by Revis, Beth
“I want to do that basically all the time.” Hadder sighed. “But the only real ship on Skuhl that’s not a planet hopper is Mum’s, and the point is to get away. Like you did. Just get on a random ship and see where it takes me.”
Jyn gaped at the boy. Did he not get it? She hadn’t just hopped on Akshaya’s ship for fun . She’d been betrayed, hungry, alone, desperate. She’d had nothing, no one left. Nobody got on a ship going anywhere if they had ties binding them to someone else. Nobody willingly became adrift.
“What?” Hadder asked when he noticed Jyn’s face.
She shook her head. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t know what it meant to lose everything. “Just thinking how stupid you are,” she said in a casual voice, leaning back.
“You’re weird, and I’m stupid.” Hadder copied her, flopping down on the grass. “We’re quite the match.”
Before Akshaya left at the end of the week, Jyn uploaded new clearance codes and scandocs into the ship’s mainframe.
“One day, I want to know how you got to be so good at forging Imperial documents,” Akshaya said.
Hadder stood nearby. “Well, I’m glad this little scam artist is working on our side,” he said. “I don’t like how close the Empire’s gotten to your trade routes.”
“You know the Empire is after ore,” Jyn added. “You’d be better off transporting something else, something the Empire didn’t want.”
Jyn met Hadder’s eyes, and she knew he agreed with her. But Akshaya laughed. “One day you kids’ll understand that we’re basically ants down here on Skuhl. The Empire’s a giant. And giants don’t care about ants, which means we can do whatever we want.”
Jyn opened her mouth to protest, but Akshaya pulled her into a hug. “Thanks,” she said.
When she stepped back, Jyn shuffled nervously on her feet. “So,” she said slowly.
“So?” Akshaya asked.
Jyn looked down at the ship’s main controls. “These should last you a good long time,” Jyn said. “I made a few variations for you as well, and…” Her voice trailed off. Hadder shot her a confused look, but Jyn knew from the sadness in Akshaya’s eyes that she understood.
Jyn had been hired to do a job. And she’d completed the job.
She couldn’t look at Akshaya or Hadder. “Do you…have more work?” When neither Akshaya nor Hadder said anything, Jyn babbled on. “If not, that’s fine. Totally fine. I understand. Maybe I could just hitch a ride to a planet that has some jobs….”
Her voice trailed off again.
“Of course we want you to stay, weird girl,” Hadder said, rolling his eyes.
“I’ll need new codes periodically, I’m sure,” Akshaya added. “Unless you want to go?”
Jyn shook her head, not trusting her voice.
They fell into an easy, steady routine. Akshaya was typically gone two weeks out of a standard month, first picking up small shipments of ore from the mining planets too tiny to attract Imperial notice, then distributing the refined ore to shipbuilders and other manufacturers. When she was on Skuhl, Hadder made the meals and helped Akshaya with scheduling and bills while Jyn checked the codes and updated them. When Akshaya was gone, Jyn and Hadder had free rein to do as they pleased.
Which, lately, had meant flying.
Jyn had to admit that she was the bad influence. Akshaya’s hangar housed the main freighter, but there was a small planet hopper there as well, one used for quick runs in the local system. Jyn made herself feel better about taking the planet hopper out by saying she and Hadder never broke atmosphere; they technically never left Skuhl. But she wasn’t sure how long Hadder would be satisfied with playing in the clouds. Every time he sat down in the pilot’s chair, his spine straightened, his eyes focused on the horizon, his hands took the controls as if they belonged nowhere else. When Hadder started up the planet hopper, he always breathed a little sigh of relief, as if he’d been waiting for that moment, and nothing more.
He had learned to fly, he told her, from his sister. After their father died, Tanith had found solace in flight, and she had taken Hadder along. When addiction claimed Tanith, however, Hadder’s mother had emerged from her grief with an even stronger fear of losing her son. She’d taken over the transport business and grounded him on Skuhl for good.
The repulsorlift hummed, and they hovered over the hangar floor before Hadder eased the planet hopper out of the bay and shot into the air so fast it left Jyn breathless. “What I don’t get,” Hadder said as they soared over the little town, “is why Mum is so convinced I’ll get bloodburn. It’s so rare. The chances are miniscule, honestly.”
