Bodhi expects to have to fight harder convince anyone in command to let him go back to Hoth for Jyn and Cassian, especially in light of what he's heard about the events on Cloud City and the resulting obsession on the part of both Princess Organa and Commander Skywalker to track down the missing Captain Solo.
But when Bodhi tentatively approaches General Draven about it — because as much as the man terrifies Bodhi and has never seemed to approve of the Rogue One team in the three years since the events on Scarif, he is still Cassian's superior officer and does at least seem to value their captain — the general just gives him a long, thoughtful look.
"You really think they're still alive, don't you," he says.
Bodhi bites back an offended frown. Of course he thinks they're still alive. He'd told command that they were alive in his initial debrief. The only reason he hasn't been pushing every day in the month since the evacuation to go back and get them is that the monitoring devices left of Hoth had continued to report an Imperial presence on the frozen planet.
Until yesterday.
"Yes," Bodhi says. "I'm sure. Jyn could have gotten them both to the caves. If they had enough provisions, they could still be alive."
"And if they were captured by the Imperials?" General Draven's face doesn't give a single clue about his thoughts.
Bodhi tries not to be discouraged. He reminds himself that Jyn and Cassian are counting on him.
"If they were captured, surely we would have heard something," he says.
Draven acknowledges this with a short nod. If the Imperials had managed to capture a top Rebel Intelligence agent and the troublesome daughter of Galen Erso, there would, at the very least, be rumors about it.
Instead, there's been nothing and the Imperial presence finally seems to have pulled back from Hoth.
Draven regards Bodhi for a long, tense minute.
Bodhi tries not to fidget. He tries to look appropriately determined but not desperate. (He is desperate. He'll steal another ship if he has to. He did it for Scarif and he'll do it again. He just doesn't particularly want to remind Draven of that.)
"Alright," Draven says. "You have a go. Take a team of Pathfinders. See if you can recover anything else from the base."
Bodhi blinks in surprise. "I… I can go?"
Draven nods and a hint of a smile curls at the corners of his mouth. "Bring our people home."
Bodhi nods and scrambles out of the command room. As he goes to find Kes Dameron, a shiver works its way down his spine. That smile is probably one of the most terrifying things he's ever seen, and he's faced the Death Star twice.
He didn't even know General Draven could smile.
The frozen white landscape of Hoth looms large in Bodhi's windshield as he navigates the U-Wing gingerly down through the atmosphere. Even from this height it's possible to tell that a battle was fought here. The remains of downed snowspeeders and destroyed AT-ATs are still dark grey scars on the landscape, though the snow has begun to reclaim them.
In another few months, Bodhi thinks, maybe the evidence would be gone altogether.
He hopes the Rebel Alliance won't be so easily erased.
As he clears a layer of turbulence and brings the ship in lower, Kes Dameron, seated in the co-pilot's chaired, whistles a sound of awe.
"That's some damage," he says.
Bodhi can see what he means. The former rebel base coming into view is a battered shell of what it was the last time Bodhi saw it. Two thirds of the structure has collapsed or been blasted away by the Imperial attack and the rest, exposed to Hoth's relentless wind and snow, has begun to return to the frozen block of ice it was before the Rebel Alliance arrived.
Bodhi makes several low passes over the base, letting Kes and another of his Pathfinders, a brown-furred Selonian named Marsi, make thorough sweeps with their sensors.
"I'm not detecting any Imperial presence nor any transmissions," Marsi says. "That doesn't mean those bastards aren't here though." A frown scrunches the fur on the Selonian's muzzle as she glares at her instrument panel.
"We'll take it slow and careful," Kes says. "Set us down Bodhi."
Bodhi does, maneuvering the U-Wing into a relatively clear and flat space in the remains of the main hanger. The roof has been blasted away, but the hanger itself is clear of rubble and the walls seem solid. Their added protection will help keep the U-Wing from freezing in the cold wind and give the Pathfinders easier access to the parts of the base that seem the most intact.
They'd made their decision to start their search at the base in the initial planning stages for the mission. Bodhi had wanted to fly straight for the cave system where Jyn had said she was going to hide, but Kes had pointed out the danger of potentially revealing the cave system to any Imperial watchers they hadn't been able to see. If Jyn and Cassian were watching the base — and they would be, Bodhi knew — they would be able to make their way to the ship or signal the need for pick-up. If the Imperials were watching, it would be better that they thought the Rebels had returned to salvage their base than that they had returned for other Rebels hidden on the planet.
Besides, Marsi had pointed out, the cave system was large and completely unexplored, and Bodhi had no idea where in the system Jyn would be hiding.
Reluctantly, Bodhi had agreed with their arguments.
(That did not mean, though, that he was willing to leave the planet without Jyn and Cassian. If they didn't come to the base, Bodhi planned to fly the ship to the cave system regardless of what Kes said and spend however many days were necessary to search the entire thing.
He hopes it won't come to that.)
As the U-Wing's engines begin to power down, the Pathfinder squad pulls on their winter gear.
"I was really hoping never to have to wear this druk again," one of the Pathfinders complains.
The man's name is lost to Bodhi in the stress of worrying about Jyn and Cassian, but Bodhi knows that he's relatively new to the Rebellion and that he comes from a warm planet. (Mostly because he's been complaining about the cold on Hoth since they left the fleet.) He feels sympathy for the man. Bodhi grew up in Jedha's cold desert, but even he found Hoth unbearable.
