First Reply High-Speed Crimes and Low-Key Regrets

[Glade]

Denon
District 28
Heist. Seven Man Crew: Nicknamed Rogue Protocol
Night
Target:

Spoiler

Your choice of target location that fits your character; else I'll pick in the next post. Assume something important. Open to helping, or open to stopping the heist, npcs are yours to use.

"Call it."

Debris flew. A gaping hole swallowed the outer wall, the implosion sending shards of crystalplex skittering all the way to Club Eternia. Another tick off her to-do list for the day—right between shopping for holopet snakes, and repainting the apartment its fifth shade of neon, she'd fitted in armed robbery. A twinge of guilt gnawed at her stomach, a memory of doing this long ago that she'd rather forget. But the voice cut through it.

"Forty seconds." Chronicle never lied, keeping time.

"Jammin' the trace." Glade's fingers danced across her hardware. "Rerouting."

Slicing had been a long road. Fyor-Droid's lessons had been mind-numbing at first, but then—boom—they paid off. Just like the stim she'd jammed into her neck. Her pupils went wide, black pools swallowing the neon glow, exhaling air like crystal blue frosting.

"Go easy on that stuff, Glay-Glay." Sickle's voice slid in with her usual judgmental nudge.

Which, as always, fell on deaf ears. Glade cranked the buzzing music in her hoverchair's headset, drowning out Sick before she could crash her high. The new chair upgrades were working like a dream—faster speeds, sharper slicing tools, and, most importantly, a baseline that made her skull vibrate.

She blew strands of shaggy hair from her face, eyes hollowed, skin pale. Her time getting closer than she'd like, not at her best tonight.

"Got it." The alarm response was sent to some poor Corpo's apartment two districts away—some sleazebag currently cheating on his wife, who could use being exposed. Sickle had a twisted sense of humor like that.

Keen but careful the crew of seven moved in, all dressed in street attire, Glade glided smoothly along in her chair. What was this their third job this week? You know, now that she thought about it, she hadn't even asked what they were robbing or who it belonged to. She needed the creds. Needed the stims. The debts were eating her alive. Maybe she'd eat tomorrow too. That'd be nice.

 

[Glade]

Juju whispered something about 'bad feelings', but Chronicle had already tuned her out. Five minutes—if they were lucky. If someone was watching, inside or out, all bets were off.

Glade drifted through the debris, the buzz in her skull thrumming like static electricity. Her hoverchair nearly clipped Sickle's back.

"Sos," she muttered, killing the music, blinking to focus through her high. The visor snapped down, locking her into the VR feed. Lines of code scrolled—then clicked into place.

In. A camera—thirty feet, right side. Vanos Corp. Her tongue clicked. That name meant nothing on their scans. Too clean.

Chronicle lobbed an ion grenade, its blue flash cutting the feed. They moved, silent against the sterile grey hallway. Still no records on the undervine. Nothing on the shadownet. The undernet? Dead end.

Glade nudged Chronicle's thigh with her chair, flashing a camera layout to his HUD before he could blunder into another one. Another quick pulse of blue—another dead feed.

They crept forward.

"Four-thirty."

Glade smirked, pulse racing. Plenty of time for mischief.

 

[Whottoomuzz Chantin]

"Lorda Hutt, there's been an alarm tripped on the Vanos shell Corp. Someone sliced into the security network and redirected the signal to was rerouted - we have thoroughly interrogated the suspected culprit, but the only thing they are guilty of is adultery."

Whottoomuzz, through the holoprojector and wearing a nightcap, responds humorlessly, "Buuda peegunkee wermo an bu nipaw. Peeta gee mah wahka bu killee seeka."

A silent alarm was triggered, and building security, suspecting some delinquent throwing rocks or equivalent, began a lazy sweep of the building.

The counter slicer, a toydarian with their cranium more metal than meat began back-tracing the alarm from the dead corpo's network, searching for evidence they could glean between the apartment and the building's networks.

Whottoomuzz arose from their circular bed and began preparing to monitor the situation closely as his Daulas hurried into a blur of activity, rushing to mobilize.

Nobody robs the Hutt and gets away.

Nobody.

Spoiler: Alert Levels

OOC: For dramatic tension, I will use the Alert Levels with Dice rolls to determine how close on the trail the Hutt's folks are. If the dice is equal to or below the alert level, it rises and I'll increase the difficulty of the opposition

For example, an Alert level of 1 (lazy guard searching) will increase to Alert 2 (i.e. Local siren sounding and guard alerted) if a "1" is rolled - then next post a roll of 2 or under would be raised from Alert 2 to Alert 3, etc).

