AN: Hello & happy Monday. Glad y'all have stuck around this long, and as always thanks for reading & please enjoy.
.***.***.***.***.
Less than a dozen people were left on Anoat, and Lori still hadn't worked her way into any position that mattered. Brixie hadn't been a help. In fact, the medic's over concern had been Lori's biggest detriment.
When Lori volunteered to be the overnight monitor on the communications array, Brixie insisted that she should get some sleep. When Lori saw an excuse to travel to the command tent, Brixie volunteered to go in her place. When the remaining rebels had scrapped together enough components to make a second transmitter, Brixie recommended that they build a backup air purifier instead.
Despite the medics unintentional but consistent thwarting of her plans, Lori did see an opportunity. Half of the remaining Resistance was busy repairing a small freighter they had pulled out of a nearby scrap heap.
The ship was slowly coming together.
Mitaka was among the workers. Though mostly healed from his ordeal, he still hadn't found an eyepatch. The ragged cloth he used was messily tied in place, occasionally catching on something or otherwise sliding out of place.
He hadn't blown their cover yet, but Lori was still weary of the possibility.
Being suspicious and paranoid was an easy thing to focus her worries on, but it did her no good. Knowing as much only made her fidget impatiently.
Lori watched them working from her place in one of the makeshift huts. The thin plastic walls snapped and shivered with the occasional breeze, a constant reminder that their existence was parlous and at the whim of forces beyond their control. Even the window that Lori looked out of was only there through sheer dumb luck. Watching the workers, she tried to focus her thoughts.
With any luck, someone might hurt themselves badly enough to take up Brixie's time.
Does Mitaka have the chance to booby-trap the ship? She watched as the young man ducked beneath an engine, he could twist up some metal, or hide some jagged scrap around a blind corner.
The lieutenant disappeared completely. The distant pinging of metal echoed through the hut walls.
That freighter couldn't take more than a pilot and co-pilot. The Resistance hasn't found any heavy weapons. We could be gone before they even-
A small grumble came from the other side of the room.
Thoughts interrupted, Lori took a few quick steps to Ardis' crib. The infant had taken to chewing anything she could get her hands on, including her actual hands.
Scooping the baby up, Lori held Ardis firmly against her shoulder.
"We've been over this. You can't try and eat the crib."
Ardis squirmed in defiance, but eventually settled into her mother's arms. Lori became overly conscious of how tightly she held onto the little girl.
Lori's hands had been shaking, and she had noticed herself getting tired after doing nothing at all. Some days, just picking Ardis up felt like an impossible weight to lift.
She was slipping. Even worse than before. It seemed like everyone in camp noticed. Lori huffed, it wasn't just Brixie's recommendations that had kept her away from any important tasks. Everyone else was quick to take the medic at her word. They saw Lori coming apart at the seams. She'd found herself unable to talk or form bonds –however fake they might be- like she used to. Suddenly quick to shut down and back away from the group, she hadn't won any 0f their hearts or minds.
Knowing that she was slowly fading into a shadow of her former self only served to enrage Lori, but try as she might she couldn't find a way to bring herself back.
When she had the chance, she would chat and sometimes even joke along with the rebels, but it all came out hallow. She'd been faking for years, but now it seemed like she was removed from the act.
Lori tried to tell herself that she was just tired.
She was exhausted. Pushed beyond the limit. And she had every right to be afraid at all times.
But it all felt so distant, the people around her and even her most closely held fears. The imagined wall of glass that she felt between her and Armitage had grown to surround her on all sides.
Surrounded and alone.
I've always lived like this, she tried to tell herself, I've been alone before. I can do it again.
That promise to herself felt just as empty as the thousands of other lies she had told.
A wayward shout and a small rumble from outside barely managed to remind Lori that there was a world around her.
Fighting her way out from under her suffocating state of mind, Lori stepped back towards the makeshift window.
Beyond it was a quick commotion of hiding workers and two unfamiliar ships. A light cruiser and a fighter kicked up dust and debris as they came down in the barely cleared camp.
A pang of panic washed over Lori, and she suddenly found herself backing away from the clear stretch of plastic.
These people weren't First Order. Bounty Hunters? Pirates? Some local thugs?
Her pulse raced and just as her thoughts began to run away from her, the loading ramp lowered from the cargo ship.
Out stepped a man wearing a breathing rig. A terrible second went by before Lori recognized the young man. Another long minute stretched on before she was able to let herself relax at the realization that the man was Finn.
A squeak came from Ardis. Lori immediately realized how tightly she was clinging to the infant.
A completely different wave of terrible emotions washed over Lori, this one filled with guilt and shame rather than fear.
