Rise Like Demons
A Rogue One fan fiction by xahra99
One: K-2SO
The airwaves are alive. Frantic, fearful voices crackle through the static.
"Rebels everywhere!"
"This is pad two! I spot fifty rebels heading west on pad two!"
"This is pad five! We're being overrun! Help us!"
"Pad twelve, ten, pad eight, please confirm! Confirm and report!"
MA-756 touches her helmet and blocks out the transmission. The information is irrelevant. She has her orders. The panicked voices aren't going to help her now.
Her boots beat a swift tattoo on the polished floor as she runs down the corridor towards the data vault reception area. She signals to her squad as they approach the target. MA-738 and MA-749 adopt an arrowhead formation with MA-756 at their centre. Together, they are an elite force, a blaster bolt aimed at the heart of the Empire's enemies.
As they run around the corner, MA-756 sees the droid.
It's hard to take down Imperial droids. The Empire designed them that way. MA-756 has some ideas about that, just like she has ideas about the Empire issuing Imperial soldiers armour that doesn't defend against blaster fire.
Well, shit, she thinks.
The droid glares at her through flickering optics. Melting metal glows around the blaster scars carved deep into its armour. MA-756 can see the grey plastic bulkhead through the holes punched through the droid's casing. She is surprised it still functions.
The droid stands behind the central console, smoking gently. The console is designed for humans and barely reaches to its narrow waist. The droid's left hand is connected to the console. Its right hand holds a blaster.
MA-756 frowns beneath her helmet. Imperial droids are faithful servants. She suspects the Empire would replace them all with droids if it could. So clean and clinical. Droids don't fight. They are not programmed to fight.
This droid does.
Dead or unconscious stormtroopers are scattered across the floor. MA-756 wastes a moment wondering why the Empire didn't send in other droids to deal with the problem. But that's the Empire for you. They repeat the same mistakes and expect a different outcome.
The droid peers at her. Droids don't have expressions, but MA-756 senses great hostility. The droid raises its gun.
Shit, she thinks again.
The droid fires. This is against its programming. MA-756 drops to her knees to present a smaller target and returns fire. The droid shoots back. Its aim would be better if it weren't speaking into the console, but then MA-756 would be dead.
"Climb!" it commands. "Climb!"
MA-756 wonders who the droid is speaking to. She fires again. Her blaster bolt hits the droid in the shoulder and slams it against the data vault's closed door. The droid staggers. The door is unmarked. The vault is made from industrial steel and has more in common than a safe than with any other kind of archive.
"You can still send the plans to the fleet!" the droid says to thin air. "If you open the shield gate you can broadcast from the tower!" It pauses as MA-756 gets another good shot in. "Locking the vault door now. Goodbye."
MA-756 doesn't know what the droid is doing, but she has her orders. She has no intention of letting the droid's mission succeed. She orders her squad to fire when the droid is distracted. Blaster bolts strike the droid's torso, shoulders, legs. It hunches over. Sparks shower from its casing. An acrid burning smell fills the air as it raises its arm to fire back.
MA-756 ducks. The droid cuts off the transmission. The data vault locks slide into position as the droid fries the console.
MA-756's cry of frustration is muffled by her helmet. She reaches the droid just in time to see its optics flicker and fade.
The droid's data, it turns out, is irretrievable.
Two: Bodhi Rook
The troop carrier hovers above the turquoise waves. A squad of black-armoured Death Troopers drop from the hold with rifles raised and ready.
Typical, JA-735 thinks. The stormtroopers have done all the hard work. Now the Death Troopers have arrived to steal the glory.
"Get that beach under control!" a Death Trooper orders.
JA-735 considers the order unnecessary, at best, insulting at worst. They are winning already. More Rebels fall every moment. They'd have wiped them out already, he thinks, if the damn cargo handlers had cleared the pad between every landing like they were supposed to. Now the Rebels are using the crates and the shuttle for cover. No matter. It won't take the Empire long to prise them out.
An X-wing dives into the sand and erupts into flame. JA-735 ducks. The Death Troopers don't flinch. Burning shrapnel litters the sand and the palm trees ignite like torches. Embers drift through the air as thick smoke settles in a blanket across the beach.
The Death Troopers vanish in the fog. JA-375 crawls to his feet and aims his blaster through the smoke. He can barely see what he is shooting. He lowers his gun and scuttles crablike from crate to covering crate, calling over the radio for his squad to come and back him up.
