Rogue One

by Alexander Freed

  He flipped a series of toggles and checked for warning lights. The mass–volume ratio was confusing the computer—a packed cargo pod normally meant forty tons of ore, not a ship full of soldiers—but it wouldn’t do any harm.

  He thought about all the bad bets he’d made in his life—the times he’d sunk everything on a long shot in order to win back what he’d lost, only to end up with nothing. Was that all he was doing now with Jyn and the others? Doubling a bad bet?

  It didn’t feel like that. There was none of the heady uncertainty, the mix of hope and despair. When he thought about what he was doing, he was almost calm.

  “What’s your call sign?” the voice on the comm asked.

  “Yes, we have it…” Just take off! “It’s, ah—”

  Think, Bodhi. Give them something. Give them anything.

  If you give them something, they might not shoot.

  “—call sign Rogue. Rogue One.”

  He transferred power to the thrusters, felt the familiar wobble of a cargo shuttle taking off under his control. The officer on the other end of the comm was squawking at him. Bodhi ignored it.

  “Rogue One,” he declared, “pulling away!”

  —

  At the age of fifteen, during the winter when she’d discovered smashball, romance, and her parents’ profound imperfections, Mon Mothma had decided to devote her life to studying history; decided to turn her back on her family’s political dynasty and to spend her days in a cramped study reading thousand-year-old diaries and letters and cargo manifests until her eyes burned. She would be detective, coroner, and philosopher all at once, examining means and motive and cause of death for entire civilizations.

  She hadn’t become a historian, of course. By the next summer, Mon’s moment of rebellion had been forgotten. Inertia and family pressures and a genuine love of governance had returned her to the road to politics. She’d gone on to become a senator (far too young, she thought now) and scrabbled for votes and smiled and kept her head above water until she’d learned how to play the game for real.

  She’d campaigned for an end to one war and now—with evenhanded hypocrisy—had built an army while trying to prevent another. She’d fled her home and a life to become the Empire’s most wanted woman and leader of a revolution. And she couldn’t help but wonder what her fifteen-year-old self would have said about the Rebel Alliance, looking back on it from some distant future:

  For all their self-importance, the rebel leaders lacked the courage to transform their network of paramilitary cells and sympathetic politicians into more than a curiosity. Their inability to commit to a course of action ensured the Empire’s growth and the delegitimization of any future protest movements…

  Mon was accustomed to failure and self-judgment. But the thought still stung.

  The briefing room was nearly empty now. Voices worn from screaming had gone silent, and men and women who’d traveled across the galaxy to reach Yavin had retired to their ships or to more private consultations. There had been no consensus or formal vote, and Mon was grateful for that much. Given the tenor of the discussions, a swift decision could only have ended badly.

  Mon would not sleep tonight. She planned to spend the hours until the council reconvened in discussion with her peers and reaching out to allies who might salvage something from the situation. And while she wasn’t yet sure what there was to salvage, she knew who to start with.

  Bail Organa, the former senator from Alderaan, seemed to be waiting for her near the briefing room door. “You spoke well,” he said as she approached, with funereal gravity.

  She smiled wanly and wondered if she looked as exhausted as he did. She had considered Bail a partner since the day they’d first discussed opposing Palpatine’s rise to power. In all the years since—throughout all the arguments over Bail’s charitable interventions and her covert dealings—she couldn’t remember the lines in his face ever seeming so deep.

  “Despite what the others say, war is inevitable,” she mused with a sigh. “Senator Pamlo has noble instincts, but she’s wrong: If the Empire used the weapon at Jedha, it will use it again. We can’t prevent these genocides, but only resist them.”

  Bail nodded, the motion so small it seemed like all he could muster. “I agree. I must return to Alderaan to inform my people that there will be no peace.” Mon heard his pain at that admission and wondered what it would cost him. “We will need every advantage,” he added grimly.

  It took Mon a moment to comprehend. Then she glanced to the closest other councilors and lowered her voice. “Your friend,” she said. “The Jedi.”

