“…and the Lady Vincible has authorised us to open fire with the turbo lasers if you try anything like that again.”
As Jom lazily faked apologies to the droid from traffic control he saw Lok bringing the Wayfarer in to an adjacent docking bay carefully and slowly.

El and Jom descended the docking bay as an old B1 Battle Droid, without weapons, approached them. It had a sticker on its torso chassis with “Hello My Name Is” printed on it and “Welcome to the Vincible please ask me any questions” scrawled in by hand. After explaining the rules of the ship, namely that you own only what you bring with you, laws and contracts from the rest of the galaxy do not count aboard the ship and everyone on the ship is free, no slaves or bounty hunting, the droid asked them if they needed any information or directions. Notably it did not ask for any docking fees, nor had the traffic control mentioned anything, or tried to assign them specific landing slots.

Lok, approaching from the Wayfarer, asked the droid if there was any starship repairs, and the droid directed them to Pango’s Starship Repair at the extreme stern of the main landing bay. With no further questions the droid left them alone. El suggested a simple division of labour, Lok would stay and repair the Wayfarer and make her look as good as possible for resale, with Thoulyakk helping, and she would take Jom to find a buyer for the ore and the ship.

Checking the information panel near the exit from the docking bay for a list of cantinas where El hoped to find some contacts they noticed an entry for Universal Exports, a bulk cargo trading outfit. They immediately made this their first port of call. Located near to the port-side main docking ring Universal Exports was basically a huge warehouse. One corner has been walled off with some cheap seats added to form a small waiting room manned by an old red C3 protocol droid.

El quickly arranged to speak with the proprietor, Shapo Magit, a human male in a worn suit with a holographic tie that occasionally fizzled in and out of existence. He was interested in their cargo but offered only 5,000cr for it, which El and Lok agreed was too low for a cargo that they estimated to be worth around 10,000cr. They decided to hold onto it and see if they could get a better price on Junction or some other world, and rely on the ship sale to fund their repairs.

Politely declining his offer, they asked if he was interested in buying a freighter, or knew anyone else who was. He suggested they try Pango of Pango’s Starship Repairs. El asked if he knew Pango and Shapo suggested he did, that they often did business together but were not on the best terms because of their business rivalry, Pango having to buy a lot of his bulk materials through Shapo, but also having a strong influence on what shipping came to and from the Vincible and thus the trade Shapo received.

Heading back they located Pango, a large four armed Besalisk. He was interested in buying the ship, and asked to look it over. On the way they explained that they would also be looking for some repairs on their other ship and probably some upgrades. El introduced Lok to Pango as the greatest engineer in the galaxy, and explained that he had been keeping the ship in tip-top shape, but Pango simply laughed and pointed out that he’d already met a dozen “greatest engineers in the galaxy” this month. He was quick to spot the evidence of damage to the ship, but admitted that Lok had done good quality repairs to it.

Overall it was in good nick, damaged but well repaired, and the fact it was clearly stolen with “Offworld Mining Corporation” stencilled on the side didn’t matter to him at all. With no specific buyer lined up he could offer them 70,000cr in cash or 80,000cr in “store credit”. El tried to persuade him to give them a partial bonus for partial store credit but he wasn’t interested. Whilst the crew debated it he asked to start looking at their other ship to make them a repair estimate.

Thoulyakk greeted him as he boarded the Pigeon and expressed his hope that he would give them a good deal since they had no other money and desperately needed these repairs. El seethed and suggested Thoulyakk might need to go and move some heavy crates for the next hour or so, preferably somewhere else. Fortunately for the crew Pango was of the “simple but fair” school of business and simply suggested they might not wish to involve the Wookie in future business dealings because not everyone was as ethical as him. When he spotted the Azurite crates however he asked them if they were selling.

El said they were, and that Shapo had offered them 6,000cr (a lie, he had only been willing to pay 5,000cr) but they were keen to sell if he could offer them a decent price. Pango offered them 7,500cr on the condition that they did not try to start a bidding war between him and Shapo and the offer would be off the table if they started anything like that. Whilst attempting to appear hesitant, they readily agreed.

In the end the crew decided to go for the 70,000cr in cash but spend a lot of it on repairs and upgrades and split the rest for personal use. With some direction from Lok, Pango and his crew would spend the next few days working on the ship. First they would be rebuilding the damaged hull plating and external components. Whilst they repaired the rear emitters of the main drive they would be upgrading it with a higher thrust output. The shield generator would also be receiving a significant boost in an attempt to stop such damage from happening next time.

El firmly believed that the best defence was a good offense, and it didn’t take much to convince the others. The medium laser turrets would be removed and each one replaced with a twin linked heavy laser. A somewhat illegal modification would add a concussion missile launcher on the starboard side and a proton torpedo launcher on the port, the mechanism concealed underneath Thoulyakk’s and El’s bunks respectively. All of these upgrades to be wired into an upgraded targeting system illegally salvaged from a Sentinel Assault Boat. The Annual Pigeon would rise Phoenix-like from the ashes, faster, tougher and with significantly sharper talons.

With the Pigeon due for 3 days of 24/7 work, full of mechanics and noise, the crew packed their overnight bags and looked for some accommodation on the Vincible. Most of the crew were happy simply to have a bed to lay down on, and gravitated to The Barracks. The hotel had only be slightly modified from its days as the barracks for Clone Troopers and offered cheap bunks in shared rooms. El, however, went the other way. She decided that what she really needed was an en-suite hot tub and some pampering was happy to fork out 500cr a night to stay in The Bridge, the most swanky joint on the ship. With that the crew split up for some personal time and a spot of shopping.

After an ill-fated attempt to get into The Bridge, mostly due to his lack of knowledge of El’s room number or even her full name, Thoulyakk found himself wandering The Spine, the main access corridor that acted as the high street for the ship. Ignoring such petty distractions as the gambling joint The Ace of Coins or Habby’s Haven, a house of ill repute, Thoulyakk found himself drawn into the shops of nick-nacks, artefacts and old books.

Without ever meaning to he soon realised he was hunting for evidence of the lost Jedi Order. He had grown up simply knowing they existed, having lived through the war on Kashyyk and seen them leading the Clones, but the reaction of his new decades-younger comrades upon his discovery of the Lightsaber and their ignorance of what it symbolised had brought home to him how the Empire had not only destroyed them physically but destroyed the memory of them too.

Hours later, after much searching and many questions he found himself very far from the Spine, a long way from the busty and wealthy sections and as far as he could tell pretty close to the hull in a dead space between the lower shield projector and the main reactor. In a small and dusty compartment piled high with dusty data cards, old computers, broken droids and real bound books, an old hunched Duros shopkeeper was asking for 1,000cr for a simple grey bound book entitled The Jedi Path.

Up in The Bridge, El was preparing for some information gathering of her own. She had told her friends she was just looking for a bit of luxury and pampering, and laughed off their attempts to come and use her hot-tub, but in truth this trip was all business. As she zipped herself into a little black dress is felt no more or less like pulling on combat armour. Just the right equipment for the job at hand.

The next day Thoulyakk was shopping again, this time for more mundane items. He picked up some attachments he could add to his bowcaster, and Hotch Geelo, owner of the Hunter’s Lodge, advised him of a few extra tweaks he could make himself to get the maximum performance, although Thoulyakk privately planned to ask Lok to do the work for him, and then moved on to a business he had found a listing for called The Grapevine.

Run by a Bothan called Eluz, it specialized in information. He asked for a rundown on the planet Junction, which was straight forward and he received immediately for 100cr, and asked for the Bothan to try and find out what he could about the name Tarth Arlos. Eluz explained that it would cost 50cr up front for him to run the search with no guarantee of results, and to come back tomorrow. If he found anything it would cost Thoulyakk another 450cr for the information.

++++

Feriae Junction

In addition to basic statistics about the world the report contained the following summary:
An uninteresting planet with nothing special to recommend it, the only reason for its modest wealth is that it lies upon the intersection between the major trade route the Hydian Way and the lesser trade route the Gordian Reach. In the wake of the destruction of the Death Star many Rebels passed through Junction when the Rebel Base at Yavin was abandoned. The strong Imperial presence that followed caused the collapse of the local Hutt controlled organised crime gangs which were unprepared for such sudden scrutiny. Since then the vacuum has been filled by the recently growing Azure Cabal organisation who are now the primary organised crime group on the planet.

++++

Tarth Arlos. Human Male. His name is on an Imperial list of persons of interest, but there are no details on what he’s done and no specific bounty issued. No description or holo image available. There are also some traces of his name on rebel communication channels, but he’s not flagged as a known Rebel in any accessible Imperial databases. Nothing on him in the major corporate databases I can access, although that doesn’t tell us much in this day and age. He’s also not a registered ship owner with DASS although again that’s not telling us much. Can’t find him as a member of any major guilds either. Based on your other request I took it upon myself to check the name with a contact on Junction. Nothing reliable but a third hand suggestion that his name may have come up in relation to the Azure Cabal, that’s a criminal cartel you’ll see mentioned in your Junction report. Someone called Tormel may have dealt with him. It’s not much of a lead, and I don’t envy you following it up, but it’s something.

++++

El had less direct success. About Vigo Brisgi she learned very little, only that he controlled all of the Black Sun activities in a nearby sector, but one particularly talkative and somewhat inebriated Deveronian, keen to impress her with his knowledge, had explained the structure of the higher echelons of Black Sun, that the Vigos were the chief lieutenants of the undisputed leader of Black Sun, Prince Xizor. She also found out that the sector they were in was controlled by Vigo Kamann, a female Deveronian who has a fierce rivalry with Vigo Brisgi.

She also learned, when discussing the power of Prince Xizor, that he was now probably the second most powerful person in the galaxy, after the Emperor, since Darth Vader, formerly number two, had fallen from favour after the Death Star’s destruction.

Lok, tired after a spending much of his time supervising the Pigeon’s upgrades did his best to assist Thoulyakk with the upgrades to his bowcaster, but having not been there when Thoulyakk had been buying the parts had only a partial understanding of what we being asked of him. He did manage to make some adjustments that would increase the muzzle velocity but the fine tuning was beyond him and the explanation about firing speed made no sense at all. Knowing his limits, Lok was at least smart enough to avoid making things worse and promised Thoulyakk that although it hadn’t worked this time he could go back to the dealer with him later and find out exactly what he needed to do to make it work.

Jom spent most of his time relaxing in some of the fine drinking establishments aboard the Vincible. Spacer’s Retreat was somewhat blue collar for his tastes, and whilst the dancing girls and laser ball playing on holopanels on the walls might appeal to the stereotype freighter pilot, it did not satisfy Jom. Hair of the Vornskrr was better, it had a nice atmosphere and he enjoyed overhearing two people talking about “that crazy pilot in the green dynamic doing a stunt flyby”, but in the end despite the higher prices he found himself gravitating to The Glass Act, a classy place with low lighting, leather sofas and most importantly a great taste in music with live acts in the evenings.

When the repairs were finally completed three days later, the crew left the Vincible richer, in a fully repaired and heavily upgraded ship and armed with more information, both for the group’s mission and some of their own personal interests.

Before leaving the Vincible the crew reconvened in the lounge of the Pigeon. Thoulyakk shared the information he had gained about the planet Junction and the individual known as Tarth Arlos. At the mention of the Azure Cabal, Lok excused himself and left the ship, returning shortly afterwards with one of the large shipping crates they had been using to transport the ore taken from the Offworld Mining Corporation and a pack of facepaints. Mentioning to El that there was a post Spirit Festival sale going on. He then proceeded to line his crate with his bedding, adding water bottles and rations. El, upon hearing the news about the post-Spirit Festival sale likewise rushed out and, much to Lok’s frustration, returned with an identical crate; this one filled with heavily discounted candy.

As Jom pulled away from the Vincible very carefully, trying to ignore the fact that half a dozen heavy Turbolaser batteries were tracking the ship’s movements, El settled back in the lounge with a handful of candy and turned to Lok.
“In all seriousness, ah feel like you are perhaps not telling us somzing? Maybe about the Azure Cabal?”
Lok considered the crewmates to whom he had entrusted his life many times over the last few weeks of drama and andrenalin, and with Jom listening in over the intercom, relayed his tale.

