Public The Day After Life Day

[Alex StormWolf]

Alex piloted the Shadow Runner around the backside of the level 112 landing platform and slowed to a hover, searching for one of the service access pathways. Finding what he was looking for, Alex slid the freighter towards the access. The entrance was covered in all sorts of warnings about unauthorized entry in varying degrees of unfriendly type fonts.

"I would advise going out the top exit, unless you're feeling really adventurous and want to risk a jump from the boarding ramp."

"Last I checked, I didn't have wings, so I'll opt for the top hatch. C'mon Nalah, let's see if we can get you inside."

Nalah Tezan

 

[Nalah Tezan]

"Yeah, nothing like jumping off a freighter to help you shake off a hangover." Nalah was feeling...unsure in her legs today, she'd been fine for a stroll to the lobby and a jaunt across town, but acrobatics just didn't seem in the cards today. "Well, at least if I fall a few thousand stories being arrested will be the least of my worries."

Nalah followed Seku out onto the roof of the Shadow Runner, trying her best to stay balanced in the cold morning air and rushing wind, as she inched toward the edge to jump onto the access zone. The Zygerrian took a deep breath, steadied her nerves, and threw herself out toward platform as far as she could. She managed, narrowly, to stick the landing on the edge of the platform, but before she could start to feel good about her decisions today, she started to wobble backwards.

"Oh no, kriff, KRIFF!"

Alex StormWolf

 

[Alex StormWolf]

"Oh, KRIFF NO!..."

Seeing that Nalah was in danger of tumbling backwards off the platform, Seku took a running leap off the roof of the Shadow Runner. As she dove towards the platform, she tackled Nalah from behind, the forward momentum propelling both of them in the direction they needed to go instead of plummeting to their deaths hundreds, if not thousands of meters below.

"Ok, this is getting a little more complicated than I was expecting," Seku said, slowly getting to her feet and offering Nalah a hand up.

"You all right over there," Alex asked over the comlink.

"Oh, just fine....nothing like diving off a freighter to save your new friend first thing in the morning to get the blood pumping," Seku answered.

Nalah Tezan

 

[Nalah Tezan]

Nalah felt gravity take a firm grip on her as she slipped back, only for a firmer, warmer grip to suddenly form around her waist as she was dragged forward and planted on the ground on the far side of the access walk, tangled up with Seku. She was glad, extremely glad, for the Twi'lek to have jumped in and rescued her fine backside from the burner.

"Not one of my smoother landings, thanks Blue." Nalah grumbled a bit as she took the offered hand and hauled herself to her feet. The access door, and the corridor to her ship, were just in front of them, they just needed to get through the door controls. Nalah had a simple solution to this problem, she just kicked the door controls as hard as she could to break off the console, causing the door to slide open.

"Now let's get to my damn ship."

Alex StormWolf

 

[Alex StormWolf]

Seku couldn't help but grin at Nalah's solution to defeating the door controls. She'd have to remember it the next time the codebreaker she habitually carried in her field pack while on covert ops decided it wasn't going to do its job in a timely manner. It probably wasn't the most efficient or stealthy solution, but it was a solution nonetheless.

"Which one in here is your ship anyhow," Seku asked, noticing that nearly every bay in the landing platform was occupied.

Nalah Tezan

 

[Nalah Tezan]

It wasn't a pretty solution, but it was an effective one, as most basic security systems were designed to default to open, in case someone needed to escape from a damaged building in a hurry. Or in this case, break into a building in a hurry, which Nalah gladly did, racing into the building once the doors were open to try and find her ship.

"I'm flying the SoroSuub 3000 Yacht, blue accents, its-" She spotted the vessel sitting on the lower platform where she left it, but the ramp was sitting open, and Teddy was nowhere to be found. "We gotta find Teddy first, I'm not gonna get very far without my maintenance droid."

A cursory look over the hangar would reveal Teddy was hooked up to the control panel next to the primary entrance, desperately keeping the doors locked while some very angry sounding men pounded on the door and shouted legal-ese about trade laws and search warrants, none of which sounded good.

