PHOENIX ━ dameron

066 | undone

Heavy footfalls echoed down the hallway towards them, and Finn entered the room in a flurry. When Suralinda had handed them their suits as they boarded, the one in Finn's garment bag had looked too silver to be anything but tacky. However, Poe was surprised at how white the fabric looked in the dim light of the ship. Finn pulled it off well, but the pinched look on his face said otherwise.

"What's wrong?" Poe asked.

"You look amazing, Finn," Suralinda grinned.

"Thanks, I guess," Finn muttered. "But I can't tie the damn tie."

Poe laughed, stepping forward and helping him with the soft piece of silk fabric. It was the way his own dad had taught him to tie a tie, which wasn't a skill he used very often. The last time had been on D'Qar for Snap and Karé's wedding. Even then, it had been crooked.

He stopped that train of thought where it was. Best not to dwell when they were about to infiltrate a party of thieves.

"There," Poe said with satisfaction, smoothing it out. "Now you look like my junior business partner."

Finn shifted uncomfortably. Earlier, he had been nothing but confident, but now that the mission was upon them, his demeanor had changed. "Do rich people actually like wearing this?" He lifted his arm to his nose. "It smells like cheap cologne."

"I'm sure it's fine," Poe told him with a short sigh. This wasn't a good start.

"Okay, are we all ready to rock and roll?" Jacen asked, snapping his fingers as he stepped into the room. He was dressed similarly to Poe, but his suit had a lapel pin bearing the crest of the RDA and his tie was navy blue.

Jacen had almost argued his way out of joining their group on the ground, but Hera insisted that if he was going to fly them in, he was going to help complete the mission, too.

"Who's flying the ship if you're out here?" Finn asked, craning his neck to see beyond where Jacen stood. Poe had warmed up to Jacen Syndulla just fine, but with Rey's apparent fascination with Jacen, Finn insisted on giving him the cold shoulder. The jealousy was blatantly obvious to Poe.

"We're on a tractor beam now," Jacen told them as he reached into the inner pocket of his suit coat and distributed their invitations. "We're being brought into a secured location adjacent to the home of Hasadar Shu. I'm sure we'll encounter First Order security forces of some kind. Just a heads up, but I'm sure I didn't even need to tell you."

Suralinda put a hand to her hip, meeting Finn's wide-eyed apprehension with a smirk. "No turning back now."

"Wasn't even thinking about it," Finn said coolly.

Wedge and Norra would make their approach to the planet as soon as Poe gave the signal that they landed. From that point on, the prison escape plan would happen in tangent with theirs and there wouldn't be much contact between the two teams. They arrived on separate ships, and if all went well, they would rendezvous on a Resistance-friendly backwater ship outpost before heading back to Ryloth.

Commander Dameron's assignment was strictly to obtain the list. Any chance to retrieve other intelligence was forgone and Leia wasn't willing to take more risks than they already had. It would be a fluke of a success as it was. Most of it hinged on Lorell Shda's ability to win the bidding war of the auction, which placed the greatest stress on Poe's shoulders. Leia was standing by, and they were all waiting for his word.

He wouldn't have it any other way.

-ˋˏ★ˎˊ- 

A BOUNTY hunter was nothing without their connections.

The course of Nascha's career had brought her many: a Corellian dressmaker, a salon owner, a cantina barmaid, a counterfeiter, and a man who was close friends with a friend of Nifera Shu herself. After Lyra agreed to the task, securing a means into the closed party was simple.