UPDATE! YAY! I'm SO EXCITED about this one and about this whole section of the story in general! Please let me know what you think! And real quick: if you've somehow NOT read Chapter 20 yet, do so before starting here. Happy reading!

Chapter 21: Rattatak

The inside of a cruiser – the smell of polished durasteel, the constant activity, the persistent chill – had always been one of Kit's favorite places. From the inside of his darkened quarters, he liked to sit on the edge of his cot and watch the hypnotizing swirl of hyperspace zip past him. The young pilot smiled. If there was one thing he adored about his job, it was the travel. He was almost twenty, and he'd already seen more places that most people three times his age could only ever dream about. Now, he mused, he got to go somewhere where Republic citizens, old and new alike, had never been to. He got to dump Rattataki sand out of his flight boots every night. He got to make history.

He just wished he didn't have to leave her behind to do it.

"You still there?" Aly's voice came through his comm.

Kit grinned. "Course I am. Best thing I can do right now."

Aly's laugh bounced through the comm and across the room. Kit's face softened wistfully. If only he could see the sweet smile that went with that laugh – he knew exactly the one – in person.

"How long is it gonna take you to get there?" Aly asked.

"A while. It's on the other side of the Core, Aly."

"Yikes. That's a haul."

Kit shrugged. "Little bit, yeah." A small smile found its way to his face. "Gives me more time to talk, though. We made the jump five minutes ago and I miss the hell out of you already."

Aly sighed. "I miss you too, baby." She sighed shakily. "Look, I know you'll probably be fine and that this is nothing to worry about and that I'm probably getting ahead of myself, but you got so close last time, and—"

"Aly," Kit chuckled sympathetically. A soft smile stretched across his face. "Breathe. It's gonna be okay."

Aly sighed loudly. "Just… come back to me, alright?"

"I will," Kit replied, watching the swirl of the hyperspace tunnel jet past his window with a peacefully resolute gleam in his eye. "I promise."

Indigo morning light trickled in through her small window as Mila dragged herself from the warmth of her bed and put her feet on the ground. A chill shot up her spine as she reached for her datapad. Shivering fingers looked to turn on the screen. Squinting from the brightness of light as it tried to fill the small room, Mila read her orders for the day.

Of which, when she saw them, made her shoulders sag in dread.

SpecForces Med and Evac – Physical Evaluation and Training.

Mila sighed. "Looks like you're up, Lieutenant."

She knew she had new recruits to break in. From day one, Sundar had told her that the majority of this deployment would be spent training soldiers. The first month had been spent on orientation: reviewing basic tactics and formation maneuvers. The next several months would involve the backbreaking, vomit-inducing physical training that the unit was famous for.

"Pathfinders are fast," she'd heard said and had said herself a thousand times before. "We have to be faster."

The following days determined who out of the greens was fit for the job and who would break under the pressure. The right people – the strongest, the fastest, the toughest – made the cut. Those that failed would return to Hosnian Prime and join back up with their old units. Some would even take on civilian jobs. Only a select few had been crazy enough to try to get in a second time. A third time was absolutely unheard of. But that was exactly what Mila had done, and her superior officers had never let her forget it.

There was no doubt in her mind that Sundar was proud to have her in his ranks. Krell – since day one of her first round of training – let her know the exact opposite. Mila sighed.

She's got more important things to do than make your life miserable, Lieutenant, she told herself. Maybe today she'll back off.

Frowning, she reached for her combat boots and laced them up. She pulled her coat over her shoulders, smoothing down the wampa fur lining on the hood and straightening the officer's pin on her collar. She stood up straighter. Her jaw hardened determinedly.

Krell had probably told them otherwise, but Mila would prove to her recruits that being a part of her platoon was nothing to sniff at. That she, despite being the smallest and, according to Krell, the weakest officer in battalion, was nothing to sniff at, either.

Besides, she thought. I worked too damn hard for them to think anything else.

Taking a deep breath to steady her growing nerves, Mila started towards the door—only to have her comm start beeping in her pocket. She frowned and monotonously answered.

"Lieutenant Criss."

"Hey, doc," a familiar voice softly greeted from the other side.

"Hey!" Mila enthusiastically replied, a smile bursting across her worried face. "Your timing's impeccable."

