Disclaimer: Don't own anything you recognize.
Poe Dameron looked around the hut as he waited. He felt anxious waiting for the old man to return with what he was sent for. It was one of the Resistance pilot's biggest missions on his own. General Leia Organa had tasked him going to the planet Jakku with obtaining a map that lead to her brother Luke Skywalker. It had been years since anyone had seen him and since then the galaxy was at risk. This time it was not the Empire, but the First Order who had taken command.
Poe took a deep breath. He felt calm and confident, but there was always a risk that the First Order would show up. He knew they were after any information regarding Skywalker's whereabouts. His eyes flicked up at sudden movement. An old man appeared from a separate room and sat down in front of him. Lor San Tekka, a respected general in the Rebel Alliance during the days of the Empire. It was unknown how he had acquired the map to Skywalker's location, but it did not matter. All that mattered was getting it into the hands of the Resistance.
The now elder of the village looked at him silently and then handed him a small leather sack, placing it in the pilot's hand and closing his palm over it. "This will begin to make things right. I've traveled too far, and seen too much, to ignore the despair in the galaxy. Without the Jedi, there can be no balance in the Force."
"Well, because of you now we have a chance" Poe replied gripping it tightly. "The General's been after this for a long time."
Lor San Tekka smiled at him chuckling. "The General? To me, she's royalty."
"Well she certainly is that" Poe smiled nodding his head. Before anything else could be said a round orange and white droid came bursting in. Poe looked and saw his droid BB-8 frantically chirping at him and moving back and forth.
Poe's face fell at what he heard his droid saying and turned to Lor San Tekka. "We've got company" he said lowly.
The two men quickly got up and ran outside the hut with BB-8 close at Poe's heels. Poe raised his quadnoculars and looked out onto the horizon. It took them a moment to focus, but once they did he saw ships approaching at a fast speed. He slowly moved them away from him. The First Order was coming. They knew.
"You have to hide" Poe stated still staring out into the distance.
"You have to leave. Go!" Lor San Tekka replied. Poe turned to him, his face full of conflict. Part of him didn't want to leave. He wanted to stay and fight. After a moment he nodded and motioned BB-8 to follow him. The pilot and the droid then ran off into the direction of their ship leaving the village elder alone.
However, he suddenly felt a presence behind him and turned. Behind him stood a figure in a white cloak where and a gold mask for a face. The figure stayed silent and stared at him.
"You need to leave as well. You know what will happen to you if they find you here" he spoke sternly. "I did what you asked of me. What he asked of me. Now go!" The cloaked figure nodded at the elder before turning and quickly walked away.
Poe and BB-8 ran and in the droid's case rolled as fast as they could to the X-wing that was located barely outside of the village. By that time the First Order ships were about ready to land.
"Come on BB-8. Hurry!" Poe called out. He climbed the ladder to his ship and got inside as BB-8 was pulled into the droid cockpit. As the canopy closed, he began to work the controls to get himself and BB-8 out of the village. Briefly looking up he saw that the First Order ships had landed with a mass of stormtroopers appearing out of the.
The pilot quickly pushed buttons turning on the ship as BB-8 beeped urging him to hurry. As the X-Wing's lights appeared, a large boom was heard causing Poe to jolt inside of his ship. He had been hit. BB-8 beeped quickly again informing his master of the stormtroopers with guns pointed directly at them.
"I see 'em!" Poe nodded as he grabbed his weapon controls and fired a blaster at the pair of stormtroopers. However, before he could do another else, another larger blast was heard. Poe looked at his screens. His engine was hit. As quickly as he could, the canopy opened and he hopped out, weapon in hand, running to the back of his ship. The smoking engine was damaged beyond repair. There was no escape for him now. Turning around he saw BB-8 drop from the cockpit. He ran to the droid and dropped to the ground.
"You take this" he told his droid pulling out the leather sack. Inside was a piece of technology that held the map and he inserted it into BB-8's reader. "It's safer with you than it is with me. You get as far away from here as you can. Do you hear me?" BB-8 beeped in hesitation and shook its head.
"I'll come back for you! It will be alright" his master told it. BB-8 then watched as the pilot ran off. The little droid beeped nervously and turned to roll away off into the distance of the desert.
