Story Arc – Star Wars – Age of Rebellon

When we left our adventurers they had split up. Most reported for duty on Arda One, Yondu stayed to oversee the refit of the ship.

Not long after the others leave McDougal asks Yondu to his office. Going up the main street, Yondu is struck by the calm of the small town with so many different races involved. The road goes up a small hill on the right and at the top is a big sturdy house with a large covered porch. A servant is sweeping the porch and Youndue climbs up the steps.

The servant pauses. “McDougal summoned me. Can you let him know?” The servant sets the broom aside and says, “Yes, Sir.” She goes inside and after several long moments both the servant and McDougal come out. Startled, McDougal welcomes the the pilot. “I was expecting the other one, oh well. Well, come on I need to talk to you.”

McDougal leads Yondu inside. The entry way is tastefully done with native wood and artwork. Yondu sees a sitting room and to the left a living area. Down the hall are more doors. McDougal leads him to the second set of doors.

Inside is a library and office. A collection of data pads and ancient books cover the shelves. The occasional shelf is covered with souvenirs. Directly behind the desk in the center of the room is a set of shelves. On the shelves are two Mandalorian helmets: one broad one and strong looking, the other sleek and almost delicate.

McDougal sits behind the desk. “Well, I need a favor from you and your group. You see, we are about to have visitors. This happens once or twice year and I can’t have you or your companions causing problems. Imperials will soon be arriving for thier inspection. I know how you feel about these spiders and I even share your feelings but to keep them out of my hair I need you keeping a low profile and not causing problems.

Yondu assures McDougal that he and his crew won’t be a problem when the imps arrive.

“Good, Good.” McDougal says and gets up to escort him out. A stranger is in the entry waiting. McDougal is startled and escorts Yondu out a little quicker, saying, “I will be right with you,” as he goes by.

As Yondu goes down the stairs he hears- “I know the Aldruanians are already here and building, but I won’t agree to this if we don’t work out the details.”

The next morning Yondu is on top of the ship inspecting some communication gear that was installed yesterday. He notices activity on the other side of town at the tree line between two hills. It’s about a click out of town; some sort of ship has landed and is unloading some big building materials.

He doesn’t have time to stop. He wants to have the ship all buttoned up by the time the Imps get here. He sees McDougal walking down the road, some heavy machinery follows him. McDougal calls up, “Can that ship fly yet?”

Yondu yells down, “The last of the repulsers were installed yesterday. We can’t break atmosphere but she can fly on her own power. Why?”

“Good! I need you to move this thing up to the public port so it looks like any other ship being refitted.”

“We can do that, but what about the other wreckage?” Yondu points over to the wrecked rebel ship.

“I have that taken care of. Just get this one to the port. The imps are due any time.”

Yondu goes down into the ship and grabs an engineer. “We’ve got to move this thing.”

“But, but, sir we just got the repulsers installed and we haven’t had time to test everything,” The engineer stammers.

“Well, no time like the present. Hup-to get those engines spun up!” Yondu says.

“Yes, Sir!” and the engineer runs off to do as instructed.

Soon everything is ready for Yondu to try moving the ship and he makes it to the bridge. Four heavy lifters are moving the wreck into the junk yard to hide it in plain sight. Three agriculture droids are waiting to plow the crash sight.

“Ok, let’s try this. Ymee, cycle that engine up. Watch those readings and let me know if there’s any trouble.” His hands fly across the controls and the ship called “Mother” rises up in the air under her own power for the first time.

Yondu maneuvers the ship up and over to the public space port. The tarmac is completely empty except for a single tiny long-distance shuttle. Yondu lines the ship up and about that time an excited warble comes from Ymee. “Speak common, you stupid droid! I can’t understand you.”

About that time one of the port repulsers goes out. Like a 5 year old on a slip-and-slide Mother veers hard to port, straight into the folded wing of the only other ship on the tarmac. With a crunch the two ships meet.

