Chirrut called after her as she left. “The strongest stars have hearts of kyber.”
“We’re not here to make friends,” Cassian told her as he dragged her away. “Not with those guys.”
Mystified and intrigued, Jyn glanced back at the two men as she and Cassian departed. “Who are they?”
“The Guardians of the Whills. Protectors of the Kyber Temple. But there’s nothing left to protect, so now they’re just causing trouble for everybody.”
Something had changed with Cassian. “You seem awfully tense all of a sudden.”
“We have to hurry,” he said. “This town—it’s ready to blow.”
JYN FOLLOWED Cassian through the streets of Jedha until they reached the Holy Quarter in the heart of the ancient city, and her disaster radar instantly went off. She glanced about and saw a number of things coming together at once.
A cargo shuttle dropped out of the sky, racing from the Star Destroyer hovering above and blocking out the sun. At about the same time, a treaded Imperial assault tank turned onto the street, coming to protect the shuttle.
People started scurrying about, which was a perfectly natural reaction to such a display of Imperial force. To Jyn’s eye, though, some of the people weren’t fleeing. They were gathering closer.
“Tell me you have a backup plan,” she said to Cassian.
“We’ve got to get out of here.”
It wasn’t much of a plan, but Jyn was all for it. She didn’t want to be anywhere nearby when whatever was about to happen happened.
But it was already too late.
One of the people who’d been attracted by the tank’s arrival plucked a grenade from somewhere and hurled it at the tank. It went off with a bang that set Jyn’s ears ringing. The blast destroyed the tank’s treads, and it came to a grinding halt.
Many of the others who’d been creeping closer produced blasters and opened fire on the stormtroopers escorting the tank down the street. Most of them were human, but one was a Tognath soldier with tubes snaking out of the breathing mask he wore over his mouth.
The stormtroopers returned fire, and the street transformed into a shooting gallery.
Jyn and Cassian pressed themselves into a doorway. Jyn drew her blaster, happy that Cassian hadn’t tried to confiscate it from her before. “Looks like we found Saw’s rebels,” she said.
She didn’t recognize any of them, of course. It had been years since she’d seen Saw, and soldiers tended not to survive in his outfit for long. They had, after all, committed to the most dangerous cause in the galaxy: struggling to free it from the Emperor’s grasp.
The tank might not have been able to move, but that didn’t mean it was defenseless. Its side cannons swiveled, hunting for a target as rebels on a nearby roof fired down on it.
Jyn spotted a young girl huddled in front of the building, and she realized that the tank was about to fire at it in an effort to blast the rebels off the roof. Without thinking, Jyn darted forward, ignoring Cassian, who called after her. She hunkered down over the girl and shielded her from the blast as the tank’s first round went off.
The shot smashed into the building, blasting away the front of it. As the debris tumbled down around her, Jyn scooped the girl up and found the child’s mother already racing over to take her away. Jyn handed off the girl to her grateful parent and then dove after them, trying to avoid the tank’s next shot.
Cassian, to his credit, opened fire to give Jyn cover. She just wasn’t sure at first what he was shooting at, as his shots seemed high. She glanced up to see a rebel toppling off the building, a fresh grenade in his hand. As he landed among his fellow rebels, the grenade exploded, killing not only him but several others.
Cold as it might be, Jyn could only think, Better them than me. She ran up to Cassian and was about to thank him when she saw another grenade rolling toward the tank. She dove forward, taking Cassian to the ground with her. They avoided the brunt of the blast, which transformed the tank into a smoldering hulk.
Cassian leaped to his feet and raced away, and Jyn followed straight after him. He led them into an alley and then came to a skidding halt when he saw an entire squad of stormtroopers blocking their way.
He spun on his heel and ran back the other way, passing Jyn. “This way!”
Jyn had already had enough of running from the Empire. After facing down one of their tanks, she wasn’t about to let those clowns in their fancy armor run her off. She pulled a pair of truncheons from her jacket and set to work.
