counting the stars ✦ cassian andor

entry five

I wandered aimlessly behind the group kicking up a few stones and shielding my eyes from the rising sand. I felt a bit awkward trying to keep up with Jyn and Cassian but their small rebellion banter left me quite confused and Cassian had let my hand go when we got around rockier terrain. We were almost to the city, which seemed to be a small elevated piece of land in the middle of a dessert. My face must've looked in a state of panic because Cassian took a step back to walk with me as Jyn kept her head held high and led us.

"Is everything all right?" He asked me, his voice giving me chills.

"Yeah it's fine, I'm fine." I answered still playing with the dirt beneath my feet.

"No you're not, you don't have to do this if you don't want to." He said to me.

"You said you needed me, so here I am." I said sounding quite harsh and widened my steps to create distance between us.

The rest of the walk was silent, mostly my fault, but I think we all needed to clear our head before going into the war zone of a city.

We finally reached the main entrance and inside I wasn't surprised to see crowds every where pushing and shoving at each other, others calling each other out, it was all so hostile and uncivilized. Cassian explained it quite closely to this but seeing it for real is mind blowing.

"Hold on I have to talk to someone." Cassian whispered to Jyn and I before wandering a few feet away. And then soon after, Jyn wandered in the other direction leaving me stranded in the walkway. Great.

The crowd around me started to push me along, so I got stuck walking even further away. I didn't really mind the alone time, but it bothered me to know that my absence might worry Cassian. I'm quite expendable but he doesn't seem to think so. I now realized I was in a completely different part of town and the number of stormtroopers around me doubled; there was 5 at each corner. I panicked at the sight of the white suited soldiers, there was so many of them and I was alone.

And that's when I heard it, and explosion. And it was like just in a single instance, hysteria broke out and everyone was fending for themselves. Jedha really did become a war zone, and I was in the middle of it all. I wanted to show power over those who we merciless by pulling out my lightsaber but I had the common knowledge of not being ready to use it. I just rushed to a cement wall and prayed that a bomb wouldn't put a whole through it, or me. I wanted to just close my eyes and forget what was going on around me. But when I closed my eyes, scenes of war played in my head, there was no escaping it.

I grabbed a blaster that had been torn from a stormtrooper's hands and started to run closely near the wall to try and find Cassian and Jyn.
I ran through two cement walls and in between them I saw them fighting off stormtroopers, or at least trying.

"Azura, behind you!" Cassian yelled out as soon as he saw me. My first instinct wasn't even to use the blaster, there was something inside of me that made my hands lock around the cylinder that I had secretly been carrying.

My lightsaber glowed brightly as it shown upon the enemys'  helmets, and soon after, they cut through the helmets and the armor. One after another I brought down stormtrooper after stormtrooper, not paying attention to the stilled Jyn and Cassian behind me. It was like I had no control over my movements, I was acting on instinct, and my instinct was to bring down about 13 stormtroopers in only a minute. After my small show, Cassian ran up to me and hugged me, holding the back of my head and pulling me close.

"Azura, I am so sorry I left you, are you hurt, are you okay?" He said pulling back to look me straight in the eyes.

"I am fine." I said putting away my lightsaber, still trying to fully process what had just happened.

"We really need to get out of here–" Cassian started as he looked behind me, out of focus. I didn't even need to turn around, I knew that behind me stormtroopers had lined up. A droid, one resembling K2, approached Jyn. I knew it wasn't K2 but I am almost certain that she didn't, but she blasted a hole straight through the walking metal debris.

"Did you know that wasn't me?" The real K2 asked walking towards us. I could feel Cassian tense up behind me seeing his droid trot through the small area.

"Why are you out here?" Cassian said through the grits of his teeth as K2 caught an imperial bomb within his metal hand and threw back towards the line of soldiers behind us, sending them flying.

"You're right, I should've just stayed on the ship." He said with sarcasm as we all ventured out into the calming city center. Stormtroopers had compromised the area so we sort of just turned the other way in hopes of escaping.

"Where are you taking these prisoners?" A nosy stormtrooper asked getting too close for comfort of our small group.

"These are prisoners?" K2 asked.

"Yes, where are you taking them?" He asked again.

"I am taking these prisoners to...prison." Our lord and savior K2 said which made us lose all hope in that very instant.

"He's–" Cassian started before a familiar metal hand hit him right across the face.

"That's enough from you, I won't tell you again." K2 said to Cassian as he held his face with surprise and pain.

"Yeah, okay, we are going to have to check your diagnostics." The stormtrooper said.

"I can run my own diagnostics thank you very much!" K2 said getting angry at the imperial men.

And just as we were about to be separated and officially captured, a man from beside us started to speak.

"Let them pass in peace."

All heads turned.

"Let them pass in peace."

A man, obviously blind with two cloudy blue eyes approached the center circle where we stood. He had a long stick in his hand, obviously his weapon of choice.

"Stay right there."

"He's blind."

"Yeah and is he deaf?"

The stormtroopers rattled, surrounding him getting ready to shoot. And then something amazing happened. Our new friend started to dodge blasts and attack the troopers, clearly winning. This was the most battle I had ever seen, one blind man against 10 stormtroopers. And when more troopers arrived to gun down our new warrior friend, his own friend, with a weapon I had never seen before, shot them all in a few seconds.

"You almost shot me." The blind man said.

"Your welcome." Responded his friend.

"I am so sorry about the slap Cassian." K2 spoke up to say.

"Just go back to the ship, and wait for my signal." Cassian said to K2, who rushed away from the scene.

"Now what–" Jyn started before hundreds of Jedha natives revealed themselves and raised their guns at us.

"We are looking for Saw Gerrera." Jyn decided to say in this awkward moment and that was when we were all getting bags thrown over our heads and we were soon to be escorted to an unknown part of this dessert planet.

"Ouch." I said as they put the sack over my head.

And the idiots must've put a bag over our new friend's head because I heard:

"I am blind!"