Tabletop Squadron Transcript, Season 1 Episode 15:
Let’s Get Some Answers

Transcript by Tyler (Twitter: @Tyler_MoonSage)

## Intro

NICK: Hi everyone, and welcome to Tabletop Squadron, a Star Wars: Edge of the Empire actual play podcast. I’m Nick, your game master. Every other Thursday, our story follows a thief, a bounty hunter, and a slicer as they explore the galaxy helping a mysterious benefactor and each other.

Not a lot of announcements this week. I know there’s some new iTunes reviews floating in the internet somewhere, but they haven’t shown up where I can see them yet, so I’ll be sure to thank everyone next time.

You know how I know that? Twitter! Our Twitter drive is going well. We’ve gained 20 more followers. We’ve had several NPC polls, and the NPC will be a blue Gungan that’s a circus acrobat who loves Sabacc and making jewelry. Thank you to everyone who’s voting and helping us make this character. Come follow us and help us decide the final piece. Our next and final Twitter poll will be at 125 followers.

Twitter is a great way to reach out and talk to us or other people who like this podcast and many other great podcasts. Remember, when we hit the next Twitter goal we’ll release a bonus Jedi Adventure on off-weeks and a pretty lengthy blooper reel that I’ve had stashed away since we started. We’re very close, but we  need you!

Anyway. Thanks for listening, and we hope you enjoy the episode.

CAMERON: (distant, giggling) And by the way, our Twitter is @Tabletop_Squad!

NICK: Thank you… Cameron.

CAMERON: (laughs)

##

NICK: Hello! Welcome to Episode 15 of Tabletop Squadron. Happy Thursday, or whatever day you’re listening to this. I’m Nick, your host and game master. We’re gonna go around the table and introduce everybody and their characters, starting with Hudson.

HUDSON: Hi. I’m Hudson, and I play Tink, a Gigoran slicer.

NICK: Great. Next up we’ve got Laura.

LAURA: Hi. I’m Laura. I play Xianna’fan, a Twi’lek smuggler.

NICK: And last but not least we’ve got Cameron.

CAMERON: Hi. I’m Cameron, and I play Karma, a Nautolan bounty hunter.

NICK: Great! When we last left off the team was drifting aimlessly in space dealing with some emotional turmoil and coming to terms with some things, talking about their feelings, drinking quite a bit. We left off with a com call from Sentinel giving them some coordinates on where to meet up. We’re gonna start right about there, but before that let’s get the Destiny Roll.

CAMERON: One dark side.

HUDSON: One dark side.

LAURA: One light side.

CAMERON: Yay Laura.

NICK: Heh. Good work.

CAMERON: So two dark side, one light side.

NICK: Alright. Let’s jump right into it! The com call that you got, Karma quickly flipped the switch to send it through the whole ship. “This is Sentinel. You’ve done… better than I hoped. It’s time for us to meet in person. I’m sending you the coordinates now.” Do you go immediately?

CAMERON: “Hey Tink?!”

HUDSON: “Yeah?”

CAMERON: “Oh wait, I don’t need to yell. Sorry. I have the ship coms on.”

HUDSON: “Uh, yeah?”

CAMERON: (laughs) “Can you come help me astrogate?”

HUDSON: “Sure!”

NICK: Alright. You head up to the cockpit. It’s an easy Astrogation check, you have the coordinates, but there are two black dice on this because it’s not on any hyperspace route that you know.

HUDSON: Ooh. This is a little bit difficult. You said it’s easy?

NICK: Yeah. It’s easy, but two black dice.

CAMERON: Plus a blue die because Karma’s helping.

HUDSON: Oh. That’s so nice of you. Alright, here I go, I put my hand on the astrogater and I pull the lever!

(laughter)

NICK: For our listeners, we do know that’s not how that works.

CAMERON: Do we though?

NICK: Some of us do.

HUDSON: We have three successes and an advantage.

NICK: Great. You’re able to make the calculation. It looks like the jump is gonna be about 12 hours. The location isn’t on any star chart, it’s just at the beginning of the outer rim between the outer and the middle rim, but luckily it’s on the same side of the galaxy that you’re already on, so you’re able to get there in about that much time. You’re able to make the calculation, hit the lever, and jump. That gets you 12 hours to rest, potentially recover strain, repair any equipment that had been damaged, all that good stuff, get some sleep since you haven’t gotten a full night’s sleep in about 48 hours at this point since your last attempt involved getting exploded.

