General Draven recruited me. I think I would have died very young had he not reached me when he did. I was a guerilla rebel in the Outer Rim, angry and reckless and tortured by the things I couldn't forget. When I lost Ben, I lost the most important part of myself.
Without my hope, I was someone else.
But evidently, Draven liked that someone else.
Where there was rage, he saw passion. Where there were scars, he saw experience. Where there was numbness, he saw strength. All the right stuff was there, it just had to be channeled, and I was nothing if not malleable. I was his clay soldier. With me, he built his perfect agent. His name is Captain Andor. Well, Lieutenant Andor to start.
I was a droid. Wind me up and away I would go. My work was clean and concise. The recruitments, the operations, even the kills. Not a twinge of doubt, not a thought of my own. Those walls were strong. I did what I was told because for years, it was all that made sense to me. And for years I got by. Until one small glitch landed me in the hands of the Empire. Ben told you I don't like to talk about Krennic and she's right, but needs must I suppose. It was a brief stay. Draven did everything in his power to get his favorite soldier back.
One glitch was all it took, just a spark of humanity in those unfeeling circuits.
I've told the General a lot of things about myself. He knows more than almost anyone, but for a while, I breathed not a word to him about Ben. By the time Draven found me, I had not seen her for five years. By the time I caught wind of her again, it had been nine.
6 BBY
CARIDA
It was faint. Hardly a trace, just a tendril of a scent from a trail gone nine years cold. It was enough, though, enough for him to sidetrack his deep cover operation on Carida.
It was insanity. A wild hope and a mad leap and it had landed him in a hot, windowless room on a durasteel table with an incompetent interrogator and a torture droid hovering over his prone body.
It was chilling. A shiny black orb with one red eye, and by that point, he could hardly hold the image of it steady as it swam before his line of sight. The end of one appendage was smoking from the electrical charge it had sent through his body not a moment ago. He could still feel it rippling through his bones. It crackled in the sweat that glazed every inch of skin. His wrists and ankles ached from where the restraints had held them as his frame convulsed. The one arm retracted back into the shiny black sphere, and another extended. This one had a thin, sharp probe in its metal grasp.
"You know," said a voice somewhere to his right, "you're only making this harder on yourself." It had perhaps a touch of remorse in it.
Having a conscience in the Empire is a dangerous thing, he wanted to say, but the droid was already back at work. With surgical precision, it inserted the probe between two of his ribs. The tip went right through the gray fabric of his cadet's uniform, right through skin and muscle and bone, to press delicately against the lung and its blood vessels.
"Who are your contacts on Carida?" asked the voice.
Clenching his teeth hard, the man on the table breathed slowly, absorbing the pain as it washed over him. He had been well-trained for this, for clamming up, but also for taking pain. The key was to acknowledge it as it came and not to think too hard about what was actually happening to his body. If he could manage it in his mind, that was half the battle won. Extra points if he found a good distraction.
The man on the table angled his gaze down toward his feet and caught sight of a uniformed girl standing in the shadows by the door. She couldn't have been more than a teenager, but one look at her face told him she had already seen the war up close. The Empire recruits as young as the Rebellion these days, he mused. The droid pushed the probe in just a fraction. It was enough to get his attention. His eyes returned to the shiny black orb and its red eye.
"I'll ask again." The voice broke in its owner's frustration. "Who are your contacts on Carida?"
Why do they make her watch? The man on the table couldn't stop his thoughts from wandering back to the girl who stood against the wall. Any distraction. It must be some form of punishment, or worse, training. Perhaps she wanted to watch. Perhaps one day it would be her in this room bent over another martyr to the rebel cause. He chanced one more look at her. Eyes like blaster canons. She looked hard enough for the job, certainly harder than this prepubescent weakling beside him. Perhaps one day she would be the one to extract vital secrets and take the Rebellion down. Not today, though, thank the stars. He smiled, rewarded only by the probe's further introduction into his body. He felt his breath cut short, collecting uselessly at the back of his throat.
Another moment and the door to the room slid open. A rush of fresh air hit his nostrils and streamed over his feverish skin. He saw a blur of white from the corner of his eye.
