Star Wars Rebels - Odyssey

Chapter 11: Infiltration

Having 'safely' arrived in the Unknown Regions, the crew now gathered on board the Phantom ready for their next slice of danger.  Hera stood at the front with her arm casually leant on the pilot seat and began to form a quick plan.  "Alright rebels, I know we make advanced plans all the time and they never really...well they never really work so some of you may be wondering what the point of making one now is.  Well we have to, the Empire took great care to try to hide this facility which means that their new weapon must be something pretty terrifying.  It is our mission to blow the kriff out of that weapon so we need a solid plan, any ideas?" she explained whilst taking a breath.  Everyone thought for a few seconds but their minds were stressed as time was not on their side.  They didn't know what the Empire's new weapon was or when it would be ready to be used against the rebel fleet so they had to move quickly.  "Well we're not familiar with this facility so we'll probably want to get our hands on some holoprints somehow.  I'm not sure how though, I doubt the Imperials with have the layout of a top secret base on their encoded holonet" Sabine suggested while faffing around with her detonators.  "Well Imperial regulation states that a high-ranking officer must be present in the main hangar bay at all times, he's sure to have a copy of the holoprints downloaded to his helmet" Kanan added.  "Yeah but how are we gonna get in the hangar unseen, I mean we're working off the assumption that we sneak in, get the prints, get back to the Ghost and then make a proper plan of attack from there.  If we want our actual attack to be successful then we'll need the element of surprise which means we can't be seen whilst getting the prints" Sabine stated.  "Well like Hera said earlier, we have to take the Phantom because the Ghost is too obvious.  If Sabine can briefly top up the layer of Imperial paint that we used in Olansk Station then we should be able to fly right in.  Then we can use the stormtrooper armour from earlier to gain access to the officer directly and then improvise from there" Ezra suggested.  The crew briefly shared a glance and Hera slowly nodded.  "It's hardly perfect but it'll have to do, Sabine you have an hour to get that paint job done.  Let's do this people" she ordered making Sabine rush back to her cabin to grab her sprays.

One hour later:
The phantom detached from the Ghost with a clunk as Hera tried to put herself into the mood set of an Imperial pilot.  That meant monotonous almost robot-like flying and no rash movements, she hated it.  Meanwhile in the passenger area Kanan, Sabine, Zeb and Ezra were all ready in their stormtrooper armour and were priming their blasters just in case.  The plan was simple; the fake stormtrooper squad would enter the facility and Sabine would stealthily set some explosives just out of range of the Phantom, in the chaos that the explosions would cause the team would stun the on-site officer making it look as if the explosion had done so and would retrieve the facility holoprints from his helmets and finally the team would slip out in the Phantom trying to get as little attention as possible.  Of course when did the rebels' plans ever actually...go to plan.  As Kanan had this exact worry in his head, suddenly their time was up as Hera slowly guided the ship into the hangar having not even received a message requesting their ship's signature which was...odd.  The Phantom gently landed as beads of sweat appeared on Hera's face.  She scanned the hangar finding it unusually empty with only one standard patrol of six stormtroopers as well as the officer.  The fake squad nodded at one another before opening the bay doors and stepping out into the cold and strangely quiet hangar.  As they approached the officer, Sabine stealthily split from them and moved behind a small stack of storage crates.  She furtively looked around her before placing several thermal detonators on the ground and jogging back to the Phantom.  She pretended to perform landing checks on the ship, standing next to its landing gears as she watched the rest of the squad meet with the officer.  "Scout squad 00367 reporting in sir" Kanan said with a salute as the officer looked up from his holotablet.  He noticed that a map of the facility briefly appeared on the tablet before looking back up at the officer.  "I don't remember sending out a scout patrol, in fact I don't recognize the number.  Knew I shouldn't have made that number up on the spot Kanan thought as he prepared his reply.  "This scout job was assigned to us by the commander exclusively and we only recently got sent to this facility, that's probably why you don't recognize the number" he answered, feeling sweat pour down his forehead.  "Hm" the officer replied as he returned to tapping on his holotablet.

Meanwhile at the same time in an almost pitch black room, a figure stared at a group of monitors.  The monitors showed different security camera feeds from the Unknown Regions facility's main hangar.  The figure watched with interest as one of the new arrivals scurried off to the side and seemingly placed something on the ground before running back to the ship.  A few seconds later he saw the officer type something into his holotablet and suddenly notice a message appear on one of the monitors.  The message read This new scouting squad has a number I do not recognize, do I bring them in sir.  The figure brought a small microphone to his mouth and began to speak through the officer's earpiece in a dark and foreboding yet calm tone.  "No, they have their plan and we shall soon have ours.  I sense something different about them, allow events to play out.  I want to see what they do".   

Ezra noticed the nerves in Kanan's voice and slowly pulled a small cylinder shaped device from his belt.  He got it behind his back and pointed it in Sabine's direction making a green light subtly flash from the end of it.  Sabine nodded her head slightly and pulled a trigger from her own belt, pressing the red button on it and looking towards the crates.  In an instant, a huge explosion of colourful flames burst the ominous silence in the room and replaced it with absolute chaos.  The actual stormtrooper patrol quickly rushed over to the crates and searched for a way to douse the fire.  "What in the name of..." the officer shouted, interrupted by several stun shots hitting his chest.  "Alright quickly, check his helmet" Ezra said whilst looking around nervously.  "Hang on, I think this tablet has everything we need.  Ok, let's move!" Kanan shouted in reply as he grabbed the tablet and began running back to the Phantom.  They ran towards the ship with Kanan at the rear and just as he was about to get in one of the stormtroopers noticed him and shouted towards him.  "Where do you think you're going?!".  "New orders, we've got to head on another scouting mission" Kanan shouted back as the team silently ushered him in desperately.  "I didn't see the officer give you any orders" the stormtrooper replied raising his blaster.  "Oh no! You got knocked over by the explosion!" Kanan shouted.  Before the stormtrooper could ask what the kriff was going on, Kanan fired a stun shot at him knocking him to the ground unconscious.  As he got on board and closed the bay doors, Hera guided the ship out of the hangar and zoomed out being less careful about her flying now. 

In the passenger area, the crew took off their pale white helmets and threw them to the ground never wanting to wear them again.  "Do you think they suspected us as rebels?" Sabine asked nervously.  "Perhaps at first, the officer seemed to be onto us but the explosion will have made them forget all about us.  They'll think it was an accidental explosion to do with hangar machinery or something allowing us to possess the element of surprise when we actually attack" Kanan replied, secretly thinking about getting Sabine to paint his stormtrooper armour once they were all out of this.  "That's all well and good but we did all of this to get the holoprints so we could come up with an accurate plan of attack.  We need to make one now" Ezra said bringing the rebels back on topic.  So, once they were sure they hadn't been followed by ties, they came up with one.