Poe chuckled. "Why? You just get off or something?"

"No. I just…." Her voice trailed off. "It's gonna be a long day."

Poe hummed empathetically. "Lot of that going around."

Even through the comm, he sounded tired and worried. Mila's brow furrowed.

"You going to get your orders today?" she asked.

"Already got them, sweetheart. As a matter of fact… I'm on a cruiser right now. This whole thing was really short notice. You know how it can be."

Mila nodded. "Where you headed?"

"Classified. Can't tell you. If I could have, Mil, I would have by now. Command doesn't want word getting out just yet."

He grew silent in a way that weighted whatever he might say next. Mila swallowed.

"They told us at the briefing that if anyone… not friendly… got wind of this, of what's about to happen, it would end really, really badly." His voice dropped. "They don't want another Dantooine."

Mila felt her back go rigid. "Yeah," she said dismally, the fear and the horror of the aftermath of the attacks suddenly rushing back to her. "We don't." She paused. "How long will you be gone?"

Poe sighed. "Three years from today."

The news socked Mila in the gut. She blinked. What?

"That adds another month," she whispered dejectedly, her shoulders sagging. "We just backtracked…."

"I know, sweetheart," Poe replied, sounding every bit as frustrated as she did. "I know. "

"What about comms? That getting affected at all?"

"I get one off-world a month. I can't send out any holographic communications at all. Command's afraid someone could see the background and figure out where we are."

Mila squeezed her eyes shut, pinching her nose between her thumb and her index finger.

Why? she thought. Of all people, why the hell does this have to happen to us?

"But there is one thing I can tell you, Mil," Poe went on, his voice gentling. Mila could just see the reassuring gleam in his eye as he spoke:

"Don't worry about me. Whatever you do. And more importantly, don't worry about us, alright?"

The familiar sureness in his voice made Mila smile despite herself.

"Yeah, it's a setback, and yeah it's pretty damn tough, but I still haven't lost faith in you. I don't think I ever will. I know you're fighting for this just as hard as I am. You don't give up easily. I love that about you."

Mila's grin widened.

"Where are you now?" Poe asked, his voice still soft. Something in his tone told her that he had something up his sleeve. "You close to a window?"

"Yeah," Mila replied, her brow furrowing a little. "Why?"

"We just came out of hyperspace." The way he paused let Mila picture the grin that had just shot across his face. "We're just outside of Hoth's orbit. I can see Old Echo from space."

Mila's breath shortened. "Really?"

"Yeah. If you're looking out a window, you might be able to see us passing over."

Her heart pounding, Mila ran over to her window and peered out. Hazel eyes scanned through the waning morning stars, stopping on a little white dot that steadily cut between the glowing lines of borealis skyfire.

"I see you," she said breathlessly, a smile forming on her lips even as a lump formed in the back of her throat. Her tired voice rose excitedly. "Poe, I see you!"

Poe sounded just as ecstatic as she did. "You do?"

"Yeah!" She could have laughed and cried all at once. A soft, wistful moan moved through her lips as her fingers longingly pressed up against the transparisteel.

"You're so close," she murmured. "You sure you can't just pop down here long enough to say hello?"

Poe chuckled. "I wish," he replied. "Though they're smart keeping me up here like this." His voice dropped mellifluously. "If I came down long enough to hold you, I might not come back up again."

Mila softly chortled, her heart swelling. "If only…."

As her eyes tracked the cruiser across the sky, her lips parted into a soft smile. Though the distance between them still stung, it had made her feelings for him that much stronger. She wished she were brave enough to put a name to them.

"I miss you so much, Poe," she murmured.

"I miss you too, sweetheart. Like hell." He started to say something more, but the brief beep of an alarm cut him short.

"That's my cue," Poe said. The excited lilt in his voice had faded. He sighed. "Take care of yourself, sweetheart."

Mila smiled. "I will."

She could hear him shuffling into his life support vest from the other side of the comm. BB-8 warbled in the background.

Wherever he was going, whatever his mission was, she knew the time was now.

"Hey," she said.

He paused.

Mila's eyes softened. "May the Force be with you, Poe," she whispered. The cruiser faded from sight. "Wherever you are."

The walk down the hallway to the hangar had never seemed so long.

