Star Effect
Prologue - Unintentional Arrival
Cipher 7 was flying her way through Republic Space. The communication software installed was informing her already that Imperial Intelligence was contacting her. She allowed the call through. "Cipher 7, this is Keeper." Came the authoritative voice of the head of intelligence.
"I am in position close to the Corellia system Keeper, and am moving towards the objective." "Never mind the double agent Cipher 7, another operative has been sent."
Her eyes narrowed at Keeper pulling her off the mission. "With respect sir, I don't think that is -"
"You are being sent to take down SIS agent Faldon Meyer. He was spotted on the Naboo system ten days ago, and we want you to track him down and eliminate him."
"Sir, it took ten days to get the info?" Her tone was questioning. Intelligence usually had the latest info within a day for her. Ten meant that something was wrong.
"The Sith have been sitting on it for some time. Apparently not telling us about top Republic operatives is the new big thing."
"I have no comment sir, other than the Sith must have their reasons for not telling us."
"Cipher 7, your patriotism, whilst useful, is now starting like bootlicking. It will not save you for much longer." Keeper's voice took on a level of threat, and she backed off on the idea of criticising him further.
"Very good sir, I'll head for Naboo."
"Start in the spaceport manifests, and try to find something linking him to a particular ship. Keeper out." The bridge communication switched off. Cipher 7 started to change the course for Naboo, and decided to let the auto-pilot take control over it. She headed out to her small office space on her prototype X-70B phantom. She wanted to look over everything on Meyer before she reached Naboo.
The moment that Cipher 7 arrived on Naboo, she left her personal astromech in charge of the ship. As she made down the ramp, she turned to the little droid.
"Remember Teesix, no one on the ship." The astromech beeped at her in affirmation. As she walked off into the busy spaceport, she looked around for the way to the control centre. She spotted it on the far side of the building. She headed casually towards it, her civilian disguise hiding her pistol on her hip, as well as the sniper rifle on her back. She headed straight up the stairs towards the control bay, amazed that there were no guards at all. Upon entering, she found the entire complement of security lying dead at their stations, as clear an indication as any to her that someone had beaten her to them. She moved over to a console and tried to find the security footage, only to find the last months record of both video and data records were wiped. She saw a man looking up at the windows of the control centre, and he pulled a wink before leaving for the private docks. She quickly realised that it was Faldon Meyer, and tried to chase him. But before she had even exited the control centre, she saw a ship quickly take off and speed away into space. As fast as she could, she ran back towards her own ship, straight up the ramp.
"Teesix check the engines, now!" She shouted at the little astromech, who beeped and went straight to the engines. She took off, ignoring the fact that there various members of ground crew right below her ship. She was happy to see that the same ship that she saw leaving was still there, matching the specs of the last known ship Meyer was known to be flying. Just as she was readying to fire, her bridge communicator switched on of its own accord.
"Cipher 7, this is Keeper. Requesting a report."
"I'm preparing to take out Faldon Meyer this second sir." She reported, charging up the lasers. "Affirmative, keep the channel open." Keeper ordered, as she opened fire on the ship. Meyer's ship easily dodged the first shot and started pulling off evasive manoeuvres. She fired off missiles as she became frustrated with the seemingly impossible to his ship. The ship flew into some space junk, before it launched more counter measures before going to lightspeed, disappearing in front of her eyes. As she flew into some of the space junk that was appearing on her own route now, Keeper spoke.
"I take it that it was a failure Cipher.
" "No, clearly it was a success. I'm just leaping for joy." She said, irritation clearly coming through in her sarcasm.
"Report back to the Citadel Cipher. We will have a full debriefing." She rolled her eyes at the bureaucracy of her own intelligence agency. As she turned the ship in the way for Dromund Kaas, she powered up the lightspeed engines.
"I'm on my-" was as far as Cipher 7 got before an explosion rocked the ship. It was sent spinning, alarms sounding off.
"I'm hit, enemy mine has hit me."
"Cancel the lightspeed, that's an order." Keeper screamed down the holo. She was pressing buttons like crazy. "It's not working sir, I'm-"
The holo cut out as she was forcibly and unintentionally pushed into lightspeed.
Cipher 7's ship dropped out of lightspeed only when the engines had completely run out of fuel. She still had no idea as to what had set off the reaction in the first place. But her main problem was that her ship was heading very quickly towards the unknown planet below
. "Teesix, what's happening with those engines?" She asked the little droid, who beeped sounds that she knew to mean bad news.
