The soft murmur of quiet conversations and the gentle clinking of champagne glasses filled the banquet hall, the low thrum broken by the occasional burst of laughter from a patron who was too far into their cups too early in the evening. It rose up past the stark white columns, normally quite beautiful, but now covered in gaudy golden decorations, and echoed off the high arched ceiling. Supreme Chancellor Ood Bnar turned his gnarled head towards the sound and scanned the room, calm but curious. The Neti silently and inconspicuously activated his commlink.
“Is everyone in position?”
“Confirmed, boss.” The first person to respond was only fifteen feet away from Ood, holding a tray of glasses with a fake smile plastered onto his patchy face. Itzo Maelemi turned and laid the tray down and loosened the tight collar on his server’s uniform. It was a great disguise, but it made his neck uncomfortably itchy. Must be the fabric. His eyes were trained on a tall Twi’lek man in a beautiful flowing lavender robe standing just outside in the garden, engaged in a conversation with a pair of dancers. “Still have a visual on Target A.”
“Target B is still in the kitchens.” Aylink Sajark’s voice clicked into the commlink, muffled slightly by the slamming of pans and shouts between staff. The Nautolan was crouched down next to an oven feigning repairs. The appropriate tools were out and in her hands, but her focus was elsewhere. A plump human man with a tight grey suit, a thick mustache, and bright red cheeks made his way through the kitchen, making sure to stop at each station as he went and find a flaw to berate the staff about. Aylin tracked him the whole way, and as he crossed the threshold back into the Gala proper, she clicked the commlink once more. “He’s headed towards you.”
Ood did not reply, but instead turned to look out over into the garden. There was still one team member yet unaccounted for.
“Dasha, do you copy? Are you in position?” A few moments of silence passed before he asked again, slightly more agitated. “Dasha?” Finally the commlink activated, but at first only the sounds of labored breathing could be heard. There was a heavy grunt and the sound of grinding on stone, then the Sephi’s voice.
“Yep, I’m here. Karkin’ wall was taller than you said.” Dasha replied, panting slightly while she caught her breath, back leaned up against the duracrete wall just below the outer edge of the garden. “Had to grab onto a security laser. Went ahead and disabled it.” She wiped the last bits of hydraulic fluid from her hands onto her pants.
“Good. We are about to begin.” Ood breathed a sigh of relief. The distraction was the most difficult task and also the most necessary one. Everything relied on its success. “Moving to intercept Target A.”
Dasha grumbled something under her breath about glitter-bombing Ood later as she walked like a maintenance worker in search of the nearest terminal. Her ears were pricked, alert, listening for anyone who has taken interest to her. Then again, this is a Gala, not a place for some stunted Sephi to be. Obviously she was a worker of some form. A normal Sephi would be tall, elegant, and refined by now. But her elegance doesn’t manifest in what people see at a glance. Her elegance was in some things she can do.
Dasha almost sauntered over like some worker being paid average compared to others yet stayed in shadows or more shaded areas while avoiding cameras or reducing her footprint where she could. Soon, she found a terminal and pretended to access and check on it yet plugged in a discrete remote dongle.
Part 1 done, next… I need a spot nearby. she thought, finding a nearby bench to ‘take a smoke break’.
Fingers almost lazily skimmed her datapad as if she as browsing something, but instead she was slicing into the system as a whole.
“I’m in. We ready? Of course we are.” She muttered into her commlink as she watched her personally-coded digital tools run commands giving her access, starting with the nearby communication frequencies and access to each. She listened into each to find the one that sounded like Security.
Being one of the pranksters in Taldyran, she of course had a laser pointer on her person. With it she pointed it somewhere out in the open garden in easy view of a camera and it looked like a sniper had their laser pointer on that spot yet would show as an odd orb on footage. On the Security frequency she stated, “Uh, guys, what is that out in the garden?”
A droid likely watching the camera feed responded, “Unknown. Allocating nearest personnel to investigate.”
Aylin went back to her ‘fixing’ duties in the kitchen, but she had send her little droid to shadow the target. She wanted to be sure that he went were they expected him to go.
“Hey, watch out!” someone yelled at her as she nearly bumped into the waiter getting their items out the kitchen.
“Sorry,” she replied with a innocent smile, “I will look out better next time.” With that she hurried off towards the back of the kicthen so that she could keep an better eye on the messages and the holopics Siky sent her.
