Just read through this all in 3 days. Almost all of it has great writing the characters are believable, and multi faceted. Keep up the good work. If you ever need another crew member I'd love to rp with such quality players.

I'm glad you like it. I must say I don't think the writing is that great, it's not really my strong suit and I do find turning events that happen in an RPG into an interesting and well-paced read quite tricky, but I hope the story makes up for my mediocre attempt to record it. I too am and fan of the characters and the credit there goes to everyone in the game.

Unfortunately, because doing quick Google searches is not the same as knowing anything at all about language, we have just yesterday discovered that the word "Kova" in Turkish, which we are using as the Zabrak language, doesn't just mean "Bucket" which is what we had picked it for. Any other connotations (which we still have not fully explored) were not intended and don't exist in our universe.

The code worked, and Thoulyakk led the way into the dark interior. After some confusion about whether they should be trying to let more light in or keeping things dark to maintain surprise, and Tarth confirming that there was nobody immediately nearby that they had missed, Thoulyakk led the way further into the interior toward the room where they had seen X’tck and the Sullustan talking. As Thoulyakk and Tarth entered the room, with Lok and Jom bringing up the rear, Tarth looked around with the heat sensitive scanner built into his helmet. Seeing nothing he once again reached out with the Force and felt something. A presence standing by a wall nearby where there was clearly no presence visible. Clearly this was indeed a Defel as he had suspected, or something that shared their unique ability to hide in shadows and disguise even their heat signature. Unfortunately just as he had spotted the Defel, the Defel had spotted them too.

With a mechanical hiss, disguised floor panels slid aside and turrets rose from the ground, both in the room Tarth and Thoulyakk were now in, and behind the group near Jom and Lok. Thoulyakk didn’t hesitate, as the blaster shots bounced off his new armour he leapt into the fray and lighting up his new lightsaber he struck down the turret in front of him. Having worked on it during the journey from Hok, with Tarth’s guidance and some assistance from Lok, it was now truly his own weapon. The main frame that Tarth had given him, the metal from the Annual Pigeon worked into it now even more poignant, now held the crystal that Thoulyakk had found and connected with on Hok and had been extended somewhat by Lok to increase the leverage the great Wookie could bring to bear. The blade was a brilliant blue, just like the blade he had been using before that presumably belonged to Captain Slex.

Tarth, seizing the opportunity to end things quickly whilst Thoulyakk dealt with the automated defences, ignited his own green-bladed lightsaber in his off-hand, and in his primary hand he gripped the new lightsaber he had constructed on the long flight from Hok. Containing the crystal he had been drawn to, this lightsaber had a brilliant yellow blade. Advancing upon the Defel, now lit up in multicolour from all the lightsabers, he pointed the yellow blade at the creature’s throat. He already knew it understood basic. “Surrender!” he shouted. Despite the overwhelming show of force, the Defel hissed at him and attempted to claw at his face, but with two lightsaber blades to defend himself Tarth easily kept the Defel at bay, and forced it back.

Thoulyakk, smoking slightly from blaster scorching, leapt in beside Tarth and swiped at the Defel. Pinned between two opponents and a wall, and unable to dodge aside, the Defel tried to duck the blow, but lost both the ears and most of the top of his scalp. It howled in pain, and raked once more at Tarth, who seemed the smaller of the two foes, but yet again was unable to break through his defence without impaling himself on one or other of his lightsabers. Tarth shouted at it to surrender again, convinced that now it was wounded and trapped it would see this fight was hopeless, but this time the deafened creature didn’t even hear his demands.

When the turret had popped up in front of Thoulyakk, two had arisen behind the group, and immediately began firing upon Jom and Lok. Lok retreated into the corridor behind the shield of Thoulyakk and Tarth, but there wasn’t room for Jom, who got mildly scorched diving for the only spot he could find that the turrets would not have an angle on. He ended up crouching on top of a desk in an alcove, pressed up against the wall to keep out of the line of fire. With a turret to either side of him, he couldn’t even begin to get an angle on one of them without being shot but the other, and had to trust to his allies to extricate him.

Working with that express intent, Lok searched around for a computer terminal. With Tarth and Thoulyakk lighting up the central room, he spotted one and slipped in behind them. It was a familiar home security system that he’d seen before and it took him little time to break the encryption and take admin rights. Fingers racing, he quickly added all the current targets onto the safe list, and shouted to Jom that he was safe. Jom very cautiously eased out of his crouch, and, upon clearly not being shot, concluded that this was so. He ran around the corner in time to see a huge black haired beast arrayed against Thoulyakk and Tarth crouch down, then fling itself upwards, bouncing off the ceiling and landing behind Lok. Without thinking he shot the thing with the blaster that was already in his hand. Only afterwards as it slumped to the floor did he realise the weapons was still on stun as he had set it when first entering the room.

Whilst Lok got back to the terminal to continue working on the home defence system, the others dragged the Defel into the middle of the floor and assured themselves that he was definitely unconscious. And this was definitely a Defel they were looking at, Tarth was sure of that. Just then El spoke to them all on the comm., “You’re about to have company, the Barabels have finished their rounds.” Thoulyakk and Tarth moved towards the room into which the Barabels would be coming, but before they could reach it the room erupted with the sound of blaster fire. They ran to the doorway to see scarlet bolts of energy firing seemingly in all directions, and dared not enter. Moments later the gunfire stopped.

