The Handree was more than just a Rebel starship. It's mission was to bring vital medical supplies to Polmanar. Supplies the Rebels on Polmanar desperately needed to keep fighting. The guerrilla war on Polmanar was about to collapse under the pressure of an Imperial Naval blockade. The guerrilla war had been costly to the Imperial Navy however and it can ill afford to reinforce the blockade. If the battle could be turned in the favour of the Rebellion and the Imperial Admiralty was forced to call for a temporary removal of the blockade fleet it would send a signal to other star systems in the sector that standing up to the Empire is possible. Perhaps heralding a turn about in the Rebellion and bringing an end to the tyranny of the Empire. Something that every man and woman on Neskroff would willingly die for.

'Yeah, we need to get into the Armoury and gear up. I'm no good with heavy weaponry, but a few stun grenades will really help even the odds... Which are actually in our favour, I guess, but you know what I mean.' When did I get so army? Lyla wondered, vaguely disappointed where her wanderings had led her. She'd rarely had much choice in that, but scouting and exploring, that had been hers. While it lasted. 'Do you know if any weapons were loaded on board?' she turned and asked Nessquik.

She looked in surprise at the droid's projection, taking a moment to work out where and what it was. 'Bespin? That's not an Imperial world, is it? Weird. Why not take us to Coruscant or some other Imperial stronghold, why the Outer Rim...' Her questions seemed to answer themselves. 'Neutral territory. If this ship drops out of hyperspace in the middle of an Imperial fleet, it'll be blown out of space. They must be trying to contact the Imperials to come pick them up.'

"Bespin?  Isn't there an Imperial garrison at Bespin?  If not then there should be.  I have a contact there who can provide some really high grade Tibana Gas for making Blasters and Turbolasers.  If I were the Empire, I would want to control every system that provides the raw materials for building weapons.", replies Ness to T3-M8.  And when he makes a reply to the droid, he makes eye-contact.  To him, the droid isn't just another device in the room.  He talks to it like it's a person.

"Oh, anyhow, weapons.  No, nothing special was loaded aboard.  It's just humanitarian supplies.  So what weapons are aboard is what's normally kept in the Armory.  I hadn't gotten around to inventorying it.  But what's kept in a ship's Armory is just what's necessary to repel a boarding party: pistols and grenades.  There might be some rifles but those aren't really practical in the tight confines of this little ship.", Ness does his best to answer Tera's question.

Answering Lyla, he tells her, "Not a lot out here in this arm of the Galaxy.  Why do you think the Rebellion decided to place their families out here?  I think these Imperials are just trying to get to the nearest settled star system where there's an Intelligence Agent they can make contact with.  They don't need to hand-deliver a message to the admiralty.  They just have to deliver their message to someone with a HoloNet Transmitter."

'I'll take 'em.' Lyla said as Nessquik answered her question by looking at Tera.

'Yeah, you're right. Well, fortunately, Klyn and M8 disabled external communications, so they shouldn't be able to contact anyone... But I wouldn't put it past them to have their own communications rig powerful enough to reach Bespin. We should be ready to jam them if it comes to it.'
This message was last edited by the player at 05:59, Wed 30 Apr 2014.

"Well, currently they can't send any signal, so that's a good thing. I think we might be able to build some scrambler.  But time is limited" began Klyn.

"About your plan, I think it's completely foolish.  What you are suggesting as barely 10% chance of us staying alive.

We know they can't send a message, at least for now, we know we have more than 10 hours to find another solution so I suggest we - if we must- keep that idea as a last resort and to our best to find a way to stay alive and get the ship back to it's correct destination.

If me manage to get the parts in one of the engineering deck, we might be able to get enough control on the Nav computer to apply you suggestion with an higher chance of survival. But it will require a few walks in the ship, with the risk of an ambush."

"You still want to get this ship to Polmanar?  With all the damage it has sustained, it will take much more than ten hours to get it back in condition to run that blockade.  Even more to get it in fighting trim.", replies Ness.  "Maybe we ought to let it reach Bespin.  At least there we can request a tow and a repair crew from the locals.  That is presuming we can first take care of the problem still looming aboard this ship.  If not, then I don't want this ship being able to come within two-hundred kilometers of Bespin.  That's the range of the best man-portable transmitter I know of."

