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Epidode I: The Evaritt Expanse
ACT I, Scene ii
You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!
Our band of would-be heroes assembled at the base of Admiral Corric Viridian's SoroSuub 3000 Luxury Yacht,
offering their services in exchange for passage. While the Admiral was in fact looking for a crew, he was not at all convinced that
these people would be it. Rel, who had been ignored during the conversation, jumped at the chance
to fix a ship like this and began work immediately. The Admiral wasn't keen on letting a thirteen year old repair his
engines, but she seemed to be this group's only mechanic of note. When it became apparent that she did good work, the
conversation slid from "who are you people" to "how much do you charge?"
While Rel worked on the engines and the main group chatted about what needed to be done next, the blacklisted holovid star
Frida Lovelace finally emerged from the 'fresher on board Kilarrawarr's
small scoutship. Not being used to life outside the Core, she had become quite ill eating the Wookiee's cooking.
When Kilarra mentioned that they had been invited to dinner off-ship she jumped at the chance. After a run-in with a dedicated fan of
hers on the docking port's ground crew (who happily paid her landing fees), they took a short swoopshaw ride over to the Admiral's docking bay.
They walked in on a scene of chaos. Var was waving a blaster at the Kel-dor named Kluw Than for some accidentally
implied threat against her sister, Rel was climbing on the ship fixing things, while Corric and Diyar chatted over drinks.
The Admiral excused himself and walked over to thank them for their assistance as Var was tapped by Rel to go look for parts for the ship.
Kluw wisely chose to accompany the wayward young woman, but they only got as far as the exit to the hangar bay.
Outside on the street, the pair were almost run over by a large wheeled groundcraft. When several black-clad private security
types began jumping out of the back Kluw and Var took this as their cue to sneak back into the hangar. On the way, Var noticed the
same blue-skinned rutian Twi'lek in a patched coat that had been tailing her all morning. He also ducked down to hide from the
security forces, but was actively talking on a comlink to someone.
Kluw attempted to impress upon the party the need to leave now, but it wasn’t until Var got there to back him up did they start to move.
Most of the group realized that their only exit was about to be flooded with security, so instead boarded the luxury yacht. Rel had patched
up the engines enough for repulsor flight, but the ship wasn't going to break atmo without a Type 13 inverse power-coupling and some replacement hull plating.
Corric, Kilarrawarr, and Frida meanwhile were still near the entrance to the docking bay and heard the troops marching in. They did not know why these
people were here, but reasoned that it couldn't be good.
Thinking quickly, Admiral Viridian tossed his half-full drink around the corner into the passageway shouting "Grenade!".
The response was immediate, as the security guards broke formation and dove for cover. Frida and her protocol droid A-3PO
made a break for the ship while Kilarra and Corric pulled blasters. The Admiral then heard the goons pulling weapons and spotted
one of them sticking a black-helmeted head around to corner. Before he could do anything, the Wookiee shot the man in the forehead
with her heavy blaster pistol. Corric and Kilarrawarr both made a dead run for the ship as the surprised guards began
advancing into the circular docking area with blaster rifles blazing.
Var was at the ship controls by the time Corric made it to the bridge, having been able to get the ship airborne but
little else. Kilarra redirected the shields downward under orders from Corric and everyone heard a horrible snapping buzzing sound.
Rel watched the readouts as the fuel tanks and jump batteries began hemorrhaging their reserves at an alarming rate. Corric quickly realized that they had
severed the docking bay umbilical lines that had been hooked up to resupply the ship. He had Rel jettison the severed tubes
still attached to the ship and the drain stopped almost immediately. Under fire from the security troops in the ground, the yacht
blasted clear of the hangar bay, leaving ruptured fuel and power lines flailing about the area. Leveling out a 200m off the surface,
they witnessed a massive fireball erupt behind them.
The Admiral took control of the flying as Kilarrawarr took co-pilot and manned sensors. Most of the rest of the group had taken stations
or strapped themselves into leather-covered grav couches. Frida availed herself of the serving droid for a drink and Rel made herself at home in the
cramped engineering compartment. Corric sent the ship on a series of twisting maneuvers through the streets, since they could not
get much higher than their present altitude. Var supplied them with the coordinates for a small shipping organization on the
outskirts of town that she needed to get to and they all decided that it was a good a place to go to as any. Things calmed for
a moment until Kilarrawarr spotted a ship on their tail.
Deftly pursuing them through the twisting streets and hailstorm of other craft was a small flitter--barely more than an airspeeder, but not
quite as powerful as an aerospace attack craft. The pilot of the small craft was either very determined, or very suicidal. As the flitter
closed range for a laser shot the party decided that they needed to get rid of him, whoever he was. They came up with a desperate plan
that involved cargo netting, surgical tubing, several frozen Corellian Turkeys, and a lot of luck. Quickly strapping themselves to the sides of the
top rear airlock, Kluw, Var and Kilarrawarr constructed a makeshift catapult and proceeded to fire it at the stunned pilot of the flitter.
