Chapter Text
Nights on Yavin 4 were always cold. The small jungle moon -and location of the rebel base- was hardly what you could call a safe home. The atmosphere was too thin to keep out the dark and frozen expanse of space, and instead it pressed all around, suffocating. Spinning haphazardly at thousands of miles per hour, Yavin 4 orbited Yavin, a stormy red planet that seemed all too close, and at the same time all too far away. Late nights on the rebel base nearly always turn existential -a side effect of the unfortunately important cause the Rebellion represented. The fate of the Galaxy, and all that.
Nida Takir sat with her back to the dark expanse of sky, ignoring the rise of Yavin along the horizon, as well as everything philosophical. One hand was tapping restlessly against the knee of her jumpsuit, the other was holding a flask of spiced Correllian rum. Well, not so much holding it, as clutching it purposefully with all the strength she could muster. Nida was never going to let go of this rum. She was going to glue the flask to her hand.
"It's simple," Sefla began, shuffling a deck of Coruscant Nines cards, the red and blue paper flying through his hands. "There are two factions of the Empire."
"Two?" Corssin scratched at his red beard absentmindedly. "How do you reckon?"
Sefla turned around, surveying the outside common area. The large pillared hall was a stretch of seats and cooking spaces, open completely to a view of the rather depressing sky. The Red Squadron was busy throwing scraps of paper into a roaring bonfire, and a few feet from them, Sergeant Melshi was bent over a letter, mouth twisted in a hard line. Of their group, Corssin and Sefla were huddled by the small fire-pit, Nida on the ground with her back against the bench, Adema sitting above her. Sefla had brought one of his recon friends, a Captain. He was leaning against one of the hard-wrought pillars of the common area, eyes fixed on Melshi as the letter shook in the Sergeant's hands.
As Sefla whipped back around to face them, the firelight glittered on his dark skin, a momentary beauty in the quiet of the hall. Nida took a swig of rum.
"Simple," her friend repeated, "the Empire has different names for its commanders, according to different people."
"What an utter load of Bantha shit, Sef." Adema snorted, "they've got one ranking system just like we do."
"It's not shit!" Sefla looked deeply offended, flipping his cards around without even paying attention to them. "See they've got Moffs, and Grand Moffs and all that, but the Stormtrooper squadron we picked up off Kamino was talking about this dude: Lord Vader or whatever."
"Yeah Sef, Darth Vader, don't be an idiot."
"I'm not an idiot." Nida's friend intoned impatiently. "He said Lord Vader, Lord , Adema. Why would he say that if he wasn't talking about a different ranking? A different ranking system." The soldier’s voice dropped to a dramatic whisper, he leaned forward. "A different faction."
"Maybe he's a priest?" Nida suggested, thinking of the Nedesh Temple leaders on her home planet Akiva.
"Must be a fucking magical priest to have the Troopers spooked like that." Sefla decided.
From the pillar, Sef's Captain friend snorted.
Adema shifted, his shins brushing against Nida's shoulder. "Look, we've dissected every single fucking detail the Empire has thrown at us. Can't we just sit back, relax, and not develop a theory around this conspiracy?"
Sefla shot their friend a dark look. "It's not smart to prefer ignorance, Adema."
Nida felt something other than the usual annoyance at her friends twist in her gut. Above her, fellow pilot Adema slapped a hand to his forehead.
Corssin sighed, lounging back by the fire, his scraggly beard hairs reflecting its light. Nida chewed at the inside of her mouth. It was true, more and more Troopers were starting to tell stories about Lord Vader. Whoever he was, high ranking Imperial General or Mythical Priest aside, it was starting to become clear that he was a major player in the Empire's rise to power.
Clutching her flask of rum tighter, the pilot stood just as Sefla began to deal. "I'm out this round," Nida informed her friends. Adema slid to the ground to take her place at the fire-pit, and the Coruscant Nines were divvied up.
Across the common area, Melshi was still poring over his letter; and at the pillar, the nameless Captain was still watching him.
