—Feel While You Still Can, Part 1:
There is only a week left before Operation Fracture is over, and Galen will have to deliver the plans. The sudden arrival of Jyn takes this out of his head for a while. She's walking in front of him, her shoulders tense and her hair down.
Beyond the sounds of their nonchalant conversation is the rumble of an Ion Engine. He turns his head towards the window. Galen believes he has seen Cassian's ship enough to know that the one of the platform isn't so. Jyn stops in front of him, as does Krennic. It is Cassian's ship.
"Who is it now?" Orson asks.
Galen imagines a mirror in front of him, as if he's only rehearsing a lie. "Some people I invited from the Futures." He shrugs. "I forgot about it when Jyn arrived." She smiles at him; and the past five days have made the three years suddenly void, the three years he lied because he though she was dead. He lies now to keep her alive.
Krennic, too, smiles. They're both legacies of the Futures project. "Well, shall we greet them now?"
He leads them onto the platform, still wet from last night's rain (or perhaps last week's—on Eadu, one can never be sure.) Galen takes a few steps to stand by Jyn's side. The three of them watch as Cassian Andor's ship lands.
He's forgone his fur coat, perhaps to protect it from the rain. Cassian steps onto the landing pad, followed by his droid, then the ship flies off. Perhaps it's Bodhi who's flying it, all the way to the docking bay at the bottom of the valley.
Under Galen's hold, Jyn stiffens. He remembers how he planned their lives. Where she too would join the Futures. (And he remembers his little hopes, to introduce Captain Andor to his daughter. He can fulfill one of his plans.)
"Officer Erso," Cassian introduces himself. His accent is gone. It makes his voice crisp, Imperial; as if Basic is the only language he knows. "Thank you for the invitation. I'm Willix Pashna."
Galen smiles. For once in three years, it doesn't seem like a lie. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Pashna. This is Director Krennic, of Weapons Research," he gestures to Orson, "And my daughter Jyn." Cassian extends a hand to them both. Krennic takes it with well-practiced je ne sais quoi, while Jyn gingerly grasps it with an unnatural stiffness.
Krennic clears his throat. "Well, it was nice to meet you, Jyn." He nods to Cassian. "Mr. Pashna, but I'm afraid I have some things I need to do. I'm not paid to for meet-and-greets, after all." Galen makes a small laugh at Orson's joke. At least, he hopes it was a joke.
The weapons director gives one last smile, however acidic it may be, to the three of them, before turning back and returning to the facility. They follow after him, stopping just by the shade of the awnings at the side.
K-2SO stands behind them all. The lights of his eyes flicker, and Galen knows that he's telling Cassian something out of their earshot. "Go check on Bodhi," the captain says with more volume. The droid tilts his head and walks away.
Galen turns to face Cassian, "This wasn't how I hoped you'd meet." He glances at his daughter. Five days ago, he didn't think they even could meet.
"Jyn, this is Captain Cassian Andor, of the Rebel Alliance."
The stiffness of her body shifts to the set of her jaw. "I know who he is, Papa." Galen waves away the statement. She knows about the Alliance, he told her about it days ago.
He shifts his attention to the young man. "You're not due for another week. Did High Command shift Fracture ahead?"
"Not here for Fracture," Cassian shakes his head. His accent is back, heavy and obvious. "I'm here for her." He jerks his head towards Jyn.
Jyn can know about Cassian. Galen understands that. But Cassian knows about her… The Alliance thinks Jyn is dead; they told him she was dead.
How do they know each other? "What is this about, Cassian?" Galen is stricken with a sudden curiosity. He wants to know how the Alliance is aware of Jyn. He wants to know a-many things.
"I know you're with the Rebel Alliance, and I didn't want to know why when you told me about it, Papa," Jyn then turns to Cassian. "But if the Alliance wants to take me, I'm not going, because I don't have to listen to their orders."
"I'm fine here, captain," Jyn tacks on. "I went here for my father, not for this business with the Alliance. I said this before, but you weren't there so I'll say it again: I want no part of it."
Cassian rolls his eyes.
"Wait, you know about my daughter. And you know she's alive. Were you—"
"Galen, no one lied to you," Cassian says. "The Alliance thought she was dead too."
This time Jyn rolls her eyes and mutters under her breath. "The Alliance didn't even look." Perhaps Galen hasn't missed her angsty teenage phase yet.
"If you thought she was dead," Galen raises his voice above their. He isn't fond of it, but it's the only way they'll actually stop. "Then why are you looking for her now?"
"Because we found her," Cassian explains. "Just before Jedha. And now she's compromising Fracture."
