Hello everyone! This is my first story on a new account and I've been um-ing and ah-ing over whether to actually upload it. However, here we are! I apologise first of all that Poe won't appear for three or four chapters at least, in order to develop the story and the characters initially. Any feedback would be appreciated if you feel so inclined! For now however, enjoy the first chapter of Mercy! :)
It was the sound of sirens that woke her. It was the flashing lights that blinded her afterwards. The ships floor vibrated violently beneath her bare feet as she sat up, panic beginning to fill her. She stumbled a few metres as the ship began to jerk to the comms unit. An ominous crash sounded nearby and she looked up, eyes wide in panic.
"Jed! What's going on?" Even to her, her tone sounded panicked, no matter how much she wished it didn't.
"I'd like to say we've hit a bit of turbulence," the strained voice of the pilot crackled through, "but the truth is we've run into some trouble and it's not looking too good for us."
"Give me a minute," she replied, "I'm coming up." She only had time to pull on her boots and a jacket before she started trying to navigate her way to the helm of the ship. It swayed every half a minute before it shook and she was thrown into walls, sometimes only just standing before she was thrown in the opposite direction. She could feel bumps and bruises forming all over her body and there was a pain in her arm from where she'd caught it as she'd lost her footing in the confusion, yet eventually she made it to the helm of the ship and the bridge.
She was speechless as she stepped onto the bridge. There weren't words that she could bring to mind to capture what she was seeing in front of her and she stood gapping as she clutched onto the back of one of the navigational chairs for support. In front of her was a fleet of First Order TIE Fighters and battlecruisers. They were going to be massacred.
"Why haven't they open fired? We're an unmarked vessel in deep space."
The pilot didn't take his eyes off of the imposing ships, "they have. Our shields barely held on." They weren't the only one on the bridge. Their ship was lightening quick, faster than the Millennium Falcon but not by much but to gain that much speed and still maintain control it needed a crew of five on the bridge; one pilot, one co-pilot, two navigators and a systems technician. She wasn't the captain of the ship by any means but she was a childhood friend of him and that gave her a ranking above what she should have had as the onboard medic and flight nurse.
"Sir, we won't be able to last if they attack us again."
"Sit down, Veruna. I need a comms tech." While the bridge needed five to function there were eight seats so an extra three crew to could assist during an attack; a comms tech and two weapons technicians. As Veruna sat down, an innocent two beeps sounded and on the holoscreen in front of her a message popped up which made her blood run cold.
"They're hailing us." Jed looked at her from where he sat and nodded, displaying the red-haired general they all hated.
"You are an unmarked ship in First Order territory. State your purpose and allow us to board."
"You could've asked that before you shot at us." She looked over at her friend who was leaning back in his chair with an easygoing look on his face that didn't fool anyone. The First Order was going to kill them no matter what they said. If they didn't allow them to board they would bring down the ship, if they did board then they would discover their purpose and shoot them all on the spot, taking control of the fastest ship in the galaxy. Jed knew the odds and he knew that every single member of his crew would rather die than see the First Order take over.
"If you think that we'll let you board peacefully I'm afraid you're wrong. Let us pass in good faith and we'll be gone as quickly as we came."
"Surrender to the First Order and allow us to board or be killed." The two men carried on, both saying their own demands and neither listening to the other. Veruna found a sort of peace in that time. She knew that it was possible that she would die doing this but she never expected it to be like this. Yet, as she thought about it, she found that she was comfortable with this death. She would've preferred to be killed while maybe saving a patient, something heroic that would get her remembered rather than a cold death in deep space. But still, she was with her friends and she was helping a cause that she thought was right rather than whimpering under the thumb of the First Order. There was a pause that snapped her out of her faux peace before Hux said the dreaded two words.
"Open fire." His image disappeared and all eyes on the bridge turned to Jed.
"We can't outgun them, and our shields won't survive another attack." It was the harsh truth disguised in the gentle, yet fatherly voice of the systems technician, Grosby.
"We don't need to outgun them," Jed suddenly perked up, "this is the fastest ship in the galaxy. We simply need to outrun them." Suddenly he started barking orders, as fast as he could as the energy bolts started heading in the direction of their ship. The navigators were working out impossible sums in their heads to send the ship into hyper drive at an angle which allowed them to avoid all First Order ships, avoid any nearby planets and not kill everyone on board. Veruna watched in fascination as they entered coordinates before informing their pilot that everything was ready.
Jed grinned at his co-pilot, Grosby's son Mace before both placed the ship into hyper drive, watching as the stars gathered around them and then they slingshotted across space.
Veruna didn't want to breathe out in relief. While the crew around them relaxed and some easy talking resumed. They appeared to have thrown the First Order off of their tail, but the interruption had thrown them far off track and the navigators were trying to work backwards to figure out where they were. Veruna gasped in wonder as millions of colours flew by in hyper drive, blues, purples, reds like blood, colours that she'd never seen so deep in space before flew past the ship and she wondered whether they were planets or stars or other ships. She didn't care. It was all beautiful. The ship came out of hyper drive as quickly as it had gone in and the crew hastily looked around to try and identify the group of planets they were currently nestled in the middle of. Like the colours that had passed before, the planets were all different colours and sizes, some with moons and some with rings that circled them like electrons circles an atom's nucleus. Surrounding them all in a semi-circle was a thick asteroid belt that held a medium sized sun on the other side and then just darkness.
"I think we should land on one of these planets until we known where we are, Sir," Mace spoke up, "our shields can't take that asteroid belt until they've recharged and the ship needs to be checked for damage." Jed nodded.
"I agree, set the co-ordinates to land on the most habitable planet and we'll make further decisions from there." The two navigators nodded, twins, a boy and a girl, before doing as they were told, indicating when they were ready.
"Beginning our descent," the two pilots stated before they were fully focused on their jobs. Just as the ship was about to hit the planet's atmosphere, Veruna heard a dreaded noise that made her stomach drop and the blood rush from her face while the ship shook.
"Putting all expendable power into our shielding!" Grosby called out as the TIE fighter flew past again, taking another shot. Jed and Mace both called out as they lost control of the ship and once against the emergency alarms were hit, a pulsing red light taking over with the blaring siren. As this happened, Veruna had no choice but to look at the planet they were about to crash into and she decided that she didn't particularly want to die this way at all.