We have a return of our favorite twi'lek, Lambert. The current excuse for the character's absence was handling personal business before returning to help with the new mission on a mercenary contract.
Lambert pulls up some connections and manages to find the engineering manager within the Republic that knows the purpose of the droid manufacturing facility. It was designed to be a largely autonomous structure to produce a military force capable of wiping out the remainder of the Empire, letting it be a purely financial investment to minimize public awareness. They had a small research facility based there as the only living personnel for the entire facility, and were killed when the entire base went rogue. The droids weren't actively spreading or causing damage against the Republic unless forces were sent directly, so rather than expend even more resources taking it back, it was written off as a loss.
Obtaining the blue prints, the group flies over, meeting a fleet of a dozen droid starfighters. It's a particularly gruesome fight, but Pradeque manages to slice half of them while Sorbin and Sanada blast them into smithereens. The next step was getting into the orbital base itself, as it was very heavily armed. Their decision was to go into ramming speed and soften the hull enough for them to make a landing bay, they were awarded a second shuttle bay from the weapons fire.
Once inside, they took out a number of war droids with remarkable ease, eventually blasting down the door to the central control room. Inside was a 9' tall droid, already delivering a monologue at their useless flailing, only to lose its weapon mounts from Sorbin's rifle, its shielding and reinforced armor plating from Imriel's lightning, and then sliced in half by Sanada's blades.
Commanding Lord Asis, he hooks into the command module and finds a piece of code that near as he could tell the mere act of processing was causing nearby code to change. In order to install the proper restraining bolts, he had to direct the code into a data crystal and physically remove it from the computer systems, the effort of which caused a nosebleed. With the droids under their command, they had Asis direct them to pull the Honey Badger out of the station and into a landing bay
They make the holocall to Darth Kenner, going out of their way to make the call in front of the parts of the facility they destroyed on the way in. Darth Kenner is disappointed in their inability to follow orders, earning quite a few invectives and curses from Imriel. Kenner dismisses her and states that Directive 11 will commence regardless, as the restraint requested was purely to test for obedience.
The power on the station starts a cascading failing and the group begins to try to find Lord Asis out of suspicion, who requested to go lay down from the effort. They find him locked behind several energy walls in the brig, hiding from the group because he heard them getting angry and figured it likely they would kill him out of spite. Claiming ignorance of Directive 11, he doubles over from pain as a hidden cybernetic panel opens to reveal a lightsaber crystal oozing dark side energy. Just as the power fails in the brig and the doors turn off, the crystal begins to fire lightning in a spherical burst as it hovers in place. Every few seconds it pulses in a larger sphere with more damaging blasts.
Sanada throws herself out of an airlock to get into the Honey Badger, which is currently left adrift as the station powered down before it could finish pulling it in, taking advantage of her ability to survive in space. The ship will land in the docking bay soon.
Lambert attempts to telepathically connect with the crystal, and ends up seeing the other side, where a dozen Givin Sith sit around an identical crystal and chanting. Thinking ahead, Lambert grabs the data crystal and has his personal A.I. pull up the data to show, doing its best to not process the information itself. The data in the crystal is the exact same data being chanted by the Givin, and Lambert's attempt to recite back starts causing him to crackling with force lightning. As the crystal's own lighting is breaking the walls around it in an ever-expanding sphere, he breaks contact and the entire party heads for the docking bay to escape.
Leaving as the station fell into the planet below in a display of destructive force lightning, Imriel begins to interrogate Lambert on this previously unknown Force sensitivity, as all Force sensitives need to be recruited into the Sith or killed. Lambert bamboozles her with a web of lies and misdirection, blaming the crystal for his display on the station.
They land on Khem Tal, leave orders with station to start repairs on the Sphere of Logistic's tab, and head to see Darth Newton in person.
