Precipice by shadowsong26
Reunion: Chapter 8
The four of them-Commander Tano, Gerrera, Kylie, and Rex himself-were sprawled on a ridge, overlooking the warehouse in the valley below. Security was a little heavier than Saw's intel had said, but still manageable. A full garrison, but they had enough numbers that they should be able to get in.
The walkers, though, were definitely gonna be a problem.
"All right, change of plans," Gerrera said, passing his viewer over to Kylie. "Three teams. I'll take the bulk of our people, make a strike at the main entrance. Ashla, you take the rest and take care of those walkers. Meantime, we send a couple people in to dump their drives."
This, with a nod to Rex. The drives had been his suggestion, during their preliminary briefing the night before. General Kenobi would want to see whatever data there was, and, while Gerrera's tactics tended toward blowing everything up and asking questions of the rubble, he'd quickly agreed that figuring out the cargo's intended next stop-if not its final destination-along with any other potential targets listed in those files, was a good idea. At least as a secondary objective.
"Once we get in," Gerrera continued, "we decide if we're blowing or tracking the shipment."
The Commander shook her head. "Unless we're going in stealth, they'll be looking for a tracker. Makes more sense to blow it up at this point."
She was right, about the tracker at least. On the other hand, security this tight probably meant highly classified R&D of some kind. Which could mean another monster like the one from Malastare, or an experimental bomb the likes of the Seperatists' defoliators, or any number of other nasty creations. If that were the case, trying to blow it up would just make things worse. Hell, it could even be a stockpile of cortosis or the like, and adding bombs to that equation never ended well.
"Risky," Rex said. "We're still pretty close to the city. If whatever they're moving is especially volatile, there could be a lot of civilian casualties."
"Point," she said.
"So we play it by ear," Gerrera said. "Once we know more about what we're dealing with, we can figure out how to end this."
"Agreed," Kylie said. "Who goes for the data?"
"Jyn," he said after a minute. "Rex, you good to go with her?"
Slicing had never been one of his primary skillsets, but he knew his way around an enemy mainframe. And it had been his idea in the first place. Plus, it wasn't that he didn't trust their allies, but he'd feel a damn sight better if either he or the Commander went along with Gerrera's slicer. Just in case he changed his mind about sharing intel, when the dust settled.
"Yeah." He pulled up the schematics Kylie had shared-wishing, absently, he still had a helmet with a HUD; easier to access and track and less damn obvious once they were actually in motion-and studied his options. "Best entry point for us is gonna be the south side of the complex."
"We'll keep the troopers as far away from there as we can," the Commander promised.
He nodded, and shut down the hologram.
"Kylie, assign the others to their teams," Gerrera ordered. "We move at sundown."
Jyn turned out to be the young girl who had been in the caves the night before-not who Rex would have chosen for this. She was too small to credibly steal a uniform if they ended up in that position, which meant he'd have to steal armor himself and fake taking her as his prisoner. That was far from his favorite ploy, even working with someone whose capabilities he knew. Too many things that could go wrong.
And, all right, the fact that she was only a couple years older than Leia (the two girls even looked a bit alike) probably had something to do with his feelings on the subject. If he were completely honest with himself. Which was stupid on his part, and he knew it. For one thing, they were probably going to start bringing Leia along with them on actual missions before too much longer. That was what they'd been training her for, after all. Besides, it wasn't like Commander Tano hadn't performed similar tasks, and more, at around this kid's age.
(The fact that he himself had technically done it younger didn't count. Clones aged fast.)
Gerrera wouldn't send Jyn into this if he didn't think she could get out of it, he told himself.
On cue, two slightly-staggered explosions ripped the air.
"That's us," the girl said. "You ready?"
"Always," he said, and headed for the base's back door.
Their path wasn't totally clear-he hadn't expected it to be. He focused on the east side, picking off a pair of stormtroopers, one with a grenade launcher. A burst of precision fire behind and slightly to his left said Jyn was capable of holding her own.
See? You were worried for nothing.
Thirty seconds to reach it, and they both made it intact. "Cover me," Jyn said, not waiting for an answer before she went to work on the lock.
He nodded, and got into position, screening her bodily from view and keeping an eye out for trouble headed their way.
None came.
