Nina, to be quite frank, had a bad feeling about this.

Inej's face was wan, her lips slightly parted, and she was staring at nowhere in particular, gaze transfixed by a point no one else could see.

Yes, Nina had a very bad feeling about this.

But she had to continue with the plan, anyway.

"Lord Pekka," she said, the vocoder in her helmet twisting her voice beyond all recognition. "I'm here to collect the bounty on Jesper Fahey." She gripped his shoulder a little tighter as she said it; he grimaced, and she tried to relax as she waited for Pekka's response.

It was not what she had been expecting.

"Take off your helmet."

He even said the words in Basic, when she hadn't even known he could speak Basic, to make sure she understood.

She didn't understand.

She froze, then stuttered. "What?" A chanced glance at Inej revealed she still didn't seem entirely lucid.

Nina was on her own.

Pekka said something in Huttese, his tone clipped and impatient, and the ancient silver protocol droid stumbled forward to translate.

"The honourable Pekka wishes that you take off your helmet, in light of recent information received that there may be Rebels in the area looking to rescue a rather important prisoner of his." Pekka inclined his head towards the corner, where, she noted with growing anger Oomen leaned against the wall as if he had no care in the world.

The bottom dropped out of Nina's stomach. They'd been found out.

They were doomed.

She looked at Inej again - help us, there has to be a plan, you have a plan, right? - at exactly the same time Pekka did. And for a moment, Nina forgot everything other than the look he gave her.

It was victory. It was greed. It was the look of a Hutt who'd found an easy way to get rich.

He knew who Inej was.

He knew what secrets she could tell him - he could make her tell him.

And for a moment, seeing Inej's obvious trauma, imagining what Pekka was planning to do to her to make her comply, Nina snapped. Some cord deep down inside her just snapped, and she was left freefalling with an odd semblance of calm. An odd semblance of control.

The bravado of a dead woman.

She smirked to herself, even if no one could see it under the helmet. "As you wish." Jesper's arms were tense as she slid her hands down them to surreptitiously release the binders.

Then she lifted her hands and removed her helmet.

She paid no heed to the cacophony of gasps around the room, but she did give Jesper's hand a gentle squeeze in reassurance. He squeezed back, before steeling his posture and lifting his chin.

Nina lifted hers, too, if only so she could look Pekka in the eye. She didn't know what species the bounty hunter they'd stolen this armour from had been - hadn't recognised it when they'd stripped it off his unconscious body - but she knew it wasn't human, and the incredulity of the onlookers rang clear and bright in the Force. She pushed it aside, even as she raised her hand to tuck some of her hair behind her ear; no longer trapped inside the helmet, it was beginning to flop around her face.

Pekka narrowed his eyes at her, but gave no order to attack, and for a moment Nina remembered what Inej had warned them of: Pekka never forgets a face.

There was a high possibility he'd seen hers before, albeit a much younger version. She'd been fifteen: she and Zoya had been passing through Mos Eisley for passage when their luck had run out, and they'd been stranded on this hellhole for three days until they found a ship they could stowaway on. In that time, they'd fended off a lot of attackers - far more than even a cesspit like Tatooine could be expected to provide. They'd even had to whip out their lightsabers once or twice.

Not long after that, Koroleva had killed Zoya. Nina had never been able to shake the feeling Pekka had recognised the two of them from holos, and sold the information to the highest bidder: the Empire.

Now, their stare off stretched into infinity, and it was a thousand years later that Pekka smirked and said in Huttese, "Jedi poodoo."

Then an order was given, and the blasters were turned on them.

The bravado of a dead woman evaporated; Nina very much wanted to survive this, and get all of her friends out of it with her. He'd recognised her, alright, she was in danger - as was Inej, as was Jesper, as was Kaz - but at least Matthias and Wylan weren't here yet, were safe, or at least as safe as one could get when within Pekka Rollins's purview.

