Per usual, I broke my last promise to you all, and terribly so. I got my head into my other fic, The Hobbit: A Forgotten Chapter (give it a read, it's just getting good!) and got carried away on that unexpected journey. I am very much at a crossroads as far this story goes. I am trying to time everything out right as we alternate between present and flashbacks.
Anyway, please enjoy!
0 BBY
HYPERSPACE
Cassian was meticulous. With a job that had him brushing elbows with death on a daily basis, it was no wonder. Many years of this truth grinding away at his humanity had left him not much of anything on which to depend.
Ben would perhaps be the exception to this, but there were years Cassian remembered too vividly when he had not even had her to lean on. A block of time, dark and impassable, when she had been far, far away from him, in the most literal and physical sense imaginable.
In those years especially, Cassian had assumed the necessity of remaining "by-the-book," regardless of the price paid. The Alliance's secret was the same as the Empire's. Order. It kept everyone alive—or at least gave them a better chance of staying that way. Commands were to be obeyed, the Rebellion's precepts upheld at every cost. For Cassian, the rules were simple, as long as he didn't think too hard about what he was asked to do. The rules were his safety, his numb default. In the blackest of times, they were his tremulous link to sanity.
It was because of this that it came as such a shock to Cassian when he found himself doubting his orders to kill Galen Erso. This was not the slight twinge he had felt back on Yavin 4. It was a deep pang from somewhere in his chest. Even as he relayed his message to base, it stabbed and tugged and prickled at the back of his neck.
"Weapon confirmed," he whispered. "Jedha destroyed. Mission target located on Eadu. Please advise."
With every word he whispered into the mic, he felt like he was being torn farther and farther in two. No order should feel this wrong, but the rules did not tolerate conscience.
It was something about this girl, this impossible and friendless girl. She was rude and hard and angry, and yet back on Jedha, he had seen a different person. She had risked a dash through blaster fire to save a little girl in the middle of the street. The next minute, she had singlehandedly taken out five stormtroopers (three of those with just her baton), and a K-2SO unit (thankfully not theirs). Only a little while later she had left her childhood behind to die with her guardian and friend, Saw Gerrera, staring down the wall of destruction that hurtled at them from across the Jedha desert.
Because of her, they had made it this far. Because of her, they had Bodhi Rook, the defector Imperial pilot and key to the Erso plans (Cassian couldn't imagine a man like him having enough courage to pet a Bantha, let alone betray the Empire, but sure enough, here he was). Because of her, and the kyber crystal around her neck, they had two new allies in Chirrut Îmwe, a blind but no less capable warrior monk, and Baze Malbus, the ill-tempered assassin who passed as his companion. Because of her, they had not been killed immediately by Saw Gerrera's men, and had been released in time to escape Jedha. Because of her, they were all together, still breathing—
—and en route to kill her father.
Cassian watched her from the edge of his vision. She sat with her hands folded in front of her mouth, the dust of the dead planet still caked in her hair. Those green eyes were closed. They had remained dry for the entirety of their journey as far as he had seen, though he had watched her lose almost everything on that planet. It seemed, though, it had only fired her drive to continue. There had been a hologram, she claimed, one that alluded to a weakness in this planet killer they had all now seen for themselves. Heresay wouldn't fly with the Council. Jyn claimed if they brought her father back to Yavin, he could tell them exactly what the weakness was. He could be the key to it all, and yet the Alliance wanted him dead. That pang of doubt stabbed through Cassian's chest again. It was something about this girl…
A burst of static assaulted his ears. "Orders still stand," said the grainy voice. "Proceed with haste. Stick to the plan." Cassian let his head fall towards his chest as it grew heavier and heavier.
"Understood," he said, then hung up the headpiece and turned to Kay. "Set course for Eadu."
"Setting course for Eadu."
"Is that where my father is?" The girl was leaning toward him. Her eyes were so big they could have swallowed him.
"I think so." Cassian felt his features slip into impassivity. A dirty line of work, he reminded himself. No conscience.
