—The Missing Year:
53 HOURS
"General," Weems called. "A comm from the Coruscant cell." The private paused for a while. "It's Moran." Moran, who had just left for Coruscant four days prior to continue as the Imperial contact of Operation Fracture. He was expecting a comm from her any time soon.
Draven nodded and followed the man to the communications tower. The hologram of Officer Celes Moran was frowning at him. He was ready to berate for risking sending a holocom. "What are y—"
"Jyn Erso just arrived on Coruscant," the spy told him. "On an Imperial shuttle, with a squad of Death Troopers and Director Orson Krennic of Weapons Research."
He was taken aback. He hadn't heard of the younger Erso for five days since she skipped out of Base One. Draven was expecting Captain Andor only days earlier to retrieve the girl and Bodhi Rook. "Is Captain Andor there?"
The sapphire hologram shook its head. "No. I was calling to ask if he was there." The usual vindication in her voice wasn't there. "There's a new development on Fracture that I overheard past their transport."
His eyebrow rose, curious.
"Galen Erso is dead," Moran informed him in an unrushed tone. "According to the latest news docs, assassinated by rebels." She was no doubt telling the truth. Draven hired Moran in Intelligence for her uncanny ability of finding out the truth—by any means necessary.
He didn't approve of her methods, but they almost always got the best results.
Interrogators needed that ability to fish out lies. Armed with a knife or with worse, Celes Moran could do just that. Draven didn't need confirmation from her any more than he needed it from Andor. "Copy, Officer Moran. You may—"
"Sir, I believe another course of action can be taken," she interrupted. Draven wasn't fond of it, but he was sure to be used to it. "The inner circle is aware that Galen Erso was a spy. Director Krennic is volunteering to check on the Death Star plans himself. They're going to Scarif, sir."
Draven was going to reprimand the woman, but instead he smiled. "That's the kind of information I wanted to hear, Moran."
"Thank you, General," Moran nodded. "I suggest that the Citadel be destroyed. It's too guarded for an undercover extraction, and more so if Krennic is on the facility. It contains more plans than there are spies to sabotage them. It's the smartest road to take."
"One day, Moran," he threatened, "Your blatant lack of respect for the Rebel authority will get you in trouble."
She shrugged. "I'm turning twenty-nine any time soon, General; and I've been with the Alliance for longer than half of that. If I was going to get in trouble, it would have happened already."
"We'll see about sending someone to Scarif," Draven confirmed. "Dismissed." With that, the hologram died. He nodded to Weems and exited. All he was to do now was wait for Andor and his crew to return; they had something new to do.
38 HOURS
Krennic gazed at the pristine white walls as if they didn't remind him of bloodstains and rain. Jyn Erso followed him closely. She was still dressed in her black overcoat, because she was mourning and because she could. Krennic had the luxury of a dazzling white uniform, one that couldn't allow him to properly lament.
They walked by an unnecessarily large window, but Krennic understood the need for flair. It showed the wondrous paradise of Scarif beneath them, with its sapphire blue oceans and its desert gold beaches. The warm temperature of the planet was cruel against Jyn Erso's black garb, no doubt.
"The Vault is this way, Miss Erso," he told her as she began to drift through the hallways. She did it often, in the days after Eadu. Jyn Erso was smoke, any more than her father was. Drifting and passing through everything: the child of her mother's fire.
Jyn nodded lethargically and returned to the line. They were on Scarif for one reason: to find the depth of her father's treachery. Several talks with Imperial officers and licensed interrogators alike had only established that she knew nothing about Galen.
People passed by them in the corridor. Some paid glances to them, but most simply passed through them. "This is the heart of Imperial Weapons Research," Krennic informed her. "In the Citadel are the brainchildren of the greatest minds of the Empire."
"Even if they're traitors?" Her voice follows him down the white corridor. His face grimaces at the mention of the word. It wasn't synonymous to Galen yet, but it was on its way.
Krennic didn't turn around to face her. "No matter his allegiances, your father was a brilliant man," Krennic whispered. The truth of Eadu would never go out to the galactic public. Even simple enforcer droids were not to hear the story. "That depends on the degree of treachery," he covered it up.
There was only silence for a while and the echoing thrums of their footsteps. "It is a shame the Alliance mistook your father's brilliance for a weapon." It was the lie that had to be told. Galen Erso was assassinated by rebels in the hope of preventing the superweapon from development.
Jyn Erso nodded. "They will get what they deserve." The hard set of her eyes was no longer languid. She was truly and duly angry at the Rebel Alliance, for reasons unknown to Krennic. If he had to guess, perhaps the root of her resentment was that the Alliance had somehow crept into Galen's resolve—which eventually led to his death.
Krennic refused to name it as an execution.
When they arrived at the circular door, he passed a look to the black-clad young woman. "It would be best that I go this way alone, Miss Erso." She didn't answer, but the way her eyes—Galen's eyes—passed over his told him that she heard and acknowledged what he said.
Jyn Erso stood erect at the side of the hallway, her posture flawless and her face unreadable. He pressed his hand onto the scanner at the side and listened to the vacuum within the schematic bank open.
Without a word from her or the KX droid that followed him, Orson Krennic entered the data vault. He didn't properly recall the name of the data tape, but he had committed its location to memory.
He began to move the levers as KD-17 moved to the console board. The metal shifted around the spire in a dizzying motion. "Locating Star-dust," the droid said as a data tape glowed green. Krennic found irony in its naming, its capability of resolving planets into nothing more than that.
Perhaps it meant more to Galen than Krennic could find meaning for.
Krennic moved the handles around the six-story tower. Within in were more plans than any one could see to: scientific treasuries, bureaucratic memoranda and schematics highlighted to microscopic detail. He was there for only one. It was an agonizingly slow pace watching the metal hands pull out the data tape with utmost care, until Jyn Erso ran into the room.
She was alive, to say the least. Her eyes were as wild as Galen's were on that afternoon, pleading for the lives of his engineers—who in turn died as well. While the retrieval mechanism took its sweet time bringing the Death Star plans down, Galen turned around and took to the center room.
"There are Rebels," she said. "In the facility." Her eyes had seen them. The Rebels were here for the plans, which meant that Galen had in fact done something with the project. Krennic needed to know what.
KD-17 looked up from the console and the whirring in the data vault stopped. "Director, it would be best that you and Miss Erso vacate the facility if there is risk of a security breach." Its eyes blinked an indiscernible pattern. "We will have the plans transmitted to your transport upon your departure."
Rebels were a curious bunch, capable of being either so restrained or incredibly violent. Despite everything, Krennic still valued his own life above the Death Star's. He nodded to the droid and began to march down the white walls of the Citadel.
Cassian was not fond of the navy gray uniform, but still he donned it with duty. He was a Fulcrum, able to bend to whichever side of the battlefield with a shift of his weight. But he was not here as a spy. Cassian Andor was here as a Rebel, wholly and entirely.
In the corner, he played with the wires of the detonator that he had attached to the wall. All the bombs were set to a timer, K-2SO having calculated the elapsed time between each activation. They needed to get out of the planet within the hour, and once they would be—the entire data vault would blow.
Cassian was still skeptic to the orders to destroy the schematics bank. If the Tantive IV and the Death Star plans would never arrive at Base One, it would only be logical that they take the Empire's copy of the plans.
But Cassian would never disobey his orders; Eadu had proven that. General Draven told him to destroy the bank, entirely, and he would do just that.
Once the light of the bomb had glowed an active red, he and K-2SO retreated from the corner to find another one. The droid was carrying a box of explosives under the guise of something less precarious. And the Alliance didn't have the funding for decent bombs.
If K-2SO so much as placed the box on the wrong side of its weight, things would go very, very wrong. And Cassian was ready to swear to the stars above when the droid set the box down to point forward, and swear even louder when he looked at the direction.
It had been two days since Eadu. Cassian had just arrived on Yavin 4 when General Draven briefed him on a new, much simpler, mission: Get to Scarif. Destroy the Citadel. Cassian wasn't given any specific methods, but the subtle way Draven had people march in and out of the hangar with boxes of detonators told him exactly how the general wanted it done.
Jyn Erso was on the Citadel, still her hair down and dressed in black; and Cassian Andor was about to blow the place up.
He'd let Galen die, and it was in his mind whenever he closed his eyes. Cassian wasn't sure what he was more afraid of: what he was about to do to Jyn Erso, or what she could do to him in his nightmares—once she was dead and among the ashes of Scarif.
"Jyn Erso is in the facility," K-2SO said as they watched her from the hallway. At the whisper of her own name, she turned her head to the side and looked at them. Initially, her eyes widened, then they settled into a narrow glare.
