Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic RPG

Recap the Twelfth

30 April 2011

Recap of the previous adventure.

Return to Exis

The party met at a rendezvous point with a Republic capital ship, captained by a Human named Salvor Iscandar. Captain Iscandar regretted to inform the party that he had no interest in taking back Exis Station - he had fought in the system once when the Sith were taking it over, and he had no intention of going back.

There was something they could help with, and perhaps he could offer some assistance in return. The Republic supply convoys were being intercepted after they came out of the Centares system, but all efforts to stop the attackers had so far met with failure. Captain Iscandar wanted the party to take a decoy supply freighter, and fly the route themselves - a couple times, if necessary - until they were ambushed. Then, they were to allow the ship to be taken aboard, and eliminate the pirates within their own vessel. That vessel could then be used to even the odds at the battle of Teedio.

It was the only option in order to complete their mission. The party left the Republic capital ship in their small freighter, jumped to the supply point, loaded up the cargo, and then jumped to the new rendevouz point.

Not surprisingly, they did not make it to their destination system. The Sith had an Interdictor-class vessel, which they were using to pull the supply vessels out of hyperspace prematurely. The Interdictor docked with the freighter, and that's when the firefight begain.

Fortunately for our heroes, the Republic loaned two platoons of marines for use in this mission. Breaker and Chuurga took command of one unit, while Zeka, Shagaar, and Kistra took command of the second. With the extra manpower at their disposal, it was a relatively simple matter to capture the ship and kill or capture all the Sith soldiers on board the vessel. The party took the vessel to the rendezvous point and met up with Captain Iscandar, who had managed to pull one more Republic battleship into the operation.

With three powerful ships at his disposal, even with the captured vessel being piloted by little more than a skeleton crew, Captain Isacandar liked his chances much better against the Sith forces in the Teedio system. First, the Interdictor would jump in, and move to dock at Exis Station. When the Interdictor had passed between the two capital sentry ships, the two Republic vessels would jump into the system and begin their assault. The Interdictor would join the fight, pinning the Sith in a crossfire. Meanwhile, our heroes would take the freighter, dock with Exis Station, find the holocron the Jedi Council wanted, and return to the Interdictor. All three ships would then jump out of the system.

It almost worked all according to plan. The party managed to get on board and fight their way through multiple Sith, including a few weilding lightsabers. When they reached the central vault, they found that it had already been cracked open by the Sith, who were in the middle of inventory when they were interrupted. It was a long battle with shelves and boxes hurled about, but eventually the party won out.

However, the vault was a total mess. It took precious time to locate not just one, but several copies of the desired holocron. Realizing they were pressed for time, they gathered up as many copies as they could find and threw them all into a makeshift sack, along with as many other holocrons from the vault as they could manage. After all, if this one holocron was dangerous in Sith hands, surely everything else in the vault had the same proscription.

The escape through the station was a harrowing firefight, but everyone made it to the escape vessel intact. The Republic ships jumped out of the system, satisfied that their mission was complete with a minimal loss of life, and they had captured a strategic asset from the Sith that would not easily be replaced.

A Sudden Detour

During the transit to Coruscant, Breaker managed to palm one of the holocrons from the bag and began to work on it. He spent days trying to make the holocron work, and eventually met with a partial success: he got the guardian of the holocron to appear. However, the guardian was intractable, and demanded that Breaker turn the holocron over to the nearest Jedi, as she would impart her knowledge only to a Jedi, and even then only under the most dire need. Eventually, Breaker managed to shut off the holocron, but he kept it in case he could find a buyer.

When the party reached Coruscant, they recieved a high-priority message from the Jedi Council. They were to put the captured holocrons into a lifepod and launch it towards the planet. Then they were to immediately turn around and make all due haste to Chazwa, which was currently under Sith attack. Shagaar's meeting with the Jedi would have to be postponed.

They obeyed - mostly. On the way to Chazwa, Breaker had an argument with Shagaar about Shagaar's sudden change of personality. Breaker didn't like that Shagaar was not apparently in league with the Jedi, going so far as to call Kistra "master" on occasion, and even taking her side in arguments of morality. Eventually, Shagaar felt he had no choice but to stop midway in the Castell system. There, he paid for luxerious rooms in a highly rated hotel, and treated Breaker to the best that money could buy - charging it all, of course, to Kistra's account.

All of this money flying around started to garner some attention, and Kistra's manner of dress and armament did not go unnoticed by the people either. Soon there were whispers that a Jedi had at last come to Castell, and that the era of the Exchange's dominion would soon be over.

