Rogue One: A Star Wars Story by Alexander Freed

Author:Alexander Freed
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Science Fiction, Space Opera, Action & Adventure, Media Tie-In, Fiction
ISBN: 0399178457
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: 2016-12-16T06:00:00+00:00

BAZE HAD ALLOWED CHIRRUT TO lead them up the ridge. He’d taken point often enough—pushed Chirrut to the side to stomp at a crumbling stretch of narrow rock, or gone hunting switchbacks where the ridge became less sheer—but it had been Chirrut to insist “Higher,” until they stood together on the apex, looking far below onto the twisted paths and the research facility.

“You said we were following Jyn,” Baze growled.

“Why are you so literal?” Chirrut asked. His smile was playful, almost smug.

Baze grunted in reply. It was an old habit, a way to assure Chirrut of his presence without words. He doubted his companion appreciated it in the slightest.

A short while later, he had his cannon adjusted and the scope to his eye. There was a gathering on the facility’s landing pad. He spied stormtroopers and officers, a shuttle descending. He looked at the pale, clean-shaven face of a young Imperial captain, haughty and smirking at something his neighbor had said.

It was the face of a man who had the luxury of thinking of something other than death. Something other than the ruin of everything he had loved.

“Baze,” Chirrut said.

Baze readied himself to pull the trigger on his cannon. To burn the platform with more blaster bolts than there were drops of rain on Eadu.

“I sense anger in you,” Chirrut said.

Let the Imperials sense it, too, Baze thought.

“This is not what we came for,” Chirrut said. There was no playfulness in him now. “This solves nothing.”

Baze jerked his weapon down and turned to his companion. “They destroyed our home. I will kill them.”

Chirrut said nothing. But the blind man’s unflappable calm, the wind tugging at his clothes and the rain beating against his scalp, seemed to leach some of Baze’s ire. In time, Baze spun back and lodged himself among the rocks, observing the goings-on on the platform with his naked eye. The Imperials were only smudges that way. Harder to hate a smudge.

“So what did we come for,” Baze asked, “if not vengeance? Are we lackeys of the Rebellion now?”

Chirrut tapped at the ground with his staff, searching out the edge of the cliff before crouching at Baze’s side. “Captain Andor is the only lackey of the Rebellion here. And even he may not last much longer.”

“Then why follow Jyn?” Baze asked.

He had allowed Chirrut to lead the way up the ridge. He had allowed Chirrut to lead him in many things, and learned long ago not to demand answers. But grief had turned all his lessons to tatters. Today was not a day for the evasions of a Guardian of the Whills.

Chirrut knew, of course.

So many years together, how could he not?

“Because she shines,” Chirrut said, and placed a hand on Baze’s shoulder.

For a few short minutes, there was serenity in the rain on the mountaintop.

Then the sky roared and starfighters blazed trails of fire above them, silencing the storm.

—

The alarm began to wail seconds before the first blast hit. Jyn’s aim slipped from her target. Then she saw the X-wing diving, saw its laser cannons flare.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.