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Tabletop Squadron Transcript, Season 1 Episode 20:
Loot and Scoot
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.
Welcome back to our regular release schedule. We’ll be coming out with our next goal in a few weeks, but for now I just want to say Laura’s working on a secret project with some friends, and it’s going to be adorable and perfect. Keep an eye out for it soon. Until our next social goal, tell a friend about the show. It’s a great way to share our story, and if what we do is something you like I’m sure you know a friend who’d like it too.
Well, without further ado, we hope you enjoy the episode.
[musical chime]
Hi, I’m Lilit and I play Xianna’fan, a Twi’lek smuggler. I was going by an old name during this recording and while we have left the audio as originally recorded, I would request that you use my current name when discussing the episode. Thanks!
[musical chime]
##
NICK: Hello! Welcome to Tabletop Squadron, flying the friendly skies with the Afternoon Delight. Your cruising altitude will be 20 episodes. Yeah, so we’ll go around the table, say who you are, who you’re playing, and if you spent any experience since the last time we spoke let our listeners know what you spent it on. We’ll go to Cameron first.
CAMERON: hello!
NICK: Hi.
CAMERON: I’m Cameron, and I’m playing Karma Nailo the Nautolan bounty hunter. I purchased the third rank in Ranged: Heavy.
NICK: Ooh.
CAMERON: So I can shoot guns real good now.
NICK: Cool. Very neat. Up next we’ve got Laura.
LAURA: I’m Laura. Yes. That is who I am… and I am playing Xianna’fan, a Twi’lek smuggler. I bought Shortcut. During a chase, I can add a boost die to any checks made to catch or escape an opponent. So I can run away now.
NICK: Neat. I’m sure that won’t ever come up.
CAMERON: Well, it’s just her, though, so… (laughs)
LAURA: (smiling) It’s just me, which is fitting. I wasn’t gonna bring the rest of you with.
NICK: Alright. Last up we’ve got Hudson.
HUDSON: Hi, I’m last. I’m playing Tink, also known as full name Rallltinkraatatat, a Gigoran slicer~
NICK: Is it –raatatat or -raatakat?
HUDSON: … Rallltinkraatakat, thank you.
(laughter)
NICK: Ah…
HUDSON: No, Ratatat is a really good music group.
LAURA: Yeah!
NICK: Oh. Okay. Have you spent any experience this time?
HUDSON: No, I’m hoarding that shit so I can get something that’s worth 20.
NICK: Great, just like real life.
HUDSON: Yes!
CAMERON: (laughing) I wish people could see your facial expressions.
LAURA: We’re gonna have a Twitch stream where it’s just a Hudson camera, no sound because we don’t wanna give spoilers, just a Hudson camera.
CAMERON: You could just see what’s happening, though.
NICK: And I’ll GM like this…
HUDSON: (laughs)
LAURA: And we’ll have a little sign that we put on the chair that says… Oh, it has to be some stupid bathroom pun. “Gone to feed the Sarlacc” is an actual one they have used in books.
NICK: Yeah, that means you’re pooping.
LAURA: It means you’re poopin’.
CAMERON: (laughs)
NICK: Before we get started, let’s do the Destiny Roll.
CAMERON: One light side.
HUDSON: Two light side.
LAURA: One light side.
CAMERON: (gasps)
NICK: Ooh. Not giving me a ton to work with.
CAMERON: Four light side!
NICK: Alright. When we last left off you all had just finished a very large gunfight against the Black Sun Corporation. You were both after a droid. Sentinel had sent you to fetch it and warned you that some other people may also be attempting to do the same thing. When you arrived at the base you discovered that things were not going as you had expected. There were a lot of dead people, a lot of explosions, and the droid had actually been damaged in some way. You ambushed these poor fools and blew them apart. Tink, you got shot quite a bit, and we last left off with Tink saying, ‘I got your boots, Xianna.’ They were not good boots, but then Karma found very nice boots in your size. So, that was what you spent your light side points on last time.
LAURA: Yes.
CAMERON: It felt pretty safe at the end of the episode to do that. (laughs)
NICK: So, the boots were not the right size, but karma found someone wearing very nice boots that were a galactic standard 6 ½. The facility is smoking with blaster fire and the scent of char and blood fills your nostrils. Describe these boots.
LAURA: Ooh. SO they can’t have any buttons or things like that, because that’s not allowed in Star Wars, but they’re shiny, and they’re black, and they have a little bit of a heel. Not too much though, like riding boot level of heel. They’re knee high, and they probably have little bits of a snakeskin pattern that’s a slightly oil slick pattern.
CAMERON: Ooh.
LAURA: So not true metallic rainbow, but if the light catches it there’s a little bit of a rainbow gleam.
NICK: Nice. So you pull these boots off of this corpse. Do you just slap them on right there, put on your new boots, get rid of your old ones?
LAURA: Well I mean, do they have blood on them?
CAMERON: No, they wouldn’t, because it’s not off of a corpse, it’s off of one of the ones that I stunned, because I found them in my hallway.
NICK: Oh yeah. That’s fair.
LAURA: Oh, then yeah.
CAMERON: So they’re perfectly clean unless the guy stepped in something earlier.
LAURA: I just trade out the boots.
NICK: Cool. So you’re basically in the entry hallway of this facility. You made your way most of the way back to the main entrance when you were ambushing these people. Karma is towards the back in a hallway with a couple of stunned people that she took down. There are another five thugs in various states of disrepair scattered around this hallway. The walls are scattered with blaster fire. There’s smoke, remnants of explosions that were there before you came in, overall there’s just a haze in the air. People are dead on the ground. Tink, you are bleeding pretty heavily from the wounds that you took. Your leg is just a mess. Your kneecap is pretty much blown off at this point.
HUDSON: “(groans in pain)”
NICK: The droid that you came to collect is laying in the middle of the hallway with the body of a Black Sun gunman sprawled over it from where he dropped. What do you do?
LAURA: “Tink… Are you okay?”
HUDSON: “(groans)”
LAURA: “So no… Okay.”
CAMERON: “Your leg looks really messed up.”
LAURA: “We are going to have to get him to some sort of medic, pretty sure, because I don’t know what to do for that.”
CAMERON: “Tink? Hun? Can you stand?”
HUDSON: “I think I c—(groans) … No.”
CAMERON: (laughing) How are we getting him out of this?
LAURA: “So Tink… I know you said you are straightedge, but—“
CAMERON: (laughs)
LAURA: “So hear me out. If I give you some impact, you will have the energy to get out and get to the ship, and then, you know, you won’t be on the floor, because I cannot pick you up.”
CAMERON: “We can also try some medical stuff beforehand, with no pain meds or anything, just tourniquets basically, I think, at this point.”
LAURA: “Oh, I will not.”
CAMERON: “Actually, hold on.” Karma starts looting all the dead people.
NICK: Okay. So, you did last time, you pulled patches off of everybody.
CAMERON: Yes. I have all of their patches, and I take the patches from the guys still living too, but I leave them with like… their stuff. I’m just now totally looting the dead guys.
NICK: So, you leave your friend bleeding in the hall, and you are looking for what? Weapons, pockets? How deep of a search are you doing here?
CAMERON: I am trying to find stim packs, basically.
NICK: Alright. I would say looting the bodies would be a Skulduggery kind of move, don’t you think?
CAMERON: “Hey Xianna, come help!” (laughs)
LAURA: “Okie! I was going to loot the bodies as well, not looking for stim packs.”
CAMERON: “Oh. Well, if you find any stim packs—“
LAURA: “(huffs) Sabos owed me three stim packs.”
CAMERON: “Those would be real handy right now…”
HUDSON: (whining) “Sabos~?”
LAURA: “They would—No! No one said anything!”
HUDSON: (whining) “Okay… Did you say impact?”
LAURA: “Oh! Do you want the impact right now?”
HUDSON: “No. No… Come closer. I can’t- I don’t have the energy…”
LAURA: She does the thing where she kneels down next to him and is doing that deathbed thing. “(solemnly) Yes…? What is it?”
HUDSON: (weakly) “I gotta keep the edge…”
(laughter)
LAURA: “Okay, but like, it will make you feel good. In a fun way. Heh.”
HUDSON: “No. I’ll just rely on the stim packs.”
LAURA: “I think I might have some whiskey.”
CAMERON: “We have to find them first. Hold on. Xianna, come on.” (laughs)
LAURA: “Okie.”
