Tabletop Squadron Transcript, Season 1 Episode 12:
We Didn’t Start the Firefight

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, 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, a fringer, and a slicer as they explore the galaxy helping a mysterious benefactor and each other.

We hope you all are enjoying our double release schedule for the next few weeks. Remember, another episode of the flashback series starring Jet and Juke will be out next Thursday as well. This was all thanks to your thoughtful reviews. Please continue to spread the word about the show so that we can continue to expand.

Additional music this week is Konjioya by Dan Yankee, Pocket Zombie by FlexVector, and The League of Mice by DZ.

We hope you enjoy the episode.

##

NICK: Hello! Welcome to Tabletop Squadron! I’m Nick, your host and game master. Welcome to Episode 12. We’re gonna go around the table. Everybody say who you are, what your character is, and if you spent any experience since the last time we played let us know what you upgraded. Gonna start with Cameron.

CAMERON: Hello! I am playing Karma Nailo the Nautolan bounty hunter, and I have upgraded my Deception skill to Rank 2 and my Brawl skill to Rank 1.

NICK: Ooh.

CAMERON: Yes.

NICK: Alright. Next up, we’ve got Steven.

STEVEN: Hi.

NICK: Hi.

STEVEN: I’m playing Sabos the Togruta, and I got that right the first time.

NICK: Yeah, we’re very proud of you.

STEVEN: And I had a 2000% increase in my Vigilance score up from 0 to 2.

NICK: Wow, that’s pretty good. Next up we’ve got Hudson.

HUDSON: Hi. I’m Hudson, and I’m playing Tink the Gigoran slicer, and I too upped my Vigilance from 0 to 2.

STEVEN: Two million percent.

HUDSON: Two— … Yeah.

(laughter)

NICK: Last but not least, we’ve got Laura.

LAURA: Hello. I’m Laura. I play Xianna, and I upgraded my Streetwise from 1 to 2, not a 2000% increase.

NICK: One to 2 in Streetwise. Great.

LAURA: I also bought another Grit on my talent tree.

NICK: Nice. That’s good. You’ll be able to stand up to whatever strain you run into.

LAURA: Hopefully. That is the plan.

NICK: I’m sure you won’t need that.

LAURA: It’ll be fine.

STEVEN: I have lots of Survival.

NICK: We’re very proud of you. (laughs) Before we get started, let’s do the Destiny Roll!

CAMERON: One dark side.

STEVEN: One dark side.

LAURA: One dark side.

HUDSON: Two light side.

CAMERON: Thank you, Hudson.

LAURA: You are gonna save us.

HUDSON: Saved it.

NICK: Tink’s the shining light in the darkness.

CAMERON: So, that is three dark side, two light side.

NICK: Great. When we last left off, several of you had been, I’m making air quotes, “captured” by the Empire, and are now actually captured by the Empire. Sabos and Xianna are being led deeper into the ship presumably to some sort of space jail, or as they call it, ‘the brig.’ Karma is leaving on her borrowed ship to go and run support, and Tink is scrambling out of the landing bay trying to get to computers, I assume.

HUDSON: Yes.

NICK: Great. So, we open on the landing bay of the super star destroyer. A small transport is lifting off, and the camera zooms in enough to show Karma in the pilot seat before panning wide. The landing area of the super star destroyer, Vengeance, is lined with TIE fighters. It’s about the size of a football field. The black floors are polished to a mirror shine and there are a series of doors lining the far walls. The camera pans and we see a blur of white fur as Tink runs into one of the doors and into a hallway.

We’re gonna start with you, Tink. You have the Rancore Protocol. What are you planning on doing? You’re on the ship to destroy it, to break up the blockade. The Rancore Protocol is going to help, but you haven’t opened it up, so you’re not sure what it does. It’s like a flash drive with an encrypted program on it that you know will help, you’re not sure how.

CAMERON: You also have the mysterious Chinese take-out box.

NICK: Oh. Do you?

LAURA: Yes.

CAMERON: Yeah.

HUDSON: I do.

NICK: Yeah, he does.

CAMERON: He has everything that they’re gonna need on the ship. The only thing that I think didn’t go up… I still have Sabos’s rifle because it’s ginormous, but I think all of Xianna’s guns and stuff are with Tink. No, you have some of them, because they’re hidden.

LAURA: I pretty much kept all of my stuff except…

CAMERON: Oh! I have all your drugs.

LAURA: yes! I left my drugs.

CAMERON: That’s what it was. I have the drugs.

LAURA: All of them? Shit.

CAMERON: I think so.

STEVEN: It might be a long time in that cell.

LAURA: That was a bad idea.

CAMERON: Because I think you didn’t want them finding them.

NICK: (laughs) Roll for withdrawal. (musically)

CAMERON: Wait, no. you have a little compact case thing. You kept your compact case. I think I just had the extra drugs.

NICK: If it comes up we’ll figure it out. I’m not too worried about it.

CAMERON: Okay. We’ll just say the only thing I have, definitely, is Sabos’s gun, because that’s not something Tink can sneak with easily.

NICK: Sure. So, they’re on the ship captured. You’re presumably gonna wanna break them out, run support. You have already proven you can get into these computers, so you can do research for them, you can fuck with stuff on the ship, you have whatever’s in the take-out box of doom which you know if you open it in the right place will pretty much destroy the ship but you gotta figure that out, and you have your encrypted program that will do something really cool but you never decrypted it so you’re not sure what it is. Does that make sense?

LAURA: Remember that you have coms and I have coms.

CAMERON: Sabos got his confiscated.

LAURA: Sabos does not have coms, but you and I can talk to each other, at least.

HUDSON: Yeah. Okay.

CAMERON: And y’all can talk to me.

HUDSON: Why?

CAMERON: Because I also have coms, but I’m not on the ship. I’m leaving.

STEVEN: I should’ve hidden them in my head tails.

CAMERON: I mean, that’s where your ear would be, they just… Yours was more visible than Xianna’s.

STEVEN: Yeah. It’s a shame.

CAMERON: They were just real excited about finding the spray paint on Xianna so they stopped looking.

LAURA: Well, Xianna has the benefit of being a Twi’lek, so she wears a headgear piece that can hide things.

STEVEN: That’s true.

HUDSON: So, I’m in a hallway right now.

NICK: Yup. You’re in a standard hallway for a super star destroyer. It is long, it is lined by doors, there are some cameras but they’re not really pointed towards you. You think you’ll be able to avoid them pretty easily, kind of like at a department store where they have the cameras but they’re just pointed into random corners and stuff. They’re not that good.

STEVEN: The eight and a half foot tall Gigoran can avoid the cameras easily?

NICK: Yup.

HUDSON: Yeah, my Stealth.

STEVEN: Pretty good. (laughs)

NICK: He’s solid. So, you would be wanting to probably get into the system, and first thing would probably be support them in some sort of escape attempt and decipher the Rancore Protocol a little bit.

