Iris kept pulling out her necklace, ready to communicate back with the people who'd be able to relay her words to Kylo Ren. But then she kept tucking it back under her shirt again. What the hell was she supposed to say? 'Sorry that you killed your dad?' 'Your mom seems like a nice woman?' 'Is there some way for you to pull me out now before I fall in any deeper with these people?' But none of those would be appropriate.

Now that she thought about it, Iris actually had no idea when she'd be able to go home. None of this had been planned at all. And Kylo Ren had no way of communicating anything to Iris. All she could do was send out messages. It was possible that Iris was expected to stay with the Resistance until it could be destroyed.

Things had been so much easier back on the Starkiller base. Iris had never needed to worry about what people were feeling, or about what she was expected to do. Everything had always been written out very clearly, and she'd never been expected to do anything without receiving exact instructions first. As strange as it was, Iris couldn't help thinking that there was almost a sort of freedom in that sort of restricting environment. She'd never had to worry about what was going to happen next, while here, she needed to be constantly on her toes.

The door to the bathroom rattled as someone tried to open it, and found that it was locked. There was an annoyed grumble on the other side. "Who the hell locked the door?"

Iris knew that it wasn't fair to lock herself in one of the larger bathrooms, but the single stall one had been occupied, and obviously Iris didn't want an audience to her talking to the Order.

She walked over to the door and unlocked it, an apologetic look on her face. "Sorry. I'm just used to not having to share a bathroom and I didn't want to-" The woman shoved past Iris, not caring about the girl's excuses.

Iris shrugged, and left the room. She slowly walked down the hallway, still not sure where exactly she should go. Unlike everyone else running around this place, Iris didn't really have any specific purpose. No one had given her any job or task or even a simple chore. She wasn't sure if it was because they didn't fully trust her (which would be smart of them) or because they'd forgotten about her already, or just because they didn't know how much she'd be able to handle. But no matter what the reason was, the point was that Iris didn't have anything to do.

Iris decided to head down to the hanger. She saw a couple of pilots suiting up with grim expressions on their faces, and heading for their little ships. The ones with guns on them. Iris spotted the familiar face of Poe, and hurried over to him. "Hey!" She had to shout louder for him to hear her. "HEy!" Poe turned and saw Iris.

He frowned. "What are you doing here?"

Iris looked around at the other pilots. "What's going on? Where are you going?" Poe hesitated, and Iris rolled her eyes. "Everyone keeps saying that this isn't a place where people have to secrets kept from them by higher ups. So what's going on?"

Poe's shoulders slumped down a bit. "We got a distress signal from Dalton 6. It's not the type of place where they'd send a signal out for anything short of an invasion or a major attack. We're going to go and assess the situation, and figure out what we can do to help."

Iris peered up at the pilot with wide eyes. "Can I come with you?" Poe shook his head. "Please? I promise that I won't get in the way. I won't even say anything to you that could distract you. I'll be good, I swear." She sighed. "I feel so useless here, you know? Like, I'm here now, but I'm not actually doing anybody any good. Please, just give me a chance to do some good."

Poe let out a long sigh of defeat. "We're leaving right now. There's no time for you to go and do anything else."

The girl nodded eagerly. "That's fine!" She rushed over to where the spare pilot uniforms were hanging, and quickly pulled it on. Learning how to change in an efficient amount of time was something she'd learned years ago. Poe tossed her a helmet, and beckoned for her to get onto his little ship with him.

Some of the other pilots were doubling up in their ships, but Poe was good enough on his own that he didn't need a partner. Which left the seat next to him open for Iris to plop down and strap herself in. A moment later, they were taking off, and the pilots were all speaking flighty jargon through their ship communicators.

Iris peered out the window with awe. It was incredible to see the stars rushing past, and the sky looked beautiful. She turned to look at Poe curiously. She wanted to ask him how long it would take to get to their destination, and whether or not this ship was equipped with a hyperdrive engine so that they could go into hyperspace.

Poe felt Iris's eyes on him, and he laughed quietly. "It's okay to ask whatever it is that you want to ask."

"Oh." Iris gulped. She pulled up her necklace and gripped it tightly, opening the communication channel. "Can this ship go into hyperspace? And how long will it take us to get to Dalton 5?"

Poe smiled. "No, these ships aren't large enough to have hyperdrive engines. And I already told you that we're going to Dalton 6. If they're under attack, we need to do everything we can to help them. We should be there in about three hours. It's actually really close."

