Star Wars: Rebel Rising

by Revis, Beth

  Saw had gotten Jyn a code replicator of her own, something for her to tinker with to appear unobtrusive while he met with different people who were against the Empire. If she hid behind a screen, people forgot she was there, and she enjoyed the work.

  Saw knocked on Jyn’s door one evening after kinesthetic training. She’d been slicing holos, a practice Saw encouraged. Jyn would alter an image, and Saw would try to figure out what she had changed.

  When Jyn opened the door, she was surprised to see another person standing next to Saw, a woman a head taller than him, with thick hair and skin darker than his.

  “Jyn,” Saw said, “do you remember Idryssa?”

  Idryssa had come to Saw’s base often when Jyn was younger but had not returned in a long time. Her skin sparkled with a slight greenish tint this time instead of blue, and Jyn realized that she wore some sort of makeup for the effect and had not been born with sparkling skin.

  Jyn’s gaze slid to Saw. “Are you going away on a mission?”

  Idryssa smiled at her. “I’m just here to talk. Nice to see you again. It’s been a long time. How old are you now?” Idryssa asked.

  Jyn hated this question. It always came from people who thought she was too young, and if she told the truth—that she was fourteen—they would give her a pitying glance or tsk quietly. “Old enough,” she said curtly.

  Saw was relaxed around Idryssa, more so than he was when other partisans came to visit, even if Jyn didn’t like the age question.

  “I don’t know what you expect of me,” he told Idryssa in a good-natured tone. “I’ve got no info for you; I’m not the Ante.”

  Idryssa barked a laugh. “I couldn’t afford you if you were.”

  “So do you have information for me?” Saw asked eagerly.

  Idryssa shook her head. “A bunch of dead ends. The Empire is most definitely researching crystals, like you suggested, and the entire market for various minerals has been upended.”

  “I know all that,” Saw said. “What I want to know is what the Empire plans to do with these resources.”

  Idryssa held her palms out and shrugged. She didn’t know.

  Jyn silently noted Idryssa’s information, and she knew Saw had summoned her in part so she could hear. He hadn’t given up trying to discover the Empire’s purpose for Galen and his research, and Jyn hadn’t forgotten, either.

  Saw led them down the stone hallway to the long metal table in the common room. Idryssa sat across from him; Jyn sat at the end of the table, tinkering with a data chip she’d extracted from a holocube. She pretended to be uninterested as the adults started talking, but Saw had trained her well, and she analyzed their dialogue carefully. Jyn cut her eyes at Idryssa. She had an honest look about her, clear brown eyes that seemed guileless. She didn’t look like the sort of person who would scrape together a fight against the Empire; she looked like the kind of woman who should be running a farm somewhere with lots of children. Jyn wondered if that was where Idryssa had been since the last time she’d seen her, so long before.

  “We’re starting small,” Idryssa said, leaning toward Saw. “Organize a single base of operations, for starts.”

  “Bad idea,” Saw said immediately.

  Idryssa frowned.

  “Look, I’ve been at this a long time,” Saw said. “You have one base, when the Empire hits it, you lose everything.”

  “You have one base,” she pointed out.

  “No, I don’t,” Saw said.

  Jyn’s head shot up. Saw had more than this outpost? Was that where he went sometimes when he left her, to other homes, places where he didn’t have to deal with her?

  “There’s been real interest from people high up,” Idryssa continued.

  Saw shot her a scathing look. “And you trust them?”

  “They’re the ones who got me the information you were asking about.”

  Saw waved his hand at her, prompting her to continue. “The Empire’s supply runs have been fewer and more strategic.” She propped her arms on the table, steepling her fingers. “Either they’re done in secrecy and we don’t know about them until too late, or they’re done in public.”

  “Supply runs?” Jyn asked. Usually, Saw disapproved of her speaking during strategic conversations, but he had made a point to include her, and she sensed that he wanted her participation.

  “For crystals,” Idryssa said. “The Empire is particularly interested in kyber crystals, apparently.”

  “Oh!” Jyn feigned surprise.

