Tabletop Squadron Transcript, Season 1 Episode 24:

A Particular Set of Skills

Transcript by Tyler (Twitter: @Tyler_MoonSage)

## Intro

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

I’ve got several big freaking announcements this week. First, this is our first episode with our new sound setup! We got a new sound board and some new microphones so we should sound even better! Second, and even cooler, we have merch! Laura went full artist and made some great designs for t-shirts. We have them on teepublic.com. Just search Tabletop Squadron and it’ll come right up. We’ve got a shirt with our logo, a shirt with the crew of the Afternoon Delight, and even a shirt that… well, appreciates the more popular music aspects of the Star Wars universe. You can also get the designs on stickers, tote bags, and lots of other stuff. Check it out. Woo!

Okay, I’m calm again, so let’s get into the episode.

##

NICK: Hello! Welcome to Tabletop Squadron Episode 24. Thanks to Cameron for grabbing that right at the end there. It’s been a while since we recorded, so good to be back in the proverbial saddle. Now we’ve got a new sound board and some new microphones. (air horn noises) Woo!

HUDSON: (air horn noises)

NICK: Yes. … Yeah. So, go around the table, everybody say who you are and who you’re playing today, and if you spent any experience why don’t—

HUDSON: Let’s do it all at the same time.

NICK: Everybody talk at the exact same time.

HUDSON: (at once) Hi. I’m Tink. I’m a Gigoran slicer.

CAMERON: (at once) Hi, I’m playing Karma, (giggling) and I’m a bounty hunter, and…

LAURA: (at once) Hi, I’m Laura… Penis, penis, penis.

HUDSON: (laughs)

NICK: Owww! Oh god.

(laughter)

CAMERON: But it’s okay, because we’re all on separate tracks now, so you can just separate that out and just play us one after another, and yeah it’ll be great.

HUDSON: I’m pretty sure Laura said some curses.

CAMERON: Pretty sure. She said penis a lot.

LAURA: I didn’t say curses, I said penis. That’s not a curse word. It’s an inappropriate word.

NICK: No, that’s where sin comes from though, so…

HUDSON: Oh.

LAURA: yeah, but it’s still different.

NICK: (laughing) Let’s go around the table starting with Cameron.

CAMERON: Hello!

NICK: Hi.

CAMERON: I’m Cameron. I’m playing Karma Nailo the Nautolan bounty hunter, and I bought the Dedication talent on my Assassin tree.

OTHERS: Woo!

CAMERON: So I upgraded my Presence characteristic to a 3.

NICK: So, Tabletop Squadron, now presenting Karma Nailo!

CAMERON: Karma’s got talky skills.

NICK: Woo. That’s fun. I’m sure it won’t ever be important to be good at talking.

CAMERON: No, not at all.

NICK: Up next we’ve got Laura.

LAURA: Yes, I am Laura, and I play Xianna’fan, a Twi’lek smuggler, and I also bought my Dedication rank skill thing on my talent tree.

CAMERON: Woo!

LAURA: And I now have a 4 in Agility.

NICK: Ooh.

LAURA: Yes, and I had a few points left over so I bought a rank in Coordination.

NICK: Oh. That’s handy.

LAURA: Yes.

NICK: That’s like Acrobatics in D&D, right? Pretty much?

LAURA: Kind of, yeah, it’s Agility.

NICK: Cool. Last but not least we’ve got Hudson.

HUDSON: Hey Nick.

NICK: Hi!

HUDSON: I’m Tink, a Gigoran slicer and quite the rapscallion.

CAMERON: Are you playing Hudson.

HUDSON: Wait, did I say I’m playing Hudson?

CAMERON: (laughing) No, you said ‘I’m Tink.’ You just didn’t say you were Hudson.

HUDSON: Oh! (smiling) I’m Tink. I’m playing Hudson. I’m Hudson, I’m playing Tink.

NICK: He’s in character!

CAMERON: I know. (laughs)

HUDSON: Already.

NICK: You’re doing great.

HUDSON: I bought a second level in Deception and a second level in Skulduggery.

NICK: Ooh. How sneak-tastic.

HUDSON: I forgot what Skulduggery was.

LAURA: Sneaky things.

NICK: Thief shit.

HUDSON: Oh, okay.

NICK: Casing the joint, pickpocketing, opening locks, anything like that, like the quantifiable thief skills. If you were a thief and you put things on your resume it would be skulduggery.

HUDSON: Okay.

NICK: Yeah. Maybe cheating at cards.

HUDSON: Hmm.

NICK: I don’t know. Anyway. Alright! (laughs) Let’s start off before we get into any sort of recap with the Destiny Roll!

CAMERON: Two light side.

LAURA: Two light side.

HUDSON: One light side.

LAURA: (gasps) Guys!

NICK: Oh shit~ So, when we last left off, you all have been tear-assing your way through Nerftown, just leaving a real impression. You killed most of a gang of nerf hustlers called the Slippery Nerfs. What else did you do?

CAMERON: We got two new speeders that are on the Afternoon Delight now.

NICK: Yeah, you did get two new speeders, that’s a thing that happened. You already went shopping. You’ve turned in the bounties. The last thing that happened was everybody was headed back to the bed and breakfast for the evening and Tink got kidnapped and brought onboard a ship somewhere in space. Yup. That’s the things. Am I forgetting anything?

CAMERON: I think Xianna headed back to the bed and breakfast and karma was tracking Tink.

NICK: Yeah. That’s pretty much where we left off.

CAMERON: Because when they split up it hadn’t yet been determined that he was kidnapped, just that he wandered off somewhere.

NICK: Right. You saw in the distance a ship taking off, you kind of put two and two together, and that’s where we’re gonna open. Ba-naaa, ba-na.

LAURA: Ba-naaa~

CAMERON: Ba-naaa~

NICK: We open on Karma running the evening streets of Nerftown. People stare at her as her head tails stream behind her, but after they see her body armor and weapons they find reasons to look away. Karma hurdles a cart being pulled by a nerf. Nick insert cow noise here.

CAMERON: (giggles)

NICK: Karma, where are you going?

CAMERON: To the space port.

NICK: Okay. Trying to get some information?

CAMERON: Yeah, where the ship had taken off from.

NICK: So you had made it most of the way to the space port when you saw that ship take off. Nerftown has a lot of people but not a lot of trade. From what you’ve gathered wandering around town they ship a lot of live nerfs off planet for them to go be butchered, and there’s big cattle ships that come do that, but most of the time the people who are here are just here to live so there’s not a lot of traffic. The ship was probably wherever Tink went.

So, you make your way to the space port, running the whole way, looking very dramatic. There are two cowboy-looking guys carrying a big sheet of plate glass across the street and you manage to slide around it without breaking it. You get there and some of the ships that were there when you landed are still there. A couple of them have left at this point. Zubo is sitting on top of the Afternoon Delight, he’s got a hydrospanner, and as you get close to the ship he pushes up his goggles and waves to you. What do you do?

CAMERON: I jog over. “Hey, do you know who that ship belonged to that just left?”

NICK: He pushes his goggles around on his head. “You’re looking for a ship?”

CAMERON: “Yeah, that one that just left.”

NICK: “Yeah. We don’t get a lot of traffic this time of night. They sure left in a hurry.”

CAMERON: “Yeah. Do you know whose ship it was?”

NICK: He pulls some earplugs – they have little ear flaps – he pulls some earplugs out. “Oh, you’re looking- Yeah. That ship, that’s the GGG actually. That’s their main ship, just took off.”

CAMERON: “Kriff.”

NICK: “Did you need them for something? They’re nice boys.”

CAMERON: “That’s a very different opinion than what I heard earlier, sir.”

NICK: “Oh. What did you hear about those Green Gregarious Gigorans?”

CAMERON: “I thought it was the Gregarious Green Gigorans.”

NICK: “That’s the one.”

CAMERON: “All them Gs.”

NICK: “The whatevers.”

CAMERON: “Those folks, there’s a bounty on them. They’re bank robbers?”

NICK: “Oh yeah. They make most of their money hijacking ships and merchants out in the nearby sectors, but once they land their money pays just as well as everybody else and they’re pretty nice. Why are you looking for them?”

CAMERON: “I think they just took my friend.”

NICK: “Your accent’s getting thicker.”

CAMERON: “I know! Sorry. I have this thing. I pick up other people’s, and yours is quite strong.”

NICK: “Aww… Yup. Nerftown.”

CAMERON: (snickers) “Yup. Um… Anyway.” Karma focuses. “Do you know where that ship might have been headed?” And is trying to drop the accent. (laughs)

NICK: (laughs) “My accent’s gonna get stronger now.”

HUDSON: (laughs)

CAMERON: “That is fine. Do you know where the ship was headed?”

NICK: “Yeah. I think they were mentioning on the way up they were carrying some big old fella with them. It seemed like one of their friends maybe had too much to drink, but they’re uh, I think they’re still camping out the trade lane that’s a couple of parsecs from here. Contrary to popular belief parsecs are a measure of distance not of time.”

