FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Walking Storm By: Shalmendo © 2017 For: Doran Eirok

Iri yawned as he roused in his apartment, tail flicking as he stretched under the covers and reached down to pull them aside. He slipped out of bed and reached over to feel for the control for the window shutters. Finding them, he pushed the open control and rubbed his eyes are light flooded into the room, revealing his simple, yet comfortable and cozy, studio apartment.

Iri stretched as he made his way into the refresher to take care of his morning routine, relieving himself, taking a nice hot shower in the Sanisteam, and brushing his teeth. He dried himself off with a towel hanging under the sink, then stepped out and stretched a little more as he scratched his belly. He glanced over the cookslot, pondering if he'd be satisfied with a space hotpocket for breakfast, but decided otherwise. He left the cookslot alone and checked on Katie.

Katie was fully recharged. But he wasn't ready to switch her on just yet, as he still wanted to get some breakfast and do a couple of other things first. So, he dressed himself casually, grabbing his little stingbeam just in case, and exited his apartment.

The sun was shining down into the apartment complex through a skylight above. Iri had been up to the roof garden bordering the skylight a few times to relax and lounge, and found it quite nice up there, but his stomach grumbled, reminding him that he was on the hunt for some breakfast.

He stepped into the lift, pushing the button for the ground floor. The lift descended gently, albeit with a little jitter which reminded him that maintenance probably hadn't gotten to tweaking it's mechanics yet. As the door opened on the ground floor he spotted an Ithorian neighbor of his, an older lady Ithorian leaning on a cane.

Iri smiled at her as he left the lift, "Hello Miss Ka-ko."

The Ithorian nodded softly, "Hello dear. Where's Katie today?"

Iri stepped aside so she could use the lift, "Switched off for the moment. Gonna go get some breakfast first and take care of a few things."

Miss Kako bobbed her head and gently patted Iri's head, "Good, good. Eat well and stay strong, dear." before she pushed a control on the lift and the doors closed, giving Iri a little wave she was well known for giving everyone, like her trademark.

Iri waved back at her as the capsule rose up to her floor and turned to make his way out of the lobby. He liked the Ithorian lady. She was gentle, sweet, and he'd helped her on a few occasions with carrying items to her apartment. She was one of the long-term residents that had been here before he even found his apartment here, and she had always been kind and sweet to him. She was often lonely, as her family didn't visit much, but Iri enjoyed spending time with her on the rooftop garden sipping tea she had made and listening to her stories about her children and her work keeping the beautiful gardens around the seat of the local government.

Iri squinted into the sun as he stepped outside and glanced up and down the street a little bit. It wasn't the richest of areas. In fact it was a bit 'truck stop' like since it was in close proximity to the spaceport. But the area was well kept for being so industrial and crime wasn't really a problem for the most part. He'd heard of a few pickpocketings and one mugging recently, but the culprits had been caught shortly after. He felt reasonably safe as he had taken up the habit of always carrying his little stingbeam for some subtle personal security just in case someone wanted to get violent. He didn't want to use it, of course, but it was a nice bit of personal security.

He hummed to himself as he walked down the street, various repulsor vehicles swishing down the street, little gusts of air buffeting him from their passage as he turned the corner and made his way a bit down further to open the door to Mluu's.

It was a reasonably nice diner, not super fancy, but decent enough with filling meals and friendly staff. He stepped inside and made his way up to the counter, where Mluu was ringing up an order. The exuberant Chadra-Fan grinned toothily at Iri, waving as he came in,

"Heya Iri! One minute and I'll take your order!"

Mluu dashed off with the receipt to hand it over to a customer in a booth further up to the establishment's front window, then dashed back quickly, clambering up to a little ledge behind the counter. Iri chuckled at the Chadra-fan's sprightliness.

Mluu ear twitched a bit, "So, back from another round of contracts, Iri?"

Iri nodded as he settled into the seat, "Yep, had a gamut of contracts pop up and I took 'em all."

Mluu grinned with his big front teeth, "That means you can pay your overwhelming tab, huh?"

Iri laughed, "You don't even do tabs, Mluu!"

Mluu chuckled a bit in response, "I know, I know. Maybe you could just binge on desserts then, eh?" Mluu gestured over to a display of various treats, "Anyway, what'll you be having today, Iri?"

Iri picked up one of the menus that was commonly laid out on the counter, "mmh, well I'm lookin' for some breakfast...how about your breakfast special number three?"

Mluu nodded and took it down on his little datapad, "Sure, sure! And you want some blue milk or Teepo juice with that?"

Iri tilted his head as he pondered the two for a brief moment, "Let's go with Teepo juice."

Mluu nodded and entered it all on the datapad, dispatching it to the kitchen electronically, "Sure thing, Iri! Oh whoops, be right back!"

Mluu hopped down and dashed off across the restaurant again to take down another order from a couple that had just sat down. Iri laughed a little to himself as he watched the energetic little Chadra-Fan bounce around between tables to take care of everyone as the manager. He had wait staff but he liked to keep things personal and friendly. Iri smiled as one of the waitstaff brought him a big glass of Teepo juice and he sipped at it while waiting for his order to be finished up and brought out.

Mluu shortly bounced back up to the counter where Iri was and smiled at him, "good juice?"

Iri nodded, "Yep, nice and fresh. I swear, you gotta have a Teepo plant growing in your basement or something."

Mluu chuckled, "Nah, I just make sure I get the freshest produce. But hey, that might work even better. You don't know anything about hydroponics do you?"

Iri shook his head with a grin, "Nope! Sorry, I'm more of a fighter repair tech."

Mluu grinned and snapped his fingers, "Darn. Well I guess the secret Teepo farm will have to wait. Oh, hey, your order is up."

Mluu dashed over and grabbed Iri's plate, bringing it to him, "Enjoy! Let me know how it is!"

Iri laughed as Mluu dashed off again to see how things were going with the other customers. Iri smiled softly as he took in the atmosphere of the friendly casual diner, digging his fork into his breakfast and munching on it thoughtfully. He liked this place. And the food was pretty good for a greasy-spoon type place you'd expect next to a starport. Obviously Mluu cared about how good the food at his establishment was. Iri relaxed as he munched on his food, and enjoying the Teepo juice and watching Mluu dashing around to greet everyone and take orders.

Some minutes later, Iri finished with the breakfast and drank the last drops of the Teepo juice out of the glass. Mluu popped up just as he set the glass down.

Mluu smiled, "How as it?"

Iri grinned, "Good! It's always good, I dunno why you even have to ask."

Mluu chuckled, "To make sure it's always good."

Iri grinned, "Guess I'll just have to keep putting up with the incessant questioning then! It's worth it, anyway."

Mluu bowed, "Thank you, Iri!" Then called up Iri's check on his datapad, "Okay so you had the number 3 breakfast, and Teepo juice...comes to 5 credits, bud."

Iri nodded and dug into his pocket, putting down five credits, and a couple more, "And a little thank you tip."

Mluu beamed, "Keep that up and I'll have a whole secret farm in the basement!"

Iri laughed and gave Mluu a little pat on the head, which the Chadra-fan squeaked softly from, obviously enjoying the friendly gesture.

Mluu wiggled and smiled, "See you next time, Iri! And don't stay gone so long next time, I almost had to close the business without your special tips!" he winked.

Iri laughed, "I'll just have to help you stay in business, then. Thanks Mluu!"

Iri got up and made his way outside into the sunlight, patting his happy belly thoughtfully as he started walking back to his apartment. He took a leisurely pace, enjoying the sunshine and the relatively fresh air. He was used to space travel but there was always some subtle difference between the stuffy air on board a ship, and a natural atmosphere. Sure, ship life support systems tried to maintain good levels of humidity, oxygen, and everything else, but he always felt they were a bit too sterile and enjoyed the scents of a natural atmosphere. The sunlight was nice, too, and it felt good on his scales. Maybe a visit to the rooftop garden would be in order today.

He made his way into the apartment lobby, thinking he would spend a bit of time on the roof and take in some sun. He smiled to the Corellian, Janda, the maintenance man for the building, who was mopping the lobby up a bit. He was a short man, balding, and looked a bit roughened by age. There were a few rumors that he had once worked as a smuggler, doing the Kessel run.

"Hey Janda."

Janda looked up with a slight furrow in his brow, "'lo Iri. Need somethin' fixed?"

Iri shook his head, "Nah, Just saying hi. Only thing I can really complain about is the lift is a little jittery but you know about that already, so..."

Janda smirked, "Yeah, I know bout it...known about it for three months." he resumed his mopping as he spoke, "Waitin' on approval to buy a part for the damn thing. It'll get fixed when I get the part...if they ever let me." he broke down into some grumbling as he mopped his way away from Iri.

Iri shook his head, Janda was a little rough around the edges, but he meant well and did the best he could with the resources he had. Honestly, the building could be a lot worse off but thanks to Janda's skills things like the elevator, while a little jittery, kept on working for cheap.

Iri called for the elevator, and stepped into it once it arrived, pushing the button for the rooftop garden. It jittered a bit, then rose and opened the doors onto the cozy rooftop space.

Iri stepped back out into the sunlight and smiled as he walked past a line of short shrubs in pots. There were some taller shrubs as well that formed little quiet 'shrub rooms' that the residents liked to sit in and relax. Most of them had seating, a few had some small tables. He meandered past a couple, then stopped as he saw Miss Ka-Ko sitting in one sipping on a cup of tea.

Iri smiled as he leaned into the small foliage-lined space, "Hey Miss Ka-ko, teatime?"

The Ithorian eye-squinted softly as she looked at Iri and motioned to a nearby seat, "please."

Iri smiled, he was never one to decline an offer of her special Ithorian tea. He slipped in and sat down across from her. As usual she had made a large pot and had extra cups. She never specifically asked for company, but was always prepared for it, and a very generous hostess.

Miss Ka-ko poured Iri a cup and handed it to him, "Back from your travels, Iri dear?"

Iri nodded as he took the cup, giving a grateful little headbow, "Yep, had a run of contracts but things have settled down now."

Miss Ka-ko eye-squinted again as she sipped her tea, "Good to hear. I wasn't sure if you'd be joining me today, but thank you for popping in."

Iri sipped the tea, closing his eyes to savour the incredible flavor. Miss Ka-ko was like most Ithorians, she was peaceful and gentle, and had a love for plants. This made her a bit of an herbalist and somehow the tea she made was potent and full of flavors. She was always experimenting with combinations of ingredients and coming up with new combinations of flavors, so it wasn't uncommon for the tea to always be a new experience. Sometimes, she would make a favorite blend, and Iri had set down for tea with her enough times he had tasted a few of those, and gained quite a respect for the elder Ithorian. "I'm glad I did, Miss Ka-ko...It's especially good today."

Miss Ka-ko gave the equivalent of a soft laugh, "Thank you dear. You're so nice to be coming in and keeping an old woman company."

Iri smiled and patted her hand gently, "I think you're one of my closest friends, and one of the loveliest too. Besides, I'm only here for the tea." He joked about the last bit.

Miss Ka-ko laughed softly, giving his hand a squeeze, "oh you're so sweet, Iri." She sighed softly as she sipped more of her tea.

Iri grinned and sipped more of his, relishing the deep flavor of the tea. Nobody could make it like Miss Ka-ko did, and he loved it. "Have you been alright while I was away?"

Miss Ka-ko nodded, "Oh yes. Just keeping to myself and having my tea in the garden every day. The view has changed over the years but it's still quite lovely."

Iri looked through the gap in the foliage he had entered through. It wasn't exactly lovely, but they did have a nice view of the nicer part of the city. Iri smiled as he finished off his cup, "I'm glad. I worried about you a little."

Miss Ka-ko patted his hand, "I can take care of myself, dear. But thank you for your concern. It warms my old heart to know someone still cares."

Iri gave her hand a gentle squeeze. He did care, very much. She was like an adopted grandmother to him, and he was grateful to have someone older he could turn to and ask advice of.

Miss Ka-ko gathered up her things, and Iri helped arrange the items on the tray. They stood up together and Iri escorted her to the elevator. Iri took the tray for her.

Miss Ka-ko gently hobbled her way to the lift, "Thank you dear. It's always a little bit of a struggle to get the tray up here with my cane."

Iri nodded, "No worries! I'm always glad to help." He called the elevator for her.

Miss Ka-ko bowed her head gently, "You're a lovely dear."

Iri smiled as he entered the lift with her and she pushed the button for her floor. She had a separate floor from his, but they still managed to bump into each other and chatted often.

The lift jittered, moved, then stopped at the appropriate floor. Iri let her go first, and he followed her to her door and handed her the tray when she turned to take it.

Iri smiled, "Looking forward to arriving earlier for more tea tomorrow."

Miss Ka-ko chuckled, "me too, dear me, too." she shuffled into her apartment with the tray and set it down inside, "Thank you dear. See you tomorrow!"

Iri nodded with a smile, "You bet! I'll see if I can bring some cookies."

The door closed and he made his way back to the lift and up to his own floor, where he stepped into his apartment and checked on Katie again. She was fine, of course, so he pushed her activation switch and she light up. Katie blipped a little as she did a quick self diagnostic, then twittered as she greeted Iri.

Iri smiled, "Hey Katie, have a good charge?"

Katie twittered.

Iri patted her dome, "Oh good. A successful diagnostic helps a lot."

Katie blipp-bleeped.

Iri smiled, "I slept great. That string of contracts was really draining. At least it was lucrative, though."

Katie twipped a question.

Iri thought a moment, "oh, gosh, we must have made uh...at least 1,000 credits or so just on that. Net, that is. Not sure on profit."

Katie bleeped a little.

Iri tilted his head, "Oh? Okay 700 credits profit. Sounds good. I sure feel like I made 700 credits."

Iri stretched and sat down on his bed while Katie fussed a little with the droid maintenance station they had in her corner of the room, "So Katie..."

Katie twittered at him.

Iri smiled, "Well, Since we have a day off, I just wondered if you thought of anything that needed doing."

Katie blatted.

Iri laughed, "Yeah me neither. I already had breakfast at the diner, and some tea with Miss Ka-ko...then I came in and turned you on, so.."

Katie made a little whine noise.

Iri chuckled, "Oh you're right, I'm sorry, I forgot how much you liked to visit with her too. She did ask about you, though!"

Katie blipped.

Iri smiled, "Yeah I told her you were fine and being recharged."

Katie blip-bleeped in some satisfaction.

Iri nodded, "Yeah I'll remember to bring you next time, which will be tomorrow, so you'll see her then. I guess I'd better get down to the holocafe and pick up any messages."

Katie twittered and bleeped a bit.

Iri smiled, "Sure you can come. I imagine you probably don't want to be locked up here all day either."

Katie blatted.

Iri chuckled and got back up to make his way back out to the lift with Katie.

A short trip down the elevator and across the lobby brought the two right out to the street. It was the same as before, but they made their way down the street, and across at an intersection to the local holocafe where he could pick up any messages sent to him via the holonet.

Katie twittered a bit now and then, making comments as they arrived at the holocafe. Iri opened the door for Katie who blipped politely as she went in.

The Holocafe was a simple affair, a couple of rows of booths where people could pay for holocomm time and have virtual face-to-face conversations with another being, or simply pick up and send messages to each other. Iri made his way over to one of the terminals and entered his credentials for the holonet to retrieve his messages.

The screen churned a little bit, with some ads splashing across the screen for various products. After a few moments it cleared and presented him with his inbox. There were a few messages, mostly ads, which he deleted. Once he got rid of the ads he noticed a couple of messages from regular contract sources and browsed through to see what was being offered. They were a number of standard contracts, mostly things like scanning targets, or digging up some info, nothing that he would jump to do right away. He wanted a couple of days off before he decided to go and go off on another string of jobs. But then he noticed a message from his contact in the New Republic, Lt. Bendis Rayne. He clicked over to it, since the subject line 'Memory Core report', as he was curious exactly what the Lt. had to say about the cores he, Shal, Katie, and Wizz had worked so hard to get.

Holonet Transmission - Origin: Chandrila - Mercenary Contracts Destination: Iri Keltesh - Tibro, Rezzek City Sender: Lt. Bendis Rayne

Mr. Keltesh,

We have dug up a plethora of interesting information from the mass haul of Memory Cores you retrieved from the archives of the destroyer on Hoth. Data technicians have spliced together the majority of the data and come up with several interesting finds which we need investigated. Of course I am offering you first chance at any of the contracts related to the memory cores you found, and we have one such contract we need taken care of. Among the data, we discovered a set of coordinates and references to a suspected Imperial research laboratory. Please take a trip to my office when you can so we can discuss the specifics and payment. I'd suggest relatively soon, as my superiors are putting pressure on me to get contracts out and finished quicker, and holding these for you is counteractive to the shift in directives.

Iri tilted his head, some kind of imperial lab? That could be bad news, but also a good payment too. And as a scout he'd be well equipped to check it out and report back.

Katie twittered.

Iri looked down, "Oh sure!" and stepped aside to let Katie download his messages.

Katie twitted a question.

Iri nodded, "Yeah I guess our little vacation is going to be cut short..but it's good pay from Lt. Rayne so...I'm not too worried."

Katie blip-bleeped and twittered for a few moments.

Iri tilted his head, "Why? Shal is more of a hired gun for combat situations...not that I wouldn't mind his company again, but..."

Katie blip bleeped insistently.

Iri scratched his head, "That's a point...He might be interested anyway. We get along well, and having him for security would be great."

Katie blieeped triumphantly.

Iri laughed, "Okay you go ahead and send him a message. You still have his holocomm code and encryption, anyway."

Iri smiled as he watched Katie quickly compose and send a message to Shal. It was kind of cute how she liked his company too. Then again, R3's had a cordial personality and liked being around people, so that was probably partly chalked up to the general R3 base personality. But Katie had grown out of that a lot and become quite her own unique droid. Besides, working with Shalmendo was always a bit of a treat, and he liked the big guy a lot. Having an excuse to travel in the luxury of the Black Claw would be nice, too.

Iri had a thought, "Hey Katie, why don't you ask him to come pick us up here instead of meeting us at Chandrila? That would save us a lot of trouble with Rillyn's Hope, since we could just store her there with the spaceport."

Katie blipped her confirmation and modified the message she was composing.

Iri nodded, "Might as well take the Black Claw all the way from here. Remind me to pay for Shal's docking and fuel fees when he gets here."

Katie blipped again.

Iri nodded, patted her dome, and went to wait near the window, watching the various vehicles humming by outside, with the starport in the background. Life was pretty good. Katie finished up with the message, rolled over to Iri, and blipped her report.

Iri nodded, "Okay great, thanks Katie."

The two made their way out again as Iri reviewed a few things on his datapad. He wondered what kind of Imperial research facility it was and considered the fact that here would probably be dangers, especially if it was still manned. He had no details, though, so he just made a few notes of questions to ask Lt. Rayne as he and Katie made their up the street to take care of a number of other things.

Shalmendo sat in a dark corner of a cantina, sighing softly as he sipped at the jug of ale. He was so big, that the regular glasses didn't satisfy him, and he'd taken to ordering jugs instead. He had the money, and they were much more satisfying since he could drink more fluently than if he had to sip those little swallows out of the glasses.

He had just finished a job and was winding down. He yawned a bit, watching the various patrons minding their own business, drinking their respective beverages and chatting. He wasn't social, and he wasn't interested in chatting it up with random strangers. Nor was he even interested in the Twi'lek dancers on the stage that slinked and gyrated around to the music. He asked himself why he hadn't gotten a back room for himself, but remembered he was a bit too tired to go through the trouble. He sipped his drink further and sighed, leaning back against the wall, letting his eyelids droop a little as he relaxed. Maybe he could find some fling to go on with his credits, some personal escort to take to his ship and engage himself with... He grunted at the thought. No, he could never perform. He was forever locked in sexual shyness and he would probably never get over it. He guzzled from the jug.

He rubbed his forehead as he set the jug down, looking up to see the barmaid.

The Barmaid smiled, "would you like another one, sir?"

He looked down at his empty jug for a moment, then pushed it over to her and nodded, "Yeah."

She made her way off and he folded his arms, glancing over the patrons. A few were interesting...there was a Trando, a chistori, a barabel, and a few others that struck chords in his interest, but he would never be able to approach them. Even if he could get close enough with one to strike up a relationship, he would always end up frustrated in the bedroom due to his intense inhibitions. He gruffed.

The barmaid set another jug down for him and went off to tend to other customers. He guzzled a bit of it before he set it down again, looking down into the beverage. He concentrated on the liquid depths of the alcoholic beverage, watching the bubbles move within the fluid in a kind of slow graceful ballet. His fingers stroked around the jug, feeling the smooth glassy structure.

He closed his eyes briefly, feeling the number of sentient beings around him, the walls, the various electrical features within them, and various other EM senses that would be difficult to describe here.

He opened his eyes and gave a slight yawn, taking another swallow from the jug. He thought about going back to his ship, but grimaced a little at that thought. He was growing tired of it. It was small, and he was growing to dislike the shape and styling of it. It wasn't really him. It was too bulbous like a mass of bubbles. A single bubble would be better. A nice streamlined spherical shape with storage for his weapons, and ample room for him to rest. That would be better. Sure, his current ship had a redone interior, but it still didn't feel like it suited him very well.

He shook his head a bit and sipped more of his beverage, considering the custom protocol droid he had commissioned from that Toydarian. He had received a few communications from the droid specialist asking him about certain details. It sounded like it was going to be quite a useful robot. Capable of handling most of the interactions with other organics, negotiating for services and purchases, and most everything else, along with being useful in a pinch. Of course getting all the necessary parts and creating all the programming was going to be time consuming, and costly, but he had a decent income and the patience. He was eager to have a buffer between himself and all the organics, though. That would certainly simplify his life a bit.

