Lyran IV | Starbase Yamarro | Top Secret Research Facility
Objective: Extract With On-site Research Personnel & Research Data
Gear: In Bio.
Friendlies: Hellion Private Mercenary Group |
Jas Katis
Hostiles: Enclave | Anyone Posing A Threat To Mission Objective
Engaging: Open
The frustrated young merc slammed his sabacc hand over the table in mild anger and annoyance, discarding his hand.
”KARKIN’ GOD, DAMN IT!” Dylan shouted in defeat, his voice booming over the
tune playing over the small, portable radio on the table.
His friends, seated around the table erupted in a fit of laughter in response. They had cleared him out for the third time in a row; he had only won
one round thus far.
Unable to control his laughter, Tower’s fist crashed down on the table, wheezing. The creeping ash of the cigarra between his index and middle finger fell on the table.
”Never…” the giant paused for a moment, trying to catch his breath as he barely suppressed his laughter, swiping away the smoke’s ash off the table with the back of his hand.
”Never go professional gambler. Don’t even karkin’ think about it.”
”Karkin’ dumbass peasant!” Nimble could finally say in between his snorting and cackling. His laughter would subside somewhat, giggling softly as he massaged his brow while taking a glance at his hand, checking his cards and thinking through his game strategy. Tower and Aiden were still in the game, afterall.
The kid would be quick to riposte.
”Kark off, Nimble! Pig-ignorant ragamuffin!" the kid retorted in anger, but he couldn’t keep it up for long. The momentary frustration and anger that accompanied the former, washed away shortly; a smile emerged in his features, joining the others with a laugh. It was just some light-hearted banter after all, and none of them were the type to hold long grudges towards one another over something
so trivial such as this.
Aside from feeling a little sore from the three losses he got in a row, he couldn’t care less about the few hundred credits he lost. He made roughly eight times more than that amount in a single contract, anyway.
And that was
excluding the hazard pay they’d get from completing
particularly dangerous contracts. Although it was a literal, absolute
hell to go through and earn his pay, he couldn’t deny the action on Mustafar not long ago, turned out to be
very lucrative in that regard.
”You’ll…” Laughing along with the rest of them, the young techie chuckled as he drew a card from the face down draw pile. Presumably having drawn a better one, the man replaced his spike card with it.
“You’ll get better over time eventually, bro.” Aiden said in genuine belief. As much as there was some luck going into the game,
smarts was also another determining factor for a win. He knew Dylan was smart, he just needed to play more to get better, was all.
”You sure about that?” The giant of a man said with a hearty chuckle, drawing the cigarra to his lips to take a drag of smoke.
Their laughter died out eventually, focusing on the game. Leaning to his left, the kid looked over the techie’s right shoulder, observing the game. His hand reached forth for the dice.
”Oookay, cooome on now,” He sat over the edge of his seat, leaning forward as he shook the dice in his hands; his muscles tensed as he drew back his arm, preparing to throw and roll the dice on the table.
”Aaaaand-” the young techie hummed, anticipations high for a good roll.
Just as he was about to roll the dice forth, the fluorescent lights above their heads flickered; a distant yet loud grumble of an explosion. The floor beneath their feet trembled lightly. Puzzled, the men looked up from the cards in their hands. Their ears pricked up; they remained silent, listening to hear what it was amongst the playing music. Tower reached forth and adjusted the audio knob of the small portable radio, lowering the volume.
Turning around on his seat, Dylan looked at the screen showing live holo footage from their cameras. There was some movement on the streets as he could see; a handful of pedestrians running on the road and the sidewalk.
He couldn’t make much out of it. Shifting his glance away from the screens, the kid shrugged at his friends as his gaze swept over them. Tower shook his head at the kid as his gaze fell back on his hand.
”Probably some ass clown of a spice cook blowing themselves up. What a way to go…” the man theorized.
”Mm, Dylan grunted at a low tone, expressing a wordless disagreement with the merc.
”Don’t think that’s it. I know explosives, and that sounded nowhere near that. It had to be a-” in the face of a thunderous explosion, his sentence would be left unfinished.
