The Wrath of Cahn - Part 1 - A Talathen Sector story

The wrath of Cahn (Part one)

Well, it seems like forever since I’ve done an update for Talathen Sector. The campaign is ongoing, but life has gotten in the way so we have missed a fair few sessions this year. What we have been doing is the longest story arc of the RPG campaign to date. We have also started the next strategic round, and updates will be coming on that, featuring the Rebellions first crushing defeat and a massive capital ship engagement as the rebels try to evacuate their hidden base and the Imperial Fleet attacks. All those games are in the books and need to be written up.

A lot happened in this story, so I will keep it as brief as possible while conveying the full content of the story as best as I can remember. It was a longish story, so parts will be skipped.

The Brief

Cahn is a planet located near a black hole, as a result of this unusual positioning it has several unique features. First of which is time-dilation, every day on Cahn is 3 days to the normal galaxy. Now, interstellar and people like Neil Degrasse Tyson can do a much better job of explaining the whys of time dilation, this is Star Wars, so it just works.

Secondly, the planet is in a geo stationary orbit relative to the Black hole. This means one side of the plant is charred, and the other side is frozen, but there is a “green zone” across the equator where the population lives.

Thirdly, the planet is ruled, and almost entirely populated by a religious order called the Devourer Cult. This religious group worships the black hole as a deity and despite its name has a reputation for passiveness and charity works, akin to a group like earths Hari Krishna. They can be found all over the sector, living in Spartan conditions and helping the poor and needy. What really surprises a lot of people is that fully 2/3^rd of the movement are Trandoshans who formed the colony centuries ago and have rejected their own cultural mores.

The Mission

The ruling council of Cahn has offered to pledge humanitarian and logistical support to the rebellion if they can solve an internal political issue for them. A member of the ruling council has gone rogue and is conducting terrorist operations, but as Cahn has a strict non-violence policy they cannot retaliate or fight back effectively. They need terrorists to catch the terrorists, so the rebellion is the perfect answer for them.

Arrival

Coming in to land at Cahn city, the only major settlement on the planet, the team were instructed to hold their flight pattern until another ship landed. This ship was a small, badly beaten, ancient looking light freighter, and it landed at the starport safely. The rebels ship landed at the platform alongside.

Waiting at the spaceport was around 10,000 people, quietly waiting. The team thought initially thought it was a welcome party, until the pilot of the other ship left to rapturous applause. While this was going on, an official came up to the team and introduced himself as Tellarn. He was a member of the ruling council and the representative of the local district that included the spaceport. He explained that the Trandoshan who had just returned was a Pilgrim that 100 years ago he had left and flown closer to the edge of the black hole in order to be close to the devourer, and while the journey had taken him less than a month, 100 years had passed for his community. The man would now be treated as a holy figure by the community.

They were led through the city after the procession had moved away. Cahn was mostly mud brick buildings done in a rustic style, while the interiors were modern but modest. One thing the team noticed was that there were no vehicles or droids in the city, with most transportation being done by repulsor sleds pulled by people. Tellarn was proud to say that the city has no unemployment and that people do what is needed, everyone works in one way or another and the community helps together. The team were pretty weirded out by what appeared to be a combination of pacifism, Islamic socialism and communism.

They were taken to the visitor’s district, the only place in the city where “out of towners” are housed. It’s a small area dominated by the guests hotel, a stylishly presented, yet very retro place (think of walking into a well maintained English manor house). Tellarn introduced the team to two helpers N’alla, a Twi’lek woman who’s family had emigrated to Cahn some years ago after being helped by members of the Devourer Cult on Nimbala, and Doran, A former Luxon fighter pilot who’s fighter hyperdrive had failed during the Clone Wars and he had crashed here.

Dr Vox paid special attention to the replacement limbs that Doran had, as it was high quality work and, as a battlefield surgeon, he was fascinated to see how they did it.

The team was left to get comfortable at the hotel before meeting with the council and asked questions about the culture, infrastructure, and the nature of the terror attacks and so on.

Ithkrall  was revealed to have been an idealist and visionary, and both guides were shocked that he had broken one of the greatest tenants of their faith “we do not spill blood”. Five people had been killed during the terror attacks, which is more murders than they had had in the last decade.

