TDRP: Star Wars Rebels - Log 1
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xp_logsA long time ago in a galaxy far away… Kevin, Bobbi, Wanda, Sooraya, Maya and Amanda are a group of Rebels infiltrating an Empire prison planet, with no idea of their true identities or that this is all a fiction.
The Errant Mynock has just cleared the Quaur trade lane and dropped out of hyperspace when they held their first briefing. Mon Mothma had offered space on Home One for a briefing, but for this mission, they decided to keep it as close under wraps as possible. Or, at least, Vinek Griggs had decided. The aging Rebel officer had been with the Rebellion longer than almost everyone, the stories went. The stories were told enough to be myth at this point; first Rebel commander at Dantooine, led the vanguard that broke the ambush at Ord Mantell, and the last Rebel out of Echo Base on Hoth to survive. To be honest, he didn't look like much. In the stories, he was a stalwart of the Rebellion; a steely-eyed missile man and troop commander who would spit in the eye of the Emperor himself. Instead, it was an aging human with a salt and pepper beard who was handing out kaf to everyone as they gathered around the small mess table in the converted stock light freighter to hear the full details of their mission for the first time.
"Cee-bro, can you handle the customs inquiry?" He said, earning an indignant squawk from the astromech droid. "Fine, fine. CB-R0 has it, he says. When we're arrested, interrogated within an inch of our lives and whatever is left is sent to harvest fallo root on Falucia as slave labour until we die, remember, he said he 'had it'."
Aola 'Toor cradled her mug in her hands and blew on the steaming liquid. "I'm sure he has it," she said mildly, her accent only mildly audible after her years off-planet. But while her tone was calm, the twitching of her head-tails indicated otherwise. "And if he doesn't, there's always our ace pilot, yes"
"Was that an actual question?" Greta’s shoulders straightened in indignation at what had sounded to her like doubt in her abilities. "I'll have you know I'm the best in the whole damn Rebellion fleet who isn’t some force led savant. Might have even joined Rogue squadron if it weren't for that conflict of personality thing."
Tara Nilar's kaf was already nearly gone by the time she looked up. "Be that as it may, may we use your skills as little as possible," she remarked. "Hopefully the Force will guide us as well as it can and we can get in and out without too much trouble." Even after all these years, referencing the Force in a positive way sometimes felt strange and she threw back the rest of her drink despite the heat.
"Mrrrowwrr," growled Rryobbi, barely glancing up from her seated position. She was hunched over, inspecting her vibroblade; on any mission it was always her general practice to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. The Wookie had already checked her blaster, however she spent more time on the blade, a favourite weapon of Rryobbi's that she'd kept as a trophy from a particularly persnickety bounty hunter she'd spent a lot of time and effort in tracking down and dispatching.
Satisfied with its condition, she slid it into its holster over one shoulder and finally looked up. "Ooohwerrrh?" How much longer, she wondered.
"The nature of our mission is not a rescue mission, like most of you were told. We are going to break into the prison on the penal planet of Naraka, but it isn't to retrieve a prisoner." Griggs touched a button on the table and the holo-display clicked on. Above the table were several images of Jedi who had served briefly with the Rebellion, most hunted down and killed for joining the conflict. The final image was from Hoth, widely distributed, showing a pilot using a grapple to reach the bottom of an AT-AT and using a lightsaber to open up a hatch. The AT-AT exploded impressively once the charges the pilot had tossed into the open hatch went off.
"You all know Commander Skywalker; destroyer of the Death Star, squadron commander of Rogue group, and if rumour is correct, the source of Greta's personality conflict." The joke broke the tension a bit. "What no one knows is that following the Battle of Hoth, Commander Skywalker was wounded while rejoining the fleet and lost his lightsaber. While he's obviously not a fully trained Jedi, his heroics and the lightsaber have not only reawakened the positive memories of the Jedi that the Empire has done their best to destroy, but aligned it with our struggle. The Rebellion needs the idea of Skywalker as a Jedi as much as we need him and his skills, and without the most visible symbol, it sets back out cause. So, our leadership has trusted us with a mission to help him replace his lost weapon."
“You’d think nobody ever got drunk and tried to punch him before” Greta grumbled but she was more interested in the description of their mission then her dislike of the Rebellion’s Commander. “I was ‘voluntold’ my skills were better used elsewhere.”
