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Katunda, 17 Melona, 12731 T

Kondo Takani to the Rescue(?)

by KitKat the Mentat

Hondo always delivers. Sometimes he even corrects accounting errors.
 
He got our charges (kidnapped locals, soldiers, scientists, etc.) safely to the nearest large city which we called our home base of operations.
 
Captain Destride and the Port Authority eventually accepted (tolerated) their ancient (living-dead and of threatening appearance) ancestor, Katari, who calls the current natives his, "children", and "descendants", apparently not intending it to be creepy.
 
We took the rare moment (a day and a half) of relative calm to repair our ships and get showers.
 
The same virus which caused the Clocktaurs to turn violent is in the systems of the planet. De Joy calls it an electronic Mentat, as it tries to self-mutate about as quickly as he disinfects the known versions. A group of floor cleaning robots modified themselves to have stun capability to clear citizens from the room they were cleaning.
 
We took scans of the tunnel systems in an attempt to locate our best path to the Navigation Core System, in order to shut down whatever test-startup seemed to be causing the tremors, and whoever might be causing them.
 
So'Zen performed long-range reconnaissance and found what looked like a Sarlacc, a deep black pit swallowing the sand in a spiral whirlpool, plus a ionized hot melting blast of air, dispersing glass particles of melted sand, looking like an exhaust port of a space ship's engine. Twelve humanoid figures arose out of the sand with skull-like faces and opened fire with their flaying laser staves on the retreating So'Zen on his speeder bike.
 
I helped my mentee in non-evil, Almon De Joy, with his antivirus work, defending the entire city's networks. I attempted a virtual machine to try to trap the source of the viruses. It did not completely take the bait, but it did physically move into the Space Port district.
 
I contacted Bishop on Captain Koleen's ship and passed the alarm that a hacker was headed that way. The port authorities received from me a description of the saboteur they could hunt, something small like an idling speeder bike or mouse droid trying to lay low hiding among other maintenance droids.
 
Then I went to the city meeting hall where Katari, Captain Dustrider, Errol Vondromas were designing a hologram of the planet with the known tunnels and all facilities for which Katari was custodian. The Ziggurat (the creepy ziggurat up on the hill) seemed to be the closest known entryway to the control bridge where I could use the green crystal to shut down the engines and stop the earthqquakes. Closer to the bridge than comfortable would be is a main cryo bay which holds the general population frozen for "the journey" (invasion? of who? where?).
 
I attempted to fill in some holes in Katari's information using a construction crane as a droid catapult to send a data droid much faster than its repulsors could have taken it. It found a few previously unmapped underground tunnels and a "recharge chamber" alcove with power built to accommodate 10-12 Cestean figures in individual small alcoves. Also, there was a door in the desert, a blast-proof door, secured with an ancient keypad, probably holding maybe an armory or generator room, something sensitive and valuable, with a LOT of power channeling. I suspect it could be a sensitive location for us to attack if shutting down the Navigation Core System from the bridge does not work-out well.
 
The opposite direction, I chartered a rental speeder to take another droid at high speed. It reported incoming objects and high energy bolts. I asked it to dodge them. On inspection, they turned out to be So'Zen riding toward us with 12 presumably sentient Horus-type ancient Cestean battle droids with flayer staves. I connected our comm channel to the room speakers, and Katari politely asked So'Zen if this were part of his master plan, or did he require assistance. He replied, "I'm coming in HOT."
 
Dustride sent the NightWatch to go provide assistance to So'Zen in the form of heavy weaponry.
 
Then I suddenly thought of Vanya, the Jedi. Vorpadaran is about to have a Miles Vorkosigan adventure.
 
Vorpadaran was last known to be helping the recovered hostages / refugees to get settled in the local hotel. I slipped out and walked past Hicks in the improvised medical wing, invited him to join me, knocked on Danar Vorpadaran's lavish hotel room door while at the same time I hacked the lock, and I found the virus added a second lock code on the fly. I had Hicks use his can opener on the door. He used Vanya's spare light saber as we discussed how strangely often Jedi drop their sabers.
 
An analgesic gas poured out of the room stunning both of us. We dropped the light saber. A powerful stimulant pack stabbed into the two of us, and I saw Captain Koleen and her wife had entered the room when the air had cleared.
 
We all ran after Danar. I hacked the security and traffic light cameras in the area to see them all show the same images. Droids were all over the city carrying duffle bags and barrels and boxes all directions. Vanya ran along with us to Hicks, who she knew was not cleared by Doc for strenuous physical exercise yet.
 
I stopped in my tracks, slapped my palm to my face, and told everyone on our comm channel, very slowly and distinctly because my tongue and teeth did not want to operate at the same speed, "Vanya, which direction is Danar, in the brown duffle bag, carried by six maintenance droids?"
 
She squinted her eyes, and said, "That smoking bag there." It had seemed to develop a smoke trail for whatever reason.
 
That problem being solved, I asked the fastest person in our group to go get Danar Vorpaderan while I took So'Zen's coordinates of where he found an ion or hyperdrive exhaust port. I plugged that data into our hologrammatic model of the planet to see if that was the jigsaw puzzle piece I needed to model the generation ship and how best to get to the command bridge and shut down the navigation core system. It was.
 
The others had Danar freed from the droids in an instant. I found he was now partially Awakeen by his appearance. Something had gotten into his system and replaced cybernetics into his biological body. I saw he had modified his force shield with an hologram of his healthy self. So I had only the vaguest idea how long this had been in process in his system.
 
I told everyone of my clear brilliant plan to shut off the planet's engines before it kills all of us on the surface.
 