Shagaar and Kistra tried to stay out of the Exchange's way for the most part, but then Shagaar managed to get himself involved in the shakedown of a local shopkeeper. After chasing away the thugs, he took the time to talk with the shopkeeper about how the Exchange had ruined the way of life on Castell. It wasn't long afterwards that the trio of Shagaar, Kistra, and Zeka began to trace the leaders of the local gangs, from one cell to another, up the ladder of the Exchange. First a loan shark, then more impressive and dangerous foes. Soon, they found an ally, or at least someone who didn't try to kill them immediately, who promised them a brand new top-of-the-line ship should they take out the leader of the Exchange's operations in the sector. So the trio found themselves in the midst of a full-on assault against the leader of the Exchange, who was holed up in a "secret" base beneath the very hotel in which they had taken lodging.

Entry into the boss's hideout was easier than they had expected. A few mind tricks, a quick dodge here and there, and they were in. But when the boss came home, he was not happy to discover that his base had been infiltrated, and called the heroes out. After the boss threatened the health and well-being of Breaker, who was still relaxing in the hotel, there was a fight. It was discovered that the boss had a special ring on his finger. Before the boss was defeated, he pulled off his ring and ordered a full-out attack - which brought an identical copy of the boss to help in the fight. And then another copy. Each wore the same clothes and ring, and each time the ring was destroyed, the remaining boss became more powerful, as did the resulting explosion. Shagaar even took it upon himself to aim for the rings during the battles, and the third explosion very nearly took out the entire complex.

Fortunately, the heroes survived, and lived to tell the tale to all who would listen about the end of the Exchange on Castell. Breaker was found unconcious in his suite, doped by someone who had found out about his connection to Shagaar, but he was otherwise fine. For their trouble, the party took the ship that was waiting for them, unregistered to any owner and unnamed, as their mysterious ally had promised.

To commemorate their adventure, Shagaar registered the ship as the "Breaker's Loss."

Trains, Drop-Pods, and Skimmers

They left for Chazwa only a few days behind schedule. When they arrived, it was almost directly in the middle of a firefight. Only Shagaar's excellent piloting skills saved the new ship from getting more than a few carbon scorings. They took refuge in a Republic ship, where the Commander of the fleet, a Human named Japla Croft, welcomed them to the battle.

Commander Japla did not like Jedi much, but he had more important worries on his mind. The planet Chazwa was of high strategic importance to the Republic, and his orders were to ensure that it did not fall into Sith hands. This situation was complicated by the fact that the Sith had come into the system two weeks ago and told the Chazwans that unless they surrendered, they would be annihilated. The people of Chazwa took a planet-wide vote and agreed to the Sith demands - by a majority of a mere 51%.

The democratically elected government of Chazwa had no recourse but to surrender to the Sith, but the vote had stalled the takeover long enough for Republic forces to jump into the system. The result was all-out civil war, raging both above and below the planet. Some of the citizens had taken to the Sith immediately, while others wanted to take them out. There was fighting on the streets of every city - in short, everything was a mess.

To make matters worse, the Sith had time to establish a dominant presence on the spaceports and airfields, which meant they had air superiority. If our heroes went down to the planet, they would be on their own for an unknown period of time.

But go down they must, for Commander Japla had a plan. The heroes would take a cluster of drop-pods down to the planet, hijack a train full of power cores and cold-adaptation tech, and take those overland to a rendezvous point just outside the capital city. The cores and cold adaptation would be applied to the tanks being assembled there. Then they would launch a full-on assault on the capital, which, if successful, may swing a new vote in favor of the Republic. The only way off-planet would be if they won. If they lost, it wouldn't matter.

After the briefing, the heroes were tucked into individual pods, and a mass driver relay launched them towards the planet surface. The pods were equipped with just enough air to make the trip, and a small, low-power inertial dampner that would only switch on the microsecond before impact. This allowed the pods to be dismissed by anti-aircraft weapons as unpowered meteorites (likely debris from the battle above), and increase the odds of landing safely.

It mostly worked. Only one of the pod occupants did not make the trip successfully, but as he was part of another team tasked with setting up a secure comm that happened to drop at the same time, the party did not let his fate affect their mission. They cracked open the pod that contained their supplies, including some open-air skimmers, and made best speed to the monorail.

Due to the extreme cold in this region, especially at night, the Chazwa train did not use conventional repulsorlifts, but instead relied on older technology that actually required magnetic repulsion and mechanical attachment. Shagaar used this to his advantage by using his lightsaber to split the durasteel track slightly at quarter-mile intervals, which he assumed would trigger saftey systems that would slow the train down slightly. Once this was done, the party pulled alongside the oncoming train, waited for it to slow down as it hit the adjusted track, and then jumped aboard.

