Adventure 10

All three of the party members were given orders to report to the Imperial Palace after recovering from their last mission. The most serious of these injuries was Maliss being hit by a large shard of shrapnel in his chest, but a trip to the bacta tank was enough to quickly make him whole. The party assembled the closest thing they could find to dress uniforms; the droid even shined his armor.

Upon arrival at the Imperial Palace, they were ushered in by C-3PO, who they had briefly met during their recovery of the droids on Tatooine. The golden droid brought them to Emperor Skywalker's quarters and exited, leaving them in front of the heavy doors. With a nudge from the Force, the doors opened in front of the players, giving them a view of Skywalker's extraordinary office. It had floor-to-ceiling windows that gave him a complete view of Coruscant at night; the Emperor stood at the window looking out at the horizon.

He began talking to the three, first addressing the pair of Kinsei. Turning to face them, he expressed his disappointment that their antics at the bar a few nights prior had been publicized enough for him to find out. To deliver his point, he picked both Kinsei up with the Force and threw them at the window, which he parted using the Force. Dangling them above the streets of Coruscant, he shouted that they were to act as heroes of the Empire, not fodder for the holo-tabloids.

Both the Kinsei expressed their contrition, with Maliss never having felt prouder. The Emperor had noticed him, was watching him, and demonstrated his dominance via a show of the Force. This appealed to the Dashade. The Prodigy, while thankful that he hadn't been dropped to his death, admired and respected the Emperor and pledged not to disappoint him again. With this said, the Emperor pulled them back into his office and reset the window, re-fusing the glass together.

He next turned his attention to the droid. The Emperor told the party that he was about to introduce some controversial legislation outlawing memory wipes on any droid that made it to three years without one. To facilitate this, he couldn't have IG-203 running about as a counter-argument, so he asked that the droid act like the poster-droid for the legislation.

With his point so dramatically made, he ushered them out. As he was doing this, a man suddenly appeared in the corner of the office, saying, "Anakin, we need to talk." This shocked the pair of Kinsei, but the droid was unable to perceive the figure. The Emperor introduced the figure to the Kinsei as Qui-gon Jinn, an old friend of his who often gave sage advice. The spirit of the Jedi gave an anachronistic bow, which they tried to mimic. Seeing that this was a personal meeting, the party members excused themselves. The droid, being unable to see the spirit, thought all the organics had gone insane.

The next morning, Maliss and the Prodigy went to their favorite training ground, a fairly deserted section of the old Jedi Temple that hadn't been integrated into the Kinsei Headquarters. As they were training with lightsabers, Kyle Katarn appeared to update them on the interrogation of Tellis Krath, who was unable to offer much information. While they discussed this, Katarn and Maliss sparred with their lightsabers. The match was surprisingly even until Katarn attempted a mind trick, which Maliss rebuked back on him. As per Maliss's suggestion, Katarn left the training area.

Looking to find more information about the cloning process of the Dashades, the party went down to the science area of the Headquarters. When they arrived, they discovered that Fix'kz't, the Verpine R&D Specialist who helped them on Tatooine and Freedom Station, had been assigned to command of the project. The insectoid excitedly told them of all the data they had collected and said they might have reached a breakthrough.

Katarn then notified them by comlink that they needed to come in for an emergency briefing. Upon arrival, he told them that the Corporate Sector had developed a dangerous biotoxin, which was being shipped over the Hydian Way hyperspace lane without adequate supervision. The party's assignment was to intercept the ship and confiscate the biotoxin before a Rebel ship could.

He then sent them over to Sergeant Gelkis, the quartermaster. Gelkis, who still disliked the pair of Kinsei, would only give them the bare necessities for their mission: spacesuits and rebreathers. Nos Maliss asked for a medkit, but all Gelkis gave to him was a roll of duct tape and some old bandages. As they did this, the droid rushed to retrieve his detonite from its hiding place in the party ball. Mara Jade intercepted the pair of Kinsei, asking for a moment alone with the Prodigy. The redhead asked him to steal a vial of the toxin for the Emperor's Hands.

They launched out less than 10 minutes after their briefing, and the trip was quite short. They arrived at the rendezvous point to find the ship was depowered and floating adrift, with a Rebel ship already attached to it. The Imperial pilot landed her ship to board the transport; the three party members went aboard. There were no lights nor gravity, causing them to use their glowrods to light the way.

As soon as their glowrods lit up, they came under fire from the Rebels, who retreated deeper into the ship. As the party pursued, they found a torn-up Corporate Sector shiphand. As they investigated the floating corpse, finding a ship manifest, a feral beast leapt out of the darkness at them. Maliss slashed it with his lightsaber while the Prodigy hurled it into the corridor walls with the Force. After it was dead, they looked at the manifest to discover that the transport had also been carrying a shipment of exotic and dangerous animals. The beast that attacked them was normally docile, suggesting that it may have been infected with the biotoxin.

They arrived at the biotoxin's holding area to discover that it was removed. A seemingly-mad human leapt at them from the darkness, foaming and spitting at them, but he was swiftly put out of his misery. In the next hallway, they were attacked by another dangerous animal, which was quickly killed. Before its death, it managed to puncture Maliss's suit with a bite, which he repaired with the duct tape.

Pursuing the Rebels, they found themselves trading shots from down a long corridor. The three Rebel space agents had powerful shoulder-mounted blaster cannons, keeping the party down until Maliss bounced off a wall to charge into their number. The hovercase that held the biotoxin was held by one of them, who dropped it when Maliss slammed into him. The other two began to support him when a rancor appeared in a nearby corridor and charged at them. Now flanked by dangerous enemies on both sides, the party fought desperately to survive the rancor, kill the Rebels, and recover the case. The Force was with them, as they finished off the Rebel agents and turned their attention on the rancor, who had taken the Prodigy in his claws at one point. Maliss had to distract it with a powerful blow from his lightsaber, forcing it to drop the Prodigy. A few more sustained attacks from all three members of the party was enough to kill it.

Meanwhile, their pilot had been dogfighting with Rebel ships outside the transport. She asked them over the comlink to hurry, so they took the case, set explosives on the doomed ship, and exited. At the dramatically appropriate moment, they hit hyperspace just as the transport exploded.

Back on Coruscant, the Prodigy had surreptitiously taken two vials of the biotoxin, giving one of them to Mara Jade. Nos Maliss, on the other hand, had a new trophy: a soon-to-be-stuffed rancor head,