[Rey]

As soon as Rey was outside, she could see what the problem was. Two trunks were bent over with the ship sitting atop them, tilted nose-down at a sharp angle. The trunks themselves weren't broken, just bent, and scraped deeply. The furrow into the trunk showed a brownish-pink interior presently oozing with red sap that looked like blood.

She looked back at where they'd crashed, expecting to see a path of destruction. While it didn't look pretty, it was better than she'd expected. Trees were already standing themselves back up, so rapidly she could see the process in action. Even impacted with the momentum and shearing power of the shuttle, very few of the plants (?) had broken. All of them were similar in shape, a little bigger around than her waist, and unbranched except for the tuft of fronds at the top.

It looked like they hadn't hit the ground until right here at the end, which had been something she and Kylo had jointly used the Force to achieve. Once the wing had gone, the ship would have cartwheeled until it came apart and they all died – had they not intervened. So instead, they'd skimmed a very long distance, bleeding off momentum as their connection with the Force dwindled.

She turned back to the two trees that were a problem. They looked to be under a lot of tension. If she cut them … if she stood behind them that would be dangerous, but to the sides or in front would put her under the ship, which was even worse (especially with no Force to catch it or get out of the way). She wondered if there was a way to peel them out to the sides?

She looked over to see the orange-haired general watching her intently, two stormtroopers behind him, one facing her, the other facing away to guard his back. "What are you doing?" she asked him.

"You'll be using the Force?" he asked, not answering her question.

"No."

"Why not? You could just lift the ship."

Damn. It was as though he knew, already, that she couldn't do that. But his voice wasn't mocking. It was wary. She gave a tired sigh and turned back to the ship, trying to decide if they could maybe, somehow, tilt the ship one way to get one trunk out and then the other way to get the other. But the one remaining wing severely unbalanced the vessel. There was nothing here to be used as a fulcrum or a lever.

Hux tried again. "Are you … You are Rey, the scavenger from Jakku, correct?"

She gave him a side-eye, then glanced down at herself. The disguise had been good enough to fool everyone she'd encountered aboard the Finalizer. It really wasn't a stretch to imagine that it made it difficult for him to place her as well, since he'd never even seen her in person until now. She supposed this was confirmation that he'd seen footage of her, somehow. Were holos taken while she was unconscious after Takodana? "Yes," she answered. "You weren't in the main compartment when introductions were given, were you?"

He shook his head.

"I'm Rey. The woman you were doing repairs with is Rose. Chewbacca is the Wookiee. C'ai is the Abednedo. And Kaydel's the other woman."

"That helps," he said grudgingly. "You can use the Force, correct?"

Normally, yes. She sighed again. "I'm not going to use the Force to get the ship off these … trees."

He took a few steps closer, looking less uptight than he had before. She recalled he'd acted like a normal person when working with Rose and not like the power-mad tyrant she'd heard he was (then again, she'd been told the entire First Order was power-mad; and Kylo didn't seem too upset with him). He asked, "What is your plan then?"

She pursed her lips and decided to stop treating him like he lived up to the reputation. "These look elastic – these trunks. They're very flexible. That means we have them under tension right now. Cutting them would be dangerous. If we could just slide the ship off them." She moved under the ship – a dangerous place to be, but she needed to get a better look.

He stayed outside the shadow of the vessel. "Commander Dameron characterized the ship as a rocket. The main engines still work. What about clearing space in front of it and pushing it forward?"

"With the thrusters?" She was seeing what she'd hoped along the underbelly of the ship – the trunks weren't snagged on anything. She could see viscous sap along the deep gouges they'd put into what might be bark, the skin of the trees, but it hadn't had a chance to solidify. It smelled funny, reminding her of coolant or lubricant.

"Yes."

"We'd have to clear a lot of space," she said. "There's a lot of trunk trapped under the ship."

"The tension will only increase if you shift the weight to the end. But you could still cut it then, more safely."

Looking forward, she didn't see that they had enough space to move the ship enough to get it off the trees entirely. But maybe he was right and they didn't need it all the way off. She pulled out her comm. "Kylo?"

"Yes?" his voice came over the comm link clearly.

"Can you activate the engines and move the ship forward as far as it will go, until it's against the trunks ahead of it?"

"We're pointed downward right now," Kylo said. "Activating the main thrusters will nose us into the ground."

"Are the stabilizers working? The repulsors?"

"Sometimes they're sectional on the bigger shuttles. Let me see what I can do."

During the pause, Hux asked, "Are you doing this now?"

"Yes."

He turned to the troopers with him. "Signal the other two. Make sure they and Commander Dameron are clear." One nodded and touched under the jawline of their helmet. Hux and the two troopers moved back.

Kylo came back. "I can, but it will be sloppy. I can't … adjust."

She knew what he meant – he couldn't use the Force the finesse things. "I trust your piloting under any circumstances."

"I appreciate the vote of confidence. Are you clear?"

"Yes." She was probably standing much closer than she should be, but she stayed there. Kylo pulled in the ramp. What little vegetation there was under the ship flattened. The shuttle's nose lifted. The engines in the rear roared to life briefly, then throttled down as the ship lurched forward inelegantly under their power. She hoped the inertial dampeners were working, otherwise everyone would have been thrown to the floor with a jerk like that. It moved forward again and then again, slewing in the start of a corkscrew motion for the last one as the remaining wing snagged a tree and rotated the craft around it.

"That's good!" she shouted into the comm over the noise of the engines, the hot wash from them almost stealing her voice. "That's fine!"

What he'd accomplished had gotten the bases of the bent tree trunks out from under the ship. She could cut them now without having to be under the ship or directly behind them. The ship settled back to rest and powered down. She went to the trunk most completely trapped under the ship, where she figured most of the weight of the ship was being carried.

She powered on her lightsaber, chose a position, and sliced into it, a few hand's-breadths above the soil-line. It had seemed simple enough. The trunk cut easily like any pulpy wood might. But then hot sap spurted out like she'd cut an artery. The trunk collapsed and the ship listed heavily to port even more than she'd expected. Then the ground shook like a quake and a deep moan emanated from underneath. She barely kept her balance. The other trapped trunk snaked its way out from under the ship like it was living, mobile thing. It swayed upward, slow and silent as the shivering of the ground faded.

She looked over at Hux, whose eyes were big. He'd grabbed onto one of the trees for support, now seemed to realize what he was holding and jerked away from it as the ground stabilized. Beside her, the shuttle listed back to starboard, hitting the ground with a soft whump. Landing gear extended and lifted the ship, going through a normal self-leveling operation.

"Well," she said, "that was interesting." In the background, she could hear Poe talking excitedly. Assuming he was already on the comm channel, she didn't bother trying to cut in.

Hux came to her, looking at her in concern. "Are you alright?"

She looked down to see the red sap that had struck her had left her looking spattered with blood. Super-heated by the lightsaber blade (and without the Force to protect her from such minor things as spatter), it had blistered her where it had hit bare skin on her upper arms. She peeled the largest blob off with a wince. "I'll be fine." He made a disbelieving noise. Or maybe it was concerned. Her eyes rose to his. "Are you worried for me?"

He was. Amazingly, considering who he was. She smiled as she saw it on his face even as he realized his expression was giving too much away. He schooled it back to something less telling. "You're more useful to me alive than dead," he said stiffly and too loud for their proximity, like he was speaking for the benefit of the two stormtroopers who lingered behind him.

She laughed at how transparent he was. He turned away and stalked back to the troopers, leaving her to wonder if Poe might be right.