HUDSON: “I believe in you~!”
CAMERON: ‘Tink, can you tie a tourniquet around your leg?”
HUDSON: “yeah. I learned about that.”
CAMERON: “I figured your medical book probably taught you.”
HUDSON: “Yeah, it’s called a tourniquet because you turn it… on your leg.”
CAMERON: “… Uh-huh. Yes.”
NICK: Well, technically French doesn’t exist in Star Wars, so…
CAMERON: That is why it’s called a tourniquet, because you turn it… on your leg.
LAURA: Difficulty?
NICK: Average. Are you both doing individual or are you helping each other?
CAMERON: If I help you can have another yellow.
LAURA: yeah.
CAMERON: Let’s do that. I’m assisting.
NICK: Cool.
LAURA: Also, Xianna would be looking for more than just stim packs. She’s looking for binders, and weapons, and drugs, and any like fun snacks they have, like if they have some cool granola bars, like if one of them was the mom of the group and definitely had a bag full of baby wipes and snacks.
CAMERON: (giggles) We want that bag.
LAURA: Oh, and Band-Aids. There’s always the mom of the group. We want to find the mom of the group. (laughs)
NICK: Well, now I’m picturing this team as like an eight year old soccer team, so that’s great.
CAMERON: Ooh. If they have Capri-Sun, I want one.
NICK: Great.
LAURA: So, one success, one advantage.
NICK: Interesting. You find a couple of things. They have guns, because they were shooting you with them.
CAMERON: (laughing) exactly.
LAURA: Yes.
NICK: They all have light blasters except for the head honcho guy who had a carbine rifle.
CAMERON: I’m taking every single gun that these guys have. Not the stunned ones, they still have a life to live.
NICK: Three of them were stunned, and there were nine total, so you get five light blasters and one carbine.
CAMERON: And you want a light?
LAURA: Oh no, Xianna’s gonna take one from one of the stunned guys. She doesn’t care.
CAMERON: Oh, okay.
NICK: Okay, so you can have those. They’re just standard, nothing fancy. You do a pretty cursory job patting them down with a success and an advantage. You’re not really getting up in there or anything. I would imagine that patting down blaster killed corpses is not the most pleasant of experiences. How used to doing this are Xianna and Karma?
CAMERON: (laughs) Some of them are axed.
NICK: Yeah…
CAMERON: (laughing) Some of them were worse.
LAURA: Again, Karma is ONLY searching through the dead ones, for some reason. Xianna’s also going through the living ones. She steals from people. She doesn’t care. If anything she thinks it’s weird that Karma’s only taking from the dead ones. Like, ‘they’re dead, ew.’
CAMERON: Karma’s pretty okay with the death and gory stuff, because stuff happens when you’re bounty hunting. You know, like the person you’re chasing goes off of a chasm and you have to go down there, and it’s real nasty when you get down there, but you have to bring them back, so… She’s probably very clinical about it, and is trying to not get super dirty, but if she has to move a limb she isn’t very concerned.
NICK: Okay.
LAURA: Xianna probably would care too much either, being from an Empire occupied planet where there is an active resistance. Stormtroopers just kind of patrol and shoot people when they feel like it.
HUDSON: Just real quick, out of character, this whole time I’ve been trying to think of a Black Hole Sun pun and it just hasn’t been working.
NICK: Wash away the pain?
HUDSON: I was thinking Black Hole Sun, wake them up, and they better not complain. That was as close as I got, but that’s not…
LAURA: No, that’s nothing.
HUDSON: Nope. Never mind, I give up.
NICK: It was a good effort.
CAMERON: How many total badges did I get? There’s nine with the dudes right here…
NICK: Plus there were the additional…
CAMERON: There were three or four last time?
NICK: Four. Yeah.
CAMERON: So there’s 13 total?
NICK: Yep, 13 anonymous Black Sun badges. You get two stim packs, you get those assorted blasters, that’s about it. They traveled pretty light.
CAMERON: Wound-wise, what are you at, Hudson?
HUDSON: Five.
LAURA: Out of what?
HUDSON: Seventeen. Five left, sorry.
CAMERON: Okay. we will stab you with one of the stim packs and get you back up to 10.
HUDSON: Alright.
CAMERON: Your leg is still gonna be messed up because of the crit.
HUDSON: Okay.
CAMERON: Feeling better…?
NICK: Just to remind our listeners, what is the damage to your leg?
HUDSON: Sure. So my leg is jacked up. It got shot up, and kriffed up, and it’s just all kinds of mess. As far as my critical injury chart goes, I’m crippled. One limb is impaired until healed or replaced. Increase difficulty to all checks using that limb.
NICK: Great. You’re injured. You all found some stim packs. What are you gonna do?
LAURA: We gave Tink a stim pack.
CAMERON: Gonna stab him with the stim pack.
HUDSON: (pain noises)
CAMERON: So, you gain 5 wounds back. “Xianna, you can have the other stim pack, because you seem to need it more.”
LAURA: Yes~ “I do. I am, how you say, squishy…”
CAMERON: “Fragile?”
LAURA: “Squishy!”
CAMERON: I load up all my guns and my patches.
HUDSON: I crawl over to assassin bot.
NICK: Mm-hmm?
HUDSON: After I crawl to assassin bot, I check to see how many restraining bolts it has.
NICK: What an interesting idea to check the droid that you came to see. So, the droid is the size of an average man, about 5’11” or 1.8 meters tall. The torso is heavily armored with rounded shoulders and well-defined limbs. I realize that this is not what you asked, but I wrote this description and I’m gonna read it, damn it. The entire thing is covered in rusty, red-colored armor plating. The face has an upright rectangular panel where the mouth would be on a human with a sloping forehead and skull-like sunken cheeks. There are two short, thick antennas sticking out of the back of the head. There’s a lot of carbon scoring on the armor of the droid, evidence of the battle it had with the Black Sun syndicate. One thing particularly stands out—well, two things. There are no restraining bolts on it, and can you make me a Mechanics check, please? You should be good at that.
HUDSON: I’m okay at it.
CAMERON: You’re real smart, though.
HUDSON: I’m real smart, though. What’s the difficulty?
NICK: It’s gonna be average.
HUDSON: Oh. Three successes.
NICK: Lovely. One thing particularly stands out. There is a neat hole in the left side of the chest. You crack open the armor plating and pull it open, and you see that the central processor on this unit is actually kept in the torso—most of the time it’s in the head, this one has it in the torso—and there is a smoking hole in the middle of the central processing unit. Basically that’s the brain of the droid, most of its memories and personality are kept in there, and that thing is totally blown. With that amount of successes you would know that you either need to find an identical central processing unit, which would be pretty difficult to do since you’ve never seen a droid like this before, or some sort of powerful program AI type thing that you could plug into it to run.
HUDSON: Oh… I look down at my Rancore Protocol.
NICK: (laughs)
CAMERON: (laughing) Do not plug that in right now!
HUDSON: By the way, out of character, I know you just made an awesome description for that robot, but all I can think about it looking like is that droid from Hoth that goes and inspects things and has all the really skinny legs and the round head.
CAMERON: So nothing like that.
LAURA: But nothing like he described.
NICK: (laughs)
HUDSON: Exactly. That’s all I can think of, because that’s how I pictured it before.
NICK: Think like a red metal dude.
HUDSON: Yeah, I…
NICK: Do you want me to pull up a picture of him so you can see?
HUDSON: Oh, do you have a picture of it?
NICK: Yeah.
CAMERON: Think HK47 from KOTOR.
CAMERON: He doesn’t play KOTOR. That doesn’t mean anything.
HUDSON: I played it when I was a kid. I don’t remember very well.
CAMERON: It looks like a scary, red robot man.
HUDSON: Cool. Okay.
NICK: Now that you’ve seen the picture, wasn’t my description great?
HUDSON: Yeah, I liked it.
NICK: Yeah, I thought it was awesome. So, Tink, you pull out your Rancore Protocol and you’re holding it in one hand and part of the droid in the other, and favoring one leg that isn’t bleeding, and Karma says—
CAMERON: “Do not plug that in right now.”
LAURA: “Tink, what are you doing?”
HUDSON: “I mean, the operative phrase that she just mentioned was right now.”
CAMERON: “Yeah, later. Later.”