HUDSON: Yeah, I know what I’m doing. I know what I’m gonna do now.

NICK: Okay. Talk through the thing.

HUDSON: In the hallway, I look left and right and try to read if there’s anything on the doors that is legible, any signs that say something like ‘Technology Room.’

NICK: (laughs) Roll me a force die, would you? (hums a Star Wars tune)

HUDSON: One light side.

NICK: Yeah. It turns out that this place is super organized and has the hospital colored stripe lines to lead you places. Because this is where people land and then debark through the ship, you’re next to one of the keys that’s like ‘red arrow, Barracks, yellow arrow, Mess, black arrow, the Bridge, white arrow, Technology Center.’ (laughs)

HUDSON: Ah, good. I go towards the Technology Center, being stealthy along the way.

NICK: Alright. Make me a Stealth roll.

LAURA: Nah, it’s fine.

HUDSON: What level of difficulty?

NICK: Average, two purples.

HUDSON: Two successes, three threats.

STEVEN: (laughs)

NICK: Yeah, so… You are able to sneak through these corridors pretty easily. There are a few patrols. You see two stormtroopers turn around the corner, and right before they see you an officer comes through a door and starts throwing a fit, and he’s yelling. “Oh, this is stupid! I can’t believe they’re doing this! This maneuver makes no sense!” The two stormtroopers just ‘nope’ and turn around and leave, and you’re able to get past them without any problems.

You get to a clear transparesteel door, and inside you can see banks of computers and a couple of technicians. It looks very 1970s mission control in its setup. You get to the door, the door swings open, and you fall prone with a loud bang. (dramatic bass noise) And we’re gonna switch perspectives!

So, moving on from that, you can think about how you’re gonna deal with that situation. Sabos and Xianna, the camera pans into the back of Tink’s head and you see a forest of white fur, and then zooms out of a stormtrooper’s helmet. You are being escorted down the hallway by two stormtroopers and the deck captain with his squeebly mustache and his well-pressed black uniform. The halls are almost blank. You pass a door and four  more stormtroopers pile out of an adjoining hallway and fall into formation.

The captain says, “It’s lucky that we were treated with reinforcements yesterday. This is the most secure ship in the Empire.” It’s almost like it would have been easier to navigate the ship if you had been there a day earlier.

STEVEN: “How many reinforcements were you treated with? I just want to know how bad of an idea bad ideas would be.”

NICK: “You know, it’s really weird, I almost told you exactly what our armament is, but you’re a prisoner!” He motions, and a stormtrooper smacks you in the back of the head.

STEVEN: My head tails absorb it and I make a (yelping) ‘ow’ noise.

(snorts, snickering and giggling)

LAURA: (mockingly) ‘Ow.’

NICK: Yeah. That makes sense. You are being led further and further into the ship. This is a super star destroyer, so it’s roughly city sized, it’s very big. The Vengeance is not the biggest one but it is still quite large. Xianna, can you make me an Underworld check?

LAURA: I can!

NICK: We’ll see if you’ve been arrested in a star destroyer before.

LAURA: Ooh! Maybe.

(laughter)

CAMERON: It shall be so interesting to find out.

LAURA: Just a straight one, or is there difficulty?

NICK: Average.

LAURA: Yeah. Two successes, and one threat.

NICK: Alright. Time to start the threat counter. Don’t worry about what that’s adding up to, everybody.

LAURA: It’ll be fine.

NICK: It will be fine. So yes, you’ve been arrested on a star destroyer before, and while you haven’t ever been on a super star destroyer, one of the things that happens in empires is they standardize a lot of stuff. It’s pretty easy to tell. You’re on a—Ooh! What’s the name of that stupid pattern? The one that’s like checker board but it’s not.

LAURA: Hound’s Tooth?

NICK: Yeah. You’re on the Hound’s Tooth line and you pass one of the keys on the wall that says ‘Detention Area.’ You’re following that, and you know in the past that it tends to be pretty far in, the security gets stronger the closer you are, and the longer you stay with this group the harder it’s going to be to rendezvous with Tink and do the mission, but as you’re thinking that through, one of the stormtroopers peels off and gets on a turbo lift and goes away. You think it’ll be harder to get back out, but there will be less people to overpower or confuse or trick or whatever your plan is the further in you go.

LAURA: How many stormtroopers are currently around us?

CAMERON: It would be five plus the deck captain.

NICK: Mm-hmm. It was six plus the deck captain, one just left, so you got six dudes.

LAURA: Xianna kind of whispers over at Sabos. “Mmm, Sabos? Hypothetically speaking, in the past, have you ever gotten into unarmed bar fights?”

STEVEN: “Oh, I have a knife.”

(laughter)

NICK: “What?!”

LAURA: “You don’t just say that out loud.”

STEVEN: “Uh, we call head tails, uh, my fourth head tail.”

LAURA: “Oh. Oh yes, of course, that Togruta slang.”

NICK: “Captain. Captain! The captive is saying he has a knife!”

STEVEN: “It’s a fourth head tail, Togruta things. I’m a diplomat—“

NICK: You can roll me a Deception.

STEVEN: Yeah, let’s do it. Yeah, this is gonna go well.

LAURA: Can Xianna help him by trying to talk…?

STEVEN: How hard is it?

NICK: It’s gonna be average. They don’t actually believe that you’re competent. You can have a blue die for chipping in.

LAURA: Xianna wants to chip in and be like, “Oh yes, it’s head tail slang…”

STEVEN: Um… It’s two advantages.

NICK: They don’t believe you, but you can have some advantages. You can spend the advantages to give yourself a blue die on the opposed Skulduggery check to see if they find the knife that you were talking about.

STEVEN: Yeah, that’ll be fine.

CAMERON: Can the advantages be that they’re like, ‘eh, he’s not that threatening. There’s five of us. I’m sure it’s fine.’

NICK: They’re still gonna pat him down. This deck captain’s pretty mad. “Well, we must search the prisoner again.” They go to pat you down.

STEVEN: “Yu… You already did.”

NICK: “Yes, but clearly you’re admitting to contraband, you strange mutant.”

STEVEN: “By the way, my knife is hidden under my head tails.”

NICK: Gross.

STEVEN: (laughs) It’s sheathed.

LAURA: I’m assuming we’re in binders. Are our hands in front or behind?

NICK: In front.

LAURA: Okay.

STEVEN: Perfect.

NICK: You can try an droll me some sort of talky check to make them not want to search you by making your head tails sound gross, which you did, or you can say that it’s hidden well enough they don’t find it and they think you’re crazy. Which would you prefer to do?

STEVEN: Let’s try a talky check. We’ll Negotiate?

NICK: No. you can do Charm or Deception.

STEVEN: Well, yeah, let’s do Deception again. Yeah.

NICK: Okay. A blue die from your advantages from your last one. This is average. They don’t really wanna search you again, they’re just trying to get you to the brig so they can get on with their actual job.

