Less Smashin And More Grabbin

[Argetlam]

A Smash and grab huh? It's not like it was anything out of the ordinary especially not when it came to jobs from the HLS. The only thing that did peak his interest is what kinda information could they be wanting from a gene splicing facility? Ah well that really wasn't his problem to worry about that is, for the time being of course. Looking down at his watch he noted the time, it was pushing almost ten now. Slowly bringing the speeder to a halt in the now semi interior of the spaceport at the exact port that he and the three other members of their little troop had agreed to meet before continuing on to the sewer entrance. 

After bringing the speeder to a halt Damian hauled himself out of the speeder and leaned against it taking in the ruckus of the port around him. Hopefully the other three would make it here soon because the sooner they arrived the sooner the mission would be taken care of. If that didn't entice them then maybe the fact that they'd have more credits than previously would attract their attention. What was it with kids now a'days always being "fashionably late" as they wanted to call it. Letting out a quiet chuckle to himself at how old that remark truly made him feel. Damn I'm starting to sound like my old man this has to stop or I'll start turning into the old coot. 

Leaving the faint smile as he scanned the crowd once again he spotted a few interesting things here and there. Another ship had just docked not to far from his own, and he watched as the first man off the boat fell to the ground probably thanking whatever he believed in for making it back safe. Or maybe it was just the fact that he hated the ships. Either way it still gave Damian another reason to chuckle. This time though after finishing he noted someone heading his way one of the crew perhaps? 

[Karl the Unfettered]

What was the job? Some smash 'n grab on a gene splicing outfit. What was gene splicing? Eh. Too hard to explain, and she didn't have much time to devote to an in-depth internal monologue. The pay was easy to explain, though! A whole thirty-five thousand credits! But who was paying them? Vivi doubted it was that Memento fucker. Ugh, whatever.

She occupied herself on the flight to Alderaan by spending the money in her head. A new speeder? A couple slaves? She needed some new toys, at least. Maybe some new mod work? She should try and sneak a peak at this gene modding shit before it all got flushed away, in case some of it might prove inspiring.

Reading the ad again, she remembered mention of sewers. Sewers were gross, but would they be as gross as Nar Shaddaa's sewers? She really, really doubted it. But it would still be gross, no doubt about that. The shuttle landed and she got off along with everyone else onboard, and that was when another issue struck her:

How the hell would she know who her co-conspirators were? The HLS was fucking anonymous! Wait, no, there was a spot they had agreed to meet at. She scanned for that spot and found a guy in armor already standing there. Probably Fjord. She skipped his way, humming and swinging her hammer, and came to a stop in front of him. "Yer early!" she said chidingly. "Git them old-man thoughts outta yer head, old man! It's go time!"

...said the lady who probably wouldn't live to be old...

[Moonfire]

The music thumped loudly in Qiki’s ears, the miniaturized ear-pieces she wore cleverly concealed by a bit of flesh-matching tape. It carried a thumping beat, drowning out the mundane spaceport noise as the dreadlocked woman swayed back and forth, frayed and tattered hoodie hooked about her thumbs with every slight shimmy and shake. Visor shades concealed the dark circles under the sleepless woman’s eyes as she hitched the messenger bag higher up her shoulder, scanning for the promised car.

What a fuckin’ riot, carpoolin’ to a heist! HLS jobs certainly didn’t get any better than this. As the chorus played in sweet melodic harmony with the bassline the woman swayed even more, sliding side to side on the heels of industrial boots. Each step served to jangle a bit more of the heavy metallic jewelry that clanged from slim wrists and hefty belt holding up dark shorts. Lips moved along to the lyrics, shaped in every soulful croon as she grooved from arrivals right out into the speeder-pick up lane.

Fuck, Alderaan was colder than she remembered. Maybe the fishnet tights wouldn’t have been too much after all? At the very least she could have picked out some taller shoes-- More leg coverage that way. Maybe that one pair she picked up for clubbing but repurposed into skates? “Hover skates would be baller, righ’now.” The woman mused as she tugged the ratty hoodie’s sleeves further down her arms, now prickled with gooseflesh, rocking and rolling her way down the pick-up lanes, eyes skimming for her newest friends.

