Log:Jedi Order: Solo Mission - Vhe

Invader Vhe's Big Day Out

OOC Date: January 30, 2021
Location: Jedha
Participants: Jedi Order: Vhe Tenara and Rey Skywalker with Ben Solo

JEDHA

How many worlds had been struck by the Death Star and survived to show the scars? The number is vanishingly small, but Jedha is among them. The desert world was once a hub of spirituality and attunement to the Force, renowned for its rich deposits of Kyber crystals and its Church of the Force, the Guardians of the Whills, and perhaps even the location of the first Jedi Temple.

Now, in the shadow of the crater left behind by the destruction of the Holy City forty years ago, the citizens of New Jedha City struggle on, in the grips of the First Order's occupation. The streets, by and large, are quiet; no visible patrols of Stormtroopers march the streets, but above the skyline, a constant reminder of the occupation hangs heavy, cutting a dark wedge against the blue.

In an alleyway, down a winding warren of twisting paths laid out by the shanty-town on the outskirts of the city, a man in black frowns out at the street. "He should have been here by now. When they called for help, we agreed to meet with one contact only, at noon exactly." Ben glances up at the system's star, now clearly past its zenith. "That was a while ago. We can't risk staying here for long."

A new world and one she had never been to lends itself to scrutiny and curiousity that become interchangeable given the delicacy of their current situation. Vhe glances toward Ben, wrapped in her own robes in earthen and teal tones, head hidden by a heavy hood that she presses back a little to get a look about.

"Nothing ever happens as planned, either this contact knows it is not safe or they were apprehended. Either way, no sight of him, her..it might mean that we should vacate now."

She is not liming the weight of time as it ticks away and sets upon her shoulders. Every moment is just a bit more burden that begins to accumulate. "Best to find a safer location in case we were sold out." A very likely thing considering the methods of the Order.

"The transmission said that children here are being taken. Shuttled off-world, presumably to be conditioned into Stormtroopers. The First Order doesn't do that for anything else. Or at least they didn't." Ben chews at the inside of his mouth for a moment, mulling the situation over.

Before he can make a decision, a man suddenly appears in the street, hurrying toward their alleyway. His clothing is simple, dun fabrics in a loose cut wrapped around his body against the desert heat and the persistent, sandy dust. His head is shaved close, his stature short, a gnarled staff of some gnotty wood clutched in one hand. Wrinkled skin and flecks of grey in his stubble lend the man the vague sense of late middle-age.

"Master Jedi!" The light in his eyes is obvious, clearly pleased to have found the pair. "Master Jedi, I apologize for my tardiness! I was waylaid on my path, but now the Force has lead me back to you."

"It's Ben. This is Vhe Tenara, Jedi initiate. We came to investigate your call for help."

"Uh, yes. Alright," the man responds, blinking and turning to Vhe instead. "Master Jedi, it is a great honor to welcome you here. And your companion. We are at the end of ourselves, I fear. Without the Guardians, Jedha has not been a place of peace. They come in the day and in the night, and before anyone can help, they are gone. And the children are gone with them. Oh, master Jedi! You must help us."

Vhe readies herself as the man appears, wariness settling around her like a stole before finally she releases it all. The Force assures her with no words and she listens instead, glancing from the man to Ben at the end of his comments.

"Do you know where they hold them before they are taken off-world? The best plan of action is to enter, free those children from within and try to make it so their base of operations will not be able to be used for some time. This is a long term fight though, is there anything we can do to make Jedha safe?"

"You think we should call upon the others?" She glances past the man, watching for any troops or patrols that might happen upon them. "Are you able to show us?"

She seems resolute even if the end result may not be a lasting one.

"Always they come from the west, riding great armored transports that move faster than a man can run. We are a poor people. We do not have the strength to fight them and we do not have the speed to chase them. Once, Jedha was a place of peace. Once, pilgrims traveled here from all over the galaxy." The man's voice cracks as he speaks, eyes glistening. "Now children are kidnapped in broad daylight and no one dares raise a finger to stop it."

"To do what? Fight another war? No. We'll do what we can and that will have to be enough for one day," Ben replies, shaking his head. "I don't think we can stop this from happening but we can hurt them. Slow it down."

"Anything. /Anything,/" their contact agrees, nodding sadly. "The Force would not have brought you here if you could do nothing."

"The Force would be in a tight spot without our ship," Ben mutters quietly, moving towards the street. "Come on. We'll fly low, see if we can spot something. Not you," he points out to the older gentleman.

