Review Responses~

KeepingThemAtBay: It's coming, I promise! If I remember correction it's chapter... twenty. So nearly there! It's worth the wait!

Guest: Haven't you been reading? They've always been together... I know what you mean though, and it's nearly here! One more spat and then it's smooth sailing.

ShigureAyameHatoriFanclub: Who knows, maybe she'll work up to it? But you have to start somewhere, and her father would definitely talk to Leia about keeping her on base for the time being.

JunJunyil: It would be, but I feel like Poe would be very secretive about Nusa around Sidra. Neither of them really like each other.

~TheObsessory


To The Stars and Back

Chapter 18; A Family United

A Fanfiction written by TheObsessory

It had been four years since Leia Organa change my life around for good.

Each year the Resistance grew in numbers and strength, but so did the First Order. Yet still the Republic did little to stop them. We were, however, doing our part, and putting dents into the First Order's numbers and plans. The fighting, however, had been minimal over the last few years, although I believed it would grow steadily in the coming ones, despite the so called "peace treaty" between the Republic and First Order. This treaty did nothing to stop the First Order from entering into Republic space, but still, the senators did nothing.

My job, for the most part over these last four years, was recruitment. And recruit I had done.

Sticking to her word, Cerys had recently joined the Resistance at a mere 20 years old. She never finished school, much to our father's disappointment, but was hired by the Resistance the moment she contacted them. What little schooling she did have prepared her to work in the tech field, repairing and monitoring many different kinds tech, from communication to droids. At the moment, she worked as a tech apprentice, but was learning quickly.

Surprisingly enough, the moment Cerys signed up, so did father and Kes. Although officially "retired", they had decided to offer their services to General Organa, and with our still relatively small numbers, she took them up on the offer immediately. Father worked as a doctor in the med bay and Kes, due to Poe's prompting about his age, did not return to the field, but instead became a tech apprentice as well, already fairly well learned.

"Sidra."

I jumped in my bed, sitting up immediately at the sound of a voice in my room. I blinked the blurriness out of my eyes, still exhausted from the trip I had just returned from. Standing near the door was Cerys with her arms crossed.

"Sleeping in?" She asked, coming to sit at the foot of my bed.

I flopped back down, pulling the covers back up to my chin.

"Sleeping in? You know I was at the Outer Rim territories doing recruitment and this is the first time I've slept in a real bed in days." I grumbled into the sheets, looking my sister over.

Cerys's appearance hadn't changed much since she was fifteen. A little taller perhaps with a bit more of a curve to her body. And, well, her hair.

Her hair was long and usually kept down, but after a minor incident with spark that ignited in her hair- something that had been her Master's fault, not hers -she pulled the thick brown hair up into two large buns that hung loosely at her neck. The damage to her hair had been minor, but the unevenness of the hair bothered Cerys until she shaved it off around her ear, a few inches shy of half of her head now bare skin.

It wasn't ugly in the slightest, if not a little odd. Cerys, however, liked it very much and decided to not let the hair grow out.

"Oh whine, whine, whine. Shouldn't you be used to it by now?" She scooted back on the bed and rested her back against the wall.

"No, never. Bed's are the best." I grinned before tossing the blanket off and stretching my arms above my head.

"What's that?"

I opened a singular eye to see Cerys pointed at my neck.

"Poe gave it to me for my twenty first Birthday-" Already seven years ago. -"It was his. When I asked him what it meant, he said he'd 'tell me when I'm ready'. But apparently I'm still not ready, so." I shrugged.

Cerys eyed me curiously for a moment before nodding.

"Well don't forget: you, father and I are having lunch this afternoon." Cerys told me on her way out, glancing over her shoulder, "Don't be late!"

"Wouldn't dream of it!" I called after her before the door closed.

I glanced at the clock, stretching my entire body as it shook comfortably.

I got ready quickly, despite being awake before my alarm sounded, and ate a small breakfast, reading up on any news I may have missed over the night.

Once I had finished eating, I headed for General Organa's office, stopping by Poe's room along the way. He had just emerged when I got there.

"So, has Leia told you anything about this meeting, or are we both in the dark?"