Within moments Qik’s noticed a woman standing around, perfectly casual, with an obscenely large hammer. How the fuck did that get through security? ‘Pub worlds, man. Flicking a finger to her ear the song died away and Qiki took on a much more casual stride, moving to lean dramatically across the speeder between the two new friends. “Yo, yo, yo. Syntax-terror here for roll call, perfectly on fuckin’ time I might add.”

The woman grinned, the tilt of her head letting the green lens of her visor shades slip down her nose, fingers extending in a pair of finger guns, firing once, twice at the pair. Head cocking to the side she gestured to both the speeder and the comical melee weapon. “So, uh, you two compensatin’ for something or what?”

[Zarkan]

Slybia examined her small metallic hand in the dim light of the cargo bay before sliding the heavy glove of her environment suit over the fingers and then the rest of the way to the wrist. A light pleasing hiss could be heard swirling around the cabin as the seal locked closed. The young woman did one last check over her equipment before sliding the large helm over her head and locking it down into the neck collar. She pulled a slow deep breath through the suit's filters before turning and smiling at the small spider-like droid watching her quizzically from a rack eye level with here. "Be a good boy Ki and watch the ship for me." she said reaching up and patting the droid on it's flat carapace to the sound of joyful chirping.

Her visor darkened as the Unity's rear ramp dropped to the ground spilling bright sunlight into the cargo bay. Slybia slowly panned her view over the spaceport looking for anything interesting before lightly walking down the ramp and onto the dusty duracrete covering the ground. She slowly moved through the spaceport people watching as she went as normal mostly the light crowd consisted of haggard miners, zipping cargo sleds, and the occasional security agent or bounty hunter passing through. She came to a slow halt as she peered around the corner at the groups meeting place.

She could see two humans leaning against a sleek speeder and a third with an unreasonably large melee weapon strapped to her back. I thought this was supposed to be a minimal casualties job she thought to herself thinking, not for the first time, about backing out of the job, but instead, she squared her shoulders and walked around the corner quietly approaching the group. She stopped a bit from hammer lady and pulled in a deep breath before speaking. "H-h-hi?" she said nervously beginning to wring her hands. She cringed slightly at her own quiet hesitant voice. "Um... I apologize for the slow arrival." She took a moment to lick her lips before continuing. "I'm flitter." she finished using her screen name for now as she rapidly glanced from person to person.

[Argetlam]

What the hell was that thing on her back??? Tilting his head slightly to the side he noted the obscenely large hammer head behind her back. Comparing the wielder to the hammer it seemed almost cartoon like and defiantly unwieldy. Staying leaned against the speeder he watched her carefully as she made her way towards him. " Eh, ya know how it is and I sure would hate for any of my dear partners to be all alone and thinking that I just ditched them." Saying it he gave a wry grin from beneath his helmet. " How..." He tilted his head a little to the side at her comment well maybe his mind wasn't as secure as he'd hoped. 

Glancing again at the cartoonish hammer Damian let out a little chuckle " This may be a long shot, but are you by chance HammerTime. I'm just gonna leave out the its cause it sounds a little redundant to be callin you that all the time." Again looking the women up and down she her self seemed almost as cartoonish and outlandish as her hammer. 

Within a few moments another women made her way over ragged hoodie and all. This was just getting better and better by the minute. Leave it to me to have some of the biggest characters in the entire galaxy in one go. " Well look at you being all punctual did you want the cookie or the plaque?" Leaning in a cupping his hand he whispered to her "From past experience I'd go with the plaque, they last longer."

Raising a eye brow and letting out a chuckle at the finger guns Damian tapped the hood of the speeder. "Well when I got to the ship yard they where fresh out of all the speeders with the painted flames and oodles of weaponry so, I guess this will have to do."   

Glancing at the approaching footsteps he noted hopefully the last member of their band of misfits. With a sigh he pulled off his helmet and tossed it through the window of the speeder. Running a quick hand through his hair he looked at the group. " Well it seems the bands all together I just so happen to be Fjord if you haven't already figured it out. " He looked each of them over " So! how about we take our happy asses to the job?"

[Karl the Unfettered]

"It's always Hammer Time!" Vivi replied gaily, swinging her namesake Hammer around with gleeful ease. She wondered where the extra supplies were that she'd asked for; the whole 'MINIMIZE CASUALTIES' thing was gonna be a bit hard if she didn't have that stuff! Namely she had to tweak her hammer a bit, take out the overcooked energy cells and install paralyzing shock cells instead. She decided not to explain she'd just been poking fun at him with her old man cracks, not whatever he was thinking which she totally couldn't hear.