Certain members of our crew had killed more than five people in the last week, and the level of naiveté, hopefulness and all-round cheerfulness really weirded them out.

They asked questions about the society, why there were no droids, the justice system and the like. It all boiled down to “we do hard work, and the community helps those in need, but you are expected to help in return, if you are beyond help you get banished”.

Meeting the council

After getting comfortable and unpacking their belongings, the crew were invited to the mountain in the middle of the city. Cahn city was built on tiers, sort of like Minas Tirath, but far larger.

The 2^nd to last tier heading up the mountain was a massive open space that had been levelled out and concreted. According to N’alla, almost the entire city could gather in this place around the temple and listen to the council of elders speak. It was rare for people to all gather up here, but it happened a few times for special occasions and momentous decisions.

In the center of the plaza was the spire that formed the Temple of the Devourer. It reached high into the sky and was shaped like a tall vase, fatter at the top and bottom, with a flat roof. Presumably, some form of observation platform.

In front of the Spire, the crew encountered the first military looking presence in the city. Around 20 ceremonial guards, armed with shields and what appeared to be long poled stun batons. The guards turned as they approached and unbarred their spears to allow access to the structure.

Immediately inside, the single most dominant feature of the spire was that it was open in the middle, and that the platform above was really an optical lens. The devourer, the great black hole, could be seen through the ceiling in overblown proportions. It made the crew feel decidedly uncomfortable.

Malkar, the leader of the council invited the crew to sit and outlined the issues.

1. Ithkrall is a terrorist
2. Their non-violence religion and lack of weapons make fighting a terrorist impossible.
3. The rebellion has the expertise they lack and no moral compunctions about spilling blood
4. Cahn has great expertise to share and would provide covert support and help to the rebels

Malkar made it all seem very straight forward, and the crew were very very suspicious. They agreed to help but had many questions. 

Was Ithkrall a terrorist or the idealist he was originally described as? What is Ithkrall agenda for their terror attacks, as no one has mentioned motive? Is this culture for real, or are they secretly very nasty? What is Malkar hiding?

These answers would come, but the investigation would require a lot of digging and peeling back a massive sector wide conspiracy that threatened the lives of every sentient being within 100 light years.

To be continued.

Nimbala free? A Talathen Sector report

Background

At the end of the last round, the Rebel leadership met with The Red Queen of Nimbala. She is a freed slave who married a Czerka executive, poisoned him to keep him weak, and set about using his money and influence to drive Czerka off Nimbala for good.

Her plan from the start was as follows;

• Sell a large number of her shares while prices are still high
• Equip locals with weapons and training to increase disruptions
• Give the rebels information and intelligence covertly to help them cause maximum disruption to Czerka operations
• Arrange "accidents" for Czerka leadership
• Drive the Czerka Nimbala holding companies share price into the dirt through open rebellion 
• Buy up a controlling interest as the investors bail out of a dying investment
• Set herself us as benevolent ruler of the Twi'leks of Nimbala 

These three operations took place during the final phases of the plan

X-Wing - Nimbala Turkey shoot

So, we have a system that allows the rebel commanders to buy bonuses to their setup if they roll well on the planning roll. This mission they rolled phenomenally and purchased nearly every advantage they could buy.

As a result, it wasn't even remotely fair, but the mission was closer than I expected. The objective was simple. Eliminate the Czerka dignitary on his shuttle, destroy the reinforcement troop transport, and clear the skies of Czerka ships. It matched 6 rebel fighters against * scum fighters and the shuttle, plus they had to destroy the transport. But if you look at the setup below, you can see they had a good start on that by deploying on their flanks, at firing range.  

The transport (8 hull) lasted all off one round, being scuppered by 2 Proton Torpedoes each doing maximum damage.

On the left flank, the Lambda shuttle did a little better as it's fighter screen went into overdrive. And while the shuttle was ionized for a few rounds from a pre-setup ion bomb. It did try and escape

  

But the end result was a bit of a turkey shoot, with Czerka fighters being blown out of the sky before the Lambda shuttle was finally destroyed one turn before it could reach the atmosphere and escape.

The Y-wings proved their utility in this mission, killing both the Lambda and Transport with torpedoes, and ionizing fighters so the X-wings could get 4 dice blasts on them at point blank range

As you can see, maneuvering was very tight at stages.

