Ask Plot Fresian Fealty

[Maxims Tionson]

Fresia.

Incom-FreiTek might not be it's parent company but they still maintained an office and manufactoring base on the planet of Fresia. Some said it was because they wanted to be closer to their roots as a company and yet others said it was more because they were treated well by the local government.

Tax cuts and the like.

Max didn't think it was anything other than the fact that the local population actually rather liked the company. They tended to make for motivated workers and, in his experience, companies tended to like that kind of thing. Nothing underhanded at play with their location.

... which was more than he could say for the current situation.

"I'm sorry, just to make sure I understand correctly..." he held a hand up to the middle-manager who was standing nervously in front of him, "The last batch of 40 E-Wing fighters was stolen in transit... and the next batch won't be ready for another month. Because you lost 40 starfighters. Did I miss anything out?"

The nervous young man shook his head before pausing and sheepishly offering a counter.

"Well we actually only lost one ship - the transport that contained the 40 starfighters."

Max smiled and nodded, letting the relieved young man go before turning to his companion.

"Yeah no way they lost 40 starfighters by bad luck alone. I say we check for a mole."

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

Max was a nice guy, really.

Any others would have been increasingly frustrated with what had happened; the loss of 40 starfighters was no small loss, by any means, and the poor manager was probably having the worst time of his life by then. Golden eyes glimmered as she watched the back-and-forth between the Jedi Master and the employee, and when they both seemed done she gave a slight smile to Max, one violet brow perking.

"You know... the grey and the beard really add the authenticity of 'nice guy' to you," she teased slightly, giving a small, playful smile. But at the mention of finding a mole... the smile widened.

"Aw, yess! Spy stuff?" she practically whispered excitedly, looking a bit too animated at the idea of corporate espionage. But really, it was a lot better than getting shot at in an ancient temple or stabbed in a Kashyyyk forest. She'd take this finding a mole any day.

@Nefieslab

 

[Maxims Tionson]

Max smirked a little bit when Indy gave him a little bit of shite about how he looked more like a nice guy now that he was old. Of course that wasn't what she said but he wasn't old enough that he couldn't see what she actually meant! He snorted in amusement.

"Please." he drawled lazily, "The grey and the beard? They're for Pulling."

He was mostly teasing but some people really did go in for the silver fox look.

And yet more people told him that with the grey, the beard and the eye-patch? He looked like he had seen far too much shite to still have some mercy left. He liked to think he surprised those people but he knew, sometimes, he did not and that was fine too.

Still, he shook his head in amusement at Indy's lowering of her voice. He rolled his eye.

"If I had both eyes they'd both be rolling." he assured her with a smirk, "Find the IT rooms please Indy. Let's see if we can catch up on some outbound messages. I'll follow your lead... special agent Sati."

He wasn't so above it all.

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

She made a mock groan at his comment of the beard and grey, giving a smirk. "If you say so, I guess," she chuckled, the grin widening at his rolling eye. They'd been through some things; though he seemed to play the role of mentor more often than not, she considered him more akin to a big brother.

Even being a little weird was part of the territory.

She winked playfully at his smart comment of special agent, golden eyes glittering. "You know it, Max," she answered simply, then strode on ahead.

But finding IT in a building full of ship engineers? That was like finding the biggest cake in a bakery. The problem wouldn't be finding it, it would be finding a way in without raising the suspicion of employees. Speaking of...

"We do stand out a little, though," she commented, indicating to their clothing. She looked like a scoundrel, while he looked like someone's lost dad. But who knew.

Perhaps these people were even more eccentric.

@Nefieslab

 

[Maxims Tionson]

She didn't get it but when she was a little older she would appreciate it. Hopefully she wouldn't appreciate it in him because he was very happy with keeping her in their current relationship status. Honestly, it would be like having a light blue daughter trying to hit on him and he drew the line at that... not because of the blue part either.

Of course she was going to want to play the spy role.

If she spent any more time around Hannibal she might just end up earning the title for real and wasn't that something to be both shocked and appalled by? Probably only because he knew Hannibal well enough to know it was unlikely to be a good thing. It was likely a thing that involve dubious morality and the like.

"Just... keep the seducing to a minimum special agent."

She had a point though.

"Alright I'm going to go in for a distraction - you use that to make sure you can reach the room alright?"

