“And if I do it?” Jyn asked.
“We’ll make sure you go free.”
Jyn didn’t have any loyalty to the Empire or the Alliance, but she liked the idea of being able to leave them both behind. If helping the rebels find Saw and perhaps her father was what it took, then that was what she would do.
CASSIAN ESCORTED Jyn back to her rescuers’ U-wing gunship, which sat ready to fly on the tarmac outside of the hangar. He wasn’t particularly thrilled about being forced to take her along on this mission, but he didn’t see how he could accomplish it without her. Saw Gerrera and his forces would otherwise shoot him on sight.
It wasn’t just that she wasn’t a rebel soldier or a spy. He’d dealt with many such amateurs before. But she didn’t care a bit about the Rebellion, and that, he worried, might come back to bite them all.
General Draven followed them out of the hangar and called Cassian back. Cassian left Jyn in the custody of K-2SO. The reprogrammed Imperial security droid had helped free her from her prison. He could keep an eye on her for now.
The older man spoke to Cassian in a low tone, far enough away from Jyn to make sure she couldn’t hear. “Galen Erso is vital to the Empire’s weapons program. There will be no ‘extraction.’ You find him, you kill him. Then and there.”
Cassian made sure to keep his expression neutral. He didn’t want General Draven to know about his distaste for such orders. Cassian would kill if necessary, but he didn’t like being ordered to assassinate someone.
And he didn’t want Jyn to see that on his face, either.
When Cassian joined Jyn and K-2SO in the U-wing, Jyn was already glaring at the droid, who had sat down at the starship’s controls.
“You met Kay-Tu?”
“Charming.”
“He tends to say whatever comes into his circuits. It’s a by-product of the reprogram.”
“Why does she get a blaster and I don’t?” K-2SO called back from the cockpit.
“What?” Cassian shot Jyn a cold look. Who would have given her a weapon? A better question: from where had she stolen it?
“I know how to use it,” she told him with a smug look.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” The last thing he needed was for her to shoot him in the back and escape. He held out his hand. “Give it to me.”
She sat back and refused. “We’re going to Jedha. That’s a war zone. Trust goes both ways.”
She had a point, and she was determined to be stubborn about it. He didn’t have the time or the energy to argue with her. He knew she already had a pair of truncheons tucked inside her jacket, anyway. What more was a blaster?
He gave her a shrug and sat down next to K-2SO in the cockpit.
The droid couldn’t believe it.
“You’re letting her keep it?”
Cassian didn’t want to discuss it. He started the preflight check.
“Are you interested in the probability of her using it against you?”
Cassian said nothing, hoping the literal-minded droid would take a hint for once.
“It’s high.”
Cassian did his best to ignore K-2SO. “Let’s get going.”
“It’s very high.”
BODHI ROOK was having an awful day. He’d finally managed to pull off a plan weeks in the making to escape and betray the Empire, but he’d spent so long as an Imperial pilot that the people Galen Erso had sent him to didn’t believe a word he told them.
The supposed rebels he’d found had turned him over to a hairless Tognath mercenary they called Two Tubes. Bodhi figured he’d gotten the name because of the breathing apparatus he needed to survive in what Bodhi thought of as perfectly acceptable air. Two Tubes could allegedly take Bodhi to Saw Gerrera, the man Galen had given Bodhi a message for. Instead of greeting Bodhi as a friend, though, Two Tubes had insisted on tying him up and pulling a sack over his head. Then the supposed rebels had marched him away to someplace far off, abusing him the entire way.
Now they had him kneeling on a rough stone floor while a man raged nearby. It was all he could do not to tremble.
“Lies!” the angry man said. “Deceptions!”
The others in the room snapped to their feet, and Bodhi wondered if this was it. Would they shoot him as a traitor before he even had a chance to deliver his message?
“Let’s see it.”
After a moment’s pause, the man spoke again. “Bodhi Rook. Cargo pilot.”