Entering cautiously they saw a scene of carnage. The defence turrets had opened fire upon the Barabels. One had died slumped against the doorway, the control panel to open the clearly unresponsive door smashed by brute force. The other had succumbed to multiple blaster hits next to a house terminal, the message “Access Denied” still blinking it’s defiance at him. Tarth and Thoulyakk looked at each other. It was obvious that Lok’s hacking of the internal defences that had saved Jom had instead triggered the guns to target the Barabels, but why had they been able to enter the room but not leave again?

Before they could start asking question, Lok announced that he had uncovered a list of assassination targets past and future and asked what should be done with them. After a long debate it was decided that the information about past targets should be left as evidence against X’tck, but the information about future targets was probably not something they wanted the Empire getting it’s hands on. Instead they decided to take a copy wipe everything except the data about past targets. They were beyond the reach of the Empire now. One oddity Lok pointed out was that some of the data was recorded in Sullustan. Clearly the Sullustan arms dealer had been more than just a trader, maybe he set X’tck up with some of his targets. It wouldn’t be surprising that someone trading in weapons would trade in information too.

The group split up to do a final search of the place. They quickly found the thermal detonators and neurotoxin that the Sullustan had been talking to X’tck about. Thoulyakk declined to take one, after the last time he tried to use one went so wrong, and Jom and Lok were not keen either, so Tarth, who had been remarkably un-phased by his horrific injuries, took both. Tarth then headed off to check the other rooms, whilst Thoulyakk and Jom investigated the speeder bikes parked in a garage nearby with a view to appropriating them as escape vehicles, leaving Lok to guard the prisoner and continue to work on the data. They all came running back at the sudden and surprising sound of a blaster shot.

Lok was trembling, holding his blaster pistol and the Defel had very obviously been shot through the head. “I…” Lok stammered, “he moved…”. Lok was very clearly shaken up, but also just as obviously the body had been very precisely shot through the dead centre at extremely close range. But as the others each stood there wondering how to approach this, the body twitched, quite violently. There was really nothing more to be said about it.

“Well… These things happen. This simplifies things anyway,” said Tarth moving on, “let’s just grab whatever data we want and then purge the rest and scarper.” Minutes later the group were on the move riding freshly “liberated” speeder bikes.

As they flew, Jom driving Thoulyakk on one speeder, Tarth flying Lok on another and El on a bike of her own, Lok commed the group. “Where are we heading?”

“Back to Shando” said Jom.

“Ok, well, I was thinking about this data, and maybe… she’s an information broker, right, so maybe if we stopped somewhere I could go through this data. It might be quite valuable.”

“Valuable how?” asked Tarth

“Well, you know, people on the list might pay to know, or someone else might pay to know, or someone might pay to not let anyone else know. An information broker like Shando could make some real money off that, and if I can assess what we’ve got I’ll have an idea of how much we should be asking for, so we don’t get taken for a ride.”

“How long do you think it would take to go through it?”

“Only an hour or so.”

“Oh, well… that sounds sensible. There might be some information we could use. If there are some imperials on the list we could blackmail it might help, but we can’t waste too much time, Captain Slex is depending upon us.”

“I think it could be worth the delay if we can get some dirt on Imperials that might help us get to Sauto. And credits are always useful in any situation. Good idea Lok, we’ll find somewhere en-route.”

Lok felt dirty and ashamed, but stayed silent.

“X’tck is dead”

“Really?” she asked; relief plain on her face.

“Yes, we found him in his lair and eliminated him.

“And you are sure it was X’tck?”

Suddenly everything came together. The Sullustan giving weapons to the Defel never asking for money. The fact the X’tck had never actually been seen, only rumoured, and nobody even knew for sure it was one person. The data on the computer being written in Sullustese. As lights began to blink on the Neurotoxin containers strapped to Thoulyakk’s armour, the words of the conversation came back to him. “get these within range of her, however, and they should be sufficient to take her out” Tarth had seen it too, but Thoulyakk was quicker to react. He had brought this neurotoxin into Shando’s home, it was his responsibility. As Tarth reached for him Thoulyakk was already running towards the window. He pulled out his lightsaber, ignited it and threw it through the window ahead of him. Moments later he followed it, hurling himself out the window and falling to the ferrocrete alleyway far below...

“And you are sure it was X’tck?”

Everything smashed together in Lok’s brain. If they hadn’t killed X’tck, and the Sullustan was the real threat… Had they been used? Because they had told Shando that she was safe, she had moved further into the room and into the view of the windows. Lok didn’t hesitate; he dived for Shando and knocked her to the ground, covering her with his own body.

Jom looked around. Lok had thrown himself to the ground, but Thoulyakk had thrown himself out the window, and Tarth followed moments later. Not knowing what was going on, Jom ran from the room. If something was so dangerous his friends were leaping out the window then clearly he needed to not be here. He made it to the door at a dead sprint when the heavily armoured forearm of a guard slammed into his chest, dropping him to the ground and winding him. As the guards started shouting at him, he had no breath to stand or even reply, and simply curled up, put his hands over his head and hoped he was far enough from the blast.

