Lucyeth
#13700

The caves were damp, dark, and cold. The only visible light came from the helmet light Delak had confiscated from one of the miners before heading into the cave system. He was looking for the kyber crystals that they had been sent to acquire. He needed new ones for his weapons and wanted to extract them before Xen sent the mining teams looking for them.

“This cave is huge,” Delak thought to himself. He continued the slow walk deeper into the underground wary of where he stepped. He had heard rumors of beasts that lived deep underground in these natural caverns. They were called Delkren Dogs. These dogs were said to have razor sharp teeth and giant claws. They could rip flesh from bone with one swipe. He hoped that he would never have to meet one.

The cavern opened up like the jaws of a rancor as he ventured ever further into the darkness. Stalactites and stalagmites hung from the ceiling and grew up from the floors like razor sharp teeth. The smell of sulfur could now be detected by his senses. The smell began to burn his nose as he pushed further and further after his objective.

Audible growls and a low howl could be heard from further into the cave opening. Delak slowly grabbed for his lightsaber. Feeling the cool metal cylinder in his hand he flipped to activation switch and watched as the purple blade of Shiny and Chrome sprang to life. The purple hue spread throughout the cavern and red eyes could be seen reflecting the glow back into Delak’s heart. He could feel it pounding ever faster. The day he dreaded had come. He could see three sets of eyes starting at him closely. They didn't move. They just sat there fixed on his own eyes. Out of the corner of his eye something else was reflecting his blade like a piece of glass. It was the kyber crystals. He had found what he was looking for but now it was a life or death mission.

The beasts stared into Delak’s very soul. Fear had gripped him and he almost didn't realize he was being surrounded. The Force was his ally, and his warning tool. The attack came swiftly from behind. The Delkren were pack hunters and had trained themselves to distract t the prey while they swung around from behind. Delak ducked underneath the lunge of one of the beasts and as soon as he had finished his roll another beast attacked him. Delak came out of his roll and pressed off with his feet into a huge leap from the ground. He flipped once in the air and landed on his feet. He flung bolts of lightning from his fingertips and landed a couple strikes against the beasts. They recovered and continued their attack. The beasts lunged again this time catching Delak in his mechanical arm leaving a huge gouge in the metal plating. He looked over the damage quickly and realizing that it was superficial attacked the beast with his lightsaber. He sliced through the skull of the first beast and watched it drop to the ground dead as a stump. The smell of roasted dog hair filled the cavern. He was invigorated after the kill and chased after another of the beasts. He jumped at the animal and landed a kick to its midsection knocking it off its feet. He landed and pounced onto it stabbing it through the heart. The final Delkren looked his direction and was about to run away. Delak threw his lightsaber with the precision of a Wookie Bowcaster. He watched as the purple blade hummed through the air and met it's target. The blade easily passed through the four legs of the animal dropping it quickly to the floor. The blade hit the ground and turned off quickly. Delak reached out for the lightsaber and within seconds felt the warm handle in his palm.

Delak once again ignited the lightsaber and felt it's warm presence. He looked towards the wall that held the kyber crystals he was seeking. Finding the crystals stuck solidly to the wall and realizing he lost his mining tools he took his saber. With his saber he cut three times in a triangular pattern to dislodge the crystals from the wall. They fell to the ground and he scooped them up quickly stowing them in his backpack. He began the long slow walk back out of the cavern system. Back towards daylight

Why did there have to be so many scientists that had worked on this stupid virus. He had ‘visited’ three of the scientist’s homes, hoping to have found something that would have linked them to the virus, but nothing as of yet. This scientist was the last on the list that his Summit had given him, and he was glad that this was the last, but also annoyed that he hadn’t found anything of value yet. From the fact that he hadn’t been called off this assignment yet, meant that the others hadn’t found anything yet either.

Standing outside the door to the doctor’s house, Armad placed his hand on the door and concentrated. He was able to get the sense that he had left some time ago, and wouldn’t return for a couple more hours, at best. Looking down at the keypad, Armad gave a vexing sigh, “This one is either very paranoid, or he has something to hide,” Armad thought as he look at a top notch three tiered security keypad. Thinking about it for a minute, Armad was able to discern that he would be able to get past numerical passcode easy enough, and the thumbprint scanner with some luck, but the keycard might prove a bit tricky. But he was getting rather bored, and he knew that he would start to look suspicious just standing here staring at a door after a while. So taking a quick look around to make sure no one was paying him any attention, he took a deep breath and placed one hand on the keypad, and the other on the door handle, and concentrated on finding the connection between the two. Armad’s brow furrowed in concentration when he wasn’t able to immediately find the connection between the keypad and the lock for the door.

