Chapter Thirteen – The Last Attack of the First Order
In the space around the ruins of Alderaan the Resistance Fleet began to break up. One by one the divisions of ships meant for the great encirclement jumped away, leaving only the flagship and its small fighter escort behind. Within the flagship the Millennium Falcon awaited what all expected to be its final flight. Once in Coruscant the ship, its owner dead and his son an enemy of the Republic, was to be placed in a museum commemorating the defeat of the Empire. Finn was the last of the command crew to enter the Falcon and when he made his way to the cockpit found Poe, Rose and Chewbacca already seated. Chewbacca, of course, sat in the co-pilot seat which had been his for decades. Poe and Rose, on the other hand, sat in the two rear seats, leaving the pilot seat empty.
"It's good that everyone realizes I should be the pilot," Finn said, somewhat smugly.
Chewie looked up from the dashboard at Finn in disbelief, while Rose winced. Poe started to speak, saying, "About that buddy…," when from behind him walks in Lando Calrissian.
Lando reached his hand out and said confidently, "Hi there, you must be Finn."
Instead of going for the handshake that Finn expected, Lando patted Finn on the back as he walked by him and sat in the pilot seat next to Chewie. "I missed this. I miss my old buddy Han more, but I missed this too. Haven't flown this girl in a while," Lando said while Finn stood indignant behind him.
"Since the Battle of Endor right?" Rose said with barely contained excitement.
"No, I flew it a time or two when Han was still working for the New Republic. He'd be busy and I would take any chance I could to take her for a spin," Lando said.
Finn turned to Poe and said, "So now, not only am I not the pilot, I don't even have a seat in the cockpit?"
"If it makes you feel better, you were never in the running for pilot," Poe said.
"Why not?" Finn asked.
"Well, I'd have to start with the fact that you aren't a pilot, and I am," Poe said. "And second, are you going to kick Chewie out of his seat? That's been his seat for longer than you've been alive."
Chewie grunted agreement. Finn gave Rose a hard look which Rose returns as she said, "I was on time, so I get a seat."
"Everyone else is back there Finn," Poe said. "You're not going to be lonely. Go beat some people at dejarik."
"Just be glad Chewie isn't playing. Chewie always wins," Lando said jovially, in response to which Chewie hooted in laughter.
"You know, there is only so much disrespect someone can take before…," Finn began before Rose interrupted him by saying, "Before you finish, I should probably remind you that we are on our way to star in a parade where we will be honored as galactic heroes and Poe is trying to give you the prime spot in that parade."
"A little bit of perspective goes a long way!" said a mirthful Lando.
"Great, this is great, I'll go walk around the ship," Finn said sarcastically. "Should take approximately 20 seconds. Then I will be back."
"You might want to strap in little guy. I really like turning this old hunk of junk loose," Lando said.
Finn made a little face at this suggestion and then walked towards the main hold of the Falcon, where other high ranking members of the Resistance were sitting. He struck a nonchalant pose by leaning against the bulkhead, but when the ship took off, he was almost thrown to the floor. After checking to see whether anyone had noticed his embarrassing near fall, he walked back to the cockpit and said, "I feel like that was on purpose."
"What's the point of flying, if you can't feel like you're flying?" Lando asked with a chuckle. Poe nodded approvingly at this sentiment.
Speaking into his headset microphone Lando said, "Punching in the coordinates for Coruscant now. Yavin Five, are you set to jump?"
The Falcon had left the flagship's hangar bay and was turning to get ahead of it while Lando waited for their response, when ahead of them the entire First Order fleet jumped into view, nearly on top of them. The First Order fleet consisted of their flagship, Ren's Star Destroyer the Finalizer, four frigates of old Imperial design.
Aboard the First Order flagship General Pride was in command and yelled, "All fighters away! Concentrate all firepower on the flagship! Disable it!"
Aboard the Falcon Poe unbuckled as soon as he saw the First Order fleet jump in and yelled, "Finn, get to a turret, I'll take the other one! Lando take us towards their hangar bay! Let's hit their fighters as they come out, give the our fighters some time to take off!"
"On it!" Lando yelled back.
As Finn and Poe ran towards the ladders, Poe said, "I don't know what this is, but if we beat them here it's done!"
"It would have been nice to outnumber them 20 to 1 like we had planned," Finn said as he reached his gun seat.
"Wouldn't have been as fun that way," Poe replied as he settled in to his.
