The God of Hyperspace

Exciting events this week in The God of Hyperspace, the saga that began last week with the investigation of the supernatural murder of a prominent Incom corporation executive on Coruscant. The investigation led to the planet Allooine, where terrorists have just taken over the orbiting space station and are demanding that the Galaxy stop using Hyperdrive technology.

This week our heroes, Mok Rebus ( Homicide Investigator), Kira Chan (Twi-Lek Jedi), and Crona Gock (Republic Pilot), and R2-LX, find themselves gaining access to the beseiged space station through a ventral airlock. They emerge into darkness. Rebus, aware of something fishy about the lights not coming on, has everyone check the room in the dark. Gock finally finds a light sensor jury rigged to the station's security system. They disable the sensor and board the turbolift.

On the way up, they have R2-LX send signals that the Turbolift is malfunctioning, and they stop and start it to reinforce the illusion. This gives the team some time to formulate a plan. Chan senses that the hostages, including Senator Donaes, are being kept in the Control Building in the upper commerce dome. (The station is shaped like an flat-bottomed ice-cream cone, with a dome covering the top and sensor antennae protruding out the bottom). At the top, they emerge from the turbolift into a small round building ringed with windows. They take cover and recon their surroundings.

They are close to the control building, a 3-story hemispherical dome with windows on the 2nd floor being patrolled by masked Doloun terrorists. While they are suveilling, a Doloun terrorist approaches their small building. They try to hide given there's nothing to hide behind, but some quick Jedi Mind Tricks has the terrorist telling his compatriots that it was nothing but a turbolift malfunction and leaves.

At this point, Chan stealthily gets on top of the squat building and waits. Gock and Rebus debate a plan, when suddenly two more terrorists, escorting a blindfolded technician, approach the turbolift. Gock and Rebus hide to either side of the door while the tech is thrown inside. The two terrorists wait outside and shout "Fix that!" The technician sees his rescuers, who signal him to get the terrorists inside. The technician asks for some help, and when one enters, Rebus tries to subdue him while Gock wrestles the other one to the ground, fighting for his rifle. Rebus finally subdues the inside terrorist with the technician's help. Gock has more trouble outside, and Chan leaps down and incapacitates the terrorist with her lightsaber. They pull the terrorist inside, tie them both up, and question the conscious one. They determine that there are 30 terrorists and that all the hostages are in the control dome.

Gock and Rebus both dress in the terrorists' clothes, complete with face-masks. Crona Gock suprises all by knowing the Doloun language (!), and is able to reply to the terrorist's radio requests for updates, assuring the other end that there is a turbolift malfunction. The other end tries to communicate with the other terrorist, and orders Gock to wait for the two "suits" they're sending, despite Gock's protests.

Their plan now goes into action. Crona Gock and Mok Rebus, dressed as the terrorists, escort the technician (unblindfolded, and with two captured blaster pistols in his toolbox) back to the Control Dome. Chan once more sneaks to the roof of the turbolift house and waits for the other two. Gock and Rebus enter the building to find a room full of 200 bound hostages all sitting on the floor, tied to each other. There are 4 visible terrorists (2 more behind the large central column in the middle o the room). One of the terrorists shouts at Rebus in the (vaguely Hawaiian-sounding) Doloun language (Gock knows he asked why the hostage wasn't blindfolded). The gig was up. Rebus opens fire first, followed by Gock. They are firing on stun so to not injure any hostages. The terrorists fire back, but luckily don't hit any innocents (this is Star Wars after all, but the PC's were still worried).

As soon as trouble starts, Chan leaps to one of the windows, cutting it open with both lightsabers, and taking down the Terrorist guard next to her with a powerful kick (best line of the night: "I'm tired of cutting people in half, can I just kick him?". She quickly takes down the other two guards on the second floor, the last by disarming him, which led to a moment of tense "waiting to see what the other will do", but when he reached for his backup gun, she was forced to kill him as well. To her horror, Chan finds 9 dead hostages out of 15 on the second floor.

The battle on the first floor goes mostly well. Rebus takes out the two Doloun on his side, Gock takes one down on his side, but the other grabs some cover. In an attempt to move, Gock trips over some hostages and falls. Rebus picks up the slack, moving to Gock's side and stunning the terrorist, who is quickly replaced by one more. Rebus gets him as well.

