The Rebellion were efficient, leaving no job unfinished or stone unturned, but it still took them two whole weeks to be sure the system was clear of any Imperials and start sending in the big ships.

After that, it was at least another two weeks before they'd offloaded all of their supplies onto the surface (and got through the storms), so it was a little over a standard month later that the Rebel base was humming with life, electronic equipment set up, members of the cell settled, a peace that felt suspiciously like hope descending on the camp.

And it was amongst that hope that Kaz found Inej at nightfall, watching the starlight filter through the swirling storms above, lying next to a patch of candlewicks. The nocturnal flowers' buds were open, as they were every night, and the gold glow they gave off illuminated her luminous skin. She looked like a painting wrought in black and gold.

"Hey, Kaz," she greeted softly, even before he was in view. He supposed his gait was extremely recognisable. She patted the ground beside her. "Come sit."

He eased himself onto the grass next to her and squinted at the candlewicks. He'd only seen them once, when the Empire had decided to see how much money they could squeeze out of one Mid Rim planet by imposing massive taxes on everything, and he'd been paid to smuggle the weirdest things, including flowers. He was still bitter that a criminal client he'd given passage to once had found a starflower under his bunk.

"Why do you like candlewicks so much?" he asked without thinking. She'd never explicitly told him they were her favourite flowers, but over the years it'd been easy to guess. She loved candlewicks, was fascinated by them. Sometimes he'd walked in on her keeping vigil in the cockpit at night to see her asleep at the controls, a bouquet of glowing blossoms casting her face into shadow.

She sighed contently and let her head fall back against the stone of the rock they were leaning against, careful not to crush any of the blossoms. "When my mother was my age, she worked as a researcher. She went around to different worlds, assessing whether or not they deserved Legacy status, researching natural phenomena, plants, animals. But one day she was researching the Alderaanian wolf-cat on Appenza Peak when she fell. Thank the Force for her team members and Alderaan's amazing doctors; it is - was," she paused, voice strangled, "her homeworld. She had access to its phenomenal healthcare. Her heart and lungs had to be replaced by pulmonodes, but she survived."

Kaz didn't see how the story was quite related to candlewicks yet, but Inej was obviously in the moment. He let her keep talking.

"The thing is, pulmonodes have little orange indicator lights on them," she continued. "Most people get skin transplants or just spent ages in bacta to try and get the flesh to heal over until the light isn't visible. But my mother didn't bother with any of that. And when I was little and I had a nightmare and would huddle into her lap with my head against her chest, I liked to imagine that the glow shining around me came from a bouquet of candlewicks nestled in her heart."

Inej's face was still limned in golden light, and Kaz's heart lurched at the realisation that he couldn't stop looking at her, her features soft with memory, skin literally aglow. She'd always had that strange magnetism about her: he couldn't stop looking, couldn't stay away.

He hated it.

He was honest enough to admit to himself that when she'd come to the cantina to hire him all those months ago, he hadn't offered to reduce his price because of whatever favours he owed her - although there were many. Too many to count. He'd bought and freed her from slavery, yet somehow he was so indebted to her.

Why had he said he'd lowered the price? Because it's you. It was true. He'd looked at her job offer, the chance to see her again, and jumped at it. He'd been unwilling to make her walk away by demanding too high a cost.

"Do you miss your mother?" The question slipped out, unbidden. He hated this lack of control of his - he got it around Jesper as well, where his curiosity about a person who was. . . useful. . . to him overcame his reservations. His hesitation. His common sense.

"Yes," Inej replied, as he'd expected. Kaz released a breath. Of course she did. Kaz was the anomaly - Kaz was the one too consumed by the urge for revenge to truly mourn the person he'd lost. Pekka will pay, he vowed to himself habitually. Brick by brick.

"I miss my father, too," she continued. "He was a clone who was decommissioned early on in the Clone Wars, and I worry about what the accelerated aging all clones went through did to him. He's probably an old man by now." She opened her eyes to gaze up at the sky; Kaz could see stars and galaxies reflected in her irises. He looked away quickly.

