Chapter 3: Archaic

[Vergere 1]

The housekeeper looked at Aston and Arlan with a sigh, and just motioned up the stairs, looking very much like this was not the first time such a thing had happened.

Brier, finally knocked from her thoughts, detected the crash and went down the stairs to see what on earth was going on. She motioned to the others where she was going, and decided to let Nat take care of the new Revenants that had arrived. Almost colliding with Aston and Arlan as they ran up the stairs as she was on the way down, she just raised an eyebrow. "Somehow, I doubt the rest of my day is going to consist of heading to some beaches for some sun. Come on, Jya and Jaim just arrived as well, and with you making such an entrance to make the housekeeper drop something, I doubt you come with good news. I want the others to hear when I do, so you won't have to repeat yourselves." She led the new Revenant duo up the stairs to where she and the others had been working, and where Jya and Jaim now were as well, but had a much quicker step this time.

[Drake 53]

The door to the holding cell slid open. Tak took a step out into the corridor beyond, looking first one way then the other. A guard at one end looked over in surprise. Takeshi smiled and waved to him then stepped back into his cell and sat down against the far wall, next to the deactivated stuncuffs.

A moment later the guard appeared. He was hesitant at first, standing well back from the door and looking in, in case Tak tried to jump him. When the guard saw that his prisoner was sitting and making no signs of going anywhere, he stepped into the room, blaster aimed at Tak.

"Good to see Archaic's security is on par with galactic standards," Takeshi said, casually. "Although, your response time to my escape was a tad slow."

Face emotionless beneath the helmet and faceplate which covered his eyes, the guard cocked his head to the side. "How did you get out?"

Tak picked up the stuncuffs and slid them across the floor to the guard's feet. "It was simple, really." He leaned forward and jerked his head as though he wanted to tell the guard a secret. The other man took a step forward and leaned forward slightly. Tak couldn't help but smile. "I used the Force. BLAM!" He shoved his hands forward in a mock Force push motion.

Still three feet out of arms reach and in no danger of getting hit, the guard jerked backwards anyway and almost fell over. Either he was surprised by the sudden loud noise and movement or he was afraid of getting Force blasted into the wall. Tak didn't care because it still looked hilarious.

He laughed aloud as the guard regained his composure. The man looked angry. When he raised his blaster, Tak stopped laughing and simply smiled, saying, "Nap time."

The guard fired and the stun bolt submerged Takeshi into unconsiousness.

[Chickenman 9]

Sena took the hint, if reluctantly. She took a sip of her drink like a good girl and choked back down the bile that rose in her throat at the very thought of her brother. Okay, Layla. I'll play by his rules for now. She took another sip. For now.

***

Cale Sano rechecked his blaster pistol for what must have been the dozenth time since leaving Archaic Base. A quick stop there had taken him to the labs, where he had been able to examine the comlink, take it apart, put it back together, and discover a transmission feed between the comlink and another. Probably the group leader. Careless of them, really, enough to make Cale suspect a trap, which explained the dozen Archaic thug sharing the hovervan with him.

A small signal bounced through the transmission feed had allowed Cale to pinpoint the other comlink's location, and led him here, to an abandoned power plant. Cale had elected to go along with the strike team, having seen the damage done the last time these guys had been cornered. Doing so meant postponing the interrogation of a spy that that thug Jaing had brought in earlier that day, so Cale hoped to get this operation over done with as quickly as possible, lest Deign want his head.

The hovervan came to a stop and the door opened with a hiss and Cale's ears were immediately confronted with the sounds of blasterfire coming from the plant.

"Let's move," Cale ordered, "and see what this is all about."

***

"Start closing the door!" Aeric shouted down the hallway as he fired a few more stun bolts behind him. Angrier blaster bolts whizzed by. His running gait would bring him to the door in a second.

Szen palmed the door control, and the door began to drop to the floor. Aeric took a quick, deep breath and dropped to his side, sliding underneath the door as it closed behind him, blaster bolts chipping away at it in his stead.

"Was that really neccessary?" Szen asked, a little flustered and confused by the stunt.

"Not particularly." Aeric answered with a grin. He nodded to Atuarre. "Can you walk out of here?

[Radioactive Isotope 29]

"Kinda have to, don't I?" Atuarre carefully got to her feet--relying heavily on the wall for support in doing so. "Ready when you are."

[Bad furday 57]

"Yes, sir!"

