Episode 6 I Have Altered The Deal

The transcription provided have been created through a mix of software and manual editing. We have tried our best to indicate overlapping speech, cross-party talk, and interruptions. “In character” speech has been italicized as best as possible.

 

Laura’s character Xianna’fan speaks in somewhat of a French accent.

 

We apologize for any misspellings or mistakes. Please send any corrections, comments, or concerns to tabletopsquadron@gmail.com

 

 

[INTRO MUSIC]

 

[00:18] 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, a fringer and a slicer as they explore the galaxy, helping a mysterious benefactor and each other.

 

[SFX: a guitar plays Darth Vader’s theme as Nick speaks]

 

[00:36} NICK: I just wanted to take a second to thank Molarduck for his very kind iTunes review – only two more to go and we get to release our secret arc; please get out there and review the show!

 

[00:45] We hope you enjoy the episode.

 

[00:47] NICK: Hello everybody and welcome to episode six of Tabletop Squadron. I’m your host Nick. I’m gonna go around the table and everybody introduce themself and their character and if you spent any experience since last time please tell the audience what you did – startin’ off with Laura!

 

[01:04] LAURA: I’m Laura

 

[01:05] NICK: Hi Laura

 

[01:06] LAURA: {laughing} I play Xianna, she’s a Twi’lek and I bought another rank in the skill “Underworld”.

 

[01:14] NICK: ‘Cus you have streetwise.

 

[01:15] LAURA: Well I already have streetwise, this is underworld. It’s an intelligence skill; streetwise is a cunning-based skill.

 

[01:21] NICK: Right, of course

 

[01:21] LAURA: Incase you wanna know how this game works.

 

[01:23] NICK: Yeah, if you wanna know how the game works look at our Instagram, we have all the rules.

 

[01:28] LAURA: Tabletop_squad

 

[01:29] NICK: Yeah, that’s going to be in the outro. And next, uh, Steven!

 

[01:33] STEVEN: Hello

 

[01:34] NICK: Hi Steven.

 

[01:35] STEVEN: Hi, I’m Steven.

 

[01:36] NICK: Hi

 

[01:37] STEVEN: Hi. I am playing the Togruta, Sabos, and also doing what I can to make Nick’s life harder.

 

[01:44] NICK: Of course you are, great. And have you spent any experience?

 

[01:47] STEVEN: Oh yes, yes I did. See this is the part of the making it harder I was talking about. I upgraded my survival which is a cunning skill to two.

 

[01:55] NICK: Ooh, smart.

 

[01:56] STEVEN: No, survival.

 

[01:57] {ALL LAUGH}

 

[02:00] NICK: Aaand next up we got Hudson!

 

[02:02] HUDSON: Hi, I’m Hudson. It’s great to be here, Nick.

 

[02:05] NICK: Great, good to have ya.

 

[02:07: HUDSON: I’m playing a Gigoran named Tink. I did not use any of my experience points, opting to horde them.

 

[02:13] {ALL LAUGH}

 

[02:13] ??: Haudoll – what?

 

[02:14] LAURA?: Like some sort of fluffy dragon.

 

[02:17] HUDSON: Yes.

 

[02:18] NICK: Great. And last up but not least we have Cameron.

 

[02:22] CAMERON: Hello.

 

[02:23] NICK: Hi.

 

[02:24] CAMERON: I’m Cameron. I’m playing Karma, she’s a Nautolan bounty hunter and I upgraded my cool skill to rank two.

 

[02:33] NICK: Nifty keen. Alright, let’s go ahead and do the destiny roll!

 

[02:40] STEVEN: Sure, why not

 

[02:41] {DICE ROLLING}

 

[02:42] NICK: {GASPS} Nooo!

 

[02:43] STEVEN: Going good so far, one dark side.

 

[02:45] {DICE ROLLING}

 

[02:46] STEVEN: Okay, another dark side.

 

[02:47] LAURA: Oh, come on!

 

[02:50] CAMERON: Another dark side

 

[02:50] STEVEN: Another dark side

 

[02:51] NICK: Oh my

 

[02:50] HUDSON: Going to need to save y’all here.

 

[02:50] {DICE ROLLING}

 

[02:51] STEVEN: And another dark side! We did great.

 

[02:54] NICK: Yees, excellent.

 

[02:55] LAURA: These dice didn’t listen to us. We tried to get the bad rolls out and then we primed the dice-

 

[03:00] CAMERON: It didn’t work.

 

[03:01] LAURA: – by putting the two light side up to encourage it and let it know what we expected out of it.

 

[03:05] CAMERON: I don’t think it-

 

[03:06] NICK: How’d that work out for you?

 

[03:07] CAMERON & LAURA: Not well.

 

[03:09] STEVEN: We have lots of dark side.

 

[03:10] CAMERON: None of us rolled two dark sides.

 

[03:11] NICK: Well, there you go.

 

[03:13] CAMERON: So…

 

[03:13] NICK: Mediocrity. Wonderful.

 

[03:14] CAMERON: Hey, maybe we got-

 

[03:15] STEVEN: I mean we did pretty good at failing, just not as good as we could have.

 

[03:19] NICK: Hmm. Great. Great. I’ll uh, be happy to use those this session.

 

[03:22] CAMERON: Great.

 

[03:24] STEVEN: I’m sure it’ll go well.

 

[03:24] NICK: I’m sure it’ll come up. Though, if you remember, last time we went on an adventure into the jungle, little bit of a man hunt. You got into a gunfight with Leera and Williams, the officer and the…

 

[03:38] LAURA: Trooper.

 

[03:39] NICK: Trooper. Stormtrooper, that’s what she’s called. And you murdered Leera by having a tree eat her, proving that Mills was not crazy and the trees actually are alive and extremely dangerous, and you opted to let Williams go and fake his death without Mills noticing and you loaded a corpse into the back of your speeder and you are headed back to the outpost. So, we’ll pick up there. Ummm-

 

[04:07] HUDSON: What model of speeder?

 

[04:10] NICK: It’s a big one.

 

[04:11] STEVEN: Good.

 

[04:12] NICK: A six-seater with offroad skids.

 

[04:14] HUDSON: Save the model T4 made the people wanna go, wanna get, wanna get, wanna get up and go!

 

[04:18] LAURA: NO!

 

[04:19] {ALL LAUGH}

 

[04:21] STEVEN: I’m liking where this is going.

 

[04:23] NICK: Uhhh, alright! So we open on a jungle treetop with a reddening late afternoon sun overhead. You hear the drone of a single speeder beneath the trees. One of the trees groans and begins to lean but another tree whips its branches around, tangling with the trunk. The trees snap at each other. There’s the sound of a blaster rifle being fired. Bolts blast up through the trees which stop moving and some strange monkey creatures with lobster tails go skidding along the canopy. Our viewpoint drops through the trees into the dim jungle. A speeder is whipping through the undergrowth, dodging fallen logs and undergrowth. Occasionally the elevation changes and the speeder lurches upwards on the metal skids which cover the bottom, designed for just that purpose. Inside the speeder we see our heroes with Mills, their companion. The speeder roars past the camera and from the rear we see a large crate affixed to the back. The speeder hits a bump and a bloody arm in Stormtrooper gear falls out of the trunk, swaying back and forth in the momentum of travel. So, you are driving back.

 

[05:21] LAURA: Did we pick up Spark Duelson when he died or did we just leave him laying there?

 

[05:27] NICK: That’s a good question, you never really mentioned it.

 

[05:28] LAURA: I don’t remember. I looted his body-

 

[05:31] NICK: Mmhmm.

 

[05:31] LAURA: – behind the speeder.

 

[05:34] CAMERON: I’m going to say I tossed him up on the back of the speeder.

 

[05:37] NICK: Okay, so is he just like Weekend at Bernie’s in the back seat right now?

 

[05:37] LAURA: I would not have.

