Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

En las paredes cuelgan las interrogaciones,
florece en las bigornias el alma de los bronces
y hay un temblor de pasos en los cuartos desiertos.

—Pablo Neruda, “Maestranzas de Noche”

3 BBY

The stale tang of sweat and unwashed lower-level Imperial citizens filled the cantina, and the loud laugh of tradespeople was buoyed by the breeze of the recycled air. Allegiances aside, the scent of the place was so like Ferrix that Cassian could briefly entertain the thought that, perhaps, he was back there. Back home—or the closest thing he had ever had to it. If he shut his eyes, he could see Maarva’s face swimming in his field of vision, but it was ethereal and indistinct now, almost two years on from her death. His vision of her was nothing like the sharply defined maternal presence he remembered.

He drew in a breath, his gaze drifting along the cantina. A hoarse laugh from a bar patron here, a conversation in a language he didn’t speak there. Coruscant was not his home, but it was where Bix and he had landed for the time being. He still was uncomfortable, but at least he didn’t feel cast adrift anymore.

Cassian was supposed to meet the contact here, whoever the man was. And then he realized with a jolt of surprise that it was a woman instead, making her way towards him with purpose. Making him noticeable. That unearned confidence about her set his nerves on edge as she caught his eye and strolled towards him, and adrenaline urged him to flee, but he sat there, quiet and careful, moving for a sip of his drink to quell that nagging feeling at the back of his head.

“Mr. Pacon?” She was all smiles, blue eyes, red hair. He didn’t trust her.

“You have it?” His question was blunt, all business, setting the terms of their conversation.

She sat down, the fragrance of candlewick perfume drifting over them. The scent of an Alderaanian flower fueled a Republic fragrance, intended to prove her trustworthiness. But Cassian doubted her even more. Her face curved into a gentle smile, polished teeth flashing merrily at him. “You’re looking for the SRS-98-Comp forms that list the inventories of captured vessels.”

Cassian’s voice was a hiss. “And you’re wasting time.”

“Patience is a virtue, Mr. Pacon. I’m sure you’re quite virtuous.”

He let one hand drift towards the holdout blaster he’d tucked away, his palm resting on the Bryar’s reassuring grip, his index finger reaching towards the trigger. His gaze didn’t move from her.

The woman simply pulled out a datapad, her manicured fingers clicking over its screen, discordant and sharp. “My superiors don’t know I’m here. I don’t know what they’d do to me if they’d found me.”

Cassian could imagine exactly what they’d do to her, but he kept his mouth shut. She wanted to talk, and whether that was to ease her conscience or to try to pry information out of him, he couldn’t be quite sure. His attention still didn’t waver.

“… Tari Pacon. That’s not a Coruscanti name, is it?”

“It’s my name. Are we done?” Cassian nodded towards the datapad.

The woman’s face pulled a moue of regret. “You haven’t even asked me mine.”

I’m a spy, not a military interviewer, Cassian thought. But he shrugged and said nothing, accepting her offer of the datapad, pushing himself to stand, nodding thanks at the woman, and pulling his cloak over himself.

In another life, perhaps he would have stayed and talked to her. Perhaps he would have cared about her name. But he was careful, and part of being careful was knowing when not to offer the hand of association. The woman made him retract rather than extend himself, and he had only his instincts to rely on.

Once he was a good few blocks from the cantina, he pulled out his comm device from the folds of his cloak. “I have the inventories.”

Luthen’s voice came through, gruff and clipped. “Good. Meet soon. Were you followed?”

“No,” Cassian replied, knowing it was the truth. There were no shadows in front of him cast by the streetlights cut off behind him, no sound of footfalls either loud or compressed by stealth.

About twenty minutes later, Cassian was in the apartment he’d been sharing with Bix the last few months. “I should have been followed.”

“You should have been,” Luthen agreed. There was no compassion in his voice, no sympathy for what Cassian had had to watch for on his way to the surface level of the planet. “And she didn’t push back? She just offered you the inventories?” His gaze hadn’t left Cassian for even a second.

Cassian shrugged. “I didn’t think it was wise to pry, Luthen. That would have made her suspicious.” He thrust the datapad at the other man. “Take a look.”

Luthen grunted in assent, reaching to take the datapad. For the first time in the conversation, the blond’s eyes were on something other than Cassian as he studied the records.

The kitchen seemed small between the two of them. Cassian had learned to trust Luthen over the years, no longer wanting to stay on the run like he had been, but he had never been wholly comfortable with Luthen’s dictatorial presence in his life. The job called the shots, not Luthen personally, but part of Cassian still longed for a life with Bix, settled somewhere, on some remote planet where the war wouldn’t touch either of them—and that included Luthen Rael himself. He would have ditched a million Luthens for a night of complete safety with Bix, but the life of a spy was the one that had been chosen for both of them, and there was no way to wrest himself free of Luthen’s grasp now.

“There’s a hitch here,” Luthen said. “You know that. You looked through the records before I got here.”

Cassian nodded, leaning against the counter. There was really nowhere to hide. “It didn’t feel right at the pickup, either. She asked about my alias, and pointed out it wasn’t Coruscanti.”

“And she just left it at that? Just the observation.”

“Just the observation,” Cassian confirmed, drawing a breath. “I didn’t like it.”

Luthen nodded. “Neither do I. She was testing you, seeing if you’d take the bait. Zero-win—either you show your Sabacc hand or you confirm you’re playing the game.”

“So we’re not going after the inventories?”

Luthen stared again for a long, hard moment. When he started to speak, his voice sank to a low, dangerous level, gravel rather than grit in his words. Cassian knew the seriousness with which his handler spoke. He’d heard it several times before in the past few years, and had never liked it, each and every time. But, like always, he listened as Luthen said, “Oh no, we’re going after the inventories. And we’re going to make sure they know.”

Cassian took a moment to digest the older man’s words, shaking his head at the obvious implication. “You’re sending me into a trap.”

Luthen’s face curved up into a vague semblance of a smile at Cassian’s realization. “But not without a knife to cut yourself free.”

Cassian felt his stomach sink even as he forced a smile onto his face. “So what’s the plan?”

Chapter Text

Bix still hated Coruscant. She’d told both of them that, but she was still here, even after Cassian had promised her he would look out for her. He’d even said that he’d cut ties with Luthen for her sake. Clearly, that hadn’t happened. Something had gone wrong there, but she hadn’t found the right moment to ask him.

She popped the vial, downing the dosage she’d meted out for herself. The vial shook in her hands as she drank the liquid. One of these days, she’d stop, she promised herself. She’d have to. If she didn’t, Cassian might find her dead one day, and she couldn’t do that to him, as much as she wanted to do it to herself. But it wasn’t Cassian who occupied her thoughts right now. She had to run errands. It was safer for her to do it than for him to, and it was her own contribution to the fairly miserable existence they both eked out in this sprawling planet-wide city of angles and spires.

She threw on a coat, fastening it, yanking the hood up, making herself as shapeless as possible. It was as much about anonymity as it was protection. She tucked a holdout blaster in her pocket just in case, but in all the months she’d been in the safehouse, she hadn’t had to use it yet.

She could, though. Mina-Rau had taught her that pretty plainly.

Resetting the security code to the door, she slipped out from the apartment, making her way through the hallway. Here, she could here a domestic squabble; there, a holovid blared discordantly loud. Every sound seemed to rattle into her nerves, and she bit back the urge to scream in frustration at how surrounded she was by the normalcy of everyday existence. Didn’t the people here know about the oppression just outside their doorstep? How did they live with themselves?

Just like she lived with herself, she supposed. Luthen threw her a bone like she was an akk dog, gave her a mission now and again, but the bulk of her existence was living a life not unlike her neighbors. She had to maintain the facade in case people started to wonder. She could hear the questions now: “Where does your husband go for weeks at a time?” “He isn’t on a secret mission, is he?”

Bix walked a little faster, moving for the end of the hallway, but it opened before she could stop short. She caught herself, hearing her breath catch in her throat. She didn’t recognize the man at the end of the hallway, but she did recognize the pristine whiteness of the Imperial greatcoat he wore. He moved towards her, his voice dropping for her ears alone.

“Is he here?”

Bix eyed the redheaded stranger cautiously, feigning ignorance. “Who?”

“Axis. Is he here?”

The man was looking for Luthen, not Cassian. There was something weedy-looking and insignificant about him, but the way he held himself was not confrontational, even as her gaze took in the rank he wore. Three blue tiles on pristine white. The ranks had been drilled into both Cassian and her so that they’d know whom they were dealing with. This was an ISB Supervisor, but the one Cassian had been told about was a blonde woman. The same woman Bix still had nightmares about. The man before her was not made of that corrosiveness.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.” Bix knew she didn’t sound believable. Panic rose into her throat. She tasted bile, and fought to calm her nerves.

“Look, I don’t have a lot of time. I’m looking for Axis. I know he has a safehouse here, which you’ve just stepped out of.”

The man should have grabbed her, slammed her into a wall, shaken the truth out of her. Bix had been on the defensive for him to do that. But he was doing nothing of the sort. Who was this ISB Supervisor who had come alone, and why had he not already taken her in?

Bix’s voice trembled at first, but she steadied it. “I—I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

The man’s sigh was exasperated. “Listen,” he told her, “I need you to tell him Supervisor Jung is looking for him, that he needs to speak to him.”

Bix took a step back, angling to move around the man. But he didn’t stop her, and that shocked her all the more. “I… I will,” she remarked, nodding to assure herself as much of him that she would follow through with what he was asking.

If he was ISB, she should shoot him, she realized. She should leave him dead in the hallway, get Cassian a message, and flee Coruscant. But there was something pitiable about Supervisor Jung, and she didn’t feel on edge from him, the way she had from others through the years. She held her hands out, demonstrating she wasn’t going to draw any weapon she carried with her. “You can go,” she remarked steadily.

Supervisor Jung nodded. “Good.” And, much to Bix’s surprise, he turned then, turning his back on her, leaving himself entirely vulnerable and exposed to her. But she couldn’t bring herself to shoot him, leaning against the wall to gather her thoughts.

Cassian was waiting for her, reaching out to take the grocery bags from her. He’d been underground today, given the grime caked beneath his fingernails, and Bix wondered how far down in Coruscant he’d gone.

“New job,” he said, almost apologetic, when he caught her looking at his fingers. “Had to play at being a laborer.”

“It suits you,” Bix replied, feeling herself smile at him. “Faking work. You know what Brasso would say about you.”

“That if I put as much work into actually salvaging as I did in pretending to salvage, I’d find a fire ruby in a heap of scrap.” Cassian rolled his eyes at that. 

“Mm. I miss him.”

“We both do,” Cassian replied, drawing close to her. “He was a good man. Better than me.”

That was the truth, in a sense. Cassian was not as steadfast as Brasso had been, she knew, but the cause had made him more dependable, and he was getting better. She had left him because he had left her for days without explanation, but the man that would do that no longer existed. He had matured since Ferrix, and she would keep drawing that out of him. She would make him into the man he was meant to be—a man Brasso would have been proud of, and a man she couldn’t help but respect.

She tilted her face up for a kiss, but didn’t let her lips make contact yet. “So how long are you going to be gone this time?”

Cassian shook his head. “I’m not. This one’s on Coruscant. Stealing inventories.” He moved to scrape a stray curly lock from her face. “It’s something you can help with, too.”

Bix felt a little flutter of apprehension. “You want me to go with you?”

“Not like this. But I’ll need your help to make sense of the inventories once I get them.”

“I can do that.” She leaned in to peck her lips against his, hard and quick, surprising him. She saw his eyes widen at the contact, and laughed.

“It’s good to hear that,” he said.

It was good to feel able to laugh too. But she swallowed, even as she pulled out a packet of sweetmallow squares—catching the skeptical raised eyebrow from Cassian at her purchase.

“Someone came here today, Cassian.”

Tension instantly sprang into his slight frame, but he said nothing.

“An ISB Supervisor.” She placed a hand on his arm to ease the apprehension visibly building in him. “But I think he was on our side. He was looking for Luthen, and he knew he had a safehouse here, but he was too careful to say his name.” She set the sweetmallow squares down carefully, her other hand moving to pull him closer. “He wanted to speak with him.” She swallowed, phrasing her next question carefully, aware of its potential to make that tension explode. She wasn’t afraid of Cassian at all, but she was afraid of how the question might make him feel. “Luthen isn’t working for the ISB, is he?”

Cassian bristled, almost defensive. “No. Of course he’s not.”

Bix nodded. “I know. But the only other option is that the ISB Supervisor is working for Luthen.”

Cassian caught his breath. “What was his name?”

“Jung,” Bix replied. “Do you know him?”

Cassian shook his head again, mutely. His thoughts were already elsewhere, Bix could tell. They were on this new Supervisor Jung, on Luthen, on the mission, evaluating its new chances of failure or success with the added stake she’d thrown into the pot.

“Hey. Cassian,” she remarked. “I’m still here.”

He looked back at her, present again and alert. He nodded. “Of course.” And he leaned in towards her, reaching a hand for her hand, a signal of his being fully in the moment. It was not the Ferrix ritual they’d performed a few times, but it was the starting gestures of it, and it was a relief to have him back in the moment.

She wouldn’t lose him to the machinations of a man like Luthen Rael, or to the Imperial Security Bureau. He was hers and she was his, and that would not be broken by the tasks they performed, the roles they played.

“I need you, Bix,” he said quietly, and she was relieved to hear it.

She moved to edge him against the counter of the kitchen island, her lips finding his again and pressing more firmly this time. For a moment, she thought: We should leave. We should take a freighter and fly away from Coruscant, to somewhere as remote as Mina-Rau. But this was where Cassian needed to be, and so it was a place she would suffer through as well, if it meant being there with him and for him, and having him there for her as well.

“Was he handsome, this ISB supervisor of yours?” he wondered glibly, dryly.

She shook her head. “Not particularly. But even if he had been, you’d still be stuck with me.” And she would make sure it was something neither of them would regret.

Chapter Text

Merely thinking about the demotion she was enduring made bile rise in her throat, but it was a choice that had been made for her, like so many were. She did not want the task of running down some menial operative, but what else could she do? The feeling of being rendered obsolete occurred to her more and more these days, even as she listened to Partagaz explain why she was needed for this particular task.

“Have you been listening, Dedra?”

She nodded crisply. “The woman was seen entering a cantina on the lower levels and chatting with an individual of ill repute, a dark-featured man whom we haven’t got a clear picture of, since he avoided the usual surveillance routes. Since she was later found to have accessed the SRS-98-Comps, you suspect that she’s given the information to terrorists. You think that I might wheedle it out of her.”

“Just so.” Partagaz seemed to fight the urge to smile. “And if your tactics are ineffective, we’ll bring in Doctor Gorst to settle the matter with his own special techniques.”

“Of course, Major.” Dedra drew a breath. “Here’s hoping for her sake that the doctor isn’t needed.” And for mine, she thought, but it seemed ill-advised to volunteer that realization to her superior. Still, she imagined that she could feel Partagaz thinking it behind her back even as she waited for the door to swish open to the interrogation chambers.

The woman’s perfume hit her—candlewick, easy and floral. She drew in a breath of it, gazing at the put-together woman before her. The interrogation target was older than she, pushing fifty, but there was something of the vamp or seductress still about her. Red hair and blue eyes would have given her a striking appearance if not for the smattering of freckles across her cheeks, lightening her appearance a little.

Dedra said nothing as she walked in and observed the woman, watching as the woman’s eyes flicked this way and that.

“So you’re the one they sent for me,” the woman said at last, resignation clear in her tone.

Dedra nodded slowly. “My name is Supervisor Meero. I already have yours: Sheela Ostling. Age forty-eight, had a rather undistinguished career on Coyerti. Do you know they’re already rebelling there?”

The captive stared in surprise at that. She didn’t know, clearly. Her mouth formed the start of a word, but no sound came out.

“I’m to understand that you were seconded to Coruscant some years ago, though, so don’t worry. We don’t want you for that attack.”

Sheela’s shoulders relaxed a little. She looked up at Dedra. “Then I can go?”

It was a stupid idea. Dedra stared at her, her voice flat. “What? Of course not.” She leaned in, putting herself in the former researcher’s personal space, enjoying the little twitch as the woman fought the urge to pull away. “We want you because we know you know something else. We have reason to believe you’ve met a rebel leader, or at the very least, one of his associates.”

Sheela shook her head, unthinkingly. “A man like that? Hardly a leader.”

Dedra straightened up, placing herself directly in Sheela’s eyesight, her gaze boring into the other woman. “Tell me about him.”

The picture Sheela gave was unremarkable, and not what she’d heard about Axis. The man Sheela had met was on the shorter side, with dark hair and deep eyes, clad in everyday trades gear of the lower levels. There was nothing really of note about him at all, and that set Dedra’s senses alight. She remembered a man like that, a man she had hunted once, a man she had failed to capture. Was it even remotely possible that Sheela had met Cassian Andor?

“What name did he give?”

Sheela was beginning to trust that she wouldn’t meet a bad end if she talked. Dedra knew that shift in captives. She’d seen it before in many. It only meant that they would be freer with information before they met their regrettable ends. “Tari Pacon,” the woman said, and then confirmed exactly what Dedra was thinking: “But that wasn’t his real name.”

“Did he tell you anything about himself?”

Sheela shook her head. “He didn’t even ask me my name.”

Clever move, Dedra thought. Even if the man that had gotten the inventories hadn’t been Axis, he was likely someone trained by Axis. She stared at Sheela for a moment too long, blinking once.

As Sheela sat there, Dedra felt her annoyance with the woman start to rise. She had been close enough to the terrorists to picture one in her mind, but she hadn’t had the foresight or the cleverness to ask him anything useful, or to learn anything unique about him. He was just another man with dark hair somewhere in the depths of the planet.

“Think hard, Miss Ostling,” Dedra remarked, “and tell me what you can about him, or I’ll have the interrogator droid rip it from you.”

Sheela flinched as if she had been slapped. She searched her memory for a moment. “He wore a cloak.”

“Describe it.” Dedra hadn’t moved.

“Light gray. Black and crimson edging. It looked rural, like something from the Outer Rim.”

Like something from Aldhani, Dedra realized. She held back the facial tic that threatened to burst from her, leaning in. So Sheela Ostling’s terrorist contact had been on Aldhani. All the more likely he was one of Axis’s men, then. She was on the verge of solving a small piece of the puzzle, she knew.

But she couldn’t tell her interrogation subject that. She turned, leaving the woman in isolation, spotting Partagaz watching her intently as she left the room, a look of approval on his face. She felt a rush of pleasure at his notice of her, but merely nodded at her supervisor.

His voice was avuncular, praising her, if only mildly. “Well done, Dedra. What do you want to do with her now?”

“She’s worth nothing now. The only thing she had to tell me was that cloak. If Captain Seitaron can use her on Coyerti, second her to him.”

“And the SRS-98-Comp files she’s alleged to have given to the terrorists?”

Dedra shrugged loosely. “We should burn them. But only after we’ve figured out what the Axis cell wants with them.”

And to do that, they’d need to find the man that had taken the files from Sheela Ostling, a man who Dedra was beginning to be sure she had hunted once before several years ago. She would find him this time, and, with any luck, she would find Axis alongside him too. She could imagine getting more than just muted respect from Partagaz. If she solved this the way she needed to, she would be admired—which didn’t appeal to her so much—and she would be needed. Dedra Meero wanted very desperately to be necessary.

Chapter Text

Cassian didn’t like the plan, but there was no way he could have told Luthen that. He wasn’t sure why he avoided challenging the man. He had no particular regard for Luthen. Most days, he didn’t like him. But Luthen was sure the plan would work, and Cassian hadn’t come to the discussion with an alternative in mind.

So Tari Pacon had died a quick death, no longer to be used on Coruscant. Now, he needed to use those forms that the woman had given him and find the vessels to match to the forms. That was the task of a data miner rather than a spy, and he had found a new identity to match. He could not get physically near the Imperial records, housed as they were in the ziggurat of the Imperial Temple, but he could find a slicer to help him get to the inventories and rule out any false positives.

Sleek and cleaned up, Cassian ducked out of the refresher, running a comb through his hair as he adjusted the fasteners on his shirt. Made out of the finest Ghorman twill, the shirt and trousers he wore spoke of understated elegance, of money to burn, and potential fools’ errands to run. He hoped desperately he was not being forced to run one in reality.

“You should clean up more often,” Bix’s voice sailed over to him.

He fought the urge to hide a smile at the backhanded compliment. “And you should save me some of those sweetmallow squares.”

“Maybe I will; maybe I won’t.” Bix moved over to smooth out his collar. “And who are you now?”

“Zakri Tem,” Cassian recited. “From Terrabe. I attended the military academy there, and I graduated sixth in my class.”

“Not first?”

Cassian shook his head. “Not believable enough. Since then, I’ve chosen a life of non-military service. I found my calling in data science.”

Bix stifled a giggle, but he saw her lips press together to hold back the laugh at his dubious claim. “If you say so.”

Cassian gazed at her, wanting nothing more than to spend the rest of the day with her. “I am very good at information.”

Her hand trailed along his shoulder, feather-light. “And other things as well.”

He reached for her hand, squeezing it fondly. “That’s Cassian. Who knows if Zakri Tem is equally gifted?”

Her eyes sparkled with humor, but she pulled away. “Go. You need to do this. You’ve been summoned.”

Was there an edge to her words? He couldn’t be sure, but he shrugged it off, pulling on his coat and fastening it. He’d have to take a circuitous route from the apartment, just in case that fellow who Bix had seen yesterday was casing the place, or if the ISB man was being tailed as well. He stared at Bix for a long moment, feeling like his heart would burst from his ribs.

“Go,” she repeated, and he raised a hand and turned for the exit. She was giving him the gift of not needing to worry about her, and he couldn’t turn it down. Still, even as he left the apartment, he felt that nagging tension in his head that he’d had so many times before. How much of this could Bix take before she decided enough was enough? She was better at saying no than he was, he knew, and he only hoped she would tell him before she decided to leave.

The streets outside the apartment block gradually gave way to wider, broader avenues as he plunged himself deeper within one of the central districts of Coruscant. Streetlights spaced just so cast him in repeated bursts of definition and shadow, and the odd hovercar sailed by for destinations unknown. Had the landscape been less barren during the days of the Republic? Topside on Coruscant, all too close to the stronghold of Imperial power, people scarcely walked outside—or dared to breathe, it seemed like.

Zakri Tem, Imperial-leaning archivist, gradually took shape as Cassian strolled. His strides become a bit shorter, a bit sharper. His carriage slumped a little, as if he spent long hours at datapads or looking over texts in older formats. He rumpled his clothes slightly despite the care with which he’d dressed himself. Zakri Tem might have started out the day dressed to impress, but he was ending it with a lot less smoothness than he’d begun. Reaching the data center, Cassian loped in, all easy smiles and vaguely sleep-deprived distress.

“Hello!” the fellow behind the counter chirped. “Welcome to Engineered Insight.” This was not who he was looking for, this jobsworth with far too much stimcaf in him, and Cassian pulled a smile he didn’t feel.

“I’ve got a meeting set up with one of your people. Last name Tem. Trell, Esk, Mern,” he spelled it out crisply.

“Of course, Mister Tem. Just one moment… ah, of course! You’re going to meet with Jiry over there.” The man gestured down the aisles, and Cassian followed the gesture. The cyborg who sat there, headset blinking, was clearly the receptionist’s target.

He wanted to feign disgust at seeing a cyborg. It stood to reason that Zakri might not like cyborgs, since they could do his work so much faster and more competently, but Cassian couldn’t bring himself to be disgusted at another person who didn’t deserve it, even if part of them was mechanical.

He made his way to the cyborg, clearing his throat as he went so he didn’t surprise Jiry.

“Mister… Tem, is it?” The cyborg’s headpiece swiveled up towards him. Cassian definitely didn’t like that he couldn’t look into the other man’s eyes for his sincerity, but he nodded once. “A pleasure to meet you. My name is Jiry.”

“So I was told,” Cassian replied. “I also have it on good authority that you’re the man to talk to when it comes to data analysis.”

Jiry’s shoulders rose in what might have been a careless shrug, but again Cassian felt a flash of frustration that he couldn’t gauge the cyborg’s sincerity. He swallowed it down, not trying to start a conflict with the other man this early in their conversation.

“You have data to be analyzed, I suppose?”

Cassian removed the datapad from his coat.

Jiry’s voice was dubious. “This is Imperial.”

“Aren’t most things these days?” That was an answer to a question he’d seen coming.

“Fair enough,” Jiry admitted. His head swiveled back to the datapad. “What specifically do you need help with, Mister Tem?”

“I have the logs of the inventories from the captured vessels, but I don’t know where the vessels are. I need to find their locations so that I can compare one to the other.” Cassian’s voice turned apologetic, if phonily so. “I should have done this three days ago, but I was busy, and now my supervisor needs a cross-referenced list by tomorrow morning.”

Jiry looked through the datapad, fingers skimming, clearly scanning the list on it faster than someone without an implant could have. “You know what the penalty is for breaking into the HoloNet?”

“Only if we’re caught,” Cassian replied, including both of them in the mix pointedly. “And we won’t be caught.”

He wanted to smile, but he couldn’t find the expression as readily as he would have wanted, with the severity of his message. Jiry nodded, though, and inserted a datacard into the machine. As the cyborg did so, Cassian moved to cover him, shielding him with his body. Around him, he could see other people were mostly interested in their own tasks, mostly cared about what they themselves were doing. He shifted his stance slightly, trying not to look as if he was doing exactly what he was doing.

The correspondence between the datapad and the shipyard records came almost unnervingly quickly, but Cassian was willing to chalk that up to the speed of the HoloNet here on Coruscant. Information might not flow so freely here, and propaganda had largely taken its place, but the speed of whatever the Empire had decided was below their notice was surprisingly reliable. All a good slicer would have to do would be to keep moving the gravball nets and, just like Cassian himself, the slicer could always stay below notice. Cassian felt a certain satisfaction in that realization. The Empire was nothing if not consistent in what it overlooked, whether it was technology or people, and there was always room for a niche to be occupied by a saboteur.

“Platform Seven-Nine on the Eastport Docks contains your first target,” Jiry murmured. The cyborg looked up towards Cassian, still unable to lock eyes with the smaller man. “You’ll be looking for a Colicoid class freighter, about a decade old.”

Easy to find, Cassian knew. The boxy, downright ungainly appearance of the Colicoid ships would stand out easily against the graceful architecture of topside Coruscant. But if he found it easy to find, the Empire would find it easy to find too, and that thought made him a bit more dubious.

Still, he slid a purple Corusca stone next to Jiry’s hand at the terminal. Luthen had given him a couple for payment to avoid being tracked via credchips, and Jiry had done the work. He reached out to slide his datapad away from Jiry, making an apologetic little noise as he did so. “Talk later,” he remarked, stashing the datapad away as he moved for the door.

Chapter Text

“No blind spots in the leopard’s eyes
can only help to jeopardize
the lives of lambs,” the shepherd cries.

—Wire, “Outdoor Miner”

Panic was something Luthen was used to, operating on a knife’s edge as he did, but he knew he never hid it as successfully as Kleya did. Since he had rescued her as a little girl, she had been remarkably self-controlled. Whether that was from the trauma that had happened to her, or if she had always been like that, he couldn’t say. But now, as he watched his erstwhile daughter as she digested the choice he was making, Luthen imagined what he felt was fatherly pride.

“We know the ISB is back at it,” Kleya said slowly, parsing through the information, “and we know that Lonni is looking for you, if the message Bix got to us is true. Is the search still on, then, or should we pull Cassian?”

“He knows what he’s doing.” It was one thing Luthen could say about the other man. Even now, years after Aldhani, he couldn’t quite trust Andor’s allegiances. He couldn’t say that the man was all in for the cause. But he knew that he was supremely capable and largely unaware of the fact, which made him valuable due to a lack of overconfidence. It was easy to find good marskmen. It was easy to find slippery spies. But it was hard to find people with both those skills who didn’t overestimate their own abilities and let that make them vulnerable. Everyone he recruited was useful, and Andor was no exception.

Kleya nodded once. “And the resonator?”

“If it’s still in the ship, he’ll find it.”

Kleya shot him a dubious look, but he ignored it, or tried to, at least. But when she didn’t break her gaze, he looked back towards her, shaking his head. “Work to do.” And, just like that, the shop bell dinged, as if he’d summoned someone to his doorstep just in time. He let the easy, political smile drift over his face and made his way out of the back room, smoothing out his robes as he did so.

“Ah, Director. What a pleasure to see you.” It was always something of a surprise how easily the lies came to his lips. Luthen smiled at the other man, slouching a little, rendering his body language as insignificant and unthreatening as he could.

“You flatter me,” said Orson Krennic. “But I suppose that’s a good thing for a salesman.”

Luthen chuckled lightly. “Indeed it is. A pleasure to see you.”

Krennic’s gaze narrowed. A test—to see if Luthen backpedaled on his obsequiousness. But Luthen knew well that Krennic’s fatal flaw was much like his own, that of pride, and all he had to do was keep flattering the other man in fits and starts.

“What are you here for, Director? If you’re looking for a gift, we have plenty. I can have Kleya search the back room for you if you don’t find what you’re looking for out here.” Luthen rested his hands on the counter, fingers splayed, making it clear that he couldn’t possibly be armed, even though he very much was.

“Oh, I’m merely browsing.” Krennic’s cape had stilled around him; he’d stood still long enough on the other side of the counter.

That was an obvious lie, but Luthen shrugged. “If you need help, let me know.”

What was Krennic looking for in the shop? It was clear that the man had come here for a purpose, but Luthen knew that Kleya and he himself were not the discoveries Krennic was looking for. Again, that easy, slightly indolent smile crossed his face.

“I’m looking for reflection.”

“The words of a philosopher,” Luthen replied.

Krennic smiled, an expression as phony as it was unconvincing. Luthen didn’t underestimate Krennic because of his ego, but the Advanced Weapons Research Director was certainly no born actor.

“I’m looking for a certain substance,” Krennic replied, “and I’d like to test whatever mirrors you have here to see if they’re made with it.”

“Of course. Just a moment—I’ll see what’s in the back as well and bring it out for you.” He turned his back on Krennic, wondering for just a moment if the Imperial was onto him, if he might earn a blaster bolt in the neck for his troubles. But he didn’t feel the heat of a blaster, and he ambled his way back to where Kleya had been waiting and watching.

“What substance?” Kleya’s voice was low, asking the very question that Luthen had wanted to ask Krennic but hadn’t been given an opening for.

“Doesn’t matter right now,” Luthen replied quietly. “Find reflective surfaces. If we know what he’s looking for…” He trailed off, leaving the implication quiet but unanswered.

As Kleya scrambled to find mirrors and glassware, Luthen watched from the back room to see how Krennic had reacted to his absence. The caped figure was simply waiting for him to return—no curiosity, no further action. That was a good sign. That meant Kleya and he were safe for now, and he could continue playing the clueless gallery owner who enjoyed the presence of blowhards like Krennic—even if everything in him loathed the other man.

He plucked a piece from the shelves, strolling back out to the other man. “I don’t suppose you know the story of the one person to break out of Stygeon.”

Krennic, propping his chin up with a gloved hand, shook his head, an elbow securing the other arm in a pose meant to look studious or academic.

“Rumor has it that this is her mirror. She was a vain woman, a noble from some Core World. I can’t say that it matters. Anyway, she managed to bring a mirror with her to Stygeon. This was back in the old days, so I suppose they didn’t search as well when they brought people to prisons.”

Luthen was unable to hide a little venom from his voice as he said that, but he covered it up by holding out the mirror. Krennic took it in a gloved hand, turning it over.

“This noblewoman decided to escape in the middle of a blizzard,” Luthen continued. “And she was pursued by the prison guards. So what did she think to do? Even as the Tibidee approached to fly her to safety, she turned the mirror on her pursuers. In the blizzard and the snow, they were blinded. Only for a few seconds, but that was more than enough.”

Krennic laughed quietly, appreciatively at the story. “The more fools they.”

