Chapter 2: Rathtars Attack

Rey's head popped up amidst the wiring in the bowels of the Falcon.

"It's the motivator!" she finally diagnosed the source of the problem, as she reached to unclip some wiring before lifting her head from below. "Get me a Harris wrench; check in there!"

Finn crawled over to a nearby toolbox and began digging through it. He wanted to be as much of a help as he could, he so desperately wanted to be valuable to Rey, to impress her. But, as he poked through power converters and compressors and metal doodads he had no name for, he reminded himself that he was most experienced in sanitation, not engineering. At best, he had known an acquaintance or two assigned to the Engineering Unit in the larger Stormtrooper Corps. He hoped, as he sifted through the toolbox with rapidly dwindling assertiveness, that he could be competent.

"How bad is it?" he attempted to make conversation all the while.

"If we run a leak? Not good."

"They're hunting for us now," Finn warbled. At this point, he was doing little more than rearranging the toolbox. "And we've got to get out of this system!"

"BB8 says the location of the Resistance base is need-to-know." Up came Rey's head again. "If I'm taking you there, I need to know!"

Oh, shit. It was either come clean in the middle of a stressful tech situation, or keep up the charade. Finn kicked himself. He should have known better than to assume there wouldn't be a quiz. Making a split second decision, he decided to stick to his story.

"This?" he flipped her a tool, not even knowing if it was the correct one. It certainly was shaped like a wrench.

As soon as Rey ducked back out of sight, he beckoned BB8 over. He might not be able to come clean to Rey just yet... but he could at least alleviate his conscience and come clean to the droid. Hell, the droid probably knew damn well he was no Resistance hotshot - at least, the thing didn't recognize him.

"You gotta tell us where your base is."

The droid beeped.

"I don't speak that. Ok, between us... I'm not with the Resistance, OK? I'm just trying to get away from the First Order. But you tell us where the base is? I'll get you there first. Deal?"

BB8 appraised him, clearly putting too much time and thought into this. Finn groaned.

"Pilot's driver. Hurry!" Rey was back. Evidently, Finn's selection of a Harris wrench was a lucky guess. Back to the toolbox Finn crawled. "So where's your base?"

"Go on, BB8, tell her," Finn tried to act casual, even if his heart was hammering in his chest. If Rey saw through this, she'd know he was full of shit, and he'd likely lose her trust for good.

A few agonizing moments as the droid looked between the humans in confusion, head swiveling this way and that.

Finn cringed. "Please," he almost mouthed.

A series of beeps.

"The Illeenium System?" Rey gawked and Finn exhaled. He had no kriffing idea where the Illeenium System was, but at least his alibi hadn't fallen apart. He would tell Rey his true backstory later, he resolved. He promised.

"Yeah, the Illeenium system, that's the one!" He had an easier time of it identifying that pilot's driver and he tossed it to Rey, hoping he didn't sound like an idiot. "Get us there as fast as you can!" In the brief moment that Rey was out of sight, he sent a thumbs-up to BB8, and the droid copied him with a tiny flamethrower.

"I'll torpedo from Niima Terminal. I need the bonding tape, hurry!"

"What about you?" Finn frowned.

"I've got to get back to Jakku," she furrowed her brows at him as if it wasn't obvious.

"Back to Jakk-!" Finn nearly exploded. "Why does everyone want to go back to Jakku?"

"It's not that one," Rey talked over him, referring to the bonding tape in his hand. Finn scoured aimlessly, grabbing for anything that resembled tape, even with Rey pointing way farther to his right. "No. No. The one I'm pointing to. No. No. No... If we don't patch this up, the propulsion tab will overflow, and flood the ship with poisonous gas!" The squabbling was not unlike a wife admonishing her bumbling husband.

"This?"

"Yes."

He flipped her the bonding tape and she ducked away yet again, Finn crawling over to the grate hole to watch her work. Even with the lessening steam, he got a wonderful view of her rear. It was shapely and curved. Finn had pretty much no experience with girls, but this one was a sight to behold. More than that, she was strong and feisty. He found he liked that in a woman. And thus, he tallied the first item on his list for what he wanted in a lover.

"Hey, Rey... you're a pilot, you can fly anywhere. Why go back?" He started off casual, play it cool, before going towards something more direct. "You got a family? You got a boyfriend?... A cute boyfriend?"

Rey's head poked back out rather abruptly. "None of your business, that's why," she hissed. But her cheeks were quite suddenly rosy pink - a fact that Finn noted right before the electricity went out and the emergency infrared lights kicked in.

The pair scrambled back to the cockpit, and the throwing of a few switches from Rey confirmed their worst fear. "Someone's locked onto us. All controls are overridden."

A noise from above compelled Finn to stand on his seat, throwing out a hand to brace himself against Rey's forehead. She grimaced. "Get off... get off!" She waited. "See anything?"

"Oh no... It's the First Order."

"What do we do? There must be something..."

"You said poisonous gas?"

"I fixed that -"

"Can you un-fix it?"

Her eyes widened, getting his meaning, and they raced back to the hole in the floor. Seizing gas masks, they dropped into the space together this time, and Finn would have found it an almost cozy place - perhaps to snuggle - if they literally weren't hiding for their lives. He went down first.

