Dominion You've Got A Lot Of Guts Coming Here | First Order Dominion of Bespin

[Dresden Verbrennung]

​

"Well, that seemed to do the trick," Dresden said approvingly.

The wreckage had well and truly blocked up the easiest route to the beachhead. In many ways, a mob had a lot in common with water. They tended to follow the path of least resistance, and weren't all that creative when it came to finding ways around obstacles. If they couldn't flow over or around, they'd just pool in one place, until someone or something came along to redirect the flow, or they were dispersed. The sheer violence of the aircar impact and explosion seemed to take the fight right out of them. Most of them were ducking or cowering behind whatever cover they could find, stunned, and terrified out of their minds. That made the next task so much easier.

The handlers, about five total, were trying to get their wayward charges back on their feet, to no avail. That task got a lot harder when the nearest one, a broad shouldered human with a large facial tattoo, just sort of exploded. The others stared in disbelief for long enough for Dresden to reload, and take out the next one. The remaining three tried to take cover, but where Olga was concerned, anything less solid than a main battle tank was more concealment. Five shots, five atomized torsos, and a couple dozen cases of PTSD later, and the mob was, for all practical intents and purposes, inert. Either they'd disperse on their own, or the confused and panicked survivors would be rounded up. Troopers who didn't have to worry about getting their skulls bashed in by pipe wrenches tended to be a lot gentler on mobs.

"You did good work today," the agent told his unseen companion. "Find somewhere open and turn on your strobe. I'll come pick you up. I think the troopers can take it from here."

Vhondryl Gallaer​

 

[The Major]

CLOUD CITY CRYONICS
Ana-Sera Beliq ​

Ah, pleasant surprise, shot-thought Sybil. Not only was the fellow agent verbose once she was ready to be, but her candor was colorful and lovely, to boot. The orange clad operative might be dressed quite oddly for a representative for the First Order, but who was Major Shepard to question the methods of greatness so long as they proved to be truly great.

She smiled at the comment regarding bingo. “Shame my card was write-in only. Still, imagination gone wild keeps one from being surprised by the winning number.” This was followed up by a slight shrug.

Heeding the warning about the next two chambers being overpulled on the grid, Shepherd hedged her bets by equipping her blaster pistol as they entered the first of the two.

“Wee bit dark…” Instinctively, the ginger agent pulled a step towards her comrade, shivering only a little as the hairs on her neck began to rise. “Those schematics show the way to any dataports nearby? Maybe we can slice in; Fix us up the lights?”

 

[Vhondryl Gallaer]

​

Strobe. The one word she heard whilst trying to open her eyes again. Her body just felt heavy, searching her person Vhon was able to find the aforementioned strobe. A signal that would let the eyes in the sky know where she was. A small flip of her hand against the switch on her wrist. Vhon was taken to another part of the station, this one more secluded than the rest. Looked to be an old armory repurposed as a prison, the Keshiri caught a glimpse of the others held here. Imperials from what she could see, a few aliens caught up in the crossfire but none of them looked healthy let alone happy.​

​

Vhon was tossed into a cell rather haphazardly. Her body did not take kindly to the impact of the cold durasteel ground against its already bruised frame. The Keshiri managed to get to a wall and proper body up against it. She'd had worse, the woman had a habit of running into danger before this. She wondered if that gunslinger past is what prompted her current predicament. The Keshiri also wondered just what in the kriff these Zealots could hope to pull off. Bucketheads were already there, which meant Army wasn't too far behind and the Starfighter Corps were only one call away. Then again, Vhon also hoped that the eyes in the sky could help direct some of those lovely forces this way, then again - and again - this could be a trap and she was bait.​

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Dresden Verbrennung ​

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

"Let's talk logistics. How do you want to do this? I've got a triage center here, but depending on your facilities it might be wiser to divide and conquer. Sending our specs. Let me know your thoughts."

Renata Westaway seemed to cut right to the chase. That was good. He'd take that over layers and layers of bureaucracy any day.

