Rogue One

by Alexander Freed

She wedged a boot against the stack for leverage, set a free hand on the handle of Mark Omega or Pax Aurora or Heartchopper or whatever ghastly thing the Empire’s scientists had thought up, and tugged at Stardust in the hand of the machine. The frozen arm clung tight; then she jerked the tape away and the arm bobbed loosely in the air.

  “I’ve got it!” she cried, and she did—she had it, she had it, and she squeezed it and brought it close enough to smell the metal over the cold, dry air. However else she’d failed, however many deaths (Saw, her father, the girl on Jedha, the droid who’d sacrificed himself) were her fault, she’d come this far. She was ready to shout obscenities at the universe, defiant imprecations against fate and the Force and the Empire.

  Then her boot slipped and she scrambled, one-handed, to regain her holds. “Careful!” Cassian shouted from below, and she was grinning fiercely as she panted. “You okay?” he called.

  She didn’t answer. She was already climbing again, the cartridge safely hooked on her belt. The surge of triumphant, exultant energy faded as swiftly as it had come, leaving Jyn with only an urgent need to escape the dark. Her arms began to tremble with the strain of the ascent, her muscles recalling the agonizing climb up the landing platform on Eadu. Through the gloom she made out a warm, blinking light high above—an aperture at the top of the tower, pulsing open and closed, barely wide enough to cast shadows.

  Close. So close.

  Then she heard another shout beneath her. Fury mixed with alarm in Cassian’s voice as he cried her name.

  Jyn dropped a hand and twisted just in time for a flash of crimson to obscure her vision—to spark against the stack of data banks and leave a mass of melted polymer where her cartridge-handhold had been. Standing in the maintenance entrance were three figures out of a familiar nightmare: the man in white and his stormtroopers in black.

  They had seemed impossible on Eadu, so much so she’d nearly forgotten them in the aftermath—written them off as an exaggeration, a trick of an exhausted mind wrapping a figment from her past around a sliver of reality. Now they’d returned to send her plummeting into madness.

  The man in white looked up. She wanted to scream; instead she swallowed the sound, like she had when her mother died. She wanted to freeze, to hide inside herself and drop away from the data banks.

  And if she did?

  Stardust, the cartridge against her hip, would be buried in her cave along with her own remains.

  She tore her gaze from the man in white and looked back up the shaft. Captivated by dream logic, knowing it was untrue, she thought: If I make it to the light, I can escape forever.

  Climb!

  Crimson burst around Jyn as she swung on the cartridges, trying to rotate herself to the far side of the data stack and find cover from her attackers. She caught a glimpse of Cassian attempting to do the same; but he was slower, and he’d drawn his own pistol, firing wildly at the doorway. One shot landed miraculously, sending a black-clad figure over the edge and into the depths. The fall dragged her further into reality—whatever they were, whoever the men in black and white were, they were people and not dreams. They could die, and so could she.

  The Imperials targeted only Cassian now. He swung desperately toward cover as sparks spilled off metal all around him. Jyn started to call to him, but he cried out louder, “Keep going! Keep going!”

  She reached a trembling hand toward her pistol. She could die. So could they.

  She knew she had to climb.

  The decision was taken from her. The second stormtrooper took a hit as a bolt flashed toward Cassian. Trooper and spy fell together; Jyn couldn’t tell whether Cassian had been struck or if he’d simply lost his grip, but he plunged out of view without a scream or a word. She nearly loosed her clutching fingers, nearly followed him into the abyss, but a swell of vertigo shocked her out of her horror and impelled her to cling more tightly to the stack.

  Cassian was dead, like so many others. So many taken by the man in white.

  She had to escape.

  Climb!

  —

  Scarif was burning. Dueling starfighters sent cannon fire and torn metal raining onto the beaches. The mountainous corpses of Imperial walkers bled smoke that shrouded whole swaths of jungle. Reinforcements delivered by rebel U-wings had replaced the fallen with new soldiers; and these were cut down in turn by newly arrived stormtroopers in black, men and women who moved with the sober calm of executioners, picking off their foes one by one.