He grunted as he drank the last of the contents in the jug, and set it down again. Did he want another? After a moment of thought he grunted. No, he didn't. He motioned for the barmaid, who came over.

She smiled pleasantly, "Want another, sir?"

He shook his head, "No. bill."

She nodded and presented him the bill for the drinks. He grunted and gave her a handful of credits to pay for the bill and give her a tip in the process, then got up and made his way out. A patron who was backing away from the bar bumped into him but mumbled an apology and let him pass without issue. He just grunted and made his way outside onto the grimy streets of the starport area.

He stood aside from the entrance, glancing up at the stars. It was a nice night, and the cool wind brushed over his wings, making for a rather pleasant sensation. He always enjoyed air rushing past his wings. They were sensitive to that kind of air action, and it felt nice.

He stepped away, making his way up the street watchfully. As a Mercenary he never knew when someone would pop up with a grudge and try to backstab him in the middle of a street like this. He just did his jobs, and it wasn't personal, but a lot of people took things personally. Often to an extreme level. Many people had sworn vengeance against him when he didn't really care about their personal lives, just about fulfilling his contract. He wondered why people decided to blame him for everything instead of the people who had hired him. He was just a tool, they paid and gave directives to, a bit like a droid.

He stopped at a corner, watching traffic pass.

And yet, they came after him instead of the clients that had hired him. It was so futile, as well. While they would sometimes surprise him, he would usually manage to turn things around and at least disable them in some way. He wouldn't kill if he hadn't been hired to, and he would just remind them that he was a professional doing a job before leaving them behind. Some would leave him alone, but others would become very persistent, taking their failures as a personal insult and following him to the ends of the galaxy to enact some kind of revenge. It made little sense to him. He was just a tool. These angry people should really be going after the client who hired him, but they insisted on perseverating on him instead. It was confusing and alien. It also didn't matter what he told them, they would still be rather irrational. He paused a moment as the signal changed so he could stride across the road.

Once to the other side, he resumed his walking and his musings. Organics were so irrational, throwing logic to the wind in favor of silly emotional thinking instead. Why? They were capable of logical thought as evidenced by strategical thinking he had encountered, but then that would all collapse at the slightest emotional surge and turn into a jumble of revenge and short sighted decisions.

He shook his head a bit as he made his way into the starport, past various beings ferrying cargo or performing other business. The starport was busy regardless of time, day and night. He made his way past the busy individuals, past cargo, past passengers, and into the docking bay where he had parked his MC-18. He stopped to look at it. It was a strangely shaped Mon Calamari vessel with a few tricks, and backup systems. The matte black paint gave it a decent appearance, and the red trim was pleasing, but it didn't do much for the shaping he was starting to get tired of. He made his way to the cargo lift and lowered it, then stepped on and raised it again.

He looked around the bare cargo bay for a moment, then made his way through the doors to the main hall, and down into the cockpit, then to his office.

Settling down into his seat, he pulled off his goggles and set them on the desk, giving his eyes a rub before activating the terminal and browsing through various displays, maybe there was a good job offer. He clicked past several that didn't look interesting, until he found a message from Iri. Hmm, that's the little Argothae guy he worked with before, and got a good payment on the last job. He clicked the message open and reviewed it.

Encrypted Transmission - Origin: Tibro, Rezzek City Destination: Shalmendo - The Black Claw Sender: Iri Keltesh

Shal, I've got another line on a decent job involving coordinates the New Republic picked up from those memory cores we delivered. Lt. Rayne wants me to meet him in his office on Chandrila, to discuss an Imperial facility they want scouted. I thought you might be interested, and I could always use the backup. Meet me at my apartment in Rezzek City, if you're interested! Of course I'll try to make sure your time is properly paid for.

P.S. My address is 430 Kuat Street, apt 5031.

-Message sent by Katie

Shalmendo read it over, and pondered. Jobs with Iri weren't bad. And the last one was well paid. He scratched the back of his neck a little as he considered. The payment for the contract wasn't stipulated but he knew Iri understood that his time was valuable. He grunted and stretched his wings a little in the chair before he got up and got ready depart to Tibro.

Iri was snoring peacefully in his bed, having spent the day out with Katie and taking care of some things that had piled up while he had been gone. He was dreaming peacefully about little chibi stormtroopers exploding in a shooting gallery, when his doorbell buzzed, rousing him from his sleep.

He grunted as he woke up, but didn't realize what had woken him. He rolled over and nuzzled into the pillow a bit before starting to drift off again, when the doorbell buzzed again and he sat upright.

Iri grumbled as he pulled the covers back, glancing at this chrono, "Jeez...1 am...who rings doorbells at 1 am..." he yawned and went over to open the door, rubbing an eye as he looked at a black wall, "uhh?" Then looked up to see a pair of red eyes staring at him. He blinked, half thinking he was having a nightmare then stepped back to get a better look at the figure. It had wings, was rather tall...It was Shal!

Shalmendo grunted, "I received your message."

Iri blinked, "oh, yeah! I just sent that this morning.... Wow you made it here fast."

Shalmendo smirked, "I came as soon as I got your message. Just arrived."

Iri rubbed his eyes a little, "Well come on inside...don't want to leave you out there. You must have been in the area, then." Iri yawned.

Shalmendo stepped in and grunted as he stood up and hit his head on the ceiling with soft 'bump'. After a moment of looking around he took to sitting on his haunches, easily filling the space.

Iri had to back up to his bed to give shal space to get inside, "jeez, I didn't realise my apartment was so small."

Shalmendo shrugged, "When did you want to go to Chandrila?"

Iri yawned, "uff. Gosh Shal, it's kind of early...Maybe in the morning?"

Shalmendo grunted, "Were you sleeping?"

Iri nodded, "Yeah...I was sound asleep."

Shalmendo replied, "Sorry. I still have the double bunk in my ship."

Iri looked at him blearily for a moment, unsure what he was saying, then nodded a bit, "Oh, yeah, I guess sleeping on the way to Chandrila wouldn't be..." he interrupted himself with a wide yawn for a moment, "uff, wouldn't be bad...Would you mind that?"

Shalmendo shook his head, "No. You're welcome to the room, as usual."

Iri yaaaawned again, "Well let me gather up my equipment and I'll be ready to leave. Would you switch Katie on?"

Shalmendo looked over at the droid, "how?"

Iri chuckled sleepily, "Sorry I forgot you aren't too familiar with droids, here let me do that."

Iri slipped over and snuck under one of Shalmendo's wings, which conveniently lifted up a bit for him to pass beneath, and turned on Katie.

Katie booted up and did a self diagnostic then gave a surprised squeal.

Iri laughed a little, "It's okay Katie, it's just Shal. He just showed up."

Katie blip-bleeped and twittered.

Iri yawned, "Katie says hello and it's nice to see you again...anyway let's get ready to leave Katie, we're gonna ride with Shal for awhile, and I'm gonna finish get my sleep finished up on the way."

Katie twittered a little.

Iri nodded as he started gathering things off the shelves and pulled out his backpack, "Yeah, Chandrila."

Iri took a few minutes to gather his things up and get ready to pack over to Shal's ship. Once he was ready, and reasonably dressed, he did another check of his things to make sure he wasn't leaving anything behind, while slipping his stingbeam into his pocket. Katie helped him remember a few items he had forgotten, and he got those into his pack.

Iri nodded to Katie as she confirmed he had what he needed, "okay Shal, would you um, mind leaving first? I'm not sure I can sneak by you easily."

Shalmendo nodded and poked at the door control before crouchwalking out of the apartment and then rising to his full height outside.

Iri chuckled at the comedic value of the big Garrighol having difficulty with the space size, and followed Shal out onto the balcony inside the apartment building. Katie followed as well, twittering a bit.

Iri chuckled, "Yeah me too, Katie." then turned to talk to Shal and stared as he hopped over the balcony railing and dropped down to the first floor. He gasped in surprise at this and leaned over the balcony to look down and observed Shalmendo's wings flaring open and bringing him to a relatively soft landing on the tiled floor below. Iri blinked, not having seen Shal execute that maneuver before. Katie oooohed in appreciation. Iri shook his head and went to the elevator, pushing the control to call it.

It took a moment to arrive. Obviously the Garrighol hadn't used it, and had probably simply clambered up the levels instead. Iri and Katie used the lift to meet Shal down in the Lobby.

Iri looked up at Shal with some surprise, "I've never seen you do that before!"

Shal tilted his head, "What?"

Iri clarified, "Jumping off a 5th floor balcony and landing like that."

Shalmendo shrugged, "Was faster than the elevator."

Iri chuckled, yeah, that was true. He was still discovering new things about his friend. Iri motioned for Shal to go first through the doorway.

Shalmendo ducked through and waited for Iri and Katie as they moved outside.

Iri looked up at the Garrighol, "So where did you park the Black Claw?"

Shalmendo motioned, "Spaceport. I'll show you."

Iri nodded and followed Shalmendo with Katie to the spaceport, past the regular night bustle of the various busy sentients ferrying cargo and doing repairs and refueling.

The Black Claw was right there on one of the landing pads, and the flight techs were disconnecting the fueling nozzles. Iri yawned as he approached the cargo lift with Katie. Shalmendo stayed behind to pay the docking and refueling fees, then joined them.

The trio rose into the cargo bay.

Katie twittered.

Iri looked up at the Garrighol, "Katie wants to know if you'd like her to pilot like before."

Shalmendo nodded, "Yes. Go ahead Katie. You get settled, Iri. Rest well."

Iri nodded, "Thanks." and made his way into the double-bunk he'd occupied previously.

It was the same as before, but instead of unpacking Iri just tugged his clothes off and climbed into the bunk to finish up getting his sleep. He felt the ship taking off as he pulled the privacy curtain closed and dozed off into another restful sleep. It seemed even more restful with the gentle hum of the engines as it kicked into hyperdrive.

Iri woke up a few hours later, stretching comfortably in the bunk, tail flicking around a bit. He pulled the privacy curtain back and stepped out onto the carpeting. He stretched a bit more as he looked around, remembering where he was and meeting with Shal at 1 am.

Yawning a little, Iri slipped some light relaxed clothes on and made his way out and to the cockpit, where he found the Garrighol in his usual seat, "mmh, hey Sshal."

Shalmendo turned to look at Iri, "Iri."

Katie twittered.

Iri smiled, "And hello Katie. How's the flight going?"

Katie twittered a reply.

Iri nodded, "Good timing then. I'll go ahead and grab a shower and stuff. Breakfast too."

Shalmendo nodded.

Katie tweeped and got back to her focus on piloting.

Iri went into the refresher, did his business, and stepped into the sonic shower to freshen himself up. He didn't take too long as he wanted to be fed when they landed in a few minutes. From there, he made his way into the galley and heated up a couple of tasty looking rations. They were better then the 'hot pockets' his cookslot produced, especially heated. Once those were heated up, he put them on a plate and sat at the table to munch on them while he looked at the hyperspace tunnel drop into regular stars.

It was nice being on the ship again. He still liked his, but there was something particularly fun about traveling with Shal, and the bunk and refresher were amenities his didn't have, and it was a nice change in travel pace.

Iri watched through the window as the ship landed at the New Republic's office, and he shoved the last bit of food in his mouth as he got up and made his way to the cargo bay. Shalmendo seemed to have the same idea as him, and they both stood together as the ship touched down.

Iri took the opportunity to smile up at Shal, "Thanks for coming Shal. With this being some kind of Imperial lab or something I didn't want to go without some backup. They can be pretty nasty."

Shalmendo nodded and watched as Katie came through the doors and got on the lift with them.

The lift was lowered and Iri waited while Shal paid his fees and negotiated with the Flight officer. Shal was terse as usual, but signed the datapad, and motioned for Iri and Katie.

Together, the three of them made their way to Lt. Rayne's office and Iri buzzed the door.

A moment later the doors opened and the three made their way in. Like before, Iri sat down at the desk and Shal just stood there passively.

Lt. Rayne smiled as they entered and motion for Iri to sit down, "Good to see you three." he cleared his throat as he pulled over a Datapad, "You three are making quite a good team."

Iri smiled, "Yeah I think so too. So what are the details on this Imperial facility, Lieutenant?"

Lt. Rayne smiled, "Well, as my message said, the information from the cores has been quite fruitful and we've been finding various Imperial locations we want to have checked out. The first is a research lab running a project code named Walking Storm. We have no idea what that means, of course, but it sounds like something potentially rather dangerous. Hopefully the facility is either shut down, or minimally manned. For the most part, we'd like you to scout the facility, take maps and notations of visible troops, patrol patterns, things like that, without risking yourselves. Now, depending on the status of the facility, we'd like you to try and get more information then just some external scans and maps. If you could see about going inside and possibly extracting information from the facility systems, or determining what they were up to, what Walking Storm means, etc, We'll be willing to pay more. Of course we'd rather you not risk yourselves unreasonably, so we'll still pay you for basic scouting."

Shalmendo grunted, "How much?"

Lt. Rayne gave a thin smile, "Well, we're aware that you have a reputation for being reliable, as we did a little checking into your background for our records, Shalmendo. So we're willing to negotiate a price you'll be happy with. And, of course, you've been very reliable as well Mr. Keltesh. Personally, I believe that the three of you will be a spectacular mercenary team, and I'm willing to push that payment price up to reflect my confidence in you. I'm sure that the three of you together will be able to do a better job than some of the other mercenaries we could hire. You get first refusal of course."

Iri looked up at Shal, then ahead at Lt. Rayne, "Well, before I can consider refusing the contract, what kind of payment were you considering, Lt.?"

Lt. Rayne nodded as he referenced the datapad, "Considering your history of reliable work, and how well you three seem to work as a team, I believe I can afford you a payout of 4,000 credits each for basic scouting, and...well I can't exactly say 'no limit' anymore thanks to the many memory cores you brought back, although those cores were apparently quite worth it so that helps a little... Would you be willing to consider further action like data retrieval, interior mapping, and further investigation for, at least, 8,000 credits each? I shouldn't exactly say this, but, we may be willing to offer a higher payment if the data you bring back is especially good. Not too much you understand, but I want to keep rewarding you for good performance. I wouldn't want you to feel cheated, and I'd rather do what I can to retain the favor of such excellent mercenaries."

Iri thought about that, the pay was pretty decent, in all fact, especially if they went the extra mile to sneak some data out of the facility if they could. Of course this would depend on how many troops were present and how much data they could get before being found out or killed. He looked up at Shalmendo, "What do you think, Shal?"

Shalmendo grunted, "Slightly low for my skills."

Lt. Rayne nodded, "I'm sorry about that, but this is what I'm authorized to offer. I've already used my influence to push that payment up as much as I reasonably could, as I know you're a more expensive sort with good skills for what you usually ask, but I'm afraid my hands are a bit tied by my superiors. I'd honestly rather give you three the job than someone else."

Iri nodded, "I can't promise much without Shal to back me up...especially trying to download data from somewhere inside. Troops and guards aren't really what I can deal with too easily..." He looked up at Shal, "I'd rather have you along if you could somehow see your way to taking the offer?"

Shalmendo shrugged, "I'll do it. You're against the Empire, and so am I."

Iri felt a little relief, he was worried Shal would just walk off.

Lt. Rayne smiled, "I'm very happy to hear that. And I'm sure the New Republic will benefit solidly. Well, I have the coordinates here on a Datacard and you can use that to navigate to the facility. Be careful, of course. And I'll have your payment waiting."

Iri took the card that Lt. Rayne slide across the desk and plugged it into Katie.

Katie twipped a little.

Iri smiled, "Okay well, I guess we better get on our way."

Lt. Rayne nodded, "Thank you. And we have more jobs where that came from, actually. We've gotten a wealth of information from those cores, and hopefully you won't mind keeping busy helping us follow up on it."

Iri grinned, "I'd be glad to...and maybe Shal if he wants to come along."

Shalmendo grunted, "Maybe. Depends on the job and the pay."

Lt. Rayne nodded, "Of course. I understand that this is your livelihood and you have to pick and choose the better jobs if you can. I was a Mercenary once myself, so I understand."

Iri nodded, "Yeah Lt. Rayne always takes good care of me, Shal. We have an understanding, and he offers me the best jobs he can and gives me first refusal on them. I haven't turned any down yet, and the pay is pretty good."

Shalmendo nodded, "reliable work is good. Are we ready?"

Lt. Rayne nodded, "I believe you are! Don't hesitate to ask me any questions, however."

Shalmendo shook his head, "I understand the job."

Iri stood up, "Well let's get going, Thanks Lt."

Lt. Rayne smiled, "my pleasure."

The trio made their way out and back to the ship.

Iri patted Shal on the side as they walked down the hallway, "Hopefully this will be one of those insurance jobs where nothing really happens. Based on what happened on Hoth though...I think I'm starting to attract conflict or something. It's certainly been exciting, at least..."

Shalmendo grunted, "I'll keep you safe."

Iri smiled, "I appreciate that. A lot, actually."

Katie twittered.

Iri laughed, "Katie appreciates it too. She's glad you take good care of me."

Shalmendo nodded as they made their way into the hangar.

Katie and Iri made their way on board to start getting ready to depart, with Katie locking into the terminal port, and Iri unpacking his various gear and arranging it in the room. Iri double checked the charge on his stingbeam, and the state of his pistol and rifle, making sure everything was in ship-shape. He also made sure his new armor vest was ready as well.

Shalmendo signed off on the datapad and made his way to the cockpit where Katie was ready. Shortly after, Iri felt the ship take off and they were on their way to the coordinates loaded onto the datacard Katie had read.

iri took his time and pulled the armor vest on, making sure it fit comfortably and tightened some of the straps. It was a good bit of protection against blaster fire and explosions, being a fairly expensive purchase. He wanted to make sure he wouldn't get hurt too easily, though. Blaster burns were very unpleasant. He was sure the armor was worth it, though.

After checking the vest fit and arrangement, he slipped it back off and put it down on the wardrobe to slip back on when they arrived at their destination. He then proceeded to walk out to the cockpit to check with Shal.

Katie twittered as Iri entered.

Iri smiled, "Hi Kkatie." then moved to curl up in the copilot's seat, "So Shal, how you been?"

Shalmendo stared into the hyperspeed tunnel, "Fine."

Iri nodded, "Hopefully everything is quiet this time and you'll get paid for just tagging along and providing transportation. Kind of iffy what might be at an Imperial research facility...But that's what scouting is for."

Shalmendo just stared ahead.

Iri kept talking to him, "I bought an armored vest that should provide some okay protection against blaster fire. Obviously I don't want to have to test it, but I think It'll be a nice bit of protection."

Shalmendo nodded, "Good."

Iri wiggled a little in his seat, "Hey what's the news on that droid you commissioned?"

Shalmendo replied, "Getting the parts. Will take a while. But soon."

Katie twittered a little from the terminal port.

Iri chuckled, "Katie noticed you didn't install an astromech translator yet, and is looking forward to having a protocol droid to talk with."

Shalmendo nodded, "That will be one of it's functions."

Iri smiled, "I'm interested to see what you end up with."

Shalmendo nodded.

Iri smiled a bit as he watched the profile of the Garrighol. It was kind of cute how quiet he was. It made him easy to talk to, in a way. Iri felt like he could just talk about anything and the Garrighol wouldn't interrupt or judge him. It was actually quite nice. Iri tailflicked, "So, what do you think we'll run into?"

Shalmendo shrugged, "Not sure. It could be occupied. Should be the first thing we check."

Iri nodded, "Yeah good idea, Shal. That'll be part of our initial scouting anyway. Oh, Hey Katie? What kind of sensors does the Black Claw have on hand?"

Katie bip-beeped and then twittered extensively for a few moments.

Iri hmmed thoughtfully, "Well I suppose I couldn't just expect it to be as good as Rillyn's Hhope's equipment, but then again, we've specialized her quite heavily."

Shalmendo looked over at Iri curiously.

Iri again realized he didn't speak Binary, "Oh! Katie says that your sensor equipment isn't as high grade as the stuff I installed on Rillyn's Hope. But she'll see what she can do. Looks like it's stock sensors. I guess you didn't upgrade any systems?"

Shalmendo shook his head, "Just the layout, a few tweaks, armor..."

Iri nodded, "I don't want to disrespect your ship, Shal, but maybe you could consider some serious upgrades to help with your Mercenary work? I could help."

Shalmendo shook his head, "I'm looking to upgrade."

Iri tilted his head curiously, "The ship?"

Shalmendo looked over, "New ship."

Iri blinked, "Oh! You're looking for a new ship. Hm...actually, Shal? I hope you don't mind but I kind of have to agree that this MC-18 isn't exactly well suited for you and your work. I hope you don't mind an honest opinion..." Iri felt a little bit of concern at being so frank.

Shalmendo looked over, then shrugged, "I've felt that way since the beginning."

Iri relaxed, feeling relieved, "Well, I can see how you tried to make it fit better for your needs with the redesign. I looked into the MC-18's some time ago since I was a little curious about yours. Six double bunks for passengers and another two for crew with an autochef thrown in. You certainly improved on the design, I gotta say. But yeah it doesn't really...fit?"

Shalmendo nodded, "The way it looks...I never really liked it. Always wanted something....better."

Iri smiled, "Yeah I can see that. This ship is a little funny shaped for a mercenary." Iri was feeling a little excited to have a discussion with shal like this. "What do you think would be a better fit?"

Shalmendo looked thoughtful, "Iri?"

Irir tilted his head, "Yeah?"

Shalmendo stretched his wings briefly, "Would you mind getting me some coffee?"

Iri tilted his head, "Sure! I'll get myself one too. I was actually just thinking about coffee, too." Iri got up and smiled as he made his way out, "You want it -really- black right? Like you?"

