CHAPTER TWELVE
( HE'S GONE. )

"KIT!" Jyn's voice snapped the younger girl back to their situation, her eyes falling back onto the platform to find the brilliant green eyes of her older sister.

Kit scrambled to get her feet beneath her, cradling her gun against her chest as another explosion rocked the platform. "We need to move!" She shouted over the screaming fighter engines and the roar of troops scrambling to defend themselves. Kit crouched forward as the two Rebel's sprinted out from behind the crates, their presence unnoticed in the chaos that had engulfed the Imperial facility.

Kit's eyes raked the scene for their father.

Galen was still there, exactly where she'd seen him. He was slowly getting to his feet, his chest rising and falling rapidly with every heaving breath. But he was alive.

Without consent Kit felt her heavy legs moving to close the distance between her and her father, her fear and anger dissipating like smoke against the fire in her chest. But the X-wings were returning for another bombing round, blaster cannons turning the water into acid, blistering Kit's cheeks and arms as she shouldered her way past Imperial officers.

"Papa!" She screamed over the hailstorm of gunfire.

Galen's head rose, his wild brown eyes —Kit's eyes — finding their way to his daughters. For the first time in fifteen years Kit saw her father looking at her. Beside Galen, Krennic stopped screaming orders, his head snapping so quickly to the side that Kit thought he'd break his own neck. His ice-coloured eyes glowed as he found the two approaching girls, ignited with poison enough to stop any man dead in his tracks.

Kit didn't break stride as the Director's hand went to his firearm, her own rifle coming up to level itself with his.

Whether or not he ever pulled the trigger Kit never found out.

She heard the piercing shriek of the explosion as metal was bent and twisted out of proportion, and saw the incandescent fire envelop the shadowy platform. The next thing she felt was the fire touch her cheek as a shock wave swept both the sister's off of their feet, flinging them aside like a child abandoning a useless rag doll.

Kit's body was wreathed with pain as she collided with the ground, a jarring scream echoing in the confines of her chest. She bit her tongue to keep it there as her hand went to find the platform, but found only the jagged edge of a hole that had opened up in the metal beside her head.

She blinked rapidly against the rain and rolled over. Her lungs were coated in a thick varnish of smoke and char, and when she coughed white-hot struts of fire pierced her aching chest. She tried to put her feet underneath her, but only one leg came up. The other, her bionic leg, ended in a catastrophe of bent wire and metal right beneath her knee. She couldn't feel it at all.

She coughed again and looked to her left, her eyes finding a burned and unrecognisable corpse still dressed in the smoking shreds of an Imperial uniform. The corpse twitched, its hollow eyes staring up at the stormy sky, and went still. Kit's head swam with nausea as she leaned over the hole by and threw up, her palms scraping over the jagged edge of the still smouldering cavity.

"Director!" A pitched tone called, "We have to evacuate!"

Kit's eyes flickered upwards fast enough to find the white-cloaked figure of Krennic being half-dragged and half-led by a unit of Death Troopers and officers towards the boarding ramp of their shuttle. Anger boiled in her chest, her hands scrambling from the rifle that she'd lost along the way. Krennic turned, his eyes locking on Kit's, burning with a deep seated hatred that rivalled even her own innate loathing. And then he was gone, and Kit was blown a half a metre backwards by the downwards gale of his retreating ship. She dug her cracked and soot-covered fingernails into the ground to stop herself falling to the same fate as the stormtrooper she'd faced.

She struggled for a second to regain her breath, her head bowed to the heavy sheets of rain. Every nerve ending was teaming with adrenaline, her eyes glowing with alertness despite the pain that wracked her fragile body. A million thought crowded her skull, one prominent against the rest. "Jyn!" She called, dragging herself along the uneven metal ground. Dread flooded her chest as she spotted the stiff sprawl of arms and legs in Rebellion clothing. "Jyn!"

Kit forced herself to crawl, her arms taking the weight where her missing leg couldn't, towards the unconscious figure of her sister. "Jyn," She rocked her sister's shoulder, and Jyn's eyes flickered open.

"Kit," The older woman rasped through a chest-full of oily smoke. Relief washed through Kit's features as she helped her sister to sit upwards.

"You're leg?" She frowned, noticing the absence of Kit's metal limb.

"I'm fine. Just a scratch," She said in a dismissive way. "Let's go find our father."

The two struggled to their feet, Kit supporting the weight of her missing leg on Jyn, as they limped in an awkward three-legged race over the platform. They skirted the Rebellion-made hole to stumble towards the crumpled and defeated body of their father.

Galen looked as good as dead on the metal, his broad shoulders slumped and twisted in an awkward direction. His chest rose in a single, ragged breath, straining with the effort, then fell back into a raspy exhale. The pair collapsed at his side, and Jyn gathered his fragile body to rest his head over her lap. "Papa," she whispered, "It's Jyn."

Galen's head lolled backwards, staring at the sky, and then at the soot-covered faces of his daughters. His pained expression morphed to a fleeting sense of joy, as his cracked lips pushed past a strangled series of broken words. "My daughters?"

