Chapter 8: The Plan
Rose heard something moving down the corridor and looked up from her gloomy appraisal of the ring Fossil had given her. A man was creeping down the corridor, with a canvas bag on his shoulder. He was so intent on his objective that he didn't see her. Curious, she wiped her nose on her sleeve and followed him. He was tall and dark-skinned—handsome, she thought idly. He was wearing a Resistance jacket with a rip in the back. The damage had been repaired by a malfunctioning droid or someone whose understanding of a needle and thread would be best described as theoretical.
"What are you doing here?" she asked him.
She was only a couple of meters away, and the sound of her voice startled the man, who bumped his head on the hatch of an escape pod.
"Hi!" he said, then began stammering. Rose couldn't figure out what he was trying to tell her. Then she realized it was him.
"You're Finn! The Finn!" she said.
He looked perplexed. "The Finn?"
This wasn't going well. She forced herself to stop. "Sorry, I work behind pipes all day," she said, trying to get her bearings. But somehow that just made her feel more discombobulated.
"Doing talking with Resistance heroes is not my forte," she said, then cringed at how that had come out. "Doing talking. I'm Rose."
"Breathe," Finn told her, and she did. It helped, a little. "I'm not a Resistance hero," Finn said. "But it was nice talking to you, Rose."
"Wow," Rose managed.
She understood—he had things to do. Everyone aboard the Raddus had things to do except her, it seemed. What were they not telling her now that was so important? Was there a radiation leak? Saboteurs aboard? Did they find out who she really is?
Rose had gone several paces down the corridor when she decided she couldn't leave it like that. She didn't know Finn, but whatever was wrong, maybe she could help. And Finn seemed like he could use a little help.
"Okay, but you are a hero," she said, finding him back at the open hatch of the escape pod where she had left him. "You left the First Order, and what you did on the Starkiller Base—"
"Listen—" Finn tried to say, but Rose kept on talking, hoping to make him understand.
"When we heard about it, Paige—my sister—said, 'Rose, that's a real hero. Knows right from wrong and don't run away when it gets hard,' she said."
"Sure."
"You know, just this morning I've had to stun three people trying to jump ship in these escape pods," Rose said.
"Running away." Thinking about it made her angry all over again.
"That's disgraceful," Finn said.
"I know. Anyway."
"Well, I should get back to what I was doing," Finn said, smiling broadly.
"What were you doing?" asked Rose.
"Checking. Just checking the…uh, doing a check."
Rose's eyes jumped from his face to the bag on the deck to the open escape pod.
I am the biggest idiot in the history of big idiots.
"Checking the escape pods," she said quietly. "Routine check," Finn said.
"By boarding one. With a packed bag." A string of familiar interrogative beeps came from the shadows. "Okay, listen—" Finn began, but she had heard enough. She reached down, the prod from her belt, raised it, and stunned him.
"Artoo?" Luke asked, a moment later the blue-and-white astromech rolled into view, chirping and whistling at length.
"Yes," Luke said. Decades of missions with R2-D2 had left him reasonably fluent in droidspeak, but the astromech's list of accusations was both lengthy and highly specific. "No, I—yeah, it's true."
R2-D2 squawked derisively.
"Hey, sacred island," Luke said. "Watch the language."
The droid replied with a plaintive whine.
"Old friend, I wish I could make you understand. I'm can't tell Rey the Truth yet."
Luke rested his hand on R2-D2's dome, but the droid responded by activating his holographic projector.
Luke's breath caught at the sight of his wife. Mara Jade, holding a baby Rey in her arms with Cade watching her.
"That's a cheap move," he chided the droid, who beeped smugly. The photograph vanished, leaving Luke and R2-D2 alone. The little astromech remained still as his former master stared into nothingness.
And he stayed silent as Luke rose and made his way into the hut his footsteps slow and deliberate.
