Star Wars (7ABY; M04, D27): A Day at the Races
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Garth, Roger, Mon, Sekar, Morrigan, Ganen, and J’brel / [XP: 8]
Everybody was here!
Month 4; Day 27 (Continued)
After Ganen and J’brel were introduced to Morrigan’s dad and Gordo, everyone headed for the arena platform. As promised, Pop sprang for a taxi for everyone.
Upon reaching the arena, Ganen heard an unfamiliar male voice over his helmet comlink. “Ganen Sarad…”, the voice began. The Mandalorian immediately began to look around. “Don’t look around trying to find me”, the voice continued in a mildly chastising tone. “You’ll never spot me; you’ll just make yourself look paranoid. Relax, this is a good call; I promise.”
“I’m sure your mother told you when you donned that armor for the first time that you would be watched. Well, you have been; and quite frankly I just wanted to let you know that you’re making a good impression so far. You haven’t quite earned that mythosaur skull yet; but you keep doing what you’re doing and I guarantee you that you won’t have to wait long. Take care of yourself Mr. Sarad.”
The other PC’s of course never heard a word of the conversation, but they did notice that Ganen was in a somewhat better mood after that.
Garth, Mon, and J’brel all accompanied Morrigan and Pop to pay a brief but pleasant visit to Morrigan’s mother aboard the Mallix family freighter (a YT-2200). In discussing various planets which they’d visited, Mom mentioned there being heightened security at Serres Serrano when they came through on their way to Ord Ibanna; and the PC’s couldn’t help but wonder if their own last visit to Sullust had had anything to do with it.
Sekar wanted no part of the visit, Roger didn’t want to leave Sekar alone, Ganen thought his presence might be a bit awkward for a family reunion, and Gordo of course was just kinda hanging out; so the four of them instead continued spending money on junk food and silly souvenirs (even Sekar bought a silly balloon hat). Both groups eventually dispersed a bit.
While Morrigan was catching up with her brothers David and Aiden in the garage, J’brel’s attention was caught by another racer who was signing autographs for fans. She was a woman of around 50 years of age named Romina Herk, and J’brel was certain that she’d seen her somewhere before.
Getting in line for an autograph so that she could get a closer look at her, J’brel tried to picture her around 25 or so year younger; and that’s when it finally hit her. She couldn’t be positive, but she was about 95% certain that the woman was an actual Clone Wars clone; specifically a planetary piloting ‘type’ employed by the Revan towards the end of the war. J’brel got an autograph, but didn’t let on that she recognized the woman.
Meanwhile, Sekar had wandered off on her own when she suddenly found herself grabbed from behind and playfully lifted into the air. When the young man (who turned out to be another brother of Morrigan’s named Sean) set her down, Sekar flipped him over her shoulder and pulled a blaster on him. Sean just thought that she was just horsing around and lightly admonished her that pulling a weapon was going too far; but as he got to his feet, it suddenly sank in that this was actually the mystery twin that he’d heard about.
Sean identified himself and apologized, Sekar put the weapon away, and the two got to casually chatting; and he eventually invited her to take a ride around the track on his swoop. Sekar, normally fearless to fault, practically had to be pried off of Sean after one high-speed lap.
The race finally began around 11:00; and all of the PC’s and all of the Mallixes (except for Aiden who was racing and David who remained in the pits) gathered in one group up in the stands. Morrigan’s little brother Liam was delighted to meet the PC’s, but wound up repeatedly swatted by his mother for asking inappropriate question (like how many people Ganen had killed).
The race saw a total of three fatalities; two from collisions with stationary objects and one unfortunate soul who flew right off the track and plummeted into the depths of the gas giant below. “This is why I’m actually glad that my little girl became a mercenary”, Pop at one point commented. “You get shot, as long as you have a buddy nearby with a medpac you’ve got a pretty good chance of pulling through just fine. You smack a wall at 400mph, it’s over.”
