And then everyone got up and started walking away! Haarmon was just getting into this. He grumbled a bit and put away his PBD and stood up and ran after Shard and whasserface. Whatever it was that was happening he wanted to be a part of it.

"Rags! You coming?" He called back behind him. And then he saw Rhijans walk away when he assumed everyone was going to the quartermaster's as well. "Hey Rhijans! Where are you going? Supplies is over this way!"
This message was last edited by the player at 19:01, Thu 08 Aug 2013.

"Good plan, Juragga," Shard replies with a slow nod.  The tech likely doesn't understand Wookie, so she sees no problem with the response, and if she does and is lying?  Well...then they're into 'She's A Spy' territory one way or the other.  "Yes, it's this way.  Follow me."

She cocks an eyebrow at the woman's question.  "Consider it your second time, then.  Keep following me, I can see it wouldn't be a good idea for us to get separated."  One way or another, she silently considers.  There's some shouting going on behind them; it could have to do with some plan to ferret out the woman's true intent, so Shard doesn't call attention to it.

Instead, "So who is your supervisor?" she questions.  "Shouldn't be sending you out like this." 

"My supervisor?  Voso Shood." Shard knows the name.  She's seen it on notices fixed to malfunctioning equipment.  They usually read something like, "Out of order.  Do not use.  Voso Shood", or words to that effect.  "I don't really like him.  He gives me the worst jobs because I'm new here."

"I suppose he didn't think I could get lost if he gave me a map."

Behind them, Haarmon is shouting something.  Shard may have noticed, but Kedra seems fairly oblivious to background noises as she focusses her attention on  following the same route as Shard, and studying the various signs and notices that they pass

Ahead of him, Rhijans can see Shard and the tech, Kedra, walking along and engaged in conversation.  Whatever they're talking about, distance and Haarmon conspire to drown it out...

Rhijans paused just long enough to look back at Haarmon with an unmistakably annoyed expression, and give him a 'get over here' gesture, hoping in the brief moment that took that he didn't manage to lose contact with Shard and Kedra.

Just when I start to think there's actually hope for the guy... he thought impatiently.  Might be time to explain a little something or other to Haarmon, for their own safety.  Something like, when people in your group decide to go their own way, there's usually a good reason for it...

"We'll have a chat with Voso, I guess."  Shard shrugs.  "Maybe we can get him to lay off you.  Nothing bad; maybe tell him you're a good person."  She grimaces. "Leaning on him would be awfully Imperial, and likely to backfire to boot.  No, just chat with him, drop a hint or two that you just need help getting the idea around here."

So they trundle along, headed for the Quartermaster.

Juragga shook his head in embarrassed pain, winced, and gobbled down another mouthful of food.  Then he ambled after Dak and shrugged helplessly at Rhijans, a universal expression that said 'Whaddayagonnado'.

It's not a long walk to the QM's stores, only a few minutes, and Shard manages to make it all the way there without Kedra suddenly revealing that she's an Imperial  assassin, or some sort of Force sensitive agent working for Nimadda.

The tech still seems to have missed the shouting from behind them, or if she did hear it then she's really good at hiding that fact...  It is, though, probably just another sign that she wouldn't make a good field agent - anybody shadowing her would literally have to walk into her before she noticed them.  Or if she did notice them before that it would probably be because she stopped to ask them for directions.

Take now, for example, if she were being followed by an entire group of stalkers (possibly even including somebody as large as a Wookiee) in all likelihood she would be completely unaware of their presence.

The Quartermaster's clerk gives Shard a slightly sour-faced nod as the two women enter.  Then he catches sight of Kedra, and his frown suddenly turns into a broad smile, "Hello Kedra!  I don't know how you did it without any parts, but that field demodulator you fixed is working better than ever.  What can I do for you and your friend today?"

"Hi Barsh.  I told you, it didn't need anything replacing, it just needed the inversion coil adjusting." Kedra replies, then looks at Shard, "Barsh is from Ral-Exun too.  From a different raft though.  Barsh, this is Shard.  She's helping me."

She holds out a datapad to him, and says quietly, "My map's defective."

