Chapter III: The Mission

Sato, Hera, Kanan and Rex stood around the operations campaign console. Their conversation halted as Ezra and the others entered. The captain of the Ghost turned to the newcomers and put her hands on her hips.

"Nice of you all to show up," she greeted archly, "Did we interrupt a game of sabacc or something?"

Zeb grimaced.

"I'm off sabacc, Hera, you know that."

"Yeh," Kanan scoffed, "At least until Lando shows up again."

"Think I'll pass on that, Kanan."

"Sabacc? Or Lando?" the Jedi quipped.

"Both."

"Next time you bet Chopper," Ezra inserted, "Make sure you lose him permanently, okay?"

Hera scowled at the young Jedi, though privately she was happy enough that he'd make a joke. The boy had been understandably angry and despondent since he had returned from Moraband. Everyone had reacted differently to the losses suffered on that forsaken world, Ezra just wore his emotions on his sleeve more than the others. Sabine had retreated to her room and immersed herself in her art. Zeb had spent hours polishing his already well cared for weapon and Kanan had brooded in silence and solitude. Of all of them Rex seemed least affected, a fact which Ezra had held against the clone warrior, but Hera knew this outward show of acceptance to be false. A professional soldier's iron discipline and the regard in which he held the fallen Jedi prevented him from showing it, but inside she knew he bled the most.

The twi'lek pushed these melancholy psychological observations from her mind.

"All right, if you're all done now, maybe we can get on with the briefing?"

Sato began and all turned their attention to him.

"One of the greatest problems we face in putting together a larger rebellion is that we can't monitor the Empire's coded communications directly. Up until now we've had to rely on spies and sympathizers for our intelligence. That may be about to change."

The stern fleet captain leaned forward and pressed a button on the side of the planning module. A planetary system instantly sprang to life above the table's projector. Seven worlds orbited a single main sequence star. An inset floated above the image that showed the system's location between the middle and outer rims.

"This is the Acheron system, not a habitable planet in the bunch. Mostly gas giants. The fourth body is rocky though and has an automated lithium cracking station. That's it."

"Wonderful," the lasat observed, crossing his arms, "what's the big deal there?"

"Don't worry, you're not going there," Sato replied, pressing another button. The image shrank so that the entire system looked like an atom, a nucleus surrounded by a cloud of electrons. Outside the Acheron system a red symbol blinked.

"This is the target, just outside the Acheron system's heliosphere, but still gravitationally anchored by its primary."

The image closed in on the red symbol which grew rapidly into a sinister, floating monstrosity of metal, disk arrays and gun emplacements.

Hera squinted at it.

"An imperial relay station?"

"Yes, Captain," Sato confirmed, "We have just received intelligence that the Empire will shortly deploy a new encryption system throughout the Outer Rim Territories. This station will be one of the first to receive one of the new encryption devices and will serve as the principal transmission hub for the western reach of the Outer Rim. We've already hit a few targets in this sector, so attacking this station shouldn't be seen as anything out of the ordinary."

"Right," Sabine interjected with a grin, "so instead of just blowing this thing up, we steal the tech beforehand, right?"

"Exactly," Sato agreed with a curt nod, "If this operation succeeds the Empire will assume the device was destroyed with the station. Then, if we can operate the device, we will finally be able to monitor imperial communications with impunity."

"There was a couple more "if's" in there for my comfort," Zeb muttered, scratching his neck with one hand.

"Do we have a layout?" Sabine asked, ignoring her crewmate's predictable recalcitrance.

Sato pressed another button. The exterior of the base winked out, replaced instantly by a three dimensional model of the facility.

"It's incomplete," he offered, noting several sections that were black, "and it's old. We got this schematic almost a year ago from an informant who since defected, so this is the best information we have."

"Who's the informant?" Hera asked hopefully, "Can we talk to him?"

Sato shook his head.

"Her – and no, she died during the Siege of Lothal."

"Sounds like Minister Tua, it wasn't her was it?" Zeb asked.

"No," Sato replied, "she died before she could give us anything useful. Just like Tua, though, this informant is dead and can no longer help us."

