Fire Burning

Five minutes later she's three levels up in the maintenance shaft, clinging to the ladder beside the power conduit with a screwdriver clenched in her teeth, when Jonas calls up through the open floor panel.

"Security system down in three. Two-"

Nine sighs around the screwdriver and gestures down at Theron, hanging off the ladder just below her. Too loud. No comm?

"Oops," Theron mutters. "Hang on." He raises one hand to his implant.

"- one." A voice in her ear, this time, echoing with her earpiece pressed between her skin and the half-rolled-up balaclava covering her ears. (As far as they know there aren't cameras in the conduit but that'd be exactly the sort of stupid assumption to get them made by the Hutts; she'll pull it down when they start climbing properly. For now she's still sweating from the first round of the show and she needs the ventilation.)

She spits the screwdriver into her hand and starts on one corner of the access hatch. "Good. Tee-Seven, start the timer."

"T7 = counting down. Clock = 20:48."

"I was wondering if I'd get to play on the big kids' channel- ow-" Jonas yelps. She'd guess that was courtesy of Kaliyo, though she wouldn't put a quick stun prodding past the droid. "Time seems a little arbitrary, though."

"Droid math. We can only skip so many cycles before the alarm triggers automatically." Theron reaches up and slaps a magnet against the conduit wall just in time to catch the first fastening at it slides free. Clever boy.

She keeps working. When the panel comes loose she hands it down to Theron; he hooks it onto the ladder as she starts to wedge herself into the conduit and-

-all right. It's snug. She knew that, of course. They'd measured it down to the millimeter. Even with the cables running vertically taking up a full third of its interior she'll fit with plenty of room to spare. But with a backpack full of bombs and no way up but a scant few handholds, grapple hooks and climbing ropes… it's a good thing she isn't claustrophobic.

More to the point, she's got to get out of Theron's way.

Stretching upward toward the next set of rungs, she pulls herself up enough to leave the access hatch clear just as he pokes his head through into the open space beyond. Looking up, she doesn't see any cameras. Even so, she pulls her mask down, gestures for him to do the same and he makes a face at her.

"Hard enough to breathe in here," he grumbles. "Besides, I've already got warrants out. No thanks to someone. "

"That was not my fault. Mostly."

"I took care of those a few days ago- you've got a clean slate." She checks the connection between the grapple and her harness one last time. "Relatively speaking, at least. I think we've all done our share of damage here over the years."

Theron grins as he tugs the black fabric down over his face. "Speak for yourself. I haven't crashed any barges into any moons recently."

"I didn't crash it, technically," Jonas sighs. "Ix'oda smashed the steering mechanism falling off its hover platform. I just couldn't pilot it, so-"

"Now that sounds familiar." She could swear Theron sticks his tongue out at her at that, but with his mouth covered she can't quite tell. "Right out of the SIS phrasebook, hm?"

He squirms through the hatch until he's clinging to the conduit wall beside her. "We preferred to call it plausible deniability."

"I suppose you'd have had to, given how often you all got caught."

She twists away, laughing, from a well-aimed swat at her backside; it only glances off her thigh and Theron settles for a pinch as Kaliyo snickers and Jonas mutters indignantly over the comm.

"We ready?" Theron finally says as the channel quiets again.

She nods.

"You first, then."

She lines up a trajectory- they'll go four floors at a time, enough to cover the height of the building quickly but not so far that the traction'll hurt. "Deploying. Three, two, one-"

The first three latches were clean.

Just as she lets the grapple fly a fourth time, though, she sees something moving out of the corner of her eye and turns her head to look at it properly; it's just a little repair droid, crawling spiderlike between the power cables, hardly a threat. But it shakes her aim off-target by a hair. The magnetic clamp skitters off the side of the conduit, and she'd (sloppy- stupid- this is going to hurt-) already let go of the side to let the tether carry her upward and in the next moment she's falling, trying to find purchase on the slick metal with her climbing gloves.

Theron's hanging in his own harness about a meter below her, pressed close against the side. In the dark of the conduit, lit only by their headlamps and the floor markers wound around the cables, she's not sure he even knows what's happening except that she ought to be above him and not descending and definitely not trying to bite back a howl of pain as she finally catches onto a handhold and her shoulder wrenches almost out of its socket.

His hand closes around her other wrist and then slides down to the back of her harness, hauling her up even with him. "I've got you," he says. "I've got you. You okay?"

She nods, switching grip on the handhold- Void, her shoulder hurts; she rolls it around tentatively, though it seems to be in proper working order. "I'm all right. That's what I get for not paying attention, I suppose."

