Star Wars - Scum and Villainy (Space Opera Flavour)
Star Wars, in which some scum and villains attempt to make some filthy lucre at the edge of Imperial and Hutt Space. There's no way this can end badly.
Forvuk Zayk: Dressellian brute
Fendri: Bothan pilot of our Corellian freighter.
Fakybe: Chandra-fan con-artist and engineer.
Fnord: NPC engineer that works for the starport on Fomos.
R4W9: Our rescued Astromech
Forvuk: How big can stealth fields by made? Big enough to hide a Peace Moon?
Fakybe: Don't think so.
Forvuk: Maybe the Peace Moon wasn't blown up at all.
Fendri: I saw it explode.
Fakybe: You did?
Fendri: Well, I saw footage of it.
Fakybe: You saw footage of it. Think about what you just said - you saw footage, provided BY the Empire. Although for that matter, how DO we know the whole thing wasn't faked? The Imperials SAID the rebels blew up the Peace Moon - but that's not really that plausible, is it? An installation would have defenses, wouldn't it? How DID a couple of rebel X-wings managed to blow it up? Must have been an inside job. Controlled demolition!
Fendri: Proton torpedoes can't melt durasteel beams!
GM: And why would they build an installation as big as the Peace Moon anyway? It would be easier to convert a moon into something that can fire a super-thermal laser through hyperspace.
Things have been happening on Fomos - the Imperials have been confiscating every droid on the planetoid, and according to Rick of Rick's Cantina Alderaan, they're being stored in a warehouse, or a Lambda-class shuttle nearby. This 'training mission' by the Imperials is getting stranger and stranger. At least Forvuk's obsession about the massacre of his family on Drelkh is useful, since Fakybe goes to the trouble of inviting the Imperials to the audience-involvement screening of a classical bombastic war movie, with musical interludes by those Trade Federation marching droids, and improvised saxophone solos. This might seem like a non-sequitur, but it's all part of Fakybe's plan - as he takes complimentary drinks around to the officer's table, he gives them a polite warning about Forvuk's intentions to ask them about Drelkh, and gets told to warn him off.
Forvuk: You didn't ask them about Drelkh.
Fakybe: Not directly, but I DID prove myself helpful and polite, and a useful intermediary between the Imperials and any alien species they don't want to talk to or be seen talking too. Of course, it doesn't pay to be TOO subtle about it, or the GM doesn't notice what you're up to.
Then complications arise in the form of Captain Trex, a Trandoshan slaver and bountyhunter. He is highly pissed, since the Wookiee Lowrickk, that medical droid, and a pilot named Pash, stole his personal ship as they fled servitude to Trex's bosses in the Hutt dynasty. He wants a word with us, since he already knows Lowrickk and the droid paid us to take them to Fomos. It's abundantly clear that we don't get to decline the invitation for a chat. Happily, Fakybe can tell them the exact truth - we haven't seen the Wookiee and the droid or their contact since the thing with the pirates, we've never even met Pash, and the Imperials have gathered up all the droids on Fomos anyway.
Fakybe: But there's still some smugglers on Fomos that were involved with the pirates - why don't you ask them?
In a best-case scenario the bountyhunter's gang and the surviving smuggler-pirates will have a shoot-out with each other - but we probably won't be that lucky. We do know where Dario Blunt and the other surviving pirates hang out too - perhaps some careful sniping will ensure a shoot-up?
GM: Remember what the Imperials told everybody - massive reprisals if any Imperials get hurt. Do you REALLY want to start a shoot-out downtown?
Forvuk: Yes.
How to find out what's up with the missing droids? Can we lure the Imperial guards away from the warehouse, to get a look inside? One method springs to mind.
GM: On Fomos, water is more valuable than life, but not as valuable as beer.
The petty officer is okay with us doing 'maintenance' on the building, as long as we don't go inside. The Probe Droid inside is on a shoot-to-kill protocol.
Fendri: I'll just push Forvuk's heavy blaster back to the bottom of the tool bag.
