Qi'Nali Hest

Shortly after receiving word of an inquiry, EY-3s floated down a hall and into the lobby of their chosen rendezvous point, an apartment complex. He quickly scanned the faces present and drifted along towards Nath and Co. "The Mistress sends her greetings, and wishes me to guide you to her current residence. She extends an apology for not being here in person, as she is busy arranging a few last minute preparations." The helper droid, devoid of its aged ground-based chassis and simply relying on its repulsors, promptly turned and began liesurely propelling itself back the way it came, towards a set of elevators. "The Mistress has relevant contacts in the area from prior employment, and has already begun creating an opportunity for infiltration into Xucphra Corporation." He immediately stated once they were out of range of the locals. "Please, do not mind the mess." Meanwhile, in the apartment they were moving towards, Quora had just finished nosing a few shards of shattered lamp around on the floor with one of her boots. The room was a train wreck by this point, and she was more or less satisfied with her work. Setting up crime scenes for violent assaults was always fun to do, given that she could well and truly see everything and how one part of the mess would corroberate the story of another. Going through real crime scenes was always a mess, and she didn't particularly like digging into them, but all those years of investigating really did come in handy sometimes. "Now, Jel'an Kuy. Some of my associates will be arriving shortly, and I expect you to be on your best behavior for them. Understand? Do not mistake my patience for tolerance. I'm sure you haven't forgotten the last time." The former agent tousled the hair of an already disheveled and quite bewildered looking man. It was all part of the act of course. He wasn't actually in particularly bad shape at all, just heavily drunk and highly suggestible. Nakamura found that it was close enough to replicate a head injury if done right, which usually made people more compliant with her when she was staging a hostage situation. It was better than making a real head injury anyways, as hitting someone in the head hard enough had the potential to really do more harm than good regardless of whether you needed them for future operations or not. A brief communication from EY-3s told her that her associates would be on site shortly so she straightened her uniform, unlocked the door, and took a seat on an unoccupied stool that would have to be overturned and thrown at a wall somewhere once they left for Xucpha HQ.

The Blind Bouncer jumped into the Polith system, and coasted smoothely towards the surface of Thyferra. The ship itself took its time arriving, as the two occupants on board were busy finalizing their last minute preparations and frantically getting their costumes in order. Well, costume singular. "Blast it, E-3!" Qi'Nali yelled from her closet, a number of both very expensive and debonaire items of clothing flying from it into the room beyond. "E-3 where is my uniform!?" "Mistress Hest, have you checked the uniform compartment inside of your closet?" The Bouncer's intercom system asked in response, the droid manning it being far too busy himself to relay the message in person. He was a Miralukan assistant droid, the first of his particular kind, and refined to great extents by the ISB, not some protocol droid to be used for holonet searches! Yet there he was, using almost all of his processing power to make queeries through several secure connections to obscure people-watchers on Thyferra, free-access checkpoints and monitoring systems, coordinating with the Thyferran space port they were to be docking at soon, and running a few hundred calculations for their odds of success given a few prior existing conditions and terms. If he wasn't obligated to serve the Mistress then he would have just stayed with that weird Duro back on Raxus Prime, the one with the fetish for floating droids. "Yes, I have looked in the flooping uniform compartment! I'm blind, not stupid!" The droid mentally... er, pseudo-mentally sighed. He should have expected this. Their meeting with the Black Sun had gone far too well, and now look at the state they were in. EY-3s reluctantly closed down one of his queeries and scanned the ship for rogue uniforms. There were several scattered around the dining hall and sauna, but he somehow doubted that Mistress was looking for a Head Janitor's smock or... what ever that one was. No, she was probably looking for The Uniform. The only one that was actually important, to the both of them. "Ah, wait! I found it, nevermind. Thanks E-3." Blast. Qi'Nali pulled the uniform out of its case, not bothering to wonder why it was under her bed. She deftly slid the tailored fabric over her person and fell seamlessly into her rhythm. Underclothes, clean and freshly pressed. Slacks, well maintained and optimized for comfort, utility, and professionalism. Compact protective vest, easily concealed under other clothing and a little bit of extra insurance in case things go sideways. It wouldn't help much against a good blaster, but a knife blade between the ribs? That was a much different story. One that she had lived through before, personally. The shirt and jacket came next, then a pair of jackboots, gloves, a utility bracer for the left arm, and finally, the prodigal medals. There weren't many that didn't recognize the significance of an ISB uniform, much less one from the internal affairs branch. Especially not when they had met the person wearing it before, on a few separate occasions. That would be the angle that Qi'Nali played on the surface, hopefully with the help of her newest temporary employers. She would be able to do her thing without them, but it was always nice to increase the odds of success just a little bit more. "EY-3s, how are our preparations?" Qu'ora Nakamura asked as she grabbed her belt and S-5, then made her way to the bridge of the Bouncer. They were close enough to landing now that she could slip into her role, discarding her identity as Qi'Nali Hest and embracing the most 'difficult' of her personas. "Mistress Nakamura," EY verbally acknowledged the change in his charge, "we are en-route to Xucphra city's public docking bays on the planet's surface. I have reviewed available data and determined that our contact no longer works for Xucphra Corporation, following the discovery of his romantic involvement with a certain group of non-human locals working for a competitor. He does, however, have a cousin currently employed as part of the on-site sanitation crew." "Excellent work EY-3s. Are the two close enough for a smash and grab?" "Our former contact and his cousin appear to be on moderately close terms, Mistress. A cursory search indicates that they still speak frequently, and both attend the same cantina on days they have off. Would you like me to prepare a guest room?" "No. Clean out the sauna. We'll let him sweat while we wait for our associates to arrive. Make sure my makeup kit is on site as well, I'd rather not waste my time making him look like Bantha fodder the hard way." "Understood, Mistress. Are there any further preparations to be made?" "Mmh. Make sure you're ready for a few high density information transfers, and plot a jigsaw for Coruscant. I have a feeling that we're going to be running out of here hot, with some apologies to make to old friends. I'll make sure our associates get updated on the plan." Preparations mostly complete, Qu'ora made her way to the comms station to set things in motion. Her contact on the surface had to be activated, and he wasn't going to be happy about it. A message had to be sent off to Nath as well, so that he wouldn't bring his people blundering in to disrupt their operation. He had said that he was bringing along a new agent, after all. She knew how that sort of thing went. A heavily encrypted message in code pinged Nath about half an hour after its conception, bounced off of so many different signals that by the time it could be sourced the message itself would have expired.

