A Glitch In The Matrix

[Kae'Leigh Tameris]

[fancybox2]

SOMEWHERE JUST OUTSIDE OF KESSEL
1000 Hours

@EmilyHuene ; @ModernMarvel [/fancybox2]

Not everyone can be a slicer. It takes brains. It takes patience. But mostly, it takes luck. A lot about what slicing is, is making sure the person on the other end isn't aware of what you are doing. At best, someone could just unplug the system and then you'd be locked out. Or if they were as good or better as the slicer, then they could fight back your hack and potentially turn it back against you. Then that have your data instead of the other way around. It was a risky business, but Kae'Leigh confident she could win.

Kae'Leigh Tameris was not one for gambling. The games were rigged or it was impossible to tell the actual skill lever of the other player you were playing against. Especially in card games. Sure a lot of it came down to luck, but an experienced card gambler would tell you nothing ever happened in luck. Kae'Leigh stayed away from these kinds of situations. She never played unless she was almost certain she'd win. She never let her greed overcome her smarts. She knew when to call it quits.

With slicing though, there was always the potential that the other player didn't even know he was playing. Those were the sames Kae'Leigh liked best. She liked a score or a good mark to be so oblivious to the game that by the time she'd taken all his credits she was long gone. That's what the young, blue skinned Twi'lek did best. She was a criminal by heart and a good one at that. But now her criminal skills were being put to the test as she was going to be using them for someone else. Sure she'd get paid for the task, but the over all point was she wasn't doing this to get rich.

Her mission was to assist an ally smuggler take coaxium from Kessel and get it to the Galactic Alliance. No easy task. It would take some serious bluffing to get past all the security measures and get out of the system alive without anyone asking the wrong questions. Kae'Leigh was...pretty sure she could get past the security measures. After all, it was just speaking the right words to the right people. People here meaning computers. And words meaning binary codes. What could go wrong...?

Kae'Leigh was currently onboard The Epherian Arc, a overhead class freighter captained by a woman she'd never met before. Those were always the worst kinds of missions. Kae'Leigh didn't like meeting new people, regardless if they were on her side or not. Being a Twi'lek, she had a horrible time trusting people. That's how she'd gotten by in life up until now. She was always looking over her shoulder, always keeping her home and personal life out of anyone else's sight, and never ever getting into bed with anyone who she couldn't somehow blackmail. She wouldn't do it. But she liked having the option should they turn on her first. It was a lot harder to do when the Galactic Alliance was spread out so thin throughout the verse and they were setting you up with partners left and right. She'd likely never see this girl again and for now that was fine with the Twi'lek. She'd get the mission done and fly home with her newly found credits.

Dressed in a red and black flight suit that covered her body down to her ankles, Kae'Leigh looked the part of any generic pilot. Her shoulders were bare, down to her forearms where she wore long gloves that had a basic computer system in it for communications. Her lekku, the tails on her head which mimicked the hair on humans, was kept back by a red headband that wrapped around her ears. It was a traditional Twi'lek head piece which was very common in their species. Around her waist was a heavy duty tool belt for repairs and the like, but she secretly was keeping key cards hidden in the parts for the slicing she would do soon. The belt doubled as a gun holster which hung just off to the side of her right leg and was carrying an R-5 blaster pistol in the leather pouch.

The R-5 wasn't the only weapon she was bringing. Though, it would be the only one visible. Kae'Leigh had recently been taken in by a Jedi master by the name of Vu'thari. But very few people in the Galactic Alliance knew this. As such, she hadn't told her new partner yet either. She hoped she wouldn't have to tell her either. But she'd be bringing along with her a green lightsaber with a hooden hilt that Vu'thari had given to her to borrow. The weapon had belonged to his grandfather. She was permitted to take it with her so long as she promised to not use it unless she had to. When she would craft her own saber, then she could do with it what she wished. But for her safety, he still advised keeping her Jedi Padawan status a well-kept secret. She had no problem with that because she already had trouble trusting people. So, for now, she stored the silver and brown hilt in her KLT service droid she nicknamed Johnny.

"Ready to exit hyperspace," she would say to Aellyn as the red light on the woman's console began to flash. Kae'Leigh gave the girl a reassuring smile. "You nervous? I sure am. We should be fine though. I know we will. Slicing is what I do best after all."

 

[Aellyn Kerrisoni]

Aellyn hated Kessel. Everything about it. Its dirt seemed to permeate everything, the planet had a particularly malodorous scent, and the people who were forced to live there were always less than pleasant. No doubt from being forced to spend an extended period of time on Kessel. Needless to say, the Rebel was none to pleased when she was assigned to collect some coaxium from one of its many mines. Not that she wasn't pleased to help the Alliance, she definitely was, but the circumstances were a little more dubious than she would have preferred. Normally, Aellyn was assigned someone she had worked with before, or had at least met with in various Alliance circles that she traveled in. The Rebel knew nothing about Kae'Leigh Tameris, other than what had been told to her in the mission brief.

The compounded problem was complicated by the fact that Aellyn would be relying on the Twi'lek stranger for the rather important task of slicing them into the planet. Any wrong move and they would be before the unforgiving Kessel authorities faster than she could say, "Do you know who my father is?" Nevertheless, the only option at this point was to trust her partner, and she figured that the Twi'lek was probably having the same reservations at the same moment. It seemed the only option at this point was to try and build some trust to make their task as bearable as possible for the both of them. CueAte, however, Aellyn's 286-Series Pilot Droid, didn't seem to be as in a welcoming mood as its human partner.

