Private The Ghost War | RIS

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade

Republic Intelligence Headquarters – West Moenia, Naboo
Local Time: 2318 Hours​

The archives chamber's hum, steady, low, was the only constant in Cassian Abrantes' world at that hour. Everything else shifted beneath his feet.

A dozen holo-displays floated in a loose constellation around him, their pale blue light carving stark lines across his face. Names. Timelines. Movement logs. Financial transfers are often buried under a complex web of accounts. Every new document he pulled only deepened the pit in his stomach.

Graham Deras.

The name glared from the central display, bold, sharp, a ghost refusing to fade. Nar Shaddaa's birth records, corrupt as ever, showed half a dozen conflicting filings under the same genetic sig. Meanwhile, Arbra corporate registries listed him as an investor in salvage yards, pharmaceutical labs, a starship refit conglomerate, and mining operations. Yet somehow he kept certain monetary values off the books, and more importantly,

But none of that mattered as much as the folder Cassian had opened last. Not now.

CONFESSION STATEMENTS – CLASS 1 RESTRICTED.
Agent Jorell Endin. Agent Lysa Paro. Agent Dent Jarrick.

Each had said the same thing in different words.

Deras funded them. Deras directed them. Deras promised protection. Deras knew details only someone inside Intelligence should have known.

Cassian exhaled slowly, rubbing his jaw as he leaned back. Raised to see truth clearly, to trust patterns, no matter how ugly, but this pattern felt too clean. Too precise.

Someone wasn't just leaking. Someone was feeding Deras. He tapped the central control screen on the datapad. A Nar Shaddaa holo-map snapped into focus, vertical spires, gang territories, Black Sun routes pulsating like arteries. Deras had a penthouse in that neon labyrinth, but his power ran through connections from Hutt space to Mid Rim front companies.

Arbra holdings. Nar Shaddaa's birth. Black Sun ties. Possible Republic Intelligence breaches.

Cassian's brow tightened. This wasn't a simple corruption case. This wasn't a rogue agent acting on personal greed. This was an infiltration.

A soft tone sounded at the archives chamber doorway. Cassian didn't turn; he recognized those steps.

 

[Shade]

Shade stepped into the archives like a shadow crossing the threshold—silent, unhurried, her presence steady enough to calm a battlefield. But the moment her gaze lifted to the floating holoscreens around Cassian, something in her posture changed.

Just slightly.
Just enough for him to see—because he knew her now.

Her eyes moved from document to document, analyzing without needing to be asked, until one name hit her like a shot to the spine.

GRAHAM DERAS.

Shade stopped moving.

Her breath caught so softly it barely stirred the air, but Cassian would feel it more than hear it. A flicker—shock first, sharp and unguarded. Then something colder, deeper, sliding beneath her skin.

Fear. Real. Immediate. Gone in a heartbeat.

She took one step closer, crimson eyes locked on the projection as if she were staring it down, hoping it would lie. When she finally spoke, her voice was quieter than usual—lower, tighter, the edge of composure pulled taut.

"I know that name."

Another step. Her expression, controlled again—but he could see the tension in the line of her shoulders.

She turned her head toward him, the words forming with the painful deliberateness of truth long hidden. "He's the one who hired me." A beat. "…To capture you." She didn't look away.

Shade wasn't ashamed—she didn't do shame. But she was bracing, preparing for him to pull back, to question, to doubt. Her fingers curled once at her side, the only betrayal of nerves she allowed.

Then, with the faintest exhale—half humor, half resignation—she added: "I suppose we should…thank him."

Her mouth curved—small, subtle, but unmistakably a smile.
Dry.
Razor-thin.
Her brand of humor.

"Without him, we wouldn't have…ended up where we are."

She let that linger in the quiet air between them.

Her gaze softened then—just for him—though the tension still lived behind her eyes.

"Cassian…this isn't coincidence. If Deras is involved here, too?" A steadying breath. "We're already in the middle of something far bigger."

