"Okay, what's the new plan?" Rose said. The note of urgency in her voice spoke for everybody else. The slow pull of the tractor beam was like the magnetic force of dread, or at the very least, resignation.

Rey and Finn looked at each other on reflex. They were used to being caught in compromising situations together. If they had done it before, with much more improbable odds, they could do it now—if they could set aside their current differences long enough to solve this crisis.

Ideas were racing through Rey's head. She could try to fight the tractor beam using the Force, pry their ship out of its swallowing throat, and she could probably do it, too. The only problem was that that left them back at square one, and left the kidnapped prisoners still in the belly of the Star Destroyer. Rey saw in Finn's eyes that he was thinking the same thing as she was.

"We gotta let it happen," Finn said. "I know it could go all kinds of sideways, but it's our only chance to get to our pilots, if they're even still alive. Obviously we defend ourselves if they attack us outright—but if they take us to wherever they're holding the prisoners, we can all escape together."

The transport groaned around them as the beam eased it into the airlock. They were running out of time. Rey unclipped the lightsabers—she had brought both of them—from her belt and stuffed Leia's into her boot. It wasn't a perfect fit, but she would just have to hope that their captors were too preoccupied to check there. She turned to hand Ben the other before realizing his hands were still cuffed. She bent down and slipped it into his boot for him.

"You might need this later," she said.

"You might need it now," Rose muttered as the ship began to lower, then landed unceremoniously in what they could only assume was one of the Destroyer's many hangars. Rey imagined the scores of stormtroopers surrounding the ship at gunpoint.

"Better leave our weapons where they are," Finn said, and everybody unbuckled their seat belts and began to disarm themselves. The pilots trudged out of the cockpit, looking trepidatious. "You didn't do anything wrong," he assured them. "We were all idiots to think that they wouldn't double-cross us."

The ramp lowered with a hiss. The familiar timbre of a voice filtered through a stormtrooper mask floated up to them. "Come out with your hands above your head!"

Everyone looked at Finn. "You heard the man," he said. Nobody moved. "Guess I'll go first."

He put his hands to the back of his head and started down the ramp. Rose followed him, then Jannah, Rey, and Ben. The pilots brought up the rear as they trickled out of the transport and out onto the hangar floor. The reality matched the vision in Rey's mind: perfectly square formations of stormtroopers awaited them, along with the officer from the holo message. She failed to find his generic uniform and self-important smirk at all intimidating. He looked like every other First Order officer she'd seen. She hoped she got the chance to inform him that being lucky enough to survive the battle didn't make him special.

For now, though, she held her tongue as his gaze skimmed over them, satisfaction glowing in his eyes when they landed on Ben and then traveled to her.

"Well then," he said in his cold, patrician tone. "This is certainly a pleasant surprise. It looks like we got two for the price of one. The dyad in the force." The words fell out of his mouth in sarcastic blocks of ice. Apparently he didn't think they were that special, either.

"Good to see you again, Trusk," Ben said, parrying with sarcasm of his own. "You're looking well."

"Can't say the same of you," Trusk said, "though it's not exactly going to get any better from here. Captain?" He turned to a stormtrooper standing apart with three others. "I'm afraid I must adjust the plan on you once more. Take the nobodies-" he indicated the pilots along with Rose, Jannah, and Finn "-to the hold. And these two." He returned his narrowed eyes to Ben and Rey, evaluating the prize he deemed had just been dropped in his lap. "Take them to the bridge. I'm planning to make quite the example of them."

Rey felt Finn's desperate gaze boring into her as the stormtroopers began to carry out their orders, slapping cuffs on the prisoners who weren't already wearing handcuffs - so, everyone other than Ben - and shuffling the bulk of them off in one direction, with Ben and Rey following behind Trusk and his entourage. Getting separated like this hadn't been part of their Plan B, but they couldn't exactly initiate a showdown here in the hangar, so she gave him a flat, hard look of determination, which seemed to get the point across. They let themselves be funneled into hallways going two very opposite directions, the distance between them growing with every step.

"So," Ben said as they moved through the sterile hallways of the Star Destroyer. Rey was surprised at how talkative he was being, but she didn't react. "How have you been, Trusk? The last time I saw you, your tongue was attached to Admiral Hux's boot."

If Trusk was insulted, he didn't show it. He began to respond in the same arrogant tone he'd used before, but Rey didn't hear what he said - his voice was drowned out by Ben's, which resonated suddenly in her mind in a way it hadn't before. She looked at him sharply, listening as he spoke telepathically to her. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Using her instincts, she replied in the same way. I don't know. What are you thinking?

Ben kept his eyes trained on the hallway ahead, where two blast doors opened to reveal the gleaming windows of the Star Destroyer's bridge beyond. I'm thinking we both have a lightsaber in our boots.

A/N: Y'all. I can't believe how long it's been since I updated this thing. I've always wanted to come back and finish this, but between writing my own original book, finishing school, starting a new job, and *gesticulates wildly* the state of the world, it's been easier said than done! Anyway, I have a lot more free time right now and I'd like to make it through to the end of this fanfic. Thank you SO MUCH for bearing with me! You all are the best.