Tabletop Squadron Transcript, Season 1 Episode 1:
We Meet At Last

Transcript by Tyler (Twitter: @Tyler_MoonSage)

Note – Laura’s character Xianna’fan speaks in an accent. Most of her soft I’s sound like “ee,” and most of her TH’s sound like Z’s. Example: “this and that” = “zees and zat”

## Intro

NICK: Hi everyone. Welcome to Tabletop Squadron, a Star Wars: Edge of the Empire actual play podcast. I’m Nick, your game master. We made it everyone! Episode 1! This is always a great part of a campaign where players get to meet each other and figure out what their characters are.

Thanks for coming along for the ride. On to the episode. Enjoy!

[musical chime]
Hi, I’m Lilit and I play Xianna’fan, a Twi’lek smuggler. I was going by an old name during this recording and while we have left the audio as originally recorded, I would request that you use my current name when discussing the episode. Thanks!
[musical chime]

## [0:44]

NICK: Hi everyone, and welcome to Episode 1 of Tabletop Squadron. I am your hosting game master, Nick. Thanks for coming back. The previous episodes were all prologues. This is the first real one. We’ve got the whole party here. We’re all very excited. So, we’ll go around the table, introduce everybody, talk about their character for just a second, and we’ll get to it. Starting off with Cameron.

CAMERON: Hello!

NICK: Hi! How are you?

CAMERON: [giggling] I’m doing well, Nick. How are you?

NICK: That’s good. I’m doing phenomenally. Thank you for asking. So, who are you playing today?

CAMERON: I am playing Karma Nailo, a Nautolan bounty hunter.

NICK: Okay. Cool. Sounds good. Moving on. Next we have Steven.

STEVEN: Hi. I’m Steven.

NICK: Hi Steven, and who are you playing?

STEVEN: I am playing Sabos, a Togruta fringer.

NICK: Great. Awesome. Thank you. Glad to have you here, on the show. This is awesome.

STEVEN: Really?

NICK: Yes. I’m super happy to have you here.

STEVEN: Yay.

NICK: And, Hudson.

HUDSON: Are you happy to have me here?

NICK: No.

HUDSON: Oh, okay. Well, my name is Hudson, and I’m playing Tink who is a Gigoran slicer. I look very pretty in my white fur. You can visit our website TabletopSquadron.com to see my image. I will do autographs later.

NICK: Nice. (dramatically) TabletopSquadron.com! And next up, we have Laura.

LAURA: Hello!

NICK: Hi. … How are you?

LAURA: I’m good. I was waiting for you to ask.

NICK: I could tell. And who are you playing today?

LAURA: I will be playing Xianna’fan, a Twi’lek smuggler.

NICK: Great. When we last left off everybody ended up in a mysterious wood paneled room. We didn’t get a lot of action there because we were recording them one at a time, but before we get started let’s do the Destiny Roll. Everybody rolls one of those white dice. They have dark side and light side on them.

HUDSON: Cameron, go first.

NICK: You don’t have to do it all at the same time.

CAMERON: One dark side.

LAURA: One dark side.

HUDSON: Steven.

STEVEN: Two light side.

HUDSON: Alright. Steven’s my new friend, bestest friend. Two white side.

STEVEN & CAMERON: Light side! (laughs)

HUDSON: Light side, whatever.

NICK: Okay. The total, you guys have four light side and two dark side. Remember, you can flip those to make interesting story things happen or to boost dice, and I can flip the dark side over to light side in exchange for making bad things happen or boosting dice for my NPCs or bad guys, who are not always the same thing. Sometimes they’re not bad guys. You guys ready to go?

PLAYERS: Yes.

NICK: Oh boy. We’ll start with the camera on the interior of the room. It’s warm and wood paneled. It has high ceilings and smooth floors. There’s a wooden board room table in the center, and sitting on it there is a small ice bucket and a crystal decanter full of Corellian whiskey, and the camera does a slow sweep of the room giving you a solid view. It’s otherwise not particularly ornate. The room itself is pretty utilitarian, but the board room table and the wooden chairs that are there, the wooden chairs have leather pads on them, they’re very nice, and that part of the setup is very comfortable.

Sitting in one of those leather chairs we have a Nautolan woman who is green and has head tentacles, and is dripping wet.

CAMERON: Yep. I’m sitting in one of the chairs to the far side of the table from the door, facing the door, and slowly running my fingers through my tentacles as I’m drying them off, and whenever I move I squeak slightly in the leather chair.

NICK: Great.

CAMERON: And I’m sitting here by myself.

NICK: And you’re sitting here by yourself. You have about ten minutes to wait while—

CAMERON: I start inspecting my fingernails, cleaning the river muck out of them.

NICK: Mm-hmm. About ten minutes later the door slides open again and a Togrutan man is shown in by a protocol droid, and he walks into the room and you see a Nautolan sitting there wringing out her head tentacles.

STEVEN: “Nautolan.”

CAMERON: (hesitantly) “Togrutan?”

STEVEN: “I go by Sabos.”

CAMERON: “Well, I do not go by Nautolan. Karma.”

STEVEN: “Hm.”

CAMERON: “Lovely to meet you.”

STEVEN: “Is that whiskey?”

CAMERON: “Probably.”

STEVEN: I go take whiskey and sit down.

NICK: Okay. You sit down, you have a glass of whiskey, and within probably a minute, you don’t even have time to feel the silence get awkward, the door whooshes open again and a purple Twi’lek is led in.

LAURA: “Uh, where did you get the alcohol?”

STEVEN: “Right here on the table.”

LAURA: “Thank you.” And I immediately go for a very large glass, and drink most of it right away.

CAMERON: (laughs)

LAURA: Then top it off again and sit down.

NICK: So, the Twi’lek and the Togruta are sitting on one side, the Nautolan is sitting on another, and you all have a few minutes of quiet while you enjoy what you actually realize is a very nice whiskey. It tastes expensive.

CAMERON: I’m not drinking.

