Chapter Thirty: The Ghost: Friction
BB-8 had done a lot of things since he and Poe had entered the Resistance. He was a good droid and liked to help out any way he could. It helped, because Poe wanted to do as many things as he could as well.
Of course, BB-8 could assist in flying an X-Wing, as well as help repair it. But he also did would as a spy, ferrying information to the Resistance. He'd helped steal a luxury ship on Canto Bight. He'd manned an AT-ST in order to kill stormtroopers and save Finn and Rose.
But it seemed like since they'd started their mission to Coruscant, he had been doing much more varied tasks, many of which went outside of his programming. But he was willing to give it a try. His primary function was to do what Poe wanted and this is what Poe wanted. So BB-8 was happy to do it. It all just seemed very strange to him.
He should have known that thing weren't going to be like usual when he received his first task in helping Chewbacca care for Boba Fett after he lost an arm. It was true he was capable of first aid, but dealing with a bounty hunter who had his arm literally ripped from the socket? That he had never seen before.
Then he had been tasked with playing chaperone to Rey. It might have been new for him, but he was very happy to do that. He didn't like that Rey was becoming romantic with Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren had tried to kidnap him several times. It didn't make sense that Rey would want to kiss him. But she was kissing him. BB-8 had seen them kissing the first night they had been on the Ghost. He'd unfortunately seen it several times since then. BB-8 was good at hiding so no one knew he was there. BB-8 had wanted to stop them from kissing, but Rey had already gotten mad at him about that. BB-8 didn't like when Rey was mad at him.
There was a lot more kissing on this mission than on any other BB-8 had ever been on. He was used to Finn and Rose kissing. They had been doing it a lot in the past few months. It didn't bother him, because they were very shy about doing it in front of people. Mostly, he just left them alone. Finn kissing Rose meant that Rose was around and BB-8 really liked Rose.
And then there was Poe and Kaila. BB-8 wasn't sure about that sometimes. Yes, she made Poe happy and BB-8 liked anything that made Poe happy. She also rubbed his sphere the way he liked. But when Kaila was around, BB-8 wasn't able to recharge in Poe's quarters. It wasn't like BB-8 didn't understand why . It was hardly the first time he'd been kicked out of Poe's quarters because of someone he was seeing. But BB-8 had the suspicion it wasn't going to abruptly end this time. Poe had given Kaila his ring and BB-8 knew he wouldn't do that unless Poe was serious. It didn't help that with Kaila came Chopper. It wasn't that BB-8 didn't like Chopper. It was that Chopper didn't really like BB-8. He could be really mean and it hurt BB-8's feelings. If they were all going to have to live together, then Poe and Kaila were going to have to sit Chopper down and make sure he was nice to BB-8. That was the only way they could be a family.
Of all of the things BB-8 hadn't expected to be doing on this mission, it was being a babysitter. Astromechs weren't usually trusted with that sort of thing. It was usually left to protocol or nanny droids. But BB-8 understood why it had become his job.
The little humans weren't afraid of him. Maybe it was because he was around their size. Whenever one of the crew came into their quarters, they hid in the shadows or behind their puff-cots. BB-8 had no idea what they had been through. It must have been something terrible. He had heard the crew talking about how they had been kidnapped by Snoke. He must have done really bad things to them to make them afraid of all big humans.
While he wasn't programmed as a nanny droid, BB-8 did have programming for a therapy droid in his circuits. He tried to keep them calm. He warbled songs to them in binary, which they seemed to like. One of the crew members came in to feed them. At first they'd shied away from this food. Now, whoever brought them the food sat with them, trying to encourage them to eat. If anything, it made it more difficult.
Today, it was Kaila who was trying to feed them. She held out a tray of Meiloorun Fruit to them. "Come on, it's really good."
BB-8 whistled and bumped into Kaila You have to try harder than that!
"Well, I can't force them," Kaila whispered to him.
"They can probably sense your mature powers," a deep voice said behind BB-8. His dome whirled around and he beeped in protest, rolling around to hide behind Kaila. He still didn't like being in the same room as Kylo Ren.
"My mature powers?" Kaila repeated.
Kylo Ren nodded. "Like the Hand."
"You said she was like sixty. I'm not that old!"
BB-8 chuckled, earning him a glare from Kaila.
"You're an adult woman with force powers. They can sense it. It reminds them of the Hand."
"Fine." Kaila got to her feet and handed the tray to Kylo Ren. "Then you do it. I'm going back to the meeting."
BB-8 looked up at Kylo Ren. He looked down briefly at BB-8 before kneeling on the ground. He held out a piece of melon to the hiding small humans. "You'll like it." He ate the piece he held. "It's good."
One of the small humans- a very tiny one with horns- hesitantly approached Kylo Ren. He reached out a shaking hand and took a piece of melon. He then scampered to hide behind BB-8.
He doesn't like you, BB-8 chirped at Kylo Ren.