Poe ran and took cover behind a rock wall. Dropping to the ground, he positioned his weapon and aimed it at several stormtroopers. Taking aim he shot each of them, and blasting structures that were behind them. Almost instantly, other stormtroopers took noticed and blasted at him as well. Three of them began to shoot at him at the same time and the pilot began to avoid blasts as best as he could, however one was aimed directly at him. The next thing he knew, something grabbed him and toppled him to the ground with the blast hitting the wall and not Poe.
"Hey!" Poe exclaimed. He looked up as to what knocked him down and saw a figure in a gold mask staring at him. He frowned in confusion as the figure got up off of him, standing up. It pulled out a blaster and hit multiple stormtroopers, killing as many as it could. Poe, still on the ground looked at it and began to open his mouth to speak. However, another loud blast erupted from the village causing him to look in the opposite direction. The stormtroopers had destroyed another part of the village. He turned back to look at the figure only to see that it had vanished completely. He shook what had just happened needing to focus on what was occurring at hand. He moved back to the wall and positioned himself. As he did, he looked up and saw a shuttlecraft approaching. He immediately knew that whoever was on that ship was no friend to anyone in the village.
The doors to the shuttlecraft opened. Through the wind and smoke, a dark figured dressed all in black and a mask exited the ship. It walked trhough the chaos that had erupted through the village over to Lor San Tekka, who had been captured by the storm troopers. As the figure appeared closer, the elder could see him more clearly. The mask that covered his face was full of marks, reflecting off the fire of the blasts.
"Look how old you've become" the figure looked at him and spoke.
"Something far worse has happened to you" Lor San Tekka replied to him smirking slightly.
"You know what I've come for" the figure told him sternly.
"I know where you come from. Before you called yourself Kylo Ren" the village elder raised his eyebrow.
The figure, Kylo Ren stared at him for a moment. "The map to Skywalker. We know you've found it, and now you're going to give it to the First Order."
"The First Order rose from the dark side…you did not" Lor San Tekka told him.
Kylo Ren titled his head slightly at him. "I'll show you the dark side."
"You may try, but you cannot deny the truth that is your family" Lor San Tekka told him adamantly.
"You're so right" Kylo Ren replied after a moment. Suddenly a sound was heard and he quickly raised his red lightsaber and slashed it across Lor San Tekka, killing him instantly.
Before anything else could be done, a blaster shot was heard and Kylo Ren suddenly turned to see Poe. The blast bolt suddenly stopped and Poe felt his entire body frozen, unable to move. Two stormtroopers appeared and grabbed him, knocking him to the ground. They dragged him over to Kylo Ren and as they passed the frozen blast, Poe looked at it in confusion. The stormtroopers pushed him to the ground hard as Kylo Ren kneeled in front of him.
Poe looked up and breathed heavily. "So who talks first? You talk first?"
"The old man gave it to you" Kylo Ren simply said.
Poe motioned to the mask he was wearing. "It's just very hard to understand you with all the…"
"Search him" Kylo Ren commanded.
"…Apparatus" Poe finished as he was grabbed and pulled up. The stormtroopers searched him completely to avail. Nothing was on him.
"Nothing sir" one of the stormtroopers reported.
"Put him on board" Kylo Ren instructed. The stormtroopers nodded and grabbed the pilot and pulled him towards the ship. On their way they passed a silver storm trooper, Captain Phasma.
"Sir the villagers?" Captain Phasma asked.
"Kill them all" Kylo Ren said standing up and turning.
"On my command. Fire!" Phasma instructed and suddenly the stormtroppers began to blast at the villagers.
"No" Poe breathed looking from behind as he was escorted roughly onto Kylo Ren's ship.
Kylo Ren began to head back towards his ship. However, he suddenly stopped, feeling something. He turned to see a stormtrooper with blood on his helmet staring at him. The stormtrooper attempted not to make eye contact with him. After a moment, the Knight of Ren continued to head back towards the ship, passing the frozen blast he had created earlier. As he passed it went off and slammed into a nearby structure setting it on fire.
He stopped once more, feeling as though someone was watching him. He looked up and faintly he saw the silhouette of a figure in the darkness. He wasn't sure if he was seeing something or someone was actually there. Regardless, it brought upon something that felt something familiar in that moment. Something he had not felt in years.
"Sir the village has been neutralized" he suddenly heard snapping him out of his thoughts. He turned to the stormtrooper that appeared behind him.
"Very good. Return to the Finalizer immediately" Kylo Ren instructed. The Knight of Ren then turned back to the direction that he saw the mysterious figure and found nothing to be there anymore. He silently took a step forward and looked around before heading back to his ship.
