Thanks for all the faves/follows/reviews! Also - real quick - I heard from a few of you that FF didn't update your alerts last time I updated (weird). So just in case you haven't read Chapter 8 yet, go forth and do before you start here. :) Happy reading!


Chapter 9: Dantooine

It was quiet. Too quiet, for Mila's taste. The base seemed empty, hollow, lackluster. She was barely sleeping. Even when she did, it was restless and sporadic, and when she woke up the next morning, she felt as if she'd had no rest at all.

She was terrified.

A week had passed, and she had heard nothing. Not from her platoon, not from Jaren's Pathfinder battalion, and not – most frighteningly of all – from Rapier Squadron. The thought gnawed on her conscience as she stood on the overlook, gazing out over the stars as they peaked through Hosnian's darkening sky. Kit had felt well enough to join her, and the two looked back and forth between the fading sunset and the flight line.

Mila hadn't said a word.

"Lieutenant?" Kit asked, his brow knotting with concern. "You alright?"

Mila turned, forcing a smile and nodding. Still she didn't speak; she only blew out a long, labored breath.

"You sure?"

"I'm fine, bud. Just… winded."

Kit nodded, frowning a little. He sighed. "I'm scared, too."

Mila's brow furrowed.

"I'd have thought Karé'd commed me by now. Or Poe."

They both fell silent.

Anxiety leaked into Mila's eyes even as she tried to will it away. "You don't think something's happened, and that's why we haven't heard—"

"Hey," Kit said, putting a hand – which was strengthening – on her arm, trying to offer a little bit of comfort. "Things work a little differently in the air than they do on the ground. With any part of the Starfleet, no news is usually good news. They'll be alright. Just as the only fighter squadron that's along for the ride, they're up to their eyeballs right now. The second they get a break, we'll hear something. Just wait." He smiled gently. "He won't leave you hanging forever, Mila. Promise."

"He? Don't you mean 'they?'"

Kit grinned. "No," he replied, shaking his head. "No, no, no. Definitely 'he.'" His smile broadened. "I've seen the way he looks at you."

Mila scoffed, grinning. "Oh, please."

"I'm not kidding!"

"That's the pain killer talking, buddy."

"Is it?"

Mila's voice shook with nervous laughter. "Yes, it is."

Mischief gleamed in Kit's eyes. "You don't sound too sure about that."

Mila sighed, shaking her head. "What am I gonna do with you?"

Kit shrugged, an innocent smile stretching across his face.

Laughing softly, Mila looked back at the flight line, her eyes tracing the wispy white starfighter contrails that twisted through the clouds and across the red sky. Her fingers wrapped around the railing, her shoulders sagging as her smile faded. Kit put a hand on her shoulder.

"You don't need to worry," he reassured softly. "He always comes back, Mila. You wait and see. He told you he would." He gently nudged her arm with his elbow. "So why not believe him?"

Though she still smiled, a wistful sadness sparkled in Mila's eyes. She sighed. "Sometimes it's just not that simple, bud."

Kit's eyes wandered to the horizon, where a few fighters were landing for the night.

"It could be, Mila, if you let it."

Though she didn't answer with words, a small smile crept across her worried façade. "I wish I could."

Kit's face fell. His eyes wandered up to the sky, which was nearly dark. Stars slowly began to peek through, and he mulled over them one by one, sulking a little bit when he reached Dantooine.

"I wish I was there with them," he said sullenly.

Mila sighed, her shoulders sagging as she looked up at the stars. "So do I."

She chewed at her bottom lip, frowning as she raked the sky with her eyes. Kit suddenly smiled, an idea popping into his head.

"You know which one's Dantooine?" he asked.

Mila shook her head.

Kit grinned, pointing ahead of him into the sky. "That real bright one, just above where the sky's turning purple. See it?"

Mila leaned a closer to him, squinting as she tried to follow his directions. "I don't know," she said, craning her neck.

"That's 'cause you're looking the wrong way," Kit laughed. "Follow my finger. Straight out in front of you. That Y-wing's about to pass right underneath it. There it goes. See it now?"

Mila's face brightened, a real smile stretching across the corners of her mouth. "That bright bluish one?"

"Yep," Kit nodded, grinning. "That's it." He turned and smiled at her. "Doesn't seem so far away now, does it?"

Mila's lips parted a little, and she found herself nodding.

A soft smile spread across Kit's face. "I do that for my Aly whenever I have to leave. Showed her where Dantooine was before we took off, so she could look up and see me while I was gone." His smile broadened. "Corny as all get out, I know, but she says it helps. Had I been thinking, I'd have told Poe to do the same thing for you." His voice softened knowingly. "Makes it a little easier, now that you can see where he is, doesn't it?"

