I return from the grave, fuckers.
I finished writing out the fuckhuge final chapter for Grimm Retreat, so now I can fully focus on Pulsar Company. I've made some more changes to Nax's KK card – his head is even larger so that Lexi's and Kyra's heads don't fucking dwarf his, and he has some new facial detailing, namely the scar under his right eye. I also added a chest scar where he got shot. Also, I found out that Nax's clothes aren't men's clothes, they're fucking women's. For some reason, Illusion decided "hey, lets just not make men as customizable as women lol" because of course. I know Koikatsu is a game about creating virtual waifus that you can bang, but jesus, is it really that hard to do? I'll probably make an overlay or something to fix it, but holy shit dude.
Also, side note: I finally made Ash. Here she is: imgur.c.o.m (slash) a (slash) 3hC3vSE
Anyways, not much to say other than that The Outer Worlds is really fucking good. Read and enjoy the chapter, leave a review please.
Ash glanced out the window of the magtrain, watching the graffiti go by. These tunnels, and this specific train she was riding, had been decommissioned years ago by the Empire, but the Ascendancy found significant use in these sprawling, effectively single train tunnels for getting their agents across Coruscant.
The interior of the train wasn't exactly classy, but it was certainly comfortable and well-maintained, especially for someone of Ash's discretion. She caused the bottom part of her viewplate to retreat into the upper part, and took a sip from her cocktail, a mix of Coruscant Gold and Blastech '44, with a dash of Malastare Zillo Beast for the flavor. The initial taste was a strong, cool, sweet one, like a Pinen fruit, but it left a very strong and very sour aftertaste with a strong 'punch' to it, reminiscent of a handful of Ora berries. It was honestly rather refreshing being served something as nice as that, when she had been drinking the cheapest whiskey she could find for years.
Ash pulled her bottom viewplate down again, and it locked into position, ensuring that her face would never be seen by anyone she didn't want to. She still had a few hours to go before the train arrived at the district, since 'discrete' didn't necessarily translate to 'fast'.
Choosing to review her plan one last time, Ash flicked open her datapad and set it on the table, moving her drink out of the way so it wouldn't accidentally spill on her equipment. Sti's workshop was probably a thirty-minute walk from the station, but she had a feeling she could cut it down to under ten. As she began to plan a route, she quickly ruled out using the pedestrian sidewalks and the service tunnels. The former would simply take too long, and the latter was such a labyrinthian nightmare that she'd rather not try them a second time.
That left the alleyways and stealing a transport. Deciding it was best to plan around what she might expect to encounter instead of just getting to Sti, she pulled up the notes she had on the district.
/ BU'LAL DISTRICT REPORT /
/ - District is very poor, even for 1313 standards, bordering on Nar Shaddaa levels of poverty. - /
/ - Cybernetics and augmentations are very common in the district, spurred by Sti's workshop. Most denizens have Gamma-grade modifications, but Beta-grades are not unheard of. Alphas are rumored to exist, but there is no concrete proof of them. - /
/ - Crime is extremely rampant, mostly consisting of junkies looking for their next fix of stims and Nu-Poz. 'Finer' types of criminals exist, namely Harvester gangs. Swoop-gangers are also fairly common. Mind yourself. - /
/ - Imperial presence is nonexistent. Law and order is maintained largely by salvaged CIS droids operated by Sti, and several small groups of mercenaries. Anything not under their control falls to Harvester gangs. - /
/ - Sti's droids largely consist of refurbished B1 battle droids brought up to the standards of OOM-series security droid variants. His forces are also bolstered with heavily modified B2 Super Battle Droids. Numbers are around a platoon's worth of droids. - /
/ - Sti is held in very high-regard by most of the district. Eliminate him silently, or the district's populace will come down on top of you. - /
Resting her head in her hand, Ash pondered how to go about the mission. OOM droids weren't easily tricked like a B1 was, and considering these were security models, they'd be much more suspicious of anything abnormal. The idea of tangling with B2s didn't appeal to her, either, especially considering the wildcard factor of them being highly modified. Taking the alleys to the workshop would be safer, but stealing a speederbike would definitely be faster, but she would have to do it quietly and without issue. Any attention would likely spell disaster for the entire mission. Every second wasted could be a second Sti spends planning an escape or an ambush.
Eventually, Ash decided to steal a speederbike as her first plan, and take the alleys as her second. If she couldn't find a bike, or if it was being watched, she'd take the alleys, but otherwise, the bike would be best.
Ash pulled out her twin Bryar pistols, checking them one last time. It was almost obsessive at this point, but if she failed and Sti got away because her blasters misfired, the Grand Ascendant might just kill her on the spot for her failure. After making absolutely sure they were both fully charged and ready to fire, she returned them to their holsters, and drew her cortosis combat knife from its sheath. Carefully examining the blade, she slowly ran the knife against the edge of the table. It cut a small sliver out of the table with no trouble at all. Satisfied with the blade's sharpness, she flipped it around. Engraved near the base of the blade were the letters 'K + V', which caused her to frown behind her mask.
Deciding not to feed the wound any more than she already had, Ash set the blade back in its sheath and laid down, intending to get some rest before the mission, the quiet hum of the magtrain's power systems lulling her to sleep.
Coruscant's maintenance shafts and service tunnels had always been something of an oddity to Nax. He'd seen the occasional blueprint for a sector pop up in the markets at Mos Eisley once or twice, and they made little sense to him whenever he looked them over. Now, though, he understood.
