Bounty Hunter Anon II

by Sunny Solaire

Breaking and Entering

The three of you step off your ship and onto the Upper City landing pad. The sun had set, and twilight was now upon you, but that didn't mean you were under the cover of darkness, by any means. Not on this level, anyway. Coruscant's non-stop city lights made sure of that. The shadows will be yours once you are on the rooftops.

You lead the girls to the building's doorway and step inside. None of you say anything as you make your way to the elevators. You're all about to do something extremely illegal, but it's for the best. Hoity Toity won't be missed anyway.

As you move through the building, you pass by a few security cameras. You had elected to activate the sensor jammer before you landed. Once the senator's penthouse comes crashing down, you can be damn sure that the Republic authorities are going to be checking everywhere for evidence. These security cameras aren't as much of a threat. You can afford jamming them for a while longer.

The three of you find the elevators and call one down. It doesn't take long before it arrives and you all step aboard. The door shuts and you press the button for the roof access.

The elevator begins its long ascent, and you finally break the silence. "Sunset, how are the droids?"

She presses a button on her gauntlet and pauses. "We're still fine. All four of them are active and alone up there."

Just before landing, you deployed the four probe droids onto the roof as you flew over, along with their explosives.

"Good. Let me know if anything changes." She nods and you turn to Pinkie. "Are you ready?"

She smiles and nods. "I was born ready, Anon."

You nod back at her. "That's what I like to hear."

You all resume your unanimous silence as the elevator continues upward. The ascent is long. Very long. It's almost hard to imagine that there are buildings higher than this one on this planet.

Though you've tried to stop yourself, you can't help but think about the repercussions that will occur, if you're not successful. As soon as this assassination is carried out and that penthouse goes up, it will be planet-wide news within an hour and you'll be the most sought-after suspects in the Republic.

The first seeds of doubt are starting to grow, and you don't like that.

You growl softly and shake your head some, shoving those thoughts away. You'll be fine. With Sunset in the ship, Pinkie's expertise in theft, and your cunning, there's no way the Republic will know it's you. Besides, Captain Shining Armor can vouch for you that you've been busy looking for Discord. That's your alibi.

When the elevator finally reaches the top floor, the three of you casually walk into the hallway and find the roof access door. You make sure the coast is clear before heading outside.

The glow of Coruscant's cityscape illuminates the night sky all around you. Countless speeders and starships fly above and below you. It's a constant line of traffic and skyscrapers no matter which direction you look.

"They're over here." Sunset points to the far side of the roof and you spot the four probe droids, all of them obediently awaiting her next command.

You all jog over to them and she checks them out to confirm that they're all still armed and equipped.

"Still good?" You ask.

She nods. "Still good."

You pull up your map on your HUD and locate Hoity Toity's apartment. It's a kilometer away. A bit far, but that's not the issue that's on your mind the most right now.

It's certainly not the one on Pinkie's mind right now.

She's near the edge of the building and barely looking over the side. "Anon, are you really sure you don't want to get a speeder?"

"I'm sure." You reply.

She looks back at you. She's not smiling. "Are you really, really sure?"

You're not going to judge her this time for being nervous. It is a very long way down.

"Don't worry, Pinkie." You tell her. "You're still more useful to us alive."

"Gee, thanks..." She says nervously.

You chuckle and Sunset steps toward her. "You have nothing to fear, Pinkie. The traffic doesn't run through right here, so nothing should hit us. We won't drop you either."

You stand on the other side of her. "We promise."

She looks between you both and takes another deep breath, shaking away her fear as best as she can. "Alright... Alright! Let's do this!"

Sunset presses a button on her gauntlet and all four probe droids fly past you, toward the next building. Once they're about halfway there, she grabs onto Pinkie's left hand and you grab onto her right. Your robotic arm locking in place.

"Remember, don't look down." You tell her.

"Don't look down..." She repeats with a deep breath. "Okay..."

She gulps and you and Sunset activate your jetpacks. You all rise into the air and fly over the edge. Pinkie lifts her legs up close to her body and closes her eyes when the lights from below illuminate her face.

You can't help but look down at the tens of thousands of speeders all crisscrossing each other for miles. It's nerve-wrecking.

Not that you have a reason to be nervous. You can literally defy gravity. You're doing it right now. But there's something about looking down at all that space beneath your feet, all that distance between you and the ground, it's impossible to get used to.

Shake it off, Anon. You're halfway to the next building.

A few seconds later, you descend and eventually land on the neighboring rooftop. Pinkie must have held her breath the entire time, because she releases it when you touch down.

"See? We're fine." You say.

