033: Take What You Can – Two
By the time the Pelekys fell out of subspace and into Ritroser's orbit, all stealth systems fully engaged, the crew had managed to film hours of promotional footage, as well as refine the gimmick that would set them apart from the other crews in the Kith of the Void.
Queen Kaizoku, exiled Deupazing royalty looking to amass power among the stars before she returned to lay claim to her birthright. Chancellor Bathory, her demeanour scheming and her motives a mystery, she'd hitched her wagon to the Pelekys for reasons only she knew. General Grim, discharged due to her brutality, instead found service with a leader as vicious as her. The Queen's Red Left Hand, assassin and enforcer, how much blood had been spilled by her claws? Madame Augury, an alien of psychic capability and unknown origins, she seemed only able to foresee the downfall of her enemies. And lastly, the Program, a bloodthirsty AI barely kept in check, but eager to slip her leash.
They'd gone a little overboard in the quantity of footage they filmed, caught up in the excitement of it all, but it left them with plenty of clips they could piece together to make an introduction worthy of a Kith crew.
But that would have to come after reconnaissance.
Gathered in the bridge, all but holding their breath as Nevara brought them in close enough to try and get some scans on the museum where the Storlayacas unit they sought was being held, this would be the first real test of just what the Thalatte's experimental stealth systems were capable of. Iromay's own system had been lacking, even for Baithaizan standards, the Pelekys hanging in orbit for weeks without detection, even going so far as to land on the world a couple times, just to see if they could. The odds of them being able to pull off the same feat here were slim.
"I'm tapping into Ritroser's local network," Viatrix announced, her tone as quiet and nervous as the rest of them, "Displaying flightpath data for other ships in the area."
The view screen before them, and Nevara's control console, filled with lines denoting the paths most likely to cross their own as they neared the world. Most prominent among them was a line that ran to and from Ritroser itself, and a good sized station anchored at one of this world's Lagrange points.
"Looks like it's a supply depot," Malakh said after bringing the station up on another console, "Fully automated, taking in off-world goods to organize and ship them out to Ritroser itself."
"High traffic makes for a dangerous route." Nevara said, deftly steering them to a quieter airspace.
Silence fell again as they watched the screens, all eyes glued to the other ships in the area, ready to leap to their stations should any of them so much as twitch in their direction. But despite all worries, Nevara managed to bring them into geosynchronous orbit above the area where the museum was located, the planet's security grid none the wiser.
Pryseia sighed, clapping Nevara on the shoulder. "Fantastic piloting, as always." She breathed.
"Thank whoever designed the stealth systems for this ship," Nevara replied, never one for praise, "The totality of its obfuscation is impressive."
"I can say with confidence that none of the rest of us would have been able to make the flight in without getting spotted, stealth system or otherwise." Elytra countered, the others readily agreeing around her.
Nevara's mandibles flared as she stared straight ahead at the screen, ignoring their complements and asking, "Are you able to get any information from the museum, Vi?"
"I most certainly am! Their security measures aren't all they're cracked up to be, it seems."
Viatrix brought up a plethora of camera feeds on the main screen, showing off the assorted goods on display. These were quickly followed by real time maps showing the security measures in place within the exhibits - heat and light sensors, pressure plates and audio equipment used to pick up unauthorized noises.
"Looks like we arrived at mid morning for this place. Security looks light at the moment, no doubt due to the fact that there are tourists in having a look around." She said as she brought up footage showing patrons enjoying the sight of stolen goods, guards posted up far enough away to not hinder anyone's experience, but close enough that they could put a stop to any nonsense that a visitor might try to pull.
Rhea turned to the rest of them, saying, "We stake the place out, then? I'd rather not run in there guns blazing without having more data on what to expect down there."
"Agreed," Pryseia said, crossing her arms as she regarded the live feed, "More information would be ideal to formulating a plan for how to proceed with this operation. Vi, do you believe we will be safe here while you conduct a more through search of the place, or should we back away?"
The AI was quiet for a moment. "According to the transit data I'm getting, we should be good to linger for an hour or so before any preplanned flights are scheduled to cross our path. I will, of course, monitor for any surprises that may come out way."
"That would be greatly appreciated. You wouldn't be able to get us a feed on the Storlayacas, perchance?"
"I'll see what I can do."
The rest of them waited with baited breath while Viatrix got to work. Their wait was not very long. Moments after the request was made, Viatrix was able to link them into one of the security cameras pointed at the mech they sought, and the moment it was on screen, Elytra gasped, locking eyes with Pryseia.
"You sense it as well." The other woman said, a grin hitching up the corners of her mouth.
"Sense what?" Rhea asked, eyes darting between the two of them.
"A tether," Elytra frowned, her empathic senses thrumming, "That machine has reached out to someone on this ship."
Eyes wide, Rhea couldn't help but ask, "To who?"
Staring transfixed at the screen, a shuddering breath rattling in her lungs, Malakh replied, "To me."
