Chapter Ten

Please note: Maz is not actually being bashed in this story. There's more going on than meets the eye. I promise on Luke's lightsaber.

Zaira's legs buckled; she had to grab Phasma to keep from falling. The urge to gag welled up within her.

"You should rest," Phasma said in alarm.

"No," Zaira insisted. "I can work."

Phasma's chrome gloves closed around her arm. "You'll teach the trainees wrong."

Zaira pretended to think about it. "I suppose. But –"

"You will not endanger my troops. Rest," Phasma said in an unusually gentle voice.

Zaira nodded feebly and stumbled out of the cave filled with sparring trainees.

Once outside, her eyes scanned the area. Everyone was busying themselves planning a strike on Jakku, the planet that'd held so many Resistance fighters for so long.

Her gait evened, and Zaira swiftly made her way across the camp.

When she approached the forest and the lone path towards Prana's valley, RT-3131 emerged from her barracks, broom in hand.

Zaira cursed quietly, but nodded politely at the girl.

3131 waved at her. She would never make a good stormtrooper, and Zaira could not have been happier about that.

Golden roads lay beneath her, and shimmering green trees soared above. Everything on this planet overflowed with life, and she'd found it too, with her general.

And she might lose it all today.

Zaira glanced behind her. No one followed. The streets teemed with creatures of all sorts, dressed in a wide variety of riches and rags in the strangest fashions. She stood out as an Officer of the First Order, but after a month of their presence, the valley's inhabitants didn't pay her much attention.

A new letter had arrived two nights past, again delivered by Prana, as she was on her way to Hux's quarters. The King seemed to take a strange delight in taunting her that he knew of their relations.

She had both letters tucked in her shirt now, so Father would think her careful. She could do this. She could appear competent, exactly one month later.

The dusty sign signaled that she'd arrived, though not at the meeting place just yet. She'd left an hour earlier than necessary.

Biting her lip, Zaira slipped inside an apothecary shop.

"Eh? Who's there?"

The room was dark and so dusty Zaira fought to keep herself breathing steadily. Her gaze roamed to the shelves of green, blue, and red potions in assorted glass bottles. Love and lust, life and death in one place.

A grizzled old Cerean tottered out from the back room. "What do you want?"

"You have medical training, do you not?" Zaira asked far more confidently than she felt.

"Yeah, what's it to you soldiers? You ain't got none there?"

Zaira glared at the Cerean. "I believe you run a business."

"Ha, ha." The Cerean spat on the wooden floor. "You got an appointment?"

"Doesn't look like you're particularly booked at the moment."

"Heh, I s'pose so." The Cerean waved Zaira to follow her. "Don't come asking for a love potion; I'm all out of those."

"I wasn't."

"Sit down, sit down." The Cerean pointed towards a tattered chair. "What's the matter with you? I figure it's something bad, or you'd be havin' your own fancy doctors look atcha."

Zaira swallowed as she sank into the chair. She had to speak as quickly as possible.

"Do you have a – a means to see – to see if one –" Zaira had never stuttered before in her life. Well, never since Father had beat it out of her. Her hands played with her braid to busy herself. "To see if one is with child?"

The Cerean didn't even blink. "I thought so. Yer not the first female to come in here for those. Well, let's see."

She left the room, and Zaira heard her rummaging through her shelves and barking insults at her bottles for several minutes before she returned. "This'll do. Hold out yer hand."

Zaira obeyed, and the Cerean shook a few colorless drops onto her palm. The liquid then rose to hover above her hand, but it felt as though it were burrowing under her skin. Slowly the droplet began to glow dark green.

"Green, what does that mean?" Zaira knew before the Cerean spoke.

She hesitated. "Means the answer females in yer seat don't want to hear. Are ya married?"

Zaira flushed even as all the blood felt as though it were draining from her body. "Well, no."

"Hmm." The Cerean held out her hand. "That will be thirty credits."

Zaira fumbled for her money, humiliated and heartsick. What would Hux say? Had she hurt his career? What about her mission? – Not that she'd reported in over a month.

"Hey." The Cerean put a wrinkled hand on Zaira's shoulder. "I was you once. You'll survive."

"Thank you," Zaira said dully before staggering back through the shop and into the blinding sunlight.

The fresh air boiled in her lungs. Zaira retched, unsure if shock or her condition were to blame.

Forward. She had, for the moment, to move forward. To pretend all was fine, to assure Father that she was capable of success.

"In here!"

Finn laughed and followed Poe into the cave. Waves crashed not three feet below them, an ominous sound for Finn. The splashes reminded him of when hundreds of his fellow stormtroopers cheered Hux. When he had.

"You all right, buddy?" Poe looked back to see anxiety across Finn's face.

"Yeah. Just – memories."

"You wanna talk about it?" Poe paused.

