I'm Gonna Need Some of This

[Eldaah Aderyn]

Duro, previously a planet that had been under the dominion of the Omega Protectorate and now independent, was her final destination for this little trip. None of the teachers knew that when they gave the students the weekend off, a sign of weakness in them in her opinion, that she other things to do with her time than ... whatever the other acolytes did.

Getting off the public transport at the spaceport, she took in every point around her and then some. She had left her probe droids behind, with orders to continuously record and follow her fellow students. One never knew what one could blackmail someone with. Regardless, she had come to Duro for a simple matter.

Cortosis was something she was interested in acquiring. While many acolytes did have their own armor or weapons, she would not be proscribing to such a limitation imposed by the instructors. They could rage and confiscate anything all they liked, but she found them almost beneath her notice now. This "free" weekend had been just another sign to her that she needed to leave that academy for better prospects elsewhere.

Slowly walking over to a common terminal, she casually started slicing into the spaceport's systems and looked through the shipping manifests for what she was looking for. Docking Bay 25 had a shipment of cortosis, just waiting to be ... liberated for a better cause than being shipped to ... yea she didn't think they would miss a shipment on Omwat.

 

[Eldaah Aderyn]

"You there, stop what you're doing and back away from the console," a gruff voice said, even as she closed the manifest down to show the list of stalls and shops in the spaceport. She smiled behind her visor as she looked at a rather annoyed looking Duros security guard. Different scenarios on how to deal with this guard went through her mind, but she decided on a simpler course of action that might just let her slip in and out undetected. Security would have clearances to the private bays after all.

"Apologies, sir," she said, layering her voice with the Force. "I didn't mean to cause any issues."

"What were you doing?" the guard asked, getting closer to her.

"Just seeing what the spaceport had to offer," she said, appearing to gesture at the screen when she was laying on a mind trick. The guard seemed to buy the story, but as he got closer to look at the screen, she quietly picked his security id off his belt.

"All is in order then, carry on," and he left, not even realizing that he was missing something rather important. Now to slip inside, steal what she wanted, and then ... well either deal with security inside or slip on out with a stolen freighter. That seemed fun.

 

[Eldaah Aderyn]

Slipping through the crowd to the designated docking bay, she could see workers moving back and forth under armed guard from 25. Now that just screamed cortosis shipment to anyone watching. It was the most valuable resource on this planet, why advertise where it was being shipped with such an escort?

Sitting down across from the hanger, she kept watch for almost an hour. Timing the guards, seeing how many crates were being moved inside ... how many workers were in and out. Eventually, she knew she had ascertained all the information she could and just needed to wait for their break or shift change. The spaceport security seemed to be giving the company men a wide berth, paid off perhaps? Or more likely they just didn't want to deal with such beings until they needed to sign off on a security review of the bay?

Just a waiting game now ... simply waiting for the right time to make her move. There were going to be casualties, but such things happened in the course of events.

 

[Eldaah Aderyn]

Time passed, but the Force gave her a little nudge it was time to act as the spaceport started to clear out for the evening shift. Only three guards were still inside the bay, and a couple of workers that were likely loading the freighter with the shipment. The departure time was in three hours, but that ship would be on its way much much sooner if she had her way.

Producing the security badge she had stolen earlier, she had watched that fool Duro searching high and low for it earlier, she made her way over to the hanger access door for security and pressed the badge to it. Not only would it look like the guard had stolen the shipment as it would be his badge access on the door log, but it would serve to keep security confused once the ship left to not be able to scramble interceptors fast enough.

"What do you want, security review isn't for another two ... hours," a man, Naboo by his accent, said as he turned around to face her. He was cradling a blaster rifle and was starting to lift it. Now that wouldn't do at all. Moving quickly, the man didn't have a chance to fully raise his rifle before a knife was in his throat and her hand was covering his mouth.

"Shhh, it will be okay," she whispered softly, the voice module in her visor making her voice more distorted and sinister. Lowering the dying guard to the ground, she removed the vibroknife and wiped it off on his tunic. A panicked hand reached out to grab her arm, but she just chuckled coldly as she shook his hand away and grabbed his rifle.

One down, two to go and the workers on the ship. That cortosis was nearly hers.

 

[Eldaah Aderyn]

Creeping along behind the crates in the hanger, she watched the two other guards standing at the bottom of the loading ramp for an old YT-1300 freighter. Definitely not the most famous example of that ship, this was one was clearly not a normally authorized ship. Perhaps this was a smuggling operation for some criminal element? She honestly didn't care, they had what she wanted and she would take it.

Using the shadows, she went prone and looked down the scope of her newly borrowed rifle. Both men were talking, a Chiss and Huk, and were cradling just as equally deadly hardware as the others ... definitely criminals. The workers going up and down looked nervous, but did their duties diligently ... until one slipped and the hover trolley went out of control and crashed. Plates of cortosis, she couldn't tell if it had been refined or not yet, spilled all over the hanger bay floor.

The worker groveled, but the two guards were clearly in the mood to make an example of them. Interesting, that presented her with an intriguing concept. Lining up the scope and using her visor to increase the zoom feature, she could watch as the Huk started to kick at the worker while the others looked on, before the Chiis barked at them to get back to work or suffer the same.

The Huk was shouting at the man, and that was all the distraction she needed before she pulled the trigger twice. The Huk stumbled back, two smoking holes in his head before he collapsed. The Chiss went to react ... and was promptly shot three times, one in the chest and one in each leg. The man was screaming in pain as she emerged from the shadows, her heeled boots clinking on the bay floor.

