Yeshocq Debacle

The Yeshocq Debocle was a successful raid by anti-Imperial mercenaries on the Imperial Astrogation Research Facility at Yeshocq.

It resulted in the theft of the Stealth Hyperdrive Prototype and the kidnapping of Kozalimn Vrakthuli, Imperial Moff of Mulgard sector.

Tommy Randor planned the raid with help from Sonuu Ythiae, a local crime boss, and carried it out with assistance from the Ssi-ruu mercenary Firescale.

Though transporting Firescale into the high-security facility did not go as planned, resulting in his capture, he was able to free many prisoners from the facility's holding cells.

Randor, meanwhile, conned the visiting Moff into believing that rebels had infiltrated his troops, ultimately allowing the facility's top scientists to escape with the former prisoners and the Moff as a hostage.

Infiltration
Tommy Randor, hoping to rescue his brother Bynos Randor from forced service to the Empire at the Astrogation Research Facility and to prevent the Empire from using the starship technology he'd helped develop, had previously stolen the credentials and uniform of ISB agent Vynn Maston. He planned to use his supposed ISB rank to conduct a false surprise inspection at the facility.

Firescale, meanwhile, who had been hired by the crime boss Sonuu Ythiae to plant a listening device on Moff Vrakthuli during his tour of the facility, was concealed in a supply crate on a hijacked Imperial speeder truck. Randor, riding in the cab, planned to lure everyone away from the loading dock to allow Firescale easy entry.

Though Randor's tremendous talent at lying allowed him to easily assume Maston's identity and talk his way past the gate guards, cowing them with his untouchable status as an ISB agent, things began to go wrong shortly thereafter. Firescale, who weighed more than seven hundred pounds, raised suspicion when his crate had to be unloaded by a binary loadlifter.

Though he escaped the crate he was quickly spotted by a squad of stormtroopers, and though he fled through a maintenance room and temporarily lost his pursuers he and Randor recognized that they could not yet afford to have the facility on alert. Just as a patrol located the Ssi-ruu, Randor (still disguised) stunned him and ordered that he be taken alive for interrogation.

While Firescale was dragged away to the holding cells, Randor (who knew of the Ssi-ruu's mission) met with the Moff and once again managed to play his role convincingly. He was permitted to enter the labs where the facility's scientists were forced to do their research, the place he suspected he would find his brother, and managed to slip the listening device into the Moff's pocket.

The Skirmish
Upon regaining consciousness in the cells, Firescale taunted one of the stormtroopers on guard duty until the guard entered his cell, at which point the massive Ssi-ruu beat the man unconscious with his own stun baton. The remaining guards cornered him with rifles, rescuing their comrade, and were able to prevent him from escaping.

Moments later, however, he proved his tremendous willpower and toughness by forcing his massive body through the energy door of his cell, emerging with only minor electrical burns. He proceeded to beat the three nearby guards senseless with his fists and a stolen stun baton before stealing the stun grenades they carried.

Cornered by two stormtroopers guarding the end of the prison hallway with blaster rifles who no longer cared about their orders to keep the prisoner alive, Firescale suffered a serious blaster burn to the chest, nearly incapacitating him. He eventually able to down both troopers with the stolen grenades from the cover of one of the cells, then destroyed the cameras and shot the unconscious troopers point blank in the head.

Knowing that he had scant minutes before Imperial reinforcements arrived, Firescale released three other prisoners: the Rodian smuggler Teesloq, the Trandoshan pirate Slinissk, and a Zabrak hacker. The hacker was able to download a map of the facility and to lock down the turbolifts, cutting off reinforcements from the upper levels of the facility.

Arming themselves with the weapons of the downed guards even as the facility went on full alert, they used a grenade to make a distraction and escaped the prison block. They skirted the central complex, moving along the bank of disabled turbolifts in order to evade the highest concentration of Imperial troops.

Fleeing from the fifty some stormtroopers attempting to hunt them down, the four of them avoided the barracks and managed to reach the armory on the far side of the facility, though Teesloq was seriously wounded in a brief exchange of blaster fire. Firescale ran back for the unconscious Rodian, carrying him the rest of the way despite his own injuries.

The Zabrak was able to slice open the armory door, but was unable to lock it behind him, getting it stuck halfway down. Fleeing deeper into the armory, the four reclaimed their personal gear; the Zabrak was able to work up an improvised stimulant to bring Teesloq back to consciousness, and the four fell back toward the second armory door to escape.

Randor's Gambit
Meanwhile, Randor found two stormtroopers guarding the entrance to the lab. Subtly directing their perceptions away from himself, he was able to stun them both, binding them with their own grappling hooks. Yet when they came to he released them, staying in character.

He requested that they call reinforcements to chase the phantom rebels that had supposedly attacked them, hoping to draw troops away from Firescale's group. He then subtly disabled their helmet comlinks before proceeding further into the labyrinth of well-funded science facilities.

Discovering only five of the eight scientists he had come for in the labs, Randor returned to the Moff, who was being briefed by the other two. He managed to convince the man that rebels had infiltrated his troops, and that Firescale and his companions were actually working undercover for the ISB, their capture merely a ruse.

To prove that his accusations were true, Randor revealed the listening device he himself had planted, offering it as evidence of a rebel presence. He convinced the Moff to order the evacuation of the lowest level of the facility on the pretense of a reactor leak and to reactivate the turbolifts, giving Firescale and his allies a clear path.

Taking the Moff, his twenty most trusted stormtroopers, and the scientists to the hangar where the prototype ship they had been building was docked under the pretense of ensuring that it, and its builders, were safe, Randor subtly inquired about his brother, who was not present. The Moff revealed that the scientist's transmission to Randor had been discovered, resulting to his transfer to the much-feared prison on Striga 5.

