BAZE WATCHED Jyn leave the U-wing, and he frowned in disapproval. He’d been in situations like this before with a group of soldiers, all on the edge. They needed to work together—to act like a team—if they wanted to survive, but instead the people who were supposedly leading their trip seemed set on keeping the rest of them in the dark.
He felt too sad to care much about it though. Instead, his thoughts kept returning to his poor, dear, absolutely destroyed Jedha.
He had been born and raised there, and no matter how far he might have wandered from it at times, it had always been the center of his universe. Everyone he’d grown up with. The priests. The Temple.
Gone. All of it.
The only exception was Chirrut.
True, Chirrut was his oldest and best friend. The two shared a bond that nothing else in their lives had managed to fracture. Somehow, it had even survived the destruction of their homeland.
But now where was their home? Where did they belong? And—most important, Baze thought—what could they do to take revenge on the monsters who had murdered so many?
Baze had been so tangled in his own thoughts, he almost hadn’t seen Chirrut head for the ship’s exit. He realized that Chirrut had given Jyn enough of a head start that she’d probably be long gone, and then he’d gotten up and made to leave the ship too.
As far as Baze was concerned, though, Chirrut wasn’t going anywhere without him—certainly not out into that storm. He pushed himself to his feet and padded after his friend.
When they emerged from the U-wing, Baze glanced around to make sure Jyn was in fact gone. Chirrut didn’t seem concerned about that at all. He simply went out into the rain, tapping his stick on the unfamiliar ground before him. Perhaps he could feel her tracks that way. It wouldn’t have surprised Baze.
“Where are you going?” Baze asked Chirrut. It was insane for a blind man to wander around in storm-swept mountains on the outskirts of an Imperial base, and they both knew it.
“I’m going to follow Jyn,” Chirrut said. “Her path is clear.”
Baze supposed he understood that choice. The woman had the mission she’d announced to them all, and she had set out to do it. About Cassian, Baze wasn’t so sure.
“Alone?” Baze said. “Good luck.”
He didn’t want to do this. Let Jyn and Cassian and the Imperial pilot wander around and get lost in the rain. Let them betray each other. Baze just wanted to stay dry and plot his revenge.
“I don’t need luck,” Chirrut said. “I have you.”
Baze grimaced at his friend. He knew he couldn’t let Chirrut take off from the ship on his own. The man had called Baze’s bluff. He had no choice but to follow him, like it or not.