Jyn didn’t answer. She understood Akshaya’s motivation. If she had her mother back, she’d want to hold on to her for as long as possible, too.
“Once I’m eighteen,” Hadder mumbled. His hand hovered over the hyperspace controls. Most small shuttles like the planet hopper didn’t have a hyperdrive, but this one had been retrofitted by Hadder’s father before he died. Hadder had never tried to leave Skuhl’s orbit, but Jyn noticed the way his hand always lingered near the drive’s sequence commands.
Hadder sighed and shifted in his seat, flipping a lever and sending the little shuttle into a stomach-churning spin. Jyn laughed and pushed his broad shoulders until Hadder reluctantly brought the planet hopper back into a steady arc.
Jyn propped her feet up on the dash. Hadder didn’t need a copilot, not anymore. She glanced sideways at him, and for a moment, she let herself imagine that this was her future. She and Hadder could be a team. Maybe they could expand Akshaya’s operation, going farther into the Outer Rim for shipments, exploring new planets.
Hadder turned the shuttle around, aiming for the ground. “What are you doing?” Jyn asked. This was the shortest trip they’d made.
He looked more depressed than she’d ever seen him. “It just…it feels like I’m on a leash,” he said. “You ever feel that way? Like you can’t do what you really want, like you have to be someone for someone else, and that means you can’t be you? That you can never have what you really want?”
I have seen so much blood, Jyn wanted to say. And I remember the face of everyone who’s died because of me.
Instead, Jyn stood up and moved behind Hadder. He shot her a curious look, but Jyn didn’t look down at him. She put her arms over his shoulders, her hands clasped around his on the controls. She looked straight ahead, through the viewport and into the sky, and after a moment, Hadder looked up and out too. Jyn leaned forward, her body against his back, and gripped the controls through his hands, pulling them back. The shuttle’s nose tipped upward, higher and higher. Jyn could feel the joy thrumming through Hadder as the shuttle pushed through the thinning atmosphere, the bright blue sky turning to white, flames licking the ablation shields. Her grip tightened around his, her eyes growing wide with excitement.
The little shuttle burst out of the atmosphere, and the entirety of the universe stared down at them.
Space was black in a way Jyn could never quite describe. When she flew with Saw, that’s all she ever noticed about space—the great black emptiness of it all. But this time, her arms still around Hadder, she could see only the stars, the innumerable stars, white pinpricks of light dancing beyond their grasp, each one a promise of a new world, a new adventure, a new hope.
“If you want something, take it,” she said, her breath a whisper in Hadder’s ear. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you have to live each day as if it’s your last.” It sounded so trite, but she knew it to be true. Each choice could be the last one. And I choose this, she thought. I choose the stars and peace and you.
She felt him grow very, very still. Something inside her thudded, hard, and Jyn jerked back as if Hadder’s skin was made of flame. She collapsed into the copilot’s chair, careful to keep her gaze on the stars outside, not on the way Hadder looked at her.
Neither of them wanted to go back to the planet’s surface. As the shuttle aimed for Akshaya’s hangar, they didn�
�t talk. It wasn’t until Hadder cut the engines and stood to leave the planet hopper that he turned to Jyn, eyes gleaming.
“That. Was. Awesome ,” he said.
Jyn couldn’t help grinning back at him.
Hadder bubbled with pent-up excitement. “I mean, I’ve been up there before. That wasn’t my first time. Before Tanith died, Mum used to let me go on some of her runs. But I’ve never been at the controls before. I’ve never…” He ran his fingers through his hair, then swooped down, grabbing Jyn in a hug so fierce he lifted her off her feet. “Thank you,” he said, looking right into her eyes. When he let her go, Jyn staggered a little, unsteady without his touch.
“We have to go celebrate,” Hadder said. “I’m taking you out to dinner.”
“Yay, more bunn,” Jyn said without enthusiasm.
Hadder laughed. “I’m not that bad of a cook,” he said. “But I meant, I’m taking you out. Not that I’m cooking. Come on,” he said, grabbing her hand and leading her off the ship, out of the hangar, into the little town, and straight to the diner.
