Starfinder: The Jade Regent Pt. 08

Rakain held out his own wrist. "Veeeeeery comfortable," he said, winking at Korra.

"Yes, and I can make them look like anything I want to their systems. So i'm pretty much granting us anything I want while making us look totally normal." Nora said, breaking into a fit of laughter.

"HA-HA-HA-HA," Xata's disembodied voice amplified sportively.

Hana snickered, "Because you're extremely kick ass or because their systems were coded by mentally challenged pigeons?"

"I found a line of code that pretty much made me an admin on the level of the system zero day programmer." Nora continued, falling into excited snickering, "It's like a skeleton key."

Sam seemed to understand some of those words. "Well then, that's good."

"Huh.. lucky you. I assume you're going to make it so no one else can access that bit of code now?" Hana asked.

Ami nodded. "So, even if the party blitz is a fail, we can still find the shuttle!" She said, grinning slightly.

"And keep them from being able to leave by keeping the doors shut." Hana added.

"I'd have too rework and get CEO control of a shitload of companies and enact a bunch of changes. I'm a great hacker, but that would be the work of a Wish spell or something." Nora said with a shrug. "Right now though it's an exploit I can use to play the system like it's my bitch."

Sam spent a moment tapping her armored thigh. "Wait a minute- is there any network conduits or hubs near that location or along the way? If that is a pretty much abandoned section of the station then it may not have any attention being paid to it."

"A very impressive exploit, Nora!" chimed in Xata's disembodied voice with elan.

"If any, they're shut down. We can turn them on if we find any." Nora said, rubbing her neck. "I can do a lot with code but we'll have to get bodies out to it soon."

Ami nodded, then stood. "All right!" She said, her voice serious. "That sounds like a plan. We head for the party - and we see if we can find any nodes along the way. If the party fails, we just find the shuttle directly..." She nodded. "Because, well, Asvig may know more about what happened to Ulf, and if we need to hurry, it's better to know now. Agreed?"

Sam nodded.

Rakain nodded. "Let's do it."

Hana nodded, "Also maybe set up a program to tell you if someone tries to access that airlock they were going to toss him out?"

"Affirmative, chummer!" Xata sang.

Korra flinched at the idea of her friend being tossed out of the airlock.

Nora blew out a breath, mouthing 'Thank you Ami' as she settled back in her seat to focus on her coding, working on the bands. "Workin on it Hana."

Hana nodded to Nora, "Good. Would kind of suck to handle all Asvig's men to find out he was busy offing Ulf the whole time."

###

As the group walked through the stations, they made their careful way through the corridors, coming to the darker, lower regions of the station proper - where the corridors were left quiet and unused and unattended. They found no sign of a network node...but as they walked up towards a corridor, Rakain held up his hand. He had seen something in the darkness hte others had missed...

Hana paused, frowning slightly, wondering what the vesk saw that she missed. Sam stopped at the signal. Rakain snapped his fingers and conjured a tiny little light in his palm, he held it up near the wall. A pair of runes were carved into the metal wall, both of them lionheaded. "Anyone know what these are?" he whispered.

Nora stopped while she urged her drone skittering along the wall to continue a little forward, pause and then peek around.

"They match the bands on the man's arm in the image," Nora whispered back, "I believe?"

Xata looked at the runes curiously. her body having become visible again in the time it took to arrive here. Hana moved to check the runes curiously as well.

"About 90% sure," Nora added, shrugging.

Hana frowned, "This is an annoying little sigil that summons guardian lions if you pass by without making the sign OR if you try to destroy it..." She sighed.

"Oh, fek. Well, uh..." Nora gestured to Hana, "Gogo robomagic?"

"The signal is specific to each crafted sign.. I'll look, but.." Hana sighed, looking around for some possible indication of the countersign. After only a few moments, she murmured quietly. "But.. I think.." She leaned in, making a sign on the sigil, trying to disarm it, "This should take care of it..."

Rakain crossed his fingers on one hand while grabbing his pistol butt with the other.

The sigil flashed...and there was a slow delay...and then the two lion head runes glowed, then faded. As they stepped through, nothing happened, which was the best outcome. Ami grinned. "Nice work, Hana..." She said, nodding as they walked forward, coming to the corridor right before Asvig's place. Despite a heavy bulkhead being shut against anyone coming, they could hear the deep, bass rumble of music coming from within - and saw the vents that would lead into the area.

