Play of the Black Sun in Lok (Lereana's Intro RP)

[Lereana Vainscepter]

The planet itself had mostly an arid atmosphere. During the days of the Clone Wars, the Black Sun Crime Syndicate had done its share of petty crimes, but later grew into arms trades and illegal spice trades until it all got worse. They were once based on Coruscant, but ever since, they were spreading.

Just recently, an employer of a former military Captain, sent her to Lok, very certain of the Intelligence that the syndicate possessed a bomb. Her objective was defuse the bomb and get it off the planet...

Lereana arrived via a shuttle onto the mostly arid planet with two of her other squadmates. There were once 10 of them, but constant battles that scarred her only reduced the whole squad to 3. She dubbed the squad "Cinder." They were fast and direct in most of her missions, but the recent years weren't going her way.

Having two of her squadmates with her, she sets out to the Huthar Patch, mostly a hill community mixed with creature farming areas. Taking speeders from the Lok main shuttle camp, she gets to start another mission...

She won't however expect, she'll have company...

 

[Lereana Vainscepter]

Somewhere near Huthar Patch...​

Time: Equivalent of 6 PM Standard...​

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The sun was going down and it got darker than how Lereana had predicted it. That time, she made sure to put out her rangefinder while in the cover of a medium-sized rock. The elevation of where she stood was higher than that of her target... Just behind her were her teammates... a Human slicer Lieutenant named Kohr and a Zabrak sergeant named Jax.

Cinder Squad took position and she looked with her rangefinder, seeing a few buildings with mixed iron and synthetic materials. He could even see a mix of Human and Weequay mercenaries there.

"That's the spot, huh?" She muttered this to herself, before Sergeant Jax gave her a tap on her shoulder. "What?"

"Cap, found the right place?"

"Yeah. This is it. Black Sun's outpost in the Patch." As Lereana answered, she focusd on Lieutenant Kohr. "Lieutenant, you got your slicing tools, right?"

Kohr was browsing his small pack and nods at the captain. "That's affirmative, Cap. I got what I need in here." He then slung his pack on his back. "So... how are we gonna do this?"

"Dunno. Let me think." Lereana looks at the outpost with her rangefinder to find an opportunity...

 

[Matsu Ike]

The world was something to see and Matsu generally came around, working on supplies and new projects. Some fo the most important were here... a new selection of buildings and bunkers they could work on to make modular rooms for ships, facilities and colonies. She was uncertain though about some of the people so they would have to look around. THe jedi master was allowing the force energies to work on some of the walls as she experimented with the walls of it. To get more power generated and in some places where they could use some fo the reverse engineered technology while she tinkered letting a couple of the artisan droid work the delicate components.

 

[Maple Harte]

Black, dusty leather boots trodded delicately on the harsh ground torward the Patch.

She needed money. Food and fuel were running low, and she had gone hungry a few nights ago just to conserve. It reminded her of the stomach tumor she had never had five minutes ago.

A bounty. Set at thirty thousand credits. Dead or alive. She'd take him alive if possible. Unless this was the one where she had to take him dead, because there was little other choice.

Skip. The ground was tread on delicately by black leather boots covered in dust. The Mind-Binder had tried to sniff her in her sleep. But she was watching. Repellant thing. The Mind-Binder delighted in being all manner of vile things. Skip. The ground was tread on delicately by black leather boots covered in dust. It had been four hundred years again, alne in the stone cell with the Mind-Binder, who created shadows that turned into things that made Maple Harte scream.

Skip. The Bounty was at thirty thousand credits. She needed the money. Time to focus.

She was actually quite pretty. Not that it meant anything. It would all wrinkle eventually for such is the way of flesh, she reminded herself.

She checked her small backpack, which contained her dissassembled rifle. Her cane was broken down into seperate parts as well, and her staff was the only companion she had so far out here. And five hundred credits left after paying an informant two hundred for the info. He was nice though. One of the older bounty hunters who believed in taking them alive as often as possible. He'd given her a discount on the info. She did not like the weapon. But a girl's gotta eat. And occasionally cripple a fleeing bounty. She was good with it. She had finished murdering the last Dark Spawn not ten seconds before, ending a ten thousand year crusade. Skip. Wait. That was one of the false ones. Focus, the community lay ahead. Farming areas. And her objective beyond those. That info she had wanted so desperately had been because she had lost them after tracking their movements a month before. The Mind-Binder had tried to turn her. She loathed the abomination. She secretly feared it was her, deep down. But she couldn't prove it. Not while she was still tracking the witch in the waking world.

Skip. She passed through the community, she spotted what she thought looked odd. She felt a strong presence and quickened her pace to get to the compound where her quarry was located. Any presence that strong was not worth drawing the attention of unless left with no choice. She just needed money. Had to keep the search up. If the Mind-Binder actually existed, she would not get away this time. It was getting dark. She took out her scope, which had some cheap night vision quality and dropped to the grass, crawling into position behind a series of rock out croppings to spy on the compound. A lot of mercenaries. Wouldn't be easy.

She spotted a sentry patrolling south of the facility. She wasn't far from him. He was a weequay. Stocky build. At least she didn't have to deliver his baby again like she had five seconds ago. The Mind-Binder would moan in ecstacy as Maple watched the memory of cutting her old friends down again on Mimban. Fascist, sadistic pig. Had the part where they said she didn't exist yet actually happened?

