Shadow of the Crimson Turtle

Sovia thinks hard on Nils' question. "I think I was always most at home on Dantoine. One of many places I trained, but it has everything. A strong connection to the force, grassland, caves, creatures of all kinds and the people are spread out and keep to themselves. Much of the planet isn't even populated. At least it never used to be." She looks around as she speaks and grabs Nils shoulder. "Hey its a store, we should be able to find a device for you to check the signal from there."

Nils nods thoughtfully. The way Sovia described it, Dantooine didn't sound hugely interesting, but maybe you had to be there to appreciate it. He was about to say as much when she grabs his shoulder and points him towards the store. "Ah, that's the place?" He eyes it skeptically. He'd only really seen shops on media broadcasts, so he'd been expecting somewhere with rows of shelves packed with products. This place looked more like a museum, or possibly (from the somewhat vacant expression on some of the customers' faces) a place of worship? Still, he supposed Sovia knew what she was talking about. "Ceph, I'm just going in here for a second. Just in case there's anything more to be learned about that signal." He ducks inside the store and, imitating the other 'customers', starts prodding at a nearby device.

Sovia follows him in, absentmindedly flicking through the screens on some of the products. When she had returned the first thing she had picked up had been a data pad, not that she cared for them, but she knew how important they could be for communication, storing information and generally finding information quickly. The products in this store seemed a lot flashier than her device that she had picked out without much thought, certainly the prices were much higher, but a quick play and the whole interface seemed much clumsier and less functional. Every aspect of it seemed to be geared around looking great whilst doing nothing special. Perhaps this was a mark of how society had changed. She stands at the product beside Nils looking around vaguely so that if the young store owner came over she could quickly deflect his attention away from Nils' work; from his dull movements and the slow speech patterns he was using with the current customer, he was clearly far from being a genius. 

Nils quickly grows frustrated with the clunky OS that, for some reason, refuses to allow him access to the device's more basic functions. Eventually, he finds a way to boot the pad into a console mode, and from that point he is able to hack the OS. Surrounded by so many other devices, all communicating with the same network, it's a relatively simple matter to triangulate the signal's origin. It was definitely transmitted from the spire atop the central control tower, but it doesn't bear the markers of any other transmissions from the same source.

"Oho!" Nils mutters to himself as he parses the data, then sends a copy over to his own datapad. Deciding it's probably not worth trying to undo the damage he's done to the demo datapad's software configuration, he just downloads a generic picture of the datapad brand's standard interface and sets it to display full-screen in the hope nobody will notice until they're gone. Walking out of the store, he sees Ceph and the others waiting for him and Sovia to finish. Once Sovia manages to disentangle herself from the sales staff's proselytizing, they keep walking quickly away from the store as Nils relays what he found. "It was definitely transmitted from the spire atop the central control tower, but it doesn't bear the markers of any other transmissions from the same source. Which means that while someone definitely used the transmission hardware atop the tower, it's unlikely that they were tapped into the system itself on a software level, because the digital hallmarks don't match. Which leaves us in a difficult situation, because I don't think we'll be able to just walk in and have a look. I wonder how whoever sent it did it? Did they have legitimate access that they used for an illegitimate purpose? Or did they break in somehow?"

“Huh. My guess is that they did have access somehow, but that doesn’t give us much to go on. They could be someone important, or they could have gotten a maintenance gig just to gain access to the location. And there’s probably not much trace of em left up there, I’d hate to risk our necks trying to get in only to find jack shit.” Ceph takes a frustrated sip of his florescent cocktail. “Maybe we try a different approach. How about instead of tracking this guy down, we try and get him to find us. He’s a terrorist right? If he doesn’t already have a following, he’s probably in the market for one. We go undercover, sting operation. What do you guys think?”

Sovia's face crinkles into a slight grin as she looks sideways at Lebenha, deeply curious as to how the modern Jedi would respond to a suggestion of deceit and infiltration. Her own concerns overcome though and she breaks the silence. "How would you contact them though. I think we would not like to blow up a part of the station ourselves to attract their attention. And even spreading fear with our own message may be distasteful." She thinks, not wanting to be like a Jedi with giving advice that lacks any actual suggestion.  " Perhaps we push on to this warehouse. If we find them there we can try to convince them of our support to find the leaders. If that fails we can always try to trace the communication backwards from the tower."

