2025-09-13
The group enters the bar. A chime plays and their faces appear on a videoscreen behind the bar. Dessa orders the local specialty, which is brewed from fungi unique to the microclimate of Mettawi Station.
Dessa tells the bartender that she’s a Jedi, here to help the people. People begin to line up, drawing a crowd from outside, to talk about their problems. She organizes the people into working groups to resolve shared issues, and works up a list of problems she wants to handle personally.
Sahl has Bara submit a form to inform the otherwise-unreachable station administrator that a Jedi is aboard on Jedi business.
The first problem Dessa leads the group to investigate is a haunting on Deck 44 of the station. T3-N1 investigates the maintenance plenum and finds handprints dented into metal pipes, and some pipes twisted and bent by great force. Sahl searches through records and finds reports of poltergeist activity, mesmerism, and irritability. Dessa and Gai search the area, Dessa with the Force and Gai observing the people, but detect nothing.
Teni obtains security footage of the times of reported manifestations, and finds that EM interference obscures the sensors. Sahl determines a few regular times of day when the manifestations tend to cluster. The group agrees to stake out the deck at one such time the same night.
Dessa is the first to notice the manifestation begin: her mug of caf begins to ripple, bubble, and steam. Reaching out with her feelings, she is overwhelmed by a wave of darkness and rage. Dessa springs up, goes stiff, and passes out.
Sahl and Teni are in a maintenance passage. Teni’s vision is reduced to several meters by static. The pipes begin to shake and clatter, and they heat until they glow red-hot. As the pipes begin to spurt steam, the two begin to flee the passage. Teni’s sensors are momentarily blinded by interference; only Sahl sees a handprint stamp into a blazing pipe before his eyes. The presence passes on, and the two make it out of the pipes.
Gai is in a residential corridor disguised as a maintenance worker. He sees a man slip cautiously out of a residence and give a guilty start when Gai makes eye contact with him. After the man passes, Gai begins breaking into the residence. He has nearly finished when he hears screams and crashing from a distant corridor. Gai rushes over and sees the suspicious man lifted into the air by an unseen force and repeatedly dashed against a bulkhead. Gai grabs the man and holds him down until the poltergeist tugging stops. The man is critically injured; Gai calls for paramedics.
The static clears, and no more manifestations are seen. Sahl and Gai get in contact, but they can’t raise Dessa. Sahl asks what happened to Dessa, and the proprietor of the tapcaf tells him that she was also taken to hospital. Sahl, Gai, and Teni converge on Mettawi Central Hospital and admit the haunting victim, but find that Dessa is not there. Slicing into EMS records, Teni finds that Dessa was instead taken to Davos Wellness Resort, an exclusive medical retreat on the upper levels of the station.
The visit was paid for by a man whom Teni identifies as Rejemi Temple, who planted his card on Dessa’s body after she fell. Inquiring at Davos, they are told visiting hours are over. Immediately suspicious, Teni begins searching for a way to break into the hospital. Gai is overcome by a wave of anger from a higher deck.
Investigating Rejemi, they find that he was a rising captain in a merchant fleet before being let go. He currently seems to make a living as an investor and relationship broker, connecting powerful businesspeople to each other at benefits galas on his party yacht.
Dessa dreams of being captured by Mandalorians and chained in a slave ship. Seeing a shadowy figure standing over her, she Force-pushes it into a wall and knocks it unconscious. An enormous clatter awakes her; she sees that in her sleep, she knocked an orderly into a gong, which fell into a rock garden. She finds that she is restrained to the bed. Reaching out, she mentally calls a nurse from the hallway. An attractive Selkath nun enters, packs the orderly off to an infirmary, and greets Dessa. She says that the restraints are because Dessa was levitating in her sleep.
Dessa calls the group and tells them to rescue her if she is not released in the morning. The nun, Gairla Barlix, returns to check Dessa over. Dessa has some minor bruising, which she concentrates and heals with the Force. Gairla is astonished and grateful, telling Dessa that healing is a spiritual calling among her people. They meet again for tea before Dessa is released the next morning.
