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(OOC: Closed In-Between for Duncan, Sola, Unna, and Master Stephen)

Lunch over the City
City of Baku
World of Fray
Outer Rim Territories
Date: 2920 AOK (Two Months after Auro's Birthday)

The short trip to L'Astrance was pleasant as are all trips through Baku. Baku, has rightfully earned the nickname City Beautiful. As the speeder moved through the freshly washed street, the efforts of a small army of clones could easily be seen. Walking in pairs of two and dressed in white uniforms, clones move through the streets picking up any trash that they come across. The windows of tall buildings sparkled in the sunlight from under its domes. Thanks to the holographic images projected up on the dome, it is always a lovely and cool day in Baku. From within the city, the horrors that lay beyond the wall are completely obscured from sight.

Safely tucked under its protective dome, Baku remains unaffected by the high levels of radiation that plagued the lands beyond the walls of this city. The energy dome that protects Baku is a work of modern technological brilliance. Designed and built by Guardian Exports just about a year ago. The dome is actually three powerful shields that are layered one on top of the other. With the outer most layer being a powerful Ray Shield designed to protect the occupants of the powerful radiation storms that surge across Fray. The next layer is a particle shield that prevents large objects from penetrating the first two layers of the shields. The last layer and outer most shield is a powerful shield that can be expanded to protect the entire world from attack.

As the speeder continued, a pair Clone workers were working hard to clean up a wall near the Park of a Thousand Fountains. Spray painted in bright red letters was the phrase, “Be Immortalized.” The two clones were cleaning the vandalisms on the wall as citizens of Baku continued to go about their daily business. If the vandalism had any effect on the people of Baku, one only needs to glance across the park. The citizens were oblivious to the vandalism. Over the local Holonet, the reporter was hailing the City Management for their announcement of expanding the City Wall to the north.

The City Management announced plans for new schools, two new parks and a housing district that would be built to handle Baku’s growing population. According to the reporter, the new district would bring in hundreds of thousands of credits in terms of new revenue. With pride, it was said that, “Baku will soon become the Coruscant of the Outer Rim.” This news came at the same time that the crime rate for Olivi City, the Refugee City tuck up against the outside side of the Northern Wall, came in. According to official reports, a crime wave continues to plague the five hundred thousand strong settlement.

Arriving to L’Astrance was everything that Baku has become over the past year. Written in Gold Leaf Letters above the entrance, “Welcome to our new series of restaurants, brought to you by, Pascal Barbot’s, the official Chef to the Chancellor’s office. L’Astrance is more than just a restaurant in the Outer Rim. Come and enjoy a perfect mix of classic and contemporary. Here a small piece of the Core in a savage region.”

L’Astrance lives up to its reputation as one of the finest restaurants in the Galaxy. With a reservation list longer than the waiting list for Baku Citizenship for those beyond the wall. Duncan, Sola and Unna make their way through the main entrance where crystalline creatures move and give off a soft glow in reaction to the three. Even in regard to nobles like Duncan and Sola, being in such a high-class place was considered in honor. Walking up to the hostess, it was pointed out that Duncan wasn’t properly dressed. It took a great deal of effort by Sola to allow Duncan to join them without having to change his outfit.

As the three walked through the restaurant, Duncan caught more than a few looks. It was clear that he was being judged for his appearance. They were led by the Hostess to Master Stephens balcony table, he rose from his chair to greet the three. From this high balcony, the Western Side of the city could easily be seen. The artificial sun shined just enough to make it a prefect setting for lunch. Just like every day in Baku, it was prefect.

Like many of the patrons to this elite restaurant, Master Stephen was well dressed in a fine rob and appeared as if he was about to meet a King or Lord. Duncan had seen many political elite Jedi dress very similar back in the Core. “I am so pleased you were able to join me today,” he said pleasantly. He glanced around, “Where is Lord Sembla?”

Duncan observed Master Stephens appearance, it neither bothered nor surprised him. He had seen many Masters on Coruscant dress the same way. Master Dooku had felt that there were times for such things, but that a Jedi should never forget where they came from. As such Duncan, unless otherwise necessary, always dress in the modest uniform of the Jedi. His robes though modest and humble were always well tailored and pressed. And even though this mission was a surprise to him his hair was neatly pulled back in a ponytail. He waited until the ladies among them had seated before he took his own. Even though he had been asked to come along for this meeting, he didn’t know what it was for and was under the assumption that it was primarily a meeting that Sola and Unna would deal with mostly and as such he waited for them to answer the Master’s question. In the mean time he’d sit and listen, and wait for the opportune time to find out what he had been instructed to learn.