The others showed up, one of them an honest-to-Gods internet troll and the other some kind of dwarf? "Ain't you a cutie!" she told Slybia with a laugh. "Sure yer ain't a lil' young fer this shit, shortstack? Eh, whatevah," and she shrugged and turned away. "You guys jus' stay behind me if any shit starts goin' down, yeah? I'm tougher 'n I look! As ya prolly guessed a'ready I'm Hammer Time, but call me Hawke if ya wanna!"

Fjord suggested heading to the job, and she nodded enthusiastically. "Lead th' way, Old Man!"

[Moonfire]

“Boy,” Qiki began, extending a single finger in warning to Fjord. “You better have brought me a void-damned cookie, because Syntax don’t play ‘bout her sweets.” Brown eyes twinkled dangerously over the rims of her sunglasses, nudging them back up her nose as she regarded the other two members of their merry bang. The ever-so-shy Flitter and boisterous bubbly broad, It’sHammerTime. Yawning in mock boredom the slicer slipped easily into her seat, letting her messenger bag come to a rest in her lap as she started to rummage through the various bits of gear she’d packed. Slicer keys, scramblers, anything she could slip through mostly undetected in a spaceport with, the rest, namely some real choice data-spikes, were Memento’s to deliver.

“Let’s fuckin’ gooooooo.” The woman whined as the rest piled into the speeder, a slick black thing lacking in flames and any sort of flashy-coolbits. Probably for the best, considering the more sensitive nature of the mission itself. Flicking on the screen of her datapad, Qiki took the moment to peruse the sewer plans and blueprints once more, having rather responsibly studied them a good deal before boarding her transport back to ‘Pub space.

A few moments after lift off the various comms, datapads and other assorted electronic devices of the crew would begin to play a rather memorable and obscenely shrill ditty. A falsetto voice crooned and cried along to the sounds of a defunct text-comm system, roaring at a volume that could only be described as distressing. Qiki winced, bashing at the sides of her datapad as hard, unrepressed laughter came tumbling out. ”No, that bastard didn’t-- What a fuckin’ loooooser.” She cackled, gesturing to the screen for the other passenger’s to see as the chorus reached it’s fever pitch.

Across her screen, and those of her companions should they fish out their own devices, was the static-y image of the aurabesh character ‘Mern’, green over black background. As the song died down came a voice, heavily modulated and undoubtedly their employer, Memento.

”Glad to see you all made it.” A chuckle echoed through the speeder, reverberating through the many devices. ”A couple of reminders about your mission tonight; this is a pretty by the book B'n'E. Bust in. Wipe the files. Get out. Don't kill anyone. Don't permanently maim anyone. Don't get caught. You get that done and I'll be forwarding the credits to your accounts within an hour of confirmation. As for the supplies you all asked for; take a left up here.”

Turning down a rather pleasant residential neighborhood the group would find themselves directed to a picturesque cookie-cutter cul-de-sac home, a duffle bag neatly stuffed into the ‘Take-A-Book, Leave-A-Book’ box just outside.

"Enjoy, kids."

Reaching out the speeder window, Qiki hefted the dufflebag up and in through the window with a good bit of effort, plopping it down in the person beside her’s lap. “Dope.”

[Zarkan]

Slybia perked up and nodded vigorously with syntax before speaking. "cookies are always the best reward." she said softly. The woman narrowed her eyes at the man as he spoke before turning her head to look that the speeder with a slight it seems perfectly acceptable to her and she was unsure why you would want a gaudy one. She was caught up musing about other silly ways one could paint up a speeder when she noticed the pale pigtailed woman looking at her. Her unseen face flushed her silvery cheeks gaining a bluish hue as she blushed and ducked her head at the woman calling her cute and some in embarrassment at being called short. The young cyborg crossed her arms under her chest and looked the woman directly in the face. "I've been getting into these places for a very long time." she said an irritated note in her voice before she broke eye contact and began moving to the speeder.

