The Taris Event Chapter 3

[Dood]

"Excellent. Allow me to take the comms during the ascent. I need you to fly a wide arc initially away from the ship but slightly bending back towards it, approximately a 5 radian inverse curve ascent path at a speed of 12km/s after you clear the city flight floor. When you have exceeded the stratosphere by approximately 20km break away from the ship and accelerate as quickly as you can. Once we have escaped the planet's gravity well hit the hyperdrive. When you are ready signal Slick to launch as well. We can leave together. Is this plan acceptable?" Fandango asks.

Dood nods. "Fly casual. Got it."

Dood hits the commswitch to be heard at the Comms Station.

"So, I'm sending our metallic savior back to you."

[Blackferne]

Fandango walks to the comms station sits down and removes his hat and head scarf to reveal his droid head proper. He puts on the heat set and tweaks his vocabulator. "I am in position for launch."

[Bulwark]

"Wait a second. Some random droid shows up out of nowhere, mentions Jounville's name and suddenly you all are treating it like your own brother? We don't know anything about it, what it's master programmed it to do or even if it belongs to the Sith. They had trouble killing us in the apartment, but will have no trouble taking us all out once we get in space. This just doesn't add up, It's a freakin' droid. Just like the ones that killed Wailer.."
Bulwark turns to the droid.
"You there, droid. Tell me who your master is and the task he has sent you on?"

[Furiel]

"Calm yourself Bulwark. I understand your concerns and trepidation, however if I find it incredibly unlikely that he would be delivering us to the Sith. Without Fandango's assistance we may have won that fight, but I stress the MAY in that sentance. At best there would have been 3 of us walking away from there. They had us surrounded and pinned down and it was only a matter of seconds before they were inside, eliminating your cover and cutting you all to ribbons. You know that I am no Alvian, but I know enough of the Book of Alvis and Jounville well enough to have heard his stories of Cheese Fandango. Anyone who would name their droid Fandango would have to either be an Alvian, or know Jounville well enough to know his stories of Cheese Fandango, and that is someone I would very much like to meet as they can probably shed more light on this mystery."

[Blackferne]

"Wait a second. Some random droid shows up out of nowhere, mentions Jounville's name and suddenly you all are treating it like your own brother? We don't know anything about it, what it's master programmed it to do or even if it belongs to the Sith. They had trouble killing us in the apartment, but will have no trouble taking us all out once we get in space. This just doesn't add up, It's a freakin' droid. Just like the ones that killed Wailer.."
Bulwark turns to the droid.
"You there, droid. Tell me who your master is and the task he has sent you on?"

"I am my own master. My task is my own, to kill Sith droids. I can help you get off the planet and away from the Sith, or I can leave and you can do it on your own. Just let me know what you want." Fandango says looking to Bulwark.

[Arrican]

"I saw a bunch of ion gear in the bag when he was pulling the chips, I think we can take him if the poodoo hits the fan, and all I want to do is get the hell off this rock in one piece. And his plan is sound if he can get us past the Sith cruisers, shit, if he can get us out of the grav well we'll be fine."

[Blackferne]

"Mr. Bulwark is it?" Fanango hands over his Ion Rifle, "I believe you prefer the rifle for combat." He opens his coat and pulls out two Ion Pistols and hands them to So Leet "And you seem to prefer pistols if I observed correctly. I will sit here and perform my task to expedite our escape. If at any point you are unsatisfied with my performance please do not hesitate to shoot. I will warn you though that part of my plan requires me to speak Sith when communicating with the Battle Cruiser. I assure you that it is standard flight plan protocols so as to maintain the charade of our journey until the break out moment." He pauses. "Is that arrangement acceptable?"

[Bulwark]

"I am my own master. My task is my own, to kill Sith droids. I can help you get off the planet and away from the Sith, or I can leave and you can do it on your own. Just let me know what you want." Fandango says looking to Bulwark.

Bulwark looks very suspiciously at the droid now. "It has no master? It just happened to manufactured with enough credits in its hand to purchase itself at the droid shop?" Holding up the rifle to have a good look at it, he says to the others, "How does a combat droid become free from it's master. That shouldn't be too hard to figure out. There is probably a dead farmer on Tillis laying next to a faulty restraining bolt."
"No matter" he says, walking towards the droid. "We should be able to fit a new one on without a problem. I know I'd feel safer knowing there isn't a combat droid running lose in the ship."

[Whiteness]

"Let him get us out of here first, then we can start the Inquisition." he said giving Bulwark an annoyed look. I have questions for him too but they can wait until we get some distance between us and the ones that were trying to kill us.

