Rogue One one-shot. Friendship can take many forms.

A/N: Have been struggling trying to get inspired to write something, anything, but without success. Then this idea came to me and wouldn't leave me alone. Which naturally meant I was up late writing it and thus late to bed. Ah well. What else is new?

Friends

"Jyn Erso, I must speak with you."

As usual the droid wasn't one for much conversation. "All right, K. What is it?"

"Not here." He hesitated and looked around, almost nervously. "In…private."

That was a new one. Before she could respond, he turned and marched off. "Follow me."

As much as she liked to argue with the snarky droid, she got the feeling this time she should cooperate.

"Where are we going?" Surely it didn't take this long to find a private spot to talk.

K-2 didn't slow down in the slightest. "Follow me."

She quickened her pace. Her shorter legs were starting to make her fall behind his long stride.

To her surprise, he led her to Cassian's quarters and keyed in the door command. Slowly she followed him into the room.

"Okay, so what's so important? And secretive?" She grinned at him.

"Cassian is on a classified mission."

"Yeah, I know he is. So?"

"General Draven and the others in Intelligence will not provide any information as to his whereabouts or his situation."

She sighed. "Yeah, I know that, too. I've tried more than once to get anything out of anyone. The best I can determine is that he's overdue in returning."

"He is – by nearly a week. They have lost communication with him and they are concerned."

"Draven told you that?" she asked skeptically.

"No…I…found out on my own."

"Uh huh. Okay, K, spill. You found out something somewhere about Cassian. What is it?"

"I know what planet he is on, but he may need assistance. However, I do not know of a way to provide it to him." The droid looked away from her, then added, "I thought perhaps…you would have suggestions."

"So if no one in Intelligence will tell you anything, how did you find out that much?"

"I…may have…discovered information in the computer mainframe, while working in the comm center."

She grinned. "Meaning you sliced into Intelligence files! Looks like I'm a bad influence on you, K!"

"I am…concerned…about Cassian."

She plopped down on Cassian's bunk, thinking. "We'd need a ship, and at least a small crew. You got any details at all about his situation?"

"He is overdue, though there has been no distress message sent and nothing has been heard on Imperial frequencies suggesting a spy was captured."

"Could he have finished his mission, but had to go to ground because he couldn't get off planet?"

"That is one possibility. Unfortunately, Intelligence does not have much information in order to determine that."

"But you can find him? If I get you in the vicinity?"

"I should be able to do so, yes."

"Yeah? What percent chance?"

The droid looked down, before admitting, "I estimate a 63.8% chance of success."

Those were awfully low odds for K-2 to think this was a good option to pursue. He really must be concerned.

She stood. "Okay, I'll see what I can come up with. Don't say anything to anyone about this. Just keep doing whatever you've been doing in Cassian's absence, including trying to get someone to tell you if they've heard from him. Make it appear we never had this conversation and you know nothing."

"Understood." He watched her walk toward the door, but before she keyed it open, he asked, "How long before we can do something?"

"Not sure. I'm making this up as I go."

xx

"I really think this is worthwhile, Leia. If my friend is right, we could pick up much needed supplies. I found out Bodhi is on base and available, and the Guardians are willing to come and help out. What do you say?"

"Very well, but keep it as brief as possible. You're sure about this 'friend'?"

Jyn shrugged. "As much as we can be sure about anyone. He's got no love for the Empire, I'm sure of that."

"All right. Depart as soon as your team is ready."

"I was wondering, could we take K-2 also? Cassian isn't on base so he doesn't need him. The droid could come in handy to help us move the supplies if we get them."

General Draven was entering the command center and Leia turned to him. "General, do you have any objections if I send K-2 on a mission with Sergeant Erso?"

Draven snorted. "None at all. Get him out of my hair. I'm tired of his bothering me for information."

Jyn nodded to each of them and departed, repressing her grin until she was out of sight down the hall. She stopped by the comms room. "K, hey K – come on. You're going with me and my team. General Draven approved it."

"Understood." The droid followed her out without argument or questions, possibly a first for him.

As she led the way to the hangar, she muttered, "Got it. We're on our way."

The other three were awaiting them at the shuttle. Bodhi had been expected, but no doubt Chirrut had led Baze there for no apparent reason, with his repeater cannon.

"Guys. We have a mission. I'll brief you en route."

"We're leaving now?" Bodhi asked. "I didn't realize it would be so soon."

"Is that a problem," she replied.

"No, no, the ship's ready. Yeah, okay, I guess we're good to go. Do we, uh…have launch clearance?"

"The mission is sanctioned. Get us in the air and I'll give you a destination. Launch control doesn't need that."

The pilot's eyes narrowed, but he nodded and moved toward the cockpit. "Get settled in then."

