the dose makes the poison

Being married to Galen Erso at times feels like being his secretary: ensuring he doesn’t miss any critically important appointments due to being so immersed in a scientific conundrum he hasn’t registered the passing of time, confirming he’s made all the necessary social appearances for politeness’ sake. Lyra is responsible for managing his comings and goings, and then managing everything else when he’s gone.

Dealing with Krennic alone is an exercise in finding the quickest exit possible. Lyra’s always thinking of escape routes and contingencies, ever since Vallt. With Galen away, there’s been plenty of time to work on transcribing the backlog of her husband’s notes — and when she’s got her head down it’s like Galen is there in the room with her, narrating the quirks of his latest discovery or unraveling for her some tricky piece of theory with all his usual gawky enthusiasm. Sometimes it’s more like arguing with him, pushing and pulling at some opaque scribble trying to make it into something that makes sense. The whole process is a headache, but not remotely as big a headache as handing the prepared documents over for review.

Krennic wants the transcription datacards turned over to him in person now — now that’s a bad sign. Is he signaling doubts about the quality of Galen’s work, or is there some issue with her own turnaround time? Or is it something else entirely — is it his little way of intimating that he wants Galen on a closer rein, that he suspects the two of them are holding something back from him? In Galen’s absence, it seems Lyra will do.

Lyra swallows down her unease and pushes the card across the desk console.

“It’s all there. If there are any questions, have one of your people follow up with me. “

Krennic shifts in his chair, his expression managerial. It must be horrible reporting directly to this man on a daily basis — even these brief meetings in Galen’s absence are at best unnerving.

“You don’t sound enthusiastic, Lyra. Would it be better if someone else took on this task for you? You’re not a typist. Even Galen’s scrawlings aren’t so impenetrable that we couldn’t train in a replacement.”

“It’s not how Galen writes, it’s how he thinks. If my work doesn’t meet your standards, tell me.”

Krennic sets his hand down on the blotter, making Lyra grateful that her own hands are folded in her lap. “That’s not it at all. It’s unfair of him to expect this from you, putting your life’s work on hold. I know you must resent him for that. It’s all right.”

He has the gall to present himself so graciously, like an old friend giving her advice in confidence — but Lyra has no friends like Orson Krennic, and wants to keep it that way. He knows more than he’s telling, and no one who’s doing this well in the new regime can have their hands clean.

Lyra gives a hopeless laugh. “I’m sure you told Galen all about the impact of marriage on my brilliant career, trying to warn him away. You must be a remarkably considerate man.”

“Not at all." His pale blue eyes are fixed on her, and none of the warmth his smile might suggest has reached them.

“Is there anything else

“Just one thing. Come to dinner with me tonight.” It’s an order, not an invitation. “The officers’ club has a wonderful chef visiting, and I have some business to discuss with you.”

“I’ll have to arrange for childcare.”

“So arrange it.”

He’s at a loss for other ways to amuse himself with Galen away — he’s received the findings from her last trip away, and wants to share them. Nothing sinister in that. Or something’s come up with their family housing appointment, or there’s a question about Galen’s notes, or — something worse. He wants to break the bad news to her personally.

*

When she arrives at her apartment unit late in the afternoon, a package is waiting for her. She doesn’t hesitate before opening it and maybe she should because as soon as the seal is broken a length of cloth slithers onto the floor.

He’s gone and sent her a dress — it’s a gesture more befitting a lecherous Hutt gangster than a middle-manager, and Lyra thinks a few choice sharp thoughts while retrieving it from the carpet.

Between her fingers, the material can only be nanosilk. Lyra’s brow furrows. Held up to examination, its cut is simpler than the prevailing fashions on Coruscant — it has a deep wrapped front and a falling collar lengthening behind the wearer’s back into a modest cape – but it is preposterously rich by comparison with Lyra’s customary wardrobe. The high-culture Core style has never meant anything to her; the people she’s spent her life with up to this point largely haven’t bothered with that kind of thing.

The officers’ club no doubt has an exacting dress code, but a meeting over supper with a family friend is hardly a gala occasion — nor is she about to stand in as arm candy for an unpleasant bureaucratic functionary. What’s he trying?

It can’t be to bribe her, even he wouldn’t be that foolish. A new hiking pack or a good pair of boots would suit her better than a dress, and he couldn’t help but know that if he’d been alone with her longer than a minute. So many of her own belongings have been lost as the Erso family was shuffled between postings and worlds, first running for life and limb during the war and now this, this queasy half-existence sustained at the newly-minted Empire’s pleasure.

If Krennic meant to persuade her to give up control of Galen’s notes, he’d get just as much traction trying to appeal to Jyn — or to a brick wall. But if Galen trusts this man, there must be something there that Lyra hasn’t glimpsed yet. Perhaps this is his idea of a well-intentioned gesture.

The little girl is asleep in the living room, sprawled out in front of a children’s program with the audio still running. By the time she wakes up, Lyra will be gone.

Lyra dresses for dinner, arranging each fold of her own dress with hands trembling with anger. If she must appear to comply, then let it be with some shred of dignity.

There’s only one dress she owns that’s reasonably formal — the base layer a functional gray tunic with a high neckline and sensible hem, not a flamboyant garment but one that would be serviceable enough on its own. Over it, a narrow red mantle, the traditional outer layer that when well-arranged gives an impression of columnar grace and stability. On her tonight, the effect is more like armor. The outer length of fabric sheaths her body with meters of length to spare, the excess wrapping over her shoulders to be carried in the crook of her arm. The drapery is far from sheer but translucent enough to build in opacity layer on layer, and its long edge is bordered in an unmistakable slash of scarlet — the color of enlightenment, crossing and recrossing her body.

Six years ago she had worn this dress for the occasion of her marriage — it had been a tiny ceremony, with only a few of Lyra’s old friends and Galen’s colleagues attending. Her mother had been an artist in textiles as well as pigments, and she had woven this mantle edge to edge. But Lyra’s mother is dead now — she had passed away sometime during the bombardment of Lokori.