"Commander," said the voice to his right.
"Sergeant," said the newcomer from the threshold. The droid, sensing the authority that has just entered, released the probe and retreated silently from the table. "I'll take care of this one."
The soldier began packing his things away, setting a hand on the probe to remove it. The man on the table closed his eyes in preparation. "Yes, sir. I—"
"Stop." The sergeant's hand froze on the handle. "Keep that in." The man on the table felt himself go weak. Somehow, not having the probe removed was worse.
"You are dismissed." A pause and he imagined the man in white turning to the girl where she stood at attention against the wall. "Both of you."
The girl spoke then, for the first time. "Sir, I think—"
"Now," came the command fringed with impatience. Yes, she definitely enjoyed watching. The man on the table wondered idly whether he had heard an accent in those three words or if it was just his adrenaline-soaked brain. From what he had seen, accents were not particularly common in the Empire. He had had to stifle his own on Carida, covering his Festian roots with some parody of the Imperial inflection. It was the best he could do, and it still gave him pleasure to note that no one had noticed how awfully executed it had been.
Head resting against durasteel, the man on the table listened to the footsteps as they thumped and squeaked out into the hall and faded away.
He let his mind slide shut again along with the door. He locked it off to the identity he owned, to the secrets he knew, to the orders he had been given. When that door shut it was just a room again.
Just a dark, hot room with man on a durasteel table and another man in a white cloak.
The latter had eyes like chips of cerulean sky. The former could see them even through pain-blurred vision. Fixed and wide, they spoke of innocence and long-forgotten childhood. They were a lie, though, they along with the spotless cloak. A camouflage to the depravity and decay that lay beneath. No one made it to the rank of Imperial commander without blackening his soul first.
"Do you know who I am, Cassian?" The man on the table wondered vaguely how the man in the cloak had come to know his name. The man in the cloak waited a few moments, hardly expecting the man on the table to respond. The blue eyes flicked away, disinterested, and the white cloak followed. He began to pace slowly around the table.
"Orson Callan Krennic." He spoke each syllable very carefully, as if expecting the man on the table to commit it to memory. Each name was punctuated by a step. The man on the table allowed them to slip from his mind. "You've caused me great trouble of late." A short pause and the footsteps continued back around his head.
"I was there on Carida, the day your father protested the expansion of Imperial protection in the Galaxy." He had reached the left side of the table now. He paused and turned smartly on his heel to look down at the prisoner, scanning for a reaction. "I watched him shot down with so many others." The man on the table stared back into those cold blue eyes, marveling at how lifeless they seemed now that they were closer. Any distraction. Undeterred, the man in the cloak turned and continued his progress toward the other end of the table.
"It's fitting, is it not?" Around past the feet and up the right side again. "To be captured in the place where he died?" Blue eyes latched onto his face again, but the words fell on deaf ears. The lack of response only made the man smile. It was a slimy thing. It slithered from his face as quickly as it came.
"You, Cassian, are nothing like what I expected," said the man in the cloak, "nothing like what Benduday said."
For a heartbeat, the man on the table lost his focus, stared at the man in the cloak. He felt his studied composure slip ever so slightly as reality slammed back into his head. Sensation returned to him with disconcerting clarity and he inhaled sharply against the probe.
The game was up. He was Cassian again, Cassian Andor, and that man was Krennic.
Upon seeing the look on his prisoner's face, Krennic emitted a small gasp, lifting a hand delicately to his mouth. That blackened soul was out to play.
"Oh," he whispered, a picture of regretfulness. "Oh, didn't you know?" Cassian could almost smell the putridity.
A switch suddenly flipped and hunger flashed in his eyes. He lunged forward and twisted the probe, pressing it deeper into vulnerable flesh. Cassian squeezed his eyes shut and stifled his scream behind closed lips and clenched teeth. Krennic sneered with vicious mirth. That cerulean sky burned as it hovered in close. Their faces were inches apart.
"Your little bitch was still alive after that explosion."
The scream died in Cassian's throat. He stared wide-eyed at the sweaty face that swam in front of his own.
