Things are arranged. They have to find Doktor Das, man behind the construction of the Yavin shield. Pros and cons are argued for various plans (sneaking into Imperial Remnant space selling wood, or medical supplies, or holovids), and at one point the team are this close (imagine me holding finger and thumb almost touching, here) to knocking up some lesbian stormtrooper porn featuring Meth and Landola (but leaving the helmets on, to retain anonymity). The plans are conceived as a cover story, but somewhere along the way the idea of profit interrupts...
In the end, they return to Coruscant, where RX and his own growing
Due to its notoriety, they do not want to take Sabat's original ship with them, so Verf reluctantly goes to lay booby-traps around it to discourage people from monkeying around with it in the spaceport. Figuring that they wouldn't want the stab-happy loon following them around, Sabat tries to persuade him to stay behind and guard it himself, but their discussion gets heated.
RX solves the whole mess (while creating a new one) by shooting Verf through the back of the head with his blaster. Quickly skedaddling to the ship while alarms blared and security came running, the quarran's body is unceremoniously jettisoned into space once they reach it.
Then to Imperial Remnant territory, where false names were adopted by each and every one of our heroes. Using these to bluff their way past the bureaucracy and land on the capital world of Bastion, they feel pretty confident. Suspecting that weapons would be frowned upon but not willing to leave themselves defenceless, the team fill the storage compartments of both droids (RX and the little R2 unit they brought with) to capacity with lightsabers and guns. Just in case.
Upon planetfall, the droids are taken away briefly to be installed with restraining bolts, the Imperials not being too keen on free will among mechanoids. This time allows everyone else to browse the spaceport gift shop, and load up on all manner of Imperial souvenirs.
Upon being reunited, Daur (being the only member of the party not toting a knife, he is assumed to be in charge) is handed the restraint activator pad, and the party was free to explore Bastion. Taking in the grandeur of its heavily regulated streets with happy, lawful people wandering under the careful gaze of stormtroopers and billboards, they immediately make a byline for the criminal underworld.
Cruising through a variety of speakeasies, gambling dens and pet shops, eventually they find a man willing to tell them where to find Doktor Das. Being in the centre of the Imperial governmental district itself, identification would be needed to get in. Despite the best attempts of both Daur and Meth to use the Force to persuade him to give them up for free, in the end RX has to argue down a share of the holovid profits in exchange for false passes.
Disguised as an air vent repair crew (Sabat in charge, as he ended with the highest ranking pass badge thanks to Storge's Patented Natural Twenty of the Week), they slip past the security after explaining that they've got a protocol droid because he's there to motivate them to work harder. Stopping for a brief bite of gruel and banana at the Imperial cafeteria, they head on to the R&D building, luckily finding it to be in need of just such a repair crew as themselves.
Up to the sixtieth floor, and after initially telling the stormtrooper guards that they had been sent for by Doktor Das personally, they eventually come to agreement on a story of their incompetence - hence the motivator droid. Thinking no more of it, the 'troopers show them the direction to head in.
Das' lab' is boarded up. They try the next door along, where a clearly insane bald man called Doktor Hauser tries to get them to test his death machine and explains that Das was carted off recently, for reasons unknown. Resisting all temptations to prod his machine with a stick, the team break into the abandoned lab' to find dustsheets over everything, including an impressive sphere marked 'prototype'. Taking a recording of the holo-blackboard and its complicated formulae and theorems, they scarper back to the lift, telling the stormtroopers that they'll return once they've gotten their hands on the right-angled - and phase-modulated - component that they forgot.
Back in the lobby, a platoon of stormtroopers entering through the revolving doors has other ideas than letting them leave...