Qi'Nali nodded in confirmation and then stood. "Once I have a chance to feel out the local situation I shall update you on the situation, so that we can plan ahead and not interrupt one another's plans. Thank you for meeting with me, I will look forward to working together soon." The Miraluka woman smiled at the man and then took her leave, EY-3s padding after her dutifully. She waved and gave a friendly smile to the receptionist on their way out to the docking bay, where the Bouncer patiently waited for them. "I have taken the leave of preparing for departure already, Mistress. Shall I set a course for Thyferra?" The droid asked once they were on board, his chassis hooking into a standby dock while his mismatched 'head' and primary body disconnected and floated towards the cockpit. "Ugh! I really don't want to. Can't we just go somewhere nice for a change? I'm really getting close to finishing that puzzle box, I just need to put the finishing touches on the microprocessors and the gravimetric locator beaco-" "Mistress Hest, so sorry to interrupt but must I remind you again that without a stable source of income we will end up stranded when your investors catch up to us? Or worse, imprisoned?" The dark corridors of the yacht went quiet. "Just get us over there so we can make some cash." "Of course, Mistress." EY plugged into the cockpit and and finished the calculations for their journey to Thyferra, making a point to deliberately ignore the dark mutterings of his charge. He briefly wondered if he should point out that one of their investors was in fact a Jawa Bantha breeder living on an asteroid in the outer rim, sheerly for his own enjoyment, but then thought better of it. He still had sand in his chassis from the last time he had done something similar. ((To Thyferra)

"I see, that does help narrow my options down then. Thank you." Qi'Nali hummed softly to herself, then gestured for EY-3s to step forward. The droid dutifully scanned the contents of the datapad, and relayed information back to her. 'Mistress Qi'Nali,' her earpiece chirped, 'the datapad lists an expansive number of people, all seeming to be key figures of either Xucphra or Zaltin. The aim of this operation appears to be the total destabilization of bacta production and corporate operation.' The Miraluka tilted her head and nodded her thanks to her robotic companion, before turning her attention back to Nath. "I'm afraid that my own transport is rather important to my operations, and personal comfort. EY will plot a course and follow along, however. Now, I assume that there is a bounty for each member on this list? Do you require them to be confirmed as dead, or will merely getting them out of the picture suffice?"

