Shard accepts the flask from the Wookie's surprisingly dextrous grasp, and gives it a shake.  Seems Juragga refrained from sinking back a Wookie's share.  "Nice of you," she rasps through half-frozen lips burned by the industrial strength alcohol, touching his forearm with her free hand as she stows the shiny metal container.

Her voice drops a touch.  "That other matter?  Expected, so no worries."  Smiling hurts, but she manages it anyway.

The language is definitely coming back to her.

The group are standing in a short corridor running parallel to the outer wall of the structure.  To their right, the corridor ends against a blank wall.  To the left it extends for perhaps twenty metres to a large reinforced hatch.  Two smaller doors lead off the right hand side of the corridor as they turn to face along it.

Both are open.

From inside one of them they can here the sound of raised voices.  Well, at least one raised voice, speaking a language which definitely isn't Basic.  The voice which replies to it, in what seems to be the same language, is much quieter, but still not exactly whispering.

Haarmon looks from Shard to Juragga and back again. Expected? No worries? Were they kidding? Didn't they watch the news feeds? There were Imperials coming! Coming this way! He tried his best to act cool. If Rags wasn't worried then there wasn't really any reason for him to be worried. But then, Rags was a Seven Foot Tall Walking Wall of Wookie Woe. Easy for him not to be worried.

This was no computer game. And Haarmon didn't even have his gun.

He sort of shuffled himself sideways, closer to Juragga. If things got bad, he wanted to be as close to his friend as possible. For moral support, like.

"Anyone know what they're saying?" he whispered, his voice almost not wavering.

Juragga nodded once to Shard, accepting her reassurance.  To Haarmon, he rumbled confidently.  There was nothing to worry about as long as they stuck to the plan and their roles.


Of course, when that came unglued... well, that's what he was along for.

He shrugged at Haarmon's question and canted his furry head to hear.  He was no linguist - Basic and Wookiee were all he'd really bothered to become fluent in, and he could speak only the latter.

Like the others, Rhijans was no linguist.  He'd seen more of the galaxy than some of them, perhaps, however, and he thought the cadence of the words, at least, seemed familiar...

(OOC--Rhijans Thanus rolled 2 (2 excluding the wild die) using 2 dice and +2 pips with the WEG Classic system with rolls of 1,{Wild}1. Linguistics.)

The cadence may have been familiar, but the actual words, themselves, were utter gibberish to him...for all he could tell, the two were debating the mating habits of mynocks.

Haarmon sounds nervous; she can't blame him, really.  The situation is tense enough without a squad breathing down their necks.  "Got me," Shard mutters.  She can't make out enough of the discussion to place the language, despite her efforts.  "The troopers are SOP - ship lands, claims authorization, books are a mess, send out a squad to find what's what.  They're likely bored and irritated, no more.  But we can't stand here pretending not to be eavesdropping; last thing we want right now is suspicion."

They can't understand the language, anyway, so it's not a loss if she -

"Hello?"

- raises her voice.

The call echoes down the hallway, and Shard follows with more.  "Anyone home?  Didn't want to wait for the reception committee - it's colder than a Zidran sauna out there!"  Turning to the others, she shrugs.  When bluffing, better to walk through the front door than try to skulk through the back.

Mark tried to understand what was spoken. He gave Shard a nod. It would be better to be out in the open. "Yeah. Hello!"
This message was last edited by the player at 06:39, Wed 08 June 2011.

Shard's voice carries down the corridor, and is answered a few seconds later, "Yeah?  In here."  The voice isn't one of the two which had been debating... whatever it was they were debating.

Then the quieter voice speaks again, this time in Basic, "He says he lost his collection order, and demands that we take his word for it that he is here to pick up a shipment.  He further says that if our system also has no record of the agreed transaction, then we should remember that his word is better than that of any machine, and that he has two thermal detonators on his repulsive person."

The group of rebels come level with the first door and find themselves looking into a large, open plan office containing a couple of dozen people.  There are three standing near the door, a human in dark green coveralls, a protocol droid, and an Ubese.  The droid is just explaining something to the human, "Might I suggest we simply have him thrown out, Sir?  We don't need his sort in here, making the place even more dirty and disgusting than it already is."

