Open I Need Your Clothes, Your Boots, And Your Starfighter

[Vebria Dun]

Vebria walked through the door of the dingy, poorly lit bar and made her way to the bartender. Rainbow flashes of neon strode across her face as she pushed through the rabble. "One durindfire. Don't keep it open." Vebria handed the bartender enough coins to cover the beverage, plus a few extra. The Zabrak picked up the glass, glowing orange slightly at the top, and headed to a booth off to the side. There, she would wait.

A message had been posted earlier that day to the holonet:

Discrete slicers and pilots wanted. Pay to be discussed in person. Message for details.​

The Zabrak had received plenty of messages. Now it was all up to those who wanted to show up. Vebria smirked, bringing the glass to her lips and taking a slow sip. Hope they're actually worth their salt.

---

The collector stirred from his nap, his datapad beeping. "Mmmhf... time already? I've got a busy afternoon." He swung his feet out of bed, his myriad of robot servants leaping into action to prepare him for yet another gala. He laid face down on the massage table and the massage droid began it's work on his back. "Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm... i-i-i-t-t-t's goo-o-o-o-o-o-d to b-e ri-i-i-i-i-i-icccchhhhhh..." His eyes slowly closed as the soothing ministrations of the droid lulled him into another short nap.

 

[Cerberus]

The smell of this area reminded Cerberus of his childhood home. It was something unpleasant, and that did not help his mood. His mood was a mix of apathy and boredom. The boredom drove him to this job, the apathy made it so he did not care if he got it or not.

Per usual, he wore his dark blue and gray armour for this meeting. The dark blue of his outfit absorbed most of the colours from the neon lights in the cantina as he entered it, while the gray parts changed the various colours of the rays while he passed through them.

♫♪♪ Cantina Music ♫♪♪​

Cerberus found a small crowd of people, potentially the ones meeting for the job, and so he stopped. Crossing his arms and leaning against a nearby wall, he turned his hooded head and lingered his crimson eyes on the Zabrak woman (@Vebria Dun) who was recruiting, and waited in silence.

@Myra

 

[Naxa]

N4-X4 was not exclusively in the service of Apex Military Contractors. They also had a reputation in the Bounty Hunter's Guild with at least three officially sanctioned bounties to their name. The BX commando droid also accepted work freelance from time to time so long as it paid well and the risks were acceptable.

As discrete as they come, the scatterweave coated chassis of the infiltration machine was already inside the cantina when others had arrived. Naxa did not need to eat or drink. It did not blink, it did not waver. It simply waited like the machine that it was designed to be and more.

Only its occasionally flickering photoreceptors were any hint that the old droid was active and not just a statue in the shadowy corner of the establishment. It's shortened commando head occasionally turned to look at those that got too close, letting them know it was not a piece of inactive equipment. A diverse group of potential co-workers had gathered but it was unclear exactly for what. N4-X4 stood patiently, alert, and still in equal measure.

@Dread @Myra

 

[Vebria Dun]

Vebria waited for what seemed like hours. People came and went, filtering in and out of the bar like the ebb and flow of the tides. No one approached. Just as she was about to give up and go it alone, she noticed two figures in the crowd that certainly didn't seem to belong there. Or, as it were, they stuck out a bit more than most.

One was a droid (@Darasuum). While it wasn't unusual for droids to frequent bars, especially one as shady as this, a combat droid certainly was a strange sight.

The other (@Dread) didn't seem to want to be seen. While their armor was certainly distinct, it appeared to offer plenty of movement and versatility.

She waved the two over to the table, waiting for them to sit and introduce themselves. "Good to meet you both. I'm Vebria. You're the only two that I've seen show up, so this should be enough. Provided you want to do this." Vebria pulled out a datapad, setting it on the table and turning it on. "My target is this," she said, as the screen turned on, the image of an Aggressor-class assault fighter and it's associated equipment flooding the display. "There's a collector here on the planet that owns one, and I want it." She looked between the two. "I'm sure you're worried about pay. Like I said... he's a collector. Whatever you can get your hands on? It's yours. I'm only interested in the ship and any relevant equipment he may have laying around."