Barsh takes the map and studies it for a moment, "Defective, or brutally murdered?"

Shard offers a toothy smile for the Quartermaster, knowing she's on his list.  Heaven forbid that she bring back some of her equipment used, diry, or not at all.  It's not there to be used after all, only stacked neatly on a shelf and tagged to be coded into a database.  Lovingly itemized and assessed on occasion, perhaps, and audited with the care it deserves.  All part of the deep Philosophy of Supply.

Quartermasters.  The same everywhere.

But it does seem that Kedra isn't the person they're looking for, or if she is, she's so amazingly skilled they'll never find out.  "Yeah, giving her a hand," Shard notes.  "She's having some problems getting around, so I figured I'd help.  We're between missions, but we'll be going out again soon."  That'll put him in a GRAND mood.

"Sooo," she continues.  "Rafts?  What's that about?"

"I... dropped it.  By accident." Kedra explains, her voice brimming over with sincerity.  The Quatermaster's only response is a disbelieving, "Uh huh." and a sad smile as he turns away to find a replacement for the broken pad.  Over his shoulder he calls out, "When you have time, perhaps you can fix it for me?"

The broken datapad sits on the counter, fixing Kedra with an accusatory (and wholly imaginary) glare.

"Ral-Exun is mostly water.  And swamps.  No real towns, just community rafts.  Maybe a thousand families living on some of the bigger ones."

The clerk returns with a datapad, and connects it to a dataport.  "I'll just download you a new map."  He gives Shard a smile which is slightly less warm than the ones he has bestowed upon Kedra, "When you know where you're you're going, and what you need, come and see me."

He looks past the two women, and scowls, "What can I do for you?"

Haarmon and Juragga are standing in the entrance to the store room.

Just up the hall, where he'd stopped...he was just trying to keep contact with Shard and Kedra, which didn't necessarily mean actual eyes-on position, after all--he could hear every word of their conversation with the Quartermaster...Rhijans heard the question the Quartermaster asked and looked up in surprise, knowing he was out of sight and wondering who the man was talking to.

Should've known, he thought, as he immediately saw Haarmon and Juragga framed in the doorway.  For just a moment, he considered withdrawing from the situation completely.  It would keep his presence hidden, making it easier for him to pick up the tail again.

But that would mean leaving team-mates swinging in the breeze, as the saying goes, and that didn't sit well with him.  "Did you get them?" he asked aloud...loud enough to be heard in the Quartermaster office beyond them, without sounding like he was trying to make himself heard there.  He stepped up behind them, managing the 'coolly impatient' look because it was already on his face for a different reason.  He looked past them at Shard and Kedra and gave a soft snort.

"I guess not.  Well, we can try the target practice and see how long we go before the power-cells are actually depleted, no need to get new ones just yet."

The moment Haarmon called out after Rhijans he saw the look the man gave him and then heard the scorn in Juragga's voice and he realized he was being a total dimwit. His face reddened and he muttered a curse to himself and he resigned himself to following along silently.

So when Rhijans came up behind them talking about power cells, he shut his mouth and looked around, afraid to say the wrong thing again.

"Lovely world from which you hail," Shard dryly notes. "Not saying anything about the people, but the world itself...that could drive someone to drink." More.  "Then again, I'm from Zidra, land of skin-flaying blizzards and domes, so I can't really talk."

She offers the quartermaster a small salute.  "I'll put in for your reccomendations, as well.  Might work better that way."  It's not only a compliment, but true.  Quartermasters often have things that field operatives can't imagine would do any good, but prove incredibly useful in a bind.

She glances over her shoulder at the knot of people in the door.  For a moment, Shard feels a surge of pleasure that her team would follow like this.  Keeping her out of harm, keeping watch in case of trouble, all of that.

Only a moment, mind.

"You lot going to shoot something?" she inquires.  Not this girl...I figure her for the real thing.

Haarmon, she notes, looks mopey.  What now?  Rhijans barking at him again?