"I'm transmitting our specifications to you now," the small Anzat responded, turning to signal a droid over by the communications terminal. As he continued on, the boy turned back toward the holo of the woman as he added, "If you can do initial triage, we have several squadrons of ambulances for transferring patients here or elsewhere. I've got multiple operating rooms, surgical suites, bacta tanks..."

He paused there. She could read the details for herself, so he merely noted, "We're essentially a large hospital at your disposal."

That was pretty much the large and small of it.

 

[Renata Westaway]

Renata couldn't help but come up short.

Sor-Jan Xantha was being very agreeable. She wasn't used to that kind of attitude in this line of business. She accepted his transmission of the details. "Give m a moment," she said and opened the file. Her eye trailed over the details that the Corellian Digital leader sent over. She immediately felt her stomach unclench, the knots of tension in her neck and shoulders falling away. If this hospital ship could do even half of what the data suggested, that would prove a massive help to the First Order's efforts here. It could save countless lives.

She clicked back onto the commlink with Xantha. "Thank you for your offer," she said. "I gratefully accept. The vast majority of the victims are Ugnaughts. Is your medical team prepared to deal with that physiological profile?"

When that had been settled, Renata folded her arms. "If I can make a suggestion, how would you feel about sending a contingent of your ambulances to the mining platform?" She transmitted a map. "We've been using medical transports where available, but about half of our efforts are leveraging non-medically-specified transports. I'm hoping that with appropriate transport we'll see a better return on survivability. Bring them to the triage hospital here, we'll do what we can, then for those that require the services you're able to offer, your other ambulances can take them on."

She looked back up at the viewscreen. "What do you think?"

 

[Ariadne Gallaer]

The station gave another unpleasant lurch, hurling Ariadne against the corridor wall which, thanks to the failure of a bank of repulsorlifts, briefly became the floor before righting itself, causing Ariadne to roll down the wall to the floor again. "Oh, kriff," Ariadne groaned, scrambling to her feet. She crossed the corridor so that she was walking on the right side. Her theory was that next time the platform lurched, she'd already be against the wall and thus it wouldn't hurt as much, and when the station righted itself, she could hold onto the handrail to stop from being launched to the opposite side of the corridor. ​

Again.

She already felt the bruises forming, her body's angry reaction to being slammed against every hard surface she could find.

Chunk blatted at her as they reached a crossroads. "Really?" Ariadne asked. "Right-turn here?" She turned and peered down a long corridor. "If the power fails while I'm going this way, it's a long fall" Chunk chittered. "Yes, I'm sure you'll be fine." Ariadne opened her toolkit and rummaged around, locating a carbiner clip and a length of wire. She jury-rigged an unspooling device and with a silent prayer, she set off up the corridor.

 

[Dresden Verbrennung]

As Dresden watched the zealots take his fellow agent belowdecks, he blistered the air with a string of curses that would have made a Sith sailor blush. This was not good. This was not good at all.

FOSB had some very particular protocols about assets captured by hostile forces. In the old days, the agent would have, more or less, been on their own. If they were unable to self-extract, and they couldn't reasonably expect to withstand whatever their captors had planned for "interrogation", they were supposed to self-terminate. A molar was extracted and replaced with a suicide tooth, which stored an electric charge sufficient to fry the brain and prevent anyone from manually extracting any memories they had. Such technology was extremely rare, but the possibility couldn't be discounted. It wouldn't stop a Force user who could extract impressions from a corpse from doing something, but that couldn't be helped.

Dresden's suicide tooth had long ago fallen out, and he'd never bothered to replace it. There was no need these days. Agents operating solo could request one, but it wasn't mandatory. If an agent was captured, any nearby agents were required to do everything in their power to rescue them, or, if their suffering was too great, deliver the coup de grâce themselves.

The Keshiri woman was hurt, but aside from the occasional beating, was probably not in danger of real torture. Nonetheless, Dresden was obligated to do everything in his power to get her the hell out of their. Fortunately for her, he had a lot of power at his disposal. He keyed in the freq for the stormtroopers' command channel.

"Break break break, this is Sierra Bravo Two One Six. I need your six element, over."