Mila drew in a deep breath and nodded, leaning against the railing and fixing her eyes on the system in the distance.

She wondered what he was doing.


Somewhere on the surface of Dantooine, tucked away within the ruins of a New Republic base, Poe stared at the sky, his dark eyes fixed to one large, golden star.

Though they were light years apart, he could see her in his mind's eye. A soft smile curled across his face.

He wondered what she was doing.

Most likely she was still in the medcenter with Kit, carefully monitoring his progress. Maybe she sat on his bedside, opening her mouth in a wide grin as she laughed at one of his jokes. Maybe she stood on their overlook, watching her little brother fly as she finished off the last of a meal. What time of day was it, even? Was the sun even up?

What if she was asleep?

Poe's expression softened even further. The thought of her being that still – that tranquil – made him grin. He imagined her arms delicately curled underneath her pillow, her hair spilling across the sheets and her lips folded into a relaxed pout as her chest gently rose and fell under the blankets. She wouldn't be worried or anxious or uptight. For once, she'd be at peace.

He'd give anything see that right now – sit by her side and run his fingers through her hair in time with her breathing – instead of the bleakness of the charred ruble that dug into his back.

Karé and Iolo were asleep on either side of him; Cage and Muran on either side of them with Palvo curled up like a loth-cat in a hole in the wall above them. But despite the weighty exhaustion that pulled heavily on his eyelids, Poe couldn't sleep. If he had at all since they'd made planetfall, it had been so restless that it was next to useless. His eyes wandered across the sky.

The sounds of the crash – the quad engines sputtering, Kit and Karé desperately screaming to each other across the comms – rang vividly in Poe's ears. He eyed the rubble that sprawled across the ground around him. Occasional pieces of transparisteel and metal shrapnel jutted out from the mounds of rock. If the moonlight hit them just right, far grislier things sneered at him through the holes.

They were lucky that Kit had gone down where he had. Had they been over top of the base—

You're not going there, Dameron, he abruptly chastised himself, clenching his teeth in quiet frustration. You're not going there. Not again.

He needed to clear his head.

Restlessness tingled in his legs, and Poe found himself standing, carefully stepping over the rest of his squadron as he made his way forward. Rubble and debris threatened to throw him off balance with every step, biting at his feet through the soles of his flight boots as he walked. Finally, the ground underneath him leveled out, and he found himself walking on dead grass, wrapping his flight jacket around his shoulders as he trudged across it.

His eyes scanned the horizon, wandering up a hill, stopping dead on the skeleton of a T-85 X-wing.

Kit.

Hardly daring to breathe, Poe inched forward, curiosity taking over his common sense as he crept up the hill. Smoke wafted up his nose – the smell of burning fuel and rubber always made his blood run cold – and his face set itself into a hard, haunted frown.

"Holy kriff," he breathed. "It's still here."

"Barely," a voice sighed.

Poe's head snapped up, his dark eyes locking with the Pathfinder's hazel ones. His brow furrowed.

He recognized those eyes from somewhere.

The Pathfinder nodded, clapping the fighter's hull. "Looks like whoever led this attack tried to burn the remains, but didn't get the job done," he explained. "Scorch marks on the wing aren't right for an ion cannon blast or an engine fire. I mean, they're there in different places, but that's not what's got me scratching my head."

Poe's brow furrowed, his dark eyes reflecting curiosity and fear as they flicked towards the rank cluster on the soldier's collar. "Scratching your head over what, Colonel?"

The Pathfinder nodded towards the wreckage. "Come here."

Moving with the solemnness of a man walking past a dead body, Poe ducked under a bent S-foil as he came up alongside the fighter.

"Look at this," the Pathfinder said, his small fingers tracing over a striking, straight black line of soot and ash that sprawled from the X-wing's nose to the canopy latch. "This line is way too straight for it to have come from the engine. And the hit came from the other side, which means this isn't from the cannon that took it down, either."

Poe took a step forward, reaching up to touch the mark on the T-85's hull with a scarred, calloused hand. "What did it, then?"

The Pathfinder tensed. "Flame-throwers."

Poe froze, his dark eyes widening as he sharply turned his head. "Flame what?" he repeated, his voice strangled with shock.

The lieutenant colonel nodded.

"From who?"