Frowning, Vhe lets out a long breath as she reaches out to touch the man's arm. "Go. Before something bad happens here. As Ben says, we will do what we can for you and yours." Releasing the elder man's arm, she lifts her hand to tug her hood further over her featurs and turns back to the figure in black.

"It is apparent that in the near future we must do something for this world as we must with all worlds. We are those that can, after all. We can make that difference."

She quiets however and falls into step to follow Ben back to the ship, watching their sight lines and pathways to be sure they are not being followed.

The Falcon scoots quickly over the desert, hovering as close to the sand as possible in order to maintain a low profile. Inside the cockpit, Ben frowns out at the desert landscape, hands on the controls, Chewie roooowrl-ing in the co-pilot seat. "If we had some speeders we wouldn't have to do this," he points out, to a snuffling wuff-wuff from Chewie. "I /know/ Rey likes to leave space just in case, but if we had speeders we wouldn't have to do this," he repeats stubbornly, flicking a switch to adjust the cant of the ship and dragging the belly through a dune in the process, stirring a HWRRRAAAR of protest. "/I know./"

A toggle is tugged and the ship hovers a bit higher, riskier but safer at the same time. "Do you see anything? Reach out with your feelings. Open your mind and feel it. It's there, it always is, if you look for it. If you can find it. You have to reach."

Vhe is leaning out over the controls trying to get a look through the smal viewport of the cockpit. As they whip over the sands she tries to reach out with the Force but finds nothing but an empty expanse as she reaches still, focusing, searching, attempting to find something amidst the endless expanse.

"Not yet.." she admits and then reaches out again with Force, simmering in her quiet frustrations over her lack of finding little to nothing. Her hand curls around the seat rest and her head turns, drawn in the direction of the grey speck that lays in the distance as her hand thrusts out and points off towards their right slightly. "There it is...whatever IT is." Perhaps what they are looking for, perhaps something else.

Ben follows her direction, noticing the same spot. "I see it too." The Falcon remains low, guided by fairly certain hands... fairly certain this isn't ideal hands, the pilot muttering something about speeders as the freighter goes skimming over the dunes, kept at a cautious distance.

As the speck grows closer, it solidifies into an outline and then shapes, a clear picture emerging; prefabricated structures, nestled at the base of a mesa, built into the side of the rock in some cases. "It looks like there's something on the top of the mesa as well. Maybe an access lift. That could be our way in."

Pulling back on the controls, he brings the Falcon away from the front of the outpost, circling a broad loop around behind the mesa to approach it from the rear, under cover of the rock formation. The ship settles down with a cacaphony of hisses and whines as the pneumatics adjust to the weight. "I don't know what we'll find down there. I wasn't part of the Stormtrooper program. I'm going in as blind as you are," he cautions Vhe, checking his belt as he rises for blaster and lightsaber.

Rey was in the upper gun turret position, up to the point of the Falcon coming to a landing, and from there she glides down the ladder with a waving motion to her white robes around her form. Her booted feet reach out to impact the edges of the ladder to stop her descent and she turns around to step out in to the corridor beyond.

"That was, interesting, piloting." She tells Ben as she sees him coming from the cockpit doorway. Her eyes dart next to Vhe.

"Any sign of what we're doing here?" She asks then, noting Ben's reaching for his saber. "Are their Troopers?"

She's FULL of questions!

Glad for her seat when he pulls back to try to give them the better angle of approach, Vhe grips the arm rest for a moment and finally settles a bit more easily now that gravity is not pulling at her or her stomach. Only when they settle does she push up and pull at the hood to bring it up over her features and the thick braid of hair. The left side of her neck painted in a burn scar and some of the singed hair having sprouted now looks a little wild but kept in check by a single wrapping of silk in beige. The comment causes her head to come up.

"I understand. We can only do the best we can, I will do my best to not cause extra trouble."

She follows after him and then looks past him at Rey. "Likely yes. We are going in to see about the children being taken from the families here. This may be their facility."

"They've set up an outpost of some kind. No telling what's in it," Ben replies to Rey's questions with a shrug, his lightsaber still on his belt where it was before. "All we know is this is the direction they've been coming on the raids to take the children." The program was Hux's area; even if nothing has changed, it's beyond what he knows. "I'd be surprised if there aren't. It was never a point to keep large groups on planet, though."

The ramp descends, and down they go out of the Falcon, onto the top of the mesa. A cluster of rocks shields the ship from view, leaving a few hundred meters between the ship and the small structure leading into the access shaft that carries a lift down to the outpost below. The space between has clearly been swept of large debris and levelled to allow transports and shuttles to land here, though none are present at the moment.