His helmet tucked under his arm and his squad at his back, Poe tried to make sense of what he was about to face. Truth was, no one knew for certain what they were going to find once they got down there.

All he knew was that, whether or not he would admit it to himself, he was terrified.

After Poe had set himself up in the cockpit, BB-8 warbled at him unsurely. The little droid pivoted behind him in the astromech socket, giving Poe a look that called the pilot's sanity into question.

Poe chuckled uneasily. "I don't write the orders, buddy," he said with a wry grin as he flicked a few controls. "I'm just told to execute them."

BB-8 responded with an indignant series of beeps.

Poe had to laugh. "I'm not gonna let them turn you to scrap, buddy. I promise."

"Can you say that for the rest of us?" Karé's voice cut through the comms as the Rapier's engines shrieked to life around them. "Sure would be comforting."

Poe shook his head, a grin briefly flashing across his face. "We're gonna be fine, Karé. I don't think they'd be sending us out here unless they knew we could do this."

"I hope you're right, sir," Kit piped up. "Last time Command said we'd be okay—"

"I know," Poe cut him off. "But this isn't last time. We're not—" he stopped, considering his next words with a sigh."—we're not fighting for our lives against a rogue band of cloaked TIE fighters, Five. This isn't a fight. It's the last step in a negotiation. No First Order in sight."

His fighter lifted off from the durasteel floor, gliding towards the open hangar doors.

"All wings, report in."

"Rapier Two, standing by."

"Rapier Three, standing by."

"Rapier Four, standing by."

"Rapier Five, standing by."

Looking over his shoulder, Poe spotted a troop transport emerging from the hangar behind him. Almost immediately the X-wings all fell into formation around it.

Rattatak – which glowed a sun-like orange-gold – suddenly rose up in front of him as the weightlessness of space cradled his fighter. His heart thumped hard in his chest. His gloved hand wrapped tighter around the stick. Fixing his eyes on the planet in front of him, the commander took a deep, steadying breath.

Force only knew what they'd find down there. He just hoped they were prepared to face it.

Wispy clouds broke like thin plumes of white smoke as the Rapiers cut through Rattatak's arid atmosphere and into a bright, mid-afternoon sky. Craggy, red-rocked mesas dotted the seemingly endless sea of sand that sprawled out below them. Mirage warped the air, blurring the horizon as they cut across the desert towards their target: the base of a long mountain range that wound across the sand like a spine-backed snake.

Squinting into the bright desert sun, Poe spotted the black, gaping mouth of a cave. Tents littered the ground in front of it, among a few more permanent structures hewn from the over-abundant red rock. BB-8 warbled a question as they neared it.

"Yep, that's it," Poe affirmed. "All teams decelerate and prepare to land."

His fighter slowed to a near stop under his touch, hovering in a straight line towards the ground and kicking sand up and over the cockpit. BB-8, who didn't appreciate the extra grit zipping through his circuits, whined in dismay. Despite the dread that steadily mounted within him, Poe allowed himself a small chuckle.

"Hold on, buddy. It'll settle once we touch down."

Landing gear ground into the sand; hydraulics hissed as the X-wing relaxed into the sand. Poe worked his hands out of his flight gauntlets and set them by the stick before reaching up and taking off his helmet. Shaking his tousled hair free, he released the seat restraints and pulled his life support vest over the top of his head, setting it in the floor by his feet.

By now the miniature sand storm he and the squad had created had been chased off by the wind, and he could actually see his surroundings. Most of the tents were close to the ground and made of a thick, canvas-like material. Nothing but the wind moved between them. The cave's mouth – which looked to be almost one hundred meters tall – loomed in the distance, a black hole surrounded by mounds of jagged red.

The troop transport's gangplank slammed into the sand behind them. BB-8 warbled impatiently.

"Yeah, buddy," Poe acknowledged, thumbing for the astromech release. "Right behind you."

Poe grunted as he popped open the canopy and stiffly stood, swaying under the sudden severe impact of the heat. Squinting, he swung his legs out of the side of the cockpit and dropped to the ground. BB-8 rolled to his side, trilling in sassed complaint.

"Don't talk to me about hot, buddy," Poe shot back. "Flight suit's thick." He went around to the back of his fighter to blow the sand out of his quad engines. "One thing's for sure, little guy," he went on, tugging at the his collar, "the next time we wind up on a desert planet, I won't be in this thing."