LAURA: “Okie. Tink, you are bleeding out everywhere. Maybe we should just get things on the ship, get out of here in case more people come.”
HUDSON: “Listen—“
CAMERON: “Do you remember how the last time you plugged that into a droid it turned into a [murder robot? Murder droid?” (laughs)
HUDSON: “Vaguely, but to be honest I’ve lost a lot of blood, so I’m just gonna go with what you guys say, because I don’t remember any murder droids.”
CAMERON: “Okay. Cool. Don’t plug it in. we will do that later.”
HUDSON: “Alright.”
CAMERON: “Let’s get back to our ship.”
HUDSON: “Okay. we’ll go back to the ship. Can I crawl?”
CAMERON: “I think you—Hmm.”
LAURA: “Whoa. How are we going to do this?”
HUDSON: “I know I can crawl, but should I crawl?”
CAMERON: “Okay. Xianna, if you grab the gun and let Tink put an arm around your shoulder…”
LAURA: “I will fall to the ground. (laughs)”
CAMERON: “Yeah. Tink, do not put a ton of weight on her. I can carry the droid. I can’t carry the droid and be a crutch for Tink.”
HUDSON: “Why are you avoiding the most obvious solution, which is finding a mine cart for the track?”
LAURA: “Oh, that would help.”
CAMERON: “Hold on!” Karma turns around and goes back into that big room, because there was a speeder in there.
NICK: That’s true. There was a speeder in there.
CAMERON: I go back in there.
NICK: So, the speeder… The thing about this place is the speeder is too big to come through those hallways. There is a garage door that swings up, but when you look it actually goes out on the far side of a hill, further than you would expect. You would need to swing it around to get it back to the front, if you could find the keys to turn it on. There is a little hover cart full of tools, because this is a mechanics place.
CAMERON: Is it like a hover cart that say, I don’t know, Tink and a droid would fit on?
NICK: One or the other, it’s probably not big enough for both.
HUDSON: What if I hold it in my arms?
CAMERON: (loudly) Is it a hover cart that maybe Tink, and the droid, and the gun would fit on?
NICK: Hey, listeners…
CAMERON: Flipping a light side point. (laughs)
NICK: Yeah, so, Cameron flipped a light side point. So, you see this little hover cart, it’s got some hydrospanners on it, and a hammer, and it’s pretty small. The camera zooms in on Karma scratching at one of her head tentacles, and then she kind of shrugs, and then the camera goes a foot to the left and there’s a much larger one with some padding that looks like it’s for a person. It’s like a medical gurney and it looks like it’s for two people with a cargo slot underneath. You have a perfect thing that could carry both Tink and the droid, and the gun.
CAMERON: Cool. While I’m in here, is there anything else that looks nifty? (laughs)
NICK: That would be a Skulduggery check. Your friend is bleeding out in the other room, but if you want to try and loot that is fine.
CAMERON: I gave him a stim pack. He’s fine. What’s the difficulty?
NICK: He’s “okay.” (chuckles) This one’s gonna be hard to find anything useful.
CAMERON: As I’m walking back… Wow, interesting. Two successes, three threats, and a triumph.
NICK: So, you fall prone while you’re searching. (dramatic bass noise)
CAMERON: I use my Jump Up talent to get back up as an incidental. (prone sound rewinds)
NICK: Ooh. Oh-hoh. Fancy.
CAMERON: (laughing) For no reason.
NICK: (laughing) So, we get this shot of Karma, the legs sticking out of a crate kind of kicking in the air, and there’s a loud bang as she falls forward into the crate, and then a really cool legs-first jump out of the crate on the other side. Super important. Besides that, with that triumph, I think you find a small case of weapons mod parts.
CAMERON: Nice.
NICK: Technically in Star Wars each modification, in this game, needs its own very specific equipment. What we’re going to say is this is kind of a wild card that you can plug into something. The only one I’m gonna say out of hand that you’re not gonna be able to turn that into is Masterwork, because that’s very expensive.
CAMERON: No Masterwork.
NICK: But that’s the parts for modding a weapon, if you would like to install a mod later on.
CAMERON: So one weapon?
NICK: Yeah. It’s just a little carrying case with some tools and some little doodads and things. It looks like a weapon maintenance kit you might be able to repurpose.
CAMERON: Cool. I pop it into the cargo section of the gurney and hover back over to my friends.
NICK: Sure. (whoosh noises)
HUDSON: “You got a hover bed!”
CAMERON: “I did, and it’s for you, Tink!”
HUDSON: “It’s exactly what I told you to get. I’m so smart.”
(snickering)
CAMERON: “Yup! Come on. Can you get in it, or do you need help?”
HUDSON: “I can roll…”
CAMERON: “Well, it is not on the ground, it is—“
HUDSON: “No, I can roll to it, and then I can climb.”
LAURA: “Okie.”
CAMERON: “Okay cool, okay. I’ll hold it right here. You go ahead and get in.”
HUDSON: “(groans) Do I take the robot?”
LAURA: “No, no, no.”
CAMERON: “No, leave the robot on the ground. I’ll put—(laughs) Leave the droid on the ground. I’ll put the droid in.”
HUDSON: “Alright, just like I’m putting out a fire… (whispering) That one time…” I roll, and roll…
LAURA: “Tink—What?”
(laughter)
HUDSON: And I just roll all the way to the gurney-mobile.
LAURA: “Did anyone else hear Tink say that?”
CAMERON: “Yeah, stop, drop and roll. Obviously he caught on fire at some point.”
LAURA: “No—What? (exhales) Oh… I think I’m just coming down in a very not-so-good way.”
CAMERON: (giggles)
LAURA: “Is there room in there for me, Tink? Because… Oh boy.”
HUDSON: “How much do you like getting blood on you?”
LAURA: “I mean, I would not say that I like it, but I was going to take a shower anyways.”
CAMERON: Karma puts the droid and the gun on it while they’re talking.
NICK: After Tink flops into the cart it noticeably sinks. It was hovering about three quarters of a meter off the ground, and it goes down to about half a meter. With the droid on, it goes down to about a third of a meter off the ground, so you have to actually lean over a little to push it. You could try and see if it would fit. Also, you do remember that big gun they were carrying, right?
CAMERON: Yeah. I put the gun and the droid on.
NICK: Okay. The gun is reasonably heavy. Taking a second to look at that more closely, it appears to be some sort of long distance blaster rifle. It doesn’t have any sort of electronic scope on it, though. It has iron sights, and it also has multiple barrels underslung on the bottom, kind of like a mini gun or something, attached under the sniper barrel that also appears to attach to the power source. This is a very strange gun you haven’t seen before.
CAMERON: Huh.
NICK: Yeah. Another thing you notice about the gun is it doesn’t have a trigger, which is very interesting. The place where normally a trigger and a trigger guard would go is just a little slot in the side of the gun and that’s it.
HUDSON: Ooh, wireless.
CAMERON: “Huh. That’s interesting.” And I just pop it on the cart.
LAURA: For the droid.
HUDSON: Ohh…
CAMERON: Eyebrow wiggle.
NICK: Eyebrow wiggle. (laughs) Okay, so do you leave? Is there anything else you wanted to look at? You’ve got the droid and Tink loaded up into the cart…
CAMERON: “Should we get him medical attention, or do you want to go in that other room that the stunned guys came from?”
HUDSON: “I vote medical attention.”
LAURA: “(sighs) Yes.”
CAMERON: “I’m kind of feeling like that’s the better option.”
LAURA: ‘I vote medical attention as well.”
CAMERON: “Okay.”
HUDSON: “I’m offended you even had the choice.”
LAURA: “I mean, we did have a choice, like…”
HUDSON: “No, I mean that you explored the options.”
LAURA: “… Why?”
CAMERON: I start pushing the cart.
HUDSON: “I’m so hurt right now~!”
LAURA: “I mean, we picked You.”
NICK: So, we get Karma pushing the cart. It’s running pretty low. There’s a pretty bright glow coming from underneath it as it is working overtime with all the weight that’s been piled onto it.
LAURA: Xianna is trudging along, because it is after an encounter. Previously all post-impact encounters have just been sitting around talking so it hasn’t been an issue yet…
CAMERON: But now she has to move.
LAURA: …but I do have negatives after encounters if I take impact, so I’m just slow and sad.
