Their Bygone Madness

Lavi

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"Come over here, I want to show you something."
"What is it, Dad?"
It's a bit of a surprise. Close your eyes for a moment."

Marcella opened her eyes as the nearby computer screen flickered. She dragged herself out of her cot to the monitor. Her search terms picked up numerous results while she was taking a nap, which she started scanning with drowsy dead-eyes.

Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
No… pe…?

It picked up a credit transaction out of a bank. The date: about 18 years ago, putting it in the right ball park with the previous sources she looked at. Of course, it would look mundane to the typical viewer, but Marcella knew what keywords marked this particular transaction. "Tabula" was the keyword used by her parents to hoard their wealth, acquired from their careers as pirates.

She started tracking the route of the credit transaction. It went between various banks before disappearing from the public record. An extraction of credit sums here and there, disseminating the amounts into separate locations.

Marcella grabbed her satchel, making sure her things were inside it before leaving the hotel room and stepping into the streets. The evening hustle looked like business as usual. Food vendors and street merchants lined the aisles, creating noise as they did their business with others. The occasional speeder towed a collection of slaves right by. Seeing the defeated looks on their faces made her skin crawl. As she walked, Marcella pulled out her commlink and keyed a speed dial.

"It's me. I'm heading out for a bit. Should only take an hour at most," she spoke briefly into it before cutting the connection.

She did not have any reason to explain to her companion what is going on: the two had this discussion after they rented the hotel room.

Marcella went to one of the last locations that she was able to track the Tabula trail, sending her to the Zygerrian Central Bank. She went to one of the private kiosks and attempted to enter credentials to the Tabula account. As expected, her request was denied for an incorrect passcode. Marcella tried again two extra times for good measure before leaving the bank. The purpose of the visit was not to actually attempt to break in: it would have been easily picked up by security feeds and get her into real trouble. Instead, she left a trail for herself to follow later on.

Returning to the streets, Marcella placed distance between herself and the bank building. She selected a holonet line that was somewhat secluded in the rafters and climbed the fire escape stairwell to it. It took a bit of time and a bit of noise, but a brief look around suggested that no one took notice or cared that Marcella was climbing the side of the building this way.

She gave the box a tug, but it was locked securely. Marcella put on some gloves as she sighed and pulled the wiring from its obscured location behind the box. She used her knife to cut a small opening into the wire protector to access the circuit inside. Marcella then took out her tablet and connected a copper wire to the live-wire inside. She checked the box’s model before using the tablet to apply several different voltage current sequences to the wire connected to the box. On the last one, the box clicked open.

Marcella did not actually break the lock to the holonet box. Instead, she falsified an authentication of an override code that would be used by a government employee. Since the box used an electronic lock, that meant that it had to accept a certain signal combination through the existing circuit in order to unlock. Amusing how her old job at a holonet firm is paying off.

It didn’t take long to tap into the central bank’s holonet system and not much longer than that to go into the authentication logs. This information would normally be encrypted, but not when her access is read by the bank holonet as an “authenticated” user.

With master access, it is not necessary to know the password. One could just enter the account, though the permission to move assets within the account would need a special code from someone like the bank manager. But the code is not necessary: Marcella is not interested in manipulating the contents of the account. It is probably empty anyways: the contents transferred to some other part of the galaxy.

As she worked, Marcella noticed that the chrono on her tablet indicated that it has been a little more than an hour since she left the hotel room. Is he wondering what’s going on?

Once she tracked the direct routes from the Tabula account, Marcella downloaded the logs, left a small bug in the system, and disconnected everything from the holonet box. Once she locked up the box, Marcella fished out her commlink and speed dialed her companion.

“Hey. I know, I missed the hour. I just lost track of time, that’s all,” she said in a hushed voice. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

After climbing back down to the street level, Marcella briskly made her way back into the Zygerrian streets and made her way back to the hotel. She stopped at various vendors along the way, buying some of the food to bring back. That should buy some appeasement for not keeping her word.
 

Loco

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Rau woke with a start at the buzz of his comm unit. Fumbling around on the hotel nightstand without getting up off his face or opening his eyes, he managed to get hold of the thing and press it to his ear after only a few failed attempts. He somehow managed to mumble a halfway appropriate response into the receiver as the connection established itself.

"Herrwoo?"

"It's me. I'm heading out for a bit. Should only take an hour at most." *Click*

Well, good thing I didn't have anything to say, Rau thought to himself as he rolled onto his back and took a bleary eyed look at his glowing wrist chrono. Too early. The Centran sat up in bed and rubbed his face with both hands. He looked around and found himself alone, and it took him a few moments to recall that Marcella had elected to sleep on a cot in the common area of their suite. Her loss, he thought as he stretched out in the plush queen sized- he'd upgraded them himself, opting for a suite in the "New Raido Extended Stay". They could afford it, given his contract fees. Rau would opt for a soft, warm bed over a smelly safe house mattress or cold ground every time, given the option- he'd slept on enough of both of the latter to last him a life time... So then, he had an hour-ish.