With a major Czerka executive dead, the board was seriously rattled

Imperial Assault - Seize the control room

Phase two was a surface operation, rebel special forces under the command of Del Kern and supported by Nimbalan insurgents were smuggled into the Czerka compound. Their objective, capture the Czerka head of security and take control of the security computers. With this facility in their control, they could black out communications, lock down security doors, and generally cripple the armed Czerka response around the planet. 

After breaching the doors, the full squad marched down the main corridor and into the executives audience chamber

Fighting got very intense, with a lot of melee combat. Also, Czerka reinforcements began to arrive from the entrance area. 

The pivotal part of the battle was when the executives Mandalorean bodyguard (bottom right) joined the fray and began dishing out horrific damage. He engaged and wounded the Wookie brawler, before finally succumbing to a total of 6 melee attacks from an angry wookie over two round. 

With the Mandalorean down, resistance crumbled and the Rebels forced their way into the control room in the bottom right of the map, capturing the Czerka executive and locking down the planets security network. Open rebellion was on.  

Final act- The nano-second buyout

As the dust settled, the Red Queen put into place her plan and readied to buy the shares as the price dropped. Our elite Aurek squad (The RPG party) turned up to help oversee the transition of power and ensure that the Rebellion wasn't going to put some petty tyrant in charge.

Each of our players had a secret mission as well.

Inomo Cel'fasa, Twi'lek force aware agitator (Megapope-Republicans) was appointed as an official diplomat. It was his job to ensure the rebellions interests were preserved, but that Nimbala did not openly revolt. Nimbala is more valuable to the rebellion as an ally supplier of gas for weapons and open rebellion invites swift and terrible response.

Zorrin Vox, Human Luxon soldier and doctor (Rahana- Luxon Militia) was primarily concerned with getting Nimbala ready to contribute to the rebellion as soon as possible. Luxon needs more people fighting as they are currently being invaded, Nimbala cannot have time to lick her wounds and needs to contribute soldiers and machinery now. 

Ana Tola, Twi'lek Nimbalan Commando (The Millarnator - People movement) was from this planet, so wanted to make sure the Red Queen wasn't going to put the people back in chains.

JK (Jay), Human ex-imperial pilot (Arnvald von Kuggenstein - Guest player) was a former imperial pilot who was secretly working for the Bothan Spynet..... mostly due to blackmail. His job was to ensure that the Red Queen didn't have total control. 

And finally, Oli Shim, Mon Calimari archaeologist with cranial computer (Ekim - Basra consortium) also had a secret mission, which i'll mention later

The Mission

As the team arrived, the Czerka compound was still in a state of open war, with laser blasts flying everywhere. Czerka forces had retreated to one part of the city and had set up formidable defensive lines, and with little disciple and training the Nimbalan rebels were stalemated. 

When they arrived at the central control tower, they were met by a very nervous junior Czerka employee who worked directly for the Red Queen. He nervously wondered if anyone who worked for Czerka would end up being hanged or worse in the aftermath. Inomo assured him that if he was helpful, that he had nothing to worry about. from that point, he was very helpful.

The Red Queen had built a secret control bunker behind the front of a beauty saloon, her cover as a shallow and venal socialite made it a logical location. Inside, she met the team and outlined the last stages of the plan. Buy up the shares as the prices bottoms out. There was one major problem, the Czerka forces were using jammers which made communication to the outside world difficult.

The control room had loads of financial readouts, as well as information from the battlefield. Seeing the issue with the Czerka defences, and wanting to fix communications Ana, JK and Zorrin set about creating a plan to reconfigure their anti-bombardment shield so that it would act as a prison. They located a means to do this and hit the streets.

Meanwhile, Oli offered his technical expertise to help improve the system, and using his expertise in computers proceeded to do so, while conducting another series of operations in secret.

Zorrin, Ana and JK got in position near the Czerka lines, but someone had to go through the lines and disable a security console so they could remote access the shield system. Ana, being a master of stealth and violence, slipped through the lines, butchering a Czerka patrol on the way with consummate ease.

Zorrin on the other hand, found himself face to face with an angry mob of Twi'leks. Fortunately, one of the older Twi'leks recognized the Luxon uniform and saw his presence as a sign the Luxon militia was helping the Nimbalans. After a quick swap of war stories from the clone wars, Zorrin got the twi'leks to run messages up and down the line, telling them to retreat from the shield and get behind cover.

