Just to be clear, Ropor was just referring to one of the unnamed NPC Jedi on board but you don't need to edit your post or anything. Could be Incarn mishearing or Ropor looking at Incarn while he called out or whatever.

Kitchen and Dining Area

DEE squealed his indignation at Laski shutting down his Metal Master while DUM looked at her curiously. Nevertheless, both of them stayed by the pit droid's side.

Game Room

Once the salvage crew was assembled, sans the Gamorrean and the Human who had followed RT's instructions earlier, Z-2PO began to speak.

"Thank you masters for agreeing to meet with me. You are the only ones I'm sure that I can trust. As you know, I have been in service to this ship even before Master Calwell ascended into captainhood."Z-2PO began, kindly describing the origin of Calwell's leadership as "ascended into captainhood" instead of the more accurate "stole the ship from a Republic shipyard."

"Thus, my service is to the ship and its current crew and I have reason to believe that this ship is in danger. While you were investigating that broken freighter, a transmission was sent from this ship to Noc Naroon, the former Jedi that we are hunting. I intercepted the message and this is what it said. TEMPORARY STOP TO SALVAGE A DEAD FREIGHTER. WILL BE BACK ON COURSE SHORTLY. I do not know which of the crew members or Jedi could have sent this but it seems rather threatening. All I do know is that you are the only ones who could not have done it since the only transmitter is in the cockpit and all of you were outside the ship. I'll let you organic masters figure out the bway to handle this as I am unequipped for mutiny." Z-2PO stated.

"You're an enemy of art and I pity your ignorance" - Domingo Montoya Help save the rainforest for free simply by going to Ecosia.org.

"Then no one is above suspicion, not even Master Ropor," Incarn declared hastily. "Especially not him; he knew the fugitive personally."

"Z-2P0, is Calwell not aware of this? Have you reason to omit him from this meeting?"

Flesh is a design flaw.

"So we're thinking it's not someone on the away team, huh?" said Laski. "Well. Well well well. Sounds like...dare I say it..." She grinned. "Intrigue. Careless intrigue at that. Hey Mynock? Make sure nobody's tryin' to listen in on us."

As Mynock hovered to room center and emitted a series of unpleasant buzzes above the threshold of hearing—unlikely to defeat a concerted attempt at listening in, but hopefully enough to interfere with common microphones—she drummed her fingertips on her left hip, the artificial one.

Oh yes, this was familiar territory, all right, hunting a traitor.

"Y'know, he ain't above suspicion, but it's hard to see what the captain could gain from this that ain't outweighed by risks," Laski said reflectively. "Generally speaking it's not worth the business risk of getting the Jedi angry at you. You wouldn't survive to collect your payoff, and unlike a corporate authority they're pretty fast, even more when they're already on your ship. Not that I would, uh, know anything about that," she added with a sly smile. "On the other hand. Hirin' standards for crew are pretty lax. Hell, I got on, didn't I?"

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

"If we must extract the truth from someone who did not go on the mission, I will need to prep my instruments," RT said.

"I will also require a mop."

"Well, just be cautious, I suppose." Z-2PO unhelpfully said before heading back to the captain and the switched off pit droid. If anyone were to follow him, they'd see that Master Ropor had left the room, according to a Mon Calimari pirate it was because the captain had made a pig joke that the Ugnaught Jedi found to be quite offensive. The captain himself had to leave the room because of a laughing fit and told the salvage crew to do whatever they wanted to do the droids.

"I talked to the techs. She thinks she might be able to regprogram the two droids." Kal Zerro, the Sullustan first mate told Laski. As the ship prepared to make its jump into lightspeed, all the crew needed to do was figure out what to do with the Metal Master and his two minions.

"You're an enemy of art and I pity your ignorance" - Domingo Montoya Help save the rainforest for free simply by going to Ecosia.org.

