Private The Cut

[Xeykard]

Nar Shaddaa's Refugee Sector was not a static place. The refugees kept coming, piling, seeping into nearby sectors, up and down levels. The descendants of those who arrived after the Mandalorian Wars now resided a hundred kilometers away. Two klicks from the sector's new heart, the children of Sith-Imperials and New Imperials played in the street. Now it was new conflicts; many new empires, many new wars.

For the thousands of years it'd mutated, grown, and evolved, there was but one constant: Krusty Karl's. The owner, Karlommj, like any Viraanntesse, was unusually long-lived, but unlike his brethren had chosen to forgo the usual ritual of being crushed in his own chitin after a thousand years, instead making deals with whatever Sith or Jedi happened to be nearby to cut his shell open when he needed to molt. In exchange, a lifetime VIP suite, or some other benefit that four thousand years of spice-running and info-brokering could provide.

Karl's was not merely an institution, it was a fact of life -- as those in need slid out of the Refugee Sector's heart, Karlommj moved to provide. His nightclub was built into some ancient Hutt cruiser or the like; when it needed moving, he powered up the engines and cut through a couple towers to get where he needed to go.

Xeykard understood the premise well enough, but today he'd left his saber -- figuratively -- at home, in favor of a different approach. Into the pounding beat and flashing lights of the dance floor, a flash of red would perhaps not yield as much attention as it would elsewhere, but today was not a day for killing. He'd been told she'd be here, and so she would be found.

He advanced, cloaked, at the edge of the floor, but his target was nowhere to be found -- no, the upper level. She was an addict, and a good trip went a little better outside the massive speakers' blast radius. He strode, the only one in the building who could walk straight, into the dampened corridors above. Flush with blue light, he seemed to glow as finally he approached the one he was looking for.

"This one is disappointed," he admitted. "So large a bounty, yet so easy a catch. Perhaps this one sought the wrong slicer."

Hacks ​

 

[Hacks]

Krusty Karl's,
Refugee Sector, Nar Shaddaa

Hacks found herself in a lone booth on the second floor of Karl's, overlooking the dance floor but the thunderous music was muffled to a quiet whisper. The tranquility screen was activated, an umbrella of yellow energy that rained down over the booth. The same technology as energy shields, yet tuned so low the only thing it was stopping was soundwaves. These days the only local clubs she frequented were those that had the screens installed in the booths, Krusty Karl's, Count Zero, and Iridium Green.

She couldn't focus at home, shefound it easier to hike to the nearest bar, grab a shot, light up her veins, crawl onto a couch and enter Netspace. It had been routine for so long she had grown numb. She had been spending more time in Netspace than The Real. It was begining to blur reality. An entourage of dancers, Theelin, Rodian, Twi'lek and Askajian, followed the gargantuan wake of a Hutt who sluggishly dragged himself down the hall. Hacks barely noticed them, her mind reeling as she disconnected from the Net. Just in time.

A hulking figure loomed just outside the booth. Dark red scales, arms as big as tree trunks, a plated jawline and a row of razor-sharp teeth. He looked like a bounty hunter. Some saurian species she wasn't acquianted with. Her upper arms pushed down on the couch as she raised herself up, her lower arms crossed against her chest, metal fingers reaching for holsters in her techjacket. A Hogosha F-1 Rail Pistol that could puncture the thickest armour, and a Q87 Kenshi Smart Blaster, she didn't need to aim, the built-in computer would do it for her. Hard to dodge a bolt when it can track a target and change trajectory mid-flight.

The figure passed the screen, yellow energy raining down around him, "This one is disappointed," the stranger admitted. "So large a bounty, yet so easy a catch. Perhaps this one sought the wrong slicer." Hacks stood, his imposing figure equalled by her own. Hacks had once stood a measly five-foot-six, but she now towered at seven feet. A lifetime of cybernetics. There was almost no flesh left, and what flesh one could see was synthetic. Plastic eyes that never blinked, and pupils that never dilated, studied the stranger. She was scanning him, feeding the data back to the AJ unit implanted at the base of her skull.

Her AJ unit, wired to her neural pathways, connected her mind to the Net. Allowing a blending of the mind and code. She was in Karl's CCTV systems with but a thought. Filters injected with the scanned data of the stranger. Visuals ran across her retina, security footage of the stranger entering the club, she rewound, her mind stretching to the local TrafficSat. She watched faster than a normal mind should comprehend, how he came here, traced down to the vessel and minute of landing. She began a background trace.