 

[05:40] CAMERON: Yeah. I felt, I just, felt bad, I mean I’m sure he has a mom somewhere who’s worried about him and this is really going to hit her hard that her son was both a failure in the Empire and is now dead.

 

[05:51] NICK: Mmhmm.

 

[05:53] CAMERON: So… ya know.

 

[05:54] NICK: So, who’s in – I know Tink is driving, we settled that last time. Mills is in the seat next to him and then who’s stuck in the back seat with the corpse?

 

[05:57] CAMERON: Sabos.

 

[05:58] LAURA: Yeah.

 

[06:01] STEVEN: He’s touching my my forehead tail!

 

[06:03] {LAUGHTER}

 

[06:04] LAURA: In case you haven’t noticed, Xianna likes to call things and she almost certainly saw Karma putting the body into the back seat and was immediately like “Middle seat! I call middle seat! I do not want to seat with the dead body.”

 

[06:20] STEVEN: I don’t want to either…

 

[06:22] LAURA: Yes, but you see I called it first, so… that is how that works.

 

[06:26] NICK: Those are the rules. Mills slots his blaster rifle into the little cubby under the dashboard and you all have those big helicopter earphones on with the like wrap-around microphones so you can talk to each other over the noise of the speeder. He says, “Well, that was interesting. I’m glad ya got to see what the plant life of this planet can really do.”

 

[06:46] CAMERON: Do any of us have ears? Like real ears that can – are these made for human ears because like I have ear cones so they probably would stick out on the ear cones and thinking about it, no one knows if Togrutas and Nautolans have actual ears or what, and he’s just fur so like I’m sure he has ears somewhere in there.

 

[07:09] HUDSON: They’re buried in there through.

 

[07:10] LAURA: He probably knows where they are though so if he was putting on a headset he just like smooshes them in, just like sways them side to side.

 

[07:14] HUDSON: He just has – he just has them strapped to his nipples in the front. That’s where Gigorans hear from.

 

[07:19] CAMERON: I don’t-

 

[07:20] NICK: Not quite.

 

[07:20] LAURA: I’m sure they’re on its head and he just has to, like-

 

[07:23] HUDSON: Yeah I just have to like,

 

[07:24] LAURA: – circle them around to get the hair out of the way but the rest of us are probably having them like awkwardly positioned around tentacles and ear cones to try and make them fit.

 

[07:25] CAMERON: ‘Cus I don’t, so, I have a comm link and I have like, I have one of the ear ones that’s hidden so it’s not like on my wrist but it’s just somewhere up in my tentacles where – with whatever the ear is. So I probably have like a couple of tentacles in front of them and a couple behind them and they’re weirdly far back on my head.

 

[07:55] NICK: This is great, so everyone’s wearing their earphones just kinda like at a weird angle.

 

[08:01] CAMERON: Yeah.

 

[08:02] STEVEN: It makes my first and fourth head tail more prominent ‘cause it pushes it up.

 

[08:05] CAMERON: What, how do yours work ‘cause you have some head tails on top?

 

[08:06] LAURA: Let’s not wear your-

 

[08:08] STEVEN: Yeah I don’t know {laughs}

 

[08:09] LAURA: I don’t think he understands how the head tails work!

 

[08:11] CAMERON: You have them like, there’s like, to go in between the two pointy bits-

 

[08:14] STEVEN: Yeah, it’s-

 

[08:15] CAMERON: – {laughing} so you have like one on your nose and one on the back of your head…

 

[08:18] STEVEN: Yeah, it’s tough.

 

[08:19] LAURA: No it’s probably like, angled so that the band that connects them is like-

 

[08:23] STEVEN: Is on my forehead.

 

[08:24] LAURA: – is on the forehead?

 

[08:24] STEVEN: Yeah.

 

[08:24] CAMERON: Or like he’s one of these super cool who has the band, like, below his chin-

 

[08:25] LAURA: Oh he has them below?

 

[08:29] CAMERON: And it’s like a beard of-

 

[08:30] STEVEN: Is special headphone just cut outs, or?

 

[08:33] CAMERON: No, we’re – we’re –

 

[08:34] NICK: These are just standard-

 

[08:35] CAMERON: – we’re at an Empire outpost, they don’t particularly like aliens. None of these were made for anyone with-

 

[08:39] NICK: They’re definitely designed for humans.

 

[08:41] STEVEN: {“Oh well” NOISES}

 

[08:43] NICK: So do you guys have anything you wanna debrief about while you’re on the speeder back?

 

[08:46] CAMERON: I’m leaning against the wall of the speeder with my head in my hand breathing deeply. I don’t look too good.

 

[08:52] NICK: Yeah, you got shot a whole bunch last episode.

 

[08:56] CAMERON: Yeah.

 

[08:57] NICK: Yeah, so there’s-

 

[08:58] CAMERON: I’m looking a little green.

 

[08:59] NICK: Aahhhahahaha {OTHERS LAUGH} There’s probably-

 

[09:01] CAMERON: But it’s because I’m a Nautolan and not because I’m sick.

 

[09:03] NICK: – some char marks going down the side of the inside of the speeder from rubbing off the massive wounds that you have.

 

[09:11] CAMERON: Both in the back I think. I think I got shot in the back twice.

 

[09:15] NICK: Yeah.

 

[09:16] CAMERON: Yup, so I’m kind of leaning away from the back of the seat, too, so I’m not leaning against the wounds. I don’t look particularly chatty at the moment.

 

[09:24] LAURA: I do look at Sabos and go “You owe me four stim packs.”

 

[09:28] STEVEN: I’ll get right on that.

 

[09:30] LAURA: “I healed you, you should owe me.”

 

[09:33] STEVEN: I don’t disagree, I shuffle through my bag looking at my inventory. It does not include any stim packs.

 

[09:41] LAURA: “Then buy them.”

 

[09:42] STEVEN: We’re not at a store right now

 

[09:44] LAURA: “We will be!”

 

[09:45] STEVEN: Noted.

 

[09:46] LAURA: “That is why I said you owe me. Future tense.”

 

[09:50] HUDSON: “Sabos, I think she, I think she wants you to get some stim packs for her.”

 

[09:50] STEVEN: “I will. I will get some stim packs as soon as I get enough credits to buy the stim packs.”

 

[09:57] CAMERON: Y’all sound like my kids.

 

[10:00] {LAUGHTER}

 

[10:01] NICK: We’ll use that as the transition. So, the speeder goes whipping off through the trees and we have a swipe cut, the speeder goes right to left on the screen and the transition swipes with the speeder to reveal the clearing for Outpost 4! As you pull into the clearing you see that there are three Stormtroopers posted outside of the Afternoon Delight, your starwin pleasure yacht. While they are obviously on guard duty they don’t react as you burst out of the final growths of the jungle and into the clearing around the outpost. There are two more Scout Troopers by the main gate which is still open and they wave you through without incident after a hand signal from Mills. He has taken off his bandanna and is using it to wipe the camouflage paint from his face. He says, “Park us in the square. I’ll take the body to the morgue and you go report to Falx.”

 

[10:48] CAMERON: “Bodies.”

 

[10:50] NICK: “Oh, right. Sparks. Yeah, yeah okay. I’ll take the bodies to the morgue.”

 

[10:55] CAMERON: “Thank you.”

 

[10:58] NICK: So the speeder, Tink, I guess you set it down in the square in the middle of the outpost?

 

[11:01] HUDSON: Yeah. Throw the keys in.

 

[11:04] NICK: Okay. Mills immediately piles out and detaches the big crate that’s on the back and just starts dragging that off to the side and then remembers Sparks and goes back and goes “Well, that’s the third one this month.” and just grabs the guy and starts dragging him towards a, it looks like a low-slung building off towards one of the barrier walls. You hear him mumbling about having to make multiple trips, he doesn’t seem particularly enthused.

 

[11:30] CAMERON: “I’m not surprised they don’t last long if that’s the level, like the of caliber people they’re at.”

 

[11:36] LAURA: “Only three a month?” I’m trying to get out of the speeder. “That seems low.”