Her...barrowed...biker suit kept her from shivering as her piercing green eyes traced the route she would take through the grass to nuetralize the lone sentry. She got up and crept quietly through the darkness, careful to place her foot falls in such a way so as not to create too much noise. Her staff, bronze in color and with gentle, looped engravings at the tip was held horizontallly in front of her in anticipation as her footfalls, muted from years of sneaking up on targets barely crunched the grass as she grew closer. The Mind-Binder talked of the joys of pure power. Maple would not hear it. The evil was palpable whenever it talked. A complete perversion of the Force.

Skip. In striking range. The weequay turned. Maple whipped the blaster rifle out of his hands with her staff. He threw a haymaker. She cartwheeled to his left with a torso-axial flip, whipping the staff into his shin. She still felt bad about having not told him his son was dead. Wait. Focus. Wrong reality. The weequay tumbled. She cartwheeled over to his left when he hit the ground. When he started to rise, Maple delivered a swift, precise kick to the face that knocked him cold.

She picked up his blaster rifle. Checking it. Simple, cheap model, with a stun and kill setting and a shoulder strap. She set it to stun, taking the spare blaster clips the unconscious man had and with a twist in the middle her staff split in two, one half of which she slung into one of two special sleeves on the back of her jacket, setting her back pack aside, and made her way to another outcropping that was closer, keeping low to the ground and staying as quiet as possible, trying to look for a way in and observe what the guards did on the bare outskirts, not realizing someone else was just as interested for a way in.

 

[Myrian Zara]

Lok Main Shuttle Outpost...​

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(OOC: I'll leave the time of the roleplay to be decided by Lereana here. Wish me luck.)

It's not every day that Myrian gets to visit the planet, but there was at least the rumor that she followed, and eventually confirmed. She had a portable drill that's being brought back into the Iradi, along with a few carts of rare metals. Once there was a story of Lok being a center of pirate activity, but it happened hundreds of years ago. Having at least background of what it served to be, she followed on some talks.

Some nerf-herders nearby took a break and were sitting next to each other when she approached them. She was able to hear the conversation about a three-man group who arrived.

"Excuse me, " said Myrian. "Thank you for showing me around. I'm finished with what I have to do, but... I heard there were mercenaries present?"

One nerf-herder shrugged. "As much as I know, those three are up to finding pockets of groups. They mentioned something about mercenaries carrying weapons. Well... we needed mercenary protection so it was bound to come one way or another.

"This group of three however wants to make sure to put the worst weapons away from this other group they're looking for, calling themselves the Black Sun."

"Hm... Not a new name after all. I heard them on holocrons and libraries. They don't have a ship, do they?"

"Ah... I don't think so. They only arrived using the shuttle."

As Myrian bowed in gratitude, she immediately sets for her ship, the Iradi. Boarding it, she gets on the pilot's seat. "I got a feelin' they're going to make trouble. May as well help. I've been grateful for far too long, have I?" Her thoughts matched her actions of starting the Iradi's engines as well as making it hover off the ground. As soon as she got altitude, she sets off towards the sky. Putting a modified headset on her head, she starts to look at the cockpit window, now seeing thermal imaging signatures. "Now where to find ya..."

 

[Lereana Vainscepter]

Lereana's already found a good opportunity when a separate two-man patrol was leaving the outpost. Quietly, she took point of her squad, making them hold fire. Cinder Squad was making their move, all equipped with earpieces.

"Jax & Kohr, you're up," Lereana whispered. "Jax, get close and take the first. Kohr, the other one."

Doing as intended, Lereana covers both men, pointing her blaster rifle at a direction towards the outpost. She takes cover near a small rusting shed while her two squadmates went close and behind the two-man patrol. Jax had a CQC wire held with both his hands while Kohr had a curved knife. Jax made his move first as he puts the wire around the patrolman's neck, choking him. Kohr took the other one first with his free hand covering the mouth and the armed hand stabbing the back of the head. No squirming came from Kohr's victim, but Jax's target only squirmed for 3 seconds before his target dies.

Bringing both bodies out of sight from the outpost, Lereana makes Jax take point, armed with a Blaster carbine, and Kohr was armed with a sniper rifle. Lereana was armed with a blaster rifle, a modified M-400 Nova. All three then move towards a natural trench point just near the entrance.

Once at the trench area, she looked at the sight of the front entrance... no doorway but was guarded with anti-personnel turrets and several guards.

"We're gonna have to kick down the front door," Lereana said. "On my signal." She then prepares a thermal detonator before setting it, and throwing it towards the entrance. It rolls towards the turrets. Two of the guards notice the grenade and were too late in calling out the threat before it exploded. "OPEN FIRE!!!" As she was aware the explosion killed only a few guards, but destroying the turrets in the process, she delivered bursts from her blaster rifle, taking care of one, while Kohr delivered shots with his sniper rifle. Jax didn't make solid hits with his blaster carbine but was diligently aiming to compensate... "Thin them out!" Lereana's order was clear as she did her best in taking out the reinforcements from the outpost.

 

[Maple Harte]

She had barely gotten into position when there was an explosion close to the front of the compound, her target, a black sun leader who had supposedly gotten their hands on some sort of explosive.

