#brakas

It would have been based around the Abandoned Koro area, as discussed in my previous post HERE. Basically there would have been this little brakas monkey guy who would lightly harass you throughout the demo.

You'd see him right at the start. At this point the demo would have started with Tahu meditating in a clearing.

His plot was that he was in search of a mask, so later on in the demo you'd think you were about to get a ruru only for him to take it and run in to a dark cave.

Then deep in the cave you would see him being menaced by some rahi. After defeating the rahi he'd give you the mask and run away.

And then tragedy, just as you were going towards the end of the demo, where the sanctuary was, you would meet him again, only now he's unfortunately found an infected mask.

You would have to fight him in a little midboss fight, just a simple thing, running around, jumping at you, throwing rocks, etc. It would have been in the marsh in front of the big Miru gate.

Then you defeat him and its very sad.

BUT! This would tie in to a seemingly unconnected quest earlier in the Koro, if you've read my document HERE it details a side quest mirroring the main quest in QFTT, having to collect 4 gears to open the top of the tree.

Within the tree would be a shiny copper mask.

So if you had the mask with you when you got to the monkey encounter you got a happy end!

Final Verdict: Rejected for being too much like twilight princess.

Oh well...

I was quite happy with how the infected mahiki came out. I think the mask really fits well with the brakas.

Sorry about using the old build though. I was ignorant please be kind. The mahiki works so well with the new design too.

Unfortunately, the ultimate tragedy, the komau doesn't fit.

The comlink went so utterly silent that Bodhi worried he’d lost the connection. Several seconds passed. Then:

“Yes,” Cassian said. “This is Captain Willix of robotic research and development. Identify yourself.”

His voice was subtly different than usual. A little in the accent, mostly in tone. Colder, Bodhi thought, yet not as cold as he could sometimes get.

“RK-1301,” he replied.

“RK?” said Cassian. Something that might be amusement bled through the altered voice. “Very well. State your purpose.”

“I had a message for Sergeant Lyr. I … er, I’m not sure what happened that it went to your com, instead.”

“This is hers.” Now he definitely seemed amused. “She appears to have forgotten it. What message?”

Bodhi’s brain caught up with his relief. The last time he talked to Jyn, Cassian had just woken up. She said he was coherent, but exhausted. He didn’t sound it—well, of course coherent, but also clear and strong and careful, not tired. Then again, he could probably sound like anything if he felt like it. And if he was still recovering, he shouldn’t hear bad news.

“Trooper?” Cassian prompted him.

“Uh,” he said. “I—I’m in the fresher. I don’t think anyone else is here.”

It was so bald a tangent that even Bodhi winced. And with Cassian, of all people? He remembered the sabacc games during their long hours in hyperspace; the only time they managed to drag Cassian into one, he’d crushed them all. Even Jyn, who cheated.

“That does not matter,” said Cassian, which genuinely startled him.

Bodhi blinked at his wrist. “It doesn’t? Are all transmissions …?”

“Unlikely,” Cassian said. “But if you constantly switch between one way of thinking and another, it is more difficult to hold to what you must be. Do you understand?”

Now he sounded like a cross between Bodhi’s strictest Academy instructor and his favourite uncle.

“Yes, sir.”

It made for a very strange cross, Bodhi decided. But Cassian seemed to fall into it naturally. This must be how he talked to his other recruits, his real ones.

Though it didn’t get much more real than this.

After another pause, Cassian said patiently, “Lyr’s message?”

“Oh … well, I …” He knew he was babbling. “Where is she?”

“The mess hall,” said Cassian. “I take it Lord Vader has arrived with his prisoners.”

Relief whipped through him. His knees might have buckled with it, had he been standing. As it was, Bodhi leaned against the nearest wall.

“That’s what they’re saying down here.” He gulped. “It’s Princess Leia and her crew. I don’t know if you heard—”

“I have,” Cassian replied. He didn’t sound dismayed. He didn’t sound anything, really. Somehow, that cold, even tone comforted him more than open sympathy could have. “Are you familiar with Lord Vader?”

“I don’t think anyone is,” said Bodhi. “I know about him. In a general way.”

“He is a Jedi,” Cassian said.

“What?” Bodhi’s mind flew back to Jedha, to the temple, the old stories. Chirrut and Baze, everything. “That’s … that’s illegal. Isn’t it?”

“Nothing is illegal for the Emperor’s agents,” Cassian told him. “Stay away from him. Do not take risks.”

Distantly, Bodhi felt his nails digging into his wrist. He was so useless, really. If not for Jyn, they’d all have died, or been imprisoned—he’d be questioned all over again, worse than Gerrera by far. But he had saved Jyn and Cassian, Bodhi reminded himself. All their brains and nerve wouldn’t have protected them if they’d been on the surface when the Death Star razed Scarif. He’d done his part in the mission and he’d saved them and … and even now, he could do something. He just didn’t know what.

It occurred to him that he might be making things too complicated. His sister always said that he did. Probably the veteran intelligence officer on the other end of the call would say the same thing.

Bodhi asked, “What should I do?”

He half-expected to hear nothing.

“Note everything that you can,” said Cassian. “Learn the routines, and pay attention to any changes. Listen to what the other troopers say, particularly those higher up the ranks, but remember that rumours are not always reliable.”

“Don’t get excited and don’t panic?” he said, his heart still thudding.

“Yes.” There was a pause, and then an odd sound, a sort of shallow hiss he wouldn’t have thought possible from Cassian.

“Is something wrong?”

