Goddamit it, Drath!

Onward to Naboo, in pursuit of the Sith baby. They arrive at the Corellian ambassador's vacation house only to hear from the droid butler that the young master has already been and gone; he has no idea to where. They go exploring, and find nothing unusual about the house...but they do find a trail of Dark Side energy. When they prepare to follow it, however, the robutler and his ninja-maids attack. They have to take out the droid butler, who is also the house's security system, in order to get the hell out of there. Z blows up the front wall. Nice move, Z.

With the butler out of commission, they check the security logs, hoping to get some clues. What they see is the bounty hunter (in a face-concealing helmet) waving exuberantly at the camera and saying, "You found the message on the wall here, right? The one right here? I'll be seeing you around!" Which is no help at all, other than alerting them that the bounty hunter's a dick--a fact that was fairly obvious already.

Chasing after the trace, they follow it to a hidden cave that's full of Dark Side energy. Apparently the Emperor had a Naboo vacation spot, too. Entering the place, they find little of interest...except for a case that looks like until recently it contained a chunk of someone's flesh. But whose flesh, you ask?

Why, Vader's! That crummy old prune had apparently shaved off some of the man's leg while he was having all those bionics installed, holding onto it in case he wanted to clone the guy or something. Crazy bastard.

Ah well, Severan's got it now! And he's heading to Tatooine, where the bounty hunter who's been leaving these cryptic messages will meet them. They know this, because the bounty hunter left them another note. Z goes into bounty-hunter envy when he sees the name on the message. He's apparently some super-awesome bounty hunter that Z would like to be when he grows up.

So, now we're off to Tatooine. Upon arrival, they follow Severan's trail to old Ben's house (that's Ben Kenobi). There's a big hole in front of the old hut. Apparently, the old man had moved Shmi's body after baby Luke moved in to his aunt and uncle's place. Her remains were permeated with the remnants of Anakin's rage, and presumably, he didn't that drifting around the edges of Luke's young and impressionable life. Well, she's obviously been dug up and carried off into the desert. Z is able to follow the tracks without much trouble. Drath lingers, briefly, doing something to the wall of Ben's hut before he catches up.

The fairly prominent trail leads them to a bunker in the desert. Upon entering, walls slide across the hall, cutting the characters off from each other. Severan's voice is piped in, so he can gloat a bit and inform them that the place is rigged to explode (very fond of exploding buildings, is Severan). Drath, at the rear and able to get to the entrance, comms them that he'll leave and call the ship. The people in front head down the hallway, while the people in the middle chop through a wall to see where it leads them.

It leads them into another room through a bank of computers built into the wall. A hologram of Severan pops up to tell them the computers Ree just hacked through (with her lightsaber; not in the computer-friendly way) had the information about what he was planning to do and where he's heading next. The crew figures that he's a total bastard, and bets that he built identical rooms into both sides of the hallway, just in case they chopped through the right wall instead of the left one. The hologram confirms this, but explains that if they disable the bombs in the bunker, doing so will erase the copied data.

Oola figures what the hell, she'll give it a shot anyway. Naturally, she makes it. They learn that he's heading to Coruscant, where he plans to kidnap Jaina Solo as part of his preparations to create a Darth Vader clone and then put his own spirit into it. See, he has no interest in having a copy of Darth Vader running around the countryside. That's just insane. It's not like he's ever going to work for you, after all. No, instead he means to claim the man's vaunted power and have a Vader body of his very own.

Perhaps at this juncture, I should note for posterity that Kedrihm'Val is kind of confused as to what bodies have to do with the Force, when their spirits can be dislodged and float around with all the same power anyway. Ah, well. He's not up on these things.

But this leaves Drath unaccounted for. You see, what happened to him was that, instead of leaving the bunker, he went down a little set of stairs that opened up next to him. Severan was waiting for him at the bottom. He had left a note on Ben Kenobi's hut inviting Drath to join him. Asking, "So...you joining me, or do I need to give the whole 'seduction of the Dark Side' speech?" Drath happily agreed to the alliance. So Severan and his treacherous new apprentice hied off together.

The rest of the crew get out of the cave, discover that their erstwhile buddy has betrayed them, and catch up to the ship...where they meet the bounty hunter. He is, as some have surmised, Severan's adoptive older brother, Lerin. The man's been stalking his hateful step-sibling for most of his adult life, waiting for a chance to avenge his parents and wipe out the nasty little rug rat. They invite him to tag along, since they figure having an inside POV might be helpful. While they're at it, he agrees to teach Z a few new tricks of the trade (i.e. Z is going to enter a prestige class!).

Cue the suspenseful three-day chase scene back to Coruscant through hyperspace. You know, these deep-space chases really are kind of anticlimactic. They just kind of sit around impatiently while the ship does all the work. During this period, via GM's cut-scene, the viewer learns that Severan has the crew bugged. Unbeknownst to the characters, he can hear every word they say.

Arriving at Coruscant days later, they alert the appropriate individuals, only to discover they're too late! Jaina's already gone missing! Severan's off to Thule, that hellhole of evil to which they'll have to follow him if they want to rescue the Chancellor's daughter!

"Whoa, whoa, hold on," says General Solo, arriving on the scene before they're able to begin the long, slow chase into danger. "My daughter? She's not even on Coruscant. I had Winter take the kids and go to a safe place. I'm not having my family hanging around where people are going to try to kidnap them every time I turn around."

Um...but who's the girl Severan kidnapped, then?

"You remember that...stuff that Dalt was using to turn into other people? Yeah, she's...kind of a duplicate Jaina. We had people stand in as doubles so no one would get suspicious." Which is great for Jaina, but thanks to the bug, that poor duplicate is now dead. A pity, because only a few minutes later, Kyp Durron spots and destroys the bug Severan had been using to listen in.

Suddenly freed of tight constraints on their time, the crew decides not to jump to Severan's tune. Instead, they sit down to consider their next move. Certainly going to Thule would be the next best thing to a death sentence. Severan and Drath can run there, but they'll have to come out again eventually. The crew can wait. Taking a different tack, the character consider what ominous things they know that Severan didn't...until he got hold of Drath. Severan craves Sith knowledge and technology. They go through the list of unclaimed or unguarded items until they hit the Emperor's stronghold in the Deep Core.

They'll go there and deal with it, they decide, before Severan is able to catch up. Severan's current trajectory takes him out past the Core planets before he can correct and sweep inward again. At the very least, they have a three-day head start.