Intergalactic Empire Productions

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Theed’s commercial spaceport sees the odd traveler now and then. Of course, there was a lot more than just a few odd visitors about to drop by…

Today was particularly unusual for security. A heavily armed combat droid had just come through customs and was not understanding foreign concepts such as “peaceful world”, “weapon regulations”, and “passports”. On the run, the droid suspected a bounty had been placed on it for war crimes it allegedly committed. By allegedly, most definitely.

The discussion devolved into an argument and then was well on its way to yet another war crime when a silent button was activated by the receptionist. In the utility closet, an A2 Astromech unit designated as Cl0p 7ap, or Clop Tap for short, snapped out of its maintenance cycle and registered its orders. Quickly, it rolled out into the lobby and snuck up behind the massive seven foot killing machine and planted a restraining bolt as high as the astro unit could reach. Meaning, it was placed on its butt.

Spectacularly failing its wisdom save, the murderous machine processed its intent to be aggressive, and then found its programming overloaded by waves of calming binary that matched Naboo’s beauty. Security ordered it to “Freeze and not move”. The groovy sounds of the local street musician playing his Jizz helped as well.

Now to be clear, in Star Wars Jizz Wailing is the equivalent of a musician. I suppose its name comes from Jazz but represents the thousands of music types across the galaxy. How this got past George Lucas is beyond me. If you are listening to the audio version of this, I will type it again for your coworkers to overhear. The Jizz filled the entire room… with its melody.

Bronconius, the Jizz Wailer afore mentioned, was wearing his really cool hat and grooving out to something that was not quite good and not quite great. He was seeking his new sound and testing it out on a live audience. His only adoring fan was with him, holding out his cheaper quality imitation hat trying to get donations for the “coolest and most revolutionary musician of the millennium.”

A native to Naboo, he graduated from the college of arts and was proud to have just published his first album. The galactic spaceport was an excellent place to meet new people, hear new sounds, and get varied feedback that was not just the close-minded isolationist of Naboo.

While all of this was going on, a Mandalorian bounty hunter stepped through the terminal and into the spaceport. Rolling a perfect perception check, Boba Tei immediately spotted her quarry. Standing at 7 feet tall and making a scene, EZ-88 did not blend into the peaceful crowd of lightly armed citizenry. While deciding what to do, she watched as an astro droid crept up behind it, stepped up on its tippy toes, and planted the restraining bolt with a sharp searing sound.

Deciding that an easier approach had just presented itself, she walked over and informed the authorities she was taking over. Which did not go over very well. They began demanding to know why yet another heavily armed outsider was making demands. After some rounds of discussion including things such as “weapons are part of my religion” and “these are not the droids you are looking for”, they began to decide they were not paid enough to care. A second heavily armed combat droid had shown up, though it seemed quite friendly and excited to be a part of the greater good.

The war crime murder bot decided it was time to slip away but failed a second wisdom save and realized that rules for being told to “freeze and not move” had not been revoked yet. Once again, feeling oddly okay with complying, it did so.

As the guards left, Boba Tei ordered EZ-88 to follow her. It tried to resist, failed a third wisdom save, and complied with a lot of verbal hostility. Boba Tei went to see about booking a return flight with her easily acquired bounty at the front desk, but found Bronconius playing his jizz right behind them.

He sensed the hostility, realized it threw off his groove, and decided that the finer arts would fix the situation. Playing loudly, he grooved back and forth with the beat as Boba Tei tried to pass. Still holding out his hat, the follower bounced around with it. While not in beat. But he was having a good time.

The third heavily armed individual had a bright demeanor, brighter armor plating, and a small arsenal that screamed trouble. Bobbing along with the far too original jizz, B00Bz, or Boobs for short, complied with the security guards. Causing no fuss and actually having travel documents went a long way to soothing them, so they let the situation rest and moved on with hurriedly ending their shift before anymore small armed militias walked through.

As the various jizzing, bounty hunting, and security questions went on like normal, Clop Tap noticed that the travel board had lost connection and seemed stuck. Running a quick diagnostic, it found that the holonet was out.

Rolling back to the security closet, it patiently unplugged the network equipment for thirty seconds, plugged it back in, and waited exactly five minutes for it to come back online. The internal network did, but not the outside connection.

With a weary wobbly beep sigh, the astro unit dialed the holonet support line. “Dank you fir callin’ Nahboo hollow net suppirt, how can I asist you?” After a few rounds of discussion, that call terminated unexpectedly. Making several call backs resulted in a busy dial tone.