NICK: You’ve had enough for today?

CAMERON: I’ve had enough for today, yeah. (laughs) I’m doing alright.

LAURA: “So, did you two also have to deliver a little box?”

CAMERON: “No. I delivered a Selonian, actually.”

LAURA: “That sounds much easier.”

CAMERON: “Eh, he’s quite heavy.”

LAURA: “The box was in a very weird place.”

STEVEN: “Mine got a little complicated as well.”

LAURA: “You killed someone? That’s what complicated usually means.”

STEVEN: “I busted some people out of a place that they probably should have been.”

LAURA: “Should have or should not have?”

STEVEN: “Depends on who you ask.”

LAURA: “Okie.”

CAMERON: “Hi, I’m Karma.”

LAURA: “Are we using real names here, or what?”

CAMERON: “I’m using my real name.”

STEVEN: “The Nautolan insists she go by her real name.”

LAURA: “Why are you…”

CAMERON: “Because I don’t go by ‘the Nautolan’.”

LAURA: “Is he racist? Is he xenophobic?”

CAMERON: “So, he walked in the room and the very first thing he said was ‘Nautolan’.”

LAURA: “Usually it is the humans who are xenophobic, but you know, you do you.”

STEVEN: “Togruta can be an isolated people.”

CAMERON: “See, that seems kind of xenophobic, too.”

LAURA: “Also, why did you say it in the singular?”

CAMERON: (giggles)

LAURA: “Just Togruta? It is not a planet. You are a people. You say Togrutan.”

STEVEN: “You say tomato.”

LAURA: “I do not say tomato! I do not like tomatoes. They are gross. They are squishy.”

CAMERON: Karma leans back in her chair and is just watching the conversation.

STEVEN: “Do you like human food, Karma? I see you’re uncomfortable by the tomatoes.”

LAURA: “No. Tomatoes are not the only human food.”

CAMERON: “Human food?!” (laughs)

LAURA: “Human food is more than just tomatoes. There are many more things. Where have you been?”

STEVEN: “Uh, the Togruta home world.”

LAURA: “Do they only have tomatoes? Wait, no, you think tomatoes are human food.”

STEVEN: “yes.”

LAURA: “What kind of food do they even have there? Do you not have like, bread?”

STEVEN: “Things very good for head tails.”

LAURA: “You realize that we all have some form of head tails.”

STEVEN: “Ours are superior?”

LAURA: “Can you use them to talk to your other people? Can you communicate with other Togrutans with your head tails?”

STEVEN: “Mine hang down.”

LAURA & CAMERON: “So do mine.”

LAURA: “And hers. They all do. You are the only one with two little weird pointy ones. Do you hear out of them?”

STEVEN: “They’re not little.”

(laughter)

LAURA: “I mean, compared to the length of mine they are littler.”

STEVEN: “I’m one of the few Togruta with four head tails.”

LAURA: “So, do you hear out of them? Can you use them to communicate? Are they just there to compensate for something?”

STEVEN: “Yes. Yes. No—No! Uh—“

LAURA: (laughs) “Got it. Got it.”

STEVEN: I say while sipping my whiskey.

NICK: As he takes a sip of whiskey and gathers himself, you do realize that Sabos does actually have an extra head tail. He has four. It’s very interesting.

CAMERON: I don’t think I know that’s unusual.

LAURA: Yeah, I don’t think I find that—I might know that. Xianna would know that, but she doesn’t really care. She’s been with guys with four head tails, and you know. (laughter) Or three, and four, who knows.

NICK: So, Sabos hides in his drink for a second and there’s a long silence as you all gather yourselves from this interaction. There’s the quiet clink of ice settling in the ice bucket. The door swooshes open one more time, and you all see a very large white furred creature come striding into the room.

LAURA: “Hello.”

HUDSON: I furrow my brow and look at Xianna, and don’t say anything really. I look around the room at everyone else, specifically I stop at Sabos and just kinda say “awkward” under my breath. I walk over, take the decanter and pour myself some whiskey, go ahead and sit down still just kind of looking. I don’t really trust anybody in here. Not really gonna say anything yet.

NICK: So, Tink comes and joins the table, sits in the last empty chair, and you have a few moments of silence before a blue holographic projection appears on the table. It is of a man from the chest up. He’s older with what looks like white hair and streaks of gray that falls to mid-neck swept back over his head. He has a white goatee, and his face is lined with smile lines. The hologram points in four directions at once, so it feels to each of you like he is looking directly at you. He nods pleasantly and speaks. His voice doesn’t come out of the hologram projector hidden in the table, but instead out of multiple speakers in the walls making him sound large and all around you.

“Thank you all for joining me.” Xianna, you recognize this voice as the voice from your ear piece.

LAURA: “Oh, ‘ello!”

NICK: “I am happy to see you all have arrived and accomplished your goals. Karma, your bounty was captured quickly and easily, as expected.”

CAMERON: “Mm-hmm.”

NICK: “Xianna, you showed agility and improvisation. Rallltinkraatakat, your ability to gather information, infiltrate a combat zone, and slice through defense systems was impressive. And Councilman Sako, you were able to… Wait, you’re not Councilman Sako. Who are you?”

STEVEN: “Uh, slight miscommunication. I’m Sabos, not Sako. Uh, it’s the same thing.”

NICK: “Well, it’s clearly not as I was trying to get a Corellian district leader, someone who’s good at talking, here.”

STEVEN: “I’m pretty good at talking over on Osaron, and I think I might serve your purpose as well. After all, Sabos—Sako is alive, isn’t he?”

NICK: “Well, you passed the test whoever you are, and we’re short on time, so you’ll have to do. The rest of you, if this Sabos does anything suspicious, kill him.”

LAURA & HUDSON: “Got it.”

CAMERON: “What?”

STEVEN: “Nothing suspicious at all about a Togruta.”

LAURA: “What? You are a bounty hunter. Do you not, you know, kill sometimes?”

