To Abindosan! part 1

Well, after learning what’s actually going on with his planet, Kedrihm’Val really wanted to get back home and deal with things. Everyone else was agreeable, and Tia decided to come along. Drath stayed back, however. The Council seems unwilling to let him off the leash just yet.

Abindosan is tucked into a nearly unpopulated corner of the galaxy, somewhere near Endor and Cerea, so it was a long and very boring trip. While they were hieing their way across the galaxy, Jal’en was getting into trouble. He still had that rickety monstrosity of a freighter, and it was breaking down on him in that same sector. He had to make a landing on one of the most backwater planets in the galaxy before his ship fell apart on him.

On the way in…he narrowly missed being rammed by a “Scimitar” class ship, the likes of which he’d never seen before. It made planetfall on Abindosan too, but didn’t go anywhere near the single spaceworthy outpost. It sank straight into the ocean.

Imagine the crew’s surpise when they found Jal’en already on the landing pads! He couldn’t get his ship fixed because nobody had much in the way of spare hyperdrive parts lying around. Oola asked if he had anything useful in his cargo, but he hadn’t even checked it yet! He’d spent the last two weeks just keeping that rustbucket moving. So they went through it with him. A quarter of a ton of electrobinoculars, some Spice, star fighter parts…oh yeah, he robbed from a smuggler. And, last but most exciting…cryo-pods with sleeping children hidden in some smuggler’s panels. Cue rush for the log books, which indicated travel from the Hutt worlds to the Imperial remnant. Oooo, who did we steal from, Jal’en?

Exploration of Abindosan’s troubles was put off for a few days while they called a Republic transport to come retrieve those kids. In the meantime, Kedrihm’Val updated his people while Oola rigged up a submersible to investigate the underwater installation. Ree developed a headache from the Dark Side taint. Jal’en told them about the other ship he’d seen. Ree recognized it for The Scorpion, Darth Maul’s ship. It’d gone down in a different part of the sea, so apparently there were actually two installations down there.

Malina arrived, having gotten the call, and decided to stick around for a while. After the Republic transport came and took the children (and the Spice), they headed out to the coastal regions. Before they reached the settlement, they came across a lagoon with fresh footprints. It looked like some fishy sort of humanoids (Vodne) had walked up on land, grabbed someone, and dragged them into the ocean. Very recently. There were human bootprints, too, but very deep—as if the person were very heavy.

And they spotted someone running away along the coast, inhumanly fast. To the chase! Didn’t take long to corner him, but the guy was all weird. He was a cyborg, but the cybernetics were Dark Side tainted, and bits of coral were embedded in there. He seemed totally incoherent, snarling and angry. Kedrihm’Val tried to calm him down so they could take him quietly, but he totally blew it so the guy ended up passing out from rage. Er, oops. Anyway, they had him. They secured him and took him along to the settlement.

The coastal clan said they’d seen guys like him around lately, and told them where the most disappearances had been happening. They accepted custody of the cyborg fellow (who had until a week ago been one of them) while the crew headed back down to the coast.

While they were studying one of these spots, the ground gave out beneath them, and they all ended up sliding down into a cavern. The bus very nearly came with them, but the Force-users were able to bring it down slowly. Exploration found more Vodne tracks, along with booted humanoid feet that were probably Darth Maul’s. Following tracks through the tunnels led them back up to outside the clan settlement. After that, they went back down to the bus and the submersible and cruised out into the ocean to hunt down that installation.

Darth Maul came swimming after them to attack their sub. The bastard moved like a shark with a lightsaber. They tried to run away while Z shot him with the turbo-lasers that Oola had fitted to the submersible. Maul absorbed one blast, then took another in the face, swam to the surface and disappeared. Kedrihm’Val had a bad feeling about it.

Anyway, they reached the underwater device, which was protected by a shield grid. Oola worked to disarm that, while the others had to fend off corrupted Vodne and a robo-Dalt. They stunned the Vodne (the GM mimed them flipping over and floating to the surface, to everyone’s amusement) and brought down Dalt by, I believe, shooting him with the turbolasers. His head popped off. Definitely a robot.

After Oola disarmed the shields, they cut the device loose from its moorings and floated it to the surface, where Z enthusiastically blew it up. Zan had them fill the submersible with water and put the tainted Vodne into it. He said he thought he could help them.

And then they noticed the blood. Darth Maul had dug a trench from the village to the shore, and it was flowing with blood. They ran back to the village and found every soul dead, strung upside down from the trees with their throats slashed to spill their blood. When Kedrihm’Val tried to cut down one of the bodies, he was nearly gassed with a vicious Sith poison that taints the victim with Dark Side-induced anger. Fortunately, non-Force sensitives aren’t affected by it, so the rest of the crew got the people down. They didn’t have time to do anything with them, though, before SAR called back from the outpost. He said the city was being inundated with evil cyborg zombies.

They got back as fast as they could (somewhat faster, with the help of Malina and her starfighter), and dove into the battle. They stunned as many as they could, rather than killing them, hopeful that they could find a way to heal them. SAR, in the Starwind, and Malina weren’t so kind, zapping attackers with lasers to keep them away from the hangar bays where the townspeople were hiding.

After they subdued or killed all the cyborg zombies, they opened up the old Imperial brig and stowed the unconscious ones there. Coming out, they noticed that it was oddly dark for the time of day…

Looking up, they saw a Star Destroyer eclipsing the sun.