Announcement

**Sebarek Veros** · 11-08-2014, 06:31 AM

This mission to Zaloriis was the opportunity for Sebarek to work with both Akilah, who was still his superior but also his closest colleague since joining the Empire, as well as new people, like Dirum and Nirken. The Lorrdian knew that it might take quite a bit of convincing to reach their goal, but it was the norm really, when it came to such assignments.

He missed being able to dress as professionally as he wanted, but going for more practical clothes given the nature of the mining world was his best option for the time being. As they went through customs, he had been discreetly observing the place already from behind his sunglasses.

He put them on top of his head as it was his time to produce his indent card and asked about his profession. "Human resources." The custom officer seemed surprised. "We rarely see your type." There was almost a hint of relief in his voice, which concorded with certain things they had heard about unrest in the area. "Welcome to Zaloriis."

**Dav Nirken** · 11-08-2014, 11:19 PM

((OOC: Takes place after Actions Speak))

:: Dav was, on paper, the perfect fit for the Zaloriis operation. Born and raised in a mining village similar to what was on Zaloriis, he had plenty of experience with the situation type. Combined with his wide array of skills, it was likely that he would be quickly hired with the company. He of course accepted the assignment when approached. As it turned out, Akilah was leading the operation. She was the only one he knew; he'd been the one to interview her before she rocketed up through the ranks. They were accompanied by two others named Sebarek Veros and Forse Dirum, neither of whom Dav knew much about. The shuttle they'd ridden in on was dingy but unmarked, and the pilots had been good enough to give them a smooth ride.

Dav was dressed fairly practically. His jacket was in his bag - an intentional "oversight" - but the rest of his clothing fit the windy, dusty planet well enough. Rough shirt and pants, and non-reflective sunglasses to block the sun's rays. Flying sand may well get stuck in the stubble of a beard and mustache, but better that than random gusts cutting his face open. They were met on the tarmac by a customs officer and announced as job seekers by the shuttle's copilot. Behind his glasses, the Field Agent took note of the officer's heavy blaster pistol and military-grade comlink. If the details there were true of the rest of the security forces, things were kept working and had recently been upgraded - the belt indicated a smaller comlink had been there until recently and the man's walk indicated he was still getting used to the heavier blaster.

Akilah's and Sebarek's idents passed easily, then it was Dav's turn. He carried two bags - one a messenger bag with a full-powered computer and some essentials, and the other containing more long-term items such as "keepsakes" and more clothes. As he offered his ID he spoke with a faint accent, learned years ago but recently refreshed. ::

"Gavin Rimarch, Operations."

"What kind of operations, Mr. Rimarch?"

"Wherever there's need. I can mine, program mining droids, transport or process ore, even manage any of those areas."

"Quite a resume. Why are you here instead of elsewhere then?"

"Last company I was with was trying asteroid operations. Didn't pan out and they went under. Now I'm here."

"Too bad, but our gain. Welcome to Zaloriis."

:: The pocket computer beeped acceptance of Gavin's identicard and the officer waved him past. One left. ::

**Forse Dirum** · 11-10-2014, 08:25 AM

Forse was the last to leave the shuttle. He was dressed differently than he ordinarily would be. He wore a long brown overcoat to protect him from the dust. He didn't wear his eyepatch, instead opting for highly reflective sunglasses, shielding his eyes from those around him. He was afraid that if he didn't wear something like this, he'd easily be picked out by someone in the know, blowing the op.

Forse hefted his bag over his shoulder and made his way out of the shuttle. Forse had volunteered for this op, and had found himself in odd company. He was the only soldier amongst the intel types that had gone ahead of him. Forse had been involved in HUMINT during his time with the Strategic Insertion Battalion, but it had been a while. But he found getting in the proper mindset to be an easy task.

Forse held up his identification card. It was doctored, of course, but Forse thought it'd work. Forse walked up to the customs officer. He noted his armament, and found him to be better suited for paramilitary work. Not customs.

"Solsn Biggs. Security." Forse says.

"What division?" The customs officer asks, suspiciously.

"Civilian Protection. With the mining operation expanding, you'll have to allocate more resources to keeping the civilians living outside the mine...contained." Forse said.

His doctored ID card listed him as a 10 year veteran of the Coruscant Security Force, recently discharged for excessive force when apprehending a violent offender. The Customs officer radio'd to his superior, and handed Forse the ID card back.

