Open Coruscant An Eye for an Eye...

[Tacitus Agrippa]

Tacitus wasn't here for this mission but he trusted the crew he had available to him to get it done with... varying degrees of competency it had to be said. Some of his crew were a bit too eager to wrack up a body count for Tac's liking but that didn't mean they didn't do good work. Rather than being there himself, Tacitus reached out via a holocall.

Dressed in his armor rather than his armored suit, Tacitus nodded to the ones who had picked up.

"The All Seeing is a gang that focuses on stealing things. Commissioned services sometimes and big ticket items from people when they least suspect it."

The holocall would leave his face to bring up the view of a shop on level 1010 of the Coruscant underworld.

"This cybernetics shop is a front - the All Seeing use it to slice into people's optics and other hardware to try and figure out if they've got kark worth stealing. The shop isn't just a front though as some informants say it's where they hide their vault. Not as in where they stash their loot but where they store their hints and secrets on hardware."

It zoomed back out to his face.

"Burn it all down or steal it then burn it down; I don't care which."

The holocall would end, the mission issued.

 

[Vri Nama]

This was it, the job she and Tal had been assigned to make up for the Mandalorian's bone-headed, yet incredible cool looking, attack on the All Seeing Eye's leader. With the gang's leader dead and their upper ranks in disarray, their operations were scrambling to either pick up the slack, escape the planet, or hunker down for a fight, and apparently none of them were doing them well. This made a strike on the gang's main source of both income and information would knock them for an even harder loop at a time when they couldn't afford another hit.

She'd parked her speeder in the alley just across from the store so she could keep an eye on the place without drawing anyone's attention, not that this seemed necessary. The front of the shop was run by what appeared to be a pair of very bored looking teenagers who spent most of their time on their datapads. The trick would be getting into the backroom, then down into the data storage vault before anyone caught on and either cleared the drives or burned them.

Vri was determined to get something of value for Tac after his diplomatic plan failed, if only to stay in the good graces of an obviously ambitious and clever criminal. Besides, it probably meant a cut of credits for her as well, so it was worth the boredom to sit around and wait for her teammates to arrive before coming up with an attack plan.

@Rhogar

 

[Taldorak Trenessar]

There was a quiet whistle from behind as Tal stepped up beside her, clad in his 'beskar'. "Hey Vri, fancy meeting you here." he said with that audible grin as he sat on her speeder. "This thing is a beauty." he'd say as one hand dug in his pouch on his belt. Unlike Vri who felt bad, he felt like this was a great. More killing. More time to impress his best buddy Tac and most importantly, his Rodian goddess.

The hand would pull free of the pouch to hold up a bag of spice. "Flipped some of what we stole. Got ya something nice, love." Were they a thing? No. Had they done things together? That memory was hazy. But did they enjoy killing and spice together? At the frequency they did, they might as well have been an item. He would go ahead and stretch, unclipping a triple layered sack from his belt and setting it down on the pavement. "So is it just us? Or we expecting help?"

@The Captain

 

[Vri Nama]

And there was Tal, almost on cue, with a string up incredibly blunt and incredibly suggestive lines for her, on top of a very familiar level of closeness. How close they'd ever actually gotten was a bit of a blur, but one thing Vri did know for sure was that wherever this deranged Mando showed up, carnage and credits were sure to follow. And boy did she love carnage and credits, at least when one led to the other, which in this case they absolutely did.

"Aw, you're all I need, hun." She ran a finger just under his chin as she leaned over to examine the contents of the sack, figuring this was either a kark-load of spice, some high explosives, or a severed head. "Looks like we'll be taking this operation solo. More money for us though, am I right?"

@Rhogar

 

[Taldorak Trenessar]

"Good thing I got this helm on, babe or else you'd be seeing me blush." he said with a dry laugh. And like Vri, he hadn't the slightest idea where their spice after parties led them. Be it reality or just spiced induced fever dreams, Haran, he didn't even care to know the truth. All he knew is this game they played back and forth was almost as enjoyable as the killing. He didn't mind her peaking at the sack, and he'd even pull it open for her. Inside would be the head of the one eyed, now eyeless woman. "Figured they'd want something to bury, yeah?"