"Oh, yes," Krennic spat through bared teeth. "I found her that day, half-dead and bleeding. I know all about your life on Muunilinst." The probe twisted again, deeper, but Cassian felt nothing. Muunilinst? She must have lied. Or Krennic was just filling in holes where his sources couldn't. "We've had many a chat, she and I." The way he said 'chat' turned Cassian's stomach.
"And now?" Krennic's head shook slowly from side to side. "You wouldn't recognize her if she stood in front of you." Cassian's vision blurred again, he didn't know whether from tears or sweat.
Another switch flipped. Some mockery of sentiment rippled across those primmed features. The commander made a tsk-ing sound as he ran his other hand over Cassian's soggy head.
"Why so surprised?" he cooed. "Thought you lost her?" A shaking hand ran down a clammy cheek. "Didn't you even bother to look for her?" Cassian bit his tongue until he tasted blood. Krennic straightened suddenly, hand still on the probe handle, and looked down his nose at the pale and shivering form on the table.
"Some big brother you are." Cassian felt the probe suddenly slide from between his ribs. The ease of its removal surprised him more than anything. He choked on the pain and blood that flooded his lung.
Krennic paced back to the wall. When he reached the shadows by the door, he turned and regarded Cassian through those cold blue eyes. His white cloak was stained red in the light from the keypad. Blackened and bloody.
"Where…" Cassian rasped. He could feel his life draining warm and sticky through his ribs, and reasoned it would hardly benefit Krennic to lie now. He just needed to know before he died.
"You don't know how close you are," said the man in the cloak, then whispered something else so tauntingly out of earshot. A moan broke from between Cassian's lips as Krennic disappeared. Then the room and the durasteel table disappeared as well, and he was trapped in the darkness of his own head.
Somewhere outside, an alarm went off. Cassian imagined the room might have gone red with emergency lights. A distant explosion created tiny ripples in the blood that still oozed from his side. A moment later, another larger explosion caused the extracted probe to rattle where it had been left on the durasteel table. Another moment and a blaster sounded from the door. The smell of singed metal reached his nose. He imagined a smoking hole in the keypad as the door slid open once more.
"Dear Queen of Quinella!" Another accent snapped Cassian out of delirium. He felt the restraints go and then someone grabbed him roughly by the shoulders.
"Cassian?" A light slap on the cheek and he opened his eyes. A familiar face slid slowly into focus. Ruescott Melshi.
"Sergeant," Cassian whispered back. Relief washed over those rugged, unshaven features and they broke into a brief smile.
"C'mon, kid," he pulled Cassian into a sitting position. "Let's get you out of here."
He tore off a piece of his shirt, pressed it to the bleeder, and then guided Cassian's hand to hold it in place.
"Hold that steady."
"I'm s'pposed to give t' orders," Cassian mumbled. He swung his legs limply to the floor.
"Not when you can't breathe to give them, Lieutenant." Melshi ducked his head under Cassian's left axilla. With an arm around his waist, the sergeant lifted him into a standing position and helped him to the door.
Cassian didn't remember much of the journey out, just a lot of shouting and smoke and blaster fire. Melshi's stumbled attempts at running made it nearly impossible for Cassian to breathe. Eventually, the sergeant picked him up, ignoring his moans of protest, and carried him the rest of the way to the shuttle where it waited.
"Get us out!" He shouted the order before he was even onboard. "Out! Now!"
Even as the hatch was still closing, the shuttle lifted off. Melshi laid Cassian carefully across the seats on one side of the hold, right hand still clamped to the blood-soaked rag on his side.
"Anyone left behind down there?"
"No, sir," came a voice from the cockpit. "All accounted for." Left behind? Had Cassian been able to breathe, he would have jumped up and railed at them all. Since when does the Alliance justify leaving people behind?
"Good." A moment of tense silence filled the hold with the sounds of panting soldiers and thrusters at full blast. Then a soft tug in his stomach told him they had jumped to lightspeed. The soldiers seemed to collectively relax.
From the cockpit, he heard the pilot begin to speak into the comm. "This is Pathfinder. Mission successful. Target recovered."