Tarth had been too slow, Thoulyakk was already on his way out of the window when Tarth began moving, but once he got going he didn’t slow down. He followed Thoulyakk out of the window and leapt across and down the alley way to a windowsill several stories below, using the force to cushion his landing. Looking down he could see Thoulyakk was lying on the ground and the neurotoxin containers had released their contents into a deadly cloud that now surrounded them. Wishing he’d through to replace the vacuum seals in his antique Mandalorian armour, Tarth held his breath and dropped to the ground next to Thoulyakk. Summoning the force yet again he had to strain himself to force the air around him to move and blow the cloud away from them both and up where it could disperse in relative safety.

Back the apartment, Lok was feeling very clumsy. In the fall his front horn had bumped into Shando’s head, and cut her. Up close he was suddenly realising what he had somehow missed earlier; she was the most beautiful woman he had ever met. And he had injured her! He stammered an apology and tried to rise, accidentally elbowed her in the ribs, narrowly avoided putting his hand on her breast and ultimately ended up just keeping his arms by his side and log-rolling sideways to get off of her without any further embarrassment. Clear of the Zabrak, Shando sat up, and touched her forehead, her fingers coming back with a small amount of blood. She touched a button on her wrist communicator.

“Code Blue”

Out in the corridor the guards received the message. One of them grabbed Jom by the back of his flight suit and dragged him into the apartment, whilst the other sealed the outer door with an extra blast shield. With the door sealed the dumped Jom, ran back into the main room, grabbed Shando and, leaving Lok stewing in his own embarrassment, hustled her into a safe-room further into the apartment. The whole thing was accomplished in a matter of seconds.

Outside, with the immediate threat neutralised, Tarth examined Thoulyakk. He was clearly unconscious, and his shoulder was badly dislocated. Even through his thick pelt, Tarth could see that where his shoulder should be there was just the ends of his clavicle, or whatever a Wookie had instead, poking out unnaturally. The shoulder itself was lower down and tight into his chest. Tarth felt out with the force to see the extent of the internal injuries. If a normal human had fallen from such a height they would be dead, but even with someone as sturdy as Thoulyakk Tarth expected some fractures, which would mean the arm would need to be reset in surgery or it might never work again.

Instead he found nothing but inhumanly dense unbroken bone, stronger and perhaps more flexible than human. But Tarth was ever one to take surprises in his stride and deal in the here and now, so he mentally shrugged, and set about getting the arm back in its proper place before Thoulyakk could regain consciousness and discover how much pain he was in. Tarth had to call upon the force to give him enough strength to get the limb in place, as the mighty Thoulyakk’s muscles and sinews fought him all the way, but eventually it was done and Tarth applied a stimpack to Thoulyakk’s neck.

Thoulyakk woke with a start, looking around quickly. “Tarth, the toxin…” he said grabbing at the capsules strapped to his waist.

“Dispersed Thoulyakk, we are safe. How do you feel.”
“Well my arm, hurts, but seems in-tact. I must have bruised it in the fall.”
“Hrmm…” mused Tarth non-commitally.
“In fact I feel somewhat bruised all over, but otherwise unharmed.”
“You acted very bravely Thoulyakk, but perhaps we should get Lok down here to take a look at you?”
“Ah, Lok, Jom, we have left them in a rather tricky situation…”

Thoulyakk looked up at the window, several stories overhead. Thinking about the quickest way to get back, he grabbed the controls for the jetpack they had salvaged from the bounty hunter’s chest back on the mysterious planet Hok and that he wore even now. As he did so, he finally realised he could have avoided this terrible fall had he thought about it earlier. He glanced at Tarth, to see if he had also realised, and Tarth gave him a look of wry amusement but made no comment. Without further pause, Thoulyakk thumbed the ignition.

The jetpack was far more powerful than Thoulyakk had imagined, and much harder to control. He bounced off the wall a few times on his way up, using his metal right arm to protect him already battered body from further harm, but managed to half climb half fall into the window to Shando’s apartment. Tarth looked around, with a view to following Thoulyakk by force-jumping up window to window, much the same way as he had made his descent, but Thoulyakk’s brief flight had attracted the attention of a few passersby, so instead he headed back inside and began the slow walk up the stairs.

By the time Tarth reached the apartment, Thoulyakk, Lok and Jom were deep in conversation with Shando, trying to explain the bizarre sequence of events that had just happened and convince her that they were not trying to kill her; they had in fact just saved her life. Tarth could only hear their side of the conversation over the commlink, but it seemed to be working, albeit slowly. At the top he found the apartment thoroughly sealed with an extra blast door, so having knocked and failed to attract any attention, but with no immediate threat apparent, he sat down in front of the door and tried to meditate. Unfortunately the half conversation he was listening to was too distracting, so instead he simply closed his eyes and listened in.

Jom didn’t know what was going on, having missed the key details, Lok was apparently besotted by their host and Thoulyakk persisted in being far too honest, but nevertheless after a long and sometimes tense conversation through the closed door of the safe-room, Shando was eventually convinced of their good intentions. Shando re-emerged, Tarth was let in and finally the information package Huk had sent them to retrieve was produced and handed over. Lok also managed to sell the data they had retrieved from X’tck’s computers to her, his professional pride as a hacker and data trafficker managing to overcome his new feelings towards Shando enough to secure a reasonable price.

