Ne'vets Aharo - an exotic animal broker, both legal and otherwise, majority owner in the Pretio.
Tarrie Prolek- 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 dance moves are above par. Edging a dangerous lifestyle of drugs, booze, and loose women.
Frokazza - Wookie co-pilot and friend of Tarrie, with a rare Wookie skin condition, but the strength of ten banthas.
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.
Back to Work!
Returning from their latest missions
to find their friend and ally Evus missing.
Most of the crew of the Pretio went out
To search for clues at Takodana Castle.
With only faint leads, they have returned
To find Ne'vets Aharo already
Prepared for the next mission,
"We're hunting a Tree Kraken...."
Most of the crew of the Pretio went out
To search for clues at Takodana Castle.
With only faint leads, they have returned
To find Ne'vets Aharo already
Prepared for the next mission,
"We're hunting a Tree Kraken...."
With Ne'vets declaration, the crew quickly transitioned to mission prep. The Something Awesome Q-Ship was kept in the hanger to allow for a full cargo bay, depending on the actual size of the creature.
"It is called a kraken after all."
After restocking the Pretio and bidding Ruma and Poonk adieu, they left Takodana, destination: Rena, a temperate forest world with a high salinity rate, perfect for the Tree Kraken's ecosystem.
After a quick trip, the Pretio arrived. Tarrie kept low, and slow approach around the planet, looking for obvious Tree Kraken in post-mating torpor, or at least a open clearing. The Pretio's overtly sensitive sensors picked up a flood of life forms, while Ne'vets nervous playing with a dated entertainment system, projected the game board of an asteroid shooting onto the cockpit, scaring Tarrie.
Once that was cleared up, the entire crew scanned the forest for Tree Kraken. Most of the trees on the planet were large palms trees, with many overgrown droopy palms, and a thick undergrowth where there were openings.
Tarrie found the first safe spot, distributed the re-breathers for safety, and departed the spacecraft. Once the ramp was lowered, and strong smell of salt water bombarded the crew, with a distinctive metal smell even able to penetrate the filters.
"This planet is way too moist," Frokazza quipped.
"There's no planet that's just moist enough," Tarrie replied.
The undergrowth around the clearing was too thick to allow the Piscopo repulsorcraft to be deployed.
"Can't we just used the blasters and blow a path through the vegetation," Duk'k asked.
"We could, but it would scare all the creatures. Knowing our luck it would wake up the Tree Kraken's in torpor." Ne'vets answered.
Discovering the landing gear were slowly sinking into the ground, it was decided to find a new spot to land, against Tarrie's wishes. Frokazza volunteered to fly the Pretio, and did an admirable job not only piloting the ship, but finding a better landing zone, in a rockier clearing that was higher ground. Not only were the landing gear on solid ground, but the metallic smell was missing through the rebreather filter.
The undergrowth was still too thick to drive a vehicle into the jungle, but had spied a Tree Kraken, leisurely relaxing 6-7 meters up a tree, about 30 meters from the ship.
 |
| Tree Kraken |
Duk'k planned on hovering with his jet pack at the height of the Tree Kraken. Tarrie went shirtless and smothered himself with lotion, like he always dressed during a hunt. The plan was for Frokazza to toss Tarrie up the tree to tackle the Kraken. However, as they moved forward, Frokazza's large feet, and Duk'k's jet pack scared the beast, and it scrambled into the damp, wilted palms.
Duk'k, hovered to a better position with his jet pack and chucked a tangler grenade at the creature. The grenade struck it square in it's singular eye, stunning it before detonating and enveloping the animal. The engaged tangler fell out of the tree and onto the waiting arms of Tarrie.
"Well, that was easy."
Duk'k summed it up best, "You guys are far better at big game hunting and safaris than acting as bodyguards for pornographers."
"Hey, they made bad movies, not just those type of bad movies!"
Frokazza helped Tarrie carry the trapped Tree Kraken up the ramp and into the cargo hold. The turned up the temperature, and after securing it in a part-aquarium, part shipping container with tight cargo netting, they ventured back out to forage enough food to keep it alive for the delivery.
Duk'k, ever the inquisitive, asked Ne'vets, "What does this thing eat?"
"Um, well given the high salinity, a lot of plankton."
"In the trees?"
"Yeah, in the trees. But usually if they don't get them out of the atmosphere, the trees are weighed down with algae, hence plankton, that's why the trees are so weighed down."
A few smaller trees were dug up and a lush bedding of local flora for it to use. The atmosphere was adjusted for a higher salinity, although that had nothing to do with Tarrie donating his Space Margarita salt to the cause.
As everyone settled in to take off, Frokazza was nowhere to be found. After a significant search, he emerged out of the refresher, a little worse for wear.
Tarrie was worried, "What happened, buddy?"
The Wookie gurgled a bit, "I nibbled on some of the vegetation out there. It reminded me of something my mom would prepare on Kashyyyk. Definitely not same stuff."
They had R2-H8(r) plug in the coordinates for the delivery and away they went. Unfortunately, the astrogation avoided some relatively safe space anomalies and the journey to the planet Sullo took much longer than anticipated.
Day One: By the end of the day one, the humidity and salinity controls ran amuck in the both cargo holds. Thorough inspections were required overnight to ensure the Piscopo was not compromised... and the plethora of grenades.
Day Two: Tarrie ran out of "good" alcohol was his drinks for brunch. He became belligerent, but Frokazza barely managed to keep him under control.
Day Three: Following Tarrie finally passing out during the wee hours, Duk'k wandered into the cargo hold to check on the Tree Kraken. The Kraken was still there, but almost all of the vegetation they brought for it was gone.
"Hmm... I wonder if this things eats Space Salisbury Steak?"
Duk'k was confused. The Tree Kraken had not been actually gnawing on the plants, so possibly something else was on the ship. Alerting the rest of the crew, a search resulting in showing the remaining plant life had signs of teeth marks. A scan using the on-board sensors only showed the lifeforms they were aware of.
Ne'vets was the last one to find out. Awoken by the comms, he put on a robe, wandered past the kitchenette, fixed a burrito and cup of caff, and finally arrived in the cargo hold.
"Great, now we'll need to make stop of get more feed for this thing. If we pull out of hyperspace, we should be close to a planet with supplies. I knew we took this job too cheaply."
Double checking, the Tree Kraken's cage, he went with Tarrie to the cockpit to drop out hyperspace and plot a course for the planet Ctoria.
GM: The great/bad thing about wild dice is that a flurry of phenomenal rolls negates most threats to the creature. Grenade throw? 30 (The throw itself stunned the creature before the grenade detonated). Tangler target effect? 26. Tarrie catching the falling beast? 29.
This was corrected by R2-H8(r) completely botching their Astrogation check. Still high enough to pass, but so low that the Pretio took the looooong way. Compound that the disapearing food for the creature forced an unscheduled pit stop, Ne'vets just might have botched a planetary system roll and has confused one planet for another.
The Tree Kraken was first listed in Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society #2.
Next: #55 - Layover in Ctoria
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