Glade​

 

[Glade]

Location: Level 2, Vanos Corp
Rogue Protocol Condition: Glade, Sickle, Chronicle, Juju, Ibis, Savant, Trix
Tag: Whottoomuzz Chantin

"Savant, who lined this job up?" Ibis was busy tagging her street name in neon, like always.

"Didn't ask."

Glade wasn't buying it. Something felt off—would've had her gut in knots if she wasn't riding a stim rush at a hundred miles an hour, no brakes, no rails, just the high. Then—static. A flicker in the line. Her pulse spiked. "Uh, guys? We got'a leech."

First time in a while she felt real fear—last time was that car chase, flames licking too close. Hands flew over her console, slicing through code like she was playing a high-speed tune. A faint breeze rustled nearby, a whisper of paranoia curling through her into the force.

"No probs, no sir," she muttered, popping her lips, choking down the itch for another hit. Just one more, just enough to sharpen the edge. Instead, she dove deeper into the VR link, neurons sparking, fingers a blur—pushing harder, but opening herself up. If the other slicer played this right, she'd be bleeding code, literally.

"Spinning a ghost, spoofin' 'em to a honeypot. Like were just some punk settin' off alarms three blocks over." Her voice fired off too fast for most ears to track, jittery, and rushed.

The team pushed higher—one floor up. Camera out. Silence.

Then—"Hey, fettheads, movement." Trix, the youngest, pressed into a shadow behind a wall, stun baton primed if the guard found them. Chronicle's hand drifted toward his piece.

Glade frowned, nose tightly scrunched. Leaving bodies always took a chunk out of her soul, not a lot of it left.

OOC:

Spoiler

Rolling a first D6 for how well she does her counter and a second for how well the team responds to the guard.

 

[Whottoomuzz Chantin]

The Trandoshan guard walked directly past the shadows oblivious to the intruders nearby, to lazily check that the door that was breached before, was still locked.

"Karking sensors or delinquents or Mymocks or..", the guard grumbled, baton and blaster holstered, quickly pressing the lever handle to make sure the door didn't open freely.

...

Elsewhere, the Toydarian counter-slicer scraped for clues, but something was wiping their tracks, making new ones, spinning them in circles. " Tink I got someting, eh - it's uuuh it's tryin' to dodge, tryin' to trick me ehh. Not so fast yeh slippery slimo"

...

Back on Nal Hutta, Whottoomuzz slithered to his aquarium to grab a late night snack, something live and wriggling while they considered going back to bed.

Glade​

 

[Glade]

Location: Level 3, Vanos Corp
Rogue Protocol Condition: Glade, Sickle, Chronicle, Juju, Ibis, Savant, Trix
Tag: Whottoomuzz Chantin
Beam Dancing Muse

Chronicle's fingers flicked up from his piece—four minutes to go. Slipping past the guard with the luck of a Jawa Jedi Grandmaster, the crew climbed to level three. Ibis threw up a hand, then a thick spray of smoky gas—green beams cut through the haze. Motion sensors.

"Deck gods, hear me now." Ibis whispered, rolling into a cartwheel, ducking low, vaulting high, twisting through the shifting grid like a ghost in the code.

Glade? Not so smooth. "No, no, no," she exhaled, fingers a blur, but the enemy slicer was sharp, fast. She huffed a messy strand of hair out of her visor. Gotta go wild.

"Ice 'em, Glay." Sickle jacked in, her own deck flaring hot.

Deep in the wire, Glade's lips curled. "Fyor, gloria mundi," high galactic whispered, running a play straight out of theory. Her chair-droid surged, flooding the link—memories ripped from her cortex, dumped straight into the digital ether as code. Colors, voices, noise. A lifetime of echoes—sharp, sweet, chaotic—spilled into the enemy's feed.

The holonet rippled. Confused. Slowed. Psychometry her blessing and curse.

She snorted beneath her visor, reliving snippets of other people's lives—hilarious, heartbreaking, absolutely pointless junk—shoved into the link to clog up the connection.

"Trippy." Her fingers twitched, digging into her palms, small and tight—like holding onto something always slipping too fast.

OOC:

Spoiler

Glade's slicing first roll, Ibis's Beam Dancing Second Roll - High stakes on that one!

 

[Whottoomuzz Chantin]

"Dey noticed me, eh! Got tah disentangle from da" The Toydarian counter-slicer found themselves trapped in the virtual display, cranial cables plugged into the dataport, jaw suddenly slack, drooling. The Trandoshan shook the counter slicer, considering reporting the trouble, but slicing was so foreign to the thug that he feared bothering the Hutt if it was't a true emergency.

