Star Wars: Rebel Rising(76)

That night, Jyn started cooking. “This slop is disgusting,” she said. “I don’t know much, but I can do better than this. For starters, let me introduce you to salt.”

Captain laughed, pleased with the variety, and the boys in general eased up around Jyn.

“You don’t seem like the kind to cook,” Captain said.

Jyn stared down at the pot of boiling water. Her mother would have taught her to cook, but Jyn had been too young to retain any recipes. Saw hadn’t cared about food as anything more than a means of sustenance.

Everything she knew about cooking, she knew from Hadder—from watching him toss spices into bubbling pans, her eyes glued to his quick hands as they chopped through glick before sending the white bits skidding through sizzling oil.

“How much longer is this journey?” she asked in a low voice.

“Eager to be off my ship?” Captain said.

“Yes.” Jyn let the simplicity of her word show the honesty behind it.

Captain pressed his lips together and nodded. “Three more days,” he said. “How’s the forgery going?”

Jyn looked him right in the eyes. “Almost done,” she said.



Two days later, and the boys were getting antsy. They kept going down to the cargo hold for entertainment, taunting the slaves by eating in front of them or jeering insults.

Jyn prepared a feast for them all. “Our last full day together,” Jyn said. The ship was already in sight of Rumitaka; they’d dock by the next morning.

“I’ve got a feeling that as soon as we land, you’re high-tailing outta here,” Captain said.

“You’re not wrong,” Jyn said. She was eager to pretend this job had never happened. She put the food she’d made in the center of the table, and the boys started fighting over the bread.

“What’s that?” Mathey asked as Jyn turned around.

She held the stun prod, the one Captain had taken away from the cargo hold. “I’ve not seen one like this before,” she mused. Her thumb pressed the trigger, and electricity crackled at the end.

Captain shrugged. “Mostly harmless,” he said

“Mostly,” Jyn agreed, and she pressed the end of the stun prod to Captain’s skull. His eyes widened and his teeth chattered involuntarily, then he slumped to the table, knocked out cold.

“Hey!” Mathey shouted, throwing his chair back and lunging for Jyn. She tossed the stun prod to her left hand, rammed it into Mathey’s stomach, and with her right hand withdrew the truncheon she’d secured to her back. As Mathey doubled over in pain, she walloped him in the back of his head with the truncheon, and he dropped like a stone.

The boys were stupid. They could have run, but instead they tried to fight Jyn at the same time. It took her only minutes to knock them out.

“Messy,” Jyn complained, dragging Captain up out of the bowl of gravy. She held both his arms and dragged him down the ship’s length. She opened the airlock chamber door and dumped his body on the floor, then went back for the others. As soon as all the men were inside the chamber, she locked the pressurized door, but she didn’t release the hatch. They would wake soon, but Jyn made sure the lock was sealed and they were trapped in the chamber.

Jyn went straight to the cargo hold. The slaves inside were too weak to stand; they had lived on little more than water and the occasional ration cube for a week.

Jyn sat down at the cage holding the mother she’d spoken to a few days before. “Why did you sell your children into slavery?” she asked.

“I didn’t,” she said. She scowled at Jyn but was too tired to censor herself. “Laurose and Efford were born while I served Pso. Owlen became mine after his mother died.”

“And you?” Jyn asked the other women. They all confirmed; their children were born into slavery. And they had all taken extended contracts with Allehander Pso in an effort to buy their own and their children’s freedom. Pso’s deal was to set them up on Rumitaka at the end of their service; instead, as soon as they’d boarded the Amarills -class freighter, Captain and Mathey had pushed them into cages, mocking them for their stupidity in trusting the gambling lord.

Jyn stood after she finished speaking to the last woman. She moved to the end of the hall and set the all-release button. The cage doors opened simultaneously.

“You’re…letting us go?” the mother who’d tried to fight Mathey asked.

“Come with me,” Jyn said. To the other women, she added, “There’s food in the mess hall. Eat as much as you want.” They nodded and then led the children up the stairs.

“I know you’re hungry,” she told the woman. “This won’t take long.”

“As long as the children eat.”

“What’s your name?” Jyn asked.

“Annjin,” she said. Jyn recalled her ident pad; she’d known this woman had to be one of the five adult idents she had.

“I was hired to alter your contracts,” Jyn said, leading Annjin to her room.

“I know,” she growled. “That one man—he laughed about it. How dumb we were to fall for that plan. To trust a contract from Allehander Pso.”

Jyn opened her door and Annjin followed her inside. All twenty of the ident pads were stacked neatly on the bed. Jyn picked them up and handed them to the woman. “I didn’t alter them,” she said. “The contracts are free and clear. Don’t lose these.”