Laski heaved a sigh when she learned all of this, eventually, after correcting for galley rumor and scuttlebutt. "Hey. Jedi Knight," she said to one of the younger Jedi going by, "if you get the chance, pass on a message to Master Ropor, will you? The crew tends to be...boisterous, but some of us respect the Jedi plenty. Well. A few of us. Or p'rhaps it's just my background," she added thoughtfully. "Anyway. The irreverence is nothin' personal, generally speakin'; if we lacked an anti-authority streak we wouldn't be 'ere."

Her token attempt at mending fences done (and the message brought over by the Jedi—although Laski probably could've delivered it more directly through Incarn, the Jedi was rather cute, and the diplomacy provided a ready-made opportunity to chat them up a bit), her next step was to gather her toolset and head for the three droids, mentally going over all the different failure modes for maintenance droids. As much as anything else, she had to admit that thinking of it as a programming failure was a lot easier than facing the prospect of forcibly rewriting a self-aware AI's free will.

"Right," she said quietly, entering the room and hooking up connections. "Moment of truth, boys." A quick series of cable connections and a scan of the pit droid's memory: what exactly had it done to the R3s? And how had it come up with the idea of meatbag genocide?

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

Incarn nodded his ultrachrome head to RT, "If it comes to that, I will hold them down for you."

—

After the meeting, Incarn found himself even more disassociated from his fellow Jedi than usual, suspiciously watching everyone on the ship who had not gone on the salvage mission. He was no Sentinel, and had no talent for investigation, but this simply wouldn't be a problem he could solve with weaponry - at least not until the culprit revealed themselves, at which point it could be far too late. So while he resolved to keep his wits about him and his Force barrier at the ready, he decided to do something proactive.

"Master Ropor," Incarn called with his unmistakable modulation from outside the Jedi's chambers. "May I have a word with you?"

edited 12th Sep '16 4:09:32 PM by StygianEmperor

Flesh is a design flaw.

"Noted," RT said to Incarn. "In the meantime, until we are pursuing this matter further there is a crew member in need of a medical examination."

With that, he headed off to see if the Gamorrean was already in the med bay.

A traitor,? How curious. However, it didn't really xoncern Arika yet. She left the others to their own devices and walked back to the kitchen to begin preparing the next set of meals.

[TOP SECRET]

Medical Table

"Go nuts on him Artie - he's been complaining all this time." the Human pirate said as the medical droid walked in to treat his Gammorrean friend. Artie would see that the electrostaff wounds on the porcine's body were mostly superficial but some might leave some scarring unless properly treated. Although, given how many other scars were on the porky alien's body, appearances probably weren't that important to him. A nice salving ointment such as the one found in the medpack might help reduce the stinging sensation but would leave the scars. A bacta patch could help as well but it might sting a bit more and would leave less scarring.

Kitchen

Arika would find a variety of meals to cook for tonight - ginger noodles or Mon Calimari bass if she was feeling like using her fancy equipment and rare ingredients tonight and salamanders sticks or turnovers if she was more content to prepare something more simple. Of course, she could always mix things up and start experimenting - the Captain kept his ingredients well-stocked.

Meanwhile, Laski's scan of the pit droid had revealed that the switch he had inflicted in DEE and DUM had been a virus that he had uploaded - the same thing he'd done to the other droids. The specifics of the virus were hard to pinpoint but it seemed to eliminate failsafes in droids that prevented them from harming humans and instilled in them a series of intense loyalty to the Metal Master. The virus was very well-made and it looked almost impossible to get rid of without drastic measures. A couple obvious options presented themselves to Laski - she could write another virus that modified the other virus slightly but it might not be strong enough to override the first one. She could also reset the two astromechs but that would most likely erase any memories or personalities that they had prior to the reset. Of course, Laski might have a storm of brilliance cooking up in her head as to what to do.

"We'll be jumping to Elrood in two minutes. Everybody brace themselves." Captain Calwell called from the intercom in the cockpit.

