Everything was silent.
Dead silent.
The only sound that Atlee could hear was the faint whisper of his own breath inside of his helmet as he stood stock still, his back pressed against a wall as he sought to remain out of sight, the shadows just barely masking his presence as he waited for any sign of movement or life. A quick glance at his scanners showed no indication of stirring in the immediate vicinity, alive or otherwise, but he remained completely motionless for another minute or two, just to be sure. Literally in the middle of nowhere, there was nothing out here but the forest, him, and the Seperatist base in which he was currently standing. As to why he was here? Well, the answer was quite simple; for the same reason he ever did anything – carrying out the orders of his superiors.
Today, his mission was to infiltrate the base, gain access to the encrypted files which the Seppies had been guarding jealously (they had been developing new weaponry which could potentially pose a threat to the GAR), take it, and high-tail it out of there again. Being a one-man force, his goal was to carry out his assignment as quickly and quietly as possible, and be as if he had never been there in the first place. So far, everything seemed to be going according to plan, although it was slightly disconcerting that security seemed to be more lax than he had expected it to be. It had hardly been a challenge to get in undetected, but nonetheless, that was no reason to let his guard down now.
When he was satisfied that there were no people or droids in pursuit of the uninvited intruder, he called up the building plans once again, blinking as he scrolled through the images on his HUD which depicted a sketchy layout of his surroundings, including the building where the data was supposed to have been stored. If he wasn’t mistaken, it ought to be the building just a small distance directly to his left. He briefly craned his head around the corner to double-check that the coast was clear and to identify his point of access where he could gain entry into the building. From how it looked on his maps, it seemed like nothing more than a big warehouse or something of the sort. The intel he’d been provided was sketchy at best, but he had no choice but to make the best out of what he had.
Certain that the coast was clear – at least for the moment – he made a break for the building, keeping a low profile and hugging the wall as he sprinted over, simultaneously pulling out a cutting torch from his belt and firing it up. After a tense half-minute or so, he’d cut a section out of the thick metal-plated wall just big enough for him to squeeze through, which he did as quickly as was physically possible. Indeed, the inside of the metal building looked just like a huge storage room, where tall metal crates were stacked along all of the walls and scattered throughout the rest of the open space. From where he stood, he could just make out what looked like a console on the far side of the room, and having no time to waste, he made a beeline directly for it, all the while checking for security measures as he went.
He met no resistance as he approached the flickering panel – again, a fact which threw him off – and after a quick appraisal, he figured it wouldn’t be too difficult to crack. Atlee immediately set to work punching in codes to crack the security measures put in place to protect the information, and within a minute or two, he’d hacked his way into the system. Wasting no time, he pulled out a datacard onto which he would copy the information and inserted it into the computer. Immediately, a synchronized whirr and click echoed through the seemingly deserted room.
Oh, shab.
That was the very last sound he had wanted to hear, and as soon as he did, he knew that it was extremely likely that he would probably end up dying in here, alone. Nonetheless, he punched the ‘copy’ key on the console in front of him, initiating the agonizingly slow process of downloading a copy of the huge file, and whirling to face the vast expanse of the room. However, instead of seeing the rows and rows of inert metal crates that he’d walked in seeing, it seemed as if every single one was whirring, each one slowly opening to reveal a dark, bulky, and decidedly ominous figure, complete with the characteristic red, flickering eye which glared at him in their multitudes from every visible part of the room. Well, if he wasn’t before, he was definitely in deep osik now.
Moving almost reflexively, he grabbed an EMP from his belt and lobbed it at the nearest cluster of still-opening crates in one fluid motion, watching the electrical pulse as it detonated and immediately disabled all of the electrical circuits in the nearest droids. Glancing down at the panel on the computer, he was dismayed to see that only a quarter of the file had been copied, and that what time it needed to download the rest was precious time that he didn’t have, not considering what it would take to fight his way out of here. Darting over to the cluster of disabled crates to use them for cover, he knew that he did not have near enough EMPs to take out the whole army of droids which he had inadvertently activated. If only they had given me better kriffing intel…he grumbled to himself as he reloaded his rifle with a fresh clip to the sounds of the slow, mechanized footsteps of the SBDs, before reaching around the side of the crate at his back to pepper the onslaught of enemies with blasterfire. If he was going to die here, he sure as hell was going to take as many of them down with him as he physically could. That they could count on.