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Ⅰ
Vel’s hands were shaking. The pent-up adrenaline after a completed mission always got to her.
It had never been an issue before, but right now, one of the prettiest women she had ever seen was sitting on the other side of the shuttle, looking as unfazed as if she were returning from a mere grocery run, and Vel’s hands were shaking. She shoved her hands under her thighs, hoping to hide the traitorous trembling.
Across from Vel, said woman unfastened her crash webbing as the shuttle’s bumpy ascent turned into the smooth glide of hyperspace.
The first time they met, she had introduced herself as Tara, but even then, it had been clear that it wasn’t her real name. No, it had taken Vel three more joint missions to wheedle that out of her. Cinta. Vel liked saying it, though she had not had nearly enough opportunities to do so.
Cinta pulled a medkit from a compartment above her seat and made her way over to Novak, who was occupying the sole medical cot.
Vel tried her hardest to squash the spark of disappointment. This was business. The tongruta had gotten the worst of it by far with a blaster bolt hitting him square in the shoulder. Vel had escaped with only a cut on her ankle and some bruises. Of course, Cinta would go to the most injured person first.
Novak didn’t seem to get the memo.
He was leaning in too close, trying to murmur something into Cinta’s ear while she cleaned his wound. Vel was too far away to make out the words, but the sight alone was enough to turn the spark of jealousy into a seething flame.
Novak tried to lean even closer, but Cinta put a hand against his uninjured shoulder and pushed him back to lean against the back of the cot. “Hold still,” she said brusquely and dabbed a piece of fabric soaked with disinfectant against the burn. Novak hissed in pain, but Cinta didn’t let herself be deterred.
Vel couldn’t hide the little smirk creeping onto her face.
Novak didn’t try to say anything else for the five minutes it took Cinta to finish cleaning the wound and slap a bacta patch on it with what seemed to be a little more force than required. “Try to keep the arm still for a couple of days,” Cinta told him.
She packed up her supplies and was starting to turn around when Vel hastily tore her eyes away, pretending to be engrossed with a tear in her sleeve.
Only when she heard steps approaching her did she lift her head. Her eyes met Cinta’s, and the corner of the other woman’s mouth crooked upwards in a half smile. In that moment, Vel knew that she hadn’t been subtle in her observations at all.
Cinta sat down on the seat next to hers. “That cut needs to be cleaned,” she said, nodding towards Vel’s ankle. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”
Vel shook her head. “No, I’m fine. Um, I mean, no other injuries.”
“Good. Can you put your foot on the chair?”
Vel scooted away from the other woman before turning sideways and swinging her foot up on the seat between them.
Cinta pushed her trouser leg up slightly, exposing the cut. She studied it for a second, gentle fingers probing the skin around the wound. “It’s not too deep and looks reasonably clean,” she said. “You got lucky.”
“Yeah, lucky, that’s me.”
Cinta’s mouth quirked at the quip, and Vel felt pride well up in her chest.
“I will clean it anyway, just to make sure.”
Vel studied Cinta’s hands as they made efficient work of the task. She had pretty hands. A scar arched from her left pinky diagonally across the back of her hand, right up to her wrist. Vel had to bite her tongue to stop herself from asking how she got it.
“You were almost glaring holes into Novak earlier,” Cinta said as she pressed a bacta patch over the graze on Vel’s ankle. Her voice sounded matter-of-fact, but there was a smile hidden somewhere in the corners of her mouth – Vel was sure of it.
“He had no business being so presumptuous.” Vel crossed her arms. “Men like him annoy me.”
“Oh, I’m sure they do.” The look Cinta shot her was a bit too knowing. Vel could feel her cheeks heat up.
“Um, yeah.”
Cinta smoothed over the bacta patch, even though there were no wrinkles in it. One of her finger tips ghosted over Vel’s bare skin, and to her mortification, she found herself shivering.
Vel glanced upwards, and her eyes met Cinta’s. There was a pensive look on the other woman’s face. A beat passed in silence as Vel was trying to come up with anything to make this situation less awkward. Why did she always have to make such an ass out of herself?
“Next time,” Cinta said, ”instead of fuming in the background, why don’t you ask me to go out for a drink?”
Vel’s brain short-circuited.
By the time she had processed the words, Cinta had already made her way over to Sloan to patch up a cut on his cheek.
Ⅱ
“I don’t like this,” Vel said for the third time.
Cinta grit her teeth. “This is the mission, Vel. What you like or don’t like doesn’t matter.”
Vel flinched. Her eyes were burning, and she turned away from Cinta to blink away the onset of tears. “Right.” She swallowed thickly. “I’ll leave you to it then.”
Cinta didn’t call after her as she left the room.