The weather was supposed to be clear, so Clop Tap checked the weather app. Which failed, because of no holonet. Doing things the old fashioned way, it rolled out to the lobby and looked through the windows.

The weather was clear. So clear in fact that it was impossible to miss the Trade Federation Droid army marching through the streets right at them! Screaming in alarm, the astro unit wailed, racing back and forth. But, due to the increasingly loud interaction with Boba Tei, EZ-88, and Bronconius it couldn’t be heard!

Boba Tei had tried just ignoring the strange groovy man, but his assistant, a true Bronco Boi, was, without prompting, determined to get one person to donate, buy an album, or something. By this time, the Bronco Boi started dancing aggressively, drawing the eyes of many passerbys. Bronconius’s jizz wailing was so perfectly in tune with the screaming of the R2 unit as it raced back and forth that people believed it was part of the entertainment. EZ-88 decided it was time to go, and failed its fourth Wisdom Save.

Boba Tei breathed in relief as the musician relented and let her pass, only to see the doors and window security shutters slam shut with an alarm klaxon. Clop Tap looked up from the security console it was at with a short beep boop. Putting the spaceport into lockdown was the only thing it could think to do.

While all of this was going on, a Gungan Mandalorian Berserker peered out of the lake, his eyes barely visible above the water. He observed the spaceport, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary outside of some very distant and not so sick beats. Until he spotted a heavy troop transport pass overhead and land somewhere in the forest behind him!

Moving quickly, he darted to the landing site, covering large amounts of ground with his ungainly stride. A bush sprouted a pair of eye stalks as it glared at the bay opening up. Several pairs of STAPs raced out and began forming a perimeter patrol, with larger tanks rolling out behind them. Several STAPs started to get close, but he decided to wait in ambush instead of fleeing.

As they came through the edge of the wood line, one spotted him! Firing first, he dropped one with a well placed blast. The other raked the ground beside him in a strafing fire as it passed by. He spotted another two pairs of the fast moving recon units coming in and decided to make a run for it! Blaster bolts pounded the ground behind him as the wail of their small engines whizzed past him.

Diving into the water, he quickly swam downwards as another barrage of bolts pounded the water’s surface, erupting it with geysers of boiling water! A single shutter was tweaked open for Clop Tap to show the security guards what he had been trying to tell them. Why they were not outfitted with galactic common speech was a frustrating debate for astro droids. As they watched a pair of STAPs strafe the water, the main door was blown open by a massive plasma shell!

Once again, EZ-88 tried to slip away, but failed its Wisdom Save for the fifth time. Instead, it settled for drawing two vibro blades.

As the smoke and debris started to clear, the security team suddenly welcomed walking arsenals and got ready to fight! An AAT could be seen in the background with a smoking cannon, but was quickly obscured by a squad of B1 Battle Droids walking in. They waved their blasters around and ordered everyone to surrender. Which of course didn’t happen.

The guards opened fire, but were only able to nail one of the droids. They were just police officers after all. On a non-violent world. They were not trained to fight combat droids. Their return fire took out half of the security team! Boba Tei ordered EZ-88 to follow her. She had free wi-fi in the back of the shuttle. As she began moving towards the departure gate, she joined fire. Compelled to follow, EZ-88 failed its sixth Wisdom Save and followed making sad vibro sword noises.

Boobs had jumped behind the service counter and began returning fire with its holdout blaster. Boobs owned a huge array of melee weapons, but had not yet acquired a good sidearm or rifle. Boobs was still in the market.

Beside Boobs, the jizz wailer had stopped jizzing and was carefully peering over the counter with his blaster in hand. It looked like a lot of droids. It looked like the droids were winning. It looked like he should be doing something besides shooting at the winning droids. Having gone to a liberal arts school, Bronconius knew when it looked like someone was winning by a landslide. Instead, he started rummaging around for something useful. “That’s pretty good” he mumbled to himself as he found some oasis getaway pamphlets. Their shuttle was not due to depart for several days, so he kept looking.

The Gungan outsider finished swimming across the lake and snuck up to a window. The shutters had been blown open by the force of the blast. He found himself face to face with an astro unit poking a blaster out of its chassis. Both stared at each other in absolute silence, and then both slowly dropped from view.

Clop Tap joined the fight, only to see one guard critically fail and dome another guard before getting gunned down himself. Missing wildly, it quickly hid the blaster and opted to surrender instead.

