"Imperials forces have entered the base! Imperial forces have entered—"
The transmission cuts out and Jyn curses under her breath; the chill air is like fire in her lungs as she runs. She drags her blaster from its holster on her thigh but doesn't slow down as she rounds the next corner of Echo Base's frozen corridors.
They're almost out a time.
Her comm clicks again, this time on a private channel.
"Jyn, where are you?" Bodhi whispers.
Static crackles over the channel as another explosion rocks the base.
"East Wing," she replies. "Corridor A-12."
"You're getting close," Bodhi says.
Jyn doesn't reply. In the flickering light of the base's failing electrical systems, she can see the white puff of steam that forms with every exhale. Hoth's biting chill has begun to worm its way through her parka.
(Cassian's parka. She tries not to think about the crinkles around his eyes and the laughter in the corners of his smile as she'd swiped his coat that morning, complaining that hers wasn't thick enough.
Cassian had been in the East Wing when the Imperial bombardment began and Jyn hasn't been able to raise him since.)
As she rounds the next corner, she curses and comes to a skidding, awkward stop. The corridor is completely blocked by chunks of ice and snow from a caved-in ceiling.
She drags out her comm. "Bodhi, the corridor's blocked," she says. "I need another way."
There's a moment of silence and Jyn is about to hail Bodhi again when the comm crackles in her hand.
"Jyn… there's no other way."
Jyn curses again and slams her fist against the wall in frustration. Cassian is somewhere on the other side of this rubble and she needs to get to him. She scrambles forward and begins to drag the nearest blocks off the pile. Snow tumbles down over her gloves, filling the meager hole she's created.
"Jyn," Bodhi says, his voice anxious. "We're running out of time."
"I know," she says, and she does.
Bodhi's assigned to fly the last transport of the evacuation. Jyn knows that he'll wait for them as long as he can, knows he would wait for them forever if she asked, but there's more lives than just Jyn and Cassian's counting on him. He'll have to take off soon.
Jyn looks frantically around for anything that might help her. Partially buried in the snow, she spots a glint of metal. When she digs it out, she finds a heavy-duty blow torch, one of the ones the construction crews had used to initially carve out the base's tunnels. She drags it off the ground, settling the heavy power pack onto her back and balancing the torch in her arms.
"Where is Cassian's signal?" she asks Bodhi over the comm.
He doesn't hesitate or ask questions. Three years of missions and mess hall dinners and long sleepless nights have forged an unbreakable bond among the Rogue One survivors.
"Fifteen feet ahead and to the right," Bodhi says. "Looks like he's in a storage room."
Jyn glances to her right and finds a door, its sign indicating a meeting room. She opens the door and lets out a relieved breath when she finds the room clear of debris.
"I found a torch," she says. "I'm going to make a hole from the next room over."
"Okay," Bodhi says. "But hurry."
She doesn't want to ask, but needs to know. "How long do I have?"
"Twelve minutes," he says. "Less if the Imperials make it to the hanger."
"Right," she says, and gets to work.
The blow torch cuts easily through the ice and snow, but the base's walls are thick. By the time Jyn clears a hole just larger enough to crawl through (and just big enough for Cassian if she has to drag him back), she is keenly aware of the clock ticking down inside her head.
Bodhi's voice is a soothing bit of calm in her ear as she works; he's just as stressed as she is, but she feels better knowing that he's there. (She always feels better knowing that Bodhi and Cassian are close. She's been avoiding thinking about what that means for… a long time.) Bodhi's kept her aware of the progress of Imperial forces through the base and while it doesn't look like the transport will have to take off early, the chances of Jyn having to fight her way back to the hanger go up with every second.
As soon as the last bit of ice melts away and Jyn can see into the dimly lit storage room, she shucks off the equipment and crawls through the hole. On the other side, only a single lamp is still working, throwing flickering shadows across the small space. Jyn clicks on a flashlight and swings the beam around the room.
"Cassian!" she calls.
There's no response and the beam of the flashlight reveals only empty corners and scattered equipment.
Cassian isn't here.
