Flying low on the Pavo Prime skyline, the planet awash in darkness, was nothing. The naked eye saw nothing, advanced detection systems saw nothing. For all practical purposes, the sky was empty.

But for the six CIB Agents, standing grimly at a door in the side of their ship, speaking in muted tones and going through the last pre-mission checklists, the sky was quite full enough. Four men in grey uniforms, looking awkward in the presence of the agents, stood nearby, cleared their throats, and watched the clock. Finally, a red timer appeared over the door, counting down from thirty. The ship suddenly filled with anxiety.

"You know" said one of the figures in the grey uniform "Once you jump we will have to leave the atmosphere. It wouldn't do to be found out close to the scene should things... go wrong."

The agent closest to the door, evidently human despite the thick layers of night-time camoflauge gear and baggage, nodded. The countdown reached zero, and the doors opened. In a flurry of air and mouvment, the six agents leapt out the door, and drifted through the air to the ground below. The four men in grey watched their descent, and suddenly the six loosed black parachutes, and began a more steady fall towards their target.

The Belgardi Ltd Corporate Tower, a massive structure, so high it would be a short drop for the agents. One of the men in grey nodded, and closed the door. "Bring us up, pilot" he said "We won't want to be anywhere near here when things start to happen. I can only feel sorry for them, the poor buggers."

__________________________________________________________________

As J-5 fell through the sky, he suddenly felt his skin go cold. His suit was manually adjusting its' temperature to match that of the air around him, making him near invisible to thermal scans. The smallest amongst them and a Bimm, he nevertheless had the hardest job. Drifting towards the side of the tower, where the huge hexagon identified as Mr. Belgardi's personal office and living quarters, met the rest of the building, he watched as his five teammates floated above the very top of the building, awaiting the all-clear.

Gotta work fast he thought, as he touched down on the wall. Immeadietly, he slamed an adhesive coil onto the wall, whose fine residue melted the tiniest amount of the wall and mixed it with the coil, so the two became connected on contact. Cutting his parachute and shoving it into his pack quickly, J-5 then removed a mineature diagram of the power systems of the tower, obtained from the less-then-well-secured City Power offices, and began to drill through a select piece of the wall.

Above him, his teammates began to close dangerously with the roof of the tower. J-1, Steven, took out a smoke grenade, quickly pulled the pin, and lowered the smoking grenade onto the roof. It quickly revealed a network of laser tripwires crisscrossing the rooftop. Just as he had suspected, only an idiot didn't protect the roof, especially if they slept just beneath it. Each agent followed suite with a smoke grenade, and each carefully landed within spaces between the laser grid, yanking their chutes quickly into their packs to keep them from touching the lasers.

J-5 had to work faster, there was certainly some other security measure on the roof, if he didn't hurry it might activate. Finally, he felt the wall give way beneath his drill. Reaching inside cautiously with his clippers, he took a deep breath, checked the diagram once more, and snipped.

There wasn't even a noise. It was night time and Mr. Belgardi wasn't in, the few lights that had been one around the roof flicked off, as did the grid. J-5 breathed a sigh of relief. "The power is cut" he said "You've got maybe half an hour until security forces realize whats' going on and marshal enough forces to get upstairs. Good thing Rico was paranoid enough to make getting to his place from the ground near impossible."

J-1 tapped his watch. Thirty minutes. "Go" he whispered over the comm system, and they dashed across the roof, staying alert for attack. They reached the far door, J-3 cracked the hinges using a small hammer, the door was shifted, and they entered the Tower.

Seriaph Tower

The corporate headquarters of Belgardi Ltd shown brightly at all hours of the night, an illuminating beacon along the "Prime Line" as the famous third of a mile is known. The corporation's massive holdings across the galaxy required a alert, ready staff to surface problems at any time- because the middle of the day on Pavo Prime could be noon at a key bussiness location- and you didn't keep your partners around the galaxty waiting for daybreak to service problems that need attention instantly. Thus, even in the middle of the night, it was bussines as usual. The night shift, one of three which marched in and out of the building during Pavo's 27 hour day/night cycle was already settled in and perforing their tasks: everything from research and development, to product trouble shooting, to venture capital and everything in between. Corporate lawyers were dealing with legal problems on a whole floor of the huge tower; while a cadre of accountants and bankers took up huge swaths of the building managing the massive finance of the company. This activity was one of the reason that the Hexagonal prisim that served as both Rico Belgardi's office and penthouse was situated a top a huge circular column- he need to be isolated from the constant workings of his company so he could have peace and quiet when he needed it.

When the power flickered then shut off, the building was plunged into an uncharacteristic quiet and inactivity. Self monitoring computer systems acted on the loss of power, saving themselves and freezign whatever they had been doing onto special files, which would allow the employees to retrieve any work they had been doing when the outage occured. Other saftey systems kicked in, their own personal generators firing up to keep R&D and other dangerous locations safe from any failures. Those watching the building outside were somewhat surprised to see the well lit building suddenly go dark, as if a huge incandescent candle had been instantly snuffed out.

