Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

EPILOGUE

THE IMPERIAL STAR DESTROYER DEVASTATOR cut through an ocean of ships and trailed a wake of burning gases and crackling particles. The light of Scarif reflected dully on the vessel’s hull as it swung into the planet’s gravity well, coursing toward the damaged Mon Calamari cruiser positioned above the Citadel.

Darth Vader observed the chaos surrounding the Devastator and reordered it behind the red glow of his mask. He recognized the maneuvers of fighter squadrons on both sides, identified pilots who broke from their formations to better or worse effect. He saw the battle in microcosm and macrocosm, was instinctively aware of how each shot could contribute to ultimate victory or defeat.

Yet only the cruiser concerned him. He made a single stroke of his hand as the enemy came into firing range.

The ensuing echoes of turbolasers were garbled static in his helmet. Streams of energy poured from the Devastator toward its foe, illuminating the darkness like lightning. Starfighters—friend and foe—caught between the two massive ships suffered instant obliteration. The cruiser’s shields shimmered with iridescence then vanished in a flash. Fires flared along its port side as hull plating shattered or melted and venting oxygen combusted.

“The rebel flagship is disabled, my lord,” the Devastator’s captain reported crisply at Vader’s side. Darth Vader did not turn to him as he spoke. “But it has received transmissions from the surface.”

Vader stared at the burning ship. There was death at play, suffering and fear, yes—and something entirely different. Something that repelled his withered, agonized flesh.

“Prepare a boarding party,” he said.

“Yes, my lord.”

The destruction of the Citadel—the lancing of Scarif with the Death Star’s superlaser, the evaporation of a sea and the disintegration of archipelagos—sent a tremor through Vader’s shuttle as Vader and his squad rode to the flagship. Vader felt fear then, too, vast and powerful and purer than that which emanated from the cruiser. When his vessel reached the flagship and his stormtroopers burned their way through the hull, he started toward the rebel bridge and then pivoted.

Perhaps instinct guided him. Perhaps something more. It did not occur to him to wonder. He sent his troops to continue on his prior path and moved on alone.

The corridor lights flickered while alarms blared. Trapped in the blood-red chamber of his helmet, Vader was troubled by neither. He attuned himself to emanations of panic and desperation and followed their trail. When he encountered rebels reaching for their blasters or dashing to seal blast doors, he drew his weapon and cut them down with unhurried strokes of his crimson blade.

The voice of a stormtrooper spoke to him through his comlink. “A data tape was recorded on the bridge just before we boarded. No sign of it here.”

Vader did not answer, but he bolstered his pace.

He wound through the cruiser leaving corpses behind him. He found his prey at last in a corridor thick with rebels backed against a security door. As particle bolts shot toward him, he watched a data tape pass between desperate soldiers. He knocked the bolts aside with his blade, tore a blaster from one foe with a might that defied nature and gravity, and marched on. He delivered killing stroke after killing stroke, awakened and relentless.

The security door opened a mere crack and rebel hands shoved the tape through. Vader reached through life and matter and air and by will alone he pulled. He fueled his will with rage and fear and need. It was enough to tear the rebel from the door and drop him at Vader’s feet.

But it was not enough to claim the tape.

He grasped the rebel sprawled before him by the throat, lifted him and stared at him through bloody lenses. “Where,” Vader demanded, “are they taking it?”

The reply was a strangled whisper. “Away from here,” the rebel said. “Away from you.”

Vader clenched his gloved hand until the man’s neck snapped. Then he tossed the body aside. He activated his comlink and barked to his stormtroopers, “Find their escape vessel.”

The prospect of failure crept over his skin like fire. The supremacy of the Death Star could not be jeopardized. The total obliteration of the Rebellion remained possible; that it was in question at all was unthinkable.

Darth Vader chased his quarry, seeking solace in the final triumph of the Emperor.

The Tantive IV wasn’t ready to fly, let alone fight. It had been the subject of frantic repairs during the lightspeed voyage from Yavin to Scarif, secure in the hangar of the Profundity where it had lain, stubbornly malingering, since its last mission. Even after its host vessel had arrived in-system and joined the battle against the Imperial armada, Captain Raymus Antilles and his engineers and droids had worked desperately to make the corvette spaceworthy—to seal the leak in its hyperdrive motivator and clean the buildup in its exhaust ports. Admiral Raddus had made the situation clear: Every ship in the fleet had a part to play.

Raymus loved his ship. He’d nearly lost it once. For the Rebel Alliance, he would risk losing it again.

But the battle over Scarif had ended before the Tantive IV could join the fray. Just as the corvette’s reactor had come to life, the Profundity had screamed with punctured metal lungs. The Tantive IV had rocked in the hangar bay, nearly dislodging the boarding ramps clamped to its air locks. Instead of ordering it to flee its burning host, Raymus had called for his crew to prepare for takeoff and then departed his own vessel. Under flickering emergency lights, breathing air thick with smoke and poison, Raymus had waved Raddus’s crew aboard the corvette, hauled friends and strangers alike to safety.

He’d recognized one of Raddus’s technical chiefs—a middle-aged woman who lurched into his arms. Her face was burned, but she pressed a data tape into Raymus’s hand and pulled away. “We got what we came for,” the woman said. “You need to go. Admiral’s orders.”

He wanted to argue. Instead, he made sure the burned woman boarded the Tantive IV. Then he turned his back on the brave rebels who remained on the Profundity and made for the bridge.

The Tantive IV wasn’t ready to fly, but it flew. It emerged from the burning wreck of the cruiser and sped away from Scarif. For a blessed few seconds it moved swiftly, confidently through space. Then the ship rocked again and echoed with thunder and sparks. From his station on the bridge, Raymus could smell circuits melting.

“Star Destroyer closing!” called the officer at the tactical console. Raymus didn’t recognize the face—one of Raddus’s men.

He erased the fear from his own expression. “Get us into hyperspace,” he said. “Make sure you secure the air lock. And prepare the escape pods.”

The Tantive IV might jump out of the system, but it was hurt and it would be pursued. Best not to take chances.

He saw a figure in white robes near the bridge entrance and turned the tape over in his hand. He approached the woman and said, his tone respectful, “Your Highness. The transmission we received…”

The woman looked toward him. He’d seen her face many times before, knew it well. She was young, seemed younger every day, even as her responsibilities grew and grew.

He held out his hand. Childlike fingers took the data tape.

“What is it they’ve sent us?” he asked.

Princess Leia Organa looked at him as if he’d placed another burden on her shoulders—another responsibility to add to a count of thousands—and she was proud to bear it.

“Hope,” she said.

Raymus believed her.