Chapter 3: Archaic

[Rogue 4]

Her cheek hurt where he had backhanded her, and her scalp where he yanked on her hair. "My daughter, Deign. What in Corellia's nine hells do you know about family anymore?! Besides, it'll be kind of hard getting visitation when you're stuck in a New Republic jail."

[Drake 53]

Deign smiled. "I'm afraid not, my dear. You see, I'm going to tell you my plan on how things are going to happen." He began ticking them off on his fingers. "First, you're going to watch all of your friends die. Second, I'm going to call your sister in here...and you're going to watch as I kill her. Third, I'm going to have your new boyfriend dragged up here and you're going to watch as I kill him. Next I will kill you. That will be the end of your story but, fear not, because you get to die with the knowledge that our daughter will be told how her father desperately tried to save her mother and aunt before the New Republic assassin killed them." He sighed a sigh of relief. "Ahh. Yes. My daughter will grow up to become a worthy heir indeed."

"There is nothing anyone will do about it," he continued. "I have my hands in the PSS and we will be long gone by the time the New Republic sends another squadron after me. Perhaps it will be the Rogue's. Oh, I hope so...they would actually stand a chance."

Edited February 11, 2009 by Drake

[Bad furday 57]

Dodging enemy fire, Arlan sprinted and rolled his way to the security checkpoint station. Taking one of the small droids from his pack, he plugged it into the terminal, and began typing away at the keys.

The droid's job was to infiltrate the computer system and mimic any previous commands that had been given to it. Fortunately, someone had told the doors leading to the garage to close and lock within the past few days.

Had there not been, Arlan would have had to waste precious time accessing the controls via cracking the password or security protocols.

Arlan gave the droid the command to do so, and the doors were sealed. Quickly changing the security protocols for that set of doors, Arlan began work on the next set.

"The way in is sealed!" he announced.

[Andy 60]

Thanks to the support of Aeric and Nima, Aston was able to move again but peeking around the corner he counted one less body nearby than there should have been and figured that one of the guards was just round the other side of the storage crates he was crouched behind, and out of sight of the other Revenants.

By this time they were in a lot better a position, especially now that Arlan had sealed the entrance, so Aston decided to give up his hiding place. Shoving hard on the crates he toppled the stack and heard a muffled cry of surprise as the collapsed on top of the guard who was sneaking up on him. The guard fired blindly, missing Aston by a wide margin, and Aston stamped on the man's hand with his boot causing him to drop his blaster so he could kick it away. When the guard tried to grab his foot, Aston gave him a swift kick and knocked him unconscious, then dashed to cover behind a parked speeder but there were only a few targets left.

[Mara 29]

Getting the hang of things and beginning to recognize the hidden cams, Kaden moved around the cover of storage bins and shot out more of the holovid cameras. If anything, it might buy them more time. He thought he had gotten most of them and hunkered down in a corner, taking a moment to check his powerpacks and glance where the rest of his team was.

The lieutenant and Szen were firing over by the hangar door they had recently blasted shut. He found Jya and Jaim fighting over on the other wise, about opposite his position. Kaden looked around his own position, noticing that during his travels blasting the vid feeds, he had ended up near the larger of the space-going vessels. If he could find one they could use, or at least get near enough to it...

Looking around the hangar, it seemed the rest of his team was keeping the remaining guards at bay. Even so, he kept one of his blasters ready in his hand while he slowly and carefully made his way to the yacht the LT had pointed at earlier. He wasn't in position to see its name, but it looked nice enough to serve their purpose. And it was beautiful...

Kaden ducked around the other side of the ship to shield himself from fire and started looking for a way in.

[Princess 35]

Nima took a shot at the guards ahead of her, but only managing to wound one or two of them. "Why the kriff won't these guys die already? And shouldn't we have gotten enough of them already, apparently Archaic has more guards than we thought." She took a couple of more shots and then switched out powerpacks on her blaster.

[Drake 53]

Deign entered a series of commands into the terminal and said, "I managed to get my hands on some old Clone War hardware. We upgraded them with added armour plating, more powerful weapons. Let's see how your friends do against them."

***

A hidden compartment door slid open in one of the hangar walls. Red lights blinked on in the darkness as the occupants within awoke with their master's command. A dozen Super Battle Droids marched out into the hazy light of the battle-ravaged hangar, looking for the intruders.