She swiped on the datapad again, the image of the city skyline populating the display. Vebria pointed to the large building in the center. "The collector has a penthouse with a rooftop landing pad where he keeps a few of his ships, including the starfighter. Getting it airborne shouldn't be a hassle, the actual accessing it is the hard part. We'll need to find schematics to the layout of the penthouse floors, as well as a way to access the penthouse turbolift. I'm sure he's also got some sort of access codes or otherwise preventing it from being used by an unauthorized individual. It's my hope that we can also find access codes to either get the ship off-planet, or at least to a secluded area."

Vebria stashed the datapad, smirking a bit as she looked at the two. "Questions? Apprehensions?"

 

[Cerberus]

When the Zabrak gestured for Cerberus to join her at a table, he obliged and sat down on the seat directly across from her. Uncrossing his arms only to make himself more comfortable by resting his forearms on the armrests.

There was an awkward pause between the Zabrak, him and the droid. Perhaps she was waiting for them to say something at that point, but Cerberus remained quiet. Once she started talking, he quietly and listened to the job offer. At the end, the job seemed simple enough.

"Bring me to the building. I can slice into and retrive floor maps if it has a security system. I'm educated in many security systems, including well known and lesser known softwares," the half human, half zeltron replied in his somewhat youthful but gruff voice.

He shifted in his seat as a server droid stopped at their table and asked if anyone wanted a drink. Cerberus waved his hand and shook his head no. Alcohol was not something he drank, simply because he preferred to keep his body and health as perfect as he could.

Continuing after the server droid left, Cerberus added, "I can also get in control of the turbolifts," though he paused for a moment, locking eye contact with the Zabrak, despite the likelihood of her not being able to tell due to his helmet, "And I'm willing to collect my own rewards from this little heist instead of credits, but if you try to cross me know that I'm not an easy person to steal from or escape from."

@Myra

 

[Naxa]

N4-X4 strode towards the table with the beckoning Zabrak. They paused before taking a seat. The two other individuals would see the small manipulators of a crustacean-like ID-21 seeker droid crawl onto N4-X4's shoulders. Its disc shaped body turned away from the table allowing its faint red photoreceptors to be the eyes that covered Naxa's blind spots. Should anyone come up behind them, the ID-21 seeker droid would know and act accordingly.

The BX commando droid appeared to give their full attention to the one offering the job. Its head tilted to focus on the target which was a ship. The droid recalled the statistics and characteristics it had on file as the client explained the details of the job.

The other helmeted humanoid sounded confident. N4-X4 did not voice their own slicing abilities in the moment. If necessary they would volunteer that information or would simply act on it. It ensured mission success to have redundancies such as that.

+Service staff approaching, bearing 1.1.3.8 Threat level low+ The ID-21 seeker droid silently communicated to N4-X4 via internal commlink exclusively in droid-speak. This alerted Naxa to their presence but it was not a threat. When the server came around the droid answered simply. "Negative." They waited for them to leave and continued to listen.

The helmeted voiced their willingness to work the job but added a warranted threat. These shady deals sometimes led people to believe that just because they were not public or regulated that there would not be consequences for betrayal. But even in the underworld people had a reputation whether they wanted it or not. Naxa was no exception. "Seconded."

@Dread @Myra

 

[Vebria Dun]

Vebria grinned, both of them suggesting betrayal. "Don't worry. I want to make sure I get this ship, I won't betray you. That said, I won't let you slow me down, either. If you get shot down, I won't come back for you. So make sure you don't get shot." Her gaze turned to her wrist chronometer. "It's almost time. There's a taxi speeder outside that I've arranged to take us within a few blocks of the skyscraper. The collector is supposed to be at some big gala tonight, so we'll strike while he's gone. He should take some of his security droids with him, so hopefully we won't have to deal with too many." She quickly downed the rest of the drink that had been sitting there and got up from the table, making sure her blaster pistol was still on her hip. "Alright, let's go."