Entering the structure without incident, Ben takes a deep breath and presses the button to call the lift, glancing at the other two. "We can't fight a whole garrison. We have to be smart about this, whatever's down there."

Rey waits in the turret ladder hatch as Ben, and Vhe, sweep past her. She trails after them both, looking from one of them to the other as they both fill her in on the situation. "Right." She quietly says before stepping out into the corridor, only to have Dio intercept her, rolling up toward her and speaking up at her.

"We we're leaving?" Dio asks up to Rey.

"No no, you stay with the ship." She tells the scout droid. "Contact my comm if anyone comes snooping around!"

"O-okay, Rey." The droid nervously rolls forward then backward before turning and leaning forward a little as he zooms at full speed toward the cockpit!

Rey grabs one of her jackets off of the metal hook beside the top of the boarding ramp (yes she's installed a coat rack by the ramp!)

Tossing the jacket on, she rushes down the ramp after the other two.

"We do not really have to do much inside, not engage with them. As long as we can get in and ruin their facility, that shoudl be enough. A central power room or anything like that will do. Put it out of commission for a while," Vhe suggests, smiling at Rey though its a tight one for what they are walking into is not exactly a picnic.

Once they gain the entry, leaving the Falcon behind, the Ysanna slips in beside Ben and makes room for Rey before the lift. "Lets hope there is nothing on the other side of these lift doors to start this out the wrong way. Do you recognize anything in the way this facility is laid out? Where we might find a central power room?"

Ben gives Vhe a Look at her question, the kind of Look that means 'do you really think I just know what the inside of every First Order base looks like?' And then he says "Do you really think I know what the inside of every First Order base looks like?" The lift doors hiss open, and he steps quickly inside, waving the others to follow.

Once the doors hiss shut and the lift starts to descend, he shakes his head. "No, I don't recognize anything. This is clearly an access lift to the landing area above, and there'll be... facilities, to do... things." His lips press into a thin line, eyes looking up at the ceiling. "The odds of this going according plan are roughly one hundred percent, because the plan is, there is no plan."

The lift comes to a halt, doors zipping open to reveal a hallway of glossy polished metal that stretches away in either direction and one passageway leading straight out with a blast door at the end. The hallway appears to be empty. "Off to a good start," Ben murmurs as he steps into the hallway, keeping close to the walls that slope up towards the ceiling in an angular arch.

Inside the Falcon's cockpit, as the trio leaves, the cone-headed droid can be seen behind the glass, his little pointy head looking over at them, and then looking forward out of the cockpit. He's being a dutiful little guard-droid!

Rey keeps up with the two of them, but stays near the back as she scurries along. When she hears them speak of the interior design of every First Order base... she has to smirk at the exchange.

"Bleak, oppressive, decor around every corner? Long, seemingly unending, corridors that try to confuse you with twists and turns? You've seen one, you've seen them all." She's joking of course... mostly.

The lift ride is... tension-building, but Rey keeps a calm persona most always these days. She does flex her hands from fingers wide to tight fists until the lift doors open, and when they do she follows along. "I've seen worse starts." She adds quietly, her eyes looking rapidly this way and that.

"A structured creature like the Order tends to have things always created in a similar fashion not only for those that work in them but because..its order in and of itself. I suspect many of them look much the same or have a similair configuration is all." Vhe counters as she steps onto the lift, her brow arching at the news of it going a hundred percent gets a smirk from her as well as Rey's comments get a laugh. "See, she gets it."

Pause. "Comforting thought..no plan. I can work with it seeing as I don't have to worry about details. Save that we all get out alive."

Pulling the hood down from her features, Vhe shrugs the heavy fabric back to clear the way for her hands as she lets the cloth bundle up against her neck so that the tribal embroidered cloth beneath is given a little more freedom.

A choice has to be made, and not one for waffling, Ben goes left, leading the other two deeper into the facility as it twists back into the rock of the mesa. The hallways are eerily quiet, and with no transports landed above, maybe they've been lucky and hit the outpost at a 'low point' in its activity.

Before long, though, the little team is met with another fork in the pathway, and again there are three directions to choose from: center, left, and right. "I'll go left. You follow the center path," Ben says to Vhe, nodding down it. "Rey, take the right. One of them has to lead to a control room eventually. A facility of this size has to have one." Without waiting, he takes off down the left pathway.

