Log:New Republic: Tyrena - Setting the Stage

Tyrena - Setting the Stage

OOC Date: August 4, 2021
Location: Corellia
Participants: Ambrosia Greystorm(GM/NPC Capt Vaor), Rose Tico, Jax Greystorm, Nerys Greystorm

Four hours have passed since the 'Flaming Dew Drop' was made literal and caught a small fire on its aft deck in harbor on the Auric's Eastern bank. Since then, the disembarked 'crew' and swim-ashore insertion team have reunited with one another in Dugari's Cantina, rendezvous'd with a couple of agents of local talent, enjoyed a wardrobe change, lukewarm meal, and went their separate ways into the city toward port rather than converge on their target en masse.

Two hours have passed since Captain Vaor (the Republic's plant to captain that Flaming Dew Drop) was released from Dockmaster Logos' office, having finally satisfied her insatiable desire for paperwork and redundant questioning sessions. It took an extra bit of charm (sleeze) to accelerate the end of that session, elsewise he might still be under harbor authority's microscopic lens. Insurance fraud's a thing, but it ain?t his thing! Honest!

One-point-eight hours have passed since Captain Vaor slumped into a seat alongside Nerys Greystorm, just in time to miss out on that lukewarm food but suffer a recap of the discussion and get tossed his own change of garb (another jumpsuit, yay!) and melt with the others into Tyrena?s beauty.

Which brings us to now. The parties are filtering into Tyrena's starport, fitted with hidden coms on collars, in ears, and accumulating into their predetermined areas of assignment. Team A is tasked with managing as low key an infiltration of the comm tower as they possibly can to, firstly, commandeer the security hub long enough to buy everyone else time and, secondly, ascend to the comm station and work a little magic there, too. Team B is tasked with blending and bluffing as much as possible to access the port's perimeter defense system, i.e. tamper with the auto-turrets that are high on wall. It's a very decorative wall, conveniently outfitted with multiple, wide gateways to ease service crew access. It?s through those gates that the Army will be funneling, so disabling some of the nasty artillery now will save them much hurt later.

<<Aurek - anyone spot our key, yet?">> Said 'key' being a friendly, low-level dock services worker who has done them the solid of copying a tower lift access card and is hiding in plain sight to pass it off to them. A Rodian - orange skin, green spikes. <<"Zzzzeebo...">> Capt Vaor quits fingering his jumpsuit collar and grunts to the MSE-6 droid he's escorting around. Or maybe it's the other way around. "Not that way. THIS way."

Nerys, who had partaken of the free food, because why? You never turned down a chance at a free meal or a few hours of sleep, that's why, had handled the change of clothes, and the arrangement of her good self as best she could to manage all of the tools and such she would need, now that she had had to give up her armr. But that was alright. Nerys always came prepared and she had spares of everything tucked away here and there.

Meandering footsteps took her through the streets and walkways, head mostly down, as one would if they were just trying to get from home to the job, but she did keep a surreptitious eye out. <"I think I've spotted our fellow."> That was offered into the comms, as she tipped her head slightly to that side, eyes settling on a cart. Did she want a snack or no? Mystery meat. Best meat.

Commander Rose Tico is slated for Team B, and while she warned the team she was no 'talker', Rose did have a definitive enough presence to convey a certain bossy attitude if one was easily intimidated. Dressed in a jumpsuit, carrying her tools, and armed with a handcannon that could double as a bludgeoning tool, Rose felt about as ready as one could be.

Rose took a deep breath and pressed forward, 'eyes on the prize' as one says.

Jax had ate a bit of the mystery meat and the caf himself. He oddly finds them sharing the same color and greasy texture except the Caf had moore liquid. At Nerys' sighting, Jax looks up in that direction. << Confirming, Jetpack id.>> He says into his own collar and the com. Then he turns his head back down and meanders with the rest of workers.

<<"Good. Get it and get goin'. Take some eyes off Besh's back.">> Vaor mumbles seemingly to himself while crossing behind Jax and issuing the MSE droid a final command to follow 'little Grey'. A previously programmed code, obviously, for the humble custodial droid pivots and starts shadowing Jax instead. Just a pawn in the bluff game.

