Ty nods. "While I would ordinarily have no issues with joining your service, I am currently under contract to my current employrer, I am certain if I spoke with him a new version could be arranged that would allow me to provide my services to you as well." Ty twists his head in a question, "Do you wish me to?"
OOC: A droid and a jack-of-all-trades in this guy's entorage? I think we'll have their computer spilling its metaphorical guts in no time.
Vorik is trained and smart, but a bit careless under the circumstances. Cat finds herself getting an interesting ride into the bowels of the tower. The route through the tunnels and hallways twists and writhes like a wounded snake.
But it pays off. Vorik has a prisoner. A besalisk prisoner. Backing well out of earshot, Calsera puts in a call to Eritram on a coded and shielded frequency.
Calsera hears the good news about Mandall's death-defying escape over the shielded commlink. Before too long, Mandall slips down next to Cat's hiding spot - and none too soon! Screams of agony start pouring from the locked and guarded chamber where Tol Grannick, Lt. Maso's spy, is presumably being interrogated/tortured/killed by Vorik.
Roga's place
Ty and Murdoch accompany the corpulent Hutt back to his chambers, located several levels below Naga's own lavish accomodations, but in the same fortress-spire. Roga sequesters himself in his private quarters to sleep off the spice while Ty allegedly works on MDK's motivators and affixes a shiny new fake restraining bolt.
What really happens is: MDK slaps the fake bolt on himself and Ty heads for the nearest security console. He fishes some surveillance gear out of his various pouches and hooks up some jamming equipment. Confident that Naga's own slicers won't detect him, Ty starts snooping.
MDK cases Roga's place. It's a simple habitation level - nothing particularly untoward inside. The outer walls are blast-shielded, with heavy-duty force screens preventing outside surveillance. It's a tough nut to crack from the outside, but once you're inside it's nothing special - just a few rooms connected by standard doors. Roga's private chambers are rated against small arms, but it seems he trusts his brother enough not to invest in, say, blast doors and autoblaster turrets and the like.
Roga's accounts indicate that besides his late Wookiee minders, Naga allows Roga a handful of security personnel for whatever the younger Hutt might need. As for their whereabouts, Ty does a quick scan and finds that Roga is in the middle of a coded transmission to them now. He cracks the code with the big droid's help and gets the tail end of the message:
*- and bring the ion guns. No, no, I'LL tell Naga, YOU get your lazy friends down here NOW.*
The news over the commlink brings a smile, but she's still a little surprised when he pops up next to her. Cat greets her fellow fighter-jockey with a wink and a nod.
"The door's pretty thick and the screaming's pretty loud, so I don't think those inside will hear us take out the doorguard." Calsera points at the big man as she pulls her own sidearm. "Once inside, we capture Vorik, rescue Grannick, and eliminate anyone else. By the way, there's at least one droid inside, but I don't know what model. Okay?" she asks, drawing a bead on the bulky human at the door. "On one. Three... two... one."
*vraap!*
Once the guard is down, Cat will move to the door and check it for security. If it requires a key of some kind, she'll search the guard.
Calsera's shot blasts the door guard off his feet and slams him up against the wall and down into a heap. The door's not crypted and slides open with a swish, revealing Vorik Mazof and a blue patinaed FX-series medical droid administering a variety of drips into Tol Grannick's bacta tank. The Besalisk spy floats in the green fluid, myriad probes and connectors attached to various points on his body. His face is locked into a grimace beneath the breath mask.
"Not one step further, honey," Mazof says, his hand resting lightly on a control panel. "One push of a button and this spy dies."
---
Ty and MDK search the comm frequencies as fast as they can, backtracing Roga's call for help. The comm network gives up its goods - the call for reinforcements was sent to the general quarters three rooms down. Already the stomping footfalls of booted feet can be heard pounding towards Roga's penthouse doors.
Mandall approaches the door, still covering the hallway with his blaster. With a sidelong glance, he takes in the situation.
"Permit me to introduce ourselves. 53rd Legion, 2nd Platoon Storm Commandos. We're here to retrieve our man, or, failing that, prevent him from giving information to our enemies. That said, your bargaining chip isn't much of one, so if I may offer you some advice - quit while you're ahead."
One good shot and lard-boy goes down. Within moments, they are across the intervening space and through the door. Unfortunately, they don't get the jump on Mazof.
Mandall plays his card and Calsera decides to play along. "The captain would like him back," she says, gesturing at the tank with her gun, "but it doesn't much matter to me. The real question is: what to do with you?" Her blaster returns to pointing at Vorik's chest.
"I think you should let me live," Mazof replies. "After all, you won't get out of here without my help. You need me so you can play it cool and waltz out of here."
---
The doors to Roga's penthouse blow open, spraying jagged shards and smoke throughout the room. Roga's personal security detail, six sentients in blast vests, burst into the room with ion guns raised.
"The Hutt's not going to trust you after this, but I have a soft heart for selfish people - so you just won a free ride out of the system. Sarge, cover the exit, I'll get our man."
(Assuming Mazof lowers his gun and isn't just faking us out...)
Mandall walks by Calsera and holsters the gun, then gets to work extracting Grannick from the bacta. While doing so, he briefly raises his head to address Mazof.
"The security holos will be toast when we get out of here, but your little droid there is a witness. I'm sure a man of your *expediency* probably has a solution prepared for just such a contingency."
