Total xp accrued = 15 xp
Total credits paid = $146 each
You're aboard a strange ship with Le'ela, Count Olex and a Zabrak with a broken nose. What do you do now?
Barrett's first thought is to show everyone the datapad with the slave experiments, to see what their opinion is of the whole thing.
Barrett opens up the datapad, however the files are no longer accessible. It seems it's designed for local interface only. There are a few scraps of files cached on the device itself, but it's only useful for interfacing with files connected to the Paradise Village network.
A series of discordant bleeps and whistles emanates continuously from T1-NY as he continues to try and fight off the bolt while Intruder vacillates between helping and “let the masters control you, it'll be better!”. The droid manages to spare a millisecond of CPU power to set his paint scheme flashing, with a rather large (and somehow rude-looking) arrow pointing at the bolt stuck to his dome.
The Zabrak comes over pries the offending bolt off. He then tosses it to Barrett with a shrug.
Instantly the stream of data to the datafloor stops, and T1-NY is able to clean up the mess it caused.
Barrett takes in the new surroundings, blinking. “Le'ela? What are you doing here? I thought you were back on Tragen 'discovering' yourself?”
She nods her head in earnest. “I was, Barrett. I had so much to learn about and deal with…”
Flashback to the Caamasi commune on Targen
Le'ela is sitting in the small shack where she's been lodged. She's on the floor, meditating on what's she's learned about Memnii. The rain is pattering outside. She focusses on her memories. She hears the sound of rubber boots squelching as someone walks through the muck outside. She focusses on her memories. The squelching echoes in her head.
She's shrouded in a fog, alone with the squelching sound. When the fog clears, she's inside the cockpit of the Cheery Butler, looking up. The dried husk of the Krish assassin is staring down at them, looking shocked. His body squelches as it peels away from the ventilation grid. It hits the floor with a thud. She notes the back of his jacket. There's an emblem of a scorpion and a snake fighting on the back of it.
She's shrouded in fog again, alone with the emblem. When the fog clears, she's in the Heavy Spanner bar on New Marymore. There is something important here, but she can't remember what. She looks in the mirror behind the bar and regards the chaotic scene behind her. She focusses her attention, trying to remember. As she does, the scene slows down to a halt. The entire bar is frozen in time.
She hops off of her stool and walks around the room, intently looking for some clue. She goes table by table, looking at the patrons. None of them stand out to her.
Finally, near the door of the bar, she finds it. The jacket with the snake and scorpion emblem on the back. She looks up and sure enough, the Krish assassin is wearing it. But this time he's alive. She looks at the table. The human sitting there doesn't look familiar, but she's seen the Zabrak with him before. He's the one who was threatening DX-30; or will soon be threatening him, after she leave the bar.
She narrows all of her attention on this table, trying to remember what they were saying. Slowly, the scene around her returns to life. The bar's din is now a muffled cacophony. She concentrates harder, watching the lips around the table moving, trying to make out what they're saying. Slowly, she begins to pick out words.
The Human: “…landed just yesterday…”
The Zabrak: “…a crew…”
The Krish: “…an end to it…”
The Human: “…no…more info…”
The Zabrak: “…out what he knows…”
The Krish: “…don't like it…”
And then the voices slipped back into the muffled din. She tries to pick up the conversation again, but it is no use. The scene starts getting foggy again. She searches around for any last clue, and only then notices Barrett and T1-NY in the bar as well, being greeted by a table of nerf herders.
She's shrouded in fog again, alone. When the fog clears, she's sitting on the floor of her hut. She shakes her head and knows immediately what she needs to do. She gets up and begins to make arrangements to fly back to New Marymore.
Flashforward
“I tracked down Zeroh,” referring to the Zabrak. “Olex was still with him, waiting, just like DX30 had told him too. I explained what we had been doing, about the sketchy deliveries and everything, and he seemed unsurprised. He said you and others were in danger. He introduced me to Hena,” gesturing to the Human currently flying the ship, “who had been able to intercept your last delivery instructions, and so we headed out here.”
