Faction (UPSS) The Protectorate's Answer

[Garrion Der Rædwulf]

GENERAL GARRION
OBJECTIVE I

CURRENT MISSION: Break the pirate warfleet. [SUCCESS]

---

Garrion received her transmission yet again, "I hadn't planned on it. This pocket is doomed, and they seem to be realizing that. I'm more concerned with our rear, they haven't engaged us yet."

The new arrivals hadn't moved. The tension was thick enough to be cut with a vibroblade.

Though, to everyone's surprise... it seemed rationality would win out once again, as the fleet began to pull off, seemingly content to abandon their encircled allies after some reflection. They were pirates, after all. Why would they sacrifice their lives to save some useful idiots covering their escape?

When Garrion got the confirmation from his vanguard, he was relieved. Not for fear that they could lose the engagement, but rather that it meant the encircled fleet had lost its last hope for escape. Taking Zarrah's advice, and pulling from his prior tactic with the pirates on the ground, Garrion sent out an transmission to the pirates: An offer of surrender, the same he'd given to those trapped within the fort on world.

Furthermore, he offered protection for any ships which would be fired on by their contemporaries, so long as they distinguished themselves by transmitting a signal which Garrion's fleet could lock on to.

With that, the enemy cohesion broke down.

Some did as he'd asked, others attacked like rabid animals or attempted to fire on their fleeing allies only to be intercepted. And not long after a presumed mutiny, Garrion received a surrender broadcast from the crew of the main vessel, which he would order a boarding party to dock.

If this were a lousy attempt to take hostages, Garrion clarified he'd simply destroy the ship rather than bargain for the lives of a dozen men. Whether that was true or not, it'd worked before, and the pirates didn't exactly have a reason to doubt that he would. That's what mattered.

Though it hadn't ended in a spectacular engagement, the chaotic resolution was enough to satisfy Garrion. With the fleet routed, destroyed, or newly captured, and the ground forces either surrendered or scrambling, Petrusia was mostly secure. He could entrust that the relief mission could proceed as planned.

"Perhaps we'll have the pleasure of hunting down the rest of these vermin in the near future, but for now, I'm content with driving them away from a peaceful world. Good work, men."

Contacting Zarrah once more, he'd congratulate her with: "If it weren't for you, we'd likely have faced a much more violent conclusion. Thank you, Captain."

With that, he'd accomplished all he'd needed to here. Perhaps he'd touch down and regroup with Ra'a'mah to discuss the next steps, but for now he was done.

---

Thread Exit
Tags: Zarrah Vex

 

[Iandre Athlea]

The news that the situation above Petrusia had been resolved reached the relief site without changing much of what was happening around Iandre. Supplies still needed to be unloaded, food still needed to reach waiting families, and the medical stations hadn't suddenly emptied because the immediate danger had passed. If anything, knowing the Protectorate had secured the space around the planet simply removed one more uncertainty from work that was already going to take considerably longer than a single day.

Iandre was perfectly content to leave everything beyond that to the people responsible for it.

Her attention remained on the relief operation in front of her. Judah had already directed the latest supplies toward distribution, and she watched him for a moment before moving closer. "I think you may have found the more sensible assignment." Her gaze followed the movement of another load of food toward the distribution area. "Nobody has tried to shoot at the bags yet."

The faint smile accompanying the observation disappeared as she looked toward the growing line of Petrusians. The humor hadn't been intended to diminish what had happened here. If anything, seeing people finally receive what they needed made the scale of the problem harder to ignore. Removing the pirates was only the first step. Food brought from elsewhere could keep people alive for now, but eventually Petrusia needed to be able to feed itself again.

That part was well outside Iandre's expertise.

"I heard some of the engineers talking about the agricultural systems earlier." She glanced toward Judah. "I understood enough to know I shouldn't offer them advice." There was a trace of amusement at her own expense this time. "Healing people I can manage. Hydroponics, apparently, are where the limits of my Jedi education become apparent."

Fortunately, nobody required her to know everything.

There were already specialists here for the infrastructure, agriculture, and engineering work. Iandre could make herself useful elsewhere. She could help move supplies without exhausting relief workers, assist wherever the medical teams became overwhelmed, and spend time with frightened or displaced people who needed something less tangible than another ration pack. None of those things made her responsible for the operation, and she preferred it that way. She had come to help, not to decide how Petrusia ought to rebuild itself.

