The narrative is in the vein of my Scoundrel character Jugo telling someone the tale of the “Theft of the Jewel of Yavin” this for the free drinks at a cantina somewhere, presumably far enough in the future that it doesn't matter that he's giving out the names of the people involved. I'm sure lots of people have gone through this adventure path, but this is my group's heist. Hopefully it entertains.
It's not that I have anything against a good old fashioned heist, and the theft of a famous jewel is about as traditional as it gets. Hell, I like taking the part of the dashing holovid rogue. What I don't like is being blackmailed into anything. A little bit of trust is hard enough to come by in this business even if you aren't starting off that wrong footed.
I still can't really decide if I'd have taken the job even without Bardock's blackmail. I hated the guy, but that's mostly because he was blackmailing me. The first I ever knew him was when he revealed what he's holding over me. But even if he wasn't blackmailing he, he still seemed a real jerk. But then again, I've worked with and for plenty of jerks before and since.
Round and round we go.
Anyway, the job itself. This one's a little more complicated than “case the joint, break in, and steal the jewel,” but then again I like any job that has the potential to pay twice, more than twice in fact.
The gem was a big sparkly famous piece of corodowhatever called the Jewel of Yavin, that has never been stolen.
Sorry, HAD never been stolen.
Not till we showed up at least.
The crew?
Well there's me of course, you know who I am.
Cinnamon has been my strong right hand for a long time. Twi'lek gunwoman.
I was also working with a Trandoshan named Kalassk. Bounty hunter and outdoorsman.
We also had an Astromech droid (NPC). Went by Astro Boy.
We picked up another guy on the job, but I'll get to him at the appropriate time.
So I'll start from the beginning. Me and Cinnamon got wave from Bardock that he had a job for us in cloud city. It took us a couple of days to get there, since we had other, bloodier, business for the Vio siblings, but we managed to pick up Kalassk once he was done his side job. We were supposed to meet Airis in the shopping district, so Cinnamon insisted I open up the strong box and give her some money for a nice dress. We argued about it a bit, but naturally she got her money. I wound up buying a nice suit too, in case I ever need to look respectable.
Airis might be the daughter of a Corellian noble, but she was pretty savvy and professional regarding the shadier side of business. I respect her, and unlike her dad she actually helped out with the work, but I don't think I'd feel too bad if I ever put a blaster bolt or two into her. She never really seemed to care about much but herself.
After giving the brush off to some of Vorse's thugs that were keeping watch on Airis, she took us to meet her father and get us filled in on the job.
We weren't just stealing the jewel though, we were stealing the winning bid at the auction too. In order to get an invite to the auction we needed to win the Cloud City five hundred, an annual air-car race. At the auction, and before it, we needed to push the bidders to bid as big as possible, increasing our take later on when we grabbed a banking droid and sliced the banking system. We then siphon off the winning bid into an account Bardock was providing.
Paid twice.
Sort of.
Get this, Bartock figured as the guy who's getting this all together, and the guy with the blackmail, he deserved not only an equal cut of the cash, but to keep the jewel itself. Truth is, I'm not sure what I'd do with the jewel. It's worth a lot, but who do I sell it to? Most of the people rich and powerful enough to buy it are rich and powerful enough to take it if I approached them to sell it. There's nobody, except maybe the Genosian guys, who I had a positive enough relationship to try with. I'd probably have been fine with it if he didn't also want a cut of the siphon money.
Bardock did do two very useful things, I guess. He's provided us with a good air car for the race, and an even better slicer for the slicing. Fortunately the slicer, an Arkanian kid named Grafalka, didn't like Bartock any better than I did, and was just in it for the money. Wound up being a very valuable member of the team and stuck together after the heist.
They gave us the rundown on what needed to be done, and some basic info on the particulars, and then cut us loose with three days to prepare for the Cloud City five hundred, the auction, the slicing job, and the jewel heist itself (all need to happen the same day).
Piece of cake.
I kind of suspected a double-cross from the beginning. Bardock is the type, and come on, it's a jewel heist. Back stabbing is practically in institution in jewel heists.
I've seen the holovids.
Over the next 3 days we put in a lot of work.