 

[11:42] STEVEN?: “Have you seen those trees?”

 

[11:42] HUDSON: “Karma, do you need some help getting out of there?”

 

[11:43] LAURA: “Like, yeah, those trees?”

 

[11:45] CAMERON: “Yes please.”

 

[11:47] HUDSON: I picked up Karma.

 

[11:48] NICK: You just pick her up?

 

[11:49] HUDSON: Yeah I pick her up to bring her uh, wherever we’re going.

 

[11:52] STEVEN: Her blood soaking into your fur, staining it forever.

 

[11:55] HUDSON: Not forever, I have Space Tide.

 

[11:57] {LAUGHTER}

 

[11:59] LAURA: He’s got some space bleach.

 

[12:01] NICK: He’s got a Tide, a Tide pen that’s a laser.

 

[12:04] HUDSON: In the future Tide pods are actually edible.

 

[12:06] {ALL LAUGH}

 

[12:08] CAMERON: Oh no.

 

[12:09] NICK: Okay, you head towards the mansion, I guess?

 

[12:13] HUDSON: Yeah, we head towards the mansion to report back.

 

[12:15] LAURA: Before we go in, Xianna does look at Sabos and Tink and points at both of them and is like “Neither of you two talk. Be quiet. Be seen, but not heard!”

 

[12:30] HUDSON: “What did I do?”

 

[12:31] LAURA: “You two are bad at the talking!”

 

[12:35] HUDSON: “What!”

 

[12:36] STEVEN: I’m a really good driver.

 

[12.37] LAURA: “Sure. Sure you are. But the talking you are not good at. Please, let me talk – and maybe Karma. If she can talk.”

 

[12:46] STEVEN: “So should we maybe not mention how we got the-”

 

[12:48] LAURA: “No. Do not talk. Do not say anything. Look pretty, okay?”

 

[12:53] HUDSON: “She can’t talk because she’s bleeding to death in my arms! I should be able to talk because I’m fine.”

 

[12:57] LAURA: “No. No no no no. Just be pretty. Do not talk. Okay?”

[13:02] HUDSON: “I’m covered in blood. I will neither be pretty, nor will I refuse to talk!”

 

[13:07] CAMERON: “I don’t look very pretty right now either, Tink, it’s alright.”

 

[13:10] NICK: And with that we’ll cut to the next thing. There is a… star wipe. Why not? We’ll do a star wipe and it cuts to the group standing in a well-appointed office. It’s all fur and dark wood and Falx is leaning back in a chair behind a large desk with his feet up. He’s wearing a black imperial uniform which seems to have been tailored to make him look athletic and imposing. He takes a sip from a martini glass and gestures for you to speak

 

[13:39] STEVEN: “Falx!”

 

[13:40] NICK: “Well hi! It seems like you’ve made it to- Woah! What happened to your fishy friend?”

 

[13:44] LAURA: “Oh, do not worry about her. She will be fine.”

 

[13:47] NICK: “I could, uh, call for a medic or something?”

 

[13:50] CAMERON: “Yes. Yes please. Yes please”

 

[13:52] LAURA: “That would be good. Thank you.”

 

[13:54] CAMERON: “Do that.”

 

[13:55] NICK: Alright, so he reached under the desk and presses something and a little while later you see someone in a, it looks like an officer’s uniform but it’s all white and has a little like red cross on it, and that person says “Lean the, lean the patient over here please, put her down in this chair, I’ll see what I can do.” And so there’s a chair and he folds the back down so there’s more of a stool, and as Karma sits on it he starts to take out bacta and peel back the armour and probably helps you out of the outer layer and starts stitching you up and doing random medical things.

 

[14:24] CAMERON: Fun.

 

[14:25] NICK: Okay so can somebody make me a check with three greens and a yellow please?

 

[14:31] CAMERON: What difficulty?

 

[14:33] NICK: Just a simple check. This is for the medic. Medic checks are simple.

 

[14:37] {DICE NOISES}

 

[14:40] CAMERON: Four successes, two advantages.

 

[14:44] NICK: Great, so you’re going to get four health back and then he also uses a bunch of bacta on you so you get an additional ten health back because bacta packs are awesome!

 

[14:53] CAMERON: Aw yeah.

 

[14:54] NICK: So you should be back to full but that’s gonna be over the course of the scene, you’ll be under medical attention for the whole time.

 

[14:59] CAMERON: Okay.

 

[14:59] NICK: Like you hear the medic kinda mumbling to himself as he sees under the armour about how much he’s having to use all this bacta and who knows when the next shipment will be and he starts stitching. It hurts, but this has happened before.

 

[15:12] CAMERON: Yeah.

 

[15:13] NICK: You’re pretty used to this.

 

[15:14] CAMERON: No biggie. It’s better if you don’t move.

 

[15:15] NICK: So Falx kicks his feet back up onto the desk and takes a sip of his martini and says “So! It appears that you met some resistance. What happened?”

 

[15:24] LAURA: “Well-”

 

[15:24] HUDSON: “Did you know the trees move?”

 

[15:27] NICK: “Oh, yeah, unfortunate feature of our lovely home on Unroola Dawn. I probably shoulda told you about that before time.”

 

[15:34] LAURA: “Well… yes. Umm… but, the people we were sent to obtain, they fought back a little bit and they are both…. Dead.”

 

[15:46] NICK: “Ooooh wow. Okay. I was-”

 

[15:48] LAURA: “One of the bodies was together enough to bring back, the other one just some… little bits.”

 

[15:55] NICK: “Did you bring the little bits?”

 

[15:58] LAURA: “I think so.”

 

[15:08] CAMERON: I feel like Karma has them in her pack.

 

[16:01] NICK: Okay. Do you show them?

 

[16:03] LAURA: I’m pretty we got the hat?

 

[16:06] CAMERON: We got the hat and his bloody uniform and, yeah.

 

[16:08] LAURA: And his insignia – his rank insignia.

 

[16:13] STEVEN: The tree claimed most of the little bits.

 

[16:15] CAMERON: I try not to move and I just I pull a pouch that has them in it and just like gently toss it to Xianna ‘cause I’m being stitched.

 

[16:23] LAURA: Xianna kinda like pulls back, is like “Ew!”

 

[16:25] CAMERON: “It’s on a pouch.”

 

[16:27] LAURA: Still she’s like “ew” and picks up with two little fingers and like puts it on his desk and is like “I threw a grenade… sorry.”

 

[16:35] NICK: Falx opens the bag and very nonchalantly pulls out the bloody scraps of fabric-

 

[16:40] HUDSON: “Ew! Gross!”

 

[16:41] NICK: – and puts it back in the bag.

 

[16:43] LAURA: “I know.”

 

[16:45] NICK: “I’ll have to ask Sparks about exactly what happened. Where is he?”

 

[16:47] LAURA: “Oh, by the way… uh…. Sparks is also…. Dead. One of those weird furball scorpion crab thingies got him while we were being attacked by the trees.

 

[17:01] STEVEN: “Ah, tasty creatures but fiesty.”

 

[17:03] NICK: “Yeah, I – I, wow. Racked up quite a body count on this pretty simple job.”

 

[17:10] LAURA: “We were not aware the trees were murderous.”

 

[17:14] CAMERON: “Your five Troopers are dead too.”

 

[17:15] NICK: “Yeah I guess… that’s why I sent you all.”

 

[17:17] LAURA: “Mills also seemed to have some sort of war flashback and ran off into the trees for a bit.”

 

[17:23] NICK: “Haha! Oh that Mills, such a card. He was probably testing you. He does that to me from time to time.” The camera cuts to Mills in the morgue and he’s just dumping Sparks’ body in what looks like – it’s like a freezer container but it looks kinda like a dumpster and one of the legs is sticking out at a weird angle and he’s just “Man, someday I’ll have to stop doing this.” And he’s, like, hitting it down with a broom to try to get it into the freezer. And the camera cuts back to you all.

