First Reply Day At the Museum | Coruscant

[Kyraan Spar]

Kyraan lowered the rangefinder in front of his helmet and scanned the perimeter of the Galactic Museum on Coruscant. His client claimed the Sith Covenant rarely patrolled this section of the city, but Kyraan wasn't about to risk a firefight without confirming it himself. Satisfied the area was clear, he raised the rangefinder and tapped his vambrace, firing a brief burst from his jetpack to glide down toward the building's western side.

Hovering outside a high window, he slapped a set of heavy suction pads onto the reinforced transparisteel to keep the heavy glass from falling. He traced a quick, man-sized loop with his wrist-mounted laser, pulled the cut section out, and set it aside on the narrow exterior ledge. He slipped through the gap into the dim corridor, clutching his EE-3 carbine. The objective was simple, scout the museum and report back.

His boots hit the polished floor with a muffled thud as he cut his thrusters. Reaching back through the opening, he grabbed the cut glass by the suction handles, pulled it tight into the frame to block the draft, and twisted the manual clamps to lock it. It wouldn't fool a close inspection, but it would buy him time against automated environmental sensors.

With his carbine shouldered, Kyraan swept its red optic across the room, taking in the velvet-lined pedestals and ancient relics beneath the low emergency lights. He didn't care for the history, but he cared about getting paid.​

 

[Meri Vale]

Meri had stared at the same display long enough that she began to suspect the museum's description was wrong.

That wasn't particularly unusual. Half the reason she'd come to the Galactic Museum was to compare its collection against material she'd been studying, and the small artifact behind the transparisteel had already produced three questions she wanted to look into later. Meri leaned closer to read the accompanying information again, tablet tucked against her side as she tried to reconcile the estimated date with the decorative markings along its edge.

A muffled sound somewhere beyond the gallery drew her attention away.

Meri straightened and looked toward the adjoining corridor. It hadn't sounded like something falling. There had been something else beneath it, brief but mechanical, followed by another noise she couldn't immediately identify. Museums made plenty of strange sounds when they were quiet enough, but archaeology had taught her that unexplained disturbances were generally worth investigating before deciding they were nothing.

She slipped the tablet into her bag and started toward the sound, slowing as she approached the next gallery. Meri stopped just short of the opening when she caught sight of movement beyond it.

The armored figure was enough to keep her from stepping into view.

Meri drew back behind the wall, heart suddenly beating considerably faster. She'd expected an employee, perhaps another visitor, not someone in armor carrying a carbine through a museum. Her first instinct was to retreat and find security. Her second was the much less sensible desire to know what he was doing there.

Curiosity won just enough for her to carefully peer around the edge again, trying to see where the stranger was going without attracting his attention. Whatever he wanted, Meri sincerely hoped it wasn't one of the artifacts.

She had several objections prepared if it was.

Kyraan Spar

 

[Kyraan Spar]

Kyraan's helmet picked up a heat signature around the bend, alerting him to someone watching from the next corridor. With the possibility of security being called, he lowered his rangefinder and brought his carbine against his chest, ready to fire. His finger barely pressed the trigger as a spray of red plasma slammed into the edge of the wall, to send Meri Vale scrambling for cover.

Even if their nerves held, Kyraan doubted they posed an immediate threat to his mission, so he promptly turned and continued down the corridor. His armor matched the description of the wanted Koda Fett, and for all intents and purposes he was that infamous bounty hunter.

As he entered a wider display hall lined with heavy pedestals, Kyraan raised his wrist and tapped his vambrace, beginning to transmit the surrounding floor plans back to his client in another system. ​

 

[Meri Vale]

The first flash of red caught Meri completely unprepared.

She recoiled before she consciously understood what was happening, throwing herself backward as the blaster bolts struck the edge of the wall beside her. Heat washed across her face and the sharp report seemed impossibly loud inside the museum. Meri hit the floor hard enough to hurt, scrambling farther behind the wall while her heart hammered against her chest.

Someone had just shot at her.