When he was younger, and with a rather overambitious belief in his own skills at computer hacking, he had joined up with the Azure Cabal. He has proposed and been funded for a cyber-attack on rival gang. Unfortunately for Lok, he had made some mistakes, and the hack had been traced back to him. The rival gang had caught him, and interrogated him, and he had spilled everything about the Azure Cabal. This started a long and bloody gang war that, unfortunately for Lok, the Azure Cabal won.

The Azure Cabal had then hunted Lok as a traitor most foul, and Lok had fled the system stowed aboard a freighter and had spend the last few years trying to keep his head down and out of trouble. The idea of returning to a planet controlled by the now considerably more powerful Azure Cabal terrified him. He suggested that it would be best if he stayed aboard the ship for the duration, and if necessary he had prepared a hiding place in case someone ended up aboard the ship. Absolutely worse case he had also a disguise kit so he could paint some tattoos on his face and hopefully not be immediately recognised as pretty much the only Zabrak in the galaxy with no face tattoos.

The crew were accepting of his tale, El in particular feeling somewhat smug about this reveal in light of his previously rather holier-than-though attitude towards her, and were happy to go along with his plans to avoid the Azure Cabal. This led to their next discussion about how connected Tarth Arlos was to the Azure Cabal. As a first order of business the group decided that just in case he was in deep with the gang they should at least know what was on the data chip they were supposed to deliver. Lok grabbed a datapad and disabled all connectivity so that if there were any harmful files or viruses on it they would be contained, and slotted the chip into the data port.

The data was encrypted, but Lok spent a while working on it and eventually had the information partially decoded. It was enough to tell that the files were test results and analyses of the prototype weapons they had given to Gil’Van. Almost certainly everything her group had managed to learn about the weapons before the Imperial raid. For now they decided they would at least try to meet with Tarth Arlos and check him out, but were not convinced they would hand over the chip if it seemed like a bad idea.

++++

Landing at Bratton, a small spaceport town on Junction where they had been directed by Gil’Van, El, Thoulyakk and Jom left the ship. Lok stayed aboard but with an open communications channel to the group. He could hear everything they heard and speak directly into their ear without anyone else being able to hear him. Bratton was Junction’s attempt to replicate the famous Mos Eisley of Tatooine, only with more trees and less dessert; a local commercial hub for the residents on the under populated world and hotspot of casual criminality.

El, being familiar with the ways of criminals, headed to the first cantina she could see, a rundown building that had clearly been built for something else but was now converted into a drinking establishment and named the Weathered Spoon. After buying a drink for herself and Thoulyakk she tried to get some information about a man called Tormel from the barkeeper off the back of a 3cr tip. He asked for 50cr, she offered 10cr and threatened him with a Wookie and they settled on 12cr.

He relaxed when the money came out and said they clearly weren’t around here because a) everyone knew Tormel and b) she was female. He told them she was a Zabrak and that she could normally be found at the Blue Swoop, a drinking den at the far end of the main street.

The Blue Swoop, on closer examination, was a biker gang bar. A dozen highly tuned swoop bikes were parked outside the bar, and it wasn’t much of a leap to connect the Blue Swoop bar and the blue decorated gang swoops to the Azure Cabal, said to be the top criminal outfit on this world. This was both alarming but also promising. Inside they found a dimly lit bar with nearly a score of leather wearing toughs. The only female Zabrak inside was holding court at a booth at the far end, and by extrapolation was obviously Tormel. El approached the bar and asked what Tormel was drinking, a Jinant’onic, and ordered two, as well as a blue milk for Thoulyakk and a zero-g brewed whisky for Jom (after a somewhat lively debate about the definition of “space whiskey”).

They took their drinks, along with the drink for Tormel, over to Tormel’s table and introduced themselves, offering her the drink and asking her if she would be able to share some information with them. She smiled and offered them a seat. Getting down to business Tormel admitted she did know Tarth Arlos and could put them in touch with him, but for a price. As information was her business they could either tell her exactly why they, total strangers, wanted to meet him, or they could pay 500cr. The crew stepped aside to debate this amongst themselves.

The others were willing to pay the credits and maybe reclaim them from Tarth Arlos as “expenses” for getting him the data chip, but El seemed stubbornly unwilling to fork over money. El tried to negotiate her down to a better price but as they obviously needed Tormel far more than Tormel needed them it was unsuccessful. With El still unwilling to part with the money the group explained why they wanted Tarth. They told Tormel that they had been hired (they didn’t exactly know who by, someone on Bandomeer) to get the data chip (they lied and said they didn’t know what was on it, and stressed they did not have it on them right now) to someone called Tarth Arlos (they didn’t know who he was) for an unspecified fee that Thoulyakk guessed was maybe around 5,000cr.

During this discussion El got more and more angry with Tormel, who was polite but mildly condescending in her responses to their tale and their somewhat amateur approach to business and ignorance about their own situation. El could see that at times Tormel was actually having to resist laughing in their faces and was thoroughly enjoying herself at their expense. Afterwards Tormel said that she did not deal with Tarth directly but could put them in touch with him, and that she would go and make a call. The crew didn’t like the atmosphere in the tavern so they decided to wait outside. El decided to conspicuously clean her large sniper rifle in a manner that pointed the barrel directly towards the door of the Blue Swoop, but she was so wound up about Tormel that she didn’t pay attention to what she was doing until too late she realised she had actually rubbed dirt into the firing mechanism and rendered her gun unusable until she could take it completely apart and give it a real clean. Unsurprisingly this only made her more furious.

Jom decided that in order to lurk conspicuously he needed some cigarettes and headed back into the bar to buy some. There he spotted Tormel back at her table who waved at him and gestured him to bring the group back. Paranoia was running high amongst the crew and before the returned into the bar and a possible ambush they arranged with Lok to have the Pigeon running and ready to fly, and told him that if he didn’t hear the code-phrase “Applesauce” in the next ten minutes he should take off, fly over and level the Blue Swoop with their new Concussion Missile launcher. With that sorted, they headed back into the cantina.

El noticed that the drink she had bought for Tormel was still untouched when El had placed it on the table, the ice almost completely melted and the condensation dripping down the sides and forming a puddle on the table. Tormel smiled at the group and told them she had engaged the services of a guide who would take them to Tarth Arlos. They asked how they could contact this guide and she explained that he was on his way here right now. El suggested they would wait outside in the fresh air, and Tormel smirked, “I’m sure you will. Enjoy your “fresh air”. It’s been a genuine pleasure to do business with you. It’s really made my day.”

By this point in their association Jom and Thoulyakk had learned El’s body language fairly well, so when they grabbed El’s arms and walked her swiftly out of the bar Tormel never even knew how close El had been to punching her in the face, and all the chaos and blaster fire that would have ensured thereafter. On the way out they almost stopped dumbfounded when they saw a picture that was unmistakably a younger Lok, with the title “The Unmarked Devil” below it. They kept moving so as to not draw attention and thus were unable to get a good look at it but it was clear that they had seen some kind of unofficial wanted poster.

Jom, having returned to the bar yet again and this time finally acquired a packet of cigarettes and some matches, was trying to smoke inconspicuously but as a first time smoker was somewhat distracted trying not to cough his lungs up, and El was too wrapped up in her own anger to pay any attention, so it was Thoulyakk who first noticed the human walking down the street towards the bar. The crew eyed him warily but did not move to intercept him, on the basis that if he was Tormel’s man he would soon be sent their way. Fortunately at this point Thoulyakk also remembered to tell Lok the codeword Applesauce and prevented something of a disaster.

They guessed correctly and a few minutes later he emerged once more and headed over to them. He was a rough looking man, probably in his fourties, with thick mostly sandy coloured but occasionally grey hair somewhat unkempt and with a bushy beard. He wore rough outdoors clothes and carried a few guns and a large rucksack. The overall effect was a cross between a solder and a homeless person.

“You’d be the group looking to meet Tarth then?” he said. They cautiously introduced themselves and in turn he told them his name was Jec and that he worked for Tarth. He could take them to him, but that Tarth was currently on the planet Stithian.

The crew were reluctant to take anyone associated with the Azure Cabal back on their ship with Lok, but Lok was familiar with the planet and confirmed Jec’s explanation that is was an uninhabited forest planet and that they would never be able to locate someone on it on their own, so they cautiously agreed. As they headed back to the ship Lok bunged his lunch into his hiding crate and dived in after it, but as he listened to the com-link he could hear El telling Jec about their pilot, “Kol”, who was onboard the ship already. Cursing El, he climbed back out of the crate and grabbed his facepaints and sprinted for the fresher, lamenting that it had taken so little time to burn through plans A and B and were already onto plan C for not getting Lok discovered and thus murdered.

During the walk back the crew asked Jec more questions about his and Tarth’s relationship to the Azure Cabal, and Jec explained that Tarth was not particularly involved with them but sometimes found it necessary to do business with them, the galaxy being the way it was. He did not say that he was sure they understood the need to sometimes do business with unsavoury characters, but it was clear from the way he was looking at them and their weapons that he understood the line of business they were in. He explained that he sometimes worked for Tarth, in a fairly loose arrangement, including being a go between for dealing with the Azure Cabal.

This was probably good news as far as Lok’s safety was concerned, but only if it was true. Even if it was, anyone doing business with the Azure Cabal might be very happy to use Lok as leverage or to gain favour, so Lok was very much in danger from him. As such when they returned to the ship Lok hid himself in the engineering compartment under the pretext of some maintenance work.

El left the group to go and fix her rifle, and Jom led the way onto the bridge, offering Jec some caff, which he gratefully accepted. As Jom settled into the pilot’s seat, and Jec dropped into the vacant co-pilot’s seat. Watching Jom start up the ship and prepare for takeoff Jec asked where “Kol the pilot” was and Jom hurriedly explained that “Kol” was the OTHER pilot and he, Jom, was a pilot too. Jec looked a little bit confused but accepted this explanation.

Once they were in the air and heading for space Jom continued to probe Jec to assess how much danger he posed to Lok. Now there were off-world they were in less immediate danger as one man alone would have a hard time against the four of them, but it was still important to know if he was a risk. He asked what Jed did other than working for Tarth and Jec said that he was a bounty hunter, which caused Jom to spit his mouthful of caff all over the dashboard. Mopping it up with his shirt sleeves he explained that it had been too hot for him, but it was pretty clear Jec wasn’t buying it.

Later El, returning in a somewhat better mood, told Jec that there was a spare bunk in her cabin if she wanted it, but he politely declined on the basis that he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable and told her he had his own bedding with him and could sleep in the cargo hold if there was a bit of space.

In hyperspace as the crew prepared for bed, with Lok using the convoluted corridor arrangement of the old ship to stay out of sight, Jec caught Jom alone for a word.
“Look, I just want to explain that when I said I’m a bounty hunter I’m more of a wilderness tracker. I do specialised work, I don’t browse the current wanted lists and grab anyone I can find, it’s more sort of bespoke work. So, you know, if someone happened to have a bounty on them I wouldn’t know it, and even if I did I wouldn’t be inclined to do anything about it anyway.”
Jom nodded noncommittally and Jec, appearing to have nothing more to add, retired to the secondary cargo hold where he’d made his bunk.

I should have probably mentioned this in the last post but we're up to date so updates will be slower now, we aim to play every 2-3 weeks.

The next morning El found Jec in the galley, apparently having rummaged through the cupboards but, finding only re-heatable ration packs and coffee, was eating jerky from his own pack. The rest of the crew assembled as well and he briefed them on what they could expect. He would direct Jom to land in a small village of primitive natives and then it would be a 1-2 day hike through the forest as there is no-where closer to land.

The crew decided to leave Lok on the ship and have him prepare a rescue winch in case they needed a quick extraction. The rest of them would accompany Jec. As their comms would not work through dense forest they also agreed that Lok would fly over their estimated position in the evening and again in the morning so that he could check in with them as the communications should break through the canopy if he was close enough overhead. As a final backup Lok rigged the mini camera droid they had taken from the bounty hunters to be able to act as a comm. relay if they directed it up above the canopy.

Jec questioned the need for such precautions, having described the many day hike as a “short walk” it was clear he did not feel it was necessary, but El politely explained that this was a sensible precaution for an unknown alien world and, frankly, for all they know Jec could have dozens of men waiting in ambush for them out there. Jec explained that given that they had approached him it seemed impossible that he would have set up a plan to ambush them, but said that they were of course welcome to take whatever precautions they felt necessary.