Coruscant's 'underbelly' in one of the most literal senses possible was a labyrinthian nightmare to navigate. Tunnels would seemingly start and stop at complete random, leading to nonsensical dead-ends. Water pipes and ventilation ducts would frequently criss-cross in the tunnels, nearly blocking the paths that they were walking on. It had no rhyme or reason to it, it was like a bunch of construction droids went ballistic and just built whatever they felt like. Hell, the only reason they hadn't gotten lost was because Arfive and Lexi were both familiar with the tunnel systems.
With 'familiar' actually meaning they just kinda knew the patterns these things were built in.
"You're positive we're going the right way?" Kyra asked for what must have been the fifth time in just as many minutes.
"You wanna take the lead, Kyra, be my guest." Lexi sarcastically answered, and Arfive turned his head back to the two of them, giving an annoyed series of chirps. "Quiet, you." she hissed at the droid, who seemed to giggle in glee at her annoyance.
Nax tapped his fingers along the foregrip of the Deecee. "Just how damned rare are manholes here, Lexi? We passed under the wall ten minutes ago, so what gives?" he asked, somewhat annoyed with this slight delay in their plans. Every second they weren't topside looking into the target was a second wasted.
"Hell if I know." Lexi replied, shining her glowrod down the tunnel. "I've never been on this side of 1313."
Nax glanced behind the group to check if something had been sneaking up on them, seeing only scampering rodents in the darkness, so he turned forward again. "Maybe it's an older part of the level?" he proposed.
"Could be." Lexi said, and the group fell silent again, with only their footsteps and Arfive's motivators making any sort of noise. After a brief period of walking in silence, Arfive suddenly made a series of aggressive chirps and whirrs, shining his light at a doorway. The group remained quiet.
There was an electronically filtered, nasally voice coming from the room, with a warm, flickering light coming from inside. It was whistling some sort of old marching music, Clone Wars-era, maybe. "Man, these scrap piles sure are getting heavier!" one voice said, clearly a B1.
"I know! It's like it never ends – look, here comes another pile!" a second voice said, and on cue, there was the sound of metal crashing against the floor. "…Seriously, there's so much of it! We'd be better off if he got one of those big cyborgs to come down here and just shovel it all into the incinerator. Or even better – get the salvage teams to do it themselves!" it complained.
The three of them weren't paying attention to Arfive, and only caught a glimpse of him entering the room. "Sonuva-" Nax hissed under his breath, prepping the Deecee just in case. Kyra and Lexi followed suit, falling in behind him.
"Hey, it's about time!" one of the droids said. "Help us move the salvage, slacker!" it ranted at Arfive, who only gave a confused series of gurgles. "What do you mean 'I'm not here to help'? That's why you were sent down here in the first place! I'm not about to get pushed over by an R5 unit!"
Before the droid could continue ranting and raving, Arfive beeped out an explanation. "…Oh." the same droid said, defeated. "You're just lost. Hey, Kissass?"
"What?"
"Wanna help this astro out and show him to the surface? I can handle this until you get back."
"Roger roger. Come on, little astro, let me show you the way out." the first droid said, before walking out the doorway right in front of Six, Kyra, and Lexi. It paid them no mind – either it didn't see them, or its photoreceptors were defective. Arfive came out after the B1 and whistled to them, and, very cautiously, they began to follow Arfive and 'Kissass'.
Compared to just a few minutes ago, the two droids were incredibly chatty. Arfive would gurgle out a question or maybe some philosophical posturing that only droids could truly grasp, like whether memory wipes were ethical, or if they were 'alive'. Their conversation eventually came down to the B1's name. "Why am I called Kissass?" the B1 asked, before looking away from Arfive and towards the wall. "…Well, about twenty years ago, when the Clone Wars were still going on, a lot of my kind developed little personality quirks. A lot of us just got chattier, but some other things happened, too." the droid explained, looking back at Arfive. "As for myself, I apparently became a kissass, in the words of my superior officer. My designation used to just be B1-KA, but after that it became Kissass. Funny how that happens."
Kyra, Lexi, and Nax all exchanged glances as they came to a t-section. "Exit's up that way." Kissass said, pointing to the left, where there was a faint shimmer of light coming from down a ramp. "It was fun talking to you, R5, but I gotta go back to work. Goodbye!" he finished, suddenly turning back to face the group, and they all froze up. Kissass, however, simply walked past them, as if they weren't even there, and the clanking of his metal feet against the duracrete slowly faded out into the distance.
"…How did he not see us?" Lexi questioned, trying to catch a glimpse of the droid in the dark tunnel. Arfive beeped and gurgled out an answer vaguely along the lines of 'sliced him remotely'. "…Fair enough."
Arfive, however, did not continue moving after answering Lexi's question. Instead, he turned straight up, and the tunnels lit up with the bright blue light of a hologram being emitted from Arfive's holoprojector. "Damn, Arfive, could you be any more obvious? It's pitch black in here!" Lexi hissed, and instead of doing something about their visibility, Arfive simply made the hologram dance in every color of the spectrum. Chortling at Lexi's obvious frustration with his antics, Arfive dimmed the hologram considerably, and stopped the rave of colors.
Focusing on just what he had been projecting, the group quickly realized it was a map of the tunnel system. The tunnels were all clearly visible, marked in a dark blue, but there was one continuous line marked in an almost teal color. "…Looks like a path, but to where?" Kyra commented, leaning in close to look at the map. Arfive chirped out a response that it was the path Kissass had taken today, and Kyra turned to Nax. "Think it'll take us to the target?" she asked.
"Only one way to find out." Nax said confidently, readying the Deecee and tapping Arfive on the head three times. "Lead the way."
Arfive chirped and whirred as he took off down one of the many tunnels, but not up onto the surface.
"Excuse me, ma'am?" the mission coordinator said quietly to Ash, who was still resting. "We've arrived."
Ash quickly woke up, not with a start, but as if she were being woken up by her mother for her first day of school. "So we have." she said simply, sitting up and grabbing her bags of gear, doing one final gear check.
