures those are?"

[member="Selka Ventus"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Sicarius"]

"Once the hatch is open, I'll be able to get a clearer idea. The Scanpack has a settling that'll let it use the shaft as a resonance chamber to extend its range, at least for some sensor types, but the setting won't work through whatever these top layers are. Not the way it's supposed to, at any rate."

There wasn't, all things considered, a lot she could do at the moment. Under the shelter of the rock overhang and the foldup hatch of the speeder, she got the gear ready -- best- and worst-case loadout packs for the bottom of the shaft, the cables, the magnetic grips, and emergency repulsorpacks that might or might not be reliable under these conditions. She procured another Scanpack for Sicarius, and gave serious thought to a KUT-42 plasma torch that weighed almost as much as she did.

 

[Sicarius]

Another few seconds and two more discs were set. It wasn't that the lock was over complicated and slow to pick, it was just the nature of things. A lock this complex needed time and care, otherwise it would take longer. If Sicarius worked too fast, he risked breaking the pick. If he broke a pick like this inside a lock like that, it would ruin the lock and force the two of them to drill through the metal. It would also force Sicarius to make or buy a new tool to replace the specialized one he could lose.

He moved on to the sixth disc in the series and went to work. Once he had the tool set into the catch, it was just a matter of time until he found the right rotation of the lock to set it.

"Alright," he said as the sixth disc set into place and he worked the tool into the space between the fifth and sixth disc. "So we're more or less playing this by ear beyond that scanner it seems. Works for me. I enjoy a good challenge. Halfway through the lock, by the way. Want me to show you how to do this? Might help if you run into a disc tumbler lock like this one down the line."

[member="Selka Ventus"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Sicarius"]

"I'd hate to undo what you've done," said the rad-suited exec. "I got the theory and a little practice on the trip here - these locks are fairly normal for the new Jedi security protocols -- but I don't have the knack for it. Thanks, though."

She got the KUT-42 on its little repulsorsled, strapped it in...then took another look at the sled and began rummaging in the back of the speeder for the Koensayr manual.

 

[Sicarius]

Two more discs rotated into place from Sicarius' efforts. The third disc was where the pick worked now and it, too, slowly worked into place. As the divot along the disc's edge caught the rod, he shifted the lockpick ever so minutely and put tension on the lock. From there, it was a simple matter of shifting to the spacer area to find the catch for the next disc.

A few more moments and he found the catch for the second disc. He felt the tool in his hands as the pressures changed and kept his mind on his task at hand. Barely a second went by before he felt the unmistakable 'tug' or 'sensation' of a set disc. From there, it was just the first, and most important, disc in the series.

"One more disc and we're in," he said as the lockpick clicked and clacked quietly. He risked a glance back to see what his partner was doing. "What's that contraption for? Giving up on the lockpick already?"

[member="Selka Ventus"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Sicarius"]

"Near as I can tell," she said, wrestling a machine that weighed as much as she did, and she wasn't that strong to begin with, "this shaft is the better part of a kilometer deep. These people planned big; I wouldn't put it past them to have thrown in measures that we'll need cutting power for. But mostly, I'm just breaking this out because the hoversled's a pretty decent second backup to our longer cables and mag clamps, behind the repulsor belts. If this shaft takes us as long as I expect, having the sled to help support us could make the difference. I like to keep options for as long as I can."

 

[Sicarius]

"Fair enough," came his comment. "Though hopefully we wont have to cut through anything. Leave no trace, y'know?"

He felt the pick catch the last disc and got to work. The first and last discs were the most important and so he paid close attention to detail here. To set all the other discs only to botch up the final disc would be embarrassing at the very least. Ever so slowly and carefully, the disc rotated and turned. He waited until he felt the lock set with the barest traces of movement on the pick. From there, it was a simple matter of tension.

He rotated the tool and felt the lock move freely. He kept rotating it until he felt, this time actually felt through his gloves, the rod holding the lock in place move away into the cradle formed by the discs. With the lock no longer and issue, he gave the door an experimental tug with a small hook he carried with him, latching onto the door's edge. It swung freely, but with definitive effort. He figured it was less rust or hinges and more just the sheer weight of the door.

"Door's open," he announced to his partner.

[member="Selka Ventus"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Sicarius"]

"Outstanding."

Her rad suit continued registering ridiculous heat, which didn't vary much from the bounds of ridiculosity when she leaned over the hatch and aimed her Scanpack down the shaft.