  Baze Malbus waded through the inferno in silence, untouched by fear or grief or particle bolts. He followed Melshi and Chirrut, trusting them to see to the mission, and guarded lives where he could. He snapped off swift, precise shots, downing too many stormtroopers to count.

  He felt no responsibility for the allies he could not save. He had made no oaths, promised safety to no one. He failed to stop a stormtrooper from ambushing a dark-haired woman and leaving her dying in the shallow tide; he failed to drag a sniper his own age out of view of a strafing TIE fighter. He had spilled more blood in a day than he had thought possible, and though his generator hummed warningly and his muscles felt stiff as dried leather, he was ready to fight on. He would endure through the night if need be, if that was what Jyn Erso required.

  And if the mission failed? If there was redemption to be found through killing, he had surely already found it. But he would fight on nonetheless.

  Melshi’s tattered platoon was running toward the Citadel on its quest for Bodhi’s “master switch.” Just within the outer perimeter, Melshi promised, was a bunker complex containing what they sought. Baze did not know why the switch was important—something about the rebel fleet—but as he hurried beside his comrades on the beach, he grimly marveled that the fate of planets might be altered by such a trivial thing.

  A U-wing was toppling from the sky. It hit sand a stone’s throw ahead of the rebels, sending a shock wave along the ground and plowing a deep trench. Mud and fire splashed as metal ruptured and wailed. As the rebels approached, a salvo of blaster bolts tore through the wreckage and the flames; through gaps in the burning metal, Baze spotted more of the black-clad stormtroopers closing in. He loosed a barrage of cannon fire that did little good—the stormtroopers crept low to the ground, eliminating their targets slowly and certainly as Melshi waved his people frantically toward the bunker complex.

  The soldiers sprinted away from the water and the wreckage, exposed and vulnerable. One rebel fell, then another. Chirrut leapt between the troopers’ bolts as if their passing pushed him aside, but his fortune was not others’ fortune. Baze vaulted over more than one corpse, turned back to spray cannon blasts at the troopers, then raced into the shadow of the Citadel Tower. He saw Melshi attempt to haul an ally to safety and take a bolt to the side for his troubles; stinking badly of melted fabric and burnt flesh, Melshi hobbled with Baze into the relative shelter of the squat bunker.

  Only four warriors remained. Chirrut stood near the front of the spartan bunker with Baze, panting and leaning lightly on his staff. A broad sniper—someone had called him Sefla—took potshots at the troopers through the bunker’s narrow embrasures as the enemy formed a perimeter. Melshi struggled to stay upright in the far corner.

  There might have been other survivors scattered across the battlefield. Or Baze, Chirrut, Sefla, and Melshi might have been the last.

  An urgent voice issued from Melshi’s comlink: “Melshi, come in, please! Anybody out there! Rogue One! Rogue One! Anybody!”

  Chirrut raised his ornate lightbow, firing at the stormtroopers as they forced Sefla down and into cover. The stormtroopers adjusted and targeted Chirrut; Baze replaced Chirrut, as Chirrut had replaced Sefla, who now prepared to replace Baze. Together, Baze thought, they could hold off the Imperials for several minutes. Likely no longer.

  “They’ve got the plans.” The comm spoke with Bodhi’s voice, mixing triumph and terror. “I’m tied
in at my end, but I can’t hold out forever. We lost Tonc…”

  The troopers had established a broad circle around the bunker and the adjoining equipment—consoles and charging stations and signal relays. Baze snarled in satisfaction—she has the plans!—as he fired a shot that took a man off his feet, then jerked back his head as his foes returned a volley.

  “Rogue One! Can anyone hear me out there? I’ve got my end tied in, I need an open line—”

  “Hang on!” Melshi gasped, and tossed his comlink to the ground before beckoning to Baze. He stank of death. Baze crossed to his side and let Chirrut and Sefla take up the slaying work.

  “Be quick,” Baze said.

  Melshi nodded, his eyes wide and glittering. “The master switch,” he said. “It’s out there, at that console.” He raised a trembling finger and pointed into the kill zone.