"Ma'am?" the coordinator said, unsure of how to speak to Ash.
"Yes?" Ash reflexively replied, not actually investing in the conversation much as she triple checked her Bryar pistols.
"How do you plan on extracting from the district once your mission is complete?"
Ash returned her Bryar pistols to their holsters and glanced at her datapad, half-keeping the coordinator in view. "That's classified information." Ash simply replied.
That earned her a snort from the coordinator. "Hah! You haven't lost that stick up your ass after all these years, Voto!" she suddenly laughed, and Ash did a double take on the coordinator. She was wearing simple black and red Ascendancy robes with the hood down, and she had short, red hair, and her eyes were an unnatural shade of green, with 'fragmented' irises that would glow blue in certain parts.
Ash slowly processed who it was, and the slightest hint of a smile appeared on her face. "Hello, Nevda." she said, her viewplate opening slightly to reveal only her eyes. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"
Nevda smiled and nodded once. "It has, Voto." she said, setting her hand on Ash's shoulder. "…Look, I know you've got a mission to carry out, but we can talk later. Right now, though, do you have an extract plan?"
Closing her viewplate again, Ash slung her bags around her waist. "I was gonna use the service tunnels, or maybe hijack a transport. Could probably smuggle myself out, too."
Laughing again, Nevda gave Ash a pat on the shoulder. "You haven't changed one bit, Voto – you always make a big deal about getting into places you shouldn't be, but you never think about how you're gonna get out." she went on in a friendly, if chiding manner. "Tell you what, I'll keep the magtrain a few blocks back from the station out of the district. Ping my commlink when you're done and I'll pick you up. Sound good?"
"Sounds good." Ash replied, before heading for the doors to the train.
"One last thing, Voto!" Nev suddenly said. "Good hunting!"
Ash nodded, before stepping out as the magtrain doors shut behind her, and the train swiftly slinked back into the shadows, far away from the district. It was basically pitch black in the 'station', so she flipped her viewplate to its low-light mode, and the 'station' lit up with a dim, blue color. The floor was completely covered in garbage. Seeing a small flight of stairs that most likely led out to street level, Ash carefully headed out. The stairs curved around once, and then twice, leading to an abandoned turnstile and ticket booth. Further ahead, she could see a faint blue light shining down into the station through the thick dust in the air, and she could hear the telltale chatter of pedestrians.
With a cursory glance into the ticket booth, Ash determined there was nothing of value, and vaulted over the turnstile silently, dashing to the wall on her left and hiding up against it. Shimmying to the corner, she poked her head around the corner and saw that the coast was clear. Relieved, she let go of the wall and began to calmly walk up the stairs to not arouse suspicion.
Only to see two men, both about six foot, come around the corner, down into the station. "Say, Wren, look what we have here…" one of them said in a sort of mocking tone.
"Another explorer that got lost, huh?" the other replied, giving off the slightest hint of a chuckle. "…Do you know where you are, lady?"
"…N-no, sir." Ash answered, faking a fearful stammer. The two men seemed to exchange glances when they finally came to the bottom of the stairs.
"What a right shame that is, isn't it? You've ended up in our turf, and around here, we have a little rule about tourists. They either pay our toll, or they disappear in an 'accident'. You understand?"
Ash nodded once, going along with their little scheme.
"So, you either pay up, or we find a way to make you pay."
Nodding again, she reached into her trenchcoat. "I understand, alright? Let me just get my datapad with my account on it." she said, easily faking the tone of an unnerved young woman who was afraid for her life. She briefly searched around her left side, grabbing hold of her knife. With absolutely no hesitation in her movements, she drew the knife from its sheath and threw it into the throat of the man on the left, hitting her target dead on. Neither of them had any time to react, and by the time they did, the first man had his hand over his throat trying to get the knife out, and Ash had already jumped up on the second man. Grabbing his head, she forcefully headbutted him, crashing his skull against her armored viewplate. He didn't seem affected in the slightest, though, so she repeated the move three more times, finally managing to knock him out cold.
Getting off of the man, she glanced over at the first one, who was still very much alive, staring at Ash with wide eyes. "…You… bitch!" he gurgled out, coughing out blood onto the duracrete floor.
"Maybe next time, don't try and extort an Arbiter." Ash replied coldly, her tone in stark contrast to mere seconds ago. The man's eyes went even wider as Ash grabbed her knife from his throat and then stabbing him in the heart, killing him instantly. "…Well, ex-Arbiter." Ash quietly added, before wiping the blood off on the dead man's clothes, Ash picked him up and moved him further into the darkness of the station, before coming back for the second man. She stashed both of their bodies in the empty booth, making sure to slit the second man's throat. Again, Ash wiped the blood off, quickly double checking that there wasn't any that could possibly identify her as the killer, and then she returned the blade to its sheath, finally leaving for street level.
The light that had been shining down into the station was actually an overhead neon sign for some sort of pawn shop next to the station entrance, probably dealing in illegal goods. There actually wasn't all that much activity on the street compared to what she heard in the station. There were maybe ten, fifteen people out right now? A lot of them looked augmented to some degree, but nothing Beta-grade or even Gamma, just run of the mill augs and cybernetics that you could get at a clinic.
Turning the corner of the pedestrian sidewalk on Ash's right were a pair of B1s, armed with E5 rifles, marching in a straight line towards her. Instead of a worn version of the standard Trade Federation tan, though, they were painted in similar red and gold colors to the Ascendancy's robes. Displayed proudly on their torsos was a sort of golden 'trident' symbol, probably Sti's. "Excuse me." Ash called out to the droids, and they stopped, turning their heads to face her.