Fakybe: It's not a blaster - it's a long-distance welder.
Under the watchful supervision of the bored guards, Fakybe climbs into the warehouse conduits to fix all the dodgy cabling that the Imperials added more complexity to. Oh, and plant his commlink where it can film the inside of the warehouse. Fendri receives a brief shot of droids *repairing* other droids, right before the Probe Droid takes out the camera with a heavy blaster.
Fakybe: Feed me more slack on the B2 cabl- BANG - Fuck! Fuckity Fuck!
Fendri: What's wrong?
Fakybe: That Probe Droid just shot at me!
Petty Officer: Then you'd better get out of there, son.
Fakybe: Believe me, I am!
The Imperials shrug it off, blissfully unaware that we actually were up to no good. Fakybe went into the ducting under his own recognizance after all. They also decide that the commlink getting destroyed is better than it being shot while Fakybe was still wearing it - that would have required more paperwork.
Fendri: I have a cunning plan. It could go horribly wrong, or horribly right, but this IS Star Wars.
Fendri and Forvuk want to recruit one of the Trade Federation droids, and use it to disable the probe droid with an ion blaster. After all, it's only programmed to stop LIVING targets from entering the building.
Fakybe: We still don't even know WHY they have all the droids. I'm not even sure why we're doing this.
Forvuk: For money.
Fakybe: They're droids, they don't have money.
Fendri: Hang about, I'm trying to come up with a suitably heroic reason - To give the droids their freedom!
Fakybe: Well, I suppose we could tell them to take of Trex's ship and fly off in it. That would be amusing. Any astromechs in the photo I managed to get?
GM: Oddly enough, no.
VX-49, the medical droid, isn't there either.
Fendri: Oh gods, I'm going to be joining the Rebellion.
Fakybe: How so?
Fendri: Because I'm rescuing droids just because it's the right thing to do.
Forvuk: There must be SOME way we can profit from this.
The others eventually decide that staging a mass droid break-out, and letting them hijack the YT-series ship in dry dock nearby, and sending them off to take over that pirate base we attacked, is the way to go. We can say we saw that med-droid too, when our astromech goes rogue to pilot the YT.
Fakybe: I still don't understand why we're doing this.
GM: Neither do I, and I'm the GM.
Fakybe: OK, can somebody explain to me why we're doing this, and how we got to this plan? Because I don't recall any of us taking strong drugs lately. Although I can see one advantage to the plan - because if I can't see any reason why we're doing this, I'm sure the Imperials won't think to connect us to the crime either.
We head off to recruit the Trade Federation marching troop and their agent, the rogue military protocol droid M-PSR-E0. If droids could have expressions, his face would be a picture.
Fendri: Can you help me out here?
Fakybe: Don't look at me, I still think someone slipped us strong hallucinogens.
Fendri: M-PRSR-E0, I know you believe in droid rights, just like I do -
Fakybe: *sotto voce* since when?
M-PSR-E0 doesn't want to risk his 10 primary droids, since they're all originals. Number 11 is a replica.
Fakybe: Is there a flowchart? Step One : Start Droid Insurrection. Step Two : ???? Step Three -
Fendri: Profit!
Fakybe: This is such a bad idea - we're implicated three different ways - we brought the Trade Federation droids here, we brought that med droid here, our astromech is going to be their pilot...
Fendri: You can say it...
Forvuk: 'I have a bad feeling about this'
GM: And you have any number of droids who can tell you the odds.
Fendri: Hooray, we're starting a droid insurrection!
GM: It IS odd that the Impresario thinks this can actually work - obviously he's working from information you don't have.