Opening his eyes, Armad took a step back in mild disbelief, “Really?” he thought to himself. “It can’t be that simple.” Armad said aloud. Stepping back up to the door, Armad grabbed and turned the doorknob., using just a bit of the Force to force the lock to disengage and opened the door. Quickly stepping in and shutting the door behind him, Armad did a quick survey of his surroundings. Not hearing an alarm or sensing any traps meant to harm him, Armad started to wander around the house looking for a secret room or the good doctor’s study. He had found the doctor’s study early on, but continued to look around the house for good measure.

Upon entering the scientist’s study, after not finding anything anywhere else in the house, Armad saw that the side walls were lined with filled bookshelves. There was an ornate wooden desk centered in front of an equally large window at the back of the room. With an exasperated sigh Armad walked in and around the desk, rummaging through the papers strewn about the desk. Powering on the terminal that was sitting in the center of the desk, Armad continued to search through the papers and notebooks lying on the desk. He was looking through a personal journal that he’d found in the top desk drawer, when a tone from the terminal indicated it was fully powered up.

“So much for this being easy,” Armad mumbled as he saw a single text box in the center of the screen asking for a passcode. He pulled out his datapad from it’s pocket, plugged it into the terminal and tapped a few commands; one to start a program to crack the passcode, and another to copy and download the terminal’s contents. Setting his datapad down to let it do it’s thing, Armad went back to the journal he’d been reading. He was flipping through the middle pages when he heard his datapad chime, he looked up and smiled. He put his hand in the shape of a pistol and mock shot the terminal. “Gotcha.”

He had found a couple of entries that caught his attention. The first entry was about how he had stumbled across this virus when he accidentally dropped a tray of multiple other viruses. And being the ever curious scientist, he decided to see what this combination would do on living cells. The second entry was dated six months after the first entry, and talked about how a Pantoran approached him about the mixed virus that he had created. He talked about how he was scared at first and then wondered how they knew about it as it was kept under intense security. He stated that he was going to deny what they were talking about and refuse to help them. But when they offered his own lab and unlimited funding, he wrote that he faltered and accepted their offer. After that entry there was nothing else that indicated anything about the virus or the Pantoran, or the group that they represented. Putting the journal down, Armad looked at his datapad, expecting to see that it was almost done downloading...75 percent. It was better than he was actually thinking it would have been. With nothing left to do but wait, Armad picked up another journal and started thumbing through, it was a scientific journal that he understood about half of it.

“Uhm, hello?” a voice said from the doorway. “Can I help you?”

Armad froze for a brief moment, as if getting caught doing something he knew he shouldn’t have been doing, before regaining his senses, and looked up toward the doorway, noticed that the scientist was standing there with a female Mirialan and a male Kaleesh, both of whom were holding blaster pistols casually aimed at him. “Hey there, I wasn’t expecting you back so soon.” Armad joked and glanced down at his datapad, seeing that it was only at 85 percent. Slowly standing, Armad put the journal down and raised his hands about halfway up in a gesture of compliance with the non-verbal meaning of the blasters aimed at him.

“You tripped a failsafe embedded in the keypad out front,” the Mirialan stated as two bodyguards took a step further into the room and more to the side to give them better angles on him. The scientist remained standing in the doorway, a look of panic and fear was plastered to his face. “Who are you and what are you doing here? I only ask once.” The Mirialan demanded, the expression on her face blank and her presence in the Force was surprisingly calm. The Kaleesh was the complete opposite, fury and rage poised on the edge waiting for Armad to do something that he didn’t like.

Not really wanting to put on too much more airs about what he was after, so Armad just said what needed to be said, “You two can leave or die, I just want him.” When he felt surprise suddenly blossom from all three of them, Armad knew that this was the time for him to strike to end this quickly. Armad dropped his hand to his lightsaber. He sensed the Kaleesh fire first and brought his other hand up defensively. He willed the Force to coalesce within his palm, redirecting the quick shots harmlessly away. He was able to draw his lightsaber and get it ignited in time to deflect the shot from the Mirialan into the Kaleesh’s left shoulder. Because of the bolt hitting him in the shoulder, he was off balance when he shot, which Armad was able to redirect into the chest of the Mirialan, killing her before she was able to get off another shot. As he was thrusting his left hand, Armad gathered the Force and pushed it toward the Kaleesh knocking him back into the bookshelves behind him. Jumping around the desk Armad rushed forward and stabbed the Kaleesh in the chest to finish him off.

A little out of breath from exerting himself, Armad looked toward the scientist, who had dropped to the floor when the shooting started. “Don't move from that spot or I will hurt or kill you...haven't decided yet.” Armad dictated. He returned to the desk to check on the progress of the download, 95 percent. “Come on!” He exclaimed. He looked up to see the scientist trying to scoot out the door. But he froze when he saw he got caught. “I do NOT want to carry you, but I will shoot you in the leg.”