Clone Wars Campaign: Recap # 9

Episode 2.2, "The Ominous Silence" Session 5

On Coruscant and the Core Worlds, it hardly seems like a war is going on. No citizens have been drafted, no cities have suffered invasion or orbital bombardment. The holonews vids bury brief mentions of the war that seems to be going on in another galaxy entirely.
But a handful of people--journalists, politicians, and others--have begun to ask questions. How did the Republic obtain an enormous fleet and millions of clone soldiers almost overnight? What will happen to the Clones when the war is over? Just how many of them are there?
But no answers are forthcoming, and those who ask fall silent or meet with unfortunate accidents, as Supreme Chancellor Palpatine reluctantly accepts the Senate's conferral of more emergency war powers . . .
In the remote Ansion system, however, a small group of Republic operatives know a piece of the puzzle: the Clone troopers are falling at staggering rates, stretched thin on hundreds of planets and desperately in need of bacta, the one healing agent their bodies' immune systems are partially rejecting.
The operatives can find the cure and save thousands of lives; or reveal the secret to the other side and earn millions of credits . . .

Marpa, Tarn, and I-5 return to the barracks and notice that Beta team hasn't returned. I-5 plays a message from Ycram aboard the Skyhook, stating that there has been yet another attack. Shortly after, they're summoned to a special meeting where Bel Sekand makes his first appearance and talks about the competition rules. Sekand tells everyone that Beta team won't be participating in the final competition, and that only two members of Delta squad will compete. Later that evening, I-5 explores whether he can pierce the low-intensity communications jamming field around the site and is chased by a strange, metallic spider-like creature. At midnight, everyone is summoned for departure to the final competition.

[73 AG]

After a long, bumpy ride in a landspeeder, the group arrives at the "Misty Maze" competition site. The contest involves navigating the maze, collecting two pieces of a device, assembling the pieces, and using them to access the final prize platform. Tarn, Marpa, and I-5 encounter a variety of obstacles in the maze, including B-2 battle droids, Nexu, and an ambush by the last member of Delta team. Eventually the group emerges victorious and claims their prizes: 250,000 credits and Arresta.

The foursome are returned to Cuipernam and then make their way back to the safehouse, where Trips is waiting for them. Unbeknownst to everyone, a dermal tracking device had been attached to Arresta, and Bel Sekand was happy to share the signal with the disgruntled competitors. Surrounded by the remnants of Delta and Beta, a firefight ensues inside and around the safehouse. Trips purges the computer banks of all data and sets charges for the safehouse to implode and then makes his escape. I-5 soon follows and returns to the Skyhook. With the help of blasters, stun grenades, and a high-speed landspeeder collision involving Tarn, all but one of the attackers is captured or killed.

The group then rendezvouses with Trips aboard the Broken Diamond, a heavily armed and modified Republic gunboat. They decide to fly to the Skyhook’s anchor facility to interrogate a captured terrorist. There they met Jandssen, the one-eyed chief of the facility and proceed to interrogate the prisoner. With the help of Jedi mind tricks, they learn that the prisoner was actually Deuce, a Clone Commando charged with infiltrating the raiders. He gives them coordinates and the cryptic message “they’re not what they pretend to be” before falling unconscious. The group leaves Deuce at the anchor facility and fly to a forested area a few kilometers from the coordinates so that a reconnaissance can be conducted on foot.

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