—A Rebel and a Captain walk into a bar...
Cassian finds himself within the confines of the scantily named The Great Divine, a bar off the darker sides of Jedha. There is nothing divine about bars, and nothing great about this one. Even if his informant doesn't happen to be there, the cheap drinks make for a good consolation.
He strolls up to the bar and asks for a pint of grakkyn. The bartender, a Dagobah-green Twi'lek, nods and serves a glass. He takes a sip, relishing the feeling of the heat dripping down his throat and settling at his stomach.
"You must have done something pretty awful if you need that much of a kick at this hour."
He turns to see a woman sitting at the bar, just a few seats away. The more Cassian studies her, the more he thinks there is something familiar about her. Her accent is stiff, well-defined and still. There is something to her eyes, hard set and dark, glinting with the green of ink-drawn fire. Her eyes are familiar.
She cocks her head towards the empty seats next to her. Cassian makes a play of sliding his hand around his back, just to check if his blaster is still there. As long as he's armed, he sees no danger in seating next to strange people.
"Lianna," she smiles as he sits by her, just a seat away, "Hallik. It's my name." She extends a hand, expecting the same respect.
Cassian drags through his mental database, searching for Lianna Hallik. He comes up empty.
With years as a spy, Cassian is acquainted with the process of fake names. He makes a habit of using names of the Alliance's dead sometimes, to honor their memories. He grasps her hand firmly, callused and scarred. He's unsure if it's hers or his own. "Bael Follante."
She shifts a seat closer, bridging the gap between them. "It's great to meet you—" She pauses for a while, as if wondering how to say his name with her accent. Cassian feels a vibroblade press into at his thigh, just over an artery. Her voice is barely whispers as she leans into his ear, "But I don't think I caught your name."
"I haven't done anything," he whispers to her, "I swear." First rule of going undercover: when discovered, be ignorant. Sometimes, people had no idea what they were talking about.
Lianna's reaction isn't exactly what he expected. She laughs. "If I were with the Empire, Follante, you'd be dead—just like the real Follante. There aren't too many in the galaxy with that name, and I know for a fact that none of them are alive anymore."
The knife presses more into his thigh. "I take it you're here for the pilot."
One of Saw's. Maybe he doesn't need his informant to find Saw Gerrera. If he plays his cards right, he can get to Bodhi and out of Jedha before the grakkyn is even flushed out of his system. "You're one of Saw Gerrera's extremists."
The fire in her eyes erupts into an inferno. Cassian can almost feel the knife pierce his skin. "Perhaps not."
"I will take you to your pilot," she says it slowly, her accent rolling every syllable, "But you'll help me."
It strikes Cassian. "You don't even know where Saw is."
The presence of the vibroblade suddenly becomes less insistent. "I don't know where he is exactly, but I've been there once. In and out. You don't even have a chance of finding him without me. You're my ticket in just like I'm yours."
"Exactly?"
"I've been there, seen the entire city right from their windows. They'd be idiots if they showed everyone they brought in exactly how to get there. I asked them to take me back to the Quarter, they shoved a sack over my head and pushed me out."
She slides her knife back into her boot and leans away to finish her drink. "I'd still like your name though."
Cassian shakes his leg back awake, just a little bit. "Cassian Andor. Rebel Intelligence." He looks insistently at her as she downs the rest of the milk.
"I'm still Lianna." She says as she leaves a credit chip on the counter. "Now, shall we walk?"
He pats his pockets, checking for the chip the Alliance loads his pay in (though he does still have three years of back pay due.) He looks back at the bright yellow chip on the counter and oddly enough: he smiles.
When she watched the surface of Jedha near from the window of a transport, she had two things in her minds. The first was that Saw was down there, and that it looked empty and desolate.
Up close, the streets are flooded with the daily life of Jedha: foot traffic, the shouts of merchants constantly yelling lower prices, chanting of pilgrims and the echo of distant blasters.
