Scuzzy and Wuzz and the Ship of Fools

They learn what they can find out about the tower and the coins. Dalt continues teaching Oola the Architects’ language. Kedrihm learns a bit more about Dathomir--practical stuff, this time, like local plants and wildlife. Zann gathers spy stuff for their trip to Bimm. The Council wants them to run medical supplies to the front and get a look around out there. Zann doesn’t come with, since he’s got other work to do.

But on the way, they get ambushed by dumb pirates. These guys quickly deflate when they find out they’ve just hijacked a Jedi ship, but before they can escape from their captives, both ships get sucked up by an Imperial officer in an Old Republic ship. Actually, it's an old Jedi prison ship converted into a Republic medical ship. While the officer talks to them, laying down his terms of surrender, the crew sees someone in a clown outfit playing with the controls behind him.

They get tractor-beamed into the bay, where they decide to get out and look around. The pirates don’t want to be left alone in a place like this, so they come too, hoping the Jedi will protect them. Inside the bay, they spot markings that indicate it’s a mental hospital ship. That's not reassuring, but it would explain the clown.

Oola hacks into the ship’s systems to open the inter docking bay door, but she notes that the ship’s power is routed weirdly. Still, she manages it. She has to do it again when they take the elevator, where she gets into a hacker battle. She aims up, the lift goes down. Then someone shuts off the elevator's power. The group escapes through the shaft onto another floor. Gravity is off here, and they find bodies floating in the hallway.

Ree asks for the pirates’ names: Scuzzy, Wuzz, three mercenaries named Corben, Ventrim, and Kit, and a mysterious individual in a cloak. Ree presses the hooded figure, who gives up and pulls the hood down. It’s Jude. Somehow, Ree isn’t surprised.

They continue exploring, Ree in the lead (Jude comments that Jedi explode if they don’t go first; Scuzzy and Wuzz take that literally). There are signs of a struggle, some blaster marks on the bodiesThey climb up service ladders and find dead clone troopers and lightsaber marks on the next level. A force field locks down part of the floor due to a hull breach, so they divert to the floor where the cells are located.

One room here is blocked by a force field. Two med droids sit inside, deactivated. Another room contains an organic signature. Oola checks with SARR, who says he's “perfectly fine, Master.” Oola: “I’m not your master, SARR.” “I thought any breathing being was my master.”

While scoping out the cells, they hear footsteps. Three people on patrol duty, wearing piecemeal clonetrooper armor and a lot of weapons. One comments, “Let’s go check on Sleeping Beauty,” then peers into the room with the life-sign, then they turn down a hall and leave.

The crew checks that same room once the patrol clears out. It’s a Jedi in a healing trance. Ree shakes the guy awake, but the three patrolmen come back around. Ree steps out with her lightsaber, and one charges at her waving a food tube, making zapping noises. Ree knocks them all out.

The Imperial officer comes on the screen in the Jedi's room. When they ask if he knows Thrawn is active, he mocks them, calling him Grand Admiral Prawn. Then the clown blows the airlocks.

They quickly head up another floor, tugging the unconscious patrolmen along. While Ree cuts a hole in the metal lock sealing the service ladders, she talks to the Jedi they rescued, who gives his name as Severi Teiak. They give him a brief run-down of the last few decades, which he’s apparently missed, but he stops them when they tell them about the Empire’s reign. Says it’s too much to take in just now.

The next floor has access to the ship’s records. The last log is of clone troopers turning on the Jedi on the ship, then someone overrides the systems and opens all the cell doors. The ship was a med-ship for mostly harmless loons, with only a few dangerous prisoners. The group is now only four floors from the bridge, so they head up. Ree cuts through another metal shield and finds herself on a floor saturated with helium. They find another tube, and Oola drains the gas out.
“They turned the ship into a funhouse.”
Scuzzy says, “I would, if I had the chance.”
Ree: “That’s good to know about you.”
Wuzz thinks that’s a come-on from her, and tells Fuzz he’s lucky.

Severi: “Since we have a few minutes, what do you mean the Sith took over the galaxy?” They explain a bit more.

The Imperial pops up on-screen again. “You got past the helium trap. Cagey.” He wants to know if they let the droids out. “They’re crazy,” he says. “They know all about this ship.”

On the next floor, they find the dangerous inmates, or at least their descendants. A lot of force fields on this floor keep them sealed into certain areas. These guys apparently worship the food synthesizer and eat people. There seems to be some inbred devolution going on.

The Imperial pops up on-screen again. “Let us out,” Ree says. “Should we let them out?” he asks the clown girl. She shakes her head. “Every time he talks to the clown person, something bad happens,” Kedrihm notes. And the force fields go down. They’re driven down from that floor by crazy cannibal barbarians. Oola holds up the force fields briefly so they can escape, and spikes the clown’s systems in revenge. Stymied for the moment, they decide to head back down to fetch the med-droids.

When most of the group enters the room with the droids, cautious in case they awaken violently, Severi shoves Oola into the room, re-activates the force field lock, kills the two mercenaries who’d stayed outside, and runs. Luckily, Jude was also outside, hiding around the corner. She deactivates the field again and mocks them for not expecting him to turn bad. “That was fairly obvious.”

Great. An insane Jedi? That can only be bad.

Oola gets one of the droids operational by scrounging parts from the others. Ree explains what’s been going on. It’s dismayed to hear they let the Jedi out, to say the least. It calls him a “thing” in a room at the end of the hallway, and says they found “it” floating in space in a black metal coffin. The droid doesn’t know how it ended up in that room. Oola radioes SARR to warn him against roaming rogue Jedi. “Now you’ve hooked up with another medical droid,” he grumbles.
“It means nothing, SARR, you’re still the only droid for us.”

Meanwhile, the others talk in the background.
Z: “I don’t have the Force. If I did, I’d hope someone would've knee-capped me a long time ago.”
Scuz: “Man, Boba Fett’s scary. Imagine if he could use the Force.”
Kedrihm'Val, messing with them just a little: “He couldn’t use the armor. It’s anti-Force, right?”
Ree, not catching on right away: “No, it’s not...oh.”
Jude: “Wow, I got the active genes.”

They call the 'Imperial officer' and warn him about the “Jedi-thing.” He doesn't buy it at first, till Ree does the mind trick on him. After that, he decides he likes them, locks down the crazy people, and lets the group on the bridge. They learn that the clown droid was meant to entertain kids, but the inmates reprogrammed it and gave it weapons. “It’s a bit crazy,” the officer tells them. Ree asks to look at the storage room for the black coffin. The Imperial guy agrees, announcing, “Okay, some people are going into the storage room. Pay no attention, they’re not real.”

The box is evil. The crate it’s in is labeled 'Do not touch.' “Let’s go touch the evil box," Ree says before she pries it open. Inside is a Sith stasis unit.

Ree calls Luke to infodump. “Is that a clown in the background?” he asks. It’s skulking menacingly behind them, but not doing anything particular. Ree comments, “It’s like SARR with facepaint.” Kedrihm'Val adds, “They’re made for each other.” “Keeping my eyes on you,” the clown droid mutters to them. Scuzzy interrupts Ree's conversation to ask, “Is that Luke Skywalker? Did Vader eat you through his chest of horrors?” (Note: I have no idea what that even means, but wouldn’t be surprised if Scuzzy said it anyway.)

Oola uses ship sensors to locate Severi and learns that an escape pod jettisoned toward Thule lines. How’d he know to go that way? Anyway, they radio the Republic fleet about him. The Republic forces report that the Chimera intercepted a pod in that vicinity about 15 minutes ago. Oh, boy. Thrawn's in the vicinity.

Then the pirates’ ship lifts off and blows out of the docking bay. The clown droid catches it in a tractor beam. As the crew races down to the hold, the tractor beam cuts loose and the ship gets away. The guy mind-whammied the bridge. Z is able to tag the ship with a tracker, and they pursue in the Starwind.

A little ways out, the Chimera hails them. Thrawn wants to know why they're chasing a pirate ship. Fair question, considering this crew. Ree doesn't want to tell him that she's in pursuit of a Sith, but as usual, she can’t think of a decent lie. “Ah," says Thrawn. "That pause tells me a lot.” He informs them that the Chimera is standing aside on the matter. The implication is that he's not here to concern himself with internal matters of Republic jurisdiction, but honestly, it's not like he's really fooled.

Oola nails the pirate ship with an ion cannon while the others quickly try to figure out who or what they’re actually chasing. Obviously he's Sith, and they don't have any real clues as to which one, though Ree recalls that Darth Bane notably dropped off the face of the galaxy without ever being accounted for--ran off to train apprentices, if she recalls the legend right. Gosh, that'd really suck.

