CHAPTER SIXTEEN
( SUICIDE PACT. )

KIT could hear the pounding of two sets of boots behind her; Jyn and Bodhi. The coward who couldn't even stand up for himself and the renegade, their footfalls quickening to keep in time with their fast retreating comrade. The younger brunette marched on, retracing the path out of the base. If the pair of them wanted to follow her into the jungle then she wouldn't stop them, but she wasn't in the mood for a confessional either.

Kitra stepped into the hangar bay, her mind still swirling with a million thoughts and arguments, words she'd wished she'd said and wished she hadn't, and the sickening feeling that she failed settling over her stomach.

Kit had to shield her face from a shower of golden sparks when an astromech and it's owner welded together the armour on the battered hull of an X-Wing. When she lowered her arm Chirrut and Baze were in front of her and her purposeless march was ended.

"You didn't get locked up," Kit said. She tried her best to make herself sound sincere, but there was an oblivious bitterness still lingering behind her words.

"You don't look happy." Baze responded in a gruff voice, seemingly unaffected by the lack of sympathy Kit had expressed.

Kit had to bite the corner of her lip to stop the mocking laugh that threatened to bubble past her tongue. She shook her head instead, averting her eyes to Chirrut's unseeing ones. "They prefer surrender." She knew that it was an exaggeration. Not every councillor wanted to give up, but they might as well have.

"And you?" Baze asked.

Kit didn't have to answer for the sly smirk that was already curling itself across Chirrut's lips. "She wants to fight."

"So do I," Bodhi's voice echoed from behind her as Jyn and the pilot stepped up to her side.

Jyn nodded aswell, fixating her green eyes on her younger sister. "We all do."

"The Force is strong," Chirrut smiled, his fingers curling around his staff.

Kit pressed her lips into a thin line, her eyes wandering between the haphazard ensemble of soldiers that had somehow wound up here together. The blind man and the human arsenal, the defector and the insurgent. What reason had she given them to fight now? What had she said that made them look at her like the last dying flame in a dark room? None.

The only thing that differentiated these people from the faceless councillors in the war room was that those people had not seen her at her lowest, these people had. They'd seen her look death in the eyes, seen her drenched in rain and blood and dust and and had followed her regardless. There wasn't any logical reasoning for it. Only that they'd looked into Kit's mind with a floodlight and seen every secret it held, yet decided that somehow it was worth looking past, that the goal was worth it, worth her.

It was a strange feeling, one she'd bitterly wanted for so long. But now she had it she realised that she'd done nothing to deserve it. These people trusted her.

A sad smile parted the young Rebel's lips and she looked between them and saw the desperate hope on their faces. "I don't think five of us will be enough," she said.

Baze grunted dismissively, "How many do we need?"

"What are you talking about?" Kit asked.

Chirrut only jutted his finger behind her with a nod. When Kit turned she saw dozens of Rebels pouring through the hangar doors. She recognised Ruescott, her former commander giving the woman a sideways grin, but the rest of the faces were a messy patchwork of stern-faced soldiers she couldn't begin to put names to. A Drabatan, his beady black eyes peering from behind leathery-grey skin and an amphibious snout, gave her a tight nod, his stubby fingers wrapped around the trigger of the rifle that nearly rivalled his own height. Towering in the shadows was K-2, and emerging from the fore of the mob was Cassian, his eyes dark and stern.

"They were never going to believe you," he said, crossing his arms over his chest, "Not the council. Not today."

"Thanks for the support," Kit replied, her tone colder than she intended. Her eyes flickered anxiously between the Alliance lackeys surrounding them, still not sure whether they were here to help her or arrest her. She let her eyes drift back to Cassian, a question resting on her pursed lips.

"I trust you, Kit," Cassian said before she could ask it. "We're here to volunteer."

Kit's eyes darted between the soldiers again, noticing for the first time that although they were armed no weapons were raised. They looked almost relaxed, their rifles slung on haphazard angles across their shoulders and belts.

Kit almost had to repress a sigh. More men, more lives, willing to fight and die because she asked them to. "Why?" She asked, "Why trust me?"

Cassian smiled, the brief emotion flickering away as soon as it came. "Some of us —" his gaze darted back to the men behind him, "— most of us, we've done terrible things on behalf of the Rebellion. We're spies, saboteurs, assassins."