We get the Suitcase ( Trade Federation Droid 11 ) into the warehouse in a heavy lifter crate of tools and equipment. The heavy lifter droid has been tampered with so the inevitable investigation later suggests it was hacked, and not by us. 11 then has a good look around, under the oblivious sensors of the Probe Droid, and discovers that the captive droids are being run through an escape pod simulator. For some reason the Imperials want to find better ways to tell if droids are using escape pods, and survival protocols afterwards. Can't imagine why. Most people think droids aren't capable of much, but maybe that's changing after that whole incident with the Peace Moon. Fnord uses Binary to talk 11 through shutting down all the restraining bolts on the captive droids. Then it's just a matter of walking all the droids out the back door, when the Imperials are looking elsewhere.
Our Rodian friend sends us a photo - of an Aqualish pirate captain in carbonite, being unloaded from a ship here in Fomos. Fakybe sends them a thumbs-up emoji.
Fakybe: We'd better go check on this. It IS a bit odd - why would the Hutts send a freeze-dried Aqualish BACK to Fomos? And I'm sure the smugglers will try and rescue him the moment they find out. Plus we'll have plausible deniability while the droid insurrection kicks off "We weren't involved, we were busy being shot at by smugglers when it happened."
The freeze-dried pirate has been installed in place of the Wanted poster at Rick's place. Rumour has it that one the Hutts, Thakba, ordered this, as the first stage in a Hutt takeover of Fomos and to intimidate the surviving pirates. Mogul the Hutt, the film aficionado we brought to Fomos, has taken over the abandoned mansion opposite Rick's Place, and is using the roof as a sunbathing lounge. I guess we won't be using it as sniper position anymore.
Fakybe: You know, I think we might be at least partly responsible for a joint Imperial-Hutt takeover of Fomos. I feel slightly guilty about this.
Fendri: *shrugs* eh.
Thakba Besadii Diori is the Hutt Kingpin of Sleheyron that ordered the bounty of the pirates in the first place, and ordered the new interior decoration of Rick's. Mogul is from Nulhutta, which at least suggests they're not related.
Fakybe: We've given Mogul a foothold on Fomos. It's a good opportunity for him, and Hutts take opportunities. Mogul might have been a small fish on Smuggler's Moon, but here he can be a big fish. A big, brown, turd-shaped fish.
Hopefully a business meeting with Mogul will give us an alibi during the droid escape. And if the bountyhunter Trex assumes VX-49 was involved in the escape, he might chase off after them and forget about us.
Just recapping the plan, mostly because I still can't believe we're doing this - The Imperials have a warehouse of confiscated droids that they're training in survival skills for some inexplicable reason. For some other inexplicable reason, we're smuggled a replica Trade Federation droid into the warehouse, to disable all the restraining bolts, disable the Imperial probe droid on guard, and hurry them all across to the YT pirate Freighter we captured, where our astromech will fly them all off to the pirate base that only us and the handful of surviving pirates know the location of. They'll 'kidnap' Fnord, 'steal' the Electronic Counter-measures Pod that BOSS temporarily leant to us, and hook it up to the captured starfighter in another bay. The jamming will cover their escape, especially since the Imperial star destroyer is out of system at the moment.
Fakybe: Apparently this is what we do now.
GM: Yes, a strange plan that will cost you lots of money, and crew.
Fakybe: I still don't know why M-PSR-E0 is going along with this.
GM: He's a military protocol droid that likes seeing all these old droids marching around not getting shot at.
We'll be off making business deals with Mogul the Hutt when it goes down, by way of alibi.
GM: Scoundrels might wonder exactly why somebody would want to film on a planet with rugged scenery, rugged extras, and zero change of rain, snow, or fog interrupting filming.
GM: R4 is going to be so screwed after doing this. 'They won't just wipe me, they'll fry my circuits. But at least my fellow droids will be free. We'll start a Pirate Collective.'
Fakybe: Well, you're already an RRRR unit.
GM: Captain ARRR4W9
GM: Mogul has already renamed the mansion as The Voyeur's Hutt. His eyes roll back as he directs a horrified female slave to scratch under a belly fold.
Fakybe: Well, there's a mental image I won't get rid of in a hurry.