While they prepare to board the pirate ship, Kedrihm'Val mind-whammies Scuzzy and Wuzz with the order, “Stay.” Corben and the others help. When Ree asks why she's helping, Jude answers, “It’s better than talking to her mom.” “Talk to her lately?” Ree asks. “We’ll save that for later,” Jude replies. Then SARR cuts in with, “He’s on the hull?!”

Indeed he is. The Sith lightsabers their engines out. Oola electrifies the hull. Witnessing this (because the Chimera's just lurking off to starboard, watching their every move), Pellaeon comms them, sarcastically asking, “Hey, gang...isn’t there trust?”

The Sith uses the Force to pull the pirate ship to him. SARR shoots at him, then Oola grabs him in a tractor beam and bangs him off the pirate ship, seemingly knocking him unconscious. Not that he's wearing a spacesuit or anything. In space. Standing on their outer hull. Is this guy even human?

They comm Kyp, then Pellaeon generously offers aid. Since the Starwind’s engines are out of commission (and not even attached, at this point), the pirate ship's exhaust ports just had a Sith head rammed up them, and the med-ship is full of insane people, they don’t have many options. They retrieve the box from the med-ship and tell Pellaeon about the Sith (because a good way to die would be by not telling Thrawn they just put a Sith on his ship). When they turn Darth Whatsisface over to the Chimera's medical team, Ree tells the med-droid, “We do have some ysalimiri hormone.” “Why is that useful?” asks Pellaeon, who’s observing nearby. “You can inject it into people?” Crap. That's right, he's almost as sharp as Thrawn.

The Chimera has Jedi-holding cells. You know...on one hand, yay, they lucked out with probably the only ship in the Imperial fleet outfitted to hold this guy captive, but on the other hand, they ended up on probably the only ship in the Imperial fleet outfitted to hold Force users captive. While they cart Darth Whatsisname down to the cells, Kedrihm'Val senses a vibration in the Force, as if someone had just done something. But none of the others notice anything, and all claim it wasn’t them… Maybe he was imagining it? Or could there be another Force user on board?

Pellaeon has them escorted to guest rooms so they can rest, which surprisingly they do, till alarms go off across the Chimera. They don't even have to ask why. They just head down to the brig to verify that the Sith has escaped. Pellaeon is already there, interrogating the stormtrooper who let him out--that must be what Kedrihm sensed, the Sith putting the mind-whammy on one of his guards. Apparently the bastard wasn't quite unconscious after all.

They can’t track the Sith through scanners, and Ree and Kedrihm can’t feel him when they try to locate him through the Force. SARR interjects, “I did insert an anal tracker.” Pellaeon, in the voice of experience, asks, “Why anal, SARR?” “Because it amused me,” the droid replies.

They follow the guy toward the hangar bay. Kedrihm spots him in storm trooper armor and points him out. Z flings a stun grenade at him, but the guy Force-throws another storm trooper into it, then mind-whammies five more to help him. Oola takes those out with static in their helmet-comms. Ree closes in on the Sith while Jude and Kedrihm'Val circle around behind him.

Ree asks, “Do we have to do this?” The Sith doesn’t answer, instead using Force lightning on the TIE fighters docked nearby, creating a web of lightning that extends through three quarters of the bay. Z whips out his flechette launcher while Pellaeon snarls to the rest of the storm troopers, “There are 40 of you, OVERBEAR HIM!” Kedrihm helpfully shoves the Sith at the troops to knock him off-balance, and they pile on...only to go flying off again a moment later in a shower of Force lightning. Pellaeon growls, “By overbear, I meant tie him down.”

They lose the Sith in the mess of storm troopers, till Kedrihm'Val and Oola spot him trying to sneak off. He throws a TIE fighter(!) into the hangar’s main control panel, depressurizing the bay and causing mass mayhem. Thrawn, now awake and on the bridge, overrides that. Kedrihm strikes the Sith again, knocking him toward Ree, who hurls him into a TIE fighter and cuts an arm off, which finally knocks him out. Pellaeon applauds--hard to tell whether it’s sarcastic, but he doesn't exactly seem like a spontaneous clapper--before having him carted back to med-bay, along with his arm.

Ree notes that they just turned over a Sith’s genetic material to Grand Admiral Thrawn, but there’s not much they can do about it now.

The Chimaera transports them most of the way back to Coruscant, where they rendezvous with Republic ships and come back to the temple with their, er, trophy.

The Spooky Sith Spire

The crew splits up into two groups, taking alternating floors. Zann, Oola, Onna, and Kedrihm’Val in one group (G1), Ree, Z, and Lydia in the other (G2).

G1, 1st floor: simple. Mess hall, garrisons, sleeping quarters. There’s still food in the mess. Sith seem to have left during perfectly routine day. Sleep quarters contain books and movies starring space-catfish. Place looks maybe even older than Sith. Rakata? Architects? Oola snags some goodies. Also find armories and guardrooms. One armory has some defense devices—big guns and stuff. Place doesn’t really feel evil or Dark Sidey.

G2, 2nd floor: looks like huge alchemy lab. Ree nearly collides with a Vader statue. Spot a long line or Sith Lord statues, and a pedestal for one more. The base holds liquid cement. Statues form themselves? Experiments seem non-menacing. Coming out of one lab, the Vader statue has turned to face them. Ree senses something inside it. Statue attacks her with a lightsaber. Ree tosses the saber away with Force, Z destroys it. Then they take out the statue. The ooze in the pedestal reforms into another Vader statue, but there’s no sense of the Force from it now. They grab a concrete ooze sample.

G1, 3rd floor: Techno-heaven: open-doored rooms like in the labs downstairs; and a comm. Center. Not Sith tech-based, it’s modified for Sith use. One comm. Is like a telepathy machine-comm, lets you telepathically contact anyone you want to talk to. Oola fights down urge to mess with Dalt.

G2, 4th floor: It looks like there’s no ground, but they can feel it beneath their feet. They’re surrounded by a star field. A star chart? Walls have Sith glyphs. On wall opposite door, there’s a huge mural: Luke and Vader with lightsabers crossed, Emperor sitting on his throne in background—their confrontation on the Death Star. There’s a door in the wall beneath the mural. They go inside to look around.

G1, 3rd floor: While Oola’s explaining gadgets, some of the devices activate. Screens light up, with scenes of Z, Ree, and Lydia. It’s farseeing: past, present, future. What could be, what could’ve been, what may still be. Oola can’t comm the other group on the floor above.

G2, 4th floor: The door closes behind them, electrical contacts heading downstairs go active. Loads of tubes and things take up most of the room. Door’s not locked when they test it, so they look around. Comfy chairs rest on a box-like pedestal. When they look in underneath, they find a brain wired into the chair.

G1: Downstairs, Oola sees scenes of what might happen in the room: leaving without looking around, finding the brains, their possible reactions.

G2: Ree won’t sit in the chair, though Z prompts her to. They hear movement outside. Z: “If Vader’s following us, I’ll shoot him in the face.” The wall mural is moving, acting out the fight, the last 10 minutes of Vader’s life. They wonder why it was so important to these people. Because it was the death of the last Sith? The room suddenly gets oppressive as the screen shows Luke kill Vader and take his place. “That’s odd,” says Ree. “You sure?” asks Z. Ree: “He’s not a Sith lord, is he?” Z: *meaningful look* Ree: “Have a little faith in him!” Ree wants to come back later. Oola finally makes contact with them on the comm and tells them about the visions they’re seeing on the computers downstairs. The mural activates again, showing Luke kill the Emperor, then head out as if it all happened like in the movie.

G1, 3rd floor: turns out, all the gizmos have brains in. This isn’t Sith tech; these are ancient, ancient, ancient brains, older than the building, which predates the oldest Sith artifacts. Kedrihm reads one brain’s thoughts: it’s alive, sentient, its attitude is cold and efficient. It’s just happy to have something to do after waiting around for so long. Kedrihm thinks they’re not like any of the races he knows: they’d be insane by now.

While they study the brain, they sense something behind them. Turning, there’s a Vader statue in their faces. They kill it quick, and note that the line of Sith statues from earlier is right there. Certainly wasn’t before. But there’s another statue at the end: it looks like Vader’s armor, but not quite. It’s shorter, the armor is sleeker, like it’s a Vader homage.

They decide to move on.