With that said he moved out into the offices, without doing a single thing to hide himself as he picked up a piece of a cockpit set up from an engineer's desk. Loudly, he marched up to a desk.

"Can you tell me what's wrong with my cockpit please? My son is at work and I'm terribly confused!"

Yes that's right - he was playing the 'confused old man' trick.

Classics never died.

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

Good thing she wasn't the 'seducing' type. Though the hat did seem to work wonders for appeal... she wasn't too keen to use that for any particular advantage. No, her biggest focus was further within; hearing his words, she merely nodded once, striding away. Truth be told, she would look less out of place if she snagged something and looked in a hurry.

It seemed most of the doors here were locked to outsiders; probably just as well, but that didn't make it any less annoying. So it was just her luck when someone came careening down the corner; when their body slammed into hers, they both stumbled, and the young male's eyes widened. "I'm so sorry!" she gushed, and sure enough, clipped to his belt was a card. "I didn't see you there, kriff boss is gonna kill me--" she mumbled, a hand on his chest, and he turned a deep red and visibly reared back, his card unclipping and stashed up her sleeve as he stumbled back.

"I-It's fine," he muttered, jaw tightening into a scowl. "But watch where you're going." With that said, he stalked off, but not before jerking his shoulder into hers.

Yeesh. Some people were never kindly.

But now she had a card! Time for some answers. So with that thought in mind, she began to follow the directory signs.

She had at least until that young man would try to access a door; hopefully, she would have the answers they was looking for.

@Nefieslab

 

[Maxims Tionson]

Max wasn't able to see how well Indy was doing with her mission because he was busy with his own. And by busy with his own, he meant that he was busy trying to make it seem as though he had no idea what he was talking about or what he was doing. It helped that the piece of cockpit he had snagged from the engineering station was from a model of spaceship he had never even heard of, let alone actually flown before.

The best lies were based on truth and the truth was he had no freaking clue was he was talking about.

"Ah so is this the bit that I connect my hyperdrive conductivity wires to?"

And he was enjoying the looked of carefully controlled panic and dismay on the faces of the people he had basically emotionally bullied into assisting him. The closest one looked alarmed.

"You've been connecting your hyperdrive to this console?"

The poor young man looked as though he was only a few moments away from hypervenilating... and Max was honestly curious as to how much it would take. So here he went again...

"Oh yes, of course! I've even managed to fix an after-market turret gun to the same control system!"

Oh there it was.

Poor young man looked like he was going to faint.

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

So she got an access code.

Time for a break-in!

She didn't waste any time, but continued on ahead, keeping her eyes ahead. Just pretend you work here, that you belong. Should work, and if nobody looked too closely, she would make it. Down two hallways, and through another archway. The signs pointed down that way, but the hallway was oddly empty. Was it always like that for engineers?

Whatever Max was doing, it was working remarkably well.

"Almost there, keep it up old man," she muttered, stalking. Couldn't be too much farther now...

@Nefieslab

 

[Maxims Tionson]

Force he really hoped that Indy was doing well because he was getting really sick of being the centre of attention.

Honestly, it had been nice at first but now he had managed to convince the people who worked here that he really wanted to tell them some stories from his youth. He was a little bit insulted they thought he was old enough to be senile but was he really going to complain about being able to confuse them this much? Well, he would but not right now. Instead he focused on trying to spin them a yarn that would keep them entertained.

Thankfully he had the years as a cop to fall back on.

"Right so there's me, a murderer and my partner Vera... and all of us are now covered in lube."

There were laughs all around but he held up his hand.

"But wait - there's more. Because the owner of the store we were currently lube-wrestling the perp in happened to be Vera's baby brother! So he rocks in, sees all of us writhing on the ground covered in lube, and he just lunges at us." he shook his head, "Like from half way across the room! Screaming about how I defiled his sister!"

More laughs.

He raised his right hand to pull down at the collar of his clothes to show a scar across the left side of his neck, barely visible due to it's small size and it's age.

"Shanked me with a screwdriver - a screwdriver! No lie!"

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

There it was! The door. She slipped in the card, and it worked.

Swallowing once, she took strength in the power of the Force, pooling in and filling her, washing away anxiety and doubt. It was time to move in. The door swung open and she stepped in--

To a small humanoid female sitting in one of the chairs of a darkened room, owlish eyes blinking from a data screen.