Pulling a small cannister out of a pouch, he'd set it on the other side of her, his arm practically going around her. "This is the fun toy you're looking for. The one that goes pop. Three thermals rigged to blow together. For afterwards."

@The Captain

 

[Vri Nama]

Upon seeing that Tal, for some reason, had brought the severed-farking-head of the gang's former leader in a sack, Vri reflexively dropped the bag and kicked it away while frantically wiping her hands off.

"Kriff, Tal! Tell me before you hand me a farking head in a bag!" She tried to slug him in the armor, but punching his armored pauldron did more to hurt her hand than his arm. "Shrak!"

Thankfully Tal was quick to point out that he brought her a bundle of thermal detonators for the actual fight, so he was forgiven rather quickly as Vri gleefully attached the cannister to her belt.

"Now we're talking! I'll save these babies for the trip out, since we're gonna clean the place out before we burn it down." She turned to Tal, hoping off her speeder and nodding at the head-bag. "Bring that, we'll leave it out front for whoever gets here first."

She wasn't a fan of gore, sure, but sending a message was something she could get behind.

@Rhogar

 

[Taldorak Trenessar]

Tal laughed "I handed you the spice bag, love. You bent down to grab the head sack. I thought you were just admiring my... negotiation skills." He would then stoop down to grab the sack and slung it over his shoulder as if he were some kind of deranged Saint Tal, delivering severed heads to all the naughty gangsters on Life Day. "I figured we could send it in with some food or something."

He rolled his shoulders "So.. we going in hot? Or a little reserved so we don't destroy all the intel?"

@The Captain

 

[Vri Nama]

Vri grunted and rolled her eyes before popping on her helmet and activating the voice scrambler, giving her voice a deep, electronic growl that seemed to scare the living kark out of unsuspecting people.

"I say we just go in shooting, we're high enough up that the CSF will notice if someone starts shooting, and we don't know if there are any more of these guys in the area." She pulled her carbine from the holster on her bike and check the magazine. "Go in, wipe out the gang, see if we can make it out with some creds and intel, and burn the place down behind us."

She turned to Tal, nudging him with the barrel of her blaster in a very dangerous, very provocative way.

"Think you can keep up?"

@Rhogar

 

[Taldorak Trenessar]

"Oh baby, the only relationship I have longer than ours, is my personal one with violence." His audible grin would break into a laugh as the head sack got rebound to his belt. "Should I go through the front and you the rear? Or, do you want a lift to the roof and we get the literal drop on them?"

@The Captain

 

[Vri Nama]

"I say we just go in through the front, hard and fast. We want to get out of here before anyone shows up, and if some of these rats sneak out the back to tell their buddies who kicked their shraks, I say we let them." Tal and Tac weren't the only ones in their little unit that knew something about fear tactics and causing havoc. It was something of a Son-Tuul tradition to make a big, loud show of any violence or gang warfare to make sure people got the message.

She looked over for a second to make sure the two teens in the front of the store were still distracted, she'd hate to plan this whole raid with Tal only to find out they got spotted from across the street by some little punk looking up from their datapad.

@Rhogar

 

[Taldorak Trenessar]

"Clear copy, babe." Tal wheeled, as he pulled his peacemaker, the first two shots hitting each of the teens center mass. He then crossed the street, dropping the head sack beside the bodies as he enterered through the front door. "Knock! Knock!" the pistol would raise, sending three rounds into the closest store patron, he didn't care if they were in the gang or not.

@The Captain

 

[Vri Nama]

Yep, there was Tal, always subtle and precise in a fight. The patrons in front of the store scattered as Vri bolted across the street, practically throwing herself through the door and firing a deadly volley of shots across the front desk of the store. The two clerks were mowed down in the barrage, and one of the credit registers was blown apart by her wild shots, showering the counter in sparks.

