Ruby

A breaking newsreel competed with the arrival of Faust at the Coruscant Memorial for priority across the galaxy. The farther away from the Core one managed to travel, the more prevalent this auxiliary broadcast became. Flashes of turbolaser fire were punctuated with the screams of humans and aliens alike. Raven Zinthos Shows Her True Colors. Giant explosions leveled buildings in a domino effect that wiped out entire city blocks running hundreds of stories down to the forgotten undercity of Nar Shaddaa. Palpatine's Empire Lives On. The wailing of a small Bothan child was the only sound juxtaposed with the whump of blaster cannons and the crackle of flames in the background. Merciless Terror Comes Without Warning The looming Imperial fleet, their ships carrying all the terror they had wrought on the galaxy only mere decades before, encroached as hundreds of ships fled the Smuggler's Moon like mynocks deserting an out-of-control starfighter. The face of a terrified human man came onto the camera, soundless, but his lips moved in an utterly recognizable way: Help. Help us, please.

Breathless and panting, the Twi’lek skidded to a stop in front of Ruby’s desk. “It's the Empire!” “Ktah,” Ruby spat. She was pacing in front of the large window in her office, staring out at the chaos that had erupted in across the Smuggler’s Moon. “Those bastards have guts coming here.” The moon had flown under the radar of multiple galactic wars; for the Imps to come here now meant bad news for the free agents who operated out of the moon. “And of course, they come right after Emerald and Sapphire leave,” she muttered to herself. Her mind whirled with thoughts. There was little chance the moon could defend itself; while almost everyone on the moon had at least one well-armed ship, they weren't unified enough to cause a threat to the Imperial ships in orbit. Besides, smugglers, pirates, and thieves usually weren't interested in working together to defend anything. Running was their MO, and Ruby didn't doubt that many were already in the process of getting out of dodge. She was tempted to do the same. But on the other hand, the Gems would lose much if they gave up their holdings now. Even if the Imperials set up shop, the underworld networks would have power vacuums. It was a huge risk, but it was possible that there might be further opportunity for the Gems in the wake of the Imperial attack. It all depended on just how far the Imps went. Ruby didn't think they'd slag the moon, but the old Empire wouldn't have hesitated to do so, and she wouldn't put it past this new Empire. The third option was a classic pirate move: set your sails to take advantage of the way the wind was blowing. She could perhaps strike a deal with these Imperials. They were anti-crime, but she was sure they weren't anti-credits. If she made a deal to leverage the Gems’ skills and networks legitimately, perhaps the Imperials would let them keep their power. Then when they grew bored or tired of holding the moon and weakened their grip, business could resume as normal. All these options flew through her mind at the speed of light. She didn't have the luxury of thinking things over; she needed to make a decision, and make it quickly. Compounding her frustration was the lack of response or communication from their erstwhile Sith partners. Turning to the Twi’lek underling, she growled, “Set up a communications relay, ping the emergency contact, activate the Naptime protocol.” The Sith would hear about this, that was for sure. In the meantime, she’d buy time as all of their liquid assets were transferred to offworld accounts. If Nar Shaddaa was anything, it was unpredictable, and watching the political shifts and tilts in the galaxy, the Blood Gems had known it was only a matter of time before one side or another tried to make an example out of the Smuggler’s Moon. With the Naptime protocol in place, multiple things happened. All across the moon, throughout the Gems’ expansive networks, contacts went into hiding. Funds were transferred, businesses shut down, doors--literal and digital--shut and locked as their people went into hiding. Elsewhere, cameras of all sorts activated. Unused traffic cameras, left over from a failed attempt by one of the Hutts to enact some order on the volatile moon, now flickered to life and began streaming their data. Floating surveillance droids turned their cameras to the skies. Air taxi dash cameras swung around and pointed forward, their views joining the streams of information being routed through a small, out-of-the-way holonet broadcasting company the Gems had acquired. Two Gran and a human worked furiously at their computers, selecting from the multiple angles all the cameras across the moon were providing, and started a live broadcast of the Imperials’ conquest of the moon, highlighting the overwhelming force the Imperials were bringing to bear, interspersing images of the Imperials’ wrath with video of frightened civilians, choosing the most innocent-looking denizens of the moon. The human provided a running commentary of the scene, his voice shaking in horror at the appropriate moments. For Ruby’s part, the Chiss ordered all but her immediate staff to return to their homes. Tarvil supervised the final transfer of data to their offworld backups, then quickly planted himself at her side in the Gems’ immaculate public office. They had never used the room; it was massive and open, with one desk large enough to land an X-wing on--and clean enough to as well. But it would be perfect to entertain any Imperial delegation that decided to make their presence felt. Ruby sat behind the desk, Tarvil to her right, her face the impassive mask that was normally so intimidating to non-Chiss. The lights of the imperiled moon, green turbolaser fire from the Imperials mixing with yellow explosions and the many-colored neon signs, cast strange flickering shadows in the room from the transparisteel window that served as its back wall. The only other light in the room was a small desk lamp, and Ruby’s glowing red eyes. An invitation issued on a wide-spectrum broadcast to the Imperial contingent was clear and simple: the Blood Gem Pirates invoke the right of parlay.

