Star Wars - Smuggler’s Run, Episode 2

Arvor's first memories were in the mines of a planet he later heard his overseers refer to as Alzoc III. Enslaved like the rest of the Talz species, Arvor spent the first decade of his life knowing nothing but unrelenting labor. His parents died early in his life, leaving him few memories besides their strained attempts to keep their family together even in that terrible situation. After reaching the age of 12 years old, Arvor decided something needed to change.

Arvor enacted a daring escape from Alcoz III that deserves its own 8 part mini-series on Netflix. After the final slave guard crumpled under his claws, Arvor (stealing the guard’s suit as a disguise) ended up stowing away in the cargo crates being shipped from Alzoc III. Eventually breaking into an outgoing spaceship’s maintenance hatch with a handmade security kit (made out of stolen plasteel, bits of mesh tape, parts of a datapad, and two tampons attached to a scalpel) Arvor was able to sneak onboard one of the ships leaving the planet. Arvor made his way to a strained freedom, hopping from ship to ship by stowing away in their cargo holds.

Talz are only able to metabolize nutrients in liquid form, lending to some strange dietary needs. This made it difficult to find food while on the lam. Six months after his egress from his home planet, a malnourished Arvor was finally caught in the act by a stormtrooper. Perhaps taking sympathy on the starving 12-year-old Arvor, a smuggling captain going by the name of Ephraim Bridger saved Arvor from the stormtrooper’s beating by shooting the stormtrooper in the back with his blaster pistol. Afterwards, Captain Bridger took Arvor on board as a crew member of his pirate vessel.

Arvor quickly showed his mettle as a budding security officer and engineer. His Talz physique made him a natural security officer, eventually reaching 7'3" tall and with razor sharp claws. Even more sharp was his mind, as he was a prodigy with all things engineering.

On the ship, Arvor was particularly close to two other crewmates. The Duros child Yaris "Vek" Vekker taught most of what Arvor knew about mechanics, and was arguably his best friend. Arvor was also particularly close to the human child Cal Bastra, taken directly under the wing of Captain Bridger as his successor. The three grew up closer than brothers over the next 6 years, learning the smuggling trade and facing many near-death adventures. Finally, Arvor viewed Captain Ephraim Bridger as the father figure that he never really had. It was a weird family, but it was family.

But nothing lasts forever; eventually a job for Teemo the Hutt went all kinds of bad and their beloved ship ended up crashing on Tatooine. With Captain Bridger apparently dead, Arvor, Cal and Vek must struggle to survive.

Arvor likes electronics, liquid food, and the color white. He hates racism and slavery. Having no mouth, he communicates mostly through his Voxbox with pre-programmed dialogue. Talzi can only be spoken by other Talz, and it mostly involves high-pitched chirps and buzzes.

	Vek played by Grant Ships engineer. Prolific drug addict. Arvor’s best friend. There’s so many words to describe him. Words I will let him fill in between the hallucinogens.
Iifa played by Sam A savvy, if somewhat mysterious, agent for the Rebel Alliance, Iifa has taken the leadership role upon herself. Equally good at persuading the locals to join the cause as shooting the opposition with her deadly disintegration rifle “Diplomacy”, Iifa has become a key member of the family over the last year.
	Cal Bastra played by Andy An ace pilot, he was trained by Captain Bridger to be his legacy in the smuggling business. A crack shot with his pistol, Cal is as deadly on the ground as he is in the air.
Gav Glitterstim played by Ashlin Gav was born of slaves on the spice mines of Kessel, in the Outer Rim territories. He remembers little of the time there, both due to his young age and the brutal conditions. During a slave uprising his parents were able to smuggle him off planet with the help of a kind-hearted Republic operative, though they were caught and executed in the process. As a result, Gav grew up attached to the Republic military from a young age, and began training with a blaster practically before he could read a datapad. He took on the surname Glitterstim to always remember the parents that gave him a new life away from the mines. When the Republic was corrupted and transformed into the Empire, Gav was one of the first infantry soldiers to turn to the Rebel Alliance, and has weathered many a planet-side engagement with his trusty blasters. He continues to be a bit leery of space combat, and always prefers to get his feet back on the ground where he can suit up in his armor, unsling his heavy rifle, and tear a path of carnage through the Imperial troops.
	Failsafe played by Christian Once a Super Battle Droid (Designation FLSF-69) for the Separatists late in the Clone Wars, this B2 was lost in the Battle of Felucia after it fell into an Acklay den. Found and restored years later by agents of the Rebellion, it came into the care and service of Xarsk Longtooth, serving as a backup and agent for several years. Due to its long period of isolation, the droid has taken to talking to itself. However, this does not negate any of its superior combat capabilities. Slight upgrades to its targeting systems, as well as upgrades to its wrist blaster, have turned this B2 into an excellent resource for the Rebellion.

Our Ship: The “Miss Adventure”

Combat Stats: here

Citadel Class Cruiser

Designed in response to increasing fears among the wealthy that star travel was no longer safe, the Citadel found a wide following among diplomatic parties, wealthy merchants and business owners, and mid-level military officers who were looking for a capable and defensible craft, but who couldn't afford a capital ship.

Citadels were introduced during the last years of the Galactic Republic with their popularity peaking during the Clone Wars before waning during the Galactic Civil War. By the time of the Rebellion Citadels were no longer common luxury craft, and many had been repurposed as minor warships by Rebels, the Corporate Sector Authority, pirates, and freebooters.

Miss Adventure Inventory

Ship Upgrades

Smuggler Compartments 200kg

Pirated Holonet Connection

Medical Suite

Combat Thrusters

Upgraded Sub-light Engine to a speed of 5

Computer Sensor Array +2

Twin Fire-linked missiles now have a fire-link selector option (conserves ammo)

Two Heavy Laser Cannons (sold off light blaster cannon and two medium ion cannons)

15 tons of cargo space left

Carried Vehicles

Solarsail

Armory Inventory

Old Republic Medals (On display in the armory)

7x jet pack (Everyone has one, inlcluding Rodriguez)

40 Frag Grenades (5 for Gav, 4 for Cal, 4 for Vek, 5 for me,5 for Rodruguez)

Glow Rod x 10 (Rodruguez carries them all)

Aquatic Breather

2xFlamethrower (Cal has one, I have the other)

Liquid cable dispenser x 10

Stun Baton x 5

Explosive Charge w/ Timer x 3 (I have 2, Gav has one)

Med Bay Inventory

18 medpaks

Antitoxin Patches x 10 (We used 5, everyone has a backup)

Bioscanner

General Inventory

3 months of food and water

20 power packs

Power pack recharger x2 (one is set to explode; Rodriguez carries one for us)

Blender for Arvor’s Drinkrations

A shitload of Tatooine souvenirs (Arvor’s Quarters)

Force Cage (New, in cargo hold)

2000 credits

Droids (Yes they are “inventory”)

D2D2 - Astromech

Brobot - Loader

5LOM - Protocol

Patch - Medical

1/2/2021 “Increasing Our Xorrn Collection”

(Woohoo! Welcome to 2021, everyone!)

We discuss our strategy before our invasion of the pirate base. We decide on a frontal assault of Koak (the slaver planet), with an attempt to set a false flag that the Imperials were attacking. We decide to take the Corvette (since it can carry more people/slaves) along with the contingent (4) of Mandalorians. In an amusing interaction, Vek convinces Luke to come along with us along this raid after conferring with Iifa. He lies to Luke’s face regarding his pallid, drug-addled appearance (“I don’t know what you’re talking about”).

(I’m so excited that Luke is joining the team. Jedi are super trustworthy.)

Vera, Beryoa, Kad Solus, Tarok, Akkar, and a poorly dressed Luke Skywalker all join us on our slave-freeing sojourn. It’s a four hour jump to Koak. We learn a little bit about Koak on our way. Basically, it’s been a slaver outpost for the last 1000 years. We are heading to the city named Slavos - I can see the slavers of Koak have a strong imagination. Luke warns us not to trust Zyggerians.

(Zyggerian slavers look like cat people. Furries everywhere are thrilled.)

We break atmosphere on the jungle planet Koak. Slavos is the capital of Koak and home of the imperial throne. Highly defensible with 30 meter high cliffs covered in dense vegetation. Slave villages are covered by large fences. Turbolasers and hundreds of guards patrol the royal grounds. We land on a random platform in the southern part of the city.

(Just another slaver planet.)

As we are walking down the street (just the 4 of us), a Kowakian monkey-lizard pickpockets a credit chit from Cal. Vek stuns the monkey then cuts off the now unconscious monkey’s paw and takes back the credit chit, earning himself a dark side point. Six Zygerians approach and question us as Cal tries to discreetly brush the blood off of it. They warn us to watch out before taking off.

(Koakian monkey-lizard. As annoying as it looks.)

We get lost and inadvertently approach the royal palace. The guards (in a very haughty fashion) mention a rich auction happening later that night. We head to the auction registration office out of curiosity. Vek also thinks he can get some drugs.

Along the way to the auction registration office, we find a Coynite fighting a human in a melee deathmatch as people cry out their bets. The injured but successful human, in mandalorian armor, is a slave of the prince. He is carried away after the battle. After the battle, Cal mentions to Vek that the warrior looks like the leader of the mandalorians, Vera Baroya.

Vs.

(The best slave deathmatch I have seen this week.)

We head to the auction registration office where Cal asks for auction tickets. There’s some hilarious back and forth about the price of the tickets between the two aliens (the large Marv and the small one, whose name I didn’t catch) until we arrive at 2000 credits for the lot of us, which Cal plays with his bloody credit chit. We don’t even know if we’re going to use the tickets, but whatevs.

We head back to the ship to plan and plot. We deliberate on actually attending the auction, but when we casually mention we saw a mandalorian slave and it triggers the other mandalorians. It turns out that it is likely Vera’s father. This starts an in-ship scuffle as Vera tries to leave right then to go get Nam Beroya (her father) back. Things settle down for a minute and we plan. The gruff, heavily drinking Mando mentions a plan: a strike team and a stealth team to free the auction slaves. Vek is carving our plan into the table, because it is “badass”.

(Vek thinks he’s a badass with his knife.)

We decide to get with the stealth/distraction and an assault team to the slave pens. Luke Skywalker agrees to be a distraction with some cobbled together explosives that Arvor made at the last minute (that he looks dubiously at). He heads off to be a distraction. It’s around 6PM now.

A series of explosions wrack the royal palace, which is 2km away, as we feel the gentle shockwave at our location. We go with the Mandalorians and we stealth towards the palace. A large patrol comes nearby but we successfully stealth by.

(We be sneaky)

We assault the guards at the gate, of which there are two. Iifa and one of the mandalorians snipe them through the head as we rush towards the wall. We’re all lifted by mandalorians as they engage their jetpacks, and we all jet past the wall with none the wiser. We make our way through the slave encampment. There are three major camps (alpha, beta, and gamma). We decide to maintain radio silence until we need to, and we’ll check back in regardless in 5 mins.

Everyone fans out and scouts for the missing mando and the general situation. Five minutes go by and we scout out the whole area. Beta camp is mostly full of Twi’lek slaves, easily 100 slaves. Being guarded by the Blue Sun Syndicate. Alpha is mostly wookie and tagrootas. At least a dozen.

Gamma is full of hundreds of humans. Thallassians and Zygerian guards. We are about to share the sitrep over comms when Cal snaps on a loud twig, alerting a guard who happened to be nearby, breaking our stealth. Roll initiative....but Iifa instantly disintegrates the guard. It’s all still quiet. We get back to talking over comms with our allies, describing the situation. The slaves are surrounded by simple walls. We don’t see our Mando but Cal surmises he might be in the med bay. Everyone agrees to meet up at Gamma and make a plan.

(A rendering of the Thallasian guards. They have no pictures on the Internet so this is the best we got.)

We move into the Delta Slave Camp. We continue to roll extremely stealthy rolls as we progress like ghosts. Turok stays back to be a sniper/dinosaur hunter. We overhear a conversation: “We already sold the sword.” “Well alright. You feel tired. You should go home.” “I’m really tired. I’m going home.” It’s Luke Skywalker, already there, mind manipulating the guards.

(Turok got our backs.)

We enter the room. A man spits blood at us and challenges us to combat until Vera lowers her helmet: “Father?” He breaks down in an instant, apparently in relief. Nam is super happy, but medically unsound (we help with the latter). Vera says “We need to get out of here now. Call your ship and we’ll leave!” just as the alarm starts blaring. We have been made. Time to fight our way out.

(Sums up our situation well.)

We fan out, watching for guards. Akar takes one right through the chest from the guards, going down instantly. Vek brings him back to life with some first aid while Luke engages the guards. Everyone sorta piles behind Luke Skywalker as we run towards the Exit, where Annie is arriving. Arvor slices into the slave pens with his child lightsaber and screams “It’s a slave revolt! Everyone on me!”...and rolls a 1. Until he uses a destiny point and says “Because I’m a Jedi!” while waving his lightsaber, and everyone cheers and follows him. The enemy guards shoot like garbage and we continue to throw grenades (vek) and shoot back (Cal). Arvor rushes to the front lines through the slave pens and we eat through the guards like a hot knife through tofu, but there are tons of guards incoming so we have to go quicker.

(We have to quickly escape the slaver compound, with slaves in tow.)

The mandalorians all rush up on the guards and pull out melee weapons, slashing the hell out of the guards in their way.

(The group moves South towards the exit, while Vek gets surrounded in the North.)

Vek is surrounded by a force of flanking guards and gets shot almost to death. In desperation, Vek suicide bombs the whole group: “They’re not taking me alive!” and we hear a large explosion as Vek goes down. He suicide bombs himself into the group, probably a wise choice considering they are slavers.

Vek appears to be dead.

Arvor screams in rage and claws the guards surrounding him. Iifa runs to Vek and administers First Aid with a Destiny Point. The slaves pour out of their pens and point to Luke: “Look! More Jedi!” and Luke looks deeply uncomfortable with their cries. Cal throws a grenade at the remaining troops from Vek’s suicide bomb and ends them. Vek wakes up and tries to follow the group to the exit. Arvor, unaware that Vek is alive, screams in vengeance and claws down one of the guards. A huge crowd of slaves follow behind like Moses in the desert. Luke finishes off the last two guards, one with a lightsaber and the other by smashing him into paste with force move.

(I’m a Jedi now. This makes Luke Skywalker deeply uncomfortable.)

There are some major movements in the enemy forces as we make our way to the waypoint where Annie is landing, followed by hundreds of slaves. We cram every single slave onboard and we make it to our ship. We break atmosphere and haul ass back to Xorn.

Vera is overjoyed that we saved her father and has pulled an additional two dozen mandalorians to help defend Xorrn, bringing a total of three dozen. All of the freed human slaves agree to join in the fight as well. We only have a few hours left until the Empire arrives with their fleet.

The battle for Xorrn rapidly approaches.

1/16/2020 “How Xorrn Stars Are Made”

(Our current ship: https://swse.fandom.com/wiki/Consular-Class_Cruiser)

We have 300 newly freed slaves working for us now. It’s a long 6 hour trip back. As we are about to engage the hyperdrive, we are rocked by starfire. We see Zygerian starships converging with us - Z-95 Headhunters. Roll initiative.

(Z-95 Headhunters are the mainstay of Zygerrian starships)

Iifa takes the copilot seat next to Cal, who is bullshitting the Zygerians over the comms unsuccessfully. Vek is caught off-guard in his quarters(?) doing drugs and runs into one of the two turrets after being attacked. The Z-95s, of which there are six, all open fire at our corvette but only one hit us. Good for us.

When the ship was attacked, I was in the refresher attempting to clog it up after our gross mission on the ground. When I hear the alarms go off, I go out buck naked and dripping water from my space shower to the maintenance bay and roll a nat 20 to raise our shields back up to full.

Back in the cockpit, Iifa holds her action to return fire to the Z-95s when they fly by in moments. Vek is having a bad acid trip and shoots at what he thinks is a giant floating face in space (which is actually a Z-95) and hits but does not destroy it.

(Vek is having such a bad acid trip in the gunner turret that he thinks he is Star Fox.)

The Z-95s all attempt to fire on our ship and fail, even though it is huge. I try to reroute power to Iifa’s controls but my computer skills fail, as does Iifa’s shooting skills moments later. Cal engages the hyperspace protocol as the stars streak in our vision; we are on our way back to Xorrn.

We have a star wars bingo that I win. And the prize is a destiny point.

+DESTINY POINT

With the 6 hour voyage back, we will have 20 hours remaining until the Rebels arrive.

(Andy made himself in Hero Forge. Pretty cool.)

We have a ship full of hungry, dirty, complaining Karens. We do what we can while Dr. Vek administers first aid to the crew.

We arrive back at base. I lead everyone off the ship, holding my lightsaber screaming things like “Us Jedi will save you all!” and Luke Skywalker shakes his head in disgust. After 2 hours we finish a long rest. All the slaves have decided to remain to fight, even the women and children. Boba Fett threatens Luke a little bit (“When we’re done the contracts are back on!”). Dash Rendar tries to calm them down. We adjourn our pre-battle meeting after a few verbal scuffles.

The chief mentions that the derelict star destroyer “Victory” is up to 30% power. It is battle-ready but brittle. The booby traps and bombs I requested in the Foundry have been installed; I request to reinforce the bulkheads with any time remaining. Everyone seems pumped up and motivated. We assign our 100 engineers to get the star destroyer to get it up to 10% more power. We say dramatic farewells and go to our last minute preparations.

I spend 20 hours ripping out the pirate Holonet from the corvette and installing it into the Miss Adventure. Vek oversees the “Victory” rebuild. Cal familiarizes himself with the space command and the turbo laser field. Iifa builds as many claymores as she can in the time allowed.

+Pirated Holonet Signal -> Miss Adventure

BTW, “The Radiant” is the name of the Corvette. Nobody is flying this ship for the duration of the next battle.

Iifa and Vek decide to pilot the “Victory”. Cal and I deploy on the “Miss Adventure”. The time for battle is coming upon us quickly. We are all in the Battle Room when first contact is made: a Kashiik operator reports signs of the enemy. Everyone says “May the force be with you” and we break up for slow motion montages.

The incoming 600 meter star destroyer is massive and terrifying. It has 2 years of supplies and has enough firepower to suppress a whole system. We hear an in-depth terrifying descriptions. Of the “Blood Ambition”.

(The incoming star destroyer “Blood Ambition”)

We also hear a bit more about its escort, the “Warhawk”. (Only 150 meters, but still a scary support craft).

(The star destroyers escort, the “Warhawk”)

Since we put most of our turbo lasers in space, our objective is to keep the battle in space as long as possible. Before we head out, I grab some ex-slaves to fill positions on the “Miss Adventure” gunner positions.

The Battle for Xorrn begins.

The Imperial forces start steadily heading towards the Orbital Station (which is a dry dock for all of the ships constructed planetside). The Mandalorians and Dash Rendar move up in formation; Cal and the renamed “Victory 2” do the same. The first shots are fired on each side as the space battle intensifies.

They close in as the Imperial Captain Ralchio Nervi demands our surrender, to which Cal tells him “over my dead body!” Another salvo later and the “Victory 2” is already fucked up. We get a call from Rebel High Command that there is a deep sleeper agent on the “Blood Ambition” that they order us to save. They send over a dossier - Codename: Aleko aka “Rubber Ducky”. We make a few sarcastic comments and continue the battle. Captain Renlo flees the battle at one point. Bobba Fett follows suit the next turn. The Miss Adventure gets hit hard, and we are forced to head back planetside. The Mandalorians do a lot of damage, but they start hurting. A lot of our forces start heading back planetside. Luke looks like he’s making a beeline for the star destroyer, which is now belching out hundreds of troop transports towards the planet.

We all fall back to the planet in a fighting retreat. The “Victory II” is blown out of the sky but not before everyone gets to the escape pods. About a ⅓ of the fleet returns safely. We land as close to Foundry IV as possible to prepare for the landing invasion. They are landing at the “Graveyard”.

As the shrapnel falls from the now-destroyed “Victory II” burns up in the atmosphere, the troops land aggressively and the fighting is intense. We destroy about half of the AT-STs in the advance, but the neverending flood of stormtroopers is a real problem. We buy an extra 20 minutes of time at the cost of 50% of Iifa’s men before we are forced to make another falling retreat to Foundry IV, which is quickly surrounded by the Storm Troopers.

(Battlefield on the planet.)

(Battle for the Entrance of Foundry IV)

We get into position as the troops land.

(All our bases belong to them.)

Roll20 dies under the strain, but we manage to start battle. I throw out a grenade killing 5 of the storm troopers as they enter the shaft. Cal and Iifa shoot as well, breaking two of the troopers. Vek shoots another as I am forced choked by a dark jedi, who looks poised to run me through. I use my Destiny Point to drop the force choke and move on him into melee range. A lot of our allies are falling as a grand melee breaks out all over the foundry.

(Close quarters combat with the evil jedi.)

Cal and Iifa continue to shoot troopers from cover but our allies' will is breaking; they never seem to end. I get struck by force lightning as more troops land. In desperation, I grapple the dark jedi attacking me to the ground, gouging out his chest in the process.

Over the comms, we hear that finally the Rebel Alliance forces have arrived at the planet!

They are deploying the new prototype B-Wing in this battle, and the battle over the sky continues outside our view. We rally our forces and are able to push the Imperial forces back all the way to the landing platform. The Imperials are decimated, their star destroyer able to escape at the last minute; every other craft is destroyed.

I am able to wrestle the dark jedi into the shaft next to me, where I throw him to his death. Just like Darth Vader to the Emperor.

-DESTINY POINT

We have won, but scars remain. Now we concentrate on healing.

EVERYONE LEVELS UP

We’re now in episode 5 era

1/30/2021 “They’ll Never Find Our Base on Hoth”

It has been a few stellar weeks since the battle. We give them the debrief on Hoth and Luke Skywalker sets us up on the base. We are rising stars in the Alliance and people whisper our names in reverence. After a few weeks of this downtime, we are called up for another mission.

We are sent to recover some rifles for the Alliance, which is setting up for an assault on a few of the outer Imperial bases. They sent us on this mission due to our old smuggling contacts in far-flung locations. Betrayal awaits us at any moment; this period of time is tense.

We find ourselves on Tatooine where one such meeting is taking place. Our rendezvous is with a smuggler captain named Hagk Baht, the commander of a ship called the Singing Savereth(?). It’s about 5km outside of the settlement named Anchorhead.

(Map of Tatooine.)

We get 15 minutes earlier than our meeting time, but our contact is late...really late. In fact, he never shows and we get battered by one of the worst sandstorms in recent memory in the Miss Adventure. We know from memory that Tasha’s Station is close by and a good shelter. As we are deliberating our options, the front windshield is smashed in by hardened sand. I roll really hot on the roll and repair the shit out the parasteel glass, sealing it both successfully and not very aesthetically appealing. The sandstorm continues as we look to Cal to pilot the hell out of the Miss Adventure to Tasha’s Station, and pilot the hell out of it he does indeed. Despite the awful grinding noises, we make our way to Tasha’s Station. Cal mentions that we should pick up some power converters. Ugh.

(Incoming sandstorm.)

(Tashe’s Station.)

We land our ship and clutch our All-Weather cloaks. The lounge is crowded with a myriad of aliens. We have a case of 50,000 credits for the deal, and I am carrying it and it is handcuffed to my wrist. Layz “Fixer” Loneozner runs this station, even though it is owned by Merril Toshe (who never shows their face). We are about a kilometer away from Anchorhead. We are mobbed by Jawas who want to trade, but none of us are interested. In fact, we bat them away like the vermin they are.

(Jawas are the vermin of the desert.)

It’s coming up to be night soon, so we are at somewhat of an impasse. We try our comms to get in contact with Hagk Baht and get back his voice, but mostly static. I try to scream that we are at Toshe’s Station before giving up and handing it to Vek, who tries to mess with the frequency. He successfully boosts the signal but it doesn’t work well enough to figure out any more information. The general gist that we get is that he is having an emergency “ship issue”. The storm is causing all sorts of issues with the sensor readings, making locating him impossible.

(We’re having all sorts of sensor problems.)

