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Vel Sartha couldn’t keep the smile off her face as she watched the bustling activity in the hangar of the new rebel base.
Nothing particularly special was going on, and it wasn’t exactly a joyful time for the Alliance. But Vel could never feel anything less than content when she and Cinta were back at base, and being in the hangar was always especially comforting. For as long as she could remember, she’d been finding peace in the simple sounds of ships being worked on, of spacecraft taking off and landing. As a kid, she’d gone through the typical phase of wanting to be a pilot and had often snuck away from parties and other insufferable gatherings and lectures to go hang out as close to the Hanna City spaceport as she could get. She’d watch the ships come and go for hours, dreaming of one day taking off in one of her own, before someone eventually came to find her and drag her back to reality.
Now she’d seen so much of the galaxy, had flown from one end of it to the other and back again more times than she could count. But the rebel base – wherever it happened to be at any given time – had become her home.
Recently, though, she and Cinta had been away more often than they were home. As Mon Mothma’s most trusted agents, they’d been tasked with all the most sensitive jobs, the ones that had them deep undercover or off on their own for extended periods. They’d even missed all the excitement of the battles at Scarif and Yavin a few months prior while they’d been on an extended mission to bring a few key worlds – and their resources – into the cause.
Vel didn’t expect to be back on base for long now that that job was done. Indeed, they’d only been back for a few hours, and already she could sense that something was brewing for them in the council meeting.
But Vel was determined not to care about that until she absolutely had to. Instead she just watched all the pilots and droids and techs working on making sure every ship was in as good a condition as it could possibly be, a grin of contentment plastered on her face for everyone to witness.
Her smile grew even wider when a familiar voice suddenly came from behind her.
“If you want to transfer to mechanical or be an X-wing pilot, you can just tell me, you know,” Cinta said, only startling her partner a little as she snuck up to wrap her arms around her from behind. “I wouldn’t be too offended.”
Vel let out a laugh and a sigh as she melted into the other woman’s embrace.
“What, and turn you loose on the galaxy with no supervision? We both know what a mistake that would be,” she joked.
“Or maybe we’d have Palpatine brought down within a few days,” Cinta theorized in defense of her own skills, but Vel hummed skeptically as she turned around.
“Mmm, you’ve had a few days before…”
“And I’ve learned so much since then.”
The smile on Vel’s face remained even as she and Cinta leaned in for a kiss, but another voice interrupting their moment finally caused her to drop it.
“Yes, but apparently neither of you have bothered to learn the rule against fraternizing in the common areas…” Mon Mothma said, in a voice that was only mockingly critical. She wore a grin of her own when Vel extracted herself from Cinta’s arms and looked at her with light annoyance.
“What's the point of being related to the leader of the rebellion if she doesn’t let me get away with breaking that rule?”
“Oh, I have,” her cousin told her. “Many, many times…”
Mon’s knowing smile lingered as Vel made an undignified noise in response and Cinta sheepishly rested her forehead on Vel’s shoulder as she hid behind her. Vel had to admit she was right, of course, but only to herself. She also had to admit how nice it felt to be able to share moments like that with the two people in the galaxy she loved more than anyone.
But even those moments couldn’t last forever.
“I assume you’re interrupting for a reason?” she guessed, and in an instant Mon wiped away her smile and got down to the business at hand.
The council did have a new mission for them, though this time it wasn’t quite so discreet. This time they would get to make some noise. Since losing the Death Star, the Empire had apparently been ramping up production of its ships in the factories on several worlds, and it was time to slow things down a bit. Vel and Cinta were being sent to Corellia to start by hitting a major CEC plant.
“Until we can build our own fleet back up, we need to do what we can to keep the Empire from adding to theirs quite so easily,” Mon told them after explaining the basics of the plan. “This will, hopefully, be just the first in a series of strikes like it. But be careful about blowing things up. There’s plenty of people working there against their will. We don’t want casualties, just chaos.”
“Understood,” Vel assured her.
“Good. Better get going as soon as possible. Detailed plans and layouts are being sent to your ship now,” said the rebellion leader. They started to move away to get packing, but suddenly Mon spoke again. “Oh. And you’re taking Andor and Erso with you. It could get messy.”
“Erso?” Cinta asked, the name unfamiliar among the rebels they knew.
Mon chuckled. “You two have been away for a while, haven’t you?”
“Wasn’t that the name of some big Imperial engineer?” Vel wondered, recalling a piece of whispered intelligence from some time ago.
“It was. This is his daughter,” Mon reported. Cinta immediately and visibly bristled at the thought, but Mon held up a hand. “She and Cassian were the ones responsible for getting the Death Star plans off Scarif. But no time to get into that now, they’re already waiting. I’m sure they’ll tell you all about it.” She smiled at Vel and Cinta once more before waving them away. “Good luck, you two. I look forward to hearing about how it goes.”
No less confused, Vel and her partner started off across the hangar to their ship. All their personal belongings and weapons were already on board, so it would simply be a matter of packing up extra munitions and, apparently, two more crew members before they could get going.
As soon as they were in sight of Vel’s custom starhopper, Cinta stopped walking for just a moment, clearly recognizing the woman chatting rather closely with Cassian Andor.