Once the shield was down, the buyout began in earnest. But immediately, there were complications. A 10% share was held by a trust connected to the Moff of the sector, and he wasn't selling.

As the other share blocks came online, two other parties were buying them as well. Within 30 minutes, the vast bulk of the shares changed hands and the Red Queen was stuck with only a 38% shareholding. A second block owned 27% and a third block 25%. This mean't that the Red Queen could be blocked in her takeover.

At this point, communications came in from Korvas that an Imperial Star Destroyer had been dispatched to the region. No doubt to check on the stability of the planet and see if Imperial intervention would be needed.

At this point, the owner of 27% of the shares spoke up.

It was Oli Shim, The Basra consortium had been using the Red Queens own computer systems to buy a share in the business. The Red Queen was furious, but also grudgingly respectful at being outplayed. 

Then, a hutt cruiser and escorts appeared out of Hyperspace. Professor Hodda of the Hodda Cartel claimed to own the 25% share. Hodda reassured everyone that he wasn't a normal Hutt, and had no interest in running a slave planet. But he could offer the takeover legitimacy. The Empire would not want to interfere in a legal hutt commercial takeover of a business, especially if the supply of gas and other raw materials keeps coming.

All Hodda wants for his shares are a seat on the board, a small island on the southern hemisphere for his personal research and a 100km no-fly exclusion zone around his island for privacy.

If his terms are met, he would be willing to talk to the Imperials on behalf of the new owners, and would support the Red Queen as CEO of Nimbala. 

All partied agreed, and when Admiral Trassk arrived, Hodda assured her the takeover was legitimate business, and that no imperial help is needed.

And when the dust settled, Nimbala was free, in a way. Owned by the Red Queen, the Basra Consortiuim and the Hodda Cartel, but certainly more free than before. Nimbalan's would still have to work the mines, but they would be paid for it, and have safety gear. In order to buy Nimbalan freedom, they had to continue the pretense of being an industrial slave planet.

It will be interesting to see how this balance holds. 

A murder mystery in space - Talathen sector campaign RPG update.

Instead of the normal "mission report" style for RPG reports, i'll talk about this session a little differently. 

When we created the setting, I asked my players for four "events" they really wanted to see happen. They were

• A massive tech breakthrough
• A plague or epidemic to occur
• The "second battle of the boneyard"
• A classic "whodunnit" mystery

This roleplaying game session was the "whodunnit mystery" and borrowed from a few sources heavily, mostly "cluedo" and the Blakes 7 episode "Mission to Destiny"

I essentially took this episode and rewrote it for the setting. Major core elements of the story, the stun gas, an inside job, the dead pilot, a missing crew member and missing life rocket were shamelessly stolen. Where I changed the story was in the framing, instead of the crew stumbling on to a random ship in space, it was a preset meeting. And instead of a valuable commodity being the "MacGuffin" I made it a high ranking Luxon officer who had gone rogue and was contemplating joining the rebellion. 

I also added in considerably more complexity to the clues as well and removed the really obvious pointers in the story. So while I used the episode as the story core, i wanted to up the difficulty in the mystery and cut out a lot of short cuts (Personally, the letters written in blood clue in the original is so obvious I had to bin it as my players would see right through it)

The premise

Our crew were asked to meet with Oleg Thrax, hero of the first Battle of the boneyard and a major Luxon leader in exile. His camp lost the political struggle that allowed Kallista Vox to become the leader of the Luxon militia. In recent times, after viewing the successes of the rebellion, he decided he might return to help. Although well known for his ruthless military style and discipline, he is a hero in the sector and a man people can rally around. 

One of our player characters is Kallista's older brother, a combat surgeon and veteran solider. He was picked to represent the alliance as he knew Oleg personally, and Oleg hates diplomats and "soft" bureaucrats. 

The team was asked to rendezvous on Samoth, on a remote island. There they were asked by a protocol droid to enter a shuttle and be taken to pre-programmed coordinates. The shuttle was heavily modified and it's navigation and hyperspace systems were locked down and wielded shut. 

The Ship

The ship they were visiting was an unusual design I came up with. The left side of the ship is a massive deployable storage area and the engineering section and habitats. The right side is the entire command and services area, including the bridge, medbay, armoury and hangar. 

