Reconnaissance

While initially I had believed the Arramanx smog to be relatively uniform across the planet, my first visit to the factory district proved this hypothesis distinctly false. Here it went from a slight haze to a full on yellow tint that made me feel as though I was wearing yellow sunglasses. Not only that but I could feel the smell attempting to claw its way through my helmets filters as I caught a whiff of the stench around me every so often. There was no mystery to where it was coming from either as the massive factory smokestacks in the distance belted out a constant steam of the yellow smoke.

"What do they even make down here?" Exa asked as the three of us meandered down the street with our holographic disguise matrixes activated to hide our appearances.

I looked over at her, the two of us were both disguised as light orange Twi'leks, which looked so similar we could have been siblings. "Well if I remember the atlas correct-"

"Spice," Cad interrupted, causing me to turn to him in confusion.

"But I thought…"

"You thought wrong," he said, his red Twi'lec disguise putting an invisible toothpick in his mouth. "You're atlas only tells you about the trade happening up in the stations."

"Not that the Empire doesn't participate in the spice trade," added Exa. "They just don't write it down."

"Enough chatter," Cad said as we turned into an alleyway. "Time to get to work."

With all the smog I had been surprised that a former senator would choose to live down here instead of up in a space station. Then I saw their manor at the end of the alley. Unlike everything else whish was forced to exist within the yellow haze, the manor was surrounded by a shining silver bubble which had a plethora of oversized fans spread across its surface which were visibly blowing the smog away from the dome.

When we peaked out of the end of the alley we also saw that there were guards everywhere. Each of them was armed with an E-11 blaster rifles and clad in purple plastoid armor which appeared to be a slightly downscaled version of the stormtrooper uniform, not including the helmet which had been replaced with a cap, sunglasses, and gas mask. They traveled in teams of at least three, most in groups of four or more.

The manor itself was relatively simple structure from what I could see thorough the dome. It was a clean, three story building that stretched out for several blocks down the street towards the factories. The exterior walls were made of plain concrete which framed the large colorful windows lining each of the floors.

The only way into the dome though a single entrance halfway down the length of the manor. Stationed there were four guards on the outside of the entrance, another four guards at the door, two guards on the roof of the manor with E-11S sniper rifles, and finally, patrolling the ground just behind the entrance was the most alarming thing I had seen so far.

"That's… a Kuat Drive Yards AT-ST," I said quietly, my eyes locked on the combat walker.

"Tell me something I don't know," Cad said as we exited the alley and started casually strolling down the main road along the dome as though we were making our way towards the factories for work.

"It has a maximum speed of 90 kilometers per hour, and costs approximately 75,000 credits."

Cad stopped and silently turned to look at me, an act with was much less visually terrifying but no less terrifying emotionally than normal.

"… Sorry sir, I'm scared."

Cad let out a small grunt then turned back to look at the manor. "Stop that and start thinking of a plan to get it out of the picture."

"You want me to get rid of it?" I asked my voice cracking embarrassingly as I spoke.

"That gonna be a problem stormtrooper?"

I went quiet. Cad had said he brought me in for my experience with Empire tech, but an AT-ST was not exactly something I could outthink. Its only two major weaknesses were its balance, which would be difficult to effect on a well paved city street, and the viewing ports, which in order to capitalize on I would need a powerful missile launcher combined with a very lucky shot to actually do damage. Our best chance would be if the mercenaries kept a spare AT-ST on standby that we could steal and use against it. Even then though I didn't have any experience with an AT-ST so the chances of me winning in a one-on-one fight with an experienced mercenary was incredibly low.

"You, you must answer him," Mac chimed in, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"Uhhhh… No sir, not a problem."

Cad grunted, his eyes scanning the house as we walked down the street towards the factory.

"On the plus side," started Exa. "The mercs have apparently been here long enough to become complacent. Snipers aren't even looking our way."

I took a look up at them, and as I did Mac projected their camera onto my HUD and zoomed in on them. "Money clearly isn't an issue for them," I added. "Their E-llS snipers each have custom sights… they are well beyond what they need to watch the front gate. It's going to be dangerous trying to get passed them."

"Good thing we're not going to go through the front then," Cad said without giving the snipers a second look.

I turned to him in confusion, causing Mac's camera to swing around and give me a magnified view of the back of his disguised head. "… How are we going to get in then?"

"Well use the back door," he said as though it was the simplest thing in the world.

"There's a back door?"'

"There's never only one way out."

I looked at the seemingly impenetrable dome then back to Cad. "Wouldn't that kind of ruin the purpose of the dome?"

"The dome isn't for security son, it's for comfort."

"And with a dome like that if there was only one way in or out then it would be no better than a shiny casquette," added Exa.

I nodded along. "… but wouldn't an emergency entrance or exit like that be well hidden so no one, like us, could use it for nefarious purposes?"

