Exfiltration, Return to Nar Shaddaa, Saving an Old Friend…Again
Chapter II | Episode III | 9/2/2016
The renegades run for their lives. Attempting to escape the mysterious hooded figure they’ve ventured through the treacherous forest and secret hideout of Teemo the Hutt.
After nearly drowning, they emerge from the dank and murky mountain waters to find themselves in a barely lit cavern.
They pull themselves up on the sandy shore remembering they’re not clear yet.
With a lightsaber hilt in tow, the group wonders if this is what they were meant to discover, or if their efforts will be in vain.
Before they can find out, one of the group members’ communicators bursts to life with a crackle of static. As frantic beeps from R5 pierce the silence of the cavern, it’s clear that this is a distress signal coming from the Sovereign…
Blackness. Enveloping, suffocating darkness is all the crew members can see hear, or feel as they swim in the mountain lake connecting to the inner sanctum of Teemo’s installation. Having memorized the tunnel structure from the holo terminal, Rath pushes forward to the nearest exit. Pushing to a point of exhaustion and disoriented lightheadedness, the group continues upwards to a dimly lit surface in one last effort before giving in to the darkness. Finally, they emerg at the top, with dramatic gasps for air. After giving a few moments for their vision to adjust they see a nearby beach covered in dark, and flail over until they reach it, collapsing in exhausted heaps.
Moments pass and the group realizes they have escaped the hooded figure, once again. Collecting their thoughts, and settling into the dark and dank cavern, they begin to orient themselves towards the light shaft piercing the darkness in an upper corner of the room. A small pathway winds upwards over the dark cave, eventually spilling into the source of light. As they begin to walk, their comms burst to life with crackling beeps and boops, as a panicked R5 chirps over the comms. It’s hard to make out what the small astromech is communicating, but it doesn’t sound good.
With renewed plight, the group sets out for what seems to be the only exit to this area. As they swiftly move up the elevated pathway, they come to a quick stop as a varactyl blocks the path, nearly 50 yards in front of them. Luckily, it has yet to notice them. Quickly pulling out a soaking wet datapad, the group blares a recording of a varactyl predator shrieking. The creature takes off in a flash, as its head shoots straight up, instincts flaring and telling it to run for its life. It shoots off into the blinding light, flowing in through a circular entryway.
The group cheers, once again defeating the dangerous creature without incident. They cautiously approach the entryway, only to stop with the distant, dull thud of a fleshy body hitting a solid plane — the varactyl had jumped off of a cliff. After emerging the cave, and giving their eyes moments to adjust, the group looks down over a 40 foot sheer drop off the face of the mountain. They are stuck on a precipice with few options at their disposal. Looking down, they see the limp, dead body of the varactyl which had unknowingly leaped to its death just moments before.
Stepping out of the confines of the thick rocky cavern means the comms now have a clear path to the Sovereign. The crew radios back to R5 who shoots back a quick reply explaining that there are nearly half a dozen strange troopers surrounding the sovereign, and they’ve disabled the engines and power of the ship. They’re trying to pry open the door to the ship, and R5 is nervous that he won’t be able to hold it much longer.
With renewed urgency, the group ponders their next step. Attempting to scale the nearly vertical face of the mountain would undoubtedly result in a long fall to serious injury, or even death. After a short discussion, it’s decided that the best scenario is to run, jump, and grab onto anything in the canopy of the forest, and scale one of the large trees down to stable ground. Though there is an abundance of trunks and branches to grab, but all would require a running jump in order to reach.
The crew decides to tackle the task one by one, taking their leaps of faith. First Zanroy takes his shot, leaping with extraordinary strength, he slams into the trunk of a large drooping tree at an awkward angle, forcing him to wrap his arms and legs around the trunk in order to slide down, hitting various uncomfortable bumps along the way. After reaching the ground, the rest of the crew makes an uneasy analysis of their options.
Next up is Twil. The nervous Zeltron is not made for this type of acrobatic jumping. After taking a step back, he runs at full speed, huffing and puffing. Lifting off at an awkward angle, the Zeltron strains to grab branches jutting out from the large tree in front of him, only to miss the largest branches, and slipping. Though he slows his descent with a few of the branches (not to mention a few helping to break his fall) he ultimately lands flat on top of Zanroy, who had attempted to catch the flying Zeltron.
As they slowly recover, Rath tries his luck. The Chiss doesn’t have the muscle to reach as far as he’d like on the tree, but is quick to react once he realizes his predicament, the ground coming up fast below him. He looks down just in time to grab onto a large branch which strains under his weight, but is able to hold onto him. He slowly shimmies over to the trunk and safely descends down the tree.
Before he can even get his feet on the floor of the jungle forest, however, he looks up to see a falling Idozzi. She had flung herself just seconds after Rath. Before he has time to move, he braces himself for impact as the Twi’lek was unable to grab onto anything. Landing with a dense thud on top of Rath, the two groan in pain resulting from the Chiss-Twi’lek pancake they’ve created on the jungle floor.
After dusting off their wounds, and their pride, the group jumps to their feet, and heads straight for the Soverign, knowing they’re bound to encounter a handful of troopers. As they reach a small boggy area just a few hundred yards from the ship, they find a lone trooper that must have been sent to patrol the area surrounding the ship, they slow their pace and decide to conceal themselves.
