Log:The Irregulars: Droid Search Pt. 1

{{LogBox | LogTitle=The Irregulars: Droid Search, Pt.1 | Location=Naboo | Participants=Jax Greystorm, Sesti Greystorm, K-5Z9, Rial Het, Jinx, Nova Korell, Dyannah Nerus | OOCDate=February 21, 2020 A message had come through the Waywards channels and made it's way to Jax and Sesti. Exine had been found by the Brotherhood of the Kait het Keff. Or, more likely, the other scavengers had found Exine, and now are no longer. Sesti and Jax had called friends together and gathered on Naboo at the Winery of Ax and Kadi. As succintly as possible, Sesti and Jax laid out the story. From almost the time the two had met, the couple had had multiple run ins with the Brotherhood of the Kait het Keff. Kait het Keff meaning Claw of Judgement in Iridonian, and they are a group of pure Zabrak, with some lackeys of other cultures. They are adversaries of the Gath clan, Sesti's family clan, and they have suffered a few too many defeats at the hands of the Greystorms. Zabraks, as Sesti can attest, are very good at holding grudges. Especially against pitiful humans, or, monohearts. Sesti has earned their loathing by 'lowering' herself to mate with one. A few months back, on an outing with Dyannah and her Irregulars, they had run into some of the Brotherhood and their cohorts. Sesti had lifted a datacard from one of them, and spent some time trying to decode it. Now, they're looking for help trying to find where Exine might be hidden, and they have a hunch the answer is on the card.

Rial Het had arrived aboard Dyannah's ship, and the rogue offers a languid but cheerful greeting to the others as the band comes together. "A fair day to the lot of ye. Chance cut you all a break at last, has it?"

Jax wasn't ever exactly comfort in the poshiness of his friends Winery and the main sitting room but that never stopped him from trying to fake it till he made it, so he's looking at a datapad lean against the bar. He looks up at the others, "Yeah if they have Exine. Well they have a lot of old intel on the Res, the Waywards, the jedi, some on the Irregulars, and even some of my old porn collection from well... I wasn't always married and three quarters of a monk. It seemed like a good idea to give him that data pad so I could understand him. I should of known he was going to look in the other files on it. That and I don't believe in memory wipes. So it's probably best we get him back."

Out of those here, Kayfive only really knows Nova and Jinx very well. She leans against a wall during the briefing, supporting Jinx on her shoulder. She's not the best slicer, though. This seems more in Jinx's wheelhouse. "What level of opposition are we looking at? Numbers, weapons...?" She nods emphatically at not believing in memory wipes.

Xenophobia is not a subject dear to Dyannah's heart. She knows it too well and has lived with its consequences far too often. Zabrak's having a particular brand of arrogance, she had been suspicious of Sesti despite her 'mixed' marriage. But, she has been long won over by the woman's intelligence and zest for life.

"Well, this got complicated fast," Dyannah comments turning in her seat to face Rial as he enters the bridge. "We certainly will be carrying all we need in terms of decoding power. It's almost as if we are going to be facultative on this trip. Still, here we are."

Well, Nova's at loose ends, and this comes under the heading of 'helping friends'. She doesn't have many of these, so she's coming along.

She arrives at the meeting site in casual workwear, along with a matching tan field jacket reinforced at the shoulders and elbows. "Jax, Sesti, hello again. So, tell us about this card? And the droid? I don't think I've met it..."

She barely twitches aside as Jammer tries to pinch her sharply on the hip with his heavy grasper arm, hooting and blatting in annoyance. "No, I am /not/ saying all droids are alike! I've never said that about /you/, have I?"

Jinx is perched on Kayfive's shoulder, the little seeker droid's head swiveling from person to person as they talk, keeping her large central blue optic on the speaker. She's not entirely up on who's who here, but she ended up following Kayfive. Because she didn't feel like getting off when she headed up into the ship. 'Complicated.' the little droid chirps in Dyannah's voice, agreeing with her apparently. Her particular model didn't get the 'good' vocoder, so it's binary or playing back bits and pieces of other people speaking. Which is often Dyannah or certain female action heros on the holo.

