Jyn considered him for a long moment as she set her jaw in determination. She’d gotten this close to her father, and Cassian could see she wasn’t about to give up now.
“Then we’ll find him—and bring him back. And he can tell them himself!”
Cassian gave her an all right nod. Those were her orders, after all.
Unfortunately, they weren’t his orders.
BODHI ROOK couldn’t remember a time he’d been so terrified, and the past few days had been filled with all sorts of nerve-racking things. He’d escaped from the Empire with a secret message from Galen Erso, one of the top scientists in the galaxy. He’d delivered the message to Saw Gerrera—and been tortured for it.
Maybe he’d been more scared when Bor Gullet had ripped his mind to pieces to make sure he wasn’t lying, but truth be told, Bodhi couldn’t remember most of it. He was grateful for that. He wasn’t sure he was entirely over the effects, but he was eager to put the experience behind him either way.
Through most of that, though, he’d held his fate in his own hands. Now, as a pilot himself, he had to watch a rebel and a reprogrammed Imperial security droid try to land a U-wing in a horrifying storm that took them through a series of gigantic rock formations that seemed to stab at them from out of nowhere.
He couldn’t help coaching from behind. He understood why they didn’t yet trust him to fly the ship, but he wondered if he should have insisted on taking the controls anyhow.
Did they think he planned to crash the ship into one of those spires, killing them all at once? He was desperate to make up for having worked for the Empire for so long, not suicidal.
“Go low!” Bodhi shouted at them. “Lower!”
The crazy droid argued with him. “This ship was not meant to be flown this way.”
At least he bothered to respond that time. Bodhi brought down his tone. “They have landing trackers. They have patrol squadrons. You’ve got to stay in the canyon. Keep it low.”
Otherwise, the Empire was sure to spot them, and then their little trip to Eadu would end fast—and probably in a big ball of fire.
“Watch the right!” Cassian shouted at the droid.
For a machine that supposedly had lightning-fast reflexes, the droid was not making Bodhi feel good about his flying skills. He wondered if it was too late to try to take the controls away.
Right then they hit an air pocket and dropped hard enough to lift Bodhi out of his seat. He gave up sitting and tried crouching behind them instead.
The droid didn’t seem bothered, but he did update their odds. “There is a twenty-six percent chance of failure.”
Cassian glanced back at Bodhi. “How much farther?”
Bodhi gave him a frustrated shrug. “I don’t know—I’m not sure. I never really come this way.” And why would he? As an Imperial cargo pilot, he’d always had clearance in the past. He hadn’t had any reason to risk his life this way—until now.
“We’re close,” he said anyhow. “We’re close—I know that.”
“Now there’s a thirty-five percent chance of failure.”
Bodhi felt like smacking K-2SO in the back of his metal head, but Cassian shouted the droid down first.
“I don’t want to know! Thank you.”
“I understand,” the droid said. Bodhi wasn’t sure he really did though.
He tried to ignore the droid and kept his attention focused on the U-wing’s viewport instead. The rocks seemed familiar, although he’d never seen any of them from that angle before. He knew they were getting close, but exactly how close were they?
Too close!
“Now! Put it down now!”
“The wind—” The droid started to protest, but Bodhi wasn’t having any of it.
“If you keep going, you’ll be right over the shuttle depot!”
Bodhi hoped he didn’t have to describe exactly how much that would be a bad thing. If anyone in the shuttle depot spotted the U-wing, they’d instantly raise the alarm. The six of them didn’t have a chance of taking on an entire Imperial base.
The lights of the shuttle depot speared up through the rain, as if to prove Bodhi right. K-2SO recognized the threat they posed and swung the ship into a hard turn.
The side of the U-wing clipped a column of rock as the droid brought it back. The impact jolted the entire ship and threw Bodhi off his feet.
He floundered about for a handhold as the ship fell into a steep dive. He couldn’t tell if K-2SO still had control of it or if they were all about to die.
“Hold on tight!” Cassian shouted. “We’re coming down hard!”
Bodhi wanted to snap off a sarcastic reply to that announcement of the obvious, but he couldn’t catch enough breath to manage it. Then he ran out of time.
The starship smacked into the ground, and Bodhi did the same to the ship’s floor. From the sound of it, one of the struts on the landing gear failed on impact, and from the way the ship angled forward onto its nose, it was the one up front.
Bodhi had seen starships crash like that before. Sometimes—if there was a friendly port nearby with a fast and resourceful team of mechanics—the ship might be made space worthy again.
But they were essentially rebels stuck behind Imperial lines. No help was on the way.
Bodhi was more scared than ever.
CASSIAN WANTED to kick the U-wing into pieces. He’d gone outside to inspect the ship in the violent storm and darkness, by himself, and he hadn’t liked a single thing he’d seen. The landing—if he could call it that—had smashed not only the landing gear but other parts of the craft. They weren’t going anywhere in it.
Now he needed to find and assassinate Galen Erso and also somehow steal a ship big enough to carry all six of them safely off the planet. If they wanted to survive, anyway. He didn’t need K-2SO to tell him that the chances of Jyn trying to kill him after he murdered her father approached a hundred percent.
