Take Me To Your Leader [D4 ME]

[Verse Aura]

"Hey guys," she raised up a hand, alongside a smile, at her companions, "What's going? Sorry, I got lost, but these nice stormtroopers told me about some interesting things and got me back here. Wait, where are we going? I thought we were getting pie?"

[Jenna Karath]

"Well, thank you for your time commander," she said, glancing then to verse and shaking her head. Only a matter of getting back to the ship for now.

[Dapper Dog]

"Well, thank you for your time commander," she said, glancing then to verse and shaking her head. Only a matter of getting back to the ship for now.

"Pleasure ma'am, you folks fly safely," he said with a smile.

He then moved back to a safe distance and waited until they lifted off with a small contingent of troopers.

[Verse Aura]

As they were walking to the ship, and as soon as they were out of earshot from the imperials who had moved back, Verse started talking.

"Sooo... found a bunch of people who were under lockdown since the sister took over. The troopers were saying the 'primitives' would be 'primitives' or something, and 'nothing superior firepower' couldn't handle. Also one of them threathened me and tried shooting me, but missed. You know, I think we have a hostage situation on our hands here. This is wrong. So what did you guys learn while I was gone? "

[Jenna Karath]

"That sisters behind it," Jenna said, her smile had quickly dissipated into a scowl as soon as she was outside of view from the commander, the troopers, really any and all of them. "The woman who claims she's a leader probably sold her people out to live large, every inch of that place reminded me of the slums controlled by the Hutts. Just different folks with guns is all. There's some.. hope, though, like you have already seen yourself Verse and I'm sure none of the rest of us missed it."

[Verse Aura]

"So, question is what do we do about it? With a little help from the locked up people we might be able to overpower them, but people might get hurt if we just start doing our thing."

[Sinnya]

"Not while they're on comms with that Sith witch, especially." Sinnya shook her head, trying to shrug off her confusion. She'd managed to keep her cool out there, but the situation in the Chaldi village disturbed her deeply. Jenna's comparison to the favelas around the Hutt palaces had crystallized her unease. This was a kind of hierarchy, extractive and backed with very particular threats of calculated violence, that she more or less expected in Rygor but which didn't belong in the great forest sea.

Now inside the ship, she glared at the boarding ramp cam. "He's going to stand out there until we take off, the son of a gizka. We need to know more," she grumbled through gritted teeth.

She looked around at the others, weighing their reactions. "Will they notice if we hit them with the ship's scanners? Try to get a count?" The question was directed mostly at Vaya, who seemed to have some notions about Tech Stuff, but it included the others too. "Those troopers' weapons have power cells that won't scan like much anything else in a forest village. I can take us out slow and get as much visual as they let me, too."

"Or... we could pretend we got some kind of mechanical problem, that might buy us a little more time to look around." She'd pulled that one a few times with speeders, camping on restricted property. It was easy to fake a repulsorlift hiccup in an airspeeder; how hard could it be in a starship? Right? "Not too much time, though. I really don't want those troopers coming on board to help."

[Jenna Karath]

"He's diligent, makes anything we try to do more difficult and.. there aren't a lot of good options here, we could stall to come up with something but there's too many. That commander is stationed here and doesn't leave, means to me his men probably don't switch out either, so sneaking through under disguise is likely off the table. If we could get here we could still possibly slip in disguised, but that would be risky, far too few present for that to work every time and he's far too clerical to not check any inbound ships," she said, finding herself somewhere to sit that allowed her access to speak with everyone.

"Count.. might be useless, 'less you've an idea how to arm a populace or bring fighters here that won't just get taken out of the sky by those Imperials mounted up," she shrugged. "Suppose a strike team could liberate a place like this but we're not exactly soldiers," she cast a glance at Verse who'd she'd felt she was getting a bit of a handle on, "even if we wanted to act the big heroes. People don't seem happy, most everyone is under guard but some more than others, means there are more outspoken or stronger individuals among the group that don't agree with being held like they are."

[Sinnya]

"If we know how many troopers there are, we can do the math," Sinnya explained her reasoning. "How much of the forest do they control from here? How much help do the people who don't want them here need to change the balance? We can't make any kind of plan without numbers."

She flicked a glance at the ramp cam again, lekku twitching nervously. "Vaya told them we're anthropologists," she explained for Verse's benefit, "so they might let us back if we came when they're not... busy. But maybe not. And they'll try to tag after us from when we step off the ship to when we step back on again. "

"By ship isn't the only way to get up here, though."

[Jenna Karath]

"Got another way up here that isn't suicide? Sounds to me like that's the best plan we might have, anything involving this ship is going to trip their radar," she said, crossing her arms as she settled in after her last comment.

[Qareme Torth]

Qareme had remained quiet throughout the walk through and back to the ship. Verse, being far smaller, had been left to go sneaking about. Sinnya as the closest to a local had talked local, with Vaya and Jenna playing distraction/learning.

The large Zabrak, listening into the conversation as she looked out of the window, thought a few moments before speaking.

"Do you need him to leave, or need him to answer questions? I could help the first one, less so the second."

[Vaya Mer'darrow]

Vaya listened to the rest of the group discussing options, her face tense and blank. She didn't offer any thoughts of her own, other than "No-one do anything yet, anyway. Jenna, help me with the sensors. We won't look anything more than curious, and if we need to we can spin them something about repulsor trouble."

