Author's Note: This has been one of those stories that started blooming in my head and refused to leave me alone until I wrote it. I think it's because of how well Star Wars does with breathing life into its characters; even those that only appear on screen for a brief period of time have stories and lives beyond the fleeting minutes they have upon on the main stage of movie screens. These two main characters kept me up two nights ago thinking about them, and I was only able to go to sleep after I had a rough outline of this story put together. The story itself I wrote in just over twenty-four hours, so it's a bit short, but I think it says what it needed to say.
This isn't the happiest story, but I feel a strong need to tell it. If you choose to read it, please read it all the way through, out of respect for these characters and for all of those who sacrifice themselves to protect the ones they love.
I dedicate this story to Tallie and Paige. Never give up hope.
I do not own the Star Wars movies or any of its characters or intellectual properties. I make no claims upon any of these. Similarly, I do not own Disney, its characters or any of its property. All these characters are used under the concept of Fair Use, and I make no profit or income from using any of them.
Dead Stick Flying
by Jo K.
(No theme music for this short story, but if there were any, it would be something by John Williams. Obviously.)
—O—
—O—
When the payload of magnetic bombs impacted the hull of the First Order Dreadnought, Tallie Lintra felt the nausea that had threatened to crawl out of her stomach relax its grip on her throat.
Paige and her crew had done it. The Resistance would live to fight another day.
She had been terrified when that initial pass from the First Order TIEs had taken out the pilot of the Cobalt Hammer, Paige's bomber, sending it inexorably onward toward its target due to no pilot input or atmospheric distortions to sway the ungainly craft from its previous course.
Tallie had flown like a madwoman, with her senses and reflexes working together like never before as she fiercely protected the helpless, slow-moving bomber, buzzing her A-wing around the larger ship like a Corellian hornet protecting its nest. She hadn't bothering counting how many TIE fighters she had destroyed during the brief bombing run, although later records would show she had taken out no less than fourteen enemy fighters by herself. All that mattered was protecting Paige and her ship, the last chance they had left to cleanse the galaxy of another First Order superweapon, and the stubborn little bomber had conquered stiff odds and come through.
Then everything went numb as she watched the craft carrying the woman she loved, her wife of not quite a year, tilt downward and become engulfed in the fiery cataclysm of the dreadnought's destruction.
—O—
Hallie didn't remember flying back to the Raddus, the decades-old Mon Calamari heavy cruiser that was the flagship of the Resistance fleet. She was reasonably sure that she had reported in as she made her way back, as automatic as a pre-flight checklist, but she had no idea what she had said, if anything. All she could feel was the ache in her heart that had shot through her soul the moment Paige's bomber had exploded.
Paige and her little sister Rose had believed in the Force. Hallie hadn't been sure what she had believed, beyond what she could see with her own eyes and the instruments of her fighter. But now she thought she might believe as well, for she had felt the cry from her own spirit at the moment Paige and her ship and crew were incinerated.
Her wife was gone. Her Paige was gone.
As her A-wing settled on the deck of the cruiser's fighter bay, Tallie watched as her fingers automatically flipped the switches to extend the landing struts and open the cockpit's canopy. Her eyes flicked to the side as the stars outside the bay doors lengthened into lines of brightest white, signaling the cruiser's escape into hyperspace.
Paige's remains had been left behind, in orbit around D'Qar. Well, that was a foolish thought, she immediately corrected herself. With that kind of explosion, there wouldn't be anything left of Paige's body to even call remains.
Tallie didn't have time to take her helmet off before breaking down into gut-wrenching sobs.
Around her, the ground crew saw her head tilt forward as the normally bright, happy pilot broke down emotionally. With a quick look and silent gesture, the crew chief who had wheeled the egress ladder into place signaled for the others to give the young pilot some privacy to grieve, and the others all somberly nodded in acknowledgment before quietly backing away.
—O—
They hadn't meant to fall in love, Paige would swear later, over a gathering of the pilots and flight crew one night. It had started out as a general protectiveness on Tallie's part, because that was her job, after all, to protect the bulky bombers on their ponderously slow approach for bombing runs. That protectiveness was met by an equally powerful sense of gratitude Paige held for all their fighter escorts, and those sentiments held while their only contact was over comms.
But the first time their eyes met, across a dirty hangar and after a particularly close encounter attacking a First Order outpost, it felt to both women like the rest of the galaxy ceased to exist. All the people, all the ships, all the droids, all the motion and energy and noise simply faded away, leaving just two young women laying eyes on each other for the first time.