Shalmendo nodded.

Iri went out to the galley and had the coffee machine dispense two cups of coffee. One he left black, the other he put a little sweetener and creamer into...then bounced a little on his way back to the cockpit and held out Shal's cup for him.

Iri smiled as he offered the cup to Shal, "Here ya go."

Shalmendo took it and sipped it, "mmh, thank you."

Iri plopped into his seat and curled up a bit, sipping the coffee and enjoying the refreshing flavor, "So....what would be better?"

Shalmendo sipped his coffee briefly then leaned back in his chair, "Something...tougher? A little bigger...better systems."

Iri nodded, "So you don't want to upgrade the systems on this one...and you'd rather get something new. What kind of systems?"

Shalmendo shrugged, "Tougher. Can handle combat better."

Iri smiled, "Well there's lot of ships you could buy, used even, that would have more room and you could upgrade it with better systems. Maybe higher ceilings for ya?"

Shalmendo nodded, "Would be nice...I just...don't know much."

Iri smiled and patted Shal's arm, "Well hey, I can help ya. I've been around, worked on various ships...can look some stuff up."

Shalmendo nodded, "Something really unique."

Iri nodded, "Yeah, you'd want something kind of distinctive, I bet!"

Shalmendo nodded, "Yes. Distinctive would be nice."

Iri grinned, "Some kind of big black ship...with red trimming, like this one, but...you know I bet you'd really like something that looked kind of intimidating like you!" Iri raised his hands up clawing them a little to demonstrate' intimidating'.

Shalmendo seemed rather interested now, he nodded, "Yes...intimidating. I'd like that."

Iri grinned, "yeah so you'd want something with some sharp angles and look that says 'badass mercenary'...really makes a statement when you come down for a landing."

Shalmendo nodded in a manner that Iri interpreted as enthusiastic for the Garrighol.

Iri chuckled, "Yeah I can see that. Maybe...uh....one of those..what were they called..." Iri gesticulated something with an inverted Y-shape. "Oh yeah, the lambda class shuttle! They were armored by default, and could deflect blaster fire. Plus they had these folding wings that would fold up for landings and provide enhanced protection to the occupants. You could gut one out and refit it. They came with armories by default, too."

Shalmendo tilted his head, "what do they look like?"

Iri pulled out his datapad and looked through it, "I might have a picture of one..."

Katie twittered and turned her head to project a still hologram of one.

Iri laughed, "Or Katie could do that..."

Shalmendo turned to examine it...then snorted, "Imperial?"

Iri looked over at the hologram, "Yeah they were used a lot by the...Oh yeah you probably wouldn't like one then."

Shalmendo grunted and turned to look back at the hyperspace tunnel.

Iri motioned to Katie, who turned the projection off, then rubbed the back of his head, feeling a little sheepish, "Uh, sorry, I thought you'd like it since it's a really solid design and all but..yeah...nevermind, then."

Shalmendo shrugged, "I'll find something eventually."

Iri nodded, "Yeah there's plenty of different manufacturers...like Corellian Engineering Corporation. They made those popular YT-1300 models that all the smugglers and mercs use."

Shalmendo shook his head, "Too common. Want something distinctive."

Iri pondered, "Yeah you want something unique to you...something that reflects your Mercenary status, and is like...a trademark! You want a ship that you can use as a trademark. Something totally exclusive to you that everyone will know 'Shal is coming' when they see it."

Shalmendo nodded, "Yes."

Iri leaned back, "Huh...well I guess you'd want to go for something less common, but then you'd probably run into design problems since the least popular designs usually have issues that made them unpopular. Maybe you could get one re-engineered by an expert, though...fix all the bugs and problems." Iri shook his head and sipped his coffee, "Ehhh, yeah that'd be a big barrel of problems, though. Personally, even though I'm pretty good at ship repair and stuff? I'd get something with a solid design. A solid design should be the most important thing. Aside from something you could use as a trademark, that is. You don't want to have a unique, but really crappy ship you have to constantly put through major repairs. That would just eat up your profit. And I KNOW you'd hate that."

Shalmendo nodded.

Iri sipped his coffee some more, thinking quietly for a few minutes, "hmm...You know what you could do? This is probably going to cost a bit but you could get a nice ship, used possibly, and have it heavily reengineered to look like a new and unique ship. I'm sure you could find a modification expert that could rework it into something almost new. As long a it had solid systems and design to begin with you could work around that and make it unique to you."

Shalmendo shrugged, "Where to start?"

Iri pondered that, "Yeah we'd have to find you a good foundation ship you could modify heavily into your own design...and make sure you had a good engineer working on it or it could end up pretty shoddy. Another, different, barrel of problems...And the more you do the more you have to be picky about their skill, too. Something simple like knocking out a wall and combining two rooms isn't that tricky, but redoing the whole hull and rearranging systems inside it is a real expert level task, there. Even I wouldn't try that." Iri sipped his coffee and pondered further.

They sat in silence for a number of minutes, then Iri got a new idea.

Iri looked over at shal, "You know...maybe you could get something commissioned."

Shalmendo looked over, "Hm?"

Iri elaborated, "I mean for a ship. You want something unique. And I can't think of anything more unique than a completely custom ship design from scratch. Nobody would come close to your design, and it wouldn't be duplicated. It'd be expensive though. You'd have to hire a good engineer to design the whole thing, and then get it built at a shipyard with appropriate oversight to make sure it goes exactly to the blueprints. But if you want unique, you can't get more unique then that. You could throw in all sorts of Mercenary tricks and it could be designed to cater directly to all your needs as a Mercenary. Strong shielding, powerful engines, unique design, everything. Then you wouldn't have to worry about finding the right base ship and modifying it. Everything would be to your specifications from scratch. The only real barriers would be the engineer's skill, the current state of technology, and your budget. I don't know how much you make but, if you wanted to save up for something THAT unique...maybe if you got some financing, too...it'd be doable."

Shalmendo nodded, "Totally custom...I like that."

Iri nodded, "Yeah that's way out of my league but you could probably poke around and look for someone who could take on that kind of project, and have the appropriate skills for it. Getting it built would require a good shipyard, and you'd have to find one of those, too."

Shalmendo leaned back, finishing off his coffee, "Yes. I think I'll look into it."

Iri smiled, "I can't wait to see what you'll come up with."

Shalmendo pondered, "I like simple."

Iri tilted his head, "Simple designs? Yeah I guess something simple could be intimidating if it's done right. Could take some basic geometric shapes like a square, or a sphere, and mix and match them together somehow."

Shalmendo nodded, "I'll see."

Iri finished off his coffee and jumped up from the chair, "I'll take your cup if you want, Shal."

Shalmendo nodded and handed it over.

Iri took both cups to the galley where he put them into the recycler. It would be a little sad to see Shalmendo get rid of this ship, but the prospects of a custom designed one were really interesting and had a lot of potential. He'd miss the comforts of this one but the next one would probably be even better. Black and Red were definitely shal's favorite color themes, so it would probably be some kind of menacing black visage. Iri chuckled to himself as he remembered shal rescuing him and the towering appearance he had. It was kind of thrilling, now that he thought back on it. Something equally as thrilling would be necessary for Shal, he was sure. Something that would give a really strong impression upon his arrival.

Iri stretched and made his way back into the cockpit, "Hey I'll be in my room. Gonna watch some of the holonet stuffs."

Katie twittered in response.

Iri then went back to his room and stretched out on one of the double bunks to watch some of the holonet stream channels to occupy himself for the rest of the flight.

Iri's viewing was interrupted as the door slipped open and he heard the deep voice of the Garrighol gruffing, "Iri."

Iri earperked and looked over, "Yeah Shal?"

Shalmendo motioned, "I think we need your piloting skills."

Iri tilted his head but got up and followed Shal to the cockpit where he found the ship had dropped out of hyperspace, but he also saw that the coordinates were in a turbulent asteroid field. Iri earwiggled in minor concern, "Oh...wow."

Katie twittered.

Iri looked down at her, "Yeah I don't blame you...this will take some real good high level pilot skill. And I happen to be a pilot." Iri slipped into the copilot's seat and looked down at the controls, familiarizing himself with them. He was already somewhat familiar, but he hadn't actively piloted the ship before, and it was bigger than his Y-wing. Together with Katie, though, they should be able to keep it safe.

Shalmendo grunted, "What do you think?"

Iri chewed his lip as he got himself ready to navigate through the dynamic asteroids, "uhh, well I kind of have a bad feeling about this..." he shook his head, "But I'm pretty sure I can handle it...I think."

Shalmendo grunted as he sat in his seat, "Can you?"

Iri brushed his fingers through his hair, "Yeah. With Katie's help we should be able to, if we're careful."

Shalmendo nodded, "Whenever you're ready. Take your time."

Iri swallowed, he wasn't completely confident, but with Katie's help he should be able to do it, "Give me a bit to get used to how she handles, eh? I'm using to flying a y-wing...okay Katie, tandem piloting, okay?"

Katie bli-bleeped. She was used to working in tandem with Iri before and they made a pretty decent team.

Iri licked his lips as Katie transferred piloting control over to his console. He had done this with Katie many times before, usually in the Y-wing, but knew that Katie would provide additional backup control to nudge the ship away from dangers in case he got a little sloppy. He probably would be sloppy for a while, not being directly familiar with the feel of piloting the MC-18 and unfamiliar with it's direct shape and size. He'd get a feel for it with Katie providing a needed safeguard. Iri grabbed the flight controls and started easing the ship towards the turbulent field.

Ahead, the asteroids were spinning and gliding about past each other in a variety of difficult to track ways, which is why his skills were important. Even Katie with her experience would find it difficult to, so Iri's organic talents at piloting were necessary.

Under Iri's direction, with Katie providing an additional layer of buffering just in case, the ship twisted and started to ease into the asteroid field. Katie twittered a bit at Iri, who increased the engine power at her suggestion, trying to match up to the velocity of the nearby asteroids and give the ship a decent chance at being dodgy enough.

Iri focused intensely as he gripped the controls firmly, guiding the ship into an arc away from one of the asteroids, and between it and it's neighbor. Things were tense for a moment as the ship slipped into the shadow of the larger of the two, making it a bit harder to make out what they might run into. Iri persisted, however, as he didn't want to get turned around in the field and lose his bearings.

Iri tensed as Katie suddenly bleeted in alarm, yanking the controls to the side as a smaller, spinning, asteroid reared up from around the larger one they had been curving past. Iri gritted his teeth as the ship strained in response and the asteroid loomed up uncomfortably close and the ship kept approaching. Katie was wailing in alarm as the asteroid filled the viewport and they began to see the finer details of the rough and pock-marked surface spread in front of them. Iri couldn't help but squeal a little bit himself as the massive asteroid loomed up and he saw the ship's shadow fleeting across it, indicating how dangerously close they were.

Out of instinct, Iri clenched his eyes shut as he held the controls as far back as they would go....then blinked as he felt a mild bump. He squinched an eye open to find that the ship had just barely decelerated enough to merely tap the asteroid and was making a rapid reversal from it as he kept spinning dangerously.

Iri gripped the controls for dear life as he urged the ship back from it as one of it's massive outcroppings started to rotate towards them, but it missed as he had pushed enough reverse acceleration to clear it safely. Katie bleeped urgently and Iri glanced down at the readouts to find they needed to keep moving. It was clear that staying stationary or slow was a quick way to get smashed.

Iri rotated the ship and kicked it into full acceleration so they could move out of the way of several incoming asteroids of various sizes. Behind them at least three larger ones collided and careened off each other. Iri panted as he yanked the controls to the side to veer away from another incoming asteroid, then sharply to the other side as they approached a much larger one that was mostly by itself save for a few nearby ones spinning around it, drawn by it's gravity.

Katie blipped at Iri in concern.

Iri shook his head as he kept his death grip on the controls, "Later, Katie! We gotta get through this first!" Then grunted as he yanked the controls again to pull the ship up into a rising arc over another asteroid that was threatening to be more than just an 'asteroid rise'.

The ship shuddered as it pulled up and over that new obstacle, then quieted as Iri eased up on the throttle and nosed it down once more, gently. The large, quiet, asteroid in front of them was their destination, according to the coordinates. They just needed to make a few scan passes first before deciding what to do.

Iri swallowed as things quieted down in the larger asteroids vicinity, giving a bit of a sigh as he turned the ship into a cautious orbit pattern. "Okay....Katie start doing the scans."

Katie twittered in acknowledgement as she got to work.

Iri panted a little and pried his fingers one by one off the controls so he could flex them a bit before gently gripping them again to keep control of the ship, "Hrei-a that was....a bit much. He glanced over to Shal, "You okay?"

Shalmendo looked at him stoically, "Fine."

Iri shook himself out a little, "I'm sorry about that..I could give you a bunch of excuses but it wouldn't have mattered if I'd damaged your ship. Actually I might have already with that one little bump..."

Shalmendo shook his head, "We're still alive. Damage can be repaired."

Iri nodded and took a deep breath, "Shal could you do me a favor and get me some coffee while we do this, please?"

Shalmendo nodded, "Of course." He got up and went out to his galley to do so.

Katie blipped.

Iri sighed, "Yeah thanks for saving my tail, Katie...The controls didn't quite respond as I was anticipating, but I think I'll know better for next time. Shouldn't have any problems going out, I hope."

Katie blip-bleeped, then twittered.

Iri nodded, "Yeah...Let's check the front of the hull as soon as we can."

Shalmendo shortly returned with the coffee, and offered it to Iri.

Iri took the coffee and sipped it with one hand while keeping a grip on the controls with the other, "Thank you Shal...I'm not too proud to admit I was really worried back there...hopefully this will get my mind off it."

Shalmendo gave Iri's shoulder a soft squeeze, "You did well."

Iri shook his head as they completed their first pass, "I wish I could believe that....I almost smashed us into that rock."

Shalmendo smirked, "Be glad we didn't have to hide in it, just avoid it."

Iri smirked, "now why would we do a stupid thing like that? It's not like we're being chased by the Empire or something."

Shalmendo shrugged, "We might be on the way out."

Iri blanched a little at the thought, "Well...maybe the base will be empty? Uh, Katie how are the readings?"

Katie blatted, then twittered.

Iri nodded, "Katie is getting decent readings but she can't penetrate the asteroid's material very well...she did find a docking bay, but it's closed."

Shalmendo nodded, "What do you suggest?"

Iri pondered, "Well, we could examine the docking bay, try some further scans, listen for comm traffic of any kind, and see if we can find a way inside."

Shalmendo nodded, "Go ahead, Iri."

Iri nodded, "Okay, Katie start checking those things and I'll get us to the docking bay."

Katie blipped.

Meanwhile, Iri maneuvered the ship closer to the docking bay, which was painted a color similar to the asteroid's surface to blend in.

Iri pointed at the blended docking door, "See, right there. But painted to disappear into the surrounding asteroid. Obviously some kind of secretive facility."

Shalmendo nodded as he watched the two work.

Katie twitted a report to Iri.

Iri tilted his head, "Huh. She says she's getting power readings inside that are fairly stable. Clear indications of a power grid. She's not sure if she's picking up lifesigns or not... The combination of the asteroid rock and sensor obfuscating materials seem to be causing some issues. They could be using bafflers... Damn, if we had my ship I might be able to do a deep scan, but no use wishing for that right now. Let's see..."

Iri nudged the ship closer to the docking door, peering at it, "Any better Katie?"

Katie blipped and twittered.

Iri hmmed, "She said she's picking up something that could be an encrypted transmission. She'll try to decipher it. Meanwhile I guess we can sit here, but be ready to bolt if we need to... We still don't have any idea how many Imperials might be inside."

Shalmendo folded his arms and listened to the two working things out.

Katie blipped.

Iri pondered thoughtfully, "Yeah okay, keep cracking on it. You'll get it eventually."

Katie bleeped and resumed her work.

Meanwhile Iri was staring at the disguised door, keeping an eye out for TIE fighters or some other response from the Imperials inside the facility. He tapped his foot, feeling a little on edge, "Wonder how many are in there..."

Shalmendo just shrugged, "Patience."

Iri nodded, "Yeah...sorry, I'm just edged up thinking about how we may have to dash out through those asteroids if they start shooting or something. Even with you we're not equipped to raid an Imperial facility."

Shalmendo nodded, "Don't do too many major raids. Mostly some sabotage if necessary...Not sure how we could get in. Door is probably magnetically sealed."

Iri nodded, "Yeah probably...blasting it open would be hard. It's probably armored heavily as well since it's supposed to be a 'secret' facility and all."

Shalmendo nodded, "Maybe if we tricked them into capturing us."

Iri stared, "Yeah...no. Being captured by Trandoshan is enough, thanks."

Shalmendo nodded, "There is an escape pod."

Iri nodded. They could take that if it was absolutely necessary. He wasn't sure what kind of escape pod it was but it was better than being stuck on the ship with stormtroopers pouring in. He shuddered a bit but kept himself alert, fidgeting in his chair. It was the kind of high anxiety moments like this that made him avoid being more of an aggressive mercenary then Shal was. He doubted he could really deal too well with constant, regular, combat. That would drive him nuts. He was more suited for quieter missions where he could do fly by scans or information gathering without getting a gun shoved in his face a couple times a day. Still, the job was paying decently, and Shal was here for support, so it should be okay. He hoped.

It felt like they had been lingering there forever when Katie gave a blip, and some twittering.

Iri looked over, "Oh really?" Then turned to Shal, "She says the signal she's been picking up is some kind of automated request for security credentials. It sounds like we just have to give the right answer and the door will open. Funny though, I would have thought an imperial facility would be less automatic and more carefully monitored by officers and such."

Shalmendo nodded, "What kind of credentials?"

Katie blipped and twittered further.

Iri hmmed, "Some kind of entry authorization code. Katie could try to crack it but it would be a simple brute-force approach and while that's guaranteed to hit it eventually, they'd probably figure out we aren't really authorized after a couple of tries. Then again the system seems automated...I'm surprised a flight tower isn't yelling at us."

Katie bleeted a suggestion.

Iri thought about that, "I might still have it...You think it might have something useful? Hmm. Let me go check if I brought it..."

Iri got up and quickly went to his room, digging into his backpack to look for the item in question. He found it a few moments later, and dashed back to plug it into one of Katie's interface slots, "Here, Katie. See if you can do something with that."

Katie twittered as Iri plugged the code cylinder in, and started working on a solution.

Iri looked over at Shal, "Oh, she thinks that code cylinder I found in the destroyer on Hoth might have some credentials that could help us...We may have gotten lucky."

Shalmendo nodded and waited to see what was going to transpire.

After a few moments, Katie twittered and Iri looked out the viewport.

Iri grinned, "Good job, Katie!"

Shalmendo looked as well.

The hangar door was opening slowly, splitting down the middle and moving apart sideways. Iri moved to sit down in the copilot's seat and got ready to handle a surprise from the Imperials.

Slowly, the doors finished parting, revealing a fairly large hangar space inside, quite deep. The hangar was void of anyone, however. Iri glanced over at Shal, then started inching the ship closer into the hangar.

Iri squinted, "I don't see anyone."

Katie twittered.

Iri translated for her, "Huh, she says she isn't detecting anyone on your sensors, Shal. She'd tried to verify but can't seem to penetrate beyond the hangar very much. But so far, no lifesigns."

Shalmendo grunted, "Strange."

Iri maneuvered the ship into place in the hangar, lowered the landing gear, and set it down gently. Behind them, the hangar doors began to slide closed automatically.

Iri fidgeted, "Um...you wanna go first, Shal?"

Shalmendo smirked and went into the armory, "We should prepare."

Iri nodded, that was a good idea! "Yeah, let me go get my armored vest on and my other stuff. Katie let us know if -anything- happens."

Katie blipped in acknowledgement.

Iri left the room and went to his double bunk room to slip on his vest and make sure it fitted properly. He also put his pistol into it's holster on his thigh, and grabbed his rifle. He also stuffed his stingbeam into a little holster he had sewn into the leg of his boot and made sure it was secure. Finally, he grabbed two comm units, one for himself, and one for Shal. Feeling ready he moved out to the cockpit.

Katie twittered softly.

Iri sighed, "Okay well you stay onboard while we check things out. Be ready for an emergency."

Katie blip-bleeped firmly.

Iri patted her head and made sure he had his comms in his pocket. He then made his way to the cargo bay where Shalmendo was waiting. As he approached the Garrighol he pulled one of the comms out of his pocket and offered it to him, "Here Shal. We can talk to Katie, and each other with these, just in case."

Shalmendo took the small comm unit and inspected it, "I should get some of these."

Iri nodded, "Yeah wouldn't be a bad idea. They can be encrypted and even use a data linkup, depending on the kind you get. I just got a couple of decent ones to use with Katie."

Shalmendo nodded and pulled his pistol-grip blaster rifle from it's place on his leg, and lowered the cargo lift.

They descended into the hangar. It was eerily quiet, and there wasn't any movement to be seen, or heard. Both Shal and Iri looked in opposite directions, keeping their guns ready as they cautiously stepped off the lift and onto the metal flooring.

Nothing happened. But Iri sniffed at the air a little, and noticed it smelled slightly stale, "Air smells kind of funny...notice that?"

Shalmendo grunted through his helmet, "Yes. I don't hear anything."

Iri cocked his head, "Me neither..."

For a few moments they stood this way, listening intently. The only sound they could hear was the buzzing of one of the few lights lighting the area, which was flickering. The rest of the hangar was as quiet as a graveyard.

Iri shuddered, "This is really creepy." he whispered.

Shalmendo grunted, "It doesn't feel like anyone is nearby."

