[Pregame Night] Call for Quorum

[Kaneesa Gee]

Upstairs, the bars of the Codpiece are alive. A new acid jizz band has started up on the stage, with notes of the music wafting downstairs. Kaneesa had put the call out for his people to meet up, and he had a board prepared, ready to take notes.

[CLL-MT9]

Clementine was in his charging corner, a roughly three-meter-square space marked by walls on two sides and shelving made of an oblong packing crate on the third. The shelving held Clementine’s few non-attached possessions, mostly bits of literal junk or spaceport souvenirs, like the transparent globes plastic full of clear liquid and glowing pieces of plastic that were supposed to simulate a field of shooting stars when shaken. He hovered somewhere between fully activated and switched off for recharging, his exterior lights dimmed and his figure slouched, but also moving slightly with noises of metal clinking or grinding against each other as he bobbed along with the music coming in from above.

In reaction to some external signal or perhaps interior clock, he began to whirr in to a higher state of activity, a few servos in his legs and arms expanding and contracting his joints to check for grit and power flow. Partway through, he poked his head over the top of his shelving, tilting his torso to aim the half-globe of his photoreceptor towards Kaneesa’s lightboard.

“Is it time, boss?” he said, a little louder than needed even to be heard over the music. His vocoder wasn’t great at peak operation, and usually lagged behind his other systems on booting.

[Kaneesa Gee]

"The others are running on their usual time delay Clem. Don't worry, you have plenty of cycles to finish the boot."

[Hin'biki]

Quiet as a Ryl mouse, Hin made his way up the stairs. A well practiced step designed specifically not to disturb, not that many would hear his footsteps over the sound of music coming from downstairs. With a bar towel he wiped off his hands and then drew his forearm across his brow to wick away the sweat. The lighting cast deep shadows across his face, making the young twi'lek look even more gaunt than he was.

He had already worked the bar from open and would still be here for hours longer. But he just took in a deep breath and carried on. Allowed the break he silently rested his head against one of the shelves, arms crossed.

[Vikki]

There was obviously a point where Vikki had arrived. When? Who knew. Why? Well, she had been asked to. Now dressed more like the group were used to her, not even her face visible in the black hood, she spoke quietly from her seated place in the corner.

"Well?"

[Kaneesa Gee]

Vikki's prompt gets an annoyed tap of the foot from Kaneesa. "No sign of Elena? Well, I suppose it's alright. We could use her, but we can at least start without her."

Kaneesa clears his throat. "As always, feel free to criticize the plan. I would rather have the obvious thing I'm missing spelled out while our hands are clean, rather than stepping into the nerf pile and dragging the mess back here."

"Now...the biggest difficulties of a successful heist: Identifying something of value. Taking it. Getting credits back for it. Not getting killed or locked up for it. I think I have something for all of this."

Kaneesa taps the lightboard, and a picture of the spaceport pops up. "The planet receives periodic shipments of booze for "entertainment". While there are plenty of smugglers, the bulk orders come in to the main spaceport, where it gets divided up and sent off to places all over the planet. We know this because...well, it's what *we* do. It's a delivery that keeps some of the nastiest places on this planet running smooth. Before it gets divided up, it is in one bulk order. Now, someone could try to raid the ship while it comes into orbit, but that means trapping them gravity a'fore they jump back out, and it will be sure to bring heat bearing down. But if we can "misplace" it in the dockyard before it gets divided up, that is a potentially enormous score.

"As for turning it to credits: For one, our operating costs drop tremendously. We could just sit on it and slowly make profit. But that means pissing off the big players upstairs" Kaneesa gestures upwards, meaning the hardened criminals in Upper P-town. "We get the hard cases their orders, and let them know that they can buy out their rivals for the supply. With scarcity, they can set whatever prices they want, double, triple, quadruple their profits. For the rest, there's plenty of 'shiners who would be happy to get some quality product they can use to make up the balance of their rotgut. There are plenty of buyers, and plenty of places to hide the loot in plain sight."

Kaneesa looks around the group. "Any comments?

[CLL-MT9]

Clementine rose to his full, ceiling-scraping height, and eased out of his corner, pausing halfway to peer at the other two others and give a sort of full-body nod of greeting. He watches Kaneesa's talk without speaking or moving. He might have something to contribute, but he's either taking a while to come up with it or just deferring to the others.