“Ribs,” Cassian said succinctly. “Remember, also, that nothing is worth endangering your position. If you must choose between information and your safety, choose safety. Every time.”

That did not sound very much like him.

“Really?”

“We cannot achieve anything from the grave,” said Cassian. “For now, our work is to learn and to wait for opportunity.”

Okay, that sounded like him.

“Yes, sir. I understand,” said Bodhi.

“Good.” Cassian’s voice shifted again, to something that wasn’t so much Captain Willix or Captain Andor as the fellow prisoner in Gerrera’s cells. The man who’d freed him when he couldn’t do much more than gibber, and in a peculiar way, seemed teammate as much as leader afterwards. “Do not forget. Be careful.”

Despite the dread and fear that clung to him, for himself and the others, despite the memories of battle and the nightmare of the Death Star, the horror that nearly swallowed him when he had to leave Jyn and Cassian in Imperial hands, the one worn and the other bleeding to death—despite it all, Bodhi felt something like hope. And courage, too. He mustered up his nerve.

“You, too.”

Jyn thought she would finally be free once they left the mess hall. Instead, Efrah hesitated as they walked into the corridor, locking her hands behind her back.

“Have you been given any sort of orientation?” she asked.

“No,” said Jyn, already bracing herself. “Captain Willix went straight into bacta, and I’ve been dealing with requisitions and the doctors and—all of that. I don’t think he’s even been assigned a commander yet.”

Efrah said, “Can he walk?”

“Yes,” she replied. “It’s the ribs. They’re broken and he had a punctured lung, so he’s on strict bed rest. It was all I could do to get him discharged to his quarters, last night.” Jyn saw another chance, and seized it. With her best attempt at a wry look, she said, “Perhaps you could tell me which hoop I should jump through next.”

“Certainly,” said Efrah. “In fact, I can show you. I have two hours until my next shift, and I’m in logistics.”

Jyn felt immediately suspicious. The great Imperial sisterhood, or—? But she couldn’t see an easy way to refuse, or a particular reason to do so.

“Thank you,” she said, her bare wrist itching. “I need to check on my captain before I leave the floor, though. We’re in F1813, but I’d be grateful,  unless that’s too much trouble.”

“F1813? That should be on the way,” said Efrah instantly.

Jyn, unsure whether she’d stumbled into a lucky break or a trap, just nodded. They walked the short distance—comparatively short distance—to Cassian’s quarters in near silence, for which Jyn could only feel grateful. She’d half-expected further interrogation. Then again, nobody talked much in the halls. Cassian hadn’t, either. Another regulation?

At the quarters, Efrah remained a few feet behind as Jyn typed in the code. Some other protocol, no doubt, but it might give her a moment to make sure Cassian didn’t give anything away. If he’d ever given anything away in his life.

When the door whooshed up, however, she found the room empty. Apart from its very cleanliness, it looked like Cassian had never been there at all. Jyn’s heart jolted.

“Captain?”

She didn’t hear anything, except Efrah moving towards her.

“Is there a problem, Lyr?”

A trap, Jyn thought wildly, yet when she turned around, Efrah betrayed nothing but bewilderment. Although she’d moved to the doorway, beside Jyn, she made no attempt to do anything but glance inside. Nothing like a formal inspection, but thank the Force for Cassian’s paranoia, anyway.

“It’s Captain Willix,” she said, only then remembering that she stood right where the door would normally crash down. Nothing happened. It must be some sort of sensor—but why the hell was she thinking about the wiring when ...

Cassian stalked into the room from the opposite direction. At the sight of them, he came to an immediate halt.

The fresher. Jyn almost laughed, all the more as his blank face somehow went blanker. She just remembered to salute.

“Captain.”

“Sir!” said Efrah, all but vibrating with deference.

Cassian’s glance flicked from Jyn, to Efrah, to Jyn. Nothing about his face changed at all, but that meant nothing. For all she knew, he might find the whole situation entertaining. Her eyes narrowed.

“At ease, sergeants,” he said, walking over to them. “Is there an emergency?”

“No, sir,” said Jyn. “Sergeant Efrah, here, offered to help us navigate the bureaucracy. If I have your leave, sir, I will go with her.”

“You do,” he said, without a trace of gratitude. Or anything.

“And if you are well enough to manage on your own,” she pressed.

Cassian’s brows lifted, his expression transforming in some indistinct way from neutral to haughty. “As you see.”

He did look better, in fact. His posture was straight as ever but less stiff, his complexion completely back to usual, his face devoid of the strain she’d already grown accustomed to. Some of it would be the analgesics, but—

“Yes, sir,” muttered Efrah. Though her manner remained as professional as ever, colour crept up her neck.

Jyn rested her hand against her pocket and prayed for patience.

“Do you need anything before I go?”

“Yes,” he said. “Either you or the quartermaster missed some basic necessities. I have placed a full list of what I require in your datapad. Take it to Requisitions and do not leave without a satisfactory affirmation.”

She bit the inside of her cheek. “It will be hours before I return, in that case.”

“Very well,” said Cassian indifferently. He moved aside and gestured at her dresser. “Your datapad is that way, Lyr.”

While Jyn felt reasonably sure he was running at maximum Imperial bastard for Efrah’s sake—nothing she hadn’t done with Esten, really—she couldn’t escape a sense of annoyance as she walked past. She also couldn’t escape a sense that something else was going on.

Walking over to the dresser, she risked a glance over her shoulder. Cassian had moved back into place, standing in the middle of the doorway and saying something in a quiet voice. She couldn’t make out the words, but she recognized the warm, easy tone from the elevator. He probably had that horrible smile plastered on, too.