With their business concluded the group returned to their ship to examine Huk’s data package and plan out how they would rescue Sauto.

For those wanting to keep track at home, I finished my map of the Kova and have marked up cabin assignments here .

Where the Pigeon’s main lounge had been ideal for half a dozen beings to gather around a central holo-display, the Kova was not as convenient designed. The crew lounge was too small for them all to fit, so they had to make do with the large dining table in the open space next to the galley. Lok put a mobile holo-display on the table to share data with the group, but the sensible chairs were not as comfy as the Pigeon’s old but well loved sofa. The crew found themselves forced to sit up straight like Imperial cadets attending a lecture. All except El, who had draped herself across the chair like a Loth-Cat. Whilst she appeared completely at ease, Lok privately suspected that she might not be as comfortable as she appeared.

Upon opening it they discovered that Huk’s package contained two distinct collections of data. The first was, as Tarth put it, “spy stuff”, useful codes and access credentials for all kinds of uses. The second was, on closer inspection, shipping manifests for the Moddell sector. There was a huge wealth of data but, without knowing why the Rebels wanted it, the best they could figure was that some secret construction project must be going on in the Outer Rim. Presumably the Rebels would be able to figure out something more specific from all this data. As agreed, Lok opened up the holonet dropbox where he had promised Huk he would deposit the information, but upon doing so found it was not empty but instead contained a simple text document. "Abort. This location burned.". As the others debated what it could mean, Lok dug into the dropbox more thoroughly and managed to find a data shadow from an earlier version of the file, which had been erased but not yet purged. "Abort. This location burned. She has escaped."

Lok was the first to speak. “Assanna escaped? But why would the file have been modified to hide that...?” Nobody replied for a moment, they just stared into space reflecting upon this revelation until Tarth looked up suddenly and turned to Thoulyakk. “I’m glad you insisted on the Wooklettes going on another ship.” Thoulyakk’s eyes widened and he nodded. Tarth leaned forward and continued. “Forget about the data for now, we can hold onto it and arrange some other way to pass it along later. For now, what of our mission? Does Assanna know we are here? We never told her of our plans, so we should be safe, right? Did anyone say anything to her?”
El narrowed her eyes, “We did not tell ‘er, but ze Rebels know. Eef she ‘as got free zen ‘oo knows ‘ow much she has tortured out of zem?” The others looked at her with a mixture of horror and disgust. “What? She’s Imperial? Zey do zat. We are on our way to free a man ‘oo is being tortured by ze Inquisitors right now.” The group went quiet again, pondering this threat. Tarth left the table and headed into the galley. He returned shortly chewing a piece of bantha-jerky. He swallowed a mouthful and dropped back into his seat. “There is a risk she knows about our mission, and whilst I doubt she managed to get here yet, there is a risk she has warned the Inquisitorius. On the other hand she might not know, because our mission has no real impact on her immediate concerns of escaping the Rebels. Or if she does, she did imply that she had already failed enough to have earned a death sentence if she was ever found by her people. But this was already a risky mission. We already knew that Sauto’s message could be a trap anyway. And we’ve already got this far. I intend to continue regardless.”
Thoulyakk spoke up almost immediately. “I am with you Tarth.” One after the other, they all agreed. With their fate decided, at least for now, they settled down to plan the most dangerous mission of their lives.

++++++

Five individuals walked through the streets of the Imperial City. A male Human and a male Duros each wore business attire and carried the IDs of Consultants to the Science division of COMPNOR. A female Twi’lek was wearing a lab coat, and a male Zabrak was wearing a hazardous environment suit, both carrying scientist IDs. The fifth member of the group wore the white armour of an Imperial Supercommando.

They walked calmly but swiftly to a utilities building and the Zabrak quickly opened the door. Nobody was close enough to see that instead of swiping his ID he had used an electronic lock breaker. As the group stepped into the building the human consultant ducked low under the doorway, despite having plenty of headroom to spare.

Inside they found themselves faced by a security camera, and they all hesitated. The Supercommando nudged the Zabrak scientist, but the scientist simply walked forward unconcerned and the rest followed. Out of sight of the camera, a locked hatch led down to the sewers and tunnels below. The Zabarak again made short work of the lock, and the group descended.

Once down in the tunnels, the subtle air of tension hanging over the group dissipated and they were more open about looking around curiously. They walked for some time, passing a few more ladders that presumably led to similar utilities building above. The smell was rather bad, but the maintenance walkways they are travelling on kept them from actually having to walk in the sewage as they headed up-stream towards the Imperial Palace.

