Star Wars: Rebel Rising(62)
Jyn knew she should say something. Words flooded her mind—words of her mother, talking about the Force; of her father, saying all he did was for her; of Saw and his impossible battles; of Akshaya and her impossible hope.
But all those words belonged to other people.
And now, in the dark, as she watched the hope die in her cellmate’s eyes, Jyn found she had no words of her own to give.
The next evening, Zorahda and Jyn were assigned to the same work detail, inserting stabilizers in the craggy canyons west of the prison. The Empire was going to build another factory, but the planet had been experiencing minor groundquakes. Jyn didn’t like the job, but she did enjoy being outside.
Their transport took them twenty klicks south of the main prison compound, to a series of canyons that looked like the cracks in the crusts of bread Jyn’s mother used to bake. The stabilizer units had to be inserted into the rock face at a horizontal angle, as deep as Jyn and her fellow prisoners could get them.
The stormtroopers stood watch as she and her fellow prisoners lowered themselves into narrow canyons, the crevices in the rock rough and jagged. They were never allowed any type of safety rigging. But Jyn was glad for Zorahda. Lunnixes were meant to be outside; being cramped in their tiny prison cell or behind factory walls surely didn’t help her cellmate’s depression. Not that there was much light from the sun; Wobani was covered in a thick cloud of space dust that rarely provided a glimpse through the atmosphere.
Jyn was grateful for Saw’s training as she lowered herself, her tools strapped to her back, into the crevice. She kept her back against one wall and her feet in front of her, slowly inching down as far as she could, about twenty meters. The climb up would be worse; she knew from experience that her legs would cramp and her back would twist as she applied force to her tools against the hard rock wall.
She heard grunting nearby and saw Zorahda just a few meters from her, climbing down the canyon wall. She nodded to her cellmate; it was rare they were positioned so closely together.
Zorahda didn’t nod back. She leaned as far against the wall as she could, staring up and up into the sky.
“You, there! Lunnix! Get to work!” a stormtrooper shouted from the top of the canyon, pointing his blaster into the crevice.
“It never ends, Jyn,” Zorahda said without turning to her.
Jyn could not deny the truth.
“You too! Work!” The stormtrooper swept his blaster toward Jyn, then back to Zorahda. “No talking!”
Jyn took out her laser pick and started scanning the rock face. The laser cut deep into the surface of the stone, then beeped in Jyn’s hand, and she read the information. Jyn set up the impact hammer drill to start digging into the hard rock. The tool vibrated her very bones, and bits of rock flew back, cutting into her exposed skin. As soon as the hole was big enough, Jyn slid the stabilizer unit into the rock.
She started the tedious work of climbing back up the canyon. Jyn had to concentrate on her footing, and her back was slick with sweat. Dust caked her skin, streaking and then drying in the cooling air. By the time she reached the top, lugging the impact hammer drill behind her, she was bone weary. The light was fading, casting long shadows over the broken surface of the planet. Terms like day and night didn’t really matter on Wobani; the prisoners worked fifteen straight hours and then ate and slept for eight more. Usually their shifts coincided with the sun, but sometimes they worked alongside droids at night.
“Hurry up, down there!” a stormtrooper called, leaning over the side of the canyon, where Zorahda was. Jyn moved closer.
Zorahda was still in the crevice, her laser pick loose in her hand. She hadn’t even taken out her impact hammer drill. If she didn’t hurry with her work, she’d receive a mark for top level.
Zorahda’s yellow eyes looked up. Jyn thought maybe she was glaring at the stormtrooper and then maybe that Zorahda was looking at her, but she realized that the Lunnix was really just looking at the thick clouds in the sky, as if they had entranced her.
“Prisoner! To work! Now! ” the stormtrooper shouted. Another stormtrooper moved forward, his blaster raised, his head cocked as he listened to orders from the warden.
“Zorahda!” Jyn yelled.
“What’s the point?” Zorahda asked, looking back down at the rock in front of her.
“There is no point,” Jyn whispered. The answer came to her immediately, slipping from her mouth before she could bite back the words, but it was true, perhaps the truest thing she’d ever spoken. There was no point. Not to the Empire that was mercilessly cruel for no reason. Not to the people who stood against the Empire, causing just as much destruction and death as the government they opposed. There was no point to loving family who left or men who died.
Lie, a voice whispered in Jyn’s head, the word niggling through her brain. Lie to her.
Zorahda looked up, and Jyn could see in her cellmate’s yellow eyes something that she hadn’t seen there before. Determination. And with horror, Jyn realized just what Zorahda was determined to do.
Tell her there is still hope, the voice in Jyn’s mind whispered. Lie.
Jyn opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Instead, the stormtrooper closest to her yelled into the canyon, “Get to work!”
There was a little sad smile on Zorahda’s face. “No,” she said simply, and she raised the laser pick to her own eye and depressed the trigger. For one brief moment, red light filled the Lunnix’s skull, turning her other yellow eye orange.