Coronet City was beautiful in its way.

Flying in, everything seemed brittle and bitter. From the ground, it still did. But, being able to be out and interact with people on a personal level added the context that shallow observation could not. For all its destruction, the Empire promised peace in exchange for obedience. The Starkiller Treaty made that peace seem tangible, achievable. The Resistance had returned that war to the world. No average citizen would thank them for that. Caught in a spiral of Resistance guerilla strikes and Imperial searches and seizures, they suffered from all sides. But that didn't mean they weren't people.

From across a park plaza, Karin DeLumiar watched a young mother and her daughter as the pair crossed the street towards one of Corellia's MagLev train stations. The girl- she had to be five, maybe six- happily chattered over a stick of candyfloss.

Chandrila didn't have candyfloss. It did have farm fairs, though, and the glazed whiteplums-on-a-stick were her cherished childhood treat.

But that was before school; before learning, before debates, before the arguments, the departure, the homelessness, and then after all that, the fighting.

At least when she was flying, it didn't feel like fighting.

Her ear comm twittered.

The comm was one of the four things in the package Andana had given her. She pressed it. "Hello?"

"You look silly as a blonde."

Pierce's commentary-as-greeting made her smile. "Yeah, well, you get to judge when you're not the one they want," she said, leaning back onto the bench and relaxing a little. "Besides, the wig was a special gift."

The wig had been given to her by Alliance Special Operations. According to her operations handler, it had microfilament distorters woven through it. While it wasn't anything as thorough as a disguise mask, the distortion field they generated would fuzz her out of security footage. That, in turn, meant she wouldn't get tagged by the facial recog software CorSec used on its traffic cam feeds.

"Huh. Haven't heard of any special wigs."

"You're a guy. For you, playing dress-up means putting on a suit. It's a little different when you're a woman getting ready for a night on the town."

"Speaking of, I'm surprised to see you out."

"I'm surprised to be out. We needed a package picked up and the host was all 'Do your share.'"

"Sounds like you don't like him."

"You should've seen it - I step off the shuttle and there's five people in the room. The only woman there? Not even a member. So it's me and her and four guys who look like they love their own pride a little too much." She paused, remembering Judas Voss' attempt to calm tempers at their initial meeting. "Maybe that's an over-reach for some of them. Still, that Duro rubs me the wrong way. I swear he's a xeno-gynophobe."

"So what are you going to do about it?"

"Been staying out of the way, mostly. Getting a feel for how they do things and trying to do my part. Also arranging for a way to get messages to and from headquarters. Outbound comm lines have been hard to get. I think they're restricting access so their Interpreter droids can handle the security screening load." Karin frowned. "Everything feels tight. Like we're waiting."

"For?"

A spark to set off open fighting. "Something to happen one way or the other, I guess."

"The negotiations may be tough, but you can handle it."

"I hope so. I-" Karin interrupted herself. Across the plaza, subway patrons were stirring. The daughter's half-eaten candyfloss had fallen to the ground. "- need to leave."

"Problem?"

"Six MagLev cars just arrived," she said, standing from the bench and doing her best to maintain an air of calm. "Can't see everyone in there but Stormtroopers are aboard. I think they're about to do a security sweep of the district."