by Revis, Beth
The admiral put up a hand. “Droids can work longer than fifteen hours a day. And they need less…maintenance.” The admiral’s eyes drifted to a man who was missing an arm, struggling to operate both the directional and repulsor controls at the same time.
“Any worker who falls behind production for more than three marks is sent to top level,” the warden said immediately.
The admiral made a sound of mild approval, and the warden’s shoulders relaxed a bit. Jyn kept her head down. The top level was whispered about throughout the cells. A few weeks before, Jyn had witnessed the youngest member of the Ociock family a few cells down from hers being taken away. She hadn’t known what the top level was, but when the stormtroopers reached for the little girl, who was sobbing so hard that her tears and snot smeared on the downy feathers of her face, the other Ociocks on her level had screeched a blood-curdling cry of sorrow and alarm, their beaks open wide and pointing straight up. They flew at the stormtroopers, clawing at their armor uselessly with long taloned fingers. Jyn had been pushed into the fray in the chaotic hallway, and she tried to help, tried to give the little girl one last hug from her mother.
She’d been given an extra charge of aggravated assault and a mark for top level for her trouble. She’d gotten another mark for her improvised knife, but the stormtroopers hadn’t bothered informing her of it as they’d beaten her.
Jyn never saw the Ociock girl again. Her family’s talons had been clipped off, cut to the quick, and then they had been sent back to work in the mines.
“And yet,” the admiral said, strolling past Jyn’s line, “I feel like more could be done within those fifteen hours of labor.”
Jyn kept her head down. Punch the red button, lift the handle, shift the crate. Punch the red button, lift the handle, shift the crate. Head down. She knew this Imperial officer’s tone. She knew what it meant. Head down. Punch the red button. Lift the handle. Shift the—
“You, there.” The admiral’s voice cut through the sound of the repulsorlifts.
“M-me?”
Jyn glanced up. She knew this man. Knew him from the outside. She’d met him first on Inusagi, although she hadn’t known his name. And again, later, on Skuhl, when she’d punched him in the face.
Berk.
Jyn hadn’t known the man had been arrested and sentenced to Wobani. He carried himself like one of the old ones, the prisoners who’d been there for a while. He had scars she didn’t recognize and a grim set to his mouth that made him look ancient.
“You.” The admiral smiled, and a chill ran down Jyn’s spine.
Berk’s shoulders were broad, his biceps like knotted ropes. But he looked like a child next to the much shorter officer, cowed and afraid.
“Do you think your fellow criminals could be enticed to work harder?” the admiral asked in dulcet tones.
“I—” Berk glanced from the warden to the admiral. If he said no, the warden would be proven right. If he said yes, the admiral would be. “Yes,” he said.
“And how do you think we could entice these lowlives to contribute more precious labor to the glorious Empire?” the admiral asked.
There was no answer Berk could give. If he asked for more food or more breaks, then he risked what little they did have being taken away in a cruel mockery of justice. “I…I don’t…”
“You don’t know,” the admiral sneered.
Berk shook his head, his eyes wide.
“Fortunately, I do.” The admiral looked away from Berk and toward the other workers in the transport room. Without even trying, he’d commanded the attention of every person on the floor. The crates had stopped. Everyone was watching. Waiting.
“If I offer you some sort of reward for working harder,” the admiral continued, addressing the room at large, “then that’s not really fair, is it? This is a punishment. You are criminals against the Empire. You deserve no reward.
“Besides,” he continued, “people don’t work harder for rewards. That’s a child’s way of thinking. What really makes people work harder is fear.”
In one fluid motion, the admiral pulled out his blaster and shot Berk in the head. Before his body hit the floor, every single worker had turned back to the task.
Jyn had never worked harder in her life than she did that day.
Jyn examined her situation in a cold, analytical way. She had gotten at least that much from her father—the ability to detach and look at the world as a scientist, not a human.