There's the sound of heavy weapons fire, and an almighty crash and roar as the YT Freighter takes off through the roof of the repair hanger.
Fakybe: What the Frak was that????
Mogul's Minion: Somebody just stole a Freighter from the starport.
Fakybe: Wait, what? A Freighter? Was it OUR freighter???? *punching numbers into a commlink* R4? Fnord?
Forvuk and Fendri run out to watch the Freighter disappear into the sky. It's not the Deniable Plausibility, which is a relief, since it means the droids didn't double-cross us. Still, since that Freighter was worth a share of the anti-pirate reward to us, we have to pretend to be upset.
Fendri: Hey! No! That was worth thousands of credits to us!
Forvuk: The ship's gone!
Fakybe: *'faints', apparently believing he means the Deniable Plausibility*
Mogul the Hutt: *laughing himself sick*
As we hurry to the starport, another unauthorized ship takes off - that starfighter we thought R4 was going to fit the ECM pod to.
Fendri: R4 took the starfighter too?
Fakybe: That was clever of him.... wait. He took the ECM pod. That was BOSS property.
GM: So was the starfighter.
Fakybe: *internal facepalm*
GM: Shall I roll up some new characters for you?
We eventually realize that R4 didn't even go near the starfighter - and we have no idea who took it.
Forvuk: Wait, somebody has scrambled our starfighter?
GM: YES!
Fendri: That wasn't part of the plan!
BOSS reports that the starport is in an uproar, they have no idea who took the starfighter, but the Imperial Frigate that just entered the system is looking into it.
Fendri: We get in our ship and GO.
So does everybody else with a ship too, including the Rodian bounty-hunters, Tie Fighters, etc.
GM: Inner system comms are in Chaos as everybody tries to track the skipjacked freighter, contact the starfighter, and figure out what the hell is going on, while the YT still jams everything.
Fakybe: Well, time to add to it. *broadcasting on all channels in his native tongue* DON'T YOU DARE SHOOT THAT SHIP THAT'S OUR MONEY IF YOU TORPEDO THAT SHIP I'LL TAKE IT OUT OF YOUR NURFHERDING HIDE.
GM: You can hail the Bantam Menace.
Fakybe: The Bantam Menace?
GM: You had to call the starfighter something.
Female Voice: Am in hot pursuit of the stolen ship - are you here to assist or hinder?
Fakybe: You stole our prize starfighter to follow them!
Forvuk: Pull up or we open fire!
Female Voice: That's a negative - this ship has been impressed into the Imperial Navy.
Forvuk: .... is the jamming still enough to stop anybody else from hearing this conversation?
GM: Probably.
Forvuk: Right then - I open fire.
Fakybe: Please tell me that was a warning shot.
Fendri: That's our ship you're shooting at, remember.
Forvuk: Can I fire a warning shot with both barrels?
Fendri and Fakybe: NO!
As it happens her efforts to dodge the warning shots are enough to wreck the frankly rubbish starfighter anyway. The unknown pilot has to bail out in a hurry. At least we can talk our way out of this if she actually IS Imperil Navy.
Fakybe: She never told us who she was.
GM: Yes she did!
Fakybe: No, she just *claimed* she was with the Imperial Navy. Our ship is called the Deniable Plausibility for a reason.
The robot-filled Freighter jumps out, the jamming goes away, and we broadcast to the converging other ships, Tie Fighters, etc.
Fakybe: We've stopped one of the skip jackets, apprehending her now!
GM: If she has a flightsuit, she can survive if she climbs out the cockpit and into an airlock. If.
GM: You can see her now - or her Imperial Flightsuit, anyway. Of course, now the jamming is down you can hear her own broadcasts. YOU GODSDAMMED ALIEN MORONS etc.
Forvuk: We can demand compensation from the Navy for damage to our ship.
Fakybe: Well, we can TRY, but I don't think we should try and push it.
I make a suggestion to the GM that may prove amusing in later episodes - since the Imperials aren't going to believe us, and they'll be very annoyed with the pilot for taking the starfighter without permission, they'll attach her to our ship's crew by way of punishment.
