Log:Clan Kora: Even Ghosts Leave a Trail
The Citadel has woken up. Dormant security systems power on. Droids kept in statis have activated. Armed with a map of the facility, the infiltrators must make their way through the maze-like corridors of the ancient Jedi prison to the warden's office. There, they hope, they will gain access to the old prisoner archives. Another step forward hounding the path of a desperate man from years ago.
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Even Ghosts Leave a Trail
OOC Date: November 23, 2022
Location: The Citadel, Lola Sayu
Participants: Valeska Kora (GM), Narsai Ordo, Khalim, Hadrix Kora, Nerys Greystorm, Kirana Ryder, Jallo Dara, Clan Kora
--Valeska--
The prison was built to keep captive some of the most dangerous individuals in the galaxy. Not the most vile or the most violent. Mass murdering psychopaths and slave traders that specialized in child labor are stains upon society. They are wicked, selfish, and opportunistic. Dangerous in their own right, sure, that belong in prison or worse. But none of those criminals could measure to the people the Citadel was constructed to contain: Force users who succumbed to the temptation to wield their abilities for their own gain. People who could kill someone from a distance. No weapon. No poison. Just the power of their minds and a /need/ to bend the very fabric of reality to their whims.
For this reason, the Citadel is more than just a labyrinth of corridors and dead ends. It is madness in its own right. A place designed to confuse and disorient with any number of traps and triggers to overwhelm anyone trying to get out. Or get in.
The infiltration team made it to the control room easily enough. But this, too, was a trap. Upon receiving the information they needed, it triggered a chain reaction. At the peak of the tower where they stood, they feel a tremor as systems come online. Droids activate. Traps engage. It is a sleeping giant waking up and now they must navigate their way into the bowels. Deep, deep down where nightmare of the prison truly resides armed with only a vague map to guide them and a host of unknowns waiting.
Their first and immediate threat comes when the second door slides open to reveal another droid; mirroring the first they just dispatched and equally ready to kill them.
--Narsai--
A trap! A deadly droid titan...but this time Narsai springs into action. Eyes narrow behind her T-visor and her beskar-forged hilt springs to life with glowing violet plasma singing it's harmonic song of impending slicing!
Surging forward, three swift and devestating blows land, but the damn thing keeps going!
--Khalim--
Everything that began happening in that moment, each shudder from deep within other arms and other levels of this vast citadel, registered to Khalim as something almost certainly 'no good'. If there had been any question (there had not), the pnuematic whoosh of that second door's slide open eliminates doubt.
Standing there, just beyond its durasteel framed portal, is a twin to the massive battledroid they'd just felled. This was one doesn't share the craters and blackened scars that had been inflicted upon its sibling. For the moment, at least. Narsai leads the inflitration team's response with her plasma-buzzing whirl of that purple blade, but Khalim's head had been on a swivel and his own blaster already shifting aim. A quick double-tap sends a pair of bright golden bolts screaming out of his chonky pistol's oversized barrel. Tibana assisted, they impact the droid's armored form with a brilliant shower of sparks. The holes they leave? Not so big, but it seems to slow the metal beast down.
--Hadrix--
Droids.
'They don't even bleed.'
'Not now.'
Turning where he stands, disruptor pistol in one hand and heavy revolver in the other, helmeted head inclining to one side while Narsai sweeps in and Khalim opens fire. The DX-2 levels and when it goes off it is less a report of a weapon firing as much as the shriek of vacuum forming and refilling as molecules are broken down to component atoms. Wide of the target, the blast strikes wall and vaporizes a section of wall with the explosion of the Morellian revolver in his fist going off.
Thumbing back the hammer, Hadrix begins to take steps forward and fires again, the third shot from the big man striking one of the security droid's legs and forcing it to stumble to one side, momentarily.
<"Kriffing thing.">
--Nerys--
Just when she was about to start digging in the guts of the station's systems to enter into battle against the security systems, the door opened to reveal one of those security systems, and both the droid maglocked to her back and the one clinging to the side of her helmet like a mad mechanical muppet, squeaked out a warning to her on their shared comms. "Always when I'm working." Nerys did not miss a beat, turning and firing three shots towards the droid, though, sadly, only one hit the target. There was barely enough of it left, even moving, to constitute a target.