CAMERON: “Well when you’re near enough to a black hole it’s just all the same thing.”

NICK: “That sounds like some bullshit and sloppy writing.”

CAMERON: (laughs) “Well, this might sound a bit late to be asking this question, Zubo, but do you have any loaner ships since mine is getting work on it? Or know anywhere that I could acquire one?”

NICK: “You know, you’re spending enough money with us, I guess you could borrow my personal ship, but you’re gonna need to know an exact heading. That trading route is pretty long. Why don’t you go talk to space traffic control down around the corner?” He points with one of his arms and you see a big, tall, it looks kind of like a lighthouse that’s been stretched up and it’s like a black monolith with a little bulb on top that has some windows, but they’re all dark. We get a shot of Karma looking at that, putting her hands on her hips, and then the camera pans away, and we get to Tink.

HUDSON: Waaa~

NICK: Yep, it’s waa indeed. So, Tink, when we last saw you were tied to a chair in front of a group of Gigorans. You’re in a large room on a ship. The room is dark, but it is lit by a lamp on a durasteel table in front of you. The largest Gigoran, one that is a pleasant clover color, rubs at the back of his hand where you can see a Mandalorian crest branded into the skin. “So, you’re interested in work or not? We’ve always had space for another brother.” The other three Gigorans with streaky green fur nod solemnly. You notice they’re not wearing translators. Your brain has been translating from Gigoran this whole time. Around the edge of the room you can see shadowy figures leaning against the walls. It looks like the Green Gregarious Gigorans—Fuck. Why is that the name of this gang? This is difficult.

LAURA: (laughs) I thought you were just gonna say ‘The Green Gregarious Gigorans fuck!’

(laughter)

HUDSON: Yeah they do!

LAURA: I was like, yeah I bet you they fuck~!

NICK: I mean probably. Anyway. It looks like the Green Gregarious Gigorans aren’t just the ones sitting in front of you. Do you have anything to say to the dude?

HUDSON: “Can I get out of this chair?”

NICK: “We’d… probably be able to let you go, but first we just need some confirmation you’d be interested in working with us. You know, we’ve brought other Gigorans onboard before and it doesn’t always go well. You know how we get, right?” He chucks your shoulder.

HUDSON: “Oh yeah.”

NICK: “Yeah. So, if you’re interested in joining up we got a mission for you that you could get in on, but if not we’ll just bring you back to planet no hard feelings.”

HUDSON: “What’s the pay and benefits like?”

NICK: “Pay is pretty good. We do equal shares for all of us brothers,” and the other three Gigorans high-five, “with some supporting pay for the rest of the crew.” As you look around you can see the other people in this big room, there’s like five or six others, and they’re all wearing dark body suits and look kind of grimy. They’re like standard spacers, but they are not Gigorans, they are other species. “Yeah, we take care of our own. You’ll make good money. It’s rare for this many of us to be gathered in one place. We’re trying to keep the culture alive, you know?”

HUDSON: “Yeah. I completely understand.” Internal monologue is basically, ‘I gotta get out of here.’

NICK: (laughs) He definitely wants to hear a certain kind of answer from you and has decided that you agreeing that Gigorans are cool is close enough. Ziller kind of nods to himself, Ziller is the green one, the more green one, and he puts on his translation mask. You see the other three don’t have one at all. he had one sitting up on his head like when you push goggles back. He slides it down over his face, and with the translator on he says, “Web-Web, come here.” You see detaching from the shadows a tall, lanky Gungan that’s bright blue and has red eyes. “This is Web-Web.” You see that they are wearing a tight leather suit with armor sewn into the shoulders and chest. They don’t have any weapons visible, but they radiate an aura of grace and danger. You’ve never seen a blue Gungan before. That’s really weird. They have several intricate charms hanging from their long ears that they wear worn over their shoulders.

The Gungan says, “Why do I have to babysit?”

And Ziller says, “Because you’re the one least likely to die if something goes wrong.”

Web-Web grabs you and quickly unties you from stuff. They seem very competent with knots and things. “Come with me.” They lead you through the ship. It’s pretty spare. You’ve been on military ships before, because you blew up a star destroyer at one point, and this one is very stripped down. There are a lot more exposed wires on the walls, but everything is pretty clean and in good order. They lead you to a bare room with an extra-long bed. “Rest here. I recommend you come up with a way to impress Ziller before he calls on you again. There’s a reason there are only four Gigorans on the crew. Ziller holds them to a very high standard.” Web-Web makes sure that you’re settled in. Do you have any questions for them or anything?

HUDSON: “Oh, you won’t have to worry about me impressing him. I got some skills, Noob-noob.”

CAMERON: (laughs)

NICK: “It’s Web-Web, but that’s good. I would feel really bad if I had to shove you out of an airlock.” They turn and leave. As the doors slides shut behind them you hear it lock. What do you do?

HUDSON: Are there any panels on the wall?

NICK: Oh, there’s absolutely a panel on the wall.

HUDSON: (laughs)

NICK: There’s the door panel that is locked but is still there. You can have a computer access panel if you flip a light side point.

HUDSON: Ooh. Yeah, I’ll have a computer access panel.

NICK: Okay. There’s a computer access panel in the room above the bed. It looks like just a simple coms setup so that you can talk to other parts of the ship, but it does have access to the rest of the network if you’re trying to do something fancy with it.

HUDSON: Hmm. Alright. I check out the bed.

NICK: It is pretty thin mattress material, not particularly comfortable, but it’s long enough for you to lay on it and not hang off the sides which is pretty cool.

HUDSON: Ooh.

NICK: I don’t think we’ve run into one of those before. Yeah, it’s got a pillow, it’s got a blanket… Were you hoping for something fancy with the bed? (chuckles)

HUDSON: Any weapons around there?

NICK: In the bed?

HUDSON: Like under the bed, by the bed.

NICK: Hell. Roll me a force die, would you?

HUDSON: (laughs) One black side.

NICK: Nope!

HUDSON: (laughs)

NICK: It’s pretty spare. It’s like they stripped this down for, you know, having prisoners or something.

HUDSON: So I have all these marks from them tying me up in the chair. I’m pretty worn out. I think I lay down for a nap.

NICK: Okay. You lay down, and we see Tink stretch out and note that his feet don’t hang off and look pretty happy about that and snuggle in under the blanket, and we’re gonna cut back to Karma. You came over to the space control port. What are you doing?

CAMERON: On my way there I’m gonna send a ping to Xianna. “Hey, Tink’s gone.” She’s probably already asleep at this point because I had to run across town, but if she’s still up and hanging out…

LAURA: No. She would most certainly be asleep at this point.

CAMERON: Okay. Karma’s not sure.

LAURA: She’s probably asleep on one of the living room couches, too, not even her room. She just walked in, and they were… It’s a bed and breakfast so they probably had like afternoon tea or something, and she had a cup, and then immediately just fell asleep there and no one wants to move her.

NICK: Did you do impact during the Slippery Nerfs heist? I can’t remember.

LAURA: Yes, I did.

CAMERON: Mm-hmm.

LAURA: Wait, no, I don’t think I did.

NICK: I don’t think you did either. We talked about it, but you were worried about it blowing away in the speeder.

LAURA: yeah… or did I? I don’t know. Xianna doesn’t know either.

HUDSON: I thought you did.

LAURA: Possibly. Xianna doesn’t know. (laughs)

CAMERON: I don’t remember.

HUDSON: Viewers, could you let us know before we release—(laughs)

LAURA: No.

NICK: Yeah, viewers, tweet at us right now.

LAURA: Yes, viewers.

CAMERON: Listeners?!

LAURA: Viewers, as this is a visual medium.

CAMERON: Listeners, let us know, was the last episode drugged? It’s an important question.

NICK: Yup. Like I said at the beginning, it’s been a little while since we’ve recorded. Anyway! One way or the other Xianna is crashed pretty hard.

LAURA: I don’t think it matters.

NICK: Yeah.

CAMERON: So, karma sends her a ping just so that it’s there if she happens to be awake.

NICK: Okay.

CAMERON: And then she goes and knocks on the door of the tower?

NICK: Yeah, so the tower itself looks pretty much shut down. There’s a really, really big satellite dish next to the tower pointing straight up at the sky. You can see that there are windows up at the top, but everything in there is dark. It doesn’t look very operational, but there is a small one-room shack tucked up next to the tower and you can see a little trickle of smoke coming up and some light coming from under the door. Presumably there are some people in there.

CAMERON: I go knock on that door.

NICK: Okay. You knock on that door and nobody answers at first? As Karma knocks more insistently you hear whispered through the door, someone like, “Maybe they’ll just go away.”

CAMERON: (laughing) Karma knocks again.

NICK: You knock again. “They heard you, stupid!”

