I Don't Phrickin' Think So [Demonsgate]

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

The Red Ravens maintained a Phrick mining facility on Demonsgate, and used it fairly extensively. [member="Patricia Susan Garter"] had been fairly central to its establishment. And then of course she'd decided she'd been fired and walked off with half the Ravens inventory.

Chiasa being absolutely fed up with half the galaxy at this point couldn't be bothered going after her, and didn't care about the gear particularly. She'd get better things made. Besides, she still had all her ships. Apparently the blonde didn't think the Twi'lek had bothered to have the self-destructs removed from her fleet after they'd been revealed. That was a laugh and a half. There was no way in hell she would ever fly about in a ship someone else could make explode in the sky. So while there would be no new ships from Arkayd, the Ravens kept all the ones they'd already had. In the same way that they still had warehouses of guns and such. Just because she'd let the other woman largely run the Black Market side of things didn't mean she'd told her about all the drop points, deals, storage locations etc.

Maybe Cryax had made the mistake of trusting the blonde, Chiasa hadn't, and look how right she'd turned out to be.

In any case. It was time to make sure the facility was still under control and reinforce it properly with product that could be depended upon.

Krakanas, Hades, the Red Dress and several other ships boomed out of hyperspace. Guns bristling, and packed with droids, gear and people.

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

The staff of the mining facility had already been contacted and were waiting in shuttles which launched out of atmo to come up and dock inside the Hades. They were on Chiasa's payroll after all, what the boss said, they did. A few of them would be rotated to other posting, which they were happy enough to do and some staff she knew were entirely loyal would be rotated on, to ensure that anything that happened there, she would hear about.

Once they were safely up, the Twi'lek keyed in the order to drop the rather large EMP she'd commisioned just for this lovely little jaunt to deal with the idiotic failsafe that had been put into most of her equipment by the quite possibly schizophrenic blonde. Certainly whatever her major malfunction she was either off her meds, or needed to be prescribed some.

The EMP hit and all went off without a hitch. It was going to be tiresome and expensive to get everything back online, but she'd be damned if any of her own people were going to be shot by her own damned droids just because that twit was going through early menopause.

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

"Suit up and lets go. Have our own droids and walkers secure the perimeter against predators. Otherwise I want Team One getting the gennies back online and Team Two is one droid duity. Any downed droids, you disable the failsafe just like we drilled and then slap a tracker on them. No sense wasting them. We'll either get them up and running again or melt them down for scraps."

The Twi'lek said, voice carried to all the ships in the fleet.

"Those of you staying aboard, stay sharp. Anything that comes into our airspace and doesn't immediately identify itself, shoot it down. Verbal and visual identification. Half our enemies have our ships and our channels and our codes. If they're having difficulties or suffering from static, shoot them. We're not the bloody bleeding-heart Republic. We're criminals. We look after ourselves first and foremost. Someone wants to play cute with us, they can be a cute little smear on this hellhole of a planet. Got it? Good."

"Let's go."

With that the environmentally suited teams moved to their pre-assigned shuttles and made for the surface, the ships carrying the droids touching down first and establishing a perimeter. Hegemonic droids were dependable and unaffected by any of this idiocy, and quite frankly better than anything that the Ravens had thrown together thus far anyway. They even had sensors that could easily breach almost all stealth.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Chiasa Kritivaas"]

Khal was leaning against one of the terminals, watching Chi do her work, he still wasn’t the biggest fan of how she operated. Major thunderbus that roared in fire the moment something went not quite as she had expected, liability. But he had given his word, more than that… so much more than that, which meant that regardless of his personal feelings to the girl?

Her back would be protected by him, it was the least he could do after she basically gave up the Y’Toub system to him. Still there was one thing that he couldn’t wrap his mind around, one simple notion that simply didn’t want to make a solid bridge with his other thought processes.

So the Underlord did the only thing he could do in that particular situation.

He voiced his concern.

‘Why would anyone install backwall failsafes in their products?’ a scratch of the chin came with a few ponderings, before he continued. ‘The last time a company was intelligent enough to do that, Druckenwell happened and the company got a hostile take-over on its ass because of it.’

Almost a shudder.

‘Such bad PR, if you ask me.’

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

"From what I understand, I only got to look at the memos and signed orders after the fact, Patricia had it done and Cryax didn't look at what he was signing. Stargo just made them to spec, though now that she has semi-control of it, I'd not trust them even if they were still doing business with me.."

Anything the blonde touched was black listed. The only exception to this was the Rebel Alliance, so far, and if she climbed too high there..

