Chapter IX: Junction


When he woke up, his first thought was that he was being crushed by something, something moving on his lap. His whole body ached. He reached out to push the thing off him and opened his eyes. There was hair, brown hair in front of him. Around it, a cockpit. He was in an X-Wing. In an X-wing with someone else.

His eyes widened. "No, no, no, no, no..."

"I'm sorry, it was the only way! Hold on!"

Rey.

He was shoved hard to the right, then to the left, a bright flare flying past them. She was dodging fire. Dodging fire, her face almost touching the windshield! There was no way she had easy access to all the commands!

"No, no, no, no…"

He tried to move and his body screamed. Gôhn, Leia, the fire; it all came back to him. He was all sticky with sweat and there was a smell of something burning. Burned leather. Burned hair. Was he wounded? It didn't feel like he was. All of his muscles ached though, and he felt the urge to sleep, but instinct kicked in. With a moan of pain, he sat up and reached around her for the control stick, only to be slammed back into the seat. Her hand was already there. That's not an X-Wing. Another flare. One of the Z-95 from Gôhn. She was quick, precise, unshakeable. Red alarms. Adrenaline shot up his spine. "Can you reach for the starboard release switch?", she abruptly shouted. Their eyes had fixed on the same red lights, an idea reaching them both at the exact same time, and even before she had finished her sentence, Poe extended his arm to the switch above his head, allowing Rey to punch the port canon while slamming her foot on the brakes. The result was perhaps in Poe's top five maneuvers ever, although not in the top three, his pride chimed back. The two TIEs exploded a second apart. He would have whooped had he been in better shape. But there were more, dozens of them he realized. They only had an instant of clearance.

"Rey, now!" He cried out, and everything seemed to stop when the stars came lining by.

"Did you just pull us to light speed without entering coordinates? Ow."

"You told me too, and we had no time!"

"Then what are you waiting for?! Enter a course, you're gonna get us killed! They'll be right on –"

"I don't know any! Give me –"

"A89-12B-845!"

"A89-12B-845." Rey repeated. She got them out of lightspeed, and a blue giant popped into sight right in front of them, hot and blinding. She moved the ship away from it with a gasp, then flicked the light speed switch again.

"Smooth." Poe huffed when they'd gotten out of there. Panting, they both needed a moment to recover from the near death by blue giant experience. Now, that would've been a fancy death, Poe mused. Rey got off his lap, but ended up crushing his left hip.

"Ow, careful!"

"Sorry. Can you move more to your right?"

"Easier said than done. Ow."

"Where are we going?"

"Kotka", he said.

"What?"

"Kotka, that's the name. Big trade junction, closest I could think of. Big population, tons of traffic. They'll be right behind us; best place to lose them", he explained.

"Wait, why are you saying they'll be right behind us? They can track us at light speed?"

"You can stop shouting, you know, I'm right here", he flinched.

"Sorry."

"You didn't get the good news?"

"What?"

"Big progress. Scientists rejoicing everywhere." His sarcasm went completely above her head. "Didn't we tell you, during the report session? Why else d'you think we were running away at regular speed that whole time?"

"I didn't think about that and no, no-one mentioned it!"

"Well yeah, that was a pretty quick report session, I give you that." Rey shifted again, and he gritted his teeth. He peeked at the oxygen level before her. Thank the stars it was full.

"Tell me what happened."

There was a long pause, Rey not answering him, and his throat clenched. When she opened her mouth, she was still looking ahead, carefully avoiding his eyes.

"I – I think they got away, but… I'm not sure. Ekko contacted the Falcon as soon as I – as soon as I told him… I sensed them coming. Finn, Jax and the droids were already gone in the cruiser. Ekko took one of the other fighters. I don't know – that's all I know", she finished, her voice small.

"How did you…"

Understanding what he meant, she searched for the right words.

"I – heard Leia. She told me you needed help."

The words hit his ears but he had trouble processing what she had just said. He recalled the moment he too had heard her voice, as clear as day. Had it been his woozy mind playing tricks on him, or something more, something real?

"How did you… put me in here? There was no time. They were there already."

Again, she took a moment to figure out how to explain it.

"I don't know." She said at last, because it was the truth. "I ran. They were slow. Then I carried you and –"

"You carried me? You ran? You ran?! How in the Force did you –" Right, the Force.

They fell silent, both getting more and more aware of their bodies being pressed together. She didn't look at me even once. Poe stared ahead at the tunnel of light, suddenly feeling sick.

"I can't believe I threw you all into this trap", he said, his voice low with bitterness so unlike himself she almost told him the truth right there and then.

"It's not your fault", she said, her tone leaving no room for doubt, but still not turning around.

"Of course it is." Great first day, General Dameron. Really, nailed it.

"No, it's not. You listened to me, you all did. I told you they wanted to help and… they did, if anyone is to blame, it's –

"They ran away, you said it. They knew the Order was coming. Must've cut out a deal with them. I saw them all leaving and didn't jump to the right conclusion. I'm the General, don't think for one second you're responsible of this. I am, I was, it's all on me." He closed his eyes, letting his head fall back upon the headrest. Overwhelming guilt and shame gripped them both at the same time, their eyes welling up, each convinced they had failed their friends, failed the Resistance. She was glad he couldn't see her face and he now hoped she wouldn't turn around. Part of her kept telling her that he would understand, that he wouldn't blame her, that she had to tell him as soon as possible so that together they would figure out what to do, but her dark secret wouldn't come out of her mouth. Ben's wicked voice echoed in her mind: You don't want it to stop. She felt tainted.

"We have to find our way back to them. Back to the fleet", Poe said. If there's any left.

She was sitting on the left edge of the seat in a very uncomfortable position. She tried to shift into a more bearable one, but the more she tried, the more friction she created. Turning 90 degrees to her right, folding her legs and putting her feet across his lap would allow her to rest her back against the bulkhead. But he'd be able to see my face. She didn't dare. Her cheeks and nose turned a little red. Poe thought they both needed a shower.

"Ouch."

"Sorry."

He tried to focus on his memories of Kotka. "We'll have to get through Kotka's portals unnoticed; they're everywhere. A Z-95 should raise some eyebrows, but it's not that rare. If we get stopped for control, we gotta give them a story. If that's not enough, we'll force our way in, no choice; plunge through the traffic."

"Then what?" She asked.

"Abandon ship, disappear in a crowd, find new clothes, something to cover our heads, then a place to hide for a couple days."

Rey shifted again. Silence.

"Why did you…", she started, hesitant. "What you did… It was…"

"Stupid, I know."

"I was gonna say beautiful."

Poe didn't reply.

"It's like Anmione's tale", she murmured, as if to herself, remembering the face of the old woman who had chanted it to her, years and years ago after a man had beaten her and tried to take her. All she remembered was that there was a girl named Anmione whose father was killed. He had been wrongly accused of a crime, and according to law was denied a pyre and left to rot on the sand, exposed to the rats. His daughter rebelled and did it herself in the middle of the night. The following morning, she was sentenced to death by fire. She held her head high as the flames engulfed her, and died proud and content.

He stayed quiet, realizing he hadn't had the time to gather her ashes. She wondered if he knew the story too, but didn't ask.

"Wake me up when we get there", he said.