The dress is nothing special, to the naked eye. But it’s hers, fashioned by the hands of people who’ve loved her. She’ll need that to anchor her tonight and to keep her from saying anything — or, worse, doing anything — that she and Galen will have cause to regret later.

*

Setting foot in the Federal District without Galen by her side makes Lyra’s skin crawl. Whatever the Imperial officers’ lounge was before it was requisitioned for the purpose, she couldn’t say — funny how the most prominent pieces of real estate in Coruscant were the first to be stuffed full of banners and portrait busts, while down on the lowest levels the inhabitants probably didn’t know or didn’t care if they were supposed to be living under a republic, an empire, or a one-man dictatorship. Perhaps the hospitality industry doesn’t care either.

She’d expected a window-side table in a common dining area, somewhere where Krennic could see and be seen as he so clearly enjoyed — but instead the harried-looking head waiter gestures her over to a jumpsuited subordinate, then down the hall to a darkly-paneled dining room. The severe effect of the furnishings is softened somewhat by painted partition screens and gentle lighting, but none of it can offset the presence of Orson Krennic dressed in white.

Krennic waits until the salad course before saying, “I believe I have a favor to ask of you, Lyra.”

“What would that be?”

“When was the last time you heard from your husband?”

Lyra sets her fork aside; the chef’s selection is assorted sea vegetables in a briny-sweet dressing, but they’re proving frustratingly evasive and difficult to eat with dignity. Anxiety drops into the pit of her stomach like a stone. “Maybe a week ago. He asked after Jyn, and he says he’s making decent progress. Why?”

That had been about all he’d told her about how the work was going — progress.

“No one’s heard anything from him for almost 72 hours. I wanted to know if you’d heard otherwise.”

Lyra draws her chair back from the table, the legs of it grating on the polished stone floor. “You knew he might be in danger, and you waited to tell me long enough to send me a dress? Or are you going to tell me you already had one in reserve?”

Even without comment there had been no mistaking the way he’d looked her figure over, or for that matter the way he’s looking at her now.

“Politeness costs nothing, Lyra. It wasn’t clear that you possessed anything more suitable to wear. Sit down and I’ll tell you what you need to know.”

Why had he sent Galen off in the first place? What rationale could there possibly be for shuttling off his own precious asset for a month or more after going to such lengths to trap him exactly where he wanted him?

Lyra takes her seat again, pushing her plate away. “Start with where you sent him.”

“He was dispatched to a mining operation in a neighboring sector in order to oversee some sensitive business there. The Imperial Survey Corps had reported a geological anomaly on one of the system’s planets. Galen and three other researchers were able to entrench and transmit crystallographic findings. Seventy-two hours ago, their signal feed stopped.”

“Three days.” The cold washes over her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“There was no cause for alarm. Landslides, tunnel collapses, these things happen. But after three days without more substantial communication, some sort of action became necessary.”

“He isn’t—“ Lyra’s grip tightens on the red sash-edge banding her waist. It isn’t possible. Galen can’t be dead, she’d have felt it. She’d know if any harm came to him. It can’t be possible, but that doesn’t preclude something worse.

“He’s alive, of course. There’s no point in going after a dead man.” The other three must not count. “But if you’re intent on dawdling, that may well change. The situation warrants an urgent response.”

Krennic jabs at his datapad, pushing it across the table to her like a dish of hors d’oeuvres. On the screen, a cluster of indicators blink steadily,

“Imperial channels received a scrambled emergency transmission – light on details and weak enough to look like interference. Most likely they’ve had some sort of systems malfunction.”

“Why did you send my husband away in the first place?”

“He jumped at the chance. I figured he deserved some time away from all of this business.”

Krennic gestures with a fork, though whether he means the day-to-day grind of various projects or the tedium of marriage is unclear. Unbidden, Lyra finds herself wondering if the man had ever considered it — whether he’s a bachelor by choice or simply found that no reasonable person would take him on on a permanent basis. What kind of person would make this man their lover?

It’s in that exact moment that the server chooses to turn up with their entrées. His every movement radiates palpable unease — Lyra half-expects Krennic to have the young man dismissed, but he just shoots him a tight grimace.

“As I was saying, Lyra. You served a year-long contract with a survey team on Vandor-1, did you not? Or am I misremembering?”

“Considering that it’s in my husband’s personnel file, your memory has nothing to do with it. Yes, I led a survey team on Vandor; why?”

“Would you say you’re familiar with ice-based biomes?”

“Of course.”

“And with glacier cave formations?”

“Depending on what you’re getting at, yes.”

“Then you’re better equipped than anyone to assist me. You know your husband’s unique mind; you can interpret his decisions and determine his most likely course of action.”

“You want me to go alone?”

“Of course not. I’m coming with you.”

An escort mission with the world’s most difficult man in tow. What a treat. Not for the first time, it occurs to her that Orson likely knows better than most what the Emperor intends for the people of Jedha. It might not make a difference to Galen what regime he’s working under, but it will make a great difference to the friends she’s made, even the difference between life and death.

Lyra can’t resist pushing back, challenging him a little.“Why is it that I should help you?”

“You want Galen back safe and sound, and so do I. Furthermore, you appreciate a challenge. I hate to see you so bored.”

“I’m only a civilian contractor. What can I do here that a dozen Stormtroopers can’t?”

“There are several compelling reasons to keep this matter between us.”

“Such as?” Lyra crosses her legs and fixes Krennic with a stare until he breaks and looks away.

“Oh, use your imagination, Lyra. You know I can’t tell you any more than your husband can.”

“So you expect me to take this on blind faith?”

“I’ve been given to understand that blind faith is one of your strong suits.” Krennic is giving a look that he must think is cheekily ingratiating, but in his left hand, he’s gripping his napkin like he hates it.

Something must have gone terribly wrong if Krennic wants to clean up the mess as swiftly and efficiently as possible, without drawing on Imperial resources — and without alerting the likes of Willhuff Tarkin. He’s willing to risk letting Lyra in on classified scientific resources to achieve that.

Lyra sets down her silverware with a clatter. “When?”

“The sooner the better.”

“I have a child. What am I supposed to tell her?”

“We have a creche center, don’t we? And I’m told you have some sort of housekeeper droid.”