“Jyn…?” she whispered, as if questioning herself.
Vel turned to look at her. “You know her? The girl that stole the Death Star plans?”
“Apparently not well…”
Vel wanted to ask a great number of questions then, but there was clearly no time for that. As they approached the duo currently leaning against her ship and smiling at each other as if they were the only two people in the hangar, she couldn’t help but think they had also missed Mon’s memo about fraternizing in the common areas. The flirtatious look on Cassian’s face – the one he’d tried to use on Cinta so many years ago – was all too familiar, but it didn’t bother her like it once had. There was no need for her to be jealous of anyone. And besides, Cassian’s interest was clearly focused elsewhere at the moment. Vel recognized the look of two people in the early stages of being an inseparable pair. It had been slightly complicated for her and Cinta when it had happened to them, but still she knew. She understood that desire to block out everything but the person you were falling in love with. Hell, she still felt it all the time herself, even after years at Cinta’s side.
The other two were so wrapped up in their own conversation that Vel had to clear her throat aggressively to get their attention as she and Cinta came up to them.
Cassian snapped to attention, taking a full step away from the small, dark-haired woman beside him and standing up straight, adjusting his jacket. Jyn watched it happen and grinned from the side of her mouth while standing up from leaning against the ship herself.
“Clem. Good to see you again,” Vel said, enjoying the way Cinta almost succeeded in hiding a smirk beside her. “Glad you’re not dead.”
“Ah, right,” Cassian said with an oddly embarrassed laugh, looking to Jyn as he rubbed the back of his neck and explained, “I always forget they still call me that.”
“Still?” Jyn questioned.
“We’ve known each other a long time,” Vel told her.
“Lots of fond memories,” Cinta chimed in.
“We’ve done some jobs together,” said Cassian, who then crossed his arms and looked at the two women. “And they did try to kill me once.”
“At least,” Vel muttered.
Cinta began to protest. “‘Had orders’ is not the same as trying—”
“Sorry,” Jyn interrupted suddenly. “I…know one of you, but…”
She gestured at Vel, then looked at Cinta with a question in her eyes. Cinta, who never liked to be the one explaining things, sighed as she introduced them in the simplest and quickest terms possible.
“Jyn, this is Vel. We’re partners. Vel, Jyn.”
“Charmed,” Jyn offered with a half smile.
“Likewise,” Vel said, fairly certain they both meant it.
Suddenly left out of the conversation and completely baffled, Cassian shook his head as he looked from Cinta to Jyn.
“Wait, how do you—”
“Let’s get the bus loaded and then discuss that, eh?” Vel cut him off with a pat on the shoulder, stepping between the other three to ready her ship.
Within minutes they had the equipment, weapons, and people all on board and Vel made the jump to hyperspace, where they had plenty of time to sort out both the plan and the shared history between them all.
Jyn insisted that she hear the story of “Clem” first, so Vel and Cassian filled her in on the job on Aldhani from more than five years ago, before she’d even known his real name. He was quick to point out how vital he was to that job succeeding but shut her down just as fast when she tried to tell Jyn about how he’d attempted to flirt with her girlfriend despite already being warned off.
He changed the subject back to the question of how Jyn and Cinta knew each other, and the two shared a shrug and then a somber look before Cinta reported something of which Vel only knew half.
“Saw Gerrera raised us both. For better or worse.”
“Felt like worse at the time, but…” Jyn said, trailing off as she looked down.
“Yeah,” Cinta agreed, sporting the same conflicted look. Vel knew how often she’d struggled to reconcile her feelings for the rebellion leader who’d raised her. He’d taught her everything she knew, lit the fire of rebellion in her, but it was not the same as having a real father who cared for her. Not the same as the one she’d lost to the Empire.
Though it turned out Saw had been lost to the Empire too. Jyn reported being with him on Jedha moments before he died, in a test firing of the Death Star superweapon. That revelation led to a drink in the man’s honor and then a complete retelling of Jyn and Cassian’s mission to steal the plans to the weapon her actual father had created against his will.
The story was so overwhelming and frantic and frankly unbelievable that Vel found herself relieved when somehow the conversation looped back around to Jyn and Cinta sharing memories of training under Gerrera. Vel and Cassian, both unaccustomed to seeing their counterparts open up so much to anyone but themselves, made eye contact and silently backed away out of the conversation to simply watch from the side, intrigued by the spectacle.
“I honestly always thought you hated me,” Cinta said after Jyn admitted to looking up to her as a kid.
“Oh, stars no,” Jyn laughed. “If anything, I was overcompensating. I had to act like that because I might have been a little bit in love with you.”
“Is that right?” Vel chimed in sarcastically, leading Cinta to wave a dismissive hand at her feigned jealousy.
“Ignore her. Please,” she said, and Jyn laughed some more.
“Well, it’s true. You were older and better at everything and…hot…” she confessed, growing red around the cheeks. “Definitely had a bit of a crush.”
Cassian leaned down to whisper in Vel’s ear.
“Okay…now I know how you felt when I—”
“Yeah it’s fun, isn’t it?”
“No.”
