SotB: Siren's Call

*GM Kyle takes us on an adventure into the heart of the Empire.*

*An operative has gone missing and the datapad she left behind with the team is blinking a message. "Need help on Coruscant." The operative left near a month ago to retrieve her son and has not made contact till today. Coruscant is a dangerous place for enemies of the Empire. Will our team of intrepid rebels be able to ascertain what dangers have befallen their comrade? Will they be able to help?*

## Agents

### Session 1

* Rogesh Vai
* Saber Scintel
* R0C-K4 "Rocky"
* Nenna
* Erdo
* Lee

### Session 2

* Derra
* Alro
* Gristle
* Aiden
* Nahat
* Gear

## Mission Report (Session 2)

*Summary by Ben*

Gristle finds the datapad left behind by Fai, along with its message, mentioning ‘watching’ and ‘sabers’ along with her request for help. After some study, he assumes that the message may have been sent under duress, and there is likely a trap waiting on the other side. Fai had left to retrieve her son, who’d been left with his grandparents, but disappeared in the interim, leaving behind just this datapad as a warning system. Study of the datapad reveals ties to Marsh Oplo, a tour guide who operates on Coruscant. Despite not being a fan of the Rebellion, he is sentimental and might help if given a good reason.

The full text on the datapad reads: “Watching Trapped Coruscant Sabers Help.” Alro tries to track the source of the signal itself and finds it pointing to a place called Gearhead’s Grotto. Derra and Gear ping Fai’s comlink and see that the response comes from Coruscant’s undercity. In order to secure entry, the agents arrange a meeting with Marsh Oplo, hoping to get his help. He agrees to meet them on the station where they’d stopped on the Perlemian Trade Route. With a payment of 500 credits each, he gladly whisks them off to Coruscant aboard his HWK-2000 and promises to be discrete.

Upon exiting hyperspace, they’re greeted by the sight of a star destroyer patrol guarding the planet’s orbit. Marsh handles the talking and makes a brief inspection of the agents before parting ways and offering a ride home when they’re ready. Gristle and Nahat spot a poster advertising Gearhead’s Grotto with a code marked scratched into the corner, a warning from Fai. Gristle and Aiden ask around about the Grotto, but no one seems particularly willing to talk about it, aside from news that most of the non-humans have been kicked out within the past week or so. Aiden is approached by an Imperial recruiter in the spaceport, but offers his fake comlink info to set up an interview to avoid being dragged into his office. With that distraction avoided, the crew heads down into the undercity, toward Gearhead’s Grotto.

Outside the cantina, the team finds a hobo sitting across the street and move over to talk to him after offering a tidy sum of credits. The hobo doesn’t seem fond of non-humans, himself, and is also wearing some kind of blindfold, but Gristle can detect some kind of movement behind it. Gristle asks him about his claim to having served in the Clone Wars, and he informs the doctor that he fought in the second battle of Geonosis. Meanwhile, Derra and the others head into the cantina itself, spotting a jovial pantoran at the bar and a drall sitting behind it. Having spotted a blocked door around the side of the building, she poses as an angry fire marshal, and Gristle comes in to join her, but the drall at the bar doesn’t buy the deception. Nahat calms the situation down, but the drall makes an excuse to retreat into the cantina’s back room. Gristle notices, in the meantime, that the pantoran at the bar is actually a human in disguise. The “pantoran” invites the agents together for a drink, but Nahat tries to make an excuse about having a faulty kidney. The “pantoran” insists, however, and one of his companions hops over the bar to begin pouring drinks, but Aiden notices her pouring some kind of powder into the glasses. Nahat confronts the fake pantoran about the deception, prompting him to spring the trap.

