Chapter 3

When I wake up, the familiar sterile ceiling of the med bay is above me. The crook of my right arm itches from the IV tube. Jess is asleep in the chair beside my bed. I sit up, overcome by thirst. And shame. For my thirst at least, there is a bottle of water on the side table and I finish it within minutes. By the time I've screwed the cap back on Jess is awake.

She regards me with wary eyes.

"Hi there, stranger. How're you feeling?"

She leans over and presses the button on the wall behind me.

"Couldn't give me two minutes to compose my sob story?" I sound like a frog. She smiles a tiny, tiny smile.

"You scared us good. Fucking stars, Roshana almost passed out when you started shaking. No, convulsing, really. She thought you were gonna die. She thought you'd inhaled something while working on her ship. Poor girl. She refused to leave this place. I managed to kick her out only after promising to call as soon as you wake up."

It's coming back to me now. I remember the wave of nausea, the trembling in my hands that started just as I was about to start finishing up. I shut my eyes.

"Did I finish repairing the humidifier?"

"What?" Jessika's eyes widen.

"The humidifier. It really was malfunctioning. I had to - "

But I'm rudely interrupted by a flying pillow. Next Jess picks up the water bottle, aiming squarely at my face. She looks half-crazed.

"I swear, you say one more word about that fucking humidifier -"

At this point I'm laughing too much to say anything anyway, and Kala, does it feel good to laugh. My stomach's knotted up in the best way possible and for a moment there, it's just Jess and me; her mouth twisting into a smirk; her eyes warm.

We're interrupted by the nurse she called for; he checks my pulse, asks me all the usual questions - 'have you been eating well, sleeping well, having nightmares, seeing the therapist' - and I give him the answers he wants. They're all lies of course. I just want to be let out of there. He advises me to continue seeing my therapist and after handing me a bottle of vitamin supplements, takes out the IV tube and signs me out of the ward. If this was a real hospital, I wouldn't be let off so easily. But this is the Resistance. The med bay is understaffed and chronically filled with panicked officers and cadets. Almost everyone on board has PTSD of some sort. There is only so much time they can devote to each patient, fortunately for me.

Jess isn't happy about it. She says nothing, as we leave the med bay, but there's a look in her eyes.

For a few moments we walk in silence. She asks me if I want to eat. I say no. She glares at me. I sigh in defeat. We turn left to get to the mess hall, but we're soon intercepted by a short, plump woman with very severe cropped hair.

She stands with her hands on her hips and glares at Jess and points to her pager. Jess takes hers out of her pocket and turns it on. She looks annoyed but she follows the woman nonetheless. And drags me along with her. Probably as proof that I really was ill and she hadn't gone off-grid for fun. Which means I'm going to be blamed for her not turning up for whatever it is that she was supposed to turn up to.

"Commander Dameron has been looking for you all morning. Code red for the Black squadron. He'll brief you soon enough. Why the hell; was your pager switched off Pava? Even BB-8 was unable to find you."

The short woman's voice is stern but face is unreadable. She leads us to the hangar. She's about a head shorter than me, her stride about half of mine and I'm still not able to keep up.

"I was in the med bay, Jeyela. Roshana knew. Why didn't she say anything?" Jess looks unperturbed but I know she's bursting inside. They weren't expecting another mission this early in the week.

The short lady casts me a look when I enter the hangar with them, but doesn't say anything. She points to the group gathered around Jess' X-wing. "Good luck," is all she says before she leaves.


The members of the Black squadron do not seem like they've ever heard of a code red in their life. Snap's seated on the floor, limbs sprawled, eating a banana; Roshana's talking to someone on the comm.; the Commander is tinkering around with his droid; Darekh's staring into space; only the raven-haired man seems tense as he paces round and round the plane.

"Jess are you sure I should even be here…." I mutter uncertainly but she shushes me.

"Commander Dameron!"

"Pava! Finally. Fucking stars, where the hell have you been? Why was your pager turned off?" Poe Dameron springs up at the sound of her voice.

"I'm sorry, sir; I was in the medical bay - "

"What's wrong with you?" His brow furrows immediately.

"Not me, sir. Raza was taken ill."

"Oh. Um, I hope you're doing okay?" He's just noticed my presence.

"I'm fine now. Thanks. If you want me to leave, let me -" My voice is shaky but it doesn't matter; he's already moved on.

"All right. It's a rescue mission. General Loish, of Zelca, has been stranded on the moon T-98ID of planet Holoserca, Galaxy Y89, which is a long way off as you know so time is of the essence here."

Jess looks slightly embarrassed at that but he doesn't pause.

"He is also a Senator and sympathetic to our cause. He was on his way home after meeting Senator Yull of Killick when his ship crashed onto this apparently uninhabited satellite. That's the official story anyway. Actually he was on Killick to talk to one of our arms suppliers. And he was gunned down by the First Order. That's why he's stuck. Leia personally asked us to undertake this so we absolutely cannot fuck this up; to make matters worse, his eight year old daughter is on board with him."

He pauses, looking at each and every member of his team before continuing.

"Darekh, Roshana, Snap; you'll be coming with me."

