Star Wars: Rebel Rising(77)

Before the woman could say anything, Jyn led her back down the hall. Behind them, they could hear the other women and children eating, their hunger all-consuming. Annjin looked as if she wanted to join them, but Jyn was almost done.

“Where are you taking us?” Annjin asked, suspicion in her voice.

“Nowhere. I’m leaving. I suggest you go elsewhere. The Empire’s waiting for you on Rumitaka.” Annjin looked confused, so Jyn added, “There’s a shuttle. I’m taking it. You can have the ship.”

“What about—” Annjin started, but Jyn stopped in front of the airlock. Annjin stared through the porthole window, her eyes widening.

Captain and Mathey were almost lucid now; the boys at least were awake. “Let us out!” Mathey shouted.

“If we land on Rumitaka with these men as prisoners, they’ll blame us,” Annjin said. “Our contracts don’t run out until tomorrow; we’re technically still slaves until then. We’ll be put on trial for revolting against our masters.”

Jyn put her hand next to the release switch. Annjin’s eyes fell to the large red handle. Jyn had already set up the airlock; all the safety measures were overridden. All it would take was for the handle to be pulled down, and the four men who had locked up Annjin and her family on the slave ship for a solid week to rot in their own filth with less food than they could live on would be shot into the blackness of space.

“So,” Jyn said, once she was sure Annjin had seen the release handle, “I’m taking the shuttle. I’m also taking the credits I was paid. You may want to check Captain’s quarters. There may be more for you. Or you could sell the ship. I don’t care. But I’m leaving.”

Annjin stared at the porthole. The men had realized what the women were looking at; they were all too aware of the big red handle.

“Please don’t go,” Annjin said softly. “I’ve been a slave since I was a teenager. I don’t know what to do. We could…we could be your crew. We could take the ship and go anywhere.”

“No,” Jyn said simply.

She turned around and headed toward the shuttle. It wasn’t much, about the same size as the planet hopper, and fortunately it had similar controls. Jyn was no pilot—she couldn’t have stolen the freighter if she’d wanted to—but she knew she could at least land the shuttle on Rumitaka. It was a straight shot with autopilot engaged.

Jyn had disconnected from the freighter in a matter of minutes, pulling away from the larger ship. She watched as it soared toward Rumitaka, the planet barely in view. And she watched as the airlock opened and four men drifted out into space.





Rumitaka was a dusty planet that had very little going for it. There was a small mining operation to the south, a refinery on-site, and irrigation farms to the north. The spaceport was located near a small town. When Jyn landed, she inquired about any nearby junkers.

“Looks like a good little shuttle,” the junker, a male Labbo, said, eyeing it. “What’s wrong with it?” His long ears twitched, the flaps brushing his shoulders.

“It’d be better off as parts,” Jyn said. “And the ident code isn’t original.”

The junker eyed Jyn, then scanned the ship’s codes. Jyn’s work was good, and in general, the ship would pass any clearance, but there was already an alert out for it. “Reckon I could keep this in storage for a bit,” the junker said. “Until things are a little calmed down.”

“Good plan,” Jyn replied. They settled on a price, and Jyn cashed out. She could have earned more, but it was evident that she had to sell fast.

She went right back to the spaceport. She bought passage on an interplanetary transport unit and disembarked on Uchinao a few weeks later. From there, she picked up odd jobs, moving between the planets in the system whenever she got antsy.

As soon as possible, Jyn took a job on a freighter leaving the Five Points system. Between Commander Solange and Allehander Pso, she had no reason to stay and every reason to leave.

Time and distance blended together as Jyn criss-crossed the galaxy. Sometimes she thought about how much Hadder would have liked this life, seeing new planets from the viewports of different ships, but usually she tried not to think about him at all. Instead, she pretended to be the starbird she had heard about on Inusagi, the one that turned to stardust and spread across the galaxy.

It didn’t matter who she was as long as she wasn’t Jyn Erso. She picked up a code name, Liana Hallik, and created scandocs for the new ident that were so good they passed more than one Imperial inspection. She just hoped they were good enough to get her through the Five Points system unnoticed, when she returned there several years later.

Jyn docked at Rumitaka with the intention of reaching out to a splicer she’d met before leaving the system. She needed credits after a run of bad luck. But instead of her contact, she ran into the old junker.

“Hey!” he called, crossing the small spaceport to where she stood. “It’s been a while.”

Jyn frowned, trying to add up the time. She was in her early twenties now, she supposed. She was surprised the Labbo remembered her.

“Sold that ship of yours,” the junker continued, pulling up a chair. “Made a good price. Might have some work for you, if you’re interested.”

She shrugged. She’d learned that lesson from her travels; never appear eager. The Labbo offered to discuss the finer points in the small cantina down the road, and Jyn allowed him to buy her a drink.