Fwurg

[Nebesnogo Sveta]

"I think i have an idea for something that might help us track these pirates. We could get an astronav droid it could help us wet the local hyper space traffic when we get there. As we have some time I'm going to ask." nebesnogo suggested.

He contacted the quarter master and requested an astronav droid and went to pick it up as fast as he could.

"I'm back an brought us a navigator for when we got there." he said pointing to the droid that was with him. "Sorry it took so long."

((OOC: one astronav droid for on the ship.))

[Nathan Miodrass Asillion]

Something didn't sit right with Nathan for the delay. He opened a silent comm line to Ariana and Nebesnogo.

"This Huk guy... Something about him rubs me the wrong way. I'm going to try to take a look in the Raven's computers. If one of you could try to find some more information on that Huk..."

Acting like nothing was wrong Nathan replied to Nahdar in a friendly tone.

"That's all right. We would like to get on the way as soon as possible though. If you could let me into your computers for a moment I can upgrade your docking codes so you can clear docking and undocking procedures faster."

In truth Nathan didn't know one thing about docking codes, but it was a good excuse to gain access to the Raven's computer systems.

After he was allowed access Nathan searched the ships databanks for old flight records and cargo manifests. He looked for inconsistencies and paid special attention to flightpaths that took the ship close to the border between sector 16 -6 and 17 -6. ((Check: 12 = 6 Force Level + 4 Reason + 2 Slicing -- Accessing the Bulky Raven's flight records and cargo manifest.))

[Storyteller (Brend)]

((OOC: Note that the Slicing skill is only usable for the actual breaking of security. The Programming skill is used to operate systems beyond their normal operation. Regardless, a check of 11 is still high enough to access cargo manifests and flight records: check approved))

"That would be great!", Nahdar looked positively pleased with Nathan's proposal to upgrade the docking codes, "I'm sure that Jedi docking codes will save me hours of time."

He quickly leads Nathan through the few rooms of the ship to the bridge, where he shows the Jedi a terminal currently displaying a comical animation of a fat raven trying to land on a tree. Of course, the tree moves in the wind, prompting the raven to fly up and try again, and again... Nahdar deftly taps the screen a few times to start a complex looking docking code entry app.

"Go ahead. I'm going to use the extra time to give the droids an inspection.", he says just before leaving Nathan alone on the bridge.


With Nahdar gone, Nathan had free roam of the computer system. Within minutes he had access to all subsystems. Searching through the system's was a breeze, as this was exactly what the system was meant for. The computer system consisted roughly of four parts:

• astronavigation I
• astronavigation II
• admininstration
• personal folders
• droid control

For the most part astronagivation and inventory seemed exactly what they were. With a quick inspection Nathan finds that both astronavigation subsystem are actually a very recent versions of high-grade commercial packages from two competitors. The droid control subsystem very accurately details the current status of all droids, including a neat Droid N4D0 under maintenance by Nahdar status line.


Nathan discovered that the ship's administration had thousands of flight paths logged nearing an accumulated travel distance of 300 . The plans range from simple runs between Unity and Suma to impressive traverses of the known galaxy from far side of the Core Hegemony in 5 -1 to the Hutt Families sector 20 -7.

Not only did the system have flight paths logged that go close to the border of 16 -6 and 17 -6, there are at least seventeen that simply cross it. Almost all cargo manifests were vague at best, some listed the volume of the shipped goods and the intended destinations, others simply listed '24 metric tons of Droid Parts', or even 'A load of Tibanna cannisters'. In the sea of badly administered data, two flight paths stood out because they were meticulously noted down, and contained rather strange details:

• 2014-05-08/priority run. Liberal Assencia 10 -2, Deominius 13 -7; One unit of strategy, two units of classic war. Additionally, 3/4 hold of Luxury Goods, 1/4 hold of Power Packs.
• 2014-06-22/priority run. Liberal Assencia 10 -2, Scir 13 -3; Three units of violent drama. Addtionally, 1/6 hold of Fuel, 1/3 hold of Foodstuffs, 1/6 hold of Archived Scripts, 1/3 hold of Inert Chemicals.

