Rey clutched her staff in a white-knuckled grip. Adrenaline coursed through her veins but she couldn't channel its energy anywhere. She stood on the seat of the cockpit, fully exposed to the troopers aiming their blasters at Jenny's rocket.
Behind her, she heard Jenny toss the last shrapnel chunk into the sand with a loud scrape and distinct thump. The masked man and his soldiers couldn't see Jenny yet, but they'd surely seen the shard fly out of the ship.
Tinny, meanwhile, stood motionless in the sand directly below Rey. She wrote him off instantly. He possessed solid construction but she doubted he would do any good in a firefight.
The masked man raised his right hand slightly.
"Take her," his mechanically-deepened voice ordered.
Rey gasped and dove into the narrow interior of the rocket, flinging her staff aside. She heard the reedy whiz of stun blasts flying through the place she stood seconds earlier, along with the sizzling splatter of more stun bursts peppering the rocket's hull.
Jenny and Rey climbed to their feet but couldn't fully stand in the cramped interior.
"I can still get us out of this," Jenny insisted, eyes wide. "I only need a few more minutes!"
Rey didn't want to ask how Jenny had managed to push up her deadline so easily.
"We're outnumbered!" Rey breathed. "And I don't own a blaster."
Jenny drew her handheld weapon swiftly. "I do, remember?" she said, flashing a cheeky grin.
Right then, Rey felt as far from cheeky as humanly possible.
"Tinny and I will give you cover fire," Jenny said. "I need you to close the cockpit hatch." She gestured using her lightweight pistol. "That wide yellow button just there. Do you see it?"
Rey looked quickly where she directed. "Yes, I see it."
The stun blasts ceased, and suddenly Rey heard speedy crunching sounds in the sand.
"They're moving in!" Rey cried in alarm.
"Tinny will hold them off!" Jenny assured her. "Go for the switch...," Jenny crouched, body coiling for a spring, "now!"
The lithe girl's upper body flew from beneath the shelter of the main hold and she squeezed a rapid series of energy bolts through the air.
Rey took a deep breath and hurtled beneath Jenny's shots, arm outstretched for the yellow switch.
...
Kylo Ren signaled the Stormtroopers to advance. Eagerness frothed in him, the desire to prove his continued worth to Supreme Leader and to secure the means to travel backward in time and meet his grandfather, the great Sith Lord Darth Vader. He focused his rabid eagerness, directed it into the power of the Force flowing through him, surrounding him.
The lead Stormtroopers had almost arrived at the crashed ship's side when the odd protocol droid standing in front of them suddenly churned into motion. One hand shot out, snagged a trooper by the neck, and sent jolts of crackling power through his body, while the other hand whipped up and extended a narrow blaster from its wrist. Using this wrist weapon, the droid proceeded to steadily and methodically drop the remaining front line of troopers into the sand one by one.
The entire group returned fire, but they'd barely begun before another human female jerked into view and began shooting downward upon them.
In the next instant, the other girl streaked out of the craft's innards and threw herself onto the cockpit controls. Following a slam of her fist, the cockpit hatch swung slowly downwards, emitting a piercing, grinding wail.
Kylo sensed a disturbance in the flow of the Force seconds before pure chaos broke loose amid the Stormtrooper ranks.
Gray, metallic objects, no longer than a human male's forearm, popped out of the sand and leapt onto the lead troopers. Keylo counted five, seven, ten of the eel-like objects. They wriggled their front ends into the joints of the troopers' armor and pumped more crackling doses of current into their bodies.
Flinging the electrocuted trooper into two more troopers, the droid resumed his undaunted, rhythmic pattern of blaster shots.
All this had taken place over a span of less than thirty standard seconds. Kylo could scarcely believe the situation had deteriorated so quickly. His eagerness morphed into rage, which tasted of familiar sweetness in the Force.
Kylo ignited his lightsaber and advanced.
...
"Nice job!" Jenny congratulated, returning her blaster to her pocket.
She burrowed her top half beneath the control panel again, and Rey could only wait for her to finish her work.
"It sounds like they're in complete disarray out there," Rey said, listening to the sounds of the pitched battle outside the rocket. "What is your droid doing?"
"Handling things, which is all we need," Jenny's muffled voice replied.
Rey rolled her staff repeatedly in and out of the cranny next to the pilot's seat anxiously, pulse throbbing in her skull.
She yelped when sparks flew from the control panel.
"Yes!" Jenny chirped, head popping up. "Got it!"
"Doesn't sound good to me!" Rey said.
Jenny grinned at her. "Trust me."
Rey stared back, recognizing how genuinely thrilled by their current predicament Jenny appeared. Rey didn't know whether to laugh or slap her. Instead, she turned and began crawling into the hold again.
"So let's get out of here," Rey exhaled.
"Your wish is my command," Jenny chimed. She pressed a switch on the control panel. "Tinny, get into load position, double-time!"
...
Kylo reached out using the Force and flung trooper after trooper aside, as well as the uncanny metal creatures jumping from one armored shoulder to the next. He quickly cleared a path to the droid.
Basking in his rage and anger, Kylo lifted up his lightsaber to strike down the troublesome machine.
The sand beneath him erupted in more of the metallic eels.
They swarmed up his body, covering him nearly from head to toe. He could feel their hard, rigid, bodies darting over him like mouse droids gone haywire. They waited until they engulfed his face before electrocuting him.
...
"Check, check, and check," Jenny said, tapping and flipping one switch after another.
Rey fumbled with the awkward harness on the narrow bench jutting from the wall of the hold. She heard the unexpected, welcome hum of the ship's engine coming to life. Maybe they would survive this after all.
