Star Wars: Rebel Rising

by Revis, Beth

  “Tell that to the people on Tamsye Prime, the ones who aren’t worth it.” Saw smirked, but there was no triumph in his voice, just disappointment.

  “We cannot fight every battle.” Idryssa glared defiantly back at Saw. “But if you can get me intelligence about what it’s like on the ground at Tamsye Prime, I can get them to consider a raid. I’m not asking much, Saw. Just a scouting mission, that’s all.”

  Saw stared at her, then looked away. “Get out,” he finally said, his voice softer than his words. “I’ve got a mission to plan.”

  Saw stared at the holocube of Tamsye Prime Idryssa had left behind. With an Imperial blockade around the planet and an Imperial presence at the factory, a scouting mission would be no easy task.

  “Get Reece,” Saw growled.

  Jyn jumped up, but before she left the room, Saw called her back. “And Codo.”

  Jyn dashed out of the outpost. Idryssa’s starfighter was already a blur in the sky, and everyone else who’d been ousted from the command center stood in a huddle, talking in low voices. They quieted when Jyn approached. They stood straighter; they looked at her with expectant eyes.

  Jyn’s steps slowed; her spine stiffened. She was speaking for Saw, and they knew it, and they respected her for it.

  “Reece,” she said, “and Codo.”

  The two men broke off from the group. Reece walked with a triumphant bounce in his step. Codo looked nervous, and Jyn realized that he hadn’t been sent on many missions lately.

  Saw laid out the mission for the men after Jyn led them to the command center.

  “I’ve been tracing that ore for years,” Saw said in a musing tone, mostly to himself. “The Empire has kept even its shipping logs on lockdown. I’ll find a mine, track where the doonium or dolovite is being carted. Split up to refineries. Shipped to worlds for holding. Sent one way, backtracked another. If Id is right and this is where the ore is being shaped into whatever it is the Empire is building, it’s worth checking out.”

  They stared at the holo of Tamsye Prime. A Star Destroyer orbited the planet, and beyond that, Jyn could see notes of Imperial outposts surrounding the perimeter of a landmass in the southern hemisphere. A series of manufacturing plants had been developed on the continent, originally by a large family who’d turned the colony into an economically viable endeavor. The family had been bought out by the Empire and lived in luxury on Bespin. The people who’d spent generations working to turn Tamsye Prime into a home for their families toiled under the Empire’s harsher rule. There was only one spaceport, and the only other way off the land mass required sneaking past Imperial troops and then swimming a vast ocean.

  “One main access point,” Saw said, pointing to the spaceport. He reached for the holo, blowing up the area so they could see it in greater detail. He scanned the text descriptions attached to the landmarks. “This planet was a player in the Clone Wars,” he growled. “They developed shell munitions for the Republic.”

  “Shell munitions?” Jyn asked, surprised. She knew the history of weapons but had never actually fired something that used bullets instead of plasma. Even the flechette launcher used a plasma-based firing mechanism, not something as crude as gunpowder.

  Saw grunted. “It wasn’t common but was especially effective for large landmasses. I’ve seen shell ammunition take down a mountainside.” His eyes grew distant, and Jyn knew, at least for a moment, Saw was back in the Clone Wars. “That’s what I can’t get Idryssa to understand,” he said finally.

  “What?” Codo asked. He sounded nervous.

  “She’s following a cause. She believes in this squadron, the idea of joining forces against the Empire. But people don’t follow an idea.”

  “But she’s still fighting the Empire,” Codo protested. “Isn’t that enough to get more people to rise up?”

  Jyn shook her head. She thought of the way the others listened to her because she was speaking for Saw. People didn’t follow an idea, not even something as big as fighting the Empire. They followed a person. Someone like Saw.

  “So what’s the target objective?” Reece asked, all business.

  “Strictly scouting,” Saw said as if the idea was distasteful.

  “If her group won’t do this and we’re not getting paid, why bother?” Codo asked.

  “Why bother?” Reece snapped back. “Why are you even here?”