---

The collector turned side to side, admiring the new suit he had had tailored just for this event. "Stunning. Absolutely stunning." He put on his wrist chrono and tucked a small datapad into the breast pocket of his suit jacket. Walking towards the door, he paused at a wall-mounted datapad, making sure the security and ceiling-mounted turret defenses were armed. Two turrets made themselves known on the main floor, with another popping out in the rooftop hanger area. Ten security droids began their patrol around the vast penthouse. Two more approached him and followed as he made his way to the rooftop, to his personal airspeeder. The trio climbed inside, and the speeder lifted off.

---

Vebria ushered the other two into the backseat of the waiting taxi, sitting opposite the other two as it set off for the nearby skyscraper. She checked her pack, making sure she had everything needed to convert the A180 into it's various forms if needed. "What equipment are we working with? I've got a modular A180 with an ascension attachment if needed, a reusable computer spike and an electrodart launcher on my wristband, two vibroknives, and a set of throwing knives. You guys?"

@Darasuum @Dread

Spoiler: Dice

Rolled a [10/20] for amount of enemies in the penthouse.

 

[Cerberus]

The droid didn't say much, to his own advantage. Cerberus made a mental note of that, and a note that the woman seemed the reasonable type. Good.

After the woman mentioned an arranged ride and stood, so did Cerberus. Though his eyes lingered on her for a few fleeting beats of his heart once he got a full view of her; his crimson eyes drank in the view of her curves and the shape of her perfectly matured body. In short, she was hot. He allowed himself to enjoy the view for those fleeting moments, uncaring of how obvious it might be to her. He was, after all, a young man and half zeltron, but looking was all he did and ever planned to do while waiting for her to pass and take lead to the taxi.

Cerberus got into the taxi, leaning back and crossing his arms. It wasn't long until the taxi started to move and the Zabrak was talking again. As she started to list off her equipment, Cerberus did a double check to make sure the taxi was automated and didn't have a droid driver. It didn't have one, thankfully. Last thing they needed was a droid potentially programmed to overhear conversations for some gang in the area.

When she asked what equipment Cerberus and the droid had, he replied first but not before grunting, "Idiot," bluntly. "Don't tell complete strangers from the underworld everything or even the majority of what you're armed with. You aren't even paying us for loyalty." If they were employees and had a chance to earn bonus credits, or even knew each other, it might be reasonable to ask for a list of what they were carrying. This was as far as Cerberus was concerned anyway, if the droid wanted to rattle off a whole list of his weapons that was at its own peril.

The half human, half zeltron didn't wait more than a moment before continuing. He only took the time to let out a half-growl, half-grunt first. The job wasn’t a complicated one, so he said, "I'll be taking charge of this heist, or I'll walk.” Besides, ego was the drug of youth, after all.

It was completely up to the other two if they wanted him or not. Cerberus was fine with rejection and walking. Both the droid and the Zabrak would either need to agree or stay quiet before he added, "Droid, work with me closely. Follow my movements and keep me covered if we engage security droids or guards." Cerberus only trusted the droid to be fast enough to keep up with his movements. It was his best bet without knowing the Zabrak personally. The young mercenary often used the Force to increase his speed. Even if the person he was working with was Force sensitive as well, he assumed, perhaps wrongly but, that they'd need to guess if he was actually trained in the Force or it just came naturally after years of combat. Otherwise, neither of these two knew his species or how naturally fast he was.

"Zabrak, if I can get those maps for you, you focus on guiding us through the building while keeping a keen eye out for any turrets or other mounted security weapons we can't slice into and take control of beforehand," he added.

@Darasuum @Myra

 

[Naxa]

Of course someone who would betray another would say they would not betray them. The droid added those calculations to their equations. The Zabrak seemed to be making an effort to verbalize what was already implied. N4-X4 wondered if that kind of attempted comforting actually worked on a normal person.

The droid caught a detail though. This Collector was taking some of their security droids. This was the first the Zabrak had mentioned guards. But the BX commando droid had still anticipated something of this nature would require violence and sabotage. Chances were high this was Vebria's first time organizing an operation like this. As they continued to speak that became more clear.

The droid entered the taxi along with their coworkers. The male organic seemed to have a degree of wisdom as they stated to not share the details. The droid had multiple concealed weapons and illegal modifications. It would not have answered the question either and instead remained silent. It made no objections to the male taking the lead either. Just from the brief interactions so far the commando droid calculated a higher chance of success with their intellect calling the shots.

