Star Wars: Rebel Rising(54)

Jyn snorted. “Small mercy.”

“Not small!”

Jyn shot him a smile, but it was gone the second she looked away and started cleaning up.

“You don’t have a scratch on you,” Hadder said.

Jyn didn’t answer.

“You knocked that thug flat on his back,” Hadder continued. “You knew exactly what to do.”

“It was part of my old job.” Jyn put the medical supplies away in the cabinet by the door. “My old life.”

“What did you used to do?” Hadder asked. Then he immediately said, “I don’t want to know. No, I do. Maybe?” He took a deep breath. “Was it very bad?”

She met his gaze. “No,” she said, thinking of doing something good, of fighting back. “Yes,” she said, remembering Inusagi and Tamsye Prime.

“What did that guy want?” Hadder asked. “He said he was following you because of…”

“Because of Saw.” Jyn slammed the cabinet shut.

“That’s who you used to live with,” Hadder said slowly.

“I know.”

“You don’t have to get mad at me.”

“I’m not mad,” Jyn snarled.

Hadder put both his hands up. “Okay, okay,” he said. “Please don’t kick my ass.” When Jyn didn’t move, he added, “That was a joke.” And then, “But still, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t.”

Jyn finally cracked a smile. “I won’t.” She lunged at him, and he flinched. “Maybe.”

“So,” Hadder said slowly as Jyn sat down beside him. “Saw.”

“Saw.”

“Who was he? I mean, really?”

He used to call me his daughter, Jyn thought, and then he left me behind.

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” Hadder continued when Jyn didn’t answer, “but I need to know—is this a problem? Are thugs going to start hassling Mum? Because it has been made clear that I need to work out more and maybe learn how to throw a punch if that’s going to be the case.”

Jyn shot him a sideways smile. “I’ll protect you,” she said.

“Oh, whew.” Hadder swiped at his brow. “I’m more of a lover than a fighter, you know, and I’m quite comfortable hiding behind you. Glad we sorted that out.”

Jyn sank farther into her chair. “Saw took me in after I lost my parents,” she said, looking straight ahead. She would never be able to get through this if she saw sympathy in Hadder’s eyes. “He worked…against the Empire.”

“In some sort of rebel group?” Around Skuhl, rebels were spoken of in an almost mythical way, a band of warriors who dared fight the Empire. The people of Skuhl had absolutely no concept of what fighting the Empire was really like, but to be fair, they didn’t know what the Empire was really like, either. They existed in an almost childlike state where everything was black and white, a story to tell over drinks or by the bonfire, nothing more. None of the players were real; they were all just characters. Not people.

“Sometimes for groups,” Jyn said. “Sometimes for himself. Saw didn’t care who he fought beside, just who he opposed.”

She risked a glance at Hadder. He was eating up every word, as eager as she had been when she was a kid watching The Octave Stairway on the viewer.

“The last mission…” She looked away again, forcing her eyes and her mind to lose focus. “It went bad.”

“Bad?” Hadder asked.

Jyn closed her eyes. She could see the line of green light as the Star Destroyer’s beam sliced into the factory. She could taste the blood and dust in her mouth; she could smell the burning metal.

She could hear the screams.

“Bad,” she confirmed.

“Tamsye Prime,” Hadder whispered.

Jyn nodded.

“You were a part of the anarchists who attacked the factories?”

“It was the Empire,” she said. She saw doubt in his eyes, and it killed her inside. “We were just there to look. A scouting mission. The Empire…it was done with the factory. And it had a message to send.”

She watched as the truth settled on Hadder like a blanket around his shoulders. But she also knew he didn’t understand, not really. And thanks to the Empire’s lies, very few people in the entire galaxy knew what had actually happened on Tamsye Prime. The Imperials in the Star Destroyer. The pilot whose name she had never learned. Codo. Saw. Her. With Hadder’s strength keeping her upright, Jyn felt strong enough to carry the weight of an entire planet’s mourning.



Something changed after that night. Hadder joked that Jyn was strong enough to take him out, but the few times they ventured into town, he was on edge, looking over his shoulder. Looking out for her.

He must have told Akshaya about what had happened when she returned from her run; Jyn noticed the way Akshaya lingered by her door, as if she wanted to speak but wasn’t sure of the words. She started painting more mandalas on the walls and floors of the little house, something Hadder said she hadn’t done since her daughter died.

“They’re beautiful,” Jyn told her, but there was a twinge of guilt in her voice. She knew she worried Akshaya, and she didn’t like bringing a shadow over the bright home.