With the plan sorted Jec directed Jom down to the village. It was located in a large clearing in the forest and consisted mostly of wooden huts. As they landed they saw the brightly coloured inhabitants watching them with curiosity but with no sign of “fear of the god chariot” they would have expected from primitive species who had never seen a space ship before. Jec had refereed to them as “Embers” and they were short furry bipedal mammals with a bright turquoise colouration and orange markings. They has nimble paws with claws and opposable digits for tool wielding and wore primitive clothes.

Thoulyakk was the first to step off the ship and was almost immediately surrounded by half a dozen inquisitive Embers, moving in short quick motions. At less than a meter high they were utterly dwarfed by the tall Wookie and yet appeared totally unconcerned. As the rest of the crew descended the ramp, a less brightly coloured Ember moved more slowly towards them, clearly an elder.
“Pic wacca pechik” it spoke to Thoulyakk
“Yes?” he replied after a pause.
“Wacca pejick noffal”
“No”
“Weeji wacca palo meeg”
“Yes”
“Fatta woozoo pagin, galic pang fallou pijit”
“…yes?”
At that, all the Embers cheered.
“Thouyakk mah friend,” said El, “do you understand their language?”
“Well, there is a certain fellowship of forest peoples that grants a universal language of experience.”
“You ave no idea what zey’re saying, do you,” replied El sceptically.
“None at all.”

Jec came forward and said to the pair “I think they are welcoming us.” He knelt in front of the elder, getting a little closer to his height, and began speaking in the Ember’s language. He spoke hesitantly with only a basic grasp of the language. “This one seems to be the chief and they are pleased to welcome us.”

One of Embers who had been in the initial crowd to welcome them but had then run back to the village returned now with a small leather bag. It approached El, and pointed to the rifle on her back, then pulled several acorns from the pouch and a sharp flint rock and offered them to El. El realised the creature was looking to trade. She was unwilling to trade guns to primitive creatures, let alone her precious sniper rifle, but she found the creatures adorable and wanted to trade so she ran back into the ship. In her cabin she found some simple tools and turned to find the Ember had followed her into her cabin.

El offered the small brightly coloured creature the tool in an open hand and whilst it examined it form several angles and poked it, never actually held it or tried to remove it from El’s hand. It seemed totally disinterested in the tool and instead looked around the cabin, and when it spotted Els’ bunk dived on top of it, rolling on the soft bedding. It gestured at the pillow and once again offered the handful of acorns and a sharp flint. El simply handed the pillow to the cute critter but it was determined to offer the payment. El simply took a single acorn from its hands and in a flash it was gone from the ship. Outside the others saw the little furry creature run out of the ship and off into the village holding the pillow aloft triumphantly, with a dozen more Embers peeling off the group in pursuit.

After an abortive attempt to buy some rope from the Embers, since the crew were unwilling to trade guns with them and did not want to part with every pillow on the ship, they set off into the jungle leaving Lok aboard the Pigeon. He went inside and locked the door behind him and began building a winch out of spare parts.

The walk through the jungle was long and tiring, especially for Jom and El who were not used to such extended physical exercise nor being in such an untamed wilderness. Jec asked them about where they were from, and also about why they were looking for Tarth. Thoulyakk seemed ready to tell them everything, but El distracted the conversation with talk of bears, starting an argument about whether bears existed on this world, leading Jec to explain that Bears did not but Rancors did and then a whole new arguments about the dangers of Rancors that he should have mentioned before and whether or not El could have spotted one without Jec being aware of it.

Whilst she was very annoyed by it all she had distracted the conversation and stopped Thoulyakk from spilling the beans. In turn they asked Jec about his home and occupation and he explained that he came originally from Mandalore but didn’t fit in there in the very modern urban environment and now mostly found employment ad a findsman and bounty hunter in the wilderness. At the end of the day Jec showed Jom and El how to make a shelter out of the thermal blankets they’d taken from the Pigeon’s escape pods, a task they were both awful at, whilst Thoulyakk climbed the nearest tree and dozed in the canopy. Lok flew the Pigeon overhead and checked in with them as planned via the radio.

The next morning the crew started grumpily, the lack of coffee being a particular issue for El. As such it took them a long time to realise the Lok had not checked in. They quickly decided that they should return to see what had happened to him but when they asked Jec to lead them back he simply sat down on a nearby fallen tree.
“I can’t figure you guys out. You guys are so obviously spies it can’t be real, but likewise if you we genuine then you wouldn’t obviously be spies. I can’t tell if I’m being triple or quadruple bluffed.”
“Ah do not know what you are talking about Jec, but we need to go right now, our friend may be in danger” replied El.
“Oh he’ll be fine, he’s in no danger.”
El’s eyes narrowed, “And ow would you know that…”
“Because I asked the Embers not to hurt him when they captured him.”
With this admission the crew grew tense and wary, but Jec seemed relaxed and continues to chew on his breakfast jerky.
“He’ll be quite safe” Jec continued “whilst we work out if you are Imperial spies or not.”
“Why would you sink we are spies?”
“Oh come on. Wookies can’t speak basic, it’s not a question of intelligence it’s just biology, yet Thoulyakk here is the most eloquent member of your crew; all Zabrak have facial tattoos but yours has painted them on with face paint; Jom here has a fake eye-patch and you, El, have a chunk of your lekku missing, if you were a real twi’lek you’d have brain damage.”
With that El slapped Jec but he caught her wrist before she connected. She pulled her hand away and took several steps back, levelling her blaster at him. He calmly tucked his jerky into his belt and casually raised his hands in surrender.
“What is going on and what ‘ave you done wiz our friend?”
“I have done nothing to him. The Embers have captured him.”
“Why? Tell me what is going on and why I should not kill you in the next 10 seconds or you’re dead. 10… 9…”
“Well firstly because you’re unlikely to find your way back to your ship without me.”
“We’ll take that chance. 8… 7… 6…”
“I might have misled you slightly about the Rancors, whilst it’s true they do not go as far south as the Ember village we have been moving north. We’re in their territory now. Do you think you’ll get back alive without me?”
“5… 4… 3… 2…”
“Fine, fine ok.” He gestured a dismissal of the blaster, still remarkably calm in the face of a death threat, and lowered his hands to recommence eating his jerky. “I work for Tarth Arlos, and part of my job is to check out people who come searching for him. I brought you here to work out who you are. If I concluded you were Imperial spies I could slip away and abandon you, or you’d kill me in a confrontation like this, and either way you’d probably get eaten by Rancors and never reach Tarth. But I can’t figure you out, I feel like you are genuine but my eyes tell me you are fake. Jom’s the only one that actually appears to be a genuine member of his race and you have a tracking beacon on your ship.”
El absorbed this final revelation in silence, not letting on to Jec that they knew nothing of the tracking beacon.
“So when ah said ah was worried zis could be an ambush and you dismissed ze idea ah was actually right, zis is exactly an ambush!”
“Pff, no, I don’t have any men out here. It’s not like I’m giving orders to Rancors or anything!”
Clearly this semantic difference did not impress El, but Thoulyakk interjected.
“Perhaps this can be resolved without violence. Friend Jec, you can trust we are not imperials. I have here a lightsaber, a weapon of the Jedi, and I have found a book of their teachings. Clearly we are not Imperials.”
“Can… can I see it?” Jec asked, but did not reach out to touch the weapon that was presented, cautious of El’s rifle and twitchy trigger finger.
“And a book you say? Do you have it with you?”
“No, it is safe aboard our ship.”
“Where did you get this Thoulyakk, are you a Jedi?”
“No, it was from our Captain, killed by Imperials. We believe he was a Jedi.”
“What was his name?”
“Sauto Slex”
“I… ah, I want to believe you Thoulyakk, but the Jedi are no more and lightsabers outlawed. The only people who could have a lightsaber are the Empire who killed the Jedi and confiscated their weapons.”
El, annoyed by Thoulyakk telling yet more secrets to strangers, tried to bring the conversation back on track.
“So you ‘ave brought us ‘ere to entrap us, Tarth Arlos was never even here.”
“Not at all, Tarth is on Stithian. If you can just prove to me you are not spies you will meet him. In the meantime I suggest we don’t hang about.” Jec said and began to rise.
“You aren’t leaving until we’re…” El began to say until she was interrupted by a deafening and fearsome roar from the North. When she looked back Jec was already running south and shouting at them to run.
“Stop!” she shouted, but the rest of the crew were already running after Jec. Thoulyakk, not wishing to chance Jec abandoning them until everything else had been sorted out, picked Jec up bodily and tucked him under his arm and continued to run seemingly unhindered. El cursed, shouldered her blaster and started running.

Keep 'em coming! These are very entertaining, particularly this last one. Embers cute as, triumphant pillow acquisitions, instant poodu-pants when the rancor roars...excellent!

Lok awoke to the uncomfortable sensation of being poked in the back of the head by a blaster. Not a good start to the day. Having fallen asleep face down, he turned his head slowly and non-aggressively to see an Ember standing on his bunk poking a blaster carbine down at him. Half a dozen more Embers, all armed, were crowded into the rest of the cabin. As they led him at gunpoint out of the ship he noticed a small spider-like droid perched on the internal door controls, which at least explained how they had got aboard. As he came down the ramp it seemed half the village had turned out to witness and they cheered their brave heroes that had so bravely captured the unarmed sleeping computer geek.

He was taken to a wooden hut and shown inside. It was not a prison cell, just a regular hut with tiny wooden furniture. Lok poked his head out the window flap and could see armed Embers were stationed all around the hut. He could see the reflection of a large fire in the centre of the town and the sounds of a large gathering, but the gathering was dispersing and in time the light died out. He waited another hour or so, to see if the guards would get tired or bored, but when new guards came to relieve them he realised the Embers, though primitive, were not stupid. Finally he went to bed, although he was far too big for the bed and almost his entire legs were sticking out the bottom.

++++

Thoulyakk had somehow managed to climb a tree, even with Jec still tucked firmly under his arm and protesting mildly, but Jom and El were not so capable, lacking the sharp and strong climbing claws of the Wookies. El had dived into a bush, and Jom had followed, but the Rancor had caught up with them and was sniffing the air and getting closer. Jom wracked his brains, trying to remember what he knew about Rancors.
“They only see movement!”
As the Rancor approached their position, El and Jom froze. The Rancor sniffed the air and moved closer, and the pair held still. It was now standing right over them, and it was far too late to run, so even as the Rancor casually ripped the bush away, leaving them in plain sight, they did not move. They stared up at its beady eyes, as it searched for them, first with one eye and then, turning its head, with the other.

By the time the Rancor moved off Jom was feeling very light headed and realised he had stopped breathing when the bush was torn away and had not started again since. With a gasp for air he collapsed on the ground, but El dragged him up again and over to the tree where Thoulyakk had climbed down to assist them up into the safety of its towering canopy.

++++

In the morning Lok was awoken by a pair of Embers bringing fruit and water. They found him lying on the floor, having given up on the tiny bed and taken what little bedding existed down onto the ground where at least he could lie flat without breaking his legs. After he had eaten he found another Ember standing in the hut looking at him expectantly and holding a datapad.
“Hello?” he said.
“Hajjat woopoo manar” replied the small creature and offered the datapad to him.
“Hmm, still don’t understand Basic then? What have we got here? Well it’s not turning on, so you’ve very kindly given me a broken datapad. Thanks.” Looking up he saw a second Ember had dragged his tool belt in to the hut.
“Ah, I see…”
Within a minute he had fixed the loose wire he had found within the casing and switched the datapad on. At the startup sound the Embers cheered and the first Ember rushed up, took the datapad and handed Lok a shiny rock, a stone arrow head and a pink flower.
“Manar patooi!”
“Er…”
As the Ember left the hut, another Ember entered holding what was clearly a broken Fusion Lantern.
“Riiiiight...”

