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Half of the OPA’s out here enjoying all the vices in existence offered by CLOUD NINE, an entertainment station floating in the atmosphere.
Rumors are CLOUD NINE is the central hub for SLAVE TRAFFICKING in the sector. From children to exotic aliens.
Most are VOLUNTARY slaves - it gets food on their tables.
SCENARIO 2: THE CURE
OPA infiltrates a medical research facility to ‘acquire’ a CURE for a fatal disease plaguing a local friendly rebel cell fighting Imperial presence in the sector.
After infiltrating, a SCIENTIST inside informs the infiltrators the CURE is produced for the IMPOVERISHED SICK of Javin through a social welfare program.
Slave trafficking. There were few criminal activities that Caedyn detested as much as he did, this one.
According to Intel provided by Alliance Command, there were rumors floating about the Cloud Nine "entertainment" Space-Station of exotic dancers and other services being a front for an underground slave trade. As soon as the news had reached the Svivren Enclave, and the opportunity to investigate the scene for himself came about, Caedyn made it his first priority to see whether or not these rumors were true; and if so, he were determined to put a stop to it.
The Repertoire came into dock within the Space-Station's hangar designated for his arrival, Caedyn wearing the attire of your typical spacer, had registered himself as a guest and civilian patron in order to forgo any public knowledge of Jedi being on the scene. Keeping his Lightsaber hidden on the inside of his jacket as opposed to being clipped to his belt, the only weapon on his person was the CS.38 Custom, manufactured by House Arenais for the former Commenor Systems Alliance.
Making his way from the Hangar to the entertainment district suspected of being the prime location for trafficking, Caedyn tried to prepare himself mentally and emotionally for the heavy reality that he could be about to witness. No matter how you looked at it, there was nothing good about Slaving. The extortion and exploitation of people by force was a disgusting practice and one he would be glad to rid the Outer Rim Territories of, if only the Southern Expanse weren't so large and impossible to cover.
THE CURE: The Progredior Research Institute, the notoriously shady corp with the typical cover of polished white walls, high paid intern positions, lip job secretary dolls, dry cleaned white aprons and nefarious scalpels, wants the acquisition of THE CURE from a medical research facility on Javin. As usual, in such contracts, there were no specific conditions to meet - you could run in all guns blazing, torching the damn place to dust or play it out like an upcoming A list holo-actor. Roman figured he'd go somewhere in between.
John R Isidore lit up shakily his cigarette outside at the employee's parking lot of the med. research facility. There was a lot of cleaning to be done today and he wasn't sure he'd be able to carry out his duties without going into overtime; that's where the problem was. The director, Mr. Hobb Walts, a man he respected and dreaded equally, had been pretty vocal the last time about 'NO OVERTIME, CHICKENHEAD. IF YOU CAN'T CLEAN ALREADY CLEANED FLOORS IN TIME - YOU ARE GETTING FIRED'. The thought of that made him tremble more and drop his cigarette on the wet cement ground.
The damn shakes, he thought angrily. The fury subsided when he took a drag of the damp cigarette, replacing it with sadness and worry. Cold memories, just like today's frigid breeze, reminded him of his wife leaving him. Never been much of a wife, John R Isidore reassured himself but the phony act didn't pass. He wondered if, perhaps, Mr. Hobb Walts might help him - after all he knew how to handle everything. If one can't clean already cleaned floors in time - they got fired. That made complete sense to John R Isidore. A genius' logic. Oh my, Mr. Hobb Walts, a man he wished to be but perfectly well knew he couldn't. Unless...
He took out a holo-ad from his pocket and read it for the seventh time today 'The Progredior Research Institute offers a complete and perfect facial and body revamp at an affordable price. Look just like your idol - call 1415-0015, ext. BIO'. Murderous thoughts surged once more in his little brain and they were the last thing on his mind before all the lights went out.
Roman Hayato, professional investigator and problem-solver, wiped the butt of his Vornskr Revolver rigorously before crouching down next to the unconscious body of the janitor. Bingo, he thought, should have access to most places. He took the man's white coat and put it on top of his long black coat, wriggled the employee card between his fingers a few times with a nasty smirk of victory before putting it back in his pocket and dragged the knocked out body next to a dumpster outside of the premise. His own cigarette he flicked away outside just as he made his entry into the medical research facility in search for THE CURE.
Amkoo was on CLOUD NINE to enjoy himself after bringing smuggling goods to a client on the entertainment station. He was sitting in the cantina called "The Obedient Wookie" a cantina known for having extremely bad food but actually surprising good alcoholic beverages.
