Death in the Sky: Session 6

This was a little short since we had to play on a weeknight due to conflicting schedules over the weekend.

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Ellors watched, fascinated as Nei sang to her computer in the light tones of the Omwati language. Nei looked at Ellors and smiled. After she was sure he was not paying attention, she gave a command that she had built into her device that would show code input on the screen. While this was happening, Nei took the opportunity to install an obfuscated backdoor that could only be accessed (and therefore detected) by using an Omwati interface. With that done, Nei continued working on the code. Once she was finished, she looked over a Ellors.

"So, do I get to see how you formed that security field? That was quite impressive."

"Oh...that..." said Ellors, mysteriously. "That was simply a field jammer that I...modified." Ellors, turned to look at the code that Nei had added to the system. "I see what you did there," he said pointing to a subroutine Nei had added. Nei got was a little nervous because that was the subroutine that contained the backdoor, but she didn’t show it. "You’re adding a layer of encryption to every access to our holonet address. Very nice."

"Well, it should prevent further slicing from other individuals such as myself."

"Indeed it should, I’ll let Mr. Orden know that you have sealed our security hole," Ellors said as he punched a few keys into his pad. Suddenly the door opened and Odon was standing there.

"Right this way, Ms. Sobri," Odon said as he stepped to the side and motioned into the hallway.

"So, I don’t get to see the field jammer, then?" Nei said sadly as she stood.

"There is no time for that, Ms. Sobri," Odon said. "If you’d please come with me."

Nei turned and followed Odon out of the room.

Dex and Liora, could see a door-droid standing at the Skera Heights, where Odon’s penthouse was located.

"We need to check and see if this place is up to code. Let us in." Dex said as he hurriedly approached the door-droid with a slightly grumpy attitude.

Satisfied with Dex’s explanation, the droid stepped to the side as the door slid open. "You will find the superintendent’s office down the hall and to the right, sir. Suite 1019," it said as the mechanical hat on its head tipped.

"Sigh. Thank you, Mr. Doorbot," Dex sighed as he walked through the door.

"No problem, sir. Please, my designation is 3n-7ry. Most people call me 3n for short."

Inside, the apartment foyer evoked the architecture that was popular in the Republic about 1500 years ago, if Dex was not mistaken. However, either the building had been deliberately built in the retro style, or the lift system, computer network interfaces, and security systems had received some serious upgrades. There were comfortable looking sofas built into the corner looking out over the street. Near the sofas was a front desk. A screen on the wall displayed a directory of the residents, and next to that was a row of lifts ready to take anyone to the appropriate floor.

"Alright, Liora, we now have two options. Either go floor by floor, or we try to locate Nei through research."

"Let's try to locate Nei." Liora responded to Dex.

Dex continued walking to the front desk, and asked the receptionist, "Where do you keep your main computer, we’re here to inspect the datacore and make sure it’s functioning within acceptable peramiters, I’d hate for it to shut down, or worse blow the whole place to bits. Or you could just let me sign off on it without actually checking anything, its up to you."

"Hmm," the receptionist said, checking her schedule. "I don’t see us scheduled for an inspection today. Who sent you?"

"Well of course it isn’t scheduled! Who schedules a surprise inspection? There are lives at stake here, and all you care about are schedules! I’m half tempted to just leave and file a report on you!"

"Oh, you bureaucrat types are all the same," she said. "You all think that your little bit of the pie is so important. Well let me tell you what. I’ve been here for 3 years and I have never heard> of a surprise data core inspection."

"Look, I’m having a long day. I’m not a bureaucrat. Look at my clothes. I only have this job because I know machines and didn’t have any other job. If I mess up, they’ll likely fire me, and I’ll be back on the street selling death sticks. So, please just let me take a quick look at the main computer." Dex pleaded somberly.

The receptionist looked at Dex and her face softened a little. "Okay, I’ll let you in this time, but remember to schedule the inspection next time," she said as she grabbed an ID badge, swiped it and handed it to Dex.

"thank you."

No session this week

We didn't have a session this week because one of the player's had a conference to go to. This gave me the opportunity to get to the nearest Free RPG Day vendor and pick up a couple of goodies. I got the Battletech/Shadowrun quickstart and the 13th Age adventure.

Death in the Sky: Session 5

Nei paused for a moment to collect her thoughts, trying to weigh how dangerous he was. He is presumably very high-ranking if not the head of the Black Sun. Should I feign ignorance? No, that would not do well. The truth, then. "Well, to be honest, you're security is quite complex as it is. If it had not been for the particular program I used, your database would not have been compromised. I was trying to find information on Mr. Pell's speeder crash and sent a complex search program that inadvertently infiltrated your database. I can help your slicer design a security specifically against my program. Or I can sincerely promise not to slice through your database. I have never broken my word."