To Jyn, they're sounds of a home.
She looks behind her to see Cassian Andor. Jyn wasn't initially suspicious of him, until he took the name of Follante. Even thirteen years later, Jyn still respects the man, Alliance or not.
"Why should I trust you?" He walks up to her.
Jyn slows so they walk side-by-side, "Trust goes both ways. I need to get back to Saw, you need to get your pilot."
"You don't even know where Saw is."
"But I know he trusts me," Jyn says this matter-of-factly. "You won't even get any close without being shot. And you seem desperate."
"How do I know you won't run me through with your knife?"
Jyn doesn't answer. But she knows what she wants to say. I don't kill like the Alliance.
They turn a corner, passing into a tightly packed crowd locked within a narrow passage. Jyn brushes against a passerby, then feels a jolt as someone shoves her to the side.
"You better watch yourself," an Aqualish snarls. Her heart begins racing. She looks at him and smiles coldly.
Cassian grabs her by her arm and sneaks her back into the flow of the crowd, "We don't want any trouble. Sorry."
She switches her dark look to him. They continue walking until Cassian breaks the silence when they pass into another street. "So we just keep walking and hope one of Saw's rebels find us?"
"Hope?" She eyes Cassian doubtfully. "Is that all the Alliance can do?"
He shrugs, "Rebellions are built on hope."
And blood.
"Why don't you go find yourself a contact and I work on getting you through Saw's front door?"
He scowls,
The crowd thins another street over. Jyn draws up her hood when a crowd of Stormtroopers passes by. She's tempted to draw the vibroblade, but she doesn't reach for it. She begins to go around a cluster of merchant stalls, swaying slightly to the constant chant of one of the pilgrims.
Over and over, a simple phrase: "May the Force of others be with you." His chanting rises in volume until it drowns out everything else.
Suddenly, the chant goes silent. "Would you like to trade your necklace for a glimpse of the future?"
Jyn steps back, looking around.
"Yes, I'm speaking to you." The voice is touched with a gentle sort of humor. "Your necklace?"
She looks up at the pilgrim. The first thing her eyes land on is his own, milky white and blind. "How did you know I have a necklace?" Jyn can feel the crystal against her collarbone, hidden and buried under several layers of cloth. And the man is blind.
"I am Chirrut Îmwe," the man says as if it explains everything.
"How did you know I was wearing a necklace?" She takes a step closer.
"Lianna," Cassian reappears. Jyn can see Chirrut smile, as if suppressing a laugh. The rebel's voice comes sharp and low, "Come on."
Jyn moves away from the blind pilgrim, taking three strides to Cassian's side. Her necklace seems to burn warm in the cold. "You seem awfully tense all of a sudden," she says to him, "Who pressed a knife to your leg this time?"
He scowls at her, "Spotted an old contact. He didn't have anything better on Saw Gerrera, but he's been hearing rumors."
"What kind of rumors?"
They approach the Holy Quarter. The roads have a new being to them. The streets are wider—still as old and ancient, but not touched by the years of expansion and industrialization. The merchants and vendors on the sides are replaced by pilgrims in bright-red robes and hoods.
"There were shootings last night, and word that Saw Gerrera is planning an attack."
Jyn laughs. Saw is always planning an attack. It's the way he's always played. Provoking outrage, hitting quick and getting out fast. He makes it impossible for the Empire to see worth in fighting back. But Jyn remembers what she saw in him that morning. "It could be it's one of Saw's people arranging it without Saw."
"Regardless, we have to hurry. The town is getting ready to explode."
They pass a mural, though it can't be called that if it's deteriorated into one singular shade of brown. Shards of stone litter the ground beneath the mural. Among the scattered bits of stone is a grenade fragment lodged into the base of the wall. "We're a little late for that," she laughs bitterly.
