[ Previous ] [ Back ] [ Next ]

Just as we were about to get under way to one of the Rakata ships for looting/scavenging, I received a message from Kreegan the Hutt. He wanted to meet for a potential business venture. I was a little wary, but decided we should probably humor him. My reputation was on the line, which was a concern, and if possible, I wanted to salvage our professional relationship. I sent him a reply and asked him in a roundabout way about potential conflicts with his employee Bow'lurr. With Bow'lurr's proclivities, I was worried not only for Savn, but now myself due to my own recent uh… change. Still a little unsettled about that. Can't really do anything about it though. Best make use of it however I can.

Kreegan took the hint and assured me that there would be no trouble regarding Bow'lurr. We agreed to meet in neutral area. We arrived early and ran sensors until Kreegan showed up. We boarded his ship with some trepidation, but it ended up okay. Kreegan was his usual jolly self, and apparently Bow'lurr had moved on to other things due to his personal issues getting in the way of business. Well that was a lucky break for us.

So, the job. If it pleased us, we were to meet with Baron-ish Malevius's former boss, Darth Nebulous. Egads. Well, it seemed Nebulous wanted to locate his errant apprentice and Kreegan thought we could help. Which we could. I had some serious concerns about heading to this Sith's holdings to meet with him, but Kreegan seemed to think it'd be no big deal. He talked to us about what he knew about Darth Nebulous and while still concerned, I felt reassured enough to consider going to visit him. It could be a trap. Malevius wanting his gimp back and revenge on us… We'd have to be prepared for it in at least some little way. With some tentative agreements, we parted ways with Kreegan and decided to head on over to Darth Nebulous's holdings for a chat.

Darth Nebulous lived on a block of ice. A pretty one. Speaking of pretty, the place was full of attractive women of all races, no men to be seen. Except Darth Nebulous himself. He appeared to be Chiss, although he implied that he was extending his life by jumping bodies or something. In a way, it was all so creepy. In a way, it was very non-threatening. Darth Nebulous himself seemed very chill and relaxed. How very un-Darthy. But he explained that not all sith passions are hate and anger. I guess he's talking about his obsession with hotties.

So we tell this Darth Nebulous about our run-ins with his errant apprentice, give him coordinates, discuss the gimp who was apparently a stolen asset. Nebulous seems to have a hobby of tinkering with people. Modifying them. Robert was one such, an extensive one, but more typically he does implants and the like. Nebulous has a lot of interest in Robert.

He gives us his task, take Malevius dead or alive, preferably alive. In exchange he'll pay us in credits and give us all mods/implants to give us every possible advantage. He wanted to see Robert too, but he was not part of the deal really. We discussed it and decided we would retrieve Robert and bring him back, and then get our implants done. During our flight back to the ice block, we discussed strategies of how to deal with Malevius. Our task was essentially acquire him. Which meant we needed to find him. And it came right down to the fact that we would basically have to set a trap for him using us, or rather one of these Rakata ships, as bait. Robert would be integral to this task, as he was the only one with any way of contacting Malevius. Because of this, Nebulous could only tinker with Robert for the short time while we got our implants added; we'd need Robert in order to ensnare Malevius… and he may not come back functional.

But how to deal with whomever Malevius brings with him? What to assume about who he'd bring with him? How to counteract whatever he may throw at us? How to prevent him from escaping? We thought a lot on these questions. We needed to make sure we had every advantage so that when everything went awry, we'd be able to respond sufficiently.

Possible considerations:

• He knows something about the dark-side power requirements, will bring some number of acolytes with him
• He may bring a focus to increase the amount of power generated by a fewer number of people
• He may or may not know precisely how many dark side force users are needed to power the hyperdrive
• He will know it's a trap and as such will be prepared
• Need to keep his ship from leaving
  • Damage/destroy it?
  • Tractor beam?
  • Targeted EMP to disable the nanobots
• Fire support:
  • Three heavy war droids
  • Carbonite bombs
  • EMP cannons
  • Turbo lasers?
    • Use the Tempest's turbolasers?
• Mitigating force usage:
  • Force Cloak
    • But he uses it too (says Darth Nebulous)
  • Force Lightning
  • Force Push
• He seems to be gadget-oriented. What can we expect?
  • Brings droids of his own?
  • Return of the robot Jawa apprentice?

Current plan: Find a somewhat intact Rakata ship. Put the war droids down in the docking bay. Open the cargo bay doors for his ship. Once he docks, shut the cargo bay doors and activate the force-field, disable all subroutines to open the cargo bay doors via hackery. Disable Maleviu's ship with EMP or turbolasers carried by war droids. Big blaster battle between him and his and us and ours (including our war droids).

How will we restrain him without killing him? Carbonite? Slave collar? Something else?

Most of all: What if he doesn't come when given the bait?

Loot to spend (xLy == x level y cost items):

• 1L4 (personal)
• 3L3 (1 to each person) from taking out the Republic base
• 3L4 (1 to each person) from destroying the engine and delivering the schematics to Zrak