Before they have a chance to rest, however, the two powersuits arrive at two doorways, in front of and behind Gock and Rebus. Gock and Rebus look at each other and dive for cover, yelling for everyone to do the same. As they dive, Chan leaps from the second floor onto the top of one of the Powersuits before it can fire, doing heavy damage with her lightsaber. The other suit opens fire on Rebus while he is mid-air diving for cover. He is shot but is miraculously unharmed (thanks to a Force Point).

Chan moves around the outside of the building to take the other Suit, who uses its repulsorlifts to rise up 20 meters into the air to ready a Concussion Missile. Chan realizes that the powersuit is getting ready to destroy the whole building and all the hostages. She jumps up onto the dome, runs up to the top (3-stories tall), and leaps again towards the suit, striking twice (yet another Force Point for Chan) before the suit can fire. The suit goes tumbling out of control (the pilot is incapacitated), but Chan finds herself about to fall 65 feet.

Thinking quickly, Chan remembers that she has a magnetic grapple gun (the kind Luke used on Hoth), and fires it at the Transparisteel Dome above. She hits, swings all the way to the side of the dome, kicks off, and safely lowers herself. (ending the absolutely two coolest rounds of any role-playing game I've ever GM'ed).

Rebus chases down one more terrorist, who manages to get away in a turbolift. Gock checks on the safety of the hostages finding a doctor among them to check on everyone. They have R2-LX plug into the security controls and monitor for other terrorists on the station. They find several more terrorists in the cargo hold, including the one who got away. There are still two missing terrorists, and Dolok. Chan takes the doctor to the second floor, who confirms the dead hostages, but informs Chan that they were killed elsewhere and brought here.

Chan then goes to the third floor, the main control center of the station, where she expects to find the Senator and the Terrorist leaders. Instead, she finds the Senator dead, strapped to an upright table and frozen in a state of fear and shock, his shirt torn open to expose his bare chest. In one corner, she finds a frightened woman, the Senator's aide. She is delirious and in shock, kicking and screaming. Kira brings the woman down to the doctor who sedates her. Before falling unconscious, the woman whispers, "That monster! That monster ate his heart!"

Downstairs, LX beeps excitedly. Rebus, Chan, and Gock come to check and see on the security monitor the masked terrorist leader, Dolok, and the Senator, exiting an elevator into the Power Core Shaft (directly below the Control Dome and running the length of the station from top to bottom). Chan looks at the Senator and says, "Sone.."

To be continued next week.

**Post Game Wrap-Up**

Wow. This was one of the most action-packed sessions I've ever run, and the players! What can't I say about the players? They're magnificient! You know you've got good players when one says "I'm tired of cutting people in half, can I kick him?" and the other two dodge for cover when faced with superiour firepower! They also gave me great ideas during the game. The light sensor was because Kevin mentioned a paranoid thought, and I indulged him. In fact, the whole bottomless power core shaft was Paul's idea, and I liked it. Things kept trying to slow down at different parts: when they got on the turbolift and started debating (so I had it start going!), when they were in the turbolift house (so I had both visits), and when they stunned the last terrorist (so I brought in the Powersuits, which I foreshadowed over the terrorist commlink).

They helped out too by pointing out possible logical inconsistencies and giving me a chance to fix them without argument, and by indulging me when I had to back up and change my mind a few times for the sake of the story (they were originally to find the Senator alive, but I changed my mind at the last second).

I really REALLY can't wait for next Saturday.

**Next Week on The God of Hyperspace**

There's a fight in the bottomless power core shaft. A scene where the mysterious Shadow Jedi come to "clean" the top secret second-floor hostages and cover up the incident. A scene on the planet where Crona Gock encounters his twin brother Kashan. And possibly a speeder chase over the oceans of Allooine.

**HIGHLIGHT BELOW FOR SPOILERS**
GM's ONLY!! DO NOT READ!!

Dolok never intended this stunt to achieve his goals. It was all a ruse to capture the Senator and the 15 top-secret 2nd-floor hostages and question them for details about the Dollophon. Now he intends on using this information, and Sone's genetic-mimicry power's help, to steal the Dollophon and conquer the Galaxy.

What Dolok doesn't know is that he is ultimately doomed, because Sone will kill him and assume HIS identity to control the Dollophon. Also, Crona Gock doesn't know yet that Dolok is actually his twin brother. And the other PC's are starting to catch on that Gock is from Allooine and knows more about the Doloun than he's letting on.

Other mysteries for the PC's: Where did the Doloun get multi-million credit Powersuits for this operation? They were arranged by Dyet Nayal of Incom (the murder victim) in exchange for access to the Dollophon and it's hyperspace technology. They were delivered to the station by Sone impersonating Nayal.