As you drop out of hyperspace with a lurch you see the black of space all around you. There are a few stars, but in front of you, you can’t even see very many of those. The reason quickly becomes clear as a small space station begins to illuminate before you. Running lights appear on the outside showing you the approach vector to land. The space station is not large. It is a simple cylinder about twice the length of your ship with a thin ring around it like a spoked wheel. As you guide your ship into the landing bay it’s a tight fit. One other ship is parked within, a small triangular fighter. The Afternoon Delight takes up the rest of the bay. As you land you hear the (whooshing noises) of lights extinguishing on the exterior. The bay is dimly lit with emergency lighting. Is there anything you want to do before you hop off?

CAMERON: I guess Karma puts her armor back on and just reloads all of her gear.

HUDSON: Yeah. I reload all my gear and my weapons.

NICK: You reload your axe. Okay.

HUDSON: Yeah.

NICK: You have a gun. I’m being mean.

HUDSON: No, I don’t use the gun, though.

(laughter)

CAMERON: Well, the gun’s in your backpack, so-

HUDSON: yeah.

LAURA: Xianna puts all of her stuff back on. She’s still wearing the old left boot, but on the right foot she found a pair of sandals that were a much larger size but they fit over the foot wrappings that she has, so she just strapped the sandal on the right foot so that she’s not walking directly on the bandages.

NICK: Oh, okay. That’s a good look.

LAURA: Yeah.

CAMERON: It’s real classy. “Hey Tink, were you able to fix the ship during our jump?”

HUDSON: “Um… (shiftily) I sure was…”

NICK: So, mechanically you did pretty much what you need to. It’s one more dent in an otherwise decently put together ship. You weren’t able to fix it like new, but it’s operating.

HUDSON: ‘It’s workable!”

CAMERON: “Awesome. I mean, I figured it was since we got here, but-“

LAURA: “Yeah.”

HUDSON: “Oh yeah.”

NICK: Is there anything else you all wanted to do?

HUDSON: Communicate with Sentinel right now to be like are we in the right place, is this a trap…

NICK: You can try and call. You don’t actually have a contact for him. The com that came in was blocked, so you don’t actually have a way to get in touch with him.

HUDSON: Hmm. Alright. “Let’s all huddle up real quick. Get in a huddle. Get in a huddle.”

CAMERON: “Okay. Huddled!”

HUDSON: “Huddle?”

LAURA: “Okay… Huddle.”

HUDSON: “Alright—“

CAMERON: “Alright Tink, you’re gonna have to lean down a little bit. You’re too far up in the huddle.”

LAURA: “Yes. Too tall.”

HUDSON: “Alright. Too tall. Got it. I’m down. What if this is a trap?”

LAURA: “I have a gun.”

CAMERON: “I have a gun, and a sword. You have an axe.”

HUDSON: “I have an axe… Should we have a broader plan than that?”

LAURA: “Um… We shoot them?”

HUDSON: “… Okay.”

CAMERON: “If we get shot at we shoot back. You axe back.”

HUDSON: “I axe back.”

LAURA: “Yes. We stand behind you. You are taller and more resilient, and then we shoot around you.”

HUDSON: “Yeah, and I say some snazzy line like let me axe you a question, and then… hit ‘em.”

LAURA: “Yes. You do that.”

CAMERON: “Yeah. Okay. Anyway. Since we’re huddled, what’s our plan for Sentinel? We’re hearing him out, yes?”

LAURA: “(sighs) Sure.”

CAMERON: “His message said ‘that went more smoothly than he anticipated,’ which concerns me greatly.”

LAURA: “That makes me worried. I mean, how much worse could that have gone?”

HUDSON: “We could ask him.”

LAURA: “”Could it have gone any worse? I mean, besides all of us dying.”

CAMERON: “We could have failed to take out the Vengeance.”

LAURA: “Yes, but then an entire city would not have been destroyed, so…”

CAMERON: “They may have still done the bombardment if we damaged it enough… It’s like it could have gone worse. I feel like he very heavily stressed the loss of life thing though, and then his plan kind of just ignored that and there were no warnings with retaliation and stuff.”

HUDSON: “I’ll defer to you all.”

CAMERON: “Okay. Here. We’ll hear him out, and then we’ll just see, and we’ll make a judgment call on if each of us still wants to be involved in this.”

HUDSON: “We are always, always allowed more huddles. We need to have more huddles to discuss things when there’s hard decisions.”

CAMERON: (laughs) “True.”

HUDSON: “We can just be like hey, pause, pause game… Huddle.”

LAURA: “Okie. If we are having a team huddle, can we huddle around me? I am missing a certain number of toes and is a little hard to walk. I’m still getting used to that. My foot is also bound. I did find a new pair of boots to wear. They are very similar to the old pair of boots, I just cannot wear them yet until the bandages come off of my foot, so I just have them in my room closet… in case you were wondering.”