Amkoo had been here for a while and was currently enjoying a fine alcoholic beverage while watching a blue skinned Twi'lek dancer. In the corner of his eye through the open front door the smuggling and bounty hunting rodian saw Caedyn walking past outside. As Amkoo was running low on credits and thought he recognized Caedyn as a jedi. Amkoo flew up his chair to get his two blasters. He remembered The Empire's bounty against all jedi.
Amkoo picked up his blasters from the gamorrean bodyguard but not his rifle because he had left it in his ship parked in the hangar district of CLOUD NINE. He began following Caedyn but keeping his distance for the jedi to avoid noticing him, after all he's just a simple rodian.
Beyond slaves freed on Farboon, the data obtained from the CNO camp led to a medical research facility on Javin. Here, however, the dark-sider had a different cover for getting to the information. She could always claim to be working as a sanitation inspector, especially since medical research facilities would likely undergo surprise sanitation inspections that would even go into the location of IT equipment, such as a mainframe, likely to be using on-premise systems architecture. And she needed some lab coat and safety goggles to do it since she knew inspecting wet-labs required some protective equipment, the same as the people who worked in these. And protective gloves as well as a rebreather mask. However, here, unlike the Ren on Hoth or Mustafar, she would hold different expectations of cybersecurity, and even mind-trick people into accessing systems for ensuring that, should the facility be quarantined, the cure's formula would still be used by other third parties for production. Yet, she believed that, even if other operatives failed to find any actual doses of the cure, the formula still had to be in there somewhere.
"This week, a special sanitation inspection is underway, and the focus is on the main servers. Other facilities in this region have been negligent in maintaining the physical IT infrastructure and said infrastructure pose sanitary risks"
Slave trafficking had been alive and well forever. Just the fools that did it openly that got caught fast, not often alive for long when they did. Red fifteen and all the cartel casino lines remained a constant source of debtors pressed into extended contracts, as well as the one sith reimagined underworld slave pits on lorrd where the slavers were sent to be the slaves. A glorious bit of reverse psychology in that now cartel Tadietti Tann
run operation. If only the Uos would leave it alone, backtalk on the darkholo was things were going to get messy again there in another battle for control.
Xi was mostly here for the spice not the slaves, a few of the pyke syndicate walked about in their self contained suits. Standard durasteel armors, blasters, slugthrowers, maybe a personal shield, staffs, swords, the Syndicate wasn’t as well supplied as the cartel used to be. The cartel were here with a mix of aliens, among them Trandoshans, Defels, Twi’leks, Rodians, and a Noghri clan believe it not, there was a long story behind that clan. Both groups were negotiating with each other around the station. All killers, slavers, spice dealers, mercenaries, assassins or worse. Maybe a haxion brood member was in the crowd, bounty hunting droids and cyborgs, the unofficial completion of the triad working together behind the scenes out of sight and mind in the underworld.
Music blared toward the hangar, a dive bar and club for spacers, smugglers, traders, criminals and contacts. Rumors had it, you could buy almost anything here for a price if you were patient. Purple neon lights, and a low-level Katazzak style, creating a mashup of Calypso and Tatooine Blues, with catchy energy to it but also a dystopian and synthetic underlying feel. Any might get pointed this way, sense that was the way to go, or overhear a word or two inside about extended or life contracts up for trade.
A puff of spice went into the air. The way the spice stick fitted into Xi’s sealed armor suit was somewhat intricate, carrying the faint smell of spice over unmistakably toward any who entered. A flavored scent and not harsh, the syndicate were specialists and certainly knew their spice. At the end of the bar a large second floor, circular table booth, presented a potentially good point for someone to make contact with the underworld scene. Albeit mostly with the pykes little more than low-level gangsters on the fringes these days almost clinging to the Cartel's arm, but their name still carried some weight. The cartel hadn’t fared much better with numerous groups having chased them from their space, the ones surviving were ruthless, cunning or just small-time enough to go under the radar. Both groups sat at that large table, contacts, and connections aplenty. Personally Xi was here representing Darkwires interest in securing the communication and encryption contracts, selling communication and holonet tech that these groups so often sort to remain anonymous.
Everyone was armed here with a variety of exotic, and often illegal toys. This wasn’t the core for sure. Time for a Jedi to meet the neighbors? They seemed to be engaged in not only haggling but playing a good old fashioned card game of sabacc and it was a new hand... the perfect time for anyone to take a chair. A Quarren had just thrown his cards down and walked off, thoroughly beaten, but were they playing fair? And what were the stakes?
OOC and NPCs:
NPCs All free to use in posts, assume hits etc.
Anyone can assume they are at the table.
There was something to be said about watching a particularly small member of the Nezumi race scamper down a dusty, crowded street with a hydrospanner, almost three times as long as they were tall, strapped to their back.