The Pathfinder blew a sigh out from his nose. "Not a damn clue," he said slowly. "I've run scans on this mark as well as the hole in the wing. None of the particles match anything we have in our records, Commander. There's no way for us to tell who's responsible. I mean… I have a few ideas – crazy ideas – but there's no way to prove them. And even if they were true…." His voice trailed off.

"No one would believe you?"

"Commander, I wouldn't believe me, either."

"Why not?"

The Pathfinder shook his head. "It's… gah. I don't know. It's complicated. I just—" He sighed, mulling over the possibilities in his head as he turned back to the fighter. He froze. "I think I'm done for the night, if you wanna come back with me," he said intentionally, hastily trying to change the subject as he turned his attention from the X-wing's burned-out skeleton to the man he was conversing with. He nodded back towards the ruins of the base, and the two started to head back.

"I don't think I got your name, Commander."

Poe smiled a little. "Poe Dameron," he said, stretching out his hand.

"Jaren Criss," the Pathfinder greeted, giving his hand a good shake.

Poe's brow furrowed. "You wouldn't happen to know—"

"Mila?" A huge grin burst across Jaren's face, and he laughed. "I'm her brother, Commander. Held her right after she was born."

Poe gaped a little bit. "Damn," he mused, smiling. "Small galaxy, huh?"

Jaren nodded, his face lighting up. "She told me the whole story, before the word got out. Said it's been an insane few weeks, but she's getting through." He blew out a breath. "By all counts, she should be dead. She and Anderon both." He shrugged, gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb. "Guess the Force was with them on that one."

Poe chuckled.

"I know her platoon's here. I saw her CO in the mess hall before me and my guys headed out tonight. But I haven't run into Mila yet. You know where their barracks are?"

Poe shook his head. "No," he replied, his voice dropping. "And even if I did, it wouldn't make much of a difference."

"Why not?"

Poe's face fell. "She's not here. Krell left her on Hosnian."

Jaren's brow furrowed. "What the hell? Why?"

Poe tensed. "She thought she'd meddle with the investigations or something, having such close ties to the people who run them."

"How'd she come up with that?" Jaren's voice shrugged in confusion as they ducked under an arch, their feet once again crunching on broken permacrete.

Poe shook his head, clenching his jaw. Though he knew the answer to the question – had been part of that answer himself – he found his shoulders shrugging it off.

Jaren scoffed. "This battalion's huge. I've got two hundred boots on the ground here, and another five hundred on the other side of the mountains. Even if she wanted to –which she wouldn't – Mila'd have to do a kriff-ton of 'meddling' to sway the reports either direction. And she's not the meddling type. I mean, she knows what she thinks about all this snot, and she's not afraid to tell anyone know if she's asked, but—" He stopped, flusteredly lost for words. "Why?"

Poe nodded in agreement, looking up at the sky and letting his eyes wander over the stars. "Good question," he muttered, his voice dropping with disdain.

Jaren frowned deeply, lines appearing across his brow. Putting his hands on his hips to steady himself, he took a deep breath and sighed.

"So much goes on these days that no one knows about, Commander," Jaren said. "That no one has answers to. Not even us higher-ups, whatever Krell may try to tell you. When the truth threatens to get out, someone always seems to be there to smother it. Time and time again, I've seen it happen." He shook his head. "Like it or not. It's a damn scary thought. And it doesn't make sense."

Poe nodded, his eyes wandering up the hill to the fighter wreckage.

"Nothing makes sense these days, Colonel," he whispered resentfully. "If it did, we wouldn't be in this mess."

Jaren nodded knowingly. "Agreed." He clapped Poe on the back. "It was good to finally meet you, Commander. Mila'd told me a good deal about you." He grinned mischievously. "It's good to see she wasn't lying."

A smile cracked across Poe's face. "Sounded too good to be true, huh?"

"Something like that."

Soldier and pilot chuckled.

"I'll see you around, Dameron," Jaren grinned, still laughing a little bit. His eyes flashed mischievously. "But I catch wind of any funny business with my baby sister, flyboy, and you're forked. Screwed. Vaped." He voice still shook with laughter. "However the hell you wanna put it."

Poe laughed.

"But I don't think I need to tell you that. You pass Mila's test, and you must be pretty damn good."

Poe scoffed, grinning. "Thank you, Colonel."

"Get some rest," Jaren said, clapping Poe on the back. "Force knows you need it." He turned and headed off. "I'll see you around."

Poe nodded, smiling a little. Slowly he dragged himself back to Rapier's corner, plopping down between Karé and Iolo. He folded his hands behind his head, his eyes once again drifting to the stars. He smiled.

Three weeks, and he would be back.

Three weeks, and things would start making sense again.