[Erszbat, Ertl County] Scorched Earth (Closed)

A lone batarian in his late forties shuffled up to an apartment door, checking to see if he had the right address as listed on the package. His bionic arm told a story; one of war and harsh conditions that demanded the highest price for survival.

He rang the apartment doorbell.
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Mekan awoke with a start and it took a second for him to get his bearings.

He paused and looked around at his usual workstation in his one-bedroom apartment in Ertl County, on the Confederate world of Erszbat. He wasn't driving around fighting batarian gangsters in an aircar with tires and spinning rims, so he was probably having another one of his weird-ass, trippy dreams that happened whenever he drank a lot of Tupari the night before, immediately before his rude awakening.

The batarian hacker rolled his four eyes around in his head to look at his surroundings, then the clock on his terminal. Shit. The package was here. He stood, stretching a bit as he walked to the front door. Opening it with a push of the button on the wall to the side of the door, he was greeted with the sight of the ex-Hegemony military courier, Sorlok Tam, a favorite employee of a number of the local work gangs who wanted to ensure certain things were delivered quietly. "Mornin', Sorlok." Mekan muttered as he reached for Tam's datapad to sign for the package in his hands. Sorlok just muttered in response. "You always had a weird look about you, son, but today takes the odd-ball and runs with it. Hard night of partying, or just not getting enough sleep these days?"

"Little bit of both, Sorlok. How much do I owe ya?" Mekan grunted, reaching for his back pocket. Sorlok noticeably tensed, but Mekan continued reaching for his back pocket, ever so slowly. Finally, Sorlok just nodded. "The usual."

Pulling a disposable credit chit from his back pocket and handing it to the grizzled mailman, Mekan was rendered two-hundred credits poorer, and Sorlok was two-hundred credits richer. Mekan reached forward to take the package from Sorlok's hands. The courier handed it over without incident.

"Your OT still workin' fine?" Mekan asked hesitantly, once he'd secured the package. He'd never trusted Sorlok, or anyone else who lived in the area, but the freelance technical work he did for everyone around here covered any protection fees he'd ever had to pay. The courier just nodded as he brought up the interface. "Works like a charm since you patched it up. Too few people around here with your skill-set, outside of the friggin' Cabal. You're good at what you do, kid. Never forget it."

"Yeah, I hear that a lot these days." Holding the package under one arm, Mekan reached for the button to close the door. "Have a nice day, Sorlok. Safe trip on your next run, don't get hurt. Come by if you want some lunch or something. I've got plenty." Before the courier could react, the door had slid shut and Mekan was already crossing the room to his terminal, tearing the package open as he went. Pouring out a few miscellaneous electronic devices - a few power cables, a disposable omnitool, and a datapad - Mekan finally got at what he'd wanted. An unassuming OSD rested in his hands, and he turned it over and over as he inspected it. Prime condition.

Sitting in his chair, the batarian popped the OSD into his terminal and immediately began typing before a high-pitched noise began to emit from the terminal. Glancing at the terminal screen, Mekan could see what was happening. Punching in a few more lines of code, he watched the screen closely. Finally, he sighed in resignation when he discovered what the source of his frustration was.

Fucking knew it. Of course StateSec would do THIS for this information. Glaring at his terminal screen as if to blame it for his rotten luck, the batarian fumed silently. The OSD was encrypted with what the hacking community would commonly refer to as a scorched earth protocol. If he tried to access the data without getting the second attempt exactly correct, it wouldn't just lock him out. The data would be destroyed. Several months of work and trawling through endless lists of possible dealers with the right information would be rendered meaningless, as well as all of the effort he'd gone through to try and stay clean despite his dealings with the Erszbat underworld.

He needed to think. He'd need to turn to a specialist.

Thankfully, he knew exactly where to go.

-------

The deal had been arranged, and Mekan's specialists were allegedly on the way.

Standing in the Ertl County spaceport, Mekan checked his omnitool. Rusted or poorly-maintained cargo shuttles intended to carry mass-manufactured goods to orbiting bulk-freighters, and smaller freighters with slightly better paintjobs, filled the landing pads and docks around the small county port. The passenger shuttle should've touched down ten minutes ago. The scheduling was probably off again; Just like Ertl County's local government to do a poor job of keeping the transportation business up and running effectively.

