Nico's Gambit

Down with the Republic Scum!

Going out the back door of Reki's house, she saw it opened up into a grassy cliffside pathway. The weather had held since yesterday. That was a good sign. Almost walking into a large squad of soldiers guarding this 'secret' entrance was bad. Odette flattened herself against the rock and swore. Seriously? What was up with the Separatists posting ridiculously large amounts of guards in places that were practically hidden? Battle of attrition it was. And if she thought that decoding Reiki's cipher had been boring, then waiting for some of these soldiers to maybe leave was excruciating. The only good thing about the whole situation was the soldiers didn't seem to be inclined to patrol up the pathway and catch her.

The moon was just sliding down towards the horizon when she heard shuffling down at the entrance. She peeked around the rocks and saw that for whatever reason, most of them all had left except for three. Three she could handle. She rubbed her sweating palms on her pants and un-holstered her blasters. With one more peek, she blasted two of them dead before she managed to hit the dirt with her knees and blast the last one square in the chest. He flopped like a ragdoll to the ground.

The doorway in was wide open and she slid along the wall, alert to any sound of movement as she made her down the corridor. She got the datapad out. The terminal she was looking for was in a large two-story room at the end of the hall. She jogged down the hall. Her heart was grateful for a reprieve in the action as she passed all the closed and locked doors along the way.

The door to the data storage room stood open and she looked inside. There were a few groups of what looked to be civilians standing around at the far end. Double-checking she saw that the terminal was on the lower and least occupied section. There was a knot of guards that stood directly across from her but they stood talking amongst themselves, backs mostly turned to the rest of the room. She smirked. She was beginning to like separatist guards. Their training manual must have had every way not to guard a place. She turned into the room and made her way casually down the nearest ramp.

She walked to the terminal like she owned it. She quickly made the link between the terminal and her datapad and tapped her foot as she waited for the data to download. She felt someone tap her on her shoulder.

"Who are you?" a gruff man demanded.

"Um," she said, then clocked the guy square in the face. He dropped to the floor. She bent over to pick up a hand when she heard a young voice talking.

"That's right, 4-SEN, say 'Down with the Republic scum.'"

She pulled the guy around the other side of the terminal and hoped that he wouldn't be visible when whoever it was that came by.

A young man and his droid came into view. He looked angry and diligent as he barked orders at his droid. When he noticed her, he saluted her. "Good morning, citizen," he said. "Have you heard about the to-do outside? Have you seen anything? I'm training 4-SEN to detect intruders."

"Master," 4-SEN said. "I detect the presence of a dysfunctional human unit nearby."

"By the stars!" Odette said, putting a hand to her mouth. "The Republic must have invaded our base!"

"Wait," the boy said. "I don't remember hearing any blaster fire. Are you sure, 4-SEN?"

"When was the last time you have your droid calibrated?" Odette said.

"Not soon enough," he said, seriously. "If you're done with the terminal, I can activate combat protocols, and you can go and rally the men."

Odette looked down at the datapad. The download was complete. She stuffed in her belt and nodded at the boy. "Will do, citizen," she said. "Uh, let those that oppose us drown in their own blood, and stuff."