"He was a clone?" he asked, trying to distract himself.

She nodded, gaze still faraway. "It's part of the reason I'm so good at blending into crowds - the clones' facial features were known all across the galaxy, and because there's some aspect of that in my face, I look familiar and ordinary no matter where I go. My father taught me how to fight and spy - his was a recon unit, I think - and my mother taught me how to fly." She frowned. "They'd told me to wait in the ship, the day the slavers took me. But I was fourteen and curious, and I wanted to see the spaceport. It was a mistake."

"Do you think they're still alive?" The question slipped out again; Kaz cursed himself. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"They're alive," Inej said with a fervent certainty that made Kaz wonder if she didn't have the Force after all, if she was so sure of something like this. "They'll have survived. I know it. My mother's probably grieving the relatives she lost on Alderaan." Her face fell. "I don't know how to find them."

"It's a big galaxy," Kaz agreed.

"A massive galaxy." Inej sighed. "Everywhere I go, I try to surreptitiously stretch out feelers, looking for them. But the Rebellion comes first. It has to always come first."

Inej's parents had been smugglers when she was a child, Kaz remembered. She'd offered it up as an explanation for how she got so good at it so quickly. During the Clone Wars and the early days of the Empire, they'd had to become smugglers to keep food on the table for their little girl.

"I'll help you find them," he promised. This time, he did think through what he was saying. He said it anyway. Inej's spirit was a bright and brilliant thing - it deserved to be protected.

Inej smiled at him and, after a moment's hesitation, he smiled back. They sat like that for a long time, watching the storms rage above them and feeling, for the first time in a long while, safe.

(The next morning, Inej would wake to find a vase of candlewicks on the shelf of her and Nina's dormitory. Her friend would keep grumbling about how a strange light had kept her awake, but Inej wouldn't be able to stop smiling.)


Jesper was waiting in the cockpit of the Barrel for Kaz to return from. . . wherever he'd gone that night. . . when he noticed movement beyond the viewports.

A flash of gold hair, the timid gait, like he was worried someone might notice him. . .

Jesper was out of the cockpit and down the boarding ramp before he could think. "Wylan?"

The lordling froze, then whirled around, a blush staining his cheeks even in the dim light. Jesper frowned at him. Did he look nervous? Afraid?

Guilty?

"You're going to visit your father," he said, clarity dawning.

Wylan's silence was damning.

Jesper sighed. "Come inside."

They had a brief but intense standoff, glaring at each other until Wylan finally acquiesced and followed him up the ramp. Jesper had made sure they were safely in the living area before he said, "I'm coming with you."

Wylan gaped. "You-"

"I want an adventure. In case you haven't noticed, I'm kind of reckless. And going up against an Imperial lord on his own territory?" He tried for a grin. "Sounds like my kind of odds."

"Okay." Something had lit up in Wylan's face; as the seconds ticked by, Jesper watched it grow and grow. It looked suspiciously like hope. Force, I sound like Kaz. "Okay. We'll need to head off now if we're gonna make it to the rendezvous in time. We need a ship."

"We have one." Jesper patted the dejarik table. "Just don't tell Kaz."

"Too late," a gravelly voice interrupted them. Jesper jumped out of his skin and turned to see Kaz standing near the entrance, weight shifted onto his good leg, eyebrow raised to his hairline. "What do you think you're doing, Jesper? Lordling?" He turned his cutting gaze on Wylan.

The kid proved to have more guts than Jesper had given him credit for. He raised his chin and set his jaw. It was clear he wasn't going to tell Kaz anything. But is it courage or shame that's driving him?

Jesper didn't have any space to judge, he supposed. He cracked within the second.

