Rogue One

by Alexander Freed

  He listened to the hiss of sea foam spilling over sand and the faraway howl of shuttles.

  Eventually, Cassian’s response came over the comm:

  “Light it up.”

  —

  “Director Krennic, we are entering the Scarif shield gate. General Ramda has been informed of your arrival.”

  Orson Krennic grunted in acknowledgment and touched a forefinger to his throat, worrying at the soreness and the bruising. Darth Vader’s assault would take a day or more to heal; in the meantime, a lingering ache brought Krennic a reminder of the precariousness of his position.

  He stood at a metaphorical cliff’s edge, stamping his foot in an effort to cause an avalanche. With Galen Erso’s treachery undone, he would gain the allegiance of Vader. With Vader’s backing, he would expose the incompetence of Tarkin—the revelation of rebel survivors from Jedha. With Tarkin humiliated, Krennic’s command of the Death Star would be uncontested, and he would confer with the Emperor himself as to how it might best be used.

  Krennic would be, in every way that mattered, the most powerful and decorated man in the Empire.

  Or he would fall from the cliff and bash his skull open on the rocks. And his Death Star would fall into the fumbling hands of Wilhuff Tarkin.

  Tarkin, Erso, Vader—how had so many men conspired against him for so long?

  “Beginning final descent now,” the pilot’s voice called.

  Sulk like a child another day. Solve your Erso problem first.

  He disembarked with his escort of death troopers, waved a brusque acknowledgment at the lieutenant who’d come to guide him off the Citadel’s executive landing pad, and ignored the seductive caress of the warm Scarif air. Galen had possessed nearly unrestricted access to the Citadel; under the supervision of Imperial minders, yes, but Scarif’s overseers lacked rigor, earning their assignments on the tropical world largely through cronyism. They trusted to the stormtrooper garrison, the planetary shield, and the Star Destroyers in orbit; they relied too much on the Citadel’s automated security measures. The damage Galen could have done was considerable.

  Krennic overtook his guide as he disembarked the turbolift and made for the Citadel command center. General Ramda and his people were waiting at attention as Krennic descended into the control pit. “Director,” Ramda declared. “What brings you to Scarif?”

  Krennic bristled at the voice, at the tone of a man who’d prepared a facility tour and an official dinner instead of foreseeing the crisis at hand. Ramda was another officer whose incompetence exceeded his vision.

  “Galen Erso,” Krennic snapped. “I want every dispatch, every transmission he’s ever sent called up for inspection.”

  “I’ll put three men on it immediately.” Ramda hid his confusion poorly as Krennic brushed past him, heading for a console. “What are they looking for?”

  Krennic stopped, pivoted, and stared at the general with curdled disgust. “I’m inspecting them myself. That’s why I’m here.”

  “Every one?”

  “Yes. All of them. Get started.”

  Maybe, Krennic thought, he’d managed to overestimate Ramda’s competence. Maybe he’d accepted too much responsibility himself for Galen’s treachery. Not that shifting the blame—no matter the justification—would mollify Vader.

  He had a plan for the task ahead. He would start by checking any outsized transmissions. In all likelihood, Galen hadn’t dared to broadcast complete files from the data vault—even Scarif’s lax security should have detected that—but it was best to be sure. After that, Krennic could look for the names of anyone inside the Empire Galen might have drawn into a conspiracy; the Galen Krennic knew lacked the charisma to win allies and the guts to attempt blackmail, but the Galen Krennic knew wouldn’t have abandoned his life’s work in the first place.

  He took a seat at a duty station by the windows as officers shuffled nervously behind him. Once he was through with the obvious possibilities, he’d need to start culling through messages by hand. He’d need to look for code words, for anything off kilter.

  Galen knew too much, had seen too much. If he’d sent the rebels intelligence on Imperial defenses, on hyperspace routes, it could leave more than one planet vulnerable to a well-coordinated attack. If he’d authorized shipments of equipment or weaponry, he might have supplied his allies somehow. But if he’d sent information about the Death Star just a little at a time, “forgetting” to properly encrypt the data so that the Rebellion could eavesdrop—

  —then what? What could the Rebel Alliance do? There was no defense against the battle station.

