Arabesque

[Maris Fero]

With a grin to herself, the raven haired maven of stealth had slid easily into the doorway and skittered aside to avoid observation from the bizarre maintenance droid that had arrived to investigate the area. Maris melted into the scant cover available, coming to a still and focusing on her talent for remaining unnoticed.

Silent and still, the young woman felt the curious sense of detachment come over her as she observed the droids destruction, a brief recollection of a dozen other such unnoticed endings she had witnessed unseen. Before the droid had fallen still Maris was moving again, stalking deeper into the facility ahead of the others and keeping to cover where she could as she retraced the route the spiderdroid had taken, alert for movement and security systems as she advanced.

The sound of the collapsing structure and the crushed spider drone seemed unnervingly loud in the quiet of the walkway she had entered. The route had opened up into a surprisingly cavernous chamber that seemed to serve as a loading bay and cargo hub for the facility, though the lack of activity suggested the droids of Archangel received very few bulk deliveries.

The elevated walkway she had emerged upon bisected the room and overlooked the cargo floor some fifteen meters below. At its far end a second door led deeper into the facility, but that exit was surrounded by a sophisticated looking scanning arch that she imagined was meant to stop living breathing warm-bodied folks from getting any further than.

Most of the echoing space below was clear and open, bar a low volume of crates and containers, divided into precise rows and ordered stacks along the centre of the bay. On the far wall a line of regular alcoves glowed with a dull green light, three of which housed inactive transports, some sort of surface to orbit vessels which roosted in charging cradles, she suspected. A single tiny maintenance droid was diligently polishing the vast surface of the bay floor in repeated lines, its trio of red lights blinking as it followed its eternal route.

At either end of the floor was a heavy-duty sealed blast door, wide enough to fit two or three of the transports, side by side, Maris estimated. Both were locked down if the red strips of light around the doors were anything to go by.

Far below and to the right of the docked transports another less impressive looking doorway opened vertically, and an almost identical spider droid skittered out and began its gradual approach the last known position of its twins, heading toward a lifter platform to ascend to the walkway level.

“Some sort of docking area, another one has been dispatched, not a lot of cover on this site, this place looks sort of abandoned.” added the Shrike, who was far more used to the constant bustle of living worlds by now.

Amara Zarides Darth Libertas Valiens Nantaris Enyo Typhos

 

[Amara Zarides]

Maris Fero Darth Libertas

Maris was a much better proponent of stealth than Amara was. Her going ahead first was a wise move. Instead, she waited until Libertas had pulled down the wall a bit and Thuella got started on slicing the system, and then headed after the Shrike.



However, Maris’ words brought her up short. Another spider drone had been dispatched. It was moving slowly, but it would still reach the hallway with the ‘landslide’ within a few minutes.



“Maris is right, another droid incoming. Be ready to move out. Thuella, do you see the best place to proceed beyond the docking bays?”



The spider drone was getting closer, and so Amara looked up, seeing a tangle of pipes and cables above her. With nothing for it, she was able to scramble up and wedge herself in place as the droid passed on below. It had seen and suspected nothing out of the ordinary…yet.

 

[Darth Libertas]

Maris Fero Amara Zarides

"Got a route through the hangar to the lower..." Thuella said quietly, but was cut off by the sound of an approaching droid. There was little cover. As she scramled away to climb up to the pipes the spider droid closed in. Just as its gaze turned towards her, hanging from the pipe, she pressed a button on a small device worn on her wrist.

Libertas, meanwhile, had difficulty hiding. She had foregone her tanky armour, but her heavy cybernetics meant she could not climb up. As the droid skittered towards them, all she could do was find some cover behind a crate. The spider droid's photoreceptors glowed. Its scanners swept across the area. It continued inexorably towards their hiding spot. Amara and Maris would sense the Force surge through Thuella.

The droid paused, its eyes swept across the area, then stopped, as if inert. Thuella dropped down quietly after it had left. "I messed with its sensors. It won't last long. Activate your no-shows. They'll conceal us - for a bit," she said. These devices were part of the Ghostsuits they had been equipped with.
"Archangel will get suspicious," Libertas stated. She looked around at the ships in the bay. "Quickly, place det charges on them. Save one, see if you can slice it. We'll need a getaway ship."

 

[Maris Fero]

Maris had taken a different tack to avoid the notice of the droid, trusting to her sense of timing. Dropping over the edge of the walkway at the very moment the spider ascended, Maris kept the structure of the suspended walkway itself to hide from the robot’s gaze, dangling below for a moment before pulling her legs up athletically to brace herself against the underside of the platform. From her inverted position, Maris looked at her own disrupted outline reflected from the polished floor several meters below, feeling the tension in her muscles as she held the position for the moment.

She had felt whatever it was that Thuella had done, like a static rush that Maris felt on the back of her neck. When the word was given, the youth dropped, cat falling on the cargo bay floor with what would have been showy elegance, had anyone but a tiny mop droid been there to witness it. The stealth-clad ganger cocked her head - the motion almost birdlike as she listened for threats, though none were obvious.

“On it,” she replied to Libertas, eager to be free of the weight of the pair of small explosive devices she had carried. The raven moved swiftly and silently toward the first alcove, eyes flicking back and forth to watch for threats that might lurk nearby. Then the no-show was activated and the world fell near-silent beneath the suits dampening field.

Darth Libertas Amara Zarides

 

[Amara Zarides]

Maris Fero Darth Libertas

Amara took the cue from Maris, dropping down to ground level…though less impressively as she climbed down most of the way first. Then, with no-show active she set about setting charges on the three ships on her side, whilst Maris dealt with 2 on the other side. One they would keep, a much better craft than the rest, and seemingly there as an orbital shuttle for visitors or as a handy replacement for the owners’ yacht if it got blown up.



This done, and whilst Thuella would attempt to gain access to the surviving ship, Amara approached the exit on the far side. This door, the only one they had not been through, seemed heavily trafficked. Despite the efficiency of the droids, the plates were worn down from heavy deliveries taken from the docked ships and inside here.



Approaching the door she stopped herself as there was a camera directly over the door. The no-shows were good, but perhaps not good enough to straight up ignore something 6 feet away in broad light.



Getting through the door would require them to be ready because it would be here that their cone of silence would be broken. AA would know they were here after they entered.

 

[Darth Libertas]

Maris Fero , Amara Zarides

One large door loomed before them. Droids were efficient, but it looked well-used. numerous deliveries must have gone through it. A camera hovered above it. A no-show made the wearer virtually invisible and inaudible, but even that had limitations.

Libertas approached the door, staying out of the camera's radius. "Be ready for company," she said simply. The Force writhed inside her and then her hands manifested a flash of light. The holocamera went static. To all outward appearances, it would look like a minor camera malfunction. But combined with all the 'malfunctions' that had been happening in quick succession, it would look suspicious.

The door opened, seemingly of its own volition, despite not being hacked. That was, of course, not the case. Below the door lay a wide corridor, leading to three crucial installations. For now, the party would not be able to reach those.

Droids stood in the corridor, blasters levelled at the intruders. A bolt struck Libertas, but she did not show much of a reaction. As salvoes of scarlet and blue filled the air, she gestured and a shimmering barrier formed. That would only absorb a few initial shots though. The Sith Lady drew her blade. Most of them were battle droids, though not as braindead as the B-1s of yore. But one was a special form of HRD, commanding the mooks. Beneath its organic covering, it had a skeleton made of Phrik. The replicant produced an electrostaff.