Her ride back is a desolate trundle amid incongruously beautiful surroundings, her mind lightyears away from the deep jade green evening sky, from the darkening gold-emerald-and-turquoise palette of the city slopes, with their greenish-yellow stone terraces strewn with a profusion of plants, even from the arresting spectacle of the lights coming on deeper down the valley, illuminating the fog blanket, now spread below her like a white sea, from underneath with radiant golden pools. Sightseeing has little to do with how she keeps checking her own progress; she tells herself that she needs to talk one-on-one with Nawara to clear the air, and there will be no chance of that until he has finished the communal dinner, but she knows the real reason. She is stalling for time, hoping to compose herself before she sets foot inside the hangar bay of Nawara's compound, and forcing herself to ignore the nagging thought that she has blown her chances with Cassian with a single silly line.

He is waiting for her at the hangar bay. She sees that he has lost the security officer's bike and uniform in the meantime, and she is left bemused at why he should be spending his time studying a discarded piece of landspeeder engine assembly; but the way his eyes latch onto her and track her as her bike enters the dimly lit hangar bay makes it blatantly clear that he has been waiting for her.

She fights a momentary spike of dread, certain that the only reason he would choose to do it would be to upbraid her some more for her reckless conduct, and unsure how much of that she could handle without it bruising her heart. By the time she descends from the bike she is resolved to pre-empt it with an abject apology; her motives may have been noble and her execution pretty good if she says so herself, but better declare herself in the wrong and get it over with than prolong this heart-wrenching standoff.

"Cassian, I'm sor– " she starts as she steps toward him.

By the time it would have taken her to finish the line, he has closed the distance between them and put his arms around her.

"It's all right," he mutters into her hair, warm breath caressing the top of her head. "It's all right."

And counter to all logic, the thing she is now in the greatest danger of is bursting into tears, albeit tears of happiness; and while she is struggling to contain this particular affliction, it falls to Cassian to deliver his share of an apology.

"I'm sorry I lost my temper." He cocks his head sideways to look her in the eye, and she has no choice but to bring her face up from his chest and take half a step back so as to be able to look at him. "It's just when K gave me your message at the shuttle I…" He shakes his head, and his hand comes up to cover his eyes; and no matter how cross his earlier outburst may have made her, she is now feeling guilty more than anything for putting him through this.

She puts her own hand on his wrist, pulling it down from his face. "I know I should have told you, but I thought it was more important that you should get well. That's why I said, I know it was a stupid thing to say, but that's what I meant when I said you should have let Nawara send someone else – "

He shakes his head at her, but there is no trace of the earlier anger. "Do you think I could have trusted anyone else in the galaxy to do it?"

"Even when I almost ended up shooting you?" she ventures, hoping for a sign that she has been forgiven for that particular transgression, too.

"Whatever. I'd do it again. I'd do it as many times as it takes."

She might not entirely agree with the sentiment, but his answer is hands down the most romantic thing she has heard to date. She is still holding his hand, and her fingers tighten unconsciously around it; his response is to bring up his other hand and hold her palm in both of his. She gazes up at him, into his gorgeous eyes shining amid the dim hangar, and he can probably see that her cheeks are burning, though it has nothing to do with embarrassment. By then the only thing maintaining a distance between them is the difference in height, and she wonders if she should wait for him to kiss her, as he surely must be about to, or just stand on tiptoe and go for it herself…

...when she hears clattering footsteps approaching them from inside the compound, followed by a tinny voice.

"Captain Rook – thank the stars!" the golden 3PO announces as he shuffles up to them.

She wants to disassemble him down to his tiniest constituent bolts, but he is blissfully oblivious.

"Two-Onebee has been trying to find you all day," he rattles on. "He gave me strict instructions to tell you to go back to the med bay for your final bacta treatment. I am so glad I found you, sir!" It might be her imagination, but it sounds as if the evil creature were particularly pleased with the superb timing of his interruption.

She bites down on a muttered curse, reminding herself how important it is for Cassian to fully recover; his reaction, while courteous on the surface, has all the warmth of a death threat.

"Thank you," he grits through his teeth. "Thank you very much indeed."

He looks as if he were reluctant to leave, but seeing how the 3PO shows no sign of shoving off, he shakes his head at her, eyebrows raised in dramatic resignation, and walks away.

x x x

"Welcome, Liana. He is expecting you."

She is surprised when Shani herself greets her at the door to Nawara's quarters; even more surprised when this graceful vision of a Twi'lek inclines her head and then glides silently away into the private-side rooms, leaving her to make her own way forward toward the low light visible in the spacious lounge. Jyn is not quite sure what to make of this: is this a marked display of deference, or an ominous sign of a desire to deal with her quickly and quietly, keeping the knowledge of her visit in the family, as it were?

When she walks into the lounge and sees the low table in the middle of the dais set with food and drink, her unease dissipates. It is such a grave breach etiquette as to be virtually unheard-of for a Twi'lek host to betray his or her guests' trust over a meal said guests are invited to share.

