A saga this story may not be, but, to paraphrase Master Yoda and old Star Wars taglines, continue it does.

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"As I told you 22 times before, Captain…" the disembodied voice drones on, but Jyn cuts it off with an excited greeting.

"K2! Is it really– "

It is Cassian's turn to stop her mid-sentence with a warning hand.

"K?" Cassian asks with a set face, unable, or unwilling, to filter caution out of his tone. She cannot see how it could possibly be anyone else but K, but for an intel operative, being suspicious must come with the territory.

"Yes, Cassian?"

The monotonous delivery does not suit K at all; kind of ironic, considering that he is a mechanical being.

"When and where did I find you?"

"You mean when you first found me, Cassian?"

"Yes."

"You and your partner, Mako Towani, found me at Kuat Drive Yards, Imperial calendar year 12, week 27, at nineteen thirty four standard time."

"How long ago is that?" He must be too worn out by pain to make sense of the Imperial calendar.

"Standard Coruscant time?"

"Yes." Had Cassian been his normal self he would have snapped; instead, the word comes out as a sigh.

"Eight years, eleven weeks and one hundred and six hours ago."

Cassian looks a good deal less concerned by now, but apparently is not quite finished with the test.

"What were we doing?"

"You and Mako infiltrated the shipyard impersonating Imperial cadets on a study trip from Carida Academy. You later told me it was one of your first missions with Alliance Intelligence. Your real task was to steal Victory-class Star Destroyer plans and technical specifications. You were on your way back to your shuttle when you saw me in power down mode on a repulsorlift trolley awaiting maintenance for a faulty joint, and decided to steal me. Mako reprogrammed me and sixty-one weeks later you imprinted me with his voice when he– "

"All right, I believe you." By now there is no mistaking the relief in his voice.

"I am glad to hear it, Cassian. And I am glad you took the time to verify my identity. Jyn, you should be more careful before trusting unfamiliar voices."

She laughs despite herself. Cassian may have wisely chosen the cautious approach, but K's peculiar direct manner was pretty unmistakable from the outset.

As if on cue, K picks up where he had left off when Cassian had first interrupted him.

"But as I told you 22 times before, Cassian, doing a blind reverse-coordinate hyperspace jump has a very high probability of fail– "

"You know I don't care about the odds, K."

"I know, Cassian. But it does not mean you are right ignoring them the way you do."

Cassian makes a credible attempt at an eye-roll, presumably for her benefit as it is pretty obvious K cannot see him.

"I've survived this far."

"You and Jyn would both be dead if it hadn't been for me ordering the pilot crew and guard squad away from this shuttle."

"How in the galaxy did you manage that? And where in blazes are you?"

Jyn can guess K's answer to the first question, but the second has her baffled, too.

"I checked the arrival log when we reached the data terminal at the vault, and it occurred to me that this shuttle could be a quick way to reach Rogue One if the railcar link to the landing pad should fail. I then generated a message in the system calling the pilots and guards away."

"Good thinking."

"I was going to tell you about it but did not have time. I am glad you noticed it on your own. .As for where I am, it depends on what you mean."

"Which part of where are you do you find confusing, K?"

"My body is still on Scarif."

"Then how are you– " Jyn jumps in.

"When I received data showing that Director Krennic was coming up with reinforcements, I re-ran the probability calculation and saw that I had a zero-point-zero-two percent chance of survival in my original body. So I uploaded a full copy of my memory to the data bank on board this shuttle as a backup plan, with a self-erase trigger if Imperial troops discovered me. I hoped that you and Jyn would be able to join me, but in any event I thought that a fifteen-thousand-in-one chance of being found by Alliance forces was better than zero."

"Good thinking indeed," Jyn echoes Cassian's words. "So your mind is inside the shuttle computer?"

"It is inside the memory databank. It was the only way I could upload myself."

"So you can run isolated processes that are entirely supported by your internal programming, but can't launch commands without a prompt from the shuttle's system?" She knows it to be the case, but checks on the off chance of better luck.

K's answer confirms that that would be pushing it luck-wise. "Exactly. I am able to process data independently but it would require your input and you will need to manually copy the output to the shuttle mainframe. I have a full set of Lambda-class shuttle schematics in my memory and can do a hyperspace calculation for your next jump if you launch my navigation module and feed the coordinates into it, but I cannot fly the shuttle for you."

