Star Wars: Tales of the Old Republic

Peril on Naboo

Chaos has come to the small planet of Naboo. After starting their conquest across the galaxy, the Krath have now launched a full-scale invasion, sending an invasion force to the surface of this once-peaceful planet.

Meanwhile, the conquerors' ships remain in orbit around Naboo, prohibiting escape and blocking all communications with the Republic.

For the last several days, the government of Naboo has been urging any and all non-natives to evacuate the planet quickly, in fear of an attack. You've decided to book passage on a tramp freighter, the Crescent, captained by Nuun Pargen, an Alderaanian. You were too late.

Just after takeoff, the initial wave of the Krath invasion force arrived and the Crescent was shot down by Chaos fighters. Thankfully, captain Pargen was able to pull off a controlled crash into the Great Grass Plains south of Theed, the capital, and the only thing you've suffered is a bumpy ride. However, Captain Pargen's young daughter, Inea, was injured -- although not critically -- in the crash. With the Crescent decisively grounded for the time being, and Inea too injured to make the trek back to Theed, Captain Pargen urged you to return to Theed for medical supplies and hopefully some spare parts -- or at least a speeder.

You very little else to do, you returned to the city. When you arrived in Theed, the capital was in chaos. It seems that news of the attack has already spread, and that the ground invasion force is on its way. You tried to hurry your business along, hoping to be out of the city before the invaders arrived.

Unfortunately, you got what you needed just a little too late. Just as you left the Theed medical center, you hear the telltale sound of Chaos fighters overhead, and of distant fighting, columns of smoke rising into the sky. You don't know what will happen to you if you run into the Krath invaders, but it's a sure bet that it will be unpleasant.

Everybody make an average Fear check due to the suddenness of the attack. Pleas see the OOC post for a few extra details on what you already should know.

Who would have predicted it would be so hard to get off one stinking planet? Certainly not Massan. So when he finally managed to convince captain Pargen to take him on as a mechanic just to get off Naboo before the imminent invasion he thought he would be one of the lucky ones, the ones that got off the planet. And for a while, as the freighter sped off the planet, trying to get out far enough to jump to lightspeed, he felt immense relief. That relief was short lived.

The freighter had been about to get away when several Krath cruisers entered the system, unleashing a swarm of Chaos fighters. Captain Pargen tried to evade them long enough to jump, but they were too many and he was forced to break off. His ship took several hits, and Massan soon found himself busy trying to keep the ship running, shouting orders to his old buddy Drask. The Nikto was practically useless when it came to repair stuff, but he could sure haul parts and bolt plates to seal up weakened parts of the hull.

To his credit Pargen managed to make a reasonably good emergency landing, keeping his passengers and crew intact. His daughter was not so lucky, undoing her seatbelt to run towards the cockpit at a bad moment. Massan and the other crew and passengers could only watch helplessly as she was thrown about as the ship collided with the ground at high speed.

With their ride off the planet disabled, Massan, Pargen and the others tried to get it operational again, but soon realized that the ship wouldn’t be spaceworthy without parts the ship didn’t stock.

It would be less than truthful to say that Massan offered to go with the group of passengers who volunteered to go to Theed to find medical supplies for little Inea, and the parts needed to allow the ship a small chance to break through the blockade at an opportune moment. In fact he was at first adamant that he should stay with the ship, tending to the wounded girl and trying to repair what could be repaired while the others got supplies.

Only outright pleading by Pargen, supported with the fact that the others wouldn’t know a TRX-54Y Hypermatter Influx Regulator if it was right in front of them, was able to shift the pudgy Klatooinian and convince him that he needed to go with the others to the capital.

On the walk to the city Massan is very jittery, constantly looking over his shoulder and at the sky, jumping at the smallest noises. He easily confesses to being scared witless.

On the walk, the five other beings making the journey soon find out that Massan is a nervous talker. That is, when he’s nervous, he talks. A lot. Not necessarily about anything important. Some of it is so mundane it makes the others cringe. But some of it is more informative. You now know the chubby Klattoinian used to be a slave of a nasty Hutt before his friend bought his freedom two years ago. You also find out from him that he helped Drask, the massive Green Nikon, escape slavery several years ago, regardless of if the Nikto had intended to keep that information confidential.

As the group exits the medical center, Massan jerks upright at the sound of even more fighters passing overhead at low altitude. “We are too late. It’s useless, they are already here. They will surround the city and then move into it, crushing all that stands in their way. We have to get out of here. We need to get away before they do. What can we do? How are we going to get away? This is bad. This is sooooo bad,” he whimpers.

Suddenly he gets a look of determination on his face. “We have to borrow a speeder. Get out of here, fast. I can boost any speeder, we just need to find one before the Krath ground forces get here."

