Star Wars: Rebel Rising(67)

But first, she needed better weapons. The blaster she’d taken from the Gigoran wasn’t in the best condition. Actually—she cursed—it wasn’t holding a charge. A short circuit somewhere. Dangerous. It could overheat or, worse, not fire when she needed it. Jyn headed to a shop with used weapons in the front.

“How much to fix this?” she asked, plunking it down on the counter.

The Kath picked it up with a look of disdain on his scaly face. “More than it’s worth,” he said, tossing it back on the counter.

Jyn had figured as much. She glanced through the shopkeeper’s cases. Any blaster was out of her price range. Instead, she pointed at a set of extendable truncheons. “Those?”

The Kath pulled out the batons for Jyn to examine. She flicked them open in her hands, extending the collapsible truncheons to their full length, the solid krallian core locking into place. She whacked one in her palm, testing the weight.

“Yes,” Jyn said. “How much?”

The shopkeeper stated his price in a bored but firm tone, indicating there was no chance to haggle for a better bargain.

Jyn hefted the pair of truncheons in her hands again. Quiet. Discreet. No one would ever think that a girl like her could do any damage at all with a set of weapons like this. Meanwhile, she knew the damage she could do. The truncheons didn’t look like much. Neither do I, Jyn thought.

She paid the shopkeeper and strapped the truncheons to her back. She kept the blaster, despite its malfunction, strapped to her hip. It would be the weapon people went for, if they bothered her. It would be the thing they would watch. They wouldn’t think anything of the truncheons, and that would be her saving grace.

Eighty-six credits left, Jyn thought as she left. She had never worried about credits as a child. Her parents had always had enough for her. She didn’t worry about credits when she was with Saw, because they rarely had any to worry about. But now that a pocketful of credits was all that stood between Jyn and starvation, they felt hugely important.

Jyn kept walking. The problem was, she wasn’t very sure what to do . Without Hadder or Akshaya, she had no goal. Without a ship, she had no escape.

Near the center of the station was a small park. Fake greenery sprouted from fake rocks, and recorded nature sounds wafted from cleverly hidden speakers. A group of various species huddled near the larger rocks, their palms held outstretched over their knees, their heads tucked down. Jyn wondered how long her eighty-six credits would last. If she would ever have to supplicate by the fake rocks and hope for enough to survive another day.

As she watched, an Imperial officer strolled by. He looked down at the beggars, but then he paused, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a single credit that he dropped in the outstretched hands of a young woman with a child leaning against her. The child whispered her thanks.

After the officer had left the park, a different man cut across the path, kicking at the woman’s feet. She curled into herself like the petals of a daybloom when the sun sets, pulling her daughter under one arm. She didn’t lift her head.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” the man spat at the woman. “Taking an Imperial’s money. Disgusting.”

He glared at the woman, but when she didn’t so much as look up, he growled and stormed off. Jyn watched him leave the park, agape. If, in the next week, she had to sit beside that woman and beg, she would not turn down Imperial credits. And she had absolutely no shame about that.

As she headed out of the park, she considered giving a few of her credits to the beggars. She didn’t. And she had no shame about that, either.



A pickpocket had stolen her pouch of protein straws. Jyn didn’t realize it until near the end of the day, when the lights of the station blinked, indicating that twelve standard hours of daytime were up and work shifts should change. In the bustle of people leaving their jobs and heading to their resident cubes, Jyn had been caught up in the crowd. By the time she was free, she found the small pouch of food was missing. Her hands shook as she checked her weapons, her hidden pocket of credits. Nothing but the food was taken; that, at least, was a small blessing.

Still, she had to spend another six credits for more.

The night shift seemed no different from the day shift. The overhead lamps still burned; the businesses stayed open. But the people seemed different. Harder. Jyn started recognizing the same faces over and over in the crowd, and she realized she was being tailed. Three human men. Her nerves were flayed; her body ached with walking in circles around the station. She couldn’t trust herself in a fight, not like this. She couldn’t trust herself to sleep alone, either, not with the three men watching, waiting.

Maybe they just want to rob me, she thought. But she couldn’t be sure.

An inn had rooms for rent, and Jyn passed over more of her meager supply of credits.

Sixty-seven left. But the men didn’t follow her inside the inn, and although she had to share a shower and toilet, the room she would sleep in had a locking door. Jyn collapsed on the pallet on the floor, one hand on the blaster, one hand wrapped around her body. She didn’t take off her clothes.



Jyn awoke early. She stared at the dark ceiling in the cramped room. For the first time since she had arrived on Five Points, it was silent. No voices from next door, no bustle from the streets outside. Utter silence.

Her near-constant inner dialogue—food, shelter, a ship off this place —had quieted as well. Without the noise outside and inside to distract her, an aching sorrow swept into all the hollow places that she wanted to ignore.