Probably something like 'what the hell' but something surely.
Mito had been traveling with Wynter Rackham
. Honestly? It had been pretty good. Now, before heading back to Bespin, they were making one last stop after their trip to Thyrsus. Mito had a few more things to trade, she'd said, and knew just the person. That's where she was going now, to meet them.
Of course, what she HADN'T mentioned to Wyn was that the thing she wanted to trade?
Happened to be HIS hydrospanner.
She paused for a moment, right at the edge of the tarmac where Wyn's ship was parked to take a breather. Oh, Nezumi were strong for their size, but the hydrospanner was still three times her height and weighed more than that.
"Oye, Mito!"
Mito looked up at the Chadra-fan waddling toward her.
Objective 3: Trade Sub-objective: rescue his hydrospanner Koushou Mito
It took a minute for Wynter to realize just WHAT Mito was trading.
Once he couldn't find his hydrospanner?
Yeah, he knew what day it was.
This was a reoccurring thing while traveling with Mito. They kept. Stealing. Everything. Luckily since they were a Nezumi it was just a mild inconvenience. But it did mean that Wyn didn't second guess himself. "Oh no, not again..." He murmured to himself, before stepping out the cargo bay. Into ... an impromptu trading exchange between Mito and the Chadra-fan.
"Sorry, excuse me, but..."
Gaze went towards Mito. "Hey, M- that's my 'spanner you got there."
And then of course there was the more direct approach.
"I'm here for the miracle cure?" Zak yawned.
Both guards looked at each other.
"This is private property."
The Judge snorted, "Listen, I'm kind of on the clock here. Are you gonna bring me the cure or do I need to talk to your manager or what?"
They looked at each other again. One of them reached out a hand to escort him out.
"Okay buddy-" one of the guards began before he collapsed in a writhing heap.
One moment the masked kiffar's hand had been empty the next he was holding a smoking blaster. Even on stun the particle beam revolver was more than enough firepower to drop in one hit. The other guard drew his own weapon demonstrating admirable reflexes before Zak pistol whipped him unconscious with the butt of his gun. He switched settings and blew out every camera and sensor in sight.
"Manager it is," the Sheriff of Terminus muttered underneath his bandana while calmly reloading.
"This week, a special sanitation inspection is underway, and the focus is on the main servers. Other facilities in this region have been negligent in maintaining the physical IT infrastructure and said infrastructure pose sanitary risks"
Roman heard this week's project and realized this couldn't come at a more appropriate time. If he discerned it correctly, janitors were being granted better access for the week bringing a nasty smirk on the tall problem-solver's face. The issue was locating this cure when the whole place looked exactly the same. Gleaming white walls designed to soothe patients and workers, but instead gave Roman the creeps - always something sordid with medical facilities. From a side corridor a columns of janitors showed up, ignoring him, and continuing on their way. He gave them a long look before he realized what he was missing - protective equipment, googles, gloves and all that jazz.
For his large stature, Roman was capable of moving as light as a cat and with equal precision pounced one of the janitors at the back of the row into a side maintenance room. Knocking out the man wasn't the hardest part at all, it was actually fitting the darn gloves. The rubber could only be elastic as much. Coming out of the maintenance room looking like a complete idiot with the tiny goggles and gloves, Roman hurried down the corridor in the opposite direction of the janitors. He recalled a sign pointing the direction to a certain research lab.
Everything stopped inside Blue 18 Directiveless. All eyes were fixed on the hulking birdman who'd just sauntered in from the station's promenade. Kingsley peered around as if he were trying to pick Jago out from the crowd. He leaned against the bar and ordered a gargle blaster but nobody served him. Swiping a bottle from underneath the counter, the smuggler uncorked it and took a long healthy gulp.
"Xi Jago?" he tilted his head, "Anyone? No one?"
"What's it to you?" a heavy bruiser pushed his way up to the bar, "Run along little crow."
"So we're gonna have to do this the hard way huh?" Kingsley narrowed his eyes.
The cartel thug cracked his knuckles and Kingsley smirked...
"DRINK DRINK DRINK DRINK DRINK-"
"Rrrrawk!" he slammed down yet another empty mug on the bar.
Four of the cantina's biggest and meanest were slumped underneath their stools. The hiitian smuggler had challenged each of them to a drinking contest one after another and he was still going.
"You will lead me into the mainframe!" Janick hypnotized one of the IT technicians, upon hearing about the sanitary inspection of said mainframe.