He looks at Kanti. "Drask told me you’re a pilot, you eh…” he hesitates, clearly trying to member something, “…you Twi’lek chick, ah, Kanta … Kanti? Eh. He told me you are a kick-ass pilot Kanti. I mean, I can fly, but I’m not good at it. And someone might shoot at us. Ah, we are so humped. We have to move. There is no time. Ahhh, never a speeder around when you need one,” the chubby Klatooinian rambles, full of nervous energy.

Osfmor tries to make sense of the messages coming across the com. He hears reports of the royal family being escorted the their ships. Suddenly it goes quiet and that means one thing, communications have been jammed. He takes a quick look to the sky to see if he can see any of the ships escaping but can only see the Chaos Fighters and troop transports.

He goes for his blaster but hesitates. The training of the Security Forces did not cover invasion.

"I need to find a speeder." he thinks to himself "I should check the spaceport."

Drask had originally traveled to Naboo to enter into a martial arts tournament that was being held on the planet. Rumor had it some of the best in the galaxy were going to be here and he wanted to test his skill. Convincing Kanti to come too took a bit of work but eventually he was able to get the Twi'lek pilot to agree to come on the trip with him. Drask hadn't expected to see his old friend Massan on this planet but he was a welcome sight to the Nikto. Drask did his best to assist with Massan's task and repairs, he was better at taking things apart with his hands than putting them back together again but Drask was an amicable sort, trying to help where he could when he could.

The trek back to Theed was long but nothing Drask couldn't handle. He engaged in idle talk, he seemed to be a bit more jovial than one expects for a Nikto. He didn't smile much, after all facial expressions were not what his species were known for. But what he lacked in facial expression he made up with in deep and hearty laughs that let everyone know he not your typical Nikto.

As the plumes of smoke rise off in the distance Drask can't help but smile at the prospect of taking on what the Krath have to offer. "Oh Kanti? She's the best pilot on this planet! Lets bust a frew Krath heads take their bikes and get these needed supplies where they need to go. In no particular order I suppose ...."

Kallukorus curses the Krath under his breath. They've already run him off one world, and he seethes at the indignity of being run off another. He volunteered for this task to win favour with the captain, and in the hopes of accelerating his passage offworld. But aerial bombardment is a new experience for him, and he hates how powerless it makes him feel, flinching involuntarily when a strafing run takes a chaos ship nearby. He prefers to meet his enemies face-to-face, where he can stare them down and make his intimidating presence work for him. But how do you intimidate a spaceship? The sooner they can get what they need and get out of here, the better.

Massan looks at Drask with disbelief. "Take speeder bikes from Krath soldiers? Are you completely out of your mind? We need to steal, eh, borrow, a civilian speeder that can get us and the supplies back to the ship. We want to avoid the soldiers, not attack them. They have an entire invasion force behind them, there is six of us. Hopefully we can repair the ship, lay low for a little while, and then get out of here once the Krath have secured the planet and have moved their fleet away from the planet."

During the trek from the crash to Theed, it was all Kanti could do to stop dwelling on the thought of the captain's poor daughter injured in the impact. She'd seen her share of injury and violence in life, but it always bothered her when it was a civilian. So distracted, she was, surprisingly quiet on the hike to town.

Once at Theed, and with the now increasingly familiar sound of the attack ships, her cool broke. Where her companion seemed to be a talked when he was nervous, Kanti was a talked naturally, and when stress room hold she often became much more quiet.

With a toss of one of her lekku over her shoulder as a makeshift scarf, she looked to her Nikto friend. "Well, at least this time I didn't get you into trouble, I suppose."

A panicked thought trains across her mind, why didn't she rent a ship specifically for this trip?

Watching her current comrades back and forth she had to interject, "A military bike would likely be faster and more well armored than a civilian speeder. But if no one else is a capable pilot or driver, it could be very dangerous."

Dubi was very much dazed and confused. He'd found himself surrounded by a group of people he didn't entirely recognise. It'd been a crazy few minutes, he remembered being on the ship, the smoke the fire, the screaming and yet again his world had come crashing apart and he felt - not for the first time - that maybe this adventure wasn't such a great thing. He'd found himself with a group of the survivors and fetching medical supplies. He heard a couple of his companions talking about taking bikes, that sounded good around the ringing in his ears. Get away, they'll take him with them. He felt his arms shaking as he checked he still had his rifle. His fingers not quite wanting to work but they were there. He heard the... Twi'lek... mention driving one. Good idea, make yourself useful. They'll protect you, they'll get you home...

Dubi felt his voice stammering and hoped that his nerves wouldn't betray his words -

"I, I could try to drive one... I... I want to help..."

Well Krath vehicles would be faster and don't we need to get these supplies to the captain fast? And we could use them to sneak past patrols if need be. Also .... I'm pretty sure we can handle the Krath! Drask seemed very confident in the groups or perhaps his own ability to handle any trouble the Krath toss their way.