...

Inside the building, the night guard pressed the lever, finding the door unlocked. " Karkin' closer not doing dey karkin' job"

Beyond, in the Laser detection room, a simple motion detector activated the room lights, beginning the scan. The blazers began moving in slow, predictable patterns, not only searching for intruders but scanning for their identification with multi-dimensional readings - not impossible to weave through, but jarring shift to account for.
Complication Inspiration

...

Back at the Hutt's palace, Whotoomuzz's blendo whirred, making some sort of healthy drink that the Hutt's husband, Xoff Chantin , assured would help them lose some of their weight. Whottoomuzz put a nice, juicy, living paddy frog into the blending appliance for flavor. The lack of updates from the counter slicer was beginning to grow suspicious.

Spoiler: Alert Level 1 + contested Laser Roll

Alert level 1

1. First roll: counter slicer detection
2. Second roll: guard detection
3. Third roll: opposed roll for laser room
   1. high risk, alert level will increase by 2.
   2. Target roll is < ibis' roll = 3 (i.e. 1 or 2)
4. Fourth roll: Trandoshan/Hutt suspicion

Any natural 1 escalates alert level

Glade​

 

[Whottoomuzz Chantin]

OOC cutting it REALLY close to detection with those rolls oml

 

[Glade]

Location: Level 3 moving toward Level 4 Vanos Corp
Rogue Protocol Condition: Glade, Sickle, Chronicle, Juju, Ibis, Savant, Trix
Tag: Whottoomuzz Chantin

Glade hadn't planned on turning someone's brain to paste—that was a Nato move. Do something reckless, cue explosions, tornadoes, asteroids hitting a planet. Don't ask. But deep down, she felt it—this was hurting someone. Bad. The stim-high guilt gnawed at her conscience. She yanked the plug, her deck going dark. A faint gust brushed their feet, emotion bleeding out.

Juju frowned. "What in the glitch, Glay? It's just a corpo-rat."
Savant cut firm. "Reconnect."
Sickle, protective, laid a hand on Glade's arm. "Lay off Sav, we got it."

Tension hung for a beat, then Sickle jacked in instead. A delay. Just long enough for a slicer—if any were still conscious—to gain ground. Sickle focused on misdirection, scattering their trace through Beebo's Bantha Burgers, GNN, Apex Industrial, and a street club called Zero Shift. If Sick got the location right, it moved around.

Ibis scanned ahead at the new beams. "This is glitched to hell. Might not pull it off."
"Uhh, maybe y'know Lag it all up?" Glade's nose held a firm scrunch.
"Risky messing with core processes," Juju warned.
"If everything lags, no one notices one thing." Sickle smiled.
A pause, then Juju warily nodded "Slicers don't get flagged for slow systems." Not right away anyway.

Visor down, another stim punched—a cold blue breath rushing through her. Sickle had no time to glare at Glade, so Fyor-Droid took over with a disapproving beep. Glade's pupils, blown wide dark as Denon-midnight, flickered against the digital stream. She tried to force every system in the building to half-speed, feigning a central server error. Not easy to crack this one.

Chronicle tried to mask Ibis as an employee they had on file—a fallback, just in case. Neurons frying, fingertips burning, too much slicing tonight.

"Trix, Juju, that guard's trouble." Trix nodded and slipped back stun baton ready. Juju hesitated, then followed downstairs.

And Ibis stepped into the beam dance.

Dice:

Spoiler

Rolls:
1st, Glade's roll to slow the entire system.
2nd, Ibis's Dancing Work, backed up by Chronicle if things go really bad.
3rd, Trix tries to neutralise the wandering guard with a stun baton with Juju on watch to help.
Will roll for Sickle next if another slicer is in play

 

[Whottoomuzz Chantin]

---

In the freshly dead corpo's apartment the Togrutan finally stopped shaking the Toydarian, unplugging the slice-implants as the stubby, winged counter-slicer seized up. It was time to call in something was wrong.

<<Lorda Hutt, tah slicer killee, send jee another?>>

The dissatisfied visage of The Hutt was silent through the holoprojector, an implied threat.

Handle the situation, or I'll handle you

The Togrutan gulped and tried to contact the night guard - but there was no answer.

...

In the hall of the office complex, the ever-complaining guard's frustrations were cut off by the shock of a stun baton, rendering him out cold, but alive. A 200 pound piece of evidence waiting to happen.