Iris nodded, and tucked her necklace away again. It obviously wouldn't be possible for the Order to prevail every time the Resistance wanted to do anything, because that would give away the fact that there was an inside man. But that didn't mean that Iris was going to withhold information. It was up to people with much higher ranks than Iris to decide which of their endeavors were worth interfering in.

Then Iris's eyes widened as it occurred to her that if the Order was going to stage an ambush of some sort now that they knew the Resistance was coming, they would have no way of knowing which ship Iris was in. She'd be killed, and it would be seen as an acceptable loss since she was just one cadet.

The girl groaned, and leaned her forehead against the window. Poe noticed the sudden shift in mood. "What's wrong?"

Iris shrugged. "I've never flown in such a small ship. It's sort of making my stomach spin circles inside of me."

Poe smiled sympathetically. "Yeah, the first time can make people sick. Just don't throw up, okay? Because I'm not looking forward to having to clean that up."

Iris chuckled softly, then leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. After a while, she turned her head to look at Poe. "Would you die for what you believe in? I mean, like the Resistance?"

"Well, I nearly have once already. The Resistance is important. And if I want lots of people to be safe, then sacrificing my one life would be worth it. Not that I want to die, of course. I'd do everything in my power to get out of the situation that I could. But once I'd exhausted every option, then yes, I'd be prepared to die. Why? Are you scared? Don't worry. There's no way that anyone could know we're coming."

Iris sighed. "I'm not scared. I was just wondering." If Poe was willing to die for the Resistance, then maybe it would be okay. Iris would be dying for the Order, which sounded terrifying, but if Poe could do it, then so could Iris. She wouldn't let herself give in to her fear and confess. The Order wouldn't appreciate losing their advantage just to save one girl's life, and they'd probably have her executed for that anyways. So it was best to just keep her mouth shut.

A little while after that, the sound of shooting was loud enough to be heard. All the pilots immediately snapped to attention, and began shouting instructions at each other. Iris wasn't sure how they managed to actually figure out what anyone was saying when they all kept shouting over each other, but they seemed to be working together well enough.

Iris's eyes widened a bit as she looked around. There hadn't been an ambush set up. Not exactly. There were ships still showing up to the party, but all of the Resistance hadn't been blown to bits, so that was a definite plus. Until the large black ships turned towards the smaller ones and began shooting them down.

But it didn't pass Poe or Iris's attention that the ships were only being damaged enough to send them crashing down to the planet's surface, but not enough to completely disintegrate them. Poe handled the sudden situation like a champ, maneuvering around large blasts and sending out some shots of his own.

Even he couldn't last forever, though. A blast hit the back of the ship, and a moment later, it was plummeting to Dalton 6. Iris fumbled to unbuckled herself, and Poe furrowed his eyebrows. He had to shout to be heard over the sound of air rushing all around them. "What are you doing?"

Iris leaned over and unbuckled Poe's seatbelt as well. He didn't bother fighting her. "I'm saving our asses!" She kicked open the door next to her, and grabbed Poe's arm, yanking him along after her. She looked out at the ground which they were rapidly approaching. In less than a minute, they'd be crushed if they stayed inside the ship when it made impact.

However, they did have a slight chance of survival outside. Iris let go of Poe and jumped. He followed her, and they both tugged on their emergency shoots. They were so close to the ground, though, that they didn't do much to slow them down, though they were still probably better than nothing.

Poe and Iris both crashed into the ground a few yards away from the ship, which hit just seconds after they did. Little pieces of metal went flying everywhere. Both humans tumbled around for a bit before rolling to a stop. Iris sat up first, and quickly checked herself over. She had new bruises and scrapes all over her, but nothing too serious.

Then Poe groaned so Iris looked over at him, and her eyes widened. There was a giant metal rod impaled in Poe's leg. She pressed one hand over her mouth, and crawled the few feet over to him. "Oh no. This is all my fault. I'm so sorry."

The pilot brushed aside her concern, and saw up without any assistance. "This is in no way your fault." His hand went towards his belt, and he pulled up his communicator. It was obvious just from looking at it that it had been crushed by the fall. "Did yours fare any better?"

Iris squeezed her eyes shut. "I don't have it with me. I wasn't planning on going anywhere when I got up this morning."

