Episode 3.08 Kanter's War, Chapter 7 Report
General Summary
The closer we got to Chausid Station, the more things stopped adding up. Until, well, they suddenly added up faster than you could say ‘Jedi on deck’!
We flew in using one of the refurbished assault shuttles that the Freedworlds Republic had gotten their hands on. The ship was late Clone Wars, early Galactic Imperial, vintage that had been put back together pretty well. It was based on the shuttle class I flew before I was in cryosleep for 30 years, so it was familiar territory for me.
The whole volunteer assignment was a simple mission. Chausid Station had been taken over by the Killian Pirate Clan. Right now, the Freedworlds couldn’t afford to lose any settlements. Their first idea to deal with the whole problem was to, well, basically invade Chausid Station. Pretty much like what the Killian pirate clan did.
That felt like a setup. Bait for a trap. The Separatists used it several times during the Clone Wars. My idea, which Captain Rico and Chancellor Kanter got right on board with, was to send in a small group and capture the pirate leading the raid. It should settle things down.
In theory, it was a plan… and everyone knows about ‘plans’ and ‘the enemy’.
Flying A Low Profile
I flew us in low in case of active sensors coming out of Chausid Station. The Jedi meditated, Vance helped Captain Kolene repair her shield gauntlet. The others either pulled up scans or research on Chausid Station itself. Along the way, we pooled intel as it was collected.
The mentat Reese? He did what any mentat does when left unsupervised on the HoloNet… he made a swarm of bots and assaulted Chausid Station’s comm array. Disturbing? Yes. Useful? Frak, yes.
A few seconds after Reese turned loose his little bot army, he came right back with news. His swarm of bots couldn’t jam, then eventually collapse the Chausid Station comm array, like he wanted. The town was already being jammed… from somewhere inside the town!
That was too odd to ignore. Rico and Goss agreed. So, we talked it out with the others but agreed between the three of us to keep our eyes open. Something wasn’t right at Chausid Station, beyond it being the victim of a pirate raid.
That was more on target than we realized.
At the outskirts of the settlement, we picked up a stray, low-band distress call. Someone was calling for help and was trying to avoid getting caught up in the jammer. They had avoided the jammer, but the signal strength wasn’t high enough to reach Port Etmar. Maybe Port Nevermore, but I couldn’t be sure about that.
The recognition codes checked out as recent Freedworlds Republic. Content of the message packet said it was from some of the Freedworlds Troopers who had escaped the pirate raid.
Supposedly.
But we couldn’t ignore that. So, after a quick stop to let off Rico and Goss to check it out, the rest of us flew up toward Chausid Station itself.
We put the shuttle down on the far side of some sandstone rocks, due west of town. No one spotted us. Target lock sensors didn’t light up. Things stayed quiet.
I’d love to say that was because of my amazing pilot skills, but I didn’t get dumped out of the cloning tank yesterday. I was getting a bad feeling about this.
Astounding Skulking Arounding
There’s only really three ways into Chausid Station: Docking bays, by air, or through the main gate.
The docking bays are built into wide piers that jut out over Scuttle Dock Bay. That’s the inlet or bay coming off Piterra Wastes dust ocean.
Goes without saying, we won’t be swimming out there.
Next way in was by air. Most shuttles or aircars land at the docking bays, but aircars can land elsewhere. There are some rooftop pads for that from what I saw on the map.
Last is the front gate. This means security scanners, probably anti-personnel weapons, and other fun door prizes. Of course, we took this option. The direct and blunt approach. Goss will so be proud.
I chalked it up to that the other routes in were both by air, which could get you shot down. That would just be embarrassing.
So, we picked our way through Chausid Station’s Mod Quarter district. A small section where people can get cyborg enhancements for whatever reason. So’zen, myself, and Vance scouted it out, while the others followed after. No trouble found us, and we found no trouble.
That actually worried me. Wasn’t there supposed to have been a pirate raid?
I wasn’t the only one thinking that. Everyone was whispering about it, looking for any sign of ambush. Just something. Anything.
At least not until we reached the gate.
Who Stole the Welcome Mat?
I have to be honest in my report here. I tried to keep it as it happened, but the idea of ‘divide and conquer’ turned into ‘52 sabbac card pickup’. So, I had to play a little fast and loose with how events happened…
The gate did have security scanners. Did. One was offline. The other was working but trying to take the load for the disabled one. We timed it right to slip under it when it panned south, since we were hugging buildings to the north.
There were real signs of trouble once we got inside. Walls had smears of blaster burns. Broken out crates, windows, and more. We did a little quick look and found the most unsettling part… no one was walking around. The streets were empty.
Chausid’s people were all inside, armed to the teeth and waiting… just… waiting.
This is when we decided to split up. Attack the problem on multiple fronts.
The whole mission was to capture the Killian pirate raid leader. Part of that involved knocking out the Chausid Station comm array so the Killians couldn’t call for help. But those were jammed, so this changed to take out the systems jamming the town.