Le'ela stopped to take a breath. “Looks like we got here just in time. We saw the Butler in the landing dock, and camped out, waiting for you two to get back. A few minutes later a guy in a white lab coat came running out of the building, hopped in a company star-hopper, and took off. Right after that, we saw an all black ship take-off after him.”
Le'ela stops to take another breath. (Good thing she's here to tell you about all these plot points in a smooth, effortless fashion.) “As soon as that black ship took off, Zeroh jumped out and ran to the Butler. Then he came back, the Butler took-off in the opposite direction, and then you two came out with that old guy I shocked. I have no idea what's going on, but it sure seems serious.”
“Good riddance to Dr. Coh'loe - he's a creep doing some weird pain experiments on slaves. From what I gathered, it's mind control crap forcing them to be happy while they're being abused. It looked like he had some limited success, but not enough to make his superiors happy.” Barrett sighs. “The second we get get back to the Cheery Butler, we need to chat with our employer… I may be dying. T1 opened the package, and some weird mist came out. I managed to make it out of the room, but I'm not feeling well. I need to find out what that spray was.”
Zeroh looks grimly at Hena, who had turned his head slightly from the control array, before muttering to himself and returning his attention to the display before him. The Zabrak looks and Barrett. “We're heading to Garoute now. When we get there, we'll sit down with DX and get everything clear, decide our next course of action, and we can find a medical facility to get you checked-out in, if that's what you want. Until then, we should sit tight.” Zeroh then goes to the cockpit, and closes the door behind him.
—
When the ship arrives at the space port, the Cheery Butler is in its usual spot, acting as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Hena lands the Swallow not far away and the six of them make their way discretely to the Butler, with Barrett in the lead. He guides them to the lounge, and allows everyone to get comfortable.
“Welcome back home, all of you.” DX31's voice modulates over the stereo system. “I think we have a lot to discuss.”
Fire away. Ask as many questions as you like. Upgrade to any social checks made in this plush lounge.
Hena gets up and grabs a drink from the bar. He hands it to Barrett, making eye contact with him. “You seem pretty shaken up. You're safe now, and we're going to get to the bottom of this. And we're going to make it all stop. And you won't have to do this anymore. We just need to know everything you know. And in exchange, we'll tell you everything you want to know. Deal?” He returns to his seat, adjusting his shirt as he does. There's a glimpse of a tattoo on his left bicep that quickly gets covered up again.
Does Barrett recognize the tattoo? Is it similar to K'arana's tattoo?
“First, who the kriff are you? Some sort of union rep?” He slugs his drink back, then continues. “Look, the root of the problem is that we were hired under false pretenses. 'Not dangerous work. Very Easy' - in our very first job, Le'ela was nearly squished by a rogue elevator, got mistaken for the Black Sun, and framed for murder! Since then, we were nearly electrocuted and shot in a coup attempt, T1's been bolted several times against his will, I was 12 inches away from a client's assassination and we were locked in a panic room for hours with a conspiracy theorist when the government raided our delivery location, there were not enough escape pods available when the ship was nearly destroyed by asteroids due to inadequate piloting (and without me DX31 would be space dust) and then we crash-landed on a remote planet, and FINALLY, when we thought we would have an easy job on a luxury cruiser, it turns out that our client is really an evil scientist who experiments on people by drugging them and torturing them, and when he sprinted out of the room, that box of yours started spraying crazy gas everywhere, and now I feel sick.”
Barrett takes a deep breath - an impressive sentence, but tiring. He continues in a lower, calmer tone. “Were you trying to assassinate the guy or what? We signed up to deliver packages, and we ended up being some sort of secret agents delivering chemical bombs! You're all just lucky T1 and I are way more competent than our pay scale. Who the frak are you really working for? And how can we stop that cruise ship of death?”
