Scavenger Hunt
From Lexicanum
After an Imperial assault,
the Rebel base on Dankayo has been lost.
Rebel forces managed to evacuate safely, but the base's self-destruct system failed.
It is feared that the Imperials may have obtained data detailing Alliance activities from the base computers.
The armed Imperial transport ship Elusive is taking items recovered from the base to the Imperial Security Bureau for analysis.
Disguised, and in the captured Imperial Shuttle,Bonderium, a crack team of Rebel Operatives is despatched to retrieve or destroy the data.
Episode One: Elusive Prey
As the Bonderium emerged out of hyperspace, Del ran a quick sensor scan noting to their dismay that the Elusive, rather than orbiting Dankayao, was in the process of dumping garbage, prior to jumping to hyperspace. Hailed by the Elusive, Gant tried to persuade them to stand-by for an urgent prison transfer, but was informed that the hyperdrives were already engaged and the transfer would have to take place at the Imperial Security Bureau centre on Coronar. While the Rebels sat and discussed what to do next, the Elusive jumped to hyperspace! For a moment or two the Rebels were disconsolate. Their mission had failed, they had no way to track the Elusive, and hit her before she arrived on Coronar, especially with the limited resources they had in a shuttle!
Suddenly the ships sensor klaxon screamed into life as an unknown vessel entered the system. The Rebels watched as energy readings reveal crude tractor beams lance out from the strange needle-like craft snagging bits of trash Elusive left behind, and drawing them towards itself. The Rebels were trying to raise the ship when the sensor klaxons screeched again an a second, much bigger doughnut shaped craft emerged suddenly from hyperspace and immediately began firing on the first ship, which frantically began tractoring heaps of rubbish in front of it to shield itself. The second ship also began hoovering up bits of the Elusive's trash surrounding it.
As the Rebels tried to make sense of what was going on, they eventually decided to intervene, broadcasting on an open channel their cover identity as the Imperial shuttle Bonderium and calling on both parties to stand-down. The huge doughnut ship responded by blasting into hyperspace, while the needle ship began swinging heaps of garbage between it and the Bonderium. Eventually Merci managed to get in touch with the alien ship and after re-establishing communications, convince them that they were not in fact Imperials, and were issued a haughty to come on board the "Momship" by someone apparently called "Chieftain of all Junk-yards".
Ogella synchronised their velocity and a boarding tube snaked out form the larger vessel. Merci and Hodreth volunteered to go aboard and after they crossed the tube, which somewhat disconcertingly, appeared to be patched in several places by what looked like gaffer-tape. Entering the other ship's airlock, atmosphere hissed into it and the airlock door swung open. The two were confronted by a pair of meter-high schnauser-like Squibs.
As Merci and Hodreth were escorted through the alien ship to meet with "The Illustrious Chieftain of Junk-yards", back on the Bonderium they intercepted a mysterious transmission. The message read
"Secret agent Dono to Momship. Hope you enjoying plenty big treasure dump. Plenty good stuff left on big-ship, you bet. Have Place numbers for next big-ship stop. Will transmit in super-secret Squib code. Starting now."
While Joe began trying to decrypt the "super-secret Squib code" using the somewhat limited abilities of the Bonderium's nav-comp, Realising, that as most of the message had been sent in the clear, that they were probably meant to "overhear" it, Gant passed the information on to Merci, who was now suffering through an audience with the "The Illustrious Chieftain of Junk-yards".
Eventually Merci managed to make a deal - if the Rebels fetched an item, variously referred to as "quest object" or "McGuffin" for the Squibs from those "hated, greedy, buckets-of-slime" the Ugors, the Squibs would pass on the co-ordinates of the Elusive. To seal the deal Merci presented a gift of a pair of macro-binoculars, while the "The Illustrious Chieftain of Junk-yards" offered Merci the gift of a droid, L9-G8. He also supplied a guide, Spilfer, to lead them to the mysterious "quest object".
