Chapter Text
PART ONE: A Band of Rogues
Occupied France, 1940
Jyn Erso woke with the taste of rust in her mouth and a pain in her neck. She’d slipped down in her sleep, and she silently took stock of her surroundings, letting the weightlessness of the dream slip away and leave her with the sense of gravity.
Fading orange sunlight burned through the canvas stretched across the back of the rumbling truck, striping across a dozen other pairs of shoes — men, women, thankfully no children — workmen boots and tired heels and lone dirty bare feet. Some of them were asleep like she’d been, others were staring straight ahead or at the soldiers — armed, and blocking the mouth of the truck where a patch of darkening sky vanished and reappeared in time to the flapping canvas.
Jyn avoided their eyes and looked instead to the scuffed toes of her boots, just underneath her bound wrists. The road — used in the loosest sense of the word — was rough, and every few feet meant the tires encountered a bump that sent another shudder through the truck floor, bruising her bones, huffing the breath unwillingly out of her throat.
Though she highly doubted that anyone in the German High Command was particularly concerned about the transportation conditions facing undesirable persons such as herself, except that maybe they arrived in Germany still living and breathing and passably capable of slaving away in service of the German war effort.
Maybe a farm — if she was lucky. More likely a railroad or a smoky factory.
This was real.
Not the hazy dream of a village on the outskirts of Geneva, of a small white house and green grass, the hills stretching long and mysterious in the distance. Not the blurred faces of two people she barely wanted to remember, or the words they whispered to her while she slept.
Jyn half-raised her hands as though to swat at a fly, but quickly disguised the motion as adjusting the fall of her hair, brown and unruly and twisted into a knot at the back of her head. Her grimy fingers left a smudge on her cheek, but it didn’t matter.
She was Lyanna Hallique, not Jyn Erso, and what mattered was the possibility of escape — of vanishing like a perfectly-timed magic trick — to hide her hair under a cap and pretend that she wasn’t an eighteen-year-old girl on her own in the world. She’d done it a thousand times before.
She’d just made a mistake this time, and past troubles had caught up — enough to put her on the roster of people more suited for the German mainland, underneath a crushing machine or between raging coal furnaces.
Jyn pulled herself slowly back up to sit against the rails at her back, and let her head rest on the moving canvas. It was a long drive to where they were going.
She had time.
Except the truck screeched to a sudden halt, and any reassurance she might have taken from the previous thought evaporated like mist. The other passengers were looking around, some frozen and unmoving — hoping it wasn’t what they feared, a series of hasty executions in the middle of nowhere — murmuring to each other.
Different accents, some French, some not quite.
The soldiers at the back of the truck were speaking to each other in German. Jyn turned her head slightly, listening without looking like she was.
“We’re not supposed to make stops,” said Left. Young, apprehensive.
“Who knows anything these days?” said Right, with a shrug. “Maybe we are.”
She heard the crunch of boots landing on dirt, the soldier in the passenger’s seat disembarking. “Stay where you are,” he barked.
Something wasn’t right.
Jyn’s eyes flicked around her surroundings for anything she could use as a weapon, but apart from the ropes around her wrists — those on the condition of actually being severed — there wasn’t much.
Her fingers curled into fists.
Not that it mattered. All she needed was a chance.
Then two things happened at once.
The first was the ground behind the truck erupting in fire, and the second — somehow louder and more present — was a gunshot.
The soldier’s body hit the ground, and Jyn threw herself forward as a matter of instinct, ignoring the pain of having to bend low enough with her hands tied, or the other passengers erupting in blind panic. The guards leapt off the truck in a hurry, and shots peppered the air in quick succession as they fired back on whatever had stopped them.
She was crushed against a farmer from Lyon, who was bellowing along with the others. But they all abruptly fell silent when the gunfire stopped after three more shots, and more bodies hit the ground.
A shadow flickered against the canvas, and gloved hand appeared in the crack, pushing the flaps aside and admitting a cloud of black-gray smoke with it. The truck creaked from someone climbing onto the back, metal and a rifle clicking along with the movement.
“Lyanna Hallique?” said an unfamiliar voice.
Jyn felt her spine go rigid, and she lifted her head as the voice asked again. “Lyanna Hallique?”
One of the passengers whispered something, and she felt a shove on her back, sending her stumbling forward on her knees.