  “There was a small planet in the Sunshi system,” Idryssa continued. “The Empire recently discovered kyber crystals there.”

  “What happened?” Jyn asked.

  “They hollowed it out.”

  The words hung in the air between them, and Jyn tried to picture what it meant to mine a planet to death.

  “The last shipment was a huge production,” Idryssa said, turning to Saw. “The Empire literally had a parade before the cargo left the planet.”

  “So?” Saw asked.

  “That planet had been uninhabited. They brought civilian cruisers from the Core worlds and made a big show of the mining process,” she said. “Alderaan and Chandrila were particularly invited, and the Emperor couldn’t have made it more obvious that he wanted them to see the way the Empire has taken over the mining operations. But part of it, I think, was to ensure that we wouldn’t attack and steal the shipment.”

  Saw’s brow furrowed, creasing through the scars on his face. “I don’t see why that would stop you.”

  Idryssa laughed bitterly. “I can see what the HoloNet would show on the feeds now. ‘Anarchists Risk Lives of Senators,’” Idryssa said, spreading her hands as if reading a headline. “‘Partisans Embrace Terrorism.’”

  “You should,” Saw said simply.

  Idryssa blinked at him in obvious shock, then she grew very still. Jyn’s attention shifted from her to him.

  “I’ve heard the rumors,” Idryssa said in a low voice. Jyn leaned forward. “But I didn’t want to believe they were true.”

  “I do what needs to be done,” Saw said. “And if you want your little ‘coalition’ to work, you’ll do the same.”

  “Are you saying we should actually become a terrorist organization? That we should slaughter anyone between us and the Empire?”

  “Why not?” Saw asked. “That’s how they’ll spin it anyway. Right, Jyn?”

  Idryssa turned and looked at Jyn. Rather than answering him, Jyn touched a button on the holocube. It sprang to life, shooting up the image of an official Imperial media release. The symbol of the Empire spun at the top, followed by a large headline that read “Partisans Embrace Terrorism.” The words below were gibberish, but the signature at the bottom—Lieutenant Colonel Senjax, military correspondent for the Imperial Broadcast—looked real.

  “Did you just do that?” Idryssa asked, impressed.

  Jyn shrugged. “It wasn’t that hard.”

  “Still, though.”

  Jyn pointed to the nonsense words under the headline. “Anyone could tell it wasn’t real.”

  “Not if you filled that out.” Idryssa stood up and leaned closer. “You have every detail right—the insignia, the signature.” She took the holocube from Jyn and looked even closer. “You even have the serial numbers correct, and the data chip identification code is from an Imperial server file.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Jyn said. “I duped it.”

  Idryssa blinked. “Impressive.” Across the table, Saw beamed at Jyn.

  Jyn was embarrassed to have so much attention on her. Without realizing what she was doing, she pulled her crystal necklace out from under her shirt and toyed with the stone. “My father taught me to pay attention to details,” she said.

  “Yes, I did,” Saw said proudly.

  Jyn sucked in a breath but didn’t reply. Idryssa shot Jyn a curious look, but when Jyn wouldn’t meet her eyes, she went back to her seat at the table. “Well, it’s clear that anyone can say anything,” she s
aid, waving a hand toward the holocube. “But that doesn’t mean we should attack civilians to inconvenience the Empire. I don’t care what they say,” she added. “I care what we do. And we do not kill innocent civilians just to disrupt the Empire’s shipping lines.”

  “It’s a price of war,” Saw said simply.

  “The Senate still hopes to avoid war.”

  Saw laughed bitterly. “The Senate?” Another laugh. “They don’t realize we’re still fighting the same war as before. We never quit fighting.”

  “We did,” Idryssa said, her face melting in sympathy. “You’re the only one still fighting that war.”

  Saw’s face hardened. “So what if I am?” he roared at Idryssa. “War is war, and it never ends!”

  Idryssa stood. She wasn’t as broad as Saw, but she was tall and thin and her spine was strong as steel. “There is an end to war,” she said. “I have to believe that. And so do the others I’m going to work with. We’re going to make a difference, Saw, a change. There are senators interested in helping us. If we combine forces—”

  Saw snorted. “Then we’ll lose everything. Bureaucracy kills freedom.”

