Sunburns & Hyperdrive Troubles

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

"Pfff." Kurt's lips flapped. "Who takes a groupie to Dinner?"

He began to follow after her, still holding on to his flashlight. "You take her out behind the track an-"

Kurt suddenly found his words cut off as he stepped out of the turbo-lift and shone the beam of his flashlight out into the room beyond. What he found was even more surprising then what he had seen on the first floor of the bunker, and far, far more creepy. The room at the very bottom floor of the Bunker was, much like the first floor, a massively open space. However, instead of being lined with tanks and dozens of other vehicles this one was set with what appeared to be hundreds, if not thousands, of pristine white clad stormtroopers.

"Holy shit." Kurt said as he shone the beam over the helmets of the troopers, his eyes practically bugging out of his head.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]


"Oh stars!" His jump startled her, prompting a jump. All the more when the blaring white bucket heads seemed to just stare at the pair from all directions.

"... I..." Her eyes bulged, and her free hand came up to press against her lips. "Kurt... they aren't.." her voice fell an octave, and she felt a chill go down her spine. Talk about morbidly creepy.

"Dead?" right? At least she hoped they wouldn't be. Connected to the Force as she was, she'd be able to tell if she took the time. However, creep factor had seriously taken an upward spike of at least a thousand.


Turning back to the Storm trooper in front of her, Kaile bit her lower lip. She began to slowly move left to right, and back again. A grimace took her features.

"It's like his eyes keep followin' me everywhere I go..."


Slowly, carefully, the Lorrdian female began to take a few steps forward. Cautious, her bright beam went from one line of stormtroopers to the next. "...I.. no... they aren't dead." she answered her own question.

A frown grew in between her eyes, and she took a step closer. The bright beam of her flashlight swept over one.

"... It's a full stormtrooper armor set." she told him, her beam then panned down to the right. A silver glint caught her attention. What was that?

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

Kurt followed Kaile, though half broke away from her to inspect one of the armors on his own. He wandered over to it with a much less careful approach than his companion, instead choosing to poke and prod it. His lips pulled into a frown, his knuckles going up to press against one of the armors helmets. There was an echo, a loud hollow sound that resounded from the helmet. He smiled slightly, his guess having been correct.

"They're just armors." Kurt commented to Kaile. "Probably like upstairs, though I think this is a tad unnecessary."

Clearly whomever had built this bunker had a flare for the dramatic. "They could have stored these in lockers and it wouldn't have looked as impressive, though I guess that's part of the point. Empire's always do like to show just how impressive they are, and this...well it's certainly impressive."

There was enough armor here to dress an entire army.

It was then that he caught the glint out of the corner of his eye, the sheen of metal reflecting light from Kaile's electric torch. His eyebrow raise for a moment, his head poking out from the rows of armor as he pointed his own flashlight down towards the end of the assembly. Gathered there was a mass of skeletons, or what appeared to be skeletons. They stood nearly two meters tall, dead eyes, their skin very nearly glowing. They peered down at Kurt, at their very center standing a massive statue.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

“What are…” from behind the pilot, Kaile’s voice would approach with creeping dismay. The wide beam of her flashlight swept from the silver skeletal legs, past the glinting chassis, and landed upon a morbid skeletal skull. Blinking rapidly, the Lorrdian wasn’t sure if she was seeing what stood before her; or the rows upon rows of matching droids.

Swallowing hard, with a sense of forebearing filling her, Kaile moved past the pilot. “Kurt…” her voice was a bit hoarse, surprise and bewilderment a palatable tang.

I know what these are.

She’d seen them before. Had several reports on them from the varying battles against the Yuuzhan Vong. It was like seeing the holoimages step right out of the screen and into reality.

Her throat worked, and her hand slowly would outstretch. It was almost as if she feared that the droid would lash out at her.

Finger tips met cold metal, and she gave a slight flinch. Not struck dead, that’s a plus. Moving closer, she became a bit more bolder. The identification plate she found was lightly dusted away by a pass of her hand.

