COVERT ACTION
While the pages of Galaxy’s Edge are littered with Kill Teams running direct action interventions on covert targets, not every mission requires a full team for the hit.
Dark Operator’s Kel Turner has set many examples of solo infiltration missions, as did “Tom” in his work securing intel vital to protecting the Republic during the opening books of Galaxy’s Edge Season 1.
Assigning the operator to the task and training them for such is only one part of many steps to putting the leej undercover. First being - cover for status. Setting this is like getting the leej to portray himself a certain way that makes sense for the environment he’s in. In the case of Kel, he was tasked with looking and acting like a laborer in the city brimming on the brink of civil unrest. “Tom” had to play the part of a naval officer looking to break into the black market.
Some leejes have had to take the cover for status further, undergoing extensive plastic surgery to change their face, and even their voice, so they wouldn’t be recognized under cover. The Legion played a long game just like this in Galaxy’s Edge: Takeover and carried well into Season 2.
In these cases, the leej has to pass the JDLR test. A just doesn’t look right, situation. Being a leej hanging out in a business class section of an Endurian world is one thing, but if they’re trying too hard to pass as a local or an expat when they just showed up, it might trip some alarm bells. Also, showing up and working as a merc where all your gear is brand new might give away the leej isn’t the experienced merc they claim to be.
Once the operator has cover for status, they then need cover for action. This is the plausible reason for the Leej doing what they’re doing undercover. Cover for action is much harder to establish because it has to withstand scrutiny. This becomes the trope where the operator says, “Why don’t you call so-and-so? He’ll vouch for me.”
Legion and Repub intel sections often insert deep seated cover for action breadcrumbs for the leejes for the more affluent targets who can actually check a background.
A great example to explain both covers is to take the absolute opposite of their intent to the extreme. Bad cover for status is having a leej dressed in deep sea gear waiting in a coffee shop line to watch a target. Bad cover for action is seeing the same leej continue to give up his spot to the person behind him and never order a single drink all day.
See the lengths the legion will go through to strike a target from cover in the pages of Takeover!
Spycraft is craziness on a whole new level of paranoia.