Cassian Fortis
Character
CASSIAN FORTIS// MYNOCK
DECIMA
LINK // STABLENODE 04.17
The rifle waiting for Cassian at the armoury had a power cell in it.
He noticed that before anything else.
There was nothing especially unusual about being issued a weapon before morning training. Mynock had carried rifles through enough exercises that Cassian could check one almost without looking, and he had already started through the familiar motions when his thumb found the charge indicator. The cell was live. So was the spare clipped beneath it.
Cassian looked down at the rifle for a moment, then across the counter at the armourer. “These ours?”
The armourer had already turned toward the next rack. “Unless you’d prefer to go without one.”
“No. Just checking.” That earned him nothing more than a glance.
Cassian slung the rifle and moved aside for Braize. The Chiss accepted his own without comment, checked the power cell, and paused for roughly the same amount of time Cassian had. “Yeah,” Cassian said when Braize looked over. “That was about my reaction.”
Their orders had arrived after morning muster with none of the usual explanation attached. Surface Access Three at 0730. Cold-weather field kit. Full load. Cassian had assumed there would be more waiting once they arrived. There usually was. A scenario, an objective, somebody with a stopwatch and an unpleasant amount of enthusiasm for making cadets carry things up stairs.
Instead, somebody had handed him a loaded rifle.
By the time Mynock left the armoury, the rest of the squad had noticed too. Rondo checked his weapon twice, which Cassian found mildly reassuring only because Rondo usually treated equipment inspections like a personal insult. Zelle said nothing, but she kept one hand near the sling as they moved through the lower corridors toward Surface Access Three. That was another thing Cassian had never had much reason to think about.
He knew the surface access existed. Everyone did. They appeared on schematics, training diagrams and emergency procedure manuals often enough that Cassian could probably have found one blindfolded if someone had been cruel enough to make that a test. Knowing they existed and actually walking toward one were different experiences altogether.
The corridors changed as they climbed. The scuffed utility plating and exposed maintenance runs of the lower academy levels gradually gave way to cleaner walls, recessed lighting and heavier doors set flush into the bulkheads. The design was older, unmistakably Imperial in a way much of Decima no longer bothered to be. Angular frames, narrow control panels, faded black-and-white hazard markings and the occasional strip of red identification paint gave the upper levels a severity the rest of the facility had worn away over time.
It was better maintained, too.
Braize caught him looking at one of the sealed bulkheads as they passed. “You’re staring.”
“I’m appreciating the architecture.”
“It’s a lot of door.”
The corner of Braize's mouth twitched.
Surface Access Three was already active when they arrived. Cold-weather gear had been laid out across several benches, equipment crates stood open along one wall, and personnel Cassian did not recognize were checking packs, seals and communications units with the kind of attention nobody wasted on academy theatrics. No one raised their voice when Mynock entered. No one commanded the cadets into formation. A quartermaster simply pointed them toward the equipment and told them to get suited up.
Cassian preferred that right up until he started pulling on the cold-weather layers.
The outer garments were heavier than the academy issue and pale enough that the entire squad began to lose whatever individuality their uniforms normally allowed. Gloves, sealed boots, face protection, environmental tabs, extra power cells. By the time Cassian finished adjusting his hood, he felt as though he had put on most of a small vehicle.
Rondo tugged at one sleeve, testing the bulk of the cold-weather layer. “Comfortable.”
“You look comfortable,” Cassian said.
Rondo looked down at himself. “I look enormous.”
Cassian gave him a brief once-over. “That’s not new.” Rondo’s expression flattened, which was probably as close to a victory as Cassian was going to get.
An officer waited until the last of the squad had finished adjusting their gear before stepping in front of them. “Aurek-Six stopped reporting during the previous watch. You’ll proceed to the station, determine the cause of the failure and restore function if possible. Communications discipline will be maintained until you arrive. No unnecessary transmissions. No deviations from the assigned route.”
His eyes moved across the group once. “If you find anything that doesn’t belong there, you report it before you touch it.”
A cadet near the rear raised his voice. “What are conditions like at the station?”
“Cold,” someone else called from farther back.
A few quiet laughs moved through the room.
The officer let them run their course. He did not smile, did not interrupt, and somehow that made the sound die faster than if he had shouted over it. His gaze moved slowly across the assembled cadets, settling on no one in particular.
“If anyone here has reservations about stepping through that door, say so now.”
Silence.
“I’ll find someone who doesn’t.”
He waited another moment. Nobody volunteered.
