Lyla looked over the map and codes, as well as the names of the technical personnel, and nodded. 'Thank you.' And thank the Goddess. 'Where can we find them?' With the information, Lyla hurried off to locate and question these people, so she could get a handle on the spy problem.

'Tera, and anyone else who's hurt, get medical attention. I want everyone in top shape before we head back out.'
This message was last edited by the player at 02:44, Fri 22 Dec 2017.

Klyn was very disappointed as he finally realized the Gold wasn't here.

A bit moody, he followed the rest of the team to the command center to get their next mission.

He had to agree with Lyla, this was getting close to impossible.

But as there was a tiny chance of finding the Gold there, he had a second motivation for getting there... as long as they had a plan.

"I will check the plans of that base we need to infiltrate while you interrogate people as I'm terrible at that kind of job.  But maybe I can find something we could use for our next invasion."

The technical personnel were recovering from their narrow escape from the Imperial invasion. Two of them, Zaibruc Molobee and Dandon Tolesam were in the medical bay suffering from minor traumas, the other three were in small area of the ship's living quarters set aside for the Rebel Hive.

Klyn remained on the bridge and accessed the file son the research station. Jurfel also shared the technical readouts of the asteroid hoppers with the engineer. Analysis of the readouts provided Klyn were the following intelligence.

Research Station Shantipole was the largest Rebel base in the Roche system. The Verpine and Rebel engineers had been working for five months designing and constructing the new two-man B-wings.

For access to the station Klyn identified three airlocks, indicated on map at position 2, 10 and 27. Two hangars at 19 and 23 and a life boat bay 11. The station built within a naturally occurring asteroid is full of winding and twisting corridors. The asteroid hoppers are short range repulsorlift craft, able to transport up to a crew of four. They are ideal for travelling through asteroid fields but not suitable for deep space. They are covered with a sensor-reflective material that should confuse any Imperial scanning equipment. As craft designed and built by the pacifistic Verpine they have no weapons or shields.

Chu-Shkar tracked down Ackbar and asked to speak to him in private.

"THE key to undocking this is the word Homeworld. THIS file contains all of the data on the project. I have a copy as well, and will be giving another one to fiends, so that the data gets out. You should have a copy so if you get free and we don't it still goes out to the Alliance."]
This message was lightly edited by the player at 08:06, Sun 24 Dec 2017.

'Alright. Confirm everything, I hate surprises.' Lyla said to Klyn with a nod before setting off on her interrogations, long delayed since before the Imperial attack. Deciding those in the medical bay weren't going anywhere, she went to find the other three, Elimik Marsime, Josala Delgram, and Suslil Lemmaps.

As Klyn studied the technical read-outs and Lyla interrogated the Rebel engineers Chu-Shkar approached Commander Ackbar who was on the bridge analysing the Imperial and Rebel activity in the Roche system. The Mon Calamari took Chu-Shkar into an office. The Commander was grateful for the additional data file "excellent work. The Alliance is in your debt, Lieutenant Lyla is fortunate to have you on her team" he nodded his head "we still have much work to do if we're going to get the plans to the Alliance. May the Force be with you" he thanked Chu-Shkar.

As Lyla wandered around the Verpine ship the many Verpine crew skittered about, ignoring her entirely. She found Elimik Marsime in the living quarters. The human male, middle-aged and going bald, had his head in a data pad. When Lyla interrupted the engineer stopped his calculations "glad to see you made it ma'am. Brilliant ship designers these Verpine but it won't be worth anything if the Imperials find us" he worried.

After leaving Ackbar's office, Chu-Shkar sought out Lyla. Seeing her talking to a technician he waited patiently until a lull in their conversation before asking; "WHAT would you like me to do Lieutenant?"

Lyla approached Elimik, wondering what kind of bedside manner to project, before deciding not do do anything different. 'Same here, you did good work in the evac.' She took a seat, sighing 'That's what I'm worried about. How do you think they found us the last time?' she asked, taking the conversation starter Elimik had offered, to save her playing inquisitor.

