STAR WARS: RETROSPECTION- Respite

Zarjab pauses.

"When you say land, what do you mean?" he asks.

"Wait, we want to meet with this guy?" I say softly but urgently. "I thought we were doing this over comms. In person might get...tricky."

I do realize there may not be another way, but an alarm went off in my head when I realized we might have to surround ourselves with these nuts.

"It may be a perilous situation..." Vera-Kin says, remarked by her own lack of foresight on the matter. "I am confident we can convince Malteen to rally his people to our cause. It's one we share, after all- bring down their enemies. But if things turned against us, we'd be surrounded."

She will tell Zarjab to wait a moment.

"What does everyone else think?" Vera asks the group inside the ship.

Zarjab is being persistent in asking what you mean by "landing."

This is our best bet, unfortunately. I say we keep pushing them to rally to our cause....or their cause, or our cause. Same thing.

And do they think other planets don't exist? What's this landing business?

Feel free to ask him!

I'm trying to let Vera do the talking. If I actually role-play and say what Ti is thinking right now, things will go downhill in a hurry. Vera's doing fine though, so I'm sure it'll be touched upon.

"We are aboard a starship..." Vera-Kin says. "How did you think we were arriving at your world?"

"And please tell me you don't think this is the only planet in the universe," I remark dryly, though not quite sarcastically, unable to stay silent forever. I glance at Vera in slight apology, while at the same time offering a hopeless smile because of our talking partner.

"We're not primitive, we know what is beyond Respite's sky," Zarjab says. "But starships are nonexistant here! A priceless treasure!"

Aaand that would be me pissing them off. Yup, I'm an excellent addition to this trip. I mumble something chastising to myself. "Apologies, then," I say aloud. "I didn't mean to imply you were primitive, it was just an odd question." I nod sheepishly to Vera, hoping that helped.

"Our situation is different," Zarjab says. "You have not offended. Now, come to us! We wish to meet! The Great and Powerful Malteen will too."

Zarjab returns to his religious duties whipping the crowd into a frenzy, saying that help has arrived from space.

Well look at that. A sideways insult gets them to meet with us.

Bring the ship in, guys? I say we park far enough outside camp that we can make a reasonable getaway. They don't have ships, as they just let us know, and I'd hate to offer them this one on a silver platter.

Since Xeth has been getting in position this whole time, all that remains to do is enter Respite's harsh atmosphere. When you do, the sensors flash mild warnings- the electromagnetism in the clouds is abnormally high. Whatever happened in Respite's history, the sky being scorched was one very noticeable side effect.

Below you can see mile after mile of urban sprawl, stretching in every direction. Unlike Coruscant, it isn't a glittering example of modern architecture. Everything is in disrepair. Also unlike Coruscant, the urban sprawl, despite being all encompassing, only goes about as high as New York City would.

The signal is coming from a series of warehouses near the waterfront of one Respite's once-exotic, now-toxic lakes.

Xeth- if you want to land far away, you'll have to land in the streets nearby and walk. You are not sure how safe the atmosphere is; you aren't detecting anything bad on the scanners, at least.

"I don't mind walking but I'm not sure if there is anywhere truly safe for us to land," Vera-Kin says. "Malteen's men could be anywhere in this area."

"That's true," Xeth says. "Let's land on top of something, then. I can leave R3 to get the ship out of here if someone starts trying to fiddle with it. I doubt they'll know how to steal it..."

Any high buildings that Xeth could land on?

R3 is capable of that, and you can land on one of the taller buildings with a wide flat roof. Now it will be a matter of climbing down.

"Are we ready to go?" Navir asks you guys.

"Seems like it. Let's bring 'er down."

Ha, we have synthrope and grappling hooks.

"I'm sure there are stairs we can take," Xeth says as he puts the Nexu's Grin down on the wide roof of the building he chooses. Once the landing gear are deployed and touched down, he will power down the ship and wire R3 up to the pilot controls.

"We're going to leave you here, just in case," Xeth says to the droid. "We'll be back, alright? Comm us if something happens."

With that, Xeth will make sure his weapons are secure on his pack and grab his gas mask before opening the hatch and venturing out first, sonic blaster in hand.

"Let's go, ladies and gents," Xeth says.

The ship has landed, and Xeth is volunteering to be the first to venture out onto the surface of Respite...

Oh god it's horrible!

Actually, aside from the constant static sensation in the air, it's not bad. Very dry, with a warm wind whipping at you. You won't need to walk around with those masks on.