The Falcon flew towards the First Order ship, swooping under it, destroying many TIE-Figters as they attempted to exit the hangar, though most made it out. The Yavin Five turned towards the First Order fleet, launching its own fighters. A furious small battle begins. Making use of the initial element of surprise, the First Order was able to take out a number of Resistance fighters, but over the course of several minutes the Resistance, which had more fighters and more pilots than the First Order, was able to turn the tide. As the two heavy ships traded blows, the Resistance fighters, led by the Falcon, began to assault the First Order frigates, which looked to shortly be overwhelmed by their focused fire.
The flow of the battle had not escaped General Pride. After one of his bridge officers reported to him that their shields were down to 30% capacity, he yelled back, "Activate remote command of the frigate navigation systems!"
"Done sir!" some ensign said.
"Let's see how they like getting a little bit of what they gave us. All frigates ram the Resistance flagship," Pride said.
"That's half our ground forces, and all our support ships!" a First Order officer said, horrified.
"It's this or we lose everything. Do it!" Pride snapped.
On the frigate's bridges there was a terrified few seconds as, without warning, they lost control of their ships and saw their course and velocity change, taking them on a collision course with the Mon Calamari ship ahead of them. When the frigates hit the Resistance flagship the force of their impact was sufficient to break through it's shields and cause the entire ship to explode, taking with it most of the fighter wing, and all of the leadership of the Resistance, other than those on the Falcon,
Poe, seeing what had happened, screamed out an anguished, "No!" in his gunnery station.
From below he heard Lando yell out, "Got bad news for you Poe, they have us in a tractor beam!"
Poe, while climbing up the ladder, said, "Try to jump to lightspeed!"
"That would tear the ship apart!" Lando shouted.
Poe, ran towards the cockpit as Finn climbed down his ladder, sand said, "I know! Us dead is better than us as prisoners."
Finn, while running after Poe, said, "I disagree!"
"I'm with Finn," Lando said as Chewie roared his agreement.
Rose unstrapped, turned to her right and started frantically pushing buttons on the wall as Finn and Poe entered. Chewie bellowed at her and Lando said, "Yeah, what are you doing?"
"Re-directing all power to the communications relay, letting the rest of the fleet know what happened. It would be days before anyone figures it out otherwise," Rose said.
As the Falcon is pulled into the First Order Hangar Bay, Finn asks, "So what now?"
"Well they have us. We are about to boarded and have maybe a handful of guns in here," Poe said darkly.
"There are a few too many people to pull Han's favorite trick of hiding in the floor," Lando said.
Rose, while still working on the message to the fleet, said, "Guys, we are going to be taken prisoner. We can't stop that, so we need to stop talking about stopping it and start talking about what to do after we are taken."
"Yeah. Good. Right," Poe said.
Everyone from the cockpit ran back to the main hold, where people were shouting questions. Finn put his hands to his mouth to yell, when the need for him to do so was obviated by Chewbacca's bellow silencing everyone.
"What is going on?" someone yelled.
"The First Order attacked," Finn said.
"The flagship was destroyed," Rose followed up. This led to shouts and cries before Poe quieted everyone with a whistle.
"Ok, everybody! In a minute or two those doors are going to open and stormtroopers are going to flood in here. Don't resist. As soon as you hit your holding cell, you start looking for ways to bust out. Priority one is not, I repeat not, getting back to the Falcon. Escape is not our plan. Your orders are to disable their hyperdrive and get a comm signal out to the fleet giving them our location at that time. The First Order is going to jump away to wherever they have been hiding. We can end the war right here, today, if we keep our heads and work together," Poe said. The crowd, all veterans of the Resistance and survivors of Crait, take their orders, along with the sobering new of their defeat, and begin preparing themselves.
A hissing sound broke the silence as the hydraulics for the ramp lower it and Stormtroopers began to file in. The Falcon's occupants are led out under guard and find, at the bottom of the ramp, General Pride waiting. "Ah, General Dameron. So good of you to pay us a visit. Our accommodations are not what they were last time you were our guest," he said.
"Take them away! We will see what kind of show the survivors of Crait make for us. Take those lot," he said, gesturing at Finn, Poe, Rose, Chewbacca, and Lando, "to interrogation. The rest to holding cells."
