Brawln and the Case of the Stolen Planet

After defeating the Mirror, Brawln goes off on his own to clear his head, and ultimately decides to memorialize his late father by doing a little private eye work in his honor. It doesn't go quite the way he expects it to.

Brawln gets a job
Brawln hasn't spent much time on Nar Shaddaa before, so he figures that Emor Zhalto is his best bet for getting the information he wants. He and HC-7 head over to his office at a time when you figure he'd be around. Emor is happy to see him, and is partway into his usual friendly greeting when he registers how beat up Brawln looks. His smile abruptly fades. "You okay, son? What happened to you?"

Brawln is not crying, but he has sad Wookiee eyes as he answers Emor. HC translates a little too cheerily, which does not help Brawln's disposition. "Just got a little bit of closure on my father's death, and I think I'm having trouble dealing with it. Was hoping you could help me, I'm looking to find a bounty that I'd do, as a way to honor him. Something about helping people, that kinda thing. Doesn't have to pay well. My father was a big believer in change you can feel good about, even when you need something for profit." It is clear he is holding it together but only just.

Emor's face lights up at the mention of "doesn't have to pay well." "I've got just the thing," he says, fiddling with his datapad. "Ithorian named Naneb Laka wants help tracking down a lost item. Some kind of religious relic, I guess. I've dealt with Naneb before and he's a decent fella. He doesn't have much to offer, though, which means this job's been sitting around unclaimed for a while. You know how bounty hunters can be when they don't feel like something's worth their time. Anyway, Naneb manages a hydroponic greenhouse not too far from here. I sent his address to you so he can give you all the details in person."

Brawln spends some time reminiscing about his father with Emor, which Emor is all too happy to do. Despite the "grizzled elder" persona that Emor adopts, Duros lifespans are considerably shorter than a Wookiee's, and he's actually quite a bit younger than Brawln. Even so, he knows some interesting stories Brawln missed out on from jobs he wasn't involved with. "Every time your old man said anything to me about you, it always came around to how proud he was of you," Emor says at last. "I think he'd want you to remember that. And I know you'll keep making him proud, on this job and all the ones that come after it."

Brawln checks the information about Naneb to make sure and he knows where he's going. His mood improves substantially when he feels like he's on a case again. Almost like things are normal again for him - almost. HC-7 translates Brawln's comments, "Been sitting around unclaimed. Yeah, that fits. Not much money in it, but maybe this is the good I need to do. Thanks Emor." He puts away his datapad and then talks to Emor about his father.

It doesn't last as long as he'd have hoped though. When Emor starts talking about how proud his dad would be, Brawln becomes quiet. He goes back to the datapad and decides maybe it's time to be off. He thanks Emor for doing his part to help out and decides to go and pay Naneb a visit. Emor's a good guy to try and help this wookiee feel better, Brawln thinks to himself, but he doesn't know how his dad died. Besides, he's got a job now - and one to honor his father with. Wouldn't do to be stuck in his own head processing his feelings about everything when there's that to be done. He and HC-7 head to Naneb's hydroponic greenhouse.

Brawln meets Naneb Laka
The greenhouse occupies the top floor of one of Nar Shaddaa's run-down skyscrapers, a building that appears to rent space to a wide variety of clients conducting countless types of shady business. Inside, the air is humid and smells overwhelmingly of flowers. Among the many long rows of plants growing in metal troughs beneath heat lamps and irrigation sprinklers, Brawln recognizes exotic spices and rare fruits from several different worlds sharing space with an assortment of "medicinal" herbs. The greenhouse and all of the equipment is shabby and run-down but well-maintained, which also describes Naneb Laka himself. Like Wookiees, Ithorians' vocal cords aren't set up to speak Basic, so HC-7 gladly translates for both Naneb and Brawln.

"I'm afraid I don't fully understand what he's missing, Brawln. 'A piece of Ithor,' he says? I'm not sure what that means, but it seems very important to him." After a little more back-and-forth, Naneb pulls out a datapad with a cracked screen and holds up a holoimage of what looks like a hollow glass sphere about the size of a basketball, with a thick layer of greenish-brown sludge coating the inside. "He says he was exiled from Ithor and can never return to his homeworld. This sphere is all he has left of it. It may not look like much, but he assures me it's his prized possession - or it was until it went missing a week ago."

Naneb keeps talking, and HC-7 keeps translating. "Naneb works here alone. He usually keeps the sphere in a place of honor near his workbench." Naneb gestures at an empty metal shelf bolted into a nearby support pillar. "His clients sometimes come by to sign contracts, or drop off seeds they want germinated, or to pick up their plants when they're ready for harvest - but he's always with them when they're inside, and the sphere is too large for someone to easily conceal it on their person. He thinks someone must have broken in and stolen it while he was away, though he doesn't know who would have done such a thing, or why."

Brawln goes over to the spot where the sphere was resting. The sphere doesn't seem like it would have been permanently attached to the shelf. Where it would have been there's a donut-shaped pillow in which it must have rested. Looking more closely at the pillow, he sees a smudge of something dark on the light blue fabric - oil or grease, probably. There aren't obvious fingerprints left in the smudge. The shape of it is more even and rectangular, like someone wiped off a tool or something on the pillow.

Next up: checking for signs of forced entry. There's only one door leading into the greenhouse, which is secured with a basic electronic locking mechanism: very basic, not much of a deterrent to someone with tools and know-how. There's no evidence of damage on the door or around the lock. Brawln supposes it's possible someone might have been able to come in from above by removing one of the panes of glass from the greenhouse ceiling, but they'd need to fly in on an airspeeder to do that and it seems like a lot of trouble to go to.

"Why was this possession so prized?" Bralwn asks Naneb. "Was it sentimental in nature or did you have something practical in mind for it?"

Naneb gets a little defensive about this question at first - "I don't expect an outsider to understand it" - but softens up the more he talks. He gets emotional when Brawln starts asking about what's inside it. "After I was exiled, while I was leaving on the ship, I realized there was still moss and algae from my family's farm on the soles of my shoes. Nothing special, just ground cover from around the bogs where we grew our crops. I thought maybe if I could keep it alive, Ithor would always live in me too." Brawln gets the sense that he's being earnest about this, and that he really doesn't think there are any valuable applications to the stuff inside the sphere.

"Anyone have a grudge against you? If it doesn't have any practical value, it may just be that someone's trying to send a message - if so, who - and what's the message?"

Naneb says, "Lately I've only had satisfied customers. I pay my protection money to the Hutts and they've never warned me I was in danger with them. I suppose the new building manager here doesn't seem to like me much. He says I use too much water. It's a greenhouse, what does he expect? Stupid Twi'lek doesn't know anything about plants. He's just lazy and doesn't like to work."

"Was anything else missing?"

Naneb says nothing else in the greenhouse was missing that he can tell - just the sphere. Indeed, there are some expensive pieces of scientific equipment still openly sitting out on workbenches, plus Brawln suspects that some of the rarer plants he's growing would fetch a nice price on the black market. If someone burglarized him, cash wasn't their motivation.

After confirming that the smudge on the pillow appears to be some sort of motor oil or grease, Brawln and HC-7 decide to go talk to the Twi'lek building manager.

Bralwn meets Mr. Omon
To be continued...