  The workstation was ten meters away. Far beyond reach.

  Before anyone could react, Sefla was out of the bunker, dashing toward the console, pumping arms and legs as sweat dripped down his back. He moved with brisk, brave certainty. He died in an instant, cut down by a dozen particle bolts, accomplishing nothing.

  Baze looked back to Melshi. He had slumped to the ground beside his comlink.

  Maybe it would have been better, Baze thought, to be killed by the walkers. To die cowering in sight of an unachievable victory was a humiliation.

  Maybe death always was.

  Baze raised his cannon. Perhaps there were other survivors. Perhaps if he downed enough troopers, reinforcements might reach Bodhi’s master switch. A final slaughter was all he could offer Jyn Erso and the dead of Jedha; all he could offer to torment the Empire one last time.

  But before Baze could fire, Chirrut rose from the bunker and stepped into sunlight.

  —

  Chirrut Îmwe felt the warmth of an alien star on his skin and a sea breeze pawing at his robes. The heel of his staff dug into hard-packed sand. Beneath the odors of conflagration and death was the perfume of jungle flowers and the sweet stink of dirt beetles. Beyond the electric snap of blaster bolts he heard a high-pitched chittering—the noise of a beast he had never encountered. To this cacophony, he added his voice:

  “I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.”

  Whatever Chirrut had become in his life—and without the temple he could not truly be a Guardian of the Whills; without joy and frivolity he could not be a clown and jokester among sober peers; without the Holy City he could not be a protector of his beloved world—whatever he was, he was not a warrior at heart, and the events of the day had eroded his spirit. While Baze, his brother and ward, had embraced his role with vicious resolve, Chirrut had fought and run and killed because fighting and running and killing were necessary.

  Now they were necessary no longer, and he was glad.

  “I am one with the Force,” he said again, “and the Force is with me.” The words echoed inside him. I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.

  Baze yelled his name from the bunker. Chirrut did not stop.

  He felt hot bolts whip past him, heard leather gloves squeeze metal triggers, and turned his body as if shouldering his way through a crowd. He tapped the heel of his staff, feeling his way toward the console by the traces of buried cables. He listened for telltale echoes, where the noise of the battle resounded off terminals and equipment.

  He did all this without thinking. The art of zama-shiwo, the inward eye of the outward hand, attuned his breathing and heartbeat to his chant. It was his chant that guided his motions, controlled his pace as he strode forward. I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.

  “Chirrut!” Baze called. “Come back!”

  Baze was terrified. Chirrut was not. In the instant before he’d risen from the bunker, he’d questioned his own wisdom: How might he separate the will of the Force from his will, his ego, demanding action where action was unneeded? But there was no doubt in his heart now. The Force expressed itself through simplicity, and all it asked of him was to walk.

  I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.

  His staff rapped metal. The side of a console. The chant guided him to its front and he glided his fingers across buttons and readouts. He touched a broad, hinged handle recessed in the console: a master switch, if ever there’d been one. A particle bolt reverberated centimeters from Chirrut’s left ear as he urged the switch forward and felt it lock into place.

  I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.

  He smiled softly and thought of Bodhi, the strange pilot who smelled of Jedha beneath his Imperial suit.

  Chirrut’s chant was faltering now. With the switch activated, his path had become obscured. He listened to the storm of blasterfire and heard Baze’s voice again: “Chirrut! Come here!” So he turned toward Baze and the bunker and began retracing his steps. The rhythm of his breath was off, and the thousand noises and odors and sensations all about him failed to coalesce; each tugged at him, insisted on his exclusive attention.

  Then there was only one noise: a terrible thunder like the world splitting open. He was driven forward as pain flashed through his old bones and every injury he’d ever suffered ignited. Somehow, as Chirrut impacted the dirt and rolled to one side, he was aware of Baze shouting his name again.

  He couldn’t feel his staff. He couldn’t feel his hand, except for a terrible throbbing and its numb weight at the end of his arm. But the art of zama-shiwo had much to say about controlling pain, and Chirrut permitted his blood to spill without experiencing suffering. The violence inflicted upon his body troubled him less than the violence he had inflicted upon others.