"Please be on your best behavior, ok? I know how fond you are of off hand comments." Aellyn had said to CueAte before Kae'Leigh had arrived. The following series of beeps represented a begrudging acceptance. "Oh, and she's bringing her droid too." Aellyn had added with a rueful smile, knowing that her droid would not be as accepting of this new development. CueAte very much enjoyed being the sole droid occupant of the Epherian Arc and took pride in Aellyn's reliance on it to pilot the ship. Her comment was met with silence, as she added, "Just don't, you know, zap it or anything. Please?" Again she was met with silence, as the droids dome turned toward her and met her eyeline. Aellyn figured this would be as close as she would get to an acknowledgement.

Hopefully, the mission would go off without a hitch and they'd be on their way out of the foul smelling dirtball, known as Kessel, as quickly as logistically possible. The only problem with maintaining that sentiment was that the missions never went off without a hitch, like ever. Aellyn didn't even want to imagine the possible negative scenarios that could occur on or around Kessel. Hopefully Kae'Leigh was as good as a slicer as the mission brief had stated.

Thus the two of them sat in slightly uncomfortable silence with their slicer passenger and her droid. Aellyn was impressed with the Twi'Lek's flight suit, however. It was stylish, yet functional, and the Rebel wondered if she could pull of a similar look. Aellyn was dressed in her usual look of a white shirt, with tight black pants, and a green trench coat. Her look was accompanied with a gun belt that hung on her hips, holding her Vorantikus blaster rifle.

Aellyn looked down at the console as she noticed the flashing red light that Kae'Leigh had brought to her attention. "You heard her CueAte." The droid booped in response as the blue blur of hyperspace slowed to individual stars and Kessel slowly appeared before them. Aellyn smiled at her partners attempt to break the tension with a comment of reassurance. "We'll be fine" the Rebel laughed softly, "I know next to nothing about slicing, so you're the expert here." she added with a grin.

 

[Kae'Leigh Tameris]

The blue of hyperspace always looked so cool to Kae'Leigh. She'd lived almost all of her life on Nar Shaddaa and rarely got to leave it. So it wasn't odd for her to just stare at the never ending abyss of light traveling past them at an insane number of speeds. So while it might have seemed like awkward silence to the girl, Kae'Leigh was totally appeased. What she loved most though, was exiting light speed. The lights vanished and a whole new world rushed at them and then was just there. Seeing it was always like...WHOA! She beamed happily and tried to contain her excitement. She didn't need to scream the girl's eardrums out on their first mission together.

Aellyn would reassure the blue skinned Twi'lek that the two were going to be just fine and Kae'Leigh nodded in response. She'd then say she knew absolutely nothing about slicing, which was normal. It was an art. There was no better way to explain it. It took time and effort to learn but once you understood how it all worked the possibilities for its use were endless. Especially when the prospect of crime was involved. She had recently come into the idea to hack into one of the robot sports teams she always saw in the bars she liked to scoop out. She'd never bet on something as silly as sports teams, but if she could get the win to her favor...then odds were looking pretty good at a nice pay load.

She didn't suppose the Galactic Alliance would approve of such an endeavor though. While they were here today to hack and slice for the greater good...she didn't think ripping off "honest" patrons was something they would come to endorse. It did make Kae'Leigh happy though that Aellyn had gone to calling her the expert. She didn't want to brag, because in all reality there were better hackers than she. But that wasn't because of experience, it was because of the gear. A legit slicer had their own slicing deck. Kae'Leigh hadn't had the resources to build one herself so she had to use whatever programs were lying around when getting into places. Or work from home naturally. But a slicing deck could get her in anywhere. That was the real dream.

"I guess there's only one way to find out," she'd try to say with a humble attitude. Maybe bragging to her new partner wasn't the best thing for a first time either. Keep things simple. Draw in the crazy. She wanted Aellyn to like her after all.

The ship would start into the dust fields that circled around with endless debris and heavens knew what. No one who went into those fields got out alive. Going through the maw would be suicide. Not only would it take one hell of a pilot, but also a near perfect navi-computer and all the luck in the verse to get through there. She couldn't image anyone ever having the gall to do such a feat. Only someone truly desperate. And foolish.

"Time to get to work," Kae'Leigh would say to no one in particular.

Cracking her fingers she'd open up a large tablet and set it on her lap. With a long cord she plugged it into the ship's console and logged herself into the core system. She fiddled around for a minute and ended up getting herself locked out of the The Epherian Arc's domain. Kae'Leigh looked around and laughed awkwardly.

"Oops....Sorry. I forgot Overhead's don't run on a Spectral 3.0 normally. I had the same system in my Mynock when I first got it, but I've done some major upgrades to mine since then. Let me try again. Little help, CueAte?"

Once the 286 series droid would bounce her back out she tried again and managed to log in. Code and symbols not uncommon to Basic language scrolled up her screen as she typed and began erasing bits of pieces of data that the Epherian Arc called its own. Kae'Leigh was making up a rather believable story that the overhead freighter belonged to a wealthy nobleman out in Corelia and had all the necessary credentials of an Imperial ship. It wasn't legit by any means and a simple code check could prove inaccurate with the right severs. But that was if whomever tried to scan them ran their plates, so to speak.

"Alright. First step is done. We look like a common courier for the Imperial Republica. Just set us down on Kessel and the real fun begins."

 

[Aellyn Kerrisoni]

Aellyn, unfortunately, wasn't very encouraged by Kae'Leigh's first attempt at slicing ending in failure. In the Rebel's mind it didn't bode well for the future actions yet to come. People had often judged her wrongly, so she motivated a change of mind in herself to not be too hasty in judging her partners actions. The only way to the two of them would succeed was if they trusted each other. Easier said then done, however, considering they had only met earlier in the day.