Silently in the darkness, the figure watched as Kylo Ren's ship took off. Looking around the village was quiet. The smell of blasts and fire were strong. The figure turned and walked a few meters out of the village until it came upon a speeder bike. Climbing aboard it, the figure took off into the night. No one would ever know it was there.
The figure eventually reached a destination. After some time, the speeder slowly came to a stop in front of a J-type 327 Nubian royal starship. As the figure got off the speeder, a silver ball droid appeared at the bottom of the landing pad of the starship. It moved quickly away from the ship and began to beep hysterically.
"For the maker's sake QE-2, what are you screeching about" a copper protocol droid appeared walking down the landing of the ship. It stooped seeing the figure walked toward the ship.
"Ah thank heavens you're back!" the droid said quickly. "We heard of the attack on the village through the communicator. We weren't sure if something had happened to you."
"I'm fine GG" the figure spoke in a mechanical robot-type voice walking toward the pair of droids.
"And what of the map to Master Skywalker?" the protocol droid, GG asked.
The figure stopped for a moment silently staring at the droid. After a beat, they raised their hand and removed the hook from their cloak. Then removing the mask, underneath was the face of a young woman with dark brownish-red hair in a braid with brown eyes. She took a deep breath as she moved some of the hair from her face and took in some of the fresh desert air.
"The Resistance pilot that was sent was captured by the First Order. All I know is that he had the map" the girl said quietly taking a deep breath. "I managed to get a tracker on him when I stopped him from getting shot." She walked past the two droids, mask still in hands towards the ship. The droids stared at her quietly as the watched her walk inside of it. QE suddenly beeped quietly at GG once she was out of sight.
"You think I need to ask her? I am not asking her that" the protocol droid snapped at the other. "I doubt after everything she doesn't want to talk about it. You know how it upsets her. Come on QE." The two droids made their way into the ship and saw that the girl was already sitting in the bridge quietly. Even though the droids were not completely able to understand human emotion, they could tell something was troubling her.
QE looked over at the protocol droid and back at the girl and suddenly beeped flying over to her. She looked at the droid silently before she sat back in the chair, taking a deep breath. She looked straight ahead of her. "Yes QE…..I saw him" she replied quietly after a moment.
"Maybe this was a mistake" she said to no one in particular. "Maybe I shouldn't have done this. After all this time, I thought I was ready to face this, but after what happened just now….I'm not so sure anymore."
"What happened was not your fault" GG began to console her. "None of this is. The important thing is that you are safe. QE was on the verge of malfunctioning when he heard the communication of the attack on the village. Perhaps there is still a chance. He obviously thought you could handle this."
The girl looked out the window into the night of the desert. It was much calmer than what she had just witnessed. She was unsure of how the First Order knew the map would be with Lor San Tekka, but then again deep down she knew how. It was because of the. Kylo Ren. She kept repeating the name over and over in her head. She wasn't used to that name. She was used to another. She wondered if he had truly seen her and if he had. Did he know? Did he know the truth? She was snapped out of her thought by the sound of beeping. A button was flashing and she quickly pushed it. The tracker she had put on the pilot was giving her a signal and a map suddenly appeared in front of her.
"It looks like the tracker worked" she spoke looking at the signal. "I guess the First Order is still orbiting the planet. I don't understand though. The pilot had the map. The First Order has the pilot."
"Obviously that would mean that the First Order now has the map" GG piped in walking over the girl.
"Exactly, but if they did have the map why are they still orbiting Jakku of all places? They would be going after him, not staying here" she breathed staring at the red circle on the screen. It didn't make sense. Why were they still here? She slowly closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She felt it. Hope. For the first time in a while that's what she felt. Something was going to happen. She wasn't sure what it was going to be, but for some reason it was going to help. She hadn't failed her mission. Not yet.
"QE" the girl looked over at the floating droid. "Keep a listen on the communication lines. Keep tracking the pilot. Something….something's going to happen."
The protocol droid's head tilted slightly. "What is it? Do you sense something? I've told you countless times to stop speaking in riddles when you do. I'm not programmed….. "
"GG shush" the girl said continuing to stare straight ahead. "I don't think this is over yet."
This is something that's been in my head for months since the movie came out and the plot bunny just wouldn't go away so I figured I'd write it and see if I got any response to it. My character does have a name, but I won't be giving it away just yet. You'll learn her name in due time, but in my head there's a lot of mystery surrounding her and I don't want to give everything away about her in a matter of a few chapters.