She looked back toward Judah. "Where are you headed next?"

It wasn't a request for orders so much as an invitation to continue alongside him. Judah knew considerably more about the relief effort his organization had brought here than she did, and Iandre had no particular desire to wander away merely to prove she could find something useful on her own.

"If you're staying with distribution for a while, I'll stay nearby. I can help with the heavier loads and keep an eye on anyone who looks like they need medical attention."

A small smile returned.

"You handle the humanitarian logistics. I'll try not to become an agricultural engineer before lunch."

Judah Dashiell Novac Lyrikal Dalvos Thrakan

 

[Novac Lyrikal]

Iandre Athlea Dalvos Thrakan Judah Dashiell

"Ah thanks, and i got my own sleds but thank you" Novac said as he made sure Kairo got it. The loader droids quickly begain to work, moving teh crates and sleds, moving in a line like ants.

Novac thought for a moment before remembering the last time he saw Iandre, "It's good to see you as well. Been a while hasn't it, hope your well. You met Kairo right?" And to Dalvos Novac gave a small bow "Pleasure to meet you, as Iandre said, my name is Novac."

Seemed there was already a lot of new problems, "Hmm, lets see for the snowcows i have a few medical droids that also act as veterinarians, can have them help with that. For your engines, that might take a while, but i can make sure it doesn't get worse, i'll send some droids to keep it safe. Then the pirates. Most i can do for now is send the swarm and vultures to keep the area area safe." Novac said as he had Kairo send out messages to the droids from his datapad.

The underside of the wandering refuge started to move, first just a small movement, then one drone dropped onto the ground, then like a stone in water the rest of the drones followed in a ripple like pattern. Walking a few meters from the ship all 350 took off, flying in one large group until from the ring at the back of the ship ten vulture droids disconnected and flew past the swarm, thirty five drones followed each vulture droid as they flew into the sky and into space.

"They'll keep watch."

 

[Dalvos Thrakan]

Dalvos accepted the bottle from Iandre with a brief dip of his head, both hands closing around it before he drank. The tremor in his fingers had lessened, though it had not gone entirely. Petrusia's air was thin and mineral-sharp, the sort of cold that belonged to rock and old snow rather than to a proper winter. It would suit the herd. It did less for a man still coming down from a descent that had tried to kill him.

Overhead, the fighting had gone quiet. Not finished, perhaps, but quiet enough that the work on the ground no longer had to be done with one ear turned toward the sky.

Then Novac's ship began to empty itself.

Dalvos watched the first drone drop, then the ripple that followed, three hundred and fifty machines unfolding from the Wandering Refuge like a thought given mass. The vultures detached from the ring at her stern and climbed, each drawing a tail of smaller craft after it until the pale sky was stitched with motion. It was an impressive thing. It was also a great deal of armed metal to have standing over a field full of hungry civilians.

His gaze came back down more slowly, and stayed on the HK-87 with the datapad.

Assassin chassis. Protocol work. The combination sat wrong with him in a way he did not immediately put into words. He had known enough machines built for killing to recognize the frame, and enough people who tried to make such machines into something else to know that the attempt was rarely simple. Curiosity pulled at him all the same. It usually did.


"Pleasure to meet you, Novac." He returned the bow with a smaller one of his own. "And Kairo, I take it." The name was offered toward the droid as much as the man. "If your droids can keep those engines from expressing themselves explosively, I'll owe you… uh." He glanced from Novac to Kairo, then to the loader line already moving like ants between ship and sleds. "Something. We can figure that out later. I would offer a drink, but I am not certain what that means to a droid, and I would rather not insult the one keeping my ship from finishing what the pirates started."

He tipped the bottle slightly toward the scorched hull behind him. The Scarlet Letters sat in her own ring of blackened earth, three engines dead, the paste vats still clamped along her middle like barnacles that had survived the fall.

