Episode I - Sent In Search of the Sa Nalaor

Episode I

Our good friend Dantar has an associate who is looking for some talents, and Dantar thinks we might be interested. We follow him to The Wheel, a neutral station with some kind of protection gambit going on with the Empire (must be, because they're doing pretty fine if you ask me!) Of course, the station has outlandish docking fees. I mean come on, 200 credits per day? And with approx 300k people on the station, they must be making a killing!

The Wheel

We are directed to meet Reom, of Isotech. They are somewhat legit, with some black-ops on the side. Their protocol droid CZ14 introduces us to the Twi'lek Reom. Reom tells us the store of the "Sa Nalaor."

• Ship of legend, approx 15 years ago.
• Salvage hunter's wet dream
• separatist treasure ship
• Was at the outer rim during the clone wars
• One of their message pods recently found
• We have their last known location - outer fringe of the outer rim!

Tasked with

• Finding the ship
• Assessing its condition
• Return info to RAXUS Prime
• Find special tech
• 2x reward
• 3x if good (don't ask me what that means... I can't read my claw-writing)
• Bring IT3PO ("IT3" for short) with us to ident the crew and cargo
• We have the coordinates

Reward of 10k total, other treasure is 50/50

No other groups that they know of, but independent searchers are to be expected

History:

• Ship's captain had agreement with Reom's father
• Cpt. was asked to come to Cholganna System with undue haste with medicines and supplies
• Deal would still be intact (just need the tech)
• IT3PO is our proof of relation
• Deal was something related to advanced tech

People

• Capt. Rel Harsol of the Sa Nalaor
• Father Ropok of ISOTECH

We are given a datachip with the ship's specs and layout, along with a holo of the captain

Something else about a scrap heap point on Raxis Prime, Reconn path through the junkyard canyon. By this point in the conversation my teeth were aching and I wanted to kill something, so my attention was wandering. 

Provence then did his techno-voodoo

• Data entry by "Grimners"
• Sa Nalaor desired, and famous for disappearing
• Loaded with treasure and credits
• Corellian trade route with cyber techs
• Chased by Imperials, and disappeared in a hyperspace jump
• Was banking clan frigate, with thousands of battle droids! Crew of 50
• Find schematic, was typical Munificent Class ship
• The planet is remote, with temperate atmosphere
• Cholganna have something called "nexu"

We invest in 

• 2 crash survival kits (600 credits total)
• Balanced hilt for me and Rawr (2000 credits total)
• Space suits for all (150x5 = 750 credits total)
• Top-up our bacta tank
• Stock up on rations (200 credits)

Back at our ship, we notice a 'droid placing something on our hull. We dispose of it before we leave. Probably a tracking device.

We are contacted by She-Ra (???), and told that IT3 should arrive in 3 minutes. Of course, things go pear-shaped, when 3 Rhodians on a grav sled load up the protocol droid and take off. After a heroic battle surrounded by an adulating crowd, we get back our droid. But it appears the crowd was not pleased by our performance, because we are arrested and forced to pay for "damages." 15,000 credits worth!

Reom is angry at us.

Dragool sums up my feelings by saying "The Wheel is too square for me"

36XP split 4-ways = 9 XP each

Starting credits = 65,850

Expenses = 200+600+2000+750+200+15000 = 18,750

Ending credits = 47,100

Blindsided by an Inside Job

Looking to make some quick cash, we sign-on as security for Pax Zondal of Cosmohall Shipping. We would be paid ¢400/marine, with a bonus of ¢50/pirate nabbed (dead or alive). It appears cargo regularly goes missing, and so we don't expect to get bored on the journey.

Well, we board the Argent Lady, a Ghtroc Industries Cargo Empress Super Freighter, bound for the Sullust system - a journey that should take 4 days. With us are:

• Captain Zal (Human)
• Baba Labat (Sulustan co-pilot)
• Uncle G (protocol droid)
• Zudia (female engineer with cybernetic right arm)

We get a very cold reception, as they feel they don't need any assistance. Looking at their crew, they should really re-consider. They convince us to stow our weapons in the weapons locker when we board, but at least the locker is in our common area.

