The Agent and the Huntress walk into a bar. (Jade)

[Corran Vellar]

~Nar Shaddaa, level 23, Raging Rancor plaza~

Ryder found himself once more in the Fumbling Idiot, a bar owned by an old Mandalorian friend of his. He had been here for several hours now, trying to get some info on BSP hangouts and also waiting to see if he'd see his old friend. Ryder's mission was to locate BSP operations and scout them out for future missions. He'd come with his most trusted agent, Jade, who was currently doing her own information gathering elsewhere in the area. Ryder currently wore his advanced camo suit with his black trench coat over it. His helmet sat in the arms of his crimson espionage droid CE who waited at the bar. Klik, Ryder's HK assassin droid stood at the entrance watching for any potential BSP leads in the plaza.

Ryder shoved away from yet another table that was once again a dead end. He returned to the bar just in time for the Cathar Bartender to start her shift. "Finally, someone who might be able to help." He muttered to himself as he took a seat next to CE.

She spotted the human and slowly sauntered over. "What brings you back here. Wanting to your head punched in?" She jested as she poured him a Corellian Ale.

"Not this time," Ryder replied, cracking a smile as he graciously took the drink. "Where is my vod anyway?"

"He's been out since your little debacle," she returned. "Apparently things didn't go well?"

"Indeed, but that's not why I'm here, but maybe you could help," he spoke before taking a swig of the ale. "I'm sure you hear a lot of things."

Her expression was enough of an answer for the ex-spy. "Heard about any Blue Star Pirate hangouts in the area?"

"First the Sith now the BSP," she replied in a more hushed tone." "You are a bold man Ryder." She leaned back on her back counter. "I've heard a few things, best if I put it down on a data chip." The Cathar turned and began to saunter away as though nothing had changed.

Ryder watched her walk to the back before continuing to enjoy his Ale, it was getting close to the time Jade was suppose to meet him here. Maybe she was having more luck then him on routing out these damn pirates.

[Jade Rancorfang]

Jade watched as the trio moved quietly through the back alley. Tracking people through the city had proven quite...different. Trails were not all that similar; without plants to speak of and a hard concrete floor she had to manage the tracking by watching other environemental cues, like the movement of animals and the reactions of people. The fact that everyone seemed to thorougly need a bunch of electronic gadgets only made things easier, once she adapted to the concrete jungle. Although she wasn't really that knwoldedgeable in technology, she knew enough to track the radio emissions with a proper sensor. Everything was about having the right tools for the job, after all.

Speaking of which, the three dumb thugs on the alley didn't have what it takes to go through life without getting in trouble, apparently. Finding the nearest pirate hideout hadn't been all that difficult, despite what Ryder thought. It had been just a matter of presenting herself as a known bounty hunter (which was true and could be checked quite easily) and saying she was looking for a job. After a couple hours, here she was, just about to teach some common sense to a bunch of poor bastards.

When the first one stepped into the trip wire, they had just enough time to wonder what the hell was happening before their fate was sealed. A flexible piece of flexible metal tensed as a bow was released, carrying her vibroshield towards them. As it struck them all, the mechanism on the shield activated, electrocuting them into submission. Then, Jade rose from her hiding spot among some garbage few meters away and seized them with practiced ease.

Deciding it was about time to regreoup with Ryder, she called him:

-Hey Boss, I have a lead. I have to watch some prisoners, though, so can you meet me at this coordinates?

[Jak Bexel]

Moments ago, above the Bumbling Idiot

"Really? Really," Jak shook his head at the security camera footage of Ryder and his HK droid. "Really?"

His incredulity was directed at no one, just the sheer intestinal fortitude of this intruding mercenary who thought he was the smartest man in the room by loudly inquiring about BSP activity. Within seconds, Jak's operatives had triangulated his comms and acquired the location of his companion. It would be sad news to them that the thugs they had were just that. In time, they would be engaged in combat and win lose or draw, they would be none the wiser.

Jak had been on the outskirts of the galaxy for some time now, his signature not even a blip to official channels. Nightshade operations were capable of sequestering a person between two worlds, behind the curtain so to speak. His duties were not the freewheeling functional alcoholism of his cohorts. He did not buckle a single swash. Instead, it was his duty to hit up trade routes and reinforce their work even further into non-existence. Whether it be under the guise of a contractor re-tiling the floors of a banking clan or posing as a work study librarian in the cavernous collegiate trappings of Hanna City University on Chandrila, his mission was to make the whispers less than whispers. Less than ghosts. The codes and relays put into place by Jak and his supervisors would make it so that BSP was an invisible presence beyond the realm of corporeal life. Anything you could decipher on the surface was smoke and mirrors dressed up as a pirate and saying "yaarrrgghh" for photo ops and the occasional bar brawl.

