He stared down at her, then at the saber. Did she really expect him to use the old ceremonial weapon? Blasters he knew, and pulse rifles, but he had never held a lightsaber in his life. Nor did he know anyone who had. Still, if Maz Kanata had that kind of confidence in him…He activated the device, admiring the lethal beam.
It made an excellent target for the stormtroopers who opened fire on them. Taking cover, Han and Chewbacca returned fire. No one noticed the troopers who had come up behind them—except Finn. Charging, he surprised one trooper with the glowing blade of the lightsaber, then another. A third came at him with a close-quarters weapon and the two locked in combat. Despite lack of any training with a lightsaber, Finn was athletic and courageous. In tandem with such traits, the saber made him a formidable fighter.
—
Shutting down and belting his lightsaber, Ren contemplated his immobile captive. Reaching up slowly, he touched her face. The pressure he applied was not physical. Refusing to meet his gaze, she looked away, straining with the agony of resistance, hardly daring to breathe. If only she could get a hand free, a leg—but no part of her body responded to her commands.
Surprised by what he was finding, Ren lowered his hand. Relieved of the mental intrusion, she sucked in great, long draughts of air. His brows drew together and a reluctance to believe his own findings colored his comments.
“Is it true, then? You’re nothing special after all? You’re just a—Jakku scavenger?”
How did he know that? she agonized as she stared back at him. Surely she hadn’t thought it! She’d tried to keep her mind blank, her memory locked, and still he had wormed his way in. He touched her anew. This time the pain of trying to stave him off brought tears streaming down her face. He was within her mind and her thoughts, and there was nothing—nothing!—she could do to keep him out. To resist. But she kept trying, trying…
“Hmm…,” he murmured softly. “You’ve met the traitor who served under me. A minor annoyance grown larger than he deserves. You find him more than tolerable.” He drew back slightly, bemused. “You’ve even begun to care for him. A weakness, such distractions.”
Suddenly he put his face so close to hers that they were almost touching. “You’ve seen it! The map! It’s in your mind right now…”
She could hardly swallow as she strained to pull away from him, anything to pull away, to get him out.
She wanted to scream, but he would not allow it.
—
The trooper who had engaged Finn was big, strong, and agile. Finn realized the fight would have long since been over if not for the trooper’s regard for the lethal potential of the lightsaber. That didn’t stop him from finally knocking Finn to the ground and raising his own weapon for a killing strike—only to fall backward, shot before he could deliver the blow.
Rolling over, a relieved Finn saw Han racing toward him, blaster in hand, with Chewbacca not far behind. The older man reached down and an unexpectedly powerful grip helped Finn to his feet.
“You okay, big deal?”
Finn had to grin at that. “I’m okay, yeah—thanks.”
They were interrupted by the sudden appearance of a dozen stormtroopers, acting in concert and with weapons aimed, atop a nearby mass of debris. Han started to bring his gun around, hesitated. The odds sucked.
“Drop the weapons!” the lead trooper ordered. “Now!”
Surrounded by blasters, they had no choice but to comply. One trooper made a beeline for the lightsaber and picked it up. Han’s thoughts were racing as a second squad of troopers appeared behind them.
“How are we gonna get out of this one? There’s too many of ’em,” he muttered to Chewbacca. When no reply was forthcoming, he added, “Any ideas?” The Wookiee moaned a terse reply, to which Han responded with a half sneer. “Very funny.”
“Hands on heads. Let’s go.” The lead trooper gestured in the direction of a parked transport. “Try anything and I’ll shoot your legs off.”
They didn’t try anything. There is a time to take chances and a time to wait for opportunity, Han knew. What he didn’t expect was that the latter would put in an appearance so soon.
He had never been so happy to see a squadron of X-wings.
Accompanied by other attack craft, the familiar shapes came in low and fast, roaring over the lake and the forest as they blew apart the First Order ships whose pilots, feeling themselves secure, had nearly all landed their craft in the vicinity of the destroyed castle. A perplexed Chewbacca barked his surprise at the unexpected appearance of the non-Republic ships.
