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The battered freighter appeared on Riza's scopes fifteen minutes late, and it took every ounce of discipline she had to stay her course. The TIE fighter dogging her wingmate’s six was the higher priority right now.
Riza breathed in, then out, pushing her anxiety for the ground team to the back of her mind, focusing on the enemy fighter weaving back and forth in front of her X-wing starfighter. “Hi-Aught-Ay, keep track of Lost Light ’s progress while I finish this up.”
HI-0A beeped an affirmative; the astromech was worried for their friends on the ground team, too.
“Haven’t you slagged that Imp yet?” Rebecca called over the comm, her X-wing taking a steep dive in a vain attempt to shake the enemy fighter off her tail.
“Oh, sorry, I thought you two were on a date,” Riza said. “You look like you’re having fun dancing together.” The TIE evaded Riza’s target lock yet again, and she cursed under her breath. They were really getting annoying.
“Trust me, when I’m playing this hard to get—I don’t want the attention!”
Before Riza could try to line up another shot, the TIE dodged left. But instead of correcting to stay on Rebecca’s tail, it looped around and up in a deceptively wide arc.
The short hairs at Riza’s nape stood straight up. “Twelve, hard starboard, now!” she snapped, yanking her stick to slew her own fighter left.
Rebecca’s X-wing snap-rolled to the right just as the TIE pivoted on its vertical axis—damn, how Riza missed flying a starfighter with that amount of maneuverability—and its lasers shredded through the space Rebecca had been a split second before. The TIE pilot, clearly disconcerted that their target wasn’t where they’d expected, wobbled along their vector precious seconds too long. Before they could recover, Riza landed the TIE directly in her crosshairs and pushed the trigger. Her shots connected, and the enemy fighter burst into a cloud of superheated gas.
Rebecca’s fighter wiggled its wings. “Thanks, Eleven.”
“Anytime.”
With no other immediate threats in their vicinity, Rebecca fell in on her wing, and the two of them looped back towards the main battle. Their chase had led them farther than Riza had realized, and she took the opportunity to scan the situation.
Thousands of kilometers out from the system’s sole habitable planet, the rest of Rogue Squadron were still hashing it out with several flights of Imperial starfighters, while slowly edging towards the boundary of the planet’s gravity well as though they were planning to make a break for it. The Star Destroyer lurking near the planet’s moon remained in the wings, seemingly not bothered enough to move its bulk to harass a single flight of X-wings. They left it to the TIEs, in case Rebel reinforcements dropped out of hyperspace to rescue the unfortunate scouting squadron in over their heads.
That’s what the Rogues were hoping the Imperials were thinking, anyway.
Still a ways out from the roiling mass of starfighters, Riza turned her attention back to the sensor reading for the freighter rising from the planet. “Any chatter from the ground team yet, Aught-Ay?”
HI-0A warbled a negative.
Riza bit her lip, though that wasn’t unexpected. The planet’s ion-dense atmosphere made long-distance transmissions impossible, and the Lost Light would need to be further out before it could hail its allies. Not for the first time, she envied Roy’s ability to reach out with the Force.
Her squadron leader’s voice crackled over the comm, pulling her from her thoughts. “Rogue Leader to Rogue Nine. Lost Light is outbound on vector six-niner-five. Three Flight will escort them home.”
“Affirmative, Leader,” Nine replied. “Ten, with me. Eleven, Twelve, if you two are back from your caf break, form up on Lost Light , escort formation.”
Clicking her comm to acknowledge, Riza pulled her fighter around in a wide arc that would take her far around the main battle, Rebecca close behind. “Aught-Ay, keep an eye out in case any unfriendlies take notice of us.”
HI-0A trilled in agreement, and finally, Riza could focus on the freighter lumbering away from the planet as fast as its plodding old engine could go.
