A Civil Crusade: VN Ysadora
General Summary
It's been 3 days since the ambush in space. This is NOT my "rested and relaxed" face.
Eleni gave me an illuminated document that gives my genetic lineage. I'm taking it along to the cafe where I'm meeting Dragomir so I can bring him up to speed on the "cousin" issue.
He's freaking out.
He says, even though I'm already started in the process to repudiate any connection to Vorharkonnen countship and that whole political existence, he's required by family tradition to set aside a laboratory in the family home for me. Though he prefers to dismiss the family tradition of trying to assassinate me monthly.
To get a look at the audiovisual recordings, I go visit the Procopian Defense Force guys. They've been over the scene several times now. Once at the local precinct, I am eventually directed to talk to Detective-Lieutenant Margas James. He's the one leading the case. He is the one who tells me this about the video:
- The attacker's face actually never appears on camera. The attacker knew where all the cameras were.
- There is a distortion to the feed, the tech can explain it, but it blurs potential reflections of surrounding surfaces of the attacker's face.
- He's got a tech working on it. The tech is in the lab.
Detective James is more than willing to work with a Jedi on this as the murder and near murder of two Vor in his district draws far too much political attention. A murder is bad enough, the fact the Vors may turn it into a media circus for political House standing is what gives him stomach acid.
He introduces me to Technician Burgess Dusard. Once he gets over "Jedi" and "female" and "you aren't the Detective" he tells me the following:
- Camera footage carries a slight distortion to it. Naked eye can't register it, but it is detectable when the security feed is checked for tampering.
- The disruption is caused by a 'baffler', a highly illegal device that saber rakes sometimes get off the black market to do exactly what happened here: disrupt security.
The tech lets me review the feed, after I swear to not manhandle the controls.
On the feed, I watch the confrontation. Piotr and Alec expect to meet Danar there.
They apologize for surprising him, and wish to make amends for the horrible misunderstanding. Danar replies he wasn't surprised, but they very well may be. He immediately attacks.
Naturally, all three are wearing shield belts.
Lightfoil on lightfoil action. The duel is lengthy and the control is impressive. Since the shield blocks quick attacks, the initial strike is fast, but the final cut or thrust is slow, as is the parry.
However, Danar cheats! He slips in and does nerve cluster strikes. Alec falls, then Piotr. Danar turns on a device that mutes sound. Then apparently questions Alec. Alec dies. Danar tries the same on Piotr but Piotr is already out of his mind from his wounds, so Danar gives up.
Danar leaves with the Vorpinski lightfoils.
Not long after a young woman arrives, she's a military officer - insignia is pilot. She's upset over the discovery but seems a touch more distraught over what happened to Piotr. Her ID comes up as Captain Derra Jissard. That same woman has just arrived at the station!
I have seen Danar trying to study nerve strikes. Not with a sword however.
How does the attacker's style compare to what I normally see Danar use? The style is flashy and dramatic like what Danar does use.
Is the mind of the fighter convinced the galaxy naturally is drawn to himself, and all the combat should revolve around him? Danar is a good melee fighter, but he really relies on that shield belt and he has that arrogance thing. Does the attacker even care if his clothes might get damaged?
Now, the mind of the fighter. That's an interesting one. No, the fighter is not concerned about whether or not the galaxy is drawn to him, though he is concerned at keeping the combat revolved around him, but that does seem to be a part of the style itself.
The attacker does rely on his shield belt, but does not seem to worry much about his clothes.
The attacker was prepared for security cameras, but I ask Technician Dusard about other local machinery in the area. An ATM camera was probably also disabled, for example, but this is a cosmopolitan city so I expect devices to interface with all the kinds of humanity that make up the customer base. How about emitted-wave variations on a text generator? or something that records {high-pitched/low-pitched} {light/sound} and translated it to near-human standard spectra, and vice versa? Especially audio translators -- what if they're on the other side of the wall? Could they have picked something up as background noise? This is a water planet, it's got to rain a lot even with the force field domes, what about weather sensors?
