Temping on Thel Tehal

Following their escape from imperial troops on the small backwater planet of Capell 2, our heroes find themselves still far from their destination, on a ship that is running low on fuel, and with themselves low on credit.

Forced to face the fact that they are unable to make the remainder of their journey with their current resources, they decide make an unscheduled landing on the damp and humid planet of Thel Tehal, in order to refuel and stock up on credits.

Fortunately, the Bothan codebreaker rescued from Capell 2 has a contact on Thel Tehal, and asks an old acquaintance to find us some employment. Before Levv and Redd know what’s happening, they find themselves en route to a mining outpost—HQ lost contact with the miners about a day and a half ago, and have asked our heroes to check it out.

They round a corner some distance from the outpost and see some movement in the forest. Levv hops out of the speeder to invetigate, but finds himself right on the edge of the forest, and still not seeing anything. As he turns to return to the speeder, he sees a four-legged animal in the undergrowth, but decides that it presents no real threat. He is halfway back to the speeder when the animal bursts from the undergrowth to at him.

He and Redd (still in the speeder) manage to each land a shot on the animal, but it doesn’t even slow down. Levv scrambles aboard the speeder, narrowly avoiding the creature’s claws, and they take off down the trail. The animal slinks back into the jungle behind them.

Our heroes decide to carry on to the outpost. They arrive not much later, and a quick inspection tells them that the outpost was attacked by armed assailants, and machinery stolen from the base. They discover a shallow, empty cave, a half-assembled perimeter fence, and a shipping container holding the fencing material.

Behind a partition in the container, they also find a piece of chemical-processing machinery, obviously undiscovered by the attackers. They load this into their speeder, rather than leave it to chance discovery.

They check the perimeter, and discover a couple of areas of laser-scorched and trampled foliage, which lead them to a path which runs across the valley. The clearing at the end of this path holds a building—a shed of some sort—a doorway embedded in the cliff face, and three armed guards, one patrolling the clearing.

Not being the sorts to waste time, they open fire from the edge of the jungle, dispatching all three with little fuss. Unfortunately, however, a fourth guard opens fire before Redd and Levv spot him, and Levv is seriously wounded. The guard is killed pretty easily, but the damage has been done.

A second wind and some quick first aid has things back under control, and our heroes begin invetigating. The standalone building, they discover, is a stables and cages for two more animals like the beast that attacked them earlier. A third cage hangs open. Some quick blaster-work welds the cage-doors closed on the beasts, and Levv and Redd formulate a plan to get through the doors in the cliff.

It doesn’t take long—Redd strikes pure inspiration. He busts through the doors shouting “we’re under attack! They’re killing us out there!” The deception works, and the three guards who were inside run outside to confront the attackers. Redd shuts and bars the doors behind them.

Our heroes calm the remaining lab technicians, guiding them to their dorms for ‘safety.’ A look around shows them two locked rooms—one a strong-room, one not so strong. They bust down a door into the latter, and a grenade and a few blaster-bolts put an end to the three guards holed up in there—although one of them proved a little tougher than the others. This man is found to have a (now-broken) data-pad on him.

Redd and Levv then head around to see if they can get into the strong-room. Unfortunately, the guards locked outside have managed to break their way back in, and have barricaded themselves behind a couple of lab tables. However, they don’t give much opposition to a frag grenade, and things are back under control.

The strong-room proves a little more difficult than the last room, and our heroes turn to the technicians for information. It seems that they are in a narcotics lab, and that the only key for the locked strong-room lives on the now-broken data-pad, belonging to the now-dead overseer. No more information is forthcoming—even under threat of death—and our heroes are forced to give up. They return to their speeder (Levv insisting that they feed the hunting-animals on the way out) and head for town.

They have a drink at the cantina, then head to tell their story to their temporary employer. He is less than happy about the details—but less upset than he should be, they realise, with a horrible feeling that he may not have been entirely ignorant about the local narcotics industry himself. He pays a not-insignificant amount for the job—as much, he says, for the silence of our heroes as for the job itself—and they’re more than happy to leave.

They’re even happier to be leaving when, as they leave the atmosphere in their shuttle, they receive a message from their erstwhile employer, suggesting that they stay off-planet for a while if they value their lives. It seems they have upset some powerful people.