May You Always Find Water

After a quick discussion about what to do, the group creeped forward in an effort to storm the laboratory.  As they approached, they noticed a fifth Rodian scout observing the lab from a distance but they appeared undetected.  Not wanting to waste time, they began to head backwards towards the rest of the group but were overheard when an errant tree branch snapped beneath them!  The Rodian charged towards their general direction until Dakapota stood up and used Force Thurst to hurl him through the air towards a large rock.  Before the Rodian could recover, Spandow Calcitron lined his head up with his trusty club and made mince meat out of him. 

Confident the quick combat went unheard, but unwilling to waste any more time, they headed directly towards the Lab door.  When it opened on its own, Dekapota leaned into a cleaning chamber to see the rest of the interior.  To the right, the building's L-shape turned out of his line of vision.  However, on his right, two Rodians were stringing up explosives on the wall and a third, larger Rodian was facing them, flanked by three Mon Calamari prisoners, bound in the corner. 

Although Rrwarr the Wookie burst into the room to force the Rodians to act, he was blasted by both explosive-laying Rodians as well as a third Rodian from the right whose efforts with a vibrodagger made the Wookie regret his actions.  A few well placed blaster bolts from Bib Comett saved him, however.  In the meantime, Spandow and Dekapota took on the Rodians on the left, exchanging blaster fire, accidentally killing two of the hostages and narrowly avoiding hitting the charged explosives.  Despite the leader of the Rodians threatening to blow up the building in an act of "space martyrdom" the group called his bluff and between blaster bolts and force powers, they took down the last of the Rodians.

After checking on the last hostage, they grabbed a datapad carried by the Rodians and noticed the computers had been wiped clean. The pad contained what appeared to be data regarding mushroom growth patterns and medicinal uses.  The scientist, grateful for his life, told them he and his team of scientists were hired by Kalgass Mining to come here and work three weeks ago and a month ago all mining ceased.  He believes that there are other mobile labs in the southern part of the land owned by Kalgass but each group of scientists must be working independent of one another because he has no contact with other groups.  He insists they were brought in to look into the usefulness of the mushrooms and to try and work out ways to grow them outside of their native terrain and environments.  He used the computer to access employee records and noted that Khirra was not on the employee list  but her name did appear weeks ago on the shuttle transfer from Juggsmuk Station to Kalgass facilities and then on a smaller transport to the northern mines, but her return from the mines was not noted.  Agreeing to travel with them to help them avoid security, they deactivated the explosives and returned to the breach in the gate so they could fly their airspeeder further away into the woods and then returned.  All five of them set out on swoop bikes headed north.