10/23/1

"We're gonna die, we're gonna die, we're gonna die, we're—"

Chewie's shut up howl finally gets Finn to quiet down. There are a lot of things Chewie appreciates about Finn. He's smart, knows what he doesn't know, doesn't shoot his mouth off when he needs to keep quiet, and respects Chewie enough to know that he's the guy in charge here.

All of which he approves of.

But if he could be a tad quieter when danger rears its head, Chewie would appreciate it.

There's something to be said for a guy who can at least pretend not to be panicking, and that's the one thing Finn's shit at.

Granted, there's an Order Star Destroyer holding them in their tractor beam, so it's entirely likely Finn's not exactly wrong in his current assessment of the situation.

Though Chewie's hoping he is.

Right now, on the way home, they're not carrying any contraband, so that's one good thing. And maybe… And Chewie's halfway between a hope and a prayer, because it's nothing he's even thought about suggesting to Rey, and she can't imagine she ever sat down and spelled it out to Ben, but…

Maybe…

If they're lucky…

If this love thing matters…

If Kylo's worth more than a bucket of warm spit…

If…

"What do you mean be calm? I am a wanted deserter, and a traitor, both of which get you killed so dead by the First Order you don't even have time to blink. And so many people have a price on your head that they're going to get into a bidding war as soon as it goes out that they've got you."

Chewie just looks at him.

"Can't we punch our way out of this?"

Chewie inclines his head. Finn knows just as well as he does that once they're in the tractor beam, they're going nowhere but where the Destroyer wants them. And, from the way they're slowly easing into the Destroyer, apparently where they want them is on that ship.

Chewie howls at Finn and Finn nods.

"Yeah, I've got my false ID. You got yours?"

For whatever it's worth.

They hear the clunk of the Falcon's landing gear touching down in the Destroyer. Finn takes a deep breath and makes his face go calm, and only slightly annoyed, like it would be if they were just two other guys, on the last leg of a trading run. "We're about to find that out, real fast."

"Finn Tico and Huryynanth. Traders from Coruscant going to Lirium." Lt. GP-9908 of the Order says, looking at their IDs, bored. Both Finn and Chewie get the sense that he does this all day, every day, and if he could be doing something else, he would, but this is the job, so he's doing it. "Not much there, right?"

New settlement. Chewie nods over his shoulder. Got supplies for 'em. That'll check out because that's what they're carrying. Behind them, in the Falcon, four men in stormtrooper outfits are rummaging through their stuff, and, for once, finding exactly what's on the manifest.

"They got a mechanic there? That thing looks like the only reason it's still moving is the Force smiling on you." GP-9908 is professional; he's being nice, nothing assholish about him. But he's doing his job, making sure that no one brings contraband through J'doran space. And, from the looks of it, he's going to do his job, no matter what.

He's exactly what a Hux-grad is supposed to be. Competent to handle any job, anywhere, for as long as need be.

And as long as they play along, they'll have no problem with him.

Finn gives them his best smile. "Best one in the galaxy, my wife."

"Good. Because that thing's not going much of anywhere else without any help." His datapad beeps. "You check out. Once we're done the visual inspection, you can go."

Finn waits until they're in hyperspeed again, to say to Chewie, "Did that really just happen?"

Chewie gently whacks him in the shoulder.

Finn rubs it. "Ow!"

You're not dreaming.

"Think they put a tracker on the Falcon?"

If they did, Rose'll find it.

"Should we even take it to them?"

We told them where we were going. If it's there, she'll find it, and figure out how to make it tell them we're playing by the rules and only go where we're supposed to be.

When Finn gets home, he spends a long time holding Rose and Paige. Excitement on his runs isn't uncommon, but there's excitement and then there's excitement, and he could go a very long time without ever seeing the inside of an Order Destroyer again.

Without ever seeing who he could have been. They said he'd be an officer, eventually, if he put the time in. By now… He could have been Lt. FN-2187. He could have been a minor functionary, working his way toward being a major player… maybe…

Or dead. The odds of him not having been on the wrong part of the Supremacy or getting off Starkiller…

He kisses his wife and snuggles his baby girl, making himself breathe deep and easy, making the shakes stop.

Rose is looking at him, "How bad was it?"

He blinks. "Honestly, not that bad, but… You ever feel like you stared at a mirror of yourself, of who you could have been, and just… felt ice down your back?"

