Dan (Mik Torr) decides that studying for his three tests is more important than constantly telling his layabout friends that his character has two brains and can move 50,000 kg of stuff, so he gives us the miss. The rest of the gang all show up: Chuck (Rander Guttersnipe), Chris (Ice Tray), Bruce (Zunoon), and Tim (Tz'kri). Paul is the unlucky soul who is in charge.
Nwuk is the Queen's Spymaster. He is a Bith (which some folk might remember as one of the big-eyed, big-headed musician aliens from the cantina). Even though they are a highly-evolved race with brains that work like computers, Imperial society is quite happy to employ many of them as musicians and ditch-diggers. And spymasters.
When the characters enter Nwuk's office, they find him is working on four keyboards at the same time. He is wearing an ornate headdress and an eyemonitor. He doesn't even bother to slow down to actually talk to the characters: his words to them appear as holograms hanging in the air. Rather to the characters' disappointment, he explains that his resources are tied up in researching Arsan Devoid, and that he can't really spare anything to help them with their own piddling problems.
The one really useful thing he does explain is that the Royal Palace is rife with Imperial hidey-holes and secret passages, and is totally compromised. As a result, General Adantis Heliar has chosen to hold the upcoming ceremony out in the open. Nwuk is very understated when he offers his opinion that the General's forces have obviously also been compromised. In contrast, Nwuk is 100% certain that his people are loyal.
In addition to the knowledge that nobody in the palace staff can be trusted, Nwuk tosses several other tidbits of data. He appears to consider them so unimportant that he doesn't even bother waiting for the characters to ask for them:
The characters return to the Senator's quarters to discuss their upcoming plans and see if he has any opinions to bring to the table. It turns out that he does. He immediately dismisses the General as a possible future leader: he is too ambitious, and will totally dominate the Queen's son Celsior Xelices if he comes to power. He's also not very pro-New Republic (though he's also not pro-Imperial). Prince Celsior Xelices is obviously too weak to be able to hold onto power for any length of time. Queen Eurenia Xelices has the strength to hold onto power, but she is on the verge of death. Nobody knows how long the current government will last. The Senator offers the fear that the Republic may have to cultivate Arsan Devoid as the next governmental head because he may be the only acceptable, stable choice.
Senator McDon prefers Queen Xelices to Arsan (who doesn't want to join the Republic anyway). Tz'kri suggests that Mik Torr thought that the Queen was under a Dark Side curse. Sadly, the Senator isn't too sure that he can even find a Force healer who could help.
The characters decide to travel to the town of Argsalt and have a conversation with Arsan Devoid. They knock on his front door, which is opened by a droid. The characters introduce themselves. The droid closes the door on them.
Sometime later, a human opens the door and asks the characters what they want. Ice Tray says that they want to talk politics with Mr. Devoid. Tz'kri suggests that it looks like Devoid is going to take over the government soon, and that the characters to sound him out (he only narrowly avoids saying "take him out" instead).
The human stares at the characters and comments, "You've never listened to the radio broadcasts, have you?" The characters rather sheepishly admit that they haven't. They also admit that from the outside, it might be rather hard to tell the Empire and the New Republic apart. After all, both of them are (or were) run by religious nuts with incredible cults of personality.
Zunoon and Rander Guttersnipe suggest that Devoid might be interested in holding an open debate against Senator Pance McDon. The servant suggests that Devoid has no real reason to debate the Senator openly, unless is forced to. He is a bit more receptive to the idea of debating the Prince, though the characters aren't willing to agree to the challenge.
The characters once again retreat to Contille and discuss their choices. The two obvious plans involve either allowing Prince Xelices to debate with Arsan Devoid (and get cut to ribbons), or curing the Queen (not that anybody knows how).