  Idryssa sank back into her seat. From Saw’s face, it was clear that he thought he’d defeated Idryssa’s ideology, but Jyn could tell that Idryssa felt only disappointment.

  Saw got up and moved to the cabinet. “You remind me of Steela,” he said, rooting around in the shelves. Jyn was surprised; he rarely brought up his sister. Jyn knew only that she had died fighting in the Clone Wars. Saw turned and met Idryssa’s gaze. “That’s not entirely a compliment,” he added. He pulled out a bottle of lum and poured a glass for himself and one for Idryssa. The sharp, bitter alcoholic smell made Jyn scrunch her nose.

  “I will never understand why the rebellion is so worried about labels,” Saw continued as if he’d not just flared with rage. “Fear controls the masses. The Empire controls fear. If we tapped into that—if we used the same tactics the Empire does and brought about the same kind of fear, we’d control the people and give them the peace you are so anxious to have.”

  “That’s not peace,” Idryssa said simply.

  It was clear that Saw didn’t agree.

  Idryssa left early the next morning, and while she showed no signs of being hungover from the lum, Saw buried his head in his arms and dimmed the lights of the common room. Jyn ate her breakfast as quietly as she could and read her datapad.

  It wasn’t always easy to be in charge of her own education, and she had let most of the subjects her mother had taught her fall to the wayside as she focused on the things that interested her and that Saw clearly approved of, like seeing how much she could manipulate files and holos and data chips. But she did like to keep abreast of current events, even if she rarely spoke to Saw about them. After listening to Idryssa the night before, Jyn had stayed up late watching the last Senate meeting broadcasts. Despite the fact that Mon Mothma and Bail Organa had both spent so much time pleading with the Senate to recognize the state of the Empire, their speeches had been dismissed without further consideration. Jyn had zoomed in on the sharp angles of Senator Organa’s face. He seemed like one of the best bets for the “Senate support” Idryssa had hinted at. He looked like the kind of man who’d declare war. But he wore the fine clothes of an Alderaanian, and Jyn doubted he’d have the strength to actually fight in one.

  Saw would, though.

  Saw already had. In the Clone Wars.

  “You done?” Saw asked.

  Jyn nodded, putting down her datapad and tossing her nutritive milk can in the trash. She followed Saw outside. He didn’t flinch in the sunlight; he wasn’t as affected by the lum as she’d thought.

  That day was hand-to-hand combat practice, Jyn’s favorite. Saw had tried her on various melee weapons, but her favorite was a pair of short truncheons. They felt like extensions of her arms, strong and empowering. Jyn glowered at Saw when he tried to pass her the bo staff and smiled brightly when he laughed in defeat and handed her the pair of short weighted batons. Saw took the bo staff for himself, then moved back, holding the weapon warily.

  Jyn gripped the truncheons, watching his feet. Saw was quick with his hands, but she could tell when he was about to strike by how he positioned his feet.

  He lunged, and she raised her truncheons defensively, knocking the staff aside.

  “So,” she grunted, stepping away after the initial attack, “Idryssa seemed nice.”

  “Too idealistic,” Saw said. He feinted, and Jyn jumped, her arms raised, but he just laughed that she’d fallen for the trick.

  “It makes sense, though,” Jyn said, her eyes on Saw’s staff. “You work with a lot of different partisan groups. If they all worked together , maybe…”

  Saw struck quickly, jabbing Jyn in the side before she had a chance to defend herself. Jyn nodded, accepting the defeat, then raised her truncheons again.

  “What would it take?” Jyn persisted when Saw didn’t answer her.

  “For what?”

  She wasn’t sure if Saw was genuinely confused or dodging her question. He often got so focused on the task at hand he forgot about everything else. Papa had been like that, too.

  “For some sort of organized rebellion to form. Something that could take down the Empire.”

