Star Wars (7ABY; M06, D28-D29): Attack of the Droids
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Garth, Sekar, Ganen, VI-P2, and J’brel / [XP: 10]
Preston had visiting family and Bevin wasn’t feeling well.
Month 6; Day 28 (Continued)
After wrapping up with the local authorities on Sullust, the other PCs helped J’Brel get her things moved onto the Revenant. They also discovered that they had a holonet message from Agent Garber of Imperial Intelligence…
“I understand that you’re on Sullust investigating a string of murders. When you’re done with that, I have another string of murders going on on Coruscant that I could really use your help with.” The message also included a clearance code to use upon arrival.
Late that evening, J’Brel was tending to her long-neglected mushroom garden when Hoke took a moment to introduce himself to her; commenting that they had both found themselves jumping from the final days of the Republic to the present. He then listened intently as J’Brel talked about fungi for quite some time.
Month 6; Day 29
The Revenant reached Coruscant in the late afternoon the next day; and using Garber’s code, they were cleared straight to the Imperial Palace. The docking bay which they were directed to was pretty far down; so much so that even though the sun had not yet set, it was nearly pitch black.
The hangar looked like it hadn’t been used in years, but Garber was already there; waiting on his own near an interior door. After quickly catching up with the PCs and complementing Ganen on his mythosaur skull (which he’d subtly drawn his attention to), he got down to business…
“In the last three days, there have been seven attacks on mid-to-high-ranking Imperial personnel. Four were successful, and there have been a total of 11 deaths including collateral persons present at the times of the attacks.”
“The attackers in each case were all droids: some were clearly built to kill, others were modifications of innocuous types that are commonplace. In all cases they appear to have been meticulously scratch-built; there are no manufacturing marks on anything right down to the last diode. But the bigger problem is that five of the attacks happened right here in the palace, which means that we have a major security breach on our hands.”
“Natural, everyone assumes that it’s Rebels; and they’re turning the district upside-down looking for them. But I think they’re wrong, and that’s why I needed some outside assistance.”
“So far every target has been someone vocally supportive of the Empress and her Reformation. Given that this building is still lousy with Palpatine loyalists, I think that’s way too big of a coincidence; and I think COMPNOR is behind this. Right now, I’d like you guys to please do two things for me.”
“The first concerns my boss’ boss’ boss… Director Ysanne Lusankya; whom I think some of you at least briefly met when you brought Commander Maldeen back from Wayland. Despite everything that’s going on, she’s refusing to change her routine or take any extra precautions. I don’t know if she’s putting up a brave front for the sake of leadership, using herself as bait to flush out the assassins, or she’s just that stubborn. Whatever it is, I don’t want her to get killed; and she can refuse extra security from within her organization, but she can’t stop me from hiring mercs to shadow her.”
“I’m told that she’s on her way now up to the Inglenook to relax a bit and go swimming. It’s probably one of the most absurdly exposed public places on the planet. The passes that I’m going to give you, in addition to getting you most places in the palace, will get you into the Inglenook for free. There’s always a few bodyguards in the lobby, so nobody’s going to look out of place. So if some of you could please get up there and keep an eye on her, I’d be very grateful.”
“The rest of you I’m hoping will be willing to head over to nearby CoCo Town and pay a visit to a man named Zebedee Creakle. He’s a historian and apparently knows the ins and outs of the Imperial Palace better than anyone alive. Talk to him and see if he has any idea how these assassin droids might be getting inside so easily.” After again thanking the PCs for coming, he handed out the aforementioned security passes along with an image of Director Lusankya.
The Inglenook: Ganen, J’Brel, and Jacinta
The Inglenook was right on the Glitanni Esplanade: a big rooftop causeway (lined with high-end restaurants, shops, theaters, and so on) that connected right to the Imperial Palace. The PCs only had to change lifts a couple of times to get to the Esplanade’s level, and from there they were able to walk; arriving in a matter of minutes.
The sun was just short time from setting when the PCs reached the Inglenook, and they immediately understood what Garber had meant about it being too exposed. The swimming pool was basically an enormous transparisteel sphere; half-filled with water and connected to the Esplanade by a short enclosed corridor. It could be attacked from literally any direction, but had only one way in and out.
Only about a dozen people (including Director Lusankya) were swimming, and another half-dozen bodyguards and servants were loitering in the area where the corridor connected to the sphere. Looking at all the water, Ganen immediately thought of The Engineer’s signature explosive; but then recalled that Clev Barrant had stated that his little sister had not yet been able to replicate the formula.