"Oh, no, my dear," the noble said. "I need you to fill whatever holes in my security grid that you found. If you are agreeable to my terms, I can get you started right away."

"What are you terms?" Nei asked hesitantly.

Darro settled into the oversized back of his chair and placed his hands on his lap. "In return for your arms remaining attached to your body, you will upgrade my security grid as much as your abilities allow."

Nei thought for only a moment. "If I can work with your slicer, I am sure our combined effort will provide a very strong security grid."

"Agreed," said Darro as he held out his hand to Nei.

Nei reached forward, but paused, "What happens after your security grid is fixed?"

"That depends on the quality of your work," Darro said as he motioned Odon to take Nei away. "Take her to Ellors and see if she can do anything with him."

 

"Khrad and Odon…" Zhar'sara said as she tilted her head as if trying to recall the names. "I can't place them, but our organization is large, and I don't know every associate by name." A datapad appeared as she pulled it from a compartment in her desk and she began typing into it.

""Wait, you mean you aren't all friends on the holonet?" Dex said sarcastically.

Liora just sat listening patiently while Dex was gathering useful information.

"Do you have any logs with names, that we can go through? any records?" Dex asked.

"You are free to use my system to access it. Just don't do anything that will get me into trouble, Dex."

"I never do anything troublesome."

"Sure," the Twi'lek winked as she passed the datapad to Dex. She stood up and walked to the door. Looking over her shoulder she said, "I have to go check on things in the bar, but make yourselves at home." With that she walked out of the office and the door slid shut behind her.

Dex took the liberty of sitting back at her desk. He grabbed her datapad and leaned back, resting his legs on the desk. He took a glance at what it was that Zhar'sara had typed before leaving hoping it was a message.

Careful, Dex, they are Darro Orden's top torpedoes. Dex had just enough time to read it before the message dissolved, and the datapad showed a standard interface screen.

Liora scooted her chair closer to Dex so she could see the datapad. "What did you just read?"asked Liora.

"Hmm? Oh, no its just a picture of Zhar'sara. But there's nothing on here, lets try the library." Rising from the desk, Dex set the datapad down.

"Alright." responded Liora while following Dex's lead and stood up to follow him out of the office.

They left the club, and got into a new taxi. Dex instructed the driver to take them a block away from Darro's apartment.

 

Odon took Nei to a room that had some of the most impressive equipment Nei had seen in a while. It was dark, or would be if it weren't for a dozen or two screens and holo projectors lighting up the room. In the center of all of it, a thin human sat.

He was facing away from the door, but as it opened he said, "Hey, Odon, is this the slicer that got into my system earlier?"

"Don't give me that, Ellorrs. You know who she was. You probably heard the entire conversation." Turning to Nei, Odon said, "Nei, meet Ellorrs Trehalt. He's the best slicer Mr. Orden has been able to hire. Once you get over his skills, you'll find he's just a cocky kid."

"A pleasure as always, Odon." Ellorrs said as the door closed a little early on Odon. "Sorry about that, I'll have to get that bug worked out!" he yelled after the door shut. "I like to mess with him, he can be a bit stuck up," chuckled Ellors. Turning around, Nei could see that Ellorrs was wearing a pair of custom data-goggles. The slicer took them off and looked at Nei for a second. "Hmm, you're prettier in person than the HoloVid."

"Thank you? HoloVid's are usually not the best relayers of tridimensional images, although Professor Allacorps has made surprisingly effective strides in that field. Did design your data-goggles yourself? What filament did you use?"

"Why yes, I did build them. They use a Tramar Siquil filament," Ellors said as he turned the goggles over in his hands. "Come on, let me show you the system."

"Indeed. We should begin. Your security grid is one the most impressive I have encountered!"

"Thanks, wasn't quite good enough though," Ellorrs said.

"Nothing is ever perfect, especially technology."

Turning to the nearest holo readout, Ellorrs began touching it. "This is the primary system control," he continued, tapping an orange box in the hologram which expanded until it engulfed the whole hologram. "Here is the firewall array. This one," he pointed at a red one, "is the one that you breached. I built and coded them myself. 90% of the hardware are Cyrim 569.2s, but I cross-compiled them for the Yanar Digital 2208 processor."

"Impressive! I'd like to take a look at the source code. Perhaps I'll be able to see something that can be optimized," Nei pulled out datapad and attached her Omwati interface.

"What's that?" Ellorrs asked.

 

The taxi came to a rest in an expensive neighborhood, and Dex and Liora stepped out. Darro Orden's skyscraper was visible towering over all the other buildings around. Dex and Liora got out of the taxi (Liora paid the driver, while Dex stared off into the distance). Once the Taxi had taken off, Dex spoke, "Those goons work for Darro Orden. That skyscraper is Darro's, his apartment is inside. don't mention his name, or black sun. There's a chance Nei is in there.. or dead. and it's likely we'll be dead if we go in there and say the wrong thing.. or look at the wrong person. you ready to go rescue our friend from the tower of doom?" Dex gave Liora an unenthusiastic half smirk. "How about I just keep following your lead. Since, ya know, I know nothing about dealing with this level of rabel." Liora quietly said to dex.