Episode Two: Strangers In Paradise
Once the Rebels set of their guide informed them the co-ordinates for the "Paradise System" which
according to the nav-comp was officially designated as J21-Z65 a small
uninhabited, unimportant, system with no planets, just a sun and an
asteroid belt. When they emerged from hyperspace however they
discovered the "small uninhabited, unimportant, system" was heavily
defended with a picket as solid as any Imperial Naval blockade. The
ships forming the blockade are numerous squat, ring-shaped Ugorian
battle-wagons.
A terse, clumsy sounding voice cut of the comlink ordering them to heave-to for "customs inspection". As one of the huge ships lumbered towards them, the Rebels instructed Spilfer to hide in the equipment locker. Shortly, the Bonderium was boarded by three Ugors in widely different but vaguely froggy-looking combat armour. Each Ugor brandished a large number of weapons in pseudopoda.
The Ugor leader announced himself as "Tax Chaplain GrrKack" through a loud-hailer, even though he was standing in front of them! The Ugor seemed to have trouble pronouncing certain standard vowels, but it quickly became apparent he seemed to think that the Rebels were "bilgrims" of some kind and instructed them to come aboard the "holy demple" to "bake their cerebonial donation"
The Rebels all followed the Ugors aboard the Ugor vessel to be presented to ArrGack, the "Chief Tax Chaplain". There was an awkward pause until the Rebels coughed up some credits for the "holy collection plate", after a whispered prompt, through the loud-hailer, from GrrKack. While the collection plate was passed round GrrKack began to recite a brief list of rules for the Paradise system.
- No hostility or bad feeling is allowed in Holy Place, therefore no weapons permitted.
- All donations must be anonymous, credits up front.
- The Paradise system is under Divine Law, any actions are subject to Divine Law - as interpreted by the Holy Officers on duty.
- A deposit id required before entering, which will be
refunded after the Pilgrim has paid the assessed price for any Holy
Artifacts removed.
After which, bargaining began in earnest on the size of
any "deposit" due - the Ugors starting with a suggested price of 7000
credits. Gant and Merci had just begun the tedious process of
bargaining the Ugors down when they were interrupted by the high-pitched
yet familiar sound of someone clearing his throat to get attention.
Much to their chagrin they reconsigned the voice of Spilfer, their Squib
guide, dressed in a very poorly-fitting human-sized blast helmet and
tech-suit. Before they could say anything Spilfer took over the
negotiations eventually managing to get the Ugors down to a measly 12
credits!
Suddenly, as they came to close the deal, GrrKack seemed
to realise who, or rather what, he was dealing with. Immediately all
the Ugors in the room drew weapons, pointed them at the hapless Spilfer
exclaiming something about " a demon of a Squib, coming to give glory on
the altar of the Angel of Taxations and Imports!"
Episode Three: That's No Moon...
Fortunately the Rebels managed to defuse the tense situation by recalling Elnine's comment abut the Ugor being gourmands and offered to exchange an exquisite meal for Spilfer's life. As droids were not permitted on the Ugor ship the only problem then was the Rebels had to prepare the feast following instructions relayed by Elnine. In the "Ceremonial Kitchen" which was quite the most disgusting they had ever seen, the Rebels between them somehow managed to assemble what to them was the most revolting slop of mismatched ingredients. Fortunately the Ugors loved it, and after payment of a few more "donations" or "tool tax" for the Ugors to turn a blind eye on their personal weapons, now officially designated "tools" under the Holy Law, they returned to the Bonderium.
Unfortunately, despite the Rebels understanding otherwise the "tool tax" did not extend to most of the ships weaponry and with the exception of the tractor beam, which was actually designated a "tool" by the Ugors, all the other weapon systems were disabled by the Ugors using the standard override cutouts and they affixed a "customs seal" to the guns which Joe quickly determined was not only transmitting constantly to the Ugor mother-ship bu was booby-trapped to boot!
The Void Droids
As Ogella undocked from the Ugor ship and they headed in-system towards the vast orbiting piled of junk, Merci's astromech droid reported a "sensor ghost" appeared to be following them. As the Bonderium manoeuvred through the piles of tumbling garbage Spilfer produced what looked like a cobbled-together device which beeped an seeming flashed random lights. Using this he guided them towards a massive structure which could easily have been a major chunk of an Imperial Star Destroyer or a space station of some kind, floating serenely ahead of them. Eventually, after a somewhat confusing conversation with Spilfer who was jumping about excitedly, Gant ascertained that it was something aboard the enormous wreck rather than the wreck itself that was the true object of their "quest". Unfortunately the mass of wreckage appeared to be guarded by an inner-ring of Ugor battleships!
