There was a ghost in the gallery. Some jobs required silence. Others demanded blood. This one, Roona predicted as she visually traced the hidden security door’s edge, was the kind that likely asked for both. She exhaled, counting the seconds between patrol sweeps. Above her, the gala’s muffled laughter dripped through the vents.
The Rodian scout's bare feet flexed against the museum's polished floor, the cold marble sending minute tremors up her spine. Her emerald dress clung to her like a second skin, its fabric whispering against her scales with every calculated movement. She adjusted the cloaking cloak draped over one shoulder, letting the satchel's weight settle more naturally against her hip—too much fiddling would draw eyes, and right now she needed to be nothing more than another bored socialite admiring the exhibits.
The Twi'lek socialites' laughter faded around a distant corner as Roona paused before a display of ancient Corellian hand weapons. Her reflection in the transparisteel case showed a Rodian woman of unremarkable beauty—until one noticed how her eyes never lingered on any artifact for more than three seconds, how her fingers twitched near the hidden holster when footsteps echoed nearby. Roona needed to enter the security area without anyone seeing. She moved with calculated precision, aware that her mastery of stealth was the key to success, heightening the suspense of her upcoming attempt.
The faint click of Roona’s comm channel opening sliced through the ambient hum of the climate control system, a sound nearly lost amidst the soft whirring of machinery. “Hall of Arms. Need evacuation,” she whispered, her lips barely parting as she feigned interest in a gleaming Corellian vibro-axe. “Two near the blaster exhibit. Make it seem natural.”
Spanner would be the first to arrive from the opposite side of the museum. His fingers curled around the serving tray, grasping it with a careful tension as he inclined his head toward the guests scattered throughout the Hall of Arms. “The special exhibits room would serve as the perfect diversion, sirs and madam,” he suggested, his voice a low murmur that almost blended with the delicate clink of crystal glasses.
A guest, adorned in elegant attire, raised her glass and took a measured sip of her Tarisian gin, the ice cubes tinkling against the glass like a countdown to something inevitable. “How delightful,” she purred, her eyes sparkling with intrigue. “And you just happen to know the way?”
Spanner’s practiced smile remained in place, unwavering and charming, as he extended his free hand to gesture toward the central area of the museum, rich with vibrant exhibits. “But of course, let me lead the way.”
Roona watched the unfolding scene with rapt attention, her senses sharpening like a predator on the hunt. Once it became evident that the attention of the crowd was elsewhere, she slipped into a shadowy corner, drawing her cloak around her with fluid grace. She moved with deliberate purpose, practically melting into the surroundings, nearly undetectable to any electronic surveillance. The faint click of Roona’s comm channel opening sliced through the ambient hum of the climate control system, a sound nearly lost amidst the soft whirring of machinery. “Hall of Arms. Need evacuation,” she whispered, her lips barely parting as she feigned interest in a gleaming Corellian vibro-axe. “Two near the blaster exhibit. Make it seem natural.”
Spanner’s fingers curled around the serving tray, grasping it with a careful tension as he inclined his head toward the guests scattered throughout the Hall of Arms. “The special exhibits room would serve as the perfect diversion, sirs and madam,” he suggested, his voice a low murmur that almost blended with the delicate clink of crystal glasses.
A guest, adorned in elegant attire, raised her glass and took a measured sip of her Tarisian gin, the ice cubes tinkling against the glass like a countdown to something inevitable. “How delightful,” she purred, her eyes sparkling with intrigue. “And you just happen to know the way?”
Spanner’s practiced smile remained in place, unwavering and charming, as he extended his free hand to gesture toward the central area of the museum, rich with vibrant exhibits. “But of course, let me lead the way.”
Roona watched the unfolding scene with rapt attention, her senses sharpening like a predator on the hunt. Once it became evident that the attention of the crowd was elsewhere, she slipped into a shadowy corner, drawing her cloak around her with fluid grace. She moved with deliberate purpose, practically melting into the surroundings, nearly undetectable to any electronic surveillance.
Koraz had located the location of a secret door, but had been unable to determine a means to open it. Roona's fingers glided delicately along the concealed seam of the security door, working with the meticulous care of a seasoned surgeon. The durasteel panel, masterfully camouflaged within the ornate decorative molding of the museum, held its secrets tight—unless one knew to look for the subtle shift in hue that betrayed its true nature. With a deft motion, she retrieved her infrabinoculars from the satchel, their lenses humming to life as they cycled through a spectrum of filters, revealing the hidden layers of the corridor beyond.
As the view unfolded before her, the wide security passage emerged, bathed in the sterile glow of overhead lights. It lay deserted, save for a solitary maintenance droid nestled in its charging alcove, its metallic form frozen in sleep. Roona focused intently, counting the rhythmic pulse intervals of the security sweeps. She discerned the precise timing, realizing she had just enough time to slip through the door if she moved with agility and purpose. The thrill of the heist coursed through her veins, urging her on.
The door whispered open, a mere sliver wide enough for Roona to slip through, her form moving with a grace that rivaled the glint of mercury spilled across a polished surface—fluid, silent, and leaving behind nothing but a barely perceptible shift in the air. The corridor beyond enveloped her in the sterile aroma of recycled oxygen, mingled with the sharp scent of durasteel polish and a subtle, electric tang of ozone from the vigilant security systems nearby.
Ahead, two heat signatures glowed softly behind an opposing door—humanoids, she deduced from the thermal patterns. Their presence was lethargic, indicating they were more engrossed in idle chatter than alert to their surroundings; likely technicians indulging in a welcome break.
Further into the depths of the facility, the infrared readings in her display danced like lazy fireflies, revealing three stationary forms huddled around what must be the security hub’s main console. She fine-tuned the focus on her infrabinoculars, zeroing in on the flickering glow of holographic screens. Above them, the ventilation shaft sighed with an almost sentient softness, adding to the atmosphere brimming with tension and anticipation.
The corridor twisted sharply to the right, its sleek durasteel walls gleaming with an unsettling brilliance that warped the outline of Roona’s cloaked figure as she pressed onward. According to her mental map, this passage skirted the periphery of the Hall of Arms. With urgency coursing through her, she quickened her pace, determined to put a significant distance between herself and the looming presence of the security station.
Roona's fingers grazed the corridor wall, the cool surface of the polished durasteel exhilarating against her scaled skin, touched only with a feather-light caress. The hallway elongated ahead, its bend mirroring the museum's outer boundary, just as she had envisioned. "This should lead to the vault," she thought, the phrase echoing in her mind like a steady beat—a combination of subdued anticipation and resolute awareness. Suddenly, the echo of footsteps broke the silence, accompanied by voices that drifted through the air, prickling her senses and urging her to remain vigilant.
Roona's breath trembled in her throat as the footsteps reverberated through the narrow corridor, growing ever closer. She halted abruptly, tension coiling within her as she assessed her options. The lift tube loomed just six paces ahead, a potential sanctuary, while the corner behind her offered an escape route; but that was over ten paces away—a perilous distance if she sought to retreat undetected. The sound intensified—a duo of footsteps, one heavier and more deliberate than the other, mingling with the soft creaks of leather and the muted hiss of a comm channel left eerily open.
In a sudden surge of resolve, Roona propelled herself toward the lift tube, her movements fluid and instinctive. The cascading folds of her emerald dress swirled around her. The access panel flickered to life in the corridor's muted glow, casting a ghostly light that danced across the sleek surface as it awaited her touch. She pressed her palm against the cold steel of the biometric scanner, willing the security override codes she had painstakingly unearthed to come to fruition. The scanner emitted a single, sharp beep, its crimson light flickering ominously before morphing to a soft green. With a hiss of hydraulics, the inner doors of the tube slid open, inviting her into the uncertainty beyond.
Roona’s muscles coiled like tightly wound springs as she launched herself upward, her scaled fingers deftly grasping the maintenance rungs of the lift tube. With the fluid grace of a predator, she pulled her lithe form into the cramped recess above the lift carriage, pressing her body against the cold durasteel ceiling just as the guards’ footsteps echoed ominously in the junction below. Dust motes danced lazily in the dim light filtering through the ventilation grates, swirling in the air and catching in her throat as she stilled her breath, every instinct alert.
The footsteps came to a halt directly beneath her, a palpable tension building in the silence. Roona counted the heartbeats that drummed in her ears—one, two, three—before a gruff voice sliced through the stillness, muttering about the need for a break. The second guard, his tread lighter and more casual, grunted in reluctant agreement. Their boots scuffed against the polished floor, creating a sharp contrast to the quiet, sterile environment as they ambled away, their conversation drifting into muffled echoes about shift rotations and the mystery of missing caf mugs.
The Rodian scout unfurled from her hidden position like the silent, lethal draw of a vibroblade slipping from its sheath. She slipped back into the security corridor with a whisper that barely disturbed the dry air around her. As she landed in a crouch, one hand braced against the lift's durasteel frame, absorbing the impact and steadying herself. The bulk of the lift offered a fleeting refuge, just enough to obscure her lithe silhouette from the retreating guards, whose voices faded into the background like echoes of static lost in transmission, swallowed by the museum's ambient symphony of hushed climate control and distant notes from the gala's elegant music.
With a quick, practiced glance, Roona pivoted silently around the corner, revealing an even longer corridor—an imposing durasteel artery leading deep into the very heart of the museum. Just as she had anticipated, the passage stretched forth, nearly the entire length of the building's northern wing, its polished floor gleaming under the dim emergency lighting, casting fractured ribbons of ethereal blue across the darkened space. Three unmarked doors punctuated the left wall at seemingly random intervals, their seamless surfaces betraying nothing of the secrets hidden beyond, creating an air of mystery that hung heavy in the stillness.