It felt like minutes, but it had only been seconds. Hacks motioned to the lounge opposite hers, seperated by a low durasteel table. There were a half dozen empty glasses, burnt out cigarras, and a small bag of spice. Hacks slowly began to sit back down, her lower arms left her techjacket, resting the guns on her knees as she sat. Her upper arms opened wide and rested on either side of the top of the couch. When she talked her voice was surprisingly natural, despite the tubes one could see in her neck running a mix of coolant and synthblood around her body, keeping the extensive cybernetic framework from overheating and melting her brain in its skull.

Hacks remained silent, studying him for a moment longer when she felt a mental ping. The trace finished and lines of text raced down her retina. Xeykard, Barabel, Sith Inquisitor, associates, posessions, history, allegiences. "Whats a Sith Inquisitor doing hangin' 'round the two-bit prince of the Underworld?" Hacks asked, a frown creasing her brow. A waiter entered the tranquility screen, bringing a tray of drinks. "Have one," Hacks said as she reached out to take a shot.

She threw the shot back, sighing and seemingly sinking deeper into the couch. Her head tilted back, staring up at the ceiling. Her mind entered the holoprojector in the ceiling, feeding the same CCTV footage she had watched just seconds ago. The projector flickered and light burst across the table. A small hologram of Xeykard stood on the table, reenacting events. His arrival on Nar Shaddaa at the sectors Spaceport, his travel to Karl's, moving through the club, all the way up to now. Text scrawled across the table, details about Xeykards life, plucked from satellite databanks and registrys Hacks had long used as a tool for finding her targets.

"In the time it took you to sit down, I know everything I need to know about you, Xeykard, can your average slicer do that without tapping a key?" Hacks said cooly, a metal finger reached up to her temple and tapped twice, "I can slice just about any subnet with but a thought, and those I can't with thought, I can with these," she said, and held up her four hands, "Fastest coder this side of the Core." Her upper arms returned to hang over the top of the couch, but her lower arms pulled in, elbows nestled at her sides, aiming the rail pistol and smart blaster at Xeykard, finger brushing lightly on the trigger, anxious, "So, spit your speel, what do you want from me?"

 

[Xeykard]

Xeykard let her do what she needed to feel safe, moving over to take a seat on the other side of the booth. Onto the table- clunk. Credits. Quick scan of the bag left the tally at an even ten-thousand, legal (as legal as anything was) tender anywhere this side of Parlemian, or whatever was left of it.

She had the capacity to both lounge and threaten; given the choice, his arms matched her first pair, hanging over the couch's back.

"You know everything but the most important part," he returned, but he seemed to back down, raising two knuckles to his forehead and rolling his fingers out to Hacks. "The disappointment is temporary," he nodded to the footage, "you are everything they say and more."

In his mind, it was perfect -- she had sight over everything he could ever look for, but lacked the vision, as any criminal he'd met. She held the gun, and he the cards.

Most of them, anyway.

"This one is not here to hunt you," he assured, but his voice was that of a beast on the prowl. "An advance," he flicked at the bag, "for a prosperous partnership.

"But first-" he raised a hand, reaching into his cloak and producing a datapad. "One more demonstration, if you are willing."

It was Sith military -- old, maybe ten years, but nigh uncrackable for anyone outside of touching distance of Hacks (or so Xeykard hoped). He slid it across the table.

On it was shipping manifests, transportation schedules; years worth of logistics logs all going to a blacklisted location. More digging ran into more problems, ones that Xeykard didn't understand, but that bore more fruit: coordinates. Kadavo. Then, the plans. A shipyard built to eclipse worlds.

"What have you found?"

Hacks ​

 

[Hacks]

The bag of credits crashed across the hologram and lay spread out on the table. Hacks' finger eased off the trigger and she slowly placed the weapons back inside her techjacket. Xeykard began to speak, but the slicer was already leaning forward to scoop up the loose creds. "The disappointment is temporary," he nodded to the footage, "you are everything they say and more." She tilted her head and muttered quietly under her breath. She had just nabbed the last cred off the table when Xeykard mentioned this was just the advance. Curiosity peaked, but she didn't deal with Sith, at least not yet.

