Grinding Gears

*The broker has had a droid inserted into a private military company's base and it has sent a distress signal for retrieval. The droid is in need of rescue and the Broker's agents are more than happy to oblige!*

## Information

Grinding Gears was an adventure first featured on the play-by-post forums. It was later adapted into a live version run as a VR mission.

## Chronology

Within the Shadow of the Broker canon, this mission takes place between SotB XV: Hide and Seek, Part I (or, more specifically, the VR Session of SotB IV: Hunting for Answers) and SotB XVI: Saber's Edge, Part II.

## Agents

### Original Session

* D4-RT
* Erdogan Cael
* Kii'Vera
* Nogg Nubo
* Saber Scintel
* Zeevo the Hutt

### VR Session

* Chim Chim
* Durin Boge
* Hawk
* Jokan Benn
* Nin'pei
* Reo
* Yyrgahk

## Mission Report

A group of agents is gathered in the safehouse, recruited on a volunteer basis by Fai to pursue a very ambitious mission to the planet Coria. One of the Broker's droid agents has fallen into the clutches of a private military company known as Soldiers Without Worlds. The droid had taken on a disguise as a protocol droid, but was actually a highly skilled assassination unit under the code name Gray Fox. The soldiers at the compound, on the other hand, knew it as D3T4.

The plan was for the team to drop into the jungle miles from the compound in question using gravity chutes while their hired YT-1000 and its crew remains in orbit with Fai aboard, providing support and information from above. Some extra supplies were provided for the mission, including some camouflage cloaks and a hardened comlink. The hired crew in question was then introduced to the team after the briefing. It seems as if the shiphands and its captain are all ex-Republic soldiers and their ship is a YT-1000 specially fitted for hiding its own signature from external scanners. For the purposes of subtle infiltration, it was a good option.

On the flight to Coria, Nogg did his best to inspect the ship, finding that it stores its emissions in tanks that are stocked up within the cargo bay and ejected later on. Erdogan and Saber, being somewhat more personable, introduce themselves to the ship's captain, a duros, who had served an extensive career in the Republic alongside his crew. The two attempted to convince him to join the fight against the Empire, but he seemed hesitant at first, opting to save the conversation for later. At the same time, Kii did some snooping around and gained access to some of the ship's past logs, featuring some very trying times for the ship's crew, including an execution that was caught on the security feed.

After the journey, the team geared up and made their high-altitude gravchute jump down into the jungle. Most of them were blown off course, missing the designated landing zone. This caused some delays, during which the scattered team encountered some vicious vine creatures, but the group ultimately joined back up at the marked site and headed out together. Kii took the head of the group, using his keen intuition to hide their trail and find the safest route through the jungle. For the most part, the group made a good pace, with very few incidents during their various stops. Nogg, who had been monitoring his hardened comlink throughout the trek, picked up some scrambled signals from the compound and did his best to decipher them, but didn't find much success until the group quite literally stumbled upon a signal repeater hidden among the foliage. Using the repeater, Nogg finally managed to jack into the comm network, though doing so roused some suspicion among the soldiers.

Along the way, they slept in the hollow of a tree and discovered a few scattered relics of the Republic, including a corpse. With the comms clear, Nogg picks up a coded message from the droid they were after, stating that it was being detained in the basement of the compound itself. As they grew closer, communications from the base itself grew more active, and they caught word of a group of prisoners being sent into the forest, as well as some targeting information for artillery pieces in the base. Soon after, they found themselves on one side of a minefield while the base seemed to trigger some sort of training drill for the soldiers within. The prisoners released into the forest had been armed and were now, apparenty, fighting for their lives. After navigating the minefield with relative ease, the team encountered one such group of prisoners and managed to get in their good graces for the moment. Convincing them they meant no harm, the team pointed the prisoners back to a safe path through the jungle, with the hope of ensuring their survival and passage through the training drill.

