Traveling through a giant elevator shaft that slowly descended into the abyss, a few nondescript doorways, past tens of thousands of droids, hundreds of armored and shielded security guards, thousands of automated turrets, and over a dozen security checkpoints, Corvus finally came across a vault door that was practically the size of a skyscraper.
Looking at this beast of a door, Corvus reckoned it'd take him ages to cut through with his lightsaber. Not even an orbital bombardment was getting through, because from what he saw, the vault was surrounded by its own personal shield.
Galactic Bank was not playing around with their money. As a governmental institution, it acted both as a place to store, print, and control the money supply. Under the direct auspices of the Senate, and now the Empire, Galactic Bank was like the Federal Reserve, and acted sort of like an unofficial fourth branch of government.
What Corvus intended to do, was to rob this place blind of all its cash, record the empty vault, and then spread mass panic.
As confidence in Galactic Bank dwindled, hopefully a bank run would occur, and the people would rush to withdraw their money.
With the majority of their physical cash gone, and everything invested into assets or labeled as digital currency, Galactic Bank wouldn't be able to comply with these withdrawals.
Galactic Bank, pressed into a doomed position, would be forced to print more money or risk dissolving. When this happened, Corvus would dump a significant amount of the cash he had acquired back into the economy.
In one move, he would be able to buy: ships for the Rebellion, influence through bribes, hire bounty hunters/researchers, and acquire important shares in major corporations. At the same time, by dumping all this cash back into the cash supply, he would significantly over inflate the currency.
What would happen to the Imperial economy would be just like what happened to Spain when the conquistadors crashed the Spanish economy by bringing back too much gold!
All the while, Corvus would have reaped all the rewards, and could fuck off comfortably to Tython, sit back with a cold drink, and watch the galaxy burn in an economic meltdown.
Palpatine was a masterclass politician, but even with the silver tongue of the Devil, there's no way the pruned bastard could talk his way out of such miserable economic woes.
He must've felt so proud of himself, giggling every time he said 'execute Order 66.' Or standing to resounding applause when he declared a 'safe and secure society.'
Average people by and large didn't care who ran the government, so long as they had a roof over their head, food in their belly, and safety from wars/local miscreants.
By destabilizing the economy, Corvus would all but guarantee that all of these things would come under danger.
Of course. Palpatine may find a way to somehow spin this as a Jedi plot, and honestly, he had a good chance of that working, as he was charismatic as all hell.
However, Corvus had an ace up the sleeve.
Palpatine's financial records.
While Galactic Bank suffered, the other lesser banks, and especially those CIS holdings were sure to boost in popularity.
It also just so happened that Palpatine's former master was one Huugo Damask, an influential Muun and leading banker.
And who inherited Damask's fortune, holdings, and shares in the Intergalactic Banking Clan?
Why, none other than Sheev Palpatine!
Convincing the CIS council to make these records public should be no problem. In fact, he intended to show them footage of this heist, to further prove his credibility in their eyes.
With Tann replacing Grievous, it would only be a matter of time until he couldn't gain the trust of the CIS leadership, and supplant the rile Dooku played within the CIS structure. Where he would begin to warp its culture from within. To better align the organization with his ideals, and replace the diehard corporate mindset with one more humane.
His plan was beginning to come together, and he could thank one Cirio Cicario for leading him to this vault.
Following someone was much easier then trying to find a location on your own.
If he was a videogame character, he could imagine going through countless load/save files trying to reach this spot.
Crawling through ventilation shafts, killing random guards, and progressing through this maze of corridors only to get lost and reload.
Corvus was pleased with this method of travel, and as he admired the massive door slowly swinging open, he came to admire the contents within even more.
What awaited him in the vault were crates stacked up to the ceiling, and they went on for miles. No, not crates, but the raw denominations of credits stacked ontop of one another.
Credits in Star Wars, unlike paper money on Earth, were solid pieces of metal about the size and thickness of a carton of cigarettes. And these credits were stacked on top of one another as far as the eye could see!
An Amazon super warehouse had nothing on this facility.
Looking at so much money concentrated in one place, Corvus felt his greed rise to the fore.
The amount of wealth contained within these boxes would be enough to buy entire systems, and it would all be his!
Imagining scenes of grandeur, Corvus noticed a burst of nervousness radiating from the Vice President.
The balding middle aged administrator was shaking, and hastily wiped sweat off his forehead with a cloth.
"Droids, remove a sum worth 100 million credits, and be quick about it." Cirio harshly whispered.
A group of four large industrial type droids flanked Cirio, and saluted. Pushing a grav dolly, they floated the tool into the vault, took an empty box, and began to stack credits inside.
Corvus realized that at the rate the droids were moving, this act would probably take around a half hour or so.
Glancing at the man, Corvus wondered what had Cirio acting like this, was he perhaps drugged?
At that moment, a droid dropped a batch of credits, spilling them onto the floor.
Cirio flinched in place.
"Quietly, do not awaken Chairman Maw." Cirio harshly whispered.
Servos whirled, and the droid silently saluted once more.
'Chairman?' Corvus curiously thought to himself.
Glancing at Cirio, it seemed the Vice President had been looking up at the ceiling periodically. Following his gaze, Corvus saw something that had him feeling a little unnerved.
There, bolted to the ceiling facing downward was a sarcophagus.
Now he was no expert on alien culture, but anything Egyptian or Aztec themed in this universe typically had a connection with the Sith.
