Project Boussh: Plan B
by Durandir

Even disguised as they were, it had been slow going for Rescue Team One. The
stormtrooper armor was as much hindrance as help most of the time. This
became especially clear the first time they ran into a group of the
ubiquitous Defel Droids. They had passed officers and stormtroopers, like
their own reflections in a mirror, who had not given them a second look, but
the three droids came straight at them, brisk and businesslike. Even the
weapons that the droids were pointing at them seemed exceptionally
businesslike--Becki had the impression of agents simply and calmly carrying
out their duty. It alarmed her, somehow, that their duty was taking them so
plainly, without hesitation, to intercept Rescue Team One. As if they
*knew*.

Still, no point in a disguise if you don't make use of it, so they began as
they'd begun each time before, with Tede playing the arrogant officer while
the rest of them backed him up in their stormtrooper gear. Each time before
it had worked brilliantly; the Imperials they had encountered swallowed the
act without a sign of suspicion.

But apparently they'd worn out their welcome, or anyway the disguises did
not fool these droids quite so thoroughly as they had the flesh-and-blood
officers and troopers. The droid speaking with Tede began to bring up his
weapon.

Becki's piccolo was halfway to her mouth even before Tede signaled to her.
But it wasn't until he signaled, just about at that halfway point, that she
realized the problem. She'd been worrying somewhat about how she would
finger the tiny silver keys, wearing the white gauntlet of the stormtrooper
armor--it didn't seem to interfere too much with the firing of blasters, but
piccolo fingerings called for a bit more precision. She had occasionally,
whenever they passed through quiet, unoccupied hallways where with any luck
no one would see, raised the instrument and practiced the high C fingering,
just to be sure.

So how, in all of that, had she overlooked the fact that, fingering or no
fingering, there would be a white wall of helmet between mouth and
mouthpiece when she finally had to play the note?

"Oops," Becki said. "Plan B."

They didn't actually have a Plan B. But her team did know a thing or two
about improvisation. Since Becki, at the moment, had only the piccolo in
hand (and she doubted its usefulness as a weapon extended much beyond the
high C quirk--a tuba, now, or trombone even, that would be something useful
at least as a club of sorts, but the only real damage one could do with a
piccolo involved eardrums, and there was still that matter of the helmet),
she ducked out of the way. Corran's lightsaber sprang to life, spinning
toward the lead droid, while the rest of Rescue Team One opened fire on the
other two droids. By the time Becki had her helmet off, only one of the
droids was still functional enough for her belated high C to put it to
sleep.

"Good work," she said, surveying the damage. Three war droids out of
commission; one officer, four stormtroopers, and one green-and-white
astromech, all looking quite whole. Well, almost whole. "Fenya, you're
hurt?"

"No ma'am," the reticent Mendellian replied, pulling off the gauntlet with
the scorch marks that had caught her attention. "Not bad, anyway. Knocked
the gun out of my hand before I could get off a shot, but the glove
deflected the droid's shot mostly. Stings a little, but no harm done."

She looked his hand over and was relieved to find that it was indeed so.
"Lucky for you," she said. "For us all. I guess this armor's good for
something, after all." But then it was still quite a hindrance--especially
where the piccolo was concerned. She couldn't very well run around this ship
wearing all the armor except the helmet, just so she would be prepared to
blow a droidstopper note when necessary. A girl wearing helmetless
stormtrooper armor would draw just a bit too much attention. With the
complete stormie suit she was as good as invisible in this environment--but
then her piccolo was of no use to her. But the armor, the disguise, had
proved useful up until now; could they afford not to wear it?

A sudden gasp from Corran interrupted her thoughts. "Vickie!" the Jedi
whispered, eyes wide as he looked suddenly toward the ceiling as if he would
see straight through it.

"What?" Becki said. "Is this the clone?" They had all heard Sci's
announcement, confirming a portion of their own speculations, just minutes
ago, before the encounter with the droids. "Or..."

"This is the original," said Corran. "In fact, I can feel both of them. Or I
could; now she's gone again--Vickie, I mean. Kelly is still outside the
ysalamiri bubbles, presumably with Sci's group. I've sensed her all along,
but Vickie just now appeared out of nowhere, almost, and then disappeared
again."

"So..."

"A gap in the bubbles, I think."

"So," she said again, a smile slowly claiming her face, "that means now we
have the scent. Or we know where to start looking, anyway. Sort of. You know
where on the ship she was when you sensed her?"

"Several levels up. And I think--I'm not sure--but I think they were heading
more or less in the direction of the bridge."

"That's good. Confirms our guesses."