"No... you might not.  Just tell him that we have severe problems with this facility's computers today, and he will be dealt with as soon as possible."

As the droid translates that for the alien, the man turns towards the rebels in the doorway, "What do you people need?"  Just now, it doesn't look as though he would win any prizes for being the friendly face of customer service...
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:39, Thu 09 June 2011.

Rhijans managed to avoid wincing visibly as the Ubese in the room apparently had the same story they were prepared to tell.  He considered, briefly, trying to come up with a different one, but they hadn't exactly come in with anything to deliver.

"Yeah, you've got an outbound cargo we're supposed to pick up?  Ship's called Needle..." he provided, helpfully, managing to sound massively bored with the whole process.  He could only imagine what the Ubese would do if they got a cargo when he was demanding one be given to him...they might not even need to set any of the charges...let him start some trouble, take out the comms, and call in the fighters...

That would be too easy, he knew.  It couldn't possibly turn out that smoothly.  His luck just didn't run that way.

The mine official gives Rhijans a dirty look, and consults a datatablet, "I have a record of your ship, but not your cargo.  But, as you might have heard, we're having problems with our system today."

Nearby, the droid and the Ubese are involved in their argument again, causing the man to raise his voice above the noise as he continues speaking, "Do you have any documentation?  It'll make it easier to clear this up if you've got at least some of the consignment details."

The Ubese raises his voice again, and the droid continues to argue with him.

"Excuse me, just one moment." the official says to Rhijans, somewhat irritably.

Without waiting for a reply, he turns away and, as he does so, a holdout blaster is suddenly in his hand and pointing directly at the Ubese's breath mask, at point-blank range.  "Please tell the captain to go and wait in the break room, and I'll call him when his load is ready."

"Yes, Sir."  The droid starts to translate, and even in Ubese he sounds smug and self-satisfied.

Sinking himself a little further into his self-adopted role, Rhijans turned to the others.  "Looks like THIS shipment's going to be late, too."  He did an admirable job of letting annoyance color his tone.

"Cap, we may have to send word ahead that we're behind schedule...they need to keep those perishables on ice a little longer.  Everyone else..." he shrugged, in apparent helplessness to the situation.  "Make the most of whatever hospitality there is on this iceball, I guess...doesn't look like we're heading out anytime real soon."

While the official was busy staring down his blaster at the Ubese, Rhijans let his eyes wander the room, looking for any surveillance gear...or any indication of any sort of serious fortifications, a garrison, weapon emplacements...a visible setting on a comm panel, anything that could prove useful in determining just how careful they had to be in carrying out this mission.

"Well, if we got some time, I got some business needs attending to. Like, pronto." Following Rhijans' lead, Haarmon started bouncing from foot to foot. Just a little. "Anyone point to the little trader's room over here? I need to see a man about a tramp freighter, if you know I'm saying."

And whether or not anyone answered, he started toward the door on the far side of the Ubese and the embattled official. He called out to Juragga as he went, "Hey! You there with the shag-rug coat! You think I want to lug my own hear all over the damned galaxy? Grab that pack and lets get to it. I got a crisis brewing over here." He starts dancing from foot to foot a little more, as if to illustrate his point.

Shard waits quietly as the 'diplomacy' settles itself.  The others make reference to heading out; she grins, a lopsided expression.  "I'm sure the Coordinator here would only be too happy to let us cool our heels for a bit.  Looks like he has a little on his plate...maybe including Ubese, cooked by thermal detonation."  She shrugs, rolling her eyes at the imperial official.  "You all go ahead - I'll hang around here and try to work things out him at his leisure."

Grimacing, she calls after the departing Haarmon.  "Make sure you have the documentation for what we have to pick up!  The Coordinator seems to have a need for it."  Another quick, twisted smile.  "Understandably."

Crossing her arms beneath her coat, she waits for the confrontation to end.

Juragga did his best to slouch and seem downtrodden, servile.  He'd long since learned that was how the Imperials liked their nonhumans - especially Wooks.  Inwardly, he tracked things, ready to leap to the attack if they started going south.

