Scum and Villainy.

[matt_doyle]

Dramatis Personae

 

Felix – Toydarian Master of Disaster, a one-eyed pilot, sharpshooter, and shipjacker with a rangefinder in his empty socket. Light-hearted despite his perpetual bad luck, Felix has a goal – to steal one starship of every weight class.
 

Hajab – Cranky Mon Cal hyperspace engineer and former Imperial slave, Hajab's primary motivation is spite. He'll prove the academics who spurned his theories wrong... and he'll shut down the secret Imperial R & D project that taught him all he knows. Whatever it takes.
 

Ama – de facto captain, Force-using intrusion expert, disowned Miraluka aristocrat, and droid-building enthusiast, Amareyn is the longest-running member of the gang, there constantly since five intrepid grifters escaped the backwater of Kalarba.

 

Loren – Corellian archaeologist, consummate master of disguise, and gambler nonpareil, Loren's con-man skills, piloting expertise, and inventiveness always seem to plunge his companions deep into trouble's gravity well... but so far, he's always been able to fly them back out.

 

Jark Shakenes – omnisexual Zeltron gunslinger and amiable loudmouth, Jark would be considered a greenhorn if he wasn't so kriffing pink. Whether you love Jark or hate him (and everyone does one or the other), nobody is quicker on their feet or better with a distraction.

 

Missy – Farghul pirate princess, she's been stowing away on misbegotten adventures for years. Finally, her criminal-dynasty family bought her a pinnace (The Wardrobe) and a bodyguard to fly it. A Jill of All Trades, Missy eagerly seeks a gang who could use her skills... or yet another custom-fitted pair of pants. Her ship isn't called The Wardrobe without reason.


Asylum Station

Tracking Project Neebray's slaving to Asylum Station was comparatively easy. Once there, however, they had no sooner begun poking around and investigating a weird religious cult than they were assaulted by the Starcrash Brigade, an elite squad among elite squads of Imperial infantry, trained with amazing custom-made equipment that far-outgunned our intrepid smugglers. They killed two-thirds of a Starcrash Brigade squad (or rather, downed them – the retreating Starcrash brigaders shot their fallen companions and blew them up rather than let them be taken alive) and fled the station post-haste.

While their bounties were not yet re-instated, there was no question they were back on Imperial scanners. Hajab, figuring he might be the only living being with the knowledge of this slaving ring AND motivation to take it down, became a garage-only engineer for the party – he wasn't going to risk his neck by going on adventures again.

 

An exciting, but ultimately disappointing expedition for our Renegade Antiheroes.

 

 

 

The Maiden Flight of the Ohnaka's Folly

 

 

Felix's player, alas, is only in town for the summer, and so before he departed, we plotted one grand caper for him, to help explain his absence. Earlier, Felix had hired a free agent on Nar Shaddaa to help him find a properly ambitious ship-theft: now, the dubiously talented Nikto returned his call with a remarkable commission: steal a brand-new Corellian Customs vessel right out of the shipyard. Corellia, still an Imperial property, may produce a prodigious quantity of pirates, but it still guards against them quite well.

Its latest line of small capitol-class cruisers, the Corellian Buccaneers, are named for dead space pirates – the newest, just being retooled after its shakedown, is the Hondo Ohnaka. Pocketing it would be a superb feat... but our crew of pirates is too small to run a Buccaneer.

However, Buccaneers are built similarly to Correllian corvettes – modifiable and modular – and a bridge section of a corvette designed for full automation would allow them clumsy control without the need to hire mercs. Forged work orders get them aboard the Hondo Ohnaka as maintenance techs; a salvage yard recommended by their employer allows them to buy a refurbished corvette bridge that droids and mechanics can whip into shape... a series of contrived radiation leaks and similar difficulties lets them shuffle the real repair crew off onto the dock... and then they uncouple the moorings and sail away.

Needless to say, Customs Control notices immediately. They're ten minutes from the edge of the gravity well and in a shipyard full of Customs vessels. A furious running gunbattle commences – and the party only has enough crew to man a single turret. Their backup on the Second Wind helps blast away smaller vessels – and a larger cap ship, incoming too slowly, miscalculates a microjump and implodes in planetary atmosphere, losing all hands – 700 plus. So much for a low profile... Their bounties are sure to be renewed.

 

Finally, they use the new bridge module's navigation computer to make the jump to lightspeed – and gas hisses from the air vents. They disable all circulation and don breath masks just in time.

The bridge module is rigged. Not only did it try to gas them, its navigation computer has been re-programmed – then jump takes them not to their rendezvous point with the Second Wind, but to pirate fleet in the middle of a nebula – the ancient Weequay kidnapper, Hondo Ohnaka, voiced by Ricardo Montalban, is not quite dead yet, and very eager to possess his namesake.

Actually delighted and impressed that they evaded his trap, the wily Ohnaka points out that they are still lost and still under his guns, and offers them only a reduced payment.

The party, incensed, risks a blind jump through the nebula to escape with their pirze – survives – and sets off for home, with one more ship and one more enemy. Felix makes their new vessel – now christened Ohnaka's Folly – his priority. A year's worth of discreet independent maintenance, and this bruiser could be ideally equipped to secure as a flagship and piracy vessel for our crew, if enough automated systems can be installed.

 

Now down to three full-time scoundrels, however, the party's potential is reduced in scope. And they are sure to be hunted across the galaxy – by Imperials, Correllians, Ohnaka himself, and any bounty hunters any of the above might hire.

 

Maybe it's time for another vacation...