Iri chewed his lip as he looked around. The hangar was mostly empty save for a few crates strewn around along with fueling lines stretched around. But as he looked around further, he was noticing various bits of debris. A glove, an officer's cap, a blaster pistol, some tools, and what looked like a few components that could have fallen out of pieces of equipment. Iri nudged Shal and motioned, "look at that."

Shalmendo turned cautiously to look at the debris, "Hm. Messy."

Iri nodded, it WAS messy. And Imperial bases weren't usually messy. "Do you think something happened?"

Shalmendo walked over, with Iri following.

Together, the two looked at the way things were laid out, coming from what looked like the main accessway from the hangar, to where ships had been presumably parked.

Shalmendo grunted, "Haphazard...like things were dropped."

Iri traced some of the patterns around, "Yeah like they dropped them on the way to the ships...or from them...I'm not sure. Which makes more sense?"

Shalmendo ruffled his wings briefly, making a weird whuffling noise that Iri was almost startled by, "To." he crouched down to pick up a component, looking at the small device it had apparently fallen out of when it had fallen and cracked open, "To the ships. In a hurry...maybe a panic."

Iri stiffened. In a panic? He cleared his throat, "Um...in a panic...from here? This place?"

Shalmendo picked up the item, and turned it over a bit, "Yes. A panic from here. Maybe an evacuation."

Iri moved over to take a look at the item, it looked like some kind of power unit, "Oh wow, if the Imperials evacuated...maybe we shouldn't be here."

Shalmendo set it down, "Maybe. We need to find out more. Safely."

Iri nodded, "Safety first! Right, well if this place is abandoned we may not need to leave in a hurry."

Shalmendo grunted, "They did. We may too."

Iri paused, "Oh, yeah good point...Whatever made them leave might still be a danger right now." He activated his comm, "Katie, can you pick up anything that would be threatening to our safety?"

Katie twittered and bleeped over the comm.

Iri relaxed a little, "She says she's not picking up anything that would pose an immediate threat. No radiation, or power surges or anything. So far it seems like the hangar is safely intact but She can't really say much about the rest of the facility."

Shalmendo nodded and raises his comm, fiddling with it, "Katie."

But there wasn't a response.

Shalmendo grunted and looked at it, giving it a shake.

Iri couldn't help but giggle a little, "Like this." he held up his comm and showed Shal how to activate it.

Shalmendo grunted and activated his comm, "Katie."

Katie twittered in response.

Shalmendo continued, "Disembark. You may be able to find some information for us. Leave the lift down. We may have to leave quickly."

Katie twittered her acknowledgement, and a few moments later she rolled over to join the two, twittering a question.

Iri smiled, "Yeah, Shal thinks something deeper in the facility might be dangerous, so if you could patch into something?"

Katie twittered and headed for the main door. The two followed.

The door simply took a poke from Iri to open, apparently not being secured. Iri kept his gun ready just in case.

Shalmendo was also heavily on guard.

Iri swallowed as he looked at the hallway which showed more signs of a rushed abandonment. There was even a stormtrooper helmet casually tossed aside, along with pieces of equipment and other things they had apparently tried to take with them but abandoned on the way.

Katie twittered.

Iri followed Katie in slowly, "Katie needs to find an accessible computer terminal..."

Shalmendo grunted as he kept his gun ready, "Before we get too far in."

Iri nodded and moved to a doorway, "maybe we can find the hangar office."

The door was opened, finding the control room for the hangar. It had two tiers, and a window overlooking the hangar through the wall. Katie wheeled in cautiously, then moved over to a terminal and plugged in.

Shalmendo cautiously moved deeper into the room, keeping his gun ready, "seems quiet. Abandoned."

Iri nodded, "But what if what they were running from is still here?"

Shalmendo nodded, "Yes."

Katie twittered a bit.

Iri moved over to look at the terminal with Katie, "She says power seems to be fluctuating and is lower than would be expected. She's trying to find logs or records..."

A few moments later some popped up on the terminal's screen.

Iri read them over, "hmm...Oh, wow. Looks like almost the entire base's complement made an evacuation...5 years ago. Okay...well I guess whatever made them leave might not be an issue anymore?"

Shalmendo grunted, "Let's be sure."

Katie twittered a little, then blatted.

Iri smirked, "She can only get flight information here. Apparently they separated the systems for some reason. Probably security. This must have been a high security, and deeply classified, research facility. Sometimes Imperial facilities like this would separate the systems entirely. It would make for some extra overhead keeping things straight, but made it harder for data to get stolen. Of course, this means we'll have to go deeper to find out more."

Shalmendo nodded thoughtfully, "Katie, download what you can. Do the same with other systems. Get ample data for our client."

Iri nodded, "good idea...if we can get the extra pay, that would be nice. We made it this far, and this might be a cinch. But hey, have you noticed something? We keep getting hired to search abandoned places. First that destroyer on Hoth...now here..."

Shalmendo shrugged, "We should press further. Cautiously."

Iri nodded, "Hopefully there won't be any pirates or Trando scavengers around..."

Shalmendo shrugged and looked out at the hangar bay, probably pondering something.

Katie suddenly gave an alerting blip.

Iri turned around, "What-" He stopped and stared.

A floating black orb had entered the room. On the front was a noticeably intimidating red photoreceptor eye, and one one side was an obvious syringe with a needle. Iri's skin crawled as the unit announced in a monotone voice, "Identify." and started floating closer.

Iri swallowed, "uhhh....Shal?"

The orb floated closed, repeating, "Identify."

Iri backed away, raising his blaster rifle to give it a shot, but before he could raise fully, a blaster bolt shot past him and hit the orb, causing it to explode on the spot.

Iri ducked instinctively as droid parts went flying and gasped a little bit as he turned his head to see Shal lowering his pistol-rifle, "Oh man...that...wow."

Shalmendo grunted, "What was that?"

Iri shook himself out, "that was one of the Empire's IT-O interrogator droids...nasty little bastards. VERY nasty. Those things were used to torture prisoners for hours on end." He took a deep breath, "Scary as hell. Almost scarier than you. I guess they used them for sentry duty, too..."

Shalmendo smirked, "Not scary enough."

Iri couldn't help but chuckle, "Yeah, nothing scared you does it...Sure scared me, though!"

Katie twittered.

Iri patted her dome, "And Katie too. Okay she has everything she can get. Just flight logs, nothing really useful or interesting, but if we can find other data, it might tie in well."

Shalmendo nodded and stepped through the door into the hallway again, "Keep aware for automated security."

Iri nodded, "Yeah we probably want to be caut-"

Iri was interrupted as Shalmendo suddenly pounced on him and pushed him back into the office. For the briefest moment he was wondering why, until a series of blaster shots rang out and struck against the wall he had been standing next to.

Katie squealed and retreated next to them.

Iri gasped, "Yeeeek! What's going on?!"

Shalmendo grunted, "Turret."

Iri blinked, "Talk about automated security! Can we do something about it?"

Katie blatted.

Iri sighed, "Okay, not from here....She says we need to find access to the security systems to shut down that turret, and whatever else they might have going on here."

Shalmendo gruffed, "Need to take it out, then."

Iri nodded, "Yeah but how?"

Shalmendo got down on all fours then jumped out into the corridor, with the automated turret firing shots in his wake.

Iri shouted, "Careful Shal!" and peeked out from the doorway to keep an eye on his friend.

Shalmendo was jumping back and forth between the opposite sides of the hallway, trying to outpace the tracking of the turret. Iri saw that the turret was mounted in the ceiling further down the hall at an X junction, right in the middle of it. It was their only way forward.

Shalmendo clambered across the walls, dodging in a zig-zag fashion as the turret kept firing blaster bolts at where he had been only a fraction of a moment before, almost in a blur as he avoided the shots, but only barely.

Iri stared as the Garrighol closed the distance to the turret and slid beneath it, causing it to shoot right at the floor beneath it before it resumed tracking him, then turned as Shalmendo disappeared around a corner and it started firing bolts in that direction.

Iri tensed, hoping Shalmendo would be okay. A sudden explosion on the ceiling surprised him. Then after a few moments, after the smoke had sufficiently dispersed, he saw the turret had exploded and was no longer functional.

Iri leaned out a little further, "Shal?" and listened intently for a reply.

A few moment later he felt relief as he heard the Garrighol shout, "Yes?"

Iri sighed, "Are you okay?!"

Shalmendo walked out from the particle cloud of smoke, waving some away from his face, panting slightly, "Yes."

Iri took a deep breath, "what the hell was that?!"

Shalmendo tilted his head, "I was eliminating the turret."

Iri swallowed as he stood up and walked out to meet him, "Be more careful next time, Shal! I thought for sure you were going to get hurt."

The Garrighol snorted, "I'm fine."

Iri smirked and smacked a bit of Shal's armor, harmlessly, "Yeah but, I got worried for you! Maybe next time don't just...jump out? I mean, we could have coordinated or something...at least give me an idea what you're about to do."

Shalmendo tilted his head the other way, "Why? Your assistance was unnecessary."

Iri smirked, "I don't care. You worried me!"

Katie twittered and bleeped.

Iri looked down, "Oh...yeah you have a point..." Iri sighed, "Okay let's...move on."

The trio moved their way cautiously down the hall, first checking the side paths of the hall, then the way forward. It looked like the facility was somewhat extensive, but they didn't really see any more surprises.

Iri grunted, "Hey Shal, why didn't you buy another pair of those RLG droids?"

Shal shrugged, "They weren't hardy enough for my work."

Iri nodded as they took the lefthand path, "But they can detect traps and stuff...that would have been nice here."

Shalmendo paused, then grunted, "Perhaps."

They moved closer to a doorway, which opened automatically.

Iri peeked around the doorframe into the room, and found it was a form of barracks. Inside were double rows of double bunks, with footlockers in front of each. There were also vertical lockers against one side of the room. The room also exhibited some signs of a haphazard evacuation, with clothes, helmets, bedsheets, and pillows, strewn about like a number of people had suddenly been awakened and had to rush out. Iri wondered how many may have evacuated in their underwear.

The trio made their way in, checking around the room for anything dangerous.

Iri poked at a helmet, "Looks like they were in a big hurry...they probably got woken up by an alarm."

Shalmendo kicked a pillow out of the way, "Looks like it."

Iri noticed that several lockers were hanging partly open with clothes falling out of them. Passing by one, he peeked in and saw some civilian clothes, along with a photograph of a human woman he'd never seen before.

Iri paused as he looked at the photo, "...wow some of them had pretty real lives."

Shalmendo grunted behind Iri then moved on.

Iri looked over at Shal. He was hard to read, but it seemed like he was really angry with the Empire and the people in it. But here was a bit of an Imperial's private life...might have been his wife, or his girlfriend. Maybe even his daughter. Obviously someone he cared about very much to have a photo of her in his locker he'd be seeing every day. While Iri wasn't very happy about the Empire either, this was a subtle reminder that they weren't heartless monsters, either. Not some of them, anyway.

The room was fairly uninteresting for the most part so they moved back out to the hallway and down further to another door.

Iri peeked through this one, and found it was a canteen. Inside there were trays still laid on the tables, alongside cutlery, cups, so forth, like people had just been eating a few moments ago.

Iri looked around as they entered, "yeah it must have been sudden." he could see bits of decayed food still sitting in the trays, and evidence of dried liquid in some of the cups. The food line wasn't any better, with dried hardened chunks of whatever they had been serving at the time still lining the trays. Iri wrinkled his muzzle.

Shalmendo grunted, "Nothing here."

Iri nodded, "Yeah...not really. Better move on."

They left, and went further down the hall to the next pair of doors.

Inside they found refreshers, and communal showers for the troops to use. It was fairly uninteresting, but bore signs of use like towels and various bits of clothing strewn around.

Iri pondered as they returned to the hallway. It was concerning how rushed the evacuation seemed to be. They were going to need to find some offices or something in order to figure out more, and gain access to systems containing logs or other information.

Iri looked around, still concerned, "Maybe we can find some information on the project they were doing..."

Katie twittered.

Iri nodded, "Yeah, It seems like this is kind of the barracks wing. We should probably head up the hallway."

Katie twittered further.

Iri nodded again, "Makes sense Katie. She says the other direction is probably administrative, and further back is most likely where the research was being done."

Shalmendo nodded.

Iri spoke further as they went back to the central crosshall, "Probably should stop by the offices to get data from whatever systems we can over there."

Shalmendo nodded in agreement and they headed over to that section to see what they could find.

The opposite end of the hall had a number of doorways. So, they tried the first, but it was locked.

Iri pulled out his slicing tools and pried the cover of the door's panel off, pulling some of the wires from the panel, and connecting them to his datapad. After a few minutes he had the door open and Shalmendo cautiously peeked in.

Shalmendo grunted, "Seems safe." and stepped into the room.

Iri followed, finding it was a simple office with a desk, and a couple of chairs, and a terminal.

Katie wheeled around and plugged herself in to investigate the contents.

Iri pondered, "I wonder why they evacuated...it seems like it was pretty sudden."

Shalmendo shrugged, "Seems safe now."

Iri nodded, "Yeah, that's something. If it was radiation or a chemical threat...We'd still be detecting traces of it. And Katie seems to think things are safe so far. Maybe it didn't make it this far and it's still dangerous deeper in?"

Shalmendo shrugged, "Stay alert regardless."

Katie twittered a little bit.

Iri nodded, "Okay Katie, download it anyway and we'll see about some of the other offices. There's probably a security office here, somewhere."

Shalmendo grunted.

Iri paused, "Oh. She said she found some encrypted data in the local memory core but the terminals are on a local network isolated from the rest of the systems, as well. Most of the information she can find here is administrative stuff that has little to do with the project. That's probably being kept on some really isolated server deeper in."

Shalmendo nodded.

They made their way out and proceeded to check through the offices, looking for the security office which might have a better data link or at least something useful.

The other offices were about the same as the first, obviously kept rather pristine when they had been occupied. A couple showed signs of a hasty exit, with chairs knocked over, but were mostly identical. Finally, after some searching, they located the security office which had some terminals inside, and a larger console for monitoring the security status of the facility.

After a quick safety check, Katie went in and plugged herself into the terminal.

Iri looked over some of the consoles, "Yeah this should be more helpful. Maybe Katie can disable further defenses. That turret seemed like the first layer in a potential series that will get tougher the further in we go. Would probably save us some trouble deeper in."

Shalmendo nodded and leaned against the wall as he kept an eye on the hallway outside. He seemed slightly relaxed, even casual, but still ready to blow up the next IT-O droid that popped up.

Iri watched Katie fiddling with the terminal, and sat down on one of the chairs, reaching down to adjust his boots, and check on his stingbeam. It was still there, and securely snug in it's holster. After this, Iri sat up and tapped his fingers on the console, knowing better than to actually push any buttons.

Katie blatted.

Iri looked over at her and sighed, "Okay...well we have to go in deeper. This security station seems to be isolated from the rest of the security network. It sounds like they disconnected it when they left for some reason...probably so it would be difficult for someone without authorization to get all the way in and shut the security off. She also has no clue what we'll encounter. I'd guess that there's some kind of central security control that has disabled this security station's access so we can't just slice our way in. If we had the right credentials we could ID ourselves to each system and pass through, but i'm not sure how far that code cylinder will get us."

Katie twittered.

Iri looked over at Katie again, "Oh. Not far at all, she says. The credentials we had just contained enough information to forge access to the hangar door but the rest of the security systems probably have different key codes entirely."

Shalmendo grunted, "Then we proceed. Cautiously."

Iri nodded, "Sounds about the only chance we have. Of course we could just cut out now, and not take the risk...turn in what we have."

Katie backed up from the terminal, putting her data arm away.

Shalmendo grunted, "This place could be a danger still. Maybe to this entire area. Someone else could find it. It's up to us to verify it's contents completely. Could be something nasty here someone might abuse."

Iri knew Shal wouldn't give up easily, but it was nice to hear the reassurance of his persistence, "That's actually a really good point, Shal. Could be some nasty weapon or something someone else could break in and steal. And that would be worse then it just languishing here." Iri sighed a bit, glad for Shal's focus, "We won't know unless we look..and if we look we could find something that needs to be destroyed for the safety of the galaxy...It's up to us, isn't it?"

Shalmendo nodded, "We can't afford to walk away. The galaxy can't afford it."

Iri knew Shal was right, and he felt bolstered by this, "Okay. Well, we need to get further into the research area and start finding information about what they were doing here. Walking Storm sounds pretty hefty."

Shalmendo followed Iri out of the office, "Like me."

Iri looked back at Shal towering behind him, and couldn't help but grin, "Yeah, you ARE a walking storm, in a way."

They arrived at the cross junction once more, looking down the hall at a protective looking blast door. They approached cautiously, ready for pop-out turrets or other surprises, but nothing seemed to happen.

Iri looked over the door, "hmm, solid...Probably designed to heavily restrict access to appropriate personnel only. Which means that door over there is probably a control office for this door."

Iri went over to the door in the wall in front of the blast door, taking a minute to slice it open.

The door swished open, and he found himself facing another IT-O droid.

Iri yelped in surprise and jumped back, blasting the droid with his rifle, and then some. The console behind the IT-O burst into sparks while the droid exploded in a manner similar to the first.

Iri blinked as sparks spewed from the console, "Oh...uh...oops."

Katie blatted and moved in once the sparks had died down, making a few whistles.

Iri blushed a bit as he checked the hallway, "Uh yeah, sorry, Katie. Is something still serviceable in there?"

Katie made an examination of the surviving equipment and made a 'woooo' noise.

Iri leaned in, wincing at the damage, "Crap...Well, that's me for being surprised..."

Shalmendo leaned in, "Destroyed?"

Katie twittered.

Iri rubbed the back of his head, "um...almost. We're going to need to repair the console now. Eheh." Iri felt rather sheepish, "Sorry Shal...and Katie."

Shalmendo grunted, "We have time."

Iri looked up at the helmeted face of the Garrighol, and realised...yeah they do have time. Iri relaxed a bit and got into the mechanic mindset, "You're right...Katie, what do we need?"

Katie twittered, blip-bleeped, then blatted and bipped.

Iri nodded and took down a list on his datapad, "Katie just gave me a laundry list of items we need to fix the terminal enough we can get the door open."

Shalmendo nodded, "Can I help?"

Iri smiled, "I think so...let me see..We need the following:

1 power relay coil 1 power convertor 2 pieces of light cable 1 AX-1138 processor 1 unit of PX951 memory Hm, and a model Z9PF logic board."

Iri shook his head, "The last two might be hard to find."

Shalmendo thought for a moment, "cannibalize the other security room?"

Iri looked up, "Hey good idea. They probably have some kind of standardized format. Katie you stay here and Shal and I will work on getting those parts. We both have comlinks."

Katie twittered and started getting to work on attempting to start the repairs on the terminal.

Iri and Shalmendo walked back down the hall to the security office and Iri lay down to open a panel on the bottom of a terminal to start poking around at the innards.

Shalmendo grunted and turned to keep an eye on the door.

Iri pulled out his tools and reached into the panel to start exploring what components were available and began to undo some of the components to pull them out, "Okay, easiest will be the light cables...those are all over the place...I'll grab longer ones just in case. If they're too short we can't exactly stretch them to fit...." Iri mumbled a bit to himself as he yanked a couple of light cables out of their places in the terminal interior and put them aside.

Iri was making decent progress, and was hunting for the PX951 memory that he needed, "Now let's see where some of this memory is..." he looked to the side, and noticed Shal's boots were standing alertly within a close viewing distance.

Iri paused, looking at the matte, unpolished, leather, and the thick treaded soles. It was like the view he had had before in the Trando ship some time ago, but this time... He glanced up at the rest of the towering Garrighol and squirmed a little. Shalmendo was facing away...and probably not even aware of Iri's gaze on his footwear. Iri's eyes traveled back down to the footwear that loomed so close, and he found himself noticing a vestigial claw poking out from the arch side of the boots higher up past the arch. Almost as if Shal was somehow are of the gaze, one of those little claws flexed a little, causing Iri complete distraction as he stared at the shift. Those boots were quite large. Larger than the Trando boots he had been caring for. And they did look like they could use some caring.

Iri's imagination took a dive for a moment as he thought about how he could clean up that leather and give it a bit of a polish...maybe a good tongue licking first to get them good and wet with saliva first, then he could polish them further, and those treads looked like they could use a good cleaning, too. Maybe if Shal just stepped back a little he could just nose over...

Iri watched those boots shifting, almost like they were under some form of his direction. One lifted and whumped down as it turned to the side...It was graceful and terrifying at the same time...

"Iri?" Shalmendo's voice gruffed down at him.

Iri tensed and nearly jumped out of his scales as his eyes snapped up to the masked face above, with those intimidating red lenses glaring down at him like he knew what Iri had been doing. Iri swallowed, "Huh?"

Shalmendo grunted, "Have all the parts yet?"

Iri felt a shudder pass down his spine, to his groin area which...felt oddly needy at the moment. But he focused on the question, "um...no...I still need the memory. I think that will be the next hardest to find next to the processor." Iri shifted his hips a bit uncomfortably.

Shalmendo nodded and turned back to the door, his boot lifting and whumping down again firmly with his weight shift.

Iri's eyes snapped to the boot movement, and the glimpse of the treads that lift gave him. Then the boot impacted with the floor, causing a small tremor he seemed to feel allover his body, but especially between his legs. A little gust of air gently brushed over his snout, and he caught the scent of warm leather for just a brief moment...

Iri's eyes widened and he turned himself sharply to focus on getting that memory out. Sure, they had time, but he didn't want to embarrass himself any further by getting caught staring at those...big, lovely, handsome....masculine and dominant boots...that were so se-...He grunted and refocused -again-... Memory, memory, need memory...

Iri found some further in and disengaged it, pulling it out, "Got the memory. Now for a processor."