"Two One Six, this is Rancor Six, go ahead."

"Be advised, we have a Sierra Bravo asset on the lower levels, somewhere around decks eight and niner, code Charlie."

There was a pause on the other end as the commander of the assault team considered that for a moment.

"That's a good copy, Two One Six. Do you require assistance?"

"Negative, Rancor. This is a courtesy call. Declaring Base Delta Tree, decks eight and niner. Contain, but do not enter, how copy?"

Dresden could hear the commander swallow audibly through his mic. There were four Base Delta levels. Zero, the most severe, was the complete eradication of all life down to a cellular level on an entire planet. It was still on the books, technically, but this new First Order wasn't likely to use it. Level 1 was the destruction of a nation or province. Level 2, a city. Level 3, or Tree in radio phonetics, was a localized area, in this case, decks 8 and 9. Base Delta codes of any level were almost unheard of. Any FOSB agent, technically, had the authority to implement levels 2 and 3, though they'd have to justify it to their superiors. Level 1 took authorization from a flag officer, a general or admiral. Level 0 could only be authorized by the Supreme Commander herself.

In other words, Dresden intended to kill anything and anyone on those decks, without mercy. This wasn't a decision he made lightly. As Vhondryl Gallaer was hauled down, he followed her beacon through the halls, and sliced into the local radio comms. Decks 8 and 9 were the zealots' stronghold, and apparently, had been cleared of civilians for security reasons. Anyone down there was either a combatant, of a collaborator, which was just as good in his eyes.

Dresden hated zealots. Didn't matter whether they were Light or Dark, religious or political. Zealots, in his experience, had little difficulty justifying the most horrific of atrocities, and he'd witnessed far too many mass graves filled with women and children to feel anything other than a deep, abiding disgust for them. When it looked like the zealots were relatively small and poorly equipped, he was happy to let the troopers do their thing. But now that they had one of his own, the kid gloves were off. When he was done, all that would be left of them were stray atoms on the breeze.

"Roger, Two One Six," the troopers' commander said. "Let us know if you need anything."

"Wilco, and Tango Mike. Two One Six, out."

The agent raised himself from the prone, turned to the heavy plastoid crates in the back of the truck with him, and prepared to go to war.

 

[Isobel Nakano]

The Blue Lotus boutique in Cloud City was a beautiful, airy space. Isobel had been involved in the design and had wanted to create an environment that spoke to sophistication and luxury without being overbearing and baroque. She felt that covering everything in gold and marble was a card played by the nouveau riche to try to trick people into thinking they had class. It ended up as crass and tacky; the poor person's idea of a rich person. Besides, when someone with credits to spend stepped into one of her stores, she wanted them to focus on the clothing and accessories and cosmetics that she wanted to sell them, not on the environment.

The fashion was the star, after all.

She entered the store and was instantly greeted by one of the associated with a, "Good afternoon, madam, welcome to Blue Lotus. Can I help you find something today?" Isobel, from behind her oversized sunglasses, did not appear to be recognized at first, and decided to play it to her advantage.

"Thank you," she said. "I'm planning a special evening to celebrate being reunited with... my husband. I'd like to look my best. Can you recommend something?"

The associate, a pretty Twi'lek, smiled and gestured broadly for Isobel to come in. "Of course. How do you plan to celebrate? We've got an outfit for every occasion. A smart new cocktail dress to have drinks? An evening gown for a night at the opera, perhaps? Something more casual, perhaps, for a moonlight stroll?"

Another associate came around the corner with a silver tray and a glass of champagne, which she offered to Isobel. Isobel took it with a brief smile. Just as it should be, she thought. "Thank you." She turned her attention back to the original saleswoman. "A cocktail dress would be appropriate, I think. With shoes and accessories." She could see the credit signs adding up behind the woman's eyes. She would make a decent commission if all went to plan. Isobel didn't mind; she could afford it, and the chance to test her staff in the flagship store was worth it at twice the price. Isobel said, a hint of a smile in her voice, "Possibly a little something from the Black Lotus collection."

