| Location | Gorse, Inner Rim Territories
Concealed beneath metal plates, the hydraulics within Itzhal's buy'ce hissed gently as the antenna attached to his helmet rose smoothly, until, with a final click, the device settled back into place. The vibrant glow of his HuD faded to a muted hue that displayed the information without urgency or priority. It wasn't designed to, not in its current phase—he was in no rush to sacrifice power to the onboard computer.
In the meantime, he assessed the information gathered with his own eyes, combing over the haze of potential threats, proximity alerts, and environmental data that flickered before him.
Long-range sensor equipment had counted four patrols; three of which Itzhal had seen with his own eyes, while the latter on the other side of the salvage yard had been little more than vague silhouettes. Along the outer perimeter, the groups seemed to consist of five to seven individuals, their movements and timing between checkpoints noticeably sporadic, either due to training or to an unfortunate lapse between the different squads. Itzhal was inclined to believe the latter, though; it mattered little in the immediate situation. They'd be unpredictable in the worst of ways—the kind that could easily leave operations like this drenched in more blood than any man should ever spill.
Not that Itzhal had any doubt of the inevitable outcome; it was only a matter of time before blood was shed, whether it be theirs or the target and his unfortunate allies. If his expression, already grim with the reality they faced, twisted into something even darker, the visor was kind enough to obscure his reaction.
Unfortunately, it wasn't where the information ended.
Relics and treasures lay buried beneath a towering mountain range of scrap metal and discarded electronics, creating a winding network of rust-covered lanes that twisted and turned like a maze, with more twists and turns than Itzhal dared to count. The only semblance of assurance that the Mandalorian had to count on was the fleeting image he had captured from above—a bird's-eye view that offered a vague sense of direction, though even that was plagued with the knowledge of what he had witnessed within the depths of the wreckage.
Sudden flashes of light, noticeable even to the organic eye, had coincided with intense heat, detected by his thermal sensors, which together revealed the presence of other workers hidden among the debris; their numbers remained a mystery, obscured by the wasteland of salvage that only seemed to expand the more he thought about it. In far-off sections, where the pathway sometimes converged, the distortion of magnetic fields hinted at the presence of machinery beneath, still active, and potentially just as problematic as the floodlights that loomed over the area or the symbols that marked potentially untapped explosive gases.
He waited till they landed, settled between the shadows of old businesses, little more than an extension of the scrapyard.
"I've seen worse, if that's any consolation."
With a shake of his head, Itzhal's gloved hand drifted downward, wrapping around the stretch of his belt and landing on a small holotransmitter that he placed on the dashboard a moment later—with his thumb, the device flickered to life with a familiar blue haze.
"On the plus side, it's not a military fortification; on the negative side, they're clearly used to dealing with people attempting to sneak in and claim what is effectively theirs." As he spoke, the holocomm started to fill in information using the uplink to his buy'ce.
"Our primary concern will be the watchtowers. I'm sure you've noticed them already, but in case you didn't, I've identified a total of four, one positioned at each ordinal direction with a similar infrastructure, and likely, a similar allocation of manpower. I noticed three within, though; until we actually deal with any of them, assume the information might have holes attached."
He swayed his hand forward, distorting the holodisplay before it zoomed into the tower,
"Among those personnel, two appear to be armed rifleman with interchangeable weapons,—if we're lucky, it's scrap—while the third seems to operate as a flexible role, alternating between a similar position and controlling a mounted heavy repeater that appears intergrated into a rail system across the walkway—possibly allowing them to reposition the heavy weapon wherever they want. They're also likely the one tapped to operate the floodlights."
"None of that really addresses getting inside," he admitted with a slow shrug.
"That's where the walls come in," the haze shifted, a display of the towers flickering out as the outer perimeter was displayed in full with long stretches of metal that enclosed the scrapyard within.
"North side leads to a gatehouse that serves as the central entrance in and out of here; discard it. If we get anywhere near it, we'll be fighting against odds that I have absolutely no interest in facing when there's a Sith to deal with afterwards, assuming they don't buy time for him."
"The Eastern side seems linked to some form of drop-off," His buy'ce tilted, thoughtful for a second, before he shook his head.
"I'm pretty sure that I saw scanners; probably not worth the effort, assuming there's even the chance we don't set anything off in the first place. South seems the furthest from problems, but anyone with a lick of sense should know that and adjust accordingly. So, we take the western wall."
"Once inside, it should be simple enough, though we'll need to use the mountains of scrap as cover that might just as easily stop a blaster bolt as fall upon our heads. Exciting," he stated, dry as a desert.
"So let's hope I don't need to blow up anything building-sized for the moment."
Taking a brief moment to deactivate the holoprojector as Davos stepped outside, Itzhal carefully stowed the device on his belt, where magnetic locks clicked softly into place. He then pushed open the door, its hinges twisting smoothly as he stepped into the graytone expanse outside, pausing only to examine the stretch of duracrete beneath his feet. It would be worse inside the salvage yard, though not by much—at least there the decay might come in more than one colour. With a practised flick of his wrist, he closed the door behind him, the solid thunk echoing in the stillness as footsteps approached.
"You'd be surprised," he warned, the stride of his boots muffled by the padded soles of his boots as, with a smooth extension of his arms, he drew both blaster pistols and fired blue sparks that travelled through the air—the whine of leaving the barrel, no louder than the following drop of the two bodies. His stride carried them past both, unconscious, but still alive for the moment. Maybe, if they'd gotten a chance, he might have done differently, but he wasn't here for them. Another time, perhaps.
It wasn't till he reached the outer perimeter of the wall that he stopped, and even then, it was a temporary pause as a floodlight passed overhead and the sound of voices beyond them drifted by. Then, with an extension of his arm, as smooth as the motion that had raised and fired his blasters quicker than one could blink, a fibercorp cable launched from his right gauntlet and impaled itself in the tip of the wall.
"Do you have a method up?"
