Star Wars: Rebel Rising

by Revis, Beth

  Two stormtroopers stood at the entrance of the transport tube, blocking the way onto their ship. “This is somewhat unexpected,” said a man wearing Imperial gray, striding forward. “We weren’t supposed to get resupplied for another standard month.”

  “Then you’re going to be really surprised by this,” Saw said, whipping out his blaster and shooting both stormtroopers before they had a chance to retaliate. The Imperial officer ran, and Saw gave chase.

  Xosad and his men surged forward after Saw, leaving Jyn behind. It had all happened so suddenly that she was breathless. There had been so much waiting—traveling through space to get there, arranging the hookup, waiting for the tube to extend. And now the others were already on the Imperial ship and Jyn was alone in front of the transport tube with two stormtroopers motionless on the other side.

  Through the transport tube, she could hear the sounds of blaster fire. The dull thuds of bodies. Shouting.

  Jyn pulled out her blaster and held it tightly in her hands. She wished she was beside Saw, even if he was in the thick of the battle. She didn’t like being alone. Her imagination filled with terrors.

  Footsteps. Coming closer. Fast. Someone was running toward her.

  She saw him before he saw her. A man, his dark skin vivid against the gray suit he wore, stained with bright red blood on one sleeve. He stopped at the stormtroopers after stumbling over their bodies, an expression of utter terror—or maybe disgust—evident on his face.

  Then he looked up and saw Jyn.

  He stepped over the first stormtrooper.

  “You’re a little young thing. And they left you on guard duty, huh?” he asked. His voice was calm, like he was talking to a frightened animal. Jyn squeezed her blaster tighter.

  “Don’t come forward,” she said, raising it.

  “You didn’t do this.” The scientist looked down as he stepped over the second stormtrooper’s body. He was in the tunnel now. “You didn’t kill them.”

  “I said,” Jyn warned, “don’t come any closer.” Her voice shook, but the blaster was steady in her hand.

  The scientist had one hand in the large pocket of his coat. There was something there, hidden behind the cloth. Something hard and metallic. A blaster?

  “Stop!” Jyn shouted.

  He took another step closer.

  “If you were going to shoot me, you would have by now,” he said. Another step. He was halfway across the transport tube now. “You look like a good girl,” he said.

  “I’m not,” Jyn whispered, her finger on the trigger.

  He didn’t hear her. “You’re not a terrorist like those men. I don’t know how they roped you into this, but if you let me, I can help you.” Two more steps. He was closer to Jyn now than to the stormtroopers’ bodies.

  “Not another step,” Jyn said, aiming the blaster.

  The scientist raised one hand as if surrendering, but there was an easy smile on his face, and he kept his other hand in his coat pocket, holding…holding whatever was there. Jyn’s eyes flicked from the hard outline to the man’s kind eyes. She couldn’t imagine someone who looked like this scientist hiding a blaster in his coat, but…

  “I’m going to board your ship,” the scientist said with certainty. “I’m going to break the transport tube connection and use your comm to contact my superiors. You’re going to let me. Because you’re a good girl.”

  “I’m not,” Jyn said, louder this time, her finger twitching but still not pulling the trigger.

  He took another step.

  A blaster shot erupted, and the scientist dropped. Jyn was so surprised that she screamed, a short burst of pure emotion, and dropped her own, unfired blaster. Jari stood at the other end of the transport tunnel, his blaster drawn.

  “What were you doing?” he asked, concern rippling his forehead. “Why didn’t you fire?”

  “I—I…” Jyn’s voice trailed off, her eyes drinking in the way the scientist didn’t move.

  “Time to go.” Saw’s voice cut through the air, and for the first time, Jyn realized that there was no more blaster fire, no more thuds and shouting.

  It was already over.

  Saw, Xosad, and the others stomped across the transport tube, ignoring the body of the scientist. Jyn stumbled back, holstering her blaster. Saw slammed the port door shut, spinning the locks into place, and joined Xosad in the cockpit.

