The icy cold of Hoth's air aches in her lungs as Jyn skids around the final corner in the back of their cave system. The heavy weight of the blaster on her thigh and the chill working its way through her clothing raises a gnawing sense of familiarity.
"Cassian!" she shouts.
He emerges swiftly from their shelter.
"Imperials back on base," she says, and sees him frown. She knows how he feels; they'd started to hope, once the Imperials left, that they wouldn't be back.
But that's not the urgent part of her news.
"There's a Rebel ship too," she says.
Cassian goes still and inscrutable for a minute, the long-ingrained habit of a spy who can never let his emotions show, but then a small smile starts at the edges of his mouth.
"You're sure it's Rebel?" he says, but he's already moving to deconstruct the emergency shelter.
Jyn moves quickly at his side, packing away the last of their equipment and supplies. It takes very little time. Most of it has been packed for days, ever since the Imperials left, in anticipation of having to make a quick departure. They can't leave anything behind for the Imperials to find; in the unlikely event that the Rebels have to use this cave system again, they don't want the Imperials knowing about it.
"I'm sure," she says. She pulls out her comm unit and plays back the signal she'd recorded from the Rebel ship.
Cassian stills as the mix of static and droid binary plays, quiet but distinct, through the unit's speakers. He looks at her and the joy in his face is like a rising sun.
"Bodhi," he says, almost reverently.
Jyn can feel her own face widening into the same broad smile. "Bodhi," she says.
They allow themselves only a moment of shared joy at the thought of seeing their pilot again.
"The Imperials?" Cassian asks, swinging his pack onto his pack with a grimace.
Jyn watches him with a small frown; Hoth's cold has done his healing ribs no favors and the walk back to base will be a difficult one. She wishes she hadn't had to let the tauntauns go; they would never have been able to keep the beasts fed, but it would make getting back to base now much easier.
"There's a star destroyer in orbit, and it looks like they're landing troops again," she says.
She doesn't mention Cassian's injuries. They both know it wouldn't make any difference; they have no choice but to go and hope for the best.
Cassian nods and secures his pack, but just lightly enough that he can abandon it in a hurry if they have to run. Jyn swings on her own pack and the pair set out together.
The route back to the abandoned Rebel base is a familiar one; they've been walking it daily to scout the ongoing Imperial presence. Today, urgency adds speed to their travel; they bypass all the winding twists and detours they become accustomed to taking in order to avoid the possibilities of Imperial pursuit.
The direct route still takes almost an hour, even at their quick pace, and as they hurry over the last ridge, the view that meets them isn't a comforting one. The battered Rebel transport crouched in the remains of the main hanger is a welcome vision; the Imperial transport settled on the snowfield outside and the flashes of blaster fire from inside the base are not.
Jyn feels her heart climb into her throat, and when she glances over at Cassian, she finds him already watching her with the same expression on his face.
They don't need to exchange words; they know they have to go now and quickly.
And they do.
Jyn wants to fly down the slope and run straight for the Rebel ship, through the Imperials forces if she has to. She knows better though and even if she was willing to abandon sense, Cassian is more cautious than her.
They creep together through the snowfield, keeping a careful eye out for Imperial scouts, and make it without being spotted to the shadow of the base's walls.
Cassian turns right, heading towards one of the lesser-used entrances that should let them get in without the Imperials noticing, but Jyn hesitates, her mind working quickly. Her gaze is fixed to the left where, just around the curve of the base, she can see the edges of the Imperial transport.
Cassian notices her hesitation as is back at her side in moments.
"Jyn?" he asks. She can hear the strain in his voice, but no impatience. He's used to the way she evaluates and adjusts her plans mid-mission.
In that, they work surprisingly well together. Cassian works everything out to the smallest detail in advance, then trusts Jyn's in-the-moment tactical mind to adjust the plan as needed on the fly.
"The Imperial ship," she says, turning to meet his gaze. "We have to destroy it so it can't follow us out."
Cassian nods, brow furrowed.
"Sabotage," he suggests. "Something they won't notice until they try to lift off."
"Or until it's triggered," Jyn says, a small smile pulling at her lips as ideas fill her head.
Cassian falls into her wake and together they creep along the edges of the base until the Imperial transport comes into full view. The transport is sitting in the open, across two hundred feet of open snow. To get to it, they'll have to cross that field, and they'll be highly visible for every minute.
But that's Cassian's problem and Jyn lets him get to it.
While he takes the quadnocs and begins identifying the scouts left behind to guard the transport and figuring out the best route to the ship, Jyn crouches and pulls open her pack. None of it's contents are really meant to explode and those that occasionally do aren't designed to do it on purpose.
But Jyn has done more with less, and if her years with Partisan taught her anything, it's that anything can be made to explode if combined correctly with a little patience.
She gets to work quickly, wiring together the battery pack from a spare blaster to the control unit from her comm and sealing it all in a bag filled with the chemical soup from the heaters in their ration packs. In only a few minutes, the crude device sits on the snow before her and leans back on her heels, satisfied.
She glances up and finds Cassian glancing between her and the device with open astonishment. She blinks back at him, but realizes that it's the first time she's ever had to assemble a bomb from scraps in his presence. It's not the first time she's made something explode for the Rebellion before, but up until now she's always done it with manufactured devices she pulled from the armoury.
She shrugs and says, "Partisans," to answer the question on Cassian's face.
His expression clears and he nods.
She knows that the furrow in his brow and the tightening at the corners of his mouth means that he still has questions, but that he won't ask them until she brings it up first. He's just as reticent as her to talk about his past.
"There's a gap in the patrol," he says, neatly shifting the subject, "and if we swing wide to the left, we should be able to get to the transport without being seen."
He hesitates, then tips his head down towards the bomb.
"Can that be moved quickly without going off?" he asks.
She grins. "It won't go off until I tell it to," she says.
He nods, lets her gather up the device — carefully, because she's not stupid, even if the bombs she builds are anything but delicate or sensitive — and leads the way out towards the transport.
The dash across the snow is still nerve-wracking, no matter what Cassian says about gaps in the patrol, and as they reach the shadow of the transport, Jyn can feel her heart pounding in her throat.
She takes over the lead from Cassian and makes her way quickly to the back of the transport where it's engines connect to the body of the ship. There isn't a lot of room to work with, but she quickly sees and open space that will be perfect.
"Gimme a boost," she whispers, and Cassian obligingly kneels to let her clamber onto his shoulders.
(Three years ago, she would never have trusted anyone enough to even ask for a boost, let alone accept one. She hadn't realized how lonely and isolated that past her was until she finally found people she could trust.)
Cassian lifts her easily towards the engines and she goes to work, fingers flying as she connects to the bomb to the engine housing. She mindful of the strain she must be putting on Cassian's still-healing injuries, so she works quickly and it's only moments before the device is connected.
She taps the top of Cassian's head ad he kneels again to let her down.
They race back across the snow, edging around the base until the find an open, unguarded door.
The blaster fire echoing through the base is making her heart jump and her fingers twitch, but takes a moment to show Cassian how to activate the bomb with his comm unit.
(Just in case, she thinks, but doesn't say, and from the way Cassian's fingers tighten on hers, he thinks it too.)
"Let's go find our pilot," he says.
She bares her teeth in a wild grin and nods, pulling out her blaster and checking the charge. They plunge into the abandoned Rebel base together.