"We can wait a second before we keep going. We've got time."

She frowns before she realizes he can't see it. "Only a second. If we get stuck up here when the security grid goes back up-"

"We won't."

"But if we do-"

He's still holding on to her. "We won't. Tee-Seven, what's our countdown?"

"Time= 14:48. Commander= hurt?"

"Only slipped. Keep an eye on the channel, 'liyo." She gathers the grapple back in, smoothing out a tangle in the rope. "Lana should be patching in shortly with the drop team."

"She's got the access code. Made sure of that before she left tonight." Kaliyo chimes in. "Corridor's still clear, too. The girls just went off-break, though, so it might get a little loud up there if sound carries through the conduit."

Finally reassured she's got enough of a hold on the wall to let her go, Theron rubs her arm idly; she tilts her head, trapping his hand between her cheek and her shoulder, and he nudges her leg with his. "We'll manage," she says. "Let's get this done."

She can't breathe with this damned mask on.

It's stuffy up here, for one thing. The conduit's studded with little holes to vent the heat but it's not built for sentients; even just below the roof here there's no air coming in, just a hum from the cannons above that she can feel in her bones. For another thing she needs both hands for this and it's a tight angle and so she's dangling upside-down, sweat pooling beneath her chin and running stinging into her eyes beneath the mask.

Fuck the cameras. It's dark in here, anyway

She rolls her mask halfway up and inhales deeply, wiping her eyes with the back of one hand. Better.

"Hold this straight, will you?" Turning to look at Theron- he's already got his own facemask off, tucked between his waist and the harness strap, and the lamp strung around his neck- she points down at the free ends of the ring of explosive charges now circling the power cables. "I need to finish the circuit."

"I've got it," he says. "Catch your breath."

She watches his hands as he works, splicing the stripped ends of the wires together deftly until all the indicators are lit and the receiver glows soft green in the near-dark.

(He was always better at this sort of thing than her- she remembers Yavin and the relay, sitting quiet in the shadows as he worked in the sunlight, teeth sunk into his lower lip in concentration. She could have watched him for days, then and now; he does the same thing when he's focused on a slicing project and she has to keep herself from trying to distract him on purpose when she knows the work's important.

There's just something about competence that always did it for her.)

He looks up after a minute. "Should be good to go. Kaliyo?"

"Locked and loaded. I'm guessing you want me to wait on flipping the switch, though."

"Unless you want to run this shitshow-" her boot's hung up on a protruding bolt and she twists to free herself- "I'd suggest you do."

Their comms click, a new connection hooking in. "Engines running on this end, Commander. Any trouble on yours?"

She opens her mouth to reply and then-

"Now that's a voice I recognize." Was it something in the water at SIS HQ that made every single one of its agents constitutionally incapable of keeping quiet when they ought to? She winces as Jonas keeps talking. "So I hear the whole Minister thing didn't work out, eh?"

Oh, Force.

"Everything's fine, Lana," she says quickly. "Theron just ran into an old colleague and this was the easiest option on short notice- he's been briefed and wants to help." She imagines Lana's eyebrow twitching but it really was the easiest option- stunning him out of hand and shoving him in a cupboard would have been rude. If he'd tried to run or call out to the Republic on them, of course, she'd have had to knock him out and best or kill him at worst; she'd have done it without blinking and she's killed people for lesser sins than getting in the way of a critical op. But Theron really was fond of him, and-

Ugh. She's going soft.

(Little fool. It's only his voice in her head this time, a steady throbbing pressure that might just be too long spent hanging upside down, but it's enough to make her close her eyes for a moment. So trusting you can't even see the knives at your throat.

She sighs. I see them perfectly clearly. I'm just not afraid of knives.

I would reconsider that position- all right, that's really hurting now; she needs to move but she can't- were I you.)

"It's fine," she says again, looking down at Theron. At this angle the light from his lamp casts a shadow along his face and it's hard to see his eyes clearly but she wonders if he knows. Lana feels it, when she's close, in a way that Theron can't. But she thinks he can see it in her face. "I don't believe you two have met, but you're familiar with Jonas Balkar."

Silence hangs over the channel as she rights herself with Theron's help (his hand lingers a little too long on her back, on her shoulder- he can tell, she's certain of it), long enough that she checks her comm to make sure she didn't accidentally disconnect, until finally Lana clears her throat.

"Jonas Balkar." Lana's trying not to laugh. Or scream, possibly. "Jonas 'Worst Kisser in the Galaxy Award' Balkar?"