Ropor's Bunk

As nobody - pirate or Jedi alike- had their own room, Ropor was sitting on his bunk, mending a slight tear that had ripped his Jedi robes slightly in the battle aboard the dead freighter.

"Of course, Incarn - my door is always open. What did you want to talk about?"

"You're an enemy of art and I pity your ignorance" - Domingo Montoya Help save the rainforest for free simply by going to Ecosia.org.

Arika lookee at her ingredients, glad that the Captain kept them well stocked. She was wondering if she should aim to impress the Jedi, or keep some ingredients for something special later on in the trip, for when the crew and the Jedi started to get on each others nerves (as was bound to happen some time soon). That was probably a better idea.

Arika began to get out ingredients for turnovers, smiling. Cooking was her happy place.

[TOP SECRET]

Standing before the Master's bunk, Incarn got to the point quickly with Ropor - he was not one to waste time with niceties, "I'd like to know more about the subversive we're following: Noc Naroon. I understand he was once your apprentice." Which is why you lobbied for your presence on this mission, Incarn declined to mention. "What led to his apostasy?"

Flesh is a design flaw.

"Oops," said Laski, realizing somewhat belatedly that the pit droid and all the associated electronics were cluttering up the kitchen table. "Sorry 'bout that, Knives, I'll get all this cleared out."

Fortunately, since the dinner rush hadn't started yet, there were plenty of dining tables she could move to, and a quick bit of lifting was all it took. Normally she would've been chattier—she hadn't interacted with the cook much before this mission—but right now she was intent and focused, sometimes muttering and scribbling down code on Mynock's holographic console.

Step one, of course, was to inoculate Mynock and her own computers against the virus, followed quickly by the shipboard computers and all droids already onboard. Nothing particularly fancy, just a hasty security patch to block and report any intrusion attempts by that particular batch of malware, and then she could begin with the real work: dealing with the infected droids.

"Either that clonk on the head turned you into a savant-level code monkey as well as a megalomaniac," she informed the (still switched-off) Metal Master under her breath, "or someone dumped that code into your head beforehand. Interestin', either way, isn't it?"

Mynock bleeped.

"Nah, I turned those off for you a long time ago," she informed the remote. "Never know when you might need to poke someone's eye out."

Bleep-bloop, indignant whirr.

"Yeah, you say that now." Laski ran two more leads into the R3 units, disabling the wireless datalinks as she did so. "But sometimes sweet persuasion isn't quite enough, an' sometimes you hafta give someone a hint more...kinetically. In the face."

Alarmed trill.

"Nah, I'd never do that with you. That was with a cheap dumb two-credit minipad," she added. "Still, you'd think that bein' literally hit by a sign saying 'not interested, muscle boy, now piss off' would get the message across. With some people you gotta use brute force, and with some people you can be subtle..."

An idea was taking form in her mind, but as the ship was about to transition to lightspeed she reached out and anchored herself against a wall, holding onto the various pieces of kit, and writing out the half-formed code as it came to her. The Metal Master would remain off for now, pinned beneath Laski's elbow. One last thing to do before the transition: she ordered a scan of the pit droid's memory, sparse and corrupted as it might be, before methodically disconnecting its processor from all input/output aside from the cable link to Mynock's terminal.

She rather preferred being subtle, but subtle took time.

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

RT-G6's robotic brain spent a small moment mulling over the situation. The alien would be fine as-in. The use of bacta would simply prevent the healing from not looking pretty.

"Congratulations, you have no permanent damage to your muscles or bones due to the rapid application of bacta in the battlefield - only superficial scarring will form on your skin," RT said to the Gamorrean. "Thankfully, it will not negatively alter your appearance. My suggested course of treatment is a filling dinner and full night's rest, as well as attempting to avoid being repeatedly assaulted in the face with an electrostaff for at least one day."

There was no point wasting bacta on "pretty".

