A Card to Play: VN Ysadora
General Summary
Y'know what's great? a decent meal.
Y'know what's not great? Not knowing where your Master is this time.
So we're sneaking along through space, trying to get to where the Gregor's Pride was. We're sneaking in the Millenium Falcon.
While the meeting with Simon Illyan took place, I got bored and started "looking stuff up for the job" on my DataPADD:
Dear Davish:
I'm in "redacted" with "redacted" and these geniuses wouldn't know adequate cover if it came with sock puppets and an org chart.V
Dearest V:
I heard -- don't ask -- about your mission. Leaving care package with Han. Use if necessary.Davish
He left me a box with 3 heavy blasters and one hotwired emergency beacon. The label says "If things go absolutely sour, use this. You know, it's surprising what you'll find when you root around the back corners of the Jedi Temples in Coruscant."
Yoda and Anakin have agreed to assist in the war efforts. Yoda at least is unhappy about it.
Illyan, who can't plan a decent cover, claims he has an inside source he trusts for a secret base inside Tapani Confederation lines, suspected to be a weapons lab, and this is supposedly where d'Arcy has been taken. The place is not guarded because they keep it secret from their own people. We're not going to see a fleet waiting there, a picket ship and a few fighters at best; and there WILL be an armed force on the station.
I'm gonna meditate. At least until Solo shoves us under the floor.
The base we're heading toward is a converted mining colony.
Eleni has figured out the Secret Smugglers Route! And the new bad guy army is using it.
Apparently I'm now Mirax Velarr, rumored to be a renegade Emperor's Hand now working for Vance Kerplocken. She wears Jedi robes in mockery of the order. So I'm an assassin now? And Eleni can't talk.
We come out at the end of the Shindra System, the gateway into the Melantha Province. Then we go into the nebula. A Darksider comes on board to inspect for hidden whatevers, and we try to not be noticed. About fifteen minutes later, Chewie and Han let us back out.
Which doesn't exactly go ideally.
We went down through the trap door to the intermediary level, and from there swung over the edge down onto the prison level. There are prisoners from all over the place down here, and some of them are being used as experiments or batteries or some damn thing. Needless to say, we plan on rescuing all the prisoners and arresting all the non-prisoners.
Jenna Vormecetti is the apprentice in the Matres Program!
We've taken out a lot of the droids, Preena has stepped out to find out what's going on, we see D'arcy who is in the process of trying to rescue himself, and Jenna blew her cover.
Stuff I found out later, from Rico's and Sparks' Highlight Reels:
Back aboard the burning wreck of the Gregor's Pride, Yeager's been patrolling the halls with a squad of his Drop Marines, clearing out the remnants of the invaders. He gets summoned to the Bridge, where a holocall from Master Kenobi awaits. Ben wants Yeager to go get some concussive implements, get in a shuttle with the other people who've already agreed to this jaunt, and come pick Ben up. This is very much a job OUTSIDE protocol, Ben warns. (Yeager? Act outside military protocol?! Imagine!)
When Yeager shows up at the shuttle, loaded down with toys from the Quartermaster's depleted stores, Razak and several of his wacky lads {Rico, Sparks, Doc, Thumper, and Jenkins} are ready to depart for a mid-Hyperspace Route rendezvous.
The reel shows Yeager handing out various implements of explosion to the other guys (and a sniper rifle to Rico) while the Roughnecks chuckle and make oblique comments about Razak having a girlfriend. The other ship at the meeting point, though, is clearly a Nightsister Raider; Yeager gets all ready to breach or to fight off invading leather-clad women. Razak can be heard repeatedly saying something along the lines of "stand down" in his Officer Cranky voice.
The ship actually is occupied by a squad of Sisters of Battle. The Sisters are pissed that Illyan sent their Abbess Commander off on a secret mission. (The "without us!" is not stated, but pretty clearly implied.) They're going to RETRIEVE her, the leading officer of the squad angrily informs Yeager, and PURGE THE UNCLEAN, and they obviously want to know what nincompoop invited Yeager along?!
But now they have to disguise themselves as Nightsisters. Yeager thinks this is great.
Around this time, I'm done fighting the destroyer droid. Eleni's moving in to straighten Preena's issues out. Danar is ... I don't actually know what he's doing, but I'm sure he's cleaning up the problems in that big room. I tell the two prisoners I freed that we're stunning everybody because we don't know who has the intel we require, and we're going to free everybody, and I start running down that hall to see what's coming along in the tinny's wake.