Nils opens his mouth, then decides at the last moment not to voice his opinion that actually blowing up a part of the station would probably be pretty cool. Instead he sides with Sovia. "And station security probably don't have a good way of telling between people who are terrorists, and people who are pretending to be terrorists to get other terrorists to contact them so they can catch the terrorists. But there's other leads! We've been following up on the signal, but we can follow up on the bomb too. What type of explosion was it, when was it rigged? Who came and went from the docking bay between it arriving and exploding? Who the crew were and whether they could have been involved? What the cargo was, maybe the message was a red herring and the explosion was corporate sabotage, or cover for a theft? So many questions! Also what's up with this warehouse you mentioned? Maybe we'll get lucky and find some men in cloaks with a bunch of explosives there! Or would that be unlucky? Does anyone have anything to arrest these guys with if we find them?"

Sovia nods along to Nils' assessment until he mentions the capture. She nods towards Ceph, "I'm sure he has some way of detaining, or calling in backup to detain once we've subdued the threats. Otherwise..." She points at Lebenha's sabre, hanging from her belt. "... That always used to be enough." She shrugs. "But if they truly are zealous terrorists, I doubt this ends in a capture, they will send themselves up in flames, or we will cut them down in all likelihood, that is how these things usually end."

It's about a half hour walk from this commercial district to the parking tower. The core is alive with bright lights and the sounds and smells of local night life, but the hubbub grows more distant as they near their destination. The tower isn't grungy, as such, but it's definitely built more for purpose than form. A hulking cuboid of durasteel and florescent lights. At the base level there's a pedestrian exit, as well as an entry point for ground cars. Most speeders enter far above on the higher levels.

"Most of the vehicles enter from the top, perhaps we will find more luck on the lower levels." Sovia stops to concentrate a moment, reaching out with the force and gathering it around her. It felt somehow comfortable to be under its protection once again. 

Derrab walks up to join the others before the tower's mundane entrances. His hands were tucked securely in his overcoat pockets and his right eye has an uncontrollable convulsion that Derrab hardly noticed. Looking to the other, and with an especially long stare at Sovia's estrangement, he shrugs and walks toward the man door, "Simplest solution..." He takes the door and gives a pull while slipping a hand onto the holster in his coat.

The door opens with a clunk to reveal a small vestibule with a pair of ticket machines and a set of turbolift doors. A door to the right appears to lead to the stairwell, and on the far side of the room another opens out into the parking area.

“Let’s search everywhere. We don’t really know what exactly we’re looking for so take note of anything even kinda off.” Ceph stalks forward through the opposite door, out into the parking area. His eyes scan around, and he walks close to any vehicles looking into cockpits and through windows hoping to find anything of note.

Sovia follows Ceph into the room, one of her hands instinctively reaches inside her robe to where she has hidden the lightsaber. She surprises herself slightly with how easily that instinct has returned. She steps out baside Ceph though, reaching out through the force to sense any of those confusing or unpleasant emotions that had been overwhelming her in the bar. Now open to them and trying to seek out the sources and their intentions. 

Ceph doesn't find anything unusual on the ground level. It's mostly full of wheeled ground cars, some of which he doubts should be on the road.

Nils follows behind the others, aware that he seems to be the only one lacking a weapon. Well, that wasn't entirely true - he was about 80% confident that his armature had some built-in defenses, but using them would rather give the game away. I should really ask one of them how to build a lightsabre whilst I have the opportunity... he thinks to himself absent-mindedly as he peers into the window of one of the ground-cars, surprised to see such archaic technology.

Following the others, Leb enters the parking, thinking that the building is too much for their small group to search.

“Hmm, nothin down here. Maybe upstairs?” The disappointment is blatant in Ceph’s voice. “We are kinda grasping at straws here.” He says, somewhat to himself, as he walks back towards the stairwell.

"Patience"  Sovia speaks calmly but with the authority of a mentor. "You are right that there is no-one here. But that doesn't mean there is nothing. There may be droids, a force user strong enough to shield themselves, or other beings that leave no ripple in the force." Her mind wanders towards Nils, still trying to probe and discover what it is keeping her out. It's as though he isn't there. "There are a few people on the upper levels, we could try that way but they are probably just parking. If we see nothing, then we will go to the tower, but mind your frustration, it will blind you."

