Chapter Text
Four years after the first Kaiju attack, Jyn Erso was born. Another four years later and her mother, Lyra, passed away due to cancer. As odd as it was, dying from something like cancer was almost a blessing when there were actual monsters coming from the ocean. Due to how young she’d been, her mother’s passing had never really marked her. More so, her childhood had been painted by an unpredictable relationship with her father.
Galen Erso loved Jyn with all his heart, but it took a long time, several years in fact, for him to really get over her mother. And even then, he wasn’t exactly the best parent, never really knowing the best route to take when Jyn did something good or bad. The tween and early teen years had certainly been the worst by far, Jyn even running away at age fourteen. Still, it had been rather easy to find her since it was just to her father’s friend’s place, Saw Gerrera.
Nevertheless, at age twenty-one, the relationship had mended itself to a much more stable being. Despite how chaotic the world still was, Jyn could say that at least the fights between her and her father had fallen to once every two weeks instead of every day.
At twenty-one, Jyn was finally planning on moving out though she hadn’t figured out a place just yet. Because of that, she was more focused on just packing things up for the moment and deciding what she wished to keep and what could be thrown out. That included a lot of the Jaeger and Kaiju merchandise she’d bought over the years.
It wasn’t really until she was seven that the economies of the world realized that there was a market to tap into. What with the Jaegers being better and better designed, and with humanity finally having a way to fight back, the Jaeger pilots turned into rock stars. Kaijus turned into toys, there were TV shows, and Jyn had wanted it all.
That had actually been one of the biggest fights, one of the few moments Jyn had seen her father truly angry. Yet when it was clear that Jyn would get the figures through whatever means and he couldn’t always be patrolling what she watched on TV, he slowly backed off. Jyn had never fully questioned why her father hated all the merchandise. The Kaijus were a touchy subject for some and even in the golden years of the Jaegers, there were still those openly against marketing it like lives weren’t at stake.
Now though, twenty-five years since the first Kaiju attack, only two Jaegers remained. The first was the Mark II model, Warrior Monk, from China, piloted by the oldest surviving Jaeger team, Baze Malbus and Chirrut Îmwe. They had started seventeen years ago and had been the second and last team of the Mark II’s. Despite a near fatal accident midway, Warrior Monk had been patched up and the two had quickly joined the fight again.
The second Jaeger was a Mark IV from Mexico called Metal Captain. Though having only lasted a year, the Jaeger was well known for it being the first, and so far only, Jaeger to be piloted by a human and an AI. Perhaps in another world where giant robots weren’t used to fight giant monsters then maybe the creation of life would have been a bit more impressive, yet as it was AIs were fairly commonplace now in varying forms. The only thing that made K-2SO, the copilot of Cassian Andor, remarkable to other androids was that because he could link with a human, it suggested he was fully sentient and people certainly treated him as such, loving him just as much as the more stoic Andor.
Yet the golden age of Jaegers had ended some years ago and Jyn had grown up. She began to place all her toys into a box to give away, only pausing upon looking at the last figure. It was a model of the first and only Mark I Jaeger known as Death Star. It had appeared after the second Kaiju attack and had only been around for three years before being taken down by its fourth Kaiju. Unlike all the pilots to come after that, no one knew who those pilots had been, though whoever they were they were obviously dead.
Death Star had been a joint project by the US, the UK, and Australia before the entire world had come together to help each other out. Because of that, much of Death Star’s design and its pilots had been, and still were a mystery.
Jyn almost shoved it into the box with everything else, but hesitated a moment longer before placing it amongst some sweaters she’d be taking with her.
The nostalgia was suddenly interrupted though by the doorbell ringing. Shaking her head, she pushed herself off the floor to grab it, knowing full well that her father was probably grading tests meaning he was likely stuck in his head.
Rushing downstairs, she opened up the door to be met with an older man with graying hair in a white turtleneck. Her eyes caught sight of an ugly scar on his neck, poking out from his shirt, before the noise of him clearing his throat redirected her eyes to his.
“Does Galen Erso live here?”
“Yeah.”
Jyn kept her arms crossed as she stared at the strange man. Oddly enough, now that she looked at him longer, there was something familiar about him though she couldn’t put her finger on it. When he cleared his throat again, it was obvious he was expecting to be invited in but Jyn just gave a little shrug and raised an eyebrow. She didn’t know who this guy was.
“Something else you wanted?”
“Is he here now?” the man gritted through his teeth, clearly her attitude starting to get on his nerves.
She looked him over again.
“Yeah.”
“Well would it be possible to see him?”
Jyn looked him over once more and then glanced behind him. He was alone and thought fit for his age, probably wouldn’t be to big of a problem to kick out if he caused trouble. She shrugged again and said, “Sure,” finally moving aside as the man walked in.
Jyn started to lead him to her father’s office as she said, “You didn’t give me a name.”
“Krennic. Orson Krennic,” he replied stiffly. He didn’t ask for hers and Jyn didn’t offer it.
