Train Job (Jedi Mission)

[Corvis]

[[Alright guys, short bit of OOC backstory on this. I tried to leave as much of it open as possible while keeping us fairly close to the action. The ship is Gamble's, either on loan from the Jedi, Republic, or one of his own, and for now at least, you're pilot. We're heading down to Ord Cantrell to recover an Jedi artifact, being transported through Ord Cantrell by a minor crime syndicate for resale in Bogan Space. While on Ord Cantrell, the artifact is being transferred between spaceports by a train.

Rough idea of the plan is for us to exploit a gap in the planet's sensor and communications grid, board the train it is being transported on, find the artifact, and get off before we are back within sensor range. ICly, we know the train may be transporting local military, as well as agents of the crime syndicate, but do not know for sure what opposition we may encounter if caught. Unless someone comes through to RP the NPC's, I'll be doing that as well as my own character.

Any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to fire me a PM]]

The thrum of the engines had kept Cnile up most of the night, staring at the ceiling of her cabin. She'd tried meditating, but found the concentration difficult. She'd never like space travel, but when your first experience with is to spend a sixteen millennia in hibernation, it doesn't put the best of tastes in your mouth. She glanced the cabin's chrono, sighing as she realized they were less than an our from their destination. Slowly levering herself out of her bunk, she slipped her robes on, and stepped out into the ships main hallway.

She paused slightly as she passed the cabin where her Padawan had been assigned, quickly taking a sense of the room. She smiled slightly, at least nothing was amiss yet with him. He was her Padawan, and even now she felt urge to make sure he survived. He was her responsibility, after all. She sighed, letting the Force wash away her weariness as she rubbed her eyes, and started back off towards the cockpit.

As much as she hated space travel, she'd also come to look forward to seeing new worlds. Ord Cantrell, while a not entirely special, it was a new world, and Cnile has a bit of a tradition when it came to new planets. The one saving grace of the necessity of space travel, was viewing a planet from orbit. With in mind, every time she'd arrived at a new planet, she always made every effort to find her way to a view port and would watch, at least part, of the descent down the planet. It wasn't much, but it did make each journey that much more bearable.

She frowned slightly as she saw the cockpit door shut. While she doubted that anything was going on in the cockpit that would need privacy, the ship wasn't hers. She leaned on the door frame, running through a Jedi sensory enhancement technique as she rapped her knuckles on the door. “It's Cnile. We should be reverting soon. Mind if I come up and watch?”

 

[Saint]

“It's Cnile. We should be reverting soon. Mind if I come up and watch?”

Billy sat up in his chair as he put down the field medic's manual he'd been lazily skimming over. It was always good to go over some of the techniques and knowledge that was within those pages. You'd never know when you'd need to know just the right thing, like back on Dagobah when...

Yeah, anyway, so... Calling out, he answered the female voice as he rose from his seat to open the cabin door. "Certainly. A moment." He'd forgotten why he'd closed it anyway. Maybe because there was a woman sleeping back there? Who knows... could be. Unhooking the latch and sliding it open easily, he greeted the slender young woman with an amiable smile.

"Good call. We are drawing close. I trust you slept well?" Backing up to his chair, he retook his seat as he glanced over the controls, giving a cursory check to make sure all was well. It wasn't but a moment before he turned his full attention back to her. Warm smile still fresh on his face.

Cnile eh? So that's how you say her name. And here I thought it was a typo, heh. Of course, Chile's not much of a name either. Hmmm... maybe Chili? Ooo.. tha's hot, heh. Like th' sound of that. Chili Ray Gamble. Huh.. He offered himself a light humored grunt.

 

[Corvis]

"Thank you." She stated simply. Sliding into the co-pilot seat, Cnile gave him a genuine smile. “I'd like to say I did, but space travel and I don't get along well.” Punctuating her comment with a polite chuckle, her eyes drifted back to the view port. The colour washed out of her face as she stared into the kaleidoscopic whirl of hyperspace. Almost sixteen thousand years ago, she'd first heard tales from crewers on Ratakan ships of hyperspace. It was said, even back then as it is now, that staring into that abyss would drive men mad. Wanting to avoid ever seeing the site, she'd signed on with a sleeper ship colony, expecting to wake up on good clean soil ready to never set foot in space again.