Seeing the complete cluster-jam, Juragga shook his head and warbled loudly in Wookiee.  Mostly people wouldn't understand; it was just a general expression of embarrassment.  Then he added, "GuuuRRRAaaaar" - I'm always looking to shoot something - with a fanged grin.

Rhijans shrugged.  "We've got some downtime, we've been out several times and jostled our gear around, and I want to make sure this thing still shoots straight."  He laid a hand briefly on the butt of his blaster, in its holster.

"Figured now was as good a time as any, although it's been a while since I put a fresh power-pack in it.  Wouldn't do me much good to get two shots off and have to walk back up here if I did manage to knock my sights out of alignment."

He glanced at Haarmon and added, "And I'm curious to see if this kid's half as good with his blaster as he claims to be.  He's been full of surprises, kinda hoping he's got at least one more in there."  He didn't smile...his tone barely even changed, in fact, but by comparison to his normal degree of stoicism, a perceptive soul who'd known him for a while might almost take the comment to be good-natured teasing on his part.

Haarmon's eyes brightened at the mention of shooting. His downtrodden face lit up in his biggest, brightest. smarmiest smile. He looked for all the world like a little, little (little, little) kid on Life Day Morning who just got that scale model of the Executor he'd been wanting all year.

"Claims to be?" he scoffed, "Claims to be? If anything, I've been remarkably recalcitrant up till now. I can take the hair of a wookie's ear at a hundred paces. Rags? Am I right?"

Then he realized that his metaphor was, perhaps, poorly chosen.

"Not that I would, you understand. Just that I, you know, I could. You know?"

Rhijans glanced up at Juragga, wondering, for just a moment, whether Wookiees actually had ears under all that fur or not.  With a mental shrug, he moved on.  "That's good, because if they send us where I think they're planning on sending us, we may need another sharpshooter."  He actually had no idea where they might be going...at least, no more clear an idea than the rest of the team.

But it wouldn't hurt to get an objective tactical analysis of the kid's (yes, he'd started thinking of Dak as 'the kid' again) marksmanship.

Barsh watches the datapad for a moment, and nods at Shard's comments, "My recommendation?  Don't mistreat the gear you're issued with.  It might be the last one in stock."  Once he's satisfied that the map is downloading correctly, he asks the group in the doorway, "How many cells do you need?"

Kedra gives Juragga a smile and a wave.  It looks like the fact that the Wookiee actually had time to stop and listen to the tech might have earned him a new friend.  Then she sighs and looks at the datapad, "Is it ready yet?"

"Almost." Barsh replies, though he's no longer watching the pad, because he's behind a shelf a little way from counter.  Kedra moves closer to the pad to take a look, and Barsh demonstrates that he has some sort of Jedi mind trick at his disposal... without looking out from behind the shelf he calls, "Don't touch that.  It's still processing data, and you haven't signed for it yet."

Barsh comes back around the shelves with an open carton, which he drops on the counter.  "Power cells." he announces.

Rhijans stepped up.  "Just one for me.  Odds are, wherever we get sent next, I'll have to make another visit here, I can pick up more, then.  The same for these two, unless they've got some stashed somewhere or some burning need for additional ones."

While he still didn't necessarily trust Kedra, it was becoming pretty apparent that Shard did...and knowing his own natural inclination to be overly suspicious of people, he had to give her opinion some extra weight in deciding how to proceed.

Which meant, basically, that Kedra was a dead-end in their spy-hunt, and they had no one else as potential suspects.  So, going to make sure the weapons were in good repair and still accurate was at least a constructive thing to do while trying to figure out where to look next.  And maybe they'd get lucky...if he kept up enough noise about knowing they needed good weapons where they were getting sent next, he might lure someone into sniffing around to try and get some news to throw out there to the Empire.

"None of these have a full charge, because I'm not going to hand out the full ones for target practice without authorisation from Kourene himself.  Need to keep them for real operations.  They're all at at least half charge though.  Take your pick"

Barsh takes a quick look at the pad, then disconnects it and hands it to Kedra, and his voice seems to soften again, "Here you go Kedra.  Try not to break this one."

