Back in Minerva City, the Team begin seeking information on the streets about the detention facility and the prisoner. While this is happening, Tina manages to repair the lightsaber using the crystal she obtained earlier.
The streetwise investigation results in Nim making contact with someone who claims to have information. With Luck providing sniper overwatch, Bostco and Nim arrange at the clandestine meeting only to learn that it is the investigator, Nara Tao’ni. She recognizes Bostco and, after much back and forth, agrees to not turn them in as long as they assist her in extracting someone she is close to from the Crimson Corsairs.
From her, they also learn that the Imperial Security Bureau is sending a team to take prisoner out. This leads the team to make the decision to use their new gear to disable the shuttle, then use it to pretend to be the ISB agents.
Boiled down, it doesn’t seem like we accomplished a lot. We handled Job Rolls at the beginning, then had a bunch of roleplaying and a whole bunch of researching and repairing.
We’ve already determined that, if the two ion torps don’t disable the shuttle, then we’re on to simply destroying it.
With a roar, the beast attacks and the Team springs into action, with Luck using his jetpack to get into position atop the creature to attack with his vibroknife, while Nim darts between its legs to use his grapple line to tangle its legs and Darrrill unexpectedly engages it in melee combat even as Bostco and Tina distract it with blaster shots.
Darrrill ends up engaging in an unexpected … testicular grapple (words I never expected to type in a GURPS recap) with the creature which, naturally distracted it rather significantly so Nim could further tangle it up and Luck could jam the armed grenade into the hole he’d cut on the creature’s back. The result was rather sticky.
Afterwards, the Team had monster steak, Tina got permission to keep the (currently) non-functional lightaber, and Luck discovered that Loophole had a bunch of deactivated battle droids and weapons which the other clone intends to use against the Empire at some point.
Following their meal, Loophole takes the lot of them to a place with a lot of scrap and points out two functional, if admittedly old and in need of work, vessels from the Grand Army of the Republic: an Aggressive ReConnaissance-170 starfighter and a Low Altitude Assault Transport (LAAT). The arsenal of the Team is increasing…
Player Notes:
Full house again. Also a really short episode because Ronnke, the GM, was struggling with a brutal headache so he went back to bed after we ended; he almost canceled early it was that bad.
I think absolutely none of us expected to be in a GURPS game where a player grappled a monster … by the testicles. It left us in stitches.
Back in Minerva City, the Team has learned that the official story for Pallas has changed: according to Imperial propaganda, insurgents caused the deaths of people trying to decontaminate the city-state.
Bostco learns that an investigator is looking into the events and has consulted his family; he arranges a meeting with her, hoping to redirect her attention elsewhere and is (over)confidently convinced that he succeeded.
Tina experiences some strange dreams connected to the Kyber crystal she discovered, then ultimately ends up cornering Luck about her mother. The former clonetrooper then tells her about the day Order 66 was executed and how his previously damaged inhibitor chip allowed him to not take the shot at her mother…
The Team depart Minerva City and travel to the plateau where those events happened, following a ‘hunch’ of Tina’s. There, in the desolate wreckage, they encounter another former clonetrooper, Loophole, who has been eking out a life in this barren wilderness.
While at Loophole’s home inside the remnants of the destroyed Republic headquarters, the team hear the roar of an approaching great beast and rush to meet it…
Player Notes:
Full house again.
Again, I’m intentionally trying to keep these outlines short instead of getting overly verbose like I do sometimes. There is a lot of stuff that happened during the session that I didn’t mention in the outline … see?! I’m getting overly verbose again!
Darrrill moves against the comm array to ensure that the Imperials cannot summon help. He accomplishes this easily enough and rejoins the rest of the Team.
Leaving the locals outside the mine, the Team enters the facility. They quickly engage a pair of troopers in a long hallway, continue on toward a lab where they take on two more, and then finally reach the control center where a trio are standing watch with an officer. Despite the troopers sealing off the control center, Nim is able to hotwire the door to open it and Luck hurls an armed thermal detonator inside. The officer might have been able to escape through another door, but the three troopers are vaporized…
The Team continues on to the lab proper, a converted storage facility. Here, they capture several scientists and learn the Empire has been experimenting with injecting various materials into the locals which is causing mutation. Luck wants to just blow this entire place, but the locals resist, insisting that they can rescue the hideously mutated people who are their friends and family. In the end, Luck decides that the team can do no more and he won’t risk them when the Empire inevitably returns, so the team withdraws, taking their scientist prisoners and the captured walker (which they intend to stash somewhere until they can figure out how to smuggle it into the city.) The prisoners they intend to turn over to their contact, Kalen Brie, who will no doubt want to thoroughly interrogate them…
Later, they will learn that the Empire did show back up and, exactly like Luck expected, they came back in force.
