The Man Who Has It All

[Alric Kuhn]

The cave seemed to be mostly devoid of life, half the people within the place ere gone. He suspected that they had been preparing for something, that they had been searching for something and had now found what they needed to take the next step. Of course they were still missing their key component, the codes for the Dark-Net. Yet why take those? There was no need for that, no reason for it. The Dark-net was self insulated, it could really only effect Vanir.​

​

Unless the system were modified.​

​

His lips turned to a frown, and suddenly Alric stopped dead in his tracks.​

​

Could they do that? Would they be able to change the system to do something else? In theory the Dark-Net was just like the holo-net only slightly more advanced. They were signal receivers and senders, working on their own allocation instead of the holo-net. Yet the system was spread far enough that it reached most of the galaxy, simply a byproduct of Vanir being so large.​

​

Did they intend to modify the system?​

 

[Alric Kuhn]

No.​

​

No that was impossible.​

​

That would takes months, years even...unless they had the codes. With the codes they would be able to individually pin-point the buoys and access them without fear of the defense network. Yet even then, changing the system would be difficult, if not outright impossible. It would require years of expertise in communications networking to actually be plausible.​

​

His head shook from side to side, and slowly Alric began to press forward again in the same crouch.​

​

He had to figure out what was going on here, he had to know what they planned. If he left the cave and escaped back home he would know something was coming, but he wouldn't know what. Stopping it would be that much harder. The old Tetan knew that he would have to stop whatever this was before it even got started. It was the only way to be sure.​

 

[Alric Kuhn]

Alric pushed ahead, sneaking through the tunnels one muffled footstep at a time. The air seemed to grow thinner, more dry the farther he got away from the prison cells. The catwalk that he stepped on became more stable, and the level of construction quality went up. It was odd, almost as though this were an official building site instead of a makeshift hidey hole that they had found.​

​

He traced his way up a carved set of stairs, stepping lightly into neatly-lasercut rock.​

​

An eyebrow raised slightly as he reached the top of the stairs, stepping into what appeared to be a fully metallic structure. There were no windows, so he surmised that he was still underground. Yet the structure of the room, the odd slopes and the strange arches above the doors seemed almost familiar to him. He frowned slightly, wandering into the fully lit room as he lost himself for a moment. His hand settled on the table before him, fingers gliding down its edges.​

​

"Odd."​

​

He said to himself, hand slowly curling beneath the table itself.​

​

The Tetan felt alongside the rim of the table itself, letting the pads of his fingers glide over cold durasteel.​

 

[Alric Kuhn]

Alric made his way around the table, gently probing until he felt the durasteel dip into itself.​

​

A smile, and slowly the old man went to a knee, bending his neck so that he could see the mark beneath the table. He heard an odd crack from his leg, and he made a slight oof noise as he finally managed to take a look at the mark.​

​

"Shit."​

​

Was all that he said.​

​

A part of him had guessed this. A part of him had feared it. He should have known it would come back to haunt him eventually, that things never really tidied themselves all that way. A sigh escaped his lips, head slowly shaking. There would always be moments like this, there would always be times when he felt that sinking feeling, he just had to push on through them.​

​

Slowly Alric pushed himself off the floor, leaving behind the inscription that simply read 'Titan Industries'.​

 

[Alric Kuhn]

"Sorry, Honey."​

​

Alric whispered quietly to himself as he clutched the ring in his pocket.​

​

"Looks like you're going to have to wait just a bit longer."​

​

He didn't know if these people were Titan, he didn't know if they were employees, experiments, or victims of his old corporations actions, but he knew that they were somehow associated. Titan Facilities didn't get breached. That was a simple, and very true statement that anyone could make. It had taken the One Sith entire armies to breach several Titan Facilities, and those armies had been aided by former Titan Employees. Getting into a base built by Titan was nearly impossible.​

​

If these people were here, then they knew how to get in, and that meant someone from within Titan told them.​

​

It was simple logic, and annoyingly accurate.​

 

[Alric Kuhn]

Timing.​

​

It was all about timing.​

​

Why couldn't this have happened months ago? Why couldn't it have happened a month from now? It would have been so much better, it would have been so much easier. Now it interrupted everything. He had planned things for weeks, plotted, made sure she didn't see it coming. That had been the hardest of all, not letting her know. She was a perceptive little vixen, and sneaking around didn't do any good to ease her suspicions. In the end he had only managed it through a series of protocol droids and third parties.​

​

Now this.​

​

It ruined it all really, ruined the surprise.​

​

He hadn't been gone that long yet, but no doubt she would start getting worried now, she always did. Oh she hid it well, but Alric could always see it in her eyes when he came back. Maybe it was the insecurities she still held on to, or perhaps she knew just how much trouble he could get into. Either way, Alric knew that he had to end this fast, knew that whatever this was, whoever it was, he would have to stop them quickly.​