++++

“You see our problem mah friend, Zoulyakk ‘ere ‘as told you too much about us, and if we cannot be trusted friends we can ‘ardly let you go. Plus it’s not like we can keep you prisoner forever so zere is not a lot of options we ‘ave.” said El to a captive and disarmed Jec at the top of the tree.
“How about this then, you’ve already told me too much, but you claim you are here in good faith. So if I know too much already then you can tell me the truth about who sent you and why you want to meet Tarth and maybe there is something there that will prove to me you are who you say you are. I appreciate you want to protect this information, after all you don’t know me, but if I know too much then you have nothing to lose.”
“That makes some sense to me.” Said Thoulyakk. And so the crew of the Annual Pigeon told Jec of all their adventures from when they landed on Bandomeer to when they met him on Junction, and even showed him the data file Gil’Van had given them and Lok had decrypted.

Jec took a minute to take it all in. “Well, it seems perhaps I have misjudged you and owe you an apology. Although in my defence this is exactly what Gil’Van knew would happen and although she didn’t tell you, it was her intent all along. People are sent to find Tarth Arlos because he knows how to put them in contact the Rebel Alliance. That’s who she was really sending the data to. My job is to assess people, if they’re okay, Tarth will introduce them to the Rebels, if not, well, worst case Tarth only knows how to contact them, even if Imperials were to arrest and interrogate him, he doesn’t have any current locations or useful secrets to give. For now though, perhaps we had best return to the Embers and rescue your friend Kol, although he should be perfectly safe.”

As the group started the long hike back El asked Jec, “So, now that we are all friends and everything, you ‘ave ‘assessed’ us as okay, when do we get to meet Tarz Arlos?”
“Oh, yes, sorry, I forgot. I am Tarth Arlos.” The shock stopped El in her tracks and Jec carried on a few steps before he noticed and also stopped. “Sorry, forgot to mention that. I wasn’t lying when I said he was on this planet.” El was still processing this information so Jec continued, “I guess maybe if I said he was here when we were back on Junction, because obviously he wasn’t then. I’m not saying I wasn’t trying to deceive you, that was my job after all, just maybe not as much as you think.” Still no response from El. “The Azure Cabal don’t know I’m Tarth by the way, they only know Jec who works for Tarth, they don’t know I’m Tarth as well.”
El still wasn’t saying anything but Jec had run out of things to say and just stared at her until she finally started talking.
“You mean you dragged us to zis stupid world, made us land in zat stupid village, trek for DAYS srough zis STUPID JUNGLE, sleep in A PILE OF ROCKS and nearly get EATEN by a RANCOR?!?! And YOU WERE TARZ ALL ALONG?!?!”
“Er, yes. Pretty much.” Jec replied, “Although I also kidnapped your friend and by extension kind of stole your ship. Temporarily. We’ll go and rescue him and get the ship back now.”
El, her usually blue complexion now tinted deeply into purple, simply walked away, leaving the rest of the group behind.
“Thoulyakk,” Jec said, “perhaps it would be better if you were the one to tell El that she is walking in the wrong direction…”

Some hours later, after tempers had had time to cool, Jec spoke to Thoulyakk. “Thoulyakk my venerable friend, forgive me if I am being rude but I must know, how is it that you speak basic? It is my understanding that this is biologically impossible for Wookies, and as such part of the cause for my mistake.”
Jom and El, walking behind, exchanged a glance. Being unfamiliar with Wookies they had not been aware that Thoulyakk speaking basic was in any way unusual. They drew closer to listen to Thoulyakk’s response.
“I have gained a great many reasons to hate the Empire during my captivity. This… change… is one of their lesser offenses against me and my kin.”
“Ah, I see. Say no more my friend.”

With nothing to do but walk and talk, the group continued their discussions on and off for the rest of the journey. El admitted that Kol was really called Lok, and Jec admitted that he had been snooping on the ship and found Lok’s hiding crate and face paint. Someone raised the question of money, Gil’Van having promised that Tarth Arlos would pay them for the data they were carrying. “Oh, hah, no, I don’t have any money. The data’s not for me either, not really. I’ll put you in touch with the Rebels and they can worry about it.” At this El simply rolled her eyes, having used up her supply of outrage and been left with only sarcasm. They also asked about the tracking device and Jec explained that he knew nothing about it except that the Embers had detected its signal and informed him about it.

When the crew finally arrived at the village, the Embers spotted Jec walking peacefully amongst them and cheered. They quickly found Lok in the hut at the end of a large queue of Embers, all clutching broken technology. They could hear Lok’s voice floating out of the open doorway.
“Yes, well done, another broken datapad. You do know it’s not a club don’t you? Can’t understand a word I’m saying. Oh, what a surprise, upon opening the case we find you have replaced the battery with a rock. A flat rock. What is wrong with you stupid little monsters? Oh, good, you’re smiling at me. Well luckily for you we have a spare battery from the idiot who tried to use his datapad as a dinner plate. And I won’t ask why all your datapads are the exact same make and model. There you go you filthy beast. Oh, great, a handful of twigs and junk, thank you so very much. Next! Well what do you expect me to do with this? You’ve broken the bulb and there are no spares in this stupid jungle! Oh, El, Thoulyakk, please tell me you’re here to rescue me or to kill me.”
“Hello Lok, yes we’re ‘ere to rescue you. From Jec, as it turns out. Who knows you’re Lok by ze way. And ‘e’s actually Tarz Arlos. And zere’s a tracking device on our ship. And I need some caffeine. Grab your tools and your… treasure, and let’s go.” El said, gesturing at the pile of trinkets Lok had been “paid” by the Embers.

As they approached the Pigeon El told Lok of their theory that the tracking device must have been inserted during the repairs aboard the Vincible, however when an Ember approached at Jec’s request with a hand scanner and showed Lok the signal they had detected, they quickly traced it back to the major hull repair underneath the port dormitory, which had been made by the Black Sun after their near fatal escape from Taris and the resulting hull breach. Lok spent several hours trying to remove it in-tact, so they could use it to send a fake signal and misdirect their hidden opponent, however some internal failsafe caused the device to self destruct once removed from the ship’s power supply. At least the tracking was disabled, and a thorough scan revealed no further tracking devices.

Aboard the ship once more the crew, and Jec, gathered to plan their next move. The tracking device was clearly set by the Black Sun, possibly related to the fact that Jom was wanted by them, That would certainly explain how the bounty hunters found them, although it did not explain why Black Sun had not acted when they were still on the Black Sun station. It was also decided the ship needed more false IDs, partially to evade the Black Sun but also as their current ID was almost certainly blown during their escape from Bandomeer. To that end they elected to return to the Vincible.

In hyperspace Jec broached the question of Lok’s lack of facial tattoos with Lok, since it was a cultural tradition with Zabrak to have facial tattoos from a young age. Lok explained that he had been adopted by humans when he was very young, but given the recent history with the Azure Cabal and their hunt for the “Unmarked Zabrak”, and in general the ease by which he could be identified, he had decided he should get some facial tattoos when they landed at the Invincible.

The next morning Jom awoke with a terrible hangover. He remembered nothing of the evening before, but found Lok and Thoulyakk also asleep in their bunks and El passed out in a pile of clothing on the floor. As Lok sat up Jom could see that his face was sore and red around fresh and complex fresh tattoos. More shocking was seeing Thoulyakk stand up to reveal a large patch of fur on his back had been shaved off, and he too had a fresh tattoo. When Jom spotted that El was also sporting a fresh tattoo entirely covering her damaged lekku, it was with a sad sense of inevitability that he went to the mirror in the refresher, there to discover both his arms had been tattooed with full sleeves…

Okay, in this world, it takes years to do full sleeves. Years, and lots and lots of pain over that time period.

Yowch!

True, but hardly something I am going to argue with my players about. Who knows how tatoos are done in Star Wars? I think the full sleeve on a Lekku would probably be extermely painful.

Ok, it's been a long time coming so break yourselves for a bit of a mega-dump. Over the holidays whilst everyone was in the same part of the world for once we brought in a few extra players and did a special face to face all-day roleplay session.

The camera pans down to a green world of luscious vegetation, jungle but not too dense with large fertile plains. Scattered across those plains are small settlements of poorly built shacks.

The crew of the Annual Pigeon, along with their passengers Kaya and Sis along with the Rebel contact Jec, all awake to find themselves in individual cages of crudely welded scrap metal, within a larger blastcrete and sheet metal shack. Their heads hurt terribly and they have no memory of how they got here. They have been awoken by a Rodian standing in the middle of the room banging a heavy looking shock prod against the bars of a cage.

“Ee chuuta mopogo…” said the Rodian as he stared at the prisoners. El, quite ignoring the presence of their apparent captor, started shouting at their passengers and accusing them or betrayal. Sis Kero, stocky Nautolan bodyguard to the Pantoran diplomat Kaya Macawai, made the same accusations just as loudly right back at her. The Rodian stopped the argument by shocking El, the closer, with the shock prod he was carrying. El, took the pain with a grunt and told the Rodian in menacing terms to release her immediately or she would kill him with her bare hands. He shocked her again, the jolt flinging her to the back of the cell. From the floor, and slightly smoking, she looked up at him and uttered “Mah face will be ze last sing you ever see Rodian…”

The Rodian addressed the room in basic this time, “Enough of this. Time to get into your costumes and ready to be sold. Let’s see what we have.” With that the Rodian dragged a large trolley of assorted clothing into the centre of the room and started inspecting the inmates. “Hmm, you,” he said pointing at Sis, “not so pretty are we, but you look pretty tough, I guess the gladiator pits for you.” With that he hurled a pile of leather straps and armour plates down in front of her cell and turned next to Thoulyakk. “Hmm, well, a Wookie is a Wookie, not much point dressing you up.” Next he turned to Kaya. “You’re a pretty little thing though aren’t you,” and dropped a bundle outside her cage that turned out to be a bikini that someone had been stupid enough to make out of metal. The Rodian then continued to go around the room sizing up the captives and assigning them appropriate costumes to fit the type of slave he believed they could be sold as.

He finished with El, and sizing her up said “Hmm, more anger than smarts, and not pretty enough to dance, I guess you’ll be entertaining meat for the gladiator pits though…”. Before he’d finished speaking El was up against the bars and reaching for him, spitting and cursing, but he simply laughed and shocked her one more time. Her legs gave out and she collapsed on the floor, still cursing him faintly.

“I’m going to get your gruel for breakfast now. By the time I return either you will be changed into your new uniforms or I shall have my men flay your current clothes off your backs with their whips.” With that he left them alone.

Thoulyakk and Sis both immediately set to breaking out of their cells through feats of brute strength in what very quickly turned into a competitive display. Neither of them could bend the strong metal, but Thoulyakk got lucky and found a shoddy weld that started to give under his strength. Meanwhile El brandished a piece of wire concealed in her hand. She had spotted it on the shock prod the second time she was shocked by the Rodian, and deliberately got herself shocked the third time to give her a chance to grab it. She began working on the lock in the door.