"I think you will find that you will be a valuable asset, willing or not," Aola pointed out, barely avoiding rolling her eyes but her head tails twisting slightly in response. "At least you're not returning to your former prison because some general can't keep track of his weapon."
"So we're to be the fodder for the Rebellion leadership to have their golden boy?" Rubanu commented from the back of the cabin, the elegant blue lines of her tattoo distorted by her frown. "Instead of going to save lives we are going to steal a lightsaber. Are those things even still around?"
"Skywalker, and therefore the Rebellion, is going to need all the help he can get against Vader and the Empire," Tara said quietly. "The Empire's power and reach is staggering but that's because of Vader's use of the Force, in part. I'll help him steal as many lightsabers as he needs to even the odds in our favor."
Griggs held up his hand to stop the speculations. "We're not going to steal a lightsaber. Rebel intelligence is certain that other than a few held in impregnable locations like the Imperial Armory on Coruscant or Vader's Fortress on Mustafar, the Empire has destroyed every other lightsaber they've acquired. There's a few floating around on the Black Market or in private collections as trophies, but trying to acquire one of those involves too much risk that it is a trap and tips off Imperial Intelligence that we need one for some reason. Skywalker needs to build a new lightsaber of his own. It's a vital step in becoming a Jedi Knight and is a deeply personal event. Problem is that there's no one to teach him how. Which is where Naraka comes in."
He brought up a holo of the prison. "After the fall of the Jedi Temple, much of the contents of the Great Archives were moved to different secure locations. Naraka, among other things, received at least one comprehensive holocron on the intricacies of lightsaber design and construction by Huyang, a droid who taught Younglings how to construct their first lightsaber for a thousand generations. He was destroyed by the Empire, but that holocron should have everything Skywalker needs to figure it out for himself."
"It won't be easy. The central vault is where they are most likely to be keeping this holocron, and it's well-guarded," Aola remarked. "I can get us there, but someone will have to get us in."
Rubanu had abandoned her work again and moved closer to study the holo. "What's the security like? I can get us past a lot of the tech, but live beings will have to be you." She added with a nod to Rryobbi.
Tilting her head backwards, Rryobbi let out a howl that was part laughter, part eagerness to beat on some baddies. "Rrrrrnnghhh," she added with a grunt. Leave it to them, they'd make sure no one would be stopping them.
Tara shrugged and waved a hand not holding her empty mug. "I personally have no issues dealing with the guards. I have enough tricks up my sleeves from my aborted training to be able to get us through, with help. Though, of course, that will depend on the number of guards and how well they are trained. Do we know exactly how well-guarded our target is?"
"If we do this right, we shouldn't have to deal with any guards. This is a covert op. Less attention we draw, less bodies we leave behind, the better." Griggs said. "Fortunately, the whole installation should be standard Imperial protocols and tech. They've got no reason to think a team of rebels, much less a dusty old Jedi librarian is after decades old information."
"You sure brought enough muscle if we shouldn't have to deal with any guards. Maybe another slicer might have been handier." Rubanu commented. "Do we have any idea if they use Omnicron, Sigma or Theta proctocols? Not that it matters, but always nice to know beforehand."
Greta had been poised to answer when an alarm sounded somewhere from the depths of the craft. It was the sort of sound she dreaded, it meant not only had someone ‘noticed’ them but they’d decided to do an active scan.
She leapt from her seat and headed up toward the cockpit, and what was hopefully not something she couldn’t handle or this mission was over before it began.
“Battle stations, hope some of you have used a laser cannon before” she called back as she ran.
"This is part of the plan. The Errant Mynock is a know pirate vessel that decided to get into slaving and thus, we took it and executed the crew. So, being shot down is our insertion strategy into Naraka."
While there was no time now to follow up Griggs' remark about being a Jedi librarian, Aola filed it away as something to follow up later. The old man was far more than he seemed. "Let us hope our pilot wasn't exaggerating her skills," she muttered, finding a place to buckle in. She was a former slave and current thief - there was little she could do to help at this point, unless someone had a pocket worth picking.
Rryobbi grunted in agreement, then headed for one of the laser cannon turrets. She hadn't been expecting any combat this early into the mission, but hey, no sense in turning it down if the opportunity was going to present itself. "Arrrrnnnggggh?" she asked as she ran to the turret: Wait a minute, we're supposed to get shot down?
Tara was settling herself into a seat near Aola as she called out, "I can use the Force to our advantage but with so many moving pieces in a situation like this, it might be more harm than good. If things don't work out the way we hope it will, I'll see what I can do."