CAMERON: “Normally they’re worth more if they’re alive.” She looks at Sabos appraisingly.

LAURA: “Oh. I mean, I killed a person this morning, so…”

CAMERON: “Dang.”

LAURA: “Don’t worry. He was a pervert.”

CAMERON: “Oh, okay. That’s fine then.”

LAURA: “And a drug dealer.”

HUDSON: “Killing doesn’t solve everything.”

STEVEN: “Sometimes you just gotta bust ‘em out.”

LAURA: “It solves some things.”

NICK: Tink has a far away and haunted look in his eye as he says that.

CAMERON: (laughs)

NICK: “I know you are all wondering why I called you here.” The hologram looks a little concerned at that exchange. “I have a delivery I need made, a delivery that the Empire would rather not be made. Before you can do that however, I need you to pick it up. I’ll be giving you some cargo for an exchange as well as some credits to buy the next leg of the journey.”

LAURA: “What is the cargo?”

NICK: “It’s not particularly important. It’ll be in a crate about two meters long and a meter wide.”

LAURA: “It is not a person, is it?”

NICK: “No, it is not a person.”

LAURA: “I do not do that.”

CAMERON: “I do.”

NICK: “That’s why you’re on the mission, Karma.”

CAMERON: “Because it’s a person?”

NICK: “No, because you have that particular set of skills.”

CAMERON: “Oh, okay.”

LAURA: “I assumed if you are moving someone in a box in cargo it is usually more of a slavery thing than a bounty thing.”

CAMERON: “Or a dead thing.”

LAURA: “I will do a bounty thing, no slavery. No.”

HUDSON: “Can we play 20 Questions to figure out what’s in the box?”

STEVEN: “That’s a wonderful idea.”

NICK: “Sure. I love games.”

LAURA: “Or you could just tell us. You could just tell us. We will probably end up looking in the box anyways, so.”

NICK: “Well, the box is mostly packing materials. I’m not sure if it’s in that box, I just assume it will be from who I dealt with in the past. It’s an artifact of sorts, and I need it for something else, and I need someone to bring it to someone else, and that is why you are all here.”

CAMERON: “This is the most specific job I’ve ever received.”

NICK: “Well, I mean, it’s smuggling. Right? I don’t have to tell you everything. I just need this box moved somewhere else. It’s very straightforward. It is not a person.”

CAMERON: “That’s why I’m not a smuggler.”

STEVEN: “Is this a smuggling operation? This isn’t just a transport op?”

NICK: “Well, yes, because the Empire does not want it delivered.”

STEVEN: “Oh.”

LAURA: “But how illegal is it? Like, pay someone to look the other way, or just straight up we are going to jail for a very long time if it is caught?”

NICK: The hologram looks considerate for a second and says, “Well, there are no specific laws banning the use of the particular technology, so nobody is looking out for it, but if you run into anyone who knows what it is it will probably not go well, so I would not advertise what you’re carrying.”

STEVEN: “What sort of people might know what this is? Who should we stay away from?”

NICK: “Anyone with a PhD I would avoid.”

LAURA: “Okie. So stormtroopers are fine.”

NICK: “Yeah. Stormtroopers will not be interested in this particular thing.”

HUDSON: “How long do we have?”

NICK: “The trip should take about a day to get there, and then the next leg of the trip should take you less than a couple of weeks. I would prefer you not take any side adventures.”

HUDSON: “Most important question. What do we get for this?”

NICK: “Money. A lot of money.”

STEVEN: “Credits, or human money? Osaron money?”

CAMERON: “So, what do you consider a lot of money? When I took up this bounty originally it was 4,000 credits, and then when I actually delivered, alive and very quickly, and you know efficiently as you mentioned, it was only worth 750 credits, so exactly what number are we working towards?”

NICK: “Forty thousand credits.”

LAURA: “Per person, or total?”

NICK: “Total. You’ll have to split it.”

STEVEN: “You got 4,000 credits? All I got was—“

CAMERON: “No. that’s what I was just saying.”

STEVEN: “Oh. I didn’t even get offered that. All I got was the job on this crew.”

CAMERON: “Well, apparently you weren’t supposed to be here, so.”

LAURA: “Well, I was promised a lot of money, so…”

NICK: For the record, side note, 40,000 credits is a shit ton of money.

STEVEN: Yeah, it sounds like a lot of money.

NICK: That’s like most of a ship, so, it’s pretty good. Yeah.

He looks like he leans back in his seat, because the hologram shifts angles a little bit. “So, now that we have that out of the way, the most important thing would be—“ and then there’s a loud bang that shakes the room. You hear the building rattle and some dust comes down from the ceiling. The hologram looks up. “Well, I guess we won’t have time for the cargo and the credits. It appears we have unwanted visitors. I suggest that you leave immediately.”

There’s another bang and the door that you entered through slides open. At the end of the hall, from the entrance of the building, you see a squad of six stormtroopers in black armor moving quickly down the hallway covering each other. There’s a rumbling noise, and all of the doors on either side of the hallway shoot down through the floor like elevators, leaving a view of empty rooms behind, like the side rooms have all jettisoned. The troopers snap to look at the doorways and then back to your group in the room. One stormtrooper has a data pad hooked to a panel on the wall. The stormtrooper presses a button and all the lights flicker off. A door behind you slides open.

Out of the walls of the room the voice of your contact says, “Three blocks north, there’s a pleasure yacht on a landing pad. It’s my personal ship. Get there, get into orbit, and head to Unroola Dawn. You need to speak with (static). He’s the man in charge. (static) Outpost 4 (static).”

LAURA: “You are breaking up! Hello?”

NICK: And you hear the word Sentinel, and then it goes dead. The troopers begin shooting through the door, and as the other room opens up you can see there is a dark hallway that leads outside.

CAMERON: When the troopers start shooting I drop, so I’m underneath the table, and take my heavy blaster off of my back.

NICK: Okay, so you take cover. Is anybody else doing anything?