Jya and Jaim turned and headed for the door, just as Arlan and Aston came storming in.

For a moment, time stood still as it looked as though the two teams would have a massive collision.

Arlan and Jya did indeed have a collision of sorts, leading Aston to blurt the news to a surprised Nat.

"The grey Mando is coming!"

Arlan broke from the kiss to explain.

"During the mission, Tak fought and was captured by the grey Mando, the one he says attacked our base. Aston and I scrammed in the speeder, and after a while spotted the Mando following us on a speederbike. We ditched the speeder, and took a variety of public transport to get here."

Aston continued,

"It's probable that he's got to our speeder by now and is currently back tracking to see where we're based. There's a

very real chance that the grey Mando is on his way here."

[Ayingel 24]

Szen took up a spot next to Atuarre for support. "Now just don't go too fast for me." She laughed a little, hoping to make it easier for her injured comrade.

[Princess 35]

Nima looked alarmed. "We can't let him in here. We can't put Brier's family in danger."

[Ender 8]

Jaim nodded. "Agreed. And I'll tell you right now, if Tak couldn't take him, I probably can't, either. So our choices are, one, run for it, and probably have him chase us from one end of the planet to the other, or two, get some very large weapons, which I doubt are lying around a stately home such as this."

[Rogue 4]

Nat took a moment to take that all in, letting out a curse in Twi'lekki that made Nima's lekku curl. He appologized. He needed to take control of the situation before it spiraled out of control. "Jya and Jaim, your orders stand. We have two captured Revs now, and we need to get them out of there fast. Get out of here now and report back when you've verified the situation."

He turned to Brier, "Captain Fae. If he tracked Arlan and Aston here I don't think he's going to care to check for civilians. l'm sorry..." he said, and he was sincere. "But you're going to have to get your family out of here. Everybody else--I want you to put on whatever useful armor or gear you brought along, and get ready for the fight of your life."

He turned, pointing a finger at Kaden as he walked through the door to get his own gear. "Try to stay awake through this."

[Chickenman 9]

Cale's team moved quickly, sweeping the plant room by room, slowly making their way to the sounds of blasterfire. Ascending the final set of stairs, they came to a hallway filled with guards, one of which was apparently trying to hack a door's controls. The guards did not notice Cale's team.

"Orders, sir?" asked one of Cale's men.

He looked the guards over. They weren't his quarry.

"Kill them."

***

Aeric heard the eruption of blasterfire outside the door and winced.

"Looks like the party's been crashed," he muttered, as the blasterfire died down as instantly as it had started.

***

It had a been a quick bloodbath.

"Blow open the door," Cale ordered, taking care to step over one of the dead bodies as he walked.

One of Cale's men began rigging a detonator to the door.

[Vergere 1]

Brier just sighed and held the bridge of her nose for a moment as she tried to think, but looking less than happy about the news. "Yes... I need to go get them out. I'll meet up with you when it's done." At that, she headed out of the room with a quick step, beginning to call out things as she walked, her voice echoing back down the hallway as she disappeared from view.

[Ender 8]

Jaim nodded and left the room, Jya trailing behind him. Jumping in the speeder, they shot off into the sky, heading due south.

[Drake 53]

Jaing Skirata watched the speeder leave the house. He stood atop a low bluff, a couple hundred metres away, looking down over the countryside and the estate in the middle of it. The speeder took off in the opposite direction of where he was standing so he wasn't worried about being spotted. He was concealed beneath a rather broad-spanning tree anyway.

He walked back over to the stolen speeder bike and detached a PLX-2M portable missile launcher from a side-mounted weapons rack. As soon as he had determined the airtaxi's destination, Jaing had backtracked a short distance to a nearby Archaic hidden storage cache and borrowed a few weapons.

Jaing sat atop the bike then shouldered the bulky weapon. Dialling in the Plex's digital scope, he scanned the house for any signs of a target. He had no intention of walking into an ambush, especially if the two men he had tracked here were suspicious enough to tell their companions of Jaing's pursuit. He also didn't want to kill too many people directly so this first strike would need to serve simply as a distraction.

Movement caught Jaing's eye as he continued scanning the perimetre of the house. A small herd of children was being led, by a few adults, towards a space yacht parked nearby. They definately knew he was coming. Taking a closer look, he didn't see the two men from before included amongst the adults. That meant they were still inside. Good, Jaing thought. He didn't much care for killing children.

