Chapter 7

Escape

Poe came to an abrupt stop once he reached the end of the alleyway. BB-8 almost ran right into his legs at the unexpected stop. Poe bent forward with his hands on his knees, his chest expanding heavily as he tried to catch his breath. Between the two of them, Poe and BB-8 were able to take down those two stormtroopers with no problem. However, it wasn't long before the remaining stormtroopers that were patrolling the hotel caught up with them in the lobby. They had narrowly made their escape out of the building. Due to their armor, stormtroopers were not known for their speed, and because of it, Poe was able to take advantage with his endurance and lose them in the scuffle. It had been some time before he didn't hear shouting from behind them.

They ran nonstop from the hotel to the rendezvous point BB-8 spoke of at the ship docks. When Poe saw the air ships in the distance he immediately felt comfort. He always felt home in the sky, and just the sight of a ship made him feel at ease. Poe scanned the area for his crew. He held his wrist to his mouth and spoke into his commlink.

"Come in Black Squadron. This is Black Leader, over."

After a few beats Snap's voice echoed on the commlink.

"Poe! Hot damn there you are! We thought you might have been taken."

Poe chuckled. "Oh, you know I wouldn't have made it that easy. Where is your location?"

"We are by bay 5. We are securing transport off this planet."

"By securing… you mean stealing," came Jess' voice over the commlink.

"Can you guys be quiet? I can't concentrate with you guys babbling about! I've almost got it," Kare spoke with annoyance.

"Kare almost has the doors open. Once we get it we should be able to get out of here!" Snap continued.

"Got it!" Kare exclaimed in triumph.

Poe smiled. "Nice work team. I'll meet you there. Let's get the hell off this planet and get back to base. Black leader out." Poe looked down to his droid. "Let's go Beebee. It won't take those bucketheads long to figure out where we're headed."

"WREEEEEEEEEEE!"

BB-8 whistled as it zoomed past him and veered off towards Bay 5. Poe looked behind him one last time before taking off into a sprint after his droid.

"You just missed the transport ship by 30 minutes." The attendant at the ticket counter spoke apologetically to Amara. "Next ship leaves in the morning. You can buy a ticket for that ship if you would like to wait."

"Damnit. I can't wait until tomorrow," she cursed to herself before she put her head in her hands. Now what was she going to do.

"You might want to see about speaking with some traders," the woman added helpfully. Amara raised her head to look at her and the woman pointed towards the docks. "Some are packing up now and are fixing to leave. For the right price you might be able to find passage."

Amara nodded. "Thank you." She turned and walked from the counter and headed in the direction of the landing docks.

"Good luck!" The woman called after her before she closed the window to her counter and locked up for the evening.

Amara walked to the first group of traders she saw. Two burly men were struggling with a large crate as they carried it up the loading ramp. The crate seemed to move against their movements as then men struggled and cursed to keep it upright.

Amara cleared her throat. "Umm… excuse me—"

"We don't have any money," one of the men spoke coldly as they dropped the crate with a thud on the landing bay. The man kicked the crate and cursed. Whatever was in the cracked rattled the crate as it screeched loudly.

"I'm not looking for money. I'm just looking for passage off Hosinian Prime." She reached into her bag and pulled out her debit card. "I can pay."

The man shook his head. "We are all full. No more room." He made his way down the ramp. He stopped and spoke to another man who was walking up the ramp with armfuls of paracord. "Make sure to secure that crate. I don't want that thing popping out while we are in hyperspace."

"Yes sir," the man nodded as he walked towards the crate.

The first man, whom she figured was the ships captain walked towards her. Amara approached him.

"Please," she pleaded. "I'll pay handsomely—"

The man flipped his hand and pushed past her. "Get out of here! We got a schedule and aren't making any extra stops." He leaned down and picked up a large crate and placed it on his shoulder. He pushed past her again, paying her no attention.

Amara put her card back in her bag and walked off and made her way to the next dock. There were other ships leaving that evening and she would find someone to take her.

But to her dismay, she was met with the same resistance with the next two ships she approached. No one was willing to take on an extra passenger. No one was interested in money and with one look at her small frame they already decided that she wasn't good enough to handle manual labor.

She was beginning to lose hope when she saw that the cargo bay of a light freighter ship was open. No one was around that she could see. If she moved quickly enough she could get inside that cargo hold without being seen. She didn't know what the ship was carrying but she knew that anything was better than the alternative of her staying here.

