Iwa
Iwa
The Current Adventures of IwaStar Wars: Shards Discussion Boards Decision at DorellaChapter 2
Mon, Apr 1st 2024 12:16Stardate 34-4-12731 (Datunda 34 Telona, 12731) Location Urmbrek Market, in Nelden on the planet Dorella, in the Freeworlds Territory of the Tapani Sector
Once Upon A Time
Iwa, a female Wookie, was born 250 years ago. She had a wonderful childhood full of learning and work. There was a lot of new building and it was an exciting time to be a Wookie. She even took a few trips around the galaxy to see what was to be seen. Then when she was 80, she married Akchirr. They built a beautiful home for themselves and raised three children; two boys, Vrakk and Ettass, and one girl, Olla. She and Akchirr did their best to raise their children to be loving parents and responsible adults as well as to be productive members of the community. It had been a time of peace, but a few short years after her youngest child was married, war descended on their planet. Akchirr and Iwa both had learned to use bowcasters as children and continued the practice as adults (and as a means of putting fresh meat on the table). Their skills were called into use to defend their planet and both survived. This however, began a time of terror and uncertainty for their family. Every day there were fresh rumors of Wookies being taken off planet as slaves. Akchirr denied the reality – until the day he and Iwa went hunting and were captured by a platoon of storm troopers. When they awoke, they were slaves in the Kessel spice mines. This was not an experience that Iwa would ever be able to forget. There was never enough food, and it was cold, dirty, and dark. There were no living things around to refresh the spirit or give hope. Akchirr got sick and with no fresh air, no medicine, and no hope – he died. Iwa experienced grief and rage, but she never lost hope. She refused to give in to despair and then rescue came. Iwa returned to her home planet, but was unable to settle down to life in her home or with her family. There was an empty hole in her life and she could not return to what she had known. After talking with her children, they all agreed that Iwa would be happier if she left Kashyyyk and was given a B-wing by her family so she would have a means of income. She has been carting passengers and freight during the end of the Galactic War and all through-out the civil war.Physical Description
Special abilities
Berserker Rage: If a Wookiee becomes enraged, +2D to Strength for brawling damage. -2D to all non-Strength attribute and skill checks. Must make a Moderate Perception total to calm down (only -ID penalty to Perception for this check)
Climbing Claws: +2D to climbing while using claws.
Apparel & Accessories
Shoulder bag
Datapad
Comlink
Diagnositic scanner
Repair kit
Specialized Equipment
Bowcaster (4D)
Vibroblade (STR+1D+1)
Hunting knife (STR+1D)
Social
Contacts & Relations
Charkarr (purple and brown T3 - CKR)
Wealth & Financial state
A Wookie has little need of money. Just enough to keep the b-wing in the air and the droids in oil baths.
2D
Divine Classification
Goddess of Droids
Birthplace
Kashyyyk
Children
Current Residence
Banana Republic (Deez Nuts if someone official is asking)
Gender
Female
Hair
Chocolate brown
Height
2.3 m
Weight
asking can be dangerous
Character Prototype
see also Iwa temporary for temporary version of character sheet
My grandson is where!
12731, 11th of Telona
Inspector Grimes and I hop into the aircar to escort the ambulance. Suddenly there are incoming concussion grenades! I manage to dodge the first round and then I see several armored guys using jet packs and a variety of weapons all around us. I check with Grimes to see if he thinks he can shoot at the Gear Grinders while I do a flyby. He adjusts his weapons and adds a barrel to it and I gun the engines and bank to the left and swoop around the ambulance while Grimes fires. He has a three-shot burst now and manages to take out one and hit two others. I see the ambulance behind me speed up and head straight towards one of the Gear Grinders. It "runs" the guy over and then there is a bus coming in behind us with more people in it. Greelo works on driving around the shots and I dodge them, but a couple pings the hull. Then the odd weapon we couldn't immediately identify fires and it is a phaser cannon. A green light slides in front of the aircar and it feels and smells like it takes a layer of metal from the bottom of my vehicle. I look over at Grimes and confirm that the weapon is illegal on this planet and we make a wild plan to swoop around and take him out - and any other that get in our way.
Grimes fires one burst and hits the phaser cannon dude center chest. Sadly, the cannon is on auto-fire and hits the bottom hull of my aircar. A nice hole between me, Grimes, and the Cardinal - who is still comatose. Then the back of the bus opens and there is another HUGE weapon pointed towards us. I dodge the first two rounds of firepower from the bus and yell at Dizzy for a plan to either fight or flee. I fly straight and two shots bracket the aircar. Grimes suggests a plan to modify the radio on the aircar and jam the weapon. It requires me to get close to the bus and then slam on the brakes. I bank around manage to send one of the Gear Grinders spinning. While I am swooping around, Grimes plays with the wiring and then turns one dial to the max and I can see their weapons glowing blue and they are trying to get rid of their weapons before they explode. They don't succeed. I congratulate their idiocy and then see the ambulance take a nosedive below the bus.
We see one of the guys pull out a backpack of thermal detonators. I remember the force glove and aim it at the backpack to pull as many pins as I can. I get more than one and we watch as he forgets about dropping a thermal on the ambulance and dives for the backpack and tosses it out the window. It flies outward and then explodes. I turn the aircar so the bottom is facing the epicenter of the blast and the aircar holds together barely, but it does lose a paint job. I can't see the bus or its inhabitants anymore, but there are five more Gear Grinders coming up behind us. We are ten seconds away from being able to dive into the subway and safety. Or it would be if there weren't riot police and weapons in front of us.
Grimes let me know that the phaser cannon behind us will be in range before we can reach the relative safety of the sewer. I aim for the opening and then the engines die with lots of smoke billowing out. I open the comms and beg for help from whomever for me as their Goddess. No answer. I check with Grimes to see if I am getting out and he tells me to try again. I do and suddenly there is a thump on the hull above me and there is the Red Sparrow. He suggests I use the repulsors when he says, "NOW!" and manage to get the nose up when he fires a device that turns the aircar and then in front of me is a huge patch of crash foam. I and the ambulance land and then we get everyone out. Surprisingly, the Red Sparrow is my hairdresser. Now that is a warranty!
We get the people out of the ambulance and I talk for a minute to the Red Sparrow and he feels that the problem here is a problem with the government itself. The crown has to be behind the problem and is actually probably the problem. Once that is fixed, he will go back to being just a hairdresser - and then he fluffs my fur. Then we are under fire. The shots miss me, but the Red Sparrow is hit in the shoulder. I grab for him as he falls and notice that the shoulder is wires and the face is just an organic shell. I ask what he is and he flips a switch and a familiar voice comes out as D5K7 responds, "I am just here to help mistress."
The Red Sparrow covers his injury as Greelo fires a grenade arrow to knock out the Lightning Guard. We grab gurneys and dive into the culvert. The entrance is then sprayed with the foam and he opens his backpack and there is a veritable treasure trove of weapons and chemistry supplies. Grimes discovers why he has been known as the Warlord and then we hightail it for the hospital while Dizzy proposes a plan to move then entire hospital into the basement of the palace - where no one would even think to look for them.
As we get closer to where the hospital is located we see smoke in the sewer, smell burnt electronics, and then see the door to the hospital is shredded open. Dizzy gives the countess an assignment to go find Monk and Doc Fuzzy goes to help. Greelo starts trying to figure out when this happened. I contact Chakarr and find out he took Dizzy's boy-toy, the lab techs, and the research Rushlight requested to the ship. The Doctor, Monk, and the girl refused to come as Monk was in mid-treatment. I need to give her a nice oil bath after this is all over.
I hear a hum and see movement in the direction of the next lab and begin to meander that way when Dizzy comes over the comm and suggests that we are being attacked by a stabby, killer robot. Suddenly something shoots out of the dark and I manage to grab it, but it is fighting me. I can't actually hold it as there is a repulsor field around it. Dizzy drops beside me and I almost drop the thing, but then her glove grabs the other half. An arrow pops up and fires some kind of power into the dart. Rushlight tells us that he has it so Dizzy and I drop it and haul ass to find out who fired it, but I trip on a lab coat and fall. Noki walks up and informs us that it was the Dread Lords working with the Mysts. She also managed to put a tracker on one of them. She turns over the cobbled together device to follow the tracker to me.
While the two doctors are working on the patients, Dizzy and I decide to scout ahead and find a quick, clear path to the basement of the palace. Dizzy takes a quick moment to give an update to the Countess since she is the one who will be signing the paycheck this week. We spread out on what we determine is the best path to the palace to check. It is eerily quiet and we find out why when we find yet another destroyed building and street. Dizzy monologues about the sadness of the trouble and why a revolution is bad for business and then Cole Peck steps out of the shadows and agrees with her. He brings a package from his employer and Dizzy listens to a message from her mom. Dizzy interprets that message to be we need to go "capture" Silar Mins now. I agree with her and ask where he is. She turns and asks Cole and he tells us he is in the palace and gives us blueprints.
We agree that the best idea is to first go back to the hospital and gather all of them that are there and move them to the basement. We get back to the hospital and Dizzy hands the second package Cole gave her to the Cardinal. He opens a 3D map that shows all of the various tunnels underground. He also indicates that he knows of a secret way into the palace dungeon. Monk will need two more hours, but Dizzy suggests that the doc find an exoskeleton that can hold Monk and his bacta tank while he completes the process so we can move out. We start out using the path we had scouted. Once we get past the point we had scouted, the Cardinal takes over in directing our path and we get to a section that has obviously not been entered in a while. Then the Cardinal moves forward and finds the secret entrance.
We move into the area and there is an underground lake with plasma torches lighting in front of us. We split into three groups; I have Grimes, McKennon, Monk, Noki, and two of the patients. Doc Fuzzy has the Countess, the Cardinal, the doctor and two of the patients and Greelo has Dizzy, one patient, the Red Sparrow. We fire up the boats and head across the lake towards shelter and safety of some kind. There is a shape flowing through the water. It then rears out of the water and looks around. It has a head that is fifteen feet across, but it is a pet of the Cardinal. We reach the other shore.
There is a stone staircase and a freight turbolift to go up to the torture chambers which we all agree that should be the best place to leave the doctor and patients. When we get upstairs we find a bacta tank in the middle of five tunnels. Grimes and the Red Sparrow take one tunnel to check out while Dizzy, Greelo, and I check out the others. There seems to be nothing - not even dust - except for a vine that is growing down the wall and into a crack in the floor and heading towards the lake.
Dizzy finds something and requests suggestions on how to proceed. I suggest that she walks up the stairs, stopping every five steps to check in. If she does not hear us then she is to attempt to backtrack. We are all heading towards where she is. When we arrive at the bottom of the stairs we look around and try to 'talk' with the vines and then Dizzy comes back down. She and Greelo walk back up together with Doc Fuzzy and I following. We are all at the top of the stairs and Greelo uses an arrow to open the door since neither of them wants to stick their hand and arm into the opening to turn the switch. We go through the open door into what looks like a wine cellar. When we approach the door it slides open, but we need to make sure we can get back through when we return. Rushlight wedges something into the door and then Dizzy contacts Grimes to get him set up in the cellar for backup. We head on to find Silar Mins.