Sesti's face actually goes slightly pink under her tattoos when Jax mentions the porn on Exine's memory, but she gives a quick little clearing deep in her throat. "Yes, so we do need to get him back before they manage to break into the droid's memory. R2-X9 is Jax's R2 Unit. It is unknown if he will talk to Jax again at this point. However..." she pushes forward the data card. "I have had no luck here, so I am hoping one of you folks can crack this and we can go to wherever he is before they come to where we are."

Rial Het gives Sesti an easy smile, and reaches his gloved hand to accept the card. "May I?" he asks out if politeness, before eyeing the datacard up close. "Nova, I'm gonna need a good hand with this. I'll get a data lead rigged up, can ye set up a security scrambler, luv?" A glance toward the trooper with the inquiry. "Haven't cut into Zabrak securities before, best be ready for a surprise or two, aye?" With a long exhale, he gets to work grimacing, "Even once we crack the front lines, looks like the goods are encrypted. Got anyone can work that out, have we?"

Jax shrugs to Sesti since all the cards are on the table. He mouths, 'Sorry.' Then nods, "I don't know if you have Nova. He was on the operation with you. But I haven't brought him around much. He plays with my nephew alot." Exine was the bratty little brother type.

"Jinx is very good at decryption and slicing." Kayfive pats the seeker on the dome, before nodding again to Saesti. "I am good at dealing with surprises, as long as they respond to superior firepower. Or intimidation. or both." Needless to say, the droid's weapon of choice was back on the ship. Probably would have made the locals nervous.

Comfortably ensconced in a chair facing a window overlooking the beautiful estate grounds, Dyannah keeps up with the results on her datapad. One languid pink hand reaches for the wineglass that beads with moisture on a nearby table. A pleased smile lifts a corner of her mouth as she reads the efforts of their crack team.

"This does look promising nevertheless, love," she says, addressing Rial.

Nova can't help but smile faintly at Sesti's sudden blush, and pats the Zabrak's shoulder reassuringly... and wordlessly. Better to say nothing more. But she can't remain wordless on the mission objective, and shakes her head apologetically to Jax. "Sorry... I don't think I have. I could've just missed seeing him, I guess."

She gives Rial a quick nod as they get down to business. "One security scrambler coming up," she replies, and gets to work with her portable. She has the program ready in moments, carefully accounting for the aggressive nature of Zabraks in most things, including slicing. "Bet they're big on counterslicing and datapath traps. But I've got our system isolated. You should have a clear field, Rial, Jinx."

It's absorbing work, and her attention remains on it. Which gives Jammer a clear field to slip up behind his mistress...

Nova barely feels the start of a pinch, and hastily pulls away! She avoids more than a slight pain, but the grasper pinches the top of her hip pocket, tearing her pants open loudly in back. She gasps and claps a hand over the new air-conditioning, and the pink material showing through it. "What is it with you tonight, Jammer? You'd think I'd decided to stay home because we're rescuing a droid, or something!" she fumes at the R2 unit.

Jammer blats derisively. Move faster! His brother mechanical could be in the process of disassembly as they speak!

"beep *cackle*. boop beep beep click too beep boop beep." the little droid chirps, preening a bit at the pat. As the car comes out the seeker pushes off, a slightly off balance hum coming from her chassis as her repulsor kicks in, floating over to land where Rial is working, then plugs into the system, her optic slitting a bit as she watches what he's doing, occasionally tossing code his way. Then pauses as her optic widens, burbling as she halts the scroll of code, backing it up, then several elements highlight. Knife types used as program names or codewords. References to slicing data and an engineering schematic.

A second window opens as a list of the three Zabrak factions - Fahde, Vysht, and Hakkle - from the area in question skim past, slowly to stop on one name which is linked via a line to the previously highlighted words.

Hakkle. Deriving from the same word as knife, or slice, and a noted engineering clan.

A little box opens and prints out in Basic 'Based on use of knife colloquialisms and puns throughout decrypted files on this datacard, 82 percent chance this information relates to Hakkle Clan. Because organics pick keywords with personal or group meaning.' There's a pause. 'Or just dumb ones that are easy to guess if you know them.'

