20040127

Republic Reckoning 4.2.87

Marcus Dormammu, son of Alexandra Dormammu, sometime enemy and occassional ally steps out of the elevator Matrix Style in a black trenchcoat brandishing automagic weapons. We dive collectivly out of the way bringing our lightsabers up defensively. Expecting a hail of bullets from Dormammu, he instead fires down the hall the way we came, blowing the hell out of a library droid. In the confusion, he rushes past us and into the library. Quindo gives chase. Suddenly, the library droids begin firing at the party clustered near the elevator. Only single shot bullets, no problem to deflect with a lightsaber. Except that, on contact with the projectile, Brojen's lightaber shorts out. They're firing Cortosis Bullets!! Then one droid rushes Brojen and explodes, wounding him badly.

"Suicide Library Attack Droids???" Elbram trips one with telekinesis, which explodes when it hits the floor. He grabs Brojen and pulls him behind cover. Dabai takes one out the old fashioned way. Meanwhile, Quindo has almost caught up with M. Dormammu as he ducks around a corner and fires something really big. Quindo comes skidding up behind him, spots three Sith Attack Droids opening fire on M.D. and turns his skid into a tackle. Q takes out M.D. at the waist and knocks him across the hall, behind cover. Whatever M.D. fired explodes and bot are buried under rubble and books.

Dabai contacts Altair - "You know that thing that keeps happening to us? Well, it happened again!"

Altair is on his way, but tells Dabai that droids all over this section of city are going berserk and attacking people. Marcus claims that At'!'chk has been working in the droid shop for weeks, arranging this little party. While Dabai and Elbram try to dig out Quindo and Marcus, Brojen whines about his flasks getting shredded by shrapnel (and his legs) and slips into a healing trance.

Emergency response teams arrive and help dig out Q and M.D. Marcus is badly enjured, so the ambulance carries off Brojen and Marcus. We have to convince the paramedics that Brojen isn't dead, just a sleeping Jedi. Quindo claims to be Marcus' "life partner" to get a ride in the ambulance so he can keep an eye on him. During the ride, they talk.

M.D. is also looking for the Heart of Darkness. He doesn't know what it does but he wants it because the Jedi AND the Sith are so keen after it. He admits that his "organization" developed the weapons he was carrying (a thermal/EMP launcher) that he used to take out the Sith Attack Droids. He says that he's not working with Garek Brynn, and asks after Sgt. Kingston (Dabai).

Quindo - "Since your mother is M.I.A., and you're not working with the Sith, who exactly *are* you working for anyway?" Marcus - "Myself" Quindo - "Well, I hope you have a good medical plan."

Marcus gets up, looking remarkably better, says "Well, the chase is on", and jumps out the back of the speeding ambulance. Quindo sees him climbing into a black van that pulls ahead of the ambulance and off the next exit. Quindo thinks of several ways to follow, then just sits down with Brojen and goes to the hospital. The ambulance driver is a bit miffed.

At the hospital, Brojen gets some blood. Nurse - "Your friend is awake and recovering very quickly." Quindo - "Yeah, Jedi tend to do that."

News Report: Uknown raiders hit Corellia. A fast attck, hit and run, did massive damage to the shipyards and population centers. Rumors of other attacks along the Perlemian, Hydian, and Corellian trade routes abound.

All routes converge on Coruscant. Perhaps Bellisarius of Garek Brynn are making a drive toward the Capital? We decide not to waste any more time on research and try to get ahead of Dormammu and Bellisarius by jumping straight to Coruscant. We get to Altair's ship, but Control locks down the spaceport as unknown raiders are being engaged in orbit.

Altair talks to Planetary Defense and insists that we be allowed to leave immediately. He uses the "Jedi" trump card. Planetry Defense agress to let us leave, but advises us that we may be fired on by both raiders and planetary defense. "It's a mess up there." Fine, we take our chances and blast off. Sith drop ships land in the city as we're leaving, and we want to help, but our mission may save more lives in the long run, so we just go. Planetary Defense lost out-system sensors, so we send them as much data as we can while making the calculations for hyperspace. In the end, we leave without so much as firing a shot or being shot at, while the planet below us get raped.

Republic Reckoning 4.6.87

We arrive on Coruscant. We send everything to the Council while plotting a jump to Boende (farther coreward). We're planning to keep moving. A priority message comes in from the Council and we consider ignoring it to keep from being delayed. Unfortunately, we decide to open it and the Council insists that they must speak to us in person. We try to get a message through to ask them to let us go. "We can't be more than an hour ahead of Dormammu, any delay will cause us to lose our advantage!!"

They do not respond and we have no choice but to head in-system to meet the Council. It's an hour in, they keep us waiting for an hour, another hour to meet them and then another hour out to a jump point. We lose 4 hours. All we get from them is that the Jedi Guardian of Boende is Jiath Kast, who is an aboriginal culture expert and a specialist in Force Based Cultures. Boende lies that the mouth of the "River of Stars", a nebula which is draining into a black hole. We speculate that the Heart of Darkness is probably at the farthest star into the "River", but the Council wants us to rendevous with Kast and get info on her digs and the local mythologies that might lead us to the HoD?.

Republic Reckoning 4.8.87

We arrive at Boende and receive a message from Kast. Information that we sent ahead has helped her to decipher writings that she was studying. She is en route to her temple dig site on LaSalle. Perhaps the artifact is there?

In orbit over Boende is the 3rd Fleet (under Admiral McKeon?), and debris from a space battle. They've already skirmished with the Sith. There don't seem to be a lot of dead bodies in the wreckage, perhaps the Sith ships are droid crewed? The Flagship comes to meet us.

Admiral McKeon? loans us a picket fighter. It's faster than our ship and has better guns. Apparently, Kast sent a message out on a wide band when she left, something about "The pulsing heart, the power, Mwahahahah". We decide that she's probably gone DarkSide on us. Fuck.

Admiral McKeon? asks to talk to Quindo alone. He meets a no named man without Force powers. He instructs Quindo to use any means necessary to prevent the HoD? from falling into Bellisarius' hands. He claims that sometimes it is necessary to make sacrifices to achieve a greater good. He orders Quindo not to tell anyone about their meeting and gives the Council high sign. He's wearing a Circle pendant with an offset cross and a red gem in the upper left (smallest) quadrant.

Quindo leaves the meeting and proceeds to tell everyone in the group about No Name. "We can't confront evil with secrets and devious agendas." Quindo urges everyone to spend as much of the journey as possible atoning and preparing for battle with the Dark Side.