(SW:SE The Biomancer) Ch. 1: An Office On Coruscant

[Tenshi]

Diona Annan

Diona grinned. “Wow, I wish I could look that good in a surprise shot. Maybe when we've cracked this case we four can glam it up together on Coruscant.” She flashed Miz an evil grin. “What do you think? Little red dress? Or something frilly with flowers?”

Diona made sure they all had pictures for their IDs and tried to avoid getting devoured by the big bad wolf.

 

[Tenshi]

* * *​

The seven unloaded at what looked like a secured government office. The whole building was surrounded by yellow tape and nervous looking uniformed officers. There were dozens of police speeders outside and two shut down swat transports.

Brand lead them to where a middle aged Zabrack man in a suit and a youthful bright orange twi’lek in patrol woman's armor were coordinating things. The bald Zabrack turned to greet them. “Special Liaison Brand. Good to meet you in person. These are the Special Agents?”

The Zabrack’s courtesy was impeccable as he turned to offer his hand to Chloe. The younger girls--especially Jesi and Diona--could recognize the look of a man who had been expecting people twice their age and wasn’t quite sure how to react.

“I’m Detective Perez. This is my assistant Officer Naia.”

The bright orange twi’lek--who wasn’t so much older than Jesi--had none of Perez’s air of reservation. Instead she offered her hand with the smile of someone meeting someone they hoped to find admirable.

“So, my apologies Brand. I tried to do as you asked with the bodies but City Hall was having none of it. The crime scene is otherwise as undisturbed as possible, and extensively mapped and recorded by camera droids, several of whom can holographically recreate the position of the bodies with 97.3 percent accuracy--while also receiving real time updates from the Morgue. I hope that will meet your needs.”

 

[WynterWulf]

"Will we have a location to work out of?" Miz said stirring herself with a shake and leaning back in her seat. Clipping the badge to her combat webbing just below and to the right of a metal disc with a worn and faded painted sigil of a long mawed skull with winding horns framing it. Glaring at Diona with an underlying grin even as she rested her head against Chloe's hand and smiled lightly at her. "Perhaps a night out when this is done, but for now it is straight business." Taking the chip she examined it and slid it into her datapad. Her eyes roving over the rest of the team a feral smile passed over her lips.
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Stepping out onto the surface when they landed her rifle was immediately ready in her hands, and the grin on her face had faded into an almost stone visage as she surveyed the scene. Eyes flicked from one face to another as she stride forward next to Brand, her duster billowing open and then bits of metal clasping on her armor fully glinting under the strobing lights of the police speeders. Eyeing the two officers, her eyebrow rose briefly. Shooting a glance at Chloe, with a light knowing smirk, she leveled her gaze on the male and shook his hand sharply, with a little more than light grasp and grasping the twi'leks hand in a short perfunct grasp before resuming her stance on guard. "That's a lot of fancy equipment, but I'm assuming the bodies are gone if I get the gist of what you're saying?" Her usual drawl was still there but underlined with steel in her voice.

 

[Hisako-K]

Chloe jumped as she felt her hand caressed by the Shistavanen. Her head quickly shot over to look at the tall woman, her cheeks turning bright pink as her body shivered in response to the soft fur gliding across and touching her without warning. Chloe looked into Miz’s eyes, a familiar look in their gaze, and smiled before returning to Diona. Claire’s smile was a lot more warm now, and her eyes closed partially. Chloe’s fingers curled and swam into Miz more. Claire’s breath was caught as if she was hit by a gust of cold air, her fingers playing with the soft fur for a few seconds before she started breathing again. Chloe chuckled,
“Yes,” she said, “’straight’ business, but I’m definitely down for some clean fun later.” She said, emphasizing ‘straight’ more than ‘clean fun’.

When the group landed Chloe hadn’t realized she had been leading the group, and looked at the outstretched hand for a second before she remembered proper manners. The group was so informal prior, and even at her ship she didn’t remember shaking everyone’s hands. Chloe shook the Zabrack’s hand, nodding as she locked eyes during the handshake. When she shook the Twi’lek’s hand her eyes darted back to meet Miz’s, giving a warm smile before returning to Naia. “Pleasure to meet you all,” Chloe said with a freshly baked warm smile.

 

[Tenshi]

"That's correct, Agent Ebonmere," Perez replied. "The bodies have been at the morgue for over 3 hours now. You can contact them for reports, and the droids can add their positions holographically to the scene if you want to reconstruct it."

 

[Tenshi]

Diona gave a nod and shook the offered hand. “Pleasure. So what can you tell us about the attackers? Anything special or different?”

“Several things stand out,” Naia started off. “The attack began with something that could almost pass for an ordinary riot--if unarmored civilians with vibro daggers, sporting blasters, and weapons of opportunity attacking a facility secured by twenty one fully alert and equipped swat officers can be called ordinary. Records from exterior cameras indicate that over three dozen men surrounded the building in landspeeders, jumped out, and demanded entry. Swat locked down the facility, reported to dispatch, and called for backup.

“This more or less matches the rioters M.O.--including noteworthy item number one. Best estimates are that fifteen Rorsch from various large breeds were being employed by the rioters.”

