Lyssa and Hadrian got deeper into the ruins, Lyssa doing much of the slicing and dicing for unexpected threats, such as the odd minor Sithspawn. Hadrian didn't use his onboard Weaponry: His strength and sheer durability allowed him to deal with these threats through sheer brute force.
"What are we looking for?" Lyssa asked.
"The piece of parchment Mother discovered on Lipsec indicated a small tomb area here, filled with deadly traps...and a guardian..." Hadrian answered, right as an alarm went off throughout the whole of the strange complex.
"That cannot possibly be good, whatever it is..." Lyssa surmised.
"All the more reason to hurry. Ultimately, we must be prepared to leave any other treasure here if it means getting our final piece of the puzzle..." Hadrian replied, passing by what looked to be whole cracked open vaults of treasure: They'd take as much as they could carry, but Khemost was true treasure.
Khemost wasn't Feth-You Money: Feth-You Money was something like what Richard Branson has in RL.
Khemost was Feth-You-and-The-Super Star Destroyer-you-rode-in-on-Money.
Laertia had been hunting for it's location all throughout the third Imperial Civil War, in addition to battling the Bryn'adul. She had not searched it out personally except in rare instances like Lipsec. Other times she had searched for it by proxy, through her most trusted agents.
Xiphos had opened her doors to Shi'ido Refugees fleeing the genocide of Lao-Mon. Though she despised
Jacen Nimdok
, she was unwilling to watch his race put completely to the sword, unlike the Bryn'adul. Khemost would have more than enough room for refugees when it was found. For now, Xiphos was hiding them in various worlds that were uninhabited, at least currently out of the reach of the Maw. Xiphos had reached out to Shi'ido Rebels about two weeks before, sending Lyssa as her proxy, persuading them to have at least a few contingencies for mass evac in case the invasion failed. Enough for at least three to four thousand individuals to ensure genetic diversity. They had managed to spare at least five hundred from Lao-Mon itself. The rest had come from hidden colonies. Colonies they hadn't even told the Alliance of.
Even Darth Phyre had taken an interest in securing Refugees---The Cult used Shi'ido bodies almost exclusively for their members. The Maw threatened that resource. She had seen to the difficult work of smuggling slaves off Lao-Mon during the actual invasion. A kidnapped for their own good slave here, a rebel there.
It was one of many things Lyssa was unable to reconcile where Mother was concerned: One minute she was ruthlessly destroying a worldship, in the next she was going out of her way to reach out to those allied with people trying to kill her to save their species from total extermination.
Had there really, truly been no other option at Rhand?
Lyssa was glad she wasn't at Rhand, glad she wouldn't have to bear the weight of that decision on her run-times for the rest of her operating cycle. She loved Mother. Dearly. She would give her operating cycle for her, not just because she was programmed to in worst case scenarios, but because she
knew Mother would do the same if the roles were reversed.
"What would you have done different, at Rhand, Brother?" Lyssa asked, her artificial mind deeply troubled.
"I wouldn't have gone. I would have let the CIS get their asses kicked and THEN made the push for Overwhelming Attrition Warfare." The Golden Nuetralizer answered. "But Mother could not resist..."
Lyssa's Nanites detected the sonic boom of fighters overhead.
"The Eternal Empire is cordoning off the planet."
"Feth..." Lyssa snapped. "We must find that tomb."
"The fact the Model 3's and 2's have Black Ops authorization along with the Sirens to operate in EE territory
might buy us a little leeway if found by them. But the Model 1's are not normally seen in these parts." Hadrian replied, taking out an encrypted comlink.
"All units, be advised, Eternal Empire military is cordoning off the planet...if their teams encounter you
do not engage, repeat, do not engage. If asked, we're conducting salvage of technology, resources, and clearing operations, eliminating boobytraps, and enemy defenders. Which is technically true. If necessary,
surrender the loot."
"Hadrian..." Lyssa called out, spotting an ancient structure. It was the size of a small mausoleum in the midst of a jungle, a great blue pillar in front of it.
Hadrian's eyes scanned it.
"Stone Guardian. Ancient motion sensors around it. Heavy weapons. We go another few meters and it activates. Risk of damage to the tomb is unacceptable." Hadrian surmised.
Lyssa was undeterred. Her form shifted to a large, snake like object with a drill. She plunged into the ground, Nanites breaking down soil and grass as she drilled through it, drilling underneath the motion sensor closest to her.
She deposited a sample into one nearby sensor, overriding it's circuitry with her quantum level programming, so it would transmit a stand down signal to the other sensors as well as the inactive Stone Guardian.
Lyssa burst from the ground, reforming her human guise.
"Advancement. The fatal dagger to the heart of Archeo-Tech." Lyssa said heading past the now inactive pillar.
Rather than try to open the strange lock on the front, a complicated series of dial spins, Lyssa broke down into a puddle and flowed into any opening within the lock to flow inside, reforming within...
She saw it. Frayed, yellow parchment containing partial coordinates, preserved in a small stasis chamber, resting on a pedestal.
Lyssa wasn't stupid however. It was
never this easy...
Lyssa broke down into a silvery puddle and began flowing through every crack she could find, every space between the walls.
She detected a small, artificial cavity in one wall, reformed, and cut it open carefully.
It's was another piece of parchment, likely the real one, in another stasis chamber powered by geo thermal energy. Lyssa memorized the contents of both just in case, and then hacked their chambers, shutting them down, removing and then quickly destroying both parchments.
Lyssa then flowed out of the chamber and reformed back on the other side.
"Let's look like we are here for just Zakuul's secrets..." Lyssa advised before turning to head back. Hadrian quickly followed. The tomb had not been unlocked, so no one would realized it had been breached. The prize had already been seized. No evidence had been left of it.
The order quietly spread among the Nuetralizers and Sirens: Continue salvage, but be prepared to turn over anything to EE inspectors. As a precaution, Model 3's began stamping PROPERTY OF THE EMPRESS itn crates of what they salvaged (This stamp was reserved for hard currency such as ingots and gemstones). They still took technology and infantry weapon caches marked for themselves, and the Model 2's busily compiled data on what traps they had found during their sweeps, ready to hand over what they discovered without complaint...
Aximand Sicarus
Dis
Esmeralda Io
Kayden of Zakuul
Renate Blackstone
Niki Priddy