The engineer rubbed his neck and sighed. Grime, dust and sweat marked his fingers and lined his neck. He had little rest since their escape and had tried to wash but been kept busy. He seemed relieved to rest and chat with Lyla, a hero of the Rebellion.

"There must be have been a leak" Elimik shook his head "if there's a spy they must have been with us the whole time. No one new has been brought onto the project. We've all had our own individual tasks, the only members with access to the entire project would be the Commander and Lieutenants Glek and Pollard".

'Aha.' Lyla nodded in agreement. Of course, it keep coming down to Glek and Pollard. And Ackbar. 'Did you happen to see anything suspicious or weird going on before we left? Anything, really. Even a strange astromech could be a spy droid.'

"Most of the Verpine are barely sentient" he explained "barely any need for droids, the worker Verpine are totally subservient to the dominant Verpine. Only possibility is part of the team" Elimik looked disheartened at the thought, but not guilty.

"Don't know much about Pollard, he speaks little of his past but I've heard he was a pirate before he came to the Rebellion, he's a dangerous man for sure. Glek was from Mon Cala and fled to join the Rebellion when the Empire subjugated the planet, he's hard working but doesn't comprehend much the advanced technology the Verpine are designing".

Pollard had been a pirate? Well, the Rebels couldn't be picky about their people – they'd taken her, after all. But it meant his loyalties were unreliable, his cause dubious. Glek, meanwhile, was sounding rather better, with a clear reason to serve the Alliance, but it did suggest an Imperial connection or threat over him. 'What about one of the dominant Verpine? And what about Ackbar?' Lyla reined herself in; she was getting paranoid. 'Do you know what happened to our ship, the Alabak's Gold?'


OOC: Perception (sense deception or influence) 24

"There's little chance in was any single Verpine, they share some kind of hive consciousness. If one of them has decided to betray us then they all have" it was a worryingly scary proposal, which made it unlikely but not impossible.

"The Commander is a peaceful man" was Elimik short dismissal of any slur on his reputation "sorry I didn't see what happened to your ship. Someone might have tried to use it to escape the assault".

'Probably our spy.' Lyla concluded ruefully. 'Alright, well, thanks for your time. I better let you rest. We have a lot of work ahead of us.' she ended, trying to sound somewhat chummy and leader-like.

She left Elimik to his study, and found Chu-Skhar waiting for her outside.



Lyla tugged at a tail, trying to think what else needed to be done or checked up on. 'Well, what do you think we need to do?' she asked. 'I had an idea we could check comms records for outgoing communications prior to the Imperial attack, but I guess they're stuck on the other base now. There's a thought: can we block or scan for comms traffic here on Shantipole? I don't want a repeat of what happened last time.'

Chu-Shkar nodded and said, "I CAN set up a watchdog program that will monitor all outgoing communications for anything suspicious. Though I think that's like closing the door after the bantha is gone at this point."

'Well, we're not so sure the bantha is gone. It could still be hanging around spying on us.' Lyla returned. She went on with the metaphor, 'So, until I check out the rest of the herd, and confirm which bantha and where it went, I'd still like to make sure.'

Visits to the other four members of the engineering team Zaibruc, Dandon, Josala and Suslil offered Lyla with a similar perspective as her interview with Elimik. The Commander was to be trusted and any leak would have come from one of the missing lieutenants. Lyla sensed no deception from any of the engineers. With neither lieutenant yet to catch up with the Verpine spacecraft their current plans would be secure.

Chu-Shkar nods and goes off to find a computer access terminal that will connect with the communications array.

Once there, he plugs his computer into the access and begins to write the program he needs.

So, she had two suspects, one at least a double agent, and neither of them accounted for. She didn't know any more than she had when she'd started investigating, but she knew more about them now. Lyla couldn't confirm that Pollard or Glek hadn't already secretly made it to Shantipole, or wouldn't arrive late in an escape pod, so she saw no reason to relax security, or at least her demands for it.