  Jyn ran to the door, looking out the small viewport as the transport tube disconnected. Explosive decompression forced the stormtroopers and the scientist to shoot across the short distance, their bodies slamming into the side of the ship before bouncing off amid the rest of the debris from the open Imperial pinnace. Jyn jumped away from the window, covering her mouth in disgust, bile rising in her throat. Xosad’s ship took off, heading to a place it could safely jump to lightspeed.

  Jyn watched as the Imperial ship and its scattered contents floated through the emptiness of space.

  Once in hyperspace, Saw and Xosad joined the others in the common room of the ship to discuss what they’d uncovered.

  “Those were the same scientists who were part of the Ilum mission the Empire sent out three months ago,” Saw said.

  Xosad nodded. “Whatever the Empire is doing, these events definitely seem linked.”

  Bilder piled up a stack of datapads he’d taken from the Imperial ship. “This will take a while to analyze,” he said.

  “Jyn can help.” Saw glanced at her. He had yet to notice that she had not spoken at all since the ship headed back toward home. “Jyn?” he said quietly.

  “I can help,” she repeated automatically.

  The others continued talking, discussing what they’d found in the lab and what the implications of it all might be. Jyn slipped quietly off the bench seat. The room felt tiny now, claustrophobic, and Jyn wanted nothing more than to get off the ship, but there was nothing outside, just hyperspace and death, death like the scientist floating in the black.

  She found her way to a little hallway that, she suspected, led to bunks for Xosad and his men. She didn’t want to violate their privacy, so she just sank to the floor, her knees to her chin, her back against the metal wall.

  She didn’t look up when she heard familiar footsteps making their way toward her. She would know Saw anywhere.

  “Hey,” he said, crouching so his face was even with hers.

  “I’ve seen death before,” Jyn said hollowly. “Worse than that. But…”

  “It’s always rough when it’s your first kill.” Saw’s voice was sympathetic, but Jyn didn’t have the courage to tell him that she had not shot the scientist; Jari had.

  “I remember a mission not that long ago,” Saw continued, shifting so he was sitting beside Jyn. “It was one of those ‘we’re so outnumbered and may not make it out alive’ missions that I always seem to find myself in. The Empire…” Saw shook his head. “They take . They take and they take and they take. They’re like a child, and we have to be the ones to say ‘no more.’”

  Jyn nodded, not really listening. My mother didn’t hesitate when she fired her blaster, she thought.

  “We wanted to protect some planets that the Empire wanted to destroy. Not outright, not even the Empire’s that evil. But they were mining, and they didn’t care about the people or the environment. They were going to suck those planets dry. And we weren’t going to let them.”

  I wonder if she killed anyone. It was Jyn’s mother who had told her always to set the blaster to stun. But Jyn hadn’t done that since the blaster became hers. And her mother had shot to kill back on Lah’mu. She’d missed Krennic’s heart, but that was where she’d aimed.

  “Do you hear me, Jyn? We weren’t going to let the Empire win.”

  Jyn turned to Saw, her eyes focusing on his lips as if she could see the words coming from his mouth.

  “And our plan was, if we couldn’t stop the Empire, we’d at least make sure they didn’t get what they wanted. How did that Hiitian put it? ‘What we fail to protect, we wi
ll leave in ruins.’”

  Saw reached up, wrapping Jyn’s cold fingers in his palm. “I don’t think I understood what he meant until today,” he told her.

  “We weren’t trying to protect any planets today,” Jyn said.

  “I’m not talking about any planets.”

  He reached up and tucked a strand of Jyn’s brown hair behind her ear.

  “You can’t protect me,” Jyn said.

  “At least I taught you how to protect yourself.” And there was pride there, true pride for what Saw assumed Jyn had done that day.

  She ducked her head, unable to look at him.