CAMERON: She starts doing the fun knocks, though, where there is a correct response to this knock for them to knock back, just because they’re not responding so she starts playing with it.

NICK: (laughs) She gets to the point of (knocking in a pattern) and then someone pulls open the door and says, “What do you want?!” instead of doing the response.

CAMERON: “Good evening.”

NICK: “Hi.”

CAMERON: “Hello. I need a read on a ship that just jumped.”

NICK: “Well of course that would be highly illegal.”

CAMERON: “Ship jumping would be illegal?”

NICK: “Sharing that information with a civilian, yeah.”

CAMERON: “Oh, no.” She flashes her bounty ID.

NICK: Ooh.

CAMERON: “The LAW… office sent me.”

NICK: This guy stops to think for a second and you get a chance to kind of get a look at what he looks like. He is shorter, looks like someone who has a desk job that involves taking an elevator to work, coming back down, and going back to sleep, so he’s not in great shape but he’s got a big, bushy, black beard and he’s Human, but he has bright blue eyes. I’ve decided that just now. Seems important.

CAMERON: Dreamy.

NICK: Yeah. Gorgeous eyes. He looks at you and says, “Technically, bounty hunters are still civilians.”

CAMERON: “Correct. I am not a member of the military.”

NICK: “So technically because you don’t work for the government sharing government records of ship locations would be illegal.” He goes to shut the door on you.

CAMERON: I have my foot in the door already.

NICK: Clunk. You have armored boots because of your armor so I think the door cracks a little bit, that worrying noise when you do something around the house and you hear something get compromised, and you’re like oh I hope that didn’t actually break and just was threatening to. It goes crunch, and he pulls the door back.

CAMERON: “Ow.”

NICK: “Yes, I’m sure it was you that was injured in this situation.”

CAMERON: And she leans nonchalantly against the doorframe.

NICK: “Uh… Look. You’re standing in the doorway. At least come in.”

CAMERON: “Why thank you.” She walks in.

NICK: He turns around and heads in and there is someone who is shaped very similar to him but he’s clean shaven and he has blonde, poofy hair. He says, “Why did you let her in? We were- We don’t have enough food for everybody, and now we have guests…”

CAMERON: “Good evening!”

NICK: “Hi… Good to see you. I don’t know who you are but that’s fine. Why are we-? Why is this happening? What is the point of…? What do you want?”

CAMERON: (cheerfully) “Karma Nailo, bounty hunter.” She holds her hand out to shake his hand.

NICK: He reaches for your hand very hesitantly but shakes it.

CAMERON: Karma’s got a good handshake.

NICK: He doesn’t.

CAMERON: Ick.

NICK: His is very limp, and kind of clammy, and soggy… It’s not great. His hands are very soft. It’s like shaking a plastic baggie of pudding.

CAMERON: Ew. (laughs)

HUDSON: Ew.

NICK: “What do you want? We just, we have enough nerf stew for the two of us, and it’s pleasant to meet you, but we’ve been working all day tracking ships.”

CAMERON: “I don’t mean to take up any more time than is necessary, but I do need the expected jump point for the ship that just left orbit. They just witnessed a kidnapping on the streets and I was sent after. It’s the GGGs?”

NICK: The guy with the beard looks kind of nervous at that and turns around, busying himself doing something. It’s not a kitchen, it’s like a cauldron over an open fire in the middle of this shack. The blonde guy looks just kind of oblivious, like that doesn’t mean much to him. “Well, I mean, that knowledge would have been saved in the computer. We only have to download it once or twice a day, but we can’t share because you’re a civilian. I’m sure my friend here told you that, so we’ll be seeing you later. Bye~”

CAMERON: “Unfortunately I will not be leaving this residence until I get those records.”

NICK: Sounds like about time for some sort of roll, doesn’t it?

CAMERON: (smiling) Yup.

NICK: Are you trying to coerce them into getting it or charm them?

CAMERON: I’m not being scary, so I don’t think I’m coercing. I don’t feel like I’m intimidating at all.

NICK: Okay. Go for Charm.

CAMERON: Okay. Go for Charm. What’s the difficulty of this Charm check?

NICK: Average, but it’s got a black die because one of these people is just real hungry and doesn’t want to talk to you.

CAMERON: Two successes and a threat.

NICK: Two successes and a threat… So, bearded guy comes back with a wooden carved bowl of nerf stew you assume and starts to shake his head angrily at the blonde guy, but the blonde guy says “Well, you know, if you’ll leave I can go help you download that information right now.”

The other guy says, ‘Hey, you can’t just be giving away all our information like that. We won’t even have a job if you keep doing this.”

“Oh it’s fine, and then we get to eat and everything’s good. Of course, you would have to pay us for the information,” and he waggles his eyebrows at Karma. That’s the threat. (musically) Bribes, bribes, bribes, na-na-na.

CAMERON: Karma just stares at them, because there’s some other piece of information they need to provide with that being the amount.

NICK: Hmm.

HUDSON: This is your chance to just give them money, though, just like some amount.

NICK: (laughs) Here is 5 Credits.

CAMERON: Here’s 5 Credits. Buy yourself something nice.

NICK: Here is a nickel, a shiny nickel. “I think probably 50 Credits would do it. That’s enough to buy a lot of nerf stew.”

CAMERON: “Okay, lead the way.”

NICK: “Great.”

CAMERON: “Information first.”

NICK: “Uh… I don’t know about that…”

CAMERON: Karma just stares down at them.

NICK: He shrinks. Karma’s taller than these guys by a decent amount and is very imposing. The guy with the beard stays and keeps eating. “Well, it’s your funeral. You’re the one that offered her in. I hope she shoots you.”

“Aw, come on, man.” They go out of the little shack and there is an elevator that goes straight up. The interior of the space control port is… Imagine the inside of air traffic control towers. It’s a lot of light-up buttons and some screens that are all monochrome. He punches into a computer and some magnetic tapes start to rotate because Star Wars, and he gets the information. “Alright, I’ve got the information right here. I’ve got the coordinates. The thing is, based on estimated hyperspace speed…” Is that a thing?

CAMERON: Sure.

NICK: “Based on estimated capabilities of the ship and the direction it went, we can give you a line of where it went. You would have to trace through whatever that intersects with, between I can give you the vector.”

CAMERON: “Fabulous.”

NICK: “That’s a math term, vector. Good for me. Yeah, that’s something I should know in this job, but I’m always impressed with myself. You know?”

CAMERON: “Yup.”

NICK: He grabs like a ten digit long string of numbers and he writes it down on a space sticky note, some flimsy, and he hands it to you. “So… A little tip for my efforts? Making me leave the house.”

CAMERON: I give him the exact 50 Credits that he asked for.

NICK: “Great. Thank you so much.” And you all turn to leave, right? Do you need anything else from this guy?

CAMERON: Um… Can I get what type of ship it was?

NICK: Yes. It was a… I kind of want it to be Dash Rendar’s ship. Was that a YT2400?

LAURA: Yeah, I think it was a 2400.

NICK: That’s a stupid, garbage ship. Let’s go with that. (laughs)

LAURA: A stupid, garbage ship, that you all picked…

CAMERON: Yeah! Hey!

NICK: (laughs)

LAURA: …when I ran a campaign.

CAMERON: Be nice to that ship!

NICK: “Well, that’s interesting. That thing moved a lot faster than a YT2400 normally would. They must have upgraded it somehow. Pretty standard ship, no big deal, we see those all the time. You can fit a lot of nerfs in one of those.”

CAMERON: “I bet. Yeah.” Karma was more looking to see if that was their ‘hey let’s run down to the planet real quick’ ship.

NICK: No, this was the main ship.

CAMERON: Oh, this was the main ship?

NICK: Mm-hmm.

CAMERON: Okay. That’s what she was trying to gauge, whether it was a small shuttle that would head back up or if it was the big one.

NICK: No. Based on what you know of the kind of jobs they run, that’s a little small for what you would expect but it’s definitely not their ‘extra ride’ ship, so that means it’s probably their main ship. They may have some fighters or something like that, you would know from your understanding of these operations, but the main thing is gonna be that sucker. They brought the big boy to come get him.

CAMERON: Aw. Tink’s so special.

HUDSON: Oh, I can’t say anything, I’m not in the scene.

CAMERON: No, you’re not there.

(laughter)

CAMERON: I mean, Hudson could say something, but…

HUDSON: I am special.

CAMERON: Yeah!

NICK: You are special.

LAURA: Yeah.

CAMERON: So yeah, I guess Karma’s gonna send a ping to Tink. “Let us know where you at?” Something that if someone else looked at the data pad wouldn’t indicate ‘we’re coming to get you’ but more just like ‘hey where you at bro’ type of message, where he could provide information that would be useful back.

NICK: Since this is Star Wars, that message will show up…

CAMERON: Eventually!

NICK: When I want it to!

CAMERON: Yup.

NICK: Yay, because hyperspace.