Where the hell are they?

And then out of nowhere Palmer appeared, walking around the place, her posture indicative of someone mildly uncomfortable with their surroundings. Hardly surprising for one of her type really. Then she spotted Mekan and well, some of that discomfort vanished into thin air. A few quick steps to approach and she was at his side. A few quick glances around the place and then she glanced at Mekan again, Hey. So who are you dealing with? Business first and then catching up and what not later.

Mekan jumped slightly as Palmer practically materialized at his side. Turning his head from his omnitool to the human commando, Mekan just smiled, tilting his head to the left - a gesture of respect. "Good to see you, Palmer. Wish we could've met up again on terms besides this. It's not like the end of the galaxy, but it's still business and not enjoyment." He paused to look around at his surroundings, perhaps a little nervously. A couple of batarian spaceport workers paused to look back at the hacker and his human associate, before going back to their work of inspecting some cargo being offloaded from a nearby freighter. Mekan frowned as he turned to look back to Palmer.

"Humans aren't as welcome in Ertl County as ya might think. Some drunks might make some comments 'n start a fight if we swing by a bar." Shifting from one foot to the other a little nervously, Mekan sniffed the air to clear his nose slightly. "Anyways, I called in someone you might know of. You know that ex-Cerbie? 'Remember the Blitz?' He volunteered for the job. I agreed to his terms."

Mmhhh. A thin smile appeared, Well I guess we won't be going to no bars then. She glanced over at Mekan for a second and frowned, Another O7 huh. Wonder what he's up to. She looked around the dockyard, loosening up her body and sniffed, Hidings gonna be kinda pointless then. I'll just stay right here then.

"I can't believe he sent us to the Kite's Nest."

"You're not starting off on this again, are you?"

"And he's not even charging for it! What the Hell has gotten into him?"

"I guess we are, then."

"You've known him for a lot longer than I have, Sonya, so tell me: does doing an expensive favor for a squint in exchange for information that may or may not be useless sound like something he would ordinarily consider?"

Sonya sighed, and stared down at her omni-tool for a few moments before replying. "There are strategic considerations involved, Campbell. There's a chance that the information on that OSD could be used against some of the ex-StateSec goons the Regent has been hiring."

"A chance. There's also a chance we walk out of this with nothing but wasted time and effort. I don't like it."

"I'm not thrilled with it either, but we've got our orders."

A voice came over the shuttle's intercom. "Ma'am, Sir, we've been given permission to land."

"Took them long enough. These sorts of operations are much faster when you bypass customs entirely."

"I'm fairly certain they were trying to find some justification to confiscate the scanner. I don't imagine they're easy to come by in this cluster."

The shuttle swept through the atmosphere, slowing as it approached the spaceport. "When we land, Sonya and I will go meet the 'client.' The rest of you, stay here and make sure nobody steals the scanner. Or the shuttle."

Ten minutes later, the two stepped out onto the Ertl County docks.

As the shuttle touched down, Mekan shifted his gaze to the two people disembarking. "Humans. That'll be them." Mekan nodded as they stepped off the shuttle and moved to approach them, tilting his head to the left slightly as he looked at them. As he reached the two specialists, he extended his hand to shake in a friendly, surprisingly-human gesture. It was a calculated move to try and get things off to a good start. The batarian spoke, his tone businesslike, but friendly about it. "Good to see you. I'm Mekan. Let's try and get on a first-name basis. I feel things may go smoother that way." Turning to look back at Palmer, he waved the woman over before turning back to the specialists.

"Sonya Manning, [Redacted] Security Consultants. I'll be handling the decryption. This is Phil Campbell." She took the offered hand with a smile.

Campbell smiled slightly and inclined his head. "I'm just here to ensure that our equipment remains secure. We have a few more associates in the shuttle who are currently watching over it now. Sonya and her assistant will doing be all the work, hopefully."

"Should you need to speak with our commander, we can arrange for a hologram."

She walked over, a nod her only acknowledgement of the pair, her eyes never stopping their observation of everything.