Unfortunately, since they'd opted to start taking out the civvies first, the gang in the back room had time to see what was happening in their hidden security array, and began to rally. Vri was forced to press against the counter as two well-dressed cyborgs emerged from a back room and leveled blaster pistols at her. She narrowly avoided their initial shots before poking over the counter and blasting them down.

"TAL!" She barked. "QUIT PLAYING KRIFF-KICKS OUT THERE!"

@Rhogar

 

[Taldorak Trenessar]

One of the corpses would be thrown over Vri into one of the cyborgs before Tal appeared at her side. "Coming, love!" he laughed as he slid over the counter, bolts pinging off of his armor, although there was a slight grunt as his shoulder got pierced. Peacemaker leveled, he'd pepper five rounds into the torso of the cyborg still standing. "C'mon now! Get some!"

@The Captain

 

[Vri Nama]

As if on cue, Tal dove into the building throwing corpses and gunning down cybernetic guards with reckless abandon, pressing forward into the back rooms. It was good to know that she had a living battering ram like Tal watching her back, as the man had an uncanny ability to carve through any defense with ease.

"Right behind you!" She followed Tal into the backroom, which consisted of a series of small, curtained-off rooms clearly designed for implanting cybernetics and upgrades, with two sets of stairs at the far end of the hall, one going up and one going down. Of course, she barely set two feet through the doorway before the curtains burst open and the gang members inside started shooting.

Vri ducked out of the way into an empty booth and opened fire, cutting down to guards before the rest were forced back into cover, letting her step back out and sweep down the hall with Tal, aiming to gun down everyone in the room that wasn't them.

@Rhogar

 

[Taldorak Trenessar]

Tal would grab ahold of the cyborg that was still alive and hoist the body up as a shield before entering the room with the other goons. Launching that body, just at a group, he would begin to move the peacemaker across the group, firing until he was forced to expel the cell from the weapon. Holstering it, he unslung DC-17x "Come on Rayna, time to play." he went full auto, into the same group of fallen, just to ensure they were dead with that crazed laugh.

He'd grunt as a vibroknife pierced his side, one of the goons sneaking up on him. A steady stream of blood would begin to drip from the wound and still firing with the rifle in one direction, he activated his flamethrower, and triggered the stream of flame in a quick burst, to graze along his side and not only roast the goon, but cauterize the wound. If there was a scream of pain from the Mandalorian, it was masked by the purr of the flame.

Turning to face the other enemies on his flank, a bolt would rip through the seam of his left shoulder pauldron, while another grazed the leatharis coif at his neck.

@The Captain

 

[Vri Nama]

While Tal kept the front ranks of the enemy distracted, Vri took slightly more precise shots at anyone who tried to poke their head out of cover to hit the Mandalorian from the front or the back, trying to cover Tal on his mad-dash down the hallway. A job she did rather poorly, as first a thug with a knife and then a hail of blaster bolts brought the seemingly invincible iron-clad killing machine to his knees.

What happened next was something of a blur, as Vri instinctively ran up to Tal and tackled him into the nearby empty booth, leaving them both sprawled out on the floor. She barely had time to scramble for her blaster before someone came through the curtain and took a bolt to the brains for their effort.

"Tal," She didn't want to physically turn to check on him, but after what he had just been through even her dark, twisted heart was feeling sympathetic. "Tell me you can move, we're trapped rats in here and you're too heavy to carry."

As if to emphasize the point, a thug blindly stuck his blaster into the room and managed to take out a nearby shelf before Vri blasted him in the wrist, causing the man to shriek and flee.

@Rhogar

 

[Taldorak Trenessar]

Tal couldn't remember the last few bolts, but he did realize Vri had tackled him into a closed off room. "Damn, babe.. can't wait for the after-party?" He said with an audible grin.