--Hahtavi--
Having just finished up at the computer consul, Hahtavi has extracted the data they needed to get started while the others dealt with the first droid. Now there's a second! He gets clear of the computer station but there's a lot of people in here rushing the new droid or shooting at it. Haht gets his baton ready in one hand and reaches for an ion grenade with the other but ...
Nerys and others are just in too close. This Kora decides to hang back and let them finish it off rather than risk damaging anyone's armor.
Grenade slipped back into his satchel, Haht takes up a position to watch their backs as his teammates take out this latest difficulty.
--Kirana--
Having finally reached this massive chamber of the citadel with the group, Kirana had grown quiet and withdrawn as the others explored around the large chamber. Once the citadel started to come alive, however, and the large doors swung open, she, like many of the others, had slowly turned to watch what emerges from within.
As she'd already been introspective on what this could be, she was able to hold firm while the huge war droid presented itself. Still holding her telescopic combat staff like before, she slides her thumb across the locking lever and giving a pull with her arm so that its two ends retract in on themselves, sliding the knob back in place to keep it locked in. Her left hand moves to the the bottom of her right forearm and she slides her thumb along a small switch that she had installed herself, allowing a modification in her gauntlet to slide a small slip of flimsi between her thumb and forefinger.
This flimsi, if any were close enough to see it - or weren't watching the droid and could even see what she was doing - was small and rectangular in shape with an old Mirialan script written vertically down its length. She speaks quietly to herself, murmuring so low that only a few words can even be heard outside her helmet, such as: <"ywerhaadif.. aefaaku.. de..">
She tosses this flimsi down on the ground and throws her opposite arm forward, extending the staff to the ready for the impending fight! [Language: Mirialan]
--Jallo--
Jallo slides forward the vibro sword in his hand as he closes the gap to the droid trusting that those shooting aren't going to hit him as he slips off to one side the insanely high vibrations of the chain-whip cutting through the droid his wrist shifts and another flick the sword punctures through once more just to ensure it stays down. <"That was a monster droid."> His helmet looks around a bit but he doesn't put the sword away it's going to be a long trip out.
--Valeska--
Valeska lets out a breath and turns towards the consoles with her brows furrowed. "This whole place is on alert now, yeah? So much for a quick in and out. Woof. We are knee-deep in it now. Hmm." Hazel eyes scan over the various blinking lights and small screens of readouts. "Hadrix, do you mind if Gripper and I have some girl time? I don't know all this tech stuff, but I can monitor things while she tries to get the aerial defense offline so we can make a fast getaway when we're done, yeah?" Valeska has nominated herself to stay behind and help with the technical side of things. They're all doomed.
The main lift takes the remaining entourage down, down, down. Passing several floors of equally maze-like passages. Down down. Past the ground level where the hangar remains abandoned. Down into the depths of Lola Sayu.
When the doors open, they are greeted to... nothing. Seemingly nothing. Just hallways and split paths. A system meant to discourage and dishearten. The kind someone can get lost in and never return.
With Hadrix in the lead following the map as he tries to decipher it, eyes and ears are open to any bit of movement. Any odd plate in the walls. Wires on the floor. Death traps. Weak footing. Meanwhile, the more tech-saavy of the group are ready to expertly diffuse what is found. So far, nothing has leapt out to attack them. Directly.
Then the group comes upon a massive door that impedes their progress. Then another. Then another. Five doors in total. Someone shifts, something is accidentally pressed, and panels slide open in a rush to reveal turrets aimed in the center of this half-circle room.
--Narsai--
Someone likes their traps! Narsai moves as the turrets are revealed, the advancing Ordo Alor wheeling her weapon around and lifting to a defensive stance. A step back, her legs are bent to coil and be ready for springing into covering the others.
--Khalim--
The audio receptors set into Khalim's helmet pick up another signal, however. This one much closer. His attention shifts to the side, eyes hidden behind polarized lenses focusing upon Kirana's armored form as the woman murmurs something that rings familiar. Most of her utterances remain quietly indecipherable, but a few odd words slip out. Mirialan, spoken with the cadence of someone still learning the language but it's unmistakeable. The mirialan's attention remains fixed for a moment longer before the group is moving into that life, and down they go... down, down, down...
The bit of exploring they manage to accomplish prior to disaster striking is rather impressive given the supermax nature of this prison. But when they do meet an immovable obstacle, it's joined by a couple of rectangular friends. "I have a bad feeling about this," is all that escapes that emerald-glazed helmet before his words become a premonition accomplished.
