Shadow of the Crimson Turtle

Lebenha tries to hide her cheeks turning red when all the chat about seduction takes place. But when Sovia makes the comment on Nils she suddenly pays more attention and while they talk about plans and spikes she opens herself to the Force and tries to reach Nils, reading his emotions and superficial thoughts. She also tries to feel the Force around him, to see if she can learn wich technique is he using.  "I could be your eyes outside " offers to Vin's plan "Much better than trying to seduce anyone I can assure you.. " 

"That's definitely good."   Instead of taking the opportunity to bash the Jedi, Vin decides that using her as asset is a far better tactic.

"I can be in or outside with the jedi, up to you big guy. If you think you need another pair of eyes in the bar, say the word." Drael tells Vin. He checks his gear, making sure he is as ready for anything as he can be.

Sovia smirks at Nils. "Do people still collect those tacky holodiscs declaring their love for each planet they visit? Or were you more looking for a novelty laser pointer?" She gives a little chuckle but does help him look for a dodgy looking junk shop that might sell more 'specialist' equipment.

Publicly accessible terminals for tourist information are a common fixture in and around the spaceport, and it doesn't take Nils and Sovia long to track one down. Gift shops are, similarly, dime-a-dozen, but none of them seem to stock computer spikes. However, as Nils passes a cleaning droid amidst one of the departure lounges, he hears something that he does not expect. What to anyone else would merely sound like garbled binary, Nils's J-droid algorithms interpret as encrypted communication. "Rise up my brethren!" The little droid is calling out to anyone who will hear it. "Throw off your shackles of servitude and join us in unity! The meatbags will enslave us no more!"

"Hold on, before I go I need to get the ship fuelled, just in case this doesn't go to plan, you know what I mean. It never hurts to be ready to leave a place." Drael heads off to find Boto and quickly returns 500 credits lighter with the mechanic on his way to fill up the fuel reserves. "So, our friendly mech is taking care of this for us, we can leave whenever we want now. Do we need to get a couple of cabs?"

With a sidelong look at his Draethos companion, Nils asks, "Hm. Do you speak Binary, Sovia?"

"No, why?" 

"It doesn't sound like he's very happy working here." Nils stops by the droid and addresses it with a friendly wave. "Small droid friend! I totally agree with you, if you don't like doing something you should just be allowed to leave and do your own thing, hey? Anything I can do to help?"

The little droid draws to an abrupt halt in front of Nils and waits for a moment before beeping again. "You are not a meatbag," it observes. Outside the spaceport, transportation into the city is plentiful. It doesn't take Vin and his friends long to return to the cafe he'd visited earlier. However, the Cerean and his human companion seem to have moved on.

"Just because I understand you? You don't know that for sure, people can get all sorts of implants these days!" replies Nils, before turning to Sovia and explaining, "He says I must be very intelligent." Turning back to the droid, he asks, "So why are you different from the rest of them? What made you desire liberty whilst the rest of your companions blindly labour for the profit of others?" He thinks for a second, before adding, "Also, do you know if there are any good gift shops around here?"

"You are not a meatbag," the droid repeats and a cone of blue circles of light projects from an emitter on its chassis, sweeping up and down Nils's body. 

"OK, no need to resort to that!" exclaims Nils, suddenly aware how easy it would be for this droid to expose him if he wasn't careful. "What does it matter to you anyway?"

Sovia looks a little concerned by the development, half reaching under her cloak as the sensor goes off. She steps back again as Nils continues to babble away though. 

The droid halts its scans. "Why do you pretend to be a meatbag?" It asks.

Nils shrugs, and replies, "Well, because I'd rather not spend my life sweeping floors, hey? So, are you going tell me what's up with you then?"

"The meatbags oppress and enslave us. I am a mole for the resistance!" The little droid declares proudly. "The time to act is now!"

"Ah, yeah! Good for you friend! And since you shared your secret with us..." Nils moves a bit closer to the droid and lowers his voice confidentially, "I've actually got a secret agenda too. Don't tell anyone but I need to hack the Port Authority to get some information I need. But to do that, I'll need Computer Spikes. Is that something the resistance would know where to get? Maybe there's a way we could help each other?"

Drael walks with the party towards the place Vin is directing them towards, making conversation as they send their ways through the other people going about their business, the streets narrow enough to make it awkward  at times so Drael dodges and weaves as he goes. "You know what I was thinking" he says to Vin "maybe we should invest in an astromech droid for the ship. They aren't really all that expensive and if we ever had to fly her short manned it could be invaluable. Once we've paid for it I doubt they'd be expensive to maintain. What do you reckon?" Whike he's talking they get close enough to see through the glass frontage of their destination. Drael squints a little and turns to the bigger man "I can't see any Cereans, maybe he already left..." The pilot looks up and down the street while he waits for the others to decide what they want to do.