Yes, ATMs are baffled. However, holo-ad boards - which scan to id each person and present commercials tailored to said person - would also be affected visually, but the physiological sensors (to monitor the reaction to the commercial) would probably not. Audio next to the alley would be affected, but those on the other side of walls, etc would not. It would be muffled, but translatable with some processing power. And yes, the weather sensors - specifically the ones that deal with detection of people in need of Search and Rescue (because of the epic storms a water world like this has) would not be affected but their recordings won't be as accurate as security cams. BUT it could be partial data.
I doubt any one kiosk or mini-billboard is going to give enough information to mean anything, but could a few of them have caught enough fragments for some kind of a clue?
As it is the Historical District, there would be approximately 47 mini-billboards of various sizes and types within medium to long range of the alley. Dusard does agree collectively they may paint some sort of picture, where individually they won't. It will require at least one Mentat or droid to help get this done in any reasonable amount of time.
Meanwhile, I would like to know what other cameras in the perimeter show Danar and the victims each approaching the scene, and how far of a backtrail can be gathered. I would really like to know why the victims expected Danar to be there, which had to incorporate not expecting their presence. They said they were surprising him.
It backtracks to hearing Piotr tell Alec that Piotr was informed Danar would be here to settle a score with Vormecetti.
Danar arrives at least twenty minutes before, almost out of breath.
So Danar arrived first? I thought the victims arrived first.
And where did he arrive FROM? Was he at a cabstand? Did he get out of a private vehicle? Did he walk past a buncha traffic cameras that were working because he had not yet turned on the interference device?
And if he just appears from out of nowhere: Shenanigans!
According to what we're seeing, now that we've gone back far enough, Danar arrived first.
Danar arrived on foot from further within the Historical district. No recording of him getting out of a cab, no vehicle, no private vehicle. He entered the alley from the other direction. He then lingered in the shadows waiting for the others to arrive. He seemed to leave the visible spectrum while he waited as well, though a VERY unusual energy signature was recorded during that time. Once the Vorpinski's arrived, Danar then quickly and quietly circled around and "entered after they did".
He did pass in front of other traffic cams. Pulling those up, Dusard has a perfect facial image of Lord Danar Vorpadaran. Facial recognition matches to 100%.
The driver of the rented limo is Chars Morren. The limousine rental company Acceptable Elegance Limo Service.
Detective James is sending people to pick up Chars Morren. He has greying red hair, blue eyes, been driving for this company for years with a clean record. He texted in sick to work this morning. He got Hal Killek to cover his shift.
Chars is almost-dead in his apartment, paralyzed, having been darted with the purple-staining goo.
At the hospital, the 2-1B droid says this paralytic is some kind of custom work. He's been under the effects of this slow-acting poison for easily 8 hours, based on physiological strain.
Which means he was experiencing the poison before the murder took place.
Burgess Dusard sends me back some of the reconstructed intel. He has some composite video. It looks like Danar. The limo picked him up 12 blocks away in the Government District, near the Ministry of Information.
Lady Donna Vorrutyer is sneakily watching the apartment building where Chars Morren was; she suspects her hated cousin Richars Vorrutyer is somehow involved. She will get me an introduction to someone involved in the saber rake society, in trade for information about the crime scene in Morren's apartment.
In the Morren apartment, I clear my mind, concentrate, and use Farseeing to take a look at the moment when Chars Morren got darted.
He was winding down as he got ready for bed. He'd just gotten done nitpicking an episode of Jedi Quest: The Next Generation on a forum. The door chime went off, so he goes to the door and there's a delivery guy. Chars won't open the door while the delivery guy is there. Once the delivery guy is gone, Chars uses a broom to touch the box a couple times to see if anything happens. Suddenly he stiffens, grabs his neck, and collapses into the doorframe. Then he falls back into the apartment.
