Shadow of the Crimson Turtle

As soon as the words leave Nils' mouth, an image flashes into Ceph's mind. His eyes seem to glaze over as he sees the pair doing exactly what Nils suggested, and walking down the halls successfully camouflaged in the technicians' uniforms. "Nils, I don't know how you come up with this druk but please keep it up!" he says after blinking the vision from his eyes. "This way." He rushes along with Nils in tow, miraculously led by the force, until soon they come upon the envisioned locker room. Once they've stepped inside, Ceph does his best to find a pair of overalls that fits. He quickly changes, folding stuffing his transparent poncho into one of the large utility pockets.

As Ceph and Nils head back out of the locker room towards the docking bays, they round a corner and almost run into a similarly dressed man with a thick bushy moustache. "Where do you think you're going?" He demands.

Nils' shell offers a number of lethal and less-than-lethal-but-not-by-much options for quickly disposing of their accoster. He hurriedly dismisses them, and requests some nonviolent alternatives, which it dutifully returns a microsecond later. Pretend not to speak Basic + Low complexity. Just repeat ' No hablo Basico ' whenever asked something. - Raises questions about how you function at your job. May provoke ire if other party is xenophobic. Play deaf + Low complexity. Just keep walking. - Other party is likely to persist questioning unless particularly apathetic. Play dead + Low complexity. Simply disengage primary motor controls. - Only likely to be effective against certain lower life forms. Go on the offence. Ask where they think they're going. + Unexpected response may wrong-foot other party, paving way for further diversionary tactics. - Escalation of confrontation may heighten other party's suspicion. Just run away + Immediately resolves current confrontation - Likely to cause heightened chance of future confrontations Hm. Those were all terrible. Apparently the shell's design team had assumed the social aspects of infiltrating organic society would come from its controller, and had therefore skimped on its own built-in social naviation module. Oh well. He'd just have to wing it. "Oh, sorry, didn't see you there! The docking bays," he answers the man, smiling in what he hopes is a disarming manner.

The man hesitates, the bristly strands of his moustache trembling as he deflates just a little. "Yes... well, on the double!" He insists, allowing Ceph and Nils to hurry on past him. It doesn't take the duo long to find their way through the passages to the maintenance exit serving the docking bay in question. Since the bulbous passenger transport is docked externally, they find themselves in a pooling area for technicians' airspeeders. A magcon field at the far end of the hangar provides access to the docked spacecraft.

Ceph gives Nils an enthusiastic pat on the back, forever impressed by the guy's quick thinking. "Down for a little ride?" he says as he strolls up to one of the vehicles.

I thought that was gonna be a lot harder. This whole 'blending in' with organics thing is easy! "Absolutely! Hopefully a less exciting one than last time we took a speeder, hey?"

"If we're lucky." As he goes to grab for the speeder hatch, something across the room catches his eye. "Ohp, gimme a minute." he confidently strolls up to the keycard board and grabs one before returning to Nils. "Might come in handy."

Leb nods to Sovia and keeps herself near her, monitoring their ops frecuency in case the others need them.

The keycard powers up the speeder and its repulsors quietly purr to life.

Nils hops into the drivers seat and pilots the speeder through the magcon field and looks around for their target ship, trying to get his bearings whils driving as inconspicuously as possible.

The bulbous form of a Corellian star shuttle rears up ahead, tethered to the exterior of the space port by boarding and fuel tubes.

Leb looks around to see if there is any chance to approach the ship, perhaps posing as fuel technician? She tries to look for a room whete the technicians change and she and Sovia could disguise.

Sovia puts her hand across Leb. "Wait, they will sense us coming. We must let those sheltered from the force draw them out. Patience, and trust in the force. " 

"And you need to stay with me and keep me safe too" Drael's self satisfied smile evident in his voice even standing behind the pair of force users. "Vin too, not that he needs it, he's as tough as they come." He continues, looking around for his friend.

While the stakeout team stands chatting, Vin spots a Cerean coming up the corridor towards the gate.

