Doctor Arpra was impressed with our work and told us that someone else higher up in the Empire wanted to hire us. We assumed if they were higher up it would mean more money, so we readily agreed. She provided us with coordinates to rendezvous with an Admiral called Piette who would provide more details. On arriving at the coordinates we found ourselves taken on board an incredibly massive Star Destroyer, which unnerved us a bit. We were further unnerved when Admiral Piette ushered us into the presence of Darth Vadar. Lord Vadar’s presence was so awe-inspiring and frightening that we were cowed into submission. He offered us 100,000 creds and a free cloaking device for our ship in order to retrieve something called a Death Star prototype. We accepted and got away from his presence as fast as we possibly could!

Fortunately Admiral Piette provided all the other details. He assumed that we had heard about the destruction of something called the Death Star at the hands of the Rebels. Both the Rebels and the Empire seem to think that the rest of the Galaxy cares about their squabble and pays attention to it. We had no idea what he was talking about as he blathered on about some planet sized weapon that the Empire had created that could destroy an entire planet. We were introduced to the designer, who was called Beville. The Empire seemed to think he was some kind of genius, but we thought he was utterly incompetent when it was revealed that this planet sized weapon had been destroyed a mere thirty fighters because of a “weak point”.

The Empire had first constructed a prototype Death Star, but on the completion of the working model they had rather stupidly left the prototype virtually unguarded, relying on its location – in a place called The Maul which is rammed full of Black Holes – to protect it. Now that the working model had been destroyed they needed the prototype again, but not unsurprisingly the Rebels had nicked it. Our job was to get it back. We were assigned a couple of colourfully red Stormtroopers to help us, and some additional ships. Two red Troopers would fly in escort Tie Fighters, while the third flew a freighter equipped with a hyperdrive that we needed to attach to the prototype in order to jump it back to the Empire. A cloaking device was fitted to The Phoenix, and the three ships coming with us also had cloaking devices fitted. Beville came with us on The Phoenix.

At the centre of The Maul was an Empire base called The Hub, which was where the prototype was stolen from. As this was our only lead we headed there. Apparently it would take an exceptional pilot to fly through The Maul, which is why we had been considered for the job, but we figured that wouldn’t be necessary as we had an exceptional astro-navigator, and Philippe executed a quite spectacular jump that brought us right to the Hub without having to worry about flying around Black Holes.

We found a Rebel corvette near the base. Beville suggested sneaking into The Hub to look for clues, but stealth isn’t really one of the biologicals strengths so we decided that rather than try to infiltrate the base that we would splice into the corvette with the hope that its systems might contain some information about where the prototype was taken. Once again Philippe rose to the occasion and he was able to splice in and locate all the information we required, and he also found out where the main Rebel base was located (the Empire is bound to pay good money for that information) without being detected. Another truly remarkable jump from Philippe took us out of The Maul and safely on our way to retrieve the prototype.

We jumped in to find the Prototype well guarded by a sizeable Rebel fleet, but fortunately we were cloaked. Seratlin suggested we fly down the lens of the giant laser, which we initially thought was a terrible idea until Beville explained that this would bring us out very close to the Control Room that we needed to reach. Our plan was for The Phoenix to fly down the lens while the colourful Trooper flying the freighter with the hyperdrive attached his ship externally to the Prototype’s reactor. Once it was in place then Beville in the Control Room could make the necessary adjustments to jump the Prototype to the Empire.

There were massive magnetic forces at work in the lens and Zhobee really struggled to fly The Phoenix down the lens. At one point the magnetic forces disabled the cloaking device installed on The Phoenix, but Philippe was able to reactivate it before anyone noticed. We were not so fortunate after Zhobee landed The Phoenix on the Prototype as Philippe’s attempt to bluff his way on board were immediately detected. There was about twenty Rebel soldiers in the area, but Seratlin used the Heavy Repeating Blaster that Philippe has recently installed on the hatch to decimate the soldiers. Philippe also turned the ship weapons on the hapless Rebels and only two survivors managed to escape.

By now all hell had broken loose and alarms were sounding. Beville told us that we needed to take a Turbolift up two floors to the Control Room. Obviously the Rebels would be expecting trouble. What they weren’t expecting was Zhobee’s grenade launcher. Five more soldiers awaited us as the lift arrived but Zhobee’s grenade put paid to most of them. Seratlin persuaded to two remaining dazed soldiers to surrender but Zhobee started shouting about not having the time or equipment to worry about prisoners and executed them, much to the shock of Beville.

Philippe started working on opening the blast door to the Control Room. Seratlin noticed that another Turbolift was on its way up and donned the uniform of one of the executed soldiers in the hope of convincing the reinforcements that we had headed to another part of the Prototype and that the Control Room was secure. Philippe succeed in opening the door and he, Zhobee and Beville rushed inside. Another grenade from Zhobee and some quick shooting felled all the Rebel soldiers defending the Control Room. Philippe set to work overriding the Rebel security protocols in order to allow Beville access to the systems he needed to perform he jump.

Meanwhile, Seratlin’s attempts to fool the four Rebel soldiers and single Rebel commander who arrived on the Turbolift ended in failure. Anticipating this Seratlin had stun grenade hidden in one hand behind his back. The grenade stunned the four soldiers and Seratlin was able to subdue the commander before he could do any damage. Seratlin took the commander’s communicator and was more successful in convincing the other reinforcements that they needed to look elsewhere in the Prototype. Back in the Control Room, Philippe’s attempts to hack the Rebel security were so successful that he gained access to the entire system. He quickly shut down the Turbolifts, leaving the Rebels trapped. Beville then jumped us to Imperial space and the mission was a success. We gathered our 100,000 cred reward as quickly as we could and high-tailed it out of there!