Chapter 8 - The Bernese SanctuarySmoke curled lazily from the damaged starboard engine, hissing as the freezing mountain snow melted against the hot turbine casing.
Nia coughed, blinking away the stinging dust in the cockpit. She looked down. Little Leo was still asleep, miraculously undisturbed by the violent crash, breathing softly against her chest.
"Nia?" Jyn’s voice came from beside her, strained and gravelly.
She turned. Jyn had a nasty cut across his temple, dark blood trickling down his cheek into his immaculate white shirt, but he was moving. He unbuckled his harness with steady hands and kicked open the jammed cockpit window, letting in a rush of freezing alpine air.
Outside, floodlights suddenly blazed to life through the falling snow.
Heavy steel security gates rolled back, and a convoy of armored snowcats raced across the plateau toward the wrecked plane, their headlights cutting brilliant beams through the whiteout.
"Clear!" a voice shouted in German through a bullhorn outside. "Boss! Are you alright?!"
Jyn shoved the emergency hatch open, stepping out onto the wing with the effortless authority of a king returning to his fortress. He pulled Nia up behind him, shielding her and the baby from the bitter wind with his broad shoulders.
As they descended the rescue ladder into the snow, a middle-aged man in a tailored tweed suit—looking entirely out of place in a blizzard—rushed forward with an open heavy wool blanket, wrapping it around Nia’s shoulders.
"Mr. Jyn," the man said, bowing slightly. "The perimeter is secure. The traitor within the ground crew has already been neutralized in Geneva. But... there is a complication."
Jyn stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes narrowing into slits of pure ice. "What complication, Hans?"
"The Chong family didn't just send an assassination team to her house," Hans said, his voice dropping to a grim whisper as he handed Jyn a encrypted tablet. "While we were in the air, they struck our European headquarters in Zurich. And they took hostages."
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Nia clutched the wool blanket tighter around Leo. "Who?"
Hans looked at Nia with deep, sorrowful apology in his eyes. "Your father, Miss Santos. And your friend Zoe."