So she relaxed, felt the Force flow through her, and everything slowed. She didn't know what the order had been, but it must have been to keep them alive, because the blasts that she ducked, dodged, twisted to avoid were blue rings which buzzed and fizzled out quickly. She reached for her lightsaber, hidden under her cloak, and drew it, the magenta blade painfully bright against the dinginess of the room, before tossing Jesper Kuwei's.

Then it was nothing but duck, slash, hit, bat, and then Nina's left hand was reaching out, shaped like a pincer, searching for a person, just one person-

Oomen started choking, then the ivory and amber not-a-bounty hunter, both of them lifted up into midair, kicking, and the rush it gave Nina was intoxicating. She wanted to squeeze tighter, until they no longer choked but lay motionless on the ground. She dropped her lightsaber and lifted her other arm, even as Jesper's bright blue still danced and slashed around her, and then Pekka the Hutt, sleemo, poodoo, was choking as well, flabby limbs flapping wildly, one of them smacking Inej in the head and out of her trance, until she scooted away to avoid it, stared up at her tormentor with an uncharacteristic amount of delight on her face.

"I am no Jedi," Nina said fiercely, heady with the swirl of emotions inside her, and then-

Then a blaster barrel was pressed to her head. "Drop them."

She didn't recognise the voice, but she shifted her gaze to her right, where Jesper was in a similar position, Kuwei's lightsaber clipped to the belt of the person holding him. He stared at Nina, eyes wide, lips wan, as they were both forced to their knees.

She dropped them.

Pekka still seemed to be having problems with speech, so it was his major-domo who spoke next. "Bring them to the sail barge. They'll be executed along with Brekker."

Inej was staring at them both, mouth open and horrified. She looked like she was about to cry.

Nina's gaze sank to the floor, ashamed.

"W- What was that?" Jesper whispered beside her. "That wasn't the Jedi way."

"I already said-"

"I know," he cut her off. "But Nina." His voice shook. "Your eyes flashed yellow."

She closed her eyes then, and felt tears burn her retinas. Yellow eyes were only ever sported by the Sith and other Dark Side users.

Fear and anger and hatred were of the Dark Side. And it had been so close, when she was choking those bastards, demons, people who deserved all they got-

It had been so easy.

She'd thought she knew what she was getting into when she started this shit.

Maybe she'd been wrong.


"Jesper?" came the harsh, clipped syllables of his name. Clearly, Kaz's eyes had already adjusted to the darkness of their shared cell. "What ill-fated escapade got you landed in here with me?"

A moment of silence, then-

"You came to rescue me, didn't you?"

Jesper's silence was damnation enough. Kaz sighed, and it was the sound Jesper always wished he could never hear again: Kaz's disdain was an awful thing to have directed at you.

"It was Inej's idea!"

"Oh, I have no doubt of that," Kaz grumbled, seeming genuinely annoyed that the woman who everyone (else) knew loved him had come to rescue him from execution. "Her heart's always been too soft for smuggling." Despite the fact that the words were criticism, he failed to make them actually sound. . . well, critical. "Yours too. But I was hoping someone sensible would interfere - General Kir-Bataar, maybe."

"She didn't know we were coming until we got here."

Kaz sighed again. "Great. Inej finally starts going against orders, and it's to do this."

"I'll have you know, we do have a plan in place."

"And how well is that going, at this moment in time?"

"Not ideal, but not bad, actually."

"What?" Kaz scoffed. "You can't be the only one who got captured."

"No," Jesper admitted. "I came in with Nina; she was taken to another cell, somewhere. Presumably as a backup pleasure slave, in case Inej isn't to his liking." He felt Kaz tense next to him. "I don't know how Inej got into that situation, before you ask. I just know that she got caught, and now Pekka thinks he can get her to tell him all the secrets she carries."

"What." Kaz's voice was a hoarse, gravelly whisper; his eyes were blown so wide that Jesper could see their whites even in the darkness. "No. Inej can't be-" He cut himself off. "Why would she put herself through that for me?"

