"I have no idea what you are talking about," Oolak replies to Walter.

He does seem to be getting a bit nervous, but it's fairly obvious Walter isn't pushing the right buttons. He's probably got some other motivation driving him. Walter will have to overcome that if he wants any answers.


Out at the limo, Vonon suddenly spots two 'suspicious' characters. It's 'sudden' because they weren't there a minute ago, though Vonon does see where they could have stepped out from behind a corner. Although he doesn't see any weapons, the two men are dressed in black: slacks, shirt, vest, deck shoes. They have the look of hired muscle.

They weren't together when Vonon spotted them, but they appear to be moving toward the security station.


In the security station, Quinzella not only spots those two men, but she spots two more approaching from the dock side. They might have come from a boat.

If Sharik was the least bit surprised by the appearance of Quinzella over her shoulder or her fellow ex-Scout's words in her ears, she did appear to let on.  The dilettante-cum-executive-assistant continued to tap away at her dataglove, watching more data stream by, before she murmured quietly over her shoulder, "Mister Oolak was going to explain to us about the apparent discrepancies in the various testimonies ..."

Though discreet, she made sure it was loud enough for the four participants to hear.  Shar glanced in the direction of the security guard and then back to her male companion.  Walter had taken the lead on this one, but Oolak seemed to be a tough nut to crack.

In reply to StarMaster (msg # 47):

"Hey, buddy," Vonon quietly calls into the limo, to the driver, "Start the engine. Stay here and keep the motor running. There's a really slim chance there may be some trouble in the next few minutes, and if there is, the Count'll pay you double. Got it?"

Without waiting for an answer, Vonon moves off for the security building. He is trying to be stealthy, but he is not "sneaking around"; he's aware that there are civilians moving around the marina, and him surreptitiously dashing from shadow to shadow would be suspicious. So, he's not so much "hiding" as he approaches the building, he is simply trying not to be noticed, to not stand out, as he casually walks towards the security building. He's not even trying to "intercept" the two guys in black; he's just trying to get closer to the building in case any trouble starts.



OOC: Fri 05 Dec 2014: Vonon Ronkunu rolled 8 using 2d6-2 ((-3 No Skill) + (+1 DEX) + (?DM for dark clothes/nighttime/dim lighting)).
This message was last edited by the player at 06:50, Fri 05 Dec 2014.

Quin lowered her voice further, assuring only Sharik would hear as she mentioned the suspicious characters seeming to come from the water, and assuring to add her readiness to assist.  She calmly pushed her hair behind her ears and refocused to the conversation at hand, allowing her eyes to scan over the display, or seem they did, that Sharik had up.

"I have a feeling that you have been set up as bait in case someone comes sniffing around."Sir Walter said. "I am sure that you do not wish to die for your former employers now do you?"

OOC:Persuade-1 +1 for skill, +1 for INT, -2 difficulty (just to be on the safe side)22:41, Today: Walter Zeller rolled 4 using 2d6. Persuade. Oh well. 

In reply to Walter Zeller (msg # 51):

At one point in his casual stroll towards the security office, Vonon stops and takes out his comm and types a quick message -- then sends it to his companions.

[POSSIBLE INCOMING BOGIES. TOO MUCH COINCIDENCE. WE WERE EXPECTED. BE CAUTIOUS.]

Sharik nods her head just slightly in response to Quinzella, hopefully enough for her fellow ex-Scout - who is closest to her, after all - alone to see.  She shifts her dataglove display a touch to afford her friend a better view of Vonon's text message.

She shakes her head as Oolak is apparently in on the action here - not bait, really.  "A plant.  A plant for the overly curious..." the thin dilettante growls softly, then adds softly over her shoulder, "Looks like your rifle will come in handy after all."  Shar sighed slightly, then stepped to her left to give the woman with the longarm a directly line of sight to the unarmed security guard; there seemed little need to keep the man around, as he stilted the odds in the favor of the enemy.

Quin silently chuckled to herself for what Sharik said about the rifle coming in handy.  She stepped forward to Zeller, "Uh, excuse me sir, we seem to have a problem you should be made aware of."

She held up her own smaller display and typed out that there appeared to be bogies stalking around, "Matters seem to be leaning more to chance than in our favor, sir.  Sorry for the intrusion."

She then stepped back to Sharik.

"I am not in any danger," Oolak replies to Walter. "If the situation was even remotely like you think it is, I would hazard that you would be the one in danger."

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to work."


