Storage Closet
Abandoned House Kaerner Headquarters
Joran

"Oh my."

A pair of lights flickered on in a dark storage bay. The humanoid droid looked around for a moment before pulling some debris out of the way and clambering to its feet. In some distant part of the facility, loud thumping and banging noises reverberated.

"That's new. Why are the lights off?"

The droid shuffled to the door, thumbed the control pad, and wandered out into the corridor to see what all the commotion was. He had not taken ten steps before he was tackled from behind and dragged into another dark room across the hall.

"Quiet, droid! You'll get me killed!"

The voice came from a young girl. Surprisingly strong for her size, she was dressed in cobbled together gear from many different sources. The droid immediately recognized several knives and blasters on her person, and identified the logos of several pirate, bounty hunter and smuggler factions on various parts of it.

"I am C-6A3, protocol droid. I am fluent in over six million..."

"Shut it, tin can. We're not safe here. Is there a way out the back?"

"No, ma'am. This facility is still under construction. Only the main entrance has been bored out so far."

The walls of the facility had been dug hastily by giant machines through the deep ice on the moon of Joran. Most of them had never been reinforced or insulated and were still made of exposed, bare ice. The crates of supplies that at one time occupied these storage rooms had mostly been removed, save for a few broken or empty ones still emblazoned with "House Kaerner" and the Tarentum logo on them. A startling realization began to dawn on C-6A3 as he surveyed the contents of the room.

"Is this no longer House Kaerner's headquarters?"

"House what? No, this place has been abandoned for a couple of years. Until just now, anyway."

"Abandoned? Are you not a Tarenti?"

"A taren-what? No, I'm a smuggler. Name's Kadne. They must have found out about me, but I can't figure out how..."

Voices and bootfalls echoed down the hallway. C-6A3 could discern four unique sets of boots.

"This base will do nicely, Raiju. It has been shuttered since House Kaerner was decommissioned?"

"Yes, my Lord. Completely unused since then."

"Master Raiju!" C-6A3 exclaimed, before Kadne jumped on top of him and held him down, covering his mouth with a gloved hand.

"Scion and Hades surely won't notice if we bring it back online again, so long as we keep the ship traffic to a minimum during the initial re-supply. I'm most worried about Oberst. He'll notice if we use any military assets. We may need to employ smugglers to augment our personal forces."

"I have to warn Master Scion!" The droid's expressionless face twisted helplessly as Kadne held him down and tried to cover his mouth. After a few moments the boots had moved on, and she let him go. She turned a fiery glance at the droid.

"What's this about a Rage-you and a Sine?"

"Master Scion is the Quaestor of House Kaerner. Was... the Quaestor of House Kaerner. I recognized Master Raiju's voice. He is plotting against Master Scion! I have to warn him immediately!"

"So, they're not after me?" Kadne's voice held a hint of newfound hope. "That means we could still get out of here alive. You help me with that, and I'll help you get a message to your Scone or whatever his name was. Deal?"

Tarentum Momentum

FL3

What a spectacular month, guys! We came in third in Fading Light 3 and won ourselves a shiny new Republic-class Star Destroyer! Hades and I agreed pretty much immediately that the most appropriate name for our new ship would be the Orion.

Our recent success is due to our hard work and our focus on communication. We're finding our pride again and I love everything about it. In short, Tarentum Momentum. We will be Clan Tarentum again, and I have a feeling it'll be sooner than any of us think. To get there we have to keep working hard and having fun.

In FL3 as a group we earned 30 Seals of the Crusader, a Gold Nova and a Bronze Nova. At 29 members that means we participated in more than one event per person and placed in two events. Great work, everyone! I was the only one to do 4 of the 5 events, but Caesar, Frosty, Aynar, Farrin and Anshar all did 3 of 5, which is terrific. Thanks guys!

GJW

The next GJW starts in January. Between now and then we will keep the momentum going with plot updates and competitions so that we hit the ground running. I know we can place in the GJW too, if we keep improving our pace and build on our participation even more in January.

Day of the Fox

Congratulations to Farrin and Rial on earning Seals of Loyalty on the Day of the Fox. These awards are some of the hardest to earn: they are awarded twice a year to two people in each unit. They recognize those who have proven their loyalty to Tarentum and to the Dark Brotherhood as a whole.