 

[Alric Kuhn]

Titan had always been rather informal about keeping him up to date. Even when he had controlled the firm by the nape of its neck Alric had never known one hundred percent of what they had been doing. It was the shapers really, the Yuuzhan Vong. They had never liked him much, never respected him.​

​

He didn't blame them, he was an outsider.​

​

Perhaps he should have watched them more closely, perhaps he should have cared, but at the time it hadn't seemed so important. Titan had been massive, had been so big that it was impossible to have watched everything. He supposed he was paying for that now.​

​

The facility wasn't familiar to him, but now that he knew it was Titan he saw the signs everywhere. The odd organic like structure, the markings, the etchings of serial numbers. It was all strangely familiar, all very much the make of Titan Industries. The caverns below however, weren't. He knew that for sure, knew that even Titan hadn't fallen that far. Whoever now ran this facility was not associated with the company, at least no anymore.​

​

Though it left the question...who exactly where they?​

 

[Alric Kuhn]

He'd made enemies over the years.​

​

Pissed off board members, Jedi, Sith, hell even a few planets that blamed him for the actions of Titan Industries as a whole. Yet this didn't feel personal, at least not really. This seemed far more...poignant, as though they were trying to make a point. Sure they had tortured him, beaten him, but it had been the means to an end, not because of who he was. The guard had certainly despised him, but even then, he felt more a symbol of the hatred rather than the target.​

​

Could it be remnants of Titan?​

​

Parts of the company that had been...disposed of when a project failed?​

​

It wasn't unheard of. Titan had more than once purged itself of undesirables, more than once gotten rid of entire sections simply because the project had failed. In a way, that made sense to him. Perhaps it was a divergent group that had been formed when a project had failed. From the looks of the facility he would guess mining, though as he made his way further up into the higher sections he began to question that. The sound of stamping machinery and hissing forges spoke against such thoughts.​

 

[Alric Kuhn]

His head slowly poked out from a doorway, his eyes searching the massive room that lay before him. A gasp suddenly escaped his lips, his eyes locking on one of the main machines located inside of the foundry.​

​

He recognized it.​

​

Three huge pillars stood around a centralized orb, looming over it as though they were fingers. Within the orb were thousands upon thousands of lines etched deep into the metal. the pillars seemed to bend over the sphere, looming as though they were about to grab it. Alric stared at the machine, his lips suddenly thinning and his eyes wandering around the rest of the foundry as though he were searching for something else. Another sigh escaped his lips, this time relief.​

​

"Good."​

​

It was a whisper, though perhaps one he didn't entirely mean.​

 

[Alric Kuhn]

The machine, for all intense and purposes was a weapon.​

​

The contraption had been designed as a sort of terraforming method by Titan's early founding company bioglobe. The project had initially seen success, and in fact had made significant strides into actually achieving function. The machine worked off of the utilization of ambient magnetic and energy upon a planet, triggering various signal relays placed upon a world to create a polaric shift within a planets magnetic field. Said shift would begin the change within the atmosphere of the planet itself, eventually forcing an ozone layer as well as magnetic fields to form and render the planet habitable within a decade or so of the machines activation.​

​

Of course, the technology was rather dangerous because the machine actually functioned through the utilization of modified Hyperwave Transceivers. That was to say, the machine sent out its signal through the same technology as the holo-net, albeit a variation. This signal could be spread all around the world rather easily then since hyperwave transceivers were a simple technology. Eventually, the flaw within that system was found when the machine began to "leak" it's signal into standard hyperwave transceivers. Luckily, the holo-net transceivers were not structurally sound enough to handle the signal and instead of transmitting the signal further they were destroyed.​

​

That project was shut down soon after due to this complication.​

​

Luckily, the machine appeared to be incomplete, it's own sub-set relay system that it needed to send out its signal not being present.​

​

"Oh no."​

​

The realization hit him like a brick.​

​

"Shit."​

 

[Alric Kuhn]

He understood now. He knew why they wanted the Dark-Net codes, why they needed him. The Dark-Net was essentially a smaller subnet of the galactic communications network known as the Holo-net. It was in essence the same thing, but more secure. The buoys were better built, more heavily defended, and more versatile in just how they functioned. The group must believe that with the Dark-Net they would be able to transmit the machines signal to multiple places at once.​

​

If the signal was broadcast, in theory it would begin to work wherever it was sent.​

​

That meant that any world where the Dark-Net reached would feel the effects of the signal that the machine created, effectively rendering the device into a doomsday weapon.​

​

As that thought landed on Alric he found himself stunned. The Machine had originally been meant for good, had meant to be a way to transform uninhabitable worlds in a matter of years instead of decades. Yet if it was used for the reverse purpose, if it was used a world that already had an atmosphere...then the results would very likely be absolutely catastrophic, especially on a world as populated as say...Coruscant. His lips thinned, and his head began to shake from side to side.​