"Veterinary droids for the Snowcows as well. That is more foresight than I arrived with." He drank again, then lowered the bottle. "They're still slabbed. Carbonite isn't the coziest way to travel, but it doesn't much care if you're in atmo or vac, and I haven't had to scrub out any Nerf-crap this whole trip. They will need space and a clean power feed if we thaw them in stages. I would rather not wake the whole herd at once in the middle of a distribution zone."

Judah's question, and Iandre's after it, had been waiting. Dalvos turned the bottle in his hands and chose his words with more care than charm.

"How I heard." A small, unhurried breath. "Freight talk. Distress traffic. A dockmaster who thought I was joking when I asked what a starving world would pay for wine. I had a load of specialty stock bound elsewhere. I stopped. I traded a tank of Felusian vintage for paste because paste keeps people alive and wine does not. The Snowcows were already mine. The pirates made the rest of the argument for me on the way down."

He did not add whose channels had first put Petrusia's name in his ear. Courier work only worked as an excuse if no one dug too deeply, or, worse, called back to check out his registry.

He pushed away from the crate stack and tested his weight. Better. The eagerness was still there, banked rather than burning. "This pad sounds secure enough for unloading. I will not mistake that for the planet being finished with its troubles." A glance toward Iandre, acknowledging what she had already told him. "I am shaken, not injured. Thank you for the water. And for checking the ship. The living things aboard are livestock. I would have said so sooner if I had thought anyone might go looking for wounded crew."

His attention drifted once more to Kairo, then to the medical droids Novac had promised, as if cataloguing what each of them was for. "I can help with the paste first. The vats will feed people today. The herd will matter later, if they come out of the slabs sound. Novac, if those veterinary units can meet me at the aft bay, I will show them which rows are which. Judah… tell me where you want the first vat and I will have it off her before that line grows any longer."

He capped the bottle and tucked it under his arm, the High Republic crest over his heart catching what little light the overcast allowed.

"Oh, uh. My name is Dalvos," he said again, quieter, as if the second introduction were the one that counted. "For the moment, I'm a concerned citizen, going where the need is greatest."

Iandre Athlea Judah Dashiell Novac Lyrikal

 

[Ra'a'mah]

Objective: 3
Tags: open

Several hours later, the table looked considerably worse than when Ra'a'mah had begun.

That, in her experience, usually meant progress. The neat stacks of records had become overlapping collections of manifests, shipping registrations, transaction histories, and handwritten notes connected by annotations on her datapad. The freight broker had not provided the simple answer someone less familiar with commerce might have hoped for. Instead, it had led sideways and backward through a collection of carriers, suppliers, holding companies, and accounts scattered across several systems. Most appeared legitimate. Some probably were. Ra had quietly marked those for verification rather than investigation, unwilling to ruin someone's livelihood simply because pirates had deliberately placed an intermediary between themselves and an unsuspecting supplier.

Others were considerably harder to explain.

"These three," Ra said, turning her datapad so the Petrusian officials could see the entries she had isolated. "They repeatedly supplied goods through different carriers, but payment ultimately passed through the same collection of accounts. Different names, different registrations, different supposed owners." Her finger moved down the transactions. "The amounts are different enough not to attract immediate attention, but the timing isn't. Payments arrive shortly before shipments are arranged, and credits are moved again almost immediately afterward." It wasn't proof of who had organized the piracy on Petrusia, but it was considerably more than a coincidence. Two vessels had appeared often enough to warrant attention as well, including the freighter whose transponder they had identified earlier.

Ra copied the relevant records into a separate file and attached everything they had uncovered. The Protectorate's intelligence personnel could take it from there. They had tools, contacts, and methods better suited to discovering who sat behind anonymous accounts and conveniently disposable corporations. "I'll forward these for investigation. The ships can be tracked, the accounts traced where possible, and someone can start asking questions about these companies." Her gaze moved toward the officials. "But don't treat every name in these records as an enemy. Some of these people may have done nothing more than sell a power coupling to someone who lied about where it was going. Find evidence first."

There was another copy to make, however, and that one remained on Petrusia. Ra organized the records differently this time, building something less concerned with identifying the current pirates and more useful for recognizing the pattern they had left behind. Brokers that appeared too frequently. Cargo whose destinations changed shortly before delivery. Payments routed through unnecessary intermediaries. Transponders that disappeared from legitimate traffic only to reappear months later under different registrations. None of those things alone proved criminal activity, but together they could provide a warning considerably earlier than Petrusia had received this time. "Keep this. What happened here wasn't sustained by pirates alone. If someone tries to rebuild the same arrangement after we're gone, I would prefer you notice before they become powerful enough to demand payment from you."