At the time, neither Tallie nor Paige had known that their lives would be irrevocably changed after that day. But in hindsight, it was glaringly obvious.
It was just a making-out session in the pilots' refresher, Tallie had told Commander Dameron after she and Paige had been caught by another crew member, flight suits mostly off and undergarments more than a bit disheveled. And anyway, that gunner was just ridiculously hot, Tallie had stammered to her commanding officer, who, judging from the smile he was trying to keep off his face, wasn't really as interested in punishing the A-wing pilot as it had seemed.
It was just a few kisses, Paige had told her sister Rose, ignoring the blush on her face that told Rose it had been significantly more. Maybe some groping, Paige had awkwardly added, but she had insisted that was it, and anyway, the pilot had been nova-hot, with her adorable little smile and cute red lips, even after a firefight. How could she have resisted that?
It was just some flowers, Tallie had hurriedly told her ground crew as she quickly pulled on her flight helmet; she was only partially successful in concealing the lovestruck grin on her face and flushing of her cheeks at the sight of the bright yellow blooms that had been neatly arranged and secured to her flight stick with a simple elastic hair tie before a mission, the same kind of hair tie that Paige Tico liked to use because they never got snagged in her hair.
It was just a note, Paige had grumbled to the rest of her bomber crew when the hand-written piece of flimsiplast with elegant handwriting on it had been noticed by Nix, the ship's bombardier. I'll be watching over you, was all it had said, but the little smiley face, stars and hearts drawn around the two lines of swirling script said more than the words themselves.
It was just sex, Tallie had told Commander Dameron, not believing a word of it. And so what if there was a single-grade rank discrepancy between her and Paige Tico? They didn't fly on the same ship, Tallie wasn't in a position of giving Paige orders and the Resistance was too low in numbers to enforce some stupid regulations, not when every able-bodied sentient was needed to keep up the fight. Besides, she was going to continue to see Paige anyway, and if that meant being busted down a grade in rank to make her and Paige equal, well, that was an acceptable sacrifice for the quiet, spiritual gunner who in less than a month had carefully made a place for herself in Tallie's heart.
It was just sex, Paige had told Rose after the younger Tico had walked in on her sister and the pilot (Paige had been right—Tallie really was adorable, even with her hair mussed into a frizz and her lip color smeared across Paige's face and the pillow they shared) asleep in the small bed on Paige's side of the tiny room she shared with Rose.
Rose hadn't believed a word of Paige's weak protests. It was all she could do to keep from laughing in her big sister's face, but she resisted the urge to call Paige out on her boldfaced lie, because she was so happy for her sister.
Do I need to give her my half of the necklace? Rose had asked Paige, carefully running her fingers over the gold alloy piece hanging over her sternum. I don't mind, really. That last part was a lie, but Rose wasn't going to let sentiment keep Paige from sharing something special with Tallie, not when it was obvious the two of them were going to be together forever.
Absolutely not, Paige had replied forcefully. This is ours, she had said, lifting her half of the golden disc from beneath her jacket, and I would never ask you to give that up.
Then it was Rose's turn to cry happily, knowing that her sister's heart would always have room enough for her.
—O—
The wedding had been hasty, right before an attack on a First Order supply convoy on the edge of the Outer Rim space. General Leia Organa herself had performed the ceremony, blessing the union between two of her soldiers. Due to time constraints, the ceremony had been performed in the fighter bay, with both Tallie and Paige in their flight gear.
Tallie had proposed in the shower that morning. I'm already down here on my knees, she had said with a cocky smirk, her lips and the skin around them glistening despite the rest of her face being dry. So why don't we make it official? Paige Tico, will you join with me?
Paige had nearly torn the door off the shower in her haste to jerk Tallie to her feet so she could drag her girlfriend out of the refresher and tell Rose the happy news.
She did remember to say yes first, though.
Rose, to her credit, hadn't stared too much at the sight of her sister and her sister's girlfriend both standing naked, dripping all over the metal floor, in the small room the three of them had shared for the last two months. After all, she had been listening to Paige and Tallie have sex for much of that time, and in truth it hadn't bothered her in the least. The two lovers always tried to be polite, stay quiet and not inundate Rose with their amorous activities, but from what Rose had heard (and seen), it was blindingly obvious how much Tallie loved and worshiped Paige, and how much Paige returned every bit of that love and devotion. How could Rose have a problem with them physically loving each other? It was close quarters, sure, but that couldn't be helped. And if it was a little weird listening to the soft whimpers, gasps and moans of her sister and her girlfriend make love, it didn't bother any of the three of them after a brief adjustment period, and that was what really mattered. Rose only hoped that one day she'd find someone to make her even half as happy as Tallie made Paige.