"Oh right, and I haven't told you yet.  I already thought of a way to bypass your communications knock-out.  You didn't destroy the main antenna array, did you?  Of course not.  That would require you to walk out on the hull.  And you didn't launch all the Escape Pods.  Well an Escape Pod has an emergency beacon.  It's message can be modified.  That transmitter can be connected by wire to the main antenna array to boost its signal range, if you're willing to take a hike on the hull.  There ought to be Space Suits in the Supply Room.  We can swing by there to see if they're still there."
This message was last edited by the player at 17:05, Tue 29 Apr 2014.

Tera shook her head "We can't possibly cover every avenue they've taken to sabotage and broadcast information. The only thing we can do with certainty is to stop this ship arriving at Bespin. We need to think on that. So Nessquik. How do we stop this ship before arriving at Bespin and make sure that it can't go into hyperspace again without our say so."

"Getting the ship out of hyperspace and unable to go back is easy: just shut the reactor.  Doing the same with us surviving... a lot more work." said Klyn, a bit annoyed by the fact the quarren seemed to have a bit too much influence, especially regarding his foolish plan.

"If you plan to  blow us all in star dust, I think T3 and I will do our best to increase our chances of survival and leave the imperials to you.  I still think getting out of hyperspace at the normal destination and moving away with sub-light engines until we found the imperials is the safest and smartest path."

Whilst T3-M8 had been accessing the records from the damaged Nav Computer Klyn had been able to already begin work on rerouting controls of the sub-light engines to the Engineering section. The starship mechanic was well on the way to completion of his work, it would only take him a few more moments and the Handree would have use of its sub-light engines again as long T3-M8 was there to override his lock down on the Engineering console.

'Let's not blow ourselves up.' Lyla interjected, a bit more loudly than she intended, growing impatient at the continued talk of repairs instead of stopping the bad humans. She had no plans to turn this into a suicide mission. That would be a failure in all aspects of the mission. 'If we stop our bad guys, then communications won't be an issue, you can make repairs at your leisure, and get help at Bespin.'

'Now, can you lock all the doors and turbolifts, to stop the ISC team moving around, make them only open us? If we can contain them, or at least slow them, we'll have the upper hand for anything you want to try, and defeating them.' She didn't want to say "killing them", she still didn't think of herself as a killer, only a protector.

Tera nodded "My issue with Bespin is that it's a destination they chose for some reason. We don't know what they're going to do once they get there, so even getting there plays into their hands and not ours. I'd prefer not to get there, but not at the expense of getting blown up ourselves unless we know for a fact that mere arrival in that system will cause the Empire to find out about where we came from and also destroy the medical supplies. Let's lock up the ship and find a safe way to bring the ship out of hyperspace."

"Now that's talking sensitively" said Klyn.
"I'm almost done with the deviations for sub-light propulsion but there is still a bit of work."

Turning to face T3 he continued "Is Lyla's suggestion something you could try, T3,"

Rather than wasting time with a reply T3-M8 simply rolls over to the station responsible for internal security and life support and plugs in to begin the negotiation process.


10:27, Today: T3-M8 rolled 33,33,23 using 1d20+15,1d20+15,1d20+15. Computer Use.

Sealing doors from the Bridge is entirely possible, also opening airlocks and shutting off life support to some sections is an option too. Klyn and T3-M8 both know enough about starships to make this happen. Whilst in hyperspace they will not be unable to vent anything. During a hyperspace flight it is standard procedure for hyperspace seals to protect any vessel and its contents. It is such a seal that is currently preventing the contents of the Forward Hold from spilling out in hyperspace and being instantly vapourised. Once the Handree comes out of hyperspace however the seals will automatically retract, exposing the hold to vacuum and all the vital medical supplies will be sucked out and lost forever. The hyperspace seal also provides a better carrier surface for the hyperfield.

'Let's ask our captive Imperial then... Klyn, what did you do with Meahonon?' she asked the engineer. She stepped away from the door, beckoning Rynn to stand guard, and looked around for the defeated ISC scout.

With T3 report, he added: Since we are not blowing ourselves, at least for now, I suggest we take some time to see what happened in that Hold.
Klyn began.

Lyla's question about their captive came at the perfect time.  She might, indeed, know what they did, or what they are planning.

"You can thank T3 for the possibility to question her. He kept a cool head despite bing shot at while I kept my blaster on lethal." Said Klyn leading Lyla to the corner where he had tied the imperial.

