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If Jyn had mere hours to escape off-planet before she was caught by an angry pursuer, she would not be walking into a bar right now. Luckily, her quarry didn't feel the same sense of urgency.
She saw the hat first. Then the unnervingly reptilian eyes beneath the wide brim. Then the clawed fingers holding three pazaak cards.
Jyn turned her head almost too quickly and went to order a drink. The other woman hadn't noticed her.
"Two shots of Dug Punch." She pulled out her fake ID, but the bartender was already waving in recognition.
"Add it to your tab, Miss Dawn?"
"Yeah." She forced a smile. "Sure."
Another great reason to hurry to the spaceport today.
****
"All I'm saying is where's all their blue milk gonna come from if I can't meet my quotas, huh?"
The old man had been ranting about the price of nerf feed for the better part of the flight. Earlier that afternoon it had been the outcome of the galactic podracing championship...which, he explained, had been rigged.
Cassian shifted in his seat and tried not to glance (again!) at the nervous man with a cybernetic implant several rows down. Instead, he hummed an encouraging "mhm" to the herder and re-adjusted two pocket straps on his dark trenchcoat.
His mind wandered back to the mission parameters. The departure from Naboo. The false name on his travel papers. The target who, at a reluctant glance, was starting to nod off. The seedy spaceport they were both travelling to for unknown reasons. The datapad which, according to Draven, must be retrieved from said target, unlocked, and brought back to base at all costs….
*****
Jyn had barely downed her third Dug Punch when she was confronted by an annoyed growl.
“[Kestrel?? You still owe me 500 credits!]”
“Chalryyhn!” Jyn's smiles were getting harder to force. “Of course. Talk to my partner over by the pazaak table. She has your money.”
The wookie only narrowed her eyes.
“You remember Rake, right?” Jyn tried again. “Forked tongue? Bad mood? The three of us did that heist on Quesh last year.”
Still nothing.
“She's waiting for a contact to sell us some...supplies for our next run on...Belsavis.” Jyn didn't wait for another glare this time. “The terms were for her to come alone, but I'm here keeping an eye on things. Go get your cash - none of them know about you. She might even throw in a little extra if you stay a while.
Chalryyhn looked from Jyn to Rake and back to Jyn before crossing the room. Her posture made Jyn suddenly doubtful that this had been a good idea.
Rake responded to the roared challenge by raising a single claw. She hadn't even turned around. The wookie’s tone turned to panic. Frantically, she pointed at Jyn’s barstool.
Jyn herself was almost to the door when Rake finally spotted her. Within seconds, everyone between them had made themselves scarce.
Rake broke into a run moments after Jyn did.
Jyn turned a sharp corner right around the door, and Rake skidded to a stop, glanced around cautiously, then set off for the spaceport at a jog.
Once there were enough people between them again, Jyn followed.
****
"SO..." the old man was suddenly shouting as if Cassian was hard of hearing. "DO YOU HAVE ANY KIDS?"
People turned to look. The target snorted awake, hand already on his blaster.
"Yes, a boy and a girl," Cassian answered, fabricating the pair of children so quickly, he almost dropped the Core accent he'd been using. "I'm...on my way to visit them now actually. I haven't seen them in almost a year."
The hunch was spot on. Moments later, his conversational partner was pouring over a lifetime of marital woes and Cassian was back to running through mission logistics while pretending to browse a catalog of overpriced retail goods he'd found under his seat.
The target had finally moved his hand from the blaster. It looked like a prototype. Draven hadn't mentioned it in the mission brief.
* **
Some kind of announcement was blaring on the intercom as Jyn followed Rake into the spaceport. Something about the weather. As if it wasn't obviously raining.
She flung wet hair out of her face and shouted after her former friend. Might as well be now.
***
"Attention passengers," said a mechanized voice overhead as the attendant droids guided them down the exit ramp, "please be advised that the following vessels have been grounded until further notice due to rainfall exceeding the allowed..."
Cassian untied two cords on his coat and shook loose an oversized extra side panel. He tossed one end over his shoulder before stepping out into the downpour.
***
“Go back to selling contraband in the Undercity!” Rake hissed. “I'm not giving you anything.”
"We were partners!" Jyn pleaded. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
Rake laughed. "Not once the heist was over"
"You robbed me!"
Another laugh.
"Give it back!" Jyn screamed.
Rake started running faster.
Jyn sprinted to catch up but ran headlong into a man in a long coat. He gave an inhuman roar and lashed out with an extremely hairy arm. She ducked, growled a non-apology and kept running.
A few yards later, she sent an ugnaught flying, but still didn't slow down. She would get to Rake if she had to knock over and subsequently fight every single person on the spaceport in the process.
****
The target was running now. Cassian wondered if he'd noticed he was being followed or simply got spooked by one of the shady characters milling about the spaceport. As much as he hated to break cover, all he could do was run after him.
The crowd was especially dense around this section of the landing pad. Cassian dodged a Trandoshan and a human with curly purple hair then almost collided with an angry wookie. He could barely see the target and wondered how he could move so fast.
***
Jyn shouldered a blue protocol droid into a luggage speeder and shoved at a sharply-dressed Rodian and a bitter old nerf herder.
The crowd became denser the closer they got to the landing pads, and her interactions seemed to dissolve into abstract features.
A shoulder.
A wall of scraggly green fur.
Another shoulder.
A leathery foreleg.
An armful of shopping bags.
A sign-pole.
Jyn reeled back, one hand clutching her bruised forehead, the other feebly trying to clear a path through the crowd as she staggered forward again.
Then came the sound of another collision up ahead. First a startled shout, then that familiar, predatory echo-whoop. Jyn arrived just in time to watch Rake claw the poor man across the face. He screamed when her hand stuck in a cybernetic implant. She hissed a laugh as she punched him free and turned to keep running.
***
Cassian watched the encounter, but did nothing to distinguish himself from the rest of the onlookers that had gathered.
The Tuataran woman was wearing an elaborate flightsuit and what looked like an oversized sun hat at first glance - but the material was extremely sturdy, and there were subtle signs of at least two hidden compartments.
The target's blood soaked hands moved from his face to clutch at his chest.
"What did you..." his horrified plea erupted into a grinding cough.
The Tuataran laughed louder without looking back.
***
Implant drew a blaster. His hand was shaking badly, and the pink froth was already dribbling down his chin, but he raised his arm and fired.
The sound was like no blaster Jyn had ever heard. She almost felt it, rather than heard it. Rake abruptly crumpled to the ground. If there had been anyone in the way, they probably would have been taken down as well. This was a weapon you pointed rather than aimed.
***
The target dropped the blaster and collapsed into a twitching heap, and that was Cassian's cue.
***
Jyn kept an eye on the dissipating crowd as she inched toward Rake’s body, but nobody else seemed interested in getting any closer to those claws. A few people went for Implant’s blaster. The first one to pick it up held it with a look that made the others shrink away.
She watched him retrieve a thin metallic item from a sleeve pocket almost hidden by a buckle and kneel beside Implant. It was a stim. Why did he administer a stim instead of an antidote?
A few steps closer to Rake, she froze when he looked up, but his expression looked more startled than hers. Almost...guilty. He pocketed a datapad, half-lifted Implant by the upper arms, and dragged him toward a maintenance speeder.
Jyn had already turned back to Rake.
***
Cassian wondered if the dead Tuataran’s venom glands were still intact. If stims weren't enough to exacerbate the relatively slow-acting substance, he might need to retrieve-- but the young woman seemed to be protecting her fallen...accomplice? No. She was running over to the body now...kicking it...kicking it again…picking up the hat...tenderly brushing it off...spinning around in delight, and…...hugging it? Was there something inside one of the pockets that was so important that...? Definitely just the hat. She pulled it over her head and practically danced away.
He waited until she was gone and then pulled out another stim.