Chapter Text
It hadn't been his intention to crash the ship.
Cassian would've very much liked to make it all the way back to Yavin. But the Imperial ship he had stolen took some bad hits when he escaped, and the damage was severe enough to force him to make an emergency landing on the first planet he came up on.
And it wasn’t a pretty landing. He was lucky to not sustain any major injuries.
The planet, Cassian observed as he climbed out, was forest-dominated. That also meant the air was breathable. Luck was favoring him after all then.
Or not, he decided as he realized none of his comms worked.
Cassian sighed. He would have to look around and see if this planet had any inhabitants. Hopefully there was. Acquiring a new ship was his only way of getting out of here.
He armed himself with a blaster and ventured outside. With so many trees everywhere, it was impossible to see very far. The lack of visibility had him on high alert, scanning his surroundings with care.
Yet he still found himself at the wrong end of a blaster soon enough.
“Who are you?” asked the man holding the weapon.
He was no Imperial – that Cassian could deduce by his appearance. The man was dressed in ragged, forest-colored clothes, and held his blaster like an amateur.
Still, Cassian deemed it best to raise his hands in surrender. “I crashed my ship,” he explained while slowly approaching the man. “Could you help me?”
“I asked who are you.”
Cassian didn’t want to give his real name away. “My name is Kiran,” he said, making it up as he went. “I mean no harm.”
The man with the blaster seemed to hesitate. Another figure emerged from the woods behind him – a woman in similar attire.
“Look at that uniform,” she said to the man. “He’s an Imperial officer.”
Oh, right, the disguise.
The man looked at his companion. “You mean he could be valuable?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” the woman chuckled. “We can fetch a high price for an officer. If the Empire won’t pay, we’ll sell him to the rebels.”
Cassian contemplated revealing himself, but soon decided against it. There was no guarantee these people would react positively to him being a member of the Rebellion. They would probably be even more eager to sell him to the highest bidder.
“So we take him?” confirmed the man.
Getting kidnapped wasn’t something Cassian was keen on. He didn’t have time for such banthashit.
“We take him.”
Cassian whipped out his own weapon and fired. Surprisingly, the man dodged. But Cassian didn’t know that then as he was already running.
He looked back to see if he was followed. He wasn’t, which was incredibly suspicious. It probably meant those two weren’t the only ones here. They were counting on a colleague of theirs to catch him.
But Cassian didn’t piece all that together quick enough. A blaster fired from the woods, and the last thing Cassian felt was the oddly familiar buzz of a stun blast.
When he came to, the first thing he noticed was the press of cold metal against his cheek. He slowly pried his eyes open.
He’d been propped up against the wall of an old ship, of which only a damaged hull was left.
“Finally awake?”
Cassian turned his head and tried to sit up properly. His eyes met those of the woman he’d met earlier. “Who are you?” he asked.
“Nobody,” she replied, shrugging. “Me and my friends are just trying to survive. It’s been tough ever since you Imperials began your mining operations here.” There was venom in her voice.
“What mining operations?” asked Cassian. He wanted to get as much information about these people as possible. Perhaps he could still talk his way out of this.
“Don’t play dumb,” spat the woman. “You have enough of those pins on your jacket to know about the operation.”
His disguise was of a high-ranking officer indeed. But he hadn’t spent enough time undercover to hear about any mining operation. Neither had such things been his interest. He’d been looking for the blueprints of a Star Destroyer.
“That kind of stuff is not my area,” he said, keeping up his role.
But then something clicked. These people clearly didn’t like whatever the Empire was doing on their planet. Keeping his real identity secret was starting to sound like worse idea than revealing himself.
The woman huffed. “Very well. Do you want to know what your dear comrades are doing here? What they’re doing to my people?”
Yes, very much.
But Cassian simply nodded instead of speaking those thoughts out loud.
The woman took a breath before she began. “Two months ago, your people came down here without warning. They issued an evacuation order in the capital. If it wasn’t adhered to, troopers came and forced you out.”
It wasn’t the first time Cassian was hearing something like this.
“Hundreds of thousands of us were forced out of our homes,” the woman continued. “We had nowhere else to go. The Empire didn’t provide us with beds to sleep in. And we can’t go back either, now or ever. They’ve torn the city apart to drill into the ground.”
Her voice was dripping with hatred now. These were recent events, and the emotions clearly hadn’t died down yet. Cassian realized this wreck was probably where the woman and her friends lived now.
“We are scattered,” said the woman, a bit more calmly. “Some of us have regrouped to fight back – to give them any trouble we can. But it’s not enough. We are too few.”
A hint of sadness was present for those last words. But after a moment, the woman snapped back to frustration. “Why did I tell you that?” she grunted. “It’s not like you care, and now I’m not even sure we can sell you back to the Empire. You know too much.”
She pulled out her blaster. “I think killing you and hanging you on the city wall is a better option now”, she spoke as she aimed it at Cassian. “We’ll make an example out of you.”
It was now or never.
“Wait,” said Cassian. “I’m not who you think I am.”
“You’re an Imperial,” the woman spat. “That’s all that matters.”
“I’m not an Imperial,” Cassian assured. “This uniform isn’t mine. It’s a disguise. I’m with the Rebellion.”
The woman raised a brow. “Oh? And why should I believe you? Anyone could say that.”
Before Cassian could reply, the other person, the man, from earlier walked in. He jumped to grab the blaster from the woman.
“What are you doing?” he hissed. “He’s useless to us dead!”
The woman broke free but lowered her weapon. Instead of admitting to pouring her own heart out to a prisoner and revealing their secrets, she said, “He’s saying he’s a rebel spy.”
The man looked at Cassian, then back at his friend. “He’s in Imperial uniform,” he pointed out. “And he landed on an Imperial ship.”
“It’s a disguise,” Cassian explained. “I was undercover for the Rebellion.”
“Well, whoever he is, he’s more valuable to us alive,” the man said without looking back to Cassian. “How about we take him to the Rebellion and demand a price for him? If he’s one of them, they’ll want him back. If he’s an Imperial, they’ll probably want him for information.”
The woman pondered the suggestion for a moment, but soon nodded. “Good idea. I don’t feel comfortable handing him over to the Empire after he’s seen us.”
“Alright then,” said the man. “We take him to the rebels.”
Cassian said no more. Apparently, he was getting a free ride back home.
The woman approached him again, walking past her friend. She raised her blaster at him again and fired.
The world went black for Cassian once more.