With the compound nearby and night looming now, the team readied themselves to infiltrate by scouting the base's layout. It was fenced in with some guarded gates and one guard tower at each corner. A series of buldings were scattered within, the most prominent being a vehicle bay and command center, housing the communication units and the base's ground vehicles. Kii managed to spot a control box on one of the buildings near the fence, and as they approached, the defenses seemed nothing short of unassailable. With only a suggestion, D4 headed off to the main gate to present himself as a distraction, gaining the guards' full attention before charging off into the jungle with the bulk of the compound's forces in tow. Among the guards was a woman known as 'the sorceress,' noted by Saber to be very strong in the force.

Distraction away, the rest of the team sprang into action, navigating a hole in the fence to gain access to the control box and release the locks on the base's doors. They also managed to disable the searchlights, making their navigation of the grounds much easier. A fighter tank, identified by Nogg as an Imperial 2-M model, had headed out into the jungle to pursue D4 as well, leaving the main building wide open for the team to enter. Their infiltration through the ground floor vehicle bay went smoothly until Nogg attempted to mount the other 2-M fighter tank in storage. Upon opened the hatch, the deafening screech of an unoiled hinge brought the attention of every guard in the area and forced the team to spring into action. Before things got too hairy, though, Nogg gained entry to the tank and started it up, utilizing it during their fight with the base's very well equipped security force.

Meanwhile, in the forest, D4's pursuers suffered several catastrophic failures, resulting in numerous injuries before the sorceress herself caught up to the fleeing droid. D4 turned and quickly dispatched her using his electrostaff. With a new prize in tow, D4 continued his escape, drawing out the pursuit while the battle in the vehicle bay heated up. The base on full alert now, fighters began to scramble and all manner of defenders were rallied to fend off the opportunistic team. The tank that had pursed D4 into the forest did manage to catch up to him, but only after he'd taken up a hiding spot in some branches above. As soon as the vehicle stopped, he leapt down and crushed the pilot before taking control of the vehicle and securing the sorceress as his hostage. With contact to Nogg restored, he turned his tank and pushed back toward the compound to rejoin the others. On the way, however, he found a large force of prisoners taking advantage of the chaos to try to take over the base, themselves. D4 gladly helped them with his newfound firepower and recruited the prisoners the party had aided earlier to crew the gunnery of his tank. The base's scrambled fighters bore down, but were held off as D4 made his way back into the compound itself. In the fighting, a stray shot from the fighter tank's cannon had clipped off the communication array of the main building while a large shuttle landed on the roof to retrieve most of the base's command staff, as well as an unknown 'prototype.'

The vehicle bay battle was tense, with Kii, Saber and Erdogan taking on a large squad of trained soldiers and Zeevo barring the exit with his bulk. Nogg made a few scattered shots with the tank's cannon, vaporizing a few grunts before blasting a hole in the bay door and jetting outside. With the help of his prisoner crew, D4 went on an absolute rampage, routing the base's remaining forces and forcing a hasty retreat while the team used their now superior firepower and element of surprise to gain the upper hand. Before their retreat, however, they'd managed to plant some hefty explosives, the purpose of which was to erase the compound from the face of the planet entirely.

Without much time, Nogg regained contact with D3T4, their target, and arranged for him to meet them on the ground floor, loading him onto the stolen tank while the prisoners and team alike rallied together, regrouping. Nogg had a look at one of the baradium bunker busters, but found that the timing would be way too tight to attempt disarming them all. Erdogan and Kii hijacked one of the APC's from the vehicle bay to load the remaining prisoners into and the entire team fled to the forest to get clear of the blast zone while making their way to the pre-designated landing zone. It seems they'd made it just in time, only feeling the intense shockwave. Upon arriving at the landing area, Kii did his best to hide the tanks and the APC while Nogg hopped down to disarm a bomb that had been hooked into D3T4's frame. The ride was a bit tight, but the escapees all managed to fit aboard and the YT-1000 made it away after confirming that another transport had fled from the planet earlier, likely carrying the base's commander and his so-called prototype.

Before returning to the safehouse, Erdogan and Saber spoke to the duros commander again and did manage to convince him to assist the rebellion in the future. A watch Kii had lifted from one of the officers contained evidence that the base's occupants had acquired pictures and information on the infiltration team, bringing up some worrying questions. Nogg did his best to limit the leaked data, but some still managed to get transmitted elsewhere.