The PCs also noted that there were three droids in the area. An R5 unit was doing some kind of repair on one of the drinking fountains, an MEV medivac droid was idle in the connecting corridor, and some hemisphere-shaped droid was slowly moving along the inner surface of the transparisteel and scrubbing it.
Principally concerned about an attack from outside, Ganen kept his eyes on the sky; while J’Brel watched the Esplanade and the connecting corridor. Jacinta hit the water; trying to stay close to the director but not look like she was staying to the director.
The last rays of dusk had not quite yet faded when the peace and quiet of the Inglenook was suddenly shattered by Jacinta shouting at the top of her lungs. “Contact!”, she yelled from the water. “Flatbed vehicle coming up right underneath us!”
From the edge of the water, the PCs couldn’t see the vehicle which Jacinta was describing; but looking down into the water, their attention was caught by something else. The little scrubber droid was at the very nadir of the sphere, and was now surrounded by a glowing ring of green light.
Before the PCs could process this, there was a loud ‘BLORP’ as the droid and glowing ring vanished. It had apparently cut a big hole at the bottom of the sphere; almost instantly turning the entire pool into a massive whirlpool and flushing everyone down with the water.
The PCs hopped and slid down the side of the sphere; falling through the cut hole and landing on the deck of the flatbed skiff. The water had all poured through the side railing; leaving the swimmers on the deck along with the scrubber droid and the circular piece of transparisteel which it had cut out of the bottom of the Inglenook.
A second droid, a generic humanoid model, hopped out of the skiff’s cockpit and began scanning all of the swimmers. As Jacinta crawled on top of Director Lusankya to shield her; the PCs rose to their feet, drew weapons, and attacked.
The scrubber droid was heavily armored and its lasers easily cut through Ganen’s armor, but his beskad eventually chopped a big crack in its dome; allowing J’Brel to finish it off with blaster fire. The pilot was very agile and armed with vibro-knucklers, but Jacinta landed a good stab after Ganen got wounded; and the PCs junked what was left.
CoCo Town: Garth, Sekar, and VI-P2
Taking Garth’s speeder, the PCs reached Creakle’s apartment building in CoCo Town fairly quickly; landing in the guest parking deck just as twilight set in. From there, they were able to take a lift straight to Creakle’s floor; which was the third down from the top.
Civilians tended to react with apprehension when the PCs approached them; but when their ring was answered, the elderly gentleman at the door was warmly beaming. Before even asking who the PCs were or what they wanted, he invited them and sat them down for some tea and cookies; clearly very lonely and desperate for any company that he could get.
Though now remembered as a historian, Creakle explained that he began as an ‘urban explorer’; which was how he’d come to know so much about the depths of the Imperial Palace and other abandoned locales on Coruscant. The PCs eventually got around to the reason for their visit (though they never actually said who they were or who had sent them); and when they started into the details on the droids, Creakle lit up in thought.
Briefly excusing himself to his office, he returned less than a minute later with a data card; which he plugged into the big holoprojector in the middle of his living room. Bringing up a 3D layout of the Imperial Palace, he zoomed in on a particular area and marked it. “I don’t think they’re ‘getting in’ to the building at all”, he began. “I think they’re coming from inside!”
“Many, many years ago; I came across a peculiar fabrication facility deep beneath the Executive Building. Well, didn’t just ‘come across it’ really; to be honest, I broke into it. Not so far down as the Municipal Layer or anything, but well below anything that was still in use.”
“It seemed to be equipped with everything you’d need to make practically any item up to around the size of a droid; raw materials all the way to finished product. All you’d need was the right raw materials and a schematic for whatever you wanted to build, and the machines would do the rest.”
“Couldn’t understand why it would have been abandoned and sealed off, and I spent days researching and researching until I finally found the answer. Well over a century prior, someone had set the place up for cheaply manufacturing common items that the building needed; basically just copying a design and cutting out the manufacturer. Seemed benignly enough motivated, save the state some money, but it was arguably unethical and inarguably illegal; and when the wrong person found out, it was ordered to be shut down.”
“I submit to you that someone else has discovered that facility. They’re fabricating their killer droids, and then just sending them right upstairs.”
As Creakle removed the data card from the holoprojector and handed it to the PCs, his doorbell rang. “Goodness, I’m very popular all the sudden today.
“I’ll get that”, Sekar insisted; rapidly striding towards the door. Reaching out with the Force, she couldn’t sense anything alive in the hall; and she opened the door.
The bizarre-looking droid in the hall was only around 4’ tall, but was armed with a nasty-looking pair of blasters. Though VI-P2 shot right past Sekar and badly damaged it, the droid vaulted itself up over the Chiss’ head and landed right in the living room.