The Imperial pilot began to speak, but Cassian was hardly listening. A matter of hours had passed since their departure from Yavin 4 and already his world was tilting off its axis. He didn't know which way was up. He didn't know what to think anymore. There is more than one sort of prison, captain, Chirrut had said back on Jedha. I sense that you carry yours wherever you go. He had guessed uncomfortably right. The monk's milky eyes twitched toward him now, as if he sensed Cassian was thinking about him. Captain Andor turned quickly away.
A few hours' time was hardly enough for him, but at the end of it, they had nearly reached Eadu. The stars were still bright lines outside the U-wing's windscreen when he began to type at the little keypad on the comm console. Today, he needed more than the answers the book could give him.
YAVIN 4
Davits Draven was no stranger to insubordination. Sooner or later, stresses of the job got the best of everyone. He had suffered outbursts and tantrums and blatant disregard, but never had he witnessed such an unnerving silence as Benduday Andor's. Hers was a constant, wordless defiance, and yet it raged there in her eyes. They saw right through his orders and his general's stars. They saw right through everything, and that's what made her dangerous.
Defector.
He didn't know why, but the word came to mind every time he laid eyes on her. It rolled off of her in waves, like she was charging some deep and innate disobedience that would one day break seething through that tranquil exterior.
He had just given the order for Cassian to proceed with the original mission when he felt her presence. Even from the shadows, her silent dissention filled the room. His soldiers were nervous enough as it was, their faces pale in the gloom. She didn't need to be here for this. Once his orders had been relayed, Draven paced across the war room to her, steeling himself.
The sight of the datapad in her hands made his breath stick momentarily in his throat. She appeared not to notice his approach, as she frowned down at it.
"Lieutenant Andor." Her head snapped up, tawny hair falling into her eyes.
"Sir." The datapad disappeared behind her back. It distracted Draven just long enough to overlook the bitter derision in her tone.
"Mobilize Red Squadron pending departure for Eadu," he said. "Any loss of contact is grounds for deployment. If they succeed, they will need all the help they can get to make it back."
"If, sir?" It seemed she couldn't hold back her disdain any more than Draven could hold back his outrage. He pressed his thin lips into a line.
"Yes, lieutenant," he said through his teeth. "If." He impaled her with his stare as best he could. "You have your orders." He turned his back to her, and after a moment, he felt her go.
Ben clutched the datapad to her chest wherever she went. General Draven had known when he saw her in the war room. Red Squadron knew when she entered the hangar. Bravo Team knew when they passed her in the hall. Everyone knew, but no one said anything. She didn't always do it, but when she did, it meant she felt something bad was going to happen. Today, she felt it in her bones. Wherever she went, people saw she carried it, like a little tawny-haired omen.
Years ago, she and Cassian had cooked up a special coding system for exchanging messages, only for emergencies. One had never come up. Today, though, was apparently different. A few hours of restless pacing around base and Ben was heading back to the control room when it happened. A tiny red light began to flash on the datapad. She halted in the hallway just outside the control room and stared at for a moment before turning the screen on. A strange cool tide flooded through her body.
-Tell me what to do-
That's all it said, but it meant everything to her. By now she had caught on to what was going on. It wasn't like Draven at all to risk good soldiers for an Imperial officer. They weren't going to Eadu to save Galen Erso. Cassian was meant to kill him, right in front of the man's own daughter. Ben smiled now, despite the dread in her bones, despite the blasted scars on her face, and despite the war that had given them both to her.
He trusted her again, and for now, that was enough. She began to type, lost in thought. What had changed? After a moment, her smile widened. It was the girl. Something about that green-eyed girl…
A couple seconds after pressing send, Ben reentered the war room and lost her reason to smile.
"Try them again," Draven told the technician at the comm.
"I am, sir, we—the signal's gone dead."
Dead. The cool, soothing tide receded as quickly as it had come, and Ben felt her heart begin to sink. Death was always a possibility, she told herself. Hadn't they decided that a long time ago?
"Squadron up." Draven's words cut her like vibro-daggers. "Target Eadu."
But she realized it wasn't this turn of events that weighed on her heart. It was the fact that Cassian was so far away. He was alone and she couldn't do anything. She would never get there in time.