Exa's head swung towards me. "Did your ass really just use the word nefarious unironically?"

"We're gonna nab a protocol droid and get the floorplan from them."

"… What if the protocol droids don't have the emergency exit on their floorplans?"

"Then we'll use the protocol droid to capture an astromech."

"An… Astromech?"

"Don't question me son."

"I'm still not over the fact you said nefarious," Exa said with a small shake of her head.

As I was about to ask how we planned to even steal one of their protocol droids considering they were on the inside of the dome which we was the thing preventing us from getting to our actual target when I saw a SoroSuub Corporation RGC speeder turn onto the road out of one of the alleyways in front of us. Normally I would not have given the speeder a second thought, but with Mac's zoomed in camera feed still on my HUD and I could see that the Togruta driver was gripping the wheel with a white-knuckled grip and was sweating profusely.

"Uhhh sir," I said, feeling a pang of concern rapidly growing in my chest as the speeder started to accelerate. "I think we need to get off the road.

Both him and Exa followed my line of sight and cursed silently. "Move now," Cad ordered quietly as to not draw the attention from the guards as he speed walked into a nearby alley with me and Exa close behind him. Once we were all out of site he motioned at the top of my head. "Tell the droid to fly up and get us eyes on what's happening."

Before I could say anything Mac was rising into the air. "Tell the large hat man that I don't take orders from him, I do as I please and I wish to see the violence!"

"He says yes sir and is on his way up."

"That isn't what I said at at all! Tell him what I actually said You."

Mac crossed over the top of the nearby building just as the driver leapt out of the speeder with the vehicle aimed directly at the front gate. All 8 guards immediately scattered in all directions as the driver reached into their pocket and pulled out a small controller. They pressed the main button on the controller, causing the vehicle to explode just as it passed through the entrance of the dome.

A fireball erupted in the entrance, engulfing two of the guards in the blast as shrapnel was thrown in all directions. However once the cloud of dust cleared it revealed that despite leaving a small crater in the street, the dome was completely unharmed.

As the guards slowly started poking their heads back out, Mac turned to look down the street to show two large industrial hover trucks racing towards the entrance. One of the guards on the ground pointed them out, bringing their E-11 up while another held up a com-link and pointed to the trucks while looking at the snipers.

At that point Mac swung their camera up to the sniper duo as one of them grabbed a remote of their own from their hip and pressed a button. For a moment I wasn't sure what the remote did, then I saw the fans slowly come to a stop as the snipers took aim.

Mac swung its cameras back to the trucks as both the guards on the ground opened fire. Most of the guards E-11 bolts made contact with the trucks, but they were still too far away for their weapons to do anything but superficial damage. Then the first thicker lasers from an E-11S melted clean though the front windshield and struck the driver directly in the chest, causing them to slump over their steering wheel.

"What's happening out there," Cad asked, leaning casually against the wall.

"There are people attacking the front. The snipers on the roof have a remote to deactivate the fans and they're shooting through them now that they've stopped."

The truck with the deceased driver slowly listed to the side until it ran off the road, struck a building, ricocheted off it back into the road and would have struck the other truck if not for a stray E-11 round striking one of its elevation actuators, causing a small explosion that sent the truck tumbling end over end in the air.

With Mac's angle I could see the driver of the second truck lean down as low as possible to avoid the sniper fire as their rounds began leaving perfect circular holes in the windshield.

At least ten more guards rushed out of the manor towards the entrance just as the Togruta driver stood up and raised an Eirriss Ryloth Defense Tech Blurrg-1120 holdout blaster. As they did though at least five of the guards turned and fired their E-11 blaster rifles, piercing them with red blaster bolts before they could get a shot off.

Three of the reinforcing guards had on large packs, while two of them carried Sienar Fleet Systems RPS-6 rocket launchers, one which was now aimed at the incoming trucks.

Even from Mac's far off vantage point I could see the driver's eyes widen at the site of the rocket launcher as they slammed the breaks, causing the vehicle to list forward to far that the front made contact with the road with a shower of sparks.

Before it could come to a complete stop the rocketeer fired, their missile screaming out of the RPS-6 trailing a column of smoke behind it. The driver attempted to leap out of the truck, but it was already too late. The rocket made direct impact with the front of the truck, enveloping the entire front half of the truck and the driver in flames. Then as if that was not enough the hover truck exploded in a massive fireball, sending up a dense column of smoke.

"That sounded violent," Exa said tapping her foot impatiently. "Can we go now."

"Wait," Cad said, holding up a hand.

The occupants in the back of the first truck started crawling their way out of their overturned vehicle. There were a good dozen of them armed with A-280 blaster rifles, and a few DH-17 blaster pistols, but lacked any armor whatsoever. A few of them managed to fire a few shots at the guards but they were all too shell shocked from their rollover to do any actual damage. The guards and snipers picked them off with slow precise shots, whittling them down almost as soon as they exited the truck.