Down the center path, the hallway continues, sloping upward and terminating at a narrow door with a small control panel next to it.

The right path leads downward, but the door at the end is larger, with an identical control panel next to it.

As they walk and talk about First Order / Imperial decor, Rey has to speak up a bit further on it. "While on Jakku, I learned that the interiors of the Imperial vessels were built with premade pieces, plugged together. Those connection points were loaded with the best salvage to take. It's where you'd find the highest valued electronics and mechanical bits and baubles." She knows all the technical terms.

As they come to the junction though, Ben gives his rundown on what to do next... Rey nods once to him and watches him venture off bluntly, as ever.

Her eyes go to Vhe then and she nods once to the fellow Jedi. "Let the Force guide you." She says to the other, adding a small smile before venturing down her own pathway, unclipping her lightsaber to hold it in her hand as she goes.

Vhe watches as decisions are made, the information supplied eaten up before the Ysanna hesitates. Take the central path. Her eyes follow after Ben only to return to Rey, a nod given to her. "And you." She quickly turns and hurries forward, caution in every step despite the increased pace.

She glances back down the way she had come before she walks up to the door and pauses before the panel, her fingers drifting over it. "The last time I did this the normal way it went badly for everyone..."

She reaches out with the Force and as she tethers herself into communication with the panel, she coaxes it slowly into releasing the locks, feelign them slide away and the door hiss as it opens. Her eyes snap open and a small self satisified smile curls her lips as she enters, hand upon the hilt of her saber.

Startled by what is said, Vhe hesitates a second looking at a loss for words but quickly fumbles through it. "Right. I know but I came to say we were looking to hold off on payment until the next time. Make it one visit for the transactions. How many exactly were you looking for?"

She clears her throat, stepping forward as she draws her hand away from the saber and lets her cloak fall back in front of it. "I was also told you were having computer troubles when I passed another officer. I can help if you need. Something to do with sand in the wires, that happens and I will take a quick look."

She's helpful. Super helpful. And in the end oddly convincing.

Lt. Jaggo, the young officer manning the console, was taught many things at the Order's academies. She is an expert in her field, a gifted pilot, and a crack shot with a blaster. What she is not, is a people person. "Well, I haven't noticed anything. And I don't see why a native would know more about our computers than I would. They must have sent you down here as some kind of prank or bet. I /will/ file a full report on this incident. I don't want them hassling you on your way out so you may poke around so that you don't have to lie if they ask you about it before you leave." What a nice person Lt. Jaggo turned out to be. "But you /will/ leave immediately afterward."

The consoles display any number of very important read-outs, and a few even have video feeds. One displays a number of Stormtroopers, formed up in ranks, standing at attention. Why isn't clear. Nearby is a button under a cover labeled 'Warning; do not activate unless space is empty; decontamination cannot be halted once in process'. Another screen shows what must be the transports used to ride into town and grab the children before bringing them back here. There are hoses snaked out of the transports, and a dial under the screen that reads 'Warning: do not overfill - extreme damage, loss of life, or serious injury can occur'. It's clear that interacting with either with raise Lt. Jaggo's eyebrows, and using both will certainly remove any illusions she is under.

Vhe looks relieved and actually smiles genuinely at the other woman. "Thank you so much, I thought it might be something like that. I will just poke around at the back of the room and head out so they think I was doing something." She glances about the room, a sort of passing interest but each button is noted in turn as she smiles at Jaggo and turns about, staying at the back of the room far enough away from the console to keep suspicion down as the hand beneath her cloak shifts, fingers pointed at the buttons as she does a subtle flick and roll of her wrist as she extends the Force outwards to manipulate them.

They depress but possibly not noticeably so until its too late. "Much nicer in here than outside...thank you for helping me. I am going to leave, just walk slow so that they think they got me."

She turns then, starting for the door a short distance away.

It's just another day at the office for Lt. Jaggo, even with this bumbling local woman in here. "Be silent. This work is important," she replies, quite a conversationalist, and rolls her eyes at Vhe's parting comment. "Of course it is. This planet is almost as intolerable as that dirtball Jakku." Then the dial begins to twist, and for a moment, nothing seems untoward. Flat green brackets display a uniformly blue gauge rapidly filling on the screen, however, and when the blue reaches the edge of the brackets and keeps on going, it turns red, and an alarm indicator starts to flash. "What now?" Lt. Jakku sighs exasperatedly, moving over to the console. "Did you do this?!" she yells at the departing Vhe. "I told you not to touch anything!" Did she?