Qi'Nali's defunct eyes followed the man's movements as he tapped away at his datapad, habitually comparing his movents to the standard set beforethrowing her assumptions away and refocusing. There was no guarantee that he would be using a standard text interface, or even a recognizable UI, but it was difficult to break old habits. "I suppose I could be persuaded to do some desttabilization, after having come all this way." Qi'Nali smiled at the man, and tilted her head a few degrees. "I assume that by destabliization you mean disruption of product flow and corporate business, yes? Physical destruction, electronic interference, lengthy political holdovers, et cetera? I'm sure that I could figure something out. I have some conntacts that could prove useful in such things." She hummed to herself for a moment as she calculated a rough estimate of the resources, timing, and planning she would need to do, before metaphorically turning her attention back to the man in front of her. "As for this assassination, I would need some details before accepting anything, you understand. It may complicate some matters if it where, for example, some of the Thyferrians that were on your hit list."

Qi'Nali took and shook Nath's hand softly, before deftly planting herself in the nearest seat and crossing her legs. "Thank you for the warm welcome. I noticed that not long ago the Black Sun put out notice of contracts requiring of a certain level of finesse, and decided that a lucrative paycheck ought to hold my hobbies over for some time. I happen to have some experience with information gathering, tracking, and espionage, and would not be averse to making a saboteur of myself should the situation call for it. "Now," she clapped her hands softly, "would you be willing to has out the details with me? The sooner I can get started, the sooner you will have your results."

The Miraluka woman bowed shortly and offered her thanks to the receptionist, before liesurely strolling towards the indicated room. Partly out of a desire to just enjoy the exercise and practice seeing, and partly out of the need for EY-3s to figure out where exactly they were going so he could lead her there. Not having traditional eyes was inconvenient like that. After reaching the office Qi'Nali took a moment to straighten out her clothing and peer into the room. Generally she tried not invading anyone's privacy by looking past closed doors, not unless it was part of the job at least, but it paid to be prepared in places like these. Not to mention that it was always worth the courtessy of not interrupting anyone while they were occupied with something important. Thus, when she was satisfied that she was in the clear, Hest knocked firmly on the door. "Qi'Nali Hest, here to see Agent Corun about recently posted contracts. May I come in?"

"Mistress. Mistress Hest." A smoothly accented robotic voice brought Qi'Nali out of a state of semi-slumber. She sighed and drew her senses back into her body, left eyebrow twitching as EY-3s (E3 for short) called for her attention again. The droid had been fixed up and given to her as an assistant by the ISB when she was still working for them, and the IT guy who had set its protocols decided to have some fun with it at her expense. "Mistress-" She cut the voice off with a flick of her hand and another quiet sigh. "Yes, yes... what is it, E3?" "Mistress Hest, we have been cleared for landing at a designated area near Sandorne Palace. We will be arriving shortly." Qi'Nali gave E3 a quick 'thanks.' before she groaned and stretched her way out of a rather ornate bed. It paid her back in dividends whenever she needed to do any particularly intensive searching, or meditating. The bed was only one of a handful of barely-necessary expenses for the Miraluka, however; she had also sprung for some expanded closet space in her cabin. The extra room allowed her to store quite a large variety of casual clothing and outfits for disguises, with a small display for her old uniforms. For this trip, she chose to wear something a touch more practical than her usual outfit. Some weather-worn black boots stretching up her calves, padded brown trousers, a tan buttoned shirt, and a thin leather jacket. She had been to Ord Mantell before, for a few different investigations, and was well aware that blending in would be for the best. Safe harbour or not, the planet belonged to the Black Sun and she would be walking right into the heart of their operation. Qi'Nali finished tying her hair up over her eye wraps by the time the Bouncer had landed, ready to disembark and make for the palace when EY-3s marched down from the cockpit to meet her. The assistant droid would probably get some odd looks, he always did. A floating assistant droid mounted onto the body of what appeared to be a B1 droid's body would do that. It wasn't a B1, of course, the scarred blue paint marked it as an OOM pilot droid's chassis, but not many tended to distinguish between Republic-era separatist battle droids on that level. 'Well,' Hest swept her senses over the droid as they walked into the palace, 'at least he can take the body off when he needs to.' "Excuse me," she smiled at the receptionist, "I am here for a meeting regarding a few contracts of a sensitive nature. I don't suppose that miss Krales is currently on site and available? Or someone else who might be willing and qualified to run through the fine details with me?"