Cassian isn't the least bit surprised when the assault tank rolls in. He scans the rooftops. His gaze flickers back periodically to the civilians along the edge of the plaza. To any other person, it looks like passersby clad in thick, bulky cloaks and overcoats to protect from Jedha's most recent sandstorm.
Stormtroopers aren't the most attentive. They're soldiers, bred to fight—not to think. It's a wonder they haven't opened fire yet. "We've got to get out of here." He says the words the way he would a curse.
They begin to run. Lianna pulls Cassian into the cover of a doorway.
Cassian doesn't see who throws the first grenade. Despite the rumble of vehicles and the thunder of the stormtroopers, he recognizes the sound of a detonator striking the pavement. Lianna watches it with her hard-set eyes, before the metal sphere disappears in an explosion of stone pieces and smoke.
No one will really miss that mural.
He hears the sound of ten cloaks and overcoats being thrown out together, and the snap of pistols and rifles that he knows so well from Yavin 4's grounds.
"Looks like we found Saw's rebels," Lianna mutters. Her blaster is in her hand, finger on the trigger. He sees only moments of the chaos on the streets. A rebel bleeding on the street, searching for cover; a trio of rebel attackers hiding out on the rooftop of a shop; a stormtrooper shot right in the visor. The guns of the tank take aim, right up to the roof.
Suddenly Lianna is out there on the street.
"Lianna!" He yells. Then he sees. Right by the shop is a little girl paralyzed in fear staring into the battle. Lianna grabs her, scooping her up and running under a rain of sparks and stone. She lets the girl go into the arms of a woman, probably the little girl's mother.
Lianna is too exposed. Right behind her is another rebel on the rooftop behind her. He takes his blaster out and fires a cluster of shots just above her head. Then she runs again, just as the rooftop blows up behind her.
Lianna sprints for him and the cover of the doorway, before bowling into him and slamming him to the ground. He's about to shove her off and sit up, when a detonator explodes dangerously close to them.
He drags her to her feet with a breathless, "Come on!" Cassian doesn't thank her.
They run fifty meters before running into another squad of stormtroopers who are advancing gingerly through the Holy Quarter as if the streets were mined.
Knowing what just happened out there, Cassian won't be surprised if there was.
Suddenly, Lianna yells his name and takes out two truncheons from her coat. He watches as she slams the two metal roads into the joints of the stormtroopers' armor. She moves from blow to blow, knocking away until they are at a distance her truncheons can't reach. She picks up a blaster and aims for them.
Cassian takes his blaster out and joins. Aiming for what she hasn't taken out on her own. He slams the butt of his pistol into the helmet of a trooper, watching it collapse to the ground—just as Lianna kicks one of the men she's left on the ground.
They huff together in exhaustion, their breaths not really in sync but equally tired. Then she picks up her blaster and shoots out towards the alley, where an Imperial security droid sparks and falls to the ground revealing a second droid behind it.
She's about to shoot again, he can tell, before the droid shuffles to a halt. "I'm very glad that wasn't me."
Lianna is frozen in confusion, but he recognizes the same whirr in the voice of K-2SO. "I thought you wanted to stay with the ship," Cassian growls.
"I did," the droid replies, "But I was bored and you seemed to be in trouble. There are a lot of explosions for a man just getting a drink." The droid pauses before speaking again. "Cassian, who is this?"
The sound of clustered blasts echoes from the direction of the plaza. Cassian could feel sweat dribble from his forehead despite the windy chill of the afternoon. "We should find one of Saw's people. Hopefully someone still breathing."
They're about to make for the plaza when Kay-Tu turns his head, "The Imperial forces are converging on our present location. I suggest we leave immediately."
They left.
Cassian watches Lianna as she winces with her every step. While she may have taken down most of the stormtroopers, they were sure to leave some bruises behind. She probably also has a concussion, from the grenade earlier at the plaza. It went off at a stunning force, and she'd shielded him from most of the blow.
