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Vivyan Gavette let the man’s bloody and beaten up face go, and cleaned her hands with the wipes Zeetha handed her. The spit and blood sticking to her skin came off, the spots on her uniform had already soaked in and dried.
She needed a new uniform. One on which the drops of blood spattered on the dark grey sleeve wouldn’t look the same color as spilled caff. One that was made from something else than the itchy mix of polyesters and nylon. The light grey tailored cotton of her superior would be nice, with a few more squares on the rank insignia. Maybe even white, someday.
She gave up and handed the wipe back to Zeetha with a sigh. She was close to this new uniform, she could feel it. She had governed Krach-2 on her own for a couple of months now, ever since her superior had fucked off to his mansion on planet. The last push would be the man whose blood soiled her sleeves; her promotion, that hung bonelessly in between the troopers holding him up and who’d passed out. Again.
“Give him another stim, I need him awake.”
The man let out a pained moan as the needle pierced the skin on his neck and the chemicals forced him into consciousness once more.
Maybe he wasn’t her promotion, Vivyan corrected herself. Only a small agitator that had tried to stir up the local workforce and sabotage the lidranum mines and refinery she oversaw. His capture and foiled plan would maybe get her off Krach-2.
She hated the place. Thousands of inhabited planets all across the galaxy and she’d ended up on a mid-sized moon without atmosphere, stuck in an endless dull stretch of tubes, tunnels and high roofs of glass, shielding the inhabitants of Krach-2 from radiation and the coldness of space, as well as trapping the hundred-times recycled air inside.
No, her real promotion - her light grey uniform - was in transit or maybe already landed in Schlucht. The man - Querll, or something like that - could only tell them that he was to meet his contact at the end of the dayshift in a cantina. His contact who was supplying him and his group with intel and equipment, who served as link to the rebellion.
Vivyan had wanted to go there herself. This was an opportunity she couldn’t let slide and she’d loved to see the capture of the rebel herself, but Querll had only broken an hour ago, when she’d pulled him out of his cell to witness the execution of the first member of his group.
With the rifle already pressed to the woman’s temple, Querll finally had offered Vivyan his contact in exchange for their lives. He hadn’t been delusional enough to bargain for his own.
With too little time to make it to Schlucht, Vivyan was left to oversee the capture of the rebel from the command center, half a moon in between.
“Ma’am,” Zeetha had come up to her, speaking so quietly Querll wouldn’t hear them, “we can’t keep him awake much longer. He’ll go into cardiac arrest if we give him more stims.”
“I only need him lucid until he identifies his contact. After that -” Vivyan shrugged. The man had already given her everything he had.
The squads in Schlucht were in place. Vivyan had personally contacted each of their leaders to make sure they wouldn’t act out of the ordinary. She couldn’t afford to scare off the contact.
The video feed from the cantina was already on the holoscreen in the middle of the room. People kept coming and going and it got quite crowded as the dayshift finished their work and came to drink away their day’s salary. The time was right.
“Get him here,” with a wink of her hand the two troopers dragged Querll forward, “Your contact. Point him out.”
Querll barely moved and Vivyan gripped his chin, forcing him to look at the split screen depicting the cantina from four different angles. “Come on, Querll.”
The man’s glassy eyes roamed the screen without stopping anywhere. Vivyan was about to lose her patience when the man sobbed and tried to shake his head in her grip.
“What?” Vivyan forced his chin up, ignoring the bloody spit that kept seeping out of the man’s mouth. Had she been too harsh on him? Caused brain damage during the beatings? Or was it the stims? She stared down into teary eyes and suddenly understood. It was guilt.
“Think of your men, Querll. Their lives depend on you.” She tailored her voice into a semblance of sympathy, carefully keeping any note of disgust out of it as the man kept drooling on her hand. “You keep telling me all you do is for the people of Krach, no? You see, Querll, if you don’t tell me who your man is, I’ll have to send my men in there. And then they’d have to find out who the rebel is, the same why they got you to talk. Do you want that? For the good people of Krach?”