 

[17:52] HUDSON: Wooooow…

 

[17:53] LAURA: I’m glad none of our characters saw that.

 

[17:55] NICK: “So, there’s no one to collaborate your story?”

 

[17:59] LAURA: “Mills was there when I accidentally blew up Williams, so… He also saw Leera get murdered by the tree.”

 

[18:07] HUDSON: “Did you say collaborate the story or corro-”

 

[18:10] NICK: “Corroborate the story.”

 

[18:12] HUDSON: Ah.

 

[18:13] HUDSON: Corrob- Ahh.

 

[18:13] NICK: Corroborate.

 

[18:14] {ALL LAUGH}

 

[18:15] NICK: “Ah, Tink, you finally speak!”

 

[18:16] LAURA: And she’s like poking Tink and she’s like “Nooooooooo.”

 

[18:21] HUDSON: I glare.

 

[18:21] NICK: “I thought from all the bloodstains that maybe you’d been wounded!”

 

[18:24] HUDSON: “Oh no, just carrying Karma.”

 

[18:27] NICK: “Ahh- ohh. Right. Well I’m glad you all made it back. I kind of send you on a suicide mission and then right after you left I felt sorta bad, which is weird for me!”

 

[18:38] LAURA: “Umm… Thank you?”

 

[18:41] STEVEN: “Yeah, uh… we’ll just take the payment?”

 

[18:45] NICK: “Right. Yeah we can… probably make that happen. So, just to recap: the officer I trusted died beforehand, and the two people I sent you to get died, and one of them you brought back a hat and Mills, who honestly is not the most reliable of fellas, will have to answer this later. But did I miss anything?”

 

[19:06] CAMERON: “Ummm… was-”

 

[19:07] LAURA: “Wait, was Duelson was a trusted officer? I thought he was like, a private he was, like, so young.”.

 

[19:15] NICK: “By trusted I mean he was too scared of me to lie to me.”

 

[19:19] LAURA: “Oh! I understand now.”

 

[19:21] NICK: “I don’t know if you could tell, but he was my snitch, my patsy, the one to tell me what was goin on.”

 

[19:26] LAURA: “Oh no! It is never good when you lose your snitch.”

 

[19:31] CAMERON: Karma thinks back on all the information that Spark Duelson told us before he died about secret codes and leaving the base and everything and is like yeah I could see how he’d be a good snitch – but says it silently to herself.

 

[19:42] NICK: So I’m gonna need a deception check, probably from Xianna and one other person-

 

[19:49] LAURA: Can do.

 

[19:50] NICK: Or Tink or Karma can help ‘cause you two are the ones that talked the most.

 

[19:55] STEVEN: That’s good because I don’t deceive.

 

[19:57] LAURA: Do you have any deception?

 

[19:58] HUSDON: No.

[19:58] LAURA: Okay.

 

[19:59] HUDSON: I have none.

 

[20:00] LAURA: What’s the difficulty?

 

[20:01] NICK: It’s gonna be three purple.

 

[20:03] CAMERON: Are we both making checks, or am I helping Xianna?

 

[20:05] NICK: It’s an assistance.

 

[20:06] CAMERON: Okay. Take a blue ‘cause-

 

[20:07] NICK: It’s a blue.

 

[20:08] CAMERON: – you’re better at deception than me, so.

 

[20:10] HUDSON: Everything I said was a hundred percent true – weird monkeys, weird trees.

 

[20:17] LAURA: Three successes.

 

[20:18] NICK: Alright, he uh, thinks for a minute and scratches at one of his head spikes and says “Well! Sounds pretty trustworthy to me! Glad you made it back in once piece.”

 

[20:28] HUDSON: “Are you?”

 

[20:30] NICK: “Yeah, I think we’re friends.”

 

[20:33] LAURA: “Yes, yes we are.” And Xianna smiles.

 

[20:35] CAMERON: Karma gives a pained look as something happens to her back.

 

[20:40] SIMON: You got shot a lot.

 

[20:41] NICK: Yeah, the medic kinda tugs on one of your head tentacles-

 

[20:44] CAMERON: {Pained hissing noise}

 

[20:44] NICK: “Stand still. Or sit still.”

 

[20:46] CAMERON: “I’m sitting.”

 

[20:47] NICK: He’s, he’s got a lot of blood probably like up to his elbow as he’s digging around in there.

 

[20:52] CAMERON: “And I’m not moving, you’re wiggling.”

 

[20:54] NICK: “Look, I can make this – we can do this the easy way or the hard way, either way it’s gonna hurt” and you flinch again as he digs deeper in there. You’re not sure why he’s digging in there because it wasn’t bullets so there’s nothing in there to dig out but, uh-

 

[21:09] LAURA: Tree bark.

 

[21:10] NICK: Could be. He’s making sure it’s not infected. With his hands.

 

[21:12] HUDSON: Aren’t there weird tree spores n’ shit?

 

[21:16] NICK: Yes. There are.

 

[21.16] CAMERON: Yes, that’s true. He’s disinfecting.

 

[21:19] NICK: Oh, speaking of the weird tree spores, in the office you notice one of those like humming heat lamp things that they use for it is hanging from the ceiling and you didn’t notice it at first because it was behind like a light fixture but it’s the same kinda technology, so, it’s the kinda thing where Falx, in his home setup would be able to basically be decontaminated constantly, all the time.

 

[21:40] NICK: “Well, this would be a well-executed mission except for a couple of small things.” And he presses a button under his desk and you see the pudgey quartermaster walk in and Falx says “Why don’t you tell my good friends what you told me, Quartermaster?” and the pudgy quartermaster goes “Okay, so, I was thinking back about these transactions that these people made with me and realised I recognise that Togruta,” and he points at Sabos “when I was the quartermaster at Outpost 2, he’s the one who came in and tried to make some trade agreement for his little colony.”

 

[22:18] STEVEN: “Not little. Well, I mean smaller than- Okay fine.”

 

[22:22] LAURA: The moment he starts talking Xianna immediately sighs because in her head it’s like “you always deny everything! You stay silent, you deny, you ask for a lawyer.”

 

[22:33] HUDSON: “You mean Osaron?”

 

[22:36] NICK: “Yeah, that’s the stupid place. Look, he said they were going to trade exotic goods for basic supplies and we sent a good faith payment, and he never sent anything back. It happens from time to time, and then that idiot came back!”

 

[22:52] STEVEN: “I assure you, I did send my side of the deal back. I sent one of my best pilots.”

 

[22:57] HUDSON: Roll deception?

 

[22:58] NICK: Yeah.

 

[22:59] CAMERON: Well did, did you actually?

 

[23:01] STEVEN: No.

 

[23:04] STEVEN: I, I don’t have anything at all.

 

[23:10] LAURA: And at this moment Xianna’s like leaning over to Karma and whispers to her “Wait, is he actually a con artist? That would make so much more sense.”

 

[23:20] STEVEN: How hard is it?

 

[23:21] NICK: Three purple.

 

[23:22] HUDSON: Haaaaa!

 

[23:23] CAMERON: Karma whispers back “He’d be better at lying.”

 

[23:24] NICK: Also two black die because he’s already done a bunch of research on this ahead of time.

 

[23:30] STEVEN: Sure.

 

[23:31] HUDSON: If you pass this check I’ll like, get nekkid and do cartwheels.

 

[23:34] NICK: Oh, and wouldn’t it be cool if you had some light side points to flip, which you don’t. So let’s go ahead and flip a dark side point.

 

[23:40] STEVEN: Damnit this isn’t streetwise or knowledge, that sucks. {HUDSON LAUGHING} Uhhhhhhh… uhhhhhhhhhh…

 

[23:47] LAURA: Oh, that is a sad, sad roll.

 

[23:48] STEVEN: ‘Kay, this is fine.

 

[23:50] LAURA: Oh no. Three greens, two black, two purple and one red.

 

[23:55] HUDSON: Three purples or-

 

[23:56] LAURA: No, two purples ‘cause I upgraded.