It's a Zabrak man-e-Gesserit in a gleefully cheery mood. Yaaaaaaaaay. With a lightstaff. No problem, I break the lightstaff right at the power source. Unfortunately he's got backup batteries in either end, so now we're both fighting in dual lightsaber style.
Off in the center ring, it's Eleni versus Preena in a mind control fight. Their exchange probably had nothing to do with "Vance" coming skidding out on his back, to land right at Preena's feet. He makes a by-now-customary smartass remark that earns him Force Lightning at point-blank range. His shield belt nobly takes the brunt of the entire thing, disintegrating as the electric charge runs out. Jenna charges to his rescue.
One of the guards steps into our hallway. He decides ol' Spikey is taking too long to fight me, so he tries to shoot me. Blaster-badminton ensues; eventually, Spikey absorbs it. {sigh}
Jenkins does a contact check of who's where, and relays the info to his team. Nice to know there's someone in the area who isn't planning to blow us up.
After Jenna restarts Danar's heart (wasn't aware it had stopped), Danar -- still flat on his back -- uses his lightfoil to frantically defend himself and Jenna from any and all incoming anything. Preena tries to nerve-strike Eleni, which of course is a DUMB idea; Eleni shows her how it's properly done, leaving Preena paralyzed and rethinking her life.
More explosions go off: someone finally noticed the lock on that blast door, and is trying to force it open. Meanwhile, a vehicle shoots the roof open above our heads (and the two levels above us as well), and armored troopers drop sweetly into perfect position right in the middle of all the chaos.
Danar welcomes them properly.
Danar: Ah. So good of you to join us. Please make yourself at home! {waving light foil the entire time}
Yeager again appears on the Highlight Reel again, demonstrating how not to take out a couple of droids with a concussion grenade. (That particular method would be "throw grenade to bonk off one droid's head. Don't activate grenade first.") He's just getting warmed up while he waits for that big blast door to finish buckling.
Yeager: {throws grenade at droids}
Pin: {stays in grenade}
Rico: Good pitch.
Yeager: Shut up and shoot something!
Rico: {throws grenade, KEEPING pin}
Rico: KEEP the pin, Mr Grenade is not your friend
Yeager: I got a plan
Sparks: Yeah we saw. Highlight reel!
Danar knows, but hasn't had a chance to share, that the droids are talking like they're the minds of prisoners.
Eleni knows, but hasn't had a chance to share, a lot of information about the experiments in progress, and that there's "a Jedi Master" loose somewhere on this planet which is seriously harshing Preena's buzz.
I know, but haven't had a chance to share, that I threw my own (original) blaster to the Mando in the cell I was opening before starting lightsaber combat versus the destroyer droid.
Meanwhile, combat ensues. I'm now fighting a Man-e-Gesserit who's a zabrak. No problem, broke his lightstaff.
Eleni is having a mind control fight with Preena.
Something happens in the big room that knocks Danar backward, skidding on the floor, clear up to Preena's feet. He suggests she come work for him; she zots the shield belt right off him, disintegrating it. Jenna screams "Danar" and it's a killing word.
One of the Apes shoots Dirge and gets his attention. The blast door buckles. Preena lets go of the Dark Side thanks to encounter therapy with Eleni, and gets hugged and stuff.
The blast door opens. A detachment from the Black Company comes through. And two infected kath hounds. And a SUPER HUGE MECHA WHAT THE HELL
The kath hounds start trying to rip open the armor off Thumper and one of the unconscious prisoners. Yeager's chain gun takes out about half of the Black Company out, but the Mecha shoots Yeager with an overpowered heavy E-Web cannon. Yeager gets ionized, a LOT, partially locking up the armor servos and setting off Mr. Smiley (the Thermal Detonator) which has to be thrown right back at the mecha.
My cloak got fried.
All the clones are in bad shape. Razak briefly died. Eleni started doing repairs on his genetic sequence.
Jenkins has the Sisters of Battle radio their Abbess in order to help get the injured out. They also help burn everything icky in the place, blow up the mining lab so it'll fall into the magma, and take potshots at other facilities on the planet.
Master Kenobi joins in time to leave with us. We have Sarge. We have the converted-to-light Matres Preena and that one nightsister. We have the Zabrak man-e-Gesserit prisoner, and Danar has his red lightsabers. Jenna gets debriefed by Danar; we don't actually want to know how that works. Later they mention something called the Honored Matres. Merglin might be the person actually in charge of Melantha space.
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