"GrrrRRRRuuuuuummmf?" Juragga mutters.  Don't they have a sprinkler system?

"Apparently not," Shard mutters, handing one of the extinguishers to Juragga.  "Could be useful - shades of one of our other trips - and you never know, might come in handy if things go out the wrong end of a Bantha."

Class, thy antonym is Shard.

From the look of it, Rhijans is well on his way to breaking out their people - two cells?  The droids must be here.  Fire extinguisher ready, Shard calls out to the officer on duty.  "Sir - heat level is rising, we have a fire!  Do the cells require evacuation?"

Smugglers, escapees, whatever...she's not leaving any prisoners to roast, not if she has an option.

The officer sneers at Shard.  "There is a fire somewhere on the ship, yes, which is putting smoke into the vent system.  Said fire is not in this area.  For all I know, it could be a small fire five decks below us, and at the far end of the ship."

"Prisoners can only be moved from their cells when I receive authorised orders to move them, from Central Command, and not before.  Now, if you are finished here, please move yourself, and that rancid heap of fur, off my deck!"  All throught his speech, the man's voice has risen until, by the end of it, is practicallyshouting directly into Shard's face.

Behind him, Shard can see Reldan Jalt, and his two droids, coming towards her along the access corridor.  Rhijans, or somebody in stormtrooper armour, at least, is following behind them, with a blaster levelled at Jalt's back...

"Unless he stops us, just keep on going," Rhijans said, in terse tones.  He'd taken what precautions he could...but lacking detailed knowledge of the finer protocols of intra-ship prisoner transfers, they were winging it, now...and he'd rather be in a position to be called back for taking too much liberty upon himself than stand around waiting for an okay that may noy be needed.

As they paased the counter, he decided to opt for a little more artifice..."TK-881, prisoners in my charge and en route,"he said, as though making a commlink call.  He otherwise apparently ignored the security personnel...and the trio of maintenance personnel, including one frustrated-looking Wookiee.

To a certain extent, he had no choice...the field of view in the helmet was so limited that he would have been awkwardly obvious, if he'd been trying to keep people in his sight.

"Yes, sir!" Shard yelps back, doing her best impression of 'tech caught messing outside her paygrade'.  It's not hard; her current level of panic is close to real.  They have Jalt, but still haven't walked him past the irate commander...they still need to find the colonel...the ship is burning and Rebels seem to be doing a far better job than normal at destroying it...while they're on board (of course)....

Plenty of room for real concern.

"Let's go, Juragga," she shoots to her towering 'assistant'.  Rhijans looks about ready to leave, everything is going well, she seems to have distracted the commander (who did shout about letting prisoners go if he had authorization...and Rhijans did, in theory); time to leave.  Moving slowly, carefully (what with the perception-tilted deck), Shard heads for the door.

Shard's distraction works perfectly.  Rhijans, Jalt, and the droids pass her by, heading for the exit, so she follows behind them, followed by Haarmon and, finally, Juragga, who shuffles along with his head bowed, and the carry-all containing Jalt's disguise cradled in his arms.

Another explosion rattles the ship. 

Behind her, Shard can hear the officer putting in a call to Central Command, requesting information about a possible fire somewhere near the detention unit, and what to do about the prisoners.  He falls silent as he waits for a response...

Moving away from the detention unit, Jalt suddenly slaps at the controls next to a door, revealing a small store room.  "This will do.  I need to get changed into my disguise."

Rhijans smoothly pivoted, waving everyone into the room.  "Juragga, the carry-all, quickly."  He turned to Dak, his head cocked slightly so he could actually see the slicer standing right in front of him.  "What do you need to locate the Colonel?"

"Just a ninute," Jalt says, "Do we have a knife or something that I can use to pry that restraining bolt off Artoo.  The last thing we need is some Impy realising we're up to something, and stopping him in his tracks."

Juragga drops the carry-all, and pulls it open.  He sneers at the helmet which looks back at him blankly, and a low grumblestarts somewhere down in his chest and threatens to erupt into a full roar...

Shrugging his shoulders at Rhijans, Haarmon smiles happily.  "Well, I just need a terminal, and a little time.  With those two things I can find anything.  Though the time would be a bit variable."