"I'm – it's like I'm scared of the First Order, like I want to run and I'll never be far enough away. But I'm angry, too, like all I want to do is fight them for stealing my parents and my – my mind, for so long." Finn shrugged. "I don't even know if that makes sense."

"No, I think it does," Poe said slowly. "Kylo Ren invaded my mind, but at least I knew myself by then. They didn't even give you a chance to have your own mind."

Finn let out a shaky breath. "Exactly." He squeezed Poe's hand. "It's like you know me."

"Pretty well, I hope," Poe teased, pecking Finn's cheek.

Finn intercepted Poe's lips. He'd never known feelings could exist like this.

"You kiss so well," Poe assured.

"So do you," breathed Finn.

Poe snickered. "Believe it or not, I didn't lure you in here to snog forever. Not that I'd complain if we did, but…"

"So what did you need to show me?"

"Something Jess found, actually. I'm rather curious what she and Snap were doing in here last night, not that I expect her to tell me." Poe waved Finn further in.

"Aren't we in a war?"

"More reason to love. Love is what's important, I think." Poe smiled at Finn. "Like I love you."

"You do?!"

"Always have, buddy."

"I – I love you, too!" Finn blurted out.

"Anyhow, we haven't seen action for weeks, and people are bound to get restless."

As soon as they rounded a corner, as soon as the light ought to have disappeared, Finn saw it.

A strange tetrahedron, flickering with dark and light, nestled below a shallow pool.

"Looks like an old temple relic," Poe said.

"Maybe." Finn approached the pool slowly.

"Do you recognize the language? I know they trained you in many languages."

Finn squinted. "Yes, but these look ancient. Some language long dead."

"Or not, given this relic," said Poe.

"I suppose." Finn felt strangely drawn to the relic. As if in a trance, he reached into the briny water, lifting the relic up.

"Whoa." Poe gaped at the crystal, clear as day, yet swirling with light and dark. It didn't make any sense, and yet from the look on Finn's face, something did.

"I think you should take it," Poe heard himself say. "For now. Bring it to Luke."

Finn nodded slowly, enraptured with its perfect symmetry.

A shady alley was the most obvious of choices for a mercenary's rendezvous, but Zaira would have ranked a sunny alley high on the list, too. That was Father's way; he always went for anything too obvious to seem suspicious.

A tall, portly man stood waiting for her.

"On time," he said.

Zaira forced herself to sound calm. "As always."

"You weren't as a child," he said gruffly.

"You taught me better," Zaira replied.

"That's true; I did." Jango Fett the Second smirked at his daughter. "I also believe I taught you better than slutting yourself for gain. Or so the rumors reached my ears."

Zaira froze. She felt like a child again, crying for forgiveness, even as Jango swung the beating stick.

"What rumors?" she asked instead.

"Don't pretend you don't know," he snapped.

"I don't."

"Rumors of you seducing a general," he hissed. His hand flew out, knocking her backwards. "I taught you better than this!"

Zaira gaped at him.

"I thought you knew better than this. You're supposed to avoid attention, and now you've risked it all for a few more morsels of information," he snarled. "Do you know how this makes me look?"

"My spies are the best," he continued. "The. Best. Much better than Delphi's. And you, my own daughter, don't even tell me about your survival, yet you risk being caught for your ambition."

Zaira shook. She'd unconsciously crossed her arms across her stomach, the position she'd taken as a child whenever Jango lost his temper.

But now there was life in her stomach, and she realized she would never treat her child like he had treated her.

Zaira straightened. She had to live with her life, and this wasn't her life anymore.

"So, all you care about is your reputation. Not terribly shocking, but I'll have you know that you've judged all wrong. All. Wrong."

"Is that so?" Jango wrinkled his nose. "Don't try and make me selfish to excuse your fecklessness!"

"Because," Zaira sneered, "I'll have you know that I never seduced General Hux for gain."

"Don't lie!"

He could still make her feel terrible about herself. "I'm not. He and I seduced each other. Because we care for each other."

She laughed at his horror. "And now I am carrying his child."

"You wouldn't dare." Jango's heart hammered.

"I would. I am not your slave anymore. If I continue spying, it won't be for you, it will be for them – the Resistance. And if you try to turn me in, you'll have heaps of torture sessions awaiting you. Don't think you can out-lie me. After all, you 'taught me everything you know.'"

"Zaira Fett, you get back here!"

She was backing away. "I've never been your daughter except in blood. I'm just currency to you."

"Where are you going? Back to the First Order?" Jango snickered. "That's where you're wrong, dear currency – do you know how much I sacrificed for you?" His beady eyes narrowed. "Oh, you don't, do you? You don't know that as we speak, bounty hunters and trained assassins are swarming your little trainee camp."