His captors hauled him to his feet. He sensed the man right in front of him. He could smell his sickly breath.
“Local boy, huh?”
Two Tubes responded in Tognath, but Bodhi understood him just fine. “There was this. It was found in his boot when he was captured.”
That must have been the holochip Galen had given Bodhi!
“Okay! I can hear you! He didn’t capture me.” Bodhi nodded in the direction of Two Tubes’s voice. “I came here myself! I defected!”
The man in front of him wasn’t impressed. “Every day, more lies.”
Bodhi knew his life depended on convincing that man to take him to Saw Gerrera. Saw would see through all this. He’d watch Galen’s message, and he’d know Bodhi was one of the good guys. Right?
“Lies? Why would I risk everything for a lie? We don’t have the time for this! I have to speak to Saw Gerrera before it’s too—”
Right then, someone pulled the sack off Bodhi’s head, and he realized that the man in front of him—the one he was already shouting at—could only be Saw Gerrera. His face was old and worn. He had white in his beard, and an oxygen mask hung from the front of his armor.
“Okay. You’re, um…” Bodhi brought his voice down and nodded at the holochip in Saw’s hand. “That’s for you.”
He glared at Two Tubes. “And I gave it to them,” he added. “They did not find it! I gave it to them.”
Saw didn’t say a thing. He just fixed Bodhi with a dead-eyed stare.
“Galen Erso.” Bodhi hoped those were the magic words that would persuade Saw they were both on the same side. “He told me to find you.”
Saw put his oxygen mask on his face and took a deep breath from it, never taking his eyes off Bodhi. As he exhaled, Bodhi could see how much it hurt him. It was clear that something had nearly destroyed Saw, but he seemed to be clinging to his defiance—of the Empire, of death—as hard as he could.
Saw said two words to Two Tubes. A name, Bodhi thought, although one he’d never heard before.
“Bor Gullet.”
“‘Bor Gullet’?” The sack came down over Bodhi’s head again, and someone started to drag him away. “What? Wait! No, no, wait! Galen Erso sent me!”
But Saw and his friends didn’t care one bit.
DIRECTOR ORSON KRENNIC strode through the halls of the Imperial Star Destroyer Executrix, his cape flowing behind him, his elite squadron of death troopers hot on his heels. This should have been a moment of triumph for him, but instead he had to deal with traitors and bureaucrats, people who meant to trip him up at every chance and take him down.
The rebels were one challenge. But that day he had to handle someone who meant to do something even worse to him: steal the glory for his accomplishments.
Wilhuff Tarkin—the Imperial governor of the Outer Rim and now a grand moff—had summoned Krennic to the bridge of his Star Destroyer. Despite the fact that the firing array was being fitted into the Death Star at that very moment, Krennic had been compelled to obey.
Once Krennic arrived on the bridge, Tarkin set into him without ceremony. This was meant to signal how much trouble Krennic was already in.
“Most unfortunate about the security breach on Jedha, Director Krennic. After so many setbacks and delays—and now this.”
Krennic opened his mouth to protest, but Tarkin wouldn’t let him get in a word.
“Apparently you’ve lost a
rather talkative cargo pilot. If the Senate gets wind of our project, countless systems will flock to the Rebellion.”
Krennic suppressed the urge to snarl at the Grand Moff. The man had the Emperor’s ear, and a word from him could be a huge blow to Krennic’s career.
“When the battle station is finished, Grand Moff Tarkin, the Senate will be of little concern.”
After all, who would stand up to a weapon able to destroy an entire planet in a matter of moments? The Senate would fall apart almost instantly. That was the whole point of building the Death Star in the first place.
If Krennic’s words impressed Tarkin, the man refused to show it. “When has become now, Director Krennic. The Emperor will tolerate no further delay. You have made time an ally of the Rebellion.”
Krennic’s blood rose at the accusation and all it implied. He wanted to turn the Death Star on Tarkin’s Star Destroyer and see how much of a failure the Emperor might consider him then.
