Dawn of Tranquility, Deep Space
The aging MC85 Star Cruiser - now thirty years out of date, but still a fast and powerful ship, its Mon Calamari engineering making it the equal of many more modern vessels today - moved through the void at a steady, gentle pace. Neither the ship nor its smaller flanking vessels were in any hurry, because they had nowhere in particular to go.
Having fled their base on D'Qar weeks ago to avoid First Order reprisals for their destruction of the Starkiller superweapon, the Resistance was now a mobile force dispersed across the galaxy. The First Fleet, led by Gial Ackbar and Ushos Statura, had the bulk of their big ships and was chiefly tasked with continuing the war with the First Order; the Third Fleet, led by Wedge Antilles, was a motley collection of shuttles, light cruisers, and snubfighters, and was devoted to harassment strikes and intelligence gathering; the Second Fleet, which had the Dawn of Tranquility for its flagship and only major cruiser, was the smallest in terms of resources and personnel. It was under the command of Leia Organa and its purpose - and hers - was primarily one of advocacy and recruitment.
The First Order having shown its hand by destroying the Hosnian System, Leia now believed that it was possible to finally rally the galaxy against them. The planets and people too tired of war to want to accept the reality that the First Order was just a fresh coat of paint on an old flavor of tyranny would have to pull their heads out of the sands now - at least, if Leia had anything to say about it. Given that she had been rallying resistance to tyranny since she was a teenager, it was a subject on which she had quite a lot to say.
Since the Second Fleet's duty was diplomatic in nature, and it was thus less likely to face regular combat than the other two forces, it was also where the Resistance kept the more sensitive of their medical case; those who, for whatever reason, could not be offloaded to a more secure ground-based medical center on some friendly planet.
The primary patient within the med bay of the Dawn of Tranquility right now was a young man by the name of Finn, a former stormtrooper who had defected and then assisted the Resistance in destroying Starkiller Base. That alone would have been enough to cement Finn's status as a hero in the eyes of his new allies; that he had been wounded while fighting Kylo Ren in direct combat afterwards elevated him, for many, to the rank of legend. The numerous flimsi letters and holo-cards, assorted treats and trinkets, multiple flowers in various states of wilting or stasis, and one neatly folded jacket that crowded together on the stand beside his bed attested to the regard in which most of the Resistance - and many sentients outside it - now held him.
Right now, he was just an injured young man lying in an intensive care pod.
"He should be coming out of the coma shortly."
"How long?"
Doctor Kalonia glanced over at the lanky fighter pilot sitting in front of the care pod. Poe Dameron was known for being a hotshot pilot with nerves of durasteel, a knack for unorthodox tactics, and little respect for the odds.
Right now his whole body was one quivering knot of tension as he sat, fingers clasped in front of him tightly enough that the knuckles had gone pale, staring at the immobile body of his friend.
Kalonia hid a smile. "I'm not sure," she said.
"Not sure?" Poe pried his eyes off the injured man long enough to shoot Kalonia a scowl. "What do you mean you're not sure? You're the doctor, aren't you?"
"It depends how quickly his system processes the chemicals we were using to keep him in the coma while his spine finished knitting," Kalonia said gently. "It's not something you can schedule to an exact minute."
"Fine," Poe said. "But soon, right?"
"Soon." Kalonia nodded and stepped to the other side of the pod to check the readouts.
Poe leaned in further and whispered, "Come on, buddy. You got this. Come on."
As though he heard, Finn's eyelids began to flicker. The care pod beeped and withdrew its transparent casing with a soft pneumatic hiss. Finn drew a breath that seemed to echo it, and opened his eyes.
"Finn!" Poe yelled. He lunged forward, bracing his hands on the side of Finn's pod and beaming down at the younger man with an anxious smile. "Buddy! You okay?"
"Rey," Finn gasped, his eyes darting around, wild and unfocused. Then, "Ren!" he shouted. "Kylo Ren - where!? What?" He blinked, consciousness flooding in and leaving him more confused than before. "Where...where am I?" he asked, starting to raise his head. He stopped abruptly and yelped, "Why can't I move? What - !?"
"Relax," Doctor Kalonia interrupted smoothly. "I have a stasis field keeping all the muscles below your neck immobile." As Finn's eyes bulged at her she added, "It's a customary precaution with patients with injuries like yours, to keep you from accidentally wrenching your spine when you wake up. Once you're feeling calm, I can disable it."