“Indeed, Director. May our own reflections offer only truth,” Luthen said.

For a moment, he imagined that Krennic took his point as he intended it, but the Director seemed to have other epiphanies in mind. Setting down the small scrap of mirror, he pulled out a small handheld scanner. Luthen watched as the scanner failed to register anything on the mirror. What was Krennic after? Why was he interested in reflections and glassware, of all the things? They were hardly weapons material in their own right.

“I suppose you haven’t found what you’re looking for.” Kleya’s voice piped up, offering an observation Luthen was a little too distracted to voice himself. She had emerged with a few more mirrors, but chose not to offer them to Krennic, as the man was clearly no dilettante of a customer. Not for the first time, Luthen was proud of her caution. There were times when he knew she thought a step ahead of him, and he’d have to remember to congratulate her later on her reserve.

“Indeed not,” Krennic murmured. “Do let me study your shipments for the next few weeks, though.” It was an order, not a request.

“Of course,” Luthen replied. But he’d have to be shot dead before he allowed the order to really be fulfilled, and he knew that Kleya felt the same. Even now, his compatriot was stepping forward to play the classy shop girl’s role.

“I don’t suppose we can wrap up that mirror for your wife, Director,” Kleya said coolly.

“No wife.” Krennic’s voice was blunt, but he softened the two words with a smile that was about as warm as that day on Stygeon must have been. “Married to my work.”

Luthen let out a genuine, if mirthless, laugh. “I’m afraid I know the feeling.”

Chapter Text

It should have been simple. A request for a few Stormtroopers stationed at each of the targets, with comm contact to her if someone matching the description came close to the freighters. But the proverbial red tape had tied Dedra’s hands, and she felt a wellspring of frustration at having to go through more official channels.

“There are a dozen ships. Twenty-four troopers at most.” She bit into the words, her eyes unmoving from the captain. She knew the stare unnerved people, and she hoped it would unnerve him as well. “We don’t have time to argue.”

“Your areas of responsibility are Steergard and Sev Tok, are they not, Supervisor Meero?” 

Dedra let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d held. “Yes.”

“So why are you pursuing a lone suspected terrorist on Coruscant?”

Dedra took a step closer. “Captain, would you like to have a conversation with Major Partagaz?”

Most times, the threat of being entangled with the ISB was enough to make people back down. Unfortunately, she seemed to have found a rule-follower to the extreme—and he reminded her of someone. But the man didn’t blink. “I’m simply following the chain of command, Supervisor. I can’t second them without countermanding the orders I have. I apologize.”

Dedra felt herself twitch. “Thank you.” But she didn’t mean it for an instant. She turned crisply, feeling the Navy captain watch her as she retreated from the argument. Of course the Navy wouldn’t be willing to help COMPNOR and the Imperial Security Bureau within it. She should have known. But frustration threatened to boil over, and she bit back the scream of frustration that welled up in her. She couldn’t lose control over herself. There were always eyes watching, even those who had previously worked for her. As much as she respected Heert, she was well aware that his newly minted Supervisor’s position meant he was as much of a threat to her as a coworker.

She would have to find a way to get those troops she needed. Capturing Andor would lead her to Axis, and she could not allow the possibility of failure. Right now, the terrorists might be staking out the cargo ships, and she could feel the possibility of capture starting to slip through her fingers like sand on a beach. She’d had the same feeling on Ferrix when the riot started and the natives of the planet had risen up, and despite the smaller scope her quarry presented her today, she still needed to find him.

Her comm trilled at her. She looked at the identification marker: S. Karn. In some ways, Syril was the last thing she needed right now. He always had complaints for her, even though she had rewarded him with a fine job at the Bureau of Standards. She’d even allowed both of them to endure the dubious pleasure of each other’s company.

“What is it, Syril?”

The eagerness with which the man spoke did not surprise her. “Dedra, hello. Are you able to meet me for lunch?”

She blinked. He really did live on another planet sometimes. But perhaps an outside perspective would help. She was considering using him for the Ghorman project, and this might be a good test drive of whether he could actually keep a secret if pressed into it. “Yes, actually.”

He let out a floaty little laugh, as if surprised by her ready acceptance. “Great! Should I meet you at the Central Office?”

“No.” She couldn’t help it being flat. He still didn’t understand anything about information security. It was really quite astonishing. But he wanted to be helpful, so she added, “Meet you at the front of the COMPNOR arcology. I’ll find you.”

And indeed, it was easy work to find the newly minted supervisor of the Fuel Purity Sector of the Bureau of Standards. He lit up when he saw her, and she fought the urge to pull away, acknowledging him with a crisp nod of her head as she approached.

“Syril. Have you figured out where to go for a meal?” she wondered.

The shine to his eyes was omnipresent. He was as much in his element in this interaction as she wanted to be, but could not bring herself to be. He shrugged beneath the confines of his tailored suit, as fastidious as her own uniform. “Where would you prefer?”

He was incapable of choosing for himself. On some level, that appealed to her. She was used to making decisions, comfortable with taking control, and it had often scared away men. Even some of the ISB avoided her thanks to that quirk of personality. However, Syril seemed to almost need her to call the shots, and she wondered, not for the first time, why he was incapable of defining himself. She had spent the past few decades needing to do exactly that.

“We’ll find a place. But I wonder…” She trailed off and, as if a gear had locked into place, he looked up in turn. “… if you could do me a little favor?”

“Absolutely.” He was all too eager to do exactly that, nearly throwing himself in her lap. Appalling, but also appealing for her current purposes.

“I have reason to believe you can help me,” Dedra said slowly, “but I need you to keep it private, and I can’t have you going off on a wild reed-goose chase. If it goes badly, I’ll disclaim you, and I’ll swear blind that this conversation never happened. Are we clear?”

The warning in her voice, obvious though it was, didn’t seem to dissuade him. He nodded quickly. “Absolutely,” he repeated, as if there was only a standard set of words that would fit in any given situation. “What do you need me to do for you, Supervisor?”

“I need you to contact any friends you might have on security details. I can’t use the Navy for this. They won’t give me Stormtroopers.”

Syril blinked. “Is this a secret mission?”

The way he said it was disgustingly naive, but she nodded. “In a way. Whoever you know who used to work for Preox-Morlana who might be on Coruscant. They need to investigate a list of leads I can give you.” She could have told him it was Cassian Andor, but she didn’t trust that his urge to find the man would override what scintilla of good sense he had—just like a nagging feeling told her she shouldn’t trust herself with the hunt for Axis. But she buried the caution for herself, replacing it with caution for Syril’s sake.

“I can do that,” he assured her, no hint of doubt in his voice. “When do you need them by?”

“An hour after lunch. Send them to Eastport. We’re looking for arrivals, not departures. And be in radio contact with them.” She couldn’t possibly send Syril after Andor in person. He would only get in his own way. But he was useful as a middleman, she hoped, and the sting had seemingly no reason to fail.

Chapter Text

The afternoon sun shone brightly through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows of Eastport, but Cassian knew he couldn’t be lulled into complacency. He had the make of the ship he was looking for; he had its manifest. He’d had no hint that anyone would be here, but he wore caution like a second skin, shedding it only in quiet moments with Bix and perhaps a few others. Clad in the clothes he’d worn to playact being a slicing specialist, he blended in with all the functionaries moving this way and that. No one seemed to be watching, but people never looked his way unless he wanted them to.

It was strange, in a way. When he’d first started doing these jobs, he’d have thought the accent would have thrown people. Basic was not his first language, and even though he hadn’t spoken Kenari since he was a child, he had never been able to shake the language that always threatened to make its way through. But people listened to him even less than they looked at him, and even if he could fake a passable Outer Rim accent, he rarely bothered to do so.

He glanced up at the arrival transports, quickly memorizing the schedules. He had to make his way to Platform Seven-Nine. Very few things were currently docking there, and that made him a little more suspicious. Was this that trap that Luthen had spoken of yesterday? He was good at wriggling his way out of tight spots, thanks to more practice than he particularly liked. Drawing a breath, he spotted an arrival within the hour from Ord Mantell. The syndicates liked that planet. The Empire had a drydock there. There should be more overt presence than he would have liked—but something told him that he was going to have to resist the temptation of being lulled into complacency.

Cassian moved for the turbolift, ascending seven stories up, watching the people grow smaller as the lift climbed one side of the spaceport. Not unlike lifting off in a spaceship, except here he was, still stuck on the Imperial stronghold for as long as Luthen told him to be here.

He’d joined up with Luthen because he thought he was out of options, but some part of him wondered if he had traded one unsavory option for another. He didn’t seem to have many more choices as Luthen’s agent than he'd had back at Narkina-5, but at least he had Bix, and he didn’t have to watch himself around her. She understood what he’d been through, even though the dull, rote trauma of imprisonment was much more faded than what she had undergone.

She never elaborated upon it past the basics of having to kill the lieutenant who attacked her, but he knew she had been introduced to a fresh nightmare scant weeks after her night terrors from the torture she’d undergone had started to fade.

He knew when he’d lain with her the first time after leaving Mina-Rau. He’d apologized when she pulled away, left her alone until she initiated contact, but he was not naive, and he understood—even without her telling him—what she had gone through. The way she spoke of it was the language of a personal violation, and he knew enough to let her be the one to share her story, even if he still didn’t quite know the particulars. Prying any further unshared details out of her would be as much of an invasion as whatever had happened.

He exhaled slowly, even as the turbolift docked at Level Seven, chiming to announce its arrival. He had a mission to undertake here that should only take him ten minutes at most. He knew thanks to having the lists cracked where the Colicoid ship lay, and the sight of it would stand out. But Luthen had said that they were luring the Empire into a trap, and he knew that the Empire was already wise to his arrival.

The biggest clue: few others around. He entered into a nearly deserted port level, ships of various sizes and makes parked around him. It wasn’t the dead of night. There was little reason that the place should be deserted.

Cassian stepped out of the turbolift, the weight of the Bryar a comfort in his hand again, for the second time in recent memory. A faint breeze whispered through the hangar, and he listened for a long second for footfalls, checked his surroundings like numbers on an ancient chronometer, and started casually for what he hoped was the Colicoid, garishly square and old-fashioned amidst the more sleek craft most Coruscanti preferred.

The ship had been sitting here a while. Weeks, at least. He was surprised anyone still piloted ships like these; they were cargo haulers and little more, and he knew from hitching a ride on one when younger how cramped the living quarters were. It would be a hunt to find what he was looking for.

Electronic lockpicks sufficed to open the hatch to the massive cargo ship. Still hearing nobody around him, Cassian slipped inside. He knew what he was looking for, the artifact Luthen had sent him before, but only due to pictures. A small, brittle sphere, teal in color. Luthen hadn’t told him what it was, but that wasn’t his responsibility to learn, he figured.

The ship sealed shut behind him. He wanted to light up the ship, to see better within the bulk and bleakness, but he didn’t dare, not when someone might be waiting to see if the ship lit up with the presence of someone inside.

It would be the equivalent of searching a good dozen hovercraft. He couldn’t do so in a matter of minutes effectively without thinking his way through the search. The haulers would want to secure the prize, so he could largely skip the durasteel nets that held cargo boxes a bit more precariously above his head. If it was something important, then it would likely be in a more secure storage area, rather than somewhere that pirates could get it if they boarded. He moved towards the center of the ship, stifling a cough at the dust within the craft. Just like the Colicoids who built these ships, whoever had used the ship more currently was only concerned with utilitarian transport, not with personal sanitation.

Making his way into the central area of the ship, Cassian realized it was a gamble. Not only was he floundering in the dark, but he was willingly blocking himself from seeing what was going on outside of the ship. He pulled out a small glowrod, igniting it on the lowest setting, now that it would not shine outside of the ship. The boxy walls of the craft seemed to close in on him, claustrophobic and oppressive, a miniature Empire in and of itself. He understood, yet again, why Bix loathed the planet.

He turned a corner, feeling his shoulder slam into something sharp. He winced, tensed, moved his glowrod up to see what he’d knocked into. It was only the sharp edge of a cargo box; that was all. Nobody’s here, he told himself. He hadn’t heard the hydraulics of the entrance hiss open, after all.

But—weirdly—there it was. Luck, again. Nothing more than that. But it did seem to find him whenever he needed it to.

He knew it was what he needed from what Luthen and Kleya had described to him. He let out a shaky breath, reaching out to pick up the delicate object, sliding it off the top of the cargo box with only slightly trembling fingers. It was at least a couple hundred years old, he knew. Maybe a thousand, if what the relic-hunters said was correct. They called it a resonator. He hadn’t asked what that meant.

A little bit of blood dripped, glinting in the dim light of the glowrod. He hadn’t cut his fingers, he knew. What had happened? He’d have to figure that out sooner or later, but he couldn’t pay attention to it right now. Slowly, he opened up the padded cargo bag he carried with him, pocketing the sphere and sealing the bag shut, slinging it over his shoulder and shutting off the glowrod as he made his way from complete blackness to almost-complete, moving for the ship’s exit without undue hurry. He couldn’t hear voices from outside like he expected. So either the Empire had figured out Axis was baiting them, or they really had missed the window to catch their thief.

He still stayed armed, though, as he made his way for the Colicoid exit, the resonator tucked safely in his bag.

A single set of footprints outside. He braced himself for action, moving his blaster arm up as he moved to punch the exit controls with the arm holding the bag. Maybe he could catch whoever it was by surprise.

He was face to face with a redheaded man he didn’t know, an ISB supervisor by the rank insignia on his white uniform. He stared at the man for a moment, something stopping him from firing his blaster. Maybe it was the speed with which the other man raised his hands, or the average looks of the man. Bix had said he wasn't spectacular-looking, after all.

Another drop of blood fell onto the gangplank of the ship. A nosebleed?

“I’ll kill you,” he promised the ISB man, but the other man’s actions were strange. He wasn’t looking to arrest him. And suddenly, the blaster in Cassian’s hand felt impossibly heavy. His blaster arm wavered, even as he fought to lock his elbow into place.

The ISB supervisor stepped back, even as Cassian felt himself stumble down the exit. The other man, slightly taller than he, reached out to steady him, as if he were stumbling home drunk from some random cantina on Ferrix.

“We only have a few minutes,” the ISB man said, “but I have friends everywhere.”

Cassian looked up in shock at the catchphrase, even as his vision blurred. He could feel the ISB supervisor wresting the blaster from his grasp to keep him from firing it, but his legs were jelly and his senses were clouded, and he sank towards unconsciousness as if, once more, he were jumping into the vast Narkina ocean.

By all rights, he should have awoken in the sterile confines of an ISB interrogation room. As he came to, Cassian almost thought he might be there, before his vision cleared and he realized where he was. It wasn’t the safehouse where Bix and he were staying, but it was something close enough, even if the touches of finery here and there on the walls told him it was more lived-in, and was decorated by someone with antique tastes.

He moved a hand for his face, feeling a trail of dried blood trickling down from one nostril, a spatter or two on his shirtfront, and then looked up dully to see Luthen and Kleya nearby him. The former was watching him with something almost approaching concern; the latter was carefully removing the resonator from the bag in which Cassian had secured it.

“That was your man in the ISB,” Cassian said. “Jung took a risk coming there.”

“A calculated one,” Luthen replied, although Cassian wasn’t too sure that the spymaster had done the math correctly where the near-miss was concerned.

“Supervisor Meero had contacted a friend of hers to send a private security detail after you.” The redheaded man spoke now. Cassian swiveled his head to see Jung along the other end of the room, blinking away some of the cloudiness in his vision. “We were hoping to bait her into acting personally, but Luthen said not to move in unless she did so, so he sent me to extract you.”

Cassian directed his words to the ISB supervisor. “Then your running into Bix—”

“—wasn’t an accident,” Luthen cut him off. “It was to give you the space not to fire that blaster if we needed to extract you before she got there.”

From where she was still investigating the artifact, Kleya murmured dryly, “Of course, we didn’t expect you to pass out during the extraction.”

“I had a nosebleed.”

“I got it up before I got you out,” the ISB man said.

Something nagged at Cassian that they might have forgotten, but he was too lightheaded to press the issue. Instead, he propped himself up on the cot where he lay. “I got you your resonator, Luthen. And the ISB will know I’m the one that took it, even if Jung here pulled me out in time.”

Luthen shrugged, something mercenary and careless in the gesture. “No loss. They already know your name. They already know you’re affiliated with Axis. You successfully getting the resonator out doesn’t give them anything they don’t already know.”

Cassian laughed bitterly. “I appreciate your concern.” He bit into the words.

“Would you prefer to have been left there to become a guest of Supervisor Meero?” It was Kleya, not Luthen, that took that proverbial shot at him, and he winced, lacking a ready reply. He glared at the two familiar faces before him for a long, sullen moment before sighing and moving to swing himself off the cot, running a hand over his face. He wasn’t at full power, he knew. His thoughts were muddled, and he still felt lightheaded.

“So what happens now, Luthen? You’ve got your artifact. The ISB’s hunt for me is reactivated. You wanted to make things more dangerous, and you did.” He pushed himself to stand, reaching for his blaster on the side table by the cot. “Don’t expect me to thank you.”

“I expect you to do as I say,” Luthen replied firmly, staring at him with the resolute look that always made Cassian’s hackles rise. “There’ll be a ship waiting for you in Westport tonight. The Kuari Princess.”

Cassian’s eyes widened. “The luxury liner? Luthen, we don’t have time for that.”

“You’ll take the trip I want you to take. Bring Bix if you like. I’ve already sent her your identities. Consider it a reward for bringing the resonator back successfully.”

It wasn’t one, but Cassian couldn’t quite square what it actually was. He stared at Luthen, drawing a breath. “You’re punishing me for Jung having to step in and take me off the ship.”

“No,” Luthen replied coolly. “I’m telling you to follow my orders. Take the Princess to Chandrila. Stay there for up to a week, if you’d like. Bix could use the change of atmosphere. From the looks of you, so could you. You’ll get more details when you’re there.”

Some part of him that he hated acknowledging knew Luthen was right about that point; he nodded begrudgingly, watching the older man’s eyes narrow at the resentment Cassian knew he was projecting.

He swung around, catching himself glaring at the ISB man as well. “… thank you,” he relented somewhat, extending a hand to the sallow figure before him. “Cassian Andor.”

“Lonni Jung,” the other man said, and Cassian filed the name away as he started for the door. Jung might have saved his life, but it wasn’t enough to make him wish Luthen and Kleya a fond farewell.

Chapter Text

They’d gotten there too late, Syril realized. Once the call had come in from Mosk’s old buddy Trisdan, he’d hailed a low-skimming transport to meet them at Eastport, despite Dedra telling him not to get personally involved in capturing Andor. The moment had played in his head over the last couple of years, and he relished the opportunity of making it happen today.

But as the skimmer arrived, parking next to the lockpicked Colicoid cargo ship that the former corpos had figured out was the target of Andor’s theft, he saw only various private security uniforms—and nobody in custody. His heart sank a little at the realization that his moment of triumph would be at least temporarily delayed.

Stepping out of the shuttle, he tried to put a reassuring face on. These guys didn’t know him. They weren’t necessarily his friends. They were only hired help, just as he had been before he began his tenure in the Fuel Purity Division.

“So he escaped?”

A man whom he assumed was Trisdan offered him a shrug. “We didn’t see him here at all.”

“Who was on patrol since noon?”

“Isaks.”

Syril schooled his voice into patience. “Which one of you is Isaks?”

A bull-faced, scarred man raised his hand. From the looks of him, he would have been a good choice to subdue Andor, if he hadn’t been too much of an idiot to be there on time.

“You were supposed to be patrolling the level. You should know I’ll have the security cameras reviewed.”

“What cameras?” Trisdan asked.

Syril stared at Trisdan, the reply clear enough on his face that he didn’t have to vocalize. He waved a hand mutely, feeling rage start to boil. There were cameras throughout the spaceport, in the turbolift, everywhere. If Isaks was the reason for Andor’s escape, they would know quickly, and he’d happily turn the man over to Dedra’s team.

“Let’s begin a ground investigation. We’ve figured out what ship he went into. Now, we just need to figure out what he stole. Get on it.”

The corpos moved, but with that familiar reluctance he remembered from the disastrous Ferrix raid. They weren’t Imperials. They didn’t believe in what he did. This was only a job to them, and they were only doing as much as they were required to do to get paid for being seconded to the Imperial military.

He pushed past one, making his way onto the Colicoid freighter. The smell of antiseptic hit him. Someone had cleaned the landing ramp. But if Andor hadn’t been set upon by the corpos, how had he been injured?

The gloom of the ship encased him. He flicked on a glowrod, but it did little to make him feel any more welcome in the space. There was no dust to see footprints, but he could see a few boxes shifted around here and there from where they should have been. Someone had been here and had been looking for something specific, but that didn’t tell him anything more than he already knew.

“We have the SRS-98s?”

“The copies we were given from you,” Trisdan replied.

“I’ll want someone to go through everything that was on the ship and compare it to the inventories.”

He could hear another corpo sigh in disappointment at that, loud enough to echo through the ship.

“And it seems we have a volunteer for it,” Syril said, jabbing a finger offhandedly at the reluctant fellow.

They moved further within the ship, feeling like they were walking within a boxy, formless mausoleum. There was no charm about a ship like this. There was no panache. It didn’t belong on Coruscant, a place that prided itself on appearances and formality.

“So he was in here,” Syril murmured, “for only a few minutes. He must have found what he was looking for quickly.” He cast his gaze up to the cargo nets around him, but none seemed jostled, so his gaze went to the shelves, filled with bric-a-brac. This was going to be an aggravatingly tedious chore, he knew.

Nothing seemed out of place. Nothing seemed missing. But he was a careful, fastidious man, and he moved forward more slowly than the corpos did around him. They didn’t know Andor like he did. They hadn’t studied the man from Kenari like he had. 

Andor was equally careful, though, and Syril was sure he wouldn’t have left many traces behind of his theft. He took a moment, reminding himself to pace his search. Part of being a good detective was not letting your emotions get the better of you, and he figured he was a very good detective. He had solved the murder; he just had to find the killer of Skiff and Drezzer. But once more, the man might have slipped through his fingers.

If he brought in Andor, Dedra would be proud of him. She would be able to use the man to get to her target in turn. He would have done her a service, and done the Empire a service. He would finally be recognized for doing some good in the world.

His glowstick trembled a little in the darkness; he exhaled, calming himself, and cast the beam down towards the floor. Something caught his eye, red against the gray of synthecrete. He knelt down, bringing the beam closer.

Dried blood. Perhaps the crew’s, but it seemed too fresh for that, not yet trodden into the floor.

Cassian Andor’s blood. He knew it with the certainty of the last few years’ hunt. Scarcely able to breathe, he called out, “Stop!” Around him, the corpos shuffled to a stop.

Syril looked up, looking for more blood, for an injury. A box had been jostled, but no blunt force trauma or fight seemed apparent. So Andor had been here, and he had started to bleed. Why? One thing was certain: that explained the antiseptic scent of the gangway. But someone must have helped him in that case, must have seen him bleeding and stopped to clean it up, covering Andor’s traces.

He reached out a finger, flecking up a bit of the blood, placing it in a sanitized bag. “You. Get this to someone in the Science Bureau. Have it tested and isolated. I want a profile on it by the end of the day.” He extended the bag, and one of the corpos took it without a word.

That was it for the clues, though. Minutes of further fruitless search passed, but Syril didn’t entirely mind. In the duel between the two of them that constantly played out in his mind, he had drawn first blood, and he would make it count.

Ridiculous, and patently stupid. Not at all what he had expected. "What do you mean, the tapes were looped?” He wanted to throttle the technician to whom he spoke. How could Imperial security have allowed this to happen? All of his life, Syril had believed that the Empire was perfect, but now, he could see some cracks. It was fine. It was understandable. But he’d have to talk to Dedra about rectifying them. He felt his hand turn into a fist where it splayed on the console.

“Andor couldn’t have done that, could he?” Trisdan, an unwelcome presence past his shoulder. Syril turned, glaring at him, and Trisdan raised his hands and relented.

He turned back to the technician. “I want a list of everyone who accessed this room in the last few hours.”

The technician raised both brows, dubiously. “I don’t have clearance for—”

“Get clearance,” Syril snapped. He stared hard at the technician. “Or I’ll report you to the ISB.”

The technician actually looked scared for a moment there, and Syril wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Still, the incompetence and security breakdown that had taken place had to be addressed. He had already dealt with the Imperial half of the breach, and now it was time to deal with the corpo half. He pulled away, turning back towards Izaks. If it came to a physical fight, he wouldn’t have bet on his own chances that much against the hulking man, but he didn’t need it to yet.

Anger fueled his steps as he strode towards the corpo. “Officer Isaks, I need you to tell me exactly what you were doing during the time you were supposed to be making your rounds.”

“What was he doing, then?” Dedra stood before Syril, her arms folded, her gaze severe on him. Syril felt not unlike a disobedient student at school, and he fought the urge to back away. Some part of Dedra cared for him, and he couldn’t be blamed for the sting’s failure. It had gone wrong in a way they couldn’t have anticipated.

The room was as antiseptic as most Imperial meeting rooms were, a blank white with glaring overhead lights. Had Dedra interrogated people in places like this before? As much as he respected her, as much as he admired her, he hated the idea of her brutalizing anyone, even though it was a necessary evil to rid the galaxy of miscreants and terrorists. He felt his breath catch in the sterile atmosphere, and wished desperately they could sit together rather than only stand facing one another like combatants.

“He says he was on the other side of Seven-Nine, and that he had ducked out to use the refresher. He thought Merys was on the side where the Colicoid was, but Merys expected Isaks to be doing his usual rounds.” Syril swallowed, realizing Dedra hadn’t blinked once. “A stupid mistake.”

She nodded slowly. “Indeed.”

“But not my mistake,” Syril said. “And we have physical evidence anyway.”

“Which will take a few days to analyze. By which point, Andor will have left the planet.”

“And we’ll know by then what he took off the cargo ship.”

Dedra scowled. “And what good does that do us, Syril?”

Syril realized he had no good answer for the woman. He started to speak, shook his head, and fell silent, looking down. He couldn’t meet her intense stare. He had failed her, he knew, and if he knew one thing for sure about Supervisor Dedra Meero, it was that she didn’t tolerate failure.

“What do you want me to do, Dedra?”

From the look on her face, Syril wouldn’t have been surprised if she said she wanted him to drop himself out of an airlock aboard the next transport. But she didn’t offer him that unwanted opportunity. Instead, she toyed with the edge of her uniform, her eyes dark and calculating for a long moment.

“You’re already looking at the manifest, and you’re looking at the security footage. Once we find out what he took, I need you to find out why. Something tells me it wasn’t for money,” she remarked slowly. “He was looking to sell the Starpath Unit and he met Axis. If they’re working together, as I suspect, then it’s something Axis would want, and Andor is just the middleman to retrieve it.”

Syril swallowed. “Yes. Of course. I—I’m sorry, Dedra.” Not for the first time, he felt as if he were apologizing to his mother, not his potential lover. The control both had over him felt the same, and he chafed at the bit slightly, but managed to bury that brief flash of resentment.

“See to it that we don’t replicate the mistake.”

But there was a gift, of a sort, in there. Dedra wasn’t going to turn him in. She used we, not you, in the phrase. Were they still working together? Syril looked up, catching Dedra’s slight nod of acknowledgment at his silent realization. He breathed a sigh of relief at that.

“Give me a few days, Dedra, and I promise I’ll have what you want.” Syril straightened his spine. “I won’t let you or the Empire down. You can take that as a promise.”

Dedra stared at him dispassionately. Something about the stare made his blood run cold sometimes. This time, though, he knew it was a challenge to him to indeed make good on his words and not disappoint her. He needed to prove himself to her still, in order to earn the respect that he knew he would get one day. He far preferred her respect to his mother’s. Eedy was as stern a taskmaster as Dedra was, but where had Eedy gotten him? Only to the Fuel Purity division in the Bureau of Standards. If he rode Dedra’s coattails, he could go so much further, and he could help her ascend as well.

Syril reached out tentatively for her hand. Much to his relief, she intertwined her fingers with his, even if it was an awkward gesture. He knew that she wasn’t used to romance, but neither was he. Their interactions were less forced than they had been previously, at least. Maybe soon, they’d even spend the night together.

But the squeeze she gave to his fingers was painful enough to make him gasp. He flinched, looking at her.

“Don’t mess up like this again, Syril, or it will be on both our heads. Solve this for me. Find him—figure out what he took—and quickly.”

He knew she’d cut off his head to save hers, however regretfully she might do it, but all he could do was nod.

Chapter Text

Gifted children, link your arms in rhyme.
Better make this world while still it gives you time.
Oh, will you look so vain
left to the purging jets like garbage in the rain?

—Game Theory, "I've Tried Subtlety"

Maybe they should have gotten drunk before stepping aboard. Bix was sober but overwhelmed by the vast scope of the Kuari Princess. Their stateroom on the Lido deck was almost as big as the entirety of the safehouse, and she knew they both felt adrift in it. She was glad to have Cassian with her, though. They would steady each other on the journey, she knew, even if the idea of heading to Chandrila disturbed her. She knew the planet’s luxurious reputation, and some small part of her told her: You’re always a scavenger. Always a scrapper. You don’t belong in a place like that.

Did Cassian feel the same way when he adopted classier disguises? She made a point to ask him during this trip. They had a few days on the liner, and a few days on Chandrila, and Cassian had told her Luthen had told him to bring her along. She still wasn’t sure why, but she supposed it would make sense when they listened to the datatapes.

He knocked on the door in a familiar pattern to alert her to his presence before sliding the keycard home, opening the door to their suite. Clad in a long, flowing robe, with his hair styled to the hilt, the man who entered the door was eerily put together—and not at all the Cassian she knew. Shock radiated through her for a second before she forced it down.

“So you got the tapes?” she asked him once he’d shut the door, trying to work through the uneasiness in her voice.

“And you checked the room for recording devices,” he replied with a nod, “or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” A smile softened his words, and he looked over towards the traditional Chandrilan dress that Luthen’s contacts had picked out, raising a brow skeptically at it.

Bix felt much the same. She was much more at home in simple work clothes, and the dress was not to her taste. A soft, feminine violet with long, voluminous sleeves, it was going to make sure she’d be unable to function well. Trapped. The idea quickened her breath; she rested a hand on the dresser, breathing hard.

Cassian saw. He was over to her in seconds, reaching for her shoulders, holding her close, wordless, waiting for her to recover before he spoke. That was something she always appreciated about him. Perhaps it was being raised by Clem and Maarva (but mostly Maarva) that had done it, but Cassian, for all his faults, did not inherently disrespect her. He never tried to talk over her or tell her what to do.

She could have spent ages in his arms, her chin on his shoulder, her eyes shut, resting in his comforting, reassuring presence, but they needed to get things done so that they could relax. She’d just have to summon up the nerve to be a minor aristocrat’s wife for a few days, drinking weak tea and trading veiled social barbs with women she’d never see again.

He pulled away from her just as she pulled away from him. “You all right?” His question was casual, but it was equally genuine.

She shut her eyes, offering him a sad smile and nodding. “Yes, Cass. Thanks.”

His fingers stroked her shoulder for a second or two before he stepped back. “We should listen to those tapes so we know our new identities.” He held them up before sticking the first one in the player.

“You are minor nobles Padrick and Constanza Cathala. You both attended the Academy of Sciences in Emita on Chandrila, so you’re cultured people. You speak with a classical Chandrilan accent…”

And so it went while they curled up on the sofa to listen, minutes of details about each of them, and their reason for traveling to Chandrila. Cassian listened more intently than she did, but Bix didn’t feel bad about that. He was the spy; she was not. But it seemed like she was needed, given the depth of the background that the tape gave Constanza was equally detailed—maybe even more—than what it gave Padrick.

Their missions, too, were separate. She gave Cassian a nervous look at that. She was the real fake noble between the two, so she would be the one to speak to the aristocracy. For his part, Padrick had a reputation for being rather academic and self-absorbed, something Cassian would use to run errands while Bix provided the cover. She didn’t particularly like the idea of being away from him and having to do her own playacting, but the details were just enough to remember. The rest, they could make up together.