NICK: Okay. Xianna is trudging along, harassing Tink, and we get a low shot from behind as little drips of blood are coming off of the cart from Tink. You go outside. The crew sees the blockade runner ship that had the face paint job and the lightning bolts on it lifting off and taking off for orbit really fast.
CAMERON: “Hmm.”
LAURA: “Oh… Huh.”
NICK: So that ship’s leaving.
CAMERON: Bye~
NICK: Besides that, you can see a few nerfs calmly grazing. A couple of them galloped away from the ship as it took off, and as soon as the ship got more than 50 meters into the air they just stopped and started eating again. You can see the low ridge which your ship is parked behind. Do you go to the ship?
CAMERON: Yup.
NICK: Alright. You go to the ship. When you say you’re seeking medical attention… what are you all thinking, exactly?
LAURA: I was assuming a city.
CAMERON: We’re gonna need to find a town or something, with other people more talented than us.
LAURA: I was picturing finding a true city, that would have a real doctor, and other shops, and possibly robotic pieces in case we decide he has to just lose the leg.
HUDSON: Um…
CAMERON: (laughs)
LAURA: Okay. This is not in character.
(laughter)
HUDSON: I know.
CAMERON: Tink looks real concerned all of a sudden.
LAURA: In case you couldn’t tell by the voice difference.
NICK: Okay. Are you looking to leave Engibo 5 and go to a nearby planet, somewhere with some civilization on it? This one mostly has settlements. It doesn’t have anything particularly large.
CAMERON: Probably, yeah, then go to one that actually has people’s living on it.
NICK: Great. So you go back to the ship, you lift off, and you start flying to orbit.
CAMERON: Can we take our cart with us?
NICK: Sure. Yeah. Toss it in the cargo bay or whatever.
CAMERON: Yay! We have a cart in the cargo bay. I’m gonna write it on our ship sheet.
NICK: got a holo-gurney.
CAMERON: Holo-gurney!
NICK: A hover gurney, I mean.
CAMERON: (laughs) it’s a holo-gurney. It’s just a blue image of a gurney.
LAURA: But it works. (laughs)
NICK: (laughs) If you believe.
CAMERON: How do you spell gurney? (laughs)
NICK: G-U-R-N-E-Y.
LAURA: That’s—I think that’s right.
HUDSON: That’s right. That’s what I was about to say.
CAMERON: Okay. My brain was just like… I don’t know!
NICK: We’ve had trouble with spelling today.
HUDSON: J-U-X-R…
NICK: (laughs) Don’t stop believing. So! We get a shot of the planet down below looking like a golden ball, the ship flying up, as you clear the atmosphere you see the blockade runner ship that belonged to the Black Suns jump to hyperspace. It was very much just booking it out. They didn’t know what happened, but most of the people who were in there were dead so whoever was still on the ship decided to cut their losses. You see there’s a couple of planets nearby, some of them with cities. There are some good options. As you’re starting to calculate it there’s a loud bang, and from outside the ship you see the ship actually lurch in space, and one of the emitters sputters and goes dark, and a big piece of paneling just floats off of it, and a bunch of alarms start going off in the cockpit.
CAMERON: “Tiiink!”
LAURA: Oh no.
HUDSON: “Waaah!”
NICK: (laughs)
CAMERON: (laughs) “I thought you fixed the ship.”
HUDSON: “You know, the operative word there is fixed, and I would say I thought it was fixed.”
CAMERON: “Okay… I’m seeing hull float away…”
NICK: (“woop” alarm noises)
CAMERON: “…and everything’s beeping at me!”
LAURA: “Tink, I’m just going to roll you in there. Okay?”
HUDSON: “Okay!”
CAMERON: “I’ma have to land again…”
LAURA: Xianna runs over to Tink’s room with the hover gurney, the hover cart, and helps toss him in there and then runs it up to the computer cockpit area. “Okay. You fix now.”
HUDSON: Do you walk away? Are you looking at me?
LAURA: I kind of just stand there expectantly. “You, you fix, okay you go.” (laughs)
HUDSON: Alright. I look left and right to see if anyone else is around.
CAMERON: I’m in the cockpit too.
HUDSON: You’re in the cockpit, and you’re like, beside me?
LAURA: Yeah.
HUDSON: I just like quickly press the mute button on the alarm, and that’s all I do right then.
NICK: (laughs)
CAMERON: “Tink, that is not helpful!”
LAURA: “Tink, you just pressed the mute button. I could see you. I am right here!”
NICK: (“woop” alarm noises)
HUDSON: “Alright. Alright. Wait, it’s—“
NICK: (noises abruptly stop)
HUDSON: –Oh.
(laughter)
LAURA: ‘Tink! Fix it!”
HUDSON: “Alright, fine.”
CAMERON: “I just saw plating float away. I don’t think that’s something he can fix with the computers. I’m landing.”
NICK: The ship is also lifting pretty hard to the port, as if half of it stopped {propulsing}, so it’s kind of doing a weird spinny thing.
CAMERON: Yeah, I’m going back down.
HUDSON: Yeah, there’s nothing I can do. (laughs)
NICK: Okay. A couple of things happen at that point. As you head back down you do a scan of the planet and you see that there is a decent sized settlement on the far side that y’all missed on the way in because you all failed your Planetary Knowledge check. Xianna super did not remember this place even though—
LAURA: Nope.
NICK: Maybe she didn’t go there.
LAURA: Who knows.
NICK: Maybe she… did something else. Hard to tell. Your data pad, Karma, that you have in a seat in the cockpit pings at you once.
CAMERON: I look at it.
NICK: It’s an Imperial missive.
CAMERON: Cool. I disregard for the moment, because it’s not good to look at your data pad while you’re flying.
NICK: What great advice. So, you start to head back towards the planet. The ship is struggling pretty hard. I’m gonna need a hard Piloting check from you to bring this in under control, as you are flying under half power trying to re-enter atmosphere.
CAMERON: (nervously) “Xianna…?”
LAURA: “yes?”
CAMERON: “Do you know how ships work?”
LAURA: “I mean, not really, but…”
CAMERON: “Can you follow instructions if I give them to you?”
LAURA: (cheerfully) “Maybe.”
CAMERON: (laughs) “Okay. Come sit up here.”
LAURA: “Okie.”
HUDSON: “I can fly it.”
CAMERON: “We don’t have time to get you into this seat.” (laughs)
HUDSON: “(huffs)”
LAURA: I slump down into the chair. “Okie. What do I press?”
CAMERON: “Pres that button.” Karma points at something, “and pull that lever.”
LAURA: “Okie.”
CAMERON: (laughing) I want a blue die for her helping.
NICK: Okay.
LAURA: Yeah, do we need to do any checks?
CAMERON: Yeah, probably Piloting: Space?
NICK: yeah.
CAMERON: Okay.
LAURA: Does it do anything if I would have a black die to that roll, since I’m just helping her?
NICK: There’s two ways that this can work. I’m open to either, it’s up to you. One, you can do a Co-Piloting check, which will let you add any successes to her roll which is pretty cool, or you can both contribute to the Piloting check which would give her a blue die.
LAURA: Because I’m pretty agile.
CAMERON: Yeah. Try a Co-Pilot check, and we’ll see how it goes. (laughs)
LAURA: You know what, I’m gonna flip a light side point.
NICK: Aw, you beat me to it.
LAURA: Ha-ha. What’s the difficulty?
NICK: Hard.
CAMERON: Oh no.
LAURA: Oh no.
NICK: (laughs)
LAURA: Shit. Yeah, so four failures. Just four failures. Yup.
CAMERON: You know what, I did so much better, and I only have one failure and one threat.
NICK: Alright, so we’re coming in hot.
CAMERON: Coming in hot!
LAURA: Oh wait! No! Four failures and an advantage. I can’t read.
CAMERON: Ha-ha! It improved so dramatically!
NICK: So, you can get rid of the threat.
LAURA: Cool.
CAMERON: So just five failures, total, between the two of us?
LAURA: Oh boy…
NICK: I’ll just say if you fail at a CO-Piloting check I’m not gonna do the thing where it does minuses.
CAMERON: Okay, so, a failure.
NICK: Yeah. (laughs) So, what does the scene look like as Xianna tries to help you and just does the opposite?
CAMERON: Both of our yellows were blank. That is bullshit.
LAURA: I imagine that Karma would say like, okay press that red button, and Xianna would press like a pink button way off to the side, like ‘Okie!’
