The crew makes their plans to prepare for stealing Thakba's cargo once it is transferred to the warehouse. Kel has disappeared and no one can seem to raise him on his commlink. So the quartet continue their plans without him.
Ymira's plan is to steal the cargo from the warehouse. As such, she proceeds to pretend to be a client and asks for a tour of the facility under the auspices of a rich entrepreneurial merchant. The proprietor, Garm Waldar, puts on his best show to entice his potential "client", pointing out the security features and layout of the facility, while Xander scoped out the systems visually on the tour. Satisfied that it would be a possible, if difficult, procedure to break into the warehouse, they moved on to the next part of the plan.
Roona had pointed out earlier that they should tail the transfer to make sure it was going to the warehouse they were told. If there was incorrect information, then they would have precious little time to find the correct location or manage to intercept it. Splitting up on several vehicles, which they rented, the group went about different tasks. Roona took the time to drive the route from the Docking Bay area to the warehouse several times in order to find any short cuts or potential bottlenecks that could be used to advantage. Meanwhile, Zavi and Ymira hung out watching the area around the docking bays.
Xander had the idea to try and use a docked spaceship to try and scan for the YT-2400, the Cantina Crawler, as it arrived in the atmosphere. Deciding against trying to hack into the flight tower systems, the slicer scoped out several docking bays for his target. In the fourth one he found his quarry. A Besalisk by the name of Nax Derg was working on a YT-1300. Xander bribed the mechanic to allow him to use the ship's scanners. Reconfiguring them to a tight cone to be able to reach from planet to near atmosphere, Xander found a number of ships in orbit. Meanwhile, Ymira saw a speeder truck with a Mirialan male and two guards, a Nikto and a Weequay, drive up and loiter near the blast door entry to the docking bay. Guessing that three Mirialan at the same docking bay on Tatooine was extremely long odds, Ymira asked Xander to try and verify that this was Gerra. If so, he was likely using a made up name, as it didn't match normal Mirialan naming conventions.
Xander moved towards the group but was quickly intercepted by the Weequay guard and soon after by the Nikto as well. They got the information wanted when the Weequay asked Gerra if they should "take care of" this human intruder. Xander beat a hasty retreat and now the wait was on.
Eventually a YT-2400 did come in for a landing and soon after Gerra and his minions moved in. Xander observed from the cockpit of the YT-1300, while Zavi and Ymira watched from outside the bay. Twenty-eight crates were unloaded and an Imperial patrol decided they wanted to inspect the cargo. None of them could see exactly what was happening, but it appeared that the captain opened a couple crates and the inspector was unimpressed by the contents. It was soon loaded onto Gerra's possession. And the chase was on.
Gerra quickly determined that they were being tailed and sped up. After a few tight maneuvers, more of Gerra's men showed up in a landspeeder attempting to drive off the team. Zavi managed to blow one of the thugs clear out of the landspeeder with a frag grenade and Ymira blasted another with a head shot. The fighting chase did result in Zavi being slightly dazed and a bit of damage on the team's rented speeder truck. Ymira managed to take out the landspeeder driver and it caromed off a building and directly into the path of Xander and Zavi! Xander was unable to get clear and the landspeeder slammed into the side of the speeder truck and then went into a tailspin, exploding in a nearby building.
Roona was doubling back and drove her speederbike directly at Gerra and his men in a dangerous game of chicken. Her bluff worked and the loaded cargo truck skidded sideways into a high fence and tore down several selling stalls set up alongside. Xander was not able to make up time, but the dangerous maneuver made sure that the target was not going to get further away. The chase continued once more.
Now two groups of unknowns appeared in a pair of landspeeders. Apparently our team was not the only ones with the idea to steal the shipment en route and quick and deadly three-way battle raced through the streets of Mos Espa. While this was going on, Roona commed to the rest of the team that the truck was NOT going toward the warehouse.
The two landspeeders were no match for the resilience of the speeder trucks and Gerra crashed into one in their escape and Zavi and Ymira blasted the other. It was back to a one on one running fight. And the target was slowly pulling away. Roona however had managed to speed around and get ahead of Gerra. She caused a stack of crates to fall into the path and made Gerra slow down. This was enough for Xander to finally get Zavi into range for the Lightning 22 Ion Grenade. It was an easy shot for the Squib gunner and the speeder truck suddenly lost power and glided to a stop. Gerra and his thugs were quickly dealt with.
The group found themselves in a run down and sketchy portion of Mos Espa. The decided to transfer the cargo from Gerra's truck to their own rented one. Meanwhile Zavi stood guard on the roof. He was forced to shoo away several bands of miscreants who decided that a three-foot tail furry maniac with a grenade launcher was not worth the trouble.
That's when the next difficulty was found. There were twenty eight crates. Their A-A3 could only hold 27! Now a dilemma ensued. Deciding to see if they could fit an uncrated amount of cargo in the truck, Xander unleashed a horrible smell: permented yazzak roots. What was this? Roona said yazzak root, even this many cargo containers, was not worth a huge value. That's when Ymira wondered if this was a cargo cover-up. Xander stuck his arm into the container and about elbow deep he found another lid. It was a way for the smugglers to get this purported illegal cargo so easily past customs.
Unloading several of the crates to combine them into one full space, they found that the main cargo was indeed highly illegal: glitter stim. This cargo was a huge haul indeed. Loaded up the group would take the load to Bargos who had a shuttle waiting. But Roona had an idea. "Can we use some of this to strike against an enemy?" Ymira agreed. They could stash a small portion and then report it to the Imperials. But who? Why not Thakba himself?! He almost got the group killed with the crazy mine mission. The plan just got more nefarious...
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Everyone present gained 10 XP from the mission. Zavi took a critical wound during the fighting. Ymira had healed her critical wound at the same doctor that Roona had visited. Looks like a medic as part of the team would be useful.
Unused XP-
Xander 15
Zavi 10 (◆◆critical wound)
Roona 15
Ymira 15
Group spoils
14,045 credits (-100 frag grenades, -200 to bride the Besalisk, -800 renting speeder bikes and truck, -400 living expenses)
Gear: quick sale value in ()
2x Blaster Rifle (450 ea)
1x Holdout Blaster (100 ea)
2x Laser Pistol (200 ea)
1x Stun grenades (45 ea)
Tool Kit (175)
Glow Rod (5)
Brass knuckles (10)
Thick-Skinned (Episode 8)
Moderator: GM Fang