Lieutenant Sherrod strode quickly into technical services. As a smaller base, the department was practically a closet, and housed only one desk. "Private!"

The technician jumped in surprise and scrambled to his feet. "Lieutenant!"

"Private, can you tell me if the terminal in the officer's mess is currently in use?"

"Of course, Sir!" The technician quickly reclaimed his seat and began to input commands. "Just one moment…hmm…Yes, Sir, it looks like somebody is using it."

"What's the authorization code?"

"I don't recognize it, Sir. Must belong to someone not stationed on base."

"And what are they accessing?"

"Hmm…I can't tell, Sir. Must be below my security clearance."

The Lieutenant handed the technician his code cylinder. "Try mine."

"Yes, Sir." The Private plugged the cylinder into the receptacle above his key panel and tapped in a few keys. He frowned. "I'm sorry, Sir, but it does not appear that you have access, either."

Surprised, Sherrod yanked out his code cylinder and stormed out of the room without another word.


"I'm not usually one to get jittery," said Janna, scanning the grounds beyond the window for any sign of alarm, "but I'm getting more anxious by the second here, Hovis."

"I'm into Imperial secret projects," he said, pointing to the terminal screen. "I just gotta figure out which of these project codenames is the stealth ship."

"Well, hurry up."

Rosado scrolled through the list. It seemed endless. "I wish they were listed chronologically and not alphabetically. It was from the very beginning of the clone wars, it's probably one of the oldest secret projects in he-" He abruptly cut off.

"What?"

"…I found it. Codename 'Lothwolf Paw' of all things."

Janna turned away from the window and joined Rosado at the terminal, eagerly examining the screen. Digital schematics and architectural drawings scrolled past depicting a long, almost cylindrical starship with a nose cone tapered to a point. The ship was about as tall as the Raventalon, about time and a half again as long, and perhaps twice as wide as the old LAAT gunships; not a large ship by any means. "Neat looking ship."

"Yeah. Never seen it in person, I had no idea what it looks like."

"Well, you're gonna get to see it soon."

"Heh. Yup. If I can find on here where it's been stored."


There was anger and anxiety in Lieutenant Sherrod's step as he quickly headed back toward the officer's mess. He spotted four stormtroopers marching toward him in two-by-two formation.

"You four, with me! On the double!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Here it is! It's in hanger 23 at the…Anaxes Shipyard?"

Janna scratched her chin thoughtfully. "Anaxes…Azure System?"

"That's it." Rosado looked on a bit further while Janna watched the information scroll past from over his shoulder. There were all kinds of schematics, wiring diagrams, and technical specifications for the stealth ship. "Huh. The Battle of Anaxes was such a pivotal front during the Outer Rim Sieges, and yet the Empire just about abandoned the facilities there when the war ended."

"Huh. Why?"

Rosado shook his head. "No idea. All that's there now is a research and development team that uses the assembly complex as a testing ground, and some hangers that…well, apparently house some retired secret projects." He shook his head. "Well, we got what we need." He reached for his code cylinder to remove it from the terminal.

"Hang on!" Janna grabbed his wrist. "We should copy this file and take it with us."

"Why? We know the ship is on Anaxes. Hanger 23. We won't forget."

"But look at all the rest of this information about the ship. What if we steal it and find out the cloaking device doesn't work? Having the schematics would be a big help to fix it."

Rosado nodded. "Good point. But I didn't bring any data storage."

"Don't worry, I came prepared." Janna pulled a datacard from a pocket on her stormtrooper belt and shoved it into the slot.

"Look at you, coming in clutch," Rosado chuckled as he began downloading the secret project file.

"Smuggler rule number one: Never go anywhere without a datacard. You never know when there might be valuable data worth stealing."

With the download complete, Rosado ejected the datacard and handed it back to Janna, who returned it to its compartment on her belt. The former Imperial officer grabbed his stormtrooper helmet from the desktop and pulled it on. Janna, having already donned her helmet, tossed him his blaster riffle.

"Let's beat it before they figure out we're here," she said through the vocoder.