He sat up, ignoring the strange feeling in his groin, and turned his back to Shal as he pulled the control panel up from the lower surface of the unit, digging inside to find one of the processors they needed. He found several, but not the ones he needed.

Iri switched to the next unit and ripped the panels off that one as well, "not in that one, let's try this..." his voice wavered a bit, and he wasn't sure why. But he didn't let himself focus on anything else, he wanted to find that processor. Eventually he found the exact model they needed and pulled it out with it's board, just in case the board had fried, too. "Okay now we just need the converter and relay coil."

Shalmendo glanced over his shoulder, "Can you find them here?"

Iri looked up at the armored figure. The armor seemed to rather nicely enhance Shal's stature, and the broadness of his-...Iri chided himself mentally, focus on the relay and the converter. "Yeah maybe..." he wasn't sure, but he dug back into the terminal.

Behind a couple more components, he found a power relay that should do the trick, and set that aside before digging back in for the converter. This was a bit more difficult to find and he found himself pulling out a few layers of components in order to dig into the bottom and back of the unit, leaning into the opening he had made in the control panel section.

Iri hunted, and pulled parts, making a bit of a messy pile behind him as he really tore the unit apart to get at the convertor he would need for the other terminal. Finally he saw it in the dim darkness, and reached in to grab it. It was stuck firmly and he leaned in further, with his legs hanging in the air, to remove the wires, and bolts, that were holding it down. He almost fell in, but he got it in his hands and pulled it free, nearly falling out in the process.

Iri squeaked as he almost fell out, but he felt Shal's hands on him gently lifted him, apparently effortlessly, right up from the opening, and Iri found himself dangling as he looked down to the pair of boots belonging to the Garrighol below.

Shalmendo turned slightly and set Iri down on his feet, "You alright?"

Iri blushed at the ease at which he had been lifted, "Oh uh, yes!" he turned and showed Shal the convertor, "I got the thing! I mean, the convertor! That should be everything we need."

Shalmendo nodded and started gathering the items, while Iri held the convertor, "Ready?"

Iri nodded and followed Shalmendo back to the room where Katie was working.

Katie twittered, having made some progress.

Iri sighed in relief as Shal set down the pieces. Iri moved in with the power convertor, "Oh good...Well here's the convertor, Katie." Iri glanced over to Shal, "She can fix it, but it'll take a few minutes...maybe a little more."

Shalmendo nodded and resumed his guard position outside the door, alert with his pistol-grip rifle.

Iri glanced over at Shal's back for a moment, taking in a moment to enjoy the towering visage of masculinity, then turned his attention to helping Katie arrange and wire up the parts. Katie's welder came in handy to make a few spot connections, and the the two worked well together, like usual.

The entire process took about 5 minutes, but they had the console working enough that Katie could link in with her data arm and work on opening the door.

Katie plugged in and blip-bleeped a little as she got busy.

Iri nodded, "Almost done, Shal. Katie just needs to work on opening the actual door now. No telling how long that will take."

Shalmendo grunted, "Okay." but didn't turn from his position, still blocking the door with his body, and partially with his wings, back to Iri. Iri glanced down at those boots, letting his mind wander for just a moment before turning his attention back to Katie to avoid embarrassing himself with the distraction of Shal's visage and those boots.

Soon enough, Katie blip-bleeped and the blast door was heard opening.

Shalmendo grunted, "It's opening." confirming the sound.

Iri moved back out, patting Shal gently on a wing once he got to the door.

Shalmendo glanced over his shoulder and moved aside, gun ready with the blast door opening.

Iri also kept his rifle ready, peeking out from the doorway cautiously.

Beyond the blast door was a darker section of hall that wasn't quite as well lit. There was still some debris and components strewn around but they seemed to be more of a scientific nature, with canisters of various sizes, marked with chemical compound names, and various bits of scientific equipment on carts strewn around. Some of these pieces of equipment looked like they had been knocked onto the floor.

Katie twittered a little.

Iri blinked, "Katie has registered a slight increase in carbon dioxide. Mostly from our respiration. She estimates that we'll start running out of oxygen in about four hours if it's just us two breathing, but we may be able to extend that time by finding systems control for life support and engaging it, or otherwise finding out why the scrubbers aren't active."

Shalmendo grunted, "four hours is plenty of time. Depending on how big the structure is."

Iri nodded, "Katie, when we get to a point we are running out of time to make it back to the Black Claw, try to give us an early warning, okay? You can probably stay behind and gather data, but we'll need to retreat to the breathable atmosphere in the ship."

Katie twittered.

Iri patted her dome, "Great. She says she'll keep a running tally of our respiration rates, and how long it will take to get back to the ship if we took a beeline. She'll be able to give us an accurate warning of when we need to get back. Thanks Kates. She'll stay behind to finish getting data, then join us, and keep in touch on the comm."

Shalmendo nodded, "Good."

Together they proceeded down the hallway. The design was more imperial here, then the previous ones. Everything was black and grey, with 'practical' lighting that was a little lackluster and not very bright. It felt even more eerie here.

Shalmendo eartwitched as he proceeded cautiously, stopping at the first set of large blast doors that dotted down the hallway regularly, "Perhaps an office, or a lab?"

Iri shrugged, "No idea...Katie hasn't been able to find a map yet. But let's see."

Iri popped open the panel and did some of his slicing tricks with his datapad. Within a minute or so, the door opened gradually.

Peeking in, Iri could see a corridor with doorways on either side.

Iri hmmed, "Looks harmless enough. What do you think, Shal?"

Shalmendo grunted thoughtfully, "Many doors close to each other. Probably small rooms. Offices...quarters...closets? Too many for closets."

Iri smirked and moved down the hall carefully, ready for traps. He stopped at the first door and pushed a button to open the door, keeping his gun ready...

The door swooshed open and Iri checked inside carefully. It was some kind of living quarters. A moderately sized room with a bed, and another door, likely a refresher. The bed was made, and there were some items on the shelf. Iri slipped into the room cautiously. The items on the shelf consisted of a photograph of two humans, both men, with their arms over each other's shoulders, grinning widely, while other items looked to be a trophy, a medal, some pins, and other items that seemed to have value to the person who was assigned to the room. Iri checked in the other doorway, finding a walk in closet with some lab coats, and another door behind which was the actual refresher he had expected.

Iri called out, "These look like quarters for scientists. Got a lab coat in here."

Shalmendo nodded, "probably a canteen nearby, too. Looks like they lived separately with the garrison out front."

Iri nodded as he exited the rooms back to the hallway, "Yeah that makes sense. They could keep the garrison oblivious to what was going on by separating the living spaces completely. Pretty smart. And the separation of systems meant that it would be nearly impossible for someone without tight security clearance to get in deep enough to get to wherever the real important data is kept."

Katie twittered.

Iri looked down at her, "She says opening access to this next section of the facility has added to the time we can spend in here, since there's more oxygen available overall. We picked up another two hours."

Shalmend nodded, "We should try to find environmental controls sometime soon."

Iri nodded, "Yeah let's make that our priority for the moment. Once we get the life support systems running again, we can spend more time looking for data."

Katie blipped her agreement and they moved on to the next door across the hall.

Shalmendo watched Iri work on splicing the door, "Probably a Canteen."

Iri nodded, "Yeah, but each room we open access to gives us a little more oxygen, and a little more time, too."

Shalmendo grunted, "Yes, we'll eventually find those controls."

The blast door opened, revealing a canteen, like Shalmendo had expected. Like the other one it showed signs of having been in use when the evacuation was called. Trays were scattered around alongside what were presumably bits of food, utensils, cups, and so forth. A few blue gloves were littered around as well.

The trio moved on down the hallway to the next blast door, and Iri got to work opening it.

It didn't take too long before the blast door opened, and Iri peeked inside.

Inside, Iri made out a strange looking room with a circular chamber. In the center of which was a sturdy looking chair with a slight angle, featuring lots of clasps, straps, and other locks.

Iri shuddered, it was obvious it was meant for a person to be locked into. On the wall he saw there was a glass window overlooking the room. Probably some kind of control room through there. That might be a good place to get some information.

Shalmendo grunted. "Morbid. Live subjects?"

Iri shuddered some more, "I...don't want to think about it....but the control room on the other side of the wall could have some good info."

Katie twittered in agreement.

Iri moved to the next blast door and worked on slicing it open. It took a minute or two, but the door shortly opened.

Inside was the control room that Iri had spotted. There was a bank of screens and controls along the window, and the rest of the room featured a holoprojector and a counter of various bits of equipment.

Iri swallowed as he looked around, "I'm not sure I want to know what was going on in here..."

Katie twittered and moved in to find a data port, which she did, and plugged into to start prodding the system.

Shalmendo grunted, "Whatever they were doing, they aren't doing it now. We can destroy anything dangerous." Shalmendo padded his bandolier of explosives.

Iri nodded, "Right..if it's something someone could use to hurt others. Hopefully this is just some kind of project for a new kind of armor plating or something. That wouldn't be as bad..." his eyes traveled over to the chair in the other room, "But they wouldn't need live subjects for that..."

Shalmendo shrugged, "We won't know until we get more data."

Katie twittered a bit.

Iri nodded, "She's found something...and she's bringing the systems online to access their data."

The terminals lit up and started going through their default bootup sequences, finally standing ready. Katie engaged the system, and the holoprojector flipped on, showing an Imperial scientist adjusting his glasses before speaking.

"Our latest experiments indicate that the project will be suitably ready within another year, maybe two if we have some unexpected setbacks. Of course those probably won't happen but I like to give myself a buffer. Now the latest iteration currently has a number of problems, mainly with dispersal. Dispersions in the test chamber work fine, but we've managed to rig up some tests in the bay, and those hardly have any effect. The falloff radius is currently incapable of producing the desired effect, so we are going to re-engineer it to disperse better, and have a much more pronounced effect. Our next batch should have an improvement, but we are only anticipating a minor one. So far this will simply be a proof of concept for the new changes we intend to implement on a larger scale in the subsequent batch, which is currently in progress at this moment and should be ready within a couple of days."

The hologram phazed out.

Iri scratched his head, "That's...what even was that?"

Shalmendo shrugged, "Dispersion means they were putting something in the air."

Katie twittered a little.

Iri nodded, "Ambiguous at best, keep searching Katie. And download everything you can find. Especially a map of the place."

Katie kept working.

Another hologram popped up, and immediately they could hear screaming in the background. It showed the same scientist looking off to the side, presumably in the direction of the window.

The scientist commented, "It's showing some interesting effects but I don't believe this will be pronounced enough."

Another voice was heard saying, "The dispersal rate is artificially enhanced as well. I don't think we could achieve that kind of effect in the field."

The scientist on screen shook his head, "Another near-failure. At least the results are interesting. If we can achieve that kind of effect in the field, we'll be quite well off."

The screaming continued, achieving blood curdling levels of torment, while the scientist looked passively in that direction. Thankfully the hologram cut off just as the screaming was starting to become even more incoherent than it already was.

Iri found himself backed up against Shalmendo's armor, shuddering, "God that sounded...just...beyond awful."

The Garrighol looked down at him, "Nervous?"

Iri blushed a bit as he realized he was almost pushing into the Garrighol for comfort, "um..a little. I mean....that screaming didn't sound very pleasant...They must have been doing something really nasty. Like some kind of nerve agent, maybe....something that could be sprayed into the atmosphere."

Shalmendo shrugged and put a hand on Iri's shoulder, "More data will tell."

Iri felt...deeply comforted by the firm grip of the Garrighol's hand on his shoulder. Like he had a guardian angel...or Garrighol...right behind him ready to whisk him to safety. It was a nice feeling. Iri sighed a bit, "Yeah. It might not necessarily be a threat for us."

Katie continued working and various other holograms were switched through, some with incoherent screaming, but all with the same scientist figure making comments, or talking to the 'viewer' about some kind of delivery system for their 'batches'.

Iri grunted, "It's almost like they're being deliberately ambiguous."

Shalmendo nodded behind Iri, "Probably to obfuscate the nature of the project if some of the detail, like one of these holograms, leaked."

Iri smirked, "well, if we can find their central repository, Katie can put everything together."

Katie twittered a little more.

Iri nodded, "She's downloaded everything she can for now. Most of it is encrypted. She can either work on decrypting it, which could take some time, or hopefully we can find the encryption and decryption keys somewhere else in the facility."

Shalmendo nodded as Katie disconnected, and they moved to the next doorway.

A slice later and the door opened.

This time the room looked rather spartan, with doorways lining two walls, and what appeared to be a security desk with a terminal.

Iri frowned as he walked in, "This looks like a jail."

Shalmendo sniffed about, then peeked into one of the rooms, "Cells, yes."

Iri moved up behind shal to peek around him. It was a cell of some kind. It had a simple platform for somone to rest on, and a toilet and sink built into the wall. There was also a food tray on the platform, along with a spoon. "Hrei-a! These must be where they kept the..um..test subjects..."

Shalmendo grunted as he examined the doorway, "Some kind of holding fields. Easy access, no escaping..."

Katie twittered.

Iri looked over at the droid, "Yeah go ahead, Katie..." and shuddered a bit, "Ugh. This place is getting creepier."

Katie plugged into the terminal and started working on the contents.

Shalmendo gave Iri's shoulder a pat and walked back out to the blast door to keep a look out.

Iri felt a little reassured by that big strong hand but shuddered a little more as he followed Shal, eager for the comfort of his stature and strength, "Shal? Are you doing okay?"

Shal glanced down at Iri, "Yes. Why?"

Iri rubbed the back of his head, "Well this is pretty harrowing stuff...and I remember you told me about what the Empire did to your homeworld and your kind and everything...I thought maybe some of this might be disturbing to you. It certainly is to me..."

Shalmendo shrugged and looked down the hallway, "I've known worse."

Iri felt concerned by that. What could be worse than live test subjects with some kind of nasty air dispersed stuff? He felt a tingle of apprehension. What could have possibly happened to the Garrighol to warrant Shal saying he'd known worse? It must have been something intensely bad. Horrific, or even worse. Iri winced as he did think of something worse, Genocide. Maybe the Imperials had been practicing Genocide on the Garrighol, or something like it. Concentration camps, even. Maybe experimentation.

Iri felt a tingle shoot down his tail at that thought. Shal must be used to this kind of environment if he's taking it so well. Like maybe the Empire had experimented on them, and Shal had been a test subject himself. But most beings would have PTSD or something from something like that and Shal was just as stoic and calm as ever. It's like nothing could touch him. Iri wondered what that would be like, and realized that that intense coolness Shal exhibited must be one of the big reasons why he's managed to make it so well as a mercenary.

Shal being so collected and organized all the time, never panicking, would make for a great foundation as a mercenary. He'd be able to face impossible dangers without blinking an eye and freaking out, and calmly finish the directives he was being paid for. Iri felt significantly better as he thought about that. The big Garrighol was probably the most reliable person to team up with in the galaxy, especially if things went bad. And there was something mysterious about him, as well. The way he moved and handled combat reminded him a lot of the stories he'd heard of Jedi. But that's impossible, the Jedi were virtually exterminated with Executive Order 66.

Katie suddenly started twittering excitedly, in an alarming fashion.

Iri snapped out of his thoughts and turned around, "What? What did you do?"

Katie twittered rapidly.

Iri knew what she was talking about as a panel at the end of the room opened, revealing a droid, "Uh! Shal..."

Shalmendo turned to look at the unit that was about as tall as he was.

The droid's red photoreceptors lit up and it stepped out of the alcove it had been stored in. It was about as tall as Shalmendo and was mostly grey with black. It raised its arms into a ready stance, and announced "Intruder detected."

Iri felt a rising panic as there was suddenly what looked like a security droid of some kind and raised his rifle to shoot at it. He fired a couple of shots while practically diving into one of the cell rooms for cover.

A couple of Iri's shots hit the droid, but while they impacted, left only blaster marks on it's armor.

Shalmendo was already out the blast door and peeking around the doorframe at the droid.

The droid loudly announced, "Unit under fire. Engaging targets."

That's when it started firing with an integrated blaster.

Iri gritted his teeth as shots hit the wall he was hiding behind. "Oh stardragons!" This easy mission wasn't going to be so easy after all. At least not this one room. He hoped there weren't other droids hidden around like this one was.

Iri leaned out as he peeked at the droid, which he saw was ambling closer, guns ready. He shoved his gun out, blind firing around the corner at the droid, hearing a couple of his shots impact, but afterwards he still heard the droid coming for him. His neck tingled with alarm, as he realized he was pretty much trapped in a small space with only one exit which would take him right into the droid's arms. He chided himself to remember to take better cover next time as he fired off a few more rounds at the approaching unit.

Iri looked up as the security droid reached the doorway and retreated back further into the room. The unit was practically on top of him. He fired off a few more shots, which seemed to be damaging the droid's front armor, so maybe if he-

The droid was suddenly slammed to the side by a black blur.

Iri blinked, what the hell? He got up quickly and leaned out from the door where he spotted Shalmendo practically wrestling with it. The Garrighol was holding its arms to keep it from aiming it's integrated blasters and the droid was struggling with the Garrighol, probably in a manner it hadn't been programmed for.

Iri watched wide-eyed as the droid fired off random shots, one of which shot past him, but missed, thankfully.

Shalmendo growled as he pushed his strength against the droids, then shouted, "Katie! Get ready to turn the door fields on!" and strained as he started 'dancing' the confused droid back towards one of the cell doorways.

Katie twittered and blip-bleeped as she sliced into the door controls and gave a whistle.

Shalmendo didn't speak droid but hoped that whistle meant what he thought it meant as he shoved the droid against the wall, then picked it up briefly and slammed it down onto the floor with part of it's upper torso through the doorway of the cell. "Now!"

Katie bleeped and the containment field came on in all the doorways, including the one the droid was partially shoved through.

Just as it was pushing Shalmendo back to get back up, the droid was caught in the containment field and sparks started to fly massively. A few moment later the droid's head exploded and the unit ceased to function. Shalmendo stayed on top of the droid for a few moments to make sure it was inactive, then stood up slowly, "Thank you, Katie."

Iri cleared his throat. He had been caught inside the prison cell he had been hiding in when the fields came out, "Could uh, you let me out, Katie?"

Katie blipped and the field shut off again.

Iri stepped out unsteadily, "That was some strategy, Shal."

Shalmendo shrugged and looked down at the destroyed droid, "It has armor against blaster fire, and it was too close to you to use an explosive."

Iri shuddered as he thought about a misplaced thermal detonator, "Yeah....that was a good call. Damn, that way you wrestled that thing..."

Shalmendo rubbed his arms a bit, "I'm fine."

Katie twittered extensively for a moment.

Iri walked over to check on the terminal, "Katie says she's very sorry for the incident that just happened. It sounds like she tripped a security system inadvertently when she was slicing through the files. I guess they had some measures in place for just this kind of thing. Very through. I hope there aren't more of those droids though."

Katie blitted and backed up from the terminal, putting her data arm away, twittering as she did.

Iri sighed a little, "Katie doesn't know. But at least we got some data on the live test subjects. There were a number of them held here and they were identified with numerical sequences."

Shalmendo nodded, "Are you injured?"

Iri shook his head, "No, I'm alright...you grabbed that thing just in time."

Iri went and examined the remains of the droid, "Hmm. Yeah it seems like it has some kind of armor. We would have gotten through it eventually. Looks like a pretty solid security model. Maybe we need to find the central security controls or something after we get the life support back online. There could be more of these. A facility like this probably wouldn't have just one to keep the prisoners under control."

Shalmendo nodded, and grunted, "The design anticipates the garrison being occupied."

Iri nodded as he sat down at the security desk, exhaling, "Yeah, that makes sense...these security systems, they're probably backups to support the garrison. In that case, they probably aren't that significant. It seems like the evacuation might not have been totally anticipated, maybe. Hopefully we don't run into some kind of super security droid."

Katie twittered up at Iri.

Iri took a moment to just lean back in the chair, "Yeah We'll probably have a couple more to deal with, then we can finish getting the data we need."

Katie blipped.

Iri looked down at her, "Oh, yeah, after we turn the life support systems on. We're still on a bit of a timer, there."

Shalmendo grunted, "You okay?"

Iri nodded, standing back up, "Yeah, sorry. I'm not really fit for combat, I guess." He said sheepishly.

Shalmendo shrugged, "Combat is stressful."

Iri smirked as they made their way back out to the hallway, "I guess you probably think I'm a bit of a marshmallow..."

Shalmendo smirked as he stood watch while Iri sliced the next door, "No. You're just different. Softer."

Iri paused, looking over at the Garrighol's helmet optics, "Softer? Like a pillow?"

Shalmendo shook his head, "No. Softer. Like...." he grunted thoughtfully, trying to think of a good way to elaborate, "Nice to work with....pleasant?"

Iri giggled a little as he resumed slicing, "I'm pleasant? Well good, I guess. You're pretty pleasant too. You're saying that you like my company, eh?"

Shalmendo shrugged.

Iri got the door open without too much difficulty. Inside was a lab looking facility composed of many different tanks with tubing snaking all over the room connecting the tanks to a variety of machinery, and feeding from different connections in the walls and ceiling.

Iri squinted as he looked around, "Ominous."

Katie twittered as she rolled in and located a terminal to plug into.

Iri didn't bother entering the room, "This could be where they mixed whatever they were dispersing."

Iri would have spoken further, but a blaster bolt suddenly struck him from down the hall. The impact knocked him over onto his front, leaving him gasping in surprise as he felt the heat of it spread through his scales.

Shalmendo growled and ducked into the room, grabbing iri's shirt and pulling him from the hallway and into cover.

Iri winced in the pain, reaching over to grab his shoulder, hissing out.