Which is why it was amusing to Jak that he would return to the Smuggler's Moon and have to deal with Ryder, a man who's cargo and money he had the pleasure of ganking once upon a time. He chuckled to himself, took a sip of lukewarm coffee, frowned at the temperature, put it down, and removed his mustard colored armorweave trench coat. This new career had streamlined him. Gone were the astromech-print button-downs and hard-wearing leather jackets. Now standard was this long coat over darkly dyed Antarian Ranger armor. Meant to look nondescript, but quite protective. Laying it over a chair, Jak surveyed the mass of surveillance and jamming devices that comprised a lot of the buildings owned by the BSP.

The Cathar bartender emerged from the front of the bar to meet Jak upstairs. There was no guilt in her eyes to read. She was merely playing a part. She did not say a word, just waited for instruction. Jak proceeded to pull out a data chip from his coat and hand it to her. The contents of the chip were largely gibberish. The outposts listed were empty stores. The munitions depot at the heart of the list was a blown-out junkyard. The BSP owned the Smuggler's Moon as much as the Hutts, and if the Imperials wanted to go snooping, they were going to be sent for a wild ride, miles deep into the urban sprawl of Nar Shaddaa. What may tip them off that it was nonsense would be the timed holoprojection of a kowakian dressed as a Huttese pleasure slave playing a kazoo that would play at will on the datachip, but Jak really enjoyed that video under the correct circumstances. He gestured for the bartender to return to Ryder, paying close attention to her demeanor. Even if she was on the side of a traitor, there was nothing at her level of access to offer that was worth anything. When she left the room, he raised an encrypted comm to his lips.

"The moron has engaged the idiot."

[Doctor Krussk]

Krussk was on a resupply run and much needed break from his oppressive force training when he heard over secure channels that Ryder was on world. After a close loss last time, Krussk was not going to let slip his chance at vengeance. Armed in full combat attire with full compliment of destructive force, Krussk piped into the comms, "feared captain Krussk looking to cut a horse down from below a rider, where is she?". Krussk was well familiar with Bexel and trusted him in logistics at least, so it was time to see how far the newer recruit could be pushed. The only hiccup to his plan was Krussk was currently half a town away purchasing exotic food, and would need to bike himself back over, taking several minutes, hopefully the excitement could wait.

[Xerxes Nova]

Xerxes resisted the urge to look at his personal comms, he had turned the room into a scif at the behest of the operative taking point in this situation. He hadn't found it odd when he was redirected to the smugglers moon, he knew that he was the closest free asset at the time. That was the problem of being a floating technician within the fleet who was in the process of being inducted into the combat engineers. Add to the fact that his particular skill set included slicing systems and locks and he was surprised that he wasn't sent on more of these more clandestine activities. Maybe he would be. Instead he took a deep breath and reinforced the suppression of his Force signature, few knew he was not only Force sensitive but, well trained in its use, more than he had thought though, after the recent events at Kafrene. For now he looked over at the help he had brought along in the form of Tex and Scrap, with their aid he'd managed to finalise the alterations to the room in a third of the time it would have taken normally but, that had meant leaving the 'Rust Bucket' under the care of the Twins and although he had to admit having an almost self aware ship was interesting Aurek and Shen were still in their infancy and he would have preferred not leaving their protection sole up to their own discretion. Depending on how things unfolded here he'd send back either Tex or Scrap to take over, although having the more trigger happy Scrap there as an overseer may just make matters worse. He heard what was said by the operative and then caught the reply from a voice he recognised and smiled. The good Doctor had climbed the ranks pretty quickly surpassing the one who had been tasked with assessing him. Though Feared Captain was too grandiose a title in Xerxes' opinion, he couldn't say he wouldn't use it himself if it were given him. Though rising to the rank of Midshipmen had been a trial in of itself.

The reply from Krussk however, chilled Xerxes reminiscence and had him checking over his own equipment. The banded plates of armour were painted dark grey at the moment so as to blend into the shadows but, the compartments and strategic reinforcement in specific areas signified it as a homage to mandalorian armour and he only hoped that it offered as great a defence as the true thing. A three sectioned pack at the small of his back contained the powerpack for the personal shield and his two light weapons though he would prefer not having to draw them. The more obvious and conventional weapons were a blade strapped to his back and a blaster on his right hip. His other clandestine weaponry were either concealed in hidden armour segments or integrated into the armour itself. He only hoped he didn't have to use them. He had made every effort not to pry into the on goings of the room and wasn't sure he even wanted to know so he hoped that things would remain sedate in here. Though he knew that wasn't going to be the case and he had a horrible feeling about what was about to occur.