Hoping to clear the way for Firescale to go through the labs, Randor convinced the Moff that the two guards he had previously knocked out were traitors, using their offline comlinks as evidence. The four stormtroopers that had arrived as reinforcements outside the labs cut their former cohorts down in a hail of blaster fire.

In his greatest feat of silver-tongued persuasion yet, Randor was able to convince the Moff that there might be traitors even among his most trusted guards. He suggested that he pretend to take the Moff hostage to see which guards did as he asked when he made demands. After several minutes of tense discussion, the Moff finally agreed, though he insisted that Randor only pretend to use a weapon.

Escaping the Facility
Though nearly choked by gas grenades, Firescale and his companions managed to escape the armory, their opponents drawn away to evacuation shuttles by the false rumors of a reactor leak. Randor informed them of the deception via comlink. They ran for the turbolifts, taking them up to the middle level where the secret hangar was located, but encountered two stormtroopers guarding the lifts.

Cutting both of them down, they proceeded, only to encounter the four-man reinforcement squad outside the lab doors. Slinissk attempted to kill them with her recovered blaster cannon, but the weapon misfired, forcing the group to take them down with blasters, stun grenades, and Firescale's force pike. Firescale, leery of pursuit, shot and killed the stunned survivors.

Mere moments before they reached the hangar, Randor put his masterful plan into action. Pretending to hold the Moff hostage, he demanded that the stormtroopers drop their guns and kick them away. Of course, all were loyal, and immediately did so. Just as the baffled Moff asked for an end to the experiment, Firescale and his allies arrived on the scene.

Pulling out his blaster, Randor hurried the scientists aboard and stunned the Moff in the back, getting his allies and the new prisoner onto the prototype ship and closing the ramp before the stormtroopers could recover their weapons. Though the vessel was not fully complete, and had neither weapons nor shields, Randor and his allies managed to power it up and fly it out of the underground hangar.

The Pursuit
By this point the reactor leak had been revealed as a ruse, and the stormtroopers of the Moff's personal guard quickly contacted the facility's central command to inform them of the situation. Executing a secret protocol, the facility's turbolasers opened fire on the escaping ship in spite of the danger for the sector Moff.

Though Randor's superior piloting allowed him to evade the shots, and the rescued scientists assisted by dumping all power save for life support into the engines, the prototype vessel was soon pursued by a TIE fighter squadron. A tense chase followed as Randor outdistanced them, escaping into the atmosphere.

Yet before the vessel could jump to hyperspace an Imperial Interdictor Star Destroyer, the Unyielding Judge, emerged into the system and immediately set up its interdiction field. Fearing being trapped between the two attackers, Randor suddenly cut all engine power, allowing the planet's strong gravity to rapidly pull the ship back toward the planet's surface.

The vessel's engines kicked in almost too late, allowing the ship to stop its rapid descent a mere fifty meters from impact with the ground. Randor and his companions then decided to go around the planet, escaping the interdiction field and thereby escaping into hyperspace. The journey took about two standard hours.

During this time, Firescale attempted to interrogate the Moff in the hopes of learning more about the fate of Randor's brother. Though the Ssi-ruu broke the aging man's finger and wiggled it, causing him great pain, the Moff refused to impart anything of value, defiantly taunting his tormentor with his faith in the Emperor.

A Desperate Chance
Knowing that staying on Yeshocq with the Moff as their prisoner and the Imperials on alert would be suicide, Randor, Firescale, the Zabrak, and the others decided to again make the attempt to escape. Though they had escaped the interdiction field, their way was blocked by two Guardian-class light cruisers.

They decided to deactivate life support and dump its power into their engines in order to bypass the cruisers in spite of the risk that, without properly active intertial dampers, they might well be torn apart by the jump to hyperspace even before they froze or asphyxiated. The boost of speed allowed them to easily run the small blockade and escape to the system's edge.

Since the ship, which was not yet intended to be flown, was not stocked with food or water, their range was severely limited. They decided to set a course for the nearby world of Umgul, which was known to have a small Imperial presence. Scrambling to reactivate the life support in time for the jump, they caused damage to the air recyclers which they discovered could only be repaired at a well-stocked shipyard.

Fortunately, the unique hyperdrive technology of the stolen vessel was designed to mask their departure vector, making their destination impossible to predict. With life support functional, though struggling, they made their way toward Umgul, leaving their confused Imperial pursuers far behind.

Aftermath
Since attacks by anti-Imperial groups had previously been largely limited to either the last few Separatist holdouts or entirely ineffective and easily crushed armed protesters, the incident at the Astrogation Research Facility was cause for great alarm amongst the heads of the Imperial military. The thought that a few mercenaries could outwit and outgun the personnel of a high-security facility was deeply disturbing to them.

The incident, among those with the clearance to know of it, soon came to be referred to as the "Yeshocq Debocle". It resulted in a considerably strengthened Imperial military presence in the Mulgard sector as rebels sympathizers were actively hunted in retaliation for the attack. Hundreds of arrests were made over the next few standard days, many of them followed by execution without a trial.

The Astrogation Research Facility was transformed into a local command post from which the ISB commanded the search for the Moff, his kidnappers, and the stolen starship. They would redirect some of their best and brightest agents to the sector to aid in the search. Vynn Maston, meanwhile, was soon executed for his utter failure.

Sonuu Ythiae, enraged by his hired mercenary's failure to plant the listening device, would later hire bounty hunters to pursue Firescale and Randor.