She made her way towards the ship and paused just as she got to the door. She peered inside and didn't see anyone in the immediate area inside. She took one look around the ship dock and didn't see anyone milling about outside. She looked to the nearby ships and the closest ship with active crew were barely within sight and not paying any attention to anything but their current cargo.

When she felt that no one was turned in her direction, she turned and quickly climbed inside the ship. As she made her way up the ramp she could hear voices coming from the cargo hold on the left.

"God this junk smells," a female voice said in disgust. "I don't know what is worse… this ship or Snap's room."

"I heard that!" called a male voice from the front of the ship.

From behind her she could hear another female voice call out. "All clear in the back! There are two escape pods if we need to make an exit."

Amara quietly moved to the right of the ship away from the voices and snuck through a doorway. She found herself walking into another cargo hold that appeared to be empty. She moved to the back of the hold and found a row of supply cabinets. She opened one and climbed inside, shutting herself within the cabinet.

She knew that this wasn't the best spot for her to hide but she had few options at this point. She just hoped that they were well into hyperspace before whomever owned this ship found her. She closed her eyes and prayed that none of them were with the First Order.

Poe ran up to bay 5 and saw a 720 light freighter parked in the bay with the exit ramp down. Poe quickly ran up the ramp and pressed a button to close the door behind him. He immediately ran forward towards the ladder well and climbed up into the pilot station. Snap was already at the controls checking all the levels and gauges.

Poe climbed into the captain's seat and checked the captain's controls. He put on the captain's headset and tested the sound.

"Talk to me team where are we at?"

"Fuel reserves are not optimal," Snap spoke in a business-like tone. "It looks like they didn't have a chance to refuel yet. We don't have enough fuel to get us back to D'Qar. We're going to have to make a pit stop somewhere commander."

Poe looked at the levels and calculated how far they could get. He made his own calculations but wanted confirmation from his droid. "Beebee talk to me. How far can we go in this bad boy?"

The droid began to sound off a series of beeps in quick succession. Poe listened to his droid's calculations and he nodded as his droid confirmed his own conclusions. "That's what I got too buddy. I know where we can stop." Poe reached up and punched in the coordinates to their destination. "We just need to make sure that we aren't spotted before we get into hyperspace."

Snap leaned over to peer at the coordinates and gave a slow smile. "Been a while since you've been back there, hasn't it commander?"

Poe nodded. "Yeah, I know." He turned and gave Snap a sideways smile. "He's not going to like it."

Snap laughed and took a seat in the co-pilot seat. "Let's hope he doesn't blast us out of the sky before we are able to land."

Poe nodded in agreement. "Here's hoping." Poe reached around and flipped one the last remaining switches. "Black 2, disengage anchor ties."

Snap flipped a switch. The hissing of the anchor unclipping echoed through the ship. "Anchor ties disengaged."

"Black-3, black-4, are you prepared for takeoff?"

"Gun it!" Kare yelled from below.

"Whooooo!" Jess whistled.

Poe looked to Snap who nodded and gave him a thumbs up. Poe smiled and placed his hands on the yoke of the ship.

"Alright team let's get the hell out of here."

Poe pulled back on the yoke, effortlessly guiding the ship from the loading dock. Once he was clear he turned the ship and navigated it away from the dock. He needed to get far enough away from the planet before he activated lightspeed to get them into hyperspace. The ship didn't have enough juice to make it the entire distance at lightspeed, but he had enough to put a good amount of distance between them and the planet before coasting in autopilot to their destination.

Once Hosinian Prime was far from range Poe flipped more control switches. "Black Squadron prepare to go to lightspeed," he spoke smoothly over the intercom. "I'm just going to go far enough to put some distance between us and the First Order. We should be out of lightspeed in just a few minutes."

"Sounds good."
"Prepared for light speed."
"Let her rip Black Leader!"

Poe flipped the switch and the squad braced themselves as they fell back against their seats as they were shot into hyperspace. As the galaxy sped around them, Poe kept his eyes fixed on the fuel levels. Jumping to hyperspace took a huge chunk out of the fuel reserves and he didn't want to be left stranded short of their destination.

When the fuel level just about reached the no-go level, Poe flipped the switch cancelling their lightspeed and bringing them out of hyperspace. When the ship slowed to a coast, Poe reached forward and activated the auto-pilot.