CAMERON: Karma goes into full teen learning to drive mom mode and is like phantom pressing things as Xianna pushes the wrong things, and is doing the freak out bracing herself in the seat, and it’s just very distracting and does not go well.
NICK: There’s a lot of yelling. The ship goes rattling down.
LAURA: “If you keep reaching in front of me I can’t press the buttons that you tell me to press!”
CAMERON: “But you’re pressing the wrong ones!”
LAURA: “And I know that, I know I’m pressing the wrong buttons but I cannot help it! I do not know how to fly! The last time I flew I crashed the ship into a lake, and if you just, you just keep yelling at me, and I am very stressed out, and I am not having a good time. I’m coming down from the impact and I am so stressed out!”
HUDSON: “Uh… This doesn’t sound good. What’s going—“
LAURA: “You stay out of it, Tink! You stay out of it!”
HUDSON: (weakly) “Okay…”
CAMERON: “Tink, Tink, just breathe. We’re gonna be fine.”
HUDSON: (dramatic labored inhale)
CAMERON: “Yup. Good job, sweetie.”
NICK: (laughs)
LAURA: “I do not think that is how you breathe.”
(laughter)
HUDSON: (dramatic labored inhale)
CAMERON: “Tink, you’re breathing wrong.” (laughs)
LAURA: “Tink, please just let me give you some impact. I promise it is all fun.”
HUDSON: “Nooo. Keep, the, edge!”
(laughter)
NICK: So, we get an outside shot of the ship careening down out of the atmosphere. As you start to crash down you pass the terminus of the planet where the sun is rising, and you go to the night side, and you see this settlement lit up beneath you. It has two very distinct parts that you can see lit up. It looks like a wooden monster eating a durasteel snail. The space port that is the planet’s connection to the greater galaxy is nestled in the west, but you can see a majority of the settlement is made of wood and stucco buildings. It sprawls away from the space port in neighborhoods and slums, and the ramshackle part of the settlement stretches around the space port. Everyone can make me a Knowledge: Outer Rim check that’s looking at this place if they would so choose.
CAMERON: Is there difficulty?
NICK: Average.
CAMERON: Oh shit. A success and a threat. Karma knows something. This is crazy.
HUDSON: One advantage and five successes.
CAMERON: Okay. Karma doesn’t know that much.
NICK: Damn.
HUDSON: And this, I used all green.
LAURA: Two advantages, and two failures.
NICK: Whatever Xianna did on Engibo 5 she does not remember much of it. For those of you who succeeded, you actually have heard of this place before now that you see it. Tink, it really rings a bell, it’s something that’s come up as a place to hide out and recuperate in some of the underground circles. This settlement is called Nerftown.
We see the ship come streaking towards the space port. As you get closer to it your com starts to go off very stridently as someone attempts to hail the ship.
CAMERON: “Hello?”
NICK: Beep. Beep. Beep.
CAMERON: “Hello—Stop beeping ship! I pressed the button!”
LAURA: “I did not press anything!”
NICK: The ship comes streaking in. You hear, “Unidentified ship, you are approaching too quickly. Peel off and approach at a normal vector.”
CAMERON: (assertively) “We are trying, trust me.”
NICK: “Oh, is this some—“
CAMERON: “This is going down!”
NICK: ‘Emergency procedures in effect!”
CAMERON: “Thank you.”
NICK: And you can see the space port starts to scramble and some search lights hit the ship. You are coming in hot, and there are some snub fighters, they look like little X-wings with no guns on them that come up and start spraying fire retardant spray all over the outside of the Afternoon Delight. They scramble very quickly.
HUDSON: (laughs)
LAURA: (laughs)
CAMERON: (laughing) Tink makes a really excited face, because it looks like we’re going through a car wash on the windshield, and he’s very excited.
HUDSON: Yes. That’s exactly what happens.
NICK: The ship comes in and there’s a sickening crunch as it bottoms out. So, it’s a space port so there isn’t a runway, because ships land—
CAMERON: Ships shouldn’t come in like this!
HUDSON: (laughs)
NICK: But there’s a big, round parking space, and you smash into the ground and kind of start donut skidding through it, and you’re getting really close to another yacht, and the ship is grinding and there are sparks going everywhere and bits of metal are flying off, and it’s getting closer and closer to this other yacht… Can y’all roll me a force die, please?
CAMERON: (reluctantly) Yeah…
LAURA: All of us, or just one?
NICK: No, just one.
CAMERON: Two light side.
NICK: Ooh. So, the ship is skidding and starting to slow down. Some of the anti-fire spray is sticking to the ground. The ship’s leaving this big black streak behind it, and it gets to within a couple of inches of this other ship and stops. You can actually see the cockpit of the Afternoon Delight is right up next to the cockpit of this other ship. It’s got all these delicate spires coming off of it in this twisty architecture. It’s definitely a pleasure vessel. You see two Duroses staring open mouthed into your view screen as they are sitting in the cockpit of this vessel.
LAURA: Xianna pops up, because she definitely at some point fell onto the floor. “Oh, hello~!” and waves at them.
CAMERON: Karma puts up a tentative (laughs nervously) wave, and then just drops her head back in the seat. “Oh my gosh…”
NICK: There is a Duros sitting in the pilot seat who was doing stuff, and there’s a Duros standing behind the pilot seat who is leaning over, and the Duros that was standing looks really upset and angry, and the Duros that was sitting looks just shocked and tentatively waves back, and then gets slapped in the back of the head by the guy standing behind it. But the ship has landed.
LAURA: “Okay Tink, you said you fixed this.”
CAMERON: “Oh my gosh.”
HUDSON: “You know, what if it was something other than the thing I fixed? We’re not sure, are we?”
LAURA: “So, that is why you should be checking these things. You do the mechanics.”
HUDSON: “I can’t predict everything that could possibly go wrong.”
CAMERON: “I lost all power to the port side of the ship.”
HUDSON: “… That could have been a crazy coincidence.”
(laughter)
CAMERON: “Really?”
LAURA: “I mean, I think you just didn’t do something you are supposed to do.”
HUDSON: “We can point fingers all day, or we can get my fucking leg fixed.”
(laughter)
NICK: Alright. We’re gonna get a swipe cut on that line to you all stumbling down the access ramp. Is Tink still in the gurney or is he limping?
CAMERON: Yup.
LAURA: Yes.
NICK: Okay, we’re pushing Tink in the gurney.
CAMERON: We set up the droid in probably one of the lounge seats.
NICK: Okay, and you just left it?
CAMERON: yeah, we’re just leaving it on the ship. Well, are we gonna carry this droid around this whole time?
HUDSON: No, but…
LAURA: I mean, do we have any… Oh.
CAMERON: Can we lock it in one of the bedrooms?
NICK: Sure.
LAURA: Does the 0G relaxation table that this ship has, do you think that has restraints?
CAMERON: (laughing) Restraints for the 0G table?!
NICK: Uhhh…
LAURA: Because it’s a table! Okay, I’m imagining a table you strap yourself to.
CAMERON: Uh-huh…
LAURA: That’s what I’m picturing. Also, we do somewhere have a sex room, and I’m sure there are restraints in there.
HUDSON: So, with droids we have restraining bolts, and no one has asked me to put them on the droid yet.
LAURA: Wait, we have those?
HUDSON: I have some lying around.
NICK: Yeah. He pulled some off of another droid earlier.
LAURA: Okay.
HUDSON: Yeah. So before we go can I put some restraining bolts on this thing?
CAMERON: “Before we leave: Tink, is this droid going to get up?”
HUDSON: “I can’t predict the future, but in case it does I can put a bunch of restraining bolts on it so it wouldn’t be that violent.”
NICK: I will say, the droid’s brain is blown out. It looks super dead. If you’re worried about it coming back to life or having some sort of backup because it’s a combat droid then restraining bolts are an option. You could tie it up. The 0G table I’m picturing is like a square pad that you float above.
LAURA: Oh…
CAMERON: No, that’s not fun.
NICK: Well what else would it be?
HUDSON: (laughs)
LAURA: A table you strap yourself to.
CAMERON: You know what it is!
LAURA: And then the table floats!
HUDSON: Yeah, you know what it is.
NICK: … The table floats?
(laughter)
LAURA: Yeah!