After a kilometre of walking, with occasional references to plans on a datapad, the group stopped in front of a serious obstacle. A heavy duty durasteel gate with a military grade force field covering it. The Imperial Supercommando eyed it up, and looked at the walls as well, but considered that it would be as well to try cunning before brute force.
“Lok, can you get us through quietly?” he asked, gesturing at the terminal on their side of the barrier. As Lok moved to start working on it, Jom said, “Maybe we should come up with fake names to use when we’re up there.”
“Agreed” rumbled the human consultant, revealing himself to be Thoulyakk the Wookie wearing the holographic disguise that Huk had provided them with.
“That’s easy,” said Tarth, his new armour slightly modified and repainted to appear as an Imperial Supercommando, “I already have a fake name. Call me Jec again.”
“But ze name Jec eez already known,” said El.
“Well, yes,” Tarth was becoming defensive, “but it’s a common enough name, there are plenty of humans called Jec.”
“What zurname will you use?” she pressed.
“Ah…” As Tarth started trying to think of suitable human names, mouthing words like “Windu” and “Kenobi” to himself and shaking his head, the others discussed their names.
“Ah will go by S'Alashta Gisne”, said El.
“Brrbrlpp”, said Thoulyakk, picking the name of the bizarre looking species he had proposed disguising himself before the others argued that as the only one with a holographic disguise he should look human to draw the least attention from xenophobic Imperials.
“A human name Thoulyakk,” insisted Jom. “I’ll be Merle Rasa.”
“Baqa Tasrano,” muttered Lok as he continued to work on the gate controls.
“Ok, [Thoulyakk] then,” said Thoulyakk. They all turned to look at Tarth, who was still trying to think of human names he knew that were not extremely famous dead Jedi masters. He was struggling to come up with something.
“Fine, call me Jed Dume,” he said, picking a name he knew to be definitely human that he hoped was relatively uncontroversial.

With their cover names established, and Lok having broken both the security on the gate and also the hidden extra layers of security underneath, the group eventually emerged in another utilities building deep within the Imperial City, just a few blocks from the Inquisitorius base. Lok hacked the security feed and discovered that both the entrances were guarded by a pair of Stormtroopers each, and the doors were on fairly busy roads, so they couldn’t even try to eliminate the guards quickly without being seen. Whilst they could try to bluff their way past the guards, as they carried extremely convincing fake IDs that should hold up to scrutiny, it seemed like a bad idea. The five of them made a very suspicious group to suddenly be emerging from a building the guards would almost certainly know they had not entered.

Early on Tarth had suggested, and the rest had readily agreed, that they should play to their strengths and avoid their weaknesses, which in their case meant trying to avoid any situation that involved talking to people and instead use their technical and physical abilities wherever possible. To that end, Lok quickly pulled the cover off a small air vent and Tarth held his Fox-Squirrel Kit up to the metal tunnel. It took Kit no time at all to scamper through the vents and find his way out onto the rooftops to examine the other two sides of the windowless building and see what other options existed.

Minutes later, unnoticed in a deserted refuse collection area, the glowing green tip of a lightsaber poked through the wall, and began cutting a large new opening into the wall. Inside the others watched on as Tarth cut his way through the wall. Once the cuts were complete, he stepped back and holstered his lightsaber. Instead of letting the wall section fall, he raised both hands and pulled with the force. They were very close to the old Jedi Temple now, and Tarth could feel the powerful force vergence below, bolstering his connection. Whilst they had all come to terms with Tarth being able to levitate small objects, despite the impossibility of such a feat, none were quite prepared to watch him magically lift a huge chunk of durasteel and ferrocrete without even touching it.
“Can you put that back behind us Tarth?” asked Lok
“I can, although it won’t stay put, I cut it to fall inwards.”
“That’s ok, I can fix that.”
With Tarth holding it in place, Lok made some tiny repairs, enough to hold the piece of wall in place, but easy broken with a solid kick. They had already planned to cover the hole with a nearby dumpster, but now it would take a more than a casual glance to discover the breach. With everything in place, they walked casually away from the building and towards their next destination.

After walking past it once to casually reconnoitre, the group entered the lobby of the science division on their second circuit of the block. The lobby was a large open space with security card operated gates dividing the space very clearly into public and secure sections. Confident in their fake IDs, which Lok had constructed from high level codes contained in Huk’s data stash, they walked calmly in and started passing through the gates. Everything went well until Jom, the last in line, swiped his card. A different tone sounded, and a small red light blinked on the card scanner. The gate did not open. Jom swiped it again, beads of sweat already forming upon his forehead. The tone again. Lok, seeing this happening headed back to Jom, but before he could get back to the gates a nearby receptionist called to Jom.
“Excuse me sir, may I see your ID?”
Seeing few options Jom headed over to the desk.
“It happens from time to time,” the receptionist said, “the data can be corrupted.” She held out her hand for him to pass her the card. “Your name?” she asked. Clearly this was not uncommon for her and she had barely looked at Jom, but the sweat was prickling down his neck now. “Traveller Merle Rasa” he said.
“Hmm hmm. And your business here?”
He wracked his brains, desperately trying to remember all the details of the cover story they had already prepared.
“I’m here to visit Dr Cerone Gabbett.” They had picked his name out of the personal files Lok had sliced into. From what they could tell he was relatively senior, but his reports did not go to his nominal superior but were routed somewhere secure instead. He rarely had any meetings in his diary and was often away from the building. Undoubtedly some kind of Imperial secret project or other, but importantly for their needs, the sort of person that other staff in the building were unlikely to know much about or where he was day to day.
“Very good, I’ll give you a day card for now, and you’ll need to contact COMPNOR HR to have a replacement sent out.” He took the replacement card gratefully, but as he held out his hand for the original, the woman took it and placed it in a lower draw in her desk where Jom could see a few other IDs were stacked. She looked up at him and his outstretched hand and raised an eyebrow. “Thank you,” he said quickly, and turned the gesture into an odd half wave. Quickly thinking he added “May your travels be enlightening.” Hopefully she knew nothing of Duros culture and she’d just write him off as a weird alien.

