Star Wars: Rebel Rising(63)

Then there was no more light, but there was much more red.

Zorahda’s blood splattered across the canyon wall behind her, smearing in her white fur as she slumped deeper into the canyon, her lifeless body wedging between the narrow stones.

“Right,” the stormtrooper said flatly. “You, there, go down and get her gear.” He pointed to Jyn.

Jyn’s eyes blurred. It was this—this lack of humanity, lack of respect for life itself—this was what had killed Zorahda.

“I said go.” The stormtrooper pointed into the canyon, at the red-smeared rock face.

Jyn’s hands curled into fists.

But then her fingers grew slack.

She hadn’t even been able to lie to Zorahda when she knew it may have saved her life. She couldn’t lie to herself.

There was no point.

No hope.

Nothing at all but this: orders, and following them.

Jyn dropped her own tools and lowered herself into the canyon. As the other prisoners ate their allotted ration cubes and drank from the filtration canteens, Jyn sweated and grunted and worked her way down the wall. She tried to avoid the blood. When she reached Zorahda, her hands shook from exhaustion and emotion as she pulled the impact hammer drill from the Lunnix’s shoulders and then reached for the laser pick still wrapped in her hand. Jyn blew out a shaky breath, unable to see properly through her tears.

She looked up.

And—for the first time since she had landed on Wobani—the thick clouds of space dust parted. For just a moment, she could see past the planet’s atmosphere, into the night sky sprinkled with stars. They looked deceptively close.

But she knew it was simply a trick of the eyes. The stars weren’t close together. Hyperspace made the distance seem negligible, but the truth? The truth was that the stars were separated by light-years. Each star was its own system, each planet its own world, each person in their own individual prison.

There was nothing connecting anyone.

Jyn’s necklace pressed against her collarbone, reminding her of her mother. She closed her eyes and allowed herself a moment to remember Lyra Erso. The strong set of her jaw, her flashing eyes. She had promised Jyn that there was meaning to this life.

The Force, she had said, connects us all. All living things. We don’t always feel it, but we’re connected.

Jyn knew that her mother had meant for those words to give her comfort.

Hope.

But they were hollow, as dead as Zorahda. Jyn shook her head and got back to work, climbing up the canyon wall and leaving behind her cellmate.

There was nothing connecting anyone. The distance between stars was filled only with silence.





Jyn’s planet hopper emerged from hyperspace with a stomach-dropping lurch. She didn’t need the alarms blaring throughout the ship to know that something was wrong. She silenced them and flipped on the comlink for Akshaya’s freighter.

Static.

They may have been delayed jumping to lightspeed, or the explosion that pushed Jyn’s shuttle as she entered hyperspace may have set them off course. But Hadder and Akshaya had the port chip; they knew where to meet up. Meanwhile, Jyn had to dock as soon as possible, preferably before whatever had damaged her shuttle could leave her stranded.

Jyn checked out the ship’s analytics; she was definitely leaking fuel. Not a good situation.

The Five Points system was a group of five small planets, closer together than normal. In the center was a space station, one that could not be reached by a direct hyperspace route, as the gravitational force of the star system constantly altered its location just enough to make it dangerous to approach too quickly, without the ability to alter course. Jyn set her course for the station. All the planets in the Five Points system were inhabited, but Jyn knew she’d find help more easily in the central station.

The space between the stars felt infinite. Limping to the station with no comms from Hadder and the warning lights blaring on the shuttle made Jyn paranoid. She paced the small planet hopper, praying that it held together at the seams long enough to deposit her somewhere safe. The Five Points system was far enough into the Outer Rim that the Empire hadn’t quite reached there yet, but Jyn knew it was only a matter of time. The Empire spread and spread, like a Dothnian slime, creeping over every star system, infecting every planet.

If Skuhl hadn’t been safe, nowhere would ever be safe.

The console in the planet hopper’s cockpit was nothing but flashing lights and warnings by the time Jyn hailed the station.

“Ponta Two to Five Points station,” Jyn said into the comm unit, hoping that at least worked.

“Five Points copy, Ponta Two . Our scans show ship damage.” The voice sounded tinny, almost bored.

“Yeah, a little,” Jyn said as another warning flashed across the main screen. “Permission to dock?”

“Granted.”

Before the comlink severed, Jyn said, “Has an SC3000 freighter docked already? Its call sign is Ponta One . I was separated from my”—she paused—“family.”

She waited on the edge of her seat. After a moment, the voice cracked over the intercom, “No record of SC3000 freighter on file, and I’ve certainly not seen one of those ancient rigs in a long time.”

The station sent Jyn a landing code, and Jyn pointed the planet hopper to the waiting port.

“They’re fine,” she told herself.