"What seems to be the matter, miss?" the one on the left asked in the high pitched, monotone voice common to the B1.
"Do you know a place where I can get a stiff drink?" Ash asked casually.
The B1 on the right turned around and pointed to the corner. "About two blocks from that corner there, there's a relatively popular cantina that serve some decent drinks, or so we've heard." it answered, before turning back to Ash. "Fair warning, though, it's mostly frequented by the local swoop gang. Their names were, uhhh…." the droid droned, and its partner punched it in the side in response.
"The Vulcan Riders." its partner answered for it.
"Right, them. Watch yourself, miss." the second droid finished, before continuing their patrol, their metal feet clanking against the pavement as they walked away.
A swoop gang?
That was even better than stealing speederbikes. This might not even take five minutes with how fast one of those things could go.
Quickly walking at a brisk pace around the corner and two blocks up from it, Ash immediately spotted the cantina on her side of the sidewalk. There were three swoop bikes out front, all Z4 models by the looks of things. She was about to grab one of those as fast as she could, when she heard the screeching engine of another swoop power down, and a tall, gruff looking swoop-ganger came out from an alley by the cantina, immediately heading inside. It seems that she wouldn't have to do this in the open. Very nice.
Ignoring the swoops out front, Ash glanced into the alleyway, and she was greeted with a seemingly endless series of custom swoopbikes, each and every one of them adorned with what was probably the emblem of the Vulcan Riders – a golden, one-winged Corellian Vulcan with silver detailing. She wasn't exactly picky about which one she was going to grab, but she was concerned about people showing up. Heading about halfway into the alley to make sure there wasn't some sort of indent where people could be concealed, she was pleased with the lack of any witnesses.
Turning to the closest bike – a Flare-S modified to look similar to a BARC speeder, Ash knelt down and pulled the maintenance release latch, prying the control panel open. Quickly tracing the ignition wire to the starter for the repulsorlifts, she reached to connect them and jumpstart the swoop, but something else caught her attention. A small device was attached near the starter. Craning her head closer, she read the words 'Dassault-Mikoyan Vindis Transponder, Revision 4, All Rights Reserved' on top of it, pulsing a faint blue. Realizing what this meant, she reached in and removed the transponder, crushing it in her grip. Resuming with what she was supposed to do, she connected the two wires, and the swoop soared to life, jolting off of the ground, engine roaring.
Quickly shutting the panel, Ash practically leapt onto the swoop, kicking the foot pedal down and sending the swoop soaring out the other end of the alley. Quickly banking left, Ash raised her altitude just enough so that street-level traffic wouldn't bother her, but low enough that she wouldn't be fighting with airspeeders for room.
As Ash felt the wind blow against her clothes, the bright neon lights, the pedestrians, and every building and airspeeder all blended together into a visual blur that Ash's eyes couldn't hope to keep up with. Before she knew it, she had arrived at the alley that led to Sti's workshop. Powering down the swoop, she got off and headed into the alley.
The only real indicator of Sti's workshop even being present were two B2s sat outside the entrance, diligently waiting to screen anyone heading inside. Calmly, she approached the pair, her hands in her trenchcoat's pockets. "HALT." one of the Supers bellowed. "STATE YOUR BUSINESS."
"I'm here to buy a guard droid for my cousin." Ash calmly replied to the massive killing machine.
"UNDERSTOOD. PLEASE ASSUME THE INSPECTION POSITION." it bellowed again, and before the Supers could scan her for weapons, she pulled out two restraining bolts from her trenchcoat, throwing them onto the droids, shutting them down. Not waiting for something to malfunction and the droids to realize that she wasn't here to actually trade, Ash opened the door to the workshop.
Quickly heading down the stairs, she came out to a fairly well-lit main lobby of sorts – droids of various models were situated in display cases on the side, some of them refurbished CIS droids, others were antiques and oddities, like a white and red C1 astromech, or a completely rebuilt T3 droid.
As she headed up to the counter, she heard a kind of deep, scratchy voice come from the backroom. "I'll be with you in a second!" a man said. Doing one quick check of her Bryar pistols, Ash waited for Sti to come out. After a brief wait, he did finally show himself. He was a Duros of average height and build, although he looked slightly older than intelligence said. He looked at Ash with his large, dim red eyes. "What did you need, miss?" he asked, trying to seem as friendly as he reasonably could.
"I'm here to deliver a message." Ash replied.
Sti stood up straight. "Well, what are you waiting for? Hand it over." he requested, and Ash shook her head.
"I think you misunderstand, Baal Sti." she suddenly said in a much more menacing tone, pulling her Bryar pistol from its holster and putting it to his head. "It's not a message you can read."
Sti's expression didn't change in the slightest. "…I knew this day would come. Nothing escapes the eye of your Ascendancy, does it?" he asked, surprisingly calm.
"No." Ash replied simply, pulling the trigger and sending the overcharged bolt through his skull.
Returning the pistol to its holster, Ash vaulted the counter and headed into the backrooms, intent on grabbing every datapad she could find. After several minutes of rummaging through Sti's stocks, she decided that she had found everything, and went to wipe the security recordings. When she was done, she simply walked back out the entrance, her pack swaying behind her with all of her evidence in it.
"What just happened, Nax? I heard a blaster go off!" Kyra whispered, struggling to keep still as she was sandwiched between Nax in the front, and Lexi behind her, with Arfive being dragged along face down in the vent by his cable.
"Someone just came in and shot Sti in the face. Now, quiet, she's still here." Nax whispered back to her, cautiously watching the strange person move about the workshop, collecting datapads and such. Something about her seemed… familiar to him. Even though she had only said one thing, and he couldn't even see her face, something about the way she moved and carried herself was intensely familiar to Nax, but he couldn't place a finger on just who 'she' was.