Having just finished reliving a non-existant period where she had been dead, at the hands of her own master, Maple Harte struggled to stay in what she was fairly certain at the moment was reality. She counted multiple shots from a sniper rifle and moved away from the direction, observing as multiple humans and weequays began rushing toward the sound of firing from a tall observation post close to the high compound walls. The star dragon that had sacrificed her master on a dark side alter reminded her from five years ago to focus. Time to move. She crawled low and quiet to the grass. He was somewhere in the compound. Some thick headed crime lord who had killed her father less than a second earlier, the non-memory was still raw and she was looking for a little payback. Wait. That wasn't real either. Focus.

Maple flicked away strands of brown hair from her face as she crawled through the grass silently, sticking to shadowy areas but moving as quickly as possible. She soon reached a high, reinforced wall on one side and realized it was smooth. No way she was climbing it, didn't have a grapple. She breathed slowly, letting herself touch what was left of her connection to the Force. She disliked the jumping ability, because she did not like the consequences of being so high up if something went wrong. She didn't think she couldn't clear it, but still...there was a reason she didn't get on trampolines. Maple let it spread through her body, though it was a struggle to focus with all the mental noise. Still, she managed after a few uneasy moments, by getting calm enough to channel the Force through her body. She crouched, felt the build up. So hard to focus these days. She leapt. The Force propelling her up to the tallest point on the wall. Her hand out stretched.

She barely caught it. Panic gripped her as she felt her fingers starting to slip. She tossed her stick over the wall with her other hand and pulling herself up. Limited upper body strength. One of her master's biggest criticisms. She climbed down a service ladder after grabbing her stick and, carefully checking for sentries as she climbed down and started moving deeper inside.


She still heard shooting. Didn't have long. Snatch and grab. Kill as a last resort. Had to move quickly before 'They' showed up. Wait. 'They' were dead. Been dead for years. She wasn't secretly an amnesiac Sith Lord. Just Maple. A woman with bad dreams. And worse luck.

Skip. She was over the fence, sticking to the shadows of what looked to be a small repair bay. The maggots were no longer eating her face. Not like they had in her nightmares.

She looked for faces as she ran, one face only was important. He'd be deeper inside the compound, close to his prize. She hoped he didn't turn out to be a Dark Jedi, like he had the last time she had never fought him. She stuck to the most shadowed parts of the simple buildings, passing by a barracks.

She was surprised by a human in black armor.

What was left of her connection to the Force weakly tingled in her brain, as he drew his blaster pistol. He was going to shoot her. Her staff shot out in a high speed jab to his groin, whipping it upward and knocking him against a wall. He rebounded quickly though, and Maple back-flipped out of the way before spinning her staff forward in a crushing swipe that he dodged, diving to the ground for his pistol, forcing Maple to close the distance and jam one end of her staff into his face, which was followed by another whipping strike to his jaw, knocking him out before he could yell, batting his weapon out of his hand in the follow up. No point in being flashy. No sense in drawing the witch's attention before she was ready. Get this guy and run.

She stayed away from as many light sources as possible, possibly because she was afraid of being seen by whoever was attacking and partly because she never liked being seen on assignment, period.

She felt distaste that she was being oppurtunistic in such bloody circumstances, but a woman in her position was not in a position to turn down a job because it got bloody. She would find the witch. If she really existed.

Maple peered through the window of what appeared to be a barracks. Grunts. Black Sun criminals. How were they still around after all this time?

Rats, she thought. Rats in the walls of society. Stealing every little scrap. Hiding in every little nook.

How similar she was to them, in many ways, she mused. Just a rat in the walls of the galaxy.

She journeyed towards a part of the building with a large transceiver tower of some kind, wincing as she barely got behind a dumpster as a squad of men raced by her position. She broke into a near silent jog, careful to take better cover when she spotted shipping crates at a small garage containing a black speeder. It appeared to be undergoing retrofits. She spotted a small fusion cutter on the garage and took it, might be useful for getting past the locks in this place. She would rather not waste the lockpicks if she didn't have to. The nightmares were getting worse. She never could predict when they would happen but she dreaded sleep now. Stim Tea sometimes helped. Sometimes.

Maple watched as more squads passed by. She had to be wherever the shooting was not. So she moved toward the transmission building still sticking to dark areas.

 

[Lereana Vainscepter]

Lereana then starts to push forward when the outpost's front side was starting to lessen its guards. "Cover me!!" She then gets off the trench and keeps firing. Seeing other Black Sun goons retreat into the outpost she keeps advancing. "Jax, form up! Kohr, deploy a Stealth Drone. We need an overview of the outpost."

As Jax gets behind Lereana, Kohr makes an immediate reply.

"Negative," Kohr replied on the radio. "I'm detecing traces of jamming sprites in the outpost. I look in the outpost, and it'll be blank on the monitor. There must be a jammer array inside."

"Copy that!! We'll get rid of that jammer array first!" Lereana replied with Jax behind her. Both of them were stacked against the concrete wall before she peeked out of cover and pulled the trigger, releasing a burst of blaster rounds, instantly killing one pistol-wielder. "Jax, other wall!"

"Yup!!" Jax then ran to the other side of the doorway and got cover there, before he occasionally peeked out and fired at the hostile Black Sun defenders. "Really persistent, Captain!!" He said while killing off one guard and focusing on another.