[Mara 29]

Kaden knew it had been too much of a hope that Deign would keep all his ships unlocked, though there were obviously, usually, safely secured in his hidden hangar. He had found the main ramp but it was shut up solidly. Staring at the controls, he racked his mind for anything he could remember from his younger years, working on various spacecraft. Though, the were usually smaller... If only he had Artie or even Aston here to help slice through. He'd have to go old-school on it, trial-and-error. Glancing around him for guards, he cracked his knuckles and got to work after slipping his blaster back in its holster.

But then he turned his head, a grinding noise appeared at the edge of his consciousness, and Kaden looked around him. Not seeing what was causing it, he ducked under the fuselage to see a door sliding open, revealing some very bad news. Muttering a few curses, he moved around the ship so the others could hear him better. "We got trouble!" He retrieved both of his blasters and ran down the line of ships and found another one to use as a shield; Kaden couldn't have those battle bots destroying their way out.

[Rogue 4]

"Filswek!" Nat cursed as he saw the droids emerge. They might have been old droids, but they were still Supers, and they were still modified. Now would have been a great time to have Arlan on the team. "Everyone behind cover, now!"

He fired off a few rounds as he moved behind the closest thing he could find, a metal supply case. For improvised cover, he supposed it could have been worse. He swapped out his power pack quickly before aiming over the top of the case at the droids. Breaking through that armor was going to be tough though, and he knew it. "Seven, tell me you have EMP grenades." Nat said, as he pulled a grenade off of his belt, and lobbed it over towards a trio of droids moving in on Kaden's position. "Because that was my only one."

Edited February 27, 2009 by Rogue

[Chickenman 9]

The vent was large enough that a grown man could walk through without having to crawl like some sort of bottomfeeder. Suddenly, a chorus of blasterfire echoed from the hangar, its sound carried along until it reached the vent, where it amplified as it roared down the narrow tunnel at Cale and his men. The men dropped to the floor and crawled like a group of some sort of bottomfeeder. In a few seconds they realized that blasterfire wasn't being poured over their heads, and that it was instead taking place outside in the hangar. Climbing up into a crouch, Cale peered outside the grating, to see the invaders struggling to beat back a hoard of super battle droids. He was delighted to note that the droids were emerging from the opposite wall. The enemy had their back to Cale and his team.

Well what do you know? That maniac Deign managed to do something right.

Wordlessly, he kicked the grate open and his team emerged, taking cover behind some crates and light cargo haulers. He nodded to one of his men, who removed a detonator from his belt, judged the distance, and lobbed the weapon, which arced, bounced and rolled before resting at the foot of one of the attackers.

Edited February 27, 2009 by Chickenman

[Bad furday 57]

"I've got four," said Jya, handing Nat two of them. "Not sure how many everyone else has, but make them count!"

A bouncing flash caught Jya's eye.

"Get down!"

Jaim dove behind a packing container, as he registered the grenade spinning where his feet had been seconds before.

A blur, and then there was Jya, moving faster than humanly possible. With a sports-like kick, she sent the grenade arching

away from the group, curving upwards towards the advancing horde of Supers.

Without pausing to watch, Jya flattened herself on the floor in anticipation of the blast.

[Mara 29]

Kaden quickly ducked behind a box of tools, out of the way of the grenade thrown by the lieutenant. It didn't do too much damage to its intended target but did incinerate a fair amount of the ship just meters away. Still crouched down, he checked the power level of his two blasters before aiming around the box at another droid at the same time as Jaim.

Hearing a metal clang, he bit back a stream of curses learned from almost a decade with other pilots as he saw another group of enemy attackers come down from the ceiling on the opposite end the droids came from. He, his team and the yacht, along with the other craft, were caught in the middle. Reloading in new power packs, he focused his attention on the new group of attackers, firing both blasters in their direction at once, hoping to hit something.

In between firing shots, he kept behind the large toolbox, also glancing around with a better look at all the spacecraft in the hanger. He would expect a man like Deign, from what he had heard, would have more than just pleasure craft hidden away, especially with such high security measures as the hologram. If he could find something with a good weapons array...

[Chickenman 9]

Cale noticed with dismay that his adversaries had survived the grenade attack, but was consoled by the fact that they were now dangerously pinned between Cale's team and the battle droids.

"Fan out and pour on the fire!" he ordered.

***

Aeric popped a few blaster bolts into the last of the guards, and the team crept their way through the hallways of the base.

"Okay, first thing's first, we need to find a terminal and access the base's map. Will make finding Layla and Tak that much easier."

[Princess 35]

"Six, there's a computer terminal right next to me." Nima pointed at it. "How fast can you slice into their system? There's gotta be a map in there. Preferably one that's glaringly obvious as to where they're holding Lay and Tak."

