Beacon Company 2

This is the page for the Beacon Company 2 campaign, a sequel to the prior campaign of the same name.

Plot

The Tion Cluster

Deep in the Tion Cluster, a small passenger liner from the Tionese Flight Company carried a group of quasi-criminals, smugglers, hunters, and traders along the Perlemian Trade Route. The passengers included Yhin Xonirr and his droid Z-S23, Jhoras Danto, Bixby Cabaril, Paladin, Fulton Barn, Keth Sirek, Nolark Ming, and a few Exchange hirelings led by Callan Felk.

The ship received an urgent communication and emerged from hyperspace near Raxus Prime, only to find that the communication was from a Republic battleship looking to scan the ship for illicit cargo (which it most certainly had). Callan, determined to prevent the search, ordered his men to hold the ship at gunpoint while he convinced the pilot to help break free of the cruiser's umbilical seal and engineer an escape.

The situation escalated when he executed the pilot, whereupon a firefight broke out between his men and some of the more rambunctious crew members. In the fight, the ship was damaged, and the survivors battled to secure the two escape pods (with insufficient space for all of the passengers). While the party plus Fulton Barn, Keth Sirek, and Nolark Ming escaped in one pod, Callan managed to escape in his lonesome aboard the other, and both parties were sent careening down to the planet below.

Raxus Prime

The party crash landed into a derelict capital ship, barely escaping a small lake of toxic fluid (no thanks to Paladin's indulgent jetpacking heedless to the dangers of open flames and flammable lakes, but yes thanks to his command of the grappling hook). They decided to stay the night on the ship and heal their minor injuries while a small group scouted the interior of the ship, discovering the existence of a scanning spire nearby and infecting Z-S23 with a GenoHaradan virus protocol which quickly fled the feeble entrapment of the group's attention span.

The next day, the group made for the spire and was able to battle through a small army of deranged, vagrant droids that clung to the inner walls of the spire in silent anticipation of the scanner's melodious active pinging, which was promptly activated by the group. The droids went insane, but the party managed to abscond with the location of a nearby vessel picked up by the scanners.

This vessel was the Astral Tortoise, and the group found it in disrepair. It was missing a few engine parts; more concerningly, its main computer processor had been removed. Aboard, the party also discovered the corpses of several Czerka agents in addition to one live one named Dorrun Csur.

Using the Tortoise’s scanners, the party tracked Callan Felk‘s escape pod to a nearby ravine; the pod was found vacant of their quarry, but they managed to track him to a nearby scavenging village. Unfortunately, the Republic had also found this village and acquired Felk.

Ever the opportunist, Bixby devised a plan to steal the Republic troop shuttle’s primary mainframe processor to replace the inoperative processor on the Tortoise, which would enable the party to use it to escape Raxus Prime. Meanwhile, Jhoras infiltrated the Republic camp to cause a distraction, and he was promptly captured and brought before the leader of the Republic outfit, Master Orson Prax. Prax, claiming to be a Jedi but demonstrating otherwise through his capriciousness and violence, interrogated Jhoras (and Felk). He also revealed that this was no ordinary Republic legion — this was a contingent of the revitalized Beacon Company initiative. The pair managed to escape; reportedly, Jhoras nearly nabbed Prax’s lightsaber. Prax and the Republic soldiers fell in pursuit.

Felk in tow, the party fled the village; in the chaos, Bixby escaped with the processor unseen — Jhoras and Felk were not quite so lucky. Jhoras stole a speeder bike and inexpertly fled the camp, breaking Felk’s leg in the process but managing to pull him aboard at the last minute. The group returned to the Tortoise and found a group of Czerka soldiers there; they had dispatched the (now mostly deceased) agents to recover something from the ship’s computer. The computer repaired, the party found a message on the console from a certain T2-44 informing a certain Zanno Takali that he had located something called the Manifest and that he needed Zanno to find him and retrieve it.

The Czerka agents informed the party that the Manifest contained valuable information about criminal dealings in the Outer Rim (it was a descendent of the Nexuspire); they also mentioned that they would pay handsomely for it. The party agreed to partner up with Czerka (who sent Dorrun Csur as a liaison) to find it.

The Tortoise somewhat repaired, the party made for T2, who had left them coordinates for Makem Te.

Makem Te

The party discovered that T2’s coordinates were on the Tract of Makem Te, an immense desert graveyard that covered 10% of the planet’s surface. They landed in the nearby village of Saben Dhall Sab and coughed up the tourist fee for the Tract (flight over the Tract was strictly forbidden and monitored by drones).

Braving the desert on speeders, they made for T2’s location. Paladin managed to capture an Exchange Bounty named Unwe Tark. The party soon discovered that they were being followed by Tal’darian Elko, an agent with a skill for stealth and subterfuge and a history with the Sith Empire. Tal’darian had heard that the party was tracking the Manifest and offered his services. They accepted him into their band and made camp for the evening.

In the midst of the night, the party was quite suddenly waylaid by a Hol’dorr attack shuttle, raining Hol’dorr troops led by Roordrak Berin upon them. Berin recognized Paladin as an escaped Jason Clone; reciprocally, Paladin recognized Berin as his tormenter and rival both in this life and the one programmed into his mind. The two were locked in a ferocious jetpack battle; trapped in the skies with an overwhelming adversary, Paladin managed to steer the grappling duo into a gravestone, rending Berin’s armor and injuring him grievously.

Meanwhile, the party held off waves of Hol’dorr soldiers. As the tides began to turn, the shuttle started to depart; Yhin desperately grabbed one of the deployment cables, which was soon severed by blademaster Tyzen, lurking on the shuttle, sending Yhin plummetting to the ground.

Meanwhile, Tal’darian located the crash site with Berin and Paladin; Berin had delivered the coup de grace to Paladin, and though Tal’darian managed to cripple the already injured Berin, he did not kill him, and Berin was retrieved by the fleeing attack shuttle.

All of the party survived the attack, and they licked their wounds as night became morning. The party made it to the coordinates, noting that the horizon had been blotted out by an impending sandstorm. At the coordinates was the entrance to an ancient crypt; inside, the party found a biometric scanner intended to identify Zanno. Needless to say, the party failed the scan, and they had to navigate through a heavily trapped cave system to locate where T2 had left the next clue — an active tracker with his location (now Felucia), and a warning that a dangerous enemy was dogging his steps. The party also discovered a legless TD-12 in the tunnels who had been abandoned by T2.

Tal’darian, not trusting Dorrun, purloined his communicator from his belt. This came up as the party left the cave but remained unresolved. When the party emerged from the crypt, they found that the storm was upon them. They received a communication from Keth saying that the Tortoise was being attacked by Hol’dorr and that they were en route to retrieve the party. The