BODHI DIDN’T like this at all, and it wasn’t just because Cassian had dragged him out into the rain after he and his maybe faulty droid had nearly killed everyone in that terrible excuse for a landing. If they were just scouting around to make sure no Imperials had spotted them, they could have managed it with a quick trip around their crash site. Instead, Cassian had decided it was perfect weather for a little mountain climbing.
Bodhi soon realized that Cassian had other ambitions for their hike. They kept making their way up, up, up until they reached the top of the ridge that separated them from the Imperial base.
Once they topped the crest, Bodhi and Cassian couldn’t miss the secret base. Most of the base lay buried behind the face of the cliff across the valley from the two men, but the Empire still needed to let shuttles in and out of the place. The Empire had lit its landing platform with spotlights to make it easier for legitimate shuttle pilots—like Bodhi had once been—to find it.
Cassian pulled Bodhi down next to him, as if anyone in the base could spot them all the way over there. In the storm. At night.
But Bodhi went along with it anyhow. Cassian was the spy, after all.
Cassian pulled out a set of quadnocs and focused them on the landing platform. Bodhi didn’t think there would be much out there to look at, but he decided to let the spy go spy if he wanted to.
Then a squad of stormtroopers marched out onto the platform.
That wasn’t the standard procedure, Bodhi knew. The many times he’d flown cargo there, he’d only had a few of the white-armored soldiers come out to meet him. Most of the time, they ignored him entirely, and he did the same to them.
Cassian handed the quadnocs to Bodhi. “You see Erso out there?”
Bodhi almost started to explain that Erso wasn’t a stormtrooper, but he realized Cassian probably knew that. He took the quadnocs and zoomed in on the people on the landing platform instead.
The only people out there were the stormtroopers. Bodhi expected them to be squirming in their armor, unhappy to be out in that weather, but they all stood at perfect attention, almost like they were expecting an inspection. Then he saw why.
More stormtroopers appeared, and they were escorting the project engineers onto the platform. The engineers seemed less thrilled than the stormtroopers, as they didn’t have any armor to protect them from the weather.
And Galen Erso stood among them.
This had to be huge. It was one thing to see the engineers get lined up outside like this in the middle of a storm, but for Galen to join them?
Bodhi handed the quadnocs back to Cassian. “That’s him! That’s him—Galen—in the dark suit.”
He pointed toward where Galen stood, and Cassian trained the quadnocs on the man. His face grew grim.
Bodhi felt strange spying on the man who’d sent him off with a message for Jyn not so long before. Now that they’d found him, what were they going to do?
A loud noise came roaring up behind them, and Bodhi instantly recognized it as the exhaust of an Imperial shuttle. He turned around to gape at it as it zoomed toward them, and he didn’t even realize he’d stood up as he did it.
Cassian grabbed Bodhi and hauled him back down just as the shuttle scudded overhead on its way to the landing platform. If anyone inside it—or in the base—had seen him, they didn’t show it.
Cassian motioned down the path they’d followed to the top of the ridge. “Get back down there and find us a ride out of here.”
That made sense, Bodhi thought. The U-wing was never going to fly again—not for them, at least. If they wanted to leave Eadu, they were going to need another ship.
Bodhi had just the one in mind.
Before he turned to go, though, he saw Cassian ready his rifle and start fiddling with the scope.
“What’re you doing?” Bodhi asked.
“You heard me.”
Was Cassian going to start shooting already? Before Bodhi even had a chance to snag them a new ride? The pilot wasn’t comfortable with that.
“You said we came up here just to have a look.”
“I’m here. I’m looking. Go.”
Bodhi frowned. Cassian was the spy, sure, and it was his operation. But something didn’t seem right.
Either way, they still needed that ship. Bodhi started to back down the way they’d come.
“Hurry!” Cassian barked.
Bodhi kicked it into high gear. No matter what Cassian was about to do, he wanted his hands on a shuttle—and fast.