Mission Report: Shimmerstone Mines

Mission Start Date: 25th of March, 55 ATC
Primary Objective: Defense of Shimmerstone Town and Mines from bandit forces
Secondary Objective: Evaluation of 'Asha', and risk assessment based on her Sith background
 
Initial departure was to intercept bandit forces in Shimmerstone Town, before they could cause any real harm. Transport was by land vehicle, and took a few hours. Time was spent getting a better feel for Asha's signature, and trying to derive any additional details. Observations matched initial assessment, and confirmed that it'll be hard to get a better read on her abilities until she can be observed actively using the Force.
 
Bandit force in Shimmerstone town was small, disorganized, and mostly focused on looting. They were quickly captured, and remanded to the townsfolk for detainment until we could round up their cohorts.
 
No Force use observed by Asha, but she did show legitimate concern for the wellbeing of the townsfolk, even though her ties there seem to only be recent.
 
It was decided to continue on to the mines immediately, before the looter group was missed, so we loaded back up into the land vehicle and proceeded to the Shimmerstone Mines. Amur agreed to don a disguise to appear as one of the bandits, in the hopes it'd allow us to get closer before the fight started.
 
Security at the mines was lax, and doubly so as they were expecting the looters to steal one of the town's land vehicles. A lone droid was outside the mine buildings, and it assumed we were part of the bandit party, which gave us time to spread out and get the lay of the land. Amur released a small tracker droid to sweep the area, and confirmed all of the bandits were inside the various mine buildings. Grid'tok then chose to enter the first building and declare himself. The fighting was swift, and the bandit's disorganized response led to their quick defeat.
 
It was during this altercation that I regret to report being the cause of one casualty among the bandits. One of my telekenetic wave attacks knocked a bandit into a doorframe with enough force to kill them instantly.
 
Once the mine was secured, and the surviving bandits rounded up and tended to, the bandit leader's comm went off. As Amur was still disguised, he answered the comm call, and tried to get information out of the caller. Sadly, deception does not seem to be Amur's strong suit, and he was quickly discovered.
 
Luckily, the caller was feeling talkative, and trying to either hire out or scare off Amur, so we gained a good bit of information anyways. The caller was a one (formerly) Lieutenant Colonel Nials Petrarch, of the Imperial Marine Corps. He stated his intention to keep control of the mine and the town, and warned Amur that a NR-N99 Persuader Tank was on its way to the town, and would obliterate everything there in three days.
 
After some hurried discussion as to how we could stop a large, armored tank, Asha offered to take us to something that would be able to save the town. We sent off the captured bandits with one of the Shimmerstone locals, and then Asha led us through several caverns, until we reached the crash site of her starship. As you've seen the ship at this point, I won't bother going into details about it here. We spent a couple of hours going over the ship to assess its damage. We came up with a plan of attack for getting enough systems running to at least crash it into the tank, at worst case. Most of us took this point to get some rest, while Niwadi went back to base to update you and borrow a couple of Qiju's to help us get this ship off the ground.
 
The next couple of days were spent unburying the ship and getting enough of its base systems online that we could at least get it to the Tank's location. We did learn that abnormally large Dinkos will steal powered parts, a repulsor coil in this case, which it was defending in its nest. We also learned that Asha stole the ship from her former master, managed to get it into Hyperspace, and crashed it into Torunga. This mapped well with the damage done to the ship and the landscape, but Niwadi's inspection of the Hyperdrives showed that neither had been activated, ever. Definitely worth further investigation.
 
Repairs went better than initial estimates, and we not only got the ship airborne, but managed to get all of the weapon systems online. One of the benefits of the ship's screwy design is that it handled the crash surprisingly well.
 
Also during this time period, Asha got a comm call and some holo-images of a door one of the locals found in the mine. Asha identified the door as Rakatan in design, and asked them to leave it be for now, as those sorts of doors are often trapped.
 
On the night before the tank was expected to reach Shimmerstone town, we got the Yokai (That's the ship's name at present), airborne, and flew it to the town. After a quick check-in at the town to make sure nothing else had changed, we swept up and out, looking for signs of the tank in the nearby area. We managed to find the tank' camp, as they had stopped for the night, and set down a good distance to the southeast.
 