Rau rolled out of the bed and put his feet on the plush carpeting, then stumbled his way into the 'fresher. He brushed his teeth, took a quick shower, and after a brief inspection of himself in the mirror while rubbing his chin, decided not to shave today. While Marcie was off doing... eh, whatever it was she was doing- he didn't really want to pry- he had some free time to get a few personal tasks done. The girl had been rather reluctant to share much on the shuttle ride here, and so Rau had made up for it regaling her with tales off far off adventures he'd had in Wild Space and the Outer Rim. He had hoped she might lighten up a bit, but he wasn't sure if it had worked. Stiffs, he shrugged as he pulled on a shirt and pants, laced up his boots, and tucked a blaster in the back of his pants. On his way out the door he threw on a light jacket.

The hotel, in all its pricy-ness, offered a rather excellent complimentary breakfast which Rau intended to take full advantage of. He made his way through the lobby and into the dining area, loaded up a plate full of strill eggs, smoked nerf, and toast, poured himself a steaming cup of tea, and found himself an empty table in the back corner of the room. Taking advantage of the free holo-net access, Rau set his personal encrypted datapad (you could never be too careful in his line of work) on the table and logged into a holo-mail account he had set up after taking on his current Republic contract. As he sipped tea and poked at his eggs, the Centran uploaded several files he had been working on the previous night into a draft folder on the remote mail server. It had been a busy month for the mercenary, and he'd fallen a bit behind on his meticulous record keeping with all the jobs he'd been running for his new masters- nobody could say he wasn't earning his pay on this one. That done, he logged out of the account, deleted his browser history, and dug into his smoked nerf. The drafts would sit there for a day or two until Rau or one of the other few people with access could download them onto a more secure local server and delete them from the mail service, at which point he wouldn't have to worry about them anymore- he'd picked up that little trick from the Zebitropean Cartels, and it was as reliable as ever.

The Bantha butter that he spread on his toast was on fleek, and he scarfed the toast in a few bites, finished his tea, and scrolled through the CNN morning news stories. Serrenno was still the big story getting attention, along with the #RhoneGate scandal with his alleged mistress... Talia Al'Saif!?! Rau opened up the story with newfound interest. How could he have missed that? Sure enough it was the beautiful dark featured woman in the bar with Caedryn, scandalously... uh, standing on a balcony... with Gregory Rhone. Huh. Oh well. Rau supposed it was hard to compete with the Supreme Chancellor, if that's the type she was into... Seeing the time in the corner of his screen, Rau noted that Marcella was running behind, but he wouldn't get concerned just yet. It was nice to have a few peaceful moments to himself for a change. Rau tipped the green skinned waitress clearing tables, winked goodbye, and made his way back to their suite. He tossed his jacket across a chair near Marcie's neat stack of belongings, plopped into a comfortable chair, and settled in to wait for her while he scrolled through more "breaking news" stories form around the Galaxy. He was just reading with distaste about his own performance in the recent Grand Pazaak Tournament qualifier when his comm buzzed again. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

"Righty'enI'lljus..." he tried to squeeze in a response to no avail before she hung up, "Blerrie rude, you'sk me, yeh?" he muttered to himself, clicking his tongue as he tossed the comm on the caf table.

@Lavi
 
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Marcella Zerek

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Upon returning to the hotel, Marcella was once again reminded of how odd the niceness of the hotel looked when compared to the slave trafficking outside. She couldn't quite put her finger on it. Then again, it could just be her; hanging out in sleazy crowds wasn't her thing. Several of the hotel's patrons gave her an odd look as she carried her ruffled bag of food to the elevator, as though it was inappropriate to get food outside when the hotel's own selection would suffice. She concluded that it was not an unreasonable thought process as she passed by the luncheon, where it looked like a complementary meal was being served. But tossing out her paid-food was also a ridiculous notion.

Once she got off the elevator and made it to her suite door, Marcella gave a quick look around of the hallway before scanning her card and closing the door behind her. She was greeted by the CNN channel going through its list of news bits and Rau.

"Bought a gift," Marcella greeted Rau, plopping the bag on his lap (and oblivious to the breakfast Rau already ate). It was some sort of ugly-looking, steamy meat bun that she already forgotten the name of. Marcella liked it, though she had no idea if Rau shared that taste in food.

"Found anything interesting while I was chancing the slavers outside?" she nodded to the television.

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"Oooh, thet's e right whiff! I'ma kif one o' them, yeh?"

