Imperial Invasion

So, they zip back to Coruscant to catch up with the fleet, and then head on out to Abindosan. There are plenty of ships to take on those Star Destroyers; Kedrihm'Val wants to run the blockade and get down to planet-side to see what's going on there.

Easy-peasy, with Oola at the helm. They land outside the outpost and get into some old Imperial transport tunnels underground to sneak into the base. It brings them up in a warehouse, which is guarded by two stormtroopers. Z and Kedrihm knock those out, and then Zan and Ree dress up as stormtroopers to go out and snag some more uniforms for use in disguise. Oola, meanwhile, gets into the computers and sees what she can see.

With Drath and Oola remaining behind to hack systems, the others head out, pretending to be stormtroopers escorting Kedrihm'Val as their prisoner. They get to the detention bloc, but the two dark Jedi standing guard there realize that Zann and Ree aren't stormtroopers at all, so their cover is blown. They have to fight the two dark side-users and their stormtrooper backup.

Oola, in the meantime, has managed to hack the system and puts out an all-points bulletin for a general retreat. While the stormtroopers all go for it, the numerous dark Jedi (all quite young men and women, might I add) seem to know better. Also, unfortunately, the order triggers the countdown of numerous bombs laced throughout the installation, so Oola has to try to shut those down.

The Jedi at the detention center are able to take out one of their opponents, but the other ducks into the prison cells, intent on using the Abindosani within as hostages. But Ree stops him, knocking him out with a powerful shove of the Force.

Oola manages to restart the countdown, buying the group about five minutes. They take advantage of the time to free the prisoners who're held in various places in the base (grouped mainly by clan, Kedrihm'Val notices, which seems a rather odd thing for Imperials to bother with), trusting that she'll be able to use the extra time to start disarming bombs.

And in fact, she does. Oola manages to shut down the ones located near populations, at least, though this results in the remaining ones detonating various centers of the base, such as the interplanetary comm.

The group, meanwhile, gets into a fight against the swarm of stormtroopers who rush out to protect a group of detained Abindosani Force-users (they're easy to recognize, since they all have the kind of tattoos that Kedrihm'Val does). A transport ship nearby stands ready to spirit the prisoners away.

While Ree holds the stormtroopers at bay, Kedrihm'Val controls some nearby trees to tear down one wall of the detention pen. His fellows rush out to commence beating the hell out of their erstwhile captors. Zann spots Master Roon and Dalt stepping out of the ship to come to the stormtroopers' aid, but seeing that their prisoners are out, they run back in.

Zann and Ree dart for the ship in pursuit, slipping on board just as the doors close. They literally stumble over a Zeltan stowaway who's trying to get clear of the ship, and all three go rolling up the gangplank in a pile.

The ship prepares for take-off with the two Jedi on board. On the bridge, Zann incapacitates Master Roon with Force Light, ejecting the evil spirit that had been possessing him (the group believes it's actually Dalt). Ree faces off with the Dalt clone. But before she can take care of him, Z blasts the ship with his ion weapon (yes, it's on his sheet, apparently; he carries an electromagnetic pulse cannon). The ship goes crashing back to ground, rolling over on its side, and lands hard on its engines. The whole rear of the ship blows out, dealing out damage in a swathe that the remaining members of the crew narrowly avoid.*

On the ship, Dalt, Zann, Ree, and the pick guy (Zeltans are pink) hang on for dear life, while Master Roon's body takes a buffeting.* Once the husk of the ship comes to rest, Dalt Force-lightnings the Jedi...but Z and Samos blast him through the enormous rents in the hull, and then Kedrihm'Val rushes him from behind, knocking him out.

Unconscious but alive Master Roon, check. Unconscious Dalt-captive, check. Free Abindosani, check. So...what else were the Imperials up to? Surely Dalt would want to give the reefs another try.