“I said the port repulser was fluctuating.” Ymee says in perfect common.

“Thanks!!!” Yondu says.

The owner comes out of the other ship and starts yelling up at the bridge. Out of the window Yondu sees McDougal running up. By the time he gets down to the front ramp things are calmed down. McDougal waves Yondu over and introduces the pilot. McDougal tells him that he needs to repair the wing. Yondu agrees and orders the mechanics and engineers to work on the other ship.

It’s not long after that two tie fighters and a short range shuttle land on the field. An imperial officer steps out with four storm troopers. McDougal meets them at the ramp. Yondu watches it all from the bridge.

After awhile he goes down to see how the repairs are going on the other ship. As he’s watching he notices three pilots in front of the shuttle talking. He slides over to where he can hear them better. ” …. lucky is all.”

“What do you mean? I heard the rest of the fleet was going on the offensive.”

“We hear that rumor every week. No, this was different. A rebel base was discovered in some backwater called Arda.”

With that Youndue slowly makes his way to the ship as to not arise suspicion. When he clears the ramp he sprints to the bridge. Ymee and a technician are working on the relays for the faulty repulser.

“Arda base is going to be attacked! Get them on the comm.”

“Sir, if we transmit anything it will be intercepted by the cruiser in orbit.”

“Fine. It’s time for a shakedown cruise. Get everyone on board now and let’s do a quick turn around the system.” Yondu says as he slides into the pilots chair.

“Sir, we don’t know where your recruits are. There is also still work to do on the wing.”

“I don’t care. Did you hear me? Our friends could be dying. Get me in the air!!”

“Yes, Sir.” and the young technician scrambles to get the others outside.

“Mother to control, asking permission to go on a shake down flight to work out some bugs.”

“Control to Mother, permission granted but stay close in case things don’t work out.”

“Roger that.” Seeing the ramp go up he starts lift off procedures. The senior technician comes in “Sir, I don’t recomend this.”

The ship lifts off and climbs up into the atmosphere. They break away from the moon with out any problems. “Ymee, start calculating a micro jump. Let’s get far enough away so we can transmit to Arda.” The ship flies without any problem out into the system.

The jump goes smoothly and when they come out of hyperspace Yondu turns and says, “Get Arda base the comm. We need to warn them about the attack.”

“Sir, we can’t get them on the comm. We don’t have the range.”

“What do you mean we don’t have the Range?!” Yondu says.

“Sir, all we have is an old merchant class comm. It has limited range. This system is older than the clone wars. We had a new one on order but it hasn’t arrived yet,” A technician says.

“Shit.” says Yondu. “Ymee, plot a jump to Arda. We have to warn them.”

Meanwhile, we find our heroes looking out over the canyon they have just blown up. The resulting slide has destroyed or stopped the AT-ATs. As the dust settles Tala and Nod see a platoon of sand troopers starting to climb over the rubble.

Not letting the 50 guys with guns stop them, both bring thier blasters up and start firing. The shots take out a trooper but the response bounces through the port. As a second platoon comes up Nod takes a hit. It staggers him. Tala starts pulling on him to get the heck out of there.

They run down the passageway. They quickly come back to where they left Doc. The last of the survivors has been dug out. Tala sees the heavy blaster damaged by the opening salvos. She runs over and quickly does her magic. The blaster is quickly operational.

Nod mans the gun. The blaster spits death down on the sandtroopers. They slow, allowing the evacuation of the tunnels. When the gun gets too hot the team abandons it.

As they make thier way into the main hanger they witness chaos. The evacuation ships are leaving as fast as possible. Doc sees his damaged speeder pushed off to the side. Doc rushes over to the speeder, the destroyed technology they found earlier in the canyon. As he does a soldier comes out of the tunnels wounded. He falls to the feet of Nod.

“Help me, I need to overload the generators.”