Cassian's posture stiffened. "I am aware, Kay-Tuesso. I am aware." The droid picked up the box of detonators carefully and proceeded to walk. Towards the girl or not, Cassian was unsure. He only watched Jyn Erso's eyes follow them.
Then, almost imperceptibly, she nodded and walked into a chamber—the data vault. (Kriff, this mission would have been so much easier if Jyn Erso didn't hate the Alliance.) "There is a distinct possibility that Jyn Erso will warn the Empire of our presence here at Scarif."
"I know." They snuck into another corner as K-2SO took his leisure time setting the box down. Cassian hoped that perhaps the droid also didn't feel righteous ending the Erso family line. Then again, there was a time limit and a few more bombs to place. (Seven seemed like overkill, but they had to be thorough.)
The continuing minutes seemed faster soon later. They wired all the bombs into hidden alcoves, and even one underneath a mess hall table. Along with their steady pace of justified terrorism, the angular degree of the shadows on the beach increased ever so slightly. K-2SO had forgone the empty box after wiring the final detonator. Lugging boxes around tended to slow his pace of escape.
They made their way back to their landing pad. The chrono on his wrist clicked down to almost only ten minutes left. Still, despite that limit, Cassian only stood at the boarding ramp's opening and watched the tropical landscape of Scarif. K-2SO continued on past the bulkhead.
He watched from the ramp as Jyn Erso ran down the field, her black coat billowing behind her like Krennic's white cape. The ocean breeze blew her hair behind her as the minutes ticked away from their mutual destruction.
"Cassian," K-2SO called from the cockpit. "We should get out of here before there is no here to get out of."
He raised a hand as a silencing gesture, but then realized that K-2SO couldn't actually see him. "Wait," he commanded. Before Jyn could step into her transport, her eyes scanned the field once before finding Cassian's. She didn't say anything, but the empty space between them would have made it impossible to hear anyway.
He waited as Jyn Erso stepped into her transport and flew up into the stars. Then he retreated to the cockpit, three minutes to spare.
K-2SO was watching from the viewport. "It appears Jyn Erso will be able to live another day." The droid commented.
"Seems like it," Cassian added before taking his seat on the captain's chair. "Start up the ship. We need to get out in"—he looked at the timer—"two minutes."
K-2SO did not comment about how they would have had more had Cassian not wanted to watch Jyn Erso escape to safety before them. The droid took to the controls and the ship began to rumble below them. The engines fired up and shuttle began its ascent.
"Fifteen seconds," Cassian said, "Then we go into hyperspace." And so the spacecraft went up and up until the last second, just as he was about to activate the hyperdrive—the entire facility erupted in sand. No fire, only debris.
So many lives, for the greater good. But Cassian had grown used to it. How many people have you shot, Andor? Celes Moran once asked him. Sixteen at the time, and still the number was high.
Cassian was only glad that Jyn Erso was not in the body count.
14 HOURS
They didn't bother being gentle with her. The stormtroopers kicked her into the barren room for one more time. "Watch it, target practice!" Celes yelled to them. But she didn't fight, because she knew what they could do.
They let her wander because they knew she wasn't going anywhere.
They had her brother; she wasn't going anywhere.
"Celes?" It's Elohim, a fellow rebel. He must have been aboard the Tantive IV—which they captured only days ago.
Make him talk. The squad leader told her. Or your brother dies. Celes closed her eyes to steel her resolve. "Elohim," she greeted her senior.
He sat idly on a chair. There was a table in front of him. A lacking presence of knives and weapons allowed dust and other particles to settle on the table. She wasn't used to the lack, but she banished the thought. She volunteered to be on Coruscant to get away from that side of her.
"How are you here?" Elohim asked her. She knew why he's there. Celes overheard the Imperials. They captured the Tantive IV; and Elohim was part of the Rebel Escort. "Were you discovered on Coruscant?"
Celes nodded. "Yes." Freyan accepted a job offer from a medic whose side job was to leech Rebel spies out to the Empire. She got the brunt of the blow. "But right now, I'm here for another reason."
He gave her a quizzical look. "What was that?"
"Draven's precious cargo," Celes said, but the words are hard to choke out. "They want to know where it is." Operation Fracture Oversight. The Death Star plans.
Elohim was taken aback but she didn't blame him for being so. "Moran." The set of his jaw told Celes that she struck a nerve. "No."
"Elohim, please," she pleaded. "You know what I'm talking about. They have my brother, and they'll kill him if you don't help me now."
His eyes told her everything she needed to know. "They're lost." Celes was an interrogator. She knew when people are lying. "Why are you so ready to betray the Rebellion?"
"If you won't try to help me, try to help yourself," she threatened, "You know what I did for the Rebellion. If you don't help yourself now, the next time they let me into this room"—she gestures to the empty tabletop—"It won't be to talk."
She'd done it already, to the first two from the Tantive IV's crew. They refused to talk, and refused to break under Celes' regretful hand. It was the first time she ever drew a rebel's blood, but she didn't kill them. The first, the Stormtroopers shot thrice.
The second, they threw out of the airlock.
The squad leader told her that that was how her brother was going to die. Shot or thrown out an airlock, or whatever punishment Elohim garnered for the loyalty she can't mirror.
"Then it will be for the Rebellion," he spit at her, "The cause you have once believed in, and now have forsaken."
Celes couldn't quell her anger, and grabbed her former commanding officer by the collar. "I am a slave to Rebellion. My father sold me to the Rebellion to pay for his debts. The only thing I will ever fight for is my brother."
Elohim smiled ruefully. "Then your brother is dead."
She was readying to deck him, until the director walked in. She calmed out immediately. This was the man who could get her brother executed whether she cooperated or not—well, him and the lord of the Sith cult who also happened to be aboard.
"That's enough, Miss Moran," the Krennic's voice came to. "It appears you have been…incompetent." Celes inhaled sharply as her fingers loosened over Elohim's collar.
"You and…" The director thought momentarily, "…this man will be transported over to the Death Star along with me." A pair of stormtroopers followed the director into the room with a pair of restraints, for Elohim.
Celes nodded. "And my brother?"
He smiled poisonously, "Oh yes, I almost forgot." Krennic titled his head to look at the troopers who had just shackled Elohim. "Kill the boy." The faceless stormtrooper nodded and exited the room.
"No!" Every muscle in Celes' body jumped into a new rush of adrenaline. The frustration she had saved for Elohim's face was going to be directed to Orson Krennic. She was about to lunge, when the other trooper grabbed her and placed a new set of shackles on her. Celes settled for a yell. "No! We had a deal!"
They ushered them out, the director walking closely in front of them. "Afraid so, Miss Moran. You were incapable of providing what we asked you. We are only upholding our end of the agreement."
There was even more cruelty in her handling than there was earlier. The director was headed out for the hangar, and he was taking them with him. Which meant, first and foremost, that Celes wasn't even going to be allowed with her brother in his final moments—because she failed.
"Where are you taking me then?" She spit.
Krennic didn't deign to look back at her. "I said it earlier, which only proves you have no idea how to listen. I'm taking you aboard the Death Star."
The Death Star. Fracture. The Alliance.
There was the sound of a blaster down the hallway behind her, and she flinched and tried not to let it affect her. It could be any shot. Maybe the crew of the Tantive IV was running an escape; maybe the rebels had snuck in to rescue them. Anything, if not the bolt that killed her brother. "Why?"
"Because some of your rebel friends have led us right to your base," Krennic looked at her and smiled. They couldn't… Any rebel wouldn't be so stupid. "Yavin 4, right?" Next to her, Elohim twitched nervously. "Yes, well, you are about to witness the end of the rebellion you so willingly betrayed."
Betrayed, maybe, but she could still make it right. If they continued to let her wander—because their ego and pride have led them to believe that she was hopeless, desperate yet strangely enduring—Celes could find the comm room and she could send a warning to the Alliance.
0 HOURS
"He wants to fight," Chirrut assessed the captain. Yet here they were on Hoth, a proper place for a blind man who could not see anything much less color.
Bodhi's laugh ringed at the comm. "You're not in the Fleet, Cass," the pilot said. They could hear the firefight going on at the orbit of Yavin. Cassian's hand twitched on the console.
Chirrut moved his own to the young man's shoulder. "The Alliance still needs you, captain. You shouldn't be on the lines today."
"I don't appreciate being called expendable," Bodhi called. Then, still clear but directed at someone else, "Copy, Blue Leader." The pilot paused for a while. "Apparently, the use of this channel is unauthorized, but the general is going to turn a blind eye just this once. See you when we win the war."
Cassian added, "It better not be in a body bag, Rook." The line returned to static before Bodhi could reply. The captain weakly slapped the comm then stalked out of the room.
"Let's see if we can find a warmer corner here in Hoth," he laughed to himself, but Chirrut was very sure he could hear it.
Baze grunted and poked Chirrut's shoulder. "And you?"
He shrugged. "I would like to stay here. You go with the captain and explore." Baze made no sound and only nodded and took a seat.
"I will stay too," Baze told him. He nodded and began to pray: I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.
And on Coruscant, Jyn Erso too saw sitting down and watching. She counted every ship that passed by until she lost count, and then she returned to one and started again. With every count, she rolled her fingers around the pendant at her neck.
The constant drone of the teacher reminded her of Chirrut's praying, but she preferred the latter. Jyn had covered all this is in a previous life, but she wasn't going to disclose that to anyone else but her father—and her father was dead.
And suddenly there was a Togruta at the door, a girl barely past her teenage years who was known as Krennic's secretary's assistant. Jyn's attention whipped from the passing ships to Dewi Marek. "Excuse me," Dewi said. Her voice was needlessly high-pitched and grating on Jyn's ears. "May I… um, Jyn Erso?"
The Cathar professor's eyes landed straight on Jyn. Despite having only been (re-)enrolled to the Coruscant University just days ago, the people were familiar with her and her face. It was the consequence being the daughter of the supposedly assassinated Imperial science officer. "Miss Erso?"
She nodded and followed the younger girl into the corridor. "What is it?" She asked.
"News from the Death Star," Dewi said, before pausing then taking an oddly deep breath as Jyn looked at her quizzically. "There is no Death Star." It's a set of words she said so fast, but Jyn comprehends it in its entirety.
The Death Star was gone. Her father could be at peace, maybe, hopefully. And Saw, too, would never find need setting her ablaze ever again.
Save the rebellion, Saw told her, echoing it again and again in the darkness.
Jyn could feel her father's last touch glide over her cheeks like warms tears. Someone must destroy it.
Her mouth twitched to hide the expression rolling into her face. "Thank you, Dewi."
The Death Star had been destroyed, along with Orson Krennic. The Alliance had destroyed her father's monster—both his own creation and the one who chased and baited and took him away. Beneath that, Jyn couldn't help but smile.
The rain became visible from the window, until there was nothing else but the sound of tears on the roof above her. It was a strange feeling, knowing the terror that had passed in the days it had been since the rain was this soft.
And she realized, she wasn't really angry. Not anymore. She was just empty now. The sky was pouring out everything, dousing the embers that had sifted since Jedha and beyond. Washing away everything until she was truly empty, ready to start a new.
Perhaps the blood would never be cleaned from her hands, and the pain would never be stripped from her heart—but the tears were being wiped from her eyes. Dewi nodded and left down the corridor so that Jyn could only stand there.
Listening to the cries of the ghosts in her mind being drowned out by the sound of rain, as Jyn hoped that one day they would their peace in silence.
And that she would find her own somewhere else.
Her father's monster was gone. Someone had destroyed it, and Saw's dream had been saved. The sound of their echoing voices was faint in her ears.
With everything that had happened, there would never be silence, but there would be peace.
NOW
And eventually, Jyn realizes there can never really be peace. She can't be happy alone with only the voices of the dead to tear her apart.
She can't find peace in silence or in flame, there in the threatening embrace of Cassian Andor's arms, which Jyn has deemed as nothing short of a restraint.
This is the price she paid for honoring Galen Erso and Saw Gerrera. It's her house, and she is only on the way of building it into a home, and it is burning.
Save the rebellion! Save the dream!
There is no peace in Saw's dream. There is no peace in hers.
But Jyn allows herself this moment, before her cage lets her go free. Her hands huddle to her chest, and she tries to count the passing ships like she does when the world becomes dark.
Because when she closes her eyes, it is no longer the thunder of the stormtroopers but the rumble of an elevator. It is the resonant explosion of Scarif; and Cassian's silent warning and Saw's, telling her to run.
Maybe he saved her life that day, and maybe it was his guilt over her father. But Jyn lets him hold her there as if he has never done anything wrong.
Then she pushes him harshly from around her. Once he's done stumbling, Jyn folds her arms around her chest. "So I'm with the Rebellion again, I guess. It still doesn't mean I'm a part of it."
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