Requesting close support, they nodded and replied with their deep vocabulator, customary of a BX commando droid. "Roger roger." The sonic rifle in their dark manipulators was not the hardest hitting weapon but it was impossible for a force sensitive to block with a lightsaber. What's more, its shots were near invisible to the naked eye unlike a blaster bolt. Their sidearm, a nightstinger pistol, also was both relatively quiet and produced a dimmer blaster bolt than most. They had more weapons at their disposal but their most useful tool was the element of surprise. The ID-21 seeker droid remained on their shoulders and would be given orders to mobilize when appropriate.

@Dread @Myra

 

[Vebria Dun]

Vebria shrugged. Her attempt to earn even a little trust had backfired, but she didn't care. As long as she got what she wanted. "Fine, take the lead if you want, just make sure you know what you're doing." She was already regretting letting this one join, but he at least seemed to know a bit about jobs like this. The Zabrak inspected her weapons one last time as the taxi pulled up next to an alleyway. "We get out here. This alley will take us to the rear entrance of the skyscraper. Should be fairly quiet until we get there. From there, we can either find a way in, or attempt to go around through the front." She hopped out, waiting for the other two to join her before carefully creeping through the alleyway.

After a quick, uneventful walk through the alley, the trio were outside the employee entrance to the skyscraper. "Workers come and go through here. There aren't many organics, most of them are droids that stay inside the condos or maintence accessways. They won't use this door, so it might be our best bet." Vebria peeked inside a chute on the wall, taking a sniff. "Trash compactor. I don't know when it runs next, but if we can find an access port somewhere here, there might be a way to find that out." She scanned the walls slowly, attempting to find something else that could be of use.

She shook her head after a minute, not seeing anything else. "The front desk is manned by an organic, it might be worth it to see if we can gain turbolift access that way if we don't want to enter this way. Unless one of you two has an idea." She shifted a bit, fingering the hilt of her blaster absent-mindedly.

@Darasuum @Dread

 

[Cerberus]

Both of his partners agreed easily and the trio arrived at their location quicker than expected, which prompted the woman to talk again. Cerberus looked upwards and traced his eyes along the building while she talked. Without warning, his crimson eyes snapped back to the woman just as the word "unless" left her lips and he interrupted her, "Shut up and stay here untill I call," he said uncaring of whatever reaction she might have to it. His head turned to the droid next to address it. This time, however, he spoke in a less aggressive, more respectful tone, "You too."

The halfbreed took a few comms out of a pouch on his belt and tossed them to his partners. Right after, he ran some meters along the building while looking up, bent his knees and jumped with the aid of the Force to get higher. There was some sort of poll not too high up, which he grabbed onto and swung himself off of. The swing got him to a mostly shadow covered, higher windowsill at the north side of the front office. Since it was a front office, it wasn't hard to guess the right window.

Taking a single deep breath in and out to calm himself, he pressed his left hand on the window, opening it. In a flash he slipped completely out of sight of his partners, through the window into the building. Immediately the sense of falling engulfed his body, giving him a burst of adrenaline. The halfbreed landed on his feet in the office and right away his crimson eyes fixated on a human woman alone at the front desk. She began to move in reaction to his sudden presence, so in a fluid movement Cerberus waved his right hand at the woman.

"You want to go into the nearest closet and sleep for the rest of the night," he said with a monotone voice. The woman parroted him before complying. Just as swiftly as he entered, he tapped his comm to open a channel to his partners and said "You both should be able enter the front office soon, start moving to it," while walking towards the desk and its control panel to slice into it. The idea was to deactivate any turrets at the front and open the door for his partners. And, hopefully they got to the office quickly, before any security droids patrolled through it.

@Darasuum @Myra

 

[Naxa]

N4-X4 exited the taxi with their new associates. The one of the Zabrak was confident, or perhaps idealistic was a better word. Their vocabulary however left something to be desired. There was a lot of "Should" and "Might" used. But perhaps it was a degree of colloquialism that N4-X4 was unfamiliar with. The commando droid preferred hard statistics and accurate calculations.

