Lori clutched Ardis, who was soundly asleep.
Though standard time said it was the middle of the night, she couldn't sleep. Day and night were meaningless in space, especially when she had been relegated to the interior halls of a near windowless freighter. Especially when there was always someone awake in the ship. Always someone crowding the cockpit, cutting her off from the only chance she might have at slipping a message out of the ship.
Weeks had gone by, and the Resistance had only survived by scraping handfuls of supplies out of sympathetic systems. In the past several days, Lori had learned that there were a few scattered cells, though none had come to their rescue on Crait. Many had been dissolved, or attacked, or had disappeared for no apparent reason. In any case, none were in a place to accept the most notorious ship in the galaxy.
A small rhythmic tapping filled the tiny med-bay. Lori had to force herself to sit still through the agitation. If for no other reason, than to keep Ardis asleep through the night.
She hadn't moved to any other room on the ship, mostly because there wasn't any other space, but also because she was keeping vigil over Mitaka. His fever had broken only a day ago, with the rest of the Resistance members finally being in good enough health to spare some medicine.
One misplaced comment from him, and my cover story goes up in flames.
Sitting perfectly still did nothing to drive away her unrelenting thoughts. Lori decided that nervously pacing might get the job done instead.
The room was small, and she was left standing over Mitaka after a quick realization that moving in the cramped room also didn't help.
A second after she came to a stop, Mitaka stirred slightly, his one eye fluttering open as if the concept was foreign. Lori leaned over the man, one hand against the sling that held Ardis while she gestured for silence with the other.
Mitaka didn't get the message, mind sluggish from his lingering injuries and the traces of painkillers in his system, "Maj-"
Lori quickly lowered her hand, clamping it firmly over his mouth before casting a nervous glance to the door. Mitaka recoiled at the sensation, wounds still raw and screaming against the touch. He yelped in pain, though the sound was muffled against Lori's hand.
Moving back slightly, Lori tried not to hurt him, but she kept it obvious that he shouldn't speak.
"Quiet." She barely spoke above a whisper, "If you want to live, follow my lead."
He scarcely let out a confused mumble as reality started coming into focus around him. He could only see half the room. Though Major Gallus was close enough to reach him, there was something off, and he couldn't tell exactly how far or close she was standing. More troubling was the fact that this wasn't a med-bay. The walls were an aged tan, and the room felt curved instead of being the perfectly angular architecture found on First Order ships.
Lori followed what she thought was Mitaka's line of sight to the door. For a second she intently listened for footsteps. When she found none, she turned back to the lieutenant.
"We're on a Resistance ship," she began slowly, only to then speak more quickly as she saw a hint of panic tracing across Mitaka's features, "but I'm going to get us out of here. They think that we're on their side. If anyone asks, I'm not a major, and you helped me escape from prison on the Supremacy."
He didn't catch all the meaning of Lori's words, and he was even more confused by the sudden heavy wild space accent on her voice. He tried asking for clarification, but a throbbing pain came from his jaw. The sharp sensation was nearly overwhelming, and between it and a fatigue that came with fighting infection, Mitaka's eyelids screwed shut.
"Look at me," Lori thought she saw him drifting back into unconsciousness.
Mitaka groaned but did as he was told.
Wincing at the overly loud sound, and hoping that neither Ardis nor anyone else on the ship heard them, Lori went on, "Look at me. You call me Lori, okay? Not major, not ma'am, not miss anything, just my first name. Got that?"
He tried to mumble a question, but he was stopped by a sudden movement from Lori.
She heard distant footsteps through the door. She couldn't be sure who it might be, or if they even meant to enter the med-bay. But she did know that it would be suspicious if they walked in to find her talking to the lieutenant rather than immediately fetching Brixie.
Playing her part, Lori went to the door and opened it before anyone else got the chance.
She had made the right call. She was greeted by Brixie and Dak, the latter of whom was about to open the door himself.
"Oh, thank the stars," Lori spoke in a rushed but hushed voice and kept one arm under Ardis, "I was just about to some after you, Brixie. I think the lieutenant is starting to wake up."