Querll shook his head minutely and a thin “no” made it to Vivyan’s ears. “No,” she repeated and held his face a bit gentler while fighting the urge to clean her hands again, “So, show me.”
*
The man was remarkably unremarkable. Nothing made him stand out even in the slightest against the crowd; he rather seemed to blend into the shadows and walls around him.
Vivyan observed him for a moment longer. Maybe there was something unusual in the way he moved through the crowd. He didn’t look into the cameras even once, as if he knew exactly where they were and how to avoid them. She couldn’t get a clear picture of his face, no matter which of the four feeds she looked at.
“The subject is a human male, dark haired, thirties,” she hesitated a moment; she was describing half of the people in the cantina. “Go in from both sides, he’s at the bar. Brown jacket, next to Twi’Lek male. Take everyone who fits the description, we can sort it out later.”
She got two confirmations and clasped her hands behind her back as she waited for her troops to arrive. A smile tugged on her lips. She could already feel the cotton of her new uniform.
On her screen, the man suddenly got up and elbowed his way through the crowd towards the exit. The smile slipped from Vivyan’s lips and nylon scratched against her skin. Another figure entered, found the contact with ease and pulled him along, the crowd parting for the taller man.
She spun around to Querll who seemed on the verge of blacking out again. “You said he’d be alone!” She hissed and dug her nails into his cheeks.
On the holoscreen, the two men reached the exit and the smaller cupped his hand around his mouth and yelled something into the crowd. Hell broke loose.
Vivyan gave Querll a shove that sent him crashing to the floor. “Get me surveillance of the tunnels! Now!” The tense silence inside the command center broke as her inferiors scrambled to follow her commands. “Squad two, they’re coming out your way. He’s got help: tall, bald.”
“Where not there yet, Ma’am!” The captain of the second team answered; Vivyan could hear him panting as he ran. And yet the first squad had already arrived, forcing the panicked crowd out of the exit and into the hallways where the two rebels had fled to.
“I need surveillance!” She yelled into the room as workers flooded the hallways and ran into the arms of the second squad.
Strands of hair had come loose and poked into her face. She clenched her teeth as the first images of surveillance footage finally flickered on the screen. Endless hallways, all of them looking the same, all of them full of people as the crowd tried to flee from the troopers.
“I found them! Tunnel 3X-76G, heading down!”
Vivyan ran to the woman belonging to the voice, basically shoving her out of her chair to get a look on her screen. The two were running, letting people pass them in order to blend in with the crowd filling the halls.
“Close it off! 4X and 2X too - deactivate lifts to 76G! Do not let them escape! Squad one and two, head to 3X-76G. Batons, no blaster fire. I want them alive!”
For once, the hellish expansive fire protection measures implemented in Schlucht paid off. She could basically shut off every tunnel in all of Schlucht remotely from her desk in the command center.
It was gratifying, seeing the rebels reach the end of the hallway to realize they were trapped. The smile crept back as she watched the taller rebel smashing the button to open the door repeatedly to no veil. The civilians trapped with them tried to reach the other end, only to realise it was closed off as well.
If Vivyan had had any doubt that the contact was a professional, they were eliminated. The man had somehow opened the control panel next to the blast door and was busy pulling out and reconnecting wires, while the taller one kept the panicked people away from him. Oh, they’d be her promotion for sure.
The blast door slid open, and the two rebels ran down the empty hallway. Vivyan switched to the next camera to follow them.
“Open 4X,” she ordered into the room, and a moment later the two rebels on her screen were face to face with the stormtrooper squad they’d outrun before.
“Alive,” she reminded the captain of the squad as they charged in and then leaned back in her seat.
The contact was the first to go to ground. A knee in between his shoulderblades and a hand fisted in his hair kept him there.