Shalmendo growled, "Stay." Then looked out from the doorway down the hall, giving a displeased grunt, "Four droids. Like the last one."

Iri felt panic rising. He had just been shot, and was probably bleeding, and now there were four of those units coming for them. He was a bit too focused on the pain to say anything.

Katie twittered in concern.

Shalmendo grunted, "Don't understand, Katie. Keep working. I'll deal with this."

The Garrighol left the room leaving Iri in relative safety in Katie's company.

Iri felt foggy, barely recognizing he was going into shock. He didn't deal with shock often, so he wasn't sure what to do. He vaguely heard Katie wooing in concern from the terminal, but he grunted mumbling, "Keep working, Katie...Shal...fuck this hurts...he'll take care of it...somehow..." He found himself weakening, slumping against the wall, whimpering a little, "It'll be okay..."

He wasn't sure if he'd be okay. He felt like his shoulder was on fire, and it also felt cold at the same time. It was probably blood loss. Shal would take care of it. He always did. Through his muddled thoughts Iri focused heavily on keeping himself relaxed despite the panic welling up in his throat from the injury. Panicking would making it worse, he told himself. Shal has bacta spray, he'll come back in a minute and take care of him. The Garrighol was usually prepared, so Iri had no reason to panic other than fear alone.

Iri focused on those thoughts as he heard a virtual orchestra of blaster fire in the background. Iri thought to himself, "he's probably clambering on the walls and confusing the droids...Heh, nobody expects that. That's why it works. Oh hrei-a this hurts!" Iri winced as he kept his grip on his shoulder, thinking "If I'm bleeding I should keep it under pressure to minimize it...Shal will get back soon and he has that spray..." Another thought hit him, "Oh and he's got that medical backpack thing...that must be full of life-saving supplies. It'll be fine..."

Outside, Iri could hear the blaster fire continuing. It died down after a few minutes, leaving the foggy Argothae feeling mildly hopeful as he stayed slumped against the wall, trying to preserve his strength. He could hear his heart beating in his ears, and Katie twittered something. Iri looked over to find the droid had rolled over to him, "I'll be okay..."

Katie twittered in concern.

It was eerily quiet outside, and Iri found himself looking at the open blast doorway hopefully. He stared at the doorway, seeing some smoke drifting down the hall outside. It looked like there had been a bit of battle outside. More smoke drifted across the opening.

Katie twittered softly.

Iri grunted, "Yeah I Better...." he forced himself to stand up against the wall, and unsteadily made his way to the door to look out into the hallway, leaning uncomfortably against the doorframe. The droids were obviously destroyed. It was hard to see much else from the smoke that was rising from the apparently intense altercation that had occurred with the four security droids. What particularly concerned Iri, however, is that Shalmendo wasn't visible anywhere. The hallway was rich with smoke making it difficult to see, but the Garrighol should have been fairly easy to spot due to his size. He wasn't anywhere to be seen.

Iri grunted as he pulled his pistol from it's holster and shuffled down the hallway, ready to fire on a still functional droid if needed. There were pieces of them everywhere. It looked a bit like they had fired on each other a bit due to Shalmendo's typical combat acrobatics, as the casings were rich with blaster marks. Iri spotted Shalmendo's pistol-gripped rifle and moved over to it, "Katie can you detect him?"

Katie, who had followed Iri, blatted.

Iri grunted, "Right no IR signature...." Iri pushed through the built-up smoke and found himself bumping into something.

He acked as he ran face first into a dark grey and irregular surface, and blinked up at it as he took a few steps back. It was Shal. At least, Shal in that weird 'sleep' cocoon state he had seen him in once before. "Oh no...I hope he's okay."

Katie blip-bleeped and twittered a question.

Iri leaned against the wall as he put his pistol back in it's holster, "Oh...yeah you weren't around for that. Unf. He went into this kind of frozen state like that when the pirates attacked as a result of a thermal detonator and a blaster fire. He said something about 'the sleep'." Iri felt his shoulder, which was rather painful to touch, "Ow...grf....ugh, anyway, he stayed frozen like he is now for a few moments before he woke up or something and he was fine...Maybe it's some kind of healing process. Kind of wish I could go into it now, myself."

Katie twittered in concern.

Iri shook his head, "Shal is probably going to be okay...he was last time. Unf...I think he carries bacta spray but I don't think we can get it at the moment."

Katie moved a little closer and blip-beeped a suggestion.

Iri nodded and winced as he sat down and started taking off his overshirt, "Yeah...you better, I can't see it myself."

Katie extended a manipulator to help Iri get his overshirt off and bleeped a little as she examined his shoulder.

Iri felt himself calming down a little as he let Katie examine the damage, "Is it bad?"

Katie twittered.

Iri grunted, "Yeah I know you're not a medical droid, but what CAN you tell me."

Katie elaborated at length for a few moments.

Iri winced a bit, but felt some relief, "Well I won't die anytime soon then...maybe we can just wait for Shal to wake up..."

Iri looked over at the hunched figure of the Garrighol. He wasn't sure what Shal had been doing exactly when he went into 'the sleep' but figured it had something to do with the destroyed droids. Maybe he had used one of this thermal detonators to knock them out but was a little close. Iri thought about that. No that didn't make sense. Thermal Detonators didn't do damage beyond their designated range. The field they used extended to a certain radius then stopped right at the edge, and had no effect outside that hard limit. Shal probably had a good feel for that limit and wouldn't have been inside it. He may have gotten a little overwhelmed by blaster fire, though.

Iri relaxed as Katie wheeled around and he leaned against the wall, "I should probably rest a little... probably went into shock." That made sense, at least to him.

Katie twittered.

Iri nodded, "Yeah go look around a little. Maybe you can find those environmental controls. But be safe! Don't get yourself in any trouble. This place might have some more surprises left."

Katie twittered and wheeled down the hall to at least map out more of the facility.

Iri was mildly worried but knew she had an internal comm she could use to keep in touch. Damn, maybe he should have gotten her loaded with a little medical programming for a case like this. Might not be a bad idea in the future, actually. His shoulder hurt something awful but from what Katie had reported it probably wasn't life threatening. The armor vest he was wearing had done it's job for the most part. He'd let Shal look at it later, and maybe the Garrighol could put some bacta spray on it.

Iri watched the frozen figure. It's like he was made of some kind of rock. That was a pretty unusual defense mechanism, very specific. His people probably went into these rock like states when injured and would linger that way until they could heal internally. At least this time he knew, well hoped, that Shal would successfully recover. He didn't know what Garrighol death was like, but didn't want to learn it from Shal in this situation. Even if things did get too bad they could take the Black Claw out and get to somewhere with a medical office. He doubted Katie would be able to use the medical backpack but there might be a few things he could use on himself.

Iri shook his head as he tried to relax. Walking all the way back felt a little daunting at the moment, and he actually felt like just resting here for a little bit. He sighed and closed his eyes. Yeah, he'd be okay. It was a minor wound according to Katie, although she didn't have any real solid medical programming or experience, so he wasn't sure. A little bit of bacta spray would probably do wonders, though. Before he realized it he was drifting off.

He awoke with a start as he felt himself being handled. His eyes shot open and he instinctively grabbed for his pistol. He heard a familiar grunt.

"Relax."

Iri blinked and looked up, finding himself staring into the Garrighol's helmet optics, "Oh...good...you're okay..."

Shalmendo grunted as he dug into his pouches, "I see you're not."

Iri winced, "Yeah..."

Shalmendo nodded and pulled out his canister of bacta spray, applying it to Iri's bared shoulder, "Blaster burns. Your armor absorbed most of it...heat bled over. Mostly skin burns."

Iri felt relieved at that, and sighed a little as the pain subsided with the application of the bacta. "Oh that feels better."

Shalmendo examined Iri further, "good choice with the armor. You'll be fine. You went into shock and went unconscious."

Iri nodded, "Yeah...that's about right."

Shalmendo grunted, "We need to take this off." he tugged at the vest a bit.

Iri nodded and unzipped it so Shal could take it off of him, leaving him bare chested.

Shal peered at the Argothae's back, "Yeah. it's small. Isolated. Minor." and applied a bit more bacta spray to it.

The cool spray felt amazing on the painful area. Iri sighed at the relief, "Thanks Shal."

Shalmendo nodded and helped Iri put the vest back on, "Keep it on. It saved your life and could do so again."

Iri nodded and zipped it up, feeling much better with the bacta spray and Shal's oversight. Iri reached up and Shalmendo practically lifted him up with one arm and set him down on his feet.

Iri chuckled, "I fFeel like a doll with you sometimes. Thanks for taking a look at it."

Shalmendo nodded, "Where's Katie?"

Iri looked down the hallway, "Oh yeah I think I sent her to keep looking further while I waited for you to uh..wake up from your sleep."

Shalmendo nodded and pulled out the comm Iri had given him, "Katie."

Katie twittered across the comm.

Iri moved his shoulder a bit as he watched Shal handle the tiny, in his hand, comm.

Shalmendo continued, "Katie, have you found anything?"

Katie twittered an answer.

Iri translated, "She found access to the life support systems in a systems closet. She's getting things online now for the atmosphere."

Shalmendo nodded, "Good. Thank you, Katie. Where are you?"

Katie answered over the comm.

Iri pulled his shirt back on, "I'll show you, Shal."

The pair made their way up the hallway to a smaller door leading to the systems closet where Katie was busily reactivating the life support systems.

Katie greeted them both.

Iri smiled, "Hi Katie. Yeah I'm fine. Shal had that bacta spray like I thought. Turns out it's a minor burn from heat dispersion in the armor."

Shalmendo grunted, "You might want to wear a liner."

Iri glanced up at Shal, "a liner...yeah that's probably a good idea. At least it took most of the impact and i'm okay. Did you discover anything else, Katie?"

Katie twittered softly

Iri hmmed, "Yeah the blast doors block sensors. They went through some steps to keep things secure, obviously."

Shalmendo put his arm up against the doorframe and leaned against it casually, "Life support?"

Katie twittered.

Iri nodded, "She's got it running, so we have as much time as we need now. At the moment she's poking around for whatever she can find in the auxiliary systems that might give some clues. No map, though."

Shalmendo shook his head, "I doubt there is one."

Iri nodded in a greement, "Yeah that's probably true...Makes sense as another level of security. Anyone trying to sneak around would be blind and waste a lot of time, like we are."

Shalmendo nodded, "We have plenty now. Unless the Imperials are suddenly going to show up."

Iri looked up at Shal, staring at him, "Oh my gosh, you think that would happen?"

Shalmendo looked down, "No."

Iri frowned for a moment, "Oh you're kidding!"

Shalmendo tilted his head, "Yes."

Iri smirked, "With that flat delivery I couldn't tell."

Shalmendo shrugged, "That's what you hear."

Iri tilted his head, "Hmm, yeah I have seen cultural differences...I think think some species even use pheromones for communication. Do you do something like that?"

Shalmendo shrugged, "Don't think so."

Iri pondered, "So you maybe use some other method to...emote?"

Shalmendo shrugged, "Don't know."

Iri chuckled, "Yeah okay, maybe that protocol droid you're getting can help figure some of that out. They're good with that. Maybe you're more emotive than I can hear, yeah. Or you do it in a different way. There's all sorts of possibilities." Iri watched Katie withdraw from the data port, "I don't really know, though. I'm a scout, not really an expert on xenolinguistics or anything..."

Iri looked around at the hallway and the various blast doors that lined it. But there was also one particularly large door at the end that got his attention. "Hmm, Shal, what do you think is through there?" Iri pointed over at the bigger door.

Shalmendo looked at it for a moment, "Hm...guess a large space. Something major."

Iri tilted his head, "hmm...like some culmination of their project maybe. Like a proof of concept. Maybe we should head for that?"

Shalmendo nodded, "Most of these other rooms are probably support for that one. Probably good data there, too."

Iri agreed, "Yeah, and there might be some kind of map or ways to reference the layout so we won't spend so much time running around in circles."

Shalmendo stared down at Iri.

Iri looked up, ""Oh...uh...that's a phrase that means um...running around aimlessly."

Shalmendo grunted, "Shall we?"

Katie twittered and made her way out of the systems room.

The trio walked down the hall to the big door at the end and Iri got to work on getting the door open.

Iri's first problem was, there was no door panel like one the others. "Uh, there's no panel, so...it's probably controlled from another location. Hm, probably a security post or something."

Katie twittered from a nearby door.

Iri looked over, "Yeah could be in there." and walked over to pop the panel off the door Katie had just pointed out, "Hmm...reasonably more secure. Yeah, this could be the security post."

Iri hooked up his datapad to the terminals and got to work bypassing the door's security.

Shalmendo sniffed and resumed his alert stance, keeping an eye on all the doorways that hadn't yet been opened.

Iri grunted as his slicing attempts failed, "Can you give me a hand, Katie?" He plugged the datapad into one of Katie's external ports to link her in.

Katie bleeped a little as she worked on the door security.

Iri watched her progress on his datapad, "Yeah try a buffer overflow to get into the next memory space. Should suitable for a privilege escalation."

Katie blatted at him.

Iri laughed, "Okay, okay! Just trying to help." He looked up at Shal, "She can handle it herself..."

Shalmendo grunted.

Iri snickered a little as he kept an eye out for trouble, knowing Katie could handle the door fairly well on her own.

It didn't take Katie very long to get the door to slide open.

Iri took a moment to peek in cautiously with his rifle ready, but the room seemed unoccupied. "Looks okay...Yeah they must have relied primarily on the garrison with some backup security like the droids and IT-Os."

Inside the room, it was clearly a centralized security center containing a myriad of duty stations and consoles. It looked like there was an armory area in the back as well.

Iri stepped in with Katie following, walking past the consoles to check out the armory. It wasn't as secured as Iri would have expected, but then again it was already behind a bunch of security they had to bypass, or destroy, to get this far.

A quick slice, and Iri had the barred door open and peeked in to see that a number of blaster rifles and other weaponry were neatly stacked on racks. Iri inspected them briefly.

Iri hmmed, "lots of good weapons here. They're all in good condition, and look like they've just been sitting here this whole time...hmm."

Shalmendo grunted, "We could take them."

Iri glanced over at the Garrighol, "hmm...Well I have been looking for some weapons... and I don't think the New Republic will really need them...not as much as Rillyn."

Shalmendo nodded, "I can put them in my hold."

Iri nodded, looking the weaponry over. It wasn't too much but it would help.

Katie twittered from one of the computer terminals she had plugged into.

Iri looked out from the armory, "Oh good. Katie is getting that big door open, and has found a lot of relevant security information about the facility. She says she can probably piece together a map from the data she's already collected from our exploration and the data she has in the terminals. She's also looking into the security systems and shutting down anything that could be a problem."

Katie twittered a bit further.

Iri smiled, "Looks like we dealt with most of it already, so we shouldn't have any other surprises."

Shalmendo grunted, "good." and moved over to the security post exit to watch the door.

Iri rubbed his shoulder a little bit, "It'll be nice to get this done, and get paid. Uh, hey Shal, would you be able to check my shoulder out further on the Black Claw?"

Shalmendo glanced over, "Yes. The Bacta spray is mostly first aid, so we should check it further anyway."

Iri nodded, "Okay, that sounds good. You still got that medical backpack then?"

Shalmendo grunted, "Yeah."

Iri nodded, "Okay good...I'll be just fine then."

Katie twittered and bleeped.

Iri looked over at her, "Oh good. She's cracked the door, and says that through the prototype bay is a central computing center where everything is stored. If we can get there, Katie should be able to do a mass download of everything on the project."

Shalmendo nodded, watching the door start to open, "Good progress."

Iri headed up, stopping next to Shal as the door gradually opened. "Katie said this was a prototype bay so we should probably be ca-h-auh-uh" Iri broke into a stammer.

The doors had widened to the point the they were able to get a clear look at the room on the other side. It was quite large, rather massive, but the size of the room was the least interesting feature. What really stopped Iri's tongue from functioning properly was the looming, but slightly distant, figure of an AT-AT standing on the other side of the large bay.

Iri froze as he had an instant flashback to the intense chaos at Echo Base as the Empire attacked their shield generator. He had been working in the snow speeder hangar, rather isolated from the actual fighting, but the shaking of the ceiling, the bits of debris falling down onto his head, and a glimpse out the hangar doors made things poignantly concerning. He vividly recalled the huge AT-AT machines stomping their way towards the base as he peeked out from the open hangar doors. Even distantly they loomed monstrously, and he remembered the blasting fire of their head-mounted cannons and the jerky way they moved as they approached the hangar.

Shalmendo looked down curiously as Iri hid behind him, then up at the inactive AT-AT. He reached down to give Iri's shoulder a squeeze and gentle shake as he seemed to be in a trance of sorts, "Iri."

Iri didn't respond.

Shalmendo grunted and shook him a little firmer, speaking louder, "Iri!"

Iri yelped and looked up at Shal, "That's...."

Shalmendo glanced over, "AT-AT?"

Iri nodded and shifted behind Shal a little more, clearly afraid of the vehicle.

Shalmendo grunted, turning to look down at Iri who was pressing into him and shuddering. "Memories?"

Iri swallowed, "Yeah..." he shuddered a bit more, he cleared his throat, "Saw them before...On Hoth."

Shalmendo grunted, "When?"

Iri glanced up, "No before then...When I was assigned to Echo Base back with the rebellion...And the Empire attacked and...they used those."

Shalmendo looked over at the dormant AT-AT, "It's inactive."

Iri leaned out behind Shalmendo, to look at the stationary machine. He stared at it for a few moments, watching it intently, but it didn't move in the slightest.

Shalmendo patted Iri on the head, "It's been there for 5 years."

Iri watched it for a few moment more, shuddering a bit again, "I..I guess it won't be moving now, then...."

Shalmendo grunted, "No. It's empty."

Iri squinted at it...it was probably abandoned with the evacuation. Inactive, and not a threat. Iri swallowed and pulled away from Shal a bit, "Sorry...it's hard to forget those..."

Shalmendo nodded and folded his arms.

Iri shook himself out and stepped away from Shal, "I think I'll be okay. It's just an empty machine, right?"

Shalmendo nodded, "Probably rusted out."

Iri nodded, "Yeah you're right....empty, rusted...probably won't even run anymore."

Shalmendo nodded and motioned.

Together the two made their way into the bay, albeit cautiously. Katie wheeled in behind them and headed off to the side to look for a terminal.

Iri looked up at the AT-AT Noticing parts of the armor were off, and it had a variety of cables snaking into and out of it from various openings, "It probably didn't work before, anyway. It's all open and hooked up to stuff...I wonder what they were doing with it."

Shalmendo shrugged, "probably can't function."

Iri slung his rifle back over his good shoulder, "Yeah...no danger then..."

Iri relaxed a little as it was clear that AT-AT wasn't going to shoot at him, "Okay well..we just have to find a place to download the relevant data for the entire project..."

Katie twittered over the comm.

Iri pulled his out to listen to her, "Okay great. Katie found a control booth with a link to the main servers and is getting started on tapping the data."

Shalmendo nodded and leaned against a crate with his arms folded, "Okay."

Iri tilted his head, "You're really used to this stuff, huh?"

Shalmendo glanced over to Iri, "Hm?"

Iri moved over a bit closer, "Well, we've been attacked by a turret, security droids...and there's that huge AT-AT over there and...you look relaxed, like you're just waiting for a taxi to arrive."

Shalmendo gave a shrug.

Iri smirked a little, "Yeah, see? It's like nothing phases you...Actually? What's the trick to that? I'm kind of tired of freaking out at everything..."

Shalmendo looked down at the little Argothae, "I don't know. I just..." He shrugged, "Don't let it bother me."

Iri tilted his head the other way, "Huh. Guess it's down to personality or something."

Shalmendo shrugged once more.

Iri opened his mouth to say something, then paused as he heard a loud noise. He looked off to the side, scanning through the room, "Katie?"

Katie wasn't in the room. All that was present was the AT-AT and lots of equipment strewn about, alongside cargo containers and other items.

Iri nudged Shal in concern, "Did you hear anything?

Shalmendo nodded, "Yes. Don't know what it is."

They both scanned the room in concern. Shal had his weapon ready, and Iri pulled his off of his shoulder and readied it.

Iri felt tense, "I hope this isn't another surprise..."

Shalmendo grunted as he scanned the room for the source of the sound.

Iri grunted, "I have a bad feeling about this..."

Another noise issued. Iri dropped into an alert stance with his rifle raised. Shalmendo looked over at the AT-AT.

A moment later one of the blaster cannons on the side of the machine rotated, and fired.

Iri gasped and yelped as a huge blaster bolt slammed into the floor nearby, and knocked him off his feet. "HREI-A!" He shouted, immediately startled out of his wits.

Shalmendo pounced on the Argothae, and literally tossed him behind the nearby cargo crate before leaping way. Just in time to avoid being blasted with the AT-AT's suddenly active blaster cannon, as the bolt landed where had previously been.

Iri flailed as he slid behind the crate, watching Shalmendo leap away just in time to avoid being blasted. He grunted as the impact with the crate jarred his shoulder mildly painfully. He fumbled in his pocket for the comm unit as he heard another blast hit a nearby wall. He almost dropped the comm before he could get it up to his face, "Katie!"

Katei twipped curiously.

Iri shouted into the comm as the container he was sitting behind suddenly jolted with the impact of the blaster canon's fire. "The AT-AT! It's moving! The heck is going on?!"

There was a moment of silence before Katie started twittering in earnest.

Iri winced as a blast bolt sailed over the crate and into the wall over the open blast door and made a rather large, and concerning, blaster mark on the wall. "What?! Shut it down! It's actively firing!" He peered around the cargo crate, spotting Shal sliding into cover behind a cargo crate just in time to avoid another blast from the AT-AT.