"These men don't deserve to get hurt." He announced quietly as Nida approached.
It was such an unexpected and simple thing to say. Seven words strung together to make a sentence, half formed and barely coherent against the light of Yavin rising in the distance, and the dark of a sleepless night -and yet enough to make the pilot pause. She saw... What did she see?
It was matter of fact, and truthful, and just a little too existential for Nida. She took a sip of rum. The Captain turned to look at her, eyes fixating on the flask in her hand (not her fault, when didn't she have a flask in her hand?), the grease smeared over her orange jumpsuit (not her fault, she was in the hangar all day trying to fix a leak in her A-wing), her dark hair in a messy braid (a little her fault, she hadn't showered in six days), and then her face.
He bit his lip. "You have a little -" The Captain gestured towards her eyes, and then his own eyes. "Dirt maybe? I don't know." She could hear the impressions of an accent in his voice, deep and lilted.
"Oh yeah," Nida swiped a hand over her eyelids. Her fingers came away black and smudged. Shrugging, Nida fought the unexpected face-mess with the only solution she could think of. A rather large swig from her flask.
To be fair, Sefla's friend didn't look so clean-cut himself. The sleeves of his green jacket were crumpled, his dark hair was falling into his eyes. He was unshaven, his weapons belt was on backwards, and he was obviously not wearing deodorant (could Nida truly judge if she wasn't either?).
When she had tilted her flask down again the stranger had his hand out, palm up. His eyes were fixed on Melshi again, the corners of his mouth tight in a grimace. The firelight glanced off the Captain's features, sharpening his jaw, and the strong bridge of his nose, hollowing out his cheeks. Reluctantly, Nida handed over her rum, feeling the rough calluses on his palm scrape against her fingers.
From behind them, Corssin whooped as the stranger sniffed at the opening of her flask. Nida crossed her arms and looked at the ground. She really needed to clean her boots.
The sound of liquid hitting the bottom of her flask made the pilot look up again. Her companion swallowed and then coughed, burying his mouth in the crook of his elbow. "Is this Correllian?" The Captain asked, wiping the back of his arm over his chin; his accent was thicker than before.
"Yeah, why?" Nida took the rum back from him, relishing in the familiar feeling of her drink against her hand. "You don't like it?"
"No, no, it's great." The Captain coughed again, turning to face her completely, the shadow of his eyelashes spread over his cheekbones. "Just a little strong."
Nida laughed, the sound echoing gracelessly in the near-empty common area. She could feel her friends around the fire-pit shift to look at her.
The man at the pillar extended a hand, "Cassian."
She took it without preamble, his palm spread firm and warm against hers, she could feel the edge of a scar pressed against her index finger. "Nida."
The Captain -Cassian, nodded and let go of her hand. "Alliance Intelligence." He offered.
"Pilot," she responded. In another time, on Akiva maybe, Nida would have answered differently. She would have introduced herself as a sister, or as a landowner, a daughter. Far away from the resistance, she prayed in the Nedesh, worshipped the sixteen Gods of her religion, grew spices in a box on her window. Before the Rebel Alliance, and before her A-wing and the Empire, she had worn soft leather instead of orange canvas, put charcoal under her eyes instead of grease, or dirt, or mud from Yavin 4. When she was young she spent her free time wandering the city, instead of at target practice, played carefully drawn out games of Massani Strategy, in place of hastily thrown together Coruscant Nines.
But this was now, this was war, and she was part of a cause. In the rebel base, on Yavin 4, she could only answer: Pilot, because that's all she was.
And occasionally: drunk.
Well, more than occasionally.
Cassian inclined his head, and leaned back against the pillar, his face to the stars and the ever-expanding light. Nida couldn't help but wonder what he would have said, years ago, as an introduction in place of Alliance Intelligence . Couldn't help but wonder how much they would have in common outside the Rebel Cause.
Flask in hand and back to everything existential, Nida stood shoulder to shoulder with Cassian, watching as Sergeant Melshi threw his letter into the Red Squadron's fire.