//------------------------------// // 63: The Trap (II) // Story: Empire and Rebellion // by Snake Staff //------------------------------// As the rain poured down onto the dark grey prison roof, a Lambda-class shuttle began its descent perfectly on schedule. As it approached the landing platform, the two wings on the supply craft’s underside folded up and landing gear descended. It touched down without ceremony or comment, automated systems having long since accepted its authorization codes. No one was there to greet it save four particularly luckless troopers assigned to stand out in the downpour, and none of them wanted to leave what little shelter that they had. It was of little interest to them when uniformed men began to hurriedly push gravsleds laden with heavy boxes of food and machine parts down the shuttle’s ramp and through the rain. Those men raced as only soaked and miserable men can, coming quickly to the dedicated cargo turbolift. One of them punched in a quick code, then held his eye wide open for a biometric scan. The computers processed the information for what seemed to them like an eternity, as they stood there and shivered in the rain. In reality, the reinforced doors opened not more than fifteen seconds later. They rushed inside with their hovering pallets, breathing hard. Neither bothered trying to maintain a dignified appearance as the doors closed again behind them. Moments later, the smooth and silent descent came to an end and the doors opened up again. This time they revealed a sterile and brightly-lit room filled with neatly-stacked crates of supplies, food, and weaponry. Well-practiced, but not in the mood to hurry back outside, the Imperials took their time with sorting and unloading their gravsleds. Bulk loader droids were there to assist, dim and slow but very strong. In the midst of the hustle and bustle of cargo being unloaded, no one noticed a shadowed figure break away from the group, disappearing amidst the rows of crates. The shadow made its silent way through the prison hallways, seemingly almost invisible despite the stark red and white glows illuminating everything. Everywhere it went cameras seemed to be perpetually at just the wrong angle to witness its approach, pressure sensors found themselves buoyed by invisible energies, and keypads depressed in their appropriate codes without a finger being laid upon them. The living guards, patrolling the corridors on their endless vigil, reported nothing out of place. Sure, one or two of them were occasionally struck by the urge to look in a particular direction or to avoid a certain turn of the hallways, but such impulses were hardly out of the ordinary. No one thought anything of them. No one was thinking much about anything that night, save how dull, tedious, and generally unpleasant it was to march in randomized circles about the broad prison complex. None of the prisoners were outside of their cells, the interrogation rooms were empty and silent. Dinner, such as it was, had already been served to the unfortunates rotting here and most were asleep. No one expected to see anything, and so no one did. Despite this, the shadow was ever vigilant. Its mind felt almost like it had been shattered to pieces engaging in so many different tasks at once. All at the same time it had cloak its own signature in the Force, keep a continuous lookout for security alarms or guards, cloud their minds or dull their senses, interfere with the sweeping cameras’ angles, and of course keep a firm lock on the very thing that had brought it here in the first place. A lesser mind might indeed have fractured under the pressure and ruined everything. As it was, the shadow touched a cloth to its forehead after a few minutes of slowly making its way around. It couldn’t keep this mad juggle up forever – it needed to hurry. The shadow made its way through hallways and corridors, down side passageways and ducked in and out of alcoves as the situation demanded. Once it even pinned itself to the ceiling, willing the Stormtroopers that marched below it to ignore their peripheral vision. And that they did. Its target was close now, the shadow could sense that much. The Force presence of this individual was weak, barely registering as more than an ordinary being, but it was still undeniable. If it hadn’t been able to sense that same presence from beyond the building when it had first scouted it from the outside, the shadow would never have come near this facility in the first place. Regrettable as it was to say, many here genuinely deserved to be in prison, and there was only so much even the most powerful of beings could do. The shadow could taste the prisoner’s lingering fear, anxiety, and mounting claustrophobia. It could hear the echoes of threats in the slowly unravelling mind, and the subconscious plea for help. As the shadow crept ever closer, it doubled down on concealing its own Force signature. In this it did even better than it knew, for there was another here actively looking. Buried deep in a central command room and ensconced in deep meditation, the Inquisitor was cloaking her own signature as she had been for many hours, simultaneously stretching out her mind to seek others like her. It spoke volumes to the intruder’s ability that, for all her efforts, Luna had not been able to detect any of its uses of the Force while remaining concealed herself. Down the last hallway the shadow crept, ducking into an alcove in the wall as another patrol marched past. Yet another exertion of will and the two men spent the whole way eyeing what was directly in front of them and paying no attention to what they walked right past. When they had turned the corner and vanished, the shadow allowed itself a quick sigh of relief, dabbed off a few more beads of sweat, and hurried down the way. Ducking under the broad view of the nearest security camera and rolling nimbly, it at last came before the cell it had come for. A hand stretched out, allowing the Force to guide its actions. Not a finger was laid on the keypad, but the appropriate sequence was input all the same. The cell door slid open, and immediately the shadow realized that something was very, very wrong. The spotty footage the shadow had seen had hardly been of the best quality, but there was no mistaking that it had portrayed a human as the mysterious Inquisitor’s opponent. The cell’s occupant was a horned, middle-aged Iktotchi in a clumsy kneeling pose atop his bunk. His eyes snapped open almost as soon as the door did. The moment his gaze fell on the shadow, she sensed a wave of realization, followed swiftly by guilt. The prisoner buried his face in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he half-whispered. “I-I didn’t know why…” The shadow looked around franticly on both the physical and metaphysical planes. In spite of the man’s words, the surrounding area didn’t erupt in wails. No guards came running, no gasses flooded the room. It didn’t sense any newfound alertness in the minds of the guards still marching about. The door didn’t even make an attempt to seal itself off behind the shadow. It seemed as though it had triggered no alarms at all, and indeed it hadn’t. No audible ones at any rate. Luna’s meditation was broken by the soft sound of buzzing. Her eyes immediately snapped open at the long-expected sound. Ignoring the painful cramps developed over hours of kneeling in one spot atop a hard metal floor, she quickly turned her gaze to the vast array of monitors behind her. They depicted an undisturbed Imperial prison complex, guards blissfully unaware of what was happening. She ignored that, focusing in on one screen in particular. She’d chosen a cell with an internal security camera to hold her bait, of course, and even while she cursed her failure to sense the intruder was glad that she had. The Iktotchi’s cell was open to the world, the prisoner’s face buried in his own hands. He was saying something in a soft voice, but the alicorn had no attention to spare for him. Lingering in the doorway, seemingly uncertain of what exactly she should do, was her intruder. An orange-skinned Togruta female in dark clothing, with a pair of lightsabers peeking out near her belt. She was young, the alicorn wouldn’t have gauged her as much older than her early twenties at most. Luna stared at the screen for just a moment, getting a good eye for her target’s appearance, before turning and bolting.