A quick scan assured her the Lost Light was still intact and functional, but the relief that washed over her was tempered by a growing sense of unease that left a bad taste in the back of her brain. She glanced back at her sensors, but just like it had been for the entirety of this mission, the shield generator on the planet’s surface still stood unchanged—
Then its indicator light dissolved into visual static as she watched, echoing an explosion so large she could see the fireball on the planet’s surface.
The sinking feeling grew in Riza’s chest, though she didn’t know why. That was good . That was this mission's objective, the reason Rogue Squadron had been drawing the Imperial forces away from the planet: so Commander Mustang's demolitions team could infiltrate and destroy the shield beyond any hope of salvage. But they were late to rendezvous, and, due to the planet's atmospheric interference, the ground team had been unreachable by comm from the minute their ship had entered the planet's exosphere.
It might just have been paranoia, it might just have been Riza's intractable worry about her captain (he might not be her superior officer anymore, but he'd always be her captain) being unreachable behind enemy lines, but she couldn't help but feel that something was very, very wrong.
Her uneasiness grew when instead of Commander Mustang's steady voice over the comm, it was Lieutenant Havoc who reported in.
" Lost Light to Rogue Leader."
"Rogue leader here." The man's calm voice belied the chaos of the circumstances.
"Objective completed, shield generator has been blown to slag. We're outbound on vector six-niner-five, with hostiles starting to take notice of us. Requesting that escort you promised."
"Good work, Lost Light . Three Flight is already on their way to make sure you don’t trip over your own exhaust on your way out."
"Ha, ha," Havoc said in monotone.
Riza only half-listened, impatient, as Rogue Nine coordinated with the Lost Light . The X-wings fell into a defensive formation around the freighter as it chugged along to distance itself enough from the planet’s mass shadow to make the jump to hyperspace. Fortunately, the Rogues had done their job well, and most of the enemy ships were far enough out of range that they wouldn't catch up in time to harry the transport.
"Rogue Eleven to Lost Light ," Riza said once Nine fell silent. "Any casualties, Havoc?"
Havoc didn’t answer right away, fraying Riza’s nerves even further. The pause stretched for several seconds, and then a minute, as Riza’s grip tightened on her control stick until she expected it to snap off in her hand.
At last, a heavy sigh sounded over the comm. "The atmospheric interference that jammed our comms also had a detrimental effect on the detonator. It wouldn't have worked from too far a distance."
Another pause, and though Riza knew what Havoc was about to admit, every fiber of her being prayed that she was wrong.
"Commander Mustang offered to stay behind."
No.
"He'd taken heavy injuries, and wouldn't have made it back to the ship."
HI-0A emitted a long, low whine.
"I'm sorry, Hawkeye."
No no no no nononono —
That absolute idiot.
That idealistic, egotistical, selfishly self-sacrificing, absolutely nerf-brained kriffing idiot —
As she had so many times before, Riza took a deep breath and pressed back her emotions—though this time, they bled out from the edges of her mental barricade, and she didn't have the time to shove them back in. "Understood, Lost Light ," she said, voice as clipped as she could manage. "Rogue Eleven to Leader."
Her commanding officer's voice was stern. "Remember your orders, Eleven."
"You mean the orders that include escorting the demolition team out of the system?" Riza shot back, her control slipping despite her desperate mental grip. "Part of that team is still planetside, and still needs an escort."
It was a weak argument. The Rebellion couldn't afford to lose a pilot to a completely preventable case of stupidity, and they could afford to lose a functioning starfighter even less. But Riza was banking on her commander being too pressed for time to waste any trying to dissuade her.
Rogue Leader growled in frustration. "You're going to go no matter what orders I give you."
"Yes, sir."
"Fine. Then I won't forbid you, because if by some miracle you survive this, the Force knows we need your piloting skills." A pause. "Good luck, Hawkeye."
Riza let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. "Thank you, sir."
Before she could peel away from the convoy, her wingmate's voice came in over a private channel. "Reez . . . "
"You can't talk me out of this, Becs. And I can't ask you to come with me."