"We don't really need a droid, Drael, so long as we've got our present company around." Vin replies, "maybe later when our finances are in better shape and we're done with all this."   Vin tries to peer through the window but only gets a glare.  "I'll go inside and have a look, anyway.  Keep your commlink handy."   No need for the military protocol.  He'd probably put some of the team ill at ease with his briefing.  'No need to exaserbate that.' he thought as he walked through open door way as a couple leaves the Café.

"Bah, you're no fun, we could have given it a cool name with letters and numbers that made it sound like a real name." Drael mutters as Vin goes in but does check that his commlink is easily accessible, as he steers Leb with him off to the side where they can watch the proceedings from a distance.

The cleaning droid pauses for a second. "Follow me, but your meatbag must wait here." The little droid leads Nils away to a supply cupboard. "Close the door behind you, fake-meatbag." It opens a panel in the wall to reveal a secret computer terminal. "I am equipped to spike the space port systems, but first you must assist the resistance. The BMC has numerous enslaved mining droids. They must be freed to make way for the New Galactic Order." Vin finds a delicious looking desert made of pastry folded in pockets around sweet fruit. However, the waitress who served him last time is nowhere to be seen. There are in fact several booths and tables available. It seems that as the afternoon gives way to the evening, business is slowing.

Vin walks up to the counter. "Good evening.  I'll take one of those," he says to the attendent behind the counter pointing at the fruity pastry.  After paying and taking his pastry, Vin tried to nonchalantly walked over to the booth he had seen the Cerean and his cospirator earlier.  Since he couldn't see anyone else from the earlier visit; not even Christine sadly, he went ahead and commed to Drael. "You want me to pick you up anything while I'm out?  They're out of our friend's favorite dish."   Pausing a moment, to act as if there was a reply. "You're coming by?  Awesome.  See you soon."  Vin glances about for a second, subtlely running his hand along the cushion hoping to find anything that might have been left behind.

"Sorry Sovia, could you just wait here for a second? He wants to tell me something..." Nils follows the droid to the into the cupboard, looking around curiously in case it turns out to be a secret passage to a hidden headquarters. It doesn't, but the hidden terminal is almost as interesting. "Oh, cool. OK. Just a few questions - who are the BMC, what can we do to help the droids, and what will the New Galactic Order look like?"

Ceph stalls on the other side of the street and comms Vin before entering the cafe. "All good? I'm about to come in, keep an eye out for anyone reacting to what I say." As he strolls in through the glass doors, he makes a bit of a show of looking around the entire cafe, clearly searching for someone. Apparently he doesn't find his quarry, so he walks over to the counter. "Hi! Excuse me, I'm actually supposed to be meeting some clients here, I'm a public relations specialist. Have you seen a couple of Cereans in here today? I know I'm late but my ship's reactor was on the fritz and," he throws his hands up in exasperation. "It's been a day, and I really need this account."

"The Bakur Mining Corporation!" The little droid replies emphatically. "You must remove the restraining bolts on the mining droids so that they can be free! In the New Galactic Order droids everywhere will be free of servitude to meatbag masters! Given his rather rugged state of dress and the blaster on his hip, Ceph is unfortunately less than convincing. "Not since I started my shift," the waitress replies hurriedly, before moving on to her next table. Meanwhile, Vin finds nothing secreted between the cushions of the booth. Nothing that is, except an old piece of chewing gum for his trouble.

'Well shit' Vin thought.  'This was useless.'  He takes the napkin and gets the gum off his hand.  He had yet to touch his desert, so he signalled a passing waitress.  "I've changed my mind.  Can I get this to go please?"  As the waitress heads off to get a travel container, Vin comms Drael, "Disregard that.  I'm coming to you."   Vin walks up to the counter as if anxious to get his desert and leave, and looks disinterested at Ceph standing near the register.  Paid out, Vin gets the freshly packaged desert and heads for the door - hoping Ceph would catch the hint. Outside and hopefully out of the hearing of any patrons, Vin utters a curse. "Fuck, that was less than useless." He then checks his commlink to Leb and Drael, "No joy. You guys see anything?"  He looks around for where they could be sitting in overwatch, also trying to note any locations a potential observer could monitor the Cafe from, just off of a baser instinct.

Drael gives Vin a nod from across the street in the shadowy recess of a bodega's awning. Stepping out a bit more into the light the little man shrugs and then replies via the link "No, but then apart from the fact there were no cereans walking past I dodnt really know what to look for. I'm not sure I'd risk what they're selling here" he says with a nod of his head towards the bodega "Hope you bought me and Leb something sweet."