The delivery guy is led into the apartment by gunpoint! The man with the gun is wearing a traveler's robe with the cowl up. "You're NOT gonna tell anybody!" and he hits the delivery guy with a dart. Very quickly he opens the box and pulls out a device. There's coolant steam coming off the device, and it unfolds like a toolchest. Very quickly he scans the driver, plugs it into the device, waits a moment, pulls out this flimsy-looking material and mashes it over the delivery guy's face, and that material turns into Chars Morren's face!
He then leaves Delivery!Morren in the middle of the room and he takes off with the real Chars Morren! Who is now looking like Delivery Guy! He pulls another flimsy material out and puts that on his face and now he is Fake!Danar. He has a faint scar on his right wrist.
I'm gonna need a scorecard.
The device is called a "biomesh mask" I am told. While Danar and Yeager are dealing with a package sent to me at the hospital "from Danar" - apparently it has a finger in it, and orders to back off - I'm going to the Ministry of Information.
The finger belonged to Jenna Vormecetti. Ministry of Information says she disappeared 9 hours ago -- from the Temple of the Bene Gesserit -- who do not yet know she is missing!
I head over there via mass transit. It's faster than trying to get a speederbike and follow city traffic. And anyway, I need some time to rarrange my notes.
While I occupy a seat on the elevated monorail, my 'padd chimes with an inbound message. That in and of itself is not that usual. However, this one has an attachment. Attachments to a message in the past have often fallen into only a handful of categories:
- A death threat. A surprising rarity these days; getting one might break the usual monotony.
- Creative consultant offers. These are not the most common, and I feel somehow I can blame either Danar or that holovid production house that released "Jedi Quest: The Next Generation"
- Genetic-Gender Swap Ads. Really, these people ought to research better, cause I'm not already male - or even partly male in some way.
- Some bit of useful data - like a map - from one of my associates. Not really needed in today's adventure, we are all on Procopia and really ... only Danar and Khun really like being here ... especially this approaching time of the standard year.
- Something oddly interesting. Sometimes unexpected, sometimes useful, sometimes useless, sometimes just plain funny.
This apparently falls within the last category. It's a data packet from Burgess. It's a fairly detailed marking of twelve hoverbus routes. Six bus stops are clearly marked on the digital map.
So, I got it to work. Really wasn't sure I could, BUT, it did! I had to cross wire two droids and a borrowed Mentat ... uh don't ask ... I think I'll call it a 'mental cluster' configuration. I think I drink too much CafPow ... A-n-y-way, I got some really interesting stuff here.Your person, not sure who he is, but really I got a better idea of what he's doing when he comes and goes. He's hopping hoverbus mass transit stops to get to one of six different locations around the capital. Here's the good part, its like he's popping off and on them in the way you'd use a comlink just long enough to say something but not get traced! So he's already figuring he's being followed. But! He's got those six drop offs he always uses. Not sure why he's moving between them, there seems to be a pattern, but I can't see why he'd stop at one three times, the not again for the next two. Also, he's been at this for about a week, so *I* think he's been planning this ... but uh... I'm just the tech.Here's the odd part, none are centered around the area the killing took place, its centered around the South section of the residential district where most of the Vor have summer homes. Vor like the Vorpadarans, the Vorrutyers, Vordrozdas, Vorkalloners, Vorpinskis, and so on.Ok... and yeah, he's still using the baffler ... but that baffler isn't working against commercial 'response-meters'. You know the ones that measure how much or how poor you like a given commercial. So...uh ... hurray Corporate Sector? A-n-y-way, we can track him. Just not the 'why' on his pattern to his stops off the hoverbus system.
I am still looking at that when my 'padd chimes again. Message from Eleni, with attachment. Attachment looks like a data file for a medglove. I remember having a medglove! Somebody took off with it. I keep thinking maybe I should pick up a spare, but then I don't actually do it.
