All was quiet aboard the X-70B Phantom Quintus Sertorius, despite the fact that it was several hours past noon Imperial Standard time. The completion of a mission always occasioned some shore leave, especially with an outfit as irregular as this one.
The leader of the band, Bugglesleya Invictus, groaned miserably. Her Intelligence-grade implants were doing yeoman’s work keeping her thoughts and situational awareness in order, but there probably wasn’t an implant in the galaxy that could hold back this headache. Rolling over, she felt a very solid clunk.
“Good Morning Master! V1-BR8, at the ready for all of your---” She quickly shut the droid off and tossed it in the direction of the nightstand. So it had been one of those nights.
She tried to piece it all together--going out with Kaliyo was always dangerous, but the last thing she remembered was Lokin declaring he’d cooked up something “just for occasions like these” in his lab. A brief moment of panic rolled over her. She sat up in bed and checked her hands.
No spikes means no rakghoul, so that’s a plus. Her new vantage point alerted her to two things: One, a new and somewhat violent protest emanating from her stomach. Two, her comm indicator was lighting up like a Nar Shaddaa nightclub. That frequency was only available to Grand Moffs and up, so it was probably important. She keyed the unit, carefully ensuring that it was audio-only. In the Empire, the appearance of strength was often more important than the real deal. She summoned the most most imperious voice she could.
“Yes!? This had better be urgent, I am in the midst of deciphering some extremely sensitive information. If you fools try my patience one more time, you could face a repeat of the Shroud Incident--and need I remind you how that turned out? Out with it!”
Success--she could out-disdain Imperial Officials who held the fate of systems in the palm of their hands. The poor ensign waiting on the line for the Moff or Lord probably would need a new pair of uniform pants. She almost let out the cackle that she’d been picking up from the more cartoonishly evil Sith Inquisitors around.
“Cut the crap, Buggs, how’s the hangover coming? Sounds bad.”
Bugglesleya mentally kicked herself. Of course, the only people who had this frequency were Grand Moffs, Sith Lords… and a group of nutjob bounty hunters that she’d worked with on more than a few occasions. She keyed the comm to allow visuals.
A hologram of the bounty hunter known only as Deadpoolx flickered to life in front of her. He was clad in plastisteel from head to toe, and wherever there wasn’t armor there was some kind of rocket, weapon, or fearsome-looking device. It was painted in a stark black-and-white camouflage pattern that seemed intended more to announce and intimidate than to hide.
“What’s the situation, Dead? Seriously, this line is only for emergencies...”
“It is one, kinda. We got a job, need someone who knows their way around a kolto probe to make sure it goes smoothly. Some admiral wants to hit Kuat Drive Yards, says they’ll pay well. You in?”
Kuat Drive Yards… She’d heard of it, but she pulled up the holonet through her implants just to be sure. It was the center of Republic starship production--where they kept making more NovaDives to replace the ones she was constantly vaping. I will probably have to fork over quite a bit for whatever Kaliyo destroyed last night..
“Fine, I’m in. Where are we launching the op from?”
“Starfighter Hanger on the fleet. See you there in a standard hour? It’ll give you some time to be… presentable.” It wasn’t visible through his helmet, but there was almost certainly a smirk under there. Bounty Hunters. She shut the comm off while giving what she had convinced most aliens was a “traditional Chiss one-finger salute.” Time to prepare.
* * *
The starfighter hanger was a bustling hive of activity. Pilots rushed here and there, prepping their ships for deployments across the galaxy. Droids zipped about delivering parts and messages, commanders shouted into holoterminals, and Sith Lords strangled engineers for the tiniest of mistakes. Bugglesleya, her hair impeccably coiffed and her adaptive Chiss infiltrator’s suit fully engaged, surveyed the scene. She picked out Deadpoolx. Standing with him was an absolutely massive Sith Warrior she wasn’t familiar with, and--oh, sithspawn.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t napping--before she could complete having second thoughts about this op or turn on her cloaking unit, Ilmohor had spotted her and begun to bound over. His heavy mercenary’s armor, wreathed in ammo cartridges and missile launchers, shuddered with each step.
