[Open] Drinking with the Ravens

[Isaac Ideus]

Rave obliged Isaac's command and the pair slipped into the security room, once again nodding at his two bosses as they walked by. By now, there were two armed guards in suits covering the exit. Closing the door behind him, Isaac turned to Rave and began, "It's no secret you have quit the bounty on your head. Word is, a few Cowboys are here to claim it. They're outside waiting for you. Now, I don't plan on handing you over to them, so you're going to follow our directions if you want to get out of here in your own ship instead of the back of some old slaver." At that moment, a small alarm buzzed, signaling a weapons detector breach. Isaac sighed loudly, and turned to the security chief in the room. "Take care of that, will ya?" It was an annoyance, but the cold reality was that if anybody tried to pull out a weapon here, they'd be turned inside out by security in a matter of seconds. Isaac turned back to Rave and continued, "For now, you can sit tight here."

[member="Rave Merrill"]
[member="Lysle of the Hydian Way"]

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Horror"] [member="Lord Daemos"] [member="Flora Burn"]

[member="Isaac Ideus"] got a nod. The security room had a solid durasteel table and a chair facing the door; she took the chair, left leg crossed over right.

"Much appreciated. I'll wait here."

 

[Jen]

"Fending off what since you what?" Jennifer chuckled, it was a sincere question actually. She had trouble hearing Jan in this awefully loud establishment with flashing lights and drunk people, yelling, everywhere. She gave Jan another pat on the back as he spoke, not meant to be demeaning, but more as a 'quite down please' one. There wasn't much to get offended over and after all, they were speaking to Mr. King himself.

As Frederick turned his attention back towards Jennifer and started to speak she took another sip from the cider in her hand that she had been holding in a secure grip. It was her first drink of the evening and with ciders often having just as much alcohol in them as a normal beer it didn't do an aweful lot to her young mind. Hey, ciders taste nice.

From already having looked out towards the dancefloor a couple of times Jennifer knew that the first kind of people Frederick mentioned was among them. That was a thing that tended to always be in shady and expensive places. The second mentioned group however were of course a lot harder to spot. There was a lot of suits out there though... "I don't know.. Actually.." Jennifer simply answered, her eyes for the third or fourth time glancing over the mass of people behind them. Was it to attempt to fit in? Be seen by her fellow Ravens? She wasn't entirely sure and reflecting on Fredericks words her quite suite seemed a lot more lucrative all of a sudden. "I guess." She said after a while, still visibly thinking about it: "That the loud music, people and sometimes drinks makes you forget all your responsibilities.. All the choices I've yet to take? Maybe that is it.."

It was nice to talk about actually, as if she had been allowed some room to breath. She had planned on just showing up to this party and have a single drink and conversation. Seemed it wouldn't be hard to keep that promise after all with all these thoughts on her mind.

[member="Frederick King"] :: [member="Jan VonFowl"]​

 

[Jan VonFowl]

I grinned, and drank some of my coffee-diluted milkshake.

"Euphoria is the best cure for responsibility."

The milkshake tasted pretty good, and the music was okay, and I had friends... This was certainly a unique situation for me... I was actually happy.

"Caffeine and sugar work, too."

[member="Jen"] [member='Frederick King']

 

[Cryax Bane]

Cryax Bane bid a polite adieu to the orange Twi'lek bombshell and decided it was time to sit down and let himself sober up a bit. He spied some fellow Ravens like [member="Jan VonFowl"] sitting at a table nearby. Snagging a glass of ice water, he and sat down to join them. He was sitting with a dark skinned near-human and a very young girl in a suit. Was she even old enough to drink?

"So Jan, you never answered my question before," he said to the other slicer. Then the slightly tipsy Chiss smiled warmly at the group. He nodded to the other two Ravens. "By the way, I'm Cryax Bane, although some of you might know me from the CryptNet as 'Bug'"

[member="Jen"] [member="Frederick King"]

 

[Jan VonFowl]

I raised an eyebrow, and smirked.

"I answered the question, Cryax. Just not in a way that was obvious."

I drank some more of my shake, and grinned.

"Why don't you go talk to that pretty Twi'lek from before? She didn't mind you holding her hand."

[member="Cryax Bane"] [member='Jen']

 

[Cryax Bane]

"I'm not sure the Twi'lek's my type, as cute as she is." Cryax gave a wan smile and realized he had totally contradicted his earlier statement. Let's face it, the woman wasn't her.