"But first-" Xeykard said, raising a hand, reaching into his cloak and producing a datapad. Hacks' eyes followed hungrily as the device was passed along the table, "One more demonstration, if you are willing." She gingerly picked up the datapad, turning it over in her upper hands while she leaned down low, her lower arms reached under the couch. A moment of squirming in the deep recesses of underneath the lounge and she produced an F80 MacroPad. It was the size of a small suitcase that she then folded out into a portable computer. Orange light illuminated Hacks' face as she glanced down at her own pad, plucking a thin cord from the trim of the device. "You'd think a galaxy this big would demand a universal connection port," she explained, "But you'll find some Sith and Imperial state-made datapads like to employ custom connectors. It makes it harder for just any slicer to get hardwired into their systems."

She plugged the cord into the datapad, "If you got the right tools, you can make your own custom data couplers." A metal thumb ran along the rim of her MacroPad, twisting to show Xeykard several small imprints in the device. "I've installed a few of the more.. common nuisances.. in my pad." The Sith datapad switched on, displaying a mostly blank screen. A rudimentary account and passphrase, strengthened by the need for the datapad to be in range of a Sith satellite. She flicked her MacroPad back around to herself and began to install her Keymaker program onto the Sith datapad. "Even if I get the combination right, it won't accept it without verification from the correct network. We're too far out of range for any Sith satellite, but every problem has a solution."

As the Keymaker program began its calculations, Hacks settled her MacroPad down and four hands furiously typed. The clink of mechanical keys gained a rhythm as she seemed to relax, taking a moment to pause, reach out for another shot, swing it back, then continue. "I can have my MacroPad emit a radio frequency that will convince the datapad it is an authentic connection to the Sith network." There came a ping from the datapad, service online splashed across the screen. A moment later the user and passphrase autofilled and logged in.

The device was further encrypted. The language on-screen was aurebesh but seemed utterly meaningless. "Sith might be good with their dark magic, but they're predictable coders," Hacks said as she lifted the Sith datapad off the desk, setting it on her lap. "They'd have better luck at security if they hired outside ciphers. You'll find their common encryption keys are related to Sith bloodlines, geentic markers, emotional patterns related to that magic-shit they espouse." She rolled her eyes briefly and waved a dismissive hand, clearly not the type to believe in the power of the Force.

Fingers danced across the MacroPad keyboard and the holoproctor above cut the earlier feed and began to beam new images. Ancient symbols spinning on the table. Aurebesh letters, words, phrases without any pattern or meaning. Ancient Sith sigils burned in the air. They warbled a moment and converged, colliding among themselves and re-arranging until suddenly the words and sentences began to make sense. Hacks eyes narrowed a moment as she realized what she was looking at.

"What have you found?" Xeykard pressed, Hacks turned her gaze to him, "It's a shipyard, huge. Sensor jammers like nothing I've seen, yet. . ." her eyes scanned the datapad and she smiled, "System defences I can slice with my eyes closed." She looked at Xeykard, "One of the biggest shipyards I've ever seen, and barely any countermeasure against slicers. You're serving me cake and telling me I get paid to eat it?"

 

[Xeykard]

Xeykard watched in silence as she worked. His earlier assessment had been wrong -- it wasn't that she lacked vision, it was that she was focused. The pace of her work spoke not only to her talent but also her passion; a sharp ego, but backed by her results.

"A feast for you," he concurred. He leaned forward to take the datapad, feigning disinterest as he looked at the plans, but a gleam in his eyes hinted at the truth. The few inexperienced Sith cyber-experts kept in his employ had spent months on this, and had only broken the first layer, confirming the shipyard's existence, but not its location, nor its make. This was actionable. The gleam stayed as his gaze turned again to Hacks.

"This intel is four years old," he admitted. "It is possible, perhaps likely, that the task will be more difficult than you say. But you will succeed. This one has no doubts.

"A full quarantine. It must be cleansed of any possibility of tracking or external control by the Sith. You will accomplish this." He rested again.

"But, this one respects your expertise. Your assessment," he gestured that she had the floor, and put the datapad down on the table.

Hacks ​

 

[Hacks]

"A feast for you," Xeykard said, leaning forwad to scoop up the Sith datapad. He began to talk, but she wasn't paying attention. When she had plugged into the datapad, decoding the encryptions on her MacroPad, she had a dataleech program running adjacent. While the files remained on the datapad, she had her own copy ghoststreamed direct to her deck, uploaded into her AJ unit. She could access the files as though it were a memory, but a distant one. Like the earliest of days of youth, or a night out taken too far, she could recall the information but it felt faded.

