Star Wars: Guardians of the Whills (Star Wars: Rogue One)

by Greg Rucka

  Chirrut knew all these things because he had known Althin since the day he was born, and he had known his parents even longer than that. Althin’s parents had come to Jedha from Rodia before the end of the Clone Wars. They had bought a storefront one block off the Blessing Way and made their home above it. They had stayed in business selling guides and simple works on spirituality, the Force, and other such things primarily to the pilgrims and tourists who came to visit the Holy City. Their true passion had been ancient manuscripts, whether recorded on old data tapes or decaying discs or even, in the rarest of cases, books, all manner of older texts collected from all around the Outer Rim. Althin’s mother, Steya, had a particular passion for martial arts, not solely its literature but also its practice. Shortly after settling in the Holy City, she had sought out Chirrut and asked him to teach her in zama-shiwo, one of Jedha’s native fighting styles and one in which Chirrut had achieved a level of mastery. For several years Steya and Chirrut would meet in the morning outside the Temple of the Kyber to practice the forms. Althin’s father, Tok, had no interest at all in esoteric fighting styles, but instead had been passionate about theater, in particular opera, and even more particularly, Bith opera from the Middle Era of the Old Republic.

  Somewhere to his left, Chirrut felt the thrum of a heavy repulsorlift field, and a fraction later heard the sound of metal on metal, the grinding of gears. There was a lot of motion around him, the city had been in spasms all day, but since the fighting had broken out near LZ-Dorn it had grown much worse. He trusted to his senses, and failing those, to his echo-box, but after hours of moving through the city trying to give aid to those in need, he was tired, and it was beginning to tell on him. He pulled up abruptly, and the move caused Althin to whimper again.

  “It’s all right, little one,” Chirrut told him. “It’s all right, I have you.”

  Using the echo-box more than his memory, he stepped back, moved one hand from where he was cradling the boy, feeling for the wall, and finding it, feeling his way to the recess of a doorway. He stepped back into it, bringing his arm back to Althin, waiting. The tank was coming closer, rumbling, and Chirrut could taste the dust the vehicle set into the air. The stonework around them thrummed in sympathetic vibration with the repulsorfield.

  “The Force is with me, and I am one with the Force,” Chirrut told Althin. “And I fear nothing, for all is as the Force wills it.”

  Althin stayed still in his arms, silent once again.

  And why does the Force will to take a child’s parents? Chirrut found himself wondering.

  For the first time in many, many years he felt a stab of deep, powerful anger in his breast. An anger so hot and so insistent and so surprising, it stole his breath. A young man’s anger, familiar and all the more unwelcome because of that. An anger that had been lurking within him since dawn—since before dawn, if he was honest. An anger directed at everyone and everything, a fury at the injustices of the universe, but pointed at the Empire and Saw Gerrera specifically, and in equal measure.

  The tank was passing, Chirrut could feel it, hear it, but for the moment he had no sense of it, no sense of who rode within or upon it. This had been the problem all day: the feeling that his connection to the Force, however tenuous it was at the best of times, had diminished or even broken. It had grown worse as he’d moved from crisis to crisis, as he’d found husbands mourning wives shot by stormtroopers in the streets, as he’d come upon wreckage and damage from a dozen smaller battles that had raged around the city in response to the Empire’s own reprisals, and on, and on, and so it went. The cycle he had spoken of to Baze grew worse, exactly as predicted. That was the fighting at LZ-Dorn, he knew; the partisans had seen an opportunity to lash out at the Empire once more, and they had seized it.

  Chirrut wondered if that was where Baze had gone. If his friend was dug in with Gerrera’s partisans, pouring his fury out in the blaster fire directed at the newly arrived stormtroopers. He hadn’t heard from Baze since he’d left their home the night before. Chirrut wasn’t actually worried for his safety.

  What he was, Chirrut suddenly understood, was angry at Baze, too.

  “You there.”

  Most of all, though, Chirrut was angry at himself.

  “You there, I’m talking to you.”