The tech accepts the pad with a quiet, "Thank you Barsh." and starts to operate the controls, "This map doesn't look the same as the one I had."

"That would be because the one you had was broken."

"Anybody need anything else, or can I get on with my work now?"

Juragga gave a friendly wave at Kedra, then chuffed and rolled his eyes at Dak.  A Wookiee's ears indeed.

He was glad Kedra didn't seem to be the spy, because he liked her in a paternal sort of way.  But of course, that left them back at square one.  It could be anyone, and they had no leads.

Rhijans stepped up, reaching out to grab the appropriate power-cell for his blaster without even deliberating.  "If all goes well, I may even actually bring it back in the same condition I got it," he said to Barsh.

Given his naturally dry tone of voice, it was impossible to say, for sure, if he was commenting on the limited use he intended for it, or if he was joking about the standard declaration of quartermasters everywhere on handing out equipment that was expected to be returned.  To the casual listener, at least.

Those who'd known him for a while would realize that, while his tone wasn't much different, the fact that he was even commenting on it was 'funny', for him...

"You could have done better than that," Shard grumbles.  The 'reccomendation' didn't help much at all.  "We're all on the same side here, and you've a better idea of what you have - and what it does - than I do."

Suddenly irked by the neverending animosity between supply and field, she lays her forearms down on the table and leans forward.  "Look, I know you have responsibility for all this stuff, and you have to keep it ready for whoever needs it.  Because more people than just me and my group need it.  I get that.  I try to bring things back in good shape.  I want to bring things back in good shape.  Your goods are what we have to work with.  The Rebellion needs it, and it needs it functional."

She waves a hand over her shoulder at the small knot of people behind her. "But sometimes the blaster bolts start flying, and I've got a hole in me, or one of them does, or maybe someone tosses a concussion grenade at us and it lands on someone's pack.  Or maybe it's one of my friends dead.  Void, it's a dirty business out there with a lot of people dying.  So sometimes the gear comes back dinged up.  And I know, that's something you're going to have to take time trying to fix for the next person what needs it, or maybe write off and struggle to scrounge up a replacement.  Which stinks."

Drawing in a deep breath, Shard straightens.  "And I'm sorry about that.  I really am.  And I'll do it again, because that's what me and my group do.  We take that equipment you give us and we put it to cursed good use out there, trying to shut down that Empire we're all fighting.  Without it, we'd be in deep."  She draws a deep breath.  "When I ask for a reccomendation, I'm hoping you'll give me something I can cursed well use, maybe something new, something that might come in handy on any mission.  If you can't, fair enough.  And I'm sorry for getting a little hot under the collar here, as well."

"Now, I'm going to go keep getting myself in shape."  Irritated with her irritation, Shard flicks a two-fingered salute at Kedra.  "Good luck, Kedra.  Comm me sometime, or maybe we'll bump into each other." Clapping Rhijans on the shoulder, firing a nod at the dynamic duo of Juragga and Haarmon, she strides off down the hall.

Rhijans actually showed an expression as Shard launched into her diatribe.  Surprise.  By the time she was done, he'd wiped it away again, but when she clapped him on the shoulder and began walking, it returned for a moment, as he looked at Barsh and shrugged...Don't ask me, I'm as surprised as you are, he seemed to say.

He made an educated guess at the power packs the others would need, grabbed them, and followed Shard.

Kedra frowns at the map, adjusts the controls again, and as Rhijans and the others follow after Shard the last thing they hear is her saying, "Oh... I see.  I went wrong here, I think.  Should have turned left.  No, no...  Right, then left."

Barsh says nothing.  He just picks up the carton of power cells and takes tham back to the shelf.

Shard stalks angrily through the corridors of the base, with people seeming to instinctively knowing they should move out of her way.

Rhijans and the others head up to the hangar, where they can get easy access to the outside world and the makeshift shooting range hidden in the jungle.  When they get there, the place is deserted...

With nobody else about, and only the assorted howls, screeches and hoots from the jungle to disturb them, the rebel heroes can be moderately certain that nobody could overhear any discussion that they might have as they send bolt after bolt of blaster fire down-range...