Turning past the bed to her dresser did improve her mood, however. The datapad itself looked exactly as she’d left it; she wouldn’t have known he’d touched it. But her comlink, which she knew she'd left on the bed, sat neatly beside the datapad. Jyn dared another look at the door—Cassian had stepped closer to Efrah, effectively blotting her out. He was still talking to her, saying something that provoked a low laugh.

Hastily, Jyn bound the comlink around her wrist, just visible under the sleeve. She didn’t know how peculiar it would seem for an Imperial soldier to forget basic equipment, but she didn’t feel like finding out.

Datapad in hand, she headed back.

“—must have been extremely difficult, sir.”

“Anything for the Empire,” said Cassian.

Jyn cleared her throat.

“Ah, Lyr.” He moved again. “I’ll expect you to take note of everything. We have a great deal to learn.”

“Yes, captain,” she said, striding past. “Make sure you rest.”

Both women saluted him, and headed out together, Jyn doing her best to keep the grinding of her teeth inaudible. Even with her near-certainty of the game—if this could at all be termed a game—her hands itched to punch something.

“Captain Willix said Rebels shot him in the attack,” said Efrah, sounding impressed. Evidently the hall regulations only applied to the other halls. Or not at all. Hell if she knew.

“Yes,” said Jyn. “He dropped right off the archives and down to one of the platforms. Hit a few beams on the way down.”

“So that’s why you spent the battle looking for him. I wondered.”

She hadn’t asked. And Jyn hadn’t seen any trace of curiosity—nothing to dilute her relief as Efrah appeared to accept the explanation and return her attention to Zekheret. More suspicious than ever, she gave a short nod.

“He’s my captain.”

Efrah cast a quick glance at her, unreadable except a very slight, very knowing smile.

“Well, now I can see why you’d stick around that deathtrap for your captain.”

“Oh?” Her fingers tingled. Puzzled for a moment, Jyn realized she was gripping her datapad so tightly that she’d cut off blood from her fingertips. She forced herself to relax her grip.

Very solemnly, Efrah said, “His cheekbones would be a great loss to the galaxy. You’re a true hero, Lyr.”

Jyn snorted. “Just doing my part for the Empire.”

She didn’t even look at the requisition list until Efrah had led her through a labyrinth of departments and officials and questionnaires. At every other turn, Jyn expected it all to turn into some complex trap. After all, Lyr had no data trail, beyond what little her errands had grafted onto Willix’s. If anyone started digging around, they’d turn up that dangerous nothing. But nobody seemed to care about Lyr at all, except as proxy for an officer.

Maybe it helped that the officer in question had been a triple agent. Or quadruple—she lost count somewhere in there.

At any rate, she emerged an hour and a half later with a commanding officer for Cassian and a sketchy map of their quadrant in her head. Once Efrah headed off to her shift, borderline-friendly as ever, Jyn prayed she hadn’t signed any inadvertent death warrants and headed back to Requisitions. This time, at least, the lines didn’t look so miserably long.

Still, she had an hour’s wait, two hours after she left Cassian. And before that, Efrah had said that it’d been hours since Princess Leia’s arrival. By now, she must have been questioned. No, Jyn thought. Tortured. No point in polishing it up. She might have cracked, given up the plans or the base or the whole damn Rebellion. She might have held firm, even against a Jedi—Cassian believed she had it in her, and he certainly wasn’t one to overestimate people. Or she might be dead. They didn’t know, and they had no way of knowing.

Jyn checked her comlink. Nothing from either Cassian or Bodhi. Though it wouldn’t be safe here, anyway. She sighed, nevertheless, and switched on her datapad.

A message flashed over the screen.

Comlink: 36050682961 If sensitive location, replace audio: 975 (clear), 615 (uncertain), 248 (emergency)

Jyn instantly programmed Cassian’s comlink code into her own com, fixing the other three into memory. Sure enough, the message vanished before she’d finished typing.

She suppressed a burst of sheer excitement. Enigmatic messages with secret codes were much more her idea of spying than gossiping with a boyish flirt and pretending to bond with an inscrutable sergeant. Or—not her idea of it, not at all, but an idea, like something from a good holodrama.

She knew it was silly. No doubt he’d have just told her the codes directly if she’d come back alone. Unless he had fallen asleep, which was … a very real possibility, in fact, and probably the reason he left the message in the first place. He couldn’t know who’d be around when she read it. It made perfect sense to be cryptic.

Still.

The childish pleasure lasted no more than a few moments. Jyn’s mind returned to Princess Leia, the flawed but dauntless spy locked somewhere in this place. Maybe near, maybe distant, but—no, it had to be near, didn’t it? If she could trust Efrah and Zekheret that far, his reassignment to the prison was part of a general reshuffling to increase security, on account of the new captives. Of course, Princess Leia might be held elsewhere, and of course, they might be completely untrustworthy. But their information coincided with Bodhi’s, and certainly with the level of chaos around the princess. It seemed most probable by far that she was here, in this very quadrant.

Being tortured.

I can’t do anything about that, Jyn told herself, even her mental voice thin. I can’t do anything.

She’d help if she could do something—she would, now. But with only a vague guess at a location and no way to escape, anything they might do would only throw away what little advantage they had. Best case, it’d get Jyn and Bodhi killed, and Cassian left to fend for himself when he could hardly walk.

