Chapter Text
The pilot didn’t lose control right away. But as each current of air viciously battered