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Friday Feature 6 January 2006

Lantern
(@lantern)
Illustrious Member Admin

Welcome to the next chapter in our Legacy Quest series! Follow our hero as he makes his way through these in-game quests from the perspective of an Imperial Spy, deep under cover who believes he is chasing Han Solo's network of criminals. His goal is to earn high honors with Imperial Command for capturing the legendary Han Solo and crippling his smuggling operations at all costs!

All Roads Lead to Jabba

"Bartender! Bring me another drink!"

I'd stopped onto the Mos Eisley Cantina to get the latest word on the street about what was going down at Jabba's. Sure, throwing back some Corellian Ale while I was tracking down top secret hardware and infiltrating the most powerful criminal empire in the galaxy was a little sloppy, but I needed to get Kaesii out of my head. She'd be the death of me if I didn't. Besides, if there was a spy out there that wasn't carrying around at least a dozen haunting secrets that didn't drive them to drink or death sticks, they weren't working hard enough.

Bastra's slicer had given me info leading me straight into the heart of Jabba's palace which made me either insanely loyal or incredibly stupid – the truth was that I was probably both.

There is something to be said about a 600 year old giant slug that rules the most powerful criminal Empire in the Galaxy. I had been kidnapped by a dimwitted Bounty Hunter on Corellia and dragged to Tansarii Point Station by mistake. I fell into Han Solo's lap and chased his seedy underworld connections across Tatooine so I could bring him and his criminal network down hard. If I was lucky, I might even pick up some information on Rebel movement and military strength in the area. So far this unplanned mission had left me kicked around by thugs and thieves, shot at by Tusken Raiders and Desert Demons, stabbed by freakish Krayt cultists and chased parts from a disassembled droid from one end of this stinking planet to the other. From Mos Eisley to Mos Espa, it seemed like everyone on this blasted planet was doing something illegal and Jabba has his dirty hands in everything.

Playing the role of a mercenary looking for work, I made some small talk with a couple of seasoned smugglers, "So what have you heard? Is there any work?"

He was an easy fellow and didn't mind chatting, "I hear business is good. Jabba is paying well these days, so you could probably make some easy credits if you can aim that blaster."

His partner was less forgiving. She looked at me with a suspicious eye and sneered while she spoke, "Well, if you are who you say you are, you won't have much of a problem, but if you're an Imperial spy trying to get in, you won't make it very far before they kill you." Sometimes it was hard digging for information in a city full of Imperial Stormtroopers, but my cover was solid.

"Do I look like an Imperial Spy?" I shook my head, flopping my Lekku about and tossed her a disarming smile.

For a moment, I thought she could see right through me, but then she relaxed and sat back in her chair, "No, I guess not." Her instincts were telling her the truth, but she believed her eyes instead. Lucky me. I quickly ended my conversation, left the place and caught a quick shuttle back to Mos Espa.

Bastra had given me the name of my next contact. It was the Toydarian named Watto. I had seen the name in Imperial briefs before and he was another "hand's off" mystery with a protection order all the way from the top so I couldn't rough him up. I'd have to bargain with the smelly Toydarian to find the droid.

Joy.

Watto's Bargain

I found his shop on the edge of town and strolled in. "Hi chuba da nago?" The smell from the gas in their Toydarian bellies that helps keeps them afloat makes me sick. All aliens smell, but these flapping blue gas bags rank among the worst.

"I'm looking for a droid." Pain shot across my cheeks as I struggled to keep my face from reflexively twisting in disgust.

"Ahh thee has come to the right place I think." His wings flapped and his little blue body bobbed up and down.

"The droid came in with a special cargo from Tansarii Point Station."

The greedy blue party balloon didn't miss his chance at profit, "Then thee must be willing to pay a special price, no?"

"I know this droid. It has already been sold. You can't have it."

What was he up to? Why did he just set me up for paying a high price for the droid if he didn't have it?

"Could you tell me who bought it? I must get this droid."

"What do you think I am? You come in here wanting me to give you directions to buy a droid from someone else? Well, it's not going to happen!"

I wanted to strangle him right then. Imperial high command says I can't touch him.