[Andy 60]

Aston stood now that the garage was secure for now, and moved over to the terminal. "Shouldn't take too long," he thought out loud, "doesn't look too advanced; I'll see what I can get out of it."

"Just give me a heads up if trouble heads our way," he said as he kicked the front panel off the terminal and attached his datapad to the circuits so he could get to work. As he had suspected, the terminal seemed to be for little more than logging vehicle maintenance, and he had no trouble obtaining a map of this section of the base. Portions of the map were missing though, along with any legible key to what those areas could be. There was nothing on the map fragment he had so far that would indicate holding cells or a detention area. "I'm going to need to try to slice into their network. Since they already know we are here I assume it's not going to make much difference if they detect me," he tapped away on the console, "so I won't bother being subtle about it, should save a bit of time."

[Princess 35]

Nima was providing cover for him and just smiled. "Since when is subtlety our strong suit? I thought that we were more like the Wraiths. Something gets in our way and we blow it up." She glanced around the group, who seemed relatively unharmed, which meant that these weren't the best of Archaic's troops, they were more like stormies who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. "Anyone need any medical attention while we're waiting for the map?"

[Drake 53]

Deign smirked. "Ah. It would appear someone is trying to hack into the system." He panned a hallway cam and zoomed in on the young Revenant slicer. "I see you there. Now, let's see how good you are."

The Archaic leader opened up a suite of counter-intrusion software and set to work running attacks on the hacker's attempts to worm through the network. He glanced back at Layla and said, "Remember that time, years ago, when I sliced into the Green Crusade's network database, transferred their funds to our accounts and redirected all their shipments to our yards? Quad-encryption with brute-force defense nodes and firewalls so tight, I had to crawl on the bandwidth of a modem." Deign's fingers worked fast while his mouth worked just as much. "Fortunately for this kid, he's already inside one of our own terminals so it's going to be significantly easier."

Deign chuckled as an alert triggered on the terminal and he glanced to the camera view from a corridor intersecting the one that the Revenant team was in. Five Super Battle Droids marched steadily toward the intruders.... "Let's see how you do under a little pressure, boy."

***

Jaing Skirata sat, once again, at the Archaic bar. Alarms were flashing in the corridor and the cantina was all but empty, leaving him, a couple of passed-out off-duty drunks, and the flesh-and-blood bartender. The man had asked him if he would need to see to the base invasion but Jaing had told him that he wasn't getting paid enough. The fact, however, was that Deign hadn't asked for his help so Jaing didn't much care.

It wasn't until he heard the steady, metallic clomp clomp clomp, from out in the corridor, that he completely froze for an instant. His mind flashed back to when he had last heard that exact sound. Perfect recall, encoded into his genes by those damned aiwha-bait, allowed him to relive the moment.

In a flash, he was out of his seat and across the cantina, Verpine shatter pistol in hand. He rounded the corner and squeezed off a quick pair of shots into the SBD's knee joints. The high velocity round tore through the joints, sending the droid tumbling forward to the floor. Jaing was on it in a split second, unsheathed vibroblade stabbing between armour plates, slashing through cabling, until the droid lay still. He glanced up as a second and third droid rounded the corner. They paused at the sight of the dismembered droid then raised their blaster arms and spoke, as one, "Target identified as Jaing Skirata, bounty hunter. Ally. Do not kill."

The droids turned away from Jaing and continued down the hall. The Mandalorian stood up and returned to the bar to fetch his buy'ce. As he placed it back over his head and fastened the neck seals, the bartender asked, "You know that was one of ours, right?"

Jaing shrugged and replied, "Sorry. Force of habit." With that, he tossed a credit chip onto the counter and left the room.

[Andy 60]

"Sorry, it's just this past few days of being incognito must have got to me," Aston grinned. "I'll proceed with blowing up their firewall."

Aston diverted his attention back to the terminal as he tried to slice into the more secure parts of the Archaic network. Essentially, the whole terminal was an extension of his datapad now, completely under his control. An alert warned that security systems had come online.

"Their security is tighter than I expected, but I've gotten past worse... Just don't ask how long it took." He frowned, and without looking from the terminal said, "I can hear heavy metallic footsteps; please tell me it's a convoy of binary load lifters because I'm a bit busy for war droids at the moment."

He answered his own question by opening a security camera view of the adjoining corridor, then and turned to yell at the others: "Look out guys! Five, uh, big droids with massive guns incoming any second!"

Checking his blaster, he hoped he could keep an eye on the terminal while managing to not get shot.