"Child's play," the Chiss quipped sullenly. There was little doubt in the minds of anyone present that she was sulking as a result of being relegated to administrative duty while the other two had been gallivanting about the galaxy. But in the meantime, the Gems' accounts had flourished, and the presence of the heavy-handed Imperials had driven much of the black market trade in the sector further underground, which meant that business was booming on Nar Shaddaa. "We also made sure your pulse mass mines worked," chimed in Emerald from behind the red-head. "And oh, they did." Ruby nodded, but made no other comment. Gesturing ahead of them all to where Tarvil was waiting to greet them, she suggested, "Let's go get drinks. I have a lot to fill you in on."

Turning her red eyes onto Dorjoola, Ruby smirked at him. "You can't run--er, slither--away from this, Dorjoola. We both know that your ability to complain about cheating or breaking agreements was forfeit after you drugged Emerald. The Families will be after you, and then everything that happened here will be exposed. You'll be finished." The Chiss toyed with the butt of her blaster in its holster. "Or," she began again with a shrug, "you could sign the assets of your organizations over to us, we can fake your death, and whatever heat the Families try to bring will just disappear. It's your choice." Bulbous eyes studied her as Dorjoola seemed to be weighing his options. "Done," he croaked finally, holding out a grubby, oily palm toward Sapphire. "No!" screamed Syddro. "They're playing you! I know they are!" Ruby shrugged once more. "What choice do you think you have? If you want to take your chances with the mercies of the other Hutts, be my guest." That shut Syddro up effectively, and after a brief interlude where they all adjourned to sign the contract, the whole of Dorjoola's operations on Nar Shaddaa belonged to the Blood Gem Pirates. "Come on," Ruby said with an elbow in Sapphire's ribs, "we should go check on Em. I bet Tarvil has her by now."

Unable to even pretend she was still unconscious both of her friends up and about and causing a ruckus, Ruby gave up. The hangover she had was no joke, and every little noise seemed to be amplified ten times louder than it should've been. Grumbling curses in Cheunh that would horrify civil company, she extracted herself from the corner of the sofa as Sapphire flitted here and there about their apartment still on a high about the holiday. “Caf,” she growled at the red-head, echoing Emerald's statement, “or Life Day or not, someone is going to suffer.” Holding a hand to her temple she turned towards the hallway to take her turn in the refresher, unaware that Em was lying in a heap squarely in her chosen path. With a yelp, she toppled over the blonde, landing in an uncharacteristically ungraceful jumble of limbs. Ruby halfheartedly swatted at Emerald as she extracted herself from the mess, deciding that maybe it would be a better and safer idea to crawl down the hallway. “What in the nine Corellian hells did you two do to me last night? I haven't been this hungover since the last time we were on Tatooine.”

With a few well-placed taps on the datapad she gripped between her hand and elbow, the Chiss finished the inventory of their latest haul. She glanced up at Sapphire, who entered the cargo hold with a question. Scrolling down to the summary on her inventory page, she grinned, the whites of her teeth in stark contrast to her cerulean skin. "Not half bad for a half-baked plan," she said drolly. "Looks like twelve cases, at ten warheads per case." Placing the datapad in its mount on the wall of the hold, she turned back to the others, her brilliant eyes scanning between the two of them as she brushed back a lock of hair that had fallen in her face with a practiced maneuver. "Did I hear something about Hutt space?"

In true Blood Gems fashion, when something when wrong... It went very, very wrong. One moment Ruby was standing in solemn silence alongside the corporal, her inner monologue anything but quiet as she maintained a stoic glare that prevented any of the personel in the hangar from staring at her for too long. The next, chaos took over as Ruby just barely caught the blur that was Emerald hurtle down the boarding ramp of the shuttle and disappear behind a pile of barrels. There was no other warning before the klaxons and alarms began wailing across across the hangar bay and the fire suppression system started dumping foam on everything. The stolid grimace on Ruby's face morphed into an almost maniacal smirk when Sapph suggested the use of explosives to aid their getaway. "With pleasure," she replied over her comlink as she surged into action, any other words she might have said swallowed up in the cacophony that her compatriots had created. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Em disappear back onto the shuttle, and she seized a hidden explosive from where it had been concealed in one of her pockets, but as she moved to lob it at her target the corporal stepped in front of her, blocking its trajectory. A quick uppercut to the jaw solved that problem, and as she spun gracefully, using her momentum to whip the thermal detonator at the door with deadly accuracy and sprint toward the boarding ramp all in one smooth motion. She slapped at the of closing mechanism as she ran past it, the ramp hissing shut far too slowly for her tastes. "Shavit, Sapph, get us out of here!" she yelled toward the cockpit and felt the shuttle surge beneath the soles of her feet as she continued into the cargo hold to take stock of their plunder.

