A Hunt for Sanctions

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum turned and grabbed a small boulder, lifting it above his head to add bulk and size to his form. This would hopefully give the appearance of two creatures coming the Drouk's way. Perhaps it would frighten the beast off. In case it didn't his weapons were loaded and were easily accessible should he need them.

As it was, the guns were not required, the Drouk seemed to sniff for a moment, deciding whether to attack or not. It then decided against taking on the evidently larger creatures. It made a roaring sound, however it was obvious that the creature was not staying around, it turned and seemed to run off into the snow. This to the great relief of Ultimatum, who gently put the boulder back down after he was certain that the creature was not coming back. He sighed in relief as he turned to ask [member="Lord Zrixtas"] if he was alright to continue.

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Hurannes was surprised as the droid lifted her above its head. She began to exclaim her anger at this when she thought she realized what was going on. She added her own Force abilities to the droid's voice, also trying to make it more intimidating. She wondered why she could feel the Force through the droid, it was directed in such a powerful way, it must be that the droid could use the Force! But how?

 

[Lord Zrixtas]

Zrixtas felt a little pride when the creature ran away, he waited for a few more moments as he took Hurannes off his shoulders and placed her down next to him. "Wow I didn't think that would actually work." He then said with a near laughing tone and looked towards [member="Ultimatum"] as he chuckled a little.

 

[Ultimatum]

"I was afraid it wouldn't. The creature didn't look to be the toughest, but I bet it would put up quite a fight." Ultimatum looked at the visual memory of the map, deducing their current location based on speed, time, and direction after they had left the cave. He did some mental calculations to decide their path. He hoped that they wouldn't deal with another one of those creatures again, he doubted that the trick would work twice.

A moment later he said, "Alright, let's go this way. Should be there in about fifteen minutes if we keep a good rate. We might want to pick it up before this blizzard comes in. Even as a droid I wouldn't want to be caught out here in that." He pointed in the appropriate direction and then gestured to the snow which was beginning to fall even faster now and the wind was beginning to howl between the rocks. His internal thermometer was indicating a drop in temperature.

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Hurannes was thankful to be put back on the ground, as much as she may have loved being picked up and used to trick a beast, which she didn't, she did not enjoy being handled like a doll. She could feel the cold, even through the coat, though she knew she could handle it for some time before needing shelter.

[member="Lord Zrixtas"]

 

[Lord Zrixtas]

Zrixtas nodded to [member="Ultimatum"] and with a gesture he indicated he'd bring up the rear this time. His internal systems began to work better than before due to the cooling effects of the weather but that was also an indication he should get out of the cold as soon as he could as he didn't want his joints frozen in place. "How long do you thing it is until the blizzard hits?" He then asked as he looked behind them and then skywards, the snowflakes falling blanketing the sky so well that it was hard to even see the clouds they descended from.

 

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum allowed his programs to make a quick calculation before he shut down that portion to better focus on the location and target. Of course this would not be perfect, predictions rarely were, but it was a likelihood and Ultimatum was fine with dealing in those. As long as it was logical and could be followed to the conclusion with little to no jump in imagination.

"The best approximate would be ten to five minutes, for the proper blizzard to begin. I did not think to check the weather conditions before moving out, so I do not know how large of a storm this may be." He was specifically unsure as to where the heart of the storm was in comparison to them, that would be where the hardest traveling would occur, so he hoped to get to the location before this snow came in.

He continued walking for a time, quietly. He heard the Sith's voice ask something, however the wind blew the words back and he was unable to tell what had been said. He assumed that [member="Lord Zrixtas"] would catch the words and hopefully answer. Well, one good thing about the storm he guessed was that it was unlikely for any other hostile creatures to be running through here at the moment. The three of them were probably the most foolish of all predators in the area, if only because they were not retreating to a known shelter.