"Pin them-! Crap! GRENADE!!!" Lereana's warning got both her and Jax off the doorway before an explosion from a Thermal Detonator occurred. They quickly resumed the firefight and returned fire. They even saw some of the Black Sun defenders charge at them. "FLASH!" She then threw a flash grenade into the area. Covering her eyes, the flash grenade explodes with a blinding chemical. Multiple guards were blinded out. Lereana opens her eyes again and starts firing at the blinded guards, taking out three in the process.

"I'm advancing!" Kohr said that on the radio... The three eventually found themselves right at the Black Sun's doorstep while still pushing in.

 

[Myrian Zara]

Skies of Lok, just over Huthar Patch...​

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Hoping that her ship won't get shot down, Myrian was making sure her early missile detection system is on, while her eyes on the thermal imaging headset is synced with the cockpit's front shield. She was seeing thermal readings, multiple heat signatures. "Zoom." Her vision had zoomed in and she was able to see what the heat signatures were... a group of gunmen were attacking only a party of three. "Those three must be the group," she thought. "I better stay above the clouds for now. It would seem these Black Sun goons are equipped with anti-air launchers. Best not get to cocky here." She flies her ship up to avoid low-altitude detection. She switched on the monitor, and made sure to track the signals on the outpost the Black Sun had established...

Then she had an idea. "If the goons try anything the three can't handle... maybe I could help out with my ship's guns then?" She smirked at this, and made sure patience was a virtue.

[member="Maple Harte"]

 

[Maple Harte]

More grenades. Whoever the Black Sun were being attacked by, it had to be a slaughter, Maple thought as she heard the explosions that were far too close for her liking. It reminded her of the time she had never been a middle aged veteran mutated by the Force. Fun times, never being confined to a repulsor-chair.

Maple ducked behind an outdoor power generator as several men ran past her from a barracks to the gunfire. Skip. She had sold her soul to the devil. God help her. No. Wait. Another false one. She was relieved that wasn't the truth, she thought, as she watched them run past. Time to move. She didn't recognize her target. Than again, it was pretty dark. She frowned as she saw a number of men starting to come back, setting up blaster emplacements. They didn't see her. Thank the Force for dark clothing. Skip. She swore the Mind-Binder would neved control her. This after spending a thousand years in a sarlacc pit. Skip. False one. Another false one. Keep focused.

She counted them. About four or five people setting up an ambush. The shooting was getting closer and this had all been a secret haven for Sith Lords once, her brain told her. And she believed it in the moment the fiction played out in her mind. One of many. All false and all true. And she knew it was false and knew it was true and every shade of bias in between that.

She slowly, carefully stepped into the open, setting down her stick and quietly hefting her blaster rifle. She aimed at them, trying not to make a sound as they set up a blaster turret.

She clicked, and a wide blue energy ring shot out, hitting one man in the back. She fired as two others turned, the ring of energy she fired hit another one and she barely avoided a blaster bolt from the remaining three as she retreated behind the generator. She returned fire, hoping she wasn't just imagining all this. That was why she had it on stun.

One of the rings hit one of the remaining three but the other two returned a greater volume of blaster fire, and she yelped a bit as one of the bolts hit near her head, sending bits of charred synthetic materials off the buildings.

She snapped out, executing a rolling dive as she snapped her rifle towards the other two, squeezing off two shots. The rings hit one but missed the other. And she executed an awkward roll to escape the return shot, blind firing as she did, and one of the shots hit the last man, but only because she had happened to roll and fire at just the right moment.

Flashlights behind her from another building made her roll and automatically pull the trigger where she saw a light on a rifle. She heard yelling and scrambled up to find the black sun merc she had downed. She was within spitting distance of the transmission center and she slung her rifle over her shoulder, grabbing her stick, and ran to the front of the transmission center entrance, getting out the fusion cutter and cutting through the electrical panel that opened the door. She ripped the wires out, hoping whatever was on the other side wouldn't turn out to be some twist ending where everyone was dead all along. She hated those.

Skip. She went inside. One step ahead of the fighting outside. She kept the blaster rifle close at hand. Had to find the leader. And his bomb...

 

[Lereana Vainscepter]

Lereana made a quick charge at one of the Black Sun goons, recently blinded by another flash grenade. She manhandled him before they arrived at the position his own neck was choked by her arm from behind, using him as a living shield before firing bursts with her blaster rifle. Whatever bolts fired at her, she makes sure her living shield gets hit first. Her shield dies just before she holds her corpse shield tight and kept firing.

Three more killed with what she had done, and she was realizing the truth that only meant one thing: The Black Sun goons are beginning to lose the first open area and are regrouping. The ones remaining are either getting picked off by Kohr's sniper rifle or Jax's blaster carbine.

Finding herself in cover again, she looked towards the direction deeper in the outpost. "Alright, good so far. Jax, check out what's ahead of us."

As Sergeant Jax took the other side opposite to where Lereana is, he peaked out of cover and saw blaster emplacements set up. The emplacements fired at the team of three, while hearing desperate grunts from the Black Sun goons. They were losing ground, and Lereana smirks at the realization they're facing.