"Well, so much for that idea," Zeb offered, then after receiving a glare from Hera raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, "but it was a good shot though!"

Sabine pointed at a large open area in the middle of the largest dome.

"This is the communications center?"

"We think so, yes, but we're not sure."

"Looks huge, what's the crew compliment?"

Sato opened his mouth to reply, but was preempted by a slightly nasal, metallic voice.

"1,127, mistress, comprised of 63 officers, 822 enlisted and the rest civilian contractors."

The group turned to see AP5 and Chopper coming towards them from the secondary hatch.

"How do you know that?"

"My freighter supplied five relay stations in the Lothal sector and they are all identical."

"Do you have station layouts in your memory?" Sato injected hopefully.

"No, Commander," Chopper's self-anointed counterpart sniffed petulantly, "I'm a tactical droid, not an engineer."

"Even if we had good maps, that's a lot of imperials to handle," Hera observed, her brow creased in concentration.

"I don't think we need to take them all on," Kanan offered somewhat reluctantly, "If we can get in there without attracting too much attention and take the communications center, we can do what we did on Nerva Beacon."

Hera nodded once, rubbing her chin. A few months before they had successfully infiltrated Nerva Beacon, an imperial installation orbiting the old Confederate capital of Raxus. They had destroyed it after they'd used the station's public announcement system to declare that the station would self-destruct. The station personnel had quickly exited using the escape pods, dramatically reducing the resistance the rebels would otherwise have faced.

"Could work," the twi'lek admitted.

"We?" Rex questioned with a smile Kanan felt, but could not see, "You up for that kind of fight?"

"Of course he can fight, Rex! What kind of question is that?" Ezra injected, instantly jumping to his master's defense, "He's as good as he ever was – better even!"

Kanan paused before replying. The words of the Grand Inquisitor, the former Jedi temple guard, rang clear in his mind.

"Try to fight, and you will fail, the rebellion will be destroyed, you will die and your apprentice will become a servant of evil."

He had passed the test in the temple, would he pass in the waking world? He didn't know. What he did know was that his resolve to protect his friends – to protect his young padawan – had not diminished. What was he to do? Stay on Atollon and meditate? Moping in a well of self-pity while his friends risked their lives to restore the Republic? He recoiled instantly at the shameful thought.

"Yes," the blind Jedi replied, straightening slightly, "I can still fight."

Rex smiled in relief and raised a fist in solidarity.

"That's the spirit, sir!"

Rex winked once at the padawan and nodded in agreement.

Ezra dropped his gaze and stared at his feet, slightly ashamed that he had doubted Rex's opinion of his master.

"How long until the station gets the device?" the captain of the Ghost continued, her countenance sharp and appraising.

"We don't know for sure," Sato replied, "Deployment was delayed for reasons that were not specified, but it shouldn't be more than a few weeks."

"But, how are we going to get on the station?" Ezra asked, clearly unhappy with the entire idea.

"Yeh," Zeb chimed in, no more pleased than Ezra, "Is this gonna be a stand up fight, Commander? Or another stealth job?"

Ezra turned and with an annoyed expression replied, "Come on, Zeb, how are we supposed to get this coder thing if we go in with the entire Phoenix Squadron? They'll wreck it and anything else we'd want before we busted our way in."

"Well excuse me!" the lasat retorted, "I'm just a little tired of sneakin' around and always getting caught when things fall apart," the young Jedi opened his mouth to contradict, but his bunkmate cut him off, "And it always does! Don't gimme any bantha pudu about it!"

"Tired or not, Zeb, we have to go in quietly," Hera injected calmly, "They'll send a distress signal at the first sign of rebel ships."

Rex nodded once in agreement, "That's right, Captain, and there's no way we can jam the signal either, their transmitters are way too powerful."

"So, to Ezra's point, how do we get on the station?" the young Mandalorian injected before turning to the elder Jedi, "Do we need to steal another imperial shuttle?"

"What do you think, Kanan?" Hera inquired, biting her lip.

"That might work, but…"

Kanan's voice trailed off, a sure indication of his discomfort.