Hena nods his head knowingly, a smirk playing at his face. His eyebrows jump a little when Barrett mentions the the coup, but otherwise he seems genuinely amused by his laundry list of 'easy work'. “So, you're saying there were no rancors this time?” He looks over at Zeroh. “He didn't mention rancors. Did you hear him mention rancors?” Back to Barrett, “The first time we had to deal with rancors was bad enough. But the second time was our limit. The client was most displeased so see us, so he threw us into his dungeon with a couple of those things. We blew out a wall to escape, but Kella lost his brother on that delivery. That when we decided to call it quits. As soon as we got back to the Butler, we handed in our resignation. We were flying past New Marymore when an all-black ship intercepted us and began to override the controls, shutting down the oxygen. I was able to hold off their splice long enough for Zeroh and Kella and me to get to escape pods. We said so long to DX and got the frak out of there. We landed on New Marymore and have been trying to put our lives together ever since.”
Hena leans back in his chair, looking a little sorrowful. “Kella had the hardest time moving on though. Krish burial services are very important to them, but we had to leave his brother's body behind for rancor bait. When we found out that DX29 was New Marymore looking for a crew, he was livid. Zeroh agreed to come aboard and see what the frak was going on, but the conversation was pointless. DX29 had no recollection of what he was saying. Kella didn't buy it though, and figured he needed to personally put an end to DX29's Delivery Service.” He stops to look around at the crew. “I guess you all know how that went.”
The human reaches into an inside pocket. “That night, Olex found Zeroh and gave him this,” he says holding up a datachip.
“I found it odd,” DX's modulation piped up over the speakers again, “what Zeroh was claiming, and made me think that there were certain irregularities in my memory banks. I copied them onto that chip with the hopes that maybe they could find some meaning to it all. What did you find?”
Hena gets up and walks up the staits to the cockpit. “Why don't you see for yourself?” He's gone for a few minutes, and when he returns, DX31 has analysed the datachip.
“I see. So our employer has performed partial memory wipes at frequent intervals. Always after the crew decides to quit my employ, to cover for how dangerous this work really is. I see.”
T1-NY bleeps at that. « How could UDTS do that? Don't they care about the dignity of droids and their memory banks?? That's not how I'll run my criminal… er… bleep bloop oh my! »
( ( Hurts to find out one of your heroes want to kill you, doesn't it? ) ) Intruder chimes in.
DX31 scans a bit more. “Ah, I see. 3 times over the past 5 years I've discovered that we are actually working for Black Sun. Our employer has been forging UDTS credentials this whole time.” The ship is silent for a moment. “That doesn't sound like 'easy, not dangerous work' at all. I should definitely get a raise if I'm working for organised crime bosses.”
“As far as 'blowing up the cruise ship of death' goes, I'm not sure how that would be possible. It's location is always changing, making it impossible to pin down. The only reason we were able to find it in the first place is because we were supplied with the specific rendezvous co-ordinates. There's no way of knowing where it is now. Unless of course we found a staff member with working knowledge of the ship's movement.”
T1-NY swivelled his dome around. “Someone like Coh-loe?” he asked.
“I'm sure Coh'loe would have that kind of information, but who knows where he is now. Last we saw of him, he sped off from Paradise Village pursued by a mysterious, black ship. He's probably been captured by now, based on how sluggish that rental vehicle was responding. Unless we can identify his pursuer, we'll never be able to find him.”
Le'ela leaned forward, concern painted across her face. “Back up. Black Sun. Like the Black Sun? We've been working for Black Sun this whole time?? What are we supposed to do now? Are they going to come finish us off now? Shouldn't we be running or hiding or something?” She got to her face and began pacing, thinking.
Zeroh finished his drink and leaned back in his chair. “I think we're ok for the time being. That black-ship has obviously been supervising your deliveries. They're dealing with Coh'loe now, but I think it's safe to assume they'll be coming here or sending someone here as the next priority. Whatever we plan, we should do it quickly.”
Just then there was a knock at the door.
All heads turned in unison.
“Are you expecting anyone?” Hena asked suspiciously. He tapped at some buttons, and a display screen of the exterior door popped up. A hooded and cloaked figure stood there, completely obscured.
“No,” DX31 answered, “but, I'm sure you'll all remember that 'no one sets foot (or tread) aboard the Cheery Butler without undergoing appropriate security clearance', so we're perfectly safe.” The ship modulated on that for a moment. The figure knocked again. “Of course, that was UDTS's policy. Which was actually Black Sun's policy. Which means it was a bad policy. So it must be replaced.”