Nils carefully pilots their airspeeder up to their target ship, and examines it through the windshield for a moment, looking for the most likely sabotageable part. "I think that air intake is our best bet," Nils thinks out loud. "If we can just lodge something in there, when they try and power up their main engines it'll damage the intake manifold. I think that should be enough to stop them leaving without causing it to totally fall out of the sky. Well unless it causes a feedback loop in the main... well, no, it'll probably be fine. Unless... no, it's fine. Maybe." He looks around the speeder for something light enough to get sucked in but heavy enough to cause damage when it is, before remembering he has a toolkit in his bag, from which he produces a solid-looking wrench. "OK Ceph, how's your aim? Feel like throwing a spanner in the works?" He hands Ceph the wrench and manouvres the speeder closer to the transport ship, so Ceph's door is as close to the air intake as possible, trying to keep the speeder between the main terminal building and the intake to prevent anyone spotting their attempt from inside.

Leb nods to Sovia and Drael, focusing on make her presence unknown to the Force.

"Drael, got eyes on one of them."   Vin reports over the commlink.  "It's the Jedi."   Vin trusts his eyes and tries to keeps his cool.  He hadn't really understood some of the aspects of the plan.  So lookout was simple enough.  He didn't want to be a liability after all.

"Got you buddy, stay safe." Drael whispers a response to Vin, "They're here, Vin has eyes on them." He tells the other two and then stats surreptitiously looking himself for the distinctive head shape of a Cerean.

"Roger that." he responds over the commlink before taking the spanner from Nils. "Let's do it!" Ceph opens the window and positions himself a little taller in his seat. He takes a moment to line up the shot before chucking the tool towards the intake, his engineered deltoids flexing from the exertion.

The spanner arcs through the air and clatters down the vent, where it lodges itself with a resounding clonk .

"Good throw!" exclaims Nils, peering over Ceph's shoulder. "Let's hope that does the trick! Waste of a good spanner if not, hey?" Looking back at the docking tower to make sure they weren't spotted, Nils pilots the speeder back towards the maintenance hangar - if they could manage to avoid any further interactions with actual staff, they should just be able to walk out without anyone being the wiser. Pulling out his commpad, Nils sends a quick message to the others. "The vulptex is in the porghouse, I repeat, the vulptex is in the porghouse!"

"Well that sounds nice, I guess we'll be seeing you shortly then?" Drael can't keep the smile off his face due to Nils and his interesting brand of humour. "How long till they are supposed to depart?" He ask to everyone over the channel.

Outside the gate, those on watch can see the Cerean in line for security. Meanwhile, as Nils and Ceph reenter the speeder-pool with their vehicle, they can see a gathering of maintenance workers and a supervisor berating them over who took an airspeeder without checking it out.

"I should have asked Ceph for his blaster rifle."   Vin casually says over the commlink, 'Pow' he mocking says as if aiming at the Cerean's head.

As soon as he spots the commotion in the hangar, Nils stops the airspeeder in midair and starts very slowly reversing, in the (almost certainly vain) hope nobody noticed them. As soon as they're out of view of the hangar entrance, he pulls the speeder into a sharp dive, looking for the closest, busiest walkway they can see. "OK, well. We might have to get out in a hurry and blend in." He passes a critical glance to fellow passenger as the airspeeder plummets. "Do you have anything you can use to cover up... all that?" , he gestures to Ceph's head-tentacles. "You're a bit, ah, memorable at the moment."

"Got just the thing." he replies. Ceph closes his eyes and focuses for a moment, consciously altering his chameleonic skin. His normal complexion of mottled brown and beige shifts to a vibrant green, striped by sharp slashes of magenta. Meanwhile his head tentacles press together along the top of his head to form a ridge-like mohawk. "Hows it look?"

The airspeeder pulls up besides a lower level walkway with an muted jerk as the repulsors strain to compensate for the sudden motion. A number of the pedestrians stop and turn to look, surprised at the sudden appearance of the maintenance vehicle and its occupants.

"Nothing to see here. Just two emergency plumbers here to fix a leak in the bathroom. Mmhm," Nils attempts to sate the onlookers' curiousity. Bundling out of the airspeeder, Nils and Ceph head to the nearest public bathroom where, as soon as they're out of sight from the main thoroughfare, they strip out of their maintenance overalls and secrete them as best they're able. "OK," Nils says quietly to Ceph as they carefully leave the bathroom. "Time to blend in and find the others." They make their way along the walkway, away from where the airspeeder was hastily parked, trying to remain hidden amongst the other pedestrians, looking for the fastest way back up to the docking bay where they left the others. "Aha, one second. I need 2 credits." Spotting something in a small shop off the main walkway, Nils grabs the credits from the bemused Ceph and darts in, emerging a moment later having bought a pair of mirrored shade visors. Seeing Ceph's look, he explains, "For disguise. I can't do that head thing you do."