The attack on the convoy that day had been bad. Over half their remaining bombers had been lost due to the fighter escort being twice what their intelligence had indicated. But one of the bombers that made it back was the Cobalt Hammer, and that was due to the persistent efforts of the fighter escorts which destroyed over eighty percent of the TIE fighters and interceptors trying to defend the supply convoy.
When Tallie twisted her ankle coming down the egress ladder too quickly in her haste to find Paige, it was Rose standing there to help her back to her feet and steer her through the chaos to where the Hammer had landed. And, as tended to be the case with Paige and Tallie sharing things, Paige slammed her head into the edge of the hatch as she was trying to climb out of her ship and throw her arms around her new wife.
The Medical team put their beds together while an MD-droid sewed up the laceration across Paige's forehead and a nurse droid applied cryo-paste to Tallie's swollen ankle, and they were back in their tiny shared bed in less than an hour. Rose gave them two hours of privacy before she came in to prepare herself for bed, and by that time her sister and sister-in-law were fast asleep, Paige's arms around Tallie's waist as they slept peacefully.
She and Paige might have lost their original family, Rose thought proudly as she settled into her own bed, but they were building a new one for themselves.
—O—
"Where's Tallie?" Poe Dameron asked as he walked to the cruiser's bridge, en route to the post-mission report with General Organa and Admiral Ackbar. He tried not to slip in the puddles of liquid bacta that Finn had trailed down the hallway in his escape from Medical.
"She's... she's still in her fighter, sir," said the technician taking Poe's helmet and gloves while they walked, a young Coruscanti refugee named Wolda.
Poe stopped outside the door to the bridge and turned to look at the diminutive girl, who couldn't have been more than eighteen. He sighed wearily as he considered that no matter how bad he felt about today, Tallie felt infinitely worse. "Let her take as long as she needs, okay?" he finally told Wolda. "I'll be down there as soon as I can."
"Yes, sir," said the tech as she nodded and walked away.
—O—
Tallie never registered the sensation of the large cruiser slipping out of hyperspace and reverting back to realspace. Her right hand was sore from banging it against the sturdy frame of her A-wing, her throat burned from cries and screams and her eyes felt like she had poured powdered glass into them, as much as she had cried over the last few minutes.
Paige was gone. Her wife was gone.
How was she going to tell Rose?
Tallie had only been a part of their family for not quite a year, but Paige had been there for Rose the younger woman's entire life. How could Tallie break Rose's heart like that?
It was my fault, she thought angrily to herself. She should have flown faster, she should have shot down the TIE that took out the Hammer's cockpit sooner, she should have used her own fighter to push the bomber away from the dreadnought, she should have—
Stop blaming yourself, spoke a ghostly voice from somewhere just over Tallie's shoulder.
The brunette spun her head around so fast that her neck popped. But all she could see was exposed wiring that should have been covered by the access panel that had been missing for months.
"Paige?" Tallie whispered, as much to herself as to anyone else who might have been listening. Had she imagined it, out of grief and guilt and shame?
I will always be with you.
Tallie's body shuddered uncontrollably as she heard the voice again, there and not-there at once, and she remembered the last time she had heard Paige say those words.
—O—
"So what are we going to do once the war's over and the First Order's been beaten?" Tallie asked Paige, who was warm and secure in Tallie's arms while they watched a holonet drama.
The two of them were curled up atop their bed in the quarters they shared with Rose, Tallie's back leaning against the wall behind them and Paige's back against Tallie's chest. Rose sat on her own bed across the small room, sipping a fruity drink she had smuggled back from the Raddus's canteen. Jessika Pava, one of the X-wing pilots and Tallie's friend, and her girlfriend Kaydel Ko Connix, a communications officer and member of General Organa's command staff, had made a little nest on the floor between the two beds out of foam padding and blankets where they could lean back against the door. Girls' Holo Night had become a tradition among the small group of friends, one that was partaken of whenever time and duty rosters would permit.
After a brief period of consideration, Paige twisted her head back and to the side so she could look into her wife's eyes. "Start a family with you," Paige said dreamily.
A thin pillow flew over Jessika's and Kaydel's heads, hitting Paige's face and chest and causing the woman to laugh wildly.
"You two are the worst!" Rose said with a laugh, not meaning any of it. "All lovey-dovey and ridiculously adorable every minute of it!"
Tallie laughed as she kissed Paige's dark hair, tossing Rose's pillow back toward the younger Tico but making sure it didn't quite make it back to the bed.