The infrabinoculars infrared overlay transformed the corridor ahead into a swirling canvas of pulsating gradients—cool oceanic blues ebbing into vibrant yellows, which then surged into scorching oranges where living bodies danced just beyond the durasteel walls. She adjusted the infrabinoculars with a deft tilt of her head, observing the heat signatures emerge like toxic blooms through the metal barrier. Three guards patrolled, their movements starkly revealing their threats—a broad-shouldered human, his blaster holster radiating warmth against his thigh, a Rodian with an elongated cranium that glowed with the heat of his oversized eyes, and a Twi'lek, whose lekku flickered with a nervous energy, producing erratic thermal spirals that shimmered like heat haze.
Fingers lingered near the concealed blaster strapped to her thigh as Roona meticulously calculated her angles of attack—three guards, two potential exits, and not a single clean line of fire. Just then, the durasteel panel to her side hissed open unexpectedly, unleashing an aromatic wave of caf mingled with the scent of stale pastries. Out stumbled a bleary-eyed human technician, his arms laden with a teetering stack of data pads that threatened to spill as he pushed his unruly hair out of his eyes.
The man momentarily choked back his astonishment—just long enough for his pupils to narrow against the piercing brightness of the corridor lights. In that fleeting instant, Roona sprang into action. Her stealth vibroknife, a sleek instrument of death, glided through the air with the grace of a whisper, finding its mark with chilling accuracy. The blade slipped effortlessly between his third and fourth ribs, a deadly invasion that stifled his shocked gasp before it could escape. As he staggered, his data pads tumbled from his grasp, cascading to the cold floor in a chaotic symphony of flashing screens, their urgent beeps muted by the corridor's advanced acoustic dampeners, leaving only the echoes of silence in their wake.
The corpse slumped against Roona's shoulder like a drunk at closing time. Its weight was not negligible and the logistics were problematic. Blood began to seep through the technician's uniform, dripping onto the durasteel floor with unfortunate persistence.
Roona breathed out sharply, a quick hiss escaping her lips as she meticulously counted the seconds between the rhythmic patrols of the security guards. Just a few paces ahead, the concealed door revealed its secret—a delicate seam glimmering faintly beneath her infrared overlay, like a whisper of defiance against the museum's pristine facade. She tightened her grip on the collar of the lifeless body she cradled, her scales prickling uncomfortably as the warmth of fresh blood seeped through the fabric, saturating her bare forearm with the unsettling reminder of urgency and danger.
The Special Collections Room enveloped the lifeless body with a soft, eerie hiss of hydraulics, reminiscent of a creature closing its maw. Roona barely had a moment to take in the rich, musty scent of ancient leather mingling with sharp, electric ozone before the heavy door sealed shut behind her, leaving only a ghostly handprint on the durasteel frame. Within the chamber, a low hum resonated, the preservation fields shimmering like ethereal blue flames, casting elongated shadows that danced across the meticulously arranged rows of artifacts. Each item whispering stories of a time long past.
Skipping the Check (Episode 24)
Moderator: GM Fang
Re: Skipping the Check (Episode 24)
"Body going Special Collections. Somebody hide body."
The words came over the group's encrypted comms, momentarily starling most of the group. Spanner's fingers tightened around the serving tray as the comm message crackled through his earpiece. He didn't react outwardly—years of smuggling had trained that instinct out of him—but the half-eaten Tarisian canapé slipped from his grasp and landed soundlessly in the decorative ferns. "Copy," he murmured into his cufflink mic, turning smoothly to hand the tray off to a passing protocol droid.
FL-AR3 pivoted mid-stride, their drink-serving module retracting with a hydraulic hiss as they recalculated trajectories. "Primary objective temporarily suspended," the droid informed a confused Bothan diplomat before abandoning their post. Their photoreceptors flickered through several visual spectra, pinpointing Spanner's heat signature moving through the crowd with uncharacteristic haste.
Spanner's polished catering shoes slid against the marble floor as he rounded the corner into the Special Collections corridor—FL-AR3's heavier footfalls echoing just behind him. The air here smelled different from the gala's perfumed chaos: ozone from preservation fields, the tang of ancient metal, and something darker coiling beneath it all. Their footsteps slowed simultaneously as the display cabinet came into view—its transparisteel surface reflecting distorted fragments of the scene behind it.
The human technician lay sprawled like a discarded puppet, one arm twisted beneath him at an angle that suggested violent improvisation rather than choreography. Blood pooled around his torso in a glossy dark circle, soaking into the ornate carpet that had probably cost more than the Vagrant's fuel reserves. Someone—Roona, presumably—had dragged him halfway behind a cabinet displaying ritual armor, but the effort was cursory at best. A single drop of blood trailed toward the secret door like a breadcrumb.
Spanner grabbed the nearest bottle off FL-AR3's tray—something amber and expensive-looking with a Corellian label—and upended it over the dead technician's slack jaw. The liquor sloshed across pale lips, dripping down the man's chin to mingle with the bloodstains on his shirt. "Help me prop him up," Spanner hissed, wedging a knee under the corpse's shoulder. FL-AR3's servos whirred as they gripped the man's belt, hauling him into a slumped sitting position against the display case.
The droid tilted their photoreceptors toward the spreading stain on the man's tunic. "Alcohol absorption rate suggests this individual would have expired from hepatic failure before blood loss," FL-AR3 observed, plucking a half-melted ice cube from their tray to press against the corpse's forehead. "However, inebriation narrative remains statistically plausible for—"
"Less math, more theater," Spanner interrupted, snatching the ice cube to drag it down the technician's neck in a convincing sweat trail. He grabbed the man's wrist and slapped it against his own shoulder, creating the illusion of drunken clinging. The arm flopped like a gutted fish. "Kriff. Hold his hand to my jacket."
FL-AR3's pincer attachment extended with surgical precision, manipulating the dead fingers to clutch Spanner's sleeve. The droid adjusted the grip twice—once for natural positioning, once to hide the lividity pooling under the nails. "Query: Should I simulate intoxicated vocalizations?"
"Negative," Spanner muttered through gritted teeth as FL-AR3's vocal modulator cycled through potential slurred phrases. The dead man's arm slid off his shoulder with a wet slap against the display case. "Just—kriff—get his other side."
FL-AR3's servos whined as they maneuvered the corpse's limp torso into a drunken stagger position, the technician's head lolling forward to hide the knife wound. Blood seeped through the liquor-soaked shirt in uneven blooms. Spanner began hauling the dead weight toward the front of the building, FL-AR3 mimicking a catering droid assisting with an intoxicated guest.
The two dragged the man's limp form past the security checkpoint, Spanner's fingers digging into the corpse's belt while FL-AR3 maintained the illusion of supporting his shoulders. The Rodian guard's bulbous eyes swiveled toward them, his blaster hand twitching near his holster. Spanner exhaled through his nose—a sharp, disgusted sound—and jerked his chin toward the dead man's liquor-stained tunic. "Apparently can't hold his alcohol," he grunted, shifting his grip to make the technician's head loll convincingly.
FL-AR3 tilted their photoreceptors toward the guard with calculated innocence. "Management protocol requires removal of inebriated workers," they intoned, their vocal modulator pitching slightly higher to mimic a service droid's programmed deference. The Rodian's antenna twitched as he caught the stench of Corellian whiskey mingling with copper—hesitated—then waved them by with a dismissive flick of his suction-tipped fingers.
Spanner's shoulder burned where the corpse's dead weight dug into his muscles—three paces to the lobby, two more to the alcove where Pron's other "disposals" slumped in drunken facsimile. FL-AR3's servos hummed louder than usual as they adjusted their grip, the dead man's elbow knocking against a potted fern with a hollow thunk. The lobby's garish light made the bloodstains look like spilled wine.
FL-AR3's servos whirred softly as their drink-serving module snapped back into place, the tray locking into its magnetic clamps with a barely audible click. They pivoted on their heel with mechanical precision—just in time to intercept a swaying Neimoidian diplomat reaching for another drink. "Your cardiovascular readings suggest you have exceeded recommended alcohol intake," the droid observed, withdrawing the tray just enough to make the dignitary stumble. "Perhaps hydrate."
Spanner wiped his hands on his catering apron, the motion brisk enough to disguise how his fingers trembled slightly. The lingering warmth of the corpse's blood had seeped through the thin fabric onto his fingers. He inhaled through his nose, catching the gala's competing perfumes layered over ozone and roasted meats. Normal. Just another shift.
The words came over the group's encrypted comms, momentarily starling most of the group. Spanner's fingers tightened around the serving tray as the comm message crackled through his earpiece. He didn't react outwardly—years of smuggling had trained that instinct out of him—but the half-eaten Tarisian canapé slipped from his grasp and landed soundlessly in the decorative ferns. "Copy," he murmured into his cufflink mic, turning smoothly to hand the tray off to a passing protocol droid.
FL-AR3 pivoted mid-stride, their drink-serving module retracting with a hydraulic hiss as they recalculated trajectories. "Primary objective temporarily suspended," the droid informed a confused Bothan diplomat before abandoning their post. Their photoreceptors flickered through several visual spectra, pinpointing Spanner's heat signature moving through the crowd with uncharacteristic haste.
Spanner's polished catering shoes slid against the marble floor as he rounded the corner into the Special Collections corridor—FL-AR3's heavier footfalls echoing just behind him. The air here smelled different from the gala's perfumed chaos: ozone from preservation fields, the tang of ancient metal, and something darker coiling beneath it all. Their footsteps slowed simultaneously as the display cabinet came into view—its transparisteel surface reflecting distorted fragments of the scene behind it.
The human technician lay sprawled like a discarded puppet, one arm twisted beneath him at an angle that suggested violent improvisation rather than choreography. Blood pooled around his torso in a glossy dark circle, soaking into the ornate carpet that had probably cost more than the Vagrant's fuel reserves. Someone—Roona, presumably—had dragged him halfway behind a cabinet displaying ritual armor, but the effort was cursory at best. A single drop of blood trailed toward the secret door like a breadcrumb.
