Private Space Wolves, Assemble!

[Ova Ziss]

Image Credits: WallpaperSafari

Objective: Plan a Sith Bank Robbery
Location: Diarchy VIP Getaway Estate, Artorias, Diarchy Space
Tags: Glade | Open to Space Wolves, Diarchists, and any vigilante character who doesn't like the Sith.

Spoiler: Flavor music

In a quiet area of Diarchy's private Getaway Estate on the beach planet of Artorias, Ova Ziss eagerly awaited guests, potentially many of them. He had prepared "deathcigars" (or that's what he thought they were called). He only smoked cigars when he was about to do clandestine business for the Diarchy military, the navy, and/or the vigilante group that he called the Space Wolves. This was one such meeting.

Ova Ziss felt compelled to travel outside of the Dantooine system to make sure that nobody from Dantooine, the N&Z, the Diarchy, The Lost, The Dark Empire, or anyone else knew about this mission. It was his mission, and that of the guests. Unless, of course, Ova wanted them to know. That is why Ova traveled to Artorias, the beach planet.

The meeting was at night, when the usual diplomats and Brotherhood bodyguards would be sleeping. Although he was well-recognized as Governor of Dantooine, the usual escorts that Ova Ziss knew personally would've retired for the night. He would be accompanied by escorts that he didn't know.

The visitors were outside of a highly private, VIP seating room. It was decorated with purple, gold, orange and pink. There were six chairs there, and more collapsible chairs in the maintenance closet for anyone else who showed up. It was perfect - the escorts had no reason to enter inside.

It was to be the very first meeting...of the Space Wolves.

"Please wait outside for me, Gentleman and Lady", Ova said to the Brotherhood's two Justicar escorts who had accompanied him this far. They knew that guests would be entering the room late. Diarchs Reign and Rellik ordered the Sayu Ni Diarch Enclave to watch Ova Ziss at all times, as he was suffering from a serious force-induced illness. It was irritating at moments like now, when Ova Ziss needed discretion to complete an important mission, that he was followed everywhere he went. This mission would stick it to the Warlord Marlen Sularon and the Dark Empire for good, but Ova felt that the Diarchs would not ever condone this mission. Perhaps they would pleasantly surprise him.

It would destroy the Diarchy's reputation, if the galaxy knew that they had plundered a Sith bank.

But if an enemy's bank were plundered by pirates - much like Dantooine's kyber crystal caves were plundered by pirates - then the Diarchs could simply deny knowledge of anything.

When the guests arrived, one by one, he offered them all a death cigar.

The room was soundproof when the window was closed. It would be the perfect meeting place.

"Right. You know why you're here. We're robbing a Sith bank." Ova lit the cigar, and then offered a light to the others in the room, one at a time. "Then, we're turning part of the money over to The Foundation to rebuild Csilla."

"Before we talk, let me tell you why I'm doing this. Can I do that?" If given permission, Ova would get right into it. "Dantooine became an independent planet when the New Imperial Order hit the dust, right? - Well, now we're dealing with more piracy than we've ever dealt with in Dantooine's history." Ova takes a drag, and then slowly blows it out, thinking of how to word the next part: the taking action part. He gazes at the mountain peaks in the distance. "We did some research, right?" He took another drag. Ova was clearly nervous. "We had to take out a whole industrial facility down in Asation to find this out. I take no pride in that." Another small drag. Ova chuckles. "What these karking Sith have been doing is creating the piracy, and then manufacturing the solutions to it by offering us security contracts. We've been funding...their karking Dark Empire military. The Trade Federation helped them do that by laundering their money away for them. And nobody karking knew."

"In short, they robbed Dantooine blind, so we are robbing them back. And I don't give a kark what the Hutts have to say about that. They aren't getting a cut. We are."

"Now, I got two questions for all of you". Ova gestured to the guest(s) in the room. "Why are you doing this, and which bank are we robbing? My vote goes to a Dark Empire bank or a Hutt Cartel vault, but I'd like to hear what you think."

Ova leaned forward, holding the deathcigar in his hand, genuinely curious what his guest(s) had to say.

Image Credit: Hotpot.Ai
Space Wolves, Assemble!​

 

[Glade]

Tags: Ova Ziss

Wearing neon and purple, same as always in her circular hoverchair. Been a nano since she'd seen a beach—Denon's skies were all smog and rain. Probably needed a month's worth of sun just to look normal, same as the other two with her.

Wait. Serious face, Glay-Glay.

Except—kriff, this was the best room in the galaxy. So much purple. Dumb girly grin under her visor. Fyor Droid's silent judgment rolled off her hoverchair like static.

Ova started talking. Glade snapped back, cigars between her fingers, trying to flex on Sickle. She'd never chuffed one before, but no way she'd let herself get outclassed. Lit it up—bigger than her nose.