Sesti shrugs to Jax as she waits patiently... or maybe not so patiently as she taps her finger tips on the table, her drink untouched. She had surrendered the card easily to Rial with a slight nod of agreement. "Senin has been missing Exine, which is why we came here rather than asking you to the house. We did not want to get his hopes up if we cannot find the information we need."

The tapping of the fingers pauses halfway down as Jinx slows and stops at a line, then prints out the paper. She reaches forward to take with a polite, if quiet, 'thank you' and then reads. She nods, and hands it over to Jax, indicating he should hand it on to Dyannah after he reads it. "Did you find the coordinates to this clan?" she asks the three. "Perhaps we should follow you on the Compass Rose with the Warrior?"

"Aye, Nova has the coordinates for that lot," Rial answers Sesti, with a glance to the named trooper. Turning his eye with a wicked smile to Dyannah and the others, he asks rhetorically, "Shall we to the ships, and pay the lads a visit, aye?"

"Sounds like a plan." Jax says in response to Sesti and Rial. "You feed us the coordinates. They know my shi. So you guys will have a definate advantage on them with the surprise." He rubs the back of his neck, "I hope Exine is alright."

Kayfive gently baps Jammer on the back on the dome, letting out her own burst of Binary. <Distracting Nova could cause her to make a critical mistake, or neglect something. Which slows DOWN finding your friend. If you can help slice, slice. If you can't, like me, we wait until we ARE useful.> "Nova, saw a roll of lightspeed tape if you want to patch your pants with that. Ever helpful, she is. When it comes to ships, the tall droid goes with Dyannah's. Much more room for her.

Dyannah has traded her seat overlooking rural bliss for the captain's chair of the Compass Rose. Final checks have occupied her for the past hour. Flipping a switch, she answers Naboo Space Control, "This is the freighter Compass Rose acknowledging that we are green to leave." On internal coms, she announces their imminent departure.

The crew has continued to work on decoding as they leave orbit and reach the coordinates to go into hyperspace. Leaving her station, she walks over to Rial, laying a hand on the back of his seat to peer at his monitor.

Nova winces as Jammer takes K5's advice... but doesn't let go as he backs away, making the tear worse. She grimaces and nods her thanks to the tall droid. "I think I'll need that... 'til we get where we're going, anyway. Thanks, K5."

She offers the portable to Sesti for a download. "Coordinates are in the desktop file. Should put us right where we need to be. Meet you there, and good luck."

And into space they go. As they reach the point of the jump, the blonde looks up from slap-repairing her pants with the tape, and sets them aside, moving to join Rial and Dyannah at the navigator's station. "Let's hope these Zabrak are the stupid kind, and didn't leave a blind trail for anyone coming after them. If they did, it wouldn't just be me with my pants down..." Her hands protectively clap over the back of her athletic briefs, and she smiles nervously at the two. "Fingers crossed, everyone?" Both forefingers and middle fingers overlap.

Sesti sits in her usual co-pilot's seat, monitoring the comms and scanner, making sure they are in communication with the Rose. She looks over to Jax as he brings the Warrior around close to the Compass Rose and gives him a nod. "We will bring him back."

Jinx chirps again at the thank you, then unplugs, floating back to latch on Kayfive as they board after Dyanna, though once there she unhooks and scurries over to an open computer jack, plugging in so she can observe through the ship's sensors.

"Hoping they're the ones wit' their pants down, luv. Metaphorically, that is," Rial notes with a rueful wince to Nova. As Dy eyes his terminal aboard the ship, Rial is preparing ship's sensors for a proximity scan. "Ah- don't think we're alone anymore," he ventures to Dyannah.

Jax's in the process of having the Warrior's navicomputer talk to the Compass Rose's navicomputer, when he looks at his scopes, "Three other Helix Interceptors?" He says looking at the scopes, "Somebody's looking to like their prepare for Rancors." Then he opens up the channel, <I got a bad feeling about a Trio of Helix Interceptors jumping in the system. None of them are the Rainmaker. I'm moving in to intercept before we jump and scanning."

