Cassian Andor: Dark Purge

Chapter 3: To Give Means To Chase Across The Galaxy

Krennic exited the office of Governor Tarkin, his Coruscant field office to see the blue pale skin and the blistering red eyes of Grand Admiral Thrawn waiting to enter himself. Or rather s Krennic thought, soon to be demoted or killed Grand Admiral Thrawn. He had struck out, not only losing Juno Eclipse a second time but also losing Fulcrum as well.

Tarkin was about to flay him alive like speeltongue with a vibroknife, and even Thrawn knew that. In fact, the blue-skinned alien overmind had to count himself lucky that Lord Vader was not in this meeting.

However, Krennic was someone he could do without.

"We will see you now Grand Admiral," Krennic informed the Chiss, a smile on his weasel-like face as he smiled at the second man in white. The man who had just given Juno Eclipse to the Rebellion. Only it was far worse than that to Thrawn and he was so very lucky more that Tarkin and Krennic had no idea of the tertiary prize Fulcrum had made off with. Mara Jade, and a purple lightsaber. Perhaps Krennic would even cry at the knowledge that one of his sought after kyber crystals was now in the hands of a renegade Sith Acolyte on the run with her ex-officer girlfriend headed to…

"Corulag, Governor. They are currently headed to Corulag. Eclipse and Fulcrum aboard that U-Wing," Thrawn reported to Tarkin and less, in fact not at all to Krennic who was seated right next to him. The Director was boiling under his brittle and superficial skin. He had worked so hard to be on par with if not superseding Tarkin at this point and Thrawn was completely disregarding him. Thrawn, who was an alien, never mind the rank he was a stinking alien.

Tarkin's again, and in Krennic's eyes decaying face was pressed, and poised and flattened with all manner of pompous gases on the inside. He was pristine in his grey uniform and rack of blue and red squares that told all of his rank, not to mention his slicked back balding of hair that looked like a dozen finely combed fibres of razor wire one could easily use to garrote another with. And Grand Moff Tarkin was very much like that, surgical, clinical, very professional in every single endeavour he undertook, and at the moment the lesser officer in the white uniform with the musk of the Core Worlds and the estranged accent of the Mid Rim Director Krennic knew that Tarkin's current project was ascertaining command of the Weapon he was developing.

In a sudden moment, the blue eyes, stone cold, iced over with a feint that was the realisation that Krennic knew Tarkin had already come to. What if Juno knew about the Weapon?

"And why do you suspect that Eclipse would take Fulcrum to her homeworld instead of making right for the Rebel Base? Grand Admiral?" Governor Tarkin asked the Chiss, his lips fat and pressed together, barely moving at all and his voice a steely slash of a finely folded letter-opener with the twang and easing of his pompous accent. The same as Juno's, the one very quickly becoming labelled as 'Imperial'. It was hard to think the word 'Imperial' could be linked to an accent, but it was, and the only person in the room who was not conforming precisely to it was Orson Krennic. His was a more of a common tongue of the Mid and Outer Rim, and he detested it.

Thrawn straightened himself and pressed his heels together, the sheen of his black boots so perfectly offset by the black iron of the flooring of the conference room Tarkin as hijacked for this secret meeting. "Because the data Juno Eclipse acquired from us was not only uploaded off the world to her own private server, but it is also in a format only translatable by a KX-Series Imperial Droid," he reported. "Juno has one at her own estate on Corulag."

"A Security Droid can only translate the code? Why would she download the information in such a form anyway?" Krennic asked rather incredulously, failing to see why Juno would be so careless and needing to fly across the galaxy to get a droid anyway.

Thrawn looked back to him with a smug grin on his face. "It was my doing Director. My forcing her hand. I knew she had one of the newer models at her apartment on Corulag and have thus forced her there where my Deathtroopers - and soon I will too - are heading to intercept her aboard Star Destroyer."