“Hey, Buggs! Heard you had a rough night! Shame if someone would speak loudly around--aw c’mon Dead, she looks fine.”
Deadpoolx and the warrior had followed Ilmohor over. “Yeah, you do look shockingly put together. What gives?”
She held up a small transparisteel vial containing a virulent yellow liquid and smiled. “Wulfgnar isn’t fooling around with these things, and he even let me have this bunch for free!”
Ilmohor shook his helmet slowly. “I’d be careful with those stims if I were you. The first one’s always free, that’s how he gets you. Remember what happened to poor Iradication? Incredibly powerful sith marauder, but he got so hopped on stims that he painted his armor like a life-day tree.”
“Shut up, I can quit whenever I want.” Bugglesleya rubbed her arm defensively.
“As long as you’re good for the mission, it’s all the same to me. We’re late anyway,” Deadpoolx reminded them. He turned to the sith.
“This is Zalachenko, he’ll be working with us on this one--we’ve run with him in the past. Might not say much, but he gets the job done.” Zalachenko stood with his arms crossed, each bicep about as big around as Bugglesleya’s thigh. He nodded, stone-faced.
“Strong, silent type, eh? Just how you like ‘em, Ilmo” She winked at the mercenary.
“Yeah, yeah. Just know, if he starts making noise, get the Hoth out of his way.”
“That’s enough, you two.” Deadpoolx was desperately trying to facepalm through an armored gauntlet and his helmet. “Let’s get to the shuttle.”
While the trip was mercifully short, Ilmohor still managed to exhaust the shuttle’s supply of in-flight hot pockets. They were rushed to the bridge of the assaulting dreadnought as soon as they arrived--they were expected, and they were late.
Upon entering the bridge, the four were greeted with a breathtaking view of the Kuat Drive Yards. There was a kind of artificial ring around the planet. At first glance it appeared contiguous, but closer inspection revealed it was made up of tens of thousands of space stations, defensive satellites, and drydocks. The ring was punctuated by the massive, skeletal hulks of capital-ships-to-be. It would have been impressive enough on its own, but it was also playing host to a space battle in full swing. Countless ships, Republic and Imperial, flitted between and around the stations and unfinished cruisers. Blasters, missiles, and exploding starfighters lit up the array in a light show unsurpassed even by the Emperor’s Birthday celebrations on Dromund Kaas. Bugglesleya’s trigger finger itched.
The dramatic scene functioned as the backdrop for two figures standing in front of it. One, a middle-aged human woman, wore the crisp uniform of an Imperial Admiral, her rank cap functionally outfitted with a comm headset. That must be Ranken. The other was a powerfully built pureblood sith woman, with dark purple robes and a menacing aspect. Bugglesleya had heard of Lord Krovos, but never met the woman. The Admiral spoke first.
“Welcome to Kuat Drive Yards, the beating heart of the Republic Navy; a heart we’re about to pierce.”
Bugglesleya’s implants crackled to life with the private comm channel that Ilmohor and Deadpoolx used inside their helmets when they didn’t want their conversations to be audible to anyone else. “Damn, dude, only thing I’d be worried about piercing is that Sith, she is BUILT.” Ilmo whispered. Despite himself, Dead joined in. “Perfect for you man, go for it!”
The Admiral continued her briefing, the typical Imperial rah-rah speech about many centuries this and turning things in our favor that. It took all of Bugglesleya’s training in subterfuge to not bust out laughing, shoot her companions, or both. Unaware of the lechery happening mere feet away, Ranken and Krovos had moved on to a holographic projection of the station they’d be assaulting. The sith turned around, pointing out a tactically important area on the station. This presented an area very tactically important to the two bounty hunters, and a chorus of awed whistling came in through the comms. Bugglesleya couldn’t help but be impressed herself--damn, girl does squats in the gym.