Finn, Rose, Poe, Chewie and Lando were marched to a cell in the interrogation wing by Stormtroopers. When they arrived at the interrogation hall, they found two Knights of Ren standing guard. "They are to be placed in interrogation," one of the Stormtroopers said.
"Give them to us, we will place them there," one of the Knights of Ren responded.
"I have orders from General Pride to do it myself," the Stormtrooper said haughtily but also somewhat nervously.
In response the Knight of Ren brandished his vibroblade and ignited it. "Our orders come from the Supreme Leader," he said.
"Of course," the Stormtrooper says before handing the prisoners over.
The Knights of Ren took Finn, Rose, Poe, Lando and Chewie into the nearest cell. As the door opened it reveals Hux and Phasma, who had been moved into a larger cell since their meeting with Kylo Ren.
"Ren killed Snoke! Ren killed Snoke!" Hux yelled as quickly as he could once the doors opened. In response one of the Knights of Ren hit Hux in the head with the butt of his weapon, sending Hux to the floor with an "Owwwww!"
After throwing the new prisoners in their cell the Knights of Ren left quickly. After the door closes behind them the Resistance leaders and former First Order leaders look at each other for a moment. Then all at once, they began to yell at one another.
"Traitor!" Hux yelled at Finn, while Phasma simply yelled "Scum!" at all of them.
"Well look who it is!" Rose said, while Finn asked, incredulously, "How are you even still alive?" at Phasma. Chewbacca's roar silenced all the yelling.
"So I take it you all know each other?" Lando said ironically.
"Lando, meet my kidnappers," Finn said.
"And attempted murderers," Rose added.
Poe, pointing at Hux, said, "That one there is a really inept general."
Hux, looking at Finn and ignoring Poe's jibe, said, "We made you part of the glorious New Order!"
"Took you from a nothing… (artificial breath) …backwater planet and made you… (artificial breath) …part of something," Phasma added.
"But seriously, how are you still alive?" Poe asked.
With pride Phasma answered, "My suit was designed to allow me… (artificial breath) …to survive in space. If not for the hole this… (artificial breath) …traitor put in it, I would have been… (artificial breath) …fine. But instead I was burned and then… (artificial breath) …frozen. My lungs no longer function…,"
"Well this time, we are going to make sure you are dead," Finn interrupted.
"Hah!" Hux said, gloating. "You have been captured and imprisoned. You will be tortured until you tell them everything they want to know."
"Kinda like you?" Poe asked. "What happened? Ren figure out you were a moron, put you in here?"
An indignant Hux said, "I discovered he killed our Supreme Leader!"
Rose shrugged her shoulders and said, "Well we already knew that. Rey told us."
"Why didn't you tell someone?" Hux whined. "We would have overthrown him!"
"Yeah, I can tell from you being here that you have a lot of pull with your men," Poe said sarcastically. "Besides, it worked out really well for us that everyone thought Rey walked into Snoke's throne room and killed him."
"Your power is built on lies," Hux said grandly.
"Maybe," Poe responded, "but that's better than being built on nothing." While the five of them bickered Lando and Chewie whispered to each other in a far corner of the room.
"How did they know where we were? How did they know when the rest of the fleet had jumped away?" Poe asked, finally moving on to something practical.
"No idea," Finn said.
"Oh this is rich," Hux said with an exaggerated laugh. "It was you!"
"Me?" a perplexed Finn said.
"We had you for your whole life. Did you think you were the first Stormtrooper to escape? You all have a tracking device on you," Hux gloated.
"Usually set at low strength, so that… (artificial breath) …our scanners aren't overloaded. But it can be… (artificial breath) …turned up by a commanding officer. Which is what… (artificial breath) …I did when you assaulted me on Starkiller Base," Phasma explained.
"You have been tracking us through Finn the whole time?" Poe asked. "When you tracked us through hyperspace, that was you tracking Finn?"
"So when Finn and I went to Canto Bight, the fleet, they could have just jumped away?" Rose asked.
"We thought for a moment you had figured out what we were doing. But no, you had some mad scheme to infiltrate our ship and turn off the hyperspace tracker we didn't have," Hux said smugly.
"What was it we were about to turn off?" Rose said, looking confused.
"The regular tracking system," Hux said.
"Ok," Rose said, shrugging. "That still would have worked."
Finn sat down on one of the benches built into the room, looking defeated. "Everyone who died, it was…" he started to say.
"Your fault," Hux interrupted gleefully.