  Saw put his hands up, calling a pause in their sparring. He leaned against his staff. “It’s not like that,” he told Jyn. “It doesn’t matter how many people stand up against the Empire. It doesn’t matter how big a group it is.”

  “Then what matters?”

  “The kind of people who fight.” Saw watched her with his deep brown eyes. “If there’s really going to be some anti-Imperial alliance, they need a…” He flicked his hand as he searched for the word.

  “A leader?” Jyn supplied.

  “Yes, but not just someone giving orders,” Saw countered. “Someone the people believe in.”

  Jyn frowned at the truncheons in her hands. “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “It’s like I was telling you, with the droids and the clone armor,” Saw said, indicating the mock battlefield he used for Jyn’s training. “I tell you millions died in the Clone Wars, what do you feel?”

  Jyn opened her mouth to speak, but Saw cut her off.

  “You feel nothing, because you didn’t know any of them, did you?”

  Jyn shook her head.

  “But I tell you that my sister died,” Saw continued, “I tell you that Steela was the best part of me, and that she was going to change the world. Make it a better place. Hell, not just the world. The whole damn galaxy. She was stronger than any Jedi, stronger than the ‘Force,’ but that didn’t matter.” He sighed heavily, his eyes distant and sad. “I tell you that she died a hero. She saved a king and fought the enemy. But she was on the side of a cliff, and a gunship was shot down and crashed into it.”

  Jyn gasped, a tiny sound that Saw didn’t hear.

  “I tell you that I saw her, hanging on that rocky edge, her fingers gripping the stone. And there was a Jedi there. Oh, look at you. You got all hopeful at that. Didn’t do a damn thing. The Jedi tried to save her, sure, but she didn’t. Steela fell anyway. Fell to the bottom of the cliff, onto solid rock. Ever see what happens to a body that falls that far down onto stone? Bones don’t just break, they shatter .”

  Saw looked at Jyn, but she didn’t think he saw her.

  “And I tell you that I was the one who shot down the ship that crashed into the cliff where she had been. I tell you that, and you feel something, yeah?”

  Jyn couldn’t move. Saw leaned over and rubbed the pad of his thumb across her cheek. It came away wet. She hadn’t even known a tear had leaked out of her eye.

  “And for what? They said her death was the price paid for the freedom of Onderon. Her body was barely cold before the Republic turned into the Empire. And it all started again. Another rebellion. More war. More death. I was smarter that time. I didn’t make the same mistakes as I had when Steela was alive. Didn�
��t matter. Didn’t work. Onderon is under the Empire. And I’m here.”

  When Saw was speaking, for a moment Jyn saw him the way he used to be. A starry-eyed young man with a dream of justice and freedom. He must have been so brilliant then. But that young man died when Steela did, and in his place was this bitter, angry fighter.

  “The resistance against the Empire needs Steela,” Saw said. He searched Jyn’s eyes, waiting to see if she understood.

  “More fighters like her?” The idealistic, the heroes who stand up in the face of certain death.

  “They need more fighters like her to die like she did,” he growled. “The resistance needs a martyr. A tragedy. Something so horrific that people can’t help but stand up and fight, too. You understand?”

  “They need someone they can believe in,” Jyn said, looking into Saw’s eyes. He nodded like he was glad Jyn was understanding. “Like the Jedi, during the Clone Wars.” It was impossible to study the galaxy without hearing something of the Jedi, and considering how much the Empire loathed even a mention of the religious cult, Jyn had assumed Saw would love and admire all Jedi.

  Instead, he snarled.

  “Don’t give them another thought,” Saw said, glaring. “Jedi think they can do anything, but where are they now? All dead. And before that? Sure, they helped. But not enough.”

  He stared down at his hand, and Jyn thought he was looking at the long jagged scar that cut through the thin skin between his thumb and first finger. But he made a fist.

  “They talked about the Force, the Jedi did,” he said in a lower voice. “Never understood what it was, but I saw it. It was like magic. They could move things with a wave of their hand.” He swept his arm out.

  Nothing in front of him moved.

  “But they couldn’t hold on,” Saw continued. “For all their power, they couldn’t hold on, not when it mattered.”