  IMPERIAL DETENTION CENTER & LABOR CAMP LEG-817

  LOCATION: Wobani

  PRISONER: Liana Hallik, #6295A

  CRIMES: Forgery of Imperial Documents, Resisting Arrest, Possession of an Unsanctioned Weapon

  Jyn had no sense of time at the prison camp on Wobani. There were no windows in her cell, the only light coming from the hallway in the center. It was so humid during the day that even the stones sweated and so cold at night that they sometimes frosted over. It reminded her of the cave where she had hidden on Lah’mu. She thought of that cave more and more. Sometimes when she woke in the middle of the night, she had to remind herself that she wasn’t eight years old, hiding from stormtroopers.

  And that Saw wasn’t coming to save her.

  Her cell was tiny, even more so since they had paired her with a new cellmate, a Lunnix named Zorahda. Zorahda was older than most of the other prisoners, with white fur covering her body and fading yellow eyes, but she never cowered in front of the stormtroopers and did her best to show no weakness. It wasn’t hard; a flash of her smooth black teeth behind the fine white whiskers on her lips was enough to keep most at bay.

  The cells were narrow, with mattresses crammed onto slabs built into the walls. The beds were cramped for Jyn’s short frame; for Zorahda’s two-meter-tall lanky body, they were almost impossible. On her first night at LEG-817, she had stretched out on the floor of the narrow space between the cubbies. A stormtrooper on patrol had paused by their cell door.

  “All prisoners in their beds during night shift,” he ordered.

  Zorahda had flicked him a rude gesture with her long fingers.

  The stormtrooper called for backup and stun prods. Zorahda scrambled to get up and curl into the little cubby, but it was too late. The warden watched, smiling, as four stormtroopers first stunned Zorahda with high-voltage shocks and then beat her until reddish-brown blood matted her snowy fur.

  Jyn had wanted to offer some sort of comfort, but she knew it would be worse if a stormtrooper saw her showing sympathy or compassion. It hadn’t taken long to learn that lesson.

  Every morning, an alarm pulsed through the prison to mark the start of a new workday. Food—a single ration cube—appeared in the small compartment by each prisoner’s bed. Jyn stuffed hers in her mouth, ignoring the saltiness, and chewed as she quickly got ready for the day. The stormtroopers selected farm detail laborers first. This was the best and easiest job, the one everyone wanted. After the first selection, everyone was forced into the halls and assigned other work details.

  Zorahda finished her ablutions and stood beside Jyn as soon as she was ready. They could hear the tedious process of prisoner relocation starting far down the hall. The stormtroopers made their first choices; neither Jyn nor Zorahda would get to work on the farms that day. Jyn watched the lucky prisoners with envy as they filed down the hall.

  “I hate it here,” Zorahda said in a low voice full of bitterness.

  Jyn nodded but didn’t answer. There wasn’t much to add to that.

  A stormtrooper unlocked their door and cuffed them. The heavy binders were huge on Jyn’s wrists, weighing down her arms. On Zorahda, they pinched painfully. Neither complained.

  Once the day’s work detail was lined up, they were forced into a frustrating quick step that was between walking and jogging. The prisoners with longer legs, like the Gigorans or the lone Wookiee on Jyn’s level, awkwardly shortened their gaits while the ones with shorter legs, most noticeably a family of Ociocks, flat-out ran to avoid being trampled. At the end of the aisle, their scandocs were flashed and they were pointed to various turbo tank transport units to complete the day’s labor in the factories.

  The prison towered over the factories spread around its base like supplicants. Nearest to the prison were factories developing small parts—screws and bolts used in ship manufacturing mostly. Rumor was that stormtrooper armor had originally been manufactured on Wobani, but Jyn saw no evidence of that. Just countless screws and bolts, enough to make more Star Destroyers than could possibly be needed in the galaxy. Other factories on the planet developed ship panels used in floors and walls that were then sent off-world for construction. It was hard, brutal work with liquid-hot metals, and Jyn hated being assigned details in those factories. She spared another bitter longing for the missed farm detail, which at least was outside in the fresh air.