Brand spoke up now, “Rorsh are a common domestic animal here--kept as everything from house pets to herders to civilian security. Historical records say they come from a domestic lizard brought by the original zabrack colonist crossbred with a similar local species.”

The twi’lek nodded. “Item number two. They had at least one highly skilled slicer with them. At 3:40 hours destructive algorithms crashed the facilities computers and cameras, but not the remote processor or any of it’s transmitters. Our own people have been unscrambling the data all day with only minimal success.

“Last item of interest,” The twi’lek finished. “Most of the Swat fatalities resulted from blaster fire, but CSI found what looks like some sort of claw marks on 5 bodies.”

Perez spoke up, “At least two of those people had claws driven through security armor into vital organs.”

 

[Hisako-K]

Chloe slid her hands into the pockets of her pants as she silently followed behind the leaders of the group, nodding her head as she listened keenly and took note. Following the note about the riot “seeming” normal Chloe fought from scoffing, partially because it would be too rude, but mainly because the idea of any riot being normal was a dreadfully hilarious concept to her, in an ironic, black humor way mostly. She winced when she heard descriptions of the Rorsch, her mental image of them shifting with each new word or description, when she heard about the slicer though, red flags and warning bells went off in her head. Chloe’s pace stopped as her head cocked, no longer nodding as she kept getting hung up on the stacking odd coincidences and additional information.

The people being mauled weren’t what caused her to completely halt, but that was shortly before she did, and fell behind and into the group rather than gingerly leading them. “Wait, the WHAT?” She said, stressing the ‘what’ in her sentence as she shrugged her shoulders and head in unison. She looked to both two officers explaining this, then her eyes widened and she reared her head back, picking up where she left off, and pacing herself back at her prior distance so she didn’t have to shout. “Just what in the hell do you all have buried here, huh?” She said, looking from Brand, Perez, and Naia, “What do you either have, or have connected?” She shook her head, “Is there anything they could piggyback onto from the network? Have you taken full inventory of the site, or checked in with any surrounding outposts—physically if you’re still de-scrambling?” She looked back around again, looking back to her group as well, shrugging her shoulders.

“I mean, it doesn’t make sense. If you’re going to kill someone and take nothing, why did they bring a slicer? What else could they access other than the facility?”

 

[WynterWulf]

Miz narrowed her eyes and thought about everything in the debriefing and her mind flitted over the sorts of weaponry she'd need to take down, subconsciously nodding to the thought of the slicer before it faded back in light of the thought of something punching through armor with claws.
"I'm definitely going to want to see the layout of the holograms as to where the bodies fell, and in fact where the rest of the distractions were when it all went down." Looking around for any bloodstains on the ground or disturbances, she muttered to herself before looking back at Chloe. Eyes widening at what she said, her gaze shot towards the officers. "What's in this building?" Her eyes narrowed, and her hands tightened around her weapon. "And how much could be remotely hacked inside!"

 

[Tenshi]

Perez frowned a little bit and shook his head. "There's nothing in the building we didn't tell you about. At first glance, they brought a slicer to open the doors, but I will not be a tall surprised to learn there's more to it."

The bald Zabrack and the orange twi’lek lead them through the doors to a laboriously marked but carefully preserved crime scene. Several dozen small spherical droids hovered around.

“Droids,” Naia the twi’lek ordered, “project the recreation.”

The droids carefully repositioned. Among the blood splatters, blaster burns on walls, fallen weapons, and slain lizard-dogs the droids projected holograms of the bodies where they’d fallen, dozens of rough and tumble men--mostly disgruntled poor but a few overeducated idiots--scattered among slain swat team officers.

Diona took a glance and commented, “These men charged a firing line. What kind of fanatic charges a firing line just to kill some droids?”

The orange twi’lek gave a glum look.

She pointed again, “They hit the firing line there, pulled down a few police. The surviving swat officer fell back ‘til the were pinned against that wall where there’s a pile of tangled dead.”

Then she looked to the massive cube of shattered and slagged computer parts against the inside wall. “All that to destroy the brain of thousands of public servants.”

Again the twi’lek nodded gravely.

“What would you like to examine first?” Perez asked.

 

[WynterWulf]

"Are there any other entrances that they could have attempted to enter a small team while this was happening out front?" She asked her ears laying back in thought as she watched the playback. "I'm interested in examining all of it, though I'd like to hear my companions opinions as well of course. But I'd like to see firing line first."
Something felt off to her, though she couldn't place it and cast her eyes back to the rest of the party to see if they had any ideas.

 

[Tenshi]

"There's a fire exit around on the other side," Perez explained. "No sign that it was entered. The swat unit used tools to make it harder to enter. The tools werent' disturbed."

He lead Miz around to the fire door, and a basic look confirmed what he was saying. The door opened in. The mag lock had switched off when the pwoer went down, but the reinforced arms that blockaded the entrance hadn't been disturbed. It looked like the swat team had been cutting off from making a break in that direction by some of the rorsh--based on two of the unfortuante beasts who'd been shot in that position.

Miz's tracking skill, including her sense of smell, didn't reveal any secret information. Survival 35