HUDSON: “Alright. We can huddle around you, Miss Injured Center of Attention. We can huddle around you.”

LAURA: “Yes. Thank you.”

CAMERON: “Alright, let’s go in.”

HUDSON: “And, break!”

CAMERON: (laughing) I hit the button right next to us and the ramp deploys.

NICK: Yeah. You break from your huddle. As you exit the ship a protocol droid enters through the only door. “Ah yes, the master’s latest set of fixers. If you’ll come with me, please.” The red emergency lights in the hanger give the droid a sinister air.

CAMERON: Is this the same droid that we saw on Corellia?

NICK: It looks identical.

CAMERON: Hmm. It sounds identical, too.

NICK: Hmm. Well, I’m not that talented—

CAMERON: Good voice work, Nick.

NICK: Thanks! (laughs) The droid turns to lead you through the halls of the station. The curvature of the floor causes you to feel like you’re constantly walking up a wall and it’s rather disconcerting. Tink, your head grazes the ceiling ever so slightly. This part of the station is dim as well with a single red light every 20 meters or so. The whole station is dim with only the faintest noise of life support. Your steps and the whirring of servers on the protocol droid echo as you walk through.

LAURA: I guess we’re walking…

NICK: Yeah.

LAURA: Xianna would put her scanner goggles on just to see a little bit better.

NICK: Okay. With your scanner goggles on you see that this is a very bare setup. There’s not a lot of stuff. There are some cobwebs and a lot of dust on the hallway. It’s like not a lot of people are here. With that you can actually see the footprints from this droid and a couple of lines in the dust and that’s it, so it doesn’t look like there’s a lot of people here, at all.

So, the droid leads you to a holo room. There’s a table-sized dais for presentations and four rows of auditorium seating in a circle around the edge of the room. Seated behind the dais is Sentinel.

CAMERON: Behind? Or on?

NICK: Behind it. The dais is for presentations like the ones in the movies where they project a bunch of holograms and stuff. He’s seated, like—

CAMERON: Oh. Okay. I was thinking like a stage-type.

NICK: Yeah. It’s not like a stage, it’s like a projector thing.

CAMERON: Okay. the thing that they all huddle around to look at the presentations.

NICK: Yeah.

CAMERON: Okay, cool.

NICK: He’s sitting, it’s between you and him.

CAMERON: Okay, cool.

NICK: This is the first time you’ve seen him in real life that isn’t a distorted hologram. It’s hard to tell how tall he is while he’s sitting behind the table, but he has white hair with streaks of gray, he wears it swept back over his shoulders and it falls to about mid-neck and he has a white goatee. He’s not wearing a shirt, and you can see what looks like metal prosthetics grafted to his shoulder. It’s dim in the room is lit only by the holo-projector that is currently on sleep mode, so you have trouble making out exactly what kind of cybernetic pieces he might have.

He gestures calmly at you to join him at the projector. You can see that his other arm is still well-muscled although it has the distinctive look of someone who hasn’t exercised in a while and is starting to lose their edge. “Thank you for coming. I’m sure you have… a lot of questions.”

CAMERON: “Mm-hmm.”

LAURA: “Yes.”

HUDSON: “We do.”

NICK: “Well, uh… Shoot.”

CAMERON: I go and sit down.

NICK: (laughs) Okay.

LAURA: Yeah. Xianna would plop down into a chair. “So, was the destruction of an entire city of civilians part of your plan?”

NICK: “No. That was rather unfortunate. I didn’t expect them to respond so aggressively. I also didn’t expect the weapons to maintain function as long as they did.”

LAURA: “Yeah… I feel like that whole thing could have gone better if we knew what the weapon we were unleashing was so we could have timed things a bit better.”

CAMERON: “Because it did seem to be kind of a delayed response type thing, so knowing that we could have taken out some of the other systems on the ship just as precautionary measures… Tink’s really good at that. He was at a computer station. If we’d known it wasn’t an immediate flip and was going to take several hours, that’s stuff that we could’ve prepared for.”

HUDSON: “This is less questions but feedback for next time.”

(laughter)

LAURA: “Oh, so just general feedback for next time, do not open the airlocks if we are there, Tink.”

CAMERON: “OH no, Xianna, we’re giving Sentinel feedback.”

LAURA: “I know, but I feel like this is good feedback for everyone. I feel like we should just do a full range of team feedback.”

CAMERON: (laughs)

LAURA: “I might still have ten toes.”

CAMERON: This is a retrospective on how this mission went.

NICK: Xianna has sweat beading on her temples and is gesturing wildly as she’s talking about these things.

LAURA: “Because I no longer have ten toes, Tink! I have less than ten!”

