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Ben and the Bounty

The convoy of cargo speeders and swoop bikes reached Anchorhead safely after several hours traveling across the Tattooine wastes, and the surviving moisture farmers went back to their homesteads. Elav Kairn invited their rescuers into his shop to take their pick of his supplies. Most of the useful goods were war-surplus, some quite decrepit, but they came away with a swoop bike, a battered old R4 astromech droid, medical supplies, a sensor pack and a number of weapons. They also found a thrust vector magnet for the damaged Kestral.

With a meaningful look, Kairn told the Jedi that they should go across the street to the Burnt Bantha tavern and look for Ben, who ought to show up about this time. He could tell them everything they needed to know. Jedi fugitives Coltar Tenagi and Dash Wetwalker went to the tavern while Gale Owassa and Drace Ragbar gathered supplies.

They bought a pricey glass of water and two cheap cups of awful liquor at the bar, and the bartender pointed them to Ben. They immediately recognized him as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi master.
Tenagi and Wetwalker stepped close and quietly asked to speak to him. He looked suspicious. “It’s Jedi business,” Tenagi muttered. Kenobi asked them to step outside for privacy. Tenagi downed his drink (“I’m trying to fit in”), collapsed for a moment, recovered, then stumbled his way outside.

Kenobi didn’t have much to offer in the way of advice. They already knew that the Jedi were being hunted, that the few survivors were in hiding and on the run like themselves. When they told him their adventures so far, he said he didn’t know any way it was possible for the long-dead darksider Set Harth to return, but he recommended that they retrieve the Tablets of Ruusan and keep them out of the hands of the Empire.

Kenobi also said that good people were organizing to oppose the Empire. He had word from Senator Bail Organa that a band of Jedi recently attempted to ambush Darth Vader, the emperor’s chief enforcer and the assassin of countless Jedi. Only two survived the attempt, and those two were held captive on the Venetor-class star destroyer Assailer. The Assailer was en route to Kashyyyk to collect more political prisoners before taking them all to Coruscant.

Kenobi himself had commitments that kept him on Tattooine at all costs, and he asked them to avoid Senator Organa, whose position was already dangerous. But if the fugitives could manage to rescue the captive Jedi, Kenobi said they should take them to Naboo and find a way to meet with the queen herself. She was a friend to their cause.

Wetwalker, Tenagi and Kenobi parted with a shared thought: “May the Force be with you.”

Diplomacy and Protocol

The fugitives loaded their goods onto Kairn’s speeder truck for transport to the Kestral. As they were nearly ready to leave, a golden C3 protocol droid carrying a storage case approached Kairn’s shop, leading three bulky cloaked figures. They found Ragbar and Owassa sorting through scrap and parts at the shop’s front door.

“I am protocol droid C3-PX. Are you the individuals who recently stole the transport ship Shanador's Revenge?”

Owassa shook his masked, helmeted head. “No, you have the wrong people.”

“That is strange. You look identical to the thieves shown here on my datapad.”

“Sorry, you’re mistaken.”

“How unfortunate. I had hoped we could resolve this peacefully.”
C3-PX opened his case, took out a huge blaster rifle, and opened fire. His companions threw off their cloaks and turned out to be IG-100 MagnaGuard droids, brandishing electro-staves.

One MagnaGuard droid rushed Owassa, who drew his lightsabers and fought it while taking several grazes through his armor and near-misses from C3-PX’s blaster. Ragbar shot at C3-PX and the MagnaGuard droid with a burst from his repeating blaster but only grazed each of them.

Another MagnaGuard droid charged Ragbar and battered him with its staff, but its blows glanced off his armor. The Trandoshan tripped and fell flat on the ground, shrugged off more blows from the droid, then came up and unloaded a burst of blaster fire directly into the droid at point-blank range, blowing it to pieces.

The third MagnaGuard droid ran around the corner to find Wetwalker and Tenagi. It cornered Tenagi behind the speeder truck, where he dropped his blaster and drew his lightsaber. Wetwalker ignited his own lightsaber, rushed around the truck and attacked the droid from behind. The two Jedi and the droid struck and parried in a flurry. Then Tenagi barely dodged its crackling staff — and his whip-fast lightsaber swept the droid's head off and plunged into its core processor. The droid fell, inert.

Wetwalker ran back out to the street, drawing his blaster, and shot at the last MagnaGuard droid battling Owassa, who staggered from several burns and flesh wounds from the protocol droid’s blaster and the MagnaGuard droid’s shock-staff. The Nautolan’s blaster fire distracted the MagnaGuard droid long enough for Owassa to cut it down. C3-PX ran for it and disappeared among the hovels of Anchorhead.

The fugitives quickly hid their lightsabers. “I think we’d better get out of here,” Tenagi said, and they climbed aboard the speeder truck and Kairn drove them out of town.

A Pitiful Band

Back aboard the Kestral, Ragbar installed the thrust vector magnet and Owassa rested after receiving first aid. Tenagi and Wetwalker told their companions that they faced a choice. The Jedi were going on to help others of their kind escape the emperor’s purge. If Ragbar or Owassa wanted to get out and avoid life as fugitives from the Empire, now was their opportunity. Neither took it.

“Unlike my brother clones,” Owassa said, “I don’t hold with betrayal. I’m in.”

Ragbar grunted, “I don’t think this pitiful band would get far without me.”

The Kestral soon took off again, heading for Kashyyyk.

June 16, 2007