SithLore

==Location==
Space near the Empire and Sith Empire border

Introduction:
During the clone wars both sides had hidden facilities, for various purposes whether for weapons development or for technological research in an effort to gain an advantage in the war. A Long past gravatonic shift sent some Asteroids from the Pegasus Asteroid belt , Pegasus was a former mining facility during the days of the Old Republic. As years turned into centuries and centuries into millennia these wayward asteroids went on their own path. What was not known was that one of these asteroids that now flew so close to both Imperial and Sith space once housed a space station inside the asteroid itself. The asteroid housed many craters most of which were ways to enter and dock with the station. Time had seem to forget what this lost facility was used for.

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Warvanus sat in the cockpit of his starfighter that he had dubbed Scimitar, it was a Tosqan 8-Q star fighter. He had gotten into the habit of going for flights, he had used the excuse of going on patrol. Partially it was to get a good feel of his star fighter, another part was because he was brushing up on his piloting skills. He had not been out long when his comm. Beeped. It was his droid KL-PK1 or simply Karl it was text only with a set of co-ordinates.

"Odd" he thought as he reviewed the message along with the prelimerary data. Sure Asteroids got knocked around all the time but this one was weaving in and out of Sith controlled space like it was on a hot pursuit. Needless to say the data was very inconclusive and warranted a closer look, and being the closest it fell on him to evaluate and ascertain what needed to be done.

He entered the co-ordinates into the Navicomputer and shortly was in hyperspace, it would be a short jump.

Jorvan sat at another table seething at Haly and Rhoden sat in an increasing state of dismay. She smiled evilly, and put the final nail in his coffin and robbed him of a week's pay. "Why do I keep doing this?" he asked himself glancing glumly at a bottle of some horrid liquor and grimacing as he decided better. "You're weak-willed and can't stand to lose to me." Haly gloated. Rhoden opened his mouth to respond and closed it as Dot beeped from the cockpit.

The trio stood and walked to the cockpit where the sensors showed an anomaly in a nearby asteroid belt. Rhoden sat down in the pilot's seat, Haly in the co-pilot's. Jorvan turned and walked back to assume his usual position in one of the turrets. "Hopefully we'll not get shot at for once." Rhoden said, Haly simply snorted softly as the ship made the infinitesimally small jump.

"Get us a new scan, see if we can get a better idea of what we're seeing." Rhoden said, Dot beeped an affirmative and set to work. Rhoden settled into his seat and prepared himself in the unfortunately likely chance this was an object or person more inclined to shoot than to talk.

His star fighter came out of hyperspace at a safe distance away, it was here he would cut the sub lights, and put his sensors to work. At the distance he was at, they came up with nothing; restoring some thrust to the engines the ship began a slow approach.

Warvanus studied the instruments, he would have to practically land on this asteroid to get any conclusive readings. He would need to upgrade the sensors when he returned to Sojourn. For now he would continue his approach to the wayward asteroid.

As he approached closer he could see it was big, and the surface covered with craters . He would put his fighter into an orbit of the rock. As he did so something pinged back to him. He wasn’t sure what to make of the metal signatures that were returning to his instruments. Maybe something crashed in the distant past? As he made another pass over the surface that same metal signature no matter his position kept bouncing back. Was it a huge ship that crashed? Warvanus did not think so, the only possible other explanation was that there was some kind of facility inside the asteroid. He found that unlikely , but he would have to take the craft down in one of the larger craters and see for himself. It was an idea he did not relish. He sent a communique to KL-PK1

“Karl, inform Vector that I am going to land, here are my co-ordinates switch your sensor relay to channel 2 you should be able to detect my SOS if I end up sending one” he flicked the switch to cut the transmission. It was now or never as Warvanus began to ease the starfighter down towards one of the larger craters.

Dot beeped and sensor data flooded a display. Rhoden scanned it quickly. "Looks like it's some old installation in that asteroid." Rhoden said, nodding toward the asteroid they had come rather close to. Dot beeped a brief warning and Rhoden raised an eyebrow, there was another ship out there.

Rhoden took the ship in, continuing to monitor the other ship on his scanners. Hopefully they would be able to make a secure landing--if not the Firehawk would hopefully be capable of dealing with most trouble they could run into.

As the ship descended into the crater, a blip on his radar appeared it could only mean one thing. There was another ship in the area. He observed it on the screen for a few minutes, it did not appear to be aggressive yet. He would have to possibly deal with this ship later he was too deep now into the crater to do anything about it right now.

The star fighter descended until he was at the bottom but at the bottom was a long tunnel, and so Warvanus brought his craft into the tunnel and began following it. It was not a very long tunnel, nothing artificial about it, as it looked like it was dug out. Upon exiting the tunnel he could see that this was indeed an installation. Built inside the asteroid itself.

He began a sensor sweep now that he was not facing any interference. It came back suggesting minimal power was being used, even life support was minimal. Whether that just meant the temperature or the breathable air content was yet to be determined. His armor would protect him. However he would need a air mask instead of his helmet. Another modification he would need to make to the armor when he had time. He switched to maneuvering thrusters and eased his way closer to the installation. The installation bore no emblem or banner. No way to identify who owned this installation. He would exercise extreme caution here. Once his sensor sweep was complete, he would encrypt and send the data to KL-PK1 his droid.