  You’ll never win.

  The brief bass rumble that interrupted Krennic’s thoughts seemed to him an irritation: another failure on the part of Ramda and his men to provide him with what he needed. But then another rumble followed, and others swiftly in sequence. Krennic snapped to a stand, stared out onto the Scarif landscape as smoke and fire rippled up from a dozen points out of the green.

  The officers were yammering behind him. He heard no words, but recognized a shared tone of surprise and confusion. Were they truly so oblivious?

  “Are we blind?” he shouted, spinning to face the command center and ignoring the roughness in his throat. “The rebels are here!”

  He had the attention of the room. Attention was not what he required.

  “Deploy the garrison!” he screamed. “Move!”

  And they did move, at last, Ramda barking orders and his subordinates pulling up aerial maps and holograms. Ramda was ignorant, of course, of the enemy’s true objective, but Krennic knew this was Galen’s work. One more consequence of his sabotage, of his secret messages. Krennic cursed the man before seeking to put the news into context.

  Rebels (almost certainly rebels) were attempting to reach the data vault. They were attempting to steal the schematics for the battle station.

  Why? To build their own?

  To search for a weakness.

  There was no weakness.

  Even the possibility was unacceptable.

  And another thought crawled through the back of Krennic’s brain—a thought that should not have frightened him, one that meant nothing at this juncture, had no implications for the reality on the ground, but which made his clenched fist tremble nonetheless.

  The survivors of Jedha had struck on Eadu—and he had seen one of them, there on the platform as the bombs fell, though he could not remember his enemy’s face. From Eadu, they had followed him to Scarif.

  He vowed not to let them escape a third time.

  YAVIN 4 WAS A PRISON world. It seemed discourteous to say so aloud; Base One had given Mon Mothma a home, a shelter from an Empire that would have eagerly chased her into the wilds of the galaxy for the slimmest chance of executing her. But leaving Yavin was next to impossible for those same reasons. Mon’s travels offworld were rare and short-lived, and they always ended back in her cell within the ziggurat.

  She was chief of state of the Rebel Alliance and her power extended as far as the tree line of the jungle. She fought a fierce envy as the councilors she’d summoned piled into their starships, soared one by one into the bright-blue sky. They went to their homeworlds and their battlefields and their mobile headquarters, ready to wage war or flee or surrender, for the Alliance’s deadlock remained unbroken, and Mon’s speeches had not swayed them.

  She watched Senator Pamlo’s unmarked transport depart for Coruscant, where Pamlo would publicly decry the Death Star battle station before resigning her office and urging the Rebellion to disband. Mon had extracted that concession during her eighty-three minutes of debate with Pamlo that morning. Maybe one day Mon would look back and admire Tynnra Pamlo’s principles. But not today.

  She turned back to the hangar, crossed the tarmac, and stepped into the shadows of the ziggurat. A steady trickle of councilors continued to their ships, apparently supervi
sed by Davits Draven and Antoc Merrick.

  Merrick was, by all accounts, an excellent pilot and a worthy commander of Blue Squadron. Seeing him with Draven, Mon had to resist the urge to ask: Who are we assassinating now? Instead she said, “Are the departures secure?”

  There was no point worrying at wounds before they’d even scabbed over.

  “Blue Squadron is ready to launch if anyone calls for assistance,” Merrick said.

  Draven grunted. “Everything’s clean so far. At least the Imperials didn’t follow anyone here.” He glanced from side to side, nodded to an oblivious senator’s aide, and lowered his voice. “Even so, I’d like to start scouting new headquarters. Too many people know about Base One, and we can’t be sure how many of them will still be on our side tomorrow.”

  Just like that, Mon thought, we’re preparing for the breakup of the Alliance.

  “Do it,” she said.