Ropor's Bunk

"Hmmm. That is a loaded question. Noc was my third apprentice and, by far, my most powerful. He had a gift for lightsaber combat and was quick to jump to do the right thing. However, he had a vengeful streak and his methods tended to be on the extreme end. Nevertheless, when I knew him, he was a gifted Jedi and a good friend." Ropor related to Incarn with a tone of regret and sadness.

"He always did bear the weight of the galaxy on his shoulders..." he mused.

"If you wanted to know about his combat capabilities, I'm afraid that I have met no greater practitioner of Form V but I'm sure there must be a few in the temple who can match him - perhaps you. But hopefully, it won't come to combat. I have faith that I can reason with him and bring him back to the Order." Ropor said.

"But I sense that you are keeping something from me, Incarn. Is there anything you wish to tell me?" Ropor said, perhaps referring to the fact that Z-2PO had not deemed the Jedi Master worthy enough to be briefed about the potential traitor on board the ship, although Ropor was difficult to read.

Kitchen

An Aqualish pirate wandered into the kitchen and tried to swipe a turnover but was sent tumbling to the ground by the ship jumping to lightspeed.

'''Alright lads, get ready. The pirate fleet above Elrood will be coming up in ten minutes. Rumor has it that Blacklekku and Captain Trever will be there and you all know how much I hate those sons of bitches. Just stay sharp and for the love of piracy, don't mention the Jedi." Calwell informed the crew from the intercom in the cockpit, no trace of his jovial tone. The crew knew of his rivalry with Captain Trever and the ruthlessness of Blacklekku. It was no wonder that Calwell was taking this seriously.

Medical Table

The Gammorrean snuffled his thanks and...proceeded to take the medical droid's advice immediately and fell asleep on the medical table.

edited 30th Sep '16 6:59:53 PM by FantasyLiver

"You're an enemy of art and I pity your ignorance" - Domingo Montoya Help save the rainforest for free simply by going to Ecosia.org.

Laski nodded absently, sending a shutdown command to the two droids and the Metal Master. She would have to crunch through the memory scans later; her code—a baited sandbox environment where she could, ideally, poke and prod at the pit droid's mind until she could learn more about the virus—was not anywhere near finished yet. After that, some more grunt work to drag the deactivated droids to a storage closet, and an 'infected—out of order' sign taped over them, just in case.

That involved stepping by the Aqualish. "You're damn lucky you didn't take anything, and then the cook noticed you," she informed him cheerfully. With her personal project on hold for now, she made her way over to her sensor console.

The captain might or might not know about the (presumed) mole in their midst; it sounded like he didn't expect the opposition to know about the Jedi. But if the mole gave away their stop, they might also have given away other details. Information management. It all came down to that: who knew what and why and where, and how they might respond...

A few clicks of various keys: Laski called up a real-time logging function, which she set Mynock to record, to let her know which sensors—and by extension, which communication systems—were in use, and from which console. Just monitoring, for now.

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

Medical Table

RT turned away from the sleeping alien, using what little time he had to finally head over to the hangar. He went to take a look at the escape pod to see if it had a first aid kit he could salvage, or anything else.

Arika glared at the theiving pirate, then smiled when he went down. Mouthing 'thanks' at Laski for telling him off, she then turned back to her cooking but continued to scold him.

"Serves you right. If you do that again, I'll feed you emergency rations for the rest of the trip."

She then listened to the Captain's announcement, but figured that since she was going to be in the kitchen the whole time, ot didn't really affect her.

[TOP SECRET]

Incarn's pazaak face was as good as they come, though keeping the truth from a Jedi Master would require more than a blank expression. "I am... concerned that these unruly bedfellows of ours could fall sway to Naroon's influence just like the rest. I sense tumultuous minds motivated only by greed and keeping their own hides intact."

The weapon master barely shifted as the ship jumped into hyperspace. "If we cannot continue to present a greater threat to them than your old apprentice, I fear they will betray us just as quickly as we brought them to heel. And with an entire fleet of their kind behind him..."

