"Keep your wrists together."

"My wrists are together."

"Closer."

"Hey, buddy, you're the one who forgot to bring a set of binders, not me."

"And you're the one who's gonna get us both thrown back in that cell if you don't keep your hands close enough together that anyone looking at you thinks you're wearing some." Finn was walking as fast as he dared, Dameron just in front of him, trying to imitate a guard and his prisoner. The fact that this prisoner had only one escort would raise the suspicions of anyone who saw them, but if they noticed that Dameron was unbound, they'd likely skip asking questions and just start shooting. Finn could have cursed Booster Terrik's cheapness in loaning out stormtrooper armor whose supplies had been stripped-clean, had he not been so busy cursing himself for having failed to grab a pair of binders from one of the security stations before entering that cell.

Dameron didn't seem nearly anxious enough about the situation for Finn's tastes. "Any closer and my bones are gonna start merging," he complained.

"If that's what it takes to keep us from getting caught…"

"There's no faster way to get caught than to look like you're worried about getting caught, you know."

For several seconds Finn walked behind Dameron in silence, working his way through the other man's words. Then he said, "What?"

He couldn't see Dameron's face, walking as he was a pace behind him, but Finn could hear him sigh. "People notice things that look suspicious, right?"

"Right."

"So if you act like you're where you're supposed to be, doing what you're supposed to do, most beings will assume you are. On the other hand…"

"Act like you're up to something, people take a closer look?"

"Exactly." Dameron sounded pleased. "In Rogue Squadron, we call it the 'fly casual' approach."

"Rogue- we? You're in Rogue Squadron?"

"In it?" Dameron repeated. His voice rumbled with suppressed laughter. "Buddy, I lead it. Or, well." He sobered abruptly. "I did." The pilot cleared his throat, clearly looking for a change of subject, and asked, "What, didn't they tell you who you were rescuing?"

Finn squirmed, suddenly uncomfortable in his familiar armor. "We, uh...we didn't know you were here. We came for Breha."

Dameron was silent for a moment, then he nodded. "Ahhh! That Force Bond twin-thing, yeah? Works better than a homing beacon."

"Yeah," Finn said apologetically. "Sorry."

"Sorry? Why are you sorry?" Dameron sounded cheerful again. "I'm getting rescued, aren't I? Doesn't sound like something to be sorry about from my point of view." He glanced back over his shoulder at Finn, a crooked grin on his face.

"Keep your eyes front!" Finn hissed. "And don't smile so much! You're supposed to be a prisoner, remember?"

"Right, right, sorry." Dameron didn't sound sorry, but he did face forward and hunch his shoulders.

There was no protocol anywhere in Imperial operating procedures that allowed for the transport of a prisoner with only one stormtrooper to guard them, but there had been no sign of Bail and his sister when Finn and Poe had made their way back to the primary detention sector hallway (and without Bail's ability to use the Force to influence other people's minds, there was no way that Finn was going to be able to convince any other stormtroopers to join him on this very unauthorized mission) so they were on their own, trying their best to look inconspicuous.

Or at least Finn was trying his best; Dameron didn't seem to know what the word meant, based on the way he swaggered along the Super Star Destroyer's decks like he owned the place.

Finn was too preoccupied by the revelation that Dameron was the leader of the most ferocious, blood-thirsty snubfighter squadron in the entire New Republic to scold him further. This man was a member of Rogue Squadron? But he seemed so...so affable . Rogue Squadron was supposed to be a bunch of savage, carnage-obsessed maniacs who never took prisoners alive and would rather see a whole system destroyed than be defeated.

Or at least, that was what his Imperial instructors had always told him. Finn was beginning to wonder if anything that he'd grown-up believing was actually true.

A mouse droid swooped around a corner and glided along at their side for several meters, almost as though it was pacing them. Finn barely noticed. Dameron glanced down once, then he too ignored the little droid when it gave no sign of having noted their presence as anything but a potential collision risk. It was a shame it wasn't a larger, more complex droid; anyone watching on a monitor might have been more inclined to think that they were supposed to be where they were if they saw what appeared to be a ship's droid assisting them, but mouse droids were so innocuous he doubted surveillance even noticed them. Even with the droid's presence, they were effectively on their own.

"So, uh, Commander Damero-"

"Poe. Please, just Poe. Anybody willing to cram themselves into one of those ugly white shells to rescue my sorry butt gets to use my first name. Or any other name they like, really. I'm not picky."

