Star Wars - Underworld Legacy

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

… former Twi’lek slave Mia De’Ore had been nominated “Protector of the Galaxy” along with her friends who had fought alongside her in the “Battle of the Eclipse”. But there was no joy for Mia in this new honorary title, since she had lost her best friend and mentor Trance Killian who had sacrificed herself for the survival of the galaxy. The smugglers last will granted the ownership of her Ghtroc-freighter to Mia, so she was independent and could start a new life.

Prologue: Escape

The loss of Trance weighed heavily on Mia De’Ore’s mind. Together with her closest friends she had spread the ashes of the force-sensitive smuggler throughout half of the galaxy, and while the others had then retreated, Mia felt more alone than ever. Furthermore, she wanted to honor the last wish of her mentor by finding and rescuing her daughter from the clutches of the power hungry family clan Ru’killian from Brentaal. But she had not a single clue as to where to start.

In this state she was contacted by Ranja Killian, a cousin of late Trance, who had taken over management of their logistics company “Galactic Tranceport Ltd.” and also didn’t get along too well with their greedy family clan. She sensed that the Twi’lek had hit rock bottom and urgently needed something to lift her spirits, so she acted as an agent and assigned her a small freight fare she had found on the HoloNet. It sounded pretty generic: Take up some food supplies on a planet and deliver them to a specific set of coordinates.

But these coordinates turned out to be a cloaked asteroid base that was armed to the teeth. When Mia recognized the family crest of clan Ru’killian on the hangar walls she could barely control the urge to blast off immediately. But all went well and nobody seemed to recognize her. She was even asked if she could take out the garbage containers on her way back, since not only the regular food-supplier, but also the waste-disposal contractor hadn’t shown up this week. Mia agreed and four big containers were loaded into her ship’s cargo bays, and soon she was off to a waste disposal facility.

During the flight her delicious sandwich disappeared from the ship’s galley, and since she had had an odd feeling all along she decided to investigate further. In the end she found a stowaway who had come aboard in one of the waste containers. A 14-year old human girl with blonde hair and green eyes who looked just like her mother: Shanta, Trance’s daughter.

Mia introduced her to the holocron masters and they were certain as well, that this was their former student’s daughter, whose force abilities were still rudimentary.

Episode 1: Nar Shaddaa Blues

Shanta decided to call herself Ki’Sha Brightstar from now on, so she would not draw unwanted attention as a fugitive from clan Ru’killian. She was thrilled to travel the galaxy together with Mia. Since the Twi’lek had kept her mom’s stuff in her old cabin, Shanta was able to borrow some clothes from her spacer’s chest, but it still looked a bit odd as she had not reached her mother’s stature and bust size yet.

During a stopover on Ando-station they met an old acquaintance, junker Ken Drahin, and a new acquaintance, outlaw Baldwin R. who was about to leave the boring life of a moisture farmer on Ando-Prime behind him and start a new career in the galaxy’s underworld.

While at the space station’s cantina they were addressed by a group of corporate security forces from clan Ru’killian who demanded that Shanta Killian was handed over as if she was some kind of corporate asset. In a short brawl the security people were knocked out and Mia and her friends immediately left the station. But a clan spaceship seemed to follow them wherever they went as if they knew exactly where to find them.

Alarmed, Mia ordered a complete scan of the ship for tracking devices, and indeed one was found – implanted in Shanta’s head. After she had recovered from her first shock there was a second, as they found out that the device was rigged with an explosive to inhibit removal. Even though she had concerns, Mia couldn’t think of a better place to get a souvenir like that removed than on Nar Shaddaa, the smuggler’s moon.

Mia still had connections to Rodian crime lord Reelo Baruk from past adventures, but she didn’t want to present Trance’s daughter to him. So it came down to Kira, a former gambler who had been a slave for a former crime lord and had been freed by Trance and Mia. Now she was running a well established night club on the moon’s upper levels and surely had enough connections to get them a shielded hideout and a competent doctor.

So they contacted Kira who was all too happy to help the daughter of Trance. She managed to get them a shielded safehouse and a doctor who found out that the sender wasn’t surgically implanted, but merely stuck into the frontal sinuses which made the removal much easier and without surgery. Shanta was very brave and had the doctor commence with the procedure, but it almost went sour when the detonation was triggered a bit too soon and the doctor had to act fast to save her.