Romina Herk wound up winning the race; followed closely by a Phuii named Mars Guo, who’d been the favorite to win. Aiden Mallix showed at 3rd; earning a little extra pocket cash from the betting window for his little sister.
Rather than fight the throngs of people shoving their way back to their ships, the PC’s just chilled in the arena until the crowds had thinned out. After a warm round of goodbyes between the PC’s and the Mallix family, the PC’s piled into an air taxi to head back to the refinery platform. J’brel and Sekar sat up front on either side of the pilot while the others packed into the passenger bench in back.
A couple hundred yards out from the refinery, the driver’s head suddenly burst open; spraying blood, bone, and brain matter all over the PC’s behind him. Several of the PC’s saw a flash from the top of a tall cylindrical structure, and a couple of them heard the crack of a slugthrower.
As the speeder suddenly plunged into a nose dive, Sekar tried to grab the controls and pull up as Ganen just unbuckled himself and rocketed his way to the platform. After J’brel unbuckled the driver’s corps and hurled it out, everyone helped Morrigan get up to the pilot’s seat.
As Morrigan managed to pull the taxi out of its death dive, Ganen flew all the way to the top of the structure (some kind of storage silo) where he’d seen the flash. Though he found it unoccupied; there was a hatch leading down inside. While the PC’s in the speeder indecisively discussed what to do, the Mandalore opened the hatch and slid down the 40’ ladder to the bottom of the silo.
Ganen cautiously made his way to the carbon freeze chamber where he ran into three humanoids (which would later be identified as Selonians). Two were armed with blast rifles and one with a glaive of some kind; but none of them were carrying slugthrowers, so he refrained from shooting first. Instead, he raised his rifle and asked if they spoke Basis; to which the two rifle-armed ones responded by shooting him. As the third jumped down off of the platform around the freezing pit and approached him, he decided to retreat.
As he ran back down the corridor through which he’d entered, he discharged the smoke grenade build into his jetpack. He hadn’t noticed that there were two more attackers on either side of the doorway into the freezing chamber, but he heard them coughing as he fled. By the time he got back to the silo, the other PC’s had landed on top of it, and the hatch was opened just as he came rocketing through it.
After the hatch was closed, Ganen gave everyone an account of what had just happened while Roger gave him a stimpack and Garth gave him some first aid. There was talk of just returning to their ship and leaving, but the decision was made to confront these individuals and find out why they were trying to kill them.
Morrigan flew Roger and J’brel down to the main platform and then waited with the speeder while they went inside. The plan was for Ganen, Sekar, and Garth to enter from the silo once they either got a radio call or heard shooting.
A carbon freezing chamber much like this one had been the last thing which J’brel had seen before her quarter-century slumber, and so she paused at the entryway while Roger went down to investigate a noise which they’d both heard from the freezing pit. Wisely, she kept her eyes scanning the entire chamber; and she shouted a warning when she saw movement among the pipes and hoses above Roger as he neared the pit.
Two Selonians armed with vibro-knucklers dropped down on either side of Roger and slashed at him. One managed to cut him pretty badly and got a blast bolt point blank to the face in response. J’brel bolted down the ramp, ignited her saber, and dispatched the second one.
A third Selonian, armed with a Czerka Model 38 slugthrower rifle, was hiding in the pit and nearly shot Roger in the head as he peeked in. Roger tossed a lit ion flair into the pit; and as the assassin scrambled to get it off of her as it singed her fur, the two PC’s jumped into the pit and wrestled her into submission.
As Ganen, Garth, and Sekar all slid one after the other down the ladder into the silo; they discovered that the trio which Ganen had run into previously was waiting for them. The two with the rifles blasted away from either side of the exit doorway, but couldn’t get a good bead on them. The third was waiting at the bottom of the ladder; glaive in hand.
A few feet from the bottom, Ganen hopped off of the ladder to make way for Garth. Rather than waiting to see if Garth would do the same for her; Sekar vaulted off of the ladder, did a backflip, and landed right behind the Selonian with her blaster drawn.