Vaor saunters along at a distance from Commander Tico. He figures it's at least ten times her armspan, meaning he'll have a decent headstart, should that shockprod she's known to carry ever accidentally tip in his direction. The tool belt hanging heavily off his hips clunkity-clacks - perfect percussive accompaniment to his idle whistling of some bawdy tune.

As for that 'fellow' who has entered into Aurek's crosshairs, he's just polishing off a skewer of some mystery meats himself! Albeit a decent 10 meter stone's toss from the comm tower base. Leaning on waste receptacle. His narrow snout puckers, slurping back the last of it before tossing the stick haphazardly at the receptable's slot. It bounces off the rim.

Nerys was a fastidious sort, yes she was, and as her footsteps carried her towards the trash receptacle, she pulled a pristine handkerchief from a pocket, snapping it like some dilettante about to sit herself at a table. Look. We all have neurosis, okay? Nerys bent down, retrieving the skewer in one fell swoop, holding it between her fingers, covered by the napkin, and held it out towards the Rodian. "Haste makes waste. Sticky fingers make the aim much better." Look, she didn't make this **** up, okay?

Rose walked with the confidence of someone who was supposed to be here, and she locked her gaze with the turret ahead. Spotting the lock, she speaks low into the local comm to lament its presence, <"That's going to be a problem."> Still, closing in, Rose began to transition to something that was high alert. She glances about for surveillance, and areas where soldiers could emerge from. Not that it helped in the strategic position of the turret or anything, but it delivered a sense of comfort just knowing where death could come from; the things soldiers found comforting, amirite?

At the utterance of the command 'Little Grey.' Jax raises an eyebrow but says nothing. Then he proceeds to tail Nerys with his shadow. As Nerys makes contact with the Rodian. Jax finds him just in earshot of the conversation as he goes about cleaning up some other maintenace employees mess gathering it up and moving it towards the trash receptable. The trash deposited. It wasn't time to make a scene quite yet.

"You'd think so," Zeebo squeaky quips back at Nerys, utilizing his suction-cupped fingers to take that skewer and ---

Oops

There's a hiccup to the transfer of skewer for card and in pulling the skewer out to toss it, he's also yanked the card! The moment of exposure is brief, receptacle slot less than a meter from his fumble. At least its arc of trajectory seems to be on point, this time.

<<"Not for long, though, right? I'd say between us, there's a fine bag of tricks...">> Captain Vaor winks - or maybe there's something in his eye, he's rubbing it. <<"So what'll it be, Commander, your tool or mine?">> Pausing to fix a loosened lace in his boot, he cranes his neck around. <<"We've got an audience, t'spice things up a bit.">> Not that he sounds pleased by the notion. <<"Be sure t'wave at the camera.">> And, just for good measure, he straightens his own badge of lies on breast pocket.

Nerys, who stepped away from the Rodian, snapped her napkin back, folding it nearly as she stepped out of his way, leaving room for droids and others to pass by to use the receptacle themselves. She wasn't tossing away a perfectly good, if not impossibly soiled hankie, no she was not. If it happened to allow the mouse droid and the man in spacer's togs to step into the gap, well, thatw as just divine intervention, am I right?

When Rose managed to get closer, she recognized the lock type and pulled out a tool from her belt that allowed her to not only disable it, but make it appear like she had opened it legitimately, as opposed to shattering that thing across the ground or sparking up a torch to sheer it. Rose opened the cage for the ladder and glanced down at her chrono to start the time.

The Captain's suggestion she wave at the camera prompts her to do just that: She waves at the lens and begins to climb up the ladder to the camera and turret. She considered disabling the camera at first, but each time she looked for the power source, she ended up finding a nesting spider that creepy crawled out, making her flinch and flail her hands. "Yuck!"

After carefully batting the arachnids away, she angles her gaze up at the turret and ponders what tool she might need to disable this bad-boy.

<"I think I have all the right tools for this.. but I'll let you know.."> Rose says softly, squinting now at the turret for a panel to open and cause some real damage.