Just ahead at the scanning checkpoint, the deft dance of avoiding lasers proved successful - even without the slice to slow the laser's pace working. Ibis was across, one step closer to the data centers, though the laser-scanner hall still fruitlessly sent beam after beam, waiting for a figure to authenticate.

...

At the receptionist's desk on the first floor, an overnight secretary tried to calm a distressed Togrutan over the communicator to explain what the issue was. Evidently the security desk has not been answering his calls.

Spoiler: Alert Level: 1

Alert Level: 1

1. Togrutan call front desk (-1 to roll from missing security guard, =<2 required)
2. The Hutt's Irritation (=1 required)
3. Scanner room - absence of subject detected: potential equipment malfunction - Maintenance to be called (=1 required)

Glade​

 

[Whottoomuzz Chantin]

Alert level increased: Alert Level 2 active

The secretary has tripped a silent alarm, an investigatory security detail is being sent to investigate the missing Night Guard at the Security Desk​

 

[Glade]

Location: Level 3 Security Door near Level 4 Vanos Corp
Rogue Protocol Condition: Glade, Sickle, Chronicle, Juju, Ibis, Savant, Trix
Tag: Whottoomuzz Chantin

Young Trix and Juju weren't exactly prime picks for hauling a body, but hey, two was better than one. They grunted, dragging sagging weight toward a cluttered storage closet, weaving past the created blind spots in the building's security grid.

"Inbound CorpSec, Juju—thirty seconds," Chronicle buzzed. "I'll buy you time." Some doors might mysteriously jam, lights flicker off mid-stride, or terminals glitch just enough to slow the security team. Little delays. The kind that could stack up

Glade exhaled, a double stim tap still grinding through her veins—everything in sharp-edged slo-mo, her body wired, mind electric. "What's his name, Trix?" She needed a lil bluff, fast. Trix pinged her the ID. "Fyor, we got a holorecord on this corpy?"

<<Scanning. Five seconds, Miss Natoline.>> Fyor's voice always steady, composed.

Download hit. Soundclip, voice mod locked. Glade tapped into comms, throwing out static-laced irritation. "Watc—what are you bothering me for? I'm doin' my job!" Not perfect, but maybe close enough. "I can barely hear ya, gear's acting up. Get off my back, okay?" Transmission sent across any open frequencies. So so smooth, right? Maybe?.

Ibis snapped a scrambler onto the door ahead, fingers twitching. This was Juju's game, but they'd all cracked locks before. Sickle kept the backup running—if the scrambler failed, she'd try to reroute Ibis' profile, fake a staff login or ID for the sensors. A failsafe to keep the op from totally flatlining.

Chronicle kept the clock. "Three minutes thirty."

Too much time. Not enough time. Everything burned electric.

Dice:

Spoiler

1nd Roll for Hiding the Security Guard's Body.
2nd Roll for Chronicle Trying to Delay the Guards (modifier either way?)
3rd Roll for Glade Posing as the guard, should be tougher this, she's not great.
4th Roll for Ibis scrambling the door.
Oh and you rock btw.

 

[Whottoomuzz Chantin]

"Kriff it woman I said unlock the doors! The Human guard grunted through the communicator at the secretary, a Twi'lek, as she rapidly pressed the unlock button - the button beeped with audible feedback, but the electromagnetic lock was unchanged.

"I am! I don't know what's up with the system right now, were getting jammed door and faulty scanner hall signals for the last half hour"

Impatiently, the Head of this 'CorpSec' squad, a Besalisk with four hulking arms stepped forward. "This ain't coming out of our pay, got it?" As he placed two hands on each of the stuck sliding doors. A few seconds of rippling muscle and creaking metal and the first blocked hallway door bent outward, pried open by the 'security chief' of the building.
The door, now open in the canned vegetable fashion, finally tried to slide open as the lock finally received the inputs.

The secretary sighed.

The security squad moved into the hall, checking the doors as they went. Locked.

The Security Chief Sighed.

...

Elsewhere, a togrutan fled via rooftops as authorities investigating a noise disturbance found a dead corpo and their companion, as well as the corpse of a brain-fried Toydarian counter-slicer. An official investigation began.

Spoiler: Alert Level: 2

Alert Level: 2
Dice rolls:

1. Security Chief
2. Authorities
3. Hutt's patience.

Glade​

 

[Whottoomuzz Chantin]

OOC messed up the dice with an edit, using these dice rolls
Messed up again, rolls were 5 (post prior), 3, 4, (this post) not going to reroll again lol

 

[Glade]

Location: Level 4 Vanos Corp
Rogue Protocol Condition: Glade, Sickle, Chronicle, Juju, Ibis, Savant, Trix
Tag: Whottoomuzz Chantin

With the luck of the forcegods bet against a hutt-sized stack of odds, the crew was actually pulling this off. Maybe some back-alley phantom coder had their backs, an unseen forceghost in the grid nudging flux luck their way, or maybe it was just one of those nights where the world clicked into place like a well-jacked Correlian relay.

