Bodhi Rook

The galley wasn’t exactly a good place to be. It was hot as hell and stank of rotting food, the last of that they had left. It was narrow and dangerous – no more than a propane hotplate balanced on a plank of wood that could fall at any moment.

But it was a slightly quieter corner than the rest of the packed boat. And even the rotting food smell wasn’t as bad as the rotting flesh smell everywhere else.

Please, please, let the girls be safe.

Bodhi regretted that he’d never really had faith. If he’d believed in Allah or God or any deity at all, he’d at least have someone to mutter those prayers too. Rather than just losing them to the open air.

Nothing more than swearing. Just a release valve.

And even if his arms were pock-marked by oil burns and splashes, it was better than the other options.

Two more had died overnight, their bodies tossed into the sea. And at least one more wouldn’t make it to see another sunset. And a storm was coming.

“Hurry up with that food! You have other duties.” The captain shouted and Bodhi winced.

He knew the bastard wasn’t hungry, at least not for the pathetic meal of beans and rice Bodhi had managed to scratch together.

Bodhi kept reminding himself that it could be worse. There were kids on board, girls not much younger than Pema. While the captain’s hands were on Bodhi, they weren’t on the poor girls.

Please, please, let this not have happened to his sisters.

He had paid more for their passage, smuggled them out on what seemed to be a bigger, sturdier boat. It meant he had had to stay behind, pay the lesser bribe for a smaller boat. One that looked like it was barely floating. But what did that matter.

As long as the girls were safe.

Or so he told himself. Every night, squeezed into a corner, held in place by the crush of desperate humanity.

His own life didn’t matter, as long as the girls were save. And no-one was safe at home any more.

They were the lucky ones, if you could call it that. When the bombs had rained down from the sky, their house had been spared. Even if they had had to climb over the rubble of their neighbours to get out when the thunder stopped. Bodhi had done his best to shield his sisters’ eyes from the crumpled remains that may well have been the family next door.

Bodhi was educated, literate, thanks to his maternal grandmother who had raised them after his mother and brother had joined the insurgents. And that gave him and his sisters prospects the rest of the family didn’t have.

But bullets didn’t discriminate. And suicide bombers did.

The government depot when Bodhi worked had been bombed twice before Bodhi had managed to save the money to bribe people smugglers to get his sisters away to Europe.

The third time his truck was flipped by the blast, leaving him with burns to his back as he tried to crawl free.

It was time to get out of here. Nothing was left of the city of his birth. Nothing but blood and madness.

When he heard the shouts from on deck, he armed himself with the galley’s only sharp knife. He’d heard the crew joke about selling them to slavers, to pirates, to human traffickers. Even make bets about who would be worth the most.

And Bodhi wasn’t going down that way. If needed, he’d go down fighting.

Please, please, let my sisters have had a clean death. Anything but this.

But then a name was called across the boat. An aid agency he’d heard of in the news. It echoed across the deck like a wave of relief and Bodhi put down the knife.

Thank you. Whoever is listening, thank you. Just let them have my sisters.

{From here}

Bodhi takes Galen's hand and walks back through the door and back into the base. The cerebration is in full swing, happy shouts echoing from the hall. They run into only one other person on their way to Bodhi's room. The young lieutenant who had escorted Galen earlier.

Nika salutes, eyes drifting from Bodhi's face to their joined hands and back again. "Sir, Dr Erso."

"Lieutenant." Bodhi acknowledges, his voice a tense growl. Ready to deck the young man for a word out of place.

Instead the young man stutters shyly. "Sir?" He starts uncertainly. "I hope- have a good night, sir. You- you've earnt it."

Bodhi relaxes a little, resting his metal hand on the youth's shoulder. "As have you, lieutenant. Now go and enjoy yourself."

The boy nods, freckled cheeks warming with a blush. "Sir, yes sir." There's something about the way he steps aside to let them pass, watching them go. A crush perhaps? Or something more like hero worship?

Bodhi doesn't speak again till they're inside his room, the door firmly closed.

Bodhi lingered after the briefing, hands behind his back in that stance that had become habit. The stance that hid his prosthetics arm from view. Not that anyone stared any more but some habits were hard to break.

“General Rook?” Mon Mothma didn’t need to look up to know it was him, tidying up the data chips as the rest of the briefing room emptied. “You're wondering why I didn’t assign you to the Endor strike.”

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