Loosening her hold, Lori shifted Ardis around so that she looked the infant in the eyes, "Sorry about that."
Ardis blinked and then cooed at the sound of her mother's voice.
Hoping that meant that she was forgiven, Lori tried to breathe and keep herself from shaking.
.***.***.***.***.
General Hux agitatedly tapped his finger against his desk. The rhythmic drumming only served to agitate him even more.
He tried to take solace in the fact that Kylo Ren was away from his ship, gone off to the shipyards of Fondor in search of the Resistance. Hux had paid upon the younger man's short return to the Finalizer. Luckily, Ren had been so focused on throwing the general around like a piece of common trash, that he hadn't remembered to actually take away any of Hux's authority.
Though bruised and battered, Hux still commanded the Finalizer and her fleet.
Finished as he was with the day, he didn't even think about returning to his suite for the night. Instead, Hux haphazardly typed away at the computer, pulling up Pyre's most recent report in the process. Commander Pyre hadn't found anything else of value, and his most recent report talked of nothing besides dead ends.
The general reached for a half emptied glass of gin. The stinging liquor wasn't enough to distract him from his persistent troubles, so he took a second deeper sip before setting the glass down.
Running a hand over his haggard features did nothing to wipe away the fatigue that ate at him.
Turning his head to the side did, however, cause him to catch sight of a dimly blinking light on his desk.
His brow furrowed in equal parts annoyance and curiosity. No one had called his secure communications line in ages.
Flicking a dismissive hand over the control panel, Hux answered the call.
A red skinned quarren appeared in hologram, a resolute look coating his squid-like features. The quarren was in a uniform of some sort, so he probably wasn't some bounty hunter that overestimated his importance.
Still, Hux was in no mood to entertain a holocall. He spoke with a harsh clip to his words, "There had better be an important reason to reach out to me directly. I do not forgive wastes of my time easily."
"Oh, I believe you will want to hear this, General Hux."
From his voice, it was clear that the quarren was much older than Hux had first assumed. His presumptive words irritated Hux nonetheless.
"I believe this could be of great importance to the First Order," the quarren continued.
Hux didn't even try to hide his distain, "I'll be the judge of that."
A tentacle that hung to the side of the quarren's mouth ticked in annoyance, but his words remained respectful, "General Organa, and the scavenger Rey, are on Mon Cala."
Hux didn't care so much for Ren's personal obsession, but Leia Organa was a target he couldn't possibly ignore, "Are they? The mon calamari king has said nothing about them."
The hologram flickered as the quarren gave a grave nod, "So he has not. I am not responsible for the mon calamari's actions, but I trust that my volunteering this information will be taken into consideration when it comes to the treatment of my people."
Wishful thinking. It won't get you very far. The words came as a sharp thought, the latter half of which was meant more for him than for the alien in the hologram,
"Your cooperation is noted. Keep Organa on the planet until we arrive."
The quarren gave a slight bow at the waist just before his image blinked away. The general huffed before taking another long drink from his glass of gin.
He distantly wondered if the hunt for the Resistance would ever draw to a close. He almost wished that it wouldn't. There was nothing left for him beyond work. Five months had slid past since the attack on the Supremacy, and he'd seen no proof nor even any hints as to Lori and Ardis still being alive.
Another mouthful of gin failed to push down the lump that sat at the back of Hux's throat. Pouring himself into work, he pinged the bridge. They would be gathering the fleet and setting course for Mon Cala.
Maybe this conquest would feel less empty than the last.
Hux doubted it.
.***.***.***.***.
Finn flinched against the slight sting of a disinfectant hitting a gash in his arm.
"Did that hurt?" Brixie looked up from the freshly sutured wound.
"It was cold, it surprised me." Finn tried to salvage some of his bruised pride.
The medic gave an accepting nod before wrapping as many bandages around Finns arm as she could spare.
Lori stood next to the barely stocked shelf of medical supplies. As far as she could tell, they only had one package of gauze and three bacta patches left.
Brixie went on asking a few routine questions, Lori toned her out.
Finn and Poe had returned from their mission. The cruiser looked like they had robbed an armory blind, and the fighter had come back fully loaded. Though Finn had picked up a few scrapes and bruises along the way, the successful mission had lifted the spirits of everyone else in camp.
Everyone other than Lori.
She wasn't about to give anyone a reason to raise a blaster to her, but just having the weapons around set her on edge. As a nervous tick, she absentmindedly picked at the skin around her fingernails. Upon realizing what she was doing, Lori crossed her arms as nonchalantly as she could manage. She wished that she had brought Ardis with her, but the infant was in the other room, soundly asleep in her crib.