"You lie. You better lie!"

"I don't lie, unlike you." Jango smiled.

"King Prana would never allow you to land."

"Well, it's a shame King Prana's been bought out by Maz Kanata to take out the most wanted officer in the First Order."

He wasn't lying. His eyes were hatred and power incarnate.

"You bastard!" Zaira screamed. No – oh – no, she couldn't lose Hux now. Not due to her own mistake of a father. Not Hux, who still had so much space to grow.

His hands closed around hers. "And now you won't go there, lest you also be destroyed."

She yanked free. "Oh, but I will. I will, I will, I will. I'm done putting your life before mine."

He grasped at her, but Zaira was already fleeing back towards the camp.
"You're a fool!" he bellowed in her wake. People stopped and stared at him.

"Bugger off," spat Jango, face red with rage.

"Rey?"

She turned to see Finn approaching the cliff. "Isn't the water beautiful?"

"Of course." He stood by her side, watching the dusk claim back the ocean. He had to talk to her right now.

Rey hesitated. "Finn, is everything all right?"

He stuttered. "Rey, is it all right for a man to love another man?"

She blinked. "Don't most?"

"No, as in, romantic love. I never heard of it as a stormtrooper."

Rey brushed a strange of hair out of her eyes. "Well, I knew a few instances of men loving men and women loving women on Jakku. They say love is the foundation of the light side, so how could it be bad?"

"I love Poe," Finn blurted.

A smile began spreading across her face. She'd suspected Poe loved Finn, but she hadn't seen any reciprocity. "I think that's wonderful."

"I love you, too," Finn added. "Just, not, you know – I don't want to kiss you and hold you like Poe."

Rey grinned. "I understand. I'm so happy for you."

She threw her arms around him, and Finn melted into her hug. "I don't even think I know what love is, but I can't stop saying I love people."

"Then that makes two of us." Rey wiped her eyes. "I'm glad you have Poe."

"Me too." Finn blushed. His eyes swept out to sea, to the sun sinking under the horizon. "Rey, do you ever get this feeling – this feeling that you belong here, but not quite here? Like there's something calling to you here, telling you everything you need to do, and you realize it's what you wanted all along?"

Rey's heart leapt. "I always thought that was because of the temple."

"Then why can I feel it?" Finn became acutely aware of the tetrahedron resting in his pocket, but he was afraid to show it, afraid he may have desecrated something sacred. Afraid Luke Skywalker, defeater of the Empire, would hate him.

Rey frowned. "Do you –"

"I'm not saying I'm Force-sensitive," Finn interrupted. How he wished he could feel like he belonged, permanently.

Rey's eyes twinkled. "But what if you are?"

"Rey, I've never used the Force and would never recognize it."

Rey closed her eyes and tried to feel. Life. Finn was full of life, that much was for certain, but was there more?

"You know who would know?" she asked slowly.

"No way. I'm not asking Luke," Finn hissed.

"I was talking about Ben."

Zaira raced towards the camp. Hux, Phasma, the stormtroopers – no harm could come to them. She wasn't sure she could bear life without them.

The sound of blasters filled her eyes with uncharacteristic tears. She needed to stop being so – emotional – damn it!

"I wouldn't go there, were I you."

Zaira tripped over her feet. "You!"

King Prana's preposterous face loomed ahead. Alarm filled his expression.

"Jango told you I wouldn't be here, didn't he? How long have you known him?"

Prana opened his mouth, but he never got the chance to respond, for a startled Prana was perfectly easy to knock into a tree.

Hux's quarters were empty, of course. Zaira heaved, halfway relieved that he wasn't already slaughtered, halfway terrified for whatever lay ahead.

Kylo gasped awake. In his nightmares he interrogated Rey over and over, along with Chewy and his mother and – and Han…

And he wanted the dreams to be true, because then Han would be alive.

The ocean.

At night you dream of an island on an ocean…

He'd seen this place before. In Rey. Rey'd seen this place before. Kylo shivered.

He didn't have to be a genius to know they were at the sight of the first Jedi temple. But how had a scavenger seen this before?

Rey was special, that he admitted, but how could she have seen a place she'd never been?

Something called to him here, besides the Light. It tormented him.

R2-D2 noticed his distress and beeped at him.

"Something wants us here, but I don't know what it is," Kylo whispered to the droid. "Am I paranoid?"

No, that's C-3PO, replied the droid.

"I need to speak to Luke."

He's sleeping.

"Since when has that stopped me?" Kylo struggled to his feet. Did R2 remember when he was a child, sneaking up to ask his mother one more question about the Force and Darth Vader.

The droid beeped furiously, then abruptly stopped.

Kylo turned around to see Chewy watching him.

R2 tapped him. Say it, say it.

"How long have you been there?" Kylo asked shakily.