HUDSON: I grab my vibro-axe and kind of crouch, which makes me about average height of everyone else.

(laughter)

NICK: Okay.

LAURA: I wave a little bit at the stormtroopers, and then hide under the table and pull my gun out.

STEVEN: Yeah, I just stand still.

NICK: You just stand there?

CAMERON: You were sitting.

STEVEN: I sit, and—

NICK: You have another sip of whiskey?

STEVEN: I do.

NICK: Okay. So, these are not stormtroopers that you have seen before. They’re not the ones that would be on patrols. They look pretty scary, and there’s at least six of them. Are you going to shoot at them or are you going to run?

CAMERON: Now that I’m crouched I’m backing towards the door behind us that opened.

LAURA: How close am I to the whiskey bottle?

NICK: You could probably reach up above the table and grab it.

LAURA: Yeah. I’m gonna reach up above my head, pull it back down…

STEVEN: “Hey!”

LAURA: Is there a stopper in it?

NICK: It’s a decanter, yeah.

LAURA: Yeah. So, I’m just gonna like put it in my coat a little bit, and then start making my way to the back door.

HUDSON: I yell, “Are we being detained?” (laughter)

NICK: You just hear radio chatter coming from the room, it’s indistinct from the hallway, and some blaster fire starts heading towards you.

LAURA: “I would say that is a yes.”

STEVEN: I look visibly disappointed that the whiskey bottle left the table.

NICK: Yeah. Are you all leaving or are you gonna fight these guys? It sounds like two people are leaving.

LAURA: I’m leaving.

CAMERON: Well, I’m backing away so I can still provide cover fire if necessary.

HUDSON: I start backing away to follow everyone else.

LAURA: I’ll go first.

NICK: Do you wanna roll me a Shooting check to see how well you can lay down covering fire?

CAMERON: A Shooting check? Sure.

NICK: If you do well enough they won’t start shooting at you as well because…

CAMERON: What’s the difficulty?

NICK: The difficulty would be hard because it’s dark, and you don’t have targets, and they’re kind of far away.

CAMERON: Okay. I’m sure this will be fine. Nope, a failure, but two advantages.

NICK: So, what would you like your advantages to be?

CAMERON: Okay. Can my advantages be that… So, I’m shooting over the table and stuff, I want to shoot the panel next to the door and have the door close.

NICK: Sure, why not. We’ll make that happen. You don’t hit anyone, you don’t lay down covering fire, but the door is shut, and you hear blaster fire hammer into the panel. You have a brief moment of respite while you’re being chased.

CAMERON: Then I turn and run.

NICK: Okay. You just book it?

CAMERON: Down the hallway, yeah.

NICK: Okay.

LAURA: I was already booking it down the hallway. Yeah.

NICK: You’re already gone. So, Xianna just took off down the hallway, the door is shut, what about Tink and Sabos?

HUDSON: Yeah, I run behind Xianna.

STEVEN: I’m gonna use the opportunity to get the hell out, too.

NICK: Okay. You’re all booking it down this hallway. You go down the hallway, there’s nothing there, it’s very dim. There’s like one emergency red light hanging from the ceiling. You get to the end of the hall and a door slides open, and you are on a street back behind the building. Now remember, this was a small brick-like building with two very large spires on either side that are hundreds of feet tall and this building looks more like a utility closet than anything else, honestly. So, you’re on a street. There is no foot traffic, and you actually see on either end of the street there are some militarized speeders parked, and you can see CorSec people standing there, but they’re not really looking around. They mostly look put out, and you can see a couple of different squads of stormtroopers doing like an area sweep coming towards the building. They have not seen you yet, though, because you are all in the doorway.

CAMERON: Uh-oh.

LAURA: Does it look like there’s any small doors that we could run to? Ladders? Anything like that?

NICK: Hmm… Yes. There are some fire escapes in this part of the town, because there are a lot of low buildings in between all the big spires, and the big spires have to be far apart because their about a quarter of a mile wide at the base. So, there’s some fire escapes, there’s some alley ways, there are doors but most of the ones that are open are businesses or parts of these giant spires. They don’t look like an easy way to go through.

LAURA: Can I roll a Streetwise check to see which alley way would be the best to go down?

NICK: You absolutely can, using dice.

LAURA: Yay. What would be the difficulty?

NICK: For an alley way, average.

LAURA: Hey. A success and an advantage.

NICK: You can tell that the closest couple of alleys are probably dead ends, but if you make it a block down the street you could find a way into a network of alleys that would lead you pretty far. You’re pretty familiar with this part of town, because you’ve been casing the city of Coronet for quite some time.

LAURA: Indeed.

NICK: So, do you want to tell people that?

LAURA: “There is an alley way over there that we could go down. It’s pretty complicated, so if they do follow us it would be pretty hard to. We could easily lose them.”

CAMERON: “Mkay. You blend in, don’t you, big guy?”

HUDSON: “Eh, I’ve been told so.”

CAMERON: Because it’s snowy outside, right? You said it’s very cold.

NICK: It’s very cold. It’s not snowing.

CAMERON: Dang!

HUDSON: “I mean, I’m not the tallest creature I’ve ever seen. So, it should be fine.”

LAURA & CAMERON: Could it be snowing?!

NICK: You can flip a light side point.

CAMERON: Yes! It’s snowing!

LAURA: It is snowing.

CAMERON: Tink blends in!

NICK: Since you’ve gone inside it has started snowing, and there is a light dusting on the ground, and there are flurries and motes in the air that would make it harder to see Tink, and honestly harder for you to see them and for them to see you.

LAURA: I put my scanner goggles on.

NICK: Okay. You see that there is at least three squads of six, just at a glance. They’re all wearing that black, shiny stormtrooper armor which you’ve never seen before.

LAURA: “That is not good.”

NICK: Yeah. It’s not good. So, you know what alley you are aiming for. Can I get Stealth checks from everyone? With two blue dice, because you are in the snow now.

