Fwurg

[Shebi Ajava]

((OOC: It occurs to me that we never listed our equipment, nor did the ST ask for it. I'm assuming basic equipment (clothing, saber, comms device, cash) are available.))

Having a rough idea of what actually happened here helps Ajava think through the different outcomes of the situation. She determines that the footage from the camera might offer some insight into the actions or preparation of whatever crew pulled this off.

Paying no attention to the human she starts towards the door to hold it open before it closes complete (and possibly locks). As she steps inside she taps her communicator to talk with T'Sal: "T'Sal, I'm heading into an office building to see if I can get the footage from a security camera in the parking lot. Did you find anything?"

She listens to T'Sals explanation as she walks up the stairs and looks for a receptionist or security office. She uses her status as a Jedi, and if necessary a well-placed bribe, to get the security footage for the camera.

((OOC: Since the system (deliberately) does not include social skills I have omitted a check.))

[T'Sal]

"I found some interactions connected to a car. But this system is very complex and I need time to find more. I will try to make a copy and come your way.

Maybe we can crosscheck the UTRACAS system at the district office later."

T'sal grabs here datapad and connects it to the UTRACAS system, she makes a complete copy of the local control system.
While waiting she takes a look around to see who was around and could she her now. When it is finished she goes off to find miss Shebi.

((Check: 15 = 8 Force Level + 5 Intuition + 1 Programming + 1 Slicing -- Making a copy of the local UTRACAS system on her datapad.))

[Storyteller (Elmer)]

((OOC: Oh yeh, that is right. No equipment... Basic equipment is fine. I won't make a big issue out of simple stuff like a picture or comm equipment. Also, you not having a tool, go back to fetch the tool return with the tool and continue does not have much added value anyway for the story aside from more posts. You are on Unity, go to the nearest pawn shop if all else fail, they are on every corner.

Also, I like how characters so easily take actions which I did not foresee in first place, but are so logical in hindsight :P.

Ajava, it was unclear to me if you wanted to do your action unnoticed, you require a stealth check if you want to do so, which would be approved. If you don't care, then I continue like the man could have noticed you.

T'Sal, your action is partially approved and partially denied. Though you certainly are skilled enough, making a complete copy does not physically fit on your datapad, no matter the check.))

While Ajava went smoothly inside, the man continued his way to his car. Seemingly paying no attention to her.

While T'Sal is still working on the UTRACAS, she notices how a car is leaving the parking lot, and flies towards the tunnel to join the rest of the fast moving traffic.

T'Sal manages to isolate the separate pieces of code and store them on her datapad. However, the whole UTRACAS system, even on this local area, is simply too extensive to store all on her datapad. Luckily for her, a data crystal with a local back up is stored in a locker below the access panel. Her Jedi clearance gave her easily access to the crystal, so she could took it and take a copy of the whole local system with her. The code artefacts are still in the code, so they are also on the back-up crystal T'Sal knew. However, maintenance personnel is expecting a backup crystal here. If T'Sal takes the crystal and something happens, the whole tunnel and surroundings could be out of order for quite while, as the repair men would expect a backup ready which is not there if T'Sal takes it. At the other hand, how big are the changes of something happening right now which would require the backup crystal? She has a choice to make what to do.

Meanwhile, Ajava gets up the stairs. The stairs are not very long, only about thirteen steps, and lead to another door, which surprisingly is not locked even though it has one. She then find herself in some sort of back entrance or hallway of the office. Nobody is on the hallway. Following the hallway she comes in a more central room with some sofas and a reception. On the wall, some abstract art is hanging, and at her right, six turbolifts mark the official route to get into the building. A lady behind the desk looks at Ajava, either not surprised, or hiding it very well. "Can I help you?" She asks.

When Ajava stays her business, the woman, again either not surprised, or hiding her emotions very well, respond with: "Just a moment, our head of security will come here to handle your request. You may wait on the couch, he will be here shortly."

Two minutes later, a bothan with a badge with the inscription 'head of security' walks out of one of the Turbolifts and walks to Ajava. "Greetings, I am Rathor, you wanted something? If you like to follow me to my office, than we can talk in private."

((OOC: Ajava, sorry for letting you walk the boring routine of bureaucratie again, but it's too late for me to fast forward you without making mistakes, but I also didn't want to wait with posting))

[Shebi Ajava]

((OOC: If I wanted to go around unnoticed I would have written this into my post more clearly and, more telling, I would have added a check for it.))

Ajava follows the Bothan to his office. As they are walking, she gets to the point quickly, not wanting to waste time with another trip through the Niomesque bureaucracies of another large organisation.