"We can't land with no engines, not without considerable danger." It was too late for her to continue, as the ship started to penetrate the planet's atmosphere. She started doing what she could to steer the ship, but it was almost pointless as it crashed into the planet below. The entire contents of the ship, Cipher 7 included, bounced around with great force around the inside of the ship. When it finally came to a halt, she stood up dizzy. She could feel blood coming down her head, but didn't think it was an overly serious. She activated the emergency beacon as she sent Teesix out to measure the atmosphere for her. She needed to start fixing the ship, no matter how long it would take.
The SSV Normandy left the planet Therum in good spirits, having rescued Dr Liara T'Soni from the Geth that had been tracking her down for Saren. Henry Shepard was currently in the CIC, when Joker's voice came over the intercom.
"Commander, Admiral Hacket for you sir."
"Play him in Joker." Shepard said, allowing the message to play out.
"Commander, one of our ships has picked up an unknown signal out in the Artemis Tau cluster. It's on the far side of Edolus, take a closer look. Whatever this is, the Alliance could use whatever tech is down there." The message ended, and Shepard went up to the bridge and Joker.
"Take us to Edolus Joker. I'm intrigued into what this so-called unknown tech is."
Cipher 7 was outside working on the front of ship, despite the sub-zero temperatures that were starting to make her freeze. She had been on Hoth however, so she was determined to see this fixing through. Teesix beeped a message to her.
"What sort of object?" She asked through chattering teeth. Teesix responded quickly.
"Doesn't sound like any sort of Republic vehicle. But we can't take our chances. She headed into the ship, and came back with her sniper, going on prone on the freezing surface.
"Let's give them a welcoming party."
The Mako pulled up the moment the object they were tracking came into view. They had tried to unscramble the message, but it was clear that whatever the signal was, it was meant only for a particular group. Shepard, Garrus, and Ashley climbed out, their suits protecting them from the cold, and slowly approached the ship, though it was still a while away. The first warning they got was in a very violent form, as a laser blast went inches by Garrus' head. They sprinted behind some rocks, just in time as a second shot blasted away some of the rock.
"Whatever it is, it isn't friendly." Ashley commented.
"I'm going to take a look Shepard. Keep it occupied, I'm moving to the over side of the rock." Shepard nodded, and he and Ashley returned fire, however inaccurate towards the enemy. Garrus moved slowly over, and took a look through his sniper. He saw a girl, with a blonde ponytail and in a uniform he didn't recognise.
"Whoever it is Shepard, she's human." Shepard nodded.
"We take her alive. Got it?" He looked pointedly as Ashley, who give her understanding.
"We move quickly, cover to cover. Let's go."
Cipher 7 was beginning to panic. She was facing three enemies, one of which was some species that was unknown to her. To top it all off, it was clear that they knew what they were doing, using the cover to their advantage. She was becoming desperate know, but Imperial operatives did not surrender. She activated her stealth generator as they got closer, and drew her pistol, leaving her rifle on the ground, and moved around to part of the wreckage. She saw them approaching her previous position.
"She didn't move, did she?" The female amongst them asked.
"Must be a stealth generator. Ashley, check the ship for anything we could use. Garrus, sweep to the left. I'll take the right." As the alien went left, she followed the now named Ashley onto her ship, and watched as she found Teesix, deactivated on her recommendation. She poked it around, and the Cipher almost shot her in the head there and then, if not for knocking a piece of wreckage that would have otherwise have been inconsequential. The girl swirled around and aimed her weapon directly at her position, though she couldn't see her.
"Commander, she's on the ship."
Cipher 7 slipped into the corridor leading to the cargo bay and hid behind the wall as the other two entered the ship, weapons at the ready.
"She's here, be ready for-" The Cipher didn't allow the alien to finish the sentence as she fired on him, only to see it absorbed into some sort of shield. A well-placed shot from the male took the weapon out of her hands, and she was unarmed, with the unknown alien in her face.
"Give up, we've won this already." It said, but the look on its face was one of surprise as she punched him in the face with enough force to knock him onto the floor. She made a run into the cargo bay and tried to find another weapon. She knew she had failed finally when the she heard all three of them enter behind her.
"Surrender please, and we can talk this over." The male human said to her, stepping forward. She knew that was the best she was going to get.
"Fine, but I'm not telling you a thing." The man shrugged, and gave her leave to follow him, the alien following behind her, its gun trained on her. The girl had picked up Teesix, and she was taken aboard the strange vehicle, a prisoner of the enemy.