LogDeniable Asset-Jason-22

Game log for the 2025/05/18 session of Star Wars - Deniable Asset, as taken by Jason

The team takes a month or so of leave in the Almovar sector, hanging out in the unaligned Umbolt system, where the main habitations are around the rings of a gas giant. During that time, Conzenz temporarily forgot that he was not dangerous in the real world and kicked off a bar brawl with a security goon wearing an Imperial patch on his jacket. Mylla goes to his defense, and lays the guard out with one Wookie punch. Two more security guys with shock mauls start heading their way. Phex grabs a hookah as a weapon and works his way behind those guards. TL-DR tries to tell the pit boss that it will go better if he gets his friends out of the place instead of expecting guards to do it. The droid actually sells the pitch, and the goons stop. Igli and Gar opt to stay out of it, because they're both off at their own tables.

TL-DR grabs Con and Mylla and tells them to leave. They do.

Phex sits down quickly and smokes the hookah. After a little while, so as not to make it obvious he knows the departed trio, he follows them out.

Terek Henko told us that there's an interstellar gas cloud in the sector that's never been properly charted. Many prospectors tell tales of absurd wildlife there. Gar's meeting with someone who recently fenced some salvage that looked like Imperial wreckage. The prospector, Samson Zabo, is a shifty and grizzled specimen, who looks sort of like Ron Perlman, but acts like Steve Buscemi. Gar mentions that if he buys it, and it works, he might want to buy more like it. Zabo says it was hard to come by and requires a really really good pilot to get to it. Gar decides to buy it and test it, and will come back to Samson to discuss demand for more if it tests out.

Back on the ship, Igli immediately recognizes the thing Gar bought as a TIE fighter IFF module. Con tests it and discovers that not only does it work, it has an intact code log, with the date for every code. The most recent code is only a few months old. Igli recognizes a TIE wing that used to fly cover for his bomber wing. Those guys were good, and they may have had TIE Interceptors by the end of the war. Con and Igli agree that this is a threat worth taking out. Con whips up a very small burst transmission tracker. Igli, Gar, and Phex go back to the gambling den to meet Zabo again.

Gar of course goes inside, while Phex and Igli eat worm noodles across the street. Zabo acts like he has the leverage in the negotiation. Gar gives him a kilocred for right of first refusal on any other salvage he brings back.

Back on the Asset, someone knocks on the door. A group of guys claim to be delivering our reefer unit. They say it's paid for already but Mylla needs to sign for it. When Con hears that, he calls out, "It's a fucking trap." The delivery crew attack Mylla. She draws her vibrosword and lays into the one talking to her, who turns out to have concealed a blaster in his hand under his datapad. He gets a shot off that misses, and then she cuts him wide open. That still leaves her outnumbered three to one. The next attacker hits her with a shock maul, and the jolt fills the air with the smell of burning wookie fur. The third attacker misses. The fourth starts backing up to the far side of the "reefer unit" and pulls a blaster carbine out of it.

Mylla tries to slice open the guy with the shock maul, but he dodges, and starts backing up. The guy with the blaster pistol hits Mylla with a stun shot, and the guy with the blaster carbine also hits her with a stun shot. Mylla collapses. Con realizes that Mylla fell half-on and half-off the ramp, and runs for the ventral turret, to make a show of force. TL-DR runs for the hatch while readying a stun grenade, and hucks it at the bad guys. It bounces down the hatch, hits the "reefer unit", and skitters off to the side, exploding harmlessly.

Two of the bad guys load Mylla onto their repulsorlift cart and begin trucking her away, while the third one lays down covering fire at TL-DR. The covering fire lands a direct hit. Con lays some turret fire across their path. That stops them in their tracks.

Igli and Phex are hanging out at the worm noodle stall, and see their quarry leave. Igli follows him without any effort to be stealthy, while Phex does so sneakily. Sure enough, Zabo sees Igli following him and runs for it. Phex sees two more guys follow Igli, and passes that warning along, but follows through on the plan to surrepetitiously follow Zabo. Igli makes a show of being bad at tracking, then heads for the docking bay. One of the guys following Igli sticks with him, while another follows Zabo. By the time Phex catches up to Zabo, though, he's been caught, and someone has grabbed the salvager and started to lead him away, one arm hammerlocked behind his back. Whoever this guy is, he sees Phex closing in on him, and pulls a blaster. Phex does a little Tueller drill on him and shanks him with a vibroknife. The kidnapper's fire glances off Phex's protective clothing. Zabo bolts. Phex stabs the kidnapper again, which puts an end to him. Zabo is gone now, though, so Phex has to try to reacquire him.

Gar's casually headed back to the Asset and hears the ship's guns firing. Con, on the intercom, tells whoever attacked the ship to leave the Wookie, take their dead, and get out. TL-DR draws his gun and engages, hitting one of the bad guys. The bad guy's return fire hits TL-DR and knocks him unconscious. Con runs for the door close switch.

Gar sneaks up to the edge of the docking bay. He sees shadows moving within the smoke, and pulls back until he can get some cover. Two men are pushing a repulsorlift cart, and a third guy is keeping overwatch behind them. Gar sets for stun and shoots the wounded goon pushing the cart. The goon stays up, and his buddy tags Gar with a return stun shot. Gar fires again and knocks his target unconscious. The other thug pushing the cart lands a stunner shot squarely on Gar's hand, leading him to drop his gun. The guy with the carbine orders him to back down, and he does.

This is when Igli comes around the corner. He sees a thug picking up Gar's pistol, and the other thug looking to see what he's going. That gives him a moment to act. He plugs the guy with the blaster carbine, who goes down. The remaining thug ducks behind the cart and fires wildly over his own head. Gar goes running for that guy's blaster carbine while Igli lays down some suppression fire. Gar's carbine shot takes the guy out. Everyone but Phex heads for the Deniable Asset.

Phex follows Zabo to the docking area, where alarms are going off, warning of depressurization risk, and encouraging people to find shelter. Zabo bolts into a Firespray patrol craft. The Rodian tries to close in and plant the tracker, but there's no way he can do so without being spotted.

Con tries to hack the station services to enable the ship to undock immediately, but can't. Someone will have to manually disconnect the umbilicals hit the door open control on the far side of the docking bay. He opens the ramp and goes running to work those controls. He disconnects the lines and opens the force field override in record time, and the Deniable Asset departs. Many other ships are also leaving with haste. One of them is an ancient Y-wing that cuts the ship off on the way out. Igli throws the ship into autopilot so he can put his flight armor on. We eventually get out of the traffic pattern and hide in the planet's rings.

Igli and TL-DR interrogate the prisoner. He works for Zolan Karr, who runs the gambling den. Mylla and Igli put their heads together and determine that he's the local crime boss, and probably feels salty about Mylla showing him up in his own place of business. It's possible he has some affiliation with other organized crime in the area, but if so, it's just local.