Eight months before the instigation of Order 66
The Silver River
High orbit over Costansis, Outer Rim Territories
In the middle of the room, a lone figure sat and played. The melody that he brought forth from the instrument on his lap was a haunting refrain, a sad song that touched even the hearts of those who did not understand his language. Few would have believed before now that a Wookiee song, in a language that was normally harsh and impossible for many people to understand at all, could move them to tears.
Gyyhuunamung sang in perfect harmony with his yhitto, putting his soul into the tale of a love lost and families torn by such tragedy. The feeling that he imbued the music with touched every heart that heard it, and a silence had fallen over the room as the guests and crew members listened, enthralled by the display that was being put on for them.
As the last notes of the final chorus died gently away, the silence continued, broken only by a few tearful sniffles, before the applause started, and Gyyhuunamung rose to take a bow. A few credits were tossed in his direction by the most vulgar of the audience, who then found themselves being quietly admonished for their actions by the more refined sections.
Their host stood up slowly, his bulk making it hard for him to manage such an action at any real speed. Urmanst Ernan styled himself as a crime lord, and he certainly played the part well. But where other crime lords might seek to remain physically fit, he allowed his Neimoidian body to go to fat and flab, whilst encouraging the richest of guests and visitors to join him aboard the Silver River rather than going to meet them.
He kept the applause going a bit longer, and then waved for silence. "Truly magnificent indeed," he declared. "Rarely do we see such a performance in this place..." He waved the applause back up again for a few seconds, before silencing them once more and turning to a droid standing next to his dais.
The droid was an odd design, with mismatching arms, a single photoreceptor set on one side of its head, and a used look to its shell. Most bizarrely, it was dressed in formal clothing in a Neimoidian style, complete with an ill-fitting hat.
"Sir," Ernan said, addressing the droid, "I am pleased that you brought this individual here to play for us today. And I hope that you will be able to stay for longer so that we may hear such unique talent further."
"Of course," the droid replied, bowing slightly. "I have much business to discuss, and so it would be an honour to remain. I trust that my staff with be well accommodated," the droid added, gesturing to the Wookiee, and then to a Mon Calamari who was propped up against one wall with a dreamy expression on her face.
"Quarters are being prepared as we speak," Ernan assured the droid. "And I am most intrigued by the business of one who can find and retain such talent as this..."
"Wretch," Srah muttered, shifting slightly and wishing that she had been able to arrange for a better hiding place for herself. The equipment jammed into the cubby-hole with her was generating just enough heat to make things very uncomfortable, and the jumpsuit that she was wearing was starting to cling in places from the sweat. The lump jammed between her legs, which she had taken care to place so that it wouldn't cause her any trouble, had shifted on the first lurch and was now well on the way to giving her blisters.
She tapped at a button on the datapad in her hand, working entirely from touch, unable to look directly at it because of the cramped space and the datagoggles that she was wearing which were linked to it. Her view switched from the audio/ video feed from Gates' photoreceptor over to the bug woven into Gyyhuunamung's baldric, giving her an unhelpful but instructive view of how to pack a yhitto away.
"Rhyydonning, are you ready?" she asked softly into the comlink at her throat. She was painfully aware that the instant someone spotted this channel she would be in trouble; even with the voice activated function in it, it was still risky.
There came a faint Wookiee growl back at her, and she tensed herself, getting ready to move. She watched as an aide approached Gyyhuunamung and handed him a security pass in order to get around the ship. Calmly, Gyyhuunamung slipped it into his baldric murmuring an assurance that it would be kept safe. Inside that pocket of the baldric a small scanner woke up, reading the security pass and copying the credentials from it in an instant. Whilst it was active it reached out, managing to snag the aide's credentials as well.
Both sets popped up on Srah's datagoggles, along with two more that Gates had managed to pick up already. All were low security passes, but there was probably enough, and so Srah bounced all four of them over to Tetee, who stirred briefly, and silently went to work on cracking the codes that would give them greater access to the ship.
They already knew a lot about the ship as it was; the security system was very high grade, but the Iridis Security and Data Protection Corporation had been only too willing to pass information about such systems to Lady Sarah Hyde when she spoke so highly of the security aboard the Silver River and dropped hints about purchasing such systems for two of her ships. Similarly the shipwrights of Neimodia had been only too happy to discuss with Baroness Harh Deis the upgrades that they had made to an otherwise standard issue Munificient class communications frigate that the Banking Clan had sold off when she had been discussing similar modifications to her flagship.
Now they just had to put the information together as fast as possible, before someone worked out that the droid that they had let aboard was actually quite heavily armed, that the Wookiee currently stowing a musical instrument was going to turn up in two places at once.
Incomplete - Basically, they steal a ship