"Don't get too cocky," Lereana said on the radio. "This isn't over yet. Make sure you save the grenades we got for the ones inside. Kohr, you know what to do. Snipe the emplacements.."

Kohr made no hesitation as he peaked his sniper rifle out of cover and squeezed the trigger, and after another second did it again. Two emplacements were instantly halted from firing thanks to two dead bodies.

"Advance," Lereana orders and all three open fire in the open. Some of the goons started to run back inside the small buildings. "Keep them suppressed. That bomb's as good as ours-" But Lereana stopped to hear mechanical sounds, like something heavy was lifted up. Then part of the ground opened up like a steel door on opposite sides. Lereana's face was pale the moment she saw the big cannon come out of the doors from beneath the ground... "Oh, CRAP!!! TAKE COVER!!!"

​

Out of the trap door came out one big anti-personnel cannon. Immediately, it charges and opens fire. The three immediately dove for cover, evading the medium-sized blaster bolts that almost hit them. Small explosions were even hitting places on impact of the bolts.

[member="Myrian Zara"]

 

[Myrian Zara]

Even she didn't expect it. Looking through the thermal monitors with her cockpit headset, she easily identified the large anti-personnel cannon that appeared from beneath the outpost.

"An F7-Alpha Lakk Anti-Personnel Cannon... Something that was legendary, but extinct for over a decade." Myrian muttered this to herself and felt suspicious of the presence of the Black Sun. "Something's not right," she thought. "There's more to their appearance. It would seem I must do what I have to."

She set the ship's autopilot to be engaged before she got off her pilot's seat. The ship was flying at a high altitude loitering on the spot. Then accessing a small holographic keyboard at the central holoterminal, she starts to hack frequencies that were used... moreover, local types. She was a good comms frequency slicer since she's more of communications breaker. Confident that she got the frequency right, she smiles and heads back to her cockpit seat and fastens her seatbelts.

Myrian used her earpiece and spoke up. "If you can hear me, you must listen very carefully. That anti-personnel cannon isn't your ordinary type, with small arms fire ineffective. You'll need heavier ordnance... something I got. Of course, it isn't for free, but we'll talk about the price later.

"Get ready to receive support." Myrian concluded her message before deactivating the ship's autopilot. She rolled the ship a full 180, now with the top portion facing down. She started to dive the Iradi down towards the outpost...

"I hope she gets her squad away from the big boom..." Her thoughts matched the actions she prepared her shot for the big cannon...

([member="Lereana Vainscepter"] or [member="Maple Harte"])

 

[Maple Harte]

Inside the building, Maple's ears thudded as she heard the familiar pound of a large cannon. These idiots had a cannon? How the hell had they managed to nab that kind of ordinance. Probably the same way they'd nabbed a bomb. Harte would not have been surprised if they ended up paying extra for this man. Good thing she was a master class hacker from a lost tribe of techno-monks. Wait. Wrong reality. Skip. Back to the moment. No dragons.

Maple went quietly down the halls, rifle in hand. She didn't know how long she had, but she was making good time. She creapt up to a small door and peaked in. No one. Just cleaning supplies.

She moved on, quicker this time. She hoped this wasn't all just another episode. She had been shot to death six times in the past months two years ago, and she was not eager to live through another reality where she died in the end, like ten seconds prior.

She heard voices. While hearing voices was routine for her, these were not in her head. At least, she thought so. She crouched slightly, moving through the darkened passages, until she came across the open doors to a conference room.

There were six men. One was a the man she sought, a Black Sun crime lord responsible for a dozen different high profile crimes. A human of middle age, clad in purple armor. They were all surrounding a large, cylindrical device with wires and cables. It reminded her of the power draining device she had been hooked up to her entire life, and made her sick. Wait. Scrap that. Wasn't true.

"I thought you said no one would learn we had this damn thing!" One of the crime lord's underlings snapped.

"I said there was a pretty good chance we could keep this under wraps, not that there was no chance of us being found out," the boss replied calmly.

"We're being massacred out there!" Another protested. "Whats your big plan, genius?"

"This, gentlemen, IS the plan," the crime lord replied. "Those men outside try to take us by force, this is our doomsday option."

"Space that! I didn't come here just to die! You didn't arm that thing, did you!?" Yet another asked.

"I did, and I want you to get it off the base while that cannon is still holding them off. There's a shuttle in the other end of this place. We get it out of their reach we still have leverage--"

Maple opened fire rapidly, firing as fast as she could pull the trigger, blue stun bolts hitting four of them in a wide spread. The leader and his remaining lackey, a weequay opened fire back, forcing Maple to take cover by ducking to the side of the entrance. She yelped in intense pain as one of the red bolts grazed her, causing her to drop her rifle and run away, turning down a passage into one of the conference rooms. The weequay gave chase while the leader stayed behind with the bomb, desperately trying to wake the others up.

The weequay marched down cramped, darkened passages looking for his prey.

"I dunno who the hell you are," the weequay said as he spotted a smudged boot print on the tiled floor leading to the conference room. "But you were stupid to come in here alone. Come out! I'll make it quick."

He stepped into the conference room, immediately checking under the large, oval conference table. Nothing. He checked the grates on the ceiling, to see if they were dislodged. No. Not enough time for that. Where had she gone? He checked behind the large holocom unit. Nothing.