At the same time, a second droid (humanoid and hovering just off of Creakle’s balcony on a jet pack) opened fire with a heavy blaster rifle. It shattered the balcony windows, but Garth had by that time urged Creakle to take cover.
Both droids were eventually blasted to pieces, but not before the small hopper opened up on Creakle and Garth at point blank range; severely wounding both. VI-P2 got pretty badly banged up in the exchange as well.
Rendezvous
Law enforcement and medical teams arrived at both sites within minutes. Between the passes which Garber had given them and the many green flags backing up their IDs, the PCs that needed it got medical treatment and were all then released with few questions asked.
It was well past sunset by the time the PCs regrouped at the ship. Creakle’s theory was they best lead that they had, and they immediately headed to check it out.
Given that lifts and passages tended to become unreliable below a certain altitude, the PCs decided that it would be more expedient to just take Garth’s speeder down to the approximate area of the abandoned factory and then try to find a way in.
With no starlight or city light, it was pitch black outside of the depths of the building; and in an effort to avoid being detected, Garth was minimizing use of active sensors. Between those two things, it proved exceedingly difficult to find an entrance; but they soon got some unexpected help.
Garth threw the speeder into an idle hover when the PCs detected a large droid coming up from below. It resembled a full-sized viper probe droid, but it had no head and had 6 arms instead of 5. Each of its arms was carrying a bulging mesh sack, and Sekar speculated that it was collecting scrap for the factory.
As the droid approached the side of the building, a vehicle-sized door opened up; briefly revealing a loading dock before closing again after the droid passed through. After waiting for a couple of minutes, they located a working control panel next to the door; and while it was a little awkward for VI-P2 to work while leaning out of the passenger window, she got it opened.
The portion of the dock which faced toward the outside was just a big open floor; probably once a loading and/or unloading area. The other half had several tall and widely-spaced shelving units full of all kinds of shipping containers. On the left side of the far wall, there was a large doorway at the top of a short flight of metal steps.
On the ceiling above the shelves was a movable gantry with a big jointed mechanical arm extending below. It looked as though it was designed to grab crates off of the shelves and then move them through an open space at the top of the wall; but at present, it appeared pretty rusted and deteriorated.
There was no sign of the droid which had led them to the dock; and the aisles between shelves were deep and wide enough that Garth could have concealed his speeder in one of them. He decided, however, that he was more concerned with being able to leave in a hurry; and instead just set down on the main floor.
Garth, Sekar, Ganen, VI-P2, and J’brel / [XP: 10]
Preston had visiting family and Bevin wasn’t feeling well.
Month 6; Day 28 (Continued)
After wrapping up with the local authorities on Sullust, the other PCs helped J’Brel get her things moved onto the Revenant. They also discovered that they had a holonet message from Agent Garber of Imperial Intelligence…
“I understand that you’re on Sullust investigating a string of murders. When you’re done with that, I have another string of murders going on on Coruscant that I could really use your help with.” The message also included a clearance code to use upon arrival.
Late that evening, J’Brel was tending to her long-neglected mushroom garden when Hoke took a moment to introduce himself to her; commenting that they had both found themselves jumping from the final days of the Republic to the present. He then listened intently as J’Brel talked about fungi for quite some time.
Month 6; Day 29
The Revenant reached Coruscant in the late afternoon the next day; and using Garber’s code, they were cleared straight to the Imperial Palace. The docking bay which they were directed to was pretty far down; so much so that even though the sun had not yet set, it was nearly pitch black.
The hangar looked like it hadn’t been used in years, but Garber was already there; waiting on his own near an interior door. After quickly catching up with the PCs and complementing Ganen on his mythosaur skull (which he’d subtly drawn his attention to), he got down to business…
“In the last three days, there have been seven attacks on mid-to-high-ranking Imperial personnel. Four were successful, and there have been a total of 11 deaths including collateral persons present at the times of the attacks.”
“The attackers in each case were all droids: some were clearly built to kill, others were modifications of innocuous types that are commonplace. In all cases they appear to have been meticulously scratch-built; there are no manufacturing marks on anything right down to the last diode. But the bigger problem is that five of the attacks happened right here in the palace, which means that we have a major security breach on our hands.”
“Natural, everyone assumes that it’s Rebels; and they’re turning the district upside-down looking for them. But I think they’re wrong, and that’s why I needed some outside assistance.”
“So far every target has been someone vocally supportive of the Empress and her Reformation. Given that this building is still lousy with Palpatine loyalists, I think that’s way too big of a coincidence; and I think COMPNOR is behind this. Right now, I’d like you guys to please do two things for me.”
