Stardust in His Eye
A Star Wars Story
Chapter One: Krennic's Son
In which the destruction of Malpaz triggers a series of events leading to the abandonment of Jyn and the rise of the Empire.
"What are you drawing?" Galen Erso reached down to scoop up the bundle of blankets and holopads on the floor. His late return from work gave him few precious hours to spend with his family.
Traffic outside the windows of the towers sent alternating streams of light into the complex. The toddler next to the mess on the floor held up her drawing in both her small fists, displaying it shyly.
"It's beautiful Jyn. Who is it?"
"A man. Look, his name is Brin!" The scribbles evidently portrayed a man holding tools and books. His hair was greying. Jyn looked down. "I guess you can be Brin, if you want to."
A sudden flush of guilt washed over Galen. He took the drawing from her fingers, noting the uniform she had drawn was exactly like his own. Since Orson set him up at the sustainable energy program Celestial Power, his research took away every ounce of time he had to spend.
"I'd love to, Jyn," he said gently, pulling her up from the floor into his arms. "Tell me about him."
The more she talked, the more he began to regret not being present for her, to watch her learn, develop, and grow.
They played on the floor until Jyn fell asleep. Galen took her to the couch.
"Have I truly neglected you?" Galen Erso's eyes filled with tears instead of visions of kyber-energy development. The small head of his daughter rested on his shoulder, peaceful in sleep. He played with the ends of her braids, his usual steady hand trembling. He glanced towards the corners of the room, the security cameras blinking in his direction.
"Lyra," he called out for his wife.
Her head swung up from the countertop, startled from sleep. The mere call off her name sent her heart fluttering. Lyra entered from the next room, her hair falling in cascades at her shoulders. She held out her hand.
"Yes?"
Bring the hand of his wife to his lips, he tighten his grip on her fingers.
"Join us," he said. It was all he could say.
"What Papa?" Jyn's green eyes blinked open, and she shifted quietly in his arms.
"Nothing, Stardust. Go back to sleep."
"Goodnight Papa."
Galen turned to Lyra, the sky towers surrounding their quarters illuminating the room. Though it was night, it never seemed to darken above levels on Coruscant.
Something had to be done. He pulled Lyra closer to him, so that her head rested under his. She was tense, all the muscle of her small framework bunched uncomfortably.
"Remember the attack on Malpaz?" she said, barely moving her lips, her head turned from cameras. Galen closed his eyes, his heart racing. Krennic had claimed that it was an attack.
It's an attempt to sow chaos in the Empire, Galen. It's purely evil intention. They hurt so many people.
Galen didn't buy it, but, playing along, he secured trust with Krennick. He agreed to work intensely, under complete secrecy from Lyra.
Think of your little daughter. I have a son at home, and I would do anything to keep him safe. Tell no one of your research, Galen. No one.
And so, Galen spoke. "Do you know the truth?"
"Yes."
Silence crept around the corners of the room, spreading like a disease.
"All those lives lost were because of me," Galen's voice never achieved a whisper, yet the strain told his grief more than angry shouts and sobs. "The energy couldn't be contained. There was no attack. We killed thousands of people."
Lyra shifted closer, her heart pounding.
"How do you know?"
"Orson has become drowsy on my success."
"And you're waking up," she said slowly. "This house has us captured at every angle. I just knew."
"You're too smart," He commented, moving Jyn closer.
"Anything else?"
"They're making a weapon. It's a machine to kill entire planets."
"A star-killer."
"Yes."
"That was the reason for the planetary evacuation?"
His only answer was the droop of his eyes, guilt casting a shadow on their small home.
"What can we do?" Galen spoke at last.
"Escape," Lyra stated. "We are going to escape."
Jyn ignored the low thrum of the music, continuing to run her thumb over the indents ringing the rim of her shot glass. The lights in the bar were low, the way she liked it. Only the shadow of her profile could be recognized, if anyone were there to recognize her at all. She doubted it.
Only a few customers remained, drunk over their respective poisons. Jyn was confident no one would find her, especially at this hour. She glanced to the wall, where a time device clicked and whirred quietly. The rusted streets of Coruscant could provide cover from the most searching of eyes.