[Blackferne]

"I will warn you Mr. Bulwark, that any attempt to apply a restraining bolt on me or on any droid that I am around will be met with a violent reaction. If I were to bind you in shackles and restrict your freedom, you no doubt would rebel and fight at every turn to find your freedom again. I view my freedom with the same high value. As for my origins, I would be more than happy to retell the story of how I came to be, but I fear we don't have time now for that." Fandango says with a serious tone in his speech inflections.

[Bulwark]

"So, it kills it's master and thinks it's an organic now? And then it starts threatening me. You see, that is the exact reason we put restraining bolts on droids. You can't trust them and they just arn't smart enough to figure these things out on their own." Bulwark says in a matter of fact tone.
"Ok droid, get us off this planet so we can pick your brain. I have a good mind to wipe your memory, but we need to know all you have about Jounville first."

[Arrican]

"let's get off this damn rock."

[Blackferne]

"So, it kills it's master and thinks it's an organic now? And then it starts threatening me. You see, that is the exact reason we put restraining bolts on droids. You can't trust them and they just arn't smart enough to figure these things out on their own." Bulwark says in a matter of fact tone.
"Ok droid, get us off this planet so we can pick your brain. I have a good mind to wipe your memory, but we need to know all you have about Jounville first."

"Memory wipes? Now who is threatening whom?" Fandangto turns to the comms station. "Mr. Dood please start our launch sequence." Fandango sends a signal to Slick to begin his launch sequence.

The Sweet Delia starts its ascent with the Pussy Wagon following closely behind. As they rise above the city, Fandango uses the Comm to talk to the Sith Battle Cruiser. A few words are exchanged and to the untrained ear the conversation sounds like you'd expect for a personnel transport reporting back to dock. The Ships start their long arc bowing out and back to the battle cruiser. Fandango communicates with the battle cruiser a few more times before saying over the comms to Dood "Hard break and run to the edge of the gravity well and punch it to the navcomputer coordinates."

Dood makes a hard turn as does Slick and the two ships accelerate as quick as they can. A minute later some Sith fighters come flying out of the Sith Battle Cruiser. They close into firing range just as the two ships jump into hyperspace.

[Blackferne]

Jump time to dark spot coordinates:
1d6x3 [2]=6 days. From there Slick will jump to Coruscant to deliver Wailer "home". (1d6x3[1]=3 days)

So 6 days to repair, RP, interviewing etc etc.

[Whiteness]

Syric walked back from his bunk, having changed out of his suit and re-equipped his blaster and hip holster.
Ok Fandango, when was the last time you saw Jounville and what was the deal with you taking those processors?

[Furiel]

Jump time to dark spot coordinates:
1d6x3 [2]=6 days. From there Slick will jump to Coruscant to deliver Wailer "home". (1d6x3[1]=3 days)

So 6 days to repair, RP, interviewing etc etc.

So what in the fuck happened to jump for an hour, talk and redirect?

[Blackferne]

Jump time to dark spot coordinates:
1d6x3 [2]=6 days. From there Slick will jump to Coruscant to deliver Wailer "home". (1d6x3[1]=3 days)

So 6 days to repair, RP, interviewing etc etc.

So what in the fuck happened to jump for an hour, talk and redirect?

So Leet had programmed coordinates to the spot in the middle of nowhere Arillius did. Dood said that was fine so I went with that. If that was not what you guys were supposed to do we can redo it.

@Syric
"I have not seen Jounville Blackferne in a year. But that point will help answer a few questions you have collectively asked." Fandango sits in the common area of the ship. "During the last war between the Republic and the Empire, the main thrust of operational support for the Empire came from Darth Malak's use of the Star Forge. The Jedi Revan and his allies eventually defeated Darth Malak and destroyed the Star Forge crippling the production of the Sith forces which were overwhelming the Republic's forces. The Emperor of the Sith Empire however is not the kind of individual who relies on one means towards establishing power. During the same time as the war raged on, a lab in a back planet in the Sith Empire a group of engineers created a new line of heuristic processors which had a speed unheard of in droids up to that point.

The key part of a droid's abilities isn't the frame, the servos, appendages or optical inputs. The most important part of any droid is the processor. If a droid has a good processor it can make more of it's body than an inferior processor. The best analogy I can use is pilots using standard fighters. What makes one fighter better than the next? Not the equipment on the ship, but the pilot. For droid's that pilot is a processor. After developing this massive leap forward in processor technology they set upon its natural application for the Sith Empire, use in battle droids.