“Now what are you two whispering about?” Cinta asked, and Vel sauntered back over to where she was sitting and placed a chaste kiss on the top of her head.
“Just the plan, love,” she lied, then sat down herself. “About time, no?”
Cassian came forward and took the last seat in the common area, and together the four of them reviewed the plans and specs Mon had had loaded onto the ship’s holotable. It was all straightforward enough – cause a complete disruption of production at two Corellian shipyards with no civilian casualties and get away before the Empire has time to react. Nothing they hadn’t all done before, but not an entirely simple thing to pull off.
Like Mon, Cassian was already concerned about the possibility of collateral damage.
“When the Empire needs things built fast, they don’t waste their time with droids,” he said. “There’ll be people in there. We have to find a way to get them out.”
“Already on it,” Vel said, pointing out a station mid-way between the two shipyards. “One of us puts on a uniform, slips in there, deals with the two idiots manning the station, flips the fire alarm. They’ll follow evacuation protocol and be clear by the time we start lighting it up. Even the Empire can’t replace an entire workforce in a day, they’ll let them leave.”
“I’m guessing I’m the guy in the uniform?” Cassian surmised. Three women stared wordlessly at him. He sighed. “Fine, fine.”
The rest of the plan came together easily. The women would slip in amidst the chaos of the evacuation and the four of them would place charges all around the shipyards in key spots to do maximum, long-lasting damage, keeping an eye out for stormtroopers and sentry droids, of course. Once they were all clear, Cassian would get to be the one to click the detonator. It was only fair, since he didn’t have a choice in being the first one in.
“That’s it?” Jyn asked when the plan was all set. “Seems pretty easy compared to some of our more recent jobs.”
“Quite an understatement,” agreed Cassian.
Cinta hummed in agreement as well, and Vel couldn’t argue with it either. An idea occurred to her, one she should probably have thought about for more than the half-second she pondered it before piping up. But what Mon didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.
“Well…how about we make it more interesting?” she teased, raising eyebrows all around the table.
Jyn grinned immediately. “What’ve you got in mind?”
Vel smiled as she clicked the holotable controls to zoom out on the map of Corellia to the whole system.
“I know a really nice restaurant on Gus Talon, one of Corellia’s moons. Best nerf steak dinner you’ll ever find,” she said, pointing to the nearby moon. “Once we’re all in there, we split up into teams. Cinta and I take the north yard, you two get the south. Whichever team makes it back to the ship in one piece first is the winner. Losers buy dinner for the whole crew when it’s done.”
“And drinks,” Cinta added.
“And drinks.”
Vel and Cinta shared a confident smile while Jyn and Cassian came to an agreement through just a look. He casually shrugged a shoulder and looked back at Vel.
“Game on.”
~two hours, lots of dead Imps, and a rather dramatic chain reaction of explosions later~
Vel’s lungs burned with exertion as she and Cinta sprinted for the ship, but for once it wasn’t out of fear for their lives. For once the plan had gone off without a hitch, and they were getting away without even needing to worry about dodging blaster fire as they ran.
They did, however, need to pick up the pace if they wanted to beat Jyn and Cassian.
And they very much wanted to beat Jyn and Cassian.
“I know the money doesn’t matter to you, but our pride is on the line here,” Cinta yelled at her.
“I’m not the one falling behind right now, Kaz!” Vel retorted from a couple steps ahead, where finally her junky but beloved ship came into view. The sight of it propelled her forward, and she spared a glance to her left, where the heroes who’d stolen the Death Star plans were now only barely ahead.
“How are you going slower than you were on the beach at Scarif?!” Jyn screamed at Cassian.
“There was a bit more on the line that time!”
“Says you!”
Vel tried not to watch them, as it would only slow her down, but from the corner of her eye she could see him pick up the pace and pass his counterpart. She put her head down, pumped her arms as hard as she could.
Only another fifty yards or so…
She thought about using her remote to close the ramp before he could get there, thought about taking a shot at his feet. But only a fair win would feel right.
Just push. Just…a little…farther....
She strained to match Cassian step for step, across the landing pad, up the ramp, one last lunge into the door—
The two of them hurled themselves forward at the same time, both tripping through the entryway and falling face-first onto the floor of the ship in a tangled heap. They were both too out of breath to even fight about who made it first.
Vel turned onto her back and saw Jyn and Cinta arrive in the doorway at the same time, much less dramatically than their counterparts. They both stood there, saw their partners on the floor, and looked at each other.
“Call it a draw?” Jyn suggested, and Cinta nodded.
“I think that means Vel buys,” she said, breathing heavily. She looked down at Vel and shrugged. “Sorry, dear.”
“Oh, I'll buy. But if we’re drinking....I'm definitely not the one flying home,” Vel heaved, then pointed from Cassian to Jyn. “You two can…arm wrestle for that or something.”
“Sounds good to me. I already know how to beat him at that,” Jyn boasted with a self-satisfied smile, extending a hand out to pull Vel to her feet.
Cassian sighed as Cinta helped him up. “I knew we should have brought Kay…”
Vel laughed along with the others as she clapped a friendly hand on his shoulder.
“I think we’re all going to get along very, very well.”