First, she was alone. Saw was gone. Codo was gone. Outside the bunker, there were Imperials and the people of Tamsye Prime. She could rely on none of them. With the entire world crumbling to the ground, burning and destroyed, no one would show kindness to a stranger.
Second, Jyn had two weapons: Saw’s knife and the blaster. She didn’t have any of her own weapons; her cover had not allowed for them. These weren’t the worst weapons she could have at the moment, but they were nothing compared with the Star Destroyer and TIE fighters and countless stormtroopers.
Third, she was safe for now but couldn’t stay where she was. The bunker was oppressively small. She couldn’t stand up straight; at best she could hunch over, her spine pressed against the roof. She wondered what the shell turret had been made for. Droids that easily slid into position? Clone troopers who didn’t mind their conditions?
It didn’t matter. When she added up all the facts of her situation, Jyn was left with a simple truth: she couldn’t stay there, but she had no way to leave.
Saw had told her to wait until the next day.
She curled up on the ground of the bunker and closed her eyes, waiting for the nightmare to be over. She had hidden in a hatch before, had waited a day, and Saw had come for her.
He would come again.
The attack ended sometime before dusk. The ground was still bright from fires. Stormtroopers rolled out, ordering everyone to return to their homes or, if their homes were burning, to at least clear the streets. Jyn watched through the slits in the turret.
She tried to peer through the tiny openings and see the stars above, but smoke shrouded the area in darkness.
Daylight crept through the tiny openings in the turret. Jyn watched it slink across the dirt floor, drawing closer and closer to her hand, the hand that gripped the knife.
She was eight years old again, hiding in the cave, staring up at the hatch. She didn’t know if anyone would come, but Saw did.
Saw did.
Outside was silent.
And Jyn knew.
He wasn’t coming back for her. Not this time.
An announcement blared throughout the settlement, followed by a low pulsing alarm. Jyn looked through the slits in the shell turret and watched in surprise as Imperial transport ships landed and the stormtroopers still on the ground boarded them. People from Tamsye Prime stood in the wreckage of their town, watching as the soldiers flew off.
Some of them cheered. Their oppressors were leaving.
Jyn’s heart sank. She scrabbled out of the shell turret, her eyes to the skies. The Star Destroyer was still up there, high above. Preparing.
She remembered what Lieutenant Colonel Senjax had said: The Empire has no further use for Tamsye Prime.
The TIE fighters had decimated the factories, destroying any evidence of what the Empire had been making in its facilities. But the people still knew. They had worked on whatever it was. They knew.
Jyn was hardly surprised when the first plasma beam shot from the Star Destroyer. She watched almost impassively as it cut through the air, sending down flames and destruction.
Escaping from the factory had not given her much time to look around; running from Reece had narrowed her focus to a pinpoint. But now, with the Star Destroyer low in the sky, fading into the billows of smoke rising from the ground, Jyn saw just how great and terrible the destruction was. And just how much worse it was going to be.
She had to go. Now.
As Jyn raced toward the spaceport, another blast from the Star Destroye
r shook the ground. Closer this time. And not too far away, a secondary explosion. She didn’t look back, but she was keenly aware that she was on a munitions testing ground that was being fired upon. Any leftover torpedos or mines or whatever other monstrosities that remained from the Clone Wars munitions manufacturing days would be set off inadvertently by the Empire’s plasma blasts.
The stones of the shell turret rattled as the ground shook from explosive shock. Jyn scrabbled over the sharp, rocky ground, ignoring the cuts that sprang up on her fingers and sliced her pants.
Nothing but smoke and ash was behind her. Distantly, an alarm cut through the sounds of screaming, a steady, high-pitched pulse that seemed oddly rhythmic amid the staccato bursts of random explosions and blaster fire. People covered in soot and streaked with blood stood out in the streets, staring up at the Star Destroyer in horror.
I have to go. The words echoed in Jyn’s mind, the only truth she knew. She had to leave this planet. She had to escape.
