June 15 recap

•The party stakes out the Royal Icqui Aquaria.

•Kazbich pays dearly for making a poor choice.

•The architect behind the Myzil V sabotage is revealed.

With Gaph successfully healed, the party takes its leave of the deep catacombs he calls home and returns to the surface. Ras is intent on arresting Gaph, but notes that his compound is heavily fortified and they have now lost the element of surprise, so the party decides to put that off until a later date, preferring to investigate Wertsnik further before moving against Gaph.

The party splits up for the rest of the day. Ras looks into surveillance droids and recording equipment to be able to capture what Wertsnik says on tape, with Kelif in tow. Lyta works at the clinic some more, and meets up with Novin, the Arkanian lawyer who helped them on Myzil V, who has learned that his old clients are on Coruscant now. Gobmush leaves the group for a short while. Kazbich decides to take care of a loose end in his life and begins searching for someone who can find and kill Zhen Cravel, the Zabrak commando who helped them on Nal Hutta. He searches for Exchange members on Coruscant, but finds nothing to work with. On the Raraza, Marina is dubious as to Kazbich's intentions and does not call in her contacts. Kazbich tries to call Gorrak the Hutt, but is blocked by his receptionist droid, who does not want Kazbich to kill one of Gorrak's top men. Mr. Skee is similarly suspicious and is unwilling to make a deal. Rek Luk, now a bounty hunter, doesn't mince words about it being a dumb idea and refuses to connect Kazbich to anybody in the Bounty Hunter's Guild who might be willing to help, as Kazbich doesn't seem to have a good reason to want Zhen dead. All avenues blocked to him, Kazbich relents on the idea... for now. Ras purchases a bunch of recording equipment and a probe droid, and goes to the Royal Icqui Aquaria and convinces the Bothan security chief to let them conduct their sting operation.

The next day, the party separates and stakes out the aquarium. Kazbich makes the mistake of hanging out outside the aquarium posing as a death stick dealer; security forces ask him to either come inside to the aquarium as a tourist, or leave. Kazbich enters, but must stow his guns before entering — absolutely no weapons. (Ras has maneuvered around this liability by using her Jedi credentials.) Kazbich tries to smuggle his slugthrowers in anyway, but is patted down by a security guard, who forcefully pulls him into a back holding cell, where security guards whomp his ass around the clock and a medical droid submits him to a full cavity search.

After a couple of hours, the party spots Wertsnik, who enters the aquarium alone, looks at the various aquatic life, and sits on a bench in front of the firaxa shark tank. He doesn't notice Ras' probe droid watching him; nor does the Yarkora, who arrives an hour later and quietly sits next to Wertsnik. The probe droid picks up a snippet of conversation that they're waiting for their third party to show up.

Another hour later, Kazbich is still getting gang-probed, and Wertsnik and the Yarkora are joined by a Draethos holding a walking stick — who does notice the probe droid. He contacts security, who hauls the droid away (they're well-alerted to its presence already by Ras, so they don't destroy it). The Draethos reaches out with the Force and senses two Force-users nearby — Ras and Lyta — and warns Wertsnik and the Yarkora that there are Jedi about. He telepathically contacts both Ras and Lyta, inquiring as to who they are; Ras agrees to meet with him, but Lyta declines, watching from a safe distance. Ras meets up with Kelif, and together they decide to meet the enigmatic Force-user.

The Draethos introduces himself as Alhu-Zun, and the Yarkora introduces himself as Nemor-Jelak. Wertsnik instantly recognizes Ras and Kelif. ("Didn't I threaten you with a blaster rifle?") When pressed about his motives, an overconfident Alhu-Zun explains that he sabotaged the Myzil V negotiations in favor of the Republic by turning public opinion against the Sith; he convinced Umoe to have someone (who turned out to be Kazbich) pump Krosix-9 into the Pit, believing that most Skakoans would assume that only such a brazen terrorist act would be performed by the Sith. The Sith would similarly take the blame for the exploding droids, which would be seen as an assassination attempt on the Republic ambassadors. Alhu-Zun explains that he's been stacking the deck in favor of the Republic all across the galaxy; being a member of a long-lived species, he remembers well the devastation caused to the galaxy by the Great Sith War forty years ago, and he's willing to use underhanded means to keep that from happening again, even if that means killing a thousand to save a million.

Naturally, the party disagrees and assembles a security team to arrest Alhu-Zun, but the Draethos uses his powerful mental abilities to disorient the party and security forces, and beats a hasty escape, with Wertsnik and Nemor in tow. By the time the party recovers, Alhu-Zun has left the aquarium. And with the probe droid discovered and moved away, nothing they said was recorded.