Chapter 64: Scouting and Slicing

Disclaimer: Star Wars and all of it's Intellectual Properties is owned by George Lucas and Walt Disney, This fictional work and all of it's original characters are however mine.

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Jake's P.O.V. :

I heard Kado talking with Davik, remarking about the design pattern they’d observed so far—it had similarities to the space station in the debris field back on Malachor V. Davik sounded skeptical, and for a moment, I was too. But as I listened to their conversation, I also took the time to compare what I saw now to what I remembered from that station. At the same time, I ran comparisons to what I knew about common design trends in recent cycles.

I could see where Kado was coming from—some similarities were there—but I still wasn’t convinced. I walked closer to the two, and from Davik’s expression, it looked like he wasn’t convinced either. Kado, noticing both our skeptical expressions, didn’t press his theory further, but he did suggest we keep it in mind as we progressed. Any patterns or design consistencies could give us an idea of what to expect further in. And, of course, anything Rina pulled from the station’s data terminals would either prove or debunk his suspicion.

We couldn’t really argue with that advice. No matter how skeptical a person is, good advice is good advice. Only the stubborn and the brain-dead ignore good advice, and those kinds of people usually end up in real nasty situations—exactly what we wanted to avoid.

A sudden, disgruntled groan pulled my attention, and I already had a pretty good idea of who it was. The source came from the terminal Rina and Mira had been working at, so I made my way over to check. Just as I suspected, Rina was the one groaning in frustration.

Turns out, the only valuable data she could retrieve from the system was the station’s map. There were ship logs too, but she discarded them as irrelevant. Mira, however, wasn’t bothered. “It’s still good intel,” she said. “Now we don’t have to blindly move around the station, dreading possible dangers.”

Mira tapped into the comms and let everyone know that Rina was transmitting the station’s layout. A moment later, my datapad beeped, and I pulled it up to take a look.

My first thought? The layout looked like a structure embedded into a large boulder.

As I studied it, a question popped into my head: how in blazes does this station still have power? I asked it aloud, and thankfully, Mira had the answer ready.

“This station runs on three power generators, which replenish their reserves through solar energy.”

That got my brain working again, but it also sent my thoughts spiraling into horror holo scenarios—ironically, one of those scenarios we already lived through back on Malachor V.

Before I could get lost in my own paranoia, Davik’s voice cut through my thoughts. He turned to Kado, asking if he had a plan of approach.

Kado’s response?

“Mira’s the one to follow. This job needs a lot of scouting, and that’s her expertise.”

Can’t argue with that logic.

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Mira tapped her wrist console, bringing up the station’s map once more. "Alright, we’ve got two objectives before we can dig into whether this station is the source of the hyperspace ejections—or anomalies, if you prefer the fancy term. First, we need to deal with security. Lucky for us, turret placements are marked on the map, but there’s no way to tell if they’re active or cold. Second, since we only pulled the station map from the terminal, one of us needs to escort Rina to the station boss’s office to try slicing into a more secure system. Meanwhile, the rest of us will need to breach the security office to either add ourselves to the system—so the station marks us as friendlies—or, failing that, we’ll have to shut security down altogether.”

She let that sit for a moment, and I took another glance at the map. One spot caught my eye—the armory, sitting close to the security office. I had no idea what kind of gear this place might still have, but if there was even a chance of grabbing something useful, I wanted to be there to see it.

“I’ll take the security office,” I said. “And the armory’s right next to it, so I’ll give it a once-over too.”

Mira nodded. “Good. The Nick and Skew droids will scout paths where we can avoid security turrets. If we manage to disable security later, they’ll sweep the rest of the facility.”

She turned to Rina. “That leaves you and me heading to the Head Honcho’s office.”

Kado let out a small chuckle. “Looks like that puts me, Davik, and Jake on turret duty.”

I didn’t mind. I was actually looking forward to cracking open that armory. Might be something fun in there.

With a final glance at the map, I started giving the droids their marching orders. “Nick-01, Nick-02, your priority is to find paths avoiding turrets. Skew-01, Skew-02, hold perimeter security for now. If we disable security later, you’ll get full access to sweep and clear.”

A series of affirmatives came through the comms, and with that, we moved out.

We hadn’t gone far when my mood took a nosedive.

Bodies. A lot of bodies.

The corridor leading away from the control station was littered with them. Some slumped against walls, others sprawled across the durasteel deck. The stale, recycled air carried the faint scent of charred flesh and old blood, making my stomach tighten.

I forced myself to exhale slowly. I should’ve expected this. An abandoned station, still running on primary power, with fully mapped-out security placements? That screamed ‘something bad happened’—but seeing the aftermath in the flesh? Different story.

Davik crouched beside one of the bodies, running a gloved hand over the armor plating. “Blaster burns. Close range. Some of these look like they were executed.”

Kado nudged another corpse with his boot, eyes narrowing. “Not a single weapon left on them.”

I grimaced. “That’s not a good sign.”

“Yeah,” Kado muttered. “Either whatever killed them took their weapons, or someone else looted the station before we got here.”

Mira’s voice crackled through the comms. “Rina and I just found our first body. You seeing the same thing?”

I tapped my earpiece. “Yeah. And none of them have weapons.”

