Drace, Huurach, and Darro are running an extraction job in exchange for information from Dax, an agent of Black Sun. They have located the target cargo container on a derelict Nebulon-B frigate —in spite of an R2 unit's attempts to space them. Now, they have to get out with it.

Our crew attempts to use the turbo-lifts again, but they are apprehensive about it! They declined my offer to walk it back to the upper deck they need; I’d just put one tick on the Remnant Arrival clock! The rogue R2 unit traps them in the lift while an IG-100 droid lands on the car they’re in to get the container they have. The environment is horrible for a fight, and after a couple of rounds, Huurach grapples with the IG droid, holding it while Drace and Darro exit the lift with the container. Some luck and Light side points let Huurach also escape the lift and shut the IG droid in…but they can hear it forcing the doors open. There was a moment when a player thought Huurach might just be sacrificing himself!!

The crew stays a step ahead of the R2 droid, which is trying to trap them in the ship, but it costs them time. When they arrive at their docking bay, they find its main doors closed and trapped with explosives. The Nebulon-B frigate shakes violently as it’s hit by the Interdictor-class heavy cruiser that has arrived in the system. The Blue Harvest has also been locked down with docking clamps, which are also wired to explode.

Drace gets the Blue Harvest into space and keeps the Nebulon frigate between them and the newly arrived Interdictor. Huurach takes too long working out astrogation, and they decide to jump anyway. Only the hyperdrives whine and struggle to fire up. The Interdictor has locked down the area with a gravity well. Two TIE fighter squads are dispatched on attack vectors. The Blue Harvest is down a turret, but Huurach and Drace manage to keep the TIE fighters at bay while they escape the gravity bubble of the Interdictor to go to hyperspace!

The encounter with the IG droid was session four, and it was all about using the combat mechanics and force points to resolve this running fight to keep the cargo container. That IG Magnaguard solo was tough!! Maybe the tight, dark environment of the lift shaft helped it. I was also pretty aggressive with spending dark side points to impress how dangerous the killer droid was!

Session five was about getting off the frigate. We were back after a two-week gap and down a player and hand-wave many of the tech & mechanical checks. It was, however, our first space battle, and I’ve not run EotE space combat in 100 cycles. I’ll work up a cheat sheet for it before the next game. We had some thoughts about the maneuvers and actions around piloting and the pilot skill. I’ll need another read and run of it, though. My theory is space combat is its own mini-game, and we missed some things in how the different options interact —like Gain Advantage.

Had we another hour to play I would have screen wiped to Dax’s meeting room on the Othello, assuming the players had no other “things to do”. However, given a week of time to consider…I’m guilty of tossing in obstacles. Like right now I’m thinking those droids follow the Blue Harvest back to Eriadu. Or another party approaches them about the cargo they have. But I won’t. I’ll defer to the Obligation chart for the focus of the next session —and the chart says “Duty(Refugees) -Darro.” So we’ll stay on the refugee thread. I’ll ask Darro more about his connection to this refugee mission; so far, Huurach has been the driving force. The deal with Lyra Dax will be honored with no tricks. The refugees are headed to Nar Shaddar for safekeeping and leverage. I MUST resolve payments for the cargo Drace delivered. Here, the player has an interest in earning credits to keep the ship flying, and EotE has prices on EVERYTHING but ship costs and maintenance (unless I missed that!) This next session is what I call an interstitial session. Maybe it’s downtime in Blades in the Dark parlance. I feel pretty strongly that the players will hightail it to Nar Shaddar... It might be time to prep a thing I like to call The Other Guys… 😈

Here’s the current ORB Now Sheet:

Gorm (Duros) contactGav, Landing pad ownerThane Rook - Mandalorian.