Finn forced himself to relax, at least physically. He leaned his head back against the pillow and swallowed. "I'm calm," he said. "Very calm. Totally. Completely calm, that's me."
Kalonia was not actually very good at hiding her smiles, but she tried. "Very well," she said. "Please remain still. I promise, helping you to reclaim your range of motion is the very next step on my agenda, but I need you to let me set the pace based on my sensor analysis of your body's capabilities. All right?"
Finn gave a tight little nod. "Okay," he said. With the pod's partial retraction, he was now left with a soft white cloth collar up to his chin and a larger plasteel bio-regulator covering him like a white and gray shell from shoulders to hips. His lower arms and legs were bare below the soft robe he wore and additional sensors were stuck to his skin at wrists, ankles, and knees. Beneath all the medical apparatus, he looked small.
"Okay," Poe repeated excitedly, "yeah. Let's do this. You're gonna be okay, Finn."
Finn blinked up at the pilot. "Poe?" he asked.
"Yeah, yeah I'm here. You're okay."
Finn nodded, the panic in his eyes subsiding to a dull terror.
"Poe, what happened?"
"Kylo Ren got you pretty bad, buddy," Poe said. He relaxed his grip on the edge of the pod so he could take Finn's hand instead. The other man couldn't move to respond, but he could feel it. Poe had to hope that that was comfort enough because right now, it was all he had to offer. "The medics had to rebuild about seven vertebrae and do some bio-knitting on a bunch more, regrow a bunch of muscle tissue, nerves, replace a kidney - "
"What happened to Rey?"
"Oh," said Poe, blinking as he changed course. "Rey's fine. She's okay. Got Kylo Ren a good one right in the face, too, she says." He smirked then sobered and added, "Couldn't kill him, unfortunately, but she knocked him down a peg. Chewbacca came back and got you both out on the Falcon, brought you back to us."
"Where is she?" Finn asked. His eyes tracked Doctor Kalonia as she moved around the pod, checking readouts and running sensors across his legs. Poe wondered if Finn was looking at Kalonia because it kept him from looking around and wondering why the friend he'd risked everything to rescue from Starkiller Base wasn't here waiting for him to wake up.
"She went into the Unknown Regions to find Luke Skywalker," Poe explained. "That map you brought back with BB-8? We figured out the rest of it, and Leia sent Rey and Chewie and Artoo Deetoo to go get Luke." He hesitated, wondering if he should tell Finn the rest of the revelations that had come out in the wake of Rey's arrival at the base. They weren't his revelations to share, but they were hardly secrets. The whole Resistance knew that Rey was Leia's long-thought-dead daughter miraculously returned; as much as Rey might like to be the one to tell Finn herself, she wasn't here and there was no telling when she would be back. It would feel wrong to tell Finn what Rey now knew about herself, but less wrong than trying to treat it like a secret to be hidden from him...
Finn didn't seem to notice Poe's uncertainty. "She's gone?" he said. His voice sounded small and lost.
"Yeah," Poe said, "but she'll be back. And so relieved to see you awake. She was...we were all really worried about you, actually."
Finn finally focused in on Poe's face again. "You were worried...about me?"
"Well, yeah," Poe laughed. "You were hurt pretty bad, buddy."
"Please raise your arms and make a few test fists for me," Doctor Kalonia said quietly, lifting the arm that Poe wasn't currently clinging to in demonstration. Poe quickly pulled his hands back out of the way as Finn obediently followed the doctor's instructions, although he seemed to be doing it mostly on autopilot, all of his attention now focused on Poe.
Finn's brow furrowed in a frown. "Who's 'we all'?" he asked.
"Everyone," Poe said, blinking. "Everyone in the Resistance, anyway. And some of the holonews agencies picked it up - I'm sorry," he said, seeing the way Finn's eyes widened in evident horror. "It should have been your decision if, how, and when to share your story. We never would have leaked it on purpose. But somebody heard something about something, and next thing we knew, there were all these broadcasts about the stormtrooper who defected and - well, some of it got pretty outlandish, with people saying you'd died, or led a whole platoon in a mutiny, or just - all sorts of crazy things. So we had to put out a short statement just to try and set the record straight. Tell them you were alive, at least." He patted Finn's arm apologetically. "Well, straight-er. Once the sludgenews has its paws on a story, there's no putting the poodoo back in the bantha."