"I can't just leave you."
Riza smiled faintly. "Havoc needs you, Becca, like Mustang needs me. And not just as an escort."
"They really are helpless without us, aren't they?" Rebecca said with a hollow laugh. "May the Force be with you."
"See you back at base," Riza replied, projecting confidence she didn't feel as she looped her fighter around and raced back towards the planet.
Turning his back on the distant explosion still lighting the horizon, Roy tossed aside the detonator and staggered just far enough under the rock jutting out from the mountainside to get out of the sun. It wasn’t quite deep enough to shield him from the wind, but he wanted to keep the light show of his final achievement in sight. Besides, the purple-hued badlands below and the towering peaks to either side were a frankly stunning vista. Not too bad of a view to go out on, all things considered.
And hey, partial exposure might kill him faster and thus end his misery sooner than bleeding out or choking on his own blood or whichever of his injuries would kill him first otherwise. A healing trance wouldn’t help him now, even if he had the skill to put himself in one.
Slumping against the stone, Roy dropped his pack before sliding to the ground, hissing as he stretched his injured leg out in front of him. Though Falman’s bandage had stayed in place, the blood had nearly soaked through. Blaster bolts cauterized the wounds they created, but the way Roy had kept pushing forward on his wounded leg hadn’t just opened the wound, it had further damaged the muscle and ligaments. The last of the painkillers had worn off hours ago, and the relentless throbbing in his thigh was almost worse than the pain that stabbed through his torso with every breath—the result of their getaway landspeeder’s unfortunate run-in with an Imperial patrol mounted on speeder bikes.
(Apparently, the average stormtrooper didn’t need to take a piloting test before being accepted into the ranks, which had been both a blessing and curse.)
Even focusing on his breathing the way that farm kid who used to lead Riza’s squadron had coached him, it still took a few minutes for the black spots dancing behind Roy’s eyelids to fade enough that he could bring his attention to what little equipment he still had—not that any of it would do him much good now.
He tossed the ration bars to the side. Even if his stomach hadn’t rebelled at the mere thought of food, they were definitely not palatable enough to tempt him, and he wouldn’t live long enough to be in danger of starving to death. He left his final explosive charge in the bag, still cognizant enough not to carelessly toss the thing; he’d kept one in reserve out of sheer habit.
Roy reached past the unprimed explosive to pull out the scanner, more out of curiosity than any thought of its use. The device had only enough range to detect immediate threats. The decimated shield generator sat at the very edge of the monitor’s display, and no ship icons were present. There hadn’t been enough time yet for the Imperial fighters that the Rouges would have drawn farther out into the system to return and investigate.
Reaching for the comm next, Roy half-heartedly tried to raise any and all Rebel frequencies, but just as it had every time before the planet's ion-dense atmosphere prevented any distant connection. Even the scanner couldn't pick up any ships higher than the thermosphere. He tossed both devices aside, not bothering to shut either off. Reaching out with the Force didn’t do much, either, though that was due to his exhaustion and mental fatigue.
Roy sat back against the rock with a sigh, wincing as both movements pulled on his bruised—and probably in at least one case broken—ribs. Leaning his head back, he stared up towards the bright daytime sky, wishing he’d at least been able to see the stars one last time, and, more importantly, the lights of the ships above.
Even if he wouldn't be able to get a message out, he wanted to know what was happening. Had the rest of his team gotten out? Had the starfighters been able to escort their ship to safety? How had Rogue Squadron fared in their decoy mission? Lieutenant Hawkeye was the best damn pilot Roy had ever seen, but he couldn't help but worry every time she flew into battle, and when he wasn't privy to a live feed he worried all the more.
His incessant worry had lessened some—not much, but some—since they'd defected together from the Imperial Navy to the Rebel Alliance. The Rebels took better care of their pilots and, in Roy's opinion, their starfighters were vastly superior. Riza had been disgruntled with the switch from flying TIEs to the rebellion’s X-wings, but while he listened politely and validated her frustrations with the differences, Roy privately would always prefer the X-wings for the simple reason that, unlike TIEs, X-wings had actual shields .