The canvas parted even further, and in the uneven light of the burning fires, she saw that it was a man dressed in plainclothes. No officer’s uniform. No squad. “Lyanna Hallique?” he repeated.
She nodded silently.
“How would you like to escape your present situation?” he asked, this time in English.
British. Anglais. British. Anglais. The others were whispering behind her, eyeing the stranger with apprehension. She’d spoken the language alongside French since her hair was in braids, but something about it rang of a test. She was supposed to be a French prisoner, as her alias — along with her use of the language — was meant to cement beyond doubt.
Then again, she hadn’t exactly planned for the situation where a condition of her freedom hinged on breaking character for just a second.
Jyn shoved her hands out. “Much obliged,” she answered.
A knife sawed through the ropes around her wrists, but they’d barely touched the ground before Jyn shoved her elbow into his chest and slammed her knee into his side, sending him crashing into the other passengers.
She cleared his sprawled body in a single leap and bounded towards the mouth of the truck. There was another waiting at the entrance, but she braced her hands against the floor and threw herself into a skid that landed both her boots onto the man’s chest in a solid kick. He went flying, and Jyn dropped hard on her feet, stumbling a little too close to the fires. They were burning across the road in craters and billowing thick clouds of smoke, like someone had dug them into the dirt and set them off as a trap. She accidentally sucked in a mouthful of ash and coughed, her hand pressed to her nose and mouth as she whirled, looking for cover.
Go.
She plunged into the smoke again, but an arm swung out of nowhere and caught her solidly around the middle, knocking her flat onto her back — along with all the oxygen from her lungs.
Even though her vision was watering furiously from the haze, she could make out a uniform — an officer of the Wehrmacht, the German army.
Along with the click of a pistol, trained efficiently on her in a wordless warning not to move.
“I wouldn’t advise trying to escape, if I were you,” said a clipped British voice, as jarring as hearing English after months of French and German. “It would be most unwise, as I estimate the probability of your reaching civilization with no supplies or transport at a low 12%.”
There was an unmistakable sardonic tone to his voice, and Jyn felt her temper flare. She struggled to sit upright, glaring fiercely at the stranger — blond, pale, cut and chiseled like a mold wholeheartedly approved by the Third Reich. Apart from the English, which pointed to him being a spy. “What the hell is going on?” she demanded.
The German-English officer-spy looked briefly down at the ground, then back at her, as though she’d asked something perfectly obvious. “Ah, well,” he said. “I believe, Miss Hallique, that you are in the process of being rescued.”
It was her turn to be sarcastic. “Rescued,” she repeated.
He reached down and grabbed her roughly by the arm, hauling her back onto her feet. “Yes,” he said, no less sarcastic than she’d been. “Rescued.”
Jyn didn’t answer, because more figures were emerging from the fog. Whatever the hell was happening — she wasn’t entirely clear on, but she did know for sure that the last thing she felt was relief.
This wasn’t going to end well. For them, or her.
Jyn stumbled on the uneven floor, her arm in someone else’s grip and a sack over her head.
“Mind the step,” said Officer Spy, an intentional few seconds too late.
“Thanks,” she answered.
There was movement all around her and she straightened up, conscious of a conversation stalling and an unseen number of eyes resting on her. Appraising. Suspicion was in the air like the sharp taste of rain.
A door shut with a heavy crank, iron slamming on iron, and the bag was suddenly whipped from her face, exposing her surroundings.
It was a windowless cellar lit by guttering orange bulbs, hanging naked from worn wires. The wooden table at the center of the room was circular and covered with papers that multiple people were hastily clearing away, and Officer Spy gave her a nudge towards the only open chair.
People were retreating into the shadows at the edges of the room, watching but unwilling to be watched.
“Virginie Lyra Erso,” said Officer Spy, reading from an open file. “Eighteen years of age, born in Germany but later resident of a charming village outside Geneva, followed by what appears to be a fascinating jaunt around the world in no particular order or significance. Places of residence — and criminal activity — include Poland, Morocco, France, and Great Britain, among others. Forgery of official documents, impersonating and stealing identities, smuggling, resisting capture and arrest, and general violent behavior appear to be your chosen areas of expertise on the wrong side of the law, while languages of fluency include French, German and — of course — English.”
He flipped the file shut and looked towards a corner. “She also took out two of our officers before she was taken.”
