The Ugly [Mini-Board Event Auction]

[Darth Morgoth]

Lot B 40 Million credits and a crate of STHC
Lot C 16 million and contract For 4 Custom Weapons Designs, from Vulcan Industries credits Along with a Skocha Tank

10 Million starting Credit Bid for the secret to Amber along with a promise of good will that it wont be used against you

 

[Doyle]

To say that Terrance was pleased with the auction so far was a bit of an understatement. Yet he didn't show it. On the contrary, there were other things on his mind as well. Besides the screens in front of him displaying the auction, he was also in communications with his men on the ground on Masterra. Most especially [member="Simultas"] . There were new arrivals coming to the planet, which could either be a good thing, or a bad. He planned for both.

Muting the auction channel, he contacted Simultas. ~You've got new targets heading your way, new pieces for my collection. Keep an eye out.~

Turning back to the auction, he unmuted the channel and looked over the bids. Truly those that paid the fee to gain access were extremely well backed. He could retire, yet still cause plenty of havoc once this was over. It wasn't as though he was going to get caught, afterall. Terrance was never caught. He had been building up to this for most of his adult life.

"I can see that you all are just as passionate as I am and really know value when you see it. I'm sure that some arrangements can be made for...other additions to this auction to spice things up a bit." A hint of a smile there as his mind turned over a few ideas.



[member="Adron Malvern"]
[member="Darth Morgoth"]
[member="Norvandi"]
[member="Sor-Jan Xantha"]
[member="Natalie LaForte"]
[member="AD-8"]
[member="Zhudah Sakkel"]
[member="Melvand Zrimmir"]
[member="Connory"]

 

[Zhudah Sakkel]

[member="Terrance Olavi"] [member="Darth Morgoth"] [member="Adron Malvern"] [member="Natalie LaForte"] [member="AD-8"]

"Mister Olavi... What a pleasure. My backer states if he can get a CASM anti-AMBER Device to go along with lot C, he's willing to make your retirement peaceful everyday."

• Lot B: Bid cancelled, all Lot B bids added to Lot C
• Lot C: Rare Mon Calamari Ship, 28,000,000 Credits, contracted access to cloning technology, and physical hardware used for cloning; your own army to protect you, and your investments, two(2) Stygium Crystals for hiding anything you may need unfound, Contract for a full year of weapon supply caches ordered to any designated location, a custom Star Destroyer to make those think twice about intervening in your business. NEW: Custom Space Station, small or medium, using a Stygium Cloak, AMBER will never be used in you or your organization, contract to make it so my Backer hides you and attempts to make your retirement everlasting peaceful

Encryption: Maximum possible

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Sor-Jan Xantha"]

RE: T. Olavi

Couldn't dig up much. Guy's an enigma. He's an underworld big shot on Masterra, right beside the Mara Corridor, which is the only reason I've got anything to give you. I can tell you that friends of friends used to work for him and got burned. Takes himself real serious, great hair, trust him about as far as you can throw him. Good luck out there.

Oh, and one other thing. Got my hands on a pic that someone swears is him from maybe twenty years ago. Don't know for sure, could be nothing, could be he's got a background in medicine.

​

 

[Melvand Zrimmir]

​

"This is ridiculous!. One point five million credits!?"

Zrimmir's Neimoidian assistant approached him, "Shall we bow out of the auction, sir?"

"Of course not, put in a bid for one point seven-five million credits on the lot. It better be worth it."

ANON - LOT A - 1,750,000CR

Zrimmir decided to glance at the other lots only to be gobsmacken. Forty. Million. Credits. Just for a pistol and a rock breaker. Ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. However he did see something interesting. When one of the participants made a bid on Lot C, they offered services of a company, Vulcan Military Industries. Surely, someone couldn't offer such a thing without having some sway, if not leading the company itself. Zrimmir snapped his fingers, "Assistant, lookup high ranking position holders of Vulcan Military Industries, especially those with, peculiar, records."

The Neimoidian bowed and went off to do his duty, perhaps Zrimmir could learn more about the likes of who attended this auction. As Zrimmir investigated further, drawing connections between the items offered by the 'anonymous' bidders and who they were produced by. Maybe, Zrimmir could come come away with something valuable of his own.

[member="Adron Malvern"]
[member="Jorus Merrill"]
[member="Zhudah Sakkel"]
[member="Terrance Olavi"]
[member="Darth Morgoth"]
[member="Natalie LaForte"]
[member="AD-8"]

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

CORELLIA DIGITAL HEADQUARTERS​

GALACTIC OPERATIONS CENTER​

​

The message from [member="Jorus Merrill"] just served to confirm a couple of suspicions.