After leaving Suslil, Lyla found a quiet place to rest and studied the plans for Shantipole, the specifications for the asteroid hoppers, and the details of Ackbar's plan.


OOC: In Shantipole, do we know which hangar bays we can expect to find the ships in? Will there be captured Rebel or Verpine personnel we need to rescue or can enlist to help us? Are the three airlocks the only means of entrance, or can we enter via the agrifactory?

Rynn tagged along to hear the questioning himself instead of getting it second hand. He didn't like any part of the situation. they were in.


When they had found where'd they be resting Rynn finally spoke up. "My credits are on Glek. I didn't care for his attitude before the attack went down. I think he's our man. Though I am bias. I thought it was Glek from the begining, but hearing that Pollard was a pirate cemented it. I know not every crew works the same way, but we never did things covertly. It was always brute force pirating." He shook his head at the lack of information. "Either way, have BOLOs out on the pair? It wouldn't be great if which ever is the spy is walking around here."

'Yeah, Glek definitely tried to intercept our message for Ackbar. ButwWhether he's a spy or just a busybody, I dunno. He seems too obvious, you know?' Lyla mused. 'And we last saw Pollard when we were holding off the Imperials, so if he was a spy, he was leaving it awfully late to make his getaway... But yeah, I'll put out an alert, for all the good it will do.' Getting her comlink, Lyla called Ackbar's staff and formally declared Glek and Pollard as suspects to be apprehended.

Putting it away, she realised what Rynn had said and asked with surprise 'Wait, you were a pirate?'

Rynn rubbed the top of his skinsuit, scratching his head. He hadn't realized he had yet to tell this crew about his past. They knew back at Neskroff, he was upfront when he approached the Rebellion. Hopefully he'd done enough for the group to negate any bad stigma for his past.

He slowly nodded, beginning his tale.
"Against my will. Thought you knew." He said, thankful that the skinsuit covered the sheepish look on his face. "My parents were killed by pirates. I was 7. They found where my parents had hid me on our ship, and I punched one of them. I guess they liked my spunk because they kept me. Over a decade I worked with them. I flew, and cleaned the ship. I guess after that long they'd forgotten how they captured me. I hadn't. I put on a enviro-suit, then went and opened up the airlock. I had rigged the bulkheads not to intact their emergency protocols and seal the ship. They didn't even have time to realize what happened." He let out a pretty big sigh, feeling the weight of his past. "Tabriz often sold slaves to the Empire... so I didn't care for them. And then Tabriz's friends caught wind of what I did and came after me. Not long after that, I ran into the rebellion. I was at Neskroff until I was assigned with you."

Lyla listened with growing sympathy to Rynn's tale; once she heard it, she could hardly judge him for his association with pirates, or how he'd disposed of them. All the team had their painful pasts and brushes with darkness. Dead parents were a common theme. The Rebel Alliance was generally not a place for happy, well-adjusted people. 'I'm sorry.' Lyla said with feeling. She raised a hand to his shoulder, but hesitated, not touching him. Someone who wore a skinsuit their whole life was probably not someone comfortable with casual contact.

'Why do you wear the suit and mask?' she wondered. 'Sorry, don't mean to pry. I don't know much about the Ubese.'

"Way back when Ubese were arms manufacturers. The old Republic didn't like that so they blew up our depots and factories. Since then the atmosphere on our planet is druk. Not a lot of oxygen left, and a whole lot of pollutants. The ones that stayed, like my parents, adapted to it. We can't live without these suits, can't breathe without the mask. We can talk,
 but it barely comes out as a whisper, so we need the amplifier." He chuckled to himself. "Now you're most likely one of the leading experts on Ubese. We don't like other people, grudges held since the Old Republic did their thing. But like I said, I was raised off planet, so I'm more used to other species."

Tera blinked as she arrived in the room. Her eyes opened wide as she spoke [Language unknown: "Stiom his omec m oulthihat nte re adove Inehercon ee dien'wisaeita astsheatieveint? P fiiv roevar pl me hispa nt olecac nctareusng str larortiveshedin."]