"No reason he should," Kylo Ren replied.
Slowly, more and more of the small humans came out of their hiding spots to grab melon from Kylo Ren. They all went and hid again as soon as they had their food.
"No one is going to hurt you anymore," Kylo Ren assured them in a much quieter voice than BB-8 thought he was capable of. "Rey will take care of you. Rey is the pretty girl who saved you. She's nice. And so is Kaila. I know she's big, but she's really kind. We're going to take you all to a place where there is sun and water and trees... Nothing like Coruscant. You'll be happy there."
BB-8 whirled his dome around, surprised by Kylo Ren's gentleness and kind words to the small humans. How was this Kylo Ren?
Well, the others had been calling him Ben. BB-8 wasn't sure he was comfortable with that yet.
"BB-8," Kylo Ren said to the droid. "I can sit with them. It's okay."
BB-8 was a bit reluctant to leave the small humans, but he also didn't want to disagree with Kylo Ren. So he rolled himself out of the quarters. He looked back briefly to see Kylo Ren sit cross-legged on the floor. "Would you like to hear a story?"
BB-8 whizzed his dome around, entirely unsure what he was seeing. He rolled himself into the lounge, where Chopper was displaying a series of schematics of a Star Destroyer. Finn was pointing to spots on it, while Poe, Kaila, Rose, Rey and the flashy newcomer Lando sat around watching.
"Are you kids sure about this?" Lando asked. "This is going to be a really risky thing to take to Leia."
"Risky, but high reward," Rose pointed out.
Lando nodded. "Okay, good point. I usually go with those odds myself."
Kaila was perched on Poe's lap. "I don't know... It is really risky. We have no idea if these stormtroopers even want to join the Rebellion. Meanwhile, Wraith Squadron is still stuck in the Unknown Region."
Poe rubbed her hip gently. "Have you had any more visions of Ezra, Babe?"
Kaila shook her head. "No, but that just worries me. But that's an entire squadron of Resistance fighters we could really use. Seasoned veterans. It might be worth it to just let the Silencer shoot it out with the First Order independently. You know the Order isn't just going to let them leave. And the Silencer said they'll attack anyone who threatens them. Rather than risking our own troops, just let them fight it out amongst themselves."
Chopper whistled in agreement with Kaila, expressing his want to find General Syndulla.
"It's going to come down to what the General thinks is the best course of action," Poe pointed out. "They're both important: Finding Wraith Squadron has been on Leia's mind for months. But the firepower of a Star Destroyer and a stormtrooper unit behind us... There's also the Order codes that we can act on. There's a lot of fronts we can attack, but only so many troops in our reserves. Leia's going to triage."
BB-8 looked up at Poe What do you want to go after?
Poe looked down at him. "All of them are... Good." He wrapped an arm around Kaila. BB-8 could see the guilty look on his face.
"You don't think we should go after Wraith Squadron, do you?" Kaila looked back at him.
Poe sighed. "It's your mom, Kai. I'm not going to say we shouldn't."
"It's not just my mom," Kaila pointed out. "Ezra is there."
Rey nodded in agreement. "Captain Syndulla is right. Master Bridger is the only Jedi Master left in the galaxy. With Luke gone, we really need his help. We've got six abused younglings who need help. I can't handle that all on my own."
Kaila leaned back against Poe. "I'm dealing with Ben, which is like dealing with six abused younglings."
"We'll take everything to Leia," Lando said firmly. "Like Poe said, she'll know how to triage. No matter what we do, we'll need more than just the Ghost . We can't do anything without her say so."
"We'll be at the base tomorrow night," Kaila said, pulling herself out of Poe's embrace. "I'm going to go to the cockpit to see how we're doing..."
She walked out without another word. Finn crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at Poe. BB-8 rolled in between them.
"So you want to go with her plan now?" Finn cocked his head in question.
"I didn't say that!" Poe protested. "But she's my girlfriend and it's her family she wants to go after."
"Then you don't understand what the FN Corps were to Finn." Rose stood up tall beside Finn.
"I'm not saying-" Poe shook his head. "I'm going to leave this up to General Organa. We can't do anything without her. I know you have a point." He pointed to Finn. He then pointed towards the cockpit. "And I know she has a point. And I know that I'd really like to go in and blow up some First Order bases using the codes we got."
Leave him alone! BB-8 beeped at everyone. He was getting tired of Poe being put in the middle. Yes, he was in command, but that didn't mean they had to keep harassing him about things that he couldn't help them with.
"We're not trying to bother him, BB-8," Rey sighed. "Sorry, Poe. We all just have a million things we have to do."
"It's good," Poe sighed. "The Rebellion needs to make a lot of strikes. The First Order is vulnerable and we need to take advantage of that. But we're vulnerable too. Right now... I think we all just need to get off of this ship. No one is going to be thinking clearly until then."
BB-8 whistled in agreement and bumped himself against Poe's leg. The sooner they got back to base, the better.