Dominion Junkyard Elegy - Darkwire Dominion of Altier

[Darkwire Prophet]

Swoop bikes roared into town, piercing the twilight air uncomfortably. Day shift had already come home for the night, and swing shift had already left. There was no one else who would be traveling this late hour, especially not in such numbers. Those idle or passing along the main village road looked up, watching curiously at first, then reacting in terror as the swoop gang roared into view. Fleeing or taking up hiding places, the road emptied out in a flash, leaving the swoops to pull up in front of the haphazard facades of a few buildings that could be called a downtown.

A few of the gangsters climbed off, leaving most to stay on their bikes. They were threatening enough already, but the trio who climbed off replaced swoops for blaster pistols and a rifle. The absence of any audience didn't seem to bother the trio, they headed with purpose into one of the nearby buildings. A moment later the trio reappeared, dragging someone behind them, a middle-aged Bimm whose clothes hung loosely on his wiry frame, and dropping him in the middle of the street.

"W-what do you want?" the man asked, shaking in front of the gang.

The leader of the trio didn't speak, but one of his lackeys did. "You didn't show up for work."

"What do you mean? I-I worked all day at the sorting plant," the Blimm man told them, his eyes darting between the gangsters. Some wore helmets that obscured their facial expressions, others wore impenetrable stares.

"The wrong plant!" The trio leader shouted, leaning down to get on eye level with the Blimm. His were obscured behind a helmet that left only his chin and mouth free.

By now, others had wandered back from their flight, or poked from hiding spots. The doors of the saloon across the street opened, and many of its patrons came out to see what was going on. The bartender followed, a blaster shotgun held at the ready.

The lead gangster didn't notice them at first. "You work for the enemy!" He glanced up and swung a pointed finger at the crowd hanging back at the fringes. "All of you, disloyal sleemo!"

"P-p-please, it was the only work I could get," the Blimm said.

The trio leader barely glanced at him now, this show was more for the audience. One of them spoke up in their neighbor's defense, "Nobody from here gets hired at the Meros plant."

The Meros plant was the closest, biggest junk sorting plant in the area. It also paid the most. And almost all of its workers were brought in every morning by speeder bus, leaving the local workers to find jobs at places like the Junkjoy label on the Blimm's baggy clothes.

"Well, congratulations," the trio leader said, and his lips curled back in a sneer. "You've all been hired."

"B-b-but," the cowering man protested, and the trio leader swung his blaster pistol into the Blimm's face. He brought his arms up to protect himself.

“Don't hurt him!" Someone one cried out.

"I can't just quit,” the Blimm tried to explain. “The Blaster Brotherhood, they run the plant and they'd come around if I don't show up. They make us sign a contract, and it's…"

The trio leader fired at the ground before returning his aim to the man's head. His words were as sharp and clear as the shot. "Null and void."

No one spoke now. The consequences of the choice was painfully clear. The trio returned to their swoops, mounting up before the leader gave one last warning. "I expect to see you all report for work at Meros tomorrow. Or this won't be the last time you see the Kyber Khans here!"

With a dramatic revving of engines and pointed glares at other village folk, the swoops took off again. They carved a winding path, ignoring the well-worn paths between junk piles and waste pits to sail over them instead, turning their flight into a kind of performance. It ended a bit before they glided back into base, forming up again with more precision as the swoops entered the underground garage.

As they came to a halt, parking vehicles in their stalls, one of the trio approached the leader. "Think that'll be enough to draw the Brotherhood out, Captain?"

The trio leader pulled off his helmet, revealing the face of a CorpSec captain. He grinned at his fellow officer, "And with any luck, their Darkwire friends, too."