With the stormtroopers’ attention on Cassian, she was able to take down the first two of them before they knew she was a threat. The next two required a bit more effort, but they proved no match for her. She attacked them the way she preferred: fast and strong, before they could hit her back.
The last two, though, were smart enough to back up a bit and ready their rifles. While they were still waiting for their compatriots to get clear of her—or fall at her feet, as they soon did—she drew her blaster and began firing.
As Jyn took down the remainder of the stormtrooper squad, she heard something stomping up behind her. She spun about and spotted an Imperial security droid looming over her, and she took it down with a single shot to the chest.
The droid toppled over, smoking from its wound and revealing another security droid behind it. “Did you know that wasn’t me?” it said.
Realizing that the second droid was K-2SO, Jyn lowered her weapon. After a perhaps too long moment, she answered, “Of course.”
Cassian returned then to chew the droid out. “I thought I told you to stay on the ship.” He stared at the stormtroopers scattered about the alley. None of them stirred.
“You did. But I thought it was boring and you were in trouble. There are a lot of explosions for two people blending in.”
Cassian seemed ready to lay into the droid again, despite the thing’s logic, but K-2SO cut him off. “The Imperial forces are converging on our present location.”
Jyn didn’t see one of the downed stormtroopers reach for a grenade on his belt and activate it, and neither did Cassian. Fortunately, though, when the trooper threw it at her, K-2SO plucked it out of the air as if he and the trooper had been playing catch. The droid then tossed it back at the stormtrooper, and the grenade put an end to any worries about him or his squad mates getting back up again.
“I suggest we leave immediately,” K-2SO said. Jyn couldn’t think of a single reason to argue with him.
JYN, CASSIAN, and K-2SO moved through the streets of the Holy Quarter. They tried not to break into a run, for fear of drawing attention to themselves. For a moment, Jyn thought they might make it out of the city without any more troubles.
Then they found their way blocked by an X-wing starfighter that had somehow crashed into the street. It looked like it had been abandoned there as a lost cause, too much trouble to try to move.
Jyn had seen stormtroopers marching rebel pilots through the streets earlier in the day. She wondered if one of them had managed to eject from this wreck.
As Jyn glanced about for a better way out, another patrol of stormtroopers—a dozen of them this time—approached.
“Halt!” the commander said. “Stop right there.”
They all froze, unsure of what to do. Jyn started looking for which stormtroopers she should shoot first. Or would she be better off running instead? She considered using K-2SO as a shield, but the droid was so tall and his legs were so long that he was almost useless in that regard.
“Where are you taking these prisoners?” the commander asked.
“These are prisoners.” K-2SO barely managed to make that sound like it wasn’t a question.
“Yes, where are you taking them?”
Jyn wanted to answer for the droid, but she feared that would make it look like she wasn’t a prisoner, and at the moment that was working to their advantage.
“I am taking them…” K-2SO started to figure that same thing out. “To imprison them. In prison.”
Cassian ran out of patience at that moment and tried to cut in. “He’s taking us to—”
Much to Jyn’s surprise, K-2SO smacked Cassian across the mouth. “Quiet! And there’s a fresh one if you mouth off again.”
It seemed the droid could sell a deception once he understood what he was supposed to be lying about.
“We’ll take them from here,” the commander said. The stormtroopers moved in to make that happen.
K-2SO did his best to talk the commander out of it. “That’s okay. If you could just point me in the right direction, I can take them, I’m sure. I’ve taken them this far.”
Despite the droid’s protests, the stormtroopers placed shackles on Jyn and Cassian.
“Hey, hey, droid. Wait a second.” Cassian tried to get K-2SO to stand up to the stormtroopers, but the commander wasn’t having any of it.
“Take them away.”
“You can’t take them away,” K-2SO said.
The commander looked the droid up and down. “You stay here. We need to check your diagnostics.”
K-2SO was indignant. “Diagnostics? I’m capable of running my own diagnostics, thank you very much.”
Off to the side, someone called out, “Let them pass in peace!”
Jyn—along with everyone else in the street—turned to see the odd blind monk she’d met before, sitting in a doorway. His name was Chirrut, right? He unfolded himself and got to his feet, his walking stick in one hand. He approached the troopers as if he knew exactly where they were.
“Let them pass in peace,” he said again, as if to confirm that he was the one who’d called out in the first place. Then he began chanting a prayer Jyn had never heard before.
“The Force is with me. And I am in the Force. And I fear nothing. For all is as the Force wills it.”
The commander didn’t care for that at all. “Hey, stop right there!”
One of the stormtroopers leaned over to explain the monk’s behavior to the commander. “He’s blind.”
“Is he deaf?” The commander raised his rifle and aimed it right at the monk. “I said, stop right there!”
CHIRRUT JUKED to the left as he approached, and the commander’s blaster bolt zipped right past him. Cassian dove for cover, and Jyn followed suit. If this mad monk was going to sacrifice his life for them, she planned to take advantage of it.
She didn’t have to worry about Chirrut though. The monk swept in close to the stormtroopers—too close for them to fire at him again—and began swinging his walking stick. He smacked down one trooper with a blow to the head and then came around and swept another off his feet.
One of the stormtroopers fired a desperate shot at Chirrut, but the monk dodged it again. The bolt struck a stormtrooper behind him instead, almost as if he’d planned it that way.
The monk kept up this blur of action until every one of the stormtroopers lay at his feet. Jyn could only watch in astonishment as he worked. She almost felt like she should applaud when he was done.
Unfortunately, another squad of stormtroopers rushed in at that point. This group was too far away for Chirrut to attack with his stick, and they could already see how dangerous he was. They weren’t going to give him a chance to get close enough to hurt them.
Before the new arrivals could open fire, though, a raggedy soldier stepped out from the other side of the street and blew them away. Jyn recognized him as the man who’d been standing behind Chirrut before. If he’d looked dangerous then, he proved it now, taking down each of the stormtroopers with a barrage of well-placed shots.
When he was done, the soldier strolled across the street and handed the blind monk a lightbow. Jyn wondered how Chirrut could hope to use it, but he held it like he’d been born to it.
“You almost shot me,” Chirrut said to the soldier.
The soldier grunted at him. “You’re welcome.”
A stormtrooper who wasn’t smart enough to play dead began to stir, and the soldier shot him again. He gave the stormtrooper a firm stay down nod, then glanced around to scan for other threats.
“Clear of hostiles,” K-2SO reported as Jyn and Cassian got to their feet.
The soldier aimed his blaster at the droid.
K-2SO corrected himself. “One hostile!”
Jyn moved forward to keep the soldier from shooting the droid. “He’s with us!”
The soldier hesitated. He glanced at Chirrut for confirmation, and the monk told him, “No. They’re okay.”
The soldier reluctantly shouldered his weapon. K-2SO proceeded to ignore the man while he let Jyn and Cassian loose from their shackles.
Jyn thanked the droid. She still couldn’t put all her trust in K-2SO, but he clearly cared about Cassian and—by extension—her.
Cassian, however, wasn’t quite as impressed. “Go back to the ship,” he said to the droid, not bothering to hide his annoyance at the way K-2SO had disobeyed his previous order. “Wait for my call.”
The droid did as he was instructed. Cassian nodded toward Chirrut and asked the soldier, “Is he Jedi?”
The thought had occurred to Jyn, too. The way the blind man moved seemed impossible—at least for someone who couldn’t manipulate the Force.
The soldier gave Cassian a firm shake of his head. “No Jedi anymore. Only dreamers like this fool.”
Chirrut protested his friend’s opinion. “The Force did protect me.”
