Tassie brought the ship down in the safest place she could find on the outskirts of the city of Niranne — not that there really existed one in a live combat zone. Knowing she had little time before she needed to be back in the air, she forced the hatch open and let the rest of the team except for Kell loose on the battlefield.

  The gru’ul had loosed a sizeable amount of their failed experiments on the city’s populace, and the team had been sent in as backup. They weren’t the only ones sent, but they were the first to arrive. Their mission’s main objective was to rescue the team trapped in the heart of the city. Their secondary one was to eliminate as many gru’ul as possible while they did so.

  The others had barely exited the ship when Tassie closed the hatch and took off to provide aerial support for them. Jyn, Rann, Beor, and Eimir shot towards the nearest building for cover. All of them wore their full combat gear and were armed to the teeth with guns and ammo packs.

  “Tassie,” Jyn said once everybody was safely in the building’s shadow, “do you have any pursuers?”

  “Negative,” Tassie replied over comms. “I’m going to keep moving and shoot down any gru’ul stupid enough to be out in the open. I’ll stay outside the city proper for now where it’s safe.”

  “Good,” Jyn said. “Stay safe and make them hurt. Kell, I need you to act as our eyes using the ship’s sensors. Give us a clear path with minimal resistance so we can get to the trapped team.”

  “Already on it,” Kell responded. From his seat on the bridge, he poured over a map of the city and planned out an optimal route for his teammates. He sent over the information to Jyn and the others. “That should be enough to start with,” Kell said. “I’ll be monitoring your progress and surroundings from here while Tassie steers the ship.”

  “Understood,” Jyn confirmed. “Alright everyone,” he said, turning towards the others on the ground with him, “we’ll follow these coordinates. If we get separated for whatever reason, our rendezvous point will be here.” He highlighted a location Kell had singled out as having few people around. The others gave the affirmative and Jyn ordered everyone to move out.

  Progress was slow for the gru’ul swarmed the city. There truly was no safe place and Jyn hoped that the buildings that hadn’t been bombed yet would be enough to protect the civilians while the military wiped repelled the gru’ul. His gun was in hand and hot, ready to fire at a moment’s notice. His eyes scanned rubble and destroyed buildings for any sign of movement. All he saw were dead bodies. The sight tore at him. Not even children had been spared. Everyone he came across was butchered as indiscriminately as the next.

  Jyn’s heart turned to stone and a cold anger filled him. He would make the gru’ul pay for what they’d done to his people. He would fight to his last breath if it meant protecting even one person and making a difference. Beor interrupted his thoughts and alerted the team that he’d spotted movement across the street.

  Jyn turned his attention to where Beor indicated and dropped into a crouch behind the corner of the ruined building he was next to when he confirmed that they were hostiles. The rest of the team did the same, but Jyn held off on giving the order to fire. He wanted to be certain there weren’t more hiding and that it was a ploy to bait them into the open.

  Three gru’ul approached a building and shot the door open. A shriek resounded from inside, only to be suddenly cut off when the gru’ul shot whoever was responsible. Jyn spotted a window on the side of the building open, and someone jump out.

  The young woman looked around in a panic and dashed out onto the main street in the hopes of escaping the gru’ul that had entered the building she was hiding in. She made it all of ten steps before a shot from above hit her right in the middle of her chest, leaving a gaping hole behind. She dropped to the ground, dead.

  “We have snipers,” Jyn said into his comms. “Kell, find out where.” A building glowed a brilliant yellow in Jyn’s blackened visor on his protective head covering and highlighted the outline of a grotesque gru’ul looking down on the street with its gun at the ready. Kell confirmed that there were no others in the vicinity.

  Jyn and the rest of the team made their way towards the entrance of the building, opposite the problematic window. They infiltrated the building and quietly made their way to the room holding their enemy. The door was left ajar, and Beor slowly opened it on Jyn’s orders.

  The hinges squeaked halfway through, alerting the gru’ul to their presence. It whipped around and immediately fired towards the entrance. Beor jumped back without getting shot and paid no mind to the melting wall behind where he’d been positioned not moments prior. Rann and Eimir peeked and fired at the gru’ul.

  Its dying shrieks were music to Jyn’s ears, more so when Rann silenced it when she shot it to the head, instantly killing it. He stormed into the room and was immediately disgusted by the deformed thing that was melting on the ground near the window. Paying the body no further mind, he took position at the window and aimed towards the building the other three gru’ul had entered.

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  He patiently waited for them to exit. There might not have been anything he could do for the other occupants, but he sure as hells wouldn’t miss his shots when his enemies made themselves visible again.

  His eyes snapped into focus when another person fled the building, sprinting as fast as they could. The man looked back over his shoulder and picked up the pace when he saw a gru’ul exit, running after him with surprising speed.