"Oh, you must be my shift change," she uttered, rising. "Thank goodness, I'm starving. Daf's left his datastick in the machine again, silly boy, make sure he gets it back, and next watch will come in four hours. Remember, no games, and security protocols are in place, so make sure they're all right with a final sweep before the end mark. Thank you, dear," and so saying in light, chirpy words, the tiny, previously seeming elderly technician hopped off from her seat and stalked off before Indy could even protest.

Seeing the display, she felt her stomach sink again. Her expertise was in old and antiquities, the relics of long since past, not this... modern stuff. Steeling her shoulders, she stalked towards the console, then noticed the datastick still there, then looked at the data stream.

Taking a sweep to look into the missing freighter surely couldn't hurt... and hopefully Max could break away from his distraction to aid her. Somehow, she felt the old man ironically would be better at pulling data than she would be, but she would certainly try her best.

@Nefieslab

 

[Maxims Tionson]

At this point Max was beginning to think that he should be on staff.

"I just... I just don't know where we went wrong, you know?"

Sat in the break room off to one side, Max sipped at a cup of truly awful caf as a young man sat across a small table from him. Since he had come into the room the young man had been opening up to him gradually more and more. Until they had reached the point where the young man was opening up to Max about the fairly recent suicide of his young wife. Truly it was a horrifying thing that the young man had managed to endure.

And apparently Max was just the person he felt he could talk to.

"Sometimes the hardest part is that there wasn't a point where things went wrong." he admitted with a soft, sad, smile as he squeezed the young man's hand, "Sometimes the signs are hidden so well that you don't see anything. And sometimes... sometimes the mind works faster than we have any right to expect it to. Perhaps even she didn't know what she was going to do until it was too late."

The tears came.

"I thought she could talk to me..."

Max stood from his uncomfortable break room chair to wrap the young man in a tight hug. Said man clutched to his middle like he was a lifeline, burying his face into Max's chest and sobbing. It wasn't the few tears of a man trying to hold it back but the bare, wrenching, sobs of a man who's walls had broken down so efficiently that he didn't know if he would ever have the strength to build them back up. And Max just held him tightly around the shoulders in a fierce hug, his hands gently rubbing the man's back.

"Come on... let it out." he prompted the young man, "You've been strong for your co-workers, for your daughter, for your friends and for yourself for so long. Now just relax and let it go through you - you can deal with it now. You're strong enough."

A couple concerned friends shared a few tissues and the rest of the office pretended to do work while instead eavesdropping.

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

Glancing at the datastick, she hummed once, eyeballing it. There was a definite temptation to use it to transfer any files from their database, but chances were if there was any evidence of a mole, it would make sense to be in personnel files rather than in the available database.

Slipping the computer spike in, it began breaking down the codes to any personnel files regarding enquiries about a freighter and 40 starfighters. It would take a while to load, so she sat back, rubbing at her eyes.

But it didn't take long at all to get a hit. Indeed, the name began to flash up on personnel files just when the knob started to turn, and the name made her jaw drop in surprise. The same on the badge she swiped.

She had to warn Max.

But just as she was about to reach for her comm, the person began stepping through. In one hand, it seems he had acquired a spare key card. In the other...

He pointed a stun blaster at her torso, shielded from view by his own torso.

Kark.

@Nefieslab

 

[Maxims Tionson]

Was that...?

He paused in what he was doing as he felt some emotions through the Force. Something that was giving him signals that Indy wasn't quite as alright as he had hoped. Frowning ever so slightly, he turned back to the small collection of you woman who had asked him to reach something from the highest shelf for them.

It was quite high for him and he wasn't able to reach out with the Force, naturally, so he tried his best. This made his shirt ride up a little bit and he could have sworn he heard one of them make a comment about a 'DILF'.

Whatever the hell that was.

"Excuse me a moment - I just need to find the bathroom."

He ignored the way they seemed disappointed and instead moved up to the room he had seen Indy go into. Reaching it, he pressed against the door, pushing into the back of the man without realizing it.

"Sorry about that!"

Keeping up the act and distracting him so Indy could act.

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

For a couple beats, both of them maintained a still, calm silence. She stared up at him, not moving, and he stared back stonily. But when the knob was about to turn, he startled, and when Max stepped in she reacted.

Lunging forward from her seat, she risked the maneuver by grabbing at his armed hand and twisting, the Force augmenting speed and movement. He cried out, but struggled back, bucking against the door. She gritted her jaw, grunting as he flailed. "Not so fast!" she grunted between breaths, grabbing at his other wrist. She had only one question for him.