>> * --xING! COMM\ \\
<\ATTN ALL DARKWIRE ON ALTIER
<\We have a prime opportunity to infiltrate the Corpo drug operations
<\The Meros plant, in the vicinity of the Wa'Le village, is expecting new workers
<\Blend with the new arrivals
<\Take over the plant for the Blaster Brotherhood gang
<\Expose the Corpo schemes for what they are
<\BONUS PAY IF YOU MAKE A BOLD STATEMENT

Spoiler: OOC Background Info

Altier. It’s an easy world to miss in the galactic landscape, even if you’re looking for it. And no one looks for it unless they have to. It’s major contributions to the galaxy are its teeming junkyards and the rumors of drug labs nestled deep within the mounds of the galaxy’s garbage. Altier is a world no one is eager to go to, which is probably why it’s a world a few folks are eager to go to, escaping bounties or pasts or destinies, only to get roped into a life of drudgery sorting and salvaging junk, or worse. Gangs and scraplords vy for control, but largely live in a cycle of detente, too focused on survival to devote energy otherwise. For the few eking out an existence on Altier, the rest of the galaxy is hardly noticeable, much less welcome. Nor are their fights.

Like it or not, a fight has come to Altier. The scheming Corpos of the Corporate Authorities of Denon, always looking for more avenues of profit, have begun making their interests known on Altier by buying up salvage operations and putting up barriers for their competitors. Meanwhile, the drug trade isn’t the only secret venture on Altier, it has also found itself home to a few enclaves of Darkwire Shadowrunners. Gangs and scraplords make natural allies with both parties, and battle lines begin to form between the Corpo sympathizer Kyber Khans and the Darkwire-aligned Blaster Brotherhood. Detente becomes more and more untenable as early mischief and eventual raids from either side has set the unsteady peace on the edge of certain warfare over neutral territory that neither completely controls.

Such has been the case for several months. As the Corpos lean more on extracting whatever they can out of their operations and let their gangs fight for the scraps, it consistently leaves their exploited workers to fend for themselves. More of the planet’s population have been silently radicalized to Darkwire’s side, prominently swelling the ranks of the Blaster Brotherhood gang. Joined by offworld Shadowrunners from Authority space, they have made it clear that Darkwire means to stay. The Corpo response is the arrival of several contingents of CorpSec enforcers. Officially they’ve come to root out the last vestiges of the drug trade, but their attacks focus primarily on Darkwire controlled zones, leaving alone many of the rumored spice operations in the neutral territories.

Spoiler: OBJECTIVES

Objective 1: Waltz for the Weary Worker

The drug labs on Altier have always operated under the veil of rumors and shadows, but this new Corporate-aligned operation isn't even trying. Darkwire's tacit allegiance with the quieter drug shops means they're eager to pounce when the Corporate Lab, barely disguised as a Meros scrap processing center, shows its weakness. Suddenly finding themselves with a common interest, the Shadowrunners have recruited a group of Jedi Shadows to help them put an end to the operations. Disrupting the Corporate drug lab will stop a huge flood of cheap, but dangerous, drugs into the underworlds on worlds all over the Slice.

Objective 2: Toothless Townie Tango

The village of Wa'Le never wanted to be anything more than a place for simple folk to bed down for the night, and grab a drink at the local saloon. Most of the town works at the nearby junkyards, but there's a few spacers and independent operations involved. Nothing that would earn it the strategic importance it has between the Corpos and Darkwire other than its location, right in the middle of a small strip of neutral territory. After a tense shakedown by the Kyber Khans that took over the main street yesterday evening, the town needs some help to protect itself before they come back.

Objective Yours

Tell your own story on Altier. There are Corpos and Darkwire, allied with the gangs of Kyber Khans and the Blaster Brotherhood respectively, ordinary people and junk as far as the eye can see. Jazz it up and impress us with your improv!

Spoiler: TAGS

Airal Thamne
Aren D'Shade
Brie Jaxx
Cartri Keswoll
Cassus Akovin
Chelara "Chel" DuCote
Chloe Santhe
Deryn Kaaldos
Daiya
Extari Kanos
Gray Venasir
Hacks
Haden Del
Helena
@Marimax Lacroix
Mliss Roo
Myzery XIII
Rook.the.slicer
5-WCH (Switchblade)
Shira Varanin
Spark
Venku Bralor
Xan Deesa
Yula Perl
Zak Dymo
@Maxer
Allyson Locke
@Zaavik

 

[Shira Varanin]

Shira was probably not best suited for OBJECTIVE 1 but she went anyway. She had a hunch, an idea, and a fire in her belly to figure this crap out.

