Acme: Control

Posted on Thu Apr 9th, 2026 @ 10:26pm by Reave & Kalen "Rex" Vickers & Thane & Bomoor Thort & Amare & Mentis
Edited on on Thu Apr 9th, 2026 @ 10:27pm

2,271 words; about a 11 minute read

Chapter: Chapter VIII: Broken Chains
Location: Undervos Holdings Factory, Wastes, Sleheyron
Timeline: After "Unto Undervos" - late 1,218 ABY

The blast doors accepted their approach without hesitation, parting on hydraulic rails that groaned once, then settled into a smooth, practised motion. There was no challenge or delay - no acknowledgement beyond the expected response of a system that had already decided they belonged there. Nothing and no-one had come to greet or intercept them.

Inside, the administrative level appeared mundane. Lighting strips ran the length of the ceiling, some bright, some fractionally dimmer, a subtle inconsistency that might have passed unnoticed if not for the stillness around it. Terminals remained active, and displays scrolled with data. Chairs sat half-turned from desks, as if their occupants had risen only moments before and intended to return - but none had.

The air also carried a weight. It was not heat, nor quite humidity, but something denser - something that pressed faintly at the lungs on the first breath and lingered there on the second. It was not immediately uncomfortable, but constantly present. A background condition rather than an intrusion, being easy to ignore, if one chose to. The smell followed it, though. Chemical and slightly sweetened.

Reave jumped in first, slightly theatrically, weapon already drawn, sweeping it lazily across the room in a wide arc that suggested violent expectation rather than caution. His boots rang dully against the metal floor, the sound swallowed too quickly by the space around them, no normal echo following. He muttered something low in his strict Jawaese way, unimpressed by the lack of immediate resistance, though the set of his small posture remained coiled, ready.

Thane followed, slower and more deliberate. His lightsaber hilt was already in his hand. It sat comfortably in his grip, angled down but ready, as natural there now as any other extension of his body. His gaze moved across the room once, not searching for threats, but taking in the totality of it. Chiefly, he noted the absence,yet also the quiet function of systems that should have been attended.

Beneath it all, there was this presence. It was not subtle and it did not creep, as it had often seemed to on the other worlds they had recently visited. Instead, it saturated everything, like the very Force itself here was laden with it, syrupy and encompassing. It was a pressure in the Force that did not ebb or flow at all, but simply existed, thick and unyielding, as if the very structure of the place had been steeped in it. It was not at all the sharp, immediate pull of anger or fear, but something more pervasive.

Thane moved past the central consoles toward the far edge of the room, where a broad reinforced viewport overlooked the deeper levels of the facility. Beyond the glass, the factory continued its work. Fumes rose in slow, constant plumes from processing lines below and machinery moved. Conveyor systems carried product through their cycles. Nothing had stopped.

He stood there for a moment, looking down into it, the golden light of his eyes catching faint reflections from the industrial glow beneath.

"They haven’t disrupted production," he said quietly, more observation than commentary.

Amare stood beside him and scrutinized the production floor, arms folded casually across her chest. Lifting a hand to lazily brush her chin with the tips of her lithe blue fingers in contemplation, she allowed herself a brief moment of nostalgia.

"Feels like I was here only yesterday," she mused with a smirk of pride thinking back to that thrilling night of stealth, disguise, and brutal assassination. She considered it to this day her most fulfilling achievement since her journey on the path of darkness began. She turned to Thane and added, "I can't feel them in the Force, but every instinct tell me this place reeks of entrapment. It's thick in the air, and I don't mean Reave's usual lack of hygiene."

Reave did not rise to the bait - but it was almost as though he did not register it. He remained fixed on the corridor, weapon held steady, his posture tighter than it had been outside. The cigarra hung loose at the edge of his concealed face, its ember dimming as it tilted, forgotten. A low string of muttered Jawaese slipped from him, quieter than usual, less irritated. He did not look back at Amare, did not acknowledge the comment at all. Whatever lay beyond that threshold had his full attention, as though he were listening to something the others could not yet hear.

Behind him, Rex had already moved to one of the terminals, brushing aside a chair with his knee as he dropped into it. The interface was older than the norm, but not unlike the Red Raptor's. Physical input with heavy, worn keys that responded with a dull mechanical resistance rather than a clean touch greeted the smuggler. He frowned slightly, wiping a hand across the surface before starting to work through the system.

"Yeah… gimme a second," he muttered, half to himself, half to the others, as lines of data began to crawl across the screen. His fingers moved quickly despite the clumsy interface, navigating through layers of menus and logs, pulling up whatever the system would give him without asking too many questions.

"This is… a mess," he said after a moment, leaning in slightly. "Not like damaged, just… muddled. Like it’s all there, but nothing lines up cleanly." He tapped a few more keys, shifting the display. "Shipping’s still going," he added, glancing briefly back over his shoulder. "In and out. Regular intervals. No big gaps. No shutdown. Whatever’s happening here ain't stopped them pushing product."

Behind them, Reave shifted his weight, stepping further into the room, his gaze flicking further down the corridor he was watching, where the light seemed just a fraction dimmer than the rest. His gaze lingered there a moment longer than necessary, then spat something sharp under his breath and adjusted his grip on the weapon, as if dismissing whatever had caught his attention. There was nothing there, but he seemed more on edge than a moment before.

Kneeling down beside Rex, Mentis tempered the smuggler's frustration offering some aid, "Let me take a look. I can see if I recognise any of the cult's ciphers. There may be encrypted activity you cannot see in the main subsystems."

Rex shrugged and gestured for him to go ahead.

Mentis' left shoulder was brushed lightly with Amare's blue tendrils clad in electrum bangles as she stuck her face beside him, gazing curiously at the monitor the Rattataki was working with.