“Violent behavior was right,” came the answer, in accented English. It was light, but decidedly marked him as someone just about as native to France as Officer Spy.
Spain, she guessed. Maybe somewhere on the Southern American continent.
“Do you have anything else to say in your defence?” Officer Spy queried, in a way that suggested he was less than serious about turning it into a genuine trial.
Jyn kept staring straight ahead. She wasn’t fooled. It was a trial, and now she was being asked to confirm the rumors, the whispers, to verify what they wanted to know and subject herself to an evaluation.
She’d felt a flutter of panic — a betrayal of her nerves — at the mention of her real name, the name nobody should have known. Not in this life, anyway.
“It’s Jyn,” she said, flatly. “Not Virginie.”
“Jyn Erso,” said the voice in the shadows. “Why not Jane? Suits you just as well, I imagine.”
He was making fun of her now, and she just barely kept her tone free of defensiveness. “Because it’s not my name.”
“Jyn Erso it is, then,” Officer Spy said. “Miss Erso, I must apologize for the rather abrupt manner of our meeting, but times of war mean the niceties cannot always be observed.”
Jyn looked pointedly at her boots — stolen — and dusty slacks, the collared workman’s shirt belted around her waist and the threadbare jacket thrown over everything else. “Do I look like the kind of person who cares about social graces?”
“She’s right, Kay,” said Shadow Voice. “Get to the point, or she’ll kill us with her stare.”
“Stop it,” she snapped, and spun around in the chair to glare at Officer Spy — who apparently went by the name Kay. “What is this? Are you going to shoot me, or send me on to a work camp?”
“If we were going to shoot you point-blank in the head, don’t you think we would have done it before the fire-bombs?” Kay returned, dryly. “But if you’re so keen on wasting away at a German labor camp, by all means, if you decline our offer, we’ll put you right back where we found you.”
“Offer?” she said, feeling her skin prickle with apprehension. “What offer?”
A shape emerged from the darkness, and Jyn’s eyes took in the source of her verbal antagonizer. He was…unexpected, and Jyn couldn’t quite put her finger on the reason why. Maybe he looked like someone who could be a friend — in theory, anyway, and theoretical information formed the bulk of Jyn’s views on friendship.
It wasn’t because he was handsome. Not really. Not in the carved and chiseled way that his partner Kay was, obvious, easy, but there was something about his face that made it distinctive, that gave it character. That drew the eye.
Jyn felt herself retreat from the thought like she’d been burned, and made sure that when she made eye contact, it was only so he could see what she wanted him to.
Which was not a goddamn thing.
“Do you know who we are?” he asked, quietly.
Jyn felt another shiver creep up her skin. “No,” she lied, because a part of her didn’t want it to be true.
A smile curled the corner of his mouth, like he knew. “The Resistance,” he said. “And we want to make you an offer to join us.”
Jyn felt a smile grow on her face to mirror his, but not for the same reasons. “Why?” she said, almost a laugh. “What use could the Resistance have for someone like me?”
“Don’t pretend to be naïve, Miss Erso,” said Kay. “You know as well as we do that the only difference between your record and one of our spies is the fact that you don’t act for anything but self-interest. Politics and a greater cause is clearly not a concern for you.”
Jyn knew the words were meant to sting, and she refused to let them. Defiance was another one of her implied attributes, along with the criminal record Kay had just recited. “When you’ve lived the way I have, you'll understand that political opinions are a luxury you can’t afford.”
“Yes, why should anyone form a political opinion about the various behaviors perpetrated by Herr Hitler and his chosen command?” Kay said. “For the life of me, I can’t imagine why.”
“You haven’t answered my question,” she said. “Why not someone else? I don’t share your politics — and I certainly don’t share your allegiances. I’m sure there’s someone else like me who does. Why does the Resistance want my help?”
Kay lifted his eyes to the ceiling in visible — demonstrated — exasperation. “Cassian, I believe it’s your turn.”
Cassian. Jyn’s eyes flicked over to him again, as he moved, silent, almost catlike, to stand at the table, in the light.
“Because of your father,” he said, and she went very still.
Beneath the table, her hands were in fists, twisted into the worn fabric of her slacks, because she was a child again — nine and a half, nearly ten — hiding in the tall grass with her body pressed to the trembling soil, watching her father being dragged away and her mother’s fierce shout, followed by twin gunshots that changed her world forever.