HUDSON: “You know, we—“

LAURA: “More than six, but less than ten!”

HUDSON: “What’s to say that you wouldn’t have lost the toes anyway, regardless of the airlock incident, you know? Maybe it was just, that’s just the way the world works.”

LAURA: “Anyways. Yes, information about what the weapon was, and that it was going to take a lot of time, or that it was a biological weapon, any of that would have been useful information. yes.”

NICK: “Of course. You’re right when we’re considering the overall operation, but unfortunately my hands were tied as far as sharing the information, as I didn’t know how effective you would be and how much I could trust you. That was the point of this one. This was, like I said before, more of an audition for a much more important setup… which you passed, well three of you passed. If you had turned or had been captured or information about that had gotten out, we have a couple more of those kinds of weapons, if you had been able to give too much information we could’ve really lost an edge that in the long run will help save the galaxy.”

He does look genuinely regretful about the loss of life, but seems pretty determined in his resolve. “But, the good news is that you’ve passed. I know that you’re effective, and I would be willing to answer any questions at this point.”

LAURA: “Yeah, so, what is the overall goal of any of this?”

NICK: “Let me give you a little background. I’m waging a personal war against the Empire.”

LAURA: “Oh… (exhales) Okay.”

NICK: “Yeah. I know. The Order had several stores of funds scattered throughout the galaxy. I’m working to preserve the Republic, a Sentinel for the past as it were. Heh.”

CAMERON: (uneasy) “Heh-heh…”

LAURA: “(groans)”

NICK: “I will of course pay you for the work you’ve done so far, but now that you’ve passed this test, although not in the way I was expecting, if you’re willing I would like to have you participate in a beginning for the end of the Empire. We only have a few months to prepare, but we could strike a pretty significant blow.”

CAMERON: “I have a question.”

NICK: “Sure.”

CAMERON: “How did you expect that to go? Because you said it went better than expected.”

NICK: “I was expecting more of you to die, to be honest.”

CAMERON: “Comforting.”

NICK: “Well karma, I knew you were probably going to be fine, but some of the others were untested. I was expecting maybe one other person to come out of this. What you did avoid, I managed to intercept communication before I sent you on this mission that they were going to glass the planet using the Vengeance, so while a herdship was lost the Ithorians’ mother jungle was protected as well as the other herdships on the planet, so you did do some good, although I am sorry about your friend, colleague… co-worker.”

LAURA: “Person who was also on our ship.”

HUDSON: “Our best friend.”

NICK: “Yes, and I am sorry about that.”

CAMERON: “We had differing levels of relationship amongst the crew.” (laughs)

NICK: “I’m beginning to sense that.”

LAURA: “Yes.”

NICK: “The point would be, if you were interested, I have a mission of some importance that I would like you to participate in. you’re actually sort of the lynch pin. I have one other team I’m getting setup to support. As far as payment for this last set, how does 20,000 credits sound for the group?”

LAURA: “Each.”

NICK: “(noise of surprise and exasperation) That’s—“

LAURA: “I lost toes.”

HUDSON: “We lost a friend.”

LAURA: “I had to find a new pair of boots. I really liked those old boots. (sadly) Okay?”

CAMERON: “My ask was gonna be for 21 so it’s split evenly.”

NICK: “Hmm. What if we do 24,000 for everyone? That’s at least 1,000 for your toes. You can buy some new boots.”

CAMERON: ‘Really nice boots.”

LAURA: ‘yes.”

NICK: “In my mind I’m not necessarily paying you for your work as ensuring that you’ll participate in this next leg, of which the payment would be significantly more, but I would hope you would be motivated by cleansing the galaxy of authoritarian evil.”

CAMERON: “Fair.”

HUDSON: “Yeah, a little left, little right.”

LAURA: “I mean, I don’t know. Like, how positive are you that this will end the Empire? Because, you know, they are kind of everywhere, and powerful, and you know.”

NICK: “The Empire is currently undergoing a very large, very secret project that is using a majority of their military assets. We’re not going to be striking that, but the people who are organizing that particular thing, who don’t know I exist by the way so if you ever run into any of them don’t say anything about that, but there are some parts of the military setup for the military they’re unaware of that I would like for you and some select allies to remove before it becomes an issue.”

LAURA: “So we’re talking the Resistance?”

NICK: “Yeah. The Resistance are launching a pretty big assault in the next few months, but they don’t know everything that’s going to be there. I figure it would be better, and preserve my own personal shadow war, if we just remove some of their obstacles without them knowing.”

HUDSON: “Why do you have this vendetta?”

LAURA: “I mean, is there anyone who does not hate the Empire at this point?”

HUDSON: “Eh. Different people for different reasons.”