A local band was playing, and more than half the diner was singing along to songs Jyn didn’t know. She sat at the table Hadder procured for them against the wall, far from the band. She looked out over the loud, tipsy crowd. Living on the outskirts, Jyn hadn’t really run into that many people. But there was a whole refinery on Skuhl, as well as some trade with bunn and other goods. The diner served as a restaurant and watering hole for the locals, an inn for the visitors, and a meeting place for all of Skuhl.
“I’m always surprised there are so many different kinds of people here,” Jyn commented. Coruscant had been populated with every species imaginable, but most worlds she’d been on since had been fairly homogenous.
“It’s like Mum says,” Hadder replied, “the giant doesn’t notice ants. Skuhl is an anthill.” And, he didn’t need to add, there were plenty of ants in the galaxy.
Hadder insisted on ordering something special for them. “No bunn,” he promised, telling the Chagrian who owned the place that they wanted two soup-soofs.
When the food arrived, Jyn looked down at her dish. “This is…edible?” she asked, sliding her fork through the brownish foam the Chagrian had delivered to their table.
“Trust me.”
She did.
She shouldn’t have.
The soup-soof wasn’t the worst thing she’d ever eaten, but it was close. She’d take mystery meat from Saw’s cabinet any day over the oddly textured pillow of squishy saltiness that coated her tongue with a strange, fatty aftertaste.
“Come on, it’s not that bad!” Hadder laughed.
Jyn pushed her plate over to him. “You’re making me bunn when we get back home,” she informed him.
A smirk slid across Hadder’s face.
“What?” Jyn asked.
“You’ve never called it home before,” he said.
Jyn started to make a joke—she couldn’t let Hadder get too smug—but then she froze. She recognized a face in the crowd, someone she hadn’t seen in ages. Not since Inusagi and the massacre. The stocky man with broad shoulders, the one who had just grunted the code word at her and taken the invitation. She remembered the way he had looked as he fired the flechette launcher, the firm set of his jaw as he watched the destruction of life unfolding before him.
“What is it?” Hadder asked immediately.
Jyn shook herself. “Nothing.”
Hadder turned in his seat to see what she was looking at. The band had taken a break, and the crowd around them had dispersed, exposing a table on the other side of the room where a handful of people were playing sabacc in the shadows. “Do you know those guys?” he asked in a low voice.
Jyn ripped her gaze away. “One of them,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Hadder left some credits on the table, and together they walked out into the street. Jyn felt the nervous energy build in her, her hands gripping and ungripping. Hadder was on edge, too; he kept glancing behind him. The refinery’s second shift ended, and a flood of people poured onto the street, blotting out the diner’s main entrance.
“He was someone Saw worked with once,” Jyn said as they pushed their way through the crowd, going against the flow. “I met him during a…job on Inusagi.”
The bells attached to the poles lining the streets jingled, and Jyn jumped. Their metallic tinkling was nothing like the zing of the flechettes, the scent of the flowers totally different from the sakoola blossoms stained with blood.
She glanced over her shoulder. He was following them.
It’s a coincidence, Jyn told herself. But every nerve in her body was rattled.
She slipped her hand into Hadder’s. He looked down at her, surprised, but Jyn kept her gaze straight ahead. When they passed a cross street, Jyn yanked him into the alley. Hadder started to say something, but Jyn put her finger on his lips, silencing him. She waited.
The crowd from the shift change had thinned out, but Jyn’s focus was razor sharp. A sound of heavy footsteps grew louder. Hadder reached for Jyn, but she shook him off, lunging in front of the man as he rounded the corner by the side street.
“Why are you following me?” she demanded.
“It’s not for your looks, if that’s what you’re worried about, sweetheart,” he sneered.
Jyn decked him so hard his head snapped back. Still dazed, he didn’t struggle as she grabbed him by the collar and spun him against the hard stone wall. “Why are you following me?” she repeated, biting off each word.
