The Deep Core

After they inform the Jedi Council of their next move, Kyp pulls some strings to get them a heavy cruiser. He figures they might run into some heavy-duty resistance in there. The Emperor probably kept his old stash well-guarded, and it's difficult enough to transmit in and out of the Deep Core that they might not be aware that the Emperor's dead.

They talk to Dalt again, who once more is surprisingly willing to cooperate. He tells them he's been there; there's one path in and one path out, and remnants of the Empire indeed still stand guard. What are they guarding? Kaminoan cloning facilities. The Emperor tricked some Kaminoans into working for him, and a small facility is still operational in there, presumably with Emperor clones. He offers to give them the codes (which only he knows), if they'll take him with them. They offer to give him better quarters instead, and he calls it a deal.

So they ask Kyp if they could go with a Star Destroyer instead. They plan to go in in disguise,
pretending to be on a mission from the Emperor with all appropriate codes. He arranges it. Z comes up with a hare-brained plan to dress Zann in Vader's armor and parade him around as the big black guy, but Zann understandably nixes that. They do plan to take a Kaminoan with them in order to convince the Kaminoans at the facility of the truth, which the Kaminoans agree to (there are a few on-planet; they don't belong to the New Republic, but they do have an embassy to the Senate). They don't like the idea of fellow Kaminoans basically being Imperial slaves. Lerin and Malina decide to go with them as well. First chance to test out their prospective disguises for infiltrating the Imperial Remnant.

They get a last-minute message from Dalt to come see him, and he informs them that the ship Severan flies was designed by him, along with a gadget that's attached to Severan's ship--a Force-amplifying dish. Severan's probably going to want those clones, and if he's powerful enough, he might not have to actually get to the facility to possess one. Luckily, Severan's course toward Thule took him a few days further out than the crew is. They have a good head start on him, maybe enough to deal with things before he can catch up.

Also, Dalt informs them, there might be Vader clones. Well. Anakin clones. Having informed Luke of several other disturbing things today, they figure they'll just assume he's smart enough to figure that one out without having to explain it to him face-to-face. Finally, Dalt reminds them that Darth Maul probably is none too happy with Severan's gallivanting around the galaxy, and this could be a great place to lay an ambush and force a confrontation...

The mission takes off, arriving at and accessing the facility without a hitch. While the Kaminoan slips the word to his people and helps them get on board the Star Destroyer, the crew goes searching for clones. They find no Palpatine clones, but they do locate three Anakin clones...of which they find two, along with a third tube that's been shattered from the inside.

They destroy the two clones (wonder if they'll get a Dark Side point for that). Following the trail left by the third, they quickly discover they're following the trail of a running lightsaber battle,. It doesn't take much to guess that Severan must've managed to get close enough to possess one of the clones (they have no real idea how powerful he is) and that he's quite possibly fighting Darth Maul. The idea that Severan in a newly-possessed Anakin body could keep up with Darth Maul in a fight is disturbing...

The trail finally splits, as the two combatants apparently sheared off. Half the group--Ree, Lerin, Oola, and Malina--follows Severan/Anakin's trail. The others--Onna, Zann, Kedrihm'Val, and Z--follow Darth Maul's.

Half of the group catches up to Darth Maul in a sky-bridge, where he does a number on them, but Zann takes a pretty good chunk out of him, too. Z passes his friends breath masks, then blows out the glass on the bridge, apparently hoping to suck Maul out into the planet's thin, vacuumlike atmosphere. Instead, Maul zips off using Force speed, and Kedrihm'Val and Zann follow him, leaving Z and Onna in the dust. Z's action sets off alarms throughout the complex, alerting the inhabitants to possible intruders. The crew's disguises prove to be a great move on their part.

Anakin's trail leads back into the populated area of the complex. Tracking him, Ree and her companions have to duck a barrage of Imperials who attack them despite their apparent status as fellow Imperials. They seem to be mind-controlled. After dealing with those, they arrive at a play area for children, where some civilians are hiding. Ree realizes that Severan is in there somewhere, but at first has trouble spotting him, not being overly familiar with Anakin's face (though the group did see a holo of him once). She lingers under the pretense of evacuating the civilians due to "intruders in the area," and is able to figure out which person he is, but as he keeps lurking near one of the children, she can't get to him without endangering people.

Severan's chance comes when Imperial reinforcements arrive at the room, Z and Onna tagging along, having no chance of catching the darting Force users they'd been with. Again, the soldiers don't behave properly when Oola feeds them the appropriate codes. Instead, they seem to be lining up to shoot the children...so she pipes static feedback into their helmet comms, disorienting them too badly to act. Ree makes a move toward Severan, but he's able to grab the child he was standing near. He takes out the lights in the room using Force Lightning, but Z reminds the crew that they have night-sight goggles built into their helmets. With the advantage of sight, they're able to get the kid away from him. Knowing he's beaten (for the moment), Severan surrenders, realizing that no Jedi would ever harm him while he's willingly under their power. Z is peeved.

The other two catch up to Maul in a docking airlock, where he seems to be waiting for his ship to arrive. The blast doors behind them close, and Kedrihm'Val and Zann are left to square off with Darth Maul. They take pretty good chunks out of each other, and Lerin arrives from somewhere to back them up. Still, this doesn't go terribly well.

Ree having cleaned up her end at this point, Oola uses the computers to search for the other group, figuring that if they've caught up to Maul, they might need help. When she finds them, it's pretty obvious that they could use a hand. And maybe a couple of legs.

Lightsaber battles just aren't clean, especially when your frigging GM keeps rolling crits. Everyone, including Darth Maul, is short a limb. At least Maul can't make full use of that bloody double-bladed lightsaber anymore, but it's hard for Kedrihm'Val or Lerin to fight when they're each missing a leg, and Zann's down a hand, which means no two-weapon fighting for him either. To add to the mess, they hear the blast doors behind them screaming in protest as something frighteningly powerful on the other side applies enough pressure to warp and mangle them. Whatever it is wants to get in.

Maul's ship arrives right about then, and in a sudden hurry, he tries to bail...but when he jumps for the hatch, he practically brains himself. It didn't open. As Maul kneels on the floor, stunned and trying to recover, SARR pokes his head out of the hatch to shoot a needle into him. Thankfully, Darth Maul rolls an astonishingly sucky Fortitude check (seriously, the man's a monster; I think he needed a 5 or somethign) and slowly crumples to the floor.

Looking through the cameras, Oola realizes why Maul suddenly wanted out so badly. The thing tearing the blast doors apart is Kyp Durron. He stowed away on the Star Destroyer in case they needed him. He's warped the doors too badly for her to open them at this point, but with Maul now unconscious and SARR tending to the characters' wounds, he can wrench the thing open at his leisure. Whether he's gratified or dismayed at the outcome is hard to tell, because right about then, they notice that Darth Maul isn't breathing. The obvious answer is that SARR killed him...but SARR insists he was only using a tranquillizer. They realize that Maul must've fought the drub back long enough to project himself from his body. Where he's gone is anybody's guess...

But there is an empty Severan body lying around, probably guarded by Drath, who always did find Maul a little too interesting for anyone's good.

Three characters are laid up in the med bay getting their limbs reattached while an evil Sith baby is comatose in a room down the hall from them. They've dosed Severan up with ysalamiri goo, knocked him out with ordinary drugs, and Kyp is...dismayed is a mild word when he realizes the genetically engineered Sith lord is occupying the body of Luke Skywalker's father. No one is really looking forward to going back and telling him about this.