"Just try and make sure nothing large hits us," Greta noted, settling into the pilots seat and flicking several controls. She brought up a small display that showed her how close the other ship was. "I'm assuming you want us to make this look good, rather than just falling straight down?"
"Take out a TIE or two, but take hits. We're going to be a shot down slaver ship." Griggs said. "Greta, make us look mortally wounded."
"Right, mortally wounded coming right up. Tara, see if you can get one of those beams close enough to us that I can fake a wound without completely destroying us. I'll send you a good spot to your display."
Greta didn't bother to wait for an answer, maneuvering them past several TIE fighters to allow the others to make a good show of things while getting them that much closer to their destination. She hadn't signed up for a crash landing on a hostile planet, but that was the Rebellion for you, you never knew what you were going to get. In this case, it was a ragtag bunch of scoundrels but that's just the way she liked it. Skywalker had always made her feel dirty, like some of the things she'd had to do to stay alive were unforgivable in the light of the Force. She knew that wasn't fair, but it didn't stop her from hating the man any less.
"I'm keeping an eye on their systems... and monitoring their actions." Rubanu reported as her fingers flew over the keys. "Let's get this show on the road."
"Everyone not flying this bucket or working the guns, strap yourselves in. We're going to go in hot." Griggs ordered, grabbing the seat next to Greta and locking in his harness. "Take us down, kid."
Grimacing, Tara planted her feet as hard as she could while she reached out to wrap as many of her comrades with a gentle blanket of the Force as she could.
"When we get back, I'm gonna be asking for more hazard pay." Greta quipped, allowing their drift to move just enough that the gravity of the planet managed to catch them. Their ship had enough damage that the smoke and scars would light up with the heat of the entry, and hopefully give enough of an excuse as to why things went so pear shaped when the planets occupants came looking. As it was, she was a good enough pilot that despite the view of 'slaver ship taking a hard dive into planets atmosphere and crashing into a fiery death spiral', the actuality was a lot smoother, if still bumpy and dangerous as hell. "Alright nerf herders, hold onto your pants, this is gonna be a rough landing."
"Any one you can walk away from..." muttered Aola as they touched down, bumping roughly over the rocks and dirt. "I never thought I'd be back here. Let's just hope it's a short visit."
The Errant Mynock has just cleared the Quaur trade lane and dropped out of hyperspace when they held their first briefing. Mon Mothma had offered space on Home One for a briefing, but for this mission, they decided to keep it as close under wraps as possible. Or, at least, Vinek Griggs had decided. The aging Rebel officer had been with the Rebellion longer than almost everyone, the stories went. The stories were told enough to be myth at this point; first Rebel commander at Dantooine, led the vanguard that broke the ambush at Ord Mantell, and the last Rebel out of Echo Base on Hoth to survive. To be honest, he didn't look like much. In the stories, he was a stalwart of the Rebellion; a steely-eyed missile man and troop commander who would spit in the eye of the Emperor himself. Instead, it was an aging human with a salt and pepper beard who was handing out kaf to everyone as they gathered around the small mess table in the converted stock light freighter to hear the full details of their mission for the first time.
"Cee-bro, can you handle the customs inquiry?" He said, earning an indignant squawk from the astromech droid. "Fine, fine. CB-R0 has it, he says. When we're arrested, interrogated within an inch of our lives and whatever is left is sent to harvest fallo root on Falucia as slave labour until we die, remember, he said he 'had it'."
Aola 'Toor cradled her mug in her hands and blew on the steaming liquid. "I'm sure he has it," she said mildly, her accent only mildly audible after her years off-planet. But while her tone was calm, the twitching of her head-tails indicated otherwise. "And if he doesn't, there's always our ace pilot, yes"
"Was that an actual question?" Greta’s shoulders straightened in indignation at what had sounded to her like doubt in her abilities. "I'll have you know I'm the best in the whole damn Rebellion fleet who isn’t some force led savant. Might have even joined Rogue squadron if it weren't for that conflict of personality thing."
Tara Nilar's kaf was already nearly gone by the time she looked up. "Be that as it may, may we use your skills as little as possible," she remarked. "Hopefully the Force will guide us as well as it can and we can get in and out without too much trouble." Even after all these years, referencing the Force in a positive way sometimes felt strange and she threw back the rest of her drink despite the heat.
