Star Wars (7ABY; M06, D34 - M07, D01): The Return of Skywalker
-
Garth, Sekar, Roger, VI-P2, Ganen, and J’Brel / [XP: 10]
Bevin didn’t play.
Month 6; Day 34 - 35
With a little help from Jacinta, Garth got his most recently-scavenged parts installed on his airspeeder; and was now confident that it could actually outrun a grav scooter. He also had a conversation with Ganen; noting that his mother had seemed to up-play Val’s attractiveness and speculating that she was trying to set them up.
Month 7; Day 01
The Revenant reached Columex at around 09:00 in the morning. What little data they had on the Ilmari Trench suggested that it was on the narrow side; and since they had absolutely no idea what kind of situation they were about to get into, they decided to keep things reasonably low-profile. Setting the Revenant down at the nearest settlement to the trench, they geared up and piled into Specter.
Located in a remote stretch of wetlands; the Ilmari Trench was around 30 miles long, averaged around 50 yards wide, and ran as deep as 2 miles in some places. There were a number of entrances into the trench’s walls, but only one area (a rather sizeable subterranean complex) where Specter’s sensors picked up power flowing.
The only entrance large enough to get Specter through led into a hangar, which had plenty of room despite there already being two ships inside. One appeared to be the sort of custom starship that were popular on Taris; the other, to the PCs’ collective alarm, appeared to be a Revan assault shuttle!
There were no signs of activity and the sensors were picking up no life readings, so the PCs cautiously entered and touched down; swinging around so that Specter was pointed towards the doors in case they needed to leave in a hurry. Roger took a heavy rifle instead of his usual carbine, and both R4 and Jacinta were left behind to watch the shuttle.
No sooner had the PCs disembarked when they heard a gentle female voice across the hangar’s PA system. “Oy!”, she began. “You in the yellow; are you Viira Sarad’s boy?” Looking around, Ganen replied in the affirmative. There was an awkward pause before the voice continued.
“Aaaand, I don’t know why I thought there would be pickup mics in the hangar; uh, hang on… Ok, over to the left. Sorry, over to my left; your right; south side of the hangar. There should be a terminal.”
When the PCs reached the terminal, it was already being pinged by an incoming call labeled ‘Flood Shelter’. The woman who appeared when the PCs answered was indeed quite attractive, but also a good solid decade too old for Ganen.
“I’m safe for the moment”, she said when asked what was going on. “I’m sealed up inside an emergency flood shelter. Problem is, I’ve got six Defiler jet-troopers standing right outside the only exit with another dozen Revan slave-soldiers nearby. And those are just the ones I can see; there could be more. Got any ideas?” The best idea the PCs had was to fight their way to her, and she sent them a display showing the shortest route to the shelter.
The area just outside of the flood shelter was dominated by an enormous and seemingly-bottomless pit. Surrounding it was a broad catwalk with several doors, and standing just outside of the flood shelter door were exactly what Val had told them to expect.
Without a word, the PCs opened fire on the Revan soldiers. Despite the arrival of numerous reinforcements (including a dreaded Revan warbot), the PCs slowly made their way towards the shelter door; but about half-way there, Val’s now-frantic voice came over the PA with a dire warning.
“Guys! We’ve got a problem! They’ve just landed another wave of reinforcements; TONS of them! The hangar is cut off. If you’ve got another way out, go! Otherwise, get up here to the door and I’ll open it and let you in!”
Likely in anticipation of the arrival of the reinforcements which Val had mentioned, the few surviving Defilers retreated; and the PCs were able to make it into the flood shelter. Pleasantries with Val would have to wait a few minutes, however; as the PCs were far more concerned about Jacinta.
There was a terminal on either side of the door; each with a computer screen and a large display screen above it. The big screens were both currently displaying camera feeds; one from the pit chamber where the PCs had just been fighting and one from the hangar where they had landed.
After getting the hangar camera panned around towards Specter, the PCs spotted Revan soldiers marching Jacinta out of the ship; her hands behind her back in binders. She was then approached by an ununiformed young woman wearing a lightsaber on each of her hips.
The PCs couldn’t hear anything, but Jacinta appeared to speak defiantly to the woman; who eventually gestured for the girl to turn around and then used one of her lightsabers to cut her binder’s off. Jacinta then continued to speak; alternating between shrugging and pointing in various directions. Presuming that the girl had convinced the unknown woman that she was still loyal to the Revan, the PCs decided that she was good for the moment and finally turned their attention to Val.