NICK: “Hmm…” I need a Perception check.

CAMERON: Ooh boy.

LAURA: Can do!

CAMERON: Guys, we’re rolling!

NICK: We haven’t rolled a check in two sessions! That’s not true, we rolled one earlier.

CAMERON: No, he did a medicine check.

NICK: And an Astrogation.

CAMERON: That’s like two whole checks! What is the difficulty?

NICK: Average, but Xianna can have a blue die because it’s dim in here which is part of the problem.

CAMERON: Karma got two advantages.

LAURA: I got two successes and four advantages.

NICK: Wow.

HUDSON: I have two successes.

NICK: Karma, is there anything particularly you would want your advantages to be used on?

CAMERON: Let me think. (laughs)

NICK: Okay. we’ll come back to you. Xianna and Tink, Xianna be thinking about those advantages, you can use them to add something to the scene that makes it more interesting, you can come up with some sort of advantage that would pass on to if you have to make any other rolls like say negotiation or history or anything like that. What you see with your successes, Tink, you and Xianna both lean around this holo-projector in the middle of the room and get a pretty good look at Sentinel. You see a little bit more the extent of these injuries that he had. His cybernetics actually go from about mid-collar bone down to his hip, and it’s a giant metal piece, so you know there’s at least some synthetic organs in there as if a large part of him was carved away. The metallic pieces look like they are old and have been cared for, but that they weren’t that nice to begin with. They have that look of like a chrome finish on a hubcap where the chrome is rubbed away and it’s just kind of gross metal underneath. He is missing an entire arm, that is robotic, and he is sitting in a wheelchair actually. You can see the wheels poking out. You can’t really see what his lower body situation is, but he has a large, brown cloth over his waist, and with your successes you see that there is a sleeve dangling off of the cloth like it’s some sort of garment.

When you ask why he has a vendetta, he’s going to tell you: “I’m not entirely sure exactly how much background with me you need for me to be relevant, but I do understand that me wanting to play my Sabacc cards close to the chest has resulted in some more difficulties, so let me just say that these injuries were caused by a direct intervention of the Empire and the Emperor himself, and that I have a personal interest in seeing the Republic restored and the Empire removed. Just assume that the Empire killed a lot of my friends and made me lose my arm, a lung, a kidney, and some other things.”

HUDSON: “Checks out for me.”

NICK:  You guys can make me a Lore check if you want based on that information.

LAURA: (laughs) Can I get a blue die for one of my advantages?

NICK: You can have two blue dice, because you had four advantages.

LAURA: (gasps) Yay~

CAMERON: (laughing) Can I have a blue die for my advantages?

NICK: Sure.

CAMERON: It’s not gonna help. I’m not good at Lore.

NICK: Let’s just say that his demeanor and your interactions so far and kind of using some indicators… something is tickling in the back of your minds, y’all are starting to have some suspicions, and it means you’re more likely to figure this part out.

HUDSON: What difficulty?

NICK: This one’s gonna be hard.

CAMERON: Shit. So many of my dice- I rolled six dice, three of them just came blank… but all the ones that weren’t blank, I have three failures and one advantage.

LAURA: Three advantages.

NICK: Bummer.

LAURA: Yes.

HUDSON: I have two successes and two disadvantages.

NICK: Oh good. So, based on kind of what he’s been saying, the look of the cybernetics, you’re sort of an officienato I would say, and the cloth that’s over him which you recognize might be some sort of robe situation, you think this guy might be a Jedi.

HUDSON: Ohhh.

CAMERON: Karma’s just like ‘this dude got fucked up at some point.’

LAURA: Xianna’s just a little tired, probably a little drunk still.

NICK: She’s got things on her mind. Tink, how do you approach that subject with this guy?

HUDSON: Is there like a vase near me, or something on a table that could fall?

CAMERON: I use my most recent advantage to make a vase appear next to Tink.

NICK: So, sitting on this first round of stadium seating there are some small holo-projectors and I guess a vase.

HUDSON: “So, Sentinel, if that vase were to just fall off of there, like there was a bump in the ship and the vase were to fall, would there be some way you could stop it from breaking without actually being by the vase?”

CAMERON: (laughing) Sideways asking about Force powers.

LAURA: “Tink, what are you even asking?”

HUDSON: “Just wait.”

LAURA: ‘Like, is there magnets in the vase that holds it to the podium, or…?”

HUDSON: “Nope. Nope. Nope. That’s not what I’m talking about.”

CAMERON: “Yeah. I don’t understand why you’re asking about a vase.”

NICK: “Um… What an interesting question. What exactly would you be insinuating?”

HUDSON: “Something that rhymes with lorce flowers.”

(laughter)

LAURA: ‘Lorce flowers?’