Whatever this AMBER was meant to be, it seemed similar to carbonite as having origins in some organic preservative technology. The description given as part of the auction indicated that it preserved the beings inside for several weeks. Developing that, a background in organic chemistry and biological life sciences would make sense.

Or else that was one hell of a happy coincidence.

"Bring up all the HoloNet IP addresses associated with Masterra," the young slicer remarked, as the bank of monitors overhead all began scrolling through a plethora of hexadecimal strings. "Copy those addresses to all the analyst droids for cross-comparison with any addresses associated with the auction."

That's assuming that they could get to ground truth on the addresses being used by the auction.

"And send Jorus a copy of the auction stream that we've recorded thus far," the Anzat added, almost as afterthought. "Tell him I'm working on trying to decipher the encryption on the transmission, but the Underground or Runners might be able to distill some data from here that we've missed."

Not to mention, a couple of names had been dropped. Those didn't mean much to Sor-Jan, but they might to the Underground.

He wasn't interested in the buyers though. The dealer was the source of the boy's focus.

In the meantime, he had an auction to pretend to be participating in.

LOT A - Aurodium ingots of equivalent market value to 1,750,500CR

[member="Melvand Zrimmir"] | [member="Connory"] | [member="Adron Malvern"] | [member="Terrance Olavi"]​

 

[Kurenai Yumi]

Kurenai had woken up in the morning to a holo beeping, said message coming from [member="Sor-Jan Xantha"] which seemed odd, but never the less she put sleep to the side in order to see what was going on that was so important. "[member="Terrance Olavi"].... where have I heard that name before"?

'Do not know much sorry only that they seem to be quite the underworld genius, smarts that plant him at the top of the galaxy IQ meter, seemed to have come out of nowhere back in the days, not real lead up'. 'Even then his movements where more or less hidden, never seemed to draw attention to himself from what I know... and trust me I've been around for a long time'. 'Why do you ask'? Had the CIS run into the man or was their something else going down.

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

The youngling had half a Pop-Tart hanging out of his mouth.

Both hands were working away at the keyboard in front of him, when the droid came over to deliver the message [member="Kurenai Yumi"] had sent in reply to the boy's earlier transmission.

Interesting. So the Underground had intel on this guy, but the Confederates -- or at least the Knights Obsidian -- hadn't crossed paths with him. It lent credence to Jorus' point about Masterra being located along the Mara Trade Corridor.

The Galactic Empire?

The Outer Rim Coalition and the Empire were about the only two entities, outside of the Confederacy, that operated even remotely near Masterra. And this kind of glorified carbonite bomb was definitely something that Sor-Jan could see the Empire having an interest in.

Reaching up, the boy took a bite out of the pop-tart, continuing to type with the one hand as he opened up a message window and began composing a message back to the Pathfinder.

An auction popped up in the Dark Net. I thought it would be the usual, but it turns out it's some kind of new biological WMD being sold over the HoloNet. The encryption on these transmissions is INSANE, but we're working through the traffic analysis to try and decipher the entry and exit nodes.

I've enclosed the recording of the auction stream so far. There are a couple of name-dropped entities in the stream, but I've been focused on trying to get a better ID on the broker, who claims to be Olavi.

My contacts in the Underground believe Olavi's a medically trained scientist operating on Masterra.

Apparently the bio-weapon has already been employed there. "Masterra" is a pretty hot tag on social media at the moment, and the HoloNet postings I've seen are consistent with the description of the WMD... some kind of Super Carbonite that Olavi refers to as AMBER.

 

[Natalie LaForte]

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

[LOT B] - 45,000,000 credits, access to a select range of products negotiated at checkout, custom developed product of your choice negotiated at checkout

Another message would be sent in transmission along with the bid

"My client can also provide the ability to bring a loved one back to life, and as I'm sure we both know, life is priceless."

- [MELODY]

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

[Encryption] - Peculiarly, the device is pretty much unencrypted, though any attempts to track it would lead to some, if not all electronic devices available on the planet of Mygeeto, scattering through a select few every second.

[member="Melvand Zrimmir"] I [member="Connory"] I [member="AD-8"] I [member="Zhudah Sakkel"] I [member="Adron Malvern"] I [member="Darth Morgoth"] I [member="Terrance Olavi"] I [member="Sor-Jan Xantha"] I [member="Jorus Merrill"] I [member="Kurenai Yumi"]

 

[AD-8]

AD-8 watched as the prices ballooned up for all the lots. It seemed that everyone had lots of financial backing. He was increasingly intrigued about Zhudahs mysterious 'sponsor' but doubted that he could find anything.