Nawara stands up to greet her from his low cushioned seat on the dais, though he does not come forward, instead waiting until she has taken a seat opposite him.

"I am glad to see you came back safely, Liana," are his greetings words to her; said in an incongruously somber tone, they nonetheless go some way to confirming what she thinks – what she and Cassian both appear to think – about his role in the day's events being mostly above-board. "It is a pity you were not able to join us for our evening's meal, but I took the liberty of having these," he gestures to the assortment of dishes and a pitcher of what looks by its colour to be expensive Necr'ygor wine, "brought here for you to take refreshments."

"Thank you. I am grateful for you for your thoughtfulness," she amends herself, remembering to keep up with Nawara's formal tone. "I too am glad to be back alive and with my mission accomplished." She gives him a rather pointed look; as of this moment, she is still not completely sure if both outcomes came about thank to, rather than despite, any efforts on Nawara's part.

"You have accomplished it in more ways than one," Nawara purrs cryptically, then gestures for her to take advantage of the food and wine. As she picks the food onto her plate, he continues. "It happens that your arrival on Dorvalla happened at an… interesting juncture. I am pleased to say that it has now been resolved," he adds, though his dark tone is still at odds with the upbeat words.

He takes a pause, ostensibly to pour himself a glass of wine, but she has the distinct impression that he is stalling. Whatever his reasons, it is not in her interest to force his hand right now.

The wine appears to seal his resolve. "I introduced Naroon to you as my deputy." His glowing eyes darken. "What I did not tell you was that he was my nephew."

As she processes this surprising bit of information, she wonders if the second was in Nawara's wording is merely down to his rigid observance of Basic grammar rules, or reflects a more ominous truth. Considering what she knows as of earlier this afternoon about Naroon's treatment of her, she is not overly concerned about his life and safety; she may be vaguely curious but she knows she should not ask, and is not particularly inclined to care.

"He came to see me here two standard years ago after his father, my elder brother, died back on Ryloth," Nawara continues. "He expressed a strong desire to work for me, and said that the only thing that had been stopping him prior to that was the old feud between me and my brothers, including Figrin. He seemed to have heard quite a lot about my business here and expressed his admiration of it, and of my business methods, in no uncertain words, and I confess I was won over by the flattery, and since my daughters are both married away from home and are too much like their mother to be interested in business and trade, I was tempted to see him as a kind of surrogate son." His eyes grow so dark as to almost completely lose their orange glow. "It was a mistake I almost paid a very high price for."

You tell me about it. She does her best to keep her face impassive, however; this must be a hard enough confession for him to make so as for her not to make it worse by verbal, or even mental barbs at his expense.

"For the first year following his arrival, he was impeccably diligent and very eager to learn all the workings. I put it down to his desire to progress within my business outfit, and seeing his hard work I gave him the benefit of the doubt by appointing him as my deputy, even if his experience did not yet fully justify it. But as I later began to suspect, his desire to learn the ropes, as it were, was a means to a different end, that of supplanting me as the head and owner of my business."

The little shit, she thinks; Nawara may have his shortcomings, and may be cunning and tenacious, but to quote an ancient saying from Naboo, that weaselly grey-skinned youngster could not hold a candle to his uncle.

"I noticed at first that he had funneled away small amounts of funds, no more than a few thousand credit at a time, on a couple of occasions. Once again I gave him the benefit of the doubt thinking that perhaps he had an obligation to support his relatives, my brother's widow and his siblings, back on Ryloth and was too embarrassed to ask me for help in view of the old feud. But then I started to notice him breaking into my files and records, looking for information beyond what he already had access to as my deputy, and I knew almost for certain that his motives had little or nothing to do with helping his family and everything to do with overthrowing my authority."

"Almost for certain?" she questions. What Nawara just said sounds pretty definitive to her.

He hesitates for a split second. "Let us say I wanted to give him one more chance to prove himself, that would otherwise leave him with enough ammunition to shoot himself." She wonders if that is what literally happened to Naroon; for all their cunning, Twi'leks have a rather strict honour code.

"And this heist was that chance?" she ventures.

Nawara inclines his head. "Precisely."

"And I was the bullseye painted in the crosshairs," she cannot help quipping.

His eyes flash. "You were not supposed to be in the crosshairs. You may recall that the role I originally proposed to you was to remotely manipulate the droid that planted explosives, and it was only your desire to discuss the matter of the K-2SO body that led to you taking the droid's place."

Now that the day's trials are over and the truth is finally laid bare before her, she can almost laugh at how she managed to stumble into the middle of what she now sees to be a mutual set-up between two very wily players.

"When you arrived, again given the timing, I could not quite rule out that you were working with Naroon, even though I saw no indication of the two of you having any prior knowledge of each other when you met on our way from the spaceport." So that's what Naroon's silent presence in the landspeeder was about. "But I only saw the final proof when you volunteered for a task that was considerably more dangerous than what I had proposed, whereas the less risky one would have sufficed to sabotage the mission… and when Naroon began to quite obviously try to trip you up."

"You know about the comlink?"