We all order drinks. The scummy Nikto nearby wearing a rice paddy hat sits near us and amiably steals Cal’s drink. His name is Drilo Reeal and nobody is really talking back to him. Gav quietly points a blaster at him under the table, just in case. Gav engages him in small talk and Drilo is basically in debt to the Hutts and works for them. He looks used to people being annoyed at him. The conversation turns to Spice, and he looks to Vek. Vek sorta brushes it off but it looks like this guy is looking to buy or sell. He leaves after stealing another drink.

(The Nikto was a damn drink thief.)

15 stormtroopers suddenly enter the bar. They appear to be taking shelter. They take up positions around the room, making the room a bit more gloomy; you can hear a pin fall now. The tension is high. Vek starts a bullshit conversation about moisture farming to throw them off. "They just don't make them like they used to. The B6 model was a loss leader, but it was their best damn model! Those would last 16 stellar years without a hitch! These new E15 models are cheaper, but they won't last you a year before you need a full rebuild! Now, the V14-8, that's a respectable evaporator! Don't even get me started on the E15..."

The storm ends, and just as the stormtroopers are about to leave, the communicator comes to life on Vek’s comms and despite his attempts to stop the call, it goes onto speakerphone: “I was just attacked by storm troopers and now I’m stuck in the sand! I need help!” The cat is out of the bag and we roll initiative.

(I hate people like that.)

Iifa flips the table and starts shooting. Gav shoots the Stormtrooper Officer from behind the table, dropping him in one shot. Vek takes cover at another table as Cal aims and shoots another trooper. Iifa takes a small hit as they fire back as I charge their cover, drawing their fire. Gav and Vek blast two troopers to smithereens, and Cal follows suit by doming another trying to get into cover. One tries to stab me, but I immediately break his neck before he can.

(When in doubt, flip the table.)

I get hit on the shoulder as I rush another trooper, ripping off his arms as Iifa blasts another to death. Gav burst fires into the crowd but misses, but Vek doesn’t miss his shot and smokes one of the last few troopers in the room as they retreat. Cal shoots the last in the back. About 10 troopers have escaped outside, so I tell Annie to fire on them from the Miss Adventure; only smears are left.

(We work smarter, not harder.)

Andy has to leave to find his cousin IRL.

Vek: “15 Sandtroopers walk into a bar. Us: shots for everybody!"

+10 Trooper Armor

+10 Blaster Rifles

We head back to the ship to figure out where our contact is currently located. We see a plume of dark smoke in the distance, so we grab our ship and head for a likely crash location, hopefully before the Jawas get there. We get there in a few minutes and we find the crash sight of the bulk freighter “Singing Savrip”. There are Jawas eyeing the crash over the ridge but we get there first. We hope to find our crates of rifles. Our contact is a Trandosian, and he’s clearly dead. We check the wreckage for the rifles and we find 10 cases of rifles, 6 more than we paid for.

I advocate we keep the 50,000 credits for ourselves, but Iifa comes out strongly against it - the rest abstain so we decide to give back the credits to the Alliance.

(We could use the credits.)

Gav pulls the datacore from the ship, looking to see if there’s any more information on the other buyers, but no such luck. Good idea, though.

We decide to journey back to Hoth. We have a lot of downtime. I use my time to purchase a set of Heavy Battle Armor for 18,000 credits over our pirated holonet signal. It is waiting for me back at Hoth.

-18,000 credits from Arvor

+Heavy Battle Armor

https://swse.fandom.com/wiki/Heavy_Battle_Armor

I see Vek modifying Iifa’s guns for her so I try to guilt him into doing it for me too.

We arrive back at Hoth in about a week. They have successfully winterized the speeders to Vek’s delight, but he gets no credit for it even though he did it all. I grab my new battle armor and display it up in my room in the Miss Adventure.

(I love my new Heavy Battle Armor...even if I can’t wear it quite yet.)

An hour after we arrive we are called to a general base meeting with all of the higher ups (Han Solo, Leia, etc.). Apparently some of the scouts haven’t reported back. One of the generals hasn't even reported in the last 6 hours -- Luke Skywalker. Han Solo leaves the room as Princess Leia screams “What?!” Han Solo stalks out of the room to find Luke. Basically it replays the whole scene from the movie. Vek volunteers us: “His tauntaun won’t even make it past the first marker!” The rest of us follow shortly thereafter, except Cal who is having stomach issues.

(Tauntaun’s don’t get a voice. They’re too smelly.)

We grab our winter gear and our tauntauns and head out. Princess Leia pleads with Iifa to save Solo.

We start following Solo’s tracks, enduring the cold. A blizzard starts overnight. We successfully don't go down the condition tracks, but we lose the trail. Iifa, with my help, finally finds the trail again but not before Vek starts to freeze. After a few hours, it becomes clear that we are following the wrong trail, one for some sort of animal. We follow it anyway in hopes to find some sort of shelter. After a while, the sun rises and the blizzard ebbs. We decide to head back, since we aren’t accomplishing much.

(Arvor: “What? You guys are cold? Seems fine to me…”)

After a while a few snowspeeders hail us and let us know that since the blizzard passed they have a much larger search party and we should head back to base. Over the comms we hear “We found them! We found them!” and everyone shouts in joy. Luke and Han eventually enter the service bay and end up in the bacta tanks.

Overnight some of our reconnaissance platforms were destroyed by some rogue meteorites. We are ordered to fix these platforms. We climb aboard the T47 snow speeders; Iifa as pilot with me as “gunner” and Vek piloting the other with Gav at the back.

As we pilot towards the destroyed reconnaissance platform, the GM plays the very beginning of the Empire Strikes Back when the rebel base is discovered. We are Rogue 13 and 14. It turns out that Imperial probe droids have discovered the base; we need to return to base to refuel.

We return to base and it’s a clusterfuck. We are briefed in the next 20 minutes by General Reekin. Gav and I are in the frontline trenches giving perimeter defense with the infantry. Iifa is brought into the officer’s quarters to help with command. Vek and Cal are responsible for the aerial support(?)/air. Our goal: to retreat to designated coordinates in an orderly fashion.

Infantry:

Weapons

A280
Anti-Material Turrets
3 E-Webs

Goal: Provide assault wave against incoming forces, defend against vehicles attacking the base. High casualties.

Rogue squadron:

Under Skywalker, providing aerial defense support

Goal: meet heavy weapons vehicles before they arrive at the infantry frontlines

Overall goal: keep them from the shield generator, or its all lost

Lots of pictures of these items in chat.

On the ground, Gav and I are the first to see the incoming walkers before Rogue Squadron launches.

The GM plays more scenes from the Empire Strikes Back as we give commands to the respective troops we command. I give the speech from Braveheart as I order my men to fire while I shoot an E-WEB at the incoming troops. Vek’s gunner takes some shots with the blaster cannon on his airspeeder. Shots are fired back at Gav and I and we each lose a trooper. We both return fire successfully, Gav with more success.

(Inspiring the Rebel Alliance.)

We see a group heading off to the West, where the shield generator is located; I tell Rogue Squadron this over the comms and Luke Skywalker orders them to intercept. Fire is exchanged between us and the Empire and lives are lost. Gav uses his comms to communicate with the team leader of the infantry near the shield and the latter requests backup. Gave sends some engineers to help take down the AT-ATs on tauntauns.

I assign 5 of my troops to man the anti-material turrets (taking away AI control) to swivel their aim towards the AT-ATs attempting to breach the shields and have the rest of my squad continue to fire upon the closer incoming troops. I currently have 29 troopers total.

(We hurt the AT-ATs, but they keep on coming.)

The empire takes away a heavy weapons platform and two troopers from me and Gav both. Iifa’s T-47 is almost shot down and her gunner is no longer answering her, slumped over in his seat.

More “Empire Strikes Back” is shown at his death. We are starting to lose in real-time. Finally, our shields go down. A full retreat is called. We head back to the evac point. Iifa is scolded over the comms for not being in the officer tower, since Princess Leia needs an escort from the base; Han Solo offers.

(Time to leave Hoth. It had such a wonderful climate; I will miss it.)

Gav and I meet at the mouth of the base and hand out evac orders to our remaining troops. I send my troops to their designated ships and board the Miss Adventure. Gav brings his troops with him and they all board the Miss Adventure (which is under frantic repairs from that last sandstorm). Iifa lands first since she is on fire and about to crash while Vek provides cover fire. Vek also eventually lands. They detonate Iifa’s craft and drag Vek’s into the transport. The Miss Adventure picks up both Vek and Iifa. We are supposed to meet up in the Solace system according to protocol. Cal slides into the pilot seat, we ride the Ion Cannons’ pathway and follow the last evacuees.

As we just enter hyperspace, barely avoiding star destroyer attacks, we meet up with our superiors at the rendezvous point. We have a week in space to lick our wounds and contemplate...what's next.

Within a few weeks, Rebel High Command sends us on another mission: the Tatooine Manhunt.

(Nothing to do with the plot, just some great cosplay.)

2/13/2021 “Tatooine's Got Talon”

Everyone gets a Destiny Point for surviving Hoth.

I bought a SR10 shielding module for my Heavy Armor.

-10000 credits

(Kwenn Space Station)

We are currently at the Kwenn Space Station at the star Kwen. We’re tasked with finding some “Dana” person. As she rounds the bend, we find that she’s not alone: she’s with a Trandosian, Xarsk Longtooth (Christian), who is an old old Trandosian. He was initially a mercenary but eventually enlisted in the Alliance. He’s armed to the teeth and wearing a Power Suit.

(Our opening dialogue.)

We see a man in Mandalorian armor behind another door looking at us as well before he locks it behind him. Xarsk says “You’re late!” and lets us know that Dana has been kidnapped and knocked out by the person in Mandalorian armor. Vek tries to hack the door, but we start hearing emergency sounds starting to emit, so he stops. We see the Mandalorian boarding a ship beyond the airlock, so we book it back to the Miss Adventure in an attempt to tractor beam the transport ship before it makes it to whatever its destination currently is.

(Our target is kidnapped before we even get there.)

We get to the hangar, running like our lives depend on it. The hangar doors are open, but we see 2 people “standing guard” at the bay while another 2 people are boarding our ship. They appear to be common criminals, trying to steal the Miss Adventure; what the hell! Roll initiative.

As they discover us, they say “They’re here!” so they are expecting us. Not good. We cautiously approach them in cover before opening fire. We dodge from cover to cover, exchanging fire. Gav runs right into their midst with balls of steel.

(These are no common criminals. They are premium criminals.)

Everyone takes a shot from cover. I try to draw their fire with only limited effect while asking “Annie? Annie, are you okay?” over the comms. They throw grenades back at us, hurting our squad quite a bit; one of the enemy soldiers has a personal shield. These are no common thugs. Xarsk tosses a grenade back then moves forward under cover. Iifa, concerned about the ship, runs as close as she can while still maintaining cover. I run up to the vanguard with Gav and successfully draw fire from all of the Troopers while Cal headshots one of the criminals.

(Xarsk decides to go with the grenades.)

When they realize that we are pushing forward, the enemies make a tactical retreat into another room, where a pneumatic door closes behind them. We decide to let them go, and head over to the Miss Adventure. Vek is concerned there is sabotage on the ship, so he sweeps the ship with his sensor package and discovers a bomb in the vicinity of the navigation and sensor centers in the cockpit. Cal runs to the cockpit and tries to yank it straight out of the cockpit (like someone who has not worked with explosives), but Iifa tackles him before he destroys our ship. Iifa starts trying to defuse the bomb to the backseating driving of all the mechanics on the ship and she successfully does so before it destroys half the ship (it had enough of a payload to do so). We nanny Cal back into the cockpit, where he starts sweeping our computer systems for any further sabotage.

(Cal, after he attempted to defuse a bomb with no training.)

Iifa starts up the engines while Cal searches the computer systems. Gav and I search the ship and find Annie and the droids disabled in the main room. Cal discovers that our Nav jumps in the past have been stolen. We were only on the base for 10 minutes; they absolutely knew we were coming. We all look at Xarsk in point the finger, but he denies involvement. Iifa launches the “Miss Adventure” while Xarsk goes to sleep after being quickly interrogated on his knowledge of the situation. Gav goes around administering first aid to the crew.

The Miss Adventure engages the tractor beam and with Iifa expending a Destiny Point, we are able to tractor the fleeing vessel. We start suiting up in environmental suits Bad Boys style, readying a boarding party for the other vessel, which is about a ⅓ the size of our ship. The other ship docks with us (against its will) and we pile in the decompression chamber. We assume it to be an Imperial transport ship, and it’s gravity has been knocked out. Cargo floats about freely. We see a bulkhead ahead of us. I don’ t see any traps (though I roll like garbage). There are no escape pods on this ship.

(We engage the tractor beam.)

I start cutting through the bulkhead with my lightsaber. It takes 2 minutes before it opens and floats away. Beyond is the cockpit with a floating body of our pilot, which is our dead agent. She’s also wearing an Imperial ensign’s suit. There’s a small dart on her neck and it appears to be shot from a gun and was filled with Censarri poison after closer inspection. We find all sorts of Imperial identification papers on her along with a data pad, and a holdout blaster.

+holdout blaster

+Imperial datapad

We decide to deal with the aftermath later and just clamp a new free Imperial ship to the “Miss Adventure”, when we realize that the cockpit is trapped with a bomb (again with the cockpit bombs!) and we all rush as fast as we could back to the Miss Adventure as the other ship explodes, damaging our airlock (which we need to repair before we can use it to board another ship). We head back to our ship and Cal starts checking out the datapad. He is only able to access one file, a holo entry involving our dead agent, so he calls in the crew and makes popcorn.

(We hope the hologram has some useful information.)

It’s a personal video recording - the agent’s personal journal. Her last entry tells her story: After 3 months of undercover under Captain Parlan, the “Relentless” sustained heavy damage. The Hero of the Old Republic is still alive (Adar Talon, the tactical genius). Bounty Hunter’s have captured him on Tatooine and she needs to get to him first. We don’t know how, but bounty hunters started hunting our dead Rebel agent. We are Adar Talon’s only hope. We hear a historical brief regarding Adar Talon and his tactical genius during the Old Republic. He “died” after a pirate attack while captaining the Talon, a frigate(?). No trace of Talon was ever found. As a side note, the Imperial presence has increased on Tatooine recently.

(Adar Talon, our quarry.)

We have a 3 day journey to Tatooine, a journey that we start. Iifa calls Rebel Command regarding the latest scuffle. I grab all the engineers on the Miss Adventure and together we modify my Heavy Battle Armor to have SR10 shielding. We spend a few days bonding and playing games with Xarsk. Cal tells him our story and we get his story in return.

Xarsk has a long and checkered past as a mercenary way back from before the Clone Wars. Apparently he likes to rip off his own tail and club people to death with it. Despite some prodding, Gav still keeps his story to himself for the most part. Eventually, we reach Tatooine as the Alliance gives us the go-ahead.

On approach to the atmosphere, they ask our previous call of port and purpose of visit, to which Cal responds “Coruscant; we’re here with business for the Hutts.” We land in Docking Bay 94, and it's a run-down port in a run-down city called Mos Eisley.

(Mos Eisley.)

We pay the 700 credits docking fee for two weeks, plus 300 for air lock repairs.

Afterwards, we attempt to Gather Information to see if anyone knows anything about the whereabouts of Adar Talon or somebody who looks like him. 50 credits later, we find out Jabba’s local palace in Mos Eisley has seen a large rise in people coming in and out looking very similar to bounty hunters that attack us on the Klem station. Unfortunately, it’s a fortress.

We start strolling into the crowds of Mos Eisley, driving Hotwheels the Groundcar. Gav is mobbed by some Jawas who want his blaster, and he slaps them aside like he should. The large crowds part as we make our way. We see a “Prophet of the Bantha” crazy man prothelizing about the holiness of the bantha, and we have a reasonable chuckle and move along.

(Crazy bantha prophets prothelizing in town.)

Eventually we arrive at the Mos Eisley cantina. We secure Hotwheels and head inside.

(Mos Eisley Cantina)

The cantina is booming and full of odd aliens. We order drinks (and crackers in my case). I mention to the barkeep that we’re looking for bounty hunting work as I slurp up my cracker-beer. We hear a large argument involving a lady as she walks near a group of 8 aliens, she’s mad that they’re pushing the locals around; in return, they push the old lady on the ground. Most of the locals don’t say anything except one who helps her up. We all ignore it. Some random Sullustan asks Iifa for a dance, but she refuses. He’s persistent until Xarsk offers to dance in her stead; the Sullustan is afraid and runs away. While talking to the barkeep, I find out that there’s a group in the bar that works for Jabba in the corner.

Vek tweaks his sensor package to listen in to them. They’re talking about work. They work for Jabba but they don’t say anything about Talon or Agent Dana.

Suddenly the music stops. A dozen stormtroopers walk in. The room grows silent. Vek quickly puts his speakerphone on mute, learning his lesson from last time. The stormtroopers almost immediately come up to us. They inspect us closely...and move on. Eventually they leave the Cantina.

Iifa engages some shady Twi’lek in the corner, proving once again that all Twi’leks know each other. He’s talking about some Colony Ship that crashed a long time ago. Heff is an owner of a souvenir shop who got robbed recently. He also mentions the names Old Arno and Slag Flats as being from the old colony ship. Slag Flats is an Ithorian that runs a gang in opposition to Jabba. Heff’s daughter, named Tebby, is at the souvenir shop. Old Arno is just a crazy old man and nobody has seen for a few weeks. Sensing a potential lead, Iifa slips away, leaving a dejected Twi’lek.

DO OR DO NOT THERE IS NO TRY...

(Andy drew a yoda penis in the notes. So there’s that.)

We arrive at the Souvenir Shop and it is closed (probably because the previous owner just died). Tebby, with tear streaks on her face, opens the door and tells us that she’s closed. Vek says “Tebby?” and kinda stops her from closing the door. After some interrogation, we find out he was murdered...by a poison dart. Just like the one that killed our Agent Dana. Tebby panics and runs away, screaming that she would call the constable. Iifa is able to calm her down after following her. We sit down for tea and to talk about the situation. Vek offers her drugs to calm her down, and it looks like addiction is already starting to set in.

(Tebbi is a Lepi: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Lepi)

Vek interrogates Tebby and reveals that her father was well loved and friends with Jabba. There’s no reason to kill him. But he was probably killed by some deadly bounty hunter. She said there’s some big bounty that’s come up: Adar Talon. Vek brings up Adar’s picture, asking her if she’s ever seen him. Vek brings up our theory that her old man was protecting Adar Talon. She offers her help. She describes her witness account on the death of her father. She heard him arguing with someone in the front, and she came into the room to see him doubled over, dying in front of a man dressed in Mandalorian armor. They have a protocol droid that might have recorded the whole thing.

Vek attempts to process the memories of the droid and succeeds. We watch on the “video” (has no audio) as people walk into the Souvenir shop. They talk for about 20 minutes before a one-sided fight breaks out. Her father grabs the mandalorian bounty hunter by the neck, but another bounty hunter shoots the dart that kills in the neck. It is not the Boba Fett we saw like a week ago. They look like this:

(A rival bounty hunter crew after our quarry.)

She offers any help we need, including food, water and shelter. After finally finding a lead, we settled in for a while. We decide to stay with her to protect her, the best lead we have to the former genius general from the Old Republic.

I buy one of everything from the souvenir shop and decorate my personal quarters with it.

-500 credits

When asked about Old Arno, apparently he was a good friend of her father. For 20 years. Haven’t seen him in a couple weeks. He works as a scout? He’s about 60 years old….super suspicious. Under Gav’s questioning, she hands him what appears to be a small chest of military medals, and they are rank insignia marks from the Old Republic Army, so he has a more storied career than his daughter thought.

(Through conversation, Gav discovers the likely whereabouts of our missing general.)

2/27/2021 “The New Droid Likes To Melt People”

We have a breakfast of gruel and water, which I combine. It’s my favorite. I also steal all of Old Arno’s Old Republic Medals. Xarsk left early in the morning, claiming that he got a message from the Alliance for another mission. In his stead, he sends his old combat droid.

+Old Republic Medals

+Old Combat Droid

-Xarsk

(Failsafe, the new droid following us. It’s impertinent and probably needs a wipe.)

Vek asks more about Old Arno. He sounds like the typical guy that tells you to get off his lawn but is really good with a gun. He leads expeditions to the Jundland Waste for a living as a scout. The new droid starts to get uppity and tries to interrogate the woman, to her (and our) great discomfort. Failsafe recommends that Lepi go into hiding, and we all tell it to be quiet and sit in the corner like the air conditioner. As the organics talk, Failsafe says if he had feelings they would be hurt.

(You can’t hurt Failsafe because it’s an unfeeling toaster.)

I ask Tebi the local hangouts for Old Arno, and she mentions the Power Station or the Cantina. Vek recommends Lepi go into hiding, since everyone appears to be after Old Arno and she’s a big potential connection. She agrees to go into hiding, and Failsafe is audibly validated. When she asks our names (“Do you have names?”), after a quick huddle we tell her that we don’t want to give her our names (“No”). She then says that we’re obviously not Imperial or Hutt so we’re probably with the Rebels, immediately breaching our paper-thin disguises. We admit we are with the Alliance.

(Our cover was blown immediately.)

The droid continues to be impertinent and gives Tebi a hug before we go. She is incredibly uncomfortable with this. Vek talks a little bit more about moisture farming and Failsafe says “Some of my best friends are moisture farming equipment.”

We decide to head over to the Power Station. Iifa recommends that we get a guide to help us if we eventually end up in the Jundland wastes and we all agree. We board Hotwheels with Cal at the pilot seat and take in more of the sights of Mos Eisley. Five minutes later, we hear a scream up ahead coming from an alley. One of the figures steps into the light and it appears to be a bounty hunter beating a Deverronian: “Tell us what we need to know!” We decide to intervene. Roll initiative.

(A rare instance of us intervening for a stranger.)

The droid Failsafe immediately blasts one of the bounty hunters with a heavy hit from his blaster rifle. Cal and Gav continue to fire into them, doing negligible damage. I jump out of Hotwheels, screaming at the bounty hunters attempting to draw fire and successfully tackle one of the bounty hunters to the ground in a Pin. Iifa has all sorts of Internet issues and skips her turn, so the non-Pinned bounty hunters use their jet packs to get into the air and send a wave of flamethrowers at us, burning the hell out of us.

(Our enemies try to elegantly fly away on their jetpacks.)

Failsafe launches a mini Missile at the airborne bounty hunters from his wrist; they survive, but they are not happy - in fact, one of the bounty hunter’s jetpacks malfunctions and he flies off into the distance. Vek shoots the other one with his pistol as Iifa attempts to shoot and misses. Gav shoots the remaining flying bounty hunter and he dies. I continue to successfully Pin down the last remaining visible & alive bounty hunter and Iifa grabs my cuffs and puts them on them. Cal climbs the adjacent building like fucking spiderman and shoots the other guy, that is still struggling with his errant jet pack, in the back like the hero that he is.

(Cal might as well be Spiderman.)

The Devarronian stands up. We steal the last bounty hunter’s jet packs.

+3 jet packs

+Mandalorian armor

Labria is the Davvronian, apparently he has a lot of information (he claims) and he says he’s sober (he’s not). He’s completely wasted. Apparently he’s familiar with Slag Flats, the local gang leader in opposition to Jaba. He’s also an old friend of Old Arno. If we meet him at (some hotel) in the morning he would be willing to take us to Slag Flats. Failsafe tries to dust him off in a friendly manner but he takes offense (“You’re violating my person you wretched bucket.”). Labria begs us to make the droid stop talking and staggers off to his hotel, with a promise to meet up in the morning. Cal goes off drinking with him.

(Our new droid continues to act friendly. It’s weirding everyone out.)

Meanwhile, I’m holding down the Nikto bounty hunter with fake mando armor.

+2xFlamethrower

+2xEnergy shielding (burnt out)
+2xRepeater Blaster

+2xFake mando armor

I break his thumb when he gives me lip, earning me a Dark Side point.

