04: The Finding: Graveyard of Alderaan

Time Period: SW:ANH +8 months

Where: Ithorian Homeship, The Bizarre / Alderaan Asteroid Field

The crew of the Lovely Angel left Omze’s Starport en route to the nearest Rebel Base. They found a remote frozen world (not Hoth), where they contacted a Rebel outpost, and reported in. This was supposed to be the Lovely Angels opportunity to leave Rebel politics behind, but unfortunately that would not happen. They were immediately recruited for another Rebel mission to seek out a very special messenger; a messenger with a communiqué to Leia Organa. This was apparently high priority and the Rebels were willing to upgrade the Lovely Angel for passage onboard her, and help with the mission. The Dirty Pair were sold.

They were picked up by an ominous looking Ithorian homeship, the Bazaar. While traveling through the galaxy on the largest interstellar-mobile bazaar in the galaxy, the group encountered a plot to hunt down their contacts. It was a race to find their contacts before assassin droids, oddly similar to their companion 7D6, got to them first. They were tricked into posing as the Heroes of Yavin in order to get the contacts to come out of hiding, which drew the dark attention of the Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader. After they retrieved the information they needed from the contact in a hair-raising battle with the assassin droids, the party panicked when they saw a proto-type Super-Star Destroyer, the ShadowChaser looming through the transpara-steel dome on the Bazaar. It was a mad rush to hide from the Imperial bordering parties and get back to their ship, which they hoped had been properly modified as requested. They were split up in the rush, and a group was nearly captured if it wasn’t for the help of some strange monks that lived in the Mother Jungle in the lower levels of the Bazaar. These three crew members were taken to a place no other non-Ithorian has ever seen, and told of a Destiny… a Destiny with the Dragon Way.

The crew members escaped into hyperspace, only to realize that the nightmare was not over. The message was for Leia Organa, and it called her to the Alderaan system, where there was a report of survivors from the attack, and one might be her father. The crew was charged with investigating this on their own, and if Bail Organa is alive, than they can take all the glory. All they had to do was find the miners that found the signs of survivors.

They dropped out of hyperspace outside the asteroid field of Alderaan, and nearly slammed into a ghostly-form of an ancient ship, which disappeared as fast as it appeared. They had heard of reports of ghost ships and strange happenings, but this was more than they expected. They were able to find the mining colony among the floating debris, and from their they retrieved the information on the location of the fragment that might hold survivors, with a few incidents with locals. They challenged blood-thirsty scavengers, chaotic asteroid field navigation, and attacks from Imperial probe and war droids to get to the fragment. Inside they discovered a vault of ancient Alderaanian royal artifacts. Some of these artifacts were old art by an Alderaanian occultist named Drake Mandrakor. This art depicted something called ShadowDrakes, which caught the Jedi’s attention. He knew this had something to do with his destiny, and knew that this Mandrakor was alive, and involved in the Dragon Destiny in some way. All three of the Dragon Destiny characters realized there was more sides to this than just two.

They also stumbled across an Imperial ambush, which they dispatched quickly. There was an explosion, and thet were trapped inside the vault and had to find their way out. A strange space-faring Jawa happened across their path, who tried to lead them through, but really did not know where he was going. They faced strange haunting apparitions and voices from the long dead, and more scavengers. It soon came apparent that this was an elaborate Imperial trap to captured Leia and her friends, but they had fallen for it instead. The Imperials chased them through the vault, and almost had them trapped until a figure helped them from behind a hidden door.

This man calling himself Quelor Tathis, showed them through some hidden passages to a control room where he explained that he was here for a purpose… to capture the ghost ship. The ghost ship is actually an old Warship, the Second Chance, trapped inside a special “corner” of Hyperspace, called Hyper-N-Space. It was put there by the Alderaanians to store all their weapons of war, as part of the planetary peace effort before the coming of the Empire. Now, the weapons are needed again, and Tathis knows how to get to them and bring them to the Rebellion… but he needs help. On the condition that they will help him, the party members were shown a passage to a docking bay which held an old Skipray Blastboat. In space, they spotted something materializing nearby, but it wasn’t a ghost ship… it was the ShadowChaser… DECLOAKING… and launching fighters. Their escape wasn’t pretty but it was successful. Vader, realizing he did not have Leia, left the system, putting the Admiral of the ShadowChaser in charge.

Sometime during all this, the Lovely Angel had received an emergency communication from the Corporate Sector. When the Dirty Pair was able to view it, it was distressing news. The 3WA HQ had been raided, the board of directors taken into custody, and the corporation dissolved by the Corporate Sector Authority for suspicion of dealing with the Rebels. Also, Mughi had been kidnapped by Imperials a few weeks before. They were told that 3WA was able to gather many of its assets and hide them in assorted safe houses in and around the Corporate Sector and they were ordered to acquire these assets at their easiest convenience and to hand them over to the Rebels. They were the only agents left out on the field and the legacy of 3WA was on their shoulders.

The crew proceeded to stealthily search for the Second Chance’s next drop point.