#canderous

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For me, looking the part is not too difficult. I just pull off the robe tunic. I also stow my purple lightsaber in my pack, and hide my blue one under my pant leg. Mercenaries don’t use lightsabers. I didn’t realize how much I missed my swords. I put them on my belt. And easy as that I look like a mercenary. And you’d think it would be that simple for Carth, but it’s not. He has to leave his orange jacket behind. it’s too easily recognized as Republic colors. But it takes a good ten minutes to pick out some armor that makes him look enough like a mercenary to pass the first security checkpoint. Once he’s done that, though, we meet back up with Canderous and head to the Sith base.

As expected it looks just the same as any other Sith base. It’s very sterile. But it looks like they take this place seriously, if the four war droids are any indication. I’m not particularly worried, though. We have legitimate passes, mercenary passes.

The man at the checkpoint stops us. “Only people who have business with the Sith are allowed inside the embassy,” he says.

I let Canderous do the talking. He has experience here and as an actual mercenary he’ll hold up under scrutiny. “We have business,” he says, holding out the passes, “We were hired as mercs earlier today.” The officer takes the passes and looks at them closer. “Unless you’d rather we go work for the Republic.”

The security officer scoffs, but I can tell, he doesn’t want to get in any hot water for turning us away. “Hmph,” he sighs, “Yes, well, I suppose you really do have business here. Head on in.”

Canderous just gives a small nod and we move past the security desk towards the elevator. That’s the hard part done with, then. The elevator ride is still very anxious, though, and even though I’m certain I can handle whatever’s down there, I’m still annoyingly nervous.

The elevator stops. I take a deep breath. It opens. I let Canderous take the lead again. He looks the part more than I do. He presents our passes to the desk attendant, just like he did upstairs. And so far it looks like we’re in the clear. The desk attendant looks familiar somehow, though, and I can’t tell if it’s a remnant from Revan’s memory, my mind and anxiety playing tricks on me, or if I really have seen him before. Just act natural, Rena, just act natural.

But as I pass, he stops us. “Hold on a moment,” he says, looking at me, scrutinizing my face, “Weren’t you on Korriban a couple weeks ago?”

Shit. I remember. When I hacked the Sith Academy to get Dustil’s info, a Sith trooper got suspicious. I managed to lie my way out of it, but I probably only got away with it because he didn’t want any trouble for himself. And, probably, because he was about to get transferred and didn’t want to take the risk of ruining it. So he did get transferred, apparently, and got transferred here. Play it cool, Rena, act natural. “I’ve never been to Korriban in my life.” And try to keep moving.

He grabs my arm. Carth twitches, but keeps his cover. “No,” the Sith says, narrowing his eyes, “I remember.” He glances at Carth “You and your companion - you were both there!” Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit. “So… you were just a simple tech, transferred from the fleet, fixing something for a ‘Sith master”, were you?” He scoffs. “And now you’re trying to pass yourself off as a mercenary? What sort of fool do you take me for?” I pull my arm out, but escape won’t be so easy.

The elevator opens, and out comes the man from the upstairs checkpoint, followed by the four war droids. “Lieutenant,” he asks the trooper, “what’s the meaning of this? I checked their passes myself. They were hired on this morning.”

“Perhaps their passes were legitimate, Commander Grann,” the trooper says, “but they are not. I encountered them at my last posting. Whoever this woman is, she’s no mercenary. I suspect they’re Republic spies!”

The commander balks. “Sound the alarm! Droids, destroy them!”

Well, shit. It’s okay, I can do this. In a split second, I take a breath. Channel my nerves and anxiety, focus, just like Master Zhar said. Call the lightning to my fingertips. Disable the droids. Overload. I can draw my swords faster than my lightsaber, so I pull them and face the trooper. He pulls his own sword and brings it to meet mine. There’s a fire in his eyes, like he’s been waiting for a fight. Eager. And despite my display of the Force, he thinks this is a fight he can win. And frankly… he has a chance. There’s a lot of strength behind his sword, and more technique than I’m used to seeing from rank and file Sith soldiers.

What’s wrong with me? This man is not my match. I have faced worse threats than this, stronger fighters than this. Come on, Rena. Get off your ass. You can do this. Easy. He brings his sword down over my head but I catch it, scissoring it between my own swords. He tries to push down. I push back. He grits his teeth. Time for an unexpected move. Barely even thinking, I collide his head with my own. Which hurts like hell for me at least, and causes him to stumble. Uneven footing. I sweep his legs out from under him. And now I’ve got him on the ground. I deal the final blow.