NICK: God. For the listener, the book says that this ship has a 0G relaxation table. The internet does not know what that is. It’s not in Wikipedia. We can’t find it anywhere. So, the word is out. Maybe that will be some sort of stretch goal, we’ll draw the table, but for now we’re just gonna leave that delightfully ambiguous.
LAURA: I mean, if we draw the table there will be two different variations.
CAMERON: Yeah.
LAURA: One that everyone else agrees on, and then the version that Laura agrees on, and that’ll be a thing that will have to be censored in some way.
HUDSON: There’s two canons.
LAURA: … Yeah. Heh-heh. You know. (laughter) That’s how you strap yourself in.
NICK: Oh… I was gonna make a gunnery joke. I didn’t—
CAMERON: No, this ship does have two medium laser cannons.
HUDSON: Ohh.
CAMERON: yeah.
HUDSON: Learn something new every day. I should really know the ship better. (laughs)
CAMERON: Yeah, you should, mechanic!
NICK: So, do you install these restraining bolts on the droid?
HUDSON: Yes I do.
NICK: Roll me a Mechanics check, would you? Easy. They’re basically like sticking command hooks to a wall.
HUDSON: Three successes, two advantages.
NICK: Cool. How many do you want to stick to this thing? One should do it in any conceivable format.
HUDSON: Two!
NICK: Great.
(laughter)
HUDSON: If it wakes up it’s not gonna move.
NICK: Yeah. No, that’s fine. You can set a restraining bolt to completely make a droid immobile.
HUDSON: If you put three does it wrap back around and become real violent?
(laughter)
LAURA: Yes.
NICK: You just very easily strap those restraining bolts on. Your muscle memory is going right now because you have lost a lot of blood, and you actually find yourself trying to stick a restraining bolt right where the hole in the droid is, and then go oh, and move it a couple inches to the left and stick it on.
CAMERON: Eh. Maybe we should just toss it in the closet.
NICK: You just did the equivalent basically of chaining a corpse down, but if it makes y’all feel better then go right ahead.
CAMERON: Well, I’m gonna take the droid and go pop it in our costume closet, just like underneath all the capes and stuff.
NICK: We get a funny shot of Karma, she has the droid in a fireman carry over her shoulders, and chucks it into the closet with a clang, and she walks away and right before the door slides shut you see a floppy, big hat on the droid’s head and a feather boa wrapped around its neck, and then the door slides shut over it.
CAMERON: Mm-hmm.
LAURA: Yes.
HUDSON: The reason for having the droid hidden is if someone has to come on the ship to repair it other than me.
CAMERON: To repair it. I just don’t want an assassin droid chilling out in the open.
NICK: Yeah, that’s a pretty good idea. Makes sense.
HUDSON: “Where’s your drugs, Xianna?”
LAURA: “I mean, on me?”
CAMERON: ‘Do you want some?”
HUDSON: “No, if someone comes into the ship to repair it.”
CAMERON: “Oh no, they’re on her.”
LAURA: ‘Oh, no, no. All I have in my room is some empty alcohol bottles, some Twi’lek totems, they probably won’t steal those, and some weird mask in a box. I don’t know, I’m keeping it. It’s mine now.”
HUDSON: “Is it haunted?”
LAURA: “Probably.”
HUDSON: “Okay.”
LAURA: “But no, I keep my drugs in my pockets.”
HUDSON: “We’re just gonna skip the mask thing. Let’s head out.”
LAURA: (laughs) “Cool.”
CAMERON: “Tink, do you want medical attention?”
HUDSON: “yeah, that would be real nice right now.”
CAMERON: “Okay. Let’s go.” Push the gurney off, pop the ramp down.
NICK: Yeah. You pop the ramp down and you push the gurney off. When normally your exits are accompanied by the cool atmosphere mist, this time there’s just a lot of smoke and foam. You can see one of the landing gear is snapped off, the ship’s canted at a weird angle. Actually, as you roll out, the camera pans up to one of the pit droids from Episode 1 with the little boopy noses, and there’s a fire on top of the ship in some wiring and it’s spraying it with a fire extinguisher. As you come down the ramp you see an Ardennian mechanic waving at you from the tarmac. Ardennians are the four-armed little aliens with the kind of monkey faces that are in Solo, the pilot guy is an Ardennian.
CAMERON: (hushed) Yeah!
NICK: He’s wearing a bright orange jumpsuit that leaves his arms bare, and he has a firefighter helmet on his head, but he has it pushed back now that the disaster is over. “Well, that was certainly an entrance. Hi, and welcome to Nerftown space port.”
CAMERON: “Thanks.”
NICK: “You’re gonna wanna leave your financial information with me.”
CAMERON: “Yeah…”
LAURA: “Um…”
NICK: “Looks like your ship needs some repairs.”
LAURA: “Yeah…”
CAMERON: “Yeah. See that part?” Karma points to the giant missing area that should have plating over it. “That just fell off.”
HUDSON: “And we have no idea why.”
LAURA: “He did not fix it.” And I point at Tink.
NICK: The Ardennian looks very patient, like he’s listened to crew argue about whose fault it was many times. The part of the ship that appears to be missing is some sort of rear stabilizer flap, but you can also see there’s a pretty decently sized crater blown in the rear hull plating as if it had taken a hit from a turbo laser at some point.
CAMERON: Weird. (laughs)
NICK: And the engine module on that side, the ship has multiple engines, but that part of it looks pretty bad. The Ardennian goes, ‘Ah. Well there’s your problem right there. It appears that you’ve been hit by some sort of turbo laser.”
LAURA: “yes. We know.”
NICK: “So, I’m guessing you’re looking for some mechanic work.”
CAMERON: (reluctantly) “Yes please.”
LAURA: “Uh-huh. Yes.”
NICK: “Alright. Well, if you step into the office I’ll do a quick inspection and I’ll get back to you with some estimates.”
CAMERON: “That would be fantastic, mister—Sorry, what’s your name?”
NICK: “The name’s Zubo. I’m the mechanic, well the head mechanic anyway.” One of the droids is chittering at him from on top of the ship. “Well hurry up and let’s get some estimates for these fine people!” He flips up into the underside of the ship with one arm and then flips over and climbs up on top. He flips down some glasses like Mozz wears in Return of the Jedi and starts—not Return of the Jedi.
LAURA: What?! (laughs)
NICK: The Force Awakens—and starts flipping different lenses down, but you can see some of them are electronic like he’s looking through the hull at some of the wiring and stuff. “I’ll be in there in a jiffy. Hang on.” He starts climbing all over the ship.”
LAURA: “Okay, so… How about I take Tink to go get medical attention, because you know he is bleeding…”
CAMERON: “Yeah, yeah.”
LAURA: “…and you stay with this Zubo and get the ship fixed, because you are the captain?”
CAMERON: “Okay.”
LAURA: “yes.”
HUDSON: “What if we find a real cool café that we all wanna eat at?”
LAURA: “We will hold a table, and then we will—“
CAMERON: “Everyone. Did you take your coms with you?”
LAURA: “yes!”
HUDSON: “yeah…”
CAMERON: “Okay.”
LAURA: “So, we will just get a table for three, and then com her, have her come by.”
HUDSON: “Okay. I guess that’ll work.”
LAURA: “There will probably be a wait anyway, so by the time she gets there our table will be ready.”
CAMERON: “And it’s probably going to take a while for them to fix your leg up, so by the time you’re wrapping up there I should be done here.”
LAURA: “yeah, and then we will find a lovely café to eat at and have, uh, brunch or something.”
HUDSON: “Everything you’re saying is working out, but everything’s getting real dark.”
LAURA: “yes. That is why I’m going to go take you to a doctor.”
CAMERON: “yeah. Okay.”
LAURA: “Okay.” I start wheeling Tink away, and once I’m out of earshot of Karma I lean down and go, “Okay Tink, after we get your leg fixed, let’s just go shopping instead! No café. We tell Karma the wait for the café is way longer than it actually is and instead we go shopping!”
HUDSON: “But, but, what if we want Karma to go shopping too?”
LAURA: “No. Heh. She does not go shopping with us. We do fun shopping!”
HUDSON: I say okay, but hold onto my com link and give myself a wink—(laughter) I don’t tell her why I just winked.
LAURA: And then I do try to find a doctor. I don’t know.
NICK: That would be a Streetwise check. I’m gonna go ahead and give you a black die to that, though, because you can’t remember this place. Also you may have a reputation here.