NICK: He actually laughs, and he rolls his chair, it’s like an electric hovery kind of chair but it still has wheels on it, but it means it’s really easy to spin. He rolls it around the projector a little bit. Can you roll me two force dice, please? Let’s see how good he is.

HUDSON: Two black.

NICK: Heh.

CAMERON: Two dark side.

HUDSON: Two dark.

NICK: He holds his arm out, his still biological arm, and you see a look of intense concentration on his face, and the vase begins to wobble a little bit, then he looks really upset and sad at the same time and tears his arm away. “Ugh. Yeah, I used to be a lot better at that, but… Yes, I would theoretically be able to stop the vase.”

CAMERON: So at this point do Karma and Xianna know what’s going on?

HUDSON: (laughs)

NICK: Yeah. I mean, I would say that you probably do.

CAMERON: “You were a Jedi.”

NICK: “Yes. I was a member of that illustrious order years ago.”

CAMERON: “Cool.”

LAURA: “I saw some Jedi once.”

NICK: “How’d that go?”

LAURA: “Uh, well I mean, they rescued our city from the separatists. I mean, a few years later we were then occupied by the Empire, but you know. For a year or two it was fun.”

NICK: “The disappearance of the Jedi is why I’m waging my own guerilla war here from the outer rim. The Order 66 by the Emperor and the betrayal of the clones resulted in the destruction of my order, and you know, just not a big fan of the whole fascist industrial regime. I’d really like that to be taken down and bring the Republic back. I would hope that knowing a little bit more of my story, and I’d be able to answer any more of your questions, that you would be interested especially with monetary reward in becoming freedom fighters.”

LAURA: “I mean, how much money are you suggesting?”

NICK: “So, those stores that I have scattered around the galaxy, those were Jedi emergency funds hidden anonymously in different banks and planetary economies, and I have access to a pretty solid amount, I’d rather not say exactly, and it’s smaller than it used to be but I could offer you quite a bit of money. How much would it take? I don’t want to buy your loyalty, but I will.”

CAMERON: “You might have to buy hers.”

LAURA: “Yeah. More than what we were paid for this mission.”

NICK: “Oh, well of course.”

LAURA: “At least twice as much.”

NICK: “How about… I’ll do even more than that. With a promise of your, I won’t even say devotion to the cause, but rightfully considering doing the right thing, 75,000 credits.”

LAURA: “Okie. I’m good with that.”

HUDSON: “I just like that we’re working with a Jedi.”

LAURA: “I’ll take your portion then.”

CAMERON: (laughs)

HUDSON: “No, no, it’s okay. I have a question. Do you have a data breaker?”

NICK: ‘Um…”

HUDSON: “Because I kind of want one, or do you know where I can get one?”

NICK: “I don’t have one with me- Well, I do have one with me, but I’m using it.” He looks pointedly at the droid that’s standing really still by the door. Something I don’t think that Star Wars highlights enough but I really like the idea of is that a droid being a non-living being should be able to stand as still as a couch and be easily forgotten. So, this droid, you don’t even know if it’s turned on, it’s just really still. He looks at that. Tink, I would say with your background you would probably recognize that this protocol droid has been modified quite a bit. Karma you might remember that this particular droid tazed Felton Mox when you turned him in as a bounty. Obviously it’s got some things.

CAMERON: Oh yeah.

NICK: That being said, Tink, “Tinkralllkat…”

HUDSON: “Sorry, that’s Rallltinkraatakat.”

NICK: “Rallltinkraatakat.” His pronunciation ain’t bad.

HUDSON: Not bad.

NICK: It’s not bad, but it sounds like someone who’s dealt with Gigorans before, which is weird. Most people do not.

HUDSON: We’ve never addressed that that’s my real name.

CAMERON: (laughs)

LAURA: “I mean, I just assumed Tink was not a real name.”

HUDSON: “No one bothered to ask me what my real name was.”

LAURA: “I mean…”

HUDSON: “Do y’all even care?”

LAURA: “Kind of.”

HUDSON: “Okay. It’s Rallltinkraatakat.”

LAURA: “Okie. Thank you for that information.”

HUDSON: “You’re welcome.”

LAURA: “So, if that is your real name you should not be using Tink when we go to missions. Stop telling people your name is Tink then.”

HUDSON: “No, I mean, it’s—“

NICK: “It’s a very common Gigoran epithet.

HUDSON: “Exactly. He’s got me.”

LAURA: “Oh. Okay.”

NICK: “As far as a data breaker goes, I won’t be able to lend you mine as I’m currently using it, but any black market, any hacker contact, you should be able to purchase one. They are quite expensive, but I did just give you a lot of money.”