But before that, her father’s arms wrapped around her tight, and his kiss on her forehead. He’d called her Jyn, not Virginie, because the name made her feel heavy, and she’d always soared on light feet, too fast sometimes even for him to catch.
He’d called her stardust too, like it was their little secret — just one of many that he’d kept.
Jyn, whatever I do, I do it to protect you. Say you understand.
“Galen Erso, Danish-born scientist who once worked for the German government on projects of great importance,” Cassian said, like he was reciting from memory. “He disappeared for some time, taking his wife and child with him, almost as if he — they — never existed.”
“He’s dead,” Jyn said, telling herself that it was to save them the trouble. “They killed him. They came to our house and killed him and my mother. I ran before they could take me too — because my parents knew they’d come, one day. They prepared me to run. My father is dead.”
“Except he’s not.”
It was Kay who spoke this time, because Cassian had been studying Jyn without a word, with the kind of intentness that was easier to pretend not to notice. She turned slowly to look at him. “What did you say?” she asked.
“I said ‘he’s not’,” Kay said, tapping two fingers against his temple. “As a matter of fact, Galen Erso is still very much alive.”
Jyn’s stare was unwavering, sharp as a blade, like she was digging it into his skin to make him tell her. “How do you know?”
Kay stared unflinchingly back. “Because we’ve been tracking him. He returned to Germany and resumed his old post with their scientific advancement division. In the buildup to the war, we believe that his expertise in engineering proved very useful to those in charge, and he’s been repurposed towards developing weapons to the benefit of Germany’s war machine.”
Jyn sat a little straighter in her chair, holding herself like any sign of relenting — even for a fraction of a second — would shatter her shell into a million pieces. She’d assumed; she’d been so small, scared, unwilling to believe that her world was falling apart. She’d assumed, after seeing her mother fall, that it meant her father had died too.
Double gunshots. Two bodies.
But her father was alive. Alive, and working for Germany. Helping them.
Her eyes fluttered shut, briefly, and when she opened them again — she was Jyn Erso, the orphan who answered to no one.
“Then you should be speaking to him — not me,” she said. “I don’t know about science, or about weapons. I just know how to rebel, for no one’s cause but my own.”
“That sounds like a luxury to me,” Cassian interjected. “But this is wartime, Jane, and we believe that you’re the only person who can reach your father, and prevent the kind of damage he could inflict on innocent people.”
He wouldn’t, she thought, when she should have reminded herself that he was dead. Because it was supposed to be easier that way.
Their eyes locked, and Jyn saw a surprising depth of understanding in someone no better than a stranger, and a two-faced spy.
“Maybe he didn’t have a choice,” Cassian said softly, and Jyn had to look away.
Kay exhaled, as though it was the punctuation at the end of a sentence. “The fact of the matter is, our superiors have given us a mission: recruit Jyn Erso for the Resistance, with the promise of freedom after the satisfactory resolution of Galen Erso’s case, or return her to meet whatever fate awaits the alias Lyanna Hallique. This might be an unsolicited opinion, but one of those options seems, by my estimation, more likely to result in your survival than the other. By 52%, in case you’re interested.”
A pause, allowing the information to sink in.
“So, what’ll it be, Miss Erso? We’re rather pressed for time, I’m afraid.”
Jyn felt a hard lump at the base of her throat, but she kept her face blank and unreadable. She’d been on the wrong side of the law for most of her life, but it all paled in comparison to what they were asking of her, though she wasn’t naïve enough to see it as anything short of an order. Escaping a second time from the transport route would be next to impossible, especially since the incident had guaranteed she would be closely watched — if not shot on sight.
She knew that working for the Resistance would be dangerous. A different kind of danger, apart from the recklessness of forging travel papers and starting a brawl in the streets. It was the kind that meant she would actively become an enemy of a nation, a subversive actor trying to destabilize them from within.
Not a civilian anymore.
An enemy soldier who would be shown no mercy.
But.
Her father.
It was her weakness, and they — a unit made up of one stranger who thought and analyzed in mathematical probabilities, and another who spoke like he’d known her for years — knew it.
“You can find him,” Cassian said, and Jyn knew what she was going to choose. “You can find your father.”
Jyn lifted her head, and sensed both men going still in anticipation, as though — in spite of all their understanding and their calculations — there was an element of the unpredictable about her. Volatile. Uncontrollable. “Fine,” she said.
You have no idea.