CHAPTER SIX
( MAKE IT WORTH IT. )

KITRA Erso had always had an undeniable inability to listen. Even as a child she had lacked the patience necessary to focus on anything other than what was right in front of her. It seemed almost ironic that now, with a sack over her head to restrict vision and her wrists bound behind her back to prevent movement, that she would have to rely on the one sense she could never really use. So, against every fibre of her being, Kitra Erso listened.

She could hear the dry chattering of boots against dust and the harmonious hum as Rebel's whispered amongst each other. The beating chant in Chirrut's voice pounded against her skull incessantly aside the heavy beat of his partner's boots. But more intently she listened for Cassian and Jyn, and for any sign that the two were alright and alive. But for every ounce of strain she brought her numbed ears she received only the dry whistle of wind amongst stones, and the cold feeling that spread through her veins — you are alone.

• • •

IT was funny how Kit recognised the fighters in the catacombs. Not the individuals, but the soldiers — she recognised the thin scars on their faces from slivers of stray shrapnel, and the burn marks on their palms from overheating blasters. She knew the squareness in their shoulders and the hollow distrust in their eyes. She knew because once, a lifetime ago, she had been them. And to these people, these unintentional brothers and sisters bound by a single thread of ambition, that was what made her a threat.

She waited, bound but silent, in the central chamber of the Rebel cave. Jyn was seated against her back, the older girl's spine digging into the hollow of the her sisters back when she shifted to breathe. Cassian was gone, as well as Chirrut and his partner, but Kit wouldn't let her wayward mind come to rest over that to save herself from the dread that settled in her stomach at the fact that she was unable to help them at all.

She knew that Jyn was tense as well. She could feel it in the knotted muscles of Jyn's shoulders pressed against hers. This would be the first time in six years either sister had seen Saw Garrera, and Jyn had always been bitter over their guardians betrayal. Kit had been too, but mostly she'd been reserving her bitterness for her sister instead. But sitting here, in the dark, pressed against her sisters taught back, she came to wonder if it was Jyn's betrayal that stung her so deeply, or her fathers.

"Do you remember Staven?" Jyn asked out of the darkness, the words recalling a lifetime of lost memories from the recesses of Kitra's conscious. "He'd get a good laugh of of the two of us right now."

Staven, who taught Kit how to rewire a detonator and who used to sneak her a sip of fermented bantha's milk. Staven who sat around the open fire and laughed too loud at dark jokes a child like Kit wouldn't understand. Staven who's face she hadn't seen in six years.

"I try not to," she responded lamely.

"Codo?" Jyn asked again.

Codo, who taught Kit how to swim in the old mud hole they called the grotto. Codo who tried to kiss Jyn and who glared at Kit when she laughed at Jyn turning him down.

"And Maia," Kit responded, recalling the carbon scent that hung over the older woman, and the way her synthetic gloves used to grate against the blaster handle in a high pitched tone.

Kit rolled her cracked lips over each other and let out a reminiscent huff. All those people, all those lives, had been nothing but shadows in the light of Saw's burning inferno. Easier not to talk about the dead. Better to forget. "We're all that's left," Jyn said softly.

"Then lets make it worth it," Kit said in a voice that sounded a little colder than she'd intended it to.

The curtains to the hall brushed away as the Tognath reentered. "He'll see you now," he rasped and dragged his knife through the rope around Kit's wrists.

• • •

BRUSHING aside the thin shred of curtain Kitra Saw for the first time the small living area of an abbot, the only light tricking through the split rock which served as a window to overlook Jedha's Holy City.

Her eyes were drawn to the rising, grey sun that hovered tentatively on the horizon. Jyn hovered at the younger girl's shoulder, keen eyes searching even now for a fight.

A resounding thunk shifted the girl's attention to the shadows bathing the corner of the room, and Kit fought the childish instinct to move behind the protective shoulder of her older sister.

"Is that really you?" A soft voice rasped against the darkness, familiar and different all at once. Kit turned slowly towards it, working to keep the pain from showing in her dark eyes, to find the wreck of the man she once knew.