"We gotta lock that door down, ASAP."

Alex StormWolf

 

[Alex StormWolf]

Seku did a double take when Nalah mentioned that the SoroSuub 3000 Yacht with the blue accents was her ship. She had seen the ship coming in for a landing the previous evening, well before the drinking and the debauchery started.

"That's your ride? Pretty sweet!"

Seku wanted to ask Nalah more about her ship, but the sound of angry men pounding at the main entrance and Nalah informing her that the door needed to be locked down ASAP, immediately put that notion to rest.

"What if your droid switched the door's manual override codes to something completely random, and set it on a infinite loop in the door's programming itself," Seku said, pondering the available options.

Nalah Tezan

 

[Nalah Tezan]

"Yeah, The Angel is a great ship. Shame for it to end up in impound." Nalah would normally have been glad to give Seku the grand tour and a detailed breakdown of her luxury vessel, but at the moment she had bigger concerns. Thankfully, Seku's SIA training kicked right on in, and she offered up the best suggestion Nalah could think of to escape this situation.

"Y-Yeah, yeah, that might work!" Nalah ran over to her T3 unit and pat the disc-headed droid on the dome. "Can you try to randomly reset the door codes?"

The droid chirped in response, but it wasn't an affirmative.

"Customs Override codes, right, a scramble won't last long..." She pondered for a moment, before coming up with a potentially risky maneuver. "Scramble the access logs for that control panel, then run the randomization, we'll be right back."

With that, Nalah sprinted over to her ship as fast as her admittedly sore legs could carry her, grabbing Seku along the way and planning to drag the Twi'lek if she had to. They were all going to get out of here, but it was going to be a close shave.

Alex StormWolf

 

[Alex StormWolf]

Seku had to sprint in order to keep up when Nalah grabbed her by the arm, and all but dragged her towards The Angel.

"Whoa...take it easy here! I'm fast, but not that fast, especially the morning after a night of partying til I pass out," she protested.

Nalah Tezan

 

[Nalah Tezan]

"You don't have to be fast, I just need a copilot to help me fire up the Angel before we fly the frak out of here!" Nalah ran into her ship as fast as her legs, and Seku's legs, would carry them, and leaped to the pilot's control panel where she gestured to the empty co pilot's chair next to her.

"I need you to help me get this pretty bird airborne." Her hands flew across the controls, firing up reactors, engines, repulsors, but she needed someone to prep the flight data and navigation while she got the Angel off the ground. Teddy, meanwhile, followed orders to the letter, first cleaning out the access logs on the door controls before he began to slice the access codes.

Alex StormWolf

 

[Alex StormWolf]

"Ok, let's do this." Seku fired up the computers, and punched in flight data for a quick getaway. A sly smirk crosses her face as a brilliant idea forms in her head.

"You wouldn't happen to have any false transponder codes we can use, do you? We could make Customs think this ship isn't the one they're looking for."

Alex chimed in on Seku's comlink.

"Girl, if you weren't already an SIA agent, you'd make one hell of a smuggler. You have such a devious mind when you get going."

"Yeah, I certainly have my moments, don't I?"

Nalah Tezan

 

[Nalah Tezan]

"Transponder code spoofing? Oh honey, I've got a full scan-jammer and electronic countermeasure suite." Nalah liked where Seku's head was at and pointed to the control panel next to the Twi'lek, which was practically bristling with illegal spoofing and masking technology. It had been expensive, and a pain in the butt to get installed, but her M.I. countermeasures had gotten her out of just as many jams as batting her pretty eyelashes.

"Hey, if this agent thing doesn't work out I've got plenty of room on the Angel!" She paused and muttered under her breath: "Or if, you know, this gets you canned or whatever."

Normally Nalah wouldn't weep over the career of an SIA agent, but Seku was one of the good ones, and she didn't want to see the Rutian or her friend punched by Customs trying to help her. Once the Angel was up and flying, Nalah deftly piloted it down to the hangar floor and opened the cargo ramp just in time for Teddy to finish scrambling the access codes. With her second droid safely aboard, Nalah turned to the hangar exit and punched the engines, aiming to create as much distance between herself and Coruscanti Customs as possible.