"I know now; your partner, Cassian, told Kardue, my bodyguard who picked him up at the spot where he left the security scooter to come back here, and Kardue told me over dinner." So that is how Cassian managed to lose the bike; of course he was too smart to have ridden a security forces vehicle, doubtless equipped with a built-in tracker, into Nawara's hangar. She wonders vaguely at Nawara's use of partner rather than pilot as she herself had described Cassian to him; surely he did not let slip anything concerning the circumstances of their previous mission in the heat of the moment? One way or the other, she feels a treacherous blush creep up her cheeks and hopes that Nawara puts it down to the effect of the wine.

"But what had sounded the first alarm bell," Nawara continues, cutting short her musings, "was his mention of wanting to use a Treadwell to plant explosives. You and I both know, as undoubtedly did he, that it could not carry sufficient charges to guarantee the destruction of the vault, at least not to carry them concealed. It meant that he either wanted the vault to retain some if not all of the data in the explosion, or that he wanted the droid to be apprehended if it carried the extra charges in the open, purposely implanting it with data that could trace it to me."

She can see how Naroon's treacherous aims could be served by directly implicating his uncle, but what about a failed explosion? "Why would he want any part of the vault data to remain intact?"

"My suspicion is that he may have set up an alternative chain of transactions," Nawara says slowly. "My financial expert, the Selonian you saw at our dinners, is working through the records now to see if that was the case, but I believe that he may have planned to use the same backdoor vulnerability at the bank to insert records registering the transfer of control of my company's assets in his name. So regardless of whether he profited from our original plan – which he would not if the vault was not destroyed – he would still achieve his main objective of undermining me and taking over my business. And if he then purposely exposed our previously-added duplicate transactions to the Imperials and thus sealed my fate, I suppose in his mind it would have made his victory complete. I could tell that he was very unhappy when you took the droid's place, but I suppose he then made the most of it by likely tipping the Imperial troopers to your planting of the explosives."

On second thoughts, she rather hopes Naroon has met a grisly end.

"How did he manage to orchestrate all this on his own?" she wonders aloud. By then, she has finished her dinner and they are standing at the wraparound transparisteel window looking at the city lights. She feels wide awake, but can tell that her host is ready to retire; the time is already pushing Dorvallan bedtime.

Nawara's eyes flash. "He did not. Krey'lya, the Bothan who he proposed as the second lookout, was working with him. He probably promised him a deputy position." Naroon's growling voice is dripping with contempt as he says it. "I did not learn of Krey'lya's involvement until our meeting, and even then was not completely certain. I thought it was merely Naroon's way to leave you with only one effective lookout, as Bothans as a race are by and large opposed to killing." Which means that he would not shoot even if it became necessary. She wishes she had known this earlier. "But in Krey'lya's case, it did not stop him from shooting Malloc in the back after they left here to take their respective positions." Nawara's eyes darken. "He tried to run afterwards but Kardue took care of that. Malloc was a good guard, too good to be lost like this. I trusted him well enough to know that once he had gone silent, it could not mean treachery on his part but likely meant that he was dead or incapacitated. And just as I was about to send a replacement lookout to take his place, Captain Rook found me here and was… very persuasive about taking Malloc's place."

This time, she cannot help smiling.

"Which reminds, me," Nawara goes on, "I have something for the two of you. Consider this the least I can do to repay you for your help." He motions for her to go out of the lounge, back toward the main foyer. Once there, he opens a sliding partition to reveal a repulsorlift pallet with a K-2S0 body resting on it; it looks brand new.

"I am very grateful," she says when she is done grinning.

"The gratitude is all mine," Nawara assures her, inclining his head so low as to resemble a bow. This, coming from an elder Twi'lek toward another species, is a sign of considerable respect, she remembers. "And if you and Captain Rook would consider staying here to work for me," he continues as he walks her toward the door, "it will be my pleasure to keep you both busy."

A week ago, she would have jumped at the offer.

"Thank you." She tries to mirror his head-incline gesture as best she can. "We are both greatly honoured, but we have to get back to… friends who need us."

"I can see how anyone who knows you well will consider you both valuable assets," he assures her. "But I would ask you to keep my offer in mind should you ever change your minds."

She is not sure why Nawara thinks that she and Cassian should both change their minds simultaneously, but now is not the time or the occasion to ask him; not when she is already outside the door with Nawara's precious present nodding her goodbyes to him.

She walks away, aware that for some reason he is standing in the doorway. Still, his seemingly offhand parting shot, by the time she is ten paces away, is so unexpected as to make her heart leap into her throat.

"He loves you too, you know."

.

To be concluded

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For anyone who has read Timothy Zahn's trilogy, my portrayal of Bothans will likely come as no surprise. For the benefit of other readers, I should explain that despite their implied heroic role in discovering the location of the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi, EU canon has them as ambitious, backstabbing political players.

I am pretty sure that Empire Strikes Back fans among you – and seriously, what Star Wars fan isn't? – will pick up on the couple of bits I [stole] borrowed from Han and Leia's antics in the asteroid belt. In my defence, I invoke the sincerest form of flattery ;)