 

[23:57] HUDSON: Oh, two.

 

[23:58] STEVEN: Okay this is cool.

 

[23:59] {SHAKING DICE}

 

[24:00] STEVEN: “I totally sent your shipment with one of my best pilots.”

 

[24:04] {ROLLING DICE}

 

[24:06] STEVEN: Okay, so there’s a lot of advantages-

 

[24:08] CAMERON: You did not….

 

[24:08] STEVEN: – but I did end up failing a couple times. So uh, I have two failures and an advantage?

 

[24:14] CAMERON: Two advantages.

 

[24:15] STEVEN: Two failures, two advantages.

 

[24:16] NICK: Okay. Uhhh…

 

[24:17] STEVEN: “Uhh, I’m lying! He was actually not one of my best pilots.”

 

{ALL LAUGH}

 

[24:22] NICK: Yeah, so… be thinking about how you want to spend those advantages. And it’s not that you can make people believe you. Falx’s Smile gets real wide and he says “That’ll be all, Quartermaster,” and the guy goes “{sigh} thanks for using my lunch break.” and wanders out. And Falx says “So, obviously quite a bit of money! Standard support package, that’s about a hundred thousand credits.

 

[24:45] LAURA: “What!” Xianna previously like, had her like elbow on an armchair, like, forehead in her hand just like sighing down and then immediately goes like “Why did you do that!”

 

[24:58] CAMERON: Karma hisses again.

 

[24:59] STEVEN: “Let’s just say I was – I was busy executing other trade deals and uh, well I haven’t yet come up with my side. As soon as I get back to Osaron I promise I’ll do it, wh- what type of thing would you be interested in?”

 

[25:16] NICK: “We’ll deal with that here in a second. There’s going to be an easier way to repay you debt.

 

[25:19] STEVEN: “Oh. I’m happy.”

 

[25:22] NICK: “But before that -” he pressed something under his desk and you see a holo camera pop up, and he presses a button. There’s the little dialing tone which is like a little spinning imperial gear logo, and then a hologram of a guy’s torso, facing towards Falx, shows up. And you can see a reflection in the window behind him so you can so you can see the whole guy and it is a large gentleman with a little bit of a paunch, wearing a black imperial uniform very similar to Falx’s and he’s got bushy hair and really big mutton chops that also look like his hair – so he has kinda like Whoville looking hair if it was combed down and then big mutton chops, and then he has a big eyepatch that takes up about a quarter of his face. And Falx says “Ah yes, Regional Governor Silpin. I remember you sent me a missive a while ago. Could you explain to me again about that robbery last year? I may have found a lead for you.

 

[26:16] LAURA: “Oh shit!”

 

[26:17] NICK: And uh, Silpin starts talking and he has a low but kind of whiny voice, and he says, “Well, you know that we had this problem a while ago with some sort of Twi’lek con artist thief, and she came in and she seduced me, and she stole a whole bunch of documents that should not ever see the light of the sun, and then she stole all my wife’s jewellery – she almost left me because of that! I had to spend so much money to get it back, and it was a purple Twi’lek, and I don’t remember her name, but it was pretty bad, she wore this big coat and she was real pretty and look what happened to me now; I used to be stationed somewhere nice, and now I’m here on Unroola Dawn because of the embarrassment. You know all of this, I’m sure you’re just trying to make fun of me but if you do have any information I will kill the heck out of that person and have them tortured for a very long time. I’ve been developing torture droids specifically for this.”

 

[27:13] NICK: And Falx says “Tell you what, I’m going to dig into that a little more and get back to you.” And he slides the camera back down into its compartment.

 

[27:18] LAURA: The moment he puts it down Xianna like holds a finger up and is like “Okay, in my defense the wife gave me most of the jewellery. I don’t think he wants to know that I was also seducing her.”

 

[27:31] NICK: “In the long run that may be a little irrelevant.”

 

[27:34] LAURA: “It may actually make things worse now that I think about it. He might not appreciate that fact.”

 

[27:40] NICK: So, Falx pulls a few tumblers up from under his desk. His desk is pretty much clear but for some reason all the storage seems to be just under it, and he pulls some tumblers out and pulls a decanter of blue clear fluid and pours, just in a circle, it spills on the desk a little bit as he fills up the glasses, he kinda taps them towards y’all. Karma, at this point the medic kinda slaps on your back and it doesn’t hurt, because of all the bacta it’s pretty numb and cold; it kinda feels like when you put that aloe gel in a sunburn where it’s like cold and a little stingy but mostly numb.

 

[27:11] CAMERON: Mmm, nice.

 

[28:12] NICK: And the medic says “That’s the best I can do.” And he walks out of the room and you realise that his face never changed at all during that process, like he’s very practised at not listening or at least not reacting to these things. And he’s gone, and you can put your armour back on. And Falx says, “You might as well have a drink because we have a lot to talk about.”

 

[28:32] STEVEN: I like your style, Falx.”

 

[28:34] NICK: “That’s great. I don’t particularly like yours, you don’t seem to be very good at this.”

 

[28:39] STEVEN: “Well, I’m doing the best I can for my small little colony.”

 

[28:43] LAURA: While this is happening Xianna takes a glass for her, and then takes one and hands it to Karma and like, shoves it into her hand, and has to like pull her hand up into the glass to hold it.

 

[28:55] STEVEN: Oh I’ll take the, I just grab the drink off the desk pretty immediately.

 

[29:00] HUDSON: I take the drink off the desk.

 

[29:01] CAMERON: Karma leans back into the armchair. Keeps on holding the drink, but doesn’t drink it.

 

[29:07] NICK: Okay. If you take a sip of it, it’s like teeth-hurtingly sweet and you can’t taste alcohol in it at all, but your vision lags slightly, like it’s very, very, very strong.

 

[29:20] HUDSON: So I pour a little bit of it onto the blood on my fur and rub it around to see if it gets the blood out.

 

[29:25] NICK: It turns purple, because of the red-brownish blood it turns this weird purple sludgy kind of colour and just kind of stains you like Teletubby.

 

[29:33] HUDSON: Can I get a towel?

 

[29:35] NICK: Falx shakes his head to himself and says “Loveable scamp!” and he claps and the protocol droid from the night before waddles out with like a really nice napkin like before and says “Oh, you rang?” and Falus says, “Give him the napkin!” and the droid whose face doesn’t move still manages to look mortified and hands it over and hang his head and then waddles out of the room.

 

[29:58] HUDSON: I wipe the blood off and thank Falx.

 

[30:01] STEVEN: I see him do that so I dip my headtail in the glass to, just to see what happens.

 

[30:06] NICK: Umm, it’s like dipping your forehead in windex, it’s blue and drippy.

 

[30:11] STEVEN: Yeaahh.

 

[30:13] CAMERON: Whyyyyy

 

[30:14] LAURA: The moment they are doing this Xianna just looks down into her glass and and then just downs the whole thing.

 

[30:18] NICK: It’s good. It is very good, it is extremely strong. You’ve had it before – what is it called?

 

[30:26] LAURA: Ooooh! Okay, so it’s –

 

[30:27] CAMERON: You said it’s blue?

 

[30:28] LAURA: -it’s blue-

 

[30:29] NICK: It’s blue and clear.

 

[30:30] LAURA: And it’s strong, hmm….

 

[30:32] STEVEN: It’s not the star thing, is it?

 

[30:33] ALL: No

 

[30:34] LAURA: A Naboo Sky.

 

[30: 36] NICK: A Naboo Sky. ‘Cause yea, Falx is the kind of guy who keeps named mixed drinks in a decanter, that makes sense.

 

[30:42] CAMERON: Yeah.

 

[30:44] LAURA: Well because he’s got a Thermos with martinis in it.

 

[30:45] CAMERON: They’re the kind of alcohol mixed drinks that are all alcohol-

 

[30:50] NICK: Mhm

 

[30:51] CAMERON: So you can just keep it in a decanter.