STEVEN: Yeah. I’m just gonna start talking about head tails, like you can touch the fourth head tail if you’d like, and that’s what I call my knife.

NICK: You don’t even have eyebrows, but they’re wiggling.

STEVEN: A success and an advantage.

NICK: There you go. Okay, the captain looks and says, “He probably has a knife… but we’re not going to look for it. Continue on.” You get bashed in the head again with a rifle.

STEVEN: I give him one head tail to feel, like ‘this is my knife.’

NICK: “No, no, no. Prisoner, I don’t even know how you managed to do that. Your hands are bound in front of you.”

STEVEN: “I am double-jointed in the shoulders, and I—“

NICK: “Gross. Gross. Stop it, stop it, stop it. Soldiers, keep your prisoners under control, and we’re gonna keep on moving.”

LAURA: “So, anyways, (sternly) Sabos.”

STEVEN: “You wanna touch the head tail?”

LAURA: “No. I have my own. They are much nicer, thank you.”

STEVEN: “That’s true.”

LAURA: “Thank you.”

STEVEN: “Mine are bigger.”

LAURA: “No… No thank you.”

(laughter)

LAURA: “Anyways. If you in the past had gotten into bar fights, how many people did you fight at once with no weapons? In the past, you know that bar fight you got into a few months ago?”

STEVEN: “Yes. That bar fight.”

LAURA: “How many people was that against?”

STEVEN: “Solid one, maybe two.”

LAURA: “(heavy sigh)”

STEVEN: “Maybe, maybe not even one. Does a mug count?”

LAURA: “No, Sabos, a mug does not count unless you have a mug on you right now.”

STEVEN: “No. I fought a mug.”

LAURA: “(sighs)”

CAMERON: (laughs)

NICK: (laughing) Alright. On that line, we’re going to pan over to Karma, actually. So, we jump to a shot of you, it’s an over the shoulder view, as you’re steering away from the star destroyer. You’re in a square, blocky space ferry basically, not the best ship in the world. What are you doing?

CAMERON: So, at this point Felton has climbed out of the other storage compartment he was hiding in when we landed.

NICK: “Is it good to come out?”

CAMERON: “Yeah. We’re already off the ship.”

NICK: “Oh. I thought I felt some acceleration, but you know, with a… uh, that joke’s not good. Anyway. What were you saying?”

(laughter)

CAMERON: “I wasn’t saying anything. I’m just flying.”

NICK: “Yeah. I’m working on censoring myself a little better, making friends, you know.”

CAMERON: “Cool. So yeah, we’re flying away from the star destroyer.”

NICK: “That’s exactly where I want to be.”

CAMERON: “Yeah, so we’re gonna head back down to the herdship.”

NICK: “What are we gonna do down there?”

CAMERON: “Well, uh, first off I need to get rid of this ship, probably, and just turn it back into the rental facility, like not actually get rid of it.”

NICK: “Yeah. Yeah.”

CAMERON: “Because I want my ship back. And, I mean, we got a while… I don’t know how long it’s gonna take them up there, but I mean, we can hang out and talk…”

NICK: “Ooh…”

CAMERON: “We could, um, we could go mess around with some of the other ships in the blockade?”

NICK: “That sounds interesting.”

CAMERON: “I would need your assistance on that, because I do have a…” She pulls out the security cylinder from her jacket. “I do have this, so we can fake credentials, but it is a male officer so I would need your voice for that to work. I don’t know what exactly we would accomplish by doing that, but…”

NICK: “Well, you’re the mission planner. I was just supposed to secure supplies, and you keep threatening to shoot me when I try to leave the group, so…”

CAMERON: “Yup.”

NICK: “It’s whatever you wanna do…” The ship will go down to the planet. Is your goal to get back up in space on the Afternoon Delight or are you staying on the herdship?

CAMERON: We’re gonna stay on the herdship for the moment.

NICK: Okay. If you’re on the ship with the com setup that you all have, anybody with a com is gonna be able to communicate with you, so if things start to get hot or you feel the need to get them a distraction, something like that, you’ll be able to jump in. we’ll check in on you periodically if you are deciding to do that.

CAMERON: We probably will head back up, but I don’t want to get up high enough that I show up on any of the sensors as approaching them.

NICK: Okay, so you’re thinking low orbit on standby.

CAMERON: Yeah.

NICK: Okay! So, we are gonna jump back to Tink. You have just loudly face-planted. There are three technicians in this room. Two of them kind of jump up and turn around. They’re wearing white kind of static suits that you see on people in server rooms occasionally but with the little Imperial logo on the breast pocket. They turn around, and they don’t even know exactly what to do.

One of the guys goes, “This is highly irregular,” and the other one just starts routing around under his desk. You don’t know what he’s looking for.

HUDSON: “Ow. Man… Can someone help me up?”

NICK: “Uh, yeah.” The first guy grabs you and tries to help you to your feet.

HUDSON: “Ah, thank you. I’m actually here to fix one of the systems.”

NICK: “Uh, what? You’re not on the information core.”

HUDSON: “Oh, no, no. it’s a weird thing. My escort’s actually in the bathroom right now, and he forgot to put me on there.”

NICK: (grinning) Alright. Make me a deception roll, please. (laughter) I’m super happy that you’re trying to social engineer this.

LAURA: Oh boy.

HUDSON: Yeah. My Deception is not so hot, really. Let’s look here.

NICK: You could flip a light side point.

LAURA: You have nothing in Deception.

HUDSON: I have nothing in Deception.

STEVEN: But you have Cunning.

HUDSON: I do have Cunning, though.

CAMERON: You got this.

NICK: So, it’s gonna be an average difficulty, because you are big and imposing. This guy doesn’t really wanna call your bluff, but he’s also obligated by his duty to the Empire.

HUDSON: Alright. Two successes and a threat.

NICK: A threat, you say? One more for the threat counter. (musically) Don’t worry about that, I’m sure it’s fine.

Okay. The guy stands up, takes a step back from you and looks at you. “Well, whoever your escort is, he really shouldn’t have done that, but we’ve got an extra terminal over here. The other technician was off duty today. I guess you can set up there. You have your login credentials, right?”

HUDSON: “Yes, absolutely.”

NICK: At this point, the guy who was routing around under his desk pulls out a heavy blaster pistol and goes, “Ha-ha! I got it—Oh… You’re a contractor. Darn,” and puts it back under the desk and goes back to sit down.

HUDSON: “Ha. No need for that unless it’s Nerf.”

NICK: “No, I can assure you, it’s quite real.”

HUDSON: “Oh.”

NICK: “It’s not one of those stun blasters from the Nerf Interstellar Corporation that some offices like to use for teambuilding.”

(laughter)

CAMERON: That was great.

NICK: I saved it!

CAMERON: I’m happy those exist now.

NICK: Yup. Nerf blasters are a thing.

HUDSON: They survived hundreds of years.

NICK: And a different galaxy.