"Good to have you, Mr. Biggs. We don't typically get your sort of experience around here. My commander wants to see you first thing, tomorrow morning." The customs officer says.

Forse nods and shakes the man's hand, and begins following after his fellow operators. Things were going well so far, he thought. Forse was excited to begin the actual operation.

**Akilah** · 11-12-2014, 06:49 PM

Everyone's cover story now logged in the city's computer, Akilah walked away from the shuttle and once they cleared through the starport's main hub, the quartet found themselves in their hotel rooms. Placing her pack upon the table next to her com station, Akilah plopped into the chair and began hooking up her computer to the link and used the local servers to help her do the searching for additional information that they would need during the interviews and influencing. She had no intentions on leaving here empty handed as the empress wouldn't allow failure nor an opportunity to have a world like this as a resource.

A lot was riding on this mission and as she opened her computer, the senior operative allowed the decryption software within to hack into the mining company's main data core. Within minutes, she began surfing the bios of all the important individuals that she would have to keep an eye out for as well as who to line up first for a visit. Piggybacking on other advertisements and messages from other vendors, the Imperial agent soon had all she needed.

Time to get cleaned up and change, she mused as Akilah then unplugged her computer and moved into the bathroom.

**Sebarek Veros** · 11-13-2014, 09:31 AM

As they reached the hotel, Sebarek directly went to his room. He checked for bugs out of habit. It was funny how things got ingrained in you after enough time. The Operative wouldn't have thought he'd thrived as much with the Empire, but he did and it was a good feeling.

As he unpacked, his comlink beeped. Raising a brow, he checked the message. It was from the mining direction of human resources, who had heard about his arrival and was eager to meet with him. Of course, as his cover, he had sent a message explaining his upcoming trip before their departure, so it wasn't so surprising.

For sure, it was a good sign and with their different skill sets and cover, the quartet of imperials should be able to uncover more about the current messy situation. He continued his research for a moment, before calling the company and set up an appointment for the next morning.

**Dav Nirken** · 11-15-2014, 10:39 PM

:: Bugs - the listening devices, not the insects - were a way of life for intelligence services all across the galaxy, and had been for all of recorded history. They ranged from cleverly-hidden spy-holes to sophisticated microphones and transmitters, some almost microscopic in size. The low-tech ones were often times the most difficult to find, but ones that weren't on at the time of scanning were also difficult. Dav didn't even try. Audio-only listening devices were simple to block, something as little as music playing could distort the audio and make it difficult for listeners to figure anything out. Indeed, if need be, the Field Agent had a device that would put those having a conversation inside a bubble where no audio escaped; remove a circuit board from inside his computer - hooked up and running with power but not actually doing anything - and attach it to a power cell from a standard comlink, then a focal point, and they'd have half an hour unheard conversation.

There were other dangers though, like tapped network links and visual spying. Others might be able to watch them, or watch what happened on the computers. Those were both simple enough to bypass though, as both would run through the in-house network, and that didn't have nearly the security it needed. Hacking in took a matter of seconds, and minutes later the rooms were given a new level of VIP status on the network. Only authorized users could view the video and network feeds, and there were no such users authorized at that level. Better yet, the computer that controlled the groups didn't show such a group existed. To any network administrators, the four rooms wouldn't even show as using the network. Unfortunately, this would only hold for the existing equipment. New equipment added to their rooms would be separate, so he set up an alert for that unlikely eventuality.

A buzz on his room's comm raised his interest. There was nobody on the other end, just an indication that he had a message. Apparently, he had a meeting with the assistant chief of operations tomorrow, and would need to bring his computer and tools. A bit of digging revealed that one of the major duties of the ACoO was overseeing the mining droids. That meant it was time to dig up exactly what kinds of droids he would be dealing with and optimize for those. And that on top of the standard practice of getting into the company networks and figuring out who was what, and hopefully their views and vices. ::

**Forse Dirum** · 11-17-2014, 01:59 PM

Forse made his way into his room, and took off the silly sunglasses that he had on. Forse wasn't one for eyewear, as the addition of a sunlight filter caused him more problems with depth perception. He debated on doing without the sunglasses for the rest of the mission, but decided it wasn't worth jeopardizing the mission for a bit of comfort. He'd make it with what he had.

Forse looked at his comlink, and found he had a reminder from the Chief of Security for a meeting in the morning. Forse put his comlink down, and began unpacking. Forse found his black bodysuit that he wore under his stormtroooper armor, and stowed it away. He'd put that on if they found themselves in a combat situation. Forse pulled out an E-11 blaster rifle, and hid it in the closet. It wasn't his ideal choice of weapon, but it'd do for this operation. It was easy to conceal, which made it very useful.