Chewy shrugged. Kylo would have bet his life that the Wookie'd been watching him sleep every night they'd been on Ahch-To.

The words stuck in his throat. His palms sweated.

What good was an apology when there was no resurrection? Kylo's eyes filled with tears.

Chewy groaned. I'm not sorry I shot you.

Kylo then found himself in a very furry embrace.

RT-3131 had never known panic before. But now, watching Hundred fall in front of her, she did.

She'd been instructed to never, ever fear for her own life, but Phasma and Dax, and all of her teachers – they had never mentioned fearing for another's.

"Prana, that fucking bastard!"

This was his second battle and Hux was no better prepared. But if she weren't here, she must be hurt – and he would rather bleed himself, and have all the stormtroopers bleed, than her.

Although she might not want that. Hux's already frayed nerves now had guilt on top of surprise massacre to endure.

"We need to get back to the Finalizer," Phasma said calmly. A mere flick of her arm cued half a dozen trainees to fire into the trees. Bodies fell like rain, screaming or worse, silenced.

"It's a bit difficult when we're surrounded by mercenaries." Hux's eyes landed on one of Prana's guards. Supreme Leader Snoke would ravage all of them for this. But he himself might not be around to enact that.

"We can't lose." Phasma fired her plaster. "The First Order can't suffer this defeat."

"Then tell me a better option," snapped Hux.

"Look straight ahead." Phasma fired to the right, as three flametroopers sent flames leaping onto the barracks and the forest beyond.

Zaira plunged through the smoke to the central barracks. She ducked to dodge a blaster shot, and the first person she saw was 3100.

Lying on the dirt, close to the flames.

3131 was shaking him and sobbing loudly.

"Stop it!" Zaira ordered, kneeling besides the girl. Her hands slipped under his helmet, forcing the mangled armor off to reveal a bruised and bleeding young man with black hair and golden skin.

Her fingers pressed against his neck. "He's alive!"

"Really?" cried 3131. "Wait." She yanked her own helmet off and forced it over his head.

"Now you need to get him away from here, back towards Phasma," commanded Zaira. "Understand?"

3131 nodded through her tears.

"Don't worry about protocol – just do it." Zaira scampered off through the smoke.

Phasma's uniform glistened ahead. "Phasma! What's the plan?"

"Back to the Finalizer," said the Captain.

"Some of us will have to hold back, then, to make sure the wounded get aboard," said Zaira.

"Will you help them, Zaira?"

"One condition – I've heard from these soldiers Hux is actually the target. Get him on board immediately." Zaira tried to breathe steadily. If Phasma knew her condition, she would never allow Zaira to stay, but Zaira couldn't fathom leaving anyone behind.

Phasma inhaled sharply. She didn't question Zaira. "Done."

"I've seen Zaira – you're the General and you are going aboard now." Phasma fought the urge to shake the nervous general in front of her. Babysitting her superior in addition to her trainees was asking too much.

But she could tough it out. She always had.

"Zaira –"

"Lieutenant Dax is doing her duty, as should you, sir," said Phasma.

Hux peered at the smoky trees, the soaring mountains. He was quite certain he'd never be calm again.

Zaira coughed and shoved the last casualty, a likely to die RT-3189, aboard.

"I counted five bodies," she wheezed, forcing herself not to feel. Not yet.

The ship began to rise. Phasma knelt down and yanked Zaira aboard. "Then our training prepared them well."

Zaira chuckled, as another blaster exploded.

She jerked involuntarily, whirled around to see King Prana, horror on his face. He'd been aiming for Phasma, not her!

Zaira tasted blood and realized with a start that she felt weak – like she was drowning in her own blood. Her fingers traced a disturbingly large hole in her right chest.

Oh – that shouldn't be there …

"Zaira!" Phasma slammed the door shut and lifted her friend. "Keep breathing, Lieutenant! That's an order!"

Zaira smiled lazily.

"If you spot any ships leaving the planet surface, fire." General Hux left the bridge and hurried through the hallway.

"You!" He squinted at a stormtrooper. Which one was this? Oh, forget his memory. "Where is Lieutenant Dax?"

The stormtrooper tried not to tremble. "Medical bay."

"Is she hurt?" he barked.

"I – I believe so, sir…"

Hux raced through the corridors. Nothing much, nothing severe, most likely. But he had to know.

A tall, blonde woman in Phasma's armor stood outside; the captain was hardly the homely hag he'd imagined her.

"What happened?!"

She opened her mouth, but Hux had already barged inside.

Good. Phasma wanted Zaira's survival, but that would make everything so much harder.

Her hands smoothed the bloodstained letters she'd found transferring her friend to a stretcher, letters that might just have condemned her friend to a justified death.

She'd rather FN-2187 imprison her on the Starkiller again.