But that hadn't lasted, she mused, her eyes falling from the view port to pilot controls. The ships drive had malfunctioned, leaving it drifting in the vast emptiness of space. Found by the Jedi, she'd accepted their invitation, and now found herself darting back and forth across space with a society who found ripping holes in the fabric of the universe perfectly normal.

These are strange times indeed. The man's amused grunt drew her attention back to him. An amusing thought no doubt, that Cnile had to resist the urge to try and listen in on, her natural curiosity at odds once more with the Jedi's teachings. Clearing her throat as she cleared the brooding thoughts from her mind, she turned back to idle conversation as they waited for the ship to drop into real space. “So... how long have you been flying?”

 

[Saint]

“So... how long have you been flying?”

Gamble tapped the clear cover over top of a chrono as he questioned aloud, "Le's see here... what time is it now?" Slowly, his gaze shifted on the sly towards Cnile, smirking as he wondered if she had caught his jest. After a moment, he sat back, clearing his throat with a couple of light-humored grunts. "Been flying since I was jus' a boy. During the summer breaks, he'd take me out an' we'd be gone until school started back up."

His attentions drifted for a few moments as he just sat there, smiling fondly. They were some good memories. Shaking himself out of it, Billy sat up a bit more straight in his chair, looking over at the Jedi Knight. She had a pretty smile... for a Jedi. Least she was human though. Moving his hands over a few controls, he asked a question of his own, "How bout you? How long hav' y'been with th' Order?"

He glanced over at her, quirking an eyebrow, then further added, "And how'd you get those lil scars there?" Gesturing to his own face, he indicated the spot where they were. He turned back to the controls and suddenly, his face lit up, "Oh yeah.... here you go." Quirking a playful smile, he offered the Jedi Knight a plain white barf bag. "Jus' in case," and with that he returned his attention back to the console. They would pull out of hyperspace here shortly.

 

[Corvis]

The young knights face grew even paler at Gamble's joke, subconsciously using the force to secure the restraints in the chair. When he finally began to laugh, she returned her best attempt at a laugh, but couldn't quite keep her nerves out of it. He seemed to be a good natured man, but he still all the personality markings of a pilot.

She nodded with interest, thinking a back to her summer days spent as a courier in the ancient Coruscant undercity. She smiled politely at his questions, her hand running absently over the scars as he mentioned them. “I've only been with the order a little over five years. They found me in cryo-stasis onboard a sleeper ship that was about sixteen thousand years overdue.” she said wistfully, “The scars were a side-effect of the prolonged freeze. I got out lucky, several people lost limbs.” She let loose a long sigh, trying to force the tension from her voice, as bad as hyperspace was, it was lightyears ahead of cryo-travel.

Cnile smiled, gratefully accepting the bag. “Thanks.” She usually didn't have a problem with reversion, but turbulence was another issue entirely. Running through a Jedi calming technique, she stared out the viewport. It wouldn't be much longer now.

 

[Saint]

The sound of her laugh gave away her nervousness. It was abundantly clear that she didn't much care for flying, at all. Gamble decided to let up on the humor in regards to piloting and focused on bringing them out of hyperspace. It was really quite something to behold. Just ahead was their destination. Billy had pulled out of hyperspace a good bit back in an attempt to avoid detection. They were going to have to sneak up on this one.

Without really looking at her as he fiddled with the console, he commented, "Krath, sixteen thousand years is a long time. Bet th' galaxy don' even look th' same as it did back then, eh?" Glancing up over at her scars briefly, he smiled crookedly as he added, "Lucky indeed. They kinda add a bit of mystery and ruggedness to yer purdy looks. Like yer not one t'trifle with."

He plugged in a few commands, enacting the sensor mask. Thankfully, on such a small vessel as this one, it would be extremely difficult to pick up any readings on them. Billy pulled up a digital display of their target area. Fingers lighting over the keys, he highlighted two circles around either spaceport, denoting their grids. Wagging his finger between the two arcs along the rail line, he commented, "We'll be landing down in this area here. It's lightly wooded, so shouldn't be too much trouble for our speeder."