The armored male taking point ordered them to wait. "Roger roger." They answered the same as they did before. Their left manipulator caught the comm device out of the air with precision before examining it. The droid then watched the point-man until he was out of sight.

The commando's head turned to look back at the zabrak until the comm device had a familiar voice come through with orders. The machine followed the directions, emotionless and on alert. The BX commando droid was quick to move, striding with purpose but not running in case the act drew more attention from outside observers. The turrets were deactivated just as planned saving them the trouble of having to forcefully disable them or wait for a work around.

Naxa continued past the front desk in search of the turbo lift mentioned earlier. Sure enough they found two. One was private, the other public. Turning their head, N4-X4 silently commanded their ID-21 seeker droid to fly off of their shoulder and begin slicing access to the private turbo-lift. This allowed the commando droid to remain at the ready with their weapons in hand. Their auditory receptors listened for the sounds of feet echoing down the hallways whilst their photoreceptors glanced at the status of the two turbo-lifts in the event they were arriving. But for now both lifts seemed to be stationary. Soon, the team of thieves would have direct access to the pent-house via the turbo-lift.

@Myra @Dread

 

[Vebria Dun]

Vebria caught the comm, slipping it on the hem of her left sleeve. She watched as Cerberus disappeared around the corner, peeking around to watch him perform some impressive acrobatics before slipping through a window. She checked her pistol again, despite having only checked it moments prior. Bad habit, really. The Zabrak leaned against the wall for a moment, studying the droid, before being roused by the comm. The droid began marching off without a word, and Vebria found herself playing chase. This thing is single-minded. Hope that's a good thing.

Vebria rounded the corner, following the droid through the doors and drawing her pistol... to a largely empty lobby area. "Huh... no bodies either..." she mused. She regarded Cerberus slicing into the control panel with searching eyes. She couldn't sense it, not being one herself, but the Zabrak had the feeling the helmeted figure might be Force-sensitive. She shook her head, focusing on the task at hand instead, and moved to cover the droid as it began slicing the lift. As Vebria moved past the desk, something caught her eye.

She grabbed the access card from the desk, throwing a coy grin and a wink at Cerberus as she walked towards the droid. Still wearing the poodoo-eating grin, Vebria tapped the droid on it's dome before waving the card in front of the scanner. The turbolift doors opened, and the Zabrak walked inside, leaning against the back wall, overly pleased with herself. "Well? You two coming?" She twirled her pistol around her finger, smirking wildly.

@Darasuum @Dread

Spoiler: Dice

Rolled 20/20 on Discord for perception to find the access card

 

[Cerberus]

He didn't look up at his partners entering the lobby, instead he got busy erasing a chunk of the camera footage -- first the ones that recorded what happened when he broke into the front office, and then the footage of his partners in crime entering the building. Next step was to set the cameras on loops with earlier, boring footage. At the end of the quick slice, he felt Vebria get closer to him and looked up just as she winked. This briefly distracted him, since his eyes didn't stay on her face very long; his crimson gaze wandered briefly to her chest, then lower on her body when she walked away towards the lift. Maybe he was thinking too much into it, but it sure seemed like she wanted his attention.

Either way he regained his focus and, as he suspected, he was able to use this console to slice into building schematics linked to the security system onto a datapad. He pushed off the console and stood after, stepping right away towards and then into the turbolift as it opened. Ceberus tossed the datapad with the penthouse map to the zabrak woman, leaned against a side of the turbolift, crossed his arms and unabashedly allowed his crimson eyes to linger on her for most of the ride up. Whatever her reaction was, he wouldn’t give her a reaction back. She was a better sight than the cold lift walls or the droid, and he quite liked it.

Just before the turbolift hit the top floor, Ceberus put himself in front of the door; between it and his partners, and reached back, drawing his Thermic Sword, activating its super heating function. A soft hiss filled the turbolift when it stopped. When the front door slid open, revealing one of the penthouse security droids standing there to “greet” them, Cerberus didn't wait a single heartbeat, drawing on the Force to give him unnatural speed.