She has to cover her mouth to stifle her laughter as they rappel back down toward the access hatch. Theron doesn't even bother and the noise echoes off the conduit walls until she finally has to kick him as she descends past.

"So you've heard of- hang on. What?"

They get the hatch fastened and slide down the ladder the rest of the way, hitting the floor of the dressing room with forty-five seconds to spare as the laser grid hums back to life far above their heads.

"Okay, no, I need an explanation." Jonas turns away from the portable console they'd spliced into the security panel with a stricken expression on his face. "Because I'm helping so I'm pretty sure I ought to have a chance to defend myself."

She pulls the headlamp off, followed by the balaclava, and shoves both of them in the kit bag hidden beneath the countertop before she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror- the wig's holding, if messy, but her makeup's a wreck. Sliding into the prep chair, she gestures to Kaliyo, who rolls her eyes but sets down the detonator carefully as she stands. "Don't take it personally. Drinking game. You know how they get."

"Not ones where I'm horribly slandered in absentia. And I don't even know you people. How many votes could I possibly-"

Theron's still standing on a chair, shifting the ceiling panel back into place; it settles in with a dull thud and Jonas turns his head toward the noise, eyes narrowing.

"Um," Theron says to the ceiling.

"Really, Shan? Really? You wound me."

"I do hate to interrupt this fascinating conversation-" Lana's definitely trying not to laugh now, with marginal success- "but we're about to take off. Clocking fifteen minutes until detonation."

"Countdown = set. T7 = missing something?"

She keeps her face still; Kaliyo's fixing her eyeliner and if she so much as blinks she'll get a pencil to the eye. "Never mind. We're on schedule as discussed, Lana. I'll be heading back out to the floor shortly- Theron, grab the last costume off the rack-" she points, though he knows the one she means. "The switch is primed, cloaking screen's ready, backup generator's online and we've got the blueprints loaded in. I'll talk you through as best I can."

"I know the way by now. These facilities are all the same," Lana says, "though the rest of the team will appreciate the guidance. We're still a no on camera access, then?"

"They've changed their encryption again." Theron shakes his head, sets the costume down beside her and strips off his gloves to help her peel out of the top of her climbing suit. His hands slide along her shoulders, pushing the sleeves down, and in the pause as Kaliyo switches eyelids she wriggles most of the rest of the way out of it. (He's good at helping get her clothes off, now- he's certainly had plenty of practice.) "We'd need at least three people countering undistracted. With Nine on comms and Kaliyo keeping security off us, I don't think we can swing it."

"I assumed as much. We'll manage." Lana's nervous. She's hiding it well, but it's there. "Going silent for now. Drop team out."

Jonas clears his throat as the channel closes. "The droid can slice, obviously."

Tee-Seven chirps agreement as Theron nods. "Like a champ. But-"

"Hook me in." Pulling a datapad from his inside jacket pocket- does he really still keep it in the same place? one would think he'd have learned by now- Jonas gestures down at the console.

"You, me and Sparky here make three, and I've been itching to take a crack at a Zakuulan system for years. Strictly against Director's orders, but I don't see him here, do you?"

"Sure don't." Theron grins. "Their algorithms are… idiosyncratic, but I'll give you the two-minute primer. I can't believe Trant's still talking about staying out of the war, though. The military I get, but the SIS?"

"He's talking about a lot of things these days. You included."

Something in his tone strips the smile from Theron's face. "Such as?"

Jonas shrugs. "You overhear stuff when people forget you're sitting in a corner. Trant still hasn't forgiven you for quitting but he's convinced- shit, I don't know. He's convinced she's-" he tilts his head, almost apologetic, toward her- "got something on you to keep you doing this Alliance thing. I don't know who his source is, but-"

"Something on him beyond the obvious, you mean." Someone's got to say it, though it'd probably have had more impact if not spoken around a blotting-paper pressed between freshly glossed lips.

"Yeah, well." He shrugs again. "I didn't believe that, either, but even a broken chrono's right once a day."

Theron straightens. "I'm here because I want to be. If Trant and the rest of you choose not to believe it, that's on you."

"Never said I thought the rest of it was true."

Neither of them are looking at her, now, and she takes the opportunity to strip her climbing suit and the dress beneath it completely off and hook the top of the last costume around her chest and neck- she's got five minutes before she needs to be on stage again and Void, at least her tattoo's still covered, she managed not to sweat off the cover-up but she can't get this damned skirt fastened and-

"Hey." Kaliyo sets down the jar of powder and its matching brush, reaches down to hook the clasp together with a practiced movement and a murmur in her ear. "You good? You look about ready to crawl out of your skin."