Dameron sounded like he was smiling again. Finn didn't smile back.

"...Poe, then. How'd you get captured, Poe? I thought Rogue Squadron was pretty...well...undefeatable."

"I wish," Poe said, his chipper voice grim. He cleared his throat. "No, we were pretty well being defeated. Figured our last chance was to try something impossible and hope it worked."

"And if it didn't?"

"At least we'd die trying." Poe's shoulders lifted in a shrug. "We couldn't find a clear enough patch of space for a jump and there were only three of us left, so we figured-Leeso figured, actually, it was her idea-she figured that if we all jumped in a line, the first two ships might clear the way enough that the last one would make it."

"Wait, jump in a line...through another ship?"

Another shrug. "Like I said, impossible, but what did we have to lose?"

"I take it back, you are insane."

"Take what back?" Poe asked, having not been privy to Finn's earlier thoughts and thus being confused by his referencing them now.

"Never mind," Finn said hurriedly. "So-how'd they catch you?"

"Snagged Breha and I in a tractor beam as we were skimming the ship's surface."

"And the other one...Leeso?"

"I don't know," Poe said. His voice was soft and small. "I don't think so."

"I'm sorry," Finn said again.

This time Poe didn't protest it. "Me too," he said.

The remained in silence all the way to the turbolift, which Finn opened nervously, wondering what he would say if it was occupied-but thankfully when the door hissed up the lift beyond was empty. Finn breathed a sigh of relief and ushered Poe inside, gesturing with the muzzle of his blaster in a way that he hoped would look threatening to anyone who might be watching them on the security holocams. The mouse droid followed them in. Finn glanced down at it nervously, but the droid just trundled patiently to the back of the lift to wait for its destination.

"Just fly casual, buddy," Poe murmured as the door zipped shut again.

Finn jabbed the button for the hanger deck where their stolen shuttle (his stolen shuttle) was waiting. "You really like that phrase, huh?" he said sourly.

Poe lounged back against the rear wall of the turbolift, an unabashed grin on his face. "It's practically Rogue Squadron's motto."

Finn snorted. "Really? I thought your motto was 'pretty, what do we blow up first?'"

A startled laugh burst from Poe's lips. "No," he chuckled, "that's the other guys."

Finn grinned in spite of his nerves, even though no one could see it through his helmet.

"So," Poe leaned forward to nudge Finn with an elbow as the lift whooshed them up through the multitudinous levels of the labyrinthian Super Star Destroyer, "you with Starfighter Command, then? Or Intelligence?"

Finn started. "What?"

"Not a lot of people around who know unofficial snubfighter squadron mottos well enough to joke about 'em. So, you a snub-jokey? Or a spook?"

"I'm not-" Finn's mind scrambled for an explanation, anything but the truth. He couldn't bring himself to admit that he'd learned everything he knew about Reb-no, about New Republic fighter squadrons from Imperial briefings. "I'm not with the New Republic. Not part of the military, I mean. I was on the Errant Venture when the Organa-Solos and the Calrissians arrived, looking for help to infiltrate this ship."

"The Errant Venture? Booster Terrik's floating lair? What were they doing on-never mind, no, that's exactly where you'd go if you needed to figure out how to break into a mystery Super Star Destroyer no one had ever heard of before." Poe nodded sagely. "Carry on."

"Ahh...well, that's about it." Sweat rolled down Finn's face and he fervently wished his helmet away so he could mop it up-but then again, without the helmet, Poe would be able to see his face right now. Maybe the sweating wasn't so bad. "They were there, I was there, I said I would help."

"So you're, what, a mercenary? Some good samaritan who was waiting-around for the chance to help rescue the quasi-princess of a dead world?" If anything, Poe sounded more curious now than he had before. Finn wished he had thought of a better lie-or better yet, just told the truth.

He wasn't sure why he didn't. He hadn't been intending to try and conceal the fact that he was a former stormtrooper from anyone, but somehow now that he knew Poe was part of Rogue Squadron, he couldn't bring himself to say it. Instead he stammered, "Um-I guess you could say that, yeah. I just, uh, I know a lot about capital ship layouts and, uhh, and their security systems."

"You're a security consultant?"

"Something like that, yeah."

Poe's dubious expression brightened as though someone had just flipped a fresh bank of glowpanels on. "Ohh I get it," he grinned, "you're a code-slicer! Hey buddy, no sweat, I'm not some uptight law-jockey, I've got no problem with a little creative slicing."