She moved closer to the console, her hand brushing his—not by accident. Together. Whatever this was.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian didn't flinch.

Pulling back didn't happen.

Nor did he break the contact of her hand as it brushed his.

But the stillness that overtook him was different, deeper, heavier. A subtle shift of a man reordering a thousand thoughts while trying to keep his breathing steady.

His eyes stayed on her, searching, not accusing or angry, just trying to grasp the truth she had exposed.

"Shade," he said quietly, the word landing soft in the dim, humming archive. "You knew his name. And you didn't....."

There was no edge. No command colored his words. Just a quiet, raw bewilderment in his voice, he rarely let it show.

He stepped closer, the holoscreens' glow softening across them. He didn't drop her gaze or let the moment stiffen into suspicion, but a crease formed, a genuine confusion deeper than any case file. There was much truth in her words, they would've never met otherwise. Perhaps it was fate, that he was able to persuade her from her task. But that still didn't answer his question....

"You could've told me," he murmured. "Before all this."

The rest of that sentence hung there, unspoken but very real.

His thumb grazed the side of her hand, grounding himself as much as grounding her.

"So why didn't you?"

 

[Shade]

Shade's breath stuttered once—sharp, faint—but she caught it before it could turn into anything visible. Her heart spiked under his thumb, that single betraying beat of shock, but the next few breaths came steady, deliberate, the way she trained herself to respond when the world tilted under her feet. For a moment, she stood there beside him in the dim archives, the blue glow of the screens carving shadows along her cheekbones as she weighed the implications. Suspect. Threat. Leak. None of it fit, not with where they stood, not with his hand still almost touching hers. The thought burned through her and was extinguished just as fast.

"For a second," she admitted quietly, her voice low but controlled, "I wondered if you thought I was a suspect." Her eyes flicked to his—sharp, assessing—but she didn't withdraw. If anything, she anchored her feet more firmly, choosing presence over retreat. "But if that were true, I wouldn't be standing here beside you." Her tone stayed even, almost pragmatic, even as something quieter hummed beneath it. "I wouldn't be touching you. I'd be cuffed, disarmed, and answering questions under bright lights." A breath eased out of her then—measured, almost wry but not quite—before her gaze returned to the name floating on the holoscreen.

Her fingers brushed his again, intentional this time, grounding herself as much as him. "You want to know why I didn't tell you?" she said, the words heavier than her tone allowed. She didn't look away—Shade never looked away from the truth once she chose to speak it. "Honor, Cassian." The word landed between them like a weight, steady and unembellished. She drew in a quiet breath, her expression shifting with something more internal. "I took that job long before I ever knew you—not you now, not the man you showed me later." Her voice deepened slightly, the past threading itself through her tone. "Before Bastion. Before the festival. Before that night when things changed, when you became… more than a target walking through a crowd."

Shade's shoulders eased minutely, not in weakness but in truth finely spoken. "By the time I realized who you were—truly were—what you stood for, what you carried on your back…" Her jaw tightened with a quiet resolve. "I wanted nothing to do with the man who hired me." She glanced at his hand again, the way their fingers nearly laced despite the weight of what she was admitting. The movement was slight but honest. "But we were nothing then. Not yet." The admission wasn't defensive—just factual. "You were someone I had met twice. A mission I had already chosen to walk away from. Telling you would've only created complications you didn't deserve—and complications I hadn't earned the right to give you."

Her voice softened, not in volume but in intention. The guard she usually wore slipped down one notch. "I didn't choose you until Bastion." The memory lingered behind her eyes for a heartbeat: the lanterns, the festival lights, the quiet conversation that shifted something permanent inside her. She exhaled, controlled but real. "And once I did… I wasn't hiding this from you. I was trying to leave a bad decision where it belonged—in the past."

Finally, Shade lifted her chin, her expression steady and unflinching as she met his gaze fully.

"That's why, Cassian."

