V. The Hunter's Mark

The crew chases down leads and mysteries. 
Resting and resupplying on Takodana is leading to more mystery. The enthusiastic Capa has helped Rigel Mereen with repairs to the Redshift Runner, which now seems to be attempting to communicate. 
Melba and Feenam’ersu have meanwhile come across Mast’urr, a namana trader who has recently lost three shipments, and is unaware that he has been dosed with glitterstim spice. 
All the while, someone watches, waiting for the right moment....
----Melba goes to a bar and asks for four 'house special's and a tea. The 'house special' appears to be a bizarre assembly of mystery garnishes in a massive bowl of vaporous stew. It's potent, but at least it's potable, and she struggles to bring all of them back to Feena and Mast'urr. While Melba and Feena try to decide how to handle the tweaking senior, a stranger storms out of the bar yelling condemnations. Apparently he got run through the wringer trying to turn in a bounty. During his ranting, he mentions that there's a bounty contract. Melba waits a polite length of time before immediately running in to inquire. A human woman and an embarrassed protocol droid are regaining their composure at a table. Minerva is looking for a Corellian★ named Aingus Cevil because he sold her some bad ships and skipped system. He's worth twice as much alive as he is dead, so hopefully he hasn't broken up with any Wookiees recently. There's even an extra commission for seizing the refund that she's due. As Melba leaves, the protocol droid makes it clear that Imperial involvement would be unwelcome.
Mast'urr doesn't seem like he'll be going anywhere soon, so Feena leaves him somewhere relatively safe. Melba gives Capa a 'house special', which is almost as big as they are. This turns out to be a bad and messy idea. The crew argues about the upcoming travel plan. Rigel justifies Capa's presence by recounting the repairs of the ship. Melba and Feena explain what he missed planetside, and the crew decides to set off to Corellia for now. Capa's recent antics raise some concerns about privacy on board, but there's little to do about it for the time being.
Enroute to Corellia, Rigel receives some strange static over the comms. Assuming it's the Redshift Runner attempting to communicate, he starts replying over the ship speaker system, waking his crewmates. No amount of diagnoses or system adjustments seem to make much difference. Eventually, they manage to decipher that the haunting voice in the static is saying "YOUR HOME". With a boost to the ship's computer, they get a more coherent phrase, "We're going to your home". At least Melba and Feena believe Rigel about the ship talking now. They consult Capa who has nothing to offer regarding the situation but does have his usual catalogue of antics.
With no further results from the Redshift Runner, the crew starts to formulate a plan on how to find and catch Aingus Cevil. The Redshift Runner does seem to be listening in, and is not happy with talk of buying a new ship. They don't come up with much better than "bait him and jump him", but there's no sense messing with a proven formula. The approach to Corellia is a tad rough, but there isn't much of an issue finding a berth.
Feena immediately runs off shopping and spends literally all of her money on new bedding and formal clothes. Melba and Rigel start to track down Cevil, and apparently, he's not just the proprietor of some run-down used ship lot - he's a bigshot running a luxury shipyard. Luckily, he's personable enough to greet them and take them to his office. Sadly, as the two of them try to figure the situation out, Cevil seems to catch on to the fact that they might not be proper customers. Melba takes the daring move of name-dropping Minerva, and the last of his friendly attitude slips away. Sensing that the game is up, Minerva lunges with her binders. He dodges, but with the two of them too close for him to make an easy escape, he tries to talk his way out of an imminent capture. Melba asks him to fork over the money, and he says he has nothing to offer up but his life. He's even willing to die before being captured. Melba's bantha-puuduu sensor goes off and she stuns him. With Cevil out for the count, Melba and Rigel start raiding the office. Melba puts Cevil into a convenient repulsor trunk that he technically fits in. Rigel steals the schematics of a new prototype Imperial frigate as well as data regarding Cevil making large secretive credit transfers.
There's a call coming in and a knock on the door, so time is just about up for the Runners' tomfoolery. Melba puts on a uniform-looking disguise and answers the door to see a very secretarial-looking human woman. She can't be dissuaded from entering, but at least seems to take for granted that Melba is supposed to be there. Rigel tosses some debris to distract her with the noise, and she gets caught up fussing over a run in her stocking. Melba gives her a quick fix, and as the woman gets to work fixing the issue, Rigel and Melba flee.
Feena meets up with them, and asks if they can stick around for another day while she gets an outfit tailored. Despite having a comatose captive, Melba and Rigel try to figure out how to make this work. The crew sets about investigating Cevil's mysterious circumstances, but they can't piece much together. Cevil wakes up, and is quite concerned about getting captured. Feena finally gets a chance to get her honeyed hooks into him. She doesn't get much immediately useful, but there's clearly some larger stake in this mission than a deal gone wrong. Rigel his a dead end with Cevil's data, so he enlists Capa's help. Apparently, Cevil spent all his money trying to get himself to some frozen backwater called…Hoth★ ?
Category:SWR-Ep