With a meek "Grrrrhhhhuuuuh," he lifted his duffle and shuffled after Haarmon as ordered.

The facility administrator smiles, without much humour, "We have little to offer in the way of hospitality here, I'm afraid, this is a working mine facility, not a resort.  As soon as the droid has finished explaining the situation to the Ubese, he can escort everybody to the break room.  You can, at least, get something warm to drink up there and possibly a hot meal."

"Assuming the military haven't had everything again."

Again the humourless smile, "The fresher is up there too."

The droid finishes translating, and the Ubese gives a short answer, which results in an announcement from the droid, "Sir, he says that he will wait for one hour.  He was reluctant to do so, at first, until I explained to him exactly how many stormtroopers are stationed here at this time.  After that, he calmed down."

Then he turns to the group of incognito rebels, "This way, please." before starting towards the door back out into the corridor.  From there, he enters the second doorway, which accesses another corridor, this one running at right angles to the first.

As he walks, he seems to be muttering constantly under his... whatever serves droids in lieu of breath.  The Ubese tags along behind everybody else.

Shard, meanwhile, waits in the office...

Once the droid is leading the way, Mark asked the droid. "Glad you were able to calm down the Ubese. What number did you give the Ubese? I'm sure you exaggerated to drive the point home."

Rhijans allowed himself an inward smile.  While it wasn't much, they'd gotten some very important intel, with just a few brief comments.  The military wasn't in charge of the actual mining...and they weren't necessarily very popular with the mine personnel.  And there was apparently a surplus of stormtroopers in the area...enough to back down an annoyed Ubese who was ready to start waving thermal detonators around as a negotiation tactic.  While that wasn't good news, it was useful news.

He followed the droid without comment, playing the part of the shipping operator resigned to having his schedule screwed up by someone else's failure, while he tried to catalog what else they needed to figure out before they could establish an action plan.  They needed to know where the mine, itself, operated...location and more definite numbers of the stormtroopers, as well as any additional Imperial personnel...the shipment they'd decided they wanted to acquire...the slaves...

There was obviously no way they would get all that in here...it'd take a bit more poking around.

The droid throws up its arms as far as they will go, which is not that far, "I am programmed for communication, not exaggeration, Sir. Oh dear me, what a crude, dumb beast that Ubese is! How rude! Smells bad too. I say they all wear those masks because they look particularly feebleminded underneath."

Further muttering ensues and then the droid raises his voice again, "Last month we had no stormtroopers here." the droid explains and elaborates on the situation, "Today there is at least two hundred and fifty of them running around trying to pass themselves off as imposing and getting in the way, dragging in dirt all over the place and asking their obtuse questions, as if I had nothing better to do. Mark my words, had I nerves they would be on my very last one, Sir. They are utterly dim, those troopers. Doubtlessly looking splendidly feebleminded underneath all that white plastic. Splendidly."

If the Ubese can understand the droid's comments, he gives no sign of it.  He simply trudges along behind everybody.

Eventually the group steps out into a more open area where two open elevator platforms move up and down constantly on parallel rails - as one rises, the other falls, and they pause for about twenty seconds at the top and bottom ends of their movement, before starting up again.  The next level up is about ten metres above floor level.

As they approach the platforms, there are a handful of mine workers (judging by the fact that their coveralls are similar to the administrator's) riding on each of them.

As one platform reaches the floor, the workers step off, and the droid shuffles quickly onto it.  "This way." it announces, a little redundantly.

The rebels also get aboard, as does the Ubese.


In the office, the administrator turns from discussing something with one of the couple of dozen other people working there and notices Shard for the first time, "Yes?  can I help you?"

Shard offers a smile - a crooked, ironic one.  "I'm with the group that just came in."  She waves her hand at the chaos of the office.  "Looks like you have your hands full right now - I'm not looking to make your life harder.  Just wanted to know if there's anything we can do to make things easier."

The lean woman shrugs her shoulders.  "Hang around for a day and wait?  It'll set us back on our own timelines, but the skipper always writes in an extra few days just in case.  Or give us a note on what we're supposed to take, and we can go have a look at the cargo ourselves, spare you some work."