​

"No. I can't let that happen."​

 

[Alric Kuhn]

His hubris had meant the death of people before, it wouldn't this time.​

​

Alric was no soldier, never had been.​

​

He'd fought in nightclubs, bars, even an arena or two, but he'd never considered himself a warrior. It was a title that he didn't deserve, one that he wouldn't even try to claim. Yet here he was, thinking about playing at it. An excuse would have been that he had to do it, that he had no other choice, but he was old, and excuses would only take him so far. A grunt escaped him, and slowly Alric stretched himself up. His eyes began to scan the room.​

​

There were a few guards present, all of them wearing masks and rebreathers.​

​

The weapons they held were recognizable, Titan make. He knew the products of his former company well enough to see that, luckily none of the troopers wore any armor, and most of them seemed to be looking towards the outer doors rather than the ones within the facility itself. Bright blue traced over the rest of the facility. The Tetan spotted a few cameras, two turrets, and a set of loading droids that slowly seemed to be stacking crates in the corner of the room.​

​

He took a deep breath.​

​

He had to do this, he had to seize the initiative, hit them while they weren't looking. It was the only way.​

 

[Alric Kuhn]

One last breath, and Alric moved forward.​

​

His bare feet pressed against cold metal, making no sound as he rushed into the facility with all the haste he could muster. Old bones seemed to rattle within him as he sprinted along the wall, carrying himself as quickly behind the stacked crates as he could. One of the droids seemed to half turn towards him, barely catching a glimpse of his leg as he ducked behind the crates. The automaton stopped for half a moment, staring at the empty space, then it returned to its work.​

​

A whisper of thanks went to whomever designed those droids, their limited faculties likely didn't allow for too much thought beyond the task that they had been assigned. Silently, Alric let himself rest for a moment, taking shallow breaths as to stifle the noise he would normally make. Then he began to creep forward once more, using the boxes as cover to move towards one of the guards.​

​

The man had his mask off, a cigarette sitting between his lips.​

​

The rifle that he was supposed to carry was placed on the side of the box, simply leaning in place. The weapon was an S-11 Sonic Rifle, powerful and deadly in the wrong hands. Alric eyed it for a moment, though he did not go for it. Instead he crept closer, moving up behind the soldier as the man let out a deep, throaty cough. The Tetan froze in place, fearing discovery as the man looked around himself to see if he had been discovered. When no one came to yell at him, his cigarette was quickly replaced.​

 

[Alric Kuhn]

Three more steps, and Alric ended his path right behind the man. He heard him take another long drag of his cigarette, blue eyes looking up at his torso. The Tetan tried to recall all of the things that Kiran had taught him, tried to recall the things that the Zeltron had said regarding killing a man.​

​

Alric had never killed with his bare hands before.​

​

There had been the tunnels, that time on Empress Teta where he'd come close, those nights in the ring. He knew how to fight with his bare hands...but killing...Killing was an entirely different journey. A breath entered his lungs, a silent rush of air that would stifle some of the anxiety that had risen in his chest. His eyes closed for half a second, his shaking hands slowly beginning to steady themselves. He frowned slightly, then opened his eyes. A single thought passed through his mind as he slowly stood.​

​

So I can ask her.​

​

It was all the motivation he needed.​

 

[Alric Kuhn]

It all happened far faster than he thought it would.​

​

Within a moment, he was standing, within a second his arms wrapped around the man. One hand settled over his mouth, the other on his chin. His elbow provided leverage, and then with a sudden wrench and snap the guard went limp within his arms.​

​

The shock of it all, the rush froze Alric Kuhn in place for a moment.​

​

The old Tetan stood holding a dead man leaning against him, his arms wrapped around his neck and his hands covering half of his face. The former Titan seemed to stall for a moment more, simply frozen in place. The noise of ringing bootsteps seemed to snap him back into life. With another might wrench Alric pulled the now dead guard behind the boxes, wrenching his body back into the shadows to hide it from anyone that might come around the corner.​

​

"Dave?"​

​

An exasperated sounding voice rang out.​

​

"Dave where the kark did you go?"​

​

Another figure stumbled over towards the boxes, seeing the lone rifle and kicking the cigarette butt on the ground. A loud sigh escaped from the man, followed by the ringing of boots as he walked away and out of the facility.​

 

[Alric Kuhn]

Whoever Dave was...or rather had been, apparently was known for smoking and doddling off. Alric was glad for that, more glad that his friend had left behind his S-11.​

​

The Tetan grasped the rifle, pulling it over the box and inspecting it rather quickly. The powerpack was half charged, the barrel was ill maintained, and the sights weren't aligned in the least. He frowned slightly, then began to search Dave's body. He found two Thermal detonators and an adhesive grenade. Oddly enough, he found no form of identification or any personal belongings, as though the man had been little more than an empty face.​