She pants hard and smiles at you both. "We... We're fine!"

"Yep." You nod. "We only have to do that two more times now."

Her smile fades away again and you and Sunset start to walk to the other ledge.

"Awwww...." She reluctantly follows you to the next ledge and the process begins again.

The three of you fly up and over to the next building's rooftop in about two minutes. A few minutes later, you all land on the building closest to Hoity Toity's. The four probe droids are already there.

Pinkie releases your hands and takes a breather while you and Sunset proceed forward to look at the senator's building. As expected, there's no movement. The light in his room is on, but you can't see him from here. The landing pad is vacant and the doorway that leads inside has a faint red glow on it, indicating that it's locked.

"See anything?" You ask.

Sunset shakes her head. "No. You?"

"No." You reply.

"Alright. I'm sending the droid." She presses a button on her gauntlet and one of the probe droids zooms toward the building.

While she controls the droid's movements, you turn around to check on Pinkie. It seems like she has her bearings back, because she's pulling her goggles over her eyes. That's good.

You turn back to the building while Sunset continues to inspect it with the droid. "Okay." She says, "Everything looks like how Rarity's info said it did. Nothing unusual so far. I'm coming around the opposite side of the building now."

It's too dark for you to see the small droid from here. She continues pressing buttons on her gauntlet. With her helmet on, it looks like she's just staring off into space, like she's in a trance. You just stay silent and let her work.

"I can see inside his room now..." She says. "There. I found him."

"What's he doing?" You ask.

"He's coming from a doorway that looks to be more secure than the others in the room." She replies. "It's probably a private vault or something."

"Oh! Valuable stuff is in vaults!" Pinkie says from behind.

Thank you, Mrs. Obvious.

"Can you tag him?" You ask.

"Hang on..." Sunset stays still for a few more seconds before a small red holographic dot appears on your HUD over your view of the apartment building. "Got him."

Perfect.

"Excellent work, Sunset." You say.

"Where would you be without me?"

You smile. "Raxus Prime. On my ass, remember?"

She giggles. "Oh, right."

"Bring the droid back here and watch our backs." You say. "Pinkie, we're up."

Pinkie steps up beside you. "Okie dokie!"

The building you're on is shaped in a triangle. One corner of the roof is much closer to Hoity Toity's building than the others. You and Pinkie run over to that corner. Your jetpack runs the risk of bringing about extra attention, especially from this far away, so you'd like to eliminate that as much as you can. You have your signal jammer, sure, but you'd rather not take that extra chance.

Once you reach this corner, you stop and scan the next rooftop for its communications access point. It takes a second, but you find it, as well as the four turrets and cameras that cover the rooftop.

This is the closest you can be to the building while still on your feet.

You take out the jammer and hand it to Pinkie. "Here, take this. Turn it on when I tell you to."

"Okay!" She smiles and takes it, but pauses, "Wait. How am I getting over there?"

"I'm going to carry you." You say as you wrap your arms around her waist from behind and hold her tight. "Hang on."

"W-Wait!" Before she can protest, you activate your jetpack and take to the sky once again. "ANOOON!"

"Quiet." You command.

She shuts her mouth and squeezes your arms as you both fly toward the senator's rooftop.

Sunset's voice comes on in your ear. "Anon, you're almost in range."

"Copy that. Pinkie, get ready."

You approach the rooftop, keeping your eyes locked onto the access point.

Almost there...

"Now!" You make a steep descend toward the rooftop and Pinkie activates the jammer.

Sunset speaks in your comms again. "Okay, Anon. You're in range and the jammer is active. You've got thirty seconds."

"Got it. Pinkie, as soon as we're over the rooftop, I'm going to drop you."

Pinkie nods quickly. "Okay!"

A couple of seconds later, you're directly over the building. You drop Pinkie onto the roof and zoom over to the access point, taking out your computer spike beforehand. Once you land, you immediately get to work on slicing into the system.

"Twenty seconds." Sunset says.

This system is a challenge, but it isn't as complicated as you were expecting it to be, thankfully.

"Fifteen seconds, Anon."

You hear Pinkie come up behind you, but you stay focused on the task at hand.

"Anon?" She says.

You ignore her. "Almost got it, and... There! I'm in."

You press a few buttons on your gauntlet and loop eight uneventful seconds from the cameras' feeds before playing it back into the system. Everything should be fine now, but just in case it isn't...

You spin around. "Focus on the turrets."

You and Pinkie bring up your weapons and point them at two of the four turrets on the corners of the rooftop, ready for anything.

Ten seconds pass and nothing happens.

"I think we're good." Pinkie says softly.

