The Genesis Saga

Present day

Jyn was showered in bits of exploding rock as he passed through the threshold of the chasm. His body armour kept him safe from the sharp shrapnel that would’ve otherwise sliced him to ribbons. Breathing a sigh of relief, he sped up to join the others, knowing that they were safe for now.

The confines of rock that rose up around them were too narrow for the pursuing ships to enter without serious risk of crashing. Three shadows flew across the ground from high above, relentless in their pursuit as the four of them wound their way along the path laid out for them.

Shots peppered the top of the chasm in hopes that the falling debris would be enough to take them out. More than once, Jyn and the rest of his team were forced to abruptly swerve to avoid being crushed by large boulders falling from overhead.

“Tassie, do you read?” Jyn called out over their comms while artfully dodging the latest attempt to kill him. “What happened to Reya?”

“I’ve completely lost contact with her comms,” came her reply. “They must have been damaged or destroyed. She hasn’t activated her emergency distress beacon and I can’t locate her without it. I’ve got her last known position, but she could be anywhere by now.”

“Gods damn it,” Jyn swore. “Do you have any good news for us?”

“I know she’s still alive. Her suit’s picking up her vitals and sending them to me. What’s weird is that she doesn’t appear to be distressed. Her heart rate is too slow and steady.”

“Maybe she’s ok then,” Jyn said hopefully.

“What happened, Jyn? What’s going on over there?”

“We came close to our target point but got ambushed. We’re being chased.”

“You’re being chased? I can’t detect any ships with my sensors. I’ll have to recalibrate in order to spot them. How many are following you?”

“Three. They’re relentless—” Jyn paused as he dodged another shot, “buggers that don’t know when to quit.”

“Hold on, let me see what I can do.”

Back on the ship, Tassie worked fervently to do something – anything – that would help her teammates. In a flash of inspiration, she set her sensors to search for the same error that had led them there in the first place. Five responses came back. Three were right above her team while the other two were behind and catching up fast.

“I’ve managed to detect the ships following you,” she informed Jyn. “There’s only one small problem. A teensy, tiny hiccup if you will,” she said nervously.

“What’s happening?”

“There are five ships following you, not three.”

Jyn swore.

“There’d be less if we had taken them down earlier,” Beor interrupted.

“Not helping, babe,” Rann chided.

“What are our options, Tassie?” Jyn said, retaking control of the conversation.

“I’m working on it,” Tassie said. “It’s not like you gave me much of a heads up.”

“Work faster!” Jyn snapped. “We’re running out of time.”

Several seconds passed where nobody spoke until Tassie’s voice chimed back over the comms. “I’ve talked to Kell. He said he can man the weapons to provide cover fire while you guys retreat to the ship. I’m going to fire her up and open the hatch. When you clear the canyon, get inside as quickly as possible and we’ll book it.”

“What about Reya?” Jyn yelled back. There was no response. “Tassie, what about Reya? We can’t leave without her!”

“We don’t have a choice, Jyn. Our ship isn’t designed for combat. There’s no way we’ll be able to fight off five other ships while we try to contact her. You guys are almost here. It’s too late.”

“Figure it out,” Jyn ordered, refusing to entertain the thought of leaving Reya behind. He shifted his focus when he noticed the exit was fast approaching. They would arrive at the ship soon. They just needed to cross the clearing without getting hit.

Eimir was the first to exit, shooting out like a bullet. The ships overhead homed in on him, each one firing at him as he raced in a mad dash straight to the still-opening hatch. Rann and Beor came out next, swerving in tandem with one another. They deftly avoided the enemy attacks, making it safely inside the ship.

Jyn was last to go and had it the hardest since there was very little the others could do to help him. Kell manned the main weapons and opened fire, forcing the incoming shots wide as the enemy ships broke formation to avoid being hit. The interference gave Jyn the chance he needed to rocket through the clearing and make it into the ship without injury.

Spurred by their success, Jyn shouted for Tassie to wait for Reya, hoping in vain that she could somehow still make it. Unlike Jyn, Tassie knew that she would have to be the one to make the hard call. Reya was one of her best friends and it tore at her that she even entertained the idea of leaving her behind. With her comms down, though, Tassie had no way of communicating with her. They could always come back to try and find her, she told herself. She just had to trust that Reya would be fine in the meantime.

With the last of her team safely onboard the ship, Tassie ignored Jyn’s orders to hold their ground and fight back, turning the shields on instead. Kell obliged, doing his best to hit the nimble enemy ships that were hell-bent on ensuring they didn’t leave the planet alive. Tassie closed the hatch while she desperately drove the ship to ascend, praying that their shields would be enough to hold out against the incoming enemy fire.