And indeed, Oola discovers that the Imperials sent two submersibles down. Kedrihm'Val makes arrangements for the other Ailhan to get in touch with clan settlements so they can make sure they're alright while the crew readies a submersible of their own to pursue...and then changes their mind as someone mentions that they've got an entire freaking fleet at their disposal. Oola simply finds out where the Imperials are going to surface, and they assemble an entourage to meet them.

Two submersibles--one has six stormtroopers. The other has what look like a couple more dark Jedi. Drath suggests they might just kill the stormtroopers to save everyone trouble, but the other Jedi veto that. After they leave, he threatens to mind-whammy Oola, but holds off.

The Imperials simply surrender when they see what's waiting for them. Indeed they were after the reef--one of them has a small black coral sample in a container. Zann asks Kedrihm'Val to hold onto that, over Ree's objections. She's concerned about what it might do to him, since everyone on this planet is so associated with the reefs. Zann...seemed to be curious about exactly that fact.

I'll find the name of our new pink friend (I wrote it down, but can't remember it at the moment). They talk to him next, hoping he might be able to provide information about what's been going on here for the past week. He's not able to tell them much; he was here on a trade stopover and got caught up in everything, but all he knows is that they were detaining every native they could find, and particularly made a point of capturing Force-users.

Before they go, Kedrihm'Val wants to make sure the rest of his people are at least reasonably unmolested. Aaand, they somehow have to locate a Dark Side spirit floating around somewhere on Kedrihm'Val's planet. They really really don't want to leave the disembodied soul of Ezrek Dalt behind, but they're rather at a loss for how to find the bastard. Especially with who knows how many dark Jedi running around hiding in the woods, right now, who'd make peachy hosts for him. Aaand, who knows what horrible sorts of things Dalt could've done to an old Imperial base in a week of unrestricted access on a planet where barely anyone knows how to operate a computer? That planet's a death trap, I'm telling you.

* Note to self: stop asking about potentially horrible things that might happen that the GM hasn't apparently thought of.

The angry Zabrak Jedi

That's Drath. See how angry he is? I wanna see him get Dalt's cape in his teeth and shake him like a terrier.

Dark Side points for everybody!

They nearly crash-landed in Ree's yard.

Her family was, understandably, concerned. Ree tried to calm them down and get them in to safety. On the way down, the crew had spotted what looked like the Scorpion, Darth Maul's ship, but then they realized it was just an illusion. So...they'd been led here, presumably as a decoy, but that also meant that there was a Force-user on the planet. The question, "A decoy from what?" was answered quickly when the Republic messaged them to let them know that four Star Destroyers had entered orbit around Abindosan. Two of them, with odd lines that reminded knowledgeable viewers of Sith ships, were equipped with strange devices. Just great.

Ree summarily commandeered a spaceworthy vessel from the rich families of the planet. They were actually quite excited to help her out, considering she was so famous and all. Undoubtedly, they figured, she was off to do some fantastic heroing--in their ship. How cool is that?

They had about two hours while they got the ship equipped and ready to move out. Oola, Z, and Samos took care of that. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew had a hidden Force-user to root out. The hunt began.

They started by searching through recently-arrived vessels. One, supposedly a grain transport, had a concealed space in the rear. Cracking that open, Ree found Dathomiri glyphs painted all over the walls. Looked like it was the Force witch again. Kedrihm'Val used psychometry on her stuff, and realized that she was heading back toward Ree's home.

Meanwhile, back at the farm where Oola, Z and Samos were loading up their new ride, Oola noticed a strange, sudden storm moving in over the family's house. Having a feeling she knew what that was, she snagged a container of Kessel spice (note: this stuff makes otherwise normal people temporarily psychic, and fucks up Force-users who get a dose of it), and kept an eye out for the Twilek Force-bitch. Oola planned to stab her in the head-tentacles and lobotomize her while the woman was dosed to the gills with psychoactive Force-acid.