He switched his vision to magnetic and a sonar based system. The snowflakes were not quite large enough to appear on the sonar vision, however Ultimatum bet that when the real blizzard struck that would obscure that system pretty quickly. He could see a large collection of metal of some sort in the distance. Fairly close compared to what Ultimatum had expected. He assumed that that was the location and began slowly making his way towards it, leading the trio forwards.

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Hurannes could feel her temperature dropping again, however this time she pulled the cloak closer around her and then tried to use the Force to sustain her. She wondered why these droids were even here. What kind of AI could be so important that two droids were willing to wander around in a blizzard searching for it? Was it truly worth it all?

She called out to the droid in front, trying to yell over the wind and failing to do so. "WHAT IS SO SPECIAL ABOUT THIS AI?"

She didn't think that the big droid in front had not heard her, she was certain that the droid behind had heard her and would answer the question if the one in front did not.

 

[Lord Zrixtas]

His mind wondered a bit when he heard that the blizzard would come in earnest in five to ten minutes, his eyes moved to the horizon and then back towards the edges of the valley they were in now. Zrixtas barely picked up on Hurannes's question on his audio sensors and he began to tune out the sounds of the blizzard itself so he could hear the others better. Leaning forwards he spoke in just high enough tone for her to hear him over the blizzard. "IT was operating around the same time as you, during the cold war but it was older I think which makes it's programming unique to the Larger droid as it needs to know about it." He explained it as best he could, he however was here with [member="Ultimatum"] to look over the A.I's body as it would be quite a tough and durable body given the era of operation and the situation during that era.

 

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum was still oblivious to the beginnings of the conversation behind him, between the wind pushing the voices away from him and the audio sensors attempting to phase out the sound of the blizzard he simply did not hear much. He wasn't concerned with the Sith, if she tried anything he trusted that [member="Lord Zrixtas"] would deal with her appropriately. Now that she had given them an idea of where to go he got the feeling that she wouldn't be of much help anymore. At the very least he hoped that they would not rely on her too much now.

The ship was nearing but he counted at least three minutes left of walking, he spoke over the comms to Zrixtas, hoping that the droid had an integrated system for such things like Ultimatum did. "Much closer than expected, should be there soon. How's it going back there?"

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Hurannes stayed quiet for a time. The AI they were hunting had been around during her time? She couldn't think of any AI's of any real great importance when she had been fighting against the Republic. From what she could remember the Empire had still been working to create a computer system that had full thought and the Republic had been the same way. Neither side had put it as a priority though from memory because of the ongoing war.

Perhaps then they weren't looking for the droids that could be found in the ship she had pointed out to. From what she had heard over the Sith reports they had found that the droids were some sort of assassination unit made a long time ago. From the reports only a few people had been able to reactivate a couple of the droids. Had they been especially different in their AI? She didn't know. But if they had been... Why was the larger droid looking for it? What did he have planned for it? She wondered if perhaps this droid had some ulterior motive for an assassination droid. If he did, then wouldn't he have to test the abilities of the droid? Would she be the target of these experiments?

She decided that she would have to deal with these two droids when the chance arose.

 

[Lord Zrixtas]

Zrixtas's mood darkened when he noticed how quiet Hurannes had suddenly become. 'This sith might be bringing her usefulness to an end.' He thought as he suddenly got a com from [member="Ultimatum"], inwardly he smiled a little. "That's good to hear, I'll be glad to get rid of the frost." He sent back as he zoomed his vision a little forwards and the outlines of the ship came into view. If he could he'd probably sigh in relief since his systems weren't designed to protect him against such low temperatures, that was what the all temperature cloak Hurannes was now wearing was for.

 

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum smiled, he too was not built for this extremity of temperature, sure he could handle cold, it helped in fact keep his core from overheating. However there was a point where the cold became too much and was damaging, it had not yet reached that point, but it was swiftly moving towards it. He looked forward to the relative safety to the ship, at least there enemies would be in an enclosed environment. That would hopefully give him an advantage, compared to this open area.

