"This is not working, K!" The exclamation came from behind Rowan, and she turned, confused and worried at the frustration in Cassian's voice. He and Jyn were crouched low beside a security pad, wrestling the unconscious form of an Imperial officer for control of his hand, smacking it repeatedly into the scanner.

K paused from his position at the control panel for the data archives, the door they needed access to, and looked up, musing. Rowan raised her eyebrows, amused despite her urgency.

"Right hand," K returned.

Rowan looked back to Cassian and watched him heft the officer's right hand, slamming it down upon the scanner. With a beep and a hiss, the door to the archives flew open, and the officer's hand squeaked as it slid slowly down from the smooth, glassy surface of the scanner. The officer landed in a heap on the floor, and Cassian and Jyn hurried into the archives. Rowan looked back to the black linoleum of the citadel's halls, standing guard both for her friends and for the sake of the disguise of her armor, which had grown no less suffocating, especially now that she felt the presence of a new danger.

The impression, the tingling in her spine as her hair rose perceptibly on the back of her neck, was all-too-familiar. It was the feeling she could remember from her days on the streets with Luke, that gentle tell that danger was near. She had felt it recently, too, and she searched her memory for its last appearance, surprised when she realized she had felt it on Wobani, deep in the heart of the Imperial prison, in Stormtrooper armor then, too. It put her on edge, and she clutched the large black blaster a little tighter, wondering if Cassian could feel it, too. She doubted it; the importance of this mission would have steamrolled any minor impression made upon his nervous system. He'd dedicated all his attention to it.

"Rebel fleet has arrived." The words came from K, and Rowan started out of her reverie, looking to the droid, then to Cassian, who had paused and glanced back to Rowan and K.

"What?" Jyn asked, confused, all thought of the structural plans lost for a moment. But she was brought back to attention by Cassian returning to the search, fiddling with the control panel for the archives in some attempt to understand how it functioned.

"There's fighting on the beach," K explained. "They've locked down the base." He paused. "They've closed the shield gate."

Beneath the helmet, Rowan blanched. Cassian's shoulders tightened, and he turned back to K, eyes wide with alarm. A dreadful silence fell over them, deepening the already quiet halls.

Jyn looked from Rowan to Cassian, her heart sinking at the sight of their shared fear. "What does that mean?" she asked. "We're trapped?"

There came no answer, but the heavy quiet sufficed, and her eyebrows knit together, a lump forming in her throat. Despair springing her into action as she realized the uselessness of her disguise after these new developments, Rowan began to strip off the Stormtrooper armor, starting with the helmet and sucking in a breath of profoundly fresh air. As she did so, she listened to K as he walked them through their only hope to save the Death Star plans, if nothing else.

"We could transmit the plans to the rebel fleet," K mused, before elaborating on the intricacies of the plan. "We'd have to get a signal out to tell them it's coming." He paused as he realized the difficulties of his idea, and Rowan looked up from where she'd bent over, unstrapping the greaves from her shins. Her eyes had hardened, her face paled. "It's the size of the data files," he answered the unspoken question. "That's the problem. They'll never get through." He looked to each of them, meeting their eyes. "Someone has to take that shield gate down."

Hands barely trembling, Cassian pulled his radio from his belt and held it to his lips as he paced back and forth. "Bohdi!" he cried into it. "Bohdi, can you hear me?" There was an agonizing pause. "Bohdi, tell me you're out there!" He breathed, meeting Rowan's eyes as she kicked the last of the armor into the corner, her own hands shaking violently at the fear that churned within her. "Bohdi!" he called, his eyes never leaving hers, a shared hopelessness sinking their hearts together.

The radio crackled to life, and Rowan breathed a profound sigh of relief, her eyes stinging with tears as Bohdi's voice broke through. "Hello, I'm here!" he cried, and Cassian seemed to collapse in on himself, his anxiety dissipating with the tension in his muscles. A smile broke his face before Bohdi continued speaking. "We're standing by. They've started fighting," he explained, his voice filling with dread. "The base is on lockdown."