“If I don’t come back—“

“You’ll come back. Don’t sell yourself so short.”

“If I don’t come back, I have to think about my daughter. We can’t all be unattached.”

Krennic’s smile is savage. “You were an explorer once, Lyra. You could have done this in your sleep. Consider it your last hurrah.”

Poor choice of words — last. Lyra crosses her arms.

“I need your guarantee that Galen is alive and that you’ll ensure his safety once I find him.” Bring him back alive and make sure he stays that way — no debriefing, no detainment, and no little accidents. “I know how your people do things.”

Fixing Krennic with a direct stare is the fastest way to get him to squirm. Maybe that’s why he likes Galen so much — Galen seldom makes eye contact if he can help it, he’s too busy keeping track of patterns nobody else can see. Lyra can pick out the flinch of hurt that crosses Krennic’s features, even as it’s followed by a chaser of anger — the crease between his eyebrows, the set of his mouth.

“Why would I ever do anything to harm Galen?”

“I need certainty, Orson.”

“You’ll simply have to trust me.”

*

 

She tells the creche mother everything she might need to know — the summary makes about as much sense in sanitized form, light on details and phrased in a more reassuring manner than she herself feels. Still, the worry on the woman’s face is almost enough to make Lyra turn back. Qi’ranna isn’t much younger than Lyra herself, and she’s babysat for her and Galen before during the rare event of a night off or a weekend conference in the Federal District; she’s more than willing to look after Jyn for a couple of days, but lying to her about why it’s necessary still feels dirty. She knows what to do if Jyn gets sick, and who to contact if something goes wrong, but none of it feels like enough.

Lyra comes to say goodbye at the mid-morning break, once all her bags have been packed and stowed away. Last year there were more non-humans among the daycare class — there had been Twi’lek younglings playing games in the courtyard and a pair of twin Rodians just Jyn’s age. Their parents must have moved offworld, or opted for home childcare this time around. The remaining children must be the offspring of Galen’s colleagues, part of the scientific workforce quartered here with Celestial Power. Not many families with small children, and overwhelmingly human. It leaves a bad taste in Lyra’s mouth.

Jyn’s little face is serious — she’s a sturdy little thing now, but when Lyra lifts her up it’s shocking how light she still is and how fragile.

“Why can’t I come with you? I’ve done it before, remember?”

“I’m going to help your father with some important business. You’ve just got to sit tight.”

“Can’t Mac-Vee do it and you stay here?”

“I’m sure Mac-Vee would love to help, but he’s got to stay here and look after the house.”

Jyn’s sticky little hands reach into the crossed folds of Lyra’s tunic, grasping for her necklaces — at the touch of Jyn’s chubby fingers the crystal shard thrums with warmth, and Lyra feels a dull pang in the Force like a cramped muscle.

Her daughter usually smells like shampoo and wax crayons and cracker dust from snacktime — today she smells alarmingly like fruit. Lyra gives her a sniff. “What have you been doing, little one?

“I’ve been eating all the liwi fruits. Teacher brings them in for all of us, but I eat them.” Jyn is all innocence, and Lyra can’t keep from laughing at her absolute lack of deceit.

“Did Qi’ranna at least help you peel them?”

“I did it all myself. During snack, we watched a holovid about setting the table, and I got to have my own knife.”

“And where’s that knife now?”

Great, juice and fuzz, and knives. She’s going to miss this chaotic era, she knows, and it makes it harder to imagine missing a single day of it. She’s already missing so much.

Without warning, Jyn throws her little arms around Lyra’s neck and squeezes her tight. Her sticky face scrunches up against her shoulder, and her voice comes out small. “I don’t want you to go without me. I want you and dad both here.”

Lyra holds her for a long time. “We’ll both be home very soon, Jyn, I promise.”

Lyra sets her down among the creche’s soft pillows and smooths her daughter’s dark hair — it’s still soft as a baby’s, slipping out of its stub braids with their scarlet elastics. She’s going to grow up wild — imagine it, a child with her mother’s stubbornness and her father’s common sense. She’s going to grow up with crayons and paint and bright cloth cut-outs; next year they’ll plant a herb garden on the terrace of their apartment and surprise Galen with green growing things. She’s going to grow up with more than either of her parents ever had. Isn’t that what all parents want for their children?

Lyra’s spine stiffens at the sound of a familiar voice — male, and chillingly dry. “Your mother will do everything she can to keep that promise, sweetheart. She’s a very brave woman.”

She turns to face its source with a tight-clenched jaw. Krennic must believe his unease around children to be well-masked — he has schooled his features into an expression that could pass for a distant fondness but can’t be more than impatience. Qi’ranna must have let him in — she stands at the far wall with her hands folded across her smock, her face a mask of concern. Jyn must sense their joint discomfort because she slips behind Lyra’s legs for cover.

“I’ll be back before you know it, little one.” Lyra lets her hand linger against the back of Jyn’s head, in an unconscious protective gesture.

“We’re already late starting out.” Krennic gestures to the door. “Are we finished here?”

*

No, he couldn’t delegate the matter to someone better-equipped or leave Lyra to shift for herself. He wants to be in the thick of it, wants to be the one to sweep in with cape billowing and rescue Galen from whatever awful fate he’s thrust him into.

The flight time alone takes up a full agonizing day-night cycle — she eats her sorry meals alone in her cabin on the Arcade. This must be Krennic’s own pleasure vessel, but it’s too ugly to be a yacht — it’s built like a courier but with the kind of barren lines only an architect could love. It’s difficult to feel any connection with the Force while on a vessel like this one; Krennic’s tastes lean toward the sterile and every interior surface looks like it’s in danger of getting fingerprints on it. Even the wall panels are polished to a mirror shine.

The Arcade is crewed with the requisite astromechs but no other organics besides themselves — the better to keep whatever they might encounter under wraps, Lyra supposes, though she has an uncomfortable feeling that even organic sentients might not be beyond a harsher sort of censure than demotion. Krennic claims that help won’t be far away if they need it, and of that Lyra has no reason to be doubtful, but his rising enthusiasm for the task strikes her as a little perverse.