The thought only twisted the knives in her chest further. Cassein Willix could be as much of an ass as he liked; if anything happened to Cassian Andor because she took a pointless risk, she’d … Jyn didn’t know what she’d do. But abandoning her team for something not just dangerous, but utterly futile, that would be more than stupid. It’d be wrong. Lyra, Saw, the Rebel leaders, they all ran through her mind. You had to look after your own in this galaxy. Cassian was hers—Cassian and Bodhi were. She’d led them here and she’d get them out, if there was any way to do it.

Jyn understood Leia Organa’s value, she heartily pitied her, but she couldn’t help her, and she wasn’t about to risk Cassian for her. She didn’t even know what the woman looked like. Hell, she didn’t know what Alderaan looked like.

She considered the line still winding ahead of her and then her datapad. Well, she could fix one of those.

Jyn swiped the screen to the standard database and typed out A L D E R A A N. Immediately, a long page of statistics and descriptions appeared on her pad, alongside a picture of a vast, icy mountain range, its jagged peaks beautiful and terrifying. That wouldn't be the whole planet, of course, but she remembered Cassian saying my world was white. As she shuffled forward in the line, Jyn touched the picture.

A data entry scrolled down. The Anduçelos Mountains, a large mountain range surrounding the planetary capital of Aldera.

Cassian’s home. It felt unreal.

She flipped back to the main entry. Most of it didn’t much interest her—a radius of some four thousand miles, high water content, plenty of nitrogen and oxygen, an average temperature on the cold end of temperate. Population of seven billion. Five thousand known languages. One of seven planets in the larger system, but the only one to independently support life, and home to the vast bulk of the system’s residents.

Without much better to do, she kept skimming downwards, examining the pictures that flickered along the sides as she went. All right, now she knew what Alderaan looked like. She could read something more interesting. Or … talk to someone.

Jyn paused, and stifled the impulse to glance over her shoulder and to her sides, make sure nobody watched her. It wouldn’t mean anything to them if they did, but she still felt hunted. Ignoring the feeling, she selected Districts.

The list that rolled down, Aldera to Zyxei, was longer than she expected. It didn’t matter; she almost immediately saw the only one she cared about, towards the end. Not that she expected much accuracy from an Imperial database, but you never knew.

Vaes District showed no images except a smaller picture of the mountains, focused enough for her to make out a grey and unattractive town nestled into a crag. Even the description told her little that she hadn’t guessed from Cassian, except that the district had no unified government, but instead operated as a loose confederacy of small, independent cities. Each city used a different dialect of standard Alderaanian; unlike the people in the capital beneath them, few Vaes residents spoke Basic at all. They had a subarctic climate, scarce resources beyond the deposits of ilum, et cetera et cetera. Still not interesting, but rather to her surprise, the official list of settlements did include a Vaesda.

She hesitated again, longer, but pressed down a last time.

The entry for Vaesda contained no pictures at all, no statistics, no descriptions. It consisted of three sentences:

Vaesda was one of the principal sources of ilum during the Clone Wars. His Imperial Highness the Emperor Palpatine, then Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, sent a company of clonetroopers to Vaesda in order to defend the city and the mines from Separatist sympathizers, but to no avail. Though the troopers bravely defended Vaesda, either Separatists or Vaesdi collaborators ignited the mines, and the resulting blast reduced the city to rubble.

Biting her tongue, Jyn closed out the entire database. She didn’t know what had actually happened, but she’d seen plenty of Imperial propaganda in her time. Separatists raiding remote cities on Alderaan? Right, when nerfs flew. But she didn’t imagine Imperial propagandists would take the trouble to concoct an entirely fictitious story for a brief databank entry on an obscure mining town. Anyway, Cassian had mentioned clonetroopers. No doubt Palpatine really did send them there. No doubt the place really had been wiped off the map.

And, she thought, no doubt this was what Cassian meant when he said he’d lost everything at six. He was twenty-six now, so twenty years ago. The year before the Empire. Something must have happened that year, something to do with Alderaan, but she had no idea what it was. She’d never paid much attention to Republic history; she couldn’t even remember the Republic.

Jyn’s thoughts swerved back to Princess Leia. Born into the Rebellion, she remembered Cassian saying. She hadn’t put it together at the time, but—exactly how old was Leia Organa? Even with her father as a founder, she couldn’t be much over … what, seventeen or eighteen? All their hopes rested in the strength of an adolescent girl?

Older than she was when Saw left, Jyn reminded herself, and stepped up to the front of the line.

The quartermaster glared at her, though less ferociously than he did at everyone else.

“You again,” he grunted.

“You’re good with faces,” she said, doing her best to strip any overt flattery from her voice. Bringing up Cassian’s list on the datapad, she handed it over and sighed. “My captain woke up.”

“Happens to the best of us,” said Brakas. He scanned the datapad. “Kit 2X97NE4? What the hell is that?”

“I have no idea,” Jyn told him, and winced. “Captain Willix just said that either you or I don’t understand basic necessities.”

“Fucking officers.”

Jyn gave him a look of intense sympathy. “He’s usually not this bad. I think it’s the bed rest getting to him.”

Brakas, typing into his tech station, muttered something she didn’t recognize. Then he said, “Ah. Droid repair tools. Fine, I’m running it through. What’s the ID?”

Droid repair—she almost grinned as she rattled off the code. Cassian must have found Kaytoo.

“Right. Willix, here he is.” Brakas slid something on the screen. “There, all in. He’ll have his supplies by morning.”

“Thank you,” she said emphatically.

“If you dare, tell him he can cheer up now,” he added.

Jyn, more at ease with the rough quartermaster than any of the others, scoffed outright. “What for? The supplies?”

“The Star’s on the move again. He’s going home.”

All restraint dried in her mouth. “He’s what?”