"Only reason I can see for it is because treachery is intended. Which is why we're hitting this even though nothings happened here yet. Bad enough it's location is likely being sent to every raider in the Galaxy, I'll not see the folks here have their lives riding on undependable equipment."

Even if it was only a little satellite mine, and one they'd never expected to hold uncontested for as long as they had, it was hers, and her people were on it. She wasn't in the habit of giving up what was hers.

"Stargo, or Arkayd now I suppose, may well regret who they choose to hand company shares and control over to in the future. Someone will care more than I do and go after them if they pull things like this."

Chiasa cared in some ways. There was a slow burn going on, but Patricia was a little fish. She didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. She was no Cryax.

Since they'd already had exact numbers of droids, blueprints and so forth, and knew exactly the EMP that everything was being hit with, plus had the actual facility employees there with them, it wasn't very hard to get the generators going again, and once that was done the Enviro suits were no longer necessary and things could move along at and even brisker rate. Before the shields went back up the intermittent sound of the droids taking down wildlife could be heard, but none got near enough to the perimeter that an alert was sent to the Twi'lek, as she'd programmed them to do.

She'd read over the memo from when the facility had initially been set up, and all the troubles they'd had. Ridiculous. No reason for it if I person thought ahead just a little bit. Still, forethought was obviously not some peoples strong suit.

"How's the defense satellite going?"

It was more of an orbital artillery platform and monitoring station than anything else. Made to shoot small shuttles out of the sky and send out a warning if anything larger showed up. It had a range of scanners, metal detecting, heat, radiation, life sensors etc to ensure that no one and nothing snuck down to the mining facility from the sky without being noted.

It could be destroyed easily enough, but not before it sent out it's ping, and the invaders lost the element of surprise.

"Almost online Miss."

"Good."

[member="Khaleel Malvern"]

 

[Darth Metus]

Only a klik away from the main mining facility was a refinery owned and operated under the payroll of Arakyd Industries. While the corporation formerly known as SDE assisted greatly in establishing Raven interests on Demonsgate, it also established its own during the same operation. Unlike the Raven facility, however, the workers of the refinery were on the payroll of Arakyd Industries entirely.

And once they cleared out in response to the nearby din of explosions, someone had enough common sense to report what was going on to the higher ups. This report was expedited through the channels until someone was met with a very surprising bit of news. Isley looked up from his datapad, frowned, and proceeded to shoot his Twi'lek friend a friendly message.

"You know, you could have messaged me before you started making a ruckus.
-IV"

[member="Chiasa Kritivaas"]

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

"Running specs and diagnostics now. Using the smaller ships to establish effective range.."

A moment of silence from the tech on the other end of the comm.

"Diagnostics complete, satellite up and running at maximum efficiency."

Good. Long and short of it was that while defensible against small forces, any large force could easily take the facility. What she wanted was warning so her employees could scarper, and she knew to send a bigger ship to pick them up and bring them home. Phrik was useful, but not worth a the lives of a facility full of people trying to hold it against an overwhelming force.

"Team One, I see the gennies are back at full power, shields are up, atmo is holding, what're you on now?"

"Moving on to equipment repair or replacement Ma'am."

It was at about this time a message from Isley came through. The Twi'leks mouth crooked up slightly as she keyed in her reply.

///begin tranmission...
To: [member="Isley Verd"]
From: Chiasa Kritivaas

And you could have warned me before you let Garter take off with all my stock and stopped honoring our contract.. You've been a friend to me Verd, I'm not moving against you, you'll note your refinery wasn't touched, but if she comes near my holdings, whether it's with you or in your ships there will be an incident.

I never even fired her. Schutta is literally crazy.

Those who stay loyal come first. I will do what needs to be done to protect them. End of story.

...end transmission///

She didn't know what the tie was between the two, and it didn't matter. All that mattered was it apparently took precedence, and that Verd had chosen to back out of their agreements, handing a fair bit of control over to the blonde and her bad life choices. Once upon a time Verd had agreed to teach her force things, and she'd joined his Vanguard. Now while she was still willing, it felt unsafe and unwise to continue those agreements. How attached to Patricias was he after all? Enough to set up an assassination? Or just enough to put her into a situation she couldn't handle and let her die by herself?

Best to stay with people she knew she could trust. For a moment yellow eyes flicked over to [member="Khaleel Malvern"]. Best to stay with Blood.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Chiasa Kritivaas"]

Really this was all Chiasa’s show, he didn’t have any orders to give, no prerogatives to offer. Really he was still sad that they were using militarized gear as if it was nothing, capital stealth ships as a criminal organization, really? Not that he could do anything about it, and Khal supposed that it would be a waste of the money not to use the tech they had apparently managed to acquire.