D4ME Scan the village (average computers, boost from assist): 1eP+3eA+1eB+2eD 3 successes, 1 threat

[Dapper Dog]

Vaya listened to the rest of the group discussing options, her face tense and blank. She didn't offer any thoughts of her own, other than "No-one do anything yet, anyway. Jenna, help me with the sensors. We won't look anything more than curious, and if we need to we can spin them something about repulsor trouble."

D4ME Scan the village (average computers, boost from assist): 1eP+3eA+1eB+2eD 3 successes, 1 threat

The initial sweep counts 40 signatures matching weapon clips and another anomalous signature in a central structure whatever it is it seems large, maybe a transport? There is also an Imperial shuttle she picks up.

[Verse Aura]

"Wait, what's this about the Sith witch? Is she coming here? Because then we might not be able to delay much, unless we want whatever information this tribe has to fall into her hands."

Verse had not been there to hear the radio call between the commander and the 13th sister, so this was news to her.

[Qareme Torth]

There was a nod at that.

"If we have come here for information and the Inquisitor is able to get it first, that may become an issue."

[Vaya Mer'darrow]

Vaya shared the information from the sensors via the ships’ intercom (and maybe suggests that everyone just come up to the cockpit). “The good news is, assuming we can all knock over a trooper with just one finger, four of us can clear the village and the last one of us can slug it out with the commander and capture the shuttle before they transmit a distress call.”

“This arrangement has existed for a while. If lucky 13 could have the map to the temple by force, she’d have it by now, and there’s no reason to think that today’s the day she’d get it by making a comm call . If that’s what she wants.” Her hands started moving over the control panel before she vocalized her next thought. “I’m going to try and isolate and record her transmission. It’s probably encrypted, but I can try to crack it later.” And the nice thing about passively receiving she thought to herself, is that it’s real hard to catch you at.

"Now might be a good time to get on the exterior broadcaster and tell them our novice pilot is having trouble with the start-up sequence," she added, mostly to Jenna and Sinnya.

Ooc: Can I do that thing I said I’d do, keep a record of the transmission for later? Or if it’s easy enough to decrypt on the fly, just play it? Computers check?

[Dapper Dog]

OOC: Hard computers check with a setback due to Imperial ciphers. i will spend a destiny so 1 red and 2 purple.

[Vaya Mer'darrow]

Ooc: if I try it now and fail (without despair or other badness) can I try again tomorrow (when I'll have the codebreaker talent)?

[Dapper Dog]

Ooc: if I try it now and fail (without despair or other badness) can I try again tomorrow (when I'll have the codebreaker talent)?

OOC: Sure.

[Vaya Mer'darrow]

D4ME codebreaker, break me a code (difficult computers, boost from assist, hard+upgrade+flip, setback): 1eP+3eA+1eB+2eC+1eD+1eS 2 successes, 1 Despair

[Dapper Dog]

They catch a part of the conversation at least between the 13th Sister and Tiralia:

Tiralia spoke, “Inquisitor, your interest in the Calm unnerves some of the people but I do not hold to the old foolish superstitions as they do. I have positioned warriors loyal to me and with Commander Poule the meager defenders of the Calm will be out matched.”

“Good, this will please my Masters and in term your own power will grow. The Laowai will grow to fear the Aznuri and all will serve their new Queen as long as she faithfully serves the Empire,” 13th Sister replied.

“The Aznuri Endure,” Tiralia replied.

Commander Poule cut in, “Inquisitor this line is compromised, traced the source to the ship, clearing this line.”

Then alarm klaxons sound in the ship as they get a notice of target locks and the anomalous power signature blares to life revealing an anti-air/space cannon and the sensors clarify it is getting a targeting resolution on their ship.

OOC: Piloting space check at Daunting to evade the incoming blast and get the heck out of there. Flipping a Destiny. So 1 red and 3 purple. Setback for them having a pretty steady line of sight on the ship. Obviously Despair used.

[Verse Aura]

"I *knew* I should've engaged in aggressive negotations!" Verse exclaimed as they caught the snippet of conversation, before the alarm started sounding, and she started running toward the nearest seat to strap in.

"Are our guns powerful enough to do anything against that thing?!"

[Qareme Torth]

Qareme calmly walked to her seat, sitting down and strapping in.

"I would assume not."

[Sinnya]

Sinnya was in the cockpit by this point, taking her time running through the preflight checks while actually focusing more of her attention on Vaya's efforts with the scanners. She jumped a good ten centimeters out of her seat when the klaxons sounded. "What? No! What?"

She slapped several switches on at once with her left hand while keying in commands with her right, then yanked the control yoke vigorously. "Dammit. Hold on..."

The Force was with the erstwhile anthropologists as their ship lurched off the landing platform (startling a few swoopwings) and sailed into a near free-falling glide off the cliff edge, out of the anti-air cannon's fire arc. After a heart-pounding few seconds, Sinn pulled up meters above the tree canopy, and the good ship TBD skimmed away unharmed, flying low.

--

D4 ME-- GTFO piloting check, Daunting w/ upgrade and setback. Player destiny.: 1eP+3eA+1eC+3eD+1eS 1 success, 1 threat, 1 Triumph


Thoughts on that Triumph, team?

[Dapper Dog]

Commander Poule seemed pleased at the result but something nagged at him so he made sure to keep the troops on alert for now... but little did they know that more seeds of dissent were being sown at their tyranny.