//------------------------------// // Pie in the Sky // Story: Bounty Hunter Anon III // by Sunny Solaire //------------------------------// The layout of the spire isn't too complex. There are corridors and hallways that branch off left and right in a few places, but overall, it seems pretty easy to figure out. The floors and walls are clean and shiny, but this place obviously wasn't made with tourists in mind. It kind of reminds you of Hoity Toity's building in lots of ways. You casually pass by a pair of troopers as you make a right down another short hallway. At the end, it looks like it opens up to a more common area. From here, you can see a couple of Sith officers sitting behind a desk. Once you reach it, you realize that you're at the main entrance to the building. The large glass doors leading outside are on the opposite side of the room. You look around the foyer. Usually, from your personal experience anyway, the security room is located around the entrance. There's a door off to your left that looks promising, so you head there. To the right of the door, you spot a security access panel on the wall that looks like it will unlock to anyone with proper clearance. Luckily, the Sith you killed had an access card, so you take that out and get ready to scan it. As you approach, you hold the card out and press it against the access panel. After a second, it beeps and turns green and the security door opens for you. You're now in the security room. 'Jackpot.' You grin under your helmet and look around. On the walls are tons of screens showing live feeds of activity all over the base. You can see the main entrance from a few different angles, the maintenance building, and a few places around the spire. They're being watched over by a single Sith security officer. A female. She's alone. She looks over at you as the door closes behind you. "What do you need, trooper?" She isn't armored, so you can see her face. She's an umbaran, so what little hair she does have is hidden underneath her black hat. She's wearing a pressed black uniform, so she obviously holds more status and ranking than you do. Taking her disguise could get you into more places here than your trooper armor probably would. "I need your clothes, your boots, and your speeder bike, if you've got one!" You say. Before she can react, you reach out and grab her neck with the Force and choke her. Her colorless eyes widen as the air is sucked from her lungs and she grabs her neck as you move in behind her. She tries to reach for her blaster, but before she does, you silently grab and crack her neck with your hands behind her and she goes limp in her seat. You breathe a sigh of relief and look around. Sure, you were silent, but you're worried that someone will eventually come in the room. You need to hide the body before taking her clothing. There's a big cabinet in the corner of the room that you could probably stuff her in. Hopefully, no one goes looking in there until after you're long gone. You manually lock the security room door behind you before taking her body and dragging her toward the cabinet. You open it up and start removing your Sith trooper armor. Once it's off, you put it all in the cabinet and then begin removing the security officer's clothing. You're lucky that she's also near-human. She's not a zeltron, sure, but the fact that she's here working for the Sith means that sight of aliens shouldn't raise too many eyebrows. As long as you act the part, you'll be fine. After a few minutes, you're wearing her clothing, except for her underwear, leaving her almost completely exposed. Luckily, she's dead, so the cold weather shouldn't bother her too much. You stuff her in the cabinet and shut the door behind you, locking it in the process. You put on her officer's cap and turn around to face the computer screens. You can see absolutely everything from here. The servers that store all the cameras' data are probably somewhere else nearby, but as far as physical security direction is concerned, this looks like the right place to be. It's weird that there was only one person in here guarding all this important stuff. The whole base seems a bit devoid of life too. One would think that this security officer you just killed would have a buddy to watch her back. Then again, it is nighttime. Maybe things are just more relaxed right now. Looks like you guys picked the best time to shut this place down. If that's the case, then there are probably more troopers sleeping in the barracks right now. If so, maybe there's a way to lock them in there so they can't bother you while you destroy the virus. Anything you can do to make this whole thing easier would be cool, but you'll look into all that later. Right now, you need to get your friends in here. "The security room is mine, you guys. Start making your way to the spire." You say in your comms. "Nice work, Pinkie!" Anon says. You watch the camera feed for any movement from the transports. One of them that was parked in a darkened alleyway turns its lights on and starts moving. "I think I see you guys on here." You tell them. "Can you let me know which transport you are?" That same transport flicks its lights off and on a few times as it drives forward. "Yep! That's you!" You say. "Just point us in the right direction, Pinkie." Applejack says. You guide them down the streets and towards the rear of the building. They drive casually, doing their best not to alert anyone around them. Even though you have control of the security cameras now, there are still a lot of eyes all over the place. Once they get in the building, you'll cut off any communications and alarms so they can stay undetected. The last thing you all need is a battalion of Sith crashing your party. As you're watching them, the Sith comms beep on the terminal in front of you. Someone starts talking. "Command to security. Come in." It's a woman. Sounds like she wants to talk to the security officer you just killed. Obviously, that won't happen. You're a bit frozen in place as you think about what to do. Someone from command is obviously more powerful than the people in the security office. If she suspects something, your cover will be blown. Since the security officer is dead, you've got to say something. Anything. You clear your throat and activate the Sith comms. "Go ahead, command." "I want you to perform a perimeter sweep around the spire." She says. "I sense something... off. We may have intruders." Your eyes widen a little as she speaks. You're talking to Chrysalis herself right now, and she suspects something. That's not good. Play it cool, Pinkie. "Yes Ma'am. I haven't seen anything out of the ordinary here, but I'll send a few troopers around the place to make sure." You lie. "Good." Chrysalis replies. "Keep me informed." "Yes Ma'am." You shut off the Sith comms and take another deep breath before contacting your friends. "Did you guys hear that?" "We did." Anon says. "You've got the cameras, right?" You look at the terminals in front of you again. "Yeah. Let me loop the feed from the backdoor entrance before you guys get too close, just in case." As you do that, Mandalore comes on. "What kind of resistance did you see inside the building?" You shake your head. "Not much, Mandalore. A few bad guys here and there, but nothing too crazy. You shouldn't have much trouble being sneaky once you get inside. It would be a good idea to hide the bodies of anyone you kill, if you can, though. You guys heard yourselves that Chrysalis is suspicious of something." You finish looping about thirty seconds of footage over the backdoor cargo entrance. Your friends are now invisible. "Not a bad idea, Pinkie." Applejack says. "We noticed as we were drivin' around that the main doors to the spire are tinted like crazy. You can't see anythin' goin' on from out there. If you can cut off the alarms and comms, then once we're inside, we shouldn't have a problem." "I'll see what I can do, you guys." You reply. "The main security office is at the main entrance. Once you get here, we'll come up with an idea of where to go." "Sounds good." Anon says. "We're driving into the rear lot now." Since you've already looped the camera, you can't see them on the screen. You'll take his word for it. "Okie dokie! I'll see what I can do from here." You reply. You shut off your communications and watch the screens, taking a seat behind the desk and cracking your fingers back, ready to help in any way you can. ---