“Wind is within operational limits. Visibility is acceptable. Your equipment has been rated for the conditions and so have you. Anything beyond that, you deal with when you encounter it.” He tucked the datapad beneath one arm and looked toward the staging doors. “Final equipment checks. Form up at the inner seal in five.”
That was apparently the end of the briefing. Chairs shifted and boots scraped against the deck as the room broke apart around Cassian. Whatever amusement the question about the weather had bought them was gone with it.
Rondo fell into step beside him as the cadets broke toward their equipment. “Still think it’s just a broken sensor?”
Cassian adjusted the sling across his chest. “I think they want us to find out.”
Rondo looked toward the inner seal.
Neither of them said much after that. Around them, conversation had dropped to the practical sort: straps checked, seals questioned, equipment passed from one set of hands to another. Nobody seemed particularly interested in filling the remaining minutes. They were actually going out. Cassian had known that since reading the orders. Knowing it and standing in front of the inner seal turned out to be different things.
The rest of the detail was already forming up when he and Rondo joined them. Technicians worked their way down the line checking environmental seals and tugging at anything that looked even slightly loose. One stopped Cassian long enough to tighten the closure beneath his jaw, gave it a second pull for good measure, then moved on without comment. Cassian resisted the urge to point out that he had managed to dress himself successfully for most of his life. Nobody else seemed inclined to argue with them either.
The rifle felt different here. Cassian had carried one through enough drills and simulations that the weight of it barely registered anymore, but there had always been something reassuringly artificial about training. Someone else knew where the danger started and where it ended. Someone else had decided what could go wrong. Standing in front of the seal, he wasn’t nearly as certain of that anymore.
He had seen Hoth before, technically. Everyone on Decima had. Snowfields appeared in weather reports and survey footage; glaciers filled training material; exterior cameras occasionally produced an image worth looking at for longer than the few seconds required to confirm that, yes, it was still cold outside. He knew what waited on the other side in much the same way he knew what a reactor core looked like: from a screen.
Braize took his place beside him and ran a gloved hand once over the seal at his wrist. Cassian glanced toward him, but neither of them said anything. The Chiss checked the seal once more and looked ahead as machinery engaged somewhere beyond the bulkhead. Cassian felt it through his boots first. A low vibration moved through the deck as mechanisms he had never given much thought to began to work. Locks disengaged in sequence, each one heavy enough to be felt more than heard, and the warning strips around the chamber shifted from red to amber. The ventilation changed with them, settling into a lower mechanical hum.
Conversation gradually fell away as the inner seal started shut behind them. Cassian looked back at the sound, more out of habit than anything else, and watched the gap narrow until Decima disappeared behind two slabs of metal. It was strange knowing that everyone and everything familiar from that morning was now on the other side of a sealed door, while the only way left to go was out. Cassian turned back toward the outer seal. Braize stood beside him, looking at it too.
“You good?” Cassian asked quietly.
The Chiss glanced over. “Are you?”
Cassian thought about that for a second. “Ask me in five minutes.”
Braize gave the faintest hint of a smile, then looked forward again. A moment later, the outer doors began to open.
Cold reached them before the opening was wide enough to see through. It came in hard and immediate, rolling across the chamber floor with enough force to tug at hoods and rifle slings while powdered snow raced over the deck in pale streaks. The cold pressed hard against the outer layers of Cassian’s suit, gooseflesh stippling his arms beneath the heavy layers.
All the attention the technicians had paid to their gear became instantly appreciated as the opening widened and Hoth came into view. Snow swept past the threshold in long, low sheets, drawing his gaze toward distant ridges of ice and dark rock. There was no ceiling above them, no wall waiting at the edge of his vision, nothing close enough to make the space feel contained. Cassian barely noticed the rifle hanging across his chest anymore. His gaze kept climbing, past the horizon and into an open sky that seemed to go on far longer than it had any right to.
Beside him, Braize had tipped his head back slightly and was staring at much the same thing. Cassian watched him for a moment before looking up again. “That’s excessive.”
Braize glanced at him. “The sky?”
“All of it.”
An order carried back from the front of the detail and the first files began moving. Cassian pulled his hood tighter and settled the rifle more comfortably against his chest as he followed them toward the threshold. The wind grew louder with every step, swallowing the mechanical hum of the airlock until there was little left but the rush of it around them.
His first step beyond Decima sank deeper into the snow than he expected, enough that he had to catch himself before his balance went with it. Cassian glanced down at the impression his boot had left, then lifted his eyes toward the white stretching ahead. The rest of Mynock Squad was already moving, and he fell in with them, adjusting the rifle against his chest as the wind swept across the open ground. Somewhere behind them, the outer doors of Decima began to close.