"Want to know where Ghea Nimadda buys her underwear?  Well, it might take a while, but I can find it,  Same with what the Moff had for breakfast.  Everything's all just a matter of time and a terminal."

Rhijans snorted softly.  "We've got a couple of toolboxes, there should be some kind of prying implement that's up to the challenge of popping a restraining bolt."  He looked at Shard and Haarmon.

"See what you can do with the bolt while Jalt gets into the armor...Juragga, stop growling at empty armor and either watch the door or help them with Artoo."  He turned slightly, focusing again on Haarmon.

"Kourene's location and relevant information about the security around it should be more than enough, thanks.  No interest in Nimadda's shopping habits..."

Shifting focus again, to the whole group, he added, "Clock's running...that secind big blast was likely the one I set in the Quartermaster's.  It's a location that wouldn't plausibly take damage from an exterior attack, so they're going to start figuring out they've been infiltrated, the longer we're here the better the chances that word gets around and they start double-checking everything.  Let's get this done while they're still confused and off-balance."

Haarmon smiled a bit at Rhijans' almost-joke. Tension really loosed that guy up. And somehow it really made Haarmon feel a lot better. If they were lost in a massive enemy ship that was about to explode from their own team, well, then maybe everything was going to work out okay.

"Kourene, yes. Wishlist, no. Gotcha." And so-saying, he finds the nearest flat surface and plugs in the PBD and gets to it. He's already been inside the security protocols already and gotten the lay of the land, so to speak.

So it was mostly just a matter of running searches and following logic trees till he hit paydirt.

10:00, Today: Haarmon Dak rolled 14 (21 excluding the wild die) using 6 dice with the WEG Classic system ((1,4,3,6,{Wild}1,6)).

Uh oh. Can I re-try?

Juragga hoots softly, looking abashed, and moves over to listen at the door.

Haarmon starts work on finding the information they need, watching as information strings flow across the terminal.

A small pry-bar is found in one of the tool kits, and it only takes a few seconds for Shard to pop the bolt and release R2-O0 from his enforced servitude to the Imperium.

From somewhere overhead there is another loud thud.  Not an explosion this time.  Something big falling on the next deck up.

Reldan Jalt begins pulling on the armour.  Not a perfect fit, but it will do...

And Rhijans... Rhijans helps where and when he can.  Which mostly means helping with the armour, which is one of the very few current tasks which falls into his comfort zone...

When it came time to start helping with Jalt's armor, Rhijans took his helmet off...the narrow field of vision was beyond burdensome for that task.  He heard the thump overhead, and looked up.

"Not many things on a Star Destroyer are intended to fall like that," he grumbled.  "If their interior structure is taking that kind of damage, we really need to hurry.  Interior damage means one of three things...someone besides us is on board and sabotaging, that charge I set in the Quartermasters hit something important...or the exterior is taking a lot of damage, which could be bad, since the hangar deck is pretty much exterior... "

He didn't say it, but the second option could be bad, too...if the blast had bled back into some of the ship's power systems and was triggering feeback secondaries throughout the ship, there was no knowing what could go off next.

"We REALLY need to get this wrapped up, Haarmon...you got a location for us yet?"

Haarmon's fingers flew across the keys of his terminal as numbers and lists and menus and data streamed across the screens. Sometimes it wasn't so much about finding the data you wanted, sometimes it was just about looking at what they were trying to hide.

"Got you, you slimy little womp rat," he muttered, smiling a little as he uploaded some maps onto the datapads. "I got no names, no official orders, but eight decks down and a couple of sections over, we got a detention block that was full until just recently, when it got totally emptied and then immediately had its security detail doubled."

He handed over the datapad. Watched the man's face for his reaction. Raw data was Haarmon's thing sure, but interpretation was all Rhijans. If the Big Man didn't agree with his Slicers's read, well he'd say a bad word and head back into the networks to look again.

"It's not close. And it's not easy. But then, we don't do easy, do we?"

Haarmon figured someone needed to do the congenially cynical thing until Shard came back in the room.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:37, Wed 03 Aug 2016.

Rhijans looked at the information.  It was a good bet...he'd feel better if there was something...anything, really...that would corroborate it, even a little...