Saw Garrera had been immortalised in Kitra's memory as a warrior, beaten but unbreakable. Now all she could see was a broken old man barely kept together by a metal encasement, his wise, fiery eyes trapped behind a withered and rusted face. This was not the man who had raised her, not the man who rescued her from the bunker. Kit had worked so hard at loathing him, but seeing him his way she made her want to cry.

"I can't believe it," he whispered. "It's been so long..."

He started toward them, his leg groaning under the strain of his weight. "Must be quite a surprise," Kit managed a response in a flat tone, as empty and cold as he had once taught her. Saw's voice.

"Are we not friends?" The older man managed to ask, the underlying malice that she'd come to associate him with nowhere to be found.

"Last time I saw you," Jyn continued in a tone that rivalled even Kitra's complacency, "you gave me a knife and loaded blaster and told me to take care of Kitra until daylight."

Saw gazed at the elder sister pityingly. "I knew you were safe."

"You left us behind." Jyn said, the cracks in her exterior beginning to show in the back of her dark green eyes.

"You were already the best soldiers in my cadre," he shook his head like he was struggling to explain something to a child. "You were ready. Both of you. Even if you couldn't see it."

"I was sixteen," Jyn went on, he voice rising in pitch. "Kit was thirteen! Do you know what it's like to get by like that?"

"I was doing to protect her," the old man insisted, his voice growing in strength to match the younger woman's ferocity. "I was protecting you both."

"You dumped us." Jyn was pushing hard to maintain the fire in her words, but even Kit could tell that they were only smoke. Jyn had waited for six years to pick this fight and instead she'd only had her courage ripped from her by his soft tone and broken eyes.

"You were the children of an Imperial science officer," he explained in a voice you might use to soothe a wailing child. "People were starting to figure that out. People who wanted to— to use you as a hostage ..."

"Stop," Kitra commanded in a voice stronger than Jyn was able to manage. She didn't want this soft voiced and gentle eyed man. She came here for the soldier.

And then Saw's eyes narrowed and the girl's saw for the first time in years the warrior who had raised them. "But today of all days?" He took a lumbering step towards Kitra and fixed her with a scrutinising stare. "It's a trap? Isn't it?"

"A what?" Kit asked.

"The pilot," Saw urged. The warrior was in there, struggling to fight against the dying body it was trapped inside. "The message, all of it." He grasped for the oxygen mask hanging from his chest plate and drew in a deep breath before he could continue. His eyes were so deeply drawn to Kit's she couldn't think of moving away. "Did they send you? Are you here to kill me?"

Kit shook her head disbelievingly. This old man, this paranoid soldier, he was still Saw. Still the man who had raised her ... and abandoned her. "I couldn't care enough to kill you," She said in an empty tone. The anger was gone now, leaving only cold complacency in its wake.

"So what is it then?" Saw continued, "Why come to Jedha in the name of the Rebel Alliance?"

So he had done his research. He knew about Kitra and her mission. All this effort to conceal her identity for so long and all this time Saw had known exactly where she was. She didn't need Jyn to help her walk through the door because Saw had been waiting for her all along. The girl felt bile rise to the back of her throat, burning away any words she tried to muster.

"The Alliance wants our father," Jyn managed. "They thought he'd sent you a message about a weapon. They thought that by sending us you might help them out."

"Who send you?" Saw demanded, "Was it Draven?"

"General Draven, Mon Mothma, the whole damn Council," Jyn went on. "I don't know them, Saw. I'm only here because I have to." Kit flinched at her words, but said nothing.

"So what is it you want, Jyn?" Saw questioned feebly. "Did you bring Kitra back here expecting me to welcome you again? To ignore the deaths in the city?"

Jyn laughed bitterly. It rattled down Kit's bones and reverberated in the back of her mind, a siren which reminded her that Jyn was exactly the same as she'd always been. She wasn't here for Kit or the Rebellion. She was here for Jyn. "I want to be left alone," The older sister went on without giving Kit a sideways glance. "I was fine before and I'll be fine again. You wanted an introduction? Here it is."