She slid softly into the rear seat of the speeder alongside the more stable seeming slicer shortly before the hover vehicle lifted from the ground with a sharp whine of not entirely well-maintained machinery and rapidly left the spare port's rental area. As the speeder sped through the streets of the small city surrounding the regional spaceport she spent time carefully looking over the woman sitting at her side. The young woman looked rather unhealthy to slybia and she began to wonder more about this operation between hammertime who didn't seem the type to not maim and cause havoc and Syntax who didn't look she had a good meal or sleep in weeks she was becoming skeptical of this whole thing. She sighed softly at least she could pick up some of the slack if syntax turned out inept at the job, but there was a limit to her skills and she hadn't brought any specialist equipment with her other than her neutralizer and wrist computer. She was just beginning to go over the clinic plans again for a silent way out of the building for her if things went to hell when a loud sound pierced the quiet in the cabin.

Slybia squealed in a mix of surprise and discomfort as she quickly jamming the mute button on her wrist computer before realizing the sound was coming from multiple places in the cabin. Her ears still stinging slightly from the obnoxiously loud sound she turned down the audio pickups in her helmet before turning to her left and snuck a peek at the slicer's data slate, however, other than a strange dancing chibi creature there didn't appear to be anything of note to the video itself. As the modulated voice spoke she turned her vision out of the windows of the speeder to the plain mass-produced houses lining the streets.

A flock of colorful near birds was dancing in the air over a small lot when the speeder came to a halt and far more interested in the birds than her companions slybia was surprised when a very large and quite heavy bag dropped on her thighs. With a light grunt, she wiggled in the seat to reposition the bag and herself. She knew it was probably a comical sight the bag nearly covered her whole torso with just her head and shoulder and a small area of her chest being exposed over the back. She didn't wait for the others to speak before unzipping the bag and looking inside. The bag was filled with quite a menagerie of items she quickly found the spare filters she had requested as well as the handful of stun and smoke grenades both of which with a small struggle vanished into the large pockets located over her stomach. She took a moment to study the rest of the objects some of which begged many questions one of which she was quick to vocalize. "Who requested demolition charges?" She asked with confusion and concern evident in her soft melodic voice.

[Argetlam]

Chuckling he looked at his partners. “ check the glove box"  making his way to the other side of the speeder he opened the door. Damian grabbed his helmet off the seat and pulled it on before sliding in his seat. Watching the rest of his team slid into the speeder he raised a eyebrow. “ your all some characters you know that?” Damian stole another glance at the members if his team before starting the speeder. The quiet hum of the engines flared to life as they lifted off the duracrete landing area.

Within a few minutes of lift off a blaring noise came through the comms in his helmet. Flinching and wincing at the at the sudden noise. Keeping the speeder upright he quickly turned off the comm input of his helmet “ what the hell is that?” With a few seconds of listening his question was answered. So that was memento huh? Following the instructions he looked to see a duffle bag overflowing from a small container. “ … inconspicuous if I do say so myself…”

He pulled the speeder beside the box letting syntax grab the bag and pull it in. Glancing in the rearview Damian let out a chuckle seeing the bag cover up most of them. Before he continued on their merry way to the sewer entrance were the job would begin. 

[Karl the Unfettered]

Memento's big reveal was met with a sneer of annoyance from Vivi, who couldn't mute her wrist-mounted comm unit fast enough. "Sith-spawned SHOWOFF," she said after the hacker hung up on them, pretending obliviousness to the irony of her own words. "Whatevah! They don't know so much if I managed a' ride along!"

The arrival of the rather hefty bag of goodies heralded a cheer from the troubleshooter, and when "Flitter" revealed demolition charges she cheered all the more. "Fuck yeah!" Vivi cheered, grabbing the devices in question and practically salivating over them. "We can blow our escape route with this shit! Ain't no one gonna follow us! Who uses sewers anyways, 'cept LOSERS like us?!"

She dug through the rest of the bag, twisting in her seat to reach it, and her glee only mounted with every piece of tech she came up with. "Lookit all 'is shit, guys. All th' playtime grenades a girl could evah ask fer!" as she pulled out flashbangs and gas grenades and concussers and shock traps. "Ooh! Just what momma asked fer!" and she brought out a particularly odd set of shock devices. "These'll fit on my hammer, an' anyone I bash on with it'll just git th' shock a' their SHORT MISERABLE LIVES! An' launched backwards a' course! But they'll live!"

