Private Trust Me, This Can't Possibly Go Wrong

[Skeevi Merrill]

HAPES
OUTSKIRTS OF BURNED GALACTIC ALLIANCE BASE
(WE DID NOT BURN IT)
THREE HOURS SINCE EVACUATION

Skeevi Merrill bustled into the impromptu operating theatre - a commandeered and grounded yacht with a killer medical suite - mumbling to themself. The mumble was a song that had been stuck in their head for days.

"Each morning I wake up, before I put on my makeup..."

They looked up from their datapad to squint at the rogues' gallery of Black Sun associates who'd volunteered. Probably.

"Here's the plan," they said, blinking one eye furiously. It was less than an hour old and a couple of dingy blue surgery droids were still scrubbing blood off their appendages at the mini sink. "We gotta boxa iBorg Postcog eyes. Letcha see what went on in the last couple days. I just plugged one in. We rush some inta you, one each, and go for a walk, see the base gettin burned, see'em scrubbin, see what they scrubbed. Can't touch th'past or hear it, just see it, take pics, record it. After, we can probly put yer eyes back or getcha somethin basic if not. Uh, don't get shot in the face or yer head's gone. Grain of hypermatter in here. Questions? Cool." Skeevi took out a crinkled half-tube of Iskalloni Coral and smeared pink paste around their right eye in a businesslike way. "Painkiller shots're over there, go nuts, say g'bye to yer eye."

 

[Oleander]

//: Skeevi Merrill //:
//: Attire //:

This was Mercy 's fault.

Oleander stared at the doctor… could they be called a doctor? She stared and listened to the half-baked idea. Cybernetic eyes… recording information… maybe get the original eye back in the socket. Every word that Skeevi said continued to loop through the Hapan's head, trying to pinpoint the logic of it all.

She wanted to scream.

Instead, her gaze fell to the ground, and then the good doctor was on her face. Fingers pressed into the soft tissue around her right eye. Oleander, someone not used to being this close to someone, nor them touching around her eye, stiffened like a board.

The goop in place and the painkillers pointed out, Oleander grabbed the shot, stepped to the side, and rolled up her sleeve.

At this point, she replayed the last few weeks… maybe months. Where did she mess up and get herself now, injecting herself with painkillers so she could lose her right eye and do someone's bidding?

The painkillers started to work instantly, and Oleander frowned. It wasn't the effect she wanted, so she reached into her small satchel and produced a small green vial.

"Goodbye eye…" she exhaled hard and flipped the cork from the vial and downed it.

Instantly, her body went numb, and she sat down on the nearest chair, stool, whatever provided the aid.

"Aaahhhhhhhhh," looking back at the doctor, Oleander still had the panicked look on her face.

"W-We get our eye back, right? Like you promise??"

 

[Skeevi Merrill]

The Postcog eye had some fairly sophisticated control options using just blinks or interfaces with one's existing cybernetics, but Skeevi and the rest didn't have time to become masters of that art. These Postcogs were connected to datapads for temporal control, footage sharing, recording, etc. As the droids got to work replacing eyeballs, Skeevi played with the datapad side of things. They ducked at the sight of a GA ship's underbelly right through the yacht's ceiling - and yep, that was a glimpse of an evac ship three hours ago. From here it'd only take minute adjustments to zero in the time frame when the Alliance had burned their own base's interior, salted the earth with computer viruses, all kinds of stuff.

(Whir, slice, grind, splat. The eyeballs were getting installed, one per person, with speed as a maximum priority.)

So far as Skeevi knew, none of the assortment of Black Sun interests behind this stunt had any idea whether this base or its contents had been special in any way. Skeevi sure didn't. But the fact that the Alliance had been willing to toast their own sites concurrent with a terrorist attack - a hundred-odd simultaneous assassinations - sure made for fun speculation.

"Aaahhhhhhhhh," looking back at the doctor, Oleander still had the panicked look on her face.

"W-We get our eye back, right? Like you promise??"

"Probly yeah." Skeevi went over to squint at things. "Or like a basic cyber with real good color match. Eesh. Red? Tricky. Okay, getcher original. Or we got a good ball for a Chiss, you wanna Chiss eye?"

 

[Sal Katarn]

The things Sal did for money…

This felt a lot like selling his plasma when he’d needed some extra credits on Corellia. That had been a long time ago. Mostly he could sell other things. Mainly, a trigger finger. Hot commodity.

The aged Firrerreon scratched at his scraggly jawline, squinting at Skeevi Merrill .

“I suppose.”

He could see a lotta applications with this kind of eye. Less if his head got blown off. The grain of hyper matter didn’t exactly sound appealin’, given the law of “Bad Things Will Happen.”

Very similar law to “Jedi Will Dodge This Sniper Shot.”

Sal needed the money. He had blown everything trusting Kentarch’s power rankings in the Kaggath.

 

[Oleander]

//: Skeevi Merrill //: Sal Katarn //:
//: Attire //:

Droids.

Droids were doing the surgery.