He continued walking on in silence for a minute or two, the cold seemed to either make time slow down or make the distances appear farther. Either way Ultimatum nearly bumped right into the ship before he realized how close it truly was. He stopped and looked at the darker colored ship. He didn't immediately see the entrance, but he noted their location and sent it to [member="Lord Zrixtas"]. "We are practically on top of the ship. Look for an opening." He again said over the comm to Zrixtas, not feeling the need to tell Hurannes.

Ultimatum unfortunately did not realize that the entrance was only a few meters to the right, half covered in snow and ice built up over years. Well hidden by those that didn't look carefully, however very easy to spot by the attentive eye. The space beyond the ice and snow created a much darker space than the ship around it.

 

[Lord Zrixtas]

Zrixtas's leg joints were only unfrozen due to the fact he was keeping them moving through the freezing air. Hearing the com from [member="Ultimatum"], Zrixtan began to scan the structure with his optical sensors as he also cycled through the visual modes he had. Moving to the side he began to trudge through the snow that had built up over the years against the battered corpse of the ship.
He didn't have to wait long as he noticed the blacker hole of the entrance but then as he was about to say something his leg slipped on a bit of ice and he stumbled into the large pile of snow that blocked the entrance to the ship, knocking it over and into the entrance but still leaving enough of a room to get inside. He hadn't stumbled along with the snow but instead he stood in a precarious stance stuck between stability and sliding down the slight angle his legs were on. Once he regained his balance he stepped off the sheet of ice and headed towards both of them as he pointed to the entrance. "I believe I've found a place to enter the ship there!" He said as he shouted at both Ultimatum and Hurannes.

 

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum was moving in the opposite direction, deciding that they could cover more the ship that way. The refining of his audio sensors allowed him to actually catch what [member="Lord Zrixtas"] said. He immediately turned and trudged towards the spot. It had only been a short while so he was able to get in very quickly. He nodded to his Shard friend and moved into the darkness. He switched vision to lowlight as he doubted there would be much in the way of power for any light that might still be functional.

"Let's go. Don't want to be out here too long. Though that blizzard might slow us up." He turned to make certain that everyone was alright before he decided whether they would take a short rest or continue on.

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Hurannes was pleased that between the coat and her quickly returning abilities she was able to stay relatively warm. She had been trying to decide how to continue, she knew she would have to deal with the two droids, that was apparent now. The question was how. The big one seemed to be dumb enough that she could probably deal with him easily enough, but the smaller one seemed to be keeping an eye on her.

She had a blaster, that was enough to deal with both of them more than likely, she was Sith and she could overpower them if needed, she was certain of it. She stepped into the darkness and thought about shooting the big one while the smaller droid was still moving in from the outside. She almost did, except she realized that now was not the ideal time. She would be isolated with little in the way of means of surviving. She would have to wait until they were somewhere else.

 

[Lord Zrixtas]

As Zrixtas made sure everyone was inside he could feel it, Hurannes energy changed and he knew exactly what that would mean, he'd felt it from other organics so often that it had somehow become what he expected was normal of them. Once they were inside he produced a flare he found in his robes that he hadn't realized he'd had. "So this is the ship you were talking about [member="Ultimatum"]?" He asked as he looked over the rows and corridors that were broken up and impacted in some places while simply caved in, in others.
With a slight electronic tone he whistled as he looked over one of the relatively less damaged of the droids that lay strewn about the place. "I wouldn't mind getting their schematics, might tell me what made them so formidable to begin with." He said as he crouched down and with one hand held the flare aloft while the other moved the droids head from side to side as he scanned it. This time he was certain that Hurannes wasn't someone to trifle with and that she was readying herself to end them both so his guard was up as half of his senses, force or otherwise, were directed at her should she make a move.