LAURA: Cool.

CAMERON: Okay.

STEVEN: So, assuming one does not have Stealth…

CAMERON: (laughs) You just make an Agility roll.

NICK: It would just be your Agility, yeah.

CAMERON: So it would be two greens for you.

NICK: It’s not like Deadlands where you lose a whole bunch of points for not having it.

CAMERON: What is the difficulty?

NICK: Hmm, hard. They have equipment. I forgot.

LAURA: So, two to three and two threats.

NICK: Okay. I’ve got the threats. Don’t worry about it too much.

CAMERON: Alright. I have a lot of dice. Three successes, an advantage, and a triumph.

NICK: Wow. Anything particular you want the triumph to be? The triumph could be that a taxi parks right in front of your alley and you can just climb in.

CAMERON: You know, that sounds great.

NICK: Yeah. So, no more stealth needed.

CAMERON: Let’s do that.

NICK: Yeah, and the snow covers you enough that everybody is able to slip into the taxi. The person in the taxi is actually Seeley Mox who some of you all may remember from your adventures. That’s the scrawny blond guy who was Sabos’s getaway driver and the informant for Tink, and he’s behind the wheel. He looks back at you, he throws his arm over the back seat, and he says, “Well, it looked like there was something weird going on. We haven’t seen drop ships on Coronet in a long time, and something told me that Tink was going to be involved. Whenever he asks a lot of questions and then things start showing up in the morgue I get nervous. The good news is I knew exactly where to find you.”

HUDSON: “Good instincts, Seeley. Thank you, friend.”

STEVEN: “Thanks again.”

NICK: “You’re welcome. Where are you all headed?”

CAMERON: I whisper to Xianna, “He seems like kind of a dangerous person to be around, then.”

LAURA: “I mean, but then again I also killed someone this morning and stole his drugs, so I feel like I’m pretty on par, so…”

CAMERON: “Good company, then.”

HUDSON: “I can hear you whispering. He is trustworthy.”

(laughter)

LAURA: What was the address or place we were supposed to go to?

NICK: He said three blocks north.

STEVEN: So, about two blocks more?

LAURA: Yeah, however that translates, if it’s two more blocks or three more blocks…

NICK: Yeah. You tell him that you’re headed north and that you’re looking for some sort of landing pad, because you’re looking for a ship. He goes, “Huh. Okay. Let’s do this thing.” He throws it into whatever the speeder equivalent is of going straight into third gear and gooses it, and goes like barrel rolling over one of the buildings and takes off. These are some of your threats kicking in. You hear the stormtroopers, even from this distance, some of them have loudspeaker shoulder pad things on. You hear them go ‘hey!’ and then the speeder is gone. In the snow flurries behind you you see flashes of red light, and the speeder takes off. Whoosh!

The taxi with Seeley Mox goes through a lot of unnecessary aerial acrobatics, and in between alley ways sideways, and you get there very quick. You go past the landing strip, loop around for a while, and then come back. He drops you off and he says, “Well, uh, good luck I guess. I guess this is the place. There’s no other landing pads around here, so.”

CAMERON: “Thanks.”

HUDSON: I pay him.

CAMERON: Do you tip him?

HUDSON: Absolutely.

NICK: Okay. You hand him what?

HUDSON: “What’s the fare?”

NICK: “Uh, 40 credits and a favor will be fine.”

HUDSON: “Alright.” I don’t tip then.

CAMERON: (laughs)

NICK: Okay. He charges you a lot, but he saved your life, so, yeah. He goes speeding off and does a barrel roll, and just keeps going. It’s basically a Honda Civic but a speeder, like it’s not an impressive speeder.

HUDSON: And flying it like the Millennium Falcon.

NICK: Yeah, pretty much. He drives it like he stole it, all the time. He goes around a corner and you hear that stereotypical car  crash and rolling hubcap noise, and then it keeps going.

LAURA: “Huh.”

NICK: You are sitting in a landing strip in a clearing between buildings. It’s basically, imagine like a basketball court in a city where it’s just a concrete area raised up a little bit, and there’s a ship sitting there. So, it is a Starwind pleasure yacht.

CAMERON: Ooh.

NICK: A little bit of background: The Starwind class pleasure yacht was originally Kuat driveyard’s attempt to create a competitor for Corellian Engineering Corporation’s YT series. However, before the project even launched KDY changed their mind and repackaged the ship as a luxury yacht. Any of you pilots or ship enthusiasts?

STEVEN: I am indeed a pilot.

CAMERON: I have flown things.

LAURA: No.

HUDSON: I’m a planetary pilot.

CAMERON: I used to have a ship.

NICK: Yeah? Okay, so none of y’all are like really big into this, but what—

STEVEN: Oh, that’s what I do.

NICK: What?

STEVEN: Pilot.

NICK: Pilot?

(laughter)

STEVEN: I am a fringer and explore things.

LAURA: Well, do you have Piloting?

CAMERON: He does, actually.

STEVEN: I do have both Piloting in planetary and space.

NICK: Okay, so you’re a pilot. This ship is kind of like a flying saucer looking ship with a turret above and below, and it has two little fins sticking off of the sides that are storage, and then there’s a little cockpit that sticks out of the front. It’s not particularly pretty, it doesn’t fly particularly well, but it can hold a bunch of stuff and it is also very comfortable.

STEVEN: Perfect.

NICK: Have you ever been in a pleasure yacht? A Starwind pleasure yacht?

STEVEN: I think I might’ve seen one or two on Osaron, but I try to stay away from there. So, no.

CAMERON: Those are just the pesky tourists.

STEVEN: Yeah.

NICK: Okay. So then you would know that the trident shaped starship has two side sections mounted along each side of the ship’s main hull. One side contains a pretty good sized cargo hold, and the other side contains the crew quarters, so it’s like a bunk house thing. Then in the middle, this is the reason you all have this ship, it has the bridge, the guest quarters, the state-room, the lounge, the galley, the conference room, the holo-theater, and even a zero-G relaxation table.