The trash is dumped in the garbage can and then there's a situation. Sticky fingers and flying passcards, Jax lets out a sigh as quickly snatches the card from the midair and pockets it. He looks at Nerys and the Rodian. Then straightens up and the looks at the MSE droid. "I think we've spent enough time cleaning this sector. Probably best to move onto our next destination. Wouldn't want to anger the overseer. There's a schedule to keep." He makes a few steps away before he says into his com unit. <<Transfer complete.>>

Capt Vaor straightens out from fixing his boot and jogs a few paces to that ladder. Gets busy acting like he's checking the torque on those very bolted bolts mounting the thing to the wall. Which might actually not be a great idea while she's up - change of plan! He yanks a small cannister of aerosolized lubricant from his belt and gives the hatch's joints a little TLC, instead. <<"I give it 2 minutes tops before whoever's at the other end of that security feed checks in on our progress and /really/ looks at the getup, so here's hoping the disguises hold. Or that Aurek--">> And 'they' did! Complete the transfer, that is. <<"Happy hunting, Aurek. Security suite's on level 3. Try to uh..keep the damage minimal?">> Some people frown on killing civilians, afterall.

"Pretty standard life control interface inside. Good luck," Zeebo offers, before turning away. And Team 'A' is left with the key card to get onto the lift. Accessing level 3 - security - is going to require a bit of sweet talking some circuits though, because as they'll find, Zeebo's card does NOT grant him access to restricted levels.

Nerys, going about her merry way, was soon off to see more of the world. And what a wonderful world this city was, wasn't it? So many things to see, so many palces to go. Oh, look, a lift! She'd just sneak in there, once the card which she did not have, was used to access the lift by the one who did. As Nerys was not alone, she chose to make small talk, "Bitty said to tell you 'don't make her look bad'," was murmured to her company. Smol droid had been left behind with big backpack. As for Nerys, who had much more faith in her companion than smol droid, turned to watch the door, just in case someone decided to call it before they got to where they were intending to go.

"Should be done before that. We can move to the next one.." Rose says after plopping the panel open and pulling out the initial circuitry to put in a nice boomy present for later. It sticks inside, and Rose reaches in to activate it before putting the circuitry back in and closing the panel back up. Her heavy boots thunk against the rungs of the ladder as she comes back down, then she closes the cage and puts a NEW lock on the that's different from the old. Evil face. Rose picks up her gear, deposits the old lock in a pouch on her belt and looks to the Captain. "Next?"

As the lift refuses to take them to level three there's a slight huff from Jax. "She's being cheep again and need to bribe a better class of First Order scum." 'She' meaning 'Big Grey.' Jax kneels down to the cuff of his jump suit and pulls out a couple of think pieces of metal. He then enters in a few buttons as he wedges in the metal slivers into a couple of openings. There's a bit of a spark and the lift continues again to level 3.

Somewhere half a galaxy away, Jax's little sister Aora is working on a computer mainframe and stops. Tilts her head to the side. "Who's a nerd now, Jax?"

"Tell her, I'll try but I'm no Belate and no Itty for sure." Jax says as he stands back. The Captain in his ear and he responds, <Three is no problem. We're on our way. Damage minimal? Say my name Captain." He lets Capt Vaor realize that he just sent two Greystorms to keep the damage minimal.

Vaor twirls his spray lubricant around once in palm before jamming it back into belt. You can take the Corellian off Corellia but you can't take the Corellian out of the Corellian. Also, this Corellian is, in fact, on Corellia, so...there's no hope for reducing Vaor's sense of swagger. "'Next' might be my favorite word of the day..." and then a mutter into his collarbone. <<"Besh has pegged one, three to go. Be great if you'd---">>

But before he can finish that urging-on, vocoded words of dread hail them from about about 20 meters off. <<"You there!">> A pair of stormtroopers has hopped off a cart (which them promptly zip-zooms away) and serendipitously timed the start of their rounds with what /appears/ to be a maintenance call? <<"Show me your work order.">>

Vaor's steps slooooow, head twisting around to squint at the inbound bucketheads. His right hand lowers to waist, even more slowly, to pull free the datapad nesting there.

Likewise, there are two rather surprised port security personnel turning away from their stations when the light over the lift doors flashes to indicate arrival. It wasn't time for shift change....was it? On one of those screens, a pair of white-clad troopers close the gap to a couple of maintenance lackeys.

Nerys was just here to do the things Jax would not allow himself to do. Quite literally, in many, many cases. And so, when they were approached by security, she had, well, nothing. Okay, so she had a dagger, and a baton, and maybe a blaster, no sword. That was sad. Oh! Nevermind, credentials. It wasn't time for the killing yet. "Boss's got the maintenance order." She stepped to the side. She was, clearly, not the boss.