She needs a medical droid. Instead, she's travelling with a man she just met (and threatened) at a bar, an Imperial security droid and several injuries from a still ongoing riot. Considering what she's just done and how she's reacted to everything so far, Cassian isn't sure she'd react well to pity.
Lianna's arm blocks Cassian from a passageway that is too narrow to even be named an alley; they watch a dozen or so 'troopers pass through the intersection. Across it, Cassian recognizes a side street just through the intersection. "That would bring us out of the quarter," he tells Lianna.
She waits for the patrol to move away before promptly sprinting through the crossroads.
"Would you still tell me who that person is?" Kay-Tu looks at Cassian as they follow her.
"Halt! Stop right there!"
Kay makes a sound that's not unlike a sigh; "Of course you won't be able to tell me right now."
All three of them turn around towards the voice. The stormtroopers who had just passed by earlier are now spread around them.
Too many to fight. Cassian thinks as he softens the grip on the blaster at his side. The power pack is almost empty, but there's no point saving the bolts. He looks to his side to see Lianna, smiling smugly as if she's eager to be in such a predicament— glad to have nowhere to run.
The squad leader nods at K-2SO. "Where are you taking these prisoners?"
Cassian feels something that borders hope and relief.
The droid stares back at the squad leader, struggling to process some semblance of an answer. "These are prisoners."
Cassian winces as that feeling evaporates.
He hopes K-2 is in the process of accessing Imperial behavioral programming. Or most likely, and worst of all, K-2SO is that bad at lying. His most natural state is relentless honesty, despite constantly being in the company of Cassian—a man who lied for his life.
"Yes," the squad leader says. "Where are you taking the prisoners?"
K-2 speaks slowly, "I am taking them to imprison them. In prison."
Lianna picks up, "I'm not going ba—"
The droid swings a metal arm into Lianna's face. "Quiet!" Her green eyes widen in shock and unkempt fury. She looks just about ready to fight anyone at that point. "And there's a fresh one if you mouth off again!"
Cassian isn't sure what he hears, but he's half certain that it's a growl that's coming out of her throat.
"We'll take them from here," the squad leader says.
K-2 starts rambling. "That's okay. Really. If you could just point me in the right direction, I can take them. I'm sure. I've brought them this far—"
The squad leader nods at the other 'troopers, "Take them away."
"You can't take them away!" K-2 protests. Cassian wants to snap. Don't argue.
Then a voice cries out, and everyone—stormtroopers, captives and droids—looks to see. "Let them pass in peace!"
Chirrut Îmwe stands in an archway, staring at the stormtroopers with milky white eyes. Looking at him, Jyn wants to laugh.
The stormtroopers begin repositioning themselves, fanning around the pilgrim. He begins chanting, the passage resonating in Jyn's ears: "The Force is with me, and I am one with the Force." He steps through the archway, placing himself just between Jyn, Cassian and the insane Imperial droid.
"Hey! You there, stop!" The squad leader yells.
One stormtrooper calls out, "He's blind."
"But is he deaf?" The leader replies indignantly. "I said: stop right there."
Chirrut begins to walk closer, and the squad leader directs the blaster and fires a single shot. Time is her enemy. It's too late to shout a warning, too late to intervene. Jyn feels an ache, guilt for this blind pilgrim who died for a girl he met on the streets of Jedha.
But Chirrut is still not dead. The distance is impossible, the precision definite and still the bolt sails right through the air and just over her shoulder.
The hesitation the stormtroopers had against shooting a blind man was remade into unease and sense of duty. They fumble with their blasters, aiming into dead air. Chirrut is within them in two strides, twisting his staff and sweeping arm and legs into unnatural angles. He leaps to the side as a stormtrooper fires his rifle. The bright red bolt instead finds the shoulder of another trooper, and Chirrut shakes his head disapprovingly.
Hurting and exhausted and cold and aching, Jyn knows that she has to do what she can. She chooses her moment carefully before swinging her elbow into the helmet of the stormtrooper next to her. She hears Cassian and the droid fighting, and continued shouting form Chirrut's direction.