It was closer than the one before, and shook the structure to the core now. Thin strains of dust and grime from the ceiling above their heads gently poured down over their hair and hats as the flickering fluorescent white lights left their place to a blinking red light.
The klaxon of an alarm resounded in the corridors not long after.
”Missile.” he finished his sentence as he quickly removed and tucked away his tactical glasses and boonie hat into one of his pockets, and slipped on his helmet. Throwing their cards on the table at an instant, the others put on their helmets and reached for their rifles.
Fun time was over.
They would hear the shouting of orders over their comms as soon as they put on their head gear. Among the different unit leaders shouting orders, the familiar voice of their commander, posted up on a different site on the city, boomed over the comlink channel.
:: ...red alert! Lyran’s hot! Repeat, Lyran’s hot! ::
”Cchhhit!” the featureless tinted visor turned to the tech specialist as Dylan snarled between clenched teeth. Whatever was going on, trouble was ahead. His gaze lingering over Aiden still he gave a curt nod of his head at the open doorway, wordlessly motioning to head out to their assigned battle station.
Grasping the particle rifle suspended over his chest rig, the kid held it in a low-ready position as the pair sprinted out the room;
<”Watch yourselves! And stay alive!”> The giant shouted behind them, as the two disappeared out of his view upon rounding the corner down the hallway.
Monitoring their assigned sector with heightened vigilance, Tower and Nimble remained behind in their sector until the order to pull out came down.
The techie’s fingers tapped impatiently over the console at a brisk rhythm.
<”Come on, come on…”> He muttered to himself as he impatiently watched the download on the console’s screen before him. Almost complete.
The small team of on-site research personnel were already taken to the garage topside where their armored transports waited to take them all to a designated LZ and fly them off world to safety.
Their task was to extract the copies of the original research data, and finally, erase their parent companies’ tracks on the facility. They would not be leaving any loose ends that would point towards Hex.
<”How’s it lookin’ over there?”> The kid asked as he hooked up the last of the detpacks to his firing device. Following the procedure they had practiced on several exercises during their time here in the event of a code red, he had finished setting up the last of the explosives in the lab they were in, meant to destroy all the equipment within.
The finger tapping over the metal console ceased a few moments after Dylan’s question.
<”Done!”> The young merc shouted. Hastily removing the last datastick, the mercenary shoved it into his backpack as he produced another one from his backpack.
Quickly inserting a datastick -distinctively branded with a red tape- into the galactic input bus port of the console, the techie infested the laboratories database containing research data after saving their backups.
<”Uploading worm now,”> Even though the holo-drives in the datacenter in the lab would be completely destroyed and rendered useless when Dylan detonated the explosives once they were out, they were instructed to leave
nothing to chance by Skif.
<”Alright! Upload complete! Let’s get the KARK out of here!”> Aiden shouted. Pulling the datastick free from the input bus port of the console, he tucked it into a pouch on his chest rig. Patting Dylan over his shoulder a moment before he sprinted past and went up the staircase in the hallway, the young merc joined his friend in response to his notifying gesture, a few feet behind him.
Reaching the garage in a few moments, the kid squeezed hard on the clacker thrice; with a loud, muffled explosion coming from
various parts of the facility underneath them, the small facility shook, violently rumbling below their boots for a few moments. Giving a curt, wordless nod of his head at Skif, the man nodded back as he turned around to the rest of the mercs in the garage on overwatch.
<”Everyone, mount up! We’re moving out!”>
Hopping into the vehicle Nimble and Tower was in, the kid sat beside the former, whom had assumed the remote controlled weapon system at the roof of the armored landspeeder.
Soon after the veteran squad leader’s command, a small convoy of
Arrow-23’s, painted black with no distinctive marks on them, rolled out from the garage and into the streets of Starbase Yamarro turned into a boiling battlefield. Gunning the engine, the convoy would stop for nothing, shooting at any opposition that got in their way, be it local mobsters or the Enclave Marines or Mandalorians that had descended on the planet, starting to make their way towards the designated extraction point with all due haste possible.
