Fwurg

[Shebi Ajava]

Ajava spent most of her time reading the weighty report and mentally summarized the information that was relevant. She wondered how they could produce so much useless text, and still have time to actually police Unity City.

After she is done, she goes back to the Jedi temple to share what she has found with T'Sal, and hopes that T'Sal found out something more useful. If not, they'll have to see if they can rustle up some leads where the Unity Security investigation falls short. Especially the rotary blaster smuggling sounds promising.

[T'Sal]

((OOC: For the continuation of the story I will skipp the details questions and continue))

"Thank you for the information and your timer, Jedi knigh Arbarox"

T'sal bows and leaves to meet Shebi Ajava.

"Jedi knigh Arbarox, thinks that this was a well executed plan by bounty hunters from the Hutt. It seems that some must have tipped off, as otherwise they would not have been able to pull this off. What are bounty hunters doing on Unity and why free Tera?

[Shebi Ajava]

Ajava thinks about it for a moment.

"What do you think we should do next?"

[Storyteller (Elmer)]

((OOC: It has been a week, after a short conversation with Brend, I understand that I haven't given you any solid leads. So here I throw you a bone here so you can continue more easily :).))

Just before T'Sal left, Arbarox said: "Now I think of it, I think that we haven't fully investigated the UTRACAS yet. It might be worth looking into that a little deeper."

In the temple, a servant approached Ajava with a holo projector: "Master jedi, I have a holo-call for you from the police station."

If Ajava answered the call, the same chief of police appeared Ajava had seen earlier: "Greetings, master Jedi," he said, "I believe you are currently investigating the assault on the prisoner transport? One of my officers told me that Thalen Voidhound currently is in the city. We are keeping an eye on him, but I though you might want to know. He is still a suspect after all."

[Shebi Ajava]

((OOC: To be honest Elmer, you gave T'Sal only a single day to respond to Ajava's question.

Either way, let's rool with this and assume that Ajava and T'Sal still have this meeting, and the same question has been asked ^_^))

[Storyteller (Elmer)]

((OOC: I know, but I also did not want to delay too much as well. And on the other hand, eventually I wanted to give you this information anyway.))

[T'Sal]

"Jedi knigh Arbarox suggested to look deeper into the UTRACAS as someone must have tempered with it. I think it will be good for us to look around for bounty hunter. The news suggests Carl Hok to be involved so we could start there."

T'sal is surprised to see a servant coming towards them with a call of Shebi Ajava. She waits to see what this is about.

[Shebi Ajava]

Ajava quickly went to answer. She thanks the chief for his assistance and informs T'Sal of this additional piece of information.

"I agree that we should start with the UTRACAS system. We will probably have to check out the traffic system ourselves, so I suggest that you take the lead on this part of the investigation. Your analytic skills and knowledge of computers will be necessary. Let me worry about the bureaucratic details, just keep me up to date on what we find and I'll make sure there's no red tape."

"With what little I know of computers, I suggest we start our investigation at the place where the attack took place?"

If T'sal concurs, Ajava will arrange for a hovercar to go check out the place.

[T'Sal]

"Taking a look at the location is a good idea. I agree with you on the division of tasks. Let's go."

With that they wait to take a hover car to the location. T'sal tries to get the information of the UTRACAS system on her datapad and find more information. During their ride see makes a quick analysis.

((Check: 14 = 8 Force Level + 5 Reason + 1 Programming/Mechanical engineering -- Investigation of UTRACAS. Not sure on used stats.))

[Storyteller (Elmer)]

((OOC: T’Sal, it was unclear to me if you actually wanted to get into the UTRACAS system, or just wanted some regular info, since you describe that you want info over UTRACAS, but you say that you investigate it. For now, I take it you just want to know what it is and how it works, otherwise it will be very hard for you to actually investigate it :).))

While Ajava arranges a hovercar, T’Sal downloads some articles from the Temple library about the UTRACAS on her datapad.

Their route towards the location takes about an hours, plenty enough time for T’Sal to get deeper in the UTRACAS. What she already knew is that UTRACAS is the Union Trafic Routing And Collision Avoidance System. Every hovercar has to log into the system when they travel, so the system can route the cars over the designated driving lanes. This prevents collisions during the high speeds of which the cars travel.

