Immediately following is a creative writing insert to prep the players for the session.
Going from the war zone at Kirdo III into hyperspace was both a relief, exhilarating, and terrifying.
The Y-Wing was a solid state fighter and crawling into the cockpit had been a reassuring task, with the sturdy paneling and frame design.
But even with all of the thick armored frames, the view was impressive enough and you could still get a good 360 degree look in any direction.
And this was just Boomer’s second opportunity to jump into hyperspace in this tiny craft.
But the first jump had only been a couple of minutes ago . . . darkness just 12 minutes ago!
The whole experience had been like getting onto an exciting roller coaster ride, blowing through all the twists and curves once, only to get off in the middle of a firefight, while one scrambled through the cue line amidst a storm of blaster fire, only to jump back onto the front seat of the thrill ride and to be shot off without the safety briefing reminding riders to keep their hands and feet inside the car at all times!
But the ‘front seat’ view of the stars streaking past you, while sitting in a fighter was unlike anything Boomer had seen before.
Sure, she had seen it often enough while a passenger on freighters, but the visual inside the Y-Wing was unmistakably everywhere.
Boomer sighed with relief as her fighter settled into the omnipresent darkness of hyperspace.
When the jump had initiated, the Starbound Wayfinder had blocked out her view of everything to her starboard, and Boomer remembered Duster’s Y-Wing nestled just behind her and to the left in a neat formation. The Starbound Wayfinder had only been about 20 to 30 feet away while Duster’s fighter had been less than five feet from Boomer’s drive assembly.
And part of what freaked Boomer out now was the fact that she could see neither of those ships now!
Theoretically, neither of the other ships existed anymore while simultaneously still being exactly there. (It didn’t bear thinking but there was the one theory that said that both of the ships were perilously closer to her, separated by mere microns)! No, best not to think about that . . .
Behind her Goldie chirped and whistled with contentment.
On the translator, the R3 reported that the transition into hyperspace was successful, and that the droid was ‘pleased’ to be away from danger. ETA to Mechis was about 25 hours from now.
Then the droid started tooting and whistling, in it’s unique astromech voice, the theme song to the Girl of Ipanema.
“Stop it!” Boomer blurted. She couldn’t survive the next twenty five hours to Goldie ‘singing’ that song.
“Querry?” Goldie printed on the droid translator interface.
By the FORCE, Duster had been right about the X-Wing!
Break Out wasn’t out of the fray, yet, but he was a god among mere mortals in this craft.
He’d lost count of the number of TIE Fighters that he’d zapped, but he had easily become a double ace in the last ten minutes.
The Starbound Wayfinder had just streaked into hyperspace with the two Y-Wings on a slaved trajectory.
Break Out could stop worrying about whether his friends would survive the battle at Kirdo III.
Now if the blackened Polar Thrash could get its gears lined up!
The bulky Action IV had just powered up and the only thing left was for the crew to lock in it’s jump calculations for hyperspace and to push the go button.
But according to the Hiks theory, one couldn’t just toss that much mass into Hyperspace instantly!
That and the poor team were trying to make that task with only Humans. Now if they’d had a Duros to take care of that math problem, maybe Unsien could be on his way by now.
Back to work! Moss chided himself.
The sitrep was clear enough. That ISD was astern and punching the vacuum around his X-Wing with blaster bolts. Turbo-lasers actually!
That should be a scary thought for Break Out, but they’d have to connect, and thank the Force that the gunnery crews on the ISD had attended the Imperial Academy Gunnery Marksmanship School (what an ironic name) but Moss kept jinking and dodging the nimble X-Wing. No need to make the gunners job easy. Right?
Off to starboard, another swarm of TIE Fighters buzzed and swam around in a loose formation, but after watching his team swat scores of the fragile fighters with contemptible ease, they kept their distance from the X-Wing.
Well, that and with the volume of fire that ISD was pushing his way, the TIEs also kept out of way. No need for the Empire to lose any more fighters when this ISD could target his snub fighter now.
Now if only that Action IV would move!
Checking the scanners, there didn’t seem to be anything approaching the big bulk freighter.
The Imps had tried to board the Starbound Wayfinder with a shuttle, but that plan had hit a ray shielded reinforced steel barrier called Wrasp and Slider!
Unsien was torn.