"If you ever wondered what the black market looks like beneath a veil of legitimate enterprise," Amare muttered to Mentis as she withdrew a small palm-sized flat datapad from one of her belt pouches, "this 'mess' is one good example. Let's try the optical sensors. The access code should be resh, osk, trill, trill, esk, nern, six, nine. Admin passphrase is...oh, this is pathetic." She read out the words from her digital notes she received from Hesk Scivo, "'My ex is a dirty bantha backside'. Ugh...I wish I was joking."

Mentis angled his head slowly toward the Nautolan, the scar on his nose crooked as his face contorted into a look of exaggerated disgust, "Really? I thought this was a high level undercover Sith operation, not Sleemo's first day job."

Receiving only a glare from the Nautolan in return, he turned back to the input and said: "Was that all lower case then?"

Amare's reply came with an embarrassed huff of a sigh, "Yes, I'm afraid so. I'm gonna have a little chat with their manager when this is all over."

"Okay, that seems to have worked to give us additional admin access," the Rattataki focussed in again as he checked the additional data streams available now, "Let me see... Yes, here's something. A shipment not recorded on the main manifest. Something referred to as 'Sovereign'. That was a code word Axion often used to reference his ultimate state of being - how he would one day become omnipresent, omnipotent."

Bomoor sidled up and spoke with authority, "That must be whatever they are adding to the synthspice to create the hallucinogenic effect," his voice echoed along the metallic hallway, "Mentis, you may be best suited to finding this contaminant in the delivery bay. There will undoubtedly be servants of Axion protecting it."

Mentis looked up at the towering Ithorian with wide eyes, "I... I might be wrong though," he stuttered, "Sometimes 'Sovereign' referred to Axion himself. Maybe we should all go together..."

Bomoor cast an irritated look down at the pale man, "I hardly imagine Axion, the man, would appear on a shipping manifest. Control your fear, Mentis. If you do not, then you will never stop being his puppet. If you do find him, you possess an intercom, do you not? We will come when you call."

With an uncertain nod and a side eye at Rex, Mentis nodded, "Okay, I can investigate the shipments."

Rex caught Mentis’ glance the moment Bomoor’s words settled, something unspoken passing cleanly between them. He pushed himself up from the terminal with a quiet exhale, rolling his shoulders once.

"Yeah… alright," he muttered, nodding toward the corridor. "You’re not going down there on your own." He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "He'll come, too. Make sure the conversation don't lag too much."

Reave didn’t move at first, instead, he still remained angled toward the corridor, weapon raised, but not quite as steady as before. The cigarra had actually dropped from his mouth onto the metal below in his inattentiveness. A low murmur of Jawaese slipped from him again, quieter this time, more focused than irritated. When he finally turned, it was not with his usual eager stride. He drifted back toward them, slower, shoulders slightly drawn in, as though whatever lay ahead had his attention in a way he did not like.

Rex eyed him briefly. "That’s new," he muttered. "Thought you’d be halfway down there already."

Reave gave a short, sharp grunt in response, but did not rise to it, already turning back toward the corridor.

Rex huffed in response. "Yeah, yeah, alright. Didn’t think so. Probably best to not be huffing those cigarras down here, anyway." He nodded once to Mentis. "Come on then, Mantis."

They moved off together, the corridor swallowing them quickly, their footsteps dull against the metal as the dimmer lighting ahead seemed to draw them inward more than guide them.

Thane turned from the viewport. The steady churn of the factory below, the unbroken continuation of production, the saturation of Axion’s presence throughout the structure - it did not give him pause. If anything, it clarified the shape of what lay ahead. A faint, anticipatory edge even settled into his posture.

"Amare," he said, already moving, already committed. "You know this place." His gaze found her directly, the molten gold of his eyes catching the light with a harder intensity now. "Take us to the centre - the most open area." There was no hesitation in the instruction, no uncertainty in the intent behind it. "If this is a trap, then we stop circling it. We go straight through it - spring the trap." He shifted his glance towards Bomoor quickly, a small half-smile, reminiscent of the man he had once been, shot at his friend. "Like old times, eh?"

He then stepped past them both without breaking stride, angling toward the access corridor that would take them down into the deeper levels, his lightsaber still unignited but firmly in hand.

"For two years we’ve been pulling at the edges of this," he continued, voice becoming low once again, the words coming a fraction quicker now. "Following fragments, cleaning up what he leaves behind, stealing and fighting for any small scrap of Kaiburr we might find, chasing rumours and fables." A brief glance toward the depths below. "His last mistake was bringing us here."

The faintest hint of something sharper crept into his expression. The half-smile was here again now, but the man who wore it did not look like Bomoor's friend as it had a moment ago, but someone different, darker. The expression, like his tone, was cruel, amused - almost enthusiastic about what was coming, confident of their assured victory.

He thumbed the lightsaber activation switch, the violet blade igniting a long half-second later, and began the descent.

Following proudly on his heels was Amare keeping a brisk pace with him. She kept up better than she did almost a year ago during her first visit to Irrikut with him and her early Force training there. Though still a rookie wielder of the dark side, she felt confident and powerful by Thane's and Bomoor's side. Even if Axion himself showed up, she knew the brothers were capable of unleashing tremendous Force powers and lightsaber skills, and that they had been preparing for such an encounter long before she joined the crew.

Her faith was strong in her master, and believed deeply that if they stood firm and united, the odds were stacked in their favor. She figured that all she had to do on her part was be defensive, tactical, and smart, and she would be able to hold her own and lend support while Thane and Bomoor and their friends took care of the rest. This wasn't the chaos of Korriban this time. They wouldn't be scattered like before. The Cult calculated a huge error in bringing the Sith to Sleheyron.

It was time to end this.

RSS Feed