“We’ll be traveling by hyperroute most of the way. This sector is largely under Imperial control, so don’t brace for trouble.”

“And if we’re stopped?”

“We won’t be.” Rather than smug for once, Krennic sounds resigned.

“You may be traveling on Imperial business, but I’m a civilian.”

“You’re a survey specialist accompanying me in a formally compensated capacity. I’ll make sure you see some compensation when we’re through. You can buy your daughter a new nanny droid.”

“Money isn’t the problem. I don’t suppose you can tell me what they were sampling for.”

“You know I can’t do that, Lyra. What I’m already doing bringing you in is bad enough."

She tries to keep herself busy with exercises and reviewing planetary maps, but it’s impossible not to think of Galen: where he might be, what’s happened to him. Could it really all be as simple as a damaged communications array? Have Galen’s researchers run afoul of some kind of local wildlife or some other environmental threat she’s not seeing in the documentation? Or is it something more serious — a generator explosion or a gas leak, something bad enough to incapacitate the whole crew for days if not kill them outright?

Galen can’t be trusted to manage himself on his own — he’d keep working through a hurricane, and maybe that had been a good thing once but not any longer. Where would he have gone to, if something had gone wrong at the base camp? Does he remember enough of his survival training to find water, or to test out local food sources? Almost certainly not. For all they’ve talked about getting back to the land someday, Galen wouldn’t know what to do with a green growing thing if it choked the life out of him.

If anything happened to him, she’d have to feel it — she’d feel it in her heart, just as she feels the dull ache of their separation now. Her own connection to the Force is only a shadow to the achievements of the Jedi, but she can still reach out and make a connection, to flesh and blood as much as green growing things and running water. Even the Jedi aren’t what they once were — and who knows how many are even still alive after the bloodbath of the Clone Wars. Who knows how many of her old friends are even still alive?

*

“You’re looking chipper,” Krennic says when they’ve landed.

“Next to you, I feel underdressed. If I didn’t know better I’d think you liked playing the rescuer.”

Lyra wears her customary cold-weather gear: sturdy boots, heavy trousers, and a thick sweater over one of Galen’s thermal shirts. Wearing him close to her skin gives Lyra a shred of comfort, and a pair of macrobinoculars dangles from a strap around her neck. Krennic wears another crisp white ensemble with a distinctly official look to it, but the details of it are better suited to rugged conditions than his customary getup — it doesn’t look like it’s one glass of Corellian wine away from catastrophe, at least, and his boots are sensible for traversing rough terrain. He wears a short jacket with chest pockets and a banded waist, though the shoulder-heavy silhouette can’t disguise the lean narrowness of his torso.

Krennic straightens up conspicuously. “Can you blame me for relishing a little excitement whenever I can get it? I’m really a very ordinary man; I oversee projects to their completion and I ensure my staff receives all the resources necessary to perform to the best of their ability. Galen isn’t much use to anyone stranded on a backwater moon with a bunch of glorified mining rig operators.”

“If you feel that way, you should get yourself a hobby. I hear the tennis courts in the Administrative Sector are wonderful.”

“I’m sure they are. You’ll have to play me some time.”

“It’s still strange to see you without a well-armed retinue.”

“Sometimes a situation requires tact. Anyway, I thought your type were supposed to be peaceful.”

Lyra cocks her head. “My type, meaning Jedi sympathizers? Not always. What are your plans if we meet hostile sentients?”

“I can fend for myself, thank you.” Krennic makes a show of lifting his jacket’s hem to reveal the sidearm strapped at his hip. “Certainly you can too.”

“If I get even a hint of anything hazardous, we’re retreating and calling for reinforcements.”

“Then let’s not waste any more time.”

The abandoned craft stands in a clearing of stones, bordered by an ice cairn as tall as Krennic’s shoulder — it’s too soon to draw conclusions about what such a thing signifies on this planet rather than any other, but the sight of the blue-gray slabs fills Lyra with a dull dread. They’ve come just in time for the warm-weather thaw, it seems — the snowy terrain is dotted with tiny red blossoms, clinging to the surface of the rubble like moss.

Every planet is a living thing in its own right, and each organism has its presence. Lyra crouches down, pressing a hand to the earth. There are living things here under the frost layer, just as there are on even the most seemingly barren ground, from the smallest single-celled organisms to the hardiest predators. Even the most forbidding ground is home to something. Lyra reaches out in the Force to give her thanks and listens till she hears something like an answer.

“Are you finished?” Krennic tugs down his jacket primly and turns on his heel, grinding stones beneath his boot soles. “Five kilometers this way. The ice isn’t stable enough for a closer landing.”

“I know that,” Lyra says, stowing her macrobinoculars in their case. “If there’s even a chance that they encountered something airborne, we need to be wearing transpirators.”

Krennic assents to that, though she detects in his tone a hint of that unappealing chauvinism that Imperial officers harbor toward predominantly non-human planets and their atmospheres.

Atmospheric incompatibilities aren’t always so obvious The air might be perfectly suitable most of the time but turn poisonous during the spring thaw, or the atmosphere is so thick down the shale slopes that the rich air makes Core Worlders fatally giddy. Ideally, the way to find this out is from one’s guide and not through trial and error, but Lyra can reassure herself that they’re not the first to set foot here since its original inhabitants abandoned it. What’s become of the last cohort is what should be troubling them.

*

Hiking up the icy slope she’d had visions of what kind of natural resource could possibly warrant such an investment in personnel — a thicket of unusual Kyber growths spilling out of the ground like summer squash, or some kind of mineral deposit that couldn’t be detected on an automated scan. What she finds at the crest of the rise isn’t quite the ruin she’d been expecting from Krennic’s scant details. There’s a whole facility here, dug into the frozen terrain — this isn’t a slapdash operation at all, they’d planned on digging in for weeks if not months.

The research station is a warren of outbuildings abandoned to the steady transit of wind and water— in places the exterior walls are stained an unpleasantly biological red, suggesting mineral deposits not far beneath the surface. Had that been what Galen was sent to examine, or to retrieve? But there’s no reason to send a top-flight crystallographer to an isolated location just to take mineral samples unless there was something unusual about the location itself. There’s nothing overwhelmingly sinister about the place except the mundane effects of neglect.