“Oh my stars….” that flashlight shot over towards Kurt.

“Kurt…. these are YVH 1’s” Or more commonly known as Yuuzhan Vong Hunter One combat droids. They were battle droid developed by Tendrando Arms as a means to effectively combat Yuuzhan Vong warriors.

Nearly two meters tall, the YVH 1 droid was built on a reinforced humanoid-type skeleton and protected with layered, self-healing black-gray laminanium armor that resembled the vonduun crab armor used by Yuuzhan Vong warriors. The skull-like head, glowing red photoreceptors, and external circuitry furthered the Vong-like appearance of the droid, which earned them the moniker "Yuuzhandroids".

“Vong killer droids…”

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

Huh.

He'd never seen these before. He'd heard of them of course, the Republic had fought the Yuuzhan Vong right alongside the One Sith, the Vong Killer droids were somewhat famous, used by the Republic once or twice in order to aid against the Vong, though, he'd never seen them in action. Kurt followed Kaile, wandering over towards the small army of droids and looking up at a few of their faces. They were ugly things, made to intimidate and scare, terrorize their organic counterparts.

"Well, this place was meant to fight a war." Kurt said definitively, his eyes slowly panning over everything contained within the room.

"But a war against who?" The Courier asked out loud as he slowly backed away from the droids and looked up at the statue. "Did this guy know?"

The statue held stern features, wearing what looked to be an admirals uniform. He stood tall and proud, his eyes slightly sunken into his head. Kurt would have said that he wasn't quite human, but the statue didn't hold enough detail to readily make a point of that. He frowned slightly. "I don't like this, Kaile."

There was likely more to be found, and Kurt wanted to know why it had all been left here.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

“Me either.” this whole thing made her belly twist in an uncomfortable way. She didn’t like. “All the more reason why it’s a good thing we ain’t sellin’ it to folk who’d abuse it.” This was, this was just wrong. It didn’t sit well with Kaile. Maybe it was because she wasn’t ever in the front lines. Her area of expertise lay in the covert and intel gathering.

Kaile had never really seen the true atrocities of war like Kurt had.

Following the beam of Kurt’s flashlight, her’s crossed to settle upon the statue. She gave a frown. At first glance, she couldn’t pick out who it was. Padding away from the file and rank of YVH-1’s, Kaile drew closer to the statue. It had such an imposing presence, even for a mere statue. There was no air circulation here, the staleness in the air only contributing to the unnerving ambiance.

Stopping at the center of the room, the Lorrdian gave a frown. Her flashlight went from the base of the statue out towards the stormtroopers and the YVH’1 droids. A few seconds later, the pilot would be able to see her do the same thing.

“Kurt.”

Her voice broke the din, a rising awareness coming to her.

“Are they… are they all rank and filing towards the statue?”

It was rather fanatical on just how neatly the deathly still forms stood towards the center of the room.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

Kurt looked at the soldiers, then back at the statue.

"I think so." The courier looked around the room. "There's...I think they're here to stand watch? It makes sense in a way. I think this is supposed to be an emergency hold out bunker, like if the army was out of supplies but still standing, or they were recruiting a new army...they come here and resupply. That's why there's so many tanks, thats why there's all this armor, the droids, I'm more than willing to bet hat if we keep looking we'll start finding weapons too."

E-11's probably. "I think...this guy."

Kurt pointed the flashlight at the statue.

"He must have set this up." That made sense to him. "I'm betting he was an admiral for the Old Empire, the kind of guy that liked to think ahead, the kind of guy that liked to maybe...plan a coup?"

That seemed likely to him, why else have all of this miltiary equipment just laying around? This admiral guy...Kurt was more than willing to bet that he was some kind of important figure in the Empire, and he was more than willing to bet that he had some kind of plot for his Empire, or maybe even the galaxy.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

Kaile gave a slow up and down nod. "Reckon that makes sense." Confusion still lined her face, scrunching up her brows in the perplexity of her thoughts. Moving back to the statue, she swept her light around the base.