We hear footsteps coming and step back into the passageway to observe. There are three of them that are on a casual patrol but are walking in lockstep. They pass and we move out when Dizzy starts running. Greelo says he can smell squib so he and Rushlight head that way and I follow Dizzy to be her back up. We hear a voice over the comms from the guys, but Dizzy refuses to go back. We are in the servant's hallways and get to the end where they pick up trays of food to deliver. Voices are approaching us and we watch as the emperor removes his face. He has with him a younger Conte and a squib. I convince Dizzy to not shoot and instead, we listen to see what happens next. We hear the squib mention that he needs another DNA sample and walks to a door on the other side. Inside there is a Kaminoan woman (Dizzy's mom) and an older female version of the emperor that is attached to vines. The squib is not nice to the women and gets a blood sample. He reenters the room and walks over to his case. The others are impatiently waiting for him to finish a new mask so he can continue to impersonate the emperor. I look at Dizzy and say, "Time to shoot!".
Dizzy stuns the false emperor and the squib on her first shot, but Conte has one of those knives and is able to use it to split the stun beam. When Dizzy takes her second shot, I run for the door on the other wall and enter to see a stunned woman and an almost dying woman. Dizzy's mom goes to introduce the vine woman but suggests that she introduces herself. A holographic image of Zallara appears. She explains that she was poisoned and the plants on this planet transfer electricity. Since they are attached to her, she has been able to project a hologram that was able to interact with us and others. I suggest she pop down to the doctor in the torture chamber and explain her health situation to him to see if he can help save her. She leaves and I turn to Mar Jani who asks me to hand her a datapad. I ask her why she was helping the squib and she said she was being blackmailed. Dizzy hollers from the other room to ask if it was Carmen. Mar Jani agrees and then uses the datapad to destroy the computer system. We move into the room with Dizzy just as she lands a ladylike kick to Conte. She then breaks his arms and stuns the other two again to make sure they stay down. I walk back into the other room to see if the empress has gotten any information from the doctor and happen to see my grandson's name pop up on the monitor. I request Mar Jani to come back and she explains that the list of names is for 'samples' that have been taken to Chalcedon for testing. I tell Dizzy that we need to wrap it up now and head to Chalcedon.
Over the comms comes a request for me to go and intimidate someone. I stomp over to where the guys are and do a really fine wookie roar. He turns to me and his eyes go black. He recognizes me and re-introduces himself as Alon Paul Thoulieu who had a yacht and offered us a ride before. We turned it down then and I have no desire to take any deal he offers now. He leaves and I return to where Dizzy is.
Agressive spying
______ is still in a coma with Monk watching over her. We discuss various plans and objectives and decide that we need to investigate the hospital where the Lightning Guard is keeping various 'sick' patients. Doc Fuzzy concocts some medication to make him appear dead for three to twelve hours. He prepares the shot and attempts to give it to Dizzy. She declines and I give him the shot and he 'dies'. Chakarr brings over a hover bed and we load him up and start out. The doctor of the facility checks with us as we are leaving and indicates that they think they can reverse what happened to Monk. We leave and the plan is for droids will carry the 'body' of the doctor into the morgue while we hang out close to the door and wait for him to give us access to the hospital. Since we have at least three hours, we will go and get the things to make me look like a bounty hunter and Dizzy like a native female. We exit the sewers and are in a wash, we head right and get to spacer's row while noticing that there are checkpoints in the streets above. People are either presenting an ID card or being scanned. We get to a shopping outlet for cheap things and see Jar's Outfitters which has a helmet in the window. We head over and there are two suits of armor that looks like it would fit me. One is almost exactly like the armor in that stupid card that Doc Fuzzy held up to us when he was consulting the cards this morning. We approach the proprietor and attempt to spin a story and act like we want the other set of armor and that we will settle for the other set which is Falleen and will probably do a great job of disguising me. He wants more money than we are willing to pay and we decide to leave. Then he attempts to make a deal - he will charge us less for the armor if we go steal a dagger for him from a local religious group - the Dread Lords - for a customer of his. Dizzy and I discuss it and decide that we do NOT need yet another thing to do on this planet and walk out to check the next store.
The Jaded Hurdlic Trade Post was our next stop. Dizzy comes out with a crazy story to explain why we need the armor and somehow, it involves me wearing ruffles at her wedding??!?! She starts bouncing around the store and finding various pieces and parts while talking about her wedding to anyone and everyone. She finds a Rhodian arm piece that fires plasma flechettes, a nice heavy helmet, and the hurlig brings a nice chest plate from the back. All we need now is an undersuit and some leg greaves. We find a nice flight suit under armor, but it costs way more than we have. I pull the whole "it's her wedding, a girl only gets married once, have a heart" routine and he pulls out an actual Jedi Knight suit of armor. He has been trying to sell it, but no buyers so he is willing to let it go for only 500 credits. We pile it all up and pay the total of 1325 credits and head out the door. We head over to the public refresher and we get the armor on and now I look like a Jedi. We grab a bite to eat and head to meet Doc Fuzzy.
After we wait outside the hospital for around three hours which means that Doc Fuzzy is late!, I contact Chakarr and discover that the hospital where we are waiting is NOT the hospital where Doc Fuzzy was taken by the droids. I tell Dizzy and she contacts Grimes to see if there is any way he can help us. We arrange to meet him on the top floor of a parking garage next to the hospital. He joins us in an aircar and we head towards the Cardinal. The Red Sparrow melts out of the shadows to assist us with the meeting. He jumps over the side of the building, tosses some grenades and gets all of the Lightning Guard out of the way. We three rush into the church and enter the Cardinal's study to convince him to join with us. He grabs a force pike, puts on his state robes, and follows us. We head back to the aircar and head towards the hospital where Doc Fuzzy should be.
On the way, I discuss either politics or religion with the Cardinal - not sure which it was, but I can't determine whether he is a good guy or a bad guy. Dizzy suggests we see how he handles the upcoming fight. He attempts to get information from us, but we aren't giving him any leeway. He offers the name of the person who is ordering around Silar Mins aka The Collector for just five minutes with him. We finally land on this island with a large military complex with a half-domed building that is identified as the hospital. We determine a plan of attack; Grimes will stay with the air car and put up a jamming signal to keep the hospital from contacting the complex but allows us to talk to each other, Dizzy will launch a grenade at the pharmaceutical entrance, the Cardinal will follow her, and I will bring up the rear.
The grenade goes off and we rush the entrance. There is some fire from a couple of Lightning Guard, but Dizzy takes care of it. As soon as the Cardinal enters, he starts yelling about the church of the force this and lady Jedi that. I swirl in and tell them all to drop their weapons in the name of the force. Dizzy stuns the group immediately in front of us, and they start firing back at us. My armor takes a hit and the Cardinal tells me to "brush it off". I do and the guard who shot at me looks startled and takes a step back. The Cardinal hands me a glowing ball and tells me to crush it. I do and it flows onto my hand. He tells me to flourish my hand towards the guard and when I do, there is a reaction from him that looks like he has been punched. He falls. The guard beside him calls for help.
More guards arrive and they fire at us. One shot hits Dizzy, one hits me - I brush it off - and one shot goes towards the Cardinal, but he sidesteps it and flicks it towards the ceiling. I try to use that force punch thingy again, but the guard sees what I am doing and dives behind a metal wall. The punch hits the wall instead and bows in. Dizzy heads over towards a desk and shoots as does the Cardinal. They both hit.
Suddenly a mist is in front of us and he attempts to attack the Cardinal. He dodges and I attempt to punch the Lieutenant in the face. Hey, that was the guy that came to our ship! I miss as he goes invisible, but I am sure that he is behind me and I kick backward and spin to hit him in the face again. He is attacking me at the same time and we just miss each other. Dizzy disarms one of the guards and though blocked by the second guard, she uses the momentum to kick the third guard. The Cardinal spins around with the force pike and steps up beside me and clips the edge of the Lieutenant's shoulder with his force pike.
Another shot comes at me and stuns me and then the Lieutenant punches me and I slump to the floor. I see Dizzy attacking and not necessarily getting anywhere. I jump to my feet while at the same time kicking the Lieutenant and knocking him off balance. The Cardinal steps in and slams the force pike down - pinning the cloak of our Myst warrior. He spins his own force pike around and breaks the Cardinal's force pike and sends the Cardinal to the floor. I pull out my bowcaster and fire point blank at the Myst guy and the bolt blasts him. I then go over and punch him in the face to make sure he is unconscious and grab a med pack to help the Cardinal. Suddenly the shields start slamming down on all of the doors and windows.
The next thing I know is that Rushlight is in the room with five unconscious people and the Countess - as a Catwoman?? She and Dizzy start bamboozling to get information. I check on the Cardinal and he is better but needs serious medical attention. I contact Grimes and he isn't really surprised about the unconscious people. He says the air car can't handle that many people and recommends we grab another vehicle. I check the hospital computer and see where there is a vehicle right outside the door on our way back to Grimes. We can load all of the unconscious onto that and I can fly that vehicle and follow the air car back to land. The countess and I begin loading the unconscious into the nearby vehicle while Dizzy and Rushlight head to the morgue to avenge my droid followers.
We head back toward's the doctor with more patients and hopefully - answers.
Concussion grenades are overated
When we get up the next morning, I check outside and there are no guards. We discuss and decide that the best plan is to find the Countess. In order to start that, we will go to where the Countess was kidnapped and start from there. Noki will be carrying luggage and Monk will be holding onto the Emperor's seal. Rushlight throws sand on us as we start to march out of the door. Dizzy insists we take the stairs - all 22 flights. We come out in the lobby where there is music and a lovely ambiance. We go out the back door and head towards the tunnel and see two lightening guards. As we get closer we can see there are two others and they occasionally make eye contact and maybe exchange signals of some kind. We walk down the street and traffic flows around us and no one reacts to our presence. It appears that Rushlight has done some kind of mystic thing and kept us from being noticed or seen as we left the hotel. He takes down the spell and we slowly fade back into sight. Dizzy and Noki go up front to get donuts and they come back with 2 dozen and water for the table. I get to eat three and while we are eating, Dizzy contacts Grimes. He is unavailable due to an emergency in another sector of the town. Rushlight manages to get an email to and from him that verifies he can't contact us today and that we had NOTHING to do with that situation. Then Doc Fuzzy tells us that in his spirit vision, the Myst were being told what to do by that butcher shop owner and that the butcher shop owner is being controlled by Silar Mins - who we still need to capture/kill/torture.