Well Drask probably won't make it. Better not try to save him from himself, don't want to die because someone thought he could single handedly take on an army, Massan thinks to himself.

"What makes you think the army vehicle will be faster? Better armed and armored, certainly, but that often translates into a slower vehicle. We don't want to pick a fight with any soldiers, we want to get out of here before they get here. Let the local defense forces worry about fighting them. We want to make sure we never even see them," Massan says in a pleading voice.

"And while our Twi'lek friend here suggests military speeder bikes, I think it would be a suicide for anyone who's not a trained pilot. And that's assuming we survive taking the bikes from a handy small group of soldiers and manage not to get a thousand of their closest friends in hot pursuit." The pudgy Klatooinian wipes sweat from his brow.

"Listen. They are still maneuvering their forces into place, Theed isn't walled so they will have to encircle the city if they want to cut off any defense forces before they can escape and regroup. We still have time before the soldiers get here. Krath soldiers are supposed to be disciplined. And the sensible thing to do for them is to encircle the city and then slowly shrink the circle. If we don't get out before they close every avenue of escape we will never escape. Don't you see?"

Massan's tone is getting desperate. "There is a residential area is just over there. There are bound to be speeders there we can borrow, and I don't think there will be much security to worry about, they are probably either fleeing the city or trying to find soldiers to plan some sort of a defense. Let's just go there and see if we can't find a speeder and get the hell out of here."

Osfmor made his way to the spaceport. Looks like most of the ships took off but that does not mean that they made off planet. Looking around he spotted a couple of security speeders. Time to find more security forces and mount a defense. Wait who are those people coming this way Krath? He draws his blaster. Can I make a perception roll?

Kallukorus listens to his travelling companions bickering, and knows Massan is right about one thing - if they don't escape quickly, it will be too late. Though each approach has its merits, he knows they can't afford to waste time arguing about it, so he attempts to take charge.

"Fighting the Krath right now would draw heat we don't need, and we don't have the pilots to man a bunch of bikes anyway. We'll head towards the spaceport, and take the first vehicle big enough to take us and the supplies. Now move! We can't afford to waste any more time."

Kallu stares at the Nikto as he shepards the group towards the spaceport, hoping he can be pressured into backing down and going along with them. He looks the most dangerous member of their group, and he knows they'll need him along if they do run into trouble

"There isn't a large spaceport in this gorram city. But there should be smaller ones, I just don't know where," Massan replies. He looks around and sees a Naboo security trooper running. "Perhaps this guy will know where we can find a spaceport or starship repair facilities? Tell him it's for an injured girl who might die if we don't help her, those Nabooians are go all gooey with that sort of stuff."

It is very clear to the five people present Massan doesn't intend to be the one to talk to the armed and armored human running towards them, but feels it would be a very sensible idea for someone else to do so.

"Well" he says after a moment "We've already tried to space port option and that's why we're here now. But we can try that again. Besides ...." he grinned "Space ports are likely the first place those bastards will try to lock down!"

She narrowed her eyes as Kallukoros barked out an order, this was neither the time nor the place to put her booted heel down about how nobody should be talking to anyone here that way. Regardless they needed to get a move on.

"Don't worry," Kanti spoke to Dubi, holding his shouler lightly, "We'll work together, we'll get out of this. Watch."

With a wink to her long time traveling companion Drask, Kanti walked toward the figure not terribly far in the distance, arms out to her sides a bit with open hands to show she was not armed. In fact, the blue Twi'lek didn't even carry a weapon.

"Officer," she called calmly to Osfmor, "We need your help. I understand that everyone here likely does, but I promise this is a bit different. My companions and I suffered a crash, and the captain's daughter was injured and the ship damaged. We've... procured medicine for the poor dear, and need to beg, borrow, or steal a speeder truck to bring supplies and medicine back. Should we succeed, we may even be able to begin to ferry civilians out of the city before the Krath arrive. Could you lend us a hand in finding a vehicle?"

So a Charm check, perhaps?

The officer stops long enough to answer.

"I'm not sure how much I can help, but I saw quite a few merchant speeders down towards the Solleu River. Many are trying to get speeders out of the city, but maybe you can catch a ride or help out. But please, don't harm any of the citizens." The request is heartfelt and emphatic. "And be careful--Krath shock troops are known to send advanced skirmishers to disrupt defending forces. I'm sorry, but I have to go."

The man quickly departs, running into the crowd, which has become a confused mass of fleeing refugees, shouting citizens, and frightened animals. The sky overhead is full of ships and airspeeders making for other parts of the planet. You can see enemy fighters zooming over distance parts of the city, and what may be large landing ships in the distant horizon, although it's hard to say for sure.