Eventually, she moved back to the doorway and turned around once, the spinning 'eye' on her mask glancing roughly in the general direction of the vent, before the woman left, shutting the door behind her. Nax waited one more minute before he cracked the vent open and jumped out, turning around and holding his arms out to catch Kyra, who jumped out next. Setting her down, and preparing to grab Lexi, she actually moved past the grate, pushing Arfive out next, dangling from his cable, warbling and screaming for help. Nax quickly grabbed the astromech and set him down so that he wouldn't draw any more attention to them than was necessary, and then Lexi jumped out, stumbling into Nax, but otherwise she was on her feet. Pointing to the door with his thumb, Nax gave Arfive a little kick to get his attention. "Slice that door and lock it, Arfive. I don't want anyone barging in on us." he ordered, and Arfive twirled his head around in annoyance, moving to slice the control panel.
"Found a repulsorsled!" Lexi shouted from the backroom. "Four of them, actually!" she added on.
"Get them linked up and start loading!" Nax responded, pulling out his datapad to take a picture of Sti's dead body for Wilrand, before moving to open the display cases and grab the droids from them. Kyra, however, decided to do some searching of her own.
Walking into the backroom where Lexi was messing with the repulsorsled links, she glanced over Sti's desk. Whoever had shot him had stripped it bare of whatever notes and documents he may have had. Running her eyes up the wall, she saw something strange. It was a large crack in the wall, as if it were fractured. "Hey, Lexi?" Kyra asked.
She stopped her work with the repulsorsleds, glancing over to Kyra. "Yeah?"
"Did you see this huge crack in the wall?"
"…No?" Lexi answered, coming over to see what Kyra was pointing at. "…I don't see anything, Kyra. You sure you didn't take in too many fumes from the service tunnel?" she questioned, putting her hand on her hip.
"Positive." Kyra responded, before tracing a vague outline of the fracture. "Do you seriously not see this?"
Lexi leaned in closer over the desk. "…Okay, now I see it." she said, before giving Kyra a somewhat annoyed look, and then returning to her work with the repulsorsleds. Kyra, though, pushed her hand against the crack, and much to her surprise, the wall seemed... soft? It was certainly weak, and judging by how far she had managed to push it, something was behind it. Kyra balled her fist up and put it close to the crack, tempted to punch it. She was wearing Mandalorian armor, so the worst that would realistically happen would be some minor pain from the blunt force of smashing a duracrete wall, but…
She inched her fist closer, before deciding to go through with this stupid idea of hers. With all of her might, she punched the crack. Instead of nothing happening like she thought, though, her fist went clean through the fracture. The cracks expanded out from the original fracture point, covering the entire wall, before cracking and shattering like glass. Chunks of duracrete fell down onto the table in front of her, crushing it, before crumbling into dust. Miraculously, nothing landed on Kyra.
When the dust eventually cleared, it revealed a small, hidden room, containing a locker, a wall-mounted terminal, and a droid stasis pod, with a single, modified B2 Super Battle Droid locked inside.
"What the hell did you do?" Nax suddenly shouted from the archway to the back, staring slackjawed at Kyra, who still had her fist at the point where the crack used to be, effectively frozen.
"…I… punched the wall. And it… broke?" Kyra stumbled, not exactly believing her own words, even though she had just punched a wall into several modest piles of dust.
Lexi stopped her work on the repulsorsleds and rushed over to Kyra. "Holy shit!" she said in surprise, staring into the hidden room.
"…I don't-" Kyra stammered again, seemingly in response to Lexi.
"Kyra, you just punched a damn wall to pieces! How the hell do you think I'm gonna react?" Lexi shouted, before noticing the B2 inside the room, and Lexi wasted no time in approaching it. "Wait, this droid…" she mumbled quietly.
Nax finally came into the backroom, standing behind Kyra and Lexi. "It's a B2. What about it?"
Shaking her head, Lexi gave Nax a glance. "It's not a B2."
"…How?" Kyra asked. "It looks like one."
Lexi entered the room, pressing her fingers against the glass of the stasis pod. "Look at how the plates are fitted to the frame. Regular B2s don't have individual fitted plates like this one does, they're all one single shell." she explained, tracing her fingers up to the strange, dim red 'hole' in the top of the droid. "And this? B2s don't have this. If I had to guess, it's some sort of modification they had to make to the original shell to fit a new power core. For what, I'm not exactly sure."
Nax put his hand on his hip, impatiently staring at the droid. "Where are you going with this?" he asked, before glancing to make sure Arfive was still at the front door.
Lexi turned and put her arm against the stasis pod. "I think this is a C-B3 we have here. In short, it's an upgraded B2 from the Clone Wars, they're very rare and very powerful. Only one planet ever made them, and the Republic blew the factory up before the end of the first year of the war. My friend, Relan, used to gush about getting his hands on one of these things."
"So it's a collector's item?" Nax questioned, suddenly significantly more curious about the droid. "How much is it worth?"
Lexi shrugged casually, tapping on the pod glass. "Honestly, I couldn't tell you. They only made so many of the damn things, they might as well be one-of-a-kind. You might be able to sell it off to some crimelord for a pretty chit. Maybe, I dunno, two hundred thousand credits? I don't know anything solid about the illegal droid trade, but that's what I'd probably put it at."
Nax cracked his knuckles and headed into the room with Lexi, pressing his hand against the pod glass. "Well, I think we've just found our payday." he said greedily, right as Arfive came running into the backroom, warbling and whining. "What? What do you want?" Nax said, turning to the droid.
Right then and there, everyone quieted down enough to hear hard smashing against the door. "OPEN UP." two heavy voices commanded in unison.