Jyn couldn’t make out what their audience said. But she heard the voices rise from a murmur to something sharper and sterner, a stolid wall against Bodhi’s babbling. After what couldn’t be more than a few sentences, heavy steps clunked up the ramp.

She tried to count the number of newcomers, but the precision of their march muddled her hearing. At least two, probably more.

Waiting a beat, she let Chirrut’s mantra cycle through her thoughts. Her parents had worshipped no gods, nothing but the Force. It was as good as anything.

Then, sinking into this role as she had sunk into so many others, she banished all superstition from her mind. Imperial soldiers did not cling to such things. Not if they wanted anything like a career.

“Raka, hurry!” Jyn shouted. Her voice cracked. “We need a medic. He hasn’t got much time!”

She twisted her head to look back at the ramp, careful not to change the pressure on Cassian’s wound. A single officer strode towards her, flanked by four stormtroopers. Bodhi, looking even filthier against the white armour and pristine grey uniform, trailed after.

“Your pilot said something about a man down,” the officer said, as he stepped on board the shuttle. It brought him within direct sight of Cassian, and he started. She glanced at his rank plaques.

“I beg your pardon, Lieutenant,” Jyn said, thankful for her mother’s accent as she’d never been before. “I’d get up, but—”

Cassian moaned. It sounded entirely genuine. In his condition, it might even be genuine.

But probably not.

The lieutenant switched on the com at his wrist and held it to his mouth. “We need another medic in Hangar B! We’ve got an officer here in critical condition. I repeat, a medic in Hangar B, urgent.”

Jyn breathed. As he switched the com back off, she said,

“Thank you, sir. My commander would thank you, too, if not for …”

“Indeed,” said the lieutenant. “Who is he? Name and rank?”

She could nearly have screamed. Somehow, she hadn’t thought that far. Names—of course they’d need to have names! And just hope no one checked them. He had to have counterfeit identities, probably more than she did, but she didn’t know any of them. It wasn’t like they had talked about it. It wasn’t like they had talked that much, period.

You’re no better than a stormtrooper.

Suddenly the Rebellion is real for you? Some of us live it.

“He’s a captain,” she said.

“Captain,” Cassian mumbled. The lieutenant’s attention snapped back to him. “Captain Cass …” His voice trailed off, slurring the end of his name into mush.

Horror squeezed Jyn’s heart, tightened an invisible hand about her throat. Even like this, she never once imagined that he might be the one to give them away. He couldn’t be that out of it already, could he? She squeezed his hand as painfully as she could.

“Cass … ein Wil … lix,” he said.

“Captain Willix,” said the lieutenant. He returned his gaze to Jyn, eyeing her haphazard gear. Hopefully eyeing her gear. “And you are?”

Hallik was too similar. And too wanted in five systems. But after a life spent under dozens of pseudonyms, her mind fell blank of anything but reality. Jyn Erso of Rogue One, daughter of Lyra and Galen Erso.

“Lyr,” she said. “Sergeant Lyr. I’m aide-de-camp to Captain Willix.”

“I see,” said the lieutenant, his neutral voice unreadable.

There was nothing to do but brazen it out. “We were posted on Scarif, sir. Rebels infiltrated the facility and attacked the base.”

“So I’ve heard,” he said grimly. “The three of you are lucky to be alive.”

Cassian coughed up more blood.

Letting her face go blank, Jyn said, “Yes, sir.”

The lieutenant looked nearly abashed. He crouched down to consider Cassian.

“What happened to him?”

“I’m not entirely sure.” Not daring complacency, she ran a reel of her greatest embarrassments through her mind until she felt blood rise to her cheeks. “The Rebels knocked me out and stripped me.”

“Ah,” said the lieutenant, with another glance at her body. “That explains it.”

Jyn repressed her instinctive response. “I couldn’t have been out for more than a few minutes. When I woke up, I … I found what clothing I could and went looking for the captain. I discovered Captain Willix collapsed in the archive itself. As far as I could guess, he actually climbed up to try and hold off the Rebels. Alone, since his droid had been blown to pieces.” She inclined her head towards Kaytoo’s skull.

With only the briefest glance at the decapitated droid, he said, “A brave man.”

Her throat felt tight again. “Yes. Very brave.” Where were the damn medics? “He’d been shot. And fallen, a long way. I don’t know how many bones he broke, but definitely his ribs. By then, the Rebels had got away. When I found him, he climbed the wall of the archive until he got to the point where I could help him.”

The lieutenant whistled. “Not a soldier we want to lose.” Turning back towards the ramp, he muttered, “Where are those damn medics? Ah!”

Despite everything, hope rose in her chest. Jyn followed his glance, and almost cringed. Three Imperials in white, just like … but no. Their uniforms had none of Krennic’s crisp neatness, hanging on them like bags and covered in stains and mended strips. Each carried some sort of analysis device, sticking out of a long-pocketed belt—so long it nearly approached an apron. With them, they wheeled a far more technical-looking cot than this one, its assorted apparatus squeaking and clinking.

“Finally,” the lieutenant called down. “Did you stop in the mess hall on the way here?”

The medic who appeared to be chief, a spare, middle-aged woman with fly-away hair, only shook her head. “I take that to mean that this is our man.”

All three of them rushed up the ramp. After one glance at Cassian, the chief medic snapped, “Out of my way, all of you.”

Cassian had stopped his periodic groaning and gasps, and lay quietly enough, blinking like a sleepy child. No doubt he was sleepy, but Jyn had seen too many quiet deaths to grant that. Every time he closed his eyes, she dug her nails into his wrist until he winced, the slow beat of his pulse continuing under her fingers. If felt as if her own life somehow sustained his, spilled from skin to skin. Like he would die if she lifted her hand from that terrible wound, even for a moment.