Mekan nodded at the two before turning to look at Palmer. "Good to meet you, Sonya, Phil. This is Lyra Palmer, a good friend of mine. I'm sure you've heard of her. She's here to make sure things go smoothly on all sides. Feel free to set up a hologram with your boss, just in case. You guys gonna need someplace more secure?"

"I'll need access to a clean room, if at all possible. Barring that, an EM shielded space in a room with well-filtered climate control. We could probably use our shuttle, if absolutely necessary, but it would be far from ideal."

Campbell groped around his jacket's pocket for the better part of a minute, before withdrawing a small sphere that glowed orange with holographic light. "Want to talk here, or would you prefer to do this somewhere more private?" he asked, glancing around a number of unfriendly looks.

Mekan paused at hearing Sonya's requirements. If that was what was needed to bring about a job well done, Mekan would need to make it happen.

However, he didn't exactly have a clean room, and off the top of his head, he couldn't think of anyone in Ertl County who would have one. "I, uh...Clean room? I'll need to look around..." His four eyes practically bulged out of his head as both sets zeroed in on Sonya with an expression of utter surprise in them.

Kinks in the plan. Lovely.

Use the shuttle lady. Doubt you'll find one of those clean rooms around here.

Sonya sighed. Of course they don't have a clean room. I doubt the word 'clean' could be applied to anything on this miserable planet. Bloody batarians. The engineer looked at Palmer as she said "Very well, then. Let's use the shuttle. This will take some time." Turning to look at the client, she added, "Do you have access to a circular, low-grade mass effect emitter we can use to prevent dust from re-entering the space once it's cleaned?" While waiting for an answer, she turned started to lead them to the shuttle.

Mekan paused at that and looked down at his omnitool in thought for a minute. "Nothing purpose-built for it..." He frowned as he thought his plan out. "I might be able to rig something up with my omnitool. I'm hardly an actual engineer, but I'm a damn good programmer. I'll see what I can do." He followed the two humans, bringing up his omnitool interface as he walked. One set of eyes remained trained on the specialists, the lower set focused on his omnitool. Mekan motioned quietly for Palmer to follow, hoping the situation wouldn't warrant his friend's intervention.

She followed, an eye being kept on each of the humans, keeping an eye out as well for possible interlopers.

"That should work."

Campbell flicked on his Omni-tool's communications suite and spoke into it. "Be advised, we're returning to the shuttle with two companions. Please start preparations for clean room conversion." Turning to Palmer, he added "We have four more people on the transport."

A few minutes of walking brought the operatives back to their shuttle, companions in tow. The black dropship's hatch hissed and slowly opened. Sonya stepped inside, and gestured for the others to follow.

A nod at the fellow man and then she entered the shuttle, giving everything a quick glance over before turning and nodding to Mekan.

Mekan followed quietly, pushing buttons on his OT interface. He nodded to Sonya and with a quiet humming noise, his omnitool began to emit a small mass effect field. He held his arm out to the pair of humans, the OT interface shining a dull orange as he stepped into the dropship. His lower set of eyes looked from the OT interface to his surroundings, particularly at Palmer. He just nodded quietly. Hopefully, she'd get the signal that this was alright.

"Security team, outside. Ms. Manning needs to work." Two of the shuttle's operatives stepped out the hatch wordlessly. The third opened a compartment built into a seat and began to pull out a series of opaque containers.

"I assume the two of you will wish to be present for this?" Without waiting for a reply, she added, "You'll need to put on a cleansuit. It will prevent any particles from clinging to you. The suit is also pressurized, and has three hours of oxygen, which should be far more than we'll need." Passing one of the containers to Palmer, she added, "Oh, yes we will be venting this chamber. Once we're suited up, the air is gone, and the mass effect field is in place, the room should be clean enough to work with the OSD's internal components without the threat of damage." She began pulling the suit on over her clothing, with Campbell and the other technician mirroring her movements.

"Oh, and don't worry. These suits work for batarians too."

A sniff and then she nodded, taking the container offered. If it was a trap in any way, it would take one hell of a toxin to affect her. Time passed and then she stood there, covered with a new suit.