It took til the second thug entering for him to spring into action. Pushing her to the side, a bolt pinged off of his chest plate, and he leveled Rayna, sending a burst of shots into the man with the injured man. Rising to his feet, the new corpse made a perfect shield as he pushed back out into the main room, rifle snapping from side to side. They had pissed off a Mandalorian and they were about to realize what all that entailed.

Shoving the corpse forward, he primed the repulsor, knocking a few of the them to the floor before he fired his flamethrower, roasting them alive.

@The Captain

 

[Vri Nama]

"I was trying to-" Vri didn't even get to finish her sentence before Tal shoved her onto her backside and charged back out into the hallway, blaster firing and corpse up as a human shield, as if he didn't have a massive burn scar running down the side of his body. Well, if that was how he responded to her awesome heroics, then the next time he got shot he could save himself!

With Tal once again taking center stage down the corridor, Vri moved behind him and picked off anyone that moved to attack Tal, either from the front or from the sides which she kept a closer eye on now that they'd already been jumped once before. By the time they reached the end of the hall, they'd cut through at least a dozen guards and completely destroyed the cybernetics parlors with stray blaster bolts and flamethrower bursts.

"Alright, we gotta move fast. I'll take downstairs you go up. If you see any reinforcements coming our way, radio me and we'll bounce." Vri moved to the stairs only to find a locked door at the bottom of the steps.

Kriff, that might take a minute.

@Rhogar

 

[Taldorak Trenessar]

As they reached the split, Tal would look back at Vri, the scorched side, seemingly reopened, though maybe the adrenaline was keeping him standing, for now at least. "By the way, love. I haven't even gotten around to truly thanking you for saving me. So how about, after we finish up here, I show ya some real gratitude."

As she told him the instructions he'd nod "Sure thing, Vri. If you need help, just give me a call." with that he'd begin to ascend the steps, Rayna ready and willing to take a life. Reaching the top of the stairs he would reach for the door. Kriff. Locked.

"You damn dirty cowards..." Tal mused to himself as he stepped away, unloading a cells worth of bolts about to the left of where each of the sliding mechanisms would be. Allowing the rifle to sling, he took out his dagger and began to carve away at the battered down walling, just snug enough for a detonator to rest in each spot. Putting one detonator in each of the three cutouts, he'd quickly go down the line activating them, before sprinting back down the steps.

Leaping the last four, he almost crashed into the landing and just barely avoided the resounding blast sending him down the stairs after Vri.

@The Captain

 

[Vri Nama]

It took Vri a second to pry open the control panel on the door and manually pick the lock by hotwiring the panel, a shockingly easy task if you knew what wires to look for. The cybernetic gang's fancy security systems and firewalls were nothing compared to a little electrical know-how and a well placed kick to the wall. The second the door slid open, Vri was hit with a wave of success and a wave of surprisingly deep cold which caught her off guard.

It turned out the lower door led to the gang's server room, complete with rows upon rows of computer banks and a very powerful cooling system that kept the room almost chilly. It was kind of an impressive set up, all things considered, but it would probably make a more impressive explosion when she planted detonators in the server racks.

"Look, just download the important stuff and-Oh kriff!" Vri turned to spot a pair of bundled-up techies trying, desperately trying to clean the gang's hard drives before she and Tal reached them. Too late for that.

Vri shot down the first engineer before he could even more from his seat, but she spared the second engineer for a little questioning.

"Alright nerd, how would I get as much of your data out of here as fast as possible?" She sauntered over to the terrified man and pulled his dead comrade out of his seat before taking it for herself, planting her crossed feet on the desk.

"I-I...I mean I-" He squeaked, not screamed or shrieked, squeaked, when she put a bolt into the duracrete wall next to him. "I-I can transfer the data or you could just take the hard drives!"

"Huh, thanks." With that, Vri turned her blaster down and planted a shot in the man's foot, earning a proper scream this time, before a loud rumble and a thud upstairs led Tal to land at the bottom of the steps behind her. "Tal! Just in time, help me jack some of these servers then we can blow this place."

@Rhogar