I ask Chakarr to contact the "Network" to get plans for the cathedral and the butcher shop - as well as look for the Countess. He comes back with a good plan of the HUGE cathedral and the butchery. There is no sign of the Countess in any of the security footage since she was taken. It is like she is no longer on the planet. I see three armed Gear Grinders coming down the street and it looks like they might have seen us. Out the back we go! Some swoop bikes go by and the Gear Grinder symbol is on their jackets. Rushlight and Greelo head for high points and Dizzy starts walking towards the opposite street to try and get the fight as far from the donut shop as possible. When she glances around the first corner, there are four grinders there and they are ready for a fight. Dizzy suggests it would be better to go to a nearby park instead of right here, but they decline and open fire. Dizzy gets shot at, but it hits the building beside here. I turn to tell Monk to get behind them and for Noki to stay down when four more grinders enter the alley behind us. I sweep Noki behind me, tell Chakarr that they are bothering me when they open fire. My fur gets scorched - AGAIN! There is fighting going on behind me and suddenly a concussion grenade goes off in the midst of the group in front of me. Chakarr is knocked back and I manage to catch her before she crashes. She has a smidgeon of blaster damage, but no permanent damage. I check with Noki to see if she is okay and she takes off running straight towards the bad guys and she slices the air and dives through. Suddenly she pops in between the two standing closest to the building. She takes her knife and stabs one of the guys and then takes his blaster and fires on the other one. Apparently their jackets are actually armor and he is just fine. I have had it with all of this nonsense and I run up to the one that she hadn't killed and attacked him with my vibro blade. He manages to live, but is hurt and runs off.
One of the remaining guys hops on his bike and turns on his weapons and fires. I dodge back into what is left of the corner, but stumble on the rubble and slide down. Suddenly Noki is there and there are blaster bolts. I smell skin burning and see her take a shot in the back. The other guy fires a blaster at me as I roll forward and fire my bowcaster at point blank range. He manages to get out of the way, but I take out his bike. Doc Fuzzy swoops in to take care of Noki. Charkarr suddenly takes off after the one who had been shooting at me and, with arc welders in use, begins to attack him. Since he is occupied, I jump onto the back of the other bike which turns out to be the front as he guns the bike backwards. I see a blinking arrow on the bike and contact Greelo to find out what is going on since it looks like one of his. He tells me to flip the switch and the bike lands heavily. I and the driver tumble and roll off and then I grab him and punch him in the face - which turns out to be his heavily armored helmet instead. I roar into his face and he passes out. I collect Chakarr, the arrow, and we get into line behind Rushlight as we head off to somewhere where Noki can get help.
Dizzy asks for a map from Chakarr that will take us to a place where we can get help without encountering the Lightning Guard. Part of the trip takes us below into the sewers which are traditional in appearance. We get to out exit and open the door and walk straight into a huge Devoronian. He leads us into a clinic that may or may not be legal. Doc Fuzzy takes Noki back for surgery, Dizzy and Greelo start working the staff and patients to find out information, while I clean up and check Chakarr.
Chakarr had finally decoded the datapads that we had rescued. He discovered that there are at least three different groups that want our heads - or at least a lot of holes in said heads. Silar Mins and the Lewis family (of the buchery) are one group, the second group is the Gear Grinders, and the third group is Conte, Crookshanks and also seem to be in charge of the palace/emperor and maybe the Lightning Guard. I ask Chakarr if he found anything else interesting and he shows me a picture of Conte and the Emperor walking away from each other with Zolarian's son in the picture.
Noki - friend or foe
And of course, she immediately starts firing the blaster in a random arc. I tell Enzio to wait, Charkarr to start getting the bystanders out of the way, and jump over the blaster fire to land behind her and grab her. She ducks down and jumps into the hole in the air. Enzio tosses three spheres and they set off a smoke screen. One of them land in the hole and there is a muffled shriek - probably from the girl. I decide to reach into the 'hole' and grab the girl. My vision is still a bit blurry, but I touch something that feels like her vest. I grab hold and then feel a hand between my shoulder blades and feel a prick as a needle jabs me. Suddenly the world around me is underwater and I am dragged backwards - still holding the vest. The girl is unconscious and I am not far behind her. Enzio says something about her being a witness and he needs her more than I do and he tries to jerk her away. I pull her back towards me and use my other hand to get a firmer grip. Enzio tries to convince me to let her go and then she wakes up and starts to struggle out of her vest. I tell her to stop and trust me and that is when he makes the mistake of questioning my honor. I offer him the choice of trusting me or dying. He wisely chooses to trust me. I refuse to make any sort of deal and he releases the girl. I try to get answers, but of course he disappears.
I hear Dizzy asking for help and swing the girl onto my back, tell Chakarr to follow, and head into the smoke to help Dizzy. I find her about the same time as Greelo. He puts her mask on and I help her reach the ground. Then Greelo cuts off the repulsor she had on and we all head out of the smoke. She wants a shower and also something cheerful to wear. Greelo finds a hotel and, as we are heading that way, I stop by a shop: "Three sheets to the wind" and get a lovely, bright blood orange sheet for Dizzy. She trades her gun for the sheet and then she wraps it around her. We start across the bridge between us and the hotel. Suddenly, there are guys behind us. I use her gun to fire at one of the guys and miss, but I do manage to set a bush on fire for a distraction. Dizzy takes the girl and heads towards the hotel. OUCH!!! I got hit by a blaster shot from behind me. When I turn around, I see the girl diving into another one of her holes. I tell Dizzy that she can just jump in or reach in and grab her. She ignores that and rushes off to engage the enemy.
I turn and fire at the same guy again and miss again. I am really starting to get upset. Chakarr rushes back and uses shock rods to attack the bad guys. I fire a third time and manage to stun the last bad guy and Chakarr switches over to start shocking him. Rushlight gets up and I see that Monk is all trussed up and about to fall over the edge of the bridge. I pull him back into safety and Greelo releases the bolo from him. We walk on to the hotel which is obviously very high class and discreet. We get to our room and food is ordered. Dizzy and Monk go to clean-up and I sit down to have a discussion with the girl - Noki. She is sulking and doesn't trust us - well, anyone. I just keep talking and asking questions until she finally gives up and gives some answers.
Her parents were killed by droids while trying to protect her from being changed. They attempted to change her into one of those cat creatures anyway, but it didn't take and she was put into an orphanage where she learns some magic - for lack of a better word. Chakarr logs in to the planetary database and starts to verify her story. She continues by telling us she was out of school one day and observed two people being taken by the Myst. She has been hiding and on the run since. I told her to go get cleaned up and she does. I do the same.
Mmmmmm, pizza. Greelo gets back and we start compiling information so that we can figure out what we have to do next. We determine that Noki's parents had actually found a cure to the cat disease and were killed because of that. Noki knows where their notes are and that is part of why everyone is after her. After Rushlight spirit walked through her previous day, he found at that the butcher guy that was working with the Myst. We decide to take the night off to eat, sleep, and refresh our gear. Tomorrow morning we will start at the butcher's shop. Then a message comes in from one of Greelo's contacts: a bounty on a pilot named Crookshanks.
While they are deciding how to respond to that, Noki has been watching something out the window and then walks very quickly AWAY from the window. We immediately begin prepping for an assault. I ask Chakarr to contact the hotel droids to encourage them to not help the bad guys coming in. He responds that they are all busy because there is someone downstairs being arrested - the Lightning Guard is assisting us to ensure that we have a quiet night. Rushlight requests that we all go to the ballroom so he could put a bubble of invisibility around us and we can walk straight out. We begin to filter out, but a Lightning Gaurd is in the hallway.
Gilded Rose
We ride back to the ship with no further action. The Inspector fills us in on what he has learned and hands over a datapad that shows footage of the countess is being kidnapped by the lightening guard. We start to theorize as to what is going on, but there is a knock at the hatch and Rushlight answers. It is a lightening guard for Greelo with a job. The job is to evaluate an attack that occurred on the planet with a trick arrow. He agrees to the job and the guard leaves. While Greelo and Dizzy play with the pad and decide what to tell the lightening guard, I do a repair job on Chakarr since she did such a wonderful job saving my life. I get her motherboard tacked back and reboot her system. All that is left to do is to weld her casing back together. Suddenly Chakarr lets out an inhuman scream and I tell her to slow down. Slowly she relaxes and realizes that she is okay and I am okay and that we are safe. I then ask her, at Dizzy's behest, to check the traffic cameras to see if there are any areas that stand out as being unusual or empty. She finds one around the same area as the attack yesterday. They seem to center around a construction site and a restaurant: The Gilded Rose. I contact D5K4 and request him to track the various incidents happening to droids to see if there is a pattern. He will borrow a map from his bosses, finish his job, input the data into the map, and then bring the map by after work.
We all take the local train to the area of the construction site. While we are in the train, Dizzy and Greelo get Chakarr to do some more research and we see that Enzio is responsible for abducting the Countess. We get off the train and split up; Rushlight and I head to the restaurant, Greelo heads into the construction site, and Dizzy plants herself in the middle of everything to watch. Just before we enter the restaurant, Rushlight gets a call from Mordecai who wants a favor returned. They discuss it and Dizzy - who has been listening to the call over my comms, wanders over and talks with Mordecai too. Once that is finished, we enter the restaurant.
The first thing that I see is TREES, glorious trees. Granted they are holo, but I haven't seen a tree in entirely too long. We get a table close to the view, and Rushlight orders a meal for us. I get a calm butter ale and a dish that he had tried previously that he said was delicious, but he wanted something more "fun". I watch the waiters making and bringing over Rushlight's drink and suddenly notice that there is a friendly conversation with an old nemesis, Cole Peck. I contact Greelo to track him as he leaves the restaurant and try to question the waiter about the incident yesterday. No new information and then Greelo chimes in with the message that Dizzy is missing.
I go to the door and can't see her, but I do see a girl who is intently watching what Greelo is doing. She notices me and darts away. She is half Twilek and has HAIR. I catch up to her and track her and she is about to get onto a hover train. I decide to grab the girl before she gets on the train - just in case I am not as sneaky as I thought and she is on to me. I do the "Rushlight maneuver" and try to corral her, but she keeps getting away. Must be the twilek in her! We end up in a really interesting park and I can tell she is either going to head for an alley or the sewer. I try to head her off from the sewer and send Chakarr to keep her out of the alley.
Behind her Enzio steps out of the shadows and the girl whirls around, declares she isn't going to be taken by the Mists or their master, and does some blood magic to pull a blaster out of thin air. She fires.............
Who - or WHAT - is Morticia?
Morticia appears to be in a droid or put inside a droid or something. She also seems to be part plant based maybe. The vines or leaves visible at the joints also might be glowing? Dizzy wakes up and see that Mia has her guns and all she can talk about is getting her guns and armor back. Rushlight comes back in and gives her a shot to help bring her around.
After we get all straightened out, we start heading out to go retrieve Mia’s armor so Dizzy can have hers back. As the group heads out, the station security chief stops us and orders us to stay on the station. Dizzy insists that she needs to shower before going to jail and she is told there is no thought of putting her or any of us in jail, but as a victim of a crime she needs to stay around. We agree and head on to get Mia’s armor. Greelo peels off to go see where Shree is since we asked him to come quickly to help with Morticia.