“Well the good news”, Val began, is that we could theoretically hold out here for months. This shelter’s got its own reactor, atmospheric processing, water, and tons of food. The bad news is that there’s no way out except through there”, she said as she pointed at the door through which the PCs had entered. She then launched into how she’d actually ended up where she’d ended up…
“Four days ago, we were doing some inventory when some jackoff Revan stormed the place with a bunch of Defilers. After he lost a few guys and we lost a bunch, he offered to let my boss surrender; and he accepted and ordered me to stand down.”
“But after he disarmed everyone and got some information from my boss, he decapitated him as his men opened fire on the rest of our people. What he didn’t know, however, was that I had a vibro-shiv concealed in my forearm. I stabbed him right through the neck.” She then extended and retracted said blade, which was unmistakably similar to the one which Ganen carried.
“I was badly outnumbered and had no other weapons, so I fled. I sealed myself up in here; they left some guys behind to make sure I don’t go anywhere. And that’s how it’s been for three-and-a-half days now. I can only assume they’re waiting for someone or something to arrive that can get through that door.” She then gave a hopeful look and added, “Any chance you’ve got any backup that’s going to be here soon?”
The PCs had no tangible expectations to share, but Garth nevertheless gave her a reassuring smile; stating that he believed that something would work out in their favor. He then went on to explain that he spent much of his life injecting positivity into the universe; so that when he really needed it, the universe would give some positivity back.
At that point, the PCs’ attention was drawn back to the camera feed from the pit chamber; which was now brimming with scores of heavily-armed Revan soldiers. Several stepped aside to make way for the same woman who had cut Jacinta out of her binders; and after looking at the flood shelter door for a few moments, she reached out to the push-to-talk on the door panel.
“Attention whoever just arrived in VCX shuttle”, she began in a calm-but-cold voice. “I have no quarrel with you; though I will be taking the girl that you captured.” She paused for a moment and looked around and the dozens of corpses littering the catwalks. “Yes, you’ve killed quite a few of my father’s men; but they were expendable. My brother, however, was not; and I just want the Mandalorian bitch who killed him.”
“Now here are three truths… One, I’m not leaving without her. Two, we’ll get this door open eventually. And three, I really don’t want to take the time to do that.”
“So with those three truths you have two options. Just throw her out, and we’ll take her and leave. If you make me come in there after her, I promise you weeks if not months of regretting your decision before I finally let you die.”
Before any of the PCs could react, Val hit the talk button on the PA console. “Back away from the door”, she commanded. “I’m coming out.”
The PCs tried to protest, but Val just vigorously shook her head. “Look, she’s right! There’s no way out, they’re going to get through that door eventually, and nobody is coming to help us. I’m dead either way; and even if she’s lying about leaving after she has me, then you’re no worse off than if you… oh my god; is that happening right now?” Her eyes went wide as she pointed towards the camera feed from the hangar.
The PCs turned to see all unholy hell breaking loose. There was so much smoke that it was hard to discern what was going on, but it was clearly a massive firefight of some kind. A fourth ship, an old Corellian G9 Rigger, had landed in the hangar; and its main outboard gun had already blasted the crap out of the Revan assault shuttle. That same gun, along with the dorsal autoblaster on Specter and several unknown persons firing heavy weapons from the back ramp of the Rigger, were now mowing down wave after wave of Defilers and other Revan soldiers.
“They with you?”, Val queried. The PCs could only shrug; none of them recognized the Rigger or had any clue what was happening.
On the other screen, the PCs could see the unknown woman shouting orders as her soldiers rushed out of the pit area; heading back towards the hangar. Instead of following, she turned back towards the flood shelter door and pressed the push-to-talk again. “Who’s your backup!?”, she furiously demanded. “How many are there!?”
“Lots… and lots”, Sekar snarkily replied.
Before she could respond, she pulled a holo-com disk from her pocket; and the tiny image of an older Revan warlord appeared in her hand. Given her earlier comments, the PCs presumed that it was probably her father.
The woman was clearly protesting whatever the man was saying; but eventually, she unhappily relented. Putting the disk away, she jumped down into the seemingly-bottomless pit.