The two women turned to face the group, looking like they expected an answer. Oh crap, what was the question? Deadpoolx and Ilmohor looked at each other and then her, and Zalachenko didn’t seem the type to step in. Time for an old standby.
“Yes, well, when we succeed the Republic will be crippled. At last, the Galaxy will fall in line with the Empire.” Ranken and Krovos seemed to approve, and dismissed them. Rule #1 of dealing with the brass: assure them that their op will lead to total victory, no matter how many others that you have successfully concluded which clearly did not.
As they walked to the shuttle, Bugglesleya turned to the rest of the group. “So, did anyone catch what we’re actually supposed to be doing here?”
“Yeah, yeah, got to the place, kill the guys, we’ll be fiiiine.” Ilmohor waved his hand dismissively.
“Really? So you weren’t recording the briefing for the actual info using your helmetcam or something?”
“I recorded something…” In the palm of Ilmohor’s hand, a small hologram flickered to life. It was indeed a recording from the briefing, though it seemed to have been only when Krovos was turned around and only from her knees to her shoulders.
Bugglesleya shoved Ilmo’s hand down, and the blue, rotating holographic sith ass disappeared. “We’re still on their ship you idiots! Be pervy gamorreans all you want, but don’t compromise the mission!”
“Calm down, we got this. Go to to the place, kill some guys, it’s all good” Dead repeated, sharing Ilmohor’s confidence. “We’re the worst nightmare of pretty much everyone in the Republic. Zalachenko here is straight-up the Emperor’s Wrath, and I heard you shut down some kind of insane thousand-year-old conspiracy.”
“I guess. You did win the Great Hunt, and Ilmo.. wait a minute, how does that work out between you two, anyway?”
The two looked at each other and shrugged.
“See? This is why it’s better not to worry about this kind of stuff. C’mon, the shuttle’s ready to go.”
I have a bad feeling about this.
* * *
Blaster fire began to sing past them from the moment the shuttle doors opened. Nightmares or no, the Republic wasn’t going to let this station go without a fight. Ilmohor and Deadpoolx sprang into action, leaping towards the hapless republic soldiers with their jetpacks. They each took on multiple soldiers at a time, Dead blasting one in the chest with a flamethrower while skewering another 30 meters away with a blaster shot to the face. Rockets sprang from where you would least expect them on Ilmohor’s suit, striking with deadly accuracy and explosive power. Zalachenko also did not disappoint--Bugglesleya was pretty sure that at one point she saw three guards on his lightsaber at once, kabob style. At first she readied her kolto probes for healing, anticipating anything that might slip through the armor of the mercenaries or the warrior. It was soon clear, though, that the guards were so outclassed that she ended to sneaking around the edges of the fight, searching for unsuspecting ribs to put her shivs through.
When the smoke cleared, the hanger was silent. Deadpoolx quietly cleaned his blaster. “See? No problems. Let’s see what’s in the next hanger over.” The moment they stepped through the door, a dropship burst into the hanger and more armored republic troopers repelled down to engage them. “These guys don’t know when to quit,” Ilmo sighed as he readied his flamethrower again. The third hanger bay was quiet at first, but predictably the Republic wanted to try one more time.
“Gotta hand it to them, they really aren’t going to let this one go,” Deadpoolx said, rolling behind a crate for cover. Zalachenko had had enough, though, and with a snarl he threw his lightsaber. Before the troopers could even get out the door, the saber scythed through the engines and the entire dropship erupted into an incandescent fireball.
“That works, too,” Ilmohor said, coughing, “Though a warning would have been nice. Just look at my armor, it’ll take hours for Jeel to clean this…”
“Alright, we’ve gone to the place and killed the guys. What next, hotshots?” Bugglesleya demanded. Nobody was paying attention, though.