The turbolift doors slide open with a clean hiss, revealing a simple durasteel cell and a strip of shining silver buttons that are labelled 1 to 20. Ceph hops in and, once everybody is inside, hits the button to take them to the top. The uppermost level is open-roofed and lined with numerous sleek airspeeders, including many luxury models that must have cost their owners as much as a small home. In one corner of the roof, some kind of tripod has been set up besides a plasteel crate. A tubular device is mounted atop it.

Nils wanders over to the speeders with interest, wondering how hard one would be to hotwire, before spotting the tripod. He walks closer to investigate.

Derrab turns the mounted tube and immediately recognizes it, "This is a grappling spike. We used to use it for climbing mostly, but also when crossing a gap. Thing is, why is it on a roof and not the ground? Either someone was looking to get to another rooftop, or they have a very weird fishing hobby." He gives a nod to the nearby speeders.

Nils, who had been about to explain to everyone that the device was a differential modulating radioscope (an instrument used solely for measuring neutrino flux from supernovae, and of effectively zero use outside the field of stellar astronomy), keeps quiet as Derrab offers his own, clearly superior theory on the machine's purpose. Nils nods in agreement, and pretends he'd been about to say the same. "Yes, I agree. A grappling spike, clearly. Perhaps they used it - or are going to use it - to get there?" He points towards the central control tower the machine is pointing at. "If they already used it, I wonder why it's still here? Do you think they'll be back? What do you think, Derrab?"

“I think it’s a safe bet that they used it, and were in too much of a hurry to come back and clean up.” He follows the line of sight up to the top of the control tower. “Well at least that’s one answer. Think the thing still works? Maybe we can follow his footsteps. So to speak.”

"perhaps they were discovered and had to run before they could take this out of here" adventures Lebenha " or perhaps they don't really care. Wich is clear is that our next step should be going there" she says poiting to the control tower. "perhaps there we could get another, more solid, lead."

Nils looks at Ceph, eyebrows raised, then looks over the edge of the lot to the entrance 20 floors below. "You mean use it to get over there? Yes, that could be fun, but I don't think I'll come with you just because I think there would be a high probability of my death, and I'm not sure what we would do once we got over there, but I could happily follow another line of inquiry whilst you're up there if you did want to go?" He looks at the hook launcher, wondering how this fresh lead can help them track down their quarry. "I doubt they would have left any fingerprints on this, and we wouldn't have much use for them even if we found any. But it seems likely they were here, probably not so long ago. We could ask around, somebody might have seen something. Maybe we could track down the owners of the airspeeders, if they come here often they could have spotted something suspicious. And they look expensive, perhaps this garage has surveillance cameras or security. And this launcher probably isn't a common piece of equipment, especially on a space station, if we could find where they bought it, it might give us a lead." He thinks for a second. "We could also wait here for a bit and see if anyone comes to get it, though it seems unlikely - if they've left it here this long, they've probably just abandoned it."

"This thing's been shot before. See how a tube's been depleted and needs a new canister? Anyone have a waybto scope out that tower? Could be they hit the roof, but a broken window is an easier tell."

Sovia looks around carefully. "Yes, a security feed from here would be a very wise direction to take. Though I would bet they took steps to circumvent it, after all they are clearly very competent when it comes to this type of technology. We should certainly see what we can find there."

As the group stands clustered around the grappling spike launcher, Ceph notices a shift in the background hum that permeates the station. More than just the constant subliminal drone of power systems and repulsor drives. Something more imminent. Approaching vehicles. Before he can say anything, three RB-Sec cruisers rise up around the roof. They flash their blue lights and train spotlights on the five suspicious figures gathered around the launcher. "This is station security," blares a megaphone. "You are under arrest on suspicion of conspiracy to commit terrorism. Slowly raise your hands in the air and get down on your knees."

Leb sighs raising slowly her hands.  "We are investigating the attack. Take it easy gentelmen..." 