Grafalka, Graff for short, spent most of the first and second day pulling up info on the bidders, the racers, and the museum where the auction was taking place. I worked my wiles on some people, I won't say who, to pick up more info and get Graf into some back room places.
The Jewel was illegal to own because you can make a lightsaber with it. Not sure why the Empire cared about that, since nobody uses them anymore. At least nobody who minds accidentally lopping off one of their own limbs. It was owned by some Imperial bigwig named Grayson who has the weight to get away with owning it. Apparently selling it too, though he had to come all the way out to Cloud City on Bespin to auction it off to other people who had the sway to not care about it being illegal either. The benefits of being the people in power.
The bidders were as follows.
Vorse. A local crime baron, one of the strongest remaining since Lando Calrisian took over and started cleaning house. Rumor had it he was starting to come apart at the seams. Drinking too much and loosing his edge. His wife was Airis, the daughter of Bardock, and the one who put him up to buying the jewel. It was an arranged marriage and Airis didn't think much of the guy.
Shreya. A university professor who was trying to grab the gem for the university for research purposes. She was in a romantic relationship with a guy named Mils that ended badly.
Mils. A construction firm business exec from a powerful family. He was the one in a romatic relationship with Shreya that ended badly. He wanted the gem as a centerpiece for the construction firm, or maybe just to spite Shreya. Six of one half dozen of the other.
Pod, or was it Pos? Ah, doesn't matter. Claimed to be a tech firm exec, but was actually just a lovesick goof faking his way into the auction in an attempt to woo Shreya. Used to be one of her students. Figured he'd buy the jewel and hand it over to her, and she'd fall into his arms. Galaxy loves idiots, but that was a bit much.
Eliza was this mysterious crazy old lady. Nobody knew where her money cames from, and apparently a figure of some note in Cloud City. We came up with next to nothing when researching her, but did find that Kaltho was interested in her because she was rumored to be from Nal Hutta, the Hutt's homeworld.
Snobby the mining exec. Don't actually remember her name. Exploratory Mining Corporation. Human female. We didn't come up with much about her either, but we did find out she was in communication with Kaltho the Hutt.
Kaltho the Hutt. He's a Hutt. You pretty much know what you need to know about him from that. Likes fancy foods. His right hand is a bounty hunter of some repute who hung out at a cantina called the Four and a Half. We wound up cutting a deal with Kaltho, but we'll get to that later.
We cut a risky deal with Kaltho to try and get an inside line on driving up the bidding, and maybe get a little payback on a certain so and so.
See, here's how it would go; Kaltho helps us with the bid, pushing it up as high as he can, but doesn't win. After the heist is over and we've settled up, we let Kaltho know who wound up with the jewel and the Hutt can take it. Hutt gets the jewel at no cost to him.
Good deal in his eyes.
I also managed to get a little side income that would at least break us even even if the whole thing went **** up. Vorse's book keeper Shelly wanted out, and was willing to pay us ten grand to set her up with Kaltho.
For the race, finding a a driver wound up being the most difficult part of the setup. I kind of wanted to do it myself, but the truth is I was a space ship pilot who hasn't had much atmospheric experience at the time. I could have done OK with a bit of training, but we didn't have much time, and just OK probably wouldn't cut it.
We tried to pull a three time champ out of retirement. He wanted to do it, but had made a promise to his wife after a nasty race crash that he'd never race again. He wanted to race, but his wife held him to it and I couldn't convince either of them otherwise.
So instead we had to go for this kid by the name of Thera. She was actually only a couple years younger than me, but she was also a little naieve and desperate. Better than someone who'll ask too many questions, but I'd have rather had someone with proven skills.
Oh well, beggars and choosers as they say.
The cloud car's paint job was that of the local constabulary, so we painted that over right away. Then we spent about five grand on upgrades. That may not seem too expensive, but we weren't exactly rich at the time. Between bribes and equipment and cloud car upgrades we've burned through almost all of our savings, but we needed every edge we could get, especially with an inexperienced driver.
Speaking of edges we might have slightly sabotaged the other racers cars on the night before the race. Not “explode mid flight” level sabotage, but enough to loosen up the controls of some of them and disable the weapons on the Hutt sponsored racer with the itchy trigger finger. Between my sneaking and lock picking and Graf's slicing and wrenching it went smooth.
