Coruscant Gauntlet [Open]

[Corruck Kazen]

"Three knocks, two knocks, three knocks." Corruck thought to himself, before replying, "Yah, you should take a break. Well will I be able to find him easily or are there specific instructions on how to meet?" He didn't know about much in this area. He just wanted to be sure as to what to expect and how to find this guy.

[member="Alec Rekali"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Corruck Kazen"]

"Here, I'll write it down for ya."

She put some basic directions on a scrap of flimsiplast.

"Remember, now -- he won't want to let you access his terminal. That sucker's his lifeblood. You'll either have to pay through the nose, sneak like mad, use some leverage or pull a play. Your call."

 

[Corruck Kazen]

"Thanks." Corruck replied, he turned to leave. He stopped for a moment, almost telling [member="Alec Rekali"] to take care of herself, but he decided against it. She had the experiance and she knew what she was doing far more than he was.

Within ten minutes he had made his way to the contact's meeting area. Corruck had tried to appear as nonchalant as possible, avoiding running or walking too slowly, making sure to not appear furtive but neither overconfident. When he reached Duke's place he knocked, making sure to keep his hand from simply banging on the door. He would keep a calm demeanor, at least to appear very settled and used to this sort of business.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Corruck Kazen"]

While Kazen was off on his errand, Alec busied herself with tidying the ship, making a couple of private calls, and otherwise doing the things one did while one's guest was elsewhere.

 

[Corruck Kazen]

(I assume you want me to go ahead and RP Duke as well. If I am incorrect let me know and I'll gladly edit my post.)

Corruck stood outside for a minute before the door slightly opened. A man's face made a quick look around the door, before opening it fully. "Who are you? What do you want?"

Corruck let himself relax a little before responding, trying to give the impression that he was very sure of himself here and very comfortable. He was neither. "My name is Core, I am here to do business. That is if you are still in the market for information brokering."

The man looked suspicious for the moment before responding, "You sure you came to the right place? You might be looking for someone else."

Corruck let a grim smile cross his face. "I was given directions here from an associate, who said that you may have a terminal in your possession that may have access to deep historical data and other such difficult things to get to."

The man, Corruck was fairly certain now was Duke, seemed to think for a moment. He seemed unsure of how he should answer, if it would be better to continue not being helpful or to take the chance. A knife's edge, Corruck had worked with situations like these before. He knew that it only took a little tap to tip the scale in his favor. "I require some information, some rather ancient information. The kind of historical data that would be pretty deeply buried in a library system, or the information system in Coruscant's main computer. For this information I am willing to pay quite a price."

Apparently the mention of Coruscant's main computer was not the correct thing to mention. The man seemed to change his stance to one who felt hunted. Then the mention of money and he brightened up. Obviously not enough to completely accept the offer, as he asked, "That is a pretty big job. I would expect that would be a pretty credit for that kind of work. How much ya willing to pay?"

Corruck had planned for that kind of response. "Oh, something along the lines of one hundred thousand credits. I have the money prepared for sending when I next get the chance. But I understand that such work is quite expensive, perhaps I should try to find another broker. There may be better deals out there."

Duke quickly replied, "Whoa now, let's not be hasty. I think that kind of money would do fine. What exactly are you looking for." He had responded too quickly to keep the professional air about him. Corruck knew he had the man now. Corruck bet he would soon be allowed into the man's room, if only to remove them from possibly prying eyes.

"Historical data, of little importance on its own. But I require it for some projects I intend to complete in the future." Corruck's bet paid off, Duke stood aside and gestured Corruck to come in. Corruck kept his walk trim and neat, especially now that he was in this place. The room seemed in good condition overall, but it wasn't incredibly well kept, there were some datapads here, some clothes there, and other such. Obviously the money offer was a little too much to pass off without least trying to get the needed information. Corruck had no intention of doing any of the work, especially when he could easily pay a more adept person to do it more efficiently.

Corruck looked around the room for a moment before asking, "Would you mind if I made a call before we got down to business?"

While Duke seemed nervous still at the possibility of being a trap, he nodded his approval while he went to set up his terminal.