And no amount of maneuverability, speed, fuel use, or anything else would ever be worth sending his lieutenant—she wasn’t a part of his official team anymore, but she’d always be his lieutenant—into battle virtually unprotected.
With time Riza had grown accustomed to and even fond of her X-wing, as Roy knew she would. Riza loved to fly, and any craft that enabled her to do so would eventually earn her affection. (The fact that her beloved astromech could fly with her in the X-wing helped in that regard, too.)
Roy’s mind began to wander more and more, to memories of Riza's first piloting escapades in Old Man Grauld’s beat up old XP-450 freighter; of Roy making sure to keep his tutor, her father, occupied so she could sneak away for lessons; of the way her face lit up the first time he used the Force to levitate her groceries up the hill, after swearing her to secrecy; of the bright idealism that burned through the both of them when he enrolled in the Imperial Academy and she followed two years later, certain they could change the system from within; of the rising horror when they'd realized how dark the Empire really was, how the depravity and rot and malevolence infested the entire institution. How Riza's voice shook every time she reported a kill during the devastation of Ishval Major. The dead look in their friend Hughes' eyes when he realized what the intel he'd gathered had been used for.
The way countless souls had screamed in agony through the Force, until Roy had to leave the bridge to vomit directly into the trash compactor until he could bring up nothing but bile.
The memories began to run together, blurring and twisting, edges frayed and darkening, and Roy realized distantly that his time was coming.
He didn't want to go. There was still so much for him to do. But it was no less than what he deserved, and Riza would carry on their work. She'd see it through.
She'd be furious with him, for dying out here, for leaving her to carry out their personal campaign against the Empire by herself. She didn't deserve to shoulder that burden alone, didn't deserve to be abandoned yet again by someone who claimed to care for her, but when had the universe ever cared what cards it dealt Riza Hawkeye?
Did he even dare to selfishly hope she'd forgive him for leaving it all to her? For following Hughes beyond the reach of culpability and blame?
She's forgiven you for everything else, a cruel voice whispered. You didn't deserve that either.
Roy didn't believe in any sort of afterlife. He wasn't even sure he ascribed to the Jedi belief of beings becoming one with the Force at their passing. And yet, despite knowing he deserved no such closure, he wondered if those he'd lost would be waiting for him.
I hope you'll forgive me, Maes, he thought fuzzily. I tried to make it right.
Riza knew Roy was still alive.
There were few things she'd ever been certain of in her life, but if Roy died, she'd know. His death would rip a hole in the fabric of the galaxy that could never heal, and she would feel his loss the rest of her life.
Ahead, just appearing on the curved horizon as she neared the planet’s surface, jagged rubble slumped where the shield generator had once stood. As they approached she ordered HI-0A to start scanning for lifeforms, while she broadcast a call to Commander Mustang on all Rebel frequencies. But even as she judged the most likely areas to find survivors, one eye on the lagging TIEs that had followed her from orbit, something niggled at the back of her mind.
This wasn't right.
He wasn't here.
Riza bit back a scream. Where are you, Roy?
Roy wasn't aware of it when his eyes closed, the edges of his consciousness blurring into nothingness. He drifted towards the void, the layers of his being slowly falling away.
A whisper of a presence brushed against his fading mind.
He stirred, senses hazily touching reality once more.
Next to him, the scanner was beeping.
Clarity shot through Roy like a blaster bolt. His eyes snapped open, blurry gaze fixing on the flashing device. Tightening his grip on his scattered consciousness he scrabbled for the scanner, hands shaking so badly he could barely key the buttons to pull up the display.
A swarm of red icons had descended over the site of the shield generator’s ruins, but among them, a lone blue dot—a single small, friendly ship—was weaving across the tortured landscape towards his last known position.