Hana smiled, "Just doing my job." She said cheerfully, then moved to the vent that would be hers, trying to pull the cover off so she could get inside.

"Do you need a hand?" Sam asked as Hana pulled on the vent cover.Hana scrambled up the vent...and then skidded back down, thudding into Sam's arms. Xata looked on with visible jealousy.

"..ow.." Hana grumbled, then sighed, "I think I might need to-"

"Wait!" Nora said, as Hana started to move to get back at the vent.

Hana looked to Nora in confusion.

"Tripwires," Nora noted, moving quickly. She used her finger to generate a little pointing laser and pointing up to Hana's vents.

"Haha! You all thought I was inept, but I was clearly avoiding those." Hana said, smiling playfully.

The mechanic still moved to give her friend a brief hug, "Just lookin' out."

Sam nodded.

Hana snickered, "Thanks." She laughed softly.

As they looked up at it, Ami nodded. "Can we snip it?" she whispered. "Or...maybe use the other vent?" She asked, quietly.

"That's up to you guys -I'm too big for the vent conversation," Rakain said.

Ami chuckled, elbowing Rakina, whispering to him. "That's what she said..."

"That's what you said," Rakain muttered back. "Many, many times..."

Ami snickered as Korra watched the door, clearly just waiting for it to open and a bunch of Shadowrunners to come out for her to punch. Nora reached up with her hand, using a finger to ignite a little welding torch. She used the cutting fire to quickly slice the trap after a moment of careful thought and nodded, "Shooould be good now Hana."

Sam teasingly rolled her eyes at them. "Need a boost?" She asked.

"Apparently I do." Hana snickered slightly. Sam nodded and took a point under the vent, hands clasped to act as a foothold. As Sam helped Hana up, she swept up into the air vent - and the drone skittered in...through Hana and their drone's eyes, they could see the main room. The place had been changed from the blue prints, but not extremely...the parts and machinery within had been covered up, more than moved, and replaced with beds and cushions. Lights were hung from the walls and about fourteen people in there. They picked Asvig in the corner, chatting with a gorgeous redhead who was covered in tribalistic tattoos, her body wired up with enough chrome to make her a near mirror of Nora - down to her tiny draconic droid, which sat on her shoulder. Asvig was a big, beefy, blond guy. The kind of guy who'd have played Thor in the movies, save that he wore douchebag sunglasses despite being inside and in fucking space. He was gesticulating around himself, while the other Shadowrunners - mostly young, tough looking types - danced and banged their heads and ground against one another to the beat of the music. A few droids puttered around, with trays that had drinks...and drugs. Some of the Runners were out cold on the ground - a full six of them were snoring on cots in various modes of undress.

Ami frowned. "...I think Asvig invited some extra friends over for his fucking party..." she muttered into the com link. Douchebag sunglasses. Xata's circuits glowed with an almost instinctive spite.

Sam snickered at that. "Almost tempted to lob a smoke into the vent."

"...Bootleg bint." Nora muttered under her breath, glaring at the redhead. She had her little drone explore as best it could.

"We need a Distraction," Xata said.

Hana texted the rest of the group: I think Asvig thinks that the lions are doing the.. lion's share of the guardian work. The woman seems displeased with his security, but he said "My friends got this"

Rakain drew his gun. "Do we want a vesk sized loud distraction? Or something a bit more subtle?"

"I could go to the main door and knock. We know a dangerous line." Sam replied to the message over the comms.

"More subtle." Xata looked over to Hana. Or, more accurately, to the vent Hana had crawled into. Ami snickered.

"So, uh, will they even notice a summon, Hana?" She asked. "That music is loud.'

They'll notice. We all ready for me to summon? Hana sent to the others.

"Summon away!" Xata said.

Bring the house down, Hana! Rakain messaged her. Sam took a position by the door, ready to knock it open. Xata brought her katana to the ready. Hana focused, muttering softly to herself and a massive golden rat appeared on the chest of the reclining douchenozzle. As the rat appeared, Rakain touched a claw to his choker, then tapped his laser pistol, suffusing it with emerald light.

As Rakain slapped down the spell...five things happened at once.

The red headed girl that Asvig had been speaking too walked into the control room, unaware that her heels were dogged by the ferret drone. Her dragon drone hissed, but she ignored it, despite it trying to point her eyes at the small ferret, which hopped onto the computer control system - the ferret plugging in it's cute connector tongue into the slot.

