Leaving Geonosis, Back Home, The Warehouse
Chapter I | Episode VI | 6/24/2016
Long Arm of the Hutt
TEEMO’S days are numbered. The RENEGADES
who initially set out from TATOOINE on the run
have now turned their sights on returning to the
desert planet to finish the Hutt.
After dealing with TEEMO’S Kubaz spy, the group
has found a possible connection that will lead them
back into the Hutt’s palace. After finding out that a
Geonosian gun runner named PIDDOCK stopped
dealing with the Hutt because of his insidious plans
to build his own droid army, the group intends to
pass this information onto his rival DIMMOCK who
still trades with the Hutt in hopes that they can
convince him to sneak the group into the Hutt’s palace….
Leaving Geonosis
After hanging up the comms with Ota, the group decides it’s time to make their way over to this Duke Dimmock in an effort to get secret passageway back to Mos Shuuta…assuming he does have a shipment scheduled for delivery to Teemo’s palace. Taking precautions, the group makes their way over to Trellik hive where Dimmock has docked one of his freighters, loading it with shipments for direct delivery to one “Teemo the Hutt” on Tatooine. This is their ticket back into Mos Shuuta and into Teemo’s dominion.
Ota has set up a rendezvous with one of Dimmock’s guards who is anxiously awaiting the group as they arrive. The guard leads them into a long, wide passageway lined with a hundred Geonosian soldiers standing in stiff unflinching attention. He passes through an alcove and presents himself before a regal Geonosian upon a throne. Duke Dimmock looks no different than Duke Piddock with whom the group had spoken with just hours earlier at the gun-runner party. His carapace is perhaps a little more worn and pitted, his golden bangles are perhaps a little more numerous. He looks the renegades up and down with a supercilious expression before he speaks. “I have little desire to undermine my own business arrangements, but I owe a great deal to our mutual friend Ota. I am therefore willing to hear you out, as you apparently have some kind of complaint against an associate of mine. Be quick about it, though; don’t waste my time.”
The group takes a minute to collect their thoughts, and as usual is lead in conversation by the talkative Zeltron, Twil. Having made a mental list, Twil begins to do his best to list off items that will convince the Geonosian to turn against his trading partner (Teemo) and allow the group secret passage on board his vessel. They discuss important items such as Teemo’s desire to build his own droid product facility, making the geonosians obsolete, and go into detail about Teemo’s illegal Ryll mining intents on Ryloth, which the group helped stop. Twil then plays his trump card, mentioning Teemo’s working relationship with Kubaz associates.
Deciding that he had heard enough, and after becoming truly flustered with the new revelations, Dimmock finally concedes, “For the gratitude I have toward our mutual friend (Ota), I will turn a blind eye to your meddling, but don’t expect any assistance from me. I won’t hinder, I won’t help, and if I am led to suffer for your foolhardy scheme, don’t think I won’t seek retribution of my own.” Armed with his ‘support’ the group is unofficially given access to the vessel carrying the cargo for Teemo. As Dimmock turns a blind eye the renegades make their way down the gantry and towards the docked ship.
Drawing closer to the docked ship, the crew notices a duo whom they had recognized from the earlier party — Wex and Orba — the human twins. Apparently this is the duo piloting the ship back to Mos Shuuta! As they watch the twins package up the cargo and finish loading, they arrive at the ship. As they are just footsteps from boarding, a thunderous sounding blaster bolt rips through the air and nails Zanroy squarely. Immediately spotting the source of the blaster bolt, the crew unsheath all of their weapons and begin firing into the crated area where they can clearly see the mask of the Gand bounty hunter Vrixx’tt popping up and firing off shots.
Immediately, Rath runs into the ship to the dismay of Wex, the pilot of the ship. “Hey, what are you doing and why are you on my ship?!”. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew is firing off shots into the crates, hoping to take out the Gand. Just moments after the beginning of the firefight it ends with an explosion from the turbolaser turret on top of the “Lucky Guess” cargo freighter owned by the twins — and a well-placed sniper shot from Zanroy. The Gand immediately drops, lifeless.
The renegades make their formal introductions, Twil of particular annoyance to Wex, and the ship breaks atmo and leaves the Geonosis behind quickly — as well as the Krayt Fang.
Back to the Beginning
Aside from a few games (and lost bets) aboard the ship, the journey back to Tatooine is uneventful. Twil does his best to make friends with Wex, and gets him to lighten up a bit towards him. The rest of the journey back to the desert planet of Tatooine is ultimately uneventful.
Soon enough the Lucky Guess drops out of hyperspace and the orange-yellow ball of Tatooine appears across the cockpit.. As the cargo ship enters the atmosphere, the ship’s comm crackles to life with the voices of the Vio siblings talking with Mos Shuuta’s spaceport control. The conversation seems to proceed as expected. To Twil’s dismay, he overhears a familiar voice, “…confirmed Lucky Guess, this is Overseer Brynn…”. The overseer clears the ship for landing at Mos Shuuta in Landing Bay Aurek. It’s as if they had never left.
