Chapter 9: Ironheart

Rian got them into hyperspace before coming back to find out exactly which part of the plan had gone to hell. Clearly, he hadn't been expecting the part where Cassian and Mara were the survivors.

"Shimmer and Boadacks, where are they?" he demanded in a low voice.

"They fell behind," Cassian answered in the same tone, not quite looking at him.

Rian sneered. "Not likely. You two were supposed to be separated."

"We were," Mara said, circling him slowly. "We caught up, and ship's security found us all four together. We ran, and they fell behind."

He wasn't buying it, but he didn't need to. Mara had put a hundred and eighty degrees between herself and Cassian, and Rian's attention was fully on her. As it should be. By all appearances, Cassian was in shock, as well he might be after seeing two comrades killed or captured. Or after what had really happened. But Mara knew by now not to underestimate her companion. Rian was about to learn that lesson.

It was a three step process. Cassian's hand slid around the handle of a truncheon, one weapon amidst the arsenal they'd brought with them, all currently secured by the netting that lined the ship's hull. Then he was on his feet, and a second later Rian was on the deck.

Mara surveyed Cassian over the unconscious figure at her feet. "Looks like our cover's blown."

He didn't meet her gaze. "We don't have time for that anyway. We need to extract what information we can from him and get it back to Senator Organa, before people start dying. Help me tie him up."

They rolled Rian over and secured him with cuffs and a bit of the netting for good measure. They propped him against the hull. Mara stared at the man, wondering how long they'd have to wait for him to wake up. It wasn't that long of a trip back to Babyli.

Cassian was rifling through their supplies. "How are you going to get him to talk?" Mara asked him.

"However I have to," Cassian answered. He'd been retrieving smaller items and placing them on the deck, all in a neat row. They were all common, nondescript. Can-openers, fishing line. But Mara could guess their purpose, in Cassian's mind, was less than conventional. How did a senator's aid know such things? It was hard to imagine Organa employed him for such activities.

"Cassian," she said, voice low.

He stopped. It was the first time she'd called him that, though she'd known the name for a while. His eyes, on her now, were larger than normal, but it wasn't shock. It was pain, such pain, and Mara flinched beneath it.

A heartbeat brought him to his feet and in front of her. His eyes were darkened now, though the pain was still there. Frown lines had formed around his mouth, indeed around all his features. Mara took a deep, shuddering breath, felt his chest rise with hers. His hand stroked her hair once, then slipped behind her neck and pulled her to him.

His mouth was hot, his tongue slick and fast and demanding, and she fought to give it everything it asked for. His hands were even more severe, shoving aside her gear, her jacket, and, eventually, enough of her clothing to get himself where he wanted to go, and then he was there, and though neither spoke a word, the cargo hold filled with their sighs.

She wrapped herself around him, and it felt like more of herself was joined to himself than before. Each shudder apart was agony, each move together sweet completeness. Her skin blended with his. There was no exploration now, no tender tracing of fingers on more private flesh. They were aching and thrusting to be as close together as they possibly could be, and it was not enough.

They were as one as they could get, as was possible for their souls, when they finally came to each other, and though, when done, her body hummed its rhythm of satisfaction, her heart felt empty and forgotten.

"It's almost over," he breathed into her ear.

**RogueLegends**

When Rian woke, Cassian had already inserted the line under his fingernail. He tugged, ever so slightly, up the finger, and Rian gasped.

"What? What are you…?" He glared at Cassian. "Rebel scum."

"Imperial scum," Mara corrected him. "Or Alderaanian scum, if you feel like being picky."

Rian stared at here, then laughed. Cassian tugged a little harder.

"Alright, alright, enough of that. What do you want?" Rian panted.

"I want to know how the poison is being distributed," Cassian said, each word clear. "I want to know why Anders is poisoning the senators and blowing up their cruiseships. I want every detail, and I want it now. I am not a patient man." Another tug.

Rian hissed through his teeth. His eyes glared defiance.

Setting his jaw and tightening his grip on his prisoner's hand. Cassian pulled once more, and the nail came off.

Rian's screams ripped through the ship. Mara felt his pain rattling in her bones. She shut her eyes as though in doing so she could shut out the sound, and the emotions behind it. Of course it was no good. Her teeth chattered with his breath, her hands clawed themselves with his spasms.

For all her grisly assignments, all her neatly dispatched executions, Mara had never had to torture a man before. She was grateful, just now, as their prisoner's agony rippled along Force-lines into her chest.

For all that, she mustered a sum of Imperial composure she held in reserve, and held her ground as Cassian twisted the line under the next nail.

Rian was snuffling. He didn't have the training for this. Anders probably didn't have the training for this. You fought and you died. That was the anarchist path. Zealots moved on emotion, not strength. Would another nail do it? Or would his conviction sustain him longer?

Or would his shattered beliefs break him more quickly than the pain?

"Why?" Mara asked, and Cassian stopped what he was doing as both men turned to look at her. She crossed the decking to crouch in front of Rian. "Why resist him? It'd all be over in a moment. Why do any of you do this?"

Rian sneered up at her. "You must be living pretty high and mighty up there in your Imperial palaces. You must be someone important, someone with nothing to worry about, without a loss or a care. Otherwise you'd know why. You'd know what the Empire does to men like men. Real men." Another glare at Cassian, who didn't seem to feel the insult. He was watching Mara.

"Why not just join the Rebellion then?" she went on. "Surely you'd be more effective working together."

"The Rebellion." Rian spat. "Sycophants and hypocrites. Parading around in their silks and their medals saying, 'Wait, wait, there's a diplomatic solution.' Well there isn't. They're just too fool to see it. And all the while more people die. More families are broken, more children are taken. More good men die. The Rebellion, see, they're so afraid of losing what they've already lost – their precious Senate, their Republic – they can't accept that it's gone; they can't do what needs to be done.

"So while they sit on their diplomatic asses clinging to the ashes of the dead dream that was the Republic, like the dying priests of a forgotten religion, the rest of us decided to stand up and defend our own! We're tired of waiting from the sidelines, watching them attend parties while we attend funerals."

And Mara realized where she'd seen this before. She sat back on her heels. "You were Lord Morvat's aid." She turned to Cassian. "It's the aids, the assistants. They started this. The senators' aids. The senators are the target, not the Empire. The aids will distribute the poison."

"And die in their own tribute to the lost cause they believe they've been serving." She watched Cassian's brain working, watched him take it in, watched him realize that the hardest place to be might be where you could see all, but do nothing. "I have to get a message to Senator Organa," he said, and made for the cockpit.

Rian spat again. "Well, I suppose that's that then. Wasn't all for nothing though."

"Oh, no? How do you reckon?" Mara rose to her feet, feeling slightly stringy as all the blood rushed back to her legs.

"Must have caused something of a stir to get both the Empire and the Rebellion after us."

"Oh? And what did the Rebellion do to you?"

He was quiet long enough she turned back around. His face was lit with triumph. He grinned, and it turned her cold. This. Right here. This was the real set-up.

"Don't know then?" He licked his lips. "That's Captain Cassian Andor. Rebel Intelligence."

Something in her howled denial. Another part of her whispered, you knew. She grew rigid with the cold, the conflict. Rian was watching her, eyes gleaming with life in the knowledge he'd dealt her a blow.

She shot him.