And the flicker in Roy’s mind, achingly familiar, strengthened with it.
It took several moments for the implications to sink into Roy’s fevered brain, and when they did, the disbelief kept him rooted in his spot as surely as his injuries.
Hardly daring to believe what he was sensing, Roy reached back.
The niggle in Riza’s mind became a psychic itch. Her eyes drifted toward the western horizon, where the peaks of the mountain range that bordered the purple wastelands were just visible. Her controls beeped a warning that the TIEs were closing.
She had no basis for her hunch. But part of the reason Riza had lived this long was by listening to her gut. She trusted it with her life, and enough to trust it with Roy's, too.
Yanking on the stick, she pulled her fighter around in the tightest turn it could withstand. With the g-forces still pressing her back in her seat despite the inertial dampeners, she opened the throttle, blasting across the planet's surface towards the mountains, the surprised Imperial fighters floundering in her wake.
HI-0A squawked at her peevishly.
"I know, Aught-Ay, I know, sorry," she replied, distracted. The pressure was growing in her mind, a pressure that had nothing to do with the g-forces. "Keep scanning for life-forms. Focus on the mountains."
Riza’s mind shone like a beacon through the Force, radiating such determination and devotion it stole Roy’s breath away. Her reach was untrained and inexact—he doubted she was even aware of what she was doing—but it was stronger than anything he’d ever felt from her before, a far cry from the muted, closed off presence he’d always known.
It was the single most beautiful thing he’d ever experienced.
On the screen, the blue dot changed vectors quickly that the hostiles pursuing it falling even further behind. Now headed in his approximate direction, Riza’s fighter accelerated to a speed that had to be straining its engines in this gravity and atmosphere. But unlike the more fragile TIEs, an X-wing could handle the stress for a limited time.
And Riza would push the machine as far as it would go.
With a buzz of static, Roy’s communicator crackled to life. “—tang, do you copy? Commander Mustang, do you copy?”
Roy fumbled for the comm, vision graying as pain stabbed through his torso when he twisted to grab the device. Finally grasping it, he keyed the mic with nearly numb fingers. “Hawkeye, what the hell are you doing?” he croaked.
“Following orders, sir.” The relief in her voice was tangible even through the staticky channel, and her elation sang through the Force.
“This is quite the . . . unorthodox interpretation of your orders.”
“If you say so, sir.” A short pause. “I have your general area, but can’t get a lock on your position.”
She was still a ways away, the swarming red beginning to close in on her tiny blue dot again. Roy wanted to tell her to break off, to save herself and escape this deathtrap of a system, but he knew it would be a wasted effort. Starfighter pilots were a stubborn bunch, and his lieutenant was in a league all her own. What’s more, he could feel her unyielding resolve through the Force. She wasn’t going to leave without him.
Well. If that was the only way to get her to safety, then so be it.
Shoving down his exhaustion, Roy shoved the scanner and the comm back in to his pack and pulled himself to his feet. His ribs screamed and his knees nearly buckled under the weight, but he gritted his teeth as, step by agonizing step, he dragged himself back into the light.
It was a good thing he’d saved that last charge, after all.
A small explosion lit one of the mountainsides like a flare.
“Aught-Ay, mark!” Riza barked, and her astromech complied immediately. Warbling in triumph, he honed the X-wing’s sensors in on the energy source.
The cliff was too narrow to land on, and the TIEs were closing fast enough that wouldn't have been an option, anyway. The best Riza could do was pull up alongside and hope Roy wasn't too injured to jump in himself. She closed her s-foils and banked up to the mountainside, lowering her shields and cutting her engines until she was maneuvering with only repulsors. HI-0A keened worriedly as the valiant x-wing struggled to stay aloft. Hardly daring to breathe, she pulled up as close to the cliff as she could manage without scraping against the rock.
Riza released her canopy, and immediately alarms began squawking as the cockpit opened to atmosphere. Barely even acknowledging them, she craned her neck, trying desperately to find her captain. Was she close enough? Was he still conscious?