He moved in a blur, almost beast-like. A shot from the security droid’s blaster rifle hit only the side of the turbolift, leaving a small burned dent. Only a few heartbeats passed until Ceberus cut into the security droids chest. Grabbing hold of its head right after with his left gloved-hand, he switched to increasing his strength with the Force and crushed the droids head. Even with his armoured hand he felt pain from it, growling as the bits of metal crushed between his fingers, but he drank in the addicting rush of adrenaline that it resulted in. “Destroy their memory banks,” he growled.

A pair of droids began to walk towards the entrance, hearing the commotion.

@Darasuum @Myra

 

[Naxa]

A split second after the tap on the droid's chassis occurred the Zabrak would be staring down the barrel of the droid's blaster. A heartbeat later and the droid lowered the weapon. "Physical contact is ill advised. Do not touch us." They warned. N4-X4 was not cute, nor cuddly in the least. If the ID-21 seeker had been on its shoulders Myra would have likely been shocked by stun prods without any such verbal cautioning and have lost feeling in their hand as a result. Thankfully for the horned woman's sake that was not the case.

The moment passed and access key's discovery was good news. The Seeker droid returned to Naxa's shoulder, its slicing of the turbo-lift was no longer needed. The humanoid machine and its smaller spider-like companion were silent during the ride up. The events that had just transpired seem to have no lasting effect on them. It was nothing personal but even organics tended to not like having their personal space invaded. For a war machine designed to sabotage and assassinate that was especially the case. The ID-21 seeker would scuttle on the outside of Naxa and give a scan of its exterior, just in case a tracking device had been planted by the fellow criminal. N4-X4 was not leaving anything to chance.

The armored male took point and was first out of the turbo-lift. N4-X4 followed suit with their sonic rifle at the ready. They trained their weapon down the hall and advanced at a steady and even pace after the speedy point-man. The droid was calculating that their compatriot was likely force sensitive. There were few beings that could move in the way he did normally. But such a thing hardly mattered.

N4-X4's rifle fired four times, twice at each of the security droids, targeting weak points in their joints where their head connected to the neck. The two approaching droids dropped in a heap of metal onto the ground. One's head even popped completely off. The Apex Contractor fired again into each of them as they passed the downed machines, continuing to march deeper into the penthouse in search of more targets. They did not want to slow down to completely verify the downed droids were not holding a backup memory in their chest compartment but if they had time later they would double check. For now there were still possibly seven more security droids spaced around the penthouse. Some of them were likely converging on their position now.

@Myra @Dread

 

[Vebria Dun]

Vebria chuckled at the droid. "Fine, won't touch the bucket again." She grinned, flipping the access card between her fingers before slipping it into a pocket on her pants. She caught the datapad that Cerberus tossed to her and took a moment to scan the map. "That big area in the middle is guaranteed to be his collection, and the most protected, rich guys like this will have turrets in there. I don't know if we can slice those, but it might not hurt to try. Hallways will have droids in them for sure, some of the rooms might as well. I'll see if I can find a way to access the cameras, if he has a-" She stopped herself as the man moved between them and the door, moving off to the side.

It was obvious he sensed something. A few seconds later, he confirmed that was true, as with a hiss and a flash, the doors opened and a droid laid broken on the ground with it's head crushed. "Well, there goes our stealthy approach." The droid rushed out, firing at two more droids that were approaching. Vebria's eyes moved to the terminal by the door as she pulled the access card out and waved it over the scanner.

//Access Granted

The Zabrak smirked. "Cover me for a second, I won't be long here." She stuck her computer spike into the access port and began typing away. A camera feed popped up on the terminal, and she gestured on the screen, bringing all of the cameras into view. "I'm counting seven more droids still moving. Two in the hanger near the ship, two in the large central room, and three patrolling the hallways. He's got two ceiling turrets in the central room as well, and one in the hanger." She tapped a few more times, trying to gain control of the turrets.

Spoiler: Dice

Roll for success on slicing turrets: 1, 18, 17

"Deactivated the turret in the hanger and one of the central turrets, that'll be less for us to deal with." Vebria disconnected the spike from the terminal, moving to the end of the hallway and drawing her pistol. She looked to Cerberus, nodding towards the door in front of them. "What do you think, through the museum, or should we clear the hallways?"