By the time Cassian noticed the sound had stopped, there was only the wind and the soft crunch of boots in the snow.
He noticed that before anything else.
There was nothing especially unusual about being issued a weapon before morning training. Mynock had carried rifles through enough exercises that Cassian could check one almost without looking, and he had already started through the familiar motions when his thumb found the charge indicator. The cell was live. So was the spare clipped beneath it.
Cassian looked down at the rifle for a moment, then across the counter at the armourer. “These ours?”
The armourer had already turned toward the next rack. “Unless you’d prefer to go without one.”
“No. Just checking.” That earned him nothing more than a glance.
Cassian slung the rifle and moved aside for Braize. The Chiss accepted his own without comment, checked the power cell, and paused for roughly the same amount of time Cassian had. “Yeah,” Cassian said when Braize looked over. “That was about my reaction.”
Their orders had arrived after morning muster with none of the usual explanation attached. Surface Access Three at 0730. Cold-weather field kit. Full load. Cassian had assumed there would be more waiting once they arrived. There usually was. A scenario, an objective, somebody with a stopwatch and an unpleasant amount of enthusiasm for making cadets carry things up stairs.
Instead, somebody had handed him a loaded rifle.
By the time Mynock left the armoury, the rest of the squad had noticed too. Rondo checked his weapon twice, which Cassian found mildly reassuring only because Rondo usually treated equipment inspections like a personal insult. Zelle said nothing, but she kept one hand near the sling as they moved through the lower corridors toward Surface Access Three. That was another thing Cassian had never had much reason to think about.
He knew the surface access existed. Everyone did. They appeared on schematics, training diagrams and emergency procedure manuals often enough that Cassian could probably have found one blindfolded if someone had been cruel enough to make that a test. Knowing they existed and actually walking toward one were different experiences altogether.
The corridors changed as they climbed. The scuffed utility plating and exposed maintenance runs of the lower academy levels gradually gave way to cleaner walls, recessed lighting and heavier doors set flush into the bulkheads. The design was older, unmistakably Imperial in a way much of Decima no longer bothered to be. Angular frames, narrow control panels, faded black-and-white hazard markings and the occasional strip of red identification paint gave the upper levels a severity the rest of the facility had worn away over time.
It was better maintained, too.
Braize caught him looking at one of the sealed bulkheads as they passed. “You’re staring.”
“I’m appreciating the architecture.”
“It’s a lot of door.”
The corner of Braize's mouth twitched.
Surface Access Three was already active when they arrived. Cold-weather gear had been laid out across several benches, equipment crates stood open along one wall, and personnel Cassian did not recognize were checking packs, seals and communications units with the kind of attention nobody wasted on academy theatrics. No one raised their voice when Mynock entered. No one commanded the cadets into formation. A quartermaster simply pointed them toward the equipment and told them to get suited up.
Cassian preferred that right up until he started pulling on the cold-weather layers.
The outer garments were heavier than the academy issue and pale enough that the entire squad began to lose whatever individuality their uniforms normally allowed. Gloves, sealed boots, face protection, environmental tabs, extra power cells. By the time Cassian finished adjusting his hood, he felt as though he had put on most of a small vehicle.
Rondo tugged at one sleeve, testing the bulk of the cold-weather layer. “Comfortable.”
“You look comfortable,” Cassian said.
Rondo looked down at himself. “I look enormous.”
Cassian gave him a brief once-over. “That’s not new.” Rondo’s expression flattened, which was probably as close to a victory as Cassian was going to get.
An officer waited until the last of the squad had finished adjusting their gear before stepping in front of them. “Aurek-Six stopped reporting during the previous watch. You’ll proceed to the station, determine the cause of the failure and restore function if possible. Communications discipline will be maintained until you arrive. No unnecessary transmissions. No deviations from the assigned route.”
His eyes moved across the group once. “If you find anything that doesn’t belong there, you report it before you touch it.”
A cadet near the rear raised his voice. “What are conditions like at the station?”
“Cold,” someone else called from farther back.
A few quiet laughs moved through the room.
The officer let them run their course. He did not smile, did not interrupt, and somehow that made the sound die faster than if he had shouted over it. His gaze moved slowly across the assembled cadets, settling on no one in particular.
“If anyone here has reservations about stepping through that door, say so now.”
Silence.
“I’ll find someone who doesn’t.”
He waited another moment. Nobody volunteered.
“Wind is within operational limits. Visibility is acceptable. Your equipment has been rated for the conditions and so have you. Anything beyond that, you deal with when you encounter it.” He tucked the datapad beneath one arm and looked toward the staging doors. “Final equipment checks. Form up at the inner seal in five.”