The taller man kept fighting even when a baton cracking down on his wrist forced him to let his blaster go. Vivyan could finally get a look at the contact's face as he struggled against the weight holding him down and then scream when his partner got knocked out with a blow to the back of his head, falling to the floor and laying motionless.
Vivyan straightened up and swiped her hands on her pants. She needed to change into a fresh uniform. On her way out she passed the man that had ruined this one and lightly kicked him in the ribs. He didn’t stir. And he’d bled on the floor.
“What should we do with him?” Zeetha had her datapad out, ready for Vivyan’s orders.
“Dispose of him. Sent his men to any detention center that needs labour. And clean that floor.”
*
Melshi woke up from the pounding in his head, then became aware of the dull ache of his shoulders being forced into an unnatural angle by handcuffs holding his hands behind his back, and finally the throbbing pain in his left wrist.
He opened his eyes slowly, tried to lift his head and was met with the sight of Cassian - sitting opposite to him, his cheek bruised and hands cuffed behind his back as well - when he finally succeeded. Relief washed over Cassian’s face for a second before it turned into an expressionless mask again.
“Look who’s back amongst the living.” A stormtrooper sat next to Cassian, somehow managing to occupy two seats at once and resting his legs in Cassian’s lap. The trooper grinned at Melshi, his helmet on the seat next to him and a cigarette hanging from between his lips. “How’s that head feeling, big boy?”
Melshi wanted to snap an answer but Cassian’s minute shake of head let him stop. Instead, he tried to make sense of his surroundings. They were moving, that much was sure, although not through air. A train? Whatever it was, it was clearly not built for comfort: the wagon was windowless and completely bare besides the row of seats on either side.
The trooper let out an exaggerated sigh. “You’re as boring as this guy. I thought having rebel terrorists as company would be at least some fun.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Melshi mumbled and his gaze fell back on Cassian. He lifted an eyebrow. Cassian shook his head. He had no idea how to get out of this either.
A blast door opened and released a second trooper into the cabin that sat down on a seat on Melshi’s side. “Twenty more minutes. Put that helmet on, man.”
“Why? You know what I look like and they’re dead either way; stop worrying.” The trooper took a long drag from his cigarette and blew the smoke into Cassian’s face. “Looks nothing like the clips they showed us, don’t you think? All scrawny, kinda pathetic.”
“What did you expect? Fangs and claws?”
“Nah,” the smoker swung his legs down from Cassian’s lap and leaned in closer. Melshi could see Cassian trying to move away unconsciously. “But I thought they’d have more fight in them. Maybe,” the man took another drag from his cigarette, making the tip glow red, “if you poke them.”
The trooper moved and Cassian let out a sharp surprised cry and his body jerked. Melshi was halfway out of his seat, but the second trooper yanked him back by his cuffed hands and forced him down. Cassian tried to retreat further into the seat, hissing in pain through clenched teeth and his feet scraping over the floor uselessly, but the trooper's hand just followed him relentlessly.
“See?” The smoker pulled back grinning, and Melshi could see the dark spot where he’d scorched the soft skin just over Cassian’s collarbone with the tip of his cigarette.
“Fucking bastard,” Melshi hissed and the smoker’s grin widened.
“You want one, big man?” Smoker took another drag and stood up.
“Leave him alone, fucker. Get back here and I’ll fucking show -” Whatever Cassian was going to say got lost in another pained groan as the trooper pressed his cigarette onto his neck a second time and Melshi’s scream at him to stop.
“Oh you guys are lovely,” the smoker stood in between them, looking from one to the other and lighting a second cigarette with a gleeful expression on his face. “Any chance you two are fucking? Or is this just normal comradely care between rebels?”
Melshi was ready to snap back, but again, Cassian’s shake of the head held him back. The smoker had seen it and turned to Cassian.
“If you ask me nicely, I’ll burn you instead of him.”