"Autopilot activated. You are free to unfasten your seatbelts and move about the cabin." He removed his headset and stood, placing the headset on his seat. He turned and made his way down the ladder well to join Kare and Jess below deck. Snap followed close behind him. "ETA is about 12 hours before we reach Yavin-4," Poe informed them as he reached the lower level.

Kare whooped and smiled. "Yavin-4! Ha! I haven't been there in years!"

"Get as much rest as you can. We'll want to fuel up and get back to D'Qar as soon as possible." As much as it pained him, he didn't want to spend too much time on Yavin-4. He still had so much work to do with the resistance.

Every time he visited his home it was becoming harder and harder for him to leave. He missed his home and moving from base to base was taking a toll on him. He wanted to put down roots, wanted to have somewhere to call home.

But now there was nowhere in the galaxy that was safe from the First Order. And because he was high up on the public enemy watch list he didn't want to tie himself down to any person either. The last thing he wanted was someone to use someone he loved as leverage against him. He didn't want to have to make the choice between someone he cared for or the cause that meant so much to so many people. What he was doing was bigger than everything and everyone.

He wasn't selfish enough to think that his own happiness was worth more than the fight.

The crew nodded and voiced their agreement that they definitely had a long day ahead of them and that they needed to gather their energy. Poe looked around and didn't see his droid. "Hey, where's BB-8?"

Jess yawned and gestured to the rear of the ship. "He went to the cargo bay to on check supplies. There might be some things that we can use for the resistance on here."

Poe nodded and stretched. His back felt tight and his muscles began to ache. He was exhausted. He had been up early that morning and hadn't had a chance to rest. All this adrenaline that was coursing through his body had run its course and his body was starting to feel it. He didn't know if anything was more appealing right then than falling face first onto one of the bunks in the crew quarters.

As if on cue, his stomach growled loudly. So loud that Snap turned his head and looked at Poe questioningly.

"Was that your stomach?" Snap asked with awe in his voice.

Poe's stomach growled again as if it had a mind of its own and was responding to his question. "I need to get something to eat. I haven't eaten since this morning. Let's see what they have about food on this bad boy."

"I'll join you guys," Kare said as she rubbed her stomach. "I'm starving too."

Jess yawned loudly again. "I'm just going to crash. I'll see you guys in–"

"OOOOWREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

ZZZZAAAP!
THUD.

Poe, Snap, Kare, and Jess all turned and looked at each other.

"What was that?" Snap asked cautiously.

Poe took off into a sprint towards the cargo hold, the rest of black squadron following close behind. As he ran he grabbed a pipe that was in a trash bin on the ground against the wall.

A stowaway was on the ship and if it was someone from the First Order he was ready to deal with them. He rounded the corner with his arm raised high, the pipe ready to strike. He skidded to a stop as he ran through the door to the cargo hold. The rest of the black squadron bounded after him, screeching to a halt as they avoided slamming into their commander.

Poe was completely frozen as he examined the scene before him.

BB-8 had his taser out and was primed and ready to strike again. The door to one of the storage lockers was open. On the floor he saw a woman passed out on the ground. Her familiar chocolate curls pooled around her, framing her soft face. Her features were relaxed and if he hadn't seen BB-8 next to her with a pulsing taser he would have thought she was sleeping peacefully.

His heart thumped in his chest as his eyes looked over her small form, taking in the sight of her. His feet hesitated in moving forward. He didn't blink, afraid that if he did she would disappear and he would find that she wasn't truly in his ship.

"Who the hell is that?" Kare asked as she peeked around Poe's shoulder. "Jess, I thought you checked this room."

"I did! She must have hopped on after I checked," Jess said defensively.

"Poe is that—" Snap took a step forward and narrowed his eyes at her. He turned and looked back at his commander question in his gaze. "Isn't that your sweater?"

Poe decided to take the chance. He blinked once.

She remained.

He blinked a secong time..

She was definitely still there.

He blinked a third time and when he saw that she was still there, he turned and looked to Snap. His lieutenant was looking at him waiting for a response. Snap eyes went down and focused on Poe's neck before he raised an eyebrow.

Poe looked down and saw that his hand was clutching the ring around his neck once more. Poe let go of the metal object as if it had burned him.

You'll feel that fire…

Amara's body twitched. She groaned and went to roll over onto her side. Before Poe could do anything BB-8 lowered his taser and stunned her again until she fell unconscious once more.