"Shit! He had B2s outside!" Lexi hissed, rushing over to the terminal. Pulling the keyboard out and turning it on, she rapidly began to type. "…System diagnostics look okay. Looks like he's got a TriShot, micro missiles, a repeating heavy autoblaster, and deflectors…" Lexi mumbled quietly, hastily working, before practically smashing the input key on the terminal. "Fingers crossed." she said hesitantly, turning to the droid.
The pod's interior lit up, and the door folded inside itself, making a pressurized hissing noise as it did so. The red light on the battle droid's torso brightened, and the droid sat straight up, taking two steps out of the pod, its weight turning those steps into stomps. "Greetings, Master Strag, Master Sapphyra, Master Kyra. I am C-B3-KO, designation 'Knockout'." the battle droid said in a deep, menacing voice. "What is your command?"
Cautiously, Nax pointed towards the front door. "There are two B2s outside that are going to try and kill us." he said, but before he could finish, Knockout was already moving past him, weapons at the ready.
"Understood." was the only response he gave as he stomped towards the door.
Stopping dead in front of it, Knockout reached out his hand to the control panel on the left and immediately sliced it open, despite Arfive's best efforts at having kept it locked. Thankfully, the size of Knockout blocked the droids line of sight to Nax and the others. Instead of conversing with the droids, though, Knockout grabbed them both, forcibly pulled them inside, and punched two massive holes into their torsos, immediately disabling the droids, shutting and re-locking the door again. "Order complete. Please input new orders." Knockout suddenly boomed.
All four of them stared at the crumpled bodies of the Supers. There wasn't even a fight – Knockout punched clean through them like they were made of paper. They then exchanged glances, just to make sure they had all seen the same thing, and then looked back at Knockout, who was facing the group. "Please input new orders." he repeated.
"…Wait one second, Knockout." Nax said, before forcibly pulling everyone into a huddle. "So. We have a a rare B2 variant that can punch holes in regular Supers. Any suggestions?" he said in a whispering tone, glancing back at Knockout distrustfully.
Arfive wobbled from side to side, gurgling out a suggestion half-assedly.
"No." Nax immediately replied. "Not a chance."
"…We could throw a restraining bolt on it and shut it down?" Kyra opined, carefully looking at Knockout. "We'd need to do it carefully, but…"
Biting his lip, Nax sighed. "Maybe. Lexi, what do you think?"
Nervously, Lexi shifted her gaze between Kyra, Nax, and Arfive. "Well, we could stick it on the ship. Nobody's going to hijack it if we have him on-board." she advised.
Nax opened his mouth to protest her suggestion, but after quickly thinking on it, changed his mind. "…That's not a bad idea, actually." he remarked, before glancing at Knockout, who was still standing idle. "How are we going to get out of here, though? There's no way we can get all these pars up through that vent, and I don't think parading around topside with a bunch of droids we've stolen is the best idea."
Arfive immediately extended his middle leg, rolling up to Knockout. "Greetings, R5 unit." Knockout said, his voice still menacing and deep. "Did you need something?" he asked. Arfive chirped out a question, and Knockout 'nodded' his torso. "Yes, allow me to show you the way." he said, stomping into the backroom again. All of them watched as Knockout lined himself up against the wall, raised his arm, and punched into the wall. Instead of his arm snapping off, or stopping dead, the wall crumbled outwards, revealing the maintenance tunnel they had come from some minutes ago.
Nax, Kyra, and Lexi all looked among themselves. "You know what? I think he gets to stay." Nax said confidently. "Load the stuff up onto the sleds. Knockout!" he suddenly called out, and the hulking droid turned to face him. "You wouldn't happen to know of a place where a YT-series freighter could, I dunno, load a bunch of cargo unnoticed by the Empire, would you? Maybe some sort of unused portal that the maintenance tunnels lead to?"
"Yes." Knockout replied simply.
In response, Nax pulled out a beckon call. "Transmit the coordinates to this device, then."
"Already done, Master Strag."
Impressed, Nax slowly retracted the beckon call from Knockout, pressing down on the device's button, receiving a confirming electronic beep that the ship was now on its way. "Strip this place clean!" Nax ordered. "There's money to be made here, let's not let anything go to waste!"
Within twenty minutes, they had completely stripped the workshop bare of any droid parts they could get their hands on, loading them up onto the repulsorsleds. They had also taken several datapads out of the locker in Knockout's hidden room that the assassin had missed. Given another twenty, they had loaded everything onto the ship, and were on their way back to Coru-Hiver territory. In the meantime, Nax decided to see what was on the datapads they had stolen.
Blindly picking one of five datapads set out on the holotable, Nax turned it on and was greeted with the screen turning a dark shade of green. A black, hollow circle appeared in the middle of it shortly after it turned on, with a black strip running through it to the right, with a single red spot in the middle of said strip, faintly pulsing.
Waiting for the datapad to finally properly boot, Nax impatiently tapped on the screen, only for the circle to move in response, before resetting itself. Surprised that he actually needed to input something, Nax dragged his finger clockwise. Rotating it around once, the circle stopped moving once the strip was moving diagonally down and to the right, before fading away, alongside the dark green, revealing an audio file that automatically began playing. "BEGIN MESSAGE." the device boomed, before switching to the voice of a calm, collected man.
"…Greetings, Baal Sti. We trust that this message receives you well." he said after a short pause. "Your inquiries into the Path have not gone unnoticed by our Knights. Normally, we would make an effort to remove sinners such as yourself, however, given a recent set of circumstances concerning the Ascendancy, as well as your own set of skills, the Arch-Canon has determined you… salvageable." he went on, sounding most pleased with himself.
The Path? Arch-Canon?
