"mmmrrrrmmmmmmffff," Juragga muttered.

I have a bad feeling about this...

The expression on Rhijans' face hardened.  "If Fett went after him, Ansart's dead.  Not many get away from him the first time around...those that do, he makes it a personal matter to make sure they don't do it a second time."

He glanced over the controls, recognizing most of them...cockpit layouts tended to be fairly consistent, as far as primary flight controls, and the ones he didn't recognize, he was pretty sure he wouldn't need for the bit of ship shuffling they were about to try.  "Good news is, he's expensive, even for a Hutt, so it's not likely Oomba's kept him on retainer.  And if he's not being paid for it, and no one's made it personal, he'll stay out of it.  Oomba may have sent him after Ansart...for that matter, it's likely that he did, since the message said that he would if Ansart didn't pay up...but I doubt Oomba's feeling so expansive that he'd pay someone at Fett's level to babysit an Imperial shuttle on some backwater world in a nowhere-corner of the galaxy...especially when you factor in the extra that Fett would charge to offset having to give up business to sit around here."  He slid into one of the flight-control seats.

"We should be safe enough, in that regard.  Worst that could happen is that Oomba finds out the shuttle was still here and sends Fett to find out who took it.  And that's just way too much trouble for a relatively minor asset.  If Oomba prized this shuttle that much, he wouldn't have left it sitting out here.  I'm guessing Ansart got it through Oomba, based on the holomessage.  He did whatever he was going to do and then ditched the shuttle, thinking Oomba would write him off as lost...Oomba hires Fett to find out what happened to Ansart...either confirm he died, or get rid of him for failure to pay up.  Fett finds Ansart, does his thing, reports back to Oomba...and the rest of it is forgotten.  For now."

His eyes glittered as what could almost be considered a malicious smirk crossed his features.  "But if Oomba got the shuttle through Imperial contacts, and it shows up out of the blue at the site of some kind of serious incident, that means Oomba's gonna have to answer some very tough questions.  I know the Hutt Syndicate is powerful...but even they think twice about crossing the Empire..."

Haarmon let out a low whistle. "Boba Fett! Even I heard of him and I lived a pretty sheltered life till I ran into you people. Doesn't sound like a dude I particularly want on my side."

After checking that the holo-projector was just standard stuff, he flicked on the nearest terminal and went to work. "Okay, little sparky, let;s see what you been up to."

Nothing too fancy just yet. Just flight logs. Registration. Where did it come from, where was it headed, that kind of thing.

OOC: Rolled a 24 for Computer Security (yay!) and 11 for Computer Investigation (Boo!)

Rhijans snorted softly.  "Better on your side than on your tail...but, no...not the kind of guy you want on your side, either.  Loyal to the credits, not the cause, and ready to sacrifice friend or foe to get the job done."  It was, quite likely, not as bad as that...reputations had a way of getting exaggerated...but he wasn't interested in finding out how much of that reputation was reality.

"I'd agree with Juragga - nobody ever found this thing," Shard muses before listening to the others.  She grins at Haarmon's words.  "Well, good news is we have our own deadly bounty hunter, and this one is a little more principled than this Fett character." The name isn't particularly familiar to her, but she'll take Haarmon and Rhijan's word about him.

"And more good news," she continues, moving back to where Haarmon begins work on the computer.  "If Oomba set up this situation to allow someone to get through Imperial Defenses...to sneak through Imperial Defenses...maybe it's still decent.  Hutts don't want to honk off the Empire; if they're doing something sneaky, they're going to make sure it's hard to spot."

"I'll start cleaning up," she volunteers, not having any other skills. "And if I find some smuggler's compartments, all the better."

Lund nods, "I've never run into Boba Fett, but I've heard that he's not somebody I'd want to meet anyway."

"As far as I can tell, nothing has been tampered with.  It should be good to go."  The pilot stands and heads for the exit.

"I'll go and move the Gambit."

While Shard goes to look around the shuttle, and Rhijans gets ready to move it, Haarmon goes through the nav records...

Rhijans took a moment, looking over the controls, running through the start-up sequence in his head before he started flipping switches and pushing buttons, bringing the engines to a 'ready' state but not adding any throttle to them.  Lund's job of getting the netting clear would not be any easier if the shuttle was rising together with the net, after all.

