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Floating around in space where the Rakata ship used to be, we decided to do at least a cursory examination of the debris to try and identify the ships, their crew, and/or their owners. Someone or something around us was and information leak, and we needed to find out who. This was a good step. We managed to pick up the cartel ship's datacore, and I discovered the ship was owned by Karaga the hutt. Not good. The republic ship was a cruiser, FooBarBaz class, but no other identifying information could be found. It was probably a dark ship. Savn acquired some bio material from it for later analysis. Eww, but ok.

Then, we took off, not wanting to stick around for any potential cleanup crews.

We contacted Kreegan, and a meeting place was arranged.

We met at a backwater dive, and over the course of about an hour or so, the dive emptied out except for the representative of Kreegan, a wookie. Once the bar was empty, the wookie brought up a hand-holo. Kreegan appeared a moment later.

Things were not going well on either end Kreegan was being systematically undermined. We explained that Karaga was interfering with us on a level, and that one of his ships was destroyed in doing so, and that it might be a cause for concern for him, so keep an eye out. He didn't blame us for anything, even though Kreegan's dealings with us may be what is getting him in trouble. I put it in the back of my mind to try and make this right at some point in the near future, once the Nebulous/Malevius thing was under control.

From there, we headed off to Nebulous's compound for a meeting. Something about this meeting didn't sit right with me. I felt Nebulous was semi-neutral, but his interest in getting his errant apprentice back was a little too intense for someone just wanting to rein in a misbehaving child, which was how he'd been pitching the situation up to this point. Also he claimed to have folks who had eyes on Malevius where he currently resided. That sent off alarm bells bigtime. He'd last sent us out to snag Malevius because he couldn't find him. But suddenly Malevius teleports somewhere and now he can find him? I'm skeptical. Very skeptical.

So we ended the meeting telling Nebulous that Karaga was onto us somehow, and Nebulous tasked us with retrieving his apprentice. Seems odd for him to need us to do this if he's got folks watching Malevius now. But at this point, I just wanted to get out of this situation in the least suspicious manner possible. That night, Robert woke me up regarding something I can't remember, and then about an hour later Savn woke me up telling me to get back to the ship. I woke turret and both of us headed back. Savn informs that we need to get out of here right now. “Before we remember to leave Robert” Oh? Apparently Savn had talked with Robert for the past hour and told him that we were supposed to leave him here, and had given him the option to stay or go. I didn't really want him making decisions like this for the whole crew without consulting all of us first, but okay. If Robert really didn't want to stay here, we could take him. So we ended up starting our new task a bit early.

On the way, I contacted Zrak to get him going on figuring out who was commanding the republic ship that showed up right after the battle with Malevius. He holo'd back almost immediately and stated that from what info we'd given him, he knew the mission was very high level and sensitive, and that he was going to be very hands-off on this, but he could get us in touch with someone who higher up who could speak on it. That seemed as good as we'd get, and it was honestly better than I was expecting, so maybe we'd get to the bottom of this somehow.

The coordinates Nebulous gave us were for a backwater planet with a few primitive inhabitants. We came into orbit and ran a few scans, then headed down and landed the ship some distance away from where we read anomalous metal consistent with a light saber. We approached the coordinates we'd “found” the light saber, and Savn ran a “sense force” scan. The entire area, the entire radius that he could sense was completely blank of force. Malevius was not expecting to be attacked and was completely blank in terms of force. Suspicious. So, we sent turret in for some recon. He came back a minute later with the other half of the Rakata teleport device in hand. Before we busted in I stopped everyone and we pulled back to have a discussion.

At this point, I was very suspicious of Nebulous. Moreso than Malevius, who had thusfar been pretty straightforward in his motivations. I didn't want to just carbonite him without finding out if my suspicions were correct. I pressed the boys on this issue, and we collectively decided that we really needed to question Malevius more than capture him. Given the state of things, I wasn't expecting much of a fight, if any. But, he could be blanking his force powers, so it was worth some caution.

We all filed in as quietly as possible and got into position. Turret nudged Malevius awake.

Malevius awoke, and groaned with annoyance when he saw who was here. He did his usual mouth-shooting-off nonsense. But finally we got him to stfu long enough to get our point across. We were here to capture him for his master, but that we wanted him to come clean before we made a decision about whether or not we would actually deliver him up. He did seem completely oblivious at the Karaga thing. Apparently he'd had nothing to do with the Karaga information leak or possible bounty on us. Malevius basically told us that Nebulous was working for, working with, the Rakata who were returning. That the two had awoken some, and that Nebulous had the ridiculous idea that he was in some kind of partnership with them rather than them using him until the time when they could regain their power and dumping him eventually. The Rakata had the tech and the know-how, the Sith had the darkside energy needed to power it. This was what Nebulous thought his partnership would be. But the Rakata had had their connection to the force severed by a disease, a disease Malevius claimed was manufactured, not natural. And that the disease was rampant here on this planet, and that he'd lost his connection to the force as well. Quite bitter, he was.

But anyway, the Rakata desperately sought a way to restore their connection to the force. And once they found it, the sith would be back in the salve pens, including Nebulous. I didn't disagree.

More to the short term, we asked if Malevius had the ability to test whether or not we or the implants Nebulous gave us were the information leaks. Malevius claimed it was likely, but that he'd need certain equipment. He explained it, and it was stuff we had back on the ship. At this point, the need of Malevius's presence outweighed the risk, so we invited him back to the ship and took off into orbit. Once in orbit, I started setting up a series of hyperspace jumps to keep us on the move while Savn supervised Malevius as he began assembling and calibrating his gadget. Once he was done, he scanned us all, and we each had at least one nano bug on us.

We turned to Robert, and Malevius shook his head. He suggested jettisoning him. That bad, eh? I instead headed to nar shaddaa and we dropped Robert off. I contacted Kreegan and instructed him to come pick the guy up, with the idea that he was the one who saved his asteroid, that he was a math wiz, and that he should not talk about any sensitive material around the guy. I explained to him that we'd be back later when we had some time and get him fixed up; he needed a new cyborg body. Kreegan seemed okay with this.

At this point, we needed to decide what to do about Malevius, Nebulous, Karaga and the republic, nevermind the Rakata. What a mess.