"Geez," Karé exclaimed with a loud sigh, wiping the sweat that had already formed on her brow with her sleeve. Her dark eyes peered into the distance. "When they said it was hot, sir, they weren't kidding."

Poe smirked. "Take back what you said about frying on a desert world, Two?"

Karé suppressed a smile glared at him. "Shut up."

"Commander Dameron!" someone called.

Poe looked over his shoulder and smiled. "Colonel," he greeted as Jaren jogged up beside him. "Was glad to hear you were joining us for this bantha chase. How are you?"

Jaren chuckled dryly. "Hot."

"Makes two of us."

"Three," Karé cut in.

"Four," Kit added, walking up. "Anybody have any clue what we're we getting ourselves into?"

Jaren shook his head. "Only thing Command told me was they don't speak Basic and they're scary as hell." A wry grin cracked across the soldier's face. "So no, Lieutenant. Nothing new to report." His brow furrowed as he eyed the young pilot. "Anderon, right?"

Kit nodded.

"Jaren Criss," the Pathfinder smiled, shaking Kit's hand. "Heard a lot about you on our last field trip. Good to finally meet you."

"Good to be back," Kit replied. He eyed Karé with a mischievous grin. "Hey," he whispered to her. "It's the Big Sandy Ball of Suck."

Karé laughed. "Going down that road again, are we baby face?"

Kit gave her a look. "The Sandbox of Doom."

"Ooh! That's a good one!"

The two pilots carried on. Poe opened his mouth to contribute, but his eye caught three tall, shadowed figures moving across the sand towards them. His brow furrowing, he took a cautious step forward as the silhouettes took more solid forms. All three were bald and clad in flowing black that stopped right at the knee and end of the shoulder. Black leather sandals laced up their legs. Jet tattoos gyrated across their ashen white faces and heads, making their striking grey eyes even more penetrating. Facial piercings glinted in the sunlight. The leader made eye contact with him, and Poe was suddenly unsure of which glare was more severe: that of the sun or that from the frontrunner's glowering scowl.

"Guys," he whispered, gaping slightly. Neither Kit nor Karé heard him.

"Karé," he tried again, his voice hardening authoritatively. "Kit."

"What?" Karé, who was still laughing to herself, asked as she turned around. "You think of—"

The words died on her tongue as soon as she saw who was nearing them. Her dark eyes widened.

"Oh."

"Pathfinders!" Jaren barked behind them. "Fall in!"

Boots shuffled through the sand behind them, but Poe barely noticed. Caught somewhere between fascination and horror, he watched the Rattataki tribesmen come closer. Poe cleared his throat and squared his broad shoulders, drawing himself up to his full height. It wasn't much to begin with anyway, but next to the approaching Rattataki, he felt like an ant. He probably looked like one.

The one in the front – whom Poe noticed had more delicate features and a more slender build than the other two – still fixed him with that hostile stare as they neared. He – no, she, the pilot corrected himself – carried herself with a regal air that her companions lacked. Though she was the smallest of the three, her presence made her seem far larger. She eyed the newcomers with a sharp, disapproving stare that intensified as she approached.

Whoever she was, Poe thought, she must have been important.

"Go find that protocol droid, Skid," Jaren hastily directed to one of his men. "We need him. Now."

Skid turned wordlessly back towards the transport.

"You are small," the Rattataki said suddenly. A thick desert accent laced her voice. "You are weak. And now you are late." Her striking eyes flashed like lightning. "Pray that the laudan shows you mercy."

Jaren gaped. "You speak Basic."

The Rattataki eyed him coolly. "How observant," she quipped. The glare she shot the Pathfinder left him feeling like he'd shrunk several inches.

The guards behind her folded their arms intimidatingly across their broad chests, drawing their shoulders up to their full, towering height. As intimidated as he now was, Poe stood his ground, fixing the Rattataki with a calm, resolute stare of his own.

It was then he noticed the long purple scar that ran across her eye and down past her jaw. He wondered what had given it to her.

"Come," the she said curtly. "He is waiting."

She started back towards the village, the harsh sunlight bouncing on the long knives that hung from her belt. Without a word Poe went after her.

It took him a few steps to realize that he wasn't being followed.