It didn't surprise Aellyn that Kae'Leigh's model of freighter was more upgraded to slicing than her own. the Epherian Arc was pretty much the standard model, but she did take pride in keeping it as space worthy as possible. Well, she didn't actually do the maintenance, but she paid people to do it, which was more or less the same thing in her mind. CueAte did most of the technical work anyways. The droid appreciated the trust that its human counterpart placed in it, and saw their work together as more of a partnership considering the limitations of droids in the galaxy.

"No worrries," Aellyn replied, "CueAte, you help her out with the slicing, and I'll bring us down to the planet." The Rebel tied her loose hair up into a ponytail, as she swiveled her seat over to face the control module of the ship. Flipping a few switches and pressing a few buttons, the Epherian Arc's trajectory changed as Kessel loomed larger and larger in front of them. "Nice job," Aellyn grinned as the Twi'lek offered confirmation of their story. "We should be planetside in just a few minutes."

 

[Kae'Leigh Tameris]

Spoiler: OOC

Edited my above post bcs I made a booboo lol. Kaylee owns a Mynock not an Overhead. Minor change

The ship would descend on the mining colony of Kessel without much issue. They might have been in a time of war, but most people didn't jump right to doubt when seeing an Imperial ship on their scanners. Most wouldn't even bother with putting in the effort to do a background check regardless. If the ship said Imperial Republica, then they'd believe it. Plus, no one would take the risk that if they did hold up the shuttle and be wrong, they'd be in for a world of hurt. Move along, little Overhead. Move along.

Once they landed it would be a good several minutes before any welcoming party came to investigate. This is where Kae'Leigh really needed to focus. "Alright. So. We head outside and explain we're here to pick up a shipment of coaxium. I need to be down below to hack into their network so if anyone shows up, you do the talking and don't let them notice me."

The blue skinned Twi'lek would then unplug herself from the ship's console and head for the exit ramp. She headed over to the nearby door panel and opened up the breaker. Using an uplink device that was common practice for receiving signals, she latched the device to the system and plugged herself in. Once the uplink connected to her tablet she'd gently close the breaker switch plate and find a hiding spot behind a few empty creates off to the side. Crouching down and taking a seat she placed the tablet in her lap and began to slice into the network. Unfortunately, company would come a little too soon, as Kae'Leigh predicted. They wouldn't notice her where she was unless Aellyn hadn't bothered to follow after her. Her job was simple: buy enough time for Kae'Leigh to fake their order in the buyer's list.

She only needed a few minutes to do so. Kae'Leigh was already breaking through any firewalls the company in Kessel had in place. It was easy work since they didn't exactly have top of the line security. Why would they need it after all? It wasn't like they had military personal files, or secret records of transactions. Oh wait...they did. And they were all privy to Kae'Leigh's fingers. One step at a time though. She found the order list for outgoing coaxium and with a subtle coding glitch she changed the name to the fake company she was using as their ploy. Now, when the guards who came to greet them checked for "their" order, they'd find whomever was supposed to receive it would now be going to Aellyn and company. Easy as pie.

Looking over her shoulder she carefully peeked back to see how Aellyn was fairing. She didn't want to look long because she didn't want to be spotted. She then looked back at her screen and turned it to "standby" mode until she needed to do another quick slice.

 

[Aellyn Kerrisoni]

"I can do that." Aellyn grinned. What Kae'Leigh may have not known about her Rebel counterpart, was that the Andaran excelled at all things related to talking, and generally being a nuisance. She frequently annoyed her parents by refusing to be quiet, and had become quite adept at getting whatever she wanted by convincing others to give it to her. That she had a very pleasing smile, and was considered to have quite attractive looks certainly didn't hurt, either. "Take all the time you need." she added, as the pair walked down the exit ramp for the shuttle.

The abrasive smells of Kessel immediately washed over Aellyn, causing her to subconsciously wrinkle her face in displeasure. Quickly resuming her composure, the Rebel took her position leaning against the ship, trying to look as natural as possible while Kae'Leigh snuck around to plug into the breaker by the set of doors that led further into the mining facility. Aellyn was purposefully situated so that anyone who approached to talk to her would have their backs facing Kae'Leigh, ensuring that Aellyn could tell when the Twi'lek had completed her task.

Unsurprisingly, a few moments later two guards exited from the office looking structure nearby and approached Aellyn. She could see quite clearly that they already looked rather tired and bored with their day, something she assumed was typical for working in this particular dump of a planet. Aellyn also knew that the mines predominantly used slave labor for all of their efforts, and it took a fair amount of her own composure to not do something rash and stupid in an attempt to free them.

Doing a quick one over to make sure every part of her appearance was in order, she greeted to the two guards with a friendly smile. "What brings you to Kessel?" was the gruff introduction from the guard on the left. Both were wearing helmets, which made it hard for Aellyn to determine what species they were. Fortunately, they did speak basic, which made the Rebel's job slightly easier. In response, she repeated the story that Kae'Leigh had fabricated earlier, that the overhead freighter belonged to a wealthy nobleman from Corelia and had all the necessary credentials of an Imperial ship. "We're here to pick up a shipment," she finished with another friendly grin.

The guard on the right then took the datapad attached to a belt on his waist and began to run through a series of lists and manifests. Aellyn nervously stood with a smile on her face, keeping an eye on Kae'Leigh to check her progress. The guard looked to his partner and then back at the Rebel, "seems to check out."