The huff of her own breathing sounds through her earpiece. Krennic seems to relish keeping pace with her, though his longer legs can hardly compensate for a life spent predominantly behind a desk.

“I do love a good hike, don’t you?” Krennic’s voice crackles in her ear, and Lyra wishes not for the first time she could disable her headset entirely.

Maybe fifty meters from the facility itself there’s a marked-out rectangular perimeter shielded from the wind by acrylic tarps. The coverings flutter and snap where they’ve come loose from their moorings. It looks like a thermal drill rig — no doubt it’s rigged up to run off the same kind of battery reserves Project Celestial Power is supposed to be developing for planets with less developed power infrastructure than the Core. The instrumentation column appears intact, but the drill piece has withdrawn to surface level and rests propped at a skewed angle beside the borehole.

“So this was where they were sampling.”

“Do you reckon they found something?” Lyra can’t keep from touching her earpiece, brushing her unruly hair back from the place the plastic bar presses into her scalp.

“Ideally, yes.” No need to see Orson’s face to interpret that faux joviality.

“Something beyond what they were looking for.”

“Galen was sampling for trace mineral deposits, signs of residual kyber erosion. Even its smallest parts bear some image of the whole. Interesting stuff.”

“If they had found something, where would they have taken it?”

The research buildings form a loose tangle of units connected by long corridors — some fully enclosed against the elements and others little more than two ropes staked out in a makeshift lane. There are unmistakable signs of a scientific deployment’s presence, from the generator building to what looks like a communal dormitory — Lyra looks for any sign of Galen here, any of the little quirks that might spell out where he’s gone or what became of him.

She starts with the dormitory first — it certainly looks like it’s held three or four researchers, from the selection of apparel to the impromptu wall of sandbags carving out a cluster of sleeping bags and mats. The prosaic details unfold readily before Lyra’s eyes, but their state of neglect makes them strange. Centuries might have passed without anyone coming to disturb these things, or only a few minutes, as if Galen and his compatriots have just stepped out for some fresh air.

The air is anything but fresh. Krennic picks his way through the disorder with distaste. The crew has been living in here until very recently — mugs and dishes, a portable cooking unit pushed up against one wall with a full battery reservoir.

The adjoining passage leads to a chamber with higher ceilings and a floor lined with poured permacrete. Here, abandoned machinery stands in pools of water, surrounded by a scattering of damp debris. This was the server room once, but the water-damaged transmissions arrays offer their own strong suggestion why off-world communications have deteriorated. When Lyra lifts up one radio receiver with the tip of her flashlight, it emits only acrid smoke.

The lift bay doors are open, allowing a thin breeze to cut through; Lyra pauses there for a moment, looking out over the glacial grays and blues of the planet’s surface. The stale atmosphere indoors, even through a respiration filter, combined with the dull silence indicate some kind of filtration failure — there’s no more air coming through to cool the equipment than the narrow doors and low ceilings allow to naturally circulate. It’s been so long since Lyra has spent any appreciable time without the ubiquitous sound of mechanical climate controls whirring in the background, even in the quietest of rooms, and longer still since she’s felt unprocessed air against her face.

Krennic lopes away from her across the ice fields beyond, his white-clad figure cutting directly toward the largest of the structures. Lyra follows.

The ground-floor level must be the field laboratory — here are the refrigerated cabinets and workbenches, but there’s nothing in the sampling trays but dull rusty-looking water. The ambient temperature is no colder than a government office on Coruscant with an overactive cooling unit, certainly not below freezing. The portable computer console is in better shape than the communications gear had been, but none of the displays are live. Only the emergency light strips in the walls provide a little luminescence.

Lyra rubs at a brown stain on the plastic monitor casing that could be blood or else spilled caf. “Can you pull the data for whatever they were last working on?”

Krennic shoots her a dirty look over his shoulder. “What do I look like to you?”

He may complain, but just as soon he’s bent over the computer terminal toggling switches. Whatever’s happened here, let him uncover it. Besides the way they came in, there are two possible exits on the northern and eastern walls, one a narrow sealed hatch and the other a broadly covered hallway whose metal door hangs ajar like a yawning mouth. Its interior is packed with broken permacrete and chunks of dirty ice like jagged teeth. Lyra clambers up on her hands and knees to work one free, digging in with her fingertips and feeling the gritty amalgamation of ice and rock grinding piece against piece.

Orson’s voice in her ear: “Lyra, don’t.”

“They could be on the other side of this. They could be under this rubble for all we know.“

“In which case you’d be much too late, so why bother? Remember to pace yourself. It’s been a while.”

It has been a while since she’s been out in the field like she’d like to be, and her muscles are aching in all the places where they’re out of use, but hearing such criticism from someone so offensively unruffled and seemingly indifferent to the fate of his own friend only gets her determined to double down and dig. She pries at the doorframe with her fingertips and discovers scorch marks. Never a good sign.

What had they really been doing here? What had they been dredging up out of the ground? Suspicions aren’t proof, but the feeling she’s getting at the thought of Orson mixed up in all of this is definitely suspicious.

“You should be helping me. Galen’s stronger than he looks but he’s not strong enough to survive having a boulder dropped on him.”

“Don’t get hysterical.” Lyra jerks around to face Krennic, only to find him closer than she’d thought — maybe a meter away, straightening his brown hair back from his forehead. “Your partner accepted these risks along with his employment.”

“The employment which you’ve so generously arranged. You’ll never let him forget that.”

I’ll show you hysterical. She can taste something welling up at the back of her throat, something thin and metallic like a residue of blood. Something wrong with the seal on her breathing mask, maybe.

“Why would I want to see him hurt? I’ve done nothing but stick my neck out for the pair of you, I’ve risked my reputation vouching for your husband’s brilliance, and still, you insist on treating me like your enemy. I don’t want to oppose you.”

“Am I supposed to treat you like a friend? Galen might, but I won’t.”

“Ah, but I’ve known Galen for longer than you have. There are all sorts of things he hasn’t told you.”

“I know him. I know enough.”

“Oh, Lyra — you were so young when you married him. I’m not surprised there were things he never told you.”

“I know enough,” Lyra says again, with cold emphasis. “Is it so hard to believe that I don’t care?”

Whatever Galen had done before he met her, and whomever he had chosen to be with, is outside Lyra’s area of concern. Galen hadn’t been the first person she’d ever been with, and he must have known that even if he’d never asked. Orson had been a dear friend to him, he’s a good-looking man, and they’d both been young, and it wasn’t difficult to see how it could have happened. And if Lyra doesn’t like to think about it, it’s not because of jealousy.

Krennic’s face falters. “How generous of you.”

“My husband and I don’t keep things from one another. Especially not anything as insignificant as that.”

“Let me try again, then. Years ago your Galen made me an offer — he sought me out and asked me to join him in establishing an energy enrichment facility, one that would furnish more renewable power than any other civilian operation to date. He practically begged me to join forces with him. He’d throw away his private sector contract and all I had to do was say the word.”

“Which of course you didn’t, or you wouldn’t be wearing that precious uniform.”

“I had other commitments. He didn’t tell you that, did he? He never told you about that offer, even knowing what it would have meant for you and for your daughter.

“He’s an ass, but he’s still my husband. If you’d taken that offer I might be able to respect you.”

Back from candor into taunting smugness, into hateful amusement like a man who knows he has a secret. “You know, I think you secretly like our little talks. You couldn’t have any of this with Galen, the man’s allergic to expressing an honest feeling, he always has been—“

Lyra strikes him in the face with all her strength, chipping her gloved knuckles off the casing of his transpirator.

“Temper, temper,” Krennic says. His breathing mask is knocked askew, and a trickle of blood runs from his nose.

Rocking back on her heels, Lyra can feel the chips of ice grating beneath the soles of her boots. Krennic’s hand rubs over his upper lip, his mouth, his chin — leaving a broad track of bright red. She’s come to hate that gesture, but it mesmerizes her.

Discarding his mask, Krennic grips her face between his hands, and Lyra goes rigid— this close she can feel the heat of him, not just the temperature of his body but the awful radiant presence of him piercing into her personal space. His long body is flush against her own, and she can smell him, not only the sweat and sterility of his uniform but the cologne he wears, light and woody. One of his gloves must have come off somehow, or he’s tugged it off to touch her, and his bare fingers tangle in her hair.

With his face buried in her hair, Krennic inhales sharply.

He could kill her here and her body would never be found. Maybe that’s all this ever was, a trap, a staging-ground to eliminate one more stubborn barrier from his desire to sway Galen completely. Her blood is pounding in her ears, and underneath her jacket, she can feel the beginnings of fever heat. With it comes a sort of dizziness. A thin strange euphoria has begun to take root in her, seeping into her mind like smoke. It’s already too late to run.

“Something’s wrong.” She shakes her head and presses shut her eyes, but the dizziness doesn’t abate. “Something’s wrong. What have you done, Orson?”

There’s an edge of mad laughter in his voice. “I know, Lyra. I know.”

When he lets her go, a sickening tug pulls the breath-mask of her transpirator free, the earpiece dangling down against her cheek. The cold air kisses her face, and her first startled inhalation brings with it the smell of blood.

Something is very wrong, and a sick thrill surges through her body as she draws her first shocked breath of air without a filter. The barometric pressure has shifted somehow, and she can feel it all over her body. Her skin is hot, and every inch of it is jangling with sensation — she might as well be standing there naked, so overwhelming is her sudden awakening to the play of texture and temperature against her skin. Lyra can feel every seam line and prickling hair. The faint metallic trace lingering at the back of her throat has become something overpowering, and she is dimly aware that beneath her clothes, her nipples have hardened into tight points.

Krennic is staring at her, still holding her by the arm. “You don’t know how much I’ve wanted this,” he says, pitiful and hateful. For an instant, the expression crossing his face is one of dreaminess. “Oh, Lyra.”

Lyra slaps him hard across the face: once, then again.

Krennic inhales sharply and shifts on his feet, his lips parting; his eyes flutter shut as if he’s trying to steady himself but the uneven tug of his breathing betrays something else. A hectic flush has risen to his weathered cheek. Her own palm is smarting from its contact with skin, and it sends a corresponding throb straight to the pit of her.

Looking down between them confirms what she already reflexively feels — he has an erection and isn’t even trying to hide it. She’s the one who’s done this to him, and he comes apart so easily, crumbling into a desperate embrace. That’s all it takes: an opening.

His lean body scuffles against her own, pinning her against the unfinished wall — Lyra wraps her leg around him, her boot knocking into the back of his knee to make him stagger. The sudden arresting friction between them causes Lyra to arch her body back, grinding her pelvis against his long thigh and making taut fists in Krennic’s jacket.

His hands claw at her webbed belt, struggling to find a way to get at her body until she yanks off her sweater to expose the swell of her chest. For a moment there is something in Krennic’s face like recognition, as he rucks up her shirt to reach the skin — Galen’s shirt, she thinks, this was Galen’s shirt, then it no longer seems to matter. Nothing seems to matter, with that hard hand feeling out the shallow curve of her breast.

Lyra sucks a hard bite from the side of his throat, tearing down the seals of his jacket to rake at his chest. The blood is pounding in her ears. Krennic’s broad hand eclipses her, the nail of his thumb scraping deliberately over her flushed nipple. He must feel her with the same freakishly magnified intensity that she feels him — a whimper catches in her throat as he palms over the swell of her breasts.

Double vision — Galen’s hands, his stylus calluses, his crooked fingers and raw knuckles. This is all wrong, and too fast. If she can hold Galen in her mind then she can resist long enough to save herself — Krennic’s blaster is still there in its holster, at his hip, so close. But how long has it been since Galen has touched her like this? Galen is a gentle, absent-minded lover; when they’d met she’d felt like the experienced one, guiding him in where to put his mouth or how she liked him to use his fingers. She’d been the one in control.

The blade of Krennic’s tongue teases at her nipple. He can only be enjoying her.

Lyra squirms, groping blindly at Krennic’s back, and the kyber pendant slips down between her breasts. Krennic gives it a sharp tug.

“What’s this supposed to be? A keepsake?”

The cord is digging into her neck, in a single clean line of tension. Lyra head-butts him and misses; Krennic curses. The hard edge of his forearm pins her down, thrust across her chest — Lyra hisses through her teeth and jerks her hips upward. He’s choking her, he’s crushing her, and it only makes the urgent heat between her legs spike higher — Lyra grinds her hips against him, fighting waves of self-disgust and racked with violent arousal.

His fingers gouge into the slit of her, where she’s suddenly impossibly wet; Lyra rides against his hand, teeth gritting and core tight. His mouth presses against her breast and collarbone and throat, his teeth leaving scarlet marks.

What’s surging in her isn’t even hate — hate is something to be managed and set aside, broken down until it’s small and contained. The feelings and sensations sweeping her overwhelm all possible boundaries in their way. It’s as if her whole body has awoken to desire.

He works into her cunt with the hard blunt tips of his fingers. Release is there, but she has to hammer it out. Which is worse, if she’s violating her lifelong principles or if this has always been inside her — this sick thing? Once isn’t going to be enough. Lyra comes shuddering, with all the muscles of her thighs spasming hard enough to lock together.

Climax clears Lyra’s mind just enough for stabbing self-disgust to seize her, at the sight of Krennic over her, out of breath with his brown hair falling loose over his forehead. There’s shock in his face, absolute disbelief, and then anger as his breathless shudders grow slower. Anger, then cunning. Krennic smirks.

“Goodness, Lyra. What would your husband say?”

Blind lust replaces pain. Lyra kisses him hard in a collision of teeth and feels him yield to her like a sapling bending to the breeze — pliable, pitiful, gripping her tight to keep her close. He wants more of this. When her tongue rakes through his mouth his throat convulses in a silent whimper.

His cock is straining against his trousers, still punishingly stiff as before, and Lyra cups her hand over it to feel the blood heat. She did this to him. There’s no iron will beneath that uniform, only a pitiful hunger to be touched and fucked. Reaching out in the Force, all there is inside him is a yawning void. An empty blueprint, a hollow design with no substance.

Lyra shoves Krennic away with both hands, stumbling back a few steps, but her boot slips and a twisting pain shoots up her calf, sending her tumbling to the floor. Krennic snarls, jerking back.

[Standing over her, he brackets his erection with his hand, in a gesture that looks almost unconscious. Lyra scrabbles back from him, panting.

“You should be begging me to fuck you. You should be crawling.” His boot lashes out to deliver a sickening kick to her ribs.

“I hate you,” Lyra groans, rolling over onto her hands and knees. He could fuck her like this, right here on the floor, and she’d welcome it. How long’s it been since anyone’s bent her over and had her roughly? How long’s it been since anyone’s touched her at all? Laid open to him, carved open — she can feel everything, the scorch of his eyes roving over her body, the hectic flush of fever-heat under her skin.

“Beg me.”

It’s a bluff. He needs this as badly as she does, and one way or another he’s going to fuck her. It doesn’t matter if she asks him nicely or begs him not to — and she can’t stop herself either, not from the brute intensity of what her body wants. Why couldn’t her mind be as far-gone as her body?

He hauls her up over one of the examination tables, with a fist caught in the back of her hair. Lyra can’t stop herself from grinding back against him just to chase the friction of another body. His gloved hand fingerfucks her mouth, and in her abject humiliation, she twists her neck to give him a better angle at it. Her vulva is flushed-fat and aching at the juncture of her legs and the cold jostle of the table’s edge makes her clit twitch.

Krennic’s hand rakes past her own in their joint haste to strip Lyra’s trousers down to her knees — hobbling her in the process, tangling her tighter. He hooks her underwear aside with his fingers and fits against her.

She’s already punishingly wet, and his cock slips easily between the folds of her. The friction is only enough to tease, and the blunt head of his prick only has to graze over the blood-flushed base of her vulva to make her whimper and clench against nothing.

“Does he ever do this to you?” His voice is broken and filthy, with all traces of Imperial polish gone from it; his breath is hot against the back of her neck.

Instead of answering Lyra groans and Krennic grips her hipbone tighter, drawing her backside flush against his pelvis. The head of his cock rubs slickly against her asshole, and the sharp star-burst of nerve-endings firing off has her gasping and whimpering against her own balled fist.

“I’m going to give you what you need,” Krennic says — as if he’s not also helping himself — but his voice is electrified with strain, and stringing two words together can only be agony. “Then you give me Galen.”

It doesn’t have to be him. It shouldn’t be him. His cock presses inside her, making her yield to him, making her cry out — the first thrust through the tight band of her ass pushes past the last shred of resistance in her and sends her fluttering open, slicked with pre-come and her own juices.

His sleeve has ridden up with the crook of his arm, and Lyra sinks her teeth deep into the outside of his wrist. It doesn’t stop him, doesn’t even slow him, and he drives into her with quick vicious strokes.

Her panting breaths come loud and ragged, and between her legs, the heel of her hand works against her stiff clit with bruise-hard pressure. There’s no room for thought. Juddering waves of pleasure rack through her, sending her cunt clenching — his cock fills her completely, her asshole is too-tight, and every push amplifies the throbbing of her clit.

When release finally comes her vision goes gray, fuzzy with stars like static on a screen. Exhaustion makes her legs shake — she comes and comes again until the spasm of her muscles gives way to its own stark pain. Krennic spills hotly inside her, with his snarls of frustration turning to raw sobbing breaths against the back of her neck. His face is buried against her sweat-damp hair.

“Please,” she says, “please,” until there’s nothing left but the conjunction points of their bodies, until there’s nothing left at all.

*

Lyra comes back to herself flat on her back, with the smell of flowers. The momentary confusion passes quickly but the shame left in its wake is worse.

One of Lyra’s friends used to joke that she made it a policy to fall off a mountain on every planet she surveyed, just to see what happened. Right now she’s feeling like she’s hit the ground, hard. The cool recycled air licks at her face, where salt prickles at the corners of her eyes; The overwhelming sexual discomfort has subsided to a dull ache between her leg. The taste of rust no longer coats her mouth, but her throat is terribly dry.