“So,” Cassian said, “I suppose I’ll have to work on my accent.”

She looked up at him in surprise. A pitch-perfect Core Worlder accent came out of him in those last ten words. It was a shock to hear it. She was so familiar with his Kenari accent lilting its way over Basic, but hearing that clipped speech coming from him sounded wrong. Sounded evil. It was the voice of oppression coming from the man she loved, and it made her stomach clutch and her heart thud.

“I don’t like it,” was all she could manage to get out.

The smile he wore sank like a stone, concern flashing in his eyes, and he gazed at her in mute apology, reaching for her hands. His voice ricocheted back into its usual cadence. “I won’t use it between us then, Bix, unless I have to.”

She bit out a quavering, “Thanks.”

He gazed at her for another long moment, silent, assessing her. She knew that look in his eyes. “You can do this, Bix,” he said solemnly, no puffery in his voice. It wasn’t fake praise. “You already know what to do. Just steer the ship and I’ll take the shots.”

She smiled at him, pushing herself to stand from the sofa. “I’ll try on that dress. And then dinner? Gundark steaks and Alderaanian wine on Luthen’s credchips?”

“Toniray Blue wine,” Cassian corrected her. “The most expensive one they’ve got. By the bottle.”

She laughed aloud at that. It felt good to be with him again, and she was glad he was safe. She would make sure he stayed safe on Chandrila, but they had a meeting on the Kuari Princess to attend first.

Chapter Text

Vel would have recognized Cassian a mile away, but she had to fight to hide a smile at the sight of him, and Bix beside him. They looked the part, even walked the part reasonably well. At least neither of them tripped on the robes they wore as they approached her where she stood at the high-class wine bar set just steps from the shopping on the Bazaar Deck.

She cleared her throat as the pair approached. “Padrick. Constanza. Lovely to see you both.” A flutter of her own gown as she rose from where she stood. “You’ve eaten, I hope? Charged it to the suite?”

The pair echoed her conspiratorial smile. “We had some terrific gundark steaks at the Imperial, and lobster Bisellian that cost more than two hundred credits,” Cassian said, but it was not the voice of Cassian Andor. It was the voice of a man with the same pitch and tone as he, but a clipped, precise Core Worlder accent. It threw her for a second as she stared at Cassian, but she nodded in approval. His accent checked out. Her gaze flicked to Bix. “And wine, I expect?”

Cassian’s hand tightened fractionally on Bix’s arm, Vel noticed. She opened her mouth, starting to point it out. But Bix nudged him, recognizing the giveaway that that might have been, and replied to Vel with a similarly clear accent:

“Toniray Blue, of course. Padrick’s suggestion.”

“I bet it was,” Vel said, offering another nod. Both accents worked well enough for their purposes, and she trusted neither of them would be making senatorial speeches. She gestured them to the table at which she’d been sitting. “We’re waiting for our friend. Perhaps another bottle of Toniray?” It was mostly teasing, but she wouldn’t have blamed them for accepting. Luthen deserved as good as he got in situations like this. As harsh of a boss as he was, he at least could take jabs back in his direction.

But Cassian smoothly declined another expensive bottle on Luthen’s tab, guiding Bix to her seat in proper Chandrilan fashion, taking a seat next to her. Around them, Vel could hear the chatter and the clinking of silverware. Everything was prim, proper, and perfect, and it annoyed her. She’d never fit in in Chandrila like Mon had. Mon could hide the ways she didn’t fit in, overwhelm others merely by dint of being Senator Mothma. Vel Sartha had no such claims to her name, only the same defiant point of view without a convenient excuse for its presence.

She steepled her hands before herself. “So I heard that you found what our friend was looking for, Padrick?”

“It drew first blood, though,” Cassian said. “Did our friend tell you that?”

Vel shook her head, glancing over him cautiously. “You’re all right, though, surely?”

Cassian shrugged expansively at the question, a signal to drop it, but she only belatedly realized that both his gaze and Bix’s had both drifted above her head. She swiveled her head, looking up at the man who had approached them. She wasn’t a born actress, she knew. It took her a moment to smile.

“Ah, Erskin. We were waiting for you.”

The man above her smiled, but his gaze was on Bix and Cassian. “These are your friends from school, Vel?”

“Padrick and Constanza,” Vel said. “Fancy meeting them here on the Kuari Princess.”

“I can think of a lot worse places to meet,” Erskin Semaj said with a polite smile towards the trio as he folded himself into the chair to Vel’s left. “And a lot worse people as well.”

Vel smiled, sipping her wine. It wasn’t Toniray Blue, but it should have been. She leaned in towards Bix and Cassian. “Erskin Semaj works for my cousin, Senator Mothma. Mon owes him her life.” She set her cup down, offering a little laugh to shake off the seriousness of the words, just in case anyone was listening. There were plenty of Imperials aboard the Princess, after all, even at a lovely wine bar like this one. All the crystal and soft lighting in the world couldn’t hide their menace.

She waved a hand towards Erskin. “Anyway, Padrick, I’m sure you’ll have things to discuss with Erskin on Chandrila.”

Cassian lifted a dark brow, but said nothing.

Erskin leaned in. “We’re going tomb-raiding.”

Beside Cassian, Bix struggled not to let out a laugh. Cassian bit his lip to avoid a snicker too. Erskin seemed a little put out by their reaction, not seeming to realize the melodrama of his phrasing. Vel had to interject, she knew:

“There’s something our mutual friend needs on Chandrila, and I can’t ask my sister for help with it.”

“Another artifact?” Cassian seemed skeptical. His voice was still a little light and dubious.

“Another artifact. He didn’t tell you why he needed that resonator, did he?” Vel asked.

Cassian shook his head. “Didn’t ask. It knocked me out. I was glad to be rid of it.” He reached out casually to sip his vibrant blue wine. “And my lovely wife? She didn’t come along by accident.”

“Constanza is going to befriend Leida,” Vel replied, “and visit my in-laws. There’s something we could use a little help with.” That was Luthen’s phrasing, not hers, but Vel knew both of them would at least take her meaning, so she didn’t bother to spell it out.

Cassian was watching Bix, concern on his face, but Bix was watching Vel. She was relieved when the dark-haired woman nodded agreement at the proposal, confirming with an even and levelheaded, “I’ll do it.”

“Excellent. Talk later once we land,” Vel replied. She looked over at Erskin. “Should we…?” She pushed herself to stand as Erskin, ever the dutiful and faithful Chandrilan functionary, moved to pull out her chair as proprietry demanded. It was a good show, she thought, and one that would fool anyone into thinking they all were exactly who they claimed to be. Ironic, then, that the only two wearing disguises and using borrowed names were the two who were lying the least.

As she walked away from the pair, Erskin with his hand on her arm, she guided him away from the wine bar, down a path in the luxury liner, and towards the shops beyond. She could see their names: Pendlestat which specialized in expertise; the Imperial restaurant where Cassian and Bix had dined; the Gild-Galaxy shop that sold the finest clothes. She was used to that luxury, though, and barely batted an eye.

Erskin kept his voice neutral, so that no passersby would notice: “Do you trust them?”

“With my life,” Vel said without hesitation. “And you should too.”

He clasped his hands together, a simple gesture. “Good. I’ll take your word for it, Vel.” But a muscle in his jaw jumped, a little unease, and he leaned in, dropping his voice lower. “If we find what we’re looking for and… Constanza… does what we need her to with the Sculduns, all well and good. But they’re unknown entities, Vel.”

“To you, but not to me, and not to Luthen.” Vel’s voice was scarcely louder than breathing.

Erskin stared at her, uncertain. She understood the caution. Cassian and Bix were not Chandrilan, and even though Erskin was only half-Chandrilan, there was an insularity about their world and their culture. Letting in two agents of Luthen Rael would mean that they were trusting the other two with adapting to the culture so well that they could slip in amidst the cracks of their society and exploit them. It almost felt unpatriotic, and she was hoping that by exposing Chandrilans to outsiders, she was working for the greater good. But it was hard to be sure.

The man nodded after a moment, relenting. Decision made. He added, a sudden thought seeming to land abruptly, “You haven’t spoken to her, have you?”

Vel swallowed. Cinta. “Not—we haven’t even seen each other since the wedding and Tay Kolma…” Her hands twisted into fists at her sides. Had Cinta done what she assumed she’d done? Was it guilt at being an assassin of someone Vel had known that was keeping her from returning? That didn’t feel like the Cinta she knew and loved. She would have even forgiven her for killing Tay, if Cinta were only there to ask.

Erskin grimaced. “Stepped in it there. I’m sorry.”

“No,” she ground out, looking up at him. “It’s fine.” Was it, though? She missed Cinta desperately, needed her back in her life. But the woman was gone for now, and she had a sinking feeling that ‘now’ would be many weeks to come.

“We’ll talk on Chandrila,” Erskin remarked, with the slightly hushed tone of a man who didn’t want to press further, who was careful of stepping on any verbal landmines. “After we get the Cathalas settled in their roles.”

Vel half-smiled. “Thanks, Erskin. You’re a good man. You do more for my cousin than she knows.” They both did, and someday she would be able to tell Mon that. But not yet. They were on different prongs of what she hoped would soon grow into a Rebellion, and she couldn’t get those wires twisted yet.

Chapter Text

“Blood analysis? For a two-credit thief? Lio, you can’t be serious.” Krennic’s face was twisted into a sneer of displeasure, his arms folded. Beside him, Colonel Brierly Ronan thought perhaps he should adopt the same stance, but discarded the idea. Perhaps it would be too comical to have two of them standing in the same posture. They already wore the same capes, after all.

The ISB Major standing before Brierly’s boss shrugged. There was a weariness in the gesture. Partagaz and Krennic were two very different men, and Brierly thought perhaps the Major did not like Krennic. But that would have been a foolish tack to take, for Orson Krennic’s proverbial star was ascending, and Lio Partagaz’s had been on the way to flickering out for longer than perhaps the Major wanted to acknowledge.

“I did not advise Supervisor Meero to do that,” Partagaz said. “And, from what she says, she did not advise the fool she was working with to do so either.”

“This was such an unusual request for the Department of Science that it came knocking at my door. That was a mistake.” Krennic’s voice was ice as he stared down Partagaz.

Brierly’s gaze flicked between the two men, the tension in the room nowhere near abating. He would have loved to have been back in his department, checking out the latest reports from Eadu. Instead, for his sins, he was here in a nondescript conference room, watching his boss destroy a man who was all but asking for destruction.

Partagaz sighed, the tone as if dealing with a child. “Orson, it doesn’t concern you.”

“Director.”

“Of course. Forgive me, Director Krennic. But this is the province of the Imperial Security Bureau. Yes, we protect the secrets of your projects, and of course, we’d like to work hand-in-hand with the Advanced Weapons Research Department, but we operate outside of your department’s oversight.” Partagaz’s voice was slow and patient, as if Krennic were foolish or stupid.

It was amazing how much Partagaz thought of himself, really. Did he really think he was cleverer than the man who was designing Project Stardust?

Krennic looked over at him. “Thoughts, Colonel?”

Brierly felt a thrill of recognition run through him. He knew what the obvious play here was—back up Krennic in the face of disagreement. It was why Krennic had brought him along to the conversation. “Gladly, Director. With all due respect, Major Partagaz, I think that, as we were notified—however incorrectly—we should only be allowed to have a hand in the matter. If Supervisor Meero is as bright as you say she is, and if she’s pursuing this matter, we would like to know the results as well.”

Krennic’s sharp smile was its own reward, in a way.

Partagaz’s attention was trained on him now too, and he caught the thoughtful glint in the old man’s eyes. Feeling like a slug-beetle under a microscope, Brierly realized that he was being sized up. For what, he couldn’t say. But before he could comment on it, Partagaz turned back to Krennic.

“How much experience has Colonel Ronan had with fieldwork?”

Krennic shrugged. “He’s ready and eager.”

Perhaps he should have been asked his opinion, Brierly thought, but he kept his mouth shut, offering Partagaz a sickly smile. Krennic was right like always, of course, so what harm did it do to have his superior answer for him?

Partagaz sighed again, as if Krennic’s answer were something he would have to begrudgingly accept rather than gladly accommodate. “Very well. May I borrow his readiness and eagerness, starting at sixteen hundred hours today?”

Krennic nodded. “You should know he’ll be giving me tabs, Lio.” It was pointed, this use of Partagaz’s first name and lack of allowance of Krennic’s own, and Brierly admired the subtle social tactics that Krennic used.

“I would expect nothing less.” That was an insult from Partagaz, but delivered with such weariness that Krennic did not seem to pick up on it. It was amazing, Brierly thought, that he himself could instead, but he was quite willing to overlook that lapse from the man he respected most in the Empire.

As Partagaz turned and left, Brierly rolled his shoulders to ease out some tension, looking back towards Krennic. The man was fond of adopting specific postures, Brierly knew. He could at least admit Krennic had a touch for the theatrical. Perhaps he himself did as well; he hadn’t balked at being asked to adopt the cape along with the other half-dozen senior officers under the purview of the Advanced Weapons Research Department.

Indeed, Krennic’s arms had unfolded, and he was steepling his hands below his chin. Contemplative, thoughtful, very much a man of deep consideration. It was really quite admirable how thoughtful Orson Krennic tended to be. One day, Brierly hoped he could rise to Krennic’s level.

“Brierly, whatever Partagaz asks of you, I want you to report to me.”

“Of course.” It wasn’t even a question.

The middle-aged man nodded. “You know I brought Supervisor Meero in on the conversation at the Maltheen Divide for a reason. She’s on the ascent in the Security Bureau. She’s Partagaz’s star pupil. I think she could be quite useful.”

The only thing Brierly was worried about was that Krennic might become more fond of Meero than he was of any of his actual junior officers, but there was no way to state that tastefully now. He cleared his throat, gazing at Krennic. “And your search for synthetic kalkite?”

Krennic’s jaw tightened, a flash of warning—and of embarrassment buried beneath that warning. “Not as productive as I would have hoped. I thought perhaps we could find any particularly useful replacement minerals with reflective properties in the antique galleries around the Imperial City, but so far the scans I’ve performed have been singularly unimpressive.”

Brierly raised his brows. “Only a temporary setback, Director.” It wouldn’t have done for him to point out that it was unlikely they would find a replacement for kalkite, that the best second approach was a synthetic replacement. Krennic was an ambitious man, and Brierly wanted to climb the ranks with him.

Krennic stalked over to the window, staring out at the traffic of Coruscant for a long moment. Brierly strode with him, watching hovercraft dip and arc here and there in the space lanes. Coruscant really was an amazing place, and Brierly felt a thrill of pride in what the Empire had built, and in what he, in his job as Assistant Director, was building. Once Stardust was fully operational, there would be peace in the galaxy at last. They were right, and even if he would have to suffer the indignity of being loaned out like a Sabacc chip to a man whose career was on the descent, he would still be protected by the brilliance of his real boss.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Krennic murmured.

“Of course,” Brierly said. We’ve built a society to be proud of. Orderly, consistent, and ever-expanding. Soon, even the terrorists will have to acknowledge how just and fair our society is, how many opportunities it offers those who conform to proper behavior.

That was what he would have hoped Krennic would have said. Instead, the older man smiled at him, a crack in the ice. But there were only frozen floes beneath. “Your ambition, I meant. I’ve rarely met its match since I left Lexrul. Mind you don’t outpace me, though. I’d hate to have to stop you in your tracks.”

Brierly’s spine stiffened as he gazed out the window. “Note taken, Director.” And indeed it was.

Chapter Text

In the hours after Krennic had been in the shop, Luthen and Kleya had swept it for bugs. Neither of them liked that the man had been here, and the search for reflective surfaces felt suspiciously like a pretext. But they had found nothing, and a furtive discussion in the back room had found some agreement between the pair: Krennic really had been looking for substances on mirrors, and had no clue of whose shop he had been in. That was a relief, at least. Luthen knew one day he’d have to set the shop on fire, but he hoped that day was not for a good few years yet. They had things to accomplish, missions to run, and he knew his time hadn’t yet come.

But it would. When it did, he’d know. Kleya would know. The whole damned galaxy would know.

Kleya was watching him from her chair by the comms controls, her brows raised in silent inquiry, but it was a question he did not have the nerve to answer: Are you all right? He had not been all right since that day fifteen years ago when he had looked the Empire’s atrocities in the eye and blinked. He was never all right, but he was a better man now than he had been as an Imperial sergeant. It was a trade he would make without hesitation again, if he ever had to.

Kleya was a cooler head than he now that she was older, but Luthen didn’t mind that. The danger in a student outpacing their teacher was not in the student’s abilities, but in the teacher’s pride, and Luthen Rael—for that had been his name for so long he’d begun to think of himself as that—was a proud man. But he was pleased that Kleya was doing better than he these days, rather than envious. Someone needed to carry the torch that he had lit years ago, and he couldn’t think of a better standard-bearer than the girl he’d found on his ship, the girl whose parents he had probably killed just before he found her.

Kleya hated him as much as she loved him. He was sure of that. He’d seen to it. The choices he had asked her to make were hard ones. She had killed innocents as a child, and he had put the detonator in her hand to take out citizens alongside the Imperials. Nobody could truly love a person who asked them to do that. But the hatred was useful, in its own way. It meant she had no sentimentality for him. It meant that, if the day came that she would ever have to choose between him and the cause in which they both had devoted themselves, she would choose the latter.

He hoped he would not have to make that choice about her before the day came that she would make it about him.

Kleya’s voice, prim and controlled, broke into his thoughts: “So we’re sure Krennic had no suspicion?”

Luthen nodded. “Krennic’s not a subtle man, Kleya. If he suspected anything, he wouldn’t have played the fool. He’d have had half a dozen Death Troopers for each of us.”

Kleya frowned, her eyes dark and cautious on him. “It could be a pretext.”

Luthen shook his head, slipping the wig off as he did so. “Krennic doesn’t do pretexts. I know his type.”

Kleya reached out to put the wig back in its box for safekeeping. He felt his shoulders sag. Why, when nothing had gone wrong, did he suddenly feel the weight of what he was doing? Perhaps it was the quiet, the peace, the stillness. That was always the most worrying time. In a crisis, he could function, he could move holochess pieces—but waiting for the other side to make its move was a delay he loathed being necessary.

“Are you all right?” There it was, the question Kleya had avoided asking before.

He shot her a quick look. “I’ll have to be.” But it wasn’t a ‘yes.’

She gazed at him for a long moment, but said nothing. Instead, she moved back to the relic they’d gotten from Andor. They both knew what it was, even if Andor had no clue. As he watched Kleya lift it carefully from safekeeping, he held his breath.

They hadn’t even been able to get blueprints of the tythonic resonator from the Imperial Archives. There had been blueprints before the Empire had taken over, even if the last known resonator had been broken centuries ago, but they had disappeared years before Luthen had begun the search, before he had tracked the Colicoid freighter for months to its final landing place here in the Imperial City.

“Careful,” he barked at Kleya.

She glanced coolly over at him, even as she set the resonator in its holder, her fingers steady, not trembling for a second. “Did you think I would drop it?”

Luthen ignored the comment, moving over to study the object. He knew what it was, even if he knew he couldn’t feel anything special about it. He was not so blessed. But they’d had an unbelievable stroke of luck in finding an ancient piece of Jedi technology, even if it would have nearly killed Andor if Lonni hadn’t intervened.

Strange, that. He was sure Andor had no Force abilities either. The kyber crystal had produced no effect, and the man had not bled the crystal. So what was the reason he’d bled for this resonator?

He’d have to figure that out some other time. The resonator had to be his main concern now. The small teal sphere was unimpressive-looking, but Luthen would have broken every other piece in his gallery to save this single piece. With it, he hoped, he could give his network a punch that the Empire was not expecting. They could find Force Sensitives hiding in the city. They would hear the call. He only had to figure out how to unlock the piece’s secrets, to activate it properly.

When he had told Kleya what they were after, she had been characteristically dubious about his plans—but now, with the object before them, she seemed as rapt as he, her characteristic precision doing little to mask her wonder at the piece.

“Do you really think it’ll work?”

He looked over at her, stone-faced. He couldn’t afford to have her doubting. If she doubted, then he would doubt as well, and this opportunity was one that they couldn’t burn due to personal emotions. “It will if we allow it to.”

She nodded, entering a code on the holder. If what the dealer he’d met on Level 4888 in East Narcene had told them, the holder would dampen any outward Force that the resonator offered. Everything he’d heard about the resonator in bits of gossip and forbidden records told him that it was passively dormant, though.

“If this has any outward effect…” Kleya trailed off, echoing his thoughts.

He snapped his head towards her. “We would already be dead. They might overlook us, but they wouldn’t overlook this.”

It would have to be true. It seemed to convince Kleya, at least for the moment, even if Luthen knew there would come a time that he would have to face a barrage of questions from her. For the moment, though, both were content to live within that uncertainty, and he was glad for it.

Kleya stepped back from the resonator, her eyes on him dark and unreadable. “You should rest, Luthen. You seem tired.”

He wanted to counter her, to point out that he had all the energy in the world for the fight when it was necessary, but her advice was crushingly sensible. He was not a young man anymore. He had to pace himself. The path he had to walk was a long one, and he was in no real hurry to reach its end.

He smiled regretfully at her, sliding into the dark pool of her gaze. “I’ve been tired for nearly two decades.”

Her response was empathetic but not warm: “Then rest. I’ll finish locking up the shop.”

“Be careful heading home, Kleya.”

She scoffed at him even as he gave her that advice and started for the back exit of the shop. Level 5127 surrounded him, and the stars in the sky glittered dispassionately above him, faint through the urban haze. He sighed inwardly, leaning for a moment on the back wall of the shop and shutting his eyes. It had been a long few days. His shoulders sagged. He felt the weight of the decades bear down upon him, squeezing the breath out of his lungs for a second or two.

This was the right choice. He had no doubt of that. Fighting the massacres and the horror was always the right choice. But there were times when the weight of what he was doing sank deep into his bones, nearly knocked him out with the potency of his mission. The mission would succeed, he knew. It would have to. If the Jedi were correct, despite all their shortsightedness, there would be balance in the universe again, rather than this totalitarian nightmare. But Luthen knew, as surely as he knew his name was not really Luthen Rael, that he would not awaken from the nightmare, and he would not live to see the culmination of the dream.

Chapter Text

Fresh courage glimmers from planets.
And lights the map printed with the blood of history, a map you will have to know by your intention, by the language of suns.

—Joy Harjo, “A Map to the Next World”

The Kuari Princess had been a reprieve, Cassian had to admit. There had been Imperial agents stuck in places like the experts’ shop, Pendlestat. He had figured that much. If someone asked for help with slicing, of course the Empire would have wanted to keep tabs on it. But the heat of the search for him had cooled a little, and he gave places like that a wide berth. It was easy to isolate himself with Bix, for the two of them to spend the three Standard days the liner took to get to Chandrila entangled in each other’s arms.

He didn’t need to pretend with her. He wasn’t Padrick Cathala, and she wasn’t his wife Constanza, although they were bonded in the same way. He would have given his life for her, but in the comfort of a soft bed and the protection of thick damask drapes, they could take a few days to enjoy each other, too.

Having work to do was good for her, though, he knew. It gave her something else to focus on besides the horrors she had been through. As they were fed news from Vel and her slick-looking friend, they constructed their identities further together, in case someone on Chandrila put the pieces together in a way that they might not have expected.

She slept soundly for the first time since the riot at Maarva’s funeral, he guessed, and, although he tried to stay awake to watch her, to protect her, eventually sleep overtook him each night as well, stealing over him like an unwelcome guest. So it was Bix who woke him up to let him know the Princess had docked at Hanna City on Chandrila, shaking him gently, scrambling the image of Maarva, of his sister Kerri, just like she had many times before.

“Kassa?”

He rolled over sleepily, knowing it was her by her use of his real name, his Kenari name. She used it when she wasn’t sure how he would react. It always blunted any edge. “Padrick,” he corrected drowsily. “Haven’t you been listening?”

“Funny. We’re there.”

He propped himself up on an elbow, yawning. “You’re sure we can’t just stay here?”

“You can, but I have work to do.”

“I see which one of us is the real spy,” he drawled, pushing himself up, scrubbing a hand over his face.

She jabbed an elbow at the back of his head at the gibe; it nearly connected before he instinctively ducked out of the way. Years of self-preservation kicked in even in the most placid times sometimes.

He padded towards the closet, rolling his shoulders to ease out some tension in them. “If we pull this off, Bix, I’m going to ask him to let us go.”

Bix frowned at that, seeming disappointed, tension making her knuckles whiten on the steam-cleaned outfit she held. But she said nothing, turning away from him, busying herself with getting ready for their act. It would be a discussion they’d have to have on the way back, it seemed, but nothing was going to slow their mission.

Chandrila was a planet that could have come out of a holovid. It was gorgeous, the Emerald Ocean glittering before the perfection of Hanna City, the mountainous landscape in the background rising just so in the distance. Cassian instinctively mistrusted the place, even if he did not mistrust Vel Sartha herself. He had not met her cousin the Senator, and would not while he was here, he knew. Mon Mothma was back on her estate on Coruscant.

But he would be useful in other ways, and so would Bix. He knew he hadn’t been brought here as a spy; he’d been brought here as a thief, and the cover of an academic meant he’d be stealing something historical. Whatever that resonator had been, Cassian was fairly sure that Luthen needed it for practical purposes, not for historical ones. So what was he doing here? Was it only to satisfy the antiques dealer’s curiosity? He doubted he’d be wasted on something that was only scholastic.

Bix’s half of it was more clear-cut. Ingratiate herself with the in-laws of Mon Mothma’s newly married daughter—a young one, at that—and assess their allegiances. See how easy it would be to plant a listening device in their collection. She would be doing nothing dangerous if all went well, and he was glad of that, even if he suspected she was not.

He didn’t like the fellow Vel had stuck him with all that much, but he sensed it was more a difference in cultures and upbringings than anything else. Erskin Semaj was smooth in a different way than Cassian himself was. He was cultured, dutiful, slick. Everything about him screamed “diplomatic attaché,” and as much of a surprise as it had been seeing Vel dressed to impress, he did not know the man who was waiting for him at the dock, and he had little to go on besides Vel’s trust of him.

“Ah, Mr. Cathala. A pleasure to see you again, and to introduce you to my father’s homeworld. Allow me to take your bags.”

He glanced over his shoulder at Bix and Vel, already disembarking behind him, and shrugged, thrusting his luggage towards Semaj.

If Semaj picked up on the slight distaste Cassian was forming for him, he said nothing. Instead, he guided Cassian towards the waiting speeder, reaching out to place the luggage in the back, shutting the trunk firmly and then gesturing Cassian to board.

“So we’re not staying in Hanna City?” Cassian asked, unable to hide a bit of surprise from his voice.

Semaj blinked. “You weren’t informed?”

“I only knew I was retrieving… something.” It felt stupid to say aloud, especially to someone in whom he wasn’t entirely confident.

Semaj half-smiled. “Then you’re in for a surprise.”

There were few things Cassian would have liked less than surprises, but it wouldn’t do to get into a fight. Boarding the speeder, he belted himself in, gazing at the refined fellow beside him. He rolled his shoulders, trying to get comfortable, even as the craft sped out into the ocean waters.

“So, Padrick or whatever your real name is, I’ll spare you the history lesson of what we’re looking for. You can learn that after we’ve found what we came for and you’re back with your wife.” Semaj’s driving was excellent, at least; he hardly needed to look where he was going, most of his attention on Cassian himself.

Cassian nodded slowly. “And what exactly are we looking for?”

The speeder arced over the waters, a sharp right turn, distancing itself from Hanna City. “You should read more,” Semaj said, a little bite to his words.

There was some truth to Semaj’s words, Cassian realized soon enough. As the speeder banked hard away from the city, heading towards a formation some distance away, Cassian thought a little knowledge might have come in handy. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d deliberately been sent to Chandrila half-blind, so as to avoid forming any opinions about what he might come across.

The crystalline rock formation they stopped at would have taken his breath away even if he’d known what he was looking at. It rose from the gentle landscape and plunged into the mountains beyond, no tree to offset the unnatural-looking rocks that swooped towards the sky before him.

It should have felt harsh; it should have felt discordant. But it did not. A strange sense of peace floated over him, a sense of belonging. That unnerved him. He did not belong here, among these refined people of rarefied taste. He was not the Core Worlder he was pretending to be. So why did he feel—of all things—acceptance here? He tried to hide the shudder that crossed his shoulders.

“What is this place, Erskin?”

“The tomb I mentioned.”

“And what are we raiding it for?”

“Anything we can get our hands on.”

“What does Luthen want with death offerings?”

Semaj jerked up a shoulder. “Depends on who it was that died.”

Who was it that had been buried here, anyway? Cassian knew he was lacking that critical piece of information, but knew just as well that Semaj wasn’t about to tell him. Maybe Semaj had no clue as well. Why would Luthen give up that little bit of control over both of them?

“We’ll go in at night,” Semaj said abruptly, off to his side. “Less chance of company.”

Less chance of finding your way out in the dark, Cassian nearly said aloud, but he kept his thoughts to himself, even as he wordlessly started to help Semaj with the bivouac.

It was close to midnight when they stole out from the bivouac, Chandrilan finery replaced by climbing attire. Gravel crunched beneath Cassian’s boots as he followed Semaj towards the rocky tomb. And he realized, as he approached it, that the structure did not just go up, but it plunged down deep into the ground below them, chasms and precipitous drops awaiting them. Still, his footing was sure, and he was surprised to see Semaj’s was as well.

“You haven’t read Bleys Harand, have you, Padrick?” Semaj seemed to accept Cassian’s cool silence as a negative. “You should ask Luthen. The Empire banned Harand’s books, but I’m pretty sure he has a copy.”

It seemed almost perverse to talk about the Empire here, the conflict, the horrors that were occurring everywhere else in the galaxy. Cassian drew a breath in, feeling himself refreshed, restored, feeling the peace that he had felt even looking at the tomb redouble, nearly bursting out of his chest. It was an odd feeling. He was unsure if he liked it. He had scarcely known peace before, and he felt uncomfortable with it. There was no way to confront it and nowhere to hide from it. There was only acceptance, and he did not have a vast reserve of that.

For now, he wanted silence. For a while as they descended into the precarious chasm, Semaj was willing to provide that. Cassian could not be sure what the other man was feeling, but as long as they were making progress, he didn’t particularly care. Every so often, the crystal walls caught the light in an ethereal spark, seeming to drive him forward in the diplomat’s wake.

“Anyway, the man who was buried here goes by many names,” Semaj continued, even as he stepped onto a narrow ledge, steadying his knees from shaking slightly before he pressed on. “And his tomb does, too, so I’ve learned from reading.”

Cassian didn’t particularly care about the minutiae beyond simply identifying the tomb, and Semaj clearly wanted to play coy on that point. Cassian was willing to let him. He might be playing an academic, but he was not one. He had no need to fool Erskin Semaj, who already knew it was a pretense. The weird pull the place had over him seemed to intensify, urging him forwards towards something. He was unsure what it was.

As Semaj took another step, though, Cassian found himself reaching out quickly to grab the man by the shoulder. “Careful.” He didn't like the man, but he certainly didn't want to see him die unnecessarily.

The gap in the path would have sent Semaj to a quick but unceremonious death. The two men stared beneath them for a long moment, before Semaj took a shaky step over the gap. Just quick thinking, Cassian told himself, and Semaj did not venture anything different.

Still, Cassian knew, they were making it out of this place. The peace that had washed over him as they’d approached these crystalline caves had not abated. As much as he still mistrusted Semaj personally, the man was no threat. These caves were no threat. They were only unsettling him because they offered something he could not accept.

As they shimmied down the ledge, Cassian couldn’t help but stare. Neither could Semaj, he noticed. The walls beyond the next turn shone before them, vibrant, potent, looking almost alive. There was a pull, an urging, a need that Cassian could not explain, and he pressed his hands behind him on the rock, seeking for purchase that he could not find.

