The Knight's Move

"The guards are here, here, here, basically all over the damn place." Ji-To pointed to a hologram filling the small room. Its blue light created scary shadows on the trooper's face."If we make it past the orbital controls, we will be landing somewhere here, the archive is all the way on the other side, as far away from crazy intruders as possible."

"Intruders like us," Haladin reminded. "So how far do we get before they roast our skin for the emperor's breakfast?"

"That's disgusting." Wando shivered. "But don't worry, it won't get that far. Right, Ji-To?"

"I sure damn hope so. Not if the uniforms Wj found are authentic enough."

"Are ye insulting me abilities?" Wj, the strong Weequay, was almost a foot taller than Ji-To. His temper was as fiery as the storms on Galgola XII, and it was hard to tell which was scarier about him - the muscular arms or the quick trigger finger.

"Nah, it's all fine. You did a great job getting these. I'm sure, the imperials won't even notice the fucking blaster holes in them!"

"They will do fine!", Kanta interrupted, before Wj could get to his feet. He jumped between them to keep them at a distance. "This will be a quick in, quick out. No one will have time to notice anything. Please go on, Ji-To."

"As I was saying," Ji-To continued with an angry glare at the Weequay, "the archive is at the very back of the facility. This means, if we don't want anybody to catch on to us, we need to stay out of sight for as long as possible. There is a small path around the outside and it is rarely used. We should make a good part of the way, if we manage to follow it to a side entrance, somewhere here." He stepped into the hologram, tracing the pathway with his finger until he stopped near a solid wall.

"Isn't taking a secret path even more suspicious than walking straight down the middle?"

"Haladin is right. Shouldn't we try to blend in instead?"

"You can try. But at latest by the weaponry and armor control we'll be killed. Trust me, this is the best way." Ji-To turned back to the hologram. "Once we get in here, all we need to do is get down to the archive, find the entry for Galgola and delete it. Then, whenever a ship synchronizes with it, we will be wiped from their memory as well. Easy peasy."

Wj just grunted. Haladin was equally sceptical.

"What if something goes wrong? With all due credit, these plans are old. Maybe they changed their security." Copad Nurman leaned in the door frame, wearing his helmet as he always did. If it weren't obvious enough that he was a Mandalorian, the pictogram of a Mythosaur on his shoulder cleared the last bit doubt off of everybody's mind. He hadn't been born to be a Mandalorian, but rather was adopted into their culture at an unusually old age, being long considered a full adult by their standards. As a result, he made sure everyone around him knew that he was a Mando now by all means.

"That is a possibility." the trooper was forced to admit. "But there is no way to obtain new plans of the archive without actually going there and scanning it ourselves. We will have to make do with what we have. Just trust me this one time."

"You say all we need to do is stroll down the hallways and get to the archive", Kanta recalled. "But how do we get in there? Surely they won't welcome us with open arms."

"I have an old ID card", Ji-To explained. "It's possible it'll still get us inside."

"This plan is built on a lot of possibilities," Copad interrupted, but Ji-To ignored him as he continued.

"Once we're in, Wando will override the vault's controls to lock us on the inside. From that point on, we have precisely five minutes before the fireworks start. We need to find the record for Galgola, delete it and then somehow find a way out, before that happens. If necessary, we can just wipe the whole thing!"

"No", Kanta interrupted. "Like it or not, but our own nav computers depend on their archives. If we wipe everything, the entire galaxy will be lost."

"That's true. Too much damage to them will deal harm to us as well." It was Haladin who seconded the former pilot. "Also we want to cause a blow to them, not to others."

"We don't want to deal a blow to anybody," Wando corrected. "We just get us off the radar and that's it. There is enough hostility in the galaxy, we don't need any more of that."

"Quick in, quick out," Kanta repeated. "Just everybody stick to the plan and we'll be back home in no time."

"Exactly. So, does everybody know what they need to do?" Ji-To looked around.

"No, not at all."

"Great. Let's get going!"