Pitch Dark

Technological achievement

This is the one with the tactical moon.

This is also the one where Obi-Wan Kenobi did not die.

The Official Mission Briefing:

Admiral d'Arcy summons Eleni Benacor, Count Tsu Vorboccioni, Lord Danar Vorpadaran (and his Mentat KitKat), Captain Lod Zorad, and Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi (and his padawan) to a mission briefing: d'Arcy needs an emergency extraction of a possibly-unwilling technology genius. A Twi'lek Imperial Captain named Dr. Orin LaRuun is en route to Mentis System -- and, therefore, the Death Star -- with some sort of new hyperdrive design.

The party is to retrieve LaRuun alive, and if at all possible, retrieve the plans also intact. If they cannot be retrieved, the plans can be destroyed, but LaRuun must be delivered to D'Arcy quickly.

Intel reports that LaRuun is on a small Imperial escort, taking a circuitous route to avoid notice, but will have a short layover on a former smuggler station known as "Darkblade Station" -- where some of the party have visited, briefly, before it was confiscated in the name of the Galactic Empire.

Things that will never make it into any briefing about this mission, especially not an official one:

• In true Jedi Quest style, we have to smuggle ourselves aboard Darkblade Station in order to
  1. Find out what's going on;
  2. Fix whatever is going on.

I don't understand the problem with "keep only what you can carry". You can carry a wallet with thousands of credits in it. What's the problem?

— Danar to Vanya on Jedi Order property laws, "Pitch Dark", Star Wars: Shards of Honor

• Tsu Vorboccioni in his guise as smuggler Khun Lakhia uses a transponder code to misidentify his yacht, the Private Dancer, as something harmless. He says it is a valid code that should be accepted without all this fuss, he says, after he's already given it to Darkblade Traffic Control. He claims it's "old but good".
  

  Okay, next time? Let's go ahead and get the paperwork all filled out, and get a new code. I'll help you!

  — Eleni to Khun, "Pitch Dark", Star Wars: Shards of Honor

• Because we're in the middle of Very Serious Work with Very Serious Consequences, we need to focus. So, of course, certain people start ragging on other people, such as asking Vanya if Sir Davish Tam will meet her on-station for some personal time. Does he wear boxers under that Crimson Knight uniform? With little hearts on them?

• Eleni: Doesn't it just blow things out of proportion when people start playing matchmaker for you?
  V: I don't mind it much, but my head may explode.

  — The Boxers Incident, "Pitch Dark", Star Wars: Shards of Honor

• Once we successfully dock, we head out to our separate pieces of the investigation. Rebel Alliance Captain Lod Zorad heads for the seamy underbelly of Spacers' Row, making connections that eventually get him an interview with the local head of organized crime.
• Who is a Dathomirian Witch.

• Dathomirian Witch: I am Elandra. And you are?
  Lod: I am ... Danar .. Vor -- damn, no.
  Elandra: Danar??
  Lod: Vordamnno?

  — Lod and the head of local organized crime, "Pitch Dark", Star Wars: Shards of Honor

• The situation on Darkblade Station is more urgent than anybody anticipated. Darth Dragomir is present, personally overseeing some project, and not the only wielder of the Dark Side to be operating here. Vanya's ability to "sense Stormtrooper", her spiritual connection to the service of the Clone Troopers, seems to be full of a strange static that makes her downright jumpy. Master Kenobi decides that he needs to go monkey with some hardware on the station, that the fate of the party and the mission and maybe the Galaxy depends on it; he tells Vanya to head on to her part of corralling Dr. LaRuun solo. She is not to wait for Ben to catch up.
• Vanya is having none of it. The ever-increasing convolutions of the party's intrigue on this adventure have long since exceeded her ability to parse.
   

  Pleeease don't leave me alone with them!

  — Vanya to her Master, "Pitch Dark", Star Wars: Shards of Honor

    Kenobi tries to persuade Vanya that the original plan is fine, or at least that her assignment in it is still valid, but that is obviously not the case. Furthermore, anyplace he is going, a trained private investigator is more useful than in the way; further than that, Dragomir already knows some Jedi are present, so their personal cover is already blown. There's no point in sending Vanya to handle anything alone.
   

  Let's go hit Dragomir or something. At least then, I'll have some understanding of what's going on!

  — Vanya to Obi-Wan, who is laughing too hard to be stern; "Pitch Dark", Star Wars: Shards of Honor

• So it turns out that
  1. the Death Star has gotten its hyperdrive operational
  2. and is HERE
  3. getting FUELED UP for an assault on Procopia System
  which is the cause of the bad feeling which Ben Kenobi was having about all this.
• The bad guys chase the party down in many different parts of Darkblade Station. Everyone has to resort to some pretty inventive shenanigans to keep the mission going.
• Dragomir is not interested in doing all that much chasing. He comes after the Jedi with as much power as he can muster. Davish jumps in to help Kenobi buy Vanya time; Vanya is trying to destroy the gravity well projectors that keep everyone from escaping to hyperspace.

What're you doing this entire time, sneaky bastard?