"Don't talk about me as if I'm not here, Andor," she comments.
Galen coughs. "She's not compromising anything, Cassian."
"Compromising what?" Jyn interjects. "Your covert Death Star sabotage?"
The young man's brown eyes widen as he darts around for any possible listening ears, then he turns those eyes to Galen. "You told her?"
"She's my daughter," he justifies, "I'm not lying to her."
Jyn and Cassian appear to be in their own personal conversation, in which Galen is only a spectator. "Look, I don't hate the Alliance to the point that I'd sell you out," she hisses. They're still in public: they can't yell. "I thought we established that on Yavin 4."
This isn't how Galen imagined their dynamic. They're the kind of people meant to get along well. But here they are, half-yelling at each other. "Would you both stop yelling please," Galen asks. "That will compromise the mission most."
They stop to look at him. Jyn 's mouth is agape, frozen mid-argument. Cassian's face is frozen in a scowl, but raises his eyebrows in attention as Galen calls them. "Now, where's your droid?"
Bodhi stands at attention the moment he sees K-2SO approach. "What is it?"
"The captain sent me to check on you," the droid replies. In other words, Cassian didn't want the droid around at the moment. Either way, Bodhi feels offended that the captain set him as a babysitter.
"I still knew where the landing pads were, Kay." It's been three years, and his memory is cloudy, but his muscle memory took the reins. "I'm fine."
"I believe Cassian sent me due to the statistical probability that someone will know your face," K-2 states. "There is a reason High Command did not send you to pilot the Fracture missions."
"That's why I haven't gone out," he explains. His memory is cloudy, his muscle memory surprisingly succinct, but it's only been three years. There is bound to be at least one pilot, or one engineer, who knows Bodhi's face.
He looks out the viewport, watching two pilots pass by their ship, whispering to each other. Ships are designed to be soundproof, inside and out. One turns around quickly, a motion almost gone unnoticed if Bodhi hadn't been looking for something of the sort.
They approach a stormtrooper, sharing a conversation too far for a reading of lips and physically impossible to listen to. The trooper raises his visor, and if the helmet wasn't in the way, or the invisisteel barrier, Bodhi can be sure that they're looking right at him.
"Bodhi Rook," K-2SO rushes to the co-pilot seat and begins to fumble with the controls.
He mumbles as he sits himself at the pilot's chair. "I know."
"It would be best that we leave the landing port within the moment."
Bodhi nods his head frantically and runs his eyes over all the controls. "I know!" A whole squad escapes from the nearby hangar, drawing guns toward them but not shooting. Bodhi doubts they'd actually be able to hit them to begin with.
He sees, just below them and behind the troopers, a man in a billowing white cape, running out to watch them fly away into the canyon. It's the man Bodhi saw speaking with Galen and Jyn on the platform.
"Let's go pick up Chirrut and Baze," Bodhi fiddles with the controls.
Krennic is supposed to be on his transport. He was in the hangar waiting for it to arrive. He should be on it by now, heading for Coruscant.
He isn't.
"That was the defected pilot?" He came to Eadu for that purpose.
The woman nods. "Yessir. He made the Corulag runs with us."
Krennic's job ob Eadu is not over, and apparently either is the pilot's. "Whose ship was it?"
"Willix Pashna, Director."
The Futures boy. Krennic doesn't think for a second that it can be him. No one so indebted to the Empire would actively push against it. The pilot must have a contact on the planet.
He takes out his commlink, to contact the bridge officers heading down with his transport. "Dispatch the Death Troopers to Eadu. I will meet them on the landing platform." He nods his gratitude to the female pilot and returns to the main building of the Research Center.
The soft patters on the duracrete become daggers as Eadu's late afternoon storm brushes in. Krennic tugs his gloves tighter around his fingers as he makes his march. He calls out, "Galen!"
He can see Galen by the turbolift, sending his daughter up with an embrace. Pashna is there with them. Just before the steel doors of the lift close, Krennic can see Galen's eyes widen one more time on her face. The two men turn about to face Krennic.
"Mister Pashna," he begins. "Something interesting has been discovered regarding your transport.
The young man replies in direct and polished tones, but the steadiness of his voice doesn't hide the surprise in his expression. "What about it?"
Krennic has a small urge to hold his arms akimbo, but he doesn't. It would look silly for the situation. "Your pilot is a defector, and appears to have used you to make contact with a spy here. He fled the docking bay, but a transport for your return to Coruscant has been arranged."
In all honesty, it hasn't, but Krennic feels his obligation as a legacy of the Futures. Pashna's eyebrows try to escape his head in surprise, but his thick brown hair keeps them in place. "I need to make a comm."
Krennic nods and looks to Galen. "Gather your engineers. I have an announcement to make."
"Why?" Galen asks. It is curious, not defiant. He barely makes a gesture, as several of the people milling about join in one single file, as Krennic takes them out onto the raining platform.
He smiles acidly as he sees his transport descend onto the platform, unloading his squad of black troopers. They march down the platform, boots squealing as the rain begins to pound harder in account of the nearing storm.
Krennic looks to Galen Erso. The man stands unconcerned, blinking raindrops out of his eyes. He scans the line of staff, drifting and herd-like. They huddle as if sharing heat and protection in the spitting storm. "Gentlemen. One of you has betrayed the Empire. One of you conspired, and has remained in contact, with a pilot who has long since absconded to the Rebellion. I urge that traitor to step forward.
On cue, the death squad takes position and levels their weapons at the engineers before them.
Not one of the engineers answers Krennic's accusation. He didn't really expect to.
"No one?" He asks. "The traitor will still be executed, but at least he can die making a stand. Really, it's a small price to pay for the incompetence you've paid the Empire."
They look among themselves intently, as if conducting investigations within their mind. Galen does nothing else but stand at his side, watching the engineers intently against the curtain of rain.
"Very well," Krennic says. "I'll consider it a group effort then." His words are cruel and sweet, but Krennic feels no remorse. He feels no shame for finding satisfaction from his form of justice. "Ready," he announces, and his troops check the settings on their rifles with a metallic click.
"Aim," he adds, and the death squad takes aim. "And—"
Galen takes action. He dashes between Krennic and the engineers, spins about on the wet platform. "Orson, no." He spreads his arms, as if effort alone can block the troopers' shots. "Spare them. They have nothing to do with this."
Krennic looks into the face of the man he'd befriended so long ago, and he waits. "Why?"
"Because it was me," Galen cries. He is drenched by the storm, tired and wild-eyed; he looks like a man abandoned by his own brilliance. "It was me."
He crooks a finger towards Galen. "Fire," he spits.
Krennic doesn't watch the crimson bolts flare against the gray storm clouds of Eadu's afternoon storm, doesn't bother glancing at the engineers as they tumble down. He doesn't watch as Galen's distinct white robes char themselves into darkness. Krennic watches Galen's face, a perfect mask of shock and fury and pain.
"Papa!" Jyn Erso's cry is hoarse and raw as she runs onto the platform, struggling to find traction on the wet metal. Krennic's hand drifts to his sidearm, but he doesn't grasp it. This young girl is the last of memory of Galen Erso, his friend and colleague.
His hand moves to clasp his other. "It had to be done, Miss Erso. A close friend or not, he was a traitor to the Empire." he says. How amazing it is that moments beyond death, it becomes easy to shift to the past tense. "We both lost someone important today."
"A transport to Coruscant will be prepared for you," Krennic adds. "I imagine you would like to visit your mother and…"—his voice wavers slightly, but he is quick to catch it—"…bury your father."
He follows the line of the black troops into the shuttle as the young Erso girl cries over her father, surrounded by the bodies of the others.
The rules are not to interfere when Galen is caught. The rules are to keep the Rebellion going.
"Galen!" Cassian runs out to the platform. Jyn is there as well, crying over his body. She got out of the turbolift before Cassian could notice, while he was still sending a message to Kay-Tu to bring the ship around the back entrance.
Cassian steps closer to her. "Jyn."
"No," her voice isn't the same. It is broken and full and cracking and empty. She is raw with emotion. "Go away."
He shakes his head. "Jyn," he tries again.
"I said go away, captain." She doesn't look at him.
Cassian steps closer. "I'm not doing anything."
She stands up brusquely and glares at him, meeting his eyes with Galen's. "Why didn't you do anything? You just stood there and watched. You watched him die; you let him die."
Cassian forces the life out of his face. "He knew the risks. The agreement was that we wouldn't do anything if—"
"You didn't do anything!" Jyn shouts with a ragged and angry sort of sobbing. "Now he's… he's…" Her breath hitches. "I guess the Rebellion hasn't changed at all."
He is in disbelief, and he plays that emotion onto his mask. "Hasn't changed? Jyn, I have been in this fight since I was six years old. The rebellion has changed a lot."
"You still kill," she fights back. "The Alliance still kills."
"We're fighting for freedom, Jyn, not peace. People will die along the way."
Her eyes blaze in a wet fury, dripping tears and hate. Her yell becomes a whisper "People like my mother?"
Cassian's face betrays nothing, and neither does his tongue.