The question was plaintive, but Jesper could hear Kaz's breaths turns to gasps, imagine his heartbeat racing, him running his hands through his hair, face a state of utter panic. Because of Inej. Because he was afraid for her.

Jesper didn't pretend to know the full extent of Inej's experiences here, but he could infer enough to know that whatever they'd been, they weren't pretty.

There were gasps and stamped feet from beyond the grate in the cell door.

"Inej. . ." Kaz murmured. There was the sound of a hand colliding with someone's face, then a shrill scream, louder and longer than any natural one. One that was sure to grab someone's attention.

It sounded like-

"Inej!" Kaz was at the door now, peering through the bars in the small window. Inej pivoted on one foot, despite the goons trying to drag her one way of another, then grabbed the bars of the door and held tight, until their breaths turned to grunts when they couldn't dislodge her.

"Kaz!" There was an urgency in her face, Jesper noticed, a sort of relief as her eyes roved over Kaz's features almost hungrily, like she couldn't believe he was alive. She might've believed that Pekka wouldn't kill him, but she didn't know for sure.

Kaz reached out and covered the hand Inej had gripping the bars with his own. "Inej, why did you do it?"

"Come to rescue you?" Her voice was light but strained, like she was running on the last few dregs of adrenaline. "Isn't it obvious? You said it yourself." They yanked at her again and she grunted, pain twisting her face. Kaz's knuckles whitened. "It's what we do."

There was another yank, and this time they succeeded: Inej was sent flying back, where she collapsed onto her tailbone and tears ran down her face from the shock of it.

Onlookers jeered, but Inej kept Kaz's gaze, quiet and steady. "We come back for each other," she said, just before they dragged her away.

The tension in Kaz's shoulders drained with every inch of ground she was pulled across. By the time she was out of sight, his posture was slack, his expression lost, but he still clutched the bars with a white-knuckled grip.


Inej stumbled over her own feet again and bit back a cry. She'd already hurt her throat screaming so loudly in an attempt to find Kaz and get his attention; she didn't need to make it worse than it already was.

But she hurt. That conversation had taken everything out of her, and now she was battered and beaten and bruised.

A part of her welcomed the pain; it distracted from the cold of the chains digging into her skin, the heat of the flesh gripping her arms so tightly it hurt more and more each moment, staved off another panic attack. She was already soaked with sweat, her limbs trembling, and the pain was something to focus on. Something to ground her in reality.

Well, that and the information chip currently digging into her breasts.

Oomen had mentioned a deal Pekka had made with the Empire, something the Wraith would deem worthy of investigating. So she would investigate it.

Meaning that when Nina had Force-choked that oddly-refined bounty hunter, the one of ivory and amber, Inej hadn't just scrambled away from Pekka to avoid getting hit.

She'd scrambled away to grab the chip the woman had dropped as she flailed.

It could be nothing. It could be an empty chip. It could be a diary of a torrid romance, for all she knew. It could be anything.

But that woman didn't look like your average grunt or bounty hunter. Her clothes were too high-quality, posture too refined. The way she looked around the room, like a predator stalking its prey. . .

And her eyes had been yellow. An acidic, angry yellow, one that was unnatural for a human to sport. Somewhere, in the depths of her mind, Inej remembered Nina's stories about Sith Lords and Dark Side users, about red lightsabers and eyes like fire. . .

The Gamorrean guard dragging her along tugged on the chain harder, and she almost tripped over her own feet again. She glowered, but allowed herself to be pulled along.


"Why did they wait all night to execute us?" Nina whispered to Jesper as they were both pulled along, Kaz on the other side of him. She winced as he was shoved, and staggered into her; everything ached from her extremely uncomfortable night in Pekka's less-than-hygienic cells, and she hoped there wouldn't be any fighting involved in her imminent death. She wasn't exactly in top shape, and it would be so embarrassing to be killed by something she could have easily avoided.

"I think," Jesper got out through gritted teeth, "they wanted to see if we could lure any other Rebels to our rescue, to root out any other threats to Pekka's pathetic excuse for a life." He grunted as he got a knock to the head for his frankness.