The first generation of droids made with this technology was known as the Wrath Prototype Class. Of this group there were five made. They placed them in standard HK Assassin droid bodies for the initial tests. Armed with standard foot soldier equipment they were able to defeat with ease Warbots easily costing ten times as much to produce. The processors were removed and placed in the final droid bodies for more extensive testing. These droids with the better bodies were virtually unstoppable against normal military units. It would take significant resources to defeat a handful. If a whole army could be produced they would be unstoppable.

There were however two attributes which made the engineers and their military patrons unhappy. The first was that a key component in the production of the processors was a rare mineral isotope known as Tordassium. As long as they lacked abundant supplies of this, there was a natural limit to how many units they could produce. The second attribute was the initial programming in the processors made the Wrath Prototypes more independent minded than the military wanted. While the first issue could not be easily solved, the second problem could be with some primary command structure subroutines written into their base code.

The next two models of droids produced with these processors were the Fury and Frenzy class droids you met on Bryx. They are incapable of breaking the chain of command for the Sith. They are also extremely dangerous even for trained military personnel. But like the analogy I provided earlier, a functional processor without a body is like a pilot without a ship. If you can give him a new ship, you have a formidable fighter again, lose the pilot you have to get a new pilot which takes time to train. I take the processors because if I don't it just delays the pain they will produce. And given the rarity of Tordassium each processor lost is a substantial loss of resources for the Sith. I make sure they get destroyed properly and the Tordassium is lost.

So how does this relate to Jounville Blackferne and myself? About 18 months ago I was stationed on Taris assisting a Sith Lord in maintaining rule over a reluctant populace. During my duties I came across Jounville Blackferne who stood up to a Sith Soldier who was bullying an elderly lady in the market. The soldier asked me to take Jounville Blackferne to the local detention area. That was a long journey. During the walk Jounville Blackferne started arguing with me about what I was and what I was doing. Over the next few days he sat in detention and I guarded him. We continued to talk and he set me on a straight path. In Sith teachings the concept of justice doesn't exist. But Jounville Blackferne taught me what justice was and after a week I rebelled. My independent programming combined with a universal truth overcame Sith teaching. I broke Jounville Blackferne out of the detention cell and helped him get off Taris and into the Ord Mantell system. We traveled the system for a few months before he went one way and I knew what I needed to do.

I tried to recruit my fellow Wrath Prototypes to my cause, but ended up having to destroy two of them. Of the remaining two I know one is loyal to a Sith Lord and I don't know where the other is. I spend my time tracking down Fury and Frenzy class droids and destroying them as I can. I have become a bit of a legend among the Sith Droid Corps. I use quotes inspired from the Book of Alvis before slaughtering them, and they find the droid bodies missing the processors, which inspires fear in the ranks.

As for where Jounville Blackferne went I can't say. He said he wanted to investigate some aspects of the production of the processors and said he would find me again later to continue to be a righteous fist of vengeance for those for whom injustice is served."

[Cuspar]

Well, Fandango. I, for one, believe you and am happy to have you with us. I have a few questions. What do you know of a man named Nolan Tsont'Ar? How about Mark Psont? Where is the Tordassium mined? And, can So examine one of those processors?

Cuspar turns to Ro'Talth.
Does the Exchange have any dealings in Tordassium that you know of?

[I would also like to see if Fossar has undertaken any Tordassium shipments and where they were, if so. To do this, I will contact my father ASAP via recorded message and say Father, I'll be brief. My new venture goes tremendously well. Our new client seeks Tordassium. Given its scarcity, I would ask you if you know of a mining company that will sell directly to a buyer, shipped by me. As you can tell, Aderbrent Services has grown beyond dewbacks. Best regards, my father.]

[Whiteness]

"Do you know anything about Sargo and why he would be interested in Jounville?" Syric continues.

[Blackferne]

Well, Fandango. I, for one, believe you and am happy to have you with us. I have a few questions. What do you know of a man named Nolan Tsont'Ar? How about Mark Psont? Where is the Tordassium mined? And, can So examine one of those processors?

"I have not heard of either of those men. As for where Tordassium is mined I wouldn't even no where to start. It is really rare from what I understand, there isn't a reliable way to prospect for it. They just find it as a by product when looking for other valuable metals. And is So would like to examine a processor he may, but the following conditions apply. First it cannot be put into any droid under any circumstances. Second, if it is to be hooked up to an electronic device, that device cannot have access to other systems and definitely not a commlink of any kind. Third I must watch over his examination for safety reasons. And finally he must return it to me when he is done." Fandango says.

Cuspar turns to Ro'Talth.
Does the Exchange have any dealings in Tordassium that you know of?