QI'NALI HEST'S CHARACTER SHEET Identity Real Name: Qi'Nali Hest A.K.A: Killian Jorge, Qu'ora Nakamura, Lise De'Fleur, Guo Fan'hua, and Jiahche Shin-Ah are all aliases used for work. Nal and Nali are reserved for friends. Homeworld: Alpheridies Species: Miraluka Physical Description Age: 32 Height: 5'5 Weight: ~130 Lbs. Hair: Dark purple and red, typically, though her natural hair color is black. Eyes: Vestigial Sex: Female Equipment Clothing or Armor: Typically a pair of knee-high boots, comfortable but very loose fitting (almost balloon) pants, a sleeveless chiffon style blouse, and a set of long concealing robes. She has an envirosuit, as well as vambraces, shinguards, gloves, a protective vest, et cetera, but it generally goes unused due to her dislike of the constraints and extra weight. A proper dress uniform is used as the situation calls for it. She also keeps a collection of wraps, for her eyes. Or lack thereof. Weapon: A well balanced force pike disguised as a staff or walking stick, plus an aging S-5 blaster. Common Inventory: A few dozen credits, handicap datapad with accessories, personal comlink, a utility knife, and a relatively small personal hover-droid. Faction Information Force User, Force Sensitive or Non-Force User: Force sensitive, like most Miraluka tend to be. Alignment: Neutral, erring on the side of the Utilitarian good. Current Faction Affiliation: N/A Current Faction Rank: N/A History: Force Side: Neutral/Light Trained by: N/A Trained who: N/A Known Skills: Force Sight, Farsight(Apprentice level) Background: Qi'Nali was born on Alpheridies in an upper-class family, with her father holding a firm position as a moderately high power psychologist and her mother acting as a local politician. Given that her parents were often busy with work and other more important priorities, it was left up to the young Holt's great uncle, a retired royal guardsman from Naboo, to supervise and care for her. It was a strictly run household between the three with little room for error in terms of etiquette, not even for a growing young girl. Naturally this lead to an inherent understanding and distaste for politics and rigidly structured institutions. Psychology on the whole was quite alright however, and while her father was really quite reluctant to allow his child anywhere near his profession, Qi'Nali spared no expense to learn on her own. As Nali matured and grew her senses followed suit, leading, on occasion, to oversensitivity and headaches. This lead to a protracted battle between the two of her parents before her great uncle stepped in and involved the Sene-Luka, who were quick to take the developing girl under their metaphorical wing to nuture and advance her innate abilities. It was here that Qi'Nali really learned of the implications of her sight, and where most of her childhood and teenage years were spent. Under the guidance of numerous teachers and mentors, both her and many other students were instructed in how to see- really see, and how to sense the world around them in a way that few others could replicate. The lack of traditional light-based sight did make it and the problems it presented manifest however, not long after the now-young adult left the care of the Sene-Luka to pursue her own dreams and aspirations. Traditional holoscreens and light projections just weren't visible without a proper pair of working eyes and, while there might be vast resources available to those who are blind, have been blinded, or are otherwise naturally impaired, such things tended be fairly expensive and generally inconvenient when their user wasn't using them as their primary method of sight. This presented a problem to Qi'Nali as she was neither particularly well-off financially, with her relationship to both mother and father being strained at best and her great uncle living on his dwindling pension, nor was she willing to lower her standards of living to make it work when she inevitably moved on with her life. The way the issue of funding was bypassed was threefold. Firstly, Nal made herself available to help the Sene-Luka with incoming students. The pay for that was marginal, but it provided some means of providing for herself while long term options and solutions were found and maneuvered into place. Secondly, she signed herself up for clinical trials with a handful of groups testing convenience bots and other amenities for the visually 'impaired.' Finally, she threw her lot in with a pseudo-political group in opposition to her mother's faction. The clinical trials provided a method to get an in with distributors of convenience products as well as a way to make some spending money, and the pseudo-political group was an excellent way to spite her mother and father by using their own teachings against them. And it also paid particularly well, meaning she could leave to be her own Miralukan-being all the faster. Mainly it was for the schadenfreude though. By the time Qi'Nali had gathered up the funds to leave to Coruscant, she was well and truly estranged from her parents. They hadn't been on fantastic terms even before she had been adopted by the Sene-Luka, but now her only familial contact was with her aging great uncle. When he passed there was little reason to stay on Alpherides so, to the relief of her parents, she didn't. Nal left the planet with a few thousand credits to her name, an aging S-5 blaster, and a few gifts from some friends she helped while partaking in the aforementioned clinical trials. Some of the things, such as a screen that fit over a standard datapad, were immensely useful. Others, like a first generation assistant droid that came paired with a set of holoprojectors that fit discretely around the eyes, were not so useful. The droid itself appeared to have some sort of startup malfunction, and without a way to read the electronic display that was