  Jyn caught Saw’s eyes. She saw the gleam in them, the anticipation. Tamsye Prime held a munitions factory, and the blockade and blacked-out comms were too similar to the other planets Saw had been watching, the ones he suspected were linked to whatever it was her father was working on for the Empire. This mission was just close enough to Saw’s obsession to be too enticing to pass up.

  Reece and Codo were still bickering, but they fell silent as Saw spoke. “We need an in,” he said. “If we can get our boots on the ground, we can find a way to get Idryssa the information for her group to launch a larger-scale attack against the Empire.” Jyn could tell he didn’t like working through red tape, but he also didn’t have the manpower to fight a Star Destroyer.

  “I could forge us credentials,” Jyn offered. “Go in under the guise of inspecting the plants.”

  Saw shook his head. He pointed to the Star Destroyer. “An operation this big? Everything’s documented. We can’t just show up. Even if your forgery was perfect—which I’m sure it would be—there would be no record of an inspection, and that would raise too many red flags.”

  “We could pose as workers?” Codo suggested.

  Saw was still looking at the holo, still shaking his head. “The workers on Tamsye Prime were born on Tamsye Prime. The Empire’s done that before. Take over a whole planet’s labor force, recruiting only from within. Keeps it secure. And ensures they don’t rebel.”

  Jyn looked at him curiously, unsure of his meaning.

  “If you’re alone, you don’t care as much.” Saw’s eyes were watery and seemed tired as he shifted his attention to Jyn. “If you’ve got no one left, it doesn’t matter as much what happens to you. There’s a sort of fearlessness in being alone. But when you start to love someone else…It’s ironic.”

  “What is?” Jyn asked softly.

  “You find out that you have so much more to fight for, but it becomes that much more dangerous to fight at all.” Saw took a deep, shaking breath. “Anyway, the Empire knows this. They employ not just the man, but his wife, his children. So if the man thinks of rebelling, the people he loves pay the price. Ensures no one protests.”

  Jyn shifted her gaze to the holo, blinking away unexpected tears. Saw’s words reminded her of Galen Erso. Jyn didn’t let herself think the word Papa anymore. Galen was her father, but not Papa.

  Jyn used to wake up in a cold sweat, reliving the day her mother was killed and her father was taken. Her father’s fate was more terrifying to her than her mother’s. Death’s pain was finite. The Empire’s was not. In Jyn’s worst nightmares, the Empire came for her, too, kidnapping her from her old home.

  But no one ever came. And Jyn knew it was because no one needed her. Not her father, who had never tried to find her, but also not the Empire. There was no point in taking her to use against her father if he worked for the Empire willingly. The families on Tamsye Prime were all leveraged against each other, but Jyn couldn’t be leverage if no one cared about her.

  “I have an idea,” Reece said, his voice cutting through Jyn’s dark thoughts.

  “What is it?” Saw asked.

  Reece stood up and started pacing. “The timing may not work out, but…”

  “Out with it!” Saw demanded.

  “I’ve got a few contacts on Coruscant, from my old group,” Reece said. Saw nodded in acknowledgement. Reece rarely spoke about how his former team had splintered and broken apart around him, how many of the men who used to call him boss deferred to Saw. “One of them works with the propaganda department. I remember hearing something….Tamsye Prime sounds familiar….”

  He dashed to
the comm unit and punched in some codes. Saw bristled; he didn’t like communications happening without his approval, but Reece whooped in triumph a moment later. “Yes!” he said. “They’re shooting a propaganda documentary, and Tamsye Prime is on the list. If you can get us scandocs, we can be assigned as tertiary units to help with the recording.”

  “I can do scandocs,” Jyn said immediately.

  Saw nodded his approval. “Yes,” he said, thinking. “That could work. Shoot for the Empire but send the info to Idryssa’s group instead.” He turned to Reece. “Set that up,” he ordered.

  Reece pulled up a chair at the comm unit and got to work. Saw sent Codo to acquire cam droids, and Reece gave Jyn the specs she’d need to start on the forged scandocs.

  This is the way it should be, Jyn thought as she applied herself to developing new scandocs. Idryssa may have joined some sort of bigger movement working with other partisans, but they were too big to actually do anything. This—this immediate action—was the way to fight the Empire.