You nod. "Me too. Anything you can see that we can't, Sunset?"

She comes on again in your ear. "All clear on my end."

You and Pinkie lower your weapons before you turn your attention back to the access panel. "In that case, send the droids over. I'm shutting off the vents. Pinkie, give her an opening."

"Okie dokie!" She walks toward the vents while you bring up the component view on your HUD.

It's a pretty standard ventilation system, you'd think. You aren't a handyman, so it isn't your place to say what is standard and what isn't. Regardless, it isn't hard to shut down the air flow to the topmost section of the building.

Once it's done, you head to the vent with Pinkie. She's unlocked the maintenance access panel and exposed the central fan. You can see down into the building's inner workings if you look inside.

"Easy-peasy!" She says with a smile.

"Good. Now..." You point to one of the building's edges. "...the landing pad entrance is just over there. Get inside and start taking out the guards. Quietly."

She smiles and nods. "They won't see me coming."

You sure hope they won't.

She stands up and silently runs over to the edge before jumping over. The familiar hum of the probe droids behind you make you turn around and watch them as they head into the vents one by one.

"Our evil plan is working." You say softly.

Sunset speaks again. "Don't jinx us, Anon."

"Sorry." You say. "Just making an observation."

"Observe with your eyes then." Sunset replies.

You chuckle and prepare your explosives. Time for the next part of your job.

Quickly and silently, you make your way over to the edge. The thousands of lights, speeders, and buildings extend far and wide below you on this side of the building as well. You can't afford to use your jetpack here. You're right in front of the senator's window. But maybe you can use your fibercord to rappel down. Your jetpack can be a fail-safe.

This rooftop doesn't have many notches sturdy enough that you can anchor on to. The nearest one is an antenna a few meters away.

Work with what you have, Anon.

You pull out a decent length of fibercord from your gauntlet and head to the antenna. You wrap it around the base and tie it into a knot before heading back to the ledge. Once you're there, you turn around and retract the cord so it's nice and tight before stepping back onto the skyscraper wall.

You take a deep breath as you slowly begin to rappel down the building's face. You hate that this is making you nervous. Even though you have no real reason to be. Rappelling is stupid easy.

This is just instinctive. You're only human. Everyone who can't naturally fly has a fear of heights to some degree. You push away the fear and continue down the wall.

A few feet later, you reach the top of the senator's window and stop. You take out a small charge and attach it to the window. You've already tuned them to the correct frequency. Once it's planted, you take a few steps to the left and plant another one. About a minute later, all the charges that will be necessary have been planted.

Thank the Force.

You press a button on your left gauntlet and your fibercord slowly starts to retract while you walk up.

One more advantage of having a robotic arm is that it doesn't get tired. Your real arm would probably feel like it's going to tear from its socket right about now. Not this one. You've grown quite fond of this prosthesis.

Another minute later, you're back on the roof and making your way back to your anchor point.

You activate your comms. "The smaller charges are planted. How are you doing, Sunset?"

"I just planted my third charge." She replies. "The droids move well through these vents, but they crisscross like nothing else. It's easy to get lost."

"Take your time. We've got lots of it. How are things on your end, Pinkie?"

She doesn't answer you.

"Pinkie?" You repeat. "Pinkie Pie. Come in."

She still doesn't answer.

The one time you want her to talk is the one time that she doesn't.

"Damn it." You shut off your comms and quietly make your way over to the other ledge. Hopefully nothing happened to her.

You reach the ledge and look down at the platform just below. You jump down and land with a thud before turning around and pulling out your blaster rifle. The door opens as you approach and you see two Republic security officers laying dead on the ground. The second doorway just beyond is being held open by one of the officer's helmets.

You step over them and open the door. Just down the hallway, two more guards are laying face-down with their heads away from you. They were killed from behind.

The door behind you automatically shuts and you quickly proceed down the hallway. Everything is clean, well-lit, and free of any sign of violence. With the exception of the bodies on the ground.

You try Pinkie again. "Pinkie, come in. Pinkie."

A few seconds later, you hear her whisper in your ear. "What? I'm busy."

That's a relief.

"I'm inside. Where are you?"

"I'm inside too, doing my job by killing the guards." She snaps. "Follow your own plan and shush."

She shuts off communications with you right after. That's the first time that she's ever sassed at you like that. You're a bit surprised.

She's got a point though.

Keeping your blaster rifle armed, you silently continue through the hallway. Once you reach the corner, you carefully peer around it and spot another guard. This one is still alive and breathing. He clearly has no idea that there are four dead guards just down the hall, because he's just standing there at attention.