Tarkin shot down that idea with a condescending smirk, almost as if he could read Krennic’s mind. “I suggest we solve both problems simultaneously with an immediate test of the weapon. Failure will find you explaining why to a far less patient audience.”
Krennic steeled himself. “I will not fail,” he told the Grand Moff.
He knew he had more on the line with this test than merely his career. He was also betting his life on it. With all the problems the project had suffered so far, he could only hope he was right.
JEDHA CITY wasn’t exactly what Jyn had expected. She supposed that once, long before, it had been a beautiful city that glowed with the power of the Force, but it had fallen on hard times. It sat on a high plateau in the middle of a deep valley, surrounded by an ancient wall that had protected it from ground invasion for countless centuries.
Many of the proud spires that once stabbed into the sky, though, had been shattered, and much of the rest of the city lay under a thick layer of dust and smoke generated by years of conflict. To top it all off, almost the entire city was under the shadow of an Imperial Star Destroyer that hovered over it.
Jyn had rarely seen such a raw display of power, and she could only imagine what it must have been like for the residents to wake up one day to find themselves living under it.
“What’s with the Destroyer?” she asked Cassian as they surveyed the city from a distance.
“The Empire’s been sending those since Saw Gerrera started attacking their cargo shipments.”
Jyn noticed several such ships running back and forth from the Star Destroyer to various points within the city.
“What are they bringing in?”
“It’s what they’re bringing out. Kyber crystal. All they can get. We believe the Empire is using it as fuel for the weapon.”
“The weapon your father is building,” K-2SO observed.
Jyn looked askance at the droid. “Maybe we should leave Target Practice behind.”
The droid took half a step back, as if shocked. “Are you talking about me?”
Jyn wondered if the machine might get angry with her, but Cassian intervened. “She’s right. We need to blend in. Stay with the ship.”
“I can blend in,” the droid protested. “I’m an Imperial droid. The city is under Imperial occupation.”
Jyn could hardly believe it, but the Imperial security droid seemed offended. “Half the people here want to reprogram you. The other half want to put a hole in your head.”
“I’m surprised you’re so concerned with my safety.”
“I’m not. I’m just worried they might miss you and hit me.”
Jyn walked away, intending to end the conversation at that point, but the droid couldn’t resist one last dig as she and Cassian began their hike to Jedha City.
“Doesn’t sound so bad to me.”
BODHI KNEW he was going to hate this. Saw Gerrera’s rebels had finally managed to scrape up that Bor Gullet they were talking about, and to prepare him for it they’d strapped him to a chair so tightly he could barely feel his arms. Then they’d sent the creature into Bodhi’s rough and dirty prison cell.
Bor was like nothing Bodhi had ever seen. It resembled a sea creature, with more tentacles than Bodhi cared to count, but it moved about on dry land rather than in the water. Bodhi wasn’t sure how they’d even managed to get Bor into the rebel hideout much less into his cell. The creature seemed to defy everything Bodhi knew about how living things fit into spaces.
To make everything worse, Saw Gerrera stood just outside the door to Bodhi’s cell, explaining everything that was about to happen to him.
“Bor Gullet can feel your thoughts. No lie is safe.”
Bodhi wanted to protest, to swear to Saw that none of this was necessary, that he’d already told him the truth. But he knew it would do no good. He’d already tried to convince Saw and his rebels of that fact so many times, and they’d absolutely refused to believe anything he told them. He’d screamed himself hoarse.
There was nothing for him to do but submit to this creature and its powers. The thought of having such a thing rummage through his mind appalled him, but he didn’t see what else he could do. If he could have turned back time, he might have decided not to defect, not to help Galen Erso, not to try to save the galaxy.
But it was far too late.
The creature’s tentacles reached for Bodhi. He strained against his bonds, unable to resist cringing away from it as he fought the urge to vomit.