Lyla stared down at the unconscious woman. She couldn't help but feel a little pity or sympathy for her, another woman in the same line of work, thrown into some big war, now shot and bound. But there were the bombings, the murdered guards, the needless chaos they'd made. Lyla's sympathy was diminishing. She reached over her patted her face, just hard enough to stir her. 'Hey, wakey-wakey.'

Rynn sighed during all the talking. Their options were quite limited, and that frustrated him. He should have just blasted them when he had the chance, then they wouldn't be on this ship flying toward Bespin.

"Depending on how close we are to Bespin when we drop out of hyperspace they might send someone to investigate if they ping us and see we can't respond. But it seems to be our only hope that we can drop out and just fly away."  he said nodding at Klyn's plan.


When Lyla walked to interrogate the prisoner, he went with her as back up and to watch her work. He was eager to hear what their plan was, to find the flaws in it.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:44, Thu 01 May 2014.

After a little prodding and encouragement Meahonon regained consciousness. The red haired woman stared at her captor but remain silent as she appraised Lyla and the rest of the Rebels.

This was her first time interrogating anyone. What the hell do I say? 'Hi.' Lyla said with the best smile she could manage. She might as well as try to be nice, if she couldn't try to be mean. Wasn't there some good-cop bad-cop routine? Cruk it. She was going to be Twi'lek cop. Ishale Meohonon, ISC, astronavigator. Was she just doing a job or would she die for it? Lyla had swiped her holovid collection and her shoes. There wasn't much more she could say about her. She knelt before the woman, just out of kicking distance, and spoke in level tones, eyes set on the prisoner. First the space carrot... 'You must be Ishale. Are you hurt? We can have our doctor take a look at you, if you like. Do you want some water?'

Then the stick... 'Now, I thought you should know: we've taken back control of the ship and have got all your people. They're locked up tight in the brig. Don't worry, you'll join them soon. When we get back, you'll wait out the war in an Alliance prison camp.' Carrot again. 'It's not bad, I've been there myself. You could even join us, if you want. The Alliance always takes ex-ISC. Your people have been deserting the Empire in droves, signing up as Rebels. It's a good gig, you get to see all kinds of worlds.'

Stick again, hard. Lyla lost her charm as she went on, 'That, of course, is if you co-operate. And if we get back. You see, you people have busted up this ship something terrible, and our techies say that when we drop out of hyperspace, she'll explode. Poof! We'll all be dead. So, if you want to walk out of this alive with your head held high, you need to tell me what your people were frelling about with. What were you doing?' she demanded urgently.


OOC: Flat-out lying to Ishale, with a few element truthful elements: Deception 10, rerolled to 28, natural 20, gain 1 free temporary FP for encounter.
14:18, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 10 using 1d20+8. deception.
14:18, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 28 using 1d20+8. reroll.

"So we are agreed on a course of action.", states Ness to the others.  He doesn't go into specifics now that their captive is awake.  And he phrases the statement in such a way as to make the impression that they are all together instead of still disagreeing on precisely what to do next.

As for interrogating the prisoner, the Quarren knows ways of convincing her to talk.  But he doesn't want to step in right away.  Rather he will give Lyla the chance to set herself up as the "bad cop".  It's usually the approach of the novice interrogator to resort to brutality.  In fact, it's the nicer, more personal touches that convince a person to talk.  But Ness doesn't have any specific information on this individual.  Still, it's better for him to step in later as the "good cop".  Or at least play on the lies she spins, or becomes the truthful one when her lies are seen through.

The tied up Meahonon squirmed so she could look eye to eye with Lyla then spat in the Twi’lek face “Rebel scum” she accused Lyla. The Imperial scout’s face showed defiance at her situation. Lyla’s talk was convincing and few would be astute enough to detect any falsehood. Submitting to interrogation took more than believing what Lyla was telling her however “your Rebellion is dead. When we come out of hyperspace the location of your Rebel base will be broadcast and the Imperial fleet will see that all your friends will be captured. If they resist they will be killed” Meahonon let her lips smile “an Imperial Detention Centre is an unpleasant place” she warned “the Empire does not treat traitors kindly”.