The voice continued, unabated. "A Handler, R.M, will be with you soon for processing. May Ludd guide your path." the man finished, and the file ended, the datapad shutting down with it.
Setting the datapad back in the pile, Nax leaned back and ran his hand through his hair, shutting his eyes as he processed the message. Whoever this 'Path' was, they had issues with the Ascendancy, which could maybe work in their favor if the Coru-Hivers ever went to war with them in the future.
Opening his eyes again, Nax saw Lexi looking at him, visibly tired and bored. "The hell'd you find on that datapad?" she asked. "Something about a path?"
"From what I heard, it sounded more like an organization. They mentioned a Handler, whatever that is, an Arch-Canon, and someone called Ludd." he replied, stretching out his leg and cracking his fingers.
Lexi's pupils seemed to shrink. "It mentioned an Arch-Canon and Ludd?" she asked, and Nax nodded, unaware of the significance of this. Grabbing the datapad from him, she turned her head around the corner, back into the halls. "Knockout! Get over here!" she shouted, and Nax quickly heard the heavy footfalls of their new war droid approaching.
Knockout turned the corner and faced the two of them. "Yes, Master Sapphyra?" he boomed in his deadpan tone of voice.
Holding out the datapad, Lexi rested her head against the seat lazily. "Can you slice this?" she asked.
Knockout paused. "…Already done, Master Sapphyra." he bellowed, before returning to wherever he had been stored. Nax and Lexi exchanged glances, shrugged, and then turned the datapad on again. The symbol lock was gone – completely skipped over, as was the initial memo. In their place was now a sort of file system, set up to be as organized as possible. Lexi randomly tapped of the folders on the datapad, and the screen expanded to show hundreds of recordings, images, text files, and notes.
Immediately, Lexi held her head in her hands as she scanned through each file, before shifting her attention to Nax. "…This isn't just a datapad from a group of schmucks trying to be all cryptic." Lexi said softly, causing him to raise an eyebrow.
"…Then who is it?" he questioned, trying to get a look at the datapad's contents.
Lexi breathed in and sat back, keeping her attention on Nax. "It's a datapad belonging to an agent of the Path of Ludd. They're a group of radical, religious zealots who believe technology is the source of the galaxy's troubles. They want nothing more than to reduce everyone to a bunch of primitives living in caves, afraid of the shadows on the wall." she explained quietly, putting the datapad into sleep mode.
"…And they're on Coruscant because they view a city-planet as some sort of great sin?" Nax deduced.
Lexi nodded. "There was a cell of Pathers operating on the lower levels when I was ten. Everyone knew they were there – had been since the Clone Wars. Thing is, nobody took their threats seriously, not even the Empire." Lexi explained, progressively sounding more and more sullen. "My mom went to work one morning, and the rail her magtrain was using was destroyed by a bomb. The train derailed, and everyone on the ground was either confused, or trying to help the survivors. A bunch of transport landspeeders pulled up not long after the crash and unloaded a bunch of Pathers, and then…" Lexi choked up, tears beginning to well.
"You don't need to say any more, Lexi." Nax interrupted, trying to keep her from remembering all of the details. He already had the picture of what happened.
Sniffling, Lexi rested her head on Nax's shoulder. "Four hundred and thirty-two people. That's how many people died in that attack, and my mom was among them. Dad was never the same after that, and he ended up just… disappearing. Eath took me in when he vanished." she rambled, before clenching her fists in anger. "And still, even though the Empire made it a point to massacre the cell to the last man, I'm sitting here, staring proof of a new cell right in the face. I'm still just as powerless to stop them now as I was ten years ago." she finished in a defeated tone.
"…No, you're not." Nax replied, causing Lexi to suddenly perk up. "Remember, Vopa's part of the Coru-Hivers. He probably knows people who can bring this new cell down before they can do anything to anyone." Nax said in a reassuring manner.
"…You're positive?" Lexi quietly asked, and Nax pulled her in closer.
"Absolutely." he replied confidently.
That seemed to get Lexi to ease up a little, and she wiped the tears away. "…Thanks, Nax. You don't have any idea how much this means to me." she said softly. "…Really, you don't."
Nax gave her a reassuring smile. "Anything for a friend, Lexi."
Lexi smiled back, before pulling away and and standing up, stretching her arms out. "…I need a drink." she mumbled under her breath, before heading to the galley.
Deciding that he'd rather save the datapads for Vopa, Nax stood up and began to head to the cockpit, passing by an idling Knockout. "Greetings, Master Strag. Would you like me to accompany you?" he boomed.
"No." Nax simply replied, continuing past the droid.
"Understood, Master Strag." Knockout said, returning to his idle position.
As Nax walked through the tube to the cockpit, he could hear Arfive warbling and whirring angrily. "…And I keep telling you, you're wrong!" Kyra shouted at Arfive. Nax poked his head around the corner and saw Kyra lazing in the copilot's chair, her feet on the pilot's chair, attention squarely focused on Arfive, who was plugged into the ship and piloting them out into a portal. "Hey, Nax? Settle an argument for me." she asked. "In a one-on-one fight, would Knockout win against an ARC trooper?"
Nax sat down in the pilot's seat, kicking back. "What the hell's an ARC trooper?" he questioned, and Kyra shrugged.
"Some sort of modified clone trooper from the Clone Wars. Arfive says his regiment had a couple squads of them." she explained. "They were faster, stronger, more independent, and better equipped than the rank and file troops, at least according to him."