The personal folders consisted of three folders: Nahdar, Huk, Shared Each folder was locked down with basic encryption. Nathan estimates it would take him roughly half an hour to break the encryption, should he want to access the encrypted folders.

[Ariana Danacia]

"The droid is a good idea Nebesnogo, we can probably use him."

Ariana patiently waited on the ship.

After a while she contacted Nathan on her communication device.
"You could also have simply asked them what kind of cargo they are taking with them on this trip.

Since you are probably already in their systems by now I would like to know what interesting things you have found.

You better not get caught on such a simple matter..."

((OOC: Ariana is ready to depart.))

[Nebesnogo Sveta]

After getting the droid on board their little ship he waited impatiently for the ship to depart.

((OOC: nebesnogo is ready to go.))

[Storyteller (Brend)]

((OOC: If there's no post by Nathan tomorrow around 22:00, I'll post anyway and assume he was ready to go as well.))

[Nathan Miodrass Asillion]

Nathan almost felt guilty for lying at Nahdar's reaction. Almost, but lying had become normal to him long ago.

He copied the abnormal flight paths to his own memory. That was when Ariana's message came in.

"I'm insulted you think I'm stupid enough to do that." He replied in mocking tone.

"So far I have found some flight paths that deviate from the rest. I also found a few encrypted files, but it will take to long to get in without arousing suspicion.

I'm heading back to you."

Logging out, Nathan returned to their ship in the hold.

"Hey Nahdar. Look I'm sorry but I couldn't get you the docking codes. I had them ready, but when I tried to test them they got flagged as being unauthorized. So I had to change them back.

I'll make it up to you. I know some people that will pay good money for an independent freighter to haul some cargo. Nothing illegal, just some stuff they don't want falling in the hands of the competition. Next time you're on Unity, give me a call and I'll set it up."

He told Nahdar when he ran into him.

((OOC: Ready to go.))

[Storyteller (Brend)]

"Nah man, don't worry about it. The docking systems here are always a bit picky.", he looks a bit surprised to hear a Jedi explain that it a potential job wasn't illegal, "We've got a full schedule already, but I'll see about squeezing in a run from Unity somewhere. No guarantees though."


After boarding the smaller vessel inside the hold of the Bulky Raven the trio of Jedi and their shiny new astronav droid named D4-B4 feel the tremor of releasing docking clamps. Their voyage had begun.

The trip itself was actually very boring. With nothing to see from the window but the dark hold, even looking out of the cockpit windows was boring. After 25 days of being cooped up in the small vessel, they heard the voice of Nahdar over the radio "Hiya in there. We've arrived at the location Qun Treen gave us, so we're going to open up the hold doors to let you out."

Slowly, the hold doors open, allowing the Jedi their first look at the starry world in 25 days. As the doors open, a blueish world came into view. "Hold on to something.", came the mesage from Nahdar, just before the Jedi felt their ship being pushed out of the hold with a sudden motion. When the smaller vessel had fully drifted out of the Bulky Raven, the hold doors started to close again.

"Okay Jedi, this is it then. We're heading to our next waypoint. Huk says bye too. Good luck out there!"

The Bulky Raven's thrusters went all-out, and the ship was soon speeding away into the distance. Once they were outside of the systems gravitation well, they Bulky Raven makes a hyperspace jump.


The three Jedi are now all alone, and in orbit around a small world. The astro-nav droid quickly determines the location of the small vessel: they were roughly in the middle of 17 -6 orbitting an unnamed planet around the blue main sequence star Sal Pirkimos. They were only at only four days travel distance from both Rymea and the Sundarian monitoring array.

It was up to the Jedi to start their work!

[Ariana Danacia]

Although Ariana was a Jedi knight she was not interested in ordering the two padawans around yet. She was interested in their plans and turned towards them to ask for their ideas.

"I propose we head to the Sundarian monitoring array.