He swiped has pass and finally got through the gate to emerge in the secure half of the lobby. He found himself alone. Remembering the plan once more he headed into the building. They were supposed to find a quiet spot as close to the Inquisitorius base that shared a wall with the Science division as possible, so if he headed that way he’d hopefully run into them. They shouldn’t be too hard to spot, a collection of aliens in a building full of humans. With that worrying thought he sped up his pace.

Jom caught up with the others waiting at the doors to a pair of elevators. As he joined them the doors slid open and they all stepped in. Lok pressed the button marked “1” and they headed up. As the doors opened they were surprised to find a droid waiting for them. “Good morning gentle beings. I see you are visitors. May I help you? I can take you wherever you are going or give you directions.”
Tarth took the initiative. “We’re here to see Dr Cerone Gabbett, directions will do fine.”
“Of course, the office of Dr Gabbett is located down this corridor, then take a left and continue to the end. It is the last door on the right and clearly labelled.”
Tarth immediately started walking in the direction indicated, but Thoulyakk paused to say “Thank you very much.” To the droid. Catching up with Tarth he whispered “That was rather rude!”
Tarth whispered back at him, “Thoulyakk we are pretending to be the bad guys! Bad guys are rude.” Jom and Lok shared a look at Tarth’s complete failure to use the codenames they had set up earlier.

Reaching the office they found it empty and locked, as they had expected, however before they could break in an employee from a nearby office stopped by to offer assistance to the visitors. Tarth ended up accepting her offer to fetch her supervisor to help, on the basis that he might be able to let them in peacefully, and if not then stunning two office drones would not be much more difficult or risky than stunning one. As it turned out it was a good call as Lok, using data he hacked from the local network, managed to convince the man to let them in. Unfortunately as soon as they got in and saw the large window they realised they had made a fundamental mistake. The science building only connected to the Inquisitorius base at the bottom, up at this level there was a large gap between them that would be very difficult and far too obvious to traverse.

The group made a show of collecting a briefcase, having claimed the need to collect a classified item as their reason to enter the office, and left the floor. Tarth thought to press the button for the lobby floor, just in case the staff were suspicious and watched to see that they were really leaving, but they were truly heading to the basement level. As the basement level was full of labs, and they had not prepared an excuse to be there, Tarth suggested that they could climb out into the lift shaft to give them somewhere to hide and make a new plan. Before the group could discuss it, the lift arrived at the lobby floor and the doors opened. The group stayed quiet as a scientist entered the lift with them, checked that the button for the basement had been pressed, and turned to face the doors as the lift continued to descend.

Tarth glanced up, the hatch in the ceiling looked big enough. He stuck his stun gun into the scientists back and pulled the trigger. Grabbing her before she fell, he used the force to boost himself as he leapt up through the hatch and onto the roof of the lift. The others panicked and froze, unsure what to do. Moments later the lift arrived at the basement floor. The doors opened. A few scientists walked past without looking at them. The doors closed again. Before the lift could start moving, Thoulyakk smashed his fist into the controls, breaking the front plate and mashing the electronics inside. The lights went out.

Tarth’s head popped down from the hatch in the ceiling. “Thoulyakk, what are you doing?” Now they’ll investigate and find this scientist!” he hissed.
“Well why did you stun her? If you’d left her alone there’d be nothing to find!”
“Stop it,” El interjected, “eet’s done. Nozing we can do about it now.”
Tarth dropped lightly to the floor. “She’s right. And we can’t stay here. El is dressed in a lab coat, I suggest we follow her and walk with purpose towards the far wall adjoining the Inquisitorius. We find ourselves any empty room we can.”

After a bit of walking and some quick work from Lok, the group ended up in a laboratory that they had managed to reserve for themselves, with the doors firmly locked behind them. Along the way they had seen many other laboratories that appeared to be experimenting with diseases or maybe even bio weapons on various aliens. Tarth and Thoulyakk had been greatly disturbed by this and discussed various plans for destroying the laboratories and mercy-killing the victims, but the fear of unleashing a plague upon the heavily populated metropolis world greatly restricted their options. In the end they decided they would deal with it on the way back. Worst case Tarth had a couple of thermal detonators he could leave behind on a timer.

Using a lightsaber they cut their way through the thick walls. It took a long time, using a complex cutting technique of conical and cylindrical cuts, but within 10 minutes they were through.

++++++

The group emerged into what appeared to be either a prison cell, or a rather spartan bedchamber. The lack of locks upon the door suggested the latter. As they quietly explored the floor they were on they quickly determined that the floor they were on was mostly comprised of individual quarters along a pair of corridors with some kind of arena in the middle.

Most of the chambers were empty, but a few chambers along from the one they entered by, they found one that still had a made bed, and a few personal items and clothing. Tarth quickly identified a book detailing lightsaber construction techniques next to the bed, whilst Lok examined the dust build-up on the bed and concluded it had not been used in at least a week. When Jom examined the half open door and found the word “Mai” stencilled upon it, they realised this was the chamber belonging to Assana. The fact that she had not slept in it since her apparent escape reassured them. Tarth felt slightly guilty that he had taken her lightsabers and now was taking the book she would need to build replacements, however he rationalised that all the knowledge here had likely been stolen from the Jedi in the first place.

