Star Wars
Shards of Exploration
Episode 3.07, Chapter 4: Doom of the Repeating Smuggler
The Blue Spider vanished and power returned to the estate. Security, lights, all systems were restored. As the power returned, Grakor's security collected the incapacitated mercenary, taking him prisoner and taking him to Coldwater Detention in Ole Town. Meanwhile, Hadru Ganan - the Shistavanen outlaw tech and gladiator - finished the last of the new security measures on the generators and the estate settled in for the night. All save for Davish, Hicks, Andan, and Grakor who worked late into the night to piece together any theory about Almon D'Joy's plans.
Danar, however, followed different plans. Due to his new identity of Gilberto Bartlebee - an intern for the Galactic News Service - having a room at the Triple Nebula Hotel, Danar needed to return to maintain his identity. Though, on returning, he found the local police had descended on the hotel looking for a 'Gilberto Bartlbee'. Ten seconds after Danar entered the lobby, a bomb decimated his hotel room.
Morning crawled into view as the sun glowed orange in the grim, grit-stained sky along the horizon. The urban landscape of Nar Shaddaa glowed dull amber with flashes of chrome as the sepia light filtered through the clouds. With Caf brewed, a tired quartet updates the others.
Almon D'Joy's plan possibly stretches back for months, perhaps even to the wreck of the Alliance ship, Forward Unto Dawn. The initial attack begins a connected series of attacks where 'Vance Kerplokin' was one of the potential victims. Each attack had even more political motives than the last. Each event, each death, was the bait to luring everyone along one of many paths. The rogue Mentat wanted the heroes off Chalcedon to remove its greatest defenders, but also engineer the situation where one of their own would murder the rest.
In this case: Vanya, once she fell to the Dark Side, through using Hicks as bait in the Dark Side trap.
With all this focus on Chalcedon, the group explains that it's obvious the Slave Lords plan to grab Chalcedon for themselves. This expands Hutt Space sovereignty to Chalcedon, but the conflict could conceal other activities. What are the attack and possible murder or enslavement of the population of Chalcedon a cover for?
The last time, Almon D'Joy planned - and nearly succeeded - in collapsing two interstellar governments while fracturing two to three Force orders.
Davish explains that Mentat's goal has always been to control through a combination of knowledge and power. What is powerful enough, or represents enough knowledge he can take advantage of ... for him to plan all of this?
The Crimson Knight doesn't know, but they have identified a single person that may be the lynchpin in the Mentat's plans: a smuggler named Piotr Sparaval who has been associated with many of the problems up until now.
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