‘At least they tried’ the Neti mused as the gaudy setting attempted once again to offend his senses. He could see the architect had attempted a sort of Neo-High-Republic style. Sadly his failure had seemingly elevated the result from attempted homage to horrific mockery. The gold details, the plants, even the upholstery would be better suited for the parlours of the ancient Hutt palaces from before they went fully into their industrial waste facility style of architecture.
Calmly turning down yet another servant attempting to ply him with cheap vinegar pretending to be Core wine, the aged being relied on the obscurity of his species to request water. Maybe this time they’d actually follow through and bring him a glass of something actually palatable.
He’d turned off his commlink after verifying everyone was in place. The Force allowed him to hone in on the rest of the team and their general locations. Time to fully go into the modus of a foreign Head of State who’s trying to sound out trade opportunities. The best way to cause chaos was to divide the room. If he was near some of the other foreign dignitaries when “the event” happened, he’d be able to rile them up a bit and potentially let the mood turn against the hosts and locals for being incompetent.
‘After all, what’s better than one indignant diplomat who blames the locals and host for the slight, than two at the same time.’
Ooh, hang on. That cluster over there seemed to hold a few of the more frumpy mid rim aristocratic dowagers, at least three new money industrialists, and four of the most easily offended diplomats this side of Cato Neimodia.
‘This is going to be almost as much fun as that one time Grandmaster Took puked off a balcony due to an allergic reaction to shellfish and directly into a highly culturally sensitive and sacred pool on that semi-cannibalistic outer rim planet. When did that happen again? No, focus on the here and now!’
Itzo watched patiently from behind a garden fountain as his target slipped between the two guards and down the secluded path. Though he couldn’t see it, he knew Aylin’s droid was slowly following behind, out of sight from even the most discerning guards. After a few moments the target returned. He said a couple words in passing to one of the guards before stepping back into the garden and resuming jovial conversation. Less than ten seconds later, the guards each pressed a finger to their ears and spoke quickly.
‘Right on time.’ The Zabrak thought to himself with a smirk. ‘ She’s good.’ The guard that spoke with the target motioned for his ally to investigate the disturbance that Dasha had caused, leaving precisely the opening he was looking for. Focusing his attention solely on the remaining guard, he approached and spoke in a calm and authoritative voice, weaving the Force in with his words.
“I need to get past you to deliver some drinks below.” The guard started to reach for his weapon, but paused and stared back at Itzo blankly for a beat. He then resumed his position and nodded.
“Proceed.” Itzo thanked him wordlessly and slid past down the walkway, tossing his catering tray into the bushes with a crash. Once out of sight around the bend he activated his commlink.
“Alright, I’m through. Did Siky spot the drop point?” Aylin ducked around a corner and pulled up her datapad. Finding new ways to look busy in the kitchen - while avoiding suspicion - was becoming increasingly difficult, preventing her from keeping watch on her droid.
“No, the target had already left before it made it down there. Searching now.” Itzo sighed and rolled up his sleeves, scanning around for the small droid.
“Affirmative. I’m joining the search. I hope Ood can keep them busy.’
Now the distraction was set, Dasha set about to her usual shenanigans. Her datapad was showing her more and more things she had access to as her digital tools found its way around, saving her fingers from tapping furiously and arousing suspicion.
She had caught her breath now and casually stretched, looking around when something caught her attention. Galas… people like to see other people to talk to them… lights…. what if….
Dasha grinned as she muttered into her commlink, “Hey guys, watch this.” as she hit a few items in sequence then followed through with the same sequence. She could even see it from where she was sitting as all lights, cameras, terminals, and wired in electronics turned off, waited a few seconds, then turned back on as if there was a brownout.
“Hey, Aylin, where did you want to go?” as all she needed to ask before she did some tippy tapping of a couple of places’ lights to make it seem as if they were struggling to stay lit.
“Just out of this to crowded kitchen…” Aylin hissed, trying to speak as softly as she can while being shooed again. “Keep playing with the lights, I know something to lighten up the party.”
With that she snuck off and grabbed some materials and threw them together, while moving around all the half panicked staff trying not to drop their trays of food and drinks. Grinning to herself she dressed herself up in a darkened corner and waited for a long pause in the lights when they were off. Then she darted off into the main hall.
“Let’s sparkle up this party!” she yelled and threw around hands full of pink and purple glitter as she ran. The glitter was visible each time the lights turned on and floated down in clouds, covering everything in a nice pink and purple shine. Siky chirped to let her know it was there and got scooped up when she ran past.