Five turrets, and they seem less than pleased to see the infiltration team. The power-cycling whines of energizing weapons systems make it clear, to Khalim at least, that violence is the answer. And so violence is delivered, in the form of another twin shots blasted into plasteel. Golden sparks erupt, as do the turret's internals.
--Hadrix--
<"Gripper.">
"On it." The ID10 is to work immediately, moving to Valeska's side while transferring data to Hadrix's suit systems and making adjustments per her own brief perusal of the data there before it appears on his HUD. Brows knitting at feeds from sensor and camera systems connected to it, the big man is biting tabs and blink selecting information that is sent to the others with heads up equipment.
Those with AR systems even get floating X's in front of corridors that are wrong turns or in one case the yawning opening of what looks like a pit that tumbles down to the depths of the planet core. Moving without hesitation, complete confidence in his pathfinding, even when turrets spring out his hands are moving of their own accord. one of the automated systems simply ceasing to be before the thunderous report of the revolver comes again, blasting open metal and sending sparks fountaining out.
<"I think I want to take this place over."> Striding towards the closed door without fear.
--Nerys--
Nerys, moving out with the rest of the group, got herself into working order. Which meant the ID10, Bitty, to those who knew her, detached from her backpack and loomed over the shoulder Numpty, the BD droid was not standing on. As they moved, Nerys' keen eyes marked the areas of interest noted by the scouts, and she lifted a hand, "A moment." Stepping away, she worked open an access panel, the sound of powering down units coming up before the turrets activated. She had not gotten all, but had managed to reduce the number, surely. As she worked with one hand, the other raised the pistol. Two shots into one of the already damaged turrets and a third into another. Not many to go now, one would hope.
--Kirana--
Kirana's personal bit out of the way, she extends her staff to join in the fight, only to find she'd been a bit slow. Leaving the parchment on the floor where she tossed it, she nods to the group as a whole and proceeds forward toward them at a light jog, her staff held down at her side.
While the lift descends them further into the prison she remains quiet while the others strategize and plan, only offering <"I'll help scout ahead.">. She's not remaining quiet due to nerves or an effort to remain notably stealthy - only that it serves her better to think clearly if she's not bothering with quips and complaints.
Turning a corner into one of the dark hallways, she reaches up to enhance the night mode of her helmet's visor, spotting something strange in the wall. <<"The indention there,">> she starts, pointing as though someone could actually see her, <<"I'm thinking that's a defense system. Turret, or some other kind of trap.">> Sure enough, the traps are sprung and her observation rings true.
The turrets spring to life (and blasterfire) and as the shots ring out up and down the halls, Kirana retracts her staff and with one hand secures it to a hardpoint behind her shoulder, and with the other, her left, draws a small, Corellian pistol from a bantha leather holster at her side. She assists Nerys in blasting at one turret, then aims and begins laying into another as the first one explodes to a bundle of scrap! <<"Give us the word to secure it, and it's yours,">> she offers in response to Hadrix's musing. Maybe there was time for a small quip after all.
--Jallo--
Jallo sighs as he's working on a computer system and just shakes his head, <"Sorry this..."> And the wrong button is pushed, <"Didn't see that coming..."> And as the doors pop open he leaves his sword leaning against the console and he pulls his E-14 out spinning to fire two fiery bolts from the small weapon at two different turrets. Then as the fighting comes to an end he reholsters the E-14 to grab his sword once again.
--Valeska--
BANG BANG BANG! One after the other in rapid successil, the line of turrets are dispatched. Only the last one manages to get a trio of shots off though misaligned due to it being on fire. Narsai steps in quickly to block those shots, deflecting the last one right back at the machine and taking it out before the flames can.
Returning to the map, Hadrix contemplates their next move. Out of five doors, four of them are surely their own kinds of traps and deadends. But it is with a keen insight that he discovers instead that /all/ five doors are traps. There is a sixth exit incredibly well-hidden right behind them; next to where they had all entered.
Together, Jallo and Nerys manage to override the systems through a small panel on the opposite wall; narrowly avoiding another trap that would have seen them electrocuted for their efforts. The door slides open, revealing the next leg of their journey: a long narrow hallway illuminated by flickering white lights that buzz loud enough to rattle the eardrums.
Kirana and Khalim are keen to keep their eyes and ears open. That noise they had sensed behind them grows closer. Faster. More noise is following them. More movement. Metal on metal. Three? Four of them? What /is/ that noise? They may all very well find out as the group is stopped by a fifteen foot hole where the floor has collapsed, revealing dark purple on all sides and a peek of golden liquid sulfur at the bottom.