I wonder...

Most folk who were keen on making themselves an idol had a tendency to do so in a manner that would leave no doubt to their mark. Everyone wanted a legacy. Some went as far as to cast their names in several languages to make that abundantly clear. Odds were, that this statue just might have some sort of plaque that would enlighten the two about just who the big guy standing tall might be.

"There has to be some sort of plaque or name 'round here." She said aloud. It was more of a wish, but one never knew. Her beam of light led her search, the sound of her footfalls echoing within the vast chamber. Kaile made one full sweep before she gave a cluck of her tongue in disapointment.

"Tch.. nothing. Not even a single name." her free hand came to perch on her hip. Well that was frustrating. "Either they jipped the guy, or he was that arrogant as to believe he didn't need one."

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

Kurt mused for a second. "I bet we can find his name somewhere. This facility is huge, I would doubt if there was an archive somewhere, something that you can use your super spy skills to slice into and get us all the info we need."

The Courier laughed, but he was also being serious.

It was funny to him now, really, the fact that Kaile actually was a spy. He would never have guessed at the fact in a million years, not before he had been told anyway. She was far too...bubbly, to make a proper spy, or so Kurt thought. Of course that thought had already been properly proven wrong, but it was still there, still lingering in the back of his mind. Despite himself, Kurt simply couldn't think of Kaile as a dangerous super spy, she was just...Kaile.

"Come on, I think see some more rooms over there." Kurt waved his flashlight towards the corner of the room behind the statue.

He had had enough of this creepy super villain lair. They would no doubt return later, actually, he would make sure that they did, Kurt wanted one of those armors.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

"Yeah, I could slice into the systems and scan any logs. Maybe a few holovideos if we are lucky." the Lorrdian strode over to the pilot, a cheeky grin on her face.

"Just what do you find so darn funny?" she would eye him. A poke at the side of his ribcage came next. "Are you doubting my super secret sneaky skills?" she gave him another poke, chuckling as she ambled past him. Down a ways was that room Kurt was talking about.

"Better watch it there Mister Meyer..." her tone would tease, her flashlight conducting a searching sweep. Dust lined the floor, and every step they took prompted tiny little dust devils. "One of these days ya'll need the skills these fingers can bring. " Her left hand wagged for emphasis, those slender digits wiggling with Kaile-like assurance.

"Likely breakin' you out of jail honestly." crossing the threshold, her light would illuminate a computer room. "Or getting you a new identity."

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

He squirmed slightly. "Me? Jail?"

The inflection of his tone made it sound like that was entirely impossible.

"Unlikely." Kurt said as he moved passed Kaile and away from her evil little fingers. "That implies that someone was actually able to catch me, and with that ship I have...well good luck to any government that tries to get me, they'll be eighty parsecs behind before they can even blink."

He was boasting, but he was telling the truth.

The Messa could outrun any ship within the galaxy, and with the modifications that they were going to make on Raxus it wasn't likely that anyone would ever be able to catch up to them again. That ship was ludicrous in all of the features it had, and if Kurt was a smuggler he'd likely have been one of the greatest to ever hold the title. Of course, Kurt was no such thing, he was a law abiding citizen that really only ever smuggled sweet rolls out of his mothers kitchen.

As he stepped into the next room Kurt found himself within a long hallway attached to the computer room, his flashlight brightly illuminating the vast nothingness.

 

[Kaile Vera]

"Uhhuh..."

Interest piqued at the computer console in front of her, Kaile strode over to it. "So what happens when you are grounded there, eh?" she'd ask, her hand skimming across the keys, frowning as a thick collection of dust clung to her palm. She clapped her hands, dusting them off.

"Where I have to come save you cause you might have poked a Sith the wrong way?" I know this type of terminal, she told herself. Her body language changed; back straightened and she drew herself up as if in attention. Her brows drew together and she was going through what she would need.

"Hey, see if there is a generator back there." Kaile called out towards Kurt, seeing him wander down the corridor with his flashlight. Curiosity stark against his scruffy face.