The Cerean passes through security without instance and can be seen waiting for boarding in the gate lounge.

Ceph grins then feigns confusion. "What? Do I know you? Where'd my friend Nils go?" he gives the 'stranger' a pat on the back before they set off to rejoin the others.  Once the whole gang has reunited, Ceph seems antsy. He leans against a nearby bench, gazing at their target from afar. "I guess we have until they figure out they can't take off to come up with a plan. Any bright ideas?"

Sovia thinks hard, breathing deeply. "When we make a plan, they will be alerted. We should make the decision late, when it is too late. For now, merely observe. Nils should be ready though, to seize any opportunity to offer them passage or to introduce them to a pilot. His mind is shielded from me, perhaps from them too."

As the departure time approaches, boarding is announced and the passengers crowd around the gate before slowly filing onto the transport across the air bridge. They're sat in the ship for another half an hour before take-off shows up on the departures board as "delayed". Yet another half hour passes before they come filing back out into the gate's lounge, without their luggage and looking very frustrated indeed.

After another hour, the flight blinks from delayed to cancelled and a large number of extremely displeased passengers are released through security and back into the spaceport proper - including the Cerean.

Vin scans the causeway.  The Cerean sticks out like a sore thumb but his human co-conspirator seems be invisible in the crowd.  "I don't see his human buddy anyway, its like a where's Luddo convention here."   Should have sprung for some micro-binoculars , he thought.  "So now what Ceph?"   It was his plan after all.  

Leb tries to see the human companion of the Cerean among the crowd. It was like looking for the proverbial needle... well at least proverbial back on her homeplanet... Focus focus.. .she thought.. your Master always tells you to focus... or should I said used to...  Despite her training she felt a huge wave of feelings coming her way. Feelings that, instead of let them flow and wash over her as she had been taught, she had been blocking, fearing that it would be too much and left her unable to act. It was too soon... gathering all the force of will she could she was barely able to kept them aside, just a little longer, and focused on helping the others. 

“Now... uhm... well apparently Nils can’t be sensed by the force, right?” he asks, looking to Sovia for support. “So the wonder-kid goes up to him and does his thing. I think offering some sort of passage seems like it might do the trick. If anything our guy might just be desperate enough to go with it even if he thinks it might be a trap. Which it is.”

"I'll do my best," says Nils, privately wondering how desperate someone would have to be to accept transport from someone who randomly approaches a stranger and offers a lift to their exact destination. He slowly makes his way through the crowd, pretending to be checking his datapad, until he's close to the Cerean. He watches their target out of the corner of his eye for a few minutes, trying to get an idea of his state of mind and what sort of approaches might work.

The Cerean seems immensely frustrated and is talking on his commlink. "...I'm going to miss my connection." "Yes, I know, but that wasn't the point was it?" "Right, so when is the next transport to Jedha?" "We were supposed to travel separately."

Nils waits for the Cerean's conversation to wrap up before making his approach, trying to psych himself up for the conversation ahead. Since leaving Amin, he'd seemed to do nothing but cross paths with force-user after force-user, pretty much the exact opposite of what he'd been aiming for. Still, at least 2 of them were, theoretically at least, on his side. Swallowing his fear, and hoping his shell doesn't betry his nervousness, he steps up behind his target and tries to adopt what he hopes is a friendly-but-exhausted posture. "Any luck?" he asks loudly. As the Cerean turns towards him he continues, "Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt. I just recognised you from the transport - you stick out a bit, hey?, saw you talking on the comm, thought you might be making alternative arrangements."

The Cerean arches an eyebrow at Nils's comment about 'sticking out' and eyes him with a penetrating stare. "Perhaps. Are you also travelling to Corea?"

"Oh, sorry, didn't mean to offend you," says Nils, catching the Cerean's pointed stare. "Yeah, that was the plan. This is gonna throw my whole itinerary off though. I've got some admin staff back at my company trying to make alternative arrangements but I've not heard back from them yet. They're normally pretty good, but last time this happened the only transport they could find was on a cargo ship - which would have been OK, I mean it got me there in good time, but their cargo was 20 tons of Falumpaset cheese. Stank the whole ship up, even through its packaging. Had to buy a whole new suit before my meeting when I arrived. Honestly I don't know why they can't just arrange private charter in the first place, if the meeting's that important, you know? Proper private charter I mean, not secondary cargo after a load of cheese. When I asked them about it they just said something about budget codes and board approval. Anyway, sorry to disturb you, you don't care about that. I just thought if I knew what arrangements other passengers are making, when my company phones me back telling me they've found transport but it's on a ship hauling a herd of Bantha or something, I know what the other options are, you know?"