CAMERON: Yup. She’s gonna head back to the bed and breakfast and probably see Xianna on the couch and help get her upstairs to her room.

NICK: (laughs) We get a cute scene of Xianna being dragged up the stairs by karma.

LAURA: No, I imagine Karma opens the door and it’s the scene where Xianna rolls off the couch, hits the floor, and goes, “Whoa. No! Oh? Oh… Okay. Hello~ Heh.”

CAMERON: “Hi. Tink’s missing. He’s been kidnapped by the Green Gorgorgarious Gergergerans, and we’re gonna go to sleep.”

LAURA: “Well, if we know where he is, is he actually missing? Is he just kidnapped?”

CAMERON: “I have a general idea of where he’s at, but Tink went missing. Turns out he was kidnapped. I have located said vector of what ship is on… going… yes?”

LAURA: “Sure! Okay.”

CAMERON: “I’m tired. I’m not speaking well anymore. I’m gonna go to bed.” (laughs)

LAURA: “Okay.” (laughs)

CAMERON: “We’ll go get him in the morning. Zubo says I can have a ship.”

LAURA: “Cool.”

CAMERON: “I’m sure he’s fine. He’s a smart boy. He can handle himself.”

LAURA: “Probably. Hopefully he is not dead. That would be a little sad.”

CAMERON: “If he is dead already there’s nothing we can do, so I’m going to bed.” (laughs)

LAURA: How long was I sleeping for? How long was this?

NICK: Probably two hours. It’s early evening, early night time. You spent most of the day turning in a whole bunch of dead Selkath for money. So, you all go to sleep?

CAMERON: Yup.

LAURA: Yes.

NICK: Okay. (laughs) We get a shot… It’s like the shot from the time last night where we see the silhouettes against window shades, but the room that Tink was in, the window is open and dark and there’s just a curtain flapping in the breeze from where he was sleeping. The screen fades to black and we come back to Tink. Tink, how long do you think you slept for?

HUDSON: I think I slept for about an hour and a half.

NICK: So you took an actual nap. You didn’t just sleep through the whole night by accident.

HUDSON: No.

NICK: Okay. You wake up, and before you move you can hear—you’re pretty used to the sounds of a ship operating at this point—and you can hear that it’s gotten pretty quiet, like most of the people have bedded down. What do you wanna do?

HUDSON: I wanna check out the computer panel by my bed.

NICK: You tap some buttons on it. It looks like a standard com system, but like I said before it does touch the network in a couple of places. You could com somebody. Anything else you do you’re gonna have to do some slicing.

HUDSON: Hmm. I crack my knuckles and get to work slicing.

NICK: Go ahead and roll me a Computers check. You still don’t have your axe, they took your pistol, but they left you your outlaw data breaker. If you want to use that to help hack you can get those two blue dice for your fancy new piece of equipment, but it is going to be a hard check. This is a system you are unfamiliar with.

HUDSON: Alright. I have two advantages.

NICK: (laughs) You start to slice into it and I think a little com window pops up in the corner. You open up the bios settings on this, you’re gonna start going ‘delete password requirement’ or whatever, and a little screen pops up over that. It’s got a blue Gungan on like a Skype screen. “I see you’re trying to hack the computer. Would you like some help with that?” It’s Web-Web just fucking with you is what’s going on.

HUDSON: “Oh… I thought this was the TV.” (laughter) “Is this the… What?”

NICK: “Um… So, you’re a pretty decent slicer it looks like, but you’re not much of a liar, even if you did just put more points in Deception, so would you like to try again?”

(laughter)

HUDSON: Yes. I actually would like to roll for Deception.

NICK: Okay. It’s gonna be average difficulty.

HUDSON: A triumph with a success and two threats.

NICK: You say ‘I thought this was the TV’ and Web-Web goes, “Yeah, you’re not much of a liar…” but they look kind of unsure. Their default is to assume people are lying to them. ‘Is he actually this dumb? It’s hard to tell. Did he get into the bios with an outlaw data breaker trying to turn on a TV? Are we at like Mr. Magoo levels of shenanigans here? Maybe?’

CAMERON: (laughs)

LAURA: He was trying to get those late night channels.

(chuckling)

NICK: ‘I just wanted to unscramble it.’

LAURA: ‘I just wanted to see Wookie on Wookie.’

HUDSON: (laughs)

NICK: ‘They always pixel out the dianoga’s tentacles, and I wanted to…’ Anyway. Web-Web says, “So you didn’t sleep very long. As long as we’re talking, are you doing okay? Can I get you anything?”

HUDSON: “Were you watching me sleep?”

NICK: “Well, I mean, I assumed, you went in the room that you went to sleep and now you’re trying to watch TV, so…”

HUDSON: “I mean, I could have just been meditating, I could have been just sitting around.”

NICK: “Were you meditating?”

HUDSON: “… No.”

NICK: “Okay. I don’t understand why we’re talking about this.”

HUDSON: (laughs)

NICK: “Hang on.” The screen blacks out. The com system is disabled at this point. They come in and you can see they’re wearing a long nightgown type thing that looks really weird. It’s kind of high-water so you get five inches of shin and those weird Gungan feet that are very—

LAURA: Ugh. Weird Gungan feet.

NICK: Yeah.

HUDSON: I look at them and go “Eghh…” aloud.

CAMERON: Aww.

NICK: “Hey! What are you doing? What do you need? Let me just help you, because if you do anything stupid it’s gonna come back on me, and I’ve actually enjoyed being a member of this group.”

HUDSON: “I’m just trying to see… Alright. I’ll just come clean with you. I’m trying to get out of here.”

NICK: “Whaaat?”

HUDSON: “Listen. I’m putting my trust in you. Can I do that?”

NICK: “I’m gonna be honest, that’s not smart, but you’ve done it now so we might as well go for it. You’re trying to get out of here?”

HUDSON: “I mean, I’d like to see my friends again.”

NICK: “Oh. Well, did you ever think about just making new friends? This is a pretty cool place. We’re gonna rob a thing. I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell you what it is yet, but we are planning on robbing a thing. You seem helpful even if you’re not the best slicer. You messed that one up pretty good. There’s a lot of potential here. I think you should really consider. All you gotta do is dye your fur green and we’re good to go.”

HUDSON: “That’s actually all you have to do to get into this gang?”

NICK: “If you’re a Gigoran.”

HUDSON: “Oh. What if you’re not? What did you have to do?”

NICK: “I killed some folks, like four or five people actually.”

HUDSON: Whoa…”

NICK: “It’s fine. I do that on a pretty regular basis.”

HUDSON: “I see. Alright, you’re starting to tempt me the other way now… I guess I don’t have much of a choice here… Oh, you know what, I’ll join. Sure.”

NICK: “Great. Glad to have you on board, like you said you were earlier, to our boss. I’m glad you’ve made a decision.”

HUDSON: “You’re very persuasive.”

NICK: “You know, I think so too.” They put their hand on their chest and actually look pretty proud of themself. “Well, good night!” They turn and leave and shut the door and it locks, and you are all alone again.

HUDSON: I breathe a sigh of relief, and I still really wanna see my friends.

NICK: Aww.

CAMERON: Aww.

NICK: Are you gonna go to sleep? Are you gonna try to break out? What are you gonna do now?

HUDSON: I’m gonna try to go to sleep. That was enough trying to break out for one night.

CAMERON: (laughs)

NICK: (laughs) Okay. Tink flumps onto the bed. It creaks under his weight a little bit, and then the camera pans over the now disabled com system. As the screen goes black it pans back to the sun rising over nerf town. Insert the William Tell overture. The sun is rising and you hear (mooing) from all the nerfs scattered around the city.

CAMERON: (loudly) Moo!

NICK: Yup. That’s that one nerf. It’s kind of weird.

CAMERON: Yeah. (laughs)

NICK: You are awake at the bed and breakfast. What are Karma and Xianna gonna do at this point?

LAURA: “Do we have time for breakfast, or…?”

CAMERON: “yes.”

LAURA: “Oh! Okay. Good!”

NICK: (laughs) I think Xianna says that walking downstairs and karma’s already there eating, probably scones again.

CAMERON: Scones again, yup, drinking caf.

NICK: The proprietor of the bed and breakfast, the elderly Mon Cal woman, says, “Well, here’s caf for everybody. I know how much you like caf.” And she’s pouring just big old steaming carafes.

CAMERON: “Thank you!

LAURA: “Thank you.” Xianna has her own carafe. She doesn’t bother with the cup. She’s just drinking straight out of it. (laughs)

NICK: Drinking out of a carafe! That’s the tagline for the podcast now: Tabletop Squadron, drink it straight out of the carafe!

HUDSON: (snickers)

CAMERON: Great.

LAURA: Whether or not it’s all coffee, that’s up to you.

NICK: (laughs) “So, how was your evening? I saw that one of your friends stayed out. Did he get lucky?”

LAURA: ‘No, he’s kidnapped.”

