Into the Fire! 10/20 session recap

Two plans were devised.  One was to plant a homing beacon on the company ship that came to pick up the next batch of mercs, then follow it to wherever the secret source of revenue was.  The party even bought a homing beacon for this purpose.  They were stymied by how to get close enough to a secure landing site to attach it, however, and went with plan B.

The second plan involved getting hired by the merc guild, Alephnaught, and then hoping they got sent to the secret site.  Or perhaps discovering where it was through daily interactions among the mercs.  To this end, they headed to the recruiting facility and said they wanted to join up.  A merc named Booker asked the party about their experience, and explained that there would be skills testing to back up their claims.  While this conversation was occurring, Treb noticed that the receptionist was discreetly looking down at this screen and then back up at the party.  He figured that it was probably some sort of a background check, and that even if their recent criminal deeds were exposed, that wouldn't necessarily preclude their acceptance into a merc guild.  Because, hey, it's a mercenary guild!

The party was ushered into a classroom and told to wait for the trainer/tester.  After a few minutes, Mallory had a sudden sense of danger as the blast door to the room slammed shut and gas started hissing from the vents.  Surprising both Treb and Prakk, he pulled out a lightsaber, took a deep breath, and started cutting through the door.  After about a minute, he had a small hole cut, and he burned his face getting a breath of mostly fresh air.  Prakk went to take a breath too and received a critical hit to the face from a stun blast.  Mallory handed the lightsaber over to Treb to keep cutting while he did everything he could to remain conscious.

The mercs then started lobbing stun grenades through the hole in the door.  Prakk grabbed a table and held it up against the hole to keep out the grenades for a short time.  Unfortunately, the mercs blasted it to pieces, sending shrapnel into Prakk and dropping him.  Mallory (and Treb, with a free hand) tried to return other grenades through the hole, but were only successful once.  Having a grenade detonate on them upset the mercs, and they started throwing frag grenades into the hole instead.  Treb had cut pretty far through to widen the hole, however, and the blast on the inside tore off a piece of metal and hurled it back into the mercs, killing one of them.  Mallory tried to roll through the opening, but landed belly-down on the stil molten edge of the door.  He dropped unconscious.  Treb then turned off the lightsaber, pulled Mallory off of the edge of the door, and put the weapon beside him.  He then successfully leaped through the hole and into a barrage of stun blasts.

The GM says we're only unconscious, but I'm counting it as a TPK.  Awesome!