"Agreed. Let's go."

They crossed the officer's mess to the door. Rosado triggered it open and found four stormtroopers aiming their blasters at him on the other side.

"Freeze!"

Janna reacted before her companion could even fully comprehend the situation, firing her blaster into the door controls. The door short-circuited and slid closed.

"I think they know we're here."

Beneath her helmet, Janna rolled her eyes. "You think?" Then: "The other door!"

Janna scrambled past Rosado, sprinting past the food serving station at the front of the room. Halfway there, two stormtroopers entered, opening fire. Janna dove forward behind one of the few tables that she and Rosado had not moved, squeezing off as many shots at the door controls as she could before it vanished from her line of sight. One bolt found its mark and the door closed, sealing off the hallway from Imperial reinforcements, but also trapping herself and Rosado in the officer's mess with a pair of stormtroopers.

Fortunately, as the Imperials were focused on Janna, Rosado had the opportunity to return fire. Even at such close range, it took four shots before he managed to take out one. Janna, now lying on the floor, was able to dispatch the other one shooting under the table, but it still took her three shots.

Rosado pulled off his helmet. "Quick thinking, Janna!"

"Thanks," she replied, hauling herself back to her feet. She removed her own helmet and chucked it to the floor. "Screw this helmet! The Empire seriously expects anyone to hit anything wearing these?" Janna pulled her commlink from her belt. "Tom! Tom, come in! We need help!" There was no response, only static. "Kriff, they must be jamming us."

"What do we do now? We're trapped in here!"

"Now?" Janna shoved her commlink back into her belt and pointed her blaster rifle toward the exterior wall. "Now we climb." The floor-length window exploded in a shower of broken shards as Janna pulled the trigger. Immediately, the room was permeated by the awful smell of the factory's exhaust.

"Ugh!"

Rosado quickly shoved his stormtrooper helmet back on, and Janna scrambled to retrieve hers from the floor.

"Guess we're stuck with these a little longer," Janna groaned.

"It would appear that way."

Rosado led the way to the window ledge. "Oh, boy. It's a really long way down."

"Good thing we're not going down."

"We're not?"

Janna carefully skirted past him and squeezed along the ledge to the edge of the window. Several wiring conduits ran the entire height of the building. "Nope, they'll be expecting that." She hooked the large blaster rifle to her belt and took hold of the conduit, swinging her legs out to it and holding on with her knees. She quickly began to shimmy her way toward the top. "We go up."

"And then what?" Rosado repeated Janna's maneuver to mount the conduit with equal success, but far less grace.

Janna grimaced as the factory's alarm began to blare. "I'll let you know when I figure that part out."


When the two stormtroopers who had entered the officer's mess were unable to be raised on the comms, Lieutenant Sherrod knew they'd been defeated. Now he was storming toward the command deck, commlink in hand.

"This is Sherrod. Jam all unauthorized communications and sound the alarm. We have intruders, likely with stolen intel!"


While Tom occupied his time cleaning his WESTAR-32, Star ceased pacing, but only because she had found another distraction: staring at Marco.

How can he possibly be so calm?

He'd been seated on the cockpit floor, legs crossed, hands in his lap, almost since Janna and Rosado had left. His right eye, the organic one, was closed. His left, the cybernetic one, was dark, the photoreceptor turned off to give the user the illusion of having both eyes closed. He hadn't said a word since Star's earlier outburst, nor had he moved a muscle, save for the steady, consistent rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

"Star, I can feel you staring at me."

Star jumped, surprised. "Sorry, Marco. I just don't know how you can be so…" Marco opened his eye to find Star's face scrunched and contorted as she struggled to find the right word.

"…calm?"

"Calm! At ease! Nonchalant! So…not completely freaking out!" She jumped out of the pilot's seat (narrowly avoiding kicking Tom in the head as she vaulted over the seat back) and landed in a crouch beside her best friend. "How the heck do you do it?"