Who is this Mia??!
The comm system is filled with inane chatter from the Imperium ship in orbit. I hear comments about the “Word of Blake” that sounds faintly religious in tone Not sure what that is, but I will investigate when I have time. We can hear comm chatter that indicates that Shree and Rushlight are working on Morticia.
Since they have that in hand, we are going to go look for Deloris. Mia tells us her theory of her last moments. She feels that there was a genetic code targeting component to the reason Dizzy was taken. She thinks our best bet in determining what happened is to get a forensic account to check the money and see if we can see a pattern. She still doesn’t know why either she or Dizzy were targeted and doesn’t know about the other three sisters.
Greelo checks the ship schematics and finds that all routes from that location end up in the docking bay. We have Rushlight check the bay where Morticia is and we head to the other one. Over the station comms we hear Shree asking, “Morticia, are you there?”
We ignore that and head on and find three shuttles Mia walks up to one, knocks, and gives him a credit stick to check his sensor logs. We enter the ship with Greelo standing guard to check. I keep watch while Mia looks for what she is looking for. She apparently finds it and we leave the ship. Doc Fuzzy contacts us to invite us to help him investigate the ship. He got permission to check the ship and we join him as he gets off the elevator.
He approaches the ship we want to investigate and I take a scan around the floor. I notice a sniper up in the rafters and take a quick shot to take out the girder he is on. I take it out and he falls to the floor. At the same time there are additional shots. Rushlight gets hit by a dart and Mia manages to dodge another one. I get to the doc and take out the dart and he is totally happy. As if he had smoked two whole pipes of marijuana. Before I can get his gun, he fires three shots. One hits a maintenance worker, one hits the station security chief as she is exiting the elevator, and the third hits a marine walking by.
I take off after the sniper before he can limp away, but he manages to vault onto a passing transport ship before I can grab him. He starts moving his gun around to fire at me and I see a dart pass in front of my face and land in the cart. I flip over and attempt to fire, miss, and hit a light which falls down and hits me. No damage from it, but I get a mild electrical shock.
When I wake up, I see the sniper heading towards cover. I shoot into a stack of barrels. There is a spark and the barrels scatter. One hits him and he is stunned. I pick him up and carry him back to where it all started. I turn him over to some security personnel and head into the ship. Every door I open is a storage area.
Morticia!!!
I come out of the turbolift and find Dizzy standing over three bodies. She claims they are just stunned. When I moved over to her, she stands and hands me a dart. She tells me that I will know she isn’t Dizzy and that she is trying to save her sister.
Mia introduces herself and wants to know if Deloris has told us about her past. She had found out about the situation when she was attacked by a cyborg. She wasn’t able to find out who sent the cyborg, but there was a datapad telling about Dizzy’s location and when she would be there. She got to the station, but we had left on our beer run and she hurried on to our probable location. All she found was Dizzy’s empty armor. There was nothing missing from the armor – except Dizzy. She put it on to hopefully cause them to make a mistake.
Mia happened across a group of three men in what seemed to be a negotiation. When she appeared, they attacked and she defended herself. One was killed and she stunned the other two. I suggest we search the bodies to see what we can find. First the dead body.
I find a datapad, commlink, a pistol, and a small case holding the darts, and a thin scar along the bottom portion of his skull on the dead body. Mia and I search the other two men vibro knives, modified ion pistols, teardrop backpacks filled with scrap metal, and a datapad with a mostly complete map of the section. They have notes about the recycling centers so I look more closely at the scrap metal and determine that everything is something that could be used to repair something. We are about to start searching the level when security shows up and requests our presence in the security office.
I turn on my comms unobtrusively and say hello to Captain Shann. She wants to be sure we are not a danger to her station. She knew that the two stunned guys were steel jack nomads – scavengers of the galaxy. She didn’t recognize the other guy, but is passing his photo around. I mention the scar and describe it for Rushlight. He suggests it could be either a brain bomb or a controlling device. I share that information which causes the captain to leave to check on it.
Captain returns and tells me that it is interesting. She asks me if I know Ren Gent. Turns out that was the name of the dead guy. We finish up our conversation and I go out to see Mia waiting – not necessarily patiently. The captain is accosted as soon as we go out by an officer. I try to listen and manage to here “just happened” and “knocka creed guy”. I have Mia turn on the augmented hearing on the armor and she says that there has been a shooting in the med bay and someone has attempted to shoot Anocka Creed in the med bay.
Mia and I leave the security station and head to med bay. While we are walking to Med Bay, I drop the news about Dizzy actually being Mia and let her tell Rushlight and Greelo about what is going on. She gives them the low down while we head to medical. The crowd get thicker as we get closer and we see Captain Shanns ahead. The other guys meet us there and we are in a big crowd and can’t get close to the door. Rushlight suddenly notices four guys in coveralls come out of the maintenance door leading out of med bay. Greelo and I will cut them off at the pass, Mia will follow them, and Rushlight will go straight to the captain and tell her about what he noticed and suggests they check the door for bombs.
There are some transports just around the corner and we hop aboard and rush to head them off at the pass. We hear some blaster fire and Doc Fuzzy complains about being sent back to the cheap seats. He yells and apparently makes a run for someone hurt and tries to get them into med bay. I try to get off the path and follow Greelo into the park. I start losing control of the swoop and somehow manage to catch flight and go into and through a security outpost in a tree. When I come back out of the outpost, I have an officer on my windshield and am coming down on top of Greelo. He seems to be braking and I manage to land on the back of his bike without wrecking, but we are stuck together now. We keep flying with the security guy still as a hood ornament. Rushlight comes over the comms and tells us that he is chasing the assassin and we need to help. We get out of the park and those speed bumps break the swoops apart and we crash into the two remaining bad guys with blaster fire pinging off of the damaged swoops. The security guys say, “FREEZE! Everyone is under arrest.”
I stand up groggily and see the captain staring at me. There is a lot of activity going on with Greelo and apparently, the bad guys need a doctor now. I talk to the captain after she walks over to me and I tell her all about the fun ride I had. Then Doc Fuzzy showed up and started telling the captain about the assassin and what he did in the med bay.
I spend time in interrogation and finally ask him about why there is so much going on and is there an assassin convention happening. He responds that it is just busy right now. He lets me go and suddenly the decompression sirens go off. Greelo contacts Shree and is told that Morticia is at the center of the destruction. Rushlight heads off to check. I go over to check on Mia and she is having a “discussion” with the medical personnel. One touches her armor and is sent flying. Rushlight comes over the comms to tell us to tell the doctor that she refuses medical treatment.
He then informs us that Morticia is dead. Suddenly over the system, we hear the voice of a Commander of the Spartan Imperium demanding Morticia back and agreeing to give us back the money we paid for her. Rushlight tells him she is dead and may not be salvageable. He plans to get some power back to her and see if he can copy her hard drive to move to another shuttle.
Problems with apprentices
We get back to the Banana Republic and I go take a sonic shower. Something about talking to Mordecai makes it necessary to get cleaned up. Afterward, I go for a walk around the ship and run into Jangir and Artie. I make small talk with Jangir to find out what Artie has been up to. Then I go talk to Artie and get the name of the last job he and his brother took on. A detector of small alien flying bugs (hunter-seekers) that seem to be popular in the Vor empire. I get the details on the name (Lev Ysadora – Vanya’s uncle, corporate magnate, CEO of a conglomerate, worth billions) and the bugs from Jangir. I see Shree walking by with a box and go catch up with him to see what he is up to. He is working to save our salvage and minimize the costs we have to pay for the clean-up.
Suddenly, we feel an explosion from the station. Our teammates are in trouble and I get into my ship and head over. I use my tractor beam in reversed mode to push the dock back together. I can’t tell if it worked or not so I ask Shree to check. He can’t tell me and so I ask Greelo and he says it is back together at least enough. I take the tractor beam off the station and ask Morticia if she wants a “lift” and I tractor her out of the docking bay – keeping her away from the ship on fire.
I land on the dock, secure the ship, send Chakarr to Rushlight, tell him to be nice to her, and head to Dizzy, and run into Mordecai. He tells me that his apprentice has a PTSD reaction to tranqs and he still wants him back.
Brother Mordy
We arrive at the station orbiting Mechis III and are hailed by Captain Garrett. I speak on the holo with her and she has apparently been in a fight. She talks about a missing town, a crashed capital ship, and a reaver invasion. We make plans to meet up later and she is going to have Doc Fuzzy check her injuries. Greelo, Dizzy, and I go to the station to make the delivery. After confirming payment, Dizzy head to the Get Bent Spanner while I go to Rumble Bumble Club. I am watching what is happening and keeping my ears open to hear what is being said. We need to find out about the “brother” and what caused Silar to be noticed by bounty hunters. I almost run into an individual at the door. He is a VERY well-dressed Catharr and I decide on the spur of the moment to invite him for a drink. We go to the bar and I get a butter mead and he gets a dark stout. We chat about travel and new experiences. He asks for my name and introduces himself as Mordecai. I have heard rumors about him – he is an assassin for hire and has various methods to kill and is all about order and cleanliness and symmetry. He is also rumored to be attached to the Black Sun syndicate. We exchange a few comments and I ask him about jobs and steam shower/sauna. I leave him and am contacted by the station about an incoming ship that is very badly damaged. They patch through the signal and I hear someone tell me to keep quiet about the disk and then it goes dead. I ask them to tow the ship in and moor it near ours. I try to contact Dizzy, but can’t get though. The lights dim and station security comes on and says not to worry that it is just an ion storm. Suddenly Dizzy comms in and tells us all to get to the ship pronto. I walk at a moderately fast pace back towards the ship and run into Dizzy. I tell her about the transmission.
Beer Run
We wake up in jail and are taken to holding. A dashing human is waiting and then a guard rushes in to get the Captain’s attention. Behind him, we see Shree approaching with a cadre of battle droids. Dizzy claims he is our lawyer and we are released into his custody. Greelo starts some legal claptrap and Doc Fuzzy makes a call to the Beer Baron. Silar whispers that he isn’t Silar and I insist we get to our ship with the outlaw tech and get to the bottom of it. Our beer run is still a go and apparently, the dashing human has smoothed things over. We invite him and Jangir and the captain to go with us and Silar on the beer run. Jangir and Silar are going with us. We get to the ship and the Captain offers to fly her own ship and lay a false trail and meet up later. As we start to board, Silar breaks down and confesses that he and his brother created the concept of Silar Mins. Then suddenly people start showing up to kill them and claiming they had done things that they haven’t. They had split up, but his brother was not at the rendezvous. We handed him over to the concierge and Jangir is also shown to a room where he can babysit. I head to my quarters to clean up and carb up as I apparently had a berserker moment on the station and you never sleep well in jail.