 

[30:55] {ALL AGREE}

 

[30:55] NICK: So, you have a Naboo Sky, you know that these things are like, if you wanna get super drunk you have one, and he just poured out quite a bit. And he finished his martini, pours some of the blue drink into it and has a sip of that. He says, “So, obviously the deal has changed. It’s a pretty strange coincidence that you all are here, but at the same time the galaxy seems to work in mysterious ways. I could have you killed; I could have you detained. That doesn’t really serve my purposes. So, here’s what we’re gonna do.” he points to a large crate by the doorway with a briefcase on top of it. You didn’t really notice it on the way in. “That large crate contains the Stonebreaker. Take it. Do whatever you need with it, I wouldn’t be able to sell it anyway. I’m sure Sentinel will get in touch with you pretty soon after you’re out of here. Here’s the catch: before you do whatever you’re supposed to do with him, I need you to deliver my briefcase to some of my business associates.” He reaches under the table and pulls out like a small datapad and slides it on the desk to where you can reach it pretty easily. “The coordinates are on here. You make this payment for me, and do it quickly, and I’ll ignore some of these other coincidences that has popped up. You delay my delivery, force me to get involved with the people that want that briefcase, and I call back Regional Governor Silpin, give him all the knowledge I have, and tack on the money that this Togruta owes the Empire to help him finance a taskforce. He’s a boring man, but tenacious. I’m sure you know all about that.” and he winks at Xianna.

 

[32:21] LAURA: Xianna is like “Hm. Very boring. Yes.”

 

[32:25] NICK: “I’ll give you a head start, but it would be inconvenient, maybe fatal, for you all to rebel. He leans back in his chair.

 

[32:33] LAURA: Xianna like is nodding, takes the datapad, is like “I understand. We will do your briefcase delivery fast. ASAP.”

 

[32:41] STEVEN: What’s in the briefcase?

 

[32:43] NICK: “I wouldn’t worry about that.”

 

[32:45] CAMERON: Karma’s now worried about it.

 

[32:47] LAURA: Xianna’s fine because it’s a briefcase, so there’s probably no people inside of it.

 

[32:51] CAMERON: That’s why Karma’s worried.

 

[32:53] HUDSON: “Just to make sure we don’t know these business partners, who are the business partners?”

 

[32:58] NICK: “Oh, it’s just a small crime syndicate from the outer rim. Some people who’ve done some runs for me in the past. You know, what comes around goes around.”

 

[33:08] LAURA: “The briefcase it does not have volatile materials does it? Should it not be near an open flame? Should we not move it around too much?”

 

[33:17] NICK: Well you may notice it’s pretty nice Bantha leather, I’d prefer you didn’t burn up the briefcase. You could use that again, but otherwise the material’s fine.

 

[33:26] LAURA: “Okay, I was making sure it was not like, a bomb or something that we would need to be careful with.”

 

[33:31] STEVEN: “Yeah, you’ve seen my style for how I like to roll in to planets.”

 

[33:36] CAMERON: Karma starts running through a list of all of the members of crime gangs from the outer rim that she’s turned in.

 

[33:42] NICK: There’s a looooooot!

 

[33:44] CAMERON: Yeah.

 

[33:45] NICK: Most crime syndicates and gangs know about you, do not like you.

 

[33:51] CAMERON: Yup.

 

[33:52] NICK: The good news is I would imagine being an alien in the Star Wars universe, even one that’s fairly popular, unless you have like a really obvious calling card, since most species don’t recognise each other with a ton of detail they’re not going to see somebody and be like “Oh, that’s Karma.” So it’s like, the reason people all recognise Jango and Boba Fett is ‘cause they have super obvious Mandalorean armour so they can be recognised. Most people aren’t going to be like “Hey, that lady with the antennae is Aurra Sing, although that’s not a great example because she’s the only one that looks like that.

 

[34:23] LAURA: Because she literally is her own thing and they won’t release what her race is because she is a hybrid that’s just there!

 

[34:30] NICK: Yeah. So like a better example would be like if you see a giant Wookie wander into an area, unless you’re like very familiar with a certain Wookie you’re not gonna be like “Oh look, that’s Chewbacca, that famous Wookie!”, you’re just gonna be like “That’s a Wookie,” so yeah it’s possible if you like personally arrested somebody they would probably recognise you, but if someone had just heard about you, you’d probably be okay. So, not the best of situations, but not an obvious like faux pas.

 

[34:58] CAMERON: Mkay!

 

[34:59] NICK: “So, you all on board? Tink, my man, you willing to delivery my briefcase?”

 

[35:04] HUDSON: “Doesn’t look like we have a choice!”

 

[35:06] NICK: “Yeeahh! This is why me and you understand each other. You’ve done this kind of thing before.”

 

[35:10] HUDSON: “Wait, is this going to come into come weird story that brings back my past?”

 

[35:17] NICK: “Um… I don’t know why you would think that! Shouldn’t!”

 

[35:20] HUDSON: “You sounded foreboding.”

 

[35:21] NICK: “Oh, well yeah, I’m an imperial governor working against the law, of course I sound foreboding from time to time.”

 

[35:30] HUDSON: “That wasn’t a complaint, it was an observation.”

 

[35:32] NICK: “And you’re quite an observant fellow, so, anyway, I’ll give you a pass outta here. I would recommend against coming back seeing as how you left and then Imperials ended up dead. But I’ll delay the full investigation until after you’re gone. I’m seeing some confused looks. Even if they were deserters, you killed Imperials! Probably not great!”

 

[35:56] STEVEN: “The – the trees killed Imperials.”

 

[35:57] LAURA: “Yes, to be fair, the one, the Trooper was killed by a tree, and then-

 

[36:04] STEVEN: “Then the monkey killed one.”

 

[36:05] LAURA: “And me killing, uh, the officer was an accident; I thought he had a gun, I accidentally threw a grenade. You know how these things happen. My bad.”

 

[36:16] CAMERON: “And the monkeys got Duelson.”

 

[36:20] NICK: “Did you say you quick-drew a grenade? You were in a gunfight and you threw a grenade?”

 

[36:24] LAURA: “It was what I had in my pocket.”

 

[36:26] NICK: “Well that’s concerning.”

 

[36:27] LAURA: “I didn’t have my gun at the moment.”

 

[36:28] STEVEN: “Yeah, we actually didn’t have guns…”

 

[36:29] CAMERON: That’s not even a deception! That’s natural, that’s true! She’d set her gun down, she had grenades, that’s what she had.

 

[36:37] LAURA: “I did not have my gun, so…”

 

[36:39] NICK: “So! Um. I don’t know how familiar you are with the Imperial justice system, but speaking as someone with a pretty high place in it, my organisation is suuuuuper racist! Probably doesn’t matter what you did!”

 

[36:52] LAURA: Xianna is kinda just like staring at him, like, ya realise you’re talking to someone whose planet has been occupied for, like, ever.

 

[37:01] CAMERON: Karma’s look says “You realise you’re an alien, right?”

 

[37:03] NICK: Yeah, he-

 

[37:04] CAMERON: Wait! We are all aliens! None of us in this room are human.

 

[37:08] LAURA: Karma and Xianna are both having this at the same time sort of like, you realise you are talking to aliens and Xianna has the like, I’m from Ryloth. And then wait, looking around like-

 

[37:18] CAMERON: And then like you’re an alien….

 

[37:19] LAURA: -we’re all aliens!

 

[37:21] NICK: So, he just kind of waggles his eyebrows at you all. Like, he gets it and still, he has realised how to work within that structure and been pretty successful. So, he says “So, you’re mostly patched up, you have your particularly important baggage. So, begone! Or, whatever.”

 

[37:44] LAURA: So, Xianna has the datapad with the coordinates, and then she goes and takes the briefcase and is kinda looking between Karma and Tink, like back and forth and then kinda slowly starts handing it to Karma.

 

[37:58] CAMERON: Karma takes the briefcase.