With Vonon keeping an eye on the two men that were approaching the marina entrance and Quin keeping an eye on the two that were approaching from out on the docks, it is somewhat surprising that none of them actually approach the guard station.

The two on the street stop just before the entrance and lean on the railing. One of them points to one of the yachts, and the two appear to be discussing it.

The two from the docks reach one of the closer yachts and climb aboard and vanish from sight.

Sharik frowned at Oolak's self-dismissal, but she let the man go.

Then the other four 'bogies' seemed to disperse without incident.  Something wasn't right, and she would be the first to admit it.

Once out of earshot, Shar hrumphed slightly.  "We are missing something..." the dark-haired dilettante ventured quietly, "Something big."  Though for the life of her, she couldn't figure out what that was; the ex-Scout couldn't put her finger on just what it was that was setting off the hackles on the back of her neck.

They were getting paid a lot of money for being off-worlders willing to do something seemingly redundant, no questions asked.  It didn't add up.  She leaned in towards both Walter and Quinzella.  "Are we done here?" Sharik prompted, "I'm getting a kind of black-cat, bad luck feeling about this job..."

The bogies didn't actually disperse; they are still there, but their actions are inconsistent with your original 'interpretation' of bogies. No one is actually close enough to get a good look at them right now, so you can't really see facial expressions or body language.

Sharik's jaw quivered for a moment, her eyes darting back to where Oolak had disappeared a minute ago.  She took a deep breath, which made her slight frame shudder slightly.  After a pause, she spoke again.

"He said that they called it a 'severance package'." Shar brainstormed, mulling the words over in her head; the she smiled slightly.  Her head shaking as if in momentary disbelief.  "Of course," she sighed, "they might call it that.  But he never left the company."

She glanced from Walter to Quinzella and then back offering a sort of explanation, "If it were official bureaucracy, I'd call it the witness protection program."  A slight smirk crossed her burgundy lips, "But since we are dealing with more private, and less savory, organizations... it is probably best called, 'laying low'."

She grimaced, as they had tipped their hand, "Oolak is an Ondrac loyalist.  And the two pairs we tagged are his insurance."  Sharik severely hoped that she was wrong.  But, somehow, she doubted it; the hackles on the back of her neck were tingling.  And that was never a good sign.

"Vo," the dark-haired dilettante muttered into her comm, "See if you can get a better view - or even better, a picture of the two bogies on your side."  For her own part, Sharik moved to see if she could get a better sighting of the pair that Quinzella had spotted; she was pretty sure that one of her own advanced electronic gadgets, either her comm or her dataglove, had a decent camera cum recording device on them.

Let's see what we can see... Shar thought to herself...

In reply to Sharik Kaagira (msg # 58):

"Vo," Sharik's voice muttered quietly from the comm-dot in his ear, "See if you can get a better view - or even better, a picture of the two bogies on your side."

*...Get a better view!...* Vonon thinks with a frown, glancing over at the two dimly-lit 'boat-watchers', *...what's she think I've got here, a Mark-Nineteen sensor suite?...gotta use the flash...crap...well, maybe they'll believe this...tho' I sure wouldn't...*

Vonon pulls his comm from its pouch on his belt, then turns his back to the pair of dark-clad men he'd been watching, and raises up his hand with the comm -- activating the built-in camera and flash. He sets up the shot so that it looks like he's taking a 'selfie', but is actually focusing over his shoulder on the two dark figures.

*...here goes...*

Vonon presses the button, and there's a bright flash from his comm while taking the image. He drops his arm and looks down at the tiny screen to review the image he'd captured; to outward appearances ignoring the pair several yards behind himself, but actually focusing very hard to listen for any sound of approach by them.

With only a cursory glance at the image, Vonon sends it to Sharik, confident that she probably has a means of cleaning up the image, if needed.



OOC:
Vonon Ronkunu rolled 7 using 2d6+1 for "Listen/Observation"

"I agree Ms. Kaagira." Sir Walter said after the guard left. "I have a feeling that we are getting set up for a fall and need to get back with the others. Of course, we can say thanks for all the information to Mr Oolak and let the goons sort things out for us." he says with a sly smile.

As they headed out, he stopped by the guard shack and seen the others there. "Thank you for being forth coming with your former employers misdeeds. Mr Oolak.  The offer of Imperial protection still stands if you are cooperative but you will need to come with me. For your safety." he said, with an evil grin.

OOC:21:15, Today: Walter Zeller rolled 12 using 2d6. Persuade. .
This message was last edited by the player at 02:16, Mon 15 Dec 2014.