On the ship Kayfive had been multitasking, scomp link on her right arm jacked into a port to remote access the comm systems, while she field stripped and maintained her T-21 with her left hand. "...Yeah, I'm not picking anything up on comms. I'm not the best at this anyway, so take that as you will. ...Do you want me to try to crew a turret, or prepare for boarding action?"

"No pants down till we have finished this operation," Dyannah quips, laughing. No sooner seated back at her station, the Zeltron sits forward as a proximity alarm blares. "We have something that...no, make that three somethings that have dropped into the vicinity. Their wavefront is reaching us now."

A frown pleats her delicate blue eyebrows as she gestures commands on the boards. Opening communications to the Painted Warrior, <"We have Helix Interceptors that have just dropped in uncomfortably close, Painted Warrior. Transponders reading as following: Am'Janor, Am'Keynal, Am'Ayure. That's Zabrak if I remember rightly? Know them?">

"Well, kinda late in my case: I've already made a brief appearance," the blonde quips to Dyannah, giving her hips a quick shimmy. "At least I'll have some time in hyperspace to change into my armor."

And that's when the news hits. "Helix interceptors? /Here/?" Nova wonders aloud, frowning and moving over to the main communications board. She hastily pulls on the headset and enters a few commands, scanning bands. Finding something of interest, she cuts in on the band the newcomer ships are using. And her green eyes widen.

She gets on the horn. </Warrior/, this is /Rose/. Those three interceptors are calling for landing clearance at Kadaara. And they're Zabrak ships, as Dyannah just said. There's something funny about heavily-armed ships in this system, of all places...>

Jinx chirps and humms to herself as she keeps an eye on the three ships, starting to use the passive scanners to look for signs of other ships in the area where the three are landing, such as snubfighters or larger ships on the ground. Just in case.

Sesti tenses as Jax swings around, then frowns as Dyannah reads the names. "Holy my ass," she grits her teeth to Jax, and then replies to Dyannah. <<Yes, Holy Knowledge, Holy Speaker and Holy Honor>> the tone of her voice drips with sarcasm, <<Someone is feeling righteous>> Then she sits bolt upright at Nova's communication, straining the straps of her seat. "Jax, Senin... it has to be the Brotherhood, who else thinks they are so holy?" she looks over to him. "We need to go back. We have to get home before they get there. Can we land in that field by the lake?"

Jax squints, "Is that what that means?" Jax says as he rolls the Warrior, "And I've been telling you that about your ass for years." He says changing vectors from prusit to going back to the planet. <Compass Rose, no need to open fire on speculations. Follow me we're going to do a quick landing and scare the hell out of my neighbors. I'll pay any fines for parking on the beach.> Then he reaches out to find the force as he goes zipping over the Ocean and along the shore and over the town of Kaadara and right past the spaceport. There would be fines to pay. Then along a series of nice hosues and a field with a small lake. He turns on his repulsor engines and settles in for a smooth landing.

<<"Deploying for scouting.">> When the ship's close enough to the ground, Kayfive drops to the ground and lopes off in the direction of the target. Just another security droid on patrol. A group of matching uniformed zabraki part around her, all visibly armed. Yay for not needing to use her vocabulator to transmit on comms. <<Visual on target, soft contact. Cover is not blown. Ready to engage on your command. Lethal or non lethal?>>

The Compass Rose is already reorienting to re-enter the atmosphere. "So much for getting clearance to land," Dyannah comments sardonically over internal coms. The Compass Rose is a box with repulsors and is illegally fast. Flipping switches, she pushes engines till they almost redline as they follow the Painted Warrior down to the planet. <We are on it, Warrior. Beach party it is!>

Green swathes of forest resolve into a blue lake, a distant house and a broad strip of beach to land on. Easing her onto the beach, Dyannah cuts engines and begins power down. The pings and pops of metal contracting and the distant whine of the outside ramp going down announce their arrival.

Armor drills might be boring, but they do make you good at working with difficult fastenings under pressure. Nova abandons her post at the communications console and dashes aft to get properly ready for what's looking to be a fight.