But Koyi outmaneuvered her. She showed up on top of the house, dragging Ree's mother out, and told them to put down their weapons (and the canister) unless they wanted the poor woman dead. Stuck, they did as the Force witch demanded. From her vantage point, seeing Ree and the others closing in fast on speeder bikes from the direction of the city, she threw Ree's mom off the roof, Force-lightning'd her, and then jumped down into the house. Little bitty Oola had to catch the woman since Z and Samos were just sort of standing there. Maybe the lightning surprised them, or maybe they were staring after the hot evil Twilek. I dunno.

Ree jumped off her speeder bike, checked her mom to make sure she'd live, and told SARR to help her. Then she dove into the house, Drath right behind her. Kedrihm'Val and Zan headed around back to see if they could catch the witch coming out.

Koyi nearly managed to trick them with an illusion, but Ree spotted her and took off after her using Burst of Speed. Zan and Kedrihm'Val were right on their heels as the two women cleared the back of the house. Koyi led them out toward the fields, managing to lure Ree and Drath off with another illusion, but Zan and Kedrihm'Val spotted the ruse and kept after her. Koyi circled back around by the ship.

Oola was rather disappointed that the witch didn't run by her, but wasn't about to leave a helpless unconcious woman alone. Z, however, wasn't one to stand about forever. He snagged one of the speeders and charged the witch, forcing her to slow so that she could defend herself against his blaster shots. Then I think Samos nailed her with the gun turret from the ship, which brought her to a halt, and Kedrihm'Val plowed into her with a punch that put his fist through her head.

And then he passed out. Ree and Kedrihm'Val had been running angry, both of them pissed off over things the witch had done to their people, so they garnered a couple of Dark Side points each. The Jedi saw to Ree's mom, and then Zan woke Kedrihm'Val (Dark Side points plus Dark Side taint apparently don't mingle well with poor constitution), and they all got ready to go while Ree tried to reassure her family after all that chaos.

So our redoubtable heroes are zipping back to Coruscant as quickly as possible to rendezvous with the New Republic fleet that's heading out for Abindosan. Those four Star Destroyers--well, technically they're two Star Destroyers and two Sith Battleships adapted from Star Destroyer schematics (thank you, Dalt, you bastard)--are probably the four ships Dalt had access to. Meanwhile, one pissed-off Tatooini bartender is ruminating on how you can't even trust Jedi these days.

Next up: space battle.



And...um...what'd they do with the witch's body? Oh crap.

If there's a bright center of the universe, you're on the planet it's farthest from.

The group took a few days to get false identities together and everything. Ree ran into poor Master Roon yet again, carrying enough paperwork to make her feel pity for him. He teased her about it. "I've never asked a Jedi not to do good before...and I won't start now...but could you manage to be a little less interesting about it?" Or something to that effect. She told him what was up, and asked if he had any advice, him being a Jedi Investigator and all. He was pretty helpful. They also talked to Erin the New Republic Investigator about tips on undercover work.

So, off to Tatooine.

The moment they landed and disembarked, they realized something was wrong. Kedrihm'Val had just enough time to shout a warning before twenty or thirty bounty-hunters popped out of nowhere and began blasting away. Despite that, they cleared them out quite nicely. Drath called up a Force whirlwind on a bunch of them. Kedrihm'Val whomped several against the wall. Ree nailed some and Z just...did unfortunate things to the ones that were left. Oola didn't even get off the ship.

While dragging unconscious/dead bounty hunters into a pile and tying up the ones that still breathed, Ree felt a movement of the Force in a corner of the docking bay. Heading over that way, she found a guy hiding from the violence. Turned out, he'd just arrived on the planet himself. He was the owner of the other ship in the bay.

The questioning was briefly interrupted by another of those possessed Wookies, which Zan disarmed (in the literal sense).

The thoroughly disgusted crew went back on the ship and ditched their now-useless disguises. They'd been ambushed, but aside from the Jedi Council itself and Lydia, only one person had known where they were going--Master Roon. Ree placed a call back to Luke, who didn't even have to move to tell them that Roon had vacated the planet.

