Ghost Hunting
So there I was standing on the landing field on Ord Mantell, watching the group of Rebels I had just met leave to continue their journeys through the stars. I was a little sad to see The Lady General leave; it is always good when she is around and in charge of things.
Wondering what to do now I glanced around. Standing not 2 meters behind me was Flash Meltdown. I had thought he left with the others for sure. Oh well, now was a good a time as any to have that little discussion I had been meaning to have with him. I removed my hands from my pistols and informed Flash that it was time for me to leave Thunder Team. While I had enjoyed my brief time with them, it was time for me to seek my fortunes with the Rebel Alliance.
“I have goals and desires for my homeland that I am afraid go against just about everything you stand for” and with that I handed him my Thunder Team security wand and transponder. “Wish you all the luck in the galaxy!”
While we were sorting things out between us I happened to notice a ‘stock’ YT-1300 landing nearby and a familiar group of gentlebeings exiting. It seems that the rest of Thunder Team decided to show up and give Flash a hand. Another ship settled nearby, this one with a holographic noseart that was rather striking. I must contact Fred Slick (whose ship it was) about where he had it done.
Thanking the maker that The Lady General did not leave me in charge as the ranking Alliance member (for Fred Slick clearly out ranks me) of a mission team consisting of mostly Thunder Team members. I happened to notice that an armored and heavily armed being happened to accompany Fred Slick on the mission with us. I made a mental note to inquire after the beings name if I ever had the time or the nerve.
With the group assigned to us by Rebel Command complete we journeyed to a local bar. As we stepped up to the bar the group noticed that it was a ‘bounty hunter’ bar complete with entranceway bounty scanner system. The group seemed to hesitate a bit; I would imagine they all had bounties they were worried about. I on the other hand had not a concern in the galaxy. Acting like I owned the place I stepped forward and walked boldly through the door.
After a brief wait the others all followed along, not a one setting off the alarm of a bounty match. Last but not least, with some trepidation entered Flash Meltdown. As he stepped through the doorway an alarm pings indicating a match. Although the match was not for the actual Flash Meltdown but some Ubese he was impersonating and therefore not worth even 1% of his actual bounty there were many a wager being tossed about between the various members of Thunder Team on whether a match would be found. It was a tense time, especially for Flash Meltdown; when a Wookiee staggered into the bar, wounded severely.
Fred Slick and several other members (myself not included) knew who this Wookiee was. Apparently the Wookiee works for a being named the Ghost, the very being we were here to track down for the Alliance.
There was a scramble as Fred and his partner went tearing out of the bar looking for whoever assaulted the Wookiee (you know, I never did learn his name). While the Thunder Team members fanned out to cause as much havoc as they could, I went to check on the Wookiee. It seemed he was stabbed several times with needles and probably pumped full of some sort of drug cocktail.
Realizing I needed some help with the Wookiee (least he die on us without the chance for us to ask who assaulted him) I called out for Claven and Flash to help me get the Wookiee to a medical facility. With a whoosh Claven and Flash had the Wookiee off to be attended to by the private Thunder Team medical droid (I shudder to think what happened to the Wookiee while under the knife of Toby the medical droid).
While the Wookiee was recovering from his ordeal, Fred and his partner (I never got the beings name after all) were out looking for clues. It came to light that the Wookiee’s attacker was a Mantillian Savrip, a truly ferocious creature native to Ord Mantell. It seems that this particular Savrip was used by unknown parties to kidnap and deliver the Ghost to the unknown party.
Our first goal was clear; we must find this Savrip and learn what he knows about the abduction of the Ghost. Fred was able to track a Savrip life-form signal into the mountains so we all headed into the mountains to see if this was the Savrip we were looking for. I took the opportunity to rent a large truck just in case we needed to bring anything (like a captive Savrip) back with us.
The truck was forced to stop a few kilometers short of the Savrip life-form signal while the others were able to continue on. I waited with the truck (I had a sizeable security deposit down on it and was not going to leave it alone while there were Thunder Team members lurking about) while the others tracked the Savrip on foot.
I heard a scream which I found out latter was Flash almost getting his arm ripped out by the Savrip who was lurking in ambush. After some brief gunplay, and the dropping of a tree on the creature by a well placed blaster shot from Claven, the Savrip was down and unfortunately dying. I have always found that Thunder Team members do not often take prisoners, which would have been very useful here. However, they were able to extract from the dying Savrip the name and location of the being supposedly holding the Ghost.
After a brief time to patch up and inform the Wookiee of what we had found out about his boss we were all led away to meet with the rest of the Ghost’s crew. The Wookiee had decided to have all of the Ghost’s people and his personal ship be set aside for our use.
With the help of everyone we came up with a plan to fly out and ‘spook’ the guy holding the Ghost. He was currently sitting in space somewhere waiting for his pickup to show up. We had very little time to grab him and the Ghost before he got scarred or made the exchange. There was some discussion between Claven and I concerning taking two ships. We both thought two ships would give us a better chance to capture the target before he could get away.
While Claven and I were discussing this, I noticed the Wookiee and a member of the Ghost’s crew arguing over in a corner. After a furious fist shaking and a yell that must have stripped the rust off the walls for meters around, the human glared at the Wookiee and stomped over to me and handed me a set of ship’s keys. Apparently I was to be allowed the privilege to fly the Ghost’s special stealth ship during this rescue attempt.
With a certain happy little skip in my step I headed over to the Wraith, a truly unique ship complete with some sort of special cloaking device. I was accompanied by the Wookiee and the Human (who turned out to be the Ghost’s personal pilot). I was told not to damage the ship or else! Now if it had been the Wookiee telling me that I would have noticed, but the human pilot I was not too concerned about (it is not like he could break me in two after all).
So we all headed out in our two ships. Myself in the stealth ship would fly to the coordinates we had and lurk, while Claven would fly in openly to ‘spook’ the target into revealing himself. Everything worked perfectly! After a brief chase and some inter-ship gunplay we had the target ship completely ionized and helpless. Unfortunately it was also on a ballistic crash course with a nearby small asteroid field.
Neither ship was equipped with a tractor beam so I took it upon myself to interpose the Ghost’s precious ship between the careening target ship and the asteroids which would surely destroy it and the Ghost along with it. While I tried to do it as gently as possible with as little damage to either ship as was possible there was some serious screeching and groaning from the Wraith. While I was not overly distracted by the screams of protest from the Ghost’s pilot who was waiting in the back, it was not the easiest thing to listen to while trying to perform such a crazy stunt.
After a brief struggle to bring both ships under control and divert from the encroaching asteroid field, we were able to think about boarding and rescuing the Ghost proper. The boarding groups went EVA and attempted to enter the target ship from different areas. Apparently there was a slight mishap with one of the boarders from the Thunder Team group; a grenade removed the hand from their newest recruit, an immense Gand.
Not long after the boarders had entered the target vessel did the all clear signal go out. They had secured the target vessel, its captain, and more importantly the Ghost himself.
All in all, an eventful mission that ended up being a win for the Rebellion.
Now, I must track down the Lady General and talk to her about who exactly this Ghost guy is, and why it was so important that we saved him. I never understood before and hopefully she will be able to fill in some pieces for me. Besides, if she says save him, that’s good enough for me…