  That was it. He was angry at himself. But why, exactly? Because he felt guilty for what he had done, for his part in bringing about the violence, the reprisals of this day? No, the Empire needed to be fought. It had to be resisted. His faith held him to a moral code, but that morality was the same regardless of any faith in the Force. One did not need to believe in the Force to know right from wrong. Many who held no faith in the Force acted righteously, and he had known more than one sentient who had acted selfishly, even cruelly, and used belief to justify doing so.

  “Step out of there.”

  Angry at himself because he felt powerless? This was closer to the truth. Angry at himself because he was one man, alone, and no matter what he did, it would not be enough. He could not end Jedha’s suffering. He could not even, apparently, get one injured, grieving child to safety.

  “What’s the matter with you? Are you deaf?”

  Angry at himself because he had been arrogant enough, perhaps, to believe he could.

  His senses opened once more. He could feel the stormtrooper now, his presence, his motion. The tank had passed, come to a stop, and this stormtrooper had been riding outboard and had seen him and Althin. Now the tank was idling a few meters along the street, and the stormtrooper had come back to question them.

  “Blind,” Chirrut said. “Not deaf.”

  “What’s going on here? Where are you taking that Rodian?”

  “His arm is broken. I am taking him to get medical attention.”

  “Where are his parents?”

  “They’re dead.”

  He heard the stormtrooper’s plastoid armor creak slightly, could imagine him shifting uneasily. Chirrut knew why, and he imagined that if he were more forgiving he would have told the stormtrooper that—just this once—the Empire was not responsible.

  At least, not directly.

  “You two need to clear the street,” the stormtrooper said. “There’s going to be a curfew in effect tonight. Anyone out without authorization will be shot.”

  “Thank you for the information.”

  The stormtrooper creaked again, moving away, and Chirrut heard him exchanging words with another, the clank of the tank’s treads as the vehicle moved into gear and rolled away.

  “The Force is with me, and I am with the Force,” Chirrut told Althin.

  The boy still did not answer him.

  They continued on their way.

  The smell of the smoke faded as they moved into the northwest quarter, and Chirrut’s sense not only of where he was but of what was around him grew steadily with their progress. Twice more he and Althin were stopped by stormtroopers, and each time they were allowed to pass without incident, though in neither case was there the hint of empathy that Chirrut had found with the stormtrooper from the tank. Near the First Spire, they heard the sound of blaster fire, and Althin responded to that, tensing as Chirrut carried him. The boy had shifted in his arms, now with his good arm around Chirrut’s neck and his legs wrapped around Chirrut’s waist. He still had yet to speak.

  They reached the orphanage and Kaya let them inside, and without a word she took Althin from Chirrut’s arms. The boy clung to Chirrut, reluctant to let go.

  “I will not be far,” Chirrut told him. “And Kaya knows how to make your arm stop hurting.”

  He felt the boy touch his face, the soft, suction-tipped ends of his fingers on his cheek like flower petals. Chirrut took the boy’s hand in his own, giving it a squeeze that he hoped was as reassuring as it was gentle. Kaya carried him away, and Chirrut let his walking stick return to his hands, rolled his neck, loosening the muscles that had tensed and tightened during the long walk through the Holy City.

  “Tea?” Baze ask
ed.

  Chirrut turned his head in surprise, orienting to the sound of his friend’s voice.

  “It’s chav,” Baze said. “Not that wretched Tarine stuff.”

  For a second, Chirrut found himself at an utter loss for words. He hadn’t heard Baze’s approach, and Baze was not, generally, a man who did things quietly. More, he hadn’t sensed Baze’s approach, nor even his presence, and if there was a presence that Chirrut Îmwe knew in the Force more than any other—more, perhaps, than his own place in it—it was that of Baze Malbus.

  “Well, if it’s chav,” Chirrut said, “I can hardly refuse, can I?”

  “You were worried about me,” Baze said.

  “I was growing concerned,” Chirrut said. “But only because I missed your nagging.”

  Baze put the glass of tea into Chirrut’s hands. “Althin’s family?”