Player Notes:
Full house for a change.
Several short firefights. We also sort of decided that thermal detonators have a weird blast radius of 5 yards but do mininuke (UT156) damage which is an insane 6dx200 cr ex with linked damage of 4dx200 burn ex rad sur. So yeah, those troopers were vaporized.
At the end, we had a string of mediocre or outright bad social engineering checks, resulting in the locals demanding we not just blow up the facility … so the team bailed, knowing these idiots were all going to be wiped out when the Empire returned. And yup!
Haven’t figure out where we’re going to store the walker – it’s currently hidden somewhere in the badlands, so isn’t easily accessible. Clearly, we need to obtain a decent-sized freighter that we can store that puppy in! LOL.
Having identified the probable location of the Imperial basecamp, the Team considers their options and decide that they need to capture or neutralize the AT-ST they passed during the speeder chase before it can get clear of the radio interference and alert the base of their presence.
Thanks to Tina’s sense of absolute direction, they are able to quickly locate the walker, then stake out locations ahead of it. When it passes, Luck uses his jet pack to spring down on the roof; the Team’s new ally, Ronan, decides to make a mad jump to join him, nearly going over the side. Ronan yanks the hatch open and with two well-placed stun shots, Luck neutralizes the pilot and gunner.
The two are extracted and interrogated, though not a great deal is really learned. After heavily sedating the two and ensuring they are both bound and their rebreathers are topped off, the Team leaves them behind and then moves forward to observe the camp again. Ronan returns to his people to bring Darrrill and any reinforcements that want to assist. In that time, Tina’s droid, H4X-R, is able to insert into the facilty and secure images, including that of the hideous experiments going on in the biolabs.
Upon arrival, the Wookie is dispatched to take out the comm array, while Luck and Bostco lead a ground team, augmented by the AT-ST, piloted by Nim and gunned by Tina.
Attempts to stealth forward are foiled by a single alert stormtrooper, and a fierce firefight ensues. Two of the troopers are dropped by regular shots, and a third surrenders when the walker blows up the gun emplacement on the roof and then vaporizes the fourth trooper who is locked in a deadly exchange with Luck. Ronan is grievously injured during the exchange, but not killed.
The Team look in the direction of the comm array which Darrrill should be reaching at any moment…
Player Notes:
Still down Nosh for this session as he went on vacation, though he’s coming back next week, just in time for Darrrill’s thrilling heroics.
Thanks to Return of the Jedi, we know hijacking an AT-ST is ridiculously easy. So we did it! Gigermann joked that, since we ended Episode 1 with having “obtained” the pirate starship, and now we’ve taken this AT-ST, we should end every chapter with us having stolen another vehicle of some sort. I’m looking forward to the AT-AT!
Tina’s last shot at the poor stormtrooper was brutal. Three hits. Before calculating DR reduction, damage was 200, 200 and 250. Stormtrooper armor on the torso is DR 60, but the weapon was (5), so only 12 protects, which means he took 188, 188, and 238. That’s 614 points of damage! Ronnke said it was like -50x his base HP and -10x is essentially disintegrated. I think that’s the most damage I’ve ever seen done with a non-starship weapon.
With their new ally, Ronan, leading the way, the Team links up with the remaining members of Pallas’ citizens who have been harried and hunted by Imperial forces.
The Team divide to gather intelligence from or lend assistance to the survivors, learning that few of them know what the Imperials want here either. Eventually, they narrow down the probable locations of the Imperial basecamp to one of two mining camps.
Leaving Darrrill behind to assist with any defenses and with Ronan leading the way, the rest of the Team take speeders to scout out the two spots … but en route, they are sighted by a pair of biker scouts who pursue!
When one of the scouts breaks off, the Team realize he is likely going to get within comms range and summon reinforcements so they wheel around and pursue him, leading to a three-way chase as they are still being hounded by his buddy. In the end, the Team opt to ground their vehicles and open fire with their weapons just as the scout reaches transmission range. They then flee the smoking wreckage before the AT-ST they passed during this chase can investigate.
Identifying the basecamp is easy as one mining facility is obviously abandoned, but the other still has Imperial activity – and guards! – at it. In fact, the Team are able to witness something strange: a shuttle arrives at the camp as lab-coated techs push a repulsor-sled toward it. Upon the sled is a very high tech cryo-tube containing a person who looks … mutated!
Player Notes:
Still late recaps. Kept getting stupid busy. Trying to keep these minimal.
Down Nosh for this session as he went on vacation.
We missed two weeks in a row after this – the first week was due to two additional absences (me for a stupid amount of OT, Giger for a computer catastrophe), the week after due to Ronnke being sick and FX having computer woes of his own.