I had received the message from General Organa last night when I had gotten in, glancing over it briefly before sleep took me. Poe, other hand, hadn't been out on a mission recently.

"I know just as much as you." Was his answer.

Upon entering the General's office, we both took a seat at her desk, most, if not all, formalities lost. While we still called her General, much to her dislike, we had grown to be relatively good friends.

"This is Senator Erudo Ro-Kiintor." Leia immediately brought up a holo of the senator, the rotation showing a tall, thin human, entirely bald, wearing a narrow-slitted visor over his eyes. The image changed to a schematic of a ship.

"This is the Hevurion Grace, Senator Ro-Kiintor's personal yacht." Leia continued.

"It's a Pinnacle-class luxury ship, made by Vekker Corp. I've seen Pinnacles once or twice before. They're exclusive ships, everything aboard handmade, or so Vekker advertises. Only the very wealthy can afford them. They trade luxury for efficiency, practically hang an invitation off the hull for pirates saying, 'Money in here'." Poe rattled on.

I made eye contact with Leia mid way through Poe's speech, shaking my head lightly. I was almost entirely sure both Leia and I already knew what he was spouting, but neither of us interrupted him. Let him have his fun. The General gave me a wink.

"Could you fly one?" She asked us once Poe had finished.

"Sure." Poe ran his hand through his hair, "It's designed to be flown by a single pilot, though it crews better with two. Not counting, of course, any servants the owner may want aboard."

"Good. I want you to steal it."

Poe grinned and I frowned. We were resorting to stealing? And from a senator…

"Sure. Anything else you'd like while I'm at it? Maybe pick you up one of those new Nebulon-Ks?"

I shot an exasperated look toward Poe.

"What's this about, General?" I quickly interjected before Poe could carry on, "Stealing?"

"We've suspected Senator Ro-Kiintor of colluding with the First Order for years, Sidra." Leia answered, her eyes intent, "He's delayed or derailed motions covering everything from sanctions to increased support for the Republic Navy. He's taken numerous unscheduled and impromptu vacations to locations in the buffer region, in the neutral territories. There've been sightings of the Hevurion Grace in First Order space. Large sums transferred to his accounts through shells and third-party corporations via the CSA. He's not only in with the First Order, but he's in deep. He may have access to the top, to General Hux. Perhaps to Snoke."

I felt a little less annoyed at the fact Leia was asking us to steal a ship, but it still didn't sit right. The ends did not always justify the means. And she knew this bothered me as she continued.

"But we haven't been able to prove any of this. No hard evidence, just circumstantial. And we've tried, believe me. Twice in the last year Ematt's sent his agents aboard the Hevurion Grace after one of the senator's trips, trying to access the logs, the navicomputer, to prove where he's been. Each time the files had been purged prior to landing."

"You want me to kidnap a Republic senator?"

My hand came up to my forehead, rubbing at the already forming headache.

"No, no, that's precisely what I don't want you to do." At least Leia had a little bit of sense, "I want the ship, I want the logs, the navicomputer data, all of it, before anyone's had a chance to cover their tracks, you understand? But no loss of life, not even a bruise on the senator of any of the crew aboard if it can be possibly helped. And it must be completely deniable. Ro-Kiintor is a traitor, I'm sure of it, but until we can prove it, he remains a member of the Senate, and the Resistance will honor that. We must honor that, or we're no better than the First Order."

"Stealing makes us no better than the First Order." I mumbled, avoiding Leia's gaze, "Besides, how will this 'evidence' we find hold up in any court. 'Oh we just happened to find your stolen ship floating around in the middle of nowhere'?"

"It will have to do." Leia was resolute. There was no changing her mind, and Poe was all for it.

"If they're purging the data, they're almost certainly doing so within minutes of coming out of hyperspace."

"That's Ematt's thinking as well." Both continued on despite my discomfort with the situation.

"It's a very tight window in which to take the ship. And it'll have to be done in space, it can't wait until the senator's landed."

"I am aware of that. I'm aware of exactly how difficult this mission will be. Which is why I'm giving you both the option to say no. I have to stress this," I brought my eyes up to meet hers, "This is not an order. It could go very, very wrong, and if it does, the Resistance would have to deny any involvement. You would both be on your own."