The ship was dead in space when the team arrived. Nominal lighting and power on, and not responding to communications, although the hangar doors were open.

Our force sensitive player got a terrible feeling about the hangar, so they docked at the auxiliary airlock on the left side of the ship

Stepping on-board I had the doctor roll medicine to detect the smell of "anaestathen gas" in the air. One triumph later, the good doctor smelled the gas, found an oxygen mask sotrage unit by the airlock and had handed them out. They then began to explore the dark and empty ship

The Crew (Cluedo)

Coming up with names for characters that people can remember is pretty tricky. So what I did was cheat. Each character wore an old luxon uniform, with branch of service in a coloured band on their shoulders, similar in style to star trek Voyager, as shown here. 

The names were borrowed directly from Cluedo, as we were doing a "whodunnit" it seemed perfect :) People remember names like Colonel Mustard a lot easier than normal Star War names.

The crew were as follows

Oleg Thrax, the Beast, the Hero of the Boneyard, Captain. 

Oleg is intended to be a recurring character, so he got a real name. He was found unconscious in his captains ready room with two puncture marks in his neck.

While everyone else was unconcious from the gas in the air, he was doubly drugged with an additional heavy duty drug that could only have come from med bay. Dr Vox examined him and decided that waking him up early might kill him. (And, with such a forceful personality in mind for this character, I did want him out of the picture while they investigated, and the offender really, really, didn't want him waking up early)

Commander Scarlet, Chief Flight officer and 2IC

Scarlet was a middle aged red headed women who was found asleep in her quarters in her bed. I described her as looking a lot like Beverly Crusher from Star Trek, but less "Professional and maternal" and more "Commanding and overtly sexual".

Lt Pink, Flight Officer

As a junior flight officer, the hue of his rank colours was a pinker red that the bright scarlet of his commanding officer. Pink was found on the flight deck, bludgeoned to death by a fire extinguisher. He had not fallen asleep during the gas attack, because Scarlet closed the vents as she didn't like the "breeze" on the flight deck.

Lt Colonel Mustard, Ship Security

Colonel Mustard was found in a very suspicious place and position. He was found, unconscious with a pillow, magazines and some vials of narcotics. His ID and security cards were missing.

Although initially a top suspect, it was revealed that his drug use for pain had become a problem, and that he occasionally "shot up" in private on his off hours. While his failure as a security officer allowed the offender to his security credentials, he was ruled out quickly as a "sad case" more than a criminal mastermind. 

Commander Green, Chief Engineer

Green was found inside an access panel in engineering unconscious. He was near where the gas bottle pumping gas into the air system was located. Green was an unusual chap, when revived he seemed strangely calm and matter of fact about things. He answered every question honestly,but in a way that left our investigators feeling uneasy. The rest of the crew suggested he was a loner and a recluse. 

Digging into his character revealed some giant traumas during the battle of the boneyard. Green was a recluse due to PTSD and his reclusive nature was due to losing his entire engineering crew there.

He remained a top candidate during the investigation, due to his access, detachment and where he was found. 

Dr White, Medical Officer

Dr White was found unconscious on the floor in medbay, which looked like it had been ransacked. When revived, Dr White proved herself to be quite an arrogant pretentious perfectionist and martinet. She claimed that medbay was not ransacked when she fell unconscious, and that she had passed out while searching for her rebreather when she smelled gas.

White pointed the finger first at Lime, who was missing and then Green because he was "weird". The team discarded her as a suspect, mostly due to the mistake made when injecting the commander, which she considered "sloppy and imperfect" and the team agreed. 

Lt Blue, Communications Officer

Lt Blue was found in her quarters on her bed fully clothed. Lt Commander Plum was found in her quarters sitting at a small dinner table by a half eaten meal. Lt Blue said that Plum and her were in a "discrete liaison" and were having dinner during their off hours. She said she felt very sleepy, but does not remember going to her bed.

As Communications Officer, she also mentioned some irregularities in the comms system that she hadn't reported to the Captain. She said that due to her relative lack of experience she had kept it quiet as she tried to figure it out, so as to not appear incompetent. 

Although the team did discover the Communications irregularities, they didn't dig deep enough to discover that it was her login that made the changes to the system. 