As he understood it, the three of them would race up alongside the train, hop on board, recover the artifact while the speeder was on auto-pilot, then cruise on away with their prize happily in hand. Of course, plans always sounded -real- good on-screen, but once things started happening in real life, it usually all got crazy. He just hoped that they were both prepared. At least the Padawan would be well-rested for this. Heh.

 

[Kuran]

Juisk walked into the cockpit, stifling a yawn.

Mor-yaaaaaaawwwwwww-ning, we're close I see?"

He took a seat in the chair behind the pilot's and looked over his shoulder at the readouts. He frowned a bit and reached out with the force, twisting a dial on the control panel a half degree clockwise. There, now we'll be totally invisible. So, what's the plan?"

Juisk had been drafted on this assignment at the last moment, and while he had been eager to go, it means that he had only been able to manage a brief skim of the briefing. Technicaly he wasn't qualified to be on this level of mission yet, but that was more a formality, after all, his master was in the next seat over.

He felt the training saber at his side however and gave a slight smile. At least the power settings had been turned up, but it still wasn't a real lightsaber. Hopefully, it wouldn't be needed either way.

 

[Corvis]

Cnile smiled in thanks for the compliment, and then turned to her apprentice as he walked into the cockpit, her smile still warm but carrying a solemn seriousness to it. “Relatively straight forward. There is a mountain pass between the capitol city and the main starport where the sensor net doesn't cover. We race along side, hop on, work our way forwards, get the package, and get out. Preferably without harming innocents.” she took a deep breath, still fighting her hyperspace nausea, her smile fading slightly. “The difficulty comes in the fact that this train is known to carry local federal militia, and we have reason to expect the smuggler group moving it may have hired protection on board for it.”

 

[Saint]

Gamble reached out and re-adjusted the dial on his control panel back the half degree it had been altered. As he did so, he half-requested, half-stated, "I don't adjust your lightsabers. Please don't screw with my ship." He glanced over his shoulder briefly, not quiet making eye contact with the young man who had taken a seat behind him.

Even with the sensor mask on, Billy brought the ship up to one of the poles, away from the bigger cities and where they would have a wide area to slip into the atmosphere unnoticed. From there, he employed NOP (Nap-of-the-Planet) flying to keep them close to the ground, under radar and other detection levels. It provided them with some turbulence and bouncing around, but the pay-off was well worth.

Gamble looked over at Cnile to make sure that she hadn't gotten sick on them just yet. That wouldn't due to have their team leader take sick and vomit while they were trying to conduct a mission. Just wouldn't do. With a reassuring smile, he addressed her, "We should be landin' quickly... if you can jus' hold on a bit long'r." Turning back to the console fully, he did his best to continue down a route that would keep them over relatively flat plains.

Inquiring about the train-portion of the mission, Billy asked, "Do we know anything about this smuggler group at all? Who they are an' who runs 'em?" He paused for a moment, gliding easily to the side as the ship slid past a mountain side, hugging the rounded edges. "Or any idea on th' num'er of militia we're expectin'? If there in one of the back cars an' we can separate them... Heh." He let his thought linger, fiddling with the controls as they came upon some foothills. This landscape wasn't as smooth as he'd hoped.

 

[Kuran]

"I don't adjust your lightsabers. Please don't screw with my ship."

Juisk smiled and shrugged. Apologies. Just thought you might want to know, if they've got any sensor arrays created in the last five years or so, then with the settings as you have them, we're a little more likley to be seen. But anyway.'

He looked out the cockpit viewport as he listened to his master's explanation.

"Do we know where exactly the package is? Why not just drop on top of the carriage it's in and avoid most of the militia?"

 

[Saint]

Gamble just shook his head lightly at the young padawan's smart remark. He -really- thought he knew a lot about flying. Taking a deep breath, Billy decided that he wasn't going to let it get to him, but if this young one kept running his mouth like this, it was going to make this mission just that much more unpleasant... for everyone.