Katie twittered, then bleeped, blatted, and twittered some more.

Iri felt a chill run down his spine, "WHAT?! BACTERIAL payload? We can find out about that later! Shut it down before it blasts us!"

Katie bleep-blipped and twittered extensively.

Iri stayed in cover, "Shal! You okay?!"

Shalmendo growled from his cover, "It has a big gun."

Iri smirked at the observation, "Don't get shot!"

Shalmendo gruffed, "I'll be fine."

Iri realized he didn't doubt it, but ducked instinctively as another blaster shot went over the container. Iri sighed, wondering how long the container was going to last, then his eyes widened when he felt a deep tremor through the floor. "Oh...." he wasn't able to finish that thought as another tremor was felt.

Iri leaned out from behind the crate, and blanched. The AT-AT was moving it's legs, then moving forward, straining against the cabling that was linked into it from all sides. Iri swallowed as he watched the cables starting to pop free with showers of sparks from some and explosions of steam from others, the latter waving about as they sprayed clouds of steam everywhere.

The AT-AT broke free after a few moments, then began to trundle it's way forward towards both of them, creating deep tremors in the metal flooring with each hefty impact of it's feet.

Shalmendo grunted as he repositioned, leaping in several bouts to avoid the blaster fire, and spreading his wings to take a sudden curve behind a bank of equipment. "Shut it down."

Iri blinked, "Katie is working on it!"

Katie twittered, then blatted.

Iri grunted, "She can't! It's disconnected!"

Katie twittered further.

Iri looked up to see the towering head of the AT-AT poke over the container, then tilt down to look at him. Iri watched one of the blaster turrets rotate to point down at him, and realized what was about to happen.

Iri jumped out from behind the container just in time to avoid a blast from the turret, ducking into a roll, with a twinge from his shoulder as he rolled underneath it where it couldn't fire at him. Then gasped as he realized he had just put himself in a different kind of bad position.

One of the AT-AT's large round feet repositioned, casting a shadow over him, then began to rapidly descend upon him. Iri gasped and scrambled out of the way, feeling it thud down behind him with an accompanying gust of air, shaking not only due to the powerful impact but the near-miss as well.

Shalmendo shouted, "catch!" and tossed something Iri's way.

Iri turned to see a thermal detonator bounce off the metal flooring and roll to him. At first he was startled, thinking it would explode, but it was inactive. He grabbed it as the AT-AT started repositioning itself, and remembered something he had heard about Commander Skywalker's method to taking them down. He looked up, seeing a number of panels and open access hatches, any one of which an active thermal detonator could be thrown into. Iri thumbed the activation switch, trying to get ready to throw it.

Over the comm, Katie started whistling in alarm, followed by a series of urgent twitters and blip-bleeps.

Iri froze as he heard her report, "Shal, it's loaded with a payload! ..Oh Hrei-a...it's some kind of bacterial weapon!" He remembered the screaming in the holorecordings from the testing lab, "It's got some kind of droid brain driving it!"

Shalmendo gruffed, "You need to slice it!"

Iri realized that was probably a very good idea. If he could get up there he could slice into it and shut it down. But it was a bit too high for him, and he didn't have a grappler. "I can't get up there!"

Iri jumped out of the way as another AT-AT foot stomped down next to him. He hurriedly pocketed the thermal detonator as he got back up...then jumped onto the footpad and grabbed onto part of the leg structure. It jerked back up with him on it, and he stared up at the leg, trying to see how to climb it to get close enough to one of the open panels to climb up inside.

Shalmendo quickly dashed out from behind the line of equipment and slid to the foot Iri was gripping, narrow being missed by the large blaster bolts. He grabbed on and hopped up next to Iri, looking up at the underside of the automated AT-AT. "I can climb, but I can't slice."

Iri grunted as he gripped the moving leg, "Opposite for me!"

Shalmendo growled thoughtfully then picked Iri up by his armored vest and turned him around, lifting him and whipping him around to a space between his wings, "Grab."

Iri blinked as he was lifted, and dropped between the Garrighol's wings, reaching up and grabbing onto the wingbases carefully, "You gonna be okay?"

Shalmendo grunted, "Don't fall." and jumped up to grab onto a higher part of the leg where there were some handholds.

Iri gritted his teeth at the sudden acceleration, feeling like he was suddenly on some kind of living amusement ride, and nearly fell off as the Garrighol got a hold of the handholds. Iri scrambled a bit to keep his grip on the wings, "Ack! Take it easy, Shal!"

Shalmendo grunted as he leapt up again, "Don't fall!"

Iri grunted as he gripped onto the Garrighol tighter, "Okay!"

Katie twittered urgently over the Comm.

Iri grimaced as Shal made another leap, up to the AT-AT's knee, "Katie can't do anything from where she is, and all the doors are locked down. It's some kind of safety override! She's trapped in the computer room, and we're trapped in here! It'll take her awhile to get out!"

Shalmendo growled as he leapt up again to the upper part of the leg, "Blow it up inside."

Iri clung with the sudden motion, "Can't! There's some kind of payload containing the stuff we saw in the holorecordings! We'll be killed! We have to shut it down and render it inactive!"

Shalmendo growled as he clung for a moment, "I'll see if I can get you inside."

Iri grunted at the next leap, "Maybe...unf...you can toss me?"

Shalmendo nodded as he reached the upper leg joint, "Maybe a bit."

Both of them looked up, seeing an open hatchway that Iri should be able to fit through.

Iri pointed to the hatch, "Up there is good!"

Shalmendo paused then grabbed Iri off his back and paused as he judged Iri's weight, hefting him up and down a couple of times before he reared back and forcefully threw Iri up into the air.

Iri squealed as he flew up into the air, popping up into the hatchway briefly, grabbing at whatever he could and ending up dangling from the hatchway, clinging to the edge. Iri grunted as he clung there and flailed his legs as he struggled to pull himself up into the hatchway. His efforts were hampered by the rocking and jolting motion of the machine as it trundled beneath them.

Iri managed to finally pull himself up into the space inside, grabbing onto a nearby pipe as he peered down at Shalmendo still clinging to the leg, "I'm in!" He turned to look around at the interior of the space. Around him, he could see numerous pipework connecting to a large horizontal tank that had some kind of nasty fluid in it that was sloshing back and forth.

Iri stared at the tank, "Yeah there's a tank of stuff in here....it looks like it's hooked up to a bunch of atomizers."

Shalmendo growled down below, "We can discuss details, grf, later!" His grip weakened and he slipped down, "Turn it off!" He let go and spread his wings to control his descent as he angled away and out of sight.

Iri swallowed and clambered through the interior as it rocked around him, "Damn this thing is a walking weapon sprayer...." he ducked under a pipe, trying to head for the machine's head where the droid brain probably was located and creating the chaos. He grunted as he clambered between two pipes, getting buffeted between them as the walker moved.

On the other side, he located the doorway to the walker's neck, but it was barred by a thick metallic door that didn't have any obvious locks or opening mechanisms. It didn't look welded in place but it certainly looked like it would be difficult to break through in a timely manner. Iri cursed to himself as he looked around, but spotted a data port nearby.

Iri dashed over to it, "Perfect!" and pulled out his datapad, connecting it up to the dataport, "mmh, must be an interface for programming the droid brain in there..." Data streamed across the datapad's display, and he started working at manipulating the brain into stopping somehow, or finding another means to shut it down. Iri gasped as he looked at the data feeding through.

Iri grabbed his comm, "Shal! Shal! It's trying to deploy its payload!"

Katie interjected with a squeal and some twittering.

Iri grimaced, "Oh! FLESH eating bacteria?!" Iri shuddered.

Katie had just informed him that the payload was some kind of highly contagious flesh-eating bacteria that would eat them alive in minutes in a painfully nasty way.

Iri didn't want to end up like the test subjects, so he got to work trying to figure out how to disable the payload and the other weapons.

Shalmendo grunted on the comm over blaster fire from the walker, "Iri. Shut it down."

Iri rapidly fidgeted with the datapad, poking at and shuffling data around. He found himself sweating as he fought against the system without having any knowledge of the command structure, or the access codes required. It did seem like they were using a droid brain that used a programming language similar to the one Katie utilized, so he had a bit of a place to start, but it was a lot of trial and error as he felt out how the system operated and started trying some of the slicing methods that might at least create a cascade crash effect.

Iri glanced behind him as he heard bubbling and hissing, watching the tank frothing into some degree of action as some of the clear tubular sections filled with the liquid, followed by a string of rhythmic hissing as he observed several accordion fold sections beginning to undulate in a pumping motion.

Iri felt a chill run through his spine as he watched the system probably priming itself for release by building up pressure in a series of staging tanks to prepare for the atomizer release.

Outside, Iri heard an explosion. Shalmendo grunted over the comm, "Progress?"

Iri tried to steady himself, "I think it's priming RIGHT NOW. It's using some kind of droid language I haven't seen before...but I think it's similar to what Katie uses, so I've got some progress. The system is hardened against intrusion, so I'm having some trouble. Katie could probably do it easily."

Katie twittered and blatted.

Iri grunted as he wrestled with the datapad, "Yeah, Katie, if you could get up here...Ugh maybe I should have rigged up some kind of combo for the comm and datapad so you could slice remotely."

Katie twittered concernedly.

Iri sighed, "Okay maybe we can upgrade you later at some point...."

Iri returned his focus to the datapad as the walker shifted and jostled around him. He was finally starting to make progress, getting access to some of the subsystems. He tried to power down the reactor, but grunted as it refused to shut down due to a layer of extra precautions. It wasn't going to be that simple. Iri would have to find a vulnerability of some kind.

Iri thought about this as the walker shook and bobbed around him, sighing as he watched the system finish priming behind him, "Well shit."

A loud hissing sound started to issue around him. He gritted his teeth as he watched it begin to push the high-pressure liquid into the atomizer banks. Iri tingled with concern and fear as he raced against the system while it was starting to atomize the bacterial payload. He grabbed his comm, "Shal, it's atomizing! You need to get out!"

Katie blatted and twittered.

Iri winced, they were locked in. Him and his datapad were their last chance. And he was close. He poked through screens quickly, narrowing down on a potential exploit to shut the system down hard before it could vent further. He thought about the thermal detonator in his pocket, but he knew that while an explosion might disable the system, it would probably damage the payload and it would leak out anyway. He had to find a way to keep it intact so they could keep it safe once it was shut down.

Iri worked faster, executing a series of buffer overflows now that he had a better grasp of the system's language and workings. It was very much like the kind of computer you'd find in an imperial security droid, but heavily reprogrammed. Despite this, the system still had a little quirk that allowed him to start writing data in memory blocks he shouldn't have been able to access otherwise. He started filling the blocks he could access with integers that were too far into the negative to allow the system to continue working properly when they were accessed.

While it was a virtually guaranteed crash of the system, that was dependent on when the memory blocks were accessed. Iri grunted as he coughed a bit, trying to fill more memory blocks with the garbage data.

Iri coughed some more as he looked up from the datapad, blinked as he saw the bacterial gas was starting to creep into the interior of the Walker. Iri coughed further as he tried not to breathe it but felt like he was fighting a losing battle. He wondered how Shal was doing outside but gagged in the growing aerialmist that he knew contained the flesh-eating bacterial load. It smelled quite nasty and was starting to fog the area. Iri found himself tearing up a little as he quickly set up a script to keep exploiting that bug and fill the memory with as much garbage data as possible.

Iri activated his comm, "Katie I'm running a script to try and shut this thing down. If you can get out...you can take Shal's ship back to Chandrila and give a full report...and all that data." Iri broke into a coughing fit, shuddering as he thought about what was probably going to come next as the bacteria started to consume him.

Katie twittered.

Iri coughed, "The payload is already spraying everywhere, Katie. You'll have to warn the New Republic. We won't make it. But you're made of metals, so should be immune."

Shalmendo tapped into the comm, "The room is full of gas. Katie will need to alert the Republic."

Iri coughed more, waving the gas away from his face and starting to wonder how long the script would take to shut down the walker, but also when the bacteria would start having an effect other than making him cough.

As he coughed he realized he wasn't feeling the effects of the walker moving any more. Iri checked on the datapad, finding that the walker's systems had shut down, at least he had stopped the walker and it wouldn't blow up Katie as she left the facility. He listened, hearing that the atomization had stopped, so all of the systems must have shut down entirely.

Iri sighed as he felt some relief, coughing a bit, then blinked as he felt the floor shift underneath him. Looking down he simply saw the metal floor, and felt it tilting even more. "Oh...shiii" The floor lurched and the entire room tilted sharply into a 90 degree angle. Iri slid along the floor until he bumped into the wall, then felt the walker impact against the floor sending him flying through the interior, and knocking him unconscious.

Iri groaned as he stirred, coughing a bit in the stale air as he felt a pain all over himself. He opened his eyes to get his bearings, feeling some discomfort as he lifted his head. Around him, the walker's interior was sideways from it's previous orientation. Iri found himself wedged a bit against some pipework on the side and he carefully extricated himself from the uncomfortable position. It was difficult, with his body feeling rather sore. Iri groaned as he slowly clambered through the pipework and cabling that was all over, some of which was broken and dripping with fluid. Other cables were sparking and Iri had to raise a hand to shield his eyes from some of the sparks as they issued from a nearby cable.

Iri grunted in discomfort as he crawled slowly through the bent and damaged pipework, finally seeing light from outside up ahead through a misshapen hatchway. He squinted as he crawled into the light and peered out of the opening, giving surprised gasp as a shape moved in front of the opening.

The shape whistled alertly then twittered. It was Katie! Iri felt a wave of relief, then the light cut off as Shalmendo's boots heavily stepped into view, then Shalmendo's hand reached right in and grabbed Iri's collar, dragging him right out of the hole and up in front of the now familiar helmet.

Iri sighed as he dangled, "Hey..."

Shalmendo looked Iri over to make sure he was alright, then set him down, "Are you injured?"

Iri grunted as he stood up on his feet unsteadily, "I feel....sore, but fine otherwise." He felt at himself a little.

Katie twittered and blipped.

Iri sighed, "Yeah I think I'm okay."

Shalmendo grunted, "AT-AT fell over with you inside."

Iri nodded, "Yeah that was a bit of a surprise..." he stretched out carefully, "I hurt all over, but it's not too bad...like I just got smacked all over my body."

Katie twittered.

Iri nodded, "Okay good...you got all the data then...Wait. Why aren't we dead??"

Katie twittered an answer.

Iri tilted his head, "Oh!" his knees gave out and he found himself sitting hard on the floor and leaning against the walker.

Shalmendo crouched, "You hurt?"

Iri sighed in relief, "No, no, I'm okay! REALLY okay! Katie just told me that the payload that thing released was a tank of harmless neutral bacteria to test the delivery system instead of a live one like they were using in the testing chambers."

Shalmeno tilted his head, "So it was...fake?"

Iri nodded, and couldn't help but grin, "Yeah! Just an inert bacterial aerosol. Nothing to be concerned about."

Shalmendo nodded, "Good. I was worried."

Iri laughed as he relaxed, "You? worried? " he laughed a bit more, "That's a lot coming from you. But hey, since we got everything, why don't we get out of here?"

Katie blipped and bleeted.

Iri stood up with Shal's help, "good. Katie got it all downloaded into her internal memory. Good, because I don't feel like hauling back any memory cores."

Shalmendo smirked as they made their way back to the Black Claw, "Need to check you, Iri."

Iri nodded as they got onto the cargo lift and rode it up into the cargo hold. Iri went to lie down in the double-bunk, waiting for Shal to bring the backpack with it's automated diagnosis system.

Shalmendo arrived shortly with the pack and took out the diagnostics scanner, setting it on top of Iri's chest.

The machine whirred and blipped for a few moments, then announced in a gentle robotic voice, "Minor contusions and bruises detected. Blaster burn located, left shoulder, first aid previously applied. Recommended Bacta application or injection."

Iri sighed, "well that's a pretty good diagnosis."

Shalmendo grunted and grabbed an injector, fitting a canister of bacta to it and slipping it into Iri's scales to inject him with it.

Iri winced, "Ow..."

Shalmendo withdrew the needle and set it aside, "That should do it."

The diagnostics system beeped, "Bacta injection registered. Treatment complete. Recommend 2 days rest for patient." then it clicked off.

Shalmendo put the items away and took the pack out.

Iri sighed, "Okay wow, not as bad as last time, at least."

Katie twittered.

Iri smiled as he got up, "Thanks Katie. Okay well now we can get those weapons from the armory for Rillyn."

Katie blipped.

Shalmendo returned, "Are we ready to leave?"

Iri stretched a bit, "Yeah, but I want to grab those weapons from the Armory...."

Shalmendo nodded, "I'll get my cargo lift."

The three made their way back to the cargo hold, where Shalmendo grabbed the lift from it's mount on the wall and activated the unit, floating it over to the cargo lift. The lift was lowered, and the trio made their way back to the armory.

Iri eagerly started to pull weapons from the various racks and piled them on top of the cargo lift.

Shalmendo grunted, "why do you need these?"

Iri looked up as he put another rifle on the cargo lift, "For Rillyn."

Shalmendo tilted his head, "elaborate?"

Iri paused, "My home world is still under Imperial control and...I'd like to help liberate it."

Shalmendo grunted, "You'll need more then some weapons."

Iri sighed, "Yeah, I know...but I gotta start somewhere."

Shalmendo nodded, "Weapons will help but you will need information, and strategy."

Iri nodded as he started piling blaster cells onto the lift as well, "Yeah. It's something I've been working on for awhile."

Shalmendo grunted, "by yourself?"

Iri glanced up, "Well..not by choice. The New Republic won't help me, they're already stretched thin and can't really offer any help. I'm saving up to hire some mercenaries and smugglers to help out and...work something out."

Shalmendo smirked, "How much money do you have saved up?"

Iri sighed, "Probably not enough. A bit over a million."

Shalmendo grunted, "you won't be able to buy enough forces for a million."

Iri sighed as he loaded the last of the blaster cells onto the cargo lift, "Yeah...I'll keep saving. Eventually I should have enough for something."

Katie bleeped and twittered.

Iri loaded the last of the weapons onto the floating cargo carrier, "I know, Katie. But Rillyn needs help to get rid of the Imperial presence."

Shalmendo grunted thoughtfully, "You'll need help."

Iri smirked, "Yeah I know. That's why I'm saving up."

Shalmendo shook his head, "I meant advice. Strategy. Tactics."

Iri looked up at the Garrighol, "Uh...well I figured that would come in time...eventually."

Shalmendo pushed the full carrier out of the room and up the hallway towards the hangar, "Yes, but it won't be cheap. Unless..."

Iri followed him, and looked up sharply as he trailed off, "Unless what?"

Shalmendo grunted thoughtfully, "I know a few things."

Iri blinked, "...are you saying you'll help?"

Shalmendo pushed the carrier into the hangar, "...maybe."

Iri wiggled a little as they rode the cargo lift up into the bay, "I can't think of anyone I'd rather have help..."

Shalmendo helped Iri start unloading the rifles and ammunition, "I'm only one person..."

Iri handed the rifles to the Garrighol who set them aside onto a tidy pile, "Are you kidding? You're a one man freaking army!"

Shalmendo snorted, "Not against an entire garrison. But there are ways."

Iri started handing him the blaster cells, "Like what?"

Shalmendo started stacking them as well, "I'll get you some crates for these..." then he continued, "Tactics that don't involve direct battle. Alternate warfare." He paused for a moment, "Psychological. Manipulative....hmm."

Iri tailwagged, "Yeah I get it, like the tactics the rebels used... We did a whole bunch of sneaky things... I'm not really quite sure what, as I spent most of my time fixing up speeders and X-Wings. You know, I worked as flight crew. So, I didn't really get much info on the strategies."

Shalmendo set the last of the blaster cells out, then started taking gas cartridges and arranging those, "It would be wise to weaken them severely first. Then we may get them to surrender with minimal combat....and cost."

Iri felt a little excited, "So...we could do sneaky stuff cheaper than if we did an outright attack..

Shalmendo nodded, "Yes. And with minimal casualties. It takes a lot of planning and forethought."

Iri nodded, "Yeah that's a bit out of my league..."

Shalmendo gruffed as they went back out via the cargo lift, "I fight a lot. ....and I know some people in the Black Sun.

Iri stared, "Black Sun? You mean that...Syndicate?"

Shalmendo nodded, pushing the carrier back down the hallway to the first security office, "Yes. I've done a lot of work for them."

Iri didn't like the sound of that as they started gathering up the rifles that were in the first office's armory, "Uhm...don't they do a lot of...well, morally questionable things?"

Shalmendo held the carrier for Iri as Iri start laying the rifles and other weapons on it, "Somewhat."

Iri squinted up at the Garrighol, "So...you're....A member of the Black Sun..."

Shalmendo shook his head, "No. I'm a freelance mercenary. I work for who I wish, and take only the jobs I wish."

Iri thought about that as he piled several more rifles up, "So you're independent....But why do you mention the Black Sun?"

Shalmendo leaned against one of the consoles, "Connections. They can do things."

Iri winced a bit as he started loading the blaster cells, "That sounds expensive."

Shalmendo grunted, "Doesn't have to be...A lot of them might do things for free if they're framed right...I could work on it."

Iri tilted his head, "You aren't gonna be calling in any special favors are you? I mean....a mercenary like you probably has a lot of favors racked up..."

Shalmendo shook his head, "No...sow a few rumors and some of them might end up helping us while helping themselves."

Iri cocked his head for a minute, "That's...really sneaky. And free!"

Shalmendo smirked as they finished loading the rifles, cells, and gas cartridges, alongside some pistols and a couple of other items onto the carrier, "My preferred Modus Operandi."