What T’Sal didn’t know is when a car disconnects from the system during travel, an automated alarm signal is sent to the local control station. It is extremely dangerous to disconnect from the system during travel, given the busy and chaotic three dimensional traffic situation, and doing so almost certainly results in terrible traffic accidents and death if you don’t exactly know what you are doing.

Also the UTRACAS is divided in districts. And it is custom to save traffic data around time of accidents so it can be used to determine what happened and who is guilty.

Concerning the UTRACAS, this means that the two Jedi could go the place of the attack, but they would only be able to tap into the local current system. It would give a view of how the area of the assault looks like, and what they are dealing on the spot with but their access and options with the UTRACAS would remain limited. Another option is to go the district office which would allow them access to the UTRACAS of the whole district. They even could go to the central office which connects all the districts and could give the Jedi a view of the entire city, if they would be allowed access and if they would manage to get through all the data and chaos of cables and interconnected computers. Data about traffic accidents generally is stored at the district of the accident.

[T'Sal]

((OOC: T'sal appoach is indeed, first look up all information and studie it and then go en do stuff.))

T'sal shares the information with Shebi Ajava.

"The UTRACAS regulates all the traffic and all vehicles should be connected to it for save travel. I think we should start with the local system at the scenes as they might have tempered with it as the alarm did not go off when they disconnected from the system.

Later we can go to the district office or even to the central office for all the information if we get access."

[Shebi Ajava]

((OOC: Since you didn't exactly take an action, and Ajava is not the computer-using type, not much is going to happen now.))

"Okay.", was all the reply Ajava gave.

As they neared the district, she checks the holomap for the exact location of the tunnel where the ambush took place, and steers the hovercar towards one of the tunnel entrances.

"What's next?"

[Storyteller (Elmer)]

((OOC: I want to confirm that currently I cannot forward you two, since you are indeed not taking actions.))

[T'Sal]

T'sal looks for a good place to park the car. They go outside and take a look at the crime scene. She then goes to find the access point of the local UTRACAS system to investigate it.

((OOC: Is this enough action?))

[Shebi Ajava]

((OOC: It is, except that:

(a) You are taking control of my character with your 'They go outside...', controlling someone else's character without explicit permissions is extremely bad form. Instead, to to phrase such things like "She asks Ajava to follow her, and takes a look at the crime scene" -- that way the other player can still do something else if they want.

And (b) Ajava was steering the car while you were doing the reading thing, so I take your first sentence to mean "T'Sal looks for a good place to park the car and Ajava smoothly steers the car towards it."

Anyway, I hereby allow this controlling of Ajava for this one post.))

[T'Sal]

((OOC: It is just that we are clearing heading the right way and it seems that is not enough to go to the intro scene at the crime scene. If you want I can rewrite my post. It is just that I state explicit actions so we could continue and not need multiple post to finally arrive.))

[Shebi Ajava]

((OOC: In this case it's fine.

We were indeed heading in the right way -- but we did not take any actions to actually go there. Having our characters talk about going there is different from having our characters actually going there ^_^))

[Storyteller (Elmer)]

((OOC: Stuiter, it is just as Brend says: In your first post, you have a talk with Ajava where you post your opinion. Ajava takes note of your opinion. So nothing actually happens since you both don't really do stuff.

If I want to let you in control of your own actions and not railroad you or play your characters for you, I can do nothing more than: 'You approach the tunnel. It is a tunnel just like any other.'

Anyway, I hope this clears up the situation a bit. For the both of you, I am afraid that I probably cannot post here today, and in the weekend probably neither, so expect the next post somewhere early next week.))

[Shebi Ajava]

((OOC: You could of course describe the scene of the crime when we arrive there, giving us some idea of where to go next, or what we can investigate there -- I did state that I checked for the exact location of the crime scene before driving into the tunnel... I kinda assumed that we were going to arrive there and that T'Sal would do the magic computer thing ^_^))

[Storyteller (Elmer)]

T'Sal and Ajava approaches the tunnel. It is a tunnel like any other. The tunnel creates a short cut between a couple of superstructures. Traffic goes extremely fast, and given the relative narrow area driving by hand is close to suicide if you are not a Jedi, experienced pod-racer or some sort of prodigy. As the Jedi already knew, it was very clear why the UTRACAS exists.

