Stay With Me [L. Skywalker] (REMASTER)

Six

Three months. Three months had passed since Thirteen's last encounter with Skywalker. As promised, she'd been separated from Ziv and was the only occupant in her cell. It made for a long three months, but a thankfully uneventful one. Meetings with Fen gradually slowed from weekly to biweekly as– so he'd told her– the Alliance was focusing harder on their campaign to end the Empire's reign. It was a campaign that months ago, she'd hoped the terrorists would fail spectacularly. But now, she was indifferent to the outcome. She'd all but given up on having an opinion in the matter; it didn't matter anymore. If the Alliance won, she'd remain a prisoner. If they lost, she'd still remain a prisoner up until the Empire arrived, at which point they'd just decimate the whole fleet anyway, taking Thirteen and everyone else with it.

Thirteen's last hope was riding on Kho's escape plan. If they could pull it off, she may be able to get back to the Empire and put this all behind her, maybe even expose her former team for their sabotage. She wasn't even sure she really wanted to go back anyway after the way she was treated and what Fen had been telling her, but it was the only thing she knew. Like it or not, it was home. She'd be able to settle back in fairly easily rather than start a new life on the run.

But that was all pointless to think about for now. She'd have to get out of here first and unfortunately, the plan was not moving along at near the pace she'd hoped. She kept holding up her end of the bargain by conversing with Fen and trying to subtly see if they suspected anything from Kho. So far, nothing. The most Fen had to say about Kho was that they had never seen their species before and that he knew they caused trouble. It wasn't exactly helpful.

Thirteen was sitting around a small table in the rec center with Kho and Nyrein– another man that Kho had recruited for the escape. They did their usual performance of pretending to play cards as they talked in hushed tones to discuss the stage of the plan. They were in a frustrating slump. Kho's team on the outside was ready, but the three on the inside had been hung up on the same problem for over a month now, their only progress being acquiring some schematics of the cruiser they were on. Their problem would have surely been solved sooner, but their time to scheme was limited to whenever they all had rec time together, which wasn't often.

"We've been over this before," Kho hissed, rubbing their face. "The schematics that my crew pulled last month showed that we're nowhere near an outer wall. They'd have to sneak in and break us out, or we'd have to figure out how to get to them."

Kho had a transmitter embedded in their ear that was entirely undetectable on any sensors or security scanners. They could use it to send encrypted messages to their crew, though they had to do this very carefully. The rebels could theoretically pick up their transmissions, which could ruin everything should they be able to decrypt the messages.

"Didn't you say you've had a successful breakout from a much larger prison before?" Nyrein asked, equally frustrated.

"Yes, it's normally doable. But normally there's not a Jedi on speed dial to respond. Even if we somehow can pull off perfect stealth and render ourselves undetectable to automated sensors and remain hidden from everyone's eyes, a Jedi could sniff us out in seconds."

"Is there a way to make ourselves undetectable to even a Jedi?"

"Not with any resources we'd have here," Kho said.

The two argued back and forth a bit more. Thirteen just listened, furrowing her brow as she thought hard. Her eyes flicked from her hand of cards to the other two people and she slapped a card down in the center of the table to get their attention. "Occam's Razor," Thirteen said.

Kho and Nyrein looked at her with confusion.

"It's often tied to science and philosophy: the simplest explanation to a phenomenon is the most likely one. In our case, the simplest solution to our problem is the most likely to work."