Adrian exited the med bay wearing a solemn expression. The others were patiently waiting for him to finish. “He’s passed,” he announced. “Thank you all for taking the time to send him off. I’m sure he appreciated it.”

  He didn’t know how to feel about his final interaction with Stanley. He hadn’t even realized the man had died and that made him feel horrible. Hearing the person whose death Adrian was responsible for ask for his forgiveness flushed him with guilt. Adrian was now truly the sole survivor of the experiments on Earth.

  He couldn’t claim to be the sole survivor of the gru’ul experiments anymore now that he knew they’d done something to Reya, but he hoped she wouldn’t share the same fate as Stanley. He didn’t know what he’d do if he lost her.

  Especially if it was his fault.

  The others sensed Adrian’s mood and left him a moment to collect himself. “I’ll go confirm Stanley’s death,” Kell announced, breaking the spell. He entered the med bay. Once the doors shut behind him, everybody gathered outside stood there awkwardly, unsure what to do next.

  “Let’s go back to the house,” Jyn suggested. He looked at the worn expressions on everybody’s faces. “I think we could all use a break.” The incredulous looks he received in return made him frown. “We can leave it to Kell to take care of the body and I think we’ll be fine if we take a couple of hours off,” he said.

  “That’s a bit surprising, coming from you,” Beor said. “You hate it when we take breaks.”

  “Today’s an exceptional circumstance,” Jyn replied. He led the others off the ship and back into the house. The group slowly dispersed, but Adrian remained behind along with him. “Do you need something from me?” Jyn asked.

  “Could I talk to your General?” Adrian requested, surprising Jyn.

  “I can’t bother the General for no reason,” Jyn said. “Why do you need to speak to her?”

  “I’d like to discuss funeral rites,” Adrian replied. While he wasn’t sure what religion Stanley adhered to, if any, Adrian figured the least he could do was give the man a proper burial. He didn’t know how the a’vaare treated their dead, but he doubted it would be the same as back home. “I want Stanley to follow our traditional method of dealing with the dead.”

  Jyn gave Adrian a long look. “Is there something wrong with the way our customs do so?” he asked. He didn’t know what to make of Adrian’s request, but he refused to disrespect the dead. IF following his planet’s rites was something Stanley wanted, then Jyn wouldn’t deny it. It made no difference to him. He just wanted Stanley’s final wishes to be respected.

  Adrian shook his head. “I don’t know what yours are, but I don’t need to. Stanley and I are far away from home. We have nothing here left to remind us of where we came from. The closest thing we had was each other and you saw how that turned out. I was hoping to provide Stanley with one last piece of home.”

  “We can call the General from here if you’d like,” Jyn said.

  “I’d prefer a more private conversation about this,” Adrian said. “There are a few things I’d like to ask of her that aren’t strictly related to Stanley’s death.”

  Jyn’s eyes narrowed. “You want to make another deal with High Command?”

  “Less of a deal and really more of a request. I’d like to extend how Stanley’s funeral is handled to other deceased. We might not have their bodies, but I want something to remember them by.”

  “That’s fine,” Jyn said after a moment’s thought. He didn’t care who the other dead were that Adrian wanted a ceremony for, but he wouldn’t deny him the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. For all he knew, Nessah would get some concessions out of Adrian for extending the request to others.

  Adrian’s brows raised in surprise. “That’s it? You’re giving me what I want so easily?” He’d expected Jyn to refuse outright like he did most of his requests. To see the man be reasonable felt strange. He wondered if the change of attitude had to do with having seen his video not long ago.

  “My job is to care for our military’s interests,” Jyn said in an uncharacteristically somber tone. “Today, I failed that mission. Respect for the dead is important in our culture. They helped shape who we are today. If you want Stanley to be remembered by your cultural norms, I won’t deny you this. It’s important that I consider what Stanley might have wanted, and I’m pretty sure our funeral rites aren’t it.”

  Adrian was impressed. He’d rarely seen a side of Jyn that didn’t involve him being an asshole or a hard-ass. To see him not only take his request under serious consideration but also permit it without any fuss or conditions attached made Adrian wary, but even he could tell how seriously Jyn took the situation.

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  He’d initially found it odd that the entirety of the crew wanted to say their final goodbyes to Stanley, having hardly interacted with the man during his sojourn at the safe house. Things had been tense at first, but Stanley hadn’t caused any trouble for them.

  Now, however, Adrian was getting a glimpse into a’vaarian culture beyond what he found in holodramas and what he’d observed while on Verilia. Although the dead were mostly treated with respect on Earth, it was obvious to him that they were near venerated in a’vaarian culture. Adrian admitted to himself that he didn’t understand all the nuances of their culture yet, in spite of his relationship with Reya. For all he knew, the final goodbyes the crew gave Stanley were deeply ingrained in how they treated their dead and dying.