She clicks on her comm. "Bodhi," she says, "I'm in the storage room. I don't see Cassian. Are you sure his signal is here?"
"Yes," Bodhi says. "His signal is right in front of you. Less than five feet."
Jyn turns the flashlight but sees nothing except a pile of snow and chunks of ice where part of the storage room had collapsed in another cave-in. Five feet in front of her is… right in the middle of the snow pile.
Jyn feels suddenly like she's been shoved naked into the middle of a Hoth blizzard, shock and cold terror wrapping around her body.
"No," she whispers and lurches forward.
She hears Bodhi calling her name as if from a distance, but can't respond. Can't do anything but dig, dragging ice and snow off the pile with reckless abandon. Her heart is in her throat and her mind feeds her an endless litany of no no no no no. Not Cassian; she can't lose Cassian.
After what seems like hours but must only be a few minutes, she drags off another chunk of ice and finds a patch of dark material, jarring against the white.
"Cassian," she says. "Cassian!"
The shape doesn't move. Jyn digs faster, clearing ice and snow until she can drag the limp body back into the clear area of the storage room. She rolls the man onto his back and gently brushes snow away from his face, then lets out an explosive, relieved breath.
It is Cassian. His dark lashes fan against skin unnaturally pale from the cold. For a heart-stopping minute, Jyn can't tell if he's breathing, unable to see the rise and fall of his chest underneath the bulky coat. She presses her face close to his until she can feel the unsteady puff of warm air from his breath against her skin.
"I found him," she says shakily into the comm.
"Thank the Force," Bodhi says. His voice is shaking too. "Jyn you have to hurry. The Imperials are almost at the hanger. We're prepping for launch."
Jyn swallows and pushes to her feet, dragging Cassian's limp weight with her. Her mind is whirring with calculations, but even as she stumbles towards the hole in the storage room she hears the distant sounds of Imperial boots and knows the truth.
Even if there were no enemies between her and the shuttle, the hanger where Bodhi is docked is clear on the other side of the base.
"We're not going to make it," she says. There's no emotion in her voice — there's no point in getting emotional. (She has to force her voice not to shake. She has to be strong for Bodhi. He'll never go if she isn't.)
Even as Bodhi sputters and cries denials in her ear, Jyn is already rapidly sorting through plans and options. Her eyes roam around the storage, looking for a solution, and alight on the room's door, miraculously positioned far enough from the ceiling's collapse that it — and the corridor beyond it — are likely still accessible.
"Bodhi, we're not going to make it," she says firmly, changing direction and dragging Cassian towards the door. "Cassian's unconscious and probably hurt bad. There's a base full of Imperial soldiers between us. We'd never make it. You have to go."
"Jyn, I can't leave you."
"You have to," she says even as her heart clenches. Selfishly, she wants to tell him to stay, wants to beg him to come rescue them the same way he came for them on Scarif. The same way he comes for them or waits for them on every mission they run.
The door creaks open at Jyn's touch and, just as she hoped, the hallway is clear.
"We'll be okay," she says. "I think I can get us to the tauntaun pen. We'll make a run for the cave system Skywalker found. It's far enough that we can probably be off Imperial radar. We'll wait it out until they leave."
There's a long silence on the other end, then Bodhi says, soft and fierce. "I'll come back for you. As soon as it's safe. I'll come back for you."
"I know," Jyn says and she does. It's a fact of the universe. People live, people die, the Rebel Alliance fights the Empire, and Bodhi Rook will come back for them.
"May the Force be with you," Bodhi says.
Jyn can hear the sound of shuttle engines engaging in the background. (She wants to say… something. to acknowledge the mixed up, complicated mess of feelings she and Bodhi and Cassian have been dancing around for years. In case she doesn't get another chance.)
"May the Force be with us all," she says.
Jyn stands for a long moment in the corridor as the comm clicks off, imagining the shuttle's smooth flight into the atmosphere, past the Imperial blockade, and off to safety. Then she shakes off those thoughts and continues her slow pace down the corridor.
She has a lot to do and a long way to go if she and Cassian are going to survive this.