“It’s the Resistance!” Han yelled, as hope surged within him.
Marked in black, one particular X-wing swooped in dangerously low, attacking at treetop level. Blast after blast took out parked TIE fighters, clusters of troopers, and support vehicles. Whoever was piloting was skilled enough to fire repeatedly without wasting a single energy burst.
As the captives dove for cover, another blast scattered their captors as they tried to fight back armed only with hand weapons. When the dust cleared enough for them to see, the three rose, and Han and Chewbacca recovered their weapons. Reaching for a trooper’s blaster, Finn hesitated. It took him a moment of searching to find the dropped lightsaber. Turning his gaze skyward, he followed the black-stained X-wing as it looped around in an impossibly tight arc, coming back for another run.
“That’s one helluva pilot!” he commented.
“Yeah,” Han yelled as he beckoned to the younger man. “How about you appreciate the maneuvers from behind cover before you get your admiring self shot?”
—
At the sound of nearby explosions, Ren ceased his probing, but he did not remove his hand from Rey’s face as he turned toward the now ruined castle. She remained standing before him, unable to move, gazing blankly into the distance. A clutch of stormtroopers, breathing hard, came toward him through the trees.
“Sir,” the leader gasped, his alarm and dismay evident, “Resistance fighters!”
Ren considered. Though he was not technically in charge of battlefield decisions, no officer would attempt to overrule any decision he chose to make.
“Pull our troops out. We have what we need.”
The squad leader saluted, lingered a moment to look on in fascination as at a gesture from Ren the young woman standing motionless before him collapsed, and then he hastened to relay the command lest his interest in something that was none of his business be noticed. He had no wish to join the woman on the ground in a state of oblivion.
The black-marked X-wing swooped low to take out yet another TIE fighter still on the ground. The retreating stormtroopers, rushing to board their transports, were easy targets for the castle’s survivors.
Two, running from the furious defenders, were taken out by Finn, using a recovered blaster. As he looked around for more stragglers, Finn found his attention drawn to a singular figure striding through the edge of the forest. He almost looked away before catching sight of and identifying the burden the cloaked officer was carrying into a shuttle of atypical design. Finn’s spirits plunged.
“REY!!!”
Ignoring the fire of retreating stormtroopers, paying no attention to the blasts that gouged the dirt around him, Finn raced toward the shuttle—only to watch helplessly as it lifted off and rose toward the clouds. Irrationally, he tried to follow the dark spot as it rose higher into the sky, running beneath it until it shrank to a dot and then finally disappeared.
“No, no, no, no…Rey, Rey!”
Ascending, other First Order ships formed up in the wake of the shuttle, creating a tight escort to seal it off from any pursuit. Utilizing oculars far more sensitive than those of any human, BB-8 tracked the battle group until it had receded even beyond his sight, lost at the edge of space. The droid paused for a moment, pondering.
Out of breath, tears glistening on his cheeks,
Finn slowed as he drew alongside Han.
“He took her!” Finn managed to gasp. “He took her! Did you see that? She’s gone, Rey’s gone!”
Reaching out, Han shoved Finn aside without meeting the younger man’s gaze. “Get outta my way!”
Knocked off-balance, Finn slowed to a stop, stunned, his eyes fixed on Han’s retreating back. He was too shocked to know how to respond. As he stood staring, he noticed Maz a short distance away, speaking to BB-8.
“Yes, it’s true, they have Rey now,” Maz said. “But we can’t give up hope.” She looked down at the droid, who beeped forlornly. “Go,” she told the droid. “Share what you have with your people. They need you.”
Finn walked over to her, and together Maz and Finn watched the droid roll off. “Looks like I’ve got some cleaning up to do, hmm?” Maz said. Then the diminutive smuggler looked up at him and smiled in satisfaction. “Oh wow…I see something else now.”
“See what?” Finn asked.
“I see the eyes of a warrior.”