Asvig, who had been walking near the center of the room, called out. "Come on, this is a party, lets EAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHH!"

The sound was not entirely manly. But to be fair, a massive, white furred, golden halo'd roadent from the higher celestial planes had appeared on his chest, claws digging into his shirt. He screamed like a girl and every runner in the room started to laugh raucously.

And then the doors in entrance that Rakian, Sam, Ami, Korra, Xata and Nora stood by swung inwards - letting them see the chaos within as the inner doors locked - sealing the red head in a room and trapping the runners within as they luaghed - too drunk to realize what was going on.

"The Data is quantum locked by a key. Either Redhead or Dicklord have it." Nora said as her fingers flew over her wrist. "Gunna try to keep them from being able to do much else."

Xata's katana whirled into motion as her voice began a hypnotic, rhythmic Song. She tried to mesmerise as many of the assembled douchebags as she could. Four of the goons did notice them - turning to look at them, blinking slightly as they looked at Xata...and...well, they looked more confused than hypnotized. The Confounding Chant of Cantor Delilles was at least good for making people stop and say: "WTF?!"

"Let me know if you want me to give the redhead a shave." Sam offered to Nora as she stepped into the room and behind the distracted Asvig, her helmet snapping into place to conceal her face. She was taking this casual, not as someone rushing in to slam a blade into his back but more that as if she belonged here, something that only confused the other four currently paying attention to the group more.

Which made it all the more shocking when her hand went to the hilt at her hip and the blade snapped free from it's sheath in a lightning fast swing that bit into the side of the oblivious Runner.

"Odin is watching." She said in a tone that carried a casual disregard for life.

The massive man who still had a celestial rat on his chest staggered, screamed, and shouted. "What the FUCK!?"

"Yeah, that's it, keep your eye on the rat!" Rakain yelled, sighting down his pistol. He fired. The supercharged shot slammed into Asvig's chest, blowing the massive man backwards off his feet to crash into the tables behind him, dead as a doornail.

Asvig sprawled on the ground - and sliding from his pocket came a tiny, glinting key-card...the key Nora had mentioned.

As the runners stood in shock, blinking down at their suddenly dead leader, the drama in hte other room continued - the red head kicking at the door that had selaed her in, trying to hack her way past the computer code that Nora had slipped into the system. Behind her, unobserved, Nora's ferret drone chomped onto the quantum locked hard-drive that contained the sensitive information in the Shadowrunner's base. It dragged the hard-drive free, then scampered off, holding the drive in its teeth. It skittered up into the vent.

Half of the things they required from the runner's compound were taken - they only needed Asvig's keycard!

The golden rat leaped off the dead body, rushing towards one of the other gang members as Hana muttered, lifting up the keycard with her arcane magics, pulling it off the ground and up to her hand. Xata swung into the Chant of Bidirection as duplicate versions of her fled in two different directions!

The shadowrunners looked in every direction, shouting to one another, pulling their weapons as the mirror images ran around them and the rat romped among them - each of them seemed to be facing in a different direction, trying to run towards doors that had been locked. Pure pandamonium had been kicked off!

A soft clink hit the floor from under the robes covering Sam's armor before a small cylinder rolled out into the open. Those with some sense might recognize the look of an improvised explosive, a short fuse already burning as it came into view.

The sparking line disappeared into the device, and smoke started to billow from the device and fill that half of the room. Under the cover of the smoke, protected by her environmental seals, Sam just walked out the door she came in, cleaning the blade and putting it away.

The ferretdrone skittered away, while Hana squirmed backwards - the smoke full of confused Runners, and a single snarling rat. And so, as the party retreated back and away from the runner's domains and away from the shadows, that celestial rat continued to scamper about, until it emerged from the fog, dragging a hunk of fast food it had stolen from one of the tables, skittering around a corner to enjoy its meal before it was yanked back to its home dimension by the spell collapsing...

###

"All in all," Korra said, nodding as she lounged back in her seat on her ship. "I call that a pretty dang successful mission!"

Xata said: "Killer mission, chummers. The Shadows have learned to fear us! Or at least to be reasonably confused by us..."

Hana took the keycard from her pocket, offering it to Nora, "Here you go." She said, smiling slightly.

"We are badass!" Rakain whooped.

Korra sighed, quietly. "And Asvig got what he had coming to him for kidnapping my friend..." She said, quietly. "Now, hopefully...Ulf's okay..." She bit her lip slightly.

