The Lady Jolene

[Daniel Solus (old)]

In the dim light of the cargo hold, Daniel fanned himself listlessly with the front of his coveralls. Sandwiched between pallets loaded with technological creations Daniel didn't understand and boxes containing their personal gear, the young Mandalorian and his two companions--a sturdy looking human male named Wyatt and an astromech droid named RE-N4 (Ari for short)--waited for the ship to dock. The last few minutes before the start of a mission were always the worst for poor Daniel, who, as far as Mandalorians went, was not a stellar example. He always thought about how he didn't like hurting people, but, this time he was more at ease than normal.

Leandros of all people had seen how distressed Daniel had been about his assignment and explained, in terms Daniel could understand, how important the mission was. He had also said that if they did it right, nobody would have to get hurt, only droids. That had cheered him up considerably but he was still uneasy. Maybe it was just nerves.

--awoooo--, tweedled the astromech apparently sensing Daniel's nerves.

"I'm good, Ari," he responded quietly. Looking to his partner he said, "I think we're about good."

The last of the series of docking chimes dinged and he stood up, taking his place at the controls of a hover-sledge. They were to pose as dock workers at first to blend in with everyone and slip away unnoticed into the greater structure of the Kuat Drive Yards main facility. With a hiss, the loading ramp lowered to the ground. With a nod to his partner they guided the first hover-sledge off the ship.

The loading dock was loud and chaotic and Daniel felt his nerves melt away into the noise. "Let's set this down over there," he said, pointing at a marked area on the ground, "then stash our gear and get going."

A few trips back and forth with the aid of KDY dockhands, the duo unloaded a couple more loads then busied themselves "checking" checking the pallets. When they felt they had been at it for long enough for people to no longer notice them, they grabbed the couple crates with their gear and headed off through the chaos of the docks, Ari in tow. Nobody paid them any attention and why would they, for now they were just another couple dockhands going about their day.

Having a secret made Daniel feel kind of special.

@Rimrald @Sreeya

 

[Raz Solus]

She was dressed in a business suit with a skirt. If her men saw her, they’d be baffled at the display, normally used to seeing their Alor completely decked out in heavy armor. Today, Raz was playing the role of a health and safety inspector. She managed to get the right credentials lined up in preparation for this visit. She knew two of her boys were on the case elsewhere, and she needed to do her part in the executive offices.

Raz strode into the building, her heels clicking as she walked across the glassy floor. She had a datapad in her hands, her gear stashed away safely in case she needed it. That didn’t mean she was entirely defenseless, wearing armorweave under the suit and with a blaster pistol strapped to her thigh. Raz walked up and shook the hands of the people in charge, exchanging some light conversation. She wore fake glasses and a wig just in case the Sector Rangers investigated this place later.

Within no time, she was led deeper into the facility and left to her devices. She got to work at once, given a schematic of the shipyards to investigate. Raz began to do her rounds, identifying where the surveillance was set up, along with the communications. She would do her job to completely begin cutting people off from being able to interfere with what the other two were doing.

“I’m in,” She muttered simply to the others through their comms line.

@Rimrald @Lucid

 

[Wyatt Kebiin-Solus]

Wyatt was seated across from Daniel and Ari, listening to their back and forth for the ride was relaxing; he was out of his armor and didn't have a blaster in his hands for once. It was like life before all of the Sith and Imperial infighting that cost him his home and his life, because much like many Mandalorians on Medriaas he had taken to life like a normal civilian. Working as a cargo inspector for a space port for the last five years really put Wyatt in his element; he even broke out his old uniform for this job.

He was clad in workers cargo pants and a hazard orange quarter zip pullover, with data pad in one hand Wyatt knew how to look the part and even got his hands on a forged ID card that sat around his neck on a lanyard. The golden rule of any workplace is never to bother the man with the datapad, he is doing something and it is important and it isn't any of your business what he's doing; because while he is doing it he answers to no one but the one who gave him the task.