Kanti returns hurriedly to the group and grinned wryly. "The officer has indicated that we may find some speeders down by the Solleu River"

With a turn of her head to look over at the crowd of people running, listening to the crowd and yells, and calls for help, she frowned tightly. "He also wished us luck. And ran headlong into the crowd to help..." With a heavy sigh she turned back to her companions. "Speeders by the river. We should move quickly, save the girl, get the parts, and... how many people do you think we can fit on the ship? We can't just leave without trying to save some folks."

She wanted to tell them the officer suggested it might be too late, that the Krath could be making their moves right now to cut off escape, but she didn't want to scare Dubi or work Drask into a combat frenzy.

"Let's move, shall we?"

Seriously, how many can we fit onto the ship?

"The Solleu River," Massan repeats, looking at the tourist map in his datapad, trying to figure out where to go. "Sounds good to me, let's find us a speeder. No point trying to figure out how many people we can fit on a ship before we can find a speeder," he says, hurrying along towards the river.

"Well to the river then!" Drask grinned ....well .... as well as a Nikto can grin anyway.

Theed is in chaos. Some people are making for the roads out of the city; others looks to be hurrying to fight off the invaders. Some even look like they may be surrendering. The cacophony of the starfighters overhead grows increasingly louder and closer, as does the sound of fighting in the streets.

In a courtyard just off the street you are on, you notice several well-dressed Naboo--a family, from the looks of it, five of them, two adults, a teenager, and two children--piling their possessions onto an already overloaded speeder. You're fairly certain the craft won't even get off the ground, and if it does, the weight and poor balance of its load will likely tip the speeder and cause a crash.

The noise, the dreadful din of the chaos of stampeding, screaming, terrified people, of bombs in the distance, and all the fighting. People fighting each other, fighting the Krath, fighting against the oppressive lack of hope this new front of war brought with it.

The sight of the family loading up their entire home and possessions onto a single vehicle was depressing, even amongst all this. "That's never going to move," she blurted out.

As the sound of fighting grew ever louder and ever closer Drask spun his staff in small circles as he looked about, keeping an eye out for trouble and of course the chance for glory. He observes the family pilling their meager belongings onto a speeder. Pointing with his staff at them Drask responds to his friends statement "Well it won't move with all that junk on it. But I'm certain if we remove all their belongings we can use it to get to where we're going with the needed supplies. Or ....... we can keep looking for transportation which ...." he glances about "seems to be sparse around here"

We should take the speeder. Throw the equipment away. Threaten the family. We have weapons. Get out of here. What do we care if some random family gets stuck in the city? We’d get away.

Massan hates himself for even thinking this. This is his fear talking, he realizes. This family has done nothing to deserve that treatment. He looks at Drask when he hesitantly suggests that they take the speeder with a look of disgust. Taking a speeder nobody is using is one thing, but looking these people in the eyes and taking their only way to get out of the city is just not right somehow.

The pudgy Klatooinian doesn’t respond to Drask, but instead enters the courtyard. He stops next to the female, the mother he supposes. “That thing won’t get off the ground if you pile all this stuff on it. And if you get it moving, it will lose all stability. You’ll never be able to pilot it properly, or maintain any resemblance of speed. And you’ll need speed to get out of here, the enemy is approaching fast.”

Massan looks at the two younger children, and then back to the mother. “They are surely more valuable to you than all this stuff you are piling onto your speeder,” he says, pointing at the children. “You should take only what you need to survive. The rest you can buy again later. You don’t want to die just because you couldn’t bear to be separated from your wardrobe.”

When the woman gives him an uncertain look, he holds up his hands. “Don’t worry, I don’t want your stuff either. We are looking for a ride out of town, but this speeder won’t carry much more than your family. We will find another way.”

Kallukorus sighs impatiently as he watches Massan helping the family. Privately, he agrees with Drask, and would happily have taken the speeder by force or by threat. But he knows they'll need Massan's expertise soon enough, and so, for now, is willing to keep him onside.

"Yes, very good. As my Klatoonian friend says you'd best get going as quick as you can, if you want to make good your escape. And we'd best get going as quick as we can, too, if we want to find an unoccupied speeder, and get back with the medicine in time to save the captain's daughter". Although he cares little for the captain's daughter, Kallu judges it the best way to motivate a bleeding heart such as Massan, and hurry them on their way
"We wish you well on your journey, but must now take our leave to continue ours."

"We've got no choice but to leave," the woman says, fear in her voice. "We're going to go upriver and into the Great Grass Plains. Everybody else is, taking their speeders with them."

The male seems to finish, and ushers his family into the overloaded speeder, and starts trying to start it up. Obviously, it will lose balance quickly, and the man probably doesn't have the skill to pilot it correctly in its state.

A hard Piloting (Planetary) check may be attempted to right the speeder for the group, although it's still overloaded. If nobody wants to, we continue.