  “Steya and Tok were killed when the partisans went after one of the AT-DPs,” Chirrut said evenly. “From what I could gather, they set explosives along the street, and when they were triggered it brought down the walker along with several of the homes. They had been hiding inside from the fighting. Where they thought it would be safe.”

  He sipped his tea.

  “Nowhere is safe,” Baze said.

  “Not anymore, no. When did you get here?”

  “Before midday. I thought one of us should be here, in case the fighting reached this far. I knew you’d come here sooner or later.”

  “I thought you would be with the partisans.”

  “Not today.”

  They drank their tea. Killi came to check on them, returning Chirrut’s sash.

  “We’ve set the arm,” she told him.

  “Has he said anything?”

  “No. He is in shock, Chirrut. Killi got him to take a couple of sips of juice, but he would not eat. She is with him and the children right now. Perhaps their company will do him good.”

  “What will do him good is love, peace, quiet, and time,” Chirrut said.

  “Of those, only the first is guaranteed.”

  “I know,” Chirrut said. “But one of those is better than none, and that is why I brought him to you.”

  Killi began coughing. Chirrut heard Baze pouring more tea, and as the fit subsided, heard Killi thank him, then the sound of her drinking.

  “Althin will not be the only child to become an orphan today,” she said. “We are running out of room.”

  She finished her tea and left them. Chirrut listened to the door sliding closed after her, heard the children, the sound slipping through the open doorway as she went.

  “She is right,” Chirrut told Baze. “These walls will not be able to hold all of them much longer.”

  Baze said, “There is a solution.”

  “If this is the same solution, it does not—as I said before—seem to be working.”

  “No, a different solution.”

  “You have my attention.”

  “They leave.”

  Chirrut turned the glass in his hand. He could feel the precise line of heat marking the level of the tea. It was an idea that had simply not occurred to him. The idea of leaving Jedha had never occurred to him, and he knew for a fact that Baze would never abandon their home. They were a part of this world, a part of this city, and one of the blessings of living in this place was that the galaxy had always been willing to come to them, no matter how far or inconvenient the journey here might be.

  “That,” Chirrut said, “is an interesting solution.”

  “But a good one.”

  “I would not go that far. There are a number of problems with what you are proposing, Baze. You assume Killi and Kaya would be willing to leave Jedha. You assume we could acquire a ship for them. You assume that the Empire would let said ship depart. Then there is the question of where they would go.”

  “There are worlds the Empire has not yet reached.”

  “The operative word being ‘yet.’”

  Baze grunted. It was his annoyed grunt. “It is not a question of escaping the Empire. It is a question of escaping here , Chirrut.”

  “And hoping.”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you talked to Killi or Kaya about this?”

  “I wanted to talk to you first.”

  “There are still many problems.”

  “Fewer than you might think,” Baze said. “Saw Gerrera has agreed to help us get a ship.”

  The moment between breaths

  Is the balance of the Force.

  Between life and death.

  Rest and action.

  Serenity and passion.

  Hope and despair.

  —Nartun Trecim, Ascendant of Mau

  From Collected Poems, Prayers, and Meditations on the Force,

  Edited by Kozem Pel, Disciple of the Whills

  THERE WAS A CANTINA at the spaceport, but it wasn’t doing much business anymore, because nobody wanted to linger there. Traffic in and out could run from a steady flow to a trickle, but even at its most active it was a far cry from what the Holy City had been used to before the Imperial occupation. Now, if a ship set down, it did so with a mind to get in and out as quickly as possible. Whether delivering goods or taking pilgrims back to their homes, it was much the same. Land, unload, refuel, and go, all of which could be accomplished in under an hour if things were favorable.

  Things were rarely favorable these days, mostly because all arriving and departing ships were subject to search by Imperial authorities. This meant passengers and crew were questioned, scandocs verified, and if anything at all appeared less than aboveboard, a scanning crew was dispatched to find out the who and the why of it all. Given all that, it was hardly a surprise that passengers and crew alike had no interest in lingering over a drink or a meal.