“What have you really brought me, cargo pilot?” Saw asked in his raspy voice. “Bor Gullet will know the truth.”
One of Bor’s tentacles snaked out and wrapped around Bodhi’s throat. He wanted to scream, but the tentacle had already started to constrict so tight he couldn’t draw enough air. Pulling away from the creature only made it worse.
More tentacles reached out then, wrapping around Bodhi’s head. Their suckers attached to precise points on Bodhi’s temples, and he could feel them pulsing, almost as if they were milking his brain.
Saw’s voice was the last thing Bodhi heard before his mind began to scramble into static and white noise. The man said something Bodhi could only hope wouldn’t come true.
“The unfortunate side effect of Bor Gullet’s techniques is that one tends to lose one’s mind.”
JEDHA CITY didn’t impress Jyn up close any more than it had from a distance. The city bore all the clear signs of a longstanding Imperial occupation: shattered shells of buildings scattered about the landscape, blaster-fire scorch marks marring the still-intact walls, and anti-Palpatine graffiti decorating most other surfaces.
As she followed Cassian through the city’s ancient streets, gazing at the wear and tear of impending war all around her, she brushed up against a grizzled man with a disfigured face.
“Hey! You better watch yourself!”
Jyn put her hand on her blaster as the man and his Aqualish pal turned to confront her. If the two were spoiling for a brawl, she wasn’t averse to obliging them.
Cassian intervened, though, and pulled her away. The two men glared after her. Maybe it was the Imperial hologram nearby, shouting out demands of loyalty to the Empire, that convinced the men Jedha wasn’t the right place to pick a fight.
More specifically, the hologram called for the citizens of Jedha to come forward with any information about a missing cargo pilot. That had to be the same man Jyn and Cassian had gone to find, which would only make their impossible job that much harder.
Cassian didn’t seem to let that deter him though. He moved like a man with a purpose.
“I had a contact, one of Saw’s rebels, but he’s just gone missing,” he said. “His sister will be looking for him. The Temple’s been destroyed, but she’ll be there waiting. We’ll give her your name and hope that gets us a meeting.”
“Hope?” Jyn didn’t like to depend on something so ridiculous.
“Rebellions are built on hope,” Cassian said.
As they weaved through the crowded streets, Cassian spotted someone he recognized. “Wait for me,” he ordered Jyn as he strode ahead.
While Cassian spoke to a bearded man in a food stall, Jyn tried to listen in but couldn’t manage it over the noise of people thronging the streets. Instead, she realized that she was hearing a different voice.
She glanced around and spotted the owner of that voice: a man dressed in monk’s robes. His eyes were a pale blue, and he seemed to be addressing no one in particular—perhaps everyone—as he repeated over and over, “May the Force of others be with you….May the Force of others be with you….” Jyn realized he was blind.
The man’s droning fell silent for a moment, and then he said, “Would you trade that necklace for a glimpse of your future?”
Jyn froze. The blind man wasn’t looking at her, but then he wasn’t looking at anyone, was he? She was wearing a necklace, the kyber crystal her mother had given her so long before, but it was hidden under her shirt. There was no way he could know about it.
“Yes,” he said, seeming to sense her confusion. “I’m talking to you.”
She fixed him with a hard look she soon realized he couldn’t see.
“I am Chirrut Îmwe.”
“How did you know I was wearing a necklace?”
The man almost smiled. “For that answer, you must pay.”
Jyn noticed another man standing behind the monk. He seemed to be the opposite of Chirrut. He wore a red chest plate of armor rather than robes, and his hair was long and shaggy. Somehow, though, the two seemed perfectly matched, like brothers who’d each gone a different way.
“What do you know of kyber crystals?” Chirrut asked.
Jyn wasn’t sure how to respond. Was this some kind of scam? “My father. He said they powered the Jedi lightsabers.”
Cassian must have finished his conversation, because he chose that moment to pull Jyn away from the monk.
Rogue One Junior Novel Page 2