Iri followed Shalmendo as he pushed the carrier out, "...Hey Shal? Where did you learn to speak Basic? You speak it really well.."

Shalmendo glanced down at the little Argothae, "The Imperials taught us as part our classes."

Iri blinked, "ohh, that's why you sound so Imperial. Actually, I thought you were Imperial at first but....Yeah that makes sense now. I had wondered why you speak with received pronunciation."

Shalmendo grunted as they made their way up the hall again.

Iri patted Shal's shoulder, "Hey, I realize you hate everything Imperial, but teaching you Basic was...kind of a good thing. I don't know what your native language is, but, it would be really hard to talk to anyone without Basic."

Shalmendo grunted again, "Only reason I use it."

Iri noted, "Imperial pronunciation isn't entirely necessary...maybe you could earn to talk a little differently? But...Hey let me say something really honest here....I like it. I know it's associated with the Imperials and all, but the way you speak it is...uh..." Iri waved a hand around, trying to think of an appropriate way to say what he was thinking, "Classy, I guess? It lends you an air of sophistication and I think that gives your words weight. Especially with how quiet you can be...when you DO talk, and it's in received pronunciation, it really makes your words stand out and gives it a lot of weight, like I said."

Shalmendo considered this as they entered the hangar, "I'm not sure what you meant, Iri."

Iri chewed his lip a little as they rode the cargo lift up, "Well, It makes your words stand out and seem really thought out and impressive. That voice of yours, with the accent...I can see that commanding a whole room. You know? The whole sound of your speech is pretty impressive and influential, I think. I rather like how it sounds."

Shalmendo grunted, "Thank you, I think..."

Together they started unloading the various weapons and ammunition items from the carrier.

Iri shrugged, "You're pretty impressive in general...you're tall, and have those glowy eyes...And in combination with your voice, and pronunciation, it creates a really nice effect. The perfect kind of effect for a captain, or an admiral, or someone in command. Calm, organized, and in control."

Shalmendo tilted his head as he helped Iri get the last of the things off the carrier, "I see. Thank you."

Katie twittered.

Iri chuckled, "Katie thinks so too. You seem very commanding. When you speak, people tend to listen."

Shalmendo looked over the weaponry, "I've thought about a crew..."

Iri tilted his head, "Yeahh I can easily see you in charge of a crew, but this ship is a little small now that you took out almost all the bunks."

Shalmendo shrugged and got onto the lift again, "I've thought about a new ship, too."

Iri stepped on with Shal, looking up at him, "Yeah? Honestly this ship kind of doesn't fit you too well...No offense intended. My guess is that you got this really early on."

Shalmendo lowered the lift and stepped off, with Iri following as they made a last walk-through of the facility, "Yes. Before I even started working as a Mercenary. It's not very suitable."

Iri nodded as the two of them checked out the remaining rooms and made sure they'd grabbed all the data they could, along with the weapons and such, "Yeah it's not really mercenary grade...one rear turret and all. The backup systems help but all you can really do is run with it..."

Shalmendo watched as Katie tapped into a terminal, "Yes. I've heard of other ships with better weapons and ECM systems."

Iri nodded, "Yeah, a mercenary would need both...better shields...enhanced maneuverability, all that kind of stuff would be helpful. I think we've discussed this before."

Shalmendo shrugged, "I'm still looking for someone to do a design."

Katie twittered.

Iri looked down at the droid, "Okay, good." Iri looked up at Shal, "Katie's done. We can't get anything else so...I think we're done....Shal, do you think we should leave this place as it is, or....destroy it?"

Shalmendo grunted, "We weren't hired to destroy it. We were hired to scout and download data from the systems. If they want to destroy it, they can hire us for it."

Iri looked up, "You sure? I mean...this place is pretty uh....the research? Flesh eating bacteria and all?"

Shalmendo grunted, "It's well hidden. We only found it because we knew exactly where to find it. And even then we couldn't find it right away. Katie had to figure it out."

Iri thought about this as they walked back to the ship, "hmm...Let the New Republic decide...Yeah I guess that's kind of their responsibility..."

Shalmendo nodded as he stepped onto the cargo lift while Katie and Iri followed, "Yes. As a Mercenary you should avoid going too far out of the scope of your contract."

Iri thought about that as they rose into the cargo hold, "That's actually a good point... I mean, destroying the facility seems like the right thing to do but..."

Shalmendo interrupted, "The New Republic might need it intact. It's not your decision."

Iri nodded, that was true. He couldn't just arbitrarily make such a decision like that. It wasn't his to make, and it wasn't his place. He was a hired mercenary, not a New Republic agent given the authority to make those decisions. It felt like the right thing to do, to keep any of the technology from falling into the 'wrong' hands, but he didn't have the authority. The most he could do would be to make a serious recommendation to Lt. Rayne when turning in the data he had been sent to collect. A follow-up would have to be on the authority of the New Republic's administration.

The Trio made their way into the Black Claw's cockpit. Iri plopped down on the seat and sighed, feeling rather exhausted. Katie plugged into the terminal and started arranging for their departure. Shalmendo sat down in his usual seat and leaned back against it with a sigh as well.

After a few moments Shalmendo grunted, "Katie? Why did the AT-AT attack?"

Katie gave a little weoo, and a series of explanatory twitters.

Iri listened, curious what Katie had to say, then translated, "Oh, wow. So, she had gone into the systems room with the main data storage and sliced in, but apparently they had been getting ready to do a series of tests on the delivery system, being the AT-AT. But in the evacuation they had to put the systems into a suspended mode and lock them down to await re-activation when they returned and re-established control and occupation. So Katie had to wake the systems up, and that started a cascade of automated subroutines that had been in suspension. One of those was a countdown to a test routine that activated the Walker's systems. They uh, had planned to put some live subjects in there and see how the walker fared in the time it would take it to release the neutral payload of inert bacteria. Unfortunately when it disconnected she couldn't shut it down anymore since she didn't have a data line into it by that point. Once that happened, there wasn't anything she could do directly."

Shalmendo gruffed, "And the viral payload we thought was in there?"

Katie twittered.

Iri translated, "She didn't find out the current state of the payload and the intended test until after the walker had activated and started venting the inert stuff it had. From the little information we had it made sense to assume that was live stuff. Personally, it scared the shit out of me, but I'm glad it turned out to be inert. Those holorecordings didn't seem pleasant at all."

Shalmendo smirked as the engines fired to life and the ship rose into the air. Katie triggered the disguised hangar door and they made their way out and away from the asteroid hosting the facility. Iri refocused and got ready to pilot through the dynamic field, this time having a better sense of the ship's size and maneuverability.

Iri wasn't quite as high-strung this time, but stayed alert as the ship moved forward into the dynamic field, "Okay Katie, just like last time, but...with less near-accident."

Katie blatted and twittered.

Iri snickered, "Yeah I know...just give me more forewarning this time."

The ship entered the field, with the deflector shields up to provide protection against the micro-meteors that were prevalent, and Iri turned up the thrusters to start merging with a field of small asteroids, moving up along side those. After a minute or two, Iri veered off to slip between two large asteroids that were slowly spinning next to each other, weaving in between them. A bleep from Katie gave Iri some forewarning about a third hidden behind the outcropping of the nearest large one, and he veered preemptively to avoid it while curving out from the two.

Within minutes, they had cleared the field and Katie started calculating for the jump to hyperspeed.

Shalmendo stood, "Hungry?"

Iri nodded and stood up too, "Yeah, I could eat a Rancor."

Shalmendo walked out and to the galley, "How could you fit all that?"

Iri laughed as he followed, "It's just a phrase meaning I'm -very- hungry."

Shalmendo snorted as he pulled out a set of rations and set them heating.

Iri moved over and settled into the seating at the window and sighed, "uuugh that really took it out of me. I'm not used to being in falling walkers."

Shalmendo stood and stared at the heating apparatus, "You don't really get used to things like that."

Iri stretched carefully, feeling out how sore he still was, and where, "What about you?"

Shalmendo turned his head slightly, "I was also concerned about the payload."

Iri felt the ship shudder and looked outside to see they had jumped into hyperspace, "I thought you didn't get worried about anything."

Shalmendo set the now-heated rations on a pair of plates and brought them over, sitting down and laying one in front of Iri, "I do sometimes."

Iri grabbed a ration and took a bite out of it, "mmh, well that's kind of a surprise. I mean, you're usually so calm and stoic."

Shalmendo shrugged as he put a whole ration into his mouth and chewed it.

Iri blinked, "Hey, you're eating. I thought you didn't eat."

Shalmendo swallowed, "No, I eat to replenish after healing, and the sleep."

Iri took another bite, "Oh...Wow your biology is really different from most others."

Shalmendo shrugged and shoved another ration into his mouth.

Iri looked over at the coffee machine and got up from his seat to walk over to it, "Hey how about some coffee?"

Shalmendo swallowed, "Sure."

Iri produced two cups and brought them back, settling down and setting shal's cup next to his plate, then sipped his own, "Honestly that was pretty exciting, not like most of the contracts I do. Those are usually a lot of sitting around and watching, or keeping an eye out while Katie slices into some data."

Shalmendo took a drink from his cup, "This is pretty mild for me."

Iri snickered as he finished the last of his rations, "I bet they could make a whole show about you and it would get rave reviews."

Shalmendo snorted, "I don't divulge information about my clients." and shoved another ration in his mouth.

Iri laughed, "I know, I know! But you could probably fictionalize it and end up with some really riveting stories for the holonet. A mercenary like you has to have had a lot of adventures that would be really interesting to watch...assuming you change names and conceal important details of the real people and encounters you had and such."

Shalmendo shrugged and finished his coffee off, "Maybe if I retire and get really old."

Iri snickered, "How long do Garrighol live?"

Shalmendo shrugged, "I don't know. I'm among the oldest right now."

Iri tilted his head, "How...old are you?"

Shalmendo smirked, "I don't know, actually. The Imperials didn't care enough to keep track of those things."

Iri thought about that, "Well, how old were you when they showed up?"

Shalmendo leaned back and growled thoughtfully, "Hm...several years at least. Don't remember clearly." He pulled his goggles off, rubbing his eyes briefly, "Don't think about it much."

Iri squirmed, "Yeah, sorry...I'm just really curious."

Shalmendo grunted, "I understand. You seem like a really caring friend."

Iri smiled, "I....yeah I really do care...maybe a bit too much. I mean, you saved my life...and have done a really good job keeping me safe...I really appreciate it."

Shalmendo shrugged, "What I'm good at, I guess."

Iri nodded, "You're really good. You know I bet you could get out of the mercenary racket and just take a straight-up job as a bodyguard for someone of political importance...like a political leader or senator... You know? You have these real talents and skills I'm sure someone would pay a lot for and you'd be so reliable."

Shalmendo tilted his head, "I don't know. I like picking my work."

Iri looked up at Shal's glowy red eyes, "Oh is that why you're a mercenary? So you can pick and choose your jobs? Sounds like you don't want to be tied down to something..." Iri stretched a bit, "Yeah I can get that...you like to be free and choose your own work. Especially considering the Mines of Kessel and all..."

Shalmendo grunted, "Probably why I won't go back."

Iri fidgeted a little, "I don't want to pry but....it makes sense that you wouldn't want to go back there. But don't you um...don't you worry about the other Garrighol?"

Shalmendo sighed, "Always."

Iri felt a powerful pang of sympathy, considering his own worries about Rillyn, "Gosh...yeah I would be too, Shal. We're kind of in the same boat, it seems like. We both have our own people we're worried about..."

Shalmendo grunted, "Yes." He stood up, "I need to rest." Then made his way out to his personal quarters.

Iri fidgeted as he watched Shalmendo leave, thinking about the exchange they had had. Iri sighed a little, maybe talking about his people in the mines really bothered him. It was difficult to tell with how stoic he was all the time. Iri yawned, realizing he was quite tired himself, "unnh, yeah I think I'll take a rest."

Iri picked up the plates and coffee cups as he got up, depositing them into the recycler as he made his way out of the galley and into the double bunk. Iri put his equipment away and undressed, stretching out carefully as he removed the armor vest, wincing a bit as he felt it brush over the burn wound he had sustained. He sighed as he felt at it, it didn't feel too bad but was tender to the touch. It would be fine within a couple of days probably.

Iri slipped into the bunk and yawned as he relaxed, turning into his side and facing the wall of the bunk. His eyes gently closed and he drifted off.

A couple of days later, they landed on Chandrila in the hangar bay for the New Republic offices they were going to report to. Iri had spent some time working on his rifle and pistol, just cleaning them up and making sure they were in good working order. Iri looked up as he was working on the Galley table, watching the hangar bay outside as the ship landed. Iri stretched a little as he got up, grabbing his guns and dropping them off in his room, and pulling on some more clothes then he already had on. He stepped out of his room, being met by Katie.

Iri smiled, "Hey Katie, things go okay?"

Katie twittered in the affirmative, then made a query.

Iri stretched and tailflicked, "Yep I'm ready...got all that data and everything?"

Katie blipped.

Ire patted her dome, "great" and followed her to the cargo bay where Shalmendo was already waiting on the lift.

Shalmendo grunted, "Ready?"

Iri nodded as he and Katie stepped on the lift, "Yep!"

The lift descended and Shalmendo was approached by a flight officer to sign in and authorize fuel and other things. Iri and Katie waited near the hangar exit while Shal got that done. It only took a minute or two, then Shal rejoined them, and they made their way through the facility to Lt. Rayne's office.

Lt. Rayne looked up and motioned for Iri to sit down, having gotten used to the fact Shalmendo never did, "Welcome back. How did things go?"

Iri leaned back in the chair, "Went well for the most part save for a few trouble spots that Shal took care of. The facility was abandoned, seemingly due to an evacuation linked to the project they were working on. It still had a few automated defenses going that Shal needed to take care of, like a turret and some sentry droids. He took care of those pretty easily, even though I got a surprise blaster shot in the back from one of those droids. I was wearing an armor vest though so I only suffered some heat burns, thankfully. Aside from that the facility was kind of in a state of disarray and had been hastily evacuated. Turns out it was because of a leak. They were working on some kind of uh....airborne flesh-eating bacterial agent....we have a set of holorecordings from their testing, and some of it got out prompting an evacuation of the facility. They never returned, so it was abandoned when we got there. There were still food trays in the canteens and everything, so it was pretty creepy. Anyway, we found out that Walking Storm was more than just the bacterial agent. There was an AT-AT stored in a large bay that they were working on, and Katie ended up waking it up by accident when she brought the data systems out of standby so she could download all the data like you asked us to. Bit of a fight there, and I ended up inside the Walker to try and shut it down myself since it had pulled away from it's moorings and wasn't linked up the systems Katie was connected to, so she couldn't shut it down and hence why I was inside. Shal had to climb up and throw me in, basically. I shut it down while it was deploying its payload, which turned out to be a neutral testing batch with no effects, thankfully. The walker fell over, though, with me in it. That was a bit of a ride and I got a little bruised and knocked unconscious but I'm fine. Aside from that we downloaded all the data from the entire facility and Katie is ready to upload it for you."

Lt. Rayne seemed mildly surprised, "A walker...that came to life? I thought you said the facility was abandoned."

Iri blinked, "Oh yeah I forgot to mention, it was operating on some kind of droid technology so it didn't need to be manned. That's how it went active and started firing at us and everything."

Lt. Rayne nodded, "Hm...so a droid walker with a flesh-eating bacteria payload...Yes that fits the codename for the project, and I must say that sounds quite terrifying if the Empire had chosen to deploy that in the field at some point." He took a few notes on his datapad, "Well, let's get the data uploaded so our analysts can start pouring through that information." He activated his intercom, "Send in a data technician and the paymaster, please."

Iri nodded, "I hope it's really useful."

Lt. Rayne put the datapad aside, "I think It will be, based on what you've told us."

A moment later they were joined by the data technician and the paymaster.

The technician was a Corellian who took a look at Katie's unusual paintjob, "That the droid? Okay, come with me please, we'll need to get you hooked up to one of our data ports so we can upload all that data."

Katie blipped and followed the technician out while the paymaster waited for instructions.

Lt. Rayne motioned to the paymaster, "8k for each of these two gentlemen."

The Paymaster, another Corellian, nodded and set his case down to extract the requisite credit chits and made two piles of 1k chips equalling 8k each, then nodded to Lt. Rayne as he grabbed his case and left.

Lt. Rayne waited for the Paymaster to leave, then added, "I might be sending you both some bonus pay later, once we get a better idea of the scope of the data. If I can get authorization, that is. Personally I like to take good care of our mercenaries, and you two have been performing excellently. If the data proves to be particularly valuable I can probably justify some extra payment, which I'll alert you about promptly and have waiting for you."

Shalmendo grunted, "how long?"

Lt. Rayne looked up at the Garrighol, "I'm not entirely certain, but probably with the next couple of days I'll know for certain. If you want to hang around that long, it's up to you."

Iri picked up his pile of credit chits and stowed them in a pocket, "I don't think I'd mind coming back...Hanging around here for two days seems a little pointless. Besides, you might have another contract opportunity for me, or us, by that time, right?"

Lt. Rayne looked thoughtful, "Actually, yes. We've been disseminating all that data from the memory cores you brought from the archives on that Star Destroyer, and it's clear there are going to be more opportunities from it. It's mostly a matter of my superiors working through all the red tape and deciding which of the data they want to act on and assign a contract for. I'll let you know about those right away, of course."

Iri smiled and handed Shalmendo's pile to him, "That'd be great Lieutenant. I know I can always use the pay."

Shalmendo quietly let Iri pile the credits into the palm of his hand, then slipped them into one of the pouches on his armor.

Lt. Rayne smiled back softly, "You two are pretty reliable and I'd rather be hiring you then someone else for this kind of work. I know you're virtually guaranteed to come through. Others, I'm not so certain on, and the Republic doesn't really enjoy wasting time and money on hires that don't quite come through as well as you two have. I'll keep you updated, Mr. Keltesh."

Iri nodded and stood up, "Well, thanks Lieutenant for all the consideration and everything. Uh, have the tech send Katie back to the Black Claw when they're done with her, okay?"

Lt. Rayne nodded, "Will do."

Iri and Shalmendo left the office and made their way back down to the hangar.

Iri patted the Garirghol's arm, "So how was that for pay?"

Shalmendo shrugged, "Okay. I usually get paid more, but I enjoyed it."

Iri chuckled a bit, "Well good...This is pretty good pay for me, actually. I do wonder how much the bonus might be, if he can finagle one for us..."

Shalmendo shrugged, "Don't know."

Iri looked up at the ship as they approached it, "So I guess once they finish with Katie we can head back to Tibro and you can drop us off."

Shalmendo nodded as they stepped onto the lift, "If you want."

Iri hesitated, "Yeah, but I'm gonna go get something to eat and check on a few things before then."

Shalmendo nodded and pushed the control to raise the lift, rising into the ship.

Iri paused a moment to look at Shal's boots rising up before him. They looked a little scuffed up but were otherwise well taken care of. The treads were tall, allowing Shal a good grip on a variety of surfaces. Iri shook his head and pulled himself away from that view to make his way to the canteen where he set himself up with a good filling meal, and had a drink in the bar. Katie found him there as he finished his drink and paid for it, then the two made their way back to the ship.

Once back on the ship, Iri settled in, while Katie did the takeoff preparations and guided the ship out of the atmosphere to jump to lightspeed. It was a quiet trip of a couple of days interspersed with some holonet entertainment, conversation, and gun maintenance. Not much happened aside, and they soon landed at the port on Tibro, in Rezzek City.

Iri finished packing up his things and double checking to make sure everything was accounted for and nothing forgotten. He looked up as the door opened, and Shalmendo entered.

Shalmendo grunted, "We landed."

Iri smiled, "Great, I've got everything packed!"

Shalmendo nodded, "Good. Well you can depart when you're ready. I already have another job lined up so I'll need to depart soon."

Iri blushed a bit, thinking about something...then went ahead and hugged the Garrighol's torso firmly, "Thanks for coming along with me on this...keeping me safe and alive and everything." Iri found himself nuzzling a bit into the firm flesh of the Garrighol's bare chest, and finding it rather nice to snug into.

Shalmendo smirked and watched the little reptilian hug him so cutely, "I'm glad I could help..."

Iri squeezed a little, "Mmh, you're really a great guy, Shal. So big and strong, and helpful...I appreciate you." Iri blushed as he let himself snuggle into that firm chest, really enjoying it for some reason. Shal was a big tower of safety to him, and the firm body felt really nice to push into, making him feel even safer. Iri found himself blushing further as he felt the Garrighol's big hand rest against the top of his head. For a moment things were in a kind of safe zen for Iri. A moment of peace and comfort he pushed into. But he remembered himself and pulled back after a few moments, not wanting to push the Garrighol any farther. Iri blushed openly, "Well um, I guess I'll get going and take a couple of days of rest in my apartment and stuff. There's a pretty nice bar nearby if you want to grab a drink or something?"

Shalmendo patted Iri on the head a bit more, "I would, but need to get to that job. Maybe in the future."

Iri nodded, "Yeah you keep pretty busy... Well, thanks for everything. I'll go collect Katie and we'll get going. Oh, and don't worry about the docking and fueling fees, I'll pay those for ya."

Shalmendo nodded and returned to the cockpit, and then to his office.

Iri followed and motioned to Katie, who was disconnecting from the terminal, "Come on Katie, I want to get settled in the apartment, and we can get you polished up a bit."

Katie blipped and followed Iri to the cargo lift which he lowered, and the two made their way out of the port, with Iri making sure to pay for Shal's fees and fuel on the way.

Shortly they were at his apartment and Iri just set his stuff down at the door and plopped onto the bed, "mmh...maybe I'll take a week off."