LAURA: Different galaxy, Hudson.

HUDSON: Oh yeah.

STEVEN: About the same time.

CAMERON: Also, a long time ago.

NICK: LEGO is also canon.

HUDSON: Oh, it is?

NICK: It is now. I just said so. So, moving on! The technician shows you over to a seat. It’s like a spinny barstool kind of thing. It is way too short for you so you have to hunch over, but there’s lots of glowing lights and a clear screen with a bunch of geometric shapes on it that don’t seem to move no matter what you do, and there’s some data ports. It’s pretty much a node into the main computer of the star destroyer. Good job.

HUDSON: Alright. I say, “Thank you so much. I’m good now.”

NICK: “Alright. Well, I think I need to oversee until your minder gets back, so I’ll just stand here… Don’t mind me.”

HUDSON: ‘Okay. Sounds good.”

NICK: “Great.” (musically) One Deception check does not complete access get you. (laughter)

Okay. We’re gonna jump back to Sabos and Xianna. you are heading deeper in. you have taken a turbo lift down at this point. It was quite crowded, five stormtroopers, a deck captain, the two of you in a small elevator. As you pile out, two more of the stormtroopers peel away and head off on a separate patrol, so you’re down to three stormtroopers and the deck captain.

LAURA: Once those other stormtroopers get far enough away, Xianna looks over at Sabos. “Uh, Sabos…”

STEVEN: “Yes?”

LAURA: “My hands are currently in my pockets, and I am about to take my hands out of my pockets.”

NICK: How do you have your hands in your pockets?

LAURA: I have many pockets. (giggles)

NICK: Oh, okay.

CAMERON: She’s got the two side pockets, and then there’s a middle pocket that connects the two, so she just reached into that one. (laughs)

LAURA: I probably have my two hands in one of the side pockets, so it’s a little awkward looking, but the coat flairs a bit so there is room to kind of shift it to do that. I am holding my blaster in one hand as I tell this to Sabos. “Okay Sabos, hands are coming out of the pockets in three… two… one,” and then I pull out my blaster and start shooting.

NICK: Alright. You can make a Cool check.

LAURA: (gasps) I have Cool!

NICK: Sabos, you can make a Cool or a Vigilance check on whether you’re surprised by this maneuver or not.

STEVEN: I’ll do Cool.

LAURA: Was there a difficulty in that?

NICK: NO. it’s initiative. It’s a straight check.

LAURA: Three successes, one advantage.

NICK: Damn.

STEVEN: A triumph and two advantages.

LAURA: Ooh.

CAMERON: And a success.

STEVEN: And a success.

LAURA: We’re cool.

NICK: Triumph, a success, and two advantages… And then, the stormtroopers are going to roll as a group, so that’s gonna be three greens for them. these guys are reasonably capable.

CAMERON: Three successes, two advantages.

NICK: Oh shit.

STEVEN: They pretty cool.

NICK: And then the deck captain is a green and a yellow.

CAMERON: Three successes, one advantage.

NICK: Ooh, this is not gonna go well. We’re gonna do NPC slot, PC slot, NPC slot, PC slot. That being said, with those advantages and that triumph, you can add some stuff to this scene to work in your advantage.

LAURA: So, I definitely want there to not be any cameras in this particular area.

NICK: Alright. That’s two advantages. You have one advantage and a triumph left.

LAURA: (gasps) There’s some sort of large cleaning droid, like trash can sized, that we can get behind a little bit.

NICK: Okay. I’ll even give you, if you spend the triumph on it, I’ll say that it’s driven between you and the guards as it goes off, so you’ll have cover when they try to shoot you, and that’s why you moved when you did.

LAURA: It’s your triumph.

NICK: Unless you want to use your triumph on something else. Either way, you get an advantage or a triumph to spend.

STEVEN: Yeah. That seems pretty good, or just them falling prone.

CAMERON: Can the other advantage be that there’s also a trash chute in this hallway? Because there’s a trash droid, you need a trash chute.

NICK: Steven rolled a bunch of stuff. If he has an idea, I’d love him to use it.

STEVEN: One of my ideas was they fall prone, but I kind of like a trash droid better. I think a triumph can make them fall prone.

LAURA: Yeah.

NICK: You got three advantages and a triumph, so you can have…

STEVEN: Yeah. You can have a trash chute.

NICK: No cameras, a trash chute, and a trash droid that’s driven between them. it’s like a mini-fridge…

STEVEN: Do we know where the trash chute goes?

CAMERON: … To the trash room.

STEVEN: Perfect. Just wanted to make sure.

NICK: (laughs) Okay. So, that’s all going on right now. As you go to pull your pistol, it’s almost like there were people guarding you, watching you, that could hear you, and the stormtroopers are going to attempt to basically just tackle you to the ground. I need a green and a yellow against two purple, unless you have Melee Defense.

LAURA: Um, I don’t have Melee Brawl, but I do have 1 Defense in Melee.

NICK: … What?

LAURA: The smuggler’s trench coat gives you 1 Defense for both Ranged and Melee.

NICK: Okay, so there’s a black die in there too, and they’re basically just trying to tackle you to the ground. “She’s got a gun! She’s got a gun! Get her!” Oh, and another black die because there’s a droid in the way, and the three of them are trying to pile on Xianna.

LAURA: I have Agility. (laughs)

NICK: Does not matter. You also have Streetwise, and we’re all very happy about that.

STEVEN: I just yell, “Watch the head tails!”

CAMERON: Two purple, two black, a yellow, and a green?

NICK: Yup.

CAMERON: That is one failure.

NICK: Aw. Okay. They run to try and tackle Xianna to the ground, the three stormtroopers, leaving Sabos unguarded for a second. They trip up over the droid, and the one that manages to get past them tries to throw the butt of his rifle in your direction but it gets kind of deflected by the folds of your coat, and you find yourself with an open shot. Now it is a PC slot. Who’s gonna take it?

LAURA: I’m gonna take it since I have a gun.

STEVEN: Yeah.

LAURA: Yeah.

NICK: (laughs)

STEVEN: And people near you.

LAURA: And people near me. I’m gonna shoot him!

NICK: Alright. They’re at engaged range, which should make it an easy shot for you, unless you have… What’s the range on your pistol?

LAURA: It’s medium, but I have increased difficulty past short range, but if they’re engaged…

NICK: So it just makes it average then, because it goes one for engaged, but then one back for… Well, we’ll just do two difficulty. Whatever. Who cares? Not me.

LAURA: Yeah. So, two purple?

NICK: Two purple!

LAURA: I’m gonna flip a light side point.

NICK: (hums Star Wars tune)

STEVEN: Oh—

LAURA: Yeah. That’s a complete wash.

NICK: Oh, okay. So you pivot on one foot and shoot up at the people who tried to attack you, and also shoot your trash droid, and it starts to (wailing noise) and starts spinning in circles. It looks like you hit one of the wheels.