But someone really had to go and talk with the requisition officer, maybe he could get himself a cool capital ship too. Damn, maybe he should crashland it into Nar Shaddaa and then make a bar out of it, that could be awesome, right?

Right.

‘When this is over, I will need some of that phrik, lass.’ Khal mentioned smoothly. ‘Got a few ideas for a project of mine.’

Gotta have some kind of profit from this venture, no?

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

"Done. How much?"

This wasn't just an upgrade after all. They were here, of course they were going to pick up the next shipment. She supposed she ought to be drilling him to find out what it was for, if it was something that could be used against her. But she remembered that feeling of other when they'd shaken hands. Besides, a person needed a few people they could trust or else they courted insanity. Khal, Xalus, Emberli, Keira. Three of the four had nothing compelling them to stay trustworthy, but she had just enough trust left in her to extend it all the same.

"Team One here. Most of the tools are scrap, as expected, we've got the bigger drills and smelter online and are unloading the new hand tools."

"Ahead of schedule, good job Team One. Team Two?"

"Team Two here, Sixty-two percent of expected droids accounted for and neutralized. No hiccups so far."

"Perfect."

[member="Khaleel Malvern"]

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

Within the facility the hand tools not worth saving were being switched for new ones, already bought and shipped in, the facility workers helping on the ground were already oohing and aahing over the updates. While she didn't bother paying just for flash, the Twi'lek did tend to go for what was most efficient, what operated the best. It wasn't always pretty, but it did the job and it did it well. Mining probably wasn't meant to be pretty. The scrapped gear was being transported to the smelter. Waste not want not. It would be melted down and the base materials reused. It was a damned pain to get to Demonsgate, you didn't throw things away if you didn't have to.

With the larger equipment back up and running, the handtools replaced, the shields up and the satellite online, the work was very nearly done.

"Team Two, we finally found the last droid. Damned thing fell down a mine shaft. We got it though, don't worry. Winching it out now Boss."

"Good job. We don't want any surprises."

Speaking of..

"How's the tech sweep going?"

"All good, found a few easily exploitable back door entries, shoring them up now. Keeping the satellite, the shields, and the rest of the facility on separate systems, and of course the droids are all running on Hegemonic so. No slicers going to be able to drop 'em all at once. We'll have plenty of time from one being attacked to respond with the others."

"Good."

Someone had once told her the best way to accomplish things was to get capable people and just let them go. Truer words had never been spoken.

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

"Using some of the floaters to move the droids. One of the boys staying planetside reckons he can get most of them up and running again, safely, and those he can't he'll smelt down."

"That works for me, give him the go ahead."

"Will do."

"Latest ore shipment is being loaded onto the shuttle the droids came down on Miss."

"Since you lads have it in hand down there I'm sending down the shuttles with the resupply for the facility. Supplies and personnel. Once you're down loading the ore, those who are heading home can load themselves as well as the droids who aren't staying. With the shields up there's no call for full on overkill."

Though anyone trying anything stupid would get a rude surprise or two from the droids she'd chosen to leave behind.. Particularly anyone operating under the assumption that they knew and had control of what was left on planet.

That was a big 'ol nope right there.

 

[Chiasa Kritivaas]

In due time the supplies were unloaded and put away and several tons of phrik as well as the excess personnel and droids were loaded up and ferried back into the Hades.

The two team leaders and the tech were brought into a quick huddle before the left system and beat feet for home.

"Nothing unexpected?"

"No Ma'am, all good."

"Some of the backdoors were pretty wide open. Like, not even screendoor level, like someone might've forgotten to build the back wall entirely. Pretty incompetent. All good and tight now though."

"Droids and on site security is good. We tested the cams and such Boss."

"And I made sure the signals good so it's all not only being recorded and saved, it's transmitting from the facility and from the satellite as well. I put in as many redundancies as possible since it might take a while to get there to enact repairs."

"Good thinking. Well. Anything else?"

This was met by head shaking or silence.

"Good enough, then let's go home."

 

[Miss Blonde]

There was a part of Patricia that really enjoyed taking the entire product line from the Ravens, well maybe a lot. The report that was shot over to Isley quickly made it over to Patricia as she did do the actual building of the facility, she had learned her droids had been destroyed and Chiasa was off on one of her high and mighty supreme power trips again. But Chiasa had her reasons and that was okay, it was only the right thing to do to secure your assets and she couldn't blame her for that. So she shot a message over to her new boss [member="Isley Verd"]

We should send her a gift basket. Maybe some massage oils, some bath salts, some coupons or something.

Patricia then began to search the holonet for people who made custom gift baskets with little lightsaber cheese slicers.