Vanya,Dr. Tam and I are getting to the bottom of how the murders occured. If you can get your hands on a medglove, I've got a compound for you to scan for at whatever suspect you manage to find. Also, it looks like whoever pretended to be Danar's probably feeling pretty ill right about now. Just a heads-up.-CFB
Keen. Peachy. If the C is for "Captain" and the B is for "Benacor", what does the F stand for? "Farking"? I'd go along with that! Woman punched a giant critter in the brain to make it behave, she gets to call herself whatever she likes.
I glance up to check progress: still en route to the Bene Gesserit Temple and Private Spacedock Complex.
I go back to giving my 'padd a boggled look.
The bad guy is taking mass transit through the ritzy neighborhood of Estalle City?
That makes so little sense, I think I'll start with the assumption that something else entirely is going on.
I tell the city guide software to assemble an index of all the businesses fronting directly on each indicated transit stop, then de-list any business that had a sister location at an accessible stop NOT used.
It about has to be the Coast Line route that Burgess meant: the security concerns of letting a hoverbus route pass through High Vor neighborhoods would make for obnoxious travel delays. I doubt anyone would care about the noise, not with the way these places were constructed, but the citizenry would certainly care about the bomb-checks every two blocks. Ergo, no non-local traffic through those avenues. Delivery vans, armored House limousines complete with relevant livery, your occasional Armsman on a swoop or a flash speeder maybe. People using those stops are known to have business there ... or else they are going to draw attention to themselves, just by being present.I spent a few minutes speculating on the amount of time allegedly spent at each stop: what if more than one conspirator were using the biomesh technology to impersonate the same Vor, relay-race style? What if the stops were the moments where the baton was passed? That would make this awfully over-complicated. I'll flag the possibility for more in-depth examination later, but. Not borne out by the response-meters' testimony. Got to exhaust the simpler theories until this becomes the best fit....
One of those simpler theories was that the Bad Guy was testing security reactions. Maybe he was trying to provoke some movement. Maybe he was trying to numb the local observation points to his presence.
Maybe he's trying to catch images of a particular someone? I went back to look at the times Burgess specified for the hoverbus stops.
Eleni:On my way to Bene Gesserit Temple. J Vormecetti vanished, may be missing a finger. My next stop is office of Mecetti High Lord Bodé Leobund, her uncle. Will see if I can dig up a medglove somewhere along the way. If I drop off contact, check NW coastline of Estalle Island, just north of Historical District.- V
The times Burgess provided span different times in the day and night. Though none cover the early morning hours. Times are approximate, and vary by five minutes either way.
Most recent times Burgess recorded are:
- Gets on at 12:30pm at the edge of the Vor residential area, departs at 12:40pm four blocks north edge of the Vor residential area. (this route is chosen very often)
- Lost between 12:45pm and 2:50pm once entered one of three nearby construction sites. Never apparently leaves construction site.
- Gets on at 3pm at the edge of the Vor residential area, departs at 3:30pm in the south commercial sector. (this route is chosen quite often)
- Gets on at 4pm a block away from 3:30pm departure in the south commercial sector, departs at 4:10pm at north commercial sector.
- Lost between 4:14pm and 8:50pm once entered one of three nearby construction sites. Never apparently leaves construction site.
- Gets on at 9pm at one of two mid-zone commercial sector stations, departs at 9:25pm at south commercial district / north historical district / residential district boundary.
- Lost between 9:28pm and 11:15pm once entered one of three nearby construction sites. Never apparently leaves construction site.
- Gets on at 11:30pm at the edge of the Vor residential area, departs at 12:10am where the Coast Line crosses the historical district / commercial district boundary. (this route is repeated quite often)
- Intermittently lost as subject wanders through Historical district. Keeps close to establishments known for 'private zones' where scanning systems are not interlinked with city and anything external is jammed. Locations picked up are all known saber rake dueling areas... back alleys, parks, etc away from 'private clubs'.
- Gets on at 3am at the edge of the Vor residential area, departs at 4:10am at south commercial sector.
- Lost between 4:10am and 12:20am once entered one of three nearby construction sites. Never apparently leaves construction site.
Yeesh.
