2 ABY – 06 Echo – 26 Centaxday (Relatta). The party returns the missing expeditionary team and has a tense negotiation with Nix before hastily getting off-planet. They “purchase” C4-BL3 from Nix, but the droid surprises them by siphoning a large sum from Nix’s accounts just before liftoff. Cheebs and Kantarra go on a much-anticipated shopping spree on the trade world of Tirahnn.
The party finds itself in the Echani village entrusted with the four dazed expeditionary members that Nix hired them to rescue. Cheebs and Kantarra talk, agreeing that C4-BL3 would be useful in future escapades, and C4-BL3 assents, saying he’s had a very exciting time on their adventure together. When Cheebs asks for “the dirt” on Nix to help him in negotiations, C4-BL3 defers, saying that would violate his programming. However, he notes that he could connect to the ship’s interface and neglect to bring up his firewall…. Cheebs offers to “buy” C4-BL3 as part of their mission reward but then free him – with the understanding C4-BL3 will come along as a crew member.
During an uneventful walk back to the ship, the rescued team gradually comes to its collective senses, apparently unaware of the Echani’s attack other than some dreamlike images. Although the team is frightened, Cheebs can’t help but press Dr. Tan and her data specialist on the subject of the Sith holocron, because the Echani, known as the Oblates of Rivan, implied the team was after it. They seem to know nothing, or at least won’t admit to it. After a quick peek into C4-BL3’s memory, Cheebs flies them back to Relatta’s starport. Kantarra recognizes multiple references in C4-BL3’s memory to “Osaji “: a family-run crime syndicate active on this trade route!
As the much-relieved expeditionary team debarks, Cheebs gets off on the wrong foot talking to Nix. He implies Nix knew something about the Sith holocron’s presence in the abandoned facility and that this was a secondary or secret goal of the team (and the reason why the Echani are present on Relatta). The otter-man bristles at this, literally and figuratively, and seems genuinely surprised by news of the Echani’s presence on Relatta. Kantarra’s timely arrival seems to narrowly prevent Nix from pulling his wicked-looking blaster on Cheebs, and the party comes with Nix to his office. While C4-BL3 downloads and checks the recovered geological survey data the team was hired to recover, Nix, Cheebs, and Kantarra have a tense negotiation over their reward and C4-BL3’s monetary worth. They arrive at a net 2000 Cr cash plus C4-BL3. Perplexed by the bickering of the biologicals and still connected to Nix’s computer system, C4-BL3 takes this opportunity to relieve Nix’s accounts of the full stated reward amount of 10,000 credits. With remarkable ease, he discreetly routes multiple withdrawals (tagged as Imperial fees) through shell accounts and ultimately into Cheebs’ ship account.
Nix’s security team makes it tacitly clear the party is unwelcome in the city after this. Returning to the “Intrepid Porg” (still in its Green Phoenix livery), R3-M3 takes a few more hours to complete her repairs to the ship’s nav database. Everyone wants to leave ASAP. As he’s running pre-flight checks, Cheebs is alerted to several mysterious deposits to the ship’s account totaling 10k credits! The party has a quick, sharp discussion: Had they just stolen from an interstellar crime family?!? Uncertain if or when Nix might realize C4-BL3’s fraud, the party hastily launches and has a blissfully uneventful 4-hour hyperspace transit to the Tirahnn System.
2 ABY – 06 Echo – 26 Centaxday (Tirahnn). Breaking Tirahnn’s atmosphere, Cheebs guides the Intrepid Porg to one of the main city’s starports in a run-down part of town. An Imperial world, Tirahnn seems only lightly touched by its presence – for now. Although home to several billion, most of the planet’s surface is lush and green, the sentient population being confined to huge cities rising 2-3km to the sky. Cheebs and Kantarra appreciate the fresh air. They’ve been on the move for weeks, and they have long shopping lists! They agree that the ship’s funds should mostly be used for the ship’s defensive upgrades, so they plan to head to the system’s planet Kirian after their spree on Tirahnn. (Kirian is a hub for starship outfitters and custom shops.) The friendly, curly-haired human mechanic running their landing pad with her squad of droids promises to refuel the ship and give them a quote on a boring matte finish brown paint job for the “Porg.”
With C4-BL3 set on his own data-driven pursuits, Cheebs and Kantarra leave R3-M3 to mind the ship as usual and venture out to see what they can find. They happily exhaust themselves shopping all day. Although the rarest items on Kantarra’s list are overpriced and out of reach, Cheebs does a decent job of finding them a lot of the gear they want at good prices. They return to the ship with many new items: protective gear, blasters, personal electronics and communication gear, and assorted oddments.