"Well," said Marco, "Master Fisto taught me some meditation techniques that-"

"Meditation?" Star curled her lips. The word rolled off her tongue as if the syllables themselves tasted putrid. "You know I've never been any good at doing that."

"That's shocking," Tom muttered sarcastically, but he said it to himself.

"Mock all you want, but it works," said Marco. "You should try it. Really empty your mind and just let the Force penetrate every fiber of your being. Very relaxing."

"Yeah, yeah, surrounding, penetrating, yadda yadda, Jedi stuff." Star crossed her legs and took a seat beside Marco on the deck. "Fine, I'll try it. What do I do?"

"Just sit quietly, empty your mind, sit still, and I just remembered who I'm telling to be quiet and sit still."

Star laughed. "Wise guy."

Suddenly, PY-HD let out a loud squeal. Even though Marco still couldn't understand the astromech's binary language, he thought it sounded panicked. "What's going on?"

Tom was already flicking switches as PY-HD's scomp link swiveled back and forth in the console socket. "Pony picked up something on the Imperial frequency. Patching it through…"

The comm lit up as the transmission came across. "…the alarm and lock down the facility! Repeat, intruder alert! Sound the alarm and lock down the facility!"

Marco grimaced. "Uh-oh."

Tom quickly grabbed his commlink. "Janna, do you read me?" No response. "Janna? Can you hear me, Janna?" Silence. "Dank farrick! They must be jamming transmissions!"

"Or they've been captured," Marco muttered glumly.

Tom shook his head. "No, they wouldn't be locking down the base and sounding the alarm if they'd already been captured."

Star hopped into the pilot's seat. "We gotta go rescue our friends! Let's go!"

Tom was already on it. "Powering up the converters now!"

"Guys, wait!" Marco protested. "We can't just fly this thing over that factory! There were anti-aircraft canons on the ground surrounding the facility. They'll blow us to smithereens before we even get close."

Tom slammed a fist against the constellation panel. "Drat, you're right! I can't believe I forgot about that!"

"Well, we can't just sit here and do nothing!" protested Star.

"We could pick them up on the speeder bike if we knew exactly where they were on the ground," Marco suggested. "The canons probably can't even angle down far enough to hit it."

Tom thought for a moment. "Pony Head, did you get a scan of the facility when we were there?"

The droid replied that it had. It disconnected from its terminal and rolled to the center of the floor. The holoprojector build into its dome produced a three-dimensional map of the facility and surrounding grounds onto the floor. Tom hopped from the copilot's seat and joined Star and Marco in examining it.

The entire facility was surrounded by a tall privacy fence, with two breaks providing entrances. The huge main factory building stood near the main entrance, facing east. It comprised of two main sections. The assembly plant, huge, rectangular and covered in piping and conduits. A trio of exhaust stacks jutted from the northwest corner of the building, spewing their noxious fumes into the air. On the rear corner opposite the stacks was the tower, several stories taller than the assembly plant. It was more square in shape, and was topped by a command deck with windows giving a three-hundred-sixty degree view of the complex.

Behind the main building were a few smaller buildings. The largest of which, surrounded by stacks of shipping crates, was clearly a warehouse where finished components from the factory were stored before being loaded onto waiting freighters. Another building, slightly smaller, likely housed a few shuttles. The space between those buildings and the assembly facility was marked as a landing pad, and beside it was the fuel depot, a tall, cylindrical structure surrounded by a scaffolding of ladders.

"Okay, where would be the best spot for a quick pickup via speeder bike?" Tom asked.

"Not the main entrance," said Marco. "Or any entrance for that matter. They'll be too many guards."

Star pointed to a spot on the west side of the facility, about a hundred meters to the south of the rear entrance. There stood a large tree, a single piece of the jungle left untouched within the facility fence. "What about this tree? See? It's got a branch hanging over the fence. If they climbed it, they could drop right off on the other side, and we could pick them up!"

Tom nodded, a gleam of determination in his three eyes. "That could work."

"Only one problem," Marco said, rising to his feet. "If the Empire is jamming their transmissions, how do we contact them to tell them where to meet us?"