"Besides, she was mortified by my..." The Chiss stopped suddenly. He looked at [member="Jan VonFowl"] then looked at [member="Jen"], then back, and a light went off in his fuzzy head.

"Oh! I'm interupting something. I'm sorry. You crazy kids have fun." he smiled at them. He stood up, and wavered just a bit, steadying himself with the edge of the table.

[member="Jen"]

 

[Jan VonFowl]

I glared incredulously at Cryax as he walked off.

"What in space was that?"

I rolled my eyes, and drank down more of my shake.

"This caffeine isn't buzzing me as much as I thought it would."

[member="Cryax Bane"] [member="Jen"]

 

[Jen]

It seemed that the group of three turned to four as they were joined by a Chiss that seemed familiar, yes. Jennifer must've seen him a couple of times, his name however she had never gotten. Until now. Cryax Bane or...

"You are Bug? I tried to get in contact with you a few days ago!" Jennifer exclaimed, a smile broadening upon her face. Yep, it hadn't been a long time ago she had tried to navigate around on the CryptNet on her datapad, she needed some assistance regarding a little project she was working on. And Bug which seemed to be everywhere and yet nowhere on this CryptNet was definitely one she had wanted to contact and now she was sitting right infront of him.
"Remind me to get in contact with you once all this is over."

Jennifer didn't understand the suggestion Cryax made at first, but as he stood to leave she promptly waved her hand, perhaps unconsciously distancing herself from Jan, just a little bit: "No.. No, no, no.. Ermm.. Please stay. We could always use some company here at the table. I'm sure Mister King would agree." She had said rather rapidly, gesturing towards Frederick for a brief moment.

[member="Jan VonFowl"] :: [member="Cryax Bane"] :: [member="Frederick King"]​

 

[Cryax Bane]

Cryax stopped in mid-step as he heard Jen's request and walked backwards to the table. He had really wanted to get to know some more of the Ravens tonight and was glad he wasn't about to be a third wheel. Or was it fourth wheel? He wasn't sure. Counting drunk was hard.

He smiled at Jen, "I'd be happy to help you with whatever you need. Feel free to stop by my office anytime." He stopped. "I didn't catch your name though."

[member="Jan VonFowl"] [member="Frederick King"] [member="Jen"]

 

[Jan VonFowl]

I nodded quickly, and steered Cryax back to a seat at the bar.

"You're right, you didn't. Stay, talk for a bit. I'm sure Chiasa will come and talk to you, soon."

I sipped my milkshake, and internally sighed. Why had I even done that? I'd been trying to talk to Jen this whole time, and here I was, dropping Cryax here as a buffer.

"You don't need to wait for the office. I'd rather like to hear the Bug talk about CryptNet. I've been in there a couple times, too."

[member="Cryax Bane"] [member="Jen"]

 

[Jen]

"Jen or Jennifer. But Jen is easier, don't you think?" She grinned once more albeit slightly, lips curved towards the left side of her face. "And sure, I don't think it applies really, but beta-testing, I suppose one could call it? Working on something for the Ravens. I will explain at some point. Not here. Too much alcohol in the air and it's also too loud."

She adjusted herself a bit by the table, and looked around. It seemed as if there was not the slighest of indication about the on-goings in the security room, nor all the bounty hunters that were currently trying to track Rave. And that was good. Currently Jennifer was everything but up for watching fighting happening.

[member="Cryax Bane"] :: [member="Jan VonFowl"]​

 

[Cryax Bane]

"Nice to meet you Jen," he smiled. "And again my office door is always open when you're ready to discuss it."

Cryax's eyes lit up at the chance to talk about computers. He leaned into the group and lowered his voice to barely above a whisper.

"Well, as you know, the CryptNet is the Ravens very own encrypted, restricted network. It's kind of like a mini-HoloNet, comlink system and data dump just for the enterprise. We can transmit verbal and Holo messages to each other without having to go onto the HoloNet. Our computers are all connected to it and our comms are, too. And it's reach is far. The colonies around Antecedent. Hutt Space. And we're working to extend it even further."

He continued on excitedly.

"We, well, myself and the other slicers are constantly making improvements to the CryptNet. In fact right now, I'm running some diagnostics as we speak. I wrote the software myself. I call it 'Little Brother'. What it does is, basically it goes in and finds all the weaknesses in the encryption so that I can exploit them. It's slicing software and it's damn good. Right now I'm using it to find any potential exploits in our CryptNet, so we can plug them." He made a plugging gesture with one blue finger.

