LogDeniable Asset-Jason-11

Game log for the 2025/01/19 session of Star Wars - Deniable Asset, as taken by Jason

The team goes on a shopping spree. The Asset gets a slave module, but Con can't figure out how to make the remote gunnery interface work, and neither can the local shipyard guys. He also does some tweaking on the armor for Gar and Igli. On the downside, the shipyard boss starts asking some questions about why we'd want the ship's gunnery to be potentially autonomous. About ten days later, the crew get a notice to be at the ship at a specific time. A bit after that time, Goro the Hutt turns up, in person. He, his bearers, a bodyguard, and Iros board the ship. He congratulates the crew on our success in obtaining the abandoned Imperial equipment. He thinks there may be an issue inside his organization, and he wants to find out who sold out the mission, what they know, and who they're working for. Iros provides a datapad, with information about Goro's activities and who's involved, and a list of things that have gone wrong. The team may make no copies, share information with no one not on the crew, and feed information only to Iros. Goro leaves, leaving Iros alone with the crew for a moment. He tells us that it is unusual for anyone to be so trusted, and they must work quickly.

Con goes over the data pad to make sure it's what it appears to be, not a bomb, not a surveillance devices, not an assassin droid. He finds that its wireless data link is missing, and it's set to wipe itself if attached to any device. It's full of data that is not directly coded - photos, transcripts of comm calls, holos, etc. Igli reviews it, since he's as familiar with the underworld as any of us, and finds that Goro and his cousin are both competing to impress their uncle. He also gets a good shape of Goro's plan, which is to foment insurrection long enough for him to execute a coup. That coup is only a few months away. Every thing that has gone wrong came out of a meeting on the sail barge, though there are sometimes some steps in between. We're granted permission to board the sail barge, join the entourage, and also to perform a security scan on the computer. A careful search of the barge reveals no bugs. We are confident in that diagnosis. Con goes through the computer and finds no sign of slicing, but he does see a pattern in the navcomputer data. The barge should be cruising the desert in a semi-random fashion, but there are two places that it seems to go much more often than one would expect.

There's nothing at the first suspicious location, but after we land and investigate, Phex smells something suspicious, and then Igli notices that there's something under the sand. Gar thinks he sees something on his scanner, and then hears a click underfoot. Phex scurries over, carefully sweeps sand off the mine, identifies the detonator mechanism, puts pressure on it, safes it, and extracts it. Now Phex has a land mine. Meanwhile, Igli finds a hatch, with a keypad access point. Con, to his astonishment, cannot open it. He scrambles the code so that nobody else can access it either.

We reposition to the second point we identified, which is out in the deep desert, hours from Eygor. As we approach, we can see shapes in the sand. Something is buried here. Igli tries to use the ship's repulsor wash to clear some of the sand, and finds a barracks building, roughly following the Imperial template. The Deniable Asset's scanners don't find comm signals, but they can detect droid telemetry. We land and head in. There's a whole row of barracks buildings, of which the one we first spotted is just number three. From the far end, we can hear something that sounds like jackhammering. TL-DR and Gar scan the area and pull the layout. Con pulls the faceplate off the door of the building whence comes the noise, and then suddenly, at the far end of the building, a cloud of dust comes out of the building. Con gets the door unlocked and the team looks inside. It's dark inside, but Myyla has scanner goggles, so she takes point. This building is configured for defence, with a dogleg at the entrance and firing slits. The floor is rough. In the distance, lights move. Through his goggles, Phex can see construction zones. The droids themselves are standard models that convey nothing about who's doing the work. We go to a different building that does not seem to be under construction, and realize it's a droid barracks, and the bays are all full with B-1 droids, maybe 400 of them. This full site will hold a regiment of battle droids.

We scamper back to Eygor and ask Iros to meet us. He shows up, and TL-DR ask if the two locations are known to the Hutts. Iros says that the droid barracks is a contraband storage site. Con, who has zero tolerance for being fed half-truths about the job he was hired to do, straight up asks whether the regiment of battle droids was part of the plan. It is, Iros intimates, because his master has plans for regime change. Con agrees, and the fact that he knows this disturbs Iros. Apparently they thought that the outsiders they brought in to aid the insurgency, and then hired to steal some AT-STs and hand them off to someone who needed training on their use, would never dream that Goro wanted to change the government of the planet. Sigh. Iros tells the to report to Goro on the sail barge the next day. A few hours out of Eygor, the maitre'd tells us that dinner is being served on the next deck down. Goro's platform is on an elevator, so he just rides down to the dining level. Only a select few guest remain on the level at that point, including us, and some of the guests who are excluded notice that we are not excluded.

Goro says, "Iros tells me I should probably kill you," since we discovered his pet project. It won't be long before the need for secrecy has passed, but it's impressive to him that we found all this so quickly. The investigation will continue.