Last but not least was a cheap suit of body armor with thick legs and boots. "Oh good! Don't wanna get no SEWER SHIT on my clothes now do I?" Whatever else was in there could wait, as her lap was full, so she sat back down and waited for the end of the ride, humming and jittering to herself.

[Moonfire]

Qiki couldn’t help but snicker at the reactions of her compatriots to Memento’s less than orthodox behaviour. There was quite a bit she could say on the matter, but in a rare moment of foresight, she kept them to herself. Instead the troll-come-to-life went back to the task of sorting through the dufflebag’s wayward contents, divvying out whatever HammerTime didn’t loudly claim for herself.

“Eyyyy toots, you might want to, I’unno, quit fuckin’ screechin’ my ear? We’re in a fuckin’ car and you sound like a bag of dyin’ cats bein’ forced to do an impression of some Core World broad.” Qikki barked up and over Flitter’s lap as she pulled out a selection of dataspikes and--

“Oh, that miserable lil’ prick.” The slicer laughed, pulling out a long pair of rubber-wadders. The sort of overwear an old backwater fisherman would wear. Highly practical for stomping through sewers, but definitely not fitting with her crustpunk aesthetic. “I fuckin’ asked for boots. Fuckin’ stiffed, again.”

She’d have a long talk with Memento when this was over.

Frowning she tossed the rubber-waders aside, she’d just have to deal with her shoes getting a bit gross. Whatever, wasn’t the first time she’d been a bit ripe. “So, uh, I’m gonna level with you folks-- I didn’t look at what ya’ll can do at all when takin’ this job, so, uh, you lots useless or what? I just like to know how much tankin’ I’m gonna have to do when I get in there ‘cuz if I’m honest, I’m really more of a pure DeePeeEss an’ I don’t really like drawin’ aggro.”

[Zarkan]

Slybia's cheeks turned bright blue as the slicer yelled at her. Dropping her head and staring at her lap through the duffle bag she mumbled out an apology for her squealing. She side eyed the thick rubber garment that syntax threw away with contempt. Did those not count as boots? she wondered ideally to herself they certainly seemed like they would be better for the woman than the thin porous shoes she was wearing.

The short woman's head snapped up at the back of the pigtailed woman's head as she was chattering almost cackling with glee. Slybia stared wide-eyed and gobsmacked at the back of the blonde woman's head as she happily described her plan for the charges and then her new apparent toy. She had thought that the bluster at the first meeting had been only an act, but no she was, in fact, insane and now she realized she was trapped in a tin can with a lunatic. "T-th-the" Slybia took a deep breath and swallowed quickly before trying to maintain her nerve. "There are enough chargers there to bring down half a neighborhood."

She was rapidly rethinking her last few days of worth of decisions, but still, slybia Turned her head back to syntax as she spoke. Face still pale the young cyborg ran her short almost neon blue tongue over her parched lips before answering the scrubby looking woman. "I was under the impression that this heist was supposed to be quiet." She quickly glanced at the pair sitting in the front seats. "I'm starting to believe that this is not likely to be the case with Ms.Hammer." she said quietly turning her attention back to syntax. "I'm afraid I am not very adept at close combat as you might expect," she said quickly following up the statement with a short gesture indicating her slight frame. "I think I'm a reasonably good shot with my pistol, but typically I try not to be noticed, to begin with."

[Argetlam]

Listening to all the nonesense being spit out around him. Mostly due to hammertime's... Interesting personality. He let a long sigh escape before turning back on his comm input. " How about we all just tone it down a little bit huh?" Mostly looking at hammertime as he spoke. Shaking his head Damian chuckled to himself what kind of mess did he manage to throw himself into this time? What ever it happened to be. 

He raised a eyebrow and looked back at the bag to see the explosive " Yea... how about we try not leveling an entire building under us." He looked at hammertime " Have you managed to look at or run any sims to see what would happen if we blow up the sewers under the building? If not then let me just say that if we're not careful then we may just bring some of the building down with us. Now with that said there should be some stun charges in there that I was going to set up on the way in and arm once we finish the job so that anyone chasing us will be " He shrugged " As you would guess, stunned. Because no matter how unlikely we are to get caught I'd rather not have Manslaughter and terrorism on my permanent record." 

Looking around him the nightlife of Corellia slowly died off around them as he made his way to the target area before bringing the speeder to a landing about ten or so yards away from the entrance point which luckily for them smelled nearly as bad as it sounded. 

