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Explosions of Stardust: Chapter One: Troubled Meetings

AN: RebelCaptain has almost entirely taken over my life, and Rogue One was so wonderful and tragic that I just needed to start another fic.

We'll see if any of you like this.

Merry Christmas, either way.

When Jyn Erso was eleven, she was already a seasoned soldier. Those words should never have been in the same sentence, particularly since she had left the name of Jyn Erso behind.

On the planet of Bakura, she was only known as Kestrel, it wasn't a particularly suitable name for a girl, but Jyn was a soldier, not a girl. She had a weapon strapped on her at all times. She never went anywhere without a blaster to hold or vibro-blade to cut into the flesh of anything that dared attack her.

She was only on the planet to plant a few charges and render the Imperial station there useless to its allies.

She wasn't one to play the hero.

Jyn was a soldier, a fighter, she was no hero. Heroes didn't have this much blood on their hands (did they?). Heroes didn't burn with this much fire in their veins.

She still remembered when that shuttle had arrived on Lah'mu bearing that man in the crisp white uniform, the one she'd seen before that day, the one she'd seen with her mother and father that night she'd woken up in a cold sweat. She still remembered the faceless helmets of the Storm-troopers that had descended, killing her mother, searching for her.

The crystal on the strap of leather around her throat was hidden from view under her clothes, warm and present against her skin.

Jyn hated thinking about that day, she hated thinking about that day, but it still plagued her mind.

My father is a traitor, my father is a bastard, my father is a coward. Galen Erso is not my father. Galen Erso didn't raise me…

The mantra filled Jyn's mind as dirt crunched under her boots. She was small enough to remain unseen by any of the patrols around the station, but another was not so lucky.

It was a boy, older that her but not more than five years, skin tawny and cheek smeared with mud. His dark eyes were wild and there was a brutally bleeding cut to his leg as he struggled to free his blaster as the Storm-trooper took aim.

Jyn should've thought with her head more, but she didn't; she acted on instinct, and instinct alone.

She raised her own blaster and fired, killing the Storm-trooper before he even knew what was happening.

Then the white-armored form fell and the boy looked at her, eyes wide and surprised.

Jyn sighed loudly. "I shouldn't have done that," she said, sounding much older than her eleven years, "more Storm-troopers'll be coming."

"You saved my life," the boy said startled, his Basic thick, making Jyn think it wasn't his first language.

"Don't take it personally," Jyn said as she drew closer, clipping her blaster back to her waist before offering him a hand, which he took. "I was trying to bomb the station. You two just got in my way."

She pulled him upright, slinging his arm around her shoulders and dragging him off the cliff-side to keep him from being blown up by some Storm-troopers.

"We'll both be dead if I don't get you out of here," she grumbled, more to herself than to him.

Jyn couldn't explain what had made her save him later that night when they'd both made it back to the hut she was holed up in on the edge of town. It would've been easier if she'd just left him to die and used his self to give her an opening through his death.

Jyn was probably getting soft.

Saw Gerrera wouldn't approve.

"What's your name?" she asked him where she'd helped him sit on the makeshift bed, drawing up his pantleg to expose the cut.

"Cassian," the boy said, the name falling easily from his tongue. "Cassian Andor."

"Real or fake?" Jyn quirked an eyebrow and for some reason, it made the boy smile, but he neither confirmed nor denied it.

"What about you?" he asked.

"Jyn Erso," Jyn said after a moment of deliberation. It wasn't a name that had meaning outside of Saw Gerrera's band of rebels.

"Real or fake?"

"Maybe one day you'll find out," Jyn said faintly amused, as she sponged away at the dried blood around his wound.

Cassian noticed she knew her way around medical supplies and he considered her silently.

"Are you with the Rebellion?" he asked her, wincing slightly as the cloth dragged too close to the edges of his broken skin. He was one of the younger recruits. Children were useful because they were less suspected to be involved in criminal activities and they could hide a bit more effectively. Child soldiers weren't something Mon Mothma approved of, but other members of council called it a 'necessary evil'. Still, Cassian didn't remember seeing her at the base.

"No," Jyn said, "but I'm guessing you are." She paused briefly before adding. "I'm with Saw Gerrera."

He'd broken with the Alliance only a few months previously and Cassian knew a lot of the rebels thought he was far too radical for their taste.

"You're a bit younger than I was expecting," she said sparing him a smirk, "for a rebel, I mean."

"You're a bit shorter than I thought you'd be," he said in reply, a half-smile of his own, "for being one of Saw's people."

Her lips twisted faintly.

"Were you there to blow up the station?" Jyn asked. "Because it might've been a bit overkill between the two of us."

Cassian appeared rather startled. "Gathering intel, actually," he said, staring at her with her pale green eyes full of fire and the need to do something, something that mattered to someone, with calluses on her fingers from the grips of blasters, with a palm scarred from the overheating of a blaster.

He didn't think it was possible for a child (you're a child, he tried to point out to himself) to incite so much apprehension, but he knew that if they'd crossed paths on a battlefield, the one that would be falling would be him.

"You won't be gathering any intel on that leg," Jyn said sternly, and Cassian knew she wasn't wrong there. "I might have a bacta patch around here somewhere…"

Jyn's fingers smoothed over the Kyber crystal, its warmth calming as she looked over to Cassian as he slept. She knew there was a blaster hidden under the ragged folds of the thin blanket she'd thrown over him before taking up residence, sitting on the floor just opposite the door with her own blaster in hand. She might've saved Cassian Andor's life, but there was no reason for him to trust her, nor for she to trust him.