  Bail nodded again. “He served me well during the Clone Wars and has lived in hiding since the Emperor’s purge.” He appeared to wait for Mon’s verdict, but she had nothing to offer. At last he finished, “Yes, I will send for him.”

  A Jedi, returning to fight against the Empire. It seemed an impossible thought, so Mon focused on what was not. “Captain Antilles’s ship is docked with the Profundity for repairs, but it’s nearly ready to go. The extraction should be simple; if it’s not, his skills will be an asset.”

  “My assessment as well,” Bail said.

  “Whoever makes contact with the Jedi will have a terrible responsibility.” Mon knew who Bail had in mind—it was clear in the tired lines of his face; in the fear of a man who had never previously feared the Emperor’s blackest vengeance. She was reluctant to doubt his decisions, but she needed to be certain. “You’ll need someone you can trust.”

  “I would trust her with my life,” he said.

  You’ll need to trust her with more, Mon thought, but he was already on his way out the door. And for all her reservations about Bail’s agent (the girl was so young, no matter anything else), she could think of no one better.

  The matter was resolved, then.

  Mon Mothma squeezed the exhaustion out of her eyes and considered who to speak with next.

  JYN STILL LIVED IN THE cave in her mind. But it was larger now, so large it felt like it could contain worlds and armies, and so filled with light from above that she didn’t feel trapped at all.

  She could only hope it wouldn’t close on her again. Not before the mission was over. Not before she was through with Scarif.

  Jyn was climbing into the cockpit as the shuttle lurched out of lightspeed. The azure mists of the hyperspace tunnel collapsed beyond the viewport and stars streaked into visibility, fixed into place by real matter and real gravity. In the center of the stellar vista was a planet wrapped in deep-blue oceans and speckled with clouds and rocky archipelagoes. If not for the massive ring-shaped orbital station above the northern hemisphere, Scarif would have looked almost pristine.

  “Okay,” Bodhi said. “We’re coming in.” He sat beside K-2SO at the console, waving Jyn between them with barely a backward glance. It was strange, Jyn thought, to see him so confident, so comfortable.

  “What am I looking at?” she asked, squinting at the ring. She made out the specks of starships descending through its center, but then a shimmer outside the ring’s edge caught her eye—the subtly distorting gleam of an energy field.

  “There’s a planetwide defensive shield with a single main entry gate,” Bodhi said. “This shuttle should be equipped with an access code that allows us through.”

  “Assuming,” K-2 added, “the Empire hasn’t logged it as overdue.”

  “Or stolen,” Bodhi said.

  “And if they have?” Jyn asked.

  “Then,” Bodhi answered, “they shut the gate and we’re all annihilated in the cold, dark vacuum of space.”

  Jyn let out a huff of a half laugh. She was starting to like the confident, comfortable—and cynical—Bodhi.

  “Not me,” K-2 said. “I can survive in space.”

  Jyn dug her fingers into the back of the cockpit seats and tried not to lean in. The shuttle veered gently in the
direction of the gate, and the specks swiftly grew larger. The great wedge-shaped masses of twin Star Destroyers loomed like monstrous statues over the orbital station’s portal, dwarfing the swarms of cargo shuttles and transports and TIE fighters. Jyn tried to remember the last time she had seen so much Imperial activity in one place and failed.

  “Okay, this is good,” Bodhi said. He glanced up at the Star Destroyers and then back to his scanners. “It’s not normally this busy. I think this is good. We’re just one more ship, nothing worth noticing.” Jyn heard his confidence crack, then reassert itself. “Okay. Here it goes…”

  The shuttle’s thrusters rumbled and the deck plating trembled as, course locked, the vessel accelerated through the vast distance separating itself from the gate. Bodhi worked the comm with one hand and said without a hitch, “Cargo shuttle SW-0608 requesting a landing pad.”

  Jyn straightened off the cockpit chairs and backed away carefully. Confident, comfortable, and Imperial. She might have wondered what Bodhi had been like—what any of her companions had been like before the Death Star—if she hadn’t been intent on not making a sound.

