"They've got some blasters, but what's available on the black market here isn't what they would need to do more than hunt and peck occasionally," Clang was a flyboy, but he was also an ex-ganger and knew his way through the seamy underbelly of these places in a way that allowed him to feel situations out carefully. It was hard to say why, but Shan seemed to have a good instinct for sifting through the chaff to get at a decent seeming lead, "But what they really need is computing and communications equipment and the expertise to use them." Rothana was what amounted to a surveillance state, and the surveillance was sophisticated. It was a tall order, but the planet also was a high value target to compromise in such a fashion.

"Quid pro quo; we get them set up, they are able to reciprocate. That is the deal they want to hammer out." Rothana's air defenses were formidable to the point of making regular use of aerial combat vehicles or starfighters on a regular basis a good idea -- eventually, they'd pile on the resources and shoot everything out of the sky. These guys needed the technical assistance to become more sophisticated, to expand their capability to slice and spoof and allow movement. It might involve more than that, but that wasn't Shan's problem. His problem was this unit's mission of engaging in diplomacy of a decidedly dangerous sort.

He shrugged as the Senator's aide made it clear that the Senator himself should avoid the meeting; it made sense. The senator was watched. His staff were not as watched, and Rothana's surveillance systems were so large that there were, inevitably, gaps that they took advantage of. Sending the Senator to meet with others made sense. It would also mean that Clang was driving the Senator, and wouldn't be meeting these folks again.

"I'll transfer the contact info over to Leto and let him work it out; contact was made through underworld types. One other thing; the locals think that the local fixer might sell us out, if they think there is some profit in it. This broker in the initial contact, Dras Don, does not know on whose behalf I am working, but might have some inkling of what is afoot here." That was said with a shrug, "Still, they might try to fork us over to the local counterintelligence authorities. We let slip to Dras Don that the meet was going to be at the Rusty Rudder, another fine establishment. They're going to put locals on the surveillance to see if some bounty hunters working on contract for the ISB show up. If so, they want Dras Don taken out from our side, while they put out the word that spice dealers were getting very impatient about a short count. We would need to create the impression of a flurry of borrowing activity to support that. We've been very careful to control what he knows and who is exposed, but he's a loose end." 

That, of course, was the dirty end of the business.