by Revis, Beth
Jyn rented a bedroom from an older man near the wall of the main floor of the station. He left her to her own devices, and the rent was both cheap and accepted on a weekly basis. Vegetable protein straws and nutritive milk was a bland diet, but it kept Jyn from bleeding funds. She only had to survive a little while longer, and she could escape.
The communicator, obviously, had a tracker in it. Jyn popped it open, pulled out the tracking device, and left that in her apartment. She kept the comlink in her pocket. Just in case.
Every day, when the lights blinked to indicate a change in the twelve-hour shifts, Jyn walked around the station. She kept her eyes and ears open. She wanted to know who had ships, who was looking for off-station work, who was going where. The second Commander Solange gave her clearance, Jyn was leaving Five Points for good. She’d be happy never to visit another station in her life.
She always circled back through the park in the center of the station. She watched the beggars, their palms open on their knees. She had more credits clinking in her hidden pocket now, but she didn’t share them. Instead, she waited.
“Seat taken?” a man asked, indicating the bench Jyn sat on.
She shook her head.
“I’ve seen you here before,” the man said.
Jyn tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “You have?”
He nodded. If Jyn had to guess, he was about ten years her senior, with rough knuckles that indicated he used his fists often. “Pretty little thing,” he said in a lower voice, leaning closer to Jyn.
She didn’t move away.
“Why don’t you come back with me?” the man asked. He jerked his head toward the wall. “I’ve got a little place nearby. Shift’s about to change out.”
“No, thank you,” Jyn said in as neutral a tone as she could.
The man’s eyes narrowed. “You waiting on someone?”
Jyn looked around the park. There was no one there but the beggars. “No,” she said.
“So have a bit of fun.”
Jyn pressed her lips together and shook her head again.
“What, you’re too good for me?” the man asked.
Jyn held her hands primly in her lap and stared straight ahead.
“Fine,” the man spat out, standing. “Coldhearted Kath,” he muttered under his breath as he stormed off.
Jyn counted to a hundred in her mind. When the man didn’t return, she stood up and crossed the path to where a Huloon youngling crouched in supplication. She tossed the credits she’d picked from the man’s pocket into the Huloon’s outstretched hands and left the park.
The evenings she spent in Moeseffa’s Cantina. It was a little more upscale than the inn at which she’d spent her first night, but it was also a favorite among the people who used Five Points as a base of operations. The five planets of the system circled a single star, and the space station was positioned in the gap between Rumitaka and Satotai, making it an ideal location to reach all five with relative ease. Each planet supported life, had various minerals, and had its own loose governing system, although their power was ostensibly curtailed by the Empire. Trade was frequent, both between planets and with other systems, and everything came through the Five Points station eventually.
And it seemed everything came through Moeseffa’s Cantina as well.
Jyn’s practice was to go early, about two hours before the end of the day shift, and stay at least two hours into the night shift. She’d order a large blue mappa, a weak drink even before Moeseffa’s crew watered it down, and sip on it for as long as possible. She kept to herself, with her scarf pulled over her head, and usually she was ignored. The few men and women who’d approached her had been able to tell early on that Jyn wasn’t interested in them, and Moeseffa himself had taken a liking to his new young regular, who tipped well and never caused trouble.
The table between the door and the mini holo entertainment was the perfect spot, quiet enough that Jyn could hear people talking but distracting enough that few noticed her listening. Their eyes slid over Jyn, lingering in the shadows, to the meter-tall projections of an apparently popular band led by an attractive female Fryiaan. She was a better dancer than singer, using all four of her arms to her advantage, and Jyn appreciated just how distracting the holo was to the other patrons.
“Watassay’s mining is picking up,” a man said, chugging a glass of something brown and rank. “The Empire’s put in a bid for the central mining system.”
“Joynder will never sell to the Empire,” his companion said.
Jyn snorted quietly into her glass.
“What’s the Empire need all the mines for anyway?” the first man said, glowering at his empty glass. He beat it on the table until Moeseffa came by to refill it. “They’ve got enough ore now to build a fleet of ships, but no war to fight with them.”
“Maybe they’re building more stations like this one?” his quieter companion mused.
Jyn’s gaze slid around the room as the day shift ended and the old drunks left to make room for the new ones. A couple near the window, an Espirion male and a human woman, spoke in low voices.
“My client is looking for something rare, an item used during the Clone Wars,” the woman said in a soft voice.
The Espirion responded, muttering so low that Jyn couldn’t hear him.
The woman snorted. “Credits are no object.”
Jyn always paid attention when it came to jobs. Something with enough pay—or a ship big enough to hide her—and Jyn could leave whether Commander Solange “allowed” it or not. She suspected that’s what she’d ultimately have to do. Commander Solange would never easily let go of her little forger.
The first hour into the night shift was a matter of waiting. People were coming off their jobs, looking to stretch their limbs and dull their minds as quickly as possible. It wasn’t until the second hour—the second or third or fourth glass—that things settled back down. This night, however, there was an anxious undercurrent among many of the patrons. Jyn watched, waiting for the news to come to her.
And then she heard it.