"Wylan received a message from his father saying he wanted to defect so we're flying the ship to the assigned rendezvous." Jesper took a deep breath. That's the hard part over with, then. But no: actually, there was someone he didn't want finding out about this more than Kaz. Someone whom he actually respected, and who he wanted to respect him in return. "I don't suppose you could not tell Inej this?"

"Bit late for that."

Jesper actually screamed as he whirled round this time, various expletives spitting from his mouth. Inej stood behind the dejarik table, arms crossed and eyebrow raised in an eerie imitation of Kaz's pose. Her dark hair was knotted into a crown of braids around her head - they look Alderaanian, he observed - and among them nestled a gold, glowing flower head.

Somehow, she was on the opposite side of the room without having been spotted by either him or Wylan. And that would've been fine - impressive, but not insulting. She was known as the Wraith for a reason.

But with a glowing flower in her hair?

Seriously?

"Let me get this straight," Inej said slowly. "Wylan's father sent him a message conveying his intention to defect to the Rebellion along with coordinates for a meeting point for the two of them to discuss it." She pinched her lips together. "A rich Imperial merchant wants to defect. It seems too good to be true."

Kaz shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "And when something's too good to be true. . ."

". . .it usually is," Inej finished. She paused, then grimaced at herself. "Even so. I really want it to be true." She added, more gently, to Wylan, "I'm sure you do, too." She shook her head. "But you can't go in there."

"You're saying the odds are too great," Wylan said dejectedly. The expression on his face was what spurred Jesper into speaking up.

"Never tell me the odds." When Inej looked at him, he said passionately, "If you think we're going to pass up this opportunity-"

"You misunderstand me."

Inej looked solemn. Kaz raised his eyebrows again - that seemed to be his thing today. "Look at you, Inej. Being a responsible leader and Rebel captain-"

"Shut up." She didn't spare him a glance, instead focusing on Wylan and Jesper. "The odds are too great, yes. But when you can't beat the odds. . ."

It was Kaz who finished the saying - a saying that was so rampant among smugglers Jesper was momentarily surprised Inej knew it. But she'd been a smuggler once as well. "Change the game."

Wylan still looked confused. "What does that mean?"

But now Kaz had the tilt to his mouth that passed for a smile. He looked at Inej with the same raw tenderness he always seemed to - well, what tenderness meant when applied to Kaz Brekker - but there was cunning as well. Cunning, slyness - his magician's mind was hard at work, and there was no stopping it now. "She means we don't play by Van Eck's rules. What did your father's message say?"

"To meet him at the lake retreat - Varykino - on Naboo three days from today. Evening, local time." Wylan swallowed. "It's about a two day hyperspace trip."

Kaz tapped his chin. "Naboo is the Emperor's homeworld, correct?" Everyone nodded. "So it's undoubtably crawling with Imperials even without the extra contacts he might have pulled in."

"So?" Wylan lifted his chin.

"So there'll be a lot of cannon fodder." Kaz barely blinked at the prospect, though Inej frowned disapprovingly. "Where is your family's retreat?"

"In the grasslands. Lakelands? The Lake Country." Wylan swallowed. "But it's not ours. It's a holiday home - we rent it out sometimes, but it's also rented out to other families when they pay for it."

"Grasslands," Inej mused. "Are the grasses tall enough to hide a sniper?"

"No," Wylan replied, "but the waterfalls could potentially provide cover, if only because the mist sprays out so thickly - there're even legends about a water monster haunting the area, because of the way shapes seem to move under the water. The local people are used to it by now." Silence fell when he stopped talking. "Or you could hide behind a shaak," he added sourly at their neutral expressions.

Sour or not, it seemed to spark Kaz's interest. "Shaaks?" He furrowed his brow. "Shaak-farming. . . What other local industries are there?"

Wylan shrugged. "It's the most isolated part of Naboo. Other than holiday-makers, there's only farmers, shaak-herders and glass craftworkers out there."

"Alright." Inej had shifted her stance; she and Kaz were once again matching eager bookends. "Tell us about Varykino."