A/N: Happy Episode Eight! Here is a new chapter, a year later, to celebrate!

CHAPTER THREE

PORT CITY, RING OF KAFRENE

THE MISSION

Sparks of sapphire blue flew through the air of the alley, flaming out like old stars in the darkness.

"Hurry," Jyn whispered. She flattened herself against the wall to look out at the crowded throughway once more.

"Your advice, Jyn Erso, is both unwanted and unnecessary," K-2SO remarked. He held the buckled KX security droid with one hand—a testament to his strength—as he forced the connection with his other. "And do you seriously think anyone will question what we're doing back here?"

"They might," Jyn said. "This isn't Jedha. So it's better to hurry."

K-2SO retracted his data spike and rose. He let the spent unit slip from his hand like rubbish, and it crashed to the ground in a lifeless heap. No, not life, Jyn thought. Then again, what did K-2SO think of what he had just done? Was it akin to murder, or did he consider his clones as expendable as the rest of the Resistance did?

He kicked the carcass into a cloaking shadow with his foot, and Jyn thought she had her answer.

"I think you're more worried about Cassian finding out what we're up to," K-2 said.

"Aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Then we agree it would be a good thing if you were able to download the coordinates to the base," Jyn said. She cast another surveying look out at the port's main drag, before motioning the all-clear. They moved together back out into the open, just a security droid and his disheveled human handler on a leisurely stroll. They certainly weren't the most unusual pair navigating the market together, although Jyn couldn't help the occasional fervent darting of her eyes to ensure they weren't being overly scrutinized. Appearing suspicious of everyone around her probably helped her travel more discreetly, considering those she passed among often wore the same look.

"Not base," the droid corrected truculently. "Medical facility. Unlike most of the Empire's installations, this one was established for the express purpose of putting people back together."

"So you did get the information we need?" Jyn kept her voice neutral, even as excitement surged through her veins like oxygen-accelerated ship fire. She had already resolved to locate her father without the Rebellion's help after K-2SO evicted her from the ship, but such an endeavor would have taken many standard months, if not years. Now she was this much closer to reuniting with her only living family… to getting answers…

But it was only silence that answered her query. She turned, expecting to have lost the droid momentarily in the crowd, but K-2 still took measured, stilt-like strides beside her. He had simply reverted to steely uncommunicativeness.

Anger flared hot in her chest, the flashpoint at the end of the ship's corridor. Saw had done his best to teach her temperance, and the Wobani labor camps had certainly taught her the value of bowing her head and holding her tongue, but none of these were natural states for Jyn. "Kay?" She let the threat be known in her voice, but gave the droid one final chance to answer her.

"The information I carry is relevant to the Rebel Alliance," he replied. "And as your allegiance seems to change by the hour, I'm afraid I can't relay it to you."

"You double-crossing rust bucket," Jyn seethed. "You wouldn't have known to seek out the information if it wasn't for me!"

"I've already taken the liberty of classifying it. Sorry, Jyn Erso, but you do not possess the proper clearance."

"If you were human, I'd wring your neck," she avowed.

"I'm certain you would. In fact, there is a hundred percent chance of you—"

Jyn enacted the prophecy before he could finish. She stopped walking, turned, and lunged at him. He may not have a set of working vertebrae to wrap her hands around, but she was determined to find some part of him to mangle. If she got lucky, maybe she could dismantle his vocabulator and use it to bargain for—

The droid caught her wrist and lifted her off the ground. Jyn latched onto the hand before her arm dislocated from its socket. She dangled in front of him, glaring into his receptors, and momentarily ignoring the pain of being held aloft like a ragdoll. "And here we were having such amiable conversation," K-2SO said. "Why must you always be so difficult?"

"Why must you be so—" She unleashed a volley of curses she had picked up from her time on the Mid Rim that she was banking on him to translate.

"Hurtful, Jyn Erso. That's hurtful."

"Droid!"

K-2SO's head whipped around, and so did Jyn's. The market crowd parted as a stormtrooper jogged towards them. Behind him, Jyn saw at least half a dozen more white suits surrounding the U-Wing with their blasters drawn. They had already forced open the bay door and were making their way up the plank.

She let one more curse slip out past her lips.

"That… isn't good," K-2 agreed.

She had no time to reflect on how stupid they had been. The approaching trooper halted, cradling his blaster in a relaxed ready position. He had clearly misidentified K-2, and Jyn wondered if the security droid the two of them had left crumpled behind them in the alley was who the trooper thought he addressed now. "There you are! Is this the pilot you've apprehended? Has she presented you with scandocs?"

