(Star Wars d6) #56 - Abandoned Sulo

The Crew of the Pretio in This Week's Episode

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.
R2-H8(r) - A "new" astromech droid recently purchased by the crew.
"Sid" - A peculiar woman with some knowledge of their missing ally, Evus, Sid has been allowed to tag along for now...

Kraken a Smile

Heading the the planet Sulo with 

A much-prized Tree Kraken, 

Sid, a new traveling companion,

and thirty metric tons of glow-rods, 

The crew of the Pretio are ready for anything...

...except for what's about to come.

The trip to Sulo was relatively uneventful.  Their new associate, "Sid" performed chores in the care and maintenance of the Tree Kraken, as well as a much-needing cleaning of the space fridge.  

Frokazza shocked everyone by bringing the Pretio out of hyperspace within Sulo's system without any issue. 

Ne'vets wandered around the ship, checking on the crew.  Everyone but Sid was accounted for.  

"Anyone see the new gal/guy/person?"  Ne'vet inquired over the coms. 

"I last saw her trying to pet the product." Tarrie chimed in.  "She also thinks Dr P3PP3R is a Vet Droid, so I don't know what's going on."

"Let's go find her...."

It took quite a bit of searching, but the duo found the unconscious body of Sid in the Tree Kraken habitat

Tarrie pulled his blaster, although Ne'vets was not amused.

"Why are you drawing your blaster?"

"If she's out, I believe the Kraken might be near."

Coming closer, they realized the Tree Kraken was wrapped around Sid's head.  Staring at Tarrie like a scared squirrel, it scurried off Sid and scrambled up into his habitat.

"Tarrie, hold off on shooting, let's see what's going on."

"So don't shoot?"

"Yes, don't shoot, trust me, I've got the special training for these matters."

The Tree Kraken crawled up through a hole in the cargo netting and back into it's makeshift den.  

Outside of a number of sucker marks on her face, Sid looked unharmed.  Ne'vets tried to patch Sid up with a concoction of a bacta pak, space gin, and a citrus fruit, but it required a quick trip to Dr P3PP3R to properly revive her.  

Ne'vets surveyed the apparent damage of the Tree Kraken's "cage."  It appeared the Tree Kraken made a hole in the netting, waylayed an unsuspecting Sid and proceeded to eat a bag of Kraken Chow before resting on Sid's face. 

Climbing back up to the cockpit, Tarrie found a proud Frokazza.  

"We've reached the planet, I submitted the clearance codes and got permission to land..."

"Good job, buddy!"

Ne'vets and Sid clamored up the cockpit as well and tried planetary communication with the Quarren Dallin Wallof without success.

Tarrie order Frokazza to scan the planet for a better location to land than the generic coordinates space traffic control provided.   The only settlements were on the coast of large bodies of water.  

"This planet seems primitive.." Sid quipped.

"They were able to use space mail to contact me, and the payment pre-confirmation was legit.  Let's land something closer to where this Quarren would be."  

Tarrie parked the Pretio in a landing bay within the largest city on the planet.   Things seemed really, really... quiet. 

Tarrie looked over to Ne'vets... "Should we go out in a group... or set up teams?"

"First thing first... let's get rid of these glowrods!"

Sid, with the help of a repulsor pallet jack, unloaded all thirty metric tons of glowrods right along the wall of the bay.  He heard nothing of the outside world, neither people, or other craft. 

Business finished, Ne'vets, Frokazza, and Sid wandered the deserted starport to find an information kiosk/databank.   The power appeared turned off all around, and everything shut down and locked up tight.  They even wandered into a nearby cantina and found it devoid of liquor and with an empty till, not even change.  He eventually found a small databank built into a building, and after flipping a power switch, it booted up and it only was able to bring up an address book.   Wallin's domicile was found closer to the docks.  

Walking through the empty city, the shops were all closed, but some of them still had basic, non-perishable products on racks and shelves.  

They reached Wallin's domicile, among the shanty buildings around the docks.  Ne'vets reached the front door and knocked the approved three times.  There was no response.  They then wandered around calling out his name, and with that not working, any possible sign of intelligent life. 

Even among these lower-class hovels, the surroundings were oddly clean, like a fake set on a movie production.  

Looking through the windows, of Wallin's home and others, everyone was neat and tidy.  Not one looked liked the inhabitants left in a hurry or under duress. 

Further investigation of Wallin's door showed it was barricaded from the inside.  Sid openly debated with Ne'vets if they should break in, and what the proper technique should be.  Frokazza quickly grew tired of this deep analysis and the Wookied pushed the door in with a slight shove.