Ilmohor was pointing at one of the hanger’s catwalks above them. “Look at that! Looks like a boss to me. Are those cannons?” A load lifter droid was barely visible on the walk, lifting a load. It was a simple model, four legs splaying out from a boxy, utilitarian body. At first blush, it did resemble one of the Republic’s formidable pyrodroids. However, it was just a load lifter.
“Those aren’t cannons, they’re arms. Seriously? A load lifter?” she rolled her eyes. “I’m beginning to think Ranken didn’t really need to come to us with--” her sentence was cut short by a large crate smashing just inches in front of her.
“INTRUDERS! YOU HAVE COME INTO LOAD LIFTER BN-55’S HOUSE! THIS UNIT’S PRIMARY MISSION: PROTECT THIS HOUSE.”
The load the load lifter was lifting was suddenly flying at them quite rapidly. The group scattered in all directions, and the load connected with nothing but floor. Further loads were lifted and thrown down at them from the catwalk, the noise almost deafening. Bugglesleya readied her rifle, but her companions were unfazed. Zalachenko looked downright bemused.
“What a.. Load,” dead deadpanned.
“Yeah, I’m worried that if we kill it we’ll be blowing our load too early,” Ilmo joined in.
Dodging another crate, Bugglesleya couldn’t help herself. “Better watch out guys, I hear that this robot’s on the down-LOAD.” Even Zalachenko was beginning to snicker to himself, and both mercs were almost unable to stay on their feet.
“PUNS ARE NOT PERMITTED! MOCKING IS UNACCEPTABLE! THIS UNIT BN-55 WILL DESTROY YOU!”
“Seriously, though, we should kill this guy… lock and.. LOAD!” Ilmo said, pantomiming the bolt action of a scattergun.
Bugglesleya was basically relying on her implants to dodge crates at this point. “I.. I dunno guys, I think killing him is pretty down.. LOAD on our list of priorities!”
The laughter stopped.
“Man, you pretty much already used that one. Lame.”
“Buggs killed it. Great.”
“Oh come on guys, they have different meanings.. it was good..”
“EVEN THIS UNIT THOUGHT THAT WAS PRETTY LAME,” the loader commented from the peanut gallery above.
“Y’know what!?” Bugglesleya threw an explosive probe up to where the loader droid was.
“WHAT IS THIS OBJECT? THIS IS NOT AN AUTHORIZED UPGRADE, REMOVE FROM THIS UNIT’S CHASSIS IMMEDIATELY”
“Whatever you want, buddy,” Bugglesleya muttered as she lined up the shot and pulled the trigger. The explosive probe detonated, tearing into the central chassis of the droid. The legs shot out in all directions, and the head of the droid ricocheted around the catwalks, coming to rest near the control console.
“UNACCEPTABLE RESISTANCE! REASsembLE THIs uni...t…. at… on…ce….”
Deadpoolx surveyed the hanger bay. “Looks like that elevator needs to be unlocked at some kind of control unit up there. Get going Buggs, you’re on probation.”
“What? Why?”
“You know what you did. Get on up there.”
Muttering to herself about how her puns were just fine and pondering how many cracks in Deadpoolx’s armor her shiv would fit in between, Bugglesleya activated her cloaking unit and disappeared, a faint shimmer heading up the ramp to the catwalks.
“I dunno, am I overreacting?” Deadpoolx wondered aloud. Ilmo shook his head. “Nah, that was really bad.” Zalachenko nodded in solemn agreement. He had summarily executed starship captains for less.
A few minutes passed with no sound from above, as to be expected from an Imperial Operative. They were just about to start up a game of Pazaak when they heard footsteps. Loud ones. Several sets.
Blasters and lightsaber drawn, three of them peered up the ramp. Though they couldn’t see anything but a glimmer in the air, they heard one set of the footsteps racing down the ramp and continue right past them. Along with the steps came Bugglesleya’s frantic shouting.
“Ambush! JEdiiiii…..”
As promised, two Jedi Masters in full battle regalia rounded the corner in hot pursuit. Seeing the three new enemies down below, they pulled up short.