With the sort of timing that is difficult to match for organic creatures T3-M8 punctuates the imperial soldier's comment about unpleasant places perfectly by tagging her in the back with an arc welder, on the end of a telescoping arm, set to it's lowest setting, giving her a nasty jolt of electricity and a little scorch mark to remind her of her situation.  All the while still plugged into the computer in control of the now shut blast doors throughout the ship, monitoring their status for tampering.

Nessquik has seen enough.  Lyla was operating on the presumption that the Imperial scout already had reason to commit treason.  Apparently that wasn't so.  And the droid was starting to resort to the inhumane treatment that only makes a defiant prisoner more defiant.  This approach wasn't going to get them anywhere.

Nessquik steps forward and berates the droid saying, "T3!  Stop that!  The Empire may torture their prisoners but that's not how the Rebellion does things."

He then looks the scout squarely in the eyes.  What he has to say to her is the absolute truth.  No lies.  And if he should give away intelligence, then so be it.  It is something the scout needs to hear.  "You think you have discovered 'The' Rebel Base?  You couldn't be more wrong.  You clearly didn't get a good look around the place in your haste to get off that rock.  Can't say that I blame you.  I prefer to be off that rock to.  See, I ended my teenage years there.  It's no base.  It's a refugee camp.  Women, children, cripples, old men who never done anything more wrong than speak out against the Empire.  That is where they have been forced to run.  The Rebel assets you saw there?  It's all the Rebellion can do to help these people: feed them, house them, give them medical aid, and protection.", he tells her in an honest tone.

He then opens the front of his tunic revealing his pink, pasty skin.  His ribs show slightly and he has red rashes on his skin where his skin lacks moisture.  "It isn't enough.  There isn't enough food or water.  Outside the walls is a hostile environment with jagged crystal, soil where no crops grow, acidic rain, and strange native aliens.  An Imperial Detention Center, you say?  That wouldn't be any different for those people.  Who knows, it might even be more comfortable.

"Go ahead, report its location.  The Empire might capture them; make life a little easier on them.  Or they might bomb them to oblivion... killing women, children, the elderly.  Can you live with that on your conscience?  Perhaps you can.  But will it gain the Empire victory over the Rebellion?  That's a big fat no.  It's events like that which motivate Rebel soldiers to fight.  More people will rebel against the Empire.  Our soldiers will only fight harder.  And when word gets around that the Empire has bombed another colony of civilians, that's going to write out as another battalion of volunteers for the Rebellion.  And with the food, water, and medical the Rebellion will save by not having one more refugee camp to support, they could field that new battalion.  No one is going to pin a medal on your chest for causing that.  If anything, your superiors will berate you for not doing your job thoroughly enough.  You should spend more time determining if a base is actually a base, or a refugee camp."

He pauses to button his uniform back up.  He then goes on to tell her, "As you can see by my uniform, I'm the only officer here.  So what I say goes.  So believe me when I tell you we haven't the manpower or the facilities to keep a prisoner while your companions are on the loose.  You're a fellow soldier.  I understand.  A soldier really has only two objectives: Complete your orders, and to Survive.  A soldier might not always complete the second, but they can certainly complete the first.  Luckily in the scouting profession, the second is key to the first.  A lot of soldiers don't have that luxury.  So right now you have a choice.  Either you cooperate with us, and live.  Or you refuse and we execute you.  Choose the second, and I salute you.  Choose the first, and who knows, you might just escape us to complete your mission.  Answer quickly.  Time is not a luxury either of us have."   
Taking 10 on Persuasion for a total of 21
This message was last edited by the player at 09:11, Fri 09 May 2014.

Lyla scowled at the scout's bloody-minded defiance and threats, losing the last of her sympathy for the Imperial. She was trying to think of a response when the conversation moved past her. 'Hey!' Lyla swore at the droid, annoyed it had resorted to tormenting the prisoner. Then Nessquik made another speech — and contradicted her lie, ruining any headway she'd made there. Goddess damn it.

'Come on. You're in the same job I am. I know you want to see worlds, we all do. You're not a soldier, you're an explorer. This isn't how it ends for us.' she urged, trying to remind Meahonon of what she'd probably got into this profession for.


OOC: Can I assist Nessquik's check?
18:35, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 6 using 1d20+3. persuasion.
18:37, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 6 using 1d6. temp FP.
Persuasion 6, +6 for 12 vs DC 10, success, +2 for Nessquik.