"Careful Thrawn. You may have full authority on this chase of Juno Eclipse but that authority does not ascend to redistribution of the Imperial Navy simply to ascertain her," Wilhuff Tarkin said, leaning down over his desk with his fingers interlocked and his hands in the shape and cross section of a pyramid. Thrawn was overstepping his bounds, as Krennic was doing so more and more every single day to keep the good friend of Emperor's off of his sweating back. Whereas Krennic was scared of losing power, Thrawn was doing something far more cunning. He was trying to outplay his way away from Coruscant without winning or losing. Winning for an alien in terms of court was impossible, eventually, Palpatine would simply cast him aside and Thrawn knew that, whereas losing was also just as hard for a man like him.

All he had to do was capture or kill Eclipse, then deliver Fulcrum to the Capital, wipe Mara Jade off of the face of reality so that no one ever knew she existed and then Thrawn would be stationed back in the Outer Rim, blamed for the mess in the first place. All he had to do was capture the U-Wing, and as he looked at Tarkin, the old man knew that two Star Destroyers were the beginning of what the Grand Admiral would do to achieve his end goal.

With Krennic in the room, Thrawn would fire the superlaser of his prototype before letting Juno and Fulcrum escape his warpath. Thrawn was relatively unstoppable… But so was Tarkin.

'Unstoppable force meeting an immovable object' Krennic though.

Before either officer could say another word the doors departed, sliding sideways and open to reveal one of Krennic's aides, with the Stardust Project Logo on his uniform. That meant he was from Eadu, the Director's secret research installation, Thrawn had learned all this all too well. Again with mild deduction. "Director Krennic! Sir, a message for you from Doctor Erso," the aide wheezed at Krennic on the high desk of the blackened steel room which felt more like a cage. Thrawn smiled, excellent, without Krennic here as a stooge for Tarkin, Thrawn's mere power projection would allow him to leave and head for Corulag. Against the U-Wing he would be there with time to spare and enough of it to set a trap for Juno, Mara and this Fulcrum. Another spider's web.

"Galen? Of course, I'm coming now."

"He's in your private quarters sir, Deathtroopers have him under guard and surveillance," the aide continued, stepping outside to allow Krennic to rush out also.

Thrawn looked to Tarkin, his red eyes bolded again by his confidence and power projection. He often didn't like playing the game of internal politics and etiquette the Imperial Naval Gentry had made for themselves, but then there were times like these where he loved it. His signature scheming grin took shape, with blue lips against his pale Chiss skin. He was more a liking to a snake in Tarkin's withered eyes, less like a spider as others had referred him to. But nevertheless, he was effective indeed.

"Grand Admiral," Tarkin stated just before Thrawn turned to leave for The Chimaera. "When you find Juno please kill her on sight, no need to extraction just destroy her. She knows too much about the Project. As for Fulcrum, Lord Vader as requested you deliver him to Mustafar… And as for Miss Jade…"

'How did he know about her?' Thrawn thought his own internal alarm ringing.

"The Emperor has expressed that you terminate with most extreme prejudice. He does not want a fibre of hair left on her corpse is that clear?" Tarkin finished, somehow not utterly murdering Thrawn for her escape and defection in the first place.

Thrawn hummed, bowed and replied with; "Most certainly Governor," before leaving for his ship.

Cassian sat back in his seat, finally trying to stop his shaking, how trembling his wrist were when he looked down at his hands. That was mostly certainly not how he expected that mission to go, at least, not with the back of his U-Wing containing a redhead with a lightsaber, an astromech that was mostly grumpy, more like Chopper than anyone else, and a Toydarian who he did not know. He was about ready to give up and ask for them to return to Yavin, the poor Captain needed a hot soak and a debriefing and then at least a week of leave after the day he had had. After another mission too, he was so overworked. But it was a time of cold war, and he was needed, the bets in the Rebel business.

"Well, you can forget everything about those Imperial Slugs, I told you I'd outrun them," Juno told him before getting up from the co-pilot seat and heading aft as Cassian fiddled with his aching hands and wrists in the pilot's chair. No one said anything to Juno. "Don't everybody thank me all at once," she grumbled at the lack of thanks heading her way.