Maneuvers, reentry, and some speed turbulence later, she emerges from aft with her urban-camo armor in place and her carbine in hand. -Let's just hope we're in time. The Helix is no slouch in the speed department,- she says, heading for the boarding hatch. She ducks down the hatch, taking a knee outside and scanning the surrounding terrain with her helmet's electronic viewfinder in telescopic mode. -Nothing... they have to be here someplace. Anybody else see them?-

While Kayfive and others go for the more obvious route when the ship grounds..a small shadow slips out the side of the landing ramp, disappearing under it, then following the underside of the ship as Jinx orients herself, her optics flicking around alertly. Well, obviously the droid won't be HERE right? There's a spaceport over there though! And it looks like everyone is going to be distracting people nicely for her to look around...

As soon as they land, Sesti is on their personal comms, trying to reach Zaya at their home to warn her cousin to lock the home and protect Senin. She's pulling on her helmet as they disembark and looks to people. She nods to herself as she hears from Kayfive. <<You can try non-lethal, but they will kill themselves rather than be hostage>> she replies. She draws her vibroblade and goes to stand at her gate, waiting as the first line of defense, letting the others with ranged blasters take up places behind her. As the six zabraks come around the corner and see Sesti standing there with her blade, they smile and draw their own vibroblades as they advance. "Shu fej sharee et hiso?" she calls out. The leader bears his teeth and growls. "Shuree jen. Hiso et juree," he beckons with his other hand, pausing to set himself in challenge as the others continue around past him.

"Should've brought me swim suit," Rial sniffs to Dyannah's mention of the impending action as a beach party. Nova's re-emergence in armor and her commentary draw a short nod. "Let's hope." Lightly armed and armored as he is, the rogue will take his lead from the more experienced and capable fighters. "Just say when, aye?" He need not wait long as the threats and shooting follow swiftly. While not much of a soldier, Rial is very adept at getting in the first shot, and practiced at hoping that's enough: he blasts one of the Zabrak twice, doing terrible damage.

Jax clears the ramp of the warrior moments after his wife, she's already engaged. He shakes his head as the Zabrak says something less than pleasant to his wife. He's moving to engage Dummerak, the Zabrak clinking his tongue at Jax, "Monoheart, you going to use that blaster of yours in honorable battle?" He says moving to slash at Jax. Jax's hand goes for his saber and the blue blade ignites and comes around slicing through the Zabraks's vibroblade and then him. "No, I upgraded."

Aaaand now they're going to attack Sesti. Kayfive spins, bringing up the heavy T-21, and opening up. The blaster roars, and one of the hostiles is practically shredded. "Hey! Pick on someone your own size, Schuttas!" Battle cry sounding, the droid charges into battle.

Dyannah had started shucking her space suit before the ramp door had finished opening. She strips down to the tight undersuit right on the bridge, unlocking and throwing open the door to the locker, which clangs open. Grabbing her blaster, she is stamping her feet into her boots as she runs for the ramp, straps jangling.

"Goddess, Rial, the child!" she says breathlessly, as she runs past him. "These Zabrak make the rest of us look sane." Running down the beach towards the front gates, she aims at a particularly nasty one on the edge of the group, knocking him backward with three blaster bolts.

Rial: ...um. Yeah. *blam blam*. "Zabrak are really weird."

And it's a race to the beach! Pity there won't be any music and decent booze involved... Dropping into cover behind a large stone, Nova takes aim... and watches fire lace the group of armored Zabrak thugs, taking down most of them. -I'm starting to think the party started without me,- she murmurs, firing at the last one standing and taking him down. Not that he looked too good, shot to doll rags by Dyannah and her pistol.

She rises and moves to back up Dyannah and Rial, noting K5's position as well. -Is that all of them? It wasn't many for a home invasion party.-

While the sounds of blaster fire and quickly cut off death screams echo from the landing point, Jinx has made it over to one of the maintenance hangars and slipped inside to plug into the local network, scanning through it as she humms faintly to herself. "beep too beep click boop...." the droid burbles to herself, as she brings up the list of docking spaces, identifying several that belong to the clan they're looking for.