Kit didn't say anything, the swelling in her throat was too thick for words. "You care not about the cause?" Saw wondered.

"The cause? Seriously?" Jyn's voice lacked the aggression that she wanted, but it didn't need the fire to sting Kit. All the younger girls bitterness had subsided long enough to be hurt again, a fatal mistake on her part. Jyn went on, "The Alliance, the Rebels, whatever it is you're calling yourselves now, all it's ever brought me is pain."

"How can you stand to watch the Imperial flag reign across the galaxy?" Kit managed in a small tone. "How can you sit by and do nothing?"

There had been a point a long time ago when Jyn taught Kit the importance of hope, when Jyn had been loyal and ready to die for the cause her father was sworn against. But that girl was gone now, and so Kitra's sister went with it.

"It's not a problem if you don't look up," Jyn replied.

Kit wanted to walk away then. She wanted to scream. She wanted to take Saw's stupid cane and beat her sister over the head with it. It wasn't fair. She wanted to hate her. She needed to hate her. But she couldn't. And now her older sister was doing the same thing again, leaving her behind. Only this time Jyn knew she was alive, she just didn't care.

Saw took a long breath from his oxygen mask. "Jyn, I have something to show you."

• • •

"THIS is the message from the pilot," Saw confessed as he slipped a small holo-chip into comm-unit. "For what it's worth, he believed it was real."

Kit's heart seemed to shrink within her chest, leaving an empty hollow feeling in it's place. She had spent so long trying to deny the fact of the man who was her father. She didn't know if she'd ever be ready to face him. She could barely even remember the colour of his eyes. But some primal instinct kept her feet planted against the ground, her shoulder barely grazing Jyn's as their eyes locked on the flickering blue image that came to life before them.

Kit didn't recognise the man's face. There may have been something familiar in his dark eyes, but in more ways this face gave no recognition to Kit at all. He might as well have been a stranger.

"Saw, if you're watching this, then perhaps there is a chance to save the Alliance." Galen Erso spoke with little conviction, his tone resembling the hollow hopelessness of a prayer more than an expectation. "Perhaps there's a chance to explain myself and, though I don't dare hope for too much, a chance for Jyn and Kitra, if they are still alive, if you could possibly find them ... a chance to let them know that my love for them has never faded and how desperately I've missed them."

Kit blinked rapidly to expel the moisture gathering in her eyes. But every time she closed her eyes she was faced with a new tidal wave of memories she thought she'd buried forever. Her father's itchy Imperial uniform against her cheek, and the earthen smell of her sheets on Lah'mu.

Your love for me? She wanted to hiss, What good has your love ever done for me?

"Jyn, my stardust, and my Kitra, I can't imagine what you think of me. When I was taken I faced some bitter truths. I was told that, soon enough, Krennic would have you both. He toyed with me that way; for months, he would pretend to forget you, and then act in conversation as if he'd slipped up — make mention of a new lead on you or Saw.

"Part of me longed for those mentions, I realise now it was a kind of torture, As time went by, I knew that you were either dead or so well hidden that he would never find you. But I knew that if i refused to work, if I took my own life, it would only be a matter of time before Krennic realised he no longer needed me to complete the project."

His eyes gazed at the space beyond the recorder, his word's quickening in haste. "You both may think that's an excuse. That I was fearful, and should have died." A violent smile snake it's way across his lips, though there was no humour behind it. "I should admit the possibility. History will forgive me or excoriate me, as is appropriate. I only wish it would forget me."

Every excuse he gave, every half-hearted explanation he tried to justify, was like a sharp slap across her face. He thought he could make her understand. But she would never understand. She had been raised to loathe the Empire, and by association she had been raised to hate Galen Erso. This man is a tool of the Empire, her mind screamed at her to turn away, he is not your father.