In the meantime, their new acquaintance--Samos--offered to act as a local guide. He recognized Z (who was wearing a set of full-body armor), and apparently had a bit of a hero-worship thing going on.

Needing information, the crew hit up the local cantina. Samos is not a subtle man. He called the barkeeper over and bluntly asked him where to find Ezrek Dalt and the Bloody Spiral. The barkeeper was hesitant. But Z, knowing that the bounty-hunter's guild actually wasn't too pleased with the Spiral's attitude, and that they'd recently taken over the territory of another local crime syndicate, sweet-talked the barkeeper into helping out after all--mainly by promising him a lot of money. The barkeeper pointed out that the Bloody Spiral had a lot of "stuff," and that for 20% of that "stuff" he'd tell them what they needed to know.

And so it was. The Bloody Spiral was located in a different, smaller city. They flew the ship over and landed outside town, leaving SARR to guard it. Subtlety was dealt a kick in the sensitive places as they elected to simply charge the place and go for surprise. The Jedi got volunteered to deal with robo-Dalt while everyone else beat the hell out of whatever cronies happened to be lying around.

This plan went well. Ree and Zan had to take out a couple of gun turrets, and Ree got the hell beat out of her when robo-Dalt caught her off-guard, knocked her off the turret, and slammed her to the ground. Zan got distracted by...some weird armed vehicle-thing. Kedrihm'Val used Drain Energy on the robo-Dalt to buy Ree a moment to collect herself, but before she could even take the bastard out, Drath chopped its head off.

And after that, the cronies just surrendered. They were pretty disappointed to see that not only was their awesome "evil Jedi" taken out by other Jedi, but he was actually only a droid the whole time.

Z and Samos were pretty keen on the piles of wealth lying around, but the Jedi made them behave themselves. It all got tossed into the ship, and they really did plan to take the bartender his cut, but before they could, Ree got an urgent call from the Jedi Council. Master Roon was heading to her planet. So, they figured they could come back and drop off his cash later. First, they needed to go help her family.

But once they cleared the planet's gravitational well, the ship's nav computer went bonkers. It took over, carting the ship off toward coordinates that the crew recognized, only because Kedrihm'Val and Oola had discovered there was no planet there. Oola was able to wrestle the ship back under control, but it lost them a day. So she collected the tech-savvy among the crew, and they rigged the thing to get them there as fast as possible, even if it trashed the ship.

To Kuat and Beyond! Okay, so just to Kuat.

Back to Coruscant to report, stop by to see Master Roon and check up on paperwork (the poor guy had a huge stack and yet more crazy questions from the committee producing the Ree movie), and then off to Kuat to see what can be seen about Dalt.

Kuat's a weird place. Most of the population actually lives in the orbiting shipyards that ring the world. The planet is barely touched, a pristine nature preserve where only the wealthiest, most noble families may set foot. Onna told the crew how these aristocratic clans marry mostly within their own families. To prevent inbreeding, they employ a "telbun." These are male slaves who're raised and trained to be attractive, athletic, and knowledgeable. They...er, act as stand-ins for the husband... Okay, they sleep with the wife and then stay with the household to fill in as nanny/governess for the children. You can recognize them from their distinctive garb of a purple robe and tall, cylindrical hat.

Oooooooookay.

Z thought this a splendid idea--sleep with a rich woman and then be taken care of for the rest of your life?--but he didn't have the right hat.

Anyway. The crew got clearance to visit the planet, but first they went back to check out Dalt's old place in the orbital shipyards. Before they even went in, they recognized the telltale stench of Dalt's cologne evil. Inside, they found his papers and half-built little prototypes and such things scattered around. But it had been clean and organized last time they'd been here. Obviously, Dalt had returned to get some things. The various project notes in those papers included some truly freaky stuff...none of which I can remember at the moment. Help?

