Out of all of the disgusting, grungy city worlds that Morgan had the displeasure of visiting since he found his freedom, Faron City ranked near the top of the list. The urban sprawl was more closely ordered than the winding alleyways of Nar Shadaa, but lacked the prison-like quality of Coruscant’s suffocating layers. It helped that, for a mostly reformed thief like him, the city held an enormous amount of promise. Even after the Collective’s disaster on Arx, the coffers were full, the markets packed, the credits flowing like smugglers through a whorehouse. Weapons, starships, chems, bio-implants. Valuable Technocratic stock, ripe for the plundering.
The latter was exactly what Morgan had come for. It was a novel experience for him, being paid on contract for just a little bit of grand larceny. But, who was he to complain? The Severian Principiate promised good credits, and Morgan’s daughter wanted to pick up an extra Sith Alchemy course, once the Shadow Academy was up and running again. And so, the wheel turned onward.
Leaned up against one wall of a narrow alleyway between two residential skyscrapers, he just seemed to belong. Whistling a low tune, a placid grin on his face, he could have been a day laborer, just off his shift. Waiting for his girlfriend up in the tower, maybe, tossing a small, metallic bauble in one hand. It was an easy enough look to emulate, and none of the passersby in the busy residential avenue before him paid him any mind.
His target certainly didn’t. Well, the source of his target. He emerged from the apartment tower across the avenue, holocom pressed to his ear as he strode out into the crowded street. To the best of Morgan’s knowledge, the youngish, muddy-haired man before him was a mid-level R&D type, working for the Technocratic Guild. He specialized in bio-tech; specifically, some kind of neural-pathway interface chip designed to…
Well, that was above his pay-grade. Word was, the guy had stolen a prototype, and was trying to sell it to the highest bidder. Morgan had been sent to re-steal the damned thing instead. Just as he started to step out of the alley, however, a deep, grumbling bark issued from behind him, and the thief groaned. Casting a look over his shoulder, he shot a gentle shooing motion into the dark. “No, ya ugly kriffer. Wait here until ya hear me, ‘kay?”
There was a moment of silence. Then, another half-bark. That was all he needed.
Yammering into his holo-com, Mister Tech-Head hardly even noticed as Morgan shouldered right past him, only turning for half a second to chase his retreating form with an indignant, “Hey! Watch where you’re going!”
Morgan didn’t reply. He just grinned and walked on, waiting to gain a few dozen feet of distance before he checked out the bounty that his good friend had so generously donated from the confines of his pockets. Two unsmoked cigarras. A credit chit. A mag-rail pass card.
And an apartment keycard. Room 12A, floor 65.
“Thanks for the help, bud,” he chuckled to himself. Then, slipping the pilfered stash away into a hidden pocket within his jacket, he strolled through the tower’s front entrance, thumbs tucked in his gunbelt and a swagger in his step.
-
Eilen hated Faron City. Jetting her way across the metropolis’ multitude of rooftops, underneath the sprawling canopy of speeder traffic, she made no effort to hide the grimace of displeasure that crossed her face. The city was ordered, regimented, and hideous. Like most of the Collective’s other creations, actually. She could practically smell the urban decay, the rot of duracrete pillars and rusting steel. Something about the place just offended her most deeply-seated sensibilities, tweaked a rebellious nerve. Or, perhaps it had something to do with the fact that half of the people here would have burned her, and all of her friends, her crew, at the stake for being Force users.
Maybe that was why, when Arcona’s summit had offered her this job, she’d jumped at the chance. It was always nice, pulling one over the Collective’s heads. And…maybe it would finally prove to everyone that she wasn’t someone to just push around anymore. She was strong, capable, crafty…whether or not they all realized it.
Dropping to a crouch atop the roof of a slender shopping complex, the hybrid brought up her computer-gauntlets, checking the target number once again. Room 12A, floor 65…
There.
A wry grin crossed Eilen’s face as she gassed her Mitrinomon, pressing down on the clutch with one hand. The plan was simple. Get up there, hack the balcony door, get in, take the neurochip prototype, get out. Easy job, no blood shed. Good deal.
Her boosters burned to life, and she was airborne moments later, hot wind whistling over her helm. Two short bursts of gas got her exactly where she needed to go, with a well cut backblast softening her descent onto the balcony. The flight was quick, quiet. With the enormous amount of speeder traffic filling the skies around her, nobody would notice. It only took her a moment to drop to one knee, insert her slicer probe into the door’s electronic lock, and…
-
“Pop goes your cherry,” Morgan murmured with a grin, pulling the keycard from the door as it slid aside. He left it open, steps inaudible as he prowled into the foyer, maintaining a low crouch. The apartment was strewn with techie-crap and abandoned trays of junk food, dripping onto the carpet. Computers, datapads, snarls of wire, and a multitude of glowing monitors lining the entryway. Gingerly moving around the equipment, it didn’t take him long to find his objective.
The data chip was floating, locked in a miniaturized, protective suspension field emanating from a waist-high bank of consoles. Beyond it, a hyperglass auto door swung out onto the balcony, left open. Odd. But, that wasn’t what got his attention.