He peered around. How had she vanished. He started to head to the room exit, check one of the others.

Little did he know that when he had entered the room, she had been pressed to the side of the entrance in the shadows, and had simply moved behind him when he checked the table, waiting on the other side pressed close to the door, waiting for him.

And as soon as he stepped out into the passageway again, out came the stick, which smashed brutally against his nose, knocking him out cold.

Maple winced. She was still in immense pain from the grazing wound, and her arm was weak and nearly useless. She staggered back, her stick bloody, and walked back to the room, the crimelord standing calmly, hands folded, smug.

She stepped forward, noting his efforts to revive his friends had not been successful.

"Looks like you got no backup left. Looks like you sent it all out to die."

"Only I can disarm it," he said.

The crazy in her didn't quite allow that statement to register, she instead went right up to the bomb.

"You ever heard of quantum immortality?" She asked quietly, without a hint of snide to the question.

The Crime Lord paused. "Huh?"

"It was really fascinating to me, when it was first described. See, it was described as a thought experiment," Maple stated stepping forward as the smug look on the crime lord dropped slightly. She circled the device, grasping the cables, felt the electric hum from it.

"In the experiment, see, a person...is seated in front of a sabotaged blaster pistol. Which fires at random when the trigger is pressed. Now, the person sitting in front of the pistol has a fifty fifty shot of dying," Maple said, grasping the device, threatening to fiddle with it, studying his subtle, panicked reaction.

"Now, in the experiment, assuming there are an infinite number of realities, in at least some of them, it stands to reason that when the trigger is pressed, that persons head gets blown off. In all the ones where it doesn't kill you, that's essentially what its like to be immortal. And everytime the trigger is pressed, and you don't die, your doom gets passed off on someone else. I live with that concept everyday. See, I can't be certain this isn't all just playing out in my head. I can't be certain where this is one of the ones where yet again, the pistol doesn't fire...or where it does. Now me, I'm not really worried, because I've learned to live with the fifty fifty chance where the reality I'm currently experiencing is one where I die. Its happened before. It'll happen again, unless..." she started to pull the cables in earnest.

"...unless this is the reality where my luck finally runs out, and when I die, it turns out to be real death, not some delusion of mine where I blink and it turns out I was in a market or some other nonsense. I'm willing to live with that risk," Maple said, giving the cable a firm, hard tug, watching as the crime lord's reaction turned to complete panic as it dawned on him finally how crazy she was.

"WAAAAIIITT!" He screamed, before she could tug any harder.

"Hmm. Strange. You didn't stop me from pulling the cable the last time," she added, threatening to pull the cable out.

The crime lord frantically went to a control panel, tapping the disarm codes in.

"Crazy runt," he snarled in fear.

"Too crazy for your sorry hide," she retorted. "How could you blow all your good will with me after helping me paint my house?" She asked, hurt.

"Huh?" The man asked. Her answer came in the form of a stick to the side of his jaw, knocking him cold.

That shuttle he mentioned would make for a good escape. She looked for directions, eventually coming across the floor layout, on a wall. There was a shuttle bay, hidden in one building. All she would have to do was drag him there. She left the bomb where it was, as there was little danger of it going off at this point, like it had twice before to her.

Stripping the crime lord down she falsely recalled he had been like a brother to her once and began dragging him through the building with her good arm. He thankfully wasn't to heavy, and she had a good amount of adrenaline in her anyway. She'd make it. It would hurt but she would make it. She dragged the nearly naked man to another exit the floor plans had pointed too. She saw another ship flying, about to dive and decided it was time to leave. She didn't take the blaster she had used. It would send a bad message. Slowly, painfully, she hoisted the heavy man onto her good shoulder and was greatly slowed as she strained to carry her prize off, struggling to keep her balance. She was not used to carrying someone so heavy. She staggered, out in the open as she headed to the building, barely getting to the shadows as yet more men ran by the dumpster she stiffly got behind with her prize. She dropped roughly to one knee as they ran by, to avoid being spotted. She hefted him up, nearly exhausted. She'd always hated this kind of work but it payed well, unlike that one reality where she was payed in in dead bat wings. How any reality of hers thought that made sense was beyond her. Only the one where she killed, finally killed, the Mind-Binder mattered.

She finally got inside the building, setting the unconscious criminal down and getting out the fusion cutter, melting the lock, and prying the door open with her good arm.

It was a small bay, more of a landing pad really, and in it contained one old lambda type shuttle. At least there were no lizard people like there had been the last time she had never entered the place.

Dragging the man inside, she struggled to find a way to open the shuttle hatch.

 

[Lereana Vainscepter]

([member="Maple Harte"], that is real nice. Your character's crazy!! haha)

Lereana just got herself shaking her head after a few small explosions were just too close for her. She thanked herself for rolling out of the way on time. Then... someone else got into her earpiece. This girl seemed to have a Loose-Imperial accent.

"If you can hear me, you must listen very carefully. That anti-personnel cannon isn't your ordinary type, with small arms fire ineffective. You'll need heavier ordnance... something I got. Of course, it isn't for free, but we'll talk about the price later.

"Get ready to receive support."

After hearing the girl's voice, Lereana didn't ask. If that girl meant support, she would have meant close-range support, which she needed to evade. "Everyone, find overhead cover NOW!!! We got friendly support incoming! Danger close!!!"