  Reece set everything up with his contact on Coruscant. Their cover was a replacement crew for a propaganda holo the Empire was developing. They had to move fast, but the contact was confident that their cover would hold.

  Jyn showed Reece the forged scandocs and badges for his approval. “These are good,” he said. “They’re expecting us—my contact already filed our names for the work detail—so they’re not going to look too closely, but even if they did, these would still pass inspection.”

  Despite herself, Jyn felt pride swelling in her chest at his compliment.

  Codo returned the next day with a bevy of camera droids, each set to upload directly to Idryssa’s camp rather than to an Imperial server. They ran over the plan again and again, from cover story to two different emergency escape possibilities.

  “The one area we want to avoid on Tamsye Prime,” Saw told them, using the holo of the planet to showcase the landscape, “is here.” He indicated a munitions testing ground. “Particularly this area, where they were experimenting with shelled artillery. We don’t know what’s there, but let’s not find out.”

  Jyn nodded, memorizing the roads. The spaceport wasn’t that far from the munitions testing ground; if they got cornered there, it would be easier to make a run for their ship than veer into that area.

  “We ready?” Saw asked, looking from Jyn to Reece to Codo.

  They nodded. They were as prepared as they could be.

  “Let’s go,” he said grimly.

  Jyn had Imperial clearance codes ready by the time they dropped out of hyperspace near Tamsye Prime and the Star Destroyer orbiting it. They were cleared to land in moments, and Reece took his small cruiser down into the spaceport.

  Jyn’s stomach was twisted in knots, though she didn’t know why. This was by far an easier mission than any of the others she’d been on. And it filled her with more hope than she cared to admit. She understood why Idryssa wanted to be a part of a larger group fighting the Empire. Sometimes with Saw’s missions, it didn’t feel like fighting the Empire; it just felt like fighting. But with this, there was a chance they could make a real, true difference, not just for the people of Tamsye Prime but also for the galaxy as a whole.

  Reece stood as soon as he docked the ship, moving straight to the gangway. Saw and Jyn hung back, booting up the camera droids and directing them off the ship. Reece was playing the part of overseer; Jyn and Saw were his subordinates. Codo was their pilot; he was staying with the ship.

  A pair of stormtroopers were waiting for them as they left the ship.

  “Identification,” the first said in an authoritative voice.

  “Of course, of course,” Reece said. He presented all the official documentation Jyn had forged for them. She breathed deeply, willing her heart not to leap from her chest. The stormtrooper handed back their scandocs when he was done. Jyn smiled down at the fake name she’d given herself, Kestrel Dawn.

  “We’ve been expecting you,” the stormtrooper said. “This way.” The two stormtroopers turned on their heels and led the three of them and their droids through the spaceport and toward the exit.

  Jyn took stock of the ships that were docked as they walked past. Three were obviously Imperial; the largest cruiser was probably the one used by Lieutenant Colonel Senjax, and the two others may have been transports for more stormtroopers or something else. There was a small fleet of branded ships with the Tamsye Prime factory logo emblazoned on them and a few smaller ships, perhaps privately owned, although Jyn doubted it.

  Once outside, Jyn could see why Tamsye Prime was used only for manufacturing. The planet appeared good for little else. The surface of Tamsye Prime was unforgiving, the wind whistling through the hard shiny rock. It reminded Jyn of a darker version of the planet Alpinn, which she’d visited as a child. Alpinn was littered with shining white crystals that formed eerie formations and caves. Tamsye Prime’s rocky surface was a mixture of soft brown rocks that crumbled to fine dust and hard, shiny black igneous rocks that spired up like frozen water spouts or curled down like waves. Jyn couldn’t imagine what kind of drills must have been needed to break into the black rocky surface to build the spaceport and factories.