"Maybe I could do something for you in exchange?"

"Ah yes, maybe you could at that. There are these deadbeats that have something of mine. You could get it back from them I think."

There it is. He was setting me up to do his dirty work in exchange for information about the droid.

"Where are these…deadbeats?" He told me where they were and I darted out of his shop as fast as I could. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. Outside his shop I desperately gulped in "fresh" air. I had been holding my breath to fend off the foul stench around the little blue swindler.

Watto's "deadbeats" were on the edge of town; simple thieves that lived off of the slums and the occasional tourist that wandered into them. Slapping around slum thieves to find out where the droid was felt like beating up schoolchildren to take their lunch credits and really, what drives a sentient being to be a garbage thief? I'll never know. If that wasn't maddening enough, I brought back Watto's part only to discover that he had stripped the droid I was hunting down into parts!

"Ah yes, the lost droid. You see, I broke it up. It is no more.

"WHAT?! You little blue flying...."

Remember, he is protected by Imperial High Command. Vader himself will probably strangle me if I hurt this little blue bastard.

"But I know where some of the parts went. If you get them for me, I can help you rebuild it." I figured he was stringing me along, but I had to follow the lead even if it was against my better judgment.

"Where are the parts, Watto?"

Watto knew more than he was telling me, but at least he knew where all the parts were. Chasing it down wasn't much of a mystery - - the real mystery here was finding out what Brok's cargo was. If the Rebel scum wanted it so bad and the Empire was right behind them, it had to be something important. Along the way, I still hadn't found out any clue to what it was, but I'd get there first if it was the last thing I do.

The body was easy enough to find. It started out as a thin lead, but if it's a droid part, it ends up in disgusting Jawa hands sooner or later. I caught up with the Jawa trading caravan and the miners who bought the droid body soon after.

Syndil Na'Marr was supposed to have the legs of the droid by Watto's reckoning. I wasn't sure I'd need its legs though. Whatever it was carrying was important, not whether or not it worked. In the end, I decided to chase down the droid's legs. If I ended up in a tight spot on this mission, I could program it to scoot to a safe location - - keep it hidden and safe until I could double back and retrieve it.

I thought this would be another simple errand, but when I asked her about the parts she started acting suspicious. I casually asked her about the astromech's legs, "I am looking for some droid legs you bought from Watto".

"Some R2 type legs? Why would you be looking for them?" She was spooked and I had to know why.

"I'm not really sure, actually. I am told they are special." I played innocent.

"You can say that again!" She was all too eager to tell me about it though I couldn't figure out why she was acting a little afraid.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I bought them from Watto intending to attach them to an R-type droid I'm building, but they wouldn't work. I had them laying around and the next thing I know, an Imperial Captain barges in and demands them."

At least our operatives are chasing the right leads. We have to get that cargo before the Rebellion does.

Maybe I could get her to slip up so I could discover if she's involved, "What did you do?"

"What could I do? He was confiscating the part. I gave them to him. I really wish I hadn't though. I probably could have bluffed him."

Too bad for you. Now I'll have add you to the list of people to be arrested. Let's see why you didn't want to cooperate with the Empire.

"Why didn't you want to give them to him?"

"Because a friend of mine came in shortly after looking for them as well. When I told him what happened, he seemed to get rather anxious."

A Rebel Agent, I'm sure.

"What did he do?"

"Well you see, he's a pilot. He took off after the Imperial Captain in his ship. He radioed me later and said he shot up the Captain's AT-ST."

Aiding and abetting a Rebel agent. Fool.

It was easy enough to get the location out of her, so I made my way out into the desert again. She made me promise not to arrest him. I lied. I was going to have them both arrested and by the time this case was done, I'd have half the people on the planet filling up the Imperial prison on Dathomir.

The trail was hot. I passed a detachment of Stormtrooper commandos and a couple of Rebel camps along the way. Her pilot "friend" was just where she said he would be. An AT-ST lay on the ground. It was a smoking ruin. He was a Rebel pilot for sure and with so many Rebel camps around here, I couldn't just blast him in case he passed the legs off to one of them. He wouldn't be able to tell me where they were if he was dead.

