Deep Cover: The Three-Operator Mission on Umbara

The squad screen is where this mission starts messing with you. You only get three operators, and Hawks is one of them. Two free slots. No room for a healer.

That looks like the game tightening the screws, and for the first few turns it feels that way. It isn’t. Stick with me.

Mission at a glance




Planet	Umbara	Success	Rescue the undercover clone	Failure	Hawks or Rex is killed (Baker too, once he’s with you)	Operators	3 total, Hawks mandatory	Rewards	3,000 credits, +3 Contacts

The squad

With two slots to spend and no healer possible, I took:

Hawks — required
Cly Kullervo
BR-1

The same core I’ve been running for a while. Cly’s jetpack and darts do the damage, BR-1 keeps the ability points flowing so she can afford them.

The mistake worth learning from

Knowing I couldn’t bring a medic, I equipped Hawks with a stim as insurance.

I grabbed the wrong kind. It was a self-heal — it could only patch up Hawks. What I meant to bring, and what this mission specifically wants, is a stim that can heal anyone.

Here’s why that matters, and it’s the single most useful thing in this article: Baker joins you partway through the mission already injured, and he is a failure condition. You get handed a wounded unit you’re now responsible for keeping alive, and if your only healing item is locked to Hawks, you have no answer.

I got away with it. Don’t plan on getting away with it.

Scout before the clearing

The approach is a walk through Umbara’s jungle — the bioluminescent, tentacled stuff that makes the planet look like the bottom of an ocean.

Partway through you’ll find a light coming up out of the ground. Scope from it. You get two things:

3 Advantage heading into the fight.
Sight of the ambush waiting for you in the clearing.

The Advantage is nice. The forewarning is the real prize. With three operators, no healer and protect targets in play, walking into a prepared ambush blind is the way this mission goes badly. This is the second mission running where scouting paid 3 Advantage (You Can’t Go Home was the other), so treat it as a standing habit: scope before you step into a clearing.

Reaching the clearing triggers the battle.

Phase one: the ambush

The setup is good — Baker, the undercover clone, has been embedded training conscripted TK stormtroopers, and turns on them the moment you arrive. That’s the plan working, and it’s why you’re fighting Imperials rather than Umbarans.

Count the enemies carefully. I counted six — four on the left, two on the right — and I was wrong. There were seven, with a third hiding on the right flank that I didn’t register until later. It didn’t hurt me because I’d already killed two, but on a tighter run that’s how you eat an unexpected turn of fire.

From there it’s the play that’s carried my last several missions: Cly jetpacks in, lands darts across multiple enemies, shocks the group, and gets back out before the enemy turn. In, damage, out. Then let them come to you.

Rex hits multiple targets

Here’s something I completely missed the first time I played this: Rex’s gunshots can hit multiple targets — similar to the multi-target special Hawks has.

If you’ve been treating him as a single-target ally and letting the AI sort it out, you’re leaving real damage on the table. Line him up on clusters.

Phase two: hold the position

With two enemies left I reached Baker and completed the rescue. That flips the mission.

New objective: hold your position for three turns. And three sets of reinforcements are inbound.

Things to know going in:

Baker is now yours, and he’s injured. He must survive. I sent him somewhere safe after he took a couple of hits, which is what you should do — he is not a unit you fight with, he’s a unit you protect.
It gets worse before it gets better. After I’d held two of the three turns, four more rounds of reinforcements arrived on top of the three waves.
Manage sight lines, not kills. The thing that actually matters at the end of each turn is how many enemies can shoot at you. Position to minimize that number rather than to maximize your damage.

That discipline is why I came out of the hold phase having taken only a couple of hits across the entire mission, with no healer and two protect targets. Positioning carried this mission; firepower didn’t.

Phase three: clear the field

Once the three turns are up, the objective becomes simple elimination — no timer, no extraction.

Which means stop rationing. I went aggressive with BR-1’s thermal detonators, because utility items are worth nothing sitting in your pocket when the mission ends. Hit clusters, spend everything.

And this is where the mission reveals what it’s actually been doing.

Why three operators

By the end I had Hawks, Cly, BR-1, Rex, Baker, and three Umbaran allies fighting alongside me. Eight of us against eight of them.

The squad cap was never a difficulty setting. It was a setup. The game empties your bench at the start so it can fill it back up with people you rescue and recruit along the way, and the shape of the mission is a steady climb from outnumbered to overwhelming.

On that final turn, with everyone acting, I took the enemy count from eight to two. Then it was over.

No losses. Not Baker, not Rex, not one of the Umbarans.

Rex doesn’t stay

Don’t go in expecting a permanent recruit. Nobody joins the roster after this mission. Rex fights with you here and then he’s gone, back to his own path.

Which is the correct call, and the one bit of restraint I appreciate. Captain Rex has one of the most thoroughly documented arcs in the whole canon — the 501st under Anakin, surviving Order 66 because his inhibitor chip came out in time, the years spent pulling other clones out of the Empire’s reach, and a long second life in the rebellion that reaches all the way to Endor. He is not a character who can be absorbed into someone else’s squad and parked there. He has somewhere to be.

[LINK: Rex’s importance in the Star Wars timeline — insert when published]

So Deep Cover does the only thing it can do with him: it lends him to you for one mission, lets him be useful, and sends him on.

TL;DR

Deep Cover — Umbara. Three operators only, Hawks mandatory. Rewards 3,000 credits and +3 Contacts.
Failure conditions: Hawks or Rex dies — and Baker too, once you’ve rescued him.
Squad that worked: Hawks, Cly Kullervo, BR-1.
Bring a stim that heals allies, not a self-heal. Baker joins mid-mission already injured and must survive. I brought the wrong one.
Scope the glowing spot before the clearing — 3 Advantage plus a look at the ambush.
Count the enemies twice. There are seven, not six; the third on the right flank is easy to miss.
Rex’s gunshots hit multiple targets, like Hawks’ special. Aim him at clusters.
Phase two is a three-turn hold against three waves — plus four more rounds of reinforcements once you’re two turns in. Play sight lines, not kills.
Park Baker somewhere safe. He’s a protect target, not a fighter.
Phase three is pure cleanup — spend every utility item you’ve got.
The three-operator cap is a setup, not a restriction. You finish eight-on-eight with Rex, Baker and three Umbaran allies.
Nobody joins afterward. Rex has his own story to get back to.