"I was there that day. The Empire was standing there, just like you were," her voice drips from a whisper to a snarl. "And it was the Alliance with their guns drawn."
"Did I draw a gun?" he argues. "Did I pull a trigger? Did I?" The ink-drawn fire in her eyes feeds on her tears. "Did I?!"
"You might as well have!" Jyn steps forward. She stands so close to him, on her tiptoes so she could reach a menacing height. She smells like a rainstorm over a field of flowers. "Go take this thing you call freedom and kill another family. It's to save the galaxy," she hisses. "It isn't wrong!" Jyn's mocking him, and he can't find the right words to get her to back down.
But she does. She throws something at him and turns around. Her voice softens into something sad. "Bodhi told me you and my father were friends." He catches it in his hand, a small holodrive. "There's the last thing my father ever said to me. He hugged me and whispered it in my ear. It's your blasted Death Star plans."
An Imperial shuttle lowers itself onto the wet metal platform, and they watch as a group of stormtroopers lifts Galen's body from the ground and onto the transport. She doesn't look back at him, and for that Cassian is thankful. He doesn't want to look at her eyes.
"Now excuse me," she says coldly, not deigning to face him. "I need to bury my father." Cassian watches the spacecraft disappear into the rain, Jyn Erso with it. He turns around, to see Bodhi and K-2SO standing beneath the awning.
Jyn has wracked his confidence from him, but Cassian knows how to wear a mask. "Now they know that Galen was a traitor," he tosses the chip to K-2, "But they have no idea what exactly Galen did, or if he was even with the Alliance. All they think they know is that Galen Erso helped you." He jerked his head towards Bodhi.
The three of them walk to the back entrance, where Baze and Chirrut stand at the ready. Cassian maintains his face. Forget emotion. Forget expression. There should be nothing left to feel.
He can see the disappointment in their faces. They expected Jyn to be with them. "Where is Jyn Erso?" Chirrut asks.
"Gone." And it shouldn't matter. She chose her path, but she knows too much about the Rebellion. She hates the Rebellion too much. It matters. It will always matter.
Before he enters the cockpit, he catches a final snippet in Chirrut's conversation. "We'll see her again, Bodhi. I am almost sure of it."
Cassian, safely out of their earshot in the cabin, looks to K-2SO and asks. "What are the chances of that, Kay-Tu?"
The droid takes a seat in his co-pilot's chair. "Highly probable, captain."
Orson Krennic became Jyn Erso's legal sponsor in Coruscant, though the agreement appeared unwilling on one side. Lianna Hallik was proclaimed as one of the many dead in the mining accident in Jedha City. Tanith Ponta was taken onto death row. A wealthy account in Betha II was recently emptied.
Captain Andor and his crew fled to the Demesel system, where the plans of the Death Star remained in pursuit of the Empire. The plans were then transferred to the Tantive IV, in an effort to evade Imperial starships.
Antilles made course for Tatooine as Andor escaped to Zeltros to replace his ship. Days later, they flew back to Yavin 4. The plans—and Antilles' ship—did not arrive with them.
Jyn Erso was taken into the University of Coruscant, unknowingly by others to be her second time. After her graduation, she was invited to join the Imperial Naval Fleet, an invitation she immediately rebuffed.
Alderaan had been destroyed by the Death Star as the Empire's first display of its power-headed by one Wilhuff Tarkin. The Alliance knew the truth, and so did Jyn Erso.
The facility in Scarif was destroyed, the only survivors were two visitors who had managed to escape atmo moments before the Citadel's destruction: Jyn Erso and Orson Krennic.
Two rebels were discovered in Coruscant and forcibly taken aboard the Death Star. An unregistered ship entered the atmo of Yavin 4, its passengers calling it the Millennium Falcon. The schematics of the Death Star were on board, along with Leia Organa.
An intercepted transmission stated that the Death Star was aiming for Yavin 4, and that the rebel prisoners were going to be forced to watch. The rebels identified to be Moran and Elohim.
Jyn Erso was once again offered a position on the Fleet. She said no.
Luke Skywalker—one of Princess Leia Organa's rescuers—delivered the final blow that caused the destruction of the Death Star. Officers Moran and Remorso were killed aboard the battle station. The only death that mattered to Jyn Erso was Orson Krennic's.
With the Empire's new light on the Rebel Base, the Alliance relocated to Echo Base on Hoth. Bodhi Rook, Baze Malbus and Chirrut Îmwe remained as the crew of Captain Cassian Andor. For almost a year, this crew—and the Rebel Alliance—kept the base of operations in Echo Base running heavily on the Intelligence Spy Network.
For that whole year, Jyn Erso visited her parents everyday.