He had said he could fly anything. He should have also mentioned that he could crash anything. That is exactly what Poe Dameron thought as he trudged through the blistering sands of Jakku.
There he was, aimlessly stumbling across this dessert wasteland of a planet, the TIE fighter and his escape partner – he had personally named Finn – nowhere in sight. Well, nothing was really in sight. The sun reflecting off the sand was blinding and he found himself glancing up every few steps, a permanent squint to his eyes, before returning his gaze back to his boots. Nothing. He had seen nothing since he started his trek at sunrise.
Coughing up the dust that had settled in his throat hours ago, he wondered what he hated more: this dry, sweltering heat, or the freezing cold air he had found himself shivering in when he had come to. When he had first landed on this planet, so different from his own home, Yavin 4 – an exhilarated young pilot on a very important mission – he had thought that maybe it had its own charm. That the coarse sand didn't portray the true nature of the planet itself. He must have been insane at the time, because at the moment there was nothing charming about it. But perspectives quickly change when one crashes a ship instead of landing it.
He wondered how Finn was. Where Finn was. If Finn was even alive. There was probably another death on his conscious. Finn had wanted to escape the First Order, and Poe seemed to have helped him succeed in that. If you counted death as an escape. But Poe had survived, maybe Finn had too. For the umpteenth time Poe recounted what had happened, what he assumed to be, hours ago...
As Poe and Finn had bickered as to where they were escaping to, Poe must have taken his eyes off of the controls a second too long because he felt the all too familiar jolt of a direct hit, and their ship went spiraling out of his control.
He had desperately flipped switches and pushed buttons, had even yelled for BB-8 to try and level out their ship, before he realized BB-8 wasn't there.
It hadn't taken long for the spinning and the G-forces that pushed upon them as they violently tumbled toward Jakku to cause Finn to pass out. But Poe was an Academy pilot. The top of his class. He had trained for this. Well, not exactly this, but something like it, and so far he had been able to remain conscious.
Desperately, Poe grasped his harness straps in a vice-like grip and let out a frustrated scream as the terror overtook him. He should have mentioned that he could crash anything. Should have let Finn know before they attempted this crazy escape. With no plan. Against the fully equipped First Order. Fleeing a Star Destroyer and its accompanying fleet. No back up. He should have mentioned crashing was a very viable option. Was most likely how this would end. Because this wasn't Poe's first crash landing. He had crash landed many times. Too many times for the supposed best pilot in the Resistance.
Crash landing wasn't something Poe was afraid of. When he had agreed to pilot the TIE fighter, he was afraid of a man in a mask invading his mind against his will. Of not completing his mission. Of leaving BB-8 behind to be scrapped for parts and the map to Skywalker retrieved by the First Order. But at the moment, he was afraid this wasn't going to be a crash landing. This was going to be a crash. A straight, fiery, can't-survive-the-impact crash.
Prying his eyes back open as his world whirled around him, he forced breaths through his nose to try and clear his mind. Accept his fate. This was going to be a crash. Not a crash landing. Crash landing involved some sort of meager control that he clearly did not have. A crash. There's really only one way to survive a crash – to not be in the ship when it did, in fact, strike the planet's surface. Poe and his unconscious companion had to eject.
His eyes flew around the control panel, searching for the gauge that told him his altitude. They were coming in hot from space. He didn't know their speed, how much time had passed since the missile had struck, if they had even entered the atmosphere yet. It was too hard to discern in the chaos and terror of their rapid decent.
Their shields must still be functional because the two passengers weren't consumed in flames. All he needed to know was their altitude. When it was safe to pull those red levers and get them the hell out of this First Order tomb. If Poe was dying in a ship, he was dying in a Resistance X-wing, not a First Order TIE fighter – stolen or not.
His desperate eyes found the proper gauge, and he focused on it, trying to see the numbers as he spun around uncontrollably, his un-helmeted head being jostled back and forth. Was that a zero or a six? A five or a three? At this point in time he really didn't understand why he liked the spinning rides at the yearly fair when he was a kid. A strange thought to have when the possibility of death was so close.
He felt himself fading. He would lose consciousness soon. Honestly he was surprised he held on this long. And although he wasn't completely sure they were at a safe altitude to pull that eject handle, they had a better chance testing fate if they got out now than if he passed out cold and the two went down in the ship.
He reached back, arm stretching uncomfortably behind him and groped for Finn's red eject handle. They should really make it easier to reach. Poe's fingers found hold and with a little yell, he frantically yanked it free. He felt Finns chair shoot past as air rushed into the cabin, causing even more chaos. Holding onto consciousness, desperation clenched Poe's heart. He was pretty sure he had stopped breathing and his heart had been racing so fast that it had seized, and with his eyes squeezed shut his hand found purchase on his own ejection handle and he pulled.
The next thing he remembered he had woken up shivering, still strapped in his pilots chair in the dead of night, and he had just enough sense to turn his head to the side as he vomited.
So yeah, he and Finn had made a nice little run there. As he had said, he could fly anything. But what came with those piloting skills was also the curse of being able to crash anything. And though he had yet to come across any wreckage of the TIE fighter, he could guess he had crashed it pretty damn good. As they said, he was the best pilot in the Resistance.
Authors note: And that's that. Treat me kindly, I haven't written anything for the eyes of others in a long time. Mostly I'm the one lurking and reading. But Poe has been in my head since I first saw him on screen and this popped in my head and I had to write it quick before work. This time I thought I would share since there's just not enough Poe writings. Please review, I would love to hear your thoughts.