"Not a problem," Mazof replies. He takes a surgical saw to the FX droid's neck and within seconds is toting the severed head under his arm. "My yacht has a medical bay on it - unless you've got a hospital ship with you, that's our best bet." Vorik sets up a repulsor-gurney to lay Grannick on.
"Private yacht? That's the first good news I heard all day. Mazof, you and the Sarge take our friend to the yacht and do your best to get into orbit quietly. Sarge, you know how to take it from there, we'll meet up at the carrier. As for me..."
Mandall snatches the blaster from the downed guard and prepares for a Carth Onasi-style beatdown.
200 kilos of metal killmonger throws itself at the 6 ion gunners as bolts dart throughout the penthouse!
Ty hunkers down behind a ronto-leather sofa and squeezes off two shots as a single gunner manages to yank his sidearm and send a blast-bolt through the sofa, narrowly missing Ty. Ty's shots zip past MDK - one of Roga's security detail goes down hard, smoke pouring from his sbdomen, but Ty's second shot only wings the guy's buddy.
The rest of the security detail pour ion blasts into the big droid. Two gunners miss just out of pure fright, but the other three put their blasts on-target. Electrical cascade arcs meters off of MDK but the killing machine doesn't stop. He grabs two gunners even as they're firing point-blank and slams their heads together. There's a sharp *crack* as at least one of the guards' necks gives way. Murdoch tosses the horribly injured guards into two of their fellows, knocking the entire group over in a pile.
Murdoch can feel the ion charges wreaking havoc with his internal systems. He's gotta take the rest of these guys down fast - and starts by caving in a prone gunner's ribcage with his metal foot. A second guard rolls into the penthouse, scrambling away from MDK's swipe, but the third thug isn't as lucky. MDK grabs his leg, pulls the guy out of the pile, and throws him into the reinforced shielded panoramic window. The guard hits headfirst and slumps across the floor. The window shields flicker as they absorb the impact.
The last conscious guard raises his ion gun to shoot MDK in the back, but decides to curl up in the fetal position and die instead. Ty lowers his smoking blaster and surveys that which he and his droid companion have wrought. Six guards in six seconds. The penthouse is wrecked - none of the electronics are online, and there are scorches everywhere. Comatose (or worse) bodies litter the floor. Finally, there's MDK-911 himself; smoke sputters from his torso and every few seconds a miniature lightning bolt arcs to the floor. Miraculously, the droid is still online.
The smell of ozone and carbon-scored blaster hits still fresh in the air, this droid is not looking too good. Fortunately the opposition looks even worse.
"New plan. We're getting off this rock and anyone who says otherwise is getting a blaster bolt to the face."
Ty stands from behind the couch. "Works for me. We should find way to a ship and I should take a look at that." He gestures at some of the varied damage on Mandall.
OOC: Once we're out of the room, could we track down a closet or something where Ty could get Murdock back up to "not sparking"? Maybe someplace where Ty could pull up a map?
Ty leads MDK one level down to a cramped maintenance hatch, where he sets about repairing some of the massive ion damage the droid took.
(You're back to 11/14 Shock, MDK)
---
Meanwhile, Mandall sneaks off for an encore of his performance on Mygeeto. The armory (well, ONE of the armories) is right where Mazof said it would be - but the guard standing outside was conspicuously absent from his description. Not to worry, though. Mandall toggles the lights from his hidey-hole and waits for the numbskull to inevitably see what the matter is.
Grab the handle, push the button.
The strangled guard finds a new home in a turbolift access hatch while Mandall helps himself to the armory. Ominously, it looks like a platoon-sized force already went through here... most of the small arms racks are stripped bare, but Mandall's not looking for those. Whoever they were, they didn't take detonation charges with them. Mandall appropriates a sizeable amount of explosives and gets to work, setting the first charge amongst the explosives that he's not bringing with him.
(Blow one now, use THAT distraction to get to another critical location? Or plant as many as you can and blow them all at once?)
---
"Hangar level's six floors up," Mazof tells Calsera. "This lift should get us the closest," he says, motioning to a chromed turbolift door. Grannick's floating stretcher makes for a tight fit inside the elevator capsule.
Mandall sets the charges, then slinks back into the shadow and heads for the security room. Once he's clear of the blast radius, he triggers the charges.
That ought to keep them scrambling while he destroys the holocam footage...
Mandall gives Naga and his minions an early Life Day present in the form of firey destruction! The blast from the armory shudders the massive starscraper. Power blinks out and just as quickly returns. Mandall heads for the security nexus after waiting for the patrols to rush past his hiding place. The distraction worked like a charm, and he doesn't see any of Naga's men until he gets up to the security level. There are four sentients watching the holoconsoles, barking terse orders into commlinks. There are at least two guards watching the watchmen, with a third guard roaming the level. Mandall's access hatch exits the wall behind the main console bank, from which he can see the layout pretty well.
---
After the explosion, MDK and Ty notice a definite decrease in the bloodthirsty goons out for their hides as they sit in the maintenance room.
---
And finally, as the power flickers, Mazof makes a move on Calsera - he darts for her blaster in the cramped turbolift, trying to angle it back and fry the Cathar with her own weapon! Cat shoves Mazof into Grannick's grav-sled, trying to force him down for a clear shot.
(he got the initiative, but you defended against his attack, hence the struggling over the blaster)
e of pi
