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xxvii.
retracing steps
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•••
"Why did you call me on the ship?" Gregor asked. "I was having a great time outside. You know, getting fresh air, enjoying life not near a junkyard. I need the sun. I look pale since we were always inside in Bracca."
"Shut up about your vanity," Echo snapped. "We need to make a plan concerning what we're going to do after we leave Kamino."
"Why?"
"Just stop asking questions," Rex said. "First, we need to see where we went wrong in terms of everything. How did we get thrown into this mess."
Hunter sighed, leaning against the wall of the interior of the ship, crossing his arms. "Cid gave us a mission to steal spice from the pykes on Oba Diah quite a while ago. Prior to us arriving on the planet, we determined that our mission was too dangerous for Omega to participate in. But, during that mission, some Trandoshans that were working for the empire kidnapped Omega from the ship. When we got back, we had no idea what had happened. We searched for her for weeks, until Cid finally got some information on what had happened. She told us that Omega had been taken to Wasskah. So, we went there, and were able to rescue Omega but not without the empire seeing that we had been there. Omega was injured during the escape, she was shot twice. After we got back to Ord Mantell, the only jobs Cid had for us were jobs which required retrieving tactical droids from various planets in the Corellian sector. During several of those missions, Omega was unconscious, and after she had regained consciousness, Cid had a different job for us. But the details of that job aren't important. After that mission was completed, and we returned the bounty to Cid, she assigned us another job. On our way to that job is when we found out about Omega's condition. And you know the rest."
"So what it sounds like," Echo started, "is we need to figure out what's going on at Wasskah."
"Why does that even matter?" Hunter asked.
"Because we don't know why they took Omega. We aren't aware of why they put an inhibitor chip in her head. We need to get to the bottom of this."
Rex sighed. "You're not going to like this, but the only way we can get the Wasskah plans is on Coruscant. So, therefore, we're going to need to come up with quite the plan to even get on the planet, much less extract the plans from the extensive database in which they are located."
"So basically what you're saying is that we're screwed?" Gregor asked.
"That's exactly what I'm saying," he replied.
"No, we aren't," Hunter chimed in.
"That was a quick change of mind," Echo said.
"How aren't we screwed?" Gregor asked Hunter.
"Echo can disguise the ship as another. We can easily get into the planet if we have clearance codes that work. The problem is once we're on the planet, we need disguises. We need to look like imperials. Thankfully, many clones still serve the empire so we'll fit right in."
"Echo isn't going to fit in is he? He's a machine. He'll stick out like a sore thumb," Gregor argued.
"He's going to be a droid."
"Hunter are you fucking kidding me?" Echo angrily asked.
"No."
"Again?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because it's what needs to be done."
Echo rolled his eyes. "Fine. But I'm never, and I mean, never, disguising myself as a droid again after this mission."
"You probably won't need to. With this dumb plan, as Hunter's plans usually are, we'll most likely won't even make it out of the mission alive," Gregor said, rolling his eyes.
"You always seem to degrade my ideas," Hunter said. "Do you have a better plan?"
"No, but I know a shitty plan when I hear one."
"Where are we going to get the disguises from? And it's not like we have any credits to spare. We'd need to make more money before we go to Coruscant," Rex asked.
"Simple," Hunter continued. "Before we got sidetracked, you know, having to go to Bracca and all, Cid had sent us on a mission. A mission to extract several crates of spice from Kessel. If we go through with the mission, we should have enough credits to get disguises."
"That's great, but it still doesn't answer my first question. Where are we going to get the disguises from?"
"I don't know," Hunter replied, gritting his teeth in pain, grabbing his right arm with his left.
"Are you doing alright, Hunter?" Echo asked.
"I'm fine," he responded quickly. "Just a little sore, that's all."
"How is the Coruscant part of the plan going to work?" Gregor asked, trying to find any flaw in Hunter's plan.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean what I said. Who's doing what."
"Echo, Rex, and myself will be getting the plans from the database. You and Tech will stay on the ship, guarding the ship and everything in it."
"We need four people to go inside the headquarters," Rex said.
"Why?"
"Two people are needed to get the actual plans, and two people need to guard the entrances that lead to the database."
"But two people are needed on the ship."
"This is normally where Wrecker would come in. But under these circumstances-"
"We need an extra person," Echo said.
"Or we could do our best with the people we have?" Gregor argued again.
"After Wrecker's life was lost I'm not taking any chances. We need another person."
"Omega can guard one of the entrances."
"She's ill, Gregor. That won't work. She needs rest while she's away from Bracca."
"Then what do we do?"
"What I've been saying. We need another person for this mission to be successful," Echo responded.
"Howzer," Rex muttered.
"Who?" Gregor asked.
"We need to break Howzer out of prison."
"We can't do that."
"Then who do you suggest we get? Cody? Wolffe? They're gone. Lost to their inhibitor chips like Jesse and before that Tup. The only person we can get is Howzer."
"We can do that, Gregor. We broke you out of a prison before, remember?" Hunter said.
"I was the one leading that mission for the most part."
"No, you weren't."
"Okay, guys, let's stop arguing," Rex continued. "Another thing we need to decide is when we're going back to Bracca. We've been here for five rotations, so I think another two or three rotations would be good? We let the situation die down a little, so no one should be going to Bracca to look for us at the present moment."
"I think two rotations is good. I've tried communicating with Tech to get his opinion on when we should come back and he hasn't answered. And the one time he did, he was extremely upset. I don't know what's going on over there, but something could be seriously wrong. We should go back as soon as possible."
"Is that true?" Gregor asked.
"If it wasn't, why would I bring it up during planning?"
"Taking that into consideration, we should go back to Bracca as soon as possible. Two rotations seems like the best option," Rex said, agreeing with Hunter.
"So that's the plan?" Gregor continued to argue.
"What's your problem now?" Echo asked.
"It's a dumb plan! So many things can go wrong."
"There isn't a better option," Rex added.
"This plan has to work. For us. For Omega," Hunter said. "That's final."