  The only ships that weren’t subjected to such intense scrutiny were, of course, ships dispatched to Jedha by the Empire. Imperial transports were given a cursory scan, logged, and provided all the computers agreed that the ship was where it should be at roughly the time it was expected to be there, that was that. The Empire was free to go about its business.

  The cantina was built along the spaceport promenade, facing the long line of landing bays, most of which had their doors open. Windows ran along the wall to give patrons a view of the passersby, or to give the passersby a view of the patrons, depending on where you were when you looked.

  Baze sat in the second booth down from the entrance, with a view from his window directly onto bay eighteen. He wore his customary body armor but had draped a dust shroud over his shoulder and wrapped it around himself, attire more appropriate to any number of pilgrims who might be waiting for a ride back home. The Morellian cannon and its coolant tank had been placed in a container that now rested beside his knee. It was a little overlarge for a pilgrim’s luggage, but Baze was considered by many to be a little overlarge for a human, and thus far the suitcase had drawn no more attention than he had himself.

  He poked at the bowl of rehydrated noodles in front of him and waved the waiter droid away when it approached. Through the window he saw the lights outside bay eighteen switch from green to red and the doors slam shut. A ship was coming in, and the bay would remain sealed until it had been cleared by the authorities. As he watched, a squad of stormtroopers took up a post outside the bay, eight of them in total, accompanied by two heavy-duty KX-series security droids. The stormtroopers split evenly into two groups of four at either side of the door, facing both directions along the promenade, on watch. One of them looked directly at him through the window, and Baze lowered his head back to his noodles and took a hearty slurp. When he glanced back again, the stormtrooper was once more focused on the activity on the promenade.

  The door to the cantina slid open, and with it came a blast of engine noise. Two men made their way to his booth and took the seat across from him.

  “That’s the ship,” Leevan Tenza said.

  Baze was looking at the other man, trying to place him. He was Trandoshan, a
nd Baze was certain he had seen him before, but he couldn’t place where or when. Just like Baze and Tenza, the Trandoshan wore a pilgrim’s dust shroud drawn around him, over his clothes. Where it parted, Baze could see a cut-down CR-1 blast cannon strapped to his upper thigh. The Trandoshan met his eyes, held his gaze, then looked away. When he did, Baze could see the long scar running across his muzzle, splitting the scales, and he remembered Chirrut’s hand on the man’s face almost three months earlier, and he remembered his name and where he knew him.

  “Wernad,” Baze said. “You found a way to fight them.”

  The Trandoshan looked back at him. “Better than doing nothing.”

  “The others are in position,” Tenza said. “Where are the kids?”

  “Coming,” Baze said.

  “The timing has to be right. They can’t be late.”

  “They know.”

  Outside, the doors to bay eighteen slid open, and through them all three could see the Sentinel -class shuttle that had set down inside. There was a flurry of activity from the stormtroopers standing post, and half of the group, along with the KX droids, headed inside as two black-uniformed Imperial officers headed out. Tenza lowered his head as they passed the windows. Baze pulled a handful of credits from his pocket and stacked them on the table, then turned in his seat and leaned down to open his case. He snapped the latches back, took hold of the blaster cannon in his right hand and the coolant tank in his left, and stood up, back to the window.

  Without another word, he walked to the doors of the cantina, stepped out into the promenade, and opened fire.

  “How many kids?” Denic asked.

  “Over thirty, now,” Chirrut told her. “We will need a large vessel.”

  They were in Denic’s garage, well past the middle of the night, the same night Baze had told Chirrut of his idea to evacuate the orphans. He and Chirrut had left the orphanage late, and only after Chirrut had checked to see that Althin had managed to fall asleep. The young Rodian still hadn’t said a word, but Kaya assured them that he had eaten, and that his arm would heal, and that, with time and opportunity, the deeper wounds of the day might heal, as well. That had been when Baze and Chirrut had asked her to join them, and Killi as well, and proposed the plan to get the children off the planet.