Tom's face fell. "Oh, yeah…that's a problem, isn't it?" He stood, as did Star, and PY-HD switched off its holoprojector. "How do we contact them…?"

Star spoke up. "Wait a minute…if the Empire is jamming comms signals, how did we pick up that broadcast about putting the base on lockdown?"

"They can jam specific frequencies," Tom explained. "When Pony Head picked it up, she said that message was broadcast on the emergency channel, which they obviously didn't jam because they want all of their personnel to hear it."

Marco snapped his fingers. "Clone troopers had communicators built into their helmets. Stormtroopers probably have the same!"

Star's eyes widened. She understood. "And since Janna and Hovis are wearing stormtrooper armor, they probably heard it, too!"

Tom turned to PY-HD. "Pony, can you use the short-range transmitter to highjack the Imperial's emergency comm frequency to broadcast a message?"

The droid whistled.

"Excellent. Do it." Tom hopped back into the copilot's seat, prepared to send his message over the comm. The astromech returned to its console, reconnecting and honing in on the Empire's frequency.

"Uh, how are you going to make sure only Janna and Hovis can hear it?" Star asked.

"…Kriff. I don't know." Tom looked at PY-HD, and the droid twittered back an indignant response. "Kriff!" Tom slumped down in his seat, dejected. But then, suddenly, he sat up again, a mischievous grin stretching across his face. "We don't care if the Empire hears our message as long as they have no idea what the message means. We just have to send Janna and Hovis a message in code."

Marco scratched his chin. "That works. Do you and Janna have some kind of secret code you made up or something?"

"We do not. We're just going to have to come up with something and hope they can figure it out and the Empire can't." Tom thought for a moment. "Hey, Pony, what are the exact coordinates of that tree?"

The droid quickly relayed the sequence of numbers.

Tom nodded. "I think I may have an idea…"


Rosado was getting tired. Holding onto the electrical conduit would have been difficult enough without the bulky stormtrooper disguise. The smooth armor lacked any kind of grip, and not losing traction required a death grip. He wanted to shout up to Janna and ask her what exactly they were doing, but he was worried doing so would give away their position.

Fortunately for him, he didn't have to wait long to find out. Two floors up from where their climb began, Janna swung herself onto another window ledge. Moving stealthy, she crouched beneath the window as Rosado hauled himself up to the same level.

"What are you doing?"

Before Janna could reply, the commlinks in each of their helmets crackled on. "Intruder alert! Sound the alarm and lock down the facility! Repeat: Intruder alert! Sound the alarm and lock down the facility!"

The transmission was punctuated by the continued blaring of the emergency siren.

"This just keeps getting better and better." Janna took a deep breath and held it, quickly removing her helmet and cautiously raising her head to peak through the window. The room beyond appeared to be an office, likely that of the commanding officer. Fortunately, it appeared deserted.

Eyes burning from the acrid air, Janna quickly replaced her helmet and sucked in a deep breath. "Coast is clear. Let's go back inside."

"If we must."

Rather than shoot out this window as she had done two stories down, Janna struck it with the butt end of her blaster rifle. She hopped through the shattered pane into the office and Rosado followed. A large desk sat before them. Janna pushed the chair out of the way and woke up the computer perched upon it. "Maybe we can use this to contact the ship, or at least shut down the signal jammer."

"Don't waste your time," said Rosado. "Office computers like this never have control abilities like that. Only the command deck does."

"Drat."

"Come on, we should move. If they've got the place on lockdown, they'll be sweeping each floor."

"Ooh, hang on, this could be useful."

"What?"

"The schematics to the facility." She shook her head. "Too bad I don't have a way of viewing these as we go. Could be helpful." Janna switched off the computer. "Alright, let's move."

They headed for the exit and Hovis was just about to trigger the door when the comm in his helmet crackled on. Janna heard it, too. The voice on the other end of the transmission was not that of some unknown Imperial officer, but rather, a very familiar one.

It was Star.

