Private Rogue Protocol Op: 'A Higher Noon'

[Varo Jhicaro]

"Thanks," he told Varo quietly, the kid shaken up but okay, memories of Trix dying beside him on the last job. "Owe ya one. Just... tell me she's getting out of here after this."

"Depends on how fast we are. Focus, stay on mission; her odds improve with our success." Varo turned his gaze back to the droid, the mechanical behemoth shuddering as the ion scrambler did its work. Technically the device needed to be placed directly on the item to be disabled - without full contact, it couldn't create a circuit, and its effectiveness was diminished. Still, the ropes of ionized lightning played across the droid, diminishing its effectiveness. Already, one gun was disabled, and its shields flickered.

Sickle moved inside, going high left across a walkway, our anarchist's eyes all daggers and payback, in her hand she clutched her pistol, a custom job, firing downward, cracks spiderwebbed across the shield's field as it threatened to shatter. The Oppressors good arm spun up to retaliate, slug fire shredding glass panels, sparks and shards raining down, lost data signals meant for the vault. Sickled ducked behind a console station, while glass and ricochets peppered the left walkway.

It would be hard to admit it, but Varo was impressed by Sickle's actions; with nothing but grit, she flung herself into danger's way, giving the proverbial finger to the odds. Varo was also something of an anarchist himself - he had no faith in governments and institutions, not after the Sith enslavement - and Varo saw in her something of a kindred soul. "Yo Sickle! You wanna get a drink after this? Go for a real dance?" Peeking around his own cover, Varo let loose another sonic bolt, the droid shuddering in response as circuitry and servos shattered under the intense vibration.

"I have an idea," he bellowed over the rising sounds of war. He raised his arm, the vambrace of his wrist-flamethrower catching the light with a hungry glint. "I will draw its gaze," he declared, voice low but carrying the steel of command. "The machine seeks targets by the warmth of life."

"Smiley you're changing my mind on Mandos!" As the droid turned towards Chaidth, Varo ran out of cover to loop behind the droid. The plasma disruptor in his gauntlet was typically limited in range, relegated to shorting out doors or electrocuting guards. If he overcharged it, though, it could put out some impressive power. Thumbing a gauntlet control, it began to charge and hum ominously.

"are you even old enough to drink?"

Varo cackled at the question, before raising and aiming his arm; with a crack, a forked tongue of plasma arced out to smack the droid in the back, the lightning potentially slagging any circuitry it hit as it crawled across the droid's chassis.

 

[GhostKey]

Location: Vertaplex Noon, Data Vault Access. Roof-4 Level / Level 458
Target: Data Vault - Climate Control Grid Schematics - Window 5/10 Minutes
Tag: Ajalurk-Chaidth Kryze | Varo Jhicaro
Crew Status: Ajalurk-Chaidth | Varo Jhicaro | Glade | Ghostkey | Sickle | Chronicle | Ibis | Juju | Savant | Hound | Crash

"Five minutes."
"Sure, but you gotta keep up," Sickle glanced back to Varo, twirling her pistol before holstering it. "Don't expect me to pay for your fraggin' drinks." Anarchist bite fell into her sharp smirk. Ghost looked up too, brushing glass shards out of is hair. Too young to drink legally, but with enough fake sliced IDs to open an Echelon club of his own. He just grinned as the Mando strode forward looking like a one-man war.

"Chaidth!" Ghostkey called over the rain of slugs. "If we're makin' stories tonight, uh, don't let a clanker be your last." He winced, adjusting his wording, and added: "Nullborn's a good droid name." Bravery, nerves and youth. All tangled together.

A ricochet tested that bravery, hot metal punching straight into his thigh, right through the patchwork armor he still couldn't afford to upgrade. He bit down on a gasp and jabbed a bacta-injector near the wound. Fingers shaking, the kid dragged himself closer behind the half-wall; popping up just long enough to fire a blind burst, aimed from the reflection in the hanging glass panels, one hand keeping pressure on his leg.

"Ghostkey?" Sickle yelled, sliding over her cover like a razoblade.
"I'm good," he lied, voice strained but steady, snapping off two more shots and clutching his leg. "Spire."