And then a much worse tremor happened.
 

Continue reading...

  1. 20211009 Stopping Almon's 30,000 year plan
    26-5-12731 or Atunda, 26 Nelona, 12731
  2. 20211023 Planetside
    Atunda, 26 Nelona, 12731 -- month 5, day 26
  3. 20211106 I am your Singing Telegram!
    26-5-12731 or Atunda, 26 Nelona, 12731
  4. 20211120 Lady Kerplokin's House
    Datunda, 29 Nelona, 12731
  5. 20211218 The Enemy of my Frenemy
    Datunda, 29 Nelona, 12731
  6. 20220101 Buried Secrets Uncovered
    Datunda, 29 Nelona, 12731
  7. 20220115 Farmers don't make good Gladiators
    Datunda, 29 Nelona, 12731
  8. 20220129 Evil lair under the sea
    Datunda, 29 Nelona, 12731
  9. 20220212 Valentines are for Thermal Detonator Lovers
    Datunda, 29 Nelona, 12731
  10. 20220326 Free Chausid Station
    30-5-12731
  11. 20220409 Expensive Chausid Station
    30-5-12731
  12. 20220423 Discount Chausid Station
    30-5-12731
  13. 20220507 Two weeks Later
    30-5-12731
  14. 20220521 Oh, boy, What's next?
    Atunda, 6 Helona, 12731 T = 127131:06:06 RR
  15. 20220604 Skulls of nice guys?
    Atunda, 6 Helona, 12731
  16. 20220618 Every Droid goes to Heaven
    Atunda, 6 Helona, 12731
  17. 20220730 Sometimes the Bad Guys aren't the Worst Guys
    Atunda, 6 Helona, 12731
  18. 20220813 Mentats Aplenty
    Grolm 13th, 578
  19. 20220910 Pants too Tight
    Atunda, 6 Helona, 12731
  20. 20220924 Back to Basic (Training)
    Satunda, 18 Helona, 12731
  21. 20221008 Picking Up Ivan
    Satunda, 18 Helona, 12731
  22. 20221022 Maybe Butler Was Right
    Satunda, 18 Helona, 12731
  23. 2-weeks later... it gets worse
    Datunda, 29 Helona, 12731
  24. 20230128 A New Hopefulness
    Datunda, 04 Melona, 12731T
  25. 20230225 Strategic (Violent) Withdrawal
    Datunda, 04 Melona, 12731
  26. 20230603 Crimson Rescue, part 1
    Atunda, 10 Helona, 12731
  27. 20230729 Crimson Rescue, part B
    Atunda, 10 Helona, 12731
  28. 20230923 Crimson Rescue, Part Deux
    Atunda, 10 Helona, 12731
  29. 20231104 Crimson Rescue, Part I
    Natunda, 10 Melona, 12731
  30. 20240217 Crimson Rescue, V2.0, The End of the Trilogy
    Natunda, 10 Melona, 12731
  31. 20240323 Tolla Archive Library Station, Part A
    Satunda, 13 Melona, 12731T
  32. The Journal Entry’s title
  33. The Journal Entry’s title
  34. 20240504 Tolla Archive Library Station, Part Deux
    Satunda, 13 Melona, 12731T
  35. 20240504 Tolla Archive Library Station, Part: the Third
    Satunda, 13 Melona, 12731T
  36. How I Came To Be
  37. 20240713 Tolla Archive Library Station, Part 4
    Satunda, 13 Melona, 12731T
  38. KitKat and Vanya Save (Clean Up) the Galaxy
    Natunda, 15 Melona, 12731 T
  39. KitKat and Vanya Restore Your Faith in Math
    Natunda, 15 Melona, 12731 T
  40. Charge of the Light Side Brigade?
    Natunda, 15 Melona, 12731 T
  41. Kondo Takani to the Rescue(?)
    Katunda, 17 Melona, 12731 T
  42. 20241019 Charge of the Biomechanoids
    Natunda, 15 Melona, 12731 T
  43. Living Dead Droids
    Natunda, 15 Melona, 12731
  44. How NOT to move a planet
    Natunda, 18 Melona, 12731
  45. How to move a planet in one easy step
    Katunda, 17 Melona, 12731
  46. Bringing the Hutts Around, Part 1
    Katunda, br 27 Melona, 12731 or 1008:07:27
  47. Bringing the Hutts Around, Part 2
    Satunda, 28 Melona, 12731 T
  48. Bringing the Hutts Around, Part 3
    Satunda, 28 Melona, 12731 T
  49. Bringing the Hutts Around, Part 4
    Satunda, 28 Melona, 12731 T (Tapani calendar) = 1008:07:28 RR (Ruusan Reformation calendar)
  50. Bringing the Hutts Around, Part 5
    Satunda, 28 Melona, 12731 T (Tapani calendar) = 1008:07:28 RR (Ruusan Reformation calendar)
  51. Bringing the Hutts Around, Part 6
    Satunda, 28 Melona, 12731 T (Tapani calendar) = 1008:07:28 RR (Ruusan Reformation calendar)
  52. Bringing the Hutts Around, Part 7
    Satunda, 28 Melona, 12731 T (Tapani calendar) = 1008:07:28 RR (Ruusan Reformation calendar)
  53. Bringing the Hutts Around, Part 8
    Satunda, 28 Melona, 12731 T (Tapani calendar) = 1008:07:28 RR (Ruusan Reformation calendar)

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by 3 Armored Kittens · Prodromos v.1.1 - World Anvil 0.9.15.045 © 2017-2025 [en] | Anvil Time: 00:16, Aug 5 2025