She glances both ways at the busy office.  "Or...you delegate some crap to these runners, and take a bit of a break to show us what we need to see.  No pressure."

Leaning back, she raises both hands, palm up.  "Maybe there's something else I can do to help speed things up.  If there is, let me know.  I'm just sitting here waiting - might as well make myself useful." There's no innuendo in the offer, just an open attempt at offering help.  Frankly, Shard feels a little sorry for the administrator.

Only a little, mind; there are slaves to consider.

Rhijans was making mental notes of their route...creating an exit map in his mind, but also highlighting vulnerable areas that could potentially gum up the works.


Again, as always, he was running scenarios in his mind...ways to get back to the ship, ways to snoop around and have plausible stories if the stormtroopers found him, ways to make as much trouble as possible for the stormtroopers...their big problem was, as usual, a lack of reliable intel on the target, and he began to get the sneaking suspicion that this particular team was going to be the Rebels' team of choice for high-priority targets about which almost nothing was known.  He wasn't particularly thrilled by that prospect...but they all seemed to do a good job of thinking on their feet, and that was a skill that you couldn't teach people.

Still maintaining his act of servility, the massive Wookiee frowned inwardly.  He hated letting Shard off on her own.  He was taking in their route, and looking for places to fight that would be to his advantage - close quarters, but not so cramped as to hinder a being of his size.

He knew one thing about Imperials: show them mercy, and they would make you regret it.  He thought of his family, and continued after Haarmon, lugging his duffle as if it weighed a ton.

Haarmon reaches the door and turns into whichever corridor is pointed out as the way to the bathroom. Behind him he can hear the droid talking and Shard offering assistance. As he starts down the hallway he starts to think that maybe leaving the group wasn't the smartest move. They were the ones who knew what they were doing, after all.

"But more eyes means more intel, am I right?" he mutters to himself, under his breath, almost as though to reassure himself. And besides, Rags was there with him. So that's as good as it's likely to get.

He gives Juragga a sort of sidelong glance and a little shrug and starts peering into any of the rooms he passes. He's not exactly certain what he's looking for but if he were to find it, it would be something along the lines of a room that looked as if it had been empty a while. Lights off, floor clean, no half-filled cups of coffee lying around. And a room with a computer hook-up would be even better. And a room with an actual terminal would be even better still. And a lock on the inside of the door? Best. Ever.

The mine administrator smiles at Shard, but it looks faked, "Well, the problem is that you've already made things worse for me.  Now I'm going to have to take somebody off the job they should be doing, trying to sort out the mess we have here, and send them to escort you to the break room.  I asked you and your crew to wait there for a reason."

He turns away and beckons over one of his assistants, "Please escort this person to the break room.  Make sure she gets there."

The man gestures towards the door, scowling at Shard, "This way, please."

The elevator platform reaches the next level, and the droid steps off.  One wall of the level is entirely open, giving a view out across the interior of the storage warehouse, which fades away into distance and gloom, a jumbled see of storage containers, packing cases and drums.

There is a shimmer where the wall should be, a force field, but it doesn't stop the air here, on the upper level, being distinctly chilly.

The droid leads them across the open space and through a doorway.  The break room is, as it turns out, pleasantly warm, and almost empty.  There are, at most a half dozen workers sitting together at one end of the room, playing sabacc, or simply eating and drinking.

There are snack and beverage dispensers against the wall closest to the workers, along with a wall-mounted terminal which is currently powered down.

Rhijans made his way over to one of the beverage dispensers, looking as though he was trying to decide which disappointing option to choose from, using the action as an excuse to get closer to the sabacc game.  He hoped to overhear some comment, or detail of gossip, that might be useful to them...whether everyone shared the disdain for the stormtroopers that the droid had expressed, how work was proceeding, anything regarding the slaves, what kinds of materials they were mining (aside from the cargo the Rebels were after), shipment schedules...

After a few moments, he sighed and selected a variety of stim-drink that he figured would probably be at least vaguely palatable, and repeated the performance in front of the snack dispenser.  "Not exactly an embarrassment of riches in here, is it?" he mused aloud, to no one in particular.