General
Cassian Abrantes had almost forgotten what clean air smelled like.
Weeks on Nar Shaddaa did that to a man. The whole moon reeked of exhaust, burnt tibanna, and desperation, a mix that sank into your clothes and stayed there no matter how many refresher cycles you ran. His reflection in the viewport above the Slag District was barely recognizable: the beard had grown in rough, uneven along his jaw, his once-neat hair now swept back and streaked with grime. He passed easily for what he'd pretended to be, another smuggler working a bad trade route, drinking too much and talking too loud.
That was the point.
Cassian had gone dark the moment his ship touched down. No signals, no reports, no calls to Theed. Only a handful of coded transmissions bounced through slicer relays to keep the Republic Office of Intelligence satisfied he was still breathing. The work was slow, thankless. You couldn't dig too deep on Nar Shaddaa without drawing eyes, so he'd spent his nights in dens thick with spice smoke and his days running small cargo hauls for crews that didn't ask questions.
He'd learned more in those weeks than half a dozen field briefings could teach. Which Hutt syndicate was bleeding territory. Which enforcers had switched sides. Which Republic shipment had quietly gone missing in the Corellian Trade Spine and somehow turned up in a Slag warehouse under new registry marks.
And between the blaster deals and back-alley trades, he'd started to piece together the name again, the same one that had surfaced back on Naboo in old intelligence cross-checks. It was discovered that Marrel was the leak, and there was someone that was funding his efforts. Someone who's name that he had yet to uncover.
Cassian leaned forward over the duracrete railing, watching the hoverlanes stream like veins of fire through the city. Somewhere below, a freighter's engines roared to life, shaking the walkway under his boots. He pulled his hood a little lower, scratching at the beard he'd grown to hide his face, It itched like hell.
But the disguise worked. Here, no one saw a Republic agent. Just another man doing what he had to in order to survive.
That was the thing about Nar Shaddaa, it stripped you down until the line between pretending and becoming blurred. And Cassian wasn't sure anymore which side of that line he stood on.
He exhaled slowly, hand brushing the hidden comm still sewn into his jacket lining. Another night, another meet. Another chance to push closer to the truth—and maybe, finally, a way home.