Ra finally leaned back from the table, looking over the disorder they had created. Somewhere beyond the walls, others were dealing with the immediate threat, and soon enough, Petrusia would be rid of the people who had been openly exploiting it. That mattered. So did food, medicine, rebuilding infrastructure, and every other form of assistance the Protectorate had brought with it. But eventually the fleets would leave, and the relief shipments would become less frequent. Petrusia would need ordinary merchants again. Freighters. Brokers. Suppliers. Trade routes that existed because people wanted to conduct business rather than exploit desperation.

That part, at least, was something Ra could help with later.

She gathered her datapad and the files intended for Protectorate intelligence, leaving the Petrusian copy on the table. "I think that's enough for today." Several of the officials looked nearly as exhausted as they had when she'd arrived, although perhaps slightly less defeated. Ra offered them a small smile. "The pirates found a way to hide themselves inside ordinary commerce. It was clever. Unfortunately, ordinary commerce happens to be something I understand rather well."

Her attention lingered on the records for another moment before she turned toward the door. Removing the pirates would give Petrusia room to breathe. Relief would give its people the opportunity to recover. What came afterward would determine whether they remained free once the Protectorate was gone.

Ra had no intention of making Petrusia dependent upon another protector simply because the last one had called itself something different.

The next time someone tried to build an empire around the world's desperation, Petrusia would know where to start looking.

 

[Judah Dashiell]

Judah blinked slowly as the swarm of droids came out of the vessel. He suddenly felt hot, a pang of anxiety rising. His fear of droids came from an invasion of nanodroids where he had been infected. His autonomy taken over. Since then he and droids did not mix, especially when they came in swarms. Extensive therapy, a recent development, had helped. Along with a low-dose of anxiety medicine. That medicine would be working overtime today.

"Well....a pleasure to have you both. This will be helpful for the people of this area. Been hit particularly hard from what I can tell, add in this climate with no real agriculture infrastructure, its a literal disaster."

Gaze flipped to Ian.

"Not quite sure how can help in this situation but you do have government connections." A longshot perhaps. Yet they had work to do. Work that would involve him staying far, far away from the droid swarm. "Going to head down to the staging area to see where I can be needed. Looks like this is relatively handled."

Novac Lyrikal | Iandre Athlea | Dalvos Thrakan​

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre listened as Dalvos finally answered the question she'd asked earlier. Freight talk, distress traffic, and a dockmaster were ordinary enough explanations, and trading wine for nutrient paste because one kept people alive while the other did not earned a faint smile from her. Whatever peculiarities she had noticed about him, his priorities since landing had been difficult to fault. "Then Petrusia was fortunate you were listening." She gave a small nod when he repeated that he was shaken rather than injured. There was little reason to keep hovering over someone who had already declined medical attention and was plainly steady enough to work. "Just remember that being uninjured doesn't mean you have to do everything at once."

Novac's arrival had apparently solved several problems in remarkably short order. Iandre watched the first drone descend from the Wandering Refuge, followed by another, then another, until the movement became a cascade. By the time hundreds had gathered and begun taking to the air alongside the vulture droids, the sight had stopped being merely impressive. Her shoulders had tightened before she consciously noticed it. Nine centuries separated her from battlefields where skies full of droids had meant something very different, but apparently that distinction hadn't persuaded every instinct she'd carried out of the Clone Wars. She knew whose machines these were. She knew what they were doing. Neither fact made her particularly eager to remain beneath them.

Her attention returned to Novac rather than following the swarm overhead. "It has been a while. I'm doing well." Her gaze shifted toward Kairo for a moment, and that did very little to improve the mechanical theme developing around them. An HK chassis was difficult for someone of her generation to overlook, even after nine centuries had rendered much of what she remembered ancient history. Still, Novac appeared perfectly comfortable with the droid, and Kairo was currently directing relief equipment rather than hunting anyone. "I don't believe Kairo and I have been properly introduced." There was the slightest trace of amusement in her expression. "Although I admit an HK unit wasn't quite what I expected when you arrived with medical supplies and farming equipment."