After some discussion about how to proceed unnoticed by the guard-ships the Rebels decided on the old hide-in-the garbage-trick! Ogella used the Tractor beam to haul in hunks of garbage while Gant, out on the hull in a space suit, tried to affix the piles of metal - fortunately weightless - to the hull using rope, until some suggested magnetising the hull... Eventually, accompanied by chunks of garbage, Ogella fired a short burst of the engines, before shutting down power - and they went in ballistic!
Somehow, this worked and as they approached the hulk, heading for a huge rent in the exterior superstructure, clearly battle-damage. A quick burn of the engines, hopefully unnoticed by the Ugor, allowed them to decelerate and "land". Bizarrely, although their appeared to be no power in the massive wreck, or atmosphere, there was clearly gravity. The Rebels donned breathing masks and set out into the darkness of the interior.
The going was not easy in the darkness, with twisted broken metal and debris everywhere in the interior, caused by whatever catastrophic event had destroyed the structure. Merci was unable to sense any life nearby, but the sight of several blasted open creates of stormtrooper armour clearly identified this as the wreck of some Imperial installation or ship. A couple of times they had to turn back as corridors were blocked, or ended suddenly - the rest of the way having been destroyed., but eventually they came into an open are that looked like it had once contained been a turbolift shaft - though the turbolift itself was blown open.
Suddenly out of the darkness, several shapes emerged combat droids, a fifth droid, some kind of loader droid of carried the menacing black sphere of an Imperial Interrogation Droid. It was the Interrogation Droid who spoke ordering the Rebels to "hand over all mechanical or electronic devices or be destroyed". Unable to comply with this, as it would have included Spilfer's "detector" - things rapidly degenerated!
As the blaster -fire raged, and most the Rebels dived for what little cover there was, Merci manoeuvred round to try and target the Interrogation Droid, focusing her fire on it. Gant however, stood coolly trading fire with the droids, which proved to be pretty tough. It was touch and go for a bit, most of them had taken minor hits and Joe was wounded. Suddenly Hodreth got hit, roared and heavily armoured combat droids proved little match for an enraged Wookie! AS Hodreth began tossing droids around the tide of combat turned, Gant and Ogella got in some good hits badly damaging two droids. Merci moving to a raised area, managed to get a couple of good hits on the Interrogation droid, whose bearer suddenly turned and fled.
There's Something Alive in Here
After restring briefly and haling those wounded the Rebels decided to head out again, choosing to follow the direction the droids had fled in. Unfortunately this choice of direction led them into another immediate confrontation with he droids, three Combat Droids firing on them from the shadows, where they lurked behind large clumps of machinery. Fortunately Merci spotted something moving a split second before the droids opened fire and was able to shout a warning that allowed her friends to scatter and avoid the incoming fire. In the brief firefight that ensued the three droids were destroyed, but Hodreth was badly wounded.
Wile Foe tended to Hodreth, Gant approached Spilfer and asked which way they should go next. Spilfer consulted his "Detection Device", which bleeped and flashed alarmingly and excitedly pointed down a corridor to the left. impulsively the Squib headed down the shadowy corridor - only to screech suddenly as a section of flooring collapsed beneath him. Gant, followed by Del, hurried up the corridor to see that the section of flooring had collapsed into a steeply angled shaft that disappeared into the bowels of the wreck. Gant stepped in to the hole, to see if he could see Spilfer, only to discover the shaft was coated with some kind of frictionless material. He immediately lost his footing and began a long slide into darkness. Shrugging resignedly and sighing heavily, Del followed.
Ogella, who was coming up the corridor, called back to Merci and Joe who were dragging a still unconscious Hodreth, and dropped into the shaft herself, following the others down. Merci and Joe then carefully manoeuvred the unconscious wookie down into the shaft, unfortunately Hodreth's bulk was such he immediately stuck. Merci clambered down and with Joe's help began pushing the unconscious wookie ahead of them, making their descent of the shaft much less precipitous that the others.
