Why did there have to be so many scientists that had worked on this stupid virus. He had ‘visited’ three of the scientist’s homes, hoping to have found something that would have linked them to the virus, but nothing as of yet. This scientist was the last on the list that his Summit had given him, and he was glad that this was the last, but also annoyed that he hadn’t found anything of value yet. From the fact that he hadn’t been called off this assignment yet, meant that the others hadn’t found anything yet either.
Standing outside the door to the doctor’s house, Armad placed his hand on the door and concentrated. He was able to get the sense that he had left some time ago, and wouldn’t return for a couple more hours, at best. Looking down at the keypad, Armad gave a vexing sigh, “This one is either very paranoid, or he has something to hide,” Armad thought as he look at a top notch three tiered security keypad. Thinking about it for a minute, Armad was able to discern that he would be able to get past numerical passcode easy enough, and the thumbprint scanner with some luck, but the keycard might prove a bit tricky. But he was getting rather bored, and he knew that he would start to look suspicious just standing here staring at a door after a while. So taking a quick look around to make sure no one was paying him any attention, he took a deep breath and placed one hand on the keypad, and the other on the door handle, and concentrated on finding the connection between the two. Armad’s brow furrowed in concentration when he wasn’t able to immediately find the connection between the keypad and the lock for the door.
Opening his eyes, Armad took a step back in mild disbelief, “Really?” he thought to himself. “It can’t be that simple.” Armad said aloud. Stepping back up to the door, Armad grabbed and turned the doorknob., using just a bit of the Force to force the lock to disengage and opened the door. Quickly stepping in and shutting the door behind him, Armad did a quick survey of his surroundings. Not hearing an alarm or sensing any traps meant to harm him, Armad started to wander around the house looking for a secret room or the good doctor’s study. He had found the doctor’s study early on, but continued to look around the house for good measure.
Upon entering the scientist’s study, after not finding anything anywhere else in the house, Armad saw that the side walls were lined with filled bookshelves. There was an ornate wooden desk centered in front of an equally large window at the back of the room. With an exasperated sigh Armad walked in and around the desk, rummaging through the papers strewn about the desk. Powering on the terminal that was sitting in the center of the desk, Armad continued to search through the papers and notebooks lying on the desk. He was looking through a personal journal that he’d found in the top desk drawer, when a tone from the terminal indicated it was fully powered up.
“So much for this being easy,” Armad mumbled as he saw a single text box in the center of the screen asking for a passcode. He pulled out his datapad from it’s pocket, plugged it into the terminal and tapped a few commands; one to start a program to crack the passcode, and another to copy and download the terminal’s contents. Setting his datapad down to let it do it’s thing, Armad went back to the journal he’d been reading. He was flipping through the middle pages when he heard his datapad chime, he looked up and smiled. He put his hand in the shape of a pistol and mock shot the terminal. “Gotcha.”
He had found a couple of entries that caught his attention. The first entry was about how he had stumbled across this virus when he accidentally dropped a tray of multiple other viruses. And being the ever curious scientist, he decided to see what this combination would do on living cells. The second entry was dated six months after the first entry, and talked about how a Pantoran approached him about the mixed virus that he had created. He talked about how he was scared at first and then wondered how they knew about it as it was kept under intense security. He stated that he was going to deny what they were talking about and refuse to help them. But when they offered his own lab and unlimited funding, he wrote that he faltered and accepted their offer. After that entry there was nothing else that indicated anything about the virus or the Pantoran, or the group that they represented. Putting the journal down, Armad looked at his datapad, expecting to see that it was almost done downloading...75 percent. It was better than he was actually thinking it would have been. With nothing left to do but wait, Armad picked up another journal and started thumbing through, it was a scientific journal that he understood about half of it.
“Uhm, hello?” a voice said from the doorway. “Can I help you?”
Armad froze for a brief moment, as if getting caught doing something he knew he shouldn’t have been doing, before regaining his senses, and looked up toward the doorway, noticed that the scientist was standing there with a female Mirialan and a male Kaleesh, both of whom were holding blaster pistols casually aimed at him. “Hey there, I wasn’t expecting you back so soon.” Armad joked and glanced down at his datapad, seeing that it was only at 85 percent. Slowly standing, Armad put the journal down and raised his hands about halfway up in a gesture of compliance with the non-verbal meaning of the blasters aimed at him.
“You tripped a failsafe embedded in the keypad out front,” the Mirialan stated as two bodyguards took a step further into the room and more to the side to give them better angles on him. The scientist remained standing in the doorway, a look of panic and fear was plastered to his face. “Who are you and what are you doing here? I only ask once.” The Mirialan demanded, the expression on her face blank and her presence in the Force was surprisingly calm. The Kaleesh was the complete opposite, fury and rage poised on the edge waiting for Armad to do something that he didn’t like.
Not really wanting to put on too much more airs about what he was after, so Armad just said what needed to be said, “You two can leave or die, I just want him.” When he felt surprise suddenly blossom from all three of them, Armad knew that this was the time for him to strike to end this quickly. Armad dropped his hand to his lightsaber. He sensed the Kaleesh fire first and brought his other hand up defensively. He willed the Force to coalesce within his palm, redirecting the quick shots harmlessly away. He was able to draw his lightsaber and get it ignited in time to deflect the shot from the Mirialan into the Kaleesh’s left shoulder. Because of the bolt hitting him in the shoulder, he was off balance when he shot, which Armad was able to redirect into the chest of the Mirialan, killing her before she was able to get off another shot. As he was thrusting his left hand, Armad gathered the Force and pushed it toward the Kaleesh knocking him back into the bookshelves behind him. Jumping around the desk Armad rushed forward and stabbed the Kaleesh in the chest to finish him off.
A little out of breath from exerting himself, Armad looked toward the scientist, who had dropped to the floor when the shooting started. “Don't move from that spot or I will hurt or kill you...haven't decided yet.” Armad dictated. He returned to the desk to check on the progress of the download, 95 percent. “Come on!” He exclaimed. He looked up to see the scientist trying to scoot out the door. But he froze when he saw he got caught. “I do NOT want to carry you, but I will shoot you in the leg.”