Doctor Mercival was kind enough to show us to his apartment in Mercy tower. Despite the name similarities Mercy tower was not named after Doctor Mercival. His apartment suite was on a high floor and had a stunning view of the city. I could even see smoke from the Arc V far off in the distance. There were several rooms in the suite and we had our pick of them. There were not enough rooms for all of us to have our own, but Sabo and Malek chose one together. And Soren and Rico decided to stay in the same room. Titan slept on the couch. I was given my own space, since I was the only girl in the house. Mercival didn’t have any extra bedrooms, and his own room looked like he rarely used it. The rooms that would usually be extra bedrooms were turned into different uses. Several of them were different labs, and one of them was just a medical store room.

  There was no room for any beds, but Mercival made a quick call to some company and they sent over several sleeping bags. While we were waiting for the sleeping bags the others just sat in the living room and made small talk. Sabo fell asleep really quick. I made my way into the bathroom. I wanted to clean the blood off my clothes from the crash and check my gear. With Roger as my door guard I went into the bathroom. There was this huge walk in area that I guessed was a shower. I had never seen a shower that big before, it was so huge, both me and Roger would have fit inside of it with room for several more people. I peeled off my clothes and washed them in the shower, making sure not a speck of blood remained. I hung up my clothes to dry and washed myself. The shower was luxurious. My clothes weren't finished drying when I got out of the shower so I decided to check on my mechanical arm and make sure there was nothing wrong with it from the crash. I pressed a few buttons and switches near where the arm connected just above the elbow. The arm popped off and I began inspecting it. It was all fine, nothing wrong with it. The data chip was still in my little compartment. I wasn’t sure what was on it yet, but now wasn’t really the time to be looking into it. I would need to find a data pad or computer that wasn’t connected to the imperial network. I needed to make sure that when I looked at the information nobody else would be able to access it.

  About an hour later I came out of the bathroom with mostly dry clothes. The others had all gotten sleeping bags and headed towards the various rooms to get a much needed rest. I walked past Titan snoozing on the couch. I thought now might be a good time to sabotage the bowcaster, but decided against it. I would try in the morning. I needed sleep too. I went into the tech workshop that I had chosen as my room to sleep. I was much more comfortable surrounded by steel and wires than nice sheets and a comfy bed. I curled up in the corner and pulled out my pistol. With Roger on overwatch and my hand on my pistol, I fell asleep.

  The next morning I got up early and with Roger as my accomplice I snuck into Titan’s room. The plan was to silently get to his, I mean my bowcaster that he took, and to tweak the launching mechanism so when he tries to fire it, the shot fires about a foot to the left of where he wants it to fire. A simple prank, but good enough to get back at him. I entered the room as quietly as I could. I was surprised to find that the room was empty. No trace of Titan anywhere. I went out and asked the others when they got up if they had seen Titan. Most of them said no as they were all asleep, but Mercival, who had stayed up late studying, said that Titan had left in the wee hours of the morning to head towards the BBA (Bounty Board Association). Well there goes my plan to get back at him. Shrugging, Me and Roger headed over to the kitchen and started looking around for some breakfast. All I found was some fruit and nuts. The rest of the kitchen was almost completely empty, barely any food and no cooking utensils. It was as if the kitchen had never been used except to store fruit and make coffee. I grabbed a fruit and went into the living room and turned on the Holonet. They were showing a news report about the crashed Arc V and what had caused it. Soren and Malek joined me in the living room just as the newscaster mentioned the crash.

  Chad Brastar (anchor): “Good evening, citizens of the Empire. We begin tonight with breaking and developing news from the Outer Rim. Just hours ago, the Ark V Starliner—one of the Empire’s largest and most important civilian transit megastructures—was violently attacked by a cell of Jedi terrorists, forcing the vessel into an emergency descent. The ship came to rest along the beaches near Eriadu City.”

  Hailey Wilsto (co-anchor): “That’s right, Chad. Imperial officials confirm that the terrorists targeted civilian lives during a routine transit, endangering tens of thousands of loyal Imperial citizens. Thanks to the swift, decisive intervention of the 412th Stormtrooper Legion, a far greater tragedy was prevented.”