Rather than wait for the dust to settle, the PCs decided to assist whoever was slaughtering the Revan. Exiting the shelter and quickly moving to catch up, the mowed down the guys in the back while the last of the guys in front got mowed down as well.
Once the shooting stopped, eleven people emerged from the smoke and approached the PCs. One of them was Jacinta; unharmed but drenched in someone else’s (possibly several someone elses) blood. The remaining ten consisted of four young adult males and six youngsters in the late tween / early teen years: the Big Hitters and Clan Raven.
“Are you guys OK?”, Cisco and Tillian said in almost perfect unison as Jacinta ran forward and threw her arms around Ganen. “The Revan have retreated”, Tillian added, “but they’ll probably be back with more reinforcements.”
Asked the obvious question of how both groups had come to be there, Cisco gestured for the PCs to follow as he started back towards the hangar. “Let’s walk and talk”, he said, “and I think Miss Tillian should kick it off…”
“So, after we last saw you”; Tillian began, “using Satipo Forrestal’s data that you found on Murkhana, we were in fact able to find the legendary planet of Ossus. No Skywalker, no praxeum; but we did find some information on other systems which supposedly contained vergences or were otherwise strong with the Force. One of the closest was Auratera, believed to be somewhere here in the Vorzyd Sector.”
“With it having been a harrowing few weeks, we decided that the younger kids could use a break. So we came her to Columex, found a nice remote island with fresh water and sufficient food, and we dropped them off there with Mina and Zatt for some rest and maybe a little wilderness survival training.”
“Four days ago; Tanner, Bathilla, Tob, and myself all departed to begin our search. But we no sooner broke atmosphere when we spotted and were spotted by that same big red corvette that showed up at Murkhana just as we were leaving. So we dove back down into the atmosphere, away from where we left the others, and tried to make a run for it; but they ran us down and opened fire, clearly trying to disable our engines.”
“Having anticipated getting caught in such a situation someday, without getting into a lot of technical detail, we had rigged the engines so that they could be made to explode in a spectacular fashion; but looking like a mechanical malfunction and/or a lucky hit rather than looking like a self-destruct. And we had reinforced the escape pods and set them up to eject an instant before the explosion so that they’d appear to just be debris. Unfortunately, I was in such a panicked rush that I didn’t think to download the contents of our navicomputer; so we lost the route to Ossus and all the data we collected there; I’ll beat myself up over it more later.”
“Anyway, we detonated at such a high altitude that the debris spread out over a pretty wide area. Also, we were lucky enough to come down very close to an island with a lagoon where we could conceal the pod. And for the next three days, we sat there holding our breath while the Revan searched and searched. And then last night…” She gestured for Cisco to take over.
“So, we was coming in for a routine pickup”, Cisco began. “But not only do we not get any acknowledgement from the Trench, we notice there’s all these ships buzzing around and some of them have that rusty red paint job that a lot of Revan ships have. So we decide we’re just gonna turn around and contact the sector underboss, but then…” He jerked a thumb back towards Tillian.
“After days of waiting”, Tillian continued, “we spotted a ship in the air that clearly wasn’t one of the Revan ships that was looking for us. So using some equipment salvaged from the escape pod; we managed to send a one-way tight-beam communication basically begging them to contact the local authorities and let them know there was a Revan fleet in the system. But unfortunately…”
“But unfortunately”, Cisco continued, “Miss Tillian didn’t realize that there was a bunch of criminals on that ship who did not want to get the Imperials involved in anything. But at the same time, there’s no way we can just leave a bunch of little kids stranded on an island with Revan buzzing all over; so we dove down in there, scooped ‘em up, and ran like hell for the nearest settlement.”
“But that red corvette is faster than it looks, and they catch up with us and start shooting the hell out of us. But when we got to the edge of the sensor range of the settlement we were going for, I guess they decided they didn’t want a squadron of TIE fighters all up in their business and they broke off.”
“We made it to the settlement, but only barely; and there’s no way our ship is going to be spaceworthy anytime soon. So we laid low for the night; and then early the next morning, Crunch and Vince ‘borrowed’ an old G9 Rigger. They we made it back to where their other friends were, and we were all ready to get the hell out of here; but then…” He again gestured a hand-off to Tillian.
“Then I had a vision that you guys were in trouble”, Tillian said. “And with all that you’ve done for us, we had to do something.”