Of all the rooms on this floor, Assana’s had been the only one showing signs of occupation. Entering the central chamber however, they found two figures that Tarth quickly identified. IG-100 MagnaGuards, very expensive and well designed droids capable of combating even fully trained Jedi Knights. Fortunately, they both appeared inactive. One was clearly broken into pieces, cut by a lightsaber, whilst the other seemed in-tact. Lok plugged his datapad into the in-tact one, whilst Jom and Tarth poked tentatively at the other. “The electro-staff might be worth having Jom. It’s made from a cortosis ore and can block a lightsaber. If we do run into another inquisitor it could be the only thing you can use to protect yourself.” Jom was hesitant, he wasn’t much of a fighter and certainly not hand to hand, but it seemed like a sensible last resort, so he cautiously picked it up.

Meanwhile Thoulyakk had been examining the source of light in the room. In the centre of the arena was a large statue of a robed and hooded figure, holding some kind of floating light source aloft in one palm. The light source was out of reach, and he was loath to use his jetpack as it would make a lot of noise and light. After a while his presence attracted Tarth and Jom who came over to see what he had found, and Tarth simply reached up and used the force to pull the light source to him. It was an ornate metal pyramid illuminated from within by a red light. When it landed on Tarth’s palm, parts of the object opened up and the hologram of another robed figure appeared.

“I am Darth Revan, Dark Lord of the Sith. Those who use the dark side are also bound to serve it. To understand this is to understand the underlying philosophy of the Sith. The dark side offers power for power's sake. You must crave it. Covet it. You must seek power above all else, with no reservation or hesitation. The Force will change you. It will transform you. Some fear this change. The teachings of the Jedi are focused on fighting and controlling this transformation. That is why those who serve the light are limited in what they accomplish.”

As the monolog completed the holographic figure disappeared. Tarth quietly closed the object back up, and secured it with the lightsaber construction manual. Jom and Thoulyakk were staring at him, so he felt some explanation was deserved. “Revan was… something of a myth. He was a Jedi who became a Sith and then a Jedi again and then maybe a Sith again. There are contradictory stories, and it’s not something I really studied. But as this holocron was made when he was calling himself a Lord of the Sith, this is probably some pretty dark stuff. I’m not sure if we should look at it or destroy it, but either way we shouldn’t leave it here.”

When they returned to Lok it was to find him with a somewhat functional IG-100 on remote control. Unfortunately the droid was protesting this treatment and threatening to murder them all, so Lok had to manually disable it’s vocoder. With the search of this floor complete, they headed upstairs to ground level.

++++++

With their less than subtle movements, Tarth relented on his self-enforced restriction on using the force in an attempt to avoid alerting other nearby force users, and he reached out to feel for other living beings nearby. He could feel most of the ground floor and could detect only a single person, who seemed to be asleep or maybe unconscious. Tarth and Thoulyakk led the way, with Lok and his new droid acting as rearguard.

Entering the room they found a human male shackled to some kind of medical bed or operating table in what seemed to be a cross between a hospital and a torture chamber. A screen suspended above his head displayed the words “Lanai Pone Gnu” to the prisoner. He also had the word “TRAI” scratched into his chest deep enough to be bleeding. Thoulyakk turned to the members of the group who had served under Captian Slex aboard the Pigeon, “Is this him?” Tarth answered first, “Yes, it’s him.” They all looked at Tarth with surprise, nobody was aware he had ever met Sauto or indeed even knew what he looked like, but before they could discuss it further Lok pushed into the room. “This blue light in the room is not just a light, the whole room is being recorded in full holo!”
“We should move him!” said Thoulyakk, but before they could move Sauto any further a door at the opposite end of the room opened.

Three figures emerged. The two at the back were clad in black robes with imposing helmets and electro-staffs, but they were led by a bareheaded human in segmented black armour. He was older, with a receding hairline, but clearly fit and looked very competent to wield the lightsaber clipped too his belt. The handle was longer than usual, with an emitter at each end. He did not immediately draw his weapon however, and the group in turn held still, waiting to see what would happen. Instead of addressing anyone in the room, he turned his head to the side and addressed and unseen observer. “As you can see my lord, my plan has worked exactly as I expected.” In response a holo projector on a side table lit up, displaying a dark helmeted head with an angular respirator. “So I see,” the figure paused for a laboured breath, “but you have not yet finished the job. Do not fail me again Commander Flisk, the next failure will be your last.” With that threatening comment the projector turned off, and the blue light of the holo recorder that had bathed the room also turned off, leaving the group in shadowy gloom, lit only by some minor side lights.

Turning at last to the rooms occupants the apparently Inquisitor addressed them. “For form’s sake I will make this offer, but only once. Surrender now and you will not be killed.” Thoulyakk and Tarth stepped forwards and drew their lightsabers, igniting them with a snap-hiss. The Inquisitor smiled a feral grin, “so be it,” and snatched his own weapon from his belt. With his henchmen following his lead, the room exploded into violent action.