— GM to Tsu Vorboccioni, "Pitch Dark", Star Wars: Shards of Honor

• Tsu takes up the identity of a Crimson Guard as a means to spread carefully edited information across the Galactic Empire forces:

  Darth Dragomir has attacked Sir Tam and is assisting the Jedi.

  — Tsu Vorboccioni pretending to be TX3852, a Crimson Guard lookalike, "Pitch Dark", Star Wars: Shards of Honor

• Danar and KitKat get themselves transported over to the Death Star, assuring the party that they have a truly excellent plan to save the day, one calculated out to nineteen decimal points. They explain the pertinent points of their plan to Captain Benacor, so that the Mismatch will be ready to take advantage when they s t e a l . t h e . D e a t h . S t a r
• What is Eleni doing?  

  I lost track, because the enormity and the craziness of the plan kinda washed over me ....

  — Eleni, on the Danar-KitKat plan

• Eleni is, in fact, presenting herself as a freelance courier (true) who brought medical supplies to the station (true). Now she is handing them out. Some of the "refugees" are problematic.
• Because they are, in fact, infected with the Reaver virus.

Tsu Vorboccioni: Why did you offer a Reaver your medpack?
Eleni Benacor: It seemed like a good way to say 'hello'.

— Can't demonstrate that they are too competent in front of the Galactic Empire medics, but I think these refugees are infected, "Pitch Dark", Star Wars: Shards of Honor

• Danar and Kitkat successfully schmooze their way into control of the mostly empty battle bridge on the Death Star. The crew is down to minimal maintenance levels for the fuel transfer; more than half of the battle station does not even have atmosphere at this time. Kitkat determines that they have enough power to maintain travel in a short hyperspace jump if they can reach hyperspace in the first place, but the necessary equipment is not fully installed.
• "Not to worry," Kitkat assures his Vor: they will power up the engines and borrow Khun's original "three degrees of safety" plan for a slingshot around the nearby star, launching themselves into hyperspace that way.
• Or, just maybe, they will burn up.
• Kitkat is very confident that his math will work!

I love this man. But he is insane!

— Vanya to GM upon hearing what KitKat's plan is, because her progenitors did this for a living, but on a smaller scale; "Pitch Dark", Star Wars: Shards of Honor

• On Darkblade Station, Vorboccioni faces down several armed enemies who are not (despite their armor) members of the Crimson Guard. One asks him courteously if he has a dying wish. He does:  

  I turn around the PDA so it's recording me with the two bodyguards behind me, I say, "Defiant to the end!", I moon them, and then I dive down the maintenance shaft.

  — Tsu Vorboccioni vs. not-Crimson Guard, "Pitch Dark", Star Wars: Shards of Honor

• Vanya gets the gravity well projector to fry itself. Furious, Dragomir focuses all of his efforts on getting through the Jedi Master's defenses. He knocks badly injured Davish Tam over the side of the walkway; Vanya turns to haul the Crimson Knight back up.
• Danar and Kitkat engage the engines on the Death Star. They trip every alarm they can find. They open the throttle to full.
• Vorboccioni lands near the platform where the Mystic Mob fight is ongoing. He does not have a vehicular weapon handy; as he updates Eleni on station events, and she updates him on the starfighter action outside the station, Vorboccioni readies an entire clip full of explosives to throw at the Sith Lord.
• Dragomir manages to stab his lightsaber directly through Master Kenobi's chest.
• Vanya calmly puts her hand on it and absorbs all the energy of the lightsaber, in the process shutting it off.
• Keeping her left hand in place on her Master's chest, Vanya turns a portion of the energy she just absorbed into a telekinetic yank on Dragomir's elegant shirt. She yanks it -- and therefore the man inside it -- clear off the platform.
• While Dragomir is still startled by his powerless lightsaber, his lack of platform under his feet, Vorboccioni launches the primed clip into Dragomir's gut. Dragomir is last seen falling into open space below Darkblade Station, the explosives just beginning to fire.
• No one has time to pay attention to that, because

The Death Star time travels to a week before the party arrived at Darkblade Station.

It takes everything in the star system, everything less massive than the star itself, along with it.

Good, uh, good thing this system had no planets or even an asteroid field in orbit?

Aftermath:

This entire incident is so highly classified, speaking of it to anyone is Capital Treason. Writing about it is Capital Treason. Using the math involved is, in fact, Capital Treason.

Over the course of the next month, everyone involved is examined carefully by members of the Order of Solicitors to make sure that they will never give information on the time travel incident, not even to unauthorized mind readers.

These precautions have never been applied to Dragomir. No one ever points that out to the Solicitors. Or the Bene Gesserit. Or a Mentat. Or ImpSec. In Vanya's case, that is a deliberate choice: and she cannot even ask Dragomir if he knows that she carefully excluded this point when he returned to action. Ben Kenobi and Davish Tam were both in Hibernation when it all happened; maybe Dragomir was, too.

Kitkat disappeared. He was replaced with another Mentat, claiming to be Kitkat and in fact convinced that he is Kitkat, but known to long time companions to be too different physically and in the Force. The real Kitkat is probably leading the government investigations into the time travel incident and the mystery of those Galactic Empire men who fit no known Mystic Mob profile.