Vel opened the first door she could find and slipped into a bedroom. It was unoccupied. When they had arrived at the safe house a week ago, it had been natural to drop both their bags in the Master bedroom. Back then, Vel had relished in the easy sync they’d fallen into.
It felt so far away now that it might as well have been two different people.
All because their mark, a Rear Admiral with a bad habit of taking classified files home, had turned out to be a little more sophisticated than they had expected.
The plan had been a simple break-in, but the security system had been better than their intel had suggested, and they’d had to abort the mission before it really began.
After trailing their mark for close to a week and realising that he frequented the same bar every night, Cinta had concluded that the best way to get into his apartment was for him to invite her … then, once she was inside, she could knock him out and copy all the files in his apartment.
The idea alone made Vel want to hurl. She couldn’t believe how ready Cinta was to risk herself for something that might not even bear any reward. They didn’t actually know if and what files were currently in his apartment.
It was madness.
But there was no dissuading Cinta when it came to the Rebellion. She would go through with this, with or without Vel’s help. Vel used to admire her single-minded determination, but right now, it was nothing but infuriating.
She balled her hands into fists. Under her skin, something was buzzing, urging her to move. At this point, she almost wished stormtroopers would barge into the apartment. Then, she could at least fight someone other than Cinta.
No such luck, of course. It made the cushioned armchair in the corner a very tempting target. Vel strode over and punched the backrest. It wasn’t all that satisfying, but she punched it several more times and kicked against the armrest for good measure, until she didn’t feel like something was seething in her veins anymore. By the time she was done, she was breathing heavy, but her mind wasn’t spinning anymore.
The armchair looked exactly like it had five minutes ago. Vel stared at it until her breathing evened out, steeling herself. Then, she went back into the living room.
Cinta had changed into a form-fitting dress and was strapping a micro holocam to a belt high on her thigh. “Are you done sulking?” she asked when she noticed Vel. “You’re my back-up. I need you to be focused.”
Vel nodded curtly. “I will be on stand-by at the bar and follow you to the apartment. Call me once he is knocked out, and I will join you to search the apartment.”
Cinta was still fiddling with her belt. “I don’t need you for that. It’s a one-person job.”
“It will be faster with two of us.”
“And much more risky. Unless something goes wrong, you need to stay out of sight.”
Vel took a deep breath. “Okay,” she relented. There was no point in arguing when both of them knew Cinta was right.
Cinta didn’t answer. Several beats passed in silence as she checked her blaster and strapped it to her other thigh.
“Just so you know … it’s not because I’m jealous.” Vel swallowed thickly. She looked up to catch Cinta’s eyes, trying to get her to listen. “You shouldn’t have to do this. You deserve better.”
Cinta looked away, fastening the clasp of her belt with steady fingers. “The cause comes first. I told you that.”
Ⅲ
There was something very wrong with Clem.
First, Luthen had sprung him on Vel last minute without warning. Then, to make matters worse, Luthen declared him to be a mercenary he was paying. And now, Clem was flirting with Cinta.
Not that Cinta was flirting back – of course, she wasn’t. But she also didn’t put more distance between herself and Clem.
Clem, whom Luthen had literally forced on them. Take him or call it off, he had said, as if the last ten months of Vel’s life were nothing but a failure. This mission might not be hers only, but if it failed, it would be on Vel.
She had wanted to lead, had thought she was more than capable of doing it, but now, she wasn’t so sure anymore. It seemed like she had failed in every aspect.
The team wasn’t actually a team, just a group of mismatched people, brought together by a hatred for the Empire. There was no trust. They didn’t work together as seamlessly as Vel had anticipated they would after living together for five months.
And what was worse, they didn’t trust Vel to lead them to victory. It was evident in the way none of them had accepted Clem even after Vel had vouched for him. That Skeen hadn’t started an outright revolt was a small miracle, and Vel suspected it was largely due to his fear of Cinta and not because of any respect he held for Vel.
And then Clem had come in and thrown her inaptitude right in her face when he had called out the hole in their plan. He had been right; they hadn’t known how to get the box-freighter airborne. If Clem hadn’t known how to calibrate the weight …
Vel watched sullenly as Clem whispered something to Cinta that made her mouth twitch in amusement. Enough, she thought and strode over towards them, sliding into the gap between them. “Stay focused, Clem,” she said more forcefully than intended.
Cinta caught Vel’s eyes and shook her head, but she didn’t move away when Vel leaned against her.
Clem, for once, knew what was good for him and left, leaving the two of them alone to stare into the campfire. The rest of the team had long gone to sleep.
Vel tried to soak up the moment. She could feel the warmth radiating from Cinta’s arm, even through the rough material of their clothes, and the flickering of the flames was mesmerising. This might very well be the last moment of peace she would get before the mission, and yet her mind refused to calm down.