Cisco quickly jumped in. “And that was a big ‘hell no’ from me at first; but she keeps bugging and bugging and finally I’m like, ‘who are these people?’ And she starts describing you and almost immediately I’m like… ‘Crap. We know these guys, and we also owe them big time. Well, I guess you gotta die of something; let’s go get em’.”
By this point, they’d reached the hangar; but standing amidst the charred and mangled Revan corpses was a single individual who was still breathing. He was dressed from head to toe in black, and wore a hooded cape.
“Who the hell is this guy, now?!”, Cisco said as he and his buddies raised their weapon. “Hey!”, he shouted to the stranger. “You’re friends all bugged out; I suggest you do the same!”
The unknown man held up his empty hands and replied in a calm tone. “I’m not interested in any unpleasant confrontations”, he said. “I was merely hoping to bargain for the return of my starship and the droid which was on board.” He then slowly pulled back his hood to reveal that he was in fact… the dock worker on Velabri who three months earlier had paid Garth and Ganen 500 credits to steal the carbonite block that J’brel was frozen in and thaw her out.
Tillian went wide-eyed and gasped, then took a hesitant step forward. “Master Skywalker…”
The man smiled and nodded. “Your insight serves you well.”
The tense silence was abruptly broken as Cisco punched Vince in the arm. “You boosted Luke Skywalker’s ship!?”, he screamed.
“I didn’t know it was his!”, Vince protested. He then turned to face Skywalker as he pointed at Crunch. “Hey he’s the one who banged up your droid, sir; it wasn’t me!”
Cisco whirled around and punched Crunch in the arm. “You beat up R2-D2!?”
“Gentlemen, it’s fine; I assure you”, Luke said with an amused smile. “He’s been through a lot worse; he’ll be all right.”
Roger, meanwhile, knew that this was his moment. A very beautiful and obscenely rich redhead had promised to marry him if he brought her this guy’s head; and he didn’t look so tough.
Beyond that, he had also lost friends when the first Death Star was destroyed; so he was severely tempted. But with the kids around, he just couldn’t do it.
“We’ve been looking for you, Master Skywalker”, Tillian finally spoke up.
“I know”, the last Jedi replied. “And yes, the rumors of my new school are true; and yes, you’re more than welcome to come with me if that’s what you want.”
“It’s not just the six us”, Tillian sheepishly admitted. “We’ve got 24 more hiding nearby.”
“My answer doesn’t change”, Luke said with a smile.
Before that line of thought could continue, Tanner stepped away from his cohorts and approached the PCs with his head hung down in shame. “I want to apologize from the bottom of my heart for the way I behaved on our trip to Ilum and back. Before that trip, we had no freedom; and afterwards, we ended up with way more than we were ready for.”
“I remember when we left Ilum, I was so happy to have a real lightsaber; but I was also kinda depressed because I knew that the trip was half over. I wished that we could have spent the rest of forever traveling the galaxy with you guys; because those 19 days were, without a doubt, the best 19 days of my life. And I repaid you by given you one headache after another. And I’m sorry.”
“All a part of growing up”, Ganen reassured the boy. Garth gave him a big hug.
“Given all that you’ve been through”, Skywalker interjected. “I think the six of you have earned a little rest before you resume your training.” He then looked at the PCs as he continued. “Perhaps these good people could be persuaded to take you somewhere if they have no other pressing business?”
The PCs were firmly on board, and asked where the kids would like to go. As they all began pondering, Jacinta addressed Tillian. “You told me on Murkhana that you’d never gotten to just relax on a beach”, she said. Then then turned to the PCs and added, “I’ve been wanting to see Scarif again.”
“That would be perfect, actually”, Luke interjected. “After I get your younger companions settled into their new home, I have some things to attend to on Tatooine. After that, I can swing by and pick the six of you up.”
Val made a round of thankyous and goodbyes, then took off in the oddball ship; promising to get in touch with Viira’s mom and let her know that everyone was all right. Everyone else piled into the G9 Rigger with plans to rendezvous with the Revenant after they picked up the rest of the kids.
Though she knew that there was still much that she could learn from Master Ilderim, Sekar gave his holocron to Skywalker; reckoning both that he had greater need of his wisdom and that Hoke himself might like to get back to teaching. After another round of goodbyes and thankyous with he and the Big Hitters, the six eldest members of Clan Raven boarded the Revenant for another voyage with the PCs.