No. Much more interesting was the six-foot-something alien crouched over the console bank, muttering curses under her breath as she fiddled with a slicer pad. As he watched, the consoles sparked slightly, and the young woman jumped, issuing another stream of sulfurous cursing. Morgan felt rather like he’d just caught his daughter with her hand in the cookie jar.
Blue eyes flitted, glancing over the patches sewn into her flightsuit. Arcona’s emblem was emblazoned starkly in several places. Wonderful. Personally, he had no real loyalties to the Clan, and his opponent’s helm prevented him from seeing her face. But…Emere worked for Arcona. His daughter likely would as well, someday. It was a creepy, backward, shadowy group. But, the people were okay. Decent. That was enough.
His thumb brushed over his Bryar’s safety switch, flipping from off to kill to stun. He drew his weapon silently from the oiled holster…
-
Eilen’s head snapped up before Morgan could even start to draw a bead. As soon as the weapon was drawn, the Force had screamed out in her mind. It took all that she could muster not to bolt.
Morgan stared at Eilen. EIlen stared at Morgan. They both looked to the prototype. As they watched, the containment field sparked, and went quiet, the chip bouncing to the floor between them. Obviously, whatever code the hybrid had last inputted worked.
Morgan broke the quietude with a cough, flashing Eilen a bright, charming grin, trying to set her at ease. “So…uh…ya come here often?”
Her ears flickered under her helmet. “Eh-heh, uh…yeah! Tot-...”
A sharp electrical hiss cut her off as Morgan raised his Bryar and unleashed a torrent of stun-charges her way. Once again, only the Force saved Eilen from a premature session in the electrical fryer. Fur puffing out on edge, she immediately threw herself to the side, behind the array of equipment from which the prototype had been suspended. This was not good. Eilen didn’t exactly have fight or flight instincts. Her mind defaulted instantly to retreat, get away, dive right back out that window and fly back to her ship.
But that prototype…
The hybrid blinked, her breath shuddering inward. Then, as if she’d never even been there at all, Eilen disappeared. Morgan rounded her cover, blaster levelled low, only to find an empty space where once there had been a very lanky alien sheltering from his fire. Instantly, he pivoted on his back foot, his second blaster flying into his hand. He saw nothing. Heard nothing. No footsteps, not even the tell-tale shifting of armor. His eyes locked onto the prototype neural chip, a small, glowing blue light on the filthy…carpet.
He did a second scan, gaze low…locking on a pair of indentations in the plush flooring, creeping towards the chip. Morgan grinned. In one smooth motion, he holstered his Bryar at his hip, pulling a sack of fine, crystalline powder into his fingers.
“Y’know,” he called with a slight chuckle. “It’s not the best kinda thievin’ etiquette to try an’ steal the stolen thing that I was already half way through stealin’ again. Gotta work on those manners.”
With a smooth, under-hand cast, Morgan threw the bag of powder at the seemingly empty space directly over the two footprints in the carpet. Eilen gave a strangled yelp as it burst into a rosy cloud around her, painting a very obvious outline. Heart racing, she reached out for the chip, pulling it through the air, into her hand.
Her fingers closed around it just as Morgan reached her. He didn’t so much as strike the hybrid, instead opting to utilize his sprinting momentum to drive his shoulder directly into her solar plexus. As she staggered back, gasping, he struck low, kicking her directly in the pit of her left knee to bring her down. Cocking back his left arm, Morgan utilized his Black Sun’s blaster like a set of fisticuffs, smashing both heavy barrels into her helm’s visor. Once, twice, three times. If he could just knock her out…
Eilen’s jetpack roared to life. In their tight, confined space, the concussive backblast threw Morgan bodily across the room, slamming him into a bank of monitors. The hybrid, for her own part, rocketed straight out the door that he had left wide open, coming to a sliding stop in the hall outside.
Morgan wheezed as he rolled onto his chest, blinking stars and stray flecks of pink, powdery irritant from his eyes. He looked up just in time to catch Eilen kip-up from her prone position in the doorway, shaking shards of cracked duraplast from her shattered visor. Nonchalantly, she dusted one shoulder, then the other, before turning and giving him a parting salute.
“Heh…might…uh…wanna take a break there...dude,” she taunted lamely, the joke dying as soon as it was past her lips. Morgan just groaned in response.
“Is that…really the best you got, Chicha?” he questioned, slowly rising to his feet.
Eilen shrugged, and took off like a flash of lightning. Morgan rushed to follow her a moment later.
She beat him to the turbolift by a good twenty seconds. She spent the better part of that head start jus hammering at the down button, willing the lift to come faster. When it didn’t, she sighed, and reached for her lightsaber. Who needed an elevator when you had a jetpack, right?
Morgan arrived to find a lift waiting for him, headed down. A glowing, curricular hole was carved into the doors. She would beat him to the streets, alright. But, whether or not she could shake off her new tail remained to be seen.
“Kids these days,” the old thief grumbled, stepping into the turbolift with a sigh.