--Narsai--
Quick, deft movements deflect the shot into the turret, leaving the device destroyed before they move in through the door and onwards. A frown, those scraping metallic sounds has her exhaling her breath, trying to focus her defense.
"<Be ready, it sounds like we've got more company!>"
--Khalim--
As the situation settles, surrounding turrets slagged and lending some small amount of additional lighting in form of guttering flames, something attracts Khalim's attention. Something behind, and as the mirialan turns, gaze thrown into the dark, he adjusts his visor's opto-electronic low light enhancement. There's something about the stillness to the man's form, leaned just ever so slightly forward, that suggests careful attention being paid.
As his visor's sensitivity is dialed up, fuzzy forms begin to take shape. "Oh, kriff," is all that escapes, very lightly vocoded and carrying more than a hint of alarm. The lead object's hard lines resolve into a clearly mechanical form, quadrupedal and moving fast. The tell-tale metal upon metal click-clacks of movement gains strength, and it becomes clear this is a pack of something moving with urgency.
"We, uh..." Khalim's focus remains fixed, though his gun hand is now drawn again to fore, barrel aimed into darkness. "We're going to have company, really soon. Droids, quad legged, a pack. They're in a hurry."
--Hadrix--
Pausing at the pit, Hadrix's frown is audible in the 'Mrmmmmm' that issues from his helmet vocalizer, golden sulfur glow reflected in his visor. Turning slightly at the waist when clattering is heard, the big man goes still, thoughtful. The idea of turning to face whatever might be behind them is strong.
Very strong. Gnawing at his focus. The pistols are slipped into belly clam-shell and dropped into a hip holster with the aplomb of a man wiping his hands before the massive bronzium cannon is lifted off of his back and the bolt racked to put a durasteel quarrel into the chamber. Magnetic coils within creating their pressurization field steady and tibanna starts to flood in, ready to be ignited.
<"Guess we'd better get moving then, mmm?">
--Nerys--
Making it through the gauntlet of turrets was not even half the battle, so please, forget that old adage about how important knowing was. Nerys continued on, allowing the others through into the darkened corridor before she followed up behind. The distinct lack of suitable, steady light did not appear to pose a problem for Nerys, who simply kept a weather eye on their surroundings. A tilt of her head came as she heard the sound behind them, helmet tipping that way, dismissing the problem ahead. A hole was a hole. It couldn't hurt you, so spake the space tomb raider. "We need to cur off their approach. We passed some blast doors, if we can get them closed, it'll keep them out." It would also lock them in, but hey, Nerys was not trying to be a Space Debbie Downer today. "Dara, with me." She took off at a sprint to get back to where she has spied toe door controls.
--Kirana--
While the final turret burns its circuits up, Kirana relaxes her combat posture and thrusts the pistol back into the holster at her thigh. She turns around to survey the area around them and grabs for her combat staff once more, throwing her arm forward to extend it to its full length. <"Wasn't too bad,"> she offers in summation of the turret traps, but that was probably only the beginning. She offers a nod of commeraderie to Nerys after the two of them took a turret down together and then steps forward to do her scouting work. <<"Something coming up behind us,">> she says after holding her posture still a moment. <<"A lot of somethings,">> she adds, echoing Khalim's revelation.
--Jallo--
Jallo's attention goes to whatever it is that's running up behind them and when the blast door is pointed out he moves over to it with Nerys before he quickly mashes the buttons to close the doors, <"They didn't sound friendly I figured we shouldn't invite them into our part of the hallway.">
--Valeska--
From the darkness beyond can be seen several pairs of light. Tiny beads of green that bounce up and down as a pack of... something... is rushing their way. Metal claws dig into the floor, scraping down the hall with a most terrible sound. Not quite as terrible as the digitized growls and groans coming their way. Then under the buzzing lights emerges a pack of -- they can only be described as hounds. Mechanical hounds the size of a mastiff each with serrated jaws and programming set to Maul.
Faster and faster they come barreling down the corridor then --- SLAM! The blastdoors crash down at the last moment; cutting one of these mechanical mutts in half and leaving the rest behind the barricade to charge and bang and scratch. The doors may not even hold forever under such an attack. All the better for the group to keep moving.