G1, 5th floor: It’s a chapel, untouched by the Sith. A huge Vaderesque statue takes up the left wall, and an equally big Vader statue faces it from the right wall. Computers are built into altar. Oola says it’s never been activated or used, only maintained. The hole in the altar would fit a crest…Skywalker’s, of course. The language isn’t Sith, nor Rakata. It’s the language they saw at Centerpoint: the Architects.

G2, 6th floor: Coming up, they get attacked by a big droid and three Massassi monster-things. Z smashes one down the stair well, and blasts himself back into the big droid. Lydia cuts off one of the droid’s arms. Ree slices a Massassi in half, Z plants a magnetic mine on the droid, then blows up the third monster.

G1: a falling Massassi crashes down the stairs past them. They finish the thing off.

G2: They find that the monsters were guarding a control panel for the floor upstairs where the rock used to be. They call Oola upstairs, Z goes down. Oola discovers the panel can be a big beam cannon, or a beacon. It’s been active for two decades, sending a beacon out into the unknown territories—activated the moment Vader died.

There are no cryostasis tubes for the monsters. How long can Massassi live? There’s been nothing on the top two floors for ages. There’s no tampering from the Sith on this floor or the one above. The rock was part of the original design. Was it held for whatever’s supposed to follow the beacon back?

They call Luke. He says he’ll send ships. They make a point of NOT mentioning the weird Luke stuff in here. Since Kyp knows Sith and Dalt knows the Ancients’ language (interesting point, there; they weren’t Rakata, how does he know it?), maybe the two of them can help translate all this stuff.

Oola hears mechanisms activate downstairs. The floors are beginning to rotate. It activated when it sensed sentient lifeforms being present for a little while. The machines must think that whatever’s supposed to be coming has arrived. A pedestal comes down to present the rock (which is missing of course). The stairway gets blocked off.

Downstairs, the same scene plays in the temple. Kedrihm identifies the building energy field as a farseeing, but it’s more than that: opening an actual path to the past. The vision is of Luke and Vader’s fight. The machine tries to zap Luke with the missing rock, but since it’s gone, nothing happens and everything plays out normally. Stuff resets, doors open, but Oola checks and discovers it can all be set off again. She snags the readouts. They suspect the idea may’ve been to corrupt Luke. Maybe he’s supposed to be the non-existent Sith in the Vaderesque armor.

Ree leads the way back downstairs, but a door closes behind her in the chapel, separating her from the others. When she turns to check it out, Drath steps up behind her. He zaps the altar and the Vader statue begins to move.

Oola gets the door open, comes face to face with the giant Vader. It puts a hole in the wall. And an evil Han clone. He pistol-whips Z, chucks a thermal detonator, then Kedrihm knocks him down. Zann takes on another Vader statue. Oola chucks a couple of her knife-droids into the clone, then finds another way down through the big hole.

SARR comms: “Shall we blow up Drath’s ship?” “No!” yells Drath. Ree: “I thought you knew, if you leave your toys where SARR can find them, he’ll break them.” Drath: “I love that droid.”

Kedrihm kicks Han off the giant Vader statue they’ve fought their way out onto and jumps down after him when Onna shouts a warning to move. The small statue Zann had been fighting follows.

Drath and Ree tear into each other. Zann’s fighting a Palpatine statue. Z to Han: “Drop the gun and fight like a man!” Han does, and Z shoots him. Oola’s droids are ripping into him pretty good at this point, too.

Oola picks her way over to the control panel and calls Dalt: “Translate this!” She wants to stop the statues. “They’re not technological,” he tells her. “Tell the others to use Force Light.” They do, which drives the possessing evil spirits out of them. Onna and Lydia sneak thermal detonators onto the backs of the big statue’s knees, bringing it down. It topples onto the Vader statue and Evil Han.

Ree forces Drath’s surrender, smashing his lightsaber and belt. Kedrihm’Val nerve-pinches him unconscious. They find more weapons on him and some hollow teeth.

The Republic ships get there, and Kyp came along for the ride. They drug Drath and hand him over. Kyp says the hieroglyphs looks like the place either inspired the Sith or they were following in the tradition of the beings that originally lived here. But what happened to the Sith, then? Why would the Architects keep the sphere, and for whom?

Getting home, they visit Dalt. Oola gives him stuff to translate. The Jedi say he’s doing better, “showing small degrees of kindness and modesty.”

Zann and Ree go to the bar and talk. So the Architects designed a thing predating anyone involved specifically to corrupt Luke. This hasn’t happened yet, but still could. Maybe the Council can give a training mission to the library ship. (note: I don’t remember what the training mission would actually be for.)

A crew from the spacestation calls Ree. Scans say there’s armor in a vault. It’s probably the Vader-homage armor. Why were the Architects so obsessed about this? The place wasn’t particularly evil.

They haven’t checked out the Oracle at Pelgrin yet. Maybe it’s modeled on this tower? There’s Pelgrin, this space station, Dathomir, the Thule fleet, whatever’s coming from deep space… What does it all add up to?

The next morning, Dalt tells Oola that his guess is “a small group of this race thought Luke being Darth Fuck-you-up was the galaxy’s only hope of survival.” He wonders if they should tell Luke, or if the “Skywalker blood will go all hogwild.” His advice: “Jettison the tower into a black hole. It has the ability to influence TIME. Tell me Luke will never think of going back to stop his father from ever being corrupted to begin with.” He points out that everyone probably noticed the place activate. But could the mysterious dwellers in the deep still be out there? “Beings of that power who can see through time, it’s far likelier they’re coming than not.” But what were the Architects so afraid of?

The Jedi and Kedrihm’Val all get called in to the Council. Luke thinks their next move needs to be dealing with the Thule fleet. Maybe they can slip someone onto Bimm and get some info to find out just what they’re still doing there. Regarding the thing that’s coming, tell the Chiss Ascendency. Maybe they have information or legends on what’s out that way. Or they could ask Thrawn…if they can trust him.

YAY BIG!

The crew had a lead a while back on a base Dalt had on Rodia. They figure this might be a good time to check that out while the Council observes Dalt’s recovery.

On the planet (which Kedrihm'Val really likes, as it's all wild and jungley), they hire a Rodian guide to take them through the jungle. He tells them about a haunted area in the forest. Indeed, one night while they're camping, they see a ghost ship crash into that area. Definitely something to check out on the way back.

Dalt’s base is an older base, converted for his use. It’s been locked up for a while; looks like one of his early labs. He has experiments running that feature Dark Side plants growing in tainted water. Definitely ties in with a few of the older things of his they've found floating about the galaxy.

Downstairs, the experiments focus on Dark Side radiation. The notes they find reveal that Dalt believed in a Dark Side star and a Light Side star--one for each side--at that time. Records say he thinks he actually detected traces of them once. Something to ask him about, perhaps.

Further down, they find a huge observation ring surrounding a large living area almost like a village, which is in an energy cage. Used to be a hydroponics bay. There’s a box above the village, with everything wired into it. A small garden hosts freaky mutant Dark Side plants. No sign of current inhabitants, but apparently there were at one point. The box produces massive energies; it holds some kind of power source, but it’s shielded by a force field. Dalt’s records don’t say what the box is, which is uncharacteristic of him. Oola digs up data: the base has been inactive for 12 years. She finds vid-feeds showing 10 to 12 humans living in the village—Imperial slaves. Comparison holos show physical changes in them over the years. Some people evolved, some devolved, turned bestial, but most didn't survive for long.

14 years ago, the last person left was a 20 year old girl. She looks normal, but there’s something just...unsettling about her. 12 years ago, Dalt realized that he couldn’t get the girl out without exposing himself to the radiation source he’d set up. Oola does a life scan: it shows no one present, but there’s a hole torn in the floor to lower levels. Been there 3 or 4 years. Oola checks to make sure radiation isn’t leaking out downstairs.

Heading down, they find Dalt didn’t do much here. It’s just living quarters and hydroponics. No sign of people. Figuring they've seen as much as they can here, they head back out to meet their guide.

On the way back out of the jungle, they pass haunted area again. Near it, Kedrihm’Vahl gets jumped by an evil plant. Of course they decide to go into the haunted area, at which the guide volunteers to stay out of it. Says he'll wait to see if they come out for a couple of days.

Inside the area, they find dead Stormtroopers. There are signs they died out of fear. They find also wreckage of a transport that matches the ghost ship they saw crash. Oola hacks its systems to discover that these people were on a mission to gather some mineral from an asteroid field for Dalt 12 years ago. The thing had odd properties. Signs are that the mineral drove these crazy during the transport back. The storm troopers, loyal to death, tried to carry it to Dalt. Records end when they leave the ship.