In reply to Walter Zeller (msg # 60):

OOC: Oh!  Oh!! That is...that is...that's just Evil! I like it ^_^

Sharik nodded to Walter's assessment.  She shared the wry smile with him, when he brought up thanking Oolak, a slight chuckle escaping her lips.

As they passed the security guard station and after Walter said his piece, Shar paused and snapped a quick still of Shindar.  "For your file, sir." she intoned curtly, accepting any pose that she caught the man in.  "To tie in with your testimony." she explained, "The judge will need it..."

Turning to follow Walter and Quinzella, the dark-haired assistant continued to busily tap away on her dataglove's dynamically-configured input register.

Oolak doesn't seem to be concerned about Walter's ploy, and even poses for Sharik's little 'photo shoot'. He waves goodbye to the group as they leave and he grins with an almost sinister look.

In reply to StarMaster (msg # 63):

Vonon falls in-line with the others, as they head out and back to the limo.

"So, I'm guessing from the frowns and the annoyed pheremones that that didn't go well?" He asks Sir Walter. "Well, then, fine. We tried doing it the smart way; trying to gather intel on our opponents. Now, maybe we should..."

Vonon stops cold, about a meter from the open door of the limo, his jaw hanging open in the Vargr equivalent of a frown.

"Shar'r....you said that this felt like a set-up -- what if it is? What if this is a double-blind scam? So far, we've taken everything that Miz Blue told us as absolute truth, but, when you did your checking, did you check her?  Or did we even double check her story? I know you looked up the two companies she mentioned, but did you check the legal record to see there actually was a court case over this stuff we're supposed to 'secure'?"

"What I'm wondering is, what if the bad guys have actually hired us to hit their own facility, so that we can be blamed for 'wrecking' the data on behalf of the folks we think we're working for?"

Vonon shakes his head to clear his thoughts.

"No, no, wait. If that were the case, then this Oolak fella would have given us all kinds of encouraging information to make us hurry out to the lab, if he were still working for his old employers." Vonon places his right hand over his eyes and heaves a deep sigh.

"This is why I left the Patrol. Abouve the rank of Commander they expect us to be able to follow all this crap and figure it out, but I'm just a simple Patrolman! I want somebody else to point me at my target!"

Vonon looks back and forth from his friend Sharik to Sir Walter and back again for a few seconds, then drops his jaw in another frown.

"Alright, I admit I'm no good with the sneeky, underhanded, double-back, twisted way of thinking in the business world, but I do know the military world. And with the intel we just gathered, my military training is telling me one of three things is going on right now..."

"Possibility One: this Oolak guy is acting strange. Maybe this means he's part of some plot that was expecting us, or someone like us. But he didn't feed us any real intel. All he did was affirm that his old employers hadn't treated him badly; almost like he was implying they aren't the bad guys in this scenario. But the hard fact we come away with is that he was ready for someone to come looking for him; someone was expecting our fishing trip. That means they know we're coming and already have a response in place."

"Possibility Two: the bad guys aren't, yet, expecting any trouble, but they set this Oolak fella out as a trap in case anyone does come snooping around for intel, like we just did. In that case, there isn't a trap set for us yet, but once Oolak reports that he was just pumped for info, a trap will be set for us."

"Possibility Three: I know all this sounded reasonable back at the club, but I'm now starting to wonder why all this is taking place at such a 'last minute' hour? The courts -- supposedly -- are going to order all this data-and-whatnot turned over tomorrow morning! Our employers say that they are absolutely certain this will happen. Well, if that's true, it's reasonable to assume the people who have the data now also know this, yes? Why would they wait until the very last minute to destry it and clean up their involvement? Why hasn't that been done already?"

Vonon shrugs,

"In a military scenario, all three of these points indicate we're walking into a trap. The military solution to a trap is to either by-pass it -- and I don't see how we can do that, in this case, and still get paid -- or to hit the trap so hard you overwhelm it."

"Now, I'm starting to sober up -- which means I'm starting to get bored, and I want to wreck something. So, I'm thinkin we just jump on board the transport, get out to that damn dome ASAP, and hit is so fast they won't know whether to shit or shoot back. We grab everything but the personnel, and scram. By tomorrow night we'll either be flush with cash or wanted men. And women." Vonon finishes with a nod to Sharik.

Sharik chuckled slightly, as Oolak mugged for her picture.  So, she played into it.  The thin dilettante rubbed her chin, giving the man an appraising look.  Then she straightened his collar, very professionally, and smoothed the pleats of his jacket before step back and giving him a curt nod.  And snapping another picture.