Judah's suggestion brought her attention back to him. She had government connections, although Ian wasn't immediately convinced they were the answer to Petrusia's most urgent problems. "I do, although I'm not certain another government is what Petrusia needs most from me today." That could change. Once the immediate crisis passed, she might have officials to contact, resources to request, or introductions to make on the world's behalf. Right now, people still needed food, medical care, and the basic reassurance that tomorrow would be better supplied than yesterday. Those were needs she understood considerably better than agriculture.

When Judah announced he was heading toward the staging area, Ian answered rather more readily than she otherwise might have. "I'll come with you." She cast one last glance toward the swarm spreading into the distance and found herself entirely content to put some space between herself and several hundred droids. She wasn't frightened of them, exactly, but old instincts didn't always care about precise definitions. Falling into step beside Judah felt considerably more comfortable. "If they need another pair of hands, a healer, or someone capable of moving something considerably heavier, I can manage all three." A small smile touched her expression as they headed toward the staging area. "If they need an agricultural engineer, I'm afraid we're still out of luck."

Novac Lyrikal Dalvos Thrakan Judah Dashiell

 

[Dalvos Thrakan]

Dalvos dipped his head to the pair, and raised a hand in farewell. "Of course. I'll keep an eye on things here and call out if it's needed, alright? See if I can't help out a bit more..." (( Judah Dashiell Iandre Athlea Novac Lyrikal ))

Dalvos' wanderings took him near a cluster of tents that were a hive of activity. He couldn't help but notice a familiar red-haired woman standing amongst a cluster of tables, giving directions and sending subordinates scattering outward with purpose in their stride and chins held high, determination radiating outward from her like ripples in a pond.

When she moved to walk away, Dalvos matched her movements, calculating a careful trajectory through the crowds and stacked supplies to build an intercept.

"Good afternoon, Ma'am. You appear to be in charge, here? Dalvos, of the High Republic Courier Scarlet Letters." He held out his hand to her in mock formality, his Coreward accent in full force. He knew she would know him on sight, but it was fun to play the part. He lowered his voice and smiled at her more intimately. "Thanks for the tip about this place. I was able to make a couple trades and bring in a load of foodstuffs. Good intel on the Snowcows, too; Miranda passed that along right before I hit orbit so I was able to snag it all on my way here." He walked beside her as she moved, an impish grin on his face at meeting up with her - again - but this time in disguise.

"Things stable on this end? Manage to figure out who was financing things? I put the word out through my connections, but I haven't found out yet who's buying the stolen stock. Either they won't say it, or they're not in my network."

TAG: Ra'a'mah

 

[Ra'a'mah]

Objective: 3
Tags: Dalvos Thrakan

Ra had barely made it away from the tables when the approaching voice caught her attention. She recognized Dalvos well before he reached her, but the accent and mock formality made his intentions clear enough that she didn't spoil the performance. Instead, her expression settled into something appropriately composed as she turned toward him and accepted his hand.

"Good afternoon, Captain Dalvos." The Coreward accent that answered his was every bit as pronounced as his own, the inflection slipping into place with an ease that suggested Ra had spent considerably more time in the Core than anyone listening might reasonably guess. She even gave him a small, perfectly dignified inclination of her head. "Ra'a'mah Numare, Baroness and humble servant of the United Protectorate of Sovereign Systems. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, I'm sure." The solemnity lasted precisely long enough for her to give him a quick wink before releasing his hand. If he wanted to pretend they had never met, she was perfectly willing to make their introduction unnecessarily theatrical.

Her smile became more genuine when he explained what he'd managed to bring in. "I'm glad the information helped. Food was considerably higher on Petrusia's list of immediate needs than most things we could have brought them." The mention of the snowcows earned an approving nod as well. Whatever else had happened since the Protectorate arrived, getting supplies into people's hands was what mattered most immediately.