 

[38:02] STEVEN: “Awww…”

 

[38:03] NICK: Sabos reaches for the briefcase and then looks sad when he doesn’t get it.

 

[38:05] STEVEN: Yup.

 

[38:07] STEVEN: I take the datapad.

 

[38:10] HUDSON: I take the datapad because I’m actually driving.

 

[38:12] STEVEN: Are you though?

 

[38:13] LAURA: How are you guys getting the datapad? I’m holding it and it’s probably in a pocket. Do you wanna search my coat?

 

[38:20] HUDSON: Wouldn’t be the first time I – uh wait-

 

[38:23] STEVEN: No…

 

[38:24] HUDSON: Never mind.

 

[38:24] LAURA: No, wait it would be, hold on.

 

[38:26] HUDSON: Cut! Cut! Cut! It would be the first time.

 

[38:27] LAURA: I mean, if you wanna try… Go for it.

 

[38:31] HUDSON: “Can I have the datapad please?”

 

[38:32] STEVEN: “Can I have the datapad? I’m the better pilot.”

 

[38:34] LAURA: I’m assuming you say it both at the exact same time.

 

[38:36] STEVEN: Yeah.

 

[38:37] CAMERON: And then Sabos adds “I’m a better pilot.”

 

[38:41] LAURA: Xianna takes it out.

 

[38:41] STEVEN: “I’m, I’m from the Outer Rim.”

 

[38:42] LAURA: Likem is it just coordinates that are pulled up or?

 

[38:45] NICK: Uh nothing’s pulled up, it’s blank, but if you tap through it, it’s pretty much “Welcome to your new technology!” pop up screen, and you can see one file on it that’s ust coordinates.

 

[38:54] LAURA: Oh, okay.

 

[38:55] NICK: This is like a very cheap, throwaway datapad.

 

[38:56] LAURA: Since it just hust has coordinates she begrudgingly hands it to Sabos.

 

[39:01] STEVEN: That’s right.

 

[39:01] LAURA: ‘Cause she thinks that he is capable of flying.

 

[39:04] CAMERON: Oh yeah, she’s still not sure.

 

[39:09] LAURA: She’s still not sure. She doesn’t like Sabos that much right now, but she thinks he can fly.

 

[39:12] STEVEN: I take it and nod assuringly.

 

[39:14] HUDSON: I turn and go “Really?! Really.”

 

[39:18] LAURA: “You are not the pilot unless… are you the pilot?”

 

[39:20] HUDSON: “I am the pilot!”

 

[39:22] STEVEN: “Do you have any astrogation abilities at all?”

 

[39:24] CAMERON: Karma turns to Falx.

 

[39:27] LAURA: Xianna turns to Karma like, “Wait, which one is the pilot? I thought Sabos was flying with you. Is Tink now flying with you?”

 

[39:33] CAMERON: So Karma turns to Falx like, “So what are the names of the people? Or call signs, if they don’t go by names. The try to find that hit us this time, I’d like to avoid it.”

 

[39:45] NICK: “Yeah, that makes sense. Uh, I don’t really operate like Sentinel does, I’ll straight tell you. You’re gonna be wanting to meet up with Quiggle the Quarren.”

 

[39:54] STEVEN: Oh god.

 

[39:55] NICK: “It’s him and his small crew of smugglers.”

 

[39:56] STEVEN: That was, that was out of character, just oh god.

 

[39:58] NICK: “I don’t know why you’re laughing, Quiggle the Quarren is a perfectly respectable criminal name!”

 

[40:04] CAMERON: “Yup.”

 

[40:05] {ALL LAUGHING}

 

[40:07] LAURA: “His name is the Quiggle?” {she pronounces the name incorrectly, like Kwee-gell}

 

[40:09] CAMERON: “Yup.”

 

[40:10] NICK: “No, no, sweetness like this: Quiggel.”

 

[40:13] LAURA: “Quiggel.” {still pronouncing slightly incorrectly}

 

[40:14] NICK: “No, no, Quiggel.”

 

[40:16] LAURA: “Quiggel?” {still a little off}

 

[40:18] NICK: “Better, better.”

 

[40:20] CAMERON: “Anyway, the coordinates, are they taking us to a warehouse? A club? Do they know that we’re coming?”

 

[40:26] NICK: “Well, they’re expecting us shortly, and by us I mean you, because I’m not going. It, those coordinates lead to a small asteroid belt in the middle of nowhere, towards the Outer Rim. They are probably waiting now which is why you need to go there first. ‘Cause if you make them wait too long, they’re going to come to me, I’ll be forced to kill them, lose a business avenue and then I’ll be uh, sending our good friend the assisting Governor out to go and find you.

 

[40:51] CAMERON: “Yeah, that seems rough.”

 

[40:53] STEVEN: “Is he governor the galaran… gig-giggle the governor?”

 

[40:58] {ALL LAUGHING}

 

[40:58] LAURA: What?

 

[40:59] STEVEN: I’m just trying to make up names damnit!

 

[41:00] CAMERON: No, different, different.

 

[41:01] STEVEN: There’s Quiggle and Giggle the gov-

 

[41:03] NICK: “No, you’ll remember that the Governor’s name was Regional Governor Silpin.”

 

[41:06] STEVEN: “Oh!”

 

[41:08] CAMERON: “We, like, just heard from him.”

 

[41:10] STEVEN: “Yeah…”

 

[41:11] NICK: “He was the guy with the eyepatch. And the sick mutton chops.”

 

[41:15] HUDSON: “He doesn’t pay attention.”

 

[41:16] STEVEN: “I didn’t have any business with him.”

 

[41:18] LAURA: “No, I did. But do not worry, we will go to this asteroid belt right away. Drop off your briefcase first.”

 

[41:26] NICK: “Wonderful.”

 

[41:27] HUDSON: “Thanks for fuelling up our ship before we go.”

 

[41:29] LAURA: “Why would you say that?”

 

[41:30] NICK: {LAUGHING} Oh I love it. No that’s wonderful. “Yeah we totally did that, just uh don’t check your fuel levels.”

 

[41:38] CAMERON: I heard “feeling up your ship”. Thanks for feeling up our ship!

 

[41:44] LAURA: Oh wait, is that not what he said?

 

[41:46] {Laura, Cameron and Hudson all say “Fuelling” at the same time}

 

[41:48] HUDSON: Fuelling!

 

[41:49] LAURA: Oh! I short of just heard “feeling up our ship” and that’s why I said “why would you say that?”

 

[41:52] {ALL LAUGHING}

 

[41:53] HUDSON: That would make a lot less sense than “fuelling”.

 

[41:54] LAURA: I thought he was referencing the fact that they searched the ship! That’s what I thought you were saying ‘cause you’re you!

 

[42:02] NICK: {speaking as Falx, although they have been speaking out of character} “Well, we did FEEL up your ship, but we did not FUEL up your ship.

 

[42:06] STEVEN: That’s a nice ship.

 

[42:08] HUDSON: “Awwwww. Well how are we gonna get off this planet?”

 

[42:10] NICK: “You’ve got enough fuel! Star Wars doesn’t have rules for gas!”

 

[42:16] CAMERON: True.

 

[42:17] LAURA: Yeah, until a ship breaks down. Because he decides. Then we have to figure it out.

 

[42:21] NICK: “The only time you’ll run out of fuel is when it’s helpful for the story.” He turns his swivel chair around and gazes out the back window over the sunset that’s going over the jungle of Unroola Dawn and we get a nice camera angle of you all sihouetted looking at his silhouette looking out the window in this pretty office. And then… was there anything else that you all wanted to do in Outpost 4, before you leave?

 

[42:51] HUDSON: No.

 

[42:52] STEVEN: Not particularly.

 

[42:53] CAMERON: Hmm… no.

 

[42:56] LAURA: Did Tink wanna try and fix the ship again before we leave?

 

[42:58] HUDSON: I thought they fixed it.