Tanya,What do you mean by vanished? Was she taken from the temple? Is anyone hurt?If I don't hear from you, that stretch of coastline will be the first place I look. Sparks and Rico came by with a present for Simon. He is practically giddy.Ttfn,
EB
That's ... I am not sure how to define "vanished". I'll have to see what there is to see at the Temple once I get there. Should not be too much longer!
Looking at the list as Burgess ordered it:
Item one: is ten minutes enough time for a soldier to get from the boarding stop to the departure stop, without drawing attention by running? I'm trying to picture why someone would ride the bus that far. Is the boarding stop the northern edge or the southern edge? Is the departure stop inside the residential area (in other words, four blocks north of the southern edge of the area) or outside (in other words, four blocks north of the northern edge)? There've got to be some hoverbuses that stop at every stop and others that are "express" and only stop at key locations, right?
Item two: one of three nearby construction sites – all mansions or walled villas or whatever? Has he disappeared into each of the construction sites, or are they so close together that Burgess isn't certain which one was used? Or does he go into one construction site consistently, and Burgess did not bother to look up which one it was?
Item three: same "edge" location as Item one?
Item four: If Item three happened, does that always mean Item four happened after, and vice versa?
And item five is part of item four, right?
Are all of these construction sites linked by site owner or electrician or something? (That's another public records database search that I figure Burgess can actually do faster than I can.)
On that last one, Burgess wrote, "4:10am and 12:20am ". I check the planetary clock versus Standard Time used galactic-wide. Procopia's got a rotational period of 27 standard days. I really doubt local time is divided into, what, 648 hours?
Anyway. So he said there's nothing in the "early morning hours" but I'm trying to figure out when Burgess thinks of as "early morning". When did he mean when he typoed "12:20 am"? What's the actual time period where no records for Fake-Danar Transits can be acquired? Is "wandering through Historical District" through "3am at the edge of the Vor district" the only "early morning hours" intended? Because that lends even more to the theory that this has to be more than one person. Gotta sleep sometime!
Another ping from the 'padd. It's not from an address I recognize, but it identifies as being from Burgess. This one's a short video:
Hey!
I've been trying to get through the mess at work. The precinct is infected. It's some kind of computer virus. A guy from the Ministry of Information says its derived from a kind used on a "friend or foe" starship recognition system a few days ago. So, you'll want to get your gear checked, and really don't trust what came from the office. Not from me or anyone for a few hours anyway. They say this virus hit the coroner's office also. They said they weren't affected, but the virus has made several attempts so far. They're pretty torqued off.Here's the info from my backups. Sorry it's brief. I found a mentat willing to help if I play him in 4d chess using dice to randomize who plays what side each move.Anyway, the person of interest is only active in the afternoon and evenings. Normally he has been going to ground at midnight standard time. Then he shows up again at noon later. When he was out attacking the victims broke the pattern. He was working overtime or something. He does always seem to 'leave' the Vor residential area. Not found anything with him 'arriving'.He jumps around a lot across lots of hoverbuss routes. There are three he gets on for very, very short stops. One in the commercial district, two in the historical district. I've marked those on the map I've attached with red circles. If he follows his pattern, he'll be getting on the one in the commercial district - palace side - today.He's been using the two very large construction areas on the palace side of the commercial district to duck into. He's also been using two construction area for two destroyed Vor summer homes in the residential areas. Those are the houses for House Vorharkonen and House Vorkalloneer. Not nearly done. I found some notes about the city planner objecting to the two houses wanting to mount low powered weapons pointing at each other or something. The person of interest should be ducking in and around the Vor summer home construction late today. I've marked the construction areas in green.Oh, I'm using the commercial billboards to triangulate him. I don't know immediately when he gets out, but I get an alert about 5 minutes after he starts showing up. Last sighting I have is he express mailed a package, then hopped the Coast Line and hasn't left it yet. He's still on there now. I'll let you know when he leaves, but remember, it'll be a 5 minute delay when I find out.Not sure how to prove this is really me and not that virus. Oh! Get your rig scanned! My personal one's not infected, so once you're sure you're ok, send to this address. I'll let you know when its safe to send to the precinct. And don't forget to warn anybody who's been or going to talk to the precinct. Their gear might be infected. We've not figured out when the virus actually got in. Apparently, it aggressively looks for anything with an open channel.