Forvuk Zayk: Dressellian brute
Fendri: Bothan pilot of our Corellian freighter.
Fakybe: Chandra-fan con-artist and engineer.
Fnord: NPC engineer that works for the starport on Fomos.
R4W9: Our rescued Astromech
Forvuk: How big can stealth fields by made? Big enough to hide a Peace Moon?
Fakybe: Don't think so.
Forvuk: Maybe the Peace Moon wasn't blown up at all.
Fendri: I saw it explode.
Fakybe: You did?
Fendri: Well, I saw footage of it.
Fakybe: You saw footage of it. Think about what you just said - you saw footage, provided BY the Empire. Although for that matter, how DO we know the whole thing wasn't faked? The Imperials SAID the rebels blew up the Peace Moon - but that's not really that plausible, is it? An installation would have defenses, wouldn't it? How DID a couple of rebel X-wings managed to blow it up? Must have been an inside job. Controlled demolition!
Fendri: Proton torpedoes can't melt durasteel beams!
GM: And why would they build an installation as big as the Peace Moon anyway? It would be easier to convert a moon into something that can fire a super-thermal laser through hyperspace.
Things have been happening on Fomos - the Imperials have been confiscating every droid on the planetoid, and according to Rick of Rick's Cantina Alderaan, they're being stored in a warehouse, or a Lambda-class shuttle nearby. This 'training mission' by the Imperials is getting stranger and stranger. At least Forvuk's obsession about the massacre of his family on Drelkh is useful, since Fakybe goes to the trouble of inviting the Imperials to the audience-involvement screening of a classical bombastic war movie, with musical interludes by those Trade Federation marching droids, and improvised saxophone solos. This might seem like a non-sequitur, but it's all part of Fakybe's plan - as he takes complimentary drinks around to the officer's table, he gives them a polite warning about Forvuk's intentions to ask them about Drelkh, and gets told to warn him off.
Forvuk: You didn't ask them about Drelkh.
Fakybe: Not directly, but I DID prove myself helpful and polite, and a useful intermediary between the Imperials and any alien species they don't want to talk to or be seen talking too. Of course, it doesn't pay to be TOO subtle about it, or the GM doesn't notice what you're up to.
Then complications arise in the form of Captain Trex, a Trandoshan slaver and bountyhunter. He is highly pissed, since the Wookiee Lowrickk, that medical droid, and a pilot named Pash, stole his personal ship as they fled servitude to Trex's bosses in the Hutt dynasty. He wants a word with us, since he already knows Lowrickk and the droid paid us to take them to Fomos. It's abundantly clear that we don't get to decline the invitation for a chat. Happily, Fakybe can tell them the exact truth - we haven't seen the Wookiee and the droid or their contact since the thing with the pirates, we've never even met Pash, and the Imperials have gathered up all the droids on Fomos anyway.
Fakybe: But there's still some smugglers on Fomos that were involved with the pirates - why don't you ask them?
In a best-case scenario the bountyhunter's gang and the surviving smuggler-pirates will have a shoot-out with each other - but we probably won't be that lucky. We do know where Dario Blunt and the other surviving pirates hang out too - perhaps some careful sniping will ensure a shoot-up?
GM: Remember what the Imperials told everybody - massive reprisals if any Imperials get hurt. Do you REALLY want to start a shoot-out downtown?
Forvuk: Yes.
How to find out what's up with the missing droids? Can we lure the Imperial guards away from the warehouse, to get a look inside? One method springs to mind.
GM: On Fomos, water is more valuable than life, but not as valuable as beer.
The petty officer is okay with us doing 'maintenance' on the building, as long as we don't go inside. The Probe Droid inside is on a shoot-to-kill protocol.
Fendri: I'll just push Forvuk's heavy blaster back to the bottom of the tool bag.
Fakybe: It's not a blaster - it's a long-distance welder.