Blue was a reasonable suspect as, under pressure, she revealed that her relationship with a senior officer was for self-advancement. That, and she had the skills required to do the job. 

Lt Lime, Engineer

Lt Lime was the top suspect for the first half of the investigation for one major reason. He was missing, and an escape pod was missing. Lt lime had the skills to sabotage the ship, but the crew were adamant that he was "A fine young man".

Suspicion was removed when his body was found in the cargo hold under a tarpaulin (It's a tarp!), a short distance away from the door to engineer. A detailed scan of the area found tiny traces of blood and his injuries were consistent with a short range blaster bolt to the back of the neck.  

The Droid

Not long after Lime's body was discovered, the team began to suspect that there was a stowaway on-board, so decided to investigate the crawl spaces of the ventilation system. During this investigation, they found a small armed hover-droid floating through the vents.

This droid escaped capture for a while, moving all over the ship, before finally being cornered and destroyed. But not before it delivered a small package to the offender. 

Commander Plum, Third Officer

Commander Plum was a science officer by trade but also a generalist. In his role as third officer on the ship he manned the sensors on the bridge, and also acting as a backup medical officer.

He was found in Blues quarters and admitted feeling drowsy when Blue passed out, he placed her on the bed before passing out himself.

He admitted being in a relationship with Blue and mentioned that he was separated from his wife and family. A detailed study of the captains personnel files revealed that while he was separated from his wife, they were still close and that he kept in contact with his son.  

During the confusion involving the droid, Plum managed to get into the security room (which had been locked) and bolted himself in. 

How it was done

Plum was being blackmailed by the Empire. They had taken his estranged wife and his son and had threatened to kill them if he did not deliver the Captain to them.

He used his personal relationship with Blue to get superuser access to the communications system, and put a coded transmission to repeat the ships location on a sub-channel. 

He took White's rebreather from medbay while she was off duty and stored it in his work bag.

He then placed a sedative in Blue's drink and waited for her to pass out. So she was asleep before the gas was delivered. 

Knowing that enginnering was not on a 24 hour roster, he picked a time when both Lime and Green were off duty and placed the gas bottle in the air filtration system. He was surprised by Lime wearing a rebreather when he left engineering and, when Lime was talking to him, his droid his shot him. Lime then began to drag his body away.

The Green appeared from his quarters so Plum had to hide quickly. He hid Limes body in the cargo bay and followed Green to engineering but found him passed out in the ventilation shaft. 

Plum then found Mustard in the Storage Shed where he knew he would be and took his security pass.

From there he went to Med bay and got the drugs needed to dope up the Captain. Due to Mustard's drug use, White had moved their location so he had to search quickly to find them, making a mess in the process. 

From there he went to the bridge, finding Pink still conscious. Without a blaster of his own, he had to use the fire extinguisher to beat him to death. He then trashed the bridge controls. 

After that, he went to the captain's room. And while he was medically trained, his hands were shaking violently from the brutal murder he had committed, so he made a mistake giving him the strong sedative, leaving two marks on the Captains neck.

Knowing the player characters were on the way, he went to the armoury and grabbed explosives. He wired the hangar doors to explode when they closed once a ship docked.

Having some time, he changed uniforms in the shower/laundry to remove the blood spatter from killing pink.

Seeing that the player characters had not used the Hangar, he panicked and took his dirty uniform and placed it in the escape pod and fired it. he then returned the mask to medbay and quickly rushed to Blue's quarters to pass out from the gas. 

Aftermath

When the Captain woke up, he was not pleased. 

A fake "Imperial boarding action" was staged to convince him to leave the security room, where he was apprehended. The Beast wanted to execute him immediately, but negotiated with the characters to have him stand trial instead.

Oleg Drax agreed to join the rebellion on the condition that the people of Luxon receive a referendum on joining a New Republic or being independent if they win. He brings with him a Nebulon B frigate and two Corellian Corvettes.

Operation Downfall - Mission report for Talathen Sector

Clearance – Secret 

Mission – Operation Downfall

ID: TSC- 000113

Reporting Officer: Lieutenant Andil Thorne 

Mission successful 

Operational report

Pre-mission issues

This initially appeared as a relatively straight forward mission. The team would infiltrate into an abandoned ancient temple here on Axamar, locate a group of Imperial reclamation force personnel, eliminate them and cover up their disappearances. This matter become more complicated immediately after the briefing was delivered at central HQ on Axamar.

