Private Recovery

[Callista Volpe]

C R I M E S C E N E​

"I'm from the insurance firm."

"Insurance firm?" the officer asked, frowning. She looked entirely unconvinced that the woman with bright blue hair who had stubbed out a cigarette on the doorway of a crime scene had any place being there. "You can do your cost evaluations after we're done."

"Argus insurance, recovery division." Callista handed over a shining business card. One corner was slightly embossed. When touched the holographic logo was projected to confirm its authenticity. "Call the company if you want. I'm to be given full access."

For a moment the officer looked as if she would protest, but she gave a loose shrug and sighed. "Above my karking pay grade. Just don't expect any of my resources, I'm sure you have enough of your own."

Callista wished that was the case. This was early stages. The firm didn't want to spend too many credits yet. There was a simple question to answer that would go into some spreadsheet passed to an executive: how much will it cost to track down and recover the stolen assets?

Compare that number and its error margins to the cost of insurance pay out and a decision would be made. In this case a gang had hit a research lab of a weapons development firm. The insurance pay out was going to be phenomenal, so if there was even a chance of hunting down the stolen prototypes and data tapes it would seem attractive.

"Kaydee!" Callista called over her shoulder. The droid bobbed through the door. In passive/scan mode its torus-shaped body was on its side. It started scanning the scene.

"Eight security droids, four auto-blasting turrets, type 6 blast-doors and an emergency alarm that they neutralised before the hit," Callista muttered as she stepped into the chaos. There were labs isolated by thick plastiglass, ceramic walls for testing weapons and several storage areas. They had been cleaned out. All prototypes taken, all computers destroyed. There would be backups, but the IP on those disks could be sold for a fortune, hitting the company's profits in the long term.

"What's with the bounty hunters outside?" Callista asked. There had been a small crowd of them lingering close to the news reporters that had turned up.

"Word is this was a Crimson Reaver job. Famous swoop gang. Lots of credits on those bounties," replied the officer.

"Keep them outside, they can't be in the way of my work."

"Your work..."

"Yeah, would be good to get your officers out of the way too," Callista said with a shrug. She had never been a 'people person'.

Iris Arani
Mevi

 

[Mevi]

Bounties were a Mandalorians best friend. Competition wasn't. An annoyed sigh escaped from underneath Mevi's helmet as she arrived to the scene. She'd been hunting the Crimson Reavers for a while now. Mostly dead ends. For a swoop gang they were good at hiding their higher ups. Loyal, too. She could respect it, even if it made her job a living hell to try and bring in the gang's leaders.

And now she had to deal with a crowd. Well, the crowd had to deal with her. Rumor was a protoweapon facility had been hit, which meant plenty of credits. Not just for getting the Reavers, but the tech? Every twobit fresh faced bounty hunter had showed up, waiting to get inside and start their own tracking of the Reavers. Mevi though? She didn't bother waiting.

That was the advantage of being Karjr. Priority. Not even the officers stopped her as she stepped past them. Well, one was about to but another she recognized stopped them and shook their head. The Enclave had made quite the name for themselves, and with it, Mandalorians like Mevi could get a lot of things. The crowd behind her all started to grumble, but she ignored them.

"Yeah, would be good to get your officers out of the way too,"

Under her helmet the Zabrak raised a brow. She'd just stepped inside. Just in time to see another officer she knew grumble and start to head out. Only to blink once she realized the familiar armor. ".. That serious?"

"Some of the weapons are pretty explosive, and I don't mean what they fire." That was the other thing. Experimental weaponry was fine and all, but when misuse could cause them to detonate panic was pretty quick to spread. The officer just nodded. "Way too far above my pay grade. Good luck." Mevi's brow raised farther. The cop wasn't talking about the hunt.

The armored figure stepped in further, leaning against the nearby wall to watch Callista Volpe . Was that the one the cop was wishing her luck about? From the earlier comment she'd overheard, maybe. "You're not a bounty hunter. Or a cop. We gonna have problems?"

 

[Callista Volpe]

"Problems? Only if you clomp on all over the evidence."

Callista barely looked at the mandalorian. Kaydee was busy scanning, an arc of light scanning up and down one of the damaged secure doors. She was soaking in the scene, looking for a mistake.

"What the feth are doing in my crime scene?" Callista asked.

The officer, who hadn't quite left yet, stopped and turned back towards them. "My crime scene."

That took the edge off of Callista's irritation. She gave a slow nod and wagged a finger at the offer. "Yes, her crime scene, why aren't you sniffing around outside with the other dogs?"

 

[Mevi]

Mevi raised her hands in some soft surrender. She knew better than to trample over someone else's work. The only problem she foresaw was if Callista Volpe was some corporate lackey. Didn't seem to be the case, thankfully. Or maybe not so thankfully. Attitude was attitude. Either someone cocky who didn't deserve to be, or did. Time would tell. The helmet stopped her laugh from echoing in the room as the officer mentioned just who's crime scene it was.

"Better paid, my guess. I'm just here to make sure whatever was stolen doesn't make a hole in the city." And collect bounties, but that didn't matter as much. "Consider me the strong arm of the law. What about you? You're not corporate."

 

[Callista Volpe]

Better paid or better at paying out? She thought to herself. It wasn't beyond the realm of imagination for a regional governor to put down credits on another professional. Cheaper in the long run to rely on contractors than to keep a dedicated team running.

"Corporate?" She asked, trying to keep a straight face and failing. "I'm in insurance."