Once at her father’s office, she honestly didn’t expect much. It was near impossible to force Galen out of his head and usually if Jyn tried to talk to him, he just gave basic responses that he usually didn’t remember later on (it had been one of the ways she’d gotten away with going out late when she was younger and doing other, more troublesome things).
Opening the door, she muttered, “There’s a Krennic here to see you.”
She watched as Galen’s eyes flitted over. They should have flitted back to his work as he gave a gruff sigh, practically blind and deaf to the world. Instead, his eyes froze and a mix of emotions passed over them so quickly that Jyn couldn’t pick out any specifics. According to the few family friends they had, namely Saw, the only person who could so suddenly bring Galen out of his stupor was her mother. Apparently there was someone else too.
“Jyn, could you excuse us for a moment,” her dad said slowly, eyes never leaving Krennic’s.
“Sure,” she said, unable to keep the confusion out of her voice as she looked between the two before finally closing the door. She stayed on the outside for a moment but they spoke so softly that it was pointless. Instead, she quickly headed back to her room to work on more packing but as she did, the name Krennic and his features slowly seemed to get more and more familiar.
Finally, she couldn’t take anymore and hurried back downstairs. Jyn’s body felt like it was on autopilot as she started to look for any and all family photos, eventually finding one from her father’s and mother’s school days.
She looked through the group photo, immediately spotting her parents and Saw. However, her eyes carefully looked at the other, less familiar faces. She latched onto the person that was nearest to her father, arms looped together now that she bothered to look more closely. There were few lines in his face and the hair was brown. However, the eyes were the exact same.
A door opened and Jyn shoved the photo back even though she knew she hadn’t done anything wrong. She watched from the living room as Krennic and her father walked to the foyer before pausing again. They both looked tired, almost as if they’d had a shouting match or a row though Jyn hadn’t heard anything.
She watched as something unspoken passed between them before Krennic either whispered or mouthed something that looked a lot like, “I’m sorry,” before turning and leaving.
The moment Galen closed the door behind him, he rested his head against the door, looking far weaker and more open than anything Jyn had ever seen in a long time. There was pain there, very similar to what Jyn remembered her father looked like not long after her mother died. Just who was Krennic to him?
Upon moving closer, a million questions swam through Jyn’s head yet before she could ask a single one, her father said the last thing she’d expected to hear.
“I need to go to Hong Kong.”
Despite being an Amidala, Leia had considered herself an Organa for years now. She and her brother had been too young to remember either parent. The fact that neither had met the same fate as them was also a miracle in and of itself, or perhaps even fait.
At age two, Leia and Luke had lost their mother and father from a Kaiju attack on the coast of California. Later, the attack would be considered the first appearance of a level 2 Kaiju but at the time, it was simply considered another tragedy in a line of them.
Their father and Uncle Obi-Wan had been the pilots along with another team that had survived the attack. Both teams would have survived if they had understood that the Kaiju was stronger than ones in the past but instead, they’d miscalculated. Both teams would have likely been taken out but their father and uncle had managed to protect the other Jaeger, sacrificing themselves so that the others could get in a killing blow.
Though the Kaiju had been taken down eventually, the world had lost a Jaeger and a large chunk of California as well. Padmé, Leia’s biological mother, had stayed behind to help with the evacuations, trying to save as many people before she was finally crushed by a building. Leia and Luke would have been in the thick of it too if not for the last minute change in plans to spend a weekend with their godparents.
That small change was what had saved them and both were forever grateful for it.
However, that change also altered their lives as both practically grew up in the Jaeger program, their adoptive father being one of the leading men in it.
Because of that, Leia had also been surrounded by a great deal of death as she made friends that sometimes never came back. It had hardened her, perhaps a little to much as she was only nineteen, but she joked that her brother’s more innocent outlook on life made up for any of her shortcomings.
Besides being incredibly close to Luke, they had also formed close bonds with those considered ‘Jaeger kids’. Though most weren’t the children of actual Jaeger pilots, they had grown up due to their parents being technicians, engineers, scientists, politicians, or other things involved in the program that caused the kids to come together.
Now with only one base left though and only two Jaegers, the numbers of those involved with the Jaeger program had dropped considerably. Now, the close group that Leia would consider her friends were her brother, Ezra Bridger, Sabine Wren, Wedge Antilles (technically a step-cousin as he was distantly related to their father), and Bodhi Rook who was the oldest of the ‘Jaeger kids’ at age twenty-five and the only who was technically the child of a Jaeger pilot having been adopted by Baze and Chirrut at five years old.
There was also Lando, Han, and Chewie who they sometimes hung around too. The three were pilots for the air force that acted as both air support for the Jaegers and also helped with last minute evacuations. The air force had been much larger at one point but now only consisted of seven pilots total.