"Of course. I'll take you back to one of our consultation rooms." Isobel followed and, after a brief body scan, she took a seat in the plush armchair in the consultation room. The associate took a datapad and examined it. "Do you have a color palette in mind, Mrs...?"

Isobel cleared her throat. "Grey. That's my name, not my color palette. What do you think would suit me?"

"Reds and purples, probably dark blues and greens," said the associate. "But for this evening, red, don't you think?" Isobel smiled and acceded with a slight bow of her head. "We'll pull an assortment in red and make some recommendations, but if you see something that catches your fancy, do please point it out. We'll be happy to provide whatever we have for you. You're a 4, right?"

"Well spotted," said Isobel, lifting her glass for another sip of champagne.

 

[Vhondryl Gallaer]

​

Back of the wall, wasn't nearly as great as Vhon thought but it would do for the bruised ribs. Vhon looked left and right, she never once felt so bad for Imperials until that point. One was missing an eye, looked like someone pulled it right out of the socket. Another was missing both legs, and as she could see. The Keshiri felt as if these Zealots were harvesting organs, parts from these Imperials - there was a market out there for organs, and to say it was lucrative would be an understatement. ​

​

The difference here was that she was the only purple-skinned idiot here, which meant they hadn't planned on her interference. She looked about her cell for anything helpful. Which were two things, it was wet and the air was cold as kriff. Vhon wanted to move but her body simply said no, there wasn't even a bed in the cell, just a mat on the floor. A stainless durasteel bowl which one could guess was either for waste or water, maybe both - the smells back here weren't exactly great either. Didn't compare to the freighter she and her sister came in on, but it was still pretty rank.​

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Dresden Verbrennung ​

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[Dresden Verbrennung]

There was a muffled noise, not unlike a heavy servo motor actuating, a stream of high pressure smoke, and the guard simply collapse, the upper and lower portions of his body partying ways. Dresden didn't bother checking the corpse as he passed.

His weapon of choice was a monster. It, being a prototype, had no proper name or model number. It resembled a cross between a heavy blaster with a cooling jacket and a paintball gun, only fed from a backpack instead of a hopper. It was a development of the AA-3 Tribarrel that he sometimes used for anti-artillery purposes. Only, this one wasn't a blaster. It was also small and handy enough to be carried, didn't have a sensor suite, and made considerably less racket. At its heart, it was a coil gun. Or rather, three coil guns rotating around a central axle. The projectiles it fired were miniscule, 1mm spheres of durasteel, but it fired a lot of them, and they were insanely fast. The bifurcated guard was one of many that lay dead on the floor on this deck. In places, the blood was ankle deep.

This was not, at its heart, a rescue mission. Dresden was going to recover the captured agent, that was a certainty. But this wasn't just about that. His goal here was to send a message.

Every government that operated on a galactic scale had its problems with insurgency. Nationalists, religious fanatics, separatists, hostile nation-state actors, the works. To a certain extent, such groups were tolerated. They had to be. It was simply impossible to wipe them all out, even, especially, in total authoritarian states. This iteration of the First Order was on the more liberal side, and paid lip service to things like freedom of speech and thought. It was required to allow passive dissent by its own ideals. But, there were lines.

Insurgencies would always exist, and they would always seek to cause harm. The FOSB's job, by and large, was to hold the line between order and chaos. Their agents worked towards the goal of peace and stability. They were fair game as combatants and spies, and catching and killing infiltrators was high on the priority list of any insurgency worth a damn. It was one of the hazards that came with operating in the shadows. But the laws of war did not apply in the shadows. By and large, the FOSB played by the rules of their enemies, at least in their own space. They could be as civil or savage as the situation demanded. FOSB agents might be fair game, but savagery would be met in kind. These groups could capture agents. They could kill them, or even torture them.

It didn't mean that they were safe.

Far from it.

Deck 9 was awash in bodies. The blood pooled ankle deep in places. Dresden sloshed through without a care in the world. It wasn't the first time he'd ruined a pair of boots like that.

