Chapter Text
“I have a very stupid plan,” Cassian said. “We need to stay for the funeral.”
“Yeah, that sounds like about what I expected,” Melshi said, resigned. “How do I help?”
“I'll need you to carry some messages before the day. Brasso, Pegla, Jezzi – I'll make a list. Pegla will need a shuttle ready to go to Gangi Moon, to take Bix away. For the day itself...” Cassian sighed. “Is there any chance that if I tell you to stay here and secure the ship-”
“No.” Melshi almost laughed at the idea.
“You don't know this planet like I do, and once things start heating up you'll endanger us both.”
“So find me someone who does know Ferrix and let me watch their back. Doesn't have to be you, if you have a better idea.”
Cassian frowned thoughtfully.
“Jezzi's a pilot, so without her there isn't an escape. You watch her, you keep her safe, and you get her and anyone she asks for to the shuttle. Once she's there, get back to our ship. We're going somewhere else. Give me your blaster.”
Melshi took it out from where it was tucked at the small of his back.
“We need to get you a holster,” Cassian said, checking it over for charge, then put it back into Melshi's hand. “And a pair of work overalls, to blend in.”
*
They parted ways just before the marching bands struck up, as coordinated by Jezzi and the other Daughters of Ferrix. Melshi had been through the streets often enough by now, running messages and meeting Jezzi and Brasso, that Cassian didn't have to do more than tell him a few good routes out.
“See you on the other side,” Cassian said.
Melshi glanced both ways down the alley they were in, caught him by the coat collar, and kissed him fiercely, teeth scraping against his lip. A brief flare of heat sprang up between them, and Melshi let go, pushing him back.
"Go, then."
"You kiss me like that and expect me to go on my way?" Cassian said with a quicksilver smile darting across his face, sounding more alive than he had since Niamos.
"Come back for the rest," Melshi said, not quite an order.
Cassian nodded once, face set and serious, and started running.
*
After the shuttle had taken off, Cassian kept glancing over his shoulder to watch it go. Everyone he cared about (except one, hopefully hiding in a Sheathipede just outside shipyard seven and probably biting his nails to the quick) was well over the horizon before he tracked down the unusually-modified Fondor to its hiding place. It took a while and a few rewired circuits to convince the droid to let him onboard, and then all he had to do was wait.
“You came here to kill me,” Cassian said. Luthen turned to look at him, a trace of sadness in his hooded eyes.
“You don't make it easy.” There it was again, a twist of regret at the corner of his mouth. Cassian felt the rightness of it click into place. Luthen was already looking for reasons to spare him, and Cassian was going to give him the perfect one.
“But I don't think you want to kill me. I think you want me on your side.” He looked into Luthen's eyes, willing him to listen. “I'm ready for that now. I've brought you a plan you'll want – something we both want. Help me do this, and once it's done I'll be a rebel body and soul, until I die for it. I'll take your orders. I'll be the tool you need.”
“An interesting offer.” Luthen didn't reach for a weapon. “And if I say no?”
“You won't,” Cassian said. “Come with me. Meet my friend – he's the one who came up with it.”
“Two against one? Not great odds for me, Andor.”
“If I wanted better odds I'd have brought him with me, and you'd still have shot us both. Or had your ship do it. You can have a blaster trained on me the whole time, if it'll make you feel better.”
A smile started to creep across Luthen's face, like a crack in badly-glazed pottery.
“Oh, I think I might trust you, just for the hell of it. Honor among thieves, after all.”
*
Melshi sprang to his feet at the bang against the hull. Cassian had insisted he carry the access key and keep the ship locked, and he'd had nothing to do but bite his nails and restrain himself from going out and probably getting both of them killed.
There was a pattern – two quick, three slow. Melshi breathed a sigh of relief and let down the access ramp.
“I did it,” Cassian said triumphantly, meeting him in the hold. “It's all done. And I found that contact I told you about, too.”
“Brasso? Your friends?”
“All safe, even Bix. I could have used you when the shooting started, to be honest.”
“Yeah, remember that next time,” Melshi said, too relieved to have that fight immediately. Besides, Cassian had brought company.
“Who's your friend?” the stranger asked.
“This is Melshi,” Cassian said. “Luthen, you wanted one recruit – now you have two.”
“I'm a little suspicious of two-for one deals.” Luthen looked Melshi up and down, assessing him and not bothering to hide it. Melshi looked back, doing the same. An older man, one who'd gone to some pains both to stay dangerous and conceal it.
“It's your lucky day,” Cassian said, projecting confidence like he had on the floor at Narkina five, willing them all to believe. “Aldhani gave you a war chest. We're offering you an army.” His words were as ringing and deliberate as a hammer blow.
“Make your case,” Luthen said, standing very still.
“There are seven prison factories on the moon Narkina Five. Five thousand men in each factory, all trapped, all hating the Empire, already organised into teams with leaders and used to working together. Many imprisoned for fighting the Empire in the first place. We can free them, get them offworld, and hand you a military force. The two of us broke out of one of the factories from the inside, with nothing but our wits, along with five thousand others. We can do it again and better, if you just give us the resources we need.”
“How many would you rescue?” Luthen asked.
“Everyone,” Cassian said, as if it was unthinkable to do any less. Melshi fell in love with him all over again in that moment.
“And where would I put thirty-five thousand soldiers?” Luthen said, with an almost-convincing expression of boredom. The way his eyes followed Cassian gave him away.
“Wherever you want, I should think.” Melshi said. Cassian's mouth curled in an almost-undetectable smile.
“Put them on a base and train them. Invade a planet. Scatter them in as many directions as possible. Send them home and set up resistance cells on every planet in the quadrant. That's a decision for you and whoever else you have running this movement.”
Luthen's eyes gleamed with a complex and ravenous hunger, like a starving man with a feast laid out before him.
“How unexpectedly obedient of you.”
“You know the game, we don't even know the players yet. Whatever decision you make, if the prisons are emptied we get what we want,” Cassian said. Melshi nodded.
“There's another part of the offer,” Melshi added. “The factories are making components for what we think is an Imperial project on a massive scale. If we go back in, we can find out more about where they're being sent, and what that project is. Even if the breakout fails, you learn something important.”
Luthen smiled, and it was both honestly joyful and viciously predatory. There was rage in Luthen, the same rage that grew thorns in Melshi's chest, and recognising that gave him an odd sense of trust. Luthen might send both of them to their deaths, but he would do so only if that would hurt the Empire.
“I'll call off the kill order on you,” Luthen told Cassian. ''We'll need to talk more, and I want your companion's full name and history.”
“He had a kill order on you?” Melshi asked Cassian, seizing on the important bit of that. “I thought you said you trusted him?”
“I said we'd done some business,” Cassian said defensively, and shrugged as Melshi gave that excuse the side-eye it deserved.
Luthen smirked.
“Don't worry. I'll take very good care of you two. I need all the heroes I can get.”