"Or it's bad," Fir reminded her, "because do we really want the bridge to be
where we find them? That's a bit in over our heads, you know--even in this
armor we'll be noticed there, if we can even get in."

"I know," she sighed, "but we've been in over our heads ever since the
Admonitor showed up to orbit our world. So there's no going back. If our
people are on the bridge, then we'll just have to go and get them. Somehow."

"We aren't far from the bridge now," Tede said. "But security will be
tighter, the nearer we come. And I expect we'll see more and more of the war
droids as we come nearer, too."

She guessed well enough what he was telling her. "And we can't afford to
spend too much time *shooting* at the droids when we could get past them in
seconds with the high C. All right, I think the time has come to abandon our
disguise."

"The armor?" Fir asked. "Is that wise? We won't be able to blend in without
it."

"Well, as far as these droids here were concerned, we weren't blending in so
well anyway. Probably it'll be the same with any other war droids. Without
the armor we'll stick out, maybe, but we'll move faster--and we'll have the
piccolo, so hopefully we can end most fights before they can start."

"Droids aren't the only trouble we'll face," Fir reminded her. "The armor is
protection as well as disguise."

"I know. I know. But we can't really go half and half, and the helmet gets
in the way--"

"Wait," said Fenya all of a sudden, his quiet voice startling the rest of
them into silence. "Got an idea."

Becki blinked in surprise, then nodded. "What is it?"

"We don't show Thrawn what he *expects* to see. Show him what he *wants* to
see."

"Wants to see? What do you mean?"

"He thinks he knows what we'll do, from what you told us of him."

"He's probably right, too. That's why he's a genius."

"So we don't do what he knows we'll do. He's prepared for that. Do something
else."

"Do what he wants to see?" Fir asked uncertainly.

"Right."

"Well, but what does he want to see?"

"That's easy," Corran grinned. "He wants to see us dead."

The others chuckled uneasily at that, realizing it was all too true, but
Fenya just smiled patiently and shook his head. "Maybe. Maybe not. Vickie's
alive."

It took a moment for Fenya's meaning to sink in. "He wants to see us
captured?" Corran said.

"Why not?" Fenya grinned.

"But," Becki said, "he may well have a use for Vickie that he doesn't have
for us. We can't be sure that he doesn't have a 'dead or alive' clause on
us, can't be sure--and anyway, just what are you suggesting we do, Fenya?
Turn ourselves in?"

"No, wait," Corran said. "I think I get it. Thrawn expects us to seek out
our allies who're his prisoners. He expects us to make trouble for him,
distract him while he's trying to deal with the battle going on outside.
Probably even expects us to go in disguise. He expects us to pose some sort
of threat to his plans, in other words, and plans to deal with that threat
accordingly. What if he were to see us as posing no threat at all?"

"So," she frowned, "you *are* suggesting turning ourselves in? I'm not sure
I see what good--"

Corran and Fenya exchanged a glance and then shook their heads. "Not
exactly," said Fenya. "See, what we do is..."

~

In the end they adopted Fenya's plan, with a few modifications, mostly
suggested by Corran. Rather than all four of them discarding the
stormtrooper armor, Corran and Fenya retained theirs (though Fenya swapped
his scorched gauntlet for the one that Fir would no longer be needing). Then
they used the binders on their utility belts to create the illusion that
would hopefully send Thrawn the message that one more threat had been
eliminated. Fir's and Becki's hands were bound to look as if they had been
taken prisoner, though in fact the binders would not easily prevent him from
reaching his blaster nor her the piccolo, at need. Tede, as ever, led the
way, but this time only two false stormtroopers attended him, weapons at
ready to guard the man, woman, and astromech marching between them. Any
flesh-and-blood Imperials that spotted them would most likely assume that
some of those pesky intruders had been caught at last and were being marched
along to the bridge, just like that Jedi who'd tried to escape earlier that
morning. If any of the war droids saw them and assumed otherwise--well, this
time, the piccolist's hands and mouth both would be free to quiet their
curiosity in an instant. And if the knowledge of their presence reached
Thrawn by one means or another, with any luck he would see no threat and
take no action. And every step in this new disguise would take them closer
to the bridge and their mission objective.

It worked surprisingly well, at first. Security, as Tede had predicted, grew
ever tighter. After a while the Imperials they met, instead of just smiling
to see the captive Rebels, started asking for passwords and identification.
This was generally no problem, since Tede's prior experience of the
Admonitor easily got them through each checkpoint. And for a while the war
droids, which they saw more and more of as they progressed, were no real
problem, either. They always seemed ready to shoot first and ask for
passwords later, as if they knew, though the flesh-and-bloods never did,
what Tede really was. But the high C stopped them neatly every time. Rescue
Team One grew ever more confident as they drew nearer to the bridge.