She tuned back into Xeykard just in time to hear, "A full quarantine. It must be cleansed of any possibility of tracking or external control by the Sith. You will accomplish this." She looked him in the eyes, her own unwavering, unnatural, inhuman. Then she stared down at the datapad being laid back down on the table. Without a word she leaned forward, curled a metal fist and slammed down hard on the table. The datapad shattered. A brief zap of a dying spark from crushed electronics. The hologram on the table vanished. She raised her hand, a distinct imprint left on the broken screen, the metal frame of the pad bent inwards. "Easy," she said, then picked the datapad up, snapped what was left in two, and tossed it into a small bin beside the lounge.

"They can track that back to the landfill," Hacks said. She reached over to her F80 MacroPad, switched it off and folded it back into its briefcase-sized form. "I downloaded the data when I plugged in, isolated it to an icebox program on my MacroPad," Hacks lied, it wasn't isolated, she had streamed it to her AJ deck, it had merged in the vague realm where code and neural matrix met. If she went through with the op, she needed that in her mind, and Xeykard would still get his info back intact once she transferred it to a dead-drive. "I'll run a full sweep of the info' when I get back to mine, I've got some spare 'pads at home, I'll upload the data onto one of them and hit it with a scrub tank."

Hacks took another drink, settled back into the lounge, tossed one leg over the other and looked to Xeykard. "So, what do you need me to do, exactly, don't skimp on the deats. Who's on the team, whats the mish." As she listened to his reply, details of the shipyard streamed across her retina, her mind perusing the inexhaustible details of this gargantuan vessel.

 

[Xeykard]

Xeykard watched the datapad go into the trash. "It will not be so easy next time."

He studied Hacks for a moment -- the uncertainty grated at him, of course. He weighed what he knew and what he didn't; the price of her loyalty, the cost of her betrayal. Give her access to the shipyards, and what might she put in place? A minute with a datapad, and she knew more than he did.

Ah, but he would not need long. Credits would suffice. Hacks was worth his while. "This one intends to steal the shipyards.

"You will need to do the same," he gestured at the broken datapad. "Isolate the shipyards from Sith influence, permanently, such that they remain fully operational, without external control. The timeframe will be short -- the most essential parts must be completed before the drive is attached and it is transported out of system, to avoid any tracking. It will be under four hours, from arrival in-system. Then, transit to the site, disabling of any defenses, and then your work begins. Unforeseen complications may arise, but security will not be lacking. You will be protected. If necessary, perhaps by your former colleague, Koda Fett.

"The technical team is... under construction. You will be in contact with them, should they require your aid. The Black Sun -- parts of it -- will lend their support. Jerec Asyr, Razmir Tezhyn, though they are fickle, and their involvement may wax or wane as the situation demands.

"Some assets remain to be seen. But your role is clear. Ensure the Sith Order retains no control over the shipyards. This, you will accomplish."

Hacks ​

 

[Hacks]

Xeykard revealed his plan to steal the shipyard and Hacks could only frown. How in the hells could someone steal a shipyard with these specs? she wondered, she browsed the files, data flowing across retina as she sought out some hyperdrive or superluminal thrusters. Her ears perked up as the Sith continued to talk, her eyes narrowing when he mentioned a drive being attached to the shipyard. So, an external hyperdrive. "It won't be an issue to avoid tracking, I'll turn their own sensor jammers against them, and squash any datarats trying to hide in the network. I'm more concerned by how large a complement of staff this thing has on hand. Especially anyone who can use that.. Force.. stuff you Sith manipulate."

Xeykard assured her, she would be protected, and raised Koda Fett. She smiled, then waved her wrist back and forth, "I recall last time I worked with him he said he didn't need me, then I find him calling me needing my help to bust him out of the Senate chambers on Coruscant." Her eyes darted about, thinking, anxious, "Alright, cool, I can work with Koda," she said, and her stomach turned knowing she had been days away from chasing that bounty on him. Intending to backstab a former associate. Maybe that wasn't the right move and this would pay off, after all Koda still owed her a favour from her stunt slicing into Coruscants senate chambers.

"Keep me protected, make sure someones got my back, and you'll have your shipyard," Hacks said, knowing once she was home she wouldn't be sleeping for a few days. Late nights studying every facet of the shipyard blueprints. I need to buy some spice before I go home, she mused to herself quietly.

 

[Xeykard]

"Very well."

He scanned Hacks for a moment, but held back everything else. There would be time for specifics. Instead he rose, and put out an arm to clasp Hacks', sealing their contract.

"Do what must be done."

Hacks ​