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade
​

Cassian listened without interrupting, not even in the small ways he usually did, not with a shift of posture or the tightening of his jaw. He simply stood there, taking in every word she gave him, every truth she laid out in pieces sharp enough to cut. The holoscreens hummed softly above them, washing their faces in blue light, but nothing in the room felt cold.

Not with her hand brushing his. Not with the weight of her explanation settling between them.

At the word honor, Cassian's expression changed, almost imperceptibly, but enough. His breath eased out, long and slow, some tension unwinding in his shoulders as if that one truth had reached something inside him he hadn't expected it to.

"Honor, I get that more than anyone can understand. Honor is what has gotten me where I am. But it also got me two near-death experiences, just because of it. Honor is a good thing, but it forces you to play by the rules. While others get by, with being cowards, liars, predators."

He let that truth settle, squeezing her hand and grounding it between them.

But the rest of what she said, the reason she'd kept silent, still circled in his mind, stirring a vulnerability he rarely showed.

"You walked away from the job," he murmured. "From him. Before you knew what we'd become."

His brows drew together, an ache of understanding, not anger.

"You thought telling me would only make things harder." A quiet breath. "And you didn't think you'd earned the right to put that weight on me."

He studied her, really studied her, the woman who had been sent to hunt him, who instead had chosen the path that led her here, to his side, hand in his.

"Shade… I'm not upset." His voice softened, a rare gentleness threading through it.


He exhaled, letting the truth settle fully. "It matters. And it matters that you're telling me now, so thank you."

Cassian took a deep breath as his tone turned more serious than it had just been. He gave her hand a gentle squeeze before he let it go. He leaned back against the table with his arms crossed. He had to be truthful and as transparent as ever.

"Is there anything, anything else I need to know?" What was just said hadn't shattered his trust; she had it. But now, there was a sense of caution. "Anything at all, because I won't ask again," Cassian said with a small smile. But she would know it; she would have too. If something was discovered down the road and it posed a threat to his life or the Republic Intelligence Service.

He would do what he had to do. For the good of the High Republic

And for his honor.

 

[Shade]

Shade didn't shy from the question. She had never feared truth—only the consequences of speaking it too soon. But here, with him, consequences felt simpler. The holo-displays washed the room in cold blue light, yet her voice when it came was anything but cold.

She took a slow breath, steadying her thoughts before she spoke. "Yes. There are things you should know."

Her posture remained composed as she continued, her words deliberate and unhurried. "Before you and I were…This. I took a job on Denon. The client was a man named Black." She didn't soften the name; it did not deserve gentleness. "He tried to recruit me. Offered credits, influence, a long-term role in whatever network he's building."

A quiet, controlled shake of her head. "I told him I would think about it. I never accepted."

The next breath she drew was different—calmer, more certain. "I won't accept. Not now. Not ever."

There was no ambiguity left in her voice. Whatever that crossroads had once been, it no longer existed.

She let the thought settle before moving on. "I also took a small job with a smuggler—Amos. Simple retrieval. No politics. No ties to the Republic, or to you." A faint, fleeting curve at the corner of her mouth. "Loud man, decent pilot. Nothing more than a paycheck."

Her arms unfolded then, her stance opening slightly, the distance between them no longer defensive—simply honest.

"None of this compromises us. Or the work we do. And it does not touch you."

She stepped closer, enough that the glow of his holos washed across her features, sharpening the sincerity in her eyes. Then she gave him the truth that mattered most.

"Cassian… you don't need to worry where my loyalties fall." A beat. A quiet, steady breath. "Not anymore."

There was no hesitation. No doubt. Just her—all of her—choosing him with the same deliberate certainty she brought to every mission, every decision, every risk she had ever taken.

"That's everything. You know it all."

She didn't look away. She let him see the truth exactly as she meant it.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian went very still, not with suspicion, but with the quiet, gentle stillness he reserved only for her. His hand tightened just slightly around hers, grounding himself as the impact of her words settled over him.

Black.

Amos

Recruitment attempts.

Offers she had walked away from.