Lok was already halfway changed into the dirty boiler suit he had been given when he noticed the rest of his compatriots were not obeying but attempting to escape. Sighing, he put it back down and started getting back into his original clothes. Kaya, examining the clothes she had been given, passed them through the pars to her neighbour Lok.
“You’re the ships mechanic aren’t you?” she asked in basic with a heavy Pantoran accent, “What can you make of this?”
Lok took the garment and held it up. “Well it looks like a Tatooine style slave garment, although if you look at the internal welding you can see it’s a cheap knockoff and not the sort of thing you’d see a real Hutt crime lord…” he trailed off as he saw her withering gaze. “I guess if I can break it apart along these shoddy welds using the prison bars as leverage I should get three or four pieces of metal with sharp points suitable for stabbing?”
Just as Lok had made the first break the door opened once more and everyone froze in their various attempts to escape. But rather than the Rodian, a new face appeared. An elderly Cerulean man with a large and overstuffed satchel entered the room and closed the door behind him.
“Good morning you poor souls, you can call me Doc.”
“Ey,” said El, “can you let us out?”
“Would that I could, but I am as much a prisoner in this place as you. In exchange for treating their injuries the pirates let me treat their captives and the few innocents who still live on this planet.”
“Maybe we can ‘elp each ozer, eef you ‘elp us escape we can get you off this world.”
“I’m sorry, no, even if I could help you my place is here doing what I can.”
“You ‘ave a funny definition of prisoner…” El muttered and turned away as Doc shined a small torch into her eyes.
“Pounding headache?” He asked. El nodded. “A bit of memory loss too I expect. That’s normal. I believe you are all suffering from mild hypoxia, I understand your ship lost life support when they captured you. Take two of these and the headache should go away. Normally I’d suggest you take them with water but it appears none have been provided, but they shouldn’t harm you if you can swallow them down.”
El, noticing Thoulyakk had redoubled his efforts to break open his cage, spoke to the doctor again.
“What else have you in that bag? Any sedatives?”
“Just painkillers I’m afraid, that’s what I’ve just given you, and some bandages and so forth. I don’t have any keys if that’s what you’re hoping.”
“Anything that could be injected straight into the bloodstream?”
“What?” he asked, shocked and misunderstanding her intent. He looked more closely at her face and mistook the pain of having been shocked repeatedly for more severe hypoxia. “Hmm, you seem to be particularly badly affected, maybe take another dose. Still orally though.”
With a roar, Thoulyakk finally burst free of confinement, winning himself a large metal bar in the process to use as a weapon or tool.
“Grab ‘im Soulyakk!” shouted El, and the towering Wookie quickly snatched up the aged medic.
“Now, what can you tell us about zese people who ‘ave captured us?”
“Honestly nothing I wouldn’t have told you anyway, I have no reason to lie to you about anything. They are a band of pirates who call themselves the Hydian Vagabonds. You were caught by mistake in a planned raid on some large cargo ship. They use a gravity well generator to pull ships out of hyperspace and lay out ion nets to fry their systems when they drop into real space. I’m pretty sure they plan to sell you as slaves. Please, I mean you no harm and I’m not one of the pirates, there’s no need to hurt me, I’m just doing my best to help people where I can.”
“Put ‘im down Soulyakk, we can shove ‘im in a cell.”
“Actually if you wouldn’t mind terribly knocking me out it would look better when they find me lat…”
The unconscious Doctor slipped to the floor after Thoulyakk’s carefully applied blow.

When the Rodian re-entered the room with a bucket of gruel it was to find Thoulyakk calmly prising the cells open with the iron bar he had broken free form his own cage, and his attention was immediately drawn by Jom shaking his cage door and screaming nonsense. As such he never saw El come out from behind the door, closing it behind him, and stab him in the neck with a sharpened piece of metal bikini. But as he breathed his last gasp El pulled his head around to face her and whispered “Ah told you ze last thing you saw would be mah face.”

With everyone freed the escapees headed out. They found themselves in a sort of shanty town of poorly made buildings that was mostly quiet, but off to one side was a landing strip with some small spacecraft and a lot of activity. The rest of the area was mostly surrounded by jungle. They decided to head into the jungle as a first stop but almost immediately ran into a group of pirates. Seven escaped slaved lead by an angry Wookie made short work of the pirates.

They did notice the only uniform clothing the pirates wore was an armband with an embroidered Kinrath on it, and quickly claimed them from the dead pirates. Investigating the nearby buildings they identified one with three sleeping pirates and El decided to go and get some more armbands. Kaya, the Pantoran diplomat, suggested this could be done peacefully, and El agreed to only hurt them if they attacked her first. With that, El entered the room silently.

Peering through the window Kaya could see El gesturing, apparently in conversation with the pirates, until El suddenly attacked them, stabbing two of them in the necks with metal bikini shards and finishing the third with a vibro-sword taken from the earlier pirates. In the aftermath the rest of the escapees rushed in to the cabin. “Ah’m sorry Kaya, I tried to reason wiz zem but zey said zey would kill me and I had to act quickly.” Kaya looked around the room at the three bodies that seemed to have died whilst still tucked in to their beds and not in any way reaching for nearby weapons, but simply replied “I see.”

With a temporary base established and a few blaster pistols and melee weapons between them, it was decided their best bet would be to investigate the landing strip to see if their ship was there, or any other suitable ship they could steal and escape. A group of seven was not very subtle, so El went alone to investigate. She reported back that the ships were all single cockpit “Ugly” fighters, a mix of mismatched parts bodged together into barely functional fighters. Further, they mostly appeared damaged and a lot of work was underway to repair them. Most interestingly El had spotted beyond the landing strip in the distance there were half a dozen more of these little settlements spread across the valley floor beyond.

They decided more information was needed. Kaya suggested that they take a prisoner alive this time, and to ensure no mistakes she would accompany El and perform the interrogation herself. Sis insisted that Kaya would not go anywhere without her, and thus the three of them went together to find a hut with just one sleeping pirate and proceeded to interrogate him.

Between El’s threats and Kaya’s polite diplomacy they quickly got a complete story. The Hydian Vagabonds operated on a Feudal system. Rundo Torsin, the self-titled Pirate King, lived on an abandoned mining station in the planet’s asteroid ring. When he went on raids with his flagship, a modified Nebulon-B frigate called the Queen Amidala’s Revenge, he would summon short ranged fighters from the pirate clans on the planet below. Loot would generally be apportioned by the Pirate King at his leisure, but slaves were a special case, needing immediate attention. They did not normally spend more time than necessary blockading hyperspace routes as they might accidentally catch themselves and Imperial Star Destroyer which would destroy them utterly, but instead relied on leaked shipping information to perform targeted raids.

This raid had been aimed upon a huge Action VI transport carrying high value trade goods, and the Annual Pigeon had been caught by accident simply because they happened to be travelling along the same hyperspace route at the wrong time. The Kinrath clan had taken the most damage and casualties during the assault and as such had been awarded the slaves taken from the Annual Pigeon, however Rundo Torsin was currently working on ransoming the Action VI back to its owners and the Annual Pigeon was relatively unimportant and had been stored on the station until later. He also added that if they wanted to get to the station, they’d need the defence codes for the station as Rundo Torsin did not trust his minions and the station was heavily defended against the starfighters of the pirate clans on the planet below.

Kaya was keen to know who could give them the codes, but the lowly Weequay pirate did not know, he suggested that the clan boss, Boss Kinrath, a female human with brown hair and purple armour, was unlikely to know, however she might know who else did. With their information source exhausted El wanted to kill him, but Kaya insisted he be unharmed and they agreed to knock him out and tie him to the bed. Having learned that Boss Kinrath could normally be found in the village cantina, they headed out to regroup with the rest of their friends and go searching for her. Stepping out of the door, Sis discovered that she had come for them…

In the first moments of the street fight that instantly erupted El burned down a few of the armed pirates accompanying Boss Kinrath, only to be hit herself. Sis returned fire from the light cover of the doorway whilst Kaya dragged El back into cover. Despite the skill of Sis the escapees were badly outnumbered and the pirates started to swarm towards them until Thoulyakk, Jom, Lok and Jec arrived from the side, flanking the pirates. With several pirates cut down from the surprise attack, and a few more fleeing an enraged Wookie, Boss Kinrath saw the tide turning and ran. Jom, the only person free to see this chased after her, but the foot chase was ended abruptly when Thoulyakk, who had managed to get ahead of her, stepped out in front of Boss Kinrath and simply picked her up off her feet and shook the weapons out of her hands.

With Boss Kinrath captive, and El patched up using the medical supplies they had taken from Doc earlier, the escapees regrouped. With the casualties already taken by clan Kinrath in the last pirate raid, and those the escaped slaves had killed since their break out, about half of the clan were dead or injured, and Boss Kinrath, whose real name was Torc Bendal, was utterly demoralised and desired only to protect her clan from further losses. She was more than happy to surrender herself and her remaining troops if it would spare them from the skilled, angry and now well armed band running amuck through their village. When El proposed a deal whereby she assisted them in reclaiming their ship and escaping, and in exchange she would become the new Pirate King when they broke onto the station above and eliminated him, she was eager to oblige.

++++

Jakar Mar-Shayal, more commonly known as Boss Hawk-Bat, a tall Pau’un of imposing bearing and fearsome reputation, stood outside his cantina and watched as a group of figures with Kinrath badges walked up the main street of Hawk-Bat village. As the most trusted Lieutenant of the Pirate King, he’d seen this scene numerous times before, and he smirked at the pirates standing beside him who also knew how this would play out and grinned back at him. As they drew up to talking distance he hailed them. “Let me guess, you’re looking to move up in the world? Sorry to disappoint you but we’re all full up. There’s no room in clan Hawk-bat for rats deserting a sinking ship.” With that he smirked, and his men laughed, but instead of being cowed the group stood unwavering and one, a blue twi’lek, stepped forward and spoke to him boldly.
“We ‘ave a deal for you, but ah suggest we speak about it in private.”
“We are clan Hawk-Bat, anything you wish to say to me you say to the clan.” Jakar announced, but underneath he was flustered by this unusual turn of events.
“It is not for our sake I suggest this, but for yours. But it’s your loss if you don’t want to hear it.”
“You boor me Kinrath, but very well, if you’re so insistent we can go into the bar, if only so I can get a drink and get out of this sun. My boys here,” indicating his top lieutenants standing close to him, “can keep us company.” It had sounded good in his head but as Boss Hawn-Bat led the visitors inside he knew it hadn’t come out as well as he’d hoped and could already imagine the rest of the clan muttering about it.

El and Kaya did not get on very well, there was a fundamental different in personality and ethics, but in the short time they’d been working together they had quickly found they were extremely effective when paired up as good cop bad cop. Within minutes they had him firmly on the back foot. The carrot was that they would make him Pirate King (although when making this plan they had assured Boss Kinrath that this was a lie and she would be Pirate King). When it came time to show the stick, El made a quick call to Jom. Flying an Ugly Z’Ceptor they’d “borrowed” from clan Kinrath, and tuned up by Lok, Jom flew down the main street at top speed, below roof level, shot up the street with the 6 laser cannons, and pulled up within meters of the cantina window from which Boss Hawk-Bat was watching in horror. El, un-phased, quietly pointed out that it could have been the airfield and that could have been his squadron being shot up rather than a street.

An hour after they had entered Hawk-Bat village the escaped slaves were lifting off towards the space station in a collection of ugly starfighters, with the station defence codes and an starfighter escort provided by clan Hawk-Bat. As they closed upon the station, base control ordered them to return to the planet, and whilst El tried her best to bluff them and stall for time, they quickly saw that fighters had been launched from the Queen Amidala’s Revenge to intercept them. The Nebulon-B frigate was some way away from the station, keeping a watchful eye on the Action VI transport, it was going to be a close thing. Running the calculations quickly Lok told the others that at top speed they would reach the station just seconds before the intercepting fighters would reach them, but that would not give enough time to decelerate for a safe landing. If it had been just Jom flying he’d have risked it, but with the group spread out amongst small one or two seat ships it was not a viable option. Instead the group decided to split up, with the better pilots moving to intercept the enemy fighters early and buy some time for the less skilled pilots to get into the hanger at a safe speed. Sis, Kaya, Thoulyakk and Lok headed towards the station, whilst Jom led El, Jec and clan Hawk-Bat into the fray.

Ugly starfighters are primarily designed to be cheap and dangerous, and the dangerous aspect applies to both pilot and enemy. In the first pass a third of the enemy starfighters had been destroyed, but at no small cost. Jec had been winged and forced to take cover in the asteroid belt, and El was EVA, having had her ship shot out from under her. Lok quickly broke formation to come and rescue her in his Ugly TYE-Wing.

El’s first experience of EVA was not a good time to discover that despite all her tendencies towards working alone she had a shocking degree of agoraphobia, at least when floating helpless in space was concerned. As Lok closed with her gently he talked her down from a panic and got her to concentrate on preparing her safety gear and getting ready to attach herself to the outside of his ship as soon as it came within reach. By the time he had got her onto his hull and then coaxed her inside, to curl awkwardly around the back of his pilot’s seat in a cockpit taken from an old TIE fighter that wasn’t really big enough for two, Jom and the Hawk-Bats had won the space battle and Jec had stabilised his damaged fighter. With El safely within the inertial compensator field Lok could follow them in and join Thoulyakk, Sis and Kaya in the hanger.