Finn blinked. "People did holonews broadcasts...about me?"
"Well, sure." Poe shrugged. He offered a lopsided grin. "I mean, it is a pretty big deal, you gotta admit that. First known stormtrooper defector since the old Empire, helped destroy Starkiller, fought big scary Kylo Ren one-on-one and lived…"
Finn stared at him.
"Legs now," Doctor Kalonia said, pushing against Finn's toes to get him to bend his knees the way she wanted. Finn moved as bidden, but he didn't take his eyes off Poe.
"What?" said Poe.
"I just...didn't think anyone would care."
It was Poe's turn to blink stupidly.
"Finn, buddy...haven't you realized? You're a hero."
"No," said Finn.
"Mm-hmm," agreed Doctor Kalonia, nodding distractedly as she scrolled through readings on her datapad and poked at Finn's ankles.
Poe started to laugh. "Yeah, big time. You - "
The ship rocked under a sudden concussive force. Lights and gravity flickered for a few seconds, making Doctor Kalonia stumble and clutch at the care pod to keep from falling. Poe lurched halfway out of his seat and almost chinned himself on the curve of the medical screen over Finn's torso. Finn grimaced in pain as the sharp movement jarred his injuries despite the insulation of the care pod's cushioning.
"What was that?" Kalonia said.
"Something hit us," Poe said, his face gone tight with worry. "Something big."
He stood and looked down at Finn and the doctor. "Stay here," he said.
"Poe - !" Finn yelled, but Poe was already running out of the medical bay. Belatedly, the ship's alarms began to sound.
Doctor Kalonia put a restraining hand on Finn's shoulder as he struggled to rise onto his elbows. He let her stop him, but the expression on his face as he stared at the empty hatchway was anguished.
# # #
Poe Dameron ran down the Dawn of Tranquility's corridors at a breakneck pace, shouting for the beings he passed to keep out of his way and dodging hurriedly around the ones who moved too slowly to clear the path. The ship was under attack, which meant there was only one place where Poe was supposed to be right now: in his snubfighter, defending it.
He skidded into the secondary hanger bay where his squadron's ships were parked, slipping a little in his haste and grabbing the edge of the hatchway to catch himself. He flung himself inside and raced towards the cluster of black-painted X-Wings and the orange-clad pilots bustling around them.
"Black Squadron, status!" he yelled as he ran over to join them.
Someone threw a flightsuit to him. He caught it one-handed and started yanking off his boots. He didn't bother divesting himself of anything else he was wearing, although most pilots normally preferred to wear only light undershirts and shorts under the bulky flightsuits. This was no time to worry about comfort. If not for the life support gear he would have been an idiot to fly without, Poe would have jumped straight into the ship in his day-wear trousers and jacket.
"Scrambling and suiting-up," Jessika Pava answered him as she zipped up her own suit and shrugged into the attendant life support vest. "No word from Seven or Twelve yet."
"Dammit," said Poe. "Okay, let's assume they're coming as fast as they can. Meantime, Eight and Eleven, you'll be each other's wings. When Seven and Twelve join us you all can decide whether to switch back to your usual pairs or fly this one as-is."
His instructions were met with crisp nods. A disarrayed surprise launch like this was far from the ideal way in which to go into battle, but Black Squadron's pilots were experienced. They could handle it.
Poe just hoped that whatever enemy was out there shooting at them could be dealt with as easily.
He hopped on first one foot and then the other as he yanked his boots back on, the straps of his own unsecured life support vest flapping around him. These weren't the reinforced piloting boots he usually flew in, but right now they'd have to do. "Droids?" he asked.
"Deploying," said Jess, pointing towards the ships.
Poe glanced over and saw to his relief that twelve small, colorful BB-series astromechs were rolling over beneath their respective X-Wings and rising up in the deployment gear to lock into place. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the familiar white and orange of his own beloved BB-8. The little droid spotted him as well and whistled cheerfully as the droid-loader boosted him up into their ship''s astromech socket.
"Okay, good. Everybody, pre-flights as fast as you can and let's get in the air and see what's out there to shoot back at."
Black Squadron chorused agreement ranging from enthusiastic to anxious and scrambled for their ships. Poe followed, nodding a thanks at the tech who handed him his helmet and cramming it over his curls. His stomach was a knot of nerves, but he knew he would feel better as soon as he was in a cockpit.
He always did.