Picture a low- to mid-grade spice op: a warehouse full of silent, masked, poor women who know too much and are too scared or scarred to speak. Open packages of spice and the junk used to cut it. Dangerous dust as omnipresent as guards with junk blasters, watching the workers lest someone steal a pinch or a sniff.

Imagine one of those women is a scarred, weary, down-on-her-luck cyborg with simple arm and leg replacements, and rusty-looking spinal gear visible under her sweat-stained tank top. Imagine she's got tape over a gaping cranial socket, and though her metal hands are steady enough on the drugs she needs all her concentration to pull it off. She's no threat, and not attractive or matronly enough to spark pity, especially among guards who've seen a hundred women like her overdose before. She works quietly, like all the rest. She was a curiosity a week ago; now she's nothing.

 

[M-XIII]

"I'm Always Watching....Always!"
​

Objective: BYOO

It was miserable to watch the gang members treat a simple, hard working man like garbage. But she couldn't break character. She was, in all terms, a spy for the Darkwire. Myzery XIII was a product born from cyborg skin meshed with the remains of her Echani flesh, making her invaluable to the gang she had been assigned to watch based off her resume uploaded into their loving computer system. Outside her duty as a spy, a feeling beneath her, the gang over the course of months harvested countless technology and salvage to better stream their cause into a solidified monopoly; resorting to piracy when it best wore upon them like a tailored suit. Every moment with them, she felt it less than hard to kill them.

"Hey droid," a mean and raspy voice bellowed at her, "Pick it up! Stop aweing and get to work!"

"Cyborg," she snapped back.

"What's the difference?"

Ignoring her superior's direct command spoke codes and dynamics of laughter, tickling her undead, mechanical body with a vibe of joy. This motley crew, it would appear in her "eyes", spent a substantial amount of pillaged credits to create a loyal, respective system of droids. Unfortunately, the gang bangers failed to properly invest research into what they were buying. She was no simple droid, she possessed the "gene" how to play the game.

"System error 734 detected," she said with a venomous voice masked in her synthesized voice, "Permission to seek maintenance?"​

 

[Ripley Kühn]

Objective 1
Tags: OPEN TO INTERACTION

The air shimmered just a bit as the force cloak weakened while Ripley shifted. She had been leaned up against the brick building most of the night, watching the comings and goings from the warehouse. No one in particular, had pulled her eyes, and the shipment that was supposed to be coming out certainly didn't.

The zeltron's hand went to her face, slightly frustrated. Either her contacts had given her bad info, or the ringleaders knew they were watching. If it was the latter, it made any sort of infiltration dangerous. The former, and she was going in blind.

The knight let out a deep sigh as her invisible form began sulking towards the building. She would figure out when that shipment was leaving, one way or another.

 

[Deryn Kaaldos]

​

Deryn wasn't made for infiltration.

Deryn was a half-ton near unstoppable killing machine that could blast through most of any defense in his armor. The twist in that was that he had to be in armor, good, stable armor. He'd likely crush plasteel from the inside due to his own physical weight, after all. Disguise and subterfuge was unlikely if he didn't go in quiet and unseen. For a man of Deryn's size, that was going to be easier said than done.

Instead, for this particular job, he decided to go for something more his style. Deryn was not the lying type, nor was he any measure of a good actor, but he certainly is something when it comes to confusing people. Ripley Kühn would feel the sudden trudging of metallic footsteps over the junk-ridden land behind her. The long strides of Deryn would come beside her.

He look onwards, as if not noticing her, but slowed down his long pace a good notch to stay within her lane. But he knew she was there, he could hear her heart beat inside her heart along. "Mind giving an old man a hand, kiddo?"

Shira Varanin Myzery XIII

​

 

[Yula Perl]

Objective 2 | Wa’Le

Yula didn’t know which was worse; The Kyber Khans or The Blaster Brotherhood. Both names evoked imagery of underworld scum amped up on whatever power they managed to eek out of Altier. Different names, same gang war.

