(Star Wars d6) #39 - The Imperial Zoological Symposium and Exposition

  The Current Crew of the Pretio

Ne'vets Aharo - an exotic animal broker, both legal and otherwise, majority owner in the Pretio.

Evus - Twi'lek free mercenary, Ne'vets' armed muscle with a keen eye and a tendency to shoot first.
Tarrie - Human pilot "under contract" to fly the Pretio, and drive the Piscopo.  Brother of potential terrorist, rebel  Latorna Savvn. His climbing skills are suspect, but his grenade skills make up for it.  Edging a dangerous lifestyle of drugs, booze, and loose women
Frokazza - Wookie co-pilot, mechanic, and unarmed muscle. Very distrustful, and that anxiety gives him skin issues.

Duk'k - Sipsk'ud Bounty Hunter, recently rescued by the crew.  Offering his services in order to get off this barely existing hunk of mud.  His warning shots are dead center mass kill shots.

Kafla Thingvellir - Billionaire entrepreneur turned zoological enthusiast, "discoverer"  of the Translucent Chromatic Trapper. Recently released the party from his service and is prepping his presentation of the Trapper at the Imperial Zoological Symposium and Exposition on Alderaan

Bailing on the Group Project

With the Billionaire Kafla Thingvellir only focused

On his presentation of the Translucent Trapper, 

It has allowed the crew of the Pretio

To create their own impromptu presentation

At the Imperial Zoological Symposium and Exposition, 

of all of the other creatures 

they had cataloged on the planet.

But tragedy seems imminent, as 

Exotic Animal expert and group leader, 

Ne'vets Aharo, has gone missing, and 

Their charismatic pilot, Tarrie Prolek, 

Has disappeared entirely after a drunken bender

Can Evus, the Twi'lek Merc, Frokazza the Wookie, and

Duk'k the Bounty Hunter keep their booth and presentation 

Together in order to gain legitimacy and 

Hopefully new clients?

Alderaan University

When everyone agreed to make their own presentation at the Symposium, no one expected the doors about to open to the Exhibition with only Evus, Duk'k and Frokazza manning the exhibit.  Even if they could make it through today, there was another morning manning the exhibit, followed but a full blown informational session that afternoon.  

Crowds were bearably light in their sector of the hall. 

"Is this some sort of a sick joke?"

Duk'k corrected the person, "Actually, they're a lot of dead bugs."

"I see that, is this some sort of fraternity prank?"

"No sir, we're part of the team that collected these.  You need some sort of team to collect dead bugs and animals, we're your guys."

The conversation did not go much further, which set the tone for the next two hours of attendees more impressed with the "Booth Dudes" than the material presented.  

During a lull, Duk'k stared across the aisle.  Between the Space Ferret Farm and a generic display on planet based animals, there was a narrow passage leading right to the 30-foot high glass windows surrounding the complex.  The beam of sunlight coming through was comforting to the Sipsk'ud, but he was even more impressed with Ne'vets on the other side, desperately pounding on the sound-proof glass.

Duk'k waved at him.

Ne'vets frantically motioned for one of them to come to the nearby door.   Frokazza was nudged to meet the bossman.  

While Frokazza ducked out of the side door, Ne'vets kept his distance, a good five meters or so away from the door..  A quick scan of area revealed a potential reason.  Numerous Univeristy Security officers were well-placed some distance away.  They responded to every one of Ne'vets' steps.

"Frokazza, I'm going to need you guys to sell, talk up the bugs.  Hopefully we can arrange a contract with someone. "

The Wookie acknowledged their mission.

"I'll be gone for a couple of days to handle a legal matter.  Don't worry, everything's okay."

"Four days???"

"I said a couple days..."

"Oh, ok, we can do that, " and with that, the Wookie returned to the team.   He relayed the message to the team.  

Duk'k, "Is it concerning that the bossman will be missing for four days and our pilot is nowhere to be seen?"

Frokazza, "I trust Ne'vets, but Tarrie I worry about."

Meanwhile, Ne'vets left campus and the watching eye of the security.  He travelled into Alderaan City to find the baddest, toughest barrister to help him with his "problem," That was Hustar Glirnammo, and she was more than happy to take the case.  It was only a university on-campus matter, piece of cake to resolve.

Back at their exhibition, the trio braved their way through all the hordes of zoological geeks, dweebs, and weirdos.

A Rodian wearing a twead jacket with elbow pads walked up to the Wookie, and asked a familiar refrain,  "What's up with this?"

"The capture and caught this, and this is what we do. We get these for our clients."

"Are you leader"

"No!"

"Well who is the leader"

"Ne'vets Aharo."

"Dammit, I now owe my associates some money on a bet.  Ne'vets didn't describe his crew, but you fellows stick out like a sore thumb."

Professor Skeez A'zizeek was a Professor of Mollusk at Alderaan University, and one of Ne'vets' Sabaac playing collegues for the past few evenings.  

"That's a LOT of exotic bugs!!!" the Professor exclaimed.  "I understand you guys normally look for tigers and kriff, I think the university can take these dead lizards and bugs for a thousand credits."

Duk'k  interjected in the conversations, "Sound like a thousand credits IS the least you can offer....Bub!"

The Rodian became flustered, "How dare you!!!!.... why... that's why Ne'vets will stay the rest of his life in an Alderaanean jail.  Plus the bastard stole my watch., even if it was fair and square!"

Woman's voice cut through the tension in the air, "A'zizeek, why are you bothering this poor Wookie...."

An orange Twi'lek female with short lekku immediately took the professor aside and after a quick volley of bickering, the Rodian stormed off.