He felt Melshi drop down on the seats next to him.
"Dammit, Andor," the sergeant breathed, leaning over him. "What the pfassk were you thinking?" Cassian's only response was to spit blood out onto the floor. He coughed, his breath coming up red and bubbly.
"Let me through!"
The medic appeared at his elbow and began unbuttoning the gray uniform. Cassian immediately slapped his hands away.
"What the—"
Cassian reached into the front pocket and produced a small black rectangle. He turned it over in his hands as the medic began to inspect his side. Shaking fingers found a tiny button.
"—ur little bitch was still alive after that explosion," said the little box. The sergeant frowned and leaned in closer.
"What is that?"
"Oh yes," the box said.
A smile touched Cassian's bloody lips.
"They didn't check the front pocket," he wheezed and met Melshi's bewildered expression. "They never check the front pocket."
"You recorded your own torture?" After a moment, Melshi dropped his head and shook it with a smile. "You've been chewing the luna-weed, Lieutenant."
"Why so surprised?" cooed the box. "Thought you lost her?"
Melshi's smile began to fade. "Who's he talking about?" he asked.
"Didn't you even bother to look for her?"
"Cassian?"
"No one."
"Some big brother you are." Cassian heard himself began to choke. That was when Krennic removed the probe.
"Brother?" said Melshi. "That's not no one—"
"He was just trying to get to me, alright?" Cassian glared at him. "She's gone. She's been gone."
"Who?" asked the sergeant again.
"You don't know how close you are," said the tiny black box.
Cassian knew what came next. He brought it up close to his ear so he could hear what it whispered.
"She just left the room."
Cassian felt his mind go horribly still. He saw the girl, the one with blaster-canon eyes. The one who stood in the shadows and watched. He had seen her, but he hadn't recognized her. One look at her face and he knew she had seen the war up close. It was written there, carved into the very skin.
Scars like dried streambeds.
Like a final twist of the probe, the truth stabbed into him and he felt himself break.
You wouldn't recognize her if she stood in front of you.
And he hadn't. And that was perhaps the worst torture of all.
I found her that day...
Krennic had been telling the truth.
...still alive after that explosion…
The explosions.
He whipped his head to the soldiers in the hold. They were already looking at him. "Which one of you set off those bombs back there?" He was met with wide-eyed stares. "Which one?!" His lungs began to burn, but he couldn't stop his quickening breath.
"Bombs?" Melshi shook his head, frowning. "We didn't set those off. We thought that was you."
Cassian wasn't listening anymore. A distraction. She set a distraction so I could get out. They would have her in chains by now. An act of terror against the Empire was grounds for execution.
"Turn the ship around." Melshi looked at him incredulously, as if he really had gone mad.
"What?"
"Turn it around!" he yelled again, sending another wave of fire through his lungs.
"Cassian, you need medical attention immediately—"
"We have to go back!"
"No," said Melshi firmly.
Cassian stared at him for a moment, uncomprehending, then jerked himself up off the seats.
"They'll kill her!" he screamed, clawing at the hands that shot out to restrain him.
"Kill who?"
"They're going to kill her!"
"We have to sedate him," he heard the medic say somewhere far away. "He's going to make it worse if he keeps struggling!"
A weight suddenly pressed into Cassian's chest, pinning him to the seats and forcing all the air out of his body. Melshi's face swam above his own. He was saying something, but Cassian couldn't hear through the pounding in his ears, through the wailing in his head. It came from a girl, a high little bell-voice. She was screaming his name over and over. He took hold of the sergeant's arms, but they wouldn't give. He drew a strangled breath into his body. Then, he felt a pinch in the side of his neck and turned to see the medic withdrawing with an empty syringe in his hand.
Melshi continued to hold him until his vision clouded over. Plunged back into that darkness.
The last thing Cassian remembered was hearing his own sobs, mingled with the blood and the tears and the sweat. The crying in his head had fallen silent.
Just a quick check: Cassian lost Ben when she was eight and he was eleven. This here is NINE YEARS LATER. She is seventeen now, and he is twenty.