I walked up on him casually but his guard was up and he barked at me, "Hey, who are you? What are you doing here?"

"Your friend Syndil sent me, she was worried about you."

Rebel friendships are their weakness.

He lied to my face. He was making the story up as he went along, "I saw this scout walker get blown up. Thought I would check for survivors."

Bothans are always quick to sniff out spies so I acted suspicious to throw him off guard, "Don't give me that, Syndil told me you blew it up with your starfighter."

"What does she know? She's not exactly the swiftest speeder in the race, if you know what I mean."

Nice friend you are.

"You're the one who told her, what does that make you?"

"I didn't tell her anything. She makes stuff up. I'm certainly not going to attack a scout walker and become a fugitive."

Then why did you come here you fool? You weren't just "wandering by". Maybe I could get him to crack.

"Well, you're here. The wreckage is here. Seems pretty cut and dried to me."

"Delusions. Sun baked delusions pal. I'm out of here. Good luck with those Tuskens down there."

"What a hero."

He was no more use to me. I left him behind after slipping a tracker onto his flight suit as he walked away. The race for Brok's cargo was on and I was in the lead. That slimy Bothan took out one of our guys, but he didn't have the parts. I was sure he wanted to get out of here before an Imperial Garrison showed up to find out what happened to that scout walker patrol. I was also sure he thought he was sending me to a dead end, but I found the legs at the Tusken camp. They outnumbered me ten-to-one so I snuck in from the back of the camp. A couple of those masked abominations cornered me in the tent where the legs were, but I took them out quietly with my dagger and escaped into the hills.

The next day, I was back at Watto's. I lost my temper once, but at least he was still willing to work with me. Watto's next clue lead me to the droid's motivator. I had to pull it out of the wreckage of an idiot racer who thought he could fly the old Mos Espa swoop track . He wasn't good enough and now his remains rot in the desert while Tuskens and Womp Rats scavenge the mess he left behind. The track has been illegal for years with all the development that sprung up. The law was made for a reason, but that never stops racers.

Funniest of all was where I found the booster controller. Some crackpot moisture farmer bought it and put it in his speeder. When I made an offer to buy it, he says, "I don't think so. I like the get up 'n go it gives me." I made him a generous offer but the cranky old fella just sicced his crazy kids on me.

If that wasn't enough, I was on my way back to Watto's and a baby squill ran out of an alley and chewed a chunk out of my boot. I blasted it in the street and little did I know that wouldn't be the last time I saw one of those up close and personal.

The next piece was the droid's diagnostic controller. Some old hermit had bought it. Watto laughed at me after he told me where it was, "The cave and very likely your grave can be found there."

The Infamous Squill Cave

When I climbed off my speeder bike, a chill ran down my spine, even in the Tatooine heat. A yellow mist rolled out of the mouth of the cave. My arms were getting sore from all the stims I was taking, but I stabbed my arm with another round of chemical cocktails to help me get through this hunt.

Right inside the cave, it started getting ugly. Mountain Squills started coming at me from all directions and I had no back-up. They ran through the mist screaming and flailing. Their yellow eyes and gleaming ivory teeth were the scariest thing I'd seen on this planet so far. Running around a corner, one of them was standing in the mist and towered over me - - he almost made me his lunch. This stupid cave seemed to go around in circles with death around every corner.

I was exhausted and almost out of stims when I finally found the hermit. I couldn't believe an old man lived at the bottom of this damnable cave! He was a Rodian with black bulbous eyes. I think he was blind. What was an old blind Rodian doing living here?

"Well met traveler! What brings you to my small and lonely abode?"
I made some small talk with the old man and after he had babbled on about philosophy and some made some crazy challenge, I pocketed the diagnostic controller and made my way out of the cave without another word to him. He had rambled on about the glory of the Old Republic and spread lies about the Empire being "evil". This would be another "beautiful" Tatooine vacation hotspot on my long list of places to have the Empire clean out with flamethrowers and blasters.

