Gun shots echoed through the warehouse as a small figure dressed in a dark red leather jacket with the hood up and black pants scaled a ladder leading to the catwalk, crisscrossing the ceiling, and disappeared into shadow. On the catwalk, three men in dark shirts and pants, stopping shooting as the searched frantically for the missing person.
The person dropped suddenly in the midst of them, and struck out, disarming two at the same time with its truncheons, used one of them as a human shield against the other, then pushed that man against the attacker, knocking them both off the narrow path. The last one very bravely tried to take it out, but judo flipped him over its shoulder to the floor below.
The person jumped over the railing onto the floor, and walked out of the building. Once safe on the roof of a warehouse across the street and out of range of cameras, it pushed its hood back to reveal a woman in her early twenties. She had dark tied back in a bun, and eyeliner smudged around her eyes. She touched a finger to her ear.
"Bo - Nightwatch, was that all?"
A crackle came across the comm.
"Yeah, Rogue, that was it. Did you get what they were after?"
"Yeah, I sure did."
"Rogue" pulled a small hard drive from the front pocket of her hoodie.
"Now, let's see what's so important," she muttered.
/
Bzzt, bzzt.
A groan.
Bzzt, bzzt.
Detective Jyn Erso rolled over and answered her phone.
"Erso."
"Where the hell are you, Jyn?! I texted you half an hour ago!" her cop-friend-she-worked-with-a-lot-but-don't-you-dare-call-him-partner Cassian Andor yelled into her ear.
Jyn groaned and rolled out of bed, rolling her sore shoulder.
"I had a long night," she insisted, pulling on a clean pair of jeans, a long sleeve shirt, leather jacket, and combat boots. So yeah, she didn't look much like your average detective, but she got her job done.
"I'll be there in ten," she promised.
"You better be."
True to her word, she was pulling in the parking lot of Jedha City Police Department ten minutes later, cup of coffee in her hand.
Cassian was waiting by her desk.
"There's something you need to see."
He lead her back to his desk, where his computer monitor had paused security feed on it.
"There was a break in at one of KrenTech buildings last night, one of the old facility turned warehouse down at the docks. This was caught on the ground floor cameras," he told her, leaning across her to play the feed.
The camera feed showed eleven men entering the building, all armed with guns, and seemed to know where they were going. They split, six standing guard, the others rooting through the old office.
While they were busy snooping, a hooded figure suddenly dropped in the midst of the six and was a blur, taking them all out within minutes. Then the figure disappeared off camera.
The other five glanced at each other and split up, three going back the way they came and two going the other.
Again, a figure dropped from the ceiling and took out the two quickly, and stooped to pick something off the floor. Then it disappeared again.
It reappeared less than two minutes later to chase the three remaining into the main warehouse and up into the ceiling. The figure disappeared then reappeared in the middle, effectively taking - killing - them. It ran out of the building a few seconds later.
Jyn frowned at the screen.
"I didn't know the security cameras still worked," she muttered softly, leaning against the desk to stare intently as the feed restarted.
"Yeah, neither did I," Cassian said, rubbing his eyes. "Kay called me early this morning to tell me."
Jyn rolled her eyes; she and the forensic scientist didn't get along very well to put it lightly, and Cassian had to put up with their shit.
"So, does he regularly hack the security cameras across town?" She asked dryly, crossing her arms and leaning her hip against Cassian's desk.
Cassian huffed.
"No, he only does it occasionally... I think."
"Reassuring," Jyn said snidely, pushing off the desk as Captain Draven walked by.
"Andor, I presume you showed Erso your 'very important video?'"
It was a rhetorical question, and they all knew it, so Draven hardly paused to go on to say,
"Krennic himself is here, and is demanding to speak with my best people."
Jyn smiled savagely.
"Oh, you do care," she said, brushing past him.
"Its not a matter of caring, Erso, just a matter of common sense."
He sighed, exasperated, than gestured over his shoulder.
"You better go, Andor, before she makes a mess we can't fix."
Cassian snapped upstraight and nodded.
"Yeah, I better go."
He walked off after his partner - because, yes, they were partners, Erso didn't play well with anyone else - and Draven thought he heard the officer muttering something under his breath in Spanish.
/
Orson Krennic was one of the richest men in Jedha City - and also one of the most hated.
He was an arrogant man, cruel and ambitious, and stopping at nothing to get his way. He earned his money from skiving off other inventions as his own - once such inventor who suffered was Jyn's father.
/
"Run! Jyn, go, Stardust, you have to get out! It's not safe, GO!"
.
.
.
"Mama! Don't leave me, please!"
.
.
.
"Keep going, Jyn!"
.
.
.
"Galen, my old friend."
/
Naturally, seeing Krennic sitting primly in the Captain's office made her blood boil, and and she could've easily shot him then and there, but that would've made more mess than Cassian was willing to clean up for her. Cassian caught her arm before they entered, and gave her a look.
"Be careful."
Jyn swallowed.
She nodded.
He let go of her arm and pulled open the door.
"Orson Krennic," Jyn said professionally. She was going to keep her temper this time and make Kay buy the shots next time. "I'm Detective Jyn Erso, and this is my colleague Officer Cassian Andor."
He knew her name, that much was obvious by the way his eyes widened and his glanced over her. He probably wouldn't say anything, but you never knew.
"Pleasure to meet you both," he said pleasantly - unpleasantly -, standing and holding out a hand to shake.
Jyn ignored him and moved to pick up the manilla file on the desk, and Cassian leaned against the door frame to watch.