"Here's the plan, we walk in like we know what we're doing, all confident like. Once inside we'll figure out what to do. when someone tries to attack, we'll just kick em in the face.. wait no thats a horrible plan. let's just stick to looking like we know what we're doing."

"Face kicking, good plan!" Liora replied with a laugh. "Sure we totally know what we're doing." Liora retorted sarcastically.

as they were about to enter the building Dex suggested one last tip, "oh and dont have any negative thoughts." He then opened the door and walked forward while casually surveying the layout.

Death in the Sky: Session 4

As Dex was approaching the hangar where the speeder was, Liora appeared from an alley and motioned Dex to follow her. Wondering why Nei wasn't with her, Dex followed.

Around the corner when Liora felt safe enough to talk she'd related all the information of Nei's abduction to Dex. Liora then told him that they were members of the Black Sun.

"And why didn't you two drive off? I gave you the keys for a reason." Dex said irritated.

"Oops! I forgot about them," shrieked Liora as she reached into her pouch and felt the keys. "I was sitting in the back," she stated in her defense.

Dex slapped his forehead and sighed, "So now we can't just tip toe around the Black Sun while investigating, we have to go knock on their front door and ask 'Hello! You kidnapped our friend earlier. Is there any chance you haven't killed or sold her yet? And, if she's still safe, could we have her back?' I have a feeling this won't end well."

"Well, I'm just not sure how to fix this. Don't you have someone you can contact to try to get her back?" asked Liora.

"I may be able to convince someone, but most of the people I used to know aren't overjoyed with me," Dex replied.

"Anything is worth a try to get Nei back, since Malik will be very upset that we let the best slicer at the office be person-napped," Liora reminded Dex.

Dex grunted, and if his eyes weren't a solid color, they would have rolled. He started walking down the street, "Follow me. Zhar'sara may be able to help."

"Jerk....Let's just try to retrieve her!" Liora slightly shouted at him. Liora followed without another word to Dex.

Dex hailed an air taxi and gave the pilot the destination for Zhar'sara's neighborhood.

Nei awoke in a dark room. Dim, purple light filtered in from panels at the base of the walls. She wasn't sure how long she'd been out or where she was. She remembered Khrad grabbing her and injecting her with a hypo-syringe. The last thing she saw as she lost consciousness was Liora jumping out of the speeder and running.

"Ugh...Where am I?" She wondered aloud as she sat up and her head swam a bit. She took inventory of her belongings and found that her datapad and her emergency communicator were there, but there was a security field keeping them from connecting to the holonet. "Well, can't call out, then."

As her eyes focused and adjusted to the odd color, she could tell that the room was about 3 meters by 2 meters. There was a disposer and a hover-buffer. It appeared she was in a janitorial locker. The door at the end was sealed, but it did not seem like the room was meant to hold someone for an extended period of time.

I wonder, would it be more prudent to attempt escape and hope for the best or to wait and not antagonize my captors. A wise decision requires more information. Who could the boss be? She pulled out her datapad and began searching through the data stored on there for any clue as to the identities of either Khrad or Odon. The data on Deell's gambling debt that her search had returned had come from a highly secured datastore. When she checked her logs to see where that data had come from. It was definitely a secret Black Sun datastore that she had compromised, and someone had noticed.

"Oh, bother." Well, that explains it. I should have been more careful with the camouflage program. Maybe I can calmly explain that I was not after them...Yes, of course that will work. Wait, now my inner thoughts sound as sarcastic as Liora and Dex. I've been around them too long... Nei began probing the security field for weaknesses, looking for a backdoor or a way to forge an access code, but to no avail. They must have an extremely competent slicer. Hat's off to you, sir. She then turned her attention to the physical door, first pressing her ear to the door listening for any sounds without.

Nei heard footsteps getting louder and then stop just outside the door. She quickly and silently returned to the position in which she awoke, replacing her datapad in her pouch.

The door opened and revealed Odon standing at the door.

 

The air taxi came to a rest in a very busy district. Even though it was night, the light from the curbside stores was so bright you couldn't tell. Zhar'sara's bar was called "The Silver Swoop" and was about half a block down the street.

"Alright, this time stay close, I don't need two missing persons," Dex said as he paid the taxi and started walking towards the bar.

"Okay." was Liora's response and the only word she had spoken to Dex since getting into the air taxi. She then walked behind him very closely.