When the pair made their way carefully towards the crystal gallery, Cassian could start to feel it. A pull from somewhere deep between his heart and his guts, flickering there for just a second, intense enough to crash over him like a wave, obliterate his senses for a good few seconds, a white-hot flash of oblivion streaking through him like a meteor. Then, just as suddenly as it had come, it was gone so quickly that he was hardly sure the moment had been even real.

But in that moment where he felt some sensation he couldn't explain pulling him closer to the tomb, Cassian was almost sure he heard Maarva's voice, whispering in his ear like she had when he had awoken on Ferrix screaming aloud for his sister, a sister some part of him knew he would never find. Wake up, the voice that could not possibly be real, let alone be Maarva Andor, said. But he did not feel asleep.

Chapter Text

Three days, and Syril still had no answers for her despite his excellent tracking. Dedra hoped desperately that the door had not already closed on catching Andor. It couldn’t close. Losing him would mean losing Axis, and she would not allow herself to consider the possibility of that happening.

Still, she knew she was under surveillance. She saw the caped, cretinous figure of Brierly Ronan, Orson Krennic’s chief toady, asking Partagaz insipid questions. Was Partagaz watching her? Was Krennic? She could not imagine otherwise. It was dangerous to do so.

But she had no choice but to wait for information about the raid of the Colicoid ship to filter in. It came in slowly. The tapes had been looped, but nobody had needed to swipe into the security room to do so. There were only two options, then—an ISB attendant or supervisor had looped the tapes, or someone in the security office had done so. The former was an impossibility, she knew. Everyone permitted to even watch the supervisory council had been vetted by Colonel Yularen.

So that was why Dedra stood there watching Dr. Gorst unstrap the latest casualty of the Dizonite children’s screams, leaving the security monitor a gibbering wreck. They must have broken him too fast. He was their last option for a confession, and instead, they’d demolished his brain.

Gorst’s face was wide-eyed as he scrambled for an apology once he emerged to greet her at the viewing booth. “I didn’t think he’d be quite so malleable to the Dizonites. But he did say he had a child at home, so I suppose that makes for a situational difference. Interesting.”

Dedra did not think it was interesting at all. “You didn’t find anything though, doctor?”

Gorst shook his head. “Unfortunately not. He swears up and down that he wasn’t the one to loop the tapes, and we didn’t detect a lie before he had to listen.”

But having the man’s mind turned into blue-milk pudding was as good an explanation as any if she had to scramble to justify why they did not have an answer, she supposed. “And the blood Syril was supposed to have tested?”

“Nothing remarkable about it,” Gorst replied, after a glance through his datapad. “Cassian Andor’s blood, as I’m led to believe you and Mr. Karn both suspected.”

Dedra sighed inwardly. Part of her had hoped it would have been Axis who had spilled his blood aboard the ship, but Axis was careful. Axis did not get involved in the ground-level operations like those Andor performed. She was sure the two were close operators, though. Perhaps even friends.

Gorst dug his hands into the pockets of the jacket, slouching. He looked not unlike a KX droid in a blanket, and she resisted the urge to point out his ridiculous gauntness. Perhaps it was the lack of success that was making her petty.

She looked back towards the insensate, gibbering heap of a security technician in the torture chamber. The man would not be useful as an information source, but she knew how else he might serve her. “String him up,” she said. “Have the Ministry of Enlightenment disseminate his image.”

Gorst nodded. “Under what charge, Supervisor?”

There was only one choice that made perfect, logical sense: “Class One. Active sedition.” Dedra’s mouth curled upwards, hard and tight. “After all, he said on record that he was not the one to loop the tapes, so surely he knows who did.”

“I can’t get into the records, Dedra.” Syril’s voice was high and thin in complaint, something almost childish about the protest. “Every time I try to access it to find what this… this thing is, it says that I’m blocked from finding out.” Hands spread helplessly, he stood before her looking much like an errant cadet at the Academy on Carida.

“I can get into the records,” Dedra admitted, “but it’ll take some wheedling. Some time. We’ll need to be patient.”

“It was Andor, wasn’t it?” Syril’s focus, as ever, was on the detail that concerned Dedra the least. Why was he so obsessed with Andor? She was still unable to figure that out, but supposed her own obsession with Axis was much the same. They were both defined by the hunt. They had found each other because of it. Neither of them could afford to lose each other because of it.

They had so much, after all. They had this apartment that they had begun living in, a perfect, orderly life, an almost propagandistic level of conformity in which they both found comfort. They had the white walls and sleek furnishings of a couple of taste. They should have been happy.

Dedra wanted to tell him to let it go, to find a more productive focus for his energies. But it was all well and good. He might shift focus to Axis if she got him to let up on Andor, and she could not afford someone like Syril Karn turning it all into a disaster. She only realized now that she hadn’t blinked while she studied him.

Syril looked away from her unwavering gaze, exhaling audibly. “I need this, Dedra,” he admitted.

“I know.” Dedra moved forward, reaching for his hands. They were probably warm, given the ambient temperature, but she could not feel that within her gloves. “We’ll catch our quarry someday, Syril. I promise you.”

The man did not seem convinced, but he drew in closer to her, almost as if in a pantomime of romance. It was strange, trying to let her guard down around him even as she worked with him on a professional level.

She should care for him, she knew. She supposed she did, after a fashion. The man had saved her life, and she owed him respect, and she was even beginning to feel marginally fond for him. His intentions were in the right place. His love for the Empire was assured. She only needed to channel his urge to be distinct, to be revered into something productive.

“Forget about Andor,” she told Syril, even as his eyes widened at the seeming impossibility of the request. “Tell me about you, Syril. Who are you really?”

He flinched, as if she was accusing him of something, but she was not. Realizing that, he recovered after a second more, hesitating, his lips pressing together to exhale a breath between them, the noise clearly covering up panic.

She reached out a gloved hand to let it crawl up his suit sleeve, over his shoulder, caressing his jaw. He did not back away. He accepted her touch, and she was momentarily unsure how to reckon with that in turn. But she knew Syril wanted to be needed as much as she did. He wanted to belong in a way that he seemingly never had before.

Syril spoke slowly, as if testing out the words. “My name is Syril Karn,” he said shakily, “and I will do whatever you need me to, Dedra. If you asked me to stay with you forever, I would. If you asked me to leave you, I would.” His eyes locked upon hers, trusting. It was not a look she was all that familiar with, and the depth of his devotion momentarily unsettled her. It was as much for the Empire as it was for her, she knew.

If only I could tell him. But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. She was not a traitor. She had been entrusted with the secrets of the Maltheen Divide because of the respect Krennic had for her intelligence.

“For now,” Dedra said slowly, “I need you to wait. And I need you to trust me.”

“Of course I do,” he replied all too quickly. It was the naive reply of a man infatuated, but as much with what she represented, Dedra knew, as with the person she really was. She could not be sure herself who she was, so how could she expect him to know?

Her hand moved from Syril’s jaw to the pulse in his throat, and she let her fingers press there for a second—not hard enough to choke, but hard enough to make the suggestion.

“Good.” Dedra’s gloved fingertips rested in place for a second before pulling away. She could hear him gasp faintly in relief, and then try to inhale the noise as quickly as he’d expressed it. “I’ll tell you when we’re ready.”

Chapter Text

Bleys Harand hadn’t written about this. What in the name of all the thread Erskin’s mother had spun in Ghor was he going to do with an unconscious man slumped on a ledge above an ancient tomb?

He hadn’t been watching when it happened. He’d been a few steps ahead of Padrick Cathala, making his way towards the crystal walls before them. The other man had been behind him, sure-footed, and then, just as surely, he’d collapsed against the wall. Only the smallest jut out of rock had saved the other man from plummeting into the rocky chasm below. Perhaps it was the galaxy repaying the spy for grabbing Erskin only seconds before.

Now, though, Erskin knew, they were in trouble. He briefly thought of contacting Vel, but that was an impossibility. Vel was with Padrick’s wife—if indeed they were really married, and not just two strangers who had been thrown together by circumstance.

He cursed to himself, moving back away from the wall. The tomb and its treasure would have to wait. Erskin couldn’t be sure why the man who called himself Padrick Cathala had been so affected by the space, but he knew it meant something important. The exceptional figure that was buried in this tomb was not an ancient version of Padrick Cathala, whoever he really was, and nobody was alive anymore to explain the particulars, but clearly the man couldn’t help.

A shame, but they’d find another way to search the tomb. For now, he had to get Padrick Cathala awake. The only way they were making it out was for the other man to come to. Erskin knew he couldn’t possibly carry the similar-sized figure.

He knelt down, nudging the other man softly. He was still breathing, but unconscious. Good—or at least better than the alternative.

He hesitated for a long moment, drawing a breath. He was no outdoorsman, not really. Ghor, Chandrila, and Naboo had made him a political creature in a lot of ways. But as he activated his comm, hearing it crackle, he sighed inwardly. Politics would not help either of them here. He reached out for his flask, unsure if he should dash the water into the other man’s face or save it for him when he woke up.

Fortunately, the other man stirred, flinching awake. His hand moved towards his side, as if looking for a blaster. Not so academic, Erskin thought, but he was just glad the other man hadn’t been out too long.

The other man stared at him uncomprehendingly for a split second or two, dark eyes assessing him but staring straight through him.

“How long was I out?” But the voice he used was a different one than the plum tones of Chandrila. The other man’s accent was strange—not the flat Outer Rim accent, nor the median of the Mid-Rim. It was a thick lilt, as if Basic were not his first language.

“Minutes,” Erskin supplied. “We can’t go further in here. Not if you’re going to pass out.”

The other man stared sharply at him, starting to argue, but thought better of it. He propped himself up groggily on an elbow, shaking his head as if to clear it. His voice went back to the clipped tones of a Core Worlder. “I’m very sorry,” the man who was not Padrick Cathala said, although there was no real apology in his tone. “I don’t know what happened.” There was a certain wariness to his tone, as if he suspected Erskin might pry further—about either the accent or the occurrence.

But Erskin knew better. He only smiled indulgently at the other man. “Here. Take my hand. I’ll help you up.”

The spy nodded slowly, reaching to clasp Erskin’s hand. Erskin hoisted him up, but he could feel the other man’s fingers trembling as he got up. He was still affected.

Was this something Erskin should mention to Luthen Rael? Rael lwould want to know why they had stopped partway in the tomb, after all. He’d want to know why they hadn’t uncovered what he was after. Erskin didn’t like the idea of failing the harsh taskmaster that he knew Rael to be, but he supposed there was no other choice.

It could wait, though. His primary focus was the man whose safety he had to ensure. “Walk,” he urged the other man. “I can handle myself.”

He’d have to, too. As they navigated their way across the bridges and chasms, he knew the other man had been weakened by whatever he’d gone through. The other man’s shoulders shook, even though his back firmed and he tried to hide it instinctively.

His companion was silent, but Erskin hadn’t heard the man talk much anyway, so it was understandable. So, too, was the way that the other man slumped on the ground once they emerged from the cave, sprawling on his hands and knees for a few moments. But the defensive look the man shot him was more like a hunted animal than it was someone fully in control of themselves. Erskin resisted the urge to back away.

“That Blaze fellow you mentioned,” the man said.

“Bleys,” Erskin corrected.

“Bleys. Yes. Anyway, what did he think that place was?”

“He didn’t think it was anything.” Erskin smiled. “He knew what it was. It was the tomb of someone great.”

The skeptical look surprised him, but Erskin raised his hands, signaling that he didn’t need to debate the matter. They had failed, after all. They didn’t need to discuss it. He reached out for a drink from the flask that he was still holding.

“I’d like to see my wife,” the other man murmured. But when he tried to get up onto his feet, he was still shaking, and Erskin reached out a hand to steady him, activating his comm. Seeing that, the man shook his head, insisting, “I can walk.”

“No, you can’t,” Erskin said. “We’re going to get you some help.”

Over the comm, he heard the deep, throaty voice of the Sculduns’ attendant Mishko: “Mister Semaj?” The woman was cautious, although Erskin couldn’t be sure if it was because he had contacted her, or if it was because he was part of Mon Mothma’s delegation.

“Mishko.” Erskin gazed at the other man. “Send a medic transport. Don’t be too happy, though. Nobody died.”

The other man let out a ragged little laugh at the comment, shutting his eyes as he sank against a rock outcropping, breathing slowly. “Not yet, at least,” the man said quietly, although Erskin didn’t miss the slight edge with which the words were spoken.

Chapter Text

By the time Vel got her settled into the guest rooms in the Mothma estate, Bix was starting to feel a little less uneasy about where Cassian and their new supposed friend Semaj had peeled off to when leaving the Princess. The luggage Cassian and she had brought was deposited in the room by an attendant, Vel lingering in the doorway casually, arms folded, but concern writ clear on her face.

“You’re worried.”

She swallowed, but nodded. “I don’t really know what I’m doing,” she confessed. “I don’t know why Cassian couldn’t have done all of this.”

Vel shrugged casually. “My cousin’s daughter is traditional because she thinks she hates her mother. She’s only just gotten married. She’s barely past a child herself, and she’s in a strange household with a boy who doesn’t even know if he likes girls or not. How are we supposed to send Cassian into a situation like that?”

Bix swallowed, her hands dropping to her sides. “I know. But I’ve never pretended to be anyone before, Vel. I’ve done valuations; I’ve cut deals, but I’m not a spy.”

“You don’t have to be.” Vel’s voice was kind, if not as gentle as Bix would have expected, but she supposed it was hard for Vel to soften herself. She’d only met the woman a couple times before, and she’d admired her no-nonsense demeanor and her clearheadedness. “You just need to watch them. You don’t need to do anything. We just need to know if the Sculduns are possible to bug.”

Bix nodded. She didn’t know if she trusted her skill at pretending to be a Chandrilan. She wished Cassian were here to direct her through it, but he had gotten on an amphibious speeder, heading away from the city, some hours ago.

Vel moved towards her, reaching for Bix’s hands that had gone to her sides. Her grip was light but also firm, and she waited for Bix to look at her. Vel wasn’t a tall woman, but her presence and strength of purpose made Bix a little surprised to realize she had to angle her gaze down towards her.

“We wouldn’t have brought you along if it wasn’t necessary,” Vel said softly. Her hands squeezed tightly but not painfully. “Runai Sculdun has always had a crush on Perrin. He pretends not to notice, and Mon pretends to ignore the affair that they’ll have someday, but none of them are fooling the others. What it means for the cause is that if I go alone, Runai and Davo will know I’m looking for something. But if there are two of us, one of us can keep an eye on them and the other can scope out the place. Safety in numbers.”

Bix nodded. “And Cassian?”

Vel shrugged. “If Erskin and he find what we think they’ll find, then he should be back soon.”

“And if they don’t?”

Vel dropped Bix’s hands, giving her a quick, vaguely apologetic look. Bix didn’t like the look, but there was nothing to be done for it at the moment. She sighed, moving to lug her suitcase onto the bed, opening it up. The sleeves pooled around her arms; she was still not used to their breadth, but she looked up towards the redhead with a vague smile even as she stashed the holdout blaster that Cassian had insisted she carry with her, glancing into the gilt-edged mirror and adjusting her formal dress just so.

“All right, Vel. I’m ready. I promise.”

“You’ve been ready,” Vel said quietly. “But now you’re prepared.”

Bix was somewhat overwhelmed by the finery of classical Chandrila, but she could still tell the difference between Vel’s cousin’s estate and the Sculdun estate. The former was a graceful arrangement of serenity, circular rooms flowing into one another with logic and purpose, ebbs and flows that had been created through time and purpose. 

The Sculdun estate, however, reeked of new money. The place didn’t make sense. Even as she accompanied Vel into first one foyer and then another, she could tell it had been decorated in a hurry, by someone with more money than taste. There were no preferences, just sculptures and art everywhere, arranged in no particular order. Here, a huge chalice that threatened to tip over if she even walked near it. There, a fine sculpture of a couple Bix assumed to be Chandrilan nobility shared space with an abstract art piece that dangled so deep it threatened to knock into the table.

Next to her, she could hear Vel coo a bright, “Leida! Lovely to see you!” She gazed towards the child bride that approached them. The girl was short, like Vel, and her hair was done up in what must have been a fashionable style for Chandrila.

Vel had been right, Bix realized. Cassian would not have fit the role. She smiled warmly at the approaching child, even as Leida moved quickly to hug Vel, embracing her tightly. “How’s Father?”

Not ‘Mother.’ But Bix said nothing, even as Vel stepped back, all smiles.

 “Perrin sends his love,” Vel said. He told me to ask you what your favorite moment of married life has been so far, and I don’t want to forget.”

Leida blinked, her face tensing for just a moment, before she put on a brave show for Vel. “There’s just so much! I can’t wait to tell you all about it.”

But if Vel wasn’t going to say anything, Bix wasn’t either. She felt her spine stiffen at a hand on her shoulder, half-turning to come face to face with a dark-haired woman dressed a bit less formally than Bix herself was, something more practical about the garb. “So you’re Vel’s school friend?”

She nodded, extending a hand. “Constanza Cathala.”

The older woman clasped her hand lightly. “Runai Sculdun. A pleasure to meet you, Constanza. Where’s your husband?”

“He went for a drive with Erskin. Can’t resist new speeders,” Vel supplied before Bix needed to come up with a story.

Runai’s mouth made a silent ‘oh,’ but Bix couldn’t tell if it was approving. She smiled to cover up her doubt, slipping her hand away. “You have such lovely art, Runai! Does your husband like art too?”

She saw a flash of doubt in the well-coiffed woman’s eyes, before Runai hid it. “He’s bought me some lovely pieces.”

“Which one’s your favorite?”

Bix caught Vel’s approving gaze, but Runai really did believe she’d found a fellow art fan, it seemed, because she gestured Bix over to the large chalice, bell-shaped and bronze. “This is the Coryio Chalice. Davo bought it for me. Isn’t it impressive?”

Bix wasn’t sure what was so impressive about the artifact, but she smiled readily. “Very.” Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Vel chatting with Leida. A good sign, then. She was doing well enough that Vel didn’t have to worry about her. She listened to Runai give her more information about her beloved chalice, all polite smiles and soft assents to the other woman’s words. But her head had begun spinning from the effort of pretending, without Cassian there to buoy her up. Perhaps she needed something to steady her nerves. She could see her hand start to tremble, and slipped it into the folds of the sleeve.

“Runai!” Vel’s voice, from behind.

Bix could have screamed in relief.

“We can talk about art later,” Vel said. “I’m sure Constanza wouldn’t mind some food and drinks.”

Runai sighed, stepping away from the art. “I’ll have Mishko send Erskin a message. He can’t steal your husband away forever, Constanza.”

Bix laughed with a lightness she didn’t entirely feel. “Nobody can.”

As they made their way past the art and into an overlit dining hall, almost antiseptic in its attempt to dazzle the diners, Bix felt herself sway just a little, reaching out a hand to steady herself on the doorframe. And then she saw it. That very thing she’d been dreading. A medic transport swooped past the windows of the dining hall, moving fast for the entrance of the Sculdun estate. She could see Cassian’s robes, bundled up on the side of the transport facing the dining hall. She could see Semaj, standing astraddle the transport, piloting the speeder into the lobby. She could see the medic, bending down to tend to someone. But she couldn’t see Cassian.

Unable to catch herself in time, she let out that scream she’d been holding, but found no relief letting herself go.

Chapter Text

Well, it feels a little like a landscape,
and it sounds a lot like time passing by
as I watch through a window asking,
"When will I get mine?"
—Dog's Eye View, "The Prince's Favorite Son"

Syril felt like a narglatch being constantly swatted away from its prey. The records hadn’t let him in. Dedra had told him to leave it alone. He had no route to go after Andor open to him, and he felt like he was being shoved back into his box at Fuel Purity.

He needed to prove himself to Dedra, and to himself. The frustration of this sank into him like a jug of blue milk chugged straight down. He could hear Eedy’s voice in his head: Back to Fuel Purity, hm? That blonde doesn’t want you anymore. That’s all right, Syril. Some girl will want you someday, I’m sure. Always with the jibes, the insults couched as supposedly helpful recommendations and advice from his mother’s life experience.

And experience with what, exactly? Eedy’s life had been exactly this: Living in a dingy apartment all the way down on Level 91, instead of the pristine place he shared with the ISB Supervisor. Reading about others doing things and being barred from doing them herself. That was the life Syril wanted desperately to avoid, but the life that he could feel himself being drawn back into, as if it were his destiny.

But it was downright galling. It felt as if the universe was mocking him. He had done everything right. He had done exactly what the Empire demanded of any good citizen, and he had not seen the benefits. Meanwhile, somewhere out there, Cassian Andor had stolen something incredible—he knew that, at least, from the way he’d been locked out of the records search—and was out there committing murder again, for all Syril knew. Andor was free, and Syril was in jail, barred by the society around him, his hands tied behind his back to avoid doing anything for himself.

He let out a frustrated noise, pacing the Senate Gardens. He’d come here to clear his head and think, but thoughts seemed to escape him, and only feelings like embarrassment and humiliation remained. At least there were no cameras here, as there were throughout most of Coruscant, to record his lowest moment in quite some time.

“Mr. Karn.”

He almost didn’t realize that his name was being mentioned. Who would be looking for him here, in the Senate Gardens amidst a set of chinar trees, alone and anonymous before the grand scope of the Imperial Palace?

The brunette approached him with purpose, a bag slung over her shoulder, her eyes dark and evaluating as she moved towards him. Her hands were clasped before her; her clothes were refined but not Senatorial. They were the clothes of an office worker or a shop assistant, someone working in CoCo Town who had been sent on an errand to the Palace Court.

The girl must have been sent for him. Whose attaché was she? Had he been recognized?

Her smile was a warm curve. He balked, not used to friendly gestures like that from women. Dedra rarely smiled, but neither did he, and this was almost a new experience.

“Can I help you?” He blinked, not feeling the need to hide how taken aback he was by her approach.

“Maybe,” the girl said, but she said nothing further at first. Her eyes were dark, the spark in them one of focus and determination. Her bearing was flawless. Someone had taught her well; she just about bled propriety. With another step towards him, she added, “Walk with me?”

It was mostly a suggestion—more of one than Dedra would have made. But Syril still felt as if he had no other choice but to accompany the stranger as the pair started to thread through the garden. She was silent for a long moment, just observing him, as if taking his measure. A breeze rustled the trees around them, floated the scent from flowers towards them, lulling him into a little complacency. For an ecumenopolis like Coruscant, constructed hand over hand into the sky, each place like the Senate Gardens was an oasis, and a chance to step away from real life.

But before he could give himself that space to breathe, she spoke. “So. Mr. Karn.” There was a firmness in her voice. She was older than he had thought at first, a few years younger than he.

He wasn’t sure why he should feel uneasy, but he drew a breath. “Yes?”

“I have a favor to ask you. I’m led to understand that you’re the Deputy Director of Fuel Purity.” Her words were measured, as if she were spoon-feeding him information about himself.

“I am.” He tried to make his words just as even-keeled, even if his thoughts were reeling. “How can I help you?”

Her gaze was dark and limpid as she studied him. “For one, keep this to yourself."

Syril felt his breath catch. He had no intention of doing that. “What?”

“You heard me.” The dark-haired woman laughed, as if he’d said something funny.

He wasn’t sure what he had said, but he smiled uncertainly anyway. “But Dedra—Supervisor Meero—”

“Do you do everything she says?” The woman’s voice was coy, and she reached into the bag she carried, pulling out a scrap of flimsiplast. It was a curious thing to see. Nobody used the substance anymore. Archaic, but no longer valuable. Not unlike my mother. But that was an unkind thought that he didn’t share. Besides, the brunette was pressing the flimsiplast into his hand, the other hand holding onto his coat sleeve, tugging him closer.

He nodded down towards the flimsiplast. “What’s that?”

The woman smiled. “My contact details.” Her fingers rolled his outstretched hand into a fist, her other hand slipping from his sleeve, back down to her side.

He knew who she was, in a sudden flash of realization. She was not ISB, not a rival of Dedra’s. No, she was clearly someone higher up in the Empire with all that self-possession, someone who wanted him to succeed, who saw past the midlevel position he held in Fuel Purity and recognized his gifts as genuine. Perhaps she even worked for the Emperor. Whatever name she would give him would be false, then. 

“What’s your name?” He expected hesitation, as if she’d have to think of her answer.

But there was no hesitation. It couldn’t possibly have been invented. “Valles Santhe.”

He blinked. “Of Santhe/Sienar?” That must have been why his nerves had lit up like a fractal radio.

“Sienar Fleet Systems, yes. You’ve heard of us.” But she stepped away from him. “My favor, Mr. Karn. I want you to tell your good friend Supervisor Meero that SFS would like a chat with her. It’s about the theft on Test Facility 73. We lost a TIE Avenger, and we’d like some recompense for our hard work.”

He nodded. This made sense. He hadn’t heard about any theft, but he supposed it was none of his business. Besides, the woman was drawing back from him, and he fought the urge to follow instinctively. She was asking for his help in an investigation, and maybe this was the break he needed to clear his mind of the hunt he’d been on.

As the woman made her way out of the gardens, back to the world where the Empire was always watching, he stood there for a long moment, watching her. She raised a hand to her head, as if turning on an earsculpt to call someone, but he lost sight of her amidst the winding paths of this small, pristine patch of greenery in the middle of the cluttered planet. Perhaps he was being given a reprieve. The galaxy had been fortunate today.

Chapter Text

The next few minutes were a blur. Hauled in from the speeder, Cassian saw Bix—dressed in that outfit she obviously hated—scurry to his side, saw a fancy-looking woman nearby direct Erskin and the medic to drag him over to a couch that cost more than a Ferrixian would have made in a year of scrounging, saw Vel Sartha slide into the hallway to talk quietly to someone through a handheld subspace radio in a language he didn’t speak. Not Chandrilan. He felt like he should recognize it, but he couldn’t be sure, and it hardly seemed worth the effort right now.

Bix looked up for a second to Erskin, her eyes sharp with anger. “What happened?!” Her voice was direct, and Cassian winced. She couldn’t let the act drop, not in a mansion that wasn’t necessarily friendly.

Erskin shook his head at that, giving the mistress of the house—was she a Sculdun?—a quick, pointed look before he looked back to Bix. “I don’t know. But he’s all right. He just… he had a reaction.”

“To what?” Bix’s voice was low. Dangerous. Deadly.

Cassian shook his head. “Look at me. I’m fine.” He grunted, adjusting himself on the sofa, propping himself up with his elbows to meet Bix’s eyes. It was an effort to keep that Core Worlds accent going with his head spinning like it was. Erskin had heard it slip, but he knew he couldn’t afford a second mistake in public. “I just lost my footing.” It was as good an explanation as he could offer. The tomb where Erskin had taken him had been too much, and he still couldn’t shake that feeling of obliteration from his thoughts.

Bix started to argue with him, but he caught her eye, shaking his head softly, a warning look in his eye. If she was still pretending to be a Chandrilan noblewoman, they’d both have to play the part. She held up her hands, shooting him an angry look as well, but pulled away from the sofa, running her hands through her hair, her fingers trembling.

The fancy-looking woman was watching them. Cassian smiled phonily at her, drawing a breath. “Can I have something to drink? I just need to get my wits about me.”

“Deychin tea, Runai,” Vel added, stepping forward. “As big of a pot as the kitchen staff can make.”

But Runai—Sculdun, he knew now—didn’t leave. She was still hovering. There was no way to touch base with Vel, Bix, and Erskin with both the mistress of the house and her assistant Mishko still lingering around.

He shut his eyes slowly, trying to forget that white-hot flash of blankness he’d seen. They were talking around him again.

“My fault. We shouldn’t have gone driving in the hills. The speeder's repulsorlift hit an orcanthus spike and Padrick was thrown off the craft,” Erskin lied through his teeth with a smoothness Cassian appreciated.

“Erskin, you didn’t ruin Perrin’s best speeder?” Vel demanded, as if she cared for even a second.

“I’ll pay him back,” Erskin murmured. “Isn’t that right, Mishko?” There was an unmissable edge in his voice as he spoke to the Sculduns’ assistant.

Cassian couldn’t hear Mishko’s response; the older woman demurred somehow, but his thoughts were floating again.

Bix was close by him; he would know her presence even if he had no senses, let alone just lying there with his eyes shut.

“Padrick. You’ll be all right.” But there was an uneasiness in her voice, a hush, as if something were bothering her. He made a point to ask her about it later. But not here, not while he was under surveillance, even if the most pleasant and civilized sort.

He only opened his eyes again once the tea came, the floral scent floating over to him. He reached out shakily for a cup, nodding silent thanks at the kitchen staff who brought it. His head still pounded, and he didn’t know why. He trusted his instincts, and they told him something had gone wrong, but he didn’t have answers. He wasn’t even sure Erskin Semaj had them. He looked up at the other man as he sipped the tea, his strength slowly starting to return. But Erskin looked anywhere but at him.

What had they been in the tomb to get? They had failed, he knew, and he also knew they wouldn’t get a second chance. The return schedule was too tight, and eyes were on him now. 

They weren’t on Bix, though. She could still complete her half of the mission, if she hadn’t already. He would do whatever he needed to do to help her with that, and the first thing he needed to do, he knew, was to get his wits about him again so she could slip back right into her role as Constanza Cathala. He owed her that. With another quiet groan of effort, he set the tea down and pushed himself to sit up properly, reaching for her hands. “I’m all right,” he assured her, copying the words she’d said to him a few minutes ago. 

Her fingers traced the pulse on his wrist, but her gaze was still concerned. She wanted to ask further, but he pressed his lips together, shaking his head slightly. It would have to wait.

The next day in Hanna City dawned bright and late, the placid landscape of Chandrila around them broken only by the hustle and bustle of servants doing everything. Cassian didn’t particularly care for that. He could put on his boots by himself; he didn’t need an attendant to do it for him. But he begrudgingly succumbed to the propriety of Chandrilan culture, his naturally taciturn nature helping slightly. He didn’t think himself any higher than the servants, but neither did he feel any need to talk to them. It could only help him to be seen as standoffish.

At length, the servants left, though, and they were alone in the room, an hour or so from their scheduled lunch. While he was adjusting the day’s outfit, folding his robes just so as Chandrilan propriety demanded and Bix was applying what seemed like an endless parade of powders and creams and blushes to her face as Chandrilan customs demanded, Cassian took the opportunity to talk to her quietly. The Mothma estate was safe, he knew. He trusted Vel, even if he still wasn’t sure he could trust her acquaintance Semaj.

“Yesterday, Bix, when I wasn’t feeling well, you seemed… concerned.” He wished he had a better description for it, but the word he would have used—horrified—didn’t feel fair to imply.

She looked at him in the mirror, her eyes meeting his. “It was nothing.”

She was lying to him, he knew, and he supposed he was doing the same by not telling her the real story of what had happened. He didn’t like that. She didn’t deserve not knowing. “All right. We’ll talk about it at the same time, then.” A long sigh escaped him, as he admitted, “I couldn’t handle it, Bix. I went to a place that was too strong for me, and I only made it out thanks to that Semaj fellow.”

Her gaze softened slightly. “I know, Cass. I saw it.”

He blinked. “Saw it?”

“Not like you’re thinking,” Bix said. “It wasn’t a vision. I don’t have visions. They don’t exist.” There was a little uncertainty in that last part, but she had always been less skeptical than he, so he didn’t give it a second thought. She capped her lipstick, walking over to him, reaching out a hand for him. “But I thought—I thought you’d been killed. It felt like it.”

His mouth felt dry; he swallowed to wet it. “But I’m not dead.”

She stared at him solemnly. “I know. But I know what I felt. I felt you die.”

“That’s not possible,” he said. “You can’t feel something that hasn’t happened yet.”

Bix’s mouth twisted in a little grimace, but she didn’t press the point. “So we have lunch today with Runai and her husband.” He groaned a little at the idea, and she smiled softly. “I know. I don’t like them either. They’re mercenary. But it’s just lunch.”