“The first concerns my boss’ boss’ boss… Director Ysanne Lusankya; whom I think some of you at least briefly met when you brought Commander Maldeen back from Wayland. Despite everything that’s going on, she’s refusing to change her routine or take any extra precautions. I don’t know if she’s putting up a brave front for the sake of leadership, using herself as bait to flush out the assassins, or she’s just that stubborn. Whatever it is, I don’t want her to get killed; and she can refuse extra security from within her organization, but she can’t stop me from hiring mercs to shadow her.”
“I’m told that she’s on her way now up to the Inglenook to relax a bit and go swimming. It’s probably one of the most absurdly exposed public places on the planet. The passes that I’m going to give you, in addition to getting you most places in the palace, will get you into the Inglenook for free. There’s always a few bodyguards in the lobby, so nobody’s going to look out of place. So if some of you could please get up there and keep an eye on her, I’d be very grateful.”
“The rest of you I’m hoping will be willing to head over to nearby CoCo Town and pay a visit to a man named Zebedee Creakle. He’s a historian and apparently knows the ins and outs of the Imperial Palace better than anyone alive. Talk to him and see if he has any idea how these assassin droids might be getting inside so easily.” After again thanking the PCs for coming, he handed out the aforementioned security passes along with an image of Director Lusankya.
The Inglenook: Ganen, J’Brel, and Jacinta
The Inglenook was right on the Glitanni Esplanade: a big rooftop causeway (lined with high-end restaurants, shops, theaters, and so on) that connected right to the Imperial Palace. The PCs only had to change lifts a couple of times to get to the Esplanade’s level, and from there they were able to walk; arriving in a matter of minutes.
The sun was just short time from setting when the PCs reached the Inglenook, and they immediately understood what Garber had meant about it being too exposed. The swimming pool was basically an enormous transparisteel sphere; half-filled with water and connected to the Esplanade by a short enclosed corridor. It could be attacked from literally any direction, but had only one way in and out.
Only about a dozen people (including Director Lusankya) were swimming, and another half-dozen bodyguards and servants were loitering in the area where the corridor connected to the sphere. Looking at all the water, Ganen immediately thought of The Engineer’s signature explosive; but then recalled that Clev Barrant had stated that his little sister had not yet been able to replicate the formula.
The PCs also noted that there were three droids in the area. An R5 unit was doing some kind of repair on one of the drinking fountains, an MEV medivac droid was idle in the connecting corridor, and some hemisphere-shaped droid was slowly moving along the inner surface of the transparisteel and scrubbing it.
Principally concerned about an attack from outside, Ganen kept his eyes on the sky; while J’Brel watched the Esplanade and the connecting corridor. Jacinta hit the water; trying to stay close to the director but not look like she was staying to the director.
The last rays of dusk had not quite yet faded when the peace and quiet of the Inglenook was suddenly shattered by Jacinta shouting at the top of her lungs. “Contact!”, she yelled from the water. “Flatbed vehicle coming up right underneath us!”
From the edge of the water, the PCs couldn’t see the vehicle which Jacinta was describing; but looking down into the water, their attention was caught by something else. The little scrubber droid was at the very nadir of the sphere, and was now surrounded by a glowing ring of green light.
Before the PCs could process this, there was a loud ‘BLORP’ as the droid and glowing ring vanished. It had apparently cut a big hole at the bottom of the sphere; almost instantly turning the entire pool into a massive whirlpool and flushing everyone down with the water.
The PCs hopped and slid down the side of the sphere; falling through the cut hole and landing on the deck of the flatbed skiff. The water had all poured through the side railing; leaving the swimmers on the deck along with the scrubber droid and the circular piece of transparisteel which it had cut out of the bottom of the Inglenook.
A second droid, a generic humanoid model, hopped out of the skiff’s cockpit and began scanning all of the swimmers. As Jacinta crawled on top of Director Lusankya to shield her; the PCs rose to their feet, drew weapons, and attacked.
The scrubber droid was heavily armored and its lasers easily cut through Ganen’s armor, but his beskad eventually chopped a big crack in its dome; allowing J’Brel to finish it off with blaster fire. The pilot was very agile and armed with vibro-knucklers, but Jacinta landed a good stab after Ganen got wounded; and the PCs junked what was left.
CoCo Town: Garth, Sekar, and VI-P2
Taking Garth’s speeder, the PCs reached Creakle’s apartment building in CoCo Town fairly quickly; landing in the guest parking deck just as twilight set in. From there, they were able to take a lift straight to Creakle’s floor; which was the third down from the top.
Civilians tended to react with apprehension when the PCs approached them; but when their ring was answered, the elderly gentleman at the door was warmly beaming. Before even asking who the PCs were or what they wanted, he invited them and sat them down for some tea and cookies; clearly very lonely and desperate for any company that he could get.