"I am Jedi Knight Shebi Ajava. In the course of an investigation by the Jedi Order into the shootout that occurred near your parking lot I would like access to your security footage from around that period, and a few days before that moment. Based on the newly placed barrier at the entrance of your lot I think that you have a vested interest in helping me out. It probably won't recuperate the costs of the barrier, but you get to report to your bosses that you are part of a Jedi investigation into the people that roughed up their parking lot.", Ajava smiled at the Bothan, "That's sure to look good during your next performance review."

[T'Sal]

T'sal thinks about taking the back-up crystal. Taking it could cause troubles, but for the investigation she needs it. T'sal decides to take it with her. She sends a message to the Jedi temple for a datacrystal to be ready so once they were back she could quickly make a copy and then return the back-up immediately, that way the back-up would only be gone a few hours.

T'sal closes off the system correctly and leaves the local point. She goes to the office building to find miss Shebi.

[Storyteller (Elmer)]

"Ah yes, the parking lot shoot out," the Bothan said, looking rather surly while he took place behind his desk, "and how exactly is Jedi involvement helping here? Acknowledging I cannot handle the situation and Jedi are required for the... situation... are not directly favourable items to put in my résumé. The incident alone is already bad for business, and when Jedi are sticking their noses into it, it will only scare customers away even more, just when things finally have calmed down a little.

Sorry lady, but you have to come with something better if you want me to keep my job." The Bothan was subtly rubbing his thumb and index finger, clear enough to see he meant 'credits', subtle enough to deny he was fishing for a bribe.

Meanwhile, T'Sal has no problems at all contacting the Jedi temple, and she received word that a crystal will be ready for her on arrival. She also closes the system correctly with no problems. Then she went to the parking lot, to discover there was no Ajava. Obviously as Ajava entered an Office building. luckily T'Sal, there was only one door in the parking lot, sadly for T'Sal, the door was locked, and there was no door bell. There was a small scanner box next to the door, usually meant for passes. But T'Sal had no working passes.

Looking around, she found that the door opened outwards, to her, if it would open. There were laying a few plastics laying around, and one of the lights in the ceiling was flickering, it probably needed replacement.

[Shebi Ajava]

"Well...", Ajava looked at the man, "If you want to play it like that." She is a little disappointed in the man's ability to spin this around. Then again, not everyone has had the benefit of a veolian childhood. "Information has worth, so I'm willing to pay for the services of your security department."

She takes a small pile of credits from one of the bags on her belt. The credit chips made a soft series of tchack-tchack-tchack sounds as she placed them on the desk.

"This will cover your trouble.", she said with a voice of authority, not planning on negotiating. "I suggest that you simply hand me the data crystals with the footage. That way it won't be your problem anymore, and no one around here can bring up this 'situation' again.", she adds.

((OOC: In the interest of making fast-forward easier: Ajava plans on having a look at the footage in private before getting going back to the parking lot.))

[Storyteller (Elmer)]

((OOC: I am not forgetting T’Sal, but I believe her trying to get in the office is not very interesting for the investigation, so I quickly finishes with Ajava so you two can continue with the investigation.))

The amount of credits seems to satisfy Rathor. He reached to a drawer in his desk and ticked in a code to open it. After the recognizable bleepjes and confirming *bebeeep*, the drawer opened and he grabbed two data crystals out of it. He also put the credits in the drawer. Rathor put the data crystals in a copying device behind him, and a moment later, Ajava found herself with a copy of the surveillance camera footage.

The Bothan even was kind enough to lend a holopad to Ajava so she could view the footage in an empty office a little down the hallway. As long as she promised to return it.

The video starts with an image of the barrier. In the distance there are some sounds of blaster fire. Three people appear in the footage, looking past the barrier to see what’s going on. Two of them are security guards by the look of it. A fourth person, also civilian, joins just when the shooting sounds intensifies and an explosion can be heard. The two civilians run away, the guards draw their weapons pointing at something off image but don’t fire. Five new people appear in the image, one with a cowboy hat, one with a poncho, one with a hoody and a very big head, by the looks of it, it could be a Nautilan or other species with rigid features on the head, one very small person and one underneath a brightly coloured blanket with stripe pattern who had the proportions and body type to go along for as Tera. All five of them wear gas masks and all five of them point a gun at the guards or at the two civilians who are out of screen by now. Some shouting follows, but the sound quality was too poor to hear what they actually say. The guards drop their guns. The poncho and the hoody guy run out of screen in the same direction the civilians ran. The cowboy hat guy and the small guy fire towards were they came from into the tunnel. A moment later a car stops, cowboy hat, small person and Tera-lookalike step in the car. Through the window of the car, one of the civilians is just visible. The car rides through the barrier, breaking it, and leaves the screen.