Brixie blinked at the news, making a small sound of surprise before looking past Lori. Seeing her last patient awake, she hurriedly stepped into the room. Lori let the medic pass, desperately hoping that Mitaka was either awake enough to remember what she had just told him, or too out of it to continue speaking all together.
Dak lingered in the hall before tentatively stepping into the room. Lori left the door open behind him, the room was already cramped.
While Brixie checked up on Mitaka, Dak kept his distance and leaned against the wall.
He'd been dragged over coals for letting Lori get taken in the first place. Though Lori herself had claimed that the lieutenant was on their side, Dak was still slow to warm up to him. He did feel a little bit bad that the rest of the Resistance was also holding the injured man at an arm's length, but it wasn't easy to look past that ominous gray uniform.
Especially after the First Order had murdered untold millions.
Dak tried to shake his prejudices. Brixie was a far better judge of character, and she had warmed up to the lieutenant. Finn used to be First Order, and he was one of the best men Dak knew.
Dak shifted against the wall, But Finn didn't sign up for shit. Getting kidnapped and forced into being a trooper ain't the same as climbing the ranks into being an officer.
Lori watched her old friend and she recognized the look he wore as the one that meat he was deep in thought. It didn't appear often, and it did it never worked out in her favor.
"Y'all got here at just the right time," she turned toward him and spoke softly.
"Suppose we did," he took a long minute to turn his attention away from the barely conscious lieutenant, "how's the little one doing?"
Lori looked down at the soundly sleeping infant, "Still in one piece. I'd kill to get her out of this ship, though. A baby needs some fresh air."
Dak hummed slightly before replying. He spoke in a low tone, wearily eyeing Mitaka as he did, "I think we got a place."
Dazed and more confused that he had ever been before, the lieutenant didn't even notice the sharp glance.
Lori shifted her stance to put herself more fully between Dak and Mitaka. "He's not listening. Where are we going?"
Her former friend still hesitated before finally saying, "Anoat."
.***.***.***.***.
Barely contained rage raced through the general as he sat furiously typing away at his computer.
He'd been reassigned.
Unsurprisingly, he'd lost command of the ruined Supremacy. The news should have been inconsequential, or even a positive. It meant nothing to him to be the head of yet another ruined project, a glaring piece of proof that the First Order could be wounded.
What threw him into a panic was the fact that he wouldn't be near the ruined ship at all. He'd spent every night, every spare second in the last three weeks combing the wreckage himself. In the times when he couldn't reach the ruined wing, he'd fervently paced the burn wards, or neurotically read through whatever damage report that came across his feed.
Twenty days since the attack, and there was still no sign of Lori nor Ardis. No hint as to their fate. No DNA matches from a disfigured patient, no evidence of their being alive or dead. If it weren't for the recent paper trail there would have been no proof that Ardis had ever existed at all.
Hux blinked, the sensation of it painful against his dried and restless eyes.
He knew very well that there was a chance that they had been sucked into space, or been vaporized upon impact. There was no small chance that he might never truly learn their fate, and that time might simply leave the two of them behind as nothing more than forgotten relics that no one would remember besides him.
The general slammed a fist down on his desk. The sudden impact being the only noise to break the relative silence.
His reassignment was final, having come directly from Kylo Ren.
He was meant to inspect the First Orders fuel depots.
Fuel depots! Any junior officer that knows hypermatter from rhydonium could get the job done.
This was unacceptable. The task was far beneath him. It was a clear and petty slight from a man that had no authority to be supreme leader. It took him away from the single most important duty he had ever had.
Lori and Ardis had to be alive. They had to be somewhere. He had to cling to the belief –the knowledge- that they were somewhere he could find them. The suite was burned through, but Ardis hadn't been there. Mitaka hadn't been there. The hovercrib hadn't been there.
Hux's hand was sore when he unfurled it from a tightly wound fist. The last of the fires had burned themselves out days ago. He could hardly bear to leave the Supremacy, and he had to force himself to take some bitter comfort in the fact that his family hadn't been found dead yet.
Assuming they weren't vaporized in the blast.
"Stop that!" he said to the empty room.
His words echoed into the background hum of the ship's engines.