  Merrick started to speak, but was interrupted by a shout from the rear of the hangar. “Senator! Senator Mothma!” One of the base privates was powering his way past a huddle of technicians and a C1-series astromech, racing toward her. Draven stepped out of their circle to intercept him, grasping his shoulder roughly as if he were ready to throw the man to the ground.

  As if, Mon realized, Draven were protecting her from a would-be assassin. She wasn’t sure whether to feel grateful or worried.

  “Stop right there, Private,” Draven said, low and stern.

  The man stood stiff, practically shaking with nervous energy.

  “Let him speak,” Mon said.

  “Intercepted Imperial transmission, ma’am,” the private answered. “Rebels on Scarif.”

  Scarif? How was that possible?

  But the answer was obvious. She saw it on Draven’s face, too, and Merrick’s.

  While Mon had spent the night clutching like a miser at whatever pieces of the Alliance she might preserve, Jyn Erso had gone to risk everything she had.

  She fixed the private with a sober look. “I need to speak to Admiral Raddus,” she said.

  “He’s left already.” The man was almost stammering. “He’s in orbit aboard the Profundity. He’s gone to fight.”

  “I see,” she said, and slowly smiled. Merrick’s expression was expectant; Draven’s grave and resolved.

  Perhaps she had given up hope too swiftly.

  Less than ten minutes later, sirens were announcing the departure of Red, Blue, Green, and Gold Squadrons along with the U-wing transports. Raddus had already contacted all capital ships within range of Yavin or Scarif. Draven had brusquely warned Mon not to think of joining the mission, no matter how inspirational she thought she might be; but the warning hadn’t been necessary. Mon understood her limits too well to get in the way.

  Instead she reminded herself of her pride in the soldiers of the Alliance and watched pilots and infantry personnel and technicians scramble to their vessels. Anyone capable of contributing would find his or her abilities welcome in the coming battle.

  As the last transports began to fill, she turned back to the corridors of the ziggurat and set out for the communications center. She had to step aside for a gold-plated protocol droid and an astromech unit hurrying toward the tarmac, and faintly overheard the former indignantly declare:

  “Scarif? They’re going to Scarif? Why does nobody ever tell me anything, Artoo…?”

  —

  Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin made it a point not to dwell on the flamboyant ambitions of Orson Krennic. Over the course of more than a decade, the director had gone from a nuisance to a genuine threat and back again, all the while demanding far more attention than Tarkin was prepared to grant him. Krennic had been too useful to dispose of and too self-motivated to trust, but an admixture of neglect and rare, forceful reminders of Tarkin’s authority had kept him largely on the outskirts of Tarkin’s personal galaxy.

  Nonetheless, as Tarkin stood on the overbridge of the Death Star and stared into the stars on the viewscreen, he took a moment to acknowledge the director’s contributions. A project of such scale needed to be handled with both an eye for detail and an emphasis on implementation; and Krennic, despite his faults and obsessions, had made the Death Star work.

  Tarkin had half expected every nonessential system on the battle station to burn out after the test on Jedha. Yet the Death Star remained intact, invulnerable—its full fury yet to be unleashed. It would be remarkable, Tarkin thought, to see if it could truly demolish a planet…

  He laughed inwardly at his own childish eagerness. There was no hurry. The Death Star was a tool like any other, to be applied at the appropriate hour.

  “Sir?” General Romodi had approached. Tarkin indicated his attentiveness with a cock of his head. “Scarif base—they’re reporting a rebel ground incursion. Firefights around the Citadel.”

  Now, that was a surprise. Scarif was a hardened target, one Saw Gerrera might have struck while feeling particularly ambitious. If the Rebellion was hitting Scarif so soon after Gerrera’s death, it was for a reason.

  Possibilities flitted across Tarkin’s mind. None of them alarmed him. Very little truly alarmed Tarkin anymore.

  “A ground incursion,” he said. “But no spaceborne support?”

  “Not that Ramda’s people mentioned.”

  Which suggested a last-gasp effort or a plan not yet fully implemented.

  “I want to speak to Director Krennic,” Tarkin said.