[Mara 29]

With enemy firing pouring on them from two sides, Kaden was beginning to get some feelings of discouragement. How they would ever survive this, he didn't know. Maybe they had finally reached their limit.

He had spotted a promising ship that he could use to help provide some covering fire, but the problem was actually getting inside the ship. Without Artie or Aston with him, Kaden thought it almost a lost cause. He had enough on his hands trying to fend off these guards and battle droids. And everyone else on his team was doing the same.

He didn't need to add to the mess trying to slice into a ship, something he didn't have any experience with, especially a system of this high caliber.

But if he didn't get it working, Kaden wasn't sure they would be able to last much longer. But he was sure captain's team would need more time to get out Layla, so they couldn't give up yet. Their distraction had to go on longer.

Ducking behind a box to reload his blasters, he went over his options again, trying to think over all the blasterfire and small explosions rocking throughout the hangar. Explosions. From grenades. Kaden thought back to earlier in the day at the warehouse. He had taken some grenades, hadn't he? He fired off a few rounds at an approaching guard before crouching back down to search his pockets. Finding just more powerpacks and a few ration bars, he was losing hope. But then, he found them at the bottom of one pocket: two grenades. If he could buy himself some time to get to the ship and get inside somehow, maybe, just maybe...

With a grenade in each hand, he tried to survey the scene from behind his cover. He knew nothing about tactics but still thought he had found a pretty good location for them. Activating them, he lobbed one at the side of the hangar where the battle droids were and the other at a pair of the guards who had come down from the ceiling. He hoped to the Force that it would work, and that the rest of his team would keep the enemies busy.

Without waiting to see what happened, Kaden sprinted over to the ship after picking up his blasters. For now, the ship would provide him some cover while he focused on the panel. He just needed to get inside so he could use that heavy blaster cannon mounted on the side of the ship. Kaden didn't bother thinking whether or not it was loaded; he more important things to worry about: unlocking the blasted security and his own hide.

[Princess 35]

"Sithspit!" Nima swore quickly and added in a few more vicious Twi'leki curses. "Those are called Super Battle Droids. I remember seeing them when I was captured by pirates. There's only a couple of ways to kill them. Keep slicing as fast as you can."

She looked around and saw Artuarre taking aim with her blaster, Arlan was eyeing the droids like a kid with a new toy and Aeric was digging for some heavier artillery. "Hit them with everything we've got guys. We can overheat them if we concentrate our fire. Try to concentrate on one at a time." She saw some quick acknowledgments and then started digging for something that she had spied earlier and picked up as a nice insurance policy.

"How much more time do you need AK?" Cuz I've got this EMP gernade and once I arm it, you've got 30 seconds in case I knock out your datapad."

[Bad furday 57]

Arlan fired multiple shots, taking down one of the Supers. With thicker armor, they were less impervious to blasterfire than their cheaper, economy model counterparts.

Force, I'd really like to take one of those back with me! It looks completely idiotic...well, when it's not shooting at you....but I'm sure I could use the parts

to build something!

Arlan turned and fired at a battle droid bringing its weapons to bear on Aston. Distracted, the droid began firing at Arlan instead.

There's a few more seconds saved.

A shot at the knee joint, and the battle droid went down. Arlan fired again, putting the droid out of commision.

Hearing the conversation between Nima and Aston, Arlan glanced around for suitable cover from the blast.

[Andy 60]

"Not long," Aston replied over the sound of blaster fire, "I'm almost there... I've found the map, but there's someone on the other end slowing the connection down..."

He crouched behind the console as a blaster bolt ricochetted above his head. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he impatiently watched the progress bar waiting for it to slowly tick to 100 percent.

"Got it!"

Edited March 20, 2009 by Andy

[Princess 35]

"Excellent. FIRE IN THE HOLE!" Nima armed the grenade and chucked it into the middle of the SBDs. Everyone dove for cover as the EMP grenade rolled into the melee. The droids turned and looked at it just as it exploded. From behind a piece of bent transparisteel all Nima could see was a flash and then heard the droids all fall to the ground.

[Andy 60]

Aston sighed with relief as the droids dropped to the ground, and then made his way over to Aeric.

"Captain," he said, passing him the datapad, "here's where they are keeping Layla and Takeshi."

Edited March 30, 2009 by Andy

[Chickenman 9]

Aeric skimmed through the datapad.

"Uh-oh. Tak's in medbay." He frowned as he checked his sidearm's charge level. "Let's go rescue our resident crazy Mandalorian."

***

One of the guards to Cale's right went airborne as a grenade detonated nearby.

Edited April 3, 2009 by Chickenman