+Dark Side point for Arvor

He’s not giving up any information even after a bit of torture. When I ask if he wants to do it the easy way or the hard way he says: “The hard way!” and activates a thermal detonator. I try to throw his body, but I roll like shit and he barely moves all of maybe 3 feet. We all try to duck out of the way, but we still take some damage from the ensuing explosion and all that's left of our guy is his boots.

(My weak throw was embarrassing.)

Meanwhile, Cal is being led to the shittiest bar/hotel combo that can be found and is convinced by Labria to buy him a drink (Cal: “Shouldn’t you buy me a drink? I just saved your life…”). Cal asks a few questions about Old Arno but Labria keeps passing out mid-conversation. Cal has to keep waking him up. He lets it slip that Old Arno used to work for the Old Republic and he lives out in the Dune Sea most of the time before Cal heads out. “Next time you’re in my alley, stop on by!”

We continue on to the Power Station on the groundspeeder lent to us by Tebi. We avoid the Sandtroopers along the way. As we make our way through, we hear a “Waaait!” directed our way. It’s Labria and he’s waving his hands at us. Apparently two groups of people came by looking for us: a mando looking group, and a group of stormtroopers.

(We’re popular with the wrong crowds at the moment.)

And all of a sudden Labria is sober as a judge and he no longer has an accent. He’s actually an undercover agent for the Alliance. He gives us a chip that will get us into a meeting with Slag Flats, who stays in an abandoned water silo. He says she can help us track down Old Arno, or Adar Talon as he now knows who he is. He wishes us good luck and walks away, not wanting to be near us to blow his cover.

We head towards the water silo, patching ourselves up along the ride. As we arrive, we find another landspeeder that Vek checks, and discovers hasn’t been used in at least a few days.

Iifa sweeps the perimeter for signs of people then waits for the rest of us at the entrance, which is a door to the silo swinging in the wind. We walk to the entrance, which is pitch black: I am the only one that can see inside. But I still fail to see the bomb planted at the entrance, which goes off as I confidently stride into the room (“Looks clear guys!”), which leads to an explosion that not only destroys the door but hurts Iifa, Failsafe, and me when it goes off.

(Why don’t they make bombs more clearly visible.)

Inside, we find a bunch of bodies, one of which is not only our undercover Alliance agent, but Slag Flats. A hidden pneumatic door closes behind us. Water starts filling the room and engines turn on. Iifa, Cal and I are all trapped inside. Shit.

Outside, Gav and Failsafe look on as the silo closes itself. Failsafe shoots one of the water containers, starting a leak. Vek tries to hack the local display panel computer to stop the water flow and with a nat 20 it does exactly what he wants; the Silo opens up.

I try to activate my lightsaber to open another hole, and it fizzes out. NO! My lightsaber! My baby! This is why Jedi suck - water is their mortal enemy.

(My lightsaber died.)

We see 6 humans and 2 talz nearby along with the Ithorian (Slag Flats) and the Devarronian(Labria). All dead by blaster fire...and Cenarri poison darts. Some of the bodies are still warm. Vek finds a waterlogged datapad, which we can’t really access here since it looks to take some time to dry out. We find a few guns on the ground. Vek takes video footage of the scene for later, but it is “extremely shaky like the Blair Witch Project was filmed by someone with Parkinsons”. I recognize one of the dead humans from the Cantina the previous day - Jabba’s men.

+3 blaster pistols

+1 Cenarri dart (used)

We decide to head back to the Miss Adventure to decompress and figure out what is on that datapad. We pick up Hotwheels at Tebi’s on the way back.

At the Miss Adventure, Vek and Failsafe work on the waterlogged datapad and only find the words: “Arno’s Next.” Gav does a quick surgery on the crew to get us feeling better and we all take showers. I oversee our loader bot moving our loot into the armory while Iifa checks the Holonet for a guide to the Wastelands. She finds two potential guides: a corporate company and a solo guy who looks like “Gandalf if he dressed like Indiana Jones”. Cal has a message from our now-dead Devarronion: Old Arno wants to meet with us in the Cantina and if you’re reading this I’m probably dead.

We head out. My holoshroud currently makes me look like a female twi’lek that could be a sister to Iifa. Cal tells us about the message he received.

(My current appearance.)

We enter the Cantina, leaving Failsafe behind on Hotwheels. We head in. I am perfectly mimicking Iifa’s actions to her annoyance. We find a private booth while Vek interrogates the bartender. Much shenanigans are had with the two Iifas.

(We’re just chilling at the bar. No droids allowed inside, since they waste space. Iifa is not happy with my disguise.)

Failsafe notices a suspicious group of people who did not initially appear to be friends suddenly and coincidently walking toward the bar at the same time. A lot of people -- like 20. Failsafe lets us know over the comms. He notices that they have quietly taken a woman hostage; a woman that we know - Tebi. She has a gun placed to her back. Failsafe waits until Tebi is out of range then opens up with the Flamecannon on Hotwheels into the group. A lot of the men look like mandalorians, and they are now all on fire as the napalm burns through their skin.

(Failsafe is such a badass at this moment. Just pretend the snow is people and you get the gist.)

As they enter the bar, Tebi looks at us. She says “I’m sorry!” and tries to run, but one of the men smokes her before she could run. Mayhem breaks out in the Cantina as well all roll for initiative.

(The cantina fight begins.)

At the top of the order, Failsafe hits them with the Flame Cannon yet again, melting the rear troops. Gav, guarding our private seats, runs to cover behind the bar and opens fire. The bounty hunters(?) march in and fire at Gav to no effect. Vek dives from cover into other cover, blasting one of the guys in the process. Cal joins Gav behind the bar and domes a guy in the head. I drop my heavy blaster rifle for Iifa to use (she didn’t bring Diplomacy) and rush the group of soldiers. Failsafe sends out a Missile into the group of enemies, damaging them with the explosion. Gav shoots another as Vek does some damage with his slugthrower.

(An intense gunfight breaks out at the Cantina.)

The enemy troops start trying to retreat, but not before they riddle me with holes. Cal ends another one of the soldiers as I charge to the remaining soldiers, and I drop the holoshroud as I claw the face of one of the soldiers. We continue to hound them until I finish off the last one.

I find Tebi, dying at my feet. “I’m sorry...it was the Empire.” So it appears that these “Mandalorians” are actually the Empire in disguise? Then she dies. Or she appears to, until Gav appears like Jesus and resuscitates her from death with a crazy high Treat Injury roll. We quickly leave the Cantina, hoping Tebi has some information we desperately need.

3/13/2021 “Absorbing the Bantha Experience”

We arrive back in our docking bay. We drop Tebbi back in the medical bay and have a moment to rest. I go to my room after a quick reorganization of the ship's armory. I got back to my room to put my lightsaber to rest when surprise! It works again. I’m so happy. Failsafe mentions he wants to look for “carcasses” which we assume to me droid parts. Gav works on Tebbi for a bit, and ensures her survival. Vek scours the ship, making sure we are 100% and we have no anomalies.

Gav joins Vek in his patrol and finds some smuggler compartments...shifting. They get closer, and it’s a scruffy old man. Apparently he’s been stealing our food. Vek and Gav pull out their sidearms and demand to know who he is. Even while having guns trained on him, he makes his way to the fridge and starts eating some of our Space Chickens. Gav and Vek are bewildered.

(Old Arno is the guy you try to avoid on the street.)

The old man says he’s been looking for us, like we’ve been looking for him. He says he’s Old Arno. Vek demands he drop the act and tells him that we know he’s Adar Talon. He looks more serious and confirms that we’re from the Alliance. He asks for Gav and Vek to drop their guns, but Vek tells him to drop his damn chicken. Instead he goes to the fridge and gets some more chicken. Vek calls the rest of the crew over the comms: “TEAM MEETING! TEAM MEETING!”

PAGE 69

THE SEXIEST PAGE OF NOTES

I join the group, excitedly showing off my working lightsaber. Vek asks how long Arno has been here. Arno asks what the Alliance wants with Adar Talon, who he served under. I mention that the Rebel Alliance could use his tactical genius. He mentions he saw at least 60 bounty hunters after the guy, I mention that as of 15 minutes ago there were 30 less. Old Arno offers to help us find Adar Talon. He has some ideas where he might be out in the Wastes. He said around the time of Pearson’s death, Adar was out in the waste purchasing some homes. He mentions a few locations. I mention Tebbi and he recognizes her before eating more of our food and passing out next to her.

Failsafe goes to put a blanket on the sleeping old man, which sparks a concerned conversation between me and Vek about the droid. We deliberate wiping him and maybe putting on some remote destruction bombs on him but decide that his latest combat performance gives him a bit of leeway...for now.

The next morning, we woke up to Old Arno already cooking breakfast for us. He even already blended me my breakfast. He talks a little bit about his war hero past. Our destination is within speeder range and it would be more stealthy to do so. He wants us to take his skiff, but we decide to take our own Hotwheels which sorta pisses him off and he says he’s taking his own skiff. We load up Hotwheels with rations and jetpacks. Arno complains we are taking too long.

As we see Arno’s cargo skiff, I am glad we didn’t take it...it’s a piece of shit. But my mechanic's eye says it’s in better shape than it appears. As we head out, the Mos Eisley streets are quiet, which is somewhat anomalous. When Arno asks the locals why, it’s because all of the Bounty Hunters have headed out of the desert. When we reach the end of town, Arno guns it on his skiff, and we barely keep up. In fact, he overwhelms us with speed.

Outside: In space, the Star Destroy “Relentless” is docked in Kwenn Space Station. Captain Parlan stands on the command station. An officer tells him that the Star Destroyer has been repaired and will reach Tatooine tomorrow. “Talon is mine!” He says.

Four hours into our journey. We would have been lost without Old Arno. Eventually we run into a wounded Sail Barge. It’s overloaded with bumbling bounty hunters. The craft appears to be ripe pickings, and is under attack by Krayt Dragons. Old Arno wants us to go around this situation, and we agree. We move to head around this bad situation, but a huge krayt dragon we didn’t see appears right in front of us. He clamps onto Hotwheels and slams into us, and we all try to retain our balance. Over the comms we hear Old Arno scream. Roll initiative.

Hotwheels is on its right side. Vek and Failsafe grab jetpacks. Grav unloads into the Krayt Dragon’s throat and hurts it badly, causing it to back away from Hotwheels. I run towards the cockpit to check on Cal, and he’s trapped in a bit of wreckage, so I attempt to cut him out with my lightsaber. In the meantime, the Krayt Dragon approaches Failsafe and almost bites him in half. Cal, now free from the cockpit, realizes that the groundcar won’t really work for the moment, and decides to shoot the Krayt Dragon. Vek zips outside on his jetpack and shoots out its eye as Failsafe ascends on his own jetpack and shoots a missile out into the dragon’s mouth. Gav knows that it is extremely weird that there are so many Krayt Dragons here considering that they are solitary creatures. In the distance, we see the other bounty hunters still getting attacked by the other Krayt Dragons. I attempt to draw the attention of the Krayt Dragon but fail to do so, so the Dragon bites Failsafe in half, making him inoperable.

Vek flies higher out of his melee range, but misses his shot. Failsafe continues to be disabled while I successfully grab the Krayt Dragon’s attention and tank a claw attack. Cal makes a risky flyby with his jetpack and throws his bandolier of grenades into its mouth as three grenades detonate in its stomach. Vek continues to fire into the Krayt Dragon as we watch Old Arno catch up to us on his skiff. Gav goes to grab Failsafe, while I grab the force cage and a jetpack and go to ignite the latter to head to Arno’s barge. Since nobody is in range, the Krayt Dragon unleashes his rage on our groundcar as we flee to Arno’s barge. Gav burns a Destiny Point to shoot out the fuel cells for the flame cannon on the Hotwheels, and a great explosion causes the Krayt Dragon to scream in agony before it burrows back into the sand. We hear one more mournful cry from our Krayt Dragon as we pile into Arno’s barge and Arno guns it away.

I reassemble Failsafe, and he tries to give me a hug but that’s not happening; I allow him to shake my hand to my angry bee noises. I don’t like this droid. We spend an hour on the road. We find a shaded canyon. Old Arno looks curious at the buildings around us, long fallen into ruins. City Fisk was the name of this old community. Has a lot of recent animal infestation. We see a pile of womp rats rushing us. They get a few squares away from us, but we all unload our autofire on them and they are dead before they even get close.

Old Arno tells us there are a whole lot more womp rats nearby, so we should move in 2s. After some investigation, there appears to have been an attack here a month or two ago by Tusken Raiders. There are no living sentient creatures here. We decide to move on. It’s about 2PM at this point and it will be dark soonish. Old Arno knows of a place that might put us up overnight, called the Oasis. It also has a good water supply. We head out.

At this point the suns are falling in the sky. We approach what appears to be a large community. Apparently the community is a bantha cult that worships the force. They are called the D’mue. They are moisture farmers by trade. They appear very friendly. They are mostly human. Old Arno offers to take on the leadership role regarding talking, and we agree; we make Failsafe watch the care while we go to organic stuff.

We approach the town’s cult church. Inside, we hear the prothelyzing regarding Bantha, and inside we see two Tusken Raiders talking in tuskan and bocce. They discuss their beliefs: “Do not kill the bantha. Only milk it.” The priests seem to have a similar culture to Hindu religion.

They apparently offer us a place in the main hall as shelter and food. Old Arno tells us not to hurt the Banthas, or bad things happen. Drion is the name of the head Bantha Priest. He seems like a nice guy.

Drion mentions that there was a group here 6 hours ago asking similar questions regarding Adar Talon. He sent them on their way because they got angry, which is not the Way of the Bantha. The group appeared to be about 20 people. Dryon seems to recall that someone similar to Talon was seen escaping from the ruins of the village that we just visited. He hands us to a weird bantha goat cheese thing, which I love.

When asked if the banthas like being milked, Drion says: “They sustain us with their milk, and in return they are...purged…” and he licks his lips. It's weird.

In the meantime, Failsafe has found acceptance in the village: he is hugging everyone he can, and they are hugging back. Vek spends his time hanging out with the Bantha cult, “absorbing the Bantha Experience”.

At some point, the Bantha Cult starts surrounding Cal; apparently he is Chosen. He is the one. They beg him to join the D’mue. They beg him over and over to join, calling him “Master!”.

I spend the last bits of daylight watching the cheese creation process. It’s surprisingly erotic.

Cal: “After being told not to hurt Banthas so many times...now I kind of want to.”

We settle down for the night, with Failsafe taking watch while he repairs himself.

In the middle of the night, the village is attacked; it appears to be the previous bounty hunters. We hear one of them scream “Dryon, tell us what General Cash needs to know!” We roll initiative.

Failsafe flies onto a building and unloads a missile onto a group of mercenaries close to us.

Gav and I move up; he shoots one of the bounty hunters as I claw the other. The one I clawed grabs me and engages his jet pack as he stabs me with some claws; I claw him back mid-air and fall back to the ground on my feet as his body falls next to me, dead. Another bounty hunter shoots the walls behind us as Vek tries to sneak through the street, through the windows of a building, to shoot the back of one of the bounty hunters.

I charge one of the bounty hunters down the street, but his martial arts defeats mine and I am unable to damage him. One of the BH shoots a missile and misses Failsafe, and Gav shoots the BH Leader I am fighting. BH Leader hits me a few times and tries to grapple, but fails the last. Vek shoots one of the BH out of the sky as Cal shoots another. Failsafe shoots another to death, as I swipe and miss with the BH Leader. Gav walks up behind our fight and shoots the latter in the back.

Everyone is dead except the BH Leader at this point, and he starts trying to get away, and Failsafe shoots him in the gut mid-air. I finish him off with some autofire.

No banthas are lost. We are all hailed as the Saviors of the Banthas. Apparently the Bounty Hunters tried to cause a bantha stampede, but failed.

We recover those extending arm blades from the bounty hunter that attacked me, and we find on the person of the leader an energy shard that has one green dot on it, it appears to be personal shielding.

+Personal Shielding unit (has one charge, doesn’t require install)

+Extending arm blades -> Vek

4/10/2021 “Managing Interoffice Conflict”

Everyone is awakened by Old Arno’s weathered hand and we eat breakfast. Drion comes to see us off: “Without you we would be utterly annihilated!” He offers us provisions and two medpaks.

+2 medpacks and a ton of water

Vek: “Every time I drink Bantha yogurt I will remember you.” I remind him that he never had Bantha yogurt, but he tries to move the conversation forward before anyone questions further. We head off to our next destination.

We gather up in Old Arno’s van and move along for a few hours. The heat is intense, as would be expected on Tatooine. We eventually see smoke on the horizon, and Old Arno is alarmed: “That's Lank's farm. That's a good family. Deviate from course. We have to check up on them.” After Gav’s questioning tone, Old Arno says “Black smoke is a bad sign” to which Vek mentions that it is due to a very specific moisture farming equipment failure. Everyone groans as he babbles on.

(The situation that I expect.)

A hundred meters out, we stop the landspeeder and it’s obvious to our military eyes that something is very wrong. Old Arno: “Be ready. They might be nearby.” We approach the domed buildings. It looks like the farm was destroyed by firepower far beyond what was necessary, maybe even orbital bombardment. We find dead bodies everywhere, from children to old people.

We talk about pogs for 15 minutes.

Gav hears a cry coming from one of the still-burning buildings. We approach it and we hear “I’m stuck!” in a small girl voice. Cal enters the fire, and after searching, finds a little girl trapped under a beam. I walk into the fire with my fully enclosed armor and find Cal struggling to free the girl and I attempt to help him free her from under the beam that is crushing her. Gav enters the building and starts to assist us by cutting through the beam lying on the girl. Vek tries to find a sprinkler system to start and succeeds just as we free her from the beam. The building collapses on itself. I carry the girl outside but she appears to be dead.

(We saved that little girl from the burning building. That’s one for the bucket list.)

Gav takes a look at her and she’s fine; she merely passed out for a moment. Iifa and Gav talk to her while the rest of us check the perimeter. Old Arno recognizes her as the youngest of the farm. She says her name is Janice Lank and she’s about 9 years old. She describes a man that’s tall and dressed in silver and with all sorts of weapons; the man murdered her family while she hid in the shelter. She starts to cry again while Iifa hugs her. We find no other survivors.

I notice that the small child was reacting well to Iifa so I activate my holoshroud in an attempt to be more charming in an attempt to convince her to join the Rebel Alliance. The attempt fails miserably and I go back to looking like Arvor.

(I should know better than to attempt diplomacy.)

There are tracks heading to the northeast, away from the North we are heading to an old Tusken fort guarded by hostile Sand People. Old Arno tells us to head that way while he brings the little girl to an orphanage in Mos Eisley.

(Old Arno is making the little girl his priority.)

We take Arno’s landspeeder. With Iifa’s guidance, we make our way correctly. We come across a scene of carnage: a group of dead bounty hunters. We suspect an ambush, since we are nearing the territory of the Tusken Raiders. One of the bounty hunters is merely dying, so I interrogate him while I take his belongings. Adar Talon led his group on an elongated hunt and eventually ambushed them with the Tusken Raiders. We find:

4x Blaster carbine

10x Heavy Blaster Pistols

10x Power pack

10x flight suits

10x Utility belts

Water

Hope

We leave the bodies behind and head north towards the Tusken camp. A half hour later we arrive at the entrance of the canyon owned by Tusken Raiders. We see cairns made out of armor of their enemies in piles. We eventually see a cloud of dust heading towards us -- it’s a herd of bantha charging us. They fill the canyon.

(The Bantha. They come.)

I grab all the water I can and head towards what appears to be a protective cave, shooting my grapple above it just in case. Gav, Cal, and Iifa follow suit. Vek stays behind in an attempt to force the grav lifters to force the barge at a higher altitude but the Banthas are too fast and crush the barge; he barely survives by jumping out at the last moment. I scream and cry as I think he is dead.

We all greet Vek with cheers as he approaches from around the corner. We all clap him on the shoulder and hug him in relief. The relief doesn’t last long as we are surrounded by a hunting part of Tusken Raiders….all around us and numerous. I’m clutching the water, looking confused.

(Would you like some high quality H2O?)

Vek takes point, since he’s the only one that can communicate with them in Bocce. We talk about how we came in peace and want to find Adar Talon. They demand that we give them all our weapons. Adar Talon has an agreement with them to kill everyone who tries to find him, but is making an exception for us. Vek offers his customized slugthrower permanently as a peace offering, and the leader accepts. We are all disarmed and led to another location. Gav is salty as fuck. He was moments away from a last stand.

(Gav was about to Final Stand the situation. Thankfully, he didn’t.)

Gole is the name of our “friendly” Tuskan. He gets into an in-depth conversation about moisture farming equipment. Vek gets an offer to join them; they like him so much. We enter their base, which appears to be an abandoned fort of some kind. Talon has personal guards, who challenge us in front of his building. Gav shows them his Rebel Alliance patches and they grudgingly accept us, but tell us we might not have good luck.

We are herded further inside to meet a group of very old people, all armed. They’re alarmed at our lack of binder cuffs, and seek to rectify that fact. We agree to be cuffed and are led under guard further down to a lavish and luxurious room full of art and various technologies. The average age of people we pass are early 50s.

Fort Tusken is the name of this place, according to a protocol droid that greets us. There is a majordomo Twi’lek lady, who (unknown to most of us) may be Iifa’s sister. Said majordomo orders our release from the binder cuffs and introduces us to Adar Talon in the next room.

The room itself looks like a museum of old weapons and musical instruments. Adar is drinking a Corellian Corehound. “And now the hiding ends” he greets us with a smile. His Trandosian security officer reads outloud our backgrounds, some of which we didn’t know about each other. We didn’t really divulge all this info, but now we know. But apparently we passed their security clearance.

Iifa takes her place as group diplomat to explain our position and mission. Iifa also hands over some secret document created by Mon Mothma that she’s been carrying over to him, and it’s a holoprojection of her pleading the case for the Rebel Alliance. Adar Talon looks pensive; he orders us to be given accommodations and food. We go to our quarters, which look really nice for this planet. We give him time to think our offer over.

(A hologram from Mon Mothma might convince Adar Tallon to join the Rebels.)

I use the time to change my Holoshroud to look like a Tusken Raider as I watch Vek O.D. on drugs. Eventually Adar Talon wants to speak with us again in his office: Mon Mothma and Iifa’s words have moved him.

Adar is still a bit confused on why they want him back in the Rebellion. While he opines out loud, betrayal occurs in front of us: a man pulls out a blaster and domes the Trandosian and in quick succession a number of other people in the room. Adar Talon: “What are you doing?!” and all the guards and old men/mercenaries are dead on the ground. We are surrounded by a dozen of the mercenaries dressed like Mandalorians. The majordomo woman is held by Chris, the betrayer, who says: “I’m sorry captain! There’s no other way!” Both doors slam open to the room and guards start pouring in. Roll initiative.

Vek domes one merc behind a door just as Cal tosses a grenade into the room on the right.

(The situation looks grim, but we’re kinda badasses.)

Iifa (clumsily) slides along the main table in the room and shoots into the crowd when Gav decides to shoot the traitor and he crits hard.

(Chris didn’t have much of a limelight thanks to Gav. Definitely the shot of the game.)

The Twi’lek woman (who might be Iifa’s sister), now freed, runs to Adar Talon's arms who covers her protectively like a lover. On my turn, I give a primal scream and activate my shield, attempting to draw fire. And draw fire I do as every soldier turns their guns to me and my shield soaks up all the damage. On their turns Vek and Cal down a few guys each between grenades and slug throwers. Iifa vaporizes another with a hard crit, followed by another crit by Gav. Damn, we are rolling hot tonight.

The hot streak continues as the soldiers pour in and we continue to down them but Adar Talon is worried: “We gotta get out of here!” Just as he mentions that we hear from Annie that a Star Destroyer has arrived and there are Imperial Troopers in the docking bay where the Miss Adventure is located. Annie looks to us for orders.

(We’re whittling them down slowly, but there’s still a lot of enemies…)

Our group continues to wear down the incoming troops. I burn a Destiny point to ensure the entire group is focusing their fire on me and hide behind my energy shield. Vek unleashes his new wrist blades to skewer one of the mercs and Cal finishes him off. We continue the fight, throwing nades and shooting point blank. Eventually the mercs pull out their knives and go to town. One of the mercs stabs Adar Talon and grabs him while another backhands his girlfriend the Twi’lek.

