While en route, if its ok, I'd like to ask Sunda what he thinks our approach should be to this sort of mission.
I'll send Sunda to check out the attack site, while I will attempt to deal usefully with the local authorities.
Can my ties to CorSec help me out with that because I am used to dealing with police work and stuff like that?
CorSec is very different to the kind of security organisations you would deal with out there.
Your man at CorSec also says, with all due respect, that this is a Jedi problem.
"The Outer Regions are full of pirate clans- strong ones. We've got a file on each one, but this one has dropped off the radar. When they were interdicting shipping at Damagran, that was on a significant trade route. The Traders' Association pressured us to do something about it and we in turn made representations to the Senate, but no Jedi were ever sent because the feeling was that Damagran should take care of its own problrms.
"But now? Those pirates are nowhere. People go through those systems but they don't stop there, and hyperspace interdictions are rare. So the pressure on us has dropped off.
"I don't mean this in a BAD way, of course. What I mean is... only you Jedi are left that actually care. It's good that you are doing this, but there aren't enough Jedi to stamp out the piracy problem. We make sure it doesn't happen around here, but the worlds out there have no hope. No wonder they are all annoyed with the Senate.
"You know, your father always did want some sort of galactic security force, based on our model. Not to replace the Jedi, but to take care of all of the mountains of tedious investigation work needed to solve such issues that you just do not have the manpower for. You knock down clans one or two at a time; well, there are dozens of them out there and new ones come up faster than you can take them out. Oddly enough, they do seem to have taken some of his representations on board. Some new Bureau has been making a lot of information requests from us lately about any information we have on criminals moving around in the outer regions. But they seemed more interested in single personalities than mass movements like a clan."
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Sunda thinks you need to force a confrontation as soon as possible.
"These pirate types are cowards," he says. "They only pick on the weak. They left Damagran because the Confederacy could fire back. Once we get the lightsabres out, they'll give up pretty quick."
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Any other plans?
Since Gallagher has exactly none of the relevant skills for any of the tasks above, he will make up for it with his talent in the Force, using Presence and Leadership to bolster his social interactions. He will go with talking to survivors and witnesses of the pirate raid of the Grand Bank, taking his Padawan along to watch and learn.
Jelena will tell Andro to handle checking about the hit site of the bullion reserve once they meet up on Krillian.
"I'm a bit more social than you are," she says. "No offense."
She will take to talking with the authorities while she sends Essallin to make interviews with the survivors, feeling that sending her Padawan to authorities would not go too well as she is a young girl rather than an experienced Knight.
"Hit them hard enough from the outset and that's all it takes, Master" says Sunda. "Didn't you take on a whole army at Zeiton? Didn't we take down Balek and his army with just a handful of Jedi at Droben?"
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Gallagher- well, at least you speak the language. That could have been embarassing.
You and Roan are on Sultis IV, a reasonably developed human-inhabited world with sizeable cities. The ruling class are rather palatial in nature here- at the expense of the common people, you suspect- and the Grand Bank was a massive demonstration of extravagance by the government at thw capital. It was not just a bank, it was the centre. of the planet's financial system.
Roan is getting the low-down on what happened from the authorities. Luckily, the pirates didn't stay long enough to trash everything; they just took everyhting of value and left. Security guard were mown down. The pirates were not subtle. Red Lance fighters strafed the space port to cause terror and panic as the transport ships landed, then the pirates raced out to the bank, shot it up, took all the cash and were back to their ships and out of there before the army arrived. The surprise attack by the enemy fighters counter-acted their air power. It wasn't so well planned that they had people in the back before they hit it, but then they could never have got that sort of surprise due to the massive transports they landed. In this instance, the port was very close to the bank so they just used it for their landing. There was no way to get a hyperspace bearing; it was all over in elss than 30 minutes. They knew where to strike and seemed to have a good idea of how long it would take them.
You don't get much I am afraid, Gallagher. The porates shot anything that moved- security or otherwise- so the only witnesses inside the bank are those that got down and stayed down. The pirates used hover-cargo transports to get the stuff to and from their transport vessels; they didn'tmove in until the pirates secured the area. If anything ha dgone wrong, the pirates would have been able to get out very quickly.
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Kirillia is home to a race of people at least 50% larger than humans, but with rather disconcerting smooth, angular, blank faces. They are relatively primitive and most of their technology is imported. The underground vault was a private concern near the mountains, away from a major settlement. The pirates landed almost on top of it and led a direct assault, forcing peeople there to haul the wealth out at gunpoint and shooting anyone that gave trouble.
So it can be said that the pirates are sure to be well prepared for their strikes and no doubt have some scouts getting the details down for the areas they attack, or they would not be able to hit and run so quickly.
Gallagher will thank his eye witnesses for what little they give him and then meet up with Sunda at the site of the Grand Bank, wanting to see if his intuitive handle of the Force gives him any insight into things despite lacking any real powers of observation.
Along the way, Gallagher will ask D'an what he thinks of Sultis IV. Gallagher himself dislikes the extravagance that the upper classes are displaying, especially with how the bank is constructed... and he suspects Sienar has something to do with his opinion, after all those rants about the opulence of the Senators on the Committee.
D'an says that the various studies he has read are very clear on this sort of thing- inevitably, if there is money being made, it will not be evenly distributed and a society will reflect that.
"Something that being in the Republic is meant to smooth out," he says, "but it seems the Republic is a bit weak out here."
You aren't sure it works even where the Republic is strong either, Gallagher. Not any more. Heck, even if you hold to the idea that the Republic used to work better, it was always a collection of sovereign states. Some were rich and some were poor.
Alright, well some good old fashioned detective time. What sort of money was stolen? Like in what form? Maybe we can trace where it is being spent and that can help us narrow down where the pirates are. Like if it was gold or something like that we could look and see where a large quantity of gold has been showing up and go from there. The money has to be spent somewhere.
"What did you observe from Droben? How did that battle play out?"
Well then based on what we know about the pirates, lets try to make a list of the possible places where they might attack.
Places with lots of jewels and valuable metals rather than local currency, coupled with a location near a starport, or out in the open where you could just land a large transport, that doesn't have super-high security.