For several seconds, that was the only thought she could manage. Nobody had ever fired a blaster at her before. She knew what they could do, had seen the evidence left behind by weapons far older and sometimes far more destructive, but knowing academically what a blaster bolt did was very different from watching one strike close enough that she could smell the scorched material.

Meri stayed down, expecting another shot. None came. After several seconds, she cautiously lifted her head, keeping herself well behind cover as she listened. The armored stranger was moving away.

Her gaze drifted toward the blackened marks he'd left on the wall, and fear abruptly acquired competition.

"You shot at me," she whispered incredulously before her eyes widened for an entirely different reason. "You shot at me in a museum."

Meri stared at the scorched wall and then toward the nearby displays. Whatever he had been aiming at, those bolts could just as easily have struck an exhibit. The thought of something surviving hundreds or thousands of years only to be destroyed because an armored stranger decided to start firing inside the Galactic Museum made her stomach twist.

Common sense told her to stay exactly where she was and call security. Meri fully intended to do at least half of that.

She carefully pushed herself upright and checked the corridor before following him, far more cautiously than before. She kept the displays and distance between herself and the direction he'd gone whenever possible, unwilling to give him another clear shot. Fear remained lodged firmly in her chest, but now it had to share space with indignation and an increasingly urgent question.

What could somebody willing to shoot their way through a museum possibly want inside one?

Kyraan Spar

 

[Kyraan Spar]

Kyraan kept walking down the hallway, sending information from each room he passed through. Bit by bit, the data was being put together into a working map of the building. He thought he might run into a guard or two, but he didn't see any. This told him that the Sith Covenant didn't really care about old artifacts, a sentiment he shared.

His eyes looked at the display in his helmet and saw Meri Vale following behind him. He didn't say anything as he pushed the door open to the Dark Side exhibit. The heavy doors opened with a loud hiss of steam and let him into the room where he could see thick glass cases and isolated force fields.

Kyraan moved his rifle across the corners of the room, checking with his visor for motion sensors or hidden shock-grids before stepping all the way inside. Nothing went off. The place was almost empty, except for the soft red light from the containers holding old objects. He heard the light sound of boots on the floor near the doorway.

It was the same person from before, staying back at a safe distance behind the display stands. Kyraan didn't turn around or point his weapon. If the person following him wanted to set off an alarm or shoot, they would have done it already. Running up their heart rate was their own problem, his job was to scan and get paid. ​

 

[Meri Vale]

Meri followed at a distance that she hoped was far enough to discourage another warning shot. Apparently it was. The armored stranger had to know she was there, or at least she suspected he did, yet he hadn't turned his weapon on her again. That did very little to make Meri feel safe, but it gave her enough confidence to keep going until she stopped outside the next doorway and realized which part of the museum he'd entered. The Dark Side exhibit immediately competed with the armed intruder for her attention, and for several seconds, Meri found herself staring past him at the thick cases and isolated force fields instead.

The red illumination made everything look appropriately ominous, but what bothered her wasn't anything she could see. It was the fact that there was apparently still an exhibit here at all. Coruscant was controlled by the Sith Covenant, and Meri expected the Sith to take an interest in artifacts connected to their own history, especially anything genuinely old or tied to earlier Sith traditions. Some of these objects might have been academically valuable without being useful to anyone beyond a historian, but she couldn't imagine all of them were. Why leave them sitting behind museum glass instead of removing them to private collections, archives, academies, or wherever the Covenant kept things it considered important? Her curiosity momentarily overcame her caution enough that she took another step into the room before remembering the man with the rifle and immediately stopping again.

He wasn't looking at the artifacts either, and that realization had been building since she'd started following him. He hadn't tried to open a case or shown much interest in what the museum contained. Instead, he kept checking rooms and doing something with his vambrace before continuing onward. Meri didn't know enough about whatever equipment he carried to identify exactly what he was doing, but it didn't look much like theft. She remained partially behind one of the heavy display stands, studying him before her attention wandered back toward the cases. "Why haven't they taken these?" The question escaped before Meri remembered that remaining unnoticed by the armed man was probably preferable. Her eyes widened slightly, but it was too late to retrieve the words. "The Sith," she clarified, still keeping the pedestal between them. "They control Coruscant. Why would they leave an entire collection of Dark Side artifacts sitting in a public museum?"