Chronicle, all business. "I'd need schematics to pick." Walking clock, always ticking.

Glade, innocently-not-so-innocent: "Sooo, what'd'ya think 'bout, dunno, robbin' both? Framin' the other." Side-eye from Sickle. "Kinda got um… debts." Truth in her tone. Memory vaults weren't cheap. Neither were stim habits the size of a house, or her medtech treatments to keep her ticking.

"Same backburn schutta, different day. Corps, Sith, Hutts. Step on the little guy, squeeze 'em dry." Sickle's frown became a smirk. "What about those feds? High, mighty, untouchable." Less blowback too. Glade nodded, Sickle was more direct than her.

Now that? That was a Rogue Protocol kinda job, but Ova had them at bank.

 

[Ova Ziss]

Objective: Plan a Sith Bank Heist
Location: Diarchy Vacation Estate, Artorias
Tags: Glade | Open to Space Wolves and Vigilantes

Spoiler: Flavor music

"Oh, I assure you, this is gonna pay your debts and everybody else's."

"That's the best part of this mission. The feds approve." Ova winks at sickle. "The feds here in the Diarchy want us to get back at the other feds, the one in the Dark Empire."

At the mention of schematics, Ova pulls out a map on his holopad. He lays it out on the table in front of the other Space Wolves.

Spoiler: The ICBC Banking Clan Headquarters Schematics

Red dots designate gun placements.
Green dots designate CCTV or drone placements.
* Not all environmental risks are captured by the map. *

"I hacked this from the Asation servers, with Grenz's help", he adds with a wicked grin. "These are the full and complete schematics of the IGBC First Bank Headquarters on the planet of Scipio. Every fault location. Every vault. Every egress. Hell, I even got their risk assessment plan from four years ago."

"There's a few different ways we can go in, and I was hoping to discuss all of them."

"We could go underground, using Scorpion Walkers."

"We could bombard them, and raid every last office building from the skylights to the basement. That would be the heavy approach."

"We could go undercover, get inside, and get out like nothing happened."

Ova pauses for a moment to puff on his death cigar.

"Of course, I'm always open to a different plan."

"Sooo, what'd'ya think 'bout, dunno, robbin' both? Framin' the other."

"What we could do--" Ova said, stroking his goatee. "--is make it look like the Trade Federation did it. We have to make sure that they never see our faces. And perhaps we could leave some sort of Trade Federation calling card behind: fake evidence for those fools to trace to someone else."

 

[Glade]

Tag: Ova Ziss

Everyone agreed—the plans were solid. Detailed. Impressive. Nods and murmurs of approval passed around the room. "Bomb 'em from orbit. Frame the Feds." Sickle's speech had her anarchist tendencies running hot.

Yeah, alright, revolution and all that, but let's not go detonite before breakfast. Give Glade a dilemma, and she'd usually smash the pieces together 'til they fit. Learned that from a friend. "Well," she stretched the word, tapping her fingers against the side of her visor, "I mean, I can pull us some real old battle clankers topside while we ghost in all cloaks'n'daggers through'a backdoor." Apex Holdings had some dusty-looking models locked in their vaults—never did ask where Mr. Black got 'em. Rusty, busted-up excuses for droids, but hey, the Feds did love their calling cards.

She popped her visor up, giving Sickle a look. A don't-go-chucking-us-into-the-deep-end-before-we-get-wet kind of look. First time Ova might've seen her eyes—always bright, even when they were tired and worn.

Chronicle, ever the steady one, studied the schematics. He liked things clean, a rarity from Denon streetrunners. "Unnoticed. Off radar. Seven minutes in and out. I'll need Ibis to confirm." Their architect.

From under Glade's chair, Fyor beeped—the voice of a dead friend cutting through the room.

<Miss Natoline and Company, due to extensive security checkpoints, I calculate the best course would be assuming the identities of vault employees or security staff—an inspection, a delivery. With placed charges as an exit strategy should things go awry. Pause. …And battle droids.>

He added that last part just for her. He knew she was waiting for it. Not that he thought they needed them.

Glade rested her elbow on the arm of her chair, chin in palm, just listening. Fyor always overanalyzed, always waffled, but—forcegods—she loved hearing him talk. A ghost that hadn't left her yet, one she'd never let go.

Oh, right—focus. She snapped back, grinning up at Ova Ziss

"I never said it, Ova, but—kinda thanks. Y'know, for takin' a chance. On me. Us." Her lips curled into a smirkled—half-smirk, half-smile, fully her. Not everyone got her at first glance. The loud neon, the street slang, the odd tech and weirder customs. She'd always been a bit of an odd—glitch in the system? Spark in the wire? Too much speechifying Nato, Whatever.

"Won't let'cha down."

