2025-11-09
Sahl asks after the furniture container’s customs records, and is told that the missing lockbox holds that data, alongside the manifest, ports of call, and so on. Going over the evidence holos, he sees that some of the furniture is tagged with prices from estate sales on the planet Kayan.
T3-N1 finds that the police have posted a public bounty on the Red Serpents.
Dessa calls up information about the box from the storage company’s mainframe. The shell company that bought the furniture was called Deck 5 Antiques, and its address has been occupied by a small droid shop for decades.
Teni reports from his day job at Golabur Universal Reclamation that the company has brought in trained Rodian corporate security. His spy in the canteen reports that the company has paid to house a retired big game hunter, Adni Swocimo, as the “Head of Auxiliary Security.” The employees are terrified of her, as she visibly fixates on people and sizes them up as prey. Rumor has it that she killed one of a pair of thugs that tried to jump her at the docks.
The group decides to heist the Golabur secure mainframe before the company can further tighten its security. They gather in disguise while Teni hides on premises at the end of his shift.
Teni cuts into a wall to disable the security camera above a loading dock, letting the others into the building. Through an office, he accesses the building vents, making his way to the cooling system for the secure mainframe.
The rest of the group hides in a stairwell, ducking down a story when a pair of guards sits on the steps to smoke.
Bypassing a laser grid and motion sensor, Teni gets eyes into the secure room, seeing two of the new, professional Rodian guards and a handful of night shift workers. Further progress is blocked by a huge fan which in controlled from outside the vent. He retreats to the office.
The rest of the group jumps the guards in the stairwell. After a lengthy struggle, they knock them out. Dessa replaces their memories of the fight with memories of dozing off.
The whole group passes through the vents and into the secure room. Dessa cuts a hole in the ceiling of the vent and lifts Teni toward the fan control console. She gets a call from Nant that shakes her focus; Teni grabs the railing of the console and does not fall.
Nant tells Dessa that Jallo has been killed. After being resuscitated by his suit, Jallo called Nant to tell him that he overheard the Red Serpents planning a hit on Dessa.
Teni disables the cooling system for the computer core, prompting the evacuation of the room. He plugs into the core and finds a dying countermeasure AI that might have killed him if its body weren’t melting. Teni dumps as much of the core as he can to data canisters before the heat forces him from the room as well.
The group exits the building. Dessa calls Jallo and hears that he is locked in combat; he says he is at the docks, and at least two new players are involved: a Ho’Din gang and an unseen assassin that stabbed him to death.
The group hurries to the docks, which they find blasted apart by grenades. The surviving Ho’Din have fled, but Jallo is unloading ineffectually into the Red Serpent ship with a tripod-mounted blaster as it pulls out of dock. The ship jumps to hyperspace and is gone.