It was always the folks in the middle that caught the worst of it. Innocent, usually. Civilians trying to make a living out of what little they had. Wa’Le was in the middle of that middle, an unfortunate grey zone between the two warring clans. The Khans had taken the downtown in an overnight battle, ushering the way for Darkwire contractors to take up the role of provisional security guards.

The local cantina was small, but surprisingly tidy. Yula had been chatting up the bartender, getting the rundown on the Khans. Her days as a Judge in the Outer Rim ran a similar course; sit in the cantina, wait for the bad guys to show up, sweep em up and move on to the next dusty backwater planet. Rinse, repeat.

So she sat in the cantina, all friendly smiles and congenial Zeltron nature. Emily skittered across the floor, between chair legs and into crevices, the little spider droid stopping to perform a cursory scan every now and then.

 

[Ruby Jaxx]

Objective 2

Ruby leaned up against the wall, just next to the main entrance of the cantina. Her darkly lined eyes were set and narrow, shifting back and forth. So far, things were pretty quiet on the main drag. She'd seen heads peek out of buildings and sets of wary eyes peering out windows, the folk here were on edge.

She couldn't blame them.

Growing up, she'd learned a lot about gangs. Sometimes, it was beneficial to run with one – strength in numbers and all that. But it was a dangerous game. If enemy gang members didn't capture you, the members of your own gang were often ready to stab you in the back just as fast. Cut or be cut. And as for Ruby, she preferred not to get cut -- so she felt her skittish, paranoid nature blossom. But this place wasn't used to such things, by the looks of it.

The junk yards were many here, and she'd seen some workers scurry home after their shifts. And that generally meant that the cantina would soon be flooded with thirsty patrons. Ruby turned slightly and peered in the window, spotting the Yula Perl seated and chatting up the tender. Zeltrons. She arched her eyebrows at Yula, as if to say – nothing yet.

But... she had that sinking feeling things were bound to change.

 

[Xandyr]

Ruby Jaxx Yula Perl

"Blaster brotherhood. Kyber fetching Khan's. Wonder if anyone ever laughs when they tell people their names," he muttered to himself.

Xandyr was nestled in the corners of an abandoned building on the outskirts of the town. It was a skeleton of creaking rust. He was more concerned that it would collapse beneath him, than be shot by a gang.

He was waiting patiently. This was the edge of Wa'le that faced the Khan's territory. He was waiting for the sound of swoop bikes.

Xandyr brought his macrobinoculars up and scanned the horizon. He switched to thermal. No sign of swoop bike engines.

"Still clear," he muttered into his comm-link for anyone listening. They didn't have many enforcers around the town. If the Khan's came in large numbers then this was going to get a little messy.

 

[Hira Mitsae]

OBJECTIVE TWO
Tags: Yula Perl | Ruby Jaxx | Xandyr

The mission required subtlety.

Patience.

It required a clear thought-out plan with a lot of observation.

Really, none of those were in Hira's column of strengths, so perhaps it shouldn't surprise anyone that someone went flying through the bar right through one of Yula's carefully-orchestrated and refine dialogue attempts. Record screech, scene freeze. There stood Hira, all cybernetic gusto and maniacal grinning, very pleased with her efforts.

"Found this one skulking in the alley with a thermal detonator and an encrypted commlink." Hira said conversationally. Like she hadn't just tossed a grown man from one side of the room to the other. "Looks like the Khans aren't all bluster and swoops bikes swooping."

Some elements in Darkwire had grown suspicious with the Khan's move to pressure their workers.

It had all been so sudden, so bold and out of nowhere. This, at least, confirmed there was something more at play here. Why would the Khans be sniffing around the place. Eyes all squinty, hiding in the shadows, when just a day ago they had been as bold as brass? Hira was about to say more, but the tossed man had suddenly crawled up to his feet. Before she could say anything, he dashed towards the exit.

This, coincidentally, would get him face to face with Ruby.

"Should have thrown him harder..." Hira sighed, before grinning to Yula. "Hope you were a bit more successful with the information gathering." As subtle as a brick to the face.