Inside the hanger the group was briefly assaulted by a handful of mechanics, and the group, in no mood to be trifled with, cut them down. The one-sided fight was over in an instant but Kaya managed to shout at Thoutlyakk to spare the last one. Running over she found he had indeed spared her, a green skinned twi’lek in greasy overalls. As the others gathered around Kaya asked Thoulyakk to disarm her, but let her up. With a dozen of them (including Boss Hawk-Bat and his pilots who had also debarked), all armed, one unarmed mechanic was no threat.
“Hi there, my name’s Kaya, perhaps we could help each other?”
“Let me guess, aye tell you everysing you want to know, and zen you murder me just like you slaughtered all of mah friends?” she asked, in an accent very similar to El’s.
“They attacked us first, we defended ourselves.”
“We were ordered to repel borders on pain of deas, and an ‘andfull of workers tried to ‘it you wiz tools, and a dozen of you gun zem down wiz blasters. Poor you. Very stressful I’m sure.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, we didn’t realise how few people were attacking us, but we have been captured by pirates so I’m sure you understand our pressing desire to defend ourselves. What’s done is done, I’m sorry, I can’t undo that, but if you want to get back at the person who ordered you to your deaths then help us find the Pirate King.”
“Oh, what a choice you offer, ‘elp you and be killed by ze Pirate King, or don’t ‘elp you and be killed be escaped slaves. Choices choices.”
“You’re a twi’lek, you can hardly be ignorant of the horrors of slavery. El here is a sister twi’lek, help her escape and…”
“Sister? She is a Rutian, ‘ardly ah sister. What’s ze matter ‘sister’, Rundo doesn’t want a flat-chested blue like you for ‘is ‘arem so you got jealous?”
El moved to attack the prisoner, but Kaya immediately moved between them. Mastering her emotions, El moved away from the group to diffuse the situation. Instead she went over the Lok who had pried the cover of a control panel near the door and had connected his datapad to the exposed wiring and was busy raiding the data network of the station.

A few minutes later, the group had assembled. Kaya explained that the Pirate King would likely be either in the control room at the top of the station, or his personal suite next door. She also took pains to explain, making eye contact with El, that the mechanic was helping them and they would be taking her with them when they left. Lok showed everyone the plans of the station and some security camera footage of pirates in the corridor outside the control room taking cover in doorways facing the only access, a pair of lifts. He had also found a small arms locker on the floor they were on, and the location of the Annual Pigeon, in a hanger on the same floor but the far side of the station. Quickly they formed a plan. Lok would find a place to hide near the hanger with the Annual Pigeon, with KT for assistance and Jec for protection, and the others would storm the control room.

The lift doors opened on the side of the corridor, so the pirates guarding the control centre could not see directly in from their positions hiding in doorways. Leading with freshly looted frag grenades and cleverly manipulating clan Hawk-Bat to provide a human shield, the escaped slaves made quick work of the guards. Finding the control room doors locked, but the doors to what was clearly the Pirate King’s living quarters wide opened they explored that first. The place was richly decorated with a huge bed in the middle, but it appeared deserted. Taking a quick look around Sis found a large picture on the floor that had clearly once concealed a large safe in the wall that was now wide open. It was mostly empty, but right at the back she found a small metal sphere. On closer inspection she realised it was a thermal detonator. Just as the assault team were realising the implications of an open and empty safe, they got a call from Lok over the comm.-links they had stolen earlier.
“I’ve found him; he’s in the hanger with the Annual Pigeon, loading up another ship with crates and women in chains and stuff. There’re plenty of pirate goons with him too.”

Karaak the Trandoshan Hawk-Bat pilot had not been able to fit into the first wave going up in the lifts, and had waited alone to take a second lift. Just as he finally arrived on the top floor and exited the lift he was pulled aside as the first wave bundled back into the lifts and headed down again. Suddenly he was all alone in a still smoking corridor full of bodies, with an ominous unopened blast door leading to the control room. Suddenly the small sidearm that was chosen more for its ability to fit into a cockpit nicely than it’s stopping power seemed somewhat less impressive than before.

As the assault party remerged onto the hanger floor where they had started Lok, Jec and KT met them.
“I’ve locked the blast door closed so they cannot escape, but we have another concern. It looks like there’s a self destruct set on the station. It’s not part of the network, so I can’t access it directly, but there are warning messages in the system. There’s probably a separate system wired into the control centre, or maybe in the main generator since unless this place is laced with explosives it’s probably an overload that will blow the station.”

By the time a somewhat shaken Karaak arrived once again on the second wave of lifts, he was just in time to once again be pushed aside by El heading into the lift he was vacating. This time El, Thoulyakk, Lok and KT took a lift back up to the control room, whilst Jom, pausing to grab Karaak, took the Hawk-Bats down to the main generator at the bottom of the station. Sis, Kaya and Jec were tasked with distracting the Pirate King before he could escape. In the lift up Lok pulled out his datapad and plugged it into the control circuit of the lift. “They’ve got someone on their side working to undo my code blocks and release the hanger door. I’m shutting down the magnetic field, now if they open the door they’ll vent their atmosphere, that should at least slow them down and buy us a few more minutes. If we can stop them from leaving they’ll have no choice but to disable the self destruct, or at the very least they’ll want to help us disable it.”

Breaking down the door to the control room, Thoulyakk ran straight into the fire of a pair of security droids that had been left there on guard and was badly hurt. El calmly shot them down, before immediately going to the aid of Thoulyakk and trying to patch him up. Lok, conscious of the time pressure, rushed into the control room alone and headed straight for the large throne-like control chair in the middle. His instinct was proved correct when he found an open panel in the arm rest containing a button marked “self destruct”. He radioed to Jom that they had found the target and he should rejoin Sis, Kaya and Jec. Unfortunately his survival instincts proved less effective as he completely failed to notice two more security droids emerging from a cupboard off to one side.

Karaak had followed the duros pilot Jom down to the reactor level, excited to finally be in the first wave along with his fellow Hawk-Bat pilots, and had just stepped out of the lift when Jom paused, held a hand to the comm-link in his ear, and then turned around and shoved them all back into the lift, telling them the plans had changed.

A high pitched wail, followed swiftly by blaster fire pulled El away from tending to Thoulyakk and she looked inside to see Lok pinned behind t eh central command chair as two more security droids blasted at him. She took her time to calmly shoot one down but as she went to move onto the next she was shocked to see Thoulyakk charge into view totally unarmed. He leapt upon the droid, his weight bearing it to the ground and started pulling off limbs and armour plates. Finally it ceased trying to struggle when he ripped it’s head off.

Lok had got back to work on the command chair as soon as the droids had stopped shooting, pulling up the cover and getting to the wiring below.
“Bad news El, this is a one way control, sending a go signal but not having any further connectivity, there’s nothing I can do here to shut it down. We have to get to the Pigeon. You take Thoulyakk and join the others; we need to get to our ship. I’ll take KT and have a quick look in the reactor bay just in case but its long odds.”

This was Karaak’s time. So far he’d taken four rides in the lift up and down the station and never got more than a few steps out before having to turn around. This time it was going to be different. As he ran down the corridor towards the sound of blaster fire he knew this was the moment when everything would change for him. He’d proved himself as a pilot, but now he would prove he had the chops for a firefight as well, and best of all would be right there when Boss Hawk-Bat became Pirate King, he was pretty much guaranteed the become a Lieutenant. When the group arrived at the doorway to the hanger he was the others were clustered around using the doorframe for cover. The big butch Nautolan female, the older bearded human, the small blue alien in fancy clothing and for some reason a green twi’lek mechanic who was possibly a prisoner or maybe not. Jom told the Hawk-Bats to wait, and Karaak was frustrated, but the Boss was content to wait a moment so he would too.

As Jom approached Sis turned to him and asked, “How’s your throwing arm?”
“Well, ok I guess, part of being a pilot is a good sense of special awareness.”
“Ok, well mine’s lousy, take this Thermal Detonator and see if you can get the Pirate King and his bunch of goons. He’s huge four armed guy with a heavy repeater behind some crates over by the big green ship. Oh, and try not to hit the hanger door or we’ll all be breathing vacuum.”
Jom looked at her face to see if she was serious.
“No pressure!” she added and grinned at him as she handed him the silver sphere.

Jom took a quick peek first, and ducked back. On the left was the main hanger door. In front was an open space with a few piles of crates, apparently the pirates had been interrupted whilst loading. Behind the open space Jom identified a blocky green Citadel class transport on the left, and the familiar lines of the Annual Pigeon on the right. Various pirates were taking cover behind the crates and near the Citadel, and a group of bodies lay where a number of pirates had been caught in the open when the battle began. From Sis’ description the Pirate King was the large Besalisk he’d seen on the extreme left hiding behind what appeared, at first glance at least, to be some kind of sculpture of a female figure emerging from a large slab of rock or dark metal. He mentally reviewed the distances involved, worked out the best place to drop the weapon to cover as many pirates as possible, then stepped into the doorway and threw it, diving immediately back into cover. For a moment everything went quiet, then a moment more, then they heard a loud “Hah” from the hanger and fire resumed. It was a dud.

Karaak followed these events with impatience. So the grenade or whatever was a dud. Who needs it, clan Hawk-Bat was the best clan the Hydian Vagabonds had and it was high time they took their rightful place. He watched as another whispered conversation, Jom nodding in the direction of the Hawk-Bats and the Nautolan looking troubled. Understandable, she’d want the glory for herself but it good old Jom was fighting their corner. Finally Jom turned to Boss Hawk-Bat.
“The Pirate King is on the left, we’ve taken out most of his men, but we need the, er, skill,” he said looking questioningly at Sis, “of you and your men to finish this. Take out Rundo Torsin and you are the new Pirate King.”
Karaak cheered with the others as Boss Hawk-Bat led them to glory.

When El arrived she found the rest of the escaped slaves, along with the twi’lek mechanic, taking cover. Kaya quickly got her up to speed. Sis and Jec had eliminated a group of pirates early on, but the rest were pretty well dug into cover. Sis had been wounded trying to advance into the room and they’d had to retreat. They’d tried the thermal detonator but it hadn’t gone off, either Jom hadn’t primed it correctly or it was a dud. They’d sent in the Hawk-Bats as cannon fodder and whilst they were being gunned down Sis and Jec had picked off a few more pirates, but now they were out of ideas and disposable resources. They had precious little time to get to the ship, so it was time for some aggressive and risky action.

El and Sis provided covering fire from the doorway whilst Jec and Kaya charged forward into cover behind some crates in the middle of the hanger and Thoulyakk charged the Pirate King directly with a liberated vibro-axe. Rundo, stepping back, drew his vibro sword and engaged him. Where most beings were easily overrun by the mighty Wookie Rundo was equally powerful and the battle was well matched. Whilst the two duelled and the others began picking off other pirates a well dressed pirate Lieutenant saw the changing odds and ran up the ramp into the Pigeon. Jom, spotting this from the doorway and charged recklessly across the entire hanger to pursue him.

Thoulyakk’s battle was wearing upon him, on top of his existing injuries, and Rundo, seeing a moment of weakness, used his vibro sword to flick Thoulyakk’s axe out of his grip. Disarmed, Thoulyakk dived away and looked about for anything to use as a weapon, his eyes falling upon the thermal detonator lying innocently on the floor.

Sis had been thinking about the failure of the thermal detonator. If she was clearing out her belongings and fleeing a self destruct, she wouldn’t leave an expensive weapon lying about. Unless she knew it to be faulty and unreliable. As she saw Thoulyakk pick up the silver sphere a horrible realisation dawned upon her, and she began running for Kaya.

El saw it all in slow motion. Thoulyakk ducking behind a crate to avoid the Pirate King’s pistol shots and pressing a button on the thermal detonator. Sis running out of cover in the doorway and diving towards Kaya. Jec sticking his head up over the crate he was ducking behind to take a shot at the pirates. Kaya, less experienced at gun fights, exposing most of her body to so the same.
The detonator had barely left Thoulyakk’s hand when it went off. Thoulyakk’s exposed arm was reduced to a red paste. Heavy metal crate sheltering most of his body saved his life in that instant, but he probably broke a dozen bones as he and the crate were propelled back across the hanger. Sis got to Kaya in time and curled around her protectively before the force of the blast smashed into them both. Jec took the blast full to the face and dropped. The other side had not escaped unscathed. In the clearing smoke El saw the only creature left moving was the Pirate King. No, not the only creature moving, El heard footsteps behind her as she belatedly realised she was alone in the corridor except for the twi-lek mechanic, upon whom El had foolishly turned her back.