Only three of the twelve that exited managed to get enough of their wits about them to get out of the kill zone by ducking down one of the many side streets or alleys as blaster bolts streamed passed them.

"Everything winding down?" Cad asked in almost the same moment as the last of the attackers ducked into an alley.

I nodded. "Yes sir. The attackers were repelled, almost no losses on the guards side."

"That's expected," he said adjusting his invisible toothpick. "They brought out a missile launchers right?"

"… They brough out two Eirr-"

Cad held up a hand to stop me. "Son, don't overcomplicate it."

"Sorry sir. Yes they have two rocket launchers," I said, not bothering to correct him on the difference between a rocket and a missile.

"How many of them are carrying spare missiles?"

"Three of them have packs that I believe have extra rockets."

Cad hummed to himself as a small smile came to his face. "Three to two huh? What are they doing now?"

Macs camera swung around and zoomed to show me two of the three with the large packs were heading back into the house, while the third was walking away from the manor with two other guards down a side street, which I conferred to Cad. "I think the last one is helping to clear the nearby streets."

"Follow him," Cad ordered then pushed off the wall. "We're leaving."

Mac floated after them, easily keeping eyes on them as it hovered a good ways above the building with its cloak active. All three of the guards were human, and I could see the three of them were talking amongst themselves as they patrolled.

They went down several streets, checking alleys and roads as they made their way in a quick square patrol that would soon bring them back to the manor. Or at least that is what it seemed. I was never able to find out for sure as when the two lead guards stepped into a narrow dead end alleys the guard with the backpack drew a DL-44 heavy plaster pistol from their belt and fired a shot from it and their E-11 into the backs of the two guards, dropping them both before they even knew what hit them.

I inadvertently let out a small gasp that caused Exa to chuckle. "Third pack a traitor?" she asked, turning to look at me over her shoulder.

I nodded, watching as the guard dragged the two other guards deeper into the alley way and pulled out a com-link.

"What's he doing now?" asked Cad.

"He dragged the other two guards who were with him into an alley and now he's calling someone," I said still watching them through Mac's camera. "Now he's getting out of his armor."

"Did he take off the pack?"

"Yes sir."

"Have the droid go down and see what's in the bag."

"… the bag is still really close to him," I said nervously as Mac started floating down towards them.

"They're not looking out for something as small as an invisible exploration droid," Cad said casually. "Now tell it to hurry up before whoever they called arrives."

Mac did in fact pick up its pace without me even needing to say anything, floating down into the alley behind the traitor guard, whose eyes were locked on the alley entrance they had come down.

The top of the pack was only covered by a small cloth flap without even a latch to hold it in place. Mac slowly floated down to be level with the pack and moved into position. As it did I could see a vehicle slowly come to a stop at the entrance of the alley, causing the traitor to raise their DL-44 defensively. 2 people stepped out of the hovercar, dressed in torn, dirty clothes with their hands in the air.

While they were distracted Mac lifted the flap just enough for his camera to see underneath it. Instead of RPS-6 rocket launcher ammunition, the inside was filled with a a TC-series protocol droid, its legs removed and shoved to either side of the droid.

"Give me the good news son," Cad said looking at me over his shoulder.

"They… They have a protocol droid," I said in astonishment as Mac, replaced the flap and started floating straight up away from the now three people in the alley. Well, technically four as the two who were in the car were now carrying a body into the alley with them. "How did yo-"

"It's what I would have done back in the day."

"Who is they?" I asked not sure who he was referring to.

"The local resistance group, and a sympathetic now former mercenary."

Exa shrugged. "Probably some locals not happy with the new management."

"They're from the factories," Cad said pointing in the direction we were already heading.

The three men in the alley were putting the stolen armor on the body they had carried into the alley while Mac floated back up above the buildings.

"Wait, how do you know that part?" asked Exa in confusion.

"Locals with hover trucks, bombs, and blaster rifles," he said casually. "Only ones around here who could afford 'em."

"Unless they have a benefactor," Exa countered.

"Hey kid, where's that car heading now?" he asked as the three men piled into the hovercar.

Mac followed behind it as best it could, but the car was much faster than them.

"East," I said watching the car move straight down a main road away from the manor.

"Ha see, the factories are south," Exa said crossing her arms.

"Wait for it," Cad said, still walking towards the factories.

Just before Mac lost visual on the car, the brake lights came on and the car turned down a side road.

"… They've turned, heading south now."

"Bingo," Cad said, and I swear I could heard the grin on his face.

Exa let out a small grunt of frustration. "Alright fine… so what's the play?"

Cad looked at the two of us over his shoulder. "Time to get us a few more men."