The Force must of been with them, since just as the pilot was lining up for a shot on the port engine nacelle Kilarrawarr put a frozen avian
through his front transparasteel window.
The craft lurched forward and began to tumble wildly out of control. The party managed to close the door and accelerate away just
as the smaller craft broke apart. Diyar, manning sensors, wasn't sure but she thought she saw someone eject from the damaged craft.
Not taking any chances, the group continued their evasive maneuvering for some time before setting into the two hour flight
to the site of Trifell Shipping. It was here that Var hoped to get some clue as to the location of her aunt and uncle from an old family friend.
Without the use of the sublight engines, the trip North was done entirely on the ship's repulsor drives. Maintaining an altitude of about
50 meters, Viridian kept to the suburbs and slums clinging between the junkyard and the city proper. The trip took the better part of two hours,
giving our heroes time to relax and get to know one another a bit more. The Admiral's butler droid got them all food and drinks, and they mostly
congregated in the bridge--since Corric had to manually fly the ship in this configuration.
Kluw had a number of questions for Viridian, and the Admiral told part of his story.
At one point in the conversation, Var got a message buzzing on a red datapad on her belt and stepped out.
Var's copy of the Red Book had updated itself off the local data net. The book, a listing of stolen ships,
skip traces, and posted bounties usually was silent--waiting for the user to access it on their own.
But if a new bounty was posted and a Red Book was detected as nearby the point of posting it was immediatly alerted.
The face she recognized, but the name she didn't. Nevertheless, Var was looking at at 2000 credit bounty
for the capture of Diyar. It was posted by Corvo the Hutt, a local casino owner. The listing indicated that Diyar
was wanted for gambling fraud, destruction of property, and the deaths of several of the Hutt's personal enforcers.
It was a decent bounty, but not enough to cause a scene at this point. Var tucked the red datapad back into her belt
and rejoined the rest of them on the bridge
While Var was off reading the bounty listing, Kluw outed himself as a Jedi. Needless to say, most of those
present were skeptical. Only the wookiee Kilarrawarr and the Admiral himself seemed to take him at face value.
Var and Rel later had a private chat, where Rel told Var about Kluw and Var decided Kluw was crazy.
Besides, Var's dad had told her many times that Jedi just weren't worth the hassle. Var also
expressed unhappiness about Diyar's new attachment to Rel, as well as general distrust of the
whole crew (especially given Diyar's bounty). Var greatly desired to get away
from the renegade Admiral that was being hunted by the Imperial Navy, but Rel's vote of
confidence in Viridian made Var rethink her plans.
The rest of the flight was uneventful and they decided to land a ways from the shipping company and approach on foot.
Setting down some ways away from the shipping yards out in the endless field of junk, Corric slid his yacht into the hulk of a long-abandoned
cruiser in order to hide her signature.
Rel shut down all the non-essentials and the discussion began on who was to go. Rel wanted to stay to fix the ship but Var wouldn't hear of it and
demanded she come along. Frida, when she learned it was a dirty part of the planet, decided she didn't want to leave the ship at all.
Finally tired of listening to the rest of the crew bicker, the Wookiee lowered the aft ramp and walked out to see if she
couldn't scrounge up some parts for her own derelict vessel. It wasn't promising, considering the proximity to what was quickly looking like
an illicit shipping company, but it was worth the attempt.
She was surprised to see several small Jawas emerge from behind a pile of debris and fire an ion cannon in the direction they
had come from. Seconds later a terrifying looking model RM-2020 Espionage Droid came hovering around the
corner in slow pursuit of the Jawas. It's outer shell still danced with the effects of the last ion hit but it seemed otherwise
unfazed by it. The Jawas shouted at her that they had stolen it first and they would be back for it, but the little thieves seemed to be in
no position to back up either of their claims. Kilarrawarr barely had time notice the droid had stopped at the bottom of the ramp
and was looking up at her when Var and Rel (the latter in a headlock) tumbled down the ramp and landed on the dusty yellow ground
almost underneath the hovering droid.
RM-2020-D was attempting to piece together what had just happened. The ion attack had not disabled him
like the Jawas had hoped, he was too well built for that, but it had caused serious corruption in his memory files.
RM-2020-D remembered very little of what exactly he's doing on this planet before the Jawas ambushed him. Disturbingly, he
did not even remember who he belonged to. However, his deployment in the field meant that he was almost certainly engaged
in a military operation of some sort. Having pieced together almost all of his remaining unshredded memory files, he
remembed that there was a mission to track down a group of people in this area. Only one file was partly recoverable, because it was
about his primary target the file had been encrypted and backed up in several locations in memory. Comparing all the
fragmented copies left him with the general impression that the primary target for observation was a teenaged
human female with brown hair who was serving as an engineer aboard a small starship. She is traveling
with a motley collection of people, including one Wookiee and one known sibling (gender unspecified or missing).
Taking stock of the situation around him, and especially the two humans who had ungracefully tumbled down the ramp towards him,
he was almost certain that he had located his quarry in the younger of the two females. The only problem was that he had no idea
what to do with her once he found her.
Back to ACT I Scene i
On to Act I Scene iii
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