Garth, Sekar, Roger, VI-P2, Ganen, and J’Brel / [XP: 10]
Bevin didn’t play.
Month 6; Day 34 - 35
With a little help from Jacinta, Garth got his most recently-scavenged parts installed on his airspeeder; and was now confident that it could actually outrun a grav scooter. He also had a conversation with Ganen; noting that his mother had seemed to up-play Val’s attractiveness and speculating that she was trying to set them up.
Month 7; Day 01
The Revenant reached Columex at around 09:00 in the morning. What little data they had on the Ilmari Trench suggested that it was on the narrow side; and since they had absolutely no idea what kind of situation they were about to get into, they decided to keep things reasonably low-profile. Setting the Revenant down at the nearest settlement to the trench, they geared up and piled into Specter.
Located in a remote stretch of wetlands; the Ilmari Trench was around 30 miles long, averaged around 50 yards wide, and ran as deep as 2 miles in some places. There were a number of entrances into the trench’s walls, but only one area (a rather sizeable subterranean complex) where Specter’s sensors picked up power flowing.
The only entrance large enough to get Specter through led into a hangar, which had plenty of room despite there already being two ships inside. One appeared to be the sort of custom starship that were popular on Taris; the other, to the PCs’ collective alarm, appeared to be a Revan assault shuttle!
There were no signs of activity and the sensors were picking up no life readings, so the PCs cautiously entered and touched down; swinging around so that Specter was pointed towards the doors in case they needed to leave in a hurry. Roger took a heavy rifle instead of his usual carbine, and both R4 and Jacinta were left behind to watch the shuttle.
No sooner had the PCs disembarked when they heard a gentle female voice across the hangar’s PA system. “Oy!”, she began. “You in the yellow; are you Viira Sarad’s boy?” Looking around, Ganen replied in the affirmative. There was an awkward pause before the voice continued.
“Aaaand, I don’t know why I thought there would be pickup mics in the hangar; uh, hang on… Ok, over to the left. Sorry, over to my left; your right; south side of the hangar. There should be a terminal.”
When the PCs reached the terminal, it was already being pinged by an incoming call labeled ‘Flood Shelter’. The woman who appeared when the PCs answered was indeed quite attractive, but also a good solid decade too old for Ganen.
“I’m safe for the moment”, she said when asked what was going on. “I’m sealed up inside an emergency flood shelter. Problem is, I’ve got six Defiler jet-troopers standing right outside the only exit with another dozen Revan slave-soldiers nearby. And those are just the ones I can see; there could be more. Got any ideas?” The best idea the PCs had was to fight their way to her, and she sent them a display showing the shortest route to the shelter.
The area just outside of the flood shelter was dominated by an enormous and seemingly-bottomless pit. Surrounding it was a broad catwalk with several doors, and standing just outside of the flood shelter door were exactly what Val had told them to expect.
Without a word, the PCs opened fire on the Revan soldiers. Despite the arrival of numerous reinforcements (including a dreaded Revan warbot), the PCs slowly made their way towards the shelter door; but about half-way there, Val’s now-frantic voice came over the PA with a dire warning.
“Guys! We’ve got a problem! They’ve just landed another wave of reinforcements; TONS of them! The hangar is cut off. If you’ve got another way out, go! Otherwise, get up here to the door and I’ll open it and let you in!”
Likely in anticipation of the arrival of the reinforcements which Val had mentioned, the few surviving Defilers retreated; and the PCs were able to make it into the flood shelter. Pleasantries with Val would have to wait a few minutes, however; as the PCs were far more concerned about Jacinta.
There was a terminal on either side of the door; each with a computer screen and a large display screen above it. The big screens were both currently displaying camera feeds; one from the pit chamber where the PCs had just been fighting and one from the hangar where they had landed.
After getting the hangar camera panned around towards Specter, the PCs spotted Revan soldiers marching Jacinta out of the ship; her hands behind her back in binders. She was then approached by an ununiformed young woman wearing a lightsaber on each of her hips.
The PCs couldn’t hear anything, but Jacinta appeared to speak defiantly to the woman; who eventually gestured for the girl to turn around and then used one of her lightsabers to cut her binder’s off. Jacinta then continued to speak; alternating between shrugging and pointing in various directions. Presuming that the girl had convinced the unknown woman that she was still loyal to the Revan, the PCs decided that she was good for the moment and finally turned their attention to Val.