"Schutta, I'll kill you!" he yelled, but she merely responded with silence and wrapped the Force around his neck. Choking filled the hanger and he tried to claw at the thing squeezing the life from him. She watched on, his pathetic attempts merely reinforcing in her mind the unworthiness of the man.

One last death rattle, and he was gone too.

 

[Eldaah Aderyn]

Slinging the rifle back over her shoulder, she looked at the worker and asked, "Are you okay?"

One would think her question was out of concern for the worker's well-being, he certainly did as he nodded and slowly got to his feet.

"Thank you, stranger, they've been working us nonstop to get those infernal crates loaded," he said, gesturing at his fellow workers. "They're some two bit crime family, but they forced us into working for them because they control these docks and they threatened out families."

"I see, well you need not worry about them anymore and I'll be glad to hurt them a little more," she replied, gesturing at the ship. "Mind if I steal the shipment after you finish loading it? I'll even compensate you all for helping."

Compensation ... greed really ... was a powerful motivator. So was revenge and returning the favor of saving a life ... all useful to her in this case as the workers quickly got back to work, their presences radiating a vicious satisfaction that the criminals would be hurting and the promise of actually getting paid. Pity for them, she didn't say she would pay them for the cortosis ... just compensate them.

 

[Eldaah Aderyn]

Walking onto the ship, she peeked inside the containers and couldn't help the smile forming behind her mask. It was quite a decent sized shipment of cortosis, maybe she would commandeer those criminals for her own use in the future? Who was to say, but looking at the metal sitting innocently in its container, she felt the thrill of success of a plan. She wasn't about to let any others get ahold of this material either once she returned to Sith space. She had a place in mind where she could hide the containers and she didn't need this hunk of junk ship beyond heading back to her destination.

"That's the last one, miss," the worker who's life she had saved said, setting the last one down in the cargo hold. "When do we get paid?"

Oh a real shame their usefulness to her had run out, but then ... that was how things went.

"Oh yes, give me just a moment to make sure this thing is actually spaceworthy and I'll take care of that," she said, moving out of the cargo hold and to the cockpit. Everything was good, and peering through the cockpit viewports, she could see the few workers milling about outside waiting for her. They were giving the bodies a wide berth, and she suspected there was a camera watching the hanger. More guards would be coming soon ... a message must be sent.

 

[Eldaah Aderyn]

Walking out of the ship, the workers gathered over to her. Like sheep to the slaughter they were, they just didn't know it yet. One could say it was unnecessary to kill them ... but she would disagree as they were witnesses and it would send a message to whoever was watching that their place in the galaxy's pecking order wasn't about to change anytime soon.

"So how much are we getting paid?" one worker asked, and a deluge of the same question just worded differently washed over her. She let them pester for a few moments before she raised her hand for quiet.

"I said I would compensate you, and I shall," she said. Looking up, she finally caught the telltale light of a camera. Either that was security or it was the criminals ... considering how long the response was taking, it was definitely the criminals.

"However..." she continued saying, her tone devoid of any indicator of what was about to happen, "I never said what form that compensation would take."

By the time the workers pieced together what she meant, it was too late as she was among them with her vibroknife. One worker, a Duro, fell to the ground with a hand around his throat to try and stem the bleeding. Another was lying on his back already, blood pooling from multiple stab wounds to his chest.

"Stop! Please!" but the two who begged for her to stop were lifted into the air and thrown repeatedly against the metal containers lining the walls. Only one, the man she had previously saved, was still alive and he was wheezing from a knife wound that had collapsed a lung from the sound of it. His bloodied fingers had closed around the Huk guard's blaster, but her knife came down through his hand and he screamed.

"Consider this adequate compensation for services rendered," she said, before removing the knife and driving it into his neck twice.

Stepping away from her work, and leaving the knife where it rested now, she looked up at the camera and silently walked back into the ship. The message should have been clear.

 

[Eldaah Aderyn]

Activating the ship's systems, she put in the docking code to have the bay doors open. As they groaned and slid apart, she could hear shouts coming from the bay. It seemed security had been alerted to what had happened, but it was much too late now. She could hear the pinging of blaster bolts against the ship's hull but they would need something larger than that to even attempt to stop her and they didn't have the time.

As the doors were open wide enough for the ship now, she took off and left the hanger as the old YT-1300 roared towards space. Duro was now behind her, next stop would be Sith space, but she felt it had been a worthwhile way to spend her day. Much better than whatever else those silly people she called fellow students had been up to. Some might be studying or doing some constructive, but the vast majority had probably whiled away their day doing nonsense.

Two pings on the ship's sensor suite told her that security had scrambled two fighter craft to intercept her, but they were just now starting to come around. Typing in the coordinates, she made the jump to lightspeed before even one laser cannon could be fired on her.

 

[Eldaah Aderyn]

"So what did you do over the weekend?"

"Not much, went down into the Undercity, scared some spice out of some hapless alien, good times ensued. You?"

"Studied..."

"Bah, the instructors gave us that free time to relax, we didn't need to study."

And on and on it went, but at least some of the students were figuring out what the weekend really was about. The instructors, while she considered them weak for even doing it, had been rather clever in that they could determine which students were serious and which were going to develop into dead weight. Literally.

Upon her return to Sith space and the academy she was at, she had hidden the cortosis she had stolen and disposed of the ship by giving it to some petty thief and telling him to leave the planet. He had done so, after some persuasion, and she was sitting in a chair listening to the conversation around her, a book opened.

She would need some more time to get everything in order, but eventually she would have the armor she wanted.

"So what did you do with your free time?" someone asked her.

"Went to Duro, killed a couple of people, stole some cortosis," she responded, not even bothering to look up from her book.

"Yeah right, like you could slip off world."

"Believe what you will, it just proves my point."

"Huh?"

"Exactly."