  Chad Brastar: “Early reports indicate that the terrorists attempted to sabotage critical systems within the Starliner’s Command and Operations Core, triggering cascading failures across multiple deck sectors. Despite the chaos, stormtrooper units held the line—securing passenger areas, escorting civilians to safety, and neutralizing hostile threats.”

  Hailey Wilsto: “Imperial Army engineers and security forces have now placed the entire crash site under full lockdown. Wreckage from the Starliner—spanning docking spines, promenade sections, and even portions of the Imperial Deck—has been sealed off as a classified investigation zone.”

  Chad Brastar: “Officials emphasize there is no ongoing threat to Eriadu City. The beaches and surrounding districts remain closed to civilian traffic as a precaution, while recovery operations continue around the clock.”

  Hailey Wilsto: “Once again, tonight’s events underscore a grim truth: the Jedi are not peacekeepers. They are extremists willing to strike at civilians to undermine order. And once again, it was the men and women of the Imperial military who stood between chaos and the safety of the galaxy.”

  Chad Brastar: “We will continue to bring you verified updates as the situation develops. For now, the Empire stands strong—thanks to the bravery of the 412th.”

  Hailey Wilsto: “Stay with GNN. Order. Security. Truth.”

  I immediately pointed at the Holo-net.

  “That’s not how it happened at all, The imperial troops were nowhere to be seen when things started to blow up.” I said.

  Soren replied with “They make it sound like there were a whole gang of jedi and insurgents. I was the only one on the ship, other than you guys, and I didn’t have anything to do with the explosion.”

  “Verified my twisted lekku” I said. We went back to eating and I changed the channel to “The Inquisitor and the Princess of Carida”, a RomCom from a few years back.

  Doctor Mercival came out of his room a little bit later, all dressed up. He told us he was heading to work and that he would be back later. We all told him to have a good day at work and went back to our movie. He had insisted that he could not stop his work to do things with us, and we all understood. If he suddenly stopped working people may get suspicious and come investigating, and none of us wanted that. The three of us, Soren, Malek and I continued watching the movie for a little while until a beeping came from a machine near Mercival’s office. The beeping was incessant so we went to check it out. It was an alert on a computer in the office. It displayed that Doctor Mercival’s speeder had been hijacked by terrorists and that it was taking him out of the main city. Not wanting our inside man to be kidnapped, and because he has been pretty nice, me and Soren decided to go ourselves and try and save Mercival. Unfortunately Malek did not want to go. He said that he didn’t think that his uncle would approve of going out of the apartment without him. This kid needs to grow a backbone.

  We insisted that we were running out of time and that doing things outside the norm and not entirely safe was part of growing up. He eventually caved and chose to come with us. Soren paid a hefty fee to use an imperial taxi service that was much faster than the regular taxis. I really did not want to get into the taxi. I really don’t like speeders, or ships, or really any vehicle at all. Feeling the air and everything around me going by at tens or even hundreds of miles an hour is really not good for my stomach. Unfortunately there was no other way to get to Mercival in a good time. Why has nobody invented teleportation? We got in the speeder and headed swiftly towards Mercival’s location. I kept my head down and my eyes closed. I tried to focus on anything other than our motion in the sky above Eriadu. I started quoting the instructions for building a comlink, and then a thermal detonator, and then I started listing different ways to bypass firewalls. Finally we made it to where Mercival’s speeder was located. We had the taxi droid drop us off a couple blocks away. We walked up carefully to the building. We could see Mercival’s fancy speeder parked in front. There didn’t look to be anything wrong with it at first glance. At the entrance of the building there were two guards with what looked to be simple blasters in their belts. I was looking around the building for a way to possibly get past them when Soren decided to simply walk towards the entrance. Now Soren had arrived on Eriadu with only some traveling robes, they were apparently Jedi robes. Not wanting to stand out he changed into one of Mercival’s uniforms. Now this comes into play now, because Soren just walked towards the guards and declared himself to be a high ranking imperial officer and for them to let him in. The guards looked confused for a second and then they pulled out their blasters and pointed it at Soren. I immediately dove behind Mercival’s speeder and pulled out my own blaster. Thankfully nothing happened. Soren realized his mistake and showed them this Jedi trick where he pulled out a pin and made it float in front of him and spin between his hands.