"We're more than good Vod, don't sweat it."

Wyatt offered with a smile as he hopped off of the crate he had ridden on and followed Daniel as he pushed the hover-sledge, keeping Ari at his side gave the trio an even more inconspicuous look than Wyatt could have hoped for. He had been a fence for illegal goods since he was old enough to have a real job, and had spent the day before this packing their gear away well enough that unless someone dumped the crates of equipment their items would not be found within the electrical equipment.

Moving back in to the ship after the final set of crates had been unloaded, Wyatt retrieved a sling bag that matched his outfits colors and contained his Shriek-Hawk and a few tools in the event things went sideways while they were in the KDY Yards. Returning to join Daniel with a few words over the din of noise.

"Let's get the gear where it needs to be and rendevouz with Badger One."

Pressing the call key on his wrist comm he held the datapad like he was reading something and spoke without motioning.

"We're moving, see you soon."
@Sreeya @Lucid

 

[Daniel Solus (old)]

"Neg that, Badger One," Daniel hissed into his comm. "We'll stay apart for now." With Wyatt in tow, the two men made their way from the loading docks into the main facility. Security passes, painstakingly acquired identified them now as cleaning staff. The passed through a set of security doors and a turbolift up several floors to the maintenance leves of the complex. Exiting into a hallway crammed with various parts, neglected fittings, whatever the docks might need to keep running, the pair and their droid found their way to a series of storage bins. Dust covered the tops and they didn't look like they had been used in a long time.

"Let's drop our stuff here, should be easy enough to get to if we need later,"Daniel said, opening a bin and dropping in his bag. Secluded behind the bins, he stripped off the dock uniform and pulled out a bland, institutional green colored jumpsuit. It was the uniform of the cleaning staff at the shipyards. Slipping into his armorweave layer and strapping a slim blaster under his arm he pulled the uniform over it.

Daniel scratched his chest idly, armorweave always itched. "We're in position, Badger One." He commed, "We will wait for the first series."

 

[Raz Solus]

Raz kept walking through, doing checks here and there and pretending to note things down on her datapad. She glanced back to make sure she was alone before she opened up the comm lines again, hearing the other men speak into it. She agreed with not meeting up, especially as it made it more difficult for them to be linked. Raz walked into the room where security men sat down lazily by their terminals, looking at the different footage from the shipyard. As soon as she walked in, the two men perked up, looking nervous.

“I can’t have you tampering with anything while I look things over, you know how this goes,” She smiled sweetly at them as they rose to stand. Raz didn’t hesitate once before she took her datapad and slammed it harshly against the side of one of the men's head as he had his back turned to her. As the second man began to react, she swept his leg, dropping him. She pinned him down in a hold, choking him while she had him trapped. After a moment, he stopped moving and went limp. Raz took both of the men and shoved them over into a nearby maintenance room, stuffing them there for now.

She plopped down in front of the terminal, reaching for a donut one of the men hadn’t touched yet. She took a bite as she used one of the men’s key cards to get into the terminal. Within moments, she had visuals on everything, prepared to warn them of any adversaries. Her inspection window was for another hour, so they had to act quick, “I have eyes now, you’re cleared. There’s nothing but a few droids on the way to the target….looks like two of them.”

@Lucid @Rimrald

 

[Daniel Solus (old)]

@Rimrald don't stress, just keeping it going.

Daniel looked over to check that Wyatt was ready and, seeing the other man dressed and adjusting the strap of his side arm under the uniform, he clicked his comm to indicate they were moving.

The maintenance corridor the were in was cramped and even the simple task of walking to the next turbolift was an ordeal all initself. Everywhere things seemed to want to fall on them. So focused were they both on making it through the hallway without upsetting a teetering pile of parts or a somehow morbid stack of droid brains, that they both jumped when Ari burbled a query.