Oola downloads the records. Figuring it might teach him something useful, Kedrihm’Val communes with nature while they wait for her, and indeed he discovers a path of corrupt life. Following it, they’re attacked by a giant mutant lizard. Ree cuts its leg off and it flees, but they kill it. The trail of corruption leads back to Dalt’s base. Contemplating that mysterious box, they're willing to bet that the strange mineral is in there. Zann suggests tightening the force field around the box to remove it.

And Kedrihm'Val notes that the box is exactly, perfectly, and in every detail, yay big.

They call Luke and tell him. He patches through to Dalt. Dalt can’t remember the experiment, but suggests they leave it there and track back to the asteroid field. He thinks it may be a "magical artifact.” “Don’t bring it back. I don’t want to face down Darth Anakin-Vader...Skywalker Luke.” Luke cuts in with, “It’d just be Luke.” Kedrihm notes that Dalt never called anything “magical” before.

The crew places some guards and an alarm to guard the base while they head out to follow the trail backward.

Onward to the asteroid field! Interesting thing here is that no one knows of a planet ever being there for the field to originate from. It’s vaguely near Wayland, Dathomir and Yavin. A veritable Bermuda Triangle of space-evil. The Jedi of the crew note that one asteroid seems, well, really evil. It has a black spire and doesn’t move like an asteroid. Oola notes that it’s a battle station, holding synchronous position with Dathomir and Yavin.

They look around outside it. Maybe it's Rakata or Sith in origin? Looks like a sort of proto-Death Star without a laser. The Rakata ship claimed that the Death Star was of Rakata design. Oola’s downloaded recordings show that the troopers went in. Inside, it was an advanced battle station. Weird writing and disturbing images covered the walls. The pictures look like evil space-catfish: the Sith race, shortly after encountering the dark Jedi. They found the rock--a shiny black orb--at the top of the spire in some kind of energy amplifier. They call Kyp to fill him in and send him copies of the writings. The place was built specifically to host that spire, which seemingly exists specifically to hold that stone. What's it for? The only way to find out is to go inside.

Fixing Dalt

Kedrihm'Val talks to Dalt while Ree meets with the Masters. Dalt doesn’t know what the weird critters are...but something makes him hesitate. He thinks they seem familiar, but he can't place them. He insists he’s not related to Mother. The idea irritates him, seeing as, to paraphrase, she's bitchy, domineering, disrespectful, and all-around hateful.

But mainly, Dalt is seriously ticked that no one has asked about E'Val. He’s been trying to warn everyone for a week. This certainly catches Kedrihm'Val's attention.

Dalt explains that the clone is contagious. The Abindosani DNA, with its propensity for Force sensitivity and built-in Dark Side taint, makes E'Val a genetic, evolving Dark Side cancer of evil, which incidentally is infesting the coral that is kept just across the hall from it, along with who knows what else that might be sensitive to it? To demonstrate, Dalt whips out a keyboard and projector he made, displaying the room arrangements for all the nefarious stuff they’ve been stowing at the temple. The bottom line is that they've been stowing all the badness they keep gathering in one short section of hallway, which is clustered around Luke Skywalker's rooms just down from the Council chambers. And the Anakin clone has been resting right in the middle of all that. D’oh!

Also, Dalt is so bored he actually begs to go to Dathomir with them. He says he'll even be happy with a cortex bomb if they don't trust him.

Kedrihm immediately gets the clone moved (it gets stowed downstairs a few levels). They put up an energy shield around the coral, which is indeed corrupted again, though at least it hasn't turned black, and everyone notes the stupid room arrangement. Kyp's a little defensive, but...well, yeah, it was pretty dumb in retrospect.

That taken care of, another point comes up: Luke's somewhat alarming attitude toward the clone of his father. Kyp's kind of concerned about it too, to be honest, but he suggests that Leia's really the one they need to talk to. So they head out to talk to Leia about Luke’s disturbingly cavalier attitude about his dad’s clone.

...but before they can get through the outer doors, Dalt locks down the temple, taking over the security system with his mind. In fact, he has mental control of the entire building. Apparently he got so angry that it broke right through the whammy Zann put on his Force powers and gave him an extra boost. He tell the Jedi he's giving them an hour to set him free or he’ll invert the damping field around the coral, detonating the nasty all through the temple.

Oola and Z arrive at the doors to the temple, and find them closed. Oola asks nicely and Dalt lets them in. The Masters get together to talk about Dalt's terms, secretly serving as a distraction for him while the crew goes down to talk to Dalt (or, as he puts it, to acknowledge his greatness). The 'negotiations' last exactly long enough for Z to whip out a blaster and stun Dalt.

Over his unconscious body, the crew and the Jedi quickly throw together a plan to get the Rakata out of his head. This has gone too far.

Oh, but what about Lexi? She just saw her dad bigger than life on a temple holo-screen, holding them all hostage. Well, turns out Lydia cold-cocked her before she could go into hysterics. But still, someone's got some 'splaining to do.

The easiest thing to do, if they can find a place to put them, is to simply suck the Rakata out of Dalt's head. The scientists who've been studying it say the flower is a sort of organic computer attuned to the Force--kind of reminiscent of the living coral, actually. They can put the crystal flower back together, and believe that if they use the Force water the crew brought back from Ree's planet, it might grow back together.

This takes a few days, during which they keep Dalt sedated.

Then they talk to Dalt and convince him to cooperate. It's important that he be willing. After all, if he fights them, they may end up with super alien Dark Side ghosts flying everywhere. Dalt doesn’t exactly believe the story about being possessed by ancient dead Dark Side muftis, but he agrees to play along since the alternative is more exposure to Z. So Kyp unlocks the Rakata while Kedrihm and Ree help Dalt reinforce his mental strength. Then Zann plants the flower on Dalt’s face, which stabs him him like an Aliens movie and sucks the spirits out. Err...oops?

They all hang around chatting till Dalt wakes about an hour later, since they want to be there when he gets up. He seems fairly normal; his reaction is certainly understandable. But before he can freak out extensively, Z stuns him again, and Zann reads his mind—-he's not evil, just arrogant and kind of erratic. Definitely has self-confidence issues, but there seems to be hope.

Now taking him to Dathomir becomes a possibility, and just possibly advisable. In this state, he might actually be useful. Kedrihm repeats Dalt's comments from their earlier conversation. When Dalt had mentioned getting out of here, and Kedrihm'Val asked him where he'd go with half the galaxy breathing down his neck, Dalt commented that Thrawn would appreciate him. He points out that they're not likely to manage keeping Dalt in a box forever, even if they were comfortable with that decision. Making Dalt feel appreciated may win him more to their side and keep him away from Thrawn and other dangers.

After all that, Ree calls for time off. People leave, Council says it’ll figure out later what’s needed for them to feel comfortable with sending Dalt to Dathomir with them. Kedrihm stays to wait for Dalt to wake, and see what they can pry out of him.

Space Ferrets!

They head to Ree's planet to track down the space ferrets. These little guys populate near the Sin farm, out on the outskirts where it fades into uncultivated territory. They're shy about going near humans. The ferrets don't like Kedrihm'Val, he smells wrong-bad to them, so while Ree and Zann try to get the ferrets to show them a way down, Oola sends a droid down into their burrows.

The ferrets get the concept of "want to go down" fairly quickly, are are quite obliging about showing the humans how to crawl into ferret-holes, but it takes them a little while to grasp that People = Too Big For Space Ferret Holes. Eventually, they're able to communicate this across the species communication gap, and one of the space ferrets escorts them to a larger passage via the river. They have to dive in order to get to the opening of a cavern, where they find a ship, crashed into an underground lake. The water is so saturated with the Force that it glows. Oola suspects that this made the animals smarter. She stabilizes the ship, and then the crew crawls on to look around. Oola patches some stuff up in order to get into the logs.

The ship is indeed the lost Makudza. The Jedi on the ship found the black crystal, which was locked in a container about yay-big, and some other unusual crystals that they decided to bring back with them. They also found an uncharted planet, which they commed the Republic to note (a message which wasn't received), and on that planet they found something they were taking back...but something on that planet chased them on another ship. They crashed on Ree's planet during their escape. A "fragment of the Pulse" is noted as being stored with the other crystals, in the ruptured area of the ship. Which means it's under that glowing water.

So what happened to the crew? The ship crashed and remained as it is for about 100 years. No hatches have open, no repairs, no one left. But escape pods were jettisoned.