  Lieutenant Colonel Senjax waited for them outside the main facility. “Ah, we can begin,” he said, a pleasant smile plastered on his face. Jyn blinked in surprise. She’d seen his image before, on the HoloNet, presenting to the public the new ways the Empire worked for the people of the galaxy and promoted peace among the planets. But there was something surprising about seeing him in person, tall and blonde and pale, with ice-blue eyes and a perfectly chiseled face and immaculate white teeth lined up in neat little rows as he bestowed them all with his smile. He was perfect, so perfect that Jyn felt like a grub worm next to him.

  But he was also much more human than she’d expected. He was the face of the Empire, and his was a face she felt inexplicably drawn to, as if she could trust him. When Jyn thought of the Empire, it was a monster wearing a black helmet and killing her mother. Lieutenant Colonel Senjax wasn’t a monster.

  She was very glad she was supposed to play the part of nothing but an underling to Reece; she wasn’t really sure she trusted herself to speak in that moment.

  Lieutenant Colonel Senjax took the time to introduce himself to everyone in the small press group, from the paid actors who must surely have already known him down to Jyn and Saw. He stopped short of greeting the camera droids and laughingly turned to Jyn. “It feels rude not to speak to protocol droids or ones that look human and can talk back. I suppose the camera droids don’t really care.”

  “N-no, sir,” Jyn stuttered.

  “Well, let’s get to work!” the lieutenant colonel said cheerfully, turning to the factory. “Let’s show the people of the galaxy just how wonderful the Empire can be!”

  It struck Jyn as she followed the group into the huge factory that Lieutenant Colonel Senjax hadn’t said the Empire was already wonderful, just that it had the potential to be.

  Reece stayed near the front with the main camera droid as Lieutenant Colonel Senjax provided a constant chatter. “It’s best to treat these things as naturally as possible,” he told one of the reporters, smiling. “This isn’t an interview or even a true report. This is a conversation with the galaxy.”

  Saw rolled his eyes, and Jyn hit him.

  Reece dropped back. “Everything going well?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Our end is good,” Saw said. “You?”

  “We’re getting everything.” Reece tapped his nose, then jogged to catch up with the front of the group.

  Saw frowned after him, then looked up at the camera droids buzzing overhead. Jyn knew what he was thinking. Saw didn’t like scouting missions. They were too passive. He’d be happier if they could blow the factory sky-high and transport every person on the planet to a safer home.

  Except the stormtroopers. Saw was much more at home bashing helmets together than trotting behind them, pretending to work for t
he Empire.

  The factory was oddly quiet. Jyn looked around at the rows of workers piecing together stormtrooper blasters. Everyone was silent, attentive to their work, and focused. They didn’t even look up as the holo crew passed. They’d been prepped and warned not to make a disturbance.

  Jyn and the others left the main assembly line and veered into another branch of the factory. A plasma lathe dominated the floor. Giant cranes lined the ceiling, and when she squinted, Jyn could see that the roof itself was hinged. They could work on satellites taller than the building with a plasma lathe that large.

  “I know,” Saw said in a low voice as they followed the PR group.

  “These tools…” Jyn frowned.

  “Yeah,” Saw said. “Id’s info was good. This place definitely is building…something.” There was frustration in his voice. Just being in the factory, they felt they were close to uncovering something big, but the information was still tantalizingly out of reach.

  “Like that.” Jyn jerked her head to a crystalline spectrometer built into the wall. “Pa—my father used one of those. A smaller one, but that’s a tool for kyber crystals.”

  Saw whipped his head around and stared at the giant piece of equipment and the array of lasers extending from it. Reece, noticing the way they lingered, motioned for them to catch up. Then his gaze fell on what Saw was staring at, and he narrowed his eyes, looking back at Jyn.

  A chill danced up her spine. There was something…hungry about the way Reece looked at her. She was certain he knew what the crystalline spectrometer was and that he remembered the kyber crystal she kept hidden under her shirt. She readjusted the carbon-cotton scarf covering her neck.

  In the heart of the factory, Lieutenant Colonel Senjax paused. “Why don’t you set up here,” he told the reporters. Members of his crew jumped to life, arranging chairs, adjusting lighting, directing the camera droids to find the best angles. He turned to Saw and Jyn, who were pretending to work on the camera droids.