20050816

7.28.4788 Republic Reckoning

The group decides to go to the sector capital, Bacrana (GM note: Oops... Eriadu? is on the wrong trade route), to access the RFAS info directly and see who was using the data. Two days in hyper gets them there.

7.30.4788 Republic Reckoning

Some standing in line later, Evika gets the data while Christina fills out her request form incorrectly and is rejected. But Tzin monitors all this with Cyberlocke? and erases all records of their request. The info says that the account is accessed by the Republic Library Service's Acquisitions department, a group that usually deals in acquiring rare materials that are to go in libaries and museums as well as document the lives of important people. On the list is a set of names that have access to the account.

This causes a trip across town to find out from the Library Service itself if any of those names are the mysterious woman that may or may not be Quindo's mom. They are able to see that she's on the org chart there, but not much else from the first visit. To give Tzin some time at the secretary's computer, Igashu tries to hit on her and pours on the charm. But to no avail. She's not into guys. She does eventually leave for lunch and Tzin is able to get some of the financial information he needs because she wrote her passwords on the bottom of her mouse.

This information suggests that there was a large deposit into the account from a sector development slush fund, which requires another trip to the RFAS center. This time Igashu disguises himself with the Force as his best guess at the Woman who Might be Quindo's Mom and asks to look at her activities because something has come up. Tzin is her assistant, but in his new briefcase holds a commercial data storage server. He uses that to suck down a bunch of financial data from the poor attendant's computer, but Igashu reads from the screen that the account was used to buy fuel for a capital ship on Cularin only three days ago, i.e. right after they all left! So time to race back to Cularin...

While in hyper, further analysis of these records indicates that the money went into the slush fund from Office of Peace? and Office of Knowledge? sources in a budgetary realignment at the regional level. That suggests that staffers to the Jedi Council were involved in that transaction. And to make matters worse, Cularin is reeling from a Sith attack as they arrive.

7.33.4788 Republic Reckoning

Apparently a Sith battleship dropped into low orbit, demolished all their planetary defenses before they could respond, and then nuked an outlying settlement... The outlying settlement where Balder's Company was based.

After some searching, they find the Company's dropships in an asteroid field, having cooled down to near zero over the last few days, everyone on board dead. But someone got a good sensor profile of the Sith ship and left enough info to verify that the woman who might be Quindo's mom was in fact the person who hired her and that she claims to be an agent for the Department of External Information for the Republic, and the Sith warship is in fact a captured vessel is crewed by Republic personnel! Sending the sensor profile to the planetary defense office allows them to confirm this through their copy of Jane's Fighting Starships. This could be problematic. Igashu calls for a meeting with J'ror Tholin and Zeltar J'hund to be held on Praconis Minor.