We could go to Rymea as well but if we have no clue where to start we might talk to the wrong people and give away the fact that we are investigating into the smugglers. Does any of you have a plan to start the investigation on Rymea?

If this is not the case I vote for traveling to the Sundarian monitoring array to look at the logs and get more details on the disappearance trick that the smugglers used."

[Nathan Miodrass Asillion]

"I think we should head to Rymea first. We'll be likely to find what we're looking for in Port Rymea.

If we pose as buyers we should be able to find the responsible party without arousing to much suspicion.

We can find out how they are doing it by making them squirm a little while we're taking them down."

Nathan offered his idea, then elaborated further.

"We could say we work for a crimelord in the Union and need weapons because we are expanding our operations. We would need to hide our lightsabers carefully. If look a bit rough we should be able to pass for a bunch of thugs.

I don't suppose any of you brought any money or something of value? We might need something to bargain with."

[Ariana Danacia]

"Not me I did not intend to trade with these guys but your plan could work if we have something to show them.

I am still at least contact the monitoring array to ask them whether they know more. Maybe an operator can give us more information already."

Ariana used the secure communication channel that the staff of Lady de Montrève had provided her with to contact the Sundarian monitoring array.

"Hello, this is Jedi Knight Ariana Danacia contacting the Sundarian monitoring array. We have received access to this channel through the Sundarian Embassy on Unity. We would like to know if you can tell us more about the smugglers that evaded Union patrols."

Ariana provided them with the date and locations that she knew they were last spotted.

"We would like to know if your personnel could analyze how they vanished out of sight and possibly more information on where they went. Could you tell us more about this? We are in the sector, Is it useful if we come to your station in person to look at the archives ourselves? We are thankful for your cooperation. "

[Storyteller (Brend)]

The secure link was easily set up.

"Hello jedi knight Ariana Danacia. We have received and checked your authentication codes. Please stand by while I patch you through.", came the reply from from a droid. Only moments later, she is talking to a living person: "Greetings, jedi knight. This is Kenth Walduel of the Sundarian Federation Hyperspace Monitoring Grid C.

We have already run several analysis of the disappearing smugglers, and we can only tell you that they simply vanished. I wish I could tell you more, but with the data we recorded, this is all I can give you. You are welcome to come over and have a look at the raw data yourself, but I doubt you'll find anything more, unless you hold a degree in hyperspace physics.

If we had a better recording, we might be able to figure out something more. But without advance warning we won't be able to calibrate the ripple array in time. Sorry.

So, anything else I can do to help the Jedi?"

[Nebesnogo Sveta]

"Can you ask them if they have a map of where they vanish so that we might have a look ourselves?"

"We might be able to see if they follow a similar pattern of them vanishing. But that's all I can think of."

"Or else we have to go to the planet and see how it is there. those are our options."

[Ariana Danacia]

"I guess your right. Unless they have a specific location we will have to go to the planet and continue there."

"Did they all vanish at the same location? Do you have the coordinates of this location?"

[Nathan Miodrass Asillion]

Nathan felt a bit useless on the ship. His skills simply weren't needed. So he made a suggestion.

"I very much doubt we will find out anything up here. I suggest we head to the planet. Our top priority is to stop this smuggling, finding out how they did it is a secondary objective.

Besides it will probably be a lot easier to find out how they vanish if we find the actual ships, rather then try to grasp straws."

[Ariana Danacia]

"Patience is a virtue Nathan.

However we can continue our communication with the Sundarian monitoring array using the holonet. You can start piloting the ship towards Rymea, go ahead."

[Storyteller (Brend)]

"Give me a second to look that up for you.", the reply came.

A few moments later: "We don't have exact coordinates, but they all seem to vanish in roughly the same area. It's an area near the border of the Union. Let me see, coordinates are peth 2.43, resh 0.443 in sensor-local spherical coordinates", it remains silent for a while, "Ok, I've calculated the coordinates in standard format. I'll send them over.

We don't have anything more. As I said, without advance warning, we won't be able to get good readings."