He absorbed every word. His brow knit in concern, lips tightening in calculation, a protective glint softening his eyes. But his gaze never hardened toward her, not even for a heartbeat. When she finished, standing before him with nothing held back, Cassian stepped closer, his free hand curling around her waist and pulling her in. His other hand caressed her cheek.

"Shade…" His voice was low, steady, threaded with more than puzzlement. "You told me all of that by choice, without being pressed. People hiding things don't do that."

He searched her eyes, not for lies, but for the weight she'd carried alone. "You worried I'd look at you differently." His voice softened. "But Shade, I know your world, the choices it forces, and who you are now."

He let that truth sit between them, solid and unyielding. "None of what you said makes me doubt you. Not your loyalty. Not your judgment. And certainly not us."

His thumb grazed her cheekbone, then lowered, fingers intertwining with hers.

"You walked away from every one of those offers," he said quietly. "Before you owed me anything. Before we had anything worth protecting."

He drew a slow, steady, profound breath.

"That tells me more about your loyalty than any oath or report ever could."

For a moment, he simply held her hand, his pulse steadying against hers. The silence turned warm, not heavy.

"Thank you," he added, soft, earnest, and meant only for her. "For trusting me with all of it."

 

[Shade]

Shade held his gaze longer than she intended, caught in the quiet strength of it, the way he didn't recoil or reassess her as a threat even after everything she had confessed. The blue glow of the holoscreens brushed across his features, and for a moment she studied him—this man she had been sent to hunt, this man who now stood before her with his hand warm at her waist and not a flicker of doubt in his eyes. She felt the stabilization in her heartbeat, the familiar discipline easing into place. Still, beneath it, there was something new, something she had not allowed herself to feel since long before exile. It was unsettling. It was grounding. It was… welcome.

She drew a controlled breath and spoke softly, her tone even and precise, but with a sincerity she rarely allowed anyone to hear. "You say you understand my world, Cassian… but you do not." There was no edge in the words—just truth. Her fingers shifted slightly against his, the gesture small but telling. "You are human. I am Chiss. Our lives were shaped in a different gravity. What you call oath or loyalty…I call it survival. What you call honor…I learned on a blade's edge before I could speak it."

Her eyes dipped briefly, not in shame but in the careful gathering of old ghosts. "And still—you accept me. Not for what I should be, or what my people once demanded, but for who I am now. I did not expect that from anyone. Not again." She let the words settle, her breath softening in the space between them. Vulnerability was not something she offered often. Cassian had earned every fragment of it.

When she looked at him again, there was a question in her—quiet, honest, stripped of the armor she wore for anyone else.
"When you tried to recruit me… what did you see?" Her voice didn't break, but there was something restrained beneath it, something she held in careful balance. "I carried a job meant to end you probably. I had every reason to keep you at a distance. And yet you looked at me as if I were more than the sum of those orders. As if I were someone worth pulling into something better."

Shade's hand tightened around his slightly, the faintest tether drawing her closer until their foreheads nearly touched. "And now we are standing here…after a mission that should have made us enemies, after choices I never imagined I would make again. This…" She breathed out slowly, the word quieter than the room. "This was not something I ever thought would return to my life."

She let her eyes linger on his, a rare softness flickering there, subtle but unmistakable. "But I told you everything because you asked—and because you are someone I trust to hold the truth without breaking it."

Her thumb brushed once along his knuckles, deliberate and sure, the final unspoken truth settling between them like an oath she didn't need to say aloud.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian didn't look away, not when she stepped closer, nor when her voice dipped into truths carved from a harsher life, nor when she spoke of blades, exile, survival, and honor burned into her bones. He held her gaze as though he could steady every ghost behind it. His hand rose slowly, deliberately, settling on her waist with the certainty that answered the unspoken question: he wasn't going anywhere.

When her forehead hovered near his, he exhaled, a breath unsteady because her words struck deeper than expected.

"Shade," he murmured, voice low and unguarded, "I'll never fully understand your world, how you lived it or how it shaped you."