Spanner grabbed the nearest bottle off FL-AR3's tray—something amber and expensive-looking with a Corellian label—and upended it over the dead technician's slack jaw. The liquor sloshed across pale lips, dripping down the man's chin to mingle with the bloodstains on his shirt. "Help me prop him up," Spanner hissed, wedging a knee under the corpse's shoulder. FL-AR3's servos whirred as they gripped the man's belt, hauling him into a slumped sitting position against the display case.
The droid tilted their photoreceptors toward the spreading stain on the man's tunic. "Alcohol absorption rate suggests this individual would have expired from hepatic failure before blood loss," FL-AR3 observed, plucking a half-melted ice cube from their tray to press against the corpse's forehead. "However, inebriation narrative remains statistically plausible for—"
"Less math, more theater," Spanner interrupted, snatching the ice cube to drag it down the technician's neck in a convincing sweat trail. He grabbed the man's wrist and slapped it against his own shoulder, creating the illusion of drunken clinging. The arm flopped like a gutted fish. "Kriff. Hold his hand to my jacket."
FL-AR3's pincer attachment extended with surgical precision, manipulating the dead fingers to clutch Spanner's sleeve. The droid adjusted the grip twice—once for natural positioning, once to hide the lividity pooling under the nails. "Query: Should I simulate intoxicated vocalizations?"
"Negative," Spanner muttered through gritted teeth as FL-AR3's vocal modulator cycled through potential slurred phrases. The dead man's arm slid off his shoulder with a wet slap against the display case. "Just—kriff—get his other side."
FL-AR3's servos whined as they maneuvered the corpse's limp torso into a drunken stagger position, the technician's head lolling forward to hide the knife wound. Blood seeped through the liquor-soaked shirt in uneven blooms. Spanner began hauling the dead weight toward the front of the building, FL-AR3 mimicking a catering droid assisting with an intoxicated guest.
The two dragged the man's limp form past the security checkpoint, Spanner's fingers digging into the corpse's belt while FL-AR3 maintained the illusion of supporting his shoulders. The Rodian guard's bulbous eyes swiveled toward them, his blaster hand twitching near his holster. Spanner exhaled through his nose—a sharp, disgusted sound—and jerked his chin toward the dead man's liquor-stained tunic. "Apparently can't hold his alcohol," he grunted, shifting his grip to make the technician's head loll convincingly.
FL-AR3 tilted their photoreceptors toward the guard with calculated innocence. "Management protocol requires removal of inebriated workers," they intoned, their vocal modulator pitching slightly higher to mimic a service droid's programmed deference. The Rodian's antenna twitched as he caught the stench of Corellian whiskey mingling with copper—hesitated—then waved them by with a dismissive flick of his suction-tipped fingers.
Spanner's shoulder burned where the corpse's dead weight dug into his muscles—three paces to the lobby, two more to the alcove where Pron's other "disposals" slumped in drunken facsimile. FL-AR3's servos hummed louder than usual as they adjusted their grip, the dead man's elbow knocking against a potted fern with a hollow thunk. The lobby's garish light made the bloodstains look like spilled wine.
FL-AR3's servos whirred softly as their drink-serving module snapped back into place, the tray locking into its magnetic clamps with a barely audible click. They pivoted on their heel with mechanical precision—just in time to intercept a swaying Neimoidian diplomat reaching for another drink. "Your cardiovascular readings suggest you have exceeded recommended alcohol intake," the droid observed, withdrawing the tray just enough to make the dignitary stumble. "Perhaps hydrate."
Spanner wiped his hands on his catering apron, the motion brisk enough to disguise how his fingers trembled slightly. The lingering warmth of the corpse's blood had seeped through the thin fabric onto his fingers. He inhaled through his nose, catching the gala's competing perfumes layered over ozone and roasted meats. Normal. Just another shift.
Re: Skipping the Check (Episode 24)
Koraz's comm buzzed twice against his ribs—the patterned vibration signaling an incoming security directive. His Iktochi horns twitched slightly beneath the deep red security tunic as he listened to the incoming instructions: Random sweep. Gala floor. Immediate. His partner, the Rodian named Bhazzo Wakk, tapped his own earpiece with a barely concealed grimace.
The Redswamp guards were notorious for their twitchiness during large events—too many variables, too much movement. Koraz had watched three of them jump at their own shadows near the ornamental fountains earlier.
Koraz tapped his security comm twice—an acknowledgment without words—and adjusted the unfamiliar fit of his crimson tunic. The fabric clung to his shoulders like a second skin, too stiff for proper movement. "Cover the turbolifts," he told Bhazzo, jerking his chin toward the milling crowd. "I'll handle the sweep."
The young Rodian's bulbous eyes darted toward the gala floor, his fingers twitching near his holster. "But protocol says—"
"Protocol's for people who can't improvise." Koraz flashed teeth in what might've been a grin if not for the predatory sharpness. He didn't wait for a response, heading into the turbolift with the practiced ease of a hunter slipping between trees.
The noise of the closing doors swallowed Bhazzo's protests. Up on the 64th floor Koraz wove through clusters of laughing aristocrats, his horns angling to catch fragmented conversations. A Twi'lek matron in holographic silks gestured wildly with a champagne flute, her lekku twitching as she recounted some scandal. Koraz sidestepped her flailing arm without breaking stride. The Betu Symphonic Ensemble had begun playing and many guests had gathered to listen to this touring ensemble, comprised of two dozen musicians from all over the continent of Betu.
Koraz's secret comm buzzed again in his ear. He angled his body into the shadow of a towering Kashyyyk fern display, thumbing the concealed receiver. Roona's voice crackled through, stripped of inflection by encryption: *"Can't reach vault. Need gun help."*
Looking for a means to leave the floor, Koraz glanced around. The Rodian guard two meters away was busy confiscating a smuggled vibroknife from a drunken Sullustan delegate—perfect distraction. Koraz issued rapid-fire acknowledgment: "Understood. Redirecting."
Koraz descended the museum's grand staircase with the calculated nonchalance of a predator circling prey—each step measured to avoid drawing attention, yet deliberate enough to suggest he belonged. The polished banister vibrated faintly beneath his fingertips as distant laughter and clinking glassware drifted up from the gala below. Halfway down, he paused beside an oversized holographic mural depicting the Siege of Kuat, tilting his head as if admiring the artistry while his peripheral vision tracked movement in the corridor ahead. Two Redswamp guards lingered near a service alcove, their postures slack with boredom. Koraz exhaled through his nostrils—an old hunter's trick to steady his pulse—before continuing downward, his boots whispering against the carpeted steps.
The Special Collections wing announced itself with a subtle shift in atmosphere—cooler air, hushed lighting, and the faint ozone tang of active preservation fields. He rounded a display and spotted the anomaly immediately: Roona stood there leaning against the wall, her cloaking cloak obscuring her from electronic detection.
"Come. Three guards." Roona's whisper carried the same clinical detachment as a surgeon counting scalpel strokes. She pressed her suction-tipped fingers against a seemingly blank section of the museum wall, triggering a nearly imperceptible seam to hiss open. The hidden door revealed a brightly lit security corridor bathed in the flickering blue glow of surveillance monitors. The dead technician's blood was now congealing in sticky strands across the durasteel floor just outside the door where the Rodian Scout had ambushed him.
Roona moved ahead like a shadow given form, her emerald dress concealed by the cloak. She paused at a door that apparently led to the vault antechamber, her elongated Rodian fingers flicking three quick signals: two humans, one Twi'lek. Heat signatures pulsed on her wrist-mounted scanner like dying stars.
Roona's blaster slid into her palm with the quiet inevitability of a falling leaf—no click, no scrape, just the faintest whisper of polymer against scaled flesh. She held up three suction-tipped fingers, counting down in the dim glow of the corridor's emergency lighting. Two. One. The door hissed open.
Three guards stood clustered around a holodisplay flickering with security feeds—two humans in Redswamp crimson, their shoulders tense beneath the stiff fabric, and a Twi'lek whose lekku twitched with nervous energy. The room contained a number of crates that had stacked around the triangular shaped room.
Koraz's blaster bolt punched through the first guard's throat before the man could finish turning—a single, precise shot that sent the Redswamp mercenary crumpling against a crate of stolen Corellian artifacts. The Twi'lek's scream died in her lekku as Roona's follow-up shot grazed her shoulder, spinning her into the holodisplay with a shower of sparks. Then everything dissolved into strobing muzzle flashes and the acrid tang of scorched plastoid.
Koraz felt the return fire before he heard it—a searing line of heat across his ribs as a blaster bolt skimmed the edge of his stolen security tunic. The fabric smoldered, stinging his Iktochi hide beneath. Roona hissed beside him, her emerald cloak flaring as a glancing hit charred the scales along her forearm. Their attackers weren't amateurs; these were professionals who'd positioned themselves with clear fields of fire between the crates.
The Twi'lek guard's lekku spasmed as she scrambled for cover, her blaster discharging wildly into a crate of ancient Alderaanian pottery. Koraz didn't give her the chance to aim—his second shot punched through her left lekku, sending her reeling into a display case of fragile Ithorian wind chimes. The resulting cacophony of shattering crystal masked Roona's vibroblade finding the second human guard's kidney from behind.
It was over in seven seconds.
The Twi'lek guard's body slumped against the shattered Ithorian chimes with a discordant chime that lingered in the air like a bad joke. Koraz was already moving, his clawed fingers tearing into the nearest crate with deliberate theatrics—plastoid splintering under his grip as he upended its contents across the floor in a cascade of stolen Alderaanian artifacts. "Make it messy," he growled, kicking over another crate for good measure. The durasteel container hit the ground with a hollow boom, scattering crystalline shards that skittered across the floor like fleeing insects.