The “pantoran” draws two blasters and shoots Nahat twice at point blank range, incapacitating the neimoidian in one salvo. Gristle immediately lunges forward to retaliate, and the woman behind the bar pulls out a vibroblade before coating it in some sort of substance. Across the cantina, one of the disguised patrons throws a grenade toward the bar, which misses the mark and begins seeping out gas onto the floor. Derra fires at the other group of ambushers, taking down one of them, but his comrades return fire, landing a hit on the chiss. Aiden levels his own blasters at their opponents and lays down some covering fire while Alro heads outside with some bottles to rig something up with one of the swoop bikes parked outside. Gristle takes a hit from the enemy commander, and the woman behind the bar also leaps over to engage him. The shistavanen leaps over the bar, taking the pantoran imposter with him and knocking him out by slamming his head into the floor on the other side.

Alro takes one of the swoop bikes after rigging its engine to blow and aims it through the door, launching it into the far wall and causing an explosion that rocks the building. Another of the enemy soldiers tosses a grenade after Gristle behind the counter, but it rolls a little too far and doesn’t faze him. Aiden guns down a pair of adversaries, and Gear hops behind the bar to provide more cover. The enemy assassin jumps back over the bar to engage Gristle again, swinging her poisoned vibroblade at him. However, he manages to divert her momentum, sending her into the bar behind him while slipping the weapon from her hands, but taking a nick in the process. He delivers a decisive strike to her head, but unintentionally cracks the base of her neck against the bar, cracking some vertebrae and paralyzing her, causing her to begin suffocating. At the same time, the trap is sprung a bit late and the front security doors close, and gas begins to filter into the room from some vents on the ceiling.

Aiden cleans up a few of the remaining attackers, and Gear starts slicing into the cantina’s systems from behind the bar, deactivating the gas vents and opening a set of security doors elsewhere. Alro finishes off the last enemies, and the cantina is left in silence. Gristle tries to save the Imperial agent, but can’t stabilize her before she suffocates. With a little help from Aiden, he snaps out of his suddenly somber mood and starts tending to Nahat and the others while Gear slices into the enemy commander’s datapad, discovering the location of a ‘blacksite’ where numerous prisoners have been taken recently.

The party moves through the doors behind the bar and finds the opposite side of the blocked side door as well as a storeroom with the drall hiding inside. He apologizes for having been forced to house the Imperials, but Gristle assures him that it’s all right and reimburses him for his lost profits and stained reputation. Fai had been captured by the same people in the cantina about a week ago during her search for her son, and the drall is one of her friends. Thankful for the information, the crew proceeds on and asks around about information on the supposed ‘blacksite’. A local ruffian who’d been hired to watch the building at one point lets them know that it’s bad news. Outside the facility, he’s seen a large droid and a turret that can shoot flames.

The agents head to the site itself, and the outside is mostly barren aside from a garage door, a ventilation opening and a few cameras. Alro produces an ascension pistol and fires a line up toward the vent, which is only about 20 feet up, and the crew is able to climb up and into the vent without crossing in front of the cameras. From the higher point, they proceed into the building. Through the vents, they see the garage on one side with a lone guard standing by a line of speeder bikes. Further in, they see what appears to be a torture chamber with Fai locked in a cage and a cerebral stabilizer attached to her head. There’s also a camera in the corner, and in order to circumvent it, Gristle passes his stealth field to Alro, who scrambles down and disrupts the camera feed before hopping onto the console to release the door on Fai’s cage. At the same time, a guard enters the room and moves toward the console. Alro moves out of the way, and Gristle uses the Force to cloud the guard’s mind as he drops down to swiftly knock him out, clearing the coast and allowing the others to drop in. Alro and Gear investigate the computer system while Gristle and Aiden try to release Fai from the cerebral stabilizer without endangering her and do succeed in keeping her mind and body intact.

The computer system seems to be largely untouched, and Alro is able to lift some information about Fai’s son. He’s been transported to a re-education camp somewhere in the Outer Rim. With no more business in the blacksite, Alro starts running malicious commands into the system, starting a self-destruct and commanding the local turrets and droids to go haywire. The team then extracts through the vents, taking Fai with them. They meet back up with Marsh and extract with Fai and their new Imperial prisoner.