It occurred to her only afterward that the stranger who had shot at her probably wasn't the best person to ask. Still, he already knew she was there, and Meri's curiosity had gotten far ahead of her fear, so another question followed. "And what are you actually doing?" She glanced toward his vambrace, then back to his helmet, keeping the solid display between them in case he decided answering with a blaster was easier than talking. "Because you haven't taken anything."

Kyraan Spar

 

[Kyraan Spar]

Kyraan didn't bother to turn around even as he heard Meri Vale mumbling to herself, his thumb resting lightly on the carbine's trigger in case she got any funny ideas of trying to impede his work in this room. The artifacts were catalogued one by one, some important but mostly just mundane objects belonging to the deceased Dark Lords of the Sith.

The Galactic Museum was regarded as neutral territory, even so far as to have a public wing dedicated to the Jedi Order despite knowing that Coruscant was governed by the Sith Covenant. He turned on his armored heel as she got bold enough to ask what he was doing. His head turned to face her direction as she hid behind the heavy pedestal.

A sarcastic line about being out for a daily stroll was almost said, but he decided against wasting the breath. "Once the cameras in this corridor detect us here, you'll have alot more to worry about than asking questions." He said, his voice obscured by the helmet's encrypted filters. Kyraan gestured with the barrel of his carbine, making a quick walk towards the doors to leave the room. ​

 

[Meri Vale]

Meri's eyes followed the barrel of the carbine as he gestured toward the doors, and she stayed behind the pedestal for another moment before indignation overcame some of her fear. "I have a legitimate reason to be here, mister." She straightened slightly, although she made no attempt to move closer to him. "You're the one who came through the museum carrying a rifle and shot at somebody." It seemed like an important distinction, particularly if he was trying to suggest that security would somehow be equally interested in both of them.

The mention of cameras did make Meri glance upward, however, suddenly much less confident about how simple explaining the situation would be. She was supposed to be in the museum, but she had also followed an armed intruder through several galleries instead of immediately finding security. That part might be somewhat harder to justify. Curiosity seemed considerably less sensible when she imagined herself explaining it to someone with access to recordings of her deliberately trailing the person who'd already fired at her.

Meri cautiously stepped out from behind the pedestal once he'd started toward the doors, keeping plenty of distance between them. "Besides, if the cameras are going to detect us, shouldn't you be considerably more worried about that than I am?" Her gaze briefly settled on the equipment built into his armor. He still hadn't answered her question, and everything she'd seen suggested he was interested in the museum itself rather than anything displayed inside it. "You're mapping the building, aren't you?"

She followed that conclusion with a wary look toward him, realizing almost immediately that discovering what an armed intruder was doing might not be something she actually wanted him to know she'd figured out. Still, the question was already asked. "Is that why you haven't taken anything?"

Kyraan Spar

 

[Kyraan Spar]

Kyraan was almost through the door when Meri Vale claimed she had a legitimate reason to be there, then pointed out that he'd just shot at her. He glanced back, tracking her as she stepped out from behind the display. The carbine wasn't for show, and he had no time for questions.

"I've got it covered," Kyraan said, giving the carbine a brief wave. He saw no reason to explain himself. If security footage caught them, he'd be the one in full armor with an exit already cut through the transparisteel. She'd be the civilian caught in the corridor when security arrived. That was her problem.

Her guess about him mapping the building was close enough, but Kyraan wasn't about to confirm it. He flicked a hand at her, turned away, and headed into the next gallery without another word. His boots struck the stone floor at an even pace. He had no interest in wasting time arguing with a stranger, not with the rest of the floor plan left to scan and his window closing.​