LAURA: I mean, okay… I’m going to remove the black die.
NICK: How come?
LAURA: Because I have Street Smarts!
OTHERS: Street Smarts!
LAURA: Okay, so let me see what roll that is.
NICK: This will be average. Are you looking for an underground street doctor kind of thing or like a hospital?
LAURA: I’m looking for more of a real doctor. I think at this point he needs true medical attention. If we already established where the town vet was that helps with mob injuries—you know, there’s always one of those. I don’t know why it’s vets in those mob movies that they always take them to.
NICK: Because they have, like, medical-ish.
CAMERON: Well, because they’re actually better doctors, right?
NICK: Yeah. What do you call a vet that only knows how to work on one species?
CAMERON: A doctor!
NICK: A doctor. Boom. I’m cutting out the part where I was mean to vets and instead we’re gonna talk about how great vets are.
LAURA: Suck it!
CAMERON: Oh, we’re just gonna be mean to doctors. (laughs)
NICK: I know at least one doctor.
CAMERON: … (laughs) That’s awful.
LAURA: I know at least one doctor.
CAMERON: No, it’s okay, I don’t hate doctors, one of my friends is a doctor.
HUDSON: I know Dr. Seuss.
NICK: (laughs) I have a friend who’s a doctor.
LAURA: Uh… So I still also have a black die because of the impact. I’m gonna still say I’m sad and all hung over.
NICK: Okay.
LAURA: yeah, so just three advantages. That’s it.
NICK: Oh. So you push your cart through these rather busy streets. The area immediately surrounding the space port where you’ve set off from is like a tarmac and an airport kind of look. It’s a lot of durasteel and, what is it called, is it called duracrete?
LAURA: Duracrete.
NICK: Duracrete buildings. It’s all very prefabricated. It looks like some big corporation dropped this here. As you progress away from there there’s a sudden line and it goes to dirt roads with wooden boardwalks and kind of ramshackle buildings that are put together, some nicer than others, and you’re wandering around. Tink starts by talking to you about shopping and being excited and then pretty quickly starts to trail off, looks pretty tired. That blood loss is getting pretty bad. There’s a point where his leg is hanging off the gurney at a really unnatural angle, and you grab it by the toe and put it back, like oh I’m sure it’s fine.
LAURA: “It’ll be fine.”
CAMERON: He has a tourniquet on.
NICK: yeah, that’s always great for long term health. Tourniquets, you know.
CAMERON: yeah. (laughs) The best.
NICK: You’re going around and around, and you realize you find a small drop of blood that’s probably still like a cup of blood, a decent amount of blood, and you’re like ‘hmm, that looks like Gigoran blood. I think I’m going in circles.’ At that point a street urchin appears next to you. It’s a small Human girl with really dirty pigtails. She says, “Uh, you look like you need a doctor.”
LAURA: “yes. I do.”
NICK: “For 30 Credits I’ll take you to one.”
LAURA: “Five.”
NICK: “Uh… 40 Credits.”
LAURA: “Five.”
NICK: That sounds like a Negotiation roll.
CAMERON: (laughs)
LAURA: Okay! Let’s see. What do I have?
NICK: That’s gonna be hard. No… yes, hard.
HUDSON: (laughs)
CAMERON: This little girl knows her shit!
HUDSON: (laughing) It’s against a little girl.
CAMERON: yeah. This is her job, Hudson.
NICK: ‘Say that to my face, you big, hairy Wookie!’
HUDSON: (grumbles in nervousness and confusion)
CAMERON: (giggles)
LAURA: (mimics Hudson’s noises)
HUDSON: That’s me when I’m trying to talk to people while I’m out.
LAURA: Two threats.
NICK: “Like I said, 50 Credits.”
LAURA: “(huffs) Fine! This better be a good doctor. If this is a fake doctor—“ I point at her. “If this is a fake doctor I might stab you. I am at that point. I will stab a child. I will do it.”
NICK: (laughs) We get a shot of this little girl, and she’s got dirt smudged on her face, and she’s wearing sack cloth robes. She looks at you and does the most smug Lando Calrissian style smirk you’ve ever seen. “Yeah okay, sweetheart,” and leads you off down a very narrow and dark alley.
CAMERON: (laughs)
LAURA: I whisper to Tink. ‘Tink, have you ever killed a small child before?”
HUDSON: “… I have a small child?”
(laughter)
NICK: We’re cutting away on that. We cut away from that. Karma.
CAMERON: Yeah?
NICK: You’re sitting in a waiting room.
CAMERON: I take out my data pad and I look at that ping that I got.
NICK: Great. It’s an Imperial missive. As you open it, it’s actually an invoice for services rendered, and you have been transferred 7,000 Credits for bounties returned. There’s also an inquest that you report to your nearest Imperial office to report anything you might know about the scuttling of the ISD Vengeance.
CAMERON: Cool. I do a quick holo search and see if that blockade is off of Ithor yet.
NICK: So, you are connected to the Star Wars Wi-Fi of a Star Wars mechanic’s office so it’s very slow. It first brings you to a page that’s like, “What do you need to know about getting your ship breaks checked?” Once you accept the terms and things it does eventually load. It looks like the blockade is gone, but the Empire has started ground patrols.
CAMERON: Cool.
NICK: Not big ones, but police action is currently going on.
CAMERON: Just wanted to make sure that me being off of the planet was an acceptable thing at this point.
NICK: Oh. Yeah. That makes sense.
CAMERON: Because if I went and reported to an Imperial office and they were like ‘but there’s still a blockade’ it would have been awkward.
NICK: Yeah. You also know from your experience that you can delay that kind of request for quite a while. They’re not gonna arrest you for not doing it. There is a different level of urgency that would happen if you were being summoned. Not arrested, but what’s the word when you get served? Subpoenaed. If you got subpoenaed for something it’d be a lot bigger. This one is like a professional inquiry kind of thing since you were near the area when it happened. But yeah, you’re 7,000 Credits richer now from your bounty.
CAMERON: Nice.
NICK: It looks like there’s a lot of legal jargon around them contemplating paying you less since the bounties are now dead, but there’s a lot of language that’s basically like ‘in light of your service to the Empire we have decided not to,’ and they’re trying to use that to leverage you to come in.
CAMERON: Okay.
NICK: So, you have more money. As you’re flicking through that the Ardennian comes walking into the office. The bell above the door dings. This is literally—There’s a holo-screen on the wall playing a thing about ship maintenance. There’s a little coffee table with really old holo-pads of old magazines. The chairs are uncomfortable. It’s dusty. There’s a counter with a really bored looking Gungan receptionist, and she’s polishing her nails and didn’t say anything to you as you came in.
CAMERON: I’m sitting in one of the chairs, I got my legs crossed, I’m looking at my data pad, and I have like a Styrofoam cup of the cheap, shitty caf that they have for free while you’re waiting.
NICK: It has the taste of caf that has been in that machine for at least a week longer than it was designed to do, but the caffeine is still good.
CAMERON: Yeah. At this point she just needs something, because that was a stressful landing.
NICK: For y’all, specifically just for y’all, I’m picturing the Jiffy Lube right up the street, like it’s that waiting room.
LAURA: Yeah!
HUDSON: (laughs)
CAMERON: Nice. Okay.
NICK: So, the Ardennian, Zubo, comes walking in. his arms are longer than his legs so he tends to keep them kind of {kiltered} out as he’s walking, which looks like he’s always gesturing like Jerry Seinfeld about like ‘what’s up with this?’
CAMERON: ‘Hello~ Welcome.’
NICK: Yeah. He says, “Well, it looks like your ship’s got a pretty decent amount of repairs to be done. We’re gonna have to fix that propulsion unit, we’re gonna have to replace some of the plating, your landing gear snapped off, and honestly most of the fluids in your hyperdrive needed to be cycled about, uh… a long time ago.”
HUDSON: Do they bring out the air filters and show you how dirty it is?
CAMERON: (laughs)
NICK: (smiling) Not on this one. The body shops don’t tend to do that.
CAMERON: They don’t do that if you got in a wreck.
HUDSON: (laughing) True.
CAMERON: (laughing) Which is what just happened to us.
NICK: I really like that, though. But yeah, so he says, “Well, you got a few things. One, the parking fee for this space port is 50 Credits a day. It’s pretty light. Repairing the ship’s damage will be 3,000 Credits for parts and labor, and then there’s another 1,000 Credits for damage to the space port.”