All of Cinder Squad take cover under large stacks of energy cell crates just before the blaster cannon rounds start raining down on the cannon. A few seconds later, the cannon halts its semi-automatic fire and gets severely damaged. A few cannon rounds more to the defense cannon, and it explodes. Lereana saw this and knew the support just came from above. Kohr and Jax even cheered for the cannon's destruction as well.

"Thanks, whoever you are," Lereana said using her earpiece. "Everyone advance!!! They're retreating inside!!"

Soon, Cinder Squad advances into the compound's main building...

[member="Myrian Zara"]

 

[Myrian Zara]

She rained down blaster cannon fire at the ground anti-personnel defense cannon at the outpost. She was seeing it getting damaged easily and she smirked at it as well. After doing a long burst and seeing an explosion down at the outpost, she confirmed the defense cannon's destruction and pulls up until her ship levels.

"That's one for the books," she muttered.

Hearing a woman's voice with the frequency she hacked, she listened.

"Thanks, whoever you are."

Myrian chuckled after the woman on the other line barked some orders to her squad. "Pleasure to you too. Call me Myrian. I couldn't resist assisting a group of good samaritans. You're taking away good weapons from the baddies, I suppose?" She spoke this way to give the woman on the other line an impression that although she speaks loosely with an Imperial accent, she isn't an Imperial.

[member="Lereana Vainscepter"]

 

[Lereana Vainscepter]

Lereana looked over the body of a dead Black Sun good and gave the corpse a kick. She listened to that question before, but was well aware she shouldn't share much.

"I believe that's classified, Myrian. Still, I gotta thank ya for assisting. Maybe we could be in terms for another thing entirely?" Lereana points towards the inside of the main compound building of where the squad should go. Raising her rifle up, she can see other bodies. They weren't bloodied, and they weren't dead either. "Stunned?" The single thought in her mind let her assume that some of the bodies are indeed stunned. "Jax, check those bodies. They look knocked out."

"Sure, Cap." Jax replied and approached one of the unconscious bodies and analyzed as he knelt down and felt pulses. He did the same with another one near the first. "Yup. Looks like they're knocked out. Hm... No major bruises at the head, but it's a clean fall too."

"They're obviously stunned," comments Kohr. "Looks like we got ourselves additional company."

Lereana shook her head and took point for the squad, leading them all to a corridor where a set of doors was located. "Let's be careful. We can't be too sure about things, but we have to be certain the bomb's disabled."

"Not to mention, we gotta it away from here," Kohr replied.

Lereana shushed the two as she exposed herself in the corridor and kept her gun up before proceeding. Whispering, she replied from Kohr's statement. "Doesn't make sense... Why the hell protect the bomb so much? What's their plan in Lok?"

[member="Maple Harte"]

 

[Maple Harte]

Maple had managed to get the ship open after a few moments, fiddling with a computer in the bay. She dragged the nearly naked man aboard and checked her things.

Just then, a massive explosion. There went the cannon. Time to go. The bomb was disarmed, so she didn't need to worry about that. Or did she? After all, the lizard people had swore revenge after getting it disabled.

Just then the man started to stir, she wheeled around, keeping a stick at the ready. The Crime Lord snarled at her when he saw her. His head swam.

"I'll kill you for this," he swore, trying to get up, only to be spin-kicked in the face for his trouble.

"Nope. You won't. Because the guys I'm delivering you to? They're gonna kill you really hard for me. And they told me your face has a date with a bucket of scorpions."

That last part about the scorpions wasn't true. She had only imagined it. But it got a fear reaction all the same, which was all she needed to keep him in line, as he stayed on the ground.

"Whatever they're paying you I'll double it!" He said, instantly switching from thoughts of having her killed to pleading for his life.

Maple wasn't having any of it as she tied him up with some spare cables, hitting him in the junk repeatedly with the stick beforehand to make him more amenable to her attempts to restrain him.

While he was moaning on the floor of the shuttle, she started pre-flight checks. It all looked good. She then got curious about something.

"Why'd you send all your men to die for that bomb?" she asked.

"Piss off."


"Does Mr. Stick need to have a talk with Mr. Junk again?"

"Alright! Alright! It...it was a prototype? Some high grade thing left in some old research facility we found! We were trying to replicate it, so we could sell it. There's three more where that came from."

"Are they on Lok?"

"We have them hidden away in a cave network not far off."

"Give me the coordinates." Maple said.

"Space yourself!"

The stick whacked him hard in the groin. He howled, giving up the coordinates a second later. She started the shuttle and the ceiling parted, allowing her to lift off.

Her scanners detected another ship, more heavily armed. She sent out a wideband transmission, which could easily be picked up by it. It was the coordinates to the cave network he mentioned, along with a simple statement "Be careful. More bombs. Might be a trap. Could be reinforcements waiting at this place." And then she sped off, pushing the shuttle to its top speed, hoping the tid bit she gave them would be just enough to perhaps confuse them, make them question their intel while she got away.

Thirty thousand and a disarmed bomb. Not a bad night.

 

[Lereana Vainscepter]

Cinder squad kicks down the doors for the conference hall. Lereana stormed front, and Kohr went right from the door, Jax to the left. Having seen the conference room at just a fair size, Lereana already assumed it was clear... not because of the room's nature, but the number of unconscious bodies, again.