The only bit of good news he could find was that the storm had covered their approach so well that the Imperials in the base didn’t seem to have noticed their crash at all.
The worst part, though, was that the ship’s communications array had been destroyed in the crash, too. That meant Cassian couldn’t call for help. He couldn’t even signal General Draven that they’d made it to Eadu and found the facility where Galen Erso supposedly worked.
Because of that, Draven would probably think Cassian and his ragtag team were dead. What would he do then?
Cassian didn’t know for sure, but General Draven wasn’t one to sit on his hands and hope things would work out in his favor. He preferred action.
When it came down to it, Cassian had to admit he was much the same way.
He went back into the ship, and all eyes turned to him. He knew they were waiting on him for some kind of plan. He just had to come up with one that wouldn’t get them all killed—at least not until he finished the mission.
“Bodhi,” he said. “Where’s the lab?”
“The research facility?”
Maybe he needed to give the kid a break. Saw had tortured him, after all. But he didn’t have time for this right now. “Yeah. Where is it?”
His tone seemed to shake Bodhi awake. “It’s just over the ridge.”
“And that’s a shuttle depot straight ahead of us? You are sure about that?”
The pilot nodded. “Yes.”
As shaken as the man might be, Cassian decided to believe him.
“We’ll have to hope there’s still an Imperial ship left to steal. Here’s what we’re doing.”
He glanced at each of the others to make sure they were listening. They hung on his every word.
“Hopefully the storm keeps up and keeps us hidden down here. Bodhi, you’re coming with me. We’ll go up the ridge and check it out.”
The pilot jumped to his feet with a sharp
nod. He was ready.
Jyn unfolded herself and stood next to him. “I’m coming with you.”
Cassian shook her off. “No. Your father’s message. We can’t risk it. You’re the messenger.”
He realized how thin that sounded as an excuse, but he didn’t have anything better. He couldn’t just say, I can’t have you around, because I might have to kill your father.
“That’s ridiculous,” she responded. “We all got the message. Everyone here knows it.”
She could obviously tell he was trying to protect her from something. Cassian could only hope she didn’t guess what.
He was about to explain that none of them would remember what she said with as much clarity as she did. Then K-2SO spoke up.
“‘One blast to the reactor module and the whole system goes down.’ That’s how you said it. ‘The whole system goes down.’”
“Get to work fixing our comms,” Cassian snapped at the droid. He didn’t know if that was even possible, but it would keep K-2SO out of trouble for a little while at least.
Cassian turned back to Jyn and tried to seem casual. “All I want to do right now is get a handle on what we’re up against.”
He’d lied to so many people over the years. Why did he have trouble lying to her? Maybe it was because she was on his side now and he didn’t want to betray her.
He turned to Bodhi. “So we’re gonna go very small and very careful up the rise and see what’s what. Let’s get out of here.”
Jyn crossed her arms and frowned at him, still suspicious, but she didn’t object. I’ll take that, Cassian thought. At least for now.
Bodhi followed him out into the storm, and Cassian cast about for which way to go. He spotted a route that led lower and one that climbed higher. He started for the lower one, but Bodhi stopped him.
“No, no. We’ve gotta go up.”
Bodhi led the way from there, and Cassian followed.
JYN HAD almost started to like Cassian. He’d done well in Jedha City. She could see why the Rebellion had sent him along with her on the mission, as dangerous as it was. He could handle just about anything thrown at him, and she respected that.
On the trip out to Eadu, though, he’d started to clam up. And when he’d insisted on leaving the rest of them in the crashed ship while he and Bodhi scouted the place? That hadn’t sat right with her.
The storm raged outside the ship, and Jyn was happy to have an excuse not to go out into it. She didn’t like the idea of running into a patrol of stormtroopers in that mess, either.
But Cassian hadn’t given her a good excuse, and she knew it.
Chirrut spoke up. “Does he look like a killer?”
For a moment, Jyn wasn’t sure if the monk was talking to her or someone else. Either way, Baze answered first.
“No. He has the face of a friend.”
That still mystified her. The two men had the way about them of longtime friends who shared so much background they didn’t need to explain much to each other, but she wasn’t in on that with them.
“Who are you talking about?” she asked.
Baze nodded at the door. “Captain Andor.”
Cassian? Had the two noticed something about him that she hadn’t?
“Why do you ask that?”
Baze shrugged. He hadn’t asked anything.
Jyn focused on Chirrut and spoke directly to him. “What do you mean, ‘Does he look like a killer?’”
“The Force moves darkly near a creature that’s about to kill.”
What did that mean? Jyn wasn’t inclined to give too much credence to a monk babbling about a failed religion. Cassian had said he and Bodhi were going out to scout the area. If he was planning to kill someone, would he have taken Bodhi with him?
K-2SO spoke then, making an offhand observation as he continued his work. “His weapon was in the sniper configuration.”
The droid had a horrible habit of speaking his mind without a filter of any sort. Perhaps this was one time when it would work to Jyn’s advantage.