"Juragga," he called out, seeing as Haarmon and Shard were both occupied, "Can you and Hedine get the net tied onto the Gambit's landing struts, so Lund can lift it off of us?"  Without anyone to help from the ground, it would require Lund to snag the net with his landing gear...without bumping the shuttle.  Do-able, of course...but a less-than-optimal approach.

Juragga's skill at climbing proves quite useful, as he manages to get into a position where he can easily hitch the net onto the Gambit's landing gear, before clambering back down to the ground.  Once there, he and Kara Hedine make sure the net doesn't snag as is lifted clear of the shuttle.

The tricky part of the operation comes after the two ships have traded places, and it requires every available pair of hands to drag the net over the mass of protrusions and irregularities that is the hull of a YT-1300.

In the end, it isn't perfect, but it would require somebody to get fairly close to spot Bold Gambit where it sits among the trees.  Probably...

Lund runs some quick checks on the controls, explaining to Rhijans, "No offence, but I always prefer to check things over myself.  It'll just take a few minutes, then we can be on our way."

If Rhijans was at all slighted, it didn't show.  "I only said I knew how to fly.  I never claimed it as a specialty.  I'm not gonna nitpick a pro."  He remained in the co-pilot's seat, though...there was no reason to hurry to relocate to the passenger area.

At their next stop, he would need to be back in stormtrooper armor...and while he was fine with that, and even vaguely comfortable in it, that didn't mean he was in any hurry to put it on.

Haarmon finishes up on the console and starts looking around to see if there's anything else he can do and/or anything cool he can poke until it does something interesting.

"Looks like this guy's been here for five years, and came here almost directly after being built. So hopefully it doesn't trigger any Back from the Void alerts when we try to use it. We could wind up in a documentary."

Arriving back at the cockpit, Shard coughs out a short laugh at Haarmon's jibe. "Have enough people looking for us without that, sure," she murmurs.  Between their imitation of Nimadda and their assault on a Star Destroyer, the older woman holds a sneaking suspicions that their faces, at the least, are on every Imperial notice board.

Her voice raises slightly. "Couldn't find any compartments; either he's not a smuggler or...I couldn't find them," she finishes, somewhat lamely. "I'm not exactly an experienced customs agent, and those things are made to beat THEIR eyes."

She's in full agreement with Rhijans; when you don't have a professional, you make do, but when you happen to have a pro on-hand...listen to them.

"Should probably check the rest of the ship over for cargo and the like, or interesting special agent arsenals, but that can wait until we're in-flight."

Rhijans shrugged.  "It's a shuttle...they don't generally use these things for smuggling, unless it's like how we're going in.  There's no significant cargo space to speak of."  He looked back from the cockpit area.

"It's a good idea to search it, just so we know what is or isn't aboard.  But I don't think we're likely to find any smugglers' stash.  This is too high-profile to use for regular smuggling...weighs down the risk side when you start balancing risk and reward."

Lund nods, "It's an Imperial shuttle.  Navy isn't big on smuggling, and I don't think Ansart had time to make any changes to this ship before he went missing, if he even came here.  The recording suggests that he never did, at least to me."

"Anyway, we're all good."  He starts the engine, and lifts the shuttle off the ground.  "Next stop, Ord Mantell, Hedine's brother, and a cure for You-Why."

As the shuttle rises, Lund veers it towards the source of the apparent battle sounds, still grabbing altitude.  Sure enough, the vessel passes high above an upland valley where a number of fires rage below a thin blanket of smoke.  Units are not visible, but there are occasional explosions.

"I'd say it's locals fighting among themselves.  If we could tell which side was which, we could go down and help the Alliance sympathizers."

With a shrug, he pulls up the nose, and heads for space...

Rhijans shook his head, watching and making mental notes as he watched Lund's hands on the controls.  "Not our mission, and too risky for the detour," he opined, even as Lund pointed the shuttle's nose skyward and they accelerated out of the atmosphere.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAArgh," Juragga commented.

I couldn't find anything.

"I've known a few Imperials who weren't above smuggling myself," Shard muses, "and I was figuring it might be...modified.  But fair point.  And if Juragga didn't find anything, I guess we're clear."

