War Child--Rogue One

XII

All day the next day, we furiously stitch blankets.

In between hems, Mother makes sure the pot of throw-together soup isn't burning.  She tells me her mother, my Grandmother, who I never met, used to make it.  It's the simplest meal; just drop vegetables and assorted stew fixings into broth and cover on top of a low flame.

Mother makes it a lot.

Somehow, I never get sick of it though. It's just so different every time, I suppose.

The work takes my mind off of Aden for a while, but as time ticks along, there's a pit in the bottom of my stomach. I do not want to see him again.

"Cassian!" Mother calls.

I look up.

"I've been calling you for the last minute. Will you get the door please?"

Standing, I nod and cross to the door.

It slides up. Aden stands there, with a grubby, but beaming, boy beside him.  I don't recognize him, but I usher them both in just the same.

Mother hefts the pot onto the table. She freezes when she sees the new boy. "Who's this?"

"This is Kai. He's sort of on the run right now," Aden says. "Could you hide him?"

"On the run?" she asks, glancing at the door.

"The Empire is looking for him."

"What for?"

"I broke him out of holding." He holds up a hand when Mother gasps. "Nobody saw me. I didn't even go in. I have a spy on the inside and a connection with him, so I never interact with him. But he was wrongly accused of bombing the base, so I got him out."

He doesn't look at me, and I don't think he wants Kai to know that I am the reason he was imprisoned in the first place.

"Do you have a place to put him? They may search soon."

"Yes. Cassian, clean out the compartment please."

I nod and start pulling blankets out of the hole. Besides being a good place to hide the blasters, the pit is five feet deep and usually stuffed with spare blankets. I leave a thin layer on the bottom for Kai to sit on.

There's a vent that leads down to the hole from by the wall. Father thought maybe our house had been a smuggling stop before we moved in.

Mother doesn't set a place for Kai. She just hands him a bowl of stew and a spoon and he stands near the hole to eat it.

The rest of us sit down to eat, ready to spring to action at a moment's notice.

Aden gives us a brief plan for a few different scenarios, then Mother starts to ask him some questions about Kai, none of which he answers directly.

While they talk, I get a closer look at the short kid. He's probably my age, but an inch or two smaller. A mop of dreaded black hair hangs onto his dark forehead, and deep brown eyes dance about. Every now and then, he sighs and smiles a bit, and his teeth are blinding against his skin. There's a scabbing cut over his left eye and his right wrist is bandaged.

The poor kid's pretty battle worn. All because of me.

There's a knock at the door. I sprint for the hole, holding Kai's bowl as he drops down. I hand him his food and Mother and I replace the cover and rug. Aden stands by the door, waiting for us to be ready. When we're both back at our spots, suppressing our heavy breathing, he opens the door.

"Sorry, we just started dinner," he says with a shrug.

The snow trooper shoves him aside without a glance. Three more stomp in, tracking in what seems to be all of Fest's annual precipitation (which is, in fact, approximately 159 meters on average). So maybe not that much.

Two of the snow troopers march over to the huge pile of blankets. "What are these?" one asks.

"Blankets," I say, matter-of-factly.

The one who spoke turns around and walks over to me, raising a hand and slapping me hard across the face. I fall from my chair as pain shoots through to behind my eyes. "Do not mouth off to me."

The other trooper kick through the whole pile, unfolding all of the ones we had just folded. "Nothing here," he reports.

The other two have searched the closet, cupboards, and meat pit. They turn up with nothing.

"Let's move along," one says, and the all troop back out.

I sit up, rubbing the right side of my face. "By the Force, that hurt!"

"No kidding," Aden says seriously. "I'm surprised they didn't ask about the blankets. We'll have to be extremely careful when we move those, or else they'll get suspicious and ruin them."

"Can I come out?" Kai calls.

Aden gestures for me to help him. I heave to my feet, still holding my face, and help him get the fugitive out. We leave the hole open and ready in case they come back.

He's finished his bowl of stew, but he asks for another. That's gone quickly, and he starts his third.

"I'm sorry," he says, scraping the bottom of the third serving. "I haven't eaten food this good for, well, too long."

Mother just smiles and refills his bowl. "Cassian and I couldn't finish this all on our own anyway. Eat as much as you want."

He smiles and wolfs it down. I start on the dishes while I'm waiting for him to finish. Not only does he finish that bowl, he finishes off the rest of the stew.

At least I don't have to bother with storing it.

Mother and I refold as many blankets as Aden can carry, ten, and load his arms. He promises to bring the money the next day, and we don't need any more cloth so he'll just check on Kai and take another ten blankets to market.

I don't get a chance to thank him for freeing Kai. A bit of the guilt is gone, but it still sticks out like an AT-AT in the snow.

Mother makes a makeshift bed for Kai out of the dozens of blankets. If someone shows up for a search, he'll just drop back into the hole and we'll mess up the blankets to hide the warmth. While our fugitive guest is in the toilet getting ready for bed, I take the hologram tablet from its place on the shelf and slip it under my mattress.

I really don't want this kid finding it.

As it turns out, Kai snores, so I get up multiple times to roll him over. On my twenty-first time, Mother whispers to me that she'll find a way to fix it.

The only person to get a good night's sleep tonight is him.