Under the watchful supervision of the bored guards, Fakybe climbs into the warehouse conduits to fix all the dodgy cabling that the Imperials added more complexity to. Oh, and plant his commlink where it can film the inside of the warehouse. Fendri receives a brief shot of droids *repairing* other droids, right before the Probe Droid takes out the camera with a heavy blaster.
Fakybe: Feed me more slack on the B2 cabl- BANG - Fuck! Fuckity Fuck!
Fendri: What's wrong?
Fakybe: That Probe Droid just shot at me!
Petty Officer: Then you'd better get out of there, son.
Fakybe: Believe me, I am!
The Imperials shrug it off, blissfully unaware that we actually were up to no good. Fakybe went into the ducting under his own recognizance after all. They also decide that the commlink getting destroyed is better than it being shot while Fakybe was still wearing it - that would have required more paperwork.
Fendri: I have a cunning plan. It could go horribly wrong, or horribly right, but this IS Star Wars.
Fendri and Forvuk want to recruit one of the Trade Federation droids, and use it to disable the probe droid with an ion blaster. After all, it's only programmed to stop LIVING targets from entering the building.
Fakybe: We still don't even know WHY they have all the droids. I'm not even sure why we're doing this.
Forvuk: For money.
Fakybe: They're droids, they don't have money.
Fendri: Hang about, I'm trying to come up with a suitably heroic reason - To give the droids their freedom!
Fakybe: Well, I suppose we could tell them to take of Trex's ship and fly off in it. That would be amusing. Any astromechs in the photo I managed to get?
GM: Oddly enough, no.
VX-49, the medical droid, isn't there either.
Fendri: Oh gods, I'm going to be joining the Rebellion.
Fakybe: How so?
Fendri: Because I'm rescuing droids just because it's the right thing to do.
Forvuk: There must be SOME way we can profit from this.
The others eventually decide that staging a mass droid break-out, and letting them hijack the YT-series ship in dry dock nearby, and sending them off to take over that pirate base we attacked, is the way to go. We can say we saw that med-droid too, when our astromech goes rogue to pilot the YT.
Fakybe: I still don't understand why we're doing this.
GM: Neither do I, and I'm the GM.
Fakybe: OK, can somebody explain to me why we're doing this, and how we got to this plan? Because I don't recall any of us taking strong drugs lately. Although I can see one advantage to the plan - because if I can't see any reason why we're doing this, I'm sure the Imperials won't think to connect us to the crime either.
We head off to recruit the Trade Federation marching troop and their agent, the rogue military protocol droid M-PSR-E0. If droids could have expressions, his face would be a picture.
Fendri: Can you help me out here?
Fakybe: Don't look at me, I still think someone slipped us strong hallucinogens.
Fendri: M-PRSR-E0, I know you believe in droid rights, just like I do -
Fakybe: *sotto voce* since when?
M-PSR-E0 doesn't want to risk his 10 primary droids, since they're all originals. Number 11 is a replica.
Fakybe: Is there a flowchart? Step One : Start Droid Insurrection. Step Two : ???? Step Three -
Fendri: Profit!
Fakybe: This is such a bad idea - we're implicated three different ways - we brought the Trade Federation droids here, we brought that med droid here, our astromech is going to be their pilot...
Fendri: You can say it...
Forvuk: 'I have a bad feeling about this'
GM: And you have any number of droids who can tell you the odds.
Fendri: Hooray, we're starting a droid insurrection!
GM: It IS odd that the Impresario thinks this can actually work - obviously he's working from information you don't have.
We get the Suitcase ( Trade Federation Droid 11 ) into the warehouse in a heavy lifter crate of tools and equipment. The heavy lifter droid has been tampered with so the inevitable investigation later suggests it was hacked, and not by us. 11 then has a good look around, under the oblivious sensors of the Probe Droid, and discovers that the captive droids are being run through an escape pod simulator. For some reason the Imperials want to find better ways to tell if droids are using escape pods, and survival protocols afterwards. Can't imagine why. Most people think droids aren't capable of much, but maybe that's changing after that whole incident with the Peace Moon. Fnord uses Binary to talk 11 through shutting down all the restraining bolts on the captive droids. Then it's just a matter of walking all the droids out the back door, when the Imperials are looking elsewhere.