"What's that, buddy?" Asked Daniel turning carefully to look at the astromech. The droid was standing next to a couple of cleaning carts with his grabber arm extended in something that resembled a pointing gesture. It gave Daniel an idea and he grinned cheekily at the droid. "Good call, Ari. Let's set you up with some of that dusting equipment too. Wyatt go grab the smaller munitions bag while I'll set Ari up quickly."

As his partner dashed back down the corridor to grab the duffel and stash it cleverly in the lower part of his cleaning cart, Dan bent to the task of accessorizing their droid. A few moments was all it took and they were on the move again.

With Wyatt, Daniel and RE-N4 now fully outfitted with cleaning carts for the men and a spiffy looking set of angled dusting brushes for the droid they rode the turblolift up to the Research and Development level. The two droids were there, just as Raz had promised over the comm. They didn't so much as give the trio a cursory glance as they passed each other, one set exiting one entering turbolift. Daniel and his companions made for the research complex at the end of the hall.

"We're outside the target area now, cleaners entrance. Do you have eyes on the inside?" Daniel commed to Raz. His voice didn't have its usual carefree tone anymore.

@Sreeya[/SIZE]

 

[Raz Solus]

Raz leaned forward in her seat, taking another bite from the donut. She wasn’t concerned with anyone barging in on her, not when she could see the hallways leading to this room. Raz knew they had to fully utilize their time, however, or they would be caught before they ever managed to do anything. She watched the two men work, moving around and towards the target. It gave her anxiety to see them out in the open, but she knew they were disguised. She watched them make it past the droid without any trouble.

“There is one maintenance man walking around the corridors immediately after you enter and to your left,” She watched the man, observing as he walked around and stopped to read something on his datapad, “Try to do a subtle takedown if you can. We don’t need to leave a messy crime scene behind,” Raz looked beyond the hallway and into the adjacent rooms that had the terminals that needed to be accessed, “The man might have a keycard on him that gives you access to the internal rooms. I’ll let you know when.”

With that, she waited and signaled for them to enter when the man was walking in a different direction. They had little pockets of moments to act and she alerted them when. She couldn’t deny how nervous this made her, especially when she was physically too far to help.

@Lucid

 

[Wyatt Kebiin-Solus]

Wyatt proceeded in his disguise now pushing a cart with one of the duffels beneath it, listening in on the brief comms chatter. A signal was being discussed as they rode the turbolift to the R&D level and exited now aware of the single threat present. Without skipping a beat Wyatt moved in the direction of the employee as Raz directed through the camera feed and comm channel, exiting the turbolift and blending in as if he belonged in the event any unforeseen eyes arrived.

Cutting around the corner to the left approaching the currently distracted man from behind and not looking back to see if Daniel and Ari were in tow. Moving the cart as best he could to look like a cleaner Wyatt removed a mop handle from the bucket and let the cart list forward momentarily as he brought the improvised weapon up to strike winding up like a lacrosse stick and bringing it down diagonally across the mans neck. Striking in a fashion that's meant to bring down even the largest of humanoids due to the zone in which is struck, sending a shock to the brain and temporarily knocking a target unconscious.

Which is precisely what happened as the unsuspecting man dropped like a sack of bricks and releasing his datapad. Quickly returning the mop handle to the mop bucket Wyatt moved to search the mans pockets and retrieve the potential key-card as Raz instructed the duo to look for. As he rifled through the cleaners overall pockets he looked up from the crouched position to Daniel.

"Where are we going to put this body?"

He asked in to his earpiece communicator

 

[Daniel Solus (old)]

"Let's just stuff him in here," said Daniel dispassionately as he and Wyatt dragged the unconscious man to a ventilation grate at the side of the corridor at ground level. A few twists of a screwdriver was all it took to open the grate. "We can't chance him waking up," he said, checking to make sure that Wyatt had the key-card. Seeing the other man slip it into a pocket in his disguise, Daniel took a second screwdriver and shoved it deftly into the man's ear and stirred it around just to be sure. The bleeding was minimal, thankfully.