 

[Zenric Salyn]

Objective: Two
Tags: Yula Perl | Ruby Jaxx | Xandyr | Hira Mitsae
Theme: The Pressure

Kyber Khans. Pretty lame name in Zenric's opinion, but the fact they'd put the fear of god into the town was enough for him to care. It's why he was here. The young cyborg glanced at his hands, slowly flexing the mechanical fingers. He'd lost so much from gang wars. All funded by Corpo. He'd keep this town from facing the same fate as his own if he could. He kept his hood up as he stayed perched on the roof of one of the buildings. He could see the compound these Khans used as their base of operations.

Darkwire was supposed to be here, not that he'd seen any of them yet. At least this time he knew. No more accidentally attacking them if they showed up. For now though Zenric was watching the compound. Recording patrols and their shifts, looking for the head of the gang. Preparing his attack routine to take down the group on his own if he had to. And listening to some nice beats while the routine was plotted.

Gotta have good music to kick butt to after all.

 

[Maxer Shagar]

OBJECTIVE 1

Disrupting a poorly hidden corporate drug lab was just another day of work for Maxer Shagar. Though it was a welcome change from all of the high profile espionage ops that he had been assigned too lately. He wasn’t deep undercover today, instead posing as a recent hire for the scrap processing center, a nobody assigned to do manual labor and little else. He wasn’t inside where he knew the drugs were being handled, but unloading shipments moved him all around the warehouse.

His eyes roamed over the rows of masked faces and scared eyes as he sat another crate of spice down to be unloaded. His work frequently brought him in contact with the group of women who silently handled the spice but, he could only make eye contact with the likes of Shira Varanin for a few seconds before he is roughly pushed along. Orders being barked at him to hurry up, look away, and get back to unloading the never ending stack of drug crates.

Tags: Open

 

[Shira Varanin]

To her surprise, Shira had found she was good at this terrible job. She took it seriously. Cut the drugs unevenly, mix poorly, measure wrong, and some poor soul down the road would risk overdose.

She caught Maxer Shagar's eyes as he brought in another crate.

<You're one of the Jedi - I'm Shira.> There'd been a time not too many years ago when she was a Jedi too, before life and debt got in the way. <What timetable are we looking at? When do we move?>

 

[Kadora'Tra]

​

Kadora'Tra felt like she was being punished. It was the only explanation why she had been reassigned to this dump heap of a planet. Sure, Denon wasn't much prettier on its lowest levels, but those could be avoided with enough effort and class. Here though? In every direction you looked, it was trash, figuratively if not literally. A wasteland that nobody should be bothering with, but somehow, Darkwire had screwed that up for everyone too.

According to Diviak, their investments on Altier should have been a simple matter of pressing the locals into processing facilities and giving them some sense of purpose in theirs lives rather than living off of subsistence and scavenging. Except that the local gangs had been causing problems with CorpSec, so they sent more officers, and laid down more firepower. That had kept things quite for a short while, before the "Blaster Brotherhood" started getting smarter, and acting more like insurgents than the petty swoop gang they actually were. Disturbed, CorpSec investigated the uptick in tactics and inferred that they must have been fed intel, possibly from a classic enemy: Darkwire. Frustrated from this thorn in their side, they decided it was time to get involved with local politics, and discovered a rival swoop gang the "Kyber Khans", giving them money, weapons, new swoops, whatever they wanted to push the Brotherhoods territory away from their facilities.

Equipped with resources, motivation, and new recruits, the Kyber Khans went on a warpath on behalf of Corporate outposts as far as the village of Wa'Le, allowing CorpSec to crack down and take over illicit operations elsewhere in the wastes left unprotected by the Blaster Brotherhood. The fighting continued, but now it was safely away from Corporate Assets, for now. Somehow, this all translated into Diviak wanting her specifically to go out into the wastes and lead the Kyber Khans against a Brotherhood hideout

Usually, Diviak's orders made sense: "Go to Belazura stop political dissention", "Come to the Frego negotiation, you're friends with the Chancellor", or "Find out why this mining facility mysteriously vanished". But this? It was a slap in the face.

