The Great Herdship Heist

The Great Herdship Heist is a short story written by Daniel Wallace that was originally published in Star Wars Adventure Journal 15. It was illustrated by Will Warren. The story featured a group of professional thieves attempting a heist on an Ithorian herdship, and it was accompanied by roleplaying statistics and description for all the main story elements. Dan Wallace wrote a sequel called Fair Prey which was published in Star Wars Gamer 1 three years later.

Plot summary
Guttu the Hutt has uncovered a meeting between his rival Ritinki the Bimm and the Rodian loan shark Vop aboard the Ithorian herdship Song of the Clouds. The purpose of the meeting is twofold: the two plan to patch up some differences, while Vop plans to purchase a special package off the Ithorians. Ritinki, however, plans to steal the package from Vop during their meeting, and has already killed Vop's accountant and replaced him with a double to facilitate the transaction.



Guttu, while unaware of the contents of the package, realizes it must be of great value for Ritinki to go to all that effort, and so wishes to steal it for himself. To this end he contacts Cecil Noone and his team of professional thieves. Noone and his apprentice Kels Turkhorn go undercover with the catering company that is serving the meeting, and smuggle the final two members of their team aboard the herdship in a crate. While Noone and Turkhorn maintained their disguise, their companions, Dawson a Tynnan and Hass Sonax a Sluissi, attempt to steal the contents of the box, only to discover that Ritinki's assistant has preceded them, and moved the package to his boss's starship, the Asaari Wind. The pair decide to infiltrate that ship next to continue with the heist.

Meanwhile, as the dinner and meeting between Ritinki and Vop rounds up, the dining party is attacked by a trio of assassins that have infiltrated the catering crew independently of Noone. Attacking Ritinki, they manage to kill all his bodyguards, but not before the Bimm uses a beckon call to summon his starship to crash through the meeting room's transparisteel ceiling. The subsequent vacuum sucks the assassins out into space before the herdship's automated failsafe can seal off the breach. Ritinki makes to escape in his starship only to be fired upon by it; Dawson and Sonax were already on the ship when Ritinki beckoned it and subsequently fired on him. Noone and Turkhan quickly join their partners aboard the Asaari Wind and flee the herdship.

In the relative safety of the nearby nebulae cloud, the thieves opt to open the package that had been stowed aboard the ship: inside is a rare Gun of Command. Designed by the Hapans, the weapon is capable of temporarily incapacitating an individual and making them compliant to all requests. Realizing the value of such an item, the team of thieves decide to turn their back on Guttu and instead plan to sell the weapon for a fortune themselves.