  “He’s there, sir,” Romodi replied. “On Scarif.”

  The day was full of surprises.

  Tarkin spoke with detached consideration, as much to himself as Romodi. “The original plans for this station are kept at the Citadel, are they not?”

  “They are.”

  Along with other technical schematics for projects covered by the Tarkin Initiative. It would be a special pity, Tarkin thought, to see War-Mantle and Stellarsphere set back. But hardly a major blow to the galactic timetable, particularly with the Death Star finally online.

  Best to suffer a minor loss to avoid a greater one. What the rebels could do with the technical schematics was limited, of course, but Tarkin had always been a man who preferred to elude the specter of risk.

  “Prepare the jump to hyperspace,” he said. “And inform Lord Vader.”

  Romodi hurried off, and the soft hum of the reactor rose gently in pitch as the lightspeed engines drained away power. Tarkin folded his hands together and observed a pair of TIE fighters on the viewscreen race toward one of the station’s hangar bays.

  He was curious to see the rebels in action. He was curious, too, what opportunities might present themselves. Just how many victories might be scored in one battle?

  But Tarkin was a patient man. He would wait and see what Scarif provided.

  SUPPLEMENTAL DATA: THE REBEL FLEET

  [Document #MH2215 (“Short Notes on the History of the Rebel Alliance Navy”), from the personal files of Mon Mothma.]

  The Clone Wars redefined interstellar conflict, forcing us to grapple with realities we’d blessedly forgotten after generations of peace. This was, perhaps, the very worst of the wars’ crimes—they ushered in an age when mass bloodshed was no longer unthinkable, but rather an essential feature of military action.

  I’ve argued that our rebel movement is not a response to the political question of the Clone Wars, and I continue to believe this; nonetheless, no one can claim that our military doctrine is not largely defined by the desire and need to do things differently. What worked in the Clone Wars cannot work again: The partnership of Jedi Knights and Kaminoan clone armies constituted a peerless weapon that no longer exists.

  Consider a brigade of clone troopers served by a Jedi commander: Such a unit might penetrate a world’s orbital defenses and seize control of the entire planet while taking (and inflicting!) minimal casualties. I do not mean to understate the r
ole of naval warfare during the last conflict, nor to denigrate the sacrifices of starship pilots and crew who were lost, but what blockade could be thorough enough to keep out a handful of determined starfighters and a single clone drop ship? (Yes, such blockades existed, and in greater numbers toward the conflict’s end, but their cost helped to fracture and bankrupt the nascent Separatist government.)

  With the Clone Wars’ end, the destruction of the Jedi Order, and the decommissioning of the Kaminoan cloning facilities, the self-proclaimed Emperor and his military advisers determined that the future of warfare was in large-scale naval weaponry—in a fleet of battleships and battle stations that could atomize any enemy, whether on a planet’s surface or among the stars. They rebuilt a military not for precision strikes but for hammerblows; a military that could counter the interstellar movement of any mobile infantry that an uprising might field.

  This was the vile genius of Emperor Palpatine’s plan. He knew a rebellion like ours would have no difficulty assembling a vast army of ground troops from thousands of oppressed worlds. But his stormtroopers could curtail a local uprising’s growth on any single world, and his fleets could decimate spaceborne troops during any attempted landing. No potential rebellion could dare eschew infantry altogether, but—lacking the elite support of Jedi or clones—the cost in lives would be abominable (see, for example, the affair of the Sixty-First Mobile Infantry at Ferrok Pax).

  Thus, the importance of the rebel navy.

  While the Empire constructed its behemoth Star Destroyers and its TIE fighter swarms, another fleet was forming in less mechanistic fashion. In the early years of what would become our Rebellion, there was little coordination among insurgent cells—yet each, on its own, understood the need to obtain starships for military strikes and transport. A retooled freighter here, augmented with illegal weapons salvaged from Separatist wrecks; a pirate corvette there, donated by a sympathetic underworld contact; a handful of starfighters, stolen in a daring raid on an Imperial base.