They find the sealed box o' evil, and it looks like the other items might've gotten spilled from the ship through the hole. As they explore the ship a bit more, two guardian droids activate, but don't attack when they spot the Jedi. They're cooperative enough to allow Oola to tap their memory banks, which gives her information about the crew. There was an older Sin man, in his 50s, and a younger one, in his teens. A Sin woman in her 30s, an older Sent, a young Sent, and a baby--which was decidedly not on the crew when the ship left. Apparently the Sin woman and the Sent man had a thing, but this was after the Jedi 'no relationships' policy, so there's no official record.

It's an easy matter to activate the tracer signals for the pods. Two landed in the mountains, and there are three signals coming from the government offices near the spaceport.

The first pod in the mountains was pulled open and rummaged through. The computer stuff inside is intact, except for information on the thing that was chasing them. There's a depression nearby as though a scout ship landed a long time ago. Three of the pods held people; two were decoys. The record indicates that they got a message out to the Antarean Rangers, but while one was headed toward the Republic, it may have been intercepted. The second pod is pretty much the same, so the three in town are probably the ones that were occupied.

And indeed, this is the case. Ree has no problem getting what she wants. Those pods were put into government storage--hidden, in fact, in a warehouse that looks like something out of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The logs in these pods are intact, showing bipedal, armored, many-toothed things. The photo of the critters' ship looks weird. Obviously these things didn't want to be found. The town records are frustratingly sparse regarding the Jedi they rescued, but they do register other boxes related to "the Incident." The rest of the information seems to have been erased so the Imperials couldn't find it.

Asking around for people who might remember, Ree finds Old Ted the janitor. He tells her the story: the ship crashed, followed by '50 WtFs' as he calls them. The Jedi stopped the things, but they died in the fight. A retired engineer frmo outside of town helped erase the records, and the baby was given to the Sin family, who live fairly near Ree's family farm. Ted says Ree's granddad knew all about it.

Oola and Onna, meanwhile, go hunting for those misplaced boxes: ten 3 foot by 7 foot boxes containing dead aliens, who are preserved in tubes. The things are just...freaky. The whole head opens lengthwis. Their arms end in wicked claws. The last crate, they can't find, until they find a symbol on the wall...the last crate is the wall. The locals simply built part of the compound around the alien ship.

Ree follows up with the Sin family on the missing youngster, Rent Sin. The old man hands over a box of lightsabers, two books, and a medallion. He's kind of bitter about his lost son, though that's udnerstandable. He doesn't recall much about Mora Shevann: a bit "off," he says, a bossy kid-type jackass. She was pushy, always needed to be in charge or she'd throw fits. Ree tells him she'll keep looking for his son and return him if at all possible.

Looking over the artifacts he gave her, she notices the lightsabers are a bit unusual--perhaps not surprising if they come from a family of lightsaber artisans. The books are family journals.

The crew has dinner with Ree's family, of course. Her mom has baked extra pies, knowing that Zann was in the area. Ree tells them about achieving the rank of Master, and tells them the Sin family. They say they already know the story, which exasperates her a bit, but what can you do?

Then the fun part. "I found out I have an aunt you didn't tell me about." They kind of...uhhhh. "Why would you want to know that?" her mom finally asks. "Because she's running a school for Dark Siders on Dathomir!" Ree exclaims, getting kind of irritated by now of having to constantly pry these things out of her family. Her mom is shocked speechless. Her poor dad tries vainly to fill the silence.

Ree's mom finally says, "She wasn't insane and evil... She was domineering and vindictive." How can Ree be sure Mora would do such a thing?
"Because my cousin told me," Ree replies.
"Well, they didn't get along," her mother lamely counters.
"Jude was one year old the last time you saw her!"

Ree's mother finally says that Mora got more unstable after she began to develop...powers. They still won't say why there are no pictures of Mora before the age of two, however, and Ree's mom reacts somewhat negatively to mention of Salek Endek. She doesn't seem to have thought much of the man. Ree finally decides to let it go for the night. It's obviously painful, after all, and she doesn't want to torture her family.

The next morning, her mom's feeling a bit better. She explains how Mora showed up at the age of two in Ree's grandfather's arms. "Either he had a little indiscretion and two years later he brought a little bastard home, or else he found a twisted, abused little Jedi orphan," is her mother's summation. Wow, nursing some old wounds here. Ree's mom helps her dig out some of Grandpa's old journals, but they're in code. When she contacts him, Endek decodes some of his own for Ree. Grandpa was certainly honest. He knew about the ship and that Mora was actually a Sent. Ree can gather that Mora lost it around the same time Dalt did...and maybe Rent did, too. Maybe he went with her, or she kidnapped him. But why?

Well, they've done what they can here. Back to Coruscant. While Ree reports to the Masters' Council, Kedrihm'Val talks to Dalt again...and that gets ugly.

Cuthases and Clones on Nar'Shadaa

Shocked by recent events, the Council gives the crew a few days to rest while they figure out who had the briefcase when.

Ree takes the time to research the Sin family, discovering they’re lightsaber artisans. They built special sabers for many Masters, including Yoda. Their last mission was to find a mysterious crystal that would be terribly dangerous in Dark Sider hands. The mission was never completed. The Empire rose and they dove into hiding. The Sin ship was named the Makudza, which meant “Mighty Artisan” in Bothan...and is a word that sounds oddly familiar to her. The ship vanished at the same time the Sins did.

Ree files a report on the crystal to the Council.

Ree’s own family was closely tied to the old Senate, serving as Jedi guards and guardians of sensitive information, personnel, and materials. In this capacity, they interacted often with the Sents, who tended to serve as enforcers and guardians of the law--marshalls, in a sense. The Sents were unusually sensitive to use of the Force.

As for the Nar’Shadaa Jedi, the Cuthas family served as spies for the Jedi order. Yoda never saw fit to inform Palpatine (or any outsiders, quite likely) of their existence, and they went into hiding at the Purge. They had brief contact with the Temple just after the Purge began, which said they were upset. They blamed themselves for not spotting the Sith.

Kedrihm'Val reads up on Dathomir, learning about the Infinity Gate, an artifact of incredible power that someone once attempted to use as a super-laser. A Jedi named Quinlan Vos stopped them, destroying the gate in the process. Dathomir in general seethes with life energy, so powerful that many Force users on the planet for the first time find it somewhat overwhelming. Talking to the Dathomiri Jedi, they tell him the legend of the Gate says it channels the Force from somewhere: Dathomir itself, perhaps, or the “beating pulse of the Force” in the center of the galaxy, which the Jedi simply refer to as “The Pulse.”

Ree remembers where she's heard the word 'makadza' before. It sounds like the noise made by a species critter that lives on her planet, a race of ferret-like little semi-sentients. She vaguely remembers they consider it a sort of sacred word.

Ree talks to her holocron about the Sins. It tells her they were drama queens, “prophetic artsy types who were all about the doom and gloom.” Big on the desperate importance of missions, that kind of thing. They were known to have visions during artistic trances. Three Sins (the whole family? Apparently there were never many of them) and two Sents went on the mission to find that crystal. The holocron also informs her that Ree’s and Dalt’s families have never had a Dark Sider. The Cuthas family had them very seldom, but they were somewhat evasive about it, though the sense was that they carefully policed their own ranks.

Well, they need to hunt up members of the Cuthas family on Nar’Shadaa to make sure they stay out of enemy hands. When they get to Nar'Shadaa, they discover that docking fees are nothing short of extortionate, and the place is unsurprisingly a total cesspit of sentience.

The Cuthas auction house is run by a woman named Lexi Cuthas. This is easy to learn, since everyone is talking about a locked box she's auctioning off which is claimed to come from Jabba’s destroyed barge. Heading to the auction house to gather information, they learn that Lexi’s reputed to be nice but no-nonsense. No one has ever heard her talk about her family, and word is that she has none.

While they circulate, Oola notices that someone recognizes Kedrihm’Val. She learns that his double was there earlier, accompanied by a hooded human and a female whose description doesn't match anyone Oola knows. This trio had asked after Lexi and some datachips that are on auction later: Imperial records, some of which come from the Chimera (interesting question how that one happened).

Ree gets a meeting with Lexi and they tell her about the danger. Lexi is no-nonsense indeed. She quickly replaces the chips with fakes, and has no interest in exposing herself to danger. Turns out, she has fake copies of the medallions and easily arranges a stand-in for herself, as well. Lexi seems fairly well on top of the Jedi thing; looks like her family held the traditions, though they apparently haven't associated with the temple in some time.