With a grunt, disgusted with himself and the necessitates of the job, he kicked the corpse into the grate and fastened it down. "Let's go. Should be nearly there by now."

A few more hallways and a turbolift later, they found themselves at the maintenance door to the R&D department. With a nod to his partner, they flashed the keycard lifted from the unfortunate worker and entered the room. This late after-hours there was only a solitary Kuati lady packing filmsi and datapads into an enormous over-the-shoulder bag.

"You're late," she said in a superior tone. "This place needs to be spotless for tomorrow. We can't have the Sienar Systems execs think us disorganized and messy." She glared at Wyatt, Daniel and their droid. "Spotless."

She gave them one final glare, spun on her heel and marched out the main entrance. Relieved their cover hadn't blown, Daniel grabbed a bottle of disinfectant spray and a rag heading to the desks along the front viewport where a massive ship in drydock was framed. A holosign sparkled in the viewport.

"The Lady Jolene"​

She was beautiful, their target. Daniel had never seen something so grand! It made him feel like a little boy once again as he started scrubbing desks.

"You're up, Ari."

@Sreeya @Rimrald

 

[Wyatt Kebiin-Solus]

Wyatt grimaced at the sound of the screwdriver entering the mans head as he kept watch while Daniel did his part of the work. Flashing the keycard upon request a handful of times Wyatt was surprised just how easy this really was... It seemed to be going too smoothly for his senses to not be blaring on full alert in his head the entire time, eyeing every portcullis and doorway they passed just waiting to get jumped.

But they made it to the R&D offices without issue, only to be addressed by a witch of a woman. Dismissing them as if they were actually the hired help and it made him laugh after she left the duo, before placing his holo-com and data-pad on the nearest desk and queueing the microphone.

“Raz, are you going to get like that when we’re putting on a show for politicians and business people?”

His tone was mildly jovial as he looked around to make sure there weren’t any new faces or sets of ears in the room. So far so good, Wyatt was in awe at the size of the ship and looked on as the droids and machines mindlessly worked through the night out in the space. Crouching at the window to stretch he looked over and patted Ari on the top of the droids dome.

“Do your thing RE.”

@Sreeya
@Lucid

 

[Daniel Solus (old)]

Ari tweetled his acknowledgement to Masters Daniel and Wyatt before scooting himself over to the droid port and extended his interfacing arm. Immediately he was assailed by requests for authorization by the Kuat Drive Yards primary intelligence. She was snappy and impatient, as though she recognized Ari as a foreign entity.

With a pert reply he offered up his own artificial identification as an engineering droid tasked with organizing the Lady Jolene's droid brains for the engine demonstration tomorrow. KDY accepted the verification and authorization and opened the correct paths for Ari to follow. He burbled happily and dove into the confusing network of untrained droid brains.

They yelled at Ari from all directions, threatening for a moment to overload his circuits with information and requests. With an electric snarl he commanded the droid brains to listen. He was here to give them purpose and impress upon them their first major task. They quieted, listening to what the astromech had to say.

With a tweet and a happy awooo Ari started his upload. Diagrams and schematics, complex hyperspace coordinates and execution commands poured out of him and through the network into the droid brains. With every terabyte transferred he could hear the droid brains muttering, organizing and collecting themselves. They were not programmed to be idle as they had been these past weeks and finally with a purpose they devoted all of their processing power.

More and more information streamed from Ari into the droid brain's artificial consciousness. Commands to set a course and to ignite the sublights and then hyperdrive in sequence. All around it he added layers of security. False verification routines and processes would countermand orders to halt or desist the operation. Further scripts would falsify bridge consent and issue the execute command. With a final command to the droid brains, he impressed upon them the importance of the delay.

Ari's mission was done and the timer was set. Now all he had to do was remain locked into the KDY intelligence to divert command requests and keep the system occupied.

29:59:99​

*END THREAD*