We had spotted two comm arrays in town. One on top of the Chausid Council Center and the other atop the Chausid Dock and Dredge Repair Shop on the bay side of town. Chausid Council Center was closer, so that one was first.
Reese headed out with So’zen’s R2 droid, Bishop, to shut down the first system.
Meanwhile, Vanya and I got a bad feeling about this entire situation. Vanya told the others we needed to get off the street, and fast. I agreed and not just because she’s a Jedi and looked like she sensed something.
The town’s only inn, the Wet Wookiee Inn, was a few steps away. We were going to regroup there later, which Reese knew, so we got a head start on ‘regrouping’. Besides, the place was two stories and the stone walls looked more like ‘fortress’ than ‘inn’.
Inside, we met the owner, a wookiee named Kunla, who filled in some of the details for us about Chausid Station.
Chausid Station had been attacked, but the locals fought back. The town doesn’t have a ‘marshal’, they have a standing arrangement with a local pirate gang called the Void Wolves. A small squad of Void Wolves was in town during the attack. Void Wolves that survived the initial attack were holed up on the second floor of the inn to patch up.
Kunla turned out to be a fountain of information. Well, at least when he wasn’t flirting with So’zen, Aerena, or you name it. So’zen politely declined and eventually headed upstairs to help patch up the Void Wolves. Vance? Tossed out questions and got us some rooms. As for Aerena? Oh, Aerena took a serious shine to him.
If we stay in town tonight, I plan on wearing noise cancelers when I get some shuteye. I’m not into Wookiee Opera, improvised or otherwise. But, again, we did learn what was going on…
I stayed in the common room of the inn with Vanya and took up an intense interest in the local inn decoration. Eventually, I shifted to a brief comm chat with Rico and Goss.
That was Freedworlds Troopers outside the town. It was half the squad that had been here during the raid. The other half? The Killian pirates had them captive. Kunla confirmed it. The Killians had them stashed in an old junker at the southern-most docking bay.
After all the Q&A at the inn, it turned out that the raid on Chausid Station never finished. It’s a primed thermal detonator waiting to blow. That was where my bad feeling came from, or some of it.
You see, down the street, the Mentat had figured out a cunning plan.
Fully Armed and Operational Baked Beans
As I said, Reese and Bishop had taken a back alley route to get at the building with the first comm array and its jammer. Once they made it to the Council Center, Reese had a plan.
It was a “Alert Status: Goss” plan, so it involved an explosive.
The plan, as we heard from our local comms, involved a can of baked beans and a kyber crystal. Reese duck taped those together and using a kit-bashed drone, they flew it up over the Council Center, where it got shot by the jamming system’s automated defenses.
Which meant that energy-loving crystal refracted the blasts and amplified them right into the can of beans.
Then, the beans cooked, or overcooked, before the can popped.
At that point, the weaponized baked beans were an unleashed a hail of hot, gooey legume destruction on the jammer.
That’s also when the shab hit the old ion inductors.
The Killians took a little offense to that. Also, they took offense to Reese, who headed in to try to con some of those pirates inside the Council Center. It turned out that the Killians are jumpy right now and exploding baked beans followed by someone running in shouting about ‘Void Wolves’ rubs them wrong.
So’zen, who had tried to scout out more of Chausid Station about that time, had to double back. This was because Reese needed cover since I think everything short of the literal building was trying to kill him. He also mentioned something about Bishop loaning out one of So’zen’s ‘emergency crystals’ for his lightsaber.
Seriously… why was no one asking ‘why is a droid carrying a can of baked beans on a rescue mission? Any mission?’
Bishop wasn’t helping. The droid was off playing “Charge of the Light Tinny” shooting up and “dome-butting” pirates in the building. There’s something really wrong with that droid.
At the first sound of blaster fire, we raced out of the inn, then down the street to give Reese an opening to make a break for it. Once he ran past, we focused our attention on the Killians in the Council Center. After all, the town’s fuse had gone off, all that was left was to clear the deck.
So, we got to work.
But that was before So’zen spotted the last thing we expected. Maybe, given all that had happened, we should have expected it.
It was the glimmer of a Trandoshan in a cloak-suit, out looking to hunt and we were in his hunting ground.
Goes without saying, we won’t be swimming out there.
I have to be honest in my report here. I tried to keep it as it happened, but the idea of ‘divide and conquer’ turned into ‘52 sabbac card pickup’. So, I had to play a little fast and loose with how events happened…
If we stay in town tonight, I plan on wearing noise cancelers when I get some shuteye. I’m not into Wookiee Opera, improvised or otherwise. But, again, we did learn what was going on…
It was a “Alert Status: Goss” plan, so it involved an explosive.
Seriously… why was no one asking ‘why is a droid carrying a can of baked beans on a rescue mission? Any mission?’