"Do you remember where you saw the surveillance footage of the Colonel?" he asked, hoping for the one thing he could think of to cement the option.  Haarmon was right...they didn't do easy.  But that was a long walk to take away from their one form of escape on the hope that a suddenly cleared and reinforced detention block held the captive they were after, and not some other high-risk prisoner.

"Is it somewhere along the route to this detention block?"  An affirmative would be enough for him to go in without reservation.  A negative...that would require some additional thought...or at least plunging in with heavy misgivings.  And he didn't like misgivings about the actions he was taking.

"Right about now, I'm strongly wishing you - we - hadn't planted charges in the Quartermaster's backyard," Shard mutters.  Without heat; it's complaining, not criticism.  "We don't need this ship getting gutted and falling apart while we're aboard, and with everything else going on some large explosions might just tip the scales."

Of course.

And Haarmon happens to have further bad news.  Or good news, as the case may be.  "Whoever is in that detention block, we want them.  Maybe it's the colonel, maybe it isn't," Shard continues thoughtfully, "but either way they're considered important on a ship with Ghea Nimadda.  That has weight."  Her fingers twitch, hunting for smooth, capped metal...her flask, in this case.  It's not here, and they come up dry.  She could throw her own opinion in, but Rhijans awaits an answer and she won't second-guess the professional in this kind of situation.

If anyone leads in tactical situations, it's him.

The pry-bar goes back into the toolkit. "Hope that feels better, Oh-oh.  You-Why - no issues?  You're handling this pretty well."

Rhijans didn't look away from the datapad, as he commented drily, "Someone forgot to include me on the memo about attacking the Imperial Fleet in force..."  No hint of a smile...but neither was there any heightened tension in his tone.  Still scanning the datapad as though there were some trivial detail Haarmon had somehow missed noticing that would answer things, he added, "I wasn't sure about it until I overheard the QM say something about Nimadda doing an inspection.  Figured it was worth the gamble."

You-Why seems shocked when Shard speaks to him.  "Yes, thank you.  We are doing quite well.  May I say that both I, and R2-O0, are pleased that you noticed?  In our experience it is quite unusual for organics to pay much attention to mere droids."

"I must say that you all seem to be remarkably competent yourselves.  For organics."

The astromech droid whistles indignantly, and slams himself against You-Why's leg.

"Rude?  What do you mean, 'rude'?"

Reldan Jalt announces that he's ready.  He is now wearing a complete suit of armour, except for the helmet, which is currently tucked under one arm...

Haarmon gave You-Why a sideways glance. That rant was downright pleasant, for him. He finished fishing out the surveillance of the Colonal from the guts of his machine and cross-referenced it with what he could find on the maps.

He looked up at Rhijans. Made a concentrating face. He didn't like being the one to make this call. The weight of what would happen if he was wrong pressed on his neck like a vise.

Eventually he nodded.

"It's the same place. I'm 90% sure."

Dice have been cast, and all that.

Rhijans gave a curt nod.  90 percent wasn't total certainty...but based on past performance, Haarmon's 90 percent was more than enough to gamble on.  "Okay...We need to get in and out of there, as fast as possible.  I'm sure there's no chance the fake prisoner transfer would work...but if you can trigger some kind of power fluctuation, and mark it as having a repair team dispatched...then you three can be the team, bringing tge drouds along to trouble-shoot it, and Jalt and I are escorying you, due to the sensitive security situation."

He paused, then added, "It's thin, I know, but it's the best chance I can think of to get in there without having to fight through the security detail.  We might have a chance of fighting our way out...but in and then out again is suicide."  He nodded, grimly.

Shard snorts at You-Why's amazement - not in mockery of the droid, but in partial agreement. "You're more on the ball than a lot of other people I've met, and both of you have been valuable parts of the team.  And I worry about my team.  It's good to hear you're holding up - things are about to get dicey."

Understatement, that.

"And...thanks." The older woman offers the droid a strained half-smile.  "Nice to hear we're making a similar impression.  Don't worry about it, Oh-Oh."

Pivoting, she faces on to Rhijans and Haarmon.  "Same deal as before?  Works for me.  We just ran out of there heading for another job, why not this one?  Not that anyone is going to be asking for our last stop, to verify.  And in the middle of this kind of mess?"

