Chapter 2 – Nero

Mara.

She blinked awake. Things to attend to. Time to start the day. She didn't like being idle anyway. If Mara found one thing easy in life, it was waking up.

The light filtering into her quarters was just strong enough to tell her morning was sufficiently underway, and her companion was still there, comfortably asleep.

Well, that wouldn't do. Reaching lazily for the bedside table, she pressed a small button, then rolled over to rest a hand gently on the man's bicep.

She liked that he wasn't particularly formed. There was an angularity to him that was pleasing, a grace layered over strength. He had a watchfulness in his eyes that she knew mirrored her own. Yet, last night, when he'd been inside her, the shield had come down just for a moment, and though she hadn't been looking for it, it staggered her just in the moment before she went over the edge.

"Cass," she said softly, stroking.

He came awake quickly, and the shades fell over his eyes as he looked around the room, and at her, and eventually settled into remembrance.

He opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted.

"Good Morning, Mistress Jade," a synthetic accent called out.

"Good Morning, Kay-Too," she called back, rolling away from her visitor and out of bed. "I'll skip breakfast, thank you. Do you have the report?"

"Allow me to point out that you haven't eaten a morning meal in precisely thirteen days, and you were specifically instructed after your last-"

"Can it, Kay-Too," Mara mumbled over a yawn, stretching.

"At least have a protein brew," the droid said, shoving a glass in her face. His other arm came up holding the datapad she'd requested. "You'll need to replenish your electrolytes after your activities last night with this one."

Mara accepted the datapad and shoved the glass aside. From the bed, Cass was staring up at the droid, mouth bent slightly upwards in amusement. This did not seem to register with Kay-Too.

"You know, he works for Senator Organa."

"I'm aware of that, Kay-Too."

"There's at least a forty percent change he's spying on you."

"Everyone's spying on someone, Kay-Too," Mara said wryly, grateful not for the first time that her secrets were all safely locked inside her head. Even Kay-Too didn't know all of them.

Mara.

"Mistress Jade-"

"That'll be all, Kay-Too. I'll call you when my meeting's done."

Reluctantly, the droid took his leave, not without a last glance at Cass that managed to convey a blunt metallic loathing.

Mara sat down on the bed as Cass rearranged himself to sit back against the headboards.

"I've never heard a droid talk back to its master like that before," he observed.

She waved a hand dismissively. "I've been reprogramming him. Admittedly, it isn't going very smoothly."

Cass smiled at her, though it was somewhat muted by the frown that still wrinkled his forehead. He offered no further comment on the droid, but after a moment said, "You mentioned something about a meeting?"

Alert once more, Mara answered, "Yes, and I'm sure Organa is wondering where you are."

"Not likely," Cass said, standing as she moved off the bed to make way for him. He did not stretch, as other men might have done, but he made a quick and efficient survey of the room, locating his clothes. She watched him in mild admiration. No regrets on this morning. But then, regrets were not Mara's style. She usually didn't have time for them.

Trousers securely on, he turned to her. His shirt hung in crumpled folds from his hand. The telltale dress clothing would turn a few heads when he left her quarters, no doubt. He wasn't the first man to have a dalliance with one of the Emperor's dancing girls, though most weren't quite that bold. She wondered if she should call Kay-Too back to escort him. But then, it would be more interesting to see if he actually knew his way around the Imperial Palace unaided.

"We'll be here at least a few more days," he said.

Mara.

She blinked, then nodded. "I expect I'll be here as well."

He smiled again before leaving her, but there was something sad in it.

**RogueLegends**

"Success?" Bail Organa asked, falling into step behind him.

Cassian shrugged one shoulder. "I suppose that depends on your definition." A quick glance at Organa told him the man was uncomfortable, and he remembered belatedly that the senator could be rather conservative. He sighed. "I've laid the groundwork. It'll take time. It may be best if we didn't talk about this while we're on Coruscant."

"I've spent a good deal of my life in this city, young man," Organa chided him. "I know where the traps are. In a city this large, it's impossible to lay them in every corner."

Cassian sighed again. "I meant no disrespect."

"And I have taken none. However, remember that this game of smoke and mirrors I have been playing a lot longer than you. You're on my turf now, Andor. We both want the same thing. Now, trust me."

Cassian nodded and lowered his voice. "She's definitely our girl. I've never heard of a dancer who had morning meetings before."

Organa chuckled. "Everybody is more than once sort of person here. The dancers are all – at best – bodyguards, and no one pretends anything else. But your girl is an assassin of the highest order, if the stories are to be believed. Watch your back."

Cassian didn't point out that watching his back was his mantra.