"This is General Caterpillar of the Galactic Empire!" Star made her voice as deep as she could manage, putting as much gravitas behind her words as she could muster. Janna and Rosado looked at each other, silently asking and confirming that they were indeed both hearing the same thing. "Since our uninvited guests are no doubt listening in to Imperial transmissions, I have a message for you. If you think you're smart, all high and mighty for being able to infiltrate our base, you're wrong. You're nothing but scum! How do you look at yourselves in the mirror? If you're on the fence about your chances of escaping, maybe it's better you just surrender now. You wouldn't want to be stuck like a lothcat up a tree." Star spoke slowly, placing extra emphasis on the words "mirror," "fence," and "tree." Janna could see Rosado gently shaking his head, clearly extremely confused. But, if Star's transmission wasn't confusing enough, it became even stranger when she suddenly rattled off a string of numbers. "Seven-three-two-eight-eight-three-five-eight-one-four." There was a slight pause. "Surrender now, and perhaps you'll live. I'll be waiting."

And then the comm channel went silent.

"What the heck was that?" Rosado asked.

Janna didn't answer right away. Her attention was fixed on the door control. As a private office, this door had a lock, and she quickly activated it. "I think that was an escape plan."

"It was?"

Janna was already returning to the computer. "That string of numbers Star said were coordinates," she explained as she pulled up the schematics of the facility again.

"You think she wants us to go there to be picked up?"

"That's what I'm guessing." Janna searched the computer files and found a planetary map with grid coordinates. She merged the two together, laying the facility map on top of the planet, plotted out the numbers Star had given and-

-frowned.

"The heck…?"

"What?"

"That's all the way on the other side of the planet." Janna leaned heavily on the desk. "I don't understand."

"What about the other things Star said?" Rosado suggested.

"What about them?"

"The way she spoke…it seemed like she was trying to draw our attention to certain words."

"Was she? I was so focused on memorizing those numbers, I can't even remember the rest of the message. What did she say?"

Rosado winced beneath his helmet. "Honestly…I can't remember. The only one I recall for sure was 'tree.'"

Janna suddenly perked up. "Wait a second…I remember…Star said something about 'How do you look at yourself in the mirror,' or something like that. What if-?"

"The coordinates have to be read backwards!" Rosado exclaimed. "Like in a mirror!"

"…Yeah. That."

"Sorry, I got excited."

Janna inverted the coordinates and plotted them.

"Well?" Rosado asked, trying to look over her shoulder but not seeing much. "Does it fall closer to the facility now?"

Janna turned around to look at him. "Did you say Star said something about a tree?"

"Yeah. 'Like a Lothcat stuck up a tree,' I think."

Janna pushed Rosado aside and stepped back through the broken window, leaning out as far as she could to see past the side of the tower. She could just make out the massive tree standing resolute beside the fence encompassing the facility. It grew on the exact point the coordinates from Star specified.

"Okay. I get it." Janna jumped back through the window. "We need to get higher up. Let's go."


Marco swung his leg over the speeder bike and Tom held out to him a respirator and a pair of goggles. "Here."

"What's this for?"

"Remember how bad it smelled when we were two klicks away from the factory?"

"Yeah?"

"Imagine how bad it'll be up close."

"Goooooood point." Marco accepted the protective gear, hanging the respirator around his neck by the strap.

"As soon as you rescue Janna and Hovis and get out of range of their ground canons, we'll swoop in wherever you are and pick you up."

Marco gave a teasing grin. "I sure hope you'll be the one doing the flying."

Star rolled her eyes. "Yes, I'm just assisting this time." She glanced at Tom. "Give us a sec?"

Tom nodded. "I'll be in the cockpit. Good luck, bro."

"Thanks, Tom."

When Tom had gone, Star stepped close to the speeder bike and made hard eye contact with her best friend. "Please be careful, Marco."

"Aren't I always?"

Star didn't say anything. She hesitantly leaned forward and gave Marco a gentle kiss on the lips.

Marco was taken by surprise. He and Star had not shared much affection beyond hand holding since Janna had resolved the tension between them.