“Well the good news”, Val began, is that we could theoretically hold out here for months. This shelter’s got its own reactor, atmospheric processing, water, and tons of food. The bad news is that there’s no way out except through there”, she said as she pointed at the door through which the PCs had entered. She then launched into how she’d actually ended up where she’d ended up…
“Four days ago, we were doing some inventory when some jackoff Revan stormed the place with a bunch of Defilers. After he lost a few guys and we lost a bunch, he offered to let my boss surrender; and he accepted and ordered me to stand down.”
“But after he disarmed everyone and got some information from my boss, he decapitated him as his men opened fire on the rest of our people. What he didn’t know, however, was that I had a vibro-shiv concealed in my forearm. I stabbed him right through the neck.” She then extended and retracted said blade, which was unmistakably similar to the one which Ganen carried.
“I was badly outnumbered and had no other weapons, so I fled. I sealed myself up in here; they left some guys behind to make sure I don’t go anywhere. And that’s how it’s been for three-and-a-half days now. I can only assume they’re waiting for someone or something to arrive that can get through that door.” She then gave a hopeful look and added, “Any chance you’ve got any backup that’s going to be here soon?”
The PCs had no tangible expectations to share, but Garth nevertheless gave her a reassuring smile; stating that he believed that something would work out in their favor. He then went on to explain that he spent much of his life injecting positivity into the universe; so that when he really needed it, the universe would give some positivity back.
At that point, the PCs’ attention was drawn back to the camera feed from the pit chamber; which was now brimming with scores of heavily-armed Revan soldiers. Several stepped aside to make way for the same woman who had cut Jacinta out of her binders; and after looking at the flood shelter door for a few moments, she reached out to the push-to-talk on the door panel.
“Attention whoever just arrived in VCX shuttle”, she began in a calm-but-cold voice. “I have no quarrel with you; though I will be taking the girl that you captured.” She paused for a moment and looked around and the dozens of corpses littering the catwalks. “Yes, you’ve killed quite a few of my father’s men; but they were expendable. My brother, however, was not; and I just want the Mandalorian bitch who killed him.”
“Now here are three truths… One, I’m not leaving without her. Two, we’ll get this door open eventually. And three, I really don’t want to take the time to do that.”
“So with those three truths you have two options. Just throw her out, and we’ll take her and leave. If you make me come in there after her, I promise you weeks if not months of regretting your decision before I finally let you die.”
Before any of the PCs could react, Val hit the talk button on the PA console. “Back away from the door”, she commanded. “I’m coming out.”
The PCs tried to protest, but Val just vigorously shook her head. “Look, she’s right! There’s no way out, they’re going to get through that door eventually, and nobody is coming to help us. I’m dead either way; and even if she’s lying about leaving after she has me, then you’re no worse off than if you… oh my god; is that happening right now?” Her eyes went wide as she pointed towards the camera feed from the hangar.
The PCs turned to see all unholy hell breaking loose. There was so much smoke that it was hard to discern what was going on, but it was clearly a massive firefight of some kind. A fourth ship, an old Corellian G9 Rigger, had landed in the hangar; and its main outboard gun had already blasted the crap out of the Revan assault shuttle. That same gun, along with the dorsal autoblaster on Specter and several unknown persons firing heavy weapons from the back ramp of the Rigger, were now mowing down wave after wave of Defilers and other Revan soldiers.
“They with you?”, Val queried. The PCs could only shrug; none of them recognized the Rigger or had any clue what was happening.
On the other screen, the PCs could see the unknown woman shouting orders as her soldiers rushed out of the pit area; heading back towards the hangar. Instead of following, she turned back towards the flood shelter door and pressed the push-to-talk again. “Who’s your backup!?”, she furiously demanded. “How many are there!?”
“Lots… and lots”, Sekar snarkily replied.
Before she could respond, she pulled a holo-com disk from her pocket; and the tiny image of an older Revan warlord appeared in her hand. Given her earlier comments, the PCs presumed that it was probably her father.
The woman was clearly protesting whatever the man was saying; but eventually, she unhappily relented. Putting the disk away, she jumped down into the seemingly-bottomless pit.