LAURA: “Sorry!”

NICK: Moving on to an NPC slot. The deck captain says, “This is highly irregular!” He pulls out a small hulled out blaster, and seeing that Sabos is also spinning around tries to take a shot at him. That’s gonna be a green and a yellow versus two purple.

STEVEN: I’m just spinning around following the droid.

CAMERON: Does he get the black because the droid’s in between them?

NICK: He does get a black die because of the droid that is getting in the way of everything right now.

CAMERON: Okie-dokie.

NICK: (musically) Mobile cover.

CAMERON: A failure and one advantage.

NICK: He’s gonna use the advantage. He shoots at you, also hits the droid but doesn’t seem to hit anything important. The pitch of the droid’s screaming gets higher, but he doesn’t hit anybody or anything. “Blast! Ha-ha.”

STEVEN: ‘You tried.”

NICK: And it’s Sabos’s turn. (laughs)

STEVEN: I’m gonna try to vibro-knife him.

NICK: The deck captain?

STEVEN: Yeah.

NICK: Alright.

STEVEN: Because that’s what I got.

NICK: What does that look like, you running to stab this guy?

STEVEN: Well, my hands are also bound, but I can get the knife from the pocket, like, just two handed stab.

NICK: Cool.

STEVEN: I’m just gonna walk up to him, head tails a-swinging, and try to knife him.

NICK: Oh, okay. So that’s gonna be two purples.

STEVEN: I’m gonna look inquisitive, like, ‘why, why did you try to shoot me? I’m just over there spinning with the droid,’ and then (impact noises), you know.

LAURA: (laughs)

NICK: Okay. So, a black die because your hands are tied together, but otherwise just two purple.

STEVEN: Yup. This is gonna go well.

NICK: Oh, I’m sure.

STEVEN: Well, I got two advantages. (laughs)

NICK: Okay, so he steps backwards, your stab doesn’t connect because you’re wearing handcuffs so you’re not able to extend all the way. He points his gun at you. “Rebel scum!”

STEVEN: Can I spend one of the advantages on Xianna having a blue die?

NICK: Yeah, we’ll say you trying to stab their commanding officer—

STEVEN: Took them by surprise.

NICK: Yeah. Two of the stormtroopers turn to see what’s going on with the guy who’s their boss, and…

STEVEN: Also, if they think I’m even more incompetent, that would be cool too.

NICK: I think everyone thinks you’re incompetent. It’s okay. “Wow! He actually did have a knife.”

STEVEN: “Where was it?”

NICK: “Gross!”

STEVEN: (laughs)

NICK: Then we’re gonna jump to karma, so we can keep on moving. So, what has happened?

CAMERON: Felton and I have parked the ship, to the herdship. The shot probably shows us just at the Afternoon Delight floating above the herdship with some of the, you can kind of see some of the hazy forest floor of the planet below the herdship, and we enter into a deep conversation that they’ve been having about Felton’s hopes and dreams.

NICK: “Well, I always wanted to be a professional dancer, but… I try really hard, and I’m an athletic guy, but yeah, dancing. You know, Selonian dancing, some of the finest in the universe, and being a male Selonian, of which there are not many, I had lots of partners until I got … banished.”

CAMERON: “Oh… Well, I’m sure there are other Selonians who don’t live on planet that you could join up and form a dance troop.”

NICK: “Uh… I mean, yeah, except most of them don’t really like to talk to me, just like, in general. I could dance with anyone. I’m not a big fan of the traditional Selonian dances. I really like that one Twi’lek dance where they move their arms in like a really repetitive pattern.”

CAMERON: ‘Oh yeah, I love that one.”

NICK: “Yeah. That one’s really good. I just haven’t had time. I’ve been busy being the Rancore of Coronet.”

CAMERON: “Yeah, so, you mentioned that the talking isn’t really a thing, but I’ve found in dancing that that’s not often required, so I don’t know really why you would see that as being an issue for you, unless it’s really just getting past, getting through the door to start the dancing and making friends. It seems like once you get there you’re just letting yourself go and the talking shouldn’t really be necessary. The dancing does that for you.”

NICK: “You’re right. I do speak with my body.” (laughing) And we’re gonna cut back to—Egh. I don’t like this character. (laughter)

We’re gonna cut back to Tink. You are at your programming station with a presumably competent computer technician watching what you’re doing. Whatcha gonna do?

HUDSON: I try to log in a few times with just random credentials that say ‘Admin1’ or something like that. It doesn’t work.

NICK: Roll me a force die.

HUDSON: One dark side.

NICK: Nope. Doesn’t work. It actually starts a security countdown, or is about to. You use up all of your allowance for inaccurate passwords before it does it.

HUDSON: “Oh man. This is my first week… Uh, ugh, I don’t think my credentials are turned on yet. Do you mind… Do you mind?”

NICK: Make me… some sort of check. You can do Computers if you want by saying you’re using like proper jargon and stuff.

HUDSON: Yeah, I’m using proper jargon, so computers.

NICK: Yeah. It’ll be average, but a black die, because this is getting highly irregular.

LAURA: Did you go to an Imperial school for computers?

HUDSON: Yeah, so I should know the jargon.

LAURA: Yeah, so you might know some of the specific terms they use.

HUDSON: Mm-hmm.

NICK: That’s what he’s doing.

HUDSON: A success and a triumph.

NICK: Alright. What would you like to use your triumph on? He’s gonna log you in. I have an idea, but I wanna know what yours is.

HUDSON: Do I see any security cameras? Can I see what’s happening to them?

NICK: We’ll go ahead and say, just with what’s going on, there are security cameras but they’re not pointed directly in your direction. Probably no one would notice that you were in here.

HUDSON: Oh. I have something for the triumph.

NICK: Okay.

HUDSON: Alright. Can I pee myself, and then ask them to get me towels acting really embarrassed?

(laughter)

LAURA & CAMERON: What?!

CAMERON: This is a triumph?!

LAURA: What?!

STEVEN: That’s his granola.

LAURA: That’s what you wanna use the triumph on?!

HUDSON: The person beside me actually walks away, no one pays attention to me—

NICK: No. You clear the room!

LAURA: That’s an everyone would pay attention to you!

NICK: Nope! Nope! New canon. Gigoran pee smells terrible. You pee yourself, and what do you say?

HUDSON: “Oh my god, I’m s—Uh, uh, can y’all go get towels?!”

(laughter)

NICK: The technician goes “Oh, oh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. Okay, okay, okay. We can fix this. Oh, that’s—Oh gosh.” You can see his eyes start to water up. “I gotta get out of here.” The other two technicians get up and one of them goes, “What is going on? We gotta go. We gotta get some towels,” and all three of them run out of the room.

HUDSON: Alright. Quickly, I take out the Rancore Protocol and I plug it in, see what I can do with it.

NICK: Okay. You plug it in and it starts running. You’re not sure what it’s doing. You can make me a computer check to decrypt it a little bit, get some info.