"Mrrrowwrr," growled Rryobbi, barely glancing up from her seated position. She was hunched over, inspecting her vibroblade; on any mission it was always her general practice to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. The Wookie had already checked her blaster, however she spent more time on the blade, a favourite weapon of Rryobbi's that she'd kept as a trophy from a particularly persnickety bounty hunter she'd spent a lot of time and effort in tracking down and dispatching.
Satisfied with its condition, she slid it into its holster over one shoulder and finally looked up. "Ooohwerrrh?" How much longer, she wondered.
"The nature of our mission is not a rescue mission, like most of you were told. We are going to break into the prison on the penal planet of Naraka, but it isn't to retrieve a prisoner." Griggs touched a button on the table and the holo-display clicked on. Above the table were several images of Jedi who had served briefly with the Rebellion, most hunted down and killed for joining the conflict. The final image was from Hoth, widely distributed, showing a pilot using a grapple to reach the bottom of an AT-AT and using a lightsaber to open up a hatch. The AT-AT exploded impressively once the charges the pilot had tossed into the open hatch went off.
"You all know Commander Skywalker; destroyer of the Death Star, squadron commander of Rogue group, and if rumour is correct, the source of Greta's personality conflict." The joke broke the tension a bit. "What no one knows is that following the Battle of Hoth, Commander Skywalker was wounded while rejoining the fleet and lost his lightsaber. While he's obviously not a fully trained Jedi, his heroics and the lightsaber have not only reawakened the positive memories of the Jedi that the Empire has done their best to destroy, but aligned it with our struggle. The Rebellion needs the idea of Skywalker as a Jedi as much as we need him and his skills, and without the most visible symbol, it sets back out cause. So, our leadership has trusted us with a mission to help him replace his lost weapon."
“You’d think nobody ever got drunk and tried to punch him before” Greta grumbled but she was more interested in the description of their mission then her dislike of the Rebellion’s Commander. “I was ‘voluntold’ my skills were better used elsewhere.”
"I think you will find that you will be a valuable asset, willing or not," Aola pointed out, barely avoiding rolling her eyes but her head tails twisting slightly in response. "At least you're not returning to your former prison because some general can't keep track of his weapon."
"So we're to be the fodder for the Rebellion leadership to have their golden boy?" Rubanu commented from the back of the cabin, the elegant blue lines of her tattoo distorted by her frown. "Instead of going to save lives we are going to steal a lightsaber. Are those things even still around?"
"Skywalker, and therefore the Rebellion, is going to need all the help he can get against Vader and the Empire," Tara said quietly. "The Empire's power and reach is staggering but that's because of Vader's use of the Force, in part. I'll help him steal as many lightsabers as he needs to even the odds in our favor."
Griggs held up his hand to stop the speculations. "We're not going to steal a lightsaber. Rebel intelligence is certain that other than a few held in impregnable locations like the Imperial Armory on Coruscant or Vader's Fortress on Mustafar, the Empire has destroyed every other lightsaber they've acquired. There's a few floating around on the Black Market or in private collections as trophies, but trying to acquire one of those involves too much risk that it is a trap and tips off Imperial Intelligence that we need one for some reason. Skywalker needs to build a new lightsaber of his own. It's a vital step in becoming a Jedi Knight and is a deeply personal event. Problem is that there's no one to teach him how. Which is where Naraka comes in."
He brought up a holo of the prison. "After the fall of the Jedi Temple, much of the contents of the Great Archives were moved to different secure locations. Naraka, among other things, received at least one comprehensive holocron on the intricacies of lightsaber design and construction by Huyang, a droid who taught Younglings how to construct their first lightsaber for a thousand generations. He was destroyed by the Empire, but that holocron should have everything Skywalker needs to figure it out for himself."
"It won't be easy. The central vault is where they are most likely to be keeping this holocron, and it's well-guarded," Aola remarked. "I can get us there, but someone will have to get us in."
Rubanu had abandoned her work again and moved closer to study the holo. "What's the security like? I can get us past a lot of the tech, but live beings will have to be you." She added with a nod to Rryobbi.
Tilting her head backwards, Rryobbi let out a howl that was part laughter, part eagerness to beat on some baddies. "Rrrrrnnghhh," she added with a grunt. Leave it to them, they'd make sure no one would be stopping them.