  “Thank you for your consideration,” Adrian said. “If you’d like, we could go into the music room and have the call there.”

  Jyn agreed and together the two men isolated themselves from the rest of the house. Jyn made a quick detour to his room to get his data slate and soon they had Nessah on the line. She’d answered so quickly it felt as though she was waiting for Jyn’s call.

  “Captain,” Nessah said smoothly. Her eyes flicked towards Adrian briefly, but there was no change in her expression. “I’ve already heard the news from your doctor. High Command doesn’t hold your charge’s death against you and your team. We already knew that Stanley was terminally ill. While we had high hopes your doctor would be able to save him, it simply wasn’t meant to be.”

  “We appreciate your understanding,” Jyn said formally. “Since I no longer need to report Stanley’s death to you, I’ll move on to the second reason for this call. Adrian has a request regarding how to handle Stanley’s death.”

  Nessah nodded. “What is it you would like us to do?” she asked Adrian. It came as little surprise to her that Adrian might want something from his culture for Stanley’s remembrance and was ready to grant it should it be reasonable. She already had approval from the Tribunal and had been given the latitude to act how she saw fit.

  “In my culture, the dead are usually either buried in a wooden casket or cremated and their ashes put into an urn,” Adrian started. He thought for a moment before continuing. “Normally there are legal proceedings once someone dies, but they don’t apply here. I was originally thinking of having a casket made for Stanley, however I’m aware that requires quite a bit of effort on your part. Instead, I’d like for him to be cremated and buried afterwards.”

  Nessah thought for a moment. “We can do that. Your ship already has the capacity to burn bodies, so it won’t be an issue. Could you describe in more detail what your world’s urns look like?” Adrian gave a brief yet detailed description of what he was looking for, as well as what style he intended for it to have.

  “If at all possible,” Adrian said after finishing his explanation, “could the urn be made of something that won’t readily decompose?”

  “That’s fine,” Nessah confirmed. Already she found the request trivial in its scope, which left her wondering why Adrian felt the need to talk to her directly. She quickly had her answer when he continued.

  “Additionally, our dead typically have a tombstone of some kind with very specific engravings alongside their name and dates in which they were alive. I could have Tassie transmit to you what symbols to put and how to order them on the tombstone.”

  “Is there a particular kind of stone that is used for this process?” Nessah asked.

  “Granite, typically. Would this be a problem?” Adrian asked.

  “No, we can quite easily procure what you’ve asked for, though the engraving will require your help to ensure everything turns out the way you envision,” Nessah replied. “Is that all?”

  Adrian bit his lip. “No, it’s not.” Nessah stared at him expectantly and he continued on to his final request, hoping it would be approved without fuss. “Right before I was experimented on back on Earth, I was in the process of planning a funeral for my last living relatives. They were deceased in a car crash. I never had the opportunity to give them a proper funeral. I might not have their bodies or any of their possessions, but I would greatly appreciate having something to remember them by here on Verilia. And I would also like to do the same for my fellow test subjects from Earth before I was put in a pod and sent to the gru’ul. Could you also repeat the process twice more, once for my family and the other for my fellow test subjects who died horrible deaths?”

  Nessah carefully considered the request. It wouldn’t pose any problems at all. She was loathe to make a request for a trade or barter using somebody’s death as leverage and so she refrained from asking anything of Adrian other than to have him pay for the materials. He accepted and the call ended without issue, leaving Jyn and Adrian alone together once more.

  The two men stood in a brief, awkward silence, unused to spending any modicum time alone together. “Thank you for letting me speak with your General on such short notice,” Adrian said. “You don’t have to be there for the funeral, and it won’t be anything fancy, but you and the others are welcome all the same.”

  Jyn nodded. “I’ll make sure the others are there. It would be highly disrespectful to Stanley to ignore death rites.” Although he didn’t know what exactly the funeral would look like, especially now that there were others involved that nobody else knew, he would do this last act of service to his deceased charge. Even if Adrian was the one organizing it in his alien culture, Jyn would respect it. “Please tell us how we need to act during the ceremony.”

  “There won’t be much of a ceremony, I’m afraid.” Adrian scratched his head. “I’ll do my best to go based on what I remember of other funerals I’ve attended in the past and that will have to suffice.” Though his parents’ funeral was burned into his memory, he’d been overcome with grief at the time and couldn’t recall all the specifics. Annie was the one who organized it.

  “Just be sure to tell us what the proper decorum is.”

  “I’ll do that once everything arrives. Your General never gave a timeline, but I assume it won’t be too long until I have what we need. I’ll need help setting everything up.”

  After yet another uncomfortable moment together, Adrian left the room and went to go find Reya. While she hadn’t seemed particularly affected by Stanley’s death, he worried what her future might hold. A deep-seated fear settled into his core as he envisioned Reya as the one on the hospital bed receiving everyone’s last goodbyes.

  And it refused to leave.