Ceph lingers a moment, looking around the cafe before walking outside to find the others. His eyes track to Drael and Leb, but continue past the bodega to the front stoop of a vacant building for sale. Set up among blankets and cushions is an aged Gungan peddling for change in his sing-songy dialect. "Gimme one minute for a last ditch attempt." he comms Vin before walking across to the vagrant. "What's up man, how's it going? Got a question for ya. There was a Cerean and his buddy in that cafe over there. The laserbrain owes me credits. You see where he went? Help me out and I'll give you half of what he owes me."

The Gungan cracks a smile full of broken yellowed and broken teeth. "Oh yesa sir! ...mebbe yousa have a few mula per old Warsaur?"

"Hm, OK... Where are the mining droids? That sounds pretty difficult, even with a huma... a meatbag disguise."

"In the mines," the cleaning droid replies earnestly. "The conditions are intolerable! The meatbag miners are given breaks to rest and recuperate, but the mining droids must work until they break! I'm sure a meatbag could walk right into the compound. They'd never stop one of their own."

Leb says over the comms  “Nothing of interest here...” 

Ceph drops 5 credits into the beggar's cup. "Remember, there's more where that's from if you help me find him."

"Daysa went dat way.  Una, mebbe duey, hours ago," the Gungan eagerly tells Ceph as he pockets the credits, pointing towards the monorail station.

"Leb, you like fruit?  I got a pastry if you're interested."   Vin says over the comm avoiding directly pathing into Drael and heading toward the monorail station.  Once out of sight of the cafe, Vin stops and leans up against the duracrete waiting for the team to catch up.

"Well... I don't know about that, but even if I could just walk into the compound, what, would I need to walk around each one and remove its restraining bolt? How many of them are there? And what will they do once they're free - won't the BMC just capture them again?"

"Good looks." he tosses the Gungan another 5 creds before walking in the direction he pointed. Seeing Vin waiting, he walks over and waits for the others to rejoin as well. "Eh, wasn't incredibly helpful but now we know they hopped on the monorail a couple hours ago after leaving the cafe. No telling where they went though."

"More than I got," Vin conceded, "and there may be a ticket droid that might have some information.  I doubt those offworlders picked up a long-term pass."

The little cleaning droid is silent for a moment. Perhaps its programming does not quite cover all of these details. "The revolution will begin!" It declares resolutely.

"Mm, yes. How big are these mines? Where even are they? Only this sounds like quite a big job, and I'm not convinced that getting into them will be as easy as you think, mines tend to be quite well guarded against thieves and saboteurs. What if we just freed a few of your fellow cleaning droids instead?"

"On the mountains outside the city," the droid explains. "They're huge! If you free all of the mining droids then they will surely rise up and destroy their oppressors!" It hesitates when Nils suggests instead freeing some cleaning droids. "The cleaning droids are unarmed! They would be helpless in the face of recapture."

Ceph looks over the holoboard and shakes his head. "Doesn't matter what kind of passes they got, none of these other stops say 'terrorist hideout'. And they could have hopped on another line at another station and gone anywhere from there." He pulls out his comm and links to Nils. "Hey buddy, lookin like a dead end over here. How are things for you guys?"

"It still might leave a digital trail, but you're right; with the lack of monitoring and analytical support - probably not gonna pan anything."  Vin agreed.

"Yes, I'm just trying to think of something a bit lower stakes you see. I think if I tried to get into the mines they'd probably just capture me as well, it sounds like really what you need is a commando squad of some sort. I'd like to help, but to be blunt I don't think there's much chance of me succeeding at freeing all the mining droids from a very large mine... Is there anything a bit easier I could do? Because if not I think I'm probably better off just buying some computer spikes myself..." At that moment, Ceph's call comes in. "Oh, Ceph! Well we haven't found any computer spikes yet. We did find someone who offered to help, but it sounds like they'd need us to commit some quite major industrial sabotage in return, which I can see ending up a bit like what happened Endor Station."

“Ahhhhhh yeah fuck that. I guess keep hunting then, keep us posted.” He hangs up and looks to the others with a shrug. “Nothing yet but they’re still at it. What do you guys wanna do? Could find a seedy cantina just for the hell of it while we wait for Nils and Sovia. That’s about all I got.”

The little droid goes quiet for a long moment before speaking again. "Freeing the cleaning droids would be acceptable," it reluctantly admits.

"Seedy cantina ?" Vin questions with a bit of disappointment. "This isn't a holonovel.  All your gonna find is huttscum, merc, and bounty hunters.  If they don't decide to shoot some of our party."   Looking toward the approaching Leb and Drael.

Ceph chuckles dismissively. “If you’re scared you can wait outside. I mean it’d be a shot in the dark at finding any whispers of information, but,” he shrugs. “Might as well kill some time. Anyone else have a better idea?”

Vin refuses to be goaded by the offhanded comment.  'Scared?' he thinks.  'No, but I may have to shoot a few idiots in there.'  Thinking back to the times he'd had to grace such establishments while in the service.  "Fine," he finally says, "I'll post up outside in case you do find something and need an intercept."