One by one they make their way safely over the pit, able to take their time having succeeded in halting their pursuers. Eventually, this one-way street branches out again. Several paths winding and twisting. Some leading to long-empty cells and some leading to more free falls into sulfer. Hadrix keeps them steadily on course.
Good thing, too. Because it allowed Nerys and Jallo to focus on the technical side of things. As they near their destination, the triggers grow more frequent and complex. Khalim and Kirana spot a few. Hadrix and Narsai sees a couple, as well. So numerous are these alarms. Yet the computer saavy pair disarm them. Which is great. Because when Khalim and Kirana spot their last obstacle, it's only one instead of multiple.
Guarding the Warden's office is one final and formidable obstacle. A broad-shouldered frame cuts a menacing silhouette in the group's way. A droid of silver metal that has long-since lost its shine over the decades. What it hasn't lost is the terrifying red glow in its oculars and a similiar one pulsing from the round core in its chest. A droid from ages past designed specifically to rival the lightsaber skills of Jedi with the deactivated electrostaff held at the ready in both mechanical hands.
No demands for surrender comes from the automoton. No chance for the group to turn around and leave. The moment they are in range, both ends of the electrostaff snap to life. Blades made of purple, crackling energy whip and flicker angrily. Humming a tune of readied death as violet light reflects from its emotionless facade. And with that, the IG-100 MagnaGuard charges forward.
--Khalim--
Khalim quick-steps up to that cleave in the floor. At its bottom, far below, that slow-motion swirl of molten, golden death beckons. A quick look to the far side is thrown, a gauging of the likelihood he could make it with a running lead. A little shake of his head signals the mirialan's conclusion. Now blocked in, he looks about the closed-off space behind him, tallying those members of this infiltration team that share a common feature: rocket thrusters.
Behind them all, that banging and scratching makes it clear this is a situation best resolved immediately. Joining at Hadrix side, Khalim tugs on a caribiner clip firmly attached to his combat webbing, and with a /CLACK/ he clangs it against some outlying part of the towering mandalorian's armored form. Helmet swiveled, Hadrix can likely hear the vocoded grin behind Khalim's, "Hey, it's me!"
Aaaaaaaand they're over! The far side, however, leaves little to be thankful for as they come face to face with something equally as deadly as that hellish golden pit left behind.
Khalim, when faced with a charging MagnaGuard, responds as his life experience dictates. His pistol whips forward and he pulls the trigger. A whole bunch of times. Only two bolts escape its barrel, and of those only one strikes true, but those golden sparks make this scene look just that much more cinematic for the effort!
--Narsai--
It wasn't the first time Narsai Ordo had been faced with a Magna Guard droid, though this one seemed to be of a particularly vicious programing and quality. Extending her lightsaber as bolts fly through the air Narsai leaps into battle, trading strikes and parries but only managing to land one solid hit so far.
Still, the thing was made to fight Jedi...and Narsai Ordo was no Jedi, she was a Mandalorian!
--Hadrix--
Close quarters? Jetpacks? Khalim clamped to him? Hadrix nods to the person clinging to him, quite literally and with one arm wrapped around the miralian's middle he starts forward with a few hard steps before he leaps, aiming for one side of the wall above the chasm, hitting it and taking a pair of steps and pushing off and running downward to level ground. Unhooking the other once they're no longer flipping and flying through the air.
<"Easier to just say you're hitching a ride.">
The appearance of the magnaguard raising his rifle to fire - sending a green comet into a wall to one side, then another while the recoil rocks him backwards to create sparks from his beskar shod boots scraping against the ground from the sheer power of the magnetized cannon loosing its salvo.
<"Magnaguards, shifting mazes..."> teeth gritting making his vox casted voice distort further, <"Bloody, kriffing, things.">
--Nerys--
"Nice work." Nerys always appreciated working with someone who was a dab hand at mechanical things. But as soon as the doors were sealed, the next danger loomed and that was the pit. "I should have brought my power armor." She glanced at Jallo, giving a 'what can you do' shrug, "It's in my other backpack." Once they reached the shore of the abyss, she turned and held out her arms, "Carry a lady over the threshold of doom?" Such a nice chap, at least to look at him. Snazzy armor and all.
And then they were across, and the looming form of a MagnaDroid rose against them. Nerys reached down, unsnapping the ball holster at her hip, but then the lightsaber wielding !Jedi Mandalorian moved too close and engaged with the droid and Nerys lifted her blaster instead, sending a fair set of shots into the droid's body. The droid had reach though, and one of it's swings opened up a line across Nerys chest armor. But the Nerys Greystorm of !Clan (but sort of yes) Greystorm was not out of the fight.