Then there came a group of droids like all the others--five of them, this
time--and Becki blew her note as before, and the droids froze in place as
before, and Rescue Team One went on.

They were hardly ten steps away when the first shots came from behind. Fenya
fell almost immediately, with a grunt that sounded more surprised than hurt.
Even as Becki spun to face the new threat, bringing up her piccolo yet
again, some part of her brain paused to wonder at Fenya's ill luck today.

A moment later she started wondering at her own.

It didn't work. She played the high C as always, fired out the note again
and again, and nothing happened. Well, not strictly nothing: certainly the
piccolo was working, the note came out as it should. What wasn't happening
was all on the part of the droids behind them. They didn't stop. Then it
occurred to her that these would have to be the same droids she'd just
frozen moments ago.

Well, if they weren't frozen now and they weren't kindly freezing up again,
there was only one explanation. "Plan B again," she sighed, swapping her
instrument for her blaster to join her teammates, who were already returning
fire against the droids.

It was over quickly, in large part because of Corran and his
lightsaber--blaster shots were somewhat slow going against the machines, but
the shining saber cut right through them as if they still were frozen in
place. As soon as the fifth of their five adversaries dropped, Becki and Fir
convened on the spot where Fenya had fallen.

Fir was the first to ask, anxiety thickening his voice, "Are you all right?"

"Been better," Fenya said, the corners of his mouth turning up ever so
slightly, but they could see that his face was tight with pain, all the
same. It was his left leg; he'd taken a direct hit, just below the knee, and
this time the armor hadn't stopped it. "Kept hold of the gun this time,
though. Couldn't aim too well, what with scooting about on the floor here to
avoid getting shot again, but I didn't always miss, either."

"Good man," Fir smiled, while Becki worked at getting the armor off to look
at Fenya's injury, clenching her jaw--almost holding her breath--against
what she would see. She'd much rather be squadron cook than squadron nurse
any day, but in the midst of battle options were somewhat limited.

They got the armor off, but hadn't time to do anything about the leg before
Corran called out suddenly, "More coming!" Almost before he had finished
speaking, the droids were upon them. Becki counted seven at first, rounding
the corner that Rescue Team One had rounded just before meeting that last
group of droids, the ones that had come unfrozen at just the wrong time.

It made sense. Of course if those five had come unfrozen, why wouldn't all
the ones they'd frozen earlier do likewise? And if the piccolo hadn't worked
a second time on those five, it was safe to assume it wouldn't work any
better on these seven. Something, clearly, had happened to override the high
C's usual effect on the war droids. They'd known all along that that could
happen. They should have been more alert for it. Really, the surprise was
that the piccolo had worked as long as it had.

No time for regrets now. If those five and these seven were unfrozen and
unfreezable, of course it was only a matter of time before they were joined
by all the others that Rescue Team One had frozen on their trek toward the
bridge. And all those that they hadn't frozen yet. It wasn't looking good.

"Keep moving!" Becki shouted as her team returned fire against those seven
droids and the three more that had just rounded the corner. "We have to
reach the bridge! If we stay here we'll be trapped, sooner or later, because
all the droids in this ship are going to be after us."

They did their best, and she was certainly pleased to see that even while
supporting Fenya with his left arm, Fir was still a miraculously good shot,
and that Corran's lightsaber never slowed in the arcs by which it seemed to
paint a wall of fire between them and the droids, and that even in a
lightfight, and while retreating at that, Tede was leading them confidently
in the direction he knew they must go to fulfill their mission, and that
even her own blaster shots were hitting their mark more often than they
usually did. They were fighting marvelously, it seemed to her, but still it
just wasn't enough. The droids kept coming. And kept firing. So much for the
assumption that Thrawn wanted live captives. It had been a very nice
assumption, because it lined up so nicely with at least one of their own
wishes, the simple wish for survival. Unfortunately, assumptions and
survival, more often than not, were mutually exclusive.

She knew she was afraid--though that too, come to think of it, was a sort of
assumption, wasn't it? The assumption that she would face fear, because she
always did, because anxiety and worry were something inescapably bound up
with the way she thought. However, she had also assumed that the fear would
have something to do with the danger she would face, the harm she expected
to come to her. It surprised her now to find that this wasn't so. She
certainly still preferred to live, wasn't at all eager to sustain any sort
of injury, pain being something she had never quite acquired a taste for.
But she wasn't afraid to die, now in this moment when it seemed more than
likely that she would. O Death, where is thy sting--it had never seemed
truer, more certain, than right now. She feared no sting of Death. Hope, she
realized, was even more tightly bound up with her thinking than fear was.

