War Child--Rogue One

L

Mon Mothma calls me in to her command room.

"I'm sending you on another spy mission," she says. "To Jedha."

"Jedha?"

She nods.

"Why Jedha?"

"We just want you to keep an eye out for us there. There's a lot of Imperial activity there, and we need someone who knows the land to watch them."

"I was last there when I was four."

"You'd been there longer than anyone else. Which is to say, nobody else in this Rebellion has lived on Jedha in the last thirty-seven years."

I sigh. "Alright. When do I leave?"

"Tomorrow, just after dinner.  Your briefing will be on your holopad shortly."

I nod. "How permanent is this mission?"

"You will receive more information later, but you will return at least monthly for a report."

I salute and exit.

I think it's best that I leave.  A change of scenery means that I won't be looking for Linami around every corner.

So I pack up and leave on the Zeta-class I was given.  I bring K-2SO with me, but he could be pretty suspicious, so I'll have to be careful.

The first thing I notice is the sheer number of stormtroopers everywhere.  They checked and double-checked my altered identification for errors before I was even allowed onto the planet.  Then they gave me a resident's visa.  The checking wasn't the hardest part, though.  The hardest part was finding a place where I could leave my Zeta for less than a hundred credits a day.

I find one, with a fat alien named Gordo, who proposes that I pay fifty credits a day, but I have to do all of the upkeep on my ship myself.

I assure him that I can handle that.

But now I need a steadier income than the five hundred credits a week the Rebellion sends me.  What better place to get information and money than a Cantina?

The closest one is named, ironically, Guardian of the Wills, a play off of the Whills. I walk in and find the owner, a chubby Twi'lek who's bellowing at his thin, much younger wife.

"What do ya want?" he grunts.

"A job."

He eyes me. "Can ya remember over seventy drinks?"

"Not right now, but if you teach me, I will."

He steps back a moment. "Ya look nice enough. Any business with the Empire."

"I'm a neutral party," I assure him. He doesn't seem like one to take kindly to rebels, given the huge Imperial insignia behind the bar. Maybe they were required to put that there, since I've seen it on every other building since I arrived. Anyway, better safe than sorry.

"Alright. Ya have ta shadow me for a few days, and I won't pay you for those, but then you'll work from noon to closing."

"What time is closing?"

"Ten."

"In the morning?"

"Nah, ya idiot. At night."

"Oh."

I'm so used to military time now that I've made a fool of myself.

"Put this on." He chucks an apron my way. It's fashioned to look like a Jedi robe. I guess it has something to do with the aesthetics of the place. The lamp looks like it may be made out of modified lightsabers, casting colorful spots on the ceiling. There's no beam, so they could be fakes.

Perhaps the insignia was a compromise for making money off the Jedi who used to inhabit this city.

I stand behind the counter and see, for the first time, the actual interior of the cantina.

There's a half dozen tables in the middle, then a counter that wraps around the whole room.  On each of the table is a dancing girl, either human or Twi'lek.  They're all dressed in offensively scanty Jedi robes.

I work the rest of the evening, then decide to go find the apartment designated to me.

I'm stopped five times on the way home.

Each time, they ask for an identification and how long I've been here.

I spend an entire year on Jedha.

All uneventful.

K-2SO, in a way, replaces the friends I left on Yavin IV.

I create a network of my own spies. Drink loosens the tongue, and it is easy to find Rebel sympathizers eager to find adventure. I give them all different names, and they report to me at the cantina.

Most of the information is irrelevant to both myself and the Rebellion.

And then news comes that a pilot has defected from the imperial fleet.

And everything happens at once.