After a few last minute things it was time for the race. Graf cut us a slice of the video feeds, giving us a better view than the proles in the stands, and we did our best to give advice and encouragement, but it was Thera and Cinnamon's show there. Cinnamon had been with the kid for a couple of days, training for the race, and while she might not be much of a pilot, she's a **** fine gunner. It was a nail biting edge of the seat race, and a close call in several places, but they managed to pull it off.
If Cinnamon hadn't managed to do a mid flight patch job, guided over the com by Graf, on the air car's pylon they would have fallen out less than a minute later when it took a second hit.
Hell, if we hadn't upgraded the air car, if we hadn't sabotaged the opponent's car, if the Stormhawks had gotten a slightly more direct hit, if, if, if. So many places where it could have gone wrong is what I'm getting at.
But we won.
Honest, I didn't even get around to checking until after the race was over, but apparently the purse for that one was 30,000. Even accounting for Thera's cut and the car's upgrade cost we stood to make a good deal of money on that alone.
Collecting the money was a problem, given just how wanted we were after the heist, but as always, I had my ways.
At the winner's circle we let Thera take as much of the spotlight possible while we got ready for the auction. Funny how quickly those nice clothes we picked up when we arrived came in handy. So me, Graf, and Cinnamon got suited up and headed over to the auction as winners of the Cloud City five hundred, while Kallask snuck Shelly over to Kaltho's crib and got ready for the grab on the droid.
So here's how it went down.
Vorse we plied with drinks. Man had expensive taste in booze, but once we loosened him up a little we poked at his relationship with Airis, and his motivation for the jewel.
Mils and Shreya we played off one and other, using their jealousy and bad blood to keep the bidding going. We even got Pos in on it, convincing him to make his move on Shreya in front of Mils. I played Mils like a harp, but almost put my foot in it with Shreya, forutnately Graf managed to step in. He's not the most personable, but he's smart and Shreya responds to that. The whole thing almost did backfire on us, when they got into a shouting match, but I managed to keep the pot on enough to keep one or both of them from being kicked out.
Pod was useless in the bidding, but like I said, we used him to bounce off Mils and Shreya. Shreya spent some time with him just to tick off Mils. Never did find out how things went between them in the long run. Not good would be my guess.
Eliza didn't even make a single bid. We kinda dropped the ball on info gathering with her, but you'll see why when we get to the next part.
Snobby the mining exec (so sue me I can't remember her name right now, it's been a long day), was generally pretty closed, but I think I managed to push her into a couple of bigger bids. She even made high bidder once that I know of.
And Kaltho? Well, let's just say once again that Kaltho is a Hutt. They might be big fat disgusting slugs, but they've got it upstairs. Pushed it right to the edge of the last bid, and then walked. Well, slithered I guess.
Final bid? 300,000.
Who knows what it might have been without our nudging, but I think we added a good chunk of change to the table.
Mils was the high bidder.
Sadly for him he wound up with neither the money nor the jewel.
Sad for him, good for us.
The trick of course was cutting those funds out of their designated account and into ours. The Cloud City SysAdmin is no joke. He's this cyborg named Lobot, and we just didn't have time to figure out how to tie him up. We picked up some proper slicing gear for Grafalka, and he put together some single use thing called a spike that he says will help him. We also managed to have a look at the Cloud City admin system encryption in the days leading up. More money out of the wallet, but well spent.
It took a little longer than maybe it should have, but Graf managed to slice the money. We put it into a different account than Bartock provided, I think I mentioned before that I don't trust the bastard, and disposed of the evidence.
Next up was the jewel heist itself. We'd mulled over various ideas, but the most obvious one was coming in the garbage chute. Even though it was much harder to climb up than rappel down, we decided to go in from the bottom, since the under levels are much less well patrolled and monitored. The climb was long and slow, and we did Cloud City maintenance a favour by cleaning out some vermin, but we made it safely to the entrance. The hatch wasn't even locked! Pathetic.
We scrambled out the hatch quick as lightning only to find ourselves face to face with a couple of cleaning droids. We acted first. I helped Kallask toss one of them straight down the still open hatch. The other one was a flier so Cinnamon and Grafalka took it out with a knife and a big wrench before it could say much, and we tossed it down after it's buddy. That was three droids we'd toasted. Droid rights is one of those up in the air subjects, but that's a discussion for another day.
I took a remote access jack and snuck all the way to the front entrance, jacking it into the front terminal so Grafalka could slice the security system, erasing my presence and looping the video feed. On the way I not only noticed the security teams we'd expected, but also a security droid that we hadn't. It was probably the museum's normal security, since Grayson's teams were only there for the auction of the jewel.
After sneaking back to the back room where the others were we waited until the right moment between the droid's patrol and the people and ducked across to the room where the jewel was. We open the door and find ourselves face to face with a pair of security guards.
The jig was up.
Or it would have been if I weren't a smooth bastard.
See during the three days leading up to the race I did a little leg work on Grayson's security detail. The leader of the night shift is a Defel named Gantelle, and it turns out the guy is a kindred soul. See, he's normally a thief by trade, but Grayson caught him in a sting, hiring him to steal the jewel and then catching him in the attempt, and then using that to blackmail him into working for Grayson.
I know those feels.
We bonded a little bit and he said he'd help his guys look the other way, assuming we didn't do anything too stupid and blatant. In this case it meant those guards chose the better part of valor and let us stunblast them rather than trying to raise the alarm and maybe getting killed. It might have helped that it was four on one and we had a big scary Trandoshan with us.
The Jewel of Yavin's certainly a pretty rock. Big one too. Graf disabled the security on it's pedestal, slapped it in the armoured box I'd bought, and bang, it was ours.
That's when one more surprise popped up. You remember the mysterious Eliza? Well apparently we weren't the only ones getting ready for a heist. She'd been casing the joint too, and that's the point when she decided to show up. As an added kicker she wasn't in it for the money. She was a friggin jedi! Yea, weird huh?
Anyway, we were just admiring our newest acquisition when she slid out of the shadows and started asking us, ever so nicely for the jewel. Remember how I said the Empire made corbaworba jewels illegal because they could be used to make lightsabers? Well that's what she wanted it for.
She gave us a line about wanting to be a beacon of hope in dark times and so forth. I felt for the lady, I really did, but it's not like we had much choice in taking the job. Bardock wouldn't be too happy, and while we technically could hand it over and still fill our obligation to Kaltho there were some problems with that too. Not only would we be siccing a big bad Hutt on her, but Kaltho wouldn't be too happy about the change of plans.
I explained the first, and alluded to the second.
She tried to jedi my mind in some tricky way.
Ol' Juggo's nobody's flunky though, well... most of the time, and I resisted. We flashed blasters and had a frank discussion of her chances, jedi or no. Even if she could take the four of us with no lightsaber the alarms would be going crazy and the guards and droids would probably be there before it was all over.
Eliza decided that was probably true, and we managed to avoid a fight on that one.
She faded.
That was it, the caper was done. All we had to do was stick the landing and everybody is fat and happy on the proceeds.
To say that didn't happen is a bit of an understatement.
It all started going wrong around the time the security droid spotted us making for the exit. Next thing you know alarms are blaring and we're making the scariest quick rappel back down that I'd ever seen (not that I'd seen too many). Bartock called us on the comm on the way down. He'd heard the alarms going off, and offered to have an air car waiting for us wherever we came out. I guess he'd had someone keeping a watch on the museum.
We told him where to meet us, and took wagers on whether this is where he tried to stick the knife in while we waited. I had money on the car being full of thugs, Cinnamon said it'd be a bomb, and Ka thought maybe snipers had been dropped off. The first sign of something being off was that the aircar was being driven by a droid. The second was the bomb hidden under the front seat.
I think I still owe Cinnamon that space burger.
Graf disabled the bomb lickety split. In his haste he cut the steering controls to the ion thrusters, and the backups were a bit sloppy, but it still worked when we pushed the droid out and I took the controls and headed out. That's when the other aircar full of Bartock's thugs showed up. If they'd shown up a minute or two earlier, I'd have won the bet and I'd be the one owed a burger at Spacey's.