Darekh and Snap nod; Rosha flashes a a quick smile and then assumes an expression so grave, you'd think someone had died.

"Pava, I need you on standby - " She does not look happy but she doesn't argue with him. He turns to the raven haired man and says, "Findley, I need you in the command room." The man looks relieved. He salutes Dameron and waves to the others, holding his hand up high before running off to Headquarters.

"Pava, until we call for backup, you're in charge here. We need eyes on the First Order and on Loish's home planet. You need to keep me updated on every detail. All right let's go! Let's go!" He pats Jess on the shoulder as he turns away. The others are already suiting up, putting on helmets; there are people running to and from their planes, loading medical supplies, food, batteries.

Suddenly, Dameron turns around. "Fuck! I almost forgot. We need a mechanic. Leia's orders. Apparently Loish specifically asked for one. Jess send one up as soon as you can. "

"Raza's a mechanic. And she's really good, she fixed my humidifier. Why can't we take her?" Roshana shrugs.

Everyone turns to look at me.

I don't know what to say. "Yeah, I guess I could - "

"Brilliant." He doesn't even let me finish. "Suit up. You'll be coming with me." And with that, he's off. Everyone follows suit and I start walking towards the supply cabinet. All of the ships have a toolkit on board but there are some extra things I want to take, just in case.

"Wait!"

Jess runs up to me and puts her hands on my shoulders. "Are you sure you're okay? I don't think this is a good idea, you just had a terrible attack yesterday, I'm gonna kill that idiot! I can't believe she volunteered you! She knew you'd been ill - "

"Jess, really, I'm fine. Yesterday was one bad day. Who on this ship is sane anyway? Everyone's walking around with some unresolved PTSD debt bullshit." Even I can hear the bitterness in my voice. So I try a smile.

"I'll be fine. The change will probably do me good. I'm going to be getting off this stupid ship after ages. I'm pumped!" I shrug. Snap walks past us, brow furrowed as he mutters into a mic.

Jess steps back to let me take the suit one of the hangar bots offers to me.

"You do NOT look pumped."

I catch sight of my reflection in the metal door of the X-wing before me. I laugh because she's right. I look like I haven't slept for days. But I feel restless; the good kind of restless born out of adrenaline. I quickly put on the orange flight suit.

"I'll be fine Jess. It's just a rescue. You'll see me soon. Now go." I smile again and this time its genuine. I'm touched by how much she cares. For someone she's known for hardly a year. She pauses; searching my face for I don't know what, gives me a brief, tight hug and then she's gone.


Flying with Commander Poe Dameron is a surprisingly easy experience.

It's my first time in an X-wing that involves actually flying it, not dismantling its engines. I'm sitting in the co-pilot's seat no less. I should be nervous. Excited, at least. Instead I feel calm. So calm I could fall asleep. I look over at him for the second time since take off and spot a slight, extremely slight smile playing on his lips. I've never seem him more at ease than he is now. My father used to say, a great pilot becomes the plane. Or some such. I see what he meant.

"Moving into hyperspeed in 3….2…." He calmly pushes the the shift ahead and I look out of the window in time to catch one last glimpse of Snap's plane before we're engulfed in a thousand brilliant streaks of light. The ship shudders violently and then the vibration dies down to a low constant hum.

"That shouldn't be happening right? The jerk? Do you want me to look into it once we're back?" I blurt out without thinking.

"I'd be very impressed if you could even figure out why that's happening. A lot of people have tried. No one's been able to find the problem." He smiles that same annoying smile again. "I just figured she's getting old. But yeah, go ahead. Maybe you'll be luckier."

"Maybe." I turn my attention to the front. But he seems to want to chat all of a sudden.

"So where did you learn to fix X wings?"

"My father. He was a mechanic. I used to help around when I was small."

"That's nice. Where is your father now?"

"He died when I was fifteen."

The smile on his face fades. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right."

He's still looking at me, his eyes soft. I feel lightheaded for some reason.

"My mother died when I was sixteen."

"Do you miss her?"

The question falls out before I can complete the thought.

He sighs. "Sometimes I'm afraid I'll forget her. Sometimes it takes a lot of concentration to even remember her face clearly. Eventually I do, but…." He pauses, looking out of the window; we're still in hyperspeed.

"I do miss her. I'll just see something that reminds me of her and then it's back to square one. But it's not as painful anymore. Sometimes it is, but not usually. Do you?"

I nod. "It's the same with me. It does get easier. It happened with my dad so I'm hoping it'll work the same way this time around."

"Did you lose someone else?"

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry."

For a while there's silence and we're both looking out into space; there's this sense of having trespassed into forbidden territory; there are rules as to how much intimacy is allowed between two relative strangers; especially when one of them is a Commander of the Resistance and the other is just a lowly mechanic.

But the moment passes and I turn to him hesitantly.

"Commander?"

"Just call me Dameron, it's fine."

"All right, Dameron ,how long until we reach?"

"It's going to take us 18 hours and 37 minutes. Give or take another 30 minutes." His face is solemn once again.

"Fucking stars."

He only laughs.