And then suddenly he was there, falling more than jumping onto the closest wing, not nearly as far as a Force-jump should have carried him. The X-wing tilted dangerously under the impact, sending him sliding towards the edge. Adrenaline spiking, Riza yanked off her crash harness. Lunging half out of the cockpit, she managed to grasp his upper arm, and he threw his other one around her shoulders.
Behind them, above the cacophony of alarms, HI-0A screeched a warning: the TIE fighters were almost on them.
Riza heaved backward as Roy shoved them both with the Force. They fell into the cockpit, Roy collapsing into the cramped space behind her seat.
"Get us the hell out of here, Lieutenant," he gasped, pulling the last of his limbs in after him with a pained groan.
"Yes sir ," Riza said with feeling, closing the canopy and boosting her already strained repulsors.
The first of the TIEs closed in as she peeled away from the mountainside, appearing over a rocky ridge with lasers firing. HI-0A, bless him, had already pulled up their shields, which flickered but held as Riza re-engaged her engines.
Despite her bias, even Riza had to admit that for battles in atmosphere, X-wings held the advantage. In the vacuum of space, nothing could match a TIE fighter’s speed and maneuverability; but their less-than-aerodynamic design and the turbulence of their ion engines' exhaust were significant drawbacks when surrounded by atmosphere. With this in mind, rather than making an immediate beeline for space, Riza snap-rolled to the right and headed deeper into the maze of mountains.
"Hold on tight back there!" she called to her passenger.
A thump and a weak expletive sounded behind her. "Watch it," Roy grumbled. "There aren't exactly . . . seat belts back here."
"Sorry, sir. I'll take your comfort into consideration the next time I need to dodge enemy fighters."
As she’d hoped, the TIEs decided not to lose ground on her by gaining altitude and followed close behind. Now in her element, Riza descended into a nearly trance-like state as she weaved in and out of the rocky ridges and peaks. Her focus shifted to the movement of her X-wing, the blaring of the alarms in her ears and the feel of the controls under her hands fading into the background. Her awareness expanded to include everything around her fighter, a sphere of perception outside of which nothing mattered. She dodged stone, lasers, and debris with split-second precision, her ship’s dance toeing the limits of its engineering.
HI-0A’s triumphant squeal brought Riza back to herself as they cleared the far side of the mountain range. A quick glance at her sensors showed only two TIEs left on her tail, the rest grease stains on various cliffsides in her wake. Riza hauled back on the stick and opened the throttle, blasting towards space.
Once beyond the planet's atmosphere, the TIEs regained their speed advantage and came up behind and to the side of her, fast. She should still make it far enough out to jump to hyperspace before they were on her—but HI-0A squawked a warning. The Star Destroyer was now halfway to the planet, and though it was nowhere near enough to catch her in a tractor beam, the fresh flight of TIEs launching from its bays would intercept her just before she cleared the planet's mass shadow.
Riza took a deep breath. "Commander?"
No response.
"Commander Mustang!"
A shift and a groan sounded from behind her.
"You have to stay awake, sir!" Riza scanned the system, but as she expected, there were no friendly ships on her sensors—the rest of Rogue Squadron had withdrawn with the completion of the mission. "We're not out of this yet."
"I did my job," he muttered petulantly. "I blew . . . the shield generator up. Getting us out of here . . . is your job."
"Then you'd better stay awake to make sure I do it."
The TIEs spread into a line, a blockade between Riza’s fighter and the safety of open space. Dodging would buy her precious seconds, but it would only delay the inevitable. And it was also what the enemy was expecting. Predictability got pilots killed.
So did stupidity, though.
"Well, sir," Riza said, eyes fixed on the line of TIEs dead ahead, "rest assured that if we die, it will be in a suitably dramatic way that you can be proud of."
"Wait, what—"
"Hi-Aught-Ay! All power to forward shields!"