"I know," Cassian responded, instilling as much calm into his voice as he could. "Listen to me," he commanded. "The rebel fleet is up there," a sound from Bohdi, indicating his surprise, interrupted Cassian, "You've got to tell them to blow a hole in the shield gate so we can transmit the plans."

At the other end, Bohdi breathed heavily. Rowan balled her fists in anxiety, moving to Cassian, eyes fixed on the radio. "Wait," the pilot protested. "I can't! I'm- I'm not hooked into the comms tower! We're not tied in!"

Frustration built in Cassian's eyes. "It's the only way we're getting them out of here," he urged the importance of the mission. "Find a way!"

He stuffed the radio back into his belt before looking to Rowan, then K. "Cover our backs," he told the droid, sighing deeply, his eyes conveying as much trust and compassion as he could. Rowan placed a hand on his shoulder, then turned with him to the archives, profoundly thankful she was no longer cocooned in the Stormtrooper armor and able to move freely. Behind her, she heard Jyn jog quickly to K.

"You'll need this," she told the droid, and Rowan looked back, confused, to see her handing K a small blaster. A smile split her face. "You wanted one, right?" Jyn pressed when K hesitated, urging the blaster forward into the droid's large hands.

"You're behavior, Jyn Erso," the droid said, its mechanical eyes searching her living ones, "is continually unexpected."

A pang went through Rowan's heart, and her smile lost a little of its luster, suddenly sad and far away.

"Jyn," she called gently. "Come on!"

Jyn turned to her and hurried to work beside Cassian as Rowan met the droid's eyes once more. She smiled kindly at him, and gave a small, two-fingered salute. "See you on the other side, mate."

She turned her back on the droid and jogged back to Cassian and Jyn, placing herself to the side, her blaster readied and aimed at the open door, hoping beyond hope that she wouldn't have to use it.

"Schematics Bank, Data Tower Two," K commanded, his voice filtering in through the opening.

"How do I find that?" Cassian returned, peering up through the glass at the tower of hard drives that seemed to climb endlessly up to the sky, the top shrouded by the mist of the shadowy interior and distance. There was an edge of hopelessness to his voice.

"Searching," K answered. "I can locate the tape, but you'll need the handles for extraction."

Rowan's and Cassian's gazes fell to the strange looking handles of which K spoke. They seemed like contraptions from an old video game Rowan would have seen in the arcades her and Luke had used to sneak into, and she knit her brows together in confusion.

"What are we supposed to do with these?" Cassian sighed, removing the Imperial officer's gloves and placing his hands gently into the handles, as if they were a wild animal to be tamed. He moved them gently back, and with a whoosh, the retrieving mechanism, manually controlled, she realized, by the handles, shot about the tower, up and out of view. "Whoa," Cassian breathed, jerking his hands out of the handles and staring at them with a newfound awe.

They were startled out of their amazement by the dreaded sound of footsteps behind them, and the hiss of the archive door closing. Rowan leapt to it, about to throw herself against it till she heard K's voice, muffled.

"Well, finally," the droid scolded some new, unseen, arrival, and Rowan looked back to Cassian, eyes wild as she began to fear the worst.

The same dread burned within his own gaze, and he quickly brought the radio back to his lips. "K! What's going on out there?"

They waited in stunned silence as the sound of blaster bullets ricocheting off the walls of the citadel reached their ears. Each second seemed an eternity till K's voice broke through the radio. "I'm fine," he told them. "Keep looking!"

- - -

"Hyperspace Tracking, Navigational Systems," Jyn read off into the radio as Cassian waited anxiously, hands latched onto the retrieving mechanism's handles, eyes boring into the tower before him, extending high into the building, bloodshot. Out in the hall behind them came the occasional sounds of blasters firing and the grunts of Stormtroopers as they fell to the ground, dead. The only relief to their fears for their droid friend was his voice, crackling through Cassian's radio every few seconds or so.

"Two screens down," K told Jyn. "Structural Engineering. Open that one."

Hurriedly, Jyn did, her fingers flying across the screen as she sorted through the thousands of options presented to her.