During the briefing, Crin Dollos, who was not assigned to the mission, was landing his light freighter at Axamar base. On approach, he reports that a large part of the ground rose up in front of him, and that a large beast attempted to grab his freighter as it flew past. He attempted to lead it away from the base, but it seemed intent on approaching our base directly. In response we deployed the defensive energy shield.   

The beast has beeen called a "behemoth" and we have heard reports of them on Axamar before, but this one was much larger than the one our scouts had seen in the deep jungle. It stood over 100 meters tall, the size of a moderate city building. It was covered in soil, plant life and rocks, and the majority of it's body was rock-like.

It also displayed a high degree of intelligence as it investigated and tested our energy field, first touching it, then hitting it, then leaning on it with it's full weight, and finally charging it without penetrating it.

I suspect that without Oli Shim's quick work on re-configuring our power allocation system for the defence shield, that it may have been able to enter the base. 

The Behemoth eventually gave up trying to enter the base and wandered off into the jungle. We immediately dispatched a couple of probe droids to track it's progress and to gain more information on this unusual and potentially very harmful creature. We have named this Behemoth "Alvin".

Mission report.

Crin Dollos met with the rest of the team and decided to join in on the mission. It is worth noting that while he was not assigned to this mission, I have no qualms at people showing initiative if it leads to successful outcomes. 

They took one of the older model land speeders that we have recently converted for jungle use. It has been treated with a chemical defoliating component, and under testing, this has allowed these ships to stay in the jungle for up to two days without being overgrown and rendered useless.  

The site itself was unusual, with the temple located at the bottom of a 600 metre deep sinkhole, with only nominal plant growth in the area. As Axamar is almost entirely covered in the most rapidly growing jungle in the galaxy, this was unusual. It seemed to the mission personnel, that the jungle growth simply stopped a few meters away from the sinkhole, more investigation into why this occurred will need to take place, as the constant efforts to stop Axamar base from being overgrown take up considerable effort and personnel time. 

Continuing with the unusual nature of this mission, the mission team located a lone Ithorian male named "Jah" who was sitting at the edge of the sinkhole and claimed to be waiting for them. He claimed to have been living on this world, by himself, for over 20 years. If this is true, then it is a remarkable feat of survival. He offered up information, much of it cryptic about the temple in the sinkhole.

He claimed that it was not, "jedi-sith" and that it was a place of a failed people who attempted to use "the force" for personal power and glory, and that their entire culture was destroyed long before the birth of the Old Republic. He also claimed that a "jedi-sith" was inside the temple, and that somehow our operative, Inomo Cle'fasa, had been called to here to help this "jedi-sith".

Historical records show that the Sith were the ancient enemies of the now defunct Jedi order. Jah claimed that the two groups were indistinct in his mind because they both used "The Force" to fight wars and improve martial prowess and by doing so, were both equally bad.

As i have said before, this mission is unusual and deal with mysticism and spiritual matters that normally have no place in a mission report, but I feel I would be remiss if i left them out. 

He also spoke of the Behemoths, and said they were attracted to unnatural power sources. And that he had encountered one slumbering not far away from the sinkhole, but that it hadn't moved in over a decade.  

The mission team then descended into sinkhole by means of a giant stone staircase that wound around the outside of the very sheer walls. Inside the sinkhole, no movement could be seen, although a Lambda class shuttle had landed on a stone platform near the temple.       

When the team got closer, they heard a person inside the shuttle talking in a panicked fashion. They surprised and stunned an imperial soldier who was calling for help. Upon reviving and interrogating him, they discovered that the imperial mission team had all been killed inside the temple, and that this was an Imperial Reclamation Service mission. Essentially, a group of archaeologists. In an attempt to show his importance as a ransom-able prisoner, he mentioned that the orders to survey the site came from Lord Vader himself. 

The prisoner was terminated, and Inomo spoke to the other Lambda shuttle, currently docked at Tane Station in orbit. He asked them to come down in two hours time. 

At this point, Inomo mentioned that he had dreamed of this exact scenario the night before and found the whole thing very unusual.