At one point during the fight I am unable to draw fire from the mercs and they all collectively gun down Adar Talon. Gav runs over to him on his next turn and revives him from the dead as everyone continues to shoot and stab point blank in the small room. Death surrounds us as my last grenade breaks the collective wills of the mercs and they flee for their lives. In the background, we hear the sound of sublight engines approaching; Annie has arrived (or so we hope).

4/24/2021 “It’s Always A Trap When Ackbar Is Involved”

We run on foot out of the base. The engine noises that we heard before turn out to be TIE engines flaring up in the distance. However, The Misadventure also appears to be rapidly approaching and it appears to be taking heavy damage. There’s no real clear area to land nearby and we hear Annie screaming over the comms that we need to find high ground. We leave with Adar Talon and his Twi’lek assistant following behind us as we rush towards the top floor. The Misadventure floats a few feet above the ground and lowers the ramp. We all skitter aboard in our various ways and we take off, attempting to reach orbit.

(We gotta get the hell out of here.)

We swarm aboard The Misadventure, glomping on to our usual stations, repairing the ship and raising shields. Cal pushes The Misadventure to its fastest speed, hurling into Space; unfortunately, the TIE fighters cling to us like lint and we can’t lose them.

(“They gonna get us.”)

We get hit hard by a volley of TIE Fighters, crushing our shields immediately. After the volley we are able to enter hyperspace and we are on our way.

We spend a few days in hyperspace until we reach the Rebel Alliance armada. Vek talks with Asha, the Twi’lek we rescued/kidnapped and Iifa joins him. She seems very worried about Adar Talon, who is currently unconscious on the Medbay bed. She only eats under the urgings of the ship’s crew.

Bringing food and deathsticks to Asha, they attempt to break the ice. They roll so badly that Brett just says “No” and gives us a look of disappointment. She takes the food but talks (truthfully) about how disgusting it looks.

In the meantime, Cal spends some quality time with his gun. He also does some system maintenance in the computers, which he has taken as part of his responsibilities.

I spend time staring at my Heavy Armor (that I can’t wear yet), reorganizing the armor (I’m sad that the Force Cage is gone) and grabbing Gav to see if he knows anything about Censarri poison and how to make it. He analyzes it but is unable to replicate it (but he says it is theoretically possible).

-Force Cage

Failsafe starts doling out hugs in 2 hour increments, making everyone somewhat unnerved.

Three days go by. We reminisce about how we are unlikely to ever go back to Tatooine; we already got the most important person off-planet.

We are nearing the Unknown Regions with the mobile Rebel Fleet, survivors of Hoth. We see more Calamari capital ships than we previously had seen, showing their increased support.

MC-80 star cruiser - https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/MC80_Star_Cruiser

As we land we are greeted by scattered cheers, both due to our mission success and just because we are awesome people and they know it. We are immediately summoned to a debriefing with Mon Mothma and Han Solo. We give them the whole story. Mon Mothma mentions that the Twi’lek resemblance to Iifa (I secretly think they all look the same anyway) and it turns out that it is Iifa’s sister (her old name being Anya compared to Asha now), but has no memories of this; apparently she has amnesia. I told you guys they all know each other! Failsafe then tries to hug General Solo and Mon Mothma. I grab him before he gets close enough and “hug” him out of the room.

Gav and I go try to have the Cenarri poison replicated, but in a less deadly form; the ship doctors are amenable enough. I also requisition some shock gloves and a knife from the Rebel Armory.

+Vibroknife (for Cenarri poison)

+Shock gloves

+40 charges of Cenarri Poison Lite (good for an hour, knocks you unconscious)

+Delivery systems for the poison (dart guns)

+20 frag grenades

We sell all of our excess weapons and armor. After some downtime, we meet up with Han Solo, who looks tired. Adar Talon has woken up and been a great source of information and is now an Admiral. He says after our mission, we have earned 80,000 credits. Each.

+80,000 credits each

Three months go by and Adar Talon shows his mettle. He adopts guerilla tactics in space, which proves to be highly successful. He preyed on Imperial shipping, destroying their economy. We basically become pirates. Arrr!

1 Thermal Detonator for everybody

A quarter of a year later, the Imperials start having shielded destroyers escort their ships, slowing down the gains we recovered. We spend this time stocking up with supplies, which will come into effect by our next game session.

(We spend a solid few months gearing up. It takes effect in the next game session.)

Failsafe has continued to attempt to hug everybody it sees, to everyone’s great discomfort. The rebellion has been increasing in popularity, spreading its equipment out sparsely to the point where armory and food issues start cropping up. It is a dark day for the rebellion. Admiral Ackbar seems to have come up with a plan.

We go through a dialog and act out roles on the ship as we get our mission. We have a holodisk we have to hand over to Ackbar. Apparently they are constructing the B-Wing.

Iifa is carrying an important disc on her person (except when she’s showering, her state of weakness). TIE Fighters approach the ship and demand identification.

(The TIE fighters demand to see our papers.)

Iifa claims that we are heavily damaged and are just going to land on a nearby meteor for repairs. They don’t buy the lie and demand that we dock with their star destroyer.

Gav starts shooting and immediately slices a TIE fighter in half with his laser cannons and Failsafe follows suit with a crippling volley of Ion Cannon fire. Vek manages to scramble our transponder code, hopefully before they already read it. We unilaterally destroy a few TIE Fighters before Cal takes us into a nearby asteroid field. We lose the TIE Fighters, who attempt to escape, but a giant asteroid starts heading our direction. Vek manages to create a large smokescreen with some creative ship engineering, hiding our egress as we leave (the smoke is represented in the pink below).

(The purple circle is the smoke “bomb” Vek set off with our ship.)

Cal successfully avoids the asteroid with a nice pilot check. Following that the crew goes through a skill challenge in an attempt to lose them. Three TIE Fighters get away as we lose them (we think) in the asteroid field.

From what we know from our mission briefing, roughly 50 Verpine (a race) work with Admiral Ackbar in a cave on an asteroid to build this so-called B-Wing heavy fighter.

(Verpine. They’re so weird looking. Not like me.)

We approach the asteroid base commanded by General Ackbar and notice an opening on one of its sides; it’s a hidden hangar bay. The hangar’s small size makes the landing tricky but Cal is too good to fail.

(Our Google Maps...in space.)

We leave our ship after we land. The Verpine look like they’ve never seen a ship before. Siskafoo, the leader, speaks perfect Basic as he introduces himself. He is an attache on Ackbar’s team and apparently a very skilled individual, as he was the first of his race to contact aliens (?). He mentions that the admiral is probably waiting for us. We casually mention that there is a star destroyer hovering nearby, and that pushes our schedule up a bit.

We meet a Quarren who claims to be an aid to Ackbar named Salem Gleck. Another figure with a squid head enters the room and looks to argue in a language we don’t understand with Siskafoo. Salem Gleck receives us, but he’s not very friendly. He basically says: “Why are you here?” We mention the data that we need to deliver. He tries to deliver it for us under the auspices that Ackbar is too busy, but we decline. Gav notices when we mention the disk the attache’s head tentacle (he’s a Quaren) shivers in a suspicious way.

(Salem be acting super sus.)

Salem refuses to allow us to see Ackbar. We start to argue with him when a human enters the room. His name is Lieutenant Ryle Pollard and he’s dressed like a Corellian Pirate (he has a blood stripe) and he acts casual: “Sorry to interrupt. The admiral needs to see these people. Follow me.” The Quarren looks unreadable.

We are led into a large circular chamber covered in monitors and holoprojectors. Hunched over a display panel is Siskafood, two other Verpine, and aged Mon Calamari: it’s Ackbar.

Failsafe immediately gives Ackbar a hug to everybody’s chagrin. After that awkward moment, he lights up a cigar. He demands that we tell him the password with a grin. When Iifa reluctantly says “Bantha Budu” he roars in laughter, saying that Solo owes him money now.

(Everyone but Iifa when she says the password. It means “Bantha Shit”.)

Ackbar is concerned that the TIE’s are near the base. There’s some harsh words between Salem and Iifa as the former claims that we’ll make them be discovered and Iifa rebuffs him.

We watch the disk together. It’s Mon Mothma, the Supreme Command of the Rebellion. The disk tells Ackbar to send everyone out of the room but us and Ackbar. We sweep the room for any listening devices and we push play on the display again.

Mon Mothma thanks us over the disk and requests us to safeguard Admiral Ackbar as we relocate the project. They suspect there is an Imperial informer on their staff, and don’t want any fuckups. The new starfighter is too crucial, so we must go to the new rendezvous points on the disk with 3 new fighter pilots.

Admiral Ackbar looks slightly defeated as we accept our next mission. Ackbar wants to stick around and finish the job (the ships aren’t fully finished) but our orders are to move them.

WE ALL LEVEL UP

WE RICH BITCH

GOOD TIMES

5/8/2021 “And I Just Paid Off The Loans!”

We received quarters and there is apparently a military function we have to attend later tonight. It’s kind of posh for being in the middle of nowhere. Verpines seem to be the servants tonight. Siskafoo tells us not to talk to them since they cannot talk back. They are called “drones” and he is bewildered that we don’t have them. He calls us uncivilized as Failsafe hugs him. When asked why Failsafe is at a state dinner, Vek defends him by saying that he is specially programmed. The food is fancy - a “fancy feast” if you will. It looks like space sushi and a pink drink.

(We eat well at the gala.)

Ackbar asks what we did to get this mission: either Solo loves us or hates us. We all launch into war tales: Cal talks about the adventure in which we met Krytala, Vek talks about the raid against the Zygerian Slavers, and I talk about how I lost my legs at the Battle for Arta.

Ackbar talks about his duties in the Praetorian Guard until he was taken as a slave by Moff Tarken. He gives an amiable history of his rebellion career. We all talk shop for a while and share a drink. Lieutenant Pollard, the Corellian subordinate, looks pretty red in the face from the drinks we’ve been having, and is ordered by Ackbar to find the other missing officer. We also hear a bit about the “drones” aka slaves of the Verpine. The drones are thoughtless and cannot talk and only take orders. It makes me deeply uncomfortable with my memories of my days in slavery. A nameless Verpine drone speaks up in really bad basic to Vek, after he launches into a passionate talk about moisture farming, is called out for being a druggie.

(We all collectively hope that the Vespine drone will stop talking about Vek’s drug habits.)

We talk a bit about our past and I mention my slavery and how I met Captain Bridger; something we didn’t know is that Captain Bridger is a clone from the Clone Wars and he was in the prestigious 501st Legion. He never mentioned it, even to Cal. In retrospect, he does seem to age faster than the usual human.

The Verpine returns to Lieutenant Pollard and whispers something to him. Salen Gleck has stolen our ship. Vek immediately becomes the flash and knocks anything in his way and he immediately jets towards the hangar bay; we all follow along with Pollard. Pollard introduces us as the base Security Officer. We enter the turbolifts to the hangar bay. I try to contact Annie to no avail. Vek is currently having a mental breakdown. We arrive to find yes: the Miss Adventure is gone.

(The “Miss Adventure” has been stolen. Goddamnit.)

Ackbar looks troubled and says he will be going back to his quarters; Failsafe insists on following him. Vek asks if there are any cameras to take stock of, and apparently there are. Just as we begin our investigation, we hear the base alarm start blaring. An Imperial shuttle is approaching the landing bay and explosions rock the base. The computer screen Vek is checking goes off, along with most of the electronics in the vicinity. Ackbar tries to contact Pollack, who is next to us, and is very obviously distressed as he orders a base retreat (they cannot keep off an attack). We hear an emergency evac message over the PA system as the bombardment continues.

Ackbar says he needs for us to buy time for him to grab data. He orders Pollack to help us delay the Imperials for time. Pollack uses a wrist computer to close all of the blast doors in the base as everyone starts to scramble off the base.

We create a plan. We decide to head to the hangar bays where the B-Wings are being stored, hangars A and B (A has two prototypes, B has one). As soon as we head out, we come under blaster fire. Roll for initiative.

Three squads of Storm Troopers enter the room, blasting away. Cal domes one of them as Vek opens up with autofire from his heavily modified slugthrower. I try to draw fire from the storm troopers, missiles head towards me and Vek.

(We’re a bunch of murder machines.)

Vek snipes the missile launcher dude with his new badass slinker pistol. Every stormtrooper in the vicinity tries to gank me since I drew their fire, but they fail and everything bounces off my new armor. The Dark Jedi bounces Vek a few times on the ground with a force grip and he slashes at me with his lightsaber, the latter to little effect. Meanwhile, Failsafe, who is separated from us, notices (while protecting Ackbar) that storm troopers are trying to break into the room with torches. Ackbar orders us to fight our way to the command center. Vek shoots the Dark Jedi in the face with a Destiny Point, doming him in the head and quasi-breaking his dark mask, showing his mad eyes from within. I take some serious hits from the Dark Jedi as Cal ignores my advice to flee and throws a grenade into the crowd, killing off a few of the last remaining storm troopers. Vek shoots another officer hard in the chest, and he’s on his last legs. Stormtroopers have finally breached the room where Failsafe is protecting Ackbar, and it tosses a thermal detonator through the hole in the door, completely vaporizing the whole squad trying to enter the room as Ackbar continues to wipe the base data. I hit the Dark Jedi hard with my vibro-axe and retreat to the elevator (next to Vek) as his Force Lightning washes over me. Failisafe throws another missile into the corridor, destroying another squad; he has also lost his Russian accent and starts cussing out Ackbar for being so slow. Ackbar tells him he needs to be wiped. The stormtroopers start trying to carry Cal’s body away (for all appearances dead), throwing me into a rage, so I charge the Dark Jedi and slam my Vibro-Axe into his head, ending his existence. Vek moves up with me and shoots the now-retreating storm troopers (the dark jedi’s death spooked them), ending another life. The last remaining storm trooper runs away as I grab Cal’s body. Vek smartly grabs the Lightsaber crystal from the Dark Jedi as we all make our way back into the turbolift.

Vek brings Cal back to life in the turbolift as my shields recharge. We make our way to Failsafe and Ackbar in the Command Control Center. At this point Failsafe has single-handedly wiped out three squads by himself with its heavy weaponry in the narrow corridors leading to the Command Center. Glad it’s on our side. We grab Ackbar and Pollack and we all head to the Escape Pods and we all flee into the darkness of space, wondering at our future.

(All aboard the “S.S. Escape Pod”...Fuck.)

5/22/2021 “Life is a Suicide Mission”

As we float in space, we run into the giant floating space text that belongs to the beginning of all star wars episodes.

Ackbar is glad to see we all made it except for Pollard, who was just behind us but is no longer with us. We’re currently in an asteroid field, which is dangerous, since we are all out of power now in our Lifepod. I try to get with Failsafe to repower the pod and a quick scan of the computer console seems to indicate that it’s a software issue, so Failsafe seems to take it upon itself since I have no real ability to work with computers. As Failsafe touches the console, it becomes clear that we have plenty of power and everything works but the lifepod has no source of locomotion (or more specifically, used it all up to jettison itself from the base). Failsafe briefly considers sending out an SOS, but Imperials are in the area so we put the idea on the backburner. I look around the Lifepod and find a survival pack stored in the back. The Lifepod has no sensors so we cannot figure out where we are or where we are going. As we are deliberating our course of action, we hear a voice from our internal computer synthetic voice announcing that we are being boarded.

Ackbar is convinced it’s the Vespine while Vek is convinced that it is Imperials. Regardless, we get ready for a fight or rescue. We hear the sounds of a ship docking outside and several dozen Verpine board our Lifepod, lead by Siskafoo. Nobody has seen Pollard. We all enter the larger craft piloted by the Verpine, and I grab the survival pack before we leave the “Deathsled”.

+Survival pack

-Lifepod

(Space rations.)

We’re on a Verpine transport (not a battleship). We head to the bridge and see dozens of Verpine commanding away. Ackbar enters the captain’s chair and orders us to head to Shanapole Station nearby. The entire sector is under Imperial blockade, mainly near the asteroid station we just evacuated. We are underway for 15 minutes. Communications have gone dark with the asteroid station we were planning to head to. Ackbar says that unfortunately he was unable to finish erasing all the data, which is dangerous, since the Imperials can get the research data if we leave them alone. We head to a meeting room to discuss options. We find a super aged Verpine in the room waiting for us named Jurfel. He seems to be an important dignitary from the Verpine homeworld.

(Jerfel seems to be the Leader Caste of the Verpine race.)

Jurfel starts a powerpoint presentation with his holoprojector. Apparently the Verpine, as a race, have just been threatened by the Imperials to either submit or die. They have decided to join the Rebellion. The Imperials have surrounded the Verpine planet with capital ships, but there is a flaw in the blockade which he points out. There is only a single frigate in one of the sectors we could break through. He opines that we should break back into the research station, which everyone agrees is a suicide mission. It’s our only option aside from full retreat, which strategically is bad.

(“Life is a suicide mission.” - Abraham Lincoln..)

Failsafe asks about the Miss Adventure and Siskafoo mentions that our ship has gone back to the research station. Failsafe asks if we can rig an asteroid to explode near their fleet. Trying to fling an asteroid into their fleet with tractor beams would create a blip on their sensors theoretically, making the plan too risky. Great idea though.

The final plan is to steal the three B-Wings, the Miss Adventure, and the armed Transport owned by Jurfel that is currently on the asteroid base, since they are crucial (the B-Wings at least) for breaking the blockade of the Vespine homeworld. We have heated debates on how we can accomplish this. We get a map showing where the ships are on the base. Mid-argument, Ackbar is inspired: he figures out a way to explode the research station. The final plan: Stealth onto the station, set explosives to explode in 30 minutes. In those 30 minutes we steal the 3 B-Wings and the Miss Adventure (and maybe the Transport), blowing up the capital ship hovering near the research station in the process. We receive supplies:

+6 cubes of detonite

+3 timers

+Flight Suits

We lock and load and then head to the medbay to get worked on a bit; we’re still beat up from our last battle and haven’t slept a wink. Gav and the Medbot work on us for a bit, repairing our flesh. The plan is to use Solarsails to stealth up to the base ( a type of dangerous silver-surfer like mode of transportation).

(Solarsails are like this, but in space.)

The solarsails can hold up to 4 people. We decide to bring ourselves, plus Siskafoo and 2 extra pilots. The B-Wings can each be piloted by 2 people, so we bring some extras to fill in the slots. Just before we are about to depart, Ackbar pulls aside Cal (the current commanding officer since Iifa is gone) and asks him to fulfill a secondary mission: pull out any hostages that we can, especially Pollard.

The mission is as follows, according to priority:

Set the charges on the generator to destroy the base
Recover the B-Wings

Recover the hostages, particularly Lieutenant Pollard

Use the B-Wings to destroy the capital ship near the research station
Recover the Solarsails in the Miss Adventure. Those things are cool. We can pretend they went missing. (Self-assigned by Arvor)

Solarsail #1 crew: Cal (pilot), me, Siskafoo, Verpine NPC Test Pilot for B-Wing

Solarsail #2 crew: Vek (pilot), Gav, Failsafe, Verpine NPC Test Pilot for B-Wing

We board our solarsails and wonder how the hell they convinced us to do this suicide mission yet again. After 20 minutes of ridiculous and reckless flying, we stealthily make our way back to the research station. Vek picks up a probe droid that happened to meander near us, and it is heading toward the Verpine fleet. As soon as it comes into range, we all open fire and destroy it summarily. We continue on, hoping they ignore it.

Miss Adventure and B-Wings are in Hangar Bay #2 (No. 23 on the map). We discuss entry points as we discover incoming TIE Fighters on our scanners. We are 10 minutes out from the research station. 1000 meters away from us on our 2 O’Clock is an asteroid storm if we are crazy enough to try and lure them in. Failsafe opines that we pull our sails down and use inertia and stealth to float into base and we all collectively agree.

Cal and Vek roll like a boss and the TIE Fighters fly right by like we are a ghost. We decide to split up: Solarsail #1 will go through the Verpine tunnels to set the det charges. Solarsail #2 will enter the damaged hangar bay #2 with the Miss Adventure and the B-Wings.

We break off from each other. SS#2 (“Team Awesome”) sees, in the hangar, the Miss Adventure and the B-Wings along with 40 or so troops. There’s a makeshift shield keeping the atmosphere within, as the hangar bay is heavily damaged.

SS#1 (“Team Mediocre”) rounds the asteroid after breaking with the other sail. Our NPC Pilot’s name is Boopoo. Cal barely lands the solarsail. Siskafoo finds a latch to the secret blast doors. It leads to the hothouse tunnels aka their living quarters.

Team Awesome decides to execute a complex plan involving using det charges to distract the army of stormtroopers along with some computer slicing to lower the shields holding gravity/oxygen in the damaged landing bay. Gav and Vek are on the Eastern Side of the hangar bay mouth with Failsafe on the opposite side, setting up explosives. Failsafe opens fire onto the troops with his missile launcher, immediately ending the lives of a group of stormtroopers. This grabs 80% of the troops’ attention and they move towards Failsafe. Group Awesome rolls initiative.

Team Mediocre takes a loong climb down the ladder into the living quarters, which is eerily silent. It’s damp and dark and cold cavern - the Verpine love it. Siskafood recommends us to go through an air duct and we agree. We come outside through another set of caverns for a long long time and we finally arrive just outside of area 1. We successfully avoid a stormtrooper patrol and make our way towards 13.

(Our path of infiltration. We eventually go to the right after avoiding some stormtroopers.)

In the meantime, Team Awesome is located here:

(Failsafe is yellow along with his det charge. The rest of the group is blue. They are in the damaged Hangar Bay #2)

Vek run-stealths towards the Miss Adventure as a dozen stormtroopers head towards Failsafe’s position, which is just outside the shielded hangar (in space). Failsafe is tossing ‘nades and autofiring as much as he can to draw fire screaming “YIPPEE KAYAY MOTHERFUCKAS” and his metal feet keep it gripped to the wall.

(Failsafe draws attention.)

Gav also moves towards the ship and miraculously does well on his stealth check.

(How? The dude is as quiet as a marching band.)

Back to Team Mediocre, we successfully avoid another stormtrooper patrol and head towards 13. As we go by the Repulsor Beam Controls, I ask Siskafoo if they are worth disabling, when we discover 4 hidden Imperial officers who were hiding in the corner. One tries to run, so Cal punches him in the throat. One of the Imperial techs says “Don’t shoot!” so I train my gun on him and throw my cuffs at him and tell him to cuff himself. Boohoo and Siskafoo aim their guns at our prisoners as well and they follow suit with more cuffs.

Team Awesome is boarding the Miss Adventure. Vek runs headlong into a Quarren and they both draw at the same time, but Vek shoots first; his dart hits him in the throat. Vek kicks the blaster out of his hand. It appears to be the Quarren that stole the Miss Adventure.

(The Quarren’s future looks grim.)

Outside, Failsafe continues to launch missiles into the stormtroopers and takes cover on the outside of the asteroid, walking with his magnetic feet. At this point Failsafe is a veritable tornado of death.

Team Mediocre works together to bind the techs together. After a quick suggestion on my part, Boohoo (our NPC) volunteers to stay behind and launch asteroids at the capital ships (and probably die in the ensuing explosion). What a heroic NPC. He will very briefly always be remembered. We find the Generator and I take my time carefully setting the det charges while Siskafoo looks over the surveillance system to find our hostages. He notices 100+ storm troopers heading towards the hangar bay where Team Awesome is having their battle.

Meanwhile, at Team Awesome, Vek makes his way towards the cockpit to find Annie, unconscious and starting to go cold. But, she’s still alive. Vek screams for Gav, our combat medic. Failsafe continues to unleash missiles into the army of stormtroopers. Gav grabs a medkit from the medbay and heads towards Annie, and does emergency first aid and she comes back to life.

Back at Team Mediocre, Cal tries to Use Computer to access the security systems in the building to lock down the stormtroopers on the way to hangar bay #2. He successfully does an emergency override and closes all of the blast doors on the way to Hangar Bay #2.