Cassian laughed ruefully at that. “Famous last words, since you saw me die.” It was a stronger shot than he’d meant, and he saw her flinch, instantly feeling like a bastard.

That grimace she wore only deepened, and her eyes on him were sharp and reproving. “I’m not lying, Cass,” she replied, as much disappointment in her voice as there was heat. “I felt it. It was… sudden. All-encompassing. A white-hot flash of heat, not a blaster bolt.”

The same thing that I saw. His guts churned at her description, but he swallowed back the bile that threatened to rise up. She couldn’t have come up with that out of nowhere. But they couldn’t discuss it right now. They’d get the chance at some point.

He looked away from her, staring out the window. The placidity of a misty Chandrilan morning seen through the graceful circularity of the estate window would have been breathtaking in any other circumstance, not unlike Aldhani—and Dhani was what Vel had been speaking, he realized suddenly, and knew the implication. She’d been talking to Kleya or Luthen, he figured, and he wouldn’t have put it past either of them to know Dhani. So they knew about his failure. He didn’t relish the idea of returning to Coruscant all of a sudden, and it became doubly important for Bix to succeed.

“So what did Vel tell you about the Sculduns?” he changed the subject, watching some of the Mothma staff dart about on various tasks. None looked their way, and he was grateful for that.

“I’m supposed to ingratiate myself with them.”

“Why can’t she?”

“She’s Mon’s cousin. It comes with baggage. But Runai already likes me, so it’s started well.” When he looked back, Bix still hadn’t come closer to him, keeping her distance, still upset with him. Her words were uncharacteristically terse. “Constanza’s a pretext. You heard that. You know the scheme. They want to ship the Sculduns something else, and Constanza needs to make the recommendation for it. Otherwise they’ll wonder why they received a free gift from the shop.”

He knew the rest of it: get the surveillance equipment shipped once we know that the Sculduns are a good target. A man like Davo Sculdun had deep Imperial connections. The man just about wore corruption like a badge of dishonor, if the datatapes had been correct, and Cassian hoped that his obvious skulduggery didn’t hide a more circumspect attitude and ability to detect the setup that they were laying the groundwork for.

But none of that mattered if he’d let Bix down. He sighed, turning back to the woman, catching the fire still in her gaze, the offense she’d taken from his doubt.

“Bix,” he said solemnly. “I didn’t mean to doubt you.”

“Yes, you did,” she said firmly.

“I did,” he admitted. She was right, and it wasn’t worth the effort to deny it. “But what you saw isn’t possible, even with heavy artillery.”

She held up her hands at his protest. “Forget it. You were hurt. I panicked. We don’t need to talk about it again.”

Cassian nodded, swallowing down a pressure that had begun to build. He couldn’t believe what she believed, but the coincidence was eerie all the same. He breathed in and out slowly, wrapping the last fold of the Chandrilan coat across his collarbone. He could feel the weight of his failure at the tomb, and Bix’s disappointment in him, press the ridiculous clothing taut across him.

He couldn’t let them leave the room upset with one another, though. Clem and Maarva had had that rule—never go to bed angry; never walk out angry—and he had seen them practice it, seen the love they had for each other. He loved Bix just as much, he was sure. So he stood up, walking over to her, taking her hands in his. She was reluctant to grab hold of him, but he waited, silent, serious.

“I don’t know what you saw, Bix, but I believe that you saw it.”

“Thanks for your approval, Cassian.”

He deserved that, he knew, and he shook his head. “You don’t need my approval. You need my acceptance. I accept that you saw it.”

“Apologize.” Bix’s voice was reproachful, stern, and for a moment he heard Maarva’s iron will in her words. “Not for not believing me. I don’t need you to believe me. I need you to apologize for dismissing me.”

“I shouldn’t have done that,” he agreed quietly. “I’m sorry for dismissing you.”

The anger in her bearing started to dissipate, and her hands squeezed his. Her gaze grew fonder, even if she was still upset with him. The room almost seemed to warm, although no fire had been stoked in the last few minutes. Apology accepted, he knew, even if he wasn’t entirely forgiven, and that tightness in his body started to loosen just a little.

But when he looked back up at Bix, he could see a fleeting note in her eyes. Just for a second, as she studied him, she looked very much afraid. Not of him, he knew. They loved each other too much for that. But of what she had seen, the very thing they both knew would come true at some point down the line.

There was no turning back, though. The die had been cast, and Cassian could only hope that it would come up chance.

Chapter Text

Meero didn’t entirely trust him, and Brierly was willing to lay a hefty bet on Partagaz not feeling any different. Still, Partagaz had asked to borrow him for field work, and Brierly hadn’t really had any opportunity to decline. Krennic had agreed, but Brierly knew the mission. One didn’t serve two masters, after all. He was here to watch Partagaz as much as he was to satisfy whatever demands the man made of him.

“So, Colonel Ronan, the Director says you’re ready and eager, to use his words. I would expect nothing less. Supervisor Meero will be informing you of your duties.”

The conference center, with its fluted white panels, offered him no real relief from the sharp gaze of the blonde before him. The diamond weave and square pendant lights were as pristine as Imperial custom demanded, but there was no relief to be had.

Why should he worry? He was a higher rank than Partagaz, if he felt like pulling rank. The blonde woman, Meero, was technically even further beneath him. But the ISB operated slightly differently from other sections of COMPNOR, and the Advanced Weapons Research Department generally kept its distance.

He exhaled, looking back towards Meero.

“Colonel Ronan,” she announced, to signal to him that she was about to explain something quite thoroughly, “Allow me to walk you through your target. We understand that he is no longer on planet. When he returns, we will have a security detail awaiting him. You will be in charge of procuring the tythonic resonator.”

Brierly raised blond brows. “What in the Emperor’s name is that?”

The woman’s face twisted into something only a step or two away from contempt. “A closely guarded secret.”

“Well, stop guarding it and tell me,” Brierly said.

Meero looked over towards Partagaz, who nodded slowly. “The last known tythonic resonator existed centuries ago. It was a communication device that the Jedi used to communicate with each other. Our blueprints in the Imperial Archives show that they can be used for communication, but only by various unsavory characters. That does come at a cost, though, seemingly regardless of one's ability to use the device.”

She was talking her way around something, Brierly knew, but now didn’t seem the time to press her on her meaning.“Why was one on a Colicoid freighter in Eastport?”

Meero nodded. That was the right question. “Because we planted it there as bait. And Axis and Andor took the bait. Neither of them can use it, we’re led to believe, but they can activate it. Certainly Andor isn’t able to, at the very least.”

Ronan drew in a breath. “And when they do?”

“The Empire has ways of knowing.” Meero’s voice was almost careless, but her gaze was unblinking. She really was unlikeable, Brierly thought, but he supposed it came with the territory. People didn’t climb to the rank of ISB Supervisors because of their winning personalities.

But there was something still bothering him, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. “Why do you need me, then? If you planted this… tythonic resonator, then surely you’ve investigated its properties.”

“Unfortunately, the Emperor and Lord Vader are otherwise engaged,” Partagaz said, his voice wry. “We are of course interested in providing a full report to them once they’re disposed to receive it. But we need the help of the Advanced Weapons Research Department to physically secure the item in a way that the Axis cell does not pursue it, and we’re no scientists here, despite counting the good Dr. Gorst in our ranks. We’d like to cooperate, and we believe Director Krennic’s aims have merit. Consider this a tintolive branch.”

Brierly wasn’t entirely convinced, but he nodded, his gaze drifting from Partagaz to Meero. He splayed his hands out on the circular desk. “Director Krennic asked me to keep tabs. I should note that if there is anything the Security Bureau is hiding from us, I will have no choice but to take up the lapse with him, and he outranks you, Major.”

Again, Partagaz sighed, the weariness of the years in his voice. “We would not play your Department false, Colonel Ronan. The Empire is hardly a place of shadows. It’s one of efficiency.”

Brierly nodded. “Then let me run the operation. I can guarantee an efficiency the likes of which the Security Bureau has never seen before.” It was no idle boast. He knew they had studied his records, seen his successes through the years, the breakthroughs he had made and the eagerness with which he'd pursued each and every goal.

Partagaz spread his hands, as if Brierly had offered him the very answer he was looking for. But it wouldn’t benefit the Security Bureau, Brierly knew, to be shown up by a man from Advanced Weapons Research. So Partagaz had erred again.

“As you wish, Colonel. You’re our guest,” the older man said, smiling thinly as he made his way from the conference room, letting out a sigh as if releasing some tension from his frame.

So he was alone, then, with this woman who looked like she spent her whole day tasting vile non-human dishes for critique, with the charm of an apex predator. What had she done to feel comfortable with such an attitude? She was only a lieutenant, and she held herself like an admiral.

Brierly turned his attention to Meero. “Andor won’t dock at a public port under his own name, you know. If he comes back to Coruscant, it’ll be under cover or using a fake name.”

Meero smirked, as if she had already predicted that. Why hadn’t she volunteered it, then? She had left it to him to do.

“So we’ll need to run a scan on anyone entering at a public port. If he comes back by a private way, we’ll be none the wiser.”

“Facial recognition, and blood analysis on the targets that match closely enough. We have his sample, after all.” The woman’s mouth moved, but no other muscles shifted in her face.

Brierly nodded once, slowly. The plan was coming together, and he liked it. It would be simple enough to get one man out of the crowd. He’d need to study the records, know the man’s face as well as he knew that of Director Krennic. Though he was not the quickest study (a fact Krennic had reminded of him more than once), he was patient and persistent, he figured.

“Attendant Heert will acquaint you with further details,” Meero said. “Please take all the time you need on the file. He’ll be waiting at my office.” But she wasn’t looking at him; she was glancing down at her datapad, a slight bit of tension creasing her brow, frustration at something edging through for just a second. She started for the door, but paused for a second. “A word of advice for inconspicuousness, Colonel: I would advise you not to wear the cape at the spaceport,” she said dryly.

The door to the ISB Conference Chamber whisked open and she left him alone with a datapad and the file on the man through whom he would acquire the tythonic resonator—a piece of technology that, if the intelligence agents were telling him the truth, he had absolutely no plans of letting return to their hands. It would be an acquisition for Director Krennic, and Brierly would be the one to reap the reward.

Chapter Text

The information came in all at once, but that was the usual pattern. Weeks of waiting for reports, of having Kleya monitor the radio and comms, of doing nothing and resisting the temptation to drop it all, back out, and go hole up in some quiet corner of the galaxy the Empire might never touch. Then, in a day, two big bursts of information amidst the morass that they sorted through: the mission on Chandrila had gone awry to some degree, but Vel had it under control, and Kleya had been as successful as she always was. It could have gone worse.

Luthen steepled his hands, looking up at Kleya. She had done her duty, but he’d had no question of that. “So how’d it go?” His voice came out a bit more sharply than he had intended, but Kleya had no reaction. She was used to his surliness, he knew. She might have even appreciated it by now, the same way he appreciated her cool, collected nature and the way she never missed a beat on a mission.

“The perfect patsy,” she replied smoothly, unfastening her coat. “The flimsiplast will disappear in—” She checked a chrono. “—under fifteen minutes. What a pity.” Her lips pursed in mock regret.

“And the bug?”

“Planted in his pocket,” she replied. “A credchip with an adhesive so it’ll stick to the fabric. He was too distracted with the flimsiplast to notice.”

Just like he’d asked her to do, and cleverly deployed without his guidance. He smiled at her, proud as always, and settled back in the rickety armchair, feeling it creak beneath him.

He had wanted desperately to see what was inside the tomb, and he had believed Cassian Andor was the man for the job. The man was cautious, careful, and seemed blessed with an eerie gift for getting through tight spots, so Luthen had sent him there, hoping that he’d find what was hidden within. Barsen’thor was an old word, but it was not Basic, and it had piqued his curiosity enough to send Andor to acquire what he could.

But the man had not succeeded. For whatever reason, the tomb had rejected him. So Andor was different than Erskin Semaj and Vel Sartha in some strange way. He’d have to be used more carefully than Luthen would have done previously. If the rumors were right and Ghorman was heating up, that would be Andor’s, but after then, he would have to use the man sparingly. Andor was already chafing at the bit to be released, and Luthen knew if he pressed Andor too hard, the man would find some way to slip away, signing his own death warrant in the process if necessary. He didn’t want to put a blaster bolt in Andor’s head, despite the rift always between them. So he’d have to let him breathe, as tempting as it was to use a man of his skill for every mission he needed a spy upon.

“You think Meero will follow up on the lead?” he asked Kleya, bringing his thoughts back to her mission.

“Of course.” Kleya turned, leaning against the fractal radio and folding her arms. “Karn is desperate, and, if what Lonni says is right, Partagaz has a new man under his wing. So Meero will be looking for some advantage, digging for something she can use. She’ll take Karn’s lead on. She’ll contact Sienar.”

“And Niya, our contact there?”

“Cinta Kaz, a year ago. Don’t tell me you don’t remember.”

It was a shame. From Andor’s report, Niya had been terrified, but she’d done her job. Still, she would have put a bead on Andor, and there was really no other option. So Meero would go on a chase for a woman who was already dead, and that would buy them some time and some flexibility.

He had his hand on the pulse of the galaxy even now, and his grip hadn’t slackened. With Meero distracted, running out a false lead, he’d be able to find someone who could use the tythonic resonator. His contacts would provide it. They always did. If he could get people like Saw Gerrera in line with his goals, he could certainly track down someone with banned abilities if it was required.

But as he gazed over at that sphere, safely in its holder, he was seized by an undercurrent of doubt. What if the Empire really had done what they’d claimed, had rid the galaxy of anything supernatural outside of their grasp? He certainly knew no one with any public display of preternatural ability. To date, that kyber crystal test had produced nothing—not Vel, not Andor, not Kleya.

“Don’t wait for me,” he told Kleya, placing a hand on her shoulder in farewell as he headed out the back from the shop. CoCo Town was a short speeder-cab ride away, and the Empire’s grasp was a little less firm there than here at the edge of the Imperial District.

He knew who he was looking for, and why. The young man had been put in the industrial district for verisimilitude. Eventually, he’d send Wilmon to see Saw Gerrera to the Rhydonium pipeline, but he needed the boy to be a known entity before he did so. But Gerrera could wait, and what he was asking of Wilmon would be little trouble. Just keeping his eyes open.

Wilmon was good and true, two things that Luthen would never have ascribed to himself. But the young man was right where Luthen had expected him to be, amidst a rowdy mining crew in a level halfway down CoCo Town. Luthen stood for a moment at the doorway to the cantina, watching the bonhomie, feeling jealousy spread through him. He’d known camaraderie like that backslapping crew once, in the Imperial Army. He’d been one of the men buying a round for the table when he came into some credits, or shouting oaths to the Empire. But the horror he’d seen when he had rescued Kleya had sent all that up in a massive bonfire of hatred, and he had gained a daughter and lost any semblance of friendship that day.

The crass bits of singsong and humor that burst out from the crew as he watched were still dimly familiar, though, and he was pleased that the wiry young man seemed to have been accepted by now. Wilmon had been full of hatred after Ferrix, sullen and shocked, but Mina-Rau, and losing Brasso, seemed to have been a strange catalyst for him. Luthen suspected Wilmon was in some way responsible for Brasso’s death, but he hadn’t asked over the months since then, and Cassian and Bix had volunteered no answers. Certainly Wilmon wouldn’t either.

But that was in the past, and in the present, he needed Wilmon. Wilmon did not seem pleased to see him, though, slipping out from the booth against the wall of the cantina, his jaw hardening as he strolled over to Luthen. There was doubt in his face as he approached, and he started to speak, but Luthen cut him off:

“Walk.”

As the cantina doors whooshed open, they headed out into the dim false light of the level, an eerie purplish glow surrounding them, like a bruise that never healed. This was what the Empire had done to every place it touched, Luthen knew, but now was not the time for philosophy. Now was the time to get Wilmon to work. Luthen had placed detonation charges on the walls of the nearby alley in case they were being watched, but he certainly hoped he wouldn’t have to use them.

He led the young man into the alley, scanning their surroundings for a moment before he spoke, low and urgent. “I need you to poke around.”

“I thought you needed me to fit in.” Wilmon’s voice was even. Some part of Luthen was pleased by that. The boy was learning self-control. That would serve him well when he would have to deal with Saw.

“I’ve temporarily changed my mind.” Luthen held up a hand, before Wilmon started to protest further. They didn’t have time to argue much. “I need you to see if you can find someone special.”

“Getting married?”

The look Luthen felt himself giving Wilmon must have been effective; the boy actually shrank back against the alley wall, wild-eyed for a second or two before he regained control of himself.

“Of course, Luthen,” Wilmon forced out. “What do you mean, ‘special’?”

“Someone able to use the Force.” Luthen’s voice was low enough and deep enough that it might have been the rumble of a passing speeder.

Wilmon blinked. Once. Twice. “That’s a myth.”

“I was alive when the Jedi were exterminated. Do you think nobody older than you knows anything?”

“Of course not, Luthen.” Wilmon swallowed audibly.

“They’re out there. They’re just hiding. You’ll find me one in the next three days.”

Wilmon let out a ragged little laugh. “How?”

Luthen just stared, and Wilmon raised his hands in self-defense for a second before lowering them. They stood there silently for a long moment. “Go. Back to your crew. I was just here with a message from your father.” He saw Wilmon wince at that before remembering his cover story. Of course, the miner he was pretending to be had parents who were still alive, while Wilmon’s father had been tortured by Dr. Gorst and hanged under Meero’s watch. They all felt the pain of the story being more palatable than reality, and he was not immune to it either. But he would only share that realization with Kleya, if even her. Certainly not with Wilmon Paak.

“Three days,” he repeated to Wilmon, who sighed, his shoulders lowering a bit with the weight of taking the mission on. But Luthen didn’t stay to see Wilmon walk back into the cantina. Instead, he stepped out from the alley first, wanting to make sure they hadn’t been followed, wresting the detonation charge from the wall and heading away from the cantina district, back towards the building that housed the turbolifts.

There was no question in his mind. Wilmon Paak would succeed. Someone who could use that resonator would show up, just like Andor had shown up. Andor was not the one he needed at the moment, but the path the whole network was walking couldn’t miss a step now. There was too much on the line to let it go slack, and he was not a man to loosen his grip.

Chapter Text

Some build temples and some find altars;
Some come in tall hats and robes spun fine.
Some in rags, some in gemstone halters;
Some push the pegs back in line.

Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer, "The Mountain"

Davo Sculdun didn’t like her. Vel was sure of that. But she was also sure that Sculdun didn’t like anyone—including his wife, given that Runai’s eye had wandered to Perrin. The financier had all the charm of a squig eel outside of the drink. But if Mon had lost her penchant for the drink, Vel had never had any for Sculdun. It wasn’t class; Cinta didn’t come from money, unlike the Mothma clan. It was taste.

It was strange, she thought, as she waited for Cassian and Bix to arrive back at the Sculduns’ estate. She’d spent years fleeing her family, hunkered in bunkers on places like Aldhani, pulling together guerrilla bands on far-flung worlds, and only occasionally making an appearance on Chandrila or Coruscant so it looked like she was nothing more than Mon’s tearaway cousin. But now, she thought perhaps Mon had a point when she urged Vel to settle down. If Cinta had been here, she could have begun to feel at home. But Cinta was somewhere far away, somewhere she couldn’t reach, and she would have to put on a brave face and work her way through the minefield of a lunch with a couple she detested, and a second couple she had to pretend not to know.

It might have been better, too, if there hadn’t been a wedge of some sort between Cassian and Bix. She wasn’t sure why, but as the two emerged from the speeder, they weren’t close together, weren’t checking on each other the way they had when disembarking from the Kuari Princess. She sighed inwardly, and plastered a smile on her face.

“Padrick, Constanza. Welcome back! I hope all is well!” Her voice was chipper, but Vel felt nothing of the sort, reaching out for Bix’s hands in greeting. “I got here a little early, but I’m led to understand there’s squall and blackbeak awaiting us.” She dropped her voice, adding sidelong to Cassian, “All right?” It was a quick check on both of them. Whatever had gone on, she needed them to be alert enough to assess the Sculduns.

Cassian took a moment to nod silently in response, and Vel felt a little on edge from the pair’s lack of verbal reply.

But this would be fine. They weren’t fools, and the Sculduns certainly weren’t expecting spies to come from the higher class. Davo had been a street merchant before he’d pulled a chain of deals that had gotten him on the level he was currently, and they still had a residual bit of awe for people who had been born to the name, no matter how little either she or Mon wanted the honor.

She sighed, turning. Some distance away, Davo and Runai were lounging at the appetizer table, Chandrilan cheese boards stacked high with bulabird eggs, tintolives, and hanava pods. More local delicacies lay alongside on each board, cheeses and precisely cut vegetables at the ready. Davo’s eyes were on them, the gaze of a man used to assessing—and to taking.

“Ah, the Cathalas are back, dear.” Davo nodded Runai to the approaching trio, moving to rise to his feet.

Runai’s eyes went to Bix, and she trilled, “Constanza! Lovely to see you again. Padrick, are you well?”

Cassian nodded, but said nothing at first. He was a taciturn man by nature, Vel knew, and his disguise had been intentionally standoffish. But this was different, and she didn’t like it. It wasn’t just quiet. It was ice. And then the ice broke, a second or two too late. “Runai, is it? Yes. Thank you for your help.”

Runai smiled, but Davo Sculdun’s eyes hadn’t left the trio. Still, he scraped his chair back and rose. “We’ve got a problem, Vel.”

“Stekan and Leida?” Vel knew that wasn’t the issue. At least not right now. The young couple would never be an example of married bliss, but they were as far from her thoughts as Chandrila was from the Outer Rim.

Sculdun shook his head. “Hardly. Mishko tells me she sent the medic in one direction, and Erskin tells me that he and Padrick were somewhere else entirely.”

“My fault,” Cassian replied without missing a beat. “I wanted to see the crystal canyons.” His gaze flicked over to Vel, a clear message: I’ve got this. “You can’t blame me. Academic interest. You know the stories.”

Davo stared hard at Cassian for a moment. “Indeed.” But if the oligarch was onto them, he said nothing, gesturing his guests over to the food. Still, as she picked up a Squig, dropping the eel in and watching the pale liquid fizz, she couldn’t shake a sudden tension from her thoughts.

If he was bothered, though, Cassian gave no notice, offering Bix a glass of the same drink. Bix hesitated for a second with the worm, but drank it down, Cassian following suit.

“So tell me,” Runai said, moving over to draw close to Bix, “what was your favorite piece of our art collection?”

She was looking for praise, Vel knew, and Bix readily supplied it, a smoothness in her words that Vel was surprised by: “The Coryio Chalice, of course.”

Runai’s eyes lit up. “It is lovely, isn’t it? Davo says he’s never seen its equal, and we got it for a song.”

But while the two other women moved off to chat, Davo Sculdun was still sizing up Cassian, and Vel was distinctly aware that all three of them knew it. She cleared her throat peremptorily. “I don’t believe you two have actually met. Davo Sculdun, this is Padrick Cathala. Constanza’s husband.”

There was no flash of doubt in Davo’s expression at those words, and Vel had been unfortunately stuck around the Sculduns long enough to know that the man was not terribly skilled at hiding his emotions. He was uncouth, a brute, but he wasn’t subtle. So Davo hadn’t figured out that the names were fake. Why, then, did he look at Cassian as if he were taking his measure for a pair of duracrete shoes?

The older man eventually relented, though, not voicing his suspicions. That didn’t surprise Vel. Sculdun was a blackmailer, after all. He had forced Mon Mothma to offer her daughter to give the Sculduns a chance to rise in the galaxy.

But the lunch would hold no surprises. It was a slightly quiet affair, the rift between Cassian and Bix palpable to all of them, Vel looking at them slightly askance. Whatever had happened between them had to have been serious, but now was not the time to ask about it. She buried her worries down amidst a second Squig, the scent of roasted fowl drifting over to her. As the plates of grilled squall and blackbeak were brought over, the quintet settling in to quiet and superficially amiable chatter, Vel couldn’t shake the thought that something had gone very wrong in the last few minutes that she couldn’t put her finger on. Still, there was nothing but a slightly uncomfortable lunch between them, and drinks at the end to cap off the meal with a traditional Chandrilan toast. Not a third Squig this time, at least. Tsiraki, another vibrant blue wine to rival the Toniray.

“Sagrona.” Davo Sculdun raised his glass high.

“Sagrona teema,” Vel replied. But the tsiraki, as sweet and sour as it usually was, tasted like acid in her mouth.

Chapter Text

Cassian was half-surprised when there wasn’t an Imperial squad at Mon Mothma’s estate, waiting to haul Bix and him in. But Bix still kept her distance slightly from him, and he had no other option but to sink into his thoughts for a good few minutes, gazing out the window as the speeder made its way towards Vel’s cousin’s palatial home.

Lunch had been uneventful, and that was almost an issue in and of itself. He had his thoughts about how easy it would be to surveil the Sculduns, and he was sure Bix did too, despite her lack of experience with the way that type of thing flowed, well outside of the tech assignments Luthen usually had for her. But he also remembered the way Davo sized him up.

Where had he gone wrong? Cassian knew it with the certainty of experience. Academic interest, he’d said. You know the stories. Davo Sculdun had echoed that knowledge, with a dryness that suggested that this had been a bad turn to make.

He was still Padrick Cathala. His cover hadn’t been blown. So there was something in those stories that the Chandrilans knew—some clue—the very thing everyone had kept from him. The caves hadn’t seemed to affect Semaj, but they had thrown him for a loop for the rest of the day. And that feeling of white-hot obliteration was something he still hadn’t shaken, a full twenty-four Chandrilan hours later.

His instincts were aflame, though, and as the speeder parked, he took a moment to gauge his surroundings, avoiding drawing his stashed holdout blaster (the Bryar he’d brought with him would have stuck out from the draped clothes Chandrilans preferred). Safe. But for how long? Vel could not guarantee their safety in Hanna City for very long.

Would Sculdun turn them in? He’d been betrayed before—by Bix’s Timm, by Nurchi—and he wouldn’t rate Sculdun any more highly than either of those two. Timm had been convinced Cassian was sleeping with Bix, and Nurchi had needed the money. He could forgive them both, though the consequences had been dire, had cost him his last chance to reunite with Maarva. But he could not offer a man like Sculdun the same grace. Sculdun had no need to betray them, and yet the threat had been implied.

He knew what he had to do. But he wasn’t going to like it one bit, and neither would Bix. They were still a little tense towards each other, so he would have to approach this carefully.

“Bix, I need you to trust me on something.” Cassian’s voice was low and urgent, and he spoke quickly, knowing it would catch her attention. She looked over towards him, her lips pressed flat and her gaze alight. “We need to take two different flights off the planet. They might be looking for me.”

Bix’s eyes widened a little at the idea. She moved in to hug him, clinging to him like a drowning swimmer might cling to a buoy, but Cassian knew he was the one that was sinking. She moved her hands to his head, stilling him for a moment. “I’m still angry at you for saying what you did. Don’t think I’m not. But—Cass—” Her voice broke off, with a strange, strangled noise, and she took a moment to draw a breath. “—Be careful.”

Nearly before he realized what she was doing, her hands twined in his hair, and she went in for a kiss. Her lips were hard and hot on his, and he sank back against the speeder, his body bearing hers up as she leaned in, her gaze searching him for answers he didn’t have. One hand drifted to the Chandrilan jacket he wore, her fingers pressing against his heart. It thudded to the touch; he would have sworn he could almost hear it.

He reached out in turn, settling a hand on her shoulder, keeping her close. She tasted of the smoke from the grill at lunch, sweet and sour in turn from the tsiraki, and equally as intoxicating as that drink.

It would have been so much easier to just kiss her until twilight settled around them, wrapping them up in its velvet embrace. His fingers tightened on her shoulder; she winced, but did not pull away, pressing him more closely against the speeder. Heat grew between them for a good few seconds more.

“We have to go,” he all but pleaded. It was the only way, and he needed to time it right, or the escape hatch would seal shut. She eased away from him with a swallow, nodding, her fingertips drifting off the drumbeat of his heart.

It was a simple plan, but those were the ones that survived contact with the Empire. As they gathered their belongings, he explained it to her: leave early, when Sculdun thought they were staying for at least three days. Bix would go first, separately on the Mothmas’ private craft, with Vel Sartha. If Sculdun had tipped off the Empire that someone was on Chandrila who didn’t belong, they wouldn’t be looking for private craft, and getting through without being spotted should be fairly simple.

Cassian would follow some hours later, after Vel and Bix had landed and gotten away cleanly. The Empire wouldn’t have to use Bix as bait, not with Vel at her side and the knowledge that he’d follow soon. They had no need for bait, if they wanted him. If he was overreacting, it would be a shame to cut the trip short, but in that case, there would be another time.

He wished he could have convinced himself that it was an overreaction, but there were few assurances in the universe, and those that there were tended to be false ones.

Even as he settled into the transport, strapped in for the jolt into hyperspace, he could still feel Bix’s hand on his shirtfront, the impression deep in his psyche. It bolstered him as he felt the small public ship launch into hyperspace, the stars turning to streaks around him. He didn’t need to watch, unlike some of the Hanna City tourists. He needed to plan. His gaze drifted towards a spot on the craft’s curved wall, staring at nothing.

Instinct told him more than facts did. He couldn’t put his finger on why he felt the net closing on him, but he did. He’d be ready, though, as long as Bix was safe. The Bryar he now wore would see to it, recharged and ready to take out whomever he needed to. Even people on this ship, if it came to it. The thought repelled him, but it might be a necessity, and he was a pragmatist at heart. He shifted the blaster in the folds of the stupid Chandrilan jacket, gazing along the line for an easy hostage. Kill or be killed. He would, if he had to.

But he banished that thought to a lockbox he didn’t dare to open in his mind, sinking further in his seat as the ship sailed through hyperspace back to the center of the Empire. He was willingly walking into the rancor pit, and he knew it. His hope was to not be noticed. The same trick he always used: move like he belonged, stay out of the way, never be the biggest problem in anyone’s day. They were always on the lookout for people who acted suspicious, but he would just be a face in the crowd, and he would slide by just like he always did. The bureaucracy of the Empire wouldn’t be looking for him. There were a thousand entrances and exits in Eastport, and the chances he’d wind up with anything but incompetence were slim.

He shut his eyes, listening to the pulse of the ship, letting his thoughts drift. Overthinking was a danger he avoided when necessary, and right now it felt very necessary indeed. The green, lush world of Kenari took over his thoughts. He sank gratefully into the wildness he always longed for, vines and bubbling rivers, the scraps of a civilization the children had put together, and always, always that need to prove himself in the eyes of the older kids, to be more than just a tagalong. “Kassa?” Kerri’s voice, plaintive, mingled with the cries of jungle birds, calling desperately into the chaos. Her face, her tangle of dark hair, the trust she’d had in him when he headed out with the older kids to investigate the wreck. It was always the same dream, insistent in his memory, luring him into the wilderness.

The sound of the craft landing made Cassian stir. He lifted his gaze, glancing towards the viewport. They were on Coruscant, in the public docks. The gleaming surface of the spaceport was familiar to him, and the Bryar felt heavy against his hip. He could see the squads outside, checking every ship, looking for something. Looking for him. But he was cool under pressure, and the odds were still on his side. Five dozen people on the ship. Four Stormtroopers and one officer for each ship—one person for each dozen. All he needed to do was avoid being the most interesting person out of a dozen, and he could get away cleanly, like always.

Slowly, his fingers grasped the holdout blaster he’d packed as well. He breathed casually, slipping it out, using the folds of his jacket to cover his movement. Three seconds, four, and it was sticking out the pocket of the woman next to him, but she didn’t seem to notice. He felt slightly guilty for endangering her, but it was an unfortunate time to be oblivious, and she was the unlucky soul who had chosen to sit beside a spy. Perhaps she would make her way clear of the Empire. Bix would want that for her, and for him.