Ruby glared at Emerald, her scowl promising revenge for the use of that moniker before she turned her attention back to the final touches on their work. Satisfied with the end product, she let the droids ferry the crates over to the cargo hold of the shuttle and left to go change into clothes that weren't covered in grease and explosives residue. When she returned the loading process was done and there was nothing else to do but proceed with their plans. “I swear, if they reverse engineer that thing and it comes back to bite us, I'm not going to be a happy person. Good thing the rest of these are duds,” Ruby griped as they boarded, taking their respective places and getting settled in. With Sapphire and Emerald stowed away aboard the shuttle inside of specially constructed shielded smuggling compartments, Ruby navigated the vessel toward their destination, waiting with bated breath as she transmitted over her credentials as Marin Pirou of Lorell Distributors, almost expecting something to go wrong and for the Blood Gems to have to hightail it away from Hapes yet again. But the Hapan ship never opened fire on them, and soon they were docked with the larger ship. Marin walked down the boarding ramp to meet the Major's aide, and after introducing herself extended a datapad to her. “If I could just get your signature for final approval, Corporal, I'd be glad to have my droids assist yours in transferring the cargo.”

Ruby had grown increasingly retrospective while her companions conversed, retreating to the part of her mind that was extremely analytical without really realizing she'd done so. Her brain had started to go into overdrive when the discussion had touched on modifying one of the mines in question, and he r fingers flew over her datapad screen as she immediately began to compile a list of parts they'd have to acquire, tools she'd need to do the job, and- Sapphire's question pulled Ruby from her reverie and she jerked her head up to see the brandy that Sapph had set down in front of her. She didn't respond at first, electing to lift the glass to her lips and tilt it back, letting the alcohol roll across her tongue and down her throat, savoring the burn as it did. With a soft sigh, she set the glass back down, rolling her head to either side of her shoulders to crack her neck while she formulated a response. “Couple things, one:” she started, ticking off her count on her fingers as she went. “If we can get our hands on a dead one of these, it might make this a whole lot easier and faster. I can probably get schematics off of one of my contacts if I need to, but building a gravity well from scratch isn't exactly a picnic. And two: if this is going to work, this is going to have to be a hard, fast sell, meaning we're going to have to come up with a REALLY good idea on how to improve these things, and then we're going to have to hope that it doesn't come back to bite us in the rear at some point in the future, because if I design what ends up being our demise at some point in the future. I am NOT going to be happy.” She downed the rest of the brandy, letting the silence punctuate her speech. “Do I think we can pull it off? Yes. Is it going to be easy? I highly doubt it, and we're not going to have much room for error at all.”

“Of course you didn't pay attention, I swear, sometimes I gotta do everything...” Ruby snorted as she pushed herself up off the floor, dropping back onto the couch. She pulled her datapad from one of many pockets and flicked her fingers quickly over the screen,flipping it around to show Em and Sapph after she found the schematic for the item in question. “All right, Hapan pulse-mass generators. Derived from the Empire's gravity well projectors, they have, more or less, the same effect as an interdictor, just with a few minor issues. First, after we launch them, we have minutes... Ten at most, and that's if we're lucky. Second, unless we can find someone who knows how to modify these things without killing us all, once they're on, they're on until they run out of power. So our target can't get away, but neither can we.” Ruby shrugged, turning the screen back to face herself, fingers moving lightly over the screen as she zoomed in on parts of the blueprint here and there. “All in all, we've done riskier things. Next best thing to having an actual interdictor I'd say, and we can launch them from the torpedo bays.” She leveled her gaze at Sapphire. “I'm going to assume that you have a plan for acquiring these already?”

In retrospect, it was probably a very, very good thing that neither Emerald nor Sapphire had eyes on Ruby while they put the Glory through an impressive set of space acrobatics, because she was sure that one them would have had some choice words in multiple languages to toss her way if they had. With Sapph at the helm and Em acting as marksman, Ruby knew that her skills as resident demolitions expert would come into play soon enough, once they boarded their target. Until then though... she waited, continuing to roll the thermal detonator from hand to hand almost without thinking. Left palm: on. Right palm: off. Back and forth, watch the light blink. One... two... three... Off again, well within thirty-second timer that she'd modified onto this particular detonator. Ruby rolled the explosive back into her left palm, flicking the switch absentmindedly, and glanced down to admire the belt the she had slung across her neck, and the red gem embedded in the mag-buckle. Faintly, she heard Emerald yell from the turret well and she winced, remembering too late the mass of tangled wires she'd left in there after their last escapade. And that's when everything started to go wrong. Just as she started to roll the thermal detonator back to her other hand, the Glory surged into motion as Sapphire gave chase to their target, throwing Ruby from her chair and the explosive from her hand. “Ktah!” She spat the Cheunh word as she struggled to her feet and leaped across the room after the rolling detonator, more curses in multiple languages spilling from her mouth as she imagined what Sapphire would do to her if she set off another explosive aboard her ship. Ruby had just managed to get her fingertips on the silver orb when her pilot compatriot threw the vessel into another set of twists and turns, eliciting another round of swearing as she lost her grip on the detonator and had to launch herself off of the wall after it as it rolled away. It wasn't enough, though, and she landed, stomach first, a few scant feet away from it as it continued on spinning path. Knowing she had precious seconds to spare and seized by a moment of genius, Ruby grabbed the belt that was still somehow around her neck and whipped the mag-buckle end at the detonator. With a clank, it caught, and Ruby released a breath she hadn't released she was holding with an audible whoosh she yanked it back to her and it slapped into her palm, thumbing to switch back to off in one quick motion. A split-second later, she felt the ship shudder as it jumped into hyperspace, and Emerald came running back down the corridor. Still lying on her stomach, Ruby looked up at her partner in crime and offered a lopsided grin as she held up the glittering orb. “Crisis averted!”