On Phantine, the Team is investigating why Pallas, one of the city-states on Phantine, went silent. The official story is that city shields failed, but Luck doubts this and wants to discover the truth.
Via speeder, the Team reach the outskirts of Pallas, discovering signs of sabotage that lend credence to their theories.
As they enter the city, several of them realize that they are being watched and a quick chase ensues …
…but comes to an abrupt halt when the Team finds itself engaged in a firefight with a squad of stormtroopers! It is a fierce engagement, but on that ends with only the Imperials downed and the Team having made a new (temporary) ally.
The sound of an approaching AT-ST forces the Team to bug out quickly…
Player Notes:
Way, way, way late recaps. Kept getting stupid busy. Trying to keep these minimal.
Full house again, though the next two will be down one as Nosh (Darrrill’s player) went on vacation.
The bulk of this session was taken up by the firefight.
Suspecting that the Crimson Corsair pirates are here for the same reason they are, the Team accelerates their time table.
Bostco enters the hotel lobby and tries to get a room for the night, confirming that they’re booked up.
Nim enters via a service entrance, posing as a pizza guy trying to deliver to someone. When he exits, he does so ensuring that the service door can be quickly opened.
Just as the team are preparing to enter via the service entrance, the pirates storm the front lobby, making no attempt to conceal their assault. This provides excellent cover, however, and with Tina discreetly providing overwatch via the systems she’s sliced into, the team locates Diplomat Wren’s room, slices it open, and extracts with her via a lift following a quick bit of convincing. And, as they are entering one lift, another opens to reveal a couple of hostile pirates. Luck leaves them a parting gift in the form of an armed thermal detonator. They don’t seem to like it very much.
Downstairs, the team extracts, using the now abandoned service entrance once more. Crowding aboard a speeder, they are unfortunately observed by the pirates and a short-lived chase ensues that ends at the hangar…
At the hangar bay, the Crimson Corsairs have an exceedingly bad day as they are quickly cut down by the expert fire of the team. And to add insult to injury, the Team decides to escape the station in the (late) Corsair’s own ship!
Mission accomplished.
Player Notes:
Way, way, way late recaps. Kept getting stupid busy. Trying to keep these minimal.
The Team arrives at Starhaven Station and are relieved that their codes check out. Leaving Darrrill behind with Kira Thalos to ensure their escape route is secure, the Team inserts onto the station and begins to gather information
Bostco takes Tina with him and plays up his reputation as a semi-famous physician to gain access to the wounded at the local medical facility so as to ensure that Katalana Wren, the woman they wish to extract, is not among the casualties.
Darrrill observes the arrival of who he suspects to be more of the pirates who initially attacked the ship that caused all of this mess in the first place and alerts the rest of the team.
Nim hits a local casino with Luck acting as a sort of bodyguard; there he engages with Xal’Dor Vorkesh, the casino owner and a known info-merchant. While this going on, a bounty hunter wearing Mandalorian armor enters with a warrant to take Vorkesh into custody. A tense stand-off ensues with Nim pretending to be another hunter who already has taken Vorkesh into custody while Luck is preparing to get into an ugly shoot-out with the hunter. Eventually, the hunter withdraws in the face of overwhelming odds, though he promises Vorkesh that this isn’t over.
In appreciation for Nim defusing the situation, as unusually as he did so, Vorkesh provides the information on Wren’s probable location…
Player Notes:
Way, way, way late recaps. Kept getting stupid busy. Trying to keep these minimal.
Mostly information gathering in this one, along with some almost shooting. And I was gonna get me some Mandalorian armor too! Maybe later…
On Phantine, Insurgent Team Vanguard receives a new mission from their contact, Kalen Brie: Katalana Wren, a Naboo diplomat and secret asset of Brie’s is dangerously close to being compromised by the Imperial Security Bureau after the ship she was on was heavily damaged by pirates. Brie needs the team to get aboard the space station where this is taking place, get her out, and do so quickly. To Luck, he will also add (discreetly) that if they can’t get her out, then she will need to be eliminated.
With limited time before they are scheduled to depart, the Team gets as much data as they can, as well as working landing permits on the space station, though this results in Bostco now owing something of a favor to the crimelord, Hobbs.
Brie arrives to pick them up before flying them to a rendezvous with a friendly corvette docked with the small freighter that will be taking them to the station. The captain of this corvette provides Luck with a beacon call that will summon the ship to cause a distraction.
The freighter captain, Kira Thalos, is eager but cautious, and very worried that their landing codes will trip alarms..
The team makes the jump to lightspeed and tensions run high…
Player Notes:
Way, way, way late recaps. Kept getting stupid busy. Trying to keep these minimal.
Mostly lots of planning, discussion options and general goofing off during this session.
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