 

[Kae'Leigh Tameris]

Kae'Leigh listened as her rebel friend began to talk the ears off of the two officers. She very nearly would try to signal her to dial it back some when she finished with a solid explanation that they were just here to pick up a shipment. Luckily, this had given her plenty of time to get the job that she needed done. He opened up his datapad and read into the manifest where their name was first on the list. All in order he then bid them farewell after explaining they would have a crew come around and start loading them up.

Again, she would peak around to make sure that the guards had left before standing up to go rejoin her friend, "That was shiny! You're really quite good at this." She'd go to give her a "high-five" gesture with a friendly smile on her face. She'd then bring her tablet up so Aellyn could read what Kae'Leigh had found.

"So the easy part is done. They'll bring the coaxium right to us. But there's something else I was to accomplish. See here? -pointing to a screen of a security camera- This is a certain vault where they hold their servers. Now I can't see inside because they're smarter than that, but I did pull up a blue print and a strong circuit of electricity is routed to that. It's got to be where they keep the mainframe. Here's my idea. If you're up to making a little more cash. If we can break inside, me of course opening the doors because let's face it, I'm not breaking into anything physically; then we can download all of their sensitive information. Bank accounts. Clients. The works. The Alliance could make a fortune with this if they chose and we'd have enough money to buy a fleet of ships or so! What do you think?"

It was risky. Even more risky than what they were doing now. Cutting their loses they could take the stolen coaxium and run before anyone realized the switch. Staying longer meant the chance of getting caught and ruining everything. Then the Galactic Alliance would get nothing, and they could wind up in prison. If not worse; they were on a slaving colony for all intents and purposes. How far was Kae'Leigh willing to follow her greed? Did Aellyn think she was confident enough to pull it off without getting caught?

 

[Aellyn Kerrisoni]

Aellyn laughed at Kae'Leigh's enthusiasm as she approached and offered a high-five in recognition of a job well done. "I think you did the more challenging work. All I did was talk and distract," the Rebel added to her counterpart. Talking did come rather naturally to her, after all. She then leaned over as the Twi'lek held up her datapad to share the findings of her work.

Nodding along to their initial successes, she stopped when Kae'Leigh mentioned the opportunity for further work on Kessel. Aellyn, who usually aired towards the side of being cautious, could tell that her partner was the opposite, as she explained the further mission that they could do in stealing bank accounts and other sensitive information. The Rebel assumed that their differences in opinion probably related to their upbringings. A child of nobility, Aellyn had always gotten everything she wanted, living quite comfortably. Kae'Leigh grew up on Ryloth, and the Andaran couldn't begin to imagine the struggles that she had experienced. Sure, she was always willing to help the Alliance wherever she could, but this seemed to be verging on avarice. They had already scored a major success in acquiring the coaxium, why risk it?

The Andaran frowned as she formulated how best to respond. "I'm a little hesitant to risk what we've already got." The consequences of if they got caught would be bad. Like really bad. the kind of bad that happened when you did something illegal on a slaver colony bad. Aellyn figured that if Kae'Leigh already had her mind made up, then there was only so much that she could do to dissuade her. "If you think you can do it without us getting caught, then I'm in." The Rebel then wondered what exactly she had gotten herself into.

 

[Kae'Leigh Tameris]

Aellyn would think she was being humble, saying that all she did was distract the guards by talking, so Kae'Leigh would shake her head and reply, "That is not always as easy as it sounds. In a good game of Sabaac, trying to tell a lie gives away something called a tell. Usually nerves twitching. Or hesitation in words. Sometimes it's harder to pick up on than others, but a really good player looks for those sort of things. My point is, if they knew you were lying, the whole gig would be up and we'd be in some might ripe trouble. Make sense? You should give yourself more credit."

As Kae'Leigh explained what would come next, Aellyn seemed even less thrilled to try and go after the extra score. She admitted being hesitant, and Kae'Leigh could respect that. Back to her Sabaac analogy, one needed to know when they were beat. When to fold, was the expression. Sometimes it was best to not risk what you had, take your winnings, and quit while you were ahead. But if Kae'Leigh learned anything from growing up on the streets of Nar Shaddaa, it was that every now and then you had to take a risk. She'd learned that the first time she had to steal: for food. Did she risk getting caught, or risk going hungry. Sometimes one just had to go for it. And Aellyn at least knew to trust Kae'Leigh. She wasn't one hundred percent against going. That was a start.

"Listen," she'd say as she got in closer with a reassuring smile. "You can trust me. I know I can do this. It just might take a few tries at the worst. I'm confident we can do this and the payoff will be enough to really help support the cause. Can you imagine how thankful the Alliance will be when we bring home those files? They'll practically give us a raise right there and then."

While Kae'Leigh was clearly blowing smoke out of her mouth, she hoped for the best in any situation. They might not get promoted, but a lot of good would come out of their efforts. And that is why Kae'Leigh joined the Galactic Alliance. To help people. She had taken a risk so big she'd put her whole life on the line. Her whole future. She'd given up trying to be the petty criminal that she was and devoted her life to learning about the Jedi and their ways so she could fight against the Sith. What bigger risk was there? She'd just need to take one more....

"So I've got an idea," she would explain trying to make the rebel feel better. "I'll explain to the droids to have the ship on lockdown as soon as the coaxium is loaded. The guards won't really be paying attention to us now that we've been cleared entry. They'll expect us to take the goods and go, but I doubt they'll swing back around to check and see if we've left.

"While we're away, the droids will make sure that no one gets in and we can even set a timer or something. If we're not back in say, an hour? Then to leave with the coaxium and tell our superiors what happened. That way at least someone can come looking for us. Oh! And I can even have Johhny logged into the alarm system. If something gets trigger he'll know to leave right then and there. How's all that sound?"