Part of him wanted to break to port and race out to the Polar Thrash to see if there were any fighters (or other shuttles) that needed him to swat them off. But with the Empire’s attention on his tiny X-Wing maybe it was better if the attention were kept away from the seemingly dead Action IV.
The other part of him wanted to break to starboard to dive into that swarm of TIE Fighters so that he could teach more Imperial pilots the invaluable mistake of fighting his Black and Blue death machine!
Okay, decision made.
The Action IV jerked forward as it started to streak into hyperspace.
“Alright, Scarlet! Let’s start the jump to hyperspace!”
The droid responded with an affirmative series of chirps and initiated the program while Break Out tapped the switch to bring his S-Foils into flight formation.
A quick adjustment to Scarlet’s calculations shaved a minute of the jump calculations and the Duros slipped into hyperspace.
Even the almost unobstructed panoramic view from the X-Wing was superior to everything else! Well maybe that Alpha prototype fighter would be better. With it’s new bubble canopy.
But the light show in the X-Wing was still amazing!
Break Out was truly on top of the Universe!
Next stop. Mechis!
Cop pulled the headphones away from her sensitive ears as a woman screamed into the headset. Aliz, Cop thought until the other Twi’lek responded with a “Mon cherie! Mes oreilles!”
“We have GOT to do this again sometime! Soon!”
Cop blinked. Who was that?
“Yes! Yes!” the woman continued excitedly.
“Sern?” Cop asked over the coms.
“YES!” Sern responded. Light, the woman sounded like she was in the midst of an orgasm!
Cop shook her head and her leku quivered. She couldn’t share the Mirialan’s excitement, not with her front seat view of the battle.
Worse, the Cold Hand had just loosed a deadly volley of heavy Turbolasers at the Starbound Wayfinder and that barrage of fire had swept aside the ray shields of the C-ROC with contemptible ease and battered the hull with deadly consequence.
Cop felt it a miracle that this ship had held together at all under that battery of plasma fire.
She tried to swallow, but her throat was parched dry and her hands shook.
She couldn’t stop her hands from shaking!
But they were safe now.
Weren’t they?
Cop turned warily to her left and glanced at the pilot chairs with their sole occupant.
Wrasp was decompressing himself from the fight and Ghost didn’t want to intrude. The fight had been stressful for their commander.
Still.
“Captain. Do you have orders for the crew?”
Note: This is where the Role Playing Game Session actually began. Starbound Wayfinder
Now safe in hyperspace and with a twenty five hour trip to Mechis, most of the crew are given leave to get some much earned rest and relaxation. Most of them retire to their various quarters and sleep.
Aliz’fama, learning that her beau (and Sern) are trapped in their gunnery stations, notifies Captain Pooga, but he’s too exhausted to care. During the battle, the Starbound Wayfinder took a couple of hard hits from the Imperial Star Destroyer’s Heavy Turbolasers, which openned up some holes in the starboard side of the C-ROC. Presently, the cargo hold is opened to vacuum! (And the side gunnery stations are accessed via the cargo hold). Pa Pooga confirms that the two are “okay” and confident that they’ll survive for twenty five hours, heads off to get some much needed sleep.
Undaunteded, Aliz works with the available emergency gear to brave the vacuum and rescues her two ship mates from a twenty five hour ordeal trapped in their gunnery stations without food or water.
Aliz is also motivated with alone time with her boyfriend. But she also gets Sern out as well.
During his downtime Wrasp looks up the general information about Mechis and learns that the world is owned by Mechis Corp a subsidiary of KDY. The world is a mostly self sustaining planet with near total robotic automation devoted to the production of robots. It is the leading manufacturing world in the Galaxy for the production of the latest most innovative robotic designs with licence to produce just about any robot currently available. The on world staff numbers twenty people.
Before arriving, Wrasp briefs the crew on their mission to Mechis.
During the battle at Queyta the Rebel Alliance was able to destroy all of the Vulture Droids and ground based attack robots, but the five capital ships fled the system. DC-01’s job is to locate and (hopefully) destroy these assets! (1 Nebulon B Frigate and 4 Marauder Assault Corvettes). Failing that, the Alliance Navy want’s to know the location of these five ships so that they can destroy them.
DC-01 retrieved a Proxy Droid, working with this droid army and Rebel Intelligence was able to learn that the systems of Mechis and Geonosis may provide leads.
Wrasp’s plan is to talk with the people running Mechis and see what he might learn.
He orders that the transponder be switched from the Yellow Duck to one of their identities that hasn’t been burned yet. Wrasp opts for the Azure Duster identity.
Once the team arrives, Ghost starts scanning the system. There isn’t a lot of traffic in orbit at Mechis, but that’s not unussual, per Ghost and Duster.
Ghost determines that there is one ship on her sensors and it’s in an unussual location. It’s heading away from Mechis and it kills it’s engines shortly after the Azure Duster’s arrival.
Ghost positively identifies the ship as a GR-75 Transporter. Since it’s not a Neb-B or a Marauder, Wrasp ignores it.
Ghost also locates a substantial debris field orbiting the planet of Mechis, but it doesn’t pose a navigational hazard to the C-ROC.
Boomer declares a medical emergency and requests clearance to board the Azure Duster. Boomer is suffering from the Valarian Flu (Mirialan strain).
Without any threat, Wrasp authorizes her to board the ship. Duster opts to stay out and to continue to fly escort. (She’s been to Mechis before and is terrified because her last visit went poorly).
Break Out has not arrived with his X-Wing . . .
Ghost is contacted by the Mechis ground control and begins a conversation with a C3 protocol droid named C3-B9.
Wrasp reports to B9 that their ship is damaged and requests the opportunity to affect repairs. B9 reports that they are willing and able to facilitate any needed repairs.
B9 invites the Azure Duster to land and they are given clearance and an approach pattern to land next to the Customer Service/Reception (CSR) building.
Wrasp asks about the human personel available on the planet and B9 reports that they are unavailable currently. Both the Director and Sales Director are out with medical issues. But B9 is unable to provide details and claims that he doesn’t have any details to provide.
Shortly after signing off with B9, Break Out arrives in Red Duck (his X-Wing).
After being brought up to speed, Break Out also opts to fly escort until they land.
This is the first time for most of the crew to visit Mechis and visually, Mechis is an ecological mess. Most of the world is obscured in factory smoke (smog) and polluted clouds. There are rivers and lakes on fire evident during descent and they notice the obvious scarring from long term strip mining.
However the CSR is on a somewhat remote island and mostly separated from the worst of the pollution.
Other than site seeing, the descent to Mechis is quiet. Wrasp and Slider are piloting the Azure Duster down and are able to handle the wounded ship well enough in spite of the difficutly of dealing with the yawing that accompanies the damage to the starboard side of the Gozanti C-ROC.
Wrasp is looking forward to affecting repairs to his ship once he is able to discuss this situation with the ground crew.
The island that they live on has three structures immediately apparent. The CSR, is close by and there is a warehouse in close proximity. In the distance is a shallow but huge geodesic dome covering a lush forested area.
No one is readily in the area of the landing pad and Wrasp puts together a group to check in at the CSR. Break Out lands his X-Wing next to the Azure Duster while Duster continues to fly overhead in her Y-Wing. Break Out joins Wrasp. Slider joins up with Wrasp and the Commander asks Aliz to secure a cargo. She joins the trio so that she can talk to the sales agents at the CSR.
As the four of them disembark and walk toward the CSR Building a C3 Protocol droid emerges and approaches the group. The droid introduces himself as B9 and welcomes the group. The droid begins discussing the droid purchase options available from Mechis.
C3-B9 leads them into the reception area of the CSR Building and the automated lights begin to click on. The area were a receptionist might sit is unoccupied.
B9 tries to offer the group refreshments as they will be waiting for a bit, but all four decline.
Wrasp tries to press B9 for more details about the human staff and once pressed B9 drops his pretense and announces that its time for them to die!
From the back room, B1 Heavy Battle Droids enter, armed, and ready for a fight!
Wrasp rapidly draws his disintigrator pistol and blasts the malignant C3-B9 into pieces.
The fight turns into a retreating fight from the CSR building as five B1 Battle Droids push forward at shoot (mostly) at the retreating team members.
Aliz asks Wrasp for a weapon and Wrasp initially declines. He’s upset that the Twi’lek came unprepared for combat and urgers her to get back to the ship as soon as possible!
The team quickly exits the CSR, chased by the Battle Droids and Slider is able to jam the door shut with his blaster (after failing to close the door with the switch. The droids claim to have control of even the doors).
Once outside and now armed with his light saber, Wrasp relents and hands Aliz with is Blaster Pistol after watching Aliz beg a pistol off of Slider (without success).
Outside there are two colums of B1 Battle Droids approaching the ship and attempting to cut off the PC’s as they flee toward the CSR.
The PC’s mostly take light damage as they flee toward the Azure Duster while Break Out races to get back into his X-Wing.
Wrasp notifies Ghost that they are in combat and asks his team to man their weapons on the Azure Duster.
With Duster flying overhead, she wipes out almost the whole closest column with the last of her Proton Torpedoes. This gives the ground team the openning that they need to get back to their ships, but Aliz is downed.
Wrasp and Slider grab the fallen Twi’lek and drag her onto the ship. Slider applies a Stimpak and barely revives her. Meanwhile, Wrasp races up to the bridge so that he can get his wounded ship off the ground ASAP! Wrasp is joined shortly after by Slider and the two of them are able to get the transport off of the ground quickly.
Between the Y-Wing straffing the droids, Break Out’s X-Wing, and the guns on the Azure Duster which are brought to bear, the team disperses the droids after destroying about 25% of the Battle Droids.
Wrasp then orders his team to fly towards the geodesic dome.
Wrasp is looking for a way to get his team into the dome without landing next to the obvious ground enterance and asks Break Out to “make a hole” in the top of the dome.
Break Out is easily able to shatter several of the top panels with his X-Wing’s Medium Laser Cannons, but it’s still too small for Wrasp and Slider to pilot the C-ROC through the hole. Instead, the Kel-Dor brings his transport into a hover over the top of the dome and tries to figure out a way to insert a team down to the ground (with the X-Wing and Y-Wing flying escort).
They don’t have a lot of time to think about it as Ghost picks up a cluster of small ships inbound to their location (Range is L+2). Ghost directs Break Out and Duster onto an intercept course.
And the session ends!
Midday Onesday on CD 7-02.
Ghost cries out and vectors Break Out (Red Duck) and Duster (Green Duck) on a North North East vector.
She has detected between a dozen and a score of small airborne craft headed straight at the Azure Duster. Ghost also reports to Wrasp that the two air traffic radars have switched from general sweep to directed targeting! (One located close by on the east side of the island and the other one located on the west side of the island).
With the Azure Duster hovering above the habitat dome, Wrasp kicks the drives on and starts heading east, while pulling to starboard (away from the inbound unknown fighters) while Ghost calls the rest of the crew to combat stations!
They’re already at combat stations, but Aliz (Spice) stumbles out of bed and heads out to man the dorsal quad turret. She’s barely ambulatory but stumbles off to combat.
Break Out and Duster can’t even detect the inbound fighters and are relying on Ghost to vector them into the fight. They both direct their shields to double front and try to boost the forward shields until they merge with the enemy. (Boosting shields fails for both of them).
Wrasp and Slider (both piloting the Azure Duster) pilot their ship toward the east radar tower and notify Devo and Shiny (manning the port side weapons batteries) that they’re approaching the radar and that they intend to destroy the radar tower.
Wrasp and Slider also notice that the port side shields appear to be failing. That’s the side that the inbound fighters are coming from!
Break Out and Duster verify the inbound bogies and brace for combat. There’s close to twenty fighters and they’re clearly smaller than the X-Wing and Y-Wing that the Duros and Human (respectively) are piloting. Both pilots recognize the ships as they merge and report that they’re fighting Clone Wars era Vulture droids! (Which the group has already encountered)!
During the Merge, Break Out is able to blast two of the Vulture fighters and Duster takes out one on her own.
The programming of the Vulture droids isn’t up for a Merge attack and though several of the older fighters attempt to attack Break Out and Duster, none of them are able to land an attack on either of the rebel fighter craft.
Four of the Vultures continue to race toward the Azure Duster while the surviving Vultures break left and right to swirl back toward the rebel fighters.
Duster pulls out a Koiogran Turn then performs a Full Throttle to chase down the Vulture Droids that are attacking the Azure Duster. Due to Full Throttle, she is able to catch up and take out the Vulture Droids each in turn.