"No."

He nods. Of course not.

She strokes his face, and gently kisses him. She may not be able to feel it, but she's got enough empathy to imagine it, and that's enough.

Your man took us off the register, didn't he? Chewie asks Rey as the two of them are unloading the shipstones. This time next week, they should have it completely set up, wired into the dome that's become their training gym, and soon it should be warm enough for the kids to run around, exercise, and play in there, no matter what.

Rey smiles. "If he did, he didn't tell me about it. How close were you?"

Took our IDs and retina scans. If we were still in there, we'd have come up.

Rey feels pleased all over at that. She also decides this is a good opening to mention something to Chewie. "Along those lines… He's… been looking for things to do with the Supremacy. Something to make it worth keeping up. It's big, and has a lot of space, and a lot of soldiers in it. If… anyone were to decide they wanted a neutral meeting place with a lot of security, and the ability to house a huge number of people or things…"

Chewie makes a surprised sounding growl. There are, all over the galaxy, places like what Rey's talking about, but they're normally small. And they don't usually have the kind of numbers to really secure the peace. That's a good two-thirds of what keeps Maz in business, but she's only set to deal with a few dozen people at a time, tops.

You leave your goods, your buyer leaves his cash, Ren guarantees the deal?

"Something like that. Or, you need a place to meet someone, but everyone is wary of a fight, and no one wants to give an inch of intel on their own home turf, so you meet with him, in his space, and he guarantees everyone's safety."

Guarantees anyone who breaks the peace gets hurt for trying it.

"Yeah."

Lando did stuff like that with Cloud City. The New Republic hated it, because people would use his space for deals, use his company to clean the money, claim the goods were stolen, and then claim the loss as a tax write off. That was probably more lucrative than the mining.

Rey blinks at that. "Lando fought to set up the New Republic."

And he was the first Senator from Cloud City. Didn't mean he didn't know a good deal when it came up and bit him on the hip. Hell, he's the one who got the legislation passed that made it legal to write off stolen/lost goods on your taxes.

Rey decides this is the sort of situation where it's better to laugh than cry, so she laughs.

He would have ended up owning half the galaxy if he'd lived longer. If there was a way to make money, and look stylish doing it, Lando was on it. Chewie thinks about it more. Men like Lando are always useful to men like him, if they can be trusted. I can pass the word around, not sure if anyone'll take him up on it.

"People need to trust that he can do it?"

Anyone who's paying attention knows he can do it. The question is, can he keep the secrets? You run a deal like that, you've got to trust that the person you stole the stuff from didn't get a call five minutes after you've set a place for the deal. Gotta hope that whoever's hosting the party won't decide the price on your head is higher than the price of his security and put you in chains as soon as you get there.

"Assuming you didn't steal it from The Order, in the first place, or the price on your head isn't one set by the Order, I don't think you'd have any issues with him."

Chewie gives her a look that indicates he's not entirely willing to rule the idea out, but he's not convinced, either.

Hours later, when Rey tells him about it, Kylo touches his side, finger running over the scar left from the bowcaster, and then says, "He didn't have to miss. We're even."

"You call that a miss?"

"Compared to taking my head off, yes."

"So, if it'd been Poe's ship…"

He shakes his head. "I took them all off. I cleared the entire Resistance from our wanted list. I didn't exactly announce it or anything. You'd have to actually look for it to see I'd done it, but… The war is over. It's time to move on."

"Yes."

There are things that Lt. GP-9908 could gossip about if he were so inclined. And then, of course there are things that he can't, because he doesn't know that anything even remotely out of the ordinary happened today. So, at the end of the day, when he sits down at the canteen, to have a beer and supper, he doesn't talk about the wookie and his partner, because why would he? He handled dozens of inspections today. And that was just another one.

No, as he's relaxing, he chats with a few of his co-workers about the new armor that's supposedly coming down the line, and how this new stuff is supposed to be able to take blaster hits, and how field soldiers are supposed to be getting it first, but, one day, maybe, they'll get it, too.

And he certainly wouldn't mind better armor, but he also wouldn't mind not getting it, because not getting it means that they don't expect him to see any fighting, and he rather likes not having people shooting at him.

But he doesn't have anything to say about the Traitor and the Pirate, because he doesn't know he had them in front of him.