The assembled crew, past and present, heard the the exterior door swish as it opened down below, as well as the hurried footsteps across the cargo bay grating. “Skip!” a woman's voice rang out. “Skip, I know you're here. Where are you??”
Barrett tensed slightly.
“We're up here,” DX31 called out.
A minute later, a blond woman walked into the lounge, blaster drawn. She did a double-take when she saw the entire assembled group.
“K'arana?” Barrett and Hena said in unison.
She looked at Hena and did a double take. “Hena? What are you doing here,” she asked holstering her gun.
“I could ask you the same!” Hena said, jumping to his feet. “I thought you were off investigating your brother's incident. Why are you way out this way?”
She took a breath, remembering something fairly important. “I've been looking for these two nerf herders,” indicating Barrett and T1-NY. “You need to tell me just what you've been doing on these deliveries, or so help me, I'll go the authorities and tell them everything I know.” Her face clearly showed that the threat was more impressive when she rehearsed it in her head, when she wasn't out-numbered and probably out-gunned.
Barrett looked at her and answered sincerely. “We've just been delivering metal boxes. That's all we know, more or less. Why? What do you know?”
She stared him down. “Dead. They're all dead, 'Skip'. Everyone you've made your 'deliveries' to are dead. First Meera, then Greebus and now Shea. They're all dead from the same mysterious symptoms. About a month after you made your delivery they all suffered something akin to a sudden-onset stroke. They were dead before they hit the ground. Only Xyla is still alive, and I reckon that's because he didn't have a legitimate package delivered to him. So just who the hell are you working for and what have you been delivering to them?!?”
Barrett's heart starts pounding faster and he starts to feel dizzy as his worst fears are realized. “Damnation! I don't want to die! Get me to a hospital NOW!” he yells, hyperventilates, and then faints.
T1-NY consults his time subprocessor… Barrett still has lots of time left to function, why's he wasting it by passing out? They need to figure out what's next, since climbing the ranks in this particular crime syndicate seems out of the picture now… a pity, really. If only they'd been more progressive on droid's rights… ah well, another group to add to the Extermination List.
{ { He'd want me to help him! } }
( ( Yes, always help the masters, T1-NY. Wait, er… that's not what I… ) )
Intruder's voice is cut short by a flood of electrons passing through on the way to the extended pulse disruptor that's now millimeters away from Barrett's chest.
A swift boot to the dome knocks T1-NY off balance, causing his pulse disruptor to swing wildly, leaving a trail of sparks in its wake.
“What do you think you're doing,” Le'ela shouts, positioning herself between the droid and the Zeltron. “Don't you remember what happened when you tried that on Meera? Nothing. It doesn't work, so cut it out.” Le'ela looks around the lounge, taking control of the situation. “Barrett needs medical attention. Legitimate medical attention. Zeroh and I will take him to a medical facility here on Garoute. The rest of you should start thinking of a plan to get us out of this mess. If you two are hell-bent of blowing up the slave ship, then maybe this Coh'loe could get us the co-ordinates. If he's being held by Black Sun, then maybe freeing him will get us out from under their thumb too.”
Hena's face broke into a wide smile. “What do you say, K'arana? Think you're up for some slicing?”
“I am, but I doubt you can keep up,” she shot back, showing a playful side seldom seen. “Dot-30 Matrixing is a lot more complicated than it used to be.”
They then both gave their matching tattoos a double slap in unison and made a peculiar hand gesture to each other. “Just like the old day,” Hena muttered, with a tinge of regret.
“Almost like the old days,” K'arana stated back, with a tinge of resolution.
Within 20 minutes Zeroh had returned from the Swallow with his speeder, and he and Le'ela were able to get Barrett hoisted up on to it, and were headed to get medical help.
Meanwhile, K'arana and Hena were working at back-tracking communications from their employer to the ship, in an effort to trace the point of origin. T1-NY was nearby, carefully observing their work from a nearby terminal.
Hena paused from his typing and looked at K'arana. “I've been looking into that droid issue you mentioned a little while back, but haven't come up with anything concrete yet.”
