War Child--Rogue One

XXXVII

The next day, I'm bundled up, with a bag of things and a few hundred credits, sweating in the sun and saying goodbye to Linami.

"Stay safe, alright. Don't risk any communication. I'll still be right here." She holds my hands tightly.

"I promise. Enjoy your break, but not too much, okay?" I smile.

"I won't have too much fun. It won't be as much without you." She leans forward and gives me a kiss on my cheek.

I find myself blushing, but it doesn't show through my skin very much. She steps back and I turn to Mon Mothma, Senator Organa, and the princess. I give them a brief nod and board the trading ship.

I review my mission, over and over.

You will board a trading ship to Fest at eight hundred hours. The ship will stop at Tatooine, Endor, the Yavin moons, and finally Fest itself. You are to leave there, and go to your home, on the opposite side of town from where you lived before. There is a blue door, and the number above it is sixty-four. There are four other sixty-fours on the street, because it was poorly planned. From your home, you are to establish a path you take on a walk at the same time every day, similar to the way you wandered as a child. Using these walks and your memory, confirm that no major changes have been made to the gates to the four bases.

I'll make a note to not walk the same direction I used to. However, making sure that I walk all of the way around every day could be hard. Maybe there's a restaurant on the far side, near where I used to live. I wonder if any of the ones Mother and I used to go to are still open.

It's only been a few years.

By the Whills, will I be able to stand being back where I last saw my mother?

I will. I have to. It's been almost three years.

"Ready, Andor?" the pilot of the trading ship, Kile, asks.

"Ready."  I reach for a strap above my head and hold on as we take off.  It's another Zeta, similar to the one I was in yesterday, but this time there is no gunner's position and we have registration.

The only differences between our ship and a normal one, unaffiliated with the Rebellion, are that, A. there's a spy on board, and B. that spy, under the name of Giovan Trid will be erased from the manifest once we reach Fest.

As soon as we leave Dantooine, I am no longer Cassian Andor, by name at least.   In fact, Kile wasn't even supposed to call me that.

There are ten people on board.  A normal crew is nine, but it isn't unusual to have ten.  Kile, myself, and two other men are vastly outnumbered by the six women on board, all as strong or stronger than we are.

One of the women, Lee Gate, is standing next to me.  She's broad-shouldered, and her hair is cropped short so she doesn't have to tie it back.  Most trading women on Dantooine look just like her.  Behind me is a Twi-Lek named Fi'an.  She's wiry and strong, and her lekku are bound in leather straps and attached to the back of her jacket.

I have the longest hair.  Kile suggested that I either cut it shorter or make sure it's tied up whenever we work.  I don't want to cut my hair.  It's just past my chin, and I've worked too hard to get it this long.  I've got a handful of elastics in my pocket to get it out of my face.

We fly for a whole day.  Apparently, Zetas don't go very fast unless they've been modified.  We don't even make the jump to lightspeed.  Finally, we get to Tatooine and lock up for the night.  Both suns have set, so there's no time or light to unload.

We sleep on bedrolls, laid out all over both levels, in between crates of food. A sandstorm pounds the side almost all night, so I hardly sleep.

The next morning, we all eat a ration packet, which I barely choke down. Nobody else seems to mind. Maybe I'll get used to it.

I already miss the food back home.

Once the sandstorm lets up, we unload crates of fresh vegetables and exchange them for spices and hand-made goods. The water tank is refilled and we're off again.

As soon as we're out of the system, Kile calls, "Prepare for lightspeed!"

And then there's that familiar force and I wonder why he didn't jump to lightspeed earlier.

He descends the ladder and answers me, as if he read my mind, "We don't have the greatest autopilot or maneuverability, so we can't hit lightspeed until we're between systems. We'll be at Endor in a few hours. We have to stop outside of the system and manually get in there."

"Alright."

"Anyone up for a game of scrabble deck?"

I join them, but lose pretty quickly, because I keep remembering Aden and Mother.

So, instead of watching the game, I find a soft pile of blankets and decide to nap for a while, at least until we get to Endor.

I'm rudely awoken by the beeping of the auto pilot.

"You may want to hold on while we come in," Kile warns. "It's always a bit bumpy coming in to Endor."

I scrabble out of the pile and reach a stirrup just as the ship rocks. We land two hours later.

All in all, it takes us another week to get to Fest, and even then we have to sit on one of the outlying moons to avoid a meteor shower.

But, finally, we make it back to my childhood home.