Melshi’s gut turned to ice and he stared at the trooper in horror. The second trooper next to Melshi got up and strode towards the blast door. “Okay, I’m out. Do your kinky shit without me.”
“Oh come on, Larry. Don’t be like that!”
“I’m not stopping you. By all means, go ahead and get yourself lung cancer, just leave me out of this.”
“Funkiller.”
The blast door closed behind the second trooper and smoker cradled Cassian’s jaw to make the rebel look at him. “So, pretty boy. I think you were going to ask me to not burn your fuck-buddy.”
Cassian’s eyes were burning with hatred. He didn’t look at Melshi, just stared at the trooper as if he could kill him with his gaze alone. “Please.”
“Keef! Fuck, don’t -” Both Cassian and the trooper ignored him.
“Please what, pretty boy?”
Cassian finally spared a glance at Melshi for just a second, then said through gritted teeth, “Please, burn me instead of him.”
The smoker chose the juncture of Cassian’s neck and shoulder this time, turning Cassian’s face to the side forcefully and hitting exactly the sensitive spot Melshi knew Cassian liked to be kissed at. Pained hissing echoed from the narrow walls and Cassian’s eyes fell on Melshi when he opened them. Melshi could see tears glistering in them. He was going to kill the man.
Smoker let Cassian’s face go and crouched down in front of him. “How about your face next? Or should I take the big man instead?”
Cassian just shook his head and Smoker almost gently pushed a strand of hair behind Cassian’s ear. “All you have to do is ask.”
“No, Keef -”
“Please, Sir, burn my face.” Smoker grinned, took another drag from his cigarette and came so close that only a few inches separated his face from Cassian’s to exhale the smoke. Melshi didn’t care what Cassian wanted or didn’t want him to do, he couldn’t sit still in his seat when the fucker was going to -
There was a loud crunch as Cassian let his forehead crash into the man’s face. The trooper fell back howling, blood shooting out of his ruined nose. Cassian was up as soon as the trooper had stumbled back and stepped on the man’s wrist as he tried to reach for his blaster.
Melshi let himself drop to the ground and knelt on the trooper's other arm before he could claw his fingers into the back of Cassian’s knees. The pain in his head caused by the sudden movement forced a groan out of him. Pushing through the pain, Melshi leaned forward, so that the trooper’s howling got muffled by his shoulder.
Cassian had kicked the blaster out of the trooper’s reach and awkwardly knelt down with his back to the trooper, trying to reach the utility belt with his cuffed hands.
“More to the right,” Melshi directed him and shoved his shoulder down harder as the trooper tried to buckle him off. Cassian opened one of the containers on the belt, then tried the next one, slipped his fingers inside and pulled a key card out.
“Turn around.” Melshi did, felt Cassian’s finger fumble with the card as he tried to open Melshi’s cuffs with his own hands cuffed behind his back. Melshi caught Cassian’s fingers, steadying them and then directing them up to his own wrists. The shackles sprung open a moment later.
Melshi’s shoulders cracked when he pulled his arms in front of his body. With one hand covering the trooper’s mouth he took the key card from Cassian’s fingers and opened the handcuffs for him.
Cassian turned around with a worried frown, and immediately inspected Melshi’s face, his fingers hovering over the back of his skull. “How’s your head? Are you good?”
“More or less. What about you?”
“Fine.”
“I mean it.”
“The first took me by surprise, it’s not so bad if you know they’re coming. I needed him close,” Cassian said, rubbing his wrists where the shackles had dug in. “I’m fine, really. I’m gonna get the other trooper. It’s just these two. Can you keep him down?”
Melshi rolled the still moaning man on his belly and secured his arms in a tight lock behind his back. He could control him with just one hand like this. His left still felt like hell. “I’ll manage. Be careful.”
Cassian nodded, grabbed the blaster and headed for the blast door. Melshi heard two shots being fired and a yell. He didn’t even get to worry about Cassian because a moment later he came back, pushing the second trooper in front of him, both blasters in his hands. The trooper held a bleeding hand clutched to his chest.
“Get his com and come here,” Cassian told Melshi, holding the second trooper at gunpoint. “Take off your jacket. The shirt too. And the boots, sorry.”
“What’s your plan?” Melshi asked, already shrugging out of his clothes. Trusting Cassian’s intuition had become second nature to him and worked out just fine most of the time.
“You two, take off your armor. Do it fast or we take it from your corpses, I don’t care,” Cassian ordered the troopers, aiming his blaster at them and giving the second to Melshi so he could do the same.
“I have an idea,” he said in a lower voice, keeping his eyes on the two soldiers, “It’s not the best, but it could work. Those men are from Schlucht, Qu’erll said they stay on their posts, so the men from the command center won’t know their faces. And hopefully not ours.”
“I know it’s risky,” Cassian admitted at Melshi’s raised eyebrows, “but I don’t have any other idea. You?”
“No. But they will figure out it’s not us in no time.”
“Right. And this supervisor Gavette is apparently big on surveillance. Maybe we can use that against her. Still trying to figure that out. It’s not ideal, but better than to wait here,” Cassian hesitated a moment. “Listen, I’m sorry for all of this. I shouldn’t have asked you to come along -”
“Yes, I’d be feeling so much better sitting on base and having no idea what happened to you, you’re right,” Melshi shot Cassian a look from the side. He seemed tense, no surprise there. Melshi held the blaster pointed at the troopers and tried a reassuring smile for Cassian. “We’ve survived worse. We’ll get out of this too. Now tell me the rest of your plan.”
*
“They kept trying to convert us,” Cassian said and nodded at the gagged and cuffed stormtroopers. His voice sounded both familiar and strange through the helmet. “Couldn’t deal with it anymore.”
Melshi feared Cassian was overdoing it with his cocky attitude, but the officer smirked and let his guards lead the supposed prisoners out of the wagon. With Cassian’s and Melshi’s clothes draped over the undersuits of their armour, the two soldiers looked somewhat rebel-like. Or at least what an Imperial trying to infiltrate their lines thought they’d looked like.
Smoker seemed to still be dizzy from Cassian’s headbutt, his broken nose continuing bleeding. The second trooper tried to say something through the gag stuffed into his mouth that had once been Cassian’s shirt.
“Careful, or he’ll make your ears bleed with his pluralism-nonsense,” Cassian snorted and the man’s unintelligible mumbling got louder.
“Take them to Junior Supervisor Gavette,” the officer ordered and then eyed Cassian and Melshi disapprovingly. “You two, take the next wagon back to Schlucht. And clean up your armor, this is unacceptable.”
Both their armors had red on them. Cassian’s was soiled from the neck down where the smoker had bled on it from his nose and Melshi’s helmet was smeared with a bloody handprint from when the second trooper had tried and failed to overwhelm them.
“Let’s go. The hangar should be this way,” every hint of cockiness was gone from Cassian’s voice and he led Melshi down the hallway as if he belonged there.
Watching Cassian slip in and out of character like he was putting on a coat was unnerving and fascinating in equal measures. Melshi had listened to it over a com before - ready to step in in case things went south - but seeing for himself how Cassian’s entire body language changed from one moment to the next was something else.
It was difficult keeping pace with Cassian. The armor was so unlike Melshi’s own gear that even walking in it felt strange. Let alone seeing, the helmet reduced his vision to two tiny spots.
“How do they even hit anything with these? Can’t see shit,” he muttered, only loud enough for the com placed inside the helmet to pick it up and for Cassian to hear on his one comlink.
“You get used to it. Had to walk around in one of those for a month once.”
“The horrible buzzcut?”
Melshi could hear Cassian chuckle. “Yeah.”
They kept walking until Cassian suddenly stopped. Footsteps were approaching them. Lurking around the corner, Melshi saw two stormtroopers approaching them.
“The spot is good. Dead angle for those two cameras; we only have to worry about this one over there,” Cassian pointed them out to Melshi, while readying his blaster. It was weird, hearing the tension in Cassian’s voice and seeing nothing of it reflected on the helmet. “You remember the plan?”
Melshi readjusted his hold on his own blaster and took position next to Cassian. The footsteps were close.
“Yeah. Be careful, okay? And don’t do anything stupid, I’m not leaving without you.”
*
“You have to be fucking kidding me.” Vivyan stared at the two rebels and officer Traton who’d so proudly presented them to her. She wasn’t sure whether to laugh, cry or strangle the man.
She ripped the gag out of one of the prisoners’ mouths - he looked not even remotely like her rebel agent -, not bothering with his cuffed hands. “Where are they?”
The man coughed and Vivyan strongly considered hitting the back of his head to get him to say something intelligible. “ - stole our -” another cough, then the trooper had collected himself enough, “armor. They want to go back to Schlucht. Ma’am, I couldn’t -”
Vivyan stuffed the gag back into the man’s mouth. She would deal with the combined incompetence in front of her later.
“Cancel and call back all wagons to Schlucht. Now.”
“Nothing to call back,” Zeetha said, scrolling through her datapad. “No transport has left in the past half hour. They must still be here.”
A dozen faces turned to Vivyan, waiting for order as if it wasn’t obvious. Force, she needed that promotion to get away from this stinking chunk of lifeless moon and those fucking -
“Ma’am, exchange of fire in 45-T.” At least one person who didn’t need her to think for all of them. A moment later the corresponding feed was on Vivyan’s screen. A moment, in which the firing had turned into a fist fight between one trooper in a bloody armor and one in impeccable white. Two others lay motionless on the ground.
“Is this one of them?” She asked the officer who’d brought her the false rebels. He nodded, his face had lost all color. “Their armor was bloody.”
The rebel on screen somehow kicked the trooper’s legs away from under his body, grabbed his blaster from the floor and shot his opponent before he could get up again. The rebel seemed to hesitate for a moment, then ran down the hallway, leaving three bodies behind.
Vivyan took a deep breath. One living rebel was better than none. Still enough.
The base the command center of Krach was located in lacked the accurate controls of Schlucht. She wouldn’t be able to trap the rebel like she’d done before.
“Follow him, watch his every move and keep me updated. I want a squad ready in 2.”
“Ma’am, is it wise to -” Zeetha stopped herself as Vivyan threw her a look that would’ve made others flee from her.
“Before I let incompetence get in my way again, I’m going myself. Get these men to the medbay. And put them in a cell after.”
*
He listened for Cassian’s footsteps to fade away, then started to count down three minutes in his head. Everything inside of Melshi wanted to get up and move and his fingers itched like crazy.
60.
Cassian’s breathing echoed through his own helmet. They’d decided to stop talking until they couldn’t evade it in case someone was picking up their frequency. It was a comfort to still be able to hear him nonetheless, even as the spy drew the attention of the whole base on himself and away from Melshi.
120.
His head still hurt, although the pain had died down to a manageable level. Hopefully enough to steal the ship they needed and fly it.
146.
Force, he hated being forced to lay still.
180.
Melshi sat up, careful to stay mostly in the dead angle of the surrounding surveillance. He put his helmet down, fished out his com and then took the helmet of one of the dead troopers.
He didn’t look at the man’s face before he covered it again with his own helmet with the bloody handprint on it.
With the perfectly white helmet hiding his face and Cassian breathing hard in his ear, Melshi headed towards the hangar.
*
The rebel was running into a dead end. At least if he didn’t want to suffocate in space.
The knowledge was comforting, yet Vivyan wasn’t willing to accept any more surprises today and kept her pace up.
She entered the last tunnel Zeetha had confirmed the rebel’s location at and saw that she’d been right not to slow down.