HUDSON: Yeah, I’d like to see what it’s doing.

LAURA: God, Tink is SO weird.

NICK: It’ll be average. It should be a lot harder than that, but you’ve done so many good computer things getting it that you’re pretty sure you know what you’re doing.

HUDSON: Okay. We have three threats, five successes, and a triumph.

NICK: Okay, so you slip in your pee and fall prone.

(dramatic bass noise)

(laughter)

CAMERON: Ew. He just slides off the stool.

STEVEN: But he’s a mop, so he cleans it up.

NICK: Yeah, that’s worse. You’re gonna be so soggy. So, with all those successes, having messed with this a few times even though you decided not to decrypt it you couldn’t help but think about it over the course of the last few days, and you’re like ‘I betcha this kind of encryption is what’s going on,’ and you’re able to try it, and you’re right, and you get right in.

The Rancore Protocol is a program that is surprisingly deep. It has a lot of different layers, and it all interconnects almost like a brain. There’s a lot of stuff going on. What you see as you plug it in, it started auto-running, and it started doing a few things all at the same time.

1. The security system started doing some weird stuff, you’re not sure what, but a lot of cameras are starting to flicker. 2. All of the ventilation shafts are turned down, so all of the heat for the hot air, hot water, all that stuff has been turned luke warm, all of the cool has been turned to average, and all of the vents are now open. You’re not sure why. 3. A little pop-up comes up that’s like its own situational feed which you’re not used to seeing. One of the geometric shapes moves, you guys!

LAURA: (gasps)

NICK: A little pop-up comes up, and it says in Aurebesh “Biological Alert Detected,” and it is blinking right on top of you.

HUDSON: Um, Escape Key, Escape Key.

NICK: (laughs) You can Escape out of that, but through the tying of everything, it seems to be saying that you are a biological alert of some kind, or something near you is, and it seems to be in relation to everything it’s doing to this computer system, all of these weird support systems it’s hijacking and making do weird things.

HUDSON: Okay. so, I get on my coms and I check in on everybody. First I’ll check in on Xianna.

LAURA: “We are getting shot at~ Pew pew!”

STEVEN: You just hear blaster noises.

LAURA: (giggles) You hear ‘pew, pew!’ “Uh, we will be fine in a few minutes… hopefully.”

HUDSON: “I believe all the vents are open if you need that going on. I just did something… uh, something weird is going on. Basically, the vents are open, and you’re probably good as far as security cameras go too, so…”

LAURA: “I figured that. We are being shot at, though. I will get back to you.”

HUDSON: Alright. Then I check in on Karma.

STEVEN: (chuckles)

(start ballet music)

CAMERON: (sweetly) “Hey Tink. What’s up?”

NICK: Oh. It’s a holo-feed, and in the background you see Felton doing ballet leaps behind her on the screen, so he just comes onto the screen as a hologram and then off the screen again really quick. You hear him being like, ‘ah-le-oop! … (boof) Ow!’

HUDSON: “… So, uh, yeah. I just activated the Rancore Protocol, and uh, things are getting weird.”

(ballet music fades)

CAMERON: “Okay. what’s it doing?”

HUDSON: “Security cameras started flickering. The vents all cooled down and opened themselves inside of the facility. It said it detected a biological force, being myself, at the computer where I entered the protocol.”

CAMERON: “A biological force? Like, on you?”

HUDSON: “Yeah, like, I am the biological force.”

CAMERON: “But like no others, though?”

HUDSON: “Yes.”

CAMERON: “So, you have the thing, right?”

HUDSON: “Yeah.”

CAMERON: “In the to-go container?”

HUDSON: “Yeah.”

CAMERON: “Could it be that? Because if it’s not firing off any other—I’m assuming, well, we know at least that Sabos and Xianna are on the ship with you, and if it’s just highlighting you, it might actually be that since Sentinel sent that with us as well.”

HUDSON: “Oh… Interesting. I’m not gonna open it. I think what I’m gonna do is try to cause a little bit of a distraction to make sure that Sabos and Xianna can get out.”

CAMERON: “Makes sense. Yeah.”

HUDSON: “Uh, what’s the best kind of distraction on a ship like this?”

CAMERON: “Um…”

HUDSON: “A kersplosion.”

NICK: (laughs)

CAMERON: “Well, I mean, a—An explosion?”

HUDSON: “Explosion? Explosion! Sorry. I’m a little light headed. There are some fumes in the room. It’s like a weird fume.”

CAMERON: “Oh yeah. The larger starships like that can get like that sometimes, especially if you said all the vents opened up. It’s probably just coming up from one of the refreshers or something.”

HUDSON: “Oh yeah.”

CAMERON: “So, yeah. Explosions tend to be pretty effective on ships. If you’re at a computer terminal you could just start opening airlocks and stuff, too, or turning off the shields in the landing bays and stuff… If you’re at a computer terminal, you could cause some major havoc besides just blowing shit up.”

HUDSON: I start humming to myself, opening airlocks, turning off shields, causing some alarms to go off at areas very far away from me…

NICK: (laughs) Alright. Make me a Computers check to wreak general havoc.

HUDSON: Difficulty?

NICK: This one’s gonna be hard.

HUDSON: Ooh. That is a success, a threat, and a triumph.

CAMERON: Goodness gracious.

LAURA: So, that success is from the triumph.

HUDSON: Correct.

NICK: Okay. Man, those triumphs have bailed you out several times.

HUDSON: Yes they have.

NICK: Alright, so, the threat: You sign your name again. You have StarDestroyer1, ‘leet hacker,’ you leave that buried in the code somewhere. I think maybe, because this keeps happening, there’s some weird gap in the programming where if you do that it makes stuff a lot easier elsewhere but it does leave a trace that you’ve been there. The ship starts to shutter and jerk as you just start venting atmosphere out of certain places, and in space when you do that things start moving. The ship is starting to get kind of unstable. You hear some weird claxons going off, and Karma and Tink still have the com open, so Karma hears one pretty loud explosion and the com call ends as Tink gets really into it and starts typing on things.

CAMERON: I look up at the ship. Are there like TIE fighters floating out of the landing base? (laughs)

NICK: Are you in the low orbit already?

CAMERON: Yeah.

NICK: Okay. No, not yet.

CAMERON: Okay.

NICK: You just see the ship. It’ll drift a few hundred meters one way, and then there will be a vent of gas, and part of the ship will flicker and it will jerk back the other way. All of the other star destroyers are doing that slow capital ship turn of like ‘what the hell…’ as this is starting to go on.

CAMERON: (laughs)

NICK: We’re gonna jump back to Sabos and Xianna. It was an NPC slot. That’s gonna be the stormtroopers. They have been knocked off their feet, so they are going to have to spend their maneuver to try and get back up. It’s two private stormtroopers and one corporal stormtrooper. He has a little stripe on his shoulder. He looks more important.