--Kirana--
As the others begin to transverse the chasm, Kirana approaches the edge of it and activates her helmet lamp to look down into the pit out of curiosity. Staff in her left hand, she raises her right arm up, fingers curled into a fist, and taps a switch with the tip of her staff to send a thin whipcord across the void at what looks to be a suitable anchor point. The fastener wraps around the anchorage she'd selected and clamps onto itself and Kirana Ryder retracts the slack from the line so it'll be taut when she takes the plunge.
And take the plunge she does. A sight that might be alarming to Sumi, if she were to see it, the Ryder in the black and purple armor takes off with a sprint and jumps into the chasm!
Fortunately, she will fail to plummet toward the bottom as she starts the retraction function of her whipcord and a moment later can be seen on the other side of the pit, running up the wall with her arm held out ahead of her while it pulls her back up the other side. As she nears the ledge, she disengages her whipcord, using the latent momentum of her ascent to step up and over the side, able to stop running as she angles upward and onto proper flooring. No time to brag, however, as she hears something up ahead. <<"Keep sharp,">> she warns, just in time for the bunch to not be caught off guard as the MagnaGuard comes rushing forth. Thinking fast, as since she still had her whipcord ready, she unlatches from the wall anchor, aims for the droid and fires a cord center mass. The whipcord wraps around the droid's hips and she does her best to hold it in place so the others can wail in to it for as long as she can keep the line intact! <<"I'm holding it!">> She shouts for benefit of the others. Meanwhile she sets her feet into a fighting posture, ready to defend herself if the droid comes for her as a means of getting free.
--Jallo--
The visor of Jallo's helmet just points at the droid as it comes towards them he moves towards it bringing his rapier like vibro sword to the fight getting two very solid stabs in then realizes the droid had been hit with a whipcord and he starts to chuckle a bit, <"Oh perfect timing for that cord.">
--Valeska--
The MagnaGuard hasn't seen action in what must be years. Not since the last occupants of the Citadel made the mistake of coming by this way. It would explain some of those pits in the ground. Too jagged to have been carefully crafted. Blown open, more like. Still, this machine is as deadly as the day it was created if only showing its age through dings, dents, and scuffs in the alloy.
But without the reinforcements of a fully operational Citadel, this singular droid is fighting a losing battle. If only it knew what losing was. A whipcord around its legs does well enough to stifle it's demon-like movement and attack after attack rails into it. There are closed doors on either side of the entrace to the Warden's Office. No doubt more of these things that haven't had the priviledge of being woken up yet. Hopefully never.
The electrostaff swings madly yet effectively, making contact on no less than three solid bodies of the intruders attempting to breech it's terriroty. For what little good it does, however. Regardless, the MagnaGuard doesn't relent. Relenting was left out of its programming.
--Narsai--
Crackling voltage and singing plasma collide as the droid fights the Mandalorians (+1), but the ringing impact of Hadrix taking a strike to the face has Narsai giving an annoyied grunt. The saber dancing with a strike across the MagnaGuard's chest chasis, leaving a glowing line of heated metal before she twist and strikes downwards, sending one of its limbs skidding across the floor with a shower of sparks.
--Khalim--
The MagnaGuard's reality is every nightmare etched into every young Padawan's dreams, once upon a time. Fast. Brutal. Its existence is one of codified elimination, and it is freakishly accomplished at that task.
And yet, what surrounds it is something equally formidable: a who's who of the galaxy's most tenacious adventurin' types. Khalim drops to a stabilizing knee as the droid's attention is drawn away. One eye narrows as the other snaps to the reflex sight sitting atop that Mandal-tech monstrosity some call a pistol. "Fates work through me," he murmurs, and the trigger is pulled. Once. Twice.
Two streaks of gold lance out, their discharge booming around this confined space. One washes against a far bulkhead in a shower of sparks, but the second, it spears the mechanical dervish, gutting some portion of its internals.
--Hadrix--
Long gun raised to catch the staff at its' midpoint, the Boar-Wolf of Ealor is forced back again by the strength of the droid, vocalizer blazing static from the growl issued by the man set upon by the droid designed for combatting Jedi, decades ago. On the backfoot and ducking to one side when an overhead swing is aimed for his shoulder.