Rather than wait for the dust to settle, the PCs decided to assist whoever was slaughtering the Revan. Exiting the shelter and quickly moving to catch up, the mowed down the guys in the back while the last of the guys in front got mowed down as well.
Once the shooting stopped, eleven people emerged from the smoke and approached the PCs. One of them was Jacinta; unharmed but drenched in someone else’s (possibly several someone elses) blood. The remaining ten consisted of four young adult males and six youngsters in the late tween / early teen years: the Big Hitters and Clan Raven.
“Are you guys OK?”, Cisco and Tillian said in almost perfect unison as Jacinta ran forward and threw her arms around Ganen. “The Revan have retreated”, Tillian added, “but they’ll probably be back with more reinforcements.”
Asked the obvious question of how both groups had come to be there, Cisco gestured for the PCs to follow as he started back towards the hangar. “Let’s walk and talk”, he said, “and I think Miss Tillian should kick it off…”
“So, after we last saw you”; Tillian began, “using Satipo Forrestal’s data that you found on Murkhana, we were in fact able to find the legendary planet of Ossus. No Skywalker, no praxeum; but we did find some information on other systems which supposedly contained vergences or were otherwise strong with the Force. One of the closest was Auratera, believed to be somewhere here in the Vorzyd Sector.”
“With it having been a harrowing few weeks, we decided that the younger kids could use a break. So we came her to Columex, found a nice remote island with fresh water and sufficient food, and we dropped them off there with Mina and Zatt for some rest and maybe a little wilderness survival training.”
“Four days ago; Tanner, Bathilla, Tob, and myself all departed to begin our search. But we no sooner broke atmosphere when we spotted and were spotted by that same big red corvette that showed up at Murkhana just as we were leaving. So we dove back down into the atmosphere, away from where we left the others, and tried to make a run for it; but they ran us down and opened fire, clearly trying to disable our engines.”
“Having anticipated getting caught in such a situation someday, without getting into a lot of technical detail, we had rigged the engines so that they could be made to explode in a spectacular fashion; but looking like a mechanical malfunction and/or a lucky hit rather than looking like a self-destruct. And we had reinforced the escape pods and set them up to eject an instant before the explosion so that they’d appear to just be debris. Unfortunately, I was in such a panicked rush that I didn’t think to download the contents of our navicomputer; so we lost the route to Ossus and all the data we collected there; I’ll beat myself up over it more later.”
“Anyway, we detonated at such a high altitude that the debris spread out over a pretty wide area. Also, we were lucky enough to come down very close to an island with a lagoon where we could conceal the pod. And for the next three days, we sat there holding our breath while the Revan searched and searched. And then last night…” She gestured for Cisco to take over.
“So, we was coming in for a routine pickup”, Cisco began. “But not only do we not get any acknowledgement from the Trench, we notice there’s all these ships buzzing around and some of them have that rusty red paint job that a lot of Revan ships have. So we decide we’re just gonna turn around and contact the sector underboss, but then…” He jerked a thumb back towards Tillian.
“After days of waiting”, Tillian continued, “we spotted a ship in the air that clearly wasn’t one of the Revan ships that was looking for us. So using some equipment salvaged from the escape pod; we managed to send a one-way tight-beam communication basically begging them to contact the local authorities and let them know there was a Revan fleet in the system. But unfortunately…”
“But unfortunately”, Cisco continued, “Miss Tillian didn’t realize that there was a bunch of criminals on that ship who did not want to get the Imperials involved in anything. But at the same time, there’s no way we can just leave a bunch of little kids stranded on an island with Revan buzzing all over; so we dove down in there, scooped ‘em up, and ran like hell for the nearest settlement.”
“But that red corvette is faster than it looks, and they catch up with us and start shooting the hell out of us. But when we got to the edge of the sensor range of the settlement we were going for, I guess they decided they didn’t want a squadron of TIE fighters all up in their business and they broke off.”
“We made it to the settlement, but only barely; and there’s no way our ship is going to be spaceworthy anytime soon. So we laid low for the night; and then early the next morning, Crunch and Vince ‘borrowed’ an old G9 Rigger. They we made it back to where their other friends were, and we were all ready to get the hell out of here; but then…” He again gestured a hand-off to Tillian.
“Then I had a vision that you guys were in trouble”, Tillian said. “And with all that you’ve done for us, we had to do something.”