Our Rodian friend sends us a photo - of an Aqualish pirate captain in carbonite, being unloaded from a ship here in Fomos. Fakybe sends them a thumbs-up emoji.
Fakybe: We'd better go check on this. It IS a bit odd - why would the Hutts send a freeze-dried Aqualish BACK to Fomos? And I'm sure the smugglers will try and rescue him the moment they find out. Plus we'll have plausible deniability while the droid insurrection kicks off "We weren't involved, we were busy being shot at by smugglers when it happened."
The freeze-dried pirate has been installed in place of the Wanted poster at Rick's place. Rumour has it that one the Hutts, Thakba, ordered this, as the first stage in a Hutt takeover of Fomos and to intimidate the surviving pirates. Mogul the Hutt, the film aficionado we brought to Fomos, has taken over the abandoned mansion opposite Rick's Place, and is using the roof as a sunbathing lounge. I guess we won't be using it as sniper position anymore.
Fakybe: You know, I think we might be at least partly responsible for a joint Imperial-Hutt takeover of Fomos. I feel slightly guilty about this.
Fendri: *shrugs* eh.
Thakba Besadii Diori is the Hutt Kingpin of Sleheyron that ordered the bounty of the pirates in the first place, and ordered the new interior decoration of Rick's. Mogul is from Nulhutta, which at least suggests they're not related.
Fakybe: We've given Mogul a foothold on Fomos. It's a good opportunity for him, and Hutts take opportunities. Mogul might have been a small fish on Smuggler's Moon, but here he can be a big fish. A big, brown, turd-shaped fish.
Hopefully a business meeting with Mogul will give us an alibi during the droid escape. And if the bountyhunter Trex assumes VX-49 was involved in the escape, he might chase off after them and forget about us.
Just recapping the plan, mostly because I still can't believe we're doing this - The Imperials have a warehouse of confiscated droids that they're training in survival skills for some inexplicable reason. For some other inexplicable reason, we're smuggled a replica Trade Federation droid into the warehouse, to disable all the restraining bolts, disable the Imperial probe droid on guard, and hurry them all across to the YT pirate Freighter we captured, where our astromech will fly them all off to the pirate base that only us and the handful of surviving pirates know the location of. They'll 'kidnap' Fnord, 'steal' the Electronic Counter-measures Pod that BOSS temporarily leant to us, and hook it up to the captured starfighter in another bay. The jamming will cover their escape, especially since the Imperial star destroyer is out of system at the moment.
Fakybe: Apparently this is what we do now.
GM: Yes, a strange plan that will cost you lots of money, and crew.
Fakybe: I still don't know why M-PSR-E0 is going along with this.
GM: He's a military protocol droid that likes seeing all these old droids marching around not getting shot at.
We'll be off making business deals with Mogul the Hutt when it goes down, by way of alibi.
GM: Scoundrels might wonder exactly why somebody would want to film on a planet with rugged scenery, rugged extras, and zero change of rain, snow, or fog interrupting filming.
GM: R4 is going to be so screwed after doing this. 'They won't just wipe me, they'll fry my circuits. But at least my fellow droids will be free. We'll start a Pirate Collective.'
Fakybe: Well, you're already an RRRR unit.
GM: Captain ARRR4W9
GM: Mogul has already renamed the mansion as The Voyeur's Hutt. His eyes roll back as he directs a horrified female slave to scratch under a belly fold.
Fakybe: Well, there's a mental image I won't get rid of in a hurry.
There's the sound of heavy weapons fire, and an almighty crash and roar as the YT Freighter takes off through the roof of the repair hanger.
Fakybe: What the Frak was that????