Poe laughed. "That's why you're supposed to just bring it with you everywhere. It's not like it's some big clunky inconvenient thing, right?" He shrugged. "Well, I don't think we're going to be of much help to the people who sent that distress signal. Hopefully one of our guys called for backup before they were shot down."

The girl got to her feet a bit shakily. There was a pretty big cut in her shoulder from where some of the metal had sliced through. It wasn't hard to tear off her sleeve and wrap it around the wound. Then she looked down at Poe helplessly. "Should I pull that out?"

He shook his head. "Then I'd probably die of blood loss. Just go and find some help or something. I'll be fine, I promise." He frowned. "I just don't know how the Order knew to come here. I wonder if they're working with the others who attacked this place?" He shrugged. "We'll figure it out later. For now, just go and get some help."

It would be easy for Iris to run off and find somewhere private. Then she could just use her necklace to ask for a ride back to the Starkiller base, and inform Kylo Ren that she was tired of this undercover stuff. But then Poe would die out here, all alone. And knowing him, he'd die worried that something horrible had happened to Iris.

She couldn't do that to the pilot. He was a good person. He deserved better. And the longer Iris stayed with the Resistance and earned their trust, the easier it would be to learn more useful information that she could convey back to the Order. But Iris knew nothing about this planet. Leaving now, even to get help, could mean a death sentence for Poe either way.

Iris bent down and grabbed one of Poe's arms, slinging it around her good shoulder. Then she stood up with a grunt of effort, lifting Poe with her. "No offense, but I doubt that you're strong enough to bring a full grown man all the way to wherever we're going to go." His words were spoken with deliberate effort, and his eyes were starting to look cloudy and unfocused.

Iris clenched her jaw, and took a few steps forward, staggering under Poe's weight. "I'm going to bring you with me. I'm not going to let you die here. Now let's go." She took another step forward, and they both plunged towards the ground. Before they could hit it, though, Iris was able to regain her balance, and suddenly she found that Poe felt like he weighed nothing.

The grown man almost sounded like he was giggling. Iris glanced back at the blood trail behind them. Even with the rod still in, Poe was losing blood at an alarming rate. "I think I'm flying," he mumbled. It sounded like he was already starting to get delirious.

Iris decided that there was nothing she could do other than get him some help, so she kept moving forward with determination. Though it was suddenly a lot easier to move Poe. Iris decided not to question this sudden miracle, and she just kept going. "Come on. I don't know where we're going, but I'm sure that we're close to getting there."

As they moved, Poe reached out sluggishly to grab at Iris's necklace. "This is pretty. How come you keep it hidden away most of the time?"

Iris sighed. "It was found on me when I was a baby. I have no memory of any sort of family, but I imagine that it must've been important. Which means that I must've been important, to at least someone, right? Why would someone give me that if they didn't care about me?" She gulped. Of course the necklace hadn't been given to her by any family. Anything that she may have owned before being taken in by the Order would be long gone by now.

Not everything out of Iris's mouth was a lie, though. There had to be someone out there that wanted her. Someone who actually would give a damn about what had happened. Someone who had cried when they lost their child.

Iris shook her head. There was no point in thinking about that stuff. She had a family, of sorts. Maybe there wasn't the same love and affection between them that other families had, but they did have strengths that normal families didn't. They could rely on each other in fights, and they always tried to motivate each other, and they could talk about whatever they wanted to amongst themselves. Or maybe biological families had those things too. There was no for Iris to know either way.

After a while of walking, Iris could see the outline of a city. She tugged on Poe excitedly. "Come on! Come on, we're so close!" Poe didn't respond, and when Iris looked at him, his eyes were closed. He'd been so light the entire time that Iris hadn't felt the need to stop and rest at all, which meant that she hadn't been checking on the injured pilot. She sank to the ground, and carefully laid out Poe so she wouldn't be jostling his leg too much. "Poe?" Iris closed her eyes, and let out a soft sigh. She wasn't going to shed tears for a fallen enemy, but she could still respect his life, and the loss of it.

Iris gently took one of Poe's hands. "I'm truly sorry for all of this. I'll make sure that I return this body to-"

There was the sound of footsteps behind Iris, and then the muzzle of a blaster was being pressed against the back of her head. "Well, hello little mizzy." Iris rolled her eyes. Just her luck, right?

A/N For those of you who are concerned, I'm just going to say right now that this story doesn't contain any non-cannon major character death