She'd done too much of that already.

 

[Ova Ziss]

Objective: Plan a Sith Bank Heist
Location: Diarchy Vacation Estate, Artorias
Tags: Glade | Open to Space Wolves and Vigilantes

Spoiler: Flavor music

Ova considers the words of everyone on the team. They all had a similar idea, they just had different means to get there.

Glade and Sickle wanted to go in there all-guns blazing topside, sending old Trade Federation tech to attack the IGBC offices, while sending a clandestine team through the vault. It was objectively a great idea. The impact of such a perceived betrayal would send shockwaves through the Imperials' Dark Empire.

"Glade. Sickle. If you can get a hold of those Trade Federation junkers - then do it. Our personal ships shouldn't be seen anywhere near the Scipio system." He nodded with satisfaction at their idea.

​

"The Intergalactic Banking Clan and the Trade Federation rely on each other. Fracturing the IGBC and the Trade Federation's relationship would do more damage than even the bank robbery. The Trade Federation loves to blockade, tax, and stop trade when someone betrays them. It could edge the Imperials out of the Braxant Run."

The droid Fyor added onto the idea, with the suggestion of dressing up as bank employees, or delivery spacers with a package. "Hey, hey, yeah!" Ova sat up in his chair, gesticulating with the cigar in his hands. "And if the delivery came from a Trade Federation business, a legitimate delivery, it would place even more suspicion on them."

"So...we use Trade Federation droids, while putting in a Trade Federation delivery that isn't gonna make it there, and dressing up as Trade Federation spacers and security. Heh, we can even have the droids call out that the Feds are stopping the delivery. If that doesn't scream out that the Trade Federation did the attack, then I don't know what will."

"Now then. I wanna talk about what we're taking once we get there. The credits are only part of things."

"Fyor, this might be your area of expertise. What else can we take, other than the credits in the vault? If we could get a hold of schematics of other structure for example, we could hit those too. And perhaps we can dig up some old messages between the Banking Clan and the Diarchy's enemies. We ought to make it a priority to splice the IGBC computer before we start the 'blockade'".

When Glade thanks Ova for giving him a chance, Ova smiles and claps her on the shoulder in a friendly way.

"Don't mention it. We need all the help we can get around the Braxant. Consider yourself a Spacewolf, Glade. All of you." Ova gestured to the room. "Even sitting here and planning this puts us all at risk."

 

[Glade]

Tag: Ova Ziss

Glade was technically thrown out on sight at Apex warehouses—a smidge too many debts, thefts, legal gymnastics, and Sithy contract loopholes keeping her out. Long story. But she still owned a chunk of the corp, and more importantly, she had connections. Fyor's old clan, the Nayus family? Def's get in with them.

Not that you'd guess any of that sticky situation from the way she practically vibrated in her seat.

"Oh, easy-mode. Ghost it clean. Blink and nobody knew we were there." Glade smirkled and gave an exaggerated bob of her head, like she was convincing herself as much as the others. Sickle arched a brow. Half of Apex's bottom line was tech reclamation and recycling—plenty of history, plenty of old tech.

Fyor-droid processed the request, its voice a crisp echo of the long-dead genius Jedi engineer.

<The vault holds credits, but assuredly our payload is in data. I would heartily suggest the primary target be encrypted transmission codes and structural schematics of key facilities. Suggested secondary targets would include false transactions to implicate rival factions, destabilization of market records to induce trading chaos. Random looting of safety deposit boxes is a wildcard, but access to personal accounts and trading records will grant us deeper infiltration potential. With the right credentials, our future forged identities could bypass even the Trade Federation's deepest firewalls.>

Chronicle looked intrigued, Glade looked reminiscent, and Sickle tapped her deck. If Fyor—or worse, the Scylla AI —could dig deep enough with the right credentials, even a temporary crack in IGBC's security could mean little was off-limits.

Glade beamed. "Aww, thanks," genuinely buzzing. "Risk's kinda where I used'ta live. Revolutions, explosions, n'stuff." She'd missed it—not so much the bad parts, but y'know. Her hand finding a discarded spoon on the side that looked like it was forgotten, "can I umm, keep this?"

Sickle leaned on her arm. "Team knows the stakes. They'll be in." They'd all pick and choose for themselves, but on a gig like this, there wasn't much of a choice.

Some of the team were too young to really grasp it, but Denon street kids grew up fast or not at all. Every day was a risk. Chronicle just agreed, already syncing the timing in his head, slotting every moving piece into place.

 

[Ova Ziss]

Objective: Plan a Sith Bank Heist
Location: Diarchy Vacation Estate, Artorias
Tags: Glade | Open to Space Wolves and Vigilantes

Spoiler: Flavor music

"[...] "With the right credentials, our future forged identities could bypass even the Trade Federation's deepest firewalls."