“I said all of you.”

Reluctantly, Jyn squeezed his limp fingers one last time and stepped back. There, she could do nothing but stand there, rinsing Cassian’s blood off her skin while the medics transferred him to the medical cot. Helpless, she picked up Kaytoo’s head, ignoring the others’ puzzled expressions.

“Careful, now,” warned the woman, while the two male medics hoisted up the furthest end of the gurney to keep Cassian even as they went down the ramp. Jyn hurried with them, the lieutenant keeping pace with her while Bodhi and the troopers trailed after. At least it looked less like open insubordination this way.

Jyn barely paused to look around the hangar. They weren’t the only ones arriving in bad shape; she saw at least a dozen other men being carried in stretchers, some protesting and others no better than corpses. Cassian, to her horror, much more closely resembled the latter. Otherwise the hangar was large, the usual bleak grey, and filled with Imperial ships and Imperial soldiers. She didn’t need to know more than that.

Not yet.

She almost had to run to keep up with the medics, one running some beeping remote over Cassian’s body even as they rushed him to med bay. They chattered at each other in near-incomprehensible medical babble, only a few familiar words popping up here and there. Contusion and punctured and compound fracture.

The lieutenant, easily keeping pace, said, “You managed to escape the facility with him like … this?” He gestured ahead of them.

“Barely. It was madness,” replied Jyn. “He was in better shape before we had to jump into the shuttle. This pilot came looking for survivors and found us.”

“Laudable,” said the lieutenant, apparently allergic to full sentences. “I had been under the impression that Captain Willix was his commander?”

Jyn allowed a note of disdain to touch her voice. “He’s a cargo pilot. He thinks all officers are his commanders.”

The lieutenant snorted. “Rightly so.” He cast a brief look at the stormtroopers and Bodhi, and gave a sniff.

“Thank you for your service, Raka,” said Jyn. “Now clean yourself up and report for duty.”

“Uh,” Bodhi said. “But the captain—”

The lieutenant’s brows drew together. Jyn, glancing back, said sharply,

“That was not a request.” She dared not apologize, even silently, but she thought one as fiercely as she could.

“Right—of course—I beg your pardon, sir. Ma’am.” He saluted and jogged away, back to the hangar. Hopefully, the uniformity of Imperial architecture would provide some direction. He could make it, as long as he didn’t get recognized, or reveal anything, or lose his nerve, or fall into any of the disasters that her ready imagination provided.

May the Force be with you.

“How long have you been assigned to Captain Willix?” the lieutenant asked.

“Six years,” said Jyn. Six years ago, she’d been waiting for Saw. But she always passed for older. “He more or less inherited me, to be truthful. My father was one of his father’s engineers, and …” Everyone knew that Imperial Starfleet ran on personal favours and obligations mixed in with nepotism. Whether he disapproved, participated, or anything else, it would be likely enough. And maybe she wouldn’t have to manufacture an easily questioned narrative this way.

“Ah,” he said. “Then I commend you, Sergeant. You might have saved yourself with none any the wiser. Not everyone shows as much loyalty and discipline in the midst of disaster.”

Jyn held her head high. “He is my captain, sir.”

In the hall, dozens of officers, troopers, and droids made their way in both directions. All gave the medics a wide berth, paying little attention to Jyn beyond the occasional bemused glance. Still, she knew she passed her death with every single one of them, hers and Cassian’s both. By the time they reached the med-bay, Jyn felt like she’d never been so exhausted or neurotic in her life.

Their three medics rushed him through. A fourth, posted at the door, peered over his spectacles at them and lifted his datapad.

“Patient?”

“He’s a Captain Willix,” said the lieutenant. “Another one out of Scarif.”

The medic’s lip curled. “This fucking planet. I never want to see it again.”

Who knew? She could agree with the Imperials about something.

“No one’s going to disagree with you there. This is his aide, here,” the lieutenant went on. “She’ll tell you everything you need to know. I have to get back to the hangar.”

“Thank you for your assistance, Lieutenant,” said Jyn, saluting him.

The lieutenant gave a crisp nod, then turned on his heel and strode away with his troopers.

And that was that.

Before she could relish her survival of the first obstacle, though, she had a new nameless Imperial to deal with. He tapped his datapad. “Captain, he said?”

“Yes,” said Jyn.

“Full name?”

“Cassein Willix.” She could only hope it wasn’t some nonsense that he’d come up with in the moment. The bloody, barely conscious moment.

“Height?”

“A hundred and seventy-eight centimeters,” she said, grateful that she’d looked him up in the Alliance databank. There wasn’t much there, of course, but Jyn didn’t follow dangerous blaster-toting men into warzones without digging up everything she could find about them. Even if follow might be putting it strongly. And if she’d paid more attention to the none under spouse and children than his weight and birthdate.

She didn’t dare provide the latter. If Cassein had developed any real identity, it wouldn’t be identical to Cassian’s. Though with that awful name, who knew?

“I’m not sure,” she told the medic. “His age has a way of changing every time he gives it. I think he’s about thirty-five.”

Almost ten years younger, in fact. She wasn’t the only one to wear herself older than her age. And she’d have known it even without the databank. I’ve been in this fight since—

It was only two decades ago that disaffected senators started whispering and plotting together. Two decades ago that the Republic tottered on its last legs. Two decades ago that Cassian Andor was six years old, and chose his path.