"I'm not a-" Finn started to say before he could stop himself. He clenched his teeth together and swallowed the rest of his words, instead saying, "Well, it's something like that, sure."

"Uh-huh…"

Thankfully, the turbolift chimed before either of them could say anything else, and the door snapped open. Finn prodded Poe in the arm with his blaster, and the slouching pilot pulled himself off the wall and out of the lift. Finn followed, trying to fight the urge to look around. They were back in the more populated sections of the ship now, and he was anxious that they would be discovered before they could reach the hanger. All it would take would be one person glancing their way a little too closely and noticing that Poe's wrists weren't actually bound, and they'd be borked…

He was so distracted fretting about the likelihood of their getting caught that he forgot to fret about Poe's intrusive questions. They walked in silence for several meters, just long enough for Finn to start to relax, and then Poe said, "So when did you defect from the Empire?"

Finn stumbled so hard he nearly pitched himself into the nearest wall.

"WHAT?" he exclaimed. "I didn't-I mean-what makes you think that?"

He didn't have to see Poe's face to know the other man was amused; his shoulders shook with silent laughter. "Finn, buddy," Poe said wryly, "nobody marches like that without Imperial training."

Finn looked down at his feet, barely aware of the mouse droid that was still pacing them, then back up at Poe's back. He hadn't even noticed that he was marching; that was just the pattern into which his steps naturally fell after so many years of Imperial conditioning and service. "I'm just...trying to look the part," Finn lied. "So we don't get caught. Like you were saying."

"Uh-huh," Poe said again. He sounded no more convinced than he had been the first time. "You know it's fine, right? Some of my favorite commanders were Imperial defectors. Stang, without Imperial defectors, the Rebellion wouldn't have even had a military."

Finn managed a noncommittal grunt, but inside his head he was screaming.

"Let's just...get back to the shuttle before somebody spots us," Finn muttered. He prodded Poe in the back with the muzzle of his blaster, hoping he looked more like a stormtrooper escorting a prisoner than a man desperate to get an acquaintance to stop talking. "And keep your wrists together."

"I'm serious, Finn," Poe continued, cowed by neither Finn's words nor the play-acting with the blaster. "There's nothing shameful about being a defector. I'd say it even shows more moral character than somebody who was born in New Republic space choosing to join-up, 'cause sure it's brave to fight but it's not exactly a big mental leap on what you're fighting for. But you were part of the Empire, and you chose to leave. That takes guts. You should be proud of yourself for defecting, not-"

They rounded a corner and found themselves face-to-face with a startled-looking Imperial lieutenant just stepping out of a turbolift.

They stared at each other, no one but the mouse droid moving as it obliviously closed the distance between Finn and Poe and the Imperial. They stood only a few meters apart; it was all but impossible that the baby-faced lieutenant hadn't overheard at least part of Poe's little speech about defecting from the Empire.

He raked the corridor behind Finn and Poe with his eyes, his youthful features going hard with suspicion at the sight of empty space where Finn's fellow troopers should have been.

"What are you doing with this prisoner, trooper? Where's the rest of your unit?"

"Obviously I already talked all of them into defecting," Poe answered nonchalantly before Finn could speak. "Ronto-head here's the only stubborn hold-out left-"

"Shut-up, Rebel scum!" Finn snapped. He prodded Poe in the shoulder with his blaster again and tried to think of a good lie. "They were delayed by a malfunctioning door, sir. I thought it prudent to return this piece of filth to his cell immediately rather than waiting for maintenance to come fix it."

The lieutenant's frown deepened. He didn't look like he found Finn's explanation convincing. "A door. Interesting." He drew out his commlink. "What's your unit commander's designation?"

"FN-2134, sir." The rote answer rolled off of Finn's tongue by habit, but he knew it would buy them seconds at most. As soon as the lieutenant commed central command, he'd learn that no such stormtrooper was assigned to the Malachor's crew contingent; a few seconds after that, he'd probably learn that the trooper in question was registered as either dead or defected, depending on how Finn and his friends' mutiny had been recorded.

"But central won't be able to transfer you to her comm, sir," Finn continued desperately. He remembered what the major who had tried to commandeer him and Bail earlier had said and took a chance. "Our whole unit's suffering connection errors. The commander suspects it has something to do with those issues in engineering. Some kind of cascade system failure, sir."