That done, the stealthy droids slips up, then aboard one of the currently unguarded ships, sliding up into one of the air vents and starting to roam around, searching for anything interesting that might be the droid they're searching for.

Ignoring the blaster fire around them, Sesti advances on the leader who invites her. They exchange a few blows, but it doesn't take long for Sesti to send his saber spinning along with the arm that held it and then finish the man. There's a ferocity in her movements as she spins to look for the next target, and sees them all laying around her. She looks up, and then removes her helmet, clipping it back to her belt.

The blast from K-5 had caused a momentary confusion when the Brothers realized they had an enemy behind. The confusion was only temporary, because the friends of the Greystorms that they hadn't been expecting cut them down before they were even able to reach the yard. Sesti looks over to Jax, "will we have to pay a cleaning fine for the street, too?" she asks.

The door of the house opens, and a young zabrak woman with some facial markings similar to Sesti's looks out. Seeing the carnage in the street, she opens a little wider and steps out on the porch.

Jax turns off his lightsaber. "Well we just killed a bunch of people in the streets. Uhm... I think uhm... perhaps we should load up and leave Naboo? I have a feeling we're going to have a lot of questions to answer with the locals. This was a bit public." He looks to Dyannah, "I'd get people out of here. Theis may get messy."

Jax Greystorm presses the button on his metalic lightsaber handle causing the shining blue energy beam to slide back down with an electric squeal.

All targets in front of her down, Kayfive turns and pans her repeater around the area, before lowering it. <<"Zone clear, All hostiles neutralized. ...And yeah. That was noisy. I'm not sure we can convince people it was self defense. Even if it was.">>

Bodies are all that remain of what Sesti calls the Brotherhood. Stepping over someone's dropped knife, Dyannah holsters her gun. Jax's advice for hightailing it out of Naboo is more than sensible. "Considering the number of lane violations and the blood we shed today. I will take you up on that right away."

Over coms she calls, <Nova, K-5, Rial, Jinx, get yourselves back on the Compass or the Warrior as fast as you can.> Heeding her own advisement, her feet clang hollowly on the ramp as she heads into the ship straight for the cockpit. Engines are being switched on before everyone is on board.

-Right, Dyannah,- Nova answers from just behind the Zeltron and K5. -We've definitely worn out our welcome here.- She takes another quick look around, just in case the dead Zabraks had friends, then gives a quick wave to Sesti and Jax and hurries for the ship. -Hope they have your droid!- She can probably expect more fun from Jammer over this, leaving without finding the droid.

It is, of course, the very last chamber on the ship that Jinx checks that contains a despondent Exine, as Jinx pops the vent for the room and spiders out of it, then floats down. 'You are Exine. I'm here to rescue you.' the little droid notes, puffing herself up as she reaches out some manipulators for the restraining bolt on the astromech. 'I'll just get this off with a little twist, annnnd....' There's a spark, her manipulator grip slips, and the bolt...retracts into Exine.

'...huh.'

Without barely a pause, Jinx promptly rotates and floats over to open the door. 'As I was saying, I will just get this open with a little twist and we'll be moving very quickly to the escape ship!' she chirps, the door sliding open as she bolts, then sends over the com, using Jax's voice <Exine.> Then Nova's. <Have your droid.> And finally Dyannah <Get...back on Compass, fast as you can!> And the seeker is moving as quick as she can bob along!

Or at least she is until her repulsor unit suddenly sputters and she heels to the side, flailing for a moment, thenf alls out of the air to land on Exine, gripping the tip of his head before she thwaps him like a rider on a space horse. 'Gogogogogo thatway fast fast fast!'

Sesti listens to Jax and Dyannah and looks around her. "Not to mention the Brotherhood will send more when these do not return." She inhales as she looks around at their home and then nods. "Zaya, get Senin and what you need and take him out the back door to the Warrior." The young zabrak nods and disappears back into the house. "Where is Jinx?" she asks she spins slowly around. Then the messages come over the comms in the different voices, giving her pause for a moment. After blinking at the familiar voices not coming from the people that are around her, she gives a little start of understanding she turns to her husband. "Jax, maybe you should take care of Exine. I will take what is important from our home to the Warrior."