The officer begins twisting the dial the other way, but it doesn't seem to be helping matters. "I should have you detained!" Looking around for the commlink, she turns back to the dial, twisting it furiously, but the gauges continue to rise. "Blast it." Hustling across the room, Jaggo grabs up the commlink. "Clear the transport bay! Fueling malfunction!"

As the alarm sounds and Vhe stands near the door, looking ready to depeart its the look she gives the woman. "I was no where near it," she points out, truth ringing clear her in voice as she eyes that button, the need and want is there but there are brainwashed killers standing perfectly ready to depress the button. She reaches out a moment, her hand drawing free of the robes as she fights her need to find some sort of vengeance.

Images of the burning wreck of her family's freighter on Tattooine, the knowledge that most had likely burned alive is a key component in the first falter in her moral compass.

The first of many to come most likely.

Its a test in that very moment and she turns as the poor Lieutenant deals with the fall out, the door hissing open and emitting Vhe out into the corridor as the door closes behind her. She catches her breath and there is the very clear struggle to continue walking as she nearly turns about face to go deal with that button that is the very tipping point of choice.

But time. Time is at play here and she needs to get the others. She turns back around and begins the gradual descent towards the cross-corridors.

When Vhe steps back out in to the corridor and takes a moment to come back down from her experience, she'll hear a bit of clattering noise...

When she opens her eyes she's face to face with a First Order Stormtrooper...

The trooper, holding a blaster, stops and stares at the woman, then quickly moves to reach up and pull their helmet off.

With her hair slightly askewed and messy, Rey looks to Vhe. "Are you all right?" She asks. "Come on, lets go..." Turning, Rey starts to go back in the direction they'd come from originally. "Ben is waiting for us."

The armor looks way too big for her body too!

The obvious distress remains and even increases at coming face to face with a trooper. Her hand lifts in the span of seconds which feel like a lifetime to the student. Vhe looks like she's ready to strike the poor unfortunate soul when the helmet pops off and helmet hair Rey is staring at her. The Ysanna fish gulps and keeps her hand up, shock still very evident as her eyes widen further. "Rey...I...how?" Because that armor looks like hell to get in and out of. Was she gone that long? Her heart still hammering in her chest is not ready to slow as the urgency from Rey is clear.

A nod given she glances back at the sound of the Lieutenant inside dealing with the mess becomes a distant second to the fist boom. "Yes, we need to go. I sabotaged the fueling lines for the vehicles used to abduct the children. I think perhaps they have a deal with some of the locals and pay them...for the children is unclear but yes..." she is a bit jittery still and makes to hoof it for the lift.

The panicked voice of Lt. Jaggo follows Vhe's retreat, sounding over the PA system built into the hallways. "Fueling malfunction, clear the vehicle bay. Clear the vehicle bay!" As Rey and Vhe reunite in the corridor, the sound of a distant BOOM rumbles through the floor as the first transport experiences a critical failure. There isn't time to sort through the jumble of emotions on Vhe's face at whatever she just experienced and the obvious shock of running into a stormtrooper and then finding out it's just Rey; people will be coming to investigate, quickly, and they will not be as ready to accept some prank call tall tale.

On the way to rejoining Ben, Rey keeps her blaster in front of her, though she still has her sandy-hued satchel slung over the armor and hanging on her left hip. "That's a good question." She initially replies says to Vhe, looking over to her as they move quickly. "For another time." She says, showing the hints of a grin.

Rey's eyes look back over their shoulders as they run, the sounds of the alarms and the 'boom' only encouraging her as they make to the lift and rejoin Mr Solo.

Once inside the lift, she glances around at their surroundings, then just tosses the blaster into the corner of the room along with the helmet and starts to peal the plastoid armor plates from the bodysuit that is yet too baggy for her form.

"Well, this seems to have gone swimmingly!" She states on their back back!

When the pair make it back to the elevator, Ben is already there, looking anxious and waving them into the lift as quickly as possible. As they cross the threshold, another, fainter blast flickers the lighting, doors sliding shut just as a band of troopers round the corner into the straight stretch in front of them. "Here's hoping there's no emergency stop on this thing."

There isn't, and before long, the trio run back across the mesa plateau to the Falcon's landing ramp, where D-O is waiting. He rolls down onto the mesa as they board, turning in a circle, pointed head swiveling down an inch from the rock surface to inspect it more closely. "....n-no thank you," he announces, head shooting back upright, and rolls back up the ramp as it begins to close.