[Hin'biki]

Hin opened his eyes and lifted his head from the side of the shelf it had been resting on. With a wary glance around the room, it was clear the young twi'lek was nervous. When no one else seemed eager to chime in he looked at the holomap, "This is going to draw a lot of attention. No matter whether it goes good or bad."

[Kaneesa Gee]

Kaneesa nods in response to Hin's statement.

"That is will. The question is whether we can make the good attention worth the bad. Which is why I am laying it out for ya'!" Kaneesa bobs his head in a nod to himself. "I think that with the right planning, we take the best of the good and leave most of the bad. Which is why I have asked you fain gentlebein' if you think we are up to it."

[Hin'biki]

"So, we misdirect the dropship to the wrong location. We steal the ship. Take the cargo, then jettison the ship? Is that the plan?" Hin, did not seem any less nervous, but his interest was at least piqued. This was the most talking he'd done in weeks.

[CLL-MT9]

"I could help move the mer-chan-dise," offers Clementine. It's probably not a clever pun about fencing stolen goods and literally carrying things. "I could also help us ditch the ship. If it is not too big of a ship. And if anyone gave us any trouble, I could clobber them." About par for the course for Clementine's contribution to planning meetings.

[Kaneesa Gee]

Kaneesa seems to mull over it. "I mean, we could...but you're asking for the drop ship to land somewhere else besides the spaceport. Or in a hanger where we can take over the ship ourselves. And then that leaves handling the crew..."

Kaneesa looks over to Vikki. I would prefer to have as few bodies as possible on our way in and out. Do you think that you could infiltrate flight control for when they touch down around the spaceport? Have them "lose" the ship for a while, or tie up the crew with a quarantine or customs investigation?"

[Vikki]

Vikki had remained quiet as she listened to the plan. Seems Kaneesa was finally going for the big plays. Gutsy. Brave. She respected that, but didn't want to be gutted for it.

"Interesting" she mused quietly as the others debated, until she was directly addressed. Then the hooded girl looked contemplative. Not that anyone could make out her face in the deep hood.

"Distract the spaceport, and make a ship vanish? Technology isn't my strong suit, but I can totally come up with something. In and out is my strong suit after all."

Another pause, before she continued.

"Where. When. How much are we talking about?"

And the silent but obvious question not voiced....What's my cut?

[Elena Harko]

"I'm here..." the voice was soft and filled with exhaustion; a very sleepy looking Elena descended down from the bar proper into the downstairs with the rest of the group. She stifled a small yawn, giving a little wave to the rest of the group when she came in. This was perhaps Elena at her most casual, certainly more so than the way she usually presented herself. Normally she a jumpsuit of sorts bedecked with all sorts of odd tools with purposes unknown, or at least heavy pants, instead she was wearing a loose tunic shirt and form-fitting shorts with her duster just kind of pulled on over it all. It looked like she either had just just crawled out of bed or never went to sleep in the first place, and just remembered or realized that she was late for the meeting.

"Sorry, I was working on...a thing." she muttered, rubbing her eyes and sitting down cross-legged, elbows resting on her knees and hands against her cheeks to prop her head up. They likely knew that she was often contracted, or had some sort of business arrangement with some of the 'big players upstairs' that Kaneesa had previous referred to, specifically Rullarc Mulgin, strange odd jobs here and there often involving prostheses or oddities that she would often just describe as 'working on a thing' and giving little else in terms of details unless she was drunk, at which point she began proudly talking...a lot...about various ideas she was thinking about. However, from what people say, that only happened once a long while ago.

Either way, she was the type that once she got rolling working on something she didn't want to stop working on it. It was likely that she hadn't slept at all the night before, and given that it was night now, that was a long time of being awake.

"What'd I miss?"

[Kaneesa Gee]

Elena finally arrives, and Kaneesa gestures her to move in, holding up a finger to let Vikki know that he hasn't forgotten her. "We think we have a plan, and we could use your expertise. Basically, we are looking for a way to make a ship head to somewhere remote instead of the spaceport, we can make it land in a place we want...or if we make it land at the spaceport, it's at a hanger that we control...or we have a way to "misplace" some shipping containers and make it look like such an accident that it just plain old imcompetence. I know how to work the people, and Vikki can get in anywhere, and Hin can go anywhere...but none of us know how to work any "technical difficulties".

"Where. When. How much are we talking about?"

"Where will depend on the best place to make the grab. The next delivery should be coming within the next week or so, I need to button up the particular. And how how much..."