But still she was afraid. If not of dying, then what? Odd, to know such
clarity of mind in the most chaotic moments of battle--the answer came to
her at once. Not of dying, but of, she could only think, leaving. "I
promised," she whispered to herself as another of her shots managed to hit
its target and then the very next one went annoyingly wide. How could she
possibly let herself get killed? If she should break it now! She feared
leaving--leaving behind friends she'd pledged to help, a mission she'd
pledged to achieve, and one whom she'd barely dared to love but pledged to
come back to when it was all over.

Or maybe it was just plain selfishness, she thought with a wry grin--maybe I
hate to think of dying when I've hardly done any living as yet. Eternity
being such a long time, and Time being a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Unfortunately she didn't have the chance to puzzle out the answer to such an
intriguing question. As more and more droids caught up to them--luckily, so
far the droids were only coming from behind; that is, from the direction
Rescue Team One had come; they were still progressing slowly but steadily
toward the bridge, and no opposition had as yet appeared from that
direction--it was impossible for the outnumbered Rescue Team One to stay out
of harm's way forever. One more of her shots missed, though not so badly as
most of them did, and instantly, as if it had ricocheted on the wall of
droids pressing in on them, another shot came her way, and this one didn't
miss. She was hit somewhere around her shoulder, she thought; of course she
cried out from the pain, and stumbled, dropped her blaster. But beneath the
pain was calm, while the fear that had been in her came to a head and turned
into regret. Regret from selfishness, or from leaving behind those who might
need her? Regret also that she never had figured out which. For, pain being
something she had never quite acquired a taste for, she quickly lost
consciousness.

~

Tede heard Becki cry out, caught her as she fell. In a moment he had
determined that, though she was unconscious, and the wound was bad, it would
probably not be fatal--provided something could be done about it soon.
Unfortunately, time was not a luxury granted them right now. There were too
many of the war droids; he knew that quite well. Their chances against a foe
that outnumbered them so significantly--and that outnumbered them more
significantly every second, it seemed--well, he wasn't going to have a
chance to look after her wound anytime soon, and it was a shame. Fir and
Corran most likely wouldn't remain unscathed much longer, as well. Tede
suspected he would be the last to fall, being what he was, and as such
somewhat harder to destroy than ordinary human flesh. Perhaps, even, he
would not fall, would be able to accomplish the objective on his own. And
one factor in their favor was Whistler--Tede had sent the little droid off
on his own as soon as he saw how the situation with the unfrozen droids was
going to be, sent him to find a computer hookup somewhere and see what he
could do to make himself useful. Perhaps between the astromech and the human
replica droid, something could be accomplished.

But while any of his teammates still stood, Tede's first objective was to
keep them alive. All of them, if he could. If only the odds of that weren't
growing slimmer all the time.

All this passed through his mind in an instant as he caught Terra Three.
Corran and Fir had turned at her cry--"I've got her," Tede assured them.
"Keep moving! The bridge!"

And they would have done just that, if not for the voice, loud and sure and
even more disdainful than Tede's own best Officer voice, that broke out over
the sound of battle just then. "Freeze!"

They froze, reflexively, just as readily as the war droids had once frozen
for Becki's piccolo notes. And turned to face the voice, which had come from
opposite the droids, from the direction that Rescue Team One had been
heading. From the direction of the bridge. An officer they had not seen
before stood there--Tede noted, a side thought, that he would have outranked
Tede by far if the human replica droid's uniform were more than a mere
disguise--with two full squadrons of stormtroopers backing him up. That was
that. Tede let his blaster drop to the floor; the others of Rescue Team
followed suit, and the stormtroopers came forward to bind the prisoners'
hands--securely, this time.

"She's injured, unconscious," Tede said when they took Becki from him. "And
his leg--"

"Silence," the officer cut him off. But he did detail two troopers to carry
her between them, and another to bear up Fenya as Fir had been doing before
Fir's hands too were bound.

Tede had to try again. "They must have medical attention soon if--"

"Don't you know how to shut up?" the officer growled. But all the same, a
medkit appeared from somewhere and bacta patches found their way onto
Becki's and Fenya's wounds. Tede considered, as they set out again, still
heading toward the bridge, but this time prisoners in more than just
appearance, that perhaps their odds hadn't fallen quite so far as he
thought. Perhaps, after all, Thrawn really did want to see them captured,
yet not dead.

Be that as it may, they were still heading in the correct direction, and at
least the war droids had stopped shooting.