Several characters suggest that there must be a Dark Jedi around somewhere. Assuming that he is around, the next question is who his associates would be. Imperial cultists seem like a really good choice. Unfortunately, none of the characters know where to find Imperial cultists, except at the Hoom Memorial in five days (when they'll be mixed up in a gunfight with lots of General Heliar's troops).
The characters eventually come up with the idea of talking to the onetime Imperial Governor, Chan Kirrets. They have little trouble getting on his appointment schedule for the afternoon.
Chan Kirrets meets the characters at an office building in Contille. Kirrets' décor is rather severe, surprisingly so for a former Imperial official. Zunoon butters him up by complimenting him on how he has managed to not be executed so far. He then asks for Kirrets' opinion on the current political situation, considering that he is probably the most unbiased "outside" expert opinion available.
Kirrets explains that while the locals were upset with the actions of the Empire as a whole ("that whole Death Star thing was a really bad idea"), the people of Coranna are hard-nosed and tough to intimidate, so rule by fear wouldn't work. He compliments the Queen on letting him live, as some think of him as a threat. He regards the whole Governorship thing as a gamble that didn't pay off: he thought he could do something with it, and that the Empire was just an extension of the Old Republic. He is willing to put his backing behind the New Republic, but he doesn't think it would help.
He is certain that General Heliar is a dangerous fanatic. He describes the General as intelligent, but extravagant: "overkill" is his watchword. He also thinks the General is a very honest man. He certainly proved himself to be an excellent warrior who mustered nonexistent forces into an army that was able to topple the Imperial regime. Of course, at the time the local military was mostly TIE fighters (75 of them) backed by a paltry number of ground troops (Kirrets doesn't remember exactly how many) - just a small provincial force. The General was able to muster greater numbers, but worse equipment. Kirrets knows that the General treats the Queen as if she were a goddess: whatever she says is his law. He would never go against her, but he might conceal things (unpleasant things) from her.
In response to the characters questions, Kirrets explains that he knows a lot about the General and the Queen because he knew them in the pre-Imperial days, and because he was captured by the General's troops after the Empire pulled out of Coranna.
Ice Tray asks if any of the Imperial officers had ever suffered from a strange wasting disease that couldn't be cured by medical droids, particularly in the final days of the conflict. Kirrets can't think of anything, though he does remember that the Emperor was rumored to have some sort of wasting disease. He also thinks that there are a number of elite troops who stayed behind under false identities after the Empire withdrew. He doesn't know who or how many, because they didn't answer to him.
The characters ask Kirrets why the Imperials cared about Coranna in the first place. Kirrets explains that large amounts of natural resources were shipped out during the Occupation, but that this isn't common knowledge among the people. Nobody even knew the resources were there until the Imperials showed up with better sensors.
At this point, Ice Tray brings up Arsan Devoid, who seems to be getting a lot of money (possibly Imperial money) from nowhere. He tells Kirrets that others have suggested that he's getting it from Imperial caches and clown porn. He asks if Kirrets knows anything about such sources of money. Kirrets changes the question a bit by asking if the characters would like to get him and a large quantity of money out of here. He explains (in response to Zunoon's question) that it is hard for him to get past the inertia of his past, and equally hard for him to establish new business deals. After all, he was an Imperial governor for 20 years, something few people are willing to forget.
Zunoon suggests that it might be possible to help Kirrets escape if he is willing to sign a declaration of loyalty to the New Republic and an apology for whatever misdeeds he might have committed as Governor. Kirrets tells the characters that if they are willing to help him and his money get offworld, he will tell them anything they want to know.
In the meantime, he characterizes Arsan Devoid as a former pundit and "front porch philosopher" under the Imperials. He was nowhere near as popular then as he is now. Kirrets happens to drop that he has a list of the holovision system override codes that Devoid has, and is confused as to why the holovision authorities haven't purged them. He thinks that the holovision network executives are being paid off to not purge them out.