But I find myself wishing I hadn’t. Not because I think he’ll be useful or anything. It’s just… like a shadow creeping up in my head. Making me question who I am. Like there has been for the past week. Focus, Rena, focus. You’re no good like this.

While I was focused on my trooper, Carth and Canderous must have taken care of Commander Grann from upstairs. Now Canderous is blasting the war droids for good measure. I decide to stick to the computer. The first thing I do is turn off the alarm. We do not need to deal with troops coming to defend the lobby, and hopefully this means we won’t have to deal with the police when we leave. Next, I don’t want to spend a whole lot of time in here if I don’t have to, so I want to know where I’m going. Best way to know is to check the security camera. Disassembly room - that’s where I’d put a droid I was trying to get information out of. Check the camera… that looks like a recon droid to me, and they are doing their damnedest to get the data core out. Odds are the main thing stopping them is a deceptively simple lock. Recon droids don’t have personality subroutines like utility or protocol droids do. Not generally, anyway. In fact, as far as droids go, there’s not a lot to them. A variety of sensors, a preset route, some basic cartography software, and that’s it. Sure, you can add more bells and whistles, but that just means more stuff that can go wrong. Once you’ve programmed your recon droid, it’ll carry out that programming until it finishes, gets recalled, runs out of power, or is otherwise impaired, like this one. When it’s done, you extract the data core, download the data, wipe it, and start again. Generally speaking, the data core is protected by whatever weatherproofing is appropriate for the situation. In this case, I’d imagine it’s completely watertight. But since this is also a droid for spying, the Republic wouldn’t let it go without some extra security surrounding the data core. Hence, a deceptively simple lock. There’s no computer to access the droid, so there’s nothing to hack. Sure, you could laser your way in, but then you risk destroying the data core.

Not to say there’s not a way to break in, of course. You can break into pretty much anything, depending on how much time and effort you put into it. They’ve had it for twelve hours and haven’t made any progress yet. All of this is moot, however, since I’ve got the key code to access the core, to open the deceptively simple lock. The information on the core still has to be decrypted, but that’s not my concern. I just need to grab the core and go.

“Are you seeing anything about those missing Selkath?” Carth asks.

To be honest I had nearly forgotten about them. Just focused too hard, I guess. “No, but then I was looking for the droid, give me a second.” Okay, Selkath. If I were the Sith, and I was trying to sway Selkath youth to my side, taking them into my base, where would I put them? I’d want to make them feel special, show them that all the hype, all the bad press about my organization just isn’t true. I wouldn’t trust the rank-and-file troopers that staff my base to maintain that facade, though. So access to them would be limited, if not eliminated altogether. So. A part of the base, with only one or two access points, with a dormitory section. Pull up a base schematic… Bam. “The north section of the base. That’s where I’d keep them.”

Carth and Canderous both look at the schematic over my shoulder. “Looks like a strategic spot,” Canderous says.

“I tend to agree,” Carth says - and the fact that he can say that without puking, I swear - “it looks pretty secure. But it also… looks a little too easy. Doesn’t it?” Canderous nods, sort of hums in agreement. Carth points out a relatively large room with no label. “That seems like a good place for an assault droid.”

Hmm. “Let me just check the power levels.” That’s a pretty high level for a room with nothing in it, as far as the computer is concerned. “Good hunch,” I say, “Just give me two seconds…” Alpha, alpha, double bar, beta, sigma, little red star… “Assault droids deactivated, force field down.” That probably won’t be the only obstacle, but it’s a huge one out of the way. “Droid first, then the Selkath. Agreed?” They nod. Cool.    

I follow the schematic down the hallway to the north. If I’m reading this map right, I take the only left, and follow it, then go left again to get to the recon droid. Before I open the door, I place my hand on it. Trying to see what’s on the other side. Echoes in the Force. “Three troopers and two droids,” I say softly, “One of the troopers has grenades, he’s in the corner.” I pull my blue lightsaber from its hiding place. I don’t think I need my purple one just yet. “I’ll take out the droids, then Canderous, you focus on the grenadier. Carth, you okay covering us?”

“You got it.”

Okay. Deep breaths, deep breaths. You can do this. Three… two… one… open the door.