"Got it!" she said, unnecessarily, as the door slid open-
To reveal a pair of stormtroopers standing on guard, just inside.
Ah. There they are.
"What the-" the one on the right said, and that was as far as he got before Rex and Jyn, in near unison, took him and his partner out with neat headshots.
"Nice," she said, and grinned up at him.
He couldn't help but smile back. "Come on, kid. Don't want to keep the others waiting."
She rolled her eyes, and called up the complex map. It only took her a few seconds before she nodded and shut it down again, jerking her head to the right. "This way."
"Right behind you."
With a healthy amount of caution, Jyn took point, starting down the hallway towards the central data hub at a steady, deliberate pace, eyes constantly moving, hands ready on her blaster in case of trouble. "So, is this what you and Ashla do, most of the time? Work with people like us?"
"A lot of it, yeah," Rex said, keeping an eye out behind them. "We keep ourselves mobile, pitch in when other cells we have contact with need the help."
"You hit your own targets, too, though," she said. It wasn't really a question.
"We do," he confirmed. "The more cells we bring into our network, though, the more we're doing things like this instead of our own missions." Jedi business aside, but that, obviously, wasn't his to share. "A lot of it ends up being the same sort of thing anyway-destroy an installation, make out with as much data or equipment or supplies as we can, get it to the people who can best make use of it. Sometimes, rescuing prisoners."
"We don't do a lot of that," Jyn said. "I mean, if we run across anyone, depending on what they can do and what our actual goal was, sometimes Saw brings them back with us, but it's usually not what we're there for."
"Right."
They continued on in silence for another few minutes and two turns-Jyn checked her map once, just to be sure-and then she paused, poked her head around a corner, ducked back. "Okay. It's just up ahead, third door on the left. I didn't see cameras, but there's two troopers on guard."
"Probably more inside," he said. "There's likely a security feed, too."
She nodded, and unclipped a flashbang from her belt. "I'll take the two outside, you handle any backup?"
"Copy that," he said. "Count of three, then."
"One, two-"
She tossed the grenade, and the next thirty seconds were a chaos of smoke and lasers.
When the dust settled, there were a total of five dead armored troopers (two outside, one halfway through the door, the others still in the hub), and one junior officer in a grey duty uniform-corporal, based on his rank bar-slumped over the main console.
Jyn pushed the corporal's body aside and stuck in the data spike. "Download in progress," she said.
Rex nodded, and found a position where he could watch both the security feeds and the battered hallway for any approaching trouble.
She spun back and forth in the chair, and seemed like she was about to say something, if only to break the tension of waiting, when her comm crackled to life.
"Jyn. Status?"
Instantly, she sat up straighter. "All good here, Saw," she said. "We've started the data transfer, should be done in a minute or so, then we're headed to the rendezvous."
"Change of plans," he said. "Finish up there, then head for the primary target instead."
"Problems?" Rex asked.
"Not really," Gerrera said, followed by a sharp, staccato burst of blaster fire in the background. "These guys are just better at their jobs than the usual bucketheads. Taking us longer to get through the doors than we thought, that's all, and Ashla's still busy with those damn walkers. You two have explosives on you?"
"Yeah," he said.
"Always," Jyn added.
"We'll get there as fast as we can," he said. "But if we're not there in five minutes, make the call."
"Copy that," she said, and Gerrera cut the transmission.
Rex risked taking his eyes away from the surveillance feeds to glance at Jyn's screen-talking with Gerrera had eaten up a lot of that minute she'd mentioned; they'd be ready to disengage in seconds.
It was his turn to call up the complex map this time, scanning for the best route to the primary hangar, where their target cargo was ready and waiting for flights to resume.
There wasn't a clear one. Kriff.
"What's wrong?" Jyn asked.
No help for it, he thought, eyeing the downed stormtroopers with a sigh. Damage to that one's less obvious, I think. And it's closer to my size. "How good are you at faking being captured?" he asked.
She followed his gaze, then nodded and hopped down off her chair to start stripping the armor while he kept watch. "I'll make it work," she said, freeing the helmet and tossing it his way.
"Good," he said, catching it with his left hand.
On the plus side, at least I have this now. Scanners and everything
...yeah. Somehow, that didn't really improve the situation at all.