The TIEs reached firing range. Alarms screeched as a dozen target locks fixed onto the X-wing. Riza’s own crosshairs lit up green.
"Lieutenant!"
The TIEs opened fire.
So did Riza.
The entire X-wing shuddered as dozens of lasers slammed relentlessly into their shields. Shoving down every instinct screaming at her to dodge, Riza gritted her teeth, thumb holding down the trigger as she pressed her fighter forward.
Shields at sixty percent. A TIE exploded under her barrage.
Forty percent. Riza flew on instinct, sensors nearly overwhelmed, her canopy nothing but light.
Twenty percent. Another TIE vanished in a billowing fireball. Their friends seemed to realize she wasn't going to break off, and started to pull away.
Ten percent. She clipped a TIE's solar panel as she passed, the X-wing jerking violently as one of its quad cannons tore away—
—and then suddenly they were on the other side, beyond the gravity well, and there was nothing ahead of them but stars.
The TIEs were looping around, but even the Empire's fastest starfighters were too slow. "Hi-Aught-Ay, coordinates—just a short jump to get us out of here, first." At her astromech's triumphant trill, Riza engaged the hyperdrive.
And then the stars ahead of them were all around them, the enemy ships falling light-years behind with every passing second.
Riza sat back in her seat, breathing hard, suddenly aware of the sweat sticking her fringe to her face beneath her helmet. She let out a tired laugh, pulling the flight gloves off her sweaty hands. “Good work, Aught-Ay.”
Her astromech warbled in relief.
“You still in one piece back there, sir?” Riza asked, mopping her forehead.
"Yes, but . . .after all that . . . excitement . . . I think I'm ready for a nap."
Shoving away the crash harness she’d never rebuckled, Riza twisted around to face Roy, and got a good look at him for the first time.
He looked like he'd lost a fight with a wampa. A tear in the right shoulder of his jumpsuit revealed nasty bruises trailing down his collarbone, extending farther down if his taut movements were any indication. A tight bandage was secured around his thigh, the front completely soaked with blood and a thin trickle leaking out from beneath it. The shadows under his eyes were more prominent than she’d ever seen, and his pallid skin looked even sicklier in the blue light of hyperspace. His awkward position had to be exacerbating his pain, crammed as he was into a space that hadn’t been meant to seat a humanoid.
Roy tried to smile at her, but it came off as more of a grimace. "Don't worry, you should see the other guy. Building. Whatever . . . "
"I still can't believe I found you," Riza said, shaking her head. "Did you use the Force to guide me to you?"
"No." His eyes were impossibly soft. "You did."
She frowned. "What?"
"The Force . . . you reached out to me. I was . . . pretty far gone, at that point, but . . . you found me ."
Riza glanced away. "Sir, that's just the exhaustion and pain talking. You know I'm not Force-sensitive."
"Don't you feel it, Hawkeye?" he asked, the pleading in his voice startling her. "May I?" he asked, gesturing towards her.
“Yes,” Riza said without hesitation, “but what exactly—”
The slightest touch brushed her mind.
Riza gasped, jerking physically back on reflex. The presence pulled back slightly, though it didn’t completely vanish. As she stared wide-eyed at Roy, he smiled and reached out with his mind again, a gentle caress.
Heart hammering in her throat, Riza focused on it—and reached back.
She met Roy's mind slowly, like the first awkward hug they'd shared as teenagers, when he'd offered to keep her father busy so she could sneak away and learn to fly. His smile broadened as he mentally embraced her, effortless and graceful while she floundered.
Roy leaned his head against the side of the cockpit, contentment radiating from him despite the pain permeating his mind. "I'd always . . . wondered," he murmured, eyes half-lidded, "if you would ever realize . . . your connection."
Riza stared at him. "You knew?"
"I think I could only see because . . . I know you so well." He sighed, sadness coloring his thoughts, and Riza wished she could make it go away. "It was buried . . . so deep. Layers and layers of fear . . . and grief . . . and loneliness. Someone . . . taught you to hide it . . . even from yourself."