There were three different access points to the deck above. Two of them were turbolifts, and had been deactivated. Just to be on the safe side, Dresden placed directional mines at their exits. Anyone who came out would be cut to ribbons. The third access point was a stairwell. His rampage had been rapid, efficient, and stealthy enough, that none of his victims had had the chance to fight back, but that wasn't going to last. By now, the zealots above him knew he was coming. The stairs had been blocked by debris, and there were probably a half a dozen heavy blasters covering the landing.

"LITTLE PIG, LITTLE PIG, LET ME IN!" he bellowed, his basso rumble echoing off the walls. "OR I'LL HUFF, AND I'LL PUFF, AND I'LL EAT YOUR KARKING HEARTS, YOU WORTHLESS PIECES OF SHET!"

Okay, that might have been a touch melodramatic, but so was the thermal detonator he rolled into the pile of garbage and furniture. It vanished in a cloud of blinding heat and light. The agent hurled two more behind it, banking them off the walls and onto the next floor. He vaulted up the steps, firing from the hip as soon as he faced the right way, pellets spewing from his tribarrel. He needn't have bothered. The gunners in the immediate vicinity of the blasts had likewise been vaporized.

"COME AND GET ME, YOU COWARDLY SONS OF BITCHES!" he howled in challenge, as the sound of approaching boots on durasteel decking echoed down the corridor.

Vhondryl Gallaer​

 

[Ariadne Gallaer]

Against all odds, the power system held for most of Ariadne's journey down the corridor. It wasn't until she had nearly reached her destination that the platform trembled and lurched once more. Ariadne's safety system held, but instead of falling down the remaining several meters of the corridor, she swung like a violent pendulum between the corridor walls, her body banging off one, then the other. Her instincts kicked in and she put her legs out to brace against the next one, but before she could make contact with the wall, the power came back up and she was instead reunited with the floor. ​

Maybe it was brain damage from being rattled around the mining platform's innards like so much popcorn, but her first instinct was to check on Chunk. "You OK?" she grunted at the droid, whose 'feet' had clamped to her shoulders and were still doing so. The droid chittered a reassurance followed by an inquisitive blat as Ariadne climbed to her feet. "I think so," she replied, rubbing her side. "Probably need some time in the bacta after this is over." The droid chittered and bopped its head against hers in what Ariadne gathered was an meant as an affectionate gesture. She didn't have the hear to tell Chunk that it hurt.​

"Almost there," she said instead, and set off in the right direction. She finally reached the power bank that was causing all this trouble. It was spitting sparks. Not good. "Point the light here," she instructed Chunk, then secured her toolkit and then herself so that if the station lurched again, she and her tools wouldn't be smashed against the power bank. That would be bad for everyone, since Ariadne was fairly certain it would disable the power bank completely, and good luck to anyone trying to get back down here with the station at a hideous angle.​

She set to work, carefully and as quickly as she could, as if her life depended on it.​

 

[Ana-Sera Beliq]

Tag: The Major
Gear: Outfit | IR-5 | Enforcer | Vibrodaggers | Tehk'la Blade
Muse Soundtrack: Pentatonix "Take On Me"​

Ana gave Shepherd a smile at her rejoinder regarding the bingo card. Thank the Force, the Balance, the Maw, even, for a partner with a decent sense of humor. As if it weren't evident already by the rogue Ren munching on dexedrine and spice. That was going to be one of her favorites for a while. As she hadn't been on the Red Nebula mission with the actual rogue Ren who'd been munching on...other things, she was going to have to give Firenne flak for that.​

Wrinkling her nose at the stale air, she shivered slightly and noticed that the ginger agent had taken a step closer. That was a welcome thing, considering something just kept raising the hairs on the back of Ana's neck. Something felt off, and Shepherd's request about a data terminal was met with an enthusiastic nod from the current brunette. "Mercifully, these karkers did something right when they put together schematics for us. Data terminals are part of one of the overlays. Gimme a minute..."​

Raising a hand to motion for the troopers to pause in their movements, Ana waited for a moment as the proper overlay flickered across her screen and highlighted the data ports and terminals on the level. There was one up ahead just outside the entrance to the cryo chamber. "Just outside the first chamber. Let's see if we can't get a little more illumination. Something feels really off about this place..." she motioned again as they resumed moving and came to the data terminal in question, and if a Shi'ido had hackles, Ana's were currently doing a very energetic clog dance on the back of her neck.​