Though now remembered as a historian, Creakle explained that he began as an ‘urban explorer’; which was how he’d come to know so much about the depths of the Imperial Palace and other abandoned locales on Coruscant. The PCs eventually got around to the reason for their visit (though they never actually said who they were or who had sent them); and when they started into the details on the droids, Creakle lit up in thought.
Briefly excusing himself to his office, he returned less than a minute later with a data card; which he plugged into the big holoprojector in the middle of his living room. Bringing up a 3D layout of the Imperial Palace, he zoomed in on a particular area and marked it. “I don’t think they’re ‘getting in’ to the building at all”, he began. “I think they’re coming from inside!”
“Many, many years ago; I came across a peculiar fabrication facility deep beneath the Executive Building. Well, didn’t just ‘come across it’ really; to be honest, I broke into it. Not so far down as the Municipal Layer or anything, but well below anything that was still in use.”
“It seemed to be equipped with everything you’d need to make practically any item up to around the size of a droid; raw materials all the way to finished product. All you’d need was the right raw materials and a schematic for whatever you wanted to build, and the machines would do the rest.”
“Couldn’t understand why it would have been abandoned and sealed off, and I spent days researching and researching until I finally found the answer. Well over a century prior, someone had set the place up for cheaply manufacturing common items that the building needed; basically just copying a design and cutting out the manufacturer. Seemed benignly enough motivated, save the state some money, but it was arguably unethical and inarguably illegal; and when the wrong person found out, it was ordered to be shut down.”
“I submit to you that someone else has discovered that facility. They’re fabricating their killer droids, and then just sending them right upstairs.”
As Creakle removed the data card from the holoprojector and handed it to the PCs, his doorbell rang. “Goodness, I’m very popular all the sudden today.
“I’ll get that”, Sekar insisted; rapidly striding towards the door. Reaching out with the Force, she couldn’t sense anything alive in the hall; and she opened the door.
The bizarre-looking droid in the hall was only around 4’ tall, but was armed with a nasty-looking pair of blasters. Though VI-P2 shot right past Sekar and badly damaged it, the droid vaulted itself up over the Chiss’ head and landed right in the living room.
At the same time, a second droid (humanoid and hovering just off of Creakle’s balcony on a jet pack) opened fire with a heavy blaster rifle. It shattered the balcony windows, but Garth had by that time urged Creakle to take cover.
Both droids were eventually blasted to pieces, but not before the small hopper opened up on Creakle and Garth at point blank range; severely wounding both. VI-P2 got pretty badly banged up in the exchange as well.
Rendezvous
Law enforcement and medical teams arrived at both sites within minutes. Between the passes which Garber had given them and the many green flags backing up their IDs, the PCs that needed it got medical treatment and were all then released with few questions asked.
It was well past sunset by the time the PCs regrouped at the ship. Creakle’s theory was they best lead that they had, and they immediately headed to check it out.
Given that lifts and passages tended to become unreliable below a certain altitude, the PCs decided that it would be more expedient to just take Garth’s speeder down to the approximate area of the abandoned factory and then try to find a way in.
With no starlight or city light, it was pitch black outside of the depths of the building; and in an effort to avoid being detected, Garth was minimizing use of active sensors. Between those two things, it proved exceedingly difficult to find an entrance; but they soon got some unexpected help.
Garth threw the speeder into an idle hover when the PCs detected a large droid coming up from below. It resembled a full-sized viper probe droid, but it had no head and had 6 arms instead of 5. Each of its arms was carrying a bulging mesh sack, and Sekar speculated that it was collecting scrap for the factory.
As the droid approached the side of the building, a vehicle-sized door opened up; briefly revealing a loading dock before closing again after the droid passed through. After waiting for a couple of minutes, they located a working control panel next to the door; and while it was a little awkward for VI-P2 to work while leaning out of the passenger window, she got it opened.
The portion of the dock which faced toward the outside was just a big open floor; probably once a loading and/or unloading area. The other half had several tall and widely-spaced shelving units full of all kinds of shipping containers. On the left side of the far wall, there was a large doorway at the top of a short flight of metal steps.
On the ceiling above the shelves was a movable gantry with a big jointed mechanical arm extending below. It looked as though it was designed to grab crates off of the shelves and then move them through an open space at the top of the wall; but at present, it appeared pretty rusted and deteriorated.
There was no sign of the droid which had led them to the dock; and the aisles between shelves were deep and wide enough that Garth could have concealed his speeder in one of them. He decided, however, that he was more concerned with being able to leave in a hurry; and instead just set down on the main floor.