Roona's scaled fingers danced across her datapad with surgical precision, pulling up a holographic schematic of the museum's upper levels. "Xander," she hissed into the comm, her voice stripped of inflection by encryption, "Need you. Now." The pad's glow cast eerie shadows across her angular face as she watched Koraz methodically demolish the carefully arranged theft—his boot crushing a delicate Naboo music box underfoot with unnecessary force.
Xander's fingers twitched against the stem of his champagne flute when the encrypted pulse vibrated through his ear comm. He didn't break stride—years of grifting had trained that tell out of him—but the Bith musician's discordant note matched his racing pulse as he angled toward the kitchen. A Twi'lek socialite brushed against his arm, her perfume cloying as she grabbed a drink from his serving tray.
The kitchen's steam enveloped him like a smuggler's embrace—thick, concealing, and vaguely threatening. He ducked beneath a floating tray of seared nerf medallions, sliding into the corner where FL-AR3 had "accidentally" disabled the surveillance cam earlier. The datapad's screen flickered to life in his palm, its authentication protocols already crumbling under Roona's preliminary hacks. Blue static danced across Xander's knuckles as he jacked into the museum's security grid through the dead technician's stolen credentials.
Four floors below, Roona's lift shuddered to a stop. Her infrared scan painted the corridor in thermal gradients - empty. She exhaled through her mouth, the sound lost beneath the lift's hydraulic sigh. The technician's datapad in her grip vibrated once—Xander's signal—as the first security layer dissolved under their tandem assault.
Back in the kitchen, Xander's teeth ground together as the museum's firewall retaliated. Alarms blared in his skull through the neural link, his vision fracturing into overlapping schematics and error reports. A sous-chef's cleaver hit the cutting board beside him in perfect sync with the system's counterattack—he rode the rhythm, twisting the intrusion into a recursive loop that made the security AI chase its own tail.
Roona's fingers flew across the vault's biometric panel, overriding its DNA scanner with the copied imprint of the dead man's thumb. The scanner beeped, hesitated, then flashed green with the resigned sigh of a beaten opponent. The vault door hissed open, revealing rows of artifacts floating in stasis fields—their glow painting her emerald scales in shifting hues.
Xander's nostrils flared as the final firewall crumbled. The datapad screen exploded into a constellation of access codes—maintenance shafts, guard rotations, even the climate control for the vault's humidity stabilizers. He slammed the "execute" command with a knuckle that still smelled like champagne and Twi'lek perfume.
Koraz stared into the security cam's blinking red eye with a full grin—the kind that showed too many teeth, the kind that made Rodian bounty hunters rethink their life choices. He hesitated just long enough for the camera's autofocus to whir and lock onto his face before firing. The blast punched through the lens with a satisfying pop of shattering glass and sparking circuitry. Smoke curled from the ruined housing like a dying candle.
Koraz's fingers curled around the Geonosian blaster's pitted grip—a deliberate choice, its ostentatious carvings and erratic power fluctuations making it the perfect decoy. He tipped the barrel toward the vault's stasis lighting, watching refraction patterns dance across the ceiling like agitated insects. "Tacky," he announced loud enough for nearby surveillance to catch, yanking the rifle's charging lever with unnecessary force. The resulting energy whine made three floating artifacts wobble in their fields.
Roona's cloaked form blurred past the motion sensors in incremental slides—left foot paused to the floor for six seconds, right foot placed with glacial precision. Her replacement data cylinder hovered between her fingers, its surface matching the original's polished gleam. The swap would take 1.8 seconds longer than optimal.
Roona mouthed only a single Huttese word through the encrypted comms: "Foontah." The switch was successful. It was time to get moving.
Koraz's blaster bolt shattered the security cam in the hall with surgical precision, glass shards raining onto the corridor's durasteel floor. Koraz was rushing for the main lobby on this level and down the turbo lift. His goal now was both escape and drawing the guards' attention from Roona's departure.
In the vault., Roona's cloak rippled as she slid the counterfeit data cylinder into the knapsack—the movement fluid, practiced. The artifact pulsed once in its stasis field before settling back into docile silence. Roona pulled the cloak tightly about her and headed back up the lift.
The Redswamp guards were notorious for their twitchiness during large events—too many variables, too much movement. Koraz had watched three of them jump at their own shadows near the ornamental fountains earlier.
Koraz tapped his security comm twice—an acknowledgment without words—and adjusted the unfamiliar fit of his crimson tunic. The fabric clung to his shoulders like a second skin, too stiff for proper movement. "Cover the turbolifts," he told Bhazzo, jerking his chin toward the milling crowd. "I'll handle the sweep."
The young Rodian's bulbous eyes darted toward the gala floor, his fingers twitching near his holster. "But protocol says—"
"Protocol's for people who can't improvise." Koraz flashed teeth in what might've been a grin if not for the predatory sharpness. He didn't wait for a response, heading into the turbolift with the practiced ease of a hunter slipping between trees.
The noise of the closing doors swallowed Bhazzo's protests. Up on the 64th floor Koraz wove through clusters of laughing aristocrats, his horns angling to catch fragmented conversations. A Twi'lek matron in holographic silks gestured wildly with a champagne flute, her lekku twitching as she recounted some scandal. Koraz sidestepped her flailing arm without breaking stride. The Betu Symphonic Ensemble had begun playing and many guests had gathered to listen to this touring ensemble, comprised of two dozen musicians from all over the continent of Betu.
Koraz's secret comm buzzed again in his ear. He angled his body into the shadow of a towering Kashyyyk fern display, thumbing the concealed receiver. Roona's voice crackled through, stripped of inflection by encryption: *"Can't reach vault. Need gun help."*
Looking for a means to leave the floor, Koraz glanced around. The Rodian guard two meters away was busy confiscating a smuggled vibroknife from a drunken Sullustan delegate—perfect distraction. Koraz issued rapid-fire acknowledgment: "Understood. Redirecting."
Koraz descended the museum's grand staircase with the calculated nonchalance of a predator circling prey—each step measured to avoid drawing attention, yet deliberate enough to suggest he belonged. The polished banister vibrated faintly beneath his fingertips as distant laughter and clinking glassware drifted up from the gala below. Halfway down, he paused beside an oversized holographic mural depicting the Siege of Kuat, tilting his head as if admiring the artistry while his peripheral vision tracked movement in the corridor ahead. Two Redswamp guards lingered near a service alcove, their postures slack with boredom. Koraz exhaled through his nostrils—an old hunter's trick to steady his pulse—before continuing downward, his boots whispering against the carpeted steps.
The Special Collections wing announced itself with a subtle shift in atmosphere—cooler air, hushed lighting, and the faint ozone tang of active preservation fields. He rounded a display and spotted the anomaly immediately: Roona stood there leaning against the wall, her cloaking cloak obscuring her from electronic detection.
"Come. Three guards." Roona's whisper carried the same clinical detachment as a surgeon counting scalpel strokes. She pressed her suction-tipped fingers against a seemingly blank section of the museum wall, triggering a nearly imperceptible seam to hiss open. The hidden door revealed a brightly lit security corridor bathed in the flickering blue glow of surveillance monitors. The dead technician's blood was now congealing in sticky strands across the durasteel floor just outside the door where the Rodian Scout had ambushed him.
Roona moved ahead like a shadow given form, her emerald dress concealed by the cloak. She paused at a door that apparently led to the vault antechamber, her elongated Rodian fingers flicking three quick signals: two humans, one Twi'lek. Heat signatures pulsed on her wrist-mounted scanner like dying stars.
Roona's blaster slid into her palm with the quiet inevitability of a falling leaf—no click, no scrape, just the faintest whisper of polymer against scaled flesh. She held up three suction-tipped fingers, counting down in the dim glow of the corridor's emergency lighting. Two. One. The door hissed open.
Three guards stood clustered around a holodisplay flickering with security feeds—two humans in Redswamp crimson, their shoulders tense beneath the stiff fabric, and a Twi'lek whose lekku twitched with nervous energy. The room contained a number of crates that had stacked around the triangular shaped room.
Koraz's blaster bolt punched through the first guard's throat before the man could finish turning—a single, precise shot that sent the Redswamp mercenary crumpling against a crate of stolen Corellian artifacts. The Twi'lek's scream died in her lekku as Roona's follow-up shot grazed her shoulder, spinning her into the holodisplay with a shower of sparks. Then everything dissolved into strobing muzzle flashes and the acrid tang of scorched plastoid.
Koraz felt the return fire before he heard it—a searing line of heat across his ribs as a blaster bolt skimmed the edge of his stolen security tunic. The fabric smoldered, stinging his Iktochi hide beneath. Roona hissed beside him, her emerald cloak flaring as a glancing hit charred the scales along her forearm. Their attackers weren't amateurs; these were professionals who'd positioned themselves with clear fields of fire between the crates.
The Twi'lek guard's lekku spasmed as she scrambled for cover, her blaster discharging wildly into a crate of ancient Alderaanian pottery. Koraz didn't give her the chance to aim—his second shot punched through her left lekku, sending her reeling into a display case of fragile Ithorian wind chimes. The resulting cacophony of shattering crystal masked Roona's vibroblade finding the second human guard's kidney from behind.
It was over in seven seconds.
The Twi'lek guard's body slumped against the shattered Ithorian chimes with a discordant chime that lingered in the air like a bad joke. Koraz was already moving, his clawed fingers tearing into the nearest crate with deliberate theatrics—plastoid splintering under his grip as he upended its contents across the floor in a cascade of stolen Alderaanian artifacts. "Make it messy," he growled, kicking over another crate for good measure. The durasteel container hit the ground with a hollow boom, scattering crystalline shards that skittered across the floor like fleeing insects.