Behind him the soldiers were looking at her like she was their judge and jury, the only one capable of reprising their sins. She looked away, her eyes falling to her feet. She couldn't be their leader. She couldn't tell them what to fight for when she hardly knew what she was fighting for herself.

She felt Cassian's hand rest under her chin, guiding her eyes back up to his. "Everything I did — everything we did, Kit — we did for the Rebellion. And every time I walked away from something I wanted to forget I told myself it was for a cause that I believed in. A cause that was worth it." His eyes were pleading with her for absolution, his sentences tapering and changing as he struggled to piece together everything he needed her to hear. "Without that— without a cause — we're lost. Everything we've done would have been for nothing. I couldn't face myself if I gave up now, neither could they, and neither could you."

Kit watched Cassian with empty eyes, trying to find a way to tell him that she couldn't save him. She couldn't save the Rebellion. She'd already failed. Instead she looked over his shoulder and whispered with a strangled sense of awe, "How'd you find them?"

"It's been a busy day," he said in a dry tone, and a fleeting smile flitted across the teenager's lips. Maybe her humour hadn't been wasted on him after all. Cassian went on; "I didn't need the whole briefing to know where it was going."

Kit swallowed unsteadily. "Cassian I—" The words were resting on her tongue; I can't give you a cause. But then she saw the need in his eyes, and that of the soldiers, and realised that whatever purpose they were looking for wasn't hers to give. Whatever brought them here was only united by her circumstance. She swallowed her words, only managing to jerk her head in a tight nod.

"It won't be comfortable," Bodhi said from behind her shoulder, his dark eyes roaming to the Imperial shuttle they'd left out on the tarmac, it's chrome hull gleaming like an enticing jewel against the sea of forest green. "It'll be a bit cramped, but we'll all fit. We could go."

"Okay," Cassian nodded, his head pivoting from Bodhi back to the soldiers. The confession was over now, and all the emotion had subsequently drained from his voice. "Gear up and grab everything not bolted down. We don't know what we're going to face but we'll make damn sure we're as prepared as we can be. Go!"

• • •

"Cargo shuttle, we have a pushback request here. Read back, please: Request denied. You are not cleared for takeoff."

Kit winced at the sudden static voice echoing through the comm, her dark eyes scanning the tarmac. The flight droids had already cleared the ship from the hangar. She had the space for a vertical takeoff, all she had to do was disengage the landing gear and stabilise the thrusters.

Beside her Bodhi fiddled with the controls, checking and rechecking every aspect of the ship's flight systems habitually. "Yes, yes we are cleared," he said as Kit frantically worked to disengage the ship's absurdly complicated landing sequences. "Affirmative. Requesting a recheck."

Kit flinched against and hurried herself, fingers already hovering over the ignition. It was a terrible plan. But so was every other aspect of her short life, and she'd managed to make it so far. Days ago she had been so sure where her loyalty was, and now she was about to defect from the same operation she thought she was dedicated to with some insane idea that somehow she could save it.

"I'm not seeing this request here," the voice said.

Kit hurriedly glanced at the viewport, at the empty hangars that at any second could be flooded with Alliance loyalists. Would they shoot them down to stop them from exposing what was left of the Alliance? No, she doubted that. On board was more than half the heavy weaponry Yavin had, at least everything they'd been able to steal within a twenty minute interval. The Council would want to salvage at least some of it ...

"Are you sure everything's been processed?" Bodhi inquired, grasping at any straw he could to stall the person in the control tower. "It should have been processed by now."

Kit thought about the people on board, the Rebels turned rogue, as her fingers flew over the toggles to disengage the warning lights that bared at her about the weight and proximity. Nothing major, but enough to stall them if they weren't careful.

"What's your callsign?" The voice asked, starting to sound irritated.

Bodhi's eyes flashed to her blank ones, the two of them sharing a desperate stare. She waved her hands wildly as a gesture for him to say something, anything, to buy them the last seconds they needed to take off.

"— call sign Rogue." Bodhi said, his eyes still locked onto hers. "Rogue One."

Kit finally disengaged the warning lights and transferred all the power to the thrusters. Her hands wrapped around the gearstick in time to feel the ship lurch into life, the shuttle purring under her calloused hands. She could faintly hear the sound of the comm squawking something over the heavy drum of the engine, but the blood roaring in her ears quashed the sound instantly.

"Rogue One," she called out, a grin on her lips, "pulling away!"

• • •

Ya'll ready for this? Cause' I sure as hell am not.