Jyn stared off into the outer circles of the galaxy, miles away in her mind. The twi'lek hologram at the door had begun to dance again, casting sensual blue shadows over the floor and across the walls. She did not notice, too far gone in thought to realize that the presence of a visitor triggered the hologram's movement.
Black sand filled her mind, and visions of long gone nights paraded across her sight, where the many rings of her home planet illuminated the sky.
It was hard to realize how much she missed home, with the lowlands nourished by rain and the hands of her father and mother. She missed the mountains of Lah'mu and the great saline seas. That home was all but gone now, she couldn't go back.
Coruscant was once her home too, before they had fled Krennic and found peace on Lah'mu. It was a different time then, a different way of life. She lived in the upper levels of the city, a friend to Krennick's son, educated by the best teachers on the planet. She smiled ruefully.
Rein Krennic had been her most unlikely companion.
He had long forgotten about her, she was sure of it. He lived like a god in the towers above.
A figure stepped to her side, groaning slightly as he heaved himself on the barstool. Jyn turned to face him, meaning to ask his business, sitting next to her when all the other seats were empty.
She turned with an indignant twist playing round the corners of her mouth, when she set eye on a holster, menacing and warning. She glimpsed the old uniform. Her eyes darted over the figure, until finally, his eyes caught her staring.
Jyn turned around swiftly and returned to her pondering. The stranger could take up all the space he wanted, so long as he didn't bother her, or worse yet, arrest her.
Not only was she underage, but her she didn't want to risk bring identified.
Don't speak to me, oh stars, don't speak to me.
She slid a few credits across the counter and nodded thanks to the owner, a female run on robotic limbs. The owner winked and turned to the imperial worker. Jyn breathed out quietly in relief as she made her way to the door and out into the streets of lowlife Coruscant.
She pulled her hood over her head and tucked her hair away from sight. She began to walk, blind to the bustle of the city nightlife.
It was loud in the streets, the sellers coaxing or cheating deals from customers and the working women and men calling out from the doorsteps, "Come and get it! Sixty credits for a good time!"
Jyn shuddered, moving opposite from the brothel, holding tight to her canister of credits. She didn't have much anymore, being layed off her old 'job'. She had upset the plutt-like manager by arriving late only by standard minutes. He had fired her immediately. Jyn huffed, the acrid air swelling in clouds around her lips and nose. It was cold at night, but it didn't seem to stop the rest of the population.
Coruscant never slept, tumultuous and filled with riots both political and social. The upper levels of the world were relatively quiet, the traffic of flight in the sky the only disruption.
Cities, like forests, have places within which terrifying and terrible creatures hide and conceal themselves from the world. The lower levels of Coruscant were no different, but those evils which 'concealed' themselves did so in broad daylight. The evils of forests were savage and grand. To Jyn, the evil of civilizations were much worse than that of nature.
Still, the city was beautiful. Through the cracks of the levels Jyn could see the nighttime sky, blue and white, filled with stars and ships. Her eyes lit with the silver glints from above. The crowd began to thicken as she approached the market. Unapologetic hands tried to rip her cloak away from her, but she held on and battered her way towards the building. "Listen, all of you!" She heard a murmur ripple through the crowd. "The end will come, and it's coming soon."
She glimpsed a woman, standing underneath the streetlights which buzzed dangerously as she spoke.
"The galaxy is in danger. We have no hope." The crowd mocked her, pushing in from all sides. Jyn left before it became ugly, skirting carefully down an alley, holding her nose under the sewer pipe lines. She began to run up a flight of stairs, breathing in clean air, until she reached the top.
She slowed before moving to knock on the door. Closing her eyes, she began to fabricate an excuse, settling on the truth. Well, partial truth. She began to bang at the door.
The debilitated old motel was in the dirtiest corner of the 5120th level of Coruscant, wrapped in mantles of soot and waste, and leaning heavily on the crutches one might have called a foundation centuries ago. If the sun ever touched down through the levels it was but a single stream. Never did the moon touch down dapples of starshine.
The frame of the motel shook slightly at her knocking and Jyn ceased at once, hearing footsteps bringing deliverance.
"Who is 'et?" The door opened and a stream of light moved to rest on her face. Jyn pushed past the doorkeeper, who was blinking helplessly. "Oh, Kestrel, yer back. Kai'll 'ave a fit, I'm tellin' ya."
