Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

^{Chapter 2}

SOMEWHERE INSIDE JYN’S BRAIN THERE was a cave sealed shut by a heavy metal hatch. The cave wasn’t for her protection. Instead it was where she locked away the things she was done with but couldn’t altogether forget: The Rebellion. Saw Gerrera. People and places buried in the dark for so long that she barely recognized their names as more than cruel, hurtful impulses.

She loathed the cave and everything inside it. Everyone who knew about it. It wasn’t real, of course, though she’d described it to someone once—someone she trusted—and admitted what the image meant to her. She’d immediately regretted it and sworn to keep it hidden forever after. Now the grenade that had ruined the prisoner transport had exposed the hatch—blasted away the concealing soil, put it in open view of Jyn and the world.

On the long, harrowing flight from Wobani, the U-wing’s navigation computer malfunctioned, forcing her rescuers to hail a fleet of Rebellion fighters for help. Although the X-wings were meant to defend them, Jyn felt herself trapped between the armed rebels surrounding her and the hatch inside her mind.

Once again, she had no escape.

A moist film swaddled Jyn as she disembarked onto the jungle moon of a red gas giant. Warm breezes carried the aroma of rotting vegetation from the forest floor, masking the subtler stench of mildew. The shadow and shelter of a great stone ziggurat provided only a semblance of relief—just enough to remind a person how pervasive the heat and humidity and stink really were.

It wasn’t the most uncomfortable rebel outpost Jyn had ever visited. But it was the first she’d seen while under armed guard or without knowing where she was. Maybe the star system was too obscure to even have a name.

“Keep walking.” The man who’d led the raid on Wobani marched Jyn down the outdoor tarmac and onto the slick stone floor of the ziggurat’s makeshift hangar. The man’s name was Ruescott Melshi. He hadn’t bothered to introduce himself, but she’d overheard him talking to the pilot.

“You’re still mad, aren’t you?” she said.

“About what?”

“Being hit with a shovel.”

Melshi grunted. “They’re waiting,” he said, and she didn’t ask Who? because she knew it was what he expected.

If it was Saw who was waiting, she knew how to deal with him.

They walked together, past pilots in jumpsuits chattering at technicians; past starfighters and freighters and transports sitting in orderly rows. It was more than a mere rebel outpost should have had. Wherever Jyn was, it was important. Even without knowing what system they’d arrived in, she suspected she’d seen too much to be allowed to ever regain her freedom.

She fantasized about tripping Melshi on the wet stone, smashing his face into the rock, grabbing his weapon, dragging him bodily back to the hangar entrance, and using him as a human shield. The rebels wouldn’t let her offworld, but she could escape to the jungle where she would—what?

Poison herself trying to live off the local flora?

She let Melshi guide her deeper into the ziggurat.

A troubling thought came to her: Saw would never let a prisoner see all this.

The rebels hadn’t built the ziggurat. That much was obvious. But they’d made it their own, strung cables across ancient etchings and set flashing consoles like offerings on the slabs of altars. Melshi seemed unmoved; Jyn recalled her mother’s love of history with the faintest of pangs and banished the memory. When they arrived at a chamber deep below the surface—a bunker, maybe, fortified to withstand an attack while the ziggurat crumbled above it—Melshi gestured her inside.

“Try what you tried on Wobani—” he began.

She finished for him. “—and I’d better succeed.”

The bunker was dimly lit and subdivided by a conference table. Melshi steered Jyn to a chair, and she surveyed the faces arrayed against her: Two men wearing the insignia of rebel generals—one elderly, pale and soft-eyed; the second a decade or more the first man’s junior, wearing a perpetual scowl under hair like rust. A third man—dark-haired, mustached, closer to Jyn’s age—stood to one side as if unconcerned with the role he’d been assigned in the rebels’ drama. He looked at Jyn with an expression of dispassionate curiosity.

Saw Gerrera was not present.

“You’re currently calling yourself—” The rust-haired general stepped forward, glancing deliberately between Jyn and the datapad in his hand. “—Liana Hallik. Is that correct?”

He stood above her as if he could intimidate her.

Jyn waited. Let him try.

“Possession of unsanctioned weapons, forgery of Imperial documents, aggravated assault, escape from custody, resisting arrest…” He lowered the datapad and cocked his head smugly. “Imagine if the Imperial authorities had found out who you really were.

“Jyn Erso? That’s your given name, is it not?”

She flinched.

She felt as much as saw the general’s smile at his petty victory. Nothing about his words surprised her—the rebels wouldn’t kidnap Liana—but hearing Jyn Erso aloud for the first time in years felt like a violation. The general had taken a cutting torch to the hatch in her brain, crudely attempting to burn through the barrier.

