Pilot Archive
Thread: X-Wing: The Nalera Conflict
A'Lerris was still waiting in the turbolift. As the lift slowly began to descend back towards the hanger, she looked at the Rebel pilot.
"What happened in there?" Halyn asked.
"What do you mean?"
Hal snorted. "C'mon, now." He flipped his hand over, revealing a palmed datacard. "Did you really think the Alliance sent me in here completely blind? They had specific data on each current Council member, and how they should have responded." He looked squarely at the security chief. "Obviously, that wasn't what Intel thought would happen."
The woman shrugged. "Maybe your Intel was wrong."
"Doubtful." Halyn slapped his hand down on the button that would freeze the lift. "Alright," he whispered, "what happened in there?"
A'Lerris leaned close, whispering into his ear. "I'll explain everything, but we need to get someplace secure. I don't know if anyone's listening."
The Zabrak nodded and released the button. The turbolift continued to descend, creaking as it went. Silence dominated the rest of the ride, aside from assorted squeaks and squeals as the lift plummeted towards the hanger. Before the lift could reach the lowest level, however, A'Lerris tapped a button, queing the lift to stop at the deck of housing. When the door hissed open, A'Lerris stepped out. "C'mon. Your quarters."
Hal nodded and followed her out into the bustle of the hallways connecting the quarters to the rest of the station. When they were surrounded by people, A'Lerris leaned in close to the Zabrak's ear again. "The Empire was here, looking for you," she murmured. "They claimed they tracked a criminal in an illegally modified Z-95 Headhunter to our station from trajectory data."
The Zabrak tensed. How did they find me here? Did they tell the Council? "And?" he asked her in a whisper.
"The Council denied it, and we managed to hide your snubfighter. When the Imperials came aboard, we dumped it into space on the other side of the station and held it there with a tractor beam until the Imps left." A'Lerris shouldered her way through the heavy stream of miners. "The Imperials didn't believe us, of course, and we're sure they left behind one or two people as spies aboard the station. After the Imp boarding party left, we set up a continual counter-surveillance system in your quarters."
"Where was I during all this?" Halyn asked in a low voice.
"Asleep. We, ah, gave you an anesthetic to make sure you wouldn't wake up. Sorry about that, by the way."
"Should I wonder why you had everything you needed to drug me aboard the station?"
"Probably not." Fighting her way to the edge of the stream of people, she said in a more normal tone of voice, "We're here." She tapped the button.
The door hissed open to reveal Elle. The Twi'lek pilot smiled seductively. "Have I lost the race?" she asked.
Halyn stiffled a laugh as A'Lerris actually blushed. "I need to talk to Hal, Elle," she said. "You can play later," she added with a glare.
The Zabrak admired the Twi'lek's lithe form as she gracefully glided out of the room. Just as the door hissed shut, she turned her head and winked at the Rebel. Then she was gone behind two centimeters of durasteel.
"Halyn," A'Lerris said flatly, "focus here."
"Yeah. So...what do we do?"
The security chief sighed. "We're running sweeps to figure out who the Imps left here as a plant, but it'll take time. There's too many people involved with the mining operations for one person to know everybody, so this will be tricky." She glared at him. "You could've told us, you know. Would've saved us a lot of trouble. Hell, we probably wouldn't have let you get involved here."
She knows. Sithspawn. Hal's heart fell. "So you know?"
Halyn wrote:
"Should have, yeah, in my R2. Speaking of which, where is he?"
Message Edited by ViperWolf on 10-09-200508:29 PM
Message Edited by ViperWolf on 10-09-2005 08:32 PM
/bonfiregoesout
/Pitchforksfall
'Ooh! theres a witch!'
/Pitchforks
/bonfire
/angry, murderour villagers
I demand satisfaction, we demand more. *looks for whip*
Ok, now I'm starting to scare myself 
eh but you've saved my furry arse once or twice during battles so I'll forgive ya.
Message Edited by MasterTexiria on 10-10-2005 02:22 PM
When the turbolift door closed, cutting them off from the hallways, Hal looked over at A'Lerris again. "So what's your great plan?"