"It's still good news," she reassures K. It is great news, considering that an hour earlier she and Cassian had thought he was gone for good. "Maybe I can put together a programming patch to create a shortcut for you–"

"It's too risky, Jyn." She may be slightly put out by K's objection – she did not earn her reputation as a mean hand at hacking for nothing – but when K continues she has to admit the truth in his words. "Especially while we're mid-jump. If the system detects an incompatibility it may suffer a critical error. You can do it when we land, assuming we eventually do land. Until then I'll do my best to support you the way I can."

"As soon as we get someplace with a repair shop, we'll get you into a droid body."

"I appreciate your thoughtfulness, Jyn. It would be a real drag being forever trapped onboard this Imperial bucket." K's voice may be gone – just for now, hopefully – but he is still the same.

Before she has had time to enjoy the moment, it occurs to her that Cassian has not said a word for a while. She takes a sideways glance at him; his head is resting against the high back of the pilot's chair, his eyes are open a tiny fraction but he looks oblivious to the goings-on.

"Cassian?"

He does not reply. She unbuckles the harness, turns to fully face him, and reaches for his arm – thankfully, the one closer to her is the uninjured right.

"Cassian, can you hear me?"

He stirs at her touch but it still takes him a second to respond, and when he looks up at her he has trouble focusing on her face.

"What've I missed?"

"I was just chatting to K. You all right?" He obviously isn't, but there are several grades of that.

"I think I've got a concussion," is Cassian's verdict, delivered in a resigned grumble.

"Of course you got a concussion," K jumps in, in the same uninflected mechanical drone, but she can perfectly imagine the scolding tone he would have wanted to use. "I am surprised you only just realized it. I could hear it in your voice from the moment you powered up the system here, but humans cannot detect it in themselves until much later. Did you take a fall?"

"You bet I did." The way he says it, a couple of seconds later and slurring the words, confirms both Cassian's own and K's diagnosis.

"How high?"

Another pause. "A few storeys. When Krennic shot me at the vault–"

"You should lie down," Jyn cuts in. "K, where are the pilot's sleeping quarters on a Lambda?"

Cassian speaks up while K is searching for the answer. "I don't think… I can."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't… think I can get up."

"If you mean the knee, I can help you walk."

" 'S not just the knee… I think I messed up my back."

It figures, of course; even with the way he had tried to slow down his fall grabbing at the support struts, the way she saw him hit a durasteel beam halfway down was bound to have caused serious damage. They are incredibly lucky that between the adrenaline and her insistence, he made it to the shuttle at all.

"So you have a concussion, a broken back – "

"I don't think it's broken, K," Cassian cuts in.

"It may not be broken but you still cannot move," K counters, quite sensibly. "What else?"

"A busted knee," Jyn supplies.

Cassian tries to shake his head, which immediately makes him wince. "Nothing major," he argues when he has regained a measure of composure, "just torn ligaments… I think." He says it as if it were really good news.

"And a blaster wound to the left arm," Jyn finishes.

"Enough with the autopsy report, the two of you. I'm still alive, you know, and I've been through worse," he argues, weakly. She does not really want to know how much.

"I'm sure you have," she mutters. "K?"

"Yes, Jyn?"

"Forget the pilot's quarters. Tell me where I can find a medpack on this rusty can."

"Just a moment, Jyn…" It only takes him a couple of seconds but it feels like ages. "Aft starboard cargo bay, a crate labelled emergency supplies in Basic."

"Thank you." She scrambles up from the co-pilot's chair as she says it, and heads into the shuttle's dim interior.

She has hardly had time to locate the durasteel crate when she hears an insistent beep echoed throughout the shuttle; she grabs the handle on the medpack lid and heads back to the bridge.

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TBC

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This chapter may have been a bit of a necessary-evil drag setting up the events that will follow, but I promise that subsequent ones should be livelier, and now that it is out of the way (and I have finished typing up the detailed plot and checked my ancient Star Wars sourcebooks by way of research), I should be able to post new chapters quicker. I'll try to type up the next one tonight, though it may take a while – it is quite a bit longer and very chatty :)

And I can hardly express my gratitude to everyone who followed, liked and commented. It totally makes my day, and since my last writing fandom was tiny by comparison, I am overwhelmed in the best way possible by your interest and appreciation. Thank you dear readers, and I hope to keep you entertained!