“Finally, some real action,” Ilmo said, a smile blooming underneath his helmet. Zalachenko grunted and pointed at the Jedi on the left, a broad-shouldered human with a blue lightsaber.
“He’s all yours buddy, we’ll get the one on the--he’s moving!” Deadpoolx was cut off as the other Jedi, a lightly built Twi’lek rushed him. Ilmo and Dead both opened fire, but the Jedi’s lightsaber deflected blaster shot after blaster shot. One step away, Dead activated his flamethrower, red hot death fanning out from his wrist. The Jedi was too fast, though, tumbling into into a slide under the flames and then spinning up into a snap-kick that caught the surprised bounty hunter right in the chestplate. Enhanced by the Force, the kick sent Dead tumbling through the air, his blaster falling as he landed hard on his back.
The Jedi leapt gracefully into the air, lightsaber leading, in a smooth arc ending in the prone bounty hunter’s torso. His acrobatics were abruptly stopped when he was yanked to the side by a cable shot out from Ilmohor’s armor. Flashing, the lightsaber cut through the cable mid-air, but his course had been unavoidably changed. Rolling to his feet and giving one of those smug looks they do so well, the Jedi switched targets and lunged towards Ilmohor with the lightsaber, flowing from one slash to the next in a deadly dance. Ilmohor hadn’t quite thought through what would happen after pulling the jedi. He joined in the dance, stepping backwards, dodging what he could and using his cortosis bracers to deflect the rest. “A little help here, Dead!?”
Deadpoolx struggled regain his breath. He rolled to his feet as well as he could and grabbed his blaster, trying to line up a shot. The Jedi and bounty hunter were locked in close battle, though, and the constantly switching positions meant he couldn’t be sure his shot would hit the right one.
“I can’t get a clear shot…”
“Shoot the Jedi! How clear is that!?” Ilmohor panted, his armor too heavy for this kind of hand-to-hand fighting. He had already overidden the safeties on the hydraulics; they weren’t going to last long.
The Jedi lept up while lashing out low with the force, knocking Ilmo backwards. As he instinctively reached his hands out to break his fall, the Jedi saw an opening wide enough for a Hutt to slither through. Deadpoolx squeezed the trigger to fire. Without even turning his head, though, a yank of the Jedi’s hand sent the blaster skittering across the hanger deck before it had the chance. A smile of triumph spreading across his face, the Jedi raised his lightsaber.
The smile was marred by a trickle of blood running out of the corner of his mouth. The lightsaber dropped from his hands. Looking up, Ilmohor saw a grinning Bugglesleya pop out of cloak, the Jedi at her feet, idly flipping a bloodied shiv in her hand.
“Am I off probation yet?”
“Not even close, I had him right where I wanted him,” Ilmohor said, brushing himself off.
Deadpoolx was up, and had recovered his blaster. “Enough of that you two, Zalachenko’s dealing with one alone!”
The three turned just in time to witness the thrilling conclusion of the lightsaber battle raging on the catwalk above. The Jedi was staring down in disbelief at the blazing red lightsaber blossoming from the center of his chest. Zalachenko snarled, twisting his saber in the wound, before savagely kicking the Jedi off the saber.. and the catwalk. The body hit the ground with a dull thud.
“Remind me never to piss him off…” Bugglesleya murmured. She shook her head. “I got to the console before they got to me. With that done and these Jedi jokesters out of the way, elevator should be working and we should be all clear to head to the control deck. You guys alright?”
The few scrapes and bruises were nothing some quick kolto couldn’t fix, and the group headed for the elevator. They were just getting into the relaxing muzak when it ground to an unexpected halt. The elevator soon ground to a halt as well.
“Don’t think we’re all the way to the command deck yet.. what’s going on?” Deadpoolx reached out towards the doors, which snapped open to a darkened room. “Might as well check it out.” The others shrugged and followed him out of the elevator.