Without warning a half-circle section of wall across the hold from Rey dropped loudly to the floor, causing her to yelp in surprise. Accompanied by a rattling whir, Tinny the droid rotated into the ship's interior, his feet attached by a pair of thick clamps to a circular platform. The platform thudded into place, creating a pit in the wall where the droid stood at an angle. Rey blinked and scrunched her face at the strange sight, but soon figured out that Tinny probably stood in the escape pod socket, now empty.
"Great use of the Cybermats," Jenny said brightly to the droid. Her expression fell slightly. "Too bad you had to use them all."
"The current situation required such action," Tinny droned in reply.
"Yeah, I know," Jenny said, shaking her head sadly.
Jenny secured herself in the pilot's chair and grabbed the steering sticks.
"Three, two, one," she said, flipping a series of switches.
The rocket's thrusters roared to life and the craft began sliding along the desert floor, drowning out the sound of the sand scraping beneath.
"Time to run!" Jenny called joyfully.
...
Kylo hurled the last of the metallic rodents off him in time to see the rickety, grungy vessel lift off the ground and angle into the sky.
Seething in fury, he saw one of his pilots stepping up beside him.
"Sir, what should we-"
Snarling in tantrum, Kylo summoned his fallen saber to him and slice the man vertically in half. He stepped between the toppling, fleshy halves to cut down a Stormtrooper, and another Stormtrooper, and another, drinking in the pain of their deaths to quench his poisonous anger and disappointment.
"Kylo Ren to the Finalizer," he said into his com link when he finished, hiding his slightly labored breathing. "Primary target is attempting to exit this system. Disable but do not destroy. Do you copy?"
"Understood," quipped General Hux's voice over the com.
...
Rey knew how to fly. She could feel the telltale ebbs and flows of the rocket's movements through the atmosphere and knew what each meant. She could also easily discern how much Jenny's piloting skills lacked.
However, she decided to focus on other things.
The blue sky soon gave way to the blackness of space, and Rey swallowed in both awe and terror at the sight of the white, immense form of the Star Destroyer looming in their path.
"We need to get to hyperspace now!" Rey cried.
"Don't know about hyperspace, but I've got access to something better," Rey said, turning a dial and pressing a series of buttons. "The vortex manipulator, remember?"
"Jenny, this is not the time for delusions!" Rey shouted.
"It's not a delusion!" Rey answered, sounding defensive but nowhere near Rey's level of panic. "It really does work. Except..."
"What?" Rey asked in exasperation.
"Two small problems," Jenny said, smacking a button several times before succeeding in depressing it. "One, I think the manipulator got scrambled pretty bad earlier, so it may be a long while before it will travel in time again. But space, blimey, we can go anywhere in the universe you want!"
"I..." Rey stammered, not sure how to respond.
She could see the Star Destroyer turning toward them. TIE fighters spewed from its belly, racing in their direction.
"Two, this vortex manipulator doesn't work like most of them. It has to be rigged to a vehicle and channel the vehicle's kinetic energy before reaching the right stability for a jump."
"I don't understand," Rey said.
"This spaceship needs to go really fast in order to enter the time vortex."
Rey lowered her head and uttered several Huttese curse words. "Look, for now, I'm going to assume and hope that time vortex equals hyperspace. If so, those TIEs aren't going to let us go anywhere fast!"
Jenny stared at the array of Starfighters filling the scene through the viewport.
"Right," Jenny breathed. "Well, I've got one last trick up my sleeve."
Her right hand yanked open a square compartment near the floor and punched the button inside. The rocket shuddered, and five blue spheres the size of a human head launched out the ship's front end and spread out, zooming in five different directions.
"What are those?" Rey questioned.
"Perception decoys," Jenny sighed. "I was hoping to save them."
"What?"
"Keep watching, and you'll understand."
...
General Hux stood on the bridge of the Finalizer, legs planted firmly beneath him and arms held confidently behind his back. He followed the progress of the TIE fighters interception of the unidentified vessel on the many viewscreens placed throughout the bridge in ever-increasing boredom.
He didn't fully believe Supreme Leader Snoke's explanation about time travel, and he certainly wasn't happy to be helping a spoiled brat like Kylo. But within the young General's chest beat an unwavering, even religious devotion to everything the First Order represented, so he would see this task done, however menial and worthless it appeared to him.
"Squadrons Two and Three, execute flanking maneuver Prime Green," he ordered.
His squadron leaders acknowledged his command, and their groups peeled off from the main group.
Moments later, the rocket craft vanished.
Hux's eyes bulged. "Where did it go?" he demanded.
"I-I don't know," stammered someone from a crew pit.
"Gone, completely..."
"How could...?"
"Where is..."
"I don't see..."
Pandemonium and confusion began rolling over the bridge. Hux glared in turn at every screen in sight, unwilling to believe the facts his eyes showed him: The unidentified ship was gone.
"Impossible!" fumed Hux.
As if in response, the rocket blinked into existence again. But this time, it zipped past the Star Destroyer's starboard side and into the empty space beyond.
"All squadrons reverse course!" Hux screamed. "Ensign Vreeda, I want a tractor beam in place now!"
Hux saw it on three monitors at once: The shabby, unsophisticated ship darted out of sight in the telltale motion of entering hyperspace, slipping from his grasp.
He sighed through clenched teeth. He would enjoy relaying the failed mission to Ren. But telling Supreme Leader Snoke...
Joy couldn't be further from the emotions welling in him in anticipation of the upcoming conversation.