Ra's amusement faded into attentive interest as Dalvos moved on to what his own contacts had uncovered. She let him finish without interrupting, mentally setting his lack of success alongside the records she'd spent the last several hours untangling. "Stable enough that I was finally able to spend some time following the credits instead of the crisis." Her gaze flicked briefly back toward the tables she'd left behind. "I haven't found the person financing it yet, but I found part of the structure. Three suppliers operating under different names and registrations ultimately lead back to the same collection of accounts. Payments arrive shortly before shipments are arranged, then move again almost immediately. There are two ships that keep appearing in the records as well."

She considered his information for another moment before continuing. "The buyers are still the missing half, though. So the fact that your contacts aren't talking is interesting in itself. It could simply mean they're outside your network, but if people who normally know where stolen goods move suddenly don't know, I'd rather not assume that's coincidence." Ra wasn't prepared to make more of it without evidence, particularly after cautioning the Petrusians against doing exactly that. "I've sent what I found to our intelligence people so they can start tracing the accounts and vessels properly. If your contacts turn up anything later, even a name they aren't certain of, send it to me. It may mean considerably more once it's compared against what we already have."

 

[Dalvos Thrakan]

"Yeah," he sighed softly, head dipping for a moment. "That's what's got me worried, too. Most pirates go through the same people for offloading their spoils; it's hard to find people who will buy in bulk the stuff you can loot from a frontier world. The fact that I can't find the buyers means either they're not selling it... or someone hired them to come and take it. Who else has an interest in the area? Who else is coming to help? Were the locals in talks with anyone for protection? Could've used the pirates as a way to seal the deal."

His frown became stormy at the thought; anyone who exploits innocents was on a rapid descent to the normally cheery Smuggler's bad side.

"I don't like this many unanswered questions in one place," he grumbled after a moment. "Pirates don't do subtle."

After a moment, he tipped her a brief salute. "I'll keep you updated. See if any of these guys are up for hire or if someone's hiring in job lots. Worst case, they're imports and I'll have to track down which villages are missing their idiots." A small grin punctuated the sentence, and he added, "It feels good to do good."

A more formal, "Ma'am," followed by a half-bow, and he turned to head toward his ship.

It was easy to find, what with the pillar of smoke leaking from the rear half of it.

Ra'a'mah

 

[Judah Dashiell]

Moving away from the vessels, Iandre Athlea soon joined his side on the walk down to the distribution area. He had zero trouble talking to the two assembled, the swashbuckler and the giant snake, it was the droids that had drove him to find another task to focus on. Flying, buzzing droids were the worst types and he found himself being more than a little on edge.

"You just wanted an excuse to hang out with me. Its alright, you don't have to pretend the tent needs any healers." Judah gently bumped her shoulder. "Picking up crates is...let's leave that to the droids."

Looking around at the landscape, Judah frowned. It was incredibly snowy. Beyond local vegetables everything else was going to take massive greenhouses or an extremely secure import system. A mix of both even.

"What do you think? Planet going to come out right in the end?"

 

[Iandre Athlea]

The gentle bump against her shoulder earned Judah a sidelong look, followed by a smile Iandre made no effort to hide. "I don't recall denying that I wanted to spend time with you." If putting some distance between herself and several hundred droids happened to provide a convenient excuse, she saw no particular reason to complain. "Although I object to surrendering every crate to the droids. I need to justify my presence somehow."

His question drew her attention away from him and toward the frozen landscape. Petrusia had survived before the famine, before the pirates, and before anyone from the Protectorate had arrived to help. Its people had built lives here and found ways to sustain them in a climate that had never been particularly forgiving. The present disaster had broken systems that once worked. It hadn't erased the knowledge or determination that had made them work in the first place.

"Given time? Yes, I think they'll be fine." Iandre watched the activity around the distribution area for a moment. "Petrusia was surviving long before any of us arrived. We're helping them through a disaster, not teaching them how to exist without us." That distinction mattered to her. Relief could keep people alive now, while the work Judah and others were doing could help restore what had been damaged rather than make Petrusia permanently dependent upon outside aid.

She glanced back toward him. "It won't happen overnight, and I'm sure there will be setbacks. But eventually the relief ships will stop coming, the temporary camps will disappear, and they'll go back to living their lives." A small smile touched Iandre's expression. "I think they'll be all right, Judah. They just need enough time to get there."

Judah Dashiell