From that point, she waits for the flight to begin.  It does, with dispatch, and soon they're overflying the battle zone.  "As much as I would like to drop in and assist," she says, "I'd need to agree. How long a flight is this going to be?"  The older woman jerks a thumb to indicate Haarmon. "If it's going to be long, and Haarmon isn't needed, could do with a little more study time."

Lund looks up from a display where he is calculating the best course to Ord Mantell.  "Preliminary calc would be three or four hours, but I can probably shave that down a bit.  So call it three hours, tops."

The pilot goes back to his calculation, still talking.  "Ord Mantell is pretty easy from here, even for a garbage scow like this.  Oops!  I don't want to go that way, because it means I just aimed us through a giant star... "

He grins.  "Just kidding.  We're good."

He dumps the nav data into the drive, and makes the jump to lightspeed as soon as the ship is clear of the atmosphere...

Still poking his head into access panels, ports, terminals, anything the least bit interesting, Haarmon shook his head. "What is it with pilots all thinking they're comedians? I knew a guy one time, used to use mix up his measurements to mess with people. Talked about time like it was distance and vice versa. He thought it was a hoot. Drove me crazy".

If Rhijans was at all alarmed by the joke, it would never be known by looking at him.  With the ship in hyperspace, there wasn't much to piloting, and what preparations needed to be made would take maybe half an hour.  He leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes...he might have appeared asleep, but he focused on every voice, every sound, identifying what he could and mentally noting its position relative to him.  He'd never relied on that to help him in a fight...but it did help him keep his perceptions focused and his mind on guard.

"Time as if it were distance, and vice versa?  You sure he didn't just get the mixed up?"*  The older woman shrugs.  "Some people..." Settling herself down, she draws out a cylinder of metal.  It's nicked, slightly dented in one area, and clearly cobbled together from a bunch of different machine parts.  The device only bears a cursory resemblance to the smooth, sleek weapons of centuries past, and yet the function remains the same.

Her lip twitches slightly, but Shard resists the urge to make a disgusted moue.

"If you have a moment, Haarmon," she slowly begins. "We have some space and privacy, soooo...might be a decent time for you to get a little experience waving one of these things around."  A heavy sigh follows.  "I'd love to say it's all instinct and 'going with the flow', but it isn't; there's skill, skill that requires practice."

* I see what you did, there.  ^_^

Hedine sits near Lund.  With the ship in hyperspace, there's little for the pilot to do, beyond listening for alarms.  He flashes her a smile.

"How did you learn to fly this thing anyway?" she asks.

"Well... the one good thing about the Empire.  The only good thing.  They standardise everything.  Once you've flown one Imperial ship, you've flown all Imperial ships of that type.  The ships are designed for specific jobs, but the controls are the same.  All capital ships have the same bridge layout, no matter what class they are.  All haulers have the same bridge layout.  And all transports," he waves a hand to encompass the Lambda class shuttle, "like this one, have the same cockpit layout."

"It's a great strength, because it means you can move crews about.  But it's a great weakness too.  Once you know the layout of one ship, you can sabotage them all."

Without opening his eyes, Rhijans responded, "Holds true for most Imperial equipment and installations, too...and the Empire has the weakness of arrogance.  They assume that, with enough troops and vehicles, they're invulnerable...which is why missions like this have a prayer of working.  They don't conceive of anyone having the audacity to challenge them in such fashion.  And since their installations tend to have similar layouts, it just helps us.  Long as you act like you know where you're going and have every reason in the universe to be there, you're not likely to face a serious challenge."
This message was last edited by the player at 00:43, Tue 28 July 2020.

Juragga muttered something about it making searching cargo bays easier, too.

Then he went looking for a gun turret to man.

There isn't a turret, as such.  The shuttle has numerous weapons, controlled from a gunnery position in the cockpit.  Hedine moves to let Juragga sit there... 

Lund meanwhile continues to discuss Imperial design philosophies.  As he does so, it becomes clearer that he really dislikes Imperial aesthetics.  Hedine comments on it, which brings a glare from the pilot.

"Imperial ships are ugly.  Equipment and vehicles too.  Their bases are all identical, all pressed from the same mould, all of them drab and utilitarian.  There is nothing of beauty in any Imperial structure, except when an officer steals a piece of local art for his own quarters on some conquered planet."

Eyes still closed, Rhijans said, drily, "Never realized you were such a design enthusiast, Lund.  Not that I disagree..."