Of course though, teenage boys did seem to think they were both invincible and omniscient. This one was clearly no exception. Gamble wondered briefly if it made it worse with him being a Jedi... Regardless, he'd let the kid have the last word and just be done and over with it.

Looking over at the Jedi Knight Chili... no, wait.. Cnile... Billy quirked an eyebrow as both he and the Padawan learner awaited a response. Being the team leader for this mission, Cnile had a lot riding on her shoulders. One didn't just rush into an operation like this and go about things on the fly. That's how people lost lives.

And with only three of them dispatched to recover this thing... Billy wasn't jealous at all of her position or responsibilities. It -sure- would've been nice to have another SOLAG operative with him, but the urgency of the situation didn't allow much for gathering proper personnel resources. They had sent what they could. Gamble glanced briefly over his shoulder at the young kid. Hopefully, they would -all- make it out of this thing alive. Whatever that artifact was, it must've sure been of great importance. GREAT importance.

 

[Corvis]

“I'll be fine. Not going to let it stop me from doing what needs to be done.” she stated resolutely, leaning back into the chair while toying with the bag. Watching the Gamble and Juisk's exchange over the sensor net controls, Cnile reached out and touched Juisk's mind as he began to comment on the sensor grid again, urging him to let it drop. “If the intel is right, it shouldn't matter too much.”

Nodding in response to each of their questions, she grimaced slightly. “Sadly, we don't know much about the smuggler's forces. It's saturated in the dark side, which is how we were able to detect it's movement. The fact that they took an interest in it suggests force users are amongst them. Militia are more predictable, the usually only occupy a single car on the train, usually near the middle. Usually between twenty and forty individuals, if any.” She paused taking a breath before continuing, “If the smuggler's are in with local government, it's likely only the officers are aware. If we play this right, we should be able to play the smuggler's and the militia against each other. Separating the cars after wards isn't something I'd considered. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar enough with the technology to say whether or not it's possible. ”

She turned to Juisk, “As for why where starting at the rear of the train, two reasons. One, we're not entirely sure where on board it is. Secondly, if we pilot well enough, we can actually make the jump without alerting the passengers. This will allow us to infiltrate the train as passengers.” Quickly running through the questions again in her head to make sure she'd answered them all, Cnile let loose a long sigh. She still wasn't quite sure how she'd landed command of this mission, she only had to assume the Council saw something with in her she had yet to notice in herself. So far, she dare say it was less difficult than she had feared. “Any other questions?”

 

[Kuran]

Juisk gave the mental equivalent of a shrug and listened to his master's briefing.

"Makes sense to me. As long as we're careful we should have no problem infiltrating as passengers, and as a general rule, planetary militia aren't the brightest bunch, so perhaps we can...refocus their attention away from us if the need should arise."

He looked out the view port, eyes misted over, thinking.
Only one question jumped out at him.


"What's our ETA?"

 

[Saint]

"Give it about another forty minutes or so an' we'll come upon the selected landing site. Iss pretty clear from there. Suggest you load up whatever gear you're plannin' on takin' with us into the speeder so we can hit it right off once we're on-ground." Billy already had his long rifle loaded up in a side compartment on the speeder, but didn't really think he'd need it for this mission. Most likely, it would just get in the way, strapped across his back.

This was the first mission he'd actually done with a team of Jedi. The lack of numbers was a little disconcerting, but then again, he'd heard what they were capable of. Regardless, he was glad that he had his pair of Krayt dragon pearl-handled blasters on him. Quick-draw holster hanging on either side of his willowy form.

Offering before anyone walked out of the cockpit to pack, Billy added, "I'll be bringin' my field medic's kit with me, prolly a double portion, bu' tha's not much. Got a coupla smoke screamers too, so if ya'll want, I hav' a coupla extra masks tha'll filter and allow you t'see in infrared." We wasn't sure if they'd need that, but it was only proper that he make such an offer. They needed -everyone- prepared for this mission.