Halfway in the tunnel, there is a sidetrack leading to a parking lot inside the building. This is where the path of the Jedi leads to, as here the assault was taken place. The sidetrack was relative quiet, quiet enough to hang around for half an hour without any car passing by. So Ajava could land practically anywhere without danger or being in the way.

The Jedi had the time to look around and observe the area. By now most of the tracks of the fight were cleaned up. There happens to be a terminal close by to enter the local UTRACAS system. While T'Sal enters the system, Ajava could look around. Doing so, she could see some marks of a firefight in the wall and floor, small pieces of molten metal and badly cleaned burn-marks were still there. Especially one side of the floor and wall had it rough, like some idiot fired a fully automated rotary blaster at the area. The parking lot was not that far away actually. It was close enough by to run towards. A skilled bounty hunter or jedi would be able to dodge the blasters and make it unharmed to the parking lot. The sidetrack was high enough to for two cars to fly over each other, so when the assault group was cornered by a group police men and cars, a skilled driver could fly over the cars and re-enter the tunnel to make his escape.

T'Sal could not find that much in the system. The logs of the day of the assault were stored in the central station. What T'Sal did find were some code artefacts. Pieces of code which shouldn't be really there, but which were. They were very well hidden, like somebody actively and skilfully tried to hide the lines of codes within the program so nobody would find out. It took her quite some time and effort, but when T'Sal continued to look into the UTRACAS programming, she found out what the code was supposed to do: It replaced a certain area of the which is guided by the control system with a new artificial situation. Then it moved a piece of the old area into the side track. So what would happen in the UTRACAS when the code was activated, is that a car-formation, like a convoy, is replaced by a fake and virtual convoy. A piece of the real convoy is than moved into the sidetrack, while the UTRACAS would act like nothing happened and it would appear that indeed nothing happened in the central station. However, this code could not just be activated, taking a random piece out of the traffic is extremely dangerous. It appears T'Sal is missing some pieces.
((OOC: I hope I made clear how the code works, as I am afraid that I totally failed in explaining. If you have questions, just ask and I try to explain.
I also hope that the area is clear, and that I am not to short with the explanation.))

[T'Sal]

((OOC: Thanks for continuing and forwarding (not making check) :0))

"I found some extra code in the system. A computer expert must have made it so they could fool the UTRACAS system into looking like nothing happening with a fictional convoy, but redirecting the original convoy and assault it. This is quite tricking and I seem to miss an activation method.

What do you think of this location?"

[Shebi Ajava]

Ajava looks around to get a general impression from the tunnel, she eyes the impacts of the rotary blaster with some interest.

"On first glance, it seems that this is indeed where the amush took place. There are some things that I'd like to investigate more closely.", she replies as she points at the impact marks of the rotary blaster.

"T'Sal, if they redirected the original convoy wouldn't that create a lot of problems for the other traffic? How would they know when to activate their hack without alerting the central station by the traffic problems here?"

Ajava looked around intently, visually scanning the area for details.

"I think we are missing something. You go and find out how they would known when to activate the hack. I'll have a look at the positions people took in this ambush and the parking lot at the end of the tunnel."

With that the blue-skinned knight starts investigating the area in detail. She starts out with analysing the positions and most likely entry points for the different combatants in the ambush, using the scorch marks and blaster impacts combined with her knowledge of special operations to reconstruct the situation in her mind. ((Check: 16 = 10 Force Level + 4 Vision + 1 Military Command + 1 Force Vision -- analysing the situation in the tunnel))

Then, she walks over to the parking lot to get a good look at the place before T'Sal arrives. She pays careful attention to things like security cameras, scratchmarks by high-velocity take offs and scrapes against the wall from dodging blaster fire while driving. ((Check: 14 = 10 Force Level + 4 Vision -- Check out the parking lot.))

