Last On: Rey and Poe, and a few others have an upcoming mission to steal a Star Dreadnought from the First Order. Finn is assigned a project to redesign stormtrooper armor, and he asked Ben to help.
Chapter 19
The next morning Rose had a meeting to go to, so Finn walked alone to the cafeteria for breakfast. "Hey Poe." Finn excitedly walked up to his friend in line to get a hot drink.
"Finn, Buddy. Did I ever tell you…" Poe went into one of his stories. Conversations with Poe were always easy for Finn. They had a lot of similar interests, and a respect for each other that was tested in the field. That was how Poe was, very much. He would be friendly with anyone, but only those he served with, who earned that respect, would ever see the true Poe.
It was this factor that influenced the relationship between Poe and Rey, Finn theorized. He tried to introduce his two best friends to each other when they first met, and hoped they would become instant friends too. But he had to accept that it wouldn't happen like that. Rey told him once she found Poe to be narcissistic, and that she didn't see much of a depth to him. Though she did respect that Finn was friends with him. Poe did the same. He never really said what he thinks about Rey, but Finn suspected an incident that occurred the first week after Crait had a lot to do with it. Poe greeted her by putting his arm on her back. An overtly friendly, and slightly flirtatious greeting he was prone to with the ladies. Well, Rey nearly broke him, bones and all! He had to stay on bed-rest for a week. Finn was fearful there would've been repercussions for Rey, but General Leia was unusually forgiving of her. And Poe, who should have learned his lessons quicker, got a black eye from her a couple weeks later for the same greeting. Still, this upcoming mission will be Rey's first off-world mission since Ahch-To, and Finn had hopes that they'd develop a mutual respect for each other at least.
When Ben walked in, Finn waved over to invite him to join them at their table. Poe glared at Finn for a minute, and whispered, "What are you doing?"
"I was doubtful too, but Rey believes there is still good in him. And as her friend, I want to help. Besides, I was in his position when I left the First Order too."
Poe gave him an 'are you crazy' look, but said nothing. He just took a bite of his toast and nodded silently.
"Besides they have that bond, thing. And it's got to be easier being bonded to Ben Solo than Kylo Ren."
Poe nearly choked. "Wait, that bond thing, it's what caused them to switch places. From what I understand, it's over now."
"No. Well, yeah. The switch was a one time thing. But they have had other manifestations of the bond. It's with the Force, and it can make them see and hear each other at times. Like they're in the same room, only they're across the galaxy."
"Oh, Interesting." said Poe, with an oddly distracted expression.
Ben left the line at the cafeteria and began walking over to Finn and Poe's table, when suddenly he stopped and turned. "What are you doing?" Ben said to no one, as if someone was standing in front of him.
"No!" Whatever no one answered, it hadn't pleased Ben.
Poe leaned over and whispered to Finn, "Is this that Bond thing." Finn shrugged in reply.
"There'll be an army… I was shot… You cheated!" Ben paused, while he fumed silently.
"Where is Rey now?" asked Finn.
"Medical," Poe responded.
"No, No, No, No!" Ben was furious.
"She needs some vaccines before she goes on the mission. Did you know she had no medical records before coming to the Resistance? I mean zip, nada, not even baby boosters," said Poe.
"Well, then we're DONE! No more lessons!" Ben shouted.
"And she hates needles so much she has been avoiding them since she got here too. The General is glad this mission ultimatum is working. Our next step would have been to drag her there kicking and screaming."
Ben seemed to be done with his argument. He stomped over to Finn's table and slammed his tray down. He didn't look anyone in the eye as he sat down, and began to eat.
Poe looked at him, then back at Finn. "Well I better be getting down to Medical, before they put you know who down for a psych evaluation as well. See you later."
Finn decided to eat in silence. It was safer to let Ben calm down on his own. Eventually though, Ben pulled out a tablet and turned it on. Then he passed it to Finn.
"I was thinking about the armor, and I did a little research," Said Ben.
Finn noticed several pages of notes on different types of armor. "This ought to help. Thank you. Does this mean you'll help?"
"Yes, I'll help." Ben's face didn't display any emotions now.
When both men had finished their breakfasts they met back up in Finn's temporary lab. He had the machines brought up from the basement the night before, and he had his original design ideas on the computer there.
Having Ben help proved to be harder than Finn had realized. They didn't agree on much at first. While Finn preferred changes to make the whole thing more comfortable, Ben seemed aimed to improve it's strength against attack. But Finn still thought the project would be good for Ben. So he didn't kick him out, as he argued with him over the finest details.
In the end they decided to print out and test several pieces of the armor. While Finn would have been satisfied after putting it on and walking around, Ben had other ideas. Finn wore the armor while Ben brought him to the shooting range. There were a few men practicing when they arrived, so Ben sent Finn to the targets while he stood back to instruct them. The only reason Finn walked out to the targets was because they had practice blasters. Enough to give him a shock, but not to kill. Ben instructed them to aim at specific points in the armor, and they did as he asked.
