In the morning, Amir woke up, threw back the covers, rubbed his forehead, and tried to remember the dream he had had the night before.
It was a disturbing dream filled with flashing red lightsabers, spaceships, white armor, blasters, double-bladed lightsabers, and BD-4.
Amir exhaled deeply. "Is this a premonition?"
He closed his eyes, reached out, and picked up the lightsaber on the bedside table. This heavily worn lightsaber had never been activated. There were no switches on its entire surface. Jax had studied it for a long time, and Sain had tried to disassemble it but discovered that it couldn't be taken apart without destroying it.
"A weapon that's been through war," Amir said as he put it away and walked toward the warehouse. Sain and Pierre had gone to buy parts, leaving Jax bored and sitting on a high stool at the front desk, swinging his legs.
"Good morning, Amir," Jax greeted him with a smile.
"Good morning." Amir sat at the workbench, ate what Pierre had prepared, and fixed the two appliances that had been delivered. Then he went to the workbench in the warehouse.
He took off his wristband, which Amir had installed with many things. It looked more like a wrist guard than a wristband, with silver-white mechanical parts covering half of his forearm and wrist.
Amir disassembled the spider robot, placed it aside to charge, and took out the deflection shield generator he had obtained from the military academy. The wrist guard extended into the palm and housed a power generation device. As long as he gripped it, it could instantly release an electric current to paralyze an enemy's nerves.
A small screen was fixed to the inside of the wristband, with only a small portion dedicated to communication functions; the majority of the screen controlled all the devices on the wristband.
Amir took out the spaceship's control panel and began installing it onto his wrist controller.
This mission to the Empire's prison ship was highly risky. If he made a mistake, the prison ship would lose an empty cell.
There were still many valuable items in Frenis's spaceship warehouse, and Amir was studying how to arm himself with them.
Suddenly, a message came through the communicator.
He saw a person fully covered in white armor. The person removed their helmet, revealing Ka'in's black hair and kind expression. "In a few days, I'll be heading out on my first mission. I can't say what it is, but it's safe. I just have to observe the process and add some mission records."
"In two months, there'll be a graduation ceremony. A general will give a speech, and they say they'll select a few top students to be their subordinates. I wonder if I have a chance."
"I'd rather go to the Outer Ring. It's chaotic there now with countless pirate hunters rampaging and many planets suffering. There, I might have more opportunities to fly TIE jets."
"I hope you find joy in your mechanical research."
Amir looked at his only friend from military academy for a moment, sighed, and turned off the projector.
Thinking about his dream, the stormtrooper might have been Ka'in. Was there a problem with Ka'in's mission, or was his mission coincidentally to escort the prison ship carrying his target?
Amir kept reminiscing about his dream, searching for clues. The more he thought about it, though, the more confused he became.
"Dreams can mislead me. I can't rely too much on unreliable prophecies," he reminded himself, stopping his train of thought.
After modifying his wrist guards, Amir saw Sain returning. BD-4 followed Sain out for a full-body spa treatment, including an oil bath, carbon removal, and part replacements. Now completely transformed, BD-4's exterior gleamed with a shiny finish as it hopped into the warehouse and landed on Amir's workbench.
"Let's modify the spaceship," Amir said, picking up BD-4.
"Modify the spaceship?" Amir, you have to take me along! I've already heard about this ship from Jax. With me..." Sain interrupted eagerly.
"No way!" Amir cut Sain off immediately. With Sain's imagination, he could end up turning the spaceship into a scrap heap.
Amir and BD-4 picked up the toolbox and boarded the "Coke," heading out. Seeing that Sain had returned, Jax knew he didn't need to watch the store anymore. He hopped onto his new flying motorcycle and followed Amir.
Soon, they arrived at the rented docking spot. Amir received a text message from Senir: "You'd better bring BD-4 with you."
Amir sat beside the spaceship's engine, reading the message and thinking.
'He wants me to bring BD-4. Considering that Senir knows the rebels are searching for the holographic recorder in BD-4's possession, there's a high chance the rebels are on the spaceship.' At this stage, the rebels are a small force, so the Empire won't prioritize them, and interrogations won't be too rigorous. The operation should still be relatively straightforward.
With that thought, Amir happily increased the engine's power.
"When can I get a sublight acceleration engine for the spaceship? Reaching light speed without entering hyperspace must feel amazing."
Before he knew it, it was the next day. Amir arrived early at the Flycrew cockpit, activated optical stealth, shut down all mechanical signals, left only the power system running, and departed Coruscant's surface like a ghost.
Over the years, Amir had never ventured beyond the vicinity of Coruscant. After leaving the atmosphere, he looked down at the planet. In the bright sunlight, the entire planet shone brilliantly, as if flaunting its prosperity and beauty to the outside world.
"Goodbye, Coruscant," he murmured.
After setting the course and pulling the lever, the spacecraft transformed into a flickering silver line after a brief delay, successfully entering hyperspace. The surrounding scenery turned into colorful streams as the spacecraft transitioned from complete stillness to extreme motion. In just a few seconds, the spacecraft exited hyperspace, and the surroundings were no longer Coruscant.
A sandy-yellow planet unfolded before Amir like a vast painting, leaving him speechless.
This was Edvin, an inhospitable planet that no one would glance at twice. Deserts and ridges stretched across the entire planet, along with countless volcanoes. The air was thin and toxic, and the unpredictable weather and extreme temperatures made it a forsaken corner of the galaxy.
Amir passed through the thin atmosphere and landed on a high ridge. He checked the space interference device that Senir had prepared for him once more. The device could release a large amount of fluctuations in an instant, disrupting the surrounding space and forcing any ships traveling in hyperspace to exit it.
This was the most critical phase of the plan. Without it, they would have to attach themselves to the prison ship just as it departed Coruscant, before entering hyperspace—a highly unstable scenario.
The prison ship had departed from a military port with strict monitoring of anomalous data. Their own ship might not evade detection, and the timeline was too tight.
However, by setting a trap along the prison ship's mandatory flight path and forcing it out of hyperspace within the roughly half-hour window of spatial interference, they could attach to the ship, board it, rescue one person, have a brief conversation with another, and then depart the ship to complete the mission.
Simple!