Nora took the key and drive. With her drone and some wiring she set to work connecting and getting through to the system.

"I am going to laugh if the Johnson that died was Odin." Sam laughed as she stole a chair to lounge in. "We are going to have to check our information. I hope he is alive as well."

Xata's jubilance died into pensiveness as she waited on the result of their efforts.

As Nora tapped away, they found that the hard drive contained the files that were saved by Helva - the redheaded mechanic that had been in the party. It seemed she hadn't trusted their bosses one iota...and had slipped a tracker on Ulf when she had dropped him off in the airlock.

That tracker currently blipped softly, sending a weak signal from a point on one of the moons of the gas giant that Kalsgard station orbited.

Korra's eyes widened. "I know that place!" she exclaimed. "That's Ravenscraig!" She looked at the other. "It's been the headquarters of the Rimerunner's Guild for the past few years - they're traders and merchants who travel through the Crown of the World..." She bit her lip. "What the hell do they want Ulf for!?"

Despite her questions, they could see that she was deeply relieved.

"Oooooh, that explains why they wanted him tossed out the airlock." Hana nodded. "Any sort of lead on the sword?"

"It's on a shuttle." Nora said with a yawn, pausing to rub her eyes. "It's being sent into the sun tomorrow."

"We must act quickly, then." Xata said, nodding.

"So, let's head out and get the sword now." Hana said, frowning. Sam nodded in agreement. Rakain cracked his knuckles.

Ami nodded. "That makes sense..." She said, grinning. "Though, uh, I think we should make sure we have a secure line to Alfie, so she can pick us up if the assholes launch the shuttle with us on it. Because you know that's something that's going to happen if they know we're there

"I trust Nora to take whatever measures are needed," Xata said.

"Confirming it before we're hurled into the sun would be nice though." Hana snickered slightly.

"Well, Ami is right. But there are a few methods of dealing with that." Sam noted in agreement.

"I'll get the best ship ever and it's best AI alerted," The mechanic said with a nod, "What if we intercepted the shuttle inflight?"

Korra nodded. "We are about fifty AU away from the sun," she said. "Even at full burn, that's a day to get there."

"We would need the flight plan for the shuttle to do so." Sam replied.

"The sun," Nora said. "Do math!"

"We must prepare for Maximum Effort," Xata said, nodding.

Korra snorted. "She's got a point," she said, dragging over her computer console - a massive, chunky looking mess that she slapped at, tapped away. "Narrowed down the limited paths and...there." SHe turned the screen around, showing them the route. "That's the most efficient route."

Sam chuckled. "Fair enough. You have the launch time tomorrow?"

"Just seems easier to grab it before the shuttle heads out. Also, we don't need to send it back out this way and our ship is less corpsey," Hana said.

Ami nodded. "That is a good point," she said.

"Also allows more room for error." Sam said.

Ami sighed, brushing her hand along her face. "Okay..." She said. "Korra and I have your route. WE can join the Sunwolf waiting out in space. YOu can signal us if you end up in trouble. The smaller party means you sneak better, and we can grab you if the ship launches!" she grinned. "Best of both worlds!"

"Sounds excellent, chummer!" Xata said.

Rakain looked at the android. "Chummer?"

Ami snickered. "She's been saying it all day," she said, her voice soft.

"We are still Shadowrunners," Xata grinned.,

Nora leaned against Korra with a yawn, "So does that mean we can rest a little still before the shuttle?"

Korra nodded, her brown cheeks darkening further as Nora leaned against her toned body. "Um, s-sure!" she said. "Since it's launching in a few hours, breaking for a bit's fine..." She smiled slightly.

"If you need to." Hana said, frowning slightly, "I mean.. it's probably better to do it as soon as possible if we can."

"An hour or two one way or the other makes little difference for me, omae," said Xata.

"Yeah, it's only going to be so long before the confused fucks at the party start doing something stupid." Sam noted.

"Just an hour without my head going through so much code. I'm seeing numbers." Nora rubbed her palms against her eyes with a groan.

Ami nodded, squeezing Hana's shoulder. "We'll set out soon..." She said, her voice serious as she sighed.

And so, the party setlted to rest for a short time - and once they felt their aches fade and their bodies ready, they would set out again into the darkness of Kalsguard station - to head for the shuttle bay...and the planned final resting place of Suishen.