"Shit....not again..." Derrab immediately kneels down and spreads his arms wide. He stares to the center of the cruisers and calls out as if to a dismounted patrol, "I am Derrab Lierenhold, freelancer for Cardell, military service record number 68-WHISKEY-02-DELTA-XRAY-LIMA-FOX-13, I am armed, blaster pistol, left chest holster inside my coat!"

Ceph turns to run at first but then sees his companions actually complying with the authorities. Idiots he thinks at first, but then remembers... he's not in The Akks anymore. This isn't some heist, and they legitimately hadn't done anything wrong. Slowly, he kneels and raises his arms. "My companions are right. My name is Ceph, I'm also armed, and we are freelancers contracted to investigate the terrorist attack by an independent party. We tracked the suspect's movements to this point. We believe they used that device to jump over to the control tower there, and from that location sent out the broadcast which everyone received after the explosion. If you want verification of this, you can reach out to Edovan Axos, my employer."

Sovia's gut instinct was to reach for her saber and tear through the officers in front of her, but she suppresses that side of herself the way she has practiced over the last several hundred years, instead taking a knee beside the others. She could fight just as effectively from here anyway, but this seemed the wiser course of action for now.

Nils' eyes widen in alarm as the police cruisers rise up around them, and he raises his arm to his face to shield himself from the glare of the spotlights. Damn, damn, damn... I should have seen this coming... what's my potential exposure here? He was fairly confident his shell could survive a brief stay in police custody undetected, so long as they didn't make him submit to any medical examinations or the like. And they were, after all, innocent of any crimes and only connected to the attacks circumstantially, so he presumed it would only be a brief stay if they were actually arrested. But the contents of his bag - that was a different story. Nestled at the bottom of his backpack, in a small, lead-lined case, crudely wrapped in cloth, was a small stone about the size of a human fist. An orb made from a black, clear, diamondlike substance that glowed with a golden internal light which emanated from its myriad crystalline facets, looking into any one of which would reveal a fractally complex internal structure that stretched far beyond the physical bounds of the stone into the dark quantum infinity beyond. One of the most closely guarded secrets of the J - the source of their consciousness and the key to their immortality. An AI soul. Perhaps I could tell them it's a novelty lamp? he wonders. Even if they didn't realise exactly what it was, he was sure they would know it was something , and he couldn't see a way through policy custody without them finding it. Better to destroy it than let it fall into their hands, but it was tough - almost impossible to destroy without specialist equipment. Which left hiding it. But there was no way he could hide it with those cruisers watching his every move. Should have hid it somewhere whilst I had the chance , he thinks ruefully. He looks around under the guise of shielding his eyes, looking for any way to break their line of sight. The grapple launcher was tempting, but trying to use a piece of equipment he'd never seen before whilst in full view of the police seemed like a last resort. The stairwell was about 15 metres away - a better option but further than he'd like. At least on the lower levels the police cruisers would be restricted by the confined spaces though. Looking around, he sees his companions raising their hands and dropping to their knees. He supposed none of them had anything to hide. He slowly raises his hands. Then makes a dash for the stairwell.

As Nils turns to run he feels an inexplicable force opposing him, as though his pack just refuses to move. To his side Sovia's eyes are closed and her teeth grit with concentration but the strength of the pull is undeniable and far stronger than Nils himself, it slowly begins dragging him downwards towards the floor. "Don't do anything silly now, you'll get us all shot." She mumbles through her gritted teeth. "I have no intention of being detained either, but we may be able to avoid conflict if we keep our heads."

One of the cruisers sets down in the middle of the roof, while the other two maintain position in front of and behind the group. Two young officers set out and draw sidearms, training them on the 'suspects'. "All of you! On your knees! Right now!" One of them yells, taking a few steps forwards.

"Calm yourselves." Sovia speaks with authority but kindness as the men approach. "We have explained our position. We were just looking at this equipment because it seems out of place. If we had wanted to get up there we would have no need of something so dangerous. Now put the guns away and we can talk?"  As she speaks she is very conscious of the invisible lightsaber she has conjured in the force and slowly moves it with her mind behind the shaky officer, ready to interject if his nerves get the better of him and remove his gun arm. "Lebenha there is a member of the jedi order and is well respected by those running this station, Ceph there is a private contractor, hired by your own security forces, and the rest of us are helping them investigate the recent events, as my friends have already explained. Please point those weapons somewhere else and we will be happy to discuss this further."

