Living on the Edge- Episode 11
After experiencing a vision of their deaths in a distant future, our heroes awake on the floor of the Reliances secure cargo bay. Unsure what happened, they take a look at what is in the cargo container they recently opened. An unusual cube is all they find. Drawing upon her past studies, Evie takes a look at the cube and determines that it might be the legendary Holocron of Destiny, a Jedi relic that allows people to see visions of the future.
Unsure of how the holocron activated or how to activate it again, the valuable object is put aside. A quick assessment of the room reveals it is filled with crates of data disks. Despite the estimate of thousands of man-hours required to catalog all of it, Evie dives in, trying to process as much of the new found source of wealth as she can.
Meanwhile, Emiko and Ria take the Y-wing out to get a visual inspection of the state of the Reliance. They discover the ship has suffered fairly extensive battle damage, with several shield generators and turbo laser batteries destroyed. They are able to figure out a safe route to the bridge from the hangar deck. After docking, Emiko and Sam begin the process of restoring power to the bridge.
Once power has been restored, they do a quick assessment, learning about the Separatist battleship they fought to a standstill. Little information is available about the ship’s mission. All defensive systems are offline and an attempt to use the sensors shorts them out completely. They are able to discover that a Consular class light cruiser is docked on the vessel’s lower docking bay and go to investigate.
While enroute through the dark bowels of the ship, our heroes hear the ominous clank clank of approaching droids. Thinking fast, they back up, attempting to hide in the dark. While the droids don’t see them, Dr. Evie does stumble into a damage control panel. Busting an already weakened gas line and making a spark, a sudden fire erupts in the corridor.
The emergency bulkheads seal, trapping the crew in the tight confines. Already decked out in their spacesuits, the flowing smoke and gas proves no obstacles. But the raging fire begins to ignite the exposed wires, threatening to expand the flames. Thinking fast, Emiko grabs an emergency firefighting hose and moves into smother the flames.
With the danger averted, the doors unlock. The sounds of clanking can be heard vibrating through the bulkhead door and the crew prepares for a fight. The thick smoke provides some cover as Verci triggers the door release. Her wild shots miss the assembled B-1 Battle Droids.
Ria is more on the ball. With a grenade ready, as soon as the door slides open, she lobs it. The grenade detonates, taking out two of the B-1’s and damaging the others. Sam and Emiko fire seconds later, with Sam destroying one of the B-2 Super Battle Droids further down the corridor. Emiko’s shot misses but does knock a panel loose, obscuring the droids line of site.
The remaining droids return fire, injuring Emiko. The droids sporadic fire fails to injure Ria, but does severe her gunbelt, causing her undrawn weapons to fall to the floor. Moving gracefully, Dr. Evie, throws a patch of synthskin on Emiko and slides over, retrieving Ria’s pistols. Verci shouts her confidence in her crews abilities.
Inspired by her captains words, and with her guns now in easy reach thanks to the doctor, Ria draws both her pistols twirls around and, holding the weapons gangster style, blasts the remaining B-2. The power of the shot causes the hapless droid to fly back into the exposes light panel, causing it to shatter and explode outward, overwhelming the sensors of the two remaining B-1’s.
Not to be out done, Sam hefts his weapon and sprays the corridor, dropping the two remaining droids. The fight lasted only moments, but what was once a stretch of corridor with relatively minor damage, is now marred by fire scorch marks, exploded panels and droid parts. All in a days work for our heroes.
Continuing their journey, the crew finds the old Consular class light cruiser, the Redemption. Dr. Evie, upon hearing the name, feels a sense of familiarity. She recalls a stray snippet from her experience with the Holocron of Destiny and how in the future, Verci sold the ship to the Red Skull’s in order to gain the necessary seed money to found her merchant empire.
An investigation of the ship reveals it has been stripped of all supplies but is otherwise untouched by the battle. The ship’s primary and back up hyperdrive had suffered a severe failure before the Reliance’s final battle, necessitating their removal. An investigation of the ship locates the disfunctional hyperdrive in the Reliance‘s main machine shop.
Emiko investigates the material and determines that, while she would be unable to repair the hyperdrive, she could remove the hyperdrive from the Lonely Refuge and configure it to work with the Redemption. Deciding that she’d rather come away from this endeavor aboard a luxury Republic consular ship than a beat up old freighter, Verci decides to strip their old ship for parts.
Over the course of the next two months, the crew strip Lonely Refuge of her weapons, advanced targeting computer and maneuvering thrusters. Using the parts, they upgrade the targeting systems of the Redemption, reconfigure two of the turbolaser batteries into full turrets and upgrade the thrusters.
Meanwhile, Evie continues her cataloging of the vast Jedi data base. She only manages to get a maybe a third of the data assessed, and then only a brief view. But she does discover another holocron among the throng of datadisks.
Concentrating on the Force, an ability she discovered she had within her thanks to her vision of the future, she manages to activate the holocron. A projection appears an identifies herself as Jedi Master Soo Tageria, teacher of younglins. The holocron Jedi Master, studies Evie and announces that she has great potential but is to old to begin the training. The projection ends.
With their new ship repaired, and with a full month of rations remaining, the crew settles down to begin dismantling the Reliance‘s remaining Y-wings. Stuffing the disassembled ships aboard the Lonely Refuge and the Reliance, they prepare to exit the safety of the nebula. 1D-J0 will pilot the old Wayfarer on its back up class 14 hyperdrive while the crew take the Redemption ahead to try and acquire a better replacement, and find a buyer for the Y-wings.
Living on the Edge