Cisco quickly jumped in. “And that was a big ‘hell no’ from me at first; but she keeps bugging and bugging and finally I’m like, ‘who are these people?’ And she starts describing you and almost immediately I’m like… ‘Crap. We know these guys, and we also owe them big time. Well, I guess you gotta die of something; let’s go get em’.”
By this point, they’d reached the hangar; but standing amidst the charred and mangled Revan corpses was a single individual who was still breathing. He was dressed from head to toe in black, and wore a hooded cape.
“Who the hell is this guy, now?!”, Cisco said as he and his buddies raised their weapon. “Hey!”, he shouted to the stranger. “You’re friends all bugged out; I suggest you do the same!”
The unknown man held up his empty hands and replied in a calm tone. “I’m not interested in any unpleasant confrontations”, he said. “I was merely hoping to bargain for the return of my starship and the droid which was on board.” He then slowly pulled back his hood to reveal that he was in fact… the dock worker on Velabri who three months earlier had paid Garth and Ganen 500 credits to steal the carbonite block that J’brel was frozen in and thaw her out.
Tillian went wide-eyed and gasped, then took a hesitant step forward. “Master Skywalker…”
The man smiled and nodded. “Your insight serves you well.”
The tense silence was abruptly broken as Cisco punched Vince in the arm. “You boosted Luke Skywalker’s ship!?”, he screamed.
“I didn’t know it was his!”, Vince protested. He then turned to face Skywalker as he pointed at Crunch. “Hey he’s the one who banged up your droid, sir; it wasn’t me!”
Cisco whirled around and punched Crunch in the arm. “You beat up R2-D2!?”
“Gentlemen, it’s fine; I assure you”, Luke said with an amused smile. “He’s been through a lot worse; he’ll be all right.”
Roger, meanwhile, knew that this was his moment. A very beautiful and obscenely rich redhead had promised to marry him if he brought her this guy’s head; and he didn’t look so tough.
Beyond that, he had also lost friends when the first Death Star was destroyed; so he was severely tempted. But with the kids around, he just couldn’t do it.
“We’ve been looking for you, Master Skywalker”, Tillian finally spoke up.
“I know”, the last Jedi replied. “And yes, the rumors of my new school are true; and yes, you’re more than welcome to come with me if that’s what you want.”
“It’s not just the six us”, Tillian sheepishly admitted. “We’ve got 24 more hiding nearby.”
“My answer doesn’t change”, Luke said with a smile.
Before that line of thought could continue, Tanner stepped away from his cohorts and approached the PCs with his head hung down in shame. “I want to apologize from the bottom of my heart for the way I behaved on our trip to Ilum and back. Before that trip, we had no freedom; and afterwards, we ended up with way more than we were ready for.”
“I remember when we left Ilum, I was so happy to have a real lightsaber; but I was also kinda depressed because I knew that the trip was half over. I wished that we could have spent the rest of forever traveling the galaxy with you guys; because those 19 days were, without a doubt, the best 19 days of my life. And I repaid you by given you one headache after another. And I’m sorry.”
“All a part of growing up”, Ganen reassured the boy. Garth gave him a big hug.
“Given all that you’ve been through”, Skywalker interjected. “I think the six of you have earned a little rest before you resume your training.” He then looked at the PCs as he continued. “Perhaps these good people could be persuaded to take you somewhere if they have no other pressing business?”
The PCs were firmly on board, and asked where the kids would like to go. As they all began pondering, Jacinta addressed Tillian. “You told me on Murkhana that you’d never gotten to just relax on a beach”, she said. Then then turned to the PCs and added, “I’ve been wanting to see Scarif again.”
“That would be perfect, actually”, Luke interjected. “After I get your younger companions settled into their new home, I have some things to attend to on Tatooine. After that, I can swing by and pick the six of you up.”
Val made a round of thankyous and goodbyes, then took off in the oddball ship; promising to get in touch with Viira’s mom and let her know that everyone was all right. Everyone else piled into the G9 Rigger with plans to rendezvous with the Revenant after they picked up the rest of the kids.
Though she knew that there was still much that she could learn from Master Ilderim, Sekar gave his holocron to Skywalker; reckoning both that he had greater need of his wisdom and that Hoke himself might like to get back to teaching. After another round of goodbyes and thankyous with he and the Big Hitters, the six eldest members of Clan Raven boarded the Revenant for another voyage with the PCs.