"I love you, Marco."

And she hadn't said that since before they faced off against Inquisitor Hekapoo.

Marco smiled. "I love you, too, Star." He kept his eyes trained on her as he strapped on the goggles and respirator. Then he fired up the speeder's engine and guided the bike out of the hold of the Raventalon and down the ramp before twisting the throttle forward and accelerating off into the distance.


Janna and Rosado traversed the facility with great care. Despite their presence having been discovered, they still had the advantage of wearing disguises that made them indistinguishable from every other stormtrooper in the facility. They fell in step at the back of a squadron patrolling the corridor until Janna motioned to a closed door on their right. Careful not to attract the attention of the squad walking just ahead of them, they dropped out of line and halted beside the door. Once the stormtroopers had turned the corner, the pair found themselves alone in an otherwise deserted corridor, the incessant blare of the alert siren echoing down the hallway.

"Okay, in here. Weapons ready. Set to stun, makes less noise." Janna checked that her blaster's safety was off and waited until Rosado had done the same and signaled that he was ready. "Three, two, one." Janna triggered the door open.

The trio of officers seated at their desks looked up in surprise. "Troopers! What-?!"

The officer was cut off as Janna stunned him. The other two frantically scrambled for sidearms, but they, too, found themselves stunned. Less than five seconds after the door was opened, and all three officers lay unconscious on the floor behind their desks. Janna and Rosado entered the office, closing and disabling the door behind them.

Rosado removed his helmet. It was giving him a headache. "Why'd we come in here?"

"There's a ladder on the side of the building a little ways down from that window that will give us access to the roof. I saw it on the building schematic." Janna crossed the room to the window. She couldn't find a way to open it. "Well, guess I'm breaking another window." She raised her blaster.

"Ooh, can I do it this time?"

"Why?"

"…Because it looked really fun when you broke the other one."

Janna stepped back. "Be my guest."

Rosado donned his helmet once more. He strode over to the window, raised his blaster, and struck the pane with the butt end. The window vanished as it exploded into uncountable tiny pieces, tinkling onto the floor.

"Was it everything you'd hoped it'd be?" Janna asked.

"Yeah, it was." The smile behind his helmet was evident in his voice.

Rosado followed Janna out onto the window ledge. The ladder was a few meters beyond the end, out of reach. Janna grabbed onto a pipe mounted horizontally to the wall. "Here we go climbing again. Good thing you're not afraid of heights, huh?"

Rosado looked down from where he stood, mentally estimating how high off the ground they were. "Oh, yeah. Not at all scared of heights. Being high up never killed anyone. Falling from high up, on the other hand..."

Janna checked out the ground, as well, but for a much different reason. There was no shortage of stormtroopers marching back and forth below, searching for the two imposters wherever they may be hiding. "Let's make this quick. We're too exposed out here."

"Oh, yeah, I'm afraid of that, too."

Carefully gripping the pipe and using another below as a foothold, the pair carefully shimmied their way from the window ledge to the service ladder. The ladder stretched all the way to the ground, and was clearly not meant to be accessible from anywhere other than there.

Once they reached the ladder, they climbed quickly to the roof, where they felt significantly less likely to be spotted. They hurried across to the west end of the tower roof. Even through the hazy, smokey air, their target was easily visible in the distance: the massive tree standing several stories tall just inside the fence.

"Okay, there it is," said Janna. "Now we just need a way to get over there."

"Why did we come up on the roof if we're trying to get all the way over there?"

"Because that's just what they'd be expecting."

"Oh. And how exactly are we going to get over there?"

"…I'm working on that."

Janna scanned the rooftop, searching for inspiration. Her eyes landed on an upright antenna perched near the edge of the roof. A cable was attached to it, running out across the complex. The other end was fastened to a similar antenna atop the fuel silo, which was at least three stories shorter than the factory tower.

"What the heck is that?" Janna asked.

"A short-range comms booster. The metal cable is basically a huge antenna receiver. It doesn't pick up transmissions as clearly as a communications array, but it's much lower maintenance."