Plugging into the terminal with a cable from her datapad, she glanced at Shepherd and glanced back at the terminal as her initial effort was stymied. "Any insight? Slicing normally isn't my thing...I tend to prefer the stabby or the smashy method of data retrieval. Don't suppose you have a data spike in your pocket?"​

​

​

 

[Ariadne Gallaer]

Ariadne's hands worked like the wind, carefully assessing the damage sustained by the panel. Luckily the explosion hadn't been what damaged it. Instead, it had been tripped by the surge of power being drawn by the rest of the station in the aftermath of the attack. Some idiot who valued profit over safety had organized the power system so that the mining and refinery machinery were prioritized first, even above the repulsors that were keeping the station in the air. There was no way for her to be sure in that moment, but she suspected that it was the same across the station, and that it was only through sheer dumb luck that all the power substations weren't in the same boat. If they all failed at the same time, even for a moment, it was unlikely that the station would survive.​

She reset the breakers, which seemed to stabilize things for the time being. The sparks stopped spitting out of the panel, at any rate, and the lights came up in the engineering room. "Stay there," she told Chunk, then turned and began to search the room until she found the spare breaker storage cabinet. Taking a handful, she returned to the power panel and set to work, one-by-one replacing the damaged breakers. As a final measure of safety, she rerouted the prioritization subroutine to put the repulsors above most of the other power systems. ​

"What's next?" she asked Chunk. Chunk chittered excitably at her as she withdrew her datapad and examined it. "Fire suppression system malfunction on level seven," she informed the droid, as if he had anything to say about it. "Let's get moving."

 

[Vhondryl Gallaer]

Oh. It wouldn't take long at all, the sounds that filtered through were music to the ears of those captured. Vhon forced herself up to her feet - her body screamed at her for it. On her feet she shuffled to the bars that held her and placed her hands on them. Guards ran through the area and the Keshiri timed her attack. A purple arm jutted between the bar and placed a meek creature running with the zealots, a human of all things in a chokehold against the bars. Vhon waited until they were lifeless and grabbed at the keys on their waist and got herself free. Nearly falling over as she did so and then as quickly as Vhon could.​

​

She freed everyone else and told them to keep low, knelt down and patted the dead guard down and came up with an old blaster pistol. It would have to do and thus she bolted out of the prison area, freeing any and all she could along the way. "Bad Wolf coming through!" Barked Vhon as she pressed on the trigger and watched as the crimson hued light bolted from the muzzle. It found its way through a guard's chest sending him to the ground. The Keshiri winced in pain as her body continued to scream at her, adrenaline however made it possible for her to keep moving.​

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Dresden Verbrennung​

 

[Val Pellian]

"The feeling is quite mutual... as you say, the scales are always distracting, aren't they?"

They chatted for a while longer as they approached the destination. In the end they decided to split up. Approach it from two directions, as it were, to increase their productivity. Isobel Nakano would assess the front-end of the shop, gauge just how up to snuff the personnel were. In the meantime Crane would enter from the back and see what was happening in the warehouse facility.

A nice enough plan.

---

He realized that not all was what it seemed in the warehouse. Oh, on the surface they seemed to be regular workers just filling storage containers. The fact that they were armed wasn't an immediate concern either. They received Black Lotus-grade equipment, after all, that needed to be secured properly. It was only once Crane ran a few faces through the proprietary databases that he realized the problem.

None of these people were part of FOSB or Blue Lotus for that matter.

The realization hit right the same time as he got spotted.

What happened next was amusing perhaps. While Isobel was sipping champagne and trying out new clothes, Crane found himself in a wrestling match with about four (no, five, definitely five) guards converging on him at once.

"Oh, this is fun..."

 

[Dresden Verbrennung]

​

No bigger than a grain of sand. A 1mm sphere of durasteel was miniscule. Even by sand standards, the little projectiles weren't all that large. But when you fired one from a coil gun at a speed measured in kilometers per second, and fired a hundred every second, they were nasty little buggers.