Once inside Dex saw the bar was still as busy as it had been when he worked there. Over in the corner there were the gambling tables where Dex had made and lost a couple of fortunes. There were screens showing up with various sporting events throughout the galaxy. One was the Boonta Eve Classic that had the interesting twist this year that a human boy was participating. This, of course, was a pirated signal from Hutt space, but Zhar'sara had ways of getting around that.

In an effort to seem at least some what inconspicuous, Dex went to the bar and ordered a Selonian Black Hole. The bartender turned to make the drink. Liora followed Dex's lead, took a seat and ordered the same drink to keep from looking out of place. The bartender looked up from Dex's drink and nodded.

The noise level in the bar increased noticeably as a spectacular crash appeared in the podrace on the screen. Suddenly all the screens replayed the crash, and the bartender motioned for Dex and Liora into a door.  The duo quickly and quietly moved through the doorway.

The hallway on the other side of the door was a stark contrast to the room they had just been in. Where everything was bright and promoted an jovial atmosphere in the the bar, the hallway was dim, and sparsely decorated. Dex knew that the bar was a facade. The real business was done back here. He made his way to the end of the hall and the door swooshed open revealing Zhar'sara's personal office.

Her office was starkly decorated just as the hallway had been. As long as he knew her, Zhar'sara had been all about business.

"Dex, old friend, what brings you to the Swoop today?" she asked as she looked up from a pile of datapads sitting on her desk and rested her elbows on the desk with her hands folded underneath her chin. Her lekku fell gracefully down her back. "Did you come to ask for your job back? I always have a few people that are a little behind on their bills."

"you dont need me, im sure if you just asked politely, they would give you more than they owed. But what i'm here for has to do with your friends.. and one of mine. she was taken earlier, along with my speeder. I don't suppose you've heard anything about this?" Dex explained.

Zhar'sara nodded her head. "I haven't heard anything about it, but if my friends are involved, I would suggest you tread carefully. They make mistakes sometimes and pick up the wrong person, but they do not like those mistakes pointed out. Those mistakes have a tendency to be erased," she said.

"That's why i came to you. I was hoping you could help me handle this quietly. No one needs to get hurt. You know me. I don't have any friends that could do any damage, so the whole ordeal could be easily forgotten by both sides."

The orange Twi'lek sighed, dropped her hands to her desk, and said, "I'll look into it for you, but only because I like you, Dex. I'm not going to promise you anything, and I'm not going to stick my neck out for you too much if it comes to that. So, who is it that was taken?"

"Her name is Nei Sobri. She's an Omwati. Two goons took her outside of a tavern while I was inside."

"A Trandoshan female named Khrad and a Devaronian male named Odon," chimed in Liora.

 

Nei let Odon shake her just long enough for it to appear that she had been asleep.

"Ugh, my head...where am I?" Nei reenacted her original waking moments.

"That's not important right now. Here. Drink this," the Devaronian said as he handed Nei a cup filled with a sweet smelling liquid.

"What is it? Not to be rude, but I am not in the habit of ingesting unknown substances."

"It's a little serum to relieve the effects of the drugs we had to inject into you."

"Indeed. In that case, thank you," Nei replied as she took the drink and tasted the sweet beverage before draining the cup. "Now what happens? I assume I have been brought here to meet your boss who wishes to remain anonymous. Should I expect a brief interview and dismissal or a more eventual release?"

"The Boss never told me why he wants to meet you. He just told me to pick you up and bring you here," said Odon.

"Indeed. When, then, will I be so privileged with his acquaintance?"

"Now that you're awake, he's ready to see you now," Odon gestured towards the door.

Nei stood up. "Lead the way, then, Odon. I must admit I am rather intrigued." I also want to meet your slicer! To see through my camouflage and create such an effective barrier... As Nei followed Odon out of the closet, her mind became somewhat giddily preoccupied.

Outside the hallway was a very expensive looking apartment. Odon led Nei down the hallway to a lift and pressed a button to call the lift. When it appeared, he ushered her in and keyed a code into the security pad on the inside. The lift began moving upwards. After several minutes, the lift came to a stop and the door opened. The suite outside the lift was about half a mile above the nominal surface of Coruscant and a wide vista of buildings could be seen out the windows. An older human with short cropped hair sat behind a large desk. It was Darro Orden, a wealthy noble from Corellia.

"Ms. Sobri, so glad you could join me today. I've been looking forward to meeting you. Please have a seat," Darro said as he gestured to one of the seats in front of his desk.

"Thank you," Nei replied as she did so. "I am afraid I cannot return the sentiment - I had no plans to make your acquaintance, this evening, Mr. Orden. My only assumption is that perhaps this is related to the investigation I and my partners have been conducting. Perhaps you were a business partner of Mr. Pell?"

"I never met the late Mr. Pell," responded Darro. "I invited you here to address the matter of a breach in my security system. I thought you might have some insight into how I might keep it from recurring." The old man flashed a very devious smile that reminded Nei of a street cat when it had cornered a small rodent.