Zanroy slowly makes his way up to a nearby brush-filled mound and lines up a shot with his rifle. After breathing out, he squeezes back on the trigger and watches the blaster pierce the troopers armor, causing him to promptly drop dead. Thinking quickly, the team removes the armor from the guard, volunteering Zanroy to don the outfit due to his matching size. Squeezing into the sweaty suit is less than pleasant for him, but he does it for the good of the plan.
Running back to camp, they spot a handful of the troopers surrounding the ship, just as R5 had explained to them. Once the members of the crew have slowly surrounded the ship, Zanroy jumps out of the bushes and screams an intentionally incoherent message about an enemy hiding somewhere in the forest. A pair of troopers take off after him, attempting to discern what just happened. As he runs into the forest, troopers in tow, the remainder of the crew sticks around and scopes out the ship.
After a few minutes of running Zanroy finally reaches a point nearby where the group emerged from the mountain. He screams that he had seen shots fired from up in the mountain and they should check it out. The troopers believe their comrade, and continue the pursuit, and Zanroy returns to camp. Upon returning he sees his companions still watching the remaining troopers. Zanroy decides it is time to end their patrol — forcefully. He silently pulls out his blaster rifle and lines up a shot, resting the barrel of his gun on a fallen log. He then proceeds to slowly exhale and squeeze back on the trigger. Not only does he hit between the armor pads of trooper, but he times the shot in such a way so as to propel the rifle bolt through to the next trooper who walks just perfectly into the fatal energy projectile, taking out two troopers with one shot.
Stunned, the group acknowledges the impressive feat, as they approach the ship. They approach to discover that the ships systems are still mostly disabled, but R5 was able to keep the intruders out. After lots of investigation they finally discover the portable ion inhibitor attached to the fuselage near the engine. Despite his best attempt to rip the inhibitor off intact, Rath is unable to without harming the device, though he suspects with some small repairs he may be able to reuse it.
With the removal of the device, the engines whir to life, and Twil punches the throttle to get them off the jungle planet. They decide to head back to Nar Shaddaa to regroup, buy supplies, and connect with Ota and Anatta to explain their findings.
During this time, various secret calls and meetings happen between various group members behind closed doors, but they all seem to have a single thread in common: they all revolve around an auction of a particularly priceless gem is occurring in the coming days on Cloud City on the planet of Bespin. There are many powerful individuals who are interested in this gem, The Jewel of Yavin, and have disparate plans involving it. While the hooded figure is still very much on everyone’s minds, the crew realize that it will need to remain a mystery a little longer, as there is nothing any of them can do about it. So, the crew decides to set their sites on cloud city.
While on Nar Shaddaa, the group decides to check up on how things are going with their weapons merchant Gretta, She’s more than thrilled to see the group, she had almost expected them to never return. She’s happy to help them run errands and get things sorted. Many of the group puts in special orders for armor and equipment, one of which leads the group on a wild chase across the city to talk to Gretta’s contacts to get various parts and pieces. She also works on modifying some of their armor. When all is said and done, she has helped retrofit some armor and provides some much needed supplies.
As the shopping trip finishes up and before the renegades are able to head to Bespin, the crew receives a message from Ota, their Bothan contact. He says that Gretta had mentioned they were in town and he is anxious to hear what they’ve discovered on the jungle planet. He also claims to have some extremely important information he needs to relay, but it’s too sensitive over holo communicator and he needs them to arrive in person, since they may not believe it.
The crew isn’t quite sure what to make of the Bothan’s claims but they decide to go along with it anyways and pay him a visit, and make their way to the undercity where they can find the small hideout. To their surprise, they find the seedy corner stuffed to the brim with troopers trying to break into the small hideout where Anatta and Ota have been hiding themselves.
The nearly half dozen troopers are within seconds of breaching the door. Thinking fast, the group scurries up behind boxes to take cover and get into firing position. Before they can act, the whole world seems to go quiet — the only sound coming from the gentle clink of the metal casing of a thermal detonator bouncing along the hard pavement towards the entrance. In a sublime moment of realization, the troopers turn in dramatic fashion to discover the explosive. In mid reaction, a violent flash of light and sound erupts outward from the small sphere, enveloping and ejecting everything around it outwards with impossible force.
The troopers are flung tens of feet in every direction, instantly eliminating every one without any question of survivors. The ground shakes as the waves of kinetic force ripple throughout the alleyway.
The group rushes to the now-smoking front entryway, eager to check on their contacts. Inside, a coughing Anatta can only frantically point to the back of the dwelling, towards the room packed with terminals. Twil is the first to get to the back, and startled, he finds a trooper, covered in soot, ash, and what looks to be Bothan blood as he stands over the dying body of Ota who is laying prone on the floor. Twil fires off a surprised reaction shot, completely missing the trooper he was not expecting to see. However, he perfectly hits the mount of the 10 foot terminal which is no longer anchored to a wall. Almost in slow motion, the terminal falls onto the trooper, crushing him completely under the immense weight of the equipment.
Rath rushes up quickly behind pulling out a medpack to help stabilize the bleeding bothan. With a little luck, and a lot of gauze, it seems like he might survive. With pained breathes, the Bothan begins to whisper information worth killing for…