  “Cargo shuttle SW-0608, you’re not listed on the arrival schedule,” the voice on the comm said. The operator sounded vaguely puzzled. Bodhi had a ready reply.

  “Acknowledged, Gate Control. We were rerouted from Eadu Flight Station. Transmitting clearance code now.”

  Jyn flinched as she heard a sound from the ladder into the cockpit. She glanced over to see Cassian, who seemed to sense the mood and paused in his climb.

  She knew enough about what the spy had been like before the Death Star. She wasn’t sure if she’d forgiven him for it, or simply decided to abandon it like a used-up blaster pack.

  “Transmitting,” K-2 said. The console hummed softly and went silent as the dispatch finished. Cassian completed his climb, swift and hushed. Jyn found her hand tangling in the string of her necklace, drawing the kyber crystal into starlight.

  Cassian had said we’ve done terrible things. If this went wrong now—if they failed before they’d even landed—Jyn was sure the only unforgivable choice would be her own.

  She wrapped her fingers around the crystal. She imagined praying like she’d seen Chirrut pray. She nearly laughed, dangerously loud, and squelched the sound.

  “Cargo shuttle SW-0608?” The voice on the comm had returned. “You are cleared for entry.”

  Jyn dropped the crystal and squeezed her hand in a fist, almost shouting in triumph. She spun and was startled to see Cassian standing close to her. On instinct, riding the joy of the moment, she grabbed his arm and squeezed.

  He looked at her with a wry, curious smile. She dropped her hand and brushed past him. “I’ll tell the others,” she said.

  The cave was getting brighter all the time.

  —

  Jyn was changing. It was evident in her fluid movements and her lucid stare. She no longer hunched her shoulders, no longer maintained the compact posture of a woman ready to absorb a hit before she hit back. She’d shed none of her intensity, but it came with what Cassian could only interpret as a confidence bordering on invincibility.

  She’d always struck him as a person unafraid to die. Now she seemed like someone who couldn’t.

  He should have been terrified of following her into battle. He no longer understood her, could no longer locate her old need for answers, her desperate grasps at meaning. Yet he’d faced down her loathing during the return from Eadu, walked a razor-fine edge before the briefing on Yavin, uncertain what would happen after.

  He’d told the story of his mission before the council. Jyn had told the story of hers. And Cassian had realized that setting his sniper rifle aside had roused a hunger in him. He’d tried to imagine executing another coldly elegant mission for Draven and finding nourishment in the stale, momentary thrills of danger and triumph.

  He couldn’t survive that way anymore.

  After realizing that, recruiting the rest of the team had been easy.

  Jyn was changing. And through her, Cassian would do what was required of him. They all would.

  Careful. You’re starting to sound as zealous as Chirrut.

  The descent through Scarif’s atmosphere was so smooth as to be almost unnoticeable, save for the slow fading of the stars and the paling of the sky from black to blue. The ocean below, once Cassian could see it, seemed utterly still; only the telltale ripples of light suggested waves.

  The shuttle hurtled over the specks of jungle-riddled volcanic islands and finally slowed as it approached a wheel of landmasses connected by sandy tombolos and transit tubes. Other shuttles and starfighters circled the islets, spiraling down or rising from the two dozen landing pads supporting the wheel’s sprawling Imperial installations. The layout was, so far as Cassian could tell, roughly as Bodhi had sketched out during the hyperspace journey.

  A voice came through the comm, bored and professional. “SW-0608 clear for landing pad nine. Acknowledge, please.”

  “SW-0608 proceeding to LP9 as instructed,” Bodhi said.

  The shuttle banked, dipping below the top of a monolithic Imperial fortress rising from the centermost islet. “The main building down there,” Cassian said. “What is it?”

  “That’s our goal,” Bodhi said. “The Citadel Tower. Command and control for this whole facility.”

  Cassian was tempted to ask Bodhi to do a second flyby, but it wasn’t worth the risk of drawing suspicion. “Can you access the shield gate from inside?”

  “Don’t think so. But if the Death Star plans are anywhere, they’ll be there.”