[Corran Vellar]

Ryder continued to lean on the bar as he waited for the female Cathar. He slowly sipped his Ale when CE broke the silence.

<Message coming in from Vantra,> the crimson droid spoke.

The human nodded as he took his helm from his faithful companion and slid it on over his head. The visor slid over his face and the helmet let out a low hiss as it clipped in with the rest of his rare camosuit. Once again the man was a faceless mercenary. The HUD activated and was quickly followed by the flashing red light of Jade's transmission. He listened to her and slowly smiled, though something felt slightly off. He glanced up to see the Cathar approach from behind the counter. She slid the datapad that had been given to her by Jak. She made a slight gesture that Ryder recognized as 'look carefully' before speaking.

"Hope that helps ya," she said casually as she took Ryder's mostly empty glass.

"Much appreciated," he replied, his voice now modulated by the helm, before he tilted the pad around and spotted the distortion of the light's reflection due to a person's fingers. It hid a quick message that no one else would notice.

-2 floor- 3rd room- Trap-

"I'll take this to my friend and we'll read it over," he continued, not breaking character, with the addition of his helm no one could even read his facial expressions. He switched to a private frequency to just his droids. "Trap, CE lets walk, let me know when I'm in a blind spot on cameras, Klik, continue to keep an eye out." In some ways this was one of the things he hoped for. When you knock on enough doors the targets will often come to you.

The armored human and the crimson espionage droid began to walk towards one of the alley exits of the establishment. About half way here the droid spoke directly into Ryder's headset. While the droid's exterior appeared as that of a protocol droid it's interior was much more advanced holding scanners and monitoring equipment as well as shielding to prevent it superior workings from being detected.

<Passing a blind spot right... now>

With that cue Ryder's form glimmered for a second and then vanished, blending in with the surroundings. CE kept walking while Ryder turned and headed for the closest set of stairs.

"Vantra, I've been made, can't meet you." He spoke into the comm. "CE will be your contact."

[Jade Rancorfang]

Jade ordered her droid to bring the speeder closer. She wasn't carrying the prisoners by hand by that amount of creds, after all. Then, she felt something oddly wrong in her environement. A weird silence reigned in the alley, almost like all the urban life going on around the secluded space had stopped for a second. After a couple heartbeats of listening, the sound of some bird-like verming flying away alerted her of some intrussion nearby.
Following her stablished plan, she pressed a button on her datapad and suddenly all the steam pipes in the inmediate vecinity bursted at the same time. She then rolled to the side to get out of the line of fire of any would be shooters, although it proved unnecesary on this occasion. Swiftly changing postures, she let her drappling hook carry her upwards to one of the observation positions she had marked earlier.
From there, the situation was obvious: some kind of strike team was sent after her. Two four man squads were entering the steam cloud from different points. She checked her pad, the speeder was close. Adding a new waypoint to it's route, the dathomiri started the next step of her combat plan.

------

They entered the cloud warily. Apperently, their target had smelled the ambush somehow and detonated some kind of trap. Quickly after that, they heard some muzzled echoes indicating quick movement somewhere in the alley. Hand signals flashed and a single ping sent in the comms to squad Bravo signaled the start of the attack.
They were fast and knew what they were doing, securing the area in seconds. Everything was clear, except for three men tied and unconscious. Being careful not to relax before it was time, they spread around the available space, watching both ends of the alley. Then, hell broke loose.
Something hit the ground behing Bravo, and then a silhouette appeared in the mist, quickly shooting a blaster burst at their direction. Training took over, and the figure was soon covered in return fire. They didn't catch the second figure landing behind them and activating a Frce Pike. A quick combination of basic hand to hand combat and liberal use of both the pike and stun guantlets got the four men to ground. The last thing they saw was a speeder appear and ram Bravo squad when they turned around to face the new threat.

------

Jade got up in the clearing steam cloud, a frown in her face. This meant problems, probably. Eight men were a bit too much for her to take head on, but luckily they walked into her backup plan. Quickly silencing the few moans of pain among the troopers rammed by her speeder with her stun blaster, she recovered the holoprojector from the ground. A handy toy indeed, Ryder was very crafty when it mattered.
Rounding the apparent squad leader for questioning, she ordred her droid to gather all the prisoners on the back of the vehicle. They wouldn't be comfortable, but beggars couldn't be choosers. Reaching the comms, she sent to her boss:

-I'm done here, let's meet up in the Red Bar ASAP, ok? I got you something nice.

The code had seemes like a waste of time to her, but apparently it could be useful from time to time. Not having access to reliable communications sucked when she was alredy used to such a boon. Sighing, she got lost on the city before any further attack forces started tracking her.


OOC: To all the helpful pirates around, could you let us regroup and spend a couple of rounds socializing, please? We can have that showdown later, if you don't mind.