We are on the trip for four or five days and Arthur checks over the plan for the hibernation units the clone troopers are trapped in. He thinks he might have a plan. We arrive in system and are in the middle of an attack on the station. There is a transmission and we are told that the Black Hat pirates are after the whiskey we are here to transport. We respond and tell him we are here for the shipment and will be happy to assist in the defense on the station.
Apparently, there are 15 hodgepodge ships cobbled together from X-wings, and Y-wings, and Tie fighters. Shree is our overwatch and tells me to fire on the ships that Vader buzzes. As we fly into the group targeting the dock, I draft behind Vader getting ready to fire. Suddenly my telemetry data changes to show that the fighters are ex-military. Vader takes a shot and then I fly above him and shoot at a ship on the right. The ship on the left fires thrusters and turns around – missing my shot and has all weapons pointing at us.
Suddenly the two ships flip and combine to make a single ship with double shields and weapons. I decide to bypass them and fire on the group ahead of them. I take out one of the trios. It fires back and a hit takes out my shields. I manage to dodge the rest of the hits and send Charkarr to get the shields back up. Behind us, a capital ship warps in and a couple of groups of ties peel off of the hull. We hear a message about us being meat bags which rings a bell, but then I get back to dodging and lose the thought.
Dizzy comms that they are droids that appear to be determined to destroy humans. She convinces the Black Hats to side with us – at least until we take out the droids. We agree to give them some chip they want if we find it inside our delivery. I turn to fire on one of the droid groups but they have insane dodges – must be nice to ignore human body needs. They also appear to have some sort of extra cannon ports around their gunnery ports. I fire again and then have to dodge like crazy as their capital ship opens up on the station.
I get a leeeetle crazy
We dock at Kenvick station and get off the ship. It is clean, well-ordered, and seems to be a nice place to restock. Port Security is there to greet us. They scan us and we ask for information about the best place to go for a quick job. Myu’s Mercy is the best tavern to go to for leads and drinks. The only real rule is to not be lethal in defending yourself while waiting for the security. Dizzy hits on the security guard and various other outrages. During the craziness, she tells me to use my respectability and normality to get the people here looking for Silar Mins
I leave them and head to the directory to find the Gran government embassy. I enter to find a Gran and I tell him about Silar Mins. Share what information I have with them about the parasite and do my best to convince them to call us first before attempting any contact. Then I leave and head for the tavern that was recommended to us.
I enter Myu’s Mercy and see a very classy establishment. I get a nice wine and watch the crowd. I notice the person behind the bar attracting the mugs and plates with just her palm. I approach her and strike up a conversation Turns out she is the owner of the bar and been here for almost 20 years. I compliment her on the bar and we talk. She is a Kathir and has lodestone in her body which allows her to attract mugs and plates. I remember an experience with one in my past and we talk comfortably until I notice Greelo rushing in.
I join with him and he introduces me to Jangir Toth. Apparently Master Anakin Skywalker contacted him and sent him to meet us. According to him, Silar Mins in on the station and has been meeting with a freighter captain to take him to V______. This is a hugely metallic rich system and would be a perfect place for an outlaw tech. Greelo has to hurry out to complete the job for the 70,000 credits.
I and Jangir talk casually as I listen on the commlink to the group’s chatter. Suddenly, Greelo spots Silar and Dizzy and Rushlight rush to corner him. Jangir and I go out of the bar and he takes me to a vantage point to watch the action and provide back-up. A woman steps out of the turbolift and starts talking to Silar. Jangir confirms it is the captain he has been working with.
Then a whole bunch of fighting
In which we meet Squiggy
We see a brand new star. Apparently, we did blow up the Interdictor and all the crew and now we have a new star. I can see the asteroid field start a rotation and I know that we have to get out of here. We are flying in Morticia and Vader back to the Banana Republic with the Westlake in tow. Dizzy has a crazy plan to rescue her troopers. Once we break free of the asteroid field, we see all of the pirates arrayed before us. The Captain hails us and I arrange for us to get aboard our ship and settle down before we contact her again. She has crumpets!
We dock and debark, the droids assemble to begin fixing the shuttles. We go to the machine shop and begin suiting up. I bring up the pirates and they remind me that the pirates will go with us and concentrate on the treasure while we get the bodies. Doc Rushlight starts getting weapons on his suit and then goes to the medlab for doctor stuff. I contact the pirates and put off the meeting until after the boarding. I let her know that we will be ready to go in 20 minutes. I communicate the results of the communication with the rest of the crew and include my feeling that she was lying to me.
We discuss the best approach based on energy readings. The ship appears dead which we know is impossible. The doc talks to his wee beastie and finds out that others on the ship are being denied access to the medlab and they really want those bodies. We talk and think that maybe we could get the pirates to create bodies for them to inhabit. They reject the offer.
We suit up and load up Vader with what we think we will need. Shree fixes me a backpack shield. I contact the pirates and let her know that we aren’t going in through the hole and that she should make sure to NOT take her real bodies, but only copies. I also suggest a flame-thrower and give her a hint about the parasites. I fly Vader and lag politely behind the pirate shuttle. We see her go amidships to probably go in through one of the other airlocks. We continue on to the airlock on top and enter slowly through a machine shop. I guard the door with my shield extended while the others investigate. Rushlight finds a bloody crowbar and splatters which indicate something happened. He keeps the crowbar and we continue the investigation of the ship until we come to closed blast doors.
Doc gets them open to see a horde of mynocks approaching. He jumps back into the bubble and I slowly step forward to block the door. Greedo gets off one of his incendiary arrows and the corridor EXPLODES. I see mynocks blossom and die and the walls buckle. We hear the metallic groans of the ship in distress from the explosion. I see seven small droids with spider legs apparently chasing the mynocks and they stop, scan us, and then run away. Whether from us or the explosion I can’t tell.
We continue on towards the engineering section and find a secondary route down to Med Bay. It doesn’t appear to be damaged – how has it escaped? We can see repairs that look recent. We have no choice but to keep going. We enter the medical administration level and have nice wide open corridors. Ten minutes later we enter a research lab. Loose data chips on the floor that Dizzy grabs to look at later. As we get to the other end of the room, we see a bit of purple ooze coming out under the two doors on the left. The two doors on the right have broken bacta tanks beside them. Exploring finds a data pad and uniforms for a lieutenant colonel and a captain. It is apparent from some past enemy of my current traveling companions.
We go through the door on the left – without the purple ooze!. We go through a clean room that has none of the normal equipment. We continue on and enter a room that has the cryo tubes with a holocron for each one. The droids I saw earlier enter from air vents and gather around the cryo pods. Dizzy says “General” and everything starts to blink and activate. One of the droids comes closer to try and communicate. Greedo tells it to sync with the datapad and communication begins. Turns out that the troopers don’t really know what has happened to them, they just know that they are not complete. Doc Fuzzy does his thing. While he is doing that, I see a hand in the ooze. I point it out to Dizzy and Greedo. They get ready for battle. I check the cryo set up to see if I can detach the holocron crystals. They are embedded in their skulls. I can move the crystals to be on top of the tubes for easier transport.
Dizzy and Greedo run to the operating theater to find functional gurneys. Doc starts checking out the “patients”. I keep watch. There are more and more hands on the walls and then faces start appearing. They appear to be dead military men. Dizzy re-enters and we get the tubes loaded up. Two on each of the complete gurneys and one on the droid enabled one. Rushlight does his shaman thing and all the tubes flow with him. Dizzy leads the way with Greedo behind. I put up the shield from the center and cover all the tubes and Doc. We rush back re-tracing our steps and get to the ladder. Rushlight and Dizzy rush up and Doc floats the tubes up one at a time. Greedo and I guard the rear. Suddenly there is a thing/monster/queen coming up behind us. Greedo fires an acid arrow that hits a bullseye literally. A second arrow is let loose, but it explodes instead. The Westlake is on fire. The last of the tubes rise and we follow them up. We rush up to Vader and get the cryo tubes up one at a time again. And then Dizzy enters carrying Chakarr. I am the last to enter and I get the last clamp. Suddenly there are tentacles grabbing the hatch and even re-growing before my eyes. I shoot with my bowcaster at the same time as Greedo shoots an arrow. It is killed and I release the clamp, get inside, and we retreat from the Westlake. We count noses to make sure that we only have the number we are supposed to have and that they are the right ones.
Looking back at the Westlake, we see it implode. The pirate shuttle is also fleeing from the destruction and we see a cat flying through space. The Westlake continues to implode and a rancor with tentacles and other things a rancor should NOT have. All of the debris is being pulled toward our proto-star. Squiggy confirms that none of the pirates have been taken over by his cousins.
We land on the Banana Republic. Dizzy contacts the employer and insists I be present. It is requested we meet at Allendor and the crew fights to give the best teaser to entice him to come. He agrees and we make arrangements to meet. The pirates contact us before they leave and are thrilled about the experience. She will contact us at some point in the future.
We take the time spent in hyperspace checking out the information we discovered on the Westlake. It was terrifying. I can’t wait till we land and turn over the information to the Jedi. We get to Allendor and are contacted by the Jedi at once. We load up Morticia and head down with the cryo tubes. We land and a Jedi meets us. Squiggy is transferred to the Jedi. Rushlight and the Jedi work with the ARC Troopers to finalize their healing.
Eli is waiting with a bodyguard for us to finish with the Jedi and the rest of us grab our “proof” and move over to meet with him. He checks over all we have done and we earned our very own turbolaser. One down and 19 to go.
Space Battle for dessert
While we are ‘waiting’ for the captain to print a new copy of herself, I open negotiations. I am hoping to stop the bloodshed and maybe get us an ally against the empire. The captain is willing to talk and invites us to dinner. The representative she sends to escort us is friendly, talkative, and willing to answer all questions. We enter a room that is lavish in the extreme with an actual pipe organ at the end of the room. The cook, a Gamorrean, enters with herbed nerf.
Our host enters in full pirate regalia. We begin a conversation about her past and the reason we are here. After negotiation, we all agree to work together and explode the Westlake after towing it to a safer location – away from the thermal detonator material. Then we finish dinner with small talk and excellent food. Suddenly, Dizzy is in a hurry to go so I make our apologies to our host and we get back to the shuttles.
Quick sensor scan and we see a battleship decloaking while sending out a full flight of interceptors. One wing is something different. I do a full sensor scan and detect all the various parts of the battle. I can see Vader dragging the Westlake out of its nest, the pirate ship firing up and turning into the battle, and I can see more details of that wing of fighters. They have a fin on top and a fin to either side of the body. No nose like the interceptors. What are they?!?!? Then they disappear.
Dizzy takes a shot and takes out a group of interceptors. The pirate ship fires on an asteroid and takes out even more of the interceptors. Vador distracts the capital ship into firing towards him – and the mynocks. Dizzy suddenly jumps up and takes off towards the hold. We hear her yell so Pilot turns on the cameras and sees her dealing with what look like Stormtroopers. I move over to the gunnery station and fire at the capital ship which is in range now. I hit it and they have to adjust shields.