He kept talking. “Jyn Erso? Daughter of Galen Erso. A known Imperial collaborator in weapons development.”

She could have struck him once, maybe twice, to stop him from saying Erso, Erso. The mention of Galen sent a black, charred crack through the hatch, and she felt her pulse quicken in response.

Before Jyn could act, however, she saw movement from the bunker’s far entrance. A woman in white robes emerged from the shadows, at once tired and steely. Her face was lined and her copper hair impeccably styled—not like a soldier’s or a general’s at all. The men, nearly in unison, took half a step away as she claimed the head of the table.

“What is this?” Jyn hissed at the newcomer.

“It’s a chance for you to make a fresh start,” the woman said. “We think you might be able to help us.” The words were gentle, but her voice was unforgiving.

“Who are you?”

“You know who she is.” The rust-haired general again. A fleck of spittle touched Jyn’s forehead, but she kept her attention where it was. The woman gestured at the general, and he fell silent.

“My name is Mon Mothma,” the woman said. “I sit on the council of Alliance High Command, and I approved your extraction from Wobani.”

Mothma. The Alliance chief of state. That made the ziggurat rebel headquarters. The place where decisions were made, where orders were given while people far away died—

Why was she here? Where was Saw?

“There’s a bounty on your head,” Jyn said, because it was better than not speaking; because she’d spotted a vulnerability she could jab like an unprotected eye.

Mon Mothma didn’t laugh, but Jyn caught her smiling before she gestured to the third man. “This is Captain Cassian Andor,” Mothma said. “Rebel Alliance Intelligence.”

Cassian moved toward Jyn but feigned a respectful distance—one that would also give him space to maneuver if she lunged. The rust-haired general retreated to the edge of the room with a shake of his head.

“When was the last time you were in contact with your father?” Cassian asked.

Jyn didn’t flinch this time. A second crack spread through the hatch. Sparks poured from the cutting torch.

“Fifteen years ago,” she said. It was a guess, but close enough.

“Any idea where he’s been all that time?” While the general had tried to intimidate, Cassian’s tone was casual and his eyes were keen. As if these were questions he’d ask over dinner to show he was interested in you as a person.

“I like to think he’s dead,” Jyn said. “Makes things easier.”

“Makes things easier,” Cassian echoed. “Easier than what? Than him being a tool of the Imperial war machine?” Despite the baiting, he kept the same casual tone.

“I’ve never had the luxury of political opinions.”

Jyn spotted another trace of a smile from Mothma. But Cassian became sterner. “Really? When was your last contact with Saw Gerrera?”

Shouldn’t you know?

If Saw wasn’t here—if Saw hadn’t helped the rebels find her—then what was any of this about?

“It’s been a long time,” she said.

Cassian’s warmth was all spent. His keenness was the keenness of an interrogator. “He’d remember you, though, wouldn’t he? He might agree to meet you, if you came as a friend.”

Jyn opened her mouth to argue, to swear, but she said nothing. She needed time to figure out an approach, time to decide who she was ready to betray to save herself.

“We’re up against the clock here, girl,” the rust-haired general snarled. “So if there’s nothing to talk about, we’ll just put you back where we found you.”

Fine. The simple answer, the honest one. The one you already know. “I was a child,” she said. “Saw Gerrera saved my life. He raised me. But I’ve no idea where he is. I haven’t seen him in years.”

The elderly general nodded as if this confirmed something he had suspected. He exchanged a glance with Mothma, yet Cassian was the one who spoke next. “We know how to find him,” Cassian said. “That’s not our problem. What we need is someone who gets us through the door without being killed.”

Jyn fought down a smirk. “You’re all rebels, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but Saw Gerrera’s an extremist. He’s been fighting his own war for quite some time,” Mothma said. “We have no choice but to try to mend that broken trust.”

So that was it? Even when Jyn had first met Saw, he’d been on the fringes of the Rebellion. If he’d parted ways with the Alliance altogether, it meant his course had held steady. And now the rebels had kidnapped her from the labor camp to use her as a peace offering.

Only that didn’t explain everything.

She dug her nails into her palms and asked the question she didn’t want answered. “What does this have to do with my father?”

Mon Mothma gave Cassian a prompting look.

“There’s an Imperial defector in the Holy City of Jedha. A pilot. He’s being held by Saw Gerrera.” Cassian paused, sought Jyn’s eyes as if to emphasize the gravity of what he said next. “He’s claiming the Emperor is creating a weapon with the power to destroy entire planets.”

This time, Jyn couldn’t help but laugh.

“That’s a terrible lie,” she said.