"Now or never," he said simply, without turning around. "Come on."

Exchanging nervous glances, Karé and Iolo stepped forward. Jaren and a handful of his best men followed. A troubled frown deepening his face, Muran joined them.

"I don't like this," he grunted bluntly.

"And yet, it's gotta happen," Poe replied. "As long as we stick together and don't make them mad, we'll be fine." He looked over his shoulder. "Kit?"

Kit didn't respond. The young pilot stared over their heads towards the roof of the cave opening, wide-eyed and gaping.

"Yes sir," the lieutenant nodded breathlessly, coming up alongside Muran. He nodded towards the cave ceiling. "Emphasis on the 'don't make them mad' part."

Poe turned and looked where Rapier Five's eyes pointed, and instantly his stomach lurched. Something was hanging from the ceiling.

Something that strongly resembled a dead body.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Poe blew out a long breath to steady himself. "Stay with me," he ordered, his tone low and firm.

The commander started forwards again as if nothing was out of the ordinary, the others in tow. Kit sighed. That was why Poe was squadron leader, because even if something did shake him, he never let it show. He had a perpetual knack for concealing it.

Kit most certainly didn't. He and Muran exchanged glances.

"If I die," he said, "tell Aly I love her."

Muran nodded, wordlessly gripping Kit's shoulder and leading him towards the rest of the squad.

The deeper into the village the Rattataki brought them, the more uneasy Poe became. The next tribesman was always bigger and angrier than the last one. Behind every dark corner, from inside every tent burned a glowering, white-grey stare. Every villager – whether they worked on repairing their damaged tents or sharpened their long, cruel-looking knives – warily stopped to watch the newfangled group as they passed. A few even reached for weapons, but upon seeing whose protection the outsiders were under thought better of their actions. Had they not been escorted, Poe was certain he and the others would all be dead by now.

Soon they came to the cave itself. The Rattataki turned to face them all before they went in.

"Stay close," she said, both as a warning and an order. She raised a long, ghost-white index finger to the ceiling and glanced upwards as she moved across the threshold. "Or you end up like them."

Poe's eyes followed where she had indicated, and he immediately wished they hadn't. Several more bodies hung with the one they'd seen before. He coughed as a bit of bile slid up his throat.

"Caraya's soul," he murmured, jaw slack and eyes wide. "What did they do?"

"Trespassers," the Rattataki answered without turning around. "Part of a raiding party from another tribe." A slow, menacing smile crept across her face. Her eyes shone proudly as she looked up. "They tried to steal food and water, so those I could get to I reminded of their place." Her expression flattened. "Leave my sight and someone else will remind you of yours."

"Yep," Kit sighed palely. "This is how we die."

Karé sharply elbowed him in the gut. "Shh."

"Stay close," the Rattataki went on, turning down a tunnel. "As long as you are under Yiema's wing, no harm will come to you."

Light trickled in from slits in the red-rock ceiling, illuminating the scars that twisted across the back of Yiema's neck and arms. Just by looking at her – by looking at any of the tribesmen – Poe could tell they'd all been in their fare share of fights. Part of him wondered how much they'd lost. Between the damage outside and the wounded they passed in the tunnel, he deduced it was quite a bit and recently.

They came to a fork, and Yiema suddenly stopped. Craning her neck, she shouted down the passage in her native tongue, its rough cacophony a ricocheting blaster bolt between the red rock walls. A smaller Rattataki woman came around the corner, nodding respectfully to Yiema before the two carried on a brief conversation. With a wary glare pinned at the foreigners, the smaller woman backed up and disappeared.

"He is here," Yiema said simply, turning on her heel and marching back down the shaft. "Come."

Jaren and Poe exchanged glances before starting after her. The rest of the team came right behind them. A few moments of near complete darkness led them to a curtain of beads and black leather strips that acted somewhat as a door. Yiema tucked a long-fingered hand behind the barricade and pulled it back slightly.

"None of us are slow to anger," she warned gravely. "Least of all the laudan. Mind your tongue, lest he rip it from your mouth."

She threw back the drape and stepped into the room, beckoning the outsiders forward. Steeling himself, Poe looked over his shoulder and reassuringly nodded at his companions before moving into the room himself. Instantly the hair on the back of his neck stood up. A massive, sitting silhouette hid in the shroud of the shadows. The pair of eyes that belonged to it glowered even more fiercely than Yiema's.