I take another hit, this time doing it in two shots attempting to weaken shields and then hit before they can adjust. I manage to damage the ship, but I also manage to set off an ion wave as one of the interceptors gets hit and then explodes into one of the asteroids. I try another double blast, but the capital ship is able to react faster this time.
Dizzy comes back and I turn the guns over to her and get back to the sensors. Morticia thinks I can adjust the sensors to see the cloaked whatever ships. Unfortunately, there is a problem and, with a minor explosion, we lose sensors entirely. I try to repair the sensors and I get them up long enough to detect a cruiser coming through and then they go down again.
Fortress!
Atunda, Telona 16th, 12731 (4th month)
I wake up to see this puffy droid looking at me from the outside of a bacta tank. It asks how I feel and gives me a scale of 1 (majorly sick wookie) to 10 (joyful wookie). I tell him I am around 7 and he releases me from the tank. I stand up and Mar Jani and Rushlight walk over to check on me. I ask them what the puffy thing is and they say it is some kind of medical droid. It introduces itself as AMA-BAYMAX and tells the others that I am at a 7 on the wellness scale. I just nod and ask for verification that I am actually awake and then I request a status update as the last thing I remember is pulling the arms off of a guy or droid?? Greelo brings out the arm and shows the weapons. The BAYMAX keeps watching me and it finally tells me that it is happy with my progress. It tells me about the Reaver bite and that it appears I am immune for either the next 48 hours - or maybe forever?
Suddenly, Doc Fuzzy is in a rush and takes off spouting lots of nonsense and telling us to hurry, but he did give me a breakfast sandwich. So I am just out of the sonic shower with a towel in one hand, a sandwich in the other and I can see my go bag on the floor. What the hell? I decide to just take a minute and eat my sandwich. Then I will grab my gear and meet up with the others. Where is Chakarr? Just then Chakarr rolls up and starts a monologue about Blood Smith Pirates and what he plans to do to each of them that he finds. Dizzy contacts me over comms and tells me to set up the hospital to handle possible incoming wounded and then set up the team to meet up with them to go on the rescue mission. I leave Mar Jani, BAYMAX, my grandson taking care of the hospital and the wounded survivors. Apparently, they have been infected with some sort of mutation virus. My grandson, on the other hand, has not been infected. They have instead taken several samples of his blood and Carmen's in an attempt to create a clone - which we know they did achieve. Dizzy also recommends that fake Silar Mins be treated as a hostile and I suggest either an isolation chamber or maybe knock him out while we are gone. I then contact Segeer and invite him along on the rescue mission. He will meet me with a speeder bike.
An ambulance races by - and pops a wheelie - with Carmen in the driver seat. A second ambulance races by and Segeer transforms into a speeder bike. I hope on and Chakarr latches onto the back just before he takes off. Then there is a different person on the comm who indicates there are more combatants. Rushlight identifies them as Spartan Imperium and some strange aliens. Dizzy transmits targeting coordinates to Segeer and all I can see is a HUGE mess. We have Spartan Imperium fighting Reavers and attempting to keep the Blood Smiths from setting satchel charges to take out the tubes. I ask Segeer to jump across the bridge and land us on the other side. He at least hurts two of the alien creatures and then we land on the opposite of the bridge. I to the right of the bridge, Segeer to the left and we are both in the middle of a group of Blood Smiths. Chakarr flies straight and I am pretty sure he lands safely.
Two of the Blood Smith pirates turn to fire on me. I dodge between them and jump on the last pirate who is setting a satchel charge. I manage to land on top of him and knock the satchel open and four blocks of detonite tumble in four different directions. Two of them fall into the car in the tunnel and two slides down the sides of the tunnel and are under the car. I grab the guy around the knees to keep my balance and hold him still while I kick out with both legs to hit the guys behind me. One of them jumps back and is out of combat for a round, the second one trips over the guy I am holding and falls right beside me. I do a lovely wookie roar and he screams. Life is good.
I then try to slam the guy I have by the knees into the guy laying beside me. They both manage to get wiggle enough that I can't connect. Then the guy that took a step back opens fire and I just can't dodge so it hits me and I am stunned. I wake up to see the Blood Smith fell down beside me. We both come to at the same time and I attempt to toss him towards the other group and slip and trigger one of the cubes. We both start a fast crawl out from under the car but don't make it before the cube detonates. As we are slowly being pulled towards the vacuum of space, the car slides into and blocks the hole. It is still slowly sliding out and both I and the pirate are trapped together underneath the car. Would it be better to kill him or cooperate with him? I talk to Carmen and we decide that cooperation is the best thing to do. I talk to him for a bit and let him know that double-crossing me will result in death. I use my gauntlet and rock the hovercar which allows the pirate to wriggle free. Then instead of grabbing my shoulders, he shoots a grappling hook from his cybernetic arm and starts dragging me out from under the car. The movement of the car makes the tunnel unstable and the car starts getting closer and closer. I yell at the pirate to hurry up!
He yanks me out from under the car just before it hits the tunnel floor. We hop on top of it and then I rush the last pirate in the group and punch him with my gauntlet. He flies back and hits the wall and I - with the pirate beside me - head towards Chakarr, who has a plan with Carmen. I ask Chakarr to turn on the actual fire suppression systems and they are sporadic, but manage to tie up the Reavers for easy killing. We go across the bridge since everything on this side of the tunnel has been handled. Once we get across, we can see that the aliens are no longer hostile, but are now looking more scared and confused. I ask Chakarr to assist Jelsa with her communication efforts. Apparently, they are from the planet of Biss and might be from one of the other biomes.
Dizzy runs up and requests that I ask Chakarr to yell at the station to wake up already. Tell it to transform for travel and that it can check with Segeer in order to confirm the need to immediately vacate this area of space. Dizzy was spouting something about the station being alive and having a name. Chakarr tells me that someone - or something- responded and told her that it understood. The ship begins to change and modify around us and then it takes off into hyperspace.
Me mad. Need to kill things.
Month 4, day 15, year 12731
We dock with the station. I am ready to charge forward, send a transmission, do SOMETHING in order to find my grandson. Rushlight attempts to talk reason and we slow down in order to find out the best way to proceed. Each word makes me more and more unhappy, but then Dizzy advises me that squibs smell using their fur. So I take a detour to the galley and come back with a container or sage which I dump all over him while I hold him still. Then I go over to the sensors and do a general sensor scan. There are several different domes that are a variety of ecosystems and 15 of the Bloodsmith pirate ships that are working in the area opposite of us on the station.
I ask Zandra if she could backtrace the message we received from my grandson. She isn't sure but will check with her techs. Dizzy suggests that Rushlight ties in his medical sensors to the station sensors in order to look for my grandson. Rushlight says someone is looking. We all gear up and head for the airlock so we can go onto the station and begin looking for trouble - I mean my grandson. We enter the tunnel and it is high with dim lights. We split into two groups. I have one of the Aw'akeen field tech commandos, Segeer, Dizzy's mom, Mar Jani, and Greelo working with me to search the forest half of the dome.
We head out towards the forest and see charging stations and decorative archways as we enter an artificial trail that becomes actual in about a meter. There are lanterns with glow pods that are actually alive. In the distance, there are huge trees with roots the size of my leg with vines abounding. That path wanders a bit so that it appears natural - or what appears natural here. We reach an area that looks maintained and it has a few natural paths going from it. We can see large indentions in the ground that are fairly wide apart. It looks like an Acklay . Mar Jani has seen them before. Segeer informs us that this was a zoo and that there was a wide variety of species. We hurry past the Acklay intersection and find more trails until we get further and find a stream. The bridge over the stream appears to be have been damaged by Acklay. Then we see a gray cloud about five foot by ten foot in area to our left that is floating downstream towards us. Probably a tenticulon. Since they are not predators, but still not friendly we decided to get across the stream. Greelo climbs a tree, fires a grappling arrow to the other side and we slide across. I take Mar Jani on my back since it has been a while and we need to keep Dizzy's mom safe.
Mar Jani slides off to the branch beside me and then Greelo fires an arrow towards the ground and hundreds of vine snakes are below us. We continue traveling through the trees and see ahead three tentacle birds which are pacing us. Past them we see double doors leading out of this madness. The doors are a bit stiff, but they open. We can see the other team down the hall and I wookie speak "We'll be back for you" so their pet Acklay will not follow us. We join up with the other team and walk through the last section of the dome. We get to the edge and see that there is empty space with nothing but a forcefield tube filled with speeder cars to get us to the other side. We hop into a car, buckle up, Dizzy takes the wheel, and we zip along the energy line. We get a call from my grandson! Apparently, they are under attack from Reavers. He is about to give us his location when Dizzy interrupts and tells her sister to do spherical coordinates. We land and head towards them while they head towards us. - running.
We are in a more urban setting though it is obviously aged with canals and fountains and tall buildings all around us. We see a fountain ahead of us and hear shouting and then we can see Reavers and my GRANDSON! Dizzy takes charge to set our plan of action. Greelo is to put the group on our right into nets and I will hurt them. Instead, Greelo fires an explosive grenade which kills one, puts two on fire and they head towards us, and the last two are knocked back. I shoot my bowcaster at one and miss, but manage to tear open his backpack. Five thermal detonators fall out and Doc Fuzzy steps up and tks them to himself. Then there is a shot which hits Doc Fuzzy and burns my fur. Then a creature pops out of a door in front of us and sends Chakarr flying. I see red. He attacks me, but it only adds to my rage.
He takes another swing at me and makes my lip bleed. I take his arm off, but before I can toss it into the water it grabs my face. I rip it off of me and drop it in the water though it takes some of my fur and then I punch him. Sadly he dodges. He hits me again and I stumble back making more than a few rude gestures. Then Doc Fuzzy is in front of me so I pick him up and toss him straight at my attacker. I then step forward and punch they cyborg in the face. He takes it, but I can tell he is hurt. He punches me straight in the chest and I hurt. Something might be broken, but I don't care cause I am sick and tired of being distracted, frustrated, and being so close to my grandson and unable to reach him. I hit him again and he doesn't dodge, but he has to be hurt. I try to hit him again and he stumbles over and somehow manages to turn on two of the thermal dets, but he is down. I see movement to my left and turn, pick up a reaver and toss him into the three behind him. He bites me and I get a cold chill somewhere deep inside my soul.
I am surrounded by fog, but I can see shapes moving around and I hit in reaction. I hear bones crack which feels good. I hit again and hear a metallic scream of pain. Suddenly I hear a horrible noise coming from over there somewhere and I start stumbling towards it so I can make it stop. I have a syringe in my shoulder and then I am falling. Is that Rushlight?
I wake up and I hurt all over. My arm hurts really bad. Everyone seems to be worried about it so we go to the hospital and they put me into a bacta bed. They give me the details of the fight and the various things that I need to know. Then the doc knocked me out (100, 99, 98......) so he could fix me up.