"You're dreaming if you think we'll never have to fight the Imps on another cold planet," Marsi says, zipping her own parka. Though the Selonian was as well-furred as the rest of her species, even she needed the extra protection on Hoth.
Bodhi reaches into the locker to pull out his own winter gear, but Kes's hand on his arm stops him.
"Not you, Rook," Kes says.
Bodhi frowns at the sergeant.
"Someone has to stay with the ship," Kes says, not unkindly. "And you're the best pilot we have."
Bodhi does not want to stay with the ship, but if there's one thing the Rebel Alliance and the Empire agree on, it's that the pilot stays with the ship. It's not the first time since Scarif that Bodhi has been forced to stay behind while his friends are in danger. That doesn't mean he likes it any more than he ever did.
"Hey," Kes says, lowering his voice and turning his back slightly on the rest of the crew. "It's not because I don't think you can handle it. It's because Erso and Andor will kill me if anything happens to you."
Bodhi contemplates the other man for a long moment, then nods. He doesn't like it, but he'll accept it.
(And he knows it's true. While he's far from a non-combatant — the Rebellion's need for it's personnel to be able to do any job and three years of tutelage and support from Jyn and Cassian have taught Bodhi to fight when and if it's needed — Bodhi will still always be most comfortable behind the controls of a ship or digging into its mechanics. It's always worked for their team, but right now Bodhi wishes he was more of a frontline soldier.)
"I'll work the comm system," he says. "See if I can contact Jyn and Cassian."
It wasn't part of the plan, but Kes accepts the compromise with grace. Likely, Bodhi thinks, he knows that there's nothing he can do to stop Bodhi once the rest of them leave.
"Janson, you're staying with Rook," Kes calls.
One of the Pathfinders lets out a quiet cheer and abandons the process of pulling on her second layer of gloves.
The rest finish suiting up and cautiously creep out into the abandoned base. Bodhi allows himself only a moment to suck in a few lungfuls of freezing air before closing the ship's door and returning to the cockpit. Janson joins him a moment later, having stripped off the outermost layers of her winter gear. Like Bodhi, she's still wearing a parka, thin gloves, and thick boots. Though the U-Wing's idling engine will provide some measure of warmth, Hoth's cold is relentless and they can't afford the fuel expenditure it would take to make the ship truly comfortable.
Without prompting, Janson takes the co-pilot's seat and turns her attention to the monitors that will alert them to any Imperial ships entering the atmosphere. She also drags on a pair of thick ear phones and flips on the frequency to monitor the Pathfinders' comm signals.
At Bodhi's curious look, she flicks him a smile.
"I figured I'd do most of the monitoring so you could focus on finding Erso and Andor, and get us off this rock faster," she says.
Bodhi smiles back in gratitude. Officially, finding Jyn and Cassian is only one part of the mission, but it's nice to hear that the other Pathfinders have prioritized it the same way Bodhi has. He knows he should care about any equipment or intel they can salvage from the base, but ultimately Jyn and Cassian matter much more to him.
"Thanks," he says and turns his attention to the U-Wing's long-range comm systems.
He scrolls slowly through every frequency both the Rebels and the Imperials might have used, listening for any noise from the other end. He doesn't broadcast yet. The last thing he wants is to give away either the Pathfinders' presence or Jyn and Cassian's hiding place.
As he works, he keeps a corner of his attention on the Pathfinder team working through the base. Their communications are short and infrequent, just clicks and single words at set intervals to confirm their status and progress. Like Bodhi, they aren't willing to risk giving away their presence to listening Imperials.
He hopes they find something of value.
Three full circuits through the comm frequencies reveal no signals or communications that Bodhi can pick up, either Imperial or from Jyn and Cassian. He glances over at Janson and waits until he can catch her attention.
"Ready to broadcast," he says quietly. It doesn't matter how much noise they make in the U-Wing, but something about the abandoned base and the tension of the mission makes Bodhi want to whisper.
Janson nods and clicks thrice on the Pathfinder frequency to warn Kes and the others. She gives Bodhi a thumbs up.
He takes a deep breath, murmurs a short Jedhan prayer, and opens a channel on the frequency he and Jyn and Cassian have been using since the attack on Scarif. Like the rest of the team, he doesn't risk a voice transmission; instead he plays a brief recording of static and droid binary. It's a technique Cassian and Kaytoo had developed and Cassian had taught Bodhi and Jyn. Though none of them could communicate as much as Kaytoo had been able to, they'd developed, through extensive practice, enough of a system to communicate the most important information they might need on a mission.
Like rescue has arrived.
He plays the recording twice more, then shuts down the transmission and looks to Janson. She's got all her attention keenly focused on their monitors, watching for any indication that the Imperials have detected their presence.
After a few long, tense moments, she shakes her head at Bodhi.
"Nothing yet," she says.
Bodhi nods but doesn't let himself relax. They have no way of knowing whether an Imperial ship is waiting beyond their sensor range for an indication that the Rebels have returned to Hoth.
Bodhi twists his fingers nervously in his lap and waits, praying that Jyn and Cassian are still out there, that they'll get his message, that they'll get safely to the ship.
He needs them to come home.
Forty-five minutes later, their sensors start wailing an alarm and Janson swears vociferously in Huttese.
The Imperials are back.