A whispered word, sliding through the bar like Freyan creeper moss, expanding in the shadows and retreating in the light.
“The rebels.”
There were recruiters nearby. On the station? Maybe. Guesses of a base being set up in Hirara. “They’ll buy up contracts,” one man said.
“They’re just looking for fodder,” another snapped back.
Jyn slammed her glass down on the table, ignoring the way the blue liquid foamed over the side. The damn rebels. Everywhere she went, they followed. Mucking it all up. Bringing the Empire down on the people who didn’t want to get involved. Why couldn’t people just be people ? Why did they have to be on one side or another? If everyone would just stop caring so much, maybe the galaxy could actually find the peace everyone claimed they wanted.
Jyn thought bitterly of Akshaya and Hadder and the blast that had killed them, the shot fired from either an Imperial TIE fighter or a rebel Y-wing. It didn’t matter which one had killed them. They were still dead. And damn both the Empire and the rebellion for it.
Jyn nodded to Moeseffa as she left the cantina. He shot her a worried glance—she rarely left so early—but she waved at him cheerfully to allay his fears. She was done for the night.
Her rooms weren’t that far away, but Jyn stuck to the well-lit streets near the center of the station until it was time to turn off and head back to the wall. Her mind kept lingering on that word—rebellion . What was the point? Saw had spent his whole life fighting the Empire, and it had cost him his sister, his health…her. Her father had tried to fight the Empire, and it had cost them her mother. And Jyn? She didn’t even want to fight anymore, and she’d lost Hadder.
She heard movement behind her. Jyn whirled around—just in time to see a dark shadow, the blur of an arm, a fist connecting with her head.
And then the world went dark.
Jyn woke up with her arms and legs bound to a chair by
plastoid ties. Her tongue felt fat and dry in her mouth.
“Aaand there she is,” someone with a deep voice said kindly.
Jyn forced her eyes opened. Her head ached, and the bright lights overhead lanced through her eyes.
“I didn’t hit her that hard,” a male Dowutin said, his voice low and guttural. He was easily over three meters tall, with arms like tree trunks.
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” another man said. He waved his hands, and the Dowutin left the room.
The man turned to Jyn. “I am Allehander Pso,” he said. He smoothed down the thin hair on his balding head, and Jyn noticed that it was actually feathers, not hair, covering his skull. When he turned, the downy wisps grew longer, and dark brown and green feathers about as long as her fingers trailed all the way down his back, under his shirt.
“Pso’s Palace,” Jyn mumbled.
Allehander’s face broke into a huge grin. Each one of his jade-green teeth was pointed and jagged like the edge of a saw blade. “Yes! You’ve heard of me!” He seemed positively delighted by Jyn’s knowledge.
She nodded, wincing in pain.
Allehander tsked. “You must forgive my man,” he said. “He doesn’t know his own strength. He’s normally gentle as can be. A big softy.”
“Oh, obviously,” Jyn said. She tried to lift her hands, but the plastoid ties were tight.
“Those, I’m afraid,” Allehander said, “will have to stay.”
Jyn looked up at him. “What do you want?” Her voice was stronger now, clearer.
“I want to talk to the person who made these. ” Allehander snapped his fingers, and a man stepped forward. He dumped a satchel of Pso’s Palace gambling credits on the table in front of Jyn. Her heart sank, but she was certain her face didn’t show anything more than mild confusion.
“You’re the one who commissions the credits. You should know who made them,” Jyn said.
Allehander laughed merrily. “Ah, sweet young thing! I believe I do know who made these, and I believe you know that they were not from my sources.”
He picked one up, tapping the side with his taloned finger. “These are very, very well made,” he said in an impressed voice. “Still, we do have to punish those who steal from us.”
Jyn still didn’t let her face betray her true emotions. She stared at him blankly. And it was in that moment—bound in a gambling lord’s office as he withdrew an assortment of killing and torturing devices from his desk and laid them out—it was in that precise moment that Jyn realized something hugely important.
She didn’t care anymore.
Her mother was gone, Saw had betrayed her, Hadder and Akshaya had burned in merciless space. I have nothing else to lose, she realized. Obviously, she didn’t particularly want to get tortured and killed, especially not over an Imperial officer with a gambling problem, but there was an emptiness in Jyn now that pushed on the edges of her soul, expanding, forcing out her other emotions.
Including fear.
Allehander picked up a hand press, the tiny spikes twirling through the metal plate as he twisted it. When he looked at Jyn, his eyes widened a little at her complete and utter disinterest in the weapons spread out before them.
The corners of his mouth slid up in an appreciative smile. “I must confess that I did notice two things,” he said, putting down the hand press. “First, you did a very, very good job.”
Jyn wondered if he realized he doubled up on words as if that would make them truer.
“I appreciate skill,” Allehander confessed. “And second, you didn’t flood the market. I’ve checked with the other gambling lords. Only my palace had the counterfeit credit chips, and I know who commissioned them. You did a job. You could have made more, kept some, used them for yourself. But my men have searched your little apartment, searched you, and there was nothing, nothing . Not greedy. I like that. You do a job, and you’re done.”
He paced in front of her. Jyn tested the plastoid ties, not because she was trying to break out but because she was curious how strong they were. The answer was very .