Krennic obviously wasn't used to being ignored; he made a slight face like he drank soured milk and sat back down.
"I hope you are doing everything in your power to find out who did this," he said pretentiously, acting concerned.
Jyn glanced up from the file - She didn't actually need to read it - and raised an eyebrow.
"Or what? You'll put us out of business? We're the police, Mr. Krennic, not some local business," she said, all open faced and straightforward (it was an act) and continued, "besides, I thought the building was empty."
She leaned casually against the desk and stared him down.
He gulped.
"Well, I don't want anyone to think people can run rampant through our city unchecked," he said, recovering and clasping his hands together in front of him. "Have you caught then yet?"
Jyn glanced over to Cassian.
"They're dead."
Krennic was surprised.
"They are? Who killed them?" he quickly demanded.
Jyn hesitated, and Cassian spoke up.
"We don't know, sir, but we are working very hard to find out."
Krennic narrowed his eyes and glanced between the two of them.
"What do you mean? You mean there is a killer running rampant through our city?"
He continued before either Jyn or Cassian could reply.
"Now, I don't like that there was a break-in at one of my buildings, but to kill the offenders is unacceptable."
Cassian broke in here, moving closer to the man.
"Mr. Krennic, we understand you have been through a lot, but the police and our detectives are doing everything they can to find this person. Maybe you should go home," he suggested, "take a break, and come back in a few days."
Krennic didn't seem to like the idea, but when Captain Draven walked in at the end of Cassian's speech, the captain seemed to agree with Cassian.
"Andor has a good idea, Mr. Krennic. You should go home and rest."
That settled it.
Krennic rose and shook Captain Draven's hand, offered his hand to Jyn, who ignored him, and tried to shake Cassian's, who followed Jyn out the door.
Cassian cornered Jyn in the hall of the building, caught her arm and trapped her in the corner.
"What the hell?!"
"Ay por dios, Jyn, we seriously need to work on your people skills," he muttered, rubbing his face again.
Jyn crossed her arms angrily.
"You know what he did," she hissed, staring him down. She was trying to look tough, and she was, but fear, and anger, and indignation, and bad memories were seeping through her facade.
"Si, Jyn, I know what he did, es imperdonable, but you can't let him get to you. Not now. You know we're having trouble continuing the investigation, but you and I are both doing the best we can."
Jyn blew out her breath, puffing up her bangs, and she uncrossed and recrossed her arms.
"Fine," she ground out. "But you have to do all the talking next time."
She pushed him off and stormed away, and he let her go, knowing she needed her space. She'd feel better once she'd punched something.
/
Bodhi was waiting outside the precinct for her when she left at six. He immediately started yammering and gesturing wildly, and Jyn could not for the life of her, figure out what he was was saying.
"Whoa, whoa, Bodhi, please, calm down, I have no idea what you're saying," she said, grabbing his arms.
He huffed and scrubbed at his face. Had he gotten any sleep?
"Okay, so I need to show you something very, very, very important here, it's going to blow your mind, I swear, come on!"
He grabbed her arm and tugged her to her car. As they got in, Jyn demanded,
"Did you walk here?"
Bodhi looked sheepish.
"Well... not exactly walk, in the literal sense of the word, but if you mean -"
Jyn cut him off.
"So you ran?"
"Uh - yes."
Jyn shook her head; he ran, halfway across town from their apartment, to tell her something.
"But really, Jyn," he said, staring at her, twisting in his seat. "I hacked the drive, and it just - just -"
He blew air out of his mouth upwards, and flopped back in his seat.
Jyn gripped the steering wheel tighter.
"You did," she said carefully, too carefully, her face was completely unreadable.
"Yeah, and it's insane!"
Back at their apartment, Bodhi plunked down at the table and began tapping rapidly on his computer.
"Look."
He spun the the computer around and pointed to to the screen, which was filled with documents, video feed, and pictures. Jyn was at loss for words.
"What, exactly, am I looking at?" She asked, leaning on the the table and kicking off her shoes.
Bodhi turned the computer back to face him and starting clicking stuff.
"Here. These are videos of some of Krennic's experiments," he paused for suspense. "Its very incriminating. There's video evidence of him and the other scientists... including your father."
Jyn's jaw dropped and she pushed her hands through her hair.
"Bodhi!"
She grabbed the laptop and jerked it around.
"We can use this! If we get this to Cassian, he can -"
"Jyn!"
Bodhi cut her off.
"He'll want to know where you got this! We can't tell him you're - you're Rogue," he hissed.
Jyn groaned and buried her face in her hands.
"Bodhi, this is our chance to bring him in and get revenge for my father. You can't seriously be objecting!"
She shook her head and stood.
"Forget it. I'm going out."
/
Cassian groaned and stretched, pushing back his chair and standing.
Technically, he should've left an hour ago, but nobody ever worked normal hours at the precinct. Kay was still upstairs in his lab, most likely.
Jyn told him many times and many ways how she thought he was probably a robot.
Speaking of Jyn...
He really wanted to get Krennic behind bars, but he was making it very difficult.
Cassian had just about given up bringing him in for something big, and was thinking about going for something small, say, missing income tax reports?
Anyway, he wasn't happy with how things had gone with Krennic and Jyn today, but Krennic was definitely hiding something... he just needed to find out what.
His phone buzzed.
Jyn.
Jyn: can we get a drink? i need to tell you something
you: ...sure. I'll get Kay
Jyn: No!
Jyn: Alone please
You: Jyn, is everything alright?
You: Are you okay?
Jyn: yes yes im fine. i just have something to tell you