Things Kerlos Learned This Week

Number 865 in a series:

• Turning a quick profit apparently leads to the Dark Side. So where are all the Hutt Sith Lords?
  
• Reapers drink lum just like everyone else.
  
• Tryce suggested naming my ship The Unmentionable. It'll do for now, add it to the list of names I'm compiling for when I get a system like what the Turtle has installed for its transponder beacon(s).
  
• Vox got me two gifts while Tryce and I were retrieving my ship. The bottle of Sullustan wine is a good vintage but I'm going to invest in a good medscanner before opening it. Call me suspicious but when a virologist with a history of mental instability who was upset with me for talking about knockin' boots with his mom gives me something to drink, I fear ulterior motives....
  
• The second gift was a piece of fine (?) art the party apparently acquired while Tryce and I were away. I tended not to pay attention when mom dragged me off to the art museums but I picked up enough about art off the black market to tell that it may actually be valuable, to a select clientele with specific tastes anyway.
  
• Freya was worried that if we saw her talking to an imaginary version of herself from an alternate future we might think she was a bit off. Too late for that!
  

Number 866 in a series:

• Ancient good can be released from eternal slumber too. Unfortunately he's not as big of an ancient good as Sith is of an ancient evil. Every little bit helps I suppose.
  
• Next trip to civilization, buy galoshes. And climate-controlling underwear.
  
• Relying on Freya and Dannel for translations is not good. Learn that power they're using.
  
• Pirate ships don't stand up to concussion missiles very well, even when you're just shooting turrets.
  
• Get concussion missile launchers for The Unmentionable.
  
• Sullustan ambassador kidnaps Dathomir ambassador. Has nothing to do with what STARS is supposed to be doing but in for a credit, in for a kilo I guess.
  

Number 867 in a series

• No good deed goes unpunished. Also, rancors are bad judges of character.
  
• Hot twin Dark Side chicks is too good to be true.
  
• Simply killing Dark Side users is no longer enough, now we have to wait twenty years to make sure they didn't reincarnate inside some suitable unborn child's body.
  
• An army of ghost rancors seems entirely rational to me these days.
  

Number 868 in a series

• Major Kaartinen is not pulling his weight; people are beginning to think that I'm the one running around with STARS.
  
• Eight says that we have less than two weeks before Sith breaks loose. So little time, so many party planets I haven't visited.
  
• I would kick myself for not being able to tell that the Shard of Sith was a forgery but Dannel didn't pick up on it either and he's the expert archeologist, I'm just a black market artifact dealer.
  
• I suppose I need to stop putting it off, if we're going to try and use Centerpoint Station against Sith a good place to start for information will be with mom's library. I hope I remember the access code, it would be embarrassing to have to hire a slicer to break into my own storage locker.
  

Number 869 in a series

• The Sisters never change, same old Corellia as the one I ran away from. Hopefully coming back will be worth it.
  
• I only have to keep the Kerlos/Kaartinen con going a couple more days. Whatever happens it won't really matter after that.
  
• I'm worried that Centerpoint is too big for Mina to handle by herself, its systems seem to be spread out and isolated instead of interconnected like every other ship and station she's talked to in the past. Anakin Skywalker managed it fifty years ago, what could have changed since then?
  
• I'm also worried at how easily we gained access to Centerpoint. Not that I doubt my abilities to bamboozle government officials of course! No, if Sith has used the Force to foresee how events play out then he must know we would come here and try to use it against him. So either he's seen that Centerpoint doesn't work or seen that Centerpoint can't destroy him and so isn't worried about it or he's got more of those gullible minions of his somewhere in system waiting to stop us. Or his minions have already sabotaged Centerpoint and that's why Mina can't just chat it up the way Skywalker did.
  
• If we can't make this work I don't know what we're going to do.
  

Number 870 in a series

• Mom's library proved more useful than I thought, even though she'd erased all of her research on Centerpoint. Thanks for leaving that one note behind, ma.
  
• Defeating Sith didn't come without a cost, Eight's consciousness was somehow merged with Centerpoint giving him control over it and also powering the station's devices. I don't know if he really died when he merged with the station or if he really died when the station blew up from the damage Sith did to it, but he briefly showed up as a Force ghost on our shuttle before passing on to the Netherworld.
  
• Assuming that sentient droids go there when they die. Assuming that sentients in general go there when they die, I only have the word of a holocron that's what happens when Force users die but who really knows?
  
• STARS is taking the blame for Centerpoint being blown up because most of the galaxy had no idea about Sith. I'm going to see if Bob Tarkin can arrange it so that Major Kaartinen falls on his sword and takes all the blame, allowing the rest of the group to escape mostly unscathed in the arena of public opinion.
  
• Freya cleans up better than I expected. Still too crazy though. Poor Tryce.
  
• Do I go back to Yavin to claim The Unmentionable or should it stay there as a last memento of Major Kaartinen's impersonation of me?
  
• And what do I do with my life now?
  

Number 871 in a series

• Never hitch a ride with people you're hoping to eventually get away from, even if it's convenient.
  
• What to do as an encore after dealing with a planet-sized Sith? Deal with a planet-sized population of Sith, obviously.
  
• Want to know why they say "only the good die young"? Because instead of celebrating that you just saved the galaxy from destruction by vacationing for a month or two in the pleasure pits of Zeltros, they go racing off to investigate said planet populated by Sith.
  
• Here's a question. Having already learned that it's a planet populated by Sith, why are we even bothering with infiltration? Why not get that gigantic Sith-killing fleet which was just assembled at Myrkr and bring it over here?
  
• Upon further reflection, I can answer my own question (being smart can be such a burden). The planet's cloud cover blocks conventional sensors so we have no idea what kinds of defense systems they have down there. A planetary shield would negate the planetary bombardment option and some planetary ion cannons could really mess up the fleet. Even without any of that, without being able to scan the surface of the planet the fleet wouldn't be able to accurately bombard the grounded Sith space fleet or their cities and randomly blasting the planet would probably kill more of the indigenous population than it would of the Sith.

Number 872 in a series

• So Sithworld doesn't actually have an indigenous species, it has what appears to be plant clone slaves with no faces. And faceless birds and animals too round out the freakshow. Bring on the fleet bombardment!
  
• But before that can happen we need to take out their Dark Side cloud generator. Or close "the door" that the clouds are coming through. Something like that. Stupid Sith and their extradimensional portals.