"You know your way around a gang, right?" She probed cautiously the hired help, Sarvod Dravis as they approached the Kyber Khans swoop stables, all of the corporate-backed gangers preparing to take off against their rivals. Not one to go alone, and not confident in the capabilities of her own Lieutenants to blend in, she got her contacts to pay for a criminal that might act as her guide through this stupid mess, and put down whatever she was going to deal with as quickly as possible. The only thing she cared about was getting out alive, and getting off this rock.

Some of the Khans standing outside the stables eyed them suspiciously as they approached.

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

Objective 1
Tags: Open

He'd make a terrible Jedi Shadow.

To start with, he was probably too short. And he'd have a rather difficult time explaining why someone who apparently barely passed for twelve (according to Daiya ) was skulking about. Or engaging in general skullduggery. Or whatever it was that Jedi Shadows did.

Seriously, they were the goths and emo-kids of the Jedi Temple. That's about all Sor-Jan knew of them.

Instead, what he knew was that the Corporate Authorities of Denon had locked out every bid for scrap or recycling across the entire Altier System. What he didn't know was why.

With recycling being en vogue with so many developed sectors, there was an internal push to be more transparent about how Corellia Digital used recycling and recycled materials to produce its products without generating more waste. Or reducing their carbon footprint on planets. Or whatever the current save the planet mantra of the day was. Solar power. Wind energy. Do the same thing, just with less waste, more green, and let people feel good that the Starblast Caf they just paid five credits for somehow made them a gorram hero.

He'd hoped that the scrap processing already taking place on Altier was a potential gold mine in that regard. He could get the recycling here for half of what he'd pay in the Corellian System, then transport it back to his manufacturing plants on Talus and Tralus and still come up with a savings over using the Selonian salvage operators who thought they were a premium service whose used scrap was worth near new prices.

And since the CAD managers were not taking his calls, Sor-Jan did what any Jedi Sentinel would have done.

He just showed up at their door.

"This is highly irregular!"

Borun Dal was a rather exasperated bit of middle management, who had the misfortune of being the one in the small corporate office that was stashed to one side when the Anzat had just landed outside the facility and let himself in.

For his part, Sor-Jan was just trying to get these Corpos to shut up and take his damn money. Why was that so hard? "Is this a scrap processing center or isn't it?" the small Anzat demanded.

Throwing his arms up in the air, Borun Dal shouted back, "Yes!" Then, the man seemed to try and walk that back as he started, "But, our scrap is no..."

"Excellent!" the boy stated, holding out his arms as he interrupted the man. If this was a scrap processing center, then they ought to be able to do business. After all, "I happen to be looking to buy some scrap!"

"For the last time," the man declared. A hand reached out to grab the diminutive Anzat by the arm, trying to steer him back to the door to the small office. "It's not for sale!"

In general, being in the same room with an Anzat was a bad idea. Their intuitive grasp of Mind Control made them able to use suggestive abilities even on fully trained Jedi. Touching an Anzat only made the power of suggestion that much stronger.

Borun Dal hit the deck about a second after he'd grabbed the boy, unconscious as the suggestion to sleep had registered deep inside of his brain.

"And that is the most interesting part to me," the boy noted, even as he started to pull a HoloBoy from his pocket.

Now, where was that computer terminal...

 

[Ripley Kühn]

OBJECTIVE 1
TAGS: Deryn Kaaldos

The heavy footfalls made her jump a bit, her eyes finding the man in full armor. What the feth? Was this some kind of security for the warehouse? Surely they weren't on her side, charging in with no stealth whatsoever. Her footsteps slowed as she followed, slightly bewildered, before the man spoke. Chit. The air around her body shimmered once more as her form seemed to appear out of thin air, force cloak let down.

"Are you crazy?" She asked an expression that would kill flashing across her face. "What are you planning, going in guns blazing?"

The knight shook her head at the audaciousness. Her days of glory were far behind her, preferring the sneakier route now- though the rush something like that brought was still something she craved.

"What do you need help with? Oh, and how did you know I was there?"

 

[Yula Perl]

Still smiling, Yula ducked slightly while finishing whatever faux-witty comment she was plying the bartender with. Hira’s latest find went whizzing past, crashing into a wall before scampering towards the exit. Unfortunately for him, he would find his exit blocked, and Yula didn’t envy someone who’d try to get past Ruby.