Dresden's pack held millions.

Everything that the little pinprick of doom touched just sort of...melted. There wasn't much danger of ricochets or backblast. The tiny pellets only kept their momentum for about 20 meters or so, and when they hit something solid, like bulkheads or decks, they disintegrated in brilliant showers of sparks. That was a design flaw, but one that could be fixed. There wasn't much danger on this deck of a spark hitting something sufficiently energetic to explode, and besides, the risk was worth the reward. When the little pellets struck flesh, the result was truly spectacular.

A line of pellets cut through the first corridor at waist height. The three guards that were charging down it fell, their upper and lower halves cleanly separated. Though they were out of the fight, they would no longer be a threat. One of them hurriedly tried to reattach his torso to his legs manually, only to find that they weren't his legs he was reaching for. Another tried desperately to scoop her entrails back into the gaping maw that had opened above her hips, dimly pawing at the steaming mass with unfeeling hands. The third just screamed.

Ordinarily, Dresden would give them grace as he passed. The agent had never been one to cause undue suffering, even among his enemies. He was quick and clean, the consummate professional. A clean death wasn't always a given on the battlefield, and was a rare mercy indeed in the shadows, where the needs of the mission often meant silent, lingering death. A guard whose kidneys were punctured and throat was slit wouldn't make much noise, but they could remain conscious for minutes, paralyzed by shock and agony. By and large, he preferred to go for the brain stem. It was a harder target, but with experience, just as quiet, and as close to instant as you could get.

This was not quiet. It was not instant. It was a message.

A part of him was sickened by the cruelty, the part that remembered what he had been. That part had atrophied with his body as the cancers ate and ate and ate until there was nothing left but a husk of a man. The man had been rebuilt, but somehow, the scientists had neglected to rebuild his capacity for kindness and compassion. Maybe that wasn't entirely correct. It wasn't so much that this capacity was neglected, as it was purposefully discarded. The mental faculties were all there, as powerful as they had ever been. But where his conscience had been, something else had moved in. Something cold and alien.

Not dark, as a Force user would understand it. Darkness was born out of passion and fury. It was burning nitromethane: furious, explosive, and provided no illumination. The Dark left its victims blind.

Dresden felt like he was seeing clearly for the first time in his life.

He was angry, sure. He'd always hated zealots. Had seen what they could do when left unchecked too many times not to. Anyone who dealt with the aftermath of genocide learned a new and personal definition of the word hate. But this anger was all surface level. It wasn't the source of his newfound clarity. It was simply the key that had unlocked the door and allowed the freezing light of day into the driver's seat.

There was no pleasure in this massacre, only a grim satisfaction in a job well done. His slaughter was deliberately sloppy. Despite the Base Delta Three order, there would be survivors. Not many, but a small handful. They'd take what they saw here back to whatever hole they'd crawled out of, and they'd tell the story. Those who hadn't been here wouldn't believe. They would want revenge, retribution. They would be dissuaded. No amount of righteous anger could withstand the pitiless and passionless judgment of the thing that strode these halls. They would remember the tall figure, cloaked in darkness. They would remember the even, measured footfalls that rang unnaturally loud in the killing field. They would remember the azure embers that burned with unnatural light, and they would be afraid.

They would find easier prey.

Dresden deliberately avoided the prisoners. He could hear them, screaming and shouting as they took their revenge on the guards. They made enough racket, he had no problem finding a path free of potential friendlies. It wasn't until he'd cleaned out the last few pockets of resistance that he made his way silently around to the rear of the group. It wasn't hard to identify his fellow agent. She was the only Keshiri in the bunch, and he'd gotten a good look at her face through Olga's scope.

"Time to go," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "We need to get you looked at."

Vhondryl Gallaer​

 

[Isobel Nakano]

As Isobel Nakano sipped champagne in the boutique, something sinister was happening in the warehouse workshop.