  They’d better be. They’d built their whole scheme around finding the Citadel’s data vault. If by some chance Galen Erso had been wrong, if Bodhi was wrong now, if the Empire had moved the one data tape they needed to another location…

  Movement caught his eye atop the tower: the subtle readjustment of a massive signal array. “And the dish at the top? What’s it for?”

  Bodhi shrugged. “That’s the communications tower. Every communication in and out of this base goes through that dish. Normal transmissions can’t penetrate the shield, and a normal rig wouldn’t have the bandwidth to handle everything on-base at once.”

  Cassian pictured the soldiers in the cabin below, scanned their faces and dossiers. He stopped at Corporal Pao—he had a vague recollection that the SpecForce commando had taken out a similar comm unit in a demolitions job on Foerost. He made a note to ask him about it before leaving the shuttle.

  “Landing track engaged,” K-2 said.

  Cassian stepped away from the viewport. He didn’t expect anyone to spot him from the ground, but why take the chance? “Security?” he asked. “How’s it look right now?”

  “I don’t know,” Bodhi said. “I’ve made twenty cargo runs in and out of the place. They’ve never let me off a landing pad, so I don’t have much to compare it to. Security’s tight.”

  Cassian watched green treetops and white beaches flash by. For an instant he caught a glimpse of the boxy metallic body of an All Terrain Armored Cargo Transport—a four-legged walker whose militarized cousins he’d seen devastate bunkers. He’d almost never seen full-sized walkers outside a war zone.

  “Well,” he murmured. “We’ve faced longer odds.”

  “No,” K-2 said. “We haven’t.”

  —

  There were almost two dozen soldiers in the main cabin. Two dozen people waiting to fight and die. And all of them looked at Jyn like Saw’s troops had looked at him.

  She’d listened to their chatter during the flight, caught a handful of names. Many of the troops had fought together before as Special Forces Pathfinders. Some had worked directly with Cassian, while he’d sought others based on their reputations; a few had caught wind of the Scarif operation and volunteered to come along instead of turning them all in. The rebels who didn’t know one
another rapidly swapped war stories or jokes or barbs, bonding the way soldiers did. Or they sat alone, staring contemplatively at their hands.

  Private Calfor was a half-deaf grenadier who’d once owned a bloodhound kennel on Mykapo. Eskro Casich was a braggart and a glory hound, and Jyn pegged him instantly as a man terrified of being the mission’s sole survivor. An unassuming middle-aged man with a thick accent had tasked himself with inspecting every blaster aboard, polishing away carbon buildup and swapping out energy packs. A pale woman had started shouting at one of her teammates about how the Alliance was dead, how they were all traitors now, and then sat back down mumbling apology after apology. Corporal Tonc had spent half the flight at Bodhi’s side, skeptically questioning the pilot about his suitability for the operation—whether Bodhi was competent with a blaster, whether he’d seen combat before—before grudgingly declaring he’d be the one to watch Bodhi’s back.

  Almost no one spoke to Jyn unless she spoke first. Saw had always been above his people, a symbol of the cause; now Jyn had been pushed into that role. With a pang, she realized how much she missed the camaraderie of Saw’s cadre—not the people, not their bitterness and fanaticism, but the unspoken knowledge that they were bound together under one man’s leadership.

  She sat beside Baze and Chirrut as the shuttle descended. She had them now, but it wasn’t quite the same.

  She jumped when a hand tapped her shoulder and she turned to see a broad sniper looming over her. She tried to remember his name. Sefla.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Small problem with the troops,” Sefla said.

  Jyn waited.

  “They like you, ma’am, but if you want to give a speech they’ll have trouble respecting you. You’re not military. You’re not even Alliance.”

  “Not really my problem, is it?” Jyn said, more nonplussed than irritated.

  “Hardly the right attitude, ma’am.” Sefla arched his brow. “Morale is everyone’s problem. So if Captain Andor won’t do it, it falls to me as an Alliance SpecForce lieutenant to brevet you the rank of sergeant. Congratulations.”