Kaneesa gives an unabashed grin.

"I'll put it to you this way. One case, one case, of Wyern's Reserve whisky, is 3000 credits by the time all of the markups get worked in, and that is assuming that you can even find it. Three thousand...for one case. Now, not everything will be Wyern's Reserve, but we look to be stealing a planetary shipment of booze. Plus, 3000 credits is the base price." Kaneesa gestures to the storage area. "And that doesn't include the profit from selling drinks with a markup because of "how scarce a drink is these days". We can also water down the product with the empty bottles and resell under the table...so...can someone do some math for me?"

[CLL-MT9]

Clementine turned with more energy than he showed in reaction to most things as Elana arrived. "Hel-lo, Elena. It is good to see you."

"So...can someone do some math for me?"

"That's a whole lot of credits, boss," Clementine offered. "That's a big score, yes it is."

[Elena Harko]

Elena nodded sleepily towards Clementine, saying "Hey Clem," with a small smile before swiping a bit of hair out of her face and looping it behind her ears, contemplating what the best possible option is. It would be significantly easier if she wasn't having a bit of trouble concentrating for the moment. She rubbed at her eyes a little.

"Okay...so it depends a bit what we can get access to, I guess. Hardest would be get the ship, wait until they land, spike the security system so we can see when they get off, and then lock the ship up when they're outside. Little to no crew, we could get it far away....easiest to carry out, probably hardest to set up. If we wait for it to unload, we could try to take care of where it goes but they'd figure that out pretty quick. We could have it go to the wrong place and then shuffle out the real crate for a fake one and it might take them longer to think something is wrong but we'd have to be really on top of the timing..."

She gave a small shrug, "I mean, there are probably other options too but I can't think of any yet."

[Kaneesa Gee]

"Okay...so it depends a bit what we can get access to, I guess. Hardest would be get the ship, wait until they land, spike the security system so we can see when they get off, and then lock the ship up when they're outside. Little to no crew, we could get it far away....easiest to carry out, probably hardest to set up. If we wait for it to unload, we could try to take care of where it goes but they'd figure that out pretty quick. We could have it go to the wrong place and then shuffle out the real crate for a fake one and it might take them longer to think something is wrong but we'd have to be really on top of the timing..."

Kaneesa seems to be nodding through the process and then offers one of his trademark grins. "Elena, I think I have something with that one. Give me a moment, I think I have something that works in all of your advice."

Kaneesa clears his throat and begins writing down on the board. "First, we tighten up to know when the shipment arrives and who is bringing it. I have some legitimate reasons for finding out, and from there I can dig around with our patrons." Kaneesa points to Hin, echoing his suggestion. "Elena, if you can fiddle with the manifests to get them to touch down in a part of the spaceport that we have access to we have first touch on them. A hanger we've rented out, or some part of the port that the real authorities won't bother us."

"I think I have a way to separate the shippers from their goods, and them thank us for it. When they touch down, a scoundrel looking fella approaches them to make a shady offer. To pay them their cut of the delivery before it goes and gets taxed by the planet. They might, or they might not try it, but that is when our very legitimate looking customs officer shows up. One who I know can get in and out anywhere." Kaneesa offers wink to Vikki. "Depending on how we have to spin it, we make up a story about how this was a test to see if there were customs evaders. We'll be as helpful and friendly as possible, and let them know that we are helping them out of some legal paperwork...but we need the cargo, now."

Kaneesa gestures to Clem. "We have our escape route ready. It's easy enough to have Clem be taking crates too and from town...we need supplies after all."

"Hin." Kaneesa nods to his Twi'lek employee. "This might be dangerous, but I trust you: I need someone to be running interference to make sure that we aren't stumbled on too early, and to be overwatch. Do you think you're up to it?"

[CLL-MT9]

"Elena, if you can fiddle with the manifests to get them to touch down in a part of the spaceport that we have access to we have first touch on them. A hanger we've rented out, or some part of the port that the real authorities won't bother us." ...

Kaneesa gestures to Clem. "We have our escape route ready. It's easy enough to have Clem be taking crates too and from town...we need supplies after all."

"I do do that, I move crates all the time," said Clementine. "I can help us pick a good ware-house, too, I know lots of ware-houses."

[Hin'biki]

Hin looked around the room, ".....Recon isn't exactly my strong suit, but I can do whatever you need boss." His eyes focused on Kaneesa and gave a shallow, uncertain nod.