Ariana received a set of coordinates demarcating an area of the sector near the Union border. The area roughly spherical, and has a diameter of about half a day's hyperspace travel with their current vessel.

[Ariana Danacia]

"The area is rather big, we can not look at every location in that area... I don't think it is location bound. I guess we are going to Rymea since this is our best lead. We could fly through the area, to check if it is something like a nebula, but it probably is not very useful. "

[Nathan Miodrass Asillion]

Nathan didn't quite understand how he was being impatient.

"I would love to pilot the ship for you, but are you sure you want me to? The last time I flew was my basic flight training exam. Which I barely passed, two years ago."

Nathan told Ariana.

"Anyway I say we head straight to Rymea so we can actually complete our mission."

[Ariana Danacia]

"I am not asking you to fly any fancy maneuvers here, you will be fine. Just let the astronav droid plot the course for you."

((OOC: Ready to go to Rymea.))

[Storyteller (Brend)]

((OOC: I haven't posted for a week, so I feel obliged to let you peeps know I'm still active and storytelling this mission! If your characters have made up their minds, please post your actions so I can let you influence the world.))

[Ariana Danacia]

Ariana just remembered she hard brought the star-map of sector 17 -6 on her datapad.

"Nebesnogo, maybe your new droid friend could show us what is so special about the coordinates that we received."

She connected her datapad to the astronav droid and gave it access to the star-map.

"Droid show us the star map and zoom in on these coordinates. Nebesnogo, does your astronav have a name?"

[Nebesnogo Sveta]

"Ik think he can do that his name is A3-T0 by the way."

"I trust you to be able to fly to rymea. and the then A3 can find out if there is something spceial about the places that they vanished from."

[Nathan Miodrass Asillion]

"Okay, but I'm not paying for any damages." Nathan warned.

Cracking his knuckles as if he was going to play the piano, Nathan started to set a course. Despite his nonchalant act, he was actually very nervous. He couldn't fight from inside a ship, which made him vulnerable. Some might consider it strange for a soldier, who didn't even flinch when blasterbolts flew mere centimetres past him, to be scared of flying on small ships.

Or maybe people would attribute it to the fact his piloting skills where shoddy at best.

((OOC: sorry for the late reply. ready to go :)))

[Storyteller (Brend)]

((OOC: Nathan's check of ((Check: 10 = 6 Force Level + 4 Reason -- )) is easily high enough for flying the ship under calm and routine circumstances.))

While Nathan steered the ship out of the system they were in and into deep space for the hyperjump towards Rymea, A3-T0 chirped happily as he could finally get to work on something. It took the droid about a quarter of an hour to download and process the map, roughly the same amount of time Nathan needed to get the ship into hyperspace.

With blue and white streaks swooshing past the windows, the navigation droid projected a small holographic display of the starmap. With some chirping the display zoomed in on the area that Ariana received from the sundarian sensor array operator. The Jedi starmaps were clearly of high quality, as even this remote area contained information on several systems.

Of particulair note was the system 3641-Anuradha, which was roughly in the middle of the sphere of coordinates. According to the starmap the system consists of a red dwarf with a medium planet and two small planets in dangerously close orbit. The system features generous asteroid belts in which several moons drift around. Because of the planets' close orbit to the red dwarf they are regularly washed over by ion storms and other extremely dangerous solar phenomena, and all three worlds exhibit qualities usually observed in hot orbits.

If they want to go to the area and inspect it themselves, their best bet would be to go to Rymea first and start the second leg of their journey from there.


Three and a half day and several hyperjumps later the ship arrives at the border of the Xil-Rymea system. It is clear that this system is used as a trade hub of sorts, as the long-range sensors pick up several large cargo freighters in orbit around the world. There is a lot of radio chatter, is can be expected from a reasonably well-populated world.

The system even features some of the facilities the Jedi have come to expect from Union worlds: automatic space sport location and landing vector information, and at least a rudimentary form of space corridor management to announce large vessel near-planet routes.