His fingers tightened at her waist, not forcefully, just grounding. Honest.

"I don't need every detail to know what stands before me. You survived what most can't. You rebuilt in darkness. And you still choose truth, loyalty, and a future you never had to want."

He let their foreheads touch, his breath brushing hers in the narrow space between them. Her question lingered between them, soft yet sharp as her honesty. Cassian let the answer slip out, all his practiced armor falling away as he met her gaze, the openness in him now mirroring the risk she had taken.

"I saw someone who could have killed me if she wanted to." A faint, almost smile touched his voice, the kind meant only for her. "But didn't."

He drew back just enough to look directly into her eyes, deep red meeting emerald green of his.

"I saw discipline sharper than any agent. Someone who missed nothing, read a room in seconds, read me faster. Strength beyond the physical. Someone who didn't belong in the shadows,"

Then, softer, his voice threading into something she and only she had ever heard from him. "I saw someone worth believing in."

His words landed between them with the quiet weight of truth, real, not dramatic or embellished. "You weren't a threat, Shade," he said softly. "Not then. You were potential, a future I wanted beside me."

He leaned closer, their hands woven together, neither of them questioning their closeness anymore.

"And now?" His forehead rested against hers, steady as his pulse.

"Now I see the woman who chose me. Who trusts me enough to give me her truth without flinching. That means more than any allegiance or report."

His voice lowered, intimate and certain.

"What we have… I never expected it either. But I'm not letting it go." Their breath mingled softly between them.

"And you're right," he added, barely above a whisper. "You told me because you trust me. And I'm going to hold that truth the way it deserves to be held."

His fingers tightened around hers as he leaned in and kissed her deeply. Unlike when they were in the Lake Country, it was different from their first. A sweet, genuine affection that she deserved, more than she would ever know.

 

[Shade]

"You say you saw someone worth believing in," she murmured, her breath brushing his lips like the faintest whisper of heat between them. Shade didn't move away, didn't create space; instead, she held the line as if withdrawing even a fraction would turn honesty into weakness. Her gaze steadied on him, sharp and unwavering, even as her voice softened. "Do you know what I saw?"

She stayed close—close enough that he could feel the subtle tremor she kept carefully locked beneath her control, close enough that he could sense the tension coiling in her spine as she stepped fully into vulnerability rather than away from it. Nothing about her posture wavered, but the truth she offered did. It was the quiet tremble of someone who never allowed themselves the luxury of being seen.

"A man who should have been a threat to me." Her thumb brushed once across his knuckles, a slow, unintentional gesture that carried more trust than any oath she could speak aloud. "Republic Intelligence. Discipline. Power. Access. Every reason to keep me at arm's length." The admission hung heavy, tempered by something far more personal. Her walls hadn't just been high—they had been necessary. And yet he'd stepped through them without force, without arrogance, without fear.

Her gaze lowered for a brief moment, lashes dipping as memory flickered warm and sharp behind her eyes. It wasn't shame or regret; it was the weight of realizing that someone had once looked past the weapon to the woman, and she hadn't known how to accept it.

"But you didn't treat me like a tool. Or a weapon." Her voice lowered, growing steadier as she continued."You spoke to me like I was a person first. You watched me—not with fear, not with superiority, but with…clarity."

Shade's breath slipped out, long and controlled, the exhale that came when a truth had finally found its form. It wasn't nerves—Shade did not get nervous—but the quiet release of someone finally giving voice to something long-silent.

"You saw what I could be before I did." Her tone carried neither pride nor discomfort—only truth. "That was new. No one has ever tried to recruit me for anything except what I'm capable of killing."

Her fingers slid from his hand to his wrist, tracing the strong, steady pulse beneath his skin. She held it gently, as though grounding both of them in the same breath, feeling the surety of him, the steadiness he had offered her long before either of them had dared name what this was.

"And when I was sent to take you…" Her voice dipped, quieting with memory as she shook her head. "…you didn't see a threat either. You saw the possibility."