As the crew unpacks and descends the loading ramp, the brainstorming begins. How will they deal with Teemo? Will they do what they can to turn Jabba against him? Will they confront him directly? What about subterfuge? As the group discusses their options, they notice the massive cargo crates being unloaded. Their destination? Teemo’s palace! What better chance than to utilize these to hide in. As they open up the crates, they notice they are filled with droid parts and schematics — enough to cause a lot of problems even for a small army, and this is just one shipment!
The Vio twins just shake their heads, but Wex having taken a liking to Twil agrees to keep his lips shut and deliver the cargo just as initially planned. He’s baffled as to why anyone would want to sneak IN to the Hutt’s palance. He just wants to get paid for the job. He not so jokingly offers to take the Krayt Fang off of Twil’s hands, guaranteeing that the Zeltron won’t survive his encounter with the Hutt. Twil nervously shrugs off the joke, threatening Wex not to lay a finger on his beloved vessel. However, the Zeltron will soon remember there is yet another ship in his life…
Hours later, and after studying the layout of Teemo’s palace thanks to a map drawn up by the resourceful Idozzi, the renegades — along with R5 — are loaded up into wooden crates and hauled across the dusty, busy streets of Mos Shuuta on hoverlifts along with the dozens of other crates of droid parts. The finally hear the echo of the great halls of teemo’s palace as they are handed off to snarling and snorting gamorreans in charge of receiving Teemo’s precious, and illegal cargo.
After some walking through the palace, they finally come to a rest. On the other side of the room, the group hears the hydraulic “whoosh” of a closing door. Peeking up through the cracks in their crates, they notice they’ve been deposited in what looks like Teemo’s receiving area and workshop. It’s a fairly industrial and rudimentary area, made seemingly for the temporary storage of cargo and goods to serve the palace and its workers.
One by one the crew emerges from their crates and begins to look around the simple workshop area. As they do so, they notice a particular protocol droid in a corner. After some discussion they decide to fire it up to ask a few questions. With a typical happy demeanor, the protocol droid buzzes to life, ready to serve its human masters. The renegades come to find out that the cheery droid is named 41-Vex, and is a protocol droid with programming specific to healing and medical practices. He laments that he was tricked by Teemo when he attempted to buy his own freedom to pursue his desire to learn more about medicine and healing. When offering the Hutt the sufficient credits, he was lied to and had a restraining bolt installed promptly, and has worked in the palace healing the Hutt’s guards and gladiators.
Feeling empathetic towards the droid, and seeing an opportunity, Twil and Rath make a plan. Thanks to Rath’s handy work, he’s also able to remove the restraining bolt on the droid, and invite him to join the crew on their journey. Their ship could use a medic after all. Without any hesitation, the newly free protocol droid jumps at the opportunity, accepting graciously. However, a jealous R5 is less than amused by the crew’s newest member. Vex also clarifies that the next destination for the cargo is surely Teemo’s storage hangar just outside of the landing bay Aurek. This gives the group the idea to continue to tag along with the incriminating shipment to further gather evidence against Teemo.
In this moment of the conversation with the droid, the group overhears squealing and grunting in the hallway. 41-Vex alerts the group that they have just seconds before the Hutt’s guards enter. Thinking quickly, they seal the doors just in time, and begin returning to their crates, loading Vex in along with them while the Gamorreans attempt to struggle their way into the room. Just as the last crate lid closes, the Gamorreans override the locks and burst into a motionless workshop to move their crates to the next destination. The crew anxiously awaits their next destination, and feel the crates being lifted up for transportation to their final destination.
Dark Places
This time, the ride is much shorter for the boxed-in stowaways. They arrive just a few minutes later in what sounds like a large building of some kind. The dark and stale air smells of oiled machinery and is obviously not a high traffic area. They’ve reached the Hutt’s personal warehouse.
As the gamorreans squeal and snort and drop off the crates, it takes the thugs a while to leave the cavernous building, their grunts echoing across the cavernous interior. Once again, as an enormous mechanical door closes somewhere off in the distance, a silence blankets the group’s surroundings. Peeking through the tops of their crates, they find themselves in a very dimly lit, and extremely large hangar, lined with an unspecified number of droid parts and boxes. There are easily enough droid parts to create a small army. The Hutt has successfully amassed his own clone-war era droid battalion.
As the crew lifts themselves out of the crates, they take time to discuss just how they’re going to stop Teemo from hatching this horrific plan. They’ll never be able to outrun an endless supply of bounty hunter droids, not to mention the bigger problems this will cause the people of the outer rim. Teemo has to be stopped from accomplishing his goal. The group begins to investigate the giant storage hanger for ideas or clues on ways they can stop the Hutt.
Rath makes his way towards the far end, where he was sure he heard a giant mechanical door. Meanwhile, Twil finds something very precious to him. A YT-2400 is stored inside — and not just any YT-2400, but his YT-2400! He instantly jumps and squeals for joy as if reuniting with a lost family member.