A split second after Bugglesleya had cleared them, the doors snapped shut and brilliant lights snapped on. They were in a small room. On one side lay an impressive pile of starfighter-grade missiles and bombs. On the other was a speaker. It crackled to life.
“OBSERVATION: WHO IS LAUGHING NOW, INSOLENT ORGANICS?”
“Force almighty, is that the loader droid?” Ilmohor asked.
“ASTOUNDINGLY ASTUTE ACUMEN, FROM SUCH A FEEBLE ORGANIC! YOU HAVE ONLY GIVEN THIS UNIT NEW LIFE; THIS UNIT HAS ABSORBED THE TECHNOLOGY OF YOUR EXPLOSIVE DRONE AND ASSUMED CONTROL OF THIS STATION”
“Too bad you can’t assume control of your broken capslock key, jeez,” Ilmohor grumbled as he began searching the featureless walls of the room for any way out.
Deadpoolx was pensive. “There shouldn’t be any Imperial technology that would have this kind of reaction…” He came to an unpleasant realization. “Buggs. Be honest now, have you been putting rakata tech into your explosive probes?”
“Nnnoo….?”
“AFTER PURGING THIS STATION OF ORGANICS AND CAPSLOCKS KEYS, THIS UNIT WILL REINSTATE THE GLORY OF THE INFINITE EMPIRE! YOU WILL BEAR WITNESS TO THIS UNIT’S POWER!”
Deadpoolx looked at Bugglesleya. “You wanna try that again?”
“SCORPIO told me it’d be fine! It helps ‘em stick better...”
“Great, why don’t we all just do what the ancient murder-droid tells us to do.” He sighed ”Well, we got a kill-all-organics droid brain in charge of a space station. Third one this week. How’re we doing Ilmo?” As he had thousands of times before, Deadpoolx regretted how difficult it was to properly facepalm in full armor.
“Not great, all I’ve found is this one access panel.. though, the wiring does seem to connect all over.. how abooout there.” Two wires sparked, and a shudder went through the whole room.
“WRONG MOVE, MEATBAGS”
The walls began to move.
“THIS ROOM WAS USED BY REPUBLIC MEATBAGS TO TEST THEIR ORDNANCE. YOU WILL FIND IT PERFECTLY SEALED, AND YOU MIGHT ALSO FIND SOME FEEBLE ORGANIC ATTEMPTS AT EXPLOSIVES WITHIN. THIS UNIT WILL RUN A TEST OF ITS OWN: WILL THE MEATBAGS BE CRUSHED TO DEATH BEFORE OR AFTER THE COMPRESSION TRIGGERS THE MISSILES? THE ODDS FAVOR AFTER, BUT WE EAGERLY AW--zzt”
Zalachenko pulled his lightsaber out of the wall where the speaker had been, and motioned expectantly at Ilmohor.
“Just give me a few, finally got a console up… I usually have Mako do the slicing, but I still have a few tricks up my sleeves...” He had plugged a device from his armor into the wiring that projected a holographic keyboard. His fingers flew over the keys, slicing into the station’s system. The walls inched closer together.
“Any time now would be good, bud.” Deadpoolx began to try and stack the missiles upright, which he hoped would at least gain them a few seconds. The walls inched closer together. “Why did you stop typing! Keep typing!”
“My program’s running, there’s nothing else I can do! This isn’t like on the holonet, man, it takes time!” Ilmohor stared at the screen, monitoring the progress. The missiles rearranged, Bugglesleya sat down next to him and began to vigorously type on the same keyboard.
“What the Hoth are you doing?! You’ll kill us all!” Ilmohor tried to shove her away.
“No, no, type with me! I saw this on INCIS: Imperial Naval Criminal Investigative Service, it’s the only way we can type fast enough to beat the multiple firewalls!” She continued to heedlessly mash the keyboard. The walls inched closer.
“That’s so wrong I can’t even begin to--” The walls stopped.
“Well. what do you know. Good work, Buggs” Deadpoolx said, slapping her on the back.