 

[43:00] NICK: They did, they fixed it.

 

[43:01] LAURA: They did fix it? Okay cool, nevermind.

 

[43:02] NICK: They sent in those engineers to investigate the ship, slash duct tape that piece back down.

 

[43:05] HUDSON: Yeah because I told them it was basically maybe fixed, right? Yeah? Maybe? And then, like, they fixed it.

 

[43:11] LAURA: Cool. I mean Xianna is going to go through her room when we get back on the ship.

 

[43:19] NICK: Okay.

 

[43:20] LAURA: Just to do like a thorough search of did they take anything, because I did have a few things in the room still. And like did they leave anything?

 

[43:28] NICK: Yeah. So, the camera cuts to you all getting back on the ship. It opens with Sabos in the pilot seat looking really proud of himself, flipping all the overhead switches to on, fiddling with doodads, turning a wheel that doesn’t seem to be attached to anything and the ship making the “BVOOOOOOO” {imitating the noise of a ship starting up} noises as it cycles up.

 

[43:49] CAMERON: Karma’s going about behind him and flipping off the ones that don’t actually need to be turned on for the ship to work.

 

[43:56] NICK: Okay, so it’s Sabos going tink, tink, tink, tink, tink, tink, tink, tink and Karma coming behind and like every fourth one being like flip, flip, flip adjusting the ship to normal levels. That’s great. Cut to Xianna in her room looking around. What are y’all specifically worried about?

 

[44:13] LAURA: Well I’m gonna check the weird mask-in-a-box thing that I have, just, ya know making sure that’s still a mask inside a box. And I just wanna go through everything to make sure they didn’t leave any trackers or like listening devices or anything.

 

[44:29] NICK: Sure! What a great idea to check your room for trackers or listening devices. Make me a skullduggery check please.

 

[44:36] LAUA: Can do! What’s the difficulty?

 

[44:39] NICK: Hard. ‘Cause you’re doing a deeeep search.

 

[44:42] {DICE NOISES}

 

[44:46] LAURA: Heeey, so that is a full triumph that has its success, and then two advantages.

 

[44:54] NICK: Okay. How would you like the spend that triumph and the advantages?

 

[44:59] LAURA: Okay. I would like to find if they put anything first of all.

 

[45:04] NICK: Well yeah, that goes with the success.

 

[45:05] LAURA: If they out anything I would like to find that. I would like to figure out the vent that I previously thought was a vent is actually a garbage disposal.

 

[45:15] NICK: Awwww!

 

[45:15] LAURA: I would like to know that. I would like to accidentally press a button and hear it whirl and be like “Oh! Good thing I did not put anything inside of that.” and then shout out and be like “Everyone! This vent here is not a vent! Is a garbage disposal. Be careful.”

 

[45:32] NICK: So what that is, is you open it just to see if anything is in there and as you open it you hit the little button on the side and you actually see the grass below the ship and you go “Oh! That’s what that does!” And so yeah, now you know that that’s a direct like, “get this out of the ship” shoot.

 

[45:51] LAURA: Good.

 

[45:53] NICK: Okay, so you could use your triumph on that since that cancels out the despair that you had earlier. That’s a bummer. I had plans doe that. But that’s fine. Uh, you do find one tracking device slash surveillance unit. It’s uh, pretty big and they had it up under the bed, like hooked into the material that makes the bed spin and on it in like Sharpie basically it says like “You can’t blame us for trying” and has a little signature that looks like Falx’s name. So,

 

[45:22] LAURA: I toss it down my newly discovered garbage disposal. And then shout out to everyone like “There are – you should check your bedrooms. If you are not good at the searching I will help but they probably put tracking devices, or maybe recording devices, check the refresher, they maybe put video cameras inside that one. They do that sometimes, is funny.”

 

[46:44] CAMERON: You hear from the cockpit where Karma is doing damage control on Sabos trying to turn the ship on “They Xianna could you please check out my room while I’m up here with the Togrutan?

 

[46:55] NICK: We’ll fast forward through any rolls that’ll happen there – you were successful enough. There is a video camera under the toilet seat of the refresher, pointed straight up.

 

[47:06] LAURA: Xianna, the moment she finds it like holds her arm out and shouts for the rest to be like “See? I told you! It is always a camera in the refresher.”

 

[47:17] NICK: But that’s pretty much all you find. It seems like to you with all the success that you had that the engineers put stuff in there but did not try very hard. And that it was mostly because Falx had to follow those procedures, not because he was actually all that interested in tracking you. Especially considering that if they track you to his illegal dealings you may have some problems. So It was preeeetty obvious. Like you could see the camera when you lifted the toilet seat, it was like right there. Is anybody else doing anything on the ship before you take off?

 

[47:46] STEVEN: I’m gonna pilot.

 

[47:48] NICK: Okay.

 

[47:48] HUDSON: I’m in the engine room and I’m kinda muttering to myself, upset that I’m not piloting the ship. That’s all I’m doing.

 

[47:55] NICK: Awww.

 

[47:56] STEVEN: Since I can listen to the engine room I say down to the engine room “You’re a better engineer than I am, so stay down in the engine room.”

 

[48:03] HUDSON: “Someday I’ll pilot.” That’s all I say back.

 

[48:06] NICK: {laughing} You shake your fist at the comm in the engine room.

 

[48:08] HUDSON: I shake, I shake my fist just up at the piloting area.

 

[48:10] STEVEN: I say “You very well might.” and turn off the feed.

 

[48:13] NICK: Haha, okay so-

 

[48:14] CAMERON: Karma flips it back on.

 

[48:16] NICK: {laughing} The, uh, ship takes off, not gonna make you do a piloting check for a basic take off-

 

[48:22] STEVEN: Good. That’s awesome.

 

[48:22] {LAUGHTER}

 

[48:23] NICK: – uh, yeah, very good. And you uh, fly up and the camera cuts to you all in orbit as you’re starting to do an astrogation check on where you’re going to go.

 

[48:29] STEVEN: Sure.

 

[48:30] NICK: And you see a little alert saying that you have an incoming message, but instead of that being routed to the cockpit it’s routed to the holo-theatre in the Afternoon Delight.

 

[48:39] LAURA: Ooooooh!

 

[48:41] STEVEN: Oh….

 

[48:41] NICK: So it’s showing, like, on the dashboard there’s a little blinking light and after looking at it for a minute you figure out that it means there’s something in the holo-theatre right now.

 

[48:48] CAMERON: I hit the acknowledge button and say “You’ve got this.” and I walk back to the holo-theatre.

 

[48:54] LAURA: Yeah, Xianna’s gonna be in there too.

 

[48:56] HUDSON: I go in there.

 

[48:58] NICK: It’s the equivalent of being-

 

[48:59] LAURA: We’re in orbit so it doesn’t matter.

 

[48:59] NICK: – Orbit is the equivalent of being parked so you can go if you want.

 

[49:01] STEVEN: Yeah, why not?

 

[49:03] NICK: Okay, so you all go to the holo-theatre, it’s kinda set up like a planetarium it’s round and with a domed ceiling and it’s got those weird step-benches that you see in the auditoriums where like you sit on them but they’re just like big, too-tall steps and they’re carpeted in thick, red shag carpeting and there’s some gold highlights running through the ceiling. And as you all sit down a holo-projector pops on and you see a full-body image of Sentinel. He is sitting in a chair and he has like a brown, kinda shapeless, robe on and he has his grey hair slicked back and he says “Ah, so you managed to complete the first part of your task. Wonderful! Well, I guess you need to know what happens next, don’t you?” And he eyes the camera and that’s where we’ll end the episode.

 

[49:50] {All making cinematic noises}

 

[49:56] HUSDON: {singing} For the longest time, the longest time.

 

[49:57] CAMERON: Thanks for listening to Tabletop Squadron. If you 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. 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. Sabos Nix was played by Steven Schroeder. He… does not exist on the internet. 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 wanna talk to anyone who listens to the show. Reach out! See you next time.