Seconday, Erastus 5, 317 AG

Middle of the gorram night and a claxon starts going off. Fragging Absalom Station. I have no good memories of this place, and that doesn’t look to be changing anytime soon.

Well, my mama didn’t raise any fool, so I started strapping on my armor before going to investigate.. While I was doing that I hear a shot in the hall. Squill peaked out and says there is one guy out there. Well I don’t have any designs on being a Steward, but I don’t take kindly to having my sleep disturbed. I grab my rifle on the way to the door and stick my head out as Squill is getting M.O.U.Z. powered up. I got a good look at the guy and the crown symbol on his flight jacket.

Gorram Downside Kings tracked us down?! Something fishy is going on, but right now I’m too cranky to care. I take aim and fire at the guy, using my fire as cover to make my way to one of the side halls. Pretty soon the whole crew is out in the hall, Squill on M.O.U.Z., JJ is running around in his briefs, Patch is looking more sleepy than I am, and ALEXA looks to have taken a hit right to her torso. Between the five of us we circle the guy and JJ takes him down as he tries to flee. No intel on the guy, but JJ grabbed his Eye rifle and I grabbed his knife. Now that we know the Downside Kings are hunting us and have our location we decide to scamper and find a new place to bed down. The hotel refunded our money and gave us complimentary rooms, apologizing for the fire. They didn’t even know about the dead guy yet. Hopefully leaving him there doesn’t come back to bite us.

We wandered the Eye and eventually found a nice little apartment to rent anonymously and slept the rest of the morning. Once everyone was fully recovered we set out to get some more information. Our only leads are the two street gangs, but Patch says he has a contact that could help us.

On the way to the bar Squill drops the bomb that Patch spent a few years in prison for embezzling money from Astral Extractions. Seems he worked as some kind of representative for the company. While in that position he got tired of seeing how much Astral Extractions took advantage of all the miners and took justice into his own hands. Stole a pile of credits and ran. Didn’t make it far though. The authorities caught up to him and threw him in prison for 3 years. In general I am against theft, but in the case of Astral Extractions I can make an exception. Even offered to help Patch on his next heist if he was going to hit them again, ha!

We finally get to the bar. A place called The Tipsy Auroch, nice. He didn’t have any intel we didn’t already know, but the beer was cold so not a total waste.

Next we headed to Level 21 thinking of the two gangs the Level 21 Crew was the least likely to be hostile. Found this little bodega called Mama Fats that looks a little out of place, being the only establishment not all tagged up with graffiti. They serve decent food and we left our names with Mama who promised to get in touch with Jabaxa, the Level 21 Crew boss.

After the little firefight in the Moons of Sleep, we all figured a few serums of healing would be a good investment and headed for a shopping district. As we were paying for our serums we got word from Mama Fat that Jabaxa was ready to meet while there and so we headed back.

Mama Fat ushers us into the back room where Jabaxa meets us with his pistol drawn. I am always willing to throw down when I get a gun pulled on me but in this case I decided to draw on one of my lesser used talents: diplomacy. I kindly point out that we saved the bacon of three of his crew when the Downside Kings opened fire in Dock 94. After that an a shot of some of the roughest moonshine I’ve seen we all settled down to talk like gentlemen. We got a little more detail on the gangs involvement in the Astral Extractions vs Hardscrabble Collective situation, but not much that we hadn’t already at least guessed at. We did learn a little about Ferani Nadaz and her bodyguard, a vesk that goes by the name Hatchbuster.

With only one lead left we headed for the Fusion Queen where the Downside Kings hang out. Jabaxa and his boys weren’t willing to create a distraction to help us get into the club so we had to go at the bouncers directly.

As we were approaching the bouncers attacked this couple trying to gain entry. Found a knife on the guy and then immediately bashed him and his date over the head. Seems they are expecting trouble and even willing to smack around ladies to avoid it. As one bouncer hauls off the bodies we approach and JJ leads with a bribe. The Downside Kings must pay well because even 50 credits wasn’t enough to gain us immediate entry. JJ doesn’t allow himself to be frisked, instead he crotch thrusts the guys face, I shit you not. Seeing the writing on the wall I pull my rifle and get ready for a fight. Patch must have been thinking the same thing, because spits out a grenade and tosses it at the bouncers. After that we made pretty short work of them.

With the doors open we enter the club. JJ immediately heads for the dance floor. I’m not sure why, but that boy just had to dance. The rest of us head for the bar. We order some drinks and make some inquiries about Hatchbuster. The bartenders pretend not to know the name. Rather than continue asking and raise the alarm we group up and barge into the backroom. The three gang members playing cards got in a lucky shot or two on JJ but they went down quick.

There looks to be just one room left to investigate and they obviously heard our attack. I strap a grenade to the door and we wait for them to come out. After 10 minutes they still haven’t emerged so we set up a holo dancer on a cart and get ready to shove it into the room. Just as the door opens a grenade comes out. Seems Ferani and Hatchbuster were waiting on us. Hatchbuster is tough and he nearly takes ALEXA down for good. Patch revives her though and we take Ferani alive. Hatchbuster is not so lucky though.

Ferani was carrying a datapad that had a communique from Astral Extractions ordering the hit on Duravor Kreel. It’s late. Real late. But we contact Chiskisk figuring they will want to hear this news asap. After filling in Chiskisk he takes Ferani Nadaz into custody as well as her datapad. He’ll keep our name out of it but turn her over to the authorities. We are officially inducted as new Starfinders and Chiskisk said they would be in touch with a mission.

After a VERY long day I am ready to hit the sack. Hopefully no more murder investigations come our way.