Star Wars: Rebel Rising(72)

The first hour into the night shift was a matter of waiting. People were coming off their jobs, looking to stretch their limbs and dull their minds as quickly as possible. It wasn’t until the second hour—the second or third or fourth glass—that things settled back down. This night, however, there was an anxious undercurrent among many of the patrons. Jyn watched, waiting for the news to come to her.

And then she heard it.

A whispered word, sliding through the bar like Freyan creeper moss, expanding in the shadows and retreating in the light.

“The rebels.”

There were recruiters nearby. On the station? Maybe. Guesses of a base being set up in Hirara. “They’ll buy up contracts,” one man said.

“They’re just looking for fodder,” another snapped back.

Jyn slammed her glass down on the table, ignoring the way the blue liquid foamed over the side. The damn rebels. Everywhere she went, they followed. Mucking it all up. Bringing the Empire down on the people who didn’t want to get involved. Why couldn’t people just be people ? Why did they have to be on one side or another? If everyone would just stop caring so much, maybe the galaxy could actually find the peace everyone claimed they wanted.

Jyn thought bitterly of Akshaya and Hadder and the blast that had killed them, the shot fired from either an Imperial TIE fighter or a rebel Y-wing. It didn’t matter which one had killed them. They were still dead. And damn both the Empire and the rebellion for it.

Jyn nodded to Moeseffa as she left the cantina. He shot her a worried glance—she rarely left so early—but she waved at him cheerfully to allay his fears. She was done for the night.

Her rooms weren’t that far away, but Jyn stuck to the well-lit streets near the center of the station until it was time to turn off and head back to the wall. Her mind kept lingering on that word—rebellion . What was the point? Saw had spent his whole life fighting the Empire, and it had cost him his sister, his health…her. Her father had tried to fight the Empire, and it had cost them her mother. And Jyn? She didn’t even want to fight anymore, and she’d lost Hadder.

She heard movement behind her. Jyn whirled around—just in time to see a dark shadow, the blur of an arm, a fist connecting with her head.

And then the world went dark.





Jyn woke up with her arms and legs bound to a chair by plastoid ties. Her tongue felt fat and dry in her mouth.

“Aaand there she is,” someone with a deep voice said kindly.

Jyn forced her eyes opened. Her head ached, and the bright lights overhead lanced through her eyes.

“I didn’t hit her that hard,” a male Dowutin said, his voice low and guttural. He was easily over three meters tall, with arms like tree trunks.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” another man said. He waved his hands, and the Dowutin left the room.

The man turned to Jyn. “I am Allehander Pso,” he said. He smoothed down the thin hair on his balding head, and Jyn noticed that it was actually feathers, not hair, covering his skull. When he turned, the downy wisps grew longer, and dark brown and green feathers about as long as her fingers trailed all the way down his back, under his shirt.

“Pso’s Palace,” Jyn mumbled.

Allehander’s face broke into a huge grin. Each one of his jade-green teeth was pointed and jagged like the edge of a saw blade. “Yes! You’ve heard of me!” He seemed positively delighted by Jyn’s knowledge.

She nodded, wincing in pain.

Allehander tsked. “You must forgive my man,” he said. “He doesn’t know his own strength. He’s normally gentle as can be. A big softy.”

“Oh, obviously,” Jyn said. She tried to lift her hands, but the plastoid ties were tight.

“Those, I’m afraid,” Allehander said, “will have to stay.”

Jyn looked up at him. “What do you want?” Her voice was stronger now, clearer.

“I want to talk to the person who made these. ” Allehander snapped his fingers, and a man stepped forward. He dumped a satchel of Pso’s Palace gambling credits on the table in front of Jyn. Her heart sank, but she was certain her face didn’t show anything more than mild confusion.

“You’re the one who commissions the credits. You should know who made them,” Jyn said.

Allehander laughed merrily. “Ah, sweet young thing! I believe I do know who made these, and I believe you know that they were not from my sources.”

He picked one up, tapping the side with his taloned finger. “These are very, very well made,” he said in an impressed voice. “Still, we do have to punish those who steal from us.”

Jyn still didn’t let her face betray her true emotions. She stared at him blankly. And it was in that moment—bound in a gambling lord’s office as he withdrew an assortment of killing and torturing devices from his desk and laid them out—it was in that precise moment that Jyn realized something hugely important.

She didn’t care anymore.

Her mother was gone, Saw had betrayed her, Hadder and Akshaya had burned in merciless space. I have nothing else to lose, she realized. Obviously, she didn’t particularly want to get tortured and killed, especially not over an Imperial officer with a gambling problem, but there was an emptiness in Jyn now that pushed on the edges of her soul, expanding, forcing out her other emotions.