Roona's scaled fingers danced across her datapad with surgical precision, pulling up a holographic schematic of the museum's upper levels. "Xander," she hissed into the comm, her voice stripped of inflection by encryption, "Need you. Now." The pad's glow cast eerie shadows across her angular face as she watched Koraz methodically demolish the carefully arranged theft—his boot crushing a delicate Naboo music box underfoot with unnecessary force.
Xander's fingers twitched against the stem of his champagne flute when the encrypted pulse vibrated through his ear comm. He didn't break stride—years of grifting had trained that tell out of him—but the Bith musician's discordant note matched his racing pulse as he angled toward the kitchen. A Twi'lek socialite brushed against his arm, her perfume cloying as she grabbed a drink from his serving tray.
The kitchen's steam enveloped him like a smuggler's embrace—thick, concealing, and vaguely threatening. He ducked beneath a floating tray of seared nerf medallions, sliding into the corner where FL-AR3 had "accidentally" disabled the surveillance cam earlier. The datapad's screen flickered to life in his palm, its authentication protocols already crumbling under Roona's preliminary hacks. Blue static danced across Xander's knuckles as he jacked into the museum's security grid through the dead technician's stolen credentials.
Four floors below, Roona's lift shuddered to a stop. Her infrared scan painted the corridor in thermal gradients - empty. She exhaled through her mouth, the sound lost beneath the lift's hydraulic sigh. The technician's datapad in her grip vibrated once—Xander's signal—as the first security layer dissolved under their tandem assault.
Back in the kitchen, Xander's teeth ground together as the museum's firewall retaliated. Alarms blared in his skull through the neural link, his vision fracturing into overlapping schematics and error reports. A sous-chef's cleaver hit the cutting board beside him in perfect sync with the system's counterattack—he rode the rhythm, twisting the intrusion into a recursive loop that made the security AI chase its own tail.
Roona's fingers flew across the vault's biometric panel, overriding its DNA scanner with the copied imprint of the dead man's thumb. The scanner beeped, hesitated, then flashed green with the resigned sigh of a beaten opponent. The vault door hissed open, revealing rows of artifacts floating in stasis fields—their glow painting her emerald scales in shifting hues.
Xander's nostrils flared as the final firewall crumbled. The datapad screen exploded into a constellation of access codes—maintenance shafts, guard rotations, even the climate control for the vault's humidity stabilizers. He slammed the "execute" command with a knuckle that still smelled like champagne and Twi'lek perfume.
Koraz stared into the security cam's blinking red eye with a full grin—the kind that showed too many teeth, the kind that made Rodian bounty hunters rethink their life choices. He hesitated just long enough for the camera's autofocus to whir and lock onto his face before firing. The blast punched through the lens with a satisfying pop of shattering glass and sparking circuitry. Smoke curled from the ruined housing like a dying candle.
Koraz's fingers curled around the Geonosian blaster's pitted grip—a deliberate choice, its ostentatious carvings and erratic power fluctuations making it the perfect decoy. He tipped the barrel toward the vault's stasis lighting, watching refraction patterns dance across the ceiling like agitated insects. "Tacky," he announced loud enough for nearby surveillance to catch, yanking the rifle's charging lever with unnecessary force. The resulting energy whine made three floating artifacts wobble in their fields.
Roona's cloaked form blurred past the motion sensors in incremental slides—left foot paused to the floor for six seconds, right foot placed with glacial precision. Her replacement data cylinder hovered between her fingers, its surface matching the original's polished gleam. The swap would take 1.8 seconds longer than optimal.
Roona mouthed only a single Huttese word through the encrypted comms: "Foontah." The switch was successful. It was time to get moving.
Koraz's blaster bolt shattered the security cam in the hall with surgical precision, glass shards raining onto the corridor's durasteel floor. Koraz was rushing for the main lobby on this level and down the turbo lift. His goal now was both escape and drawing the guards' attention from Roona's departure.
In the vault., Roona's cloak rippled as she slid the counterfeit data cylinder into the knapsack—the movement fluid, practiced. The artifact pulsed once in its stasis field before settling back into docile silence. Roona pulled the cloak tightly about her and headed back up the lift.
Re: Skipping the Check (Episode 24)
"Foontah." The Huttese word essentially translated to 'satisfactory'. It indicated that Roona had the stolen data cylinder in hand and it was time to make their departure.
Koraz felt the lift decelerate before the indicator flashed—three floors to lobby level, two more seconds of contained breath. His clawed thumb hovered over the comm's panic sequence, ready to blast the emergency override if security lockdown protocols engaged. The car shuddered to a stop with the hydraulic sigh of a tired beast, its doors parting to reveal the lobby of the first floor and his erstwhile security partner, Bhazzo.
The alarm klaxons hit Koraz's eardrums like a vibroblade to the skull—sharp, insistent, and guaranteed to leave a headache. Bhazzo's blaster trembled in the Rodian's grip as he leveled it at Koraz's chest, the muzzle wavering between hesitation and protocol. Koraz didn't give him time to decide. His thumb switched the blaster to stun and fired, catching Bhazzo square in the chest with a jolt that sent the guard crumpling against the security console. The blaster clattered to the floor. Koraz snatched it up, thumbing the safety off with practiced ease as he stepped over Bhazzo's twitching form.
His encrypted comm buzzed twice—Pron's confirmation pulse. The Sullustan would be waiting with the airspeeder, engines hot in the designated alley three blocks east. They were home free. Almost. Assuming the lifts weren't locked down. Assuming Roona made it out clean. Assuming a dozen other variables that liked to kriff you sideways at the worst possible moment.
The gala's symphony screeched to a discordant halt mid-bar as emergency klaxons blared through the grand hall. A Twi'lek socialite dropped her champagne flute—the crystal shattering like punctuation to the sudden chaos. Spanner felt the crowd's panic surge before he saw it; the instinctive press of bodies toward exits, the sharp scent of adrenaline cutting through perfume and alcohol.
Bollin materialized on the raised dais with practiced ease, his burgundy robes swirling dramatically as he raised both hands. "Ladies and gentlemen! A thousand apologies—this is merely a security drill!" His voice carried the smooth, rehearsed lie of a man who'd pacified richer crowds with worse deceptions. "My now-former head of security insisted on testing our protocols tonight—poor timing, I admit!" Somewhere in the crowd, Ranem Tiiv was hiding a pleased smirk. Across the gala floor, Irdis nodded to Tora, an unspoken confirmation that the data cylinder would be in their hands once more.
Spanner didn't wait for the full performance. He shoulder-checked past a trembling Sullustan diplomat, weaving toward the grand staircase with the desperate grace of a fringer who'd spent years slipping through tighter spots. The two Redswamp guards blocking the descending steps didn't budge—their crimson-armored shoulders forming an immovable wall beneath the flickering emergency lights.
"Back up, kid," the left guard growled, his scarred human face twisting into a sneer. The right guard—a Rodian whose fingers hovered near his holster—said nothing but tracked Spanner's every twitch with bulbous black eyes.
Spanner's fingers twitched toward the concealed vibroblade in his sleeve—then stopped. The Rodian guard's suction-tipped fingers had already unsnapped his holster. A standoff here would bottleneck the staircase, trapping Roona wherever she was in the museum's labyrinthine halls. He forced a shaky grin and raised his hands, backing away with exaggerated steps. "Easy, boss. Just following the crowd."
FL-AR3's photoreceptors flickered as he processed escape vectors. The droid's internal chrono marked 47 seconds since Roona's last encrypted pulse—she should've cleared the security hall by now. His servos whined faintly as he angled through the panicked aristocrats, drink tray tilted to spill blue liquor across a Selonian's tail. The resulting commotion gave him cover to issue an internal comm message: Status?
There was no response, which began to worry the droid. Then FL-AR3's photoreceptors flickered with a burst of static—the closest thing to a double-take his systems allowed. There, leaning against a pillar near the security door with all the casual grace of someone waiting for a taxi, stood Roona. Her emerald dress clung to her angular frame, the folded cloak draped over one shoulder like an afterthought. She sipped something violently blue through a straw, her bulbous black eyes scanning the chaos with detached amusement.
Spanner nearly tripped over his own feet. "What the kriff—" His whisper died as Roona's free hand flicked upward in a subtle wave.
"Oh, you hurt your arm in the panic," Spanner announced loudly enough for nearby guests to overhear, gesturing at Roona's deliberately slouched posture and arm hidden under the cloak.. His fingers dug into FL-AR3's wrist joint a half-second before the droid could blurt something catastrophically literal about Roona's uninjured arms. The Rodian's sleeve was already ripped—a tactical tear she'd made while climbing through a ventilation shaft minutes earlier. "Let's get you to the kitchen for medical care."
FL-AR3's photoreceptors dimmed in understanding as he processed the lie. With exaggerated concern, the droid draped Roona's 'good arm' over his shoulder plating, his vocal modulator pitching higher into a convincingly distressed tone. "The third-degree plasma burns require immediate dermal regeneration!" he declared, steering her through the crowd with such dramatic urgency that a nearby Bothan doctor actually took two steps toward them before realizing it was catering staff handling the situation.
Spanner's whisper cut through the kitchen's steam like a vibroblade through synthflesh. "Did you—?"
Roona's lips barely moved as she let the word slip between sips of her blue drink. "*Aripuni*."
The tension bled from Spanner's shoulders instantly—childhood on Rodia's merchant docks had burned that particular response into his muscle memory. *Yes indeed*. No tails, no trackers, no last-second kriffery. The data cylinder was theirs.
FL-AR3's photoreceptors flickered yellow in silent interrogation. Spanner tapped twice against the droid's shoulder plating—their private code for mission success. The droid's internal cooling vents hissed in what might've been relief if he'd been programmed for such inefficiency.
Xander leaned against the kitchen's industrial freezer, the hum of its coolant system masking the chatter of his teeth. He'd picked the spot deliberately—thermal interference scrambled most scanners, and the freezer's vibration covered the click of his comm activating. "Pron, Koraz—kitchen exit's hot. Cargo pad exterior. Move fast, move messy."