"Well, now it's also our ticket out of here."

"Huh?"

Janna led a very puzzled Rosado over to the antenna. "This cable is a perfect zip line over to that fuel silo. That's over halfway to the tree. Best of all, they'll never be expecting us over there.""

Rosado looked over the edge again. A fall from this height would most certainly be fatal. "Uh…remember before when you asked if I was afraid of heights? If I wasn't before, I definitely am now."

"Oh, come on. This'll be easy."

"Sure it will. And since you can't see my face right now, I'm rolling my eyes."

Janna ignored him. She swung her blaster above her head and over top of the receiver cable, holding the grip in her right hand and clenching her left tightly around the barrel. "Good thing we don't care about these blasters. This'll work perfectly."

"And if someone sees us, we'll be sitting ducks."

"Okay, Mr. Negative, that's- actually a pretty good point."

"We need a distraction, down on the ground, so no one is even looking up."

"That's easy. All we need is something explosive and unshielded on the ground that we can shoot from up here."

So they set about scoping out an easily combustible target. It was difficult to see smaller objects on the ground through the smokey haze from the exhaust stacks. The pair traced their way along the edge of the building, eventually turning the corner onto the south side of the tower. No sooner had they done so, Janna spotted a target.

"Those look like power cells for a really big canon."

Rosado looked where she was pointing. Stacks of finished munitions had just been carted out of the factory and were awaiting transport around the corner to the storage buildings. "They sure are. Those are what power the main battery guns on a Star Destroyer."

"They'll make a nice big ka-boom, then." Janna motioned toward the antenna with her head. "Get in position and be ready to slide as soon as I give you the signal. I'll be right behind you."

"Why do I have to go first?"

"Because I know it's gonna take you longer to psych yourself up and be ready."

"That's true."

So Rosado trotted away to the antenna. His thumb hooked through the trigger guard to help ensure he would not lose his hold on the blaster grip, he swung the weapon atop the cable as Janna had. With a deep breath to calm his nerves, he nodded toward Janna.

Captain Ordonia lay down on her stomach, resting her own blaster on the edge of the roof to help hold it steady. "This kriffing helmet…" she muttered to herself as she attempted to take aim. For such a long shot, it was even more difficult to tell if the barrel of the blaster was pointed at her target. At last, she gave up. Taking a deep breath and holding it, Janna pulled off the stormtrooper helmet and set it beside her. The acrid air burned her eyes and nostrils. She closed her left eye, lined up her shot, and pulled the trigger.

*KER-BOOM!*

The explosion was ever bigger than Janna had been expecting. She'd only struck one power cell, but its combustion triggered the others around it. The shockwave shoved Janna backwards a few centimeters, but worse, the impact knocked the air from her lungs. She instinctively inhaled, filling her lungs with the smoke in the air around her. She coughed violently as she desperately tried to gain a breath, her vision blurring with tears as her eyes burned. Frantically, Janna rolled over onto her side, searching for her helmet. But it, too, had been moved by the shockwave of the blast, and she could not locate it.

And then suddenly, the helmet was being shoved onto her head. She coughed a few more times, blinking the tears from her eyes, and looked up. Rosado stood over her, already grabbing her arm and hauling her back to her feet.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah. *cough! cough!* Yeah, I'm good. Thanks."

"No problem. Let's go!"

Janna spared a passing glance over the edge of the roof. A fire crew was already hauling out hoses and equipment to fight the blaze that burned in the pile of exploded ammunition. Squadrons of stormtroopers frantically scrambled around to move other explosives out of range of the fire.

Perfect.

They quickly returned to the antenna.

"You sure you don't want to go first?" asked Rosado.

"Positive. Go!"

The former Imperial officer slung his blaster rifle over the cable for a second time, grasped the barrel and grip with a white-knuckled hold, took a deep breath, and took off running. When he reached the edge of the roof, he pushed off hard and let momentum carry him forward. An anti-rust coating covered the cable, and had a much lower coefficient of friction than that durasteel within. Combined with the steep downward angle, the blaster slid along the topside of the cable with ease, and the former Imperial Officer picked up speed rapidly. Rosado bit his lip to keep himself from screaming.