"Project code names," she read. "Stellarsphere. Mark Omega. Pax Aurora. War Mantle. Cluster Prism. Black Saber…" Her voice died away.

Cassian, who had been nodding along to the names, pondering them one by one, paused and looked to her. It took a moment for the silence to register with Rowan, too, and she turned back from her position standing guard behind them to catch a glimpse of Jyn's face. Her expression had completely transformed, her features suddenly suffused with a deep sorrow and loss as she mouthed the next name, stumbling over it before she could give it sound.

"What?" Cassian pressed gently, glancing to Rowan. The two shared an expression of concern for their friend.

"Stardust," she told him, and looked up. "That's it." Conviction was in her eyes; her voice held the soft laugh of incredulous hope.

"How do you know that?" Cassian asked, confused, though her hope was reflected in his own features.

"I know because it's me," she answered slowly, her voice barely audible in the pounding silence.

Suddenly, there was an explosion of noise behind the door, and Rowan whipped back around, expecting it to be thrown open any moment. Her grip on her blaster tightened, her eyes flashed, sharpening with a harsh focus. Blasters fired in the corridors, echoed in the great empty space of the citadel. Cries of men rang out, grunts came like cracks of thunder.

Rowan eased forward, eager to meet danger head on. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing tall, shock still as she felt that great danger she had sensed before approaching. She forced a tense calm to her muscles, convincing herself to flow with her reflexes, surrendering control to her subconscious. Her mind clear, she began to realize what this battle would cost her, and she met the price with a vengeance, readying herself for whatever would come next.

"K," Cassian called through the radio. "We need the file for Stardust."

"Stardust," K repeated, laboredly. Rowan tensed. The fighting was drawing closer. The sounds of marching footsteps seemed to come from every direction. She knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that K was surrounded, and they would soon be, too, if the Stormtroopers made it through the door.

Behind her, Jyn called out. "That's it!" She pointed to the small, blinking green light high above, and Cassian hurried to tame the retrieving mechanism beneath his hands, eyes flashing as he wrestled them into submission, moving the whirring mechanism up and about the tower, gently, tentatively guiding it to its place above the file, before he turned one handle and pushed it forward. With a satisfying hiss, the mechanism slipped into the tower of data files and emerged with the file itself, held out from its fellows. And then the lights went out and the machinery dead, immersing them in the pale glow of emergency lights.

Outside, the cacophony crescendoed, and Cassian paused, jogging to Rowan's side, fear spiking at the roar of battle that filtered in, muffled, to them. Rowan glanced over and met his eyes. Their stomachs bottomed out in fear for their friend, now trapped in a battle he could not win. The noises grew louder, Rowan could hear the unmistakeable sound of plasma bullets hitting metal, and her heart dropped as she stumbled forward to charge outside to the rescue of the droid that had become so close in the past few days. She could only imagine the raging grief that filled Cassian, but he held her back by the arm, only watching the door in desperate dread as he called to K through the radio.

There was a silence outside, and K radioed back, his voice strained with urgency. "Climb," he commanded, and Cassian looked back to the archival tower in disbelief. "Climb," K repeated. "You can still send the plans to the fleet," he pressed. "If they open the shield gate, you can still broadcast from the tower!" he shouted over the fresh sound of blasters, bursting forth from all directions. Rowan leapt toward the door, breaking free of Cassian's hold as his fingers went numb. "Locking vault door now," K radioed, and Rowan crashed into the door, crumpling against the cold metal.

Ear pressed against it, she heard the unmistakable sounds of the droid's clunking footsteps as he moved from around the control panel, into the open clearing of the hall.

Silence, profound silence fell, and from her position on the floor, Rowan met Cassian's eyes. Ravaged with a bloodshot grief, he turned from her, calling for K through the radio as he strode to the door, as if his gaze, fierce and focused, could pierce through the thick steel.

"Goodbye," K retuned, simply, and his voice was lost in the sounds of battle.

"No, no, no!" Cassian roared into the radio. "K! K!"

His voice broke, and he stumbled forward, nearly falling before Rowan shot to her feet and caught him, steadying him against herself. They remained there for a time, clinging to each other as the sounds of Stormtroopers and blasters died away, punctuated finally with a loud clang, what they could only assume to be K's body, falling in a pile to the unforgiving floor.

