Aftermath Session XIII

[baronsamedi]

Nelvaan is cold. Of that I have no doubt. I don’t like snow planets. Now I hear Nelvaan is not as inhospitable as some, Hoth for example. But it is still colder than I like. Good thing I have an All-Temperature Cloak. But I am getting ahead of myself, diary, the first important event was the fist victory for our little team of Bounty Hunters, half of us anyway.

I was keeping an eye on things outside the Sunrise when I saw Sigma-7 leaving with Tau-1. Now, since arriving on Susevfi from Utapau, we had been hearing about the so-called Droid Slasher. We had seen there was a bounty on whoever this freak was, and had noted the attacks on droids had not stopped. I decided it might be wise to follow Sigma, because the Droid Slasher, assuming they made an appearance, could easily decide to target the droid with droid specific weaponry. I decided to shadow them.

I am at home in the woods. I mean the wilderness is peaceful and all that, but I also am capable of using terrain, foliage, sounds of the animals, etc. In the city, however, I can take advantage of none of that, I am just an Ithorian, and a really big one even by the standards of our people. Thus while I was hopeful my lessons from Khayall would serve me well enough, unfortunately I don’t believe my shadowing of Sigma was terribly successful. First, Tau-1 waved cheerfully at me as they were walking, indicating they saw me shadowing him, but you know, they know me and such so maybe that was not too obvious. Then Sigma accosted a Rodian woman with a list, which was apparently groceries, to ask where to get them, and she recommend a shop in the sleazier part of town. Then she went up and told me to keep an eye on him…so clearly my shadowing was not what it could have been. I redoubled my efforts.

Sigma eventually went into a shop called “Skeemer’s Dry Goods” and spoke to a nervous looking Rodian inside. He apparently helped them select purchases and sent them on their way. As they traveled back, they passed through an empty alley. Now, I’ll be honest I really did not expect to run into the Droid Slasher, following Sigma was a precaution since we were waiting for the ship to be fixed anyway. But we did.

A flash bomb hit me suddenly. This was, I admit, a clue that my being sneaky was still not quite up to par, even with redoubling my efforts. I elected to stagger back and feign being blinded, however, as a man in a modified clone trooper outfit jumped Sigma and Tau. He had an ion blaster, blaster carbine, some ion grenades and a pair of thermal detonators. He was not taken as much by surprise by my attack as I had hoped…I hit him but it was a graze. Sigma attacked him creepily mercilessly, injuring him even as his ion blaster blasted Sigma. Fortunately, Greegan made Sigma tough, because Sigma kept moving, though unfortunately so did his assailant. His assailant turned and threw a thermal detonator at me. I moved away best I could but it exploded and hurt like a mother bitch. I think I said something like it tingled but you know that was for show. My bravado was lost on him though.

I shot a couple times at him but he used his cover and I missed. The droids faired better. Tau threw a cabbage at him and hit him in the head. Sigma hit him with his more lethal weaponry, causing him great harm and knocking his helmet off. He was a clone, one who had clearly lost his mind and scarred his own face brutally. He drew his other detonator and leapt at Sigma, apparently conscious by force of will alone. He fortunately did not manage to get over Sigma’s cover, and while the detonator blew up it did not injure Sigma or Tau too badly, though both were more then a little scratched up.

The police arrived soon, but we were not detained. We were bounty hunters, and claimed our first bounty. I was elated, but I realized Sheela was going to be pissed she was not part of it. May have been for the best though…I seriously don’t think she would have weathered the detonator as well as I did. I’m tough. Getting hit by a planet only knocked me out.

We collected the bounty, which was 5000 credits. Sigma and I split it, and I spent 500 on a necklace with a lovely gem for Aya that really matched her eyes. I looked at “Organa’s Secret” for some lingerie for her…but decided against it. For now. Sigma had to re-buy groceries (the old ones blew up despite Tau’s valiant effort to defend them) and we traveled back. Unfortunately as I predicted Sheela was angry. She was waiting on top of the Sunrise waving a gun and yelling at us for not taking her. Sigma and I pointed out we were shopping, holding up our bags. She seemed boggled by this, especially my jewelry purchase. She eventually stomped off. It was kinda funny.

That night I gave Aya the necklace. It was a very good night.

The following day we took off for Nelvaan. Greegan had finally added a docking thing to the Sunrise so Sheela could ride inside while her V-19 Torrent was stored outside; useful as many trips had taken a long time. This looked to be a shorter trip though, less than 20 hours, which Greegan seemed disappointed by for some reason. Still, Sheela did seem pleased by it.

The trip to Nelvaan was almost uneventful. I helped Elili around a bit, and spent that night with Aya. I had particularly good dreams. However, outside my little bubble, things were apparently less good with the herd. The ships hyperdrive stopped briefly, though Nika and apparently Khayall got it working within half an hour. Also, from what I hear, Jek, Khayall, and Namri all awoke from having bad dreams.

Probably nothing.