Kae'Leigh hoped that it would be enough for her. If not...well she'd do this mission solo. One way or another Kae'Leigh would return to the ship and bring the tablet she'd been holding onto to her droid. She had Johnny plug into the Ephirian Arc and rerouted the wave length frequency so the ship had access to the panel she'd sliced into. It took a few minutes to set it all up, but Kae'Leigh got it done. One last thing...

Making sure that Aellyn wasn't looking over her shoulder, Kae'Leigh would take out her secret lightsaber and slide it into the thigh of her boot. If they got caught, she might need it. She hoped, no prayed, she wouldn't have to because she really wasn't that good at it. She'd then return to Aellyn at the bottom of the ship's ramp and ask one more time if she was going to go (( either to confirm her risky decision to accompany the Twi'lek, or to beg her one final time to consider going )).

"This is it. No turning back now."

 

[Aellyn Kerrisoni]

Despite the fact that Kae'Leigh was telling Aellyn to trust her, wariness still remained. The Rebel could tell her partner was being sincere, but it was always odd when someone told you, 'please trust me!' It seemed to have the opposite affect. Aellyn tried to dispel this feeling from her mind, and focus on the fact that the Twi'Lek just seemed to be looking for a backing in her confidence, and at this point, that was pretty much all Aellyn could do. She laughed internally slightly at the mention of a raise, considering that money was never the motive for any of her actions, but could understand how it could mean a great difference to Kae'Leigh. After listening, Aellyn replied, "If your confident you can do it, then that's good enough for me."

Aellyn listened to the plan her partner had come up with, and it was pretty impressive for being literally just made up on the spot. Unless Kae'Leigh had always intended to try something like this? Regardless, it sounded simple enough, but then again, they always did, and the real problems began when you had to develop solutions to the unexpected occurrences. "It sounds good, but we've always got to plan for the unexpected," Aellyn replied, "like what if the guards do comeback to check if we're gone? How long do you think the droids can stall for?"

The Rebel waited while Kae'Leigh returned to the ship for some last supplies, feeling much more nervous about their prospects, than when they had first entered the Kessel system. There was definitely a much higher probability of failure than before, and that could mean very real implications that she couldn't talk herself out of. Worst was the fact that she had to place a large amount of trust in someone she had just met. It was like the galaxy was screaming at her to trust her instincts and fly away with the already gained coaxium. She chewed her bottom lip as the thoughts raced through her mind. I've got to trust her, that's the only thing left at this point. The score would be big, and very helpful to the Alliance. It also seemed like it would make a big difference to Kae'Leigh as well.

As the Twi'Lek returned down the ramp, Aellyn left out a hefty sigh, and forced a smile, "Ready as I'll ever be."

 

[Kae'Leigh Tameris]

"Yay!" Kae'Leigh would squeak out quietly from Aellyn's agreement to the subject. "Shiny!"

She explained her plan and naturally the rebel partner would have some questions about it. She asked what would happen in the guards came back while the two of them were gone, and that how long did Kae'Leigh think the droids can stall them? Kae'Leigh put her hand on her chin and began to think. So long as they didn't take too long getting in and out it wouldn't be a problem. They would have roughly twenty -maybe thirty- minutes of loading time for the grunts to bring the coaxium on board. She'd likely bet that they could afford another ten minutes without any question at all. Twenty would maybe bring some suspicion as to why the ship hadn't left yet. Thirty minutes would absolutely be too long. They would need to be back within an hour for sure. She relayed these thoughts to the woman and then headed inside.

Upon exiting the girl reassured Kae'Leigh that she was ready as she'd ever be. "Shiny!" she'd cheer again and put her hands on her hips. "Then we're off. Don't draw any attention to yourself when we go out there. Just walk like you own the place. And if anyone stops us, use that silver tongue of yours to think of some lie. We're touring the grounds or something, I don't. I'm not too good with lying to people's faces. I prefer to do all my work behind this thing-" pointing to her tablet.

And with that they were off. Kae'Leigh exited the hangar bay door and would turn to their right and thus further into the complex. They at first would see no one, before running into the same guards as before. But they were heading into a different bay allowing Kae'Leigh and Aellyn to quickly cross the bay doors before anyone looked back to spot them. Kae'Leigh smirked and laughed a little before continuing on.

The hallway would enter into long corridor with rails and cargo trains passing by. This was how they must be passing the coaxium from the refinery down below and out of the complex. Kae'Leigh would look around and usher Aellyn toward one of the trains. "Over there, look!" The platform car was completely empty as it had just been unloaded and there was a hover cart beside it with the coaxium. Grunts of some species Kae'Leigh couldn't place were moving to the next one and opening the doors to the car. As they did, the car that was now empty began to lurch forward slowly as it was being called back to the line.

"We have to get on that car!" she'd say quickly to Aellyn.

Sparing no time, she ran forward and would jump into the car as it began to move past them. There would be enough room for both of them to sit in it comfortably, if they were sitting upright. But doing so would cause them to get seen immediately. The two would have to curl up beside one another to stay hidden inside it, at least until they were clear of the loading dock and into the tunnels running between the two.

 

[Aellyn Kerrisoni]

Aellyn appreciated Kae'Leigh's enthusiasm as she smiled at her reactions. Somehow even with the threat of imprisonment or being sold into slavery, the Twi'Lek maintained her ebullient attitude. The Andaran felt much more serious about the prospects of potential failure, but attempted to push those thoughts to the back of her mind, just focusing on the task at hand. Raising her arm up, she relayed the instructions to CueAte through her wrist communicator, and then set a timer for 50 minutes.