Jyn slams her shoulder into the stormtrooper's chest, taking him down into the ground, before rising and kicking him fiercely, viciously and repeatedly until she's certain he won't be able to rise.
Before her, Chirrut stands calmly over a pile of bodies. It's an interesting way to express vanity, she finds. But the fight isn't over. (In Jedha, it never really is.)
Jyn is all too familiar with the sound of stormtroopers approaching. She sees no form of cover, and no way for Chirrut Îmwe to save them again.
Then she hears the crackle of a particle bolt, but none of the stormtroopers even has their rifle in a readying stance. A stormtrooper collapses to the pavement, and then another as sniper fire strikes them faster than Jyn thinks is even possible. When the last of the squad is down, the shooter emerges from behind them.
His hair is wild and disheveled, and he's dressed in red armor—Jyn's unsure if that's it's natural color or if the rust has plays into it. In one hand, he holds a large repeating cannon. In the other, an embellished bowcaster trimmed in gold; this, he hands to Chirrut.
"You almost shot me," Chirrut says to the sniper.
Jyn assumes that he and Chirrut are partners.
"You're welcome," he says, before firing the cannon into the back of a crawling stormtrooper.
Chirrut's partner studies her for a while, which makes Jyn rather uneasy. Cassian's Imperial droid—it's a wonder how he got it—strides forward to survey what's left of the intersection. Chirrut's partner aims the cannon at him, before Chirrut holds his arm and stops him.
The red-armored man lowers the cannon, though it's clear he looks disappointed.
Cassian looks at K-2. "Go back to the ship," he tells the droid. "Wait for my call." If Kay could roll his eyes, he might have; instead he turns around and walks back to the ship. "Oh, and Kay, find out what you can about Lianna Hallik."
Next to their new allies, she nurses her shoulder. "Thank you," she says to them.
Her face goes sour, as if she's just smelled the state of the vegetation on Yavin 4. "Can you get us to Saw Gerrera?"
No one gets a chance to reply before someone yells: "Hands in the air! Weapons on the ground!"
Partisan fighters emerge from alleys and rooftops. Cassian wonders if at least one of them might pop out of the ground.
"We're not the enemy," the blind one says, "Can't you see we're no friends of the Empire?" He places the bowcaster in the dust. Even the red-armored man takes off his repeater cannon.
A Tognath steps forward, its faced wrapped with a mechanical respirator. "Tell that to the one who killed our men."
Cassian remembers the rebel on the rooftop, the grenade going off just over Lianna's head. He pulled the trigger so easily, just as he did every other time.
Lianna steps forward, "Anyone who kills me or my friends will answer to Saw Gerrera."
A collective murmur passes through the crowd of rebels. Cassian hears one loud chuckle, and another yell a loud What? and Cassian sympathizes.
"And why is that?" The Tognath asks her.
She doesn't even stop to think. "Because Saw knows me," she says, "And I know him. Because I was battling at his side while you were still crying in you beds instead of fighting back." Cassian's faith in her being able to bring him to Bodhi is renewed. "I've seen that man at his worst. I know exactly what he does when he feels betrayed, and I'm still alive."
"Because," Lianna finishes, "I am the daughter of Galen Erso."
The Tognath watches her for a long moment. Even Cassian doesn't know how to react. As far as Cassian knows, even Galen believes his daughter to be dead. He, just like everyone else in their little square, is frozen in place.
Cassian doesn't believe it. He refuses to. For years, he has believed that Jyn Erso, daughter of Galen Erso, was dead. Then he sees it. Her eyes. Galen's eyes.
"Take them," The Tognath commands.
Cassian is so still in shock, it only takes one rebel to wrestle him down. A coarse sack is fitted over his head, and he tries to breath through the fabric. Something heavy hits him in the head, and his skull is reeling.
His last thoughts before he goes under is this: Galen, your daughter is alive.