A few weeks before, a member of the Cloud City Cherfers accidentally hijacked a shipment from the Blue Lotus/Black Lotus warehouse, mistaking it for a shipment from a gunsmith's warehouse in the same vicinity. Upon investigating the shipment, they were surprised to discover that among the beautiful clothes and risqué lingerie, the fashionable shoes and premium handbags, were a number of gadgets. Gadgets that were quite unlike anything you'd expect to be sold at a fancy women's clothier.

A week later, the Cherfers infiltrated the warehouse and took it over. Uncharacteristically cautious, they elected to siphon some of the goodies from the production line rather than confiscate them all. Better not to kill the goose laying the golden eggs, they thought, than to kill the fatted calf. The Cherfers were notorious for mixing metaphors, Q.E.D.

Hence the slowdown in production numbers.

As the guards advanced on Val Pellian 's position, Isobel was being helped into a stunning, one shoulder red cocktail dress. "It's as if it were made for you," said the sales associate, standing behind Isobel as she activated the holomirror, which showed Isobel in three dimensions.

"I'll definitely be having this," Isobel said, taking her glass of champagne again and taking a sip. The hologram version of her flickered as it emulated the action. She looked over her shoulder at the associate. "That reminds me, while I'm here I should restock my makeup bag. Can you recommend a shade of lipstick for this dress? Something from the private collection, please."

 

[Vhondryl Gallaer]

"I'm fine, it's fine, we're all fine here - how are you?" Shotgunned the Keshiri as she limped forward toward the man. It was a bloody, bloody path to wade through but Vhon wasn't phased by it. Sure, everything hurt but that was starting to become - well, getting used to it wouldn't be the word that she would use for it. Still, the Keshiri seethed - the pain was everywhere. "I uh, I think we did good, right? Right. Hey you're a great, great sniper." Vhon tended to talk as a way to cope. Her mind could focus on a conversation better than dwelling on the pain. ​

​

Getting out of the bloody decks was like ascending, the Keshiri was bloodied, dirty, and really, really tired. By the time the two reached the clear, the Bucketheads had cleared it out and the Army was working on the station now. Bucketheads were moving down deck by deck, FIMS's bright red and green logo could be seen clear as day. FOCIE on the scene to assess the damage done to the station, just another day in welcoming neighboring worlds into the First Order's family of worlds.​

​

The gunslinger turned agent wasn't sure how she'd be assessed but hoped it wasn't the end of her career with Intelligence. It was fun, well, fun - was probably not the optimal word. At least not for most people but there was adrenaline to it all and that she could appreciate. ​

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Dresden Verbrennung ​

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[The Major]

CLOUD CITY CRYONICS
Ana-Sera Beliq

Oppressive atmosphere.
Tingling bad sensations.
It may have been better for them both to leave.​

They weren’t here to run from problems, however. They were here to solve them, churlish as some moments could be. In some good news the Intelligence Agent could reply to Ana-Sera’s question in a positive light. It wasn’t uncommon for Section Operatives to be kitted out with various tools to bypass cybersecurity. Sure, Sybil wasn’t the bonafide Space Conductor of Network Security like she might have been ages ago, but the Section was apt to provide training, and more importantly, cheat codes whenever it seemed useful.

The Major handed over the data spike, but quietly, while continuously scanning around the shadowy room. Instinct screamed that the moment of ambush was about to hit them square in their collective faces.

May some light prove her wrong. ​

 

[Val Pellian]

Isobel Nakano
​

He spat blood in the face of a third mook, before dropping to the ground to avoid a crate slamming in his back.

Instead it shattered into the third mook's face.

Items scattered to the ground, lipstick, jewelry and the sort, but Crane was a little bit too busy to worry about the damage. His face was a little bit more important than designer shoes to him. Fierflek, too many in here... As another set of mooks burst out from the doors. "Nightshade, get your pretty ass in here, will you?!"

Before Nakano could ask him what was wrong?

She'd hear the sounds of combat over their commlink. A cry of pain, muffled blaster shot and then someone being thrown through something. Then the commlink unceremoniously disconnected.

Crane was probably fine.

But maybe she ought to check up on him anyway.