Ajalurk-Chaidth Kryze faced and gave the heat, rotating droid barrels tracking him like an engineered predator seeking a myth. Sparks, slugs, shards, and static likely covered the world around him. Till... Sickle rummaged in her pack, muttering anti-corpo curses, and snapped a scorcher together; two contacts tapped, giving a hiss of overcharged capacity. She lobbed it over the gap in front of the droid. It spun like a neon firecracker and detonated, superheating the floor into sludged durachrome. The Oppressor lurched sideways, aim spiraling into diagonalized chaos.

Ghost exhaled, steadied on the pain, taking one clear shot. The shield blew wide open, with Varo Jhicaro executing his brutal plasma shot straight into the exposed back. The Oppressor seized up, then its internal regulators overloaded, popping like a tin can, and dying like an outdated terminal screen. The machine collapsed in a shaking heap.

Finally the vault door loomed. thick reinforced glass. Breakable, sure, but break it wrong and whatever sat inside would go up with it. Around them, the room's lights shifted to a warning orange, emergency power. The building knew they were there. But thanks to Team 2's slick sensor jamming and masking, nobody knew which of the 461 floors they were on or what they were after.

Sickled tapped the glass with he knuckles. "Could carve through their pretty corp-cage," sizing it up like a meal. She slapped the glass again. "But we cut it wrong..." The powered-down door answered with a low groaning, metal shifting under strain, like it wanted to move but waited for the right pressure. Vaults… If only Juju were up! "Ghostkey?" Sickle's voice wavered just enough to show the worry.

Along the walls, thin laser beams lanced outward, biothermal scanners sweeping for anything living. With Ghost bleeding on one side and Juju half-conscious at the front, things were about to get interesting. Two down, three standing and one door left.

 

[Varo Jhicaro]

Rogue Protocol Op: 'A Higher Noon'
Gear: In Bio | Interacting With: Glade , Ajalurk-Chaidth Kryze

"Sure, but you gotta keep up," Sickle glanced back to Varo, twirling her pistol before holstering it. "Don't expect me to pay for your fraggin' drinks." Anarchist bite fell into her sharp smirk.

"You're on, Sweetheart." Varo flashed a rare smile, before walking up to the droid and nudging it with his foot, making sure it was well and truly dead. Just to be safe, he put a few sonic bolts into where he thought the main processor was, before turning his attention to the massive glass vault door. "Promise I'll take you somewhere nicer than this."

Sickled tapped the glass with he knuckles. "Could carve through their pretty corp-cage," sizing it up like a meal. She slapped the glass again. "But we cut it wrong..." The powered-down door answered with a low groaning, metal shifting under strain, like it wanted to move but waited for the right pressure. Vaults… If only Juju were up! "Ghostkey?" Sickle's voice wavered just enough to show the worry.

Varo sighed, digging around once more in his trauma pack, not needing to consult the medi-scanner to know what was needed. If there was one thing you learned quick, it was how to treat plasma burns and shrapnel bleeds in the field. Grasping a small vial of coagulin, a blood-clotting agent, he tossed the vial to Ghostkey. "Inject it directly into the wound. It's going to burn like a tralk." Varo cocked his head at the kid, then at Sickle. "...You guys should carry medkits, if you don't have a medic." Varo wagged his finger at Ghostkey, chastising him. "That'd be a poor death now, wouldn't it Sparky? Bleeding out after stealing the score?"

Varo turned his attention to the glass vault door, an immediate idea already forming in his head. The great thing about a Kob sonic blaster was its wide range of adjustable frequencies; it could be turned from everything to ringing the ears to outright disintegrating matter like a disruptor. Dialing the pistol down to its lowest setting, Varo pressed it into the center of the vault door before pulling the trigger. A dull hum thrummed through the glass, but otherwise, nothing seemed to happen.

"I'm gonna try and shatter the glass by finding a resonant frequency - it should break the glass but not harm anything behind it. Y'all are gonna have to cover me, though; I don't have a scanner to narrow it down, so I'm going to have to do it by hand and ear." Determined, Varo turned back to his pistol, slowly tuning the dial on the side of it, watching a small readout as it cycled through different hertz ranges. He knew his team well enough to trust them at this point; ignoring the beams, he left it to them to handle it while he focused.