More panic set in, but Oleander couldn't really feel it… But she knew it was there.

Mentally, everything began to shut down as she stared in horror at the nimble bits of the droids poking, slicking, and grinding. (Were things supposed to grind in the eye socket??)

Oleander blinked a few times. It was an odd feeling — the eye seemed to be normal. Yet, there was now a buzzing in her head as the eye moved from side to side.

How annoying…

Skeevi finally made their way over, and Oleander looked at them with curiosity. She would have felt better if they were the ones poking around her eye; they had already become intimate with her face, in her opinion.

"Probably." Oleander leaned forward, her eyes narrowing, and she mulled over the possibilities as Skeevi rambled on about what they could do instead.

"Chiss??" Oleander dragged her hands down her face as she tried to think of the last time she had seen a Chiss. Ever since Csila had been blown to pieces, Chiss had been few and far between.

"I don't want a Chiss eye, I want my eye." A small whimper and a groan of defeat as she slumped where she sat. She looked at the man that now was Skeevi's next victim. Another red head... was this part of the plan?

"I'll take whatever you can give me… I'll just have another bout of Sith alchemy blow up in my face to change my eye color back."

Standing finally, she could feel the short-term effects of her potion wear off, "So where am I supposed to walk around and not get shot in the head…?"

Wait… not get shot in the head?

Oleander regretted every choice she had made up to this point… in this moment.

 

[Skeevi Merrill]

Sal needed the money.

The budget for this stunt was nonexistent or rather self-sufficient. The Postcogs were niche old stock from Skeevi's ripperdoc shop on Nar Shaddaa; the yacht was field expedient procurement; and the contents of the yacht's safe (cash, jewellery, rare liquors) provided remuneration for all and sundry. Half now, half on return of the Postcog eye.

"I'll take whatever you can give me… I'll just have another bout of Sith alchemy blow up in my face to change my eye color back."

"Doncha worry." Skeevi held up a shotglass of clear liquid that contained a red-irised eye. "Gotchers right here, no problem. Kept it special. Or y'want somethin interessin, come by my shop on Shaddaa, get a laser in there or somethin. Boom, eyed."

---

ONE HOUR LATER

The yacht disgorged all involved in the smoldering ashes of the Galactic Alliance base. Plenty of it was actually still on fire. The local first responders had more important things to do, what with the terrorist attack across Hapes. The Black Sun presence had been signalled with sufficient clarity to ensure privacy.

Skeevi used their datapad to dial in the time frame to four-ish hours ago, right during the self-arsoning. They sent the chronological targeting information to everyone else's datapads and immediately started seeing really, really entertaining things overlaid on the here and now.

"Alrighty. 'Sall recordin. See whatcha can see an'don't step in the fire. Remember: th'Alliance isn't real, it can't hurt ya."

 

[Oleander]

//: Skeevi Merrill //: Sal Katarn //:
//: Attire //:

Oleander took the glass with her eye in it. She wanted to complain about how it was stored, which was a terrible way to store samples. But the Hapan tilted her head, figuring she could do something with it if she couldn't shove it back in her head.

She dug in her satchel and pulled out a small jar that had a liquid mixture meant to prevent the proteins of the eye from breaking down further. The liquid infused with the Force would help keep the optical organ intact.

---

Looking back at Skeevi, Oleander raised an eyebrow.

"The Alliance is very real, and they could hurt us. What are you talking about?" Oleander failed heavily at sarcasm, jokes, and other metaphorical jokes.

Oleander looked at the datapad that was her vision? All of it made no sense, and she tried to think about just the quiet of her old garden.

She began to wander the burning scenario. The Alliance was the worst thing that could have happened to Hapes. The Jedi, the Alliance — all they did was ruin her home. On top of that, if they had just left Hapes alone, the Sith raid wouldn't have happened.

All of it bubbled up, and Oleander shook the data pad in a violent (but careful) outburst of emotion.

 

[Skeevi Merrill]

"Alrighty, crew. By now y'should be seeing the past with one eye and the present with the other. Use the datapad t'shift things around by a few minutes. Don't be 'fraid to rewind an' hit it from another side. Sending ya bits of timestamp from the burning."

Skeevi was well invested now, watching Galactic Alliance personnel run around a few hours back like nunas with their heads bit off, as the Hurts would say. Incendiary charges, scrambling to load carts of mobile gear or whatever could be made mobile, hasty hasty evacs of fancy secure offices, silent arguments over what could go and what had to get toasted. Going back a bit to see how things had been in the fanciest spots when that terror attack kicked off was also interesting. They didn't see anything suggesting Alliance involvement. That was a shame.

Mostly Skeevi walked around trying to see screens and documents and whatever on the assumption that that would make the footage more valuable. Skeevi also walked around with a fire extinguisher out of basic prudence and was still burning their shins around some of this stuff. The Alliance incendiaries had been thorough.

Sometimes out of sheer curiosity they fast forwarded to the moment the charges went off and the whole place went up. Nifty.

Oleander Sal Katarn