Occlus takes the gunner's chair. And off they go hunting Imperials.

Luke.

A voice whispers into Luke's mind.

He doesn't let his concentration slip from the fight, but - what?

That's not his mom or Leia - Ben said he was vanishing - 

'Not a good time,' he sends back, almost on reflex.

Luke. You will come to me. We will rebuild the Jedi. You must-

Excuse us, we are rather busy, Occlus's voice cuts in, and then there's a sense of rage as an icy wall slams down and the contact is broken.

"Focus on flying," she says aloud.

"On it."

He pushes the odd voice to the back of his head, instead continuing to (very effectively) harass the Imperials.

They scratch more than a few TIEs and at least one shuttle before the rest make it back to the safety of the Star Destroyer and it jumps out.

"Come on, let's go see how much damage they did."

The damage to Nomad City is not so bad, but Lando is still quite upset when they get back.

"Fifty-three! They stole fifty-three of my mole miners. That's more than sixty percent of my workforce. And they slagged another dozen that they couldn't get away with."

"Do you know why they targeted here?"

"Because the Empire has it in for me personally?" Lando says darkly. "They didn't even make a play for our stockpiles."

"Logically, they were after the mole miners. Even if a ship that size can sustain direct exposure to sunlight at this distance, any external sensors or weapons emplacements would be severely damaged. This attack was not undertaken lightly. Therefore, their need is pressing, worth the damage but not worth simply buying more directly."

     "They're not exactly simple pieces of technology," Lando admits. "We had a devil of a time getting ours working, and the company that manufacturers them is based in Republic space."

He frowns. "What can they do that other, easily available on market machines can't?"

"Sustained independent operation, vacuum rated, fairly good plasma cutters..."

"You'd need a bigger ship with a hyperspace engine to get them anywhere though, right?"

"Right."

"There's - probably not much they'd be worth using against offensively, which should make for a narrow list..." He furrows his brow, thinking of the man his mother had identified as the Grand Admiral. Clever, imperious, proud, convinced he could analyze people through their art, someone Ani had trusted the Noghri to, but mostly on orders from the Emperor...

Cold reading someone he's never met is hard, but his mom's met the man, and one of the reoccurring games with new flight recruits is Luke cold reading people's pasts...

"Something - grand. Unusual and impressive... Not something someone unambitious or uncreative would do - tied into the Empire's other movements like a huge strategy game..."

That recent three pronged attack - the Republic's been moving ships to the region, mostly concentrated around one shipyard... There's been some other movements...

"How good are the plasma cutters?"

"They chew through rock like it's nothing. I know that look, kid. What are you thinking?"

"They're small, right? Easy to miss if there's something more distracting going on?"

"You can fit three, maybe four guys in one as long as they don't mind being friendly."

"Hmm... There could be valuable mines in Imperial space in Nkllon's situation... You probably don't need something that serious and that many of for getting into even a well protected base... Though there's a few bases that're currently secure mostly by being hard to penetrate... Nothing super valuable... Could you use them to disable a ship, even a big one? There's a few concentrations of those I can think of. The Imperials would have a fight on their hands getting miners to them in most cases, though..."

"Plasma cutter in the wrong place wouldn't exactly be good for any ship... But the miners don't have any kind of shields or weapons that would stand up even to a starfighter's guns."

"And it'd be hard to get them close unnoticed."

"Did you put a self-destruct on your equipment?"

     "No, I'm not in the habit of sending my people out into a hostile environment with bombs strapped to their back."

Occlus tsks. "Pity."

     "...Although... I do have the remote control codes."

"If the Imperials don't remove that - could we use those if they show back up?"