Into the gas giant
Month 4, day 13-15, year 12731
I received a reply from my family that tells me that my grandson was stolen by Mogud Klegg, a notorious pirate. He, along with notes on the ruins in the mountains of Kashyyyk, and other offworlders have disappeared. While my first impulse is to dive in with lasers blasting and get my grandson back from wherever he might be, I have to help my companions to help those we have already saved so they can receive the cure Doc Fuzzy has - oh, and figure out if he is on the gas giant we are orbiting. I wait for the last transport ship with pilot Cenvex Etowa and Zandra to ensure that we have everyone off the moon and on the way to the Banana Republic. Suddenly, our transport ship is being attacked by Reavers. Reavers again? What is it with this group?
I see the Reaver ship on the starboard side get hit by a shot from the Banana Republic and in response, all of the hatches pop and Reavers begin pouring out of the ship in some sort of power suits and they are heading our way. I quickly switch over the shields to be a repulsor field and wait. While I am waiting I glance at the ship on the port side and the other ship doesn't appear to be getting ready to fire on us, but there is a strange yellow glow to their weapons. I look back just in time to see the Reavers bounce off of our shields and float away into the silent vastness of space. I just hope that was everyone on that ship.
Zandra approaches and asks if she can help and I request her to take the ion cannon and do her best to destroy the manueverability of the Reaver ship on the port side. My plan is to have the two Reaver ships to collide with each other as we drop between them. I have Cenvex switch the shields back on and get ready to drop the ship. I hop into the twin heavy laser cannons and rise up and sight the next closest Reaver ship which is close to the Banana Republic and I fire at it, trusting those with me to handle our current situation.
I manage to hit the aft quarter and the ship implodes and heads straight towards the Banana Republic. Fortunately, someone from the ship takes it out before it hits. With that ship out of commission, I turn to fire on the ship on our port side in tandem with Zandra. She hits, but I only do a glancing blow and now there are defunct tie ships floating in our path. I holler at Cenvex to do his best with a "Sorry, not sorry!" I tell him to hurry through the debris field and dock with the ship so we can combine resources. I suddenly notice some sensor pulses from three different directions and a new batch of Reaver ships activate. I shoot towards the closest area just to see if I can get a reaction and I hit it - whatever it is. About the size of an A-wing, but no cockpit. It is cylindrical with tiny orbiting spheres, but then the jamming field goes back up. I check with the others, but no one was looking in the correct area. I tell them about what I suspect.
Dizzy starts shooting straight up from the Banana Republic and is hitting some sort of drone thing. I contact the crew to ask whether it would be better for me to dock, help Dizzy shoot the drone, or take out one of those sensors. Dizzy suggests a sensor so I have Cenvex fly towards the closet one while I turn around to target. We all hear growls from the survivors. I ask Zandra and Cenvex if we could maybe flood those compartments with a knock-out agent. They think so and I fire managing to explode the device. Then there are incoming hyperspace signatures from so many areas and the Spartan Imperium is in the house! Zandra is startled and scared because the other aliens that are with the Spartan Imperium are the ancient enemies of her race bent on destruction. She is ready to flee now.
Then we pick up a distress signal from the gas giant and it is my grandson and what sounds like Dizzy's sister. I ask Cenvex to connect Banana Republic so they can hear it and then I dump the mess into their lap to decide what we are doing about the whole death feud. Dizzy agrees that I and Zandra should dock with the Leviathan with Dizzy and her mom. We land within seconds of each other and disembark. We share information and discover a corridor on the gas giant leading to a habitation. That has to be where my grandson is!
Dizzy contacts Shree and the Banana Republic follows us into the corridor. No reaction from the Spartan Imperium or their allies. We rest, eat, and take a deep breather for the next two days that it takes to get to the gas giant. We enter the corridor and can see other paths that we could follow, but we stay on the path to get us to the coordinates from the distress call. We find a giant space station inside a natural bubble inside the gas giant. Zandra recognizes it as something that had been built by her people in the past as a transit portal called a plexus. We have found The Plex!
The Crystal Cave
Month 4, day 13, year 12731
Zandra walks up and tells me that Zynvek wants to talk with me. I decide to take Dizzy for backup and tell her to gear up and go as a bodyguard quiet type to look intimidating and recording. He is mostly out of his armor and we can observe his coloring and musculature. I address him and ask what he wants. He thanks me for the warning and tells me that he wasn't aware of what he had gotten into. Dizzy speaks up and indicates that he should be forthcoming or he would die at Wookie hands. He starts a line of what I consider to be total bullshit, but I can't discount that there is some truth in it somewhere that would help us. He offers us secured landing codes and I accuse him of trying to sell us out for more enhancements. Zynvek gets upset about being reminded about his eyes. We group chat about our options and decide to do both a search of his ship's history to see if there is any corroboration for his story and once Doc Fuzzy has finished his surgeries, he will voodoo him.
While we are waiting for Doc Fuzzy, we go first to Zandra to get her to check over his ship. We walk into the hanger bay and see their plans for the takeover of the moon base. Some of what they say is in galactic basic, but some is not. Chakarr doesn't think he will be able to figure out a translation, but he is trying. Dizzy and I approach Zandra. I ask Dizzy if she wants to take the lead and she says"NO!" because she is over the top with tinnies. I ask Zandra for a favor to go through the ship's database and why I need it done. She says that shouldn't be a problem and that she has a tech, Phara, over there now and we can get an umbilical setup in order to go over and check out the ship.
Chakarr and Dizzy discuss marching order and Dizzy is in front with me in the middle. I take the opportunity to ask Doc Fuzzy to do his voodoo on Zynvek to see if he is a lying rat bastard or just a maker of extremely bad decisions. The doc tries to make excuses but is convinced by Dizzy to do his thing. He contacts us later while we continue into the Lovil. Dizzy checks over her gear and enters first - ready for anything while I follow behind with my rebreather ready. We ask the first tech for Phara and he sends us to the cockpit with Dizzy in the lead. We get to the cockpit and an individual rises from the inside of a console with bright orange-red spiked hair and two curls that are almost like horns. Phara. He sets us up with a place to view the files and I have Chakarr plugs in and starts pulling information which he sends directly to our datapads.
Everything we find indicates that he is telling the truth. We see holograms of him being pressured to get enhancements by the quartermaster, the message I sent to him is on his personal drive, schematics and codes for the moon base, and no messages that disagree with anything he has said. We check for any information on raids, or on the criteria used in selecting the prisoners, but find nothing. There is one message about him being invited to "The Plex" by Bol Spar himself - whoever that is.
Based upon exchanges between Dizzy and Doc Fuzzy, we stop by the kitchen area on our way back to meet up with the group to see if there are any colored sugars or spices that might prove helpful in later experimentations.
We then go back to the room where Zynvek is being held to ask some more questions. I let him know that we were able to confirm his story and he tells us that the Doc should be able to fix his eyes. I introduce Dizzy to let her take over the questioning for the military operation. She starts with the details of his last drop off and we discover that he never left the landing bay. We quickly revise our plan to be a two-man prong attack where Dizzy and Doc fuzzy take the Lovil in masquerading as pirates that found the ship and are finishing up the contract and want to get repairs and the contract while the rest of the team will take Vader in under her shadow, drop off in atmosphere, and land at an air shaft. Follow the shaft to the mining center, take over, let them in and kick butt.
Two field techs, two commandos, and Zandra join Greelo and myself on Vader for the flight down to the moon. We follow the Lovil into the atmosphere and then break off to land at an airshaft entrance that is close, but not too close. As we go down below the tree line, a tree hits us and we take hull damage. Vader requests a quick repair as he has lost maneuverability. I do the repair and another tree takes a swipe at us and then one tosses wood at us. Vader asks what they are and Greelo tells us they are Darivids and they react to repulsor lifts and might be okay once we stop the ship. Then we see a flock of Taftu, bird-like creatures that attack while we are in the air, but they settle down once we land and shut down the engines. Ahead of us are three Kiitch, wolf-like creatures that appear to be made of crystal. A quick review of the database shows us that they are not harmful.
I ask Zandra how close we are to a mineshaft and check for life signs in the area. We leave Vader with instructions to behave and head out with Greelo in the lead and me bringing up the rear to protect our retreat if necessary. The others are grouped in the middle. We get to the air shaft and there are obvious signs that a giant rat or rat-like creature has torn off the cover. We walk to a different air shaft that doesn't show any signs of destruction and enter to head towards the mining center.
We scramble down the air vent which comes out in an area where there is some illumination. There are signs that mining operations occurred in the past. Zandra pulls up her datapad and points out the correct tunnel. We head out with Greelo scouting and then tech, commando, Zandra, commando, tech, with me bringing up the rear. There are footprints in the dust and Greelo indicates that this could be prisoners so we begin to follow the tracks - sneakily.
We stay behind Greelo, but then we hear a deafening crack of crystal that echoes down the hallway. Then we hear some kind of rat sound that echoes down the hallway. All is okay until we hear the crystal cracking behind us, in front of, and beside us and giant rats are breaking down the walls. Their fun is mossy, their teeth are mossy, and they are not happy. I shoot the one beside me and hit it at point blank range. It gets hit and backs into the tunnel it created. The commando beside me also fires at the same rat but doesn't hit it. I hear firing from the other side of the group. Then we hear Greelo say over the comms that there is a bomb and we need to run back towards the entrance. I hear Zandra shout, "Greelo!" and turn around to see Greelo picked up by his long coat and hauled back by the rat.
The rat I had hit throws spikes from its tail. I dodge, but slip on a crystal fragment and the commando beside me pushes me out of the way. He takes the spikes in his armor and then starts pulling at his armor. I go over to help him and he tells me to release the seals. I do that and then pull the armor off and it sort of peals away. I can see the crystal fragments actually drilling into the armor. I tell him and Zandra to high tail it back to the entrance while I cover their exit. The others follow and then Zandra asks about Dizzy and Doc Fuzzy. I tell her we can try a different tunnel and then she points towards Greelo who has two thermal detonators bouncing towards him. I send them on the way and tell her I will handle that situation once they are out and if we don't make it, they can meet up with the other group.
Suddenly there is a wall of ionization energy rolling towards me. I hear Chakarr scream and pick him up and run towards the exit. I see a cart actually turn on and explode. The crystals in the cave are ionized and I ask Zandra if there is a way through safely. She says yes if I trust her. I say I do and watch as she jumps into the air and turns into a speeder bike. I hop on and the others turn into speeders bikes with Chakarr on one and we head towards screaming down one of the nearby hallways. We speed past and can see the ionization pulse as we pass and attempt to reach us, but we manage to dodge them and get to the area where the screams are coming from. We end up in a room with multiple forcefields with a large number of people behind them. Some of them are partially transformed into the feline creatures we have seen before. They see us and start to pound on the force field to get our attention.