"Shut up!" Poe yelled.
"That doesn't make sense," Rose said. "Finn has been with us ever since. There were months where it was just us on the Falcon. You could have found us at any time?"
"Kylo Ren said the signal went dead. He said you must have figured it out. But judging by the fact that you are here, that must have been another thing he was lying about," Hux said acidly.
"All because of me," Finn said dejectedly.
"Ignore them Finn," Poe said, trying to sound encouraging.
Just then the door to the cell opened and two Knights of Ren stepped in. One of them pointed at Poe and said, "You, come with us."
"Before you start that, I have a proposition for you," Lando interjected.
"Sit down," the other Knight said, pointing his weapon at Lando.
"Now hold on. You are looking at the owner of 25 of the most profitable mining colonies outside of the core. The biggest supplier the Resistance has. And while honestly, I don't like you guys that much, I'm not a member of the Resistance and you do have me in a bit of a bind here, so I am willing to come to an agreement to switch my supply network to you. You guys really showed me something today with that bold attack. I figure you are on your way back up to the top, and I'd like to be there on the ground floor. So before all the torturing begins, I'd like to have a sit down with your boss," Lando said.
"He's…," the Knight of Ren began to say, his voice indecisive, "he's not here."
Well, we all need to take some time to ourselves every once in a while," Lando said smoothly. "I am sure he delegates these kinds of logistical issues to someone when he's away. I'll talk to whoever that is."
Chewie, screaming, rushed at Lando. The Knights of Ren grabbed Chewbacca and pulled him off Lando.
"Not my fault you picked the losing side again, you big walking carpet!" Lando said angrily. As the Knights of Ren struggled to restrain Chewbacca, more of their number showed up to take Chewie out of the room.
"That's why I never join things like this," Lando said knowingly to the nearest Knight of Ren. "You always end up buying into things too much, don't know when to cut your losses."
"I will take your offer to General Pride," the Knight of Ren responded.
"You do that. I will be fine waiting right here. Could you, you know…," Lando said while holding up his manacled hands. "The door is still going to be locked if you are worried about me skipping out. Also I am 70 years old. What's an old man going to do?"
The Knight looked him up and down and then released the bonds, before leaving the room.
"This is a trick right?" Rose asked with a hint of worry.
"Of course it's a trick," Lando said, annoyed. "You all have your little plan to bust out of here. Let me stall them while you work on it."
"What about Chewie?" Finn asked worriedly.
"Chewie needed to help him sell it," Poe said gravely, in response to which Lando nodded. "They're going to torture him right?" he asked Lando.
"I expect so. But they don't know who they are dealing with," Lando said of his old friend proudly. "That old guy isn't going to break anytime soon. Just you make sure what he is doing is worth it. Get out of here and find him."
"Do you think we are going to let you do this?" Hux said disbelievingly. "That we will be party to…"
Before Hux could finish saying whatever he planned to say Lando punched him square in the face. Then Lando turned to Phasma and turned a knob on her chair near to where the tubes to her mouth emerged from it. She began to wheeze loudly as Hux lay bleeding on the floor.
"Hawll dare yof? I woll see you bot for dis!" Hux tried to say through the blood and swelling. In response Poe kicking him in the mouth.
"That should do it," Lando said with a smile.
The door opened again, and one of the Knights of Ren walked in. "General Pride will see you now," he said.
"Bler bwoddin n bispace," Hux said.
"Silence worm!" The Knight of Ren replied. Lando gave Poe and the others a fake sneer before leaving with the Knight of Ren. After the door closed the only sound for a moment was Hux grumbling on the floor and Phasma continuing to slowly suffocate.
"Are we really going to leave her like that?" Rose asked.
"We are, we most definitely are," Finn said harshly.
"What we are going to do is figure out how to escape," Poe said. Poe looked to his two chief lieutenants but neither had anything to say immediately and so the only sound was Phasma's wheezing.
"It's just that I find it hard to think when someone is suffocating right next me," Rose said,
"Fine!" Finn said disgustedly. He got back up and turned the knob back down, which he could do because his hands were bound in front of him.
"You can thank me later Captain," Finn said.
"Filth!" was Phasma's only response.
"It's General actually," Poe said. "So any ideas? Because my only one is bad."
"I got nothing," Finn said.
"What's the bad idea?" Ros asked,
Poe, turning to Finn, said, "I really wish you had been practicing buddy."