NICK: “Oh. I thought now that he knew what a slippery nerf was he went out to try it. Man, reminds me of the good old days.”

CAMERON: Karma looks incredibly uncomfortable, (laughs) and slightly confused.

LAURA: “I mean, it is definitely something you want to try once you find out what it is, but I don’t think he went to do that.”

NICK: “Well, and I was wondering where he was gonna get the porg masks on such short notice.”

LAURA: “Ugh. I mean, specialty shops always carry those.”

NICK: (smiling) At this point I’m just trying to see how uncomfortable I can make Cameron look, trying to hint at this. (laughs)

LAURA: “It’s always right next to the jogan fruit flavored lube and on the other side of the dildos.”

NICK: “Well yeah, the nicer shops just have one of those end cap displays with everything you need, but it does take up like half the shop.”

CAMERON: Karma’s just like drinking her coffee, has refilled her coffee, is drinking more of her coffee. Her caf. (laughs)

LAURA: “Some places now have these fun little starter kits in a box.”

NICK: “But the quality is just not there.”

LAURA: “No, it’s very… Everything breaks after the first time.”

NICK: “The velcro doesn’t stay stuck. It just, it’s a mess. It’s good to see if it’s your thing, but…”

LAURA: “The zip ties do not bind nearly as tightly as they really need to.”

NICK: “Well, that’s how you make a mess, so.”

LAURA: “And the nipple clamps just always fall off.” (laughs)

NICK: (laughs)

CAMERON: Karma’s like making eye contact with the other people in this breakfast area listening to this conversation. ‘What is happening? Someone come rescue me from this table.’ (laughs)

NICK: So, the only other person in the breakfast nook is, picture a 1950s milkman with the uniform holding a thing of glass milk jars, and he just kind of shrugs and smiles at you and backs out of the room. (laughs)

CAMERON: Karma refills her cup. “So, Zubo said that we could borrow his ship. I don’t know what kind of ship it is, but is’ probably in working order and ours is not right now, so… I have the vector to search along.”

LAURA: “Okie. That sounds like a lot of, uh, you work. I can help fly?”

CAMERON: “Yup.”

LAURA: “And then once we get there, then I can do things…”

CAMERON: “Yup.”

LAURA: “…but I don’t really do the…”

CAMERON: “The findings of the peoples?”

LAURA: “Astrogation.”

CAMERON: “Oh.”

LAURA: “I can do some, but mostly once they are inside a city. I don’t do super well with tracking across the vacuum of space.”

CAMERON: Karma realizes that she’s gotten very used to having Tink onboard to do all the Astrogation checks.

NICK: Yeah.

CAMERON: Hmm.

HUDSON: Does that mean you miss me?

CAMERON: Yeah. Karma’s coming after you! (laughs)

NICK: Karma’s just having a conversation with the idea of Tink in her head.

CAMERON: (laughing) yeah.

LAURA: “Do you think the droid would be able to help with the Astrogation? A lot of them can do that.”

CAMERON: “I don’t know if we can fix it, though.”

LAURA: “I mean, how broken was it?”

CAMERON: “The CPU was gone. It’s brain was gone.”

LAURA: “Do you think Tink just has those in his room?”

CAMERON: “I don’t think it’s in his room. He may have it on him, but what he suggested plugging into it was the Rancore Protocol.”

NICK: Just looking at character sheets and cackling, don’t mind me.

CAMERON: “I get the feeling the droid is not gonna be any better at Astrogation than I am.”

NICK: No, you don’t know that! Dramatic irony!

CAMERON: (laughs)

NICK: The droid’s great at it!

CAMERON: “Yup. They’re in a YT2400. I don’t know how many of them are onboard. I know my contact earlier had said there were four Gigorans—or no, Tink said that, because they’re a barber shop quartet. I remember this. Then, they had other crew members so I don’t know how many people it is. I don’t know what size ship we’re borrowing so I don’t know if we can dock with the YT2400.”

LAURA: “Um… I have no idea, and I am a little confused why you are even asking me.”

CAMERON: “I’m not really, I’m just talking out loud at this point, trying to drown out all of the Slippery Nerf thoughts happening in my head.”

LAURA: “If you need to buy drugs, or pickpocket, or cheat at a Sabacc game, or sneak through some air ducts… then I am your Twi’lek.”

CAMERON: “I can see one of those possibly coming up in this mission.” (laughs)

LAURA: “Those are all things I have done in the last month.”

CAMERON: “Cool.”

LAURA: “They are relevant.”

CAMERON: “Alright. Well, I guess when we finish breakfast we can head out.”

LAURA: “And again, I can help you fly, I just don’t… I’m not good at math.”

CAMERON: “Noted.”

LAURA: “I can do some basic addition and subtraction, mostly for money, and drugs…”

CAMERON: “Mm-hmm. Yup.”

LAURA: “How much to buy, how much per unit, but calculating where a ship flies… don’t know that.”

CAMERON: “Also, I messaged Tink, so hopefully he gets back to us at some point and we can coordinate something?”

NICK: Dramatic swipe to… You see the room that Tink was in when he met the Green Gregarious Gigorans—gosh, I want this arc to be over—and there’s a holo-display of a Mon Cal cruiser, and Ziller is pointing at different things. You see a data pad in his backpack light up and it says, ‘Hey, where you at?’ on it. He doesn’t pay any attention to it, and then we cut back to Karma and Xianna.

CAMERON: “Well, finish your breakfast.”

LAURA: “Xianna just brings the carafe of coffee with her.”

NICK: (snickers) Just walks out the front door with it?

LAURA: Just walks out with it. Yeah. Well, she makes sure it’s full and then just keeps it.

NICK: There’s a cross-stitched thing by the front door that says, ‘Before you leave put your laundry in the dishwasher—‘ Oh no…

(laughter)

LAURA: No, put your laundry—

CAMERON: No, someone fucked up this needle point and it says ‘Put your laundry in the dishwasher.’

LAURA: It’s probably like, ‘Put your laundry in the chute. Please don’t take any of the towels.’

NICK: Now they’re gonna have to cross-stitch a little side one that says, ‘or any of the carafes for coffee.’

CAMERON: (laughs) Yeah.

LAURA: No, no, because Xianna just takes that cross-stitch.

NICK: (laughs)

LAURA: She’s taking the carafe, and she’s reading, and she’s like, “Oh, I did not put any of my laundry in the laundry chute. Oh, I did take a towel…” She just reaches out, grabs it, and keeps going.

CAMERON: Karma’s in front so she doesn’t see this happen.

LAURA: I now have (laughing) a cross-stitch?

NICK: A cross-stitch of Air B&B rules.

LAURA: I’m gonna keep that. I’m just gonna put it in my room on the ship.

NICK: Cool.

LAURA: Oh, I also have a carafe. That’s also going in my room on the ship.

NICK: Awesome. If you want we can cut to you on Zubo’s loaner ship.

CAMERON: What is this loaner ship?

NICK: His loaner ship is basically a space minivan. It is a blocky square, kinda looks like a shrunk down version of, you know the angular boxes sticking out everywhere that it shows on the death star, that kind of pattern? Like that. It looks about twice the size of a minivan. It could seat six. It’s definitely a planet hopper, nothing that fancy, and it has one little bubble turret on top with two twin lasers sticking out of it and that’s it.

LAURA: “(groans)”

CAMERON: Does it have comfortable seats?

NICK: Oh yeah, they’re leather.

CAMERON: “Nice.”

NICK: But they’re a little short because they’re designed for him, and he’s not very tall, so it does the lumbar support but it doesn’t go all the way up.

CAMERON: (laughs)

LAURA: “Oh no…”

CAMERON: “The lumbar support is in the wrong place.”

NICK: Zubo is standing behind you, and he’s polishing some part that looks like it may have come off your ship. “Well, that’s her. You can borrow her if you need to.”

CAMERON: “Thanks.”

NICK: “Just make sure you bring it back with the same amount of fuel it had when you left or we’ll have to charge you our refueling fee. It’s a lot more.”

CAMERON: “Yeah… Okay!”

NICK: Are you going to take this ship and go?

LAURA: “Okie! Heh.”

NICK: “If you wait three or four hours we might have your ship done. You could take that one instead. Maybe less liability.”

CAMERON: How big is the YT2400 in comparison to the Afternoon Delight?

NICK: It is one silhouette smaller than yours, but it will now count mechanically the same because of the new sheeting that you put on it.

CAMERON: Heh-heh.

NICK: It’s like three quarters the size of your ship, probably. It’s pretty big.

LAURA: “Maybe you know this question. Is there a way for our ship, the one that is being fixed, to dock with a YT2400?”

NICK: “All the YT have like a universal port on them, and yours has a—Gosh. I don’t like that hand gesture you’re making right now.”

LAURA: (giggles) Well, I’ll make it canon. Xianna is just making a circle with one hand and more of a longer shape with her other hand and putting them together, and then back out, and back in. “This is just, uh, docking. Well, I mean, a certain kind of ship docking, not the other one… Okay. Yes. Could we do that with our ships?”