Forse finally took a place in a chair next to the window. Forse opens it, and lights up a cigarra. He didn't have a lot to do for the moment until Akilah contacted him with further orders. For the time being, he smoked out of his window, and thought of different angles he could use to turn the security forces against their company. It wouldn't be too hard. He'd just have to convince them that it's in their best interests to stop oppressing the civilian population and turn their weapons on their bosses.

"Easy." Forse said to himself, blowing smoke out of the window.

**Akilah** · 11-21-2014, 06:35 PM

Before leaving her room, Akilah sent a coded message to each of the members of the team: - Going to make contact with the HR of ASR Mining and get my foot in the door. Work your angles and once we have something of note to work with, we'll get together. -

Sending it, she then turned off the comm unit and moved out of her room, heading toward the turbo lift and rode it down to the lobby. Busy, the hotel was getting a lot of families and individuals and as she moved through the bustling foot traffic and listened to their conversations, apparently ASR Mining had been putting out feelers for a lot of help. That alone told her that this company was looking to get rich as fast as they could, expanding their operations beyond the initial dig site. Food for thought.

*********
"Miss Samantha Crawford," the older woman behind the large desk read aloud, perusing Akilah's resume on her data pad. "Impressive," she grinned, glancing up momentarily before reading on. "We've been looking for someone with your experience and I think Toni's going to enjoy possibly having someone like you working with him." Blue eyes rose once again as she adjusted her gold rimmed glasses. "He's head of logistics here."

"Hope I get the chance to meet him," she smiled back, leaning forward on crossed arms, atop her left thigh.

Nodding, the head of Human Resources went back to reading the rest of the doctored resume. "I'll have to make a comm call here," she turned her attention to the comm panel attached to her desk, an older Imperial model that the agent recognized from one of the Kuat companies. The downside to the MC3 model was it's tendency to have problems with dual channels riding atop another, mixing conversations. Simple filters fixed that, but apparently this company hadn't gotten that memo yet as Akilah then heard another discussion going on in the background about a freighter company that one had called, then it cut out.

"Hey Cristine," the male on the other side replied.

"I have an applicant here that you may wish to talk to," she relayed. "She's in my office."

"Be right down then."

**Sebarek Veros** · 11-22-2014, 01:31 AM

Sebarek received Akilah's message and hoped that all of them would be able to work a solid angle before they could decide what to do next, and that it might not take forever. The situation at hand was tricky and close to implosion.

Having "nothing" to officially do until the next morning, the Operative decided to take a tour in the town, trying to get a feel of the situation here, not just through the eyes of the ones in charge. He kept his casual clothes and threw his coat on, before heading out.

The tour gave him room to observe a lot. He chose to spend time near schools and in some shopping areas, where families could be found. What he heard made it clear that a good chunk of workers seemed eager for money to be found to get more mining done, so the jobless rate would decrease. He found out more about how the local companies had been struggling for the past years and that they were barely self sustaining. Of course, the new riches might change that, but it would probably take much longer without an alliance with the Empire.

**Dav Nirken** · 11-23-2014, 06:11 PM

:: The message from Akilah was positive, essentially releasing each of them to do what they needed in order to get in, then they'd meet once that was the case. That prompted another quick search of the database - this hotel and most others in the area had several conference rooms, suitable for small- to medium-sized gatherings. Of course they were capable of being monitored, but the ones here in this hotel were run on the same system he'd just subverted.

Not feeling like staying in his room while doing this digging, Dav headed out. A quick stop at the front desk gave him the locations of a few well-regarded cafés nearby. One of them caught his attention for its creativity - rather than have the 'outside' tables open to the elements, where the sharp gusts of wind could literally send lighter chairs flying, they encased a portion in transparisteel. The winds were stopped dead, but an elaborate system of vents made it feel like they were sitting in an open-air cafe. Even better, the place had an open network...which he promptly used to get access to the employee-only network. He placed an order for some food and a drink, then settled in to work. Best of all, he wasn't the only one working on a computer or datapad in the location.