Flesh is a design flaw.

Elrood - Pirate fleet.

Noc Naroon stared out the window of the Dreadship, admiring all that he had built. The Dreadship alone was an impressive vessel, colored black with red bantha skulls painted on the hull in various places. It was a Recusant-class destroyer◊ and it was currently home to nearly 400 pirates. It belonged to Captain Blacklekku and his Twi'lek crew but Naroon had integrated some of the unaffiliated pirates he had acquired into the crew. The Dreadship was surrounded by a dozen medium freighters◊ that carried supplies and weapons and also could pack quite some firepower should a naval battle arise.

Apart from the Dreadship, the most intimidating ship in Naroon's fleet was The Hightail Hunter. An ancient, ancient vessel dating back to the Mandalorian Wars, The Hightail Hunter still proudly showed off its battle scars dotting across the hull. A Jehavey'ir-type assault ship,◊ the Hunter was owned by Captain Morus Trever the Mandalorian and his merry band of pirates, in addition to the other 500 men that Naroon had stationed there.

And, of course, there were the other smaller freighters, frigates, and starfighters that dotted the empty space above Elrood. All told, Naroon had about 5,000 pirates gathered, with more coming in every day. He could not wait to...

Wait.

Naroon furrowed his brow. What was that? A strange disturbance in the Force - one that he had not felt in a long time...Ropor! What was the meddling fool doing here? He scanned the sea of ships staring back at him, several having just arrived in the past few minutes. Ropor could be aboard any of them. The Dreadship alone had several Ugnaught pirates that Ropor could be disguised as.

"Shall I prep your shuttle to depart for The Hightail Hunter my lord? The meeting will commence in three standard hours." a servant droid from behind Naroon asked.

"No. I...do not feel well. Inform my second-in-command that she will run the briefing tonight. I will retire to my bedchambers for now. Tell me if anything...unusual is sighted." Naroon said, using the Force to close the door on the serving droid.

Back at The Broken Saber

"I share some of your concerns but the Council trusts them. Besides, we have a dozen Jedi with us. Nothing can happen that we can't handle." Master Ropor gave a smile and a reassuring pat on the knee to Incarn, as he couldn't reach the taller Jedi's shoulder.

"Come, let us prepare to board the pirates' fleet." the Ugnaught Jedi said as he walked towards the cockpit, where a few pirates and Calwell were already assembled. While they were walking, RT would discover that Calwell had already salvaged everything worth looting in the escape pod and no first aid kit was to be found. Laski would realize that, with all three droids deactivated, it would take some time for her work to take effect. Both of them (and Arika) might find it prudent, while waiting to head to the cockpit to get briefed by Calwell and Ropor.

"Hoo-eee lads! Look at all those ships out there! I tell you - I plan on looting every single one of 'em when we get there." Calwell shouted excitedly when he saw the massive assemblage of pirate ships out there. Ropor and Kal Zerro did not look too amused.

"Yes, the thought of going up against that really appeals to me as well." Salvan, the hotheaded Ithorian Jedi snarked to the captain, pointing out The Hightail Hunter.

"Enough, Salvan. Does anyone have any questions before we begin the briefing?" Ropor asked.

edited 20th Sep '16 5:47:12 PM by FantasyLiver

"You're an enemy of art and I pity your ignorance" - Domingo Montoya Help save the rainforest for free simply by going to Ecosia.org.

They had arrived in the fleet. Arika put down her tools, figuring that the captain would probably have something to say about their next move, and so walked into the cockpit. She never was one for looting, and so the Captain's excitement didn't affect her much, but she did rather agree with Salvan's sarcasm, as this could go many different ways, very few of them good. But since she had no questions, she waited for the briefing.

[TOP SECRET]

"None. Continue," RT said flatly.

The ease with which Ropor brought reasurrance with such a simple gesture was remarkable. Incarn dutifully followed Ropor to the briefing, uncertain whether his half-lie had been caught, but beginning to doubt his earlier suspicions.