​

"Sorry buddy." ​

​

Alric said the words as he tapped the mans chest.​

​

He slipped two of the grenades into his pants pocket, separate from the ring, and kept one of the thermals in his hand. The Rifle he loaded and charged up, half standing behind teh crates to heft its weight against his hip. A deep breath passed through his lungs, and the bloodied Tetan moved out from behind the crates.​

​

His walk was slow and crouched at first, more of a stealthed hustle then a run, but as he got closer and closer to the machine his back stiffened and his legs began to move faster until he broke out into a full sprint.​

 

[Alric Kuhn]

It took them a few moments to notice.​

​

Maybe they didn't see him, maybe they were tired, maybe they were simply not expecting a half dead man to run across their facility, but by the time they turned towards him Alric was already more then halfway towards the machine. The Thermal detonator in his hand was beeping, the silvery orb blinking red as he threw it towards a cluster of guard. Their eyes opened wide, a scream exiting one of their lips. The explosion tore into six of them, a seventh jumping clear just in time.​

​

They were eviscerated in an instant.​

​

The Thermal Detonator popped, it's odd explosion alerting the remaining guards within the facility.​

​

Fire began to rain down upon Alric. Blaster bolts, sonic rounds, even the occasional charric seemed to strike all around him. Miraculously the Old Tetan weaved through them all, heavy footsteps trampling over duracrete as he wildly sprinted towards the mechanism. His chest rose and fell, his free arm flailed wildly, the S-11 on his hip firing once, twice, then a third time.​

​

He didn't bother aiming, it likely wouldn't help much. Alric had never been the best shot, and hitting something while sprinting? No. He wasn't capable of that, not even if he were one hundred percent and twenty three years old. Instead he fired wildly, pulling the trigger over and over again in the general direction of anything that moved or shot at him. A few times he got lucky, a few times he saw a guard tumble down or a crate full of energy cells explode, but it didn't matter.​

​

Only one thing mattered.​

 

[Alric Kuhn]

The Sonic Rifle clicked empty, the blaster bolts were getting closer, and Alric was getting slower.​

​

His chest was beginning to rise for longer, breathing getting harder. His feet seemed to get heavier, his legs feeling weighted. His vision began to blur, and desperation was the only thing that pressed him forward. He ran as fast as he could, pushed himself to his very limit. He saw the machine, he saw the three stretching pillars, the far reaching fingers that sought to envelope the world within them. He saw a menacing glow around them. His eyes closed for half a second, his muscles flexed...​

​

Then he felt searing pain.​

 

[Alric Kuhn]

In an instant Alric fell tumbling to the ground. Pain lanced through his thigh, burning bright hot agony that seemed to sear into his very veins. A cry escaped his lips, a groan of pain that he couldn't quite managed to stifle. The Old Man fell to the ground with a sudden and heavy thud, the S-11 clattering to the floor and sliding away from him as he hit the duracrete floor. A crack could be heard as his ribs impacted against an odd outcropping on the floor.​

​

He reeled.​

​

"Now now, Mr Kuhn."​

​

The voice echoed above him, strong, confident, smug.​

​

It was a voice that he recognized, one that he knew from the room. His eyes closed, his hand stretching out towards the S-11. He knew it was empty, he knew that it had no power, but it was something, something to hold on to, something to use as a bludgeon. A second pain reached through him, this time from his hand. A heel pressed into the top of his palm, piercing skin and scrunching bone. Another groan escaped him, his face contorting in agony.​

​

"You wouldn't want to hurt yourself."​

 

[Alric Kuhn]

He lay there for a moment. No witty retort came form him. No statement of justice. No curse. Nothing. He simply lay there. The heel retreated from his palm, blood dripping from its end as it slowly withdrew. Alric's fingers scrunched into a half fist, his hand slowly returning to him as he half turned himself onto a ball. His thigh seared with pain, his hand ached, his rib seemed to send a steady stream of agony through him. Clenched teeth let out a hiss, his head shaking as slowly he turned himself onto his back.​

​

A sigh of relief escaped him as pressure was let off his broken ribs, his undamaged hand sailing over the wound as if it would give him a measure of comfort. He half leaned against the odd metallic outcropping, his head rolling to the side as he looked up towards the woman.​

​

She was broken.​

​

Broken in a way that he could not describe. Her flesh seemed to have been seared off, her eyes were dented, iris' faded and cracked. Her hands clung to a small blaster pistol, her blackened teeth showing in a wide grin as she looked down at him. For some odd reason she reminded him of so many of the Sith he had met before. That dead look, as though the reaper himself followed them about and touched them. A chill ran up his spine, and slowly his eyes met hers.​

​

There was really only one thing to say.​

​

One thing he had to ask still.​

​

"Who are you?"​