 

 

 

 

Ama and Jark Go To Coruscant

 

 

Another low-attendance session. Amareyn and Jark decided the time had come to get rid of the rest of their glitterstim cache, left over from the Kessel Run, and they were only certain of one market big enough: Coruscant. Using their Black Sun contacts to set up a buyer – a Quarren fixer called Fjarl the Beak who worked out of the Borrat's Den in Invisec, they made it through customs with a cover cargo of flouridized salts... but found themselves disenchanted with the Bright Center of the Galaxy when there was a 36-hour wait to land and a pile of customs citations for trivial shipping code violations the Outer Rim had always genteelly overlooked. Business went smooth, they purchased finely tailored suits, Ama sold droid schematics to a rich hobbyist's club, and they flew home.

 

 

 

 

Life Day on Kalarba (A Very Special Life Day Episode)

 

Jark, Loren and Ama (not to mention NPC Miraluka mechanics Loreth and Hidori) receive an unexpected invitation: a two-week stay at a Kalarban resort, courtesy of Ama's estranged parents, the techno-aristocrats who manage the computer systems for Kalarba's moon, a lunar ecumenopolis. While they dislike Ama's lifestyle choices, they have repeatedly tried to bribe her back to a life of cloistered luxury, and it is Life Day, after all – it's about family – so our hedonistic heroes accept the invitation, certain that a seaside resort is worth two weeks of moralizing parental platitudes.

They also receive a set of gift packages from Barool and Channa, but decide not to open them until Life Day itself. Meanwhile, pirate princess Missy wants to truck down her idols, the Meteor Hammer gang (that being the false IFF the party used in their piracy early on). Her only lead is knowledge that Felix the Toydarian and the long-dead Maroolchen the Madclaw used to serve with her uncle Ricasha – a vicious pirate who hides his Star Galleon, the Bloody Money, in the wilds of Kalarba, whose tiny Imperial garrison (one shuttle, one squadron of the TIEs, a few AT-STs, and 100 stormtroopers) are no threat to him. She and her Thakwaash butler-pilot-bodyguard, Fonzo, inquire with Uncle Ricasha, who informs her that not only have bounty hunters been asking similar questions recently – they've laid a trap!

The party checks into the isolated resort with only a minimum portion of their usual arsenal present – the rest is back on the Second Wind, parked on the lunar station, safely hidden away. Before they are scheduled to dine with Ama's parents, they have vouchers for the spa and the gambling tables. Loren and the NPCs go to gamble; Ama and Jark go to the (gender-segregated) hotsprings, which are near-unoccupied.

At the gaming tables, Loren finds himself consistently winning off a stubborn Gotal. Finally broke, the Gotal bets his yacht on the last hand and loses.

They go up to the landing pad to collect it – and Loren finds a Bryar Pistol pointed at his back, escorting him aboard. Bounty hunter trap number 1 is sprung! Diving ahead into the ship, he tries to seal the door behind him, is shot and burned badly, and has a slicing-race through ship's security, trying to get to the bridge before the bounty Hunter can get in behind him. Plagued by an angry astromech and shot a second time, Loren still managed to take the yacht airborne, then tip it on its side and open the airlock. Wind and gravity tear the bounty hunger out a full half-mile in the air. Loren flies to safety, because he cannot warn his friends – the comms are jammed!

Meanwhile, Ama is set upon in the locker rooms by a naked Em'liy with a Star Anvil blaster rifle. Jark, hearing the noises, jumps out of the springs, produces a pistol,* and races through the locker rooms to help, buck naked. He sets off a grav-trap as he arrives, and a new bounty hunter shows herself – Mist, who wears armor with sophisticated camouflage hiding her from conventional sight – but not from a Miraluka's vision. Dropping the Emiliy and forcing Mist into a rocket-retreat with a splendid display of telekinesis and martial arts, Ama retrieves the rifle, and she and a heavily blasted Jark retreat to true hotsprings, where a ship hovers menacingly overhead... and so they meet Missy, offering them a ride to safety. As the Imperial garrison closes in and further hunter booby-traps bedevil them, the party gets away (destroying half the garrison's meagre, incompetent air force in the process) but some of them require transport by Ricasha, who holds them not quite hostage on the condition that the party pulls a single simple little job for him...

*ETA:  See also here, at about 03:10.

 

 

The Data-Raid on Obra-Skai

 

The job is simple. At least, it's simple to describe. Infiltrate the library world of Obroa-Skai and secure two pieces of information: the proprietary hyperspace routes of the Alderaanian High Council, and the full Anomaly Report of the Astrocartographic Survey. What legendary feats of piracy Captain Ricasha of the Bloody Money intends to perpetrate with this information, he isn't saying, but rather than leave an angry Farghul pirate trying to collect on a very smoothly engineered debt, the party is willing to try it (although Ama, altogether sick of strong-arm tactics, coercing and blackmail, almost stays behind). Leaving their weapons (except for small, low-energy concealable) behind on the Wind, Loren forges credentials for the party and they bring Loren's new yacht as their primary vehicle – the Wind, lurking in extra-system orbit, is ready to be called in for a rescue.

Moving their bulky data mainframes around the planet is almost the hardest part, although surveillance and informational security are formidable. The party is good at this kind of thing.

They are finishing their second download when alarms go off and lockdown commences. Escaping the building, they see that this is true as far as the eye can see – even the rapid-transit trains that send people between Dewey-Decimal-sorted subcontinents of archive are shut down. But it isn't their fault – an Imperial data raid is commencing, and they are simply caught in the middle of it. After a terrifying shoot-out with Imperial Storm Commandos, they temporarily hijack a dropshuttle and make a break for it – but the significant Imperial orbital presence convinces them to land again and ditch their vehicle before unknown fightercraft obliterate it. They sit tight in hiding until the data raid is done, make their rendezvous with Ricasha and give him his data, and head home with Missy, wondering what the Sith is going on.