The man knocked Jyn’s hands aside and shoved her hard. She stumbled back, and Hadder leapt forward. “Leave her alone!” he shouted. The man actually laughed at Hadder’s show of bravado. When Hadder swung at him, he dodged easily, wrenching Hadder’s arm back and using the boy’s body as leverage as he kneed his stomach. The second Hadder fell to the ground, groaning, the man stepped over him, advancing on Jyn.
She waited.
“Little spitfire, you,” the man said. “Don’t you remember your buddy Berk? Inusagi?”
“I remember,” Jyn said, although she’d never been told the man’s name before.
“Bygones be bygones,” Berk said, turning back toward the main street.
Jyn shifted, blocking his exit. “You never answered my question.”
“I get paid; I do a job. Ain’t no harm to you. Now leave off.”
“Someone’s paying you to spy on me?” Jyn asked, her mind churning. Could it be…her father? Her father, who still worked for the Empire. Maybe he wanted out. Maybe he just wanted to know she was okay. Maybe he actually did care about her.
Berk shoved Jyn’s shoulder, trying to move around her. She grabbed his arm, twisting him back. With a grunt of dismay, Berk forced Jyn around, trying to bodily move her aside, but Jyn was smaller and faster. She used his grip against him, dropping down and sliding a leg out so Berk fell like a stone. His head thunked against the pavement, and Jyn, still holding his arm, yanked back. “You little—” Berk growled, but Jyn didn’t let him finish his sentence. She spun around, landing a knee in his chest so his breath was knocked out of him. In one fluid motion, she slid the knife from her boot and pressed it against his throat.
“Who’s been paying you?” she asked in a low voice, her face centimeters from his, the blade a thin line between them.
“Saw, all right?” Berk spat. “Saw wanted to make sure you landed on your feet after the mess on Tamsye Prime.”
Black spots danced behind Jyn’s eyes. Saw?
Berk used Jyn’s shock to shove her off him.
Saw’s alive, Jyn thought, relief flooding through her. And he sent Berk to find me.
“Where is he?” Jyn asked, reaching for Berk again. He jerked away. “Take me to him!”
“He’s not here ,” Berk sneered.
“When’s he coming for me?”
“Ain’t coming,” he said. “Told me, ‘Don’t let her see you.’ Just wanted to see if you were still alive, I guess? ’Sides, he has a new ba
se now. Better. Bigger crew.”
Not coming, a voice chanted in Jyn’s head. He’s not coming for you. A part of her had known this from the moment he’d told her to hide. Saw’s paranoia had been growing slowly for years, and he had never been more paranoid than when it came to something associated with Galen. As soon as Reece had figured out Jyn’s true identity, there was never any way he’d take her back.
“I’ll tell him you send your regards,” Berk snarled, walking away.
“He left me to die!” Jyn screamed at Berk’s retreating back. “So I’m as good as dead to him. You tell him that !”
“Jyn?” Hadder asked, crawling over to her. “How did you—That was amazing!”
Jyn stared down at the knife in her hands. The one Saw had given to her. She dropped it as if it were covered in acid eating at her skin.
“Jyn?” Hadder asked again.
Saw was alive. And he didn’t want her back.
Jyn wrapped Hadder’s injuries when they got back to the house. It was strange to spread out the medkit on the kitchen table, but that room also had the best light. “This will be sore for a while,” she said, examining the purple-black stain of a knee-sized bruise blossoming on his stomach.
“Yeah,” Hadder groaned. “At least he didn’t kick any lower.”
Jyn snorted. “Small mercy.”
“Not small!”
Jyn shot him a smile, but it was gone the second she looked away and started cleaning up.
“You don’t have a scratch on you,” Hadder said.
Jyn didn’t answer.
“You knocked that thug flat on his back,” Hadder continued. “You knew exactly what to do.”
“It was part of my old job.” Jyn put the medical supplies away in the cabinet by the door. “My old life.”
“What did you used to do?” Hadder asked. Then he immediately said, “I don’t want to know. No, I do. Maybe?” He took a deep breath. “Was it very bad?”
She met his gaze. “No,” she said, thinking of doing something good, of fighting back. “Yes,” she said, remembering Inusagi and Tamsye Prime.