Tara shrugged and waved a hand not holding her empty mug. "I personally have no issues dealing with the guards. I have enough tricks up my sleeves from my aborted training to be able to get us through, with help. Though, of course, that will depend on the number of guards and how well they are trained. Do we know exactly how well-guarded our target is?"
"If we do this right, we shouldn't have to deal with any guards. This is a covert op. Less attention we draw, less bodies we leave behind, the better." Griggs said. "Fortunately, the whole installation should be standard Imperial protocols and tech. They've got no reason to think a team of rebels, much less a dusty old Jedi librarian is after decades old information."
"You sure brought enough muscle if we shouldn't have to deal with any guards. Maybe another slicer might have been handier." Rubanu commented. "Do we have any idea if they use Omnicron, Sigma or Theta proctocols? Not that it matters, but always nice to know beforehand."
Greta had been poised to answer when an alarm sounded somewhere from the depths of the craft. It was the sort of sound she dreaded, it meant not only had someone ‘noticed’ them but they’d decided to do an active scan.
She leapt from her seat and headed up toward the cockpit, and what was hopefully not something she couldn’t handle or this mission was over before it began.
“Battle stations, hope some of you have used a laser cannon before” she called back as she ran.
"This is part of the plan. The Errant Mynock is a know pirate vessel that decided to get into slaving and thus, we took it and executed the crew. So, being shot down is our insertion strategy into Naraka."
While there was no time now to follow up Griggs' remark about being a Jedi librarian, Aola filed it away as something to follow up later. The old man was far more than he seemed. "Let us hope our pilot wasn't exaggerating her skills," she muttered, finding a place to buckle in. She was a former slave and current thief - there was little she could do to help at this point, unless someone had a pocket worth picking.
Rryobbi grunted in agreement, then headed for one of the laser cannon turrets. She hadn't been expecting any combat this early into the mission, but hey, no sense in turning it down if the opportunity was going to present itself. "Arrrrnnnggggh?" she asked as she ran to the turret: Wait a minute, we're supposed to get shot down?
Tara was settling herself into a seat near Aola as she called out, "I can use the Force to our advantage but with so many moving pieces in a situation like this, it might be more harm than good. If things don't work out the way we hope it will, I'll see what I can do."
"Just try and make sure nothing large hits us," Greta noted, settling into the pilots seat and flicking several controls. She brought up a small display that showed her how close the other ship was. "I'm assuming you want us to make this look good, rather than just falling straight down?"
"Take out a TIE or two, but take hits. We're going to be a shot down slaver ship." Griggs said. "Greta, make us look mortally wounded."
"Right, mortally wounded coming right up. Tara, see if you can get one of those beams close enough to us that I can fake a wound without completely destroying us. I'll send you a good spot to your display."
Greta didn't bother to wait for an answer, maneuvering them past several TIE fighters to allow the others to make a good show of things while getting them that much closer to their destination. She hadn't signed up for a crash landing on a hostile planet, but that was the Rebellion for you, you never knew what you were going to get. In this case, it was a ragtag bunch of scoundrels but that's just the way she liked it. Skywalker had always made her feel dirty, like some of the things she'd had to do to stay alive were unforgivable in the light of the Force. She knew that wasn't fair, but it didn't stop her from hating the man any less.
"I'm keeping an eye on their systems... and monitoring their actions." Rubanu reported as her fingers flew over the keys. "Let's get this show on the road."
"Everyone not flying this bucket or working the guns, strap yourselves in. We're going to go in hot." Griggs ordered, grabbing the seat next to Greta and locking in his harness. "Take us down, kid."
Grimacing, Tara planted her feet as hard as she could while she reached out to wrap as many of her comrades with a gentle blanket of the Force as she could.
"When we get back, I'm gonna be asking for more hazard pay." Greta quipped, allowing their drift to move just enough that the gravity of the planet managed to catch them. Their ship had enough damage that the smoke and scars would light up with the heat of the entry, and hopefully give enough of an excuse as to why things went so pear shaped when the planets occupants came looking. As it was, she was a good enough pilot that despite the view of 'slaver ship taking a hard dive into planets atmosphere and crashing into a fiery death spiral', the actuality was a lot smoother, if still bumpy and dangerous as hell. "Alright nerf herders, hold onto your pants, this is gonna be a rough landing."
"Any one you can walk away from..." muttered Aola as they touched down, bumping roughly over the rocks and dirt. "I never thought I'd be back here. Let's just hope it's a short visit."