At the auction, the Kedrihm'Val clone (whom I shall call E-Val), Obi Wan clone (Obi Two? No, I'll show mercy), and the woman all show up. A distraction is needed to set the trap. Z provides, throwing out the first bid on those chips at 2 million credits! The other bidders freak out, assuming something desperately fascinating must be on those chips. It starts an immense bidding war, much to the frustration of the clones.

Some thugs lob gas grenades. This isn't especially shocking for Nar'Shadaa. A lot of attendees pull gas masks or rebreathers, but the thugs bar the door and one makes a grab for Lexi...who breaks him in half. She's a replicant droid!

Kedrihm goes after the woman, who proves to be a shapeshifter. She's difficult to follow through the crowd. Zann gets a bead on the Obi Wan clone. E-Val Force-grabs Lexi’s medallion and breaks for the door. Ree intercepts him. Oola droid-knifes the thugs. Z blows a hole in the roof to let the gas escape. Chaos erupts as people begin escaping and/or looting the auction house.

E-Val spits some black goo at Ree, who telekinetically tosses a chair between them. E-Val throws a kid to Obi Wan in order to distract Ree, then runs up the wall and leaps out the hole in the roof. While Ree dives for the child, Z nails Obi Wan with a grenade, but the Jedi clone shapes the blast to blow out the wall behind him.

Meanwhile, the shifter locks a grenade onto Kedrihm'Val's belt. He drains its energy to deactivate it and throws it back. Ree spots a woman looking upset with a grenade on her belt (the shifter doesn't know it's deactivated, after all, and by now she's wearing a different face), and moves to help. The shifter shoots her and breaks for Obi Wan with Kedrihm'Val in pursuit; Z grabs her as Obi Wan Force lightnings them, knocking her out. Zann blocks the lightning and Obi Wan decides to participate in the better part of valor, fleeing outside toward the unconscious E-Val, who's lying a little ways down the street with the medallion in his hand.

Not wanting to show their hand by ignoring the fake medallion while Obi Wan's still loose, Kedrihm'Val calls the medallion back to him with the Force...narrowly avoiding getting spiked by a poisoned trap embedded in it. He snags it by the chain instead, swinging it at Obi Wan as the clone comes charging back at Force speed.

Z snatches up one of the looted boxes, shoving it over Obi Wan's head, then starts to beat on the blinded clone. Zann shoves the poisoned medallion into the angry false Jedi, who passes out. Victory!

Then Z shoves a grenade up Obi Wan's ass. Everyone gets the hell out of the way of that mess, but Z figures he's far too dangerous to be allowed to live. E'Val and the shifter both get locked into bacta tanks and shipped back on the Starwind. Kedrihm'Val, who's more than normally sensitive to Dark Side energies, feels vaguely nauseous the entire time due to the presence of his tainted clone. Kedrihm considers simply destroying the thing, which he sees as a pure abomination, but the others point out that studying him might teach them more about whatever was done to his world.

Before they leave, Lexi turns her real medallion over to Ree. She proves to be well-aware of everything regarding her family.

When they get back, E'Val and the shifter are turned over still in their tanks. The Temple takes possession of the clone, but the shifter gets turned over to the Republic authorities as a criminal. Kedrihm'Val gives the scientists some biosamples from his own blood and tissue for comparison with his clone.

Ree accepts the position on the Council. That night, she has a dream about E'Val possessing Anakin. It disturbs her, but when she goes down to the medical bay to check, nothing seems out of place.

The Briefcase, or, Benny Hill does Star Wars

Kedrihm'Val has a vision: an evil clone Han, with the trademark black eyes, shoots Leia in the back, and Luke argues with the Anakin clone. Alarmed enough by this to disturb someone's rest, he calls Ree in the middle of the night, who wakes Kyp to tell him. Kedrihm heads to the temple early the next morning. Ree's in a meeting with the Masters, so he tries to meditate and get a clearer vision of it while he waits. He sees that the argument is over resurrecting Leia, Anakin trying to talk Luke out of it, ironically enough. In the vision, Zann is missing, Han is missing, and Dalt is gone. He sees flashes of Ree wearing Master's robes, and Ree fighting Jude in a snowy place. He gets the distinct sense that this will all be happening in about a week.

The Council appoints Lydia as Ree's apprentice, and offers Ree a Council seat. She's honored, but wants to think about it. When they're done with her, they ask Kedrihm'Val to come in. When he tells them about the visions, they all look at Luke kind of funny.

Ree asks Zann for advice about being a Master. He has nothing terribly useful for her. "Who wants to be a Master? I don't even want to have a job."

Salek Endek turns up that afternoon and they talk about Ree's family and her crazy aunt. Apparently she was a bit of a bitch as a girl: ruthless, ambitious, maybe wanted more out of life than she could get on such a backwater little world. Ree asks about the third child in the photos, but that one Endek isn't sure about. Her mom wasn't as upset as you might expect when Ree's aunt took off. Mora's personal effects were "put away" by her husband (Ree's uncle). The older kids had a worse reaction to Mora than the younger ones did. Endek agrees to talk with the Jedi historian and visit Ree's planet. He says he'll go back and forth. Ree thanks him.

Then she goes to visit Lydia, who's perfectly fine with being her apprentice. She also stops by to see Lexi and Jenn.

Leia and her family are going on vacation for a few days to an "undisclosed location." Kedrihm'Val talks to Zann, mostly to reassure himself that the Jedi will handle it. It's sort of domestic business, so he's reluctant to poke his nose in, and of course Luke will do what he can to protect his family, but it's still disturbing. Zann mentions that Dalt has been raising hell in his box. He somehow found about about the Han thing and is ticked off about the execution of it. Zann agrees. Kedrihm'Val: "Yes, why replace the man married to the woman in charge of the whole Republic and then simply kill her?" Zann: "He's not thinking of power. He's thinking of pissing off Luke. Because evil is dumb. Really really dumb. Better clothes and all the good parties...but really stupid."

The Council sends the group to the pristine, snowy world of Rhinnal, ostensibly to follow up on the Jedi healer's temple. There, they learn that "someone famous" who desires anonymity is staying on the top floor. Ree makes the connection: the Chancellor on a quiet vacation to an undisclosed location? Yeah. And...they sense Drath on their way in.

At the hotel, Ree spots a suspicious Force user who pursues a waiter. She follows him into the elevator and finds out it's indeed Drath, but then Ree gets tossed out of the elevator by Jude. Drath, meanwhile, heads up into the penthouse with the keys he stole from the waiter. Oola grabs the rest of the group and follows in pursuit while Ree contends with her wayward cousin.

Jude and Ree get pitched out the window and down to the slopes during their skirmish. They chat a bit, decide not to fight, but Ree can't exactly let Jude just saunter around causing trouble, so they end up getting their chase on.

The rest of the crew heads up the elevator shaft to the penthouse. There's no one there except a bunch of businessmen... Oh. This wasn't Leia's family, after all. It's a business vacation for a Corellian trade exchange. And they're quite confused.

Then they hear a commotion on the floor below. Kedrihm jumps down the shaft to the elevator door to find Drath kidnapping an old man. Z blows a hole downward. Drath Force-chokes Kedrihm, who shoves him backward to break his concentration.

Ree catches up to Jude on their snowboards. The two of them start fighting after all, zipping downward toward the conference center.

Meanwhile, the old man is hollering and carrying on while everyone fights over him. A lightsaber cuts a hole in the floor beneath him and he falls through. Drath growls and Force-hauls the guy back up. Zann follows him up through the hole. Drath doesn't like these odds, so he throws a smoke bomb in the hallway. While Kedrihm'Val protects the old man, Lydia clears the hall with a wind an Drath tries to grab his quarry. He can't quite get hold of the fellow, who's running around screaming at this point, so he grabs the man's briefcase instead and leaps out the window, Zann and Kedrihm'Val close on his heels. Oola's left babysitting the angry old gentleman, who insists they must recover the briefcase, for it "contains the secrets of life!"

Jude his the conference center, plowing through and taking some data chips as she crashes through. Ree sees a Sith ship on fire above them--that has to be SARR's doing--as she catches up to Jude. She manages to smash the chips Jude stole as the two of them snipe at each other.

The ship that's on fire reaches the conference center.

On the roof, Kedrihm and Zann catch up to Drath, who stands staring at his flaming ship. "Just look at that. No, just look. I won't do anything. My ship's on fire and yours is circling the building. You know, I promised myself I wouldn't be like Dalt and forget to plan for the droid..."

Then he hits a detonator and blows out the bottom two floors of the conference center.

