TALES OF THE SOLAY EXPRESS
EPISODE VI
The Lesser of Two Evils

Profit awaits the employees of the Solay Express. After receiving their payment for their heist on Te’Aatorus in the form of bounty hunter licences, the crew now hunt for their next big job.

After several weeks with nothing but short supply runs to show for their efforts, the crew are approached by a former associate and employer of TALGOTO RUUS to perform a lucrative job smuggling cargo between two nearby systems.

The crew soon learn that smuggling can be harder that expected when they are set upon by a group of pirates claiming that one of the crew members owes them a substantial debt to be paid in the form of a favour or in blood....

HOOK
The PCs are hired by an Ilthorian named Undlas to smuggle a shipment of crates from Arlave back to Solay. The fee of 10,000cr is agreed upon, and the instructions are such that they are to meet with a contact at the bottom of an inert Orbreros lake where they will take possession of the cargo. The PCs make their way to the Arlave system.

CLIFFHANGER
Upon arrival, the PCs are set upon, and soon after boarded by, pirates who claim to have been wrongly done by. They claim that crew member Talgoto Ruus was working for them for a period and sabotaged several of their freighters. They ask for the debt to be paid in the form of a favour.

DEVELOPMENT
The favour is that the crew are to break into a Warehouse on Arlave, and steal a cargo (with specific markings). The crew are then to get the crates off planet and deliver them back to the pirates.

CLIFFHANGER
The warehouse turns out to be a heavily guarded Imperial storage facility. If the PCs break in, they not only have to deal with a platoon of stormtroopers, but also with a rival crew attempting to steal the same thing. If the PCs don’t break into the facility, they learn the following day that the thieves were successful in stealing the cargo, and that a bounty has been placed on their heads.

DEVELOPMENT
When the PCs catch up with the thieves, they soon learn that they are merely a group of Hethas youths who claim to be working for a man named Undlas, the same person who employed the PCs to collect a cargo and smuggle it off world in the first place. Now the heroes must make a decision – help the youths by finishing the job and getting the cargo off world, or kill the rebel youths, failing to make good on their arrangement with their employer Undlas, or to keep the pirates onside and selling out on the youths.

CLIMAX
The PCs leave the planet (after making their decision and are set upon by 2 x Arlave Security fighters (TIEs) piloted by security force pilots (TIE Ace Rivals). The pirates have convinced the security forces that the PCs have stolen the cargo and also attempting to intercept the PCs ship. Their intent is obvious – they want the cargo, and the PCs dead.

RESOLUTION
The crew return to Solay and face the music, no matter what happens. If the PCs betray Undlas, an immediate Bounty Obligation of 5 points for each PC is placed on their heads. If they deliver the cargo, the agreed amount is paid in full. If the PCs rescue the youths as well, Undlas pas the PCs an extra 5000cr.

I don't like the boarding part.... Perhaps it can be reconfigured as a comm message instead? Planning for boarding implies the party never had a chance to fight off the pirates.

Also, while I don't know how you do obligation additions at your table, I'm uncomfortable with giving the party essentially no means of avoiding obligation beyond betraying or killing 'innocent youths'. I don't really have an alternative suggestion for that, though.

Perhaps the boarding part should occur over comms whilst the PCs are being chased?

The other thing that I omitted was that the PC named TALGOTO RUUS has had their Obligation of Obsession triggered. Here is his write up:

Talgoto is obsessed with tinkering. Part of the animosity that Tal earns from his employers is his tendency to pull apart, tinker and rebuild all things - that only increases the depency of that system to Tal's ministrations. His weapons and gear all show signs of various stages of mod or repair, and his mechanical work is often bereft of cosmetic finishes (casings, grips, plating etc.)

So in this case, he had worked for the pirates previously and left them in a bind at some point, and now they want a bit of payback.

I think you may have read that last section wrong, although in fairness, I was was writing this in the early hours of the morning and I wasn't completely clear. Here is what I intended in point form (with some annotation and editing):

The crew return to Solay and face the music, no matter what happens.

• If the PCs betray Undlas (i.e. fail to deliver the cargo they were supposed to collect for him), an immediate Bounty group Obligation of 5 points. Undlas is a small time fencer, and doesn't have a huge amount of cash to throw at bounty hunters.
• If they deliver the cargo, the agreed amount of 10,000cr is paid in full.
• If the PCs rescue the youths as well, Undlas pays the PCs an extra 5000cr.
• If the PCs help the pirates, and somehow convince them NOT to blow them out of the sky, the PC who's Obligation triggered may drop his triggered Obligation by 2 as he learns that leaving things unfinished and therefore leaving his friends in the lurch is a bad thing.