"Thanks Joe, as long as I'm there to tell him."
The old 'space pirate', as Jyn called him, frowned and lumbered back to his chamber, mumbling to himself with quiet indignance "... middle o' tha night, what was she thinkin', crazy lass."
His door closed with a hiss and she stood waiting in the dark of the corridor. This man was a funny creature who loved nothing and did not fear anything except his past. Many a time Jyn heard him apologizing to the wall for all that he had done, for not getting them out in time. The man had but one thought, how to redeem himself in the eyes of his long dead comrades. It was hard not to pity him.
Jyn did not take time to breathe. It was very dark, but she was accustomed to lack of light. She felt with her hand the walls, gripping the railing up two flights of stairs, and finally stopped at the door three down to the left. She slid a card through the entry lock and entered as soon as the door slid open.
Her eyes darted, trying to gage themselves to the dark. Almost immediately an alien form rushed from the back room, freezing in place when he saw the shape of her figure.
"Kestrel?"
"It's me, Kai," Jyn breathed. The figure approached.
"Where did you go?"
"Nowhere." She said.
"Obviously not. You had to be somewhere," The alien wondered aloud. "You cannot be nowhere, that wouldn't make sense at all."
"No, I suppose it wouldn't."
"Why did you leave?"
"I needed time alone."
"Time alone?" Kai's mind turned round. "I thought you would warn me when you needed space?"
"It was different this time."
"Different? I see no difference about this time than from -"
"I told you, I needed time to myself." She lessened her frustration, fingering the necklace around her throat. "If I told you what I've been through Kai..."
My mother, dead.
My father, gone to the Empire.
My only friend, a rebel.
Scratch that, she thought, the man who left me to die.
She had little capacity to trust, nursing bitter resent for the two fathers who abandoned her. Not once, but twice, and both times, 'for the greater good'.
"I calculated that you were dead," Kai started.
"But I'm alive. You calculated wrong." Jyn smiled, trying to reassure the wondering alien.
Kai nodded.
"Goodnight, Kestrel."
Jyn started, realizing he was addressing her. She wasn't quite used to be new name. Her head snapped up, color rising in heat upon her cheeks.
"Goodnight." She looked towards the silhouette towering in her corridor.
He nodded once more stiffly, stepping away from the door.
Jyn slumped into a chair, placing her hands to her brow.
Kriff.
That was close.
She retreated to the washroom, beginning to take off her clothes, the midnight dark of the room hiding her nakedness. It had been days since her last shower. Jyn's skin prickled curiously as the water ran down her scalp and back. She knelt in the make-shift shower, letting the lukewarm liquid cleanse her. With absent movement she rubbed her arms and stomach raw with soap, taking the lather in her hands to her hair.
It felt so good to be clean.
Under the leadership of Saw Gerrera's militia, she scarcely had time for cleanliness. Always on the move, never resting. Her father's friend taught her roughly, keeping her safe, but only just. Jyn grimaced, remembering the days before her abandonment with disgust. The Partisans were insurgents, acting behind a cause, but beyond the law.
With her hair still dripping wet she found a knit jumper and high socks which were so thick they could have nearly been shoes. Without second thoughts she wrapped herself away and fell into deep sleep. Tomorrow she would start work once again, earning the odd credit or two, until she found something stable. Maybe she could even get a ride off of Coruscant.
"Where are we going, Mama?" Jyn asked, wide eyed as her family struggled to push through the crowds.
It was weeks after the Ersos resolved to escape. Their plan was finally being enacted.
"We're going to go in a trip, now, keep your mask on, love." Lyra replied, pulling the oxygen mask over her daughter's mouth. The girl frowned, pulling it aside once more for a question.
"Like how you explore?"
"Just like that. We're going to find a new home." Lyra said, skirting aside so that others could pass.
"But why?"
"Some bad people want your father to do some very bad things," she replied, keeping her eyes upon Galen as he shouldered through the masses.
Jyn clung to her mother's neck and held on tightly as bodies closed in around them. The sights, sounds, and smells of the undercity enveloped her. Dwellings and buildings were squeezed in between massive towers and infrastructure that serviced to support the top levels of the planet.
Galen lead his family carefully, holding a cloth over his nose, the fumes and smell of toxic exhaust causing the back of his throat crawl with the need for clean air.
