The crew of the Osprey was shown to a small lounge area off the docking bay where they could wait for the search of the Osprey to be completed.
Jax walked over to a window where he could see the Osprey and a few other craft, all Imperial. “Hate these assholes,” he growled.
Kori grunted. “The long arm of civilization keeps getting longer.” She looked around, squinting. “They’ve been getting harder and harder to avoid.”
Steve nodded. “Yeah, we had to dump cargo three weeks ago out near Valhalla. They seem to perch at wormhole transfers all over the Outer Edge these days.” He shook his head. “Bastards cost us on that one. That’s why Marshall had to stick to the job we booked.”
Jax turned. “Wait, wasn’t that...?”
Steve looked at him straight faced. “Like I said, I wasn’t lying.” He turned and stalked to a vending machine set in the room's corner. “Any of you have Imperial credits on you?” Naomi reached into a pocket on her jumpsuit and walked over.
“Cap?” Rudy said over Jax’s earpiece.
Jax looked around, then walked over to where Steve and Naomi were examining the vending machine. Catching Kori’s eye, he nodded toward the machine and brushed his ear. She nodded, then turned and joined them at the machine. She nudged Naomi, nodding toward Jax as both of them moved to stand between Jax and where they were pretty sure a camera was mounted. “What’s up?” he asked in a whisper, turning to make sure it looked like he was looking at a selection of fried vegetable snacks next to Steve. While their comms were low-powered, meant for close range, and heavily encrypted, it was still risky to talk for too long. Especially inside an Imperial ship.
“I’m worried they’ll find the vault,” the droid replied.
Jax tapped his chin. “See if you can distract them, but if they do, they do. There’s nothing in there right now that would cause too big a problem.” He reached up to tap his ear, then paused. “Don’t forget to feed the cat.” He tapped his earpiece. He looked at Naomi and Kori, nodding. He looked to Steve next to him. “Split a bag of pickle wrinkles?”
Naomi nudged Kori. “What was that all about?”
“You’ll have to ask your… boyfriend.” She winked.
* * *
Rudy did his best to silently follow the scanning team as they wandered around the Osprey . The sub-commander had left the ship shortly after Jax and the others. The scanner crew dutifully ignored Rudy while he tried to accidentally get in their way, beeping and whistling his apologies.
The upside of being a droid, even an older model, was that he could hold a conversation over encrypted comms while still moving through the ship politely harassing the team of Imperials.
“Hey, droid!” someone shouted.
Rudy spun his head in a full circle, beeping politely.
“Come up here!” the voice said, this time from the deck above, the sound passing through the open spiral staircase.
Skip, can you come up with something to keep them from the vault? Rudy sent over the ship’s wireless network.
I will do what I can , the ship’s SI replied.
Rudy rolled towards the stairs. He beeped and whistled, hoping that the shock troops got, “Excuse me, coming through. Please get out of my way,” out of the sounds. When one of the scanner techs ignored him, he reached up and pinched the man on the butt. With a yelp of surprise, the road block removed itself. When he reached the common deck, he looked around.
“Over here!” a woman shouted. She waved to him from the end of the hallway that led to the berths. “One of these is locked.”
Rudy followed over, and the scanner tech pointed to the door to Mr. Ichiko’s assigned berth. He made a series of beeps and whistles: How odd. Please wait a moment. He added a few bonk sounds for emphasis.
“Open, it. Now,” the woman insisted.
Rudy made a show of fumbling for pockets his body didn’t possess before reaching up to the announcer pad. Knowing that Skip was watching, he pressed the button, then pushed the hatch open. He spun his head to look at the woman. When she said nothing, he beeped, You are welcome .
From below, the sounds of shouting echoed up. Rudy turned for the stairs but was shoved aside as the woman he’d just helped pushed him out of the way. By the time he got back down to the hold it was obvious what the commotion was. Fire suppression foam was all over place.
Skip said, Sorry, I’m not good at distractions on short notice. I made it seem like the guy in the armory tripped something then shot foam everywhere.
Rudy watched two scanner techs leave the armory, wiping foam off their uniforms.
I think it worked, though, Rudy replied.