Kelton Andor was grappling with the realization that the two people he'd picked up on Jakku were probably going to be the death of him. Rey and Finn had concocted a plan to release poisonous gas into the ship, while not breathing it in themselves, and then they'd blast their way back out into the stars to freedom. If the gas, First Order, blasting, and space didn't kill them, that is.
Metal clanged as the Falcon's gangway lowered and then silence permeated the ship, broken only by Rey and Finn's whispered bickering.
"Hurry!"
"I'm hurrying!"
Kelton pressed his cheek to BB-8's grimy front and tried not to think too hard about what would probably happen next.
The sound of boots and some other shuffling sound entered the ship, coming close to their hiding spot.
"Chewie... We're Home." A gravelly voice said. Kelton groaned aloud, earning panicked glances from his companions. There was a series of wookie howls from somewhere in the hold, and then the grating above their heads slid away.
"Where are the others." The same rough voice said, coming from behind a blaster. "And where's the pilot?"
"I'm the pilot." Rey said bravely. Kelton tried to disappear into the floor. The blaster swung his way.
"You've got to be kriffing kidding me. Kelton Andor, get the hell out of there. And then get the hell off my ship."
"It's my ship, Han. I paid for it." Kelton said, pulling himself out of the hold.
"A likely story. Where did you find it?"
"Niima Outpost." Rey answered.
"Jakku? That junkyard?" Han asked, incredulous. "Who had it? Ducain?"
"I stole it-" Rey began.
"I bought it from Unkar Plutt." Kelton interceded. "Who got it from-"
"The Irving Boys, who stole it from Ducain." Rey interrupted Kelton right back.
"Who stole it from me. You tell him that Han Solo just stole back the Milennium Falcon for good."
"You're Han Solo?" Rey blurted, eyes shining in awe.
"He used to be." Kelton grumbled.
Han Solo disappeared, leaving the group under Chewbacca's watchful eye.
"Hey Chewie." Kelton said, guiltily avoiding the wookie's gaze. Chewie scolded him.
"I know, I know. You don't have to keep telling me." Kelton replied.
"Your family is with the resistance?" Rey asked him.
"You can understand that thing?" Finn asked Rey.
"Wookie isn't hard to pick up, kid. And don't call him a thing, he's smarter than the both of us put together." Kelton replied.
"Some moof-milker put a compressor on the ignition line!" Han Solo rejoined them.
"Unkar Plutt did, I thought it was a mistake too because it puts too much-"
"Stress on the hyperdrive." Han finished a the same time.
"Whoa. Engine junkie alert." Finn said.
"Tell me about it." Kelton replied.
"That's enough out of you, kid. I have half a mind to drag you back to your Father myself, if-"
"If you weren't scared to death of what the Generals will do to you if you return." Kelton finished.
A loud creak and rumble from somewhere outside interrupted what promised to be an excellent argument.
"Don't tell me a rathtar's gotten loose." Han said.
"You still have those onboard?" Kelton asked, eyes going as round as saucers.
"You're carrying rathtars?!" Finn's voice jumped an octave. He was met with silence as everyone onboard immediately disembarked, following Han as he rushed for a control panel in the cargo bay.
"I'm carrying rathtars." Han replied casually, punching buttons on the panel. "And I'm being boarded by the Guadian Death Gang. Must have tracked us."
"What's a rathtar?" Rey asked Kelton.
"Big, ugly, and toothy." Kelton replied.
"Don't worry, I've got a plan." Han said.
"Some kriffing plan." Kelton grumbled. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. His godfather was way over his head this time, caught between two gangs and a load of angry rathtars. And he had a bad feeling things were just going to keep getting better. He was really starting to regret bringing the two Jakku fugitives with him, because with the exception of some flying, there had been a whole lot of bad choices from those two.
"Go up, we're not going to get anywhere from down here." He panted at Rey, sweat dripping into his eyes.
"I don't even know what a rathtar looks like, does it look like a fargarro beast? With teeth? Or-" She was rambling. He found a hatch at a crawlspace intersection and pushed it open. He pushed Rey up, only to have the door slammed shut by a large pile of tentacles. Rey dropped on top of him, knocking the wind out of him.
"Are you okay?" She asked, wide eyes searching his. He felt his heart speed up a little in a way that had nothing to do with their impending doom.
"I'm fine." He reassured her.
"Are you done?" Finn asked, his tone on the edge of unpleasant.
