Session 12: A Deadly Game, Part VIII
General Summary
Lyshea and Tomla Niron head into the jungles of ViGureni to get some protection from the sun. Not long after, Tomla spots three figures moving toward them. She hides behind a tree and waits for them to get closer. When they do, she recognizes one of them as the Sullustan engineer that they met, Beck Nhallip. She attempts to mind trick him into leaving, but it doesn't seem to have any impact, so she readies herself for a fight. Meanwhile, back at hangar bay 12, the ship returns and out steps the Khommite that Lem "Lemmy" Kolo and Rin Tos saw before on the holocams that they set up. Lem had the perfect hiding spot behind some crates, but somehow the stranger notices him anyway. When he calls out to him, identifying him as a force user, Lem stays silent. The Khommite then moves one of the massive crates with his mind, revealing Lem. Lem introduces himself and the clone smiles and introduces himself as Dorsk 82, a Jedi Knight who has been gone from the Jedi Praxeum for nearly two years on a mission. The two chat for a bit, and Lem explains that they are looking for Kyp Durron who has recently left the academy. Dorsk 82 seems upset at this and surprised that no one told him. When Lem asks about what he is doing on Fresia, Dorsk 82 explains that he's on a mission for Master Skywalker and he's not allowed to discuss it with padawans. However, he would love to see Dal Konur again and asks Lem to let Dal know to contact him. Unfortunately, Rin doesn't hear any of this because the cameras have no audio. Seeing who he believes is Rosk 5 use the force so casually chills him to the bone. Thankfully, once Lem starts to leave, he thinks to turn his comlink on in an open channel so Rin can listen in. As he's leaving, he asks Dorsk 82 if he knows anything about Cidcreper or how the The Onyx Tigers rigged the Headhunter Hunt (Thread 1.3.3: The Headhunter Hunt), but Dorsk says he does not and suggests that they report it to the ISO. Lem leaves the docking bay as a crowd of people clamor to give Dorsk 82 their Z-95 registration slips and start loading onto his ship. Lem calls Rin on the comlink to fill him in and clear up the confusion about who the Khommite was. Rin asks Lem if he planted the tracking device, which in the surprise of the moment, Lem forget. He turns back toward the docking bay and tries to get close enough to Dorsk 82's ship to plant the device, but he's not very convincing and Dorsk 82 uses the force to make Lem think he needs to leave the bay. Just as Lem exits docking bay 12, the upper hangar bay doors above the The Mynock's Wing start to crack open, as if by force. Rin tries to get a better view, but soon after starts hearing several thunks on the roof of the ship, as if something metallic was being dropped and then magnetized. Fearing the worst, Rin tells S19-A1 to start the ship so that they can turn on the shields and lets Lem know that something is happening. He then runs back to his quarters to get the modified blaster that he took off of Vass Manduc at The Resort (Thread 1.3.1: The Reluctant Smuggler). Lem rushes back into the bay and sees several figures on top of the bay doors in the ceiling dropping explosives onto their ship. He musters every fiber of his being and his full connection to the Force to leap up onto the Mynock's Wing. He sees the figures remove the device they used to force open the doors and one of them has some kind of small device in their hand, possibly a detonator. Rin yells at Lem to get off the ship before the explosives vaporize him, and he just barely makes it into the ship as Salty finishes the startup sequence and Rin slams the lever to give the shields full power. Almost at the same time, a massive explosion rocks the ship and the bay in which it sits, blowing through the shields, tearing holes in the hull, and dropping massive bits of the bay doors on top of the ship. Back in the jungle, Tomla sees that the three people chasing them have what look like staves with snake heads on them, but the heads appear to be moving. She calls out to Beck, but he doesn't respond and instead pulls out a massive beetle from a pouch and throws it at her. It misses, but the beetle opens its wings and flies back toward its thrower. He then runs at Tomla and swings his staff at her, but fails to connect. Lyshea runs away, and Tomla, seeing that she is outnumbered, uses the force to help her jump into a nearby tree. Unfortunately, her Ithorian legs do not cooperate and she only manages to grab onto a low branch. As the strangers close in on her, swinging their staffs and throwing more of those large bugs at her, she swings herself onto the branch and then leaps nearly 15 feet into the air in a force-powered jump, and aims her fall so that she lands squarely on the Sullustan, his body crumpling under the impact. Just then, one of the other assailants begins screaming as her skin begins to pull away from every inch of her body in a horrifying and shocking display. Underneath the skin, however, she sees that a completely different looking alien of a species she has never seen before is emerging, and the "skin" is actually some kind of animal as it undulates on the jungle floor, clearly alive. Seeing this, she uses the quickdraw device hidden in her neck crevice to launch her trusty wrench into her hand, just in time to connect it with the head of the other attacker. She is also able to use the force to pull one of the bug-weapons out of her enemy's hand with the