Hunting around, Kedrihm'Val discovered a switch set into the floor, under the bed, while Oola realized that Dalt not only had one of his patented Dark Side HVACs hooked up to his room, but had also installed more than thirty of them throughout the driveyards.

Guess what the switch was.

They turned off the system, but it looked like quite a lot of the driveyards were nicely saturated with Dark Side energy. Zan sent Onna, Kedrihm'Val, and Drath down to the planet to see if Dalt had any holdings there, while the rest of them pursued the Dark Side problem orbit-side.

On the planet, they discovered that Dalt did indeed have a cushy little place to call his own. Investigating, they found a very locked box--it was practically encrusted with padlocks, combination locks, puzzle locks, and everything else the man could think of to keep that thing closed. Drath cut it open with his lightsaber. Inside, they found what Onna identified as a nav computer.

Dock-side, the Jedi took their findings to the local authorities. The Force-sensitive head of security assured them he'd do his best to help. They told him to contact them in Dalt's rooms if he learned anything more.

Shortly afterward, Dalt's chambers were jettisoned into space. Luckily, the crew wasn't in them. They'd sort of had a feeling the guy might be crooked. So they headed back in and placed the man under arrest, alerted the Republic, then bulled their way into a high-clearance research facility that the second-in-command told them about.

The chief engineer tried to stop them from getting in, and Lydia attacked him. Ree and Zan were shocked until she pointed out that they'd both missed the fact that he was going for a weapon. Heh, the little girl caught what both of the Jedi missed.

The now-cooperative engineer told them about the project he'd been working on. Dalt had given him plans for a new kind of starfighter. So far, thirteen had been built. Based off the old TIE design, these were smaller, lighter, and infinitely more maneuverable. They were so small, in fact, that upon taking a look at them, the characters realized that they seemed to be almost too small to fit a person in.

So they cracked one open and took a look. I think I forgot to mention that there'd been thirteen unsolved murders in the last few months. Well, the "murdered" (Force-sensitive) individuals were plugged into these things. And by plugged, I mean "at one with the machine" kind of wired-in.

And there were only twelve in the bay. The thirteenth had apparently hied off upon the crew's arrival at Kuat, or something. They're going to sic some Jedi Healers on these poor unfortunates. Hopefully something can be done for them.

Coming back up from the planet, Onna, Drath, and Kedrihm saw the Republic authorities arrive (not far from Coruscant to Kuat, after all). The Millenium Falcon was accompanying, but it peeled off to go chase down that last fighter. Apparently, screwing with the Kuat driveyards is not looked upon fondly by the people who don't want dark Jedi to get Star Destroyers.

Reuniting, the group handed over the nav computer to Oola, who discovered that it contained flight paths into the Deep Core--the center of the galaxy, where gravitational stresses are laid on so thick that it's dangerous to fly a ship.

They also found...from a place I can't remember (was it in the documents Dalt had left?)...that the last of the robo-Dalts was currently on Tatooine, playing negotiator for the Hutts.

They decided to pursue the last robo-Dalt first. That sucker is dangerous, and getting him out of the way would be a big help. Problem is, Tatooine is smack-dab in the middle of "We want that bounty!" space. Zan suggested disguises. It wasn't hard for the crew to pick up a different ship and whip up a the facade of travelling entertainers. Lydia, however, got left behind. Not only does she need to think about whether she wants to become a Jedi, but taking a kid into the middle of bounty-pirahna central didn't seem like a responsible thing to do.

Z, however, had to be talked down from "building up his bounty." Kedrihm'Val accused him of intending to blow up "anything he could get away with." Z said, "No! I-- Anything I can get away with? Well..." He suggested they might drop him on the other side of the planet so he could distract everyone by playing with high explosives, but they nixed the idea on the grounds that he might get himself killed. Ah well. He was somewhat mollified when Ree promised that they'd surely have something for him to decimate later.