"The perimeter is patrolled by an eight man team. They have checkpoints at every corner, at the gate and halfway along the fence surrounding the base." Kes said to the others after his final shift of reconnaissance.
"The fence will need to be disabled if we don't want to be fried going through." Lana pointed out practically.
"Can you do it lass?" She turned to Hirani who shook her head.
"Not if I can't get access to the main power breaker," she said quietly. "I have an idea of how I can get in but we'd need to replace our ship."
"What exactly do you have in mind, lass?" Lana asked suspiciously.
"I crash the ship into the planet from orbit, ejecting in the escape pod preferably before it's too late." Hirani replied sheepishly. "It's not a great plan but it's better than nothing."
"Put that half cocked idea aside until we have no other option girl." Kes said absently as he studied the layout of the jungle surrounding the base. "There's another way in, we just don't know it yet."
"How?" Hirani asked the old man.
"What about an EMP?" Lana suggested. "It is old tech, but it might work." The others looked at the old soldier in surprise.
"What is an EMP?" Hirani asked with a frown.
"It stands for electromagnetic pulse." Kes replied. "I wouldn't worry about it. It's just a myth from the old tales on Coruscant, like the oceans and forests of that planet."
"Before she died, my mother told me that sunlight is a myth to many on Coruscant, yet it is as real there as the trees around us now." Hirani pointed out. "How would we go about causing an elect- an EMP?"
"It's supposed to be like a grenade." Lana replied. "It fries all technology near it for a short time. If we can build one and get it past the fence we should be able to shut down its power source."
Hirani listened to the explanation and nodded thoughtfully.
"I would need access to whatever information we have available to us to figure out how to make it." She mused, looking down at the largely empty map in front of them. "But I should be able to." She added.
"It wouldn't be anything like a solar storm would it?" She looked up at Lana shrewdly, but the woman raised her hands and shook her head with an expression of confusion.
"We'd need to go to Coruscant." Kes grumbled. "That's time I don't think we have."
"What if I were to imitate the effect that a solar storm has on electronics?" Hirani asked thoughtfully. "We would need to find a way to direct it without destroying the data on the computers but it could work."
"It has merit." Lana said thoughtfully, giving Kes a meaningful look.
"How do you propose we get the parts we would need? We have access to the data we need to make it in the ship's terminal; the parts are a different story." Kes said thoughtfully.
~/~/~/~/~/~
Rey stood before the living legend, Luke Skywalker.
He was older than she had imagined him, his unkempt beard flecked with a lighter brown than his sister's own hair and his features were worn down by the years he had lived.
He seemed kind of portly under his robes but his piercing blue eyes were lit by something Rey could not put a name to.
She rushed up to him and pulled his lightsaber out of her pack, offering it to him with shaking hands as he observed the young woman.
Luke reached out to accept the weapon with two hands that couldn't be more mismatched, one a human hand, as wrinkled as his face; one mechanical, only marred by an old scar from a blaster and he looked down at the lightsaber thoughtfully for a moment before he haphazardly tossed it over his shoulder and proceeded to stalk past the hopeful young woman before him without uttering a single word to her.
"Master Skywalker?" Rey asked incredulously, turning on her heal and hurrying after him.
She followed him to a small village perched precariously on the cliffs of the island, seeming as though it should fly off in the incessant wind that battered the monolithic islands of the archipelago, but this she already knew to be a deceptive impression of the cluster of cone-like buildings doggedly hugging the treacherous cliffs of the verdant island.
Rey climbed down some stone steps and looked around, turning towards the protesting screech of durasteel on stone in time to see a banged up panel covering the squat doorway of one abode that stood slightly apart from the others.
She took the few steps to the weathered stone hut and leaned towards the door cautiously.
"Master Skywalker?" She asked again, then licked her lips and breathed in. "I'm from the resistance, your sister Leia sent me." She continued determinedly. "We need your help."
When there was no response from inside the hut she took half a step forward and tapped lightly on the makeshift door with her staff.
"Hello?" She called out, but her only response was a far off cry from some creature somewhere on the island.
Rey turned away and went to retrieve the carelessly discarded lightsaber and stared down at the ocean as it beat itself against the cliffs with a reckless abandon that seemed almost aggressively playful.
Chewy had warned her that it was poisonous to drink because there was too much salt in the water and she chose to trust the Wookie who had seen far more of the galaxy than she could ever hope to.
A break in the waves showed her a submerged fighter, it looked a lot like the x-wings that the resistance used, but she wasn't sure as the constantly shifting water distorted her view of its body.
With renewed determination Rey stood up and returned to the Falcon to enlist the aid of her hirsute travelling companion.
~/~/~/~/~/~/~
Poe's head snapped to the side as Leia slapped him, putting an almost surprising amount of force behind the strike.
"You're demoted." The old general announced angrily and started to walk away from him.
"What? Wait!" Poe stepped in front of her, staring down at her incredulously. "We took down a dreadnought."
"At what cost?" Leia asked him with a furious glare.
"You start an attack, you follow it through." Poe pointed out, frustrated that Leia didn't seem to understand that.
"Poe, get your head out of your cockpit." Leia snapped in response, her face screwing up in obvious frustration, the younger man turned away restlessly and took a breath before turning back to her. "There are things that you cannot solve by jumping in an x-wing and blowing something up!"
Poe looked down at the console beside them, the sting of her words making him feel like an errant boy, instead of the man he was.
"I need you to learn that." Leia finished more gently this time.
Hey guys, back again, just kind of chewing through this one slowly, so it's not going to be chapter a day like the last one.
Let me know what you think.