NIls' eyes are wide with fear as his own backpack drags him to the floor, but he realises his chance to run before they can set down is gone. He remains on his knees with his hands up, waiting to see if either the others can talk them out of an arrest, or if he'll have to try running again.

“Yes, in fact maybe we can help each other out. Seems we’re both after the same thing.” Ceph follows Sovia’s lead, speaking with confidence and keeping his hands out in the open but ignoring the order to kneel. 

The officer hesitates, but doesn't seem to buy the story. "Tha- that's just what a terrorist would say!" He stammers, his sidearm quivering as he holds it out in front of him. "Last warning. Get on your knees, or we'll have to take you in by force!"

"Ceph, Lebenha, would you kindly get on your knees so that this gentleman can do his job? We don't want to get in his way, we are supposed to be helping him after all." She turns back to the officer. "Now sir, if you will take a look at the gun there, my friend assures me it was already fired. Being a smart man I am sure you will reach the same conclusion we did..., that the terrorists used it to enter the communications tower to send the message. Having done that already they are clearly not standing around it here to get picked up I think you will agree? " She smiles kindly, trying her best to walk him through the logical steps. 

Leb looks to the officer. "You can certanly try officer. I am a Jedi Knight and I am here to help, as well as this people. Now stop losing your time and our time and lets collaborate instead of impeding each other." she turns to the rest " Seriously there must be a way to broadcast to all the law enforcement of the station that we are on their side...if you want to lose more time be my guest but I will not kneel. Just make a call and stop wasting time. While we all are here the real terrorist could be escaping from that comms tower..." 

The officer's blaster shakes more and more as Leb continues to talk, until it abruptly goes off with a crack! The red bolt of plasma sails over Lebenha's shoulder and into the distance. Everyone roll initiative.

"WOW Calm down" says Lebenha ducking a litlle bit when she sees the blaster bolt " We are all in the same team here. Calm down officer, please..." 

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, easy there!" Ceph says as he quickly obliges and drops to his knees. "Run our names, check our compads, whatever. You'll see the only connection we have to this is that we're trying to find who did it. I can literally show you the video I took of the scene and the messages with my boss putting me on the case. You gotta hear us out, like Leb said, the real terrorist is getting farther away the longer this goes on." He hopes his companions are still on board with trying to talk the officer down. Getting into a battle with authorities was NOT a good look, especially when they had just barely caught their target's trail.

"Ok, thing's been done." Derrab rushes to the side and grabs the grappling spike launcher. His target is close enough he doesn't even need both aiming sights. He lines the first patrol speeder upbwith his front sightpost and fires. The spike rips through the hull's flank and through a repulsion thruster. In an attempt to escape, the pilot jams the throttle, but the repulsor backfires and explodes, sending the cruiser into a tailspin. It falls below the roof, and a gout of fire erupts as it collides with the garage. When the officer turns to Derrab, the mercenary's pistol is already out and aimed, "Please, I wanted to land it on the roof. I swear that was an accident."

Nils stares in disbelief as the misfiring repulsor explodes, and as the cruiser plummets into the side of the parking garage so too do his calculated odds of getting out of this unscathed. Somehow he doubts they're likely to be able to talk themselves out of the situation now. The shockwave knocks him to the ground, and without even looking to see the security officer's reaction he pushes himself back up to his feet and runs, hands still over his head, to the nearest speeder that can act as cover.

The floating purple lightsaber once again swings at the arm of the leader of the small group of law enforcement agents. He easily moves back though and all it really does is keep some space between them. Lying on the ground where she was thrown, Sovia covers her head as she rolls to the side. "I am complying, I am not resisting." She shouts over the commotion of the echoing laser pulses and still ringing explosion. 

The two officers on the rooftop are thrown backwards by the blast, and scramble to their feet, seeking cover behind nearby airspeeders. As they come closer, both Lebenha and Sovia get the feeling that there is something 'off' about the two men. As they move into the light, their eyes seem pale and glazed over. The remaining airborne security speeder circles around and the officers inside take a couple of shots at Derrab, but one blaster bolt flies past him, while the other is absorbed by his armoured vest. Ceph's action.