As if the sound, heavier than the tower that rose high above them, had shaken Cassian awake, slamming through his grief and tearing through his senses, he straightened and held the radio to his lips again, eyes burning, pacing the floor with a renewed desperation.

"Bohdi?" he called. "Are you there? Have you got the switch?"

"I can't get to the shuttle," Bohdi returned, his voice hopeless. "I can't plug in."

Cassian's eyes flashed. "You have to!" he commanded, voice firm, unyielding. "They have to hit that gate. If the shield's open, we can send the plans!"

Bohdi's voice went dead on the line, with a suddenness that they could only hope meant he had hurried to his task. Silence fell over the three. Cassian looked back to the tower, studying it. Jyn looked between him and Rowan, grief dazing her. Rowan simply glared at the glass, straightening and whipping her blaster from its place stuffed in her belt.

"Move," she commanded, voice low. Without giving them a moment to process the word, she fired a bullet at the glass, and they leapt out of the way. Air rushed in, cold and harsh as the glass fell, tinkling, to the ground several floors below.

Rowan strode forward as Cassian hurried to readjust his weaponry, and Jyn hers, preparing for the climb ahead. In the whistling wind that whipped the loose strands of Rowan's hair about her face, she suddenly felt it, like the ominous boom of a war-drum. Whatever danger she had been sensing was back, and nearer than ever before. She met Cassian's eyes, and read there the same dread. As Jyn leapt from the window, and they watched with anxious hearts her slam into the tower and catch hold of the ledges and hard drives, steadying herself as her foot slipped, Cassian grabbed hold of her arm, holding her back.

"What is it?" His voice was low, barely audible over the wind.

"I don't know," Rowan shook her head, "but it's near, and we need to go."

Cassian nodded in understanding. "You first."

He gestured to the window, offering her a hand as she climbed up onto the control panel, shut off at the locking of the door behind them. Expression grave, she took his hand, steadying herself as she faced down the tower. Above her, Jyn looked down, inching her way around the tower till she was no longer visible from the broken window. With a deep breath, Rowan tensed her muscles, slipped her blaster back into her belt, and threw herself at the tower, arms outstretched.

The wind tore at her clothes as her hands gripped the first ledge they found, and her muscles engaged, pulling and catching and rippling with the shock waves as they fought against gravity. Rowan hissed in pain, biting her lip and drawing blood, but moved on, glancing back to Cassian as she followed Jyn, creeping like a spider to the unseen half of the tower, moving steadily upward. High above, the file jutted out, and it was only the desire to reach it that brought strength to her limbs as she forced herself forward.

The sound of the archive door banging open brought her attention back to Cassian, and she watched as he, too, leapt madly at the tower, catching himself and looking back to the window.

The hair on Rowan's neck seemed to shoot straight up, and her nervous system roared its warning. Whatever the danger was, she had no doubt it lurked in the room where they had just been. Desperate to catch a glimpse, she inched her way back the way she'd come, eyes peering through the shattered glass. Below her, Cassian had drawn his blaster and was hanging onto the tower with one hand, his feet planted firmly on some hard drives below. He glanced up at Jyn and Rowan.

"Keep going!" he roared as plasma bullets began to pour from the shadowed darkness of the window. Rowan shook her head, a ball in her throat, inching down, back toward her friend.

"No," she choked, drawing her own blaster, aiming at the window, and firing back.

From the darkness rose three figures, two Deathtroopers and a man, an officer dressed in white. Alarm pounded through Rowan, her nerves going wild at this new danger, and confusion filled her as she recognized the officer: Director Krennic. But her stomach bottomed out when the man smiled, a toothy, sinister grin, his eyes fixed on Cassian and Cassian alone, firing with a struggling aim at the Deathtroopers.

Time slowed as Rowan watched Krennic raise his blaster, aim directly for Cassian, and pull the trigger.

With a cry of pain, Cassian fell, his body smacking against bars and protrusions as he plummeted through the shadows of the tower and came to a final, still, rest upon a platform far below.