(All of the red is the stormtroopers trying to get into the second hangar bay. Cal stops them with his computer hacking.)

I successfully set the det charges as Siskafoo releases all of the hostages and directs them towards the caves, where we plan to meet them. The plan, now, is to get everyone through the cave system and rendezvous with the other group before the whole asteroid goes up.

In Team Awesome, Vek powers up the Miss Adventure and directs a Verpine (named Blurp?) to the guns. Failsafe uses a Destiny point to avoid the barrage of pretty much all of the stormtroopers. He then attempts to move directly over the B-Wing that he is currently above (he’s walking on the ceiling with his magnet feet) and successfully acrobats himself on top of the closest B-Wing. Mid-air he activates his det charges, killing another large group of stormtroopers.

(Failsafe, unleashing hell on the stormtroopers below.)

Meanwhile, Gav is checking out a still unconscious Annie and there is a blaster fire hole through her chest, shot through the back. He’s done the best he can do for now so he heads for the other gun turret on the Miss Adventure.

Cal leads Team Mediocre as we attempt to stealthily make our way to the Verpine tunnels. 20 Verpine and 4 Humans await us at the entrance. Lieutenant Pollard is among them and he looks gravely injured. Everyone was tortured for information. Cal tries to give him first aid but fails horribly and just makes it worse. “I’ll take that as a win” Cal says as I grab Pollard’s body and carry it with me. We arrive at the ladder to the surface. Siskafoo says he’s going to stay behind while we go grab the Miss Adventure since we can’t take everyone with us. We promise we will be back as we race back to the second hangar bay to meet up with our compatriots.

6/5/2021 “Proper Use of Electricity Does Not Leave a Mark”

Failsafe enters the B-Wing he is currently riding as the Miss Adventure blinks into life with Vek at its helm. Meanwhile, Cal and I are barely making our way to the hangar bay on the solarsail with a shaky Pilot Check from Cal (eta 60 seconds to the hangar bay). Vek gets on the Miss Adventure’s PA system and orders Gav get onto one of the gun turrets and their Verpine pilot to get ready to air-drop onto one of the B-Wings. Vek then uses the tractor beam to drag one of the B-Wings along with them as they abscond from the hangar bay. This plan gets a kink when the Verpine pilot complains that air dropping is not one of its trained functions, but Vek orders him to do it anyway (“Do it for the rebellion.”)

As this happens, Cal and I come barreling through the hangar bay entrance, knocking over droves of Imperial Stormtroopers as our solarsail crashes into the hangar. Cal and I sort of tumble awkwardly out of the now-ruined solarsail and hobble towards one of the B-Wings. Cal pilots while I take the guns.

(Cal and I are knocking everything over as the Solarsail crashes into the hangar bay.)

Vek rolls garbage for piloting the Miss Adventure so we hear screeching noises as he runs the ship’s edges into the hangar bay walls a few times (Grant rolled two 1s to pilot). I say “We just paid off the loans for that!” over the comms. Vek pilots so bad that the Verpine trying to enter the B-Wing misses the drop and starts taking blaster fire as he breaks his ankle; he looks pretty damn hurt but he makes it to the cockpit. What a champ. As Cal and I enter the last B-Wing, I let Vek know that we need a pickup for our rescued hostages back at the tunnel entrance.

(Vek’s piloting of the Miss Adventure leaves much to be desired.)

Pilots

=====

B-Wing: Failsafe, Verpine NPC with a broken ankle, Cal

Miss Adventure: Vek

The Miss Adventure leads the three B-Wings out to the tunnel entrance. A few seconds later, we arrive at the entrance to the tunnels. Vek deploys the umbilical cord and contacts Siskafoo to let him know that the cavalry has arrived. Twenty some odd people enter the Miss Adventure over what feels like a long time. In the meantime, the Verpine Boohoo lobs asteroids at ships attempting to intercept us from the Repulsor Beam Control Room. We enter light speed as we watch the base explode in the distance (and the heroic Boohoo with it). Just before we enter lightspeed we hear congratulations for a successful mission from Ackbar over the radio.

We arrive at the local Rebellion fleet. We see an Imperial Raider in the distance harassing the Rebellion craft; that is our target.

(The space battle begins.)

We are far apart, so all of us start going full out to pull into battle range with the Sargantuan (the Imperial Raider).

We all take turns launching Proton Torpedoes from our B-Wings and the Miss Adventure. After a few volleys back and forth, we start denting the Imperial Raider’s shields. We’re like a crowd of bees surrounding an eagle, but we’re starting to weaken it.

Failsafe keeps yelling at Ackbar over the comms to run away (apparently his orders from Mon Mothma are to protect him). Eventually, working together we manage to whittle down the Imperial Raider to the point where it’s shields are down and it catches fire. We receive orders from Ackbar to make a hyperspace jump since “We need those B-Wings to survive!” As he mentions this, we hear the Imperials over the comms: “Rebel scum! I am Admiral Bane Nothos!” and he proceeds to give generic threats to our existence, and some very specific ones to Admiral Ackbar. We all start to retreat as the Imperial ship continues to fire upon us.

Everyone flees except Failsafe, which stays behind to do another round of damage. He gets hit with a volley of fire back and forth until Failsafe also punches the hyperspace jump button. Before he leaves, Vek selects the slowest hyperspace speed, making his journey longer for some reason.

We are attempting to rendezvous with our main fleet; the Rebellion is a homeless fleet of ships right now. Everyone but Vek is going to take 3 days to reach said fleet; Vek and the Miss Adventure will take 6. Cal and I go into hypersleep while Failsafe chooses to stay awake and talk to its B-Wing.

(Failsafe and the B-Wing become friends.)

On the Miss Adventure, Siskafoo tells Vek that he will organize the Verpine rescuees as Vek orders for our captive Quarren to a room with a lot of ambient starship noises and some suspicious medical equipment and open electrical wires. Struggling to wake up, the Quarren is shot by Vek again with another dart before he can become fully conscious. After the Verpine drag Salem into a restraint chair, Vek remains behind alone in the room with the traitorous Quarren.

Vek quickly strips the Quaren naked, blindfolds him and attaches an EKG to his vital points while the latter is under heavy restraints. (I think we know now why Vek selected the slower hyperspace). The Quarren struggles as he awakens: “Who are you? Where am I?” Vek immediately shocks him with the exposed electrical wires.

Vek masquerades as an Imperial Officer with a clipped High Imperial. Vek accuses Salem of double crossing the Empire. He alleges this would be natural as he is “alien scum”. Vek begins to shock him over and over during his interrogation, making sure to watch the EKG to ensure that Salem is never in danger of immediate death. Sometimes he shocks him just for fun. This continues for five days.

(Vek goes to town on Salem Glick.)

In their time together, Vek gets the Quarren’s story. Salem Gleck despises Ackbar and his dreams for a united Mon empire on their home planet. He hates Ackbar’s race, the Mon Calamari. Salem has been sending reports to Bane Nothos even before he joined the Rebellion. Three days ago he alerted Nothos of our activities just before stealing the Miss Adventure.

On day 5, after he’s finished with the interrogation, Vek tells Salem has done well but he’s slated for a clean execution: “simply because you’re alien scum.” As Salem screams in both protest and pain, Vek sedates him. On Day 6, Vek wakes Salem up with his original, non-High Imperial voice: “We were able to save you from the Imperials! They were going to kill you! Admiral Ackbar himself ordered your rescue. He said you were one of his best men!” The Quarren is visibly distraught. Vek says “We heard there was a traitor. You didn’t notice anyone acting suspicious, did you?” Salem is starting to tremble in fear and rage at this point and asks to go to the bathroom, furtively looking for an escape pod. As soon as he gets close enough to activate the escape pod, Vek darts him again, moments away from freedom.

(Vek allows his prisoner to have a taste of freedom, before taking it away.)

As the rest of us arrive at the Rebel Fleet, Ackbar greets us with a “Bantha Pudu!” and cheers us on a successful mission. Lietenant Pollard tells us that he’s surprised we survived that suicide mission; we tell him most of our missions are like that. When we meet again on the main frigate, General Solo tells Failsafe (who is attempting to hug him) that he’s the weirdest droid he’s ever encountered and that he is giving his command to the closest officer he can find, which in this case is Vek, who happens to be standing a few feet away. As he leaves, Han Solo whispers to Vek that “he’s your problem now.” Failsafe looks like he’s changing targets to Vek, so Vek says “What's that over there, Failsafe?” and proceeds to stealth away before Failsafe can engage him in any sort of social interaction. He rolls high on his stealth and is successful in his escape.

Vek goes to hand Ackbar a heavily edited reel of Salem Glick’s confessions. Ackbar is terribly disappointed in Salem’s treachery and orders Salem to be brought to the brig. As Vek drags Salem Glick to the brig, the latter is screaming in confusion: “What's happening? Reality doesn’t make sense any more! Why am I going to prison?!” and Vek whispers to him “because you’re a traitor” as he throws him into his cell.

Meanwhile, Mon Mothma orders me to her personal office. I’m being awarded the Alliance Medal of Honor, which will be publicly awarded to me the next day. I’m thrilled, in a hollow bittersweet way. So many people have died; I’ve just been lucky.

Vek recommends the NPC B-Wing Pilot for a commendation for piloting in a situation that it was untrained for with a broken ankle. After hearing about this, I do the same for the Verpine that stayed behind on the asteroid base to provide cover fire for the “Battle of the Asteroids” as it is now being called.

Failsafe, in the time during hyperspace, became good friends (and maybe more) with the B-Wing it was piloting. He begs the higher command to let it stay on the Miss Adventure. The request remains in limbo for now.

I ask to keep one of the solarsails in the Miss Adventure. The requisition goes through.

+Solarsail in the Miss Adventure

Vek, because “all this revenge makes me want more revenge” seeks out Elo Vanden’s (the Shockboxer lady’s boss that screwed us over a while back) fate on our pirated HoloNet signal and apparently he’s imprisoned on the mines of Kessel due to insider trading. His funds were seized by the Empire and he was given a life sentence. Vek sends him some flowers.

Vek and I look into buying a new groundcar for the Miss Adventure since the last one was eaten by a Krayt Dragon. We haven’t decided yet on what to buy. But it will have a flamecannon.

The next day, pomp and circumstance abounds as I am being awarded the highest honor that the Alliance can give. I am awarded it in person by Mon Mothma after a long speech regarding my life as an escaped slave and the entirety of my awesome Rebellion activities (she sorta sugarcoats my career as a smuggler). She called my Rebellion career “impeccable” as I’m showered with applause like at the end of every Adam Sandler movie. During the course of me receiving the award, we all watched this youtube video which is an example of how the ceremony is conducted.

As we walk back to our quarters, Vek casually mentions that “If you use electricity properly, it never leaves a mark.” I look at him confused, but figure random thoughts are just an aftereffect from all the drugs he’s done.

6/19/2021 “Gav’s Adventure”

(Notes tonight will be told from the perspective of Gav Glitterstim)

Intro scene:

We find ourselves trapped in the brig of a freshly crippled Star Destroyer.

Background info: Walex Blissex was the engineering genius who created the Victory class Star Destroyer for the Galactic Republic, which the Empire perverted into their weapons of war to rule with an iron fist. Walex disappeared and went into hiding at the rise of Palpatine’s Empire, until the Rebel Alliance formed. Walex joined the Rebels, but his daughter married an Imperial Governor and continued to design for the Empire. Much later, a message goes out that she is dying, and Walex Blissex is determined to see his daughter one last time.

Though this is an obvious trap, he is not deterred. We are volun-told to be his armed escort, as we are accustomed to suicidally desperate missions.

We meet on Kwenn space station, where his daughter is actually present, however the trap quickly devolves into a firefight. We are all stunned into unconsciousness, and captured.

We are taken off separately, questioned and tortured individually for days on end, losing all track of time. Walen is kept separate from us.

--- Present time ---

At some unknown time later, we are all together in the brig when the Star Destroyer is caught by an attack of some kind, as we can feel the massive impacts and explosions that rock the ship.

The lights go out, and we hear the unmistakable sound of atmosphere venting into space somewhere not far away.

With the power out, the prison door bars have no energy field. Failsafe gropes around for the door controls, but they are unresponsive.

I grab at the door bars and give them a tug, but completely fail to get a decent purchase. Even under that slight effort, it budges, giving me some hope, and I shout for help. Vek applies a tiny bit more force to the door, and it swings free.

Cal thoughtfully grabs me to guide me in the pitch black darkness. Gives me some nostalgia for the old “nut to butt” days of basic training.

The cell block seems to be a circular wrap-around, and the darkvision-people quickly peek around in other cells to look for Walex Blissex, as well as a gear locker. Failsafe to the right, everyone else to the left.

Never split the party? ALWAYS split the party.

Failsafe sees what looks like an unconscious or possibly dead body resembling Walen in one of the deepest cells.

Rushing in to check the body, Failsafe gets zapped by an unnoticed Imperial torture droid.

Back with the rest of the group, we’re making our way along when I hear someone coming, and hiss a quick alert. “Someone’s coming!”

Arvor uses his magnetic feet to spider his way straight up the wall like some kind of creepy half-Talz monster, while carrying Vek. Cal and I slide into a cell quickly, holding the door apparently (but not completely) closed. A small squad of Stormtroopers and Imperial Officers stride quickly past us.

Failsafe is engaged in combat with the interrogation droid, and manages to give it a solid metallic punch right in its spherical guts. The combat droid scoops up the pieces quickly, and stashes it in his chest compartment.

As we slide around towards the exit and reach near central processing, we see a pair of troopers guarding the turbolift door carrying glow sticks, and an officer trying to manipulate a panel.

Failsafe merges into the shadows of the cell as the patrol comes by, and checks that Walen is still in the cell.

Arvor’s creepy spider-talz action slides along the ceiling to drop on top of the patrolling stormtroopers, just as they turn around and point their glow rods at Cal and I menacing them from the darkness. The sickening sound of snapping bone fills the air as one of them is instantly crushed, and the other starts firing wildly into the darkness.

As soon as Failsafe hears shots, he slings the limp Walen Blissex over his shoulder and heads in the other direction.

Seeing an opening, I rush in on the wild firing trooper with a hard punch to the head. Vek slides in with his own melee attack to try and suppress the trooper.

(Grappling is super easy in this game)

Arvor berserks his way over to the still standing trooper with a flying kick that pins the trooper to the ground. Just then, the other troopers come running down the corridor and begin firing, poor Arvor takes a smoking hail of blaster fire.

Failsafe, coming from the opposite direction, tosses something at one of the firing troopers, hitting him in the head that dazes him briefly. I quickly snatch the blaster rifle out of the hand of the pinned trooper, while Vek head stomps him, and Cal dives for the other standing trooper in a failed attempt to knock him off balance.

His pinned target going limp, Arvor roars an intimidating challenge to the remaining, and skitter-charges up the wall, going for the next target, and landing with a vicious claw that guts him like a fish. The final remaining trooper is shaken to his core, and fires wildly missing completely.

Two new troopers pop up from behind us, scoring hits in my back. Snapping around quickly, I take aim and blow the head off one of them. Vek is nice enough to slap a First Aid patch into my wound in the meantime.

Arvor continues with his impression of a horrifying spider monster, charging along the wall to dive into the other trooper, the force of his leap thrusting his claws through the chest armor and pulling out his heart, dripping gore.

Everyone starts arming up as much as they can from the fallen troopers, but the loose officer pops out from around the corner to take a pot shot at Arvor. I move quickly up to snap a rifle shot at the officer, and Cal follows behind me to drill him with a follow up shot. The officer begins to beg for his life, but Arvor rockets into him, ripping him apart.

Loot:

4x Helmet packages

4x E-11 Blaster Rifles

4x Utility belts

Blaster pistol

Code cylinder

In the ensuing calm, a quick check of Walen indicates he’s alive and stable, but just barely hanging on. We dress him out in some stormtrooper armor to give him some mild protection as we carry him onwards. Checking over the panel the officer was playing with, Arvor and Failsafe manage to find that there are no physical problems, just a lack of power.

Using some power packs, the terminal is powered up, and verified that the Miss Adventure is not on the ship, but some Lambda shuttles are. The terminal activation draws some attention, and a comm hails the brig area. Cal responds with a casually practiced deceit, and it seems we are able to assuage any suspicion for the moment.

Settling that we’d better get moving, we move over to the dead turbolift. Arvor and I pull the doors open with some effort, and we find the blackness of an open void inside the tube.

Between the cables from the utility belts, and the magnetic feet on various robotic legs, we quickly weave a zipline/bridge to get across the gap. Failsafe carries the comatose engineer across.

(Blissex is Whitney Houston in this scenario)

Another explosion rocks the ship just as we reach the far side.

----------

Elsewhere…. The bridge crew of the Subjugator indicates that they are about to make a tactical retreat while leaving behind some sort of nasty surprise.

----------

(Our proposed route to the shuttle hangar)

We head upwards through the tubes to reach the deck level where we might be able to hijack a shuttle. The climb is a grueling test of endurance, and some of us barely make it, but none of the mishaps end lethally. Finally, we make it to the set of doors we’re looking for.

Vek manages to somehow achieve some level of freakish strength and pry the currently powered and operational turbolift doors open.

Walex Blissex wakes up and starts conversing with us more. A quick argument leaves us feeling like his implications are correct that we might not make it out if he doesn’t get to a computer and shut everything down, however he might be willing to sacrifice us all for the sake of his daughter…

We decide to find a nearby computer panel, and head around a corner. Opening the doors reveal a raging inferno, so we quickly head back in another direction.

The comms crackle to life, and the captain of the ship announces what sounds like a suicide bomb message. All non-essential personnel are to evacuate, and any ships that get close enough to bombard will find a “nasty surprise.”

Walen’s computer work reveals a surveillance cam where we see his daughter working at the central core. He traces out a route to the central core that includes an operational turbolift. Vek finds some additional medpacs and an exceptional quality flight suit that I quickly pull on.

We move out again, and start hustling down the stairs. Walen slows down quickly, and Arvor scoops him up. At the bottom of the 50 flights of stairs, we reach powered-down sections of the ship again. We pry open the unpowered doors and continue moving along.

We divert past a burning section of the ship, and encounter a terminal that is powered up despite the surrounding area being completely dead. Walen digs into it quickly to check on things, revealing that the ship is dying, but all remaining power is being routed to the engines in a self-destruct within 3 hours.

Walex Blissex is determined that he can modify the self-destruct to explode early, surprising the remaining crew, but we may have to fight through all of them to get there. We currently only have 4 Medpacs if it all goes horribly wrong...

7/3/2021 “I Feel Like Wailing on Walen”

We are heading down the corridors with sweat beading down our foreheads. Wallen Blissix has no combat experience, making us all question his command as he fidgets uncomfortably in his imperial stormtrooper armor. Vek is extra shaky from the lack of drugs and looks super emaciated in his stormtrooper armor. I am naked as the day I am born and covered in blood from squeezing the heart out of that last imperial trooper. Cal looks bedraggled in his prison clothes. Gav looks somewhat better than the rest of us in his pilot suit and blaster carbine. We all have the exposed wires from the helmet packages from the storm trooper helmets so we can surveil their communications, but we have no communications of our own.

Suddenly an explosion rocks the ship again, so either the engine is starting to fail or we are under pirate attack again on the ship. We enter the engine room to find an open tear into the vacuum of space, and we watch on as the air is visibly thinning and freezing. Wallen Blissex closes the door in a rush and says “we’ll have to take the long way around.” I thought we were taking the long way around! Now we have to backtrack as he leads us through a complex series of corridors. We proceed toward the core of the engine room. As we come around the corner, we find a courier droid that runs away as it spots us: Vek and Cal both fire with Quick Draw and quickly destroy it before it can get away.

(The Schematic of the Star Destroyer. We are heading towards the orange square.)

We continue along the dying star destroyer. Suddenly storm troopers ambush us out of nowhere. Roll initiative.

(Stormtroopers ambush us outta nowhere!)

Vek domes a trooper as Gav yells for Wallen to get down as he downs another. I try to draw fire from the rest of the storm troopers as I charge them. Cal smokes another trooper and takes his place under cover. Vek grabs the missile launcher from a dead trooper and aims it towards a group at the back and fires, unsuccessfully.

(We take turns handling Brett’s new gun.)

Gav snipes another as he moves into cover. A bunch of stormtroopers fire at me but fail miserably because I’m a rockstar, but Blissex goes down immediately from a shot to the gut.

Vek shoots another grenade off right into the middle of the trooper cluster, downing a whole crowd. Gav rushes to Wallen Blissex and revives him with a first aid kit. Storm troopers surround me in an attempt to try to kill me, to no avail.

(The storm troopers are trying to kill me, but I have the twitch reflexes of a cat after a 6-pack of Redbull.)

(Gav and Cal hold the rear.)

(Vek’s successive grenade launches briefly down the lights as we fight on.)

Vek cackles maniacally then unleashes another grenade from his launcher, destroying another pair of troopers. As the smoke clears, we realize that we are victorious.

+More rocket ammo

+Rocket launcher (another aside from Vek) -> me (1 magazine with 6 rockets)

Heavy blaster rifles x 2 -> 1 to me, 1 to someone else

Vek gives the other rocket launcher to Gav. Blissex has a thousand yard stare as he watches us pick through the corpses. He keeps asking us how much we get paid for our job, and says repeatedly that it is not enough. Vek casually shoots a dying storm trooper who was struggling to breath through the blood clogging his throat to Blissex’s horror. Captain Colaft(?) taunts us over the PA system, making us aware that he is watching us. No doubt he has future ambushes in store.

(Wallen Blissex gets a taste of our daily life.)

We enter what appears to be a repair facility. As we enter the deserted shop, it appears it was abandoned mid-use. Vek cobbles together a Tool Kit from the remains. Suddenly, the doors close. A familiar voice comes over the comms system as smoke enters the room: “Welcome to the first lesson: stacking the deck.” Captain Colaft taunts us as the room fills with dioxin gas. Everyone goes down the condition track. Vek starts trying to cut through the door with his cobbled together Tool Kit. Gav starts shoulder slamming the door as I join Vek in soldiering the door open. Cal is frantic, but doesn’t know what to do. The next moment, I go unconscious from the gas. Gav slams into the door in desperation and the door bursts open and they drag me and Blissex from the room. Vek tries to weld the doors shut again and they stumble away.

I come to, but I am permanently down 1 down the condition track until I get medical attention; I throw up out of my proboscis, which is as gross as it sounds. It’s like a firehose with chunks. Conveniently, Blissex points out a close room that is a likely med bay. It is closed shut hard but we force it open. 12 bacta tanks are in the room, 3 of them shattered. Injured imperials are everywhere. The medical droid approaches: “There are too many injured here! You will have to wait.” Vek (dressed like an Imperial Officer) immediately gives the droid the stolen officers’ code cylinder and commands him to help us “Priority Alpha 1”. He orders the droid to look at me; in return, the droid makes a racist command. Vek tells him to stop being a dick and memory wipes the droid. Gav finds a surgery kit and heals me during all of this, moving me up the condition track back to -1. Vek starts taking too many painkillers, finally feeling whole again; Wallen Blissex notices and says “I saw you do that!...I want some too.” to which Vek says “First one is always free..” with a smile. Cal disables the medical droid to prevent it from healing the troopers while I go on to cobble together some Light Battle Armor (vacuum sealed). Cal and Blissex find sealed helmets along the way. As we leave, I seal the door behind us with the Tool Kit borrowed from Vek, trapping inside the injured Imperial Troopers with the now-disabled medical droid.

(It’s not our fault that the Imperial Storm Troopers are injured. This time.)

The camera pans to a heavily damaged Mon Calamari cruiser. The stoic figure of a Mon Calamari Captain Tori appears. When asked for status, the crew discuss the Subjugator (the ship we are on) and when it is reported that the ship is crippled, he orders an attack.

Walex Blissex leads us through the bowels of the ship. It is a labyrinth of bridges and confusing corridors. Fires and sprinkler systems go crazy. We finally make our way to the engine central core.

(Illustration of the Engine Core.)