You bring your dartcaster up and aim it at his neck before firing. It zips through the air and injects the poison into his neck less than a second later.

"Ow! What the-" He grabs his neck and looks around, spotting you.

He's about to raise his blaster at you, but starts to rock back and forth slowly. A couple seconds later, he collapses.

You continue forward, stepping over his now lifeless body when you reach it, and head down the hallway. Your HUD indicates that the senator's room is just on your left. You'd continue there now, but you don't know how many guards Pinkie has killed, and she probably is too busy to answer if you contacted her.

The next hallway you reach forks left, so you take it. It's completely free of life, but you stay alert, just in case.

You're glad you do, because up ahead, three guards come walking out of a joining room and into the hall. You screech to a stop and immediately look around for a place to hide. There's no rooms or anything around you. You're just there in the hallway.

"Damn!" You curse silently.

Maybe you can take them all out quickly.

One of them looks forward and sees you. "Hey!"

You quickly hit him in the neck with a dart.

The other two have noticed you as well. They draw their weapons as their comrade chokes on the poison. You draw your weapon first and aim it at them. Your time for stealth is over.

"Woah, wait a sec!"

Just before you can pull the trigger, something pink drops down from the ceiling behind them and grabs them by their heads. She twists the both of them, making them crack loudly before they drop to the ground.

Pinkie looks at you with a wide smile and waves.

"Impressive." You say as you lower your weapon.

She giggles as you walk toward her. "I told ya I'm good! Even if you did interrupt me."

You're going to ignore that. She's okay and back to her bubbly self.

"Is this floor clear?" You ask.

She nod. "Yep! We just can't be too noisy or else the patrols below will hear us. Hopefully that isn't too much trouble?"

"Hardy har har." You say unenthusiastically as you contact Sunset. "How are those charges coming?"

"They're coming along." She replies. "I've only got three more to plant."

"Alright, keep in touch." You deactivate your comms. Looks like you've got a little time on your hands.

Maybe the senator has a terminal containing a few juicy secrets somewhere. It's not a bad idea to look. He may not fess up when you interrogate him later.

You look down the hallway toward a few of the open rooms before turning to Pinkie. "Think the senator has any good stuff laying around?"

"Oooh, I dunno. Let's go see!" She smiles.

She quickly heads down the hallway and into the room that the three guards came from. You follow her, keeping your guard up just in case either of you missed anyone. It's a simple meeting room with a table surrounded by chairs in the middle. It's very dull, with nothing of value in sight.

Pinkie is walking around the table and checking every nook and cranny she can find beside or below it, but eventually comes back to you. "Nothing in here. Let's check another room."

The two of you quietly move through the hallways, checking each room that you pass for anything of interest.

Rounding a corner at the end of a hallway, you spot another pair of guards standing in front of a closed door.

Pinkie whispers softly behind you. "Oops! I forgot about those two."

You whisper back. "It's fine. Let's just take them out."

You kill the nearest one with a toxic dart and Pinkie restrains the other with the Force, leaving him open for another one of your darts. Neither of them make a single sound.

Once they're down and out, you two check out the door they were guarding. "What do you think is in here?" Pinkie asks.

"Not sure. Only one way to find out though." You grab your blaster rifle and get yourself ready for anything that may be behind the door before you open it.

It slides open and you look around inside for any movement. You're met with a dark, narrow hallway. The darkened red lights on the ceiling barely give off enough to see ahead of you. It's very out of place, compared to the other hallways in this building.

"Spooky." You say.

You take a slow step forward and keep yourself ready. Pinkie follows close behind you.

As you press forward, you hear a weak groan up ahead and it makes you freeze. You and Pinkie aim your weapons ahead and listen for anything else. The groan comes again.

"Are there... ghosts here?" Pinkie asks nervously.

"It kind of sounds like it." You reply.

You continue toward the groaning. It's not a ghostly groan, not that you believe in ghosts, but it does sound weak. Like the kind a prisoner would make.

At the end of the hallway, you enter through a doorway and into...

"A detention center?"

Three small cells are on your left and right. They're all open except for one. In the back right corner, a blue energy gate closes off access, preventing anyone from getting in or out. The groans are coming from there.

You lower your weapon and slowly approach the cell. When you get your first look at its occupant, you gasp softly.

Multiple questions flood your head. One of the most prominent being, 'Why does Hoity Toity have detention cells in his apartment building?'

The other prominent question is, 'What is she, of all people, doing in there?'

"Adagio Dazzle..."

Author's Note:

Coruscant at night.

A probe droid.

Mandalorian in flight.

Coruscant building interior concept.

Comments

[Tearval]

Why can't things ever be simple?