Their cargo consists of 100 R5 units, some spare parts, barrels of Baridum (barium? Damn it Jim, I'm a marauder, not a chemist) which I'm told is used in blasting by miners, and some CAVW PX-10 units which are large mole miners, approximately 5m x 2m in size. Oh, and there are 2 escape pods, and out of curiosity we check to see how many people they are designed for, and it appears each is large enough for approx 6 people. Hey, it's not like the first time I've used an escape pod, only to have to bump someone out of the queue to get myself in!

Things start out really uneventfully. A couple days in, Capt and Zudia say they've been told to check out the R5 units to replace some motivators they've been told might be bad. They spend all day taking them apart and replacing some parts, while the rhodian practices his hide-in-plain-sight technique, trying to find out what they are really doing. Turns out, they were doing exactly what they said they would - replacing some metal bits with other metal bits.

That night, all hell breaks loose. R5 units come streaming out of the cargo hold, claiming that we are now prisoners of the Droid Abolitionist Movement. The Captain and crew appear to be part of the mutiny, as they are the ones who "liberated" the droids' programming. It also appears our weapons were ejected before we took off since the locker is now empty! The wookie and I attempt to subdue the droids, but we are quickly knocked unconscious by their stunners. We awaken a short while later, after having been shoved in an escape pod.

The escape pod has a pea-shooter, which we put to good use in an escape. This time, we no longer hold our punches! By the time we finish smashing 'droids, it turns out the crew is dead, and we have dropped out of hyperspace. The problem is that we are not in deep space, but near a planet! An imperial inspection patrol hails us and boards us. After a very short negotiation, Rawr gets bored and starts smashing skulls. Turns out six soldiers with blasters are no match for the four of us, as we quickly defeat them. We rig their ship to blow, and take off to our original destination, leaving behind an epic explosion in our wake.

We intend to deliver our cargo as promised, and who knows, maybe we can get enough for this ship to make up for the, um, damaged property.

+5 XP

Doing Bargos' Dirty Work

We fly off to Socorro to meet with Bargos the Hutt. What's the planet like? Well, it seems to be a desert world, with no organized government. Corellians, smugglers, and ship-customization services abound.

Bargos, it seems, is a relatively new Hutt crime-lord, but has a large sphere of influence. His mood is rather changeable. And we did get some rumblings from his staff that he's not fully paying his staff's salaries...

C3-P9 is Bargos' protocol droid, and Genko, a Toydarian with blue skin, is his major-domo.

Bargos himself has lost part of his face (and part of brain?). Anyway, he's recently come into ownership of a Oridian mine that should be profitable. He'd like us to go to the mine and collect the ¢100K they should have waiting. Past history has shown it produced around ¢100K per year in the past, why not now, eh? (yeah, right...) Anyway, he'll give us 5% of the profit.

Before we leave, there is a commotion with the Gamorian staff. It appears Bargos' staff are starting to do more than grumble.

It takes us 5 days to get to Gavos where the mine is. Our sensors have a hard time penetrating the harsh atmosphere. There are habitats protected by large generators to keep the storms at bay. When we arrive, the place seems very recently abandoned, with relatively fresh bodies.

We eventually find the administrator droid 3D-4K. He tells us about EV8-D3 the supervisor droid, and Moray the chief at the mine for the past decade. He also tells us that ¢100K is a bit of a stretch - the performance of the mine has been waning for the last few years. Raising the funds would mean selling off equipment!

Looking through some surveillance equipment, we see a freighter arriving and greeted by EV8. In the reception we see a Trandoshan running through then a blaster firing. But then we notice a vehicle launching from the 2nd landing pad - a cloud car with a spherical droid (lookout/exploration droid). It destroys another shield generator, and we rush off to destroy it just before it gets to the next one. The shields are definitely weak at this point, and we cannot afford to lose another one.

Some exploration brings us to the entrance to the loading dock...