Fellowship of the Dice

Wile is silent for a long moment and then says, "I only met him a few times. My father considered him a friend. I'll relay that to him when we have more favorable conditions."

The padawan Uri enters the silent cockpit with a Rodian at the controls of the starship and Janos sitting in the co-pilot chair.

Uri takes note of what seemed like a pause in the conversation. "So, my Master was keeping a pair of holocrons. One of them looks really old." He holds them up for Janos to see.

Then he asks the pilot, "Excuse me, where are we going? Can I borrow your starmap? My name's Uri, by the way."

"Well, our destination is currently the subject of our discussion, Uri," Janos informs the Padawan. "Wile here has a friend that needs a pickup, and also has some information about a prisoner being transported and restrained via ray shields. I have a hunch that it may be another Jedi, and I'm in no mood to let any of our order die today if I can do anything about it. A head-on attack would be suicide, however."

It sounds like Janos made up his mind already. Uri feels the same. "Then we'll need to have a way past locked doors and be able to make a fast exit. Skulking around happens to be my specialty, and I can make someone disappear by pulling a mind trick, but I'm no locksmith. Where's he being held, and when do they plan to move him?"

The Rodian turns and responds to the young man. "Hi, we haven't met yet. You can call me Wile. I work... erm, worked... with the Jedi on a few Outer Rim jobs providing introductions to information brokers and others who... wouldn't deal directly with authorities."

"The Clones on the transmission said he was a Jedi General and scheduled to be picked up in about 10 standard hours. I'm not sure of the origin, but based on the signal it was somewhere within several kilometers of the Pits. There wouldn't be enough time to pick up my friend and return within 10 hours."

Uri's eyebrows shoot up. "That's Master Lorraf! Has to be! He's the only other general who was stationed on this world besides my own Master... Who's your friend?"

The Rodian replies, "My friend is another Jedi. He's off mediating on some remote jungle moon without even a HoloNet connection, so he's probably unaware of what's happening."

"So you know this Jedi? Do you know the location of the base as well and where their extraction point would be? Even if we used the ship's cannons, we'd be shot down by any anti-air defense systems. If they're killing Jedi, why would they capture him?"

Uri shakes his head. "I don't know. Maybe they're after the holocrons? The only base on Boonta should be the Republic base. I... was a Commander there. We call it the BORD. Boonta Ordiance and Resupply Depot. The anti-air got blown up right at the beginning of a surprise attack by the droid army. That was one standard day ago. I don't know where they plan to move him for extraction."

"Wait, so is there no way to accomplish both of these things?" Janos asks. "Pick up Wile's friend, and then see about breaking out the Jedi? If we had more help, perhaps we could pull it off. I'd hate to lose track of where they move the prisoner though."

"The prisoner transfer situation is time-sensitive. If WIle's friend isn't in any danger, then we will have to rescue Master Lorraf first before we leave Boonta."

"Oh, duh," he says suddenly. "There's a landing pad on a plateau just north of the base. The path splits off from the canyon next to it and winds up and around, and it's the only way to reach the top. It's a long walk, so we preferred to use hovercarts to move equipment instead of carrying it ourselves. We'll have to take out both the troops prepping the landing pad and also the escort. The best way to do that is to cut off their retreat and simultaneously take out the transport shuttle with the ship's weapons."