Coming in Peace

[Jenno]

The Porten, a very old ship that had been purchased by a member of a small, even legitimate, shipping firm that patrolled the Outer Rim worlds of the Sith Empire, came out of hyperspace in orbit around the world of Subterrell, where it very routinely made stops to gather some of the cheaper minerals churned out by the planet's mining centers, most of which weren't even refined yet. Today, however, The Porten had slightly different business. The ship, which was normally piloted by a Bith named Reebu, now was being controlled by one with far more amlicious intentions. Erem Dukar, of Darkeye Platoon, Sith Military, First-Class.

Now, technically, since he was Sith Military, he hadn't stolen the ship from Reebu, he had simply Commandeered a ship under reasonable purposes, and that wasn't illegal. Not to the Sith Empire, anyway. Now, as for the manner in which the ship was commandeered, which resulted in a very bruised, boody, and unconscious Bith, well, that was where laws blurred to the Sith, as they very often did.

Onboard The Porten, the Platoon leader turned to those others of the elite team, all of which were dressed as shipping workers, and none of which carried any kind of weaponry.

"Get ready to land."

He said as the ship descended into one of the service shafts, its twelve occupants the only cargo. No gear, no weapons. The ship landed, and the airlock above them closed.

"They have ingested their posion, men..."

[Jenno]

An hour had passed so far, and still no contact from the higher-ups. Though, to be fair, nobody in Darkeye Platoon expected there to be. For one thing, any contact could blow their cover. And aside from that, they didn't have any higher-ups. Darkeye Platoon worked alone. They got orders, and they followed them however the hell they wanted to. Mostly because Dukar was the kind of person nobody wanted to give orders to.

At present, the most feared group in the Sith Empire (The Republic had no idea of their existence) was busy unloading The Porten’s shipment of low-level vibration cells to the nearest storage chamber as they continue to act as if they were the shipping personnel they claimed to be. As a matter of fact, members of Darkeye Platoon had not been ordered to do anything at all except unload the ship’s cargo. Whatever plan the group might have had was known only to their leader.

But not for too long, as, once the cells had been stored away, Dukar raised a palm, causing the others to turn their attention towards him immediately. Though, they didn’t gather around him. They didn’t even stop moving. The group never stopped what they were doing. It was why they were so very efficient. The Ubese gave his orders.

“Remove the area.”

Only three men deviated from the group’s masquerade, one heading towards the storage facility, one to the hangar door behind which their ship sat, and another towards the emergency supply unit.

Each gathered a single item. A vibration cell, a magnetic locking strip (which all the men had on hand, after all, they were pretending to be a shipping crew), and a spare hyperdrive dispersal cable, though this was one for a much larger ship than their own, and so had a much wider diameter.

The three men met at a bare stretch of wall. One attached the magnetic strip to the wall. The next attached the cable to the strip, and the third forced the vibration cell into the cable’s wide opening.

The men returned to the others, gave a nod, and the group left the area, heading out the main doorway to the underground city quadrant. The men began running now, trying to get as far away from quadrant 2 as physically possible. Only Dukar stayed behind. He removed a small blaster from within his jacket and faced the closing door. And then, just as the door was almost closed, Erem Dukar aimed and fired, before taking off himself at a run.

The bolt careened into the empty hangar storage facility and towards the amalgam of parts the group had attached to the wall. An instant later, it collided.

Instantly, the poorly-made (and therefore quite unstable) vibration cell exploded. Immediately, sensing the explosion, the Irons at the facility went into action, as a large Durasteel wall shrieked across the room, attempting to close off the hangar from the rest of the facility. But when the Iron hit the other end of the room, it did not meet with its designated space. Instead, the Durasteel wall struck the hyperdrive dispersal cable.

Hypedrive dispersal cables, being designed to handle surges in the extreme energies of a hyperdrive, were made of alloys about thirty-seven times denser than Durasteel. So when the Iron hit this cable, it did not simply crush the piece against the wall and lock itself into the wall, as it would have with any other kind of obstacle, it only somewhat crushed the cable, so that when it did lock itself into place, the lock was not airtight. A single millimeter of empty space stood between the wall and the Iron. And that was a millimeter too much.

Alarm after alarm went off, as Iron after Iron closed off space after space of Quadrant 2, locking citizens of the underground quadrant within. Within a minute, the entire quadrant had been sealed off from the rest of the planet.

A second before the last Iron shut, Dukar dove through the empty space, landing as the Durasteel struck with the sound of finality. One of his men, by the name of Tero, nodded.

“Nice shot, sir.”

Dukar turned away and coldly began making his way to their next objective.

“Shut up.”

Something about the way his platoon leader had said that made Tero afraid even to acknowledge the order.