"But what?"

"But..." Sabine supplied, picking up Kanan's train of thought, "…an unexpected visit of any kind is going to attract attention, right?"

"Exactly," Kanan agreed, "that's the problem. We need a way in that won't raise any suspicion."

"Like that ever works," the lasat scoffed.

"Stop being such a slamo, Zeb, we've gotten into plenty of places undetected!" Ezra replied hotly.

"Oh yeh, like where?"

The padawan stuttered for a moment before summoning up a few examples, "Like when we broke into Stygeon Prime, or when I infiltrated the Imperial Academy on Lothal, or how about when Kanan and Rex came to rescue me and Commander Sato on that crazy experimental imperial destroyer!"

"Heh, yeh kid, but we did we get out undetected in any of those situations, mmm?"

"Well, uh…"

Zeb folded his arms across his chest as Ezra's voice dwindled into silence.

"Right," the purple warrior concluded gruffly, "Get the point? We just don't have a great track record with this kind of thing."

"Well we're alive and we manage to get the job done," Sabine injected much to Ezra's relief, "So what's your point, Zeb? Don't take the mission?" She jerked her head in Sato's direction, "Didn't you hear the Commander? The Alliance needs this tech."

Zeb blew out a breath, "Yeh, I know, I'm just complainin' is all. I'm all in and you know it."

Sabine's frown turned to a smile.

"You better be," she turned to Hera and continued, "We not just use the Ghost? We can mask our signal. That usually works."

Hera shook her head.

"The Ghost is too well known in this sector now. I think there's a good chance they'll recognize us on sight no matter what registration we broadcast."

"If I may make a suggestion, Captain?" AP5 drawled, raising a metal finger in the air.

Zeb huffed, "We're not really interested in yer opinion, you rust bucket."

"May I remind you, Master Garazeb," the droid replied in full lecture mode, "I am a tactical droid. Planning such operations was my function during the Clone War."

"Clone War's over," the lasat with a dismissive wave of his hand, then turning to Rex continued, "and if I remember right, the clones did most of the planning and almost all of the fighting."

"Well, that's true," Rex acknowledged with a dip of his head, "but during the war we'd take help from anyone in a jam – even tac droids," He turned to AP5, "So what's the idea?"

"Why not target an imperial cargo vessel for capture? Such a vessel would also provide ample room to hide a strike team. As long as we broadcast an accepted registration number it is unlikely that the station would even bother with a pre-approach scan."

"That's… actually a good idea," Kanan observed, "but if they aren't expecting a delivery it would still raise some alarm."

"Yes, Master Kanan, that is why I recommend we obtain a copy of the local imperial shipping schedule. Then we can target the next vessel in the schedule that is assigned to call on the Acheron station. The strike team could then enter the station on schedule without attracting any unnecessary attention."

"All right, AP5," Hera said in an approving tone, "How do we get a copy of the schedule?"

"The Acheron station is most often supplied from the bases located on the middle rim worlds of Richess and Calufrax and the outer rim worlds of Lothal and Garel. There are others, but these accounted for 77.3 percent of the deliveries in the last six months of my service with the Empire. Any one of these would have copies of the shipping schedule."

"And they'll just hand it over to us?" Zeb inquired, his voice dripping sarcasm.

AP5 continued unperturbed, "It is not public information, but it is not heavily guarded either as the cargo sent from these bases is mostly basic materials. Sensitive cargo, such as the encoder apparatus we are tasked with appropriating, would almost certainly come directly from either Coruscant or one of the major imperial installations on Scarif or Raxus. These too would have copies of the schedule, but I would not recommend attempting to infiltrate any of those."

Zeb snorted at the droid's completely unnecessary advice.

Ezra, who had listened intently with one hand on his chin, looked at AP5 then to Hera and Sabine, an expression of grim determination on his face.

"Lothal, huh?"

A/N: I have another ten chapters written. I wanted to finish the story before I published any more, but since it's been such a long time I thought I'd do an update just to show this isn't dead :) And yes, Ahsoka is coming - she appears in chapter 5.