The landing gear engaged, and he unbuckled himself and stood up, letting the woman go ahead of him, his manner casual, his shoulders rolling to loosen the tension in them. He watched her closely as she got in line, following behind her. She was well-dressed, flashy, and he was anything but, just a Chandrilan tourist making his way onto the capital world for what could have been the first time in his life. He blended into the crowd, but his attention never flagged. It would only be a few minutes, and he would be out of the spaceport, finding Bix in the street, heading back to the safehouse neither of them had ever felt entirely comfortable in. But it would almost feel like home by now.

The holdout blaster glinted readily in the woman’s robes before him, a signal for the Empire, a lure to draw them in and help him stay out of their line of sight. It was a solid improvisation, he knew, and it would only fail in a limited set of circumstances. He dug his hands into his jacket’s low-slung pockets, his fingers curling around the Bryar, and moved forward in line with the rest of the presumed tourists.

The last time he had stood in a line like this, he’d shot his way free scant hours later. But he had refused to think about Narkina-5 for years now. Unlike his dream of Kenari, it offered him nothing that he couldn’t get from the world around him. He stepped forward, observing as the first few tourists stepped off the transport for processing, plotting out the alternatives in his head.

He wished he had more than three plans.

Chapter Text

The last thing Dedra needed right now was Syril, but here he was, turning up again at the COMPNOR arcology like he belonged there. She had enough on her plate without dealing with him. She had Brierly Ronan to keep an eye on. She had to plan out how they were going to get their hands on the tythonic resonator and make sure that Krennic’s people did not muck it up. She had, worst of all, the start of a tension headache, the familiar feeling starting in her forehead and spreading out around her skull like a tight band.

Syril was not going to improve that feeling. She sighed when she saw him, even though it felt somewhat harsh to react that way. He meant well, she knew, but he wouldn’t stop getting in his own way. So why in the galaxy was he striding towards her like he had something important to tell her? What had gone wrong for him this time?

“What is it, Syril?” Her voice was crisp in the white-tiled hallway, echoing more than she would have liked. She grimaced and tried to smile at him. It wasn’t fair to be so unkind to him. But she didn’t have time for his nonsense right now.

Still, the boyish look of enthusiasm on his face as he strolled up to her was endearing, in a way. He was so different from her work that she could almost believe that she appreciated his company. He raised a hand, drawing close to her, dropping his voice after hearing how hers had carried. His hand dug into his pocket.

“Dedra, I was approached by someone, and I thought you should know.”

She raised a brow, dreading what he would say next. Suddenly, she felt an intense need for those headache pills she carried.

But the name that he told her was not one she would have expected: “Valles Santhe, of Santhe/Sienar.”

“What?!” The surprise lancing through her voice only startled her further.

He nodded. “She approached me in the Imperial Gardens. She said that she wanted you to help her out.” He drew a breath, in some unwarranted effort to pace himself, as if she cared about how he parceled out information. “She said that she wanted your help about the theft of the TIE Avenger from Planet 73.”

She blinked. Three times. She knew about the theft of the prototype, of course. Everyone did. But the matter had been dropped for weeks, and to have it brought up now felt wrong, somehow. Still, if he had indeed met Santhe, then he might be able to give her another square plaque on her uniform. Solving the theft of the Avenger would be a coup indeed, one that she didn’t even deserve. But poaching an angle from another Supervisor’s sector would take some finesse. She couldn’t be seen doing it. She’d have to ferret into the records without Partagaz knowing.

“Syril, do you believe her?”

He nodded, but of course he did. He was a child, naive, willing to believe anything that fit his narrative.

She reached out, brushing a speck of dust off his suit, drawing closer to him so she could grit into his face, “Then get me proof.”

“I have proof,” Syril said, his spine drawing upright, as if she had accused him of some crime.

“Then show me.”

But when he dug into his pockets, he came up empty.

“I swear she gave me a slip of flimsiplast,” he said, frustration clear on his face.

But she didn’t particularly care if he had somewhat failed. What was important was the end result, and she could find Valles Santhe if she really needed to, bring her in for a chat about the theft, get Santhe/Sienar working with her under the radar. She should report it, she knew, but she had nobody left in the conference room that she could entirely trust. Even Heert, who had been with her for years, was now an uncertainty, having been promoted. He had never been her friend, but now he was her enemy as much as anyone else in that room, including Partagaz himself if it came down to it.

“If I go after this lead, Syril,” she murmured, “I need it to be correct.”

The look he gave her was that of a hunted ash-rabbit, and she felt something tighten in her chest. Was it pity? She didn’t think she was immune to the feeling, but she couldn’t entirely identify it. “Trust me, Dedra. I know the conversation I had.”

“And I believe you, Syril, but how do you know it was Valles Santhe who told it to you?”

“I’m not an idiot.” His eyes were sharp on her, hotly defensive. “If I’ve been played, I’ll take responsibility for this, Dedra. You can do what you like, and I’ll deserve it.”

A corner of her face curled up. “I can already do what I like,” she breathed out, closing in again.

His eyes were wide and soft, the eyes of a civilian. He would never be a real Imperial, not with that look in his eyes. Still, he was no threat. Not by himself. Whatever threat he might create, she could handle.

“You’re coming to the meeting with Valles Santhe,” she decided, “and you’re going to work with one of the ISB holographic artists to produce a picture of the woman for me.” Her eyes were bright and wide on the man. “Do it now. I’ll work on scheduling the meeting.”

There were delays, but of course there were delays. There were always delays and problems, the sort of thing that the Empire either handled or ignored. After some time, Santhe/Sienar contacted her back with a terse six-word response:

Tomorrow around noon, Galactic Standard time.

It would be a long night, she knew, but Syril’s vaguely remembered picture of Santhe seemed to fit the details she knew, once it came through on the ISB databas: a woman maybe an inch or two shorter than Dedra was herself, dark-haired, approaching thirty, with an intense gaze and a good deal of authority and self-possession. She knew Santhe’s history. She was working with Advisor Verpalion on Codename NOVA, and Dedra was positive that Santhe secretly hated the man, but all the reports that Santhe/Sienar sent over had been positive reports, and the Emperor and his cadre seemed to have been pleased.

And then there was the other half of the company, Raith Sienar. Sienar was close friends with Grand Moff Tarkin, a man whom Dedra had only seen at a distance. It was an honor, then, that Santhe was seeking an audience with Dedra, she told herself. It was something she could use to her advantage and her rivals’ disadvantage. It made sense why Santhe had approached Syril somewhere where there were no cameras, in that case, because the meeting had to be off the records if it was picking up a lead long dropped.

Syril wouldn’t lie to her, either. She didn’t believe he was capable of it. He was an honest man in a galaxy of the dishonest, and that was part of what attracted her to him, as much as she would never have admitted it to him, herself, or anyone else. He had believed what he had told her, and now she did too.

Pulling out her pills and popping them, she stepped away from the comms, starting a little bit at whom she glimpsed at the door. How long had Partagaz been watching her?

“Dedra, are you well?” Partagaz’s concern for her was genuine, after a fashion. He wanted to mentor her, even if she could feel herself desperate to spread her wings despite how closely he pinned them to her.

She nodded, a jerky little motion. Her splayed hands pressed down into the surface of the comms desk, one hand tightening against the pill bottle. “Of course, sir.”

He took a step into the room, looking down at the pill bottle she held and then up at her face. “I thought I told you to stop using those.”

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir. I know, sir.” The reply was repetitive and automatic. “But I—”

“Save it, Lieutenant.” His demeanor was suddenly stern, and she knew she was about to face a lecture of some sort. At least his words were direct, no politicking about them. “I want you to wean yourself off of those pills. Turn them into the health office at the end of your shift, and I will make very sure that you’re only given them at a slower pace.”

She swallowed.

He gazed at her for a long moment. “You’re a clever woman, Dedra,” he said slowly, “but you need to learn to paint inside the lines. You’re not the sketch artist here; you’re the colorist. Do you understand me?”

She did indeed. “You’re telling me not to try to look for angles. Not to cut corners. Just to do my job and nothing further.”

“Indeed.” Partagaz’s eyes were sympathetic, perhaps even a little sad. Was he doubting her competency? But what he said brought relief as much as it made her somewhat nervous. “You are our best and brightest, Dedra, but be careful you don’t burn out before your time. Whether that’s through those pills or your ego, I’d hate to see you fall.”

She reached out a hand, scrambling the contact she’d just made with Santhe/Sienar. “Of course, Major. I can walk that line as closely as you want me to.”

“Good.” Partagaz squeezed her arm, and she could not be sure if it was sympathy or warning. “Because if you fall off that tightrope, there will be no net beneath you.”

Chapter Text

When Vel and she arrived on Coruscant, Bix felt like she had been put through the wringer. It hadn’t been the journey, which was a few hours in hyperspace. It was the agony of not knowing what had happened to Cassian. Was he safe? Had he been caught? Vel had no answers, and she had no answers, and the whole thing formed a tight knot in her chest, the pounding in her heart starting. She needed something to calm herself. Back at the safehouse, she had plenty.

Still, Vel looked out for her. She was a good woman, and protective of her friends. Cassian had told her about Aldhani years ago, but she could still picture the woman leading the troops, decisive but not too sharp, rounding up different personalities and shepherding them well. Cassian had been a different man in those days, and it was hard to picture him now as the man he had been.

Still, she couldn’t shake that feeling she’d had. She’d thought he was dead, and he wasn’t dead, but he would die in a flash, she knew. Would he know, when it happened?

The shuttle parked at Mon Mothma’s Coruscant estate, and Vel pulled away from the yoke, looking over at her. “You know he’ll come through, Bix,” the other woman said, although it seemed like she was trying to convince herself of the fact as much as she was trying to convince Bix. “He’s brave, and he’ll do what needs to be done.”

Even bravery couldn’t defeat the might of the Empire with one lone man, Bix knew, but she smiled and nodded. “Of course, Vel. You’ve been good to me. Kind to me.”

Vel’s smile was small, a little strained. She wasn’t used to compliments like that, and Bix wasn’t used to giving them.

“Your girlfriend,” she added. “You should see if you can reach out to her. I know you said she’s away doing work, but I think she’d like to see you all the same.”

Vel sighed. “Cinta is…” She scraped a lock of red hair back, and Bix knew she was playing for time. “… committed to the Rebellion. We make do with what’s left.” But Bix could tell that the other woman wanted more from Cinta, and she recognized the feeling. She’d wanted more from Cassian in the past, an emotional openness he hadn’t been ready to give.

“So do Cassian and I,” she remarked gently, “but how often have you seen her? How often has she been here?”

Vel grimaced. “Never.”

Bix nodded. “Have you asked her? Reached out to her?”

The other woman shook her head. “The timing hasn’t been right.”

“But if you keep waiting for the time, it will never be right.” Bix leaned against the well-formed wall of the expensive shuttle, studying Vel. “You should at least try, Vel. Then you’ll know.”

Vel swallowed, a flash of defiance in her eyes. She almost said that she couldn’t, that she didn’t want to, but something held her back from saying that. Bix knew that feeling too—sticking up for someone who didn’t necessarily ask for it.

“The last I saw her was on Chandrila,” Vel admitted. “She was…” Her fingers tensed on the controls of the shuttle. “… driving an old friend of Mon’s to his death.”

That made sense, from what Cassian had told her about Cinta. They told me that she was the hardest of them all, he’d said. He’d heard that Stormtroopers had killed Cinta’s entire family, but he didn’t seem to realize the similarity between the woman’s background and his own. It hadn’t been lost on Bix, though. Cassian and Cinta were both orphans, and Cassian was stateless since the destruction of Kenari. Cinta might be as well, for all she knew.

She reached out for Vel’s hand now, squeezing it. “What they do doesn’t define them, Vel. How they react to it does. Does Cinta relish in the deaths?”

Vel shook her head, a little fiercely. “But she does what she has to do. Always.”

“So does he,” Bix said quietly, “and some part of them hates it, but they don’t know any different. It’s our responsibility to guide them down the right path, to steer them from whatever darkness they’re attracted to.”

“She never asked for this life,” Vel said, still a bit defensive.

“Neither did he.”

Vel drew a breath, admitting, “Of course.” Impulsively, she reached in for a hug. “I will… try to find her, but if she doesn’t want to be found, she won’t be found.”

Finding Cassian on Coruscant was easier said than done, Bix realized only belatedly. She knew he was taking a public shuttle, and she headed to Eastport for the arrivals, but stopped short when she saw the sea of white-clad figures swarming the building.

Her instincts screamed a warning at her, and all that composure she’d had with Vel Sartha broke open like a floodgate.

This wasn’t how he died. She knew that with the same certainty that she knew she loved him. But the sight of the Stormtroopers was undeniable, and she tried to hide her feelings of unease as she watched them march in, saw the civilians file out minutes later. Scraps of conversation floated her way about being scanned, about the Imperials looking for someone in particular, but even as she lingered, hands in the pockets of the more comfortable clothes she’d changed into on the ride home, she couldn’t hear specifically whom the Empire was after.

She lingered for a long moment. Too long. Someone was looking her way, and then she realized that she knew the woman. Kleya, Luthen Rael’s assistant, strolling towards her with purpose, just like she always did.

“Stop staring. They’ll notice you just like I did.” Kleya’s voice was smooth and cool, her heels clicking on the pavement. 

Bix breathed out. “But—Cass—”

“He can handle himself, can’t he?”

Bix didn’t like the slight dismissiveness to Kleya’s words. The woman was a distaff image of her boss, just as cold about their tactics, and she almost snapped back at the other woman. But she bit her tongue. There would be a time to discuss what was going on, but that time was not right now. And Kleya was right, in a way. She couldn’t exactly help Cassian from her position. She didn’t even carry a blaster at the moment. The nightmares were too fresh; the assaults she’d endured too vivid. She didn’t trust herself not to fire it at her reflection in the dead of night.

But now, as she walked alongside Kleya, she wished desperately that she could offer something to help Cassian.

“They could kill him if they find him,” she insisted. She didn’t know why she was trying to convince Kleya of something she also knew was an impossibility. What could any group of them do against that many Imperial soldiers?

“They could,” Kleya admitted, “but they wouldn’t. They’d want something from him before they did anything, and they’d have to get their hands on him first.”

Bix grimaced at how bluntly Kleya was assessing the situation. “Kleya, it’s Cassian.”

Kleya moved to seize her shoulder, manicured nails digging in. Bix winced, but didn’t resist as Kleya spun her to face her. As she gazed at the fellow brunette, Bix saw the steel she was made of, although not for the first time.

“I know,” Kleya said, although there was little sympathy in her voice. “And he did what he could to keep you safe and make sure you weren’t caught in the snare. Are you going to hop right into it now? What would he think of that?”

Bix drew back, shaking her head, a little frantic. But Kleya was right. Of course Kleya was right. And Bix hated that she was right.

“What do you want me to do, Kleya?” she wondered desperately.

“Walk with me. Laugh, like I’ve just told you the most terrific joke you’ve ever heard. Come back to the safehouse with me. Luthen’s there. We’re monitoring the situation.”

Some part of her knew that neither Kleya nor her boss cared anywhere near as much for Cassian as she did, and their monitoring would be practical rather than genuinely helpful, but she nodded numbly.

She hadn’t expected Luthen to find the drugs, but some part of her was not surprised to be greeted with vials and the dour-looking man who had clearly rifled them out of shelves and drawers, setting them in a neat row as if charges for a blaster.

“I—” She started to speak, but only got out the first syllable, before he held up a hand.

“This won’t help you, Bix.” His voice was stern; it repelled her, even though she knew he was right. He picked up the smallest of the vials, turning it in a pinched grip. The Spice glittered dully in the half-light of the apartment. “Spice. Do you know where that comes from?”

“Kessel.”

“Do you know how it’s found?”

“Miners,” she said.

“Slaves,” he corrected her. “People the Empire takes and sends to Kessel to break rocks all day. Did Cassian tell you about Narkina-5?” She nodded slowly, and he barely waited for the nod before speaking again. “Then why are you doing this to other people in his position?”

She drew a breath, shaky. “I—I need it.”

“Why?”

“Because I wake up at night and find myself holding a gun. Because when I look in the mirror, I see Dr. Gorst,” or Lieutenant Krole, she thought, but she would not share that half of her trauma with Luthen and knew Cassian hadn’t either, “and I hear the Dizonites screaming.”

“And does this make the screaming stop?” he asked. His eyes were sharp on her, reproving, as if he already knew the answer to the question he had just asked. Nothing she could say would surprise him, she knew.

“Not permanently,” she admitted. Beside her, she could feel Kleya place a hand on her shoulder, steadying her.

Some part of her thought: This is ridiculous. Anything could be happening to Cassian, and here she was being lectured about the drugs that she needed, like she owed something to Luthen and Kleya. She wanted to pull away from Kleya’s hand, but she couldn’t.

Luthen stared at her, his face set into a grim line. “Then you need to find out what will.”

“We don’t have time for this,” she pleaded, jerking her shoulder away from Kleya’s grip, turning towards her. Luthen wouldn’t listen to her, she knew, but perhaps Kleya would.

But Kleya reached out to turn her towards her. “We have time, Bix.” Her voice was gentler than Bix had heard it before, but it seemed wrong somehow, unlike Kleya. “You need to be healthy to be strong.”

“I am strong,” Bix insisted. If they only knew the conversation she had with Vel. But the drugs before her sang too sweet a song not to listen, now that she was inches away from them.

“We know that.” Kleya’s hand on her shoulder gave her a squeeze of encouragement. “But not if you’re drugged, you’re not. The drugs make you weak. And you can only be what you need to be if you’re strong.”

Bix yanked herself away from Kleya’s hand on her shoulder, though, shaking her head. “I can’t—not right now. We need to go back to the spaceport. We need to help him. We need to get him out of there. And then we can discuss this. Whatever you want.”

The blond man standing before her sighed, the weight of some decision on his shoulders that she only caught the briefest notion of. From the side, she could see Kleya drawing something from her cloak. The flash of violet-blue light radiated out, once, from a stun blaster, and then Bix could feel herself drop, her body draping against the kitchen cabinet as she fell, her nervous system overloading with the stun pulse. Somewhere behind the hallway mirror, Dr. Gorst and Krole were laughing.

Chapter Text

I remember how the darkness doubled;
I recall lightning struck itself.
I was listening, listening to the rain;
I was hearing, hearing something else.

—Television, “Marquee Moon”

They were on the last line on the left. That was good. It gave him a vantage point to some degree, and it meant he only had to watch out for threats on his right and ahead of him. He’d gotten lucky again, he figured, but he knew he couldn’t be too relieved in a situation like an Imperial search.

Before him, the well-dressed woman moved agonizingly slowly, inching forward in the line of a dozen. He’d chosen well for appearances’ sake. She was his height, if not slightly taller; he let himself shrink back, fading into her wake a little so that he’d draw less notice. He breathed slowly, steadily. The way out of this was to play it cool and keep his wits about him, and he found that easy.

The only question he had was if they still were after him. They hadn’t been on Ferrix by chance, and they could have put together the theft of the TIE Avenger as well. Had Niya talked? She had been scared, but she had done the job, and part of him wished he’d actually bothered to follow up on what had happened to her in the last few months. Something to ask Luthen about when they met up again.

He knew his face was known to some degree, but he also knew the Empire was a vast web over the galaxy, and like any web, there were spaces between the threads. He relied on those spaces. But they felt close now, and he drew his body inward, his gaze going to the ground, letting his peripheral vision tell him where the Stormtrooper whose line he was in stood. Two people before the woman, then one, and then she was up.

“What have you got there?”

The Stormtrooper reached forward, nodding towards the woman’s pocket where the planted holdout blaster glinted. Cassian exhaled, his face drifting into vague, indolent surprise at the idea of being in line with an armed individual, even as the woman spluttered in protest.

Still, he winced inwardly as the Stormtrooper grabbed the woman’s arm, yanking her out of line. The white-armored individual fished the holdout blaster out from where Cassian had planted it, bringing it up to the woman’s face.

The lady started to protest, but the mechanized voice cut her off again.

“Did you really think you were going to get past security with this?”

The Chandrilan woman was pale, shaking, terrified. It was a tough watch, Cassian realized. Still, he stood in line, trying hard not to look, just like the rest of the tourists arriving for processing. The Bryar was no longer as much of a comfort as it had been aboard the ship.

“Where’s your permit for the blaster?”

Since when is Eastport checking permits? Cassian certainly didn’t have one for the Bryar.

The woman shook her head rapidly. “That’s not mine!” Her voice came out in a terrified squawk.

“Whose is it, then?” the Stormtrooper demanded, taking a step closer to the woman.

“How should I—”

“Problem, Sergeant?”

The voice that intercepted the discussion was one Cassian didn’t recognize. He fought the urge to look over more directly, but his side view told him the blond man a good five or six years older than he was hardly a standard Imperial officer. He didn’t recognize the man, but the insignia on his lapel was bad news. Too many squares for a rank-and-file man.

The Stormtrooper turned towards the man, holding out the blaster. “Not anymore, Colonel. We took this off her. Sticking out of her pocket clear as day. Some spy she is.”

“I’m not a spy, I swear!” The woman’s hands clasped before herself as she took a step or two towards the Stormtrooper and the unfamiliar officer. “I’ve never seen that before a day in my life.”

This was taking too long for Cassian to feel comfortable with the situation. The more time it took his line to process, the less he’d be able to blend in—especially as the next man in line. Before him, the skyways of Coruscant glittered with airspeeders and other hovercraft, barely fifty feet away. But he didn’t like the odds of running the gauntlet of Imperials, nor of plunging out a dock window several stories up.

The blond man reached out for the small blaster, turning it over in his hands, inspecting its make. It was a BlasTech EC-17, for scout work, Imperial in issue. Cassian hoped the stranger didn’t know his weapons.

“If you didn’t take this off a dead Imperial,” the blond man murmured, “then someone on your ship did.”

A litany of curses filled Cassian’s head at the realization. He fought the urge to draw his blaster and shoot the stranger squarely in the chest at close range. So the man did know weapons—and didn’t hesitate to use them, bringing up the blaster to bear on the woman and shooting her without a second thought.

Cassian controlled the involuntary flinch, even as a couple panicked screams bubbled up around him. The woman slumped against the wall, the blaster hole burnt into her fine robes, her eyes rolling back and her body twitching as she died.

The play was obvious: the Imperials were trying to flush him out through sympathy. They wanted him to make a move and reveal himself as the suspect they were after. But he’d learned well over the past few years. He couldn’t afford that, and certainly not right now. It could cost him his life, and the Rebellion far more. 

“Lock down the remaining passengers. Whoever planted this on the woman is still armed. I want searches.”

At least he wasn’t likely to be the only one with a weapon, Cassian figured. There were sure to be a couple others, people who lived in the lower levels of the planet and had to eke out a hard living and carry protection. Surely they couldn’t pin the blaster on him just out of conjecture.

Almost as if it was planned, though, the blond man strolled over to the line the woman had been in, starting at the far end, approaching the front of the line, where Cassian was. “Or here’s another idea,” the colonel remarked slowly, as if relishing the words, “whoever did it could give themselves up and save anyone else the trouble of dying today. Isn’t that right, Cassian Andor?”

They knew. He’d suspected it, but they’d killed an innocent woman all the same just to see if he’d take the bait. He hadn’t, and she’d died a cheap death she didn’t deserve. He looked up coolly at the figure standing before him.

“Such a pity, isn’t it? She died for nothing. Just like you will someday, I expect. But not today.”

Not an ISB officer. Different insignia. Who was looking for him that wasn’t the Imperial Security Bureau? He didn’t recognize the department from the insignia alone.

“Your name,” Cassian replied evenly. His hand on the Bryar drew it out slowly: nothing left to lose, and if Bix and he had seen the same thing, he wasn’t about to die.

“Colonel Brierly Ronan. You took something that we want, and you’re going to tell us where it is.”

His blaster hand was steady as he trained the weapon on Ronan scarcely a foot from him. But he winced as he felt the weight of a blaster muzzle against his temple. It didn’t make him loosen his grip on the Bryar, but Ronan seemed to catch something in his eyes, smiling.

“I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

“Innocent men don’t hold blasters on Imperial officers.”

“I never claimed to be innocent,” Cassian said casually.

“Good,” Ronan replied. “That’ll make forming a case against you much easier. You know, the Advanced Weapons Research Department Division doesn’t really deal in prisoners except for a few special ones, but I am—how do people keep putting it?—’ready and eager to learn,’ shall we say?”

Cassian’s grip on the Bryar tightened.

“Go on, shoot me. But you know what will happen? You’ll probably kill me, but you’ll be facing a murder charge atop all the rest of it. And I’m sure certain people will be very interested in your case after that. Or you can do the honorable thing: give me that blaster, own up to what you’ve done, and I’ll see to it that you get a fair shake. More than the ISB would offer you, I’m sure.”

Cassian lifted his blaster arm up, aiming it to shoot Ronan point-blank despite the muzzle at his head—and then felt it wrench backwards, an Echani hook around his arm making the shot go up and wide. At least he had the satisfaction of seeing Ronan flinch away from the wild shot, the ridiculous cape the man wore fluttering with the movement. Not a trained combatant, then. He filed this thought away, even as the strike to his wrist that followed made him reflexively drop the weapon, pain lancing through the joint.

Being disarmed against another few Stormtroopers that tromped over to assist left him with no cards to play. He was slammed against the wall next to the dead body of the unlucky Chandrilan noblewoman. As he stared at her, feeling his arms being yanked in front of him and a set of binders settling around his wrists, Cassian wasn’t sure which one of them had gotten the worse side of the deal.

The speeder ride over to the COMPNOR arcology was one of mostly silence, but Cassian didn’t mind. It gave him time to figure out his next move. They weren’t going to kill him, at least not right away. This man Ronan wanted him for something he had stolen. Cassian was sure he knew about the theft of that resonator, but the main question running through his mind was how much Ronan knew. They knew he’d stolen the resonator, but did they know what it was?

Cassian didn’t have any idea what it was, specifically. It had made him bleed. Was that how they had pinned the theft on him? He was sure Jung had cleaned up the gangway after getting him out of the Colicoid. So what had been the second time he’d bled?

Not the second, he realized. The first. His memory was reliable, but his thoughts hadn’t been at the time. They’d started spinning the moment he’d put his hands on the resonator. He’d bled there, aboard the ship. That was what he hadn’t remembered to tell Lonni Jung. That was what they’d found. One single drop of blood, if his memories told him correctly. Good enough for a death warrant, except for one thing: the Empire must not know where the resonator was, or they wouldn’t need him.

It was the one thing he could use against them. He knew not talking likely wouldn’t be an option if what they’d done to Bix on Ferrix was even close to the table, let alone on it. But he could lie. They had no way of proving he was lying. He could send them off on some path, make them waste their time, buy himself enough time to figure out a new plan.

The speeder whirred to a stop at the arcology, Ronan’s gaze leaving him for just a second as he rapped on the divider to the front seat for the driver to let them out.

He’d never been inside the place before. He’d seen maps of the place, but they’d been too complex to study easy ways out of. One point of the so-called Supreme Triangle next to the Naval Intelligence Headquarters and the Imperial Palace itself. The further he went into the place, he suspected, the less likely he’d be to leave it.

“You know,” Ronan remarked as the speeder door swung open, “We were fully prepared to do blood analysis on everyone aboard the ship, if we had to.”

“Except for that woman you killed.”

“You had a hand in that too,” Ronan pointed out acidly.

Cassian grimaced. The other man had a point. He drew a breath, steadying himself. He wasn’t about to be baited into giving anything away that the Empire didn’t already know.

“Why her, anyway?” Ronan’s voice was casual. “You could have planted that blaster on anyone.”

Cassian’s voice was dry. “She seemed like the type to make a scene.”

“So she was,” Ronan admitted, “but perhaps more than you’d anticipated, I suspect.” His gaze was thoughtful on Cassian. “You put that blaster bolt in her as much as I did.”

“You’re trying to make me feel guilty. It won’t work.”

Ronan lifted up a shoulder in a casual shrug. “We’ll see. Get out.”

Should he care for the dead woman? He didn’t feel much more than a twinge at her death, removed from the reality of being taken in next to her corpse. Was that what the work had done to him? Had it given him empathy for the cause, but taken it away for the random people of the galaxy?

Cassian still mistrusted the petal-roofed building that stood before him. His gaze drifted up to study it as he stepped out of the speeder. The skyscraper loomed above him, and arcology levels likely lay beneath his feet as well. It was a place where people disappeared, and not in the way he preferred to disappear. He knew Luthen’s man on the inside was still there, but if Ronan’s division was at odds with the ISB, he couldn’t rely on Jung to get him out a second time.

There was still hope, though, of a sort. He was unarmed, but he wasn’t without resources. A security bypass kit was secured in his boot, and a multitool kit holstered to him that included a hydrospanner and a Harris wrench. He’d have to wait for an opportunity, though. They’d have to take the binders off his wrists first. He wouldn’t get far without being able to use the tools in the first place, and he didn’t like his odds trying to make a break for it right now without a weapon.

Bix was safe, though. They hadn’t mentioned her, and Cassian had trusted Vel with Bix’s safety. So he had only himself to save right now, and he trusted in his own instincts for self-preservation.

Once he made it out of the arcology, he’d really have to get Luthen to have Jung erase him from the Imperial database. His name being out there was really making his chances of long-term success uncomfortably slim.

He knew the routine from juvenile custody. Processing first, then the cell to let him “consider options,” and then the interrogation. He had no intention of letting the third part happen, if he could avoid it. Even as he felt the Stormtroopers that had traveled to the arcology in another speeder grab him to usher him into the building, he was counting down in his head to the moment he’d be alone and able to work on an escape.

Chapter Text

The idea was absolutely insane, but Wilmon knew enough about Luthen Rael to know that he was not insane. Unsparing, absolutely. Likely a sociopath. But not insane.

“Find someone with Force Sensitivity,” Luthen had urged him, and if the older man was telling him that was a possibility, Wilmon was willing to believe it, as far as it went. But he had no idea how to start looking. What should he do, walk up to what had once been the Jedi Temple, now the seat of Imperial power, and see if they could procure him a still-living Jedi?

The idea was laughable, and would prove instantly fatal. Maybe Luthen was just trying to get him out of the way. Maybe something was going on with CoCo Town. But he hadn’t heard rumors among his mining friends, and they were usually pretty reliable with their information, and drunk enough to let it spill.

He was a good listener, though, and he owed his life to Brasso pulling him out of the riot on Ferrix and putting him on the ship with Bix, Jezzi, and B2-EMO. He owed Andor for Brasso’s death, so if Andor wanted to work with Luthen, Wilmon would follow the Kenari man’s lead.

He took a swig from the can of iced Galara tea, taking stock of the highest level of Coruscant. 5127 still amazed him, despite its dark heart beneath the crystalline colors. In the nineteen years he’d been alive, he hadn’t left Ferrix before. Ferrix City had seemed vast to him, but this entire planet was a city, and he could almost imagine everyone in the galaxy came here.

He was far from Galactic Antiquities and Objects of Interest, on the other side of the main part of Imperial City, and nobody looked his way. So that, at least, was a good start, affording his mission some plausible deniability. The blue-white glow of Coruscant Prime, far away from the planet, filtered more warmly through the atmosphere of the planet that orbited it, the planetwide city generating its own heat in turn. It rarely rained anywhere on Coruscant, and the atmosphere was balmy.

Where was he going to find someone who could use the Force? How would someone like that escape notice in the center of the Empire?

He knew he needed to prove his worth. But this was a puzzle for which he had no answers, a machine with missing wires and impossible connections.

The Imperial Temple loomed before him. Had it always seemed so forbidding, even when it had been called the Jedi Temple? It was a blot on the landscape, despite all the greenery that surrounded it in a thin attempt to hide the evil that Wilmon knew lurked inside it, the evil that had sanctioned his father’s hanging in Rix Road.

Two speeders parked nearby, at another tall building, something sharp and discordant to the screech of the repulsorlifts as they hit the ground. Probably bringing someone into a prison, if he had to guess. He watched despite himself, his hand tensing on the tea can. He couldn’t rescue the person, not with the half-dozen Stormtroopers that piled out of the second speeder, but he could at least watch, along with several Coruscanti citizens whose attention had also been piqued by the sharp landing.

Wilmon would have dropped the can he was holding if his fingers hadn’t tensed on it, because after the Imperial officer stepped out of the first speeder, he was sure, even at a distance, that the person they were escorting into the second building was Cassian Andor himself.

The man hadn’t been roughed up; he got out fluidly and was ushered into the building without comment from the Imperial officer. Wilmon hoped desperately that Andor would look his way, make eye contact, but the other man didn’t, his focus on the building before him.

He had to tell Luthen. He owed Andor. The mission of finding a Force-Sensitive seemed stupid now, and pointless. Wilmon could make up for Brasso by saving Andor. But he couldn’t just rush the small group of people. That would get him killed, and possibly Andor as well.

He pitched the can for a trash receptacle, his taste instantly lost for Galara tea, paying it no mind as the can sloshed into the wastebin.

Shakily, doubting his next move, he raised a hand to his comm, pressing the piece on against his ear. “Change of plans,” he murmured. “We have friends everywhere. Including 32-671.” A tipoff to Kleya and Luthen—he couldn’t be sure what the building was, but he could at least give them its location.

The voice that came back to him was a woman’s, cool and composed. “Which friend?”

“Kenari.”

“When?”

“Now,” Wilmon replied. “I just watched it.”

After a long moment, one in which Wilmon was unsure Kleya had even heard him, the woman replied, “Status?”

“Unhurt, from what I can tell.”

The sigh of relief was unmistakable, if brief. “He’ll handle it, then. He says carry on.”

Wilmon gasped out a laugh that didn’t sound particularly amused, even to him. “You’re kidding.”

Kleya’s voice was flat. “You have orders. Follow them.”

It was a hard pill to swallow, but Wilmon knew he’d have to, as much as he loathed the idea. He wasn’t the one in charge, after all. The comm was silent in his ear, and he headed for the public transport stop. Back to CoCo Town and its floating cantinas on the top level, as much as it pained him to walk away from what he’d seen. But he knew Andor could handle himself as much as Kleya did, and he had to believe in the man’s abilities. The alternative was something he wouldn’t let himself consider.

Still, he couldn’t stop repeating what he’d just seen in his head for the next few minutes, so much that he almost missed the stop at the start of CoCo Town. Pressing the exit signal, he disembarked, the transport sliding away.

Time to search yet another cantina and see if he could find what Luthen had asked him to. but as the hours whiled on, Wilmon was beginning to doubt his luck. He was a little drunker than he’d have liked, but still sober enough that, when the man a few booths away from him seemed to move a credchip without touching it, he knew perfectly well what he saw.

It had to be impossible. But he focused on the booth, his gaze openly observing. The man was darker than he was, bushy-browed and clad in street clothes, a robe settled casually around his shoulders.

A second credchip flipped neatly into the chip receptacle at the edge of the table, the stranger’s fingers moving deftly as if gesturing it to do so.

Wilmon figured he was probably just drunk enough to play dumb, even if he was still assessing the other man. He slid out from the booth, digging his hands into his coat pockets as he approached the stranger.

“I… how…” He trailed off, his phony hesitation implying questions he didn’t want to ask.

“That is the question, isn’t it?” The stranger smiled easily. “Funny you should ask. I have an answer. You seem like a young man looking for an answer.” An offhanded gesture indicated Wilmon should sit.

“I’m definitely looking for an answer,” Wilmon agreed, an affable smile on his face. He lifted the cheap lum to his mouth, taking a sip, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, playing cool and casual.

The older man, maybe mid-forties, was graying at the temples, his thick, dark hair combed sleekly back. Or it would have been, if a thatch of it didn’t flop into his face as he leaned forward to study Wilmon.

“Would you believe me if I told you it was the Force?”

Wilmon laughed, despite himself, letting the scoff echo.

The other man shrugged, his hands moving outward, in a showman’s pantomime. “It could be. Aren’t you curious? This could be your answer.”

Wilmon coughed on the next sip of his lum, blinking. This stranger was almost overly mysterious, but he wasn’t unbelievable, somehow. And, as Wilmon watched, the older man moved a third credchip into the pot.

How had he not been discovered here on Coruscant?! If what Luthen said was true, and there were people who could use the Force on the planet, then surely someone like this man, as blatant as he was, had to be either insane or an Imperial agent.

“You… how did you…” This time, his hesitation wasn’t feigned.

“Talent.” The man’s teeth flashed in a bright grin. “The name’s Haja Estree. Now take a seat and tell me your name and what you’re looking for, and I’ll tell you if I can help.”

Chapter Text

Bix hadn’t been hurt by the blaster. They hadn’t been looking to hurt her. But she would have run out of the safehouse, and Luthen wouldn’t have been able to stop her, and from Kleya’s demeanor, they had to act.

She came to on the fraying couch slung in what passed for a living room in the safehouse, staring dully for a second at nothing until she focused on Luthen and Kleya. “You shot me.” Her voice was hot with blame for both of them.

“What would you have wanted us to do?” Luthen asked. “Let you run out of here and get yourself killed?”

“I wanted to help Cassian. I wanted you to help Cassian. You haven’t.” Her gaze swung to Kleya; her voice was hotly accusatory. “Neither of you.”

“How do you propose we do that? Let his wife die?”

Bix glared at him; she’d never much cared for him, he knew. He wasn’t surprised that, in a moment of crisis, she was falling prey to her own emotions, but he couldn’t blame her. He knew the feeling, as much as he tamped it down for the sake of what he did, as much as he’d taught Kleya to do the same.

“You do nothing but use him, Luthen. And now he needs your help, and you’re just… standing there. Like you have some right to throw him to the rancors.” She massaged her temples, the effects of the stun bolt still working their way through her, making her fingers tremble.

“Is that what you really think, Bix? That I’m doing nothing?” He didn’t respond to her accusation of him using Cassian. She was right on some level, he knew, and he didn’t care to open that box.

“You ask a lot of questions,” Bix murmured, “but you don’t offer a lot of answers.”

He chuckled silently at the observation. She was perceptive, at least. He made his way past the counter, settling on an armchair set across from the couch. “He’d want you safe, Bix. He sent you with Vel to be safe. If you went out and got yourself killed, that wouldn’t help him.”

She grimaced, swallowing, her gaze unfocusing for just a second. A hand ran over the stun bolt on her side, and she propped herself up. “You didn’t both stay here to make sure I was safe. One of you could have done that on your own, and it would have been Kleya. Why are you still here?” She didn’t hide the distaste in her voice for him.

“Because he cares for you, Bix,” Kleya put in briefly. “Because he needs to know you’re not in danger.”

“Is he in danger?”

Luthen stared at Bix for a long moment. “Not unsalvageable danger.”

Anger stole over her face, drifting into rage, but the stun bolt was still keeping her from doing very much besides talking. That was fine. She needed to be unable to react physically too much to what he was about to tell her.

“You need to listen to me, Bix. Carefully. I’ll only explain this to you once.” Luthen watched her from the armchair he had claimed, saw her swallow, glimpsed some of the rage melting away. “Kleya and I had Cassian steal something that the Empire wants. It’s at Galactic Antiquities. We need to have someone who can use the Force to unlock it.”

“The… Force?” Bix’s eyes widened in disbelief, but somehow, something else was in her gaze as well—doubt, he realized, but a strange, almost self-recriminating sort of doubt. Her fingers twined before herself. She was surprised, he knew, and perhaps something besides, but he could not yet put his finger on what exactly that might be.

Luthen nodded. “I have Wilmon Paak trying to find me someone who can unlock it. I thought that might be Cassian, but I know it’s not now.”

“Was that why he went with Semaj? Why he nearly died?” More accusation, sharp and hot, directed squarely at him.

“That, and I thought he might find something at the Barsen’thor’s tomb that would make it easier to unlock the object without using the Force, but I know the tomb rejected him.” Luthen’s voice stayed low and even, as he watched Bix digest the information he was offering her. “I believe he told you what he knew about that too.”

Bix couldn’t meet his gaze. She was hiding something from him, but he knew he wouldn’t be the one to get it out of her. That would be a job for Kleya, sooner or later. But first, Bix had to know that she could trust both of them, and the first step to that was explaining what had been going on to her. Still, he looked up towards Kleya, a signal delivered in a nod towards Bix and a brush of his hand over his chrono: Talk to her later. It was important that she hate him, because he needed her not to blame Kleya all of a sudden. He needed Kleya to be able to talk to her more humanely, to have a level of understanding with Bix that he could not have.

“This… Barsen’thor. Funny name. Who is it?”

“An ancient Jedi.” His explanation was brief. It didn’t need to be any longer than it was.

The young woman exhaled shakily at that, reaching out for a cup of water Kleya handed her—always timely, solicitous to Bix, nothing confrontational in her demeanor. Kleya had picked up on the scheme, he knew, and he was proud of her once again for figuring out the tack they were taking with Bix.

Both hands on the glass, Bix took a shaky sip, swallowing visibly. “Why would the tomb have hurt him?”

He appreciated how well she was handling the information. But he had to admit, a dash of regret in his voice, “That’s something I don’t have an answer for. He’s not Force-Sensitive, so it couldn’t have been that.”

“And you know that, do you?”

He smiled grimly. “I do. Now who’s asking a lot of questions?” Luthen laced his voice with a jocularity that he didn’t feel.

She scoffed, not buying his attempt at humor for a second. “Are you?”

“No. And I’d know. Kleya isn’t either, before you ask.” He moved to push himself up from the armchair with a little grunt of effort. “Kleya’s going to stay here with you, Bix. She’ll make sure you get sober. We’ve got the rest of it covered.”

“I’m under house arrest.” Her voice was bitter again.

“Yes. Until I say otherwise.”

“I’m not your prisoner, Luthen.”

But he ignored the shot Bix took at him, leaning in to murmur to Kleya as he passed her, “I’ve got the shop.”

It would be a bit of a risk, him managing the antique shop alone. He couldn’t be in all places at once, and so he’d have to either keep the shop closed or avoid managing the comms. Either one was a risk, and he’d decide which one was the greater and which the lesser by the time he reached Galactic Antiquities. But he had done it before when necessary. He needed to know what Bix was hiding from him more than he needed to avoid rumors about the shop.

Kleya nodded, understanding, and moved to take Bix’s water glass for a refill.

As he headed out of the safehouse, he took advantage of the safety of the space to send Lonni Jung a quick encrypted message: Need a man at the Arc. Location for tonight?

It would take some time for Jung to reply, he knew, but he would do what he could to have eyes on Andor. Wilmon’s report was accurate, he knew, and even if the boy had been sidetracked in the mission he’d given to him, some part of him appreciated the boy’s observant nature. Wilmon could be trusted with Saw, and had a cooler head than Luthen had previously given him credit for. Even if Andor had gotten in a spot of trouble, he’d find his way out of it. And whatever Bix was hiding from him would be known by the evening, he was sure.

On balance, it hadn’t been too bad of a day. Not everything had gone according to plan, but there was room to make more plans, and he could still see the sunrise tomorrow—at least before his eyes, if not in his mind, as he’d told Jung once years ago. There was no light there beyond the kindling of plans and schemes, a single glowrod cell into the darkness from time to time. But if he really stilled himself and tried to focus on something other than the darkness that always threatened to consume him, Luthen imagined he could see the spark still lit in the night. Kleya would carry that torch for him someday, but not today.

Chapter Text

The meeting with Valles Santhe was coming up the next day. Syril was determined to spend the night putting the pieces together. Dedra was due back later tonight, and he wanted to have some sort of a theory for her. They were so close to success, and if the Santhe/Sienar connection paid off, he would be able to use that to his advantage, and Dedra’s as well.

There had to be some connection between Sienar Flight Systems and their current actions, though. Syril didn’t believe in coincidences. Was it possible that the theft was somehow connected to Andor? Part of him thought that might be obsessive by this point, but part of him also suspected he was on the right track.

A knock on the door, sharp and self-possessed. He jumped up from the table, his eyes on the door as it whooshed open, expecting Dedra, but feeling his heart sink when he saw the small, coiffed figure of his mother heading in.

“Ah, Syril. So happy to see you still here.” Eedy reached out to hug him, and he fought the urge to pull away. “I was sure by now you’d have made a mess of things with that woman.”

Syril blinked. “Actually, Mother, we’re doing well.”

“Made a man of you, has she?”

Just like Eedy. She always knew the way to cut right to the bone. He flinched at that, hoping against hope that she didn’t see the shiver.

“I’ve been a man, but if you mean have we… then no. Not yet.”

She sighed, disappointment clear in her voice. “However do you expect to hold onto her?”

“Our relationship isn’t about that.”

“Hah!” Eedy’s laugh was sharp and discordant. She turned on him, a sudden, jerky movement, her eyes staring up at him through the thick gobs of eye makeup she always wore. “You always were a romantic, Syril. Just like your father. It’ll do you just as much good in the end, you know.”

Syril swallowed, fighting the urge to look away from her. “Did you come here for a reason?”

“Isn’t it reason enough to see the son whom I love?”

“You haven’t visited me for two weeks, Mother. You’ve barely called.”

“I didn’t want to interrupt the bliss you two were living in.” Eedy moved to claim a chair at the kitchen table, where she’d sat a few months ago at a very uncomfortable meal. “Enough bliss to not talk to your mother, it seems.”

The words were out before he could take them back: “As if I wanted to talk to you regardless.”

Her eyes widened; her hands clenched at her sides, but before she could react, the door slid open again for a second time in a matter of minutes. They both turned to glimpse Dedra entering, her face set in resolve. Upon spotting Eedy, her expression soured further: “Eedy. Hello. I thought I told you Syril would visit you if you left him alone, didn’t I?”

Syril was pleased to see his mother shrink back just slightly from the ISB Supervisor’s arrival. Dedra could get his mother under control in a way he had never been able to.

“Supervisor Meero. How… lovely to see you. Syril hasn’t visited in weeks, and he’s barely called.”

“Mrs. Karn.” Dedra moved to stand over the chair in which Eedy sat. “It seems to have slipped your mind that Syril has a position as the Deputy Director of Fuel Purity within the Empire.”

“Which you raised him to, and without a word from Uncle Harlo.” Eedy gazed up at the blonde. “I should thank you.”

“You should, but I don’t expect you to,” Dedra agreed. “However, as the Deputy Director, he’s provided much needed assistance on special projects within the Empire so far.”

Eedy gasped, delighted, turning to look back at Syril. “You don’t say! Syril, why didn’t you say so?”

You didn’t give me a chance. You never do. But Syril simply shrugged, keeping his mouth shut. Dedra was much better than he was at ridding them both of Eedy’s presence, and some part of him was relieved that she could, and more than willing to hand over control of the situation to his girlfriend.

“And his presence will be required tomorrow at an important meeting, so if you don’t mind, I think we’d planned to turn in rather early today.” Dedra’s voice brooked no alternative.

Eedy gazed at Syril, even as Dedra turned pointedly away from the older woman, taking off her gloves and setting them on the sideboard, waiting for Eedy to scuttle out of the apartment. Only when the door had shut again, his mother too chastened to remember to even give him a proper goodbye, did Syril feel himself relax at least a little.

“Did you contact Sienar Flight Systems?”

“Yes.” Dedra turned towards him. “We’re all set for the meeting tomorrow with Valles Santhe. Her people wrote back arranging it.”

“And you still want me at the meeting?”

“Of course,” Dedra replied, reaching out for him again. This time, he realized, she was not wearing her gloves; her well-manicured hands twined with his. For just a moment, Syril imagined that he thought he saw fondness on her face of a sort, a slippage of control he’d seen few times before, most potently when he’d saved her in Ferrix City.

He took a step towards her. “I was doing some thinking, Dedra. I know what you’re thinking, ‘That was a mistake,’ but hear me out.”

A blonde brow arched, but the woman was silent.

“It’s rather strange that we’re contacted by Sienar Flight Systems when we’ve already got a dragnet on, isn’t it?”

Dedra was silent, her gaze flickering over him.

“Do you think Sienar is involved with the insurgency?”

“Hardly likely. Santhe has nothing but praise for Advisor Verpalion, and he for her. His reports in the Imperial databanks show a compliant populace on Lianna, and Santhe all in for the Empire.”

Syril winced. There went that theory he’d been toying with. He swallowed, nodding. “Of course. But the TIE Avenger did disappear.”

“So you think Santhe engineered the disappearance of her company’s own prototype fighter?” Dedra’s voice was skeptical, almost icily amused.

“No, but I think something’s not right here,” Syril said. “I know I don’t always come to the right conclusions, but I’m a good detective, Dedra.”

She stared at him for a long moment, saying nothing. Her fingers tightened on his, pulling him closer. “Forget about it until tomorrow, Syril. I don’t want to talk about it right now. I didn’t agree to share an apartment with you to talk about work every second we’re in it.”

Their faces were so close he could almost have kissed her, but something held him back, some reticence he could not explain. So she yanked him closer, tilting his face towards hers.

He shut his eyes, expecting to feel her lips on his. He wasn’t sure how that would feel; it felt strange to imagine her as soft enough to kiss properly. But no such kiss came; he opened his eyes again, letting out a short, embarrassed laugh at his expectation.

She was staring at him, her head cocked slightly to the side. “Have you done this before?”

“Of course.”

“You’re lying,” she replied.

As one hand moved to his arm from his fingers, and she started to lead him towards the apartment’s main bedroom, grabbing a bottle of wine as they went, he realized belatedly that she had not volunteered her own experience in these matters either. But now did not seem the time to lob the question at her, so he kept his mouth shut.

Their shared bedroom was orderly, the sheets neatly turned up, the dim soft light recessed against the ceiling giving the place an almost cloistered glow as the pair entered. Their individual sides of the bed were propped up with an equal amount of pillows—two each—and not a single thread was out of place.

“Sit down and remove your coat.”

He obeyed her order unquestioningly, shrugging himself out of his coat. For a second, he thought he saw the glint of something inside a pocket, but the moment to investigate it didn’t present itself. She was already pushing him down against the bed, her gesture forceful, as if she was working through some edginess she couldn’t share with him. He was in no position to resist.

The chrono on Syril’s side of their bed chimed softly, but Dedra was already up, and as Syril stirred, he could see his coat on the foot of the bed—but not draped like he had slipped out of it, folded neatly at the end of the bed. That meant something, he knew, but at the moment, he couldn’t figure out what it was. Groggy, he pushed himself up, sweaty and exhausted, shoving a hand through his hair as he slapped a hand on the chrono to turn it off, fumbled for a dressing gown, and made his way into the kitchen.

The intensity in her gaze stopped him in his tracks. He blinked, almost jumped, and drew back against the door, even though she was some feet away. Her blonde head inclined at the small credchip-looking object that sat on the counter that stretched between the two of them.

“You know what that is, Syril.”

Did he? He stared uncomprehendingly at her, struggling to focus, feeling as if he should know something important that he didn’t know.

“What what is?” he replied, scrubbing some sleep from his eyes.

“It’s a transmitter. You were spying on me.”

He was suddenly, unhappily awake. “What? No, of course not! I—”

She held up a hand. The gloves were on again, he noticed. She was distancing herself from him again. But she was the only one there, and he knew that she didn’t want to harm him.

“How long?”

“I haven’t been spying on you, Dedra.”

“Someone has.” Dedra strode forward, reaching for the transmitter and the empty wine bottle that had made its way back from the bedroom, even if the wine had disappeared between both of them. She brought the wine bottle down sharply on the transmitter, making it spark and crackle as she broke it. Her gaze on him was a bit wild in its intensity.

“I should have you arrested on the suspicion alone.”

He held out his hands in surrender. It was the right thing to do, after all.

“But I won’t,” she added coolly after a moment.

He blinked, stunned. “Why not?”

“Because I need you, Syril. Because you need me. Because—” Here she almost smiled, her lips jerking up on one side in a smirk. “—because I’m proud of you for taking the initiative in a way, if you were spying on me, although I’m quite sure you wouldn’t know what to do with it if you were. But understand this, Syril: one chance. Make it worth it.”

He sighed in relief, sinking against the door, nodding. How had that transmitter gotten there? How long had it been there? Anyone could have bumped into him in the busy streets of Coruscant. Even Andor, or Dedra’s Axis, could have done it, for all he knew.

From here on out, he would believe fully in the Empire, and trust in Dedra. She could have arrested him right now, could have had him executed for espionage, and it wouldn’t have been the wrong thing to do. The Empire truly was merciful, and Dedra was kind, in her own way, beneath all that calculation and frostiness.

The insurgents only saw the bad side, he knew. They didn’t see people like Dedra in times like this, making choices they didn’t need to make for those they cared about. They only saw the face of oppression, not the face of opportunity and clemency. They didn’t see how the Empire had saved people like Syril himself, and how Dedra was saving him right now.

She set the wine bottle down, strolling up to him. “Shower and make yourself presentable for our meeting later today. Don’t worry: I’ve already searched your clothes for any more transmitters. And I’ll be watching you the whole time.” It was as much a threat as it was a promise, but he couldn’t blame her for a second.

Chapter Text

For the sake of pity, save the pistol,
Save the cynic’s tongue,
Save that cool white stare,
And treat me to an honest face sometime.

— 10,000 Maniacs, “Scorpio Rising”

They spent a good few minutes after Luthen left talking about nothing important. Bix was more comfortable with her than with Luthen, Kleya knew. That was why the man had left them alone. He wouldn’t be able to have a productive conversation with her, but Kleya could. And the goal was clear enough, at least. Bix was hiding something from them that had happened on Chandrila. She’d have to find out what that was. It wasn’t anything to do with Andor; they already knew that part of it. It had to do with Bix herself.

She got Bix food and drink, settled into the chair Luthen had sat in, watched a holovid to ease Bix’s worries about her—or so she hoped. But the other woman wasn’t a fool, and watched Kleya out of the corner of her eye as they shared a pack of crispics.

“What do you want, Kleya?” Bix finally asked the question she’d been waiting for her to ask.

“You’re hiding something from us. You don’t like Luthen, and you don’t want to talk to him about it. I understand that. But we need to know what it is.”

Bix sighed, slouching where she sat on the sofa, falling silent and crunching down on a crispic pointedly. But the years of doing the work had taught Kleya patience. She could wait. Bix was stubborn, but not unmanageable.

“Why should I tell you?”

Kleya shrugged. “Because we’re on the same side of this. Because you want to build the insurrection as much as I do. You believe in it as much as I do.”

Bix’s eyes glittered as she turned to study Kleya. Her breath hitched for a moment. Kleya was right, she knew, given the other woman’s reaction. She reached out for the crispics pack again: Keep it casual. Don’t make it feel like an interrogation. She popped a crispic into her mouth, waiting.

Before them, the holovid set blared something inane—a Face Loran film, Win or Die. Kleya had always been amused by the film, though not the plot itself. Loran was a Lorrdian, a mimic skilled in kinetic communication, and their senator, Nee Alavar, had been one of the Delegation of 2000. Using a Lorrdian as a propaganda child was ridiculous, and something about it had always struck Kleya as transparent, even if the ten-year-old child actor likely hadn’t yet realized what he was participating in.

Bix murmured, “I’ve never bought this film either.”

Had she seen something on Kleya’s face? Kleya schooled her expression into neutrality. “It’s just a holodrama.”

Bix shook her head. “The end of it, though. The kid gets shot in the back by his father as he runs towards the Emperor, and then he dies in Palpatine’s arms?” She scoffed. “Even if you’re on the side of the Empire, how do you buy this? You’ve heard the Emperor speak. Does he strike you as a man who hugs children?”

“Before he slits their throats? Absolutely,” Kleya said. But she turned towards Bix. “You’re not a fool, Bix. You’re a bright woman. You see through deception.”

Bix scraped a hand through her hair. “And you want something from me.”

“I want you to not deceive me,” Kleya replied evenly. “I’m not a fool either.”

“I never thought you were.” Bix swallowed. “But I—I don’t know what I saw. I can’t be sure of it.”

More information: Bix had seen something. But she knew not to push. The woman would give details at her own pace, and Kleya couldn’t force it to move any more quickly than it would. She passed Bix the crispics pack again, reaching out for a sip of fizzpop, sipping it neatly.

“When I was on Chandrila,” Bix began haltingly, “I know I saw something. Cassian saw the same thing, although he didn’t want to admit it. We weren’t together at the time.”

Kleya’s only response was to raise a brow, cueing Bix to continue without saying a word. Before them, Face Loran was trying to convince his parents to believe in the New Order, and his parents’ excuses were feeble: the Empire was too far away on Coruscant; the Emperor wasn’t a nice man; they weren’t politicians. There was no real argument being made against the propaganda.

Bix set the crispics pack aside on the table, steepling her hands tightly before herself. “You’ll think I’m crazy, but I know what I saw, Kleya. I saw Cassian die. Not—not explicitly, but I felt it. A white-hot flash, obliteration.” Her voice trembled slightly, but she swallowed and bore up. Her eyes glinted as she turned towards Kleya, and her jaw hardened, as if she expected an argument to start.

Kleya drew a breath. The information was a lot, and sudden. she’d have to pace her questions, so Bix didn’t panic and shut herself up again, wall herself off from Kleya the way she had with Luthen. She reached for the holovid set, turning the volume off. The characters on the screen moved silently before her, like ghosts in some childish nightmare.

“What do you mean, you felt it?” Kleya made her voice gentler than she was used to. It felt strange to even pitch her voice just so.

Bix blinked. Twice. “I sensed it. And he said he sensed the same thing, but if he was somewhere… mystical, then…”

Then it wasn’t something he would have been able to feel through some natural ability, Kleya thought, finishing in her head what Bix didn’t have the fantastical vocabulary to. But Bix hadn’t been at the Barsen’thor’s tomb. It hadn’t been the whims of the galaxy forcing her to interact with them. It had been Bix herself who had felt it, if the other woman was telling the truth.

She felt herself tense, realizing what that meant. For Bix, for them, for the resonator. But she couldn’t tell Bix that—not now, not yet, not ever if she could help it. Still, the resonator still lay in the back room at Galactic Antiquities, and she’d need to get Bix to it. If what Bix didn’t know she was telling Kleya was the truth, then perhaps she was the key to unlocking the device.

But she relaxed her fingers from where they gripped the armchair. Bix hadn’t seemed to notice. “I know you believe in us, Bix,” she said. “In what we’re building. You were getting us salvage parts for years before this even began to coalesce. And we—I—believe in you.”

Bix grimaced, reaching to turn the volume back up on the holovid. Face Loran’s parents were starting to undertake a mission against the Empire, and Loran was overhearing their conversation from the hallway to their bedroom, starting to panic. But Kleya reached out to block her from trying to ignore the conversation at hand.

“I think we need your help, Bix. Not Cassian’s. Yours.”

“Then rescue him,” Bix said, her voice blunt.

“We’re working on it. But it might take some time, Bix. Where he is isn’t something we can just walk on into.”

Bix shook her head. “You need him, Kleya. You know that. Luthen knows that. You don’t need me.”

“Half-right,” Kleya replied, hearing Bix laugh sharply, more of a sob than a laugh. “We need both of you. And we need your help.”

Hunched against the sofa, Bix looked steadily away from her. “I shouldn’t have told you that I felt that. I don’t even know it’s real. I don’t even know what it was.”

“I don’t have answers for you, Bix. But I think, if what you sensed was real, it was a premonition. Have you had any before?” She felt as if she was stumbling in the dark. How did these premonitions happen? For once, she was asking questions for which she had no answers, and it was a position she wasn’t used to being in.

Bix shrugged, sullen and silent.

“If you have,” Kleya continued, “then you might have an… ability, I suppose.”

“I have abilities. I’m a good salvager. You said yourself, I’m perceptive. I can take care of myself.” Bix pulled her knees up, tucking them under her chin, almost defensive about the last comment she’d made.

Kleya reached out for another sip of fizzpop, facing Bix. “Then trust me. Not Luthen. Me.”

“Why? You don’t care about Cassian, and you definitely don’t care about me.”

Kleya did her best to soften her gaze. “That isn’t true, Bix. I know I seem cold to you, but it’s a cover of a sort.” She wasn’t even sure if that was the truth by now, but if Bix believed it, it might help. The work had taken up so much of her time over the last decade that she couldn’t be sure what part was her own personality, and what part of her was merely a job description. “What we do isn’t for the fainthearted, and I have to make difficult choices every day.”

“Like letting Cassian languish wherever he is.”

“For now. But I give you my word, even if Luthen won’t: he’ll get out of there. We’ll make it happen, or he will. He’s resourceful, and we have friends everywhere.”

Bix drew in a breath. “If you don’t get him out of there, if they hurt him, then this—our arrangement—is over. I won’t do anything for either you or Luthen ever again. You’ll tell Luthen to let us both go. Let us leave Coruscant.”

It was an impulsive response, Kleya knew. She had been right when she’d called Bix a true believer, and some part of her would still feel bound to the task, just like Kleya herself did. Cassian was more of a question, but Bix’s faith in the cause was far stronger than his was. Still, she had to tell Bix what she wanted to hear, so she found herself nodding at the other woman, her gaze flicking to the holovid. Silent, the character Face Loran played was informing the Empire of his parents’ plans to commit terrorism, received with warm gazes and pats on the back by a caring Imperial officer.

“You have my word.” Even if she knew Luthen would take exception to the promise she made, it was one she hoped she wouldn’t have to insist he enforced.

Bix didn’t entirely believe her, she knew. The look the other woman gave her was assessing, doubtful. But her fingers tensed where they’d wrapped around her knees, and she nodded. “I’ll help. But not for your sake—for Cassian’s.”

“And for your own,” Kleya suggested quietly. Bix’s head turned back to the holovid; she couldn’t meet her gaze. Kleya reached out for her commlink, sending an encrypted message. You have what you need.

Less than a minute later, the commlink blipped back at her: Tomorrow evening, Luthen replied. After the shop closes. Once we know whether we’re down by one of them.

She shut off the commlink, moving to turn up the volume on the holodrama, preparing to watch a child make a choice to trust an Imperial—a choice she had made once, long ago, when she’d stolen away on Luthen’s ship—but a choice that had been made for her when Luthen’s squad, Lear’s squad, had killed her whole family.

That choice that had turned not just her against the Empire, but Luthen as well. Reality, for them, had been markedly different than the propagandistic fiction the Empire peddled, and that had always told Kleya they were in the right. Bix trusted the same line of thought, saw through the same lies, and, somehow, in a way Kleya could not elaborate upon, might well see further than Luthen or she could imagine.

Chapter Text

The COMPNOR arcology was a place Brierly knew well. He always appreciated coming back to it, with its clean hallways and its sense of power and prominence in the galaxy. It was so unlike the crowded city of Coruscant, with its throngs of people heading this way and that. It was a place where men like Director Krennic and Brierly himself could accomplish great works.

As he strolled down the corridor, Andor escorted a few steps behind him, he realized he had a coup in his hands if he played it right. Processing would alert the Empire as a whole to the arrest, and the ISB would be right at his heels. He wouldn’t let that happen. Here was his chance to get an advantage in the game, and he wasn’t about to squander it. There were quicker routes than official ones, anyway.

“Change of plans,” he spoke over his shoulder. “Come with me.” It wasn’t like Andor had the option of refusal, after all.

The turbolift chimed softly as it reached their floor mere seconds after Brierly had pushed the button. He could see momentary surprise on the slight man’s face. So Andor knew Imperial arrest procedure to some extent. The insurgent’s record had been murky, but there had been mention of a few arrests. Nothing critical, though. No long stays in Imperial custody, at least not under the name on his records. Either he was well-informed through some other means or there was more than the record suggested. Not his concern, though. He didn’t particularly care about Andor, save as a means to an end to reclaim the tythonic resonator.

As the turbolift dropped into the lower levels of the arcology, where the space sat cheek by jowl with the descending levels of Coruscant itself, the other man was silent. Not much of a talker, it seemed. But the man wasn’t silent from panic, either. Instead, he seemed to be assessing, measuring out his surroundings.

The lower levels of the arcology were just as pristine as the ground-level ones, Brierly was pleased to see. He hadn’t been down here much. The space was continuously being built out, as the Empire claimed more and more space from the Coruscant Undercity, and even as they walked he could hear the clanging of tools as conscripted builders worked steadily down one hall, watched over by half as many Imperial officers.

He gestured Andor into one of the cells laid out down another hallway, motioning the Stormtroopers to wait outside, the door remaining open. It didn’t matter which cell. He’d get what information he needed from the man and abandon him in the underground. The ISB would be none the wiser, at least for the time he needed to reclaim the resonator and claim it for Advanced Weapons Research. He’d expected fear, or a fight, but the other man offered him neither response, just a cool gaze at him, apparently unruffled, that momentary shock at the change of procedure seemingly having vanished.

The cell was small, the only light in it recessed against the ceiling, the walls featureless, sheer, and unable to be climbed. The only access to the outside world was a small slot for food and drink to be passed through. Inside, an indestructible cot without blanket or pillow and a small refresher cubicle, all bolted securely to the floor, gave few options for escape tools.

“We have two options here, Andor,” Brierly said. “One: you tell me nothing. We use an interrogation droid on you, and you talk anyway, if painfully. You rot down here until someone decides it’s time to clear out the cells on rotation, and puts a blaster bolt in your head, since you were due one earlier today. Two: you tell me where the resonator is straight away, and you have more options open to you.”

“What happens to me if I talk?” Andor replied. Unfortunately for both of them, it didn’t particularly sound like he was considering doing so. His voice was flat, unimpressed.

“That depends on how much you tell me. Cooperate fully, and I might even find it in me to misplace your arrest records.”

The other man lifted dark brows briefly, but his gaze was disbelieving. “You’re lying.”

“Am I? If there’s even a remote possibility I’m telling you the truth, it’s arguably your only chance to save yourself.”

But Andor was silent. He was thinking through the offer, Brierly suspected. Just what he expected from these terrorists—no real convictions except their next riot or firefight. He’d seen the arrest reports of terrorists taken in by the ISB from time to time. But what the ISB did not understand about men like the one who stood before him was that they were opportunists at heart, and cowards. Still, most were not foolish enough to turn down a sure thing when their lives were on the line.

Brierly folded his arms, waiting. But Andor said nothing, seemingly willing to wait him out. Frustrating, but for all the other man acted like he held all the Sabacc cards, Brierly knew that there were few options outside of cooperation. Perhaps he had a suicide pill at the ready, but Brierly doubted it.

“We’ll talk later. Next time, I’ll bring that droid with me.”

Andor seemed to stare past him, studying the door, but before Brierly could turn away, the other man held up his wrists, a request to unlock the binders. Brierly shook his head, turning for the cell door, listening with some satisfaction as it shut behind him.

These terrorists were all the same, after all. He hadn’t expected Andor to just outright tell him where the resonator was just because he asked, but that was what the interrogation droids were for. Advanced Weapons Research had none, but it would only be a matter of making a request to the ISB.

As he started for the turbolift, the Stormtroopers falling into step alongside him again, he passed by the work crew still underway. They labored in shifts, he knew, building out the underground, reclaiming the levels under the arcology for the Empire, building down towards Coruscant’s actual surface far beneath. One or two of them glanced his way, and Brierly thought he saw distaste on their faces, but he ignored it. Let them think what they would; they mattered nothing to him.

He’d update Krennic when he had the resonator. There was a possibility the ISB might intercept any communication he sent the Director, and he didn’t want to risk that. For now, he had an advantage that he didn’t want to waste, and if he was the only one who knew, so much the better for his own chances. Krennic always preferred the results to the work, after all.

As he emerged on the entrance level from the turbolift, he spotted a familiar if unwelcome outfit, but didn’t recognize the man wearing it. Deep-set eyes, dark hair, and a somewhat meek presence didn’t quite fit with the ISB Supervisor’s uniform, but Brierly plastered a smile onto his face as he caught the other man’s notice.

“Supervisor.”

“You’re Krennic’s man, aren’t you?” The dark-haired man smiled solicitously, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “The one working with Supervisor Meero.” A hand extended for a shake, an element of uncertainty in it. So the supervisor was new, it seemed.

“Indeed. I don’t believe we’ve met. Colonel Ronan.”

“Supervisor Heert.” The man smiled. “Recently promoted. I now supervise the Morlana Sector.”

Brierly didn’t like the coincidence. “Including Ferrix.”

Heert shrugged. “Including Morlana One, I would have thought you’d have said.” But his tone was casual; he seemed to suspect nothing. And at least he wasn’t Meero, who made his skin crawl by her very presence. Even better, perhaps: if Heert was in control of Ferrix, Meero might even dislike him. Brierly knew how poorly Meero had run the raid on Ferrix to catch the very man jailed somewhere under his feet, and she likely resented Heert for his ascension in her stead.

“We should talk,” Brierly suggested. It would be worth it to get a read on Heert, and he could use a friend in the camp. There were no other friends in the ISB, he was sure.

Heert’s smile came evenly, if a little nervously. “Of course. Dinner? I’d say it’s on me, but you’re the one with the colonel’s paycheck.”

Brierly laughed easily at that, genuinely appreciating the slight jab. “Dinner it is. I’m sure there’s nowhere worth eating at the arcology.”

“Definitely not.” Heert nodded towards the door. “Let’s go.”

It would all work out, Brierly was sure. The arcology was well-staffed. The cell he’d put Andor in was remote, and the work crew was being watched over by plenty of Imperial officers. He would return the next morning with the interrogator droid, after getting some good food and a good night’s sleep—two things he was certain Andor would not get. They would have answers, and he would have the resonator by tomorrow night, a chip for Advanced Weapons Research to use, with little trouble for the taking.

Chapter Text

The conversation with this new acquaintance had gone well, if in an unexpected direction. Wilmon didn’t trust Haja, but he wasn’t suspicious in a way that the younger man thought traitorous. He was slippery, a con artist, but there was an earnestness about him beneath that. Plus, Haja had told him the truth.

“It’s magnets and wires, see?” the middle-aged man had declared, rolling up his robe’s cuffs to show the thin cords that ran down his sleeves, no doubt out his waist, to the magnets deployed underneath the table. “It exists. I’ve seen it. But it isn’t me.”

Wilmon had figured that was as good as he was going to get on this crazy errand Luthen had set him on. Was there some possibility that Luthen only wanted to make it seem like someone could use the Force? Haja seemed like a good candidate for that. He knew Luthen would instantly loathe the conman, but if Haja worked for Luthen’s purposes, that was fine.

“Listen,” he’d said to Haja, too drunk to entirely watch his words, “I think you can help my friend with those tricks of yours. They’re good.”

Haja had leaned forward, vaguely intrigued despite himself. “It’s been some time since I’ve been able to help, but I believe you’re on the right Path.” The final word had been audibly capitalized. Wilmon had no idea what it meant. But it had seemed important.

So, a good few minutes later, Haja had packed his tools of the trade in a small bag, and they both were presently topside again on 5127, catching a skimmer back towards the other side of the District. Wilmon felt himself sway slightly, and the older man reached out to steady him, though Haja’s gaze never wavered from the dusk settling around them, the dim light of Coruscant Prime fading blue-white on the horizon.

“I haven’t been topside on Coruscant in a while,” Haja murmured. “It really is a different world, isn’t it?” He paused. “Where are you from?” Wilmon grimaced at the question, and Haja shook his head, adding, “Forget I asked.”

It was something Wilmon was quite willing to do. He spent minutes thinking of a way that he could warn Luthen that he knew Haja Estree was not whom he’d been asked to bring back, but was as close as he could get. He didn’t want Cassian’s boss mistrusting him, or thinking he was being lazy and not doing what was asked of him.

“You’re nervous,” Haja added. “About me. You’re wondering if you’ve got the right man for the job.”

“Clever,” Wilmon replied. But he gave Haja no more to go on as the skimmer stopped a few blocks from Galactic Antiquities and Objects of Interest. As he disembarked, waiting for the middle-aged fellow to accompany him, his voice dropped low. “You should know, the man I’m bringing you to meet is somewhat… short-tempered sometimes.”

“You mean he’s an ass.”

Wilmon let out a sharp burst of laughter, rolling his shoulders in a shrug, as much of an admission as he was willing to give.

“So why did this guy ask you to find someone who could use the Force?”

Wilmon caught his breath. “I didn’t say that.”

“I know.” Haja smiled. “But you implied it. I might not have the Force, but I’m a good judge of character.”

“If you’re so good, why don’t you make enough money to get out of the Underworld?”

Haja let out a whistle. “Nice shot. But I can do more good down there than I can up here. You weren’t listening to what I was saying. Not really.”

Wilmon held up a hand. “Save it until we get there, so you don’t have to explain to him as well.”

Was this the right decision? The alcohol flowing through him made it seem like the right one, but he couldn’t entirely be sure. He knew he wouldn’t get any closer to Luthen’s request, though, so he hoped that he’d gotten close enough. They wound their way through the handful of people going here and there, making their way to the antiques shop set rather haphazardly in the classy scenario, its unassuming shopfront displaying the twisting structure of a Kashyyyk Clarion and the swooping circle of a Gungan personal energy shield.

He headed into the shop, the door swooshing open to admit his new acquaintance as well. Haja lingered behind at the door for a second, but Wilmon strode ahead, looking for the shop owner. The place was empty, but Wilmon was not surprised. All of the senators and functionaries had left the area for the day, and Luthen’s shop was, however refined, not particularly noticeable from the front door.

Luthen wasn’t immediately out front, but he stepped out, all smiles, wearing a long wig, a robe, and the phoniest smile Wilmon had seen him put on yet.

“Ah, young man,” the supposed antiques proprietor greeted him, although his gaze flicked quickly to Haja, and then back to Wilmon, brows raised. “You’ve found an antiquity.”

Haja blinked, letting out a sudden laugh, his fingers flicking in indication at Luthen himself from the depths of his own robe, although he didn’t voice the opinion on Luthen’s own age.

“I’m afraid that we don’t accept charity donations, though,” Luthen added, a bit of an edge to his words. It was just as Wilmon had expected: Luthen instantly disliked the man he’d brought in, and was taking no pains to hide his aversion.

“I’ll go if you want,” Haja agreed hurriedly, his hands sinking back into his robes. As he turned, the shop door opened before him, well before the sensor should have picked him up to swoosh open.

“Stop.” Luthen stared at Haja for a moment, stepping forward. “Turn around. Stay right there.”

Haja turned, the small remote held between an index and middle finger visibly glinting as he did so.

Luthen nodded at the remote, spotting it instantly. “It’s a con. But a good one.” He patted Wilmon’s shoulder in a semblance of reassurance he strode by, retrieving the remote from the door. Wilmon didn’t feel particularly reassured, given the fact that Luthen’s dour, slightly dyspeptic expression hadn’t lessened.

“Someone like you, making a living in the Underworld… it isn’t just for credits. The scam fooled Wilmon, and it almost fooled me. You’re too good for just credits.” There was no missing the threat in the man’s voice as he stared down Wilmon’s new acquaintance. “Talk. And don’t try to fool me again. I’ll know.”

Haja swallowed audibly, staring at Luthen. “I’m a con man, yes, but I’m one with a mission. I help people—maybe even people like young Wilmon here. Maybe people like you.”

Luthen took a step forward. Haja’s hands flew up in instinctive self-defense, and Wilmon took a step back, a little slowed from the buzz he had going. For a moment, the gallery was silent, the array of artifacts around them a lone witness to all of them being equally uncomfortable with the situation.

“I’ve helped people before. Heard of Mapuzo? Jabiim? Tanalorr?”

“Planets,” Luthen replied briefly, giving nothing away, even as Wilmon filed the names of the planets away in his head.

“Yes, but not just planets,” the other man replied. “Safe ones. Like Jedha.”

Luthen had been about to move for a weapon to likely end the conversation at blasterpoint, but the mention of that planet seemed to stay his hand. He let out a sharp laugh as if to cover for hesitation, his attention on Wilmon for a second and then back to Haja. “You know some things,” he admitted, though he sounded as if the words were being dragged out of him. “So?”

“So I know you need help.” The newcomer’s hair flopped into his face, and he scraped it back. “Whether here or on Jedha, I can help.”

Luthen shot Wilmon a dark look, clearly not thrilled for an instant with Haja’s open admission of what Wilmon had told him. Wilmon knew he’d hear about it later. But he also knew that Luthen Rael had been desperate enough to pull him out of the connections he was making with the mining crew and, as much as Luthen might never admit it, the insurrection leader was in little position to refuse help, even from an openly shifty fellow like Haja.

Still, Luthen seemed to be considering something, even if Wilmon didn’t particularly like the openly calculating look he wore, the indolent shopkeeper act having fled despite the wig and robe remaining. Still, Luthen’s words were for Haja instead: “Maybe. Come back tomorrow evening. And bring your gadgets with you.”

Chapter Text

The bug still bothered Dedra. The idea of someone planting something on Syril was hardly a surprise, given how openly the man wanted to be useful to the Empire. But the idea that whoever had bugged him could have heard something—anything—of the meeting she’d set up with Valles Santhe troubled her. She had one main suspect in mind: Brierly Ronan, the man whom Partagaz had forced into her orbit. Axis, whoever it really was, hovered dimly in her mind as a potential second possibility, but Ronan was the more immediate threat to her position at the moment.

She strode through the arcology on a mission, ready to find Ronan and figure out if her suspicions were right. But she was too deep in her thoughts to notice the sallow redhead heading her way, bumping into the fellow Supervisor. She pulled herself back, staring at Supervisor Jung with a modicum of distaste that had been meant for Ronan but had nonetheless landed on him.

“Supervisor Meero. Always pleasant to see you.” There was no missing the wryness in Jung’s voice, but she had known the man for years, and he was not venomous in the way a lot of them were. Strange fit, in a way, for an Imperial Supervisor, but he did his job competently, if not exceptionally.

She tried to smile. It was never easy. Now, with things to do that were far more important than a conversation with a known colleague, it was even harder. “Supervisor Jung. Lonni. Does today find you well?”

“It does, Dedra.” Jung’s voice was vaguely bemused at her state. “You look like you could use a friend. Care to talk?”

She tilted her head at him, assessing him. He had never been a threat to her. “If you don’t mind,” she murmured. “Ever since Heert’s promotion, I’ve needed a friend.” The admission surprised her as it came out, and it seemed to surprise Lonni as well.

“Well, you know me well enough to know what I’m like.”

“Indeed. How’s that daughter of yours, Ema?”

Jung smiled fondly. “Walking now. You saw the picture from a few weeks ago. She’ll be running soon.”

“Fit for service in a few years,” Dedra replied, willing herself to ignore the shadow that flickered across Jung’s face. It was no big deal. The child was still young, and her father was protective of her. Dedra could imagine what that was like, even if she had no personal experience as anyone’s daughter.

Jung fell into step with her as she started down the arcology hallway. “So what troubles you, Dedra?”

Dedra swallowed. She could trust Jung. He had never had knives out for her, unlike Blevin—and maybe unlike Heert, for all she knew. Certainly, Heert had shown little hesitation when he’d accepted the Supervisor’s position. He was angling for control of the Axis investigation too, Dedra knew.

“I think we have a traitor in our ranks.”

“Really?” Jung stared for a second, and then the redhead’s voice turned dry. “Don’t tell me it’s Blevin. He’s had it out for you since he was removed as supervisor of the Morlana sector.”

She sighed, shaking her head. “No.” She gazed up at the man, her jaw working, as she gauged how much she could tell him. “We’ve had someone put in our ranks from Advanced Weapons Research. I don’t like the man, and I’m sure he doesn’t like me. I think he might be looking to take me down. I found a recording device, and I believe he planted it.”

Jung blinked. “Really?”

He was never the first to clue in, Dedra knew, but she nodded. “Yes. I was trying to find him.”

“I believe he’ll be back at the arcology today.” Jung’s voice was a little crisp on that point; perhaps he also had had a run-in with the unlikeable colleague. She wouldn’t have put it past Ronan to have annoyed more than just a single ISB Supervisor, even if Jung did not seem like the type to take a lot of things personally.

“If he shows up, tell him to find me. Please. Thank you.” She belatedly remembered to be polite to Jung. He was her equal, after all.

Jung nodded, but his thoughts were visibly elsewhere for a second. The weedy-looking fellow added, “When you get the chance, my wife and Ema would love to meet you.”

Dedra felt herself stare. “Me?”

“There aren’t many women in your position, Dedra. I think you’d be a good role model to Ema.”

The words echoed in her ear as she took her leave of Jung. A role model?! The thought was risible. She did not see herself as someone to emulate. She did what she had to, and bore the consequences when it went wrong. But Jung seemed pretty convinced of her utility in that role, so she promised herself she would think about it, even if she felt a flash of jealousy for a second at the toddler’s potential upbringing in a loving family rather than a kinderblock.

Pushing that thought down, she checked her datapad. The shuttle from Santhe/Sienar was due to arrive soon, and Valles had already sent her regards: Looking forward to meeting. The blandness of the remark was a little odd, considering how hard she had pressed Syril for a meeting to discuss the theft of the TIE Avenger, but she told herself not to overthink things. How often had Partagaz chided her for digging too deeply into the small details?

She drew a breath, smoothing out her uniform, her gaze on the datapad. The flight was due to arrive in less than half an hour. Syril would be here within the hour. Ronan’s potential miscue would have to wait. She would have to get the room ready for Valles. The Santhe woman would expect a warm welcome, and although Dedra could not provide the warmth, she certainly could make the room welcoming.

The food and wine Dedra had ordered was waiting when Syril and she stepped into the room. Valles Santhe had been given some time to freshen up once her shuttle had landed, and the small woman had been reportedly some time in the private chamber she had booked at the arcology, setting herself to rights. So Syril hadn’t been late, after all.

She gestured him to a seat beside her, sitting facing the room as a whole. That way, she could keep an eye on Santhe’s attendants, sure to be numerous. The meeting had been at the other woman’s request, but she could not be sure it wasn’t a scam of some sort. Still, the fresh-baked jogan fruit tarts and kanali wafers were an easy way to ensure the woman thought well of the Empire.

She moved for a sip of her caf, and folded her hands before herself, the fabric of her gloves sliding against itself. Syril moved for a pastry, and she clicked her tongue at him warningly, so he held off. He was still learning how to be a proper Imperial, though, so she supposed she couldn’t really blame him.

At length, the doors to the meeting room swished open, and she pushed herself to stand, nudging Syril to do the same. The woman was as Syril had described her: short, with dark, sparkling eyes, and immaculately put together. She gazed at Dedra, smiling in a way that Dedra would charitably have called polite, a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Much to her surprise, though, Valles Santhe seemed to have told her attendants to wait, as she was the only person to enter the room. Dedra had over-prepared, but she hoped her foresight would not go unnoticed.

“Supervisor Meero, a pleasure to make your acquaintance. But I believe,” the woman hesitated a moment, “there seems to have been some misunderstanding.”

Beside her, Syril was staring, puzzled, unable to hide his surprise. She looked over at him, jabbing an elbow into his side. He winced and shut his mouth, looking over at her and swallowing, his eyes wide.

Dedra kept her voice neutral. “A misunderstanding, Lady Santhe?”

“You called me here for a meeting about the theft of the Avenger,” Santhe said. “Yes, one was taken from Test Facility 73 some time ago.” She paused, hesitating.

Dedra raised a brow. “Then what seems to be the misunderstanding?”

“I never arranged this meeting.”

Dedra felt her mouth drop open too for just a second, and then shut it. “What do you mean?”

“Just what I say,” Valles Santhe replied. “I don’t know who said I was interested in a conversation initially.”

As Santhe trailed off, Dedra looked towards Syril, who looked like he would have preferred the floor to open up and drop him all the way down to Coruscant’s core. He couldn’t meet her eyes. But he was a terrible liar, she knew, and she believed he’d told her the truth.

“Do you think someone set you up?” Dedra replied. Her gaze was sharp on the slight woman.

Santhe shrugged, her eyes on Dedra. “The best I can figure, Supervisor Meero. I only came to try and set things straight. You’ll note my reports through Lord Verpalion have shown steady progress on the Energy Emittance Baffler.”

Dedra held up a hand. “Wait. Let’s piece through this. Syril, you were contacted by Valles Santhe, or so you thought.”

Syril swallowed, looking down at the basket of pastries. “Or so I thought,” he echoed Dedra’s words. “But it wasn’t you.” He gestured towards Santhe. “Similar size, similar age, but different.”

“And this person—a small and brunette woman, we’re to assume—set you up by telling you Lady Santhe wanted a meeting.” Dedra drew a breath. “And this person also knew about the theft of the TIE Avenger on Planet 73. Lady Santhe, you do want to discuss the theft, am I to understand?”

Valles Santhe shrugged, as if she perhaps couldn’t have cared less. “It’s a loss, but not an insurmountable one. We’re building a new prototype on Lianna and we’ll have it out in a few Standard weeks’ time.”

“And deliver it to the Empire, no doubt,” Dedra replied smoothly.

“No doubt,” Santhe echoed, although there was a curious lack of care in her words. Still, the other woman was right. All the reports from Santhe/Sienar were flawless. She couldn’t go digging in that direction right now, she knew.

“Do we know where the stolen Avenger is now?”

Santhe shook her head. “The person who took it disabled the tracking systems upon blasting his way out of the test facility.”

“What of the rostered duty?”

“A young woman found dead.” Santhe’s voice was somewhat dispassionate. “After the fact, though, not in the course of the theft. Recently, as a matter of fact. So your thief was not your killer.”

A coverup. Dedra knew it as much as she knew her own investigative skills. She knew, with sudden clarity, exactly who had covered it up. It had to be Ronan, trying to get power at the ISB’s expense. She’d never liked the man. She’d never wanted Partagaz to involve him in the Imperial Security Bureau’s actions. He was trying to discredit the Imperial Security Bureau, and using Syril as he had was no doubt the way he’d gone about it. She’d thought him a fool and a braggart, and he certainly was both, but not without an animalistic cunning, all the same. No matter who had committed the theft, Ronan was using it to his own ends.

She stood up, placing her hands on the table between them. “Thank you for coming to see me, Lady Santhe.” Beside her, Syril rose as well, a second or two later. “I apologize for having you come here all the way from Lianna, but you must understand, we were under the impression you were only recently on Coruscant.”

Santhe’s gaze drifted between the two of them, openly assessing. “I remain of service to the Empire, Supervisor. Santhe/Sienar is willing to entertain any further contracts you send our way.” She extended a hand to Dedra, her fingers small and slender but firm.

Only when the woman had left after a few minutes’ more pleasantries did Dedra turn towards Syril. He looked as if he would have handed her the blaster to shoot him, but she shook her head. “It’s not your fault, Syril. You were played by clever people. Learn from it.” As she spoke, the irony about the meeting at the Maltheen Divide occurred to her, but that was something she would never share with him.

He exhaled sharply. “Yes, yes, Dedra, of course.” The words came out in a rush. “Anything I can do for you, you know that.”

Her words were crisp: “Colonel Ronan. Find him. Tell him the Imperial Security Bureau wants to have a little chat with him.” She didn’t bother to hide the malice from her voice.

Chapter Text

But I was made to be a ranger with a magnum of steel
And in the cold, hard dangers I was losing my teeth
And on my left, I saw my cords piled high
And on my right, I saw the flame

—The War on Drugs, "Show Me the Coast"

It was a long wait until he was fairly sure that Ronan had moved on to somewhere else in the arcology. Cassian spent the time adding some play into the binders, easing the short length between them until he could rotate his hands in the restraints. The electronic restraints bleeped at him, but he ignored their chime, trying to work them further on the edge of the sink in the refresher.

It was only a matter of time until he managed to get enough give in them to be able to move his hands around. He still couldn’t reach his multitool or his security bypass kit with his wrists bound, but he at least could grab what was in front of him.

He’d have to time his plan properly. It would have been easier to escape with full use of his hands, but there was still a way out—an old trick he’d learned about in the youth center. But it would take a particularly dense or distracted officer not to spot the trick; he couldn’t rely on sleight of hand alone in his current predicament. Nor could he rely on his multitool for a biometric scanner; the risk of electrocution was too great.

He stepped into the refresher, leaning against the sink to shield his actions as best he could. A sliver of soap sat atop the sink, and he quickly moved to spread some dental paste atop the soap, making it sticky, pocketing the object in his jacket.

Next step. He moved to kick at the door—several times, testing its strength. He recoiled at first, kicking harder. The door had a little bit of give. Good. The electronic locks weren’t as foolproof as he’d dreaded.

The door whirred open, and a bored-looking Imperial stood there, riot baton at the ready. “Stop that.”

Cassian edged over to the door, staring at the guard to see if he would balk from a look alone. No such luck. He eased his hands to the side, yanking against the binders on his wrists, checking to see if he could reach the spot where the lock registered without dislocating a shoulder. If he found the scanner spot on the door itself, he could short-circuit the biometric portion of the lock with the sticky substance in his jacket pocket without needing his lockpicks, but it was all a matter of finding the connection. It would be a matter of touch rather than sight, he knew. For that, he’d need to be clever and choose his moment.

“Stop what?” Cassian stepped forward, baiting the guard. His hands grazed the frame of the door, his body angling to hide his movement.

The guard stepped forward, raising the baton. The man was no taller than Cassian himself, but it still felt vaguely intimidating. The threat, before the act itself. He felt an old twinge of unease at that. His time in the youth facility hadn’t been that rough; he had been too much of an observer to get in a lot of trouble, but he’d seen other boys beaten in just the same way, maybe by a man like this, when both guard and prisoners had been younger.

He would have to act. His fingers were still searching for the lock, trying to find the spot that provided biometrics. A small divot, barely perceptible, at average hand height for easy scanning. He knew it as soon as he felt it.

The truncheon raised higher. The guard stepped forward. Cassian’s fingers pressed against the spot in the door, steady. He was too collected to shake in a crisis, and this was one indeed. As the baton swung out to take a crack at him, like a sportsman taking a swing, Cassian moved himself into the blow, letting his torso take the shock of it even as his hands, bound at the wrists, dipped for the pocket of his Chandrilan jacket, seizing the sliver of sticky soap between thumb and forefinger and pressing it hard against the divots for just a few seconds, enough for it to adhere. It didn’t need to stay there forever, just long enough to disable the mechanism.

Adrenaline meant it took a good few seconds for him to register the strike of the riot baton on his body. He grunted, feeling his legs threaten to crumple, but willed himself to stay standing, stepping back into the cell, letting the door slide shut as the guard followed him in. 

It needed to work.

He planted his feet wide, despite the pain that threatened to make him collapse inward, ready for another strike, bracing himself for a beating. He was a nobody, after all, confined to a cell in the depths of the arcology. It would be easy for the guard to break a few bones, knock out some teeth, and call it a day. By Imperial standards, Cassian might even deserve it, he figured.

But that blow never came. Cassian’s head was still ringing with the shock of the first one as the guard spoke: “Colonel Ronan gave us strict orders you’re not to be permanently harmed. Count yourself lucky, spy.”

The guard was right. Cassian did, in that sense. But he saw no need to share that. He had something else in mind. As the guard turned to leave the cell, Cassian followed him, his body still aching as he raced up from behind. The guard was not a tall man either, and Cassian had the advantage of surprise. Desperation made him brutal as he flung his bound wrists around the guard’s neck, squeezing his forearms tight before the other man had a chance to react. A gasp turned to a strangled wheeze; the man lost his grip on his baton, and he dropped, Cassian still choking him out as he fell.

Cassian waited for what was likely less than a minute but felt like two or three until the guard stopped twitching, crumpling beneath him. Whether he was unconscious or dead, Cassian didn’t care. He had seconds to act, he knew, and he couldn’t waste them on a prison guard. His hands fumbled for the other man’s blaster at his hip, freeing it from the holster. He’d have to fire it from an awkward position, but it didn’t matter. Blaster held at the ready in his right hand, he moved to kick at the door again, aiming for the space between the door and the electronics that sealed it shut. With a groan, the door slid to the side by an inch or two. Not enough for him to fit through, though it gave him a chance to study the electronics of the door. The retraction operated by passkey.

He turned his attention back to the guard, turning him over. His belt clip had a few objects dangling from it, and he hurriedly unlatched the clip with his free left hand, moving to the biometric spot that he’d deadened with soap and dental paste. He held the passkey up and held his breath.

The door slid open, giving him access to the hallway. There was nobody there, but he could hear the sound of approaching footsteps on the floor overhead. He’d have to be quick. But he knew just where to go.

He raced for the second hall, moving quickly, popping off a couple shots in quick succession. The builders stared in horror, but made no move to stop him as the Imperial officers watching them dropped dead beside them.

“The route to the Undercity. Where is it?” Cassian trained his blaster on the conscripted men, as much as he loathed doing it.

“Through Level 5123.” The next floor down; he’d counted the three floors they’d dropped from the ground level of the arcology.

Briefly, he thought: I could take them with me. But the risk of seven men versus one was too great; the chaos the others would cause was too unpredictable. Still, he took stock of them as he took a moment to breathe.

“Lockpicks. In my boot, part of the security bypass kit.” He kneeled over, using his hands to yank his boot off despite the stress to his bound wrists. The security kit tumbled out, and the look he trained on the conscripts must have been convincing; they undid the binders from his wrists with the use of the electronic lockpicks. He slid the cuffs into his jacket pocket, just in case he might need them. His wrists ached, bruised from the cuffs, but he barely noticed beyond that second’s worth of distress. Hurriedly, he slid the bypass kit into his coat as well.

“By yourself,” one of them urged Cassian, reading the consideration on his face, and there was no missing the vague bit of regret in the man’s voice. He locked eyes with the man, nodding firmly. Decision made, for both of them, it seemed.

“What’s your name?” Cassian tugged his boot back on again.

“Marso Brecanti.” A Ghor name, but that didn’t surprise Cassian for a second. The Empire had been feeding propaganda into galactic ears for months now about Ghorman; he had no reason to question that there had been some efforts, somehow, to fight back.

He nodded, checking his blaster charges. “What will you tell them when they find the body?”

“You shot him,” Marso replied. “Because you did.”

Cassian nodded, liking the simplicity of the statement, and then moved for the staircase, the bypass kit making the door to the manual exit slide open again. He didn’t have the time to look back at the conscripts, though he made it a point to lock the man’s name in his head as he fled the scene, three dead Imperial bodies and a work crew that might well be shot as reprisals in his wake.

Guilt surged through him, but he pushed it back. It couldn’t affect his escape. He took the stairs two at a time. descending further in the arcology. The footsteps above him made their way onto the floor he’d been held in. It would take them some time to figure out where he’d gone; he hoped Brecanti and the others would stall the Imperials.

The blaster shots came in slow succession above him as he searched for an exit to the Undercity. They were talking to each man in turn above, he knew. He moved purposefully in the abandoned level of the arcology, resisting the temptation to imagine the walls closing in on him.

He took a moment, looking down the lit, empty hallway, drawing a breath, even as the fourth shot echoed above him. Two more to go. He was running out of time, and the unaware sacrifices of the conscripts for his sake had to have been for a justifiable reason. He couldn’t let himself get caught again.

The door he was looking for was at the far end of the hall, plasticene hazard tape surrounding it. But it was his only chance at getting out of the arcology. He used the bypass kit again, watching as the door slid open beyond the hazard tape, leading the way onto a small footbridge. He didn’t want to give away where he’d gone too easily, so he ducked beneath the hazard tape, feeling the door shut behind him as he stepped onto the footbridge. If he had been lucky again, the Imperials wouldn’t have seen it shut.

Level 5123 was a dimly lit place here in the Imperial Center. He hoped that there might be some sort of salvation beyond. His body hurt now from the strike of the riot baton; he had no doubt something might have been broken. He had no communicator to get in contact with Bix. But he had one thing that he hadn’t had even an hour ago: he had a way forward, and he raced along the footbridge, stolen Imperial blaster in hand and ridiculous Chandrilan clothing marking him as definitely not a member of the Underworld, hoping he could find a way back up to what the Coruscanti considered the surface as quickly as possible.