"She doesn't have any," K-2SO said. The hair on the back of Jyn's neck rose. What was he doing? "This is Liana Hallik. She recently escaped from the Imperial labor camp on Wobani."

She renewed her struggle against him, and tried uselessly to kick her way to freedom. K-2 lengthened his arm to increase the distance between them without letting her go.

"She was the only one onboard the vessel?" the stormtrooper demanded.

"Yes. I observed her disembarking. She was the only one onboard the vessel."

And suddenly Jyn knew what Kay was doing: he wasn't just giving up the U-Wing, he was throwing her under the U-Wing. If the troopers bought his story and took her into custody, they would confiscate the ship—and if these were anything like the rank and file Imperial soldiers Jyn had dealt with in the past, they would clap themselves on the plastoid and call it a day. A security droid wasn't capable of lying, especially not to them.

She could feel her face wanting to fall, to collapse in an expression of betrayal and dismay, but she tightened her jaw and pushed her lips out. She narrowed her eyes. And she saw, over K-2's left shoulder plate, Cassian standing in the crowd assembling around the transport. His lidded gaze locked with hers, and his hand delved for something in the inner lining of his jacket. A muscle in his cheek twitched.

"Remote detonator?" K-2 guessed. Her eyes returned to the droid, and she tucked her chin infinitesimally.

"What was that?" the stormtrooper snapped.

"I said: did the troops sweep for a remote—"

An explosion rocked the market corridor as the U-Wing's cockpit ejected in a volcano of fire. Black smoke roiled off the vessel as a chain of smaller explosions—and a chorus of stormtrooper screams—could be heard from within. The U-Wing buckled as it began to fall to flaming pieces. The spectators on the ground scattered.

K-2SO released his grip on her wrist, and Jyn dropped to earth. She landed and rolled, taking the stormtrooper to the ground with a sweep of her leg. His blaster clattered to the ground, and she kicked it. It spun off into the crowd and was quickly requisitioned by several pairs of eager hands. It vanished into the enterprising black hole of Kafrene.

"Ah. Blast. She's getting away," K-2SO noticed.

"Pursue her!" the stormtrooper bellowed in a furious rip of static.

"Orders confirmed. Hail the Galactic Empire!" the droid threw in as he jogged after her.

Jyn drew her blaster and fired wildly off her mark, missing him with gusto as she zigzagged through the crowd. "Ha! Is that the best you can do?" she crowed. "The B1 battle droids were better!"

"The B1 battle droids were better?" The offense in K-2's voice was sharp as they ducked together around a corner. "No one's going to buy that. Are you deliberately trying to give us away?"

A dead end reared up before them. Jyn spun around. "For a minute there, I thought—"

"I'm sure you didn't think in the least," K-2SO interrupted. "Get moving, Liana Hallick. Their ignorance is an armor I can't extend to you."

Jyn holstered her blaster and seized the nearest handhold she could improvise. Before she could start her climb, K-2SO grabbed hold of her to boost her up. His jointed fingers wrapped around her waist, and she found herself corseted, locked in a tight metal vice as likely to aid in her ascent now as it was to crush her ribcage. She should be frightened. Even the most well-meaning droid might underestimate his strength in this harried situation.

But she wasn't. Her boots lifted off the ground, and what she felt was strength, security, and a touch too human to avoid drawing a comparison. She couldn't remember the last time anyone had picked her up—her father, probably, after a fall, or in paternal reverence of how fast she was growing up. Without warmth, it was still sentient pressure, an outside force she let close enough to exert itself on her now. The hem of her shirt rucked up around her navel and bunched between his fingers. For the next five minutes at least, she would have his fingerprints impressed on her skin.

Her boot heels touched down on the roof, and she slipped free. "Head for the checkpoint," K-2 said from below. "Cassian will meet us there."

"Try not to get shot," Jyn replied as she pulled her scarf up over her nose.

"My chances are good," he replied. "Yours are worse."

"Don't know any other kind."

"And I doubt you ever will."

His receptors burned at her in the darkness. It was on the tip of Jyn's tongue, and the edge of her teeth, to try again for the last word. But she had never been one to prolong the moment, especially not when the situation was dire. She turned and darted off, losing herself in the slanted shadows of the outpost's rooftops. If she needed something to keep her going now, a goal to run toward in the short-term, then hearing a future K-2SO express his disappointment at her survival seemed like a decent enough reward.

She looked forward to it.