A deal with Jaleel

As the rangers disarmed the pirates and tied them up I knelt down to talk to Adi face to face.

“Hey, so, I have a few questions, Adi. First, did you bring your stuffed mouse droid? Because it would be very useful..”

“Yes,” she responded simply.

“Great! Where is it?” I asked.

“It’s in the speeder - stuffed in the corner.”

“Ok, my next question is: did you see what happened to Jaleel?”

“When bad people make me angry that happens,” she replied innocently.

I shook my head; this didn’t make any sense. Unless… Hmm. She was incredible at sneaking, and she had screamed at those Gamorreans at Porkos the other day and they stopped following Arron. I started putting the pieces together. Adi was most possibly connected with the Force.

I had heard of rising criminals that could choke people by raising their hand, and steal cargo through the heaviest of security. But the empire eliminated those individuals with brutal precision. Some said it even brought the attention of Lord Vader himself! This was dangerous, this was probably why she was on the run. The Gorensla kajidic was full of bad people and they wouldn’t appreciate bleeding ears every time they came into contact with her.

“Ok, Adi. So, Arron’s going to make a show of pretending to shoot your mouse droid but he won't. It's just to get Jaleel to talk, okay? You just go over there and play with my puppets.” I took my handy finger puppets and she went to play in the corner.

I stepped outside briefly to get the inevitable call from Arron when he found out I sent him into the rain for a stuffed mouse droid that Adi wasn’t supposed to bring in the first place. The call never came but there was a very close lightning strike.

As Arron arrived, I could see the frustration on his face, so to avoid an annoying conversation I told him the plan.

“So, you are going to take the stuffed mouse droid hostage. Here - take my blaster, it will be easier to aim at it than your massive rifle. Then, you're going to play bad cop and try to coerce some information out of Jaleel. Since he treats his mouse droids as his babies, then he’ll hopefully cough up something. Then I’ll play the good cop.”

I proceeded to open the door and walk inside, not letting Arron get a word in. Arron looked at Adi playing in the corner. He looked like he was going to ask why she wasn’t at the speeder, but, I shot him a glance that said “We’ll talk about it later.”

Arron did his job almost to perfection, besides not getting any information out of Jaleel. He did succeed, however, in getting one of the hired goons to convert to our side: Tookoo was just in it for the money. I stepped up to the cowering Jaleel and said, “I believe that I can lower your inevitable sentence if you would just tell us where your friends are located and who you are working for.”

Jaleel wouldn’t budge, and just stammered on about how he wasn’t to blame and he hadn't hurt any one.

So I reminded him that I was the only one who could help him otherwise it was execution or life imprisonment for him.

Jaleel responded, “If you sign a contract that you will try to get all charges dropped, then I’ll talk.”

I thought about how Jaleel could still be an asset; and how else were we supposed to stop the kajidic?

I pulled out a data pad to sign but Arron stopped me. He didn’t believe that Jaleel could be trusted. Hadn’t he just betrayed the ECC? I responded that he hadn't hurt anyone and that he could be more useful to us than harm. “Just think about the pirates that could be running loose! Jaleel must know where the pirate haven is.”

Arron calmed down and agreed with me. I finished signing, with a sigh of relief.

At least with Arron on my side I could convince the others. Jern has been defiant towards me ever since the bounty hunter incident.

Jaleel told us where the pirate haven was and then proceeded to tell us some backstory. “I am deep in debt to the kajidics. So to help pay it off, I was tasked to sabotage the Avaron fleet that was heading out on a new venture. It was a classic Gorensla move. Sabotage your competitors, then set up a fake company to buy them out. Of course, I didn’t fully succeed because of you, but later, I managed to get back in contact with Gorensla via Maim’wrath. My new mission was to take down the ECC from the inside and help set up a Hutt presence on Erimia. Then that crazy twi’lek bounty hunter wanted a bunch of people with bounties. Which of course, unfortunately, included yours.” “What do you mean?” I asked. “I'm an upstanding regular citizen of Erimia!”

Jaleel just shook his head and said, “I figured out your false name pretty quickly, Zane. It was just a matter of time you had heat with Bosatto on your tail. I also know that there was talk about setting up a moon base, but I don’t have any details.”

I talked to Corto, who sent forces to raid the pirate haven. Jaleel was cleared of charges, and he just had to do some community service. Just like me…

Turns out, the Council came up with some sick joke, making me the janitor of the Council building! Just infuriating, those people! I shouldn’t be just a lowly janitor - my abilities are far superior to that. Can’t they sense talent when they see it!? Maybe when my reputation and dignity has returned, I’ll push for a seat on the Council. Maybe then they’ll see my worth!

Throughout the month, we had terrible off-world communications; the interstellar comms tower was being finicky. Djinn Monka sent us to investigate the disappearance of the repair crew that was sent to fix it.

Djinn looked alot older and frailer then he used to. That fulsgold poison must have taken something out of him. But I jump at the prospect of going back to our homestead. I had lived at the council building for far too long (in fear of assassination) and the security system I ordered was finally fully installed and operational back home.

I comm’d the others and Vreck picked me up. I took the reins of Dantor, and Arron hopped on behind me, with the comment that he was going to get a headache from my riding.

The first day had clear skies and cool jungle, but after that first day, the journey grew wearisome. Rain pelted us constantly for the next few days and then it turned to snow once we hit the mountains.

I was quite finished with the expedition, but it was better than janitor work.

On the eve of the fourth day we got to the mountain peak where the tower was. I was dead tired, so I pitched my tent and fell asleep.

The next morning, I found out that Vreck and Arron had seen a giant beast during the night, and later discovered that this beast had stolen the dish from the top of the tower. Great. As if this trip couldn’t get any worse! We set up our tents and a makeshift hunters blind and set a trap for the beast.

Jern crafted a noisemaker designed to draw the beast out of its cave. Vreck was busy setting up an avalanche trap and dug a bunker while I set up our tents to use as a hiding spot (and protect us from the nasty wind). Arron attempted to sneak down to the cave and plant the device.

He startled the beast before he got back up to us - the noisemaker started going while Arron was still down there. On the bright side, it triggered a rockfall that damaged the monster. With snow and rocks still pelting it, it charged right at us - faster than any creature should move. Vreck’s planned trap poured snow and stones down toward it, but it kept coming - even through the barrage of blaster bolts Vreck and Arron shot at it. I shot, too, but my blaster wasn’t going to do anything against its armoured hide.

It smashed into our blind, knocking me back. As I leapt up to start the fight for my life, Vreck’s slugthrower hit its mark and the beast came crashing down.

Straight onto Jern. He was tangled in the remains of his tent and was crushed before he could get away. We helped him out and luckily he only had some bruised ribs and could still fix the comm tower’s dish.

Now I’ll have to talk to Jern about our Jumpmaster. Judging from its handling of storms, I don’t think it will be handling pirates.