The reply came through in Koraz's voice, crackling with interference from the museum's jamming field. "Copy. Extraction inbound."
Xander threw open the service door just in time to see the airspeeder's undercarriage scrape sparks across the duracrete, its repulsors whining like a gut-shot dewback. Koraz wrestled the controls with all the finesse of a drunk bantha—which explained why Pron was clutching the dashboard with both hands, his usually ruddy Sullustan complexion now tinged a concerning shade of green.
"You call that landing?" Xander hissed, ducking as the speeder's starboard fin clipped the dumpster beside him.
"It was either that or let Pron fly in his ill state," Koraz growled, his claws gripping the speeder's shuddering controls as Roona vaulted over the passenger seat into the driver's position. The airspeeder lurched sideways, its repulsor whine pitching into a scream when she wrenched the stick hard portside to avoid a security skiff's searchlight sweep. Behind them, Spanner nearly lost his grip on the satchel as Roona's abrupt maneuver sent the speeder skidding across two lanes of Rodia's upper traffic tiers. The data cylinder inside thumped against his ribs like a second heartbeat.
Xander's knees hit the cargo compartment floor with a metallic thud as he struggled to strap Pron into the makeshift med cot FL-AR3 had cobbled together from stolen catering linens and a repurposed dessert trolley. The Sullustan's groan dissolved into a wet cough. "Next time," Pron wheezed, clutching his stomach as the speeder banked sharply around a neon-lit billboard.
FL-AR3's cranial casing slammed against the airspeeder's interior wall with a metallic *clang* that would've hurt if he'd been programmed for pain receptors. His photoreceptors flickered yellow-white in rapid succession as his gyroscopic stabilizers recalibrated—just in time to see Spanner's boot heel skid across the floor plating toward his face. The droid caught the kid's ankle with a servo-powered grip milliseconds before impact, his vocal modulator clicking into an approximation of dry amusement. "Your gratitude," he intoned, "is overwhelming."
Spanner's reply was lost in the shriek of overstressed repulsors as Roona wrenched the speeder into a near-vertical dive between two skyscrapers. The sudden g-force pinned everyone against their seats—everyone except FL-AR3, whose magnetic clamps engaged automatically. His free arm snapped out to brace Pron against the dessert trolley-turned-med-cot as the Sullustan's lunch made a reappearance.
The airspeeder's repulsors screamed like a gutted bantha as Roona banked hard starboard, skimming so close to a passing tram that Spanner could've licked the advertisements off its side. FL-AR3's magnetic clamps kept him anchored while the rest of the crew clung to whatever they could grab—except Pron, who was now regretting those three helpings of nerf medallions.
Roona's driving wasn't just reckless; it was nearly improbable. She threaded the speeder through gaps that barely existed, exploiting blind spots in the patrol grids with the precision of a neurosurgeon wielding a vibroblade. Every near-miss wasn't luck—it was calculated, the product of her Rodian reflexes and a knowledge of Karsteeku's traffic patterns, studied before the heist began.
Roona's fingers danced across the speeder's stolen nav console, her Rodian eyes narrowing at the flickering overlay of Karsteeku's industrial sectors. The stolen airspeeder had approximately three minutes before its transponder tripped the municipal security net—she could already feel the phantom itch of surveillance drones scanning their hull.
"Prep for pedestrian," she snapped, wrenching the controls sideways into a service alley so narrow the speeder's paint scraped off on both walls. The sudden deceleration sent Pron's dessert trolley careening into FL-AR3's legs with a clatter of stainless steel and Sullustan curses.
The stolen airspeeder's repulsors coughed like a dying mynock as Roona guided it into the rusted skeleton of a parking garage—one of those prefab structures the Imperial architects had slapped up during the Clone Wars and promptly forgotten. Spanner could already see the logic: in this derelict wedge between the financial spire and the slums, surveillance droids came to die. Their carcasses dangled from exposed wiring like mechanical bats, picked clean of anything valuable decades ago.
"Exit vectors?" Koraz growled, his blaster sweeping the shadows where the garage's flickering lumas failed to penetrate.
The stolen airspeeder groaned like a dying tooka as Roona killed the repulsors behind a derelict moisture vaporator. Its once-gleaming hull now bore the scars of their escape—scorched paint from near-miss blaster fire, dented fenders from alleyway gymnastics, and one suspiciously sticky patch where Pron's lunch had made an unscheduled reappearance.
"Clean as a Hutt's conscience," Koraz muttered, wiping fingerprints off the console with his sleeve. He paused, sniffed the fabric, and immediately regretted it.
Spanner's boots hit the duracrete before the vehicle fully settled, his knees bending instinctively to absorb the impact—a reflex honed jumping off moving cargo skiffs while working for Mendesh Primm. He tossed the satchel to Xander, who caught it one-handed while using the other to steady Pron against a support beam. The Sullustan looked like he'd been spun through a centrifuge twice.
"Urban transports," Roona said, still dressed in her now-torn formal dress. "Three transfers. Standard evasion pattern."
Koraz felt the lift decelerate before the indicator flashed—three floors to lobby level, two more seconds of contained breath. His clawed thumb hovered over the comm's panic sequence, ready to blast the emergency override if security lockdown protocols engaged. The car shuddered to a stop with the hydraulic sigh of a tired beast, its doors parting to reveal the lobby of the first floor and his erstwhile security partner, Bhazzo.
The alarm klaxons hit Koraz's eardrums like a vibroblade to the skull—sharp, insistent, and guaranteed to leave a headache. Bhazzo's blaster trembled in the Rodian's grip as he leveled it at Koraz's chest, the muzzle wavering between hesitation and protocol. Koraz didn't give him time to decide. His thumb switched the blaster to stun and fired, catching Bhazzo square in the chest with a jolt that sent the guard crumpling against the security console. The blaster clattered to the floor. Koraz snatched it up, thumbing the safety off with practiced ease as he stepped over Bhazzo's twitching form.
His encrypted comm buzzed twice—Pron's confirmation pulse. The Sullustan would be waiting with the airspeeder, engines hot in the designated alley three blocks east. They were home free. Almost. Assuming the lifts weren't locked down. Assuming Roona made it out clean. Assuming a dozen other variables that liked to kriff you sideways at the worst possible moment.
The gala's symphony screeched to a discordant halt mid-bar as emergency klaxons blared through the grand hall. A Twi'lek socialite dropped her champagne flute—the crystal shattering like punctuation to the sudden chaos. Spanner felt the crowd's panic surge before he saw it; the instinctive press of bodies toward exits, the sharp scent of adrenaline cutting through perfume and alcohol.
Bollin materialized on the raised dais with practiced ease, his burgundy robes swirling dramatically as he raised both hands. "Ladies and gentlemen! A thousand apologies—this is merely a security drill!" His voice carried the smooth, rehearsed lie of a man who'd pacified richer crowds with worse deceptions. "My now-former head of security insisted on testing our protocols tonight—poor timing, I admit!" Somewhere in the crowd, Ranem Tiiv was hiding a pleased smirk. Across the gala floor, Irdis nodded to Tora, an unspoken confirmation that the data cylinder would be in their hands once more.
Spanner didn't wait for the full performance. He shoulder-checked past a trembling Sullustan diplomat, weaving toward the grand staircase with the desperate grace of a fringer who'd spent years slipping through tighter spots. The two Redswamp guards blocking the descending steps didn't budge—their crimson-armored shoulders forming an immovable wall beneath the flickering emergency lights.
"Back up, kid," the left guard growled, his scarred human face twisting into a sneer. The right guard—a Rodian whose fingers hovered near his holster—said nothing but tracked Spanner's every twitch with bulbous black eyes.
Spanner's fingers twitched toward the concealed vibroblade in his sleeve—then stopped. The Rodian guard's suction-tipped fingers had already unsnapped his holster. A standoff here would bottleneck the staircase, trapping Roona wherever she was in the museum's labyrinthine halls. He forced a shaky grin and raised his hands, backing away with exaggerated steps. "Easy, boss. Just following the crowd."
FL-AR3's photoreceptors flickered as he processed escape vectors. The droid's internal chrono marked 47 seconds since Roona's last encrypted pulse—she should've cleared the security hall by now. His servos whined faintly as he angled through the panicked aristocrats, drink tray tilted to spill blue liquor across a Selonian's tail. The resulting commotion gave him cover to issue an internal comm message: Status?
There was no response, which began to worry the droid. Then FL-AR3's photoreceptors flickered with a burst of static—the closest thing to a double-take his systems allowed. There, leaning against a pillar near the security door with all the casual grace of someone waiting for a taxi, stood Roona. Her emerald dress clung to her angular frame, the folded cloak draped over one shoulder like an afterthought. She sipped something violently blue through a straw, her bulbous black eyes scanning the chaos with detached amusement.
Spanner nearly tripped over his own feet. "What the kriff—" His whisper died as Roona's free hand flicked upward in a subtle wave.
"Oh, you hurt your arm in the panic," Spanner announced loudly enough for nearby guests to overhear, gesturing at Roona's deliberately slouched posture and arm hidden under the cloak.. His fingers dug into FL-AR3's wrist joint a half-second before the droid could blurt something catastrophically literal about Roona's uninjured arms. The Rodian's sleeve was already ripped—a tactical tear she'd made while climbing through a ventilation shaft minutes earlier. "Let's get you to the kitchen for medical care."
FL-AR3's photoreceptors dimmed in understanding as he processed the lie. With exaggerated concern, the droid draped Roona's 'good arm' over his shoulder plating, his vocal modulator pitching higher into a convincingly distressed tone. "The third-degree plasma burns require immediate dermal regeneration!" he declared, steering her through the crowd with such dramatic urgency that a nearby Bothan doctor actually took two steps toward them before realizing it was catering staff handling the situation.