“Hira~” A playful admonishment curled the edge of her tone. “We don’t want him to be too karked up. You know how hard it is to get information out of a man with a concussion.” Didn’t mean that they wouldn’t try, though. Or…hadn’t. Sometimes they didn’t make the smartest decisions, whatever.

“As a matter of fact, my new friend here was just telling me about a rumor of the Khan’s latest plan to hit the mine.” She gestured to the nondescript middle aged man who was absently cleaning a glass. He didn’t appear particularly disturbed by the strange, rowdy, cybernetic women in his bar. Yula smiled at him. “They’re gonna go for it later tonight, while the folk are all here in the bar. So we should probably-“

A singular cold click echoed across the room. The bartender, calm as ever, had the tip of a slugthrower pressed against Yula’s forehead.

“Well,” The Zeltron concluded, still smiling. “That was a lie, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” The man said. “And you’re not going anywhere.”

Hira Mitsae | Ruby Jaxx | Xandyr | Zenric Salyn

 

[Ruby Jaxx]

Objective: 2
Location: Cantina
Nearby: Yula Perl & Hira Mitsae
Allies: Xandyr & Zenric Salyn

Still peering through the window, Ruby watched as a woman – enhanced by cyborg strength – threw a man across the cantina. As he hit the floor hard, Ruby grimaced for a moment but her lips eventually curled into something of a smirk. That's gonna leave a mark.

Words were being exchanged by Yula and Hira, but Ruby couldn't read lips. However, the man Hira had dragged in saw his opportunity. By the time he reached the exit, he'd find the end of Ruby's blaster level with his chest.

“Hi,” she said, meeting his surprised expression with a smug look. “Not so fast, I think this party's...”

Ruby stepped forward, forcing the man back into the cantina... where the bartender now had a blaster against the Zeltron's forehead.

“...just getting started.”

Two blasters were out now and there were five people in the room. It was almost too much math for Ruby, but she realized that this was a delicate situation. A wrong move on her part could put a blaster bolt through Yula's pretty (pink) brain pan. Her eyes darted back and forth between the bartender and the gangster at the end of her own gun. “Uh.”

Uh.

Ruby's boot swung up towards the gangster's groin, and she sent him to the floor groaning. This would, hopefully, give Hira an opening to intervene between the scene happening at the bar.

 

[Daiya]

Objective 1: Waltz for the Weary Worker
Tags: Shira Varanin Maxer Shagar

[Post Soundtrack: "Pit of Vipers" by Simon Curtis]​

Life in the Meros Scrap Processing Plant was routine cloaked in chaos. The warehouse floor was a constant din, Workers moved scrap around, cutting it and sorting it into pieces that would be shipped out to buyers and traders. Tools groaned and whined as they cut into materials of the scrap, sending a cacophony of sounds throughout the warehouse floor. It sounded worse than a pit of gundarks, the junk brutally howling as it was vivisected, the clatter as workers moved the scrap pieces around, the shouts of supervisors and workers calling out across the cavernous facility.

All of that had become background noise within just a few days for her.

The girl was not among the youngest of the workers, nor was she the dirtiest. Her once-blonde hair had taken on a grey-ish tinge, the pale skin of her face and arms was full of grime, and the Meros-branded jumpsuit she wore was bathed in a constant settling of dust that contained metal shavings, grease, and the drugs that made the operation just so important to the Corpos.

Daiya had found herself assigned quickly after the supervisor, with a quick nod from one of the Kyber Khans gangsters standing nearby, spied her small figure and hands. It didn't take her long to figure out why she was tasked to work with the drug packets, once they were cut and mixed to the gang's specifications, it was the slender teen's job to find a hiding place for it in whatever piece of scrap was currently at her workstation.

By now, her hands were showing the marks from several days of the work. Cuts crisscrossed the backs of her hands and along her fingers, and only one particularly bad gash down her palm and wrist had been judged severe enough to warrant a bacta patch. Noah Gloom would have insisted she use gloves or rest the injury for a few days, but Daiya was ordered back to work instead and the patch was only loosely adhered by now. She tightened it against her skin whenever she could, in between work that contorted the bandage enough to wrench it loose once more.

