05-12-2016, 09:18 PM
After her info binge, Carmelita sat back on her stool and pondered the information she’d learnt. Neither Coruscant nor Camelot sounded like the ideal place to set up camp, in her mind. A quick analysis of the law enforcement of both major factions had left her somewhat disappointed, though at the same time a little relieved that there was something to focus on besides her past. So far, she’d been operating off ingrained instinct, and it had been a welcome break from her grief over Sly’s death, but now that she was coming down off the urgency that had gripped her she couldn’t help but feel that it was time to move on to something else distracting.
She’d have to make one more trip from Coruscant under the cloak of her collar, since she didn’t fancy being painted with a bounty by the Empire just yet: she’d save that for when she started showing up their law enforcement. The choice, it seemed was to either make her way back to the Nexus and go from there, or head straight to the Dunes or the Deeps. Carmelita’s tail twitched in amusement as she made her choice.
‘Mami always said we had a bit of Fennec blood. Guess I’m headed for the desert.’
It was a logical decision on Carmelita’s part. Of the realms, there were only four initially suitable for her to engage in her lone woman policing and thieving roles. Camelot was out, as she had no intentions of joining a self-absorbed force like their guard, and Coruscant would brand her as a vigilante or try and control her future actions. That left the Deeps and the Dunes, and whilst she had been to several islands and deserts during her adventures chasing or working with Sly, she’d never been happy with the wet or the cold. On top of that, the Dunes also had a town with an interesting sheriff, the Town With No Name, which looked like the kind of place where a helping hand would be appreciated properly. Combined with the large number of abandoned facilities she could potentially hole up in, it became the obvious choice.
She reached a gloved claw up under her helmet and scratched an ear, shifting her blue hair around a little to make it more comfortable. She took one final look at the forum she had been browsing before posting a final message and closing the page. Time to leave the city behind.
---
It was relatively easy to find somewhere to reactivate her cloak on Tier 3, and she dissolved the helmet into omnilium once again, happy to breathe properly even with the scent of singed air that the cloak provided. The streets were quieter, the darkening flourescant spheres high above replaced with the soft cones of lamplight.
It was also fairly easy to ascend the lifts, now that she knew what to look for. In under an hour, she had returned to Tier One, a fresh sky over her head whose stars were partially smothered by clouds and light pollution. Carmelita followed the signposts towards the Endless Dunes portal station, her boots padding quietly as she slunk through the shadows with confidence in her cloak.
She turned a corner to see the courtyard that the portal was situated in, several dozen stormtroopers standing guard while the dog-mechs (she’d learnt these were called FENRIS mechs by their manufacturer, one Hahne-Kedar) were spaced evenly around the square. There were floodlights all around the courtyard, the shadows nearly pitch black in relief. The portal itself was still being used, though compared to the Nexus portal station the foot traffic was nothing to write home about. Most of the traffic consisted of pallets of crates, loaded slowly onto a nearby delivery truck.
As Carmelita was pondering how to sneak in, she saw a hint of movement in the shadows on the balcony. She dived backwards out of instinct, a woman wearing some kind of ninja suit passing through the location she had just been standing without any indication that she’d seen her. The woman paused, and lifted a hand to an ear, presumably messaging someone. Carmelita held her breath, listening intently from the wall she was plastered against.
“This is Shadow Two, no hostiles spotted. I think we were fed bad intel, I haven’t seem even a hair out of place and the rebels aren’t sneaky enough to try and smuggle stuff through the portal without the help of a prime.”
There was a brief pause, before the woman gave a brief confirmation and slipped back into the shadows.
Carmelita waited five minutes before she'd calmed down enough to move. Apparently she’d timed this exactly wrong: if the Empire were expecting trouble from known malcontents, no doubt they had a much improved plan to deal with intruders. It looked like she’d have to improvise a distraction.
She doubled back on the route she had come from, and looked for something, anything, that would work as a distraction. A hoverbike, left unattended outside a pizza joint with the keys still in the shiny ignition system, gave her an idea. It was the work of a moment to find something suitable, but an abandoned newspaper gave her the opportunity. She lifted it in her hands, tumbling it over to look like it had been caught in a gust of wind to the cameras, and brought it down softly on the accelerator. The bike began moving forwards slowly, and Carmelita kept tugging the paper as though it was caught in the wind. She guided the bike down the street, slowly increasing the speed it was going at. When she couldn’t keep up anymore, she removed the paper, and as the bike drifted into the courtyard ducked into an alleyway and ran around the side alleys.
There was a lot of confused shouting as she hauled herself onto a balcony to overlook the courtyard properly. Below, the stormtroopers and FENRIS mechs were reacting as though they expected the bike to explode, several small groups branching off to cover the entrances or investigate where it came from. Several men and women, similarly dressed to Shadow Two, emerged from their hiding places, pulling out scanners and giving the bike a quick overview.
The perfect opportunity came when the owner of the bike turned up to retrieve it. The alien boy was quite clearly a pretentious heir of some business group, making a big scene with plenty of frantic posturing and indignant cries after one of the FENRIS mechs scraped against the side of the bike. Carmelita cautiously dropped from the balcony and began slowly making her way towards the portal. Thirty meters turned to ten meters, and she was carefully bypassing the machines when there was a soft snap.
She looked down in shock to see a tripwire, no thicker than a hair, broken by her footsteps. Laser sights flicked onto the green light that bathed her location. Carmelita swore in Spanish and dived away. Seconds later marksmen opened up on her location, blaster shots raining down from the nearby roofs and quickly scorching her previous location. FENRIS mechs immediately made their way to cordon her, chemical samplers twisting back and forth to try and find her scent. She leapt through a gap in between a few of the mechs, focusing mentally on the notice-me-not enchantment on her belt. There was a moment’s pause in the mechs’ steps, but that pause was enough for Carmelita to reach the portal and dive through, the sound of chaos behind her.