After the glaiver was put down by a single stun bolt from Sekar’s pistol, all three PC’s charged at the riflemen with guns blazing. Ganen’s carbine dropped one of them, and Sekar reached the other and attempted to intimidate her into surrendering. Rather than reacting with fear, the Selonian’s eyes flared with rage as they fell upon the Chiss; but before she could attack, Garth blindsided her with a flying tackle. As Ganen secured the Selonian; Garth rose to his feet, dusted himself off, and pronounced “You got Garthed!”
The PC’s all converged with their three prisoners and commenced to interrogate the two who were still conscious. Long story short: they were members of the Broken Shackle, they were after Sekar for leaving the Broken Shackle, and Sekar was indeed ‘Tempest’ (which Morrigan had already been starting to suspect after her unprovoked rudeness towards the Jedi children). Also as Morrigan had suspected, they had learned that Sekar was Morrigan’s twin sister and had camped out at Ord Ibanna just on the chance that they might show up there for the big race.
At one point in the conversation, one of the Selonians made a nasty remark about humans which prompted J’brel to whisper something back to her. Though none of the others could hear J’brel’s remark, the Selonian replied “but you let your life be ruled by them”. From that; Garth, and probably others, inferred that J’brel had just told her that she wasn’t actually a human.
It looked for a moment like the PC’s might be about to delve into another long ethical debate; this time with regard to whether or not they should kill the prisoners, who now knew more about them than the Broken Shackle had known previously. Garth, however, pointed out that the Broken Shackle was a known anti-Imperial terrorist organization and suggested that they just drop them off the with authorities on Sullust.
Knowing that people hung out around the abandoned platforms throughout the year, Morrigan didn’t want to leave the three dead bodies behind; so the PC’s decided to bring them along as well. Ganen at least had the decency to insist that they put the corpses into crates so that their surviving companions didn’t have to look at them for the next two hours.
Garth, Roger, Mon, Sekar, Morrigan, Ganen, and J’brel / [XP: 8]
Everybody was here!
Month 4; Day 27 (Continued)
After Ganen and J’brel were introduced to Morrigan’s dad and Gordo, everyone headed for the arena platform. As promised, Pop sprang for a taxi for everyone.
Upon reaching the arena, Ganen heard an unfamiliar male voice over his helmet comlink. “Ganen Sarad…”, the voice began. The Mandalorian immediately began to look around. “Don’t look around trying to find me”, the voice continued in a mildly chastising tone. “You’ll never spot me; you’ll just make yourself look paranoid. Relax, this is a good call; I promise.”
“I’m sure your mother told you when you donned that armor for the first time that you would be watched. Well, you have been; and quite frankly I just wanted to let you know that you’re making a good impression so far. You haven’t quite earned that mythosaur skull yet; but you keep doing what you’re doing and I guarantee you that you won’t have to wait long. Take care of yourself Mr. Sarad.”
The other PC’s of course never heard a word of the conversation, but they did notice that Ganen was in a somewhat better mood after that.
Garth, Mon, and J’brel all accompanied Morrigan and Pop to pay a brief but pleasant visit to Morrigan’s mother aboard the Mallix family freighter (a YT-2200). In discussing various planets which they’d visited, Mom mentioned there being heightened security at Serres Serrano when they came through on their way to Ord Ibanna; and the PC’s couldn’t help but wonder if their own last visit to Sullust had had anything to do with it.
Sekar wanted no part of the visit, Roger didn’t want to leave Sekar alone, Ganen thought his presence might be a bit awkward for a family reunion, and Gordo of course was just kinda hanging out; so the four of them instead continued spending money on junk food and silly souvenirs (even Sekar bought a silly balloon hat). Both groups eventually dispersed a bit.