"Careful, Lintra," Jessika teased without moving Kaydel from where the blonde was leaning back against her, much the same position as Paige and Tallie. "You almost put that pillow in my girl's lap. But then I guess I should expect that from an A-wing jockey, all speed and no precision."
"Um, my wife doesn't seem to complain," Tallie retorted quickly.
"Mm, Tal, you hit all my targets right... on... the... dot," Paige said, lowering her voice to a near purr as she shifted and curled more into her wife's embrace.
"Force, you pilots and your egos," Kaydel swore lightly, unable to keep the smile off her young face as she twirled a sprig of her honey blonde hair through her fingers and focused on the feel of Jessika's arms around her. "It's all I can do to keep you in line on a good day, Jess, and that's before you and Tallie start trying to measure clitorises." Kaydel turned and kissed Jessika on the lips, lingering there for long enough (and using enough tongue) to ensure that her girlfriend's train of thought was totally derailed before she gently pulled away with a soft, wet noise as their lips separated. Seeing the look of blank distraction on Jessica's features persist, Kaydel grinned confidently, with more than a bit of pride in her work.
Rose twisted her body, leaning off the small bed to retrieve the pillow from between Kaydel's bare feet. "You threw it there on purpose," Rose said playfully as she stretched for the pillow, nearly sliding off the bed into Kaydel's lap as well; with a laugh, Jessica and Kaydel helped catch Rose, keeping her from toppling onto the floor. "Just to make me lose my comfy little spot. You know it took me forever to get my pillow adjusted just right."
"Maybe," Tallie replied smugly, getting laughs from Kaydel and Jessika. She closed her eyes as Paige settled back against her once more, the comfort of being around her friends and the solid warmth and feel of her wife's body against hers the most wonderful sensation Tallie could ever imagine.
And that comfort brought up a thought that Tallie didn't want to consider. A shudder swept through her body as thoughts of loss washed over her. As close as they were, she knew Paige felt it at least physically and probably emotionally as well, as the raven-haired woman always seemed to pick up on others' thoughts and feelings.
"And what—" Tallie stopped, aware that she was probably going to break the happy mood of the moment. Space it, Paige always wanted her to be honest and to listen to her feelings. She gathered her resolve, then tried again. "And what happens... if we don't?" Ignoring the burning of her eyes, she managed to get out, "If that mission comes where we... don't make it back?"
Paige looked up over her shoulder again, her smile as happy as ever. "Then we become part of the Force," she said confidently.
Paige fished her necklace out from beneath the edge of her thin nightshirt. "The Force is part of us, just like it's part of the universe. When we're born, our spirits come from the Force. And when we die, our spirits rejoin the Force." She ran the tip of her finger along the curve of her half of the medallion she shared with her sister. "It's the oldest, deepest cycle. When our physical life is over, we return to the Force, to the universe. To those who died before us, and to those who'll come after us."
Paige lifted her left arm and ran her fingers through Tallie's soft, long brown hair. "If something happens to separate us, Tallissan Lintra, it's only going to be temporary. Because ultimately we'll both rejoin the Force, and then our spirits will be together forever, as part of the universe itself."
Paige smiled, and the joy in her face would have melted Tallie's heart, had it not already been reduced to a soft goo months ago by the smart, funny, beautiful, profound woman in her arms.
"I will always be with you," Paige said firmly before kissing Tallie on the lips.
—O—
The shrill klaxon of the alarm shook Tallie from the bittersweet comfort of her memories. It took her a moment to register that the alarm was real and not just piercing inside her head. She wiped her eyes with the back of her gloves, which stung slightly as the rough fabric scratched her face, then she pulled the gloves off to swipe at her eyes with her bare fingers.
"What's going on?" she said, with a regular voice that was immediately drowned out by the shrieking alarm. Raising her voice, she shouted over her shoulder to her astromech. "Squeaky, what's happening? Why is the alarm sounding?"
Multiple First Order star destroyers as well as an even larger ship have emerged from hyperspace behind us, responded the droid on the cockpit's display. Fighter squadrons have already launched from multiple ships and will be upon us in seconds.
"Kriff!" Tallie swore, her heart hurting and her anger burning like an inferno. It wasn't enough that the First Order sithspawn had taken her wife and her future, but now they had to attack again, trying to wipe out everything Tallie valued?
"Restart the engines," Tallie said firmly. "Ignore the pre-flight checklist. Are we attached to anything on the ground, a fuel hose, power cable, anything?"
