SPACESTATION: Orbiting Dathomir
The crew of the Golden Ray came out of hyperspace to see what looked like the typical disk shaped planetary stations they had seen a thousand times.
As they approached the station, a grumpy voice came up over the comm channel. "Unidentified vessel, identify yourself and your business!"
Jonathan calmed himself before replying. "This is the captain of the Golden ray, we request permission to dock. I'm sending clearance code now."
"Hold your distance while we check your codes." The voice demanded over the comm.
Mathorn immediately halted the ship. "Now, let's see if our SIS forged identities live up to their reputation." Mumbled the Zabrak, as he waited to see if he needed to turn the ship around in a hurry.
"Your credentials checks out. You are clear to land in docking bay twenty two,
station control out." The voice affirmed.
"Super!" Mathorn exclaimed in relief. "Remind me that we need to give SIS a souvenir when we get home."
"I promise to remind you." Jonathan replied in good spirit.
Tikala stood silent for moment, when Jonathan turned to look if something was wrong, she answered. "Something isn't right. I sense too few people on board that station."
Both Jonathan and Mathorn looked at her with a puzzled expression, in Jonathans case it quickly changed to one of worry.
"Do you sense Master Buz?" Jonathan asked, even if he knew the possibility was slim at best.
Tikala shaked her head in defeat. "No, I don't sense any force presence at all."
"Hopefully it just means fewer people to avoid, if we need to escape." Mathorn phrased in an upbeat tone, as he steered the Golden Ray in for a landing and with little difficulty landed the spacecraft with little noise.
When they descended the ramp, they were greeted with the silence of space. Tikala reached out through the force and noted that there were no one in the hanger or anywhere around.
"Let's look around and see if someone wants to talk business." Jonathan said, playing into the role of a merchant, incase they were being watched.
With a solemn nod, they ventured into the space station with all gates and doors automatically opening when neared.
"Anyone home?" Mathorn asked, hoping anyone would answer. So far they had neither seen nor heard anyone.
Tikala began to feel uneasy. She sensed the trails of thousands of lives that had been walking these halls in a not too distant past. "This is strange... I can sense this place has been teeming with life recently, but where is everyone now?"
As they ventured forth, they came across a three dimensional map of the entire station. "A holo map, let's see where we are." Jonathan observed, sounding as chipper as he could manage.
"I say we should go to the control center, there is bound to be someone we can talk to there." Tikala suggested without showing any sign of the unease she felt.
A quick nod from both her companions, with Jonathan politely replying. "We'll follow milady."
As they entered the nearest elevator, to access the control center in upper section of the station. Jonathan pushed the button to take them to the top, but as they were going up the elevator suddenly vibrated violently.
"I got a bad feeling about this." Mathorn uttered very insecure, with Tikala and Jonathan thinking the exact same thing.
A split second later, the elevator weren't going up, but down.
Tikala reached out with force. It was difficult in a falling elevator to center oneself, but with Mathorn's and Jonathan's help, they stopped the rapidly descending elevator.
"'Pew'... Someone clearly doesn't want us here." Mathorn stated the obvious.
"I knew it couldn't be so easy." Jonathan muttered and cursed his luck.
"Let's decent down to the next exit." Tikala ordered calmly. When they reached the next exit point, she used the force to open the door since all power was cut. She sprang out of the elevator while her teammates held it steady. Turning with determination in her eyes, she unraveled her plan. "Listen. I'll lift the elevator up, so you two can get to the control center. I will find another way around."
"Roger that Sis. They aren't expecting us to use a broken elevator." Mathorn approved of the plan with a grin.
"May the force be with you." Jonathan uttered with a clear hint of worry in his voice, splitting up now just didn't feel right.
"You too. Keep your comms open and tell me once you have reached the control center." she smiled, as she again reached out with the force. With solid ground underneath her, she could easily move the elevator upwards at increasing speed until it mirrored the elevators usual pace.
Mathorn was beginning to feel a growing excitement inside him. "So now we're using a sister powered elevator, how cool is that!"
"Be prepared, I sense danger up ahead." Jonathan suggested with no sign of amusement in his tone.
"'Sigh'… Yes master." Mathorn continuing the joke, action always brightened his mood.
They reached the top floor with a loud clunk as the elevator made contact with the roof. "Ouch… You can stop here sis." Mathorn muttered the comment to no one in particular.
Jonathan used the force to open the elevator doors and they both exited as the elevator was released and fell down behind them. A man in white clothe walked casually by. "They survived!" He exclaimed and was just about to report the sighted jedi, but Jonathan were faster.
"There is only you, you haven't seen anyone here." Jonathan said in an melodious tone, while slowly waving his hand in front of him.
"There is only me... I haven't seen anyone here." He just mumbled to himself and wandered off.
"So we do have the element of surprise." Mathorn uttered delighted and added. "So, where to go next?"
"I believe the way to the control center is right up ahead." Jonathan informed and they both ran onwards.