Poe looked inquiringly at me.

I knew he could do the job on his own. In fact, I'm surprise General Organa didn't contact just him. Then again, any missions we did, we did in groups, though not always together. Going alone would be dangerous.

"While I don't condone stealing, suspected traitor or not, who else is going to keep an eye on Poe and make sure he doesn't get himself killed?" I looked back to Leia, her eyes lightening as Poe clapped me on the back.

"We're going to need a few things."

"First of all, this is a volunteer mission," It was dinner time, later that night. The plan, it had been nicknamed Operation: Sabre Strike, was to take place three evenings from now. We sat with Iolo and Karé as we finished our meals, "You want to take a pass, it will most definitely not be held against. you. I will probably think even more highly of you if you say no. It verges on crazy. It is entirely unofficial."

"I love it when he talks like this." Karé sighed, leaning back in her chair casually, "You always know it's going to be something good when he talks like this."

"I'm not sure it's something 'good'." Iolo argued.

"We haven't heard it yet-"

"And you won't unless you let him talk." I blinked in their direction.

BB-8 took at as his cue and rolled forward, projecting the visuals and briefings from his lens.

"-It's a tight window." Poe was finishing us his spiel as I prodded questioningly at some jell-o on my plate, "We have to hit the ship the moment it comes out of hyperspace, we have to disable it, get me and Sid aboard, get the senator and anyone else on the ship into the escape pods and off the vessel, restart the engines, and then get out of there again. And we have to do it within eight minutes."

I shook my head, calculating everything that could possibly go wrong.

"Why eight minutes?" Iolo asked.

"Republic response time to the Uvoss system," Karé answered for Poe, "It's not on any of the patrol routes and that's probably why the senator's been using it as his hyperspace entry and exit when he's taking these little jaunts."

"But the first thing they'll do when they realize they're under attack is send out a distress call." Poe continued, "Nearest Republic squadron will need at least eight minutes to respond."

"So we need to be gone by the time they get there." Iolo muttered to himself, his own mind thinking.

"Exactly."

"At least eight minutes?"

"Minimum." I tried to look at the bright side of the situation, "Could take them longer."

"Then let's hope it takes them longer."

Over the next three days, we prepared ourselves. Since our mission required deniability, we couldn't use our Resistance-affiliated vessels. Poe managed to scrape up four Incom Z-95 Headhunters. Although a completely different ship, they were remarkably close to the X-Wing class of ship, making piloting them a breeze. The only problem, however, what that none of the Z-95's were fitted for astromech assist, meaning one, no droids, and two, all of the hyperspace jumps needed to be preprogrammed, including the data chip Poe and I would bring onto the Hevurion Grace.

We waited a long seven hours, floating in the silence of space, our comms. down to maintain radio silence. The Z-95's cockpit was a bit smaller, much to the displeasure of the others, but I, on the other hand, hadn't grown too long in the leg and was mildly comfortable.

Exhaustion was kicking in, despite having slept a decent amount before we flew out. Unable to slap my face due to the helmet, I shook my head to rid myself of the drowsiness.

Iolo's engines switching on alerted us all to the oncoming ship, his Keshian eyes seeing something we humans could not.

The moment the Hevurion Grace appeared, the four of us shot toward her. The broadcasted distress signal went up, and I keyed a control on the arm of my suit, a timer popping into view in my helmet. Poe, no doubt, had done the same. Eight minutes.

Shots were had on both sides, but the only ones that connected were Iolo's. Blue tendrils raced like lightning bolts over the ship, and it went dead. Only thirty seconds had passed.

Both Poe and I shot toward the Hevurion Grace, stopping a small way from her and turning autopilot on. We watched as the ship loomed towards us and then ejected into space from our ships, floating weightless as we waited for the bigger ship. Once within a good enough reach, we signalled each other and turned the maneuver jets on for our space suits.

With our Z-95's abandoned and floating toward one of the nearby gas giants, we slammed ungracefully into the yacht. My eyes blurred for a moment, my head pounding from the impact. The both of us, though dazed from our crash landing, scrambled for the nearest access port, Poe pulling a fusion torch from his belt to break the seals.