CAMERON: “yeah…”
NICK: “So that’s gonna be our rate. If you could go ahead and pay that, that would be awesome. Parts are gonna be about 2,000 Credits. I’m guessing labor is about 1,000, plus or minus a little, but that’s gonna be your best bet. I’d say you could go to a competitor, but honestly we’re the only people here.”
CAMERON: “And getting the ship to a competitor would probably not be worth my time at this point.”
NICK: ‘I can tell you the towing fees would be more than the repair.”
CAMERON: “Yea. You know, I’m not surprised by that.” Throughout the time that he was talking about the prices of stuff Karma was trying to make it look like, while she was sitting there thinking through it, okay this is fair, I’m not happy about paying this amount which is true, but wants to look slightly more stressed than she probably actually is. She just got 7K in bounties, she can cover the ship, it’s not a big deal, but doesn’t want to seem as if she has a lot and it’s no big deal that it’s that, because that’s still a substantial amount of money.
NICK: Right.
CAMERON: “Do the services include a ship wash for all of the foam?”
NICK: “So, it doesn’t, but considering you didn’t hit that other ship I’ll throw one in.”
CAMERON: “Awesome.”
NICK: “We’ll just take it off. Honestly, we’ll have to remove most of it to get to where we need to anyway.”
CAMERON: “Yeah. I figured you probably need to in order to get to the ship, so…”
NICK: “Yeah. We’ll just… I like you, so we’ll just make that happen.”
CAMERON: “Alright. Cool.”
NICK: “You know, for another 400 Credits we could give it a paint job too, if you want.”
CAMERON: “You know, I think my crew’s rather attached to it.”
NICK: “It being the ship?”
CAMERON: “No, it being—There’s… If you look on the other side, you can’t see it from here, but there is an artistic rendering on the ship.”
LAURA: (laughs)
NICK: We get a quick jump cut to that, and it’s the Afternoon Delight with the pin-up girl Imperial painted on it, but it’s smudged and there’s still some sparks all around it and it’s very battle damaged, and the smoke has smudged on it in such a way that the girl looks very frowny face right now.
CAMERON: Oh, well.
NICK: And then it jumps back to karma.
CAMERON: “I’d have to confer with my crew for color choices and stuff, so can I give you an answer on that after we get the wash and see what it looks like? Once it’s repaired, see how much it really needs it?”
NICK: “Yeah. There’s no rush. I also noted that several of the modules on that ship are pretty outdated. If you wanted to upgrade we could do that here too.”
CAMERON: “Hmm.”
NICK: “You know, it’s just services we offer.”
CAMERON: “I’m obviously going to get the ship repaired, all of the things you listed, yes I want those so that my ship flies. What timeframe would I need to get you any upgrades we wanted if I wanted to?”
NICK: “Well, they’ll take some time to install depending on what you want, but the repairs are probably gonna take about three days, so within 24 hours or so?”
CAMERON: “Okay, yeah. Okay. Yeah, we can do that.”
NICK: “Great.”
CAMERON: “So let’s move forward with the repairs and the wash right now, and then maybe add on some other stuff, depending.”
NICK: “Great, sounds good!” So, his top set of arms are all making very friendly gestures, his bottom set are rubbing the hands together right now. He doesn’t give off an air of someone who’s trying to screw you, just someone who’s excited to get that kind of work. He holds you out a data pad for you to make the credits transfer. “If you’ll just sign here please we can move on.” As Karma reaches to sign, it zooms in on the blue of the data pad, and then zooms out on a time wait estimate screen of a hospital as Xianna comes pushing Tink into a hospital.
HUDSON: So, you forgot the tree air freshener scent for her to pick one.
CAMERON: (laughs)
LAURA: They do that at the end!
NICK: That’ll be when you pick it up.
HUDSON: That’s when you pick it up? Oh. Okay, you’re right. You’re right.
LAURA: yeah. Duh~
NICK: The street urchin says, “Well, thanks for the credits, sucker,” and just takes off into the street.
LAURA: “(huffs) I hope she gets run over. Okay, Tink.”
HUDSON: “Huh?”
LAURA: And I wheel him in. I’m assuming there’s like a front desk area with a reception droid.
CAMERON: (laughs) Tink, do you have your insurance card?
NICK: Yeah. It’s not a droid, it’s a Human.
LAURA: Okay.
NICK: It’s a Human guy. He’s pretty bulky. He’s got his head shaved. He’s wearing Star Wars scrubs, which are just normal scrubs. He has a data terminal in front of him and there’s a data pad sitting on the lip of the counter on the way in. this is a waiting room that looks oddly similar to the waiting room that Karma was in earlier, it’s just bigger, but the exact same uncomfortable chairs, exact same data screen which weirdly is giving tips about ship maintenance, there are data pads on the tables that are very dated that are talking about senatorial elections that happened decades ago.
The guy says, “Hey, just sign in. we’ll get to you in a minute.”
LAURA: “Okay, but uh…” And I just point into the cart. (laughs)
NICK: He stretches up to look over the counter. “Hey, if you could just make sure that no fluids are dripping into the waiting room, please.”
LAURA: “I mean, they are dripping into the cart, but…”
NICK: ‘I just noticed this trail on the way in,” and there’s a little mouse droid that’s just (squeaking).
LAURA: “Okay, well he is bleeding out, his knee is practically gone, what do you want me to do?!”
NICK: ‘Look. We do everything triage by order of severity of the wounds,” and he looks at the screen and there’s three names that are already on the screen that are bright red and then a bunch of names in Aurebesh that are blue…
LAURA: “(huffs)”
NICK: …and then two of the names get red Xs through them. “But it looks like two of the people ahead of you in severity have just died, so if you’ll just wait a little longer we’ll get you in to see the doctor in a minute.”
LAURA: (exhaling) “Okay. What forms do I need to fill out?”
NICK: Well, here in Star Wars we have a single payer system.
(laughter)
CAMERON: Okay. I guess I’ll list myself as his emergency contact.
NICK: That was a shitty joke. I don’t like it. (laughs)
LAURA: Well, you’d still have to list emergency contact, name and species… You don’t have to fill out health insurance information, but you would need to put like known allergies, why are you here today. (laughs)
NICK: Yeah. He just kind of grunts and knocks a data pad towards you, and you get stuck trying to ask Tink these questions.
LAURA: “Okay Tink, do you have any allergies?”
HUDSON: “(grumbles) … Macadamia nuts.”
LAURA: “Okay. Macadamia nuts. Okay…”
NICK: Oh yes, Macadamia, that planet in Star Wars. (laughs)
LAURA: “Tink, are you on any medications?”
HUDSON: (winded) “No.”
LAURA: “Any drugs?”
HUDSON: “Heh. No.” I do an X.
(laughter)
LAURA: “I mean, I figured, but just making sure.”
CAMERON: Is there a history of heart disease on your father’s side? (laughs)
LAURA: “Do you have a history of heart disease on either side of your family?”
HUDSON: “A history of art disease? No, nothing about that disease.”
LAURA: “Heart! You know the thing that beats in your chest.”
HUDSON: “You just said art.”
LAURA: “I have problems with the Hs.”
HUDSON: “Oh, it’s a hurt degree…”
LAURA: “… Yes. Okay. Do you have any long term illnesses?”
HUDSON: “Uh… I’ve had bad dandruff for a while, all over my body.”
LAURA: “Okay, dandruff. Okay, reason why you are here, knee gone.” (laughs)
NICK: And on that, another red X appears on the screen. (buzzer noise) There’s a nurse that comes out of the back. It’s a Dugg. That’s the kind of alien that’s Sebulba that walks on its hands and uses its feet as hands, and it’s holding a data pad. “Well, that was Mr. Smith. I guess he won’t be needing our services anymore, so up next we have…” and you hit Enter on the data pad and your name shows up in flashing red. “I guess that would be a… hmm, I’m just gonna say Tink on that one. If you could come on back, the doctor will see you now.”
LAURA: “Oh! That is us. Okay Tink,” and I push him.
NICK: You roll back through the double doors, and as they slide shut that’s gonna be the end of the episode.
LAURA: Ba-naaa~!
OTHERS: Ba-naaa~!
LAURA: (singing) Waa-oh~
LAURA & HUDSON: (singing) For the longest time~
## 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.
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