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  The guards, seeing that Soren was a Jedi, lowered their weapons and let us in. I was still wary. This was an unknown place with unknown people. Just because they seemed to be against the empire does not mean they are on our side. We went in and heard maniacal laughter. We discovered Doctor Mercival in full evil doctor mode working on a patient, putting him back together.

  There were several other soldiers around the room. Many of them were in regular clothes with guns on them. A man with white hair in a man bun and what looked like basic armor came up to us. His name was Rahm Kota he was a Jedi that had survived the fall of the republic.

  I tensed, hand on my blaster. I kept an eye on the whole room, looked for the exits and tried to figure out how best to get out of there if things went topsy turvy. Soren and Rahm Kota begin talking Jedi stuff and it turns out that Rahm is Soren’s master’s master, basically his grand master, or as Soren put it: Jedi Grandpa. This did not ease my worries. While I knew that the Jedi were enemies of the empire, and I was definitely not the empire’s ally, but I had also grown up hearing stories about how evil the jedi were and all the bad things they were responsible for. Soren seems fine, but you can’t get rid of a lifetime of stories just by meeting one good apple. While they were talking, Rahm Kota kept giving me looks like he knew what I was thinking and could see right through me. It was unnerving. He said some words to Malek and then went back to watching Mercival’s operation on his subordinate. Malek, Soren, and I stood off to the side until Doctor Mercival finished up. Mercival finished up the operation about 20 minutes later, he came away spattered in blood and with a giant grin on his face. He turned and saw us and seemed surprised we were here. He went to talk with Rahm Kota before we all headed out of the building and Kota’s men started getting ready to leave and scrubbing every trace of their presence they could from the building. When we got out of the building Doctor Mercival warned us that Imperials were heading to this location and we had best not be here when they did. We scattered into the surrounding alleys and buildings. We met back up about an hour later. We talked about where to go and decided to check out the Ash Market, a kind of black market that was technically still legal.

  As we headed towards the ash market, we decided to walk this time despite the several miles we had to walk to get there, we had some interesting encounters on the way there. The first encounter was this strange street preacher. I had seen a few street preachers back on Panna 7, but no one had really taken them seriously. This street preacher seemed to be preaching about how there was someone new in the Pantoran Pantheon. There was the Moon goddess, Pomajima, and now a new Moon Lord.

  A couple of Pantoran’s nearby seemed to disagree with the street preacher’s assertion that the Moon Lord should be worshiped just as much as Pomajima and the moon goddess. Malek seemed interested in what the street preacher was saying, but did not comment on anything. A couple of miles later Soren discovered a box in the middle of the road. There were people all around, and yet nobody was going up to it. Soren seemed interested in it and tried to open it, only to discover the lock was too sophisticated for him to crack. He asked me over and I easily picked the lock. Inside was this katana styled flame sword. It was really cool.

  I don’t use swords and Soren seems pretty nice so I didn’t charge him for my services. Just after we removed the sword a gang came out from an alley and yelled at us to get away from the box, that it was their box. As stealthily as I could I relocked the box and stepped away. With the lock in place they believed that we had not tampered with the box and so let us go. I smiled at Soren as we walked away with our spoils. A little farther in, an old man came out of an alleyway and said he had a shop in the alley and wanted to know if I was interested. I didn’t fully trust him, but figured I would humor him. We walked around the corner and there was nothing there, just an empty alley. I was about to yell at him for wasting my time and ask what the big deal was, when he waved his hand and wafted his cloak and suddenly there was a table with an assortment of potions on the table. Suffice to say I was impressed, I had of course seen many amature magicians on Panna 7 and even knew some magic tricks myself, but never had I seen anyone make an entire table appear from nowhere. I hadn’t even sensed it with my head tendrils. He showed me the potions and told me what they supposedly did. I of course trusted that these potions were in fact the magic potions he said they were. When a person makes a table appear from nowhere of course they are magic. I ended up getting:

  Soul Glass Elixir (Potion)

  An iridescent crystal that melts into liquid on touch.