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

"What am I?" Kurt called out from the hallway. "Your servant?"

He joked of course, Kurt didn't mind checking to see if there was a generator back here, especially since the hallway didn't actually have anything significant about it at all. He wandered slowly through the back of the bunker, his steps echoing out within the empty duracrete enclosure. Eventually he found the door to a room, a heavy durasteel thing that seemed almost impassible under any circumstances. The Courier jiggled the doorway, finding it stuck. "Doesn't seem to want to open."

Kurt said more to himself than anything else.

He tried a few more times, pressing, pushing, trying to get the damn thing to budge.

Eventually a groan of annoyance passed from his lips. Slowly Kurt backed up from the door, taking the flashlight in hand and looking at the hinges. He nodded for a moment, then slightly braced himself. For a moment Kurt simply psyched himself up, then he lashed out. A single solid kick was sent towards the doors lock, a heavy boot running hard against the small bit of metal. There was a crack, then a loud clang as the doors lock completely shattered and broke open.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]


“Well you do take orders well…”

Her knowing quip would echo slightly down the hall. With a tweak of the corner of her mouth, Kaile got to work. As soon as Kurt could find a way to bring power to this level, Kaile would start on the console. Slicing into it shouldn’t be difficult. With technology as old as this, there were overrides and technological advances in the last century to combat those.

Slinging her bag off of her shoulders and down her arms, the agent gave a slight grunt. Setting it down in front of her, she took to a knee. Holding her flashlight with one hand, she began to unlatch and dig through the satchel with the other. Her fingers would curl around the familiar square shape of her datapad.

Now, where are those cables? Brows furrowed forward, and she went digging for the rest of her gear.

“Ah, hah!” she cried in victory, grinning as she brought out the small case. Prepping for the set up, she waited to see what Kurt would find.

“Find anything?”

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

The door went half off of it's hinges, laying slightly limp against the cold durasteel as it went falling over and into the room that it had hidden. "Nope."

Kurt called back, though he wasn't entirely sure if that was the correct answer. He pushed through the doorway, his flashlight slowly panning over the room. There were a few switches on the wall, some screens that had so much dust they would be impossible to read, and about half a dozen control panels that were neatly lined up against the wall with large levers by their side. Kurt frowned slightly, slowly wandering over to one of the panels and opening it up.

It was almost immediately clear what this was.

Generator room.

"Found it." Kurt said more to himself than to Kaile, having no doubt that his voice likely wouldn't carry all the way back towards her. He frowned slightly, then gently ran his fingers over the small switches within the panel. A few of them were turned to the on position, though the majority were held in 'off'. Kurt shrugged, then slowly began to switch them back over, one by one flipping them into the correct position. When the entire panel was switched over Kurt grabbed the lever on the side of the panel.

There was a loud whirring, then a tiny spark, and then the facility came to life.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

Okay, then all we need is --

The sudden spark and flash of light immediately burned her eyes. She gave a slight flinch, closing her lids and blinking rapidly as she fought to adjust her eyes.

“Good job…” Kaile uttered with a half grin. Her thumb depressed the switch to her flashlight, turning it off. Well that was one thing. Stuffing it back into her bag, Kaile gave a gander at what she had to work with.

It would take a few minutes for everything to power and boot up. Coming to her feet, she gave a slight huff, her mind racing where to start.

“Right then!” placing her datapad and slicing cables on the console, the Lorrdian set about working from right to left. It was all a series of turning on the old data terminals and consoles. As she switched on power to the machines, a hint of a whirr would bloom to life. Lights would flicker across the console in greens and reds. Turning towards the main dataconsole, Kaile observed the start up sigils.

Her fingers would tap lightly as the low hum of booting dataterminals would drone in the background. A frown came to her as there was a flat piece reminiscent of a small computer spike. Huh, curious. Taking it in hand, she would study it. It reminded her of some sort of dataspike, although she couldn't quite narrow down what it was. Unknown to her, she was holding one of the prototypes created by the Empire of the Hand that was the only known technology to be able to get past socket guards. Once she discovered this tidbit, it was going to make Kaile's day.

