Session II - "Proof of Innocence" Report

General Summary

The party was able to finesse their way out of the bar unscathed, avoiding the red tape and paper work that comes with being involved in a public brawl. On their way out, Mathos noticed an hooded figure exit through a hidden door in the back of the lounge when the brawl broke out. On following, the door emptied them out into an alleyway behind Bahima's Tap Haus. On meeting up with the rest of the group, they were taken back to the merchant quarter by Panaar, the rebel operative who has been stranded on Onderon during the blockade.

In the merchant quarter, they observe a political rally. Jadran gathers that the Onderonian people are split between two political parties: one in favor of the ruling queen Talia who is holding to remaining a sovereign nation from the empire, and the other in favor of her cousin General Vaklu, the head of the Onderonian military and who is pushing for joining the empire. The man who leading the rally appeared to be in support of general Vaklu, speaking of the benefits of being a a part of the empire and arguing against the queens self centered policies, saying they would deprive the people of Onderon of all the benefits of joining the empire.

They then talked with the soldier guarding the detention block about the murder of captain Sullio. After many attempts to convince the guard to give them information on the witness who claims to have seen Dhagon committing the crime, they finally succeed by pretending to be on secret assignment from the queen to investigate the murder. Due to the political instability and the fact the the military/security forces of Onderon are divided between allegiance to the queen or general Vaklu, their role must be kept hush hush, and the guard agrees to to keep their secret, as he is a loyalist in favor of queen Talia. While he gets the relevant information on this witness, the party takes a look around the merchant quarter, and notices a droid vendor selling used tech parts. The guardsman comes back with a packet of info, which reveals the witnesses name to be Becorum Pelti. The party then heads over to the droid vendor. After a bit of haggling they are able to agree on a purchase price of 500 cr for what they believe to be the missing head from the droid in the western square crime scene.

On taking it back to Panaar's safe house, they are able to access the droids neural processor and display on a datapad the optical input from the last moments of run time logged by the droid. On the screen they see the outside of Bahima's Tap Haus through the droids visual receptors. As it gets about halfway across the square towards the corner where it's remains were found, there is a blaster shot and the droid looks up to see captain Sullio fall to the ground. With an exclamation, the droid rushes over to Sullios body beofre there is the sound of another shot and the droid falls to the ground. The video footage then shows, from the droids view on the ground, the assailant running away from the crime scene towards the merchant quarter. All that is visible is the individuals waist down, with no distinctive markings or insignias. The droids recorded input then stops as its circuits overload.

Panaar thinks this is enough to get Dhagon acquitted, as Nikko saw Dhagon running from his med bay towards Sullio's body at the time of the murder, not away from it towards the merchant quarter which lies in the opposite direction. Panaar verifies that Dhagon was indeed in his med bay, as he was meeting with Dhagon at the time and saw this part of the events unfold. Of course he cannot testify to this, as both he and Dhagon would be convicted of treason. Jadran then obtains information on the man who had been leading the political rally from Panaar, as this man is under observation by Panaar and rebellion intelligence. He gives the mans address in the residential section of town, but pleads with the party to do nothing that would alert the man to the fact he is under observation.

After making a copy of the droids visual record, they take the neural processor to the guardsman at the detention block in hopes of freeing Dhagon, trsuting the man since he had previously shown loyalty to the queen. Jadran asks that he sit on the evidence for 24 hours though, in order to give the party time to do a bit more digging into the conspiracy that seems to be at hand. The guard is a bit dubious, but agrees. Then, in the lengthening evening shadows, the party then heads off into the residential district in search of the leader of the political rally...