Spanner's whisper cut through the kitchen's steam like a vibroblade through synthflesh. "Did you—?"
Roona's lips barely moved as she let the word slip between sips of her blue drink. "*Aripuni*."
The tension bled from Spanner's shoulders instantly—childhood on Rodia's merchant docks had burned that particular response into his muscle memory. *Yes indeed*. No tails, no trackers, no last-second kriffery. The data cylinder was theirs.
FL-AR3's photoreceptors flickered yellow in silent interrogation. Spanner tapped twice against the droid's shoulder plating—their private code for mission success. The droid's internal cooling vents hissed in what might've been relief if he'd been programmed for such inefficiency.
Xander leaned against the kitchen's industrial freezer, the hum of its coolant system masking the chatter of his teeth. He'd picked the spot deliberately—thermal interference scrambled most scanners, and the freezer's vibration covered the click of his comm activating. "Pron, Koraz—kitchen exit's hot. Cargo pad exterior. Move fast, move messy."
The reply came through in Koraz's voice, crackling with interference from the museum's jamming field. "Copy. Extraction inbound."
Xander threw open the service door just in time to see the airspeeder's undercarriage scrape sparks across the duracrete, its repulsors whining like a gut-shot dewback. Koraz wrestled the controls with all the finesse of a drunk bantha—which explained why Pron was clutching the dashboard with both hands, his usually ruddy Sullustan complexion now tinged a concerning shade of green.
"You call that landing?" Xander hissed, ducking as the speeder's starboard fin clipped the dumpster beside him.
"It was either that or let Pron fly in his ill state," Koraz growled, his claws gripping the speeder's shuddering controls as Roona vaulted over the passenger seat into the driver's position. The airspeeder lurched sideways, its repulsor whine pitching into a scream when she wrenched the stick hard portside to avoid a security skiff's searchlight sweep. Behind them, Spanner nearly lost his grip on the satchel as Roona's abrupt maneuver sent the speeder skidding across two lanes of Rodia's upper traffic tiers. The data cylinder inside thumped against his ribs like a second heartbeat.
Xander's knees hit the cargo compartment floor with a metallic thud as he struggled to strap Pron into the makeshift med cot FL-AR3 had cobbled together from stolen catering linens and a repurposed dessert trolley. The Sullustan's groan dissolved into a wet cough. "Next time," Pron wheezed, clutching his stomach as the speeder banked sharply around a neon-lit billboard.
FL-AR3's cranial casing slammed against the airspeeder's interior wall with a metallic *clang* that would've hurt if he'd been programmed for pain receptors. His photoreceptors flickered yellow-white in rapid succession as his gyroscopic stabilizers recalibrated—just in time to see Spanner's boot heel skid across the floor plating toward his face. The droid caught the kid's ankle with a servo-powered grip milliseconds before impact, his vocal modulator clicking into an approximation of dry amusement. "Your gratitude," he intoned, "is overwhelming."
Spanner's reply was lost in the shriek of overstressed repulsors as Roona wrenched the speeder into a near-vertical dive between two skyscrapers. The sudden g-force pinned everyone against their seats—everyone except FL-AR3, whose magnetic clamps engaged automatically. His free arm snapped out to brace Pron against the dessert trolley-turned-med-cot as the Sullustan's lunch made a reappearance.
The airspeeder's repulsors screamed like a gutted bantha as Roona banked hard starboard, skimming so close to a passing tram that Spanner could've licked the advertisements off its side. FL-AR3's magnetic clamps kept him anchored while the rest of the crew clung to whatever they could grab—except Pron, who was now regretting those three helpings of nerf medallions.
Roona's driving wasn't just reckless; it was nearly improbable. She threaded the speeder through gaps that barely existed, exploiting blind spots in the patrol grids with the precision of a neurosurgeon wielding a vibroblade. Every near-miss wasn't luck—it was calculated, the product of her Rodian reflexes and a knowledge of Karsteeku's traffic patterns, studied before the heist began.
Roona's fingers danced across the speeder's stolen nav console, her Rodian eyes narrowing at the flickering overlay of Karsteeku's industrial sectors. The stolen airspeeder had approximately three minutes before its transponder tripped the municipal security net—she could already feel the phantom itch of surveillance drones scanning their hull.
"Prep for pedestrian," she snapped, wrenching the controls sideways into a service alley so narrow the speeder's paint scraped off on both walls. The sudden deceleration sent Pron's dessert trolley careening into FL-AR3's legs with a clatter of stainless steel and Sullustan curses.
The stolen airspeeder's repulsors coughed like a dying mynock as Roona guided it into the rusted skeleton of a parking garage—one of those prefab structures the Imperial architects had slapped up during the Clone Wars and promptly forgotten. Spanner could already see the logic: in this derelict wedge between the financial spire and the slums, surveillance droids came to die. Their carcasses dangled from exposed wiring like mechanical bats, picked clean of anything valuable decades ago.
"Exit vectors?" Koraz growled, his blaster sweeping the shadows where the garage's flickering lumas failed to penetrate.
The stolen airspeeder groaned like a dying tooka as Roona killed the repulsors behind a derelict moisture vaporator. Its once-gleaming hull now bore the scars of their escape—scorched paint from near-miss blaster fire, dented fenders from alleyway gymnastics, and one suspiciously sticky patch where Pron's lunch had made an unscheduled reappearance.
"Clean as a Hutt's conscience," Koraz muttered, wiping fingerprints off the console with his sleeve. He paused, sniffed the fabric, and immediately regretted it.
Spanner's boots hit the duracrete before the vehicle fully settled, his knees bending instinctively to absorb the impact—a reflex honed jumping off moving cargo skiffs while working for Mendesh Primm. He tossed the satchel to Xander, who caught it one-handed while using the other to steady Pron against a support beam. The Sullustan looked like he'd been spun through a centrifuge twice.
"Urban transports," Roona said, still dressed in her now-torn formal dress. "Three transfers. Standard evasion pattern."
Re: Skipping the Check (Episode 24)
Flush with the success of the mission to steal back the data cylinder that Tora Ninn and the late Dr. Gena Tann had uncovered, the team returned to the secret research facility where they originally met up with Irdis. The Chiss doctor and his benefactor, and their customer, Ranem Tiiv, would be engaged most of the night at the party. It would not do for them to cut out after the chaos that had ensued. Given that, the crew settled in for a night's rest and a wait until Irdis returned the next day.
The safehouse smelled of recycled air and burnt caf—the kind of stale tension that settled into a room when a job was almost, but not quite, done. Irdis stood by the holoprojector, his crimson eyes flickering between the crew and the counterfeit cylinder Roona had planted in the museum vault. The projector showed the scene of Bollin proudly displaying the fake data cylinder, once the commotion from the break in had settled down. The Chiss’s fingers tapped a silent rhythm against his thigh..
Roona opened her satchel and tossed the real cylinder onto the table with a clink that sounded louder than it should’ve. It rolled once before stopping perfectly in front of Irdis. No fanfare, no speech—just the quiet satisfaction of a job executed. The Rodian leaned back, her suction-tipped fingers laced behind her head, watching Irdis’s face for the telltale twitch of satisfaction.
Irdis's crimson eyes flickered with something dangerously close to amusement as the holoprojector replayed Bollin's triumphant display—the counterfeit cylinder held aloft like some sacred relic while Ranem Tiiv's forced smile twitched at the edges. "Difficult to disguise satisfaction when one knows the truth," the Chiss murmured, his voice smooth as chilled synthleather. He tapped the console, freezing the image on Ranem's subtly clenched jaw. "Observe. The microexpression preceding his congratulatory nod. Textbook suppressed glee."
FL-AR3's photoreceptors zoomed in, capturing the fractional second before Ranem's facial control reasserted itself. "Fascinating," the droid intoned. "Humanoid deception protocols are inefficient yet statistically effective."
Koraz slid the antique rifle across the table with the same nonchalance as a gambler tossing in a losing hand. The weapon's durasteel plating bore the oxidized scars of centuries—a relic from the Pius Dea era, if the corroded insignia on its stock was anything to go by. Irdis's fingers hovered over it like a surgeon assessing a cadaver. "This will complicate Bollin's forensic accounting," he observed. The Chiss tilted the rifle toward the light, exposing the telltale pitting of a Corellian gunsmith's mark. "Sufficiently valuable to justify breaking into the vault, yet too conspicuous to move on the open market. Ideal misdirection."
Roona's fingers tapped against the pulse blaster she'd liberated from its stasis field—a sleek monstrosity of bronzed alloy and frayed wiring that predated the Sith Wars. The weapon hummed when her thumb brushed its activation rune, emitting a subsonic vibration that made Spanner's molars ache. "Four millennia old," she said, rotating the blaster to display the Rakatan glyphs etched along its barrel. "Still holds half charge. Bollin's curators will weep from this years."
Xander whistled low and appreciatively—the sound cut short when Pron elbowed him sharply in the ribs. The Sullustan's complexion had regained some of its usual ruddy hue, though his eyes still looked slightly unfocused. "Stop drooling," Pron muttered. "It's not like we get to keep—"
The pulse blaster's energy cell chose that moment to emit a decaying whine. Roona slapped the emergency vent switch with practiced efficiency, sending a gout of blue-white plasma scorching across the ceiling tiles. FL-AR3's photoreceptors dilated instantly, capturing the thermal bloom in high-resolution before announcing, "Interesting! Pre-Duinuogwuin containment technology appears to lack fail-safes."
Irdis tapped the holoprojector, and the image shifted to a star chart of the Outer Rim. "Your reward," he said, tracing a glowing route from Rodia to Geonosis with one slender finger, "includes passage aboard the *Silent Shadow*, a freighter with... discreet affiliations." The corner of his mouth twitched—the closest thing to a smile Spanner had ever seen from the Chiss. "Captain Vos won't ask questions, provided you don't answer any."