—
Han waited until the Resistance transport had settled itself completely before approaching the main access. His attention fixed on the portal, he looked away only to nod down at the round figure of BB-8, who had rolled up beside him. The droid’s presence confirmed Han’s expectations. He would be surprised if either of them had guessed wrong as to who was going to exit the transport first. However, he was willing to be surprised.
He wasn’t.
Husband and wife stood regarding each other for the first time in years. Amid the smoke and drifting embers, neither said a word. Emerging from behind the figure in the portal, C-3PO walked out into the scorched field to confront the motionless droid beside Han.
“Beebee-Ate! Come here. I’m here to assist you in translating what—”
It took a moment for the countenance of the man standing beside the spherical droid to register on C-3PO’s preoccupied consciousness. A visage changed by time and altered by experience, it required a bit of additional visual processing before the protocol droid was able to link it to the images in his memory.
“Oh! Han Solo! It is I, See-Threepio! You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.” Turning to the woman standing in the transport threshold, he continued excitedly. “Look who it is! Han Solo! Isn’t that— Excuse me, Prin— uh, General. Sorry. Come, Beebee-Ate. We need to settle on a procedure for debriefing.”
The two droids moved off. Chewbacca found an excuse to study the configuration of a grove of nearby trees that had somehow survived the recent conflagration.
Breaking the awkward silence, Han finally spoke to Leia.
“You changed your hair.”
Her gaze dropped from his face. “Same jacket.”
“No. New jacket.”
Unable to stand it a moment longer, Chewie gave in to emotion. Stepping forward, he wrapped Leia in a warm embrace that momentarily resulted in her disappearance within a mass of fur. Letting her go, he moaned a few words that contained far more depth of feeling than would be apparent to an outsider unfamiliar with the Wookiee language, and boarded the transport.
Left alone again, husband and wife also embraced. Han murmured over her shoulder, “I saw him. He was here.”
Hearing this, she closed her eyes. They let the silence take them.
—
D’Qar’s terrain was green and verdant, with flourishing trees that put those on most worlds to shame in size and appearance.
Careful not to damage a single one of the immense, unique growths, the Resistance squadron put down between them. Grassy mounds camouflaged hangars and other structures. Resistance techs were everywhere in evidence, repairing damaged craft, running cables, cleaning and refurbishing. The base was a hive of activity, nearly all of which was hidden from above. One restoration team was hard at work on the parked Millennium Falcon, an ugly duckling among the sleeker X-wings and support craft.
The sight of a singular figure in the cockpit of an X-wing that had just landed sent Finn running. Fast as he was moving, he was no match for BB-8. Rolling at maximum speed, the droid nearly knocked him down as it shot past him in its haste to reach the fighter with the black insignia. Its canopy was already open; the pilot had removed his helmet and was chatting with one of the techs as he descended from the cockpit.
Poe Dameron.
No wonder, Finn thought, he and the others had marveled at the pilot’s skill during the course of the counterattack at Maz’s castle. This was clearly, indisputably, the best pilot in the Resistance. His presence, however, defied reason.
Finn just stared at him, hardly believing what he was seeing.
Kneeling and chatting with BB-8, the pilot was nodding at something the droid was saying. It took him a moment to look up and glance to his right. The expression on his face when he recognized Finn was no less astonished than that of the ex-trooper. Smiling, he rose and gestured as Finn continued toward him.
For a moment they just stared, each overwhelmed to find the other alive. Finn could only shake his head in wonder.
“Poe,” he said. “Poe Dameron. Best pilot in the Resistance. I can attest to that, because I got to see him in action. Hell, I was in action with him!”
“Finn!” the other man shouted with a grin. “Bravest trooper in the— Well, ex-trooper.”
They embraced, then stood back from each other.
“You’re alive!” Finn’s observation was heartfelt.
“So are you,” Poe countered, adding the unnecessary.
Finn studied him intently. “You look like you’re in one piece. I can hardly believe it. I thought you were dead: shot up in that TIE fighter we stole. I ejected. When I finally found the wreckage, I looked for you. Pulled your jacket out of your ship before it got swallowed by the sand. What happened to you?”