Diving to one side, the wrench didn’t quite crack her skull open, but skimmed the side of her head, catching the root of her left lekku, leaving El dazed and with a horrible sick feeling in the bottom of her stomach. But the pirate mechanic was no fighter. Even in her weakened state El used the barrel fo her blaster to catch the next blow, then the countered with the butt and knocked the mechanic to the ground. As she looked down upon the fallen twi’lek, El spoke in an upper class accent that none of her friends would recognise, with none of the Ryloth commoner lilt that so strongly coloured her usual speech. “I should have expected that from peasant scum like you.” Then she brought the butt of her riffle down once more.

Rundo Torsin the Pirate King stared around the hanger. The blast had cleared and revealed total devastation. He was wounded but victorious. “Hah! Haha! I win again!” he shouted into the emptiness. One of the bodies stirred, and from underneath the burly Nautolan a slender blue arm appeared, blaster pistol in hand pointing directly at him, and a female voice rang out, “Not yet…”

++++

When Thoulyakk woke up he was lying on a bed in what was clearly a medical room. Lok was there waiting for him. He told the Wookie that he was safely back on the Vincible, and began catching him up with the news. Thoulyakk had been in bacta for days, longer than anyone else. He’d broken many bones and taken organ damage, but the bacta has cured all that. The only remaining evidence of his trauma was most of his fur being burnt off the front of his body, which would re-grow in time, and his missing arm, which would not. A shiny metal prosthetic now replaced his right arm all the way up to the shoulder. Everyone else has sustained some degree of injury, but Sis and Jec had also required deep therapy requiring full submersion in the bacta tank. Sis would make a full recovery, but Jec has lost his eyes completely and had required cybernetic replacements.

Lok explained how he had managed to delay the overloading reactor, but could not stop it. In the time that he bought them they had managed to load all their injured onto the Pigeon and escape. The surviving pirates that had surrendered were allowed to board escape pods, and El has piloted the Citadel out of the station along with the Pirate King’s harem. It turned out the “sculpture” the King had been sheltering behind was in fact another member of the harem frozen into carbonite, and later Lok had managed to defrost her safely. They had escaped the station just before it blew and then jumped to hyperspace as fast as they could to avoid the Nebulon-B Frigate bearing down upon them. They never bothered to contact Boss Kinrath or try and hold up their end of the bargain to make her the new Pirate King, but with the previous King dead at Kaya’s hands, and the previous favourite Lieutenant also dead, she had a pretty good shot at it and they felt they’d more than done their part.

They sold the Citadel, along with all the loot and weapons they’d found aboard it. From all that money they first of all fully paid for all the medical treatment of everyone injured, as well as top of the line cybernetic replacements for Thoulyakk and Jec. They then gave the seven members of the harem 2,000 credits each to give them a chance at a fresh start. The remainder they had split evenly amongst them all, including Jec, Sis and Kaya. Jec had, once he woke up and came to terms with his situation, sent a message to his Rebel contact, explaining why they missed the meeting and setting up a new one in a few days time. They still had a contract to transport Sis and Kaya as well. In the meantime Thoulyakk should rest and recover.

Awesome story, I can't wait to read more!

One of my players (not Thoulyakk) so enjoyed the story of Thoulyakk's injury he retold it on a thread on Reddit and received this:

http://amdraw.tumblr.com/

The observant may notice some changes in this episode. We have swapped GMs, with no prior warnign to the other players, from the moment the ship dropped out of hyperspace, El's player seamlessly took over GMing and I took on Tarth as my PC. The other players didn't even realise it for a while. At some point in the future I'll be taking over GM duties again, but I shall continue to chronicle the adventure regardless.

The trip core-ward down the Hydian way to Arakania was a long one. This time without the unwelcome intrusion of pirate interdiction, and taking the longest jumps with the fewest stops possible to make up lost time, the cabin fever started to get to everyone. The ship was over-capacity with the four crew and the two passengers taking up all six bunks and Tarth sleeping in the secondary cargo hold. Little things started to get on people’s nerves. Top of that list for most people was Tarth’s habit of wondering around without his cybernetic eyes in unless absolutely necessary, feeling his way around the bulkheads and occasionally tripping over anything left lying around.

One morning near the end of the trip Thoulyakk approached him in the kitchen and asked him about it. Earlier in the trip Thoulyakk had made a heartfelt apology to Tarth for the incident with the thermal detonator, but Tarth had quickly assured him that he did not consider Thoulyakk to blame for it. Their friendship secure Tarth was happy to explain to Thoulyakk that he was training himself to do without them should it become necessary. In the wilds, where he made his living, one could not depend upon technology, especially sophisticated technology, since there is no way to get a quick repair or fresh batteries when you’re 6 days hike from the nearest village. As Tarth descended into a long story about forest adventures, likening it back to Thoulyakk’s forest homeworld of Kashyyyk, Thoulyakk quietly crept away, unseen.

Some minutes later El entered the kitchen in search of coffee, to find Tarth talking apparently to himself. She poured herself a cup of coffee as quietly as she could, then crept away again and headed up to the cockpit to talk to Jom. Some minutes later they heard Tarth leaving the kitchen, shortly followed by a crash and the increasingly familiar sound of an astromech droid annoyed at being tripped over.

When the ship’s navicomputer alerted Jom to the impending reversion to real space, he called the crew, and Tarth, into the cockpit to prepare. He was pleased to see this time Tarth had his eyes in. Tarth ran quickly through the plan as a last minute refresher. Once in near orbit they would transmit their ship’s ID on a certain frequency. Once that was done an innocent seeming transmission would be directed at them. Running the transmission through a code Tarth had would turn it into more detailed information on meeting with his contact, a human female named Fane Reroon. They would head to the surface, drop off their passengers, and head to the meeting.

As Jom pulled the lever to revert to real space, the familiar blue swirls of hyperspace faded to star lines which quickly shrank to stars. In front of them was revealed a single white marble, the moonless ice-world of Arakania. What they had not been expecting was not just one but two Imperial class Star Destroyers. Whilst the Pigeon had once run rings around an Imperial Gozanti class transport, Star Destroyers were ten times as big and ten times as deadly.

As the crew stood stunned the incoming message light started blinking on the main console. The xenophobic attitude of the Empire was well known, and it was quickly decided that, as a human, Tarth should be the one to speak with the Imperials. Nervously he lent forward over the co-pilot seat where Lok was seated, glancing quickly at the note pinned to the console that indicated the current ID was the Moonlit Jaunt, and flicked on the com.
“This is the Moonlit Jaunt, receiving.”
A crisp Imperial accent replied, “Freighter Moonlit Jaunt, this is the Imperial Star Destroyer Incisor, shut down your engines and prepare for inspection.”
Tarth raised his eyebrows but quickly replied, “Wilco Incisor. Moonlit Jaunt out.”

Jom brought the Pigeon to a stop, but kept the engines running. Glancing at the console to check Tarth had closed the call, he said to the others, “So do we run, or do we submit?”
“What’s the situation in orbit, are there any TIEs or assault boats out here?” asked Tarth
“The scope’s clear, whatever is going on they’ve shut down all traffic, not even a freighter in sight. Imperial wise it’s just the Star Destroyers, no TIEs visible. The nearest is turning towards us now, so I guess they want to meet us in person. We’ve got time to turn and run for hyperspace, but if we’re going to we have to do it soon.”
At that moment Kaya burst into the cockpit, pushing past the large hairy form of Thoulyakk in the doorway.
“Is that… are those Star Destroyers?” she demanded.
“Yes.” Tarth replied. “When you said you wanted to avoid Imperial attention, how badly did you mean? Because they want to inspect us.”
“No way, they cannot find me here. You were paid to avoid the Imperials.”
“Well, they were the ones… anyway, we have time, we can turn and run and ditch this ID, but we won’t be getting to Arakania in a while. But that would mean...”
“No, I must get down to the surface. We’re already a week late and can delay no further.”
“Well,” Tarth said looking at the crew, “You said you had smuggling compartments right? We don’t really have anything to hide, except, you know, the things we could hide.”

As Thoulyakk put the lightsaber back into R2-KT’s secret compartment, Lok helped Kaya get comfortable in the smuggling compartment in the secondary cargo hold, where they had first found a crate of glitterstim several extremely eventful weeks ago. It had been agreed that Sis could be seen by the Empire with little risk. From the main cargo hold Lok could hear Tarth and El in conversation.
“Are you crazy?! This is Stormtrooper armour! Why do you even have these?!” shouted Tarth.

Kaya had just got comfortable on a donated cushion when a heap of white plastoid shapes were dumped on top of her. She dimly heard the words “And why do you have so many blasters? We’re supposed to be traders not a private army…” followed by more thumps on the pile above her. She dimly heard Lok saying “Carful, Kaya is down there.” She missed the muttered response from Tarth but heard El shouting “Hey that’s mine” from the man cargo hold before more footsteps approached and a rain of wrapped candy filtered down through the larger items piled atop her, and Tarth yelled down “Here Kaya, we don’t know how long this will take and you might get hungry.” Then everything went dark as the panel closed above her.

Lieutenant Smithe of the Imperial Navy was unimpressed by this latest ship. Battered and ancient, of some obscure design he’d had to look up, the Moonlit Jaunt as it identified itself had clearly been repaired several times and the owner hadn’t even bothered to repaint it. It was a tragedy the Empire permitted such dangerous wreckage-in-waiting to keep flying. Earlier in the day he’d taken great pleasure in watching the faces of the crews filing off their ships and seeing him standing proudly in front of his squad of Stormtroopers, but he was bored of this assignment now. He looked them over as they arranged themselves in front of him. At least there was a single human amongst them, but the rest were all aliens, including a great brute of a Wookie.
“Who is the Captain?” he asked.
“I am sir.” Answered the human. A blessing at least.
“Your name?”
“Jec, sir.”
“Just Jec?”
“Jec son of Wat sir.” Polite at least. Lieutenant Smithe moved along the line to a Duros.
“Name?”
“Traveler Jom Makaan” He noted it down and moved on. Bypassing the Wookie he moved to a Zabrak.
“What is this thing called?” he asked, gesturing at the Wookie.
“Er… Thoul… yakk?” replied the Zabrak
“Thoul Yakk. Is this correct Wookie?”
“He’s mute sir,” interrupted the Captain, “Thoulyakk show the Lieutenant your neck scars.”
The Wookie parted the fur on his neck but Smithe turned back to the Zabrak disinterested.
“And you?” He moved down the line taking the names of the rest of the crew and recording them, then returned to the Captain.
“What is your purpose for coming to Arkania?”
“Well we don’t have any cargo at the moment; we were ambushed by pirates further out on the Hydian Way...”
“Did you report this crime?”
“It was in the Outer Rim sir.”
“But did you report it?”
“Ah, no.”
“I see,” he said, making a note, “and why are you here now?”
“Well we’re hoping to pick up some cargo.”
“I see.” Lieutenant Smithe considered the situation. Their story was plausible, but then again there were a lot of aliens in this crew and something about the Captain seemed slightly off. He decided they weren’t worth the effort of a formal interrogation and settled for ordering a tracking device for the ship.

After the Imperial officer finished asking them questions, he left the party in silence for a long time whilst he made notes on his datapad. Tarth spent a very uncomfortable time watching the impassive faces of the ten Stormtroopers arrayed in front of them and concentrating on not breaking out into a sweat. Eventually the situation was relieved when a technician arrived and reported to the officer. “Ah, good, install a class B tracking device on the hull and then they’re free to go,” he said, then turned away without further comment. Tarth approached the technician and asked him “Excuse me sir, how long do we have to keep this on for?”
“Not sir, I’m just a technician.”
“Sorry sir, technician sir.”
The technician sighed, “It’s an Imperial tracking device. You keep it on forever.”
“Oh. I see, very good.”
Lok, having followed the technician to watch what he was doing to his precious Pigeon, asked “Have you been installing these on every ship that passes through?”
“No, maybe half of them? Not counting the ones that tried to run or the ones caught breaking the law of course. Maybe half the ships we released.”