"That's right. HA!" Ova slaps his leg. "Then, if we hit the Trade Federation as the IGBC, once again, nobody would expect anything! We could hack ourselves real credentials: no droids needed. We can get back all of that stolen money in no time."

"I have to stress that these...'pirates'--" Ova deployed bunny ears using his fingers, as he really meant the Trade Federation "--have been plundering Dantooine for...good grief, it must be going on fifty years now. They deserve all of this."

Ova notices a logo on one of the holopads that the crew is using. He points and draws attention to it. "Apex Holdings, huh? Is that your company?"

"can I umm, keep this?"

"Ah, uh, yeah, but...why would you want to?" Ova tilted his head, puzzling at Glade, who kept the discarded spoon.

"I can see just how much debt you're really in. I promised to wipe it clean. Do you believe I'll keep that promise?"

Ova walked over to the liquor cabinet now. He was drawing out shot glasses for each member of Rogue Protocol. It would be hard to look at them as he made this next request: it could destroy a major faction's economy, possibly irreparably. Ova produces a large bottle of vintage Nar Shaddaa whiskey. The Governor was known to be something of a heavy drinker, which was one of his greatest weaknesses. However, since there was nobody except Rogue Protocol to see him drink, Ova was fine with it.

As Ova poured whiskey into the shot glasses, he spoke to the team. "There is a large computer archive inside of the vault called the Debtor Registry. It marks all of the debts and bounties set on every person the Trade Federation and IGBC does business with. It includes quite a few companies from the corporate sector, too." He nods to the group, Fyor and the Fyor Droid in particular. "Splice it. You can wipe your debts away, but you can also splice in new debts and bounties. Of course, not every faction uses this Debtor Registry. Some will not accept this next suggestion."

Ova was distributing shots to interested people.

"I need the Mandalorian Crusaders to own your debt instead. In fact, I need the Crusaders to own the debts and bounties of every single person and government entity in the Diarchy." Ova smirks as he sat down in his chair. Everyone now had a shot of Nar Shaddaa whiskey. "The Mandalorians waged war on Kashyyyk recently. They're blocking off the Braxant Run from our Alliance customers in Taris. They're playing a sneaky game, and I want them to pay for it. They need to learn that indiscriminate war has a price."

 

[Glade]

Ova Ziss

Nato... Glade was vibing. Ova clicking with Fyor had her beaming still, eyes sparking brighter than a slicer on a hot streak, riding a club wave till 3am, a rare flash of something warm beneath the synthcoolin' their lives.

Big corps preying on the broke and busted? "Let's smoke them." Sickle spat, anarchistic fire in her veins. Glade bobbed her head, casual but locked in.

Apex yours? Ova asked "Erm. Bits n' pieces. Complicated." Glade's hands twisted together like a messy bundle of wires. "Like that." Apex Holdings was a tangled glitch—Uos family drama, dead patriarch, power struggles that didn't even involve her! Bleh. Hitting banks was way waaay easier than untangling that mess.

Spoons abound in memory hoards, scavenged whispers of memories cast aside. Like some of her Kiffar kin, she could pull echoes from objects, trace the ghosts of their past. Running her many cluttered vaults kept her accounts red, debts stacking like an endless backed-up queue in the undernet.

"Wiping our debts. Where you can." Chronicle cut in, tone level but cautious. Some debts? A little nudge of creds could clear them. Others? No amount of money could touch. Denon had other currencies—favors, grid-lock-chains keeping runners locked in a never-ending hustle, undernet tags, or just old-school family blood-markers that ran deeper than credchits.

Ova laid it out—be a temporary reprieve, enough to exhale for a minute. Sickle's mouth opened, probably about to ask if they could just blow the whole damn registry, but then Kashyyyk got dropped into their convo and Glade's vibe shifted. Eyes misted like she was glitching raw, past surging up into a bad boot cycle.

"Y.yeah. Let's do that." Voice soft, tremor threading through. Then she slammed back her whiskey, nose scrunching at the burn. Bleh. Hand out for another. Better than double-tapping stims. Dulling the edges, keeping her ghosts at bay. Another good memory burning again. That's why she had the vaults.

Sickle tossed back a shot with a muttered thanks. Chronicle, though, waved his off. "This all sounds good. But what's the guaranteed payout?" Practical. Always. He had to sell it to the crew. A few hundred creds each? A few thousand split? If it smelled too sweet, he'd know something was off. Not if they failed, nobody expected handouts, but if there was nothing worth taking the risk had to payout.

Glade squidged forward, words slipping out a conspiratorial whisper. "Umm Ova… like, why are you for reals doin' this. You kinda care and um, well its nice." Nice a distant memory recall, a snippet of code she'd lost along her way.