Gant was ejected from the shaft about three meters above what he rapidly determined was once a refuse processing station. He was standing in hip-deep slurry, presumably decomposed organic matter, and all around him were piles of garbage, some floating. Thankful he was wearing a breath mask, he shone his flash-light around warily. For a split second he thought he heard something, then his concentration was interrupted by the arrival of Del and then Ogella, both fortunately missing him while being ejected into the garbage nearby.
Suddenly Gant felt something wrap around his leg and haul him off his
feet. Desperately he drew a vibro-blade and hacked at whatever held
him. Unfortunately the slurry hampered his attack and he found himself
inexorably drawn forward, that last thigh he sensed, before crushing pain
drove him into unconsciousness, was a huge maw and sharp teeth closing
around his legs.
Del made for a metal staircase that led to a walkway that surrounded
the room about three metres up. Passing what looked like an inspection
hatch, he could barely make out a huge shape beneath him and fired off
his blaster. As Hodreth and then Merci and Joe appeared from the shaft,
Ogella using Del's blaster fire as a cue moved forward only to find
herself attacked as well and dragged off her feet. As Del fired again
Ogella found herself released and struggled to her feet. There was no
sign of Gant, but she did sport Spilfer, floating nearby on a crate, who
waved cheerfully at her. The Rebels finally managed to locate Gant
using Merci's life sense ability and dragged his unconscious form up onto the walkway.
While Joe used first aid on Gant, Del with a now conscious Hodreth's
help, managed to get the inspection hatch opened and they escaped out
into what looked like a maintenance area of the wreck. They immediately
began searching for a way back up, eventually finding a turbo-lift
shaft. Peering into the shaft, which disappeared up into darkness, they
noted a ladder affixed to the wall, but also noticed that beneath them
the wreckage ended abruptly a few metres below them and they could see
the cold darkness of space beyond!
Cautiously, one by one, they clambered on to the ladder. Del lost his footing, but immediately cut his jetpack thrusters in, and soared off up into the darkness above. As she began the long climb, Merci shuddered as she suddenly felt a disturbance in the Force somewhere above.
Episode Four: The Gravity-Well Projector
The Ghost of Darth Vader
Ascending the turbo-lift shaft was an arduous process, but eventually Ogella spotted an open doorway that would allow them to return to the main level of the wreck. Exiting the shaft involved a complex series of manoeuvrers, the use of an improvised wookie-bridge and Gant almost falling to his death, before they all began making their way through the wreck. This are had taken significant damage and they had to double-back on themselves serval times when passageway ended abruptly, blocked by twisted wreckage. Eventually they found their way blocked a a black-pained armoured door. Joe examined the control panel for the door which showed signs of damage , bur felt he could repair it -or at least by-pass the locking mechanism. While he worked on repairs, the engineer despatched Ogella and Gant on a scavenger hunt to retrieve some components from nearby wrecked equipment with which he managed to complete the repairs to the locking mechanism. As the door hissed open, Hodreth growled uneasily, sensing something beyond.The door opened into what appeared to be some kind of secure stateroom. Spilfer howled suddenly his detector abruptly stopped flashing and beeping.
As Gant explored what looked like a state-of-the-art comms suite
which would be more at home on the bridge of an Imperial Star Destroyer
rather than in someone's cabin, Ogella and Joe discovered another black
armoured door - this one seeming still having power. Hodreth's sense of
uneasiness grew as the door hissed open and a powerful gust of wind
pushed them backwards. The room beyond was full of darkness and strange
mist, as they eyes focused through the mist they could see the light
from their torches gleam of a shiny metal helmet - a tall dark figure
stood across from them a black cloak whipping around in the unnatural
wind. The sight of the menacing black armoured figure was too much for
Hodreth who retreated, howling something in wookie. Gant and Joe however
stood their ground and drawing their weapons began blasting away at the
menacing figure - to seemingly little avail.