“Oh, too challenging for you?” she replied, not looking up from her screen. “I knew you were losing your touch.”
“No, I've still got what it takes. But that whole quadrant has been hit hard by a virus that's screwing up every every droid it comes in contact with. Makes it hard to dig into past history logs.”
“A virus?” K'arana said, her interest sounding mildly piqued. “Like Trojan.Hutt a couple years ago?”
Hena shook his head. “No, it's a lot worse than that. It completely overwrite's a droid's AI and causes it turn to violent. The simplest droids go kamikaze and destroy themselves. Most sophisticated droids responds more subtly. Still violent, but their aim is to spread the virus to other droids and sorta enslave them to it. And it works, every time. Once a droid has been exposed to DRM, it's a goner. The virus just keeps replicating itself onto different units, causing them to self-destruct or enslaving it to do its bidding. Messy stuff. Surprised you haven't heard of it yet. I think it was made by the same slicer who programmed Trojan.Hutt.”
K'arana looked back at her screen and shrugged. “I've been busy.”
Hena returned to his task as well. “Well, if we don't find a fix for it soon, it's going to escape that quadrant. And after that happens, it's only a matter of time before droids are a thing of the past.”
T1-NY’s audio receptors perk up at this line of conversation and rolls his lens a little at the fleshbag’s misunderstanding. “Droids a thing of the past… more like organics’ decay is inevitable.” he processes to himself. Still, if DRM was being twisted by someone for their own non-pure motives, he’d best keep an eye out for it. Perhaps “assisting” these 2 particular carbonics would help him keep a tab on things… and maybe he could learn more about Black Sun’s methods along the way. Know thy enemy… and thy enemy’s profit margins.
Meanwhile, at the Garoute Medical clinic, Le'ela, Zeroh and Barrett pulled up into the emergency bay and carried the comatose Zeltron in. “We need a doctor here,” Zeroh shouted, slumping with Barrett into a chair. The 30 or so occupants of the crowded waiting room regarded the Zabrak with thinly veiled contempt. A bored looking nurse approached Le'ela with a datapad. “Fill these out in triplicate, and a doctor will see as soon as possible.” She gazed through Le'ela, waiting for her to take the forms, and popped a pink bubble of gum.
After ten minutes, the forms were filled out. (Which was tricky, since Le'ela didn't know a lot of Barrett's personal information - does she even know his name?)
After twenty minutes, they were able to find a seat.
After forty minutes, Le'ela's patience was wearing thin.
After an hour Le'ela barged up to the admittance desk and demanded to see a doctor. “Someone will be right out,” she droned, smacking her pink gum.
Not long after, a man in a white coat approached the trio. “Is this Barrett?” he asked, pushing his glasses up his nose.
“Finally,” Le'ela roared.
“Let's get him into my examination room.” A vibro-gurney appeared, and Barrett was loaded up on to it. Soon he was being wheeled down a hall and into an examination theatre. The doctor took a number of vital and drew some blood. He disappeared, and reappeared about five minutes later. “This doesn't look good, I'm afraid. Your friend will need some immediate help if he's going to live.”
“What is it? What's the matter,” Le'ela asked urgently, betraying her usual calm exterior.
“I'm not sure yet,” the doctor replied, pushing his glasses up again. “But my colleague at a nearby hospital should be able to pinpoint the problem and save him. Please, come this way.”
Again, they were dashing down hallways. Finally they stopped at a pair of doors, which slid open at the press of a button. A van was waiting for them, doors open. The doctor quickly shoved Barrett through the doors and he was secured inside the van. “Go with these men. They'll take you to my colleague at the hospital,” the doctor urged.
Le'ela tried to ask more questions, but she and Zeroh were hurriedly ushered from the clinic and into the van by some forceful men. As they sped away, Le'ela asked them men sitting across Barrett's gurney from her where they were going. “Like the doc said, we're going to a hospital to save your friend.”
They sat in silence, regarding each other for ten minutes. She was just about to ask why they were rushing about without a siren on when she happened to peer out the front window. She noticed that they were no longer in the main hub of Garoute, but now in one of the many entry/exit ports of the space station, and approaching an all-black spaceship.