Snap out of it, girl. She takes a deep breath and smooths the fabric panels down over her belly and back.

Chin up. Shoulders back. Don't let the world see you bleed.

(The world doesn't give a shit. She learned that a long time ago.)

"I'm fine, 'liyo. Just thinking." The boys are still talking, quieter, over by the console; as she watches Jonas reaches out, rests one hand on Theron's forearm. "Fucking up my own life's one thing. I'm just still not used to fucking up so many other people's."

"We signed up for it. Him especially, I think." Kaliyo tracks the line of her gaze and nudges her with her hip. "Now brush your hair and go make some credits while I blow stuff up."

Now that sounds more like Kaliyo.

A minute later the wig's gleaming silver around her face again, her skin powdered and lips glossed and the straps of her shoes fastened, and she checks herself in the mirror one last time.

"All right, gentlemen." She gestures toward the dressing room door. "Let's give ourselves an alibi."

She likes dancing best, like most things, when she's free to improvise.

They play with the steps a little bit, adding an extra spin here and an extension there, a nudge in the small of the back or Sia'hla's hand curled around an ankle serving to suggest a change of choreography. It seems to work well enough- she can't see Theron well beyond the bright lights (a shame, that, given his reaction to last night's- ahem- rehearsal) but the rest of the crowd's pressed close against the stage, faces upturned in rapt attention, and a layer of credit chits litters its edge.

Oh, she hopes this goes properly. If the crowd panics-

Collateral damage. Not her problem.

(Except that it is, now, isn't it?

She wasn't made for this. Her priority list was always mission first, herself second and fuck everybody else: everything was permissible as long as the op got done. But now she's supposed to save the world, which means she probably ought to care about it.)

The music starts to slow as they unwind from the last big trick, her arms behind her back as Sia'hla, hanging upside down above her on the pole, pulls her up from her dive into an arch, up and up until their faces are even with each other. Ten seconds to go.

Ready? She turns her head just a little more, enough that her face is hidden from the audience.

Five.

Four.

Sia'hla grins. Get those fuckers, she mouths, off my roof. See you at the rendezvous.

Two.

One.

The building shakes- it reminds her of Makeb more than anything, the groundquakes that almost tore that planet apart before they finally stabilized it- and the power flickers once, twice and then goes out completely.

To their credit, it takes another five seconds before anyone in the crowd starts to scream.

Nine runs back down the dark hallway to the dressing room, beating both Theron and Jonas; given she just ducked backstage and they've got to wade their way back through the tide of the people running for the doors. At first glance it's empty but that's just the cloaking screen and she darts through it as Kaliyo shimmers into view past the screen.

"One explosion, as promised." Kaliyo half-bows, still crouching beside Tee-Seven and the console, and tosses her earpiece toward her. "Let's get this done."

She hooks it over her ear, tunes it to their operational channel. "Calling drop team. Drop team, report."

"Drop team reporting. Cannons are down." She can hear the satisfaction in Lana's voice. "Repeat. Cannons are down. We're just landing."

"Good. We'll try for camera access as soon as-"

Theron barrels past her, hand brushing across her back as he moves toward the console with Jonas behind him. "Here, sorry. It's a madhouse out there, but if there's any security incoming the crowd should keep 'em at bay for a little while longer."

"It's Nar Shaddaa. In this sector sabotage is a five-days-a-week industry." Jonas slips in on the opposite side of Tee-Seven, picking up his now-connected datapad, as Kaliyo gets up to make room for Theron. "And the Zakuulans haven't endeared themselves to the locals. Security'll show up eventually. Probably. If everyone's paid their protection fees this month."

"So much the better." Lana murmurs something else, barely audible over the hum of the backup generator- that was probably meant for her people. "Dropship away. We counted four skytroopers at the entrance. Can you confirm?"

Theron shakes his head, two fingers pressed to his temple as he starts to type one-handed. "I need another minute, and I'm not pinging any external- hang on. Tee-Seven's countering, but Jonas, can you-"

"I see it." His forehead wrinkles in a way that reminds her a great deal of Theron. The two of them were opposites, she thinks, as much as she and Theron ever were, but there was something- "You weren't kidding about nonstandard, but I think I've got it."

"Okay," Theron says after a moment. "You're right. Four on the outside and four more in the corridor. On your mark."

Lana takes a deep breath in. (It's been a while but she's done this before- too many times during her own long stasis; like her, Lana was never quite meant to be the leader but one does what one must.) "Moving in."