The sound of blaster fire, drew Gant's attention. As he moved towards them sound of blaster fire, one of the bolts struck the figure's helmet - which toppled to the ground and rolled towards them. Somewhat sheepishly, as the mist began to disperse, they discovered their opponent was a disembodied helmet and cloak on a stand!
Searching the room, they discovered a small, though mysteriously
sealed, box - with no apparent way to open it. As well as, to Joe's
excitement some cutting-edge Imperial technology - a pulse-lightspeed
holo-image transmitter - something he had only read about in tech
manuals. Gathering these items up, the rebels headed on through an exit
in the far side of the stateroom. As they left the room, Spilfer
shouted excitedly as his device suddenly started bleeping and flashing
again!
They moved on through a series of wide corridors, strangely absent of
wreckage, and lit by emergency lighting , to a wide room where tow
massive, dangerous-looking power-plants of patently Ugor design, were
connected to a squat bulbous device about the size of a small escape pd.
Mounted in place, a projector dish atop it pointed out into space. A
strange
silver mechanism rotated at high speed inside the translucent
black case.
Spilfer shouted gleefully and pointed at the strange device, but when
he started moving excitedly towards it brandishing a large wrench from
his pack, Gant unceremoniously pulled him back, allowing Joe to examine
the strange device. After studying the device for some time Joe declared
that he though it to be some kind of gravitational generator! Very
carefully and with the others assistance he began to disconnect the
strange device from the Ugor generators. As he did the device suddenly
began to launch itself upwards - seemingly having no gravity of its own!
Fortunately Hodreth managed to grab it and with Ogella's help they ban
to manoeuvre the unwieldy device away.
The Rebels quickly realised that they had absolutely no idea which way to go. Fortunately someone thought to contact Elnine back on the ship and get the droid to activate a beacon on the ship, so they could locate it. Spilfer suggested that they need to hurry as he pointed out through a shattered viewport to where the assorted garbage that had previously been neatly held in orbit around the wreck was now colliding and moving around in all directions - something the Ugor were bound to notice swiftly.
As they followed the beacon back to the ship two things happened. Firstly they received a frantic call from Elnine informing them that someone was shooting at the shuttle and secondly a voice echoed out of the darkness, "they don't look like Imperials to me, Cap'n. I say we burn 'em" A sultry female voice replied, "must be Ploovo's boys. Jabba'll want at least one of 'em for the Rancor." As the second voice spoke a figure stepped out of the darkness levelling a blaster carbine at them. The figure spoke once more: "All we want's the machine. Hand it over an' there wont be any trouble." Before anyone could reply she fired the carbine at Gant - dropping him. A hail of blaster fire came out of the darkness around her.
As the Joe and Ogella dodged the hail of blaster fire, Hodreth roared a challenge and using the weightless machine as a battering ram charged forward, slamming into the leader of their attackers. As he did, he noted six others, all with blaster carbines. While Ogella charged forward firing into the darkness, and Jo paused to check Gant and administer a medpack. Nobody noticed Spilfer sneaking down the corridor,drawing a rounded object from his pack.
Gant lurched to his feet, full of stimulants, and followed Joe down the corridor to where Ogella was exchanging fire with the pirates, taking out one while Hodreth wielded the strange machine like an oversized club, cutting a swathe through the opposition. Gant and Joe opened fire as well drooping two of their opponents when suddenly and over-excited Spilfer suddenly shouted "Grenade!" and lobbed the round object towards the fray.
The Rebels barely had time to hit the deck before there was a loud explosion and burst of light!
Episode Five: Paradise Unbound
Fortunately Spilfer's misguided enthusiasm with his home-made grenade managed not to kill anyone and after |retrieving the Gravity Well Projector for the ceiling the Rebels moved on. As the moved through the wreck Ogella gave piloting instructions to an increasingly frantic Elnine - couched somewhat uncomfortably in cooking metaphors! After fighting their way through another ambush by the Pirates they eventually arrived at the docking bay.
Looking out through the huge rent in the hull they could see the entire Paradise system had become a swirling mass of chaos and destruction, as millions of tons of garbage collided and smashed together creating yet more clouds of deadly metal fragments spinning away. Elnine was unable to land the shuttle, but somehow Spilfer managed to successfully talk the cook into using the tractor beam to drag them all aboard.