The young shadowrunner was lucky to be assigned to work next to another one of her fellow Darkwire members. The woman looked worse than she did, though Daiya knew most of that was just an act designed to blend in. At least she hoped it was. The girl hadn't seen Shira for months since the job back on Iphigin, she couldn't know just how much the cybernetic Forcer had been through since then.

"What time is it now? Please tell me it's almost time for Second Shift to get here," the girl whispered to her companion. The normally-chatty teen knew the supervisors were harsh about the penalties for talking, but she simply couldn't hold her tongue any longer. Daiya glanced at Shira, but the woman wasn't paying attention, instead eyeing one of the other workers. She looked herself, and for a moment it seemed as if she could spy something unusual about the man moving around the drug crates.

Was he one of the new shadowrunners they were supposed to meet with? It had been so long, nearly a week now, since she remembered reading the intel for the job. It seemed simple enough. Infiltrate the plant, wait for a few more to come in, then rise up and take control. It should have been easy enough, most of the workers here were conscripts not hires, and Darkwire felt like all they needed was a spark.

Darkwire didn't factor in the extreme exhaustion that the work pushed her to. Physically and mentally, Daiya was tired. She squinted at the scrap piece before her, turning back as she picked up the next packet of drugs. There were no fixed openings in the piece this time, no tubes with bends so that she could tuck her packet down and out of sight. The girl reached for the piece of scrap, only to find her arm grabbed by a supervisor and yanked hard enough to draw a yell from the girl.

Her knees hit the floor in front of the Mordageen man, dressed in the colors of the Kyber Khans. Daiya couldn't tell if he was actually a gangster, or just another CorpSec flunky posing as one. It didn't really matter, the open contempt on his face was more worrisome than his allegiance at the moment. He twisted the arm as she fell, causing the teen to grimace rather than cry out again, and shouted at her, "Is it break time already? I don't remember giving you permission to stop and talk with your buddy. How about some tea to go with your little afternoon chat?"

Daiya's face contorted in pain, though she had stopped trying to wrest her arm from the alien's control after the bacta bandage loosened enough to flap open. His hand was wrapped directly on top of the half-mended wound, pressing down dirty fingers against the jagged edges of the injury. Instead, she looked up at him, her eyes offering no quarter for the Mordageen's abuse. Her mouth offered the same, "You know, I have a pink friend back home. She's a lot classier than me, and would probably agree with you about tea time." The teen's Zeltron friend Zo'i Prihm was a lot nicer, and prettier too, than the pink-skinned Mordageen holding her down. "But even she knows you're supposed to offer cookies with it, too!"

With a growl, the Kyber Khan dropped Daiya's hand as he raised his up in a move to strike her.

 

[Shira Varanin]

OBJECTIVE 1
Daiya Maxer Shagar

The girl had a real knack for getting in over her head, and the toughness and cleverness to wade out again. Shira respected that deeply. As the Mordageen roughed Daiya up, Shira found herself responding at a visceral level that cut through her exhaustion.

She sent a telepathic pulse to the undercover Jedi, a wordless GO or NOW, and moved.

The cheap, scrap prosthetics really were cheap scrap - except for the rough-looking servomotors inside. The spinal supports were the real thing too. So when Shira punched the Mordageen, he lost half his cheek and the teeth beneath. His neck cracked. He dropped, dead or close enough.

 

[Xandyr]

OBJECTIVE 2
Hira Mitsae Ruby Jaxx Zenric Salyn Zenric Yula Perl

The sound of swoop bikes cut through the evening air. Xandyr stirred from his rest. He brought up his macrobinoculars again. The drive plumes of a collection of swoop bikes lit up the thermal view. He reached for his comm.

"Got Khan bikes incoming. Engage or let them land?"

Nothing. Xandyr was unaware of the situation in the bar getting out of hand.

He repeated the message in text, hoping someone might have an ocular implant or a datapad to hand.

"What's going on down there?" he huffed quietly. Leaning forwards, he looked down towards the bar.