He's not alone, said a voice somewhere in the back of her head. She eyed Draven for a moment before turning to leave. Something about that girl…
EADU
Bodhi Rook didn't know why these things always happened to him. He paused for a moment to wipe some of the rain from his eyes before continuing. He liked to think he was born to be the butt of some big cosmic joke, but he told himself that he couldn't be the only one. He hadn't asked for any of it, after all.
He had started out as a Jedha native with a spotty record and a permanent hangover. The Empire had promised him direction. Structure. He never knew he craved it, needed it, until he had signed up. After that, all he wanted to do was fly. He trained for two years and was denied admission into the starfighter program before eventually landing the position of cargo pilot back on Jedha. He learned that ignorance was a luxury. The less he knew the better.
Three years later, Galen Erso stepped onto his ship and into his life, and it was all over. The anonymity, the security, the oblivion. All of it. Of all the cargo shuttles in all the Galaxy, Galen Erso stepped onto his, and the day he did was the day Bodhi Rook joined the war.
And it hadn't been a graceful joining either (more like an inexorable dragging). Then again, nothing about Bodhi's life had ever been truly graceful. He cursed as he lost his footing on a slippery rock and scraped his shins from ankle to knee. He allowed himself one moment on the ground, biting back a groan of pain, before pushing himself back to his feet.
No, as a matter of fact, it all started with food. Bodhi had walked into the mess hall on Eadu and gotten immediately overwhelmed by the number of options available to him. He had resorted to asking the nearest officer for advice on what was good. Like the punch line of another cosmic joke, that officer was Galen Erso. How was he to know? Such a tired and defeated-looking man he seemed and yet he carried such a precious secret, one that could change the tides of war, but only if it was delivered in time. And time was fast running out for Galen Erso. Direct carrier was his only chance of getting it to the Alliance, and the moment that Bodhi asked him if the breakfast flatcakes were any good, he had unwittingly volunteered himself as pigeon. And Bodhi had done his job. Yet, he had found that in doing so, he could never go back to the way things were. He could never reclaim that sweet ignorance.
And so here he was, stumbling on through the dark and the rain, expected to find a conveniently unattended Imperial ship to steal. Simple, right? He laughed humorlessly to himself, the rain streaming down his face and flooding into his open mouth. He may be a pilot, and a defector at that, but that didn't make him anything close to a thief. Finding a ship had been the easy part. An SW-0608 Imperial Shuttle, but very heavily attended, and thus very hard to steal.
He headed for the wreckage of the U-wing first to grab his things. No use raising any alarms before they absolutely had to. He ducked into the hull, dripping and breathless, expecting to see the remaining four members of the crew. Gone. Did no one know how to obey orders? He turned confusedly toward the cockpit, yelling in surprise when he saw two glowing round eyes staring back at him from the darkness. He fell back onto the durasteel floor as they hovered closer.
"Have your equilibrium sensors malfunctioned?" A round metal face appeared around the eyes as they slid into the dim blue light of the hull.
He looked up at it, thinking he would never get used to looking at this droid as a rebel. The sight of the white Imperial insignia on that shoulder would always be a reminder of who he had betrayed.
"No, I—"
"Have you found us a ship yet?" This blasted droid really needed a systems overhaul.
"What?"
If those light receptors could have rolled. "You are a pilot, are you not, Bodhi Rook?" They twitched, eyeing him up and down. "Did your defecting render you incapable of flight?"
Bodhi was so enraged he could hardly speak. He scrambled indignantly to his feet. "As a matter of fact I have found a ship, so you can just cool your power core, alright?"
His outburst surprised them both into silence. The glowing round receptors regarded him once more, completely unreadable.
"Just as I thought." The droid drew back into the shadows and continued restoring the comm system. Bodhi wasn't sure what he meant, but he didn't really have enough energy to care.
"Who the pfassk programmed you?" he muttered under his breath.
His entire frame shivered with the damp as he crossed the hull. When he bent to grab his bag, his vision went momentarily black. He stood slowly and shook his head to clear it, trying to remain calm. Bor Gullet. He shuddered, but not because of the damp this time. If he allowed himself, he could still feel the slimy tentacles around his head, grasping at his face. Few places in his mind had been left unravished by that creature, and he feared the damage may be permanent. He smiled to himself, still waiting for his eyes to clear. Just another cosmic joke. Just another helping of unlucky.