  Not that Jyn had a choice. Every day, the prisoners worked in different groups, at different tasks. It was a way to prevent alliances from forming. It didn’t matter what their bodies were like, what skills they had. The physically weak worked along with the strong, and if they were lucky, their fellow prisoners helped them complete the labor. Jyn had made the mistake of mentioning that she had tech skills and could be assigned to the engineering department. She had been beaten for her trouble and had never once been allowed near tech because of it.

  Her prison badge beeped. “Panels,” the stormtrooper who’d scanned her said, jerking his thumb toward a turbo tank.

  Jyn trudged to the tank, where she was scanned again and given a partitioned seat made of hard metal. Stormtroopers patrolled the center aisle, but no one was talking or even looking at each other. They knew they had a hard day of labor in front of them. Working droid harvestors and irrigation units in the fields or aligning screws and inspecting bolts on the main production line wasn’t that difficult, just tedious. Smelting panels meant singed hair and burned skin, aching muscles and bleary eyes and dry throats and lungs full of ash.

  The turbo tank rumbled to life as soon as it was full, clattering over the rough ground of Wobani as it made its way to the panels factory. The work detail filed out after the short trip and droids instructed them on their tasks for the day.

  That was part of the indignity of it all; this was work droids could do more easily and more efficiently. In fact, droids did most of the work in the factories during the night shifts while the prisoners slept. But the Empire was willing to sacrifice some of that efficiency to make the prisoners fulfill a negligible quota.

  Jyn’s job that day was to notch the bottom of a series of wall panels in two-meter-by-half-meter sections. She stood in front of a production line with her accelerated particle cutter, slicing down twice and across once, letting the metal bits fall from the notches with bone-clattering thunks. The hair on her arms had long been burned away by the work, and although the tempered helmet she was given fit poorly, at least it protected her head from the full brunt of the heat.

  Jyn lifted, sliced, and moved the metal panels down the line. A small part of her wondered just what the Empire wanted with this many notched wall panels. She hadn’t been the first to wonder at their production line. Common assumption was that the Empire was building a larger fleet, but the sheer quantity of pieces the prisoners had worked on over the years, since long before Jyn arrived, sparked a rumor that the Empire was simply remelting the finished metal pieces and forcing the prisoners to do the same work on the same metal over and over and over again.

  Jyn had long before quit bothering to figure out why the Empire did what it did.

  Why did the Empire bother killing her mother and taking her father? If they were doing anything with his research, she had yet to see it. Saw had driven himself half-mad, spending most of Jyn’s childhood chasing down ghosts of her father in an attempt to figure out the Empire’s plans. In the end, he ha
d found nothing.

  Inexplicably, Saw’s words filtered through Jyn’s tired mind. One fighter with a sharp stick and nothing left to lose can take the day. Her finger twitched over the accelerated particle cutter. Even if she could rip it from its mounting, there was no way she could take out more than a single stormtrooper before she was cut down. The prisoners were given tools that could easily destroy their captors, but there was no escape.

  The metal piece she’d notched from the main panel she was working on dropped to the ground. Rather than thunking, it shattered, metal shards splintering around her.

  “Halt production!” a stormtrooper called. Red lights flared and the bone-jarring grinding of metal echoed throughout the factory. All the prisoners dropped to their knees, hands up, as they had been trained. Jyn wanted to brush away the metal shavings digging into her legs, but she knew better than to move out of position.

  Stormtroopers and a few Imperial engineers swarmed to Jyn’s section of the line. Jyn kept her head down.

  “Something wrong with this duralium-enforced steel,” one of the engineers said. “This panel is far too brittle.”

  “Look at the striation lines,” another engineer said, kneeling. An RA-7 inventory droid picked up one of the larger pieces of the shattered metal so the others could more easily examine it.

  “Initial scan indicates an improper combination of alloys,” the droid said. “This was from batch three-two-four-three; four hundred other units were poured from that batch.”

  The head Imperial officer cursed and turned to a datapad, punching up information. Jyn’s arms ached from being raised for so long, but she didn’t move as the officers, stormtroopers, and droids stood around, talking about the tensile strength of the metal alloy and ignoring her completely, as if she were nothing but another bit of scrap metal.