Lereana groans before immediately using her earpiece, aware that Myrian was still above the outpost... "Myrian, we might need your assistance after all. I'll tell you more later. This might be worth your while after all."

Kohr raised his eyebrow at Lereana's statement. "What is it?" When he asked, he saw his commanding officer look at the bomb itself. And he winced at that, making him stand straight and walk to the bomb. "Wait a minute. This isn't what's read on the profile!"

"I can testify to that," Jax said. "The way I saw the bomb is that's it's bigger than this one. That bomb we're seeing right now is only 4 feet wide."

Lereana looked at Kohr. "Start slicing and permanently disarming this. I'll have a look around. Jax, stay here."

"Copy," Jax replied.

Lereana then proceeded to the other door the squad hasn't opened. Whatever she next thought of her 'visitor' is that the individual isn't here to kill. All she saw were conditionally unconscious bodies. She then already put up the fact that for cleanly knocking out targets, you use advanced modifications to install stun emitters. All she met wasn't up for being taken away alive, so she didn't put any modification on her blaster rifle for a stun. Moving on, she jogged faster while keeping her gun up.

She eventually discovers how the visitor escaped. She brings out her portable holocommunicator and configures it... just before a hologram of the outpost came out of it.

Lereana used her earpiece, focused on talking to Jax. "We disabled the jammer array back there, letting us see the outpost from above. Based on the schematics that the building has, the only way the visitor should have escaped, was through the shuttle bay on the outpost.

"Wait..." Lereana wondered if Myrian was listening in, since Myrian only hacked the frequency anyway. She spoke anyway. "Myrian, if you can hear me, check if there's a shuttle that's leaving!! Whatever you do, don't open fire... yet."

[member="Myrian Zara"]

 

[Myrian Zara]

Myrian was using her earpiece while she was flying the Iradi as she was talking to her client.

"You're not paid to stay and loiter around, wench!!" Her client, an angry Imperial-accented male, spoke through the other line.

"Could it hurt ya if the job's actually helps others too? Or do ya wanna lose all the cargo?" Myrian meant it with a smirk, but was confident the cargo she's carrying is strapped down tight so that it wouldn't move around.

"You... You're a psycho! If that shipment gets blown with you-!"

"You'll do what? You should know I'm my own employer, and it took me that long to get here.

"Now if you'll be so kind and let me do my job, while picking up a sideline, you will be assured you will get the package in mint condition. While the package isn't demanded until the passage of eight standard days at your place, you don't tell me to hurry it up, or you're gonna breach my rights. Hehe... Caught ya by the tongue? I had some Law under my fingertips. Best not cross me, or you're gonna have yourself hung." She then cuts comms, assuming her impatient client will be able to get the package in good shape.

As she was about to contact the squad leader of the three grunts down at the outpost, she immediately gets a widespread transmission from an unknown source...

"Be careful. More bombs. Might be a trap. Could be reinforcements waiting at this place."

She then received a set of coordinates, and it was inside the planet. She nodded a little before seeing a signature of a shuttle leaving the outpost. She was about to decide to pursue it, when surprisingly, the same woman from before had called her.

"Myrian, if you can hear me, check if there's a shuttle that's leaving!! Whatever you do, don't open fire... yet."

Myrian sighs. "Affirmative. There's a shuttle that actually left, and it's flying on low altitude for a while. It picked up speed, so I'm assuming it's an escape.

"Oh, and you should know something. It was another woman too. She sounded secretive, but not so much that she'd leave coordinates. She said, more bombs... or reinforcements from the coordinates she sent to me." Myrian explained this, aware that she has to let the shuttle get away. Now that she's involved, she wants to be involved with the group who attacked the outpost boldly.

[member="Lereana Vainscepter"]

 

[Lereana Vainscepter]

Lereana forced her way into the shuttle bay. Keeping her blaster rifle up, she noticed that the doors from the ceiling even closed.

"That confirms it," she muttered. Hearing about that woman who contacted Myrian, she already had the solid idea the same one escaped in that shuttle... But then she heard about the additional bombs. It was questionable then.

But Kohr contacted Lereana. "Bomb's disarmed, and won't be armed again. It's shorter than expected. Looks like someone disarmed the bomb through a passcode. Looks like that extra company was responsible for it."

Lereana responds. "Kohr, is it possible that bomb could have others?"

"Based on the design itself, there's actually no doubt it could be replicated too. This IS a bomb design that's actually older than us, actually for a decade. I know its model, and it's easily obtainable only by its parts. Textbook scavenging and cybertech abilities could do the trick, but some of the materials used on this bomb needed high-grade materials. I figured Black Sun already had a convenience of that since they were recently raiding high-grade metallic facilities."

"Then we got ourselves a problem. Myrian is listening in, so I'll be brief about this. Someone's confusing us, but we can't discount the possibility of other bombs in the planet. I gotta contact our employer about this. Myrian, if you got a ship, you need to land somewhere. We might need you after all, so best we speak personally. The rest of Cinder Squad will set up a tech perimeter. Get all sensors around the outpost going, now!!!"

"Setting shop at the west end," Kohr replied.

"Checking east," Jax replied.

[member="Maple Harte"]