Well. That's a ... thing. Hunh.
Here's my stop: time to walk that last block or so up to the edge of the Temple property.
The BG Temple has added things, including a weaponized floating droid following along the patrolling Sister up on the parapet.
The area from which Jenna Vormecetti was taken is just outside the BGT. It was actually in a side courtyard used for meditative contemplating. Apparently the Sisters are going over the security system that has been {slagged via overloaded circuits.} Two Sisters are scanning the walls.
Jenna Martovich: "The person in question lured her out by appearing to be Danar Vorpadaran. We know it is NOT DV because anything that crosses their threshold undergoes a DNA scan. The Mentats' DNA is altered over time by the juice that they consume, so they are mostly not in the BG genetic database. Whoever is impersonating Danar is ALSO not in the BG database."
Partial security footage indicates that Jenna V realized that was not Danar when she got fairly close to the man. She went to say something and some kind of sound suppressor is in action. Not-Danar also had a targeted EMP device that shut off her lightsaber! Turned out, when she tried to escape, there's a force field cage around her that has the same reverberation as a shield belt. Not-Danar cuts her on the arm with something probably drugged, Jenna gets upset and tries to Force Lightning him, but Not-Danar has a flexible mesh built into his casual-cover-ops-suit with half cape. It grounds out the energy of the FL attack. Not-Danar doses her a second time after she falls, then picks her up and saunters out.
The silence field generator has a black market modifier's mark, recognizable to the Order of Solicitors, but not yet connected to a specific name.
Delivery!Guy is Nan Lunset. Still not conscious.
My stuff has been cleansed. According to soil analysis from traces left by the not Danar, there are traces of shoreline AND the type of paint used for deckplating of a ship.
I got smacked into a wall by a construction droid as soon as I came out of the BGT. (-1d to all actions) Something somewhere is cracked, I'll get it looked at later.
Judge Priman is the street judge helping us at the construction site near the Bene Gesserit Temple.
Sparks says to tell Captain Benacor that he talked to Captain Jissard, whose family hates the Bene Gesserits. Captain Jissard hasn't been doing anything suspicious herself, but she relates tales of her family really hating them - and tells some really creepy stories about her more distant ancestors doing some creepy studies of the BGs. It seems some time way back the BGs sent a member of the Jissard family off to get killed, possibly as a means of disrupting a marriage in progress?
Sparks knows a guy by the name "Rigazzi Bly" who may be useful for investigating the assassin hacker droid Fourlom.
Spot the legendary Captain Benacor!
The Mentats have tracked down the physical body of Fourlom, in a closed down factory/warehouse/something north of the palace.
Eleni has a prisoner over at the hospital, who'd been using the synthetic skin to impersonate (Danar? a hospital employee? I dunno.) She and Khun are conducting an interrogation, and she sent me the retinal scan. This nice Herglic fellow with us, Yaasen Masaari, identifies the retinal scan as "Fake Danar". Captain Benacor has captured the main enemy and defeated the plot! The prisoner is naming names and describing sources for the tools he used on this whole plot.
We've got a little cleanup to do: we need to finally capture Fourlom's body -- which will be great if we can get there through all this traffic -- and rescue Jenna (who is in a stasis tube in the sewer under the Vorpaderan summer home). Danar returns the infectious software through the droids in the factory while Yaasen uses his local connection to do fighty things in the network.
Nevin Cass is the person who hired all the bounty hunters to try to capture us. It was a means to stop us from investigating him.
And I probably need to visit a medical clinic myself, someplace that won't try to slap bacta on me. I want to make sure nothing is out of alignment while I work on healing up from that smack into the wall.
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