Alex StormWolf

 

[Alex StormWolf]

Seku's jaw dropped as she saw the counter-measures panel that Nalah pointed out. Clearly, Nalah wasn't your run of the mill smuggler. Everything on the control panel was top of the line.

"Hey, if this agent thing doesn't work out I've got plenty of room on the Angel!" She paused and muttered under her breath: "Or if, you know, this gets you canned or whatever."

Seku did a double take. "You're asking me to come with you?"

Nalah Tezan

 

[Nalah Tezan]

"Joking, Blue, joking!" Nalah wasn't trying to elope with Seku or anything, she was just making idle chatter. Of course, it would benefit her to have someone like Seku on hand, the woman was sharp and she had the feeling she hadn't seen her entire SIA skillset yet. But having an agent suddenly leave a major intelligence agency would probably paint a target on their backs.

At that moment, Teddy wheeled himself into the cockpit, chirping triumphantly about a slicing well-done, making sure the Customs agents wouldn't be after then and the hangar records were wiped. After escaping the hangar airspace, Nalah slowed down and tried to blend into local traffic just to make sure no one pegged her as a fugitive.

"Where should I drop you off, I need to get off-world soon?"

Alex StormWolf

 

[Alex StormWolf]

The reasonable part of Seku was relieved that Nalah was only joking about having her join the Angel's crew, and yet, the more adventurous side of her wondered what a life of staying one step ahead of local authorities and wheeling and dealing with crime lords would be like. No need to wonder, Girl, she reasoned with herself. You grew up on Nar Shadda, remember?

"You can drop me off anywhere, really. I can always call Alex to give me a ride home," Seku answered in reply to Nalah's query.

Nalah Tezan

 

[Nalah Tezan]

"Fair enough, I'll drop you off at the next open rest area." Nalah understood the dig at her birth planet, the place was a shrak-hole of the worst variety, so it was understandable not to want to fly off into the blue with someone from there. Although it was nice to find someone with her keen instincts and wits in the field, shame she had to be a government agent. Nalah parked the Angel as soon as she found an opening, and got up to walk her new...associate? Contact? Partner in crime? Whatever she was, Nalah saw Seku to the loading ramp before she headed out.

"This was...interesting, but I'm glad it happened." She said with a genuine smile.

Alex StormWolf

 

[Alex StormWolf]

"If you're ever back in the neighborhood, don't be a stranger," Seku said, as she gave Nalah her private comlink number and apartment address.

"Part of me kind of wants to run away with you, live the life of a happy go lucky smuggler, but then I realize, I'd probably have every SIA operative in the galaxy hunting for me because I'd gone rogue. Not only that....but I grew up on Nar Shadda. Not really in a hurry to revisit that chapter of my life just yet."

Nalah Tezan

 

[Nalah Tezan]

"I'll keep this in mind." Nalah, in turn, gave Seku her own private number, which was also encoded several times over to prevent holonet tracking. Normally she only gave this out to the most trusted personal contacts, although at this point Seku fit that bill pretty thoroughly having saved her from a stint in Coruscant Correctional.

That alone surprised her, but when Seku explained that part of her did, in fact, want to run off and become her smuggling partner, Nalah had to keep her jaw from dropping. She didn't expect this little escapade to genuinely tempt the SIA agent into a life of crime, but she had to admit it was kind of flattering to think she brought Seku close to jumping ship from the GA. And, well, she could relate to never wanting to go back to Nar Shadda again.

"Well, you have my number if you ever change your mind, and if nothing else, as a fellow native of Nar Shadda I can relate to not wanting to go back." She paused and turned to head back up the ramp before turning back, smirking, and planting a kiss on Seku's cheek. "See you around, Blue."

And with that, she boarded her ship's ramp, and was gone.

[Exit Thread]

Alex StormWolf