Flisk leapt at Tarth in a blur, his double ended lightsaber letting him unleash a punishing flurry of blows that forced Tarth onto the defensive. Flisk was the more skilled, and quickly battered down Tarth’s defences, until he slipped his red blade past Tarth’s yellow and struck him with a classic Sheak to the centre chest with a triumphant cry. The triumph turned to shock when the blade failed to penetrate Tarth’s armour, and the surprise impact threw his balance off. Tarth quickly retaliated with a brutal kick to Flisk’s forward knee, now exposed, which made a horrible crunch. As Flisk staggered back, limping badly, Tarth followed up with a counter blow from his own lightsaber and was equally surprised to find his blade too bounced off Flisk’s armour.

Flisk steadied himself and recomposed his defence. “So, we have taken the measure of each other. But I am still better than you Jedi.” He smiled at Tarth, a confident sneer. Tarth in turn unclipped his second lightsaber and tossed it to El who was trying to get a clear shot. “Cut Sauto free,” he said. Turning back to Flisk he raised his blade in salute. “That may be, but I have one thing you don’t darksider. Friends.” Flisk looked around at his guards. One was being badly mauled by Thoulyakk, with Jom adding a distraction with his acquired electro-staff. The other guard was faring slightly better against the IG-100 droid, but he certainly wasn’t winning. Flisk lost his grin as he turned back to Tarth. “All I need is time, Flisk.” added Tarth. “So be it,” Flisk spat, and leapt back into the fray.

At the start of the battle Thoulyakk and Tarth had got stuck in with their lightsabers, and that left Jom without a clear shot. Instead he edged cautiously around the fray and started jabbing at the leftmost henchman that Thoulyakk was fighting. The trooper was armed with some kind of lightsaber resistant electro-staff much like the one Jom had collected, and was skilled enough with it to be defending himself from Thoulyakk’s lightsaber blows, but the stature and power of Thoulyakk was quickly overwhelming him. Looking for an opening he jabbed at the apparently less skilled Jom, driving him back and forcing Thoulyakk to intercept and defend his friend.

At the other side of the battle the second trooper was locked in combat with the IG-100 droid Lok had dubbed “Maggy”. He was winning, and driving the droid back, until Sauto, who El had quickly freed and armed with Jec’s spare lightsaber, joined the fray. All at once the combat turned, Sauto cut down one trooper whilst Thoulyakk, enraged by the assault on his friend, battered through the defences of the other.

Flisk was better than Tarth, but Tarth had a strong defence and was well aware that all he had to do was buy time. Flisk on the other hand was running out of time, and his fighting had become less composed as the battle wore on. He now found himself alone, weary and wounded, and surrounded by enemies. “You should surrender,” Tarth said, although without much conviction. “You should DIE!” shouted Flisk and he leapt at Thoulyakk, lashing at him furiously with both ends of his saber. Thoulyakk took some damage but hastily composed his defence, and the three lightsaber wielding allies closed a ring around Flisk.

With his skilled defence and lightsaber resistant armour none of them could get a clean blow it was a slow but inevitable and gruelling battle of attrition as each of them in turn found holes in his defence and wounded him. Eventually it was Sauto who managed to finish of Flisk, who by this point was a half blinded wreck powered by pure rage. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.” They all felt somewhat sickened by their participation.

Breathing heavily they looked around and found that the battle was over. Sauto looked around at his rescuers. “Jom! Lok, El… you… you should not have come here. And, I do not believe I know these other individuals.”
“I am Thoulyakk, and I believe this belongs to you.” Thoulyakk proffered Sauto’s lightsaber which he had brought with him to return to Sauto. Sauto received it gently and with affection. “Indeed it does,” he said, staring at the weapon. “And this I believe is yours,” he said as he looked at Tarth with curiosity. Tarth removed his helm and looked into Sauto’s eyes. “My name is Tarth Arlos. We do not know each other, but I believe we met before, not too far from here.” Jom and Lok looked at each other behind Tarth’s back; Lok raised an eyebrow and Jom mouthed the words “not a Jedi”.

Sauto looked deep into Tarth’s eyes and after a moment nodded hesitantly. “Yes, it’s been a few years... We should get your wounds treated,” suggested Tarth. Do you know why they carved “TRAI” into you?”
“That was me, I was trying to write ‘trap’ but I lost consciousness before I could finish.”
“Ah,” said Tarth, mentally kicking himself, “of course. And ‘Lanai Pone Gnu’?” he said, gesturing to the now broken screens. Sauto turned to Jom, “Jom, you have my ship, right?”
“Er… the Pigeon…”
“Ah yes, I forgot we had renamed her the Annual Pigeon. She has many secrets of the Jedi Order engraved into the hull plates. I trust she is still safe? And KT? She must have shown you where my lightsaber was hidden...” Jom and Lok looked at each other in mild horror, each unwilling to speak. Tarth spoke for them, “The Pigeon is damaged but recoverable, however we came here on a different ship. R2-KT is waiting there for us.”

Whilst Lok treated Sauto’s injuries Tarth and Thoulyakk scouted around. Tarth collected Flisk’s lightsaber, and the valuable cortosis infused armour plates he wore. In the study next door Thoulyakk found a paper bound volume and showed it to Tarth. “What is ‘Vapaad’?”
“Oh dear. It is a dangerous lightsaber technique, one that few Jedi can master without corruption. We should probably not use this Thoulyakk, but I don’t think we should leave it here either. I will put it with the holocron.”