  Effect: When consumed, you may reroll one failed saving throw within 1 minute. However, one random friendly creature within 30 ft. takes half of your original failure’s damage as “cosmic payment.”

  All his items were expensive and I wanted to save money for when we made it to the Ash Market, so this was all I bought. The old merchant said his name was Vaga and that he would find me sometime in the future when he had more to sell. Then he and the table vanished. Not just picked up and ran away, but disappeared entirely. It was so cool!

  We finally made it to the Ash Market. There were people everywhere. This was like a pick pocket’s dream. I was about to go on a money making frenzy when I noticed that there were a lot of shady characters all over the place. Now this is a black market so of course there were shady people everywhere, but most of those were customers and were buying or looking at things. These shady people were different. They were definitely shady, and yet they weren’t buying things. They were hanging around the edge of popular areas and watching everything with a critical eye. I decided it probably wasn’t a good idea to steal things in this area. I wasn’t sure what those shady people were about, but decided not to find out. After learning about the different areas we decided to head the military area. There were fake IDs and information disks. I noticed one labeled D401D. My breath hitched, I leaned closer. That was it. That was what I needed to get. It wasn’t just something to lead to what I needed, it was exactly what I needed. I could get that and my mission would be over. I could leave Eriadu and turn it into Baron Thululu, finally be out of his debt and make my own way in the universe, and finally find my father. We couldn’t talk in this area, business was all done in silence. I tried to make an offer, I spent 25,000 credits. A huge sum if I had ever seen credits. But the broker seemed outraged that I would undercut him on the price. I was really confused. 25,000 credits was a lot of money. Malek then walked forward and began making a series of hand motions. The broker seemed excited and began speaking with his hands as well. Using a datapad Malek told me that the price for the D401D was 1,000,000 credits. I was aghast. I had never even seen a million credits, much less knew anyone who had 1 million credits. Except maybe the Baron. With Malek as an intermediary I asked the broker if he could hold the information drive for me. He seemed a bit reluctant, but decided that since I had paid 25,000 credits he would hold the drive for 20 days. I have twenty days to become a millionaire. How in the world am I going to do this? I guess I could find a populated area and pickpocket, but if I do that too much I was sure to get caught and that would be very bad. Maybe I could sell some of Doctor Mercival’s drugs. Drugs always go for a lot of money. But if I did that I would be spitting on Mercival’s hospitality. I wasn’t sure what I could do.

  I had been lost in my own mind and just following Soren and Malek as they went to different areas of the Ash Market. There was a tent set up that said “Popular Items”. There was a crowd in front of the tent so we couldn’t really see what was in the tent. I closed my eyes and focused on my tendril senses. I told the others that it was just some geometric metal shapes. Usually I would be a bit more interested in what was in there, but I was still trying to figure out how I was going to make all the money I needed in order to get the information drive. Maybe I could go into one of the suites other than Mercival’s and steal some things. That might work, but then I would have to find a fence, and I wasn’t even sure if Mercival’s neighbors had anything worth stealing. Soren decided to go into the tent and he came back with what he said was pieces to make a lightsaber. I remember hearing that Jedi used to carry a laser sword into battle called a lightsaber. He must be trying to build one of his own. Maybe once he built it I could sell that? No, that would just get me on the empire’s radar, and I did not want that. Plus it would be completely rude to Soren, and I kind of liked the guy. Though he claims to be a Jedi he doesn’t seem as bad as all the stories make them out to be.

  As we were walking around Mr.Sqiggly appeared to us and told us he had miscalculated and that Titan had gotten himself killed and that we needed to find another person to be the 7th.

  We did a little bit more browsing before we headed back to the apartment for the night. At the entrance we saw a giant of a man and I overheard some people nearby say that it was Adam the Behemoth, and a Behemoth he was. He looked more metal than man and very intimidating. Thankfully we were just another group of bystanders in a crowd of thousands.

  End Session 3