Star Wars: Rebel Rising(12)

Jyn was embarrassed to have so much attention on her. Without realizing what she was doing, she pulled her crystal necklace out from under her shirt and toyed with the stone. “My father taught me to pay attention to details,” she said.

“Yes, I did,” Saw said proudly.

Jyn sucked in a breath but didn’t reply. Idryssa shot Jyn a curious look, but when Jyn wouldn’t meet her eyes, she went back to her seat at the table. “Well, it’s clear that anyone can say anything,” she said, waving a hand toward the holocube. “But that doesn’t mean we should attack civilians to inconvenience the Empire. I don’t care what they say,” she added. “I care what we do. And we do not kill innocent civilians just to disrupt the Empire’s shipping lines.”

“It’s a price of war,” Saw said simply.

“The Senate still hopes to avoid war.”

Saw laughed bitterly. “The Senate?” Another laugh. “They don’t realize we’re still fighting the same war as before. We never quit fighting.”

“We did,” Idryssa said, her face melting in sympathy. “You’re the only one still fighting that war.”

Saw’s face hardened. “So what if I am?” he roared at Idryssa. “War is war, and it never ends!”

Idryssa stood. She wasn’t as broad as Saw, but she was tall and thin and her spine was strong as steel. “There is an end to war,” she said. “I have to believe that. And so do the others I’m going to work with. We’re going to make a difference, Saw, a change. There are senators interested in helping us. If we combine forces—”

Saw snorted. “Then we’ll lose everything. Bureaucracy kills freedom.”

Idryssa sank back into her seat. From Saw’s face, it was clear that he thought he’d defeated Idryssa’s ideology, but Jyn could tell that Idryssa felt only disappointment.

Saw got up and moved to the cabinet. “You remind me of Steela,” he said, rooting around in the shelves. Jyn was surprised; he rarely brought up his sister. Jyn knew only that she had died fighting in the Clone Wars. Saw turned and met Idryssa’s gaze. “That’s not entirely a compliment,” he added. He pulled out a bottle of lum and poured a glass for himself and one for Idryssa. The sharp, bitter alcoholic smell made Jyn scrunch her nose.

“I will never understand why the rebellion is so worried about labels,” Saw continued as if he’d not just flared with rage. “Fear controls the masses. The Empire controls fear. If we tapped into that—if we used the same tactics the Empire does and brought about the same kind of fear, we’d control the people and give them the peace you are so anxious to have.”

“That’s not peace,” Idryssa said simply.

It was clear that Saw didn’t agree.





Idryssa left early the next morning, and while she showed no signs of being hungover from the lum, Saw buried his head in his arms and dimmed the lights of the common room. Jyn ate her breakfast as quietly as she could and read her datapad.

It wasn’t always easy to be in charge of her own education, and she had let most of the subjects her mother had taught her fall to the wayside as she focused on the things that interested her and that Saw clearly approved of, like seeing how much she could manipulate files and holos and data chips. But she did like to keep abreast of current events, even if she rarely spoke to Saw about them. After listening to Idryssa the night before, Jyn had stayed up late watching the last Senate meeting broadcasts. Despite the fact that Mon Mothma and Bail Organa had both spent so much time pleading with the Senate to recognize the state of the Empire, their speeches had been dismissed without further consideration. Jyn had zoomed in on the sharp angles of Senator Organa’s face. He seemed like one of the best bets for the “Senate support” Idryssa had hinted at. He looked like the kind of man who’d declare war. But he wore the fine clothes of an Alderaanian, and Jyn doubted he’d have the strength to actually fight in one.

Saw would, though.

Saw already had. In the Clone Wars.

“You done?” Saw asked.

Jyn nodded, putting down her datapad and tossing her nutritive milk can in the trash. She followed Saw outside. He didn’t flinch in the sunlight; he wasn’t as affected by the lum as she’d thought.

That day was hand-to-hand combat practice, Jyn’s favorite. Saw had tried her on various melee weapons, but her favorite was a pair of short truncheons. They felt like extensions of her arms, strong and empowering. Jyn glowered at Saw when he tried to pass her the bo staff and smiled brightly when he laughed in defeat and handed her the pair of short weighted batons. Saw took the bo staff for himself, then moved back, holding the weapon warily.

Jyn gripped the truncheons, watching his feet. Saw was quick with his hands, but she could tell when he was about to strike by how he positioned his feet.

He lunged, and she raised her truncheons defensively, knocking the staff aside.

“So,” she grunted, stepping away after the initial attack, “Idryssa seemed nice.”

“Too idealistic,” Saw said. He feinted, and Jyn jumped, her arms raised, but he just laughed that she’d fallen for the trick.

“It makes sense, though,” Jyn said, her eyes on Saw’s staff. “You work with a lot of different partisan groups. If they all worked together , maybe…”