 

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum moved to see what [member="Lord Zrixtas"] was looking at. He smiled, it was a droid of some sort and its appearance was similar enough to certain models he had heard of that he was able to guess what it was. The time period narrowed it down to two distinct models. "An HK model I think. If this was Old Republic then I would say fifty-one or fifty-five. If we find a computer around here I am sure we can perhaps get more information on the droids housed here. Got any ideas?"

He wondered if this was the place, it just felt too soon. He just had that 'gut feeling' that this was not right. He could not have explained it, perhaps his matrices were beginning to have those intuition jumps that organics were well known for. That was not truly possible, he thought, but he could not shake the feeling.

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Hurannes pointed further inward, she did not know where they should have gone to get further into the ship. She had never personally been aboard the vessel, but she had been told tales. She had never heard much about this, aside from those last few stories before being captured by the Jedi. She had planned on making a trip here, try and bring back whatever there was of the droids.

Now though, now she looked forward to finding an open area, take the big droid first. She had to take the one with obvious strength and then take out the smaller.

 

[Lord Zrixtas]

"Do you remember their capabilities? and aren't you a computer?" Zrixtas then replied to [member="Ultimatum"], the later question was a simple joke and he expressed it with his tone. As he looked around he saw Hurannes pointing further inwards and he nodded to her. "There might be one further inside the ship that might be operational or at least fixable." He said as he though perhaps they could simply take the hard-drive out of the computer to read through it later.
He began to feel something aking to the hairs standing at the back of his head when he looked once more at Hurannes, he didn't like it one bit.

 

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum smiled at the joke. "I am sure you have computers somewhere in you as well. But I believe the droids were supposed to be elite assassin droids. At least they were renowned combat droids." He figured a computer would give him a proper break down on the statistics of the droids, he assumed that it would be something like a databank he would need to access and collect the information manually.

Ultimatum began walking in the direction that Hurranes had indicated. He did not have the same sense that [member="Lord Zrixtas"] of the Sith thinking dark thoughts. He didn't trust her, but he probably trusted her more than his Shard friend did at the moment. He was putting his sensors into looking for any type of terminal as he walked. He did not notice anything nearby, the thin layer of ice more than likely made it such that the computers beneath were destroyed.

He noticed a larger room up ahead and he hoped that a terminal could be found there. He also noted that most of the droids they passed were in various states of disrepair, however none of them seemed to have been damaged in the same way. He fancied that he could rebuild one given the time and focus.

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Hurannes watched as the behemoth of a droid walked past her and made his way down the hall. Perfect target, she could raise her blaster and shoot the thing in the back of the head and it wouldn't even notice. She closed her eyes.

Time seemed to slow down around her. The Force accelerating her perception of reality and her reflexes. She took a single step, centering herself with the droid only two meters away, the big one. She breathed calmly as she took aim, the blaster was in position in the blink of an eye. She pulled the trigger, once, twice, three times. Two of the three struck the head, the second shot hit the droid's back.

She did not watch to see if the droid was dead, assuming that two shots was enough. She turned to attack her other target. This one was different. She could feel the Force in this one. She wondered at this, as she pulled the trigger. The droid dodged it! Moving out of the way as she pulled the trigger. She tried to shoot twice more before the droid lifted a hilt. It was a lightsaber! How did it get one? It did not matter to her. She was Sith. The droid moved to cut her, but she pulled back throwing the blaster at it. The droid was quick, slashing and cutting the blaster. However her extended hand ignited in purple lightening. The droid was destroyed in the brilliant flash of raw power. She smiled cruelly as she held for a moment before turning back to the other droid.

It wasn't dead yet. Impressive. But that didn't save it from a blast of lightening. Then she used the Force to slowly crush the droid. She could feel every piece within it fighting to stay in shape, knowing that it could not against the power of the Force. With both dead she turned and walked out of the ship, wondering what next she would do. A moment later she called the smaller droid's lightsaber to her hand. It wouldn't need it anymore.