The Rebel nodded along as Kae'Leigh issued instructions on not being conspicuous and just fitting in. This certainly wasn't her first time being somewhere she wasn't supposed to be, but the Twi'Lek wasn't to know that. Just to be on the safe side, she started to formulate a few different explanations as to why they were in a coaxium mining facility.

Following along with Kae'Leigh, Aellyn stuck her hands in the pockets of her trench coat, keeping it covering the blaster on her waist, blending in with the rest of the variety of species traversing the corridors of the coaxium mining and refinery center. She spotted the two guards she had met earlier, but luckily they were headed in the opposite direction of the two Rebels. Aellyn exchanged a quick smile with her partner as they carried on. Continuing deeper into the corridors, the two came upon a station center with a variety of cargo trains loading and unloading a variety of materials.

As soon she spotted the trains, Aellyn knew that Kae'Leigh was going to come up with a scheme to get them on board. Unfortunately, the train didn't stay as long as she would have liked at the platform, and began to pull away. "Blast" Aellyn muttered under her breath as the two Rebels zipped off from their hiding spot and rushed to jump on tone of the moving cars. Landing with a louder than she would have liked metal sounding *thud,* it was quickly apparent that there was not enough room for the two to sit comfortably in between the cargo and not be seen by the guards.

She quickly curled up on the floor of the train, maintaining very close proximity to her Twi'let partner, and out of the line of sight of the platforms guards. Pleased that she maintained her own high standards of personal hygiene and appearance, Aellyn's perfume smelled softly of Andaran flowers. She laughed quietly at Kae'Leigh, shaking her head at the situation they found themselves in.

 

[Kae'Leigh Tameris]

So this was awkward. The two girls were curled up next to one another and Kae'Leigh was ever so grateful she was in this predicament with another girl and not some boy. Her face would have been even more flushed than it was now, though the color would be more of a lavender than a red as it was in humans. She chuckled lightly to Aellyn and then winched as she tried to move. The girl had landed on her one of her lekku.

"Ow...Hey, can you.....careful?"

They were able to rearrange themselves so they were basically making a big spoon and a little spoon but Kae'Leigh was careful to keep her hands where they wouldn't make Aellyn feel uncomfortable. Even though she didn't have those kids of feelings for girls, she was still respectful to not make a big deal out of something so minor. Plus, they would only be like this for a few minutes.

As she sat there trying to calm her mind, she couldn't help but smell the perfume on Aellyn. Flowers. Kae'Leigh unconsciously would sigh as she took another whiff and then quickly apologized for it.

"Sorry! I wasn't like...trying to smell you or anything! Your perfume just.....reminds me of somewhere."

While saying "Ryloth" wouldn't be much of a giveaway to the rebel, she still felt awkward saying it aloud. She'd gone there for her first training session as a Jedi. It didn't matter that it was her home world. It never felt as such. She grew up on Nar Shaddaa. As far as this Twi'lek was concerned, Ryloth was just some planet in the black of space. Still, she couldn't deny the beauty that place held, how it smelled, how it looked. Even the rain was different there; it was peaceful.

The cart would start to slow down now and Kae'Leigh very carefully risked peering over the top of the side to see what they were coming up to. Ahead of them was the loading dock, but it wasn't occupied by any living things. Instead, there were droids everywhere. Droids which could very well give away their presence there. Unless they played their cards right. Tucking herself back down she explained what she saw to her partner and began formulating a plan.

"Alright. So I've got an idea. It's a long shot, but it might buy us some more time. Follow my lead and try not to look like you're not supposed to be there. You have the authority I mean. Own it."

The cart would come to a stop and they'd hear the clanking sounds of a droid coming up to their cart. Kae'Leigh froze in place and even stopped her breathing while the droid would couple the car to the one in front of it, thus preventing it from rolling away later down the line. It never looked into the cart to see what was inside for it was programmed to think or know that it would always return empty. Kae'Leigh reached up behind its neck -its head was turned away from them- and flipped an internal switch that powered off the droid. It's body stopped moving and it became a simple statue right there in the way.

"Come on!" she'd whisper to the girl and get out of the cart.

Looking around them, she saw several droids all going about different duties. None of which were paying her any attention right now. This was good. They'd soon have a build up of cars coming in and a droid sitting in their way. If Kae'Leigh's plan worked, the droids would start fumbling over their tasks and a domino effect would occur turning everything into one big catastrophe. Helping Aellyn out of the cart she'd grab the girls hand and start pulling her away from the metaphorical ticking time bomb behind them.

"Here goes nothing," she'd think to herself and pull them both into an adjacent hallway.

The tunnel they'd entered now would bring them to a control room just down the way that overlooked the loading dock. Kae'Leigh knew it as soon as she'd left the cart that this is where they needed to go. As they moved up to the door they saw another droid holding a crate of canisters in its arms. Were they full? Or empty? Dangerous to find out. Kae'Leigh kept her head high as she walked up to the droid who would stop and ask them both what they were doing. Kae'Leigh stiffened up and would move in view of Aellyn. Hopefully the girl remembered where the magic power switch was behind its head....

"You have no right to ask me that question. What's your I.D. and number, droid?"

Confused by its programming it would then reply, "ZR-22, mam. Loading Zone C. Wait. Please confirm identification. Who are you?"