Ruby grunted in frustration at Sapph's words,, knowing all too well just how thorough that ship's surveillance system was. "Kriffin' figures," she muttered, resisting the urge to pound her first on the control panel, knowing how her compatriot reacted to damage to the vessel. "Nothing about this job is going right, and I'm getting sick of it." Not for the first time, she wished that they had talked Emerald out of this and gone after a different target. This hit was making her feel like an amateur, not to mention the guilt that was still plaguing her about leaving Em to the mercy of the ship's security team. She sat there in silence as Sapphire worked her magic, the only sounds in the cockpit the clacking of datapad keys and an occasional beep from the navicomputer regarding their flightpath. Ruby chewed nervously on one of her fingernails after another, reducing them all to nubs. Finally, she couldn't take the silence anymore and glanced back over at Sapph. "Find anything yet?"

Cleaner and slightly less tired that she had been a few hours prior, Ruby sat in the cockpit next to Sapphire, anxiously awaiting their conversion to realspace, the vibroknife spinning nervously from finger to finger betraying the stoic expression on her face. At the nav computer's insistent beeping, she reached over and pulled back on the hyperdrive lever, bring them out of hyperspace. She stared silently at the Star Destroyer-turned-luxury liner looming in front of them, a growing sense of dread gripping her. "I hope this works," she muttered to Sapph, the vibroknife continuing its journey back and forth across her knuckles as she tried to ignore the desperation she was feeling in her guy. "I really hope this works."

Ruby sighed as she heard Sapphire's footfalls coming toward her, pushing herself into a sitting position leaning against the wall as her partner came into sight and announced her plan. ”So what do you think? Will it work?” Ruby tilted her head slightly to the side, considering what Sapph had laid out before her. “I think it's probably our best bet,” she said honestly, reaching for her towel and mopping the sweat off her face. “ I honestly can't think of another way we'd be able to get Em out of there.” She glanced down at her chrono, checking the time. “Three hours? I'm gonna go hit the 'fresher and get a few hours of shut-eye before this goes down. Wake me when it's time?” She slung her towel around her neck and headed back toward the main lounge, pausing in the doorway and looking back over her shoulder. “And Sapph? Sorry for snapping earlier.”

Sapphire's last words twisted a knife in Ruby's gut, reminding her of her failings. Combined with her exhaustion and her proclivity towards volativity, it was too much. "I know we can't just leave her there," she growled, pushing herself out of the chair. "I never wanted to in the first place." She stalked out of the cockpit before she said something she would regret. She knew that Sapph was really just thinking out loud, trying to strategize a way to get Emerald off of that kriffing casino, but all it was doing right now was reminding Ruby that she had abandoned their friend. She wanted to hit something. Hard. Unfortunately, her punching bag was still stashed in the Onslaught's cargo bay, since she'd seen no reason to bring it on this particular mission, so she'd have to make do. Time slowed and blurred for her after that, as she found an empty corner of the Glory's cargo bay and ruthlessly pushed herself through repetition after repetition of push-up, sit-ups, and any other exercise that she could think of, anything to take her mind off of the fact that Emerald was still sitting in a cell somewhere instead of here with her and Sapph like she should have been. She would keep pushing herself until she literally dropped from exhaustion, if that's what it would take for this feeling to go away.

Ruby rubbed a hand across her face and sighed, the fatigue from her endeavors finally setting in. "We got sloppy. Called a tech to the room and took his access cards, then dumped him down the garbage chute. Never occurred to either one of us that they'd send someone looking for him... or that it would be an entire kriffing security team when they did." She glanced down at the datapad in her hands, idly flipping through the Gambit's itinerary, trying to distract herself. "They raided the room. We tried to get out through the garbage chute... that's when I lost Em. I don't know what happened, how they got her, but she never came out, she didn't answer any of the comms I sent her..." Ruby's fingers on her free hand tightened around the arm of the chair she was sitting on, her knuckles changing to a pale blue, standing out in stark contract against the rest of her skin as she stared unseeingly at the device in her palm. "Kriffing cameras were everywhere, and I stuck out like a Wookiee in a room full of Ewoks. They sent another team after me, tried to take me down in the middle of one of the casinos. I escaped through the air ducts. Got to the escape pod. Now I'm here." She finally looked back over at Sapphire, frustration, anger, worry, and distress washing over her features. "I don't know where they took her. I don't know what they're doing to her. And I kriffing left her there to fend for herself."