"Why?"

@Nefieslab

 

[Maxims Tionson]

Max didn't have one question for the young man - he had several.

Stepping into the room, he closed the door behind him and locked it with a twist of his left hand. His right hand he raised up in the direction of the man's back. Reaching into the Force he seized the man, locking him in place with an application of the stasis technique that would mean he was unable to move or speak.

He pulled the gun from the man's hand and tossed it away, moving him through the air with the Force to force him up against a nearby wall. Then... he sat down and began to release the stasis but kept the man pinned to the wall.

"The why is important but not as important as other questions." he admitted casually, eyeing the man coldly, suddenly every inch the stern Jedi Master, "Probe his mind, Indy."

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

Thank the Force Maxims was here, or else violence would have had to have been employed, and she wanted to avoid it as much as she possibly could. But at Max saying to probe his mind... she glanced over, golden eyes surprised. "Probe it...?" she asked quietly. The young man began to struggle, his breathing faster.

"N-No..." he grunted, still trying to squirm, sweat beading on his forehead. But she was already reaching forward. "Please be still," she spoke quietly, golden eyes calm, patient.

"This won't take long."

@Nefieslab

 

[Maxims Tionson]

Probing the mind was a bit of a grey area for Jedi.

That was mainly because there were a few ways to interact with the minds of the weak willed and most of them were not pleasant for the victim, sometimes not even for the person doing it either. It was also something that the rest of the Galaxy had heard horror stories about for the past several centuries and just the mention of it was enough to make even the most hardened of people start to sweat... hence why Max had said it aloud.

"P-please I don't know anything!"

Max tilted his head to the side slightly and merely eyed the man even as he restrained him further.

"I find that unlikely. Chances are you simply forgot about the important parts. Don't worry..." he nodded to Indy, "My friend will be able to see the parts you forgot about."

The man's bluff about not knowing anything had failed and Max could see the realization in his eyes clearly. Sweating even more, the man shivered and shook, trying desperately to remove Indy's hand from his skull.

"A-alright I know some things! Please just... call her off!"

He radiated satisfaction in the Force, letting Indy know this had been the plan from the start.

"My friend is going to ask you some questions. You answer her nicely and we don't have to just take the answers."

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

She internally sighed, flicking a glance at Max. He was technically a station above her now, but even now she felt they were equals still in many ways. She wouldn't have probed his mind, unless it was the last resort. But even so, she wanted to hold off on doing that if she could. "Tell me where the stolen ship is meant to go and who wanted it," she spoke quietly, leaning in.

"Don't lie to me, now. I will know." Her lips were in a grim line, hands lowering. Not that she really would, but would he know that? Unlikely. Still.. she hoped to not have to drag this information out of anyone. She was a pacifist, extreme measures weren't necessarily her strength.

@Nefieslab

 

[Maxims Tionson]

They both knew they wouldn't have to go to the extreme of using the Force against the man's mind and they were both relieved to know that as well. Max and Indy were alike in that they very much preferred to use the lightest possible touch to get what they needed. What they needed was in information, not a man screaming until his lungs gave out as they pealed back his mind, one layer at a time.

He wanted a smoke.

Their lovely informant swallowed thickly.

"They paid off my gambling debts... s-said they would give me a line of credit too. All I had to do was, you know, let them know when the next shipment was. So I told them the time and the route."

Max made a circular motion with his hand, prompting the man to go on. The man paled and struggled to continue.

"T-the transport was near Chandrila when we lost contact with it officially here but I... er... I heard them talking about Ord Mantel."

Ord Mantel huh?

The Jedi Master nodded, accepting the word of the man as he stood and crossed the distance. Placing a hand on the panicked man's forehead, he reached into the Force.

"Sleep." he instructed, watching as the man slumped until he laid him in the seat as though he had always been asleep there, "Looks like we got what we need - shall we head out, Indy?"

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

Well... that went much smoother than she'd anticipated. But that begged a question that had been burning on her brain for a little while now.

"What were you doing for a distraction?" she asked, pacing over to him. "I swear by the Force, the entire floor was practically deserted. What were you doing down there?"

An honest concern, really. Max had an odd sense of humor sometimes. Who knows what horrors he inflicted on the poor people here.

@Nefieslab