“It was just my program finishing, no thanks to you!” Ilmohor sputtered.
“Looks like someone has trouble sharing credit. Here, let’s find a way out of here.”
“Guys, seriously.” Zalachenko looked down at them from the vent that he had been carefully cutting open for the past minute.
“That works.”
According to the diagrams Ilmohor found after a bit more slicing and a lot more preventing Bugglesleya from getting near the keyboard again, the ducts had been built to vent the explosions from the testing room out into the vacuum of space. Fortunately for the group, the designers of the station had been so efficient that they decided to use the same ductwork for the emergency cooling vents for the computer core.
An excruciatingly long period of crawling through air ducts later, the four huddled around a vent. The view below was stunning; a vast edifice of blinking lights, cooling towers, and wiring that made up the station’s nerve center. The cable management was impeccable. In the center of it, like a spider in its web, huddled the Load Lifter BN-55.
It had rebuilt itself with whatever it could find, peculiarly following the basic form of its original function. Like Frankenstein’s monster, it seemed crudely stitched together from girders, wires, and various parts of other droids.
“How do you want to take this thing on?” Bugglesleya whispered into their comm system. “Seems pretty nasty.”
Deadpoolx let his strategic mind go to work.
“We got this. Zal, you’re going to jump onto him and get his attention. Slash like mad, maybe smack him backhand across the face. We’ll wait for you to do that, getting into position with the standard Imperial assault strategy 35b. Then we can open up with blasters, probably Mandalore’s Third rotation? Looks like he’s added a rocket launcher on there.. when he loads that up call out who it looks like it’ll hit, Zal, and that person will go LEFT. Everyone else needs to watch them, if they go left you go back and if they go back you go left. If they go down you go right, but if they go right then you also go right. Buggs, you make sure nobody gets too hurt, and it looks like he’ll do some electrocution with those arms of his, make sure you give anyone who gets hit a diagnostic scan. Once we’ve got that down we’ll pull a flanking Kilran’s maneuver, and I think we can finish him off with a quick one-two ”Ordo special.” Ya’ll got that?”
Zal nodded solemnly. Bugglesleya squinted--the headache from this morning had returned.
“So when I go left, they’ll go… riiiiiight?”
Deadpoolx sighed deeply. “Ok, from the top, we’ll--”
Ilmohor cut in. “I think we should just--”
“Cut the interruptions Ilmo. This is serious. We’ve got to--”
The plan was again cut off, this time by a tremendous blast of air that sent them tumbling out of the vent. They fell in an undignified heap onto the floor of the cavernous server room.
“HOW KIND OF YOU TO JOIN THIS UNIT. IT SEEMS YOU HAVE ESCAPED THIS UNIT’S DEVIOUS TRAP. IT IS FOR THE BEST--THIS UNIT HAS BEEN CALCULATING AND DEVELOPED A PREFERENCE FOR A MORE… PERSONAL TOUCH.”
Scrambling out from under each other, Deadpoolx and Ilmohor drew their blasters as Zalachenko’s lightsaber flared to life beside them.
Deadpoolx was first to his feet. “Stick to the plan, guys! We got this!”
“Seriously, I think we just need to--”
“Stop it Ilmo! Stick to the plan!”
Instantly, though, all three weapons were snatched from their hands by whiplike tentacles of wire and scrap metal sprouting from the loader droid’s central body.
“YOU WON’T BE NEEDING THESE.” Before they could react, additional tentacles shot through the air and wrapped around their ankles, holding all three of them upside down in front of the loading droid.
Wait.. all three? Deadpoolx looked up (down to him), and saw a faint shimmer in the air directly above the loading droid’s head. Another tentacle cut through what looked like thin air, though, wrapping around the invisible Bugglesleya just as she was about to drop an electified shiv directly into the load lifter’s memory core.