The laudan spoke, his deep, raspy voice reverberating through the room like a low rumble of thunder. Yiema translated:

"Are you their leader?"

Poe nodded stalwartly. "One of them."

The laudan nodded before speaking again.

"He has asked for your name," Yiema informed.

"Commander Poe Dameron."

The laudan responded.

"And how many have you brought with you?" Yiema relayed.

Poe turned. "Jaren?"

"The ten at my back and the other forty waiting outside the cave," the Pathfinder responded, "plus another four-hundred and fifty still in orbit and Force knows how many more on the way. Mostly infantry, some medical." He nodded at Poe. "But we're never the ones turning the tide. That's all them."

Yiema translated, and the laudan sat forward, another question forming on his lips.

"And just how many is… them?" Yiema asked on his behalf.

Poe looked over his shoulder at the rest of Rapier, a proud gleam in his eye. "Five, including me." He allowed himself a brief smile. "The five best the New Republic's got. We wouldn't be here if that weren't the case."

Yiema's eyes raked the group suspiciously, raising a hairless eyebrow at them. "Such an insignificant could not possibly turn a battle, Commander, much less win one."

"One of us can take out twenty times more men in one blow than a ground soldier," Poe replied, resolute. "Give it time, and you'll see why."

Yiema only laughed in response – a deep, sinister cackle that sent a chill down Poe's spine. Nevertheless, he calmly stood his ground as she turned to the laudan and passed on what she had just heard. The laudan scoffed angrily.

"We don't have time, Commander," Yiema spat. "My people, my husband—" she nodded towards the laudan "—are dying. We wait any longer and we risk extinction." Her eyes narrowed to slits. "I do not expect that someone like you could possibly understand that."

Poe's heart sank to his toes. Oh, how he did. Just as well as, if not better, than Yiema did. He thought of refuting – biting back about the brothers and sisters he'd lost to the First Order because of bided time – but he thought better of it. A deep frown wrought into his face, he nodded and relented, trying to rid the situation of the tension that had begun to strangle it. Better to get on with the negotiation before—

"He does, actually," Kit said meekly.

Poe's eyes squeezed shut. Damn it, Five.

Though tremulous, Kit took a small step forward, his soft brown eyes meeting Yiema's sharp grey ones. Her severe expression gentled slightly as she watched him.

"We all do," Kit continued, becoming braver. "Think about why we're here, uh… ma'am… in the first place. We've got the same problem as you. We've had somebody coming into our territory, just like you. Wiping out our friends, our family, like your enemies do to you. All we want – all we've come to ask for and, I thought, had already gotten, or else the Senate wouldn't have sent us out here in the first place – is help protecting what's behind us. And, in return, we'd help you protect what's behind you. Promise."

With a softer tone, Yiema relayed what Kit had said to her to the laudan. The Rattataki tribe leader stood, heavily gripping the pillar of rock beside him as he limped forward. It was then Kit noticed the gaping gash on the laudan's thigh. The flimsy, soaked-through bandage they had wrapped on it had slipped out of place and the wound had begun to bleed, but the laudan still moved forward. It wasn't until the Rattataki neared his wife and came into the sunlight that Kit realized how young they both were.

And, despite their best efforts to hide it, how terrified they looked.

"We will help you," Kit went on, determined. "But we can't do that unless you guys decide to trust us."

Yiema translated, and the laudan stiffened. He spoke again, and though his tone was more agreeable, he was no less tense than he had been before. Yiema – who he was now leaning on for support – turned back to the young lieutenant.

"Then he says you must be able to prove yourselves worthy."

Poe's brow furrowed. "My superiors told me we already had," he said. "You agreed to this conversation, didn't you?"

"Conversation and alliance are not one in the same. They gave us a reason to hear you out, not a reason to trust you. That is something you must garner yourselves."

"How?"

"You say you have brought the best your people have to offer," Yiema replied. "Yet Xoreg and I feel any of our best could rip yours apart. Your strongest warrior will duel our strongest warrior in a fight to first blood. If you are somehow victorious, then we have an accord."

Poe nodded. "And if we lose?"

Yiema smiled darkly. "Trust me, small one. You do not want to lose."