 

[Ajalurk-Chaidth Kryze]

“And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon‘s that is dreaming.” — Edgar Allan Poe​

Location - Vertaplex Noon / Nayus Engineering's Tower
Objective - Data Vault - Climate Control Grid Schematics
Tags - GhostKey / Varo Jhicaro

[

In a blaze worthy of the astral forges, Ajalurk-Chaidth thrust his arm forward and unleashed the full fury of his wrist-mounted flamethrower, a torrent of searing fire erupting like a solar flare loosed upon the metallic foe. The droid turned its menacing gaze upon the young Mando; and began firing at him, forcing him to alter his course slightly to avoid being overwhelmed by the droid's plasma assault. It was through the shimmering veil of heat and smoke his allies closed in with synchronized precision; striking in the narrow window Ajalurk-Chaidth carved. Together, their combined assault shattered the machine in a burst of sparks and molten fragments, its collapse echoing like the fall of a dying star in the void.

He listened as the other's spoke, his eyes staring out beyond the midnight-colored visor. They were suffering causalities, not mortal wounds, but setbacks. Not all setbacks could prove fatal. He looked at the injured, those fallen heisters-in-arms, and turned his attention to the incoming security measures on the walls, "I'll handle those. This might be a good time to evac the wounded, for their safety in case this all goes sideways."

Ajalurk-Chaidth moved into position and quickly began analyzing the lattice of crimson beams crawling across the walls, their glow pulsing like the veins of some slumbering celestial beast. Each line of light hummed with otherworldly resonance, weaving a shifting pattern across the corridor that only the most patient mind could decipher. He narrowed his gaze, tracing the rhythm of their oscillations, noting the subtle flicker where power cycled through ancient conduits buried deep within the structure. To him, the trap was less a security measure and more a mathematical hymn: one he intended to unravel.

Looking over at Varo, he gave a nod to the man.

Ajalurk-Chaidth leveled his slug-thrower scatter gun, and with a steady breath, he pulled the trigger, unleashing a wide burst of enchanted, chemically charged slugs that struck the emitter nodes lining the wall. Each impact flared with a spark of prismatic energy, shattering beam projectors one by one in a staccato rhythm that echoed through the chamber like the heartbeat of a dying star. As the framework fractured, the once-impenetrable lines of crimson light sputtered, wavered, and finally began to break apart under his relentless barrage.

The moment the last emitter stuttered, the room answered with a low, resonant groan from deep within its circuitry. The overhead lights flickered violently, first dimming to a twilight gloom, then flaring back to full brilliance, as though the facility were struggling to decide whether to breathe or collapse. Shadows warped across the walls in jagged patterns as the power fluctuated, each pulse hinting at systems far more temperamental than any modern engineer would dare touch. The Mando tightened his grip on the scatter gun, knowing full well that this kind of instability often heralded defenses far stranger than simple lasers.

Glancing up at the flickering lights, the scatter gun still at the ready in his hands, he arched a hidden eyebrow. "Perfect," he drawled, voice dripping with cosmic sarcasm. "Tell me, are they supposed to convulse like a dying nebula, or did I just awaken something we really don't want to meet?"

Spoiler: Gear Loadout

• Armor
  • The Black Devil's Armor

• Weapons
  • Veritas et Iustitia (Dual Revolvers
  • "Widowmaker" (Sniper Rifle
  • Moonshadow (Slugthrower Scatter Gun)

 

[GhostKey]

Target: Data Vault - Climate Control Grid Schematics - Window4/10 Minutes
Tag: Ajalurk-Chaidth Kryze | Varo Jhicaro
Crew Status: Ajalurk-Chaidth | Varo Jhicaro | Glade | Ghostkey | Sickle | Chronicle | Ibis | Juju | Savant | Hound | Crash

"Yeah, medic ain't the worst play Var. Little early for a reboot, though."

Ghost gritted his teeth and slammed the vial into his fleshy part of the thigh. Wound wasn't the worst, but he'd never been shot before. "Corpchit, that burns." White-hot iron under his skin. Like father, like son, both headstrong Amadis who'd gone into ops wearing armor that barely counted as clothing.

"If I flatline, you get the two holorecords I never returned, box of half-eaten noodles in my bunk, and my last stash of vapeline. Don't waste 'em, their limited edition." No cheaper polyplast smokable this side of the rim. The kid pushed the hair out of his eyes. Crawling low to Juju to keep her from the beams.