Corvus could only guess, but whatever was in that sarcophagus was likely a threat. Afterall, what kind of greedy creature would choose a vault full of all the galaxy's riches to be their resting place?
He decided then and there that he didn't want any of that smoke, and didn't even reach his senses out to the sarcophagus. Because if he could feel something in there, than there was an equal chance that this so-called Chairman could feel him reaching out.
All he was here for was the money.
With that in mind, he waved his hand at Cirio, and cast a [Mind Trick].
'The droids are best left to their work, you should wait outside for a smoke break, and come back in half an hour.'
Cirio glanced at the sarcophagus one last time, and sharply exhaled, then left the vault.
As soon as the Vice President was gone, Corvus cast [Force Speed] and ran more than a few miles to the back of the vault, and along the way, would tap his hand on every pile of credits that he came across.
His system ate every denomination up, and he accumulated tens of thousands of credits every second.
The best part was, since he wasn't initiating an attack, he remained invisible the entire time. Not that it mattered too much, considering he hadn't spotted a single camera.
Honestly, he was more so worried that he wouldn't be able to rob everything before his time was up. Having witnessed the ridiculous amount of security and side doors he took to reach here, it wouldn't surprise him if there were some straight up diabolical traps that he hadn't noticed within the bank. Spike traps, flooding the hallways with gas/water, it could all be possible with how machiavellian the Galactic Bank seemed to be as an institution.
Corvus amused himself with such thoughts to motivate himself to go faster, and break through the tedium of his task.
Because no matter how amazing this theft felt, it was still a boring repetitive action. He could celebrate while he was out of here.
Keeping the threat of violence in mind, Corvus would intermittently Pause to take a look at the sarcophagus.
He really didn't like the look of that thing, and decided to start planting mines in his wake.
Kotor 2 mines had the benefit of coming with a mini cloaking device, making them invisible to people who didn't have the correct frequency to see them on their helmets/scanners.
As a result, Corvus dumped a ton of mines all over the place in preparation for what could be.
Now, of course he could preemptively toss thermal detonators at the sarcophagus, or throw out a pair of lightning hands, but again, he didn't wish to be caught. Escaping this fortress of a bank wasn't something he wanted to do.
Grab the money, and follow Cirio out. That was the plan.
For the next 30 minutes, Corvus followed this simple idea, planted mines, and scooped up billions of credits.
By the time he was done, the droids had also completed their task, and didn't seem to question the missing stacks of cash.
Considering they seemed almost mute, Corvus had taken them for unintelligent droids or that remaining silent was part of their programming. Lastly, as he had been invisible the entire time, he wasn't very worried about getting caught.
However, Cirio wasn't stupid, so Corvus had left a few 'crates' of credits untouched in the front section of the vault. This way, it would give the illusion that there was still plenty of cash, when in reality, Corvus had already fleeced over 95% of it.
Just as Cirio reentered the room, he started to hack and heave, his smoke break seemed to have somehow worsened his nervousness.
Corvus recognized that no good would come of this, and moved to blitz the vault door, yet uncharacteristically for its large frame, it slammed shut with a sudden clang.
A second later, the sound of escaped air pressure squealed and hissed from the sarcophagus.
"Ch-chairman Maw!" Cirio cried out as he tripped on nothing, and fell onto his ass.
"You have brought soup to me. Cicario, how kind of you." A cultured man's voice syballently uttered.
To Corvus, the voice coming from the sarcophagus reminded him of a posh 16th century British Lord's accent. Tarkin had nothing when compared to the utter superiority and disdain that came from this man.
"S-soup, Chairman?" Cirio blanched. "I swear, I didn't know there was an intruder!" Cirio glanced around nervously.
"I can smell it in the air. A strong odor brimming with power. You have done well, my servant. I haven't fed on a Jedi in nearly a century." The man uttered, and then the lid of the sarcophagus fully opened, then clattered to the floor with a meaty bang.
What Corvus saw was a gaunt, short black haired, unhealthily pale, slender man in archaic-for Star Wars-Victorian style fashion.
Pausing, Corvus would hold his breath if he could when he saw a pair of tendrils coming from the side of his head.
Putting his appearance, and line of dialogue together, Corvus realized that the master of this bank wasn't your average ordinary person.
He wasn't a Sith either.
In some regards, perhaps he was more terrifying than the typical saber monkey Sith warrior.
What Corvus was looking at was an Anzat.
A species in Star Wars that were basically the vampire equivalent of sci-fi.
Considering they grew stronger with age, and this Anzat wore particularly old fashioned clothing….Corvus might just be fucked.
Anzat's as a species were naturally born Force sensitives, and were amongst the top 10 most powerful species in the universe.
Their culture predated the formation of the Republic, and could live a thousand years+.
Typically they went insane hunting for the life force found in intelligent beings that they dubbed 'soup.' To them, soup was like the ultimate drug. The stronger willed, or more powerful someone was in the Force, the stronger the Anzat's obsession. Often times, they became reckless in pursuit of the soup, and eventually got themselves killed chasing high profile Jedi Masters, or other powerful long lived species such as the Hutts.
But for one to be wise enough to rule the Galactic Bank, Corvus was certain he wasn't dealing with the average Anzat.
In fact, Corvus saw that in Maw's possession, he had a katana brimming within the Force. This monster in human skin had a Force Blade that could match his lightsaber!
Corvus could only nervously glance back at the countless mines he had stowed, and the cavernous shelves that lined the hall.
If he was to emerge victorious, he would have to play this smart.