The slightly more important stormtrooper says, “Get it together men. We have to stop these prisoners so that we can help with whatever’s going on with the ship.” They all turn to shoot at…

LAURA: I would like to say that they were all looking at Sabos and the captain, and that’s where I’m getting my blue die from.

NICK: Oh, you’re right.

CAMERON: Because he just stabbed him, or tried to stab him.

STEVEN: I start heckling them anyway about not being able to keep their ship together, and this is the shittiest prison I’ve ever been in.

NICK: Okay. When you start doing that, they go “Alright, we’ll shoot that one first,” and they shoot Sabos. It’s gonna be three greens against two purples, but they have a black die for unstable footing.

CAMERON: Nothing!

NICK: Great!

STEVEN: Complete wash? (laughs)

NICK: They shoot the wall real good. Yep. That’s all that happens. I’m going to flip a dark side point though, and the trash droid gets its wheel stuck back on enough that it goes (wailing noise), and just takes off down the hallway away from everybody as fast as it can. We get a shot of everybody shuttering around shooting at walls. It’s kind of like that scene in Inception with the rotating hallway, except if the camera was still and everybody was just like flapping around and having a good time, and the droid smacks into the wall next to the door with a loud thunk, winds back up, and then goes through the door and is gone. We’re gonna move to a PC slot.

LAURA: Xianna is going to shoot another one of the stormtroopers.

NICK: Okie-dokie. There is a difficulty involved with that.

LAURA: Yes there is. (laughter) I’m assuming it’s average.

NICK: Yep, you’re right. Yep, yep, yep.

LAURA: So that’s average, and I have a blue die from Sabos’s turn. That is one success, one advantage.

NICK: How much damage does that do?

LAURA: That does 7 damage.

NICK: Okay. One of the stormtroopers, not the corporal but one of the other stormtroopers, takes a blaster bolt to the chest and gets knocked off his feet. He seems out of the fight. You hear (muffled sounds of pain). That’s my attempt at a Wilhelm scream. Thanks everybody for coming. Have a great night.

STEVEN: Poor little stormtrooper.

NICK: Yeah. Then, we are to another NPC slot. The deck captain, seeing one of his troopers get dropped, is going to try to punch Sabos as hard as he can, also making sure to keep Sabos in between him and Xianna.

STEVEN: How does Melee Defense work?

NICK: It adds a black die. Do you have Melee Defense?

CAMERON: You don’t have any.

STEVEN: I just have Melee. I don’t know where Defense is… Oh, yeah, sorry. I don’t have that.

CAMERON: If you were using… like, some of the vibro-swords have Defense, if you were using them, because you can block with it, but you probably don’t have any Defense. You definitely don’t from your knife, anyway.

LAURA: Yeah, I don’t believe knives do. It’s mostly the large melee weapons.

STEVEN: Okay.

NICK: Roll away, please.

CAMERON: It was a yellow and a green, right?

NICK: Yep. He’s doing fisticuffs. ‘Wot-wot.’

CAMERON: Two advantages.

NICK: Great. All he does is distract Sabos and set him up for a good shot. He tries to punch him, Sabos actually does a very competent block, but stands up straight and makes himself a bigger target. If he gets shot at again that might be bad. Moving on to Sabos. Whatcha gonna do?

STEVEN: Try to vibro-knife the dude.

LAURA: Can Sabos have a blue die because I had an advantage?

NICK: Sure. All the gunfire flying, everyone’s getting to be a bigger and bigger target. It’ll be against two purple.

STEVEN: I’m just gonna try to vibro-knife the big dude. Hey, some advantages, two advantages.

NICK: Goodness. Okay. This whole room is just full of blaster fire and punching and stabbing…

STEVEN: (laughs) I’ll give one of the advantages back to Xianna next time.

NICK: Alright. We’ll do that.

STEVEN: Oh. I have two. Can I act smaller now, not stand up straight?

NICK: Yeah, but it’s not gonna give you any sort of mechanical advantage, because your trash can’s gone.

STEVEN: No, that’s fine, as long as his advantage goes away.

NICK: Yes. You can absolutely crouch. Cool, so that’s that. We’re gonna jump away from this fight, and—

STEVEN: It’s a good fight. (laughs)

NICK: Oh yeah, it’s great. It’s going super good. Karma? Whatcha doing?

(resume ballet music)

CAMERON: We’re watching all of the ships slowly turn to look at the Vengeance, and Felton’s like doing pirouettes behind me. His grace has improved substantially since the holo-call with Tink. The practice is really doing good.

NICK: “You have reawakened in me… my love of dance! Thank you. … Whoop-whoa. (effort noises)” There you go. He’s just dancing around. That’s what’s happening on the ship?

CAMERON: Yup. I mean, I’m watching. I don’t want to approach yet. I’m here if anybody calls me.

(ballet music stops)

NICK: Cool. We’re gonna jump to Tink. The Rancore Protocol is still running. A couple of things have happened. Now that you’ve started playing with all the airlocks and things it has started highlighting airlocks, and you notice whenever you open those that the ship does crazier, weird spins and things, and is starting to destabilize. It’s like making suggestions. The other thing that you’ll notice is towards the middle of the ship, kind of high up, there’s a room that starts blinking red. You click on it, and it says “Ventilation Main Shaft.” It’s blinking on it. Then that little pop-up that you closed out jumps back up, and it says “Biological Alert,” and it’s blinking on you. Then it flips over to that ventilation shaft which starts blinking red, and it’s just going back and forth between the two. You also notice that there is a specific airlock that keeps blinking yellow that you haven’t hit yet.

HUDSON: Okay. oh, there’s an airlock that’s blinking yellow? Okay.

NICK: Yeah. Mm-hmm. It’s not one you’ve opened yet, but it looks like it’s, I don’t know, maybe half way to the detention level.

HUDSON: Ohh, interesting. Hmm… I go ahead and look around the room using Perception to see if there’s anything I can steal, like badges or uniforms or things like that.

NICK: Great. Go right ahead. Roll me a Perception. I think that would actually probably be Skulduggery, honestly, since you’re looking for stuff to loot.

HUDSON: Skulduggery? Okay. What difficulty?

NICK: Easy.

STEVEN: There’s no one there, and it smells like pee.

NICK: Yup. (laughs)

HUDSON: A success, and that’s it.

NICK: You find a swipe badge, well I guess it would be a code cylinder for this. It’s not a very high level one, but it is a technician one, so you’re gonna be able to get into some weird rooms with it, you’re just not sure what because it doesn’t say what kind of technician. You find no uniform, but someone left their little Imperial navy hat, you know the ones that look almost like a Burger King hat but aren’t, there’s one of those. It’s white and has the little Tech Core logo on the back and the Imperial logo on the front.

HUDSON: Okay. Real quick out of character, you said it was blinking?

NICK: Mm-hmm. On the display you were using to mess with the airlocks, certain ones were blinking and when you hit them they were more effective. Now there’s just one blinking.