Definitely better that they didn’t have the details.

The medic snorted. “One of those. Well, it should be good enough. Let’s see. ” He glanced over his shoulder at the bay.

To Jyn, it wasn’t much different than the usual grey expanse, touched by gleaming white, and interrupted by curtains and the occasional glass wall. Medics and their assistants rushed this way and that, while droids drifted about, their toneless voices cutting through the hubbub.

“Quadrant G Northeast,” the medic muttered to himself, tapping. “Not E, G. Seventh floor. Bed …” He checked again. “Thirty-one. Good, all linked up in the system.”

Her throat felt raw. “Will he live?”

“Preliminary diagnostics should be coming in. Yes, there they are.”

A good Imperial would stay dispassionate, show nothing but dutiful concern. After she’d come this far, she couldn’t afford to fall apart now. But she’d never pulled anything on this scale before, and she wasn’t a spy, and somehow she couldn’t unclench her fists or breathe quite right. She’d have to do her best, that was all. And hope that, once more, it might be enough.

“What’s his condition?” she demanded.

The medic whistled, scrolling. “Lucky to be alive.”

Jyn was already tired of hearing that.

“Blaster took off a chunk of flesh. There’s a lung damn near shredded. Did he have a bad fall?”

A bad fall. She nearly laughed. “Yes.”

“Figured.” He nodded to himself. “With that many fractures. Quite a bit of blood loss, too, though that’s from the blaster … he’ll be in full immersion for sure. Looks like they’ve called for the bacta already.”

It wasn’t really anything that she hadn’t already guessed. Maybe more bone damage. Part of her felt the same lingering horror as before, echoing around and around her mind from the moment she saw him fall. But a rather greater part was relieved. This massive base would have bacta, lots of it. Probably enough to buy a small planet. And he needed it. They couldn’t even think about escape until Cassian recovered.

“Good,” she said crisply. “I’d better go see him before—”

She’d only taken two steps when the medic seized her arm. Pale and weedy as he looked, his grip held her fast.

“I don’t think so.”

Force, no. Had something come up in the records? Cassein Willix wanted for something, or proof of his nonexistence, or …?

She ignored the pounding in her ears. “I beg your pardon? My commander—”

“You’re a contaminant, Sergeant,” said the medic. He gestured at her filthy clothes. Filthy everything.

Jyn winced.

Not unkindly, he said, “He’ll already be under. But if the two of you were on Scarif, you’ve got work to do. Have either of you been posted here before?”

She shook her head.

“Then you’d better go to requisitions.” He gave a slight smile. “Your captain’s going to want a place to sleep and halfway decent equipment. You can serve him better waiting in the quartermaster’s line than moping around here. The nearest one is easy to find. Just take the elevator up to Hall M27, hard right, two lefts, and you’re there.”

Peering past him, she thought about refusing. Just sticking around here and insisting I have to see my captain until someone let her. But this wasn’t the Rebellion. It wasn’t even the Partisans. It was the Empire. The Death Star. There would be no someone here. At best, they’d probably throw her into a cell for re-conditioning. At worst, well, Cassian himself would be horrified at throwing away their cover over sentiment. It wasn’t like she could do anything to help him, anyway. Or Bodhi, or herself.

Just one thing: keep this charade rolling. She might not have ever enlisted, but she was a Rebel agent now. Just like Cassian.

She said, “Oh, of course. I should have thought of that—the battle rattled me a bit. Elevator to M27 and right, left, left?”

He nodded. “If he does wake, we’ll tell him where you’ve gone. Stressors are a liability to recovery.”

Jyn flashed a smile, more confident than she could begin to feel. “I’m sure his lungs will thank you. I’ll be back when I’ve been decontaminated.”

As she walked away, her entire back prickled. She felt like a dozen blasters must be trained on her at once. But she strode through the hall with as much purpose and assurance as she could muster, and nobody so much as lifted a blaster. Just a few eyebrows.

In the elevator, an ensign looked her up and down. “What the hell are you wearing?”

“Lost my armour on Scarif,” she said curtly.

To her surprise, the bemusement on his face dissolved into sympathy. “Damn. I heard it’s a nightmare down there.”

“It is,” said Jyn.

“And you didn’t have armour? You’re lucky to—”

She fixed her eyes straight ahead. “I know.”

Awkwardly, he shuffled. Neither said another word for the next fifteen minutes, until L14 blinked on the screen.

“That’s mine,” he said. Jyn, practicing her best sneering Imperial, didn’t deign to respond.

Though the ensign towered over her—he must have been well over six feet—he seemed actually intimidated. He stared at his feet until the door opened, and bolted out into a long empty hall.

Not someone destined for glory, she thought. They could only hope that the Death Star contained more like that than like Krennic. Possible, but she dared not count on it.

The door closed, and for a wonderful two minutes, she was alone. Jyn nearly slumped against the wall in relief. Or maybe the floor. Her legs ached, thighs to the soles of her feet. She’d give just about anything for some rest. Instead, she squinted up at the ceiling. There might be cameras. She didn’t see any, but that didn’t have to mean anything. She stayed straight as a protocol droid.

M27 flashed over the screen. Jyn inhaled, locked her hands behind her back, and marched through the door.

Another stage cleared.

Quartermaster Brakas was considerably taller than the ensign, and had far broader shoulders. With weathered skin and bristly eyebrows over narrow eyes, he seemed perpetually angry, not helped by the fact that he never spoke in anything below a shout, except when he dropped to a hoarse whisper. To her relief, he also spoke in a heavy Rylothian accent. Everyone else had talked like they walked off the HoloNet. However far Cassian’s self-command went, she felt it wouldn’t extend to faking an accent under anaesthesia.