She expected Mon Mothma to offer another wan smile. Instead, the woman looked at Jyn for a long while before saying, “I believe it’s the truth. I may be wrong, and I pray that I am—but I believe a weapon that murders worlds is the natural culmination of everything the Emperor has done.”

You’re all crazy, Jyn wanted to say. Yet she held back.

“You’re right, though,” Mothma continued. “If this were just about Saw Gerrera, we would have other approaches.”

Cassian resumed, apparently untroubled by the interruption and Jyn’s mockery. “The pilot,” he said, “the one Gerrera has in custody?”

“What about him?” Jyn asked.

“He says he was sent by your father.”

The hatch inside Jyn’s mind shattered like baked clay.

The things inside the cave, damp and soiled by darkness, seeped unwelcome into her brain. Foreign thoughts spread like stains, obscuring everything else: My father is alive. My father is a traitor. My father is building a weapon to destroy worlds.

My father is a hero. My father is a coward. My father is a bastard.

Galen Erso is not my father. Galen Erso didn’t raise me…

Her palms were bleeding where she’d dug in her fingernails. She wiped her hands on her hips, looked around the suddenly vertiginous room, barely heard Mothma say, “We need to stop this weapon before it is finished,” or the condescending tone of the rust-haired general:

“Captain Andor’s mission is to authenticate the pilot’s story and then, if possible, find your father.”

It was too much. Too much to think about now, maybe too much to think about ever. But the others were watching her. Jyn focused on the sensation of her breath, her clammy skin against the metal chair, the awful stinking humid air. She forced her mind’s eye away from the broken hatch above the cave, forced revulsion and loathing and doubt down like bile.

Mon Mothma was speaking again. “It would appear Galen Erso is critical to the development of this superweapon. Given the gravity of the situation and your history with Saw, we’re hoping that Saw will help us locate your father and return him to the Senate for testimony.”

“And if I do it?” Jyn asked. She spat the words out bitterly, though she didn’t hear them.

“We’ll make sure you go free,” Mon Mothma said.

It was the best answer Jyn could hope for.

She wasn’t calm by the time she walked out of the hangar and onto the tarmac, but she was calmer. Her body felt bruised and sore, like the morning after a fight, but she breathed without struggle. If she didn’t think about it—the mission, the meaning behind the mission—she’d be okay.

And when it was over, she could go back to her old life. Make a new life. Find somewhere away from the Rebel Alliance, away from Saw Gerrera and Galen Erso and—

Just don’t think about it.

“Captain Andor!” a voice called.

Cassian halted mid-stride beside Jyn, glanced toward the hangar, and spotted the source of the yell—the rust-haired general from the bunker, who’d been all snide remarks and grunts instead of mute senility like his partner. “General Draven,” Cassian murmured. “Give me a moment.”

“No rush,” Jyn said.

Cassian dashed ahead to the boarding ramp of a battered U-wing transport, unslung the duffel he carried over his shoulder, then hurried back in Draven’s direction. Jyn followed his path to the ship, giving the vessel a cursory once-over. While the base as a whole was larger, busier, and better equipped than anything she’d seen from the Rebel Alliance before, the U-wing was in line with her expectations. Like the one that had retrieved her from Wobani, it looked like a set of engines with a cargo bay strapped to it, maintained and repaired over the years by a droid with pistons for hands.

She’d been aboard worse.

“Jyn Erso! Alias Liana Hallik, prisoner six-two-nine-five-alpha!”

She flinched—again—at the sound of her name. She would have to get used to it.

She looked up the boarding ramp to the main cabin. Towering above the communications console stood the security droid emblazoned with Imperial symbols that had captured her on Wobani. “I’m Kay-Tuesso,” he went on, with a cheerfulness Jyn could only interpret as threatening. “I’m a reprogrammed Imperial droid.”

“I remember you,” she said.

She’d heard stories about reprogrammed droids going wrong—about safeguards reasserting themselves, about old code suddenly resurfacing for reasons no one could explain. She wasn’t overly concerned; if K-2SO reverted to type, the ranking members of the Rebel Alliance would be his top priority. Jyn, an escaped convict drafted into the mission, wouldn’t be strangled until second or third, at least.

“I assume your presence indicates that you will be joining us on our trip to Jedha,” the droid went on. A statement, not a question.

“Apparently so.”

“That is a bad idea. I think so, and so does Cassian. What do I know? My specialty is just strategic analysis.”

Jyn was barely listening. She’d turned away from the droid, looking across the hangar to where Draven and Cassian huddled together. They stood too near each other, leaning in to avoid being overheard by passing pilots and technicians.

To her surprise, Jyn realized she trusted Draven: He was an ass, but that made him predictable. Cassian—the intelligence operative, the spy, the casual liar—could be trouble.