He instinctively heads for the loading ramp, but his access is denied in every way he knows to access the ship. That blasted Hutt has changed the locks! Even Rath’s superior slicing ability is no matched for the advanced ship’s security system. While Twil continues clawing at the sealed door of his beloved freighter, Rath continues towards the enormous entrance to the hangar, and Zanroy, Idozzi, and the droids check around for ideas on what to do next.
To the group’s dismay, the gargantuan hangar door rumbles to life, and a slit of light expands inward, filling the spacious building with a blinding flash. Those close enough to the crates, hurriedly jump back into their wooden enclosures. As Rath ducks into a section of droid parts near a control console at the front of the hangar, the rest of the crew slide lids over their crates. Twil hides behind a pillar of his ship. Everyone is hidden!
A group of 5 gamorrean silhouettes grunt and slobber as they enter the hangar, no doubt coming to fulfill an order of their slug boss. Before they even make it halfway to the pile of cargo at the far end, they notice a shuffling protocol droid — valiantly, but unsuccessfully attempting to flee to an inconspicuous spot. Upon spotting him, the Gamorreans immediately jump at the strange and out of place droid, bursting into a full out sprint.
Knowing this is unlikely to end well, a hidden Zanroy breathes out a deep sigh, trains his blaster rifle between the eyes of one of the gamorrean thugs, and squeezes back on the light-touch trigger. With a sharp ripping-noise of the blaster bolt splitting the stale air, the Gamorreans head vanishes into a puff of disintegrated flesh. The four remaining thugs squeal a war cry, and the battle is on.
The crew engages the remaining gamorrean thugs, expertly picking them off one by one, but not without a few swings of the creatures’ cudgels scraping up the party. As they whittle down the pig-creatures, the one remaining Gamorrean realizes his predicament and pulls out his communicator, and with a his last high-pitched squeal calls for help before he is dropped by a precision hit. The palace has now been alerted, and the group has to act fast.
Rath returns to digging into the hangar console, looking deeper for any recourse to help them prepare for the impending arrival of reinforcements. He is successfully able to lockdown all entrances and exits into the building, but it will only delay the inevitable. The rest of the group trains their weapons on the now glowing outline of some kind of beam cutter gouging into the durasteel hangar door. Whatever is cutting the hole, it is two things: gigantic, and it’s getting in despite the lockdown.
As the moments are counted in heartbeats, the melted outline forms a huge, 30 foot door that is quickly completed. Rath shouts something to the rest of the group as the formerly tough steel chunk of door falls to the dusty floor as a flimsy panel. Just as the puff of dust rises from the ground from the cutout hitting with a dull thud, the short silence is interrupted by the roar of a Rancor howl echoing off the hangar walls. Teemo has sent out his Rancor!
With his Devaronian trainer in-tow, and another wave of Gamorreans, the crew is easily outnumbered. In the next split second, the sharp ripping noise of a blaster bolt erupts from the far end of the hangar as Zanroy drills a shot into the head of the flat-footed Rancor. But its howl is never heard. Instead, the hangar emits a cacophony of noise as Rath activates the emergency turret security system. The 4 slugthrower turrets aim directly at the furious rancor as it swings and lumbers its way towards the far end of the hangar. Rath even manages to get the YT-2400’s turret firing with explosive hits on the Rancor.
Using every ounce of firepower from their blasters, the 4 renegades unleash a volley of shots into the screaming beast, which is now violently swiping at its closest target — the blue chiss at the computer console next to the door. As Rath runs for his life, the powerful thuds of the slugthrowers ring out in unison, pounding the writhing rancor with hundreds of rounds, metal shells raining down around Twil leaving burn marks on the concentrating Zeltron’s skin.
With Rath running for his life from the furious rancor, another thunderous shot explodes from Zanroy’s blaster rifle, filling whatever auditory gap there may have been in the hangar. The shot again lands on its target, throwing the Rancor off-balance just enough to prevent it from swiping the sprinting Chiss.
As the Gamorreans are taken down one by one, the Rancor begins to slow — bleeding profusely from the cascade of bullets. As its knees buckle beneath it, Zanroy lines up a final shot, and squeezes back on his trigger. The Rancor’s head snaps back sharply as the bold hits its mark. The beast’s body goes limp and topples to the side as it breathes out slowly.
The now lone Devaronian screams in anger, charging for the group, landing his last shots in pure hatred, before being taken down.
The slugthrowers are out of ammunition, and the piles of hot casings sizzling are the only audible sounds in the hangar. The ringing in everyone’s ears is deafening. They group has done the impossible, they’ve taken down a Rancor.
Rath rushes back to the console, inviting the group. Pulling up the comms the entire palace, Twil takes the speaker. Demanding the Hutt stand down and threatening the slug-monster, the Hutt returns with a simple low chortling laugh and a counter offer.
“Come, discuss this with me, Twil my boy. I have a great desire to address all of you. Come back to my palace. Let us talk about this. You’ve proven yourselves worthy adversaries. I wish to address some things with you.”