Sid secured the premises, popping off unnecessary combat maneuvers in an empty house, rolling across hallways, making hand gestures no one else was looking for..

Moving the rug in the bedroom, they uncovered a trap door.  

"Hello, we have your Tree Kraken!"  Ne'vets yelled into the hole.   The shout reverberated down an obvious tunnel.   The crew descended down a five meter ladder, into a rock and dirt carved passageway to investigate further. 

The tunnel descended a number of meters before opening in a large chamber at the water with a carved stone dock that could be a berth for a small, low ship into the harbor.  

Could this be a summer residence and they all lived somewhere else, maybe via submarine?

Larger ropes were tied to the dock and sunk into the water.  Sid jumped deep into the water to investigate the rope.   She climbed down the rope to the harbor floor and discovered a large metallic docking mechanism to lock a vessel into place.  There were no handles or controls above water, so something on the boat must be used to release it .  

Ne'vets remained puzzled, "Perhaps I should re-read the request and see if there was supposed to be a seasonal delivery.  Does anyone want to break into another house?"

The group believed that the town didn't vanish in a panicked evacuation, but why would everyone simply vanish? 

"Maybe I should read the special instructions on the initial order request... when we get back to the ship.... But let's look over at the other side of the planet, maybe it's a seasonal migration!"

The group agreed and returned to the empty starport. Frokazza broke into a small stockpile of fuel to top off the tank, and Tarrie took off, keeping low to the group.  

Sid took over the comms and continued to attempt to raise anyone.  

A weak signal finally came through the system.  "Who is on this frequency?  "Why are you on planet?  I repeat, why are you on planet?"

Ne'vets was quite direct, "We have a delivery."

"Delivery?  No you don't.  We have two more months until deliveries can commence!!!  Wait... you aren't the ones leaving Lauroc and flying 20 meters over the water?  May Kokad crush your skulls in the depths of the oceans!

Ne'vets was just a bit concerned, "That sounds unfortunate."

The voice at the other end of the comms was beside themselves, "You're ruining the migration.  Set your sensors to 91.7.2.q7" 

With the ship's sensors adjusted, the crew could see there ship leaving Lauroc, and a blob extending out of the city, the majority of it following the Pretio.

Still unsure of the chaos occurring, Ne'vets took command, ordering Tarrie to pull up to 2,000 feet and sending Duk'k up to the turret, just in case.

Ne'vets took over the comms, "What is that?"

"You don't even know, do you.  Change your sensors setting to Q-Delta."

The further refinement logged the sensors onto a local array.  A video feed could be pulled.  it showed a quarter-mile wide swath of the ocean. A mass of furry, aquatic mammals were swimming violently, all shoulder to shoulder, in the direction of the Pretio.  

Ne'vets was aghast, "This planet has a unhealthy population of Sea Bear, Suloan Sea Bears, obviously.  

"Oh crap, we didn't do so well..."   Sea Bears were a large, violent creature, who tended to be loners, except when they mating season rolled around.    The creatures would congregate, attempt to mate for week, and hibernated right after.  They had been hiding used the city as the breeding grounds, and probably the larger buildings for their hibernation.  The Pretio had awoken many of them.  

Tarrie asked for permission to bank back towards the city.  Ne'vets allowed it.  

Sea appears to be boiling....  the Pretio opened fire, without much reaction to the mass of Sea Bears.

Ne'vets had had enough, "Do not kill the Sea Bears, they're either hungry or horny... punch it!"

And with that, the Pretio left the atmosphere and flew up into orbit.

"We did get to get rid of 30 metric tons of glow rods."

Sensors indicated that just prior to flying full-speed into space, the ship missed a a missile fired by the planetary defense force.  The last few rumbles of chatter on the lower frequency comms mentioned something about mass evacuations.  

Delivering the Tree Kraken in two months might be prove... difficult.

GM Notes:   Off screen, Ne'vets reviewed the vague descriptions on the order about holding off delivery to avoid certain migratory patterns were completed.  Botched rolls early meant some  miscalculations of the Quarren calendar for Sulo versus the Empire's.  All the Sea Bears would congregate en masse in two or three locations, namely the cities on the planet.  The Quarren would escape the migration, and fish the waters of the Sear Bears unmolested.  

In-game, Tarrie dove into the water, but upon further listening of the actual play recording, he emphatically stated he was with the Pretio, just in case problems arose.   He started giving suggestions to the search party, first via coms, and ultimately, everyone just assume he was there with them.  Given the potential for disaster, I'll keep the pilot with the ship, even if I ruined a perfectly good opportunity for the character to doff his shirt.

The Sea Bear was from The Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society #3.   

Next: #57 - Delivery Delays