2 ABY – 07 Festival of Life – 2 Taungday (Kirian) Cheebs selects the most critical and important ship repairs and upgrades from Vaha Nacc’s proffered menu. Any suspicions he had about Nacc’s motives are laid to rest as the Kel Dor shares his business knowledge of the Mid- and Outer Rims and shows Cheebs the ropes on Kirian, introducing him to sundry scrapyard operators and other suppliers. Cheebs spends a day sourcing parts for the “manka cage” from two of these contacts, saving them almost 1000 Cr in materials costs. Cheebs runs the ship’s account down to almost nothing buying a few small upgrades to his beloved old shuttle. Just the cost of materials for the necessary repairs claims 80% of the ship’s fund. So Kantarra also becomes an “investor” in the ship, contributing 9300 Cr of her own money for Cheebs’ long-coveted quad laser armament … and to make a payment to placate Gok-Tok.
Looking beyond the necessary repairs, Cheebs runs down the upgrades for the others: Re-partitioning the Porgatu’s hold for more permanent and comfortable accomodations (taken from Nacc’s yacht upgrades); Upgrading the deflector system to military-grade hardware using the module salvaged from a downed Ginivex fighter; Adding a magnetic clamp and the cargo container itself (courtesy of Nacc); Provisioning for an eventual ECM suite by adding a false bulkhead at the rear of the Porgatu’s cargo hold (to make it seem the engineering area begins sooner than it does); Adding the “manka cage” superstructure to the aft dorsum which conceals a new droid-controlled quad laser cannon mount. The crew will do almost all the work themselves to cut costs, though Nacc;s team is repainting the ship for them in a nice unassuming scheme. They decide on a dark grey color with muted orange highlights.
Although the party finds out they’ve returned to Kirian just in time for the Life Day festival, they have no time for celebrations and get right down to work. About a week into the extensive structural repair job, Cheebs presents Kantarra with his long-planned gift: An unassuming but functional data pad which conceals a second data stylus in a hidden compartment with a sliding cover. He’s very proud of inventing this so that Kantarra can conceal her monomolecular stiletto stylus; the Duro now imagines covert assassination jobs are her bread & butter, and he’s trying to help out in his way.
Discussing plans for their unintended illicit cargo of battledroids, the party decides to keep “Rolly” the droideka in case of emergencies, hiding it in the false engineering section (the ECM suite provisions). Even C4-BL3 agrees to find a buyer for the three B1s and their blue command unit (and a fourth wrecked B1 which is currently in pieces). He even upgrades their antiquated and notoriously imprecise targeting systems to improve their value. Preparing for their sale, the group packs up the droids and their charging station parts in a large container. Then Cheebs, Kantarra, and C4-BL3 head over to the droid shop where Cheebs had purchased some parts for the manka cage.
Cheebs asks Kantarra to do most of the talking to the gruff and difficult Trandoshan proprietor of the droid shop. This way Cheebs can try to use his newfound ability to “read” the shop owner: Can he be trusted? Is he intending to turn them in for attempting to sell him restricted droids? Etc. C4-BL3 recognizes many potentially illegal droid parts in the shop, so Kantarra makes her pitch. Although “Trando” is genuinely interested, something turns in him when the talk turns to money. Cheebs and even Kantarra sense that he’s gone to a dark place. Although Trando insists on seeing the droids to continue the negotiation, Kantarra defers. Alert to the possibility he’ll have them followed and discover where they’re keeping the droids, the party does a surprisingly good job fading into the woodwork and finding their way back to the Porgatu’s docking bay without being tailed. After the fact, C4-BL3 shares his suspicions that Trando was also a contact of his old boss’s – Nix from Relatta – and therefore possibly involved in his crime syndicate. The party is duly freaked out, especially recalling that Trando had expressed an interest in buying C4-BL3 when he saw the droid enter his shop. They decide to keep the battle droids for the time being, secreting them in the false engineering hold with the droideka.
2 ABY – 08 Foxtrot – 33 Benduday (Kirian) A galactic month passes. The party finishes all the repairs and upgrades, and Nacc’s people get the ship re-primed and repainted. Vaha Nacc supplies the necessary documentation for updating the ship’s BoSS datapad … and Cheebs confesses to their new Kel Dor patron that he has a second BoSS datapad that also needs updating for the ship’s alter ego registration (The Green Phoenix). Knowing that Nix and the Osaji Syndicate could be after The Intrepid Porg, Cheebs prepares to switch transponder codes back to The Green Phoenix to elude them.
Meeting with Vaha Nacc towards the end of their time on Kirian, he offers the party their next job. About 12 hours rimward is the Pirin System, and Nacc has fresh intelligence that an old abandoned warehouse facility has been discovered there, potentially containing new old stock (Clone Wars era) parts. The facility belonged to a long-defunct company headquartered on Pirin called Kontag, and the parts are likely to be advanced starship security hardware. Nacc offers to give them 3000 Cr up front and split the value of parts 50/50 once they are secured and brought to a shipping facility on Pirin; they will be remotely reviewed and valued. The party can keep any parts recovered that Nacc isn’t interested in.
2 ABY – 08 Foxtrot – 35 Centaxday (Kirian) Kantarra also lets the party in on a potential recovery job she’s lined up from Gwar, her Trandoshan patron. Gwar has a prospective client further rimward from Pirin in the Phaseera System. This client needs some kind of prototype fusion core recovered (from whom or what, either Kantarra hasn’t been told or she isn’t saying). The party agrees to do the jobs in the astrographical order: Pirin first, then Phaseera. They prepare to take the like-new and improved Green Phoenix out for a shakedown cruise.