The plan was that the ground forces, composed of everyone except Niwadi, Amur, and the Qiju, would sneak into position and then signal the attack, at which time the Yokai would engage the Tank while we engaged the other ground forces. I snuck into the camp to count heads, and as we were substantially outnumbered, started putting down sleeping targets while the Yokai got into position and started the battle in dramatic fashion. One enemy operative was killed in their sleep before the fight began.
 
The fight pretty much exploded at that point, and the chaos caused by the Yokai firing main guns on the tank kept the ground forces from mounting an effective defense. This allowed us to thin their numbers substantially. Once the tank was incapacitated, the Yokai landed, and Niwadi and Amur joined the fight. Again, regrettably, my use of Force Currents killed an opponent outright. A strange, somewhat feline-ish, tentacled creature exited the tank and attacked, but as it was already badly hurt from the explosions, it was dispatched quickly. Asha used a form of Force Lightning in the fight, confirming her training, but still continued to fight to protect the townspeople, and not kill any of her opponents. Even when using her powers, her aura remained dark, but not very dark. She does not seem yet lost to the Darkness.
 
As the fight was drawing to a close, the tank's commander recognized Asha and went into a full panic. Asha capitalized on this to get the remaining forces to surrender, and everyone was once again rounded up and treated. I missed some of the information garnered from the captives, as I was tending to the dead.
 
The gist of what the group learned was that one of the Shimmerstone townsfolk had found a door to some ruins inside one of the mine shafts, and had hidden it from the others. They then tried to sell the location, but held out for more money than the initial offers. The bandit group led by Petrarch was hired by the Exchange to sack the town, kill the townsperson in question, and secure the site. This maps with the mine's primary owner dying in the first bandit assault, leaving his son to be one of the ones who initially reached out to us for aid.
 
After some rest to heal up, we used the Yokai to get high enough to get comms to work, we checked in, and then went down to the Shimmerstone Mine to deal with the Rakatan ruins.
 
The ruins were generally in poor shape, though there was some salvageable tech and historical pieces that the locals could sell. There was one room, protected by a Stasis Field, and a somewhat functional computer that controlled the systems. As Rakatan technology runs on energies channeled from the Force, I channeled power into the systems while Niwadi and Amur hacked the system. As data came up, Asha translated it, and helped coordinate getting the door open.
 
Inside the stasis field was a massive tentacle, tipped by a crystalline flower. The crystal structure on the tentacle operated much like a Kyber does in a Lightsaber, turning the tentacle into a massive weapon. Asha was able to connect with the tendril, which allowed her to get enough control of it that we could figure out how best to deal with it. We decided to unhook it from the power source that was keeping it active and in pain, and then remove the tentacle, the power supply and the computer data from the site, as each was very dangerous to the miners, and not the sort of things we wanted sold to the Sith or the remnants of the Empire.
 
Niwadi negotiated with the locals so that we could procure the dangerous items from the ruins, while helping them to identify what they could sell from the rest. I also left them a pair of speeder bikes, so that they could get to us in the city more quickly, should issues arise where they need our help.
 
Asha also contacted Petrarch, to make it clear that we had ransacked the mine and emptied the ruins. In the hopes of stopping their aggressions towards the Shimmerstone community. Petrarch was told, and we have good cause to believe he accepts, that the mine is claimed by Asha's former Master, called 'Darth Almalga'. It's entirely plausible that this fiction will be dismantled eventually, so we should be prepared to have to deal with this Sith at some point in the future. Between losing an apprentice, a starship and a Rakatan ruin, we've likely either gotten, or will soon get, their attention.
 
As to my observations of Asha, she does not seem very dark, deceitful, or actively trying to cause us harm. She is certainly wary of us still, or at least Grid'tok and I, but she went out of her way to help a community she had only circumstantial ties to, and did not evidence any of the usual emotional instability one sees in a Force-user lost to the Darkness. As long as she is interested, she may be a fine candidate for remedial Jedi training, and returning to the Light.
 
I would be remiss, however, if I did not point out the possibility, even if remote, that this is a carefully orchestrated trap, and that her true intentions are hidden from us, so some level of caution is recommended, and I will continue to observe her for potential threats.