We see around 30 - 40 people in a variety of cells and Greelo fires off an arrow towards the console. The arrow hits the console, but it causes a huge ball of ionization. He fires a second arrow quickly which destroys the ball of fire and the console. The console explodes and the force fields go down. The captives start running straight towards us. I yell at Zandra to turn around and lead the captives towards the exit. They all turn and head back the way we had come, helping the captives out. We reach the surface and can see the damaged dome of the mining facility.
We reach out on comms to the other team to check status. They are stuck and need help to get out of danger - and haul the loot. We bring Vader in on the comms to see if he can manage to get over to the landing bay. Doc decides to go to Vader to help him and Dizzy tells the captives what we know about the situation and the events leading up to this moment in time. She checks in to see if my grandson or her sister are in the crowd but discovers that both of them were taken off planet two days ago.
Suddenly, I see a young wookie in the smoke and haze. He looks like my family, but entirely too young. I run towards him but he doesn't know whether to run or cower. I shout our family motto of "truth, honor, integrity" and he responds in wookie that he doesn't know how to respond to that. I think that maybe he had been modified and tell him that I know a doctor that has a cure, but he tells me that he has never been anything but what he is. My next thought is that he has been cloned and there is no fix for that. People must die for this!!!
Droids?
Month 4, day 13, year 12731
The night sister leaves and hands me a note as she walks out. "It's obvious you are the one in charge here. If ever you need a change from the boys, look me up." I just laugh and head to the dock to check my ship out and then suit up to help Dizzy to check out the hull of the Banana Republic. Charkarr is fine, though a bit shook up. My ship is missing a few panels and has some score marks around. I check with Dizzy and we agree that I should fix the Redwood first before I help her to evaluate the damage to the ship. I head down to the maintenance bay to grab the parts I need. I get my ship repaired and head out to help Dizzy check out the ship. Meanwhile, a huge ship has dropped into the system and is just sitting there. Greelo takes scans of it while Dizzy and I work on repairs.
She has me look over the engines, but there is no damage there. I move on to the aft airlock and it is damaged. Like, the door is not attached and I quickly fix that. I check in with Dizzy and we have handled all of the necessary repairs. She is going to complete her quick circuit to make sure we have no stowaways. I head in, un-suit, take off for the bridge and have Pilot begin to take us around the gas giant so that I can do some scans on Monorat 12 which probably has the base where my grandson is. As we move, the huge ship follows us - staying exactly 179 meters from us which is just far enough away that we cannot do scans. Then from the gas giant appears another ship. I do a quick search scan on it and find that it is a custom modified transport ship. There are four lifeforms aboard with laser cannons, turbo cannons, and standard laser cannons.
Doc Fuzzy hails the huge ship and makes an alliance. They are on the way to meet with us. I go to the hanger to await our guests with Morticia and Doc Fuzzy. A squid-like ship enters the bay and a humanoid figure walks out that does look like a droid but is more human in appearance and actions. Rushlight introduces everyone - including Vader. We begin to talk and head for the galley to be more comfortable. It turns out that they have had people taken as well with the difference that their people are dissected while ours are modified and turned into weapons.
They agree to help with our repairs and I go to get on my armor to prep for the boarding party. The living robot seems to have an issue with the other ship that is coming out of the gas giant and wants us to assist them in the boarding action. I take the opportunity to contact that ship and check on their intentions. The individual that answers the hail is a human but has droid-like eyes. I talk and find out that they are a mining team and have been diving on the gas giant for profit. They have completed their work and are headed for Calcedon. I make a snap decision and warn them to get the hell out of dodge. I tell them I will drag out things long enough to give them a chance to escape. I have Chakarr to turn off the encryption and get into my armor.
I meet up with Dizzy and Greelo at the aft airlock, though Doc Fuzzy had snipped my hair in passing and I will probably put cayenne pepper in his sands later on. We all get ready and make a plan to split up our forces. I and Greelo will take the Redwood while Dizzy and Rushlight will go on the alien ship to get to the other ship to board and fight. While sharing information, Dizzy remembers the Isadora connection and storms off to the galley to discuss the situation with the droid person. Rushlight goes with her and I tag along behind and prop in the doorway. Dizzy starts her fast talking to get the original transmission.
The upshot of it is that the ship coming out of the gas giant is a smuggler that works with the blood smiths. They are working with the group that has my grandson and it appears that another of my grandchildren might also be missing. I send a quick message off to home to see what is going on. Apparently, the blood smiths are cutting up the droid people and then taking the pieces parts into their own bodies. This would explain the droid eyes that the human had on the other ship - maybe I made a mistake in informing them of the coming attack.
Rushlight and I get on the alien ship, while Greelo and Dizzy take Vader over to the ship. Dizzy gets there first and starts talking about the mind control creatures in order to get us into the ship. They say nice try, but they were warned about the attack already and are prepared. Suddenly we are surrounded by small, ship-like attackers who then turn into humanoid shapes that are too small to target and are able to take out engines and blow up the shuttle engines of the ship we are set to attack. Zandra does a scan and discovers that they have vented the atmosphere of the compartment that houses their secondary engines to hide the fact that they are still trying to run.
We get a transmission from Dizzy showing her on the ship. We see what she is doing and when our ship lands, we begin checking out the rest of the ship starting with the cargo holds. The first one is completely powered down and has nothing in it. We move on to the next one and decide that maybe we should power on one of the computer consoles to check the cells to see the history of them. Greelo and Rushlight change places so the doc can do examinations and Greelo can hack the computers. Greelo is working on trying to do something when the power comes back up. I ask Zandra if she had discovered what she was looking for and she says yes and mentions how the technology around us is just like her allies from years and years ago. I ask who and she mentions the Kwa which Greelo has heard of. They were an ancient race that explored the universe and was not universally liked. We decide we have learned all that we can from the cargo holds and move on to the cockpit to discuss things with the smugglers.
One of the 'troopers' reports to Zandra and when I ask a question shows us a hologram of the Calcedon system and a spatial anomaly that is very close to the planet itself. We then move on to the cockpit and answers - we hope. Rushlight comes over the comms and requests Zandra's presence in the cockpit. I respond to let him know we are on our way. As we enter the cockpit I see the one I spoke to on the comms and go straight to him and do the full Wookie roar. He cringes and the others tell me what parts I have to leave on his body. He talks and we find out that there are Wookie captives and many others at the moon base. We decide that Rushlight will take the captives back to the Banana Republic and the rest of us will head to the moon.
Reavers - AGAIN?!?!?
Month 4, day 13, year 12731
We are having a meeting in a side chamber at the palace deciding who will do what so we can get off the ground and on the way to save my grandson. The countess walks in and pays her bill and I check to verify that the Banana Republic is ready for flight. The door opens again and Monk, I mean the emperor walks in with Noki. She will apparently be part of his new royal guard. The lightening guard will go back to the care of the church and helping the Cardinal. The Emperor then asks us to search for some of his people that, according to Silar Mins, have been taken to Chalcedon the same as my grandson.
I leave the group and head to the dock to check on the ship and the various droids on the planet that I know. Chakarr rolls up when I arrive. I check in to see how she is doing first. She has managed to get all of the wounded taken care of, refueled the shuttle, and got all of the minor repairs done. She also set up a system to make sure the droids on this planet are taken care of and can't be used again - except in the proper manner of course. I also check in to see if she has heard from Morticia and she explains that Morticia has chosen to remain in her droid form. Chakarr isn't sure why entirely, but apparently Morticia has the ability to "ride" other droids and control their actions and see through their eyes. I share that information with the others and then have Chakarr take me around all of the repairs and changes so that I can applaud her work.
I see Dizzy approach and then turn immediately around and head off. I contact her and she says that she has to go get her fiancee first. Her mom walks out of the shuttle and we talk a while about Dizzy/Dolores/Spitfire. Everyone returns to the shuttle and we FINALLY get off this planet and begin to wend our way to Chalcedon and my grandson.
We enter the system and klaxons go off. "Just once can't we enter a system that just wishes us a pleasant stay??" I check out the porthole and it looks like there was a battle here in the recent past. Lots of debris is around us and Rushlight and Greelo start discussing how much money there is just sitting here. Then Rushlight hollars, "OH hell no! That's ours," as a ship swims up from the debris and begins netting debris - including an emergency pod. Over the comms come the comment that the ship is owned by the Night Sisters - an evil group that loves to torture their victims. Rushlight and Dizzy start firing while I run to my shuttle to get into space and take the fight to them.
I get into the air and tell Chakarr to focus on maneuvering while I try to take out gun emplacements. I fire at the first one and I take out one mini turbo laser - seven more to go. I shoot again, but suddenly the ship does a hyperspace jump within the system and is RIGHT on top of me. Chakarr is screaming and I can almost see my ship twist from the effects of the jump in-system. My shot hits but bounces off the shields. I see a photon torpedo hit the Banana Republic. I hyperdrive through the Night Sister ship and then feel a cold chill. Behind me, a Reaver ship appears. An actual Reaver ship that is bigger than the Night Sister's ship. I contact the Banana Republic to inform them and suggest that they fire on the Reaver ship and make it look like the Night Sister's fired on them while I make a run to the ship and dock on. I have an incoming call from Dizzy that tells me about some drop marines that are hanging around the ship.
Then Chakarr is in a panic because a spare hyperdrive is trying to attach to us and is chasing us across the system. I drop back and fly tight around the Night Sister ship and see that the hyperdrive switches its programming to their ship. It also looks like the hyperdrive is repairing itself, but that can't be true. Then the Reavers fire a special weapon that is an ion ray that is as big as my ship. It misses me, but the backwash of the ray is enough to take out my shields. Then my engines go down and I am hurtling towards the Banana Republic with only repulsor engines to keep me from ramming it. I manage to use those engines enough to slow me down. As I enter the docking bay, I see Greelo and a Night Sister that are doing a dance to either get her safely on the ship or him off the ship. I'm not sure which. I ask him if he is trying to keep her or get rid of her and volunteer to help, but he feels that I don't have enough engine control to truly assist. I leave him to it and dock.
I hear Greelo discussing things with the Night Sister captain. Then there is an explosion and Greelo leaves me with the captain. I am to take her to the "lounge" where Rushlight has just dropped off some of the beer that he had just picked up. We talk a bit about events in the system. Based upon what she says, my grandson and the others we are looking for might be under the control of these Blood Smith Pirates on Monorac 12. There is a bit of excitement when Dizzy announces that a runner is loose. The captain and I agree that this is an interesting ship and crew. Greelo finally returns to talk events. She shares more information and a video that shows human mutants. I suggest turning her over to the Jedi and the boys shout me down citing honor. Rushlight arrives and gives her the details about the puppet master creatures as well. Dizzy and I refuse to enter into an agreement with the Night Sisters, so Rushlight gives her a cure. She returns the favor with footage of a freighter disappearing into the gas giant.
She contacts her ship to get them to pick her up and after she is gone, we get together to discuss the events of the day. Then Rushlight goes on one of his mind walks and he starts babbling about something alive heading for us and that we need to get out of here NOW.
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