“Just keep flikkering them a little longer, Dasha, then the lights can work normal again.”
Aylin looked around and grinned, “Found our escape.” She threw off her makeshift disguise and slided down a droid maintance hatch. “Home safe, for now.”
The Neti took away a moment of his time to study himself in the flashes of light. His glittery bark looked quite trendy. Well, trendy for the Coruscant clubbing scene about two millennia ago.
‘I wonder if this is still in fashion…’ Ood considered and then discarded the idea as other guests around him began to notice their own states and started shrieking in the sort of shocked outrage usually reserved for diplomats waking up in the altar room after having been abducted by Deep Core death cults. ‘It seems my career has warped my sense of normality over the centuries… Oh well, time to take control to prevent issues while making this a bit worse.’ As the ancient Jedi’s mental commands started to reverberate into the Force, those around him began to shriek louder.
They weren’t afraid per se, they felt eyes upon them in this moment of embarrassment. The Neti was a good illusionist and had at one point in time been a Master of crowd control. Today these abilities surged back to the forefront as he used illusions to imbalance an entire gala in order to allow his telepathic tendrils to flow into their instinctual brains to prevent violence while amplifying the distraction parts of their current states.
It was now up to the others to get the work done. He wouldn’t be able to hold everyone for very long, not while also ensuring nobody noticed his manipulations. But any moment he could would be a benefit for the others…
Dasha sighed and stood up, making her way past the remaining guard, muttering in almost a bored tone, “Technician.” With the flickering lights, all the guard could do was nod and look out for others.
The Sephi is strode into the drop off location, searching for the cash while everyone else was clamoring about. She’d mutter into her commlink to the others:
“Twinkle twinkle massive Gala. How I wonder what you hide… Is it plans or is it credits. Flicker flicker all the lights. Tell me where to find goodies tonight…”
From there, she spotted a case. She picked it up and cracked it open, making sure her back was to a wall to find it was glimmering with the cash they were looking for.
As if out of magic Aylin popped up outside the building and looked around. She wondered if her glitter and the strobe light had held up the chaos to get them their target they were searching for. Getting out her datapad she searched for her team members, quickly finding them. “Good, at least they seemed to be safe,” she mutterd to herself, “But I wonder if we got what we were here for.” Siky chirped next to her. “Oh really?” Aylin asked and her little droid nodded in return. “Good, lets get her some help get out of there.”
Aylin moved back to the building and grabbed one of the service carts and moved towards Dasha’s last known location. Stopping a few steps away from her not to raise suspision further then there already was she tried to motion to Dasha to come towards her, but the Sephi didn’t notice. Siky jumped down the Nautolan’s shoulder and scurried over towards the transfixed Sephi and poked her leg.
Dasha blinked and looked down. “Oh, hi Siky. What are you doing here?” The little droid chriped an answer, which made Dasha look up and smile. “No problem.”
The Sephi walked over towards Aylin and pushed the case into the cart, making it disappear under the cloth around the cart. “Let’s go.”
Aylin nodded and walked towards the door together with Dasha and Siky.
Itzo poked his head out of a slightly ajar supply closet doorway and looked around, confused. He had been furiously digging through the junk in there for a few minutes, and his commlink must have gotten lost in the shuffle. He moved a few boxes to the side and located it in the corner of the closet. He quickly reattached it, brushed himself off and stepped out into the hallway, not bothering to clean the mess or even close the door.
“I can’t seem to find it. Are we sure our intel was correct?” The Zabrak inquired into the comms.
“Where have you been? We’ve got it. Waiting for you.” Dasha replied with a hint of annoyance in her voice. Itzo’s mouth hung open in shock. They already found it? How long had he been in that supply closet?
“Uhh, okay, affirmative. Heading to you.” Itzo checked his disguise to make sure it still looked proper, grabbed the drink tray from the spot he left it, and deftly moved through the settling chaos of the Gala. He wasn’t sure what other distractions had been necessary, but there was glitter everywhere. He was careful to avoid it, once it’s on you it takes ages to get off. As he crossed the landing pad to their ship, he hurled the drink tray over the edge like a discus, watching it disappear down the mountain into darkness. He slipped onto the vessel just as its doors were closing and quickly strapped into his seat for rapid takeoff. The Zabrak turned to his Sephi companion, who was seated nearby, and addressed her.
“Maybe next time grab me before you leave, especially if you find the frakkin’ thing I was looking for!”