Sometimes it seemed like a spy's life was one long trail of lies and deceit. Lying to old blind men certainly didn't make me proud, but the stakes were high and someone had to get the job done. The only joys in life were catching criminals, libations to forget the past and the glory of the Empire.

I made my way back to Watto's place to find out where the next piece was and my instincts had been telling me where it was all along. It was at Jabba's palace.

If I was going to get in there, I needed more cover than just some wandering mercenary looking for work. I needed an angle. The race for Brok's cargo was on, so I didn't have much time to put together an elaborate cargo. I made my way back to the Darklighter estate. When I was tracking down the Darklighter Cache, I noticed their was an X-Wing that had been parked out back. I didn't know who owned it, but I was sure I could steal it and try to sell it to Jabba's henchmen. At the very least it might buy me my way through the front door and that was all I needed.

Honestly, it was kind of sad how ill-prepared the Darklighter security force was. It was broad daylight with all kinds of patrols and they never spotted me until it was too late. Hotwiring X-wings was pretty easy. Incom had some real design flaws in their ignition systems that I could take advantage of. It was a short hop to Anchorhead and I was able to rent a small spot to hide it in until I could get to Jabba's and lay the bait.

All this and my next steps could be my last. I was headed into the only place no spy had ever managed to survive unless he was one of Jabba's own.

Legendary Crime Lord? Tracking down Solo? Certain death? I wouldn't have it any other way.

To be continued...

You can find previous chapters of this story here:

Chapter 1: "Undercover in Mos Eisley"

Chapter 2: "Jabba's Dirty Work"

Chapter 3: "A Trail in the Desert"

Access to Instant Travel

The hero in our story (or villain depending on your perspective), was able to "steal" an X-Wing from the Huff Darklighter Estate, but that was just a little bit of fiction and role playing.

Access to the X-Wing was actually a creative use of the Instant Travel Vehicle available with the Star Wars Galaxies Starter Kit. You can purchase the Starter Kit and add this feature to your account by registering the expansion. Do this by logging onto your station account, clicking on the "subscriptions" link for Star Wars Galaxies and then clicking on the "Register Expansion" button. Simply enter the code included with your Starter Kit and you'll have access to this feature.

Here's how it works in game:

When you log into the game after entering the key, your "reward" window will open.

Click the "Claim reward Now" button.

If you are part of a faction, you will be given the vehicle associated with your faction. If you haven't joined a faction yet, you will be able to choose which travel vehicle you would prefer.

The Deed for the vehicle will be placed in your inventory.

Use the radial menu on the deed and choose the option to "Grant Ability".

Once the ability is granted, the "Call for Pick Up" ability will be added to your Abilities window and your toolbar.

Now, you can queue up your "Call for Pick Up" ability and right click to call the vehicle!

The vehicle will appear and all you have to do is click on it to see a travel window.

You can choose any destination on the planet to travel to instantly!

Tips and Hints

Press "O" to open your overhead map, especially in cities. You can use it to quickly find shuttles, junk dealers and other important locations. You can also use the /find command. If you type /find into your chat window, you will open up a menu of locations to choose from. A blue ribbon will guide you to where you need to go.

When you are doing missions that are far away from where you start them, open your Planetary Map (V) to find out where the mission is and take a shuttle to cut down on your travel time. You can catch a shuttle from any Shuttleport or Starport.

Don't forget to check the bazaar for faster vehicles, armor, weapon and other useful tools that might help you. You can find a bazaar at any bank in a main city.

When you head into the Squill Cave , there are two main directions. One way will lead to your goal and the other will go around in circles. If you can't find the old man's camp, try heading back to the mouth of the cave to go in the other direction.

When you find droid's diagnostic controller, you will be in an old hermit's camp. You don't need to speak to the old hermit to finish the "Squill Diving" mission. He is there to start off the "Hero of Tatooine" quest. It is a very difficult mission that you can take on when you character is at a higher level.
Feature Scramble

Each week, we hide a coded message in the feature. You can decode the message by finding all of the bold letters in the article. Next, take the letters and arrange them to fit into the following blank spaces into a memorable phrase from the Star Wars saga.

Here is this week's scramble:

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Topic starter Posted : 09/01/2006 1:36 am