Shots hammered against the shields, her sensors indicating that they were losing power. The faintly shimmering dome of interlocking hexagons that surrounded their ship dimmed further with each attack. Tassie reoriented the ship and hit the accelerator, a rumble spreading through the chassis as the engines worked overtime to get the ship moving.

They pulled away from their pursuers, exiting the atmosphere and entering orbit. Tassie pushed the ship further, their enemies still trailing behind, refusing to let them go. She aimed for one of the planet’s many small moons, hoping to lose them as they ducked out of sight. At last, the hostile ships gave up and returned to the planet with nothing to show for their efforts. Tassie breathed a sigh of relief as she watched them go.

A flashing red indicator on one of her screens caught her attention. She stared at it, not willing to believe what she saw. Denial washed over her as she forced herself to relay the information.

“Jyn,” Tassie called out, her voice breaking. “Reya’s vitals. They’re gone.”

Reya stared at the hazy sky from where she lay on the ground, oblivious to the hardships of her teammates. Those alien bastards had drugged her with some kind of paralytic right after they destroyed her comms, and she hadn’t even seen it coming. All she’d felt was a slight prick on the back of her neck.

Two of the aliens worked together as they loaded her up into one of their ships, tossing her haphazardly on the ground in the back of the cockpit. With their cargo secured, the ships took off towards the hangar doors she’d spotted earlier. The short trip was uncomfortable despite her inability to feel anything. Her body lay in a crumpled heap as the ship jolted and swerved unpredictably.

The ships docked and Reya was unloaded. Taking her first look of her surroundings, she was impressed. The hangar was far larger than she’d initially assumed. There was one large ship docked in the middle, with several rows of meticulously parked smaller ships along the side walls of the bay, identical to the one she’d travelled in.

She was unable to put up a fight as they dragged her along the ground through the compound, her armour saving her from injury. She was now seated at a table in a small room. Her captors adorned her wrists with sleek metallic cuffs that bound themselves to the table in front of her through some manner she didn’t understand. They left her alone while the drugs coursing through her system wore off. As agency returned to her limbs, Reya began testing the limits of her restraints but found them to be unyielding.

They returned, carrying a tray of sharp-looking tools that they set down on the table in front of her. She struggled as they attempted to cut free the top part of her body armour. The result was several long gashes along her torso and back that bled freely. Not satisfied with letting their prisoner bleed out, she was injected with a vial full of yellow liquid. Reya could feel her wounds knit shut. Thin, silvery lines were left behind in their place.

She grimaced when they discarded part of her suit on the table in front of her, confident she would never reach it from her seated position. Removing the top half of her suit had terminated her vital signature, the suit no longer able to sustain that amount of damage and still function. My teammates must think I’m dead, she thought. Maybe I soon will be.

She felt a slight chill as a faint breeze tickled her bare skin. Another pinprick on the back of her neck and she lost control over her limbs yet again. Everything in the room warmed to the same temperature. She could barely feel the draft she knew was present and knew she should feel cold but didn’t. The thought alarmed her greatly.

This time one of the aliens stayed behind in the room with her, holding a gun. It stood there facing her, unmoving. For hours, all it did was watch her, dashing any hopes she had of escaping once the paralytic wore off. It occasionally clicked and shrieked, but Reya didn’t understand a thing it was saying. Its constant attention unnerved her. If it weren’t artificially stabilized, her heart would be beating a mile a minute.

She was locked in a state of forced calm. Her emotions ran wild, but her body didn’t follow suit, making for an odd experience. Slowly, a sense of feeling began to return to her limbs. The air on her skin began to cool again and she discreetly wiggled her toes, not wanting to alert her warden of her newfound ability to move. Goosebumps formed on her skin as time went by, the air colder than she remembered.

Her heartbeat sped up as a second one entered the room, holding a translator in hand. It walked towards her and stopped in front of her on the other side of the table she was bound to. It looked at her with its many eyes, unblinking, as if weighing her worth.

“A’vaare,” it hissed and shrieked into the translator, “it is time to answer our questions.”

Reya’s face hardened. “And what if I don’t?” she said with false bravado. The alien in front of her raised a claw and backhanded her across the face, taking her by surprise.

“We are the ones asking questions.”

Stars flashed across her vision, her head swimming as she reeled from the blow. Blood trickled down her cheek from a deep cut where the strike landed. She spat onto the ground, her blood mixing with her saliva from a cut on the inside of her cheek.

“I don’t answer to you,” she said defiantly, looking the gru’ul in its many eyes.

“Pity,” the word sounded over a chorus of clicks and hisses. “You will soon. It is inevitable.” The creature leaned forward and brought its head close to Reya’s. She could smell rotting meat on its stale breath, her nose wrinkling in disgust. The door to the room she was in closed shut, sealing her in with the two aliens. “Let us begin.”