Ice Tray reacts to this information as if it were dynamite. He grabs a Comlink, connects to the consular cruiser, and tells the functionary who answers, "Get the Senator over here! Now!" He and Zunoon go get the Senator while everyone else watches over Kirrets. When Senator McDon arrives, the two of them work out an amnesty deal and Kirrets hands over the codes. He wants to go to the consular cruiser right away. The characters go with him, after they search his baggage.
Kirrets explains that the codes need to be modulated into the signal, and then get sent to the receptors at the main station. It overrides their signal and then has the new signal retransmitted.
Kirrets also mentions that Corvee Tellum is (was) one of the elite Imperial troops who stayed behind. Kirrets explains that he thinks she manufactured the cult as a way to maintain power once the Imperials were gone. He doesn't explicitly know if the elites were part of Imperial Intelligence. He thinks most of them left with the rest of the Imperial staff. However, he does remember a former advisor to the Emperor who arrived late in the game, in the past year. He doesn't know if he's still around - he may not have been so high-profile as to have had to leave. His name was Barrn Jorad. He has a wasting disease, and is confined to a wheelchair.
Rander Guttersnipe tries to use the Prince's passcodes to find a list of people with medical problems who need to use wheelchairs. With a few limiters (male or female? Human or not? Etc.), Guttersnipe is able to find three candidates. One is a librarian, one runs a shop, and the third is the head of the company that broadcasts the entertainment programming Arsan Devoid interrupts regularly.
The characters decide that only one of these leads is good enough to follow up, and that one is electric.
The characters storm into the CBS offices in Contille and demand to speak to Gori Falsett, the head of the network. The functionary in the lobby suggests that he can call a pile of security droids faster than Zunoon can draw a blaster. Ice Tray asks him, "What kind of droids?" The lobby guy admits, "Hell, I don't know." Zunoon helpfully offers back, "I know what kind of blaster I've got…"
Ice Tray tries to cool off the situation by asking politely to see Mr. Falsett. Surprisingly, this works. The functionary says that Falsett's secretary will be down in a moment.
The secretary turns out to be a silver protocol droid. It is so unctuous that it leaves pools of festering sincerity on the floor when it walks. Tz'kri notices that the droid manages to very politely accuse the characters of being psychopaths. At the elevator, the droid opens the door with a key, admitting that, "Only this key can open the elevator… please precede me into the elevator… please let me press the button for the correct floor..." Rander Guttersnipe steals the key before the characters leave the elevator.
Once the characters arrive at the proper floor, the droid continues to trail them, offering a near-continual stream of requests: "Is there anything I can get for you? Is there any request I can fulfill for you? This is what I live for. This is what I do." The characters are appalled. They think about putting the droid out of their misery.
Instead, the characters walk into Gori Falsett's office. They see a man literally strapped into a mechanical wheelchair. From the looks of it, he has no muscle mass, and is totally dependant upon the chair to articulate his arms and support his body. Ice Tray asks Falsett: "Are you Barrn Jorad?" Falsett says that he's never heard the name before. Tz'kri notes that Mik Torr looks uncomfortable. Mik Torr whispers, "Dark Force!"
Sensing that the characters may be contemplating some sort of violent action that will eventually be covered over as "official business", Falsett says that the characters have no jurisdiction on Coranna, because the New Republic hasn't taken over here.
At this point Ice Tray goes totally insane, draws a blaster, and heads over to try and deactivate Falsett's chair. The characters understand that this is an expected action because everyone suddenly finds themselves rolling initiative. Lightsaber blades emerge from the arms of Falsett's chair and Ice Tray hurls himself away, screaming like a girl. Tz'kri pulls two pistols and starts blazing away to no particular effect. Zunoon quickdraws his blaster and fires twice, missing badly. At this point, Falsett surprises everyone by standing up, demonstrating that the armature of his chair is also a powered exoskeleton. Several other characters join Ice Tray in girlish screaming.