“I wasn’t dead, just momentarily out of it,” the pilot explained. “Came around long enough to see that you had got out. Pulled out of the dive just long enough to set down—hard. Impact threw me clear. Woke up at night; no you, no ship, no nothing. Went looking—in the wrong direction. Got picked up by some itinerant trader.” He grinned. “Tell you all about it sometime.” A plaintive beep caused him to turn and look down. “Beebee-Ate says that you saved him.”
Finn eyed the droid. “It wasn’t just me.” A slow smile spread across his face and his eyes twinkled. “Tell you all about it sometime.”
“Either way, you completed my mission.” Poe gestured at their surroundings. “Beebee-Ate is here, where he was supposed to come all along. And you saved my jacket.”
Finn started to slip out of it. “Oh, sorry—here.”
Poe grinned anew. “No, no. Just kidding. You keep it. It suits you.” He held up an arm. “I’ve got a new one. Suits me.” His tone turned somber. “You’re a good man, Finn. The Resistance needs the help of more like you.”
“Poe—I need your help.”
The pilot shrugged. “Anything.”
“I need to see General Organa,” Finn told him. “Can you manage that?”
—
Buried deep in the native vegetation, the base command center was staffed by guards at multiple levels. The readily recognized Poe, however, had no difficulty proceeding deeper into the complex or bringing his friend with him.
When they arrived at the conference room, they found Leia conversing earnestly with a number of senior Resistance officers. From his training, Finn recognized among them the prominent admirals Statura and Ackbar. All looked over as the two younger men entered. Without hesitating, Poe moved directly to Leia.
“General Organa. Sorry to interrupt, but”—he indicated his companion—“this is Finn and he needs to talk to you.”
Excusing herself, she turned away from the officers and directly to Finn. “And I need to talk to him.” She took Finn’s hand.
S
he had, Finn mused as he gazed back at her, dark eyes that had seen too much.
“That was incredibly brave, what you did. Renouncing the First Order is almost unheard of. To do that, and then to compound the risk by saving this man’s life, marks you as…”
Clearly, she had been fully briefed about Finn’s exploits. Not that any of that mattered, not now. Anyway, he had grown immune to compliments he didn’t think he deserved. What was important was that every passing moment had become precious to him. Otherwise he could never have imagined interrupting someone like General Organa.
“Thank you, ma’am, but I’m here to talk about a friend of mine who was taken prisoner during the clash on Takodana.”
She nodded understandingly. “Han told me about the girl. I’m sorry.”
That startled Finn, but before he could comment further, Poe jumped in. There was little he wouldn’t do to help Finn, but the needs of the Resistance had to outweigh everyone’s personal concerns.
“Finn’s familiar with the weapon that destroyed the Hosnian system. He worked on the world where it’s based.”
Leia’s excitement was palpable. “You worked on the weapon itself?”
“No,” Finn demurred. “I’m a trooper, not an engineer or a physicist. But I’ve had some tech training, and in the course of that, everyone was told the purpose of the base. I can’t tell you how the weapon functions; the science is beyond me. But I do know where it is. Or rather, where it’s controlled from.”
“No reason to keep that a secret from the people guarding it,” Poe pointed out with quiet glee, “since stormtroopers never defect.”
“We’re desperate,” Leia told Finn, “for anything you can tell us. Until the Hosnian system was annihilated, we didn’t even know such a weapon existed.”
“It’s located on the world that serves as the First Order’s main base,” Finn told her. “I’m sure that’s where they’ve taken my friend. I need to get there, fast.”
“I’ll try to help you,” she replied. “You have my word. I’m sure you understand that because of what happened to the Hosnian system, right now the Resistance has other priorities. But if they happen to coincide…” Leia paused, and Finn got the impression that his urgency to find someone was something Leia understood all too well. “Then we’ll do our best to find your friend,” she finished. She indicated the nearby group of officers. “Right now I need you to tell Admiral Ackbar all you know. Everything you can remember about the First Order base, down to the smallest and seemingly most insignificant detail.” She paused again for a moment, lost in thought.