CAMERON: “I know a guy.”

HUDSON: “Alright.”

NICK: “You know a guy?”

CAMERON: “I know a guy. I’ve acquired one in the past.”

LAURA: “I could find some people.”

NICK: ‘She has Streetwise.’ (laughs)

LAURA: (smoothly) I have Streetwise.

CAMERON: Hey I do too! (laughs) Also, also I know a guy.

NICK: “So, 75,000 credits for the next job, 24,000 credits… I can give you 12,000 now and have the rest wired to your ship within a couple of days. I don’t have it all sitting in this abandoned space station, unfortunately.”

CAMERON: “That’s fair.”

NICK: “That should give you enough to operate on and gather whatever supplies you need. Is the price enough to ensure that you will help me in my task to destroy the Empire?”

LAURA: “Mmm… Yes. Yes.”

CAMERON: “I mean, I was already onboard.”

HUDSON: “Yeah.”

NICK: “Wonderful. What a momentous occasion.”

CAMERON: “It does feel momentous.”

NICK: “It does to me, or maybe that’s just the rust acting up.” He twists his shoulder a little bit.

CAMERON: It makes a weird grating sound.

NICK: Yeah. (laughs)

HUDSON: Did Sentinel say there’s a second group helping him as well?

NICK: Yes he did.

HUDSON: And that would be like Chairbottom Team, instead of Tabletop Squadron?

NICK: Chairbottom Team.

CAMERON: Gosh.

NICK: Oh no… (groans and laughs)

LAURA: Chairbottom Platoon.

HUDSON: Platoon, I like that better.

NICK: Chairbottom Platoon.

CAMERON: “Yeah, important question: Are we the alpha or the beta group?”

HUDSON: “Yeah?”

NICK: “You are the alpha group.”

CAMERON: “Okay. I just want to know if we’re good, guys.”

NICK: “The beta group is not completely assembled yet. They’re still going through the same sort of initiation / fixing mission that I sent you on, but you’ll be tenuously in contact with them in the future.”

CAMERON: “If they’re doing what we just did you may want to wire them some further instructions, just based on our feedback session earlier.”

LAURA: “Send them some first aid kits.”

NICK: “Theirs is a little bit less sensitive than yours was.”

CAMERON: “Oh, okay.”

NICK: “So, with you being down a member, my plan does involve teams of four, so we will need to replace one of those. I don’t believe we have enough time to recruit another trustworthy mercenary, but I may have a line on another option. I’ll reach out to my contacts and—“ As he’s talking and he turns around to hit something on his chair, a com light starts blinking on the big projector thing. Sentinel stops talking and kind of motions for you all to step away from the table back behind where the projector is. Do you do it?

CAMERON: I back up.

HUDSON: Yeah.

LAURA: I scoot my chair back. (laughs)

NICK: (screeching noises)

LAURA: Oh, it definitely makes a horrible screech.

CAMERON: Oh gross.

NICK: The protocol droid’s eyes aren’t turned on, but its head turns to follow you ever so slowly.

LAURA: Well, because I’m only using one foot to push the chair back- (laughs)

NICK: So it doesn’t go very far. (laughs) He takes his blanket, which you now see is a Jedi robe, and throws it up over his shoulder so it looks more like a toga thing, and he makes a motion for you all to stay quiet, and he answers the call. In the hologram you see from the waist up someone in formal kind of senatorial robes, they’re bald and have a line of horns along the back, they’re tan. You hear the hologram say, “Sentinel! Old friend! What a pleasant surprise.”

Sentinel says, “You are the one who called me.”

“Unimportant! Listen. I helped you out with that last gig and I’m afraid I need a favor in return. You see, I’ve lost some standing in the Empire after a deserter seems to have escaped my grasp. Normally some bribes in the right place would smooth all that over, but one of my more lucrative trading partners seems to have been senselessly murdered during a recent exchange. Tragic stuff.”

Falx – uh, it’s Falx (laughter) – places a hand over his heart and poses sadly. He waits for Sentinel to say something sympathetic but it just turns into a long, awkward pause.

“Anyway! The point is I’m being forced into the political arena in a more active fashion than I’m usually used to and I’d like some protection. How’s that new crew of fixers you sent me doing?”

Sentinel says, “They are busy, and out of contact.” He makes eye contact with you all. “I won’t be able to send them to you.”

“Well, you better figure out a way to get in contact with them quickly if you want them to still be useful, because otherwise I might be forced to tell certain Empire contacts about what they’ve been up to. Of course, I would never mention any connection to you, but it’d be a shame if they were to end up on the most wanted lists.”

“You’re attempting to blackmail me into letting you use my associates?”

“Now you’re getting it!”