Ice Tray is the first to get hit by the lightsaber-wielding maniac, who demonstrates that his obsolete religion can still pack a disturbingly powerful punch. After Ice Tray sucks up a second lightsaber strike, Mik Torr decides that the best thing he can do is to heal Chris. Chris pipes up that it would be a better idea to heal Ice Tray. This confuses Mik Torr enough that his attempt accomplishes essentially nothing.
Falsett decides to break the confusion by demonstrating that he also has a staggering ability to deflect blaster bolts.
Tz'kri finally manages to land a solid shot on him with a yell of: "Bitch! Clumsy and random my ass!" Zunoon and Ice Tray prove out the clumsy and random part quite easily by missing totally. Falsett decides to rip through Tz'kri, who gets very sleepy. Rander Guttersnipe opens up with the heavy blaster and zaps Falsett two more times.
Tz'kri gets another critical hit and stomps the cripple down. He struts around the office, picking things off the shelves and gloating over Falsett's crippled ass.
The characters are working out how best to move Falsett's body out of the building when bunches of security droids show up. The characters make short work of them. Very short work. There were three of them, for a brief time. They fall apart in a hail of blaster fire.
Rander Guttersnipe barely even notices the gunfire, as he is busy downloading everything he can from Falsett's computer.
Their business done, the characters rush down the stairs, blow the lock on the lobby door, and ignore the alarms that start sounding. They rush into the lobby, where the security guy shoots Ice Tray. The security guy looks amazed that he hit. The rest of us make him feel important by shooting him many times. He dies (he was a 0-level security thug). A moment later, the characters are in their speeder and on their way first to the shuttle and then into orbit.
Guttersnipe looks at the information he gathered. A lot of it looks like design information for a very old type of large starship, probably some kind of gunship. He learns that it was originally buried onworld as a funeral barge for General Hoom, Coranna's greatest hero. Coincidentally, General Hoom was buried at the Hoom Memorial, where the Imperial cultists meet. There's no reason to think that this vessel should work, except that someone (Falsett) has engaged in a project to restore and repair it.
At this point, Nwuk calls up to say that Arsan Devoid is making a broadcast about the characters. The content is unsurprising: "New Republic fanatic stormtroopers have invaded civilian establishments! They shot up CBS!" He has footage of the characters' attack, but it's been altered to look bad for the characters (e.g., Falsett is just an old man, not an old man with lightsabers and an exoskeleton). The characters are impressed that he's been able to doctor the holovids in such a short time. We jam the signal, though Guttersnipe ensures that we are able to watch it anyway.
At this point, Devoid's monologue takes a strong turn towards the insane. He claims that he's got a bomb, then proves it by showing it on camera. He protests that troops are blockading him. The characters verify that there are troops, then pass along the fact that there is a bomb to Nwuk.
The characters choose to totally ignore Arsan Devoid's deranged ravings and head for the Hoom Memorial instead.
The Hoom Memorial is a bunch of obelisks and a decaying statue. Rander Guttersnipe finds the entry to the ship fairly easily. The sensors on the shuttle are easily able to determine that there is something underground giving off power signals. Finding the door is easy, after Tz'kri determines that it is concealed to look like a giant rock.
The characters blast the door and make it to a catwalk running over the ship's bridge. Tz'kri sneaks out and sees that Corvee Tellum is standing on the bridge, talking to someone in robes sitting in a command chair.
Tz'kri and Zunoon open up on Tellum with bipolar gun and blaster rifle. She notices and yells, "Stop! Stop! Stop!" Observing the characters refuse to stop firing, she gets under cover and starts shooting back. Tz'kri takes a bunch of hits and gets very hurt. Rander Guttersnipe shoots her down, but not before she yells out, "Save me, Emperor!" At this point, the Emperor stands up from the chair. Tz'kri him. The Emperor falls down. The characters are all happy. The characters are even happier to find out that he wasn't the real Emperor, just a spare clone with no skills or feats or anything.
The characters celebrate their glorious victory!