"So I did the one thing that nobody expected: I lied," He went on, his voice growing steady and sure. "Or I learned to lie. I played the part of a beaten man resigned to the sanctuary of his work. I made myself indispensable, and all the while I laid the groundwork of my revenge.

"You may have heard rumours by now; leaks regarding a battle station integrating an advanced laser prototype. The battle station is real. Its primary weapon has been built to penetrate the crust of a planetary objective, to pour energy into a world until the bonds of matter fray and break. The ultimate result, we believe, would be the planet's violent obliteration. Nothing would survive. Nothing could ever be rebuilt.

"This battle station ... we call it the Death Star. There is no better name."

Kit's mind gushed with a million sudden opinions. Slave, liar, traitor. Galen Erso did not raise me ... She was losing everything all over again. Her mother, father, Jyn and Saw. All gone. All abandoning her. She needed to sit down, her legs were barely holding her up. Defiant of her own muscles, she stood taller.

"My colleges," Galen said. "Many of them, have fooled themselves into thinking they are creating something so terrible and powerful it will never be used. But they're wrong. No weapon has ever been left on the shelf. And the day is coming soon when it will be unleashed."

Galen's voice turned grave, a sudden flash of fear in his gentle eyes. He pursed his lips in contemplation of his next words, "I've placed a flaw deep within the system. A scar so small and powerful, they'll never find it."

Kit's breathing caught in her throat. This was what they'd come for. This was what the Rebellion needed. But now, hearing it in her father's voice, the voice she didn't know, Kit didn't want to hear it. Galen went on like a man on his death bed, one final confession on his flickering blue lips.

"Jyn, Kit, if you're listening ... My beloveds, so much of my life has been wasted. I try to think of you only in the moments when I'm strong because the pain of not having you with me ... your're mother." His voice caught and he took a steadying breath before he could go on. "The pain of that loss is so overwhelming I risk failing even now. It's just so hard not to think of you. Think of where you are.

"I assume logically, rationally, that you fight with the Rebellion. It's difficult to imagine Saw steering you any other way, and you always had the same anger, the same insistent sense of righteousness as your mother," A genuine, reminiscent smile graces his withered features as he went on, "It frightens me to imagine you both grown, somehow working to oppose injustice in the galaxy, whether from a laboratory or starfighter, when the last time I saw you Kitra could barely speak a full sentence, but I think the Rebellion could ask for no better friend.

"Yet if it isn't so? If I'm wrong and you left the Rebellion and Saw behind but this message still finds you both? You make me no less proud. If you found a place in this galaxy untouched by war — a quiet life, maybe with a family — if you're happy, then that's more than enough."

The whole world was quivering, Kitra's muscles aching with the tension that had wound it's way through her body. Her vision swam and her ears buzzed. Happy?

The blue Galen blinked and tightened his jaw, suddenly snapping himself back into focus. "Saw, the reactor system, that's the key. That's the place I've laid my trap. It's unstable, so one blast to any part of it will destroy the entire station."

Kit's chest ached with the effort it took to hold in her screaming. Galen's words were dulling now, giving way to the roar of blood pounding through her ears. She tried to refocus, tried to make out Jyn through the blur of shapes and colours, the entire room bathed in the blue hue of Galen Erso.

"You'll need the plans, the structural plans, to find your way, but they exist. Sabotage from the inside is impossible; Krennic is too paranoid. But I've thought about it, Saw, prepared everything for you I could."

The walls were trembling and for a moment Kit realised that Saw was too, his ancient cane rattling against the floor the louder the roaring grew. Beside her Jyn grasped at the table to support her.

"I know there's at least one complete engineering archive in the data vault at the Citadel Tower on Scarif. Use what I've told you, run the analysis, and you'll be able to plan your attack. Any pressurised explosion to the reactor module will set off a chain reaction that will—"

Galen Erso winked out without warning, the once steady blue image flickering away like a candle flame in the breeze. Saw let out an incoherent warning that was promptly drowned out a piece of the tunnel exploding overhead, the air growing with dust thick enough to choke on.

Something terrible was happening to Jedha.