One eyebrow rises, along with that corner of her mouth. "'Thin' gets overlooked.  I can't say I like the fact that we're sitting on a gigantic target right now, but it'll facilitate our prisoner release...assuming the ship holds together." Another snort. "Beats that second choice - shooting our way in and out."

Suicide might be an understatement as well.

"So...you dressed all nice and spiffy, Jalt?  We're moving."

"Yep, let's go."  Jalt pulls his helmet on.  "Lead the way."

The corridor outside the room is empty, but the one it intersects is more full.  Crew and stormtroopers hurrying to destinations unknown.  And none of them have time to question a group of techs, accompanied by troopers, droids, and a Wookiee slave.  Or even to notice that the droids aren't standard Imperial models...

The team push onwards through the ship, staying close together.  With so many stormtroopers moving about, the last thing anybody wants is to get separated from their troopers, and then speak to the wrong one.  And given the numbers the odds definitely favour mistaken identity in the case of any separation.

An elevator appears, right where Haarmon's map shows that it should be, and they crowd in to descend eight levels.  Except that the elevator stops after six, and when the door opens it admits a wave of heat.  The hallway outside is filled with acrid smoke, and the stink of burning insulation...

"Well, that's not good..." Rhijans muttered.  If the mic in the helmet picked it up, he didn't appear to notice.

"Haarmon...any way to find out if the elevator's locked down?  Or if it stpped here as a safety protocol, and what's going on below us?"  His mind raced with a myriad of scenarios, ranging from needing to find their way down two decks around a fire, without the lift, to a prisoner who'd smuggled some kind of suicide device aboard and had gutted that entire section of the ship.  They needed more intel.  If the whole cell block they were after had gone up in flames, there was no rwason to keep going...but he wanted to be certain before he suggested an abort.

"Make it fast," Shard wants to say, but keeps her mouth shut.  Haarmon doesn't need the stress.  MORE stress; the young slicer is probably tense enough as it is.  Bending, Shard touches the floor, passing her hands over it, searching for heat. "If the decks below this are all aflame, we're up to our necks," she mutters.

Worse, any bypassing they need to do going in will slow them further on the way out.  And perhaps no longer be possible, given the pounding the ship is taking.  At any other time she would be cheering; right now, it's the furthest thing from Shard's thoughts.

"Let's keep our extinguishers ready, Juragga; I've a feeling they're going to be more useful than blasters right now."

Haarmon was sweating, and it wasn't the fire.

Well, it wasn't just the fire.

He was struck by how different this mission felt than the others he's survived so far. On Alkirk, Dortennia, Osmur, Mothesh, he'd been purely fringe. Hanging back. Trying to stay out of everyone's way. Every now and again digging  up some dirt so the real soldiers could go out guns blazing.

But here he was up front all the time. Rhijans kept asking him things. Asking for things. And expecting answers. Needing answers, right answers, or people would die. And not just people, him, us, them, Shard, Rags, Rhijans. The team.

Haarmon was accustomed to being useful as a surprise, not as a matter of course. The difference was subtle. But striking.

He nodded and popped open the maintenance hatch and plugged his terminal into the access port and went fishing. It was a simple thing. Way easier than even blowing the Bantha's tanks. Safety alerts and transportation interruptions were basically public knowledge. All in all, it barely even counted as slicing. But all the same he was breathing hard and his fingers were trembling on the keys.

"Gimme sec. Just a sec. Almost there."

Checking the status of the elevator, and what the next couple of decks down look like. Maybe we can force the elevator down past the fire if the decks below it are clear.

08:31, Today: Haarmon Dak rolled 19 using 5 dice with the WEG Classic system with rolls of {Wild}2,5,3,6,3.  Investigation (networks) - See what's happening with the elevator(s).
This message was last edited by the player at 14:35, Tue 09 Aug 2016.

Sounds can be heard from somewhere out in the smoke-filled deck.  Shouting.  Orders and instructions for the most part.  There are people out there, and they seem to be dealing with an emergency of some kind...

And, as well as the shouting, there is an arrhythmic pounding and mechanical whining sound coming from somewhere.