As she stood, she felt a slight breeze over head. With a frown, she glanced up.

Huh, well that was nice.

The air units were working.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

As the light flickered on Kurt began to examine the other panels in the room. Most of them were labeled, that was a small gift. He read across the small strips of paper, musing to himself as he began to go over them. He mused for a moment. It seemed that every panel connected to four or five floors within the facility. The one that he had already activated connected to the bottom most floors, this one and the three above them. Of course the labels didn't say what those floors were.

"Hmm." Kurt said quietly as he reached the last panel.

The Courier was weary of activating any more systems, not wanting to strain the power grid any more than he already was. His head shook from side to side and eventually he decided that it was best to leave it alone. Kaile had her computers, and for now they didn't need anymore of the systems online.

The flashlight in his hand shut off, Kurt half throwing it in the air as he made his way back towards Kaile. "Got everything you need?"

Kurt called out to Kaile as he made his way back towards the computer room.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]

Kaile would slip the small dataspike into her back. The socketguard hacking device would have to wait for further inspection later.

He would find her bent over halfway in one of the data terminals. With her small hands, Kaile would connect the hardline wires, giving small little huffs as she wiggled to find the right connection.

"Just gotta.." A small wince, then a hilarious expression of concentration. Almost-- ah! Her fingers quickly pushed in until the connector snapped into place.

"Hah! Got it!" Pleased with herself, Kaile brought her data pad up, checking the screen as they began to interface. Footsteps forewarned Kurt's arrival, then she caught his question.

"Almost! " another small huff and a comically serious look set on her face. A few more seconds then she gave a tap of her fingers to enter commands.

"Security is a bit more upto date than I thought-- though some of this reminds me a bit of..." Her frown deepened, the agent running through protocols and a series of data spikes. "... Strange."

She'll need a bit more time to make sense of this. "Just need to get past this pyrowall."

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Kaileann Vera"]

Kurt was barely listening to Kaile, mostly because computers and slicing didn't really interest him. He had never made an effort to understand, had never really cared to do so either. Slicing was...well in modern times it was important but Kurt had hardly ever found it necessary in order to actually survive in day to day affairs. He preferred simply coasting along on his piloting skills, moving forward without ever having to even consider computers or anything of the sort.

The policy had serve him well.

"Uh huh." Kurt said as she mentioned something about pyrowalls, wandering passed the door to the computer room and in the other direction of the hallway. His footsteps echoed slightly as he moved, his feet practically bouncing off of the duracrete flooring.

There was something...odd about this place.

"I think there's an armory down here." Kurt said to Kaile as he wandered further down the hall. "That or maybe Barracks."

There were three doors at the end of where Kurt was heading, all of then branched out like a cross. They weren't heavy durasteel like the one that had lead to the generator room, instead they looked to be made of another kind of metal that Kurt couldn't really identify. He mused for a few seconds, running his fingers over the cold metal and reaching towards the small panel at the side of one of the doors.

 

[Kaile Vera]

[member="Kurt Meyer"]


“I’d believe it..”

Her voice was a faint echo down the hall. Propping herself against the terminal, Kaile went on to input a series of security spikes followed by a code of forbbasic. This was a strange code, but it nagged at her. Nagged at her like a voice in the past. There was something familiar about it.

In deep concentration mode, the Lorrdian cracked down upon the pyrowall. It took about thirty more seconds before access was granted, and then another five before her eyes went wide.

It made sense now.

The code was familiar because it held protocols normally designated and seen from one particular group. The Ascendancy.

“Chiss?” that doesn’t make sense. Then again, that statue out in front… Frowning, she began to scan through the preliminary files.

The next few minutes would grant them more information about just who was behind the creation of the bunker. There were details akin to the Ascendancy but not quite the same.

No.. wait.

Kaile inhaled a sharp gasp.

“No way…”