When she is done checking out the parking lot she waits for T'Sal to contact her, hopefully with some good news on the UTRACAS hack.

[T'Sal]

"I will take another and see it if can find more."

T'sal starts a thorough investigation on how they could have fooled the system without causing traffic problems. She takes another look at the code, the traffic situation in and around the tunnel and keeps an open mind for things like maybe other devices such as tracker who could give program demands for afar.

((Check: 15 = 8 Force Level + 5 Reason + 1 Programming + 1 Slicing -- Taking another look and the code and try to find out how they could have pulled this off.))

[Storyteller (Elmer)]

((OOC: Sorry I haven't posted yet. I will do my upmost best to post tomorrow.))

[Storyteller (Elmer)]

((OOC: T'Sal, it is true you hadn't included a check at my previous post, so I calculated it for you at the time. I should have communicated it. So basically you are now taking the same check again, making your check failed which is not a big problem in light of the amount of time it takes T'Sal to look into the system and Ajava to look around.

Ajava, your check is approved))

Despite her best efforts, T'Sal couldn't find much more. It appeared she had found everything there was in the code. However, there was one thing which caught her eye: A piece of code which did something with a car, but she couldn't find what it was. The code was too complicated to find out on the spot here, and she was missing some information.

Meanwhile Ajava looked at the possible ambush approach. There were two ways of approach: either the tunnel or the parking lot. If the hostiles still had to come when the convoy was led to this sidetrack, they would be too late. So most likely the hostiles were already waiting in an ambush, pinning down the convoy before they knew what happened. Ajava walked the way of how the Ognid car would have hovered. No, immediately pinning down is not the way. The Ognid car came in and stopped. The people in the car needed a reason to get out of the car. Any sight of danger, and they would put the car in reverse and escape.

Maybe the smoke? The Ognid came in, and stopped. The drivers saw smoke, but no danger. They get outside to see what is wrong, and if the car was smoking, maybe the UTRACAS put them here because they got a damaged car and the emergency light was broken? When the drivers are outside the vehicle, they are fired upon. But not the front, that would be too obvious, so the back maybe?

Ajava walked deeper into the tunnel to the point where scorch marks would be when people fired from the beginning of the tunnel towards a car in the middle of the tunnel. And indeed, she found some marks, which supports her theory.

That means that right after the Jedi get out of the Ognid, more cars get out of the parking lot, and starts firing at the guards from the other side. Pinning down the group, as they are surrounded. Meanwhile, the smoke would make it difficult for the guards to act at all. Then the hostiles have a rather free reign to grab Tera.

At the other hand, if the smoke was already in the tunnel, it would be right in the Ognid car, and the guards would have no time to get away, as they are affected by the smoke. They immediately grab the guards, and held them hostage when the Jedi get out. Then the hostiles let the guards lay on the ground and retreat, but keep firing on the guards from several points to keep the Jedi occupied. Then some grab Tera when there is an opening, and in the following confusion, everybody escapes. Tera first, then the rest of the Hostiles.

At the parking lot, Ajava notices two things: first, it is a paid parking lot, you cannot just enter and leave at will, albeit only a small and weak gate is keeping the customers honest. Any car would be able to drive right trough the gate. The second this is that the lot has no second entry. The side entrance to the tunnel is the only way to enter or exit the parking lot for a car. At the far side however, is a door leading to a staircase.

The parking lot is completely indoors and consist out of roughly 200 places, and given be the sight of a corporate logo and a sign at the door, the parking lot is meant for employees of the office located inside this building. Although everybody could park here, for a price... At this moment, roughly half of the places were filled.

A look at the gate indicates that it was rather new. Ajava don't has the skills to identify mechanical failures but by the look of it, it looks like the gate was wrought at the hinges, bended back and the arms were replaced. There was one camera in the whole parking lot, aimed at the entrance.

Just as Ajava looked at the camera, a guy, a human, walked out of the door from the stairs. He appeared to be middle class, wore a long coat and had a small briefcase with him.

He looks at Ajava, then doesn't give her any more attention and walks towards one of the cars.