HUDSON: No bowling alley?

CAMERON: No movie theater?

NICK: No bowling alley, no. there’s a holo-theater. That’s literally a movie theater.

CAMERON: Okay, yeah.

LAURA: That is, yeah, a movie theater.

NICK: So it’s very nice. It has a thorough catalog of amenities and pretty good cargo holding. The thing is these are pretty rare. They don’t have a lot of drawbacks, but the thing is, because it’s a freighter and a yacht at the same time, it’s basically as expensive as if you bought one of each, so you don’t see a lot of them around because most people if they want a freighter will buy a freighter, if they want a nice yacht they’ll buy a nice yacht. There isn’t a lot of mixed together with that. So, you’ve seen them, you know sometimes people use them as like command centers if they’re a big corporation or something, but there’s not a lot of them. This ship is called the…

HUDSON: Pretty In Pink.

LAURA: No…

CAMERON: (laughs) Oh god.

STEVEN: That’s unfortunate.

LAURA: The Executor.

NICK: No. you can’t name it after Darth Vader’s.

LAURA: The Dreadnaught.

CAMERON: The Enterprise.

NICK: The Rose Tico.

HUDSON: Should call it My Pleasure. (noises of disgust) Yeah, let’s all cringe real quick. Afternoon Delight?

LAURA: Oh!

CAMERON: Ohhh. Can we name it the Afternoon Delight?

LAURA: It’s a pleasure yacht.

STEVEN & CAMERON: It is a pleasure yacht.

LAURA: If there’s not a button on it that shoots out fireworks yelling it’s my birthday I’m gonna be disappointed.

NICK: Okay. It’s the Afternoon Delight. It’s stenciled on the side. You can see that it was probably called something else before and that’s been lasered off and painted over. You can’t make out what it is.

So, the ramp drops and you’re able to get up and into the ship very easily. It’s very spacious. There’s a lot of synthetic white marble looking stuff, like really nice laminate that’s patterned to look like white marble or plasteel that’s very polished and nice. There’s a lot of red velvet, more than you would expect to see. There’s a lot of gold piping. Think of the decoration scheme as like expensive, yet very tacky movie theater. That’s what the interior of this thing looks like.

LAURA: No, that’s exactly what I’m expecting.

HUDSON: Tink loves it. He rubs his hand across some of the velvet.

LAURA: Like, is there a water bed? I’m expecting a water bed.

NICK: Yeah. All of the mattresses are water beds.

LAURA & CAMERON: Nice.

STEVEN: Excellent.

HUDSON: And you hit a switch and they like come out of the wall.

LAURA: And rotate? Because they’re circular water beds, right?

HUDSON: Circular.

CAMERON: (laughs)

NICK: So, the main crew quarters has several cabins. One of those has a rotating water bed, and there’s a couple of cabins in the main hull, and those have different bed setups than the rest of them. The rest are all like, they would be bunk rooms, in a normal ship that makes sense, it would be bunk beds stuck into the walls so that it could sleep 15 people, instead it’s like two queens per cabin. It can sleep a lot of people. I think it’s like 12, or something like that.

HUDSON: For parties.

CAMERON: For all of our friends we collect on our adventures.

LAURA: Yeah. Xianna would immediately be like, “I call a room with a water bed. I want one of those. In case we sleep here, I want a water bed. It seems fun.”

CAMERON: “Okay.”

NICK: So, it can take a pilot, a co-pilot, an engineer and two gunners to fly it.

STEVEN: Uh-oh.

NICK: You don’t have to have all that, though. This one doesn’t say what the passenger capacity is, but I’d say it’s probably like 12 or 15 people. It’s for like birthday parties. Yeah.

HUDSON: Just birthday parties.

CAMERON: Just birthday parties, only. (laughs)

NICK: So, that’s the Afternoon Delight. You all get on board and prepare to take off. So, who’s gonna do what on the ship? What are your stations going to be?

STEVEN: I’ll be the captain.

CAMERON: “Does anyone fly?”

STEVEN: “I fly, in fact.”

CAMERON: “Well? You do fly?”

STEVEN: “Over on the outer rim things get a little bit, you know, loosey goosey.”

CAMERON: “Alright.”

LAURA: “What does loosey goosey mean?”

STEVEN: “Very good. Things are nice.”

LAURA: I look at Karma. I’m like, “Is that—“

CAMERON: “That means something different.”

LAURA: “Okie. That’s what I thought.”

CAMERON: “Yeah, that’s not—No.”

NICK: He means like balance-y bantha-y.

STEVEN: “Do y’all fly?”

LAURA: “No~”

CAMERON: “Probably better than you.”

STEVEN: “Alright then.”

CAMERON: “I’ll babysit. Alright, let’s go to the cockpit.”

LAURA: I mean, what is your Agility?

STEVEN: Two.

CAMERON: He does have a skill in pilot. I don’t have any, but my Agility is three.

LAURA: Because I have a three in Agility, but I just don’t have any skills.

HUDSON: “I’ll be the mechanic.”

CAMERON: Tink announces.

STEVEN: “That wasn’t a… I think you mean engineer.”

HUDSON: “I’ll be the engineer mechanic.”

STEVEN: “Wonderful. We were looking for one of those.”

LAURA: Is a ship gun Gunnery?

NICK & CAMERON: Yes.

LAURA: I can do that, because at least I have a three in Agility.

NICK: Yeah.

STEVEN: “Oh, are you a gunnery?”

LAURA: “I can take the guns. You know, make pew-pew-pews.”

CAMERON: “Hopefully we won’t need them yet.”

STEVEN: “You seem to be the type to use the guns.”

LAURA: “To make pew-pew noises? (giggles) yes.”

STEVEN: “Yes.”

CAMERON: “Alright. Can we get this moving, Mr. Togruta?”

STEVEN: “Let’s do this thing.”

NICK: So, who’s taking the pilot seat and who’s taking the co-pilot seat?

