So a little background on the party, it's an AoR campaign with a bothan spy, trandoshan ground tactician, mon cal engineer and chadra fan hotshot. The first session was an evacuation after being attacked by the local Imperial garrison, the next they were given a mission to do a smash and grab on a small research outpost, the catch being that they knew where the outpost was but nothing about the surrounding terrain, security, etc. And yes, Dave, if you're reading this is about you guys

The first session went ok, they ambushed a crippled Star Destroyer nearby and then took a small freighter down to the planet to begin their investigation. Many a fun time was had, the bothan chatted up a trooper in a bar and stole his uniform after leaving him in a pool of his own vomit in an alleyway, the engineer started asking around and checking the holonet for property details surrounding the base (not the most bland thing this group has ever done, they once audited the books of a crimelord they thought was screwing them) and the trandoshan started looking for transport, finding only crazy Joe and his unbelievable prices on equine mounts. Despite offering insanely low prices, crazy Joe was somehow able to afford a twenty minute ad on the holonet, complete with an annoyingly catchy jingle to stress out the Mon Cal, but I digress.

Cue session two, and our trandoshan player called in sick, so I decided to run a filler episode featuring Empire Day celebrations. I thought "hey, maybe they'll kidnap the moff in attendance, have a little fun, and that'll be a decent distraction for now", I was completely wrong.

Despite having zero intelligence on the base, they decided to use the thermal detonator the quartermaster had slipped them after being schmoozed by the engineer (a good roll for a not so social character, I thought it was a bit of fun so let them have it). They acquired a mouse droid from Vizann, a black marketeer that had set up shop on the planet, and packed it full of explosives, then sent one of their alliance trooper lackeys down to the marshaling grounds with the newly crafted bomb. Their plan was pretty clear at this point, assassinate the moff, then do a blind run on the outpost. For some reason not entirely clear to me, they stole a speeder and took it out to the base with them, despite the fact there was nothing stopping them just taking the freighter out there instead. They ended up with both the freighter and the stolen speeder, staring at the cliff face on one side of the outpost. After a little debate and a call in from the trooper they'd left in town to set off the bomb, the chadra fan got sick of the arguing and pulled off some fancy flying through flak cannon fire to land on the shuttle pad over the other side of the cliff face. He jumped on the ship cannons and dealt with the scout trooper patrols repelling down the cliff face after them. They eventually cleared out the base, and found the secret lower level after following a cleaning droid.

Here's where it gets interesting, until this session I was going to run a campaign where they would find some nefarious weapon developments and have to root them out through the sector. I think them assassinating the moff has kicked off something larger in the sector and has given me a good idea for an overarching plot involving a power struggle as other potential sector governors vie for the job and slip up in their other duties.

All in all, it's been a fun couple of sessions so far. They're going to find out what's lurking in the depths in our next session, hopefully, and they're quickly going to be in over their heads.