Rey woke with a start. Luke stood over the stone bench where she'd chosen to sleep. Above her, his face was drawn and pale in the moonlight.
"Tomorrow, at dawn," he said. "Meet me at the cliff at the top of mountain".
Apparently Finn's new thing was waking up completely confused. This time he found himself lying on his back—but for some reason the world was sliding by around him.
He lifted his head, which caused pain to flare at his temples, and saw the back of Rose's jumpsuit. She was dragging him down a corridor on the Raddus.
"You've got to be kidding me," Finn said, his mouth and tongue struggling to form the words properly. "I can't move! What happened?"
Then realization flooded in.
"You stunned me!" he yelped accusingly. "With a…stun gun! Oh my God, you're totally insane. Help!"
Rose gave him a look that suggested the blaster might be part of his future, too.
"I'm taking you to the brig and turning you in for desertion," she said. "Why?"
"Because you were deserting."
"No!" Finn protested.
She stopped and got in his face. They were nose-to-nose.
"My sister just died protecting the fleet," she said. "I heard what you did on the Starkiller Base. Everyone was talking about you. You were a hero for the Resistance! And you were running away?" "Sorry," Finn said. "But I did what I did to help my friend, not to join another army."
He knew that was a mistake even as he said it. Rose's disappointment in him was palpable, and so was her anger. Finn realized he had to talk fast—or his next foggy awakening would come in the Raddus's brig, and then it would be too late.
"I don't know what you know, but this fleet is doomed," he explained. "If my friend comes back to it, she's doomed, too. I'm going to get this beacon far away from here. Then she'll find me and be safe."
"You're a selfish traitor," Rose snapped.
"Look," Finn said pleadingly. "If I could save Rey by saving the Resistance fleet I would, but I can't. Nobody can."
"Yuh-huh," Rose said dismissively.
"We can't outrun the First Order fleet," Finn said. "We can jump to lightspeed."
"They can track us through lightspeed."
That stopped Rose. "They can track us through lightspeed?" She hadn't known. But then of course she hadn't known. Finn knew what it was like to spend shift after shift belowdecks on a warship, doing droidwork and being told nothing. Hey, at least Rose hadn't been sweating herself half to death in a body glove and armor.
"They'll just show up thirty seconds later and we'd have blown a ton of fuel—which, by the way, we're dangerously short on," Finn said. Rose was still grappling with this latest bit of information. "They can track us through lightspeed," she said again, her mind far away.
"See? Yes! I can't feel my teeth. What did you shoot me with?"
"Active tracking," Rose said.
Finn looked up from checking that all his teeth were where he'd left them. "What now?"
"Hyperspace tracking is new tech, but the principle must be the same as any active tracker," Rose mused. "I've done maintenance onactive trackers—they're single-source to avoid interference. So—" Finn realized the implication and finished her sentence along with her.
"—they're only tracking us from the lead ship." Rose nodded, but Finn could see her mind was far away again, pondering the problem.
"But hyperspace tracking takes a lot of computing power," she said. "The whole fleet would have to be computer banks, which is crazy. Unless…"
"Unless what?" Finn asked warily.
"A static hyperspace field generator," Rose said. "That's how they're doing it."
"A what now?"
Rose bit her lip. It looked like she'd forgotten he was there. "Instead of adding lots of computers, you add lots of processing cycles," she said. "You do that by surrounding the computers with a hyperspace field generator. You could speed them up a billionfold… assuming nothing melts or gets accelerated right through the ship's hull. It's theoretical stuff—super-advanced tech. But if anyone could make it work, it's the First Order."
"So they've made it work. How do we make it not work?"
Rose looked at him appraisingly. She started to say something, then stopped. Finn cocked his head at her. "You're going to say 'but.' I can tell. You've got that going-to-say-but look."