They started on the last car on the train, as that was the easiest to board. They were surprised to find a whole contingent of Sith soldiers on board. Luckily, the party wasn't seen, so Shagaar took it in his head to bluff his way through as much as he could. He made it appear as if he had just come from the refresher, and started to walk through the car to the other side. He was stopped, and, after a brief argument, the shooting started.

After they cleaned up, the party made examined the contents of the car, and found the cold-adaption technology. They used the Force to push the box containing the tech into the snow more or less softly, and then moved to the second car. They took special care to disconnect the trailing car so that their unconcious foes would not route them later. The second car was full of human civilians, none of whom took kindly to the "aliens" that were making their way through their train. One of the passengers went so far as to contact the Sith in the next car, as there was a bounty on "loyalists" which he intended to collect. Shagaar did not take this lightly, and took the would-be traitor into the next car, holding him in front to block any errant blaster fire.

The negotiations were rough. The Sith commander was very pleased to have loyalists delivered to him, and was more than willing to pay the man what he was owed. After all, ingratiating themselves with the populace was one of their ongoing missions on Chazwa. But Breaker put an end to the talks by quick-drawing his blaster and putting a bolt through the commander's head. Shagaar and Kistra used their Force powers to run along the walls of the car, swinging their blades through the droid reinforcements, and ended up facing only half the remaining forces at the end. It wasn't too long before they had wrapped up the battle and taken a prisoner.

This looked like the car they wanted - it had boxes and boxes of power cores all lined up and ready, and all they had to do was make sure the train stopped at a loyalist city. But while Breaker mined the door to the next car, their prisoner watched. And when the party argued, the prisoner watched. And when the prisoner was interrogated, he laughed, and mentioned that he had kept an open comm the whole time. And more Sith were coming.

Shagarr lost his temper, and strapped the prisoner to the mines. Should the Sith come through the doors, they would kill their comrade-in-arms. But the prisoner laughed again - did Shagaar know these people he was fighting? Kistra convinced Shagaar to take the prisoner down, for there was no need to kill unnecessarily. They locked him up in the refresher, after taking his comm away.

Kistra, previously distracted, used the Force to ascertain the position of the Sith, and the news was not good. They were surrounded - two in the previous car, two in the next car, and one above. They used the open comm to figure out the trap the heroes had set, and moved along the top and side of the train to gain a strategic advantage.

The comm crackled, and the Sith gave an ultimatum: surrender, or the civilian passengers would be killed, one every five minutes.

Kistra was all for surrendering, but Shagaar and Breaker would have none of it. The loss of the civilians would be tragic, certainly, but Shagaar beleived that the objectives of the mission was paramount. Kistra felt that each life was sacred, even those of xenophobic people who wouldn't appreciate it. They argued for what seemed like a long time, until Kistra realized that the clock was ticking far too quickly. "Do what you have to do," she said. "Leave me behind if you have to. But I'm going back there, and I'm going to rescue those people."

While Kistra returned to the previous car, Shagaar decided to lanch his opening salvo. He cut open the top of the car directly underneath the would-be ambushing Sith, and started fighting. Meanwhile, two lightsaber blades appeared on the far side of the car: the Sith from the front of the train were moving in.

Kistra and Zeka opened the car door to find a charnel house. From the looks of things, the Sith had killed everyone in the car, and then called to make the party surrender. While Kistra was struggling to keep her emotions in check, Zeka pulled them both back through the door, shot the lock, and disconnected the passenger car.

But the Sith were quick. They exited through the side doors and leaped to the train while the passengar car screeched to a halt. It wasn't long before the party found themselves fighting five Sith Force-users, all armed with lightsabers and anger.

Zeka took one down with a well-placed frag grenade near the rear door. Breaker took down another with a combination of blaster fire and a sonic pistol. Kistra and Shagaar both took down one each, though Shagaar found himself almost completely helpless after trying to go head-to-head against a well-prepared Sith. Chuurga dropped all too easily when his blaster fire was redirected back towards him.

Eventually, all the Sith were eliminated, though for a few moments only Zeka and Kistra remained standing. While Kistra tended to the wounded, Zeka moved through the battlefield to administer point-blank shots to the head to all the Sith.

Once the whole party was back on their feet, they rushed to the engine room and eliminated the driver's captives. The train - and its cargo - was theirs.

The Adventure Continues ...