"Obitt said he'd be here," Lyra motioned for Galen to continue ahead. "He said he'd be here." Her eyes scanned the area. She closed her eyes and tapped into the force.
Nothing.
"Galen," she caught up to her husband. "I can't sense his presence, not here. Something has gone wrong."
In the whirling midst of bodies they felt isolated by the fear that they would be caught - and dragged back into the life they were so desperately trying to leave.
Suddenly, a Human man, not the Dressellian they were expecting, hailed them down. Lyra tensed up, fearing they were discovered, but as he approved, she saw his right leg was missing, and a cybernetic replacement creaked in its place with every urgent step be took towards them.
"My name is Saw Gerrera," he ushered them to a waiting vehicle. "Has Obitt is compromised. I'll be taking you to safety."
Galen and Lyra took once glance at each other and knew they had to trust the smuggler.
It would be the first of many times they did so.
"We'll come, immediately," Galen said. He helped Lyra into the vehicle, their eyes meeting once again, briefly before he swung up beside her.
"This will take us to my ship." Saw ran his hands over the controls and brought the engine to life.
Lyra felt for Galen's hand.
The rest was rather a blur to Jyn. Her father and mother sat stoic against the walls of the ship. It was dark when she at last saw the night sky and first saw the stars. In a place like Coruscant, where trillions populate the streets, the light of the city always dims the light of the sky.
"Look," she squeaked. "There they are!"
She sat next to Saw, staring rapture-eyed out the front windows of the ship. Constellations draped themselves across the fabric of the Galaxy, twinkling in perfect order.
She was, in every sense of the term, star struck.
"Erso is delaying his research, I know because I can tell when he lies. You know, Rein, he's barely comprehensive," The great and tactful Orson Krennick sat hunched over the steelcrete countertop, his usually spotless uniform disheveled and off-white.
The father and son sat before the open expanse of the city, watching the traffic in the sky swarm above, the sky turning from blue to purple, then to black.
Orson eyes focused narrowly on his son, who was standing to attention, his features hardened into an unreadable frown.
Rein Krennic was a perfect mirror image of his father.
The regal stature, impeccable grooming, and the slanted features were stamped on the youth as if he were a carbon copy.
Most men have a particular nature, which is complicated with an air of amoral baseness, mixed with an air of power. Orson Krennic possessed this nature fully, when his wits were not dimmed by drink. He carried himself with haughty authority and great pride. His eyes were electric blue as the energy which flowed through the blood in his veins.
He worked his way up the levels of society as a boy, at last, he believed he was outside the pale of society and the filth where he rose from. He drank to forget. The past was better forgotten.
Orson was conscious of a foundation of disgust, complicated with an inexpressible hatred for the people of whom he had sprung. He avoided the men and women of the streets.
He had entered the empire; he succeeded there and yet he was held back by the continual delays of Galen Erso. He had an army to command, a planet for his use. All of his plans of greatness were hinged on one man.
"He is like a droid, a poorly coded droid," Oson murmured drunkenly. "Barely comprehensive."
"I can't imagine," Rein told his father, deftly concealing the liquor below the counter as he walked behind his father.
"Come here son." Orson pulled the boy to himself, placing his hands to his head. Rein resisted slightly, pulling away from the stench of his breath. "I'm so lucky to have you, you know? Looking at that Erso -"
"I think that's enough." Rein started, glancing to the guards at the door.
" - he has nothing. Not his wife, a lovely little thing, or his daughter, do you remember her? You were such good friends when you were little. Before they decided to rebel..."
Rein closed his eyes, his head still in the grip of the elder Krennick's fingers. He clasped his own hands over his father's, removing them.
He remembered the little girl, with two braids always bouncing as she moved, with the sky in her eyes.
He blinked.
"Yes, I do remember her."
"She's dead now, of course."
"Quite obviously, father." Rein stood exasperated, the burden of his drunken father laying heavy on his shoulders. "Let's get you to bed, shall we?" He motioned for the guards to carry him away.
He stared out the windows watching the glimmer of the city for the remainder of that night.
Whatever did happen to Jyn?
Hello readers! Jyn is in for some action. This story will explore her life in crime before she meets the Rogue One crew. Rein Krennic is the only part of this story that I own. Please rate and review. All my love, elleismyname.