We find ourselves upon a huge cylindrical shaft. Giant beams of light criss cross across the room. A circular console controls the entirety of the engine core’s features. Walex Blissex: “The central core! All the energy provided by the engines goes through here!” If he can get to the control console, he can alter the self-destruct. We see Imperial technicians across the way. As we discuss our strategy, a small mouse droid notices us and tries to get away, but Cal shoots it before it can alert other forces; but the technicians notice us with the blaster noise. Vek threatens them with a grenade launcher at a distance as one of the technicians pushes a button that does...something. Gav collapses the other entry door with a series of grenades. I realize the button the technicians push was an alarm, and grab Blissex as I drag him across the bridge.

(How I feel about taking care of Blissex.)

Cal follows behind me and Vek looks to do the same until one of the engineers pushes another button, starting the bridge's retraction. Vek makes the jump...but barely, as his feet dangle into the void. Gav jumps across the gap of the receding bridge and pulls up Vek, who proceeds to run towards the engineers. But I get there first and claw one of them off the edge of the abyss, drawing fire from the rest of the technicians (all 2). Cal puts a gun to the head of one of the technicians, and with an Intimidate check “convinces” him to disable the alarm and stop retracting the bridge. The other technician is aghast at this traitorous behavior and pulls a gun only for Vek to shoot him in the head. I throw the last technician off the edge. I make bee noises at Blissex (who can’t understand me since I have no personal translator) ominously until he gets onto the console.

(Blissex better do his fuckin’ job or I will give him the evil eye.)

Blissex finds a report describing how the ship came into its current condition: it got into a fight with Rebel forces and got heavily damaged. It’s playing dead until the Alliance forces come close apparently, where it will then ambush them. As a Lieutenant in the Rebel Alliance, I cannot allow that to happen.

Then the other shoe drops: apparently Blissex cannot use a computer. Fuck! He actually designed the starships, but had someone else use the computer to input the information; specifically, his daughter. He needs someone else to run the actual keyboards and chooses Vek. Vek agrees, but says “Yes Daddy” every time he puts in a command, which disturbs Blissex immensely (and gets a chuckle out of me).

(Blissex at home.)

As they successfully hack into the system, they discover that the ship has put under a backdoor self-destruct that only Blissex, and his daughter, knew. As they discover this, over the PA system we hear the commander taunt us as the stormtroopers flood the room. Roll initiative.

(We are ambushed by Imperial Stormtroopers in the Engine Control Room.)

Cal shoots a storm trooper as I protectively draw fire near Blissex, wildly missing with my own grenade launcher (rolled a 1). Gav takes out another few troopers as Vek shoots the Commander screaming “Countermand that order!” I draw fire from nearby storm troopers as I launch a grenade at another cluster, killing them instantly. Gav shoots more troopers as he retreats behind me and downs another. The fight continues and we systematically break down their forces without too many hits.

(Gav and I protect Wallen Blissex as he tries to shut down the self-destruct sequence and hide from enemy fire.)

(Explosions rock the Engine Core as Vek and I use our grenade launchers to keep the troopers at bay.)

Cal finds a direct way to the bridge, which we believe to be the source of our troubles and the only way now to access the self-destruct sequence. I ask Vek to ask Walen (since he can’t understand Talz) if there is a communication array to contact the Rebel fleet to warn them of the upcoming ambush. It also is on the bridge. It sounds like all the roads to escaping from this situation lead to one place: the bridge of the star destroyer.

7/17/2021 “They Grow Up So Fast”

VERSUS

(We open every game with a duel.)

We discover that Lyra is the name of Walen Blissex’s daughter. We escape into an adjacent corridor, but it looks like the Empire’s forces are attempting to breach it, so Blissex runs to a nearby garbage chute: “We can escape from here! Dammit, why won’t it work…” We work together to pry open the garbage chute successfully before the door is breached; Blissex immediately jumps inside and we follow.

The slide is long. Really long. As we all slide down the chute, Vek and I have a quick conversation through the screaming and we agree that we need to arm ourselves before trying to breach the bridge. Our use of Talz frustrates Blissex, since he can only speak Basic.

(We have a conversation about armaments mid-chute.)

We land is a giant pile of recently crushed trash, on our feet without much to do. “This is no place for an officer” Vek remarks in his Imperial officer uniform. We have a serious conversation in Talz; we all agree that we need to take command and that Blissex is compromised emotionally.

(Blissex needs to calm down.)

Blissex wants help opening the trash compactor’s door and we oblige, opening the portal to one of the six power cells supplying energy to the star destroyer. It looks super dangerous; it’s also the only way out.

Cal lets Blissex know he is no longer in charge. Blissex accepts this and only asks that we don't harm his daughter, to which we agree; we want to capture her alive anyway. Vek lets us know with a Knowledge Technology check that the best way to avoid the energy in this next room is to crawl along the catwalk, which we all proceed to do until Vek falls off after a beam heads his way. He struggles with death for a moment, but we all help him up in a desperate situation.

We reach a gap in the catwalk, which Blissex immediately fails to cross. I jump across and help him live. Cal and Vek follow briefly, the latter with a nat 20 so he does a useless somersault across the gap. The doors are quickly shorted open by Blissex and we move on.

Blissex points out a door that is a likely safe room ahead of us. We agree to check the room for supplies, but we gotta get going; we don’t need to take a break. Inside, we find:

3 blasters

Blaster pistol ammo x 20

9x glow rods

3x synth rope

2 grappling hooks

8 stimpacks that give 15 temp hp

Food and water for months

We try to brainstorm on options to blow up the engines earlier, but it sounds like (with Vek’s technology check) that it would take way more explosives than we have. Cal finds a terminal, which Blissex powers up. He tries to figure out a software method of accelerating the self-destruct sequence (and also find our effects in the armory as a secondary objective). Cal is locked out of access to the former, and our affects were all sent to Coruscant since we were about to be transferred there.

(No self-destruct sequence access and no equipment. Shit.)

Cal intercepts a message from the commander: the remaining Imperial officers are trying to escape the ship in hangar G-12. Inside is a hyperdrive capable shuttle along with enough supplies for 3 months. It sounds like just the ticket: Blissex’s daughter is likely there, and since stopping this self-destruct is looking more and more hopeless, we decide to head there to intercept them and their ship. Blissex opines that we take the Droid Maintenance Bays to get there, which would theoretically avoid a lot of troopers.

We lock and load and head out. We head to a cramped corridor, which I hate since it’s way too humid and small. We travel a good distance until we hear a noise in the distance. We hear dozens of droids nearby moving...towards us. Roll initiative.

(Waves of droids appear in the distance.)

Vek lights up, autofiring into the crowd of droids. Cal unleashed a pistol shot and downs a droid. I stand in front of the group, drawing fire from the whole group of droids and getting slammed in the process, taking some major damage. Blissex stands back being a cheerleader as Cal shoots again. I continue to tank the droid group as the (relatively) one-way fight continues.

(Droids battle us in the maintenance shafts of an exploding star destroyer.)

We systematically break down the droids, except for the Heavy Welder Droid, which continues to wreak havoc amongst the group. The droid rushes Cal and Blissex as my Draw Fire fails, kicking Vek in the process. Over the next few rounds we destroy the droids and move along.

The camera zooms into a derelict ship’s bridge. Captain Coloft looks anxiously outside his viewpoint: “They’re coming” he says. A woman nearby says “Only Blissex concerns me” to which he replies “there’s no way that he and the rebels are alive”. She disagrees in a heated argument in which the woman calls out his incompetence to his darkened face. He leaves the room, convinced that we are dead. The woman says “I hope so Captain...for your sake.”

(The mysterious woman has the final word.)

Meanwhile, we move along the corridor unimpeded. As we walk through the passageway we encounter a protocol droid (female voiced) called “T3P0” and it talks about how useful it is. Blissex wants us to blast it, but Vek likes the new droid. It joins us in our egress, quickly starting an argument on directions with Blissex. Apparently there are two options: 30 seconds of zero G space with no oxygen to a direct route to the hangar bay, or a longer way with security turrets. We opine we should take the zero G method, despite Blissex’s protests

We go, following T3PO. We go through the doors, and watch as the oxygen is visibly boiling away into the vastness of space. There’s no atmosphere here holding in the oxygen. Blissex makes his way about ⅔ of the way through before he starts to stagger, in which Cal grabs him. Vek quickly opens up the locked doors on the other side with a Mechanics check and we quickly move into an area with gravity and oxygen as the doors close quickly behind us.

We enter the next room to find a crashed, likely kamikaze’d Y-Wing into the hull. The pilot and gunner and all of the mechanical components are dead. It’s also blocking our way. We climb over rather easily, mostly working to help Blissex. We move into an area of exposed superstructure. We see massive girders and jutting metal. As we move down the corridor, gravity leaves us so we leash up Blissex as we walk along on our magnetic feet and other ways to keep normal. Suddenly we are ambushed by a group of Dark Troopers, specially created droids in stormtrooper armor. Roll initiative.

(Blissex, right now.)

Cal and Vek both miss before they activate their jetpacks and rush us, blasting us with autofire. They shoot at us from outside the ship via a hole in the hull. We fire back from inside the ship, downing the Dark Troopers one at a time. We continue to shoot back and forth for a few rounds. I take some critical blows and start fading, so Blissex jams a Stimpack into my neck, throwing me into overdrive: I get a shit-eating grin on my face and autofire on all the robots. Meanwhile, Vek manages to open the door at the end of the corridor and yells “Clear! All in!” The Dark Troopers swarm me, one of them successfully grabbing me, preventing me from leaving. Vek and Cal aim at the Dark Troopers after I claw one to “death”, with mixed success. Eventually I just dodge the robots with Full Defense and run towards the exit. Vek screams “No Droids! We don’t serve your kind here!” and shuts the door. The Dark Troopers start to try to punch through the door, with visible knuckles in the metal; we decide to move on quickly.

We move quickly through dark corridors for an hour towards the hangar bays. We all take stimpacks, including Blissex. I feel like my blood is on fire and like I’ve just downed a 6-pack of Red Bulls. I could get used to this.

As we arrive at the main hangar bay entrance, we get a garbled message from Gav and Iffa. There apparently is a problem, but before they tell us what the problem is, they get cut off. My Mechanics Check says it’s from the source. We ask Blissex if there’s another entrance besides the main door in front of us, since it appears that they know we are coming. There is another entrance, but it's through a ventilation shaft that is uncomfortably short. We decide to take the indirect route and we see through the small grating a small smoke filled hangar bay. Four large objects can be vaguely seen in the smoke, which fills the hangar.

I see about 10 storm troopers patrolling the room. We decide to board the ship they are planning to escape on before they have a chance to get inside. I decide to scale the walls like spiderman to scout while the rest of the group enters the smoke, hoping to board a ship. Sticking to the wall, I discover two important things: there are two AT-STs escorting a Lambda shuttle, and one of the AT-STs has Gav and Iifa seemingly captured inside of it. I stealthily descend back into the smoke as Cal leads the rest of the group in an attempt to capture an AT-ST.

(With great magnetic feet comes great responsibility.)

Meanwhile Cal and Vek grapple some synth-rope quietly, to find Gav and Iifa inside at the top. Gav is shaking his head frantically - like it’s a trap. As soon as Vek pulls the gag out of Gav’s mouth, a holo projector hums to life: “Welcome my students to my final exam!” Colaf looks smug. He monologues for a bit like a douche. Just as he does, the other AT-ST turns towards the AT-ST that Gav and Iifa were captured in (and now also occupied by Cal and Vek) and fires. Roll initiative.

(Storm Troopers patrolling discover us during our rescue mission.)

(Ambush vs. Ambush in the Imperial Star Destroyer hangar bay as the self-destruct sequence counts down.)

Vek tries to free Gav from his restraints so he can work the weapons. I run up the other AT-ST with my magnet feet, arriving at its entrance. Cal shoves aside the still-captive Iifa (to her protests) to take control of the AT-ST’s drive function and shoots a Disabling Fire at the AT-ST I am currently riding, shutting down its weapons systems. The co-piot fires their weapons (which still work) and fuck up Vek’s AT-ST with some blaster fire via a Crit fire blaster. Vek frees Iifa on his turn.

(The storm troopers move up.)

On my turn I peel open the AT-ST’s locked hatch like a can of tuna and jump into their now-panicked cockpit (with a really lucky strength check). None of them are able to hit me as I land amongst the Imperials; Captain Coloft appears to be piloting the AT-ST of which I am now currently inside. Vek fires upon groups of Storm Troopers with his AT-ST’s missile launchers, vaporizing a red trash can which everyone knows is explosive from the video games, instantly killing 3 stormtroopers. In the cockpit of the AT-ST I claw through the sole stormtrooper protecting Captain Coloft and walk towards the latter, giving a bloody smile as I step closer. Cal fires upon the AT-ST that I have almost taken over, creating a cockpit fire. Wtf Cal.

(Vek unleashes the AT-ST grenade launchers amongst the storm troopers like Death itself.)

In the cockpit, Coloft comes at me with a vibrorapier, slashing at me. Vek quickly does some repairs on the AT-ST that they are riding and snarks some passive aggressive at Gav and Iifa: “Thanks for the help guys!” They sulk. Cal listens to my admonitions (“Quit firing at me! I almost have this AT-ST under control!”) and fires upon the group of stormtroopers coming up to us, then rams my AT-ST, knocking it over, the sonuvabitch. Captain Coloft survives and attacks me, who rolls a 1 for acrobatics to land gracefully, so he attacks me as I am fully prone. But I’m so good at using my armor that he still fails to hit me. In response, I swipe back at him and score a hit.

(Blissex and I have a primitive brawl on the surface of the now toppled-over AT-ST, the latter due to Cal’s piloting.)

Vek fires the grenade launcher from the AT-ST as Blissex is shot in the chest by a stormtrooper; Vek screams “Gav, do your job and help Blissex!” Meanwhile, still prone, I grab Captain Coloft’s ankle in a rage and pull him down to my level, pinning his ass to the cold metal plating on the ground as I scream “Someone kill this guy!” Cal rappels down the AT-ST and looks towards my fight, looking eager to join. Vek moves up with the AT-ST, firing along the way.

(Captain Coloft and I, rolling all over the hangar bay.)

Meanwhile, Captain Coloft and I are rolling around in the wreckage of the other AT-ST, clawing and stabbing each other. I score a strong claw against him and let up the Pin, standing over his prone form in a dominant fashion. Meanwhile, Cal runs up and shoots Captain Coloft in the back. Captain Coloft appears to be weakening; I knock the vibrorapier out of his hand and strangle him to death with my bare hands.

(Coloft got done savage.)

Lyra Wessex is discovered by the other group inside the other AT-ST. She is holding a thermal detonator, active and ready to blow. She pauses briefly when she sees her father, before resolving herself yet again. A giant crowd of droids runs nearby, and she disappears amongst them as she tosses the thermal detonator at Vek, Gav, and Iifa. They all dive for cover as the protocol droid T-3PO jumps onto the thermal detonator. As T-3PO says “Run!” The grenade explodes, destroying the droid, which had softened the blow of the explosion.

(The droid saves us from a thermal detonator.)

Meanwhile I search the captain and find a code cylinder and his vibrorapier.

+code cylinder

+vibrorapier

We all run onto the Lambda shuttle and flee successfully. We are contacted by Captain Tory of the rebel alliance and they intercept us as we go home.

We later read an intercepted message. Lyra Wissex successfully escaped. The bitch got away. Damnit.

When we arrive back at the rebel alliance headquarters. We are all given the rank of captain. We receive commendations from the Rebel Alliance and great adulation from Walex Blissex. We also receive a monetary award, and we are given 20,000 credits and apparently all of our stuff was found. We are ordered to enter the Star Core. Now we have to come up with our squad name.

+20,000 credits

+All our old stuff

WE NEED A SQUAD NAME FOR THE STAR CORE

8/14/2021 “Bantha Squad, Unite!”

We have entered the Star Core under the monicker “Bantha Squad”. It is one of the most renowned, elite squadrons in the Alliance. I mean...we’re level 10 now.

(“Bantha Squad” ain't no joke.)

So we no longer work exclusively together as a team, since we are just too awesome to keep together. Nowadays, a lot of our time is dedicated to training the new recruits. Cal, specifically, is training new pilots in the B-Wing. I am training new recruits how to best use armor and hand-to-hand combat. Vek is getting high (and I assume working somewhere). Gav is training combat medics and firearms training. The rebel alliance is still a homeless mobile fleet.

Timeline-wise, we are just after Empire Strikes Back.

After a long day of work, we all get back together to talk about our days. It’s been 6 months since the last mission. We talk about how we’ve been spending time. Cal has been training recruits to fly the B-Wings and, in his words, “spanking it”. In fact, he brings up “spanking it” a disturbing amount in the course of the conversation. It’s been a hard week for all of us, keeping the Rebel Alliance together. One day we receive a message: we have a meeting on our day off, early in the morning. Cal, in his room, says “that’s prime spanking time.” Cal is displeased.

(Bantha Squad remembers.)

We all wake up early in the morning on our day-off. We arrive at what appears to be an audience; General Gordon is the man who meets us. The man had worked up through the ranks since he was a boy to this current rank, all the way from the grunts. Very similar to Gav in that way. As we enter the room, General Gordon greets us: “Oh! Bantha Squad! Come on in!” We enter a smoke-filled room (he has a cigar) as he asks that we all sit down. He is reforming Bantha Squadron. There is a mission that specifically calls for our ability.

There is a ship called “Celestial” that he wants us to meet, escort and even take command of the vessel until we arrive at the end coordinates. On-board, it is carrying high-level political prisoners. Cal is the lead on this mission. He wants Cal to contact HQ the moment we get aboard the vessel.

I ask about the prisoners. There are 5, and they are highly dangerous. He can’t go into further detail due to classified information. He seems to indicate that the mission will be cake for agents of our ability (that’s already raising my hackles). Currently in command of the ship is a woman named Captain Ahab (that puts the nail in the coffin). It's a “small transport vessel”, a nebulon B Frigate; not really small by my standards. It’s expected that there will be attempts at interception. Vek is there as well. General Gordon offers us the use of two B-Wings in lieu of the MIss Adventure, and we accept on the condition that we keep the Miss Adventure. He agrees to our reasonable compromise.

(We negotiate like cats in Bantha Squad.)

The ship moving these prisoners has been harassed a lot moving these prisoners, and it is pretty damaged here and there. Captain Ahab doesn’t like the situation, but is to be trusted.

I roll a Knowledge Check and I know about Captain Ahab. She was a pirate privateer that was taken into the fold. It’s not the first time she’s lost her crew in the name of duty. She has a lot of cybernetic replacements that came into being during her service. I’ve fought her before in hand-to-hand combat and she did pretty good. Much respect.

We talk about life insurance and banking for a good amount of time. Then Andy ordered a pizza. It was good.

After a long debate we decide to take the Miss Adventure with a crew of our minions (they don’t like being called that) with both B-Wings attached to the magnetic clamps on our vessel as well. The minions I speak of are the ones we are currently training in our current fields.

Cal is bringing 2 pilots, Spongebob and Patrick; their ranks are junior officers.

Vek is also allowed to join.

I take seven ground troops with me.

Gav takes none. He didn't fight for personnel. He’s a loser.

(We bring our highly trained troops with us.)

We spend 72 hours traveling. We finally feel back at home, with the old crew back together again on the Miss Adventure. We all agree even if we die, it's better this way. I spend my time training with my weapons; Cal spends his time adjusting to his new medication that the doctor prescribed to him due to his “over spanking”; apparently he was hostialized due to his over-masturabtion and his hands were damaged and his dick bloody. It was a rough 6 months.

As we come out of hyperspace, everyone finds themselves in the cockpit in the Miss Adventure. Immediately, we see TIE Fighters screaming past our ship. Gav screams: “Everyone to the B-Wings!” Roll Initiative.

Dogfighting on either side of us as B-Wings engage the TIE Fighters. Over the intercoms we hear the Empire threatening us to identify ourselves or be destroyed. “Our next shot will not be a warning!”

An Imperial star destroyer is shown in the Sector on our scanner range. The ship we are supposed to escort is nowhere to be seen. One of our B-Wings is immediately blown up due to our late response. I recommend to Cal that we jump to hyperspace, no matter where it leads. Sensing our attempt to flee, the Star Destroyer attempts to fire on us but misses.

They attempt to damage us with more artillery fire but Cal pilots away from it. More TIE Fighters close in on our ship as D2D2 is frantically plugging in coordinates into our Nav computer from our last coordinates.

The camera focuses on the bridge of the Imperial command. The commander stands as he watches our two B-Wings be destroyed: “Lieutenant. Have you projected the Celestial’s projected jump routes?” Underling: “We have multiple choices, but we don’t know which one they took!” In return the commander orders them to capture us as we are certainly there to escort the ship they are hunting. He doesn’t want to disappoint Lord Vader.

We punch the Hyperdrive. Vek, in the maintenance bay on the Miss Adventure, watches as the hyperdrive makes a weird grinding noise that it isn’t supposed to make. As we travel through hyperspace, it looks weird, not like what we are accustomed to. We’ve never gone through hyperspace like this before.

(This is the strangest jump we have ever been on. )

Instead of the normal space that greets us when the hyperjump ends, we end up in a completely alien environment: a gray expanse with hollow points of darkness instead of stars in the environment.

WHAT THE FUCK.

Gave: “Cal?”
Cal: “Oh. Fuck.” Cal calls Vek. He needs some deathsticks to cope with the current situation. He receives only silence. Double, Fuck.

Cal runs to Ship Engineering. Vek is knocked out with a huge bump on his head; we get him into a surgical bed and Treat Injury. I look for my disciples; two of them are now dead - only 5 remain.

-2 disciples

Nothing is working: the ship sensors, the thrusters, etc. We only have 15 minutes until the ship’s core starts to fail.

Cal asks me to head over to the engines to check on what the hell is happening. I agree begrudgingly, muttering about how we’re all the same rank but because I’m an alien I’m not in charge. Meanwhile, the weird reverse-star world we find ourselves in continues to creep us out.

In the med bay, Gav stabilizes Vek, who keeps muttering “Fix the hyperspace drive…” over and over. He has brain swelling and will most likely die in 24 hours.

I take a glance at the engine: it is shot. We collided with a TIE fighter and it probably fucked us up. The damage is severe: it will take major repairs and a dry dock: it requires the following replacement parts:

Hyperdrive Motivator (very important!)

HyperCoil

Influx Capacitor

Power Coupler

Quadra-axial stabilizer

Real-space compensator

There are two spaces where we can theoretically be: mid-hyperspace, or “Otherspace”, the latter of which is only theoretical. As our instruments go haywire, we kind of assume we might be in the latter. Cal tries to run a sensor sweep with the last of the power on the Miss Adventure: clouds of charged particles move fast in front of us, blocking all vision but revealing a ship 120 sublight units to our starboard. He also jumps on the subspace radio, which is always full of chatter; it's absolutely silent.

(We are utterly alone in the universe.)

After a while, Cal encounters an Alliance channel in the abyss that is activated but emitting no sound. It’s also from the general direction of the ship to our starboard. I grab Vek’s video camera to record this historic event. I breathe heavily muttering “I’m so scared I’m so scared”.

(I record this “Otherspace” with Vek’s video camera.)

I ask Rodriguez, one of my disciples, to check the integrity of the hull (I really just want to see if he will explode or something). Apparently his space suit keeps him alive and also our ship is fucked up. He ribs the other disciples for being cowards for not going into space like him.

A Nebulon B Frigate is the ship we find when we approach the signal. Cal’s sensor sweep of the ship: “Celestial”. The ship we are looking to escort. How coincidental. Several escape pods have been jettisoned, but the cargo pod is full. The Miss Adventure is sluggish in this space. The ship does not respond when Cal tries to raise them. He reaches only silence.

The Celestial looks like she has recently been in a space battle. The Miss Adventure docks with a stellar roll by Cal (37 Pilot Check). Cal notices a crystal strand in the docking bay; these crystalline strands look completely alien and organic. I tell all my disciples to stay behind (to their relief!), but Rodriguez says: “C’mon Homes! That’s not what I signed up for! Take me along, meng!” So I do. He has a red bandana and a mini-machine gun and he has a strong latin accent.