He blinked hard as his vision returned. Then something up near the cockpit caught his eye. It was the communications console the captain had used earlier to contact his rebel base. There was a yellow button blinking to the right of the keypad.
"What's this?" he asked. The droid turned and looked at the button.
"A new message. It is typed, not an audio transmission."
Bodhi pushed the button and sure enough, a series of numbers and letters typed themselves across the black screen. Encrypted. Bodhi hesitated, then pulled a datapad out of his bag, connected it to the screen, and began typing on the keyboard. He had told no one as of yet, but Galen's reasons for choosing him were not just because of his low profile. They were also because of his decoding skills. Somewhere amidst the illicit gamblings and drunken escapades of his youth, Bodhi had learned hacking from some of the vilest under lords Jedha had to offer. They were wicked to be certain, but they were good at what they did. As far as Bodhi Rook was concerned—and indeed, Galen Erso as well—he had learned from the very best.
A few minutes later, he stared down at the decoded message. He didn't know who sent it, where it had come from, or what it was in response to. It read:
-What would you do if it was our father-
He only had a moment to frown before the comms came back up.
"By the Maker," said the droid.
"What?"
"Red Squadron is here."
Bodhi's stomach dropped. He didn't need to look, he just knew it was time to go. He started gathering supplies wondering how in the Void a defector pair such as themselves were going to steal that ship.
"Cassian?" said the droid into the mic. "Cassian, can you hear me?"
Screw the book.
Cassian didn't know if it was the appearance of Krennic, or Galen trying to protect his engineers before they were shot down for something they didn't do, or if there had always been a small bit of defector blood coursing through his veins. He hardly cared anymore.
He squinted at Galen Erso's head through the rangefinder he had taken from Ben's hand. It seemed like years ago now.
Screw the kriffing book.
In a darker time, he had lived by it, out of pure necessity. For years after that time passed, he continued to rely on it. As he lay there alone on that Force-forsaken sithspit of wet rock, he realized he was a fool. His reason for living all this time was not a cause or a set of rules. His reason was a little girl. He had found her in a field on Bakura a thousand years ago. He was neglecting the one person he should have always, always let in.
Cassian. It was that high little voice, hushed to a whisper.
He took his eye from the blaster scope. In that moment, he felt himself falling, his world spinning away from his control, his life turning itself inside out. Then everything happened at once.
He looked through his macrobinoculars and saw that Galen was on the ground, Krennic bending over him. He felt a stab of pain in his ribs at the sight of that pristine white cloak.
Then he spotted her, the dark-haired girl, slipping through the stormy Eadu night.
Then Kay's voice said his name over the commlink, heralding the approach of rebel starfighters.
Then he looked back at the girl standing there on the platform and decided he couldn't lose her.
Then the fighters were upon them, kindling the darkness with mean streaks of red.
"Jyn. No!"
There is always a choice.
One moment, Cassian was falling. The next moment, his feet hit solid ground. He threw away the rules, released his hold on sanity. He ran to the girl in the rain, whispered "come on" in her ear the way he had done so many years ago when his own life was burning behind him.
He never saw the message Ben had sent, but he didn't need to. He knew he had done it right. All along, he had had her to lean on, and it had taken an entirely different person to show him that. That person ran beside him through the rain. She had dark hair and green eyes that could burn holes through metal.
Those same eyes spat fire at him. As he returned with his own anger, he saw something there mingled with the fire. It was pain. It sent shudders through his being, tremors that put cracks in the stones he had laid so carefully long ago.
How she must hate him for what he had done. She would loathe him for the rest of their lives, but it hardly mattered to him anymore.
There is always hope.
All along, he had had someone to lean on. Her name was Benduday. She was thousands of light years away.
And now as he looked at the sodden girl with the lost green eyes, he realized he had finally found someone to bring down his walls.
I like this chapter. It felt like a bunch of little vignettes stitched together, and it was nice getting into a different character's head as well. I like to think Bodhi's mind moves pretty fast, both out of nerves and intelligence, so I threw in some one-worded sentences. And fun fact: in the Rogue One novel, it is revealed that Bodhi first met Galen by asking him which food was good in the meal line.