Fortunately, the prisoner gambit worked, at least to get them as far as the main hangar.
But there they ran into another little snag.
What the kriffing hell are a pair of karking deathtroopers doing here?
"You there," the one on the right said; automatically shifting his grip on his gun, pointing it at Jyn. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Caught this little rat trying to break into the data hub," Rex said. He squeezed Jyn's shoulder when she started to shift- not yet, kid. Wait for my signal. "I was told to bring her here."
"By who? What's your operating number?"
"MK-4119," he answered-and it was, in fact, the number belonging to the trooper whose armor he stole. Safer that way.
(The first time he'd pulled a stunt like this, he had instinctively used his birth number. That...could've gone better. Fortunately, he'd learned since then.)
"Orders came from Captain Rahl," he added. Who, according to the duty roster they'd found on the corporal's terminal, was the ranking officer on this watch, though the commandant would have come back on duty when-
A split second later, Left Trooper's gun was brought to bear on him.
...oh, kriff.
"Captain Rahl was killed in the firefight ten minutes ago," Right Trooper said.
Oh, kriff.
It was lucky- beyond lucky-that Rex had been bred to keep up with Jedi. And even luckier that Right Trooper had decided to run his mouth rather than pulling the trigger right away.
Rex yanked Jyn behind him and fired his own weapon, aiming for Right Trooper's head.
As it turned out, they weren't making armor like they used to.
But, luckiest of all, he'd moved just enough to keep either deathtrooper from hitting anything vital. One bolt grazed his left shoulder; the other connected solidly with his right hip. He grunted a little as his right leg gave out underneath him.
Which, helpfully, cleared Jyn's line of fire. Two quick shots, and both guards were down.
The whole thing had taken all of a second and a half.
"Rex?" she asked, dropping her discarded binders on the floor. "Rex, you okay?"
"I'll live," he said. He tried to stand-he could manage it, mostly, but that leg did not want to take his weight. Kriff.
Getting out is gonna be a problem.
Jyn hit the door control and slipped under his arm to help him stay upright.
There was a third deathtrooper inside, but his first shot went wide.
Jyn's did not.
Rex scanned the room with the benefit of his helmet's sensors. "Clear," he said.
"Good," she said, and helped him sit down on an upended crate before shutting the door behind them.
Once he caught his breath, it was damn near impossible to miss the top-secret project. The thing took up half the hangar; some of it in partially-assembled pieces of paneling and wiring, what looked like a turbine, links for a generator, a fuel pump, a pair of...no, those weren't dampers, they were-
"What is that?" Jyn asked, staring up in confusion at the large metal structure.
Rex frowned. "Looks almost like a...a hyperdrive?" Though what the hell would need one this big…
"I've never seen one that size," she said, echoing his thoughts. "But-yeah, that's the accelerator, right?"
He shook his head. "Interface with the sublights. I think."
"Right," she said. "I don't do engines a lot, just the basics. ...are they trying to build bigger Star Destroyers or something?"
"Maybe," he said. This seemed excessive even for that, but depending on how big they were planning to go…
Oh, he had a bad feeling about this.
Before he could think through the implications any further, his comm chimed and Commander Tano's voice cracked into the air. "Rex? What's your status?"
"Sir," he said. "We got the data, made it to the hangar. We're not totally sure what we're looking at, but it looks like…"
"Rex thinks it's a massive hyperdrive," Jyn said.
The Commander let out a breath. "How massive are we talking?"
"Taking up half the room, and it's only half-built," Rex said. "Most of the framework's in place, but there's some components missing."
"Right," she said. "Any fuel?"
"Hang on." He activated another set of scanners on the helmet. "Negative. No fuel."
"Then light it up," she said. "We're heading to the fourth backup rendezvous, you remember where it is?"
"Yeah," he said.
"...what's wrong? Are you okay?"
"I took a couple hits," he said. "It's not serious, I don't think, but I'm not very mobile at the moment. Definitely not with any speed, and I'm not sure how much longer my leg'll support me." Unlike certain generals he might name, Rex knew better than to be anything less than completely honest in this situation, so Commander Tano could adjust her plans correctly.
"Kriff," she said, then something he couldn't quite make out, to Gerrera or one of the others on her end. "...okay. Set the explosives, I'm headed in to you. There's a ground vehicle garage, should be pretty close to where you are. Think you can make it that far?"
He called up the schematics once more and studied them for a second. "Yeah, I think so. Unless we run into more trouble."
"Don't jinx it," she warned him. "I'll meet you there, we'll get out together. Okay?"
"Copy that, Commander. See you soon."
"Stay where you are," Jyn said, when the call cut out. "I'll set the bombs, then we'll get moving. Okay?"
"Yeah," he said. Best thing he could do, really, frustrating as it was. The sooner we get out of here, the better, but if I injure myself worse… "You know the weak points?"
"Um," she said.
That's a no, then.
"No one knows everything, kid," he said. "I'll talk you through it."
"Thank you," she said, and picked up the first of her charges. "Okay. Where do I start?"
Jyn kept the data spike, and Rex kept the detonator, and they made it to the garage with minimal resistance, leaving two dead Army officers-not stormtroopers, and, fortunately, not more deathtroopers- behind them.
Please, please, let our luck hold just two minutes longer, Rex thought, as he heard the telltale hum of a pair of lightsabers up ahead.
Commander Tano was perched on a speeder, keeping three stormtroopers back with reflected bolts; two more were dead on the ground. By the way the vehicle was vibrating, she'd already hotwired it and gotten it started before getting caught.
Rex pushed away from Jyn and shot one of the Commander's attackers-no sense in wasting the element of surprise.
Jyn was half a beat behind him, hitting the second on the side-a glancing blow; nonfatal, but enough to drive him back a step.
"Come on!" Commander Tano called, spinning her longer blade to deflect a volley from the last trooper standing.
He took a breath, summoned all the stamina adrenaline could give him, and made for the speeder, keeping low; blindly laying cover fire down in the general direction of the shooter.
He made it. By some kriffing miracle, he made it.
"Jyn?"
"Here," she said, getting into the driver's seat next to him. Her sleeve was a bit singed, but she was bright-eyed and didn't seem to be in any pain.
Commander Tano grinned down at the kid, then spared a worried glance for Rex.
"I'm all right," he said. "For the moment."
She nodded. "Go," she said, nudging Jyn and adjusting her stance to stay balanced when the speeder started to move.
The kid didn't need to be told twice. Rex hissed a little as his shoulder slammed back into the seat-sudden acceleration was never easy on burns-then twisted to help the Commander cover their exit.
"I've got this," she said, her second lightsaber passing over his head to intercept a bolt aimed at Jyn's back. "Stay down."
"Ashla?" Jyn said. "Ashla, they're closing the door-"
"Just keep driving," she said. "We'll make it."
At the very last second, she dropped flat across the back of the speeder. They shot out of the hanger, clearing the space underneath the door with mere centimeters to spare.
They were out. They'd made it. All three of them, alive, with the data spike still intact in Jyn's pocket.
Only one thing left to do now.
Rex took a breath, glanced back at the base to make sure they were far enough away, and hit the detonator.
Jyn shot him a half-feral sort of grin and made a hairpin turn to get them headed in the right direction; Commander Tano sat up next to him with a wild smile of her own; and when he glanced back, the only thing chasing them was a cloud of smoke and ash.
He let out a slow, relieved breath, and-yep, there was the pain. Kriffin adrenaline couldn't've masked it for another five minutes-
"It's okay," Commander Tano said. "We made it. I've got you."
"Sir," he acknowledged.
The Commander, no longer needing to worry ducking under a closing door, resumed her position on the back of the speeder, and Jyn fed a little more power to the engines.
And Rex-Rex just closed his eyes and sank into his seat, leaving it to the others to get them the rest of the way to the rendezvous from here, and bracing himself for what was likely to be a very bumpy ride.
Original Author's Notes: :D
(Jyn was actually originally going to be playing the role of Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Fic (because lol how to write Saw Gerrera's thirteen-year-old adopted daughter before he abandoned her), but then I considered this teamup and really how could I pass up that opportunity? Besides, Rex should have more people to bond with, right?)
Anyway, sorry again for the long-delayed update; RL keeps going nuts on me...and thanks so much for stopping by! See you next time! ~shadowsong