Spoiler: OOC

Sorry for my late response

 

[Aellyn Kerrisoni]

The two Rebels awkwardly rearranged themselves in the surprisingly small space of the train cart as they attempted to best fit into the space. Luckily, Aellyn had landed on something soft when they had jumped in, only for her to discover it was one of Kae'Leigh's lekku. "Oh! I'm sorry!" she hurriedly, responded, shifting her position. Aellyn knew how sensitive the lekku could be for a Twi'lek and felt bad for accidentally getting one of her partners' stuck underneath her arm. The ideal fit for them in the small space ended up being a spooning position, with Kae'Leigh serving as the bigger spoon, due to her being slightly taller than the human. Aellyn had been in a number of uncomfortable positions during her work with the Alliance, figuratively, and literally, but this was certainly a new experience. One typically didn't find themselves in such a close proximity to a stranger they had met a few hours earlier. Well, at least, Aellyn usually didn't.

She heard Kae'Leigh sigh somewhat, and then quickly offer a somewhat embarrassed sounding apology for smelling her perfume. The two weren't laying face to face, so Aellyn couldn't make out her expressions, but the Andaran offered a friendly giggle in response. "Don't worry about it," she replied, "I can tell you about it when we get out of this," adding with a smile. The cart eventually slowed to a lower speed, and Aellyn noticed Kae'Leigh stick her head out of the cart to view their surroundings. She then listened to her partner explain that she had a plan and to follow her lead, and before the Andaran had the chance to ask exactly what Kae'Leigh had in mind, the cart came to a stop as a processing droid awaited, and functioned to fasten the carts together, ensuring nothing rolled aimlessly away. Before Aellyn had a chance to react, she watched her partner reach into the wiring of the droids head, and flip a switch, completely immobilizing the droid. "That was nifty," she thought to herself.

Kae'Leigh hopped out of the cart, and then offered Aellyn her hand, as she helped the human out of the tight space. Once Aellyn got a better view of their surroundings, she began to understand what the Twi'Lek had in mind to buy them as much time as possible for their task. Once one droid went down, it could theoretically create a domino effect, as all the other droids suffered the consequences of the finely tuned machine being put out of sorts. That was the hope, at least. Traversing up a few more corridors, the two reached an upper level control room that overlooked the loading dock below. Aellyn assumed this was their target destination, but their progress was quickly halted by a droid carrying crate of cannisters who stopped them. "Great," Aellyn muttered to herself as the droid approached them. Droids typically couldn't be argued with since their programming was rather lineal in nature.

The Twi'Lek engaged the droid, sounding as assertive as possible, and Aellyn waited for its response, only to realize that Kae'Leigh was blocking its view of her, allowing her to quickly reach around and flip the same kill switch that her partner had done earlier, quickly disengaging the droid. Aellyn peaked her head around the back of the droid looking at Kae'Leigh with a smile. "That was a good trick, sorry I was a little slow on the uptake," she commented with a grin, "lets go!" she added, hurrying further down the corridor to the control room.

 

[Kae'Leigh Tameris]

All according to plan, Aellyn would be right there to flip the switch on the robot and it powered down. What Kae'Leigh forgot to take into consideration were the weight of the canisters and it's body toppled over itself and dropped the lot of them. With no way to stop it, the blue Twi'lek raised her arms to shield herself out of instinct....and realized nothing happened. Save for the loud clanging of the empty containers banging together as they hit the ground. Kae'Leigh gave Aellyn a wide-eyed expression until the thought of almost dying somehow turned to humor. She snorted and started giggling.

"Wow! That was like, super close!"

She'd laugh for a moment more as Aellyn would naturally reply with her own assessment of her near-death experience when the door behind them opened. Apparently the guard in the other room had heard the loud crashing sound and came to investigate. Well...now they didn't need to open the door. Kae'Leigh quickly pulled her R-5 pistol out of its holster and blasted the man in the chest. He was no more than five feet from her already, so there was visibly no way she could have missed. The man's body fell backwards and Kae'Leigh gave a rushed look to Aellyn to follow in after her.

Moving into the room she found only one other person -and four small droids as well- who was already facing the door. He'd been sitting in his chair and ignored his buddy as he went to go to the door to investigate. But at the sound of the blaster he'd turn his head and panic. Kae'Leigh got there first before he could even get out of his chair and shot him in the chest as well. His body fell back into his seat and lie there still. The droids -as Kae'Leigh now realized- would not a single one of them deviate from what they were doing. Restraining bolts. So barbaric.

"I feel bad for 'em," Kae'Leigh would say while holstering her weapon. "But we don't have time to play around. We can't be here much longer. I'll get to work."

Taking the empty seat of the guard who'd been shot first, Kae'Leigh pulled out her tablet and plugged it into one of the ports. She opened up a program application she'd written and started searching out the signal via the cord. The tablet was scrolling with numbers and symbols that would probably look like gibberish to the common man, but to Kae'Leigh it was all a battle of wits and strategy. Her program versus whomever wrote the code for the people on Kessel. The slice wasn't anything pretty, but she managed to squeeze herself into the mainframe and she'd shout excitedly as the program cleared on her end.

"Yes! Ha ha! I did it!" Doing a little dance by shrugging her shoulders and her neck, Kae'Leigh would celebrate her rather large victory. "Now time to grab the goods."

She'd then stop for a moment and look to Aellyn, "Oh...why don't you make yourself useful too and shoot out those cameras, K?"

She didn't mean anything negative by it; she just wanted her friend to have some fun of her own. Kae'Leigh was really enjoying this daring adventure with her new accomplice. And that wasn't just because she smelled like flowers. The girl understood Kae'Leigh. And she didn't try to step over her as she got so lost in what she was doing. Normally people worked together. She was being rather bossy. She'd make a note to herself to apologize for that later.