"Did any other Rebels rush to our rescue?" Nina asked carefully. Did Wylan and Matthias stick to the plan? was what went unspoken in the question.

Jesper shook his head. "Not that I've heard, no. Most are too sensible for that." A gentle rejoinder: Have faith in their ability to follow orders.

"You're not," she grumbled. He huffed a quiet laugh at that.

But when they were heralded back into Pekka's throne room, there was no space for laughter. No time for it, either. She felt more than saw the attention of so many different species zero in on her at once; she tried to keep her head high, chin and nose in the air like a queen, but that meant she couldn't quite hide the quick bob of her throat.

They were pushed atop the grate on the floor Nina had noticed earlier, the metal clanging oddly with every stamp of their feet. Then the guards - one of whom had both their lightsabers at his belt, she noted - released them, hands still bound, to back off of it.

All except one.

One of them pressed something into Nina's hand, something hard and warm and rough, then something else, something hard and cold and round. She turned slightly, just to see the guard backing away in her peripheral vision - see the glint of gold hair behind their helmet.

Matthias.

Nina's face tightened into a small grim smile.


Kaz could've talked. He could've shouted at Pekka, pleaded for mercy, hoped against all hope that seeing him brought low would be all the satisfaction the Hutt needed so he would allow the others to walk free.

But he knew better.

Pekka didn't have mercy. He drained the moisture farmers with his 'water tax' until they couldn't harvest enough to make any profit, so they and their families wasted away. He watched smugglers throw themselves against Imperial patrol after Imperial patrol because they feared his wrath more than the Empire's. And he enjoyed it.

Pekka would take the knowledge that Kaz - against all common sense - cared about these people whom he'd seen suffer and die for a righteous but doomed cause, and use it against him. He would torture them; kill them in front of him; made sure their beliefs - that fire he'd spoken of to Inej - were turned on them and crushed to dust and shadows. Then he would rip the information he wanted from Inej before destroying her, too. She already lay in front of him up on the dais, watching them with her lips pressed tightly together.

Those parents she was so sure were still out there, still alive, would never know what had happened to her. Never know that their daughter was a hero.

Kaz wouldn't let that happen.

So he didn't beg.

He just stood there, silent and stoic, while the guard pressed something into Nina's hand, while Jesper's face twitched in anticipation, while Inej fended off her demons with the sense of purpose he could see in the hard line of her jaw.

He trusted them with their own lives, even with their dedication to saving his.

The realisation came slowly, then with more vigour: He trusted them. All of them.

They had a plan. It might (and probably would) fail, but there was a chance for Inej and Jesper, and all the other crazy Rebels who risked their own lives to save him.

All Kaz had to do was wait.


It started with an explosion.

Of course it did: Nina may be of the personal opinion shared by most Jedi that lightsabers were far more elegant weapons than blasters or thermal detonators, but that didn't mean she thought the latter two were useless. She'd found many uses for them over time.

Like terrifying the shit out of Hutts.

It was satisfying, hitting the button and hearing its ticking commence. Everyone in the room instantly tensed, glancing around from side to side, even as Pekka's back straightened - or at least, didn't sag quite so much.

No point in letting it blow before it had served its purpose. She snatched hold of the Force, wrapped it round her binders and broke them, bringing her hands round and holding the detonator up between her forefinger and thumb, for all the room to see. "Looking for this?"

The room stilled.

Something tugged on the detonator; Nina frowned, and clutched it tighter. She felt a ripple through the Force as that something tugged harder, and-

Cold.

The Dark Side. Someone in this room was using the Dark Side.

"I think we all know what this is," she said loudly, mind still whirring. Was an Inquisitor here? She'd met a few of them before, mourned for a few of them before: they had once been padawans in the Jedi Temple with her, before they were caught by the Empire and used as slaves of the Dark Side. It could be one of them. . .

But few of them were as strong as this.