CAMERON: I take the co-pilot seat.

STEVEN: yeah, I’m the pilot.

NICK: Okay. You seem so confident.

STEVEN: Yup. It’s gonna go so well.

HUDSON: His lack of confidence is disturbing.

STEVEN: We might need the gunner to get off.

CAMERON: I have to be there to shoot him if—(laughs)

NICK: Oh yeah.

CAMERON: Because we were given instructions.

STEVEN: “I am Councilman Sako.”

CAMERON: “No you’re not.”

STEVEN: “Yup.”

NICK: I need Sabos to make a Piloting check, please. This one’s easy. This is just lifting off, getting used to the ship.

HUDSON: While he’s doing that I check all the knobs and doohickeys and make sure everything’s ready to go.

NICK: (grinning) Roll me a Mechanics check.

HUDSON: What difficulty?

NICK: Average, if you’re just poking at knobs and doohickeys.

STEVEN: It was a success and an advantage.

NICK: A success and an advantage, you’re able to lift off, seal it up for orbit, and take to the skies. It goes pretty well. That advantage will come into play in just a minute, so hang onto that.

STEVEN: Good.

LAURA: I imagine I would just get in one of the gunnery seats and just kind of poke around at stuff, not fire anything, but just make sure that okay, these buttons do this, this is my visibility, this is how much my chair moves. I’m probably going to have to like adjust the chair up and down to get to the right height.

HUDSON: I have five successes and a threat for Mechanics.

CAMERON: Dang, Hudson.

NICK: Wooow. Okay, so with five successes you are now intimately familiar with the ship, which has one dorsal and one ventral turret mounted medium laser cannon, so it can shoot in a circle either way, so you can pick which one you want. They don’t like, connect, but that’s a mod that could be installed at some point if you would so care to do so.

LAURA: Mm, I want the dorsal one.

NICK: You know that the passenger capacity is ten, because I found that stat while I was looking at this, and that the encumbrance capacity is 85, so it can carry a decent amount of stuff but it is by no means a tanker. Eighty-five would be like, you could fit a car in here, a couple of cars honestly. So, you know that, you know that the ship has some secrets.

PLAYERS: (in unison) Ooooh.

NICK: Whoa, that was really good. Good job, everybody. You know that there’s some stuff about it that’s probably a little different. With your threat you’re not sure exactly what, but that it bears further investigation. You also know it hasn’t really been upgraded at all, so it has a couple of hard points and things that you could, if you keep the ship for a while, you could change as it goes. So, you take to the skies, and it goes ‘bee-doo,’ and the ship flies up into the atmosphere, and it’s very exciting, and everyone is excited. Yay.

As you breech the atmosphere, you see a small Star Destroyer. Would anybody be versed in different Star Destroyers and stuff for Imperials?

LAURA: I have Underworld.

HUDSON: As do I.

LAURA: And Streetwise.

NICK: Eh, this would be like an inner rim kind of thing.

CAMERON: Skill wise no, but I’d have some familiarity with them being a bounty hunter, probably taking Empire bounties.

LAURA: I use to live on an Empire occupied planet, if that helps.

NICK: Ryloth won’t help, because they have just a big one. This is a small one. It looks weird.

LAURA: Yeah.

STEVEN: I can negotiate. Does Negotiation come in handy here?

CAMERON: (laughs) Not yet. Not yet.

STEVEN: We can just talk to the Star Destroyer. ‘Hey, we’re leaving.’

HUDSON: Talking does solve many problems.

NICK: It might. I need just a straight Intelligence check from I guess Karma and… Xianna, you can do one, too.

CAMERON: What’s the difficulty?

LAURA: Okay. I mean, I’m in the gunnery seat.

NICK: Hard.

CAMERON: You can see it from the gunnery seat. I turn on the ship coms. We can talk to each other now. … Hey! Success.

LAURA: Nope.

NICK: Okay, so you’ve never seen one of these before, which I said, so that’s pretty cool that the dice backed me up on that. Karma, looking out through the cockpit you know a couple things. One, you know that the Empire doesn’t really hang out around Corellia. Corellia’s…

CAMERON: Space Texas.

NICK: Space Texas. Yeah. They kind of run their own stuff. They’re a part of the Empire, and they do their own thing, so stormtroopers being here is weird. You also know that this ship, which you have seen before in some situation or another, you probably would have dropped a bounty off here at least once, is an Imperial Raider class corvette. It’s not that big. It’s only about 150 meters long, and it has fins sticking off the sides that look like giant versions of tie-fighter advanced wings on it, and they use it for like patrol routes and stuff. It’s not very big, it only has like 20 ties on it, but it has complements of troops, and apparently it has drop pods because they dropped stormtroopers on you to go try and stop whatever you were doing.

So, as you get to orbit your com beeps at you. Do you answer it?

CAMERON: Yes.

NICK: Do YOU answer it?

CAMERON: I answer it.

NICK: Okay. As you key it on you hear an imperious voice say, “Starship Afternoon Delight, what is your business and why are you leaving this orbit?”

CAMERON: “This is Karma Nailo. I just dropped off a bounty and I’m headed back out.”

NICK: “We don’t have you on the registration. What are you doing? There are fugitives fleeing the scene of a crime right now, and we need to have this planet on lockdown. Please return to your birth and wait for further instructions.”

CAMERON: I look over at Sabos.

STEVEN: “This is Councilman Sako.”

(laughter)

NICK: I want a Deception roll, please.

STEVEN: Sure.

LAURA: Can you do the Deception?

STEVEN: Yeah, why not.

STEVEN: How hard is it?

NICK: It’s gonna be hard.

STEVEN: Is that four or three?

NICK: Three.

STEVEN: Alright then.

NICK: Give you a 50/50 shot.

STEVEN: No, that didn’t go well.

CAMERON: Nope.

STEVEN: Three failures.

HUDSON: That’s like Sako’s right beside him. ‘Wait, no, that’s not me. I’m here.’

NICK: So, over the com you hear this voice say, “Oh really? Councilman Sako? It’s me, your cousin, Bert. How strange that you sound different than usual.” (laughter) You hear the voice turn away from the microphone and say, “Open fire,” and the com shuts out.

STEVEN: (sighs) “I meant Sabos!”

CAMERON: “I’m gonna need you to fly now.”

LAURA: I yell down the hall. “When you are pretending to be a person make sure it is not a real person that might know people. Just a tip!”

STEVEN: I just tap on the mic and say, “I meant Sabos. Sabos, Councilman Sabos.”

CAMERON: “Sweetie, they hung up.”

LAURA: “It is too late. I am going to have to shoot people now.”

NICK: A turbo laser grazes the shields on the ship and the whole ship rattles. I am going to need a Vigilance check from Sabos because he is the pilot.

STEVEN: Yeah, sure. Perfect. How hard is it?

NICK: It’s just the roll.

CAMERON: Three advantages.

NICK: (sarcastically) Great. So, two tie-fighters come from the back side of this planet up and flank you, and begin shooting at you. I need you to roll two greens against two purples for me, please.

STEVEN: Sure.

NICK: And also, you’re being bombarded with turbo lasers right now, which is also not good.

STEVEN: I yell out to Xianna. “Open fire.”

LAURA: “That is what I am doing!” I’m just in the process of like getting that weird 70s screen lined up, so I have my yellow grid, and I’m just trying to line my yellow grid up with their red dot.

CAMERON: (laughs)

LAURA: That’s the issue, I’m just like figuring it out. The ships I’ve previously used have a red grid, and you line it up on a yellow dot, and that’s throwing me off.

(laughter)

NICK: Okay. And so also, this isn’t like the turret for the Millennium Falcon. This is like a movie theater recliner chair, so it has the grid and as you rotate the joysticks and everything it doesn’t actually rotate the chair, the dome above you just spins around.

LAURA: That’s the confusing part for me! I’m used to the chair rotating, so I’m a little discombobulated, which is why it just takes me a few extra seconds to shoot, and why I’m not actively shooting while Steven is rolling.

NICK: But the chair is real comfortable, that’s that advantage from earlier.

LAURA: Ooh, comfy chair. Nope, wash.

STEVEN: Literally nothing happens.

NICK: Okay, so, we won’t worry about specific damage numbers, but the ship takes a pretty good hit. The ship starts to rattle and claxons start going off.

STEVEN: “Engineer?”

HUDSON: I actually look to see if there’s any type of device where I can forge communication to the other ship.

NICK: Yeah, absolutely. You can patch into the com system.

LAURA: I mean, it’s probably a little late for that.

HUDSON: Well no, I’m not patching in to deceive. I’m patching in to pretend like I’m their headquarters and say to call it off.

LAURA: Oh.

CAMERON: So, to deceive.

(laughter)

HUDSON: So, would that be Deception or Engineering?

NICK: Okay. So, if you’re trying to just send a signal that would be Code Breaking, so it’s gonna be daunting, so that’s four, and a black die.

HUDSON: I lose the black die because of the skill I have.

NICK: There you go. The black die is because you’re trying to steal their wi-fi password.

HUDSON: Yes. What am I rolling for again? Computers?

NICK: Yeah, Computers.

HUDSON: Okay, so I have a success and a threat.

NICK: Oh-ho-ho. Okay. The success, so you send them a signal that’s basically a distress signal from a nearby system and they’re the only ones close enough to get there. It’s a specific Imperial code. You’ve seen it before. You patch it in, and they buy it immediately. The tie-fighters immediately take off because they’re informed they will get left here, and they can’t enter atmosphere and they don’t have enough life support to wait until they get back, so they need to get on that ship.

HUDSON: “I got this everybody!”

NICK: So, what you all see from the cockpit is you see the tie-fighters swoosh past you, not loop around for another pass, just B-line for the ship, and the corvette starts to peel off in that slow motion starship thing, and as soon as the tie-fighters go out of vision, like they’re too far, you see the ship (snap) blink into light speed and it’s gone. You’re not sure if the tie-fighters made it or not, but ship’s gone. Threat is, next time you try to pull some hijinks like this, you left your little hacker signature in there, like they were able to see that it came from like your IP Address, so there’s gonna be more defenses next time.

HUDSON: ROFL leet hacker was on there. I couldn’t help myself.

(laughter)

LAURA: Oh no.

NICK: Okay. You have the coordinates for Unroola Dawn. I just need somebody to put in a hyperspace calculation.

LAURA: I do not have Astrogation.

CAMERON: I’ma look at you, buddy. Sabos knows Astrogation.

STEVEN: Oh yeah, we can Astrogate.

LAURA: Oh, yeah, you have points in that.

HUDSON: You seem real good at it.

STEVEN: How hard is it?

NICK: It’s average, but you have a black die because something’s going on with your hardware right now.

STEVEN: Sure.

CAMERON: None of your skills, or whatever they’re called, on your tree… Do you have any of those?

STEVEN: Mm. ‘Remove black die from \inaudible\ galaxy mapper—‘

CAMERON: Hey! I thought you had that one.

NICK: Good for you!

STEVEN: I’ll go ahead and get rid of that.

NICK: So, you’re able to work around whatever is throwing off your ship.

STEVEN: It did not go well.

CAMERON: (snorts, laughs) It doesn’t matter.

NICK: Oh, jeez.

CAMERON: Three failures and an advantage.

NICK: Okay. So, you punch in the coordinates, and push that little lever forward that everyone has and looks the same no matter what ship you’re on, and the star field in front of you stretches out into white lines, and you vanish into the darkness of space. That’s where we’ll end this episode.

(all make dramatic noises)

PLAYERS: (singing) For the longest time!

NICK: No! No! That’s not the thing!

(laughter)

## 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.

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.

Sabos Nix was played by Steven Schroeder. He… does not exist on the internet.

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.