"Interesting, that is a lot of bugs... big strapping men.  You are collecting very small animals, why is that.  Oh, yes, my apologies, Dr Lyntel'luroon"

I'm Duk'k, sister!

"Very nice to meet you Duck Sister.  I happened to be on Alderaan and haven't been to one of these since grad school.  Still as boring as it was before, except when I can harangue some under-qualified professors who barely graduated university."

After humoring the trio by listening their entire presentation, Lyntel made an inquiry:

"Do your have someone who speaks, how you say, Academics?"

The three looked at each other quizzically "No...."

"You need to, this would be a great presentation if you did.  Good luck, gentlemen."

Ne'vets didn't get back from his legal matter until after the Exposition closed for the night.  He found his crew in the hotel cantina, toasting to their scholarly survival of the first day.  

Evus and company recapped the snooty academics, the lowball offer for the display, some dude was looking for his watch, and a rough-and-tumble Twi'lek woman who claimed she wasn't a stranger to exhibitionism.

Ne'vets was agitated at their lack of networking, even more so that they couldn't get a better offer, "That collection is worth 10k minimum!  Maybe as low as 8,000 credits, if we can make some connections through the buyer."

After drinks and dinner, it was decided that it was as good a time as any to find Tarrie.  He was supposed to me the second speaker with their presentation tomorrow afternoon.

The crew wandered over the stretch of various bars and cantinas Tarrie was last seen in.  Between Frokazza's force and Duk'k's skills, they ascertained that he was still frequenting the bars, "dressed like a Jedi Knight", and then "dressed like a Lazerball player." or even "dressed to the nines... and covered in glitter."  Further questioning by Ne'vets brought out everyone's worst fears:  He had advanced from booze to the harder drugs. 

Frokazza decided to advance to the brothels and even seedier parts of Alderaan City.  Thanks to the pacifist utopia of the planet, the sex industry was fully regulated and quite cooperative regarding their missing friend.  They got confirmation from numerous establishments that he frequented almost all of them on a nightly basis, usually dressed in extravagant costumes, "Like he robbed the costume rack at the local theatre."

They also confirmed the various drug use, "I was more worried  the "Missle Man's" heart would explode in the middle of telling one of his crazy stories."

The crew got directions to the local community theatre, just on hunch, and ventured out in the middle of the night.  The theatre was bedecked with posters promoting their next production: Zygerrians: The Musical, but no one was there.    Duk'k decided to call the contact information under the poster.  The connection picked up, "Kriffing Frack, Alderaan Little Theatre, Tiberius speaking.  Are you interested in tickets for Zygerrians: The Musical?"

A very pissed off Tiberius confirmed the the theatre possessed glitter covered suits and bedazzled Lazerball uniforms, and outside of a possible choreographer position, there were no other leads.

They worked their way back through the bars and brothels, paying off a few staff to have them contact them if Tarrie appeared.

Walking into the hotel in the early morning, the front desk hailed them down.  They had a package delivered to them.  Inside were fiver tickets Kafla's big presentation at the Lazerball Arena that evening, tenth row on the floor.  

The group picked up some quick sleep, and as the others grabbed breakfast, Duk'k spent his morning binge watching old zoological presentations on holovid so he could get a grasp of the format.  

While the trio went back to the convention hall to pick up certain displays, and review that afternoon's presentation, Ne'vets left alone again.  His destination:  the University administration building for a hearing.  His barrister, Hustar Glirnammo was there and ripped apart the proceedings.  

It appeared that Ne'vets may have gotten too friendly with various faculty members during a series of nightly Sabaac games, and instead of making valuable academic leads to help with his exotic animal business, allegedly robbed them bind gambling, and allegedly robbed them blind for anything else that they had left.  The faculty complaints of theft brought about a ban from all buildings on campus, but a scathing rebuttal by Hustar cleared him of any wrongdoing, and granted him full visitor access throughout the campus.  

Thank was a good thing, because by the time the hearing was over, he only had ten minutes to make it to the small auditorium the crew was presenting in. 

At the auditorium, the trio were properly freaking out.  The various A/V equipment wasn't cooperating.   Frokazza hairy hands were simply too big for the remote, and the wrong button-pressings were changing the settings, specifically the holo-presentation.  

Ne'vets could not get access into the building without the buying the ticket and needed to push his way through the stage to reach his crew.  

The facility on a tight schedule, the lights dropped and two spotlights hit Frokazza and Duk'k respectively.  Before Duk'k could turn his mic on, the Wookie tried to tell some jokes that no one could understand.   Once his mic went live, Duk'k went into a stale intro covering the logistical difficulties of bug collection.  

Just as even Evus was feeling the presentation could not get worse.  The lights went out.

Red lights came up on the stage, and other effects kicked in.

"When did we pay for a smoke machine," Duk'k whispered on a hot mic.

A voice echoed through the auditorium's PA system, "Yes, there are many fabulous things on this planet as well..."

Above the stage, hanging from one of the catwalks, was a man dressed a Zygerrian.

A voice came over the crew's coms.  

"Guys.... I got this.  Follow my lead."

Tarrie: Dressed as Tera'gan from Zygerrians: The Musical

GM Notes:  We tend to use the term "Space _____"  as a lazy way to describe something in-game.  I think I'm at fault for not thinking fast enough at the theatre when describing their next production and named it "Space CATS."   I've only renamed the production Zygerrians to represent a feline race of humanoids in Star Wars.  May God have mercy on our souls.

Next: #40 - Zygerrians: The Musical!