The company's network security was better than the hotel's, but that was to be expected. It took almost a half hour to get in, even with some of the best automated aids the Empire had developed. Now that he was in though, he could plant ways to make it simpler the next go-round. A trojan was planted, marked as exempt from security scans, then the dates changed so the exempt status was placed back when the latest of the company's servers had been installed. Likewise, he planted remote access for himself in the list of users with that level of clearance. Access was there for later, now to make use of the unmonitored access he had now. Essentially, this was prep time, so he simply went through and had lists made, then copied to his computer. The first list he grabbed was how many of what models mining droids the company was using. A list of department heads and their company dossier's were next, then the commonly-issued models of computers and comlinks. The last thing he did was upload the first section of a three-part worm, completely benign until the other two sections were also uploaded.

He'd been occupying the table for about two hours now and the wait staff were starting to eye him. Leaving a larger tip than local customs demanded, he settled his bill and left. A bar three streets down was his next stop, where he went about collating his data, mainly focusing on the list of droids. There were some new ones on here, but there were a lot of older ones. Though it may be hiring like mad, the company needed hard credits to buy mining droids, credits they didn't have yet. They were activating all the old droids they had in storage and buying any they could get their hands on. It was an eclectic mix. Luckily, mining droid programming was piecemeal; the strictures, sensor inflow, user input, all of it was handled separately then fed together into the main kernel. The operating system ran it all, and the company was using an older one. At that point, a holonews broadcast above the bar caught his eye. It showed a mining droid suddenly turning and eating a transport droid, then an explosives droid. The explosives detonated, doing significant damage to the mining droid and surrounding terrain. The headline was that five workers had been killed and another twenty-three injured in yet another mining droid mishap. No wonder they were so eager to get him an interview; workers would be wary of the droids, and that meant mining would slow, and that meant profit would go down. ::

**Forse Dirum** · 12-01-2014, 01:47 PM

The rest of the day passed in relative calm for Forse. He had decided to go ahead and make his way down to the Security station where he would meet the Chief the following day. Forse threw on his overcoat and made his way out of the hotel and into the street, enjoying a leisurely stroll, smoking a cigarra as he went.

Forse eventually found the one-story duracrete building that served as the Security HQ. It was well defended by a twin set of turrets, which were currently unmanned on the roof of the building. It was surrounded by a huge fence, topped with razorwire. Forse walked by it, making note of its construction, when he was stopped by an officer.

"Give me your identification." The officer says, holding a weapon on Forse.

Forse's right arm twitched as he fought the urge to disarm the man. There would be time enough for that later.

"Certainly." Forse says, handing over his fake ID.

"Mr. Biggs. You're here early." The officer says with a smile, handing the card back to Forse.

"Yeah. I decided to come and take a look at the place before I came for the meeting tomorrow. I can't stand to be cooped up in my hotel room for very long." Forse says.

"I hear that. Do you want to come inside? I can introduce you to some of the guys." The officer offers.

"Depends. Can you smoke inside?" Forse asks with a smile.

The younger officer walked Forse through the duracrete structure, showing him around the different rooms and introducing him to his friends. Evidently, the men there were excited to have someone with Coruscant Security Force experience. The locals had been getting more violent as of late, and the Mining Company was refusing to spend any extra money on security. In response, the security officers had been forced to resort to increasingly violent methods in order to curb the violence, which did nothing to decrease the resentment building amongst civilians and workers alike.

The whole situation taught Forse many things. First of all, the officers were unexperienced for the most part, and were also scared. They acted rashly because it was their gut instinct when under pressure. A sufficient enough uprising would cause the Security Forces to crumble, as the underpaid security officers weren't willing to sacrifice their lives for the company they worked for.

The whole mess was a powder keg, waiting to be lit by the slightest spark.

Forse made his way back to his hotel room, and settled in for the night. The next day, he would meet the security chief. As he laid in bed, he amused himself by committing the blueprint of the Security HQ to memory, which he had recorded on a datapad as he was walked through the entirety of it.

**Akilah** · 12-02-2014, 02:36 PM

Walking through the main hallway, Akilah was escorted into the sales office and toward his desk, Toni being an older, thin and somewhat frail looking individual. She was sure that he either smoked too much or was a drug addict, though that was her first impression of the man. "I've been working a lot of overtime lately trying to get some new vendors onboard for mining equipment, protective gear and a host of other things," he explained and sat down at his cluttered desk as she claimed a chair nearby. "It'll be good to have someone to share that load with finally."

Smiling she nodded. "Been getting a lot of work then, I take it."