As they watched from the comparative safety of the Bonderium, a comet of conglomerated garbage slammed into the wreck they had just left. Something in the trash exploded, setting off a chain-reaction of explosions and even more garbage flying wildly throughout the system. The giant wrecks final demise had turned the System of Paradise into a frenzied storm of destruction.
Somehow, Ogella managed to navigate the wreckage with not a little help from Hodreth manning the shields and bit by bit they made their way to the hyper-limit.
Suddenly four Ugor battle cruisers bracketed them, demanding the
"Prime Mover" back and launching ancient missiles in an attempt to
disable them. Many of the Ugor missiles were clearly duds, some even
blowing up in the launch tubes, but an even dozen corkscrewed towards
the Bonderium. Ogella jinked the shuttle wildly as Hodreth
covered-off what he could with the shields, Jo suddenly had an idea and
with Gant's help connected the Gravity Well Projector to the ship's
power managing to generate a repulser field around the Bonderium. The
Ugor missiles that made it through "bounced" off the repulser field -
heading directly back towards the ships that had launched them!
An already chaotic situation got even worse as Squib salvage ships, including the "Momship" suddenly popped out of hyperspace and began sweeping up salvage. Ogella headed over to the Momship and docked, and in short order Gant, Merci and Ogella found themselves in front of King Ebareebaveebeedee., who delightedly passed on the information they needed about the Elusive in exchange for the Gravity Well Projector - then instantly seemed to lose interest in it.
Scanning the data supplied by the King, the Rebels realised that the Elusive was docked at an Imperial repair facility but was scheduled to shortly depart for the Imperial Intelligence base on Cornoar. Attacking the Elusive while stillat the Navla Installation would be suicide as it would be heavily defended. The only solution would be either to catch the Elusive after leaving the navy base and before she can jump to Cornonar, or somehow dragging her out of hyper. If only they had some method of generating enough of a gravitational disturbance to drag a ship out of hyperspace!
After yet another complex and confusing series of seemingly pointless haggling, the Rebels negotiated the return of the Gravity Well Projector in return apparently for the salvage rights to the Elusive and a 99 year lease on the Bonderium - after a fresh paint-job!
Episode Six: Desperate Showdown
Equipped with he Gravity Well Projector, and a data-pack from the King for their superiors aligning the Squibs with the Rebellion, the Rebels jumped the Bonderium into an intermediate system on the hyper route the Elusive would take. While the others manned their stations preparing for the ambush, Joe began setting up the device to generate a strong enough, planetary-sized gravity-well that would drag any ship out of hyper.
A bit later then they had calculated the Elusive suddenly appeared. To their horror they noted that the transport appeared to have been upgraded - a newly installed rack of TIE fighters! As the TIE fighter's launched, Gant opened fire (forgetting to use the fire-control computers) and missing! Merci, not really familiar with the weapons systems also fired fully-manual with the same predicable results! As the TIE fighters swept in in two wings of three firing their turbo-lasers, Hodreth did what he could, but with only one set of shields could only protect one side at a time. Ogella tried dodging, but the power drain from the Gravity Well Projector made the ship sluggish, and the Bonderium was soon shuddering with blaster impacts on her hull!
As the Small fighters wheeled round them and the Rebels seemed unable to hit the targets, and the Elusive began to turn to bring it's larger armament to bear against them, Joe desperately realised they only had one option. Frantically his fingers flicked across the control console of the device forcing an overload into its system, He called out urgently to Merci, who abandoned her seemingly fruitless effort to shoot the nimble fighters and used the tractor beam to manoeuvrer the now shrieking device out into space.
As Merci pushed the device away from them it began sputtering and sparking. For a moment or two it seemed a toss-up whether the thing will last long enough to do it's final job. Soon however, as Ogella began he jump to light-speed, the comm channels were filled with distress calls as the Imperial pilots made a break for safety. The stars seemed to go black as the TIE fighters seemed to elongate as they were pulled into the Void. The last thing they saw as they Bonderium jumped was the Elusive, engines blasting pointlessly at full thrust as it was swallowed up by the ravening maw.