"Come on BB8..." Rey coaxed as she passed him gingerly down to Finn.

"I've got him." She let go sharply and the droid's dead weight toppled Finn to the floor. He didn't have him. Rey dropped down after them. Rey dragged the grate back into place, then set to work.

"Do you think this will work on the Stormtroopers?"

"Yeah. Their masks filter out smoke, not toxins." As soon as Finn said it, he regretted it, for the funny look that she gave him. If he was Resistance, he shouldn't know so much about troopers. Finn kicked himself. What other useful but suspicious information about Stormtrooper protocol had he let run out of his mouth?

Still, the moment passed, as footsteps now entered the hull.

"Hurry!" Finn kept watch.

"I'm hurrying..."

Finn resealed the grate... only for it to be lifted a few moments later, to reveal a man pointing a blaster, the pair of stowaways jumping and looking almost comical wearing gas masks.

It was quite a trip, meeting Han Solo. But they weren't out of the woods yet, as creaks and groans from just beyond the ship brought the famed Rebellion general back into action mode.

"Oh no... don't tell me a rathtar's gotten loose..."

"What? Did you just say rathtars?" Finn yelped, he and Rey stumbling after Han. "Hey! You're not hauling rathtars on this freighter, are you?"

It turns out that Han was making a smuggled run of the cuddly creatures. A glance at the scanners... "Oh, great! It's the Guavian death gang. They must have tracked us from Nantoon..."

"What's a rathtar?" Rey asked. Nobody bothered to adequately answer her beyond big and dangerous. Han opened a smuggler's hatch. Finn looked down. It looked even less roomy than the Falcon's maintenance hole.

"Get below and stay there until I say so, and don't even think about taking the Falcon."

"What about BB8?" Rey asked. Han promised to keep him safe until they were in the clear "... then you can be on your way."

An imprisoned rathtar suddenly slapped on the door behind them, interrupting their conversation.

"What are you going to do?" Rey asked as she descended.

"Same thing I always do: talk my way out of it."

Down in the hatch, Rey whispered to Finn, "Can you see them?"

"No." Finn could barely hear them as they crawled along. Peering up through a vent, Rey noted, "They have blasters."

"A lot of them," Finn agreed.

And it only got worse when a second, rival gang showed up.

"That BB unit," one of the gang leaders piped up with a brogue. "First Order's looking for one just like it... and two fugitives."

Rey and Finn clearly heard that even from down in the hatch as their crawl swayed to a stop. They glanced to each other in horror.

Now they were definitely going to die, Finn decided. He just wished he could think of something sweeter and more comforting to say in their final moments - maybe like how, if they hadn't gotten in this deep, he would have liked for Rey to join him sometime for a cup of bantha ice cream.

For her part, Rey had to admit that Finn was a nice man, adorable in his way. If they had had more time, she would have liked to have known him longer. He would have been a fine companion, on Jakku. Oh, well. She had had a good run while it lasted.

And then Rey got an idea. "If we close the blast doors from that hangar, we can trap both gangs!"

"Closing the blast doors from here?"

"Resetting the fuses should do it."

Unfortunately, she pressed the wrong buttons. Gates opened up with a screech.

"Oh no."

"Oh no what?"

"Wrong fuses."

And then all hell broke loose. Rey had accidentally released the rathtars.

In the confusion, she and Finn frantically crawled along amidst sparks.

"This was a mistake!"

"Huge!" Rey concurred with a squeak. They finally broke out of the smuggler's hatch and raced through the freighter.

"What do they look like?" Rey called out. Rounding a corner, they skidded to a stop, just in time to watch a beast with a gaping maw dismember a screaming gang member.

Finn went white. "They look like that." Rey clapped a hand over her mouth in horror, while Finn grabbed her other hand to drag her away. She didn't even bother to complain about him taking her hand this time. And actually, when she ignored the running-for-their-lives aspect, Rey admitted that she was starting to quite like the feeling of Finn's hand pressed in hers. It was warm, calloused and strong.

"This way!"

"Are you sure?"

Finn didn't answer her as a rathtar tentacle tripped him, and began dragging him back towards a maw of teeth. Rey wheeled around, face contorting with horror.

"Finn!" she screamed with pure fear. She chased after him. "Finn!"

"REY!"

She lost him, for one, brief, horrifying moment, in the maze of corridors. But then his screams guided her, and she pelted after the sound.

"REY!"

"Finn!" Her face collapsed in heartbreak. "Finn..."

Luckily, she had made her way back to the scanners, their cameras pinpointing Finn's location. Thinking fast, Rey keystroked a sequence and hovered her hand over a giant button. If she could get the timing right...

Now.

Slamming it down, Rey sealed the blast door, bisecting the rathtar and leaving Finn free, tangled up in only one, twitching tentacle. She found him quickly.

"Finn!"

"They had me! With the door..."

"That was lucky!"

Finn pieced it together instantly, and he gaped at her. She saved me... And for the first time, he seriously considered just grabbing Rey and kissing her - if nothing else, than in gratitude.

But Rey was already running again and he had no choice but to keep up. They finally reconnected with Han and Chewie, and still in the mayhem, they broke back into the hangar bay and made their escape on the Falcon...