  The gru’ul quickly made ground on the man and readied its gun to kill him. Jyn took careful aim, not willing to hit the civilian he was trying to save. He may not be a sniper like Reya had been, but he was still a good shot at such a short distance. He steadied his breathing and pulled the trigger.

  His shot flew over the man’s shoulder, startling him, and hit the gru’ul in the head. Like a puppet with its strings cut, it sagged and fell. Threat eliminated, Jyn trained his gun on the entrance that the gru’ul pursuer had just exited moments before and shot the other two gru’ul the moment they exited the building. The stood no chance, for they were unaware their sniper had been eliminated. Their last sight as they died was the bodies of their brethren, just as dead as they were about to be.

  Once certain that the gru’ul were dead, Jyn ordered his team to go check on the civilian, who was surprised to see that the military had arrived. Rann quickly snuffed out any hope of rescuing him beyond saving him from his imminent death. She instructed him on how to flee to safer parts of the city and sent him on his way so that the team could continue their mission.

  They moved forward, inching their way towards their destination, slower than Jyn would have liked but still at a reasonable speed. He knew that the lives of his fellow soldiers depended on their timely arrival. “Kell,” he said as they approached the location marked on their maps, “patch me through to the team defending their location.”

  Jyn waited several moments until Kell confirmed that he’d made contact with the other team’s leader. “This is acting Captain Iral. Are you our backup?” a woman asked, her voice strained. The sound of gunshots came through clearly to Jyn, letting him know that they were in active combat right at that moment.

  “Yes,” Jyn replied. “This is Captain Jyn. We’re here to bring you home. What’s the situation like where you are? We’re close by and will be there in several minutes. Can you hold until then?”

  “You’re going to have to hurry,” Iral said. “The gru’ul are closing in on our location. We count eight of them and they’ve taken to firing through the walls to get to us. We’re constantly moving throughout the building we’re in to avoid them.”

  “Have they entered the building yet?” Jyn asked as he motioned for the team to move forward cautiously.

  “Not yet, but they will soon,” Iral replied. “We need you to —” She paused her sentence, and Jyn heard a rapid exchange of gunshots followed by panting “— hurry. They’re about to breach the building.”

  “Which building are you in?” Jyn asked.

  “The one with all the holes in it,” Iral said. “I’ve sent our specific location to your maps. Make haste.”

  The channel went silent, and Jyn relayed his orders to the team. It didn’t take long until they spotted a building peppered with countless holes and four gru’ul waiting outside shotting at it periodically. “That’s our stop,” Jyn said, checking his map. “Eimir, Rann, eliminate the gru’ul at the entrance and provide cover fire while Beor and I make our way into the building. We’ll cover you during the fight. Join us as soon as you deem it safe to do so.”

  The others responded affirmatively. Rann and Eimir took a defensive position and opened fire on the gru’ul. Two of them went down quickly and the remaining two stopped shooting. They screeched and fired back at them. Meanwhile, Jyn and Beor were already moving. They took cover behind a ruined car and crouched so they wouldn’t be seen. The car wouldn’t stop any incoming shots, but it would be enough to distract the gru’ul firing on Rann and Eimir.

  There was a brief lull in the shooting before Rann and Eimir started firing back, keeping the gru’ul distracted. Jyn and Beor opened fire on the gru’ul, stealing their attention for the few vital moments it took for Rann and Eimir to finish them off.

  With the entrance of the building clear, Rann gave the all-clear to Jyn and Beor to move towards it. Jyn contacted the other team’s leader and let the know they were closing in on their position. The two men stormed into the building, ready to unleash hell.

  There was one gru’ul near the stairs that died quickly to their surprise attack. They were quickly joined by Rann and Eimir and the four of them carefully cleared the building as they closed in on their allies. Through a coordinated assault by both teams, all the gru’ul in the building soon perished.

  Finally able to safely speak with the other soldiers, Jyn turned the visor on his suit’s helmet transparent so that his face could be seen. The other team leader did the same and he recognized her. It was the same Captain that had been responsible for bringing Stanley to Verilia many months ago.

  Evidently, the other Captain recognized Jyn as well. “What are the odds we meet again like this?” she said mirthlessly.

  “Funny how fate works,” Jyn said with a faint smile. “How many casualties did you suffer?” While the question might be insensitive, Jyn needed to know how many people his team needed to escort back to the ship.

  “Two dead and one critically injured,” Iral replied with a grimace. “We didn’t realize they would simply start shooting the walls and that their weapons would pass through them like a hot knife through butter.”

  The news was bittersweet to Jyn. They’d been too late to save everybody, but he was glad there were still people left to save. Every soldier counted in the war. Every life would make a difference. “Take us to your injured soldier,” Jyn said. “We’ll patch them up and leave once they’re stable.”

  Iral nodded and brought them up two floors. The soldier was being tended to by another team member and was missing a limb. Together, Rann and the other soldier stabilized the injured man.

  Once he was able to be transported, Jyn turned to Iral. “Now let’s get you out of here,” he said.