K-2 took up the co-pilot seat while the others found places in the cargo area. Once they cleared atmosphere, Bodhi called back, "Okay, where to now?"

"Leave it to K. He'll program it in for you. Come join us back here and I'll explain our mission."

A few minutes later, Bodhi let his head thunk back against the wall as he rubbed his hands over his face.

"Bodhi? Are you okay with this?"

Slowly he dropped his hands, and then nodded. "It's Cassian, right? We can't leave him hanging…"

"But?"

"Well, I'm just a little scared what Draven will do to us when he finds out. He isn't going to be happy."

"That's why we're going through the motions of my cover story. After all, you're just the pilot, following my orders. We are going to Cyphar first, I'll go into town alone to meet with my contact. Then we'll continue on to Ogem where the supplies are supposed to be available. At that point, we will discover it is a bust – my contact was misinformed – but we happen to find Cassian during our recon. If he waves us off and appears to be fine, we'll leave. But if he needs assistance, we'll be available. Not our fault we happened to end up on the very planet where Cassian was on his secret mission."

Baze snorted. "Yeah. General Draven is going to believe that."

Jyn shrugged. "Doesn't matter. What can he do without proof? We requested a mission and got permission for it; we seemingly carried out that mission. We simply got different results than anticipated by command."

Baze smirked at her, but said no more. He knew if anyone could pull this off, it would be Jyn.

xxxxx

"Erso!"

She stopped and turned. "Yes, General Draven?"

He moved in closer to her before saying. "You knew where he was. How did you find out?"

"Knew where who was, sir?"

Draven's scowl deepened. "You know very well who I mean. How did you find out where Andor was?"

"It was a fluke. We went to meet with my contact as planned, and he directed us to Ogem for the supplies he'd mentioned. How could we know we'd run into Cassian there? Even if that was his assignment, there was no reason we should have crossed paths. And if he hadn't flagged us for help, we would have walked away as though we didn't know him."

"Did you slice the Intelligence files? Don't lie to me."

"No, sir, I did not. I'm a forger, not a slicer."

"I'm sure you have some slicing skills," he told her skeptically.

She shrugged. "Some, yes, but if I cracked your security mainframe with them, you've got bigger problems to worry about than why my mission accidentally intersected with Cassian's. I would assume your security protocols are far beyond anything I might manage."

His eyes bored into her, as though trying to read the lie, but Jyn had plenty of experience in giving nothing away.

"Who was your contact? Their name?"

She shook her head. "I can't tell you that. An old friend, from when I spent time with Saw. He wouldn't want me handing out his name to the Rebellion. And it was good intel we got, he just didn't know things had changed on Ogem before we got there."

"You know I don't believe you for one minute. I'll be keeping an eye on you."

"So what else is new…sir? You haven't believed or trusted me since the first time I met you. Why start now." She shrugged with disinterest, and the General stalked away.

She found Bodhi in the hangar, still edgy. "Everything okay? Did you, uh, did you give your mission report?"

"Yes. Just like we discussed. Draven doesn't buy it, but that's nothing unexpected." She clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it. If he asks you any questions, tell him exactly what you did. You flew us to Cyphar, I left the ship for over an hour, and when I returned I gave you new instructions of where to go. Once on Ogem, you stayed with the ship. The next thing you knew Cassian was aboard and we were leaving. I'd told you we were misled about the supplies. That's all you know."

"What about Chirrut and Baze?"

"Unlikely Draven would try to question them, but neither will give anything up. Stick to the story and you'll be fine. You were just following orders from a senior officer."

He blew out a breath. "Yeah, okay." He wiggled his shoulders trying to work out the tension. "Just, don't do this to me too often, okay? I'm not sure my heart could take it."

xx

"Did you give your report?"

Jyn looked up from working out with the heavy bag. She liked coming to use the training room when it was empty, like now, though it put her here at odd times.

"I did."

"And? Did they ask about your informant?"

"Sure. Draven in particular. I just said I got the information from an old friend."

There were several minutes of silence as she continued to punch. When the droid said nothing but also didn't leave, she paused again to look at him. "What?"

"You told him I was a friend?"

She grinned. "Of course not. I didn't give him a name. I couldn't exactly tell him Cassian's snarky droid sliced his systems, could I? Had to call you something without too much detail."

The droid still lingered. At length he asked, "Am I? Do you consider me a friend, Jyn Erso?"

She cocked her head to the side and smiled. "You're rude, argumentative and very stubborn, but you care about Cassian as much as I do. So, yeah, I consider you a friend." She laughed. "Whether you want to be or not."

Another long silence prevailed, then K-2 turned away. Almost too quietly for her to hear, he muttered, "That is acceptable."

End

4-12-19