"Cassian!" Rowan roared, faltering in her fire at the Deathtroopers. Krennic met her eyes, grinned wickedly once more, and turned, striding back into the darkness of the window. With a roar of anger, Rowan found her mind cleared, and fired with deadly aim upon the Deathtroopers. With cries, they fell backward, and Rowan looked back to Jyn, her eyes bloodshot, her face wild, and Jyn started.

"Keep going!" Rowan shouted over the wind. "You don't need me! Go! I'll take care of him!" She gestured wildly to the ceiling high above and spared no second glance, her eyes falling to Cassian as she slipped and slid and hurried down the tower to his limp form, splayed out upon the platform, his face turned from her.

Her heart beat wildly against her ribcage, her palms sweating, her throat clogging. She could not lose him, not now, not ever, and the fear drove her mad. She felt she were struggling against tidal waves to reach him, the wind pulling at her clothes and her hair, her eyes dazed and unfocused and wet with tears that flowed from deep within her. Her breath shallow and hard, she finally, finally, reached the platform and threw herself upon it, knees buckling as she hit the ground from high up and forcing her down to kneel beside him.

"Cassian," she whispered, taking hold of his shoulders and turning him gently over, assessing his body for any visible fatal injuries. "Cassian," she choked, begging him to wake, his eyes to open as she felt around the cauterized hole in his shoulder where he'd been hit. Sucking in a gasp at the sight of the wound, she cursed herself for not bringing ambrosia, and felt around his ribs, looking for the fractures she knew he would have suffered at such a fall.

They were there, and bad, and Rowan's heart seemed to burst from her ribs. She bit her already bleeding lip, found her eyes tracing his face once more, the kind features she had grown to know so well during her time with him, the soft hair, tangled by the breezy tower, the high cheekbones and gentle smile resting contentedly upon his lips.

She would be able to heal only the bullet wound, and even that, she knew, might be too much for her strength. But she had to try. Her breathing slowed, and some iron strength stilled within her. A sad smile touched her own lips, and her eyes slid closed as she summoned the power from deep within her gut, feeling the shadow run like a stream, refreshing and cold, to her hands. She traced the blaster wound that had torn through him, her touch feathery-light, her heart wrenching in empathy at the pain that ran its course through his veins. She poured what she could into her hand, placing her free one atop it, pressing softly into the wound, adding her hopes and prayers to the power in her veins, feeling the flesh knit itself back together, the seared burns smoothed and healed, till her eyes slid open, her job done, and she found tears had formed, clumping on her eyelashes, splashing one by one into the fabric on Cassian's chest.

Her eyes swam with exhaustion, shadow flickering in her periphery, her heart slowing, limbs weak. He had not stirred; no life had returned to his features, and her heart sunk. Desperation flickered to life within her, and she did what she could to repress the panic building in her mind.

She placed a trembling hand on his cheek, rubbing the cheekbone, whispering his name, eyes searching his face in jerky, not quite focused movements, glazed with the battle against her anxieties. He did not move, still limp, and her heart began to beat rapidly against her ribcage as she fought against her fears. She scanned the small platform till her eyes came to rest on the wall to her right, partially shielded from the biting winds of the tower. Forcing herself to her feet, she stood, looking back to Cassian's injured body and steeling herself against hope.

She knelt once more, this time wrapping her arms about his chest and pulling him to her own in a strange embrace as she crawled, her muscles trembling with exhaustion from her use of shadow to heal his wounds and her exertions climbing the tower. It became easier as the wind died, once they passed the first edge of her temporary shelter and it could no longer pull at her or Cassian. With a steady exhale, she lowered him against the wall, letting his head fall gently back against the steel, cushioning it with her palm. She paused there once more, and her hand moved softly to his cheek, pouring as much warmth into the touch as she could.

"Cassian," she whispered, begging him to wake. "Cassian." The name fell from her lips softly, tenderly, desperately. "Cassian," she said again, this time louder, her voice breaking. "I need you to wake up, mate," she choked. "Please wake up."

