Avalanche crew are taken off Cort. They’ve taken some heavy causalities and have accomplished their task at hand. Cook has been nonstop arguing with the flight crew about how much space the lines take up in the hanger, but business has been booming. Tycho calls Avalanche to a meeting. The current task at hand is some problematic pirates, who are simultaneously attacking the Confederacy of Independent Systems as well as the republic. Tycho’s goal is to convince them to stop attacking the republic, letting them do whatever they want to the CIS. The pirates have agreed to speaking, Tycho just needs some extra muscle in case something goes wrong. He asks for volunteers and after several awkward moments, 28 volunteers Havok Squad and Cook is thankful for the break from fighting with the pilots.

19 clones, a Jedi, and a droid board the Stargazer and take off to the aggressive negotiation mission. Captain Frost and his crew join Sarge and Havok Squad. Rat takes it upon himself to read the mission briefing on a datapad. They are meeting up with a Genthu Kennar, a very fat, but muscular man who is over 6ft 7in in height. He has a motley crew of random bad guys as bodyguards. Eventually, the crew drops out of hyperspace at their rendezvous point near an asteroid belt. Rat pilots to join the Clandath Star pirates. Rat also gets a secret mission to hack into their mainframe to steal some smuggling information and other odds and ends of intel as insurance if they betray the republic.

As they disembark from the Stargazer, they meet with a twilek pirate with a real revolver strapped to his belt. He introduces himself as Jack Calagar while Rat is able to sneak away without a second glance from the pirate. They enter the packed, dense pirate city in the skeleton of what was once a mining facility. The city is made of shops, homes, and narrow mazelike corridors. Jack leads them into a cramped elevator where they ascend for a solid 30 minutes.

Image of a clustered, dirty city with clutter strewn about.

Meanwhile, Rat is off on his own little adventure. He is able to deduce where the security offices are located and makes his way there. He has to bleep bloop past his way through some guards under the guise of a “routine maintenance check”. He’s able to get his weird hand thing on a computer, backs up the system’s files into his own internal memory, and leaves.

The elevator screeches to a halt as the party make their way to the meeting room. Genthu Kennar is sitting at the head of a large table and motions them all to take a seat. Tycho sits, but doesn’t invite the clones to do the same, so they take their positions at various points in the room standing guard. Tycho and Genthu talk back and forth at length.

While Rat makes his way back to the Stargazer, he notices a Quarren vessel docked nearby. He sends several messages to the clones’ data pads. This causes a small distraction among them as their belts make loud vibrating noises. Tycho asks if there’s any issues, which Tower says there isn’t anything going on to concern him. Cook clarifies Rat is having some issues with the ship and says he’s getting Captain Frost in on this. The negotiations resume, but aren’t going well. They don’t seem to be able to come to an agreement, but are interrupted by the sound of the elevator ascending once again and 15 Quarren enter the room, guns drawn, with Free Dac Legion emblems on their armor. The leader of the group, Carrick Stern himself, orders them to put their weapons down - he’s only here for Genthu. Cook aims his gun at Stern and says to Kennar “Looks like we’ve got a common enemy.” Genthu agrees, flipping the table and brandishes a large rifle in one hand.

Cook, 28, and Tower begin taking shots immediately, collectively being able to get some shots off on Stern himself as well as several of his henchmen. The other Quarren return fire, only succeeding in hitting 28 who doubles over in pain, but is still up. Tycho wields his lightsaber and begins hacking off limbs of the Quarren henchmen. The clones and Genthu begin returning fire, quickly dwindling the Quarren forces. Eventually, they begin retreating. The clones begin following, but are interrupted by the Quarren’s ship outside blasting a hole in the roof of the building, sending them floating into space. Luckily, they can breathe through their helmets, and Rat has been engaging in a dogfight with their ship.

After the fight is over, Genthu agrees to work with the republic - for now.