The reaction inside the building was calm; the employees relaxing and joking about the unscheduled break time. Some stumbled to utility closets and found glowrod and other lights, while some leaned back in their plush chairs and took a cat nap. Inside the primary secuirty control room however, the reaction was much more urgent. Th control room had its own power source, but although it quickly came back on-online it was quickly realized the thousands of cameras that covered the building were unpowered. It was like being blind, the huge building's eyes covered by the darkness of a power outage. The control room sent out alerts to security teams, and sent an order, via a courier to engineering to turn on the emergency generators.



The Roof

The Coalition agents who entered the tower found themselves situated at the bottom of a long narrow, cylindrical shaft- with only a lare door in front of them. They had entered the bottom of the coulmn that suspended the CEO's hexagon above the tower. As an emergency protocol, the large turbolift doors had slid open. However, the turbolift wasn;t working, as no power currently flowed through it, and the back-up emergency power had not yet be supplied. They would have to improvise...

J-5 knew he had the smallest window of oppourtunity. As systems powered up along the building, he quickly inserted - between the time the security system powered up and the time when the computer security programs would run - a lock-up program by plugging it directly into one of the uncut wires connecting the Tower's computer network to the Hex itself. The program wasn't especially well guarded, and any tech-support junky who found it would certainly be able to delete it, but it would hold them up for a while and buy his associates long enough to get in and out. It did nothing to disrupt the powerful defences built directly into the Hex, but the rest of the Tower would be helpless to stop them for at least a half-hour.

A gust of wind battered J-5 dangerously about, and his small, furry frame curled up against the wall. This was, he reflected, the worst job he had ever had.

___________________________________________________________________

Inside the base of the Hex, the team looked up at the long shaft ahead. J-1, the team leader, nodded to J-2, a Rodian, who quickly unpacked his long rifle. Reaching into his back-pack, he took out the bulkiest item he was carrying, a case of rifle attatchments. He passed over the silencer, the stunner, the bayonet, and the night-scope, and took a grappling hook attatchment out.

"All right" he whispered "I shoot this quick, but rope not strong for J-6, he too big."

J-6, perhaps the most cloaked figure aswell as the largest nodded. Long, terrifying claws extended from his hands, and he stood close to the wall. After cautiously pressing his claws into the wall several times, he seemed satisfied towards some goal, and nodded to J-2 again. J-2 took careful aim, and fired.

The steel Grappling hook shot into the air, like a silver harpoon. It pierced through the ceiling and claw-like extensions shot out, holding it firmly in place by way of adhesive coils, like the ones used by J-5. J-2 gave it a few experimental pulls, then nodded. One by one, the agents began to climb the rope. Last was J-6, who simply forced his claws through the wall, and with great effort, climbed by piercing each hand further and further up the wall and pulling himself up.

There came a sudden, ominous creak, as they reached the half-way point. "What was that?" Hissed J-1.

J-2 shrugged, trying to see in the darkness above. J-3, just below, took out a pair of night-vision goggles he'd brought, and squinted ahead. Suddenly, he made the unusual noises of the Aqualish and pointed desperately above.

"Whats' he saying?" Said J-2. J-4, a Cerean, responded "He's saying you appeared to have hooked the grappler into the turbo lift, parked above."

Everyone let this sink in and go through the process in their minds of what this meant. "Climb!" whispered J-1 in a desperate voice "Climb as fast as you can!"

They struggled desperately up the rope, as the Turbolift continued to strain against its' holdings. Without electricity, most of the clamps used to hold it up had powered down, leaving only the cords, which had been pierced by the grappling hook and were even now beginning to come loose.

J-6 reached a door, and with a free fist hammered it open. He swung inside, and turned to the group, guesturing for them to jump. One by one, they jumped from the rope, and J-6 caught them, until J-1, the last on the rope, suddenly felt a horrible falling sensation as the cords holding the elevator snapped. He leapt, but he wasn't high up enough, and fell short of the door. J-2 and 3 leaned over and grabbed a hand each, and with a monumental tug, pulled him up a split-second before the huge turbolift spiralled down to the bottom of the shaft, shattering into bits.

"Good work" J-1 wheezed "All right... Lets' get moving"

Seriaph Tower
Executive Hexagon

The private abode of Rico Belgardi was silent and dark and eerie space that stood aloft in the highest reaches of Pavo Prime's atmosphere. The hexagonal prisim was even pressurized, and its windows never opened, because at such a high altitude, long-term expose could leave you out of breath. Not high enough to be life-threatening, such an inconvience was not to be suffered by the CEO of Belgardi Ltd, or any who graced his prescence.

However, at this moment Rico Belgardi was not in his private estate, he was away on bussiness. But just because no one was home, didn't mean that the hexagon was empty.

Crash!

The dull thud reverberated through out the hexagon, disturbing its pristine silence. Such a sound only confirmed what was already known. There were intruders to be dealt with.