Frowning harder than ever, the lieutenant lowered his comm unit. "The glitches have spread to the stormtrooper corps now?" he said. It seemed to be less a question directed at Finn and more musing out loud. "Commander Phasma isn't going to like that…"

"No, sir," Finn said. He didn't have to fake his shudder of dismay.

"Aw, having problems with your big shiny ship?" Poe clucked his tongue, utterly devoid of sympathy. "What a shame. But then what else can you expect from Imperial manufacturing?"

"Shut-up, scum," Finn said again, but distractedly; he was focusing on the officer in front of them, hoping desperately that the man would buy his lies. He wished Bail was here, strange as that was to think. The Jedi's terrifying ability to manipulate people's thoughts would come in handy right now...

"Well," the lieutenant said. His narrow gaze was fixed on Poe, who smirked back jauntily. Finn could practically see the gears in the young officer's head turning. "I suppose there's no sense reporting the issue again if maintenance is already aware," he said slowly. Finn could have grinned; apparently the junior officers were just as leery of the emperor's second-in-command as he and his fellow stormtroopers had been. The lieutenant gave a short, sharp little nod as though coming to a decision and shoved his comm unit back into his pocket. Finn relaxed and had to make a conscious effort to keep his shoulders parade-ground stiff rather than letting them sag in relief.

Then the lieutenant said, "I'll assist you in returning this prisoner to his cell."

"That's not necessary, sir," Finn said hurriedly.

At the same time, Poe retorted, "Oh, you and what army?" flapping a dismissive hand at the officer-

A hand that was very much not locked against its partner with a binder-cuff. Poe stared at his hand. The lieutenant stared at his hand. Finn stared at his hand.

"Sithspit," Poe muttered.

"Where-" the lieutenant started to say, reaching for his waist. Finn wasn't sure if the man was going for his blaster or his comm unit; either would be a disaster for them, the latter even more than the former. Finn had to stop him.

"Look out, he's loose!" Finn grabbed Poe by the shoulder, as though trying to restrain him, but instead he shoved the pilot to the side, clearing the field of fire between himself and the lieutenant. Then he shot him.

Accuracy had been drilled into Finn over and over from the age of twelve, and this blaster was the same model he had carried daily for most of his life; it felt as natural in his hands as his own thumb. There was no conceivable way he could have missed a shot of a little under two meters down a straight hallway.

He didn't. The blaster bolt took the young lieutenant precisely in the throat. The force of the energy discharge spun him around and he went down in a sprawling tumble of limbs. He made a brief, ugly choking sound, his body twitching against the cold deckplates, and then he went still. The mouse droid squealed as an arm thumped down beside it, then took off at the equivalent of a dead sprint.

"Sithspit," Poe said again, this time more impressed than upset. "Nice shot."

"Help me get him out of sight," Finn snapped back, and together they lifted the limp lieutenant by his shoulders and dragged him back towards the turbolift. Finn shuddered at the sight of the corpse-hardly the first one he'd seen, or caused, but he'd never learned to like killing; he rarely got this close to his handiwork, either-and pressed the button to summon the lift, hoping that it was close; the longer they stood here, the more likely one of the security analysts monitoring the Super Star Destroyer's internal holocams would notice them.

When the turbolift door shot up into its housing Finn started to breathe a sigh of relief, then nearly choked on it when he saw the six stormtroopers standing in a neat cluster inside the lift. He snapped off a one-handed shot mostly on instinct and one trooper knocked backwards into the others, his chestplate smoking.

That occupied two of them for a few seconds as they fumbled to catch their injured-probably dead or dying-comrade; they blocked any shots the troopers standing behind them might have tried to make. Poe tossing the body of the dead lieutenant at the startled stormtroopers bought him and Finn a few more seconds. Finn lunged to hit the lift button again, closing the door before the stormtroopers could open fire, and blasted the control panel. That locked the lift in place, but only for the few additional seconds it would take the troopers inside to bypass it. Even now, they were probably using their helmet-comms to contact the ship's central control and report his and Poe's presence here. Reinforcements would begin streaming towards them in moments.

"Come on!" Finn yelled, grabbing Poe's hand and dragging the lanky pilot into motion. "Run!"

With all hopes of subterfuge now abandoned, they sprinted side-by-side down the grim gray hallways. Soon the pounding of their frantic footsteps was joined by the echoes of other boots in swift pursuit. Finn cradled his blaster against his chest and ran on. There was nothing else to do.