LogDeniable Asset-Jason-4

Game log for the 2024/12/01 session of Star Wars - Deniable Asset, as taken by Jason

While Yareeli and his Wookies work on repairing the Potbelly, Con goes back to sabotaging the installation. Without the handicaps of combat conditions and worrying about inmate welfare, it's straightforward to vent all the coolant for the geothermal generators, allowing magma to devour the entire cooling system and flood into the lower levels. That will impact productivity for a good while.

Meanwhile, the Wookies prefer not to let the other prisoners out of the containment area, which is a little rough on the other inmates. TL-DR tries to talk them into showing a little sympathy, and the Wookies agree to let some of the prisoners who they regard as OK guys up on the higher levels. The rest are going to find the lava uncomfortable.

Once the Wookies are ready to take off, Con executes his evil scheme, and the Potbelly ascends in hopes of meeting Deniable Asset in space. Con, despite his inexperience, offers his services as copilot. As the ship climbs, parts begin to fall off, and all sorts of lights and alarms sound. The ship's load exceeds its structural integrity by so much that it sags in the middle, and Mylla's having to juggle. Con spies a light showing a cargo container working loose. He runs frantically toward those latches, and sees that one of the magnetic clamps has lost power, and only inertia is holding it closed. Vibration is working it loose. Con begins working to restore power. He finds a stress fracture in the torsional charge auto-sequencer. Con bypasses all sequencers and the stabilizers too, in favor of routing power directly to the clamp. It's no fun trying to do repairs in turbulence, but he gets there, and the Wookies are saved.

Gar tries to find some coordinates where the two ships can meet up and exchange crew, and directs both ships to a totally empty star system. The Wookies go their way, with some contact info for the New Republic.

During the flight, Gar tries his medic skills out, and Con tries to repair TL-DRs wounds, but neither is able to get much done in shipboard conditions. The organics will heal over time anyway, but TL-DR is going to need a proper droid tech. Gerez Ofnar wants to meet up with us again in Ofnoor. Most of the crew leave for that meeting, leaving only Igli on board to watch the ship. Igli sees a dock worker who holds his clipboard in a certain way, and also that this worker doesn't come from or go to the dock offices, but the lift. Igli tries to get to the lift in time to share it with this suspicious fellow, but can't quite make it in time. He does get a good look at the guy, ensuring that he'll recognize him next time. He calls the next lift, and while he waits, he warns the crew.

They get it just as they're heading into the Zocalo cantina to meet with Garez. We gloat about our successes a little bit, but our boss brings the mood down by warning us that the Hutts are getting frisky, and the New Republic Navy is spread too thin to blanket the place. It needs good intel to provide effective interdiction on limited resources. When Gar asks, Garez points to the Tios system. When asked, Garez does not recognize the dock worker who attracted Igli's attentions.

Gar checks to see if there's any cargo headed to Tios, and while there isn't any legit commerce going from Elnoor to Tios, there is a load that needs to be smuggled there. Mylla asks around and hears that Goro the Hutt is the guy who runs things in Tios. Goro is the cousin of Ogo the Hutt, who's one of the bosses in this sector. Our cargo consists of small cuddly animals, which Hutts probably eat whole.

Igli gets back to the ship in time to see a small beacon not quite concealed on the ship. We decide to jump into a system along the way and attach it to an asteroid, but first, Con takes a close look at it. It's clearly something homemade, custom, and done to very tight tolerances. Con saw something like it once before, on a ship that came in to a Hektor yard. It was an exploration ship, built to go as far as possible, as fast as possible. It was done, on a piecework contract, by a Correlian woman named Analyn Tarlos. Con asks Mylla and Igli to figure out a dead drop address that whoever put the probe in place could use to reach us, but instead, Mylla just gets told off. For some reason, people do not want to talk to her. They decide to jump to a system sort of along the way and dump the tracker in an asteroid belt. Con attaches a note that says, "Beautiful work. I hope we meet again someday." A day later, they're in Tios, the most rimward and spinward system in the sector, right next to Hutt space.

Tios IV is the only habitable planet in the system, so it's no surprise the cargo needs to go there. It's a rift world, which just cracked when it cooled. The fissures are about a mile deep. The outer crust is mostly desert, but in the fissures, one can find water and the other necessities of life. Unfortunately, the flora and fauna down there are no fun to be around, so people live up top, along the edges of the rifts. We need to go to the capital city, Aygor. We land the ship, disguided as the Fuzzy Pumpkin, and prepare for customs inspection. The Sullustan inspector buys TL-DRs claim that the cargo are research specimens, but wants to confirm the story first, not allowing them to offload. Gar and Mylla go out looking for an underworld contact who might be able to help them clear the cargo, and they find Elmer Larathian, a shaven-headed fellow with a wet cough. His employer might like to buy just such a cargo. Gar mentions the struggle with the port authority, and Elmer offers to fix it, but the price he names would leave us upside down on the deal.

The gimmick Gar comes up with is to sedate them, so people can stash them in their personal effects and walk off the ship. Phex waits for an opportune moment for us to start the smuggling, and then TL-DR, Mylla, and Con leave the ship. Con and Mylla have huge duffles full of, um, stuff. As they go through the entrance, Con gets flagged for a random stop. Mylla makes it through unchecked, and is able to go again while the inspectors hassle Con and TL-DR. TL-DR calls for the customs inspector and claims to have the University on the commlink right now, pushing for immediate delivery. The guard takes TL-DR to talk to the inspector and lets Con go, so that means 3/5ths of the critters are unloaded. Once they reach the inspector, TL-DR curses that the University faculty have hung up on him. Con and Mylla are able to complete the unloading.

Gar calls Igli to arrange for pickup from a hotel room. Elmer arrives with a sketchy-looking human and an assassin droid. TL-DR tries to tell Elmer that his crew needs the lay of the land so they can do more work here, but Elmer tells him that he's not allowed to move in on the boss' operation, and would do better to get out. TL-DR passes a tacking tag to Mylla, who tries to plant it. As she does so, the weedy-looking human tells Mylla that her buddies are fuckwits, but she should call him, and he passes her a chip.

They take off, and between them, Phex and Gar manage to track them to their neighborhood, but not to a specific building. We decide to wait a few days, tell customs the critters died, and then have Mylla reach out to her contact. When the time comes, Mylla goes to meet her guy Ques, accompanied by Igli. Ques isn't happy to see Igli. Mylla isn't happy that Ques' boss immediately assumes that all Wookies like to do thug work. After ascertaining that the gang is up for legally dodgy work, he slides over a hologram of a guy, and says that if they get that guy to the right place in the desert, alive but not necessarily intact, there's money in it. This guy they need grabbed runs the nearby sabacc club, which means there will be security. Also, Ques tells them not to bother Elmer about this.

Con builds a little sabacc cheating device and hands it off to Mylla. She goes write to the tables, Igli plays the slots, Gar drinks and people-watches, and the rest of the gang goes for doner kebab. The wookie starts out at the small stakes tables, and when she wins, she collects a twi'lek hanger-on named Ella who distracts everyone. Mylla feels like she's on such a hot streak that it's time to dig deeper, and wins two thousand credits at one of the high stakes tables. The pit boss has started watching her, but she can't tell, so she goes to spend some time at the bar. The owner comes over to introduce himself. Gareth Destarian, proprietor, is very happy to meet her. The droid bartended translates the wookie language to standard. She starts talking about hosting a private game at this club, and asks him to show her one of the private rooms, where one might run a high-stakes game for a few select friends.