NICK: “Yeah, it would work. YT’s have a universal port and your ship has one of those extendy stretchy things. You know, mechanical term, extendy stretchy thing.”

LAURA: “Okay. I’m sure we do somewhere.”

NICK: “Yeah. You can activate it from the cockpit. It mostly just will guide into place on one of those anyway. It’s used for emergency rescue situations.”

LAURA: “Cool. Cool. So I’m good waiting three to four hours, I don’t know about you.”

CAMERON: “I’m good waiting.”

NICK: “You don’t wanna take…”

CAMERON: “Honestly, it’s just that I’m worried about your ship, and if anything is gonna happen to a ship I’d prefer it be mine than yours.”

NICK: “Yeah, that makes sense. You wouldn’t want to blow up that ship out there. For one, if you don’t have any space suits you’ll just die in the vacuum of space.”

CAMERON: “Yup.”

LAURA: “Yes. Okay.”

NICK: “Generally you want to avoid that.”

CAMERON: “Yeah?”

LAURA: “So we’re going to come back in three to four hours. Cool.”

CAMERON: “Cool.”

LAURA: “Do you want to go to a bar?”

CAMERON: “Sure.” (laughs)

LAURA: “Let’s go!”

NICK: We swipe back to Tink. Tink, you are back in the main briefing room on the GGG ship. This is probably ten minutes after the scene where your data pad lights up in Ziller’s pocket, so you haven’t seen that yet. There is a hologram of a Mon Cal cruiser with a lot of Xs and lines all over it. You might recognize this kind of ship. It’s the ones in the movies, they basically only show up when there is a death star situation, so in Return of the Jedi there are a bunch of them. They’re the kind of bulbous cucumber shaped ones. That’s what these are. Web-Web has led you into this place and says, “Well boss, he made it through the night,” and smiles kind of smugly, which looks really weird on a Gungan face because Gungan faces are so big.

Ziller says, “Well that’s good. I’m glad, brother, that you’re still here and didn’t try to do anything stupid like trying to escape. I think that demonstrates your commitment to our cause. So, this is the job we were talking about. We’ve got a merchant ship, one of the big ones, one of these Mon Cal cruisers here. We’re gonna steal everything in it.”

HUDSON: “Sounds like a grand old time.”

NICK: “Great. Before we do that, of course, we’re gonna need you to demonstrate what your skills are. Of course, if anything were to go wrong we would just bring you back and set you on planet. It’s not like we would kick you out of an airlock or anything. I don’t want you to be nervous.”

HUDSON: (seethes) “Not at all. Yeah, certainly, I can definitely demonstrate my skills. I’m actually a pretty skilled slicer.”

NICK: “Oh… Yeah. I noticed that you didn’t have the traditional vibro-axe of our people, so that’s good that you have skills.” That’s a thing we made up.

CAMERON: (smiling) Yup.

NICK: “Even though you’ve forsaken our culture in such a way, it’s good that we have you able to contribute in some way. So, if you’re so great why don’t you just slice into the ship and tell us when the Mon Cal cruiser gets close? To be more specific, I mean slice our ship, because this is a test. You should be able to tell us the heading of the ship that we’re tracking right now.”

HUDSON: “Hmm. You’re on.”

NICK: (laughs) Okay. Roll me a slicing check. You look around and there’s just a nice computer panel right there. I am totally not just redoing the scene from Swordfish but without the blowjob, because that part is weird and I don’t want that in this.

CAMERON: (laughs)

HUDSON: What difficulty?

NICK: Hard again.

LAURA: I mean, we did already say the words nipple clamps.

NICK: I am going to upgrade, so one of those purple is a red now.

CAMERON: Excuse you, sir.

NICK: Oh. I flipped the wrong thing.

CAMERON: You flipped our light side point. That’s not allowed! (smiling)

NICK: Sorry.

LAURA: I do now have a section of my notebook that is…

NICK: Everything required for a slippery nerf?

LAURA: …dedicated to everything for a slippery nerf. It’s got a porg mask, zip ties, nipple clamps, and more than two people. I don’t know if we ever said exactly how many people, just more than two. Heh.

NICK: And velcro.

LAURA: Oh yes, velcro.

HUDSON: I have a triumph that includes a success, another success, and four advantages.

NICK: Alright. You succeed. You are completely into the ship. You can see all sorts of stuff. You’re gonna be able to tell him where the ship is. He knows where it is, it’s just like a flash card thing so that you can be like ‘I know where it is,’ yada-yada.

HUDSON: “It’s in, uh, Delta 12, Sector 14.7.”

NICK: Yeah, 14.7, which you’re also aware of is extremely close to the ship, like it’s go time pretty much. You also have a triumph and a whole bunch of advantages. What would you like those to be used for? Anything?

HUDSON: I’m allergic to the green paint they’re about to paint me in.

CAMERON: Oh no!

NICK: (laughing) Why is that an advantage?

HUDSON: (laughs) I don’t want to be green!

CAMERON: (laughs)

HUDSON: I’m gonna ask, “What type of paint do you use?”

NICK: “Well, you know, just standard Imperial green. It’s sort of symbolic of coopting the Imperial war machine for our own needs.”

HUDSON: “I’m allergic to most paints.”

NICK: “Oh, well that’s unfortunate.”

HUDSON: “Yeah.”

NICK: “How are we gonna mark you as green then?”

HUDSON: “Do you have a green, uh…”

LAURA: Like a natural dye. (laughs)

HUDSON: (laughs) Do you have an almond dye? No.

(laughter)

LAURA: What is green…?

HUDSON: “Do you have a green suit I could wear?”

NICK: You’re talking to Ziller, and he’s the one talking about coopting the whatever, and behind you is Web-Web with a giant bucket of just green liquid. Web-Web goes, “Aww…” and turns around and walks away without the bucket.

HUDSON: (laughs)

NICK: Ziller thinks for a second and then pulls something out of his utility belt and hands you just a really long, green, four-inch thick ribbon. “Here, you can tie this over your head or something. We’ll find you something to turn you green at a later date. I’ve always thought that part was a little silly, but the boys go crazy for it.”

HUDSON: “Oh yeah.”

NICK: At that point the other three Gigorans come in and their stripes are much brighter than they were yesterday and they’re all high-fiving and just being real happy, and speaking in Gigoran which I think just sounds like… bus breaks.

(laughter)

LAURA: I don’t think we’ve ever heard one.

NICK: Nope, so they sound like bus breaks. That’s what Gigoran sounds like.

LAURA: Because Moroff, the one that was supposed to be in Rogue One…

NICK: Oh, the actual Gigoran?

LAURA: Yeah.

NICK: Wait. Was he not in Rogue One?

LAURA: Well, most of his stuff got cut out of Rogue One.

NICK: Oh. That’s why he’s only in the background for like 30 seconds or whatever.

LAURA: Yeah, and then you can kind of see them in Solo amongst some Wookies. You can see like one, kind of, unless that’s an albino Wookie. Maybe there are albino Wookies? I don’t know why not.

NICK: I mean, that would make sense why in our podcast everyone thinks that Tink is an albino Wookie if albino Wookies are a thing.

LAURA: Yeah. Moroff. He’s got the flamethrower.

NICK: (laughs) Is there anything else that you wanted?

HUDSON: Can I save the advantage?

NICK: Yeah.

HUDSON: Okay. I’d like to save the other advantage.

NICK: Okay. We can either apply that retroactively a little later or we can kick that in. At that point you feel the ship jolt and Ziller stands up and grabs a vibro-axe off the wall. A bunch of the other gang members come streaming in and a door opens on the far side. “Well, it’s time to get  moving. It’s actually really lucky that you have that skillset, because our other slicer took a blaster bolt to the face on the last incursion. Let’s go! We need you to get these doors open.” Everyone goes streaming out.

It’s just you and Web-Web in the room, and Web-Web says, “Well, we need to be upfront, so let’s get moving. It’s me and you.”

HUDSON: “Where’s my vibro-axe?!”

NICK: “It’s still on the planet. Remember? You got it upgraded.”

LAURA: It’s not there.

HUDSON: Oh! I hadn’t picked it up yet.

CAMERON: You don’t actually have it. (laughs)

LAURA: Web-Web would not know about that.

NICK: I don’t know why I did the Web-Web voice explaining it.

(laughter)

HUDSON: Okay. I didn’t say that, I didn’t ask that. “Oh—Okay!” And I run.

(laughter)

NICK: We see Web-Web chasing after Tink as they run down the tunnel after everybody. We’re going to cut over to Xianna and karma sitting in a saloon drinking I guess, or just hanging out. What are you up to?

CAMERON: Mm-hmm.

LAURA: Not drinking.

NICK: Describe this saloon a little bit.

CAMERON: It’s gotta be super western.