The rebel was already inside the airlock at the end of the tunnel, leading out to nowhere but the rocky and hostile surface of Krach-2. A look at the access controls and Vivyan cursed herself and everyone on this damned base; the rebel had completely disabled them and made sure nobody would be able to hinder his suicidal escape by shooting at the remains of the panel.
The only one who could open the airlock to either side now was the rebel himself from the inside. He was already putting on one of the simple space suits stored inside the airlock.
“This is going to lead nowhere,” Vivyan said out loud and the rebel’s head snapped up. Good, the microphones connecting the airlock and tunnel were still working then.
“The oxygen tanks are stored separately,” Vivyan said and held the man’s gaze until he searched the suit. He wouldn’t find anything. The security measure to store the tanks in the armory had been implemented by Vivyan’s superior and for once his illogical way of doing things turned out to be beneficial for her.
“Come on out. I just want to talk.”
The rebel actually laughed at her. It was the contact, the one she needed and wanted the most. He continued putting the suit on, ignoring the lack of the oxygen tank. Vivyan could see the promotion slipping through her fingers in real time.
“We can make a deal. Credits, wealth, luxury - whatever you want. Just open the lock.”
The rebel took several deep breaths, filling his lungs with as much oxygen as he could get.
“Whatever it is you’re fighting for, it can’t be worth dying for it!”
The rebel put the helmet on, sealed it and smashed the opening button for the hatch to the surface.
“No!”
All Vivyan could do was to watch helplessly as her promotion swung itself out into space.
*
The sudden change of gravity almost made him lose control over his movements and Cassian only barely managed to land on his feet after the first step outside had turned into a three meter jump instead.
“I got a ship - all went smoothly,” Melshi said in his ear. “But the surface is too rocky, I can’t land there. Maybe if we -”
“Ladder outside long-range com. Going up. Pick me up there.”
Cassian was trying to keep his breathing as shallow as possible and it must’ve shown in his voice.
“Are you hurt?”
“No oxygen tank.”
Melshi was cursing at the other end of the line. “Can you make it?”
“Yes.” He put a confidence into his voice he didn't feel. The com tower was a hundred meters away from him and depending on what kind of ship Melshi was flying, he’d need to get at least thirty meters up. Or Melshi would crash the ship into the spikes of stone covering the moon’s surface trying to pick Cassian up.
The air inside his helmet was already starting to taste stale.
“I’m gonna wait there for you.”
“No,” Cassian could basically see Melshi keeping himself from arguing with him in order to save Cassian’s oxygen. "Artillery. I’ll tell you.”
“You better. I’ll not leave you behind.”
It felt like every bit of oxygen had already passed through his lungs at least twice by the time he reached the ladder. If it weren’t for the low gravity on Krach, Cassian figured he wouldn’t have made it there.
Still, he had abandoned his effort to breathe shallowly and the urge to gasp for air became stronger with every inhale. His heart started to pound against his ribcage with steadily increasing speed.
He focused on the first steps and tried to ignore how heavy his body began to feel despite the low gravity. He was breathing too fast. He was breathing too fast, and there was barely any air, and his head started swimming -
“Calm down, Cass. Are you at the tower?” Melshi was trying his best to keep his own voice steady and Cassian latched on to it like a lifeline.
“Yes,” Cassian gasped and pushed himself higher, reaching for the next handle.
“Focus on the steps. I’m coming for you. If you can’t keep going, stop and hold on tight.”
Cassian looked down; he’d only climbed up about ten metres. Not nearly enough. He tried to focus on the pain of the suit’s material rubbing against the burned spots on his neck, anything other than the overwhelming sensation of not being able to breathe.
Melshi was talking to him. Or maybe cursing. Cassian couldn’t tell. He could barely hear him over his own gasping. Darkness began to creep in on the edges of his vision.
He reached for the next step and missed, tried again and almost lost his balance on the step he was standing on.
He was breathing too fast. But at least his heart rate started to slow down. Cassian was dimly aware that it wasn’t a good sign.