"Got resonance. Extending range...holy feth, this thing's half a mile deep. Eight hundred metres, sheer sides, regular circle cross section, two metres in diameter. High voltage differential every forty meters, but no sign of side apertures. Magnetic fluctuations, no pattern I can detect, maybe every two meters in vertical height but widely separated in terms of arc. Can't rule out the possibility that both the voltage contacts and the magnetic contacts are traps of some kind, but I think it's more likely that one or both of them are for access. I could imagine extendable rest points every forty meters; your average Jedi Master might be able to jump that. I'm going to send my Scanpack down on a line and get a closer reading of one of the voltage differentials. Thirty-seven meters of cable...go."

The speeder's winch began to whirl, deploying cable with the Scanpack as a weight. After twenty-five meters, something changed in the tenor of the winch, and a vibration rang through the cable. She hauled it back up.

"Good news, bad news, and worse news. Good news is, I got a clean read. Bad news, the forty-meter intervals are nothing but enclision grids. Worse news..." She held out her Scanpack to Sicarius and let him examine the clean straight gouge in the apparatus' casing. "It ran into something it couldn't detect. My bet is high-tension monofilament crisscrossing the shaft. If I jumped in, I'd be ground meat by the time I hit bottom, armored suit or no armored suit. Which means," she added slowly, "that there's some sort of a pattern among the magnetic points. Step on the right stone, that kind of thing. Pick the wrong one, lose a hand. Too much of a leap, do you think?"

 

[Sicarius]

Sicarius looked at the gouged casing and frowned slightly. Monofilament wire meant nasty things to the unwary and could easily shred flesh and sever limbs. That said, it wasn't impossible to avoid or destroy, you just needed the right tools.

Unfortunately, he hadn't brought the right tools to cut monofilament wire, but they were still well off. Avoiding it was simple and easy. He headed back to the speeder and rummaged a bit until he found the items he was looking for. Gone were the days of combustion engines for the galaxy, at least for the vast, vast majority of civilizations that resided in theirs. However, even repulsorlift engines needed some lubrication and so did various tools and machines throughout the galaxy. The machines they used were no different.

Sicarius returned a few moments later with an armful of bottles. Each was full of machinery lubricant and each had been unopened. None were combustable and, because of the place they were, each was in a protected bottle.

"Did you bring a spray bottle?" he asked politely as he set the bottles down.

[member="Selka Ventus"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Sicarius"]

Under the helmet of the rad suit, Selka's eyebrows rose. Drastically. "I did, or at least I've got a sprayer attachment that'll take the heat and should fit those -- but feth, Sicarius, you're going to beat eight hundred vertical meters of razor monofilament with...lube?"

 

[Sicarius]

"Why not?" he asked, perplexed. "It'll let us see the monofilament wire by the droplets the cling to it. I mean, it's a long ways, but if the wire is only around the electrical signals, that lowers how much we need it. Plus, if we're careful with how much we use, we can stretch it out much further. Another question, though. Any idea what the heat is, say, four or five hundred meters down?"

He gauged that the lube would last about seven to eight hundred meters, but that was stretching it by a lot. They might need to swap to alternative means or somehow cut the lube with another fluid at some point. If it wasn't nearly as hot, both temperature-wise and radioactivity-wise at some point halfway down the shaft, they could potentially use more mundane fluids. This could, potentially, get them that extra leg up.

Plus, as the lube wasn't water based, it would hang around on the wires, meaning that they could just as easily find their way up as they did down.

[member="Selka Ventus"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Sicarius"]

Selka's lips quirked in a grin. "Fair enough," she said, and left it at that. Her Scanpack beeped-

"Diagnostic's green. Monofilament didn't do a thing to the internals. Let me get that temperature data."

Squatting at the edge of the hatch, sensor directed down the eight-hundred-meter shaft, she became inescapably conscious of the fall. It was a biological response more than a choice. For the first time in all her preparations, she wondered if she was capable of this.

"We're in luck. Forty percent differential by negative six hundred meters. Still hot as feth, but doable."

 

[Sicarius]

"Alright, sounds like we're in luck, then," he said as he started loading the lubricant into his harness and pack. It wasn't a lot of gear, so it wasn't bulky, but only a fool attempted a long climb like this without food, water, and the basics. Satisfied his gear was secure and feeling good about the drop, he hooked up the cable to his harness and carefully set the magnetic clamp on the shaft's wall before anchoring the cable to it.

Sicarius then handed a bottle of lubricant to his partner and waited for her to do her thing. Once she loaded the lubricant into the sprayer and shot some of the fluid down the shaft, he could make his way down first. With careful precision and some serious caution, plus some luck, they should be able to pull this off in a day or two. Its not like they were breaking into someplace like, say, the Dark Lord's palace. Yet.

[member="Selka Ventus"]