Star Wars: Rebel Rising(82)

That evening, Jyn took a viewscreen uploaded with old holodramas and curled up on the bench behind the table. The day’s mission had struck a chord with everyone, and it was quiet on board the ship.

She felt Shawburn’s eyes watching her. “What?” she asked, looking up from the viewer.

Shawburn smiled wistfully. “You remind me of Bardbee,” she said.

The name, strangely, seemed a little familiar to Jyn. “Who is Bardbee?” she asked.

“He was a member of our crew. Got captured on Uchinao, after a mission went sour. He used to lay on that bench after missions, just like you’re doing. Well, not just like. He was a Rayeth—long and slender, with these membranes….”

Shawburn kept reminiscing, but Jyn felt sick to her stomach. She knew Bardbee.

“Anyway, we’ve not heard from him since his arrest,” Shawburn said.

Jyn had heard from him. Jyn had heard his screams.

Burta, the ship’s mechanic, was watching Jyn and Shawburn as well, looking up from a spare catalyzer she’d been working on. “Don’t think you’re taking Bardbee’s place,” she growled.

“I don’t,” Jyn said quietly.

“She’s not,” Shawburn said in a louder voice. “’Sides, Bardbee didn’t work codes. We hired ’em out. Liana’s got a right to be here.”

Jyn internally cringed; Shawburn was sticking up for her, and she didn’t even know her real name.

Burta rolled her eyes. Black oil stained her lavender skin as she rubbed a spot on her forehead. “That’s what all humans think,” she muttered.

Shawburn turned back to Jyn. “Don’t mind her,” she grumbled. “That one has it in for any humans.”

“I don’t see any Krish in the Empire,” Burta shot back. “Or any Devaronians or anyone else.”

“I don’t work for—I’m not Imperial,” Jyn sputtered weakly.

“No one’s saying you are,” Shawburn said, shooting Burta a dark look.

“I have wondered,” Burta said as if Jyn hadn’t spoken, “what this galaxy would be like without humans. Would the Krish have left their homeworld?” she said, jerking her head toward the pilot. “Would I have been on a ship soaring through space?”

“Other species have interstellar travel,” Jyn protested. “That didn’t just come from humans. The humans never would have figured it out if not for—”

Burta cut her off. “That’s not what I mean. I mean”—she sighed heavily—“humans spread .”

“Spread?”

“They’re never happy. They’re always moving. Spreading out. Taking new planets. Every ‘settlement,’ every colony, every outpost in the Outer Rim—it’s always humans, isn’t it? It’s always humans spreading across the galaxy, leeching away at the people and the plants and the animals and the worlds. And now there’s the Empire and the rebels, and while other species are a part of it, at the core it’s just more humans.”

“Some people,” Jyn said, “would consider this a skill. Humans adapt. Got mountains? Build ridgecrawlers. Too much water? Build scub-subs. An ice planet? Use radiated igurts. People adapt.”

“Yes,” Burta said, “but should they? Either humans adapt, or they force the planet to adapt to them. This is not normal.”

This was not an issue Jyn had ever truly considered before. She thought of her family. Her father mining crystals and working with the Empire until the planets could give him no more. But on the other hand, her mother trying to protect planets with legacy status, researching the B’ankor refuge on Coruscant.

And there was beauty out there, too. Jyn ignored it, but if it hadn’t been for her parents, she never would have seen the crystal caves of Alpinn. She wouldn’t have stood on the island in Wrea and seen the meteors shower down as bits from the asteroid belt broke off and fell to the planet. She wouldn’t have gone to Skuhl and tasted bunn or seen a bulba. Or kissed Hadder.

“There are other species all across the galaxy,” Jyn protested. “I couldn’t even count all the different species on Coruscant—”

Burta waved her hand. “The exception, not the rule. Every species has the rare freak that wants to explore, to abandon their homeworld.”

“Including you?”

Burta looked sad for a moment. “Including me.”





Blue took on two more legitimate jobs before restocking with foodstuffs on Satotai for another supply run to Watassay. Jyn was starting to doubt they’d ever go to their secret base, the headquarters that apparently connected Blue’s group to a wider network, one the Empire wanted to take down.

She was starting to like working with Blue and the rest of the crew…and she hated that. The more she fell into a friendship with them, the more acutely aware Jyn was of the futility of it all. She had already infected the ship with a tracker code. Every time they passed an Imperial checkpoint or made it through a blockade, Blue beamed at Jyn, and Jyn knew that Admiral Rocwyn was logging the ship’s location.

It wasn’t that she felt Blue was making the right choice by subverting the Empire. She just liked Blue and her crew as people. If she could convince them to do something other than undermine the Empire, to leave this system and quit dabbling in insurgencies, Jyn would happily join them.