"You'll see," she said, a mischevious grin plastered across her face. "As long as you're astromech doesn't decide to stun me again," she added with a glare, aiming a kick at the R2.
Deuce backed up just enough to avoid the kick, whistling mournfully.
"He says he's sorry," the Zabrak translated.
The security chief just glared at the astromech as the lift slowly creeped upwards.
"So..." Halyn finally said to break the silence.
"What?" A'Lerris asked.
"I don't know."
She frowned. "Well, assuming we don't have further problems with the Imperials, what are we going to do about the Zynt'aia?"
"I wanted to ask you about that," Hal said. "Do you have any idea why the Zynt'aia are out here trying to pick off your ships?"
A'Lerris snorted. "They're pirates. We're civilians. You do the math."
Halyn shook his head. "Doesn't make sense. Pirates target cruise ships, usually, or ships carrying valuable cargo--which is the reason the Zynt'aia were known as spice pirates, since they targeted smugglers hauling spice. Even if they lost their focus over the last five years, they sure wouldn't be trying to pick off ships loaded with ore. There's no money in it. No profit. Pirates," he added as an afterthought, "are all about money."
The security chief shrugged. "I don't know," she said.
Not very convincing, Halyn concluded. There's something else going on here. What have I got myself mixed up in this time? And why'd it have to be the Zynt'aia?
Aloud, he said, "Well, there has to be a reason. We should focus on figuring that out."
A'Lerris said nothing. The rest of the ride was spent in silence until the turbolift ground to a halt, the door opening into the command center. The center was sparsely populated with a half-dozen people operating more than twice their number of computer systems. Holoprojectors indicated the station's status, as well as technical readouts of several mining ships in the vicinity and the progress of mining projects all over the Tatoo system. One console in particular was continually active, with displays changing almost continually. A closer look revealed it to be the system controlling the station's automated tractor beams. Still other displays continually updated the miners' stores of fuel and essential supplies, as well as continual updates on market values for ore and projected profits, expenses, and other business figures.
Stepping out,A'Lerris motioned for Hal and the R2 unit to follow, heading straight for a set of computer terminals lining a niche in the wall. "These," she said, "are the duty assignment computers. This is where all duty assignments for all of the miners are handed out, no matter how trivial or important. Most assignments are handed out automatically and are calculated from a variety of factors--individual skills, logged hours, and so on are taken into account. However," she said, eyes dancing with humor, "we can assign people to projects manually, too--we can even override the system's safeties if need be."
The Zabrak saw exactly where she was going. Smiling, he said, "Deuce, bring up that list you compiled."
The R2 whistled. A moment later, a grainy holo image of five individuals, including personal holos,names, and pertinent data,shimmeredinto existence.
"What do you think?" A'Lerris asked. "A three-week mining and survey mission is just getting ready to launch for a group of asteroids we haven't surveyed before. Think that would be fitting?"
"Should be," Hal said with a smile. "It'll keep them out of the way, that's for sure."
As the security chief began queing up the assignments, she glanced at the R2. "How did he come up with this list, anyways?"
The R2 chirped a fairly detailed explanation. "The slices were done almost perfectly, but the slicer made one mistake. Date and time discrepancies," the Zabrak translated. "The files of the infiltrators were automatically time-stamped by the system when they were added in the last few days, but those times don't match the data in the files themselves for the infiltrators' supposed join date according to the data files themselves." He shook his head. "You got lucky--your databank timestamped the files when they were added. A lot of systems wouldn't do that--they'd take the timestamp off the file that was input, which can be easily forged."
A'Lerris smiled. "All done," she said. "In five hours, we won't have to worry about the infiltrators on the station."
Halyn laughed. "If only all the problems we have were so easily solved." He sighed. "The Zynt'aia are going to be far more difficult to deal with."
The woman nodded grimly. "I'm afraid you're right."
But what aren't you telling me? Halyn asked silently. You want to harp on me about my secrets, but you have plenty of your own yet. You know something about the pirates that I don't. Shrugging, he followed the red-haired woman as she headed back towards the turbolift, Deuce followed protectively behind them both.
