They might need it... Everything's getting busy fast.

Not that that's a bad thing. Means they're getting closer to the strike.

Yeah.

She gets Lily set up with the scouting rotations - gets herself more trained -

And it doesn't, actually, take them long to find the base in question. Lily has a sense, apparently, an itch of which way's the right way.

This Force stuff is pretty handy, it seems.

Yeah.

It's honestly pretty lucky that apparently the only classically trained Force user left is on their side. Everyone else is a few steps shy of self taught.

(Or, well, is Vader's ghost, who is hopefully on their side.)

As of the last time they had contact, she was.

Yeah. Seems likely to last, at least.

She's probably pissed at Lord Stuck-Up, if nothing else.

They'll see when they get her back.

She nods.

Now it's just planning the actual assault.

And the associated diversions.

Anathema's got a lot of the diversions down - though she sometimes needs Ellaita's help interfacing with the rest of the resistance - and she relays as much as she knows about the layout of First Order bases like this. Lord Dickwad will probably be keeping whatever containment he has set up for Anakin nearby him...

Which means their odds of having to face him directly are high. Not ideal.

Something they should prepare for... A larger strike team wouldn't help against him, though - probably their best bet is releasing Vader first, but that's not something they can count on.

No, but they might want to consider delaying tactics that could enable some to break off and achieve that.

Yeah...

Lily might be their best bet to break Vader out. She might have more of a sense of where her teacher even is, anyways, and she knows. Like. Anything about the Force.

Also that leaves the preteen not fighting the murderous asshole.

Solid plan all around, then.

They should use the stealth techniques they've been working on for the actual infiltration - probably all three of them working together, so there's less of a chance Lily will get distracted or something.

That'll limit the total size of the team, even with them all working together.

Though they were considering a small team anyways.

Right, so not too much of a downside.

Yeah.

All they need now is to decide on any other team members - and pick a ship or ships to approach in.

The one she and Lily took from Jakku is surprisingly good and won't be on any of the First Order's registries yet, and has space for two or three more.

That works pretty well, yeah - and keeping in one ship makes it easier to hide themselves in the Force.

Most of the people Ellaita knows best here are pilots, and won't really be maximally useful. Would any of Anathema's girls be willing to join?

"I think so. We've got a good spread of abilities, too, and our clone line's usually slotted for special operations like this."