Meanwhile Break Out starts with a Tallon Roll (to his starboard) to intercept half of the other Vulture Droids. This allows Break Out to turn in tighter with his X-Wing than the Vultures. Scratch two more Vultures!
Next, Break Out pours on Full Throttle, boosting his X-Wing to speed 6. Break Out turns tighter to avoid the Vultures behind him from getting into range and attacking him from behind.
Duster is doing great taking out her Four Vultures and reports that the droid fighters aren’t even trying to avoid her fire!
Break Out executes another Koiogran turn, facing the fighters that he just outpaced and engages them in another Merge attack. With the small attack window, the Vultures fail to hit Break Out again yet the Duros scratches another two Vultures in his pass.
Azure Duster gets into range with their light turbo lasers to the east radar tower and Wrasp turns his C-ROC so that his gunners can line up a shot. Devo is able to send a salvo and takes out the radar tower.
Wrasp then turns to starboard, pulling away from the Vultures inbound, so that they are running a tailing engagement, giving Duster the maximum time available to finish off the Vultures.
Break Out continues his one sided slaughter of the Vulture Droids in a couple of minutes and clears the skies.
Wrasp asks Break Out to take out the nav radar located on the west side of the island.
Duster brings her Y-Wing along side the Azure Duster to fly escort while they return to the residential dome.
The scopes are clear and there are no signs of enemy opposition on the ground.
Wrasp sets down in front of the dome’s main entrance and they set up a team to head into the dome to investigate.
Wrasp, Break Out, and Slider head in on foot.
The trio are able to enter the bio dome with little delay. There is an air lock system to keep the air pollutants dominant on the planet from getting into the bio dome and the locks are just there to make it easier to keep the bio dome clean. (That’s going to become impossible shortly now that Break Out has blown the top of the bio dome open). There’s still a positive inner air pressure inside the bio dome so the air is fresh.
Inside the dome, the landscape is covered in plenty of green shrubs and trees. There is a clear and wide road that leads into the dome and there are meandering roads that lead to twenty obvious homes. Studying the hillside, it’s obvious that there have been scores of other residential homes like the ones present, but all were abandoned and or torn down centuries ago.
The greenery around the twenty homes are carefully maintained.
The trio begin walking in the bio dome to check and see if they can find anyone alive in this area.
They notice lawn maintenance droids still tending to the yards and taking care of the greenery, but there’s no sign of people or vehicles. All of the homes are large and structurally identical. The exterior decorations are all slightly different (colors and some trim details). And each home is settled on a four acre sized plot. Big homes on large well maintained yards.
After walking past about eight of the homes, the team decide to see if they can enter one of the homes.
They gain entrance easily enough and are greeted by a C3 series protocol droid who is happy to greet them. It introduces itself as C3-11 with the nickname “Won-Won.” It serves Camkeel Blakew and it hasn’t seen her in 283 days. The droid offers to prepare the three refreshments, but the three decline.
Camkeel awoke as normal 283 days ago and headed out to the CSR building for an early morning meeting.
Won-Won has no problem with the three heading upstairs and the team find themselves in an open home office environment.
With a terminal!
Wrasp asks if either of them know how to slice a computer and Slider is able to easily access the system.
Camkeel Blakew is the team Bookkeeper and her job was to post accounting transactions. They’re huge but everything seems normal up until 283 days ago. And then there’s nothing else recorded!
They check her email accounts and there is nothing unusual in the communications. Everything seems normal up until everything just stopped 283 days ago.
Without further investigation the team heads out to see if they can find anyone else.
None of the other homes are any different. They’re well maintained and there are sufficient droids to take care of them in evidence, but no people.
With no change to tip them off, the three approach another home.
They ring the bell and are greeted by another C3 droid named C3-B8 aka “Bait.” This droid was serving an Engineer Rodntris Chaask who also attended an early morning meeting at the CRS 283 days ago and Bait hasn’t seen anyone since!
Bait confirms that Chaask received a comms call from the Human Resources Supervisor Yveayan Hallpoo that morning and headed out to an early morning meeting at the CSR.
The team heads upstairs and hacks Chaask’s terminal and confirm that there isn’t anything unusual in the communications on Chaask’s calendar. They note that Chaask should have left a couple of weeks again for a vacation. But again, no activity is on his system after he disappeared 283 days ago.