The temple facade was at the edge of the sinkhole, with the temple proper located inside under the rock. It appeared to be a cave system that had been artificially extended with fusion cutters.

The first room was fully lit, with the IRS team having deployed lighting in order to study the site. On the walls was a vast amount of a pictograph language. Oli Shim, a recognized archaeologist and expert in ancient ruins quickly cataloged and photo-recorded the images and provided a very quick interpretation of the main themes.

"This tells the story of a civilization, from bronze age to going to space, it tells of a great natural disaster on their home world, and how the civilization retreated from space and put all their efforts into saving their home world, it then tells of civil war and the decline of their civilization as their attempts to control nature went to far"

From here, the mission team entered the second chamber. A massive temple area, with a dais, stone seating for thousands, and a wall covered in portraits and more pictographs. Oli Shim concluded these were "Great heroes" of this faith and that these were their personal stories.

From here on, each mission member has a different report of what happened. None of them seemed comfortable discussing what they saw, and they claim to have seen personal visions while knocked out.

All except Inomo, who claims to have encountered the person in the temple who killed the Imperial personnel. 

After recovering from their experiences, of which none of them have chosen to divulge to me, they retreated from the temple. At that time, they heard the approach of another Behemoth. The mission team decided to turn all the power sources on the shuttle and IRS power generator up in order to attract the beast into the sinkhole.

The beast leapt into the sinkhole as they were climbing out and proceeded to "eat" every technological item he could get his hands on. He smashed the temple facade and ate the Lambda shuttle whole. He then "napped" in the bottom of the sinkhole.

When the mission team reached the top of the sinkhole, Jah was gone and so was his gear. At that time, the second lambda shuttle arrived and landed in the sinkhole. It too was immediately eaten by the Behemoth, who we have classified has "Bob". 

The team went to their shuttle in order to return to base. There they encountered Jah, who had packed up his gear and wanted a lift back with them. I do not think he is a security risk, as he has no way of leaving the planet, although a full debrief will need to occur. 

Commander’s recommendations

The mission was a total success, but has raised a lot more questions than it has answered. We have a potentially significant problem with the Behemoths, as we now know they are attracted to power sources. Alvin has been sighted "resting" only 10 kilometers from our main base.

We also have reports of multiple temples of this nature across Axamar, until further study I recommend we embargo these sites.

We also have the unanswered question of who the woman Inomo encountered in the temple was, or even if she was real.

Lt Andil Thorne

Axamar base Logistics command

RV – 705642

Epilogue, what they saw

Inomo Cle’fasa

Inomo entered a room full of imperial personnel that had been dismembered. Inside was a twil'lek women, hunched over and in tears. When she saw Inomo, she threw him telekentically into a wall, drew a laser sword and held it to his throat.

She was incoherent, and spoke about visions and monsters. Inomo was very distressed, but it was at the moment before she was to kill him that she snapped out of her fugue. She apologized for her behavior, said that this "domain of evil" had warped her mind, and thanked him for offering her clarity. She also said he had a connection to the force, and that that connection brought her back. She told him to leave immediately, and to claim his friends and run while they could. No one else saw this woman. 

Ana Tola

Ana saw a vision of herself as an old feeble woman, in a work camp on Nimbala. She was too weak to stop the guards from exploiting a woman who identified herself as her grand daughter, and was gunned down by Czerka guards as they laughed.

Zorrin Vox

Zorrin saw a vision of himself commanding the Luxon resistance in a final last stand. The attacking forces were led by his sister, Kallista Vox, who after defeating the empire had declared herself sole ruler of Luxon and was putting down any opposition to her rule. He died in a final charge into massed laser fire from his sisters tyranical forces.

Oli Shim

Oli saw a vision of himself converted into a cyborg and leading a unit of super battle droids on a mission. The mission parameters were "eliminate all organic life". When he resisted and tried to order his battle droids not to fire, his system was over-ridden, he was deemed "malfunctioning" and was executed by the droids originally under his command, while a Twi'lek village burned in the background. 

Crin Dollos

Crin saw a vision of himself as a tie-bomber gunner, flying in a two-seater with his pilot behind him. His mission was to drop incendiary bombs on a massed protest march on Zenith. He drew his pistol, shot his pilot, took control and eliminated the other three pilots in formation before being shot down by his fighter escort.