On a return sweep, he spotted something move in one of the upstairs windows. It could have been a person...or a pet. Regardless, it was a good enough target as any. He aimed down from the window, painting a digital target on the wall of the first floor. Next he aimed at the front entrance to the house. Locking on, he let loose the first of the launcher's Arakyd 3t3 missiles. Shifting back, he immediately locked onto the wall target and fired a second missile.

Without waiting around, Jaing tossed the PLX-2M to the ground and throttled forward on the speeder bike.

[Rogue 4]

The blasts shook the house, sending Nat off balance and knocking him into a wall on his way to get his rifle. He reached his room, pulled it out of it's case and grabbed some spare power packs and grenades. Who knew what it would take to bring down this guy?

Then he ran down the hall again back towards the room the others were in.

He really hoped that Captain Fae got away with the kids.

He knew one of the blasts had hit closeby, but downstairs. And the other had hit by the front door. That was a simple matter of direction. The Mandalorian probably suspected that they would lay an ambush. He didn't think that he would be happy that they didn't have the time, but when he looked to the entrance he was. It was torn apart, and so would they have been if they had been standing there. Nat crouched, finding cover from the Mandalorian in the form the of a cabinet in the upstairs hallway overlooking the entrance he knew the Mandalorian would come through . He turned it over on it's side against the railing, leaned behind it, pulled up his rifle and strapped a power pack into it.

He pointed his rifle at the door. Now it would be a waiting game. He tried to stay as quiet as he could.

Edited October 6, 2008 by Rogue

[Andy 60]

"Great," Aston sighed as the blast rocked the building.

He made sure his bag was securely on his back, and checked his blaster, picking up a couple of spare power packs and stuffing them into the pockets of his combat jacket, and rushed to take up a position near to where Nat lay in waiting for the Mandolorian.

[Vergere 1]

Brier growled and spun at the explosion, as did most of the adults herding the kids - it was a sound they all knew too well. She yelled something at her sister, and she and only a few other adults continued on into the ship within a hangar. Brier, Zak, and other family members headed below ground to grab some of the weaponry they had stashed away from various smuggling ops, and waited before they did anything, wanting to make sure the ship with the children was safe and out of the area before they continued. Once the ship was out of sight, Zak and their father ran to the ships to make sure all of them were locked, secured, and force fields were running to protect the ships as much as possible.

[Mara 29]

Kaden had reddened slightly at his lieutenant's remark before following out of his room to go to his own quarters. He was quickly repacking when the first blast rocked the large house. Down on the floor, he didn't bother to check where it was. The next blast hit just as he was about to run out his door, right below the room he was in.

He jumped for the hallway, grabbing the doorjamb as part of the floor beneath him and the outside wall fell away, no longer with its first-floor support. His former room now had a big beautiful picture window, without any plex in it. Quickly thinking, he moved down the hall to get out of the way of the gap in the wall, staying low to the floor. As he made his way towards the stairs, he hoped to the Force it wouldn't collapse under him. Lucky for him, this was an old house, made properly. And sturdily, not like newer buildings.

Seeing Nat and Aston near the top of the staircase, he stopped a couple meters from them and pulled out his borrowed blaster before securing his shoulderbag.

Edited October 7, 2008 by Mara

[Drake 53]

A pair of smaller explosions blasted a hole in the perimetre fence surrounding the estate. The grenade launcher on the speeder bike retracted into its hidden compartment and Jaing sped through the gap. He was glad that the stolen vehicle had been equipped with military custom. It probably used to belong to a former CorSec officer or something.

As Jaing approached the house itself, he slowed. His infrared sensors, which were ineffective at long-range, were now scanning for signs of body heat through the walls. He could barely make out the four or five humanoids on the upper level through the pair of slowly swelling heat blooms. The two missiles had apparently caused more damage than the house's fire suppression systems were able to deal with and fires were beginning to spread.

Three of the bodies were positioned near his original intended entrance. So perhaps there is an ambush afterall, he thought. His secondary entrance was a balcony and a set of glass doors to the topmost level, on the roof. Jaing stopped the bike and got off, looking at the window three stories up. The jetpack on his back flared to life and he ascended, first slowly but then with increasing speed. With practiced precision, Jaing killed the jets right before reaching the balcony. His upward momentum carried him the rest of the way and a couple feet past the ledge, before his own gravity brought him back down in an arc. He crouched as he landed in the middle of the balcony then crept forward to scan the interior room.