On closer inspection of the weird crystal substance, it appears to be some sort of resin and the gravity on the ship seems off. I inspect the resin and it appears to be alive. Gav grabs a sample and he realizes that he can get better results at a facility with better analysis tools.

In the room we find ourselves, we find a locker, and comm unit that is attached to the PA, and a ladder leading down. In the locker we find:

Rations for a week

Two Evo Suits (Zero gravity suits)

Two Medpaks

One glowrod

Comm unit

As we descend the ladder, we hear a skittering noise. It is also really really dark (I HAVE DARKVISION THO). We climb down, with Rodriguez holding the rear.

The next floor down we find completely ransacked. We find a door to the ship.

With Gav’s help, I beast open the door, breaking the organic crystal things in the process. The corridor is pitch black. Webbing covers one of the doors right across from us. Hard scratches cover the webbing, like something was desperately trying to enter it.

(Something is off about this hallway.)

Rodriguez in the back: “Hey meng, I hear something over here!” He cocks his gun. “You guys run into this shit all the time, meng?!” It is at this moment I determine that I want Rodruguez to live, no matter what. He is the future.

This heavily modified Nebulon B Frigate is different from a standard layout, but the webbed room seemed to normally be a workout room/gym. Three doors remain between us and the webbed doorway.

We need spare parts for our ship and they should all be in engineering. Cal orders us to find replacement parts first before worrying about any other mission objectives. We start heading left, towards Engineering. Just as we make this decision, Gav detects weird signals over the comms; but they are meaningless (and weird) noises. I continue to use Vek’s camera to record our horror-like passage through the ship, constantly remarking “I'm scared” and “how is this real”.

Along the way, we find giant claw marks and burns into the hull of the ship. We also find pools of human blood. Gav tries to open the door in front of us when we hear a “HWAAAAAAAAAAA” down the hall behind us. Gav quickly shines his light behind him and finds...nothing. We desperately start trying to force open the door in front of us, because that is creepy as hell. The ground starts shaking. We desperately start trying to open the door with our strength and fail in our panic.

(Run for the door!)

I pull out my lightsaber and cut an Arvor shaped hole into the door. I tell Rodgriguez that I’m a Jedi and he wants to hold my Lightsaber. I tell him no.

We find a series of catwalks with smoke billowing over the area, with shattered equipment everywhere from what appears to be a hyperdrive explosion. Much like what happened to us.

We spend an hour looking around the room with a large Mechanics check on my part (39). The room is fucked from a similar situation to ours. The hyperdrive is done and none of the parts are salvageable. Gav tries to analyze how long the smoke has been around, and it appears that the smoke has only been around for about an hour - indicating the ship has only been around for about that amount of time in this weird space. The only other place that might contain the parts would be the cargo bay, which we docked next to.

Cal orders, over the radio, for 3 of our remaining 5 crew members on the Miss Adventure to go look for parts in the Cargo Bay; I ask that they leave radio comms open the entire time.

Over the radio transmission we hear a horror story as they discover the terrifying things we have seen. “Hold on what's that...I hear something...Oh MY GOD…*gun fire*...we can’t stop them…*screaming*”.

We hear more gunfire then… silence.

I demand we head back to their last known location to save them. We track back and find traces of gunfire all over the room and globs of resin on the ground...identical to the webbing. There is nobody to be found, even any parts. No blood is to be found, but a trail of new webbing is discovered.

Before moving on, I find a hypercoil in the boxes in the room.

+Hypercoil

I tell the remaining disciples to lock down the ship. They eagerly agree.

I opine that we follow the trail of webbing...my disciples might still be alive. We all agree, and it eventually leads to a door covered with webbing. We wrench the doors open. Rodriguez has grown quiet in the seriousness of the situation.

We end up in a large room. It appears to be a tech shop. Everything appears to be powered down. A human-sized lump of resin is pulsing on the wall. Gav heads toward the lump while I check the room for parts.

+Quadraxial Stabilizer

As gav pulls apart the webbing, he discovers the body of my disciple (named Secundo). He has been drained of all of his blood.

(One of my disciples...dead.)

As Rodriguez gives a blood curdling scream, we roll initiative.

Weird aliens, unlike anything we’ve ever heard of, enter the room. Two of them, to be specific.

(Weird Otherspace aliens attack us. They do not appear friendly.)

Gav opens fire, shooting it heavily, but it appears unaffected. Cal follows suit but it also looks like it is armored to energy weapons. In return, the weird aliens attack. One of the aliens’ appendages has a stinger that penetrates Gav’s suit, puncturing his ability to breath in zero G and poisoning him in the process. Rodriguez autofires in a panic as I enter a defensive stance, preparing to tank the aliens as I taunt them (unsuccessfully) to concentrate on me.

(We fight back as the aliens attack us.)

The fight devolves into a close melee with panicked autofire on other peoples parts. Eventually we defeat the two aliens, but it takes a bit of effort. They are tough as hell.

As our rifles stop blasting and I wipe off all the alien ichor, I look around to find nothing but silence and darkness.

9/11/2021 “Dead Space”

(Told from Gav’s perspective)

As the evening starts, Vek is waking up in the medbay having a nervous breakdown. As he slowly comes to, he realizes that the voices muttering feverishly in his subconscious is actually a Rebel marine pacing distractedly nearby. His first thought being, “this guy got into my stash!”

An attempt to quietly get to his feet results in Vek stumbling against a tray of medical tools, making a bit of a racket. The soldier panics with a snappy response that he won’t get murdered like all the rest! As soon as Vek makes a motion to move, Ibarra points his rifle shouting that he better not make a move. “I’m Vek and I’ll shoot your kneecap out if you don’t get that muzzle out of my face!”

Vek wins the draw and fires off a stun quickly. While Vek hits, the soldier misses, but Ibarra is still standing, so Vek makes a run for it.

As Vek makes it out of the ship away from the crazed soldier, he finds himself in the cargo bay of the abandoned (possibly haunted) Celestial. Strange sounds flutter past him as he desperately pulls a snort out of his secret pouch. “Man I needed that after all this…”

He attempts to comm the rest of Bantha Squad, but we only pick up scattered pieces of what he says. Gav is surprised that Vek is even remotely coherent and conscious.

Vek manages to tech-wizard the comm into boosting a signal and sending a full message that Ibarra has lost it. Cal tells him to stay put and we’ll be right there.

Suddenly live fire lights up inside the ship. No stun rounds, this is lethal blaster fire. Vek makes to move back inside the Miss Adventure, but again hears that hissing murderous noise and decides maybe he doesn’t actually want to go inside the ship just this moment.

Back to the rest of the group, we have just finished up the fight with the horrible spider mutant creature things. We’ve determined that the exterior carapace of the danger-spiders seems to be a chitinous almost mineral based material which may explain the ability to deflect energy weapons.

I grab a blood sample and we start making up a rapid pace back to meet up with Vek.

Vek decides to sneak back to his room and gear up. And, of course, check his stash. To his horror and dismay, his stash has been raided, leaving nothing but a stepped on death stick. He picks it up with just a tiny bit of shame. The alien hissing happens just past his ear, and without even looking Vek snapshots in that direction.

Ibarra falls over, tongue out, horrible colors mottling his face. Vek, still quite certain the drug-noob over did it, says “that’s what happens!” Vek searches the body and finds a significant remnant of his drug stash and immediately does unspeakable things with it.

“WHAT YOU WANNA LIVE FOREVER, OR YOU WANNA BE THAT GUY?!?!??!?”

As the rest of the squad hustles along the path, we hear the alien hissing, and a horrible skittering behind us. As nothing immediately shows a xeno-face, we make our way back to Vek.

We get back to the ship and find Vek upright but in bad shape. After the initial Arvor hugs there is a lot of trying to figure out what is going on, as we start to parse out that Ibarra had lost his mind.

Cal wants to see the body, and Vek says “Yeah, it’s in my room, let’s go.” With all the activity and open doors, the interior of the Miss Adventure is now at equilibrium with the ghost ship. The lights inside are on the verge of completely fading out.

The body is missing. There’s a faint trickle of … blood? And no other sign. I check the trace of “old blood” and it does show up as Ibarra DNA, but also has some sort of alien DNA mixed in. As if Ibarra and one of the danger-spiders had a child together. I make sure to point out this disturbing fact, and Arvor immediately goes into survival mode.

Vek takes the opportunity while I’m doing science to First Aid Arvor a bit, and makes the absolute best roll of his life.

After gearing up and spending some time in the medbay with the last bit of shipboard power, everyone is cleaned up and in fighting shape. I still have concerns about the hole in Vek’s head that we opened up to relieve the pressure on the brain swelling, but he seems to be having no trouble operating under the cocktail of drugs for the pain relief.

We give Vek the debrief on the broken hyperdrive situation, and our current situation in “Otherspace” to bring him up to speed.

As we wrap things up with re-equipping, Vek and Arvor flex on each other to see who can do the better Mechanics patch of Gav’s air seal on his armor suit. Vek gears himself out in full Hoth gear and a rebreather just in case of air pressure loss.

For our last checklist item on the ship, we search for any remaining minions. We find only signs of a fight, but no people.

We take a break for pizza and whiskey. We talk about steak houses and other delicious food. We also all learn that Ash hates blind people.

We determine that we are going to head to the bridge and hopefully find flight records/black box to pin down what happened to The Celestial. Marching forward, we have Arvor up front, and Rodriguez and I bring up the rear.

We sorta kinda move stealthily, but I’m not convinced we succeed at all. After a short time we do make it to where we predict the bridge should be, and find doors that were blasted open. From the inside. The deserted depths of darkness has the occasional blinking light of instruments that are not quite out of operation.

Arvor catches a hint of skittering noises and uses his darkvision to try to peer into the darkness, but can’t quite catch anything. We carefully move in to the room. Vek is carefully watching for anything that might fall on his already sensitive head.

We find computers that may still be functional around the Conn and Nav stations, and the location of where the black box should be, in addition to signs of a fight with many blaster fire scorch marks. With some quick Mechanical work, the black box is recovered. Besides the blown open doors, there are two turbolift tubes, one of which seems to be open to the tube, while the other has a lift in place. I keep a close eye on the open tube.

Vek and Cal hook the black box up to one of the bridge computers to take a quick look at the information for anything useful. With minimal effort they are able to pull up the ship’s log, and immediately a holo plays. We see an Imperial-uniformed thin man flanked by assassin droids speaking at the comms station. It is Grand Moff Ravik saying he has taken command of the ship. We see an image of Captain Ahab leading an assault on the bridge, as a response from the Imperial ship Relentless confirms that they are on their way. Captain Ahab slams the hyperspace controls, the stars stream away, and the log ends.

Records show hyperspace began with no astrogation calculations, as they play back the notes.

As the rest of the squad is reviewing this data, I notice a creepily unknown gigantic alien ship pops into view in front of us on the bridge viewscreen. It is surrounded by … dead ships?

With increasingly frantic research, Vek pulls up full schematics and notes from the ship’s computers. Finally we have a list of the prisoners that were carried by the Celestial: Bane Nothos, Grand Moff Ravik, Silas Mott, Zardra, EL-434.

-Bane Nothos is notorious for the attempted assassination of Admiral Ackbar that was foiled by early Bantha Squad.

-Grand Moff Ravik is known for his meteoric rise in the Empire, but went too far. He is known for the fall of Arda base where Arvor lost his legs.

-Silas Mott, a terrifying pirate lord of the Corellian trade lanes, is known to some of the Bantha Squad veterans as a murderous specter that frightened the man that raised them.

-Zardra also is a previously known entity, one of the bounty hunters we crossed against on Tattooine during the search for Adar Talon.

-Assassin droid EL-434 was also a part of the bounty hunter group.

As they are reviewing the notes, I notice the alien hissing chittering from the suspicious open turbolift. With a quick shout I call everyone’s attention to the invaders.

Vek responds quickly but with poor aim, as we see the danger-spiders coming in with what seem to be charged catch-poles. Unfortunately Vek seems to be a bit off and his shot lodges in the deck plating as he moves quickly. Cal moves up to try and catch a view, but can’t quite get an angle. Arvor roars mightily and takes his place in front of everyone, readying his flamethrower. Rodriguez pops off a torrent of automatic fire with his squad assault blaster rifle. Seeing them shrug off the energy rounds again, I toss a frag grenade down the hallway, which seems to cause them a bit more distress.

As the danger-spiders climb up the walls as they move up on us into melee range, Arvor lights off the flamethrower, and they definitely respond to that form of attack, hissing and cringing back from the flames. In response, they lash out with bites, stings, claws, and their energy-laced weapons.

Vek takes a moment to line up his shot, and this time he hits his target. His slug thrower’s souped up rounds hit the danger-spider center of mass. Cal decides to make use of his pilot skills to maneuver with the jet pack in the tight quarters to take a peek down the hall, spraying fire at the targets, and then fading back out of sight. Arvor toggles his shield to get it charging again, and then pours another gout of flame into the hallway. Rodriguez continues his heavy hail of energy bolts. Knowing their ability to shrug off energy rounds, but without space to reach a melee attack, I decide to throw out a Cenarri Poison dart from the special pistol we put together a while back. The effects are surprisingly effective, as one of them immediately curls up into a ball.

The remaining conscious danger-spider skitters around the wall and ceiling to lash out at Arvor, but doesn’t seem to be able to make it past his gouts of flame from the flamethrower.

Vek takes a couple more shots at the active target but can’t quite get a bead around the crowded doorway. Cal, however, lines up a shot carefully and gets a solid hit. It manages to shrug off the energy bolts, but it was significant enough that it does stagger for a moment. Arvor quickly drops his flamethrower and swings his massive vibro axe at the active danger-spider, slicing it in two halves. Rodriguez lights up the “sleeping” danger-spider, and it starts twitching as it starts coming back up. I quickly move up to it, and stab it through the head with my vibrobayonet.

In the momentary silence, skittering emanates from the turbolift again. Acting quickly, Rodriguez snags Cal’s dropped flamethrower and just unloads it into the void, screaming “WE NEED TO GO NOW!”

The following silence is deafening. After a quick review of the ship schematics we pulled from the bridge computer, we decide to take a quick pass through the close-by captain’s quarters to see what we can find. The closed door immediately provokes Arvor to whip out his lightsaber and carve a hole. The inside seems like a very normal stateroom. A quick look around reveals a locked storage container, but some quick fiddling doesn’t seem to open it up.

After a bit more time, Vek manages to finagle it open, and finds the Captain’s datapad and manifest. The logs reflect that the ship was hounded by the Empire the whole journey, and we find the Captain’s misgivings about the collection of extremely dangerous prisoners she was made responsible for... We can presume from the records that our missing spare parts may be waiting in the Storage room on the other deck.

As we plot our route, the scene cuts away to the cubic alien ship drifting in the nebula. It appears to be dead at first glance, but suddenly lights flicker on as systems begin powering up.

As we reach the lower decks at the bottom of the stairs, we begin to hear skittering in the shadows again. Nothing seems to challenge us as we go, however, and we reach Storage. It is still packed full of supplies, but doesn’t reveal the parts we need. With the detention area right next door, we decide to investigate there.

It is immediately apparent that the cells failed when the power went out, but two of them have something of note. One has deep scoring as if something strong and clawed was scrabbling ferociously inside, and the other has a deep scent of perfume common to affluent Corellian ladies.

As we continue exploring, we find one room absolutely tangled with the resin-like webbing of the danger-spiders. A quick burst of flames melts the webbing like sugar. There are 5 escape pod bays, 4 of which are jettisoned, and 1 is heavily webbed in place. Moving forward through security, we find the bodies of the security team, all webbed up and looking… like Ibarra did.

We also find evidence of cannibalized parts, which is concerning, as we are continuing to struggle to find what we need for our own ship. Finding a ship’s sensor computer that Arvor is able to power up with a portable power source, a wide range sensor scan reveals that the missing parts we need are present, nearby… Onboard the unfriendly looking alien cube ship.

We quickly go on to search the rest of the rooms on the deck, finding:

2 Medpacs

Synthrope

DL-44 heavy blaster pistol (+1 due to scope)

Glowrod

9/25/2021 “Cube of Death”

Engineering-wise, the giant cube makes no sense. It appears to have no source of power, no way to move, etc. I drag a dead doom-spider back to the Miss Adventure for research. Or at least, I try. But it is *super* heavy and I need Rodriguez to help. Rodriguez starts “mexican panicking” (according to our DM) and I have to slap him like the woman from Airplane to straighten up his cowardice.

(Rodriguez starts panicking. Gotta calm him down.)

The Miss Adventure is low on power. Really low. It was at 5% when we crash landed in the Celestial and it hasn’t improved. As we drag the bizarre doom-spider corpse back to the Miss Adventure the rest of the crew joins us, hoping that the situation is better than it appears. Right now the atmosphere of the ship is like the beginning scene of Star Trek 6 since the life support has now completely failed. As we walk, we feel eyes on us and hear skittering and heavy breathing in the background, but we fail to see a glimpse of anything.

As we approach the Miss Adventure, we hear louder hissing noises...coming from the open hatches of the Miss Adventure. Warm air wafts off the ship, which is odd considering that it was as cold as the rest of the ship after the life support of the Miss Adventure failed.

(It’s not. Everything is fucked right now.)

I take point as we all pull out our weapons. Vek’s gun makes the shotgun cocking noise as he pulls it out; inexplicably, my Vibro-Axe does the same. As I take point, I notice that the life support is now activated and working. How the hell is it working, there is no more power...Cal adjusts his bionic eye to see in thermals, like the Predator. Cal starts making weird clicking noises after he makes this change, it seems odd to the rest of us but we move on. As we near engineering, all of a sudden Minoks come screaming out of the engineering bay and we all swing/shoot at them in panic. A few of them die, but it looks like whatever weird thing they did to the engines got them working again. Ok. I can work with that.

We search the ship high and low and find no other interlopers. We lock down the ship and secure it. It looks like we (superficially) have enough power to survive for now. Vek and I go back down to engineering to figure out the extent of the damage, which appears to be damaged like it was purposely sabotaged, maybe by one of our crew members? Vek, during our deep repairs, needlessly takes off his shirt and puts it on a hook labeled “Vek”. At the end of the repairs it turns out we have enough umph to move our ship a little, but not far.

When the repairs are done, I go back and look at my CCTV security footage from my (missing) security cam in engineering. On screen I watch as one of the doom-spiders purposefully and knowledgeably rip apart our engines and then steal my CCTV security camera. Afterwards I see footage of Vek waking up and his confrontation with Ibara, who after Vek runs away from him, I watch in horror as Ibara holds a gun to his mouth and ends his own existence. I show the footage to the whole crew to their horror.

(We watch in horror all the things captured on our CCTV security footage.)

Meanwhile Cal starts hacking into the black box and finds out more about what went down on the Celestial. Apparently 1) the prisoners broke out and killed half the ship 2) prolonged fighting started happening not only between the prisoners but between the alliance soldiers; fighting occurs for so long that factions start to form 3) a mutiny happened among the alliance crew 4) Ahab was able to solve the mutiny just before storming the bridge, and 5) during the subsequent fight ahab smashes the hyperspace jump button and ended up in Otherspace.

We lock and load and decide to take the Miss Adventure to the Cube. Cal gets in the pilot seat as I calm down Rodriguez, who is having another panic attack. I tell him to man up.

As we go through the void, the silence is heavy and haunting. No running lights, no engine bursts, no chatter over the coms. It is incredibly eerie. As we approach, strange protrusions on the Cube start to glow with an otherworldly light. Cal pilots like a boss through the minefield of the ship graveyard surrounding this cube. The Cube looks to be the size of a small planet. As we float through space I recognize a few of the ships as Alliance vessels and some as completely alien vessels that I have never seen before. Amongst the ships I recognize I see the callsign for a ship called the Ebonhawk.

We approach what appears to be an area that could be a good landing location, and conveniently enough, four escape pods...all from the Celestial. Inside the Cube looks oddly organic, like it was grown instead of built, with mechanical components added as an afterthought. Cal takes a reading of the atmosphere inside; it’s like a tropical jungle at 90 degrees with 100% humidity. The inside of the ship is kept isolated from the outside of space due to organic membranes.

After we land, I lead the squad over to the escape pods. They are covered with that spider webbing so I clear it with my lightsaber. We see black and dry blood (human) on two of the pods. There are two sphincter tunnels covered in biomass leading from this room. Gav scrapes up some of the blood and finds it to be human but is not able to specify from whom it came from.

Everyone but me sees a small cat walking up to us. It looks adorable. Gav’s life sensors shows it has no life signs. WHAT THE FUCK. Further analysis shows it is an undead robot. It looks at Cal and hisses. I say “Hey Rodriguez check this out!” and offer it to him to pet the undead cat after I play with it for a bit. As I try to hand the undead mechanical (but adorable) cat to Rodriguez, Cal domes it in the head. “WHAT THE FUCK MAN!” Rodriguez screams as I fall to my knees, distraught. I’m so upset at Kitty’s death that I start using my old Voxbox to communicate: “NO NO NO”. Vek says “there's more than one way to skin a cat” as he skins the cat and shoves its insides in the direction of Rodriguez: “Does your cat usually have wires like this?!” to which freaks him out further. This is Rodriguez’s first mission and he already has enough PTSD for a lifetime. Vek continues to pull apart the cat as we walk forward.

(Vek just killed the only cute thing in this whole universe.)

In real life, Brett throws a large halloween spider at us, startling us.

As we walk down the right corridor, a red mist surrounds us. We enter a chamber that has various 3m tall organic irregularly shaped lumps. The smooth floor is engraved with a star map, but a star map of a piece of space we have never seen before. Over the star map is a web, transposed purposefully and artfully. Vek takes a video of the floor. We clear the room and find nothing, so we move on. I try to stab the organic wall but it is as hard as stone -- even a Vibrodagger cannot penetrate. Gav theorizes that these new aliens are silicon based life as we walk.

(Gav has a strong theory that these aliens are silicon-based.)

Cal has a great idea to dismantle the extra jetpacks for flamethrower fuel. We jury rig them to have extra fuel for our flamethrowers, and give one to Cal.

We take the next left and find in the next room a series of organic pods. Cal, seeing this, gets the same mild headache that he gets once in a while. One of the pods is breached and a yellow ooze slowly drips from the pod, which Gav goes forth to analyze. A power core is central in the room. It has tentacles that beat with a hum (like a heartbeat) and connect to yellow ooze on the floor.

Meanwhile, Cal has been feeling an increasing sense of dread as we go deeper into the ship. He feels like his headache is somehow connected to the wrongness of this place. This place is an abomination.

Deep scarring from blaster fire and torn cloth cover a few of the eggs. We call this “The Growing Chamber”. It appears almost as if a fight has occurred here. I hear a low moan at my 3 O'clock. “Do you guys hear that?” I ask as I head towards the sound.

I find a female on the ground, torn apart and nearing death. I call “Gav!” and Gav comes towards me and then the victim. She is dying. As Gav tries to ease her pain, she grabs his arm and talks about her harrowing journey. She claims “the Shadows” hunted them down, “them” being the remains of the rebels and the remaining prisoners. She demands (of Gav) that he find her men. Then she dies.

Or she tries to. Gav immediately brings her back from her dramatic death into a comatose state. We decide to head back to the ship and drop her off in the med bay. “We’re all going to die” Rodriguez says as we leave the ship again.

(This lady will be resuscitated whether she likes it or not.)

We decided to try the other tunnel this time. It leads to a room that overlooks an abyss of organic tunnels below us that looks...daunting. We decide to try the other way. We go back to the main room then go back into the other tunnel, then go right. Confusing, but it works.

The next chamber we enter has numerous cracks emitting a dim, angry red light. This dim light is the only light source. Vek guesses it's an energy source with a Knowledge Technology check, then confidently tells us “It’s definitely an energy source.” A red mist pours from the cracks as well. When touched, it feels moist. Vek touches it and gets...super high. “We should stay in this room guys.”

(Vek finds ways to get high in the weirdest situations.)

When questioned, we quickly figure out that Vek is getting high off the red mist. Cal yanks him out of the mist. Just as he does so, we hear a “Hey guys!”