  He was dying, of course.

  He felt Baze’s heavy, familiar tread pound the ground, smelled his brother’s sweat as he leaned close. He wanted to say, Baze! My eyes—I can’t see! but Baze Malbus had always needed comfort more than humor.

  “Chirrut,” Baze murmured. “Don’t go. Don’t go. I’m here…”

  He wondered for a moment how Baze had crossed the battlefield to reach him. But of course the Force had reunited them before the end.

  Baze’s callused fingers rubbed life into the back of Chirrut’s hand. “It’s okay,” Chirrut said. “It’s okay. Look for the Force and you will always find me.”

  He tried to smile, but he was no longer sure he could.

  The words of the chant echoed in Chirrut Îmwe’s heart once more before he died:

  I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.

  —

  The stormtroopers were closing around the cargo shuttle. Bodhi could tell because, not infrequently, a particle bolt would blaze up the boarding ramp and impact the interior bulkhead, raining sparks onto the floor. Bodhi didn’t know how many of Tonc’s people were still alive, fighting desperately to hold their foes back; nor did he know whether, at any moment, someone might sever the cable snaking up the ramp to the communications console.

  He was almost out of time, and all he could think was: I’m sorry, everyone. Sorry for promising what I couldn’t deliver. Sorry for not coming up with a better plan.

  He’d tried. That counted for something, didn’t it?

  When the console readouts updated to indicate a connection between the ship and the Scarif communications tower, he wanted to weep with joy.

  Instead, he hunched over the unit, adjusted his frequencies, and prayed someone would hear him. “Okay, okay,” he began. “This is Rogue One calling the rebel fleet!”

  He heard only the soft hiss of static in reply.

  They didn’t even know he was trying to reach them. They were fighting for their lives, and he was broadcasting aimlessly—as if some bridge officer was going to notice and pick up mid-battle.

  “This is Rogue One, calling any Alliance ships that can hear me!” He fought back the tremor in his voice. “Is there anybody up there? T
his is Rogue One!”

  I did my part, he told himself. I got a signal out. I’m sorry if no one was listening…

  He thought of Jyn, of Cassian, of Baze and Chirrut and Tonc. He wondered if any of them would be capable of forgiving his failures.

  Galen had forgiven him, at least. Galen had understood the need for forgiveness better than anyone.

  “This is Rogue One!” Specks of spittle dotted the console. He wiped them away with a sleeve. “Come in! Over!”

  “This is Admiral Raddus aboard the Profundity!” The comm came to life with a roar. “Rogue One, we hear you!”

  Bodhi uttered a laugh that might have been mistaken for a sob. “We have the plans!” he said—and maybe that was a lie, he couldn’t know for sure, but he was too desperate to care. “They found the Death Star plans. They have to transmit them from the communications tower!”

  He heard voices in the background—bridge officers, maybe, debating how to respond. Bodhi powered through. “You have to get in position, get ready to receive. And you have to take down the shield gate. It’s the only way to get through!”

  For an achingly long time, there was no answer.

  “Copy you, Rogue One,” the voice finally said. “We’ll get it done.” Then, directed not to Bodhi but to someone else on the bridge: “Call in a Hammerhead corvette. I have an idea.”

  The signal went dead. It didn’t matter to Bodhi; he’d said what he needed to say.

  The blasterfire outside had stopped. The silence was almost peaceful. Hands trembling, Bodhi straightened behind the console and glanced from the boarding ramp to the cockpit ladder. He thought of his plan to take off, to fly through the gauntlet of TIEs to rescue Jyn and Cassian from the communications tower. He thought of the strain he’d heard in Cassian’s voice, and of his last signal to Melshi—the one that had gone unanswered.

  If he didn’t have the chance…he’d done enough. It was okay.

  “This is for you, Galen,” he said, and started for the ladder.

  Bodhi Rook heard the ring of metal once, twice, in the cabin, and then the soft clatter of something rolling across the deck. He turned in time to glimpse the detonator. He heard nothing as the cabin flared impossibly bright.