Sentinel looks at you all again and says, “Hold please.”

“Wait, I—“ and the hologram freezes.

“As much as I would like to begin the next phase of our mission, it would appear that I need you to deal with this. Will you help me to keep this imbecile quiet? I need him alive. He’s been helpful if treacherous.”

LAURA: “I mean, we did kind of… we were the ones who killed his trading partner, I guess.”

NICK: “Oh.”

LAURA: “Also, in our defense, he did send us with an empty briefcase for trading, so I think he was trying to kill us just in a very roundabout way. I mean, so yes.”

CAMERON: “We may have also been the reason that the deserter escaped. That was us.”

LAURA: “Oh yes. We let them escape.”

HUDSON: “Our fingers in a lot of different pies right now.”

CAMERON: (laughing) “That was an eventful few days there at the start of this.”

LAURA: “Oh. I guess we just let the one escape. Yeah.”

CAMERON: “Apparently he did a terrible job staying hidden like we said he was going to.”

LAURA: “Yeah. I mean, he wanted to leave the Empire, so…”

CAMERON: “Okay.”

LAURA: “Yeah.”

NICK: Sentinel looks equal parts amused and concerned at this. “It seems that you all were quite busy in the original exchange to get the Stone Breaker.”

CAMERON: “Well, Falx wouldn’t give it to us unless we did something for him, and then you probably know since you found everyone else on the crew, but there were a lot of bounties out there for people, so he knew who’d put those bounties up, so then we had to go on that other thing to basically do what you’re trying to do right now, just kind of avoid that whole snafu.”

NICK: “Hmm… Well, he is the best at procuring most of the things I need and is surprisingly insightful into the interior of the Empire, so if you all are willing to do whatever he needs, keep him alive, he doesn’t necessarily have to stay in one piece, just enough to stay useful.”

CAMERON: “We can manage that.”

LAURA: “Probably.”

CAMERON: Karma adjusts her sword strap over her shoulder.

HUDSON: “We got this.”

LAURA: “Most likely.”

NICK: “So we’re in agreement.” He motions for you all to be quiet again.

Falx’s hologram unfreezes. “That’s incredibly rude, my friend.”

“You once had an imperial cruiser crash into my hideout.”

“Fair! So, were you able to make contact with that crew, almost as if some kind of magic?” You can see him wiggling his fingers on either side dramatically.

Sentinel says, “Luckily they’ve made contact. I will send them to your location.”

“Marvelous! Tell them to head to Mustafar, to the mining platform closest to the north pole of the planet, they’ll know it when they see it, and tell them to be ready. This will be challenging.”

The hologram clicks off leaving you in darkness again. You can see Sentinel rest his face in his hands and take a deep breath. As he takes a deep breath you actually hear some mechanical cirvos come from some of his robot parts.

“Well, I guess before we can move onto the next stage we’ll need you to deal with whatever mess is going on there. I’ll continue to research where your fourth mercenary will come from in the meantime.”

LAURA: “Can you get someone who has actual skills in being a scoundrel? Because the last one… I’m not even sure what he was. He did seem like a good politician, but he didn’t seem like any sort of con artist. Basically, maybe a more rigid application.”

CAMERON: Karma kinda like brings her hand up and is trying really hard not to laugh, because Sabos died, but at the same time very much agrees with the sentiments that Xianna’s saying.

NICK: Sentinel gets a really devious smile on his face. “If this lead works out, skillset will not be an issue.”

CAMERON: “Great.”

LAURA: “Okay?”

CAMERON: “So I guess we’re going to Mustafar. Not great safari stuff on Mustafar.”

HUDSON: “(sighs) You know, I can wait. I really want the loth animals.”

CAMERON: “Okay…”

NICK: (laughs) And I guess that’s where we’ll end the episode.

ALL: Ba-naaa~!

NICK: Yay.

## Outro

CAMERON: Thanks for listening to Tabletop Squadron. If you enjoyed our show please consider logging into iTunes and giving us a five-star review. Five-star reviews will help new listeners to find the show and give the squad warm fuzzies when we read them.

Xianna’fan is played by Laura Penrod. She can be found on Twitter at @cheerio_buffet.

Tink is played by Hudson Jameson and he can be found on Twitter at @hudsonjameson.

Karma Nailo is played by me, Cameron Robertson. You can find me on Twitter at @midnightmusic13.

Our game master is Nick Robertson, and you can find him on Twitter at @alias58.

Our intro song is Space Jam by Pablo Ribot.

Additional music by James Gunter.

Follow the podcast on Twitter and Instagram at @tabletop_squad. For real! We’re real people and we wanna talk to anyone who listens to the show. Reach out! See you next time.