The room was still lit and toys littered the floor. It appeared to be a playroom for the children he had seen before. The door lock was easily picked and it slid open to allow him entrance. Jaing quickly made his way through the room and out into the hallway beyond and the stairway which would lead down to the second level. He paused then turned around, looking at the various toys and stuffed animals strewn about the floor.

He had an idea.

[Rogue 4]

Layla hadn't been watching that holovid, but she was grateful when it was over all the same. What little she'd seen had made a mockery of the indiginous species of Endor, a species that helped them win the battle there. Ayana had fallen asleep on the couch, her head in Sena's lap. Everything was quiet, for the moment.

She needed to do something before a potentially bad situation formed. She rose from the couch where she was sitting, looking over at Deign. "Can we talk?"

[Drake 53]

Deign raised an eyebrow then nodded. He stood, looking over to Sena. When their eyes met, he said, "Don't do anything that would upset mother." Deign gave a small warning smile then led Laya out of the room. In the kitchen, he paused. "TeeCee, keep an eye on Sena."

The droid's disembodied voice came over a nearby wall speaker. "Yes, sir."

"Come on," he said to Layla, leading her into his bedroom. Once the door was closed he turned to her. "So, have you thought about what we discussed?" He asked the question lightly as though their previous conversation had been calm and polite, over evening tea.

[Rogue 4]

"Yes," Layla said, looking up to him. She knew that what she was about to say was going to be outrageous to her own mind. She needed to say it though, because it was the only way she could ensure that she would stay alive. It was the only way she could gain some long term power over their situation. "I've been thinking about that...and a lot of other things we talked about. That holovid wasn't really good for anything but time."

She closed her eyes, then opened them again. "I wanted to...appologize. I understand that...everything you're doing, you're doing for your family. The same as you always have done. It's hard to see it through everything else, but...you've opened my eyes with the way you act around Ayana."

[Drake 53]

Deign's eyes widened fractionally before looking back at Layla. He had not been expecting this. Clearly she was putting on a show to save her own life, that much he had expected, but the way she had gone about it surprised him. The tone in her voice suggested that she was genuine. If he hadn't known Layla as well as he did, Deign would have fallen for her act.

However, there was no reason not to play along. So he genuinely smiled. Not so much at what she had said but at the prospect of what he could do with her sudden 'change of heart'. "Good," he said. "I'm happy that I could finally convince you to see the truth of things and I forgive you for doubting me." He turned away from her and moved over to take a seat on the end of the bed. "I guess now it's my turn. I'm deeply sorry for having to resort to kidnapping you. It was childish. I apologize for hurting you, as well. Sometimes the...stresses of this job cloud my mind."

[Rogue 4]

"Stresses or not, kidnapping is never the way to a woman's heart, Deign." Layla said, shifting her weight to one hip. She turned, revealing her bruised cheek and holding her wrist, similarly bruised up for examination."Neither is brutality."

[Drake 53]

Deign shrugged. "No, I don't suppose it is, is it? But then, I've given up trying to get your heart so it's not like I'm going to do anything to make up for what I did. All I need is for you to cut the pointless defiance and give me what I want."

***

Takeshi awoke from his unconsious state and, even through his hazy, post-stunned vision, could tell that he had been moved. The lighting was a little brighter and the room a little smaller. He also noticed that he was now restrained, this time with his arms outstretched and his wrists locked to the wall.

When his eyesight cleared and focused, Tak looked to either side, checking the restraints. They looked like something from the LB-2100 series. He had been taught how to escape from those as well. The LB-2100 had one fatal flaw; it had a chance to short out when in contact with excess moisture. The later models, such as the LB-2150, had no such flaw and were much more difficult to escape from. Tak was sure that he wouldn't be able to get out from one of those. So he looked closer, hoping that these restraints were the former instead of the latter. If not, he would be wasting his time.

His legs had, fortunately, not been restrained, so he took a few regulating breaths then began doing leg crunches.

Edited October 7, 2008 by Drake

[Rogue 4]

"You need to figure out what you really want, Deign. You can't have everything. Do you want Sena, Ayana and I...or is a list of names that mean nothing to you more important?" She took a step towards him, her gray eyes meeting his violet. "You already have all the important names anyway, Deign. Don't be greedy. Back off the squadron thing and take a look around at what you have, and the..potential that might lie therein."