She resumed tapping away on there dataglove even as she turned back to the others.

Once clear of the guard station, Shar tapped her earbud to her p-comm.  She took a deep breath and nodded.  Then looked at Vonon as he spoke.  She shook her head, "I think that it is less of a set up.  Oolak was an operator for Ondrac that got caught.  He must have been valuable enough that they want to retain him..." she glanced back at the guard station, "he's laying low here until they can quietly reintegrate him."  Sharik took a deep breath.  "He never left Ondrac.  Loyal through and through.  He's probably reporting us right now..."

"To which..." and she held up a finger, "we may have a window into..."  Sharik tapped some more on her dataglove's dynamically configured input array and whispered something to her agent software before continuing to narrate softly, "I was able to get a commdot on Shindar before we left."  Her lips were pressed into tight in an expression of concentration, "if I can get the guardhouse computer to act as a receiver and repeater..." the implication was obvious.  They could hear what was going on with Oolak.

"But you are right, Vo." Shar agreed as she worked, "He's a honey pot.  Someone set him out there to attract flies..."  And they may have just been caught, whether he was set to catch them specifically or not.

[OOC:  Hmm... can we extend some range on that commdot?

  21:07, Today: Sharik Kaagira rolled 8 using 2d6+3. Computer/Int Check: Can we hack an antenna? (Intellect/1, +2 Int).

Sharik will take her time, if allowed, to get a +1 DM on her task check. *crosses fingers*]

There's no immediate or instant way to come up with an antenna, but that's not the issue anyway. It's how much power can be fed to the commdot. Even then, too much power would likely burn it out.

Another option, however, would be some sort of directional receiver, such as a parabolic dish receiver. That could conceivably pick up the signal from much farther away.


What is everyone else doing?

Sir Walter heads back to the limo and pours himself a glass of whiskey on ice. "Yes, this is giving me a headache." he said as he polished off half of the glass in one swig. "Maybe we are over thinking this and can try low tech. Sharik, could you hack into the local phone system and pick up what the receiver hears or better yet, use that to receive the commdot signal? That might help." he added as he finished off the glass and poured another one, this time sipping it much slower.

"I understand your frustration there Vonon. A lot of this does not make any sense and I hope we do not end up having an extended stay at the local grey bar motel.I think that we need do it the old fashion way and start talking to people, maybe buying drinks to loosen their tongues. Lets head to the star port" Walter added.

"I'm on it." Sharik noted, her tone slightly beleagured as she piled into the limo across from Walter.  She motioned to the mercantile nobleman to pour her a drink as well, while she worked.  Tapping away on the holographic input keypad of her dataglove, the thin dilettante started to send out the various tendrils of virtual agents via her own personal aide program to try and see if she could manage what Sir Zeller had asked for.

Shar pursed her lips, pulling a bobbie pin from her hair, allowing it to cascade down in front of her face for a moment.  Chewing on the errant hair piece, she contemplated aloud, "Finding and high-jacking into the output signal of her commdot could be easy or hard depending on the state of the local technology.  Let see what we can hear..."

Her patchwork hack pretty much done, the young cosmopolitan socialite took in a deep breath to try and calm herself and then crossed her fingers (only metaphorically speaking) and patched the audio into the small speakers of her own local p-comm for general dissemination.

[OOC:  14:07, Today: Sharik Kaagira rolled 9 using 2d6+3. Computer/Int Check: Local network hacking for commdot signal (Intellect/1, +2 Int).]

Again being left in the wake of those she was supposed to be a companion to, Quin followed along.  Though pulling Sharik aside for a moment, "You spoke for the Vagr, I trust you, therefore I was willing to leave my rifle in his hands, until he tried to pry my weapon from my hands.  You know this rifle is special to me."

She then looked over to the docks were she had seen the fellows of suspicion, "Sharik, do you object if I wander a short moment over there and see if something lies in wait for us?"

As it turns out, there are still a few 'antique' cell towers in the city; most of the comm signals are handled through satellites. There's one about a half-mile from the marina that Sharik is able to hack into, mostly because of its antiquated systems and security.

Because its range is so limited, it is actually able to pick up the commdot's signal as if it was a cell phone with only one bar. Still, it picks it up and transmits it.

In reply to Walter Zeller (msg # 67):

"...Lets head to the star port" Walter said.

"I don't really have any objection to that course." Vonon shrugged, settling into the seat of the limo, "But I thought the plan was that, after we got whatever intel we could get here, we were to meet up with the others at the submersible? What're you thinking we'll find at the starport?"