A Nikto comes out from nowhere. He is obviously as high as balls. After a quick conversation, which involves him screaming about imaginary creatures in the room, another group of people appear behind him, many wearing Rebel Alliance clothing. Also high as balls. As I attempt to get close enough to put an anti-toxin patch on the speaker, he pulls a gun on me. Roll initiative.

Vek, with a Knowledge HIstory check, realizes that the Nikto is the notorious space pirate Silas Mott -- the same guy that shot us down in the first episode and caused us to be estranged from our adoptive father.

Gav takes a shot to Silas and hits him square in the chest with some burst fire. In return, Silas throws a thermal detonator at us and it fucks us up. Rodriguez is downed and the other rebel alliance people fire on us, hurting us even more. Cal and Vek both take shots at the rebel soldiers and hit.

I scream “Rodgriguez! NOO!” and charge Silas, swinging up hard with my Vibro-Axe and splitting him in half, starting from his crotch. He goes down, hard.

Vek shoots and misses at one of the rebel soldiers. In return, they start to retreat. I switch to my Shockboxers and charge the rebel alliance soldier and knock him out cold. Vek spends a turn frantically trying to mellow out from his high (condition track). Gav brings Rodriguez back to life and I sprint to cut off the last running rebel soldier (that’s alive). Vek, now slightly recovered, takes a second wind and moves up on the last soldier as well. I move up on the last guy and knock him out cold.

+DL43 chromium plated pistol with “Ahab” engraved on it (Silas had it) -> Cal

As the fight ends, the only noise that can be heard is our heavy breathing as silence once again dominates the room.

10/9/2021 “Spare Parts”

Notes by Grant.

We get off to a great start arguing the merits of the Violent Femmes. Andy is not convinced they are good.

We pick up where we last left off, in the Fume Room. This is where you can get high and start worrying about the Shadow People, not unlike a meth den. Two men in Rebel uniforms are dying and need medical care. Gav handcuffs these guys before starting his triage, because just a few seconds ago they were in league with the pirate lord and shooting at us.

Arvor lends Gav his Medical Interface Visor.

Gav finds that one guy has a severe neck injury, while the other has unusual brain activity (possibly due to fumes and/or alien interference). Gav tries to pop the damaged neck into place, which ultimately ends up with that man in a coma. Should have C-spined him.

Crystal brought out a well-stocked charcuterie board--delicious.

The audience gets a view of a room elsewhere on the gloomy ship, filled with glowing alien eyes. One says,“The illness has returned, my friends. Let’s cure it”.

Glowing eyes in the dark? Never good news.

Vek severs and collects the right hand of the deceased Pirate Lord Silus Mott. He also uses his vid recorder to document that Mott was located and eliminated. Some characters with shreds of their humanity still left (Gav and Rodrigez) take offense to this casual post-mortem dismemberment, but they are in the minority.

We decide to take the two rebel survivors back to our ship and hunker down to get some sleep. We haven’t slept in 18 hours. Dr. Glitterstim does surgery on us until we are back to full health. The two guys we brought aboard are kept in the forcecage, because they are likely psychologically compromised. The Miss Adventure has like, no power left. We are using it as a bunker. As it is, we don’t even have enough power to get our engine started.

Those aliens drained the Miss Adventure’s batteries almost as fast as a kid playing games on your phone.

Capt. Ahab is still in stable, albeit comatose condition in the medbay. Our medical droid is in charge of her health as well as monitoring our two prisoners in the force cage. We make the call to place Capt. Ahab in restraints, because we can’t trust she’ll be in her right mind if/when she wakes up. We’re looking to avoid another “Ibarra Situation”.

Welcome aboard the Miss Adventure! For your safety, please remain seated for the flight.

We decide our priority is to make it back to Realspace and Rebel Command. But we still need a working Realspace Compensator, Power Coupler, and Influx Capacitor. It’s time to make another foray into the massive and weird alien craft.

But first, we all agree that public speaking is terrifying, and how from an evolutionary standpoint, it was a life or death matter if you were rejected and exiled by your tribe.

We copy all of our data onto our ship computer as well as all of our datapads, for redundancy. We found an Influx Capacitor! 2 more parts to go!

We talk about coffee, Starbucks, and Maui. Patrick demands I record the list of good coffees into the notes, but that is not happening.

We force our way into a room that was blocked by a type of organic membrane. The stronger of us could force their way through, but Vek and Cal had to be helped through.

Some of us got stuck in the Membrane

There is a mind-affecting mist that hangs in the air like tule fog, and Vek, the only member who has skin exposed to air, is getting super-high and hallucinating. Which is fine with Vek, but is of concern to the rest of the party. Gav starts slapping anti-tox patches on Vek so that he can function, but Vek has a hallucinogenic vision before that.

Vek learns from his vision the following: The spider-aliens call themselves the Charon (pronounced “Care-awn”). A deathcult faction of them has been going from world-to-world in Otherspace killing the non-deathcult members of Charons. We are on one of those deathcult ships.

The Charon

We find a ladder going upwards that was clearly designed for spider-aliens to climb, but we manage to climb it anyway because we are capable quadrupeds. At the top, double-doors, partially organic, open up automatically when we approach. This leads into a room full of pods. Eggs?

Some of the pods/eggs start to move and hatch as we approach, which freaks us out, and we open fire. Literal fire, as Rodrigez and Gav use their flamethrowers. We blast and burn our way through an emerging swarm of chihuahua-sized spiders that leap at our faces.

There are a few organic fighter-craft in this room, clearly designed to be piloted by spider-aliens/Charons. In one of them, Cal finds a usable Power Coupler! One part left to go!

We head to the southern chamber (I guess our holocompass is still working ok) and find a pillar that is pulsing with energy. It is festooned with monitors, many of them displaying alien “eyes”, others showing text in a language that is completely foreign to us. A few of the monitors show live camera feed of the stationary Miss Adventure, others showing The Celestial.

Someone has been watching us this whole time.

We talk about the different times the players completely threw the DM’s prepared material out the window, and the DM was forced to improv. There was a lot of liquor being served, so do not judge us too harshly for not staying on topic.

We find multiple power-armor type suits that were designed for arachnid bodies. As we look closer, we hear sudden skittering noises. It’s time to roll initiative!

Andy abuses his powers of being the token guy and puts fire and explosion markers throughout the battlefield without cause, much to Brett’s annoyance. We decided to give Andy a second chance.

We are surrounded by the death cult Charons! We fire in all directions. Vek uses his jet pack to get to higher ground. These arachnid aliens have well-armored carapaces, and not all of our shots are able to penetrate enough to be effective. Additionally, they move crazy fast and are capable climbers. They are on top of us in seconds.

Gav makes the call to throw a Thermal Detonator at the cluster of arachnids surrounding Arvor. Arvor doesn’t take it personally as far as we can tell. He does go medieval on the nearby spiders with his vibro-ax.

The Vibro Axe. Click-clack, chop-chop.

Cal gets overrun by the spiders who are wielding potent melee weapons, and loses consciousness as a result of his many wounds. Gav rushes to his rescue, taking plenty of spider damage in the process. With a well-placed stimpack, Cal is back in the fight.

A spider came leaping at Vek, who was hovering with his jetpack. Vek manages to evade the attack, and sends two slinker rounds into the landing spider. The rounds rip through the carapace and kill the creature. It’s a small victory, but there are still way too many spiders.

Rodrigez detonates a cluster of fuel cells, causing a large explosion that takes out many spiders. Arvor draws the aggro of all the spiders. Gav bayonets one of the spiders skittering towards Arvor, inflicting a fatal blow. Badass.

Gav then opens up on the spiders that are moving away from him to fight Arvor, his controlled burst ripping through the carapace of another enemy. Vek shoots down at the last remaining enemy, slamming two slinker rounds into the alien’s vitals. The area is now clear of hostiles.

We find Rodrigez, his pulse weak and his body severely burned. Gav gives him a double-dose of painkillers and medigel. Rodrigez springs back to life, feeling better than ever (at least until the drugs wear off).

You don’t get to die on us, yet, Rodrigez.

To recap:
We have four of the five engine parts we need to complete a Hyperdrive Motivator Assembly:
1) Hypercoil

2) Quadraxial Stabilizer
3) Influx Capacitor
4) Power Coupler
5) Realspace Compensator (haven’t found this part yet!)

Additionally, there are four unaccounted-for escaped bad guys that may still be alive and on this vessel:
1) Bane Nothos
2) Assassin Droid EL-434
3) Grand Moff Ravik
4) Bounty Hunter Vardra
5) Pirate Lord Silus Mott (accounted for, kill confirmed)

And we still have no idea how to get out of Otherspace and return to Realspace, even assuming we can get our starship fully functional again.

10/23/2021 “Dr. Pimple Popper”

The room is covered in webbing. We see arachnid battle armor suits. We see one exit (besides the one we came in) near the room’s hymen. There are dead Karens in space suits laying on the floor. Arvor inspects one of the “mech” suits. Gav helps arvor. The bodies appear both mechanical and organic. The suits are useless for us bipeds. Vek inspects their weapons. It’s like a vibro-weapon but made of energy at the end. We find a “living”/alien energy pike. Arvor butchers a Karen space suit.

Above: A Karen

We take stock and notice we’re all pretty banged up but we only need to find the real space compensator and it may not be worth returning to the ship to rest/heal, etc. Gav decides to perform some emergency field surgery. We take an hour to rest.

Some of the vacant power suits start humming. We see energy being supplied to the suits. Arvor starts cutting the power nodes to the suites using his baby lightsaber and then starts slashing the suits. The humming seems to stop. We hear a hissing sound as steam erupts from the ceiling somewhere.

We decide to move through the other hymen door. We enter a large chamber resembling a storage tank. A thick green paste covers the floor of the chamber. We see a multitude of translucent tubes transferring the green nutrient paste. Yellow globs of goo float around the surface of the goo. The green paste is about a meter high. It seems to be organic but not acidic. Gav takes some samples. Cal snot rockets into the goo. As we move through the goo there seems to be a current flowing around us. It’s slippery. We manage to make our way through the room safely.

A few yellow globs rise into the air and move toward us extending long tendrils. Vek shoots one of the globs. It explodes like a gross zit. Arvor barrels through the room shooting at the yellow snot balls. Cal shoots and ignites his jetpack flying toward the exit. Rodriguez fires off a few shots, yelling. Gave pops off a few shots and advances. The zits are popping left and right. We’re all running and gunning now. Arvor is dramatically running backwards, shooting and yelling, “go, go go!” Vek makes a stand while the rest of us progress. Vek lands a few shots but gets overwhelmed by pimples. Their tendrils produce venomous barbs (like jellyfish) , overwhelming Vek. He becomes incapacitated and starts sinking into the green goo along with Rodriguez. Gav saves Rodriguez. Cal manages to rescue Vek but gets attacked as well. We all manage to escape the room without further incident. The zits don’t seem to pass through the hymen.

Vek is dying as an effect of the goo he sank into. Gav manages to stabilize both Vek and Rodriguez.

Vek swears off last stands from now on. Never again. Arvor calls Vek a bad example. Arvor insists we all follow his example from now on.

We enter into a corridor connected to a large dome-shape chamber. Large, thin pods, hanging from the ceiling, glowing with energy. This seems to be a power core. There’s crackling energy. Occasionally a pod explodes with an explosion of lightning. We debate whether or not it’s a smart idea to move through this room. Arvor is especially uncomfortable about the situation. He suggests we attempt to destroy this “core.” Gav thinks that could trigger an alarm. Vek sticks to his convictions formed by his terrifying vision. We agree to destroy the pods, or rather their individual connections. We start shooting and slashing away. The pods explode with lightning bolts, striking us each. We’re hurt but Arvor seems unaffected.

There’s a palpable tension amongst our group. Theories of sabotage fly across the conversation. We shake it off and continue along whereupon we find Rodriguez licking some sort of organic control panel, questioning us, “What? It tastes so sweet.” WE are distrubed and bust his chops. He operates some sort of elevator…???

We arrive at various platforms showing beautiful holographic displays of various worlds. We see a display of a planet like Corellia. Then a cult grows. A spider overlord takes over. The spiders engulf the planet in a strange red mist. People start screaming in pain clawing at their own skin. The fourth platform shows another world experiencing the same. Then another platform, then another and another… Then we see a display of space spiders crawling on a space whale. Then the whale slowly changes into the ship we’re on. The final platform shows this ship moving galaxy through galaxy destroying everything in its path. We all start panicking and arguing about whether or not our mission objective needs to shift to the destruction of this ship. Arvor insists we need to fix our ship and get out. Rodriguez argues they could somehow follow us to our galaxy. Cal agrees and suggests our highest priority is the destruction of this organic ship. Gav agrees with Arvor. Arvor further pushes his point, pointing to the sheer scale of this ship. It’s enormous, larger than multiple “Earths” combined. (Where’s that planet? Sounds backwoods.) Anyway, we unanimously agree to focus on survival and deliver discovery of the arachnids to the Rebel Alliance, with the destruction of this ship being a secondary objective.

The Mexican food door dash has arrived. Brb

Poopity, poopy, poopin’ poop… poop poop.

-Jackson Dumm

We proceed… there’s a large half-dome room with a circumference of about 50m. Webbing covers everything. This is the highest concentration of webbing we’ve seen. Arvor cocks his vibro axe. Vek hears skittering all around. We hear a booming voice addressing us as “member’s of the Galactic Empire.” Tells us to surrender. We roll for initiative.

It’s Bane Nothos. He ambushes us with four arachnid allies. Gav and Cal lob grenades at the same pair of baddies. One drops Arvor draws all but the imperial’s attention/fire. Rodriguez blasts one with his flamethrower. Vek and Cal continue blasting while Arvor melees eh shit out of one. We take a manageable amount of damage and manage to eliminate Bane Nothos.

Gav searches Bane’s body. He finds an Imperial-issue blaster w/scope and a thermal detonator. Vek severs the corpse’s right hand and puts it in a jar. Gross. We collect the remaining evidence we need of Bane Nothos’s death. We continue on…

We find a tall vertical shaft that we must climb. We begin our ascent. Nearly to the top Gav slips and starts plummeting to his death. Cal, Vek, and Arvor grab for him all simultaneously. Arvor saves Gav from a tragic fate. Continuing on we find a series of narrow shafts connecting to a larger room. We proceed cautiously but are alarmed when long tendrils begin extending from the ceiling, grasping pods, plucking them, and moving them about the room. There is a large light emanating from the center of the room. This is where the pods are being carried towards. Arvor speculates that the pods are carrying bodies to the core as a means to fuel it. This thing literally eats life. Vek gets ahold of a pod and cuts it open, a comatose, limp wookie oozes out of the pod. Gav believes his neuro pathways to be utterly decimated. He’s a vegetable. Gav mercy kills the Wookie. The ship responds by flushing the corpse.

We walk through another hymen. This room is cylindrical and contains some sort of tall column. A power core perhaps? Vek suspectis this is some sort of hyperdrive core. We step into this odd chamber with multiple bridges and doorways whereupon he finds Karens in lab coats. A humming sound slowly builds up to an unbearable noise that drops everyone three steps down the condition track. A red mist begins filling the chamber. We’ve been ambushed. We’re nearly surrounded by arachnids. Gav opens a gaping hole in the wall using a thermal detonator. Arvor charges through the hole double bisecting an arachnid with his axe. Vek frantically searches for ship parts before leaving the room. Cal makes a run for the giant hole in the wall. We all begin to feel better after escaping the sonic trap. We continue on.

We step into a room with massive webs and corpses entombed in crystalline structures. We move across a platform made of webs. Ws see a pile of webbing 2m high. A blade appears clearing away webbing. As the webbing moves away we see an assassin droid appear and he appears to have acquired new targets: us.

11/6/2021 “We Decide to Blow Up the Cube of Death”

The firefight starts quickly with the droid. Rodriguez autofires with a crit, but nobody else lands a shot. Everyone moves into cover, but almost immediately Cal goes down with a shot to the chest. Gav immediately goes to resuscitate him while Vek pops off a shot. The assassin droid moves to gank me, but misses. The personal duel between me and the assassin droid continues as everyone attempts to move up position themselves. Rodriguez screams “Crossfire!” like the commercial and autofires like crazy. Eventually Cal downs the robot with a shot to the chest and it falls to the ground.

As the combat ends, we hear a feminine voice: “Hey! You’re Alliance, right?! I’m putting my weapon away! Don’t attack!” A woman appears. She’s wearing a mask and has huge tits. She is not pointing a weapon at us. In response, we all ready actions to attack but are willing to listen. It turns out her name is Zarza, one of the bounty hunters on Tatooine -- the one that uses poison. She wants to join us in a desperate attempt to get home. She attempts to get some credits to “escort” us, but Cal basically says that we’re her only hope and she can come with us but we don’t care what she does. She agreed to join our group. Rodriguez is not happy: “I don’t trust her meng! We should frag her now! I smell evil!” Cal says it's not his call, but I secretly agree with Rodriguez. He has good feelings about stuff like this.

As we fiddle with the robot's head, she seems concerned: “Why are you messing with that droid head?” Cal says back: “That’s none of your concern” going hard on Alpha Commando mode. Cal rolls high on a Use Computer check and searches the bot’s memory. Aside from general memories, he searches for any Realtime Compensator locations but finds none; he removes his brain and moves on as I start to question Zandra. “Have you seen any other survivors?” She starts to explain that the Grand Moff has joined their side. In addition, the news gets worse: apparently the weird aliens can extract information from people and they now know all about our galaxy and plan to invade it. She opines that we should destroy the ship...somehow. lLso, apparently the Real-space compensators are held on the bridge, which are surrounded by hundreds of Karons. But these are only options.

As we discuss our options, the room has become deadly silent. As a few minutes pass, we start to hear quiet scratching noises, increasing in volume until it reaches a crescendo. Zardra, our resident bounty hunter, says “Follow me! Run!” and we all follow. Rodriguez shoots flame thrower blasts at creatures who attempt to envelope us as we fall back into a crawl tube.

After some climb checks, we all ascend the tubes except for Cal, whose weak ankles cause a fall; I save his ass just before he falls to his death and we continue on. Gav drops the last 3 frag grenades behind him as we climb since a few of the Charons have attempted to follow us; in a flash of heat they disappear in gurgling screams.

The tube opens into a chamber around...a power center? Some sort of cylindrical object humming in power. Our group has a quick huddle to decide if our new “guide” is trustworthy. Vek confers with his knowledge and concurs with her that the Realspace Compensator is likely where Zandra described it. I do an optical patdown and realize she is carrying two pistols but is lacking the deadly poison dart gun that made her so dangerous. She urges caution and stealth as we move forward and we agree.

Cal and Gav work together, based on Gav’s idea, to hack into the biological flesh of the weird ship itself and surprisingly are able to concoct a bizarre nano-virus to inject into the ship. The hope is the bionic virus will fuck with the ship. Zandra continues to complain so Cal gives her credits to shut up and she accepts. We move on into the next corridors and we find that the webbing has started to diminish a bit. The heaviness of the room makes us want to move as quietly as possible.

We roll super high stealth like a “ghost of a ninja sneaking up on a deaf person” (according to Grant). We enter a room with a huge obelisk like the Washington Monument but black; Cal immediately gets a headache and goes down the condition track. We all make fun of him for his feminine migraines. The monument appears to be some sort of Charon temple to the black hole that destroyed their homeworld and their concurrent history. As we stealthily make our way across the giant room, we suddenly hear loud skittering. Some sort of reptilian creature jumps out of a crevice. It is an Acklay (alien) that has been heavily operated upon - it has a cyborg head and modular limbs. Roll initiative.

After a few rounds of combat, I end up a bit damaged but we move on. Zandra mentions that the Charon have learned Basic and now have major plans for our universe. She has been keeping tabs on their communications. Where Ravik has currently stationed is in some sort of “super brain” that if we overload *might* destroy this ship. We all put our opinions together and we decide to blow up the ship heroically before we attempt to flee from this universe. Also, Zandra thinks we might find parts for a Realspace Compensator. In the meantime, Gav does surgery on me while I construct a bomb out of his Power Converter. Multitasking for the win. Now the Power Converter is basically a nuke.

We follow Zardra into a circular chamber with no chambers, slightly domed. There are no indications that the room is the bridge. In the center of the room is a nerve cluster that emits so much light that it's impossible to look at directly. The room is also covered in those suspicious eggs.

We walk through the room, trying to avoid the eggs. Rodruguez almost starts to shoot his flamethrower but is stopped by Zandra, albeit resentfully. I locate a good place to plant the bomb, but it's gross. It’s like a pool of butter. As I jam it into the location, I hear in my mind: “Communication established…”

A weird situation comes over me as I realize that in the act of installing the bomb I somehow got some sort of nanomachines into my blood. I am now in direct communication with the ship. As I feel the eggs starting to awaken, I attempt to use my communication to demand the ship stop the awakening of the eggs surrounding us, but I fail the Use Computer check. As I struggle with the overwhelming feelings awash in my mind, the rest of the group sees a shadowy figure appear from the corner.

Grand Moff Ravick walks up to the group: “Join me and bring down the Emperor and the New Order!” Cal immediately shoots him. Roll initiative.

“You fools!” Ravick screams as we enter mortal kombat. I still feel as if I can accomplish something connected to the ship's brain, so I stay connected. In the meantime, Charon appear from all over the corners of the room. As Gav shoots into the crowd of the Charon, my mind meld with the mother brain ends just as I grab a Realspace Compensator from the depths of the brain...somehow. As my connection to the mother brain fades, I try to use my connection to call off the Charon, but it appears to fail. The Charons charge the group.

“Everyone retreat!” Cals screams as he activates his jetpack and scrambles away from the Charons surrounding him. Rodriguez autofires into the crowd as Gav activates his in-armor claws and goes toe-to-toe with melee claws. Vek and Cal take shots and I Draw Fire from the whole group. Grand Moff Ravick taunts Gav about his mother, which is a super trigger for him considering that Gav’s mother died to save him in the Kessel slave mines. Gav immediately rushes towards Ravick with his claws out and a mad look in his eyes, as the latter futile attempts to autofire at him.

Cal domes a Charon with a crit to the head as Rodriguez unleashes a flamethrower at the aliens surrounding me and ends two of them. Gav burns a destiny point and eviscerates Ravick in half. As I slice off the head of the last Charon, we rush out of the room, heading back to the Miss Adventure.

We run.

We arrive at the Miss Adventure, which looks dead. As we arrive, we all go to our different stations. Vek goes to fix the ship, Cal goes to the cockpit, and Gav and I stay back. I hand the detonator to Vek as I demand Zandra surrender her weapons. When she doesn’t comply, I stun her with my gun, knocking her out. Inside the ship, we hear a “WHAT THE FUCK MENG” and we hear Rodriguez desperately shooting his flame thrower. In view appears a *giant* black Charon wrecking menace in the ship and Rodriguez as he is slammed *hard* onto the wall. Gav says “GO! I’ll take care of the woman” as I rush towards the Charon.

Vek is already shirtless in the engineering room, fixing the ship. Just as he is about to put in the part he hears the scuffle above. “You gotta be kidding me!” he says and pulls out and activates the detonator. The giant brain ship starts to pull itself apart as explosion after explosion wrecks the surroundings. It looks like the world is about to explode.

In a heroic last stand, Rodriguez grapples the giant Charon outside the ship, pulling a pin to a grenade with his teeth as a tsunami of fire reaches the ship just as the doors close. The explosion starts to tear apart the Miss Adventure.

“We gotta get out of here now!” Cal screams as I arrive to help Vek in the engineering. Vek manages to jury rig the engine to work for 20 seconds at the cost of major damage to the engine and we are able to escape (barely!) from the explosion.

It takes 24 hours to repair the ship's engines enough to limp away from the now-destroyed alien vessel. In the interim, we discover that we have to jump to hyperspace at specific coordinates near a black hole to get back to Regular Space. We successfully do so and arrive near Kessel, deep in Imperial space. Well, shit.

We all hold a quiet vigil for Rodriguez, who sacrificed his everything for the mission. We’ll always remember you, Meng.

(Current Timeline: After Battle of Hoth, but before the Battle of Endor)