Mira let out a quiet curse. “Stay sharp. If someone’s still lurking around, I’d rather not walk into a crossfire.”

I glanced toward Davik and Kado. “Let’s pick up the pace. If the security office still has control over station defenses, we need to reach it before someone else does.”

The others nodded, and we pressed forward, stepping over the fallen as we advanced deeper into the station.

I'm just going to ignore the smell, yup - can't smell anything, nope nope nope.

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Rina's P.O.V. :

The moment Mira and I split off from the others, we were hit by the stench. Even through my helmet’s filters, the scent of decay lingered like a bad motivator about to blow. I could only imagine how bad it was for the others, assuming they even remembered to put their helmets on. Knowing Jake, that di’kut probably forgot. Smart as he is, he can be a real moof-milker sometimes.

Mira signaled a turn, leading us on a longer route to avoid a security turret. I didn’t argue; better to take the safe path than get turned into bantha fodder by automated defenses. As we walked, my mind kept circling back to those bodies. They were long dead, practically mummified in some places, but the blaster burns were still visible. It wasn’t a battle—no weapons around, no defensive positioning. No, this was a massacre. An execution, maybe. Or just plain murder. Either way, it gave me the kind of chill that even a malfunctioning heating unit on Hoth couldn’t match.

Mira raised a hand, another turret ahead. Great. Another detour. And another pile of bodies. This time, something stood out—a protocol droid, slumped against the wall like it had been discarded after its usefulness ran out.

“Think it’s got anything useful in its memory banks?” I asked.

Mira gave the area a quick sweep before nodding. “Worth a shot. Just make it quick.”

I crouched next to the droid, pulling out my slicing tools to check its systems. A quick inspection made me frown. Its internals were a wreck—scorched wiring, half its droid brain fried to slag. Whatever happened here, someone didn’t want this thing talking.

“Yeah, it’s toast,” I muttered, standing up.

Mira only gave a nod before signaling for us to move forward. We continued down the corridor, stepping over more of the station’s former residents until we finally reached our destination—the station boss’s office. No surprise, it was system-locked, and by the looks of it, heavily encrypted.

I grinned behind my helmet, cracking my knuckles. “Give me a sec, I’ll have it open in no time.”

Plugging into the panel, I got to work. The slicing process was smooth at first—basic encryption layers peeling away like flimsi under a vibroblade. But then, just as I was about to crack the final lock, the system threw up an alert. Red flashing letters scrolled across my display: Security Override Engaged.

Kriff.

Mira tensed beside me, hand drifting to her blaster. “Tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

I sighed, fingers flying across the interface. “If you’re thinking we just tripped something nasty, then yeah, it’s exactly what you think.”

The lock was still breaking down, but whatever security protocol I’d triggered, it wasn’t waiting around for me to finish. A new sound filled the air—the unmistakable whirring of servos and the heavy stomp of metal feet.

Droids.

Armed ones.

And they were heading straight for us.

“Uh, Mira?” I said, still working as fast as I could. “Might wanna get ready.”

She already had her blaster drawn. “Just hurry up, will you?”

Yeah. No pressure or anything.

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The system I was slicing into wasn’t anything fancy compared to modern setups, but whoever put it together had a serious obsession with redundancy. It was like dealing with a paranoid slicer who didn’t trust their own work—layer upon layer of security loops, not difficult, just annoying as all hells.

And then the alarm tripped. Not station-wide, but localized—just for this office. I glanced at the security feed and spotted the problem: two security droids activating in response.

“Blast,” I muttered.

Mira tensed beside me, already adjusting her stance, hand hovering near her blaster. The metallic stomp of approaching droids echoed in the hall, growing louder by the second.

I still had time. The unlocking algorithm was already running, which meant my hands were free for a minute or two. I could shut down the alarm, rewrite the system logs, and trick the droids into thinking it was a false alert. If we engaged them, there was a solid chance we’d trip the entire station’s security net—not exactly what we were aiming for.

Mira didn’t need convincing. “Hurry it up,” she urged, eyes flicking to the door.

I shot her a smirk. “What’s there to worry about?”

Mira’s expression darkened. She looked at my hands—both off the console, not slicing—then back at me, realization and frustration hitting her at the same time.

I timed it perfectly. Just as she opened her mouth, the lock disengaged with a sharp click, and the door slid open. With a deliberately smug snap of my fingers, I stepped back.

Mira rolled her eyes, muttering something under her breath that I was sure wasn’t a compliment.

She still had her blaster drawn as she stepped inside. “What about the security droids?” she asked, still wary.

I leaned against the doorway, casually tapping my wrist datapad. “Handled it. Changed the system logs, flagged the alarm as a false alert. They’re heading back to their docking stations.”

Mira gave me a long look, then exhaled. “Lucky they were only localized to this office,” she muttered before scanning the room.

Now that we were inside, I took a moment to absorb our surroundings. The boss’ office was about what I expected—well-furnished, clearly designed for someone who liked feeling important. The main desk had an old-school holo-projector, and along the back wall was a personal sonic shower and an adjacent room, probably a private quarters.

I wasn’t here for the décor, though. My focus was on the data terminal at the workstation. That’s where the real answers would be.

I cracked my knuckles and got to work.

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