The smoke parts as they near the landing pad. JA-375 sees a pilot run from the hold of the Imperial shuttle. An oversized cable drum strapped to the pilot's back gives him the look of a frantic tortoise. JA-375 watches as the pilot unspools the cable with panicky, furtive movements and runs back towards the shuttle. He holds a low opinion of the bravery of Imperial cargo pilots, but the whole situation strikes him as strange. He doesn't know what the pilot is up to, but he'll bet that it's not sanctioned by the Empire.
JA-375 gestures to his squad. "Come with me." He raises his blaster and walks over to the pilot. "Hey, you," he orders. "Identify yourself."
The pilot rises shakily to his feet, guilt etched indelibly onto his face. "I-I can explain," he says.
A rattle of Rebel blaster fire answers. The trooper beside JA-375 vanishes in a shower of sparks. Something hits him with the force of a Star Destroyer. He lands on his back against a crate, ears ringing as the radio in his helmet hisses static. He's lost his blaster. The HUD display on his suit flashes error messages. Wetness trickles down inside his armour. There is a hole in the sand where half his squad used to be. The remaining two troopers are pinned down behind cover.
JA-375 rolls onto his side and watches the pilot vanish into his ship. He pulls a grenade from its belt. Then he crawls across the sand behind the crates and peers into the hold.
The pilot is crouched beside a console, talking animatedly into a mike. He rips his goggles from his head and hurls them to the floor, waving his hands. As he does so he glances towards the cargo hatch. JA-375 ducks behind a crate. Has he been spotted?
Apparently not. The pilot returns his attention to the console. His speech is rapid and too fast for JA-375 to pick up any more than the odd word as he creeps closer.
"This is for you, Galen," says the pilot.
JA-375 gets to his feet. The pilot sees the movement and swings round, but he has no time to react. JA-375 pulls the pin on the grenade and hurls it as far as he can. He hears the grenade bounce twice in the metal hold. The pilot, who must not have encountered grenades before, turns to follow it. JA-375 sees him freeze a second before the explosion hits. The blast, confined by the narrow hold, rockets out the cargo hatch.
The last thing JA-375 thinks before he is incinerated is that he should have stood a little further back.
Three: Chirrut Îmwe and Baze Malbus
KI-174 waits patiently on the beach. The stormtroopers have done a passable job of quelling the Rebel forces. What's left of the Rebellion is pinned down on the beach in the centre of a pile of cargo crates. The Death Troopers will deal with them in no time.
She cracks her knuckles and levels her blaster rifle. The rebels enter her kill zone heedlessly, yelling something about a master switch. KI-174 doesn't know what the switch does but she knows that the Rebellion want it. That's enough. She has her orders.
"I'm going!" yells a rebel soldier, pelting out into the clearing. KI-174 fires. She drops the soldier with one shot. Then she hears someone cry out, a name or a language she can't identify. "Chirrut!"
KI-174 sees a man step out from cover. She aims automatically and squeezes the trigger.
She misses.
KI-174 squints down her scope. The monk's dark robes flap in the breeze. He holds a staff out before him like he's dowsing for water. He seems to be praying.
She fires again.
Misses.
KI-174 aims again, more carefully this time. The bolt thuds into the sand. She exhales in disgust and calls out to her squad. "Take him down!"
Around her the Death Troopers open fire. The monk-is he some sort of Jedi? -walks straight through the firefight. Blaster bolts fuse the sand into glass around him. He isn't even scratched. His lips move quietly. KI-174 strains over the gunfire, but she can't hear what he is saying. Something about the Force?
"Chirrut!" someone bellows. "Come back!"
KI-174 fires off a shot in the direction of the cry to remind the other rebels to keep their heads down. She turns back to the monk, aims again, fires, misses. The monk walks over to the console as if he is strolling in the park. He reaches for the switch and flips the handle.
There is a dreadful pause. KI-174's stomach drops. The Empire will not accept excuses. They're all dead if she doesn't finish this quickly.
"Chirrut!" the rebel howls. "Come! Come with me!"
KI-174's finger trembles on the trigger. The man is half-hidden behind the console. She exhales. Then she clears her mind and waits for a clean shot.
The monk smiles. He turns away from the console and steps back out onto the beach.