For the moment, Wedge, Ezra, and Luke were hanging out with the older three while Sabine and Bodhi worked with the large team of technicians fixing up Warrior Monk and Metal Captain after their most recent incursions with the Kaiju. Wedge and Ezra had jobs of their own too now that they were all in their late teens or early twenties. Wedge and Ezra were both in training to be pilots which was partially why they got on so well with Han and the others. Luke would have joined them in a heartbeat too if not for their father’s protectiveness.
Leia couldn’t quite call it over protectiveness as there was a completely valid reason. After all, Leia had to understand that her ideals and that of her father and mother’s were incredibly different. She and Luke had grown up knowing that anything could be taken away in seconds. They had been born in a world of monsters. Bail and Breha had been thrust into it, loosing countless friends and family over the years.
Whenever she thought her father unreasonable, Leia simply reminded herself that she had been spared any emotion over Padmé’s death due to her age. But Bail? Her father had lost his best friend.
Nevertheless, Leia had managed to get somewhat involved in the Jaeger program. Certainly not as much as she would like, but it wasn’t uncommon that she was allowed in on most briefings or passed messages among the higher ups. That was what she was doing now rather than hanging with the boys or watching Sabine and Bodhi work.
She had just finished speaking with Kallus and was now being sent off to find Krennic who had just recently returned to the Shatterdome. Despite the high clearance she was allowed, Leia didn’t know what the short mission had been about. Nevertheless, as she found Krennic, she gathered from his actions that it had not gone well.
Punching in her all-access code to the training room, she slid in silently, her eyes moving to the older man. When she had been younger, he had utterly terrified her and Luke. He had always seemed to be shouting and angry yet that was probably because her few encounters with him had been when Tarkin was around (it was no mystery that they didn’t get along). In some of the quieter moments though, Leia had looked passed the anger and found an incredibly devoted man. He was one of, if not the, main designer of all the Jaeger models and he was utterly devoted to his work. That devotion and intelligence was something Leia found she could latch onto, even admire.
A year ago at eighteen years old, she had discovered there was again more to him, not only being an intelligent individual but an incredibly damaged one as well.
It had been an accident. Bail had just given her the all-access code and a day later she’d needed to find Krennic. There was no way she could have known not to interrupt. No one had told her because barely anyone knew. The only people that did who were still around and in the Jaeger program were her father and mother, Mon Mothma, Tarkin, and a scientist called Tulon Voidgazer.
Now Leia could add herself to that list as Krennic only gave her a fleeting glance as he continued his form.
He wore a tank top and without the usual long sleeves and turtleneck or scarf, the geometric scars that ran over his body were incredibly clear. They had been caused by the design of the suit at the time, a lack of shielding, and safety measures that hadn’t been implemented in the Jaegers until the Mark IIs. However, even more striking was the ugly scar that ran from the right side of his neck, down and across his chest and, supposedly, all the way to his left hip.
Krennic, one of the pilots of Death Star, should have been cut in half and yet somehow he’d survived.
As Leia silently stood to the side, she watched as Krennic swiftly moved with the staff in hand, completing the Kwoon form much more gracefully than someone of his age and injuries should have achieved. Nevertheless, it was still clearly difficult as he was sweating a great deal by the end of it and heavily leaning on his staff. Leia had come to learn that if something had gone wrong, then Krennic usually found a private room and practiced the forms that had become one of the main ways of testing compatibility between pilots.
“Rough mission?” asked Leia with a raised eyebrow as she walked over and handed him a clean towel.
“Of sorts,” muttered Krennic as he took it and wiped his face clean.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you force yourself that much. I’m assuming it went horribly.”
“On the contrary, it was a success.”
That caught Leia’s attention as she looked at him in interest. “Is that not a good thing?”
“It is and…it isn’t.” He gave her a calculating look, clearly weighing whether to tell her something. Finally he shook his head and muttered, “To hell with it. You’ll learn soon enough. Galen Erso is coming back.”
Leia’s eyes went wide. Erso was another secret of the Jaeger program. Arguably, he was the true hero behind it all yet had chosen to not go public with the fact that he’d been the one to singlehandedly solve how to power the Mark I, II, and III Jaegers (all nuclear powered before the Mark IVs and Vs went electrical).
“You worked with him didn’t you, designing the first one?” Leia asked. It made since as Erso’s knowledge of energy and Krennic’s designs would have needed to go hand in hand to make the first one work at all.
Krennic nodded in confirmation. “Not only that, but he was my pilot.”
Now Leia had a real reason to show shock. Seeing as no one had explained to her what happened to the second Death Star pilot, she’d assumed he or she had died. Yet not only was he alive but he and Krennic had literally been the creators behind it as well. It brought up so many questions but Leia quickly schooled herself from asking something which could upset Krennic. Obviously, if Erso hadn’t been in contact with the program for years and Krennic wasn’t exactly looking forward to Erso’s return, more had happened than a simply destroyed Jaeger.
Instead, she simply said, “Well, the council is looking forward to hearing that. They’re waiting for you in the usual room.”
He gave a small nod as Leia turned to excuse herself, wondering exactly what the council had planned if they needed Galen Erso back.