“Can you tell what they’re saying?” she asked K-2SO, with a glance over her shoulder.

“Yes,” the droid said, and retreated to the cockpit.

Fair enough, she thought. Left alone in the cabin, she took the opportunity to examine Cassian’s duffel and its contents: nothing but gear. Weapons and portable medpacs and signal boosters. No holoimage of a dutiful wife or tattered childhood security blanket. He packed impersonal and he packed light.

Jyn pulled out a blaster pistol, tested its heft and grip, and strapped it on her hip. A BlasTech A-180 wasn’t her weapon of choice, but it was sturdy and low-profile. By the time Cassian had turned back to the U-wing, Jyn was moving to peer into the cockpit herself. The droid, adjusting one setting or another on the flight console, ignored her.

She heard the exterior door shut and seal. “You met Kay-Tu?” Cassian asked.

“Charming,” Jyn said.

Cassian lifted his shoulders in a boyish, what-can-you-do? shrug. “He tends to say whatever comes into his circuits. It’s a by-product of the reprogram.”

The droid’s vocabulator increased in volume, loud enough to hear in the cabin. “Why does she get a blaster,” he asked, “and I don’t?”

Jyn kept her hand off her weapon but shifted her weight into a defensive stance as Cassian shot her a look. “I know how to use it,” she said.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Cassian answered. Jyn watched the humor, the warmth, evaporate in a flash. The expression of the calculating spy emerged. She felt a certain sour satisfaction. “Give it to me,” he said.

“We’re going to Jedha. That’s a war zone. You want me to risk my life to help find Saw?” She shrugged. “Trust goes both ways.”

Cassian stared a moment longer. The look of calculation, too, vanished, and Jyn could no longer read him at all. He returned her shrug and hauled himself into the cockpit.

Off to a grand start, Jyn thought, and went to find a bunk or, at worst, a half-comfortable surface. She hadn’t slept since Wobani, on the night her cellmate had promised to kill her.

“You’re letting her keep it? The blaster?”

Cassian Andor pulled himself into the pilot’s seat of the U-wing—worn, thinly padded, stained by the sweat of a dozen species—and swept a hand over the controls, refamiliarizing himself as best he could. It had been a while since he’d flown a transport.

K-2 waited for a reply that didn’t come, then asked: “Are you interested in the probability of her using it against you?”

Humidity had fogged the cockpit viewport, rendering the jungle a green smear. Cassian sketched out a course in his head. Flight control recommended skirting the canopy briefly before attempting full ascent from the moon of Yavin 4—a halfhearted attempt at disguising Base One’s exact location from any Imperial probes.

“It’s high,” the droid said.

Cassian shook his head. “Let’s get going.”

“It’s very high.”

You don’t know the half of it, Cassian nearly said.

He thought back to his conversation with General Draven in the hangar. The assurances of trust, of confidence in Cassian’s judgment, were swiftly being pulled into the amorphous eddies of his memory, but Draven’s orders were etched in steel:

Galen Erso is vital to the Empire’s weapons program. There will be no “extraction.”

You find him, you kill him. Then and there.

Draven wasn’t wrong to want Galen Erso dead. It would be a righteous killing as well as a practical one, the execution of a man surely responsible for the deaths of countless civilians. Erso’s years inside the Imperial war machine could have no innocent outcome. If killing Erso saved a single life, then that was cause to celebrate—but if not, his assassination was no less justified.

Nor did the contradiction between Mon Mothma’s orders and those of General Draven trouble Cassian. The notion of bringing Galen Erso to a Senate hearing—of exposing the Empire’s planet killer, of creating such an uproar inside the civilian government that the Senate would move openly against the Galactic Emperor—was absurd on the face of it.

Mothma desired a leveraged détente—a political solution made possible through rebel military action—that was, to Draven and Cassian, self-evidently impossible. The Imperial military was loyal to its commanders, and its commanders believed that they, rather than the Senate, already effected complete control over the Empire. They were right. No peaceful transfer of power could occur.

Yet Mothma was an idealist. Cassian suspected she wanted a Senate hearing not because she thought it would work, but because she felt obligated to try.

Cassian admired Mothma. Galen Erso’s assassination would free her from the obligation of a doomed peace effort.

And yet Cassian was troubled nonetheless.

He was escorting a girl not much older than a teenager to see the father she had believed she’d lost. A girl who—genetics notwithstanding—had clearly inherited Saw Gerrera’s burning rage and icy competence. The need in her eyes frightened Cassian.

Had the others seen it? Had he imagined it?

He wasn’t sure what troubled him more: what he was doing to Jyn Erso, or what she would do to him if she ever learned the truth.