While Morrigan was catching up with her brothers David and Aiden in the garage, J’brel’s attention was caught by another racer who was signing autographs for fans. She was a woman of around 50 years of age named Romina Herk, and J’brel was certain that she’d seen her somewhere before.
Getting in line for an autograph so that she could get a closer look at her, J’brel tried to picture her around 25 or so year younger; and that’s when it finally hit her. She couldn’t be positive, but she was about 95% certain that the woman was an actual Clone Wars clone; specifically a planetary piloting ‘type’ employed by the Revan towards the end of the war. J’brel got an autograph, but didn’t let on that she recognized the woman.
Meanwhile, Sekar had wandered off on her own when she suddenly found herself grabbed from behind and playfully lifted into the air. When the young man (who turned out to be another brother of Morrigan’s named Sean) set her down, Sekar flipped him over her shoulder and pulled a blaster on him. Sean just thought that she was just horsing around and lightly admonished her that pulling a weapon was going too far; but as he got to his feet, it suddenly sank in that this was actually the mystery twin that he’d heard about.
Sean identified himself and apologized, Sekar put the weapon away, and the two got to casually chatting; and he eventually invited her to take a ride around the track on his swoop. Sekar, normally fearless to fault, practically had to be pried off of Sean after one high-speed lap.
The race finally began around 11:00; and all of the PC’s and all of the Mallixes (except for Aiden who was racing and David who remained in the pits) gathered in one group up in the stands. Morrigan’s little brother Liam was delighted to meet the PC’s, but wound up repeatedly swatted by his mother for asking inappropriate question (like how many people Ganen had killed).
The race saw a total of three fatalities; two from collisions with stationary objects and one unfortunate soul who flew right off the track and plummeted into the depths of the gas giant below. “This is why I’m actually glad that my little girl became a mercenary”, Pop at one point commented. “You get shot, as long as you have a buddy nearby with a medpac you’ve got a pretty good chance of pulling through just fine. You smack a wall at 400mph, it’s over.”
Romina Herk wound up winning the race; followed closely by a Phuii named Mars Guo, who’d been the favorite to win. Aiden Mallix showed at 3rd; earning a little extra pocket cash from the betting window for his little sister.
Rather than fight the throngs of people shoving their way back to their ships, the PC’s just chilled in the arena until the crowds had thinned out. After a warm round of goodbyes between the PC’s and the Mallix family, the PC’s piled into an air taxi to head back to the refinery platform. J’brel and Sekar sat up front on either side of the pilot while the others packed into the passenger bench in back.
A couple hundred yards out from the refinery, the driver’s head suddenly burst open; spraying blood, bone, and brain matter all over the PC’s behind him. Several of the PC’s saw a flash from the top of a tall cylindrical structure, and a couple of them heard the crack of a slugthrower.
As the speeder suddenly plunged into a nose dive, Sekar tried to grab the controls and pull up as Ganen just unbuckled himself and rocketed his way to the platform. After J’brel unbuckled the driver’s corps and hurled it out, everyone helped Morrigan get up to the pilot’s seat.
As Morrigan managed to pull the taxi out of its death dive, Ganen flew all the way to the top of the structure (some kind of storage silo) where he’d seen the flash. Though he found it unoccupied; there was a hatch leading down inside. While the PC’s in the speeder indecisively discussed what to do, the Mandalore opened the hatch and slid down the 40’ ladder to the bottom of the silo.
Ganen cautiously made his way to the carbon freeze chamber where he ran into three humanoids (which would later be identified as Selonians). Two were armed with blast rifles and one with a glaive of some kind; but none of them were carrying slugthrowers, so he refrained from shooting first. Instead, he raised his rifle and asked if they spoke Basis; to which the two rifle-armed ones responded by shooting him. As the third jumped down off of the platform around the freezing pit and approached him, he decided to retreat.