Ruby let herself breathe a sigh of relief once she was finally back aboard the Glory. "I never want to see another air duct ever again," she muttered as she followed Sapph back up through the ship to the cockpit. "I'm gonna have nightmares about that, I think." She dropped into a seat across from Sapphire, propping her feet up and staring out the viewport into space. "What I have absolutely no idea how we're going to accomplish is getting Em off of that Sith-spawned ship. I don't even know if we're going to be able to get back aboard." Something resembling guilt chewed away at her, and she ruthlessly shoved it away. They all knew the risks. Emerald would have done the same if Ruby had been the one to be captured. Frowning, Ruby turned her head to look at Sapph. "Do we know where the Gambit's heading now?"

Plus side to growing up on a ball of ice- the cold of space didn't bother her. Any normal human would have been curled into a ball, trying to conserve body heat. Fortunately, Ruby was neither human nor normal. She currently had the control panel ripped apart, having already removed and destroyed the onboard tracking device, and was now engrossed in hotwiring the emergency radio to the Blood Gems' encoded channel. With a last critical glance at her wiring job, she flipped the transmit switch. "Sapph? Sapph, can you hear me? I'm... kinda stranded in space right now. Need a pick-up."

Ruby decided that she hated this ship, and at the moment she wasn't entirely fond of small spaces, either. The almost imperceptible shudder that had announced the ship's entry into hyperspace had thrown a kink into their plans. Without Sapph on board, the only result of trying to spring Emerald from whatever holding cell would probably result in Ruby's capture, injury, or death, none of which she was in any particular hurry to experience. Which left exactly one option, since she couldn't exactly hide in an elevator shaft for days on end without food or water. Escape. The logical part of her knew that it was the only option left to her, despite that fact that some other part, deep down, hated leaving Emerald behind to fend for herself. So she ignored the little voice that whispered to her that she would be betraying her compatriot by leaving, repeating to herself over and over that if roles were reversed, Em would do the same thing. The original plan was to crawl through the ducts to the hangar bays, steal a ship, and blast off to rendezvous with Sapphire, at which point the two of them would figure out how to rescue Emerald. But then she decided that that wouldn't work either, since the docking bay shields would more than likely refuse to disengage while the hyperdrive was active. Ruby paused in the duct that she was currently wiggling through. Thank the Force for small favors, if they were indeed aboard this ridiculous ship, at least they wouldn't be able to track her via her Force presence, given that they hadn't personally encountered her and she was about as Force-blind as they came. Think, she commanded herself, wishing for the thousandth time that they hadn't called that tech and ruined his day and theirs. Her eyelids drooped shut as she mentally went through the ship schematics again, looking for any possible way out of this. Ruby's eyes popped back open, slightly iridescent against the dark of the air duct, and she grinned to herself in inspiration. What better way to escape a ship than an escape pod? Resolve renewed, she continued on. The next few hours were a blur of crawling, constantly backtracking, leaving false clues, and ever so slowly but surely making her way towards her destination. Her arms ached, her neck cramped, her eyes strained through the darkness, but she was determined to leave no path, give them no way to find her. The only clues they would find would be the ones that she wanted them to, and those would lead them nowhere. Finally, she lay in an air duct overlooking one of the many escape pod decks. All at once, her eyes took in the access pads next to each pod, the master control panel nearby, and the technician on duty who was more interested in surfing the Holo-net on said control panel than paying attention to his surrroundings. Which, given normal circmstances, Ruby could understand- chances of a Star Destroyer, even one repurposed into a gigantic casino, running afoul of anyone willing to attack it were slim to none, and the fact that they even had anyone on duty here was nothing more than a gratuitous safety gesture. One that in this scenario, would work to her advantage. Carefully working her blaster from its holster strapped to her wrist underneath her sleeve, she flipped the switch from kill to stun, looking back through the grille in front of her and gauging the distance from her location to the technician, from the technician to the closest pod. This was going to take some fancy maneuvering to pull off. Not to mention that launching an escape pod from a ship in hyperspace was nothing short of insane. With a deep breath, Ruby coiled herself, bracing as well as she could in the cramped metal passageway. Counting down mentally, she exploded forward in a blur of movement, shoulder hitting the grate in front of her first and jarring it free of its position, tumbling to the ground. She rolled on impact, coming back to her feet, blaster already tracking to the position of the turning technician, and fired off a single round as she barreled towards him. The stun shot took him before he had even turned around the whole way, and she caught him as he fell, a grunt escaping her lungs as his weight fell onto her. Hefting him over her shoulders, she moved the scant few meters to the first escape pod, pressing the now unconscious tech's hand against the access pad. Ruby breathed a sigh of relief as the door to the pod slid open, and let the tech fall to the floor, propped up against the wall, as she moved into the escape pod. Strapping herself in, she hit the "EJECT" button on the control panel, and the door to the pod slid closed seconds before the pod blasted out away from the ship. She gritted her teeth against the centrifugal force as the pod began to spin, forcing herself to ignore the gray invading on the edges of her vision, the hand she kept on the control panel trying to time the pod's thruster burns to bring her out of the spin. Gradually- and far too slowly for Ruby's liking- the blur of hyperspace became lines, and the lines shortened into stars, and the pod stopped its maniacal spin as the thruster ran out of fuel. Ruby sat, dead in space, but no longer on the Gambit.