Corruck activated his comm and set it to [member="Alec Rekali"] 's frequency. He sent a short message, "Alex, just thought you should know. I have met with your friend and have begun talking with him. If anything comes up I'll give you a call. If you have anything to tell me about, give me a call. Thanks, bye."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Corruck Kazen"]'s comm woke her from an impromptu nap. She slapped the comm panel by instinct, before she was fully awake again. Awake enough, though, to notice that he'd gotten her fake name right. "Alright, thanks," she said, before she realized that it had just been a message and that she wasn't, in fact, transmitting back. Groggily, she slouched back down in the pilot's seat and adjusted the brim of her hat over her eyes. Once more, a gentle snore percolated through the Role Model.

 

[Corruck Kazen]

Duke seemed a little more nervous after the holocall. He seemed to still have the idea that this may be a trap. "So, you ready to tell me what this data is? I can only work so much on 'historical' as a key word."

Corruck smiled, this man was trying to put on the appearance of not caring, but he could see straight through it. "I am looking for Pre-Clone Wars, Clone wars, and Post Clone Wars information. Names, events, places, and especially timelines. Is that too much?"

At first it seemed to be a long list of very difficult things to collect. Then as Duke ran the list through his mind, he realized that actually what this man was asking for was only difficult to obtain because it was buried, not because it was illegal. This guy, whoever he was, only wanted information that would take a few days, maybe hours, to find in a library. That brought up the question of why he did not simply go to a library and find the information. Two answers immediately came to mind, either this man wanted to avoid public areas, or he didn't have much time with which to accomplish the searches and collect the data.

"Is that it? That could be done easily just about anywhere. Though you chose the right man to come to if you wanted it done fast." Duke tried to make it sound like he was an expert in this field.

Corruck wasn't buying it. "Good, I would also like as much in detail information as possible. As much data as possible. I have a datapad with extended memory space in case you need it." Corruck let only a small amount of relief enter his voice. He handed the normal looking datapad to the infochant.

At first Duke was tempted to look over the datapad, it didn't look like it had any extra additions that would increase memory space. However, he forced himself to look professional, he held it carefully as he left the room saying, "Alright then. I'll have your info in ten minutes, twenty max."

------------------------------------------

It turned out to be much longer than ten minutes, or even twenty minutes. A whole hour had gone by with Corruck being left in Duke's main living room. He had tried to go to the room where the terminal was, but Duke had insisted that for security reasons that Corruck couldn't see it or the room. After all it was his life. So Corruck had waited, and waited... and waited. He was already half way through his seventh mental Dejarik game by the time Duke returned with the datapad.

"Well here you are." He handed the small device back to Corruck.

Corruck grasped the device quietly, giving Duke a minute stern look.

Duke seemed to be offended, "Look I tried my hardest buddy! You're lucky I got as much data as I did. It isn't easy to download the entire information on Late Pre-Clone Wars all the way to Late Post-Clone Wars!"

"I can understand the difficulty, however the timing was a little bit longer than you had originally led me to believe."

Duke started, he looked around wildly for something before he looked to his wrist. He checked the timeband there and then looked up a little embarrassed. "Oh... Sorry, about that. I tend to lose track of time when I'm working. Tell you what, I'll..."

Corrck cut him off, "Don't bother. You will be paid in full. I have the transactions set up on this datapad, you will be able to draw one hundred thousand credits from one of my lesser back accounts, anonymously. I might consider expanding that limit, if you are willing to collect similar information in the future." Corruck was fairly certain that such an offer would be lightly dismissed.

He was surprised however when Duke replied, "I'll think on it. No promises. This better come through..." He started mumbling a little as if his thoughts had switched as suddenly as the terminal he used.

Corruck passed a datapad to Duke and then turned and walked out the door. He made sure that Duke was not following, and after he had placed about 30 meters between him and the place he activated his comm. "Alex, I have finished my work here. Sorry about the time, didn't think it would take that long. Is there any news that I should be worried about?" He preferred to be safe rather than sorry.

[member="Alec Rekali"]

(Sincerest apologies, I meant to post this one later yesterday. I lost track of time and never got around to it. Truly sorry.)

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Corruck Kazen"]

Alec snorted herself awake and ambled back to the cockpit, adjusting her headset comm. "Had a customs patrol take a look at us, but there's nothing to see. Got the new cargo coming by, a bunch of emigrants. They should be loaded before you're back."

