Star Wars: Rebel Rising(31)

Jyn evaluated him. Over the past year, Reece had lost some of his cockiness. Maybe Saw would do him good.

Still, she was surprised when Saw selected Reece for his next mission. “You too,” he said, pointing at Jari. The Togruta looked surprised. “And Jyn.”

“What’s the mission?” Jyn asked as they boarded the little shuttle. This was one of the newer ships, purchased with money from the mission on Inusagi.

“You’re to help with the clearance codes,” Saw said, and Jyn got to work with her code replicator. She stayed focused on the task at hand, and it wasn’t until she was finished that she realized an uneasy silence had fallen on the small crew.

Saw grunted his approval at the clearance codes she’d forged. Soon after, he pulled the ship out of hyperspace. Jyn didn’t recognize the planet. No Imperial checkpoint scanned her new codes, but there was an Imperial outpost and barracks not far away. As soon as the ship landed, Saw led the small crew to a safe house.

“I told you there was a leak in our unit,” he said. “Probably someone who wants to defect.”

Jari, Jyn, and Reece gave each other worried looks.

“Did you discover who it was?” Jari asked.

Saw stared at the Togruta. “Yes,” he replied shortly.

He spread out a map of the planet, and they all crowded around the holocube to see. “Imperial barracks here,” he said, pointing to a location about four klicks east of the safe house. “They’ve been receiving transmissions from our base.”

“From our base?” Jyn gasped.

Saw nodded grimly.

“The traitor has told them of a few of our missions, and they’ve gone sour. We’ve lost a ship. Some men.”

“Men like Bilder,” Jari said in a low voice.

Saw nodded. Jyn lowered her eyes. She hadn’t even realized the Twi’lek was gone; she just thought he’d been on a long mission. How many of the people who’d left the outpost and never returned had died? Why didn’t Saw mourn them, let the others mourn them?

If Jyn hadn’t witnessed Maia’s death, would she have spent the rest of her life thinking Maia was off on some mission or had left the group?

“And the Gamorreans,” Saw added.

Jyn frowned. The giant Gamorrean brothers hadn’t been a part of Saw’s cadre for long, but they had looked invincible.

“How did you track down the traitor?” Jari asked.

Saw stared at him a long time. “I have my means,” he said finally.

“Is the traitor at the Imperial compound?” Reece asked.

“No,” Saw said, still staring at Jari.

Jyn’s eyes flicked between Saw and the Togruta. She noticed the way Saw kept his hand hidden in his coat.

No, she thought, and she wasn’t sure if she had said it out loud.

Saw revealed his blaster. “Tie him up,” he said.

Reece was the first to jump into action; Jyn was still too shocked. Jari tried to jerk away, but Saw fired a blast into his shoulder. Moaning, Jari couldn’t protest as Saw held the blaster to his head and Reece bound him with plastoid ties.

“Blindfold him.” Saw tossed a scrap of cloth at Jyn.

Her hands shook as she wound the cloth over the Togruta’s eyes and his montrals. “Jyn,” Jari said in a low voice. “It wasn’t me, it wasn’t. Bilder was my friend. I would never betray—”

“And gag him,” Saw ordered. Reece stuffed another cloth in Jari’s mouth.

“Saw,” Jyn said in a small voice, a pleading voice.

Saw’s eyes softened—just for a moment—when he looked at her. He motioned for her to come closer. “He knows,” he whispered in her ear, but she didn’t understand what he was saying.

Saw holstered his blaster and grabbed Jari by the plastoid ties, dragging him to the airspeeder parked in front of the safe house. Jyn followed on his heels, but Saw needed no help, punching the open wound on Jari’s shoulder when the Togruta made one last desperate attempt to escape.

Jyn and Reece ran to the roof of the safe house, both of them watching as Saw sped across the open field toward the Imperial barracks. Saw pushed the airspeeder faster and faster.

“Here.” Reece had a pair of quadnocs. Jyn didn’t question where he got them; she just accepted them and watched as Saw zoomed toward the Imperial barracks. She could see white-and-black stormtroopers pointing at the blur that was Saw and Jari.

Saw drew the airspeeder up short just in front of the barracks. The stormtroopers were shouting something, but Saw didn’t say anything back. He just kicked Jari off the airspeeder and started back toward the safe house.

“We have to go,” Jyn said. She threw the quadnocs at Reece, and together they ran toward the spaceport. Saw had been so enraged by Jari’s betrayal that he hadn’t stopped to consider how quickly they’d need to leave after that little stunt.

Jyn and Reece were racing up the boarding ramp into the ship when Saw brought the airspeeder up short. He threw himself on board, initiated the launch sequence, and burst out of the spaceport. Reece examined the scanner. “At least three on our tail,” he said.

“We can make it,” Saw growled, leaning into the throttle.

Jyn’s heart was racing, beating out a staccato rhythm that felt impossibly fast. As Saw burst past the Imperial ships, through the planet’s atmosphere, and into hyperspace, all she could think about was the way Jari had whispered that he was innocent, that Saw was paranoid, that Bilder had been his friend.