JYN KNEW what was happening, even if she didn’t want to believe it. It couldn’t be any coincidence that she’d learned about her father’s work on the Death Star just before all of Jedha felt like it was about to come apart.

She hated leaving Saw behind like that, knowing she would never see him again. She’d noticed how weak and sick he was already. He hadn’t had many days before him anyhow. But it saddened her to know the Empire was about to kill him.

Worse yet, if she didn’t move faster, it was about to kill her, too.

Jyn didn’t know the layout of Saw’s hideout well enough to decide which way to run. Fortunately, Cassian seemed to have a better sense of things.

She chased him through the place’s empty corridors. Everyone else—all the other prisoners and even the rest of Saw’s rebels—seemed to have left already. They’d been able to see what was about to happen to Jedha, and they hadn’t been worried about leaving a father figure to die.

They emerged from the monastery on a wide ledge that fronted the place, from which they should have had a spectacular view of Jedha City. Instead of the Star Destroyer that had been hovering over the Holy City, Jyn saw a massive battle station that resembled a large moon with a dish-shaped crater cut out of it.

Jedha City itself had disappeared. A cloud of ash and debris rose where the ancient city had once stood.

Cassian pushed through the people standing on the ledge, and Jyn followed him. They came up behind a man in an Imperial pilot’s uniform, who had to be the prisoner they’d gone to Jedha to find.

Cassian didn’t even stop as he charged past the man. All he did was shout, “Move!”

The monk and the soldier fell in behind the pilot, and all five of them ran as fast as they could. They followed Cassian to an open spot far along the ledge, away from the rest of the rebels. Those poor souls could do nothing but gape at the wave of destruction billowing out from where Jedha City had once stood and wait for their doom.

Jyn wasn’t sure if Cassian had a better plan. They couldn’t outrun utter destruction like that.

When they reached the end of the ledge, though, the U-wing they’d flown to Jedha came banking in hard for a pinpoint landing. Jyn spotted K-2SO at the controls. She’d never been so happy to see an Imperial security droid.

Dust flew everywhere as the ship’s ramp lowered for them, and the five desperate people clambered aboard. Cassian dove for the cockpit as the U-wing’s door slammed shut behind them.

“Get us out of here,” he ordered the droid. “Punch it!”

K-2SO didn’t need the encouragement. He’d already begun taking the U-wing back into the sky, and he swung it around to face away from the oncoming shockwave of doom.

The ledge the ship had been on gave way beneath it, crumbling into rubble. The starship struggled to compensate for the sudden change, as well as the hail of debris raining sideways.

Somewhere down there, Saw Gerrera stared up at the apocalypse that had come to Jedha and breathed his last. Jyn didn’t have time to mourn him at that moment. She was too busy worrying about her own survival.

The U-wing climbed higher into the air, but not as fast as it needed to. K-2SO had reached them too late.

“Look!” the Imperial pilot shouted.

Jyn wondered why he felt the need to say something like that. They all saw what was coming at them. How could anyone look away?

The blast wave had finally peaked, and now it was crashing down on top of them. From the speed at which it moved and the angle at which it raced toward them, Jyn could see they had no chance to avoid it. In a matter of seconds, it would crush them into the rocks far below.

Cassian wasn’t ready to give up. Instead, he did the unimaginable. He grabbed the lever that would thrust the U-wing into hyperspace, and he hauled back on it.

As an occasional pilot herself, Jyn knew one of the basic rules of interstellar travel was never to enter hyperspace without letting the computer make the incredibly intricate and important calculations for your route first. It was too easy to find yourself inside a planet or to pass through a star, and that was bound to put a quick end to your trip.

Since the only alternative at the moment, though, was being smashed to pieces by the fallout from the Death Star’s destruction of Jedha City, she didn’t see any reason not to try. She did the only thing she could think of as the scene outside the U-wing’s front viewport went from dust and rocks to distorted star trails fanning out around the ship.

She held her breath and hoped.