Shaken from its foundations, the entire building begins to slide regally down the mountain. Zann attacks him. In shock, Drath protests, "Aren't you going to stop the building?!" Kedrihm'Val snatches the briefcase; Drath grabs it back.

Oola has SARR attack a winch to the building to stop its slide, while Ree and Jude save people from the collapsing structure. Z emerges with a kid in one hand, shouting "What do I do with this?!" Drath runs up the winch. Ree comms a warning to SARR, who starts shooting at Drath...and the cable he's on, which is holding the building from crashing.

Zann electrocutes the cable. When Drath leaps off into the snow, Zann and Kedrihm follow. Drath makes a beeline for Ree, but Jude grabs the case from him and jumps on a snow disk, which prompts everyone to set off for Jude. Ree lightsaber's Drath's snow disc; he Force lightnings hers.

Kedrihm'Val tries to grab the case from Jude; she tries to hold onto it. Lerin zips by from out of nowhere to grab the thing and takes off. What's the bounty hunter even doing here?! Z shouts, "Hey, it's Lerin!" and gives chase.

Jude and Kedrihm both agree that "This is getting stupid." She Force lightnings Lerin, Kedrihm'Val Force-grabs the bag while she's distracted, Drath leaps on it as it's flying toward Kedrihm. Z robs and strips the unconscious Lerin. Ree leaps on Drath. They hit the wall and Drath backs into the conference enter. Zann shuts the doors at Drath's back, the case goes flying again--this time to Jude, who declares, "I'm done with this!" and hands it to Kedrihm'Val.

Everybody pants for a moment, then Drath hits his button again and blows up the rest of the charges he'd planted in the conference center.

It goes rolling--yes, rolling--downhill with an almighty crash, and everybody leaps for safety. SARR torpedoes the building before it reaches the cluster of buildings at the foot of the mountain. Debris goes flying everywhere, but by some miracle the mountain doesn't quite start an avalanche.

"What'd the want the bag for?" Ree wants to know, once they clamber to safety.
"Regenerative formula," answers Jude. "Drath wants it for his clones; my mom wants it for herself."
Ree: "She's pretty bad off?"
"Well, the Dark Side decays you something awful," Jude replies. "I'd never be a Dark Sider, just for what it does to your face."
"Then the Force lightning is a bad move," Ree advises her. "So Lerin wanted it for..."
"Where are his clothes?" Kedrihm'Val cuts in.
"I was giving him first aid!" Z defends himself.
Ree: "I...I lost my train of thought."

Ree thanks SARR for saving everybody's bacon. SARR mentions that the ship had another life signal. Kedrihm'Val checks to see if it was another clone, which it seems to have been...but it's dead now. They have him fetch a sample. He snags the head, figuring that's got...useful bits.

Jude takes off before anyone can stop her. They take the old fellow back to Coruscant with them. He wakes up partway with a shout of "My life's work!" Kedrihm hands him his bag. Then, "Where's my room?!" the geezer wants to know. Ree leads him to one. "I want porridge!" he demands. Z knocks him out.

Again, they unload stuff at the jedi temple. Ree lifts the head-box...oh, look at that. It's yay-big. "Uh...Zann?" She shows him the yay-big box, to a collective groan. "How about we take this to....the Republic labs?" she proposes, to eager agreement. Of course, the Republic labs don't want it. "Uh...the...Library ship!" The library ship understands the yay-big problem, and takes custody of the thing.

To the report!

Ree gets copies of her family pictures. She finds no pictures of her aunt before the age of about 1 and a half. The missing child was a boy who belonged to local neighbors, family friends, but the child disappeared about the same time as the aunt did. No idea why. He had no Force powers. Rent Sin, his name was. She checks the Jedi family database to see if the Sins are in it, but instead finds a hole in the records. The Jedi librarian is able to inform her that the Sins were a family of lightsaber artisans.

Family secrets and saving Ree's uncle

Dalt is livid about the disgraceful use of his clones. Yes, he admits to having the DNA of a whole lot of people: Maul, Vader, Luke, Leia, Thrawn (he says he's not screwing with that), and half the Imperial officials in existence. They've already gotten clues that Grand Moff Tarkin is out there somewhere, thanks to a conversation they overheard. Dalt also gloats that he has a special secret DNA pattern that he's planning on saving for a rainy day.

But while clones are the topic of the day, Kedrihm'Val actually wants to talk to Dalt about something else. The Abindosani don't believe in using and abusing technology, and at first, he found droids very disconcerting, even alarming. But the longer he's around them (and the more he sees Dalt's special brand of technological Force use at work), the more convinced he is that, whether born or created, droids are still sentients...and what's more, that they may indeed have a presence in the Force, even if it's on a different wavelength than organic life. That is an extremely uncomfortable idea for a man who sees them being owned and routinely mind-wiped and reprogrammed. Dalt has a lot to say on that subject, and it turns out that he can be an exceedingly convincing smooth-talker when he wants to. Kedrihm'Val comes away from that conversation shaken, not only over the topic of droids, but also by the thought that Luke has been talking to Dalt on a regular basis, and until now, they'd all dismissed Dalt as being hardly dangerous as an orator. That's an opinion they may well need to revise.

And then Drath calls Ree. He says he's holding the Dalt-clone hostage. Kedrihm'Val, still talking to Dalt at the time, discovers that the talented little bastard has tapped into the comm frequencies in the temple, and is listening in. When Drath reveals that not only does he have an Obi Wan, but also a Mace Windu clone, Dalt cuts in, furious about Drath squandering his cloning technology and material.

Oola cuts Dalt out of the loop. While Kyp sends someone down to confiscate his impromptu comm unit, Drath holds Dalt's kinder, gentler clone hostage, telling Ree she must bring the computer core to her planet, where they'll make the trade.

Before they leave, they bribe Dalt with a walking throne Oola saw on the space station (which he thinks is completely keen) in return for more information on the clones. He also tells Ree some things about her aunt and cousin and the school on Dathomir.

And then it's off to Ree's nameless planet. On the way, they decide there's no way they're turning over the real computer core. Oola can easily rig a fake one to trade.

Ree visits her parents while they wait for the appointed time. When her uncle is late to dinner, Ree decides to go to his workshop in town to check on him, but he's already gone. When Ree goes in to look around, she meets Jude, her long-lost cousin, who wants to know where her father--Ree's uncle--is. Turns out, she came to kidnap him, but he was already gone. Jude believes that Drath did it. Without anything else to do, she helps Ree search the place for clues. The two of them turn up a box full of old photos and papers. A wedding picture shows the treasure hunter from the space station standing as her uncle's best man! He and Ree's grandfather both wear the insignia of the Antarean Rangers.

Finishing the extra pie Ree's mother baked for him, Zann decides to go check on Ree, who's been gone for a while. When he gets to Devith Shevan's workship, he finds the girls chatting over old photos they dug out of his closet. Jude tells Ree about her crazy evil Force-using mom who runs the Dathomiri academy, where the kidnapped children of Jedi families are trained. Her real name is Mora, but she insists that people call her "Mother." Zann listens for a bit, then comes in, just missing Jude as she leaves out the back.

Meanwhile, Oola calls some people and learns that the Dalt-clone wasn't kidnapped at all. In fact, Senal's rather irritated with all the people who've been bugging her. The whole thing was a fraud!

Kedrihm'Val comments that Zann has been gone for a while. "Maybe he finally ate too much pie and up and died."

Zann and Ree get on the trail of her grandfather's kidnapper. They track him to...Ree's barn, where her uncle is strung up unconscious from some of the farming equipment. As they enter, Kedrihm'Val steps out of the shadows...except his eyes are nothing but oily black. He's a clone. He's also accompanied by what appear to be zombies. Assuring Ree that her uncle is unharmed, he poltely informs them that he will hand over the old man in return for the computer core. Ree forks over the imitation core, which the clone accepts with a nod, then he turns to leave. Ree's startled that he's keeping his word. "I'm evil," he replies. "I'm not a dick."

Well, that's settled. She gets her uncle down and carries him to the house, where he can recover with pie. Oola calls the Council, who tell her that they tried to reach Dalt's wife, but the signal was jammed. How did Drath manage that?

When Oola has SARR scan the planet for signs of Drath, he finds none of that, but he does detect something else. Turns out, there's a Jedi bunker on the planet. Ree digs out her grandfather's notes, but they're in code. She places a call to the treasure hunter, Salek Endek, who'd given her his information on the space station, and he tells her that the place is a temple. It can only be opened by Force sensitives with the right DNA using the keys--the Jedi medallions. The temple was protected by Ree's family and the Antarean Rangers' crests. Now that she's aware of who he really is, Ree wants to talk to Endek more extensively. He agrees to meet her on Coruscant.

Z's favorite space station, the Tapani follow-up

After leaving the Tapani sector, Oola's contacts in DUST inform her that a Tapani ship with some potentially dangerous files on it regarding House Pelagia has turned up on a commerce space station in Hutt Space, where it's on the auction block. They need to get those files before someone else does.

There are all sorts of colorful characters on the station, not to mention merchandise. Z has his eye on a set of Mandalorian armor that's up for sale, and he swears he won't leave without it. Oola, Z, Onna, and most likely Zann all stock up on whatever illegal goods make their lives as adventuring galactic heroes a little less deadly (for them). Several groups are eying the same ship the Starwind's crew is interested in, including a mercenary group led by a Bothan, an obvious Imperial spy backed by a very good one (Thrawn, keeping his eye on things, most likely; Zann thinks he knows the more talented one), Sareth Fenn (the DUST agent who helped them on the ghost ship), a dusty treasure hunter of Jedi artifacts who Ree spends some time chatting with (he gives her his contact information)...and Drath, who turns out to be accompanied by a clone of Obi Wan Kenobi.

Ohh, boy, this gets fun.

They're not sure how to go about this until Oola talks to Sureth Fenn, who asks, "Do you need your daddy to buy you a ship?" Oola, in a little girl voice: "Yeah." But with so many interested and shady-looking bidders, they can't trust that the ship will stay around that long, so the crew goes into sting mode. The key is to get that computer core out of that ship, so some of them stake the place out while Oola plants some useful gizmos. While they hope to take the thing out quietly, it all goes pear-shaped, of course. In the end, it turns into a screaming Force-enhanced battle explosions galore, thanks to Z getting creative with planting charges on Drath's ship, and violent combat breaking out among the various armed and dangerous visitors to the station cloak the action as Zann, Kedrihm'Val, and Z take on the Obi Wan clone, while Ree distracts Drath long enough for Oola to pull the computer core...after they all get over the sight of Z streaking naked through the halls on his way to leap into that Mandalorian armor.

The expression on Drath's face when he gets to the space that had previously held the core is priceless, but by then, Oola's droids have carted the thing to her safe little hiding spot. Drath and Obi Wan escape the premises, but the crew has what they came for, and they look like gloriously destructive heroes for saving the space station from lightsaber-wielding maniacs. The Zabrak who owns the station declares himself in their debt...and lets Z keep the armor ("Z, shouldn't you give that armor back?" Brief pause. Z: "I'm not wearing anything under it." Zabrak: "It's a gift!").

To the Tapani Sector

Having family in the Tapani Sector is not uncommon for Jedi, apparently. House Pelagia has been allied with the Jedi since ancient times, and since the Tapani Sector was somewhat autonomous from the Empire, a number of Jedi went into hiding there. So off they go.

When they arrive at the museum that contains the relevant records, they interrupt a robbery: three bored noble boys, from all appearances, who've crashed the place to grab stuff. They stop it, of course, but upon returning the items, they notice that what Ree came to look at--something that strongly resembles one of the Jedi medallions--isn't among the recovered goods. Or rather, a fake copy of it is. Ree spots it because the real thing glowed with the Force, but this duplicate's just a dud. Inspection reveals that the real one seems to have been pocketed by one of the guards, but the guy clears out before they can try to call him on it. And the boys who broke in are from the family that donated the collection. So what really happened here?

Investigation gets them into trouble, of course. While respected as dignitaries, Jedi are not legal operatives in the Tapani Sector, and one of the port officials, Commander Teris, is suspicious of Ree and her friends. What's more, he bears a family resemblance to Dalt, which makes them suspicious of him.

The trail leads to signs of intrigue among the noble families. In the Tapani Sector? Go figure. Turns out, one of the Tapani noble families, Pelagia, had a history of producing Jedi, and helped to hide them from the Emperor. A couple of others, however, were not so pleasant, and wound themselves into a conspiracy with Palpatine back in the day. House Mecetti, especially, has ancient history with the Sith, and even shows signs that it may foster Dark Siders in the gene pool, and House Melantha was strongly pro-Imperial during Palpatine's reign, which cost them their position when the Empire fell.

They get themselves invited to a party so they can learn more. There, Oola spots a tiny spy-cam, which takes pains to avoid her. Then somebody turns out the lights and Ree ends up in a chase with someone whom she spots stealing the fake medallion, while Kedrihm'Val follows the guard who stole the thing in the first place, hoping that this guy might lead him to whomever is behind this. But Ree and Kedrihm both lose their respective quarries when Drath turns up!


Following the party, the group gets sat down by Teris, who demands an explanation and turns out to be one of the good guys. In the name of justice and order and a Mountie-like determination to never let the bad guy get away, he helps them set up a trap: set up another party by letting the donor family know that it was Ree Shevan who saved their collection. There, they can make it look like the guard got the wrong item, and then follow him to whomever he's working for when he steals the "real" object.

It...kind of works, except there's an element none of them planned on: Drath was expecting their trap and reprogrammed the droids at the museum with SARR's personality.

A whole room full of SARRs. The Force help them.

Fortunately for life and sanity across the galaxy, SARR himself doesn't take kindly to this copyright infringement of his identity, and shuts them all down. Ree catches the thief, then she and Zann take off in pursuit of Drath, who escapes in his ship.

In the end, they're left with suspicions they can't prove about House Mecetti, but that's okay, because the good guys end up with the stuff everyone was after. Zann, who disappeared during the party, managed to retrieve the stolen medallion. Ree finally gets her meeting with House Pelagia, who're joyful to finally be able to turn over their vault full of Jedi secrets to the people it belongs to, including their family coin.

To Rodia!

They've got a bead on a Dalt base that he hid on Rodia. Over drinks, they talk about heading there next, and also discuss the possibility of prophecies being involved in all this somehow, considering the Skywalker seal keeps turning up in a significant position.

Suddenly Kedrihm'Val reaches up and catches a dart, right in front of Ree's face. Ree spots some people out front hastily climbing into a vehicle--probably the culprits. Ree and Z catch up to the guys and discover they're hired bounty hunters: hired by Thule to pursue the seals of Ree, Dalt, and one other. Z pillages the armor of one of the hunters.

Next morning, the Abindosani curse-taint-thing is particularly active, and Kedrihm'Val coughs up black sludge. This happens to his people now and then, so he's not particularly worried. Oola spots a listening device under their usual table at the eatery, however, which clues them in that maybe they'd better get there before their enemies do.

So they've got a bounty put on them by Thule, and they're going to visit a planet populated by an entire race of bounty hunters. This should be exciting.

Actually, the Rodians don't give them much grief. Possibly they're smarter than to tackle an alert Jedi when everybody knows where she is, or maybe Rodians aren't keen to help a fleet of bad guys who're invading their galaxy.

anyway, when they get to it, Dalt's base is on security lockdown, and the place is trashed. There's a secret panel that's been wrenched open via the Force, and a sense of residue from Force-attuned objects inside--probably where Dalt had been keeping the other seals, but they're gone now.

The only thing they find intact is a kind of command chair sitting in the center of a command center/lab area. It has been used recently...by Drath, Ree can sense, and the chair is hooked into something...the Oracle at Pelgrin! Dalt built himself his own farseeing chair. Who knows what visions Drath got with it? Luke's interested in the chair when they tell him about it.

Now it becomes doubly important to find the rest of the medallions, along with any duplicates they may have. What's more, Oola digs up some information that indicates Ree's got family in the Tapani sector, in House Pelagia. They'd better head there and check things out.

New character sheet

Here's what I came up with. What do you think?

Homemade character sheet

Edit: And here is the new-new character sheet, with a font I like better and an altered Force powers section for the homebrewed system we kinda kidnapped from SAGA: choose wisely, Grassho--er, I mean, Padawan.

Pictures of the crew

Despicably far behind on this blog, but while I try to psyche myself up to input the fifteen thousand events since the last entry, have some pictures!

From left to right: Jedi Master Ree (that's right, I said Master! Told you you've missed a lot), Master Zann, and Ree's apprentice, Lydia. You might remember Lydia; she's the little fish-girl waif they found way back when on Chandrilla.

And the not-Jedi, from left to right: Kedrihm'Val, Oola the Twilek tech-girl, Z the really big bounty hunter, and Onna the diplomat. She's the one who owns SARR.