Tightening his grip with fingers that were about to go lax, Cassian tried to hold on as Melshi had told him to do. And tried desperately to find any trace of air left inside his helmet.
His vision was darkening, narrowing down as if he was still wearing the stormtrooper helmet.
“Cassian!” Melshi must be directly yelling into the com for Cassian to hear him. There was something floating under him. A ship with its ramp down. “Cassian, I need you to jump, I can’t get any closer!”
The darkness had almost completely consumed his field of vision and his brain had turned so foggy he could barely make sense of Melshi’s words.
“Jump, now!”
Cassian pushed himself away from the ladder and fell.
*
The nearest gun turret was beginning to turn when Cassian jumped.
The low gravity slowed his descent and Melshi watched on his screen as Cassian was floating down and listened to his friend’s painful gasping over the com. It’d gotten worse with every second Melshi had been forced to listen to Cassian slowly suffocating. His hands cramped around the handlebars, trying to keep the ship steady.
Melshi could see the turret aiming at them when Cassian hit the extended open ramp without catching himself. Melshi smashed the two buttons to fill the cabin with air and close the ramp at the same time.
The ramp went up, causing Cassian to roll down into the cabin and Melshi forced the ship up, listening for Cassian over the howling machinery.
Bolts of energy ripped the ground to pieces and sent pebbles flying where they'd been a second ago.
*
Cassian hit something hard, rolled down a metal floor and then was pressed into something by a sudden pressure. His clumsy fingers tried to open the sealed helmet while his body was tossed around like a rag doll.
He couldn’t die now, it would be too cruel. Not after they’d made it this far.
Pain had shaken him awake but there was still no air and the helmet didn’t come off.
Until suddenly, it was gone. Cassian gasped and cold fresh air finally made it to his lungs.
He was barely exhaling in between the gulps, greedily sucking in every bit of oxygen he could get. A moment later someone pressed something over his mouth and nose. Cassian was about to fight it off, but realized that he could still breathe through the thing.
Air that tasted like heaven.
Cassian kept breathing, desperately holding the oxygen mask in place himself when the other’s hands retreated. They set on his shoulder instead, rubbing it soothingly until Cassian didn’t feel like he’d suffocate immediately.
He had no idea how long it was before his lungs felt somewhat normal again and he was ready to let the mask go.
He was lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling of their ship.
Of their stolen ship. Because somehow the simple meeting with Qu’erll had turned into a catastrophe that had almost gotten him and Melshi killed. Or imprisoned, which would have ultimately been the same thing, only with more suffering involved.
“Fuck,” he breathed quietly.
“Fuck,” Melshi agreed. The Pathfinder was sprawled on the floor next to him. “Are you okay?”
“I think so, yeah,” Cassian pulled off the gloves of his spacesuit, then searched for Melshi with his hand and found his arm. “Thanks to you, Melshi.”
“You got us out of the wagon, I feel like we’re even,” Melshi turned his head, locking eyes with Cassian who was already watching him from the side. “Don’t ever do that again.”
“What? Sacrificing my good looks to save you?”
“Yeah, that.”
“Don’t ever call me ‘Keef’ again when I’m trying to heroically save you.”
Melshi rolled his eyes but chuckled. “Sure, I’m just gonna use your real name next time. ‘Keef’ is still on you, though.”
Cassian took another deep gulp of air through the mask and found Melshi staring at the dark spots on his neck when he let it go.
“We should dress that,” Melshi said, but didn’t move.
“I know. And your wrist, too. And we have to contact base.” Cassian didn’t move either. His limbs didn’t allow it; exhaustion was turning them into lead as the adrenaline that had fueled him the past hours slowly left his body.
He felt down Melshi’s arm to his hand and let their fingers rest on top of each other. Melshi intertwined them.
“Can we just stay like this? For a minute?” Cassian asked.
“Force, yes.”
*