After several minutes he was close to the installation. There was no visible places to dock. Could he land safely he wondered to himself. He also wondered if anything was on automated, if the landing bay was he could potentially send a signal and it would open automatically and he could land. He wanted to be careful there was that other ship in the vicinity to worry about he did not know if it would try to land too or just move on. He did not want to be in a position where he was stranded, which is why he kept his people updated and with data just in case they needed to mount a rescue.

To his surprise a large door opened when he sent a signal for landing, might not have been the smartest thing to do but what was he to do. Warvanus urged his craft towards the opening, and once he landed and the door closed the hanger bay he had found himself in pressurized.

The other ship vanished into the asteroid and Rhoden took the Firehawk in on her own approach. He carefully monitored the surrounding area, he could only pressume the other ship had noticed him, and that it had landed in this strange station. Which suggested several hangars or landing areas within, because Rhoden set the ship down with ease, and, thankfully, without being fired upon.

Rhoden examined the external sensor readings and determined that there was reasonable atmosphere within the installation, but they'd be keeping their helmets on and sealed regardless. Rhoden stood and Haly followed him back towards the ramp as it lowered, Jorvan joined them and Dot hovered up, landing and securing himself to Rhoden's back.

"Shadow," Rhoden said, the astromech powered up and his head began swiveling, "Get set up, monitor our comms, keep sensor sweeps up, and make sure you're on weapons--Stalker can help but I'm holding you responsible if he blows something up without cause." Shadow gave an affirmative beep and rolled away. "Let's go." Rhoden said. And with that he stepped out onto the deck. The scanners had found no markings denoting affiliation, and sweeping the area visually he found nothing to suggest an affiliation either.

Once the hanger bay was pressurized, he applied the breath mask on, lucky for him his mask would still fit and work. Once he was secure in his armor, he hit the switch to open the canopy. There was no hiss of escaping air, which it had told him this room was pressurized. Still, Warvanus would be cautious, he left the starfighter and looked around. The large hanger had odd fighters, about 50 plus years old. He started to walk towards one end where all the terminals and gear was. He did notice a door, but his senses would be alert, ready for danger, hopefully ready for anything.

He came upon the door it did not open, and the controls for it had no power. He was able to pull the panel from under the control panel and from it extracted a grappler type device it was to open the door manually. He stuck it in the line where the door on each side met, then pressed a button and the door slid open to a crack enough for Warvanus to open one of the doors himself.

He stepped through and a long hallway going in each direction laid before him. It was barely lit. He wondered if he could bring the main power online. He chose to go right and began a slow walk down the hallway, his footsteps echoing with each step he took.

Rhoden turned his attention to the various vessels within, all were outdated, most appeared to be in a state of good repair. There was a skittering noise and an older, bulkier cleaning droid zoomed out of the area. Rhoden moved forward, the others behind him and carefully walked up to a door.

The door did not appear to have power, and indeed, it did not open. Rhoden signaled Dot to detach and with some minor work and bright flashes of electricity or cutting tool the droid got the door to slide open enough to be manually pried the rest of the way into its housing. Dot fixed himself once more to Rhoden's back and they proceeded into the dimly lit confines ahead.

The dimly lit confines did not remain as such. There was a growing hum for a moment which cut off and the rest of the lights flickered on. Rhoden didn't know if the base was set to re-enable main power upon detecting the presence of a living being within the main areas or if someone else had reactivated the systems from another location. In any case it warranted further caution, they could be observed, or worse still there might be internal defense systems.

Warvanus slowly made his way down one of the corridors when the lights all suddenly came on and in the distance could hear the sounds of generators coming online. Either there was a sensor in place to detect people or he was not alone in this facility.

With the light much better he got a better look at his surroundings standing near a closed door stood a pair of droids. One on each side of the door, each equipped with a blaster. Their frames looked kind of frail as if not much thought was put into their construction. The droids were not activated, their design did look a bit familiar to him. He approached the door they guarded and the door slid open , now that there was power. Inside was an office of some sort, furnished but nobody occupied it.

Curiosity struck Warvanus as he began going through the various shelves, and cabinets and drawers that were in the room. When he found nothing of interest or any clue on what this place was. He felt a bit dejected. Deciding it was a waste to continue to scour the room he left and resumed his walk down the hallway. Through the hallway he encountered more of those droids. All inactive, some by the looks of them rusted. Then it dawned on him. He knew this design, he knew what those droids were.

“Battle Droids” he said to himself, the same that were used in the Clone Wars some half century earlier. This was a seperatist installation. Despite this he was not alarmed as the droids remained inactive. He hoped they would remain inactive.

The group moved forward and looked into every room, seeing nothing of note. Rhoden turned down a new corridor and at the first junction Jorvan called for a stop. "What is that thing?" Haly asked looking at the worn down droid, Rhoden hissed a breath "Separatist B1 Battle Droid, main and most pathetic infantry for the Confederacy of Independent Systems." Rhoden said, glancing at Jorvan. "If it's pathetic by droid standards why do you sound worried?" she asked. Rhoden sighed, "They tend to come in large quantities. This base could also house some of Roger's more deadly cousins." he said, tapping the droid on its snout.

"Come on, let's get moving. If these droids wake up we'll be in for an annoying time at the very least." Rhoden said, Jorvan scowled beneath his helmet and Haly stood taller. Jorvan had participated in battles with Rhoden, Haly had only heard stories. "We should have brought the rest of the guys." she muttered. Rhoden half-smiled but gave no response.