"Now, I have a meeting with a small coalition of planets from our sector to discuss trade routes. At this time, a good secretary would accompany me and be taking notes. I am perfectly happy to pretend that you are not a very good secretary. You have nothing more pressing with which to occupy yourself, I suppose?"

Cassian shook his head. "Not until tonight."

"Good. Then when you've cleaned up from what we're going to call a hangover, I expect you in the thirty-eighth floor conference room. You can make yourself useful and maintain your cover at the same time. And yes, it will be boring."

Cassian left him at the wing housing their guest quarters. There were a good deal too many holes in time to fill in this game, he decided. While he didn't exactly look forward to the coming evening or the task at hand, it would at least be more pleasant than a pack of aged, arguing politicians. And the scenery would be better too, he suspected.

**RogueLegends**

It wasn't what he would have thought. The gown and its accessories were gone. She wore a simple shirt and trousers. A jacket hung over the back of a chair. Snug against her forearm, held in place by an armband reminiscent of the bracelet she'd worn the night before was an armband that must have been custom-made. Tucked inside it was the slimmest blaster he had ever seen.

Was it even strong enough to handle the recoil that often accompanied such smaller firearms? Another glance at Mara left him in no doubt. It was.

Then there was the knife in her boot, and its larger companion at her waist, and beside that, another blaster.

He had known the Emperor's Hand wouldn't be a woman who couldn't defend herself, but somehow after last night he had been expecting something more sinister. The…practicality of the woman before him was humanizing. He could respect it.

Respect wasn't an emotion he wanted to feel just at that moment.

He cleared his throat, though no doubt she'd heard him come in. She waved a hand airily, absorbed in something on the datapad she was holding. He wondered if it was something he ought to be interested in as well.

Finally, with a deep breath, she shut it off and turned to him, and he was startled, for, free of the adornments of the previous evening and the fog of the morning, her eyes were an even brighter green. He wondered if her eyes weren't her greatest weapon, and he wondered if she knew it.

"Have you eaten?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I spent the whole day in meetings."

"So I heard."

So she was smart enough not to trust him. He smiled at her to let her know he knew it, and from the way she smiled back, she got the message.

Breaking this woman was going to take walking very, very close to the line.

**RogueLegends**

He hadn't hear the orders she gave the droid over the comm, at least, he had heard enough to know they were actually talking about dinner. His attention had been back on the datapad, while a backseat corner of his awareness mulled over the fact that he really had no idea who he was dealing with.

That was the point, wasn't it?

Rebel Intelligence didn't have enough on the Emperor's Hand to even confirm if they were an organization or an individual. In fact, what they did know added up to little more than the ghosts of rumors. Nonetheless, Draven and Mon Mothma were convinced the Hand existed, and the one report – the only one – that seemed to point a finger at anything in particular was pointed at Jade.

Cassian was starting to believe the ghosts. Whatever the woman was, he was only dealing with what she chose to show him.

Just now, she was showing him the city, or one of her favorite views of it. They were standing on a relatively quiet dent in the roof of the Imperial Palace, and all the lights of the planet-sized city swelled out before them like an ocean of urbanity. Cassian had always preferred more open places himself, if he got to chose and wasn't hiding, which he never did and never was, but he had to admit there was a certain beauty to it, and even more so when he looked at his companion, the lights etching into the lines of her face, her soft smile highlighted by them.

He wondered what it was like to be so certain of your place in the universe.

Kay-Too brought them dinner, not without a little huffiness. Cassian found the droid's presence interesting, even though he was gone almost as soon as he had come. He was not a protocol droid, and he was not the sort of machine one usually allocated to serving. Which could mean he was there to take data on Cassian.

"I don't need a droid for every occasion," Mara said, interrupting his thoughts. He looked as her in surprise, but she didn't bother to address it. "Kay-Too is very useful in situations more suited to his traditional programming, so I keep him around for the rest as well. He grumbles, but I think he'd take offense if I got a second droid. Very delicate sense of pride, that one."

Like yourself? Cassian thought, but didn't say it aloud, as he was currently guilty of a professional sense of shame himself.

"Where are you from?" Mara asked.

He smiled. "Alderaan."

"Don't waste my time. Before that."

He once again decided on an honest answer. "Before that I try to forget. And you?"

She looked out over the city again. "Before Coruscant…I have forgotten. I was very young when I came here."

"Parents?"

When she turned to meet his gaze, her shields were down, and at last he had a picture of the true steel underneath. It was a warning, and he felt it like stone against his chest.

"The Empire is my parents," the woman who was not a dancer, but a weapon, said.

He believed her.