Wrasp decides to pick up one of the local air cars so that the three of them can return to the CSR while leaving the Azure Duster at the bio dome.
The team finds a four person vehicle but because the vehicle has been abandoned for almost a year, the three of them can’t get that air car up and running.
Chaask (the engineer) has plenty of tools and a two person coup. They are able to get the two person air car up and running, but it takes some work.
Also, to help Boomer, the three of them raid Chaask’s tool kits and load them up. They’ll transfer the tools onto the Azure Duster.
Opting for the operational air car, Break Out decides to take his X-Wing to the CSR while Wrasp and Slider use the Aircar.
A while later, as the sun sets, the three of them arrive at the CSR to investigate.
The remains of the droids that they destroyed are still evident and when they enter the CSR and the lights flicker on when the three enter.
There are six offices in the CSR belonging to the HR Supervisor, Sales Director, the Chief Financial Officer, and Security Specialist.
In turn the team checks a couple of these offices for information. Chillingly there is little more known. Each office is personalized, and have been cleaned and maintained by the service droids for the past year. But business seemed to be going very well up until 283 days ago when everything just stopped.
Searching through the local records, the team learns the location of the Central Control Center (C3) and the Product Improvement and Testing (PIT). Both are located well West and slightly North of the island housing the CSR. It’s far enough away that the trip will take a couple of hours flight time with the Azure Duster.
However, they are reticent to head to the meeting room as that was the location of the last meeting.
The meeting room is clean and even has a relatively fresh tea service set up. (Weird).
The three search the room more closely and find that this was the location of a slaughter. Under some of the base boards and under the feet of the table, they find dried blood where the cleaning droids weren’t able to clean.
They also find evidence that some of the walls were damaged (and subsequently repaired) by a light saber.
It seems to confirm that the Obi-Wan Proxy droid was here earlier!
The trio check with building waste disposal system (looking for human remains) and they determine that while there is cleaned blood, there are no other evidence of the slaughter (no bones).
It’s now after nightfall but the team heads over to the warehouse.
Break Out flies his X-Wing over and noticing the delivery rail line to the island, Break Out attacks the line and severs the train line (hoping to keep another batch of Droids from arriving at the island).
Instantly its obvious that there was a battle here. Ship based medium and small laser canons were used in a battle here, quite some time ago and there’s carbon scoring and blast hits from scores of small arms blasters too at the warehouse. The main door to the warehouse (facing the CSR Building) are already open but the warehouse is bare. There is no stock stored in the warehouse and after searching the building, the three of them only find three droid parts and some left over packing panels. But the warehouse has been emptied out.
Wrasp decides to head out to the C3 next and since it’s a trip that will take a couple of hours, he asks that Break Out and Slider (as well as himself) get some sleep.
Break Out and Duster fly out with their X-Wing and Y-Wing and let the droids pilot the fighters on the two hour trip.
Devo is asked to pilot the Azure Duster to the C3.
It’s a quiet trip, but Devo hits the ground pretty hard and the landing awakens the team. Ghost’s announcement on the PA is unnecessary.
Wrasp, and Slider disembark the Azure Duster as Break Out lands his X-Wing next to the C-ROC.
They are approached by a pair of Battle Droids who threaten the destruction of the approaching team “Die Biologicals!” but the two droids are quickly and easily dispatched.
The C3 has a simple airlock system (to keep out the pollution) and after entering the C3, the team find themselves overlooking a recessed command and control center. There are eight B1 Heavy Battle Droids (just like the ones that were met outside) being controlled by a T Series command droid.
A battle breaks out and it looks like the three may have met their match! Fatigued and walking in with a couple of battles of wounds already, the team trade fire and blows with the eight droids. None of the PC’s are downed during the fight, and the trio maneuver into the pit, taking cover behind control terminals. They systematically overcome the eight Battle Droids and then turn their attention to the T Series command droid.
When Wrasp approaches the droid, it introduces itself as T-LMN8R and indicates that the battlefield is cleared and it accepts defeat.
Wrasp demands that the droid “Tell me everything!”
This could be a very lengthy response . . .
“A. First letter of the alphabet. Noun, often capitalized, often attributive . . .”