Quick steps carry him back, circling, trying to find an angle when he suddenly finds himself on the floor with spots dancing before his eyes. He's skidding and sliding across the floor with the screech of metal before the heavy KLUD of his body striking a wall and his vision is doubling.
'It hit us in the face.' the snarling voice is there, in the back of his mind and in the waking world the deep throated growl is shaking the vocalizer speakers of his helmet before Hadrix speaks, the voice bestial but in control.
<"Hit me in the kriffing face."> the right side of his helmet still glowing faintly red from the staff that had impacted when he rolls up to a kneeling posture, shaking his head to try and clear it before the first shot goes out. A viridian star exploding against the side now sans a limb thanks to Narsai, the recoil slamming his back against the wall when he fires again, the bolt driving past armor plates and into the droid before it detonates in an emerald shower of sparks and flame.
The droid is hurled, lifted and smashed against the ceiling from the angle of the shot then hits the ground in a rattling mess, fluids leaking and optics going dark.
<"Kriffing thing.">
--Valeska--
What lays beyond the busted droid is the Warden's Office. Dusty and in utter disarray. Though not pillaged. The now deactivated MagnaGuard is likely to thank for that. The chair is turned over and draws are open. A mess left by the last ones to occupy this place. What does remain, however, are terminals. Lots and lots of terminals. And a lock box that is undoubtedly the archives they have come to plunder.
There are, surprisingly, windows in this room. Hidden from the outisde, carved into the living violet rock of Lola Sayu. A quick means for escape so long as--
<<"Hello? Can you hear me?">> Valakes'a voice fills the tower over the internal intercom. <<"Oh, great. So Gripper got the aerial defense systems down, yeah? I got your location on the system's surveilience and pinged the Woor'tra for you. They'll head in your direction for a quick pick up as soon as you give them the word. You find what we're lookin' for? We can crack the nut open after we leave.">>
Just a matter of dislodging the nut from the tree. As it were.
--Nerys--
Nerys, who had raised her blaster to have another shot at the droid, lowered it again when she saw the thing go down. "Nice work." But there was no peace to be had, and the work still needed to be done. Nerys slipped past the group, Bitty hovering away from Nerys' shoulder as she began a search of the control room, Numty jumping down from her shoulder to nose around. Between the three of them, the eliminated most of the consoles and many of the old storage arrays, narrowing down on a secured lockbox, "I think this might be what we're looking for." Nerys and Bitty got to work, Numpty keeping a weather eye out, beeping in excitement as he gestures to another location in the room.
--Kirana--
The droid down, Kirana Ryder disengages her whipcord and draws it back into her bracer, though it'll surely find use soon as she spots the windows within the next chamber. <"Think I found us a way out,"> she offers, pointing at one of the windows with her staff. Hopping up on a table to get some height the Morellian thumbs a locking lever on her staff to collapse it in two. Holding each like batons, she begins to pound on what she perceives to be the structural weak point of the window. <"Blasted pane is thick,"> she growls. She takes a moment to focus and adjust her posture to one commonly used in Teras Kasi and works on the window again, this time throwing her shoulders harder and utilizing kicks as cracks begin to form. After a minute or so the thick glass shatters outward and she uses the batons in her hands to press away the remaining glass sticking out of the windowsill.
--Jallo--
Jallo moves over to where the secondary box was located and starts to work on disengaging and getting the lock box out... But looks like the master mechanic crossed some of the wires wrong at the end of if and there's an ozone smell, <"Ouch!"> and some smoke from some of the components however the box is free, <"Got it! Can't feel all my fingers but I'm sure that'll pass.">
--Valeska--
Not one but two lock boxes to take back to base. Two more encryptions to crack. Find out what's inside. But that can wait. It will have to wait. Gripper's override will only last so long. The Citadel is angry. Especially as Hadrix, Narsai, and Khalim put the finishing touches on one of its strongest sentinels.
Kirana finds that a stick meeting a window enough times makes for a glorious escape and Hadrix is quick to radio the Woor'tra for an exfil. Jallo and Nerys have the prizes in hand and together they all make short work of getting the hell out of there.
One last stop to the tippy top of the tower to pick up Valeska and Gripper who had also discovered how quickly an escape route can appear with enough blunt force to glass.
The Woor'tra's thrusters burst to life and carry them out of range before the systems return online. The Citadel shrinking from view among the purple and gold of the Broken Jewel herself. May they never see it again.