"Try again." Kelton said to Rey. She peeked out of the hatch and Finn pushed his way to her side.
"What do they look like again?" Rey's voice was barely a squeak.
"Like that. They look like that." Finn said, equally as quailed. There was a roar and unpleasant squishy sounds reverberated from the next corridor over.
"Move!" Kelton shouted at them. They sprang out of the hatch like womp rats after a cave-in and began sprinting away from the rathtar. Which unfortunately drew its attention.
"You know this ship, where are we going?" Finn yelled at Kelton.
"What?! I have no idea!" Kelton threw back. They wound their way through the cargo ship's maze of corridors, trying to retreat from the sound of the beast rolling behind them.
A stray tentacle emerged from another corridor and Finn went down like a rock.
"Finn!" Rey screamed as another rathtar pulled her friend away from the group.
"Oh, he's dead." Kelton said.
"No!" Rey leaped after the retreating rathtar and Kelton had no choice but to follow. They gave chase, but quickly lost Finn's screams.
"Another panel!" Rey yelled, diving for the control box. She watched the cameras for signs of Finn, and Kelton took a moment to reacquaint his lungs with air.
"You, we... are... sofuckingkriffed..." Kelton panted, trying to inflate his lungs and get the point across to this crazy desert girl that they were probably, no definitely in imminent danger.
"Shut up." Rey barked at him. Her delicate hand hovered over the door controls, watching as Finn and the rathtar progressed past the cameras. Kelton felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle as Rey's aura changed. She slammed the button, severing the tentacles holding Finn and dropping him on the floor somewhere to their right. The rathtar screamed in pain and anger as its prey disappeared from its grip.
"Finn!" Rey took off, dragging Kelton behind her.
"The tentacles, t-t-the thing, and then the door-" Finn gasped as he divested himself of the chopped tentacles.
"That was lucky, wasn't it?" Rey retorted.
The group shambled back toward the landing bay and the falcon, ears pricked for sounds of approaching rathtars or death gangs.
"How do I get into these situations?" Kelton grunted, spitting hair out of his mouth as he helped Finn support Chewie up the Falcon's gangway. Finn groaned in agreement. The wookie smelled like wet, singed, musky fur and weighed the same as a bantha, it seemed like.
"If we don't prime that, we're not going anywhere." Rey was arguing with Han up in the cockpit. Kelton and Finn helped Chewie to an empty seat.
"All right, where's the med kit." Kelton said, turning to the cockpit just in time to see a rathtar's mouth descend over the front window.
"Stars, that's ugly." He muttered. Chewie bellowed, adding to the din of noise on the ship. Kelton located the medkit and turned to see Finn with his head between his knees, talking incoherently to the floor.
Something inside the ship stalled, making everything rattle. Kelton abandoned the medkit to mimic Finn's position.
"The compressor!" Rey shouted at Han. Then suddenly, everything disappeared in a flash of white as the Falcon jumped into blissful, quiet, open space.
Well, at least it would have been if Chewbacca hadn't started bellowing at the same time as alarms started blaring all around the ship.
"Here," Kelton said to Finn, thrusting the medkit at him, "try and get some bandages on that blaster burn."
"Right, okay. That'll be easy." Finn griped.
Kelton made his way to the cockpit, where all hell was breaking loose. Rey was arms-deep in an electrical panel while Han twiddled buttons and knobs on the main controls. Behind him, Chewbacca roared at Finn, earning a yelp of pain and surprise.
"You hurt Chewie, you're gonna deal with me!" Han bellowed down the hallway.
"Help..." Finn choked out. Kelton ignored his please and passed a spanner to Rey and a soldering gun to his godfather.
Suddenly, the sirens stopped and the emergency lights disappeared. Rey held a mess of wires and metal in her hand.
"What did you do?" Han asked suspiciously.
"I bypassed the compressor." Rey looked absolutely elated. Han grunted in reply, popping her bubble. Kelton patted Rey's shoulder as Han heaved himself up to go check on Chewbacca. Kelton could see the hurt in Rey's eyes, but that wasn't really his area of expertise. His experience with women led to the bedroom and no further, feelings were... Well, complications.
"Chin up, kid. You did good." Kelton touched her chin for emphasis. Rey flinched back from him, eyes fluttering closed. He held his hands up in defense.
"Hey, hey, I'm one of the good guys." He said, turning his best scoundrel's smile on her. She relaxed, but only barely. Kelton ran his hands through his shaggy hair, embarrassed. That usually worked on the ladies...