When the stormtroopers arrive, Cap'n Vaor starts to talk but Rose cuts him off with a succinct, "Shut up. -- You got the damned work order, yeah? Do you mind getting the rekk out of our way so we can get this stuff done? I have a family to get back to, kids to feed, and the longer I'm wasting time doing these pointless rekking preventative maintenance checks, the closer I get to insanity. I mean, how many rekking times can you check the torque in a nut?" Rose looks displeased, but she carries the presence of someone who hates their job and doesn't want to be there as much as the troopers do. She sighs harshly and juts her hip impatiently.

Jax steps out out of the lift with the little MSE following him making doot and whistle sounds. "What's this? Maintenance was supposed to raido ahead. Down at the physical plant they were detecting an unusual amount of energy burden in sector g. They dispached us to go in and run a diagnositic before we loose the whole power grid. Then have to do a hard restart. Have you seen any monitors or lights flickering?"

A poorly stifled 'heh' coughs into Vaor's fist and he does offer up the datapad. Raised, blonde brows fire off a silent 'see' to each of the armored grunts currently jamming up their progress. The troopers look from Rose to Vaor, back to Rose, and one of them swipes the datapad out of Voar's grip to take a looksee. "That's not..." they share a glance with their compatriot, shake hand, and point WITH the datapad to the turret mount further down the line. "THAT is emplacement accesspoint '2'. You're torquing the wrong nuts."

Another small sputter-sniffle from Vaor whose got hands in his pockets and a pensive squint along the line to number 2. "Right. Our uh...our mistake."

<<"Civvie contractors...">> it's this vocoded tone of derision that sees the datapad getting passed back to Vaor. <<"Go on, then.">>

"What maint--oh. What? No, nothing like that." But like he's suddenly unsure, the man pivots around in chair again to check and his partner follows suit along the adjacent row of terminals.

Well, there you are. Everybody needs maintenance. As she allowed the Boss...Wait, if he was Little Grey, did that make her Littler Grey, Littlest Grey? Something to ponder for another time. As soon as the stormtrooper closest to her turned away to check the consoles, Nerys, clearly deferring to Jax's delicate sensibilities, pulled a rod from her bag o' tools and charged at him, whacking him about the head and shoulders. She was only one woman, though, hopefully, Jax could manage the other one, or at least get to the computers to do the work while she held the guards off. She could take 'em!

"Whatever," Rose replies back in much the same, dismissive tone, and makes her way to emplacement two. She makes short work of the locking mechanism, then climbs up the ladder to place the second explosive without much of a thought. It's set similarly to the other emplacement. When Rose closes this one up, she replaces the lock with a new one and deposits the old into a side pouch. "Your favorite word," She says aside to the Captain:, "Next."

As 'Smol Grey' goes all Beserker on the First Secuirty guard, Jax produces a stunsaber. It looks like a jedi's weapon but doesn't do near the amount of damage. A silver beam extends from the end and with a couple of quick jabs at the secuirty officer. The other guard crumple. He pressed the button to turn off his saber. "Well we better hurry. Also remind me not to make you angry when you have that baton with you."

Captain Vaor finishes spraying the entry hatch hinges and toodling around with feigned work ethic. Thank goodness Rose is efficient at her job! "Next one's bit of a hike," he cautions before setting off. Across the port. Hoversleds and cargo haulers, passengers and pilots, and vendors weave a dangerous web of crissocrossed activity that they must first navigate through!

"I always have the baton on me," Nerys shot back, casually kicking the bodies out of their way. They had armor on, it would buff out. "But, you have a permanent pass." Okay, so, bodies dealt with, computer system left to work with, "Okay, what do you need me to do? Pull a few cables, disconnect a few wires? You're the slicer. I'm just here to break things." Or disable them, whatever worked. Nerys moved to one of the consoles, ready to follow Jax's lead at the other. This was one Greystorm who had absolutely no problems with following the leader.

When they finally make it to the third emplacement, Rose makes quick work of the lock and climbs up the ladder. The explosive she puts into the gun doesn't want to activate. That's a problem, and it requires a quick fix. So she pulls the thing back out, repairs the explosive receiver, but when she puts it back inside, it still doesn't want to activate. She's about to pull it back out but her chrono starts to beep.