She can see the camera feeds on the screen now and she watches them carefully, paces back and forth across the length of the dressing room as the images flicker in and out on the console. The hallway outside's gone quiet and she watches as Lana and the rest of the team creep into view, flanking around either side of the bunker, blades and blasters and vibroknives flashing to life as the first cluster of skytroopers fall in a flurry of sparks.

They can do this. They can do this.

Four in the corridor, as Theron said. Three more in the storage room beyond and then another three, a tight grouping of four of the robotic soldiers around a commander-the little group falls on them like fury, Lana at its head. The camera feeds fade in and out; despite their best efforts- Theron's gone practically cross-eyed and Tee-Seven's giving off a soft rhythmic beep in time with the clicking console keys- there's something on the other end countering their slicing. She stares at the screen.

"You're almost there," she says, still pacing. "Just another two in the far hall and then-"

Shit.

How did she miss it? One of their Force-damned captains shimmers out of a cloaking field and steps around a pile of crates with his rifle raised and before she can shout out warning he rattles off three- no, four, she can't hear them but she watches the recoil rock the rifle back against his chestplate- shots. She calls out then but it's too late- the rearmost of the group, a scarred Zabrak woman, takes a bolt square in the middle of her back. The second and third shots hit her too and she falls, twisting, shoving her partner out of the way as the fourth bolt goes wide and ricochets off the polished-metal wall of the corridor. "Behind!"

Lana swears and turns quickly, raising her hand into a combat posture, but the Zakuulan's already staggering back against the crates, his rifle yanked free of his grip by an invisible force- fuck these cameras, the view's awful and she can't follow everyone on this stupid little screen, they should have planned this better, damn it all-

Veeroa's staring at the man, eyes wide with fury, arm outstretched. His toes raise off the ground, his hands at his throat; his helmet compresses, very, very slowly, as the Nautolan girl shakes with the effort of it.

"Stop playing," Lana snaps. With the rest of the team on receive-only comms she can't hear the reply but whatever it was, Lana didn't like it. Her lip curls as she glances down at the fallen Zabrak (unmoving, face-down, with the scrawny little Cathar boy crouching beside her) and back to Veeroa. "Absolutely not. Our objective is the control center. Kill him and let's go."

"Hate to interrupt." The dropship pilot chimes in. "I know you want this channel clear, ma'am, but we're getting a lot of eyes on us up here. I can circle one more time but after that we're gonna lose our exit path."

Lana sighs, reaches out and gestures sharply; the captain's head snaps back (for a moment she thinks of Rane Kovach and the smell of blood fills her nostrils) as his arms fall limply to his sides in the long moment before his body hits the ground. When Nine looks away from the screen she can see Jonas' mouth hanging half-open as he tries to keep focus on his datapad.

She can read Veeroa's lips, this time, when she speaks. My master always let me-

Lana turns away. "Then you ought to have had a wiser master. Commander, any more surprises?"

"No. Eyes on two in the next hall. A single knight and two turrets in the control room. Are the rest of you all right?"

"No," Lana says over the sound of someone's muffled crying. "No, we aren't. But they knew what the risks were, and more to the point we're running out of time."

She rubs her shoulder and keeps pacing. "You're almost there. Only a little further now."

"I know." The video- oh, she sees the problem now. The camera feed lags behind, just a little, compared to the comm channel; the purr of Lana's saber reigniting hums in her ear a second before the blade lights up the screen. "We'll manage."

"You all say that a lot," Jonas mutters as Lana leaps toward the next group of skytroopers.

Theron shakes his head. "I've been telling them that for years."

The second explosion, when it comes, shakes two of the ceiling tiles loose.

She only wishes she could have been up there to watch the damned thing burn.

Kaliyo slips back in from the corridor as Theron and Jonas and Tee-Seven disconnect themselves from the console- they look exhausted, all of them, and she doesn't know if droids get tired but given the tone of those beeps she thinks so- she shuts off the generator and the silence in the room is deafening.

She crouches down, buries her head in her hands. "Fuck."

"What? It's down, isn't it?" When she peers through her fingers Jonas is looking back over his shoulder at her as he tucks his datapad away. "Mission accomplished?"

"Yes. But-"

Theron comes across to her, kneels down beside her. "Like Lana said, we all know what the risks are. And we didn't expect anyone cloaked up there."

"I should have gone. If I'd been there-" She frowns. She'd have seen it, probably, known what to look for.

"You can't do everything yourself." He wraps one arm around her waist, standing her up straight. "That's why we've got an alliance, you know. We can't throw you at every problem we've got."

"I know." (She knows. But it's hard-)

Jonas clears his throat. "So. What now?"

"Now," she says, "we get out of here."