Jyn turned her back on the rubble and faced the spaceport. Ships. Reece’s ship was still there.
Not that she knew how to fly it.
But it was a start. She had only luck left, and she could only hope it hadn’t run out entirely.
Jyn darted out of the munitions testing ground toward the spaceport. As soon as the shock of the attack wore off, this was going to be the most popular place on the entire planet, but none of the natives on Tamsye Prime had yet thought of escape. When something bad happened, people’s natural instinct was to go home. It had not yet occurred to the people of Tamsye Prime that there was anywhere else to go.
She went straight to Reece’s ship, thankfully still open. She raced first to her own locker, withdrawing the small satchel of her belongings that she’d brought with her on the trip. A change of clothes, her truncheons, and the code replicator.
Then she went into the cockpit.
She’d seen Saw fly their shuttle a hundred times over the years. She’d watched as Reece piloted this ship. But the array of buttons and gauges, dials and levers was completely alien to her. She had no idea how to even begin launch sequence, let alone fly past a Star Destroyer.
Another rumble, closer this time. The Empire had been toying with them; now Jyn wasn’t sure if there would be any survivors at all. She dashed back out of Reece’s ship, wildly looking around as if some sort of escape would just appear. Maybe she could take one of the other ships, the smaller planet hopper….She scanned the spaceport and saw a young man beating on the outside of one of the few remaining Imperial shuttles.
“Hey!” she shouted. When he looked up, she called, “Can you fly this thing?” She jerked her thumb toward Reece’s ship.
“I work transport; I can fly anything,” he called back. “But it won’t do any good. They’ll blow anything that’s not Imperial out of the sky!”
Jyn thought fast. “I’ve got Imperial clearance codes,” she shouted. “And those things are locked up tight.”
The man hesitated, weighing his odds. Finally, he nodded, making up his mind, and ran over to Jyn. She was already turning around and started pulling up the metal ramp as soon as he boarded.
The man knew his way around a ship. He went straight to the cockpit and threw himself into the pilot’s chair. Jyn sat down in the copilot’s seat, her code replicator in her hand and hooked up to the ship’s mainframe.
“We should get others,” the man said, hesitating. “There are survivors….We could help them….”
Jyn paused. She wanted to help others, but when she pushed past her emotions, she knew there was no way they could organize an evacuation. So she focused on the code replicator. If Saw and Reece escaped on an Imperial ship, the Star Destroyer would be even more hesitant to let another ship slide through its grasp. This had to be perfect.
“It wouldn’t take long,” the man said, turning around as if there were a group of survivors waiting behind him for permission to board.
“There’s no time!” Jyn screamed at him when he still didn’t launch the ship. “Go!”
He slammed his hand down on the console and initiated launch sequence. The engine roared to life, and they shot into the sky.
Jyn tapped on the code replicator furiously. She used an Imperial code she’d been working on in her spare time, one with high levels of complex security. She didn’t know if it would work, and if she used it now, she knew it would never work again; as soon as the Empire saw her trick, they’d crack down on the codes. But if she was ever going to use it, now was the time. She uploaded the code into the ship’s system, masking the ship’s identification and labeling it as a medical emergency with high-level clearance for evacuation. She used all her best work on this one shot.
Their ship burst from the planet’s atmosphere, burning off oxygen as it entered the vacuum of space. “They’re scanning us,” the pilot said tightly, his eyes on the screens spread before him. The Star Destroyer hung ominously in the black.
“Don’t hesitate,” Jyn said. “Keep going; keep going.”
Another ship broke atmosphere behind them, the little planet hopper Jyn had seen in the corner of the spaceport. Apparently, more survivors were trying to escape. The scan for that ship was much quicker; in moments, it was shot from the sky, reduced to nothing but debris.
Her code replicator beeped, the sound blending into the alert on the pilot’s main console. “We’ve passed clearance,” the pilot said, his voice filled with wonder.