LAURA: It’s either super western, because if we went to one of the main fairway ones, or Xianna knocked on doors, went down weird staircases, and we’re in one that’s just like a rave, but because it’s 10 in the morning no one else is there, so there’s a DJ just playing away and flashing lights and strobes and probably a smoke machine, and just no one but us.

NICK: DJ the Hutt.

LAURA: DJ the Hutt… Ugh.

NICK: It’s a Devaronian, but he’s got a big fiberglass Hutt head on. You know that’s his name because all of his mixes have ‘(unce, unce, unce) DJ THE HUTT!’

LAURA: Of course they do.

CAMERON: It’s not a good DJ, because it’s in the  morning. No one is here. (laughs)

NICK: (smiling) It’s a Tuesday morning timeslot.

CAMERON: Yeah. It’s not good.

NICK: Xianna managed to find a place that’s the 24 hour rave, so it’s this guy, a bouncer who is just reading a book, and then a droid for a bartender that half of it is under maintenance routines right now so it only has one arm that’s moving to pour drinks. It’s you two huddled close at this bar with ‘DJ THE HUTT!’

LAURA: “I heard the drinks were very cheap. Heh.”

CAMERON: “The music’s not… good.”

LAURA: “It is bad. Heh.”

CAMERON: “Yeah.”

LAURA: We’re yelling over it. (laughs)

NICK: (laughs)

CAMERON: Karma has grabbed a couple of glow sticks and has worked them into her tentacles, just to be festive.

NICK: To blend in with the nobody that’s there?

CAMERON: No… They’re just fun. Okay?

NICK: Okay.

CAMERON: She’s rainbow now. It’s fine.

NICK: (laughs)

LAURA: Xianna ordered them drinks and she got two Bantha Blasters, which is a real drink in Star Wars from one of the books or something. It’s green and pink and it fizzes and pops.

NICK & CAMERON: Nice.

LAURA: It fizzes all over the place. Xianna grabs them and gives one to Karma. “Okay. I got us drinks.”

CAMERON: “Thank you.” Karma is actually drinking today.

NICK: Oh-ho.

CAMERON: She hasn’t been so far.

NICK: Cool. What does the drink taste like?

LAURA: I don’t know. I don’t remember. I just know that it’s pink and green and it fizzes and pops.

CAMERON: It tastes like pink and green if they were to fizz and pop.

NICK: Oh!

LAURA: Yes. It tastes pink and it tastes green.

CAMERON: (laughs) it tastes like watermelon. Pink and green.

NICK: Yeah, so you’re having a drink.

LAURA: Xianna’s going through her pockets. “Oh. This would have been a good time for the glitterstim. Oh wait, no, I think I traded that for something? I don’t know.”

CAMERON: “Xianna, I don’t think anytime is a good time for the glitterstim.”

LAURA: “No, the lights! It is very fun. Heh.”

CAMERON: “You can enjoy the lights without the glitterstim, and it is still fun.” Karma lifts her head tails and it does a rainbow thing because she has them all in her head.

LAURA: “Okay, but… It makes them more fun and you are slightly telekinetic for a little bit.”

CAMERON: “And it melts your brain.”

LAURA: “Yes, but only if you do a lot over time, yeah, which I don’t. I don’t really do glitterstim very often.”

CAMERON: “That’s good. That’s a good one to not do.”

LAURA: “You don’t want to mess with that stuff for too long.”

CAMERON: “Yeah, no…”

LAURA: “So, um… About you.”

CAMERON: “Don’t do the glitterstim.”

LAURA: “I don’t even have any anymore, just all the impact! Heh.”

CAMERON: “No, I’m just saying, that’s about me. I don’t do the glitterstim, or the impact actually, or the booster blue, or…”

LAURA: “Oh, you don’t do booster blue. That is for weirdos. It is paint.”

CAMERON: “yeah.”

LAURA: “Why would you just sniff paint? That is stupid. Heh.”

CAMERON: ‘I’ve seen some people think it’s fun, because it kind of turns your lower half of your face blue because you’re just spraying spray-paint on your face.”

LAURA: “No…”

CAMERON: “But no, I don’t get it.”

LAURA: “Yeah, so, um…” It’s one of those very awkward things because Karma and Xianna don’t talk a lot to each other without Tink.

CAMERON: (laughing) Yup. We need a buffer.

LAURA: So it’s a lot of those awkward silences where it’s just like staring and awkwardly sipping on a straw, just doing the whole like, “Um, okay… (slurps straw) Uh, yeah… So, you do anything fun lately?” Heh.

CAMERON: (laughs) “Well, um… No. Our recent track record hasn’t been super fun. Before that I was just running jobs.”

LAURA: “Do you have any hobbies, or things you do for fun?”

CAMERON: “… I knit.”

LAURA: “Okay. Um.”

CAMERON: “And I used to do a food blog, but I stopped that.”

LAURA: “Okay. You are a mom, right?”

CAMERON: “Correct. Yes.”

LAURA: “yes, uh… Makes sense. Makes sense.” (laughter) “The food blog, the knitting… Yes.”

CAMERON: “yeah.”

LAURA: “Okay, um…”

CAMERON: “How about you? Any hobbies, besides the impact?”

LAURA: “Um, well I also like drinking…”

CAMERON: “Yeah. I’ve noticed that one too.”

LAURA: “…and going to parties, and when I was little I liked to make jewelry. Sometimes I would work at my mom’s mechanic shop. Didn’t really pick up a whole lot of that, mostly because she was only sometimes doing mechanics. The other time was just working with the Resistance, which I did not do being a child.”

CAMERON: “That makes sense. Yes.”

LAURA: “I played hide and seek a lot.”

CAMERON: “useful skills in your current line of work. Yeah.”

LAURA: “Yes. You see, most of the days I spent with one of our neighbors, sort of like an uncle, and he was a previous Resistance spy for the, you know, the Resistance. He taught me how to be sneaky, you know, because he was a spy.”

CAMERON: “I can see those being very useful skills for a kid on Ryloth.”

LAURA: “yeah. I mean, we did hide in the cabinets when stormtroopers dragged my mother away, and they didn’t find us because we were sneaky. Yep.”

CAMERON: “Yup… Pluses and minuses. Okay. Um…” When Karma was asking questions she was trying to avoid the family stuff, because she had heard a previous conversation that Tink and Xianna had, and was just trying to avoid it, but nope we ended up there anyway.

NICK: (laughs) It’s a bummer.

CAMERON: (smiling) It’s a bummer.

NICK: So, we get Karma doing the gurgle straw with the dregs of a drink.

LAURA: (slurps straw)

CAMERON: (giggles)

NICK: Gah. The camera zooms in on the—Is there ice in this drink?

LAURA: Yes.

NICK: It zooms in on the ice which is still kind of fizzing and popping, and it zooms back out on Xianna and Karma in the cockpit of the Afternoon Delight. You’re up in orbit around Engebo 5 and you’ve got that sticky note with the string of numbers. I need an Astrogation check.

CAMERON: (groans) No… What’s the difficulty?

NICK: Hard.

CAMERON: Can I have a blue die because I have the exact coordinates I need to put into the computer?

NICK: Yeah, you can have two blue dice. Really the Astrogation is not the coordinates, it’s calculating the vector with the intersection of the trading route that you know that there is.

CAMERON: Okay. Let’s see… Hey! One success.

NICK: Nice. You are doing some math and we get an image of you going through the calculation several times, typing it, looking pretty unsure and going ‘Well…’ and just pulling the lever. You stretch out into hyperspace, and when you come back to you see you come into basically a disaster zone. This is an empty stretch of space which most hyperspace routes are, except that there’s a giant asteroid that seems to have impacted with a Mon Cal cruiser. The front is all crunched in and there’s a big freaking rock on it. You can also see from this distance a YT2400 locked with the front port of it near where the asteroid smooshed it up real good. You succeeded, so you are at a comfortable distance. You can get there quickly, but no one has noticed you yet.

LAURA: “Oh! They are raiding the ship. Can we raid the ship too?”

CAMERON: “Um, no. I’m gonna do a hard no on that one.”

LAURA: “Okay, but if we’re already going in there for Tink, you know, just grab a few things while we are there.”

CAMERON: “Nah, see my plan with this one will be I’m gonna hail the cruiser and see if they need assistance and then blow up the YT.”

LAURA: “Oh…”

CAMERON: “Because the infiltration team is probably on the cruiser, which means Tink’s on the cruiser, which means I just removed their escape route and hope there’s enough people on the cruiser to take care of all the green ones on top.”

LAURA: “Okay. I see.”

CAMERON: “And then maybe they’ll give us some of their stuff for providing assistance and rescuing them.”

LAURA: “That’s not as fun. Okay.”

CAMERON: “But it’s also legal.” (laughs)

LAURA: “Um…”

CAMERON: “I would just feel better about bringing in the bounty on the Green Gigorans of Gregarian if I did not also do the same thing they were trying to do.”