Tarth waited outside for permission to leave, whilst the others returned to the ship and prepared to depart, but were surprised to find an inspection crew of technicians had entered the ship behind them at some point and were roughly going through the lockers. Jom headed to the bridge but Lok lingered, wanting to ensure that they didn’t break the ship, or at least spotting it so he could fix any damage afterwards. Thoulyakk headed to the secondary hold and tried to assume a casual attitude whilst standing directly on top of the smuggling compartment to block it.

When the inspection crew entered the room, they looked suspiciously at Thoulyakk, and down at the floor panel he was standing on. In a moment of panic he forgot his role as a mute in his desire to deflect attention.
“Hello,” he said in clear basic. The technicians looked at him surprised. One turned to the other and commented “Did you ever here of a Wookie that could speak basic?”
“Perhaps we should report it to the Lieutenant.”
“It’s something of an embarrassment to me, perhaps I could pay you some money not to mention it to anyone?”
“How much?”
“Two… thousand?”
The technicians looked at each other surprised, having expected perhaps a few hundred.
“Each?” added Thoulyakk, nervously.

With permission to leave, and Tarth back on board the ship, the Pigeon departed the Star Destroyer, with Jom forgoing his usual fast and showy flying for a more careful and sedate manoeuvre. Tarth turned to Lok, “Can you tell what that tracking device does? Can it listen to us or monitor our systems?” Lok set to work. A few minutes of uncomfortable silence later and Lok informed them that the device was sending out their location, direction and speed to Imperials within the current system, but it wasn’t monitoring anything more complex, such as the navcomputer, the comm or eavesdropping on their conversation inside. “Ok, good, well, Jom take it slowly whilst we work this out. Step one let’s make contact. We need to broadcast our ID on this frequency.” Lok glanced at the datapad Tarth was holding and punched in the necessary commands. “We’re now receiving a looping weather broadcast.” Lok reported, and set it to ply over the cockpit’s speakers.
“Ok, and now KT can you run the broadcast through this decryption?” R2-KT plugged her scomp connector into the Pigeon. Suddenly the weather report changed to a new voice, one Tarth recognised as belonging to Fane Reroon. “Please, if anyone sympathetic to the rebellion can help us, we need immediate assistance. Our coordinates are attached to this broadcast.” The message looped, KT confirmed she had the coordinates and Lok shut it off.
KT beep-whistled in Astromech and the translation came up on a screen; I HAVE ANOTHER MESSAGE.
“Another message? Can you play it KT?” asked Tarth.
“This is Captain Sauto Slex,” Thoulyakk and Tarth looked to the original crew members of the Pigeon who nodded their silent confirmation that this was indeed his voice as the message continued, “I have been captured by the Empire and am being held on Coruscant.”
“KT, where did you get this message?”
KT explained, via the screen readout, that Captain Slex had set up a message drop. As per her directive if he ever left her, she checked it whenever she could access the holonet, as she had done just now. This message appeared to be a week old. The crew pondered this new revelation in silence, until they were interrupted by a feint thump. Tarth glanced back down the corridor towards the rest of the ship. “Did anyone remember to let Kaya out…?

BWAAAAR BWAAAAR BWAAAAR…

Jom slapped at the dash board to silence the alarm, but the blinking red light was undiminished.

“The starboard engine is, er, on fire,” he said.

Lok stared at Jom for a second, dumbfounded, then unbuckled his restraints and started running for the engine room. As he passed Thoulyakk climbing out of the gunnery turret he shouted “the engine’s on fire!” in passing. Thoulyakk passed and looked back and Lok, who was still heading aft, and turned to Tarth who was also emerging from the gunnery turrets. “It seems we have an engine on fire,” he said, calm and polite as a protocol droid. “Well of course,” replied Tarth, “everything had been going so well.” Thoulyakk headed forward to assist Jom in the cockpit, and since KT was already heading after Lok, Tarth went to check on their rebel passengers in the cargo hold.

As Lok entered the engineering bay, a narrow cabin at the rear of the ship positioned between the two main engines, he could immediately feel the heat pouring off the starboard engine. Cursing as the hot plating scorched his hands; he pulled open an access cover and grabbed the fuel line. Yanking it clear from its mounting, he tied the flexible rubber tubing in a knot, then cut it free, separating the engine from its fuel source and hopefully preventing any risk of blowback. “Jom, shut it down, shut it down!” he shouted through the comm. He lost the reply over the sound of the engine screaming as something overpressures burst and started spurting pressurised gas or fluid.

As KT sprayed fire suppressant and coolant into the engine housing, Lok belatedly wondered why the extinguisher system hadn’t kicked in. He checked the update screen and saw a flashing message complaining that the system was out of suppressant fluid. Impossible! He’d checked the system after the last upgrades. Had he missed it somehow? Was there a leak he’d missed, or had he simply been negligent? Had he in fact killed all of his friends and a hold full of soldiers? Belatedly he realised Jom was shouting at him over the radio.

“What?”

“The repulsors Lok! Maximum repulsors!”

“Right, yes, ok!”

Versatile ships like the Pigeon contained three types of engine. There were the standard main engines, such as the one currently on fire, for navigating local space and large open spaces within the atmosphere, the hyperspace engine for travelling faster than light between the stars, and the repulsors, producing anti gravity fields for subtle manoeuvring and travel close to a planetary surface and generally for landing and takeoff. They were currently travelling far too fast for the repulsors to catch them, but if Jom could angle the ship up and use the remaining engine and as much repulsor power as Lok could muster, they might just be able to skim the surface and prevent a fatal impact.

With some quick work, Lok deciding that they didn’t really need shields at this point anyway, he rerouted the shield power into an overcharged repulsor boost. It would probably fry some circuits and wipe out their shields until they could be repaired, as the ship was never designed for this, but it was their best chance for immediate survival.

In the cockpit, Thoulyakk had joined Jom, slipping into the co-pilot’s seat Lok had vacated. Jom was scanning the surface for somewhere to put down. Spying a long straight road, he angled towards it, knowing that he would never be able to reverse the downward momentum the ship contained and that his best bet was to try and turn it into mostly sideways momentum and lose it with a long skidding stop. Lok shouted at him through the comm. “Jom, I’ve rigged a repulsor boost, just hit the shield activation button when you need the boost.”

“The shields?”

“Just… yes. Hit the shield button and the repulsors will overcharge.”

With the nose pulled up to get the one remaining engine pointing vaguely down, Jom was flying by instrument and instinct to try and guide the ship down on their chosen landing strip. If there was anyone currently using the road he prayed that they would see or hear the flaming smoking wreck hurtling through the sky and get out of the way. There was nothing else he could do. With less than 100 meters to the surface he hit the repulsor overcharge Lok had rigged, and the power tripled as more alarms started going off. The ship lurched hard but Jom knew it had been enough, the speed had dropped and they should be able to skid to a halt along the road. As the ship hit the ground, and they didn’t all immediately die in a fiery explosion, Jom shouted “Yes!”, however his elation was short lived. As the impact flattened the ship out and the cockpit became level with the ground they could finally see out of the front viewport again, but instead of the open road in front of them, Thoulyakk and Jom looked in horror at the large concrete warehouse wall flying towards them.

“Kriffing Ma…” Jom muttered, before the impact hit and he blacked out.

++++++

Tarth looked over the cargo hold to check if everyone was ok. They had braced themselves as well as they could but the impact, and then several further impacts, had thrown everyone about, and there were no seats to strap into on the cargo hold. With no major injuries in evidence, he passed hob a med kit to deal with the minor injuries and headed off to find the crew, almost immediately running into Thoulyakk and the wookie cubs. “Ah, Tarth! Tibbi, Bibbi, Zibbi and Bartholemew are unharmed, but Jom has gone outside and I must check on him. Look after the cubs for me! Zibbi, Tibbi, Bibbi, Bartholemew, go to your Uncle Tarth.” Before Tarth could protest he was covered in young wookies and Thoulyakk had departed. He headed to the port cabin, where they had spent much of the journey with El, to find her strapping on her sniper rifle.

“Ah, El, could you…”

“No way! I have been trapped in zis cabin wiz zem for hours. You can deal with them for a while!” she replied, before also heading outside.

“Ok, wooklettes, how about we play ‘let’s go through all of Thoulyakk’s possessions and make a mess!’ what a fun game that is!” the wookie cubs cheered and raced into the starboard cabin to begin pulling out Thoulyakk’s few possessions from his locker and dressing up in his bedding.

“Ah, KT, perfect. Make sure the wookies don’t leave this cabin,” he said, before running off down the ramp, ignoring KT’s protesting squalks.

Tarth joined the others outside, surveying the mess they had made. The ship had torn through three large warehouses in succession, and carved a massive wreckage-strewn groove into the ground. A few locals were standing out on the street staring in shock and horror at the destruction. Jom was distractedly inspecting the front of the ship, and looking back at the warehouses, hoping against hope that they had managed to avoid hitting any people on the way down. Circling the ship they made their way to the rear where they found the entire starboard engine assembly had been ripped clear, and they could see right into the engineering cabin where Lok was sitting up tucked up against the port bulkhead, staring blindly at the gap where the starboard engine should have been.

“Hullo Lok, glad you’re ok. I guess she won’t be flying for a bit.”

“…”

“Are you ok?”

“…”

“I think maybe he’s slightly in shock. Don’t worry Lok, we’ll get her fixed up. Actually,” Tarth said, turning to the others, “we should get moving. I’m pretty sure the Empire will be coming to investigate, and we can’t move the ship or even try to hide all of this mess. But it might work to our advantage. We wanted to access the Imperial systems. We could let them come find us then ambush them. We do have a small army of rebels already.”

“Yes,” replied Thoulyakk, “that could work, although some of the locals might warn them?”

“It is my experience Thoulyakk that most citizens of the Empire prefer not to talk to the Empire where possible since if they think you know something useful they have a tendency to keep asking questions long after you’ve told them everything, just to make sure. I’m sure if you warn them the Empire is coming they will make themselves scarce. Why don’t you deal with the crowd control and I’ll brief the Rebels.”

The Rebels were quick to get to task, and after Thoulyakk’s booming voice had explained the situation, the civilians were equally quick to disappear. Within five minutes the street was clear and silent. The Rebels had broken into 4 fire-teams, hidden in various buildings nearby. A few of the still injured Rebels had taken the wookie cubs away to a safe spot. El, with a couple of Rebels for backup, was hidden in a tall building nearby with her precious sniper rifle. In the nearest building to the Pigeon, Tarth, Thoulyakk, Jom and Lok were concealed. Lok had rigged up a remote control for the dorsal turret that Jom was manning, and had rigged up a single use of a concussion missile that he himself was in control of.

As predicted, the Empire arrived within 10 minutes, announcing themselves with the characteristic shriek of TIE fighters. Tarth was relieved to see the group consisted of just two TIE fighters accompanying a single Lambda Shuttle. He had been afraid they may face overwhelming force, and had insisted that nobody be hidden in the downed Pigeon, and they extracted all useful materials, in case they needed to avoid a confrontation and slink away unseen, leaving the wreckage to the Empire. Instead it seemed only a small force has been dispatched, more than enough to handle the crew of a light freighter but not a match for the surprising number of Rebels that the Empire would never have expected were on board.

“We want the shuttle in-tact if at all possible. Thoulyakk will lead the charge, as he’s our best fighter up close, and I’ll go with him to cover his back. Wait until as many of them are clear from the shuttle as possible.” As Tarth stared at the incoming shuttle, he couldn’t help the shiver that ran down his spine.

The shuttle landed gently some distance away, in no apparent hurry. The TIEs, as expected, stayed in the air providing cover. When the shuttle ramp descended the familiar white shapes of Imperial Stormtroopers dashed out two by tow in a standard combat dispersal. Within moments 16 Stormtroopers were dispersed in four squads of four, fanning out to cover a wide front. Once they had settled in place, two more Stormtroopers appeared, with the orange pauldrons marking them out as sergeants, with a grey uniformed Imperial Officer. They paused at the foot of the ramp to observe the surroundings and converse briefly, until they turned as one last figure descended the ramp. A female figure clad all in black, she was too far away and still hidden in shadow to make out much detail. To his horror, without looking around, she immediately looked directly at where Tarth was hidden. There was no way she could have spotted him, since unbeknownst to even his allies, he was using his force connection with his adopted Fox-Squirrel to observe the Imperial deployment, and remained totally concealed from them.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this…” he muttered.

Man, I love reading these stories!

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