"But," Rose said, her brow wrinkling. "We can't get to the tracker. It's an A-class process, they'll control it from the main bridge." "No," Finn said, and she gave him another one of her looks. "I mean yes, but every A-class process—"
This time she was the one who followed the thought to its logical conclusion and voiced it along with him: "—has a dedicated power breake.
"But who knows where the breaker room would be on a Star Destroyer?" Rose asked.
Finn tapped his chest. "The guy who used to mop it. Deep in the subengine complex. If I can get us there—"
Rose tapped her own chest. "We could shut their tracker down."
"Yes! Rose! We've got to bring this plan to someone we can trust!"
"Whoa hey whoa," she objected. "When I said 'we' I didn't mean 'us.' "
"You've got to be kidding me—we could save the fleet!"
Rose shook her head. "You're a weirdo traitor. I'm maintenance. I'll file your plan."
"Poe!" Finn said desperately, worried she was about to stun him again.
"I'm Rose, remember?" she replied, annoyed.
"No. Rose. Poe. Take me to Poe Dameron and we'll tell him the plan. Poe. Rose, please."
"Poe Dameron? He'll be busy."
"He'll see me," Finn said. "Hero of the Resistance, right?" That was another mistake. Rose scowled, one hand creeping toward the device holstered on her belt, with its wicked-looking charge prongs.
"Just let him hear it," Finn said hastily. "If he says no you can stun me."
"I totally will, you know."
Finn didn't doubt it for a second. He watched Rose making up her mind.
"I don't know why I'm trusting you," she said, disgusted. "It's the baby face," Finn replied. "Blessing and a curse."
"That is a great idea Finn, I'll tell the General", said Poe. "We got to act fast to save our fleet", Rose said. "Nah, we have a lot of time. We already have our Republic forces, so need to sneak up to the Supremacy before the First Order starts firing on our fleet", replied Poe, "Let's go".
"Alright, with Poe's advice we'll send a strike force made up of Commander Dameron, Finn, Rose, and some of my forces", said Wedge. "We must move quickly before the First Order strikes again", added Ackbar. "Go, we have a First Order transport with clearance codes. What will your squad be called?", asked Wedge. "Rogue, Rogue two", said Poe remembering Rogue Squadron and Rogue One. "Well then Rogue Two, prepare for departure", concluded Ackbar.
Poe prepared the strike force to assault the Supremacy. Finn was still at the bridge with Rose. "3PO, do you promise to keep Rey's beacon safe?", asked Finn, "She has to return here safely". "Oh, well I try to keep it safe with General Leia", replied C-3PO. Rose hated how Finn is always addressing this Rey. Finn was handsome—Rose had to admit that. Whoever this Rey was, she had to be quite a looker to make you desert people you'd fought alongside and a cause you'd come to believe in. She'd make sure that her blaster was ready for when the time would come.
"The First Order is only tracking us from one Destroyer—the Supremacy", Poe said addressing to the strike force, "We sneak on board when we get the chance and deactivate it".
"Let's move out!", commanded a Republic captain.
"Commander", said Leia when she and Poe were alone, "May I suggest one thing".
"Anything General".
"Don't think, just shoot".
"What?"
"Don't think. There might be soldiers that will betray us. I want you to kill them on sight".
"But General, why?".
"I dedicated my entire life to restore the Republic. I am not going to watch our hope die", responded Leia with determination in her voice. "Alright, as you wish General", responded Poe. Now walking away from the bridge and going with his strike team.
Admiral Ackbar and Antilles were studying the fleets position when they received the notice that the First Order started firing. "All hands on deck! Prepare the fleet!", ordered Ackbar, "Rogue Two it's now or never". The stolen first order transport took off and into the dark sky of space. "May the force be with you".
A/N- Woo! That was a long chapter. Well, um… I don't know what to say right now. Um, I think next chapter will be on the Space Battle. Rey trains in the force methods, goes to the dark cave, and I think of adding Snoke and the Knights of Ren meeting. So yeah, hope you enjoy and may be force be with you.