"The Black Suns don't seem to have the best slicers at their disposal, but one day they're going to wise up and hire some. Little Brother's going to make sure that we're ready when they do."

[member="Jan VonFowl"] [member="Jen"]

 

[Jan VonFowl]

I saw Jen look around, and heard Cryax say something about Black Sun and slicers.

"While we're on that, it's interesting that the Suns aren't attacking us tonight. We have this many of the Ravens here, plus Rave, who's now worth ten million if I remember correctly. It doesn't add up... Unless it's an elaborate ruse."

I finished my shake, and scanned the room for myself.

"I guarantee that at least, say, thirty of the people in here have been hired by Black Sun to come in here, probably indirectly."

I shrugged, and leaned back on the bar.

"It's what I would do."

[member="Jen"] [member="Cryax Bane"]

 

[Cryax Bane]

"You have a point, VonFowl." said the Chiss, leaning over the table and taking a sip of the other slicer's drink when he wasn't looking.

"Security is extremely tight here tonight." He nodded at the new security Droids making their rounds, scanning guests for weapons. "You guys do know this place has about a thousand guards on the premises at all times? It's a small miracle that the Suns are getting inside in the first place."

Speaking of security, he wondered how [member="Anastasia Rade"] was doing here at the party. The last time he saw her, she was talking to Jace. He realized he was being silly. Ana could take care of herself and besides, Jace seemed like a decent kid. Still, he scanned his red eyes around the room to see if he could spot them.

[member="Jan VonFowl"] [member="Jen"]

 

[Jan VonFowl]

I shook my head, smirking at the droids.

"I don't doubt the ability of our organic guards, but these droids could be totally decimated by any kid with a working datapad and a gun. That's how I learned to slice, after all."

I shrugged, and grinned.

"Four or five of us could probably account for everybody the Suns planted here, if It comes to it."

[member="Cryax Bane"] [member="Jen"]

 

[Avenix Wulfsorrow]

Sebastion noticed a rather sizeable group of people gathered near one area and decided that he should head over there. Sebastion walked up and put his hands over [member="Jan VonFowl"] and [member="Cryax Bane"]. "So, how are my favourite slicers going? Are you guys having fun at the party, I have. First I met this young Twi'lek, next thing I knew my pants were gone and then..." Sebastion kept on rambling for a good 2 minutes until he noticed there company. "Oh hi [member="Jen"] how are you doing this evening?" He was obviously at least somewhat drunk as his attention could drop or come back at any second.

 

[Cryax Bane]

Cryax smiled up at Seb, and motioned for him to join the table. The Chiss was a bit sore at him earlier in the night, during that whole situation with Chiasa and the spilled drinks, but he realized had been all riled up and taking out his anger on the man. The powerful Echani warrior was definitely one you'd want to have your back, even if he had substance abuse issues. Besides, the guy was entertaining.

"Keep it clean, man." the Chiss laughed, looking at Jan and Jen. "You can tell me all about your wild night later."

[member="Sebastion Wulfsorrow"] [member="Jan VonFowl"] [member="Jen"]

 

[Anastasia Rade]

"We don't get out much so I'm not surprised. I'm here looking for work because a girls got to eat. I have big dreams with little credits so I thought maybe your boss could help me out," she smiled taking a sip of her drink. Ana knew that there were easier ways for someone whom looked like her to get credits. She didn't mind working hard for what she got. "Do you think you could introduce us?"

Ana couldn't help but wonder where [member="Cryax Bane"] had run off to. She had been hoping to snatch him up later for a dance or a drink. The witch had no idea how to dance however it sounded like one of those things people did at parties. It would be worth a try and if she was going to look foolish she much rather it be with someone she was familiar with.

[member="Jace Beleren"]

 

[Rianna Organa-Ar'klim]

Late to the party but always dressed for it Alexis stepped inside immediately her heart began to beat in time with the music. Long elegant fingers wiggled to say hello as she swept into the room. This was a place that sounded so alive the Nightsister could not help but feel the steady thump thump thump as she began to move through the crowds towards the one place that everyone seemed to have started, the bar for a drink.

Leaning over toward him she explained what she wanted, and just how much ice to put into it she was particular about preparation. Caramel colored eyes darted about watching taking it in, and beginning to choose where she would go next.