Even though they were all wearing gas masks, Ajava could identify the one with the cowboy hat as Carl Hok as she had already seen him before, and she recognized the voice.

[T'Sal]

T'sal tries to reach Shebi Ajava over the headset.

"Miss Shebi, I am standing standing for an office door with a small scanner box. Could you let me in?"

[Shebi Ajava]

Her video viewing interrupted by T'Sal, Ajava quickly responded: "I'll be down in a minute."

She finishes watching the footage. She pockets the data crystals with the copy of the footage and hands the holopad back to the chief of security. She walks back to the parking lot door with a fast pace, feeling she has already spent enough time in this dead end of a lead.

As she pushes open the door she steps outside and starts walking back to the hovercar. "Hopefully you found something more useful? I was only able to confirm that there seem to be at least four people involved in the breakout. The footage is of a low resolution, and the camera only picks up this area.", she indicates the area around the barrier as she walks past it.

"Did you get anything from the system?"

[T'Sal]

"Hopefully, with the footage we have at least some proof. I got the back-up datacrystal from the UTRACAS system so I can study it in detail and find more clues.

Maybe it is an idea to look at the ventilation shafts because of the smoke?"

[Shebi Ajava]

Ajava looks at T'Sal with a confused expression.

"Proof of what?", she asked a little confused, "We don't need proof that there was an attack, we already knew that. And this footage isn't telling us much more."

"How would the ventilation shafts help us with the smoke? Do you think they pumped it in?"

[T'Sal]

"We have footage from the people, so when can go find them and get them."

T'sal looks at Miss Shebi.

"Normally when there is smoke, the safety and ventilation system will responds. I was just wondering why the smoke stayed so long."

If miss Shebi agrees, T'sal will start an investigation on the safety and ventilation system.

((Check: 13 = 8 Force Level + 5 Intuition -- Investigating safety and ventilation system))

[Shebi Ajava]

"The footage is low quality and the people aren't recognizable, that won't be of much help to us.", Ajava replies to the footage statement.

"I think you overestimate the safety measures of this parking lot, but it is a good plan to check anyway. Just don't take too long, taking the back-up datacrustal is a sure-fire way to create problems in any system, and a failure in UTRACAS is a problem."

[Storyteller (Elmer)]

((OOC: T'Sal, although you are allowed to do your small investigation with intuition, I would advice you to do it with reason since you are basically looking if and so, how the systems works. Therefore you are also allowed to add mechanical engineer. I assume you want to have the best and most logical check, so this would result in the following check four you: ((Check: 14 = 8 Force Level + 5 Reason + 1 Mechanical Engineer -- Investigating safety and ventilation system)). Which is approved.))

T'Sal investigates the safety and ventilation system. As would be expected, there is indeed such a system. However, the ventilation shafts were installed in the ceiling so T'Sal could not reach it. Using the hovercar to get to the ceiling seemed to work well enough to get a view of the system. Since this is only a side track of the main tunnel, the system was not very advanced. It appeared to be a passive controlled system. Only when fire was detected it would activate. Surprisingly, there was no actual fire detection system apparent. The owner of the building or the tunnel was not very keen on safety it seems. The ventilation system was of the cheap kind as well, it looked like it was half broken, or more like half-not-installed or installed poorly, probably installed by the lowest bidder.

[T'Sal]

T'sal looks disgusted at the ventilation system.

"This system is cheap and broken. No wonder the smoked stayed so long."

T'sal makes some picture so she could at it to their report. Afterwards she fixes the system as good as she could.

"Let's go back to the temple."

[Shebi Ajava]

"Yes. You need to copy the backup crystal and place it back before something goes wrong."

As she starts the drive back to the temple, Ajava thought to herself that it is not entirely clear how to proceed with the investigation. She is not particularly bothered by it, yet she would like to find a way to wrap this investigation up cleanly without compromising her position.

She parked the hovercar on one of the designated pads and hopped out. "I'll contact the Unity City UTRACAS headquarters to see if we can access the data for that day."

Putting her actions where her mouth is, Ajava enters the temple and calls up the UTRACAS headquarters. She hopes that this time the fact that she is a Jedi tasked with an investigation is enough to get the information she wants: the UTRACAS logs and incident reports for the day of the attack and a few days before that... Just to be sure she looks up some information on the director of UTRACAS and the names of a few highly placed officials, she knows most of them by now through her tasks with senate security, so she can drop some names or even place a call to overrule whatever kind of small-minded bureaucratic minions she encounters along the way.