Trix and Juju? They did an okay job dumping the guard—shoved him into a shadow-choked cupboard, buried under a tumble of busted crates and janitor junk. Not artful, but it was what it was. Juju's nerves were spiking, though, twitch-sense screaming to bail. Young Trix? Still green enough to catch secondhand jitters. The moment the deed was done, they bolted, slipping to backtrack toward the group, ghosting through the halls and praying any remaining cams blinked another way.

Chronicle had corpsec locks folding like cheap plastic, and Glade's shaky guard impersonation hadn't blown up in their decks—small miracles! She tugged her voice modulator free, tucking it into the chair, her own little throne sat above a glittering underworld of tech or junk she'd never part with.

But Ibis! Star of their show. Pesky corpo's door didn't stand a chance. If she'd been dancing through beams on Coruscant center stage, they'd be throwing credchits at her feet. Pop, hiss—she was through, vanishing into the room for a few tense seconds before the beam IDs flickered dead. Forcegods were smirking down on them tonight with flux luck against the house's odds.

"Ibis? Clear?" Savant was running outta patience.
"You waiting for a protocol-droid invite?" Ibis called back. "Hustle."

Level 4.

Upward. Closer. How close? How long could they ride this line before it snapped? Glade could practically taste the data, just waiting to stream across her chair-deck, feeding her visor's curiosity. She had a brainwave—hey! rare, but they happened. With the heat creeping up their connection, might as well go full send.

"Gonna try 'n like slice their outgoin' comms, see what's what with the chatter." Fingers danced, launching a trace. Blasting a signal out wide, screaming a guard's voice through all signalwaves was easy, but pinpointing their private comms to listen in, on a busy world? That was a real trick.

"Talk to me, Sick." Chronicle's voice laid down a path, keeping the rhythm steady.

"Running a trace—data center, cams, surprises. Hold tight…"

Level 4. What was waiting—a trap or a jackpot? Something twisted in between? The next few beats would tell.

Dice:

Spoiler

1st Trix and Juju's start their return to the group. Guards, Cameras, Onlookers, Problems etc
2nd Glade tries to slice into the internal comms to hear the chatter going on. (Hard)
3rd Sickle and Team try to locate the main data center. Misdirections, false positives, or sneaky backdoors?
Still throw up any surprises and traps you like, third roll is for flavor mostly in locating where its at
Its a lot of fun thanks!

 

[Glade]

Fate clicked into place.
(OOC: Rolls rolls rolls!)

 

[Whottoomuzz Chantin]

"Is every karking Door locked?!" The security chief exclaimed, exhausted at having bent open three consecutive doors. It was slow progress. Thankfully, building maintenance had finally arrived with a laser cutter, which should certainly help them get to the equipment room in a reasonable manner.

...

In the streets outside, sirens blares as police speeders followed the trace of the signal to a corporate building - Vanos Corp. A flustered and frustrated secretary tried to explain the situation to the officers, but even she didn't know entirely what was going on. The Gammorean police officers adjusted their hats and followed the trail of bent doors to get a statement from CorpSec.

...

Whotoomuzz's lack of updates had them irate and worried something was amiss. A signal was sent out - Chantin's own thugs would investigate this mess. A speeder-van with a handful of Trandoshans, Rodians, and a human pulled around the alley. What they say in front of the Vanos Corp building were parked patrol cars with flashing lights.

They must have been ratted out.

The Hutt got the comm from the human, and authorized the hit.

Blasters were pulled and the speeder van headed towards what would soon be a hotbed of activity.

Spoiler: Alert Level: 2

1. CorpSec
2. Maintenance
3. Police
4. Hutt hit squad. (!!!)
   1. If the hit squad rolls higher than the police, shootout starts, raises alert level by 2

Glade​

 

[Whottoomuzz Chantin]

SECURITY BREACH - ALERT LEVEL 5
POLICE SHOOTOUT IN FRONT OF VanosCorp
The security guards, with the maintenance cutter, finally breach the doors leading up to the crew - but not year detected. (+1)

In the lobby, blaster fire shatters transparisteel and carbonizes the receptionist's desk - and the Twi'lek receptionist

Police return fire. (+2)

The intruders are not yet discovered, but the situation has begun spiralling out of control.​