Spotting something of interest, Callista took a few steps away for a closer look. She dropped into a squat next to a blaster pistol that had tumbled under a counter. There were scorch marks all around this section of the room. Autoblaster fire that had gone on for too long.

"The trigger guard is common for a Gran or another species with hands of that size. They took the body. This was clean. Cameras sliced, droid guards finished in a few shots. But that turret caught them off guard and brought at least one of them down. Any ideas tin can?"

 

[Mevi]

"Insider knowledge." Mevi pushed off her little perch to get closer to the blaster, looking it over curiously. Larger folk. Not an easy body to remove with all the weapons. The Zabrak didn't linger long though, instead turning her gaze towards the door used to get in here. Sure enough, it wasn't blown open. Not like the safe. "Someone high enough to get them inside, but not high enough for the vault. They knew where the cameras and the droids were. Turret a new addition or just not common knowledge?"

Half musing aloud and half actually discussing things with Callista Volpe the Mandalorian stepped over to the turret in question. Lots of returned fire, but most missed. Panicked for sure.

Though the shot that took out the turret looked.. Odd. "You know what kind of prototypes were stored?"

 

[Callista Volpe]

"Good question on whether the turret is new. Fine, you're not going to be completely useless."

It saved her a holocall. The tech company had hooks into all tiers of local government here. There would have been a good chance they could have had the tin can dog called off.

Right now, however, she was better to bounce ideas off of than her droid.

"Kaydee request the employee logs. Looking for a disgruntled employee who left before the turrets were last configured."

The droid gave a soft whistle of acknowledgement. With its holoprojector it brought a blue ghost to life before Callista. Other formless raiders appeared before Kaydee started running some simulations. Blaster fire moved around Callista in slow motion, striking the marks on the floor and where the droids had been standing. Each run was brief, just a handful of seconds to deal with the security.

"Novel weapons," she explained, giving away about as much as the Corp had disclosed to her. "Small arms through to light platforms."

 

[Mevi]

Fingerguns. Which Mevi nearly immediately regretted, but she rolled with it anyway. She'd lower her hands after a moment, her gaze shifting to the holoprojector and the display of the robbery gone south. They really were on the inside. That much the Mandalorian picked up on with how clean it'd been. At first, at least. "The fact they only lost one to the turret says a lot. Or, more likely, a couple got clipped but could keep moving. They steal the weapons- Hold up. There a counter for how many times the turret fired before it was taken out by chance?"

She was already letting her visor light up any shots from the turret itself. Counting. Looking for any discrepancies.

"If some did get hit, I bet they went to the local Sawbones. Might not find the missing weapons, but could be a lead." One she could've kept to herself. Maybe should have, but help well, helped.

"The Spider's close by. Could check him out."

Callista Volpe

 

[Callista Volpe]

"The Spider, that sounds like a perfectly legitimate medical practise," Callista muttered. She turned to look at the mandalorian, giving some consideration to the approach.

Callista tried to pretend she didn't notice the finger guns but she smiled out of the corner of her mouth as she turned around.

"We have a team monitoring traffic to look for any unlivensed departures," Callista said. There would be many such vessels but scans, travel data and AI algorithms would find any worth following. There was nothing she could do to help there. The sawbones was a frustratingly good call.

"Fine," she admitted, "and seeing as you don't seem like the quiet questions type you can take the lead. Kaydee, intimidation mode."

The droid tilted up 90 degrees and opened its central section which revealed a small rotating autoblaster.

 

[Mevi]

"The name's a good mix of reasons. You'll see." Mevi didn't explain much more to Callista Volpe , if only cause of the woman's seeming reluctance towards admitting the idea was a good one. The armored Mandalorian thankfully could hide the cocky smirk behind her helmet. Though, Kaydee's intimidation mode had her nearly in stitches. Barely able to contain her laughter she turned to leave and lead the way towards The Spider's clinic.

Which, to it's credit, was an actual clinic.

"Oi, Spider. You got questions to answer." The Mandalorian brazenly stepped through the front doors and even into the back, seemingly uncaring of the employees only sign hanging off the double doors. Inside, a white furred Harch. The Spider. All six arms were at work, neatly stitching up a wound of someone who looked less than pleased with the interruption. The thug winced as he tried to sit up, but before he could say a thing the Spider reached down to shush him.

"Mevi. Tchtchtchtch. What do I owe the intrusion?" The Spider didn't look over his shoulder, instead continuing his work on the uncomfortable looking Mirialan eyeing the fully armored Mando.

"Depends. You help anyone recently from the uh.." Oh, right. Mevi glanced back to the other woman. "What's the crews name again?"

 

[Callista Volpe]

It was irksome to have the bounty hunter she had dismissed as a sniffer dog turn out to be both sharp and carrying local knowledge.

Callista wasn't above admitting when she had made a mistake. She would readily do so. If forced. Forced persistently and threatened with dismissal if she didn't apologise. That sort of 'readily'.

"They're called the Crimson Reavers," Callista announced. She had put on an armorweave vest beneath the loosely fitting shirt she wore. It wasn't beskar, but it could save her life if they ended up closer to the Crimson Reaver's heels than expected.

This time the spider glanced over his shoulder. The Reavers attracted a bounty for a reason. They had spring up as a small swoop gang, but had rapidly expanded. They had been drawing in funding from multiple lines, anything from petty theft, moving drugs and slaves to serious corporate sabotage.