Ruby had expected them to track her. Even if she'd made it down the chute before the door had fully opened and the flashbang had gone off, if this casino's security was worth its salt they would have launched a full investigation into "Jenna," and any camera scrutiny whatsoever would've revealed her nearby at any of the times they had been out in public on the casino floor. That, combined with the fact that as a Chiss she more than likely stuck out like a sore thumb, left Ruby no illusions about whether or not she was being tracked through the casino. But she'd planned for this. Capture was always a risk for the Blood Gems, given their line of work, and evasion was part and parcel of the job. So restored to a mostly clean state, Ruby began the task of counter-surveillance, all while pretending that she was just trying futilely to hide in the crowd. Fortunately, casinos were always filled with brightly polished objects. The sentinels at the doors were the easiest to spot- in such a location where people were always coming and going, someone standing still and not talking to anyone or engaged in some other social interaction were always suspect, more so when they were at every exit. Ruby slowly made her way across the casino, following the tides of pedestrian traffic, glancing back and forth at different mirrored surfaces, getting a feel for what was behind her. At first she thought that she only had to worry about the perimeter security, but it gradually became apparent that one of the people behind her was doing everything in his power to avoid looking directly at her, and was every so slowly edging closer and closer to her, one arm held slightly behind his back as if he were trying to hide something. Eyes still roaming about the room as if she hadn't noticed anything at all, Ruby slowly edged closer and closer to her chosen escape route. As the man tailing her finally moved within striking range, Ruby knew her moment had come. Deflection of the brutal thrust aimed at her back was a mere matter of pivoting on the ball of one foot and striking backwards with her elbow, the bony joint connecting firmly with the pressure point on the man's wrist and the stun baton dropping to the floor as Ruby used her momentum to snap her other foot up into a high kick, connecting with his jaw. Before he even had a chance to react, Ruby continued her barrage- jab to the nose, a blow to the ear, a kick to his groin, her knee into his face when he doubled over. She grabbed him by the collar and hauled him upright again just to plant a fist firmly into his diaphragm as blood streamed from his nose. "Help, I'm being robbed!!" she yelled at the top of her lungs, her voice carrying across the entire casino, the rest of the crowd turning to look as those than had been observing the altercation clustered more closely around him. All eyes now on the incognito security guard, Ruby carefully slipped toward the back of the crowd, toward the wall she'd previously been aiming for. A vibroknife blade between the grate and the wall popped it away from air duct, and she swung her lithe body into it as the mob she'd created blocked her from the view of the guards posted at the doors. She pulled the grate carefully back up against the wall before squeezing down the small conduit. She knew someone would likely find it soon, but by then she'd be safely in hiding. This was where being thoroughly familiar with the vessel's schematics would come in handy. Shimmying through the tunnel, she began to count intersections and drop-offs until she finally came to the one she needed. Pulling a pair of magnetic hand grips from one of the myriad of pockets on her combat suit, she began her ascent. The periodic roar grew louder as she grew closer to her target, and she firmly put the aching of her arms and shoulders out of her mind as she dragged herself upwards hand over hand. When she finally reached the top of the shaft, she collapsed into the duct running perpendicular to it, breathing heavily as she worked the kinks from her tired limbs. Once her breathing had returned to normal, Ruby moved the short distance to the end of the current conduit, feet first, and kicked out the grate, letting it fall to the surface below. Then she swiftly moved the opposite direction, counting turns until she reached the end of another duct. Attaching one of the magnets to the grate in front of her and making sure she had a firm grasp on it, she thrust the heel of her other hand into one corner of grate at a time, slowly working it loose. The magnet held as it popped free, and she carefully set it off to one side. A quick glance out of the newly made hole revealed that she was, indeed, now in the turbolift shaft, the maintenance ladder just a few short meters to the side. Rolling onto her back, Ruby slowly edged her body out of the tunnel, holding onto a pipe running along the wall above her for support, her toes on one below. Finally satisfied that it would hold her weight, she grasped the top pipe firmly with one hand and reached down to grab the grate. Moving ever so carefully so she wouldn't drop it, she worked it back into place, tapping the corners gently with one foot to make sure they were firmly seated. Only then did she begin the somewhat arduous task of pulling herself along the pipes to reach the ladder, her already fatigued arms protesting the entire way. But finally she was standing with her feet firmly upon a metal rung. The turbolift chose that moment to rush past her, barely a hand's breadth away, and Ruby pulled her body closer to the ladder, grateful that it hadn't come past while she was replacing the grate, and took a deep breath as she began to descend. After what seemed like forever, she finally reached what she had been aiming for- an alcove dug out of the turbolift shaft wall, meant as a haven in case a tech was injured while servicing the lift and couldn't make it back to a service hatch. And it would serve her purposes well. As she swung herself into the indent and settled as far back from the edge as she could get, Ruby considered trying to comm Sapphire, but refrained from it, unsure if the security pursuing her would resort to trying to trace comm frequencies. She was sure Sapph knew from her prior comm that they were in trouble... she'd just have to be patient and wait for a reply. So she waited in the near dark, her mind running through any possible options for breaking Emerald out of holding and getting the kriff off of this ship.