[Karl the Unfettered]

"I'll tone YOU down, bro," Vivi countered flippantly, fiddling with one of the charges. "You big babies. We ain't gotta use all of 'em, anyway! One 'r two on th' right supports, a lil shapin' 'n tweakin' fer tonin' down th' boom-bye... knock th' walls out 'n clutter th' sewers without bringin' th' whole shebang down on us! No collapsed streets 'r nothin'!" She'd just stick the rest in her pack, anyway. Advance on the fees!

As far as the slicer chick's gamerspeak shit, Vivi just rolled her eyes. "I know how ta be subtle when I gotta! More importantly if shit gets loud I c'n make it even louder! Draw th' bad guys' eyes, soak up a helluva lot more bullets 'n blasters 'n other shit you flimsy meatsacks couldn't. Beat 'em all down while y'all're gettin' away 'n catch up wiv' ya's later!"

She examined the new fittings for her hammer more closely. "Even more importantly I knows a thing 'r two 'bout slicin', an' I knows a helluva lot more'n a thing 'r two 'bout science-y shit. I wanna lookit this data we're scrubbin' 'fore it gits scrubbed, yeah? Wanna know what sorta biowarfare Sith-level eugenics banthashit we're savin' th' galaxy from, or whatevah!" Vivi put a lot of effort into making people think she was just another blonde dumbass with more boobs than brains, but that really, really wasn't true.

In any event they arrived at the sewer entrance, which was just as icky as it seemed to be. "Yuck," Vivi declared, wrinkling her nose. But it'd take more than a sewer to put The Hammer off her lunch, so she hopped out of the speeder and, without even the slightest shred of shame, shucked out of her outfit and started pulling on the cheap body armor. "Go on, git an eyeful, I ain't shy," she told the others with a wink as she did so. Once redressed she set about re-speccing her hammer and stowing away all the other goodies Memento had left for her.

[Zarkan]

"Apologies," Slbyia said softly directing it towards the occupants in the front seat before turning back to the small computer clasped to her right wrist. "There are two support pillars near the entrance that we could use to collapse the entrance provided we can get far enough ahead of any guards." Looking up at the back of the blonde's head she slightly narrowed her eyes. "we'd only need a very, very small amount of explosives for it." Slybia swept her hand over the display placing the wrist computer back to sleep before turning attention back to the frankly, attention-grabbing woman. "I wouldn't get my hopes up too much more likely than not it's just some valuable, but mundane experimental gene mods."

Slybia felt a slight tug from her saftey harness as the speeder slowed to a stop. She was hardly surpised the the hammer was out of the speeder before she could even get her belt unclasped. Stepping out of the speeder lightly her eyes scanning for the sewer hatch. "I'll run a quick scan to see if there is any security around the sewer hatch as unlikely as that is." The little cyborg was already walking towards the hatch when she heard hammertime raise her voice. Turning with a slight eye roll to see what was going on her face went bright blue as she saw the woman with her pants half down her legs. Slapping her hands over her visor with a quick squeak and turned to look back towards the other members of the group. "W-w-w-wha." she clicked her teeth closed a moment before tensing. "I'mgonnarunthatscan." She chirped out before spinning around and running to the sewer hatch.

[Argetlam]

Damian looked over at Hammertime and rolled his eyes as he stepped out of the speeder. " How about we just tone down the attitude ma'am I'm just simply stating that maybe explosives aren't our best bet. " He reached in the back and pulled out the shock charges that he had requested from Memento and set them in a pouch that was hanging from his belt.

Raising a eyebrow at Hammertimes bullet sponge mentality he found himself letting out another sigh. " Well how about we try and not even catch the eyes of anyone. Because no matter what if we are caught the security forces are going to be on our ass. " He shook his head and flicked on the thermal vision of his helmet and inspected what they could see from outside of the sewer. Not seeing anything interesting he returned the vision to normal. 
 
Glancing over to see Hammertime mid changing he let out a long slow sigh ... what the hell did I get myself into he thought to himself. After pulling out his blaster pistols and setting them both to stun he walked over to the entrance of the sewer and waited for the other two members to make their way over. " Hows that scan going? " he asked as he looked down at flitter who was busily typing away at her wrist computer.