 

[Corvis]

Cnile nodded, last of the nausea disappearing as the descended into the atmosphere. “I appreciate the offer, but I'll be fine. Traveling light comes with being a Jedi.” she slowly stood up, folding the bag and placing it on the co-pilot chair's armrest. “I will however, go change into something less conspicuous than Jedi robes.” she said with a smirk, “I'll meet you guys at the speeder once we've landed.” Sliding past Juisk, she opened the cockpit door and slid back to her small cabin. Forty minutes to pick out a suitable outfit, she mused, should be just enough time.

 

[Kuran]

Juisk nodded as his master passed by on her way to the back, and already dressed himself, he jumped up and took her seat besides the pilot.

He settled into the chair and stared out the viewport for a few minutes, musing on the mission. It shouldn't be too hard, but somehow that always seemed to make everything...harder. He continued on this line of thought for a while before suddenly remembering the man beside him. Turning in his chair, he extended a hand.

"Padawan Juisk, pleased to meet you. Mind if I ask what you're doing on this type of trip?"

 

[Saint]

Offering a warm enough smile in return, Billy took the young Padawan's hand and shook it firmly, looking him in the eye as he did so and replied, "Juisk? Name's Billy Ray Gamble. Mos' jus' call me Gamble. S'what I prefer." He returned his attention back to the controls as he kept the ship low to the ground, hugging the landscape.

As he made to slip between the saddle of two foothills, Billy went on, "As for this mission, due to the narrow window of opportunity to execute, there wasn't a lot of time to scrounge up an entire squad or whatnot, and I was the closest skilled pilot." He shrugged lightly as he looked back over at the young Jedi, "So here I am."

Sitting back now, Billy relaxed as the upcoming terrain turned into nothing but flatlands. All plains for awhile. They'd be reaching the lightly-wooded area though here before too long. Probably twenty minutes or so. Looking out over the grassy plains, Billy further commented, "Plus I think they're lookin' t'run more cooperative missions together between us SOLAG operatives an' you Jedi folks."

Turning his attention fully to the young Padawan, Billy continued, "Should prove mutually beneficial if'n you ask me." Nodding over towards the teen, he inquired, "How 'bout you? How long you been with th' Order an' all that? Seen a num'er of missions like this one? M'self, I don' usually work with you Jedi."

 

[Corvis]

(( Go ahead and skip me until you guys head down the hatch. I'll be already there waiting. ))

 

[Kuran]

Juisk smiled warmly.

"SOLAG huh? Nice. Yeah though, this should prove a good test of what we can do togther."

"Myself, i'm just a padawan, to Master Cnile in fact."

He pointed a thumb towards the back of the ship.

"I've been with the order now for about twelve years, they brought me to the temple when I was six. And while this may not instil much confidence in my abilities, no, I've not seen much action at all."

He looked out the viewport and at the instruments in the cockpit, before standing up and heading for the door to the rest of the ship.

"We should probably get going, yeah?"

 

[Saint]

To his remark about not seeing much action, Billy replied simply, in a friendly-enough tone, "Hey, we -all- gotta start somewhere, right?" They were closing in on their landing destination when Juisk added that they should probably get going. Billy tilted his head towards the back area as he replied, "Go 'head. I'll jus' bring 'er down an' git us landed. If you have any situating t'do or gear to retrieve, whatnot, go head an' do what you have to."

Gamble's fingers danced over the console again as he brought up an image of the potential landing site. Scouring over it, he did a scan of a few areas, looking for a good spot to land. Didn't want to put the ship down on top of a wooded area and not be able to get the speeder out... THAT would be rather embarassing, heh...

Billy selected a relatively clear spot and brought the ship down rather gently, the groans of the vessel and hisses of the landing gear filling the air as he did so. Apparently it'd been a long flight for his ship too, heh. Gamble shut a few systems down before hopping up and making his way towards the back. His twin krayt dragon pearl-handled blasters were hanging in his two holsters which he retrieved from a small locker within the cockpit.

Strapping them on as he walked back, Billy raised his eyebrows as he smiled and inquired aloud, "So... we all ready for this?" Having secured the holsters in place, he began to lower the hatch that would allow them to glide off in the speeder and thus start their mission. Gamble approached a small console and ran his fingers over the controls, bringing up a screenful of data, he added, "Looks like our train has departed right on time."