As much as Ruby hated to talk about her past life, therre was something to be said for having been raised in a military environment. The second that the door had started to slide open her senses had gone to high alert, hair on the back of her neck standing on end as she and Emerald both realized that they'd screwed up with the technician. One rolling dive took her the short distance back to the garbage chute, another dive put her headfirst down it, following the path of the unlucky tech that they'd dumped down it so shortly beforehand. One arm in front of her face to protect herself, Ruby slid through the chute on her stomach a short distance, then found herself in freefall. In the short amount of time she had to prepare, she ruefully wondered how far above her Emerald was and how much this was probably going to hurt. The answer was a lot. She'd at least managed to twist herself around enough to take the brunt of the landing impact on one shoulder, but it still knocked the air from her lungs and left her lying there on her back for what seemed like an eternity, trying to suck oxygen back into them. When she finally suceeded and rolled onto her hands and knees, coughing, she found the technician underneath her. Poor guy, to get sucked into the middle of all of this. And he'd most likely been coming to when she'd landed on him, effectively knocking him out again. Oh well. Finally back on her feet, she glanced around, looking for the way out of the giant pile of trash she'd landed in. The actual journey to the door took longer than hotwiring it did, and Ruby breathed a small sigh of relief as she stepped out into the hallway. Only then did she activate the small comlink in her mouth, relieved to find out that it was still functioning after that escapade. "Em, where are you?" No answer. "Em? Em!" A glance back into the room she'd just vacated showed no sign of the blonde, and Ruby gritted her teeth and activated the comm again. "Sapph... We have a HUGE problem." Glancing both directions down the hall to make sure it was clear of security patrols, Ruby darted down the long corrridor, relying on the extensive studying of the blueprints they'd done to get her back to the relative safety of the casino's multitudes of passengers. Despite the fact that she was more than likely the only Chiss on board, there was still safety in a crowd if you knew how to blend in and not draw attention to yourself. Which is exactly what she'd do- after she found a public refresher. Being covered in garbage was not good camouflage. What exactly they would do once Sapphire finally got back up to the Gambit she wasn't sure... Though she still had the technician's keycard in her pocket, she was sure they could count on it being disabled once they found him sitting in a pile of garbage without it. It wouldn't hurt to hang onto it just in case, but in the meantime they'd have to come up with a different plan... and a way to find out what had happened to Emerald and get her out of it.

Ruby fiddled with the small electronic device sitting on a caf table in the middle of their suite for what had to be the millionth time. One of the many insurance policies that they'd brought along, the apparatus functioned as a jammer, obstructing any hidden cameras or microphones that might be in their rooms. Ruby had been the one to come up with the idea for it, though it had been Sapphire that had brought that idea to life. Which, all things considering, was probably a good idea, because if there did happen to be cameras in the room, right about now someone would most likely be wondering why exactly Emerald had felt the need to shoot the refridgeration unit. And the whole thing that followed. Just before they'd dumped him down the chute, Ruby had put one last final touch on the whole shebang- she'd poured the rest of the last bottle of alcohol down his throat. Just in case someone insisted on a sobriety test. With an appraising look at the beverage dispenser, Ruby cast a mockingly mournful look at Emerald. "You really did a number on this thing, 'Jenna'. I was thirsty too, now we're gonna have to go find a tapcaf." She didn't manage to keep a straight face the entire way through the sentence, snickering at the end of it. "The look on his face was priceless, I almost feel sorry for him." She paused, pretending to consider. "Nah. We're having too much fun to pity him." With a bounding leap over the caf table, she dropped onto the couch next to Emerald and propped her feet up, grinning. "Now, let's talk about how lucky you got with that last shift..."

Ruby visibly withered under Sapphire glare, flinching slightly. "Well... The dress that I was planning on wearing for all this dignitary poo-doo before you two obviously up and changed our plans. And... there might've possibly been a storage cabinet there before. And I wasn't TRYING to blow a hole in the ship, Em came sneaking in here and scared the kriff out of me." She took a step back from Sapphire while she stared at the scorch mark, trying to figure out a way to escape the other woman's wrath. Struck by sudden inspiration, she jumped forward and snatched the rag out of Sapph's hand, making a few well places swipes and pokes at the wall. "Look, our logo! It gives the ship character! Right?" She grinned hopefully.