LAURA: ‘It is the Green Gregarious Gigorans.”

CAMERON: “Oh, yep, that one.”

LAURA: “yes. I mean, okay, you have the ship so you… (laughs)”

CAMERON: (laughs) I’m gonna hail the cruiser.

NICK: You call and there’s a long pause.

CAMERON: While it’s paused, “Xianna, see if you can get ahold of Tink. See if he still has his coms on.”

LAURA: “Oh, okay!”

CAMERON: “We should be close enough.”

LAURA: I try to see if I can get Tink on my coms.

NICK: We get a shot of Karma and a hologram pops up of a Mon Cal captain. In the background we see Xianna with her feet up on a chair doing the teenager with a cell phone thing.

LAURA: There’s no way Xianna has ever properly sat in a chair. (laughter) Either her feet are up in there, or she’s upside down in it, leaning, there’s no way. Yeah. Her feet are on the back of Karma’s chair. (laughs)

NICK: It’s obvious that she’s struggling a little bit to remember Tink’s com number because she keeps dialing, getting bored, hanging up, remembering who she was trying to call, so that’s all going on in the background.

LAURA: She’s getting a lot of, “Oh, ‘ello Tink. Wait no… Oh! Hello! Yes, uh… Setenia…? … Okay bye!” Like guessing names. “Ohh, nope! Okay.”

CAMERON: She’s like one of these little pieces of paper has Tink’s number.

LAURA: “One of these is going to be Tink!” (laughs)

NICK: While all that is going on, a Mon Cal captain answers the Afternoon Delight’s hail. “It’s a trap!”

CAMERON: “Are you in need of assistance?”

NICK: “Uh, yeah. I don’t know why… Yeah, they trapped us. We were attacked. We’re currently under attack.” You can hear blaster fire in the background.

CAMERON: “Is everyone from… We see you have a YT2400 attached. That is not your ship, correct?”

NICK: “Right. That’s the bandits.”

CAMERON: “Cool. Are you good with me taking out that ship?”

NICK: “Please kill everyone that belongs to them. they’ve killed most of my crew.”

CAMERON: “If you see a white Gigoran, his name is Tink, he’s been kidnapped.”

LAURA: “Tink is our friend!”

CAMERON: “He’s our friend, not food.”

NICK: “What is that supposed to mean?”

CAMERON: “Sorry. I’m just quoting movie references. It was real big on Glee Anselm. I don’t know.”

NICK: (laughs)

CAMERON: “Yeah, so if there’s a white Gigoran please try to not use force. He probably won’t be trying to kill you. I think all he has on him is a knife.”

NICK: The Mon Cal puts his hand to his chest. “I give you my honor as a captain that as long as I live I shall protect—“ and you hear (blast, blast) and blaster marks appear on his chest and he collapses to the ground. You see a Gigoran, just a flash of one, it’s hard to tell, and this is a holo so it’s not color, it’s all blue.

They lean over and go, “There’s someone hailing them,” hit a button, and hang it up.

LAURA: “I don’t think that was Tink.”

CAMERON: ‘it was not. Xianna, I’m gonna need you to get on the guns. Take out that YT2400.”

LAURA: “Okie!” Xianna runs over to the guns. She waits until she’s in there and karma can’t see her no more…

CAMERON: (laughs)

LAURA: …and she snorts some impact.

NICK: Oh boy.

LAURA: She’s feeling a little tired. She also doesn’t have very many skills in Gunnery. Maybe I should get those eventually.

NICK: Before you get to do that, I need a Piloting check for you to get within good firing range with a good position so you don’t hit the other ship. You can have a blue die because you were successful on your Astrogation.

CAMERON: The difficulty?

NICK: For the Piloting check? Average. Also, as you get closer, the turret on the top of the 2400 starts to shoot back at you, so you have a black die.

CAMERON: Okay. One threat.

NICK: Ooh. So, you are able to get closer, but as you get within firing range you take a couple of hits to your shields. What are your shields on the Afternoon Delight?

CAMERON: Front?

NICK: Yeah.

CAMERON: Two.

NICK: Two? So you take some carbon scoring. That’s gonna be 1 damage to the front as you get hit, and you’re forced to kind of juke off to the side. Xianna still has a shot, but it’s gonna be more difficult. It’s gonna be an average difficulty because you’re close but with a black die because you’re getting shot at.

CAMERON: Our shield is 2, our armor is 3.

NICK: I don’t remember how that works. Oh, shields are black dice but I ignored that.

CAMERON: Yeah. You didn’t roll.

NICK: Yeah… This is story-ish. So, armor 3, okay. It’s just cosmetic damage.

CAMERON: “Damn. Just got a new paint job.”

LAURA: Can you aim with Gunnery?

NICK: Yeah.

LAURA: Okay. Then I’m gonna also aim. One success and one threat.

NICK: How much damage does yours do?

CAMERON: Six damage, so it will be 7.

NICK: Wow. That’s pretty good. You hit it. I think you manage to disable the gun from where you shoot it. Anybody listening, yes I am kind of bastardizing the ship combat rules, but it’s not a real ship combat and also those rules are complicated as hell. You hit it, you disable the gun, from the amount of impact… heh… that your Gunner skill does, (laughter) you see that if you were just going to pound on this thing with your lasers it would take probably 45 minutes to actually destroy it. You’re welcome to try and blow it up worse, but at least you disabled the gun for now. Yours doesn’t have missiles or anything, does it?

CAMERON: No. We have the dorsal and ventral medium laser cannons.

NICK: Your options are basically go find somewhere else to hook up, to get onto the ship, or park and have Karma and Xianna on both guns just smoosh it into dust. With both guns it would probably take like 10 minutes of shooting just to completely pulverize the thing, or just have Xianna keep shooting it while you do some fancy flying.

LAURA: However they’re docked, is there a way where I could shoot just that and unhook them?

CAMERON: Yeah. That’s what I was thinking too.

LAURA: Like destroy whatever their docking mechanism is?

NICK: Potentially. It would be pretty hard. You would have to fly over it and get really close to the ship, because the docking tube is really short so there’s not a lot of space there. It looks kind of clung to it. If you were able to maneuver around, you’re not gonna get shot at right now.

CAMERON: I do that.

NICK: Okay. Cool.

LAURA: Gonna flip a light side point.

CAMERON: Then I have to retry my Piloting check, right?

NICK: Yeah.

LAURA: Fly!

CAMERON: But have a better chance.

NICK: Yup, but no black die because you’re not getting shot at anymore.

CAMERON: Ha-ha! Do I still get my blue die?

NICK: Yeah. Sure.

CAMERON: yay.

NICK: Because you’re taking it slow.

CAMERON: Now that I’m no longer in danger. Guys, this is not working. A failure and two advantages.

NICK: You hit the cruiser trying to get into it. It’s just the other ship is clung really close so you’re trying to get to that angle and the ship’s in the way. It’s just gonna be really hard to shoot that. What would you like the advantages to be?

CAMERON: You said I hit the cruiser?

NICK: You bounced off the cruiser.

CAMERON: Okay. I want to have bounced off something in the cruiser that causes the airlock to cut off the access to the ship.

NICK: Okay. Sure! Let’s do that.

CAMERON: So that we can’t detach it, but no one can get through now without Tink’s slicing skills really.

NICK: You got close enough, you can see the reflection of the docking light that shows everything’s good. It was pulsing green, and when you hit it, it turns off and starts pulsing red real fast, and you know that probably means you just cut atmo to that walkway. You sealed it off.

CAMERON: “Okay. I don’t think they can get through anymore.”

LAURA: “Okay. Am I still shooting pew-pews or not?”

CAMERON: “Uh… No more pew-pews.”

LAURA: “No more pew-pews. Okay.”

CAMERON: “Let’s go find another spot to dock.”

LAURA: “Okay let’s go!”

CAMERON: “Grab your guns. We’re going in!”

LAURA: “Already had them!”

CAMERON: (smiling) “Make sure they’re loaded.”

LAURA: “And some grenades!”

NICK: You barrel roll off, and the only other access port for in-space docking is on the far side of the ship, but you’re able to line up, seal in, it just opens. They’re under emergency protocol by this point. We get a shot of you two walking down a weirdly flexible rubber landing walkway thing. Gosh, this is gonna be a very specific thing. It’s like those net tunnels from the Discovery Zone from elementary school that you would walk down. Does that mean anything to anybody else?

CAMERON: yeah~!

NICK: Cameron got excited.

CAMERON: Yeah~! Those places were so cool~!

NICK: yeah. Those ones that you would walk through as a kid. It’s like that. It’s very unstable. You two are able to get out fully armed.

CAMERON: Boop-bwoop! I lock the ship. (laughs)

NICK: (smiling) Alright. With that, that’s the end of the episode!

ALL: Ba-naaa~!

## Outro

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

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

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

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

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

Our intro song is Space Jam by Pablo Ribot.

Additional music by James Gunter.

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