Sickle regarded Varo healing all her friends, "I'll start thinkin' you might survive a night out with me." She pivoted toward him, tilting her head, a wicked smile.

Ghost hauled himself upright, hobbling over to join them. "You ever miss?" he asked Chaidth, young, impulsive like many of them, hurting but hiding it in his respectful look at the Mandalorian Marksman, gunslinging better than any holovid could.

"Tell me, are they supposed to convulse like a dying nebula, or did I just awaken something we really don't want to meet?"

"It ain't just you big guy," Sickle said to Chaidth, kneeling to help Juju. "Fraking built to chew people like us up" Juju's legs twitched as she began to move. "Glade, we're gonna need a pick-me-up for two," she comm'd, assisting Juju toward the exit. She looked back at Ghost, hesitating hard. She didn't want to leave the kid, not again. "You slice it?"

Ghost was going to make good for last time. "For Trix." Sickle's expression cracked into vulnerability. She rolled him one of Trix's homemade neon canisters. One last look to Varo, a word unspoken to get her friend out, and the two women vanished upstairs.

Team 2's voices crackled into comms, more strained.

"We've been made," Hound reported steadily. "Pulling back."
"Time matters," Chronicle added. "Four minutes. Make Haste."

Varo hit the perfect harmonic tone and the entire door cracked… collapsing into a million flawless shards. Ghost looked up in awe, "we got 'em now", he said excitedly, tapping Varo's back and giving a wink to Chaidth, stepping over glass to jack into the terminal, a trembling hand finding a place as his eyes closed.

Scylla AI Directive 33a.
Nayus: Memory Mimic Team Deployed.
Boots. Footsteps. Heavy and foreboding.

Above them, the room seemed to… shift. Walls bending and angles warping, Augmented reality (AR) bleeding into the real until the whole floor felt out of sync with itself. The echoes from the memory locks rolled back, each of their battlegrounds, traumas, projections or visions reassembling like corrupted data trying to code itself.

Whatever the vault had dredged up from the earlier locks was walking straight toward them.

On the right walkway: Chaidth Reflection.
On the left: Varo's Mirror.
And for Ghostkey… something like naive guilt stalked the inside of his own skull.

A blaster bolt shot past, sparking against the white wall. Real or Projected? Some hybrid of both?
On Echelon, you never knew. AR could simulate physics, project heat signatures, maybe fake ballistic impact. It might fool targeting sensors as easily as the human mind. Somewhere within it all was the truth: a corporate neutralisation squad with the best damn AR ever engineered was targeting them.

 

[Varo Jhicaro]

Rogue Protocol Op: 'A Higher Noon'
Gear: In Bio | Interacting With: Glade , Ajalurk-Chaidth Kryze

"Perfect," he drawled, voice dripping with cosmic sarcasm. "Tell me, are they supposed to convulse like a dying nebula, or did I just awaken something we really don't want to meet?"

The vault shattered, and Varo smiled broadly. That moment of triumph was short lived, however, as the lights began flickering. Varo sighed, spinning the sonic blaster in his hand before ejecting its power cell. Slapping a new one in, the pistol beeped affirmatively in response. "Corpos. They love their theatrics. If they wanted to keep us out, they would've ditched the AR and spent the creds on something like a solid phrik vault coated in beskar or something." Taking up a defensive position, Varo dialed the frequency on the pistol to a lethal setting, contemplating...whatever was going to come for them next.

"If I flatline, you get the two holorecords I never returned, box of half-eaten noodles in my bunk, and my last stash of vapeline. Don't waste 'em, their limited edition." No cheaper polyplast smokable this side of the rim. The kid pushed the hair out of his eyes. Crawling low to Juju to keep her from the beams.

"Vapeline? I'll share some marcan herb with you; put some hair on your chest." Even as he spoke, a hand came up to fiddle with a small box of hand wrapped cigarras in his tactical rig. Pulling one out, he lit the end with his sonic pistol - a simple high frequency but low output pulse causing enough friction to ignite it. Orange smoke rolled from the lit tip and the distinct odor, citrusy with hints of bergamot, came with it. "Ah...could use a beer...and a steak..."