"Yeah," he glanced to the host of notes on small flimsiplast, stuck to the border of his older computer monitor and across the interior of his cubicle. "The contractor's been keeping us busy with new orders for equipment. He's working with several geologists that have them working like mad too. Can't believe they found such a large vein. CEO's got HR hiring like crazy to get people in here to help out. It's like none of us can work fast enough to get everything they need in the mine."

"I can glance over your vendor list and see if maybe I know some people in the same field that might be able to help out then." He handed a list to her and she perused it, noticing that most of the contractors that the company used were all independent and smaller, which meant that they were looking to keep things cheap and under the noses of the larger corporations which could also pose another issue for them. "Most of these local?"

"A lot of them, yeah. Quicker turn around time and shorter transportation distance. Only makes sense, right?"

Akilah nodded, "If you trust their quality, yeah, definitely."

Toni chuckled, "Think the CEO's getting some kickbacks, but you didn't hear that from me. Think the mining droid company's owned by his cousin or something."

"Hmm," she remained nonchalant and did her best to memorize most of the companies on the list, then handed it back to him. "Well, I guess the best thing about it, everyone's benefiting in some way. We have a job."

**Sebarek Veros** · 12-03-2014, 03:30 AM

Upon returning to the hotel, Sebarek didn't know whether Akilah would like them to be in touch or not. So he sent her a simple acknowledgement that he had been snooping around the town and gave brief description of the general unease, especially from families, for what he had gathered. He'd have more to say after the next day. He hoped so at least.

He caught some sleep, since he had his meeting on the next morning with the HR department.

***

He presented himself at the mining company ten minutes before his appointment and waited to be led to the office of the HR representative. The person he met seemed surprised that he would be interested in working for them in such a heated time. She admitted that many people were likely to be laid off and that dealing with strikes was heavy.

"I dealt with similar situations before. They are draining but this is part of human resources work, isn't it?"

The lady shrugged. "Not every department like us face strikes borderline riots, sir." Sebarek looked at her. "Both us and security have a role to play in this. The more you can tell me, should I be hired, the better."

**Dav Nirken** · 12-08-2014, 03:02 AM

:: After a night's sleep, Dav headed out to his appointment with the assistant chief of operations. He wore slightly-nicer clothing and carried his messenger bag with him. With the longer strap tucked away and it being carried by its handle, it looked close enough to a briefcase that he wasn't given a second look. The assistant announced him, and directed him into the workshop where ACoO Giriz Varik waited for him. ::

"Good morning, Mr. Rimarch. Ready to get started?"

"Indeed."

"You'll be putting together programming for this simulator of an MEMD-2. Once you upload it, that's it. The computer will then assess the program."

"Understood. Do you have a set of specifications?"

:: Instead of answering verbally, Varik held out a memory chip. Rather than inserting it into his computer with all the sensitive information, Dav put it in his datapad and pulled up the relevant specs. From there, he pieced together several blocks of code to form most of the program, inserting special functions to incorporate the materials given to him in the file, areas of operation, and - most importantly - the ability to update these and other variables by way of the DataLink Transceiver. After a short pause, the droid would resume work with updated protocols. Keeping in mind the recent incidents regarding the droids, several safety functions were built in as well.

With all errors fixed and the program compiled, Dav glanced around for a transfer cable. Not finding one lying around, he pulled an adapter out of his bag, one designed by far more capable techs in Intelligence to look home-built. On one end was a connection that was fairly universal, the other had a dozen cards that would fit into commonly-used slots for mining droids. With one last line of input, he sent the compiled program over to the simulator device. What he'd just created was a basic program to run the mining droids, a program that could be updated at any time with the right input. Sure it was designed for this particular droid in mind, but if the company wanted it they could pay for it. ::

"Good enough. Computer caught a few times when the program didn't pass given tests, but the particular ones flagged are ones that aren't likely to happen given other failsafes in place."

"So I passed? I've got a job?"

"Not quite yet. It's a good start, but I heard you were capable of managing. I want to see how you'll do as a line manager, overseeing a group of these and other droids."

:: Line manager was, effectively, in charge of a section of the mine. It could be a cruddy job, sitting in a speeder a kilometer away from the droids and watching progress, but it also dealt with any mishaps. Organizing the droids - explosives units, mining droids, transport carts, and everything else would get him a position inside and give him enough time to put together further problems, triggers that the others could use to help push the ruling groups into working with the Empire. ::

Announcement

Edge Of Revolution [Sebarek, Dav, Forse]

Edge Of Revolution [Sebarek, Dav, Forse]

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment