A Revelation, A City in the Clouds, A Benevolent Benefactor

Chapter II | The Jewel of Yavin | Episode IV | 9/9/2016

The crew escaped the jungle planet, hilt in tow,
and without seriously damaging the ship.
Close behind them were swathes of strange troopers
and the hooded figure which they have eluded
so far. Will their luck continue?

As they decide to regroup on Nar Shaddaa, one
of the renegades receives a mysterious opportunity
from an old contact. With a limited time frame
and lots of credits at stake, the crew decides
to set their sites on this next journey.

Before setting off, the crew is hailed by their old friend Ota.
Upon arriving they find the republic spy’s hideout under siege.
After clearing the troopers attempting to take his life,
they rescue the bothan from death’s door.

Choking on blood, sweat, and pain, he begins to whisper information
worth killing for…

With blood pooling around his body, Ota whispers to his rescuers. He’s been stabilized, but needs medical attention. He coughs and wheezes in pain as Rath and the other crew members tend to his wounds.

The Bothan cringes as he begins to speak, but it’s not clear if he’s cringing because of what he’s about to say, or if from his wounds. He quietly says, “Teemo is alive. The Hutt is alive.” The crew members recoil in horror and disbelief as the message sets in.

“But we saw him get dragged out into the square in Mos Shuuta, and shot!” says Twil.

“Yes, he nearly succumbed to his injuries, but he was rescued by a few of his most loyal slaves, and then passed on to the care of Jabba the Hutt. From what I’ve uncovered, he was only saved through the liberal use of cybernetics, and is still undergoing a critical period of recovery while in the care of Jabba”.

The smell of dust, blood, and ash hover in the air as the group ponders this revelation. Their old nemesis being alive is the last thing they needed to hear right now. They decide to deal with this news later, and, for now deal with getting the wounded Ota back to the ship. As they begin to head back to port, a winded and slightly wounded Anatta flaps awkwardly as he floats up behind them. In a not so elegant way, he pleads with the renegades for passage to Bespin. The grumpy Toydarian insults them, but grovels sufficiently to gain passage on the Sovereign for the duration of the trip.

The crew load up the Sovereign and prepare to take off, but not before they make a deal with the grumpy Toydarian. Giving him access to the Hutt’s files for the duration of the flight, the Toydarian seems content with the things he gets to see. Before take off, Vex spends a good chunk of time and supplies stabilizing the very injured Bothan instead of reviewing the latest medical chips provided by Twil. Finally, the droid is able to get the Bothan to a place that leaves him able to walk, albeit barely.

As Ota begins to depart, he mentions that he may be unavailable for the time being due to the fact that his people, the Rebels, need him in this dire time of building while the empire reels from their catastrophic recent defeat.

Shocked and saddened by the potential loss of his business partner, Twil protests the Bothan’s leaving. Ota concedes that Twil is right in that he has a lot of hooks in the young business and decides to introduce Twil to a young girl who can help him grow the business further in Ota’s absence, Aklee.

Aklee is a young, rambunctious rebel, who, while inexperienced, more than makes up for it in her ambition and drive. Ota contacts her via the holo and introduces the eager trainee to Twil. Ota explains that the rebels would do well to have honest, helpful traders on their side in the outter rim, and explains that Twil is one of the ‘good ones’. While she has big hopes and dreams of having a more direct impact in the civil war, she concedes in doing this small part. Ota sets up Aklee with access to the Purple Pearl, and contact information for Gretta as well as other assets and resources she’ll need to continue the operation in his and Twil’s absence.

Having wrapped up all his affairs with the crew, Ota gives a teary farewell, thanking the crew for saving his life once again. After saying goodbye to the Bothan, the crew sets off for the city in the clouds.

Eventually the crew lands on the luxurious floating island in the sky of Bespin, welcomed to a port much more welcoming than that of the Nar Shaddaa and many of the other outer rim planets they had recently visited. Quickly evicting the grumpy Toydarian, the group descends from their ship to the shiny and luxurious port of Cloud City. Almost as soon as they set foot on cloud city, the group decides to disperse and go about their various objectives, most of which are unknown to each other, or shared behind closed doors with only specific members of the crew.

While much of the information and direction given to each of the crew members remains secret, it is understood that each of them has different business revolving around the auction of the Jewl of Yavin, a priceless artifact which would be auctioned off in 3 days from the crew’s arrival on Bespin. Rath chooses to share his objective with the group, and explains that he had personal reasons to be present for the auction, but also that he would be meeting with a contact who would give him instructions and a job which would be too much for one person to handle. The crew agrees to accompany the Chiss on his task, but none fully committing or promising anything.

Rath makes his way to a place and time given to him by a contact — the market. After a period of waiting, he’s eventually poked by a young Pantoran woman.

“Are you Rath?” She asks, indirectly, pretending to examine some produce in the market.

“Yeah.” Rath responds, not making eye contact.

“I’m Aris Shen. My father, Arend Shen, sent me to find you. He’s the one you’ll be meeting, but not here.” The young woman then gives Rath a time to meet, and an address of a luxury apartment building. “I’ll meet you outside the building. No one can see us together. Be careful, I know that I’m already being followed.”

At this Rath turns his attention to another market stall, all the while scanning the marketplace for anyone suspicious. He immediately spots the men Aris mentioned. Obvious hired goons. Shouldn’t be too difficult to take care of, if need be. With that, the two disperse, going their separate ways.

On returning to the Sovereign, Rath explains the situation. It’s agreed that Rath will go to the meeting place, alone, but have his comms on at all times so the others can hear whatever deal is proposed. Meanwhile, Zanroy will be waiting nearby to cause a distraction in case the men following Aris should cause a problem. With a plan set, the crew head out.

Before heading to the meeting place, Rath had the foresight to know that this mission would require a good amount of stealth work. The upgrades Gretta put in his suit were a good start, but he knew that he would need more.

Being in a city as large as Bespin’s Cloud City certainly has its perks, as Rath and Twil are able to find just the right sort of people to sell just the right equipment necessary for the job.

Now properly equipped, Rath heads to the rendezvous, while Twil heads back to the Sovereign. As Rath nears, he receives a comm from Zanroy, “Just like you said, those guys are swarming the place. Looks like they got the girl unknowingly surrounded. You want me to take ’em out?”

“Quietly.” Rath replies.

The next second, an extremely loud blaster bolt can be heard from across the promenade in front of the building. Another second later, screams erupt as the head of one of the goon’s explodes.

“I said quietly, you idiot!” Rath whispered angrily into his comm, activating his newly acquired stealth tech.

“That’s as quiet as I get.” Zanroy shot back.

In no mood to argue with the Bounty Hunter, Rath rushes for the terrified Aris Shen. Grabbing her by the arms, he orders, “Run! Go! Inside!”

Confused and startled, the Pantoran does as Rath says, and runs inside the building. It’s only after the two enter the turbolift that he deactivates his stealth tech, revealing himself to Aris.

“What was that out there?” Aris asks, shaken.

Rath doesn’t answer.

In an awkward silence, the two ride the turbolift all the way up to the building’s penthouse. On arrival, Rath is greeted by an older Pantoran man, “Ah, so you’re Rath.”

“I am, you must be Arend Shen.”

“Indeed, please, take a seat.” Arend replies, gesturing to the nicest looking couch Rath has ever seen.

“Let’s get down to business.” Rath begins, “An old contact of mine said you had a proposition for me and my crew. One that could potentially net us millions in credits.”

“Hmm, right down to it then.” Arend answers, “Yes, I do have a proposition. One that’ll make us all incredibly wealthy.”

Rath says nothing, but looks around the opulent room, which must have cost more than a small planet.

“You are aware, I’m sure, of the auction that will take place here in Cloud City in a few days?” Arend continues, not waiting for a response, “The auction is for the Jewel of Yavin, a priceless gem. The seller is one Marus Grayson, an Imperial bureaucrat, who is looking to avoid Imperial taxation by selling the gem here. My proposition is multi-faceted. One, you somehow find a way to get into the auction, and get the bidding to go as high as possible. Two, you steal the gem before it transfers over to the new owner the next day. Three, you hack into the bank accounts and take the money that would be transferred to Grayson for purchase of the gem. With the credits we get for selling the gem ourselves, and the credits that would have gone to Grayson, we stand to easily make millions, which we’ll split evenly.”

Noting that Arend had finally finished speaking, Rath says, “That all sounds wonderful, Mr. Shen. But why involve me, and my crew?”

“For the simple fact that I do not have the means of pulling this off by myself.” Arend answered, “Also, I don’t like getting my hands dirty.”

Rath mentally rolled his eyes at the comment he’d heard far too many times from people like Arend Shen. After listening in to his crew’s response over the private comms in his helmet, Rath responded, “Very well, Mr. Shen. You’ve got yourself a deal.”

“Excellent!” Arend exclaimed, jumping to his feet, shaking Rath’s hand, “Aris will get in contact with your crew tonight at the cantina down the block.”

Rath knew of the one he meant, said his goodbyes, and left the penthouse. Before exiting the building, he was sure to reactivate his stealth tech, as police were swarming the area, trying to figure out the mystery of the man with the exploding head.

Apparently Rath wasn’t the only one dealing with business that day, as Zanroy had encountered the target he was hired to assassinate, earlier that day. Unfortunately for him, that target was an Imperial spy. And now Zanroy was unsure of what to do.

Twil on the other hand, had been contacted by an old friend to participate in the auction as his proxy.

With Rath returned to the ship, however, it was time to discuss their upcoming plans.

“He wants to pull a jewel heist?” Twil asked, somewhat taken aback.

“That’s the plan.” Rath replied, calmly. “Twil, if this works, then I’ll have enough credits to pay off ‘you know who.’”

Twil was struck with inner turmoil. He wanted to help Rath, but he struggled with the idea of screwing over his own contact. Conflicted, he knew what he had to do. “Yeah… alright, I’ll help. To a point. I don’t want any blood on my hands. And I won’t take part in any illegal activities, directly. I’ve got a friend who contacted me recently. He wants me to bid in the auction for him. If possible, we can use the money he sent me, to win the auction legally. And we won’t have to resort to stealing it.”

“That is very unlikely.” Rath replied, “Plus, if we go that route, we still need to get the gem to Arend Shen. And, we’d miss out on part two of Shen’s plans, taking the money for the jewel for ourselves.”

“So, we go to this cantina and meet Aris.”

“Yeah,” Rath replied, “She’ll give us the names of the other bidders in the auction. But that’s it. Neither of them have any idea how we actually get into the auction ourselves, or who these other bidders actually are. And I know they’re clueless on how we’ll actually pull the heist. We’ll have to come up with that plan ourselves.”

“Hmm.” Twil mused, he knew Rath was right, but it still tore at him to be a part of something so underhanded. “Well, let’s meet up with Aris first, then discuss more later.”

Upon meeting up with Aris Shen. Twil pulled his usual charm routine, and the girl was putty in his hands. She gave the names of the various bidders, an eclectic bunch: Kaltho, a Hutt; Shreya Ordassa, a Togruta professor; Zekra Fol, a human mining executive; Mil Mikkir, a Chagrian aristocrat; Pos Podura, some Twi’lek kid; Vorse Tabarith, a casino mogul and Aris’s husband; and a mysterious old woman named Elaiza. If Rath didn’t know better he’d say this was the set up for a bad murder mystery holovid.

After probing for a little more information, Twil learned that Aris cared little for her husband, and suggested getting him or any of the bidders to win at the highest price possible would be the best strategy for the group. As for how the group would get into the auction, there was only one way Aris could think of: win the Cloud City Grand Prix being held in two days…