Viatrix scanned the museum for as long as she dared, but sooner than they would have liked, the Pelekys was forced to pull away in order to avoid being physically bumped into by the other ships in the area. With Ritroser being a vacation destination, there were ships flying hither and yon at all times, which made it difficult to find a quiet patch of space to reconnoiter from. For the moment, they'd pulled back to hide behind one of Ritroser's rust-coloured moons.
"You doing okay, babe?" Rhea said from her spot next to Malakh on one of the couches in the rec room, the deorviran in question seated with her arms around her knees and curled as tightly into herself as she could get, both hands drumming against her biceps.
"I feel like I'm on some kind of stimulant." Malakh replied, the tip of her tail twitching restlessly, "The compulsion from that thing really kicked into overdrive."
"What's to stop us from just busting into the place, then?" Elytra offered, "Pryseia and I could smash through the roof with our own Storlayacas, and have you in yours in minutes.
Malakh grinned at that imagery, but she waved a hand to brush the impulse aside, "Tempting, but we've gotta be thinking big picture with this. All that footage we shot, we need to have an opening act to live up to the hype we want to get going. I'm thinking we pull off a proper heist."
"The Zymeth Geniocracy prides itself on the superiority of its technology," Nevara brought up, her smile slight but knowing, "I imagine a successful theft from a museum of theirs would be an auspicious start to our career."
Fishing her data pad out of her jacket, Elytra tapped away at it for a moment before saying, "Yeah, looks like actions against the Zymeth score high among audiences, even zymeth ones!"
"With the number of factions there are in the Geniocracy, everyone's probably pissed everybody else off at one point or another. I bet it's a real 'enemy of my enemy' type situation with those folks." Rhea said with a little laugh.
"Indeed, should we pull off a successful heist from the museum below, we may very well come out with potential clients, should the proprietors of that establishment have detractors among their own people." Pryseia pointed out. She opened her mouth to say more, but Rhea let out a sudden, "OH!" and scrambled for her own data pad.
"You good?" Malakh said, leaning over to try and see what Rhea was working on, only to be met with a distracted hum from the woman while her fingers flew across the pad. A moment later, she grinned widely, flipping her device for the others to get a look at her screen. On it was the Avvisi database, showing several items highlighted on a spreadsheet.
"Forget their own people, the Zymeth have detractors all over the galaxy, multiple of which have standing bounties with the Kith for the retrieval of stolen artifacts currently on display at Zymeth museums, this one included!"
"Why steal a single egg when you can pilfer the whole nest." Nevara said excitedly, leaning forward, "That would certainly net us an audience."
Viatrix's avatar flashed on the display, her voice shipper as she announced, "The Bakiz Institute of Technical Curios and Habiliments has precisely 23 objects on display that correspond to bounties within the Avvisi system, and the payouts we could net from those alone would be substantial!"
"It'd start our career with one hell of a bang!" Rhea agreed.
Pryseia grinned at that, her tail flicking in excitement. "Are we in agreement then? A heist to liberate these object alongside the Storlayacas we'll claim as our own?"
She was met with unanimous approval from the rest of the crew.
"Exemplar. Then a heist we must plan!"
The stealth systems of the Pelekys ended up being far more effective than anyone aboard could have imagined. Needing more surveillance with which to plan their upcoming Kith debut, Nevara had not only brought the ship into Ritroser's atmosphere without detection, but had managed to find a small spit of land to bring the ship to rest on. Surrounded on all sides by razor sharp reefs, the glorified sandbar where they'd parked the ship was close enough to the island the Bakiz Institute was located for Viatrix to conduct a more detailed scan of the security measures in place, and dangerous enough to get to that they didn't have to worry about tourists stumbling into their cloaked vessel.
"It's a far cry from the capabilities of other Thalatte ships," Nevara was telling Elytra, the pair of them holed up in the bridge, "They're normally built to draw attention, not avoid it. I can't imagine the number of strings the designer had to have pulled to get it built."
"I'm sure it brings you no satisfaction to have stolen it, then." Elytra smirked.
Nevara's mandibles flared in a smile as she replied, "None whatsoever."
Elytra laughed as she turned back to her data pad, the device arrayed with an assortment of clips from the promotional footage they'd filmed earlier. She'd only intended on having a peek at what the editing programs the Kith of the Void used for their entertainment industry could do, but she'd quickly found herself doing more than just perusing. A little more than an hour in, and she'd strung together a handful of introductory videos for their Kith personas, her mind brimming with ideas for more.
Nevara, likewise, had been having a look at the software that came part and parcel with their induction to the Kith of the Void. Audio was just as important as visual, and so a robust suite of music creation tools had been included. Like Elytra, her skimming of the program's capabilities had pulled her into a spiral of creation, and she'd managed to come up with a little tune that didn't sound half bad.
"Flight has always been my passion," Nevara admitted after a few moments of quietly working parallel to the other woman, "But I did harbour a love of music from a young age."