Out of nowhere, Berthold Hawkeye’s voice echoed in Riza’s ears. Do you want them to take you like they took your mother?
A memory arose from the depths of her mind, faded and almost indistinct: a room as dark and empty as a void, smooth and silent and suffocating. Her own desperate pleas, sucked into the absorbent walls, until she wasn’t sure she was even making a noise.
Please, please, I won’t do it again!
"My father," she whispered, stunned.
"It kept you safe," Roy said, slurring. "Not a . . . great way to do it, he shouldn't have . . . But it kept you safe. And for that . . . I'm glad." Having said his piece, his eyes fluttered closed, shoulders and head relaxing against the side of the cockpit.
"Hey, hey!" Twisting, Riza managed to shove her arm behind her seat to give his shoulder a proper jostle while locking that revelation into a mental box to explore at a later time. Much later. If ever. "None of that. You have to stay awake, sir."
Roy’s eyes blinked open, brows creasing at the unwelcome bother. "Mmm. I'm gonna need . . . some incentive."
"I'm not promising to wear that Hutt dancing girl outfit."
He huffed out a tired laugh. "Worth a . . . shot. But I gotta . . . better idea." His eyes met hers, fever-bright and startlingly intense. "Would you let me . . . teach you . . . how to connect with the Force?"
"You've only started exploring your own Force talent within the last two years,” Riza pointed out. “And I've seen you with your new recruits."
"Don't tell me . . . you'd rather have . . . that farm kid, or Major Armstrong?"
"I bet their training methods use a lot less live explosives," Riza said dryly. "Tell you what, I'll make you a deal. Actually take a medical leave—let yourself rest, take the time to heal, no work allowed—and I'll think about it."
Roy scoffed. "That's a . . . stupid deal."
"It's all you're getting. Take it or leave it."
"All right. But only because . . . I’ve heard the nurses on the medical frigate . . . have a short skirt uniform option that they frequently wear."
" Sir ."
Major Alex Louis Armstrong, acting bridge officer of the Rebel Alliance flagship Road of Hope during the graveyard shift, blinked in surprise as Lieutenant Brosh suddenly sat up ramrod straight at his station. The rest of the bridge turned towards the young communications officer, who was practically vibrating in his seat.
“Major!” Brosh exclaimed. “Rogue Eleven has just exited hyperspace and is hailing us!”
"Wonderful!" Armstrong rumbled. "Establish the connection, and alert General Grumman."
Brosh gushed an excited affirmative and rushed to comply.
Armstrong turned back towards the viewing pane, immensely relieved that his friends had returned. He didn't mention that he'd felt them as soon as they'd arrived in-system; though his own Force abilities were not exactly secret, they weren’t common knowledge, either. The Armstrong family’s Force-sensitivity had been passed down for generations, and was part of the reason the aristocratic Core-world family had supported the Rebel Alliance since the beginning. Commander Mustang's intense presence was easy to recognize, if concerningly exhausted and strained; but alongside him, half entwined with his—
A second presence, uncertain and untrained but as bright as Mustang's own, emanating a quiet strength to rival the stars themselves.
So Lieutenant Hawkeye was Force-sensitive. Unexpected, if not entirely unsurprising; Armstrong was observant enough to realize there was more to the quiet woman than met the eye.
Reaching out in the Force, Armstrong sent a booming welcome towards his friends. Wry acknowledgement came back from Mustang, the equivalent of a lazy handwave. Hawkeye shied back, wary, her own reply cautious and formal. Armstrong chuckled, pleased.
He spotted their ship as soon as it came within view and tracked its path towards the medical frigate, unable to tear either his eyes or his mind away. He wondered what the Force had in store for those two, whose souls sang in harmony—
Blazing like twin suns, bright and beautiful and burning, each forever caught in the other's pull.