Nax smirked. "…What I think, Kyra, is that you need to stop bullying senile old war veterans." he teased, earning a chuckle from Kyra, and a series of blustered, angry chirps from Arfive, who immediately began projecting a recording of a single Clone trooper, adorned in matte black armor, taking down multiple battle droids under heavy fire with only two blaster pistols, blaster bolts pinging off of his armor and hitting the dirt beneath him. The recording quickly cut off. "Sheesh, relax, Arfive. We're just taking the piss out of you – no need to get so upset over it." Nax defended, to which Arfive responded with an indignant series of chirps, before returning to his work piloting the ship.
The two of them laid back in their chairs as they watched the ships flying through the inside of the portal go by. Glancing at Kyra, Nax saw that she was deep in thought about something, with a disconcerted look on her face. "Something the matter?" Nax asked, concerned for her.
Kyra swiveled her chair around to face him. "…Yeah, something's been bothering me." she said softly, resting her head on her hand . "Remember how I told you that I don't remember anything before waking up on Lostur's ship?"
"Yeah?"
Kyra sighed, shutting her eyes and blowing some air up into her hair to get her bangs out of her face. "…Well, I've been thinking about that, and I want to know something." she hesitantly said, slowly opening her eyes. "If I do have family, and they're out there looking for me, let's say they somehow find me and want me to come back to them. What would you do, Nax?"
Crossing his legs, Nax sat up in the chair. "Obviously, I wouldn't want you to leave, but whether you stay or not isn't my decision to make – it's yours, Kyra." he answered, crossing his arms. "I don't control who you are or what decisions you make. You do. I can only give you my opinion."
Kyra shifted her position slightly so that her right leg was in the chair. "…Okay, follow up – let's say we find out who I was before I was enslaved, and it turns out that I was an awful, terrible person. What would you think of me then?" Kyra queried, visibly wary of Nax's answer.
Shaking his head in disapproval at her question, Nax eyed her. "I wouldn't think of you any differently than I do now, Kyra. This hypothetical past version of you wouldn't even be remotely close to how you act now." he reasoned, before getting up and putting his hand on Kyra's shoulder. "The Kyra I know is one of the kindest people I've ever met, end of story. Nothing you did in the past can change how I think of you, because you've never acted that way towards me or anyone else."
Kyra gave him a smile, before standing up and hugging him. "…I knew there was something about you when we first met in the cantina, Nax." she said, relieved. "Thanks for taking a chance on me." she finished in a soft tone. Smiling back at her, Nax pulled her close.
The two of them would have been content to enjoy the moment, had it not been for Lexi walking into the cockpit. "Oh, I'm sorry. Am I interrupting something, or should I wait until you two kiss?" she teased, leaning against the doorway, causing Kyra and Nax to break apart, embarassed.
Kyra turned to face her. "N-no, you're not interrupting anything, Lexi..." she stammered, her face beet red, clearly embarrassed, before she sat back down in the copilot's chair.
Simply smiling and shaking her head, Lexi sat in the chair behind the copilot's seat. "Uh-huh. Sure." she continued to tease. "Clearly you're only interested in him as a friend."
"Shut up!" Kyra shouted in response, earning her a laugh from Lexi, and a series of amused chirps from Arfive. "You too, Arfive!" she yelled again, which only served to make them laugh harder. "Nax! Can you tell them to shut up, please?!" she begged.
Nax simply smirked. "I dunno, Kyra. Watching you get flustered is pretty funny." he remarked, causing Kyra to glare daggers at him. "Alright, alright, cut it out you two, before Kyra punches me in the face." he ordered, trying his best to avoid laughing. Lexi and Arfive quickly calmed down, but both were snickering for a while after he gave the order to stop.
From there, the rest of the trip was smooth flying back to Coru-Hiver territory.
Observing the scene outside the workshop, a lone woman, nearly six feet tall, spoke into a commlink. "It's Misaki." the woman said in a cool, icy tone. "Sti's been killed by the Ascendancy, like we predicted."
"Has anyone identified the agent? The Ascendancy's agents have been getting sloppier with their work as of late." a man on the other end of the comm questioned. "If you can determine their methods, I'll be able to figure out which one did it."
Misaki shook her head in frustration. "Funny thing about that – nothing particularly sticks out about the way they went about the hit." she replied quietly, brushing a white strip of hair out of her face, as rain began to lightly drizzle against her hood. "They stole a swoop bike from a cantina near a decommissioned magtrain line, drove here, threw temporary restraining bolts on the guard droids, waltzed in, and blew his head clean off. Seems to have stolen everything inside and wiped the security recordings, too."
"They took everything? How did they get away?" the voice asked again.
"You're not paying me to give you answers to questions I don't know." Misaki snapped coldly, before breathing in. "…There's also a collapsed part of the wall inside that looked like a secret room – had a droid stasis pod that was empty. Another part of the wall was smashed open and led to some maintenance tunnels. The door droids also had some pretty damn big holes punched in their torsos." she finished reporting, switching the ear the communicator was against, glancing up at the rain.
The man on the other end made a few noises of consideration. "…Why would the Ascendancy steal everything in Sti's workshop? They certainly have the ability to produce their own droids and augmentations – what reason would they have to pillage from him?" he pondered idly. "…Unless it wasn't the agent that stole everything." the man deduced.
"That's what I'm thinking. An Ascendancy agent wouldn't leave this much evidence around, sloppy as they are. It has to be some third party." she spoke into the communicator, sticking her hand into her pocket. "I've done about everything I can. I'm heading back to the warehouse." Misaki said, her ice-cold tone, sending shivers down the man's spine, even though they were a world apart.
"Understood."
Shutting the communicator off, she slipped it into her pocket, and began to return to the service tunnel she had come from. "My, my, Sti. Just what did you get yourself into?" she idly mumbled, her magenta eyes seeming to shimmer against the artificial rain droplets as she walked.
That's all for this chapter. So much for a fucking late September release, lmfao.
'Till next time.
-Tweak