But there was no movement in his body except for the remaining breeze gently sifting through his clothes, and her head fell, defeated, exhausted, onto his chest, listening with a desperate hope to the faint heartbeat that fluttered there, wishing she might strengthen it by some force of will, but knowing she had nothing left to give. It was that that broke her, and the tears began to flow, breaking forth with a choking sob as she remembered K-2 and his sacrifice, and, further back, Leo and his. So caught up in the pain that her life had brought her, she found herself longing for Luke even more, wishing she could go back to the days of innocent and laughing joy they had once known, even in the midst of danger. She felt her heart slowly tearing to shreds, and she huddled nearer to Cassian, pressing her face into his chest, breathing in the familiar smell of his ship, biting her lip in an effort to stem the burning streams of tears that raced down her cheeks.

- - -

Luke and Clover trudged at a half-run, the best they could manage in all the chaos, through the warring mess that was Scarif's surface, blasters ready and firing at each approaching Stormtrooper they encountered, till they came across a clearing. It might once have been beautiful, but it had been torn apart by the bombs and blaster fire that that ravaged the whole planet. The soil, once packed and smooth, had been churned and ripped up.

As Clover stared in horror, Luke hissed, a plasma bullet grazing his arm and ripping through the fabric of his jacket. Glancing to the right, he saw that rolls in the dirt hid a large troop of Stormtroopers, and then he noticed the streaks of red that flew maddeningly across the open clearing, slamming into a wall on the other end, where he could just catch a glimpse of the rebels that hid there, pressed into the grooves and corners of it, sheltered from the blaster fire.

Hope building, Luke tackled Clover to the ground, the air rushing from his lungs as he hit the dirt. Clover choked, spitting the stuff from his mouth and looking to Luke, offense burning in his eyes.

"What'd you do that for?" the satyr exclaimed, moving to get up, before Luke pushed him back into the ground and gestured to the rebels, hidden in the wall. Clover stopped spluttering.

"We need to get to them," Luke shouted over the explosions about them, his hand finding its grip on his blaster beneath him. Wordlessly, Clover nodded, all astonishment dissipating from his face, replaced with an expression of iron determination.

Together, they inched forward, army crawling through the brush on the outskirts of the clearing, their eyes fixed on the rebels ahead. Suddenly, one of them glanced over, and nearly jumped out of his skin, meeting Luke's bloodshot gaze. He elbowed his compatriot urgently, and the man looked over, starting, too. Luke couldn't help but smirk. A question formed upon the man's face, and he signed something to Luke, but in the flurry of movement and the dirt that was thrown up and rained down upon the clearing, he could not understand the motions. He inched forward, trying hard to get a better view of the man, but suddenly fear spasmed across his face and he frantically waved Luke back from the clearing, shouting something to him, but it was lost in the roar of the blasters about him.

"What?" Luke hollered back, eyebrows knit together in alarm, till he became aware of Clover tugging on his sleeve once more, gesturing to Luke's right. He looked over, baffled, expecting some new threat, but what met his eyes only served to deepen his confusion. There, walking slowly through the clearing with a measured, unfaltering pace, was a blind man, staff clutched in his hands, held before him with the type of discipline Luke would have expected out of a karate movie, all the while muttering to himself. The words were lost in the cacophony, but his lips formed the same shapes repeatedly, some type of mantra the man seemed to cling to.

Mesmerized, Luke could not pull his eyes away, as if he were watching, on the edge of his seat, some thriller, waiting, ever waiting for the fatal gunshot. But all the plasma bullets missed the man, even though they rained like hellfire on the clearing. Bombs cast up the dirt, and shaded the man from their eyes, but each time, he re-emerged, unharmed, undaunted, still moving toward the small console, surprisingly undamaged, that stood at the center of the clearing.

Luke moved slowly, pulling his walkie talkie from his pocket, looking even more battered than it had before. He brought it to his lips, dragging his arm beneath his body weight, moving discreetly as possible, eyes now flicking back and forth between the blind man and the Stormtroopers, reinforcements advancing ominously behind them through the ash and dust.