Mara shifted seats and wrapped her arms around Juno's neck, kissing her cheek and purring. "Thanks, hon. You saved our lives."

"He's the one that came for us and got us off of Coruscant baby. We're going to be safe now, which reminds me," Juno trailed off, getting up again and pulling the pistol from her hip holster. Cassian saw her prime a bolt in the chamber with a flick of her thumb as she was heading to the Toydarian who was shaking himself in the back of the ship.

"Juno what are you doing?" Cassian asked, knowing all too well what she was doing.

With a single shot from her blaster pistol, the Toydarian fell from his light levitation dead on the floor of the U-Wing in mid-flight to Corulag with a smoking hole of a red laser in the back of his neck. Cassian didn't say anything, he knew why Juno had done it, there was no way they could have trusted him, other than the fact that she had bought his loyalty. The Imperials could have easily have bought him back twice as bad, and they would know the three fugitives and the astromech were now headed right for Corulag. How badly Cassian wanted to instead head to Yavin. However Mara looked at her a little shocked, her fiery red eyebrows raised and incredulously looking at her girlfriend's blue.

Juno sat her pistol back onto the comm desk station, sitting at it with Kayeight wheeling himself forward to perch next to Cassian with the autopilot taking them through hyperspace to Corulag. And still, Juno had told none of them why they were detouring and not heading right to Yavin to end this already crazy day.

"So," Cassian broke the intrepid silence following the straight up and glossed over execution of the Toydarian, which Cassian would have repeated if it were him. But from the look on Mara's face, he would never tell her that. "Do you want to tell myself or your girlfriend why you're keeping us in danger of being caught by the Empire out in space as opposed to letting me take us to the Base?" Cassian asked, putting more blame on Juno than what was probably necessary. He was just too tired and wanted this mission to end already. Another leg did not sound promising.

Juno stared at him as if he had just called her stupid or something equally as insulting. She was stunned he was so ungrateful considering what she had in conjunction to Mara Jade, a now rebel Sith Acolyte from Palpatine's most secretive of operations on Prefsbelt.

"Do you even have any idea why I called you to Coruscant Cassian?" Juno counter asked, leaning in her chair and glaring at him with angered iceberg eyes. He was playing anger out of ignorance and, being gay at the time of the Empire, it made her simmer with bile.

Cassian shrugged and looked back in his chair into the spiralling and psychedelic tunnel of hyperspace that always mellowed him out. He needed mellow right now to relax him because he could only guess that as soon as they landed on Corulag there would drop a Star Destroyer out of hyperspace and they would all be arrested. Or more likely he would be arrested and Juno and Mara would be shot around the side of some chemical bath sheds. "Quite frankly I don't care Eclipse. I just want to get this over, I'm not a man who asks questions."

Mara turned him in the chair with what little manipulation of the force she could muster. Acolytes were trained to only use and tap into small amounts of the Dark Side, not enough to a be a threat to the Emperor.

"Thanks, hon. Because you'll want to find out what I have Captain Andor," Juno told him ominously. "I have information about a top secret conditioning and training program being run by the Empire on Prefsbelt to turn normal Stormtroopers into the ultimate pacification units. Capable of matching a Rebel Squad, one soldier to seven."

That took Cassian's attention right away, and he turned to give Juno his undivided attention, shocked at the numbers she spat at him. "What the hell are you talking about? How is this possible?" He asked her, getting up even with his aching body from the past week and now today of running for his life from the Empire. And now this had dropped onto his lap like a sack of grenades. This was getting worse and worse.

Juno pulled out a small holoprojector from her back pocket and Mara moved seats, as they made a small circle of the three of them plus Kayeight. Out from the projector popped a small and miniature model of what Juno was talking about.