Then Ben turned to the armory cabinet behind the men who were shooting and pulled out a real blaster. He replaced a man's practice blaster with the real one, and gestured him to try again.
Finn's eyes went wide when he saw the real blaster, but there wasn't time to protest, as the man with the blaster seemed too eager to obey.
In the end, their test proved several key points. First, Finn decided that the next test would be done on a droid. Second, it showed several weak parts to the armor that even Finn was willing to admit were worth changing. The armor did enough to protect his vital organs, but he was very sore and had a couple burns on his sides where the armor was weakest.
"One more thing," said Finn. The two almost had a finished design. "The color. Lets try this." Finn pulled up an image on the screen.
"Brown!" Ben didn't seem impressed.
"Your mom wants a different color." Finn explained.
"So choose something regal. A navy blue, or purple," Ben suggested.
"Do you know how hard it is to polish armor after you've been crawling around in dirt all day? Besides, I got it from your research. This design is called camouflage."
Ben nodded. "Our army will be smaller, being covert will help." This was the easiest win Finn was able to receive all day, so he took it.
And with that they printed out their final design. The armor had a larger view-port, and an improved air filter. There were several changes to the body that did improve flexibility, much to Finn's arguments, but still protected the user against whatever they could throw at it. This time it was a droid they tested it on, so Finn didn't mind showing Ben the larger armory with the bigger guns. And it's color was a mixture of different shades of brown, in a random pattern.
"Whew!" When they were finished testing their new model, Finn noticed as he cheered, that Ben still stood with the same emotionless face. "I'll send these to the General, then we've got to celebrate." Finn had an idea.
Finn led Ben down to the Hanger, where Poe was preparing a ship for flight. "Hey, Poe. You get my message?"
Poe nodded. "Yeah, you guys want to go up on some training runs. I can do that for you." said Poe, as he eyed Ben suspiciously. Then he turned to gaze at Finn again. "Anything for you, Finn."
Poe turned to open his ship, and motioned for the two to take their seats behind the pilot's seat. Then he turned to one of the techs and said "Give us a few starter rounds. Nothing too difficult." With that said, Poe turned to climb in the ship.
"Alright boys. My men will be releasing droids to fly out and give us a few obstacles to fly through. It's all for fun, though, so don't panic. And if you feel yourself getting sick, don't."
Poe took off, and on the view-port in front of them they could see a few floating objects form into a hoop, then a tunnel. Poe flew through the hoops and tunnels, and over and under other obstacles. Finn screamed with the thrill of it, but Ben just sat there watching.
Below, Poe's man was at the computer, pulling up tasks to send the pilot on. Leia walked into the room and looked at his screen. The man looked up to acknowledge her quickly, then back at his tasks. Leia leaned over him, and whispered, "You're keeping them too easy. These are supposed to test him. Move over."
"General, Poe has guests up. And he asked to keep them light," the man struggled to explain.
"Oh, I know who he's got with him. And believe me, Poe deserves a little heat under his butt." The man didn't refuse her any longer. He got up and she replaced him behind the computer, pulling out the hardest obstacles on the screen.
Up in Poe's shuttle, Poe was preparing to fly through another tunnel, when the droids merged to form another ship.
"Wow," Poe pulled up quickly to avoid being 'shot' by the ship. "Sorry guys, I told them to keep it on the easy side. I must owe someone down there, or someone's trying to get a little vengeance. We can call it quits..."
Poe didn't have a chance to finish his sentence. He was rendered speechless when his ship began to fly itself under another obstacle, and around to fire at the pursuing ship. As the droids reformed to another obstacle, and another, Poe and Finn both screamed.
"What are you doing, get your hands back on the wheel." screamed Finn.
"I'm not the one driving this thing." Poe screamed back.
Finn then realized what was happening and looked at Ben. He had a look of concentration on his face, but also a bit of fun. His fists tightened as if moving a nonexistent control in front of him. On his face was a slight smirk you'd be hard pressed to find, but once you saw it you couldn't miss it. He was flying the ship through some type of tunnel and around a sharp corner. Then he flipped the whole ship, and fired at another pursuing ship. "Whew," Ben let out a scream of exhilaration as the droids disengaged and returned to base.
Finn's plan on getting Ben to open up worked a little too well. Both he and Poe stumbled out of the ship when they landed. Ben ran ahead of them, full of energy. "I told him after, we'd grab a meal off-base," said Finn to Poe before stumbling after him.
I want to thank everyone who has been leaving such kind reviews. They brighten my day!
I had fun writing this chapter. This is the 2nd Finn POV chapter. There may be more eventually, but this is all I have immediate plans for. I hope you enjoy this chapter, as I enjoyed writing it.