KI-174 fires. The battle begins around her. Did she imagine the pause? Bolts sizzle through the air. One bolt finds the monk. He drops. Blood soaks the sand. KI-174 has no idea it the shot was hers, or someone else's. It doesn't matter. Maybe the Empire will be merciful, after all.
Then a rebel races out into the clearing and drops to his knees beside the dead monk. KI-174 knows that she should shoot him too, but she is still processing what happened. Was it luck? Was it the Force? Both? Neither? The beach is a killing zone. Somebody will shoot the rebel eventually.
An Imperial shuttle explodes on one of the pads. Palm trees burst into flame. The rebel lays the monk's corpse gently down into the sand and straightens with a killing look in his eyes.
He crosses the sand towards them.
KI-174 is on the far side of the beach, so it is KI-159, her second, who shoots first. The rebel returns fire, and KI-159 falls. KI-152 manages to get a shot off before he dies. It hits the rebel in the shoulder but it doesn't seem to slow him down.
KI-174 doesn't think the rebel's seen her. She waits for her moment. Sand presses into her clenched hands. She hears a few pained breaths through her radio. Then the channel falls silent.
"The Force is with me," the rebel says. "I am one with the Force."
Damn Jedi, thinks KI-174. She draws a grenade from her belt. Then she stands up and steps forwards.
The rebel's reactions are quicker than she thought. His shot punches her in the stomach. KI-174 staggers but does not fall. Her fingers clench around the grenade. As she pulls the pin her feet go out from under her and she staggers, falls, and rolls down the slope she's standing on. Slices of blue sky and white sand flicker through the visor of her helmet before her vision clouds. She falls face-down, so she doesn't see the rebel glance back at the monk's body.
The grenade detonates.
Four: Cassian Andor and Jyn Erso
JA-047 sees the shield go down.
She stares up at the sky. As she watches the Star Destroyer slide slowly down the gravity well towards the planet she wonders if the people inside can see her standing on the beach below. There's a good chance the Star Destroyer will break up in atmosphere well before it reaches them. The crew won't be watching. They'll be panicking instead, trying a dozen desperate fixes that probably won't work. JA-047 knows she is watching the crew die. She pities them.
JA-047 is a dreamer. She's one demerit away from clean-up crew. But because she's looking up, she is one of the first to see the Death Star rise behind the doomed Star Destroyer.
JA-047 knows what the Death Star can do.
"Why?" she asks JA-128, who is beside her. "Why? We were winning!"
JA-128 is not much of a talker. He shrugs.
JA-047 is so stunned, she doesn't notice the two rebels who come limping down the beach until they are well within range. She doesn't shoot. JA-128 raises his blaster, but JA-047 presses her hand down on the barrel, and he gets the message. Shooting a few rebels isn't going to make any difference now. They're all dead anyway. The Empire has abandoned them to die and JA-047 feels that she is justified in this last act of rebellion.
A beam of emerald light lances down from the Death Star. The ocean vaporises where it hits. Amber clouds boil up from the sea. It is the most beautiful sunrise JA-047 has seen. It is the last sunrise she will ever see. There is peace, she thinks, in that knowledge.
JA-047 discovers that if she turns her head just right she can see a stretch of beach that is untouched. It's beautiful. The palm trees are just starting to sway, a harbinger of the storm that's coming.
JA-047 knows it will destroy them all. There is nothing she can do. She feels a gentle touch upon her shoulder and tenses automatically as JA-128 slides his arm around her. The contact is awkward at first, but as JA-047 relaxes, she finds it reassuring.
She watches the rebels drop to the sand. They gaze at each other like nothing else matters. She feels a sense of peace steal over her.
The sea rises. The sound of thunder reaches her, extremely loud and impossibly close. The light reaches them before the waves do.
Before she dies, JA-047 thinks that things could have been different.
In another life.
And the sky will open out
And the bones of heaven crack
And we will rise like demons, baby
We ain't ever coming back
Thea Gilmore -Come Up with Me
Author's note: Someone told me when The Force Awakens was released that Finn ruined the stormtroopers for them, 'because he proves they're not just faceless drones. Now I know the troopers in the original trilogy are meant to be clones, but Bujold already ruined that trope for me with Mirror Dance, and anyway I have some personal feelings about that cos I'm an identical twin. So, I wrote this. Everyone thinks that they're on the right side, but it depends who's telling the story.