"I will lead you into the mainframe"
"Once at the mainframe, make an emergency backup of the research data"
"Once at the mainframe, I will make an emergency backup of the research data"
With that said, and equipped with a micro-organism detector, Janick was guided through a maze of hallways that all looked the same, but just because the hallways are well-maintained, doesn't mean the rooms in which the primary computer equipment is housed are. Meanwhile, someone else entered a dispute with the facility's management, hopefully providing Janick enough time to enter the system and get some emergency backup, all the while pretending that some cybersecurity issues could come up, rather than a sanitary emergency - if it came to that. Hopefully there are information in there that could be used by another facility elsewhere in OPA space that would allow for manufacturing it, she thought, while expecting stuff like two-factor authentication for stuff such as accessing the backup data. By now, however, she could crack these with Force-induced means, just that it was best done away from the rightful owners. As she was about to enter the mainframe, her micro-organism detector is flashing like crazy...
He shouldn't have knocked out both those guards. It was honestly a little embarrassing for an expert tracker but all these corridors looked the same. Security was fairly robust yet it was nothing the tomb raider couldn't handle. He left a trail of groaning bodies and fried surveillance in his wake. It probably wouldn't be long now before alarms began to go off. Better kick things up to a light jog.
"Where the hell is it?" he snarled, shoving the barrel of his gun under the janitor's chin, "The cure. Now."
Of course the Judge had no way of knowing that The Fool
wasn't really a janitor at all. He looked more than a little ridiculous in those goggles and nothing like a hard boiled detective in overalls.
"See this badge? It means I can blow your damn head off in the name of the law."
Mostare VOLUNTARY slaves - it gets food on their tables.
The figure of a dark man moved in a slow deliberate pace in the alleys behind the main district of this entertainment block. The black figure a shimmer in the shadows, feathers gently dancing on a slight breeze and a wide brimmed hat hiding his features gaunt and ghostly. He passed the derelicts that called the alleys home, the pickings were too easy for this hunter. He was not here for slaves either, it did not matter their ‘occupation’ willing or otherwise. He was here to feed, and stock up the ‘pantry’ on his ship. He needed to ‘get food on his table’.
Children were such tender little lambs, but it took a lot of them to satiate his hunger and their wailing was intolerable in the small confines of The Hearse.
At the end of the alley stood a woman, dressed to entice, and lure her own victims into the night, stealing away to give delight for a price. A sickening sight to his eyes, to lower to such depravity regardless of them reasons why, in his mind she had nothing to live for. She gave up her pride long ago, he could sense the lack of self-worth in the woman, so depressive and to anyone that she encountered, caused pity. He was not a heartless man; he did pity her, and he felt charitable tonight.
“My dear, you look in need of a friend”. She turned and moved toward him, her hips swaying with practiced seduction, her lips parted in a red smile and the thought of credits filled her eyes. He felt the warmth of her hand press to his chest, her gaze lifting to see his face, and in that instant, everything she once hoped for, vanished and in its place, horror. He grabbed her face with both hands, pressed her to the wall of the alley and looked her in the eyes, it only took a moment for her to relinquish to his mind control.
“Let me ease your pain”, yes, he pitied her, and now he would give her release from this harsh life. Threading proboscises snaked from his cheeks and entered the woman, “It will be over very soon”, words of soft whispers and promise, which he fulfilled.
The lifeless body of the street walker, laid in the alley on her back, her clothes arranged neatly, her hands folded together across her chest, her eyes closed and two small pennies resting on her lids.
Four of the regulars well and truly under the bar, others around the table were taking bets on who was next. The sabacc game had him down by two crates of spice already. Another Pyke told him to get his metal-butt over there before all the locals were comatose, he didn't take much convincing. The barkeep seemed happy enough though, not every day he sold all the liquor out!
Waltzing on over. “Hear you are looking for Xi? Yeah..? He’ll be here in a minute.” The Pyke rested the spice stick on the bar, a light orange smoke coming off it. The bartender that had been working, was replaced with a much older looking Rodian opposite them both almost on cue.
“Two more,” the Pyke’s low voice said through his environmental suit. The Rodian Bartender went to get whatever they’d been drinking and Xi interrupted, “break open smokey.” A quiet Rodian expletive could be heard in response.
Smokey was popped, and out the top came what looked like a mix of dry ice and liquid helium fumes. The taste was probably somewhere in between both. Xi wasn’t going to out drink a Hiitian, he just liked the smell. Two diamond-shaped glasses appeared, the edges of which had a frosting effect from the liquid. “Cheers!” Xi popped the side of his helmet and plugged a tube from his suit into the ice-cold liquid. It had a hell of a kick but tasted smooth, just what a spice connoisseur might appreciate.
