20220129 Evil lair under the sea

The hidden lair had an air intake just hidden in the fog, but pollutant concentrations pointed to a waste disposal port at the bottom of the "sea" of the Needle Forest. The pollutants were consistent with a facility of only, say 15 people. On the way to land, we noticed marine-like life forms floating buoyantly in the soupy fog. An eel spat out an ion bolt at prey, and a mysterious blue stone in the layers of rock strata absorbed all that hit it, plus it drew the heat away from the surrounding area causing the nearby fog to turn to snow. Fascinating. I need to get a small sample of that for analysis sometime.
 
As we exited the landed crafts, loaded with rebreathers and goggles, we had to trudge through a combination of snow and dust I will refer to as "snust". Walking two-by-two through the waste water pipe, we found a maintenance hatch, opened it from the inside, and walked the maintenance walkway to a door locked with a keypad. What combination? Maybe 867-5309? No. My medical scanner glove revealed that five of the digits had been pressed often. Vanya mentioned that that type of security system requires a 6-digit passcode. Indeed, one of the digits looked like it had been touched twice as often as the others. Now, what combination?
 
Vanya asked for a piece of metal foil (to disable the alarm to give me several chances to pick the right number). The General Vance Kerplokin, produced a secure pocket-vault, typed the combination, unlocked it, and handed around the finest Voradelli Gourmet Chocolates, each wrapped in gold foil. Much joy ensued, and soon we had sufficient gold foil for Vanya to modify the electic circuit to disable the alarm.
 
Eventually, those six digits resolved themselves into the birthdays of the planet's two "royal" children, (a type that certainly did not claim royalty, but people of importance), when translated into the "old" calendar. The door slid open, and we took a waiting ladder (Spook, the astromech droid, took the turbolift after reprogramming it to her preferences) to the waste management room of the complex.
 
A console in the room yielded a map of all restrooms and thankfully all the other rooms of the facility as well. The Jedi received some information from somewhere, perhaps a distress call, and the rest of us followed. The double doors to the west opened to reveal two Mark 3 dark troopers, fully automated weapon / armor systems with no occupants, but as deadly as if they had.
 
Vanya's lightsaber caught an heavy blaster bolt of plasma directly in front of my face before it could damage me. My electro-nuclear-magnet pulled over a small storage tank and dumped its oily contents at the feet of the distant "Trooper" droid. The Jedi made quick work of the killer droids, rightly prohibited by the Orange Catholic faith...
 
...is what I wish I could honestly say, but that is not what happened. The Jedi fought the killer droids and defended the rest of us living beings while the abominations attempted to kill us further. Other doors opened , and even more dark troopers arrived. Captain Kolene's shot bounced off a large crate that would have reduced the size of the entryway and hit the fire detector on the ceiling. Thick fog filled the room. I used my magnet (basically a personal tractor beam) to pull where the crate was. According to the sounds of disgruntled droids, I believe I completed her move.
 
A blaster bolt came right at my face from the fog. This time I dodged even before I saw the glow. It must have been the Jedi with their amazing instincts rubbing off on me. When the fire suppression chemical smoke cleared, we saw that more dark troopers and plenty of pirates had entered the large room via various doors. Oh boy.
 
With them an antique astromech droid from the tooling machine shop entered, whom I convinced to flee my direction for its own safety. It agreed. Spook and I convinced it to help us access the facilities. With the help of our new allies encryption algorithms, I accessed the locations of all personnel in the facility including the hostages in the Mess Hall with two pirate guards. Also, I found there was a little man in the small room to the east counteracting all of the hacking we had been doing.
 
I enlisted the aid of General Vance Kerploken to remove the little man as an obstacle. First, he commanded the Dark Troopers to Deactivate... in Huttese. It appeared the Hutts who commissioned these killer droids had a safety feature built in. However, they reactivated with an override command from the little man in the little room. Kerplokin opened the door and shot him.
 
The heavily stunned little man tossed a concussion grenade at him. He stepped back and closed the door. It turned out the grenade was a dummy. The little man locked the door from the inside, and returned to his computerized countermeasures. Spook unlocked the door. I managed to put his console into