The Captain rushes up. “Get this man to the hospital ship! Pilot, take his mission. It is critical that those generators are blown.”

Nod salutes and moves into the corridor down to the command center. The general and his staff are still directing the defense.

On one of the monitors a soldier screams, “They have broken through! They are in the base!”

“GENERAL!!” Nod yells, “you have to evacuate!”

The General looks back and nods. He starts to order the command staff out. Nod signals to the group to head down a service corridor. They rush down the corridor only to be blocked by sand troopers.

There is a fierce fire fight between the two groups. Tala shows how fierce she can be. Doc kills a trooper in hand to hand. The group escapes into the service ducts. They make thier way to the control room of the generators.

Nod and Tala quickly lock the controls onto overload.

They run up the corridors to the second landing pads where Peggy, Tala’s droid has thier lamda shuttle ready to go. Doc sees an unclaimed T95 waiting for a pilot. He jumps in, the droid in the back whistles a greeting as they shoot up into the sky.

Nod reaches the ramp of the Shuttle and turns. He sees groups of confused individuals milling about trying to figure out where to go. Nod yells for the crowd to start loading the shuttle. Hearing a voice of command for the first time in a long while they rush to the shuttle.

As Tala and Peggy take the shuttle up into the air the combat whirls around them. Nod raises the ramp up as they climb into the atmosphere. He looks out just as the generators explode.

Back on the bridge of Mother, Yondu is screaming at the technicians, asking why the weapons have not been fully installed. Looking out at the screens he can see in the far distance the rebel fleet breaking away from the Imperials.

Ymee says, “Meat-droid, there is a lone Z-95 breaking away in an erratic flight path. He looks like he is in trouble.” Yondu pulls up the screen at his command chair. Taking only a second he orders, “Set an intercept course.

They set an intercept course and the two ships move closer together. Yondu says, “It’s almost as if there’s no pilot.”

The two ships move closer together. The reason for the erratic flight soon becomes obvious. The top of the ship had been strafed, the cockpit holed and the droid blown apart. Between Ymee and Yondu they manage to grab the ship and get a docking collar out to it.

Yondu rushes to the bottom deck and, risking his life, cuts power to the disabled ship. He pulls the pilot out and hands him off to a nearby tech.

About that time Ymee starts to warble and says, “They are coming out of the atmosphere.”

Yondu comes on to the bridge. “What is the problem you bucket of spare parts?”

Then the comms open up with Nod’s clear voice. “Yondu, what in the hell are you doing out here with that death trap?”

The shock wave from a massive explosion on the surface of the planet hits the ship.

“Oh, just trying and failing to save your butt.” Yondu says.

The four ships rendezvous at the edge of the system. They jump out together, the two Z95’s attached to Mother’s back.

It takes a couple days to get back to McDougal’s world. They call in for permission to land and instead of the spaceport they are directed to the Tarmack that Yondu had seen being constructed before he left.

Under the tree canopy is a full-size hanger. On the building is a sign: Idiots-R-Us Salvage. The crew starts to unload and McDougal comes out of the hanger. “You better go on in to the office.” He then gets onto the comm and starts ordering medical droids down the hill. He has a brief argument with one called Mother Hen.

The group goes into the hanger and in the office is a portable holo projector. Champlain stands there looking tired and defeated. “I am glad you made it out.

“We are going to need you here in a couple days. Get your ships repaired as soon as you can and meet us at the coordinates that are stored in Peggy.

“In related news, I have been promoted. The council also has decided to change the status of Falcon squadron. You are now Falcon group based out of McDougal’s world. You are to act as an insurgent group, much like Phoenix group. You will report to me here at the new base or to McDougal. You will be left with Mother and the two headhunters you have. The engineers are to leave immediately in the lambda shuttle. You are to follow as soon as your ship is able.”

About that time the Wookie and Brandon walk in. They look at Yondu and say, “Did you forget something? We have been cooling our heels here for weeks.”………