"Romulus," he muttered. A moment later, and the werewolf answered. Clover and Luke sighed in relief.

"I'm here," came the low voice. "It's a mess from up here."

"Yeah," Luke's eyes flashed. "We're gonna need a ride outta here," he added, glancing up to the skies above, but still unable to see the ship.

"On it," Romulus returned, his voice hardened, emotionless. Luke breathed easier as he returned the walkie talkie to his pocket and his eyes found the man once more. He had reached the console, his fingers moving nimbly through the buttons and switches till they came to firmly rest upon the switch. As the man began to push the switch forward with some effort, a flurry of movement back on Luke's left caused him to jerk his head in that direction. A large man was rising out of the huddled rebels, armed to the teeth with a repeating cannon he held in powerful arms like a gun, cooling tank strapped to his back, chained to the gun by a series of rounds. It was the most powerful handheld weapon Luke had ever seen, and he could not help his jaw dropping at the sight.

The man was roaring something, and Luke strained to hear it, looking back and forth between the blind man and the massive one.

"Chirrut!" he yelled, leveling his blaster at the Stormtroopers, and firing upon them with concentrated anger. The cannon rattled off the shots in his arms, shaking his tree-like body. Luke raised his eyebrows, impressed. Suddenly, there was frantic shouting from the rebels, and even the large man started, looking to the space above Luke and Clover's heads. They, too, looked up, but relief suffused their features, vastly different from the fear that paled those of the rebels.

Romulus had arrived, the belly of the ship sinking through the trees to the clearing, where the Stormtroopers were now scrambling out of the way. Luke and Clover stood together, eyes fixed on the descending ship as it moved over and above them, lowering slowly into the churned dirt. Remembering the blind man and the large one, Luke leapt out of the undergrowth, hurrying about the ship, searching for the pair. He located them on the opposite side of the ship's belly, the massive man blinking harshly against the dirt thrown up by the ship's engines.

"Hey!" Luke shouted, waving an arm toward them, squinting against the wind, shielding his face. "Hey!" he roared again, and the blind man looked to him. "We need your help!" He was surprised his voice could rise above the engine's, and eagerly gestured them into the ship's belly where Clover waited, gripping the edge of the open door, his other arm outstretched to help the first of the rebels.

The large man smiled brightly and hurried forward against the battering winds, helping his blind friend toward the ship. As they passed him, trudging through the soft dirt, the large man patted Luke heavily on the back, and he stumbled forward at the strength of the blow.

"Thank you!" he boomed mightily, and Luke grinned and flipped him a thumbs-up in turn, before scrambling back the way he'd come, waving madly at the group of huddled rebels.

"Come on!" he roared, gesturing wildly at the ship. "Come on!"

The man who had first made eye contact with him came first, standing slowly, eyes peeled for approaching Stormtroopers, then he turned back to his men and began to fire off orders, waving them in the direction of Luke and the ship. Cheering, they jogged forward through the dirt and the wind, each of them patting Luke's shoulder as they passed him and were helped into the ship by Clover, who waited only for his young charge. The commanding rebel followed his troop last, and Luke joined him as he jogged to the ship, leaving his death behind with a laughing heart.

"Thanks," the rebel breathed as they moved together.

"No problem," Luke returned, momentarily taken aback by the Irish accent that touched the man's voice.

He followed the man into the ship, and the door slammed closed behind them, submersing them into a pale light as Romulus called from the front in an agitated, but controlled voice.

"Where to next?"

Luke looked to the rebel captain and the others clustered there. "I'm looking for my sister," he told them. "Her name's Rowan Castellan, and I was told she'd be here. Do you know where she is?" He hoped beyond hope she was still alive.

The rebel captain's face lit up in recognition of the name. "We do," he reassured Luke, gripping the man's shoulder. "But we'll need someone else to get you her exact location," he continued, warning against the hope that rose to life in Luke's eyes. The demigod nodded, understanding, before he gestured to the cockpit.

"Guide them," he told the rebel, before looking back to the men. To his right, he caught the eyes of Clover, and a shared anticipation moved like a current between them as he let out a breath he hadn't known he'd held.