Jyn didn’t know what Cassian was up to. She didn’t have any real proof he had gone out there to kill someone. Like her father.
But this wasn’t a court of law. She didn’t need proof. The one thing she did need, she realized, was to find out—before it was too late.
Without a word, Jyn headed for the U-wing’s door. She slipped into the rain-soaked night.
She wasn’t sure where Cassian and Bodhi were headed, but they weren’t loitering near the ship for sure. She picked a likely direction and started off into the darkness.
Soon Jyn came to a fork in the path she’d chosen, one way leading up and the other down. The way down looked like it offered her a better chance to actually get into the base, so she chose that.
BAZE WATCHED Jyn leave the U-wing, and he frowned in disapproval. He’d been in situations like this before with a group of soldiers, all on the edge. They needed to work together—to act like a team—if they wanted to survive, but instead the people who were supposedly leading their trip seemed set on keeping the rest of them in the dark.
He felt too sad to care much about it though. Instead, his thoughts kept returning to his poor, dear, absolutely destroyed Jedha.
He had been born and raised there, and no matter how far he might have wandered from it at times, it had always been the center of his universe. Everyone he’d grown up with. The priests. The Temple.
Gone. All of it.
The only exception was Chirrut.
True, Chirrut was his oldest and best friend. The two shared a bond that nothing else in their lives had managed to fracture. Somehow, it had even survived the destruction of their homeland.
But now where was their home? Where did they belong? And—most important, Baze thought—what could they do to take revenge on the monsters who had murdered so many?
Baze had been so tangled in his own thoughts, he almost hadn’t seen Chirrut head for the ship’s exit. He realized that Chirrut had given Jyn enough of a head start that she’d probably be long gone, and then he’d gotten up and made to leave the ship too.
As far as Baze was concerned, though, Chirrut wasn’t going anywhere without him—certainly not out into that storm. He pushed himself to his feet and padded after his friend.
When they emerged from the U-wing, Baze glanced around to make sure Jyn was in fact gone. Chirrut didn’t seem concerned about that at all. He simply went out into the rain, tapping his stick on the unfamiliar ground before him. Perhaps he could feel her tracks that way. It wouldn’t have surprised Baze.
“Where are you going?” Baze asked Chirrut. It was insane for a blind man to wander around in storm-swept mountains on the outskirts of an Imperial base, and they both knew it.
“I’m going to follow Jyn,” Chirrut said. “Her path is clear.”
Baze supposed he understood that choice. The woman had the mission she’d announced to them all, and she had set out to do it. About Cassian, Baze wasn’t so sure.
“Alone?” Baze said. “Good luck.”
He didn’t want to do this. Let Jyn and Cassian and the Imperial pilot wander around and get lost in the rain. Let them betray each other. Baze just wanted to stay dry and plot his revenge.
“I don’t need luck,” Chirrut said. “I have you.”
Baze grimaced at his friend. He knew he couldn’t let Chirrut take off from the ship on his own. The man had called Baze’s bluff. He had no choice but to follow him, like it or not.
BODHI DIDN’T like this at all, and it wasn’t just because Cassian had dragged him out into the rain after he and his maybe faulty droid had nearly killed everyone in that terrible excuse for a landing. If they were just scouting around to make sure no Imperials had spotted them, they could have managed it with a quick trip around their crash site. Instead, Cassian had decided it was perfect weather fo
r a little mountain climbing.
Bodhi soon realized that Cassian had other ambitions for their hike. They kept making their way up, up, up until they reached the top of the ridge that separated them from the Imperial base.
Once they topped the crest, Bodhi and Cassian couldn’t miss the secret base. Most of the base lay buried behind the face of the cliff across the valley from the two men, but the Empire still needed to let shuttles in and out of the place. The Empire had lit its landing platform with spotlights to make it easier for legitimate shuttle pilots—like Bodhi had once been—to find it.
Cassian pulled Bodhi down next to him, as if anyone in the base could spot them all the way over there. In the storm. At night.
But Bodhi went along with it anyhow. Cassian was the spy, after all.
Cassian pulled out a set of quadnocs and focused them on the landing platform. Bodhi didn’t think there would be much out there to look at, but he decided to let the spy go spy if he wanted to.
Then a squad of stormtroopers marched out onto the platform.
That wasn’t the standard procedure, Bodhi knew. The many times he’d flown cargo there, he’d only had a few of the white-armored soldiers come out to meet him. Most of the time, they ignored him entirely, and he did the same to them.
Cassian handed the quadnocs to Bodhi. “You see Erso out there?”
Bodhi almost started to explain that Erso wasn’t a stormtrooper, but he realized Cassian probably knew that. He took the quadnocs and zoomed in on the people on the landing platform instead.
The only people out there were the stormtroopers. Bodhi expected them to be squirming in their armor, unhappy to be out in that weather, but they all stood at perfect attention, almost like they were expecting an inspection. Then he saw why.
More stormtroopers appeared, and they were escorting the project engineers onto the platform. The engineers seemed less thrilled than the stormtroopers, as they didn’t have any armor to protect them from the weather.
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