I watched the timer as Poe worked, shivering lightly to myself. It wasn't every day I went walking in space. We had been trained to do so, of course, but that had been years ago.

With the last seal popped, the both of us pulled and pushed at the door, fighting our own weightlessness to get inside, our magnetized boots doing little to help us.

Poe slipped through first, and I followed him easily. We wasted a few more seconds resealing the door before we began down a ladder into the ship.

By the time Poe reached the bottom, the power had returned, including the gravity. I was jerked suddenly down, my thickly gloved hands unable to hold on to the rungs of the ladder.

A strangled yelp of surprise escaped my lips as I started falling.

Poe, luckily, had been standing on the ground when gravity returned, and clumsily caught me.

"Who's saving who now?" He laughed quickly, setting me upright on the ground. We both grabbed our blasters as Poe switched on the speakers on his suit.

"This vessel is now the property of the Irving Boys!" His speakers distorted his voice, making him sound more droid than human.

Three people stood in the hallway when we emerged. One looked to be a pilot, another a servant and the last was the Senator himself, each wearing a look of surprise and terror. Thank goodness for tinted visors.

"Do you know who I am? How dare-" The Senator started in a squeaking voice, visibly shaking as I aimed my blaster in his direction.

Poe fired a shot into the deck, cause the three onlookers to jump. I nearly did as well, surprised by the noise.

"Mine!" Poe yelled, the droid like voice screeching, "You're good stock! You'll make a fine slave!"

I smiled behind my visor at Poe, his ridiculous voice still familiar to my ears.

"Now… now let's not do anything hasty…" The senator grabbed the servant and placed her between us and him.

"You have ten seconds to leave our ship! Or else you'll be mine, too!" Poe fired a second shot into the deck for emphasis, all three of them trampling over one another to reach the escape pods.

We chuckled to each other as we ran for the cockpit, pleased with how this mission was going so smoothly. Perhaps my fears had been for nothing- Poe wasn't being quite as reckless as I expected.

We tossed our suits and helmets to the floor, no longer needing protection from space. Poe had just plugged the data chip into the navicomputer when Iolo's voice came over the comm.

"Uh oh."

We jumped up to search the empty space, my heart pounding. Had we underestimated the reaction time of the Republic? I then realized whatever Iolo had seen would not be visible to our human eyes just yet, but just as that thought crossed my mind, two Star Destroyers had appeared before us, countless TIEs flooding into the space around them.

"First Order!" Poe shouted into his com, "Jump! Both of you get out of here!"

The proximity alarms on the Hevurion Grace began their high pitched screams and I launched myself toward the switches to shut them up.

"Commander, what's you time to jump?" Karé's voice came over the comm. next.

"I gave you an order, Captain Kun." Poe put on his serious voice as we worked on getting the hyperdrive working.

"Sorry, can't hear you because of all these TIE fighters coming at me."

"Guys, we're fine. Just make the jump." I said into my own comm. quickly, watching the systems aboard the Hevurion Grace come back to life.

"It's gonna be about forty, forty-five seconds." Poe answered a moment after me, "I can evade these slugs for that long."

"So about a minute and a half." Iolo wasn't that far off, "You're a bad liar, Poe."

"I am not."

"Now's not the time to argue." I growled, eyes searching for anything else I could do. At this point it was mostly a waiting game. We wouldn't be able to make the jump until the hyperdrive motivator was ready.

"We'll keep them off your backs, Commanders. Make your back hard for them to climb onto to begin with." Karé chuckled, her cockpit rattling over her comm.

"You're both disobeying my orders." Poe had kicked up the thrust on the yacht's ion engines.

"As if you expected them to do any less!" I shot back quickly, watching for Iolo and Karé among the enemy ships.

They were, for the most part, ignored by the seventeen or so TIEs that were making a beeline straight for us. They were obviously intent on stopping us.

The yacht wasn't nearly as hard to pilot as I had expected it to be.