The soldier pointed at himself. “I protected you.”
They didn’t have time for this. They’d already run into more stormtroopers than Jyn cared to count, and if they stuck around, more were sure to find them. “Can you get us to Saw Gerrera?” she asked.
As if in answer, a group of rebels emerged, their weapons leveled at Jyn, Cassian, K-2SO, and their rescuers. “Hands in the air!” one of them said.
Under other circumstances, Jyn might have tried to escape. After all, Chirrut and his friend had made quick work of the stormtroopers, and she and Cassian could handle themselves pretty well. The rebels probably worked with Saw though.
Chirrut didn’t want to give in to the rebels. “Can’t you see we are no friends of the Empire?” He motioned to the downed stormtroopers scattered about the place, as if that should be plenty of evidence.
The Tognath whom Jyn had seen lurking about earlier stepped up then and shouted at them in his native tongue. “Tell that to the one who killed our men!”
Jyn understood him, and she mentally cursed. The tube-faced man must have been referring to when Cassian had shot a grenade-toting rebel to save her life. She’d wondered if that would come back to haunt them.
She stepped forward and shouted as clearly as she could, “Anyone who kills me or my friends will answer to Saw Gerrera!”
“And why is that?” the Tognath said.
Jyn hesitated only the slightest bit. It had been a long time since she’d said the words out loud. “Because I am the daughter of Galen Erso.”
The Tognath didn’t hesitate. “Take them!”
The rebels stormed toward Jyn and the others, stripping them of their weapons and throwing bags over their heads so they couldn’t see.
“Are you kidding me?” Chirrut said, exasperated. “I’m blind!”
CASSIAN MIGHT have been in worse spots than this one. He just couldn’t remember when. He only hoped that when they finally reached the rebels’ hideout, Jyn wouldn’t sell him out to Saw Gerrera.
It would be so easy for her to deny him and his mission and just have Saw kill him. That would be tragic in many ways, and not just for him personally.
But he’d already made the decision to trust her, whether that proved to be a wise choice or not. That’s why he’d let her keep her blaster. And why he hadn’t said a thing to her about the truncheon
s she carried.
He knew that his life would be in her hands sooner or later. If he was going to have to trust her in a situation like this, it seemed petty to complain about her carrying weapons.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t worried though. From the reports he’d read about Jyn, she was a hardened criminal with a long list of transgressions—and not only against the Empire. He was depending on her better nature.
That and the fact that he was helping her find her long-lost father.
He hoped at least one of those things would work in his favor.
Saw’s rebels didn’t care about any of that, of course. That was at least partly Cassian’s fault, he had to admit. He hadn’t wanted to kill any of them, but he hadn’t seen any other choice. Not if he wanted to protect Jyn like he needed to.
The rebels took the sack off Cassian’s head once they finally got inside their hideout. It was a rough place that looked like it had been carved out of one of Jedha’s many systems of caves, and the people who filled it looked just as hard and mean.
A large rebel threw Cassian into a cell alongside the blind monk and his efficiently violent friend. As Cassian got a better look at the place, he realized the rebels had set up their base inside an ossuary, an ancient burial place for the monks of Jedha. Their bones lined every bit of the walls, even in the cell.
Once their captors retreated, Cassian picked himself up and leaned against the cell door to scope out as much as he could see. He spotted a couple of rebels arguing over a game of dejarik. They played with carved wooden pieces on an old table rather than on the regular holotable.
The monk settled down and began chanting. Cassian hoped he would eventually give up, but he seemed tireless.
After a while, Chirrut’s soldier friend finally took notice of the chanting. He looked over at the monk in disbelief and said, “You pray?”
Chirrut didn’t break the rhythm of his chanting for even an instant.
The soldier shook his head at him. “You pray.”
He allowed himself a bitter chuckle and then turned to Cassian. “He’s praying for the door to open.”
Rogue One Junior Novel Page 3