"Yes..." the Cerean replies in a tone that indicates he has no idea what Nils is talking about. "I see you've taken precautions regarding the suit," he adds with a sniff and a nod to Nils' relatively casual attire. "I'm afraid I can't offer you an alternative."

"No problem, thanks anyway buddy!" Nils gives the Cerean an overly-familiar pat on the arm. "And hey, I'll let you know if I hear anything on my end! See ya!" Nils walks off into the crowd, pulling out his datapad again and pretending to send some messages. Once he's certain he's out of sight of the Cerean, he loops around to meet up with the others. "So," he reveals, once they're all reunited. "I overheard a couple of snippets of conversation between him and someone else. He seemed kind of frustrated, and he said, '...I'm going to miss my connection.', then 'Yes, I know, but that wasn't the point was it?'. Then he listened for a bit and said 'Right, so when is the next transport to Jedha?', then 'We were supposed to travel separately.'. Then he hung up, so I bumped into him and pretended I was booked on the same transport as him and was looking for alternative passage. I mentioned the idea of using a cargo ship, so if we do want to try and tempt him onto the Kraken the seeds have been planted. Or I suppose, if it sounds like he's going to Jedha anyway but is going to be delayed, we could just get there first and wait for him to arrive, though I presume Jedha's pretty big and we don't know exactly where he's going. Hm. Anyway, it sounds like his human friend is trying to travel separately."

Ceph grins. “Excellent work, bud. I think it’s worth a shot to try and get him on board, and if that doesn’t work then at least we know where he’s headed. There must be more of them on Jedha, that’s how Mr. Axios must’ve known to direct us there.”

"It seems that we are after the same quarry. Perhaps taking him in is too dangerous and we could do a faster and direct travel there... " says Lebenha trying not to think in what she and Sovia could learn there if they had enough time...  As her companions talk about how much they should charge the cerean and after hearing that the normal passage price is 1000 credits she says. " It is too much convenient that you are going to offer him a ship to his very same destination. Finding a fellow traveler that had the same problem as you when your flight is cancelled is normal, that same person offering the perfect solution is just... too much coincidence. Even I would not think that is all the Force will. I suggest that you tell him that your company has found an independent captain that could bring you and others there, but that knowing of your actual predicament has asked for 1400 credits but your company had managed to lower it, say to 1200, if you two go, for you had told your company that there were more people on the same situation."  She wonders if this would work and, while the others think about it, she closes her eyes and tries to see trough the Force what future their current actions leads to. The Living Force is always changing, she hasn't mastered that technique yet, the future was like a swirling ocean of light, always changing, always in movement.  She hoped to, at least, see in their immadiate furure and see if the Cerean was with them or they were heading to the ship by themselves.

"Alright, I'll leave it a few minutes then go mention I found a ride. I think maybe I shouldn't push it on him too hard though, he's probably already nervous and implying I particularly want him to go might get his wind up, you know? So I think I should just go over there, say I found passage on the Kraken , tell him where and when you're leaving and how much you'll charge, and leave."

Leb nods "I am not expert in this things but that sounds like a good plan. Let's hope he bites the bait..." 

"Yes, go for it I can talk to him if needed." Drael nods in agreement "Over the comm obviously, not face to face." The pilot starts to move further away from the direction of the Cerean as if hid proximity will affect his ability to con him.

Nodding in agreement, Nils returns to where he and the Cerean last spoke. After asserting the Cerean's distinctive cranium is still visible through the crowd, Nils waits a couple of minutes before approaching again, adopting a tone he hopes sounds breezy. "Ah, you're still here! Well, they found something, told you they would - the Khyber Kraken in Bay 12. Leaving in a couple of hours, but they should arrive about the same time as the transport would have. Charging 1200 credits, but I've been assured there's no cheese on board so worth every penny. Anyway, I promised I'd let you know, and pass on the info if you see anybody else from our shuttle, hey? Bay 12! Maybe see you there, buddy! Ciao!" Giving the Cerean another far-too-friendly pat on the shoulder, Nils walks off into the crowd again. Well, the seed has been planted. Nothing to do now but see if it bears fruit or not.