*Unna is actively using sense motive. I have enhanced her senses as well. Please treat it as if Unna is always Taking 10 in Sense Motive unless there is a reason to roll*

Unna, like Duncan, has no idea what this meeting is about and thinks that Duncan and Sola will be doing the talking with Master Stephen. She assumes that she is there for the sole purposes of listening to the conversation to figure out if deception occurs. As far as appearances, Unna just assumed she would play the role of lovely female companion and she had dressed for the occasion in a beautiful, flowing formal dining gown.

As the Master inquired about where Auro was, Unna stood looking at him with a pleasant smile on her face.. She waited for Duncan or Sola to respond, for she was certainly not expecting to take point on this task. She would respond if she was sure neither of them answered. She waited to see who would speak up. Meanwhile, she continued to stand there looking pretty.

Sola smiled and nodded respectfully, "Master Jedi, Lord Sembla wanted more than anything to be here." she said with respect hinging on every word. It was surprising to Unna that she couldn't detect the lie that Sola had said. "Lord Sembla had sent myself, his wife, and his most trusted advisors along with his humblest apologies for not being able to attend." It was like she was speaking with so little effort, yet hitting every possible right thing to say.

Master Stephen returned her nod and motioned to the table, "please join me" he said softly. Unna could tell that he was deeply disappointed by Auro's failure to show up. "I am grateful that Lord Sembla has chosen to remain on world this long. I fear that I must ask you and your friends for a bit more." He pulled a holodisk from his robes, "my own operatives have discovered a possible threat to the peace that we have worked so hard to create here on Fray."

He placed the disk on the table and activated it. An image of a group of armed persons dressed in similar outfits as Renee had commonly wore were in the image. It was clear to Duncan, who knew one of the men, that they were Minutemen. "I have spoken with my Marshal Haze from Guardian and he would concur with my findings. What makes this situation so much more of a threat is that just last night, this terrorist group attacked a facility last night. Despite being overwhelmingly outnumbered and gunned, the terrorists managed to come out of the night of combat victorious."

He paused a moment before continuing, "These Terrorist have even been spotted working their way here. Three of them moving on foot, they were spotted by Guardian Air Speeders."

He paused and Unna knew that he was holding something back. After a moment of silence, "I had a vision of these Terrorists here in the city during a great conflict. They were being led by someone named the General. Marshal Haze would like to eliminate these Terrorists before they can approach the city. So what I am asking is, for you and your friends to remain on Fray until these terrorist are dealt with."

Unna listened as Sola lied, knowing the statement to be untrue, yet noting that she was unable to detect it. Was she that good of a liar? Unna would definitely need to think about this later.

"Master," Unna replied politely. "We will be happy to submit your request for consideration, but I must be thorough when I report back to the Lord. Details will be of the utmost importance to ensure that your request has the greatest possible chance of approval. Is there any other information that you can provide?"

Duncan of course knew that the minute men had taken an old hospital facility and were now in the process of trying to get it up and running again for their use. "Master Stephens... did Marshall Haze by any chance mention what this facility that these alleged terrorists had taken was?" he asked.

Master Stephen nodded to Unna, "ah yes, you are most correct." He paused nervously before adding, "Marshal Haze told me that these Terrorist were hardly an issue until about a month ago. Now, they have made alarming gains. gains that could upset the balance of peace out there." He sighed heavily, "the only reason why this issue has come up to your group is that Marshal Haze suspects that elements of your unit might be aiding this group. A number of personal that Marshal Haze has linked back to the Vengeance have been spotted at one of their training camps."

He paused and turned to Duncan, "he has not, nor did I ask. If your unit is rendering aid to this group. It must end," he said sternly. "Your personal might think that they are doing good, but this group has been linked to a number of raids against Guardian Exports in their region. According to Marshal Haze, they have been responsible for taking hostages and attacking aid shipments. They may call themselves minutemen, but they are no different than your common raider."

"I can promise you this Master Stephens, as Commander of the 10th Division, we don't provide assistance to terrorist. And if anyone hinted as such they would have a problem." Duncan said defending the honor of those under his command. "I am curious about your request for us to stay on Frey. Why would we be going anywhere?" he asked.

Master Stephen nodded, "I don't mean to offend you Commander. But the source of this information is relatively sound. Someone on the vengeance had been passing military grade intelligence to these terrorist." He raised up his hands in hopes of heading off an argument. It was clear to Unna that he really didn't like confrontation. "Commander, please understand. There has been intercepted communications on a Republic Secured Military Frequency. While we have not been able to unlock the intercepted communications, we have been able to lick most of these communications with times these terrorists launched their attacks."

Unna listened to Master Stephen, who was trying to avoid confrontation. She smiled at him nicely. "It's okay, Master," she said, reassuringly. "May I see your records of having intercepted the communications, as well as the reports with correlate the attacks with the times of the intercepted communications? Security surveillance footage would also be helpful. I assure you that if something like this were to go on from within our ranks, we would want to get to the bottom of it."