Irdis's fingers danced across the holoprojector controls, slicing the star map into sectors with surgical precision. "The *Silent Shadow* departs Dock Aurek-Nine at 0400 standard," he said, marking the location with a pulse of crimson light. "Captain Vos has been compensated for discretion—and for forgetting your faces the moment you disembark." The Chiss's smile was thinner than a vibroblade's edge. "A talent of his."
Spanner leaned over the table, his shadow swallowing half the projected route. "Seven-five-zero-zero?" He tapped the credit chit Irdis had slid toward them—the numbers gleaming a faint blue under the safehouse's dim lighting. "That's satisfactory."
A short time later, the blaster pistols clattered onto the pawnbroker's counter with the weight of bad decisions—four weapons liberated from dead hands. Spanner's eye twitched as the Rodian shopkeeper sucked his teeth, bulbous eyes scanning the weapons with practiced disdain. "Nothing special," he muttered, flipping open the charging chambers with a grimy tool. "Imperial serials filed off... sloppy work."
Spanner leaned against the counter with the casual arrogance of a kid who'd grown up haggling over scrap. "How about a ten percent markup for the risk," he said, tapping the shorter blaster's grip. "And that one's got a custom recoil buffer—listen." He dry-fired it. The *hiss-click* was smoother than any stock model.
The blaster exchange went smoother than Koraz had expected—mostly because Spanner had the face of a harmless dock rat and the haggling instincts of a Toydarian junk dealer. The kid emerged from the pawnshop with credits jingling in his pocket and a smirk that said he'd pocketed more than Koraz would ever know.
"Twelve hundred," Spanner announced, tossing the credit chit onto the safehouse table where Koraz sat cleaning his remaining weapons. The Iktotchi didn't look up from his work, but one ear twitched—the equivalence of a raised eyebrow. "Merchant tried to lowball me. Said the power cells were shot." He mimed the Rodian's wheezing voice perfectly. "Then I showed him the secondary charge ports."
Still later that afternoon, Imik Suum busied himself in the cluttered workshop of Irdis' secret facility, surrounded by an array of tools and devices designed for modifying and enhancing gear. The faint hum of machinery and the occasional sparks from a welding unit were the only sounds in the otherwise silent room. The Sullustan mod specialist glanced up, his eyes sparkling with enthusiasm as he spotted the team entering the workshop.
"Ah, welcome, welcome!" Imik exclaimed, his voice a blend of warmth and excitement. "For your help in rescuing my friend, Seng Windrunner, I couldn't be more pleased to assist you. I am quite skilled in modding many fantastic attachments for your gear that will elevate your capabilities, and as a reward for your stellar performance, I’m pleased to assist you in getting a discount on your purchases and doing the modifications for a full 25% off!"
As the team decided on their selections, Imik took notes on their choices and made preparations to customize each attachment to ensure perfect compatibility. "Once you’ve made your decisions, we can get started on collecting the gear and the modifications right away. With my expertise and your upcoming mission, you’ll be ready for anything."
With a nod of appreciation, the team felt the excitement building as they envisioned the modifications to their gear. Imik's presence was not only a reward for their hard work but also a beacon of opportunity as they prepared for their next adventure.
The safehouse smelled of recycled air and burnt caf—the kind of stale tension that settled into a room when a job was almost, but not quite, done. Irdis stood by the holoprojector, his crimson eyes flickering between the crew and the counterfeit cylinder Roona had planted in the museum vault. The projector showed the scene of Bollin proudly displaying the fake data cylinder, once the commotion from the break in had settled down. The Chiss’s fingers tapped a silent rhythm against his thigh..
Roona opened her satchel and tossed the real cylinder onto the table with a clink that sounded louder than it should’ve. It rolled once before stopping perfectly in front of Irdis. No fanfare, no speech—just the quiet satisfaction of a job executed. The Rodian leaned back, her suction-tipped fingers laced behind her head, watching Irdis’s face for the telltale twitch of satisfaction.
Irdis's crimson eyes flickered with something dangerously close to amusement as the holoprojector replayed Bollin's triumphant display—the counterfeit cylinder held aloft like some sacred relic while Ranem Tiiv's forced smile twitched at the edges. "Difficult to disguise satisfaction when one knows the truth," the Chiss murmured, his voice smooth as chilled synthleather. He tapped the console, freezing the image on Ranem's subtly clenched jaw. "Observe. The microexpression preceding his congratulatory nod. Textbook suppressed glee."
FL-AR3's photoreceptors zoomed in, capturing the fractional second before Ranem's facial control reasserted itself. "Fascinating," the droid intoned. "Humanoid deception protocols are inefficient yet statistically effective."
Koraz slid the antique rifle across the table with the same nonchalance as a gambler tossing in a losing hand. The weapon's durasteel plating bore the oxidized scars of centuries—a relic from the Pius Dea era, if the corroded insignia on its stock was anything to go by. Irdis's fingers hovered over it like a surgeon assessing a cadaver. "This will complicate Bollin's forensic accounting," he observed. The Chiss tilted the rifle toward the light, exposing the telltale pitting of a Corellian gunsmith's mark. "Sufficiently valuable to justify breaking into the vault, yet too conspicuous to move on the open market. Ideal misdirection."
Roona's fingers tapped against the pulse blaster she'd liberated from its stasis field—a sleek monstrosity of bronzed alloy and frayed wiring that predated the Sith Wars. The weapon hummed when her thumb brushed its activation rune, emitting a subsonic vibration that made Spanner's molars ache. "Four millennia old," she said, rotating the blaster to display the Rakatan glyphs etched along its barrel. "Still holds half charge. Bollin's curators will weep from this years."
Xander whistled low and appreciatively—the sound cut short when Pron elbowed him sharply in the ribs. The Sullustan's complexion had regained some of its usual ruddy hue, though his eyes still looked slightly unfocused. "Stop drooling," Pron muttered. "It's not like we get to keep—"
The pulse blaster's energy cell chose that moment to emit a decaying whine. Roona slapped the emergency vent switch with practiced efficiency, sending a gout of blue-white plasma scorching across the ceiling tiles. FL-AR3's photoreceptors dilated instantly, capturing the thermal bloom in high-resolution before announcing, "Interesting! Pre-Duinuogwuin containment technology appears to lack fail-safes."
Irdis tapped the holoprojector, and the image shifted to a star chart of the Outer Rim. "Your reward," he said, tracing a glowing route from Rodia to Geonosis with one slender finger, "includes passage aboard the *Silent Shadow*, a freighter with... discreet affiliations." The corner of his mouth twitched—the closest thing to a smile Spanner had ever seen from the Chiss. "Captain Vos won't ask questions, provided you don't answer any."
Irdis's fingers danced across the holoprojector controls, slicing the star map into sectors with surgical precision. "The *Silent Shadow* departs Dock Aurek-Nine at 0400 standard," he said, marking the location with a pulse of crimson light. "Captain Vos has been compensated for discretion—and for forgetting your faces the moment you disembark." The Chiss's smile was thinner than a vibroblade's edge. "A talent of his."
Spanner leaned over the table, his shadow swallowing half the projected route. "Seven-five-zero-zero?" He tapped the credit chit Irdis had slid toward them—the numbers gleaming a faint blue under the safehouse's dim lighting. "That's satisfactory."
A short time later, the blaster pistols clattered onto the pawnbroker's counter with the weight of bad decisions—four weapons liberated from dead hands. Spanner's eye twitched as the Rodian shopkeeper sucked his teeth, bulbous eyes scanning the weapons with practiced disdain. "Nothing special," he muttered, flipping open the charging chambers with a grimy tool. "Imperial serials filed off... sloppy work."
Spanner leaned against the counter with the casual arrogance of a kid who'd grown up haggling over scrap. "How about a ten percent markup for the risk," he said, tapping the shorter blaster's grip. "And that one's got a custom recoil buffer—listen." He dry-fired it. The *hiss-click* was smoother than any stock model.
The blaster exchange went smoother than Koraz had expected—mostly because Spanner had the face of a harmless dock rat and the haggling instincts of a Toydarian junk dealer. The kid emerged from the pawnshop with credits jingling in his pocket and a smirk that said he'd pocketed more than Koraz would ever know.
"Twelve hundred," Spanner announced, tossing the credit chit onto the safehouse table where Koraz sat cleaning his remaining weapons. The Iktotchi didn't look up from his work, but one ear twitched—the equivalence of a raised eyebrow. "Merchant tried to lowball me. Said the power cells were shot." He mimed the Rodian's wheezing voice perfectly. "Then I showed him the secondary charge ports."
Still later that afternoon, Imik Suum busied himself in the cluttered workshop of Irdis' secret facility, surrounded by an array of tools and devices designed for modifying and enhancing gear. The faint hum of machinery and the occasional sparks from a welding unit were the only sounds in the otherwise silent room. The Sullustan mod specialist glanced up, his eyes sparkling with enthusiasm as he spotted the team entering the workshop.
"Ah, welcome, welcome!" Imik exclaimed, his voice a blend of warmth and excitement. "For your help in rescuing my friend, Seng Windrunner, I couldn't be more pleased to assist you. I am quite skilled in modding many fantastic attachments for your gear that will elevate your capabilities, and as a reward for your stellar performance, I’m pleased to assist you in getting a discount on your purchases and doing the modifications for a full 25% off!"
As the team decided on their selections, Imik took notes on their choices and made preparations to customize each attachment to ensure perfect compatibility. "Once you’ve made your decisions, we can get started on collecting the gear and the modifications right away. With my expertise and your upcoming mission, you’ll be ready for anything."
With a nod of appreciation, the team felt the excitement building as they envisioned the modifications to their gear. Imik's presence was not only a reward for their hard work but also a beacon of opportunity as they prepared for their next adventure.