 

[Corruck Kazen]

"Alright, take care," he spoke into his comm right before he turned it off and continued walking. He heard someone running towards him from behind. Corruck twisted around with his blaster pistol almost out of his pocket, one knee to the ground he was in an accurate shooting position if what he had heard turned out to be an enemy. He waited for a moment, then he saw a figure running up the street towards him. His surprise was evident as he found it was Duke. He slipped the pistol back in his pocket and picked himself up.

Duke came to a halt in front of Corruck panting. Corruck spoke first, "What are you doing?"

After a moment, Duke was breathing normally and he replied, "I must have missed some data from the history you wanted, I downloaded the rest onto this datapad." He held up a regular datapad. "Thanks by the way for the money, everything seems to check out." Duke gave a weak smile as he passed the datapad over to Corruck and turned to leave.

Corruck smiled knowingly at Duke's back as he said, "Thank you. My offer still stands." Duke shrugged as he walked away.

Corruck activated the datapad and gave a quick look at some of the dates and figures within its memory. He activated his own datapad and found that the information was missing. If one hadn't known better they would say that Duke had missed some of the data by accident. However, Corruck was more intelligent than that, he knew the trick. If a slicer or infochant questioned a customer's payment method, they would only give part of the information. That way if the pay turned out not to come through, the customer would not have everything they had wanted. Duke had probably been unsure of the credit transfers that Corruck had set up and so he had only given parts of the information and left out others. When he found the money to be good, he was kind enough to have returned all the information. that was unusually generous of an infochant, but Corruck did not question it.

----------------------------------------------

Twenty minutes later, Corruck had returned to the ship. He had spent more time walking and reading through the history. It proved that it was just as interesting as he had expected. This information would be truly helpful, and hopefully useful.

He knocked on the Role Model's entrance door, three knocks, two knocks, followed by three knocks. He waited patiently, intent on the datapad he was holding. This data would make an amazing story...

[member="Alec Rekali"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Corruck Kazen"] would find the hold full of resistance fighters' families, emigrating off the record. The ship was in the late stages of preflight, Alec firmly ensconced in the cockpit. "Hey there," she said over her shoulder. "Glad you got what you're after, 'cause I just got a call. We've got a very narrow window coming up, for getting past customs and all. Buckle in, up here or back in the hold with the kids -- your call."

 

[Corruck Kazen]

Corruck walked in, taking only quick glances at the families preparing themselves for space flight. He made his way directly to the cockpit. He came in quietly, buckling himself securely in. "So more passengers. Where are these ones heading?"

He could guess that they were being moved to either a Republic owned world or to some obscure Outer Rim planet. Either way to escape the One Sith, was his guess. He was willing to bet on it however, as the galaxy had become an increasingly strange place towards the Core Worlds and he wasn't sure as to what people wanted anymore.

[member="Alec Rekali"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Corruck Kazen"]

"Somewhere safe. The Underground's picked out a spot. I'm fuzzy on their final destination; they don't know it either. Compartmentalization of information -- if we're caught, we can't spill what we don't know." The Role Model slipped out of dock and began ascending through the jagged levels of the Coruscant undercity, towards the surface and clear skies. "One of the better parts of working for the Underground -- they only take risks for themselves. I never have to worry that they've risked me without my say-so. They're pros."

 

[Corruck Kazen]

"So far as compartmentalization says so," he thought.

Corruck had tried such a tactic back when he was part of underworld crime syndicates. On paper and most circumstances compartmentalization turned out to be quite effective, however it was also often used against employees to avoid telling them such details as one way trips... One of the many reasons he had left was a superior had elected to ignore notifying Corruck of his lack of an exfil strategy. He had gone in, taken out a few people, collected the equipment that his people had needed and then waited for pick up. A shuttle arrived, collecting the supplies and leaving Corruck behind at gun point.

He doubted that was a good example for most organizations using compartmentalization, however it still left him scarred and he wished to avoid it as much as possible. If for no other reason than he didn't like to be left in the dark about plans that would affect him in the future.

Pulling his thoughts back to the current situation, Corruck spoke, "We you be dropping them off first or me?"

[member="Alec Rekali"]