Lot C - 35 Million Credits, 600 T-1 Drones [x] armed with 600 ND-1 Assualt Rifles [x], 5 Freedom Class Heavy Cruisers [x] with a full fighter compliment of T-1 Bombers [x], 25% stake in AD-8 Manufacturing [x] with a 40% discount on all products. 2 Custom ships/droids/weapons and we can guarantee that you will always know who has the AMBER.

AD-8 Keyed into his datapad.

[member="Natalie LaForte"] [member="Sor-Jan Xantha"] [member="Kurenai Yumi"] [member="Melvand Zrimmir"] [member="Jorus Merrill"] [member="Zhudah Sakkel"] [member="Terrance Olavi"]

 

[Adron Malvern]

A noticeable tick of agitation came from Adron as he looked over the bids that had dwarfed him yet again. He was interested in pursuing AMBER, yet he was not so foolish that he would waste a large fortune on the stuff. His eyes fell over the current bidding price for a while before he finally scratched the back of his head.

"I will be making a joint bid on Lot A and B," He said, clasping his hands together for a moment before speaking plainly. "I am offering seventy-five galactic credits. With that, the before mentioned ships will also be included."

Adron had decided this would be his final bid. If someone was to outbid him here he was not foolish enough to attempt an even higher price. He was already far past his wanted roof as is, perhaps he would continue on Lot A, yet the second was too rich for his blood.

@AD-8 @Natalie LaForte [member="Sor-Jan Xantha"] [member="Terrance Olavi"] [member="Melvand Zrimmir"]

 

[Melvand Zrimmir]

​

Zrimmir was mad.

"No!"

Very mad.

"No!"

So mad, he had begun slamming his desk.

"No!"

His subordinates waited behind the corner, hoping to not find themselves in the target of Zrimmir's rage.

"No!"

Then, he threw his glass, it slamming the wall and shattering into multiple fragments.

"No!"

Finally, Zrimmir sat down, slouching in his seat, as he was defeated. Seventy-five million credits for both lots. How could he continue? He was no idiot, this art wasn't worth more than a few million, but twenty million credits? Who cares how rare and unique this art was, it was not worth that. And Zrimmir expressed that,

"This is absolutely ridiculous! Seventy-five million credits!? I could buy a planet- no, two planets for that amount!"

Zrimmir just sat and thought for a moment, he was done with the auction, that was for sure. But perhaps he could profit. He had heard of the AMBER incident on Masterra, being so close to Commenori space it was impossible not to hear. There certainly had to be some authority who would want to hear about who was buying such weapons of mass destruction. Maybe not monetarily, but Zrimmir could always use political favors and reputation amongst the local governments.

"Assistant, get me that information I requested earlier! Then start investigating the bids of the different participants, determine if any correlations in the goods and services offered draw to any persons or corporations. Then we shall investigate their profiles. Make it quick assistant, I do not wish to delay!"

[member="Adron Malvern"]
[member="AD-8"]
[member="Natalie LaForte"]
[member="Sor-Jan Xantha"]
[member="Kurenai Yumi"]
[member="Zhudah Sakkel"]
[member="Terrance Olavi"]
[member="Darth Morgoth"]

 

[Doyle]

Movement at the corner of Terrance's eye caused him to mute the channel before he turned his head in time for one of his crew signalling him. "What is it? Spit it out!"

"They're looking for us."

Terrance walked over to the multitude of screens at the other terminal. Lines of code scrolled through the screens, some doing searches for key words or phrases, while another showed a detailed map of the area with glowing dots of various colours within. Some of them moved, some of them didn't. He narrowed his eyes ever so slightly. "I've got new pieces on the way, which could bring us to an early retirement. So stall them. Send them gift package #1."

With fingers flying on the keyboards, a single gif was sent out, and one which would seem to originate from a seemingly derelict ship in orbit of Masterra. If the slicers managed to break through some of the firewalls and triangulate on it, that is.

Time was going to run out for him soon. But not just yet. Terrance was a generous man at times. Handing out gifts was always....a blast. Oh how he loved surprises.


[member="Adron Malvern"]
[member="Darth Morgoth"]
[member="Norvandi"]
[member="Sor-Jan Xantha"]
[member="Natalie LaForte"]
[member="AD-8"]
[member="Zhudah Sakkel"]
[member="Melvand Zrimmir"]
[member="Connory"]

 

[Darth Morgoth]

Lot B 75 Million credits and a new vehicle designed by Vulcan Starforge and a squadron of Vulcan Industries Mobile Fortress and a private army made by Vulcan Military Inc
Lot C 25 million and contract For 2 Custom Weapons Designs, from Vulcan Industries 2 Star Ship Designs To go through our subsidiary Vulcan Starforge.

[member="Terrance Olavi"]

 

[Zhudah Sakkel]

[member="Terrance Olavi"] [member="Darth Morgoth"] [member="Adron Malvern"] [member="Natalie LaForte"] [member=AD-8]

"I am not out of this bid, however, I do not feel my bid needs to be increased. It stands."