It would be simpler just to take off at that moment and detonate her bombs in the middle of the night, but they were technically on the same side and any information that Cassian gathered would be going against the Empire, so…

Jyn heaved another sigh, watching the sky darken behind the single window before looking to where Cassian slept restlessly.

His lips were drawn downwards into a frown and Jyn thought that might've been his default expression.

It might've been hers too, she thought to herself. It was something she hadn't really thought about; her facial expression.

Cassian didn't know what to think of this girl who had saved his life. She was befuddling and quiet.

"You don't talk very much," he said.

"Neither do you," she returned without looking up from cleaning her blaster with a precise hand.

Cassian conceded that point to her. "How old are you?" he ventured.

"Does it really matter?" Jyn asked, smoothing the pieces back into place, the blaster clicking in her hands.

"Not really," Cassian said, "but I can't really move my leg, so conversation is the way to go."

Jyn said nothing for the longest amount of time and Cassian thought perhaps he'd annoyed her when her voice cut through the silence.

"Eleven," she said. "You?"

"Sixteen. Orphan?"

Jyn thought about her father. "Yes," she said. "Same for you?"

Cassian nodded.

It was a week before Cassian's leg had healed sufficiently enough for him to walk and run on it without difficulty.

Jyn Erso was a puzzle, but in their time together he had discovered she was firm and steadfast, not too careful though, because one of her aliases had a bounty on her head, her favorite color was green, and she never went anywhere without a blaster.

He didn't know why she stuck around.

It would've been easier just to leave him to fend for himself, leave him alone in the hut on Bakura and run off. There was no reason for her to have a sense of loyalty towards him.

"So, are you coming with me to the station?" she asked him bluntly.

"I –what?" Cassian floundered in his confusion.

Jyn rolled her eyes. "You need intel, I need to blow it up, unless you're against working with me?" She quirked an eyebrow at how thrown off Cassian was. "Besides, you need a ride off this dump, and I've got a ship." A small ship, but a ship nonetheless.

Cassian stared at her blankly for a long moment. "You're awfully trusting," he said with narrowed eyes.

"I'm not," Jyn countered dryly. "But you're the best backup I've got."

"Charming," he said, catching the bag that she tossed to him.

"Come on, the sun'll be setting soon and it's better to stake out in the darkness."

Jyn fixed the electrobinoculars over her eyes from where she and Cassian were parched on an opposite ridge, hidden from view. "It looks like the guards go by every half hour…on the dot, I don't think they're late for anything. So we've got time between each patrol. Are you a fast climber?"

"I can be," Cassian said, his face a mask in the darkness so Jyn couldn't even tell if he was lying or telling the truth. But he was a spy so the lying was more likely.

He took the electrobinoculars where she handed them off to him, looking through them.

It was almost strange how at ease they had come to be in one another's presence, two children of war who only trusted those that could further their own desires, their own wants.

Cassian was doing this for the Rebellion, Jyn was doing this for Saw Gerrera, so were they really all that different?

Cassian didn't think so, but he didn't voice it.

"I think we should move closer before the next rotation," he said, "and then climb once the guards've passed.

Jyn gave a soft hum of agreement, pulling a grappler blaster from her bag and Cassian stared.

"If you have that then why'd you ask if I was a fast climber?" He tried not to make his tone come off as exasperated as it had, but there was no way around that.

She smirked before they ducked forward to hide closer to the walls edge, waiting impatiently and silently for the next patrol to pass.

And then the Storm-troopers moved past and Jyn drew the grappler blaster and fired off a thin and strong metal cable.

"Hold on," Jyn said, barely giving him time to wind his arms tightly around her torso before she pressed the button to recoil, sending them flying forward and up the side of the wall to the very top of it.

Jyn hissed something vulgar under her breath as Cassian used her body as a stepping stool to make it over the edge of the wall before offering a hand to Jyn, but Jyn swung herself up without his help, unclipping the grapple with a bloodied hand; she must have had her knuckles cut from colliding with the wall. She tried to stem the blood on her shirt before nodding to him.

They ducked through the first doorway, their footsteps careful and quiet, only to find a corner to hide in when they saw two officers coming their way.

Jyn took a charge out of the pack on Cassian's back in order to place and prime it on the ceiling before nodding to him once more.

They separated as they'd agreed with Cassian heading towards the information core and Jyn to the places that was cause the biggest boom, taking the pack from Cassian before darting off.

Neither of them looked back to see if the other had done so, they had their own jobs to do and both were each other's means to an end, so both disappeared into the darkness, ducking around corners and behind doors.

Cassian had very little trouble locating the information core, something he found to be very lucky, but Jyn found it harder; the best places to secure bombs happened to be the most guarded.

Unfortunately for Jyn, the heavy number of guards meant that she actually had to use the walls in order to stay as close to the ceiling as possible when there were no places to hide. It strained her muscles and made her wish she was as flexible and fleet-footed as Maia was.

It was a miracle no one saw her.

The Kyber crystal was warm against her skin.

"Trust in the Force," her mother had said.

Jyn swallowed and bided her time and then all the charges were placed.

"Hey, who are you and how did you get here?!" a voice demanded and Jyn swore and ran, mistiming her explosion in her haste to get away before anyone on the base realized what had happened.

She was blown clear into the forest, fire searing across her upper back, unaware if Cassian had made it out, and it sat more heavily in her chest than she thought it would.

AN: This is a sort of prologue for the next chapter, if I decide to continue the fic, which I probably will, knowing me, but I hope you all liked it!

As always: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW!