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The meeting with the Intelligence Officers went as well as he expected it to be. Some were curious, eager to get as much information out of him as possible, but others never quite hid the suspicion in their eyes and the way it lingered on his gray, dirty flight suit.
He didn’t blame them.
With each question they put forward, he tried his best to answer, offering details of cargo trips to Eadu and other Imperial bases and his trip with Cassian and their ragtag team to the windswept planet. Question after question they threw at him, and all the while his fingers threaded through the loop of his goggles.
Once, then twice. Then again and again.
He started to lose track of time, till eventually, Cassian’s head poked in through the door, and he released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
"It’s time," Cassian said, and Bodhi rose to hurry out after him.
Filing into the briefing room with the rest of the dignitaries, Bodhi ducked his head and shuffled close to the back of the available space. Cassian stood close enough to touch, holding the gaze of each person who glanced their way with reassuring confidence and firmness. Maybe he was trying to shield him, somehow, but he quickly brushed the thought away.
The briefing began with Mon Mothma before moving on to General Draven, then various other personnel and representatives. He hadn’t seen such a diverse group since he started working for the Imperials. Diversity was a weakness, never a strength. It meant too many variables, and the Empire favored order over individuality. There was so much to take in, to process and evaluate. Bodhi sucked in a deep breath, drawing Cassian's attention, but he shook his head to indicate he was alright.
When it came to Jyn's turn, she relayed her father's message and what he'd done, pleading for troops to be sent to Scarif to retrieve the plans. It was a good, clear plan, and they should've leaped at it. At least, he would have.
But one hour passes and still nothing is resolved. More deadlock, politics, and doubt. On the surface, the logical part of his brain that served him well in at the sabacc tables told him there was not much to go on. To launch any assault, more information had to be gathered and scouting missions sent forth.
Suddenly, he felt someone new move to his left. Where had Cassian gone to? Right now, Mon Montha had glided into his place. She surveyed him, her calm gaze pinning him like a prey within the scope of her hunter – evaluating, and surveying. Leaning in, she whispered two words to him.
"Be ready."
But ready for what? He never got an answer to that question.
The man in blue ignored Jyn altogether, stalking toward Admiral Raddus: "You want us to risk everything – based on what? The testimony of a criminal? The dying words of her father – an Imperial scientist?"
Jebel laughed in anger and frustration: "Don’t forget the Imperial pilot."
"Yes -" his first word started out soft, but slowly gaining in strength as he spoke, moving from the edge of the crowd towards the center.
“Yes, I was an Imperial pilot, but I defected. I spent years within the belly of the beast. Some of them were terrible, but many of us, those cargo pilots and clean up personnel did terrible things because they had to. Where was the Alliance when Jedha was overrun and when our temples were ransacked, pillaged for everything they had? Where was the aid then?” Steel yourself, Bodhi. His fingers reached out and latched onto the edge of the central console to keep them from flailing about and punctuating each word.
"I made a mistake when I joined the Empire, and it took me longer than I should have to turn away, "but once I realized what I was a part of, what was being built using the goods I transported, I defected. I made a choice to get the message out to the people who could do something about it. The Rebels, Saw–" Here his shoulders trembled, but held steady. Something like anger unfurled within his belly as he attempted to push forward, words spilling from his tongue like a river. He’d barely noticed that the room had quietened now, all eyes pinned on him, for his gaze was locked, unseeing, on glowing charts and beyond them, lost in the dust motes that swirled around the remnants of his home world.
"I lost my home. I watched an entire city destroyed by the power of this weapon. I lost friends and family. Some even before that during the occupation. There was no running, they came in, they dominated, and they stole."
Spinning abruptly, he pinned Jebel under a wide-eyed gaze. "The choices were to enlist or to die crushed under the steel grip of the Empire before we could ever experience anything resembling a life. Do you know what that’s like, Minister?" Bitterness had stained his tongue, colored his voice. Frustration pooled within him, like ants dancing under his skin, demanding that he’d move and not stand still. He’d defected, he’d gotten the message out. Wasn't that enough?
Here were beings gathered from all corners of the galaxy, the righteous rebels Galen had described, those who knew right from wrong and fair from lies, and they didn’t believe what he nor Jyn were saying. Why would he have risked everything on a lie? Risked being hunted down and killed by an Empire who didn’t take kindly to those who’d defected from their ranks?
Bodhi never claimed to be one of the rebels; he didn’t have their courage or their grit or their thirst for revenge. Before, on Eadu, he entertained the notion of getting the word out then retreating, preferably on some Outer Rim planet where the war hadn’t touched. Delightful dreams, those were.
"That doesn’t mean I didn’t do it. Maybe you might think death would have been a better choice – better than joining the Empire. I was scared, and I needed the credits. I –" His voice drifted now as his mind attempted to pull at frazzled and torn memory, one messily repaired and ultimately useless. The credits were necessary, beyond whatever monetary value they had. He needed it for someone –––
"That’s beside the point. The point is – Jedha was just the beginning, they could have destroyed a whole planet. That’s how powerful this thing is. I can - I can get us onto Scarif. I’ve been there on my cargo runs before, and I can show you how to get ground troops in undetected. If we work together, we have a shot of getting the plans without the need of a large-scale assault – that we will save for the Death Star itself. We have a chance of stopping them before they put it to good use before other more cities and planets get destroyed and before the Rebellion gets squashed before it even begins."
His mind began to wander again, and he retreated several steps from the central table, hands resettling the goggles upon his forehead, studiously avoiding the other Senators who were surveying him and trying to determine the truth of his words. That speech had taken more out of him than he had anticipated, led him to revisit memories he’d rather avoid or to view of the people present. He always did speak too much, his mind spilling words before they were fully thought through.
"There is no hope." He heard someone say once more, and his head shot up, his lips parting once more,
"Hope was ground down to dust in Jedha, but even then it still believed, even then it still drew pilgrims from all over the Galaxy who believed in the Force. They hoped for a better future even when it seemed like there was none. The best we can do is try to uphold that. The blood of my world has already been spilled, best we can try to do is to prevent more of it."
Let me make this right, let me regain that faith, his unspoken words hung, gossamer thin, in the air before competing voices tore it to shreds. The debate raged on, but gradually, like a tidal wave gaining strength, spreading around those in the space.
By then, however, the proceedings had drained him, and Bodhi withdrew out from the meeting. As he drifted through the hangar, his gaze ran over the X-wings, cataloging little details about them that he could see – the split S foils, the snub nose engines, and the glint of the YavinIV sunlight passing through the cockpit. They were beautiful, masterful things, and he wondered, briefly, if he would be able to fly them someday. His steps eventually carried him towards Chirrut and Baze, and he sank down beside them on the ledge.
"Do not worry, young one, you did well." Chirrut's hand fell between Bodhi's shoulder blades, and Bodhi flinched, his eyes clenching shut as he willed himself to settle into the touch, allowing the warmth of it to soothe instead of terrify. Though he barely knew them, they were all the connection he had to Jedha right now; bound together in what they once had and what they lost. Together, they wait out the remaining time in silence. He doesn't know if they will succeed or where they will go on from here, but right then and there, Bodhi wanted to fight.
Suddenly, there was movement from the ziggurat and Jyn strode out. Even from this distance, he could tell that her eyes were alight with a faint glow and a faint smile clung to her lips.
"They're willing to listen. They're going to do it." She bit down on her lower lip before sticking a hand out in his direction. "Come on; they're going to need your help to plan this."
And maybe – just maybe – the words of a former Imperial pilot made a difference.
He reached out to grasp her hand as he rose to his feet. A single phrase echoed in his mind, the very same she uttered earlier:
Rebellions are built on hope.