HUDSON: There’s just one blinking, and it’s not opened…

NICK: Nope.

HUDSON: …between here and the detention center.

NICK: Yup.

HUDSON: I’m trying to figure out if that’s going to kill them or if that’s going to help them.

CAMERON: (laughs)

NICK: Well, probably not.

HUDSON: That’s what I was thinking. Okay. so, I go back over, kind of just relax at this point, kind of playing the computer like a piano, and open up the airlock on the blinking yellow.

NICK: Oookay. Do you say anything, or do you just hit the button?

HUDSON: I’m just kind of humming to myself. Actually, right before I do that, can I actually hijack a droid and have it come over to me, like a fast one?

NICK: Mmm. You can try.

HUDSON: Yeah. I want to try to hijack a droid to come to me.

NICK: Okay. most of them aren’t wireless, but they do have an order system, so you could try to get one to come to you. Are you thinking like the little mouse droids?

HUDSON: Something that can hold a box.

NICK: Yeah, the mouse droid will do that.

HUDSON: It will? Oh, okay.

NICK: Yeah. Those are the things that look like the Pizza Hut logo on wheels.

STEVEN: That’s it, actually.

LAURA & CAMERON: Yeah.

(chuckling)

NICK: Go ahead and make me a hard Computers check.

HUDSON: A failure and an advantage.

NICK: We’ll say you can apply the advantage to something that’s probably about to happen. Most systems in Star Wars don’t connect to droids. The really longwinded EU explanation is before the movies started they actually were playing with big AI computers and stuff, and that went super bad and killed a bunch of people, so they use droids as small siloed AIs. They don’t usually connect directly to the computer systems. You’re just not able to find one that’s linked. There are some, which is why you looked, but they don’t really have any that are available for you.

HUDSON: Okay. in that case, after that fails I don’t try again.

NICK: Cool. So, do you open that airlock?

HUDSON: I open that airlock and just kind of lean back and wait.

NICK: Alright. I’m gonna spend your advantage for you if you don’t mind.

HUDSON: Sure.

NICK: We’re gonna jump to Sabos and Xianna. a yellow light starts flashing for a second giving y’all a slight heads up before one of the walls slides open and starts venting atmosphere! I’m gonna need Athletics checks from the two of you.

STEVEN: Yeah, that’ll be fine.

LAURA: Oh boy. Can I do an Agility instead of Athletics?

NICK: Sure you can. You can cartwheel out of the way of this situation.

HUDSON: (laughs)

LAURA: Okay. Yeah.

STEVEN: What’s an Agility?

NICK: You can use Coordination instead of Athletics.

HUDSON: Acrobatics is not a thing, just Athletics.

NICK: Coordination is the Athletics.

STEVEN: Oh. Oh, I’ll use Coordination.

NICK: Okay. that’s fine.

LAURA: Difficulty?

NICK: We’re gonna say three purple, but you both get a blue die because you had a chance to get a head start.

STEVEN: I got a success and two threats.

NICK: Two threats, you say?

STEVEN: Yup.

LAURA: Two failures, one advantage.

NICK: Okay. So, the stormtroopers, the deck captain, and Xianna get pulled towards this sudden opening into the vacuum of space. The stormtroopers go first. The last one to go is the one that was shot. He ragdolls into a wall with a sickening crunch and then gets pulled out into space. Xianna, you are able to grab nearby, you’re not sucked out, but you are in danger of being sucked out. Is there anybody you might want to talk to, or anything?

LAURA: Am I still IN the ship?

NICK: Yes, you are still in the ship, but you are very close.

LAURA: Yeah. I yell into the coms, “Tink! There is an airlock open! Please close it! Close it! Close it!”

HUDSON: “Huh… Oh! Oh, yes!” I close the airlock.

NICK: (laughs) Okay.

STEVEN: I don’t understand the problem.

CAMERON: You don’t hear the problem either.

STEVEN: No. No. I just see she’s floating out. I’m like, ‘what the hell.’

CAMERON: And she’s yelling for Tink.

NICK: Sabos, what you were able to do is you saw the flashing yellow light and went ‘that’s an airlock indicator,’ and jumped really quickly over to a wall and grab on. You had time to wrap your arm in something. You’re safe.

STEVEN: Can I offer her a head tail?

NICK: You are too far—

STEVEN: Okay.

NICK: –and that’s gross.

HUDSON: So, Computer check?

NICK: No, you’re not gonna have to do that. Xianna, I am gonna need an Athletics check from you to hold on as the door starts to slide closed.

LAURA: Oh boy… (laughter) What’s the difficulty?

NICK: Average.

LAURA: I will flip a light side point.

CAMERON: To upgrade your one green to a yellow.

LAURA: I have a 1 in Brawn.

CAMERON: Oh no…

STEVEN: Oh, that didn’t do it.

LAURA: That is a failure and a threat.

NICK: You start to slide towards the vacuum of horrifying space and decompression. You probably have never been exposed to that before, but it’s not as cold as you expected, or maybe that’s just that you’re going numb. Then the airlock slams shut… on your toe, and it hurts real, real bad.

LAURA: (gasps, whines) Oh no!

STEVEN: (laughs)

NICK: You are able to pull your foot free, that jerk reaction, but your foot is bleeding really bad, you’re not sure how bad, and there is a hole in your boot. You are gonna take 3 strain for your hitting the wall and 2 wounds for getting your toe smashed by an airlock door.

LAURA: Yep.

NICK: It was that or die. So…

HUDSON: “Hey Xianna, what happened? Are you there?”

LAURA: (crying) “My favorite boots! I think I might’ve also lost a toe! Tink! What happened?!”

(laughter)

STEVEN: “I’m not Tink. I’m Sabos.”

LAURA: “I’m not talking to you Sabos, I’m talking to Tink.”

STEVEN: “Oh.”

LAURA: “Tink. What the kriff happened?”

HUDSON: “I… I opened an airlock?”

LAURA: “Why would you open an airlock?!”

STEVEN: “Wait. Who opened an airlock?”

HUDSON: “I mean, it just felt right. It was blinking. You tap on things that are blinking. This is half of computers.”

LAURA: “No! Blinking is usually a warning of either, hey, keep this in mind, or hey, maybe don’t do this. (groans in pain)”

HUDSON: “Did you go to school to be a slicer?”

LAURA: “No. I really didn’t go to very much schooling.”

HUDSON: “So, you don’t have any weight of knowing what blinking means, so…”

LAURA: “No. Blinking is pretty universal.”

HUDSON: “You know what, we’ll just, it’s just a mulligan. We’re fine. Uh…”

STEVEN: (laughs)

LAURA: ‘You owe me new shoes! And a new toe!” (laughs)

HUDSON: “Uh… Gotta go!”

(laughter)

NICK: And on that, we’re gonna end the episode!

(all make dramatic noises)

NICK: –really cool. I like that.

(all make “pew pew” noises)

## 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.