She wished Cinta would say something, anything to reassure her that she could do this, that the plan would work.
‘I don’t know what I’m doing,’ she wanted to yell, but she knew Cinta would only resent her more if she showed her just how badly she was failing. She had wanted to lead. This was what it took. If anyone was to believe the plan could work, she needed to get a grip on herself.
It was moments like this when she envied Cinta’s seemingly bottomless well of strength. She never wavered in her conviction. It scared Vel at times, how little Cinta seemed to care about her own safety (or anything really) in comparison to the cause. The cause comes first.
Vel could pretend all she wanted, but she would never be like that. At her heart, she would always be that little rich girl running away from her family and her duties.
A touch against her wrist halted her thoughts. Cinta’s hand slipped into hers, fingers intertwined, squeezing her hand. “Stay focused, Vel,” she whispered.
And Vel did.
+Ⅰ
Pieces of the destroyed Death Star were still raining down on Yavin, but the victory celebration was already in full swing.
Vel was just returning from getting another drink for herself and Cinta when she saw one of the pilots getting a bit too friendly with her partner.
Cinta looked as unimpressed as Vel had ever seen. The pilot, however, seemed to have done his fair share of partying and was already duly inebriated – enough so to either not notice his counterpart’s lack of enthusiasm or not to care. He was leaning forward and talking animatedly. Cinta, in contrast, had her arms crossed and was pointedly looking right past him.
The poor fool didn’t seem to notice how close he was to being utterly crushed. He leaned even closer to Cinta and tried to throw an arm over her shoulders.
Cinta caught his arm mid-air, shoving it right back towards him. Vel saw her mouth move in what must be some kind of variation of “get lost”, and the pilot sulkily stood up. His legs were wobbling dangerously as he trotted away.
Vel shook her head in amusement. She made her way over to Cinta and slid into the now free seat next to her. “Where did your new friend run off to?” she teased.
Cinta groaned. “He just wouldn’t leave. What took you so long?”
“I was enjoying the show.” Vel handed her one of the glasses. “Careful with this. They only had jet juice left, and it tastes as bad as it sounds.”
“Lethal?”
Vel chuckled. “Definitely.”
Cinta didn’t laugh along. There was a little frown on her forehead, and Vel’s hand twitched to reach out and smooth it. “You’re not jealous,” she finally said. Her voice wasn’t slurring, but Vel started to wonder how drunk she was.
“No.” Vel smiled at her. “He didn’t look all that threatening.”
“As if that has ever stopped you before.”
“Do you want me to be jealous? I can pretend. I’ve been told on numerous occasions what a good actress I am.”
Cinta rolled her eyes. “No one ever told you that.”
Vel tried to pout, but her mouth twisted back into a smile of its own accord. “Last one for the road?” she asked, lifting her cup.
Cinta nodded.
They both got up from their seats, and Vel linked her arm through Cinta’s, as they made their way back to their hut.
A peaceful silence settled, and Vel let her thoughts drift aimlessly while taking intermittent sips of her drink. If someone had told her three years ago that she would end up here on Yavin, she wouldn’t have believed it.
If they had told her that she would be living with Cinta and that Cinta would be willing to fight for more than just the cause, to fight her own fear instead of hiding, Vel would have declared it an impossible dream.
Next to her, Cinta huffed. The sound was so out of character that Vel stopped in her tracks. “Is everything alright?” she asked.
“Yes.” Cinta huffed again. Then, “You always get jealous.”
Vel snickered. She couldn’t help herself. “Have you been thinking about this the whole time?”
The look on Cinta’s face was as close to a pout as Vel had ever seen. “Forget it,” Cinta said. She pulled her arm away from Vel and continued walking.
“Wait, I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you.” Vel took a couple of quick steps to catch up with her and linked their arms again. When Cinta still didn’t relent, Vel tugged on her elbow until she slowed her pace down again, but her eyes remained fixed on the path in front of them.
“You know," Vel said, "it’s hard to get jealous when I can still feel your claw marks from last night.”
Cinta’s head whipped around to face her. “You’re such a nuisance,” she said, rolling her eyes. “And stop looking so smug.”
Vel’s grin widened.
“I only scratched you a little.”
“A little? My back looks like I went one-on-one with a Nexu.”
It was hard to tell in the darkness, but Vel liked to imagine that the flush on Cinta’s face was not just from the alcohol anymore. “A loth-cat at worst,” Cinta said sulkily.
“If you don’t believe me, you will just have to inspect it once we get home.”
Cinta snorted. Her sulky expression broke into an exasperated smile, and the sight lit a fire in Vel’s chest. “I guess I will.”