Boba Tei reached the terminal and found the door was locked shut from the lockdown. She began trying to hotwire it while everyone was distracted. She had no success right off the bat but had to start somewhere. Meanwhile, EZ-88, lord of the war crimes, master of hand-to-hand combat (or at least, in its mind) yearned badly to close and engage in melee combat. Instead, it remembered how badly it wanted wi-fi and critically failed its wisdom save, causing it to automatically fail its eighth as well next turn.

The last of the guards were gunned down and fire began to be turned towards the more distant shooters! Boobs was hit, but an automated repair script kept her in the fight with the mighty pocket pistol. Boobs was wishing for a better pistol when one landed next to her from a fellow combatant.

While it sourced its new blaster pistol and started using a better piece, Bronconius had found what he was looking for. A trashcan. A trashcan that inspired the original G0NK design. Dumping it out, he pulled it over himself and began slowly working his way across the lobby with the occasional “gonk” sound. His disguise, while incredibly unorthodox, was so unthreatening and convincing he was completely unharmed! No one viewed Gonk droids as a threat.

Meanwhile, Boba Tei got the door rigged open and sprinted down the terminal with an unhappy murder bot on her heels. Seeing a fellow Mandalorian leaving the scene, the Gungan took off to try and get to the landing pad first. Having observed the spaceport for a while, he knew a shortcut and made great timing!

Again, Boobs was hit and took severe damage. Repairing again it continued to fight as Bronconius made it to the door. Tucking his trusty disguise under his arm, he took off after someone who appeared to be smarter, better armed, and more armored than anyone else around.

B00Bz chose to surrender after a third hit. Being outnumbered seven to one and out of options, it seemed to be the better part of valor.

The Gungan made it to a shuttle first. No one glanced at the name the entire time. Being called the Hapless Hauler should have raised some red flags. But they were in a hurry, so reading skills were exchanged for running faster. He jumped into the cockpit seat and started firing up the engines. With a heavy sputter, they started to turn over. And then stalled. And then flooded. Beating his fists on the blinking lights, the outsider struggled to get the ship to start.

As Boba Tei and EZ-88 raced onboard, they noticed the engines whining in protest. Painfully aware that A, someone else was onboard, and B, the engines were failing to start, she raced to the cockpit. The Gungan looked up and said “I got it started for you”, then let her take the helm. With no time to ask questions, she managed to purge the engines of excess fuel and the ship violently rumbled to life as its ancient bulk protested its own existence.

Bronconius came out of the terminal at a sprint, jumping into the closing hatch and secreting himself in a ship compartment. He put the trashcan down just in case he needed it later.

As they began to lift off, several AAT, which stands for Anti-Air Tank, began tracking them! Checking the manifest, it was full to the brim with fresh, high grade plasma for the galactic market! And no, it did not have armor. Also no, it did not have point defense weapons. You don’t need them when no one is dumb enough to fire at you. Also, something about lots of crew members dead or missing in its recent reports.

Deciding quickly, the motley cockpit crew, including EZ-88 who finally passed its wisdom save to break the restraining bolt’s hold on the ninth try, agreed that nose diving into the droid column ahead and then jettisoning in the escape pods was a good idea.

Bronconius felt an alarming shift in the ship as it went from gentle ascent to sudden descent and acceleration. Deciding to hide in an escape pod, he strapped himself in. In the adjacent pod (who had no idea he was there), the unlikely trio strapped in. And then they fired off together. Less than 100 feet above the street level.

The jarring force of their impact sent both pods spinning and crashing through streets and buildings. They did not see the blue mushroom cloud as the Hapless Hauler smashed nose first into the street at a steep angle, sheered halfway off, and then detonated its entire volatile cargo. They also did not see eight city blocks evaporated that were, mostly, evacuated. They hoped.

The first pod crashed through a building and tipped nose first into the sewer next to some incredibly alarmed refugees and resistance fighters. The second went straight through the street and began a lazy bumpy tumble downstream, catching up about a minute later. Rushing over, the Naboo helped them out and offered jobs to their now favorite jizzer, murder robot, and Mandalorian.

The Gungan Mandalorian they hesitated on. Centuries of ingrained racism made this heavily armed individual a hard pill to swallow. On one hand, he could be of assistance if he was willing to help. On the other, he was a Gungan. And from a secretive sect that had a bad reputation as brutal hired guns. The latter was fine in this situation. It was the former that got them hung up.

Meanwhile, those captured all happened to be droids. They were fitted with restraining bolts and put to work in Camp 4 in the soup kitchen. The loveable murder bot immediately overrode hers and tried to escape twice but failed discreetly each time. Clop Top happily found himself in his life’s calling. Soup was much better than IT!