 

[Lord Zrixtas]

Zrixtas walked along the path that [member="Ultimatum"] had chosen as he felt it, it was like a kick to the stomach kind of feeling and he had felt it before and ignored it and it had cost him dearly. Now he wouldn't ignore it and turned his head towards Hurannes, his optical sensors narrowing and glowing a little brighter as he moved to place the rifle down as they walked along the path and took out one of his Lightsabers into one hand, ready to ignite it.
Then everything when to hell, without being able to even react in time he saw Hurannes take her pistol and fire the first three shots at Ultimatum, he saw him lean forwards from the blasts and then Hurannes aimed at him. Without realizing it he had moved out of the way of the first shot and then the following two after that, it was then that he turned his lightsaber on and was about to slice at her when the force Lightning came blasting towards him. He could see it, the fuses and wiring in his body blew and he fell down onto the floor and was forced to watch as she began to crush Ultimatum, his friend. Without thinking he sent him a message through the comlink they shared. "Play dead, play dead damn it!" He all but yelled at Ultimatum through their private comlink as he waited for her to stop.
And then she did and then she moved to steal his lightsaber, which was the last straw. "That is it!" Came out of his vocabulator before it blew and his crippled body stood up. He used telekinesis to move his body as he took out his second saber and lit it. Then he charged at her with his saber raised up into the air and brought it crashing down on top of her.

 

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum did not realize what had happened until a moment too late. Three shots damaged him, however his strong metal body was capable of withstanding the weak fire with relative ease. However the impacts did throw his balance off enough that for awhile all he could do was calculate damage and access threats. He had immediately guessed who it was. Damn.

He turned in time to see some form of lightening hit [member="Lord Zrixtas"] and damage him quite severely. In a moment he had to decide whether to retreat or to fight, he could not win, not really and he knew that. He could run, but was too damaged to get very far. His processors told him that part of his central core had been burned and would need to be repaired before he could handle another trek through the blizzard outside. But if he fought he could die with honor, something that he had never thought of before, but wasn't such a bad thing now that he did think about it.

He prepared to charge when the focus was turned back to him. Lightening jumped from her fingertips and immediately he recognized the damage of electrical overcharge. The only saving grace to his body was the outer metal shell, which conducted most of the electricity straight into the ground. After all, electricity, Force created or not, always tried to find the path of least resistance to a grounding point, more often than not the ground.

However this was little comfort as he fell back from the blast and then felt his components being compressed, as if his body were being crushed by a compactor. Again the structure of his body was the only thing that saved him from absolute destruction. He had been built intended for war and his initial creators had practically built him like a tank but with more redundancies so that loss of one function didn't necessarily mean it was no longer usable. A quick transmission from Zrixtas cemented Ultimatum's new plan as his body fell to the floor. He could feel the pain, as damage receptors were smashed in between larger pieces of construct. He detached himself from his body, returning to the HoloNet effectively cutting himself from the body. The large body did as it was programmed and shut down when the AI left it. This probably tricked the organic as Hurannes stopped after a moment before she turned and began to leave.

Ultimatum could not reenter the body, he would need it to be turned on again, but he didn't have the ability to turn it on as an incorporeal being in the HoloNet. He could jump into some droid on Mustafar that he had control of, but the flight would take forever and he bet that Zrixtas would need medical attention, at least the droid's variant. He couldn't even watch to see what was happening, he would have to break into the Belsavis security HoloNet connection to get access to the cameras. Which was what he began doing, trying to bypass the locks that had been electronically encoded into the connection.

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Hurannes was proud of herself, until she made her first mistake. It would prove to be her last. Seemingly out of nothing the smaller droid came to life and charged at her. The surprise was enough to slow her reaction enough that she was unable to escape the slash. She did not die immediately, but lost her right shoulder and the arm attached as she moved just slightly. The pain was agonizing.

She fell to the ground, her left arm instinctively reaching for were he right arm would have been. Instead there was burned flesh and cauterized veins. She would not survive long, between the shock that would no doubt soon take her consciousness and the cold that crept in she would die a mostly painless death. That was, if Zrixtas was feeling merciful.