"There you go, good as new." Brixie took a step back from her task. "Well, good as new in a week or so. No heavy lifting until then, you'll rip your stitches."
Finn gave an experimental roll of his shoulder, only to stop half way through at a tinge of pain and a sharp look from Brixie. Not quite sure that Finn would follow her advice and take it slow, Brixie turned to her other patient in the room.
Mitaka sat in a rickety chair and held an icepack to his head. He had startled at the sound of the landing ships, and had subsequently hit his head on the underside of the freighter.
Lori only listened to Brixie and the lieutenant so much as to know if either of them called for her. She had come into the infirmary in an attempt to gather information about the state of the galaxy, not about the bump on Mitaka's head.
She would have preferred to go to the command tent and listen to Poe debrief the rest of the Resistance, but Brixie had once again thwarted that plan by asking that Lori help her with the wounded.
Working with what little she had, Lori skirted around Mitaka and Brixie to come closer to Finn.
"So, how bad is it out there?" She nodded towards Finn's flesh wound as she spoke.
Finn saw a heavy shroud of hopelessness when he looked at Lori, and he had no reason to think that it wasn't genuine, "It could be worse."
Lori gave him a look of disbelief.
"Ok, yeah. It's pretty bad. We stayed off the First Order's radar, but they're hiring bounty hunters now. I don't know how much they're offering, but telling by how determined those bounty hunters were, it must be a bunch."
That sounded familiar. It wasn't hard for Lori to react with the appropriate amount of worry. Worry that she and Ardis might get caught in the crossfires of some untrained and greedy bounty hunter, and a worry for whatever dread and paranoia must be plaguing Armitage. She knew very well that he hired outside of the Order when he didn't trust his own people to get the job done. But, for all of his ill-will, he had always trusted his stormtroopers. Had there been some mutiny through the ranks? Had the other members of high command finally turned on him?
Finn watched Lori's expression turn clouded. Unsure of what to say or do, he tried changing the subject. Distracted by his sense of concern, Finn spoke slightly more loudly than he intended, "How long until that freighter we pulled out of the trash is up and running?"
Not entirely sure whether or not he had been invited into the conversation, Mitaka offered an answer, "Three weeks. Possibly a month if we fall behind again."
Lori saw Finn suppress a harsh comment. He didn't have time to come up with an alternative before a hiss and snap of the opening and then shutting main door cut through the thin hut walls. No one had time to wonder what it might be before Poe stepped into the crowded back room.
Kaydel Ko Connix came rushing in behind him, "Poe! It's too late. Hey!"
He markedly ignored her, "Finn, I need a wingman."
The ex-trooper didn't ask for any explanation before shrugging his jacket into place. Before it was on completely, Brixie put a hand on Finn's uninjured shoulder.
"Finn, don't move. You'll rip your stitches."
Kept down by the medic's surprisingly firm grip, Finn looked to Poe, "what's going on?"
Lori listened intently for the answer.
"There's trouble on Mon Cala. Leia took off with Rey, Rose, and Chewie to get some help, but it looks like the First Order tracked them there." Poe spoke with a hurried tone that said he was more than ready to race the First Order's fleet to the watery planet.
Lori caught Mitaka stiffen at the edge of her vision. She moved slightly to put herself between the lieutenant and the rebels.
Kaydel jumped in as soon as Poe stopped speaking, "The First Order is already on their way. We tried signaling the Falcon, but the channel is being jammed. It's only a matter of time before the First Order traces that signal. The best thing for us to do is get off this planet. How many people fit on that cruiser you found?"
Finn thought about it for a second too long, and was cut off by Mitaka, "Eighteen, if everyone stands shoulder to shoulder."
The focus of the room shifted to the lieutenant, who was still holding the ice pack to his head.
"I-it's an Imperial Dropship… I re-recognized the design." He added in way of an explanation.
Poe didn't wait for any kind of silence to settle, "How many will the dropship fit for a long distance flight?"
"Four or five. Possibly six if someone sleeps in the gunner's seat."
"There was just the one room and the cockpit," Finn added, in an attempt to take back control of the conversation.
An impatient and barely controlled sigh escaped Poe.
Kaydel tried to be reassuring, "The mon calamari won't let us down, everyone will be fine. In the meantime, we have to get the other ship up and running."
It was obvious to everyone in the room that Poe hated the feel of the words that came out of his mouth, "Fine. But we need to work around the clock, there's no telling how long we have before the First Order starts closing in."
A dreadful and resolved silence settled in the wake of Poe's comment. Lori was careful to look just as forlorn at the others
What was a threat for the Resistance, was a beacon of hope for her.