Sickle regarded Varo healing all her friends, "I'll start thinkin' you might survive a night out with me." She pivoted toward him, tilting her head, a wicked smile.

"I cook and clean too." Varo wiggled his eyebrows at Sickle, the herb loosening him up a little.

A blaster bolt shot past, sparking against the white wall. Real or Projected? Some hybrid of both?

Varo swore profusely as the bolt took the tip of his cigarra off. "That was Hutta Premium! They don't make those anymore you tralk!" Firing a pair of sonic bolts in return fire, he ducked back under cover, still swearing. There had to be emitters, controllers, or...something...to direct all this tech. An idea struck him then. Dialing his pistol to disintegrate, he popped out of cover and fired a sonic disruptor beam at his own pillar - annihilating matter at the molecular level, the beam should thoroughly frell the pillar unless it was made of some supermetal.

 

[Ajalurk-Chaidth Kryze]

“And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon‘s that is dreaming.” — Edgar Allan Poe​

Location - Vertaplex Noon / Nayus Engineering's Tower
Objective - Data Vault - Climate Control Grid Schematics
Tags - GhostKey / Varo Jhicaro

[

Ajalurk-Chaidth's first instinct was stillness. When the security glass burst, it did not explode in the vulgar chaos of violence; it shattered like a constellation collapsing. The air sang as each fragment sliced the atmosphere, scattering cold starlight across the chamber.

He stood unmoving while the final shards drifted to the floor around him, a crown of broken transparence encircling his boots. In that moment, time bowed.

Then the encrypted pillar awakened, and he emerged from it. Not a reflection, not a hologram, but a calculated resurrection of identity: Ajalurk-Chaidth refracted through code, memory, and ancient intent.

The other self regarded him with contempt that held too many futures, and in them he saw a mirror not of who he was, but of who he had already become elsewhere. Recognition and defiance warred within him, twin stars circling annihilation.

"We don't have time for this." He lifted the scattergun and drew a decisive arc through the air, the weapon howling as starlit coils within it awakened, and then he fired into the heart of the encrypted pillar. The blast was not merely sound but judgment; raw, radiant force tearing through layers of code, crystal, and ancient intention.

The image of himself flickered, a thousand versions blinking in protest, then unraveled into pale filaments that spiraled upward and vanished like frightened ghosts returning to the void.

"I'll cover and stay with the wounded while they're evacuated," he called out, voice steady, threaded with quiet thunder, "the rest of you move as if fate itself is breathing down your neck...time is a jealous god."

Spoiler: Gear Loadout

• Armor
  • The Black Devil's Armor

• Weapons
  • Veritas et Iustitia (Dual Revolvers
  • "Widowmaker" (Sniper Rifle
  • Moonshadow (Slugthrower Scatter Gun)

 

[Glade]

Location: See Ya!
Tag: Ajalurk-Chaidth Kryze | Varo Jhicaro
Crew Status: Ajalurk-Chaidth | Varo Jhicaro | Glade | Ghostkey | Sickle | Chronicle | Ibis | Juju | Savant | Hound | Crash

Ghost fought guilt and old demons like screaming Trojan-viruses battering his mental firewalls, code trying to hijack his slice and rip through him straight to the skull. Voices telling him he was a kid out of his depth, a nobody, and a liability to the team.

But Amadis blood kicked in, he stared at his fears even as they burned.

Contact! He grasped the file. The neural jack glowed hot, smoking at the port as he pulled himself out of the system. Ghost staggered, almost hitting the floor again.

"Got it, corpchits! We GOT YA!" he barked, laughing and grasping as bullets and shattered glass whipped past him, one shard damn near trimming his ear again. The two of them shattered the odds against them like pros.

He slapped Varo's back, his hand shaking badly from whatever had hit him inside that AR nightmare.
"C'mon, let's not get dead now. Want to try that herb! And psst I think ya got a date with sickle." If he'd survive that...
He limped, grit between his teeth, adrenaline masking the pain threatening to collapse him.
"No last stand tonight ace, gods or no gods!" he shouted at the Mandalorian, young, excited, hurting, and still somehow cocky, while the mimic kill units glitched out, peeled back into their own collapsing realities.