"You all did good. I guess." Han grumbled at them all from the cabin. Kelton opened his mouth to thank him, but Han held up a hand behind him.
"Quiet, you." He said, not even looking. Kelton melted into sullen angst.
"So, fugitives, huh?" Han asked, assessing them all.
"The First Order wants the map, Finn is with The Resistance, and I want back to Jakku." Rey said, ducking under Kelton's arm to address his godfather.
"Let's see what you've got." Han said, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. BB-8, forgotten in the chaos of their escape, rolled forward with a tentative squeak.
"Go on." Rey coaxed the little droid. BB-8 pulled forward a little more, then swiveled to project the map stored in his memory.
The ship's cabin lit up with little points of blue and red light as the map blinked into view.
"This map's not complete," Han mused, eyes roaming over the layout. "It's just a piece. Ever since Luke disappeared, people have been looking for him..."
"Why?" Rey and Kelton asked at the same time Finn asked, "Who?"
Rey shot a sharp glance at Kelton, her eyes searching his face. He shifted uncomfortably. Han tracked the movement.
"You remember your godfather?" Han asked Kelton.
"Well, yeah. Mom put me in his school for a year. They thought I was... different. I wasn't." He was aware of the bitter tone in his voice and went in for the kill. "He only wanted to train Ben."
Han flinched back at his words, as he expected he would.
"You listen here, you little punk. I have half a mind to-"
"Drag me back to my father, dios mio, I know. Do it already, or don't. He doesn't know I'm alive, he's doesn't care about me, all he-"
Han moved faster than any of them would have thought possible and slapped Kelton across the face. The crack of skin on skin echoed throughout the tiny ship.
"If you open your ungrateful mouth one more time to say that your father, who moved the stars for you, does not care, then so help me, I will throw you out of this ship at lightspeed." Han said venomously. Kelton felt tears spring to his eyes in spite of himself. Here he was, nearly thirty years old, and his godfather had put his ass in the dirt just like he was fifteen again.
"You're running away from The Resistance too, don't pretend like the generals aren't keeping each other warm while you're off smuggling and regretting."
Han didn't say anything more, only wound up and punched Kelton squarely across the jaw. The taller, younger man sagged to the floor, cradling his split lip.
"Your father is one of the greatest, albeit one of the most annoying, men I have ever met. You're not even half the man he is. Grow up." Han spat. Kelton looked away, face and eyes burning. Rey's hand fluttered over her mouth in shock.
"Uh, hate to interrupt. But what happened to this Luke guy?" Finn asked. "He sounds important."
"Luke was training Jedi in the ways of the Force." Han swiveled to look at the group, allowing Kelton to lick his wounds.
"He was training a young man who betrayed him, destroyed his school and what he stood for. Luke felt responsible, and swore he'd never train another Jedi again. So he left."
"The Jedi were real?" Rey asked, eyes as big as saucers.
"I used to wonder about that, and then I met some." Han said wryly. "I had one aboard this ship the night I met my... friends, and he showed us what he could do. The Force, the Jedi... It's all true."
The moment was broken by an alarm. Han blinked, and BB-8 shut off the map.
"You want my help? You've got it." Han said, crossing to a comms panel. "We're going to see an old friend, she'll be able to help. This is our stop."
The ship dropped out of hyperspace. Han and Chewie returned to the cockpit, and Kelton felt Rey and Finn's eyes on him.
"I don't want to talk about it." Kelton hedged. Rey and Finn exchanged a glance and followed the others into the cockpit.
Cassian Andor was dreaming. At least, he had to be. He could see Kelton, his son, and feel his energy beating in The Force.
"If you open your ungrateful mouth one more time to say that your father, who moved the stars for you, does not care, then so help me, I will throw you out of this ship at lightspeed." Came Han's voice. Cassian couldn't see the smuggler, but he recognized his energy.
"...don't pretend like the generals aren't keeping each other warm while you're off smuggling and regretting." Kelton spat.
Han's fist connected solidly with Kelton's jaw.
"Cassian..." Jyn's voice echoed in his ears. He could feel her, smell her as if she was really there with him.
Cassian woke up in a cold sweat for the second time that week, his back and hips screaming in agony as if it was just yesterday The Emperor had slammed him into a railing, cracking two vertebrae and a rib.
"Kelton..." He panted raggedly. "Han."
In the bed beside him, Leia stirred and put a hand on his thigh as he sobbed out his sorrow and anger at the entire galaxy.