Cinnamon and Ka put blasters on the thugs, Grafalka did his best to keep the aircar in the air, and I mostly just tried to keep it steady with the sloppy controls and not being much of a surface pilot (I really should get some more practice in now that Jim's gone and I'm our only real pilot). The others did their thing and the thugs fell one by one till them and their car dropped into the clouds.
Since I had his comm-code I rang up Bartock, asking why he'd done it and why he'd be stupid enough to blow up the air car carrying the jewel.
Apparently taking 4 sixths of the cut wasn't good enough for him and his daughter.
Apparently he'd figured he could take the whole shebang if he took us out.
Apparently corrowhatever gems are mostly indestructible and he wanted to gamble he'd be able to find it after the kaboom.
Apparently he hadn't checked the account balance where the sliced money was supposed to go before he decided to pull this.
Greedy and stupid is a dangerous combination.
Pissed me off good.
He made some comment about how I wouldn't risk the jewel, and I snapped. I took the armoured box and threw it off the side of cloud city. It wasn't the smartest move for a couple of reasons, but man if felt good to hear how much that hurt him.
I got an extra laugh out of that one. During the climb back down I'd switched the jewel out of the box for something else. The jewel was safe in my utility belt, and a piece of candy went over the side. It had been an extra bit of security. See, I'd expected the betrayal, and figured I could use the armored box as a decoy if I needed to. If he didn't betray us, I'd turn over the actual jewel as we parted ways.
As far as Bartock, or most anyone else, knows the Jewel went over the edge.
The air car fight went pretty good for our side, but subtle it wasn't, and Bartock was probably informing on us as we spoke. Cloud City knew the jewel was stolen and who'd taken it (in a general sense). Instead making for the space port, that was probably locked up pretty tight, we ditched the aircar and made for the Four and a Half, that bar in the lower levels where Kaltho's bounty hunter and right hand Karrick hung out.
On the way there we ran into a Wing Guard patrol. That's the local security/police force. We tried to sneak around them, but they saw us. I'm not proud to say it, but we killed them. We were too far for stun setting and they'd chop us to bits if we tried to run or get in close enough for stunners.
I mean, if it's you or me, it's gonna be you, but they were just trying to do their job, and... Well... ****.
Anyway we made it to the Four and a Half and Karrick, where we quietly handed over the jewel and asked for help getting out of the city. We ducked out the back just ahead of more Wing Guard's arrival. Kaltho was willing to help us get to the space port and put a little spin on air traffic control to make it easier, but everything else was up to us.
We tried to blend in with the crowds, but got spotted part way there. After a five second conference we ducked into a nearby holopark and ran for it. More Wing Guard arrived and started shooting. Kallask took a pretty bad hit, but managed to keep on moving. Rather than stay and duke it out we put on the afterburners and made it through the holo park without anyone going down.
I might badmouth the Lancer Pursuit Craft, but it was about the sweetest thing I'd seen when it came into sight. Between all the craziness and running I was almost out of gas. I hadn't slept since before the race, and kaff can only keep you going for so long.
The Wing Guard was there in force, but I guess they don't have the Stormtrooper's legendary marksmanship, because they missed every shot as we ran up the ramp. They were setting up a couple of portable laser cannons that would have made for a bad time for us, but we had one last trump card to play.
Astro Boy, our astromech droid had been aboard and hiding in the smuggling compartment ever since he'd finished pulling apart the race car to sell all those upgrades we'd purchased for the race. She was all warmed up and ready to lift off the moment I hit the cockpit. Again, I might badmouth the Lancer, but she's got speed in spades and I squeezed every pound of thrust I could from her as we lifted off and made straight for the black. Left the Cloud City's defence force in the proverbial dust.
So there we were. Rich, well rich-ish, having stole a legendary jewel, and very very wanted by some unpleasant people, Grayson and Bardock among them.
Wasn't sure what to do next. Dropping off the grid for a while seemed sensible, but where's the fun in that?
All that talking's got me thirsty.
Buy me another Red Fusion and I'll tell you what we did next.
Edited by Spatula Of Doom