That's all the time they had for this one, so she shuts the panel and looks to Vaor, annoyed. "Make note of that one.. I couldn't get the explosive to activate properly. Hopefully the last one isn't so bad.."

"You're the one with the superior brain to me? How did we end up with Nerys' Smash?" Jax says as he goes to alter the paths of the cameras to help out the good captain and Rose. The Corellian shakes his head. "And yes, I know that's why I try not to anger you."

"Skrag," Capt Vaor grunts under breath when Rose relays the news. "Y'know, same shavit 'bout happened on the float downriver? Little mishap with the wiring job, I'd thought, but maybe was just the tech." He pulls another handy-dandy something from belt after stowing the aero-lube spray, preparing to mix up his routine a little bit. <<"How's it goin in there, Aurek? You get to jammin their signals yet?">> A pause as a couple more stormtroopers go marching by but, fortunately, don't stop. <<"Or 'least turn us into ghosts with those cams?">>

"I blame it on your mother. Trust her to bake a human brain every bit as good as a verbobrain." Okay, so maybe Kort might have contributed...a little, but Nerys didn't know Kort, so, that august soul was relegated to a bit player in the space K-Drama that was the Greystorms. As Jax got to the business of the cameras, Nerys managed to manipulate her way into the computer systems. "I'm pulling as much data as I can. We might be able to use the intel for the next op." Or the one after that. Or the one after that. Knowledge was always useful. Nerys, pulling a datacard from a pocket, plugged it into the system as she began the download everything she could get. Port footage, shipping traffic data, communiques. Whatever she could grab. "What's the next step, upstairs?" The communications, that, she replied to, <"Cams are good, we're on our way up to the comms system. Be just a tick."> Nerys, pulling the datacard, kept her baton at the ready. "He sounds impatient. We'd better move."

When Rose and the Captain arrived at the final turret, it took the engineer a moment to spot the floaty zippy thing occupying the space near the turret. "Oh, you have to be kidding me.." Laments Rose, who shucks the lock off the cage and .. very.. quietly climbs the ladder to the turret.

The panel is opened, and explosive planted in the last one! She closes it, comes back down the ladder, closes the cage and locks it with a new lock. "Alright, we did what we needed to do, Captain. Lead us out of here.." Rose pulls the strap of her bag higher on her shoulder and picks up the pace to head out!

Nerys was, indeed, the muscle, as the two made their way back to the lift, and Jax magicked his way back into the system. As soon as Nerys saw the doors opening, she sprinted forward, heading for the closest guard/technician/hapless underpaid worker she could find. She had her whacking stick out, and she jumped like one of those horrible monkey lizards, the two of them going down as they fought to overcome the other. Nerys brought her baton down, but did not get the knockout blow fast enough, and the sound of a blaster, only slightly muffled by her body being at point blank range filled the air of the comm center. She did get a second whack in though, and the just sat there, "Get it done, Jax." She was fine, honest. Ignore the hole in her stomach. She didn't really need those organs. She had already began the process of shutting down as many of her pain receptors as she could. Enough to get her back to her feet ad adjusting her jacket to hide the damage, "let's get out of here."

Jax brigns the ezra stunsaber around striking one of the guards that had been giving Nerys problems. The Guard drops. Then Jax goes over to the com unit and starts to install the device they're suppose to get installed. He's working quickly and it won't be pretty. His work done, he goes over grabbing the Blaster used to shoot Nerys. Then he proceeds to discharge the blaster into several peices of equipment. He looks over at Nerys as she stands up. "Glad I don't got to carry you. I'm horrible at first aid and healing. It's not my skill set. I'm worse at repairing complex machines. Have you seen my repairs to a ship?" Then as he goes to get in the lift. <Captain. Mission accomplished. We're moving to the extraction point.> He tks the blaster to lay next to the guard that he stole that from. "Have fun explaining that."

<<"Aurek, Besh is as done as we're gonna get. You put the hurt on that signal array and get yourselves clear to the East Bank for extraction down river. Vaor out.">> And indeed, he is! He and Rose, of course.

The quiet killer that Jax had infected the communication station with goes right to work on some programming that'll make a mess of any transmissions coming in or going out till any techies can pinpoint the problem and figure the solution. In theory, it's bought enough time of radio silence to enable the Republic's armored units to arrive and enter their bid for control of Tyrena's spaceport.

In theory.