Unfamiliar figures come into focus at the edges of her vision, and voices, one male and one female — at least they don’t sound angry. The owner of one of them, a Twi’lek woman with soot-streaked lekku, is taking her pulse.

Please don’t tell him, she tries to say, but the inside of her mouth is bruise-raw.

Lyra takes a deep breath through her nose to steady herself and takes stock of the damage. No broken bones, no lacerations, and stars willing, no blood. Every bruise and ache carries with it an agonizing memory, and she can only push them down like nausea.

None of this can have happened. Even a kiss between them would fracture her marriage like a hammer-blow, and hurt Galen immeasurably. It can certainly never happen again.

There must be some centralized distributor for industrial flooring on formerly Republic-controlled planets because it all looks the same. Lyra rolls over onto her side and finds herself on familiar synthetic tile. The narrow passageway and the tracks built into the walls suggest some kind of utility corridor. Nearby Krennic is tugging on his gloves, tugging down his jacket cuff to cover the bruise she left there. He must have been the one who dressed her again, or tried to.

“What happened?” the kneeling woman asks him, turning aside. She could only have been Galen’s own choice for the mission; her voice is familiar from conference transmissions and audio notes, but her name is lost somewhere on the fringes of Lyra’s memory.

Krennic’s tone toward her is brisk and officious. “She suddenly lost consciousness. I overrode the security panel code and carried her in.”

As if it were the most normal course of action imaginable — as if he could have done it all along.

“I’ll let your husband know you’re here,” the Twi’lek woman says, clasping her shoulder in a gesture of comfort before she goes. The raw edge of a sob catches in Lyra’s throat.

It’s Krennic who lifts her up off the ground, allowing her to steady herself against him long enough to tuck in her thermal shirt and do up the closures of her trousers before anyone can see. He won’t look her in the eye, but then again when it counted he never could.

*

Down here there’s light, at least, which means there must be a generator, but the stark conditions make the surface structures look positively lavish. An impromptu table has been set up, and its surface is covered in grease-pencil scribblings done in Galen Erso’s distinctive hand. Over by an array of switches on the wall, the Twi’lek scientist is rehydrating a packet of stimcaf. The two others, both human men, are huddled up asleep by lantern-light under cold-weather jackets and emergency blankets. Their extremities are battered and reddened from the cold.

Galen looks exhausted, hollow-cheeked with his hair in a rat’s nest of tangles; even at the best of times, when he’s in the mindset to work he’ll go days wearing the same clothes if no one reminds him to change. The sight of him is heartstopping.

Lyra’s eyes widen when she sees him, but she keeps her voice low. “Galen, you’re hurt.”

There are bandages snaking around his forearm, and visible there under the open throat of his shirt. They’ve been competently tied in place, but they’re not what anyone would call clean.

“It’s nothing.” Galen sounds weary as he stands to greet them, almost bashful. “We had to crawl through a little rubble.”

“There’s medical supplies aboard ship,” Krennic says. “You and your scientists will be patched up in no time, mark my–”

Lyra interrupts. “What happened?”

“Conditions have been difficult since we arrived, I’m afraid, and the presence of our equipment caused them to deteriorate rapidly. We regrouped to the access tunnels hoping we could rig up a connection with an Imperial signal band.”

“And the rubble?”

“One of us planted charges to collapse the doorframe, just to buy time until we could to identify the pathogen. The cave walls were vulnerable to resonance fractures, so the whole passageway came down. The storage shelters are environmentally controlled, but they don’t lead to the surface. We’ve been carving our way out with hand picks.” Galen offers her a wan smile. “You always made the better adventurer, Lyra, not me.”

Lyra wants to embrace him, but she feels her own dishevelment too acutely. The stink of sex is still on her, and she can still feel the finger-marks on her skin, and worse. She can only skirt closer to his side of the table, and reach out to touch his sleeve.

“I came as soon as I heard. Jyn’s safe at home with friends of ours, I didn’t — she isn’t here. She thinks I’m visiting you.”

“That’s good. I’m glad to hear that. And Orson — what are you doing here? What happened to the two of you?”

“Ah — just a respirator malfunction. We had a bit of a rough landing, but Lyra saw us through it.”

Galen pours out a little drinking water onto a clean-looking rag. “Here, have this.” He presses the rag into Krennic’s hand — to wash his face with, Lyra realizes, to wipe away the blood from where Lyra struck him. And the look Krennic gives him is agonizing.

Galen can’t see what’s beneath her clothes: the aching bruises, the dry patina of sweat and salt and sex that reminds her with every step that she’s been compromised. Does Galen know what it takes to burn through this infection? Has he seen it himself?

Krennic sniffs, then clears his throat loudly. “Well, the cavalry’s here, anyway, and you’ve already lost the core samples. Gather your findings and we can begin the evacuation. We’ll abandon the work here and call the whole thing a wash.”

At this Galen’s eyes are sad. “I’ll tell the others. Lyra, listen to me…”

Whatever it is her husband is going to say, she can’t bear to hear it. “If the landscape’s this precarious we’re not going to get offworld without doing more damage. We need to find another way.”

“No great loss.” Krennic turns to Galen again. “Back up your files and tell your friends to run the generators long enough to get the air filtration back online. Get ready to leave.”

Lyra’s chest aches with a dull, constrictive pain. She’s tired, and she wants to bring Galen home again. Whatever they’ve found, it should stay here. What reasonable use could there possibly be for any natural resource extracted at such a cost — or worse, for an unknown poison with nothing to offer but violation? Whatever had done this to her could only have done so by demolishing all rational resistance.

Whatever it was, for Krennic it’s as if it never happened — only a raw spot at the corner of his mouth and a few rusty smudges remain to indicate anything happened at all. He notices her looking at him, and turns.

“What’s your verdict, Lyra? Could this biological agent be useful? Under the right circumstances, I imagine it could be very persuasive.”

Beneath the collar of her sweater, Lyra rubs at her throat for the cord of her necklace. The kyber crystal still hangs there against her sternum, between her breasts. “I imagine it could.”