Alliance Supply and Procurement: Episode 1

[Furiel]

Dinner goes quietly, and the food was as poor, or poorer, than advertised. The "gravy" as they called it on the special was little more than grease with a dash of beef flavoring. Bronto's "meal" bared a vague semblance to what M3 ordered for him, however most of the greens in the salad were a little wilted and the alfredo tasted mildly curdled. Overall dinner taste-wise was a train wreck, wrapped in a disaster, smothered in fail-sauce. And your bowels will be taking it out on your for the next 12 hours or so. I pity the person who has to enter the 'fresher after Blu.

So post-dinner I'm assuming you all go crash since you're all bone-tired and practically falling asleep standing up. Other than a few "urgent" trips to the 'fresher during the night it goes uneventfully and you all wake up early in the morning much better rested and ready to get on with your mission.

[Blackferne]

Assuming the room check found nothing...

"Gentlemen, assuming you all feel refreshed. I propose we look to our mission. I share Mr. Amm'nel's fear that this may be a trap, so I advise rather extreme caution. I would like us to do recon on the site, preferably inside and out so we can figure out how best to get the cargo. Anyone have suggestions they'd like to throw in." M3PO says.

[Whiteness]

"Well, we need to see if the building is being watched and we need to get a better idea of what we're picking up. I mean, the storage facility might not be where they're keeping the droid parts, it might just be information."

[Blackferne]

"So a couple ideas we could try. First plan would be a simple impersonate the rightful owner of the storage locker. We'd need to secure that info which might be a con job in the making. Second plan would be see if we could just bribe our way into that locker in particular. Third could be a breaking and entering approach. Regardless I think we need more information of what we are dealing with. I think two of you should go and act like business people looking to store some surplus equipment and get a tour of the facility. You are obviously shopping for storage places and like a tour of the joint." M3PO says.

[Whiteness]

Rek nods as the droid speaks, obviously listening intently. "I think first of all we need to get a team to scope out the building, outside and in, to get a general feel for the place."

[Blackferne]

"So Mr. Banniss how would you divide us up?" M3PO asks.

[Dood]

Dood stretches.

"And how do we know this plan of ours isn't being listened to courtesy of a two meter tall, walking microphone? No offense to Emptee here or to Rexil over there, but are we positive that the only change to our metallic man here is the four hours of blackout? Maybe before we get going too deep here, we should have him checked again by a specialist. Again," Dood holds up his hands, "no offense to Rick regarding his abilities."

[Blackferne]

"I'd be fine with that." M3PO says. "But if we go to a strange place I'd like you to stay with me the whole time Mr. Amm'nel."

[Dood]

"I'd be fine with that." M3PO says. "But if we go to a strange place I'd like you to stay with me the whole time Mr. Amm'nel."

Dood wrinkles the fur on his forehead. He is visibly not thrilled with the idea of spending an entire afternoon sitting in a waiting room. Then the wrinkles disappear and a smile appears on his face.

"Of course, Emptee. I'll be right there, holding your hand the whole time. What better use of my time could there be?"

[Blackferne]

"You clearly have the largest degree of skepticism about me, so I would value your opinion on my state of 'health' greatly. If I am clean and you are convinced we can move on, if I am dirty, then I trust you will do the proper thing and have me repaired." M3PO says calmly.

[Cuspar]

Bronto says something to M3P0 in Aqualish.

[Dood]

"You clearly have the largest degree of skepticism about me, so I would value your opinion on my state of 'health' greatly. If I am clean and you are convinced we can move on, if I am dirty, then I trust you will do the proper thing and have me repaired." M3PO says calmly.

Dood, still smiling, waives his hand dismissively.

"Of course! Why don't I take Rex here and we can find a good, nearby shop for this. I imagine Rex's expertismo will be helpful in finding the best possible shop at the closest possible distance."

Dood tilts his head to the side, still grinning. He turns his attention to Bronto.

"And, of course, Brent here will come along with us when we go in for the check."

[Blackferne]

"I'll wait here until you find a shop then." M3PO pulls back up his datapad and starts tapping away again.

[Whiteness]

Rek stand ups and calmly walks over to look the Bothan in the eyes.

"My. Name. Is. REK."

Rek closes his eyes for a moment, counts to 5 and opens them. "If you must call me by something else, I prefer if you can restrict yourself to one nickname. Now, the droid has been checked and rechecked and I've found no problems. I would not like to waste any of our time by having to get him checked again."

Rek turns and walks back to where he had been sitting.

[Dood]

Rek stand ups and calmly walks over to look the Bothan in the eyes.

"My. Name. Is. REK."

Dood looks baffled.

"What'd I say?

[Blackferne]

"I'm..." M3PO pauses "I'm just going to deactivate myself for an hour to recharge, and let you two settle what to do."

He then locks up his datapad places it in his satchel, sits down and shuts down.

[Whiteness]

"If you want to take the droid to be checked again, that is your affair. I would prefer to get to work on our assignment. I plan to go find this Beltar Kor-dass storage facility and see what it is like. Does anyone want to join me?"

[Dood]

"If you want to take the droid to be checked again, that is your affair. I would prefer to get to work on our assignment. I plan to go find this Beltar Kor-dass storage facility and see what it is like. Does anyone want to join me?"

Dood's face darkens.

"Let me see if I understand your thinking here. We have a droid that was in the possession of Imperial agents for the better part of a day. He has a four hour gap in his memory. An examination in a barracks room with limited tools, while no doubt as thorough as possible, should suffice for us to assume that all they did was hold our shiny friend here for a few hours, wipe his memory for kicks, and then return him to the wild like some captured Terfinian bass being returned to a stream after having his picture took with the poor sap that paid money to catch and release him? Furthermore, if we do want to get him checked out, we should do so without any input from our most qualified team member on the place of inspection?

Am I getting all of that right? Cause even the droid didn't seem to disagree with my suggestion and it's his tin hide that's being pried apart so that we don't end up with our much more malleable hides similarly separated at any seams.

But, if everyone else is fine with Mr. Antenna over there broadcasting our whereabouts or intentions to the world, hey, I do love a challenge."

[Whiteness]

Dood's face darkens.

"Let me see if I understand your thinking here. We have a droid that was in the possession of Imperial agents for the better part of a day. He has a four hour gap in his memory. An examination in a barracks room with limited tools, while no doubt as thorough as possible, should suffice for us to assume that all they did was hold our shiny friend here for a few hours, wipe his memory for kicks, and then return him to the wild like some captured Terfinian bass being returned to a stream after having his picture took with the poor sap that paid money to catch and release him? Furthermore, if we do want to get him checked out, we should do so without any input from our most qualified team member on the place of inspection?

Am I getting all of that right? Cause even the droid didn't seem to disagree with my suggestion and it's his tin hide that's being pried apart so that we don't end up with our much more malleable hides similarly separated at any seams.

But, if everyone else is fine with Mr. Antenna over there broadcasting our whereabouts or intentions to the world, hey, I do love a challenge."

Rek sighs, "First of all, they had sent him to be incinerated they didnt' just 'return him to the wild', if he hadn't booted up when he did we wouldn't be having this discussion. Secondly, yes I am fairly skilled at tinkering with droids, but that hardly makes me an expert on the local repair shops. Thirdly, if he was broadcasting information somewhere then why are we still here? The imperials would know where we are and what we are after, I doubt they'd be sitting back and letting this playout any further, they would be in our faces right now, just like on Reecee. And lastly, am I to take that as a 'no' for my invitation to scout the facility?"

[Dood]

Dood steeples his fingers.

"Maybe you can explain something to me, Rek - droids and such being your area of expertise and not mine. Why do you wipe the memory of a droid that you're going to incinerate? Something smells funny and it's not just Te'l's tails.

Why haven't the Imperials nabbed us? Who the hell knows? Why did they show up IMMEDIATELY after our meeting? Maybe they're not after us, but the people we report to and are planning to spring their trap as soon as we show up to deliver the goods. Maybe they thought about setting a trap with the droid, wiped his memory, and then changed their minds and decided to just incinerate him instead. I can't confess to having intimate knowledge of anything to do with our Imperial captain friend other than the fact that his wife makes ewok sounds when she gets really, really excited."

[Bulwark]

Blu holds up his hands, " woah, what's with all the negativity? We are all at peace here, children of the mother stars. No need to bicker and argue about who reprogrammed who. I got no problem if the pup-man wants to go pokin around the insides of our metal companion, as long as he foots the bill."
Blu pauses for a moment and resumes without the slang,but I think you are missing something obvious", he points to the datapad. " It would be trivial to write a subroutine in mepo to reprogram the datapad to record our actions and then have the subroutine wipe itself. Check out his datapad."

[Whiteness]

Dood steeples his fingers.

"Maybe you can explain something to me, Rek - droids and such being your area of expertise and not mine. Why do you wipe the memory of a droid that you're going to incinerate? Something smells funny and it's not just Te'l's tails.

Why haven't the Imperials nabbed us? Who the hell knows? Why did they show up IMMEDIATELY after our meeting? Maybe they're not after us, but the people we report to and are planning to spring their trap as soon as we show up to deliver the goods. Maybe they thought about setting a trap with the droid, wiped his memory, and then changed their minds and decided to just incinerate him instead. I can't confess to having intimate knowledge of anything to do with our Imperial captain friend other than the fact that his wife makes ewok sounds when she gets really, really excited."

"It sounds to me like either the droid had a bad reaction to the restraining bolt or else they used a non-standard restraining bolt, again, I am not opposed to you taking the droid for further inspection, but I believe my time could be better spent elsewhere."

Rek pauses before continuing, "...Wha...what's an ewok sound like?

[Whiteness]

"Blu is right, where did the droid put his datapad?"

[Whiteness]

Looking around Rek does not see the datapad, "Bronto, can you wake the droid up and get his datapad so we can check it out?"

[Cuspar]

Bronto nods.

He mumbles in remarkably sedate Aqualish into the droid's auricular sensors, and almost tenderly pats M3P0's forehead...