• Lot C: Rare Mon Calamari Ship, 28,000,000 Credits, contracted access to cloning technology, and physical hardware used for cloning; your own army to protect you, and your investments, two(2) Stygium Crystals for hiding anything you may need not discovered, Contract for a full year of weapon supply caches ordered to any designated location, a custom Star Destroyer to make those think twice about intervening in your business. Custom Space Station, small or medium, using a Stygium Cloak, AMBER will never be used against you or your organization, contract to make it so my Backer hides you and attempts to make your retirement eternally peaceful

Encryption: Maximum possible

 

[AD-8]

AD-8 did not think Zhudahs bid was better than his but raised the number of credits nonetheless. He would play her game.

Lot C - 40 Million Credits, 600 T-1 Drones [x] armed with 600 ND-1 Assualt Rifles [x], 5 Freedom Class Heavy Cruisers [x] with a full fighter compliment of T-1 Bombers [x], 25% stake in AD-8 Manufacturing [x] with a 40% discount on all products. 2 Custom ships/droids/weapons and we can guarantee that you will always know who has the AMBER.

[member="Zhudah Sakkel"] [member="Darth Morgoth"] [member="Terrance Olavi"] [member="Melvand Zrimmir"] [member="Adron Malvern"] [member="Natalie LaForte"]

 

[Darth Morgoth]

Lot B 75 Million credits and a new vehicle designed by Vulcan Starforge and a squadron of Vulcan Industries Mobile Fortress and a private army made by Vulcan Military Inc
Lot C 50 million and contract For 2 Custom Weapons Designs, from Vulcan Industries 2 Star Ship Designs To go through our subsidiary Vulcan Starforge. A Droid Army

Terrance Olavi

 

[Zhudah Sakkel]

[member="Terrance Olavi"] [member="Darth Morgoth"] [member="Adron Malvern"] [member="Natalie LaForte"] [member=AD-8]

"In this situation, personal wealth is worth more than accumulative wealth. What will a secretive criminal, who hides, rather than faces his enemies with massive fleets, see more use in? I'll raise credits a little more."

• Lot C: Rare Mon Calamari Ship, 40,000,000 Credits, contracted access to cloning technology, and physical hardware used for cloning; your own army to protect you, and your investments, two(2) Stygium Crystals for hiding anything you may need not discovered, Contract for a full year of weapon supply caches ordered to any designated location, a custom Star Destroyer to make those think twice about intervening in your business. Custom Space Station, small or medium, using a Stygium Cloak, AMBER and my backers forces will never be used against you or your organization, contract to make it so my Backer hides you and attempts to make your retirement eternally peaceful.

Encryption: Maximum possible. Absolutely anonymous.

 

[Natalie LaForte]

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

[LOT B] - 80,000,000 credits, access to a select range of products negotiated at checkout, custom developed product of your choice negotiated at checkout

Another message would be sent in transmission along with the bid

"My client can also provide the ability to bring a loved one back to life, and as I'm sure we both know, life is priceless."

- [MELODY]

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

[Encryption] - Peculiarly, the device is pretty much unencrypted, though any attempts to track it would lead to some, if not all electronic devices available on the planet of Mygeeto, scattering through a select few every second.

[member="Melvand Zrimmir"] I [member="Connory"] I [member="AD-8"] I [member="Zhudah Sakkel"] I [member="Adron Malvern"] I [member="Darth Morgoth"] I [member="Terrance Olavi"] I [member="Sor-Jan Xantha"] I [member="Jorus Merrill"] I [member="Kurenai Yumi"]

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

CORELLIA DIGITAL HEADQUARTERS​

GALACTIC OPERATIONS CENTER​

​

The protocol droid brought him a Biscuit Baron youngling meal.

With cookies.

And a triple thick chocolate milkshake.

Slicing was serious business. He needed a triple thick chocolate milkshake to help get him in the zone. Between chomping on a big kid's bantha burger and trying to slurp wet concrete through a straw, the young Anzat was whittling away at the various strings of code that crossed a hundred different displays overhead.

"I think we've got something," the boy opined aloud, a shoestring french fry dangling from his lips like a cigarette. "I think we've got something..." the boy repeated. With a three-key stroke, the boy dialed in a final command string sequence and then looked up to see..

In his defense, he had said that he thought they had something.

He had not said what said something was. And this was still something.

Opening his mouth, the child tilted his head back and devoured the fry-cigarette. Chewing on that for a moment, he said, "Start looking for metadata embedded in the file."

"It had to be uploaded from somewhere. Maybe that's our key to finding the entry node."