"Quietly though!" she added in at the last second.

As her tablet was now in complete control of the network, she'd open up case files of their records and transactions and start downloading them to the tablet, which would then wireless be sent over to Johhny at the Silver Bullet. She got about halfway when an alarm started to blink on the host's screen. It wasn't anything Kae'Leigh recognized, but she understood that it was something bad. While she'd gained access into the system, there was a nasty little bug that would go off if anything was ever taken from the system, such as crucial data.

Swearing, Kae'Leigh ripped the cord out of the terminal and stood up. She closed the case of the tablet and tossed it in her bag, grumbling angrily to herself. This is why she needed her own slicing deck. If she had such a thing she could have easily spotted such a low level security measure and not gotten them caught. They weren't yet in immediate danger now, but someone else would likely get the message and start trying to investigate. With the cameras busted they couldn't see in, which was a good thing, but it didn't mean someone wouldn't be radio'd over to check it out for themselves.

"We're made. Let's get out of here."

 

[Aellyn Kerrisoni]

Aellyn shuddered as the box of canisters fell almost in slow motion from the droids arms. For trying to be quiet and unnoticed, they weren't exactly doing the best job as every canister hitting the ground reverberated with a metal on metal clang. The Andaran managed to force a smile at Kae'Leigh finding humor in the situation, responding sarcastically, "well, at least that was quiet." The situation could have been much worse, so the Rebels should have been relieved that the canisters didn't explode or contain some kind of poisonous gas.

Unfortunately, the loud banging of the canisters did have the result of a guard leaving the nearby control room to investigate the anomaly. What occurred next all seemed to happen so quickly as Aellyn watched Kae'Leigh quickly remove her blaster and shoot the guard, along with his partner who didn't even have the chance to get out of his chair before he had a smoldering hole in his chest. Aellyn was glad to have Kae'Leigh with her who seemed to have much quicker reflexes and decision making than she did. The Andaran's first thought at solving problems was always talking her way out, shooting only if necessary. The Twi'lek seemed to be rather the opposite, which was probably the best course of action for their present situation.

Nodding in response to Kae'Leigh's feelings on the droids in the room, Aellyn hovered slightly over her partners shoulder watching her plug her tablet into the systems and begin her work. The process took quicker than Aellyn had expected with the Twi'lek laughing in success only a few moments later. It was all rather confusing to Aellyn, but she just took satisfaction in the fact that her partner was good at her job.

"Good idea," Aellyn replied, responding to the instruction to take out the cameras in the room. She took out the blaster on her waist and shot out, as quietly as she could, the four cameras in the corners of the room. Hopefully that would buy them a little more time, as she looked down at the timer ticking down on her wrist communicator. She was interrupted by a red flashing light on the screen in front of Kae'Leigh. She looked at her seated partner and commented. "That doesn't look good."

Aellyn didn't need to be told twice as the two quickly left the control room to rush back to the ship.

 

[Kae'Leigh Tameris]

And so they ran. Out in the hall they wouldn't see much until they returned to the main loading dock where total chaos was ensuing. The one main droid which they'd messed with was now crumbled up under a few of the cars as they'd smashed into him, run him over, and then got stuck in their wheels. And more and more carts were coming down the track unknowning that the line was no longer in motion. Two guards were busy trying to call the other station to stop sending cars, but weren't getting through due to some communication error. Bad time for someone to take a caff break.

The rest of the line wasn't in any better shape. Droids were gathering around waiting to put their canisters and other crates into the carts that weren't there. They'd start dropping them in piles and making more of a mess as everything would clatter with everything else and stuff would break or roll away. It was mayhem. Kae'Leigh looked to Aellyn nearly bursting out laughing at how destructive one broken cog in the machine could be.

"Come on! We'll ride the other rail back. They won't be watching there."

The two carefully ran along the outer wall to their left as more and more droids piled in and other guards and workers came to try and figure out how to stop this mess from getting any worse. Kae'Leigh directed them over to an empty cart third in line and hopped in first. They already knew how to fit in the puzzle of cramped space so she got into her position awkwardly bent against a corner. She was careful to have her lekku out of the way this time. Once Aellyn joined her, she'd help her snuggle in close like besties at a slumber party and then wait for the car to start moving.

It took almost no time at all for the cart to slowly start moving before it got up to speed and the darkness of the tunnel overcame them. They could breathe easier. They weren't home free yet, but the way out should be much less guarded. And Kae'Leigh was right to assume so. As they came into the next tunnel where droids would normally unpack the cars, they found it practically shut down since they had nothing to unload. The place was quiet, with only a few droids waiting patiently for something to direct them to move.

The Twi'lek would allow Aellyn to exit the cart first, then pull herself out. They were about ten carts to the entrance, so they were still mostly covered by darkness. This allowed them to move over the line and to the exit hallway without being seen by another soul. What luck! In just a few more silent minutes they were closing the doors to their ship's ramp and laughing at their success.

"We did it! Kae'Leigh exclaimed and hugged Aellyn as tight as she could. She also stole another whiff of the girl's perfume; she hoped it wouldn't be too noticeable. "Let's get out of here before they decide to start asking questions."

With that, the two rebels moved to the cockpit of Aellyn's ship and they were off. Kae'Leigh sat back while Aellyn took controls of her own ship while she would inspect the fruits of their labor. Files and files of stolen names and credit accounts were all awaiting her fingertips. A mere click and she could steal every last penny from any of these names (well, it was a little more complicated than that, but still). They'd managed to get the coaxium and several personal accounts. A good haul. She'd have to do this with her new friend more often.

~END THREAD~
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