While the girl was recuperating from the procedure Mia and the others rebuilt the sender and prepared an escape pod rigged with explosives. They laid out their bait one day away from Nar Shaddaa and when the retrieval-team of clan Ru’killian arrived the pod was blown up to fool them into believing that Shanta was dead.

Meanwhile Kira had taken the girl under her wing and bought her new, fitting clothes, cosmetics and jewelry so Mia almost didn’t recognize her on return. Furthermore she began to sense the upcoming trouble as Shanta’s force powers finally awoke and the holocron masters started to teach her as well.

Episode 2: Old Scars

During a seemingly harmless cantina visit on Nar Shaddaa Mia ran into a friend of her mentor and foster father Vimdarr Titon who informed her of Vimdarr’s death. The quarren had bought out Mia as a child from slavery of Chiz’tor the Hutt and had treated her like his own daughter. That had been the best time of her miserable life, but it had ended when Vimdarr had to trade her back to the Hutt due to high debts. Although he had promised to free her as soon as possible he never managed, and Mia had abandoned all hope of ever coming free again, until Republic senator Terence Mo’Ore had bought her out two years ago. That freedom had had its own price since Trance Killian had been left with the Hutt in her stead.

Agitated by this conversation Mia decided that reprocessing her past could wait no longer. Besides their acquaintance Baldwin R. the group was with Randrack Dalarn and Shanta used the opportunity to ask this Protector of the Galaxy about her mother. When Mia mused that there was lots of information to be acquired a Barabel named Dar’Shok offered his assistance. He prided himself for his ability to acquire contacts and gather information, all skills that the overburdened Twi’lek gladly accepted.

So they made some curtesy calls with the most influential crime lords of Nar Shaddaa and Nal Hutta: But Reelo Baruk and Chiz’tor the Hutt both were more interested in Shanta who they correctly identified as Trance’s daughter. Reelo admitted that Vimdarr had been on a mission for him shortly before he disappeared 5 years ago and that mission had failed. Chiz’tor and his majordomo on the other hand told Mia that it was her late friend and teacher Trance Killian who had killed Vimdarr.

Mia and Shanta were devastated and couldn’t believe that Trance had been a cold-blooded killer. So they took in the rest of the group and went to the last stations in Vimdarr’s life to search for clues. While the space station of Moonus Mandel only supported that Vimdarr had been there, Ando-station could deliver a holo-sequence that showed how Trance Killian fired her blaster at Vimdarr who was hit and fell to the floor.

Since they didn’t trust this holo they let their two astromech-droids Lucy and Seashell, who had also been inherited from Trance as part of the ship, recalculate the sequence to find out what had happened before. By analyzing all traces in the holo they derived that Vimdarr must have threatened Trance before the shot and even fired at her, so she had probably acted in self-defense.

To verify their suspicion Shanta and Baldwin hacked into the stations computer system and found the complete holo recording that had been “forgotten” by the station’s administrator due to a handsome payment. In this holo Vimdarr threatened Trance with his blaster and wanted to shackle her, but she managed to free herself and shot back in self-defense. She then escaped to her ship while Vimdarr got up again and was confronted by another group who shot him again, so he could barely escape to his ship while he was bleeding.

This meant that Trance was no longer a suspect, but the holo and the computer logs of the station held even more information, so they could track Vimdarr’s course to a small backwater planet. There, a Duro seemed to have stolen the ship shortly after its arrival, but Vimdarr had been seen going to the local cantina where the bartender had put Vimdarr’s old blaster on display. When Mia revealed herself to be Vimdarr’s foster child the bartender gave her a data-chip with “Mia” written on it. The Quarren had slipped it to the bartender only minutes before he had been shot by bounty hunters right in front of him.

In this moment a group of armed people stepped inside. They all had a crest on their coats depicting a bloody talon and they demanded that Mia hand them over the chip. In the ensuing short, but brutal fight their leader lost an eye to Randrack’s sharpshooting, half of the men were beaten down badly and the rest made their escape after Dar’Shok had roared with a fierce and feral growl.

The bartender showed Mia the grave where he had laid Vimdarr to rest, so she finally had the certainty of his death. The chip held two encrypted messages, one coded with Quarren-DNA, the other opened up to Mia’s old nickname. It played a holo message of the gravely wounded Vimdarr in which he apologized to Mia that he had not been able to buy her out. He also mentioned a legacy that had something to do with his spaceship. Furthermore he warned her about trusting a Bothan named Grittor, as he seemingly had betrayed him and was responsible for his death.