“Useful,” Allehander mused, looking at her. “You made the credits for Commander Solange, yes?”
Jyn nodded. She had no reason to keep up the act.
“When I confronted her, she and I were able to come up with something of a solution. A way for the Empire to pay her debt without knowing it.”
Jyn blinked. This was a skill she had learned on Five Points, from waiting in the park across from the beggars. Men loved to talk. All she had to do was wait and listen, and they would tell her everything.
“I have some products I need to get off the station. Commander Solange has arranged for the Empire to buy them at a good price for me, one that will clear her debts. Win–win, yes?”
Because he seemed to expect an answer, Jyn nodded.
“But we need some documents altered. And I think you can do that, yes?”
“Will it get me off this station?” Jyn asked.
“To Rumitaka,” Allehander said. “And after that, you do as you wish.”
“And you’ll pay me.”
Allehander barked a laugh. “Your freedom will be payment enough!”
Jyn lifted an eyebrow and waited.
Allehander scowled, but then the corners of his mouth quirked up in a smile. “Oh, I like you. Fine, yes. A payment. A thousand credits?”
“Imperial, not those.” Jyn nodded to the pile of forged Pso’s Palace credits on the table. “They’re too easy to fake.”
Allehander’s eyes flashed, and for a moment, Jyn thought she had gone too far. But he laughed again and waved his hand for the straps to be removed from around her ankles and wrists. “We have need to hurry,” Allehander said. “Can you be ready to leave in an hour?”
“I’m ready to leave now,” Jyn said.
Allehander gave her instructions to head to docking bay NC13 and board the Amarills -class freighter that was waiting. “My men will have everything you need to alter the documents on board the ship. You can work on them as you travel.”
It was ironic that Jyn could move across the galaxy faster than she could hop between the planets of one solar system. But the hyperspace routes that enabled high-speed travel didn’t stretch to the tiny planets of the Five Points system, often littered with asteroids, and the freighter would be limited.
“Commander Solange has provided clearance for our ship to land on Rumitaka,” Allehander continued. “But there’s a chance there will be checkpoints on the way that she is not aware of. She thinks herself more important than she is. If we run into such checkpoints…?” He let his question drift between them.
“Not a problem,” Jyn said. Imperial checkpoint clearances were her specialty.
“Good, good ,” Allehander said, nodding. “And if you ever find yourself in need of future work, come back to Pso’s Palace,” he said. “You’re exactly the kind of girl I could use.”
The ship was larger than Jyn had expected; Allehander had said there were only twenty units to move. Of course, he hadn’t said what the units were, and Jyn hadn’t asked. It was easier to move contraband through the space station, where only Commander Solange’s corrupt eyes could see, than between planets or on more traditional trade routes.
“You Allehander’s girl?” said the captain of the ship, a rough-looking man about fifty years old.
Jyn nodded.
“Get in. Mathey will get you started.”
Jyn boarded the ship, and before she’d found Mathey, she felt the engines lighting. The ship shot out of the station and into the blackness of space. “They’re in a hurry,” Jyn said to herself.
She pushed open a door at the end of the main hallway and discovered a group of three men sitting at a table. These were not the kind of men who would visit Moeseffa’s Cantina. These were the kind of men who’d guzzle whatever was left over in the glasses sent to the back for cleaning.
“You that girl?” one of them asked. He had a patchy red beard that was only ju
st starting to shadow his chin.
“You Mathey?”
He grunted. Jyn took that for a yes. She pulled out a chair and sat across from him. The other two men stood up and left. “Gonna check on the cargo,” the older one said, drawing the last word out as if it were two.
“Right, so Allehander said you wouldn’t know all about the job,” Mathey said. His voice crackled like it was made of ice. He pulled out a stack of identity contract pads. Jyn counted them after he slid them across the table to her. Twenty. She read the top one.
Greyjin Marscopo
Eight standard years
Servitude: Allehander Pso
Service years: Three
Status: Complete
Compensation: Passage to Rumitaka, Five Points system
“What’s this?” Jyn asked.
“Indentured service records.” Mathey was watching her. Waiting. Jyn could feel his eyes boring into her, hungry for a reaction.
“What am I supposed to do with them?” she asked in an even tone.
“Allehander has twenty servants whose time is up,” Mathey said. “They were told they’d get a new start on Rumitaka soon as their contracts are finished.”
“And…they’re not?” Jyn asked.
Mathey’s eyes were alight. “Well, it’s something of a new start. Different from working at the palace.” He took the top identity contract off of Jyn’s stack. “You’re to alter these. Each one needs to have five more years added, and assigned to the Empire, not Allehander. That’s who he sold ’em to.”
“Sold them. Like slaves.” Jyn kept her tone carefully even.
“Exactly. ’Cause that’s what they are.” Mathey grinned with all his teeth, even the broken front one that was blackening on the inside.
“Ah.” Jyn stared at the ident pads.
“You got a problem with it?” Mathey added, his tone mocking.
“No,” Jyn said simply.
Mathey didn’t look convinced.
“A job is a job,” she said. “And I’ve been paid.”