—

Though the ithorian's lack of self-control had been loudly displayed before the salvage mission, Salvan's decidedly-impetuous remark just then reminded Incarn that he existed. Perhaps I've been pursuing the wrong suspect. Incarn wished he had more time to ask Ropor about the young agitator, but with all the others gathered it was not the right time or place. He remained silent, and recommitted himself to keeping track of the Jedi healer.

edited 21st Sep '16 10:11:59 AM by StygianEmperor

Flesh is a design flaw.

The Broken Saber

"Good!" Ropor said as he saw that no one had any questions. "Captain, if you'll begin."

"Right, so this Naroon guy is set to have a briefing of all the captains in The Hightail Hunter. For all you Jedi, the Hunter is that big Mandalorian ship over there. Captain Trever, that Mandalorian rat bastard is the captain of that little hunk of junk. Now, this meeting is supposed to be just for the captains but I don't plan on walking in a room with Blacklekku without some kind of protection and I assume the Jedi will want to come as well. Hopefully, there'll be so many captains walking around that everyone will just assume that you lot are captains too and won't ask too many questions. So start working on your pirate captain identities. RT - there are a couple of droid captains here so no one should give too hard a time." Calwell explained, knowing the medical droid would probably be needed in an event where shooting was likely to happen over the slightest indignation.

"I assume you want me to come with you? The Force forbid you leave your first mate in charge of the ship while you're gone." Kal Zerro asked Calwell rhetorically. Everyone knew that Calwell would just as soon eat his right arm than leave the Saber in the hands of his treacherous first mate. Kal was certainly coming with him.

"Such loyalty you inspire Captain. I imagine my abilities as a healer will be needed before we even set foot on The Hightail Hunter" Salvan scoffed.

"Captain, that was...actually explained in a succinct and eloquent manner. I'm surprised." Master Ropor nodded at Calwell.

"When it's my life on the line, I don't play around." Calwell stated seriously. "Now, we have to provide our own transportation there so we'll dock the Saber on the underside of the Hunter and unload everyone who's going. I'll leave a skeleton crew behind in case we need a quick getaway but I want as many guns and lightsabers as possible with me on this. This whole thing stinks of a death trap." Calwell explained, activating the thrusters of the Saber so that he could begin docking his ship on the underbelly of the Mandalorian capital cruiser.

"Death traps are a Jedi's specialty." Ropor gave a small smile before leaving for his bunk to change into something more piratey. The rest of the Jedi and pirates also started to leave and prepare. They would begin docking within minutes.

The Dreadship

"My lord?" the serving droid's voice rang out from outside Naroon's meditation chambers.

"What is it, 4T?" Naroon asked, not even bothering to turn around. He was deep in thought.

"Our agent in Calwell's ship has sent us a transmission. He apologizes for not dispatching of Ropor but he says that some protocol droid on the ship has been closely watching him. He also reports that Calwell, Ropor, and several other Jedi and pirates will be attending today's meeting disguised as pirate captains. Shall we detain the Broken Saber?" 4T asked.

"No, let them through." Naroon ordered. He wanted his old Master to see what his plans were before the fall of the Jedi Order commenced.

edited 21st Sep '16 9:47:31 AM by FantasyLiver

"You're an enemy of art and I pity your ignorance" - Domingo Montoya Help save the rainforest for free simply by going to Ecosia.org.

"Nurse Salvan, there is a high-priority patient in the medbay who is currently recuperating," RT-G6 said to the Jedi. "I require that you remain on the ship to monitor his condition, regularly checking his vitals. This is a very important assignment, and it will be up to you to ensure that he does not suffer a subdural hematoma.

He momentarily paused. "As I am not an organic lifeform, nor am I connected to the Force, I will require no disguise, and thus am the ideal choice for providing medical aid on this mission while you take care of the patient."