It measured roughly eight feet in eight, was black, or lavish from the readout, with a shoulder mounted rocket pack and two deployable stun batons from the wrist gauntlets. Some of the units would fight with some seriously damaging rifles as Cassian saw from the accompanying blaster. And as he saw the face, he saw the same mask roughly that was slapped on almost every single member of the non-standard member of the Imperial Ground Armies.

"What the hell are they?" Cassian asked the girlfriends.

"They're called Purge Troopers, and if we don't stop this project before it takes off of the ground at Prefsbelt, then the Rebellion isn't going to stand a chance at taking any planet back from the Empire. And without planets, all the Empire will have to do is wait until we fight away all our resources Captain Andor," Mara Jade told him with sad and defeated eyes of green in a flat face. "Do you see now why we needed you? Fulcrum."

Captain Draven stood up from the listening station with such a force he nearly split the whole thing in half. The listening report had come in from Coruscant and word of Cassian and Juno's explosive getaway with Mara Jade, Kayeight and a terrified Toydarian had come in over the wire. Not exactly the report Draven was hoping for. He stormed out of the hub room of the Yavin base and headed right for Mon Mothma's chamber, slamming his fist on the steel beam support of the open door before excusing himself in, mid-meeting with Senator Bail Organa and General Hera Syndulla too.

"A word please Senator Mothma," he told her rather than ask her, and she nodded, knowing exactly what he wanted.

It was superseded by over four minutes of yelling from Draven, with Hera and Bail still standing out of the door, rubbing foreheads and silently cursing the Captain for how high his voice was raised. They too knew exactly what he was angry about, and Bail was inclined to side with him; Cassian and Eclipse had practically declared war on the Core for the Rebellion and in the process made the entire Alliance look like a band of terrorists and insurrectionists and anarchists. All for what only right now Cassian, Juno and Mara knew and they were about half way across the galaxy headed for the remote and backwater Core World of Corulag.

General Dodonna soon made his own appearance, his beard prickly and finely combed, however, the abundance of white stained hair on the ageing head was rather the opposite, rather withered and looking like it had been set on a window sill in the sun for hours. "I take it he's been informed of Coruscant?" He asked Bail and Hera, the former simply stroked his brow all the more as Hera took the attention.

"Yes, and he's been in there shouting at her for the past couple of minutes," General Syndulla informed General Dodonna, her own slightly ageing face tired of standing and wishing to save her woman in arms.

"He is right, though. Captain Andor and Miss Eclipse have put the entire Capital on red alert and put my own and Mon Mothma's situation in the Imperial Senate at risk! Not to mention we all look like terrorists now. She blew up a work shuttle depot!" Senator Organa barked, his beard swinging. It truthful to say that the past eighteen years since the fall of the Old Republic and the Jedi had taken their toll on Bail Organa especially harshly. He was looking bad, to say the least.

"Well, it looks like we may have worse issues that Coruscant feeling some heat for now. They're on their way to Corulag."

"And how do you know that?" Hera asked Dodonna, considering what was happening inside the conference room, Draven didn't seem to know and he was the current acting chair of Rebel Intelligence. Although they were still grooming Cassian to take up administration.

Dodonna shook his head and passed Hera the manuscript of the transmission the listening desk had received just after Draven had nearly crushed it as he left it. "We've spotted two Imperial Star Destroyed headed right to intercept them, and from what we have from Coruscant, it looks like your old friend is aboard the second," he spoke to Hera, his own face glum with the knowledge as she read it and suddenly seethed at the name.

"The Chimaera," General Syndulla spat through gritted teeth.

"And who does that ship belong to General Syndulla?" Bail asked, obviously missing the point which had General Dodonna so meek and glum, and Hera so angry. No, more than angry, furious. "Hera? What old friend?"

She looked up from the manuscript. "Grand Admiral Thrawn," she spat before walking off. "Chopper! Get me Rex, Zeb, Wedge and Hobbie. We're taking The Ghost to Corulag, and then get me a squad of B-Wings up and cleared for Star Destroyer Assault please General.

"It's time I take that bastard down once and for all for what he did to Kanan."

To Be Continued…