In any case, though Brakas’s uniform bore only the vaguest resemblance to regulation—his jacket open over an oil-stained shirt and floppy trousers—nobody appeared to pay attention to it. Jyn had no difficulty guessing why. Both muscular and tending a little to fat, he looked like he could snap anyone in two, and very much wanted to. His assistants scurried anxiously at every barked order.

She noticed all this because she spent three hours waiting for him.

Privately, she’d doubted the supposed ease of the medic’s instructions. But at the last left, she turned and saw four lines of people waiting beneath a sign that read QUARTERMASTER, the lines extending nearly all the way down the hall. Soldiers chatted with each other. Petty officers grumbled and pointedly checked their chronos. And at least a third looked as battered and filthy as Jyn, most ragged and several in non-regulation gear.

Not the way she would have chosen to buy time, but there it was. As her nerves and muscles screamed at her, Jyn determinedly reminded herself that every moment of escaping attention was a moment Cassian had in the bacta tank. And one for Bodhi, if he’d …

Jyn clasped her mother’s crystal, then shoved it under her shirt. He’d be fine. He had to be.

In the crook of her arm, Kaytoo’s head stared vacantly up at her. She bit her lip and turned the face into her elbow.

She would have waited still longer, her gaze fixed on the quartermaster’s bald head, had not one of the assistants taken it upon themselves to count up the survivors. Two hours in, Brakas abruptly wheeled about.

“All of you out of Scarif! Over here!”

Several of those nearest Jyn gave her dirty looks. She ignored them and pushed forward with the others. Even then, she ended up at the end of the Scarif line. In most situations, of course, she would have elbowed and fought her way to the front, never mind her size. Now, she reluctantly gave way to necessity and let herself be shoved to the back.

Bastards, she still thought. Cassian had better be grateful.

Then she felt sick, mind alight with the memory of his blood on her hands, on his mouth. She hadn’t forgotten. But just for a moment, Cassian had meant the cool-headed spy, somewhere out there glowering at the unworthy, not the man who carved up his own body getting to her.

Soon, she promised herself. He’d be himself again, preaching about the cause, and she, well, she’d figure out what she was. Maybe a Rebel. Definitely free.

The minutes ticked by, filled by Brakas’ shouting and the clacks of the machines along the walls, where some of the assistants took lesser requests. Jyn, grasping Kaytoo’s head as she’d once clutched her stormtrooper doll, tried to think of anything but this. The plans had gotten out. The Rebels should be carrying them to the high command at this moment. Maybe those gutless senators would finally do something.

Something, in the best case, would be destroying the Death Star. Even if they were all on it. Though she didn’t want to die, it’d be worth it.

But she wasn’t going down without trying her damnedest to pull them all through.

“You!” snarled Brakas.

Jyn nearly jumped.

“What’s your identification code?”

Fuck.

“I’m here for my commander,” she said, mind racing.

Brakas rolled his eyes. “Then what’s his?”

They had nothing to lose now. Jyn hesitated, then took one last leap.

“Three one five jay eight oh ar six one eight five.”

Grumbling to himself, he typed it into the tech station in front of him. His scowl didn’t shift, and her whole chest shuddered. She held Kaytoo tighter.

“Captain Cassein Willix?” Brakas demanded.

In that moment, she could have kissed Cassian Andor. Blood and all.

“Yes,” said Jyn. “It’s just the two of us. I’m his sergeant. The rest of the team didn’t make it. No equipment, either.”

“Cry to someone who cares,” he said. “All right. Two quarters—”

“One,” Jyn said.

Brakas fixed his glare on her. Horrifyingly, she was reminded of Saw.

“I don’t know what you all got away with on Scarif. On the Death Star, there is no fraternization.”

“Fraternization?” Jyn shook her head violently. “Ugh, no, nothing like that. Captain Willix was very severely injured, and he never listens to the medics. Or anyone. He’ll fu—uh, disrupt his recovery if I don’t keep a close eye on him.” She dared an exasperated smile. “Officers, you know how they are.”

Brakas snorted, but he regarded her with something almost like friendliness. “Sure do. Damn idiots think they’re invincible, when half are the brats of some politician or other, and the other half convinced they’re martyrs.”

“Exactly,” said Jyn, in her most long-suffering tone. Turning it conversational, she added, “Captain Willix is, well, he’s a bit of both. But he’s a good commander when I can keep him in line. Helps that he’s not Coruscanti. Neither of us are.”

He lifted a brow, typing into the station. “Says he’s Alderaanian.”

“Right,” said Jyn. Bail Organa’s planet? An odd choice, but she’d think about that later. She gestured at her mouth. “And me, well, it’s my mother who came out of Imperial City, not me. I’m from the back-end of nowhere, but I figured out pretty fast that the higher-ups don’t need to know that.”

Brakas actually gave a short laugh. “Good for you. Okay, it’s all in. Captain’s quarters for two, F1813. Datapads, comms, so on. Full set of uniforms—” He gestured at one of the assistants. “Give him measurements for both of you. Should be ready within a standard day.”

“Thanks,” Jyn said. She glanced at the impatient crowds, and gave him a sympathetic look. “Good luck, Sergeant.”

“I’ll need it,” muttered Brakas.

Once again, she walked away unscathed. And this time, as she headed over to the outfitter, she didn’t even feel a target painted on her back. Not safe—that’d be idiotic—but not, at this instant, in danger from the very ordinary people around her. Maybe she was just tired.