“Go!” Jyn shouted. Their saving grace had been the emergence of the other ship, distracting the Imperials from a close scan. As Jyn watched, TIE fighters deployed; their visual on the ship would doom Jyn and the pilot.
The pilot punched it, heading straight for the hyperspace route, programming the coordinates with a flurry of fingers. Jyn’s hands curled over the sides of her seat, her eyes darting between the pilot and the approaching TIE fighters.
The stars blended together, light and fog forming around them as they flew through hyperspace and away from the carnage of Tamsye Prime.
Jyn sagged in her seat, relief washing over her. She’d escaped.
She turned to the pilot. She wanted to ask his name, thank him for flying, but he stared straight ahead, his spine stiff, tear tracks tracing through the grime and soot on his face.
They had escaped, but he had lost his home, his family, everything he loved.
There was nothing she could say to that.
Jyn curled her legs up, drawing her knees to her chin as she mimicked the pilot and stared out at the blue-gray of hyperspace, nothing but silence between them as they traveled through the stars.
They emerged from hyperspace sooner than Jyn would have expected. A small planet with a lone, barren moon hung before them.
“Where are we?” Jyn asked.
“I don’t ever want to do that again,” the pilot said in a soft voice.
“Do what?”
“Abandon everyone else just so I can live. We could have saved more,” the pilot said, still staring straight ahead. “We could have saved someone other than ourselves.”
Guilt enshrouded the pilot. It sank into his skin, it pulled at his bones.
Jyn could feel the same sorrow reaching for her. It filled her lungs like smoke; it made her blood heavy and slow. She closed her eyes, pushing the smell of fire and the sounds of desperate screaming away from her thoughts. If there was one thing she’d learned in her sixteen years of life, it was that she couldn’t afford to think in regrets. “The Empire will know by now that my codes were forged,” she said in a calm, matter-of-fact voice. “They will likely try to locate this ship. We need to land, and we need to leave it behind.”
“I know some junkers,” the pilot said.
Jyn raised her eyebrows in surprise.
“I’d been planning to escape,” he added. “I’d already set up a whole network of contacts so I could disappear. I just never…” He blew out his breath. “I never thought it’d be like this.”
Jyn nodde
d in agreement. It was a good plan—land the ship and let it be dismantled for parts, impossible to trace. The pilot used the ship’s comm system to set it up, then veered out of orbit and toward a landing station.
It all happened surprisingly quickly; the pilot landed the ship, the junkers offered him credits for it. There were no negotiations. The pilot handed Jyn half the credits as her share, and then the junkers offered them a ride on their cargo transport into the main town.
And that was it. When the cargo transport stopped in the center of the dusty little town, the pilot said good-bye and walked off. Jyn got out with her bag of gear, and the transport zoomed away.
She didn’t even know the name of the planet she was on.
The town was small, without much in the way of homes. A cantina, a few buildings, a tiny spaceport. The landscape was flat, with little more than scrub brush, and although the big yellow sun beat down on her, the air was chilly. Inside the cantina, Jyn knew she could purchase time on a comm. She could reach out to Saw. Maybe he was looking for her….
She shook her head. No. Either he hadn’t survived his wounds—a distinct possibility—or he had never intended to come back for her. There was no middle ground. There never was with Saw.
Jyn rubbed her arms and made her way to the spaceport.
“What you want?” a Lannik said, looking up at Jyn as she approached.
She looked behind him. Three ships were docked—a freighter, a cargo-class transport system, and a personal cruiser that had seen better days.
“Anyone looking for passengers?” Jyn asked.
“No one needs a mutt hanging around,” the Lannik growled. He scratched one of his impossibly large, long ears, and the metal hoops piercing the cartilage jingled.
“I can pay!” Jyn protested.
“Pay,” he sneered.
Behind him, a woman was using mag-lifts to load crates into the freighter.
“Hey!” Jyn called, ignoring the protests of the Lannik. “You need any help?”