There was no shame in her tone—merely acknowledgment of the moment that changed everything.

Then, without hesitation, without flinching from the truth: "And you were right about one thing—I didn't choose you then."

Shade leaned in until their foreheads touched again, the most minor shift, intimate and deliberate. The gesture softened her words, letting him feel the sincerity woven into each one. Her voice dropped to barely above a whisper—low, calm, certain.

"But I chose you the night of the festival when you asked me what I wanted. When you listened."

A soft, barely-there hum vibrated in her throat, almost like a laugh, but gentler—something rare and fragile in its honesty.

"I didn't think I'd ever have something like this again. Or want it."

Her hand lifted, not toward his cheek but instead pressing to his chest, right over his heart. Her palm rested there with careful pressure, as if feeling every steady beat his body offered her.

"But I'm here. With you. Not because of orders. Not because of a mission." She steadied herself, voice threading with a quiet, unshakable strength. "Because I chose this. I chose us."

When her eyes rose again, crimson locking with green, there was nothing coy or hesitant in her expression—only a fierce, undiluted certainty that burned hotter than any flame.

"And I am not letting it go."

And then she kissed him again—but now it was slower, deeper, more deliberate. Not a stolen moment, not a question, not an accident. It was a declaration. A claiming. A promise sealed in breath and warmth.

A kiss that said she belonged to him, and he belonged to her, and nothing—past, present, or future—would change that now.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian didn't just feel the kiss, he received it, every beat of it, every truth behind it, every vow wrapped in the slow, deliberate press of her mouth against his. His hand slid instinctively to the back of her neck, fingers threading into the dark blue strands at her nape, steadying her, not to restrain, not to guide, but to hold the moment exactly where it belonged.

Because she had given him something precious. Something she had never given anyone. And gods help him, he felt it down to the marrow.

When she finally drew back, just enough for breath but not enough to break contact, Cassian's forehead stayed against hers. His exhale trembled, not from hesitation, but from the overwhelming certainty that surged through him in answer to hers.

"Shade…" His voice came roughened, a low rumble pulled from somewhere deeper than duty or discipline. "You have no idea what it means to hear you say that."

He took a deep breath as he chuckled lightly, leaning his forehead against hers, and after a moment he pulled back. He cleared his throat as he let her go, not willingly. But they did have a job to do, and the moment was indeed warranted, it couldn't overcome what they were tasked to do right now.

He turned back towards the center hologram, as it showing areas of interest. They couldn't go in just guns blazing or even as shadow agents.

"We have to be careful how we proceed from here. We document as much as we can, study from a distance, do some scouting mission, nothing to intense. It will give us something to go off of." Cassian looked over to her.

"Did you ever happen to meet him, or what was your take on him from the conversations you had if there was any?"

 

[Shade]

Shade didn't move immediately when he drew back from the kiss; she let the shift happen naturally, allowed him the space to regain that careful composure she had learned to read so well. The warmth of his hands still lingered faintly at her waist and the nape of her neck, a memory pressed into her skin, but she swallowed it down and let her breathing steady. When Cassian turned back to the hologram, she followed him without hesitation, slipping from intimacy into discipline with the same silent efficiency she'd used her entire life. It wasn't detachment—it was simply who she was. Emotion never erased purpose. And purpose never erased truth.

She stepped to his side, close enough that their shoulders nearly brushed, the soft blue light from the spinning holo-displays washing over the sharp planes of her face. Her focus narrowed instantly, crimson eyes tracking lines of data, nodes of movement, and potential intelligence breaches with the clarity of someone who had lived too long in shadows not to recognize the shape of a new one forming. When he asked his question, she drew in a slow, measured breath, letting her thoughts align, then spoke with a calm certainty that carried weight.

"Yes. I met him once."
The words left her quietly but without hesitation. One hand rested lightly on the holotable as she sifted through memory—not vague impression, but the precise, unfaltering details he'd come to expect from her.