Rau grabbed at the bag of treats Marcella had secured, his irritation at being shorted over the comm and left in the dark temporarily forgotten. Rau tore the bag open and took a sniff of its warm contents, grabbed hold of one the sticky lumps of dough and bit into it. Sweet and savory at the same time- reminded him of home somehow. With his hands sticky and his mouth half full, Rau turned back to his companion.

"Othe' then my own abysmal performence in the Grand Pazaak Tourny bein' mocked on "Chendrille Todey", it's been e lemon. Not e hai' on the monkey lizard."

He popped the second half of the meat bun in his mouth, chewed loudly, and swallowed. Then he grabbed another of the treats and wandered over to the little mini-bar in the kitchen area of the suite. Holding the bun between his teeth, he selected a fine miniature bottle of Zeltronian Vodka, a mixer of tomato juice, briefly wondered if it was too early to start day drinking- decided it wasn't- and combined the two liquids in a glass with some ice. His second bun was eaten in one go, and he washed it down with a sip of his Bloody Leia. A quick morning kick would be good for him- it was going to be a long day anyway.

"I did git en eppointment fo' the dry cleane's late'," Rau looked at his wrist chrono, "Got e coup's hou's to burn yet, yeh? Wanna cetch e sip? Rau asked, tipping his glass towards her.

@Lavi
 

Marcella Zerek

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Marcella gave Rau a disapproving look in response to his gestured glass of liquor. She may have shared Rau’s taste in meat buns, but she did not share his taste in alcohol.

“Never too early to start drinking for you?” she asked. It was too early for her. It would be bad to toy with a potential habit. “Glad you liked the buns though.”

She set down her things at the desk before going to the refrigerator to fetch some blumfruit juice for herself. Marcella downed a glass in one go, refilling another to bring back to her desk.

“Found some good stuff while I was out,” Marcella said. “Give me a few minutes to sort through it.”

It was a lot of data to sift through by hand, so Marcella hooked it up to her computer database to search for keywords and phrases, prioritizing returns by the number of matches.

The initial matches did not present any fruit, but eventually more interesting words began cropping up. Components began falling into place.

“Might have found a bit of gold here. Come take a look,” she piped up, bringing pieces of what she dug out onto a separate monitor for Rau.

“Authorization codes for business ventures into Sith space. Useful to access planets that are a bit more difficult to approach than simply plugging in coordinates into the navigation computer,” Marcella said, pointing at the codes in question.

“That is not the crazy part,” she added. “It will only take a few jumps in a circle until we are at the gateway into the Radama Void and to Ord Radama itself. While we’re in the heart of the Sith territories, we can acquire intelligence from right under their noses.”

It’s incredibly crazy. Normally something crazy enough that one would have to inform and receive counsel from the Republic in order to carry this out. But, agents like Marcella are given low levels of supervision (and low levels of security clearances) for these sorts of missions. Plus, it’s not every day that one can snag travel codes within the Sith territories and these codes will not last forever; there is going to be more than just hazard pay for pulling off an op on this scale.

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Rau shrugged and took an overly long sip of his drink. The spiciness was just right, and succeeded in waking him up completely from his last lingering bit of early morning lethargy.

“’Too early’ ‘pends on who’s doin’ the figurin’ luv. Barely e nip you esk me, yeh?”

He said it sort of jokingly- Marcella would be hard pressed to actually offend him. The mercenary licked his fingers absently as he made his way to the hackers monitor set up, and eyed the scrolling data over her shoulder as she spoke. While not entirely ignorant to what she was doing or talking about, Rau got the feeling he probably knew less than a tenth of what she did when it came to this sort of stuff. That aside, the codes sounded promising on the surface, and he internally debated the merits of putting this new information to use.

“Well, I’m paid by the hou’, so I’m up fo’ it so long es we don’t get too out in the bush on it. Whaddaye heve in mind?”

Rau took a purposefully loud slurp of his drink as he ended the question, just to draw attention to the fact the he was still drinking it. The glass hid his mouth as it twisted into a cheeky grin.

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Marcella Zerek

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Marcella looked over at Rau when he slurped on his drink, rolling her eyes as she returned her attention back to the computer.

"Because of the war going on, these authorization codes most likely have a limited lifespan before they are supplemented by a new set. I'd give us about a week at most before the codes are useless," she said, leaning back in her chair.

"If we're going to make the most of this, we would want to hit the main database on the planet. That means entering a fairly large military base on the planet, breaking into the database, and getting out before anyone wisens up. We'll have to lie low for a bit when the Sith figure out what happened, but it'll be worth every box of instant noodles. How about it?"

She gave Rau an expectant look, wondering if her elevator pitch was good enough for her much more military-inclined companion.

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