Force and then smash it against a stone. Unfortunately, the two assailants' snake-staffs and combat skills are too much for the padawan, and after several hard blows from the staffs, she falls unconscious. The next thing she knows, she is being dragged by her feet through the jungle by the two unknown aliens. Bleeding, bruised, and nearly dead, Tomla takes a breath and then pulls herself free and begins tapping into the Force to allow her to run supernaturally fast back toward the beach where she and Lyshea landed. While the two initially give chase, it's clear that they can't keep up. By the time Tomla reaches the beach and finds Lyshea, her attackers have disappeared back into the jungle. Tomla and Lyshea climb a tree to hide, staying completely silent for the next several hours. After the explosion in the hangar, Rin, Lem, and Salty assess the damage. The dockmaster also calls the ship to see what's happening, but Rin blames him for the attack and yells at him before cutting communications. Realizing the gravity of their sitatuation, they decide that they should reach out to Tomla and fill her in. As Tomla starts telling her two padawan friends what happened to her, Lem immediately recognizes her description as the Yuuzhan Vong from his past (Thread 1.3.4: Unexpected Lifeform). Since the ship is able to fly, barely, Rin takes off without permission from the dockmaster and miraculously manages to get the ship out of the bay without further damage. They then fly to ViGureni to pickup Tomla and Lyshea as night begins to fall. Once there, Rin hovers the ship just off the ground and Lem gracefully leaps down onto the beach and races toward Tomla. Despite his friend looking like she is at death's door, Lem is only focused on finding out from her where the Vong were spotted. As soon as she points in the general direction, Lem races into the dark jungle. Unfortunately, it's too dark to find any tracks, so Lem dejectedly heads back to the ship. All together once more, and with Tomla's most serious wounds attended to, they receive a comm signal from off-planet. It's Master Konur calling after his several days of being out of touch. He asks for an update and hears the several disturbing situations that the padawans describe to him. Trying to maintain his composure at what sounds like a complete mess of things that his pupils have made on Fresia, he asks them if they've made any progress on finding Kyp or the mysterious "KD" (Thread 1.1.1: The Search for Kyp). Lem tells him about Dorsk 82, which Master Konur finds very odd. He tells them that Dorsk 82 not being on Khomm where he should be, and instead acting as this "KD" person at the same time that Kyp was trying to purchase some ships from Incom Corporation can't be a coincidence. He instructs his padawans to finish up their business on Fresia and if they don't find any other leads as to where Kyp has gone, then he suggests that they head to Khomm to find out what Dorsk 82 has been up to. He will meet them there as soon as he is finished evacuating the other padawans from Yavin IV since Master Skywalker thinks that the communication blackout may be a prelude to an attack on the Jedi Order. Before the call ends, Tomla tells Master Konur about the bioweapon research that they found Beck Nhallip working on at the Incom lab on Coromon Besh. Master Konur says that they need to stick to the mission, and getting involved in Incom's restricted research is beyond their scope. When Rin protests, frustrated that they have the opportunity to put a stop to something that could harm millions of innocent people, Konur stops him and explains that the bureaucracies involved between the The New Republic, Incom, and the Jedi Order are too complex for them to wade into. After the call ends, all three padawans express their disappointment in Master Konur's seeming disinterest in the Incom research. Lem states that the Jedi bureaucracy will bring the end of the galaxy. As night falls, they read the data packet that Master Konur sent over describing what he knows of Dorsk 82's mission on Khomm (Thread 1.4.3: Investigating Dorsk 82). They find out that after a devastating bombardment of the planet by the Imperial Remnant a decade ago, the peaceful culture that had existing among the Khommites for a millennia began to crumble under the sudden disruption to their perfectly engineered society as they were forced to adapt to something unexpected for the first time. Dorsk 82 requested to go to Khomm to assist with the reconstruction efforts, as well as to research the emergence of force sensitivity among clones, since only he and his predecessor, Dorsk 81, have ever had such a strong connection to the Force. While Rin spends the night repairing the ship with Salty, Tomla rests and recovers from her battle. Lem heads into the jungle and sleeps where Tomla's battle took place. In the morning, he finds some tracks and follows them into the jungle for over an hour. At one point, he runs into a headhunter and has a difficult battle with it, but uses his combat training to roll past past it and stab his lightsaber into its torso, killing it. He then continues deeper into the jungle, determined to find the Vong or at least some of their biotech. Back at the ship, Captain Jacob Jason calls to find out where Lyshea is, but Tomla answers and fakes a comms error (badly) and hangs up. He calls back again, but this time Rin answers and hangs up immediately. They need more time to formulate a plan and decide what to do next.