"And now you get to indulge in both." Elytra smiled, "Perhaps this career is exactly what you needed."
Nevara laughed silently at that. "It's a far cry better than my last one."
"We don't wanna do a half-assed job of this!" Rhea has said early on into their surveillance of the Bakiz Institute, which was a sentiment they'd readily agreed upon. Even if this wasn't something they planned on filming in order to launch their career as a crew among the Kith of the Void, robbing a museum, let alone a Zymeth one, was a dangerous job. Mistakes couldn't be made, because they'd be more likely to be killed than captured if the authorities caught them.
"See, the society of the galaxy is laid out like this," Malakh had told Elytra, "There's the 'Enlightened' races who act like they run the show: the Zymeth Geniocracy have been around the longest of the modern races, so they've had more time to work on advancing their tech. The Necupole Plutocracy - an absolute mouthful to say - managed to implement an interstellar economic system so airtight that all trade between worlds runs on it, making them the financial powerhouse among the stars. The Thalatte Stratocracy has dreams of total galactic control, and they've got the firepower to actually have a crack at doing just that. Technically the Bernetigan Collective is among the Enlightened, but that's only because no one wants to tangle with them. Then there's the 'Greater' races: the Meleten Empire, the Fuglaz Mandate, the Lacertus Commonwealth, the Baithaiz Republic, the Fiskaz Meritocracy, and the Arakhne Principality. The Enlightened only allowed them the 'Greater' title after they'd expanded their influence enough to go toe to toe with them. It's only the most grudging respect they offer on their part. And that leaves us as the 'Lesser' races: the Deupazing Monarchy, the Human Alliance, the Apiarius Aristocracy, the Usgaisjan Union, the Koleopteros Timocracy, and the Deorvira Federation. We're the newest races on the scene, and despite the fact that we've all found our way to the stars under our own power, spread out and colonized multiple worlds apiece, the other races act like we're nothing more than mindless pests. We aren't people to them, so if we get caught, they'll kill us on sight with all the ease of you swatting an insect trying to get at your food."
With their lives finally shaping up to be something they could look forward to, none of them were willing to risk it on a rush job, so they were happy to take the time to get their debut right.
Viatrix's scans on the security measures within the Bakiz Institute were embarrassingly complete. The types of security measures in place, the range on the assorted monitoring devices - sometimes even the make and model, which made for an easier time searching up exploits on the intergalactic network - the routes and stations for security guards, as well as what areas were covered by or free from remote surveillance.
Most importantly, however, were the locations of all the artifacts with pending bounties, and just what kind of security measures they had around them. Getting them wouldn't be a walk in the park, but it would most certainly be doable. That fact alone had the rest of the crew vibrating with as much anticipation as Malakh was.
"I am an engine and I am rerouting this energy into something WAY more productive!" She'd announced on the second morning of their reconnaissance, "The Pelekys' stealth systems, I think I might be able to backwards engineer the technology into something a little more portable for us to use!"
"This won't affect our ability to hide at all?" Nevara asked, and Malakh immediately waved the concern away.
"I've got the schematics to work from, I'm not going to fuck around with our stealth systems when they're active. I'm specifically interested in the electronic masking aspect to them. I'm simplifying a lot of complicated engineering here, but I think I could mask us from most electronic detection."
"Most?" Pryseia questioned.
Malakh nodded, her hands gesturing wildly while her tail swished behind her, "We want to film our exploits, right? Gotta be seen by the cameras we have, which will unfortunately mean we'll still be visible to the security cameras in the Institute."
"Well, you managed to make an empathic booster, so I'm sure you'll be able to pull this off too." Elytra had grinned. Only the day before they'd tested the range on the device. With Elytra stationed in the bridge, she'd managed to get a reading on Rhea's amusement from where she'd run off to the very back of the engine room at the opposite end of the ship, a data pad full of compilations of slapstick moments to set her mood. Normally, Elytra could only feel a single person from within the same room, so this was a vast improvement in terms of range.
Malakh snapped her fingers and pointed at Elytra, saying, "And portable psychic dampeners! The zymeth are telepathic. I'm not sure how fluently they could read our thoughts, but they could certainly hear them, if nothing else. That would have them on us in no time."
"I have data on zymeth psychic frequencies in my medical databases." Rhea offered.
"I'll take it," Malakh said, her eyes darting as she got lost in her plans, "I need to start drafting. I'm gonna take over the fabrication room for a bit."
And with that, she turned and left the room.
Rhea smiled fondly as she watched her go, standing to follow. "I'm gonna get her those files. And set an alarm, because there's no way she's going to feed herself in this state."
"I'm sure you'll have an easy enough time distracting her from her work." Pryseia teased.
Rhea barked out a single laugh at that, turning around so she could walk out of the room backwards as she said, "I could walk in there with my tits out and I'd maybe get a 'thanks'. When she's locked into something, she's locked in."