"...Sapph's gonna kill me, isn't she?" Ruby stood, wide-eyed, staring at the charred spot on the wall where one of the clothing storage closets used to be. From time to time, she had been known to become so absorbed in modifying a weapon or concocting some new mixture of explosive that she tuned out the rest of the world, aware of only what was in front of her. This... had been one of those times. And the product in question was the new shiny explosive tape that she'd gotten from Kamino. She'd been trying to figure out a way to attach a microdetonator to it, so she could keep precut strips ready for use, rolled up and attached securely to the inside of one of her dresses, when Emerald came strolling silently into the cargo bay and well... scared Ruby halfway out of her mind. Once it was over, both women were a little fuzzy on the details of what, exactly, had happened. Somehow, though, the rest of the roll of explosive had disappeared along with the dress, Ruby was sitting on the detonator trigger, and the closet in question was completely gone. In its place there was an exceptionally large scorch mark. Ruby stepped closer to the wall, rapping her knuckles against several different spots on it. She turned around, grinning brightly. "Hey, it works, no structural damage!" She stopped for a minute, thoughtful look on her face. "So can we take all of the stupid paintings down now? The lounge is making me nauseous." Her expression shifted again as she looked back at the blackened wall. "...What was in that closet?"

Muttering in discontent, Ruby sat down and set to work replacing the vocoder on their protocol droid, doing her best to studiously ignore all of the Chiss trappings now scattered about the cabin. She was deeply absorbed in soldering the vocoder connections on the droid when Emerald finally came strolling back onto the ship and dropped her new ident docs down in front of her. She glanced down, lip curling slightly as she read over them. "Nuruodo," she said in disgust, spitting the word out as if it were poison in her mouth. "Can't be helped, I suppose, famous family and all. And I guess it'll be fun to put a smear on that family name." Jaw muscles working furiously, she leaned back over her soldering. "Sorry. The docs look good. Flawless, even. I just... Eh, forget it." Propping the protocol droid up to a sitting position, she reached over and slapped the power switch on it's neck. Its eyes flickered a few times before coming on fully, its head tracking to look at Ruby as it spoke in its prissy vocoded voice. "Greetings. I am T-4LK, Human-cyborg rela-" "Override code Besh, Grek, Peth, Esk, Resh, Senth. Activate ambassador convention." The ambassador convention was something that Sapphire had programmed into the protocol droid a long time ago, and it had come in handy countless times since. T-4LK's head returned to a neutral position, its eyes staring straight ahead as Ruby continued to speak. "Current mark, Tru’sella’nuruodo, delegate, priority one. Secondary mark, Jenna Farlander, body guard." When T-4 spoke again, its voice had deepened, the prissy quality gone and replaced by a soothing quasi-baritone. "Protocol engaged. Directive?" "Deactivate." T-4's eyes obediently went out, and Ruby set to cleaning up her tools. "Task one done. I'll be in the cargo bay if you need me. I need to get these weapons caches ready." Picking up her equipment bag, Ruby left Emerald and Sapphire to continue on their conversation and headed toward the cargo bay, where the several crates of weapons she'd ordered had been delivered. Rubbing her hands together gleefully, she began browsing through the crate labels, looking for one in particular. Having found it, she slid the top off and started pulling things out of it. Things, in this case, were several different kinds of quick burn, (relatively) low impact explosive- enough to say, blow a lock on a door, leave a smoke screen, or, with enough of it, knock down a wall without causing structural damage on a cruise liner. The most notable, and the one that was most exciting to Ruby, came as a roll of something resembling tape- thin, small enough to fit in her pocket, and enough on a single roll to knock down aforementioned wall. Sighing happily, Ruby moved on to the other crates, most of which contained small weaponry that she planned on building into her weapon caches. There might've been a rocket launcher in one of them. Ruby thought it was always a good idea to have a rocket launcher handy. With all of her components set out in front of her, Ruby began to pack the caches. Snub pistol, vibroshiv, roll of explosive, and two soporific darts, all packed into a small non-descript vacuum-sealed plasteel box not much bigger than her fist. Not much firepower, but if things went according to plan they hopefully wouldn't even need to use them. And they also wouldn't come up on scans thanks to the box lining that Ruby had paid extra for- she'd been dubious when the merchant had tried to push them off on her at first, but after seeing first hand that it actually worked with her own scanner she had him add it onto the entire lot of boxes. Task number two accomplished, Ruby moved onto number three- the task she wasn't particularly looking forward to and had purposely been postponing, though there was no escape from it now. Sighing heavily, she stood and moved over to one of the storage closests built into the wall on the side of the cargo bay. She palmed the door open, flipping through the garments inside until she found the one she was looking for. A frown creasing her face, she set the traditional Chiss diplomatic robes up on a mannequin and set to work figuring out just how many weapons she could carry underneath it.