"Gettin' a lil choppy up here," Glade warned through storm-noise, as her little hands tried to steady the controls, her chair beeping warnings at her, so much so they drowned out her fyor-droids concern. The expensive stealth shuttle skidded to a bounce across the roof in the storm's crosswinds, clanging into a crate, but she wrestled the ship steady, just.

One by one the Rogues surfaced into the neony rain, some limping or bleeding, but all alive. Sickle had broken her foot on a jaw but was moving anyway. Ghost dragged himself aboard, collapsing into a seat beside the now unconscious again Juju. His leg screamed at him to stop, but he still wore that stupid, dumb, excited grin.

"We got 'em, Varo. We got 'em," he breathed, drunk on relief, unsure if the man was there or not.
He glanced to what he thought was Ajalurk-Chaidth and managed a shaky half salute. "For Trix…" And then the kid finally passed out.

"Y'all alive back there?" Glade called, voice trying, and failing, not to tremble. They didn't lift off until the last Rogue hit their deck. Echosec security was already spilling out onto the roof, firing wildly, rounds cracking against the shuttle's plating. The crew fired back, their trademark chaotic exit calling card.

Clouds of pink smoke rolled out of the hatch in Trix's memory.
One canister sputtered and failed, as always.

"Seeee yaaa!" Glade shouted with a whoop, slamming their throttle to full. The stealth shuttle ripped into a stormy sky.

Heist successful.

OOC:

Spoiler

Awesome posts! Really great heist. Left it open for endings or to finish there, as we discussed.

 

[Varo Jhicaro]

Rogue Protocol Op: 'A Higher Noon'
Gear: In Bio | Interacting With: Glade , Ajalurk-Chaidth Kryze

"We don't have time for this."

"Agreed!" Replied Varo, his first hit blasting a good meter-wide hole into his pillar. The AR ghost twisted and distorted, first a Sith Trooper, then a Sith Acolyte, then its face bubbling and warping through victims - its wails the cries of the damned and dying. Varo put another sonic beam right through its face and into the pillar behind it. Mercifully, the AR construct fizzled out. "Gonna need more herb and more therapy to deal with that."

"Got it, corpchits! We GOT YA!" he barked, laughing and grasping as bullets and shattered glass whipped past him, one shard damn near trimming his ear again. The two of them shattered the odds against them like pros.

The kid did good. If Varo had done this job alone - a tall order, requiring much more stealth - Varo would have had to rely on a preprogrammed computer spike. He knew from experience it would have taken three times as long. "Good, kid! Good! Don't get cocky!" Shouted Varo around his herb cigarra.

"C'mon, let's not get dead now. Want to try that herb! And psst I think ya got a date with sickle." If he'd survive that...
He limped, grit between his teeth, adrenaline masking the pain threatening to collapse him.

"That's the spirit. Live today so you can regret tomorrow." Varo said, repeating an old Panathan proverb. Looping his arm under Sparky's, Varo shouted towards the Mando, even now laying down withering fire. "Come on, juggernaut! There's no more honor to be had here!" Half supporting, half dragging Sparky, they made their way back down the halls, a good bit of blood dripping down and splattering the ground. Internally, Varo knew Sparky was going to have some physical therapy ahead of him. "I hope she likes steak. Damn, I hope she likes steak."

"We got 'em, Varo. We got 'em," he breathed, drunk on relief, unsure if the man was there or not.

One by one, they piled into the shuttle which had - somehow - managed to land on the roof. A pilot Varo was not, and he was inordinately impressed. The sick and wounded hobbled in one after another; somehow, miraculously, no losses. Sickle had a broken foot, the one name Juju was still out cold, Ghost managed to drag himself in with his leg. "Aye, Kid, yeah we did. Yeah we..." Varo trailed off as he realized Ghost had fallen unconscious. Varo winced as his adrenaline wore off, and the aches, pains, bruises, and small cuts started to make themselves known. The shuttle lifted off again - it was poetically circular in a way, they came fresh and borne on the little craft, and they left weary yet job complete the exact same way.

Same as before, Varo walked over to the same exact seat, sat down, and closed his eyes. Before he slept, though, he had one final piece of parting advice, mumbled under his breath around the cigarra. "...Ya'll really need to hire a damn medic..."