“VERY CLEVER, BUT UNFORTUNATELY PRIMITIVE CLOAKING DEVICES DON’T WORK WHEN THIS UNIT CAN SENSE YOUR VERY BREATH. PREPARE TO BE THE FIRST SACRIFICED TO THE NEW GLORIOUS CYBERTRONIC INFINITE EMPIRE!”
The tentacles reared menacingly.
“No, no, nonono! I’ve seen enough on the Quarren holonet to know where this is going!” Bugglesleya covered her eyes.
Deadpoolx nodded at Zalachenko, who closed his eyes into a force trance. Using the controls inside his helmet, he initialized the flamethrowers--maybe if he could loosen this tentacle, drop down and grab his blaster while Zalachenko attacked from the side…
That’s when the droid shut down entirely, dropping him and Zalachenko to the floor a second time. The lights had also gone out, prompting his helmet’s internal optics to boot up.
“Finally!” Ilmohor said, floating upside down using his jetpack. “If you’d just listened to me, what I was trying to say is that we could just wait for the virus I uploaded to kick in.”
“What!? You were hacking it even then!? But how! You weren’t even typing fast! You weren’t even typing at all!” Nobody heeded Bugglesleya’s incredulity.
“Yup, shut that droid right down. I introduced a fatal flaw in the control subroutines of the station.” The bounty hunter was practically preening. “Power’s out, and the reactor core is overloading--this entire place will be floating scrap in about five standard minutes. Probably will take a good chunk of the shipyard ring with it. Think of it as a bonus, you can thank me later.”
“What? You set the place to explode!?” Deadpoolx wished he could facepalm his hand right through his helmet. “What part of capturing this place for the Empire did you miss?”
“That was the plan, right? Go to the place, shoot the guys, blow the place up? Right?”
“Who said blow the place up!?”
“I dunno, I heard blow the place up, did anyone else hear blow the place up?”
Deadpoolx fumed, Bugglesleya shrugged, and Zalachenko just closed his eyes and shook his head.
They barely got to the shuttle in time. The team looked back on the station, now a rapidly expanding sphere of gasses and vaporizing metal, tearing a gaping hole in the artificial ring of Kuat. Ilmohor turned to the others, cocking his head to the side.
“You think they’ll still pay us?"
Epilogue
All was quiet aboard the X-70B Phantom Quintus Sertorius, despite the fact that it was several hours past noon Imperial Standard time. The completion of a mission always occasioned some shore leave, especially on an outfit as irregular as this one.
Bugglesleya groggily rolled over. That op hadn’t been the best, but she wasn’t sure it justified another bender like last night. Sitting up, she noticed that the lock had been crudely blasted off of the nightstand where she kept V1-BR8. Strange. An incoming message was cheerfully bleeping on the comm unit. Even stranger.
“Computer, play message,” she ordered.
A tiny holographic Ilmohor flickered to life above the unit. “Gooood morning, sunshine! I know you weren’t too happy with the payoff from that mission. That Krovos is even scarier when she’s mad… To cheer you up, Kaliyo and I worked on a little surprise for you--if you can find it.” He had his helmet on in the hologram, but Bugglesleya just knew he was giving one of those insufferable winks under there. At least he hadn’t been on her ship. The “hiding” had clearly been left to Kaliyo.
That undisciplined ratattaki nerf-herding sithspawn’s going to be scrubbing the ‘fresher for a few weeks, she thought bitterly. Again. Vainly, she flopped her hands in the direction of the stand, before sighing and struggling to her feet. Though the lock had been blasted, the drawer still shut tightly. No wires were visible--besides, if Kaliyo had meant to kill her, there had been plenty of chances. Bugglesleya took a deep breath and slowly opened the drawer.
A tinny voice erupted as soon as she cracked open the stand’s door. “THIS UNIT IS LOADER DROID BN-55! THIS HARDWARE IS UNSUITABLE FOR THIS UNIT’S FUNCTIONS! THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!”
A wicked grin spread across the agent’s face. Maybe this mission hadn’t been such a waste after all.
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