That was apparently the end of the briefing. Chairs shifted and boots scraped against the deck as the room broke apart around Cassian. Whatever amusement the question about the weather had bought them was gone with it.
Rondo fell into step beside him as the cadets broke toward their equipment. “Still think it’s just a broken sensor?”
Cassian adjusted the sling across his chest. “I think they want us to find out.”
Rondo looked toward the inner seal.
Neither of them said much after that. Around them, conversation had dropped to the practical sort: straps checked, seals questioned, equipment passed from one set of hands to another. Nobody seemed particularly interested in filling the remaining minutes. They were actually going out. Cassian had known that since reading the orders. Knowing it and standing in front of the inner seal turned out to be different things.
The rest of the detail was already forming up when he and Rondo joined them. Technicians worked their way down the line checking environmental seals and tugging at anything that looked even slightly loose. One stopped Cassian long enough to tighten the closure beneath his jaw, gave it a second pull for good measure, then moved on without comment. Cassian resisted the urge to point out that he had managed to dress himself successfully for most of his life. Nobody else seemed inclined to argue with them either.
The rifle felt different here. Cassian had carried one through enough drills and simulations that the weight of it barely registered anymore, but there had always been something reassuringly artificial about training. Someone else knew where the danger started and where it ended. Someone else had decided what could go wrong. Standing in front of the seal, he wasn’t nearly as certain of that anymore.
He had seen Hoth before, technically. Everyone on Decima had. Snowfields appeared in weather reports and survey footage; glaciers filled training material; exterior cameras occasionally produced an image worth looking at for longer than the few seconds required to confirm that, yes, it was still cold outside. He knew what waited on the other side in much the same way he knew what a reactor core looked like: from a screen.
Braize took his place beside him and ran a gloved hand once over the seal at his wrist. Cassian glanced toward him, but neither of them said anything. The Chiss checked the seal once more and looked ahead as machinery engaged somewhere beyond the bulkhead. Cassian felt it through his boots first. A low vibration moved through the deck as mechanisms he had never given much thought to began to work. Locks disengaged in sequence, each one heavy enough to be felt more than heard, and the warning strips around the chamber shifted from red to amber. The ventilation changed with them, settling into a lower mechanical hum.
Conversation gradually fell away as the inner seal started shut behind them. Cassian looked back at the sound, more out of habit than anything else, and watched the gap narrow until Decima disappeared behind two slabs of metal. It was strange knowing that everyone and everything familiar from that morning was now on the other side of a sealed door, while the only way left to go was out. Cassian turned back toward the outer seal. Braize stood beside him, looking at it too.
“You good?” Cassian asked quietly.
The Chiss glanced over. “Are you?”
Cassian thought about that for a second. “Ask me in five minutes.”
Braize gave the faintest hint of a smile, then looked forward again. A moment later, the outer doors began to open.
Cold reached them before the opening was wide enough to see through. It came in hard and immediate, rolling across the chamber floor with enough force to tug at hoods and rifle slings while powdered snow raced over the deck in pale streaks. The cold pressed hard against the outer layers of Cassian’s suit, gooseflesh stippling his arms beneath the heavy layers.
All the attention the technicians had paid to their gear became instantly appreciated as the opening widened and Hoth came into view. Snow swept past the threshold in long, low sheets, drawing his gaze toward distant ridges of ice and dark rock. There was no ceiling above them, no wall waiting at the edge of his vision, nothing close enough to make the space feel contained. Cassian barely noticed the rifle hanging across his chest anymore. His gaze kept climbing, past the horizon and into an open sky that seemed to go on far longer than it had any right to.
Beside him, Braize had tipped his head back slightly and was staring at much the same thing. Cassian watched him for a moment before looking up again. “That’s excessive.”
Braize glanced at him. “The sky?”
“All of it.”
An order carried back from the front of the detail and the first files began moving. Cassian pulled his hood tighter and settled the rifle more comfortably against his chest as he followed them toward the threshold. The wind grew louder with every step, swallowing the mechanical hum of the airlock until there was little left but the rush of it around them.
His first step beyond Decima sank deeper into the snow than he expected, enough that he had to catch himself before his balance went with it. Cassian glanced down at the impression his boot had left, then lifted his eyes toward the white stretching ahead. The rest of Mynock Squad was already moving, and he fell in with them, adjusting the rifle against his chest as the wind swept across the open ground. Somewhere behind them, the outer doors of Decima began to close.
By the time Cassian noticed the sound had stopped, there was only the wind and the soft crunch of boots in the snow.