Breathing a breath that did nothing to calm him, he typed a short acknowledgement of his new orders. His hand hurt and the words twisted at his guts, but he hit send before he wrote something he would regret.
With that done, he shut the computer down and made to leave his office.
The fires were gone, and the wing had cooled. He wouldn't soon have the chance again, so he set off for the hanger.
He had eight hours before he was due to transfer. They were best spent searching the wreckage.
.***.***.***.***.
Anoat was a trash planet.
Used as a dumping site since the early days of the Galactic Empire, the atmosphere was toxic and stained a putrid yellow. Once home to sprawling cities and rolling planes, the surface was littered with debris of all sizes: from rust powder, to melted astromech droids, to collapsed buildings, to entire fleets worth of junked star ships.
Just a cursory scan on the planet would result in nothing but mounds of useless data, and even if someone knew that the Falcon was hidden on its polluted surface it might take days to signal its signature out from the millions of other half functioning transponders that littered the planet.
Or that was what Lori had been told during the Resistance's general meeting.
Once again, everyone had crowded into the main room of the Falcon. The leadership seemed more worn and haggard every time she saw them up close. It had been a long time since Lori was well and truly on the run, and even the shabbiness of the mercenaries had looked like military precision compared to these people.
"We only have two personal breathing rigs. The air outside is toxic, so until we find more everyone is going to have to stay put!" Poe shouted to be heard through the densely packed room.
This was pathetic.
"I'll go," Rey was the first to volunteer. Already standing at the front of the room, no one challenged her.
"I'm going too," Rose limped up, leaning heavily on one of the two crutches.
Finn was quick to speak, "No, you're not."
"I'm the only mechanic we have left." Rose's voice rose above the crowd, though only the top of her head was visible to Lori, "If anyone can scrape together a generator or breathing rig, it's me."
Poe tried to step between the two of them, "Yeah, and if the Falcon's oxygen scrubbers fail, we're all doomed. Stay here, and keep the ship running." Before either Rose or Finn got the chance to speak again, Poe turned back to the room, "Does anyone else have experience scavenging?"
"I grew up in a junkyard!" Dak offered with a shout.
Poe's head dipped to the side, frustrated with the lack of options but seeing nothing better, "Alright merc, that's close enough. You got the job. Everyone else…"
Lori stopped listening, sure that her job would be little more than staying out of the way.
After a moment the room began to clear. Much to her chagrin, two people took a shift in the cockpit. Resigning herself to stay in the main room, Lori slouched onto the bench that curled around a holochess table. Dak was leaving, Brixie had rushed to Rose's side. Lex was nowhere to be found, and Poe had disappeared into the back halls to have a private chat with Leia. Lori considered returning to the makeshift med-bay, but no one would try talking to Mitaka besides Brixie.
Besides, Lori wanted to keep an eye on the cockpit. Just a second would be enough time to slip in and send a message. She had thought over the words she would send to Armitage a thousand times, and her fingers itched for the chance to type them.
As the last dregs of the resistance cleared the room, one of them lingered at the back.
Lori tried not to look like she was watching anything in particular as Finn hesitated. She hadn't spoken to him too often, since he was usually in the company of Rey or Leia.
Finn had been avoiding the sick room. He'd visited a few times while Rose was being treated, but ever since she'd gotten back to her feet, he had made a point not to be worried about the First Order officer in the back.
He had heard a few words about Lori, most of them coming second hand from someone who had talked with the medic. She seemed nice enough, and anyone that had earned the First Order's wrath was automatically a friend in his eyes.
But… he had a bed feeling about Lori. He wasn't sure why; she had done nothing to give him a pause for thought, and she might as well have been the picture of innocence, holding an infant in a makeshift sling.
Lori shifted slightly, turning her attention to the wriggling newborn in her arms.
Finn used the commotion as his signal to leave the room. As he hurried down a hall, his skin prickled with the sense that he was being watched as he left.
At the edge of Lori's vision she saw the former trooper slip around a corner and disappear into the ship. She hadn't spoken to him, but she knew a suspicious look when one was aimed at her.
Rocking Ardis into a nap, she added one more person to the list of people to be wary of.