She’d have to make one more trip from Coruscant under the cloak of her collar, since she didn’t fancy being painted with a bounty by the Empire just yet: she’d save that for when she started showing up their law enforcement. The choice, it seemed was to either make her way back to the Nexus and go from there, or head straight to the Dunes or the Deeps. Carmelita’s tail twitched in amusement as she made her choice.
‘Mami always said we had a bit of Fennec blood. Guess I’m headed for the desert.’
It was a logical decision on Carmelita’s part. Of the realms, there were only four initially suitable for her to engage in her lone woman policing and thieving roles. Camelot was out, as she had no intentions of joining a self-absorbed force like their guard, and Coruscant would brand her as a vigilante or try and control her future actions. That left the Deeps and the Dunes, and whilst she had been to several islands and deserts during her adventures chasing or working with Sly, she’d never been happy with the wet or the cold. On top of that, the Dunes also had a town with an interesting sheriff, the Town With No Name, which looked like the kind of place where a helping hand would be appreciated properly. Combined with the large number of abandoned facilities she could potentially hole up in, it became the obvious choice.
She reached a gloved claw up under her helmet and scratched an ear, shifting her blue hair around a little to make it more comfortable. She took one final look at the forum she had been browsing before posting a final message and closing the page. Time to leave the city behind.
---
It was relatively easy to find somewhere to reactivate her cloak on Tier 3, and she dissolved the helmet into omnilium once again, happy to breathe properly even with the scent of singed air that the cloak provided. The streets were quieter, the darkening flourescant spheres high above replaced with the soft cones of lamplight.
It was also fairly easy to ascend the lifts, now that she knew what to look for. In under an hour, she had returned to Tier One, a fresh sky over her head whose stars were partially smothered by clouds and light pollution. Carmelita followed the signposts towards the Endless Dunes portal station, her boots padding quietly as she slunk through the shadows with confidence in her cloak.
She turned a corner to see the courtyard that the portal was situated in, several dozen stormtroopers standing guard while the dog-mechs (she’d learnt these were called FENRIS mechs by their manufacturer, one Hahne-Kedar) were spaced evenly around the square. There were floodlights all around the courtyard, the shadows nearly pitch black in relief. The portal itself was still being used, though compared to the Nexus portal station the foot traffic was nothing to write home about. Most of the traffic consisted of pallets of crates, loaded slowly onto a nearby delivery truck.
As Carmelita was pondering how to sneak in, she saw a hint of movement in the shadows on the balcony. She dived backwards out of instinct, a woman wearing some kind of ninja suit passing through the location she had just been standing without any indication that she’d seen her. The woman paused, and lifted a hand to an ear, presumably messaging someone. Carmelita held her breath, listening intently from the wall she was plastered against.
“This is Shadow Two, no hostiles spotted. I think we were fed bad intel, I haven’t seem even a hair out of place and the rebels aren’t sneaky enough to try and smuggle stuff through the portal without the help of a prime.”
There was a brief pause, before the woman gave a brief confirmation and slipped back into the shadows.
Carmelita waited five minutes before she'd calmed down enough to move. Apparently she’d timed this exactly wrong: if the Empire were expecting trouble from known malcontents, no doubt they had a much improved plan to deal with intruders. It looked like she’d have to improvise a distraction.
She doubled back on the route she had come from, and looked for something, anything, that would work as a distraction. A hoverbike, left unattended outside a pizza joint with the keys still in the shiny ignition system, gave her an idea. It was the work of a moment to find something suitable, but an abandoned newspaper gave her the opportunity. She lifted it in her hands, tumbling it over to look like it had been caught in a gust of wind to the cameras, and brought it down softly on the accelerator. The bike began moving forwards slowly, and Carmelita kept tugging the paper as though it was caught in the wind. She guided the bike down the street, slowly increasing the speed it was going at. When she couldn’t keep up anymore, she removed the paper, and as the bike drifted into the courtyard ducked into an alleyway and ran around the side alleys.
There was a lot of confused shouting as she hauled herself onto a balcony to overlook the courtyard properly. Below, the stormtroopers and FENRIS mechs were reacting as though they expected the bike to explode, several small groups branching off to cover the entrances or investigate where it came from. Several men and women, similarly dressed to Shadow Two, emerged from their hiding places, pulling out scanners and giving the bike a quick overview.
The perfect opportunity came when the owner of the bike turned up to retrieve it. The alien boy was quite clearly a pretentious heir of some business group, making a big scene with plenty of frantic posturing and indignant cries after one of the FENRIS mechs scraped against the side of the bike. Carmelita cautiously dropped from the balcony and began slowly making her way towards the portal. Thirty meters turned to ten meters, and she was carefully bypassing the machines when there was a soft snap.
She looked down in shock to see a tripwire, no thicker than a hair, broken by her footsteps. Laser sights flicked onto the green light that bathed her location. Carmelita swore in Spanish and dived away. Seconds later marksmen opened up on her location, blaster shots raining down from the nearby roofs and quickly scorching her previous location. FENRIS mechs immediately made their way to cordon her, chemical samplers twisting back and forth to try and find her scent. She leapt through a gap in between a few of the mechs, focusing mentally on the notice-me-not enchantment on her belt. There was a moment’s pause in the mechs’ steps, but that pause was enough for Carmelita to reach the portal and dive through, the sound of chaos behind her.