We leaped toward one of the gas giants, dodging and weaving, making ourselves a harder target to hit. The TIEs did not relent, but neither did Iolo and Karé. In a mere few seconds, the fleet of TIEs that followed us had been cut in half, scaring the few that remained from their pursuit of us.

"Leave some for the rest of us." Poe said brightly, still making for the gas giant.

"You snooze, you lose. Time until jump? For real, please." Karé asked quickly.

"Forty more seconds." I answered her, glancing around the controls. It was the last thing we were waiting on.

We jumped as a bright light imploded before us, causing the yacht to sway with the force of the shot. Two more TIEs appeared overhead, a million lights and sirens going off on the control panel.

Neither of us needed to say anything, as the TIEs were blasted a few seconds later.

"That Resurgent class is closing fast." Karé called.

"You guys need to go, now." Poe commanded.

"Right after you do." Both of their responses came back.

"Quit trying to save them and focus, Poe. They're not leaving." If I had a ship for each time I reminded Poe of this, I'd have had a whole fleet years ago.

"Head for the Resurgent class." Poe swung the nose of the yacht around suddenly.

"Say what now?" Karé spoke for all three of us.

"One hit from those turbo blasters and we're done." Iolo agreed.

"And one hit from those turbo blasters those TIEs are done, too."

"That close, you're vulnerable to their tractors beams-" I argued.

"Resurgent beam emitters are to the prow." Poe cut me off, "We won't come at it from the font."

"Oh, well, that settles that." Karé resigned herself to Poe's plan immediately, if not a bit sarcastically, "Sure, let's charge the Star Destroyer. Why not? Coming, Iolo?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"You're insane." I muttered to Poe, my eyes not leaving the countdown for the hyperdrive.

"Iolo, check your port side."

I followed Poe's eyes, seeing a white mist wafting from the middle of Iolo's ships wing

"I know. Not much I can do about it now."

"Break." For once, Poe had decided not to argue. Perhaps he'd start listening to me.

More shots from the Resurgent detonated in front of us, the yacht shaking with the force of the explosion.

"I thought you said we weren't coming from the front." I questioned breathlessly, catching myself from flying face first into the controls from the shutter of the ship.

"Plans change." Poe said quickly, completely focused on flying.

Iolo and Karé's talking was happening in the background, on both the comm. and my mind as I watched Poe maneuver around the Resurgent, TIEs falling left and right.

"-hit, been hit, losing power-"

The comm. became the center of my attention now.

"Iolo jump!" I commanded, waiting for the sound of his voice, unable to find him in the floating debris and racing TIEs.

"Not going to leave you!" He answered back.

"We're leaving together." The hyperdrive motivator deeped in announcement, "Break off and jump to lightspeed!"

My head snapped back against the seat as the mess of TIEs, Star Destroyers and the gas giants were left behind in a blur.

Iolo and Karé were already waiting for us when we landed. We greeted each other with shouts and hugs, still in disbelief that this whole endeavor had gone so smoothly. We all spoke at the same time, thanking each other for the saves or laughing at how lucky Iolo had been with that busted wing of his.

"Muran would've loved to have seen that." Iolo said.

We all drew quiet, remembering the situation that lead to this mission in the first place

"He'd have been proud." Karé said.

"And maybe now he can rest." I added in.

Spotting General Organa across the bay, Poe clapped Iolo and Karé on the shoulders.

"Go get cleaned up," He told them, "We'll have a toast to Muran."

Once they both left, Leia approached us, still near the ramp of the Hevurion Grace.

"3P0, go abroad please and see what you can get from the flight computers." The General told the shiny gold droid that accompanied her nearly everywhere.

"Of course, Princess Leia. I mean General, oh dear!" He threw his hands up before making his way up the ramp.

"I'm glad to see you both back in one piece. Captain's Kun and Arana as well. I take it everything went to plan?"

Poe and I glanced at each other.

"Well you weren't wrong about the Senator."


Wooooooo, that was a long one. Lots of action. We're working our way up to "The Force Awakens". In fact, it's starting next chapter!

Coming up in Chapter Ninteen: Another spat between Poe and Sid and this time, Poe might not come back.

~TheObsessory