He did scream when he neared the bottom. With no way to slow himself down, Rosado was about to crash into the fuel silo-mounted antenna face-first. Rather than suffer the impact, he let go of his blaster as soon as his legs were over the walkway atop the silo, dropping off sideways so that he would roll. For once, the stormtrooper armor was a benefit, cushioning the fall and tumble and eventual crash into guardrail behind the antenna.

"Owwww…"

Janna arrived a few moments later. She held onto the grip of her blaster when she dropped off, landing on her feet in an involuntary run until she had dissipated the momentum of the slide. She noticed Rosado laying on his back a few meters away. "You good, Dude?" she asked. She felt short of breath. Holding onto the blaster through the zip line from the tower had taken a lot of effort, and she hadn't yet quite recovered from inhaling the smokey air. She breathed hard.

"More or less," Rosado groaned, gingerly sitting up.

Still catching her breath, Janna walked to the edge of the walkway. She could see the fire crews still battling the blazing munitions below. "We should move while they're still distracted," she told Rosado as she returned.

"Okay." The man staggered to his feet, more than a little sore from the rough dismount. He looked around the walkway on which they stood. "Where'd my blaster rifle go?"

Janna searched for it, too, but couldn't spot it. "I don't see it. Hopefully you won't need it." She spotted the top of the spiral scaffolding that provided the way down on the opposite side of the fuel silo. "There's our way down. We've gotta go."

"Lead the way."

As they crossed the walkway bridge over the top of the silo, Janna fished a small, half-spherical object from her belt and casually tossed it over the side. The magnet attached to the back clamped onto the top of the tank beneath her.

"What was that?" Rosado asked.

Janna gave a smug grin as she spun the detonator control between her fingers. She slipped it up her right sleeve. "An insurance policy."


Marco slowed the speeder as he neared the Imperial base. Gradually decelerating, he left the pathway worn into the swamp floor and headed into the trees. He wove his way between the foliage, occasionally using his lightsaber to slice away vines and branches that blocked his path, keeping well into the woods to stay out of sight. Eventually, he ventured closer to the edge of the tree line, close enough to see the privacy wall built around the facility. He continued onward until he drew even with the westward-facing fence. He could see the branches of the huge tree growing inside, its top-most branches stretching nearly a hundred meters into the Rori sky. But he drew his attention to a large, sturdy branch that grew almost parallel to the ground, stretching over the fence. That would be the extraction point.

Marco let go of the handgrips and sat back in the seat, eyes locked on the branch. "And now we wait."


By the time Janna and Rosado reached the bottom of the stairs, they were both winded and out of breath. Fortunately, there was less than 50 meters of open space to cover to reach the base of the tree. There was only one thing standing between them and freedom: squadrons of stormtroopers patrolling the exterior fence.

"It's so close," Rosado panted. "And yet so far away. How do we get past the patrols?"

"We're just gonna walk right out there like we belong."

So they did. Marching side-by-side, they crossed the empty space to the tree. No one gave them even so much as a second glance.

At last they reached the base of the tree, it's trunk even bigger around than the exhaust stacks atop the factory. The fence was built nearly against the backside of the tree, so the space to use as cover was limited. They would have to be quick.

"Now what?"

"This is the easy part." Janna held up her blaster rifle. "Ascension cable." She fired it straight into the air. The grapple end stuck into a sturdy branch, the same one that hung out over the fence. She handed the blaster to Rosado. "You go up first and toss it back down to me."

"Got it."

Triggering the ascension cable to retract, Rosado rose up the tree and carefully climbed onto the branch. It wasn't until he looked down to drop the blaster back to Janna that he realized just how high up he was - nearly two stories stood between himself and the ground.

Janna caught the blaster as Rosado dropped it back to her.

Just as Janna's feet lifted off the ground, they came under attack.