Pa Pooga, Slider, and Break Out begin their interrogation of the T series command droid T-LMN8R at the Control Command Center (aka C3) on Mechis.
Wrasp (Pooga) demands that T-LMN8R tell him “Everything.”
The command droid points out the impossibility of the task demonstrating that the Kel-Dor’s biological functions would cease before the Droid could accomplish that task and that if a direct electrical interface were permitted to be set up, the T-Series droid would simply melt Wrasp’s brain in the process.
Wrasp and Break Out try to ask the droid for further questions, but the droid refuses to give up any tactical data.
T-LMN8R may not have any current troops to command, but a nearby factory is preparing to finish a batch of 120 B1-B Heavy Battle Droids and another 18 Vulture Droids. In about 82 minutes those reinforcements should arrive.
Wrasp asks Slider to log into the C3 systems and to order a shut down of the factories.
T-LMN8R retorts that will be unnecessary as he’s already commanded a shutdown of the planet’s factories.
Wrasp is indignant that a factory is going to produce finished droids, but ALL factories are ordered to shut down?
T-LMN8R replies that both statements are true.
Wrasp and Break Out threaten to destroy T-LMN8R with their lightsabers and the droid scoffs at the notion that the ‘biologicals’ think that he’ll be destroyed if his ‘hardware’ is destroyed.
Wrasp asks if it’s because the T Series droid doesn’t feel pain, but the droid objects. It has several malfunction sensors so it can detect ‘pain.’
As an object lesson, Wrasp and Break Out each removed one of its arms (using their lightsabers).
Meanwhile Slider struggles to get past the firewalls that T-LMN8R is using to block his access. But the Bothan is able to bypass the security. Slider discovers that, yes all production on the planet is undergoing a systematic series of shutdowns, with the final factories scheduled to be shut down last. Slider doesn’t get a good picture of what’s happening before turning to the task of shutting down the local factory.
Wrasp and the Command Droid continue to trade barbs. The Droid reveals that it’s satisfied with it’s capacity to complete it’s mission and that the world was due to be abandoned anyway, especially in light of Wrasp’s allies arrival two weeks ago.
The droid also informs Wrasp that in spite of the disguises on his ship, that he recognized his team.
When Wrasp tells the Command Droid that he’s looking for the location of the ship Command One, T-LMN8R responds that the Nebulon B was never assigned to its Order of Battle.
“Bingo!” Wrasp thinks. He’s confirmed that the droids are connected to Command One and the Obi-Wan Proxy Droid.
Wrasp asks T-LMN8R about the GR-75 in orbit, but the Command Droid declines to comment on his “current assets.” He indicates that the plan was to relocate the assets out of the system.
Wrasp’s communicator chimes and it’s Ghost. She reports to her Commander that there are scores of ships launching from the surface of the world all headed to break orbit. The ships are smaller bulk freighters of various unrelated design, but mostly CEC models (From what she can determine at a glance).
Wrasp wants to take direct action against the battle droids coming online in about an hour and asks Slider to try to locate where that facility is on the planet.
Unfortunately, the geographical mapping data has been erased! Slider has no way to locate that factory!
Wrasp decides that it’s time to bug out! He and Break Out dismember T-LMN8R further and grab the parts. They want to take it back to the Alliance to see if their computer technicians can glean more information (like they previously did with the Obi-Wan Proxy Droid).
Wrasp stops by Engineering and asks Goldie to plug into the remains of T-LMN8R to see what the astromech droid can learn. But Wrasp needs to get his ship into orbit, so he heads immediately off to the bridge to get his ship off the surface.
Take off is uneventful, but the Azure Duster is slower than most of the smaller ship that are headed out of orbit, so the C-ROC won’t be able to catch up with any of the fleeing bulk freighter and merchant ships.
The fleeing enemy transport ships are all lining up and taking off into hyperspace all on the same exit trajectory towards the Galaxy’s Rim along the Corellian Trade Spine. But they could also deviate along the Rimma Trade Route as well as that junction is just point two parsecs out.
Lastly, Ghost detects the arrival of four very large contacts via hyperspace.
She determines quickly that they are Imperial Star Destroyers and learns that one of them is the Chimera!
With Thrawn’s reputation preceding him, the Rebels expedite their exit of the Mechis system!