The Coaltion agents were nearing the top of the shaft, and the hexagon which lay on top of it. The unpowered turbolift doors would be easy to pry open by hand, revealing the rom behind them. They would be stepping into the large foyer of the prisim, the entrance way to the rest of the hexagon. A small, narrow landing would await them their, each side of the room adorned by large ornate columns. A stairwell filled the space betwen the coulmns, and sloped gradually upward- its widith nearly matching it's length. At the end of the wide stairwell was an ornate (albiet thin) hardwood door with an oversized frame.

The columns, walls and floor were well embelished; a dark red carpet ran up the stairs center, while polished white stone made up the foundation. The pillars were draped with large tapestries, weavings and pictures, both real and holographic filled the niche's created by the pillars and the narrow walls. The door frame's large parameters hinted at something, but was deceptive enough to the naked eye.

What surprises awaited the agents when they reached this landing would soon become apparent...

(Ok, I was hoping you'd edit, but it appears you are still away, and since I am going I will post with the assumption that we did indeed plan our arrival to coincide with that - highly illegal - meeting Rico is in, with the word Upheaval in it.)

The team advanced through the foyer, weapons drawn. Rico was suspected of carrying numerous highly effective and shadily legal weapons systems around his home. They had to get to the doors at the far end.

Or did they?

Rico wasn't stupid. Air-ducts were too small to crawl in and lined with sharp objects. There was no convenient back door. And a half-dozen washerwomen would NOT be allowed in. However, J-1 recognized that once this was over, everyone would have known they had passed, so they might as well do whatever they needed to to advance their goals.

J-3 opened a bag, and took out what appeared to be a sophisticated chainsaw. His bag was filled with cutting, sawing, picking, and one or two exploding tools. Placing the saw against the wall, he awaited only a nod.

"Um... sir?" said J-2, who was wearing his infrared goggles "I don't like the look of this..."

Red patched were appearing from inside the columns and walls...

J-1 turned on his goggles, and in less then a second shouted a most critical order.

"Get down!"

The team ducked, rolled, and dived away as fire strafed the wall they had been standing at mere seconds ago.

BUMP.

A pair of pop down laser cannons had appeared from the center of the stairwell, from compartments in the ceiling. Raking with red laser fire, they barley missed the Coalition agents, who dodged, obviosuly warned by something. The two cannons swiveled, following the path of the Coalition agents, and spitting their deadly beams of light.

The situation triggered another system, and at the far end of the stairwell, at the large door, they was a sudden flutter of movement. Massive blast doors had slid into position and locked, securing the enterance way to the rest of the prisim. The doors were inches thick and quite solid, and would require an extreme amount of force to dislodge or damage.

That is, if the agents managed to get that far....

With no time to spare the team rolled behind various pillars. The turrets kept up a constant stream of fire, apparently content to burn through them eventually, which they were doing surprsingly fast.

J-4, the Cerean, knew this was his chance to display his talents. With a nod from J-1, he rolled out from behind the pillars at just the right time to avoid the racking laser fire. J-4 kept up the chase, going for the next pillar, when suddenly he tripped and began to fall. The deadly beams of laser were about to zero in on him when-

'VOIP'

From behind, J-2 and J-1 had taken the time provided by J-4 to zero in on the turrets. Both were disabled by Ion shots.

J-4 panted heavily as he was brought to his feet. "I am NOT doing that again" he said, and staggered to a pillar, which was burning hot so he instantly regretted it.

"Ok" said J-1 "The doors' pretty thickly armoured, but the walls are less so. I think we can blast our way through. Once its' down we'll have to be careful, the hex defences will be in full swing. J-3?"

J-3 lifted his unusual saw-like device, and set it against the wall, which was comparativly unarmoured. Sparks flew as the outer layer crackled away. In a minute, with the outer wall cut away, J-3 put down the device and placed several heavy charges into the wall. Everyone took a few sensible steps back.

As the wreckage fell about the room, they were greeted to a large hole in the wall leading to an empty corridor.

"Lets' move."

*cough cough*

The Coalition agents had made serious headway, with a clever use of explosives that bypassed one of the primary security features of the Belgardi Corporate HQ.

Had power been on in the huge building, alarms would have been blaring at ear shattering levels, but engineers had not yet restored the precious power that would spell the end of the agent's romp through the building.

Worse for Belgardi Ltd, was the fact that the hexagon's most efficent and deadly defenses had been overcome, and bypassed, bringing the Coalition soldiers withing meters of highly sensitive coroprate and personal information of Rico Belgardi.

However, there were a few more, last ditch surprises, contained int eh hexagaon. The first of which appeared as the agents blasted through the walls and entered the hexagon proper.

A pair of rolling balls suddenly appeared, and unfolded to reveal a pair of droideka destroyer droids, expensive, rare, and two of Rico Belgardi's most prized posessions. Alerted to the danger by sonic sensors, they reared up, and began the methodical firing of their powerful blaster cannons, while protected by bright shimmering shields.

Jedi had often been held at bay by the droids, and how the agents proposed to remedy the situation was a intruiging question indeed...