She could not seem to pry her eyes away from the ground, the pain was too much and she could not focus on anything other than the red that was filling her vision.

 

[Lord Zrixtas]

After taking her arm he didn't stop he moved his free hand and gripped her by the neck, just enough to grip her but not enough to suffocate her. "You are a failure." He said as he let go of his saber and reached with his other hand and gripped around her head, then he began to squeeze slowly but he didn't stop until that sickening squelch as his fingers entered her skull and she went limp. Then he simply let her go as he staggered back a few steps and then looked back towards his friend, [member="Ultimatum"] the only friend he'd had for years and as he felt his focus vain a little his left arm went limp.
Moving slowly towards Ultimatum he knelt down next to him. "Wake up, come on Wake up." He said as his vocabulators damage made it distorted and deeper than it usually did. Then he found it as he had extended his senses around Ultimatums body and found the on switch and he flipped it. Then his body went limp as he had to conserve his energy and he fell backwards into the snow. "You scared me there you jerk." He said in a half laugh as he kept only his vocabulator operative as well as his optics.
Killing the sith had been his last ditch effort before motor failure set in from the damage, the electricity had been conducted to the ground but it had gone through a major wiring system which had blown many of the fuses and wiring in his body, he could walk sure but he could tell they'd have to scavenge the droids around them for parts to be able to escape the prison or even the planet itself.

 

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum was surprised the security seemed lax enough, as if the main computer had been shut off or was busy elsewhere. Either way he was working his way through the cameras, trying to find one that might have been set up in the ship, but instead he only found some in another area. He was moving from camera to camera and found some interesting information. Perhaps they had gone to the wrong place, there seemed to be a heavy security vault with a lot of old activity. Perhaps it was kept there.

Before he could move to cameras further in he felt a presence. A strong old one, it was moving through the security systems at relatively slow speed, but it was powerful. He began retreating, feeling that it was trying to get hold of him. He was able to download a map to his system while he ran. He marked the area he had been looking at before disconnecting from the security of Belsavis.

He felt the power return to the body and immediately reconnected himself with his droid form. He found one eye was damaged and ordered a systems diagnostic as he tried to pull himself up. His left arm was unresponsive, so he used his right and listened to [member="Lord Zrixtas"]. He laughed, his own mouth was only half functional and the laugh could have been mumbled words. But he spoke then, "Look whose talking. You got yourself right well hit there."

He turned to see his friend on the ground, he dragged his body over and began scans for damaged parts. It wasn't hard to find any, but he was putting a list to salvage from the dead droids around them. His voice became very somber as he asked, "How is your crystal? Can you tell if it is damaged?"

He began pulling at some of the broken parts he could reach and used his right hand as well as he could. Before deciding that he would need his other hand as well. Sitting fully up he picked up his left arm and moved it across his lap as he looked through the diagnostic report. Well it could have been much worse. That blast of lightening had melted a coupling wire and he had no control. Pretty important piece, but then far too common among droids, he had extra in his spinal area for such a repair. It would take time and he decided that if his friend had been damaged he would have to postpone his hand repair for more important medical work on his friend. He wondered how he could take care of a crystal. Put some sort of sealant on it to connect two pieces? He would have to see if it were necessary first.

 

[Lord Zrixtas]

Zrixtas turned his head from side to side as best he could. "No my true self hasn't been damaged, the case around my crystal absorbed the damaged." He said with relief as he had used the force to sense around the case around his true body and found it was left relatively unharmed. He raised himself to sit up and looked around at the droids around them and then towards Hurannes's corpse. "Tell me you think you can repair yourself with what we have available here? After all they are quite old parts." He said but then he realized his first body was also from old droid parts he'd salvaged together so he simply chuckled to himself about it.
He was glad though to see [member="Ultimatum"] was in a better shape than he initially had feared he was in.