They entered a room only illuminated by a dozen monitors, out of what looked like a thousand
unpowered monitors, which were placed on desks or hung from the walls. Papers were scattered all over the place, covering the floor and every other flat surface of the huge control center. "It looks like they abandoned their stations in a hurry." Jonathan observed, as he sat down in front of one of the only consoles still active. "Let's see if I known how to-, darn! A password."
"One dataspike coming up." Mathorn uttered with a grin and handed out a dataspike.
"Thank you." Jonathan just politely replied as took the dataspike and inserted it into the console. The dataspike flooded the system with junk data and soon after Jonathan had hacked his way to admin access of the whole network.
"Let's see if we can find the info we are looking for." It didn't take long before they found themselves overwhelmed with information on hyperspace trafik lanes, to and from the station. "This is going to take too long! Let's download the data and have SIS study it." He produced his datapad and began downloading the data.
Looking at the rate at which the massive amount of data was being copied, Mathorn mumbled a bit impatient. "This is going to take some time, should we just wait here?"
"We could start by calling Tika-" Jonathan was about to suggest, before both he and Mathorn felt danger coming their way.
A company of men in white uniform were rushing in. "Kill them!" the troopers shouted in unison and began shooting immediately thereafter, destroying a bunch monitors in the process.
Mathorn and Jonathan ignited their lightsabers fast enough to redirect the blaster fire using the shien lightsaber form. "So... we don't have the element of surprise after all." Mathorn commented for no reason, as he used his yellow blade to redirect a lethal shoot to the head.
"It appears so." Jonathan sarcastically replied as his blue blade returned a blaster bolt right back at the attacker, searing a hole through the personal armor of one of the white clad men.
It didn't take many seconds before the men in white lay dead on the ground from the redirected blaster bolts that they themselves had fired from their own guns. "So... these guild members haven't had much training fighting jedi." Mathorn stated.
Jonathan was puzzled by the way they had just been charged. "I find this very odd. They just mindlessly kept shooting at us, no skill, no coordination, they aren't actually soldiers at all. These are regular people, who under normal circumstances would have fled or surrendered."
Mathorn yawned as a direct reply. "Details... We won, nothing else matters and my sister needs an update." He declared and called Tikala on the comm, while Jonathan looked on in disbelief.
IN THE MEANTIME: a few levels below
Tikala had been scouting around for a stairwell and had so far avoided detection by using her ability to conceal herself in the force. Since all elevators were out of power, she had been forced to make use of stairs and other measures to get to the upper levels, which so far had resulted in her ascending two sets stairs.
As she was sneaking around, she felt a disturbance in the force. A dark presence were hastily coming their way. "This is bad. The empire is on their way here!"
As Tikala silently ran up the next set of stairs, she heard someone speak nearby. She carefully snuck in and listened.
The first she heard was a man speaking. "We have received intel that the second team is in route." A woman answered muttering. "So it's finally our turn to leave." As they turned a corner, she identified them both as being humans and dressed in white uniforms of some kind.
They neared the place Tikala was hiding and as they walked past her, she snuck up behind them and gently touched the back of their heads. "I am not an enemy. I wish only to learn of what you were talking." She spoke in trance like tone with a hypnotisitic effect.
As the Women was about to speak, she became expressionless for just a moment where after she crumbled down on the floor completely lifeless, her co worker staring in shock. "The... rumors... were... tru-!" he staggered in fear before he went through the same procedure, ending up lying motionless on the ground beside her.
Tikala was horrified, as she felt a dark energy severing their lifeforce from their body. "What have I just witnessed! Is this a new sith technic? A new sinister way of withholding information from the enemy?!" It took her a moment to collect herself. As her comm began vibrating she quickly went back into hiding, before answering.
"Sister, good news, we managed to copy their log lists." Mathorn chipperly informed over the encrypted comm.
"I have just witnessed... never mind, it can wait. Where is your position?"Tikala asked, as she decided the horrifying tale could wait.
"We are on our way down to the ship. There is surprisingly silent around here, everyone seems to have fled." Mathorn commented, as the noise of running could be heard over the comm.
"Get to the ship and fast! I sense a darkness coming our way, and don't question anyone, I will explain later." Tikala firmy, but hurriedly order and cut the connection. She could feel the darkness closing needed to get back to the ship before someone could blow it up or otherwise disable it. She got out of hiding and sprinted down the corridor.
Tikala jumped down several stairs, until she got to the main hangar area, and sprinted back to the ship as fast as she could. A few people in white who were working in maintenance, just barely spotted the jedi before she was out of sight again.
To cut off time, she sprang up five meters and landed on one of three hanger walkways that were suspended with wires above the few ships docked beneath, as well as the cranes and other heavy equipment for loading and unloading of goods.
As Tikala ran, the feeling of something dark coming nearer became increased in strength. She stopped running when four black hooded figures blocked her path.