The droid's trills indicated a negative, something Tallie didn't need a translation for. "Okay, good," she said, tugging her gloves back on. The First Order was going to pay for what they had taken from Tallie, what they had taken from Rose. She was going to make them pay. "Shift power to repulsors right away once the engines are up, then as soon as we're off the deck, charge the shields and weapons, because we're going to need them as soon as we hit space."
The droid tootled her reply, but Tallie never heard it. The concussion of the blast wave erupting through the hangar, igniting starfighters, munitions and fuel alike as it tore its way through the helpless hangar and crew trapped inside it, struck Tallie's face and chest before the sound of the roaring flames and the all-consuming heat accompanying them could be registered.
In the bare moment she had left, Tallie began to reach for the switch to close her cockpit, only to stop as she realized it wasn't going to help. She closed her eyes against the blinding white light and thought of Paige's smiling face as she let her hand fall to her lap, relinquishing her anger to focus on something better.
I'll see you soon, she thought, at peace with her fate. She didn't have time to finish her smile.
—O—
It had only felt hot for a moment, surprisingly, a single prolonged instant of searing heat that withered her throat and burned her eyes and overwhelmed everything.
And then it was cool, and dark, and the contrast was so extreme that Tallie laughed.
Surprised at the clarity of the sound, she tried to look around, but everything was dark, darker than it could ever be in space with all the stars and planets and celestial phenomena vast and varied.
Then she felt arms circle around her chest, and hands that were small but surprisingly strong settled over her breasts, and she knew, she knew, who was holding her.
"I told you I'd always be with you," Paige whispered as Tallie broke down in tears for the second time in minutes.
Paige shushed her wife, placing soft, lingering kisses on Tallie's head, on her ears, on her cheeks, on her nose, on her lips as the pilot slowly fought out of the emotional maelstrom and back into some sense of coherence. However long it took, seconds or minutes or years, Tallie never felt Paige's arms lessen their secure grip on her.
"Been a rough day, huh?" Paige asked, the clear tone of amusement in her voice, and Tallie laughed in shock as much as in mirth.
"Yeah, it has," Tallie replied, opening her eyes and looking up to see Paige's beautiful face looking back at her. Her soft brown eyes seemed to shine, although maybe that was just due to the contrast from the absolute void around them. "Where... where are we?"
"Stars, you don't ever listen to me, do you?" Paige said teasingly, grinning as Tallie reflexively rolled her eyes at one of their favorite playful arguments. "We're in the Force, Tallie, just I like told you months ago."
"So the Force is actually real? Like, an afterlife real? I mean, I knew you believed it was real, but this..."
Paige thought a flustered Tallie was maybe the cutest thing ever, all eyes sweeping back and forth and nervous starts and stops and fidgety hands and feet. "Real, belief, those are questions for philosophers and metaphysicists, not for a beat-up turret gunner and an incredibly hot A-wing pilot," she said.
Tallie let her hands move down Paige's body, feeling the warm sensation of her wife's skin beneath her fingers, with no clothing detectable. On either of them, apparently, she thought as she felt Paige's fingertips caress down her back and onto her butt, while a strong sense of desire and pride swept through her in reaction to her wife's touch.
"Nothing's between us now," Paige said, smiling. "I can feel your feelings here, babe, just like you can feel mine. We're part of each other in a way that we never could have been while we were in physical bodies."
"It was pretty fun to try," Tallie said, smiling in that cocky way that made Paige all hot and bothered.
'We're going to be trying again in just a minute, too," Paige said, lightly pressing the tip of her right index finger to Tallie's lips. "We have all of eternity to be together. But we can't completely let go of the physical world just yet."
It only took a heartbeat for Tallie to know what Paige meant. "Rose," she breathed out. "She's going to be devastated."
Paige nodded, and Tallie could feel the heartache in her wife's very being. "She will," she agreed. "We have to fly escort for her. At least for a while longer."
Paige kissed Tallie on the lips. "That's what I was thinking, too. She's strong and she'll survive, but she might need us to encourage her from time to time."
"Can she hear us?" Tallie asked, surprised. "I remember reading stories about some Jedi appearing as Force spirits in the past, but we're no Jedi."
"I have no idea if she'll be able to hear us," Paige said as she rested her head against Tallie's bare shoulder, sliding her body tightly against her partner, grateful beyond measure that they would never be separated again. "But we'll never let her be alone."
And they never did.
—O—
Author's Afterword: I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on what might have been. If you cried, rest assured I cried with you while writing this. Despite their brief time on screen with us, Tallie and Paige were both heroes, and they earned their happiness with their sacrifices. May the Force be with them, and with us all.