Mogul's Minion: Somebody just stole a Freighter from the starport.
Fakybe: Wait, what? A Freighter? Was it OUR freighter???? *punching numbers into a commlink* R4? Fnord?
Forvuk and Fendri run out to watch the Freighter disappear into the sky. It's not the Deniable Plausibility, which is a relief, since it means the droids didn't double-cross us. Still, since that Freighter was worth a share of the anti-pirate reward to us, we have to pretend to be upset.
Fendri: Hey! No! That was worth thousands of credits to us!
Forvuk: The ship's gone!
Fakybe: *'faints', apparently believing he means the Deniable Plausibility*
Mogul the Hutt: *laughing himself sick*
As we hurry to the starport, another unauthorized ship takes off - that starfighter we thought R4 was going to fit the ECM pod to.
Fendri: R4 took the starfighter too?
Fakybe: That was clever of him.... wait. He took the ECM pod. That was BOSS property.
GM: So was the starfighter.
Fakybe: *internal facepalm*
GM: Shall I roll up some new characters for you?
We eventually realize that R4 didn't even go near the starfighter - and we have no idea who took it.
Forvuk: Wait, somebody has scrambled our starfighter?
GM: YES!
Fendri: That wasn't part of the plan!
BOSS reports that the starport is in an uproar, they have no idea who took the starfighter, but the Imperial Frigate that just entered the system is looking into it.
Fendri: We get in our ship and GO.
So does everybody else with a ship too, including the Rodian bounty-hunters, Tie Fighters, etc.
GM: Inner system comms are in Chaos as everybody tries to track the skipjacked freighter, contact the starfighter, and figure out what the hell is going on, while the YT still jams everything.
Fakybe: Well, time to add to it. *broadcasting on all channels in his native tongue* DON'T YOU DARE SHOOT THAT SHIP THAT'S OUR MONEY IF YOU TORPEDO THAT SHIP I'LL TAKE IT OUT OF YOUR NURFHERDING HIDE.
GM: You can hail the Bantam Menace.
Fakybe: The Bantam Menace?
GM: You had to call the starfighter something.
Female Voice: Am in hot pursuit of the stolen ship - are you here to assist or hinder?
Fakybe: You stole our prize starfighter to follow them!
Forvuk: Pull up or we open fire!
Female Voice: That's a negative - this ship has been impressed into the Imperial Navy.
Forvuk: .... is the jamming still enough to stop anybody else from hearing this conversation?
GM: Probably.
Forvuk: Right then - I open fire.
Fakybe: Please tell me that was a warning shot.
Fendri: That's our ship you're shooting at, remember.
Forvuk: Can I fire a warning shot with both barrels?
Fendri and Fakybe: NO!
As it happens her efforts to dodge the warning shots are enough to wreck the frankly rubbish starfighter anyway. The unknown pilot has to bail out in a hurry. At least we can talk our way out of this if she actually IS Imperil Navy.
Fakybe: She never told us who she was.
GM: Yes she did!
Fakybe: No, she just *claimed* she was with the Imperial Navy. Our ship is called the Deniable Plausibility for a reason.
The robot-filled Freighter jumps out, the jamming goes away, and we broadcast to the converging other ships, Tie Fighters, etc.
Fakybe: We've stopped one of the skip jackets, apprehending her now!
GM: If she has a flightsuit, she can survive if she climbs out the cockpit and into an airlock. If.
GM: You can see her now - or her Imperial Flightsuit, anyway. Of course, now the jamming is down you can hear her own broadcasts. YOU GODSDAMMED ALIEN MORONS etc.
Forvuk: We can demand compensation from the Navy for damage to our ship.
Fakybe: Well, we can TRY, but I don't think we should try and push it.
I make a suggestion to the GM that may prove amusing in later episodes - since the Imperials aren't going to believe us, and they'll be very annoyed with the pilot for taking the starfighter without permission, they'll attach her to our ship's crew by way of punishment.