As he ran back down the corridor through which he’d entered, he discharged the smoke grenade build into his jetpack. He hadn’t noticed that there were two more attackers on either side of the doorway into the freezing chamber, but he heard them coughing as he fled. By the time he got back to the silo, the other PC’s had landed on top of it, and the hatch was opened just as he came rocketing through it.
After the hatch was closed, Ganen gave everyone an account of what had just happened while Roger gave him a stimpack and Garth gave him some first aid. There was talk of just returning to their ship and leaving, but the decision was made to confront these individuals and find out why they were trying to kill them.
Morrigan flew Roger and J’brel down to the main platform and then waited with the speeder while they went inside. The plan was for Ganen, Sekar, and Garth to enter from the silo once they either got a radio call or heard shooting.
A carbon freezing chamber much like this one had been the last thing which J’brel had seen before her quarter-century slumber, and so she paused at the entryway while Roger went down to investigate a noise which they’d both heard from the freezing pit. Wisely, she kept her eyes scanning the entire chamber; and she shouted a warning when she saw movement among the pipes and hoses above Roger as he neared the pit.
Two Selonians armed with vibro-knucklers dropped down on either side of Roger and slashed at him. One managed to cut him pretty badly and got a blast bolt point blank to the face in response. J’brel bolted down the ramp, ignited her saber, and dispatched the second one.
A third Selonian, armed with a Czerka Model 38 slugthrower rifle, was hiding in the pit and nearly shot Roger in the head as he peeked in. Roger tossed a lit ion flair into the pit; and as the assassin scrambled to get it off of her as it singed her fur, the two PC’s jumped into the pit and wrestled her into submission.
As Ganen, Garth, and Sekar all slid one after the other down the ladder into the silo; they discovered that the trio which Ganen had run into previously was waiting for them. The two with the rifles blasted away from either side of the exit doorway, but couldn’t get a good bead on them. The third was waiting at the bottom of the ladder; glaive in hand.
A few feet from the bottom, Ganen hopped off of the ladder to make way for Garth. Rather than waiting to see if Garth would do the same for her; Sekar vaulted off of the ladder, did a backflip, and landed right behind the Selonian with her blaster drawn.
After the glaiver was put down by a single stun bolt from Sekar’s pistol, all three PC’s charged at the riflemen with guns blazing. Ganen’s carbine dropped one of them, and Sekar reached the other and attempted to intimidate her into surrendering. Rather than reacting with fear, the Selonian’s eyes flared with rage as they fell upon the Chiss; but before she could attack, Garth blindsided her with a flying tackle. As Ganen secured the Selonian; Garth rose to his feet, dusted himself off, and pronounced “You got Garthed!”
The PC’s all converged with their three prisoners and commenced to interrogate the two who were still conscious. Long story short: they were members of the Broken Shackle, they were after Sekar for leaving the Broken Shackle, and Sekar was indeed ‘Tempest’ (which Morrigan had already been starting to suspect after her unprovoked rudeness towards the Jedi children). Also as Morrigan had suspected, they had learned that Sekar was Morrigan’s twin sister and had camped out at Ord Ibanna just on the chance that they might show up there for the big race.
At one point in the conversation, one of the Selonians made a nasty remark about humans which prompted J’brel to whisper something back to her. Though none of the others could hear J’brel’s remark, the Selonian replied “but you let your life be ruled by them”. From that; Garth, and probably others, inferred that J’brel had just told her that she wasn’t actually a human.
It looked for a moment like the PC’s might be about to delve into another long ethical debate; this time with regard to whether or not they should kill the prisoners, who now knew more about them than the Broken Shackle had known previously. Garth, however, pointed out that the Broken Shackle was a known anti-Imperial terrorist organization and suggested that they just drop them off the with authorities on Sullust.
Knowing that people hung out around the abandoned platforms throughout the year, Morrigan didn’t want to leave the three dead bodies behind; so the PC’s decided to bring them along as well. Ganen at least had the decency to insist that they put the corpses into crates so that their surviving companions didn’t have to look at them for the next two hours.