Caster was not a nice planet, Jyn reflected on it as her Tramp Freighter (The “Blue moon Wandering”) entered the atmosphere of the industrial world.

While the planet was at a decent distance from its red star, the atmosphere was thick enough to still make the planet swelteringly warm from the perspective of anyone who didn’t grow up on a desert planet.

The planet technically was called Caster-three, but Caster-one and Caster-two were completely inhospitable so the third planet became the primary colony of the system and so it got the same name as the system.

Landing in Caster’s capital city, Jyn paid the docking fee and headed away from her awkwardly shaped ship. She had instructed her crew to begin selling cargo, but not to take on anything new. That would likely take too long and she was making preparations for if there would be trouble.

She had a strong suspicion that something was very wrong with this job. She trusted the client about as much as she could but that didn’t mean there wasn’t danger involved in this.

Bodyguarding and escort services was something that she did often enough. Generally it was for those that the empire had grown angry at and who wanted a quick getaway. Either that or aliens that the empire had decided no longer belonged on one of their so-called precious worlds.

She’d even done a job like this before, keeping a young maid who’d learned too much of her noble boss’s secret dealings safe.

Heading out into the smog-filled industrial city, she thought more about the planet. Caster was one of the planets known for creating much of the empire’s war supplies. Many of the empire’s Imperator-Class Dreadnoughts would have been constructed here, or in the planet’s atmosphere more likely. She’d seen some massive orbital shipyards on her way in.

She checked her communicator. She was meeting up with her client at a small dive bar called “Prime Star” managed by a local criminal syndicate. The plan was simple, get there, find out what he actually found and then get to the spaceport. If there were no problems, he could settle into the ship while they took on more cargo. If there was trouble then they’d likely have to make an emergency take-off.

“Of course, doing any of that requires me actually reading the map properly.” She muttered to herself, looking at her datapad which had the map up on it.

She muttered to herself before finally deciding to ask for directions.

She knew what to look for when it came to criminals, look for the big and buff guy who not only looked completely out of place but who looked to be judging the people he was looking at.

Oh wait no. That was the undercover cops.

No, look for the lean man, the thin man who hasn’t eaten enough but who still looks at you like he knows how to kill you.

Strolling up to one such man, she leaned over slightly.

“Could you tell me the way to Prime Star?”

“Prime Star? Sure, I can give you directions.”

Apparently the criminals here were of more responsible stock, as he didn’t even try to send her into a trap. She had just been given actual directions. It still took her about half an hour to reach her destination though.

It was near the city center, but all of the buildings on this street looked improperly cared for. Well, everywhere in this city looked something like that, but the people in these buildings hadn’t even tried to wash the dust and grime off. 

The Prime Star’s name was projected over it by an old hologram projector that was flickering slightly. It seemed to be afflicted by the same decay that had this whole street in a vice grip.

As Jyn headed down into the underground bar, the smell assaulted her. Cheap alcohol and smoke from pipes. 

Frowning, Jyn tapped her belt to check if her addiction of choice was there. It was, but it was too early to take a dose now. 

…But she really wanted it. It would give her the confidence for this. She might not be strong enough without it.

She breathed out. No, she didn’t need it yet. She could put it off until later.

Jyn continued walking down the steps into the dingy bar.

The odor grew until it was all that she could smell. Her other senses were quickly overloaded too, her vision was filled with the dozens of hologram projectors that the wide bar had. It was more of a club than just a bar. There was a large stage on one side whose punk band was filling the air with music.

She headed over to a staff member. He probably worked for the criminals in charge here and would likely know where her client was. She asked for him by the pseudonym he’d told her to use.

“Is a ‘Mr. Ricky’ here?”

The tall bouncer-looking man gave her an appraising look.

“You meant to be Jim? I expected a man.”

“Jyn.” She corrected “But yes, I’ll assume you just misheard.”

The man scratched his head before sighing.

“...screw it. Sure.” The man nodded “Mr. Ricky is this way.”

He led her into a back room, the walls had just enough soundproofing on them that the music was dulled into just thumping. Within the room was a table, and two wide sofas to sit on.

Her client sat on the sofa further from the door, likely because he wouldn’t have been able to watch the door as easily from the other sofa.

He also wasn’t human.

“Mr Ricky.” Real name: Exile Rikee, was a Trader. A species of insect-like humanoids. Typically they lived as part of giant trader fleets, but Rikee had been exiled from his fleet and had come to try and make a living as an engineer for the empire.

He made a clicking noise and then asked “Miss Sternstrider?”

Jyn nodded “I’m here to take you offworld as promised. But first, I want to know what you found.”

That had been part of the deal. She wanted to know the information that had put his life at risk. If you were to ask her if she was afraid of being targeted for knowing it to, she would have shrugged nonchalantly.

Jyn sat down opposite Rikee as he pulled out a small data tablet. He turned it on then put it down on the table and slid it across to her.

“Everything I found is on here.”

Picking it up, Jyn began to look through it. Most of it was in the form of a database of job orders that had gone through Rikee’s department. 

Jyn didn’t wait long before she broke out her trick though.

Most people don’t understand psychic powers. If you asked the average imperial citizen, most of them would claim to not even believe in them, but they were real.

Jyn had a talent for Ergokinesis- that is the control of energy, normally in the form of electricity. She read the binary of the system itself and picked out the information that had been studied the most intently, a set of records for jobs, seemingly unrelated. However they were all for the same thing, in the same quantity, but for businesses that shouldn’t need them.

The items in question? Force Bucklers, a kind of hand-held force shield. Technically they were called force shield bracelets but most space knights just called them force bucklers.

And the companies in question? Were they arms manufacturers or imperial security (Who had space knights of their own they would need to equip)?

No, they were a food distribution company, a branch of the imperial bank and a charity that maintained small libraries across the galactic core.

“This doesn’t make any sense.” Jyn muttered.

Rikee nodded “It doesn’t. But when I submitted a report up the chain about possible errors that needed to be looked into, my requests were denied and two days later even the original reports had been edited to hide this. I was lucky that I’d taken an offline copy myself before it was buried. And I thought if they were willing to hide this, they might try to shut me up.”

Jyn nodded and stood.

“Very well, let’s get you out of here then.”

As she spoke though, there was a loud crash and a scream from beyond the near-soundproofed room. Muffled speech could be heard. An authoritative voice yelling orders.

Jyn focused herself. She recognised this for what it must be, a raid. And a raid perfectly timed to catch her and her client below ground without an easy way up.

“We need to find a way out.” Jyn muttered “Any criminal hideaway should have some.”

The problem was that they wouldn’t be accessible from this small meeting room, would they?

…why not? What was a criminal executive meant to do if a raid came while they were having a meeting here?

As she looked, Rikee was on the edge of panic from the sounds outside.