Work Text:
So this was where hunting a strange conspiracy had led him. Kicked out of the SIS and hanging out with a weird Sith lord on watery Manaan. If it could be called hanging out, Beniko wasn't really the fun and games type. Not that he usually (or ever) considered Sith and fun in the same sentence. Well everything was turning out stranger and stranger but if teaming up with imps helped him unravel this mess then team up he would. Very carefully though.
Theron sighed.
Beniko had bullied him into a side room and told him to stay there and slice into the labs cameras and security while she greeted her asset. Her very secret asset she refused to name or even talk about. And she had shut off the cameras in the office and the corridors. Terribly unfair. Well he had the cameras on all over the lab now so he would soon know who the asset was anyway. Not that he was nosy or anything, he just needed to know who he was teaming up with. And if he had intel of how they worked to bring back when (if) he got back to SIS so much the better.
Beniko came into the side room just as the lab doors unlocked and opened. And before the door had even opened halfway the camera pointed at it was shot out.
“Woah that was fast” Theron stared at the black screen a moment before pulling up the next camera.
“Yes he is”
So the asset was a guy. Theron wondered if it was anyone known to SIS.
“Tell your guy to leave the cameras on, I have set up loops for all of them already”
Beniko nodded and actually did as he asked. Maybe this team up would actually work out.
Just as he started to feel good about the op some lab tech managed to set off an alarm of course. Beniko glared at him but all Theron could do was shrug, he had stopped all the other alarms but this one must have been routed differently. Not that lab security seemed to slow down asset guy much. He must be a Cipher or something. Theron winced as the next security team to arrive got mowed down in short order, he would not want asset guy going after him on a mission.
And there he was on camera! Or they - there were two of them. Just a quick glimpse from behind, a tall man in tight fitting tac gear with collar-length black hair. An unexpectedly non-regulation cut for an imp asset. And trotting after him was an older man wearing a less body-hugging version of high end tac gear. None of them fit anyone in any SIS files that Theron knew of. At least none he recognized from behind.
As he continued to flip through the lab files, saving anything important-looking to his external memory device, something interesting came up. Seems the lab had caught a Wookie smuggler now slated for a career change to lab animal, and the smuggler's ship was still parked in the lab docks. Not that Theron would have left him there even without the ship but it made a very convenient point to make the imps amenable.
“Hey Beniko, we might have the perfect ride for going unnoticed if the asset gets this smuggler out and on our side.” Theron pointed to the file.
“Not a bad idea. And it's a Wookie, he will want revenge”
Beniko got busy directing the asset guy to the holding cells. And the holding cells actually had cameras on moving mounts. Theron got busy setting them up for a good picture. Asset guy, true to form, shot down the poor security team in the holding area from a distance before he finally walked fully into frame.
Asset guy was handsome, quite unruffled for someone who had fought through three levels of security, and... blue. A Chiss Cipher? There was only one Chiss Cipher Agent in IMP INT that SIS knew of, the infamous Cipher Nine.
Theron had read his slim SIS file with the blurry picture. They all had. It was stamped Do Not Engage. Far too late for that now. Theron snuck a better photo from the camera stream as Cipher Nine fastened his big sniper rifle to his shoulder harness and engaged in a very civil discussion with the big Wookie in the holding cell and his mostly dismantled droid.
The Cipher's voice, even over the shitty microphones in the holding area, hit Theron right where it shouldn't. Low and raspy in that posh Kaas accent it was unfairly sexy. Especially coupled with the visual, the matte black tac suit must have been molded to him. Theron tried not to obviously drool as he got to work again, bringing up the building specs to find the best route to the ship.
Wookie recruited, Cipher Nine headed off to the actual labs while Jakarro and his dismantled droid went off to prep their ship. At the big bio lab they finally got some intel, the Selkath geneticist Gorima had been hired by the conspirators to create some sort of Rakata grafted super soldiers. Of course Colonel Darok and Darth Arkous themselves showed up to collect the information on the procedure at exactly the wrong time. The chat with the geneticist was cut short when one of the experimental super Selkath soldiers was set loose on the team in the lab.
And as if that was not enough the conspiratory bastards set off kriffing explosions as they left with their loot. And then Beniko went off to meditate and left him alone to try and get their team out of the disintegrating structure as it sank. This op just kept on getting worse.
Stealing something seaworthy (deepworthy?) that fit both the two imps and the big Wookie, who had returned from parking his ship to fight the scientists, and also get it to somewhere they could reach without drowning before the whole place was crushed to bits in the depths was no mean feat.
Also he had to actually talk to Cipher Nine to direct him to the submarine dock. Theron dried his sweaty hands on his pants before pushing the mic to ON. His republic drawl gave him away instantly of course but the choice of drowning or following his directions was easy, Cipher Nine took off down the indicated corridor without any objections and the rest of them followed him.
Steering them clear of flooded areas and redirecting the sub to a second dock as the corridors buckled and broke was nerve wracking. Having to watch as they had to fight another and stronger super Selkath while the water levels rose was even worse. When at last he could unlock the docking bay and watch the sub take off he was shaking with adrenaline and utterly exhausted.
And then he had to actually meet the scary Cipher Nine face to pretty face. Theron managed to get some caf going while the team maneuvered the sub to a surface dock and sloshed their way back to the office. All of them were drenched and dripping and the wet Wookie smelled... Theron would be happy if he never had to smell wet Wookie ever again. That sub ride must have been... something.
And there he was, Cipher Nine, all wet and messy and still handsome.
And the bastard was flirty and funny too.
And Theron would have to continue to work with him for who knows how long.. no way this would end well.