"Not that I'm aware of. The problem you got with the Exchange is it isn't this monolithic organization it appears to outsiders, but in reality it is a loose affiliation of various families and syndicates. Some are big, some are small. Imagine a Criminal Chamber of Commerce. And like a Chamber of Commerce, there are big players like Sargo, and small time players like Vesial Two Bits. So keeping tabs on what all of them are up to is tough, and even tougher if it is something they don't want you to know about." Ro'Talth says "If you wanted to find out if anyone in the Exchange was working in mineral procurement, you'd probably need to start with a provisioning and logistics expert. There are a few guys on Ord Mantell who do that kind of work contract, and you can also find some in Mos Eisley, Nar Shaddaa, and if you are wondering about droid production I know the Sith do plenty of assembly in Balmorra."

[I would also like to see if Fossar has undertaken any Tordassium shipments and where they were, if so. To do this, I will contact my father ASAP via recorded message and say Father, I'll be brief. My new venture goes tremendously well. Our new client seeks Tordassium. Given its scarcity, I would ask you if you know of a mining company that will sell directly to a buyer, shipped by me. As you can tell, Aderbrent Services has grown beyond dewbacks. Best regards, my father.]

You can check when you get to the next Fossar Shipping office.

[Blackferne]

Do you know anything about Sargo and why he would be interested in ajounville?Syric continues.

Fandango answers "I do not know why Sargo would be interested in Jounville Blackferne."

Ro'Talth interjects, "This is just speculation, but if the Republic hasn't seen these droids in action, they probably don't know how powerful they are. And if Sargo found out your man Blackferne knew about a Sith super weapon, he might figure he can pump him for information so as to best capitalize on it. Illicit goods are steady credits, but if you want to be megarich playing both sides of an armed conflict can be paydirt. It is what I would have done."

[Bulwark]

Bulwark turns away from the droid and addresses the crew, "It tells a great story, but how do we know we can trust it? We know the Sith are having trouble locating Jounville. How do we know it's not a plant set up to follow us and lead the Sith right to Joun? So', is it possible for you to look at its code and see if it has any hidden protocols?"

[Furiel]

Do you know anything about Sargo and why he would be interested in ajounville?Syric continues.

Fandango answers "I do not know why Sargo would be interested in Jounville Blackferne."

Ro'Talth interjects, "This is just speculation, but if the Republic hasn't seen these droids in action, they probably don't know how powerful they are. And if Sargo found out your man Blackferne knew about a Sith super weapon, he might figure he can pump him for information so as to best capitalize on it. Illicit goods are steady credits, but if you want to be megarich playing both sides of an armed conflict can be paydirt. It is what I would have done."

"Ro'Talth's speculation seems entirely reasonable for why Sargo want's Jounville. I believe the Sith's interests are obvious as well. Not only would they want to keep Jounville's information from the Republic, but I'm willing to bet they are incredibly interested in what he said to Fandango here because I'm sure that the concept of a lone man being able to talk one of their super droids into defecting has them scared shitless and they'll probably do almost anything to try to obtain that knowledge so they can make sure it doesn't happen again.

Fandango, can you furnish us with schematics and specifications for the various droid models in question here? I think it's imperative we get that information to the Republic before innocent people get hurt."

[Whiteness]

Bulwark turns away from the droid and addresses the crew, "It tells a great story, but how do we know we can trust it? We know the Sith are having trouble locating Jounville. How do we know it's not a plant set up to follow us and lead the Sith right to Joun? So', is it possible for you to look at its code and see if it has any hidden protocols?"

"Mr. Migs, that would be one hell of a set up in my opinion. Those droids could have taken us back there, or at least thinned down our ranks further then they did, if it hadn't been for Fandango. We don't really know what trouble the Sith are having locating Jounville, all we know is that they tracked him to the Church but were too late. The Sith were looking for Ro'Talth on Bryx, not us, so I don't think they knew we were here. I think we had them convinced we were small time back on Lok, and with their arrogance I don't think they would assume we could find Joun before they do.

[Dood]

Dood perks up.

"Besides, it hardly would make sense to plant this with us when the Sith likely know as well as we do that Jounville is currently in the company of one of Sargo's men. Unless I'm mistaken, Kunga would have known as much as our friend, Ro'Talth here and there's little reason to believe that that information didn't pass from him to the Sith.

Not to mention the fact that the only way the Sith could even think to plant this droid with us would be if they knew that A," Dood holds up a finger, "We were on Bryx and B," Dood holds up a second finger, "We were already with Ro'Talth at his mistress' house.

Frankly, if they already knew all of that, then it seems unlikely that they really need a planted automaton to follow us."