Kit forced herself to nod, a strangled smile tugging at her lips. Jyn stroked his wet hair from his face. He was broken and dying, like Saw had been when they'd found him. And watching his sad and desperate eyes search to find her Kit couldn't find any hatred for the man at all. This wasn't the Imperial lackey who'd abandoned her, and he wasn't the Rebel who stood in flickering blue on Jedha. He was just a shadow of her father, dying and exhausted, his eyes filled with the love Kitra had craved since his disappearance.

"It has to be destroyed," he told her with a whisper of intensity.

"I know," Kit managed to tell him, her quivering lips straining to form the simple sentence. "I've seen your message."

Galen's eyes drifted up to Jyn's, and Kitra wasn't sure that he'd heard her at all. "Someone has to destroy it," he repeated.

Jyn nodded, and for a second Galen's hand reached out, grasping Kit's in one and Jyn's in the other. He squeezed her palm, the gesture full of longing and reassurance, and then fell limp.

"No," Kit shook her head, crawling closer, her hand still grasping his. Jyn looked at her younger sister with a mixture of pity and hopelessness. Kit grasped her father's shoulders and squeezed them. "Papa ... Papa! Help me Jyn! We've got to help him." She rocked Galen's limp body, a dry dob bubbling past her lips.

She blinked hard against the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes, her hands going limp as they released her father's smouldering tunic. "Papa ..." She whispered, and she felt Jyn's fingers wind their way around hers, locking their hands together.

They didn't move as an Imperial trooper emerged from the thick smoke, his rifle aimed at the pair of unarmed Rebels. Jyn's hand squeezed around Kit's, grasping it tightly as they prepared for one final shock.

Kit heard the gun fire, and then watched the trooper fall. Cassian emerged from the smoke behind the fallen soldier and sprinted to the girl's side. "Kit ..." There was no anger in his eyes, only concern. And Kit knew that whatever argument they'd had meant nothing until they were both safe again.

The youngest sister threw her arms around Cassian's shoulders as he knelt by them, his arms winding their way around her smaller waist. "We've got to go," he whispered against her hair, trying to coax her back to her feet.

"I can't," she told him as she pulled back, her hands clamped around his wrists. Her eyes flashed to Galen's body, as though she expected him to suddenly come back to life. She spoke in a short, quivering tone, her every word shaking with strain. "I can't leave him."

"Listen to me," Cassian urged her, his tone gentle but firm. "He's gone. He's gone. There's nothing you can do. Come on." His hands found hers, calloused and strong, and pulled her gently away from her father's cooling corpse. Kit looked to her sister, and Jyn gave her a single nod of reassurance. She let Cassian pull her to her one leg.

The trio of battle-worn Rebels sprinted across the platform, Jyn's hand on Kit's back and Cassian's arm over her shoulder, through the oily smoke and smouldering crates.Her boots kept slipping out on the wet and uneven metal, but Cassian's hand was always there to keep her up.

The sky was silent again, a sense of foreboding creeping over Kit. The X-wings had retreated. They had no cover now. They were on their own. "Where are we going?" Jyn shouted as they ran, obviously sharing the same concerns.

"Down," Cassian responded uncertainly.

"Well that clarifies it," Jyn muttered. Cassian led them towards an unmanned turbolift, possibly the only route out not swarmed by stormtroopers.  But the group hadn't made it half way before a squad of Imperial soldiers emerged from the burning structure of the facility.

Too many to fight, Kit thought, her stomach sinking.

Regardless of the ominous amount of troopers Cassian used his free arm to sling his rifle towards them. But before he could make his stand a volley of bright crimson bolts toppled the entire squad like dominoes. Kit didn't know where the billets came from, and she couldn't find herself caring enough to ask. But the precision of the sniper was startlingly similar to that of Baze's on Jedha. Whoever it was, Kit was grateful.

"Come on!" Cassian was shouting as more troops continued to pour from the Imperial hive. Kit tried to speed up her pace but stumbled, her boot sliding out over the slippery and uneven metal. Cassian dropped her momentarily, he and Jyn skidding a few steps ahead before Kit could keep up.

"Cassian!" Kit scrambled to make it to Cassian as he turned back to help her. The troopers were firing at the trio ceaselessly, and without being able to stand Kit made for an easy target.

A bright scarlet bolt exploded against the younger girl's exposed shoulder, tearing a violent scream form her chest as her arm fell back against her side. Every nerve ending was ignited with fire as she collapsed into the wet metal, unable to hold her weight up on one arm.

"Kit!" Jyn was scrambling back to help her sister up, Cassian firing into the incoming squad to cover her. Jyn flipped her over to face upright, Kit's face contorted in pain. Her vision swam as Jyn stood over her, coaxing her back upright. She couldn't feel anything but the burning of her shoulder, her senses retreating one after another.

"Kit, Kit stay with me," Jyn was saying as she tried to lead them forward. "Come on, stay awake."

"I can't ..." She shook her head, her one leg dragging uselessly behind her. "Jyn I ..." Her eyes rolled back into her head as her shoulders slumped, the last of her senses flickering out.

• • •

Ewww. I apologise for the really crappy writing. I feel like the dialogue and action was really jaunty here?

Anyway I might come back later and revise.