"I have another one here," she continued, lifting her other fist. They was a click beside her as she heard Jesper, after a few minutes of fumbling, unlocked his binders with the Force and made to work on Kaz's. "Unless you let me and my friends go - all of them," she added, watching Inej, "-I'll detonate both of them." Click as Kaz's binders released.

"That's no thermal detonator," a scornful voice cut in. Nina turned her head infinitesimally to see the ivory and amber bounty hunter eyeing the fist she'd only just raised. "It's just a rock."

She wasn't wrong, but Nina couldn't exactly admit that, could she? "It's a thermal detonator," she repeated, voice a little stronger, reaching into the Force and feeling the minds around her. Jedi mind tricks never failed. It's a thermal detonator. . .

"It's a rock," the bounty hunter repeated flatly, a smirk curving her lips.

Okay, sometimes they failed.

But this woman. . . Nina narrowed her eyes. She wasn't just strong-minded. She was strong in the Force.

So this is the Dark Side user, she mused. Ah well, she can't stop us now.

She turned her attention back to Pekka. "Let us go," she reiterated, "or I'll set off them both, and we'll see who survives."

Pekka was already talking in an extended string of Huttese. His protocol droid hobbled forwards then began, in slow Basic, "The great and mighty Pekka says that mind tricks do not work on Hutts, and that just for trying it, Jedi scum, you will now be executed."

Pekka reached for the button at his side. Nina wasn't sure what it would do, but she doubted it would be good things.

So she acted.

In the blink of an eye, she'd flung the rock in her right hand towards Pekka - or, more specifically, his protocol droid. Every eye that wasn't drawn by the throw was drawn by the clang and cry of surprise as it collided with the droid's head and it fell backwards, off the raised dais Pekka sat on.

But Nina didn't spare it a whit of attention more than she had to - half a moment later she'd thrown the (still ticking) thermal detonator to her left, towards the ivory and amber woman. Her eyes blew wide in shock - yellow irises, Nina confirmed grimly - and she reached out a hand with the Force to stop it in midair before it hit her and ripped into her insides with all the fiery vengeance of a wrathful god. It hung there for a moment, motionless.

Then it exploded.

Nina flinched reflexively at the sound, bringing up her hands to deflect flying shrapnel, even moments before the searing heat baked the moisture out of the air and left her gasping for breath. But she was far enough away from the blast that she was unharmed.

The bounty hunter, on the other hand, was quite the opposite.

Nina couldn't feel her in the Force anymore, and she couldn't see her either, though admittedly the mass of charred and smoking bodies left behind after the explosion did make that rather difficult. She hoped she was dead. It would be so much more convenient if she was dead.

But she couldn't focus on that right now.

She couldn't focus on that, because Pekka was no longer distracted, and the floor was disappearing beneath her feet, and oh so that's what that button does. . .

There were yelps beside her as Kaz and Jesper dived off the grate even as it folded beneath them, but she'd been in the centre of it and now she was falling into the pit the grate concealed, and-

A hand caught her wrist.

A familiar grunt. "Matthias?"

"I know you're great and all," he answered, voice muffled by the guard's helmet he wore as a disguise, "but falling into a pit below a crime lord's throne room seems like a bad idea."

"I agree." Her voice was breathless. "You going to help me up?"

"I'm. . . trying. . ." His voice dissolved back into grunts even as there was tugging on her arm. She tried to get a foothold on the side of the pit she was ground up against, but it was slippery and her foot couldn't get a grip; she fell against the wall with a thump, a dull ache blossoming in her shoulder. "You're quite. . . heavy. . ."

"Heavier than that armour?"

"No. But. . . together. . ."

She nodded and shut her mouth. Brought up her other hand, reaching for a handhold, any handhold-

The world shook. "Matthias?"

"I can hold you," he insisted. "Steady. . ."

There was another shake - no, a push. She was dimly aware of a fight going on above - Kaz's anger, Inej's determination, Jesper's relief - and it was battering Matthias, knocking into him, making him lose his-

Another push.

For a moment, Nina felt weightless.

Then they both began to fall.