“Who you running with?” Judging whether this was a rival, another triad, spice gang or a potential customer. Maybe darkwire checking up on their investment? This was Kingsleys chance to make a pitch, a sale or whatever else he had in mind. Meanwhile back to them, the old Rodian was cleaning glasses opposite them, so clean he could almost see what was going in their reflection. In a bar like this, it was sometimes hard to tell who you were talking to, or who was who.
Like it wasn't strapped to her back and three times as long as she was tall.
"Yup! It's a good one too- oh hey Wyn."
Mito looked up at the human as his shadow cast over them. She didn't seem at all fussed or worried, but the Chadra-fan stepped back a touch, ears shifting with the uncomfortable look of a creature caught red handed (or pawed) in something. Mito didn't have enough shame in all of the bones of her body for that look to ever cross her visage.
"Well, you weren't using it," she said in an almost painfully reasonable tone.
"Hey..." Repeating himself, because even though he had been expecting it? It was still so surprising. So brazen. Like it was a joke being played on him. "Who is your friend?" Eyes casting on over to the Chadra-fan. The small creature had already been anxious, but then his attention shifted to them too. That seemed to be a bit much for the poor creature.
They SCAMPERED.
Yelling something like- Thaaaanks Mito and the rest was inaudible. Probably something about next time, maybe when there wasn't a scary Too Big right next to them.
"Okay. But yeah, I might not be using it now, but that doesn't mean I won't want to use it later?" Wyn countered her painfully reasonable tone with one of his own. Wynter was a smuggler. Patience and reasonableness were two of his strongest traits. Probably. He had won a staring contest against a Verpine at one point.
Mako looked up from his favorite pastime to observe the scenery, an act which was hard for him given the ample gifts of the young woman who sat on his lap.
The young judge had been tapped as backup, his job now was to blend into the background and act like a young spacer out for a good time. A hard ask but a burden he would carry.
His attention was squarely on Kingsley, a bird he had dealings with on more than one occasion. He hoped he planned on behaving himself but as history had shown things would be getting interesting before long.
Without a reason to act yet he looked back into the pretty girl next to him and smiled. Placing a few more talons on the table and ordered another round and would have another drink before the fun began.
The ruffian caught him by surprise, a nasty surprise, to be more specific and flashed a badge of...Sheriff of Terminus? Yeah, he'd seen those good, good counterfeits sold in the shadows. Playing cops wasn't that uncommon in the deeper parts of the Outer Rim. Roman glared at the man from head to toes and then it came to him; he'd worked and lived for Terminus for so long there was no chance he wouldn't recognize the face.
This idiot really was the Sheriff of Terminus. Zak something. The hell was he doing on Javin? His question was immediately answered when alarms blared.
"Eat shit, copper." Roman, the opportunist he had been taught to be, kicked right at deez nuts, while his right hand went for a chop to disarm the man from his gun. If he succeeded, the shadowrunner would dash towards the research lab knowing full too well he wouldn't have reached for his own gun fast enough due to the confines of this karkin' tight uniform. In his run, Roman would start removing the goggles, the gloves and all other unneeded items; the cover was already blown thanks to the sheriff's TNT entry into the facility.
What the hell did the OPA want with this place? The cure?
The back door to night club pushed open, and the Undertake silently step in. The hallway was as grimy and filthy as the alley he just left. Garbage on the floor, ill lit passage, and several doors above each one, a red light. all of them on. The walls were not sound proofed, the activity within each room, obvious. Such depravity, such sin and they had to be punished. His head swam with the sensation of lust that entered his mind, through the force, and he pressed sharp fingernails to his temples, trying to stifle the maddening penetration.
The first door he came to, he kicked it open to surprise the couple engaged in sinful pleasure. He drew his silenced gun and fired; death comes quietly after all. The man dropped dead, left life like the day he entered it. The girl, a faceless nameless being to him, clawed at a sheet in an attempt to regain some form of respect for herself, but it was all to late for that.
He walked over, pulled her up off the bed by the hair and showed no mercy to her. His proboscises stabbing through her eyes to her brain. It was not a pleasant taste to him, the corruption sickening to his stomach, but he drank and as he did, his mind destroyed herself, showing her everything that brought her to this moment, all her past pain and suffering, before her body fell lifeless to the bed.
To the next room, he would rain down justice on them equally. By the time the dark judge had finished his work, none where left alive, yet all of them in each room, arranged in the same neat fashion, with eyes closed by pennies and hands crossed over their chest.
He entered the bar, completely unafraid of discovery, paying now attention to eyes upon him, the Undertaker walked right passed the table at which a man sat entertaining a woman [ Maokai Bantam
], passed the card tables and left through the front door.