[Storyteller (Elmer)]

((OOC: T'Sal, you forgot to make a check, I made it for you this time: ((Check: 14 = 8 Force Level + 5 Reason + 1 Mechanical Engineer -- Investigating safety and ventilation system)), which is approved.))
T'Sal makes some pictures and tries to repair the system. Although it is hard to call it repairing, when she actually have to remake a system which is broken by design. At the end it is still not operating very smoothly, the lack of proper tools and materials don't help, but at least it would work once it becomes active.

Back at the temple, a human employee greets T'Sal with the datacrystal she requested. It was placed in a neat small suitcase with padding to prevent it from getting damaged.

Ajava contacts the UTRACAS central office. After going through the boring call channels, and ensuring she is a jedi, she is put up with a high manager of the centre. Apparently there have been some incidents with prank calls in the past, so they are a little careful with anybody claiming to be jedi. But without too much trouble Ajava settled that issue.

The manager, a Vratix woman named Ysimir Wubble, is very willing to help, and makes the logs immediately available. He could sent a delivery droid to sent them to the temple immediately, or have them ready if the Jedi preferred to go to the headquarters. Either way is fine by Ysimir.

[Shebi Ajava]

Never having been to the UTRACAS headquarters, Ajava was happy to go there in person. She informs T'Sal to check if her partner wanted to come with and offered to drive past the tunnel they checked earlier so the backup crystal can be replaced.

After replacing the backup crystal, she drives to the UTRACAS headquarters and makes her way to Ysimir's office to thank the woman for her cooperation (and to get access to the logs).

((OOC: In the interst of fast-forwarding I have stacked a few 'todo's in this post.))

[T'Sal]

((OOC: I did not think fixing the system would be this hard.))

After receiving they empty data crystal T'sal quickly makes a copy.

Upon hearing that they would go the headquarter T'sal decides to takes 3 datacrystal with her, so she could make a copy.
Together will miss Shebi they return the back-up crystal and continue to the UTRACAS headquarters.

[Storyteller (Elmer)]

((OOC: T'Sal, look at it this way: to repair something, you need materials to repair it and it has to be possible to repair it in first place. But if a system is so bad and cheap made that you basically have to replace the whole system to make it work decently again, than a repair wont do. It is like trying to make a fire extinguisher out of a can of air and the force. You need a dozen parts to make that actually work, starting with replacing the can for a closed container with pressurized CO2. So if the ventilation system has no active sensors, broken ventilators and rusted or missing wires and other parts and so on, than repairing it would simply be an impossible job. And besides I took in account that you don't actually have the time for mucking with a ventilation system, while you are actually on an investigation mission were trails might go cold if you sit around all day.

So if I didn't communicate the state of the ventilation system clearly than sorry, my mistake, but it was meant to be categorized as 'not repairable within reason.' :)

My actual post will follow shortly.))

[T'Sal]

((OOC: Okay. Could you continue with the story.))

[Shebi Ajava]

((OOC: @T'Sal: give the ST some time... The fact that they are even posting at all is already nice, given their announcement.))

[Ysimir Wubble (mask of Storyteller (Elmer))]

After the Jedi are done at the Temple, they are quickly back on their way. Without trouble they first return the back-up crystal, then the two Jedi are on their way towards the UTRACAS central station!

The central station is indeed very central, very big and very busy. Many cars are flying around, as the station is located at one of the biggest junctions of designated high roads in the Union. They could park the car in the garage, where a robot arm put the car in a high spot in a parking tower. In the lobby of the central station was already somebody waiting for the Jedi. He immediately takes them to Ysimir who is waiting in her office, busy with reading something from a datapad. When the Jedi enters, she put the data pad down and walked towards the Jedi on her four legs: "Greetings," the woman greeted, "it is an honour to have two of our respected knights here. I am Ysismir Wubble." After which she gave the Jedi time to introduced themselves as well. "I have already made somebody prepare the logs for you," she then continued. The Vratix grabbed a box from her desk and handed it over to the Jedi. In the box they could see a row of datacrystals, each neatly labelled with time stamps and locations.

"I would love to give you two a tour trough the building, but I suspect that you are very busy. Therefore I have reserved a conference room where you can work in peace. It is available to you for as long you need it. I will also send somebody to you to assist you with analysing the data and explain the finer details of the UTRACAS system.

Would there be anything else you require?"

Ysimir Wubble

[Shebi Ajava]

"No, thank you. We'll have a look at the logs first."

She then follows the person who led them here to the conference room. There, she looks over the labels again to see which locations they have logs for now.