We approached Nelvaan. Now, we were supposed to be looking for a Jedi, whom we did not know anything about beyond that they were a Jedi, somewhere on a whole frozen planet. Somehow the difficulty of this had not sunk in for me until that point. Aya scanned the planet and found a few places where there was civilization, but nothing particularly unusual. Namri however sensed something a bit of a ways away from one such civilization, so we landed and checked it out.

The snow was thinner there, and we recognized an apparently abandoned Techno-Union stronghold and shuttle. As we poked around, Greegan stumbled over a frozen corpse of a Techno-Union Skakoan. Then we found more bodies of Skakoans. It was apparent several had been killed here, mostly by blunt trauma…and Namri said she felt a dark presence here, as if the Dark Side had been invoked. Well that is never a good thing. She said they were killed by a Jedi who threw them around like rag dolls…I hope I never meet this Jedi.

While several of us including Elili had come out (she wanted to see the snow; poor thing nearly froze, really not used to snow it seems) we sent her and all of the clones except Lucky back to the Sunrise, the clones to guard and Elili for her own safety. Nika and Tau remained behind as well to do whatever such small people do in the engine room.

We checked the shuttle first, but found little information. Greegan did find the computer had been accessed about three and a half years ago, which could well have been by our fleeing Jedi. All that was left to investigate after that was the Techno-Union laboratory, which Namri was leery of for whatever reason. It was built inside the cave, and seemed to have some form of genetic facility inside, which had been smashed. The remains of many Battle Droids and some IG-100 droids were inside as well. It was clear a huge fight had taken place here, but the particulars were hard to say, beyond the fact that a Jedi or two had been involved.

We split up a bit to search. I found a nest belonging to probably a family of large predators, and warned the others. Greegan found a weapons depot with a IG-100’s electrostaff and a weird bike with wheels and legs they called a Tsemu-6 Personal Wheelbike. Greegan was…happy to find the bike and rode around like a maniac. He offered Namri the electrostaff, which she took for when her lightsaber was not an option. Sigma took the IG-100’s cape that he was rather proud of.

Aya found the main computer of the base, however, and Lucky found a cave with paintings and a golden mechanical finger that he speculated was from a robot, though Greegan and Aya said it was from a cybernetic hand. Namri said there was a feeling of darkness from it, which really she was saying a lot by that point and I was now feeling a bit blasé about it. We split into two groups, with Sheela and I going with Lucky to check out the cave paintings (and Sigma to record them for Whistler) while Greegan, Jek, Aya, and Namri investigated the computer.

From what they told me, checking out the computer revealed the Techno-Union had been capturing and mutating the local Nelvannians into horrific cyber creatures. The security footage also revealed that Anakin Skywalker, who was now called Darth Vader and had apparently slain the bulk of the Jedi, had been there, and had fought to save the mutated Nelvannians. His behavior was apparently not really consistent with being on the Dark Side, but the killing of the Techno-Union types outside clearly was, even if it seemed to me the bastards deserved it from what I heard. Also…the golden finger we found was apparently his. Scary.

Unfortunately my group had bigger fish to fry. Our examination of the paintings revealed a recent battle took place, and a man with a mechanical hand that was damaged had lead the locals to victory, the locals some of whom were huge frightening creatures. This was apparently Anakin Skywalker, but we did not realize it at the time.

While we were looking at the paintings I heard something and looked around. Good thing too, we were being stalked by four large creatures, the size of great cats with huge tusks. Two were coming from each direction. Seizing the initiative, a screamed a bellow as loud and hard as I could, louder and harder than I ever had before. The results seemed pretty dramatic. Those who had felt the force of my bellow backed up and, after I fired a wild shot at them, retreated. That still left two, however.

Bellowing like that takes a lot out of me. I know I turned to find Lucky engaging one beast, Sheela the other. Things were, however, a little fuzzy. Doubly so after I hit the beast attacking Sheela with my face. I know we won, and Sheela got hurt. It looked to me like Sheela got shot by Khayall, like Greegan rode his Wheelbike in, leapt off, and beat one to death with a huge wrench while riding on it’s back, like Jek leapt on ones back and stabbed it repeatedly with a vibro-dagger…but that’s really all too weird I am sure it did not happen like that.

I need to not hit things with my face. Ever. Though somewhere in the haze, hallucinating (or not) Jek and Greegan on the backs of those critters, I remembered Varactyls, and how awesome they were, which is very awesome.

Eventually, I got up from the ground, which was nicely cool to the touch, and saw Aya fretting over Sheela and me, though she knew I was OK. Sheela and Khayall were arguing so maybe that did happen. Greegan seemed really proud too so maybe…

Naaah.

We shared information. Unfortunately while we developed a pretty good idea of what happened here; The Techno-Union had a base, mutated the locals, Anakin Skywalker rescued the locals, and that same Anakin Skywalker brutally killed all the Techno-Union present. Fascinating, but not really very useful to the situation at hand, unless I was missing something.

Which, honestly, I usually am.

When we left, though, we saw a small group of Nelvannians, mostly women, had gathered outside with their huge tribal masks and such. Nothing we probably could not deal with, but I had no appetite for combat with the locals.

But I was sure Jek would think of something to say. There were, after all, a lot of ladies.