Shade's expression remained composed, sharp with professional clarity rather than tension. "The room was dark—intentionally so. He clearly believed keeping the lighting low would conceal him." Her tone shifted into something faintly dry, a whisper of irony that flickered through her otherwise controlled demeanor. "That might have worked on others. Not on a Chiss." Her gaze tracked a rotating holo-node, crimson eyes following its path with cool dissection as she continued.

"I saw him clearly from the waist up. Humanoid male. Pale skin. Dark hair trimmed close—tidy, but not military. And a goatee. Kept short, deliberate. Not theatrical. Not a disguise. Part of his usual presentation." She lifted her chin slightly, posture tightening in a way that suggested she was stepping mentally back into the room, re-evaluating every behavior, every detail. "He wore gloves the entire time. No rings, no insignia, no distinguishing marks on his hands. Controlled. Intentional."

She shifted her stance subtly, weight balanced, one shoulder angling more toward him as she recounted the rest. "He approached me as a recruiter, not a handler. Offered the assignment first, then detailed the payment structure." Her lips curved in a small, dry smile—sharp but understated. "Payment I never received." Shade finally allowed herself to look directly at him, a flicker of sardonic amusement lighting her expression. "That tends to happen when you do not complete the task."

The humor slipped away as quickly as it appeared, replaced once more by the cool, analytic precision of the operative she had been for most of her life. "I can give you the contact information he used—the channels, the encrypted nodes, the burner ident—but they'll be dead ends. All of them. He operated exactly the way I would have." She leaned forward slightly, palms braced on the table's edge as she resumed her complete assessment. "The meeting location was a rented shell space. Disposable identity, temporary access codes. No personal markers. No trace left behind worth chasing."

Her voice softened—not with emotion, but with certainty honed from experience. "But his manner…his confidence…his preparation…he wasn't new to this. He's done it before. More than once." She straightened fully then, shoulders back, posture firm with conviction as her gaze locked with his.

"And he did not choose you at random. Everything about that meeting, that offer, that assignment—it was intentional. Calculated."

Finally, her tone settled into steady, ironbound resolve. "Whatever he is, whatever he wants—he's a threat. And we will find him."

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian's focus didn't waver as she spoke. He stood beside her, the soft hum of the holotable filling the silence between her words, the steady rotation of data reflections shifting across their faces, blue over red, calm over contained fury. Each detail she gave him landed like a weight, measured, methodical, forming a pattern only he could see but she could already feel taking shape.

His fingers flew over the controls, pulling up Nar Shaddaa's deep network grid beside Arbra's economic shell records. Thin, glowing threads began connecting across the hologram, fund transfers, communications fragments, and half-scrubbed callsigns. The picture that emerged wasn't yet complete, but it had direction. Intent.

"He's laundering his operations through Arbra's reconstruction funds," Cassian said, mostly to himself but loud enough for her to hear. "Republic contracts, post-conflict relief. Clean money that masks dirty hands." His jaw shifted slightly. "If Deras has friends in Black Sun, and he does they're funneling intel through those same routes."

He looked at Shade again then, really looked. She had already read the same conclusion in his eyes before he spoke it aloud. "If he came to you first, then you're not just a name on his ledger," Cassian said quietly. "You're a variable he miscalculated."

Then Cassian's voice softened, steady and grounded again. "You've done more than enough today." he said. "The rest we'll handle carefully. No alerts, no transmissions outside this room. Deras wanted shadows…" A faint, humorless smile ghosted across his mouth. "…then shadows are exactly what we'll use."

He turned back to the display, hands sliding through layers of light until he isolated the fragment of an Arbra code signature, the faintest remnant of Deras' network. It pulsed once before stabilizing. "He thinks he's invisible," Cassian said, tone dropping low with quiet conviction. "Let's prove him wrong."

Then, without looking up, his hand found hers on the holotable's edge, deliberate and certain, connection reaffirmed even in the cold wash of data. He gave her hand a gentle squeeze.

"Together. Thank you Shade, for everything."