mounted to the small unit Nali had no real way to fix it. A few weeks in to her new life on Coruscant, and after a handful of very coincidental run-ins and meetings involving a CSF detective, a hitman, and a wheel of soft cheese, Qi'Nali was lasso'd into CSF service as an investigative assistant. A role that she hadn't really been looking for, but that she accepted given her natural talents and the admittedly sparse paycheck. Not a whole lot of the locals were keen on hiring a blind woman, turns out, even if she could still see just as well if not better than they could. Coruscant security on the other hand, was quickly made aware of just how useful someone with force sight and some measure of farsight could be. Whether it be in interrogations, stakeouts, sweeping a scene for evidence, or even trying to track down individuals. The Imperial security bureau was also quite interested in just how useful these natural abilities could be, and given how Nal had yet to have been adopted into the ranks of the CSF formally, it was easy enough for them to comandeer her for their own purposes. She was made to assist with a number of smaller and less important investigations first, as a test of her capabilities, professionalism, and loyalty, before anything else. These tests were fairly simple for the most part, involving anything from subterfuge to prying secrets from people through normal conversation at a party or other social event. Naturally, for someone who could effectively see through physical obstacles and interpret the emotional state of someone based on their mere presence, not to mention her history with similar political games back 'home,' these tasks were fairly simple. The only problem areas that cropped up tended to be when a task necessitated interaction with a foreign datapad or a holoscreen, and those were quickly solved with an assistant droid that actually did work. Once proven to be capable enough for their use, Qi'Nali was put through an accelerated learning course to fill in a few gaps in her knowledge and abilities before being formally accepted as an internal affairs agent for the ISB. The position wasn't so much a step up as it was a force-assisted leap up the ladder, and that little factoid made it self clear in the qualitative and quantitative increase of her assignments. Questioning suspects for the CSF and investigasting crime scenes was vastly different from the IntAf branch of the ISB. Where before she was asking questions and probing someone's feelings in a sterile room with a one way window, now she was mingling and using a mixture of psychology and her sight to guage reactions to certain keywords and phrases. Investigating a scene turned from looking for evidence and clues around a robbery or murder, to pouring through someone's personal files and posessions for evidence of disloyalty or corruption. The passing of the years saw few other changes in Qi'Nali's life outside of her work, and hardly any of those were of great note. It was during this time that she began using aliases to hide her reputation when it came time for an audit or public operation, in addition to keeping herself safe from any residual enemies that might have been made in her past dealings. Her assistant droid, EY-3s, received a few upgrades to better accomodate Nal's needs; upgrades such as a pair of linked holoprojector implants which could simulate human eyes, and a chassis upgrade that allowed it to connect to a larger bipedal frame. The implants were used to effectively change Nali's appearance based on the alias she was using or the situation at hand, though they had trouble generating a pair of eyes on the fly and under duress. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the passing of these years also saw Nal becomming increasingly at-odds with the way that things were handled by the ISB in general. Deciding, eventually, that continuing on would inevitably lead her down the wrong path, she submitted her conditional resignation and began planning for the future. She still believed that there was some good to be done with the ISB, but more than that she wanted control over how that good was done. The easiest way to do that, she figured, would be to act as a consultant or mercenary. She would still be doing the same things, by and large, but it would be on her time, and they would be for things she supported and in ways that she saw fit. So, once her resignation was approved and her goodbyes were said, Qi'Nali rapidly spent nearly all of her remaining funds on a good ship. Given that she had quite a surplus built up from her time in the ISB, she sprung for some amount of luxury, with some slight modifications. What she ended up with was The Blind Bouncer, a Courier class yacht named for the enigmatic natives of Ruusan. It's a fairly new craft, as of yet untested in the waters of combat, but Nali has faith that it will get her through to where she needs to go. Ship Registration Name: The Blind Bouncer Class: Yacht Model: Courier-class Manufacturer: Nubia Star Drives, Incorporated Length: 40 Meters Armaments: 3x Autoblasters, 2 fore 1 aft 1x Ion cannon 1x Proton torpedo launcher, 8 count torpedos 1x Heavy laser cannon Chaff, 5 count Flares, 5 count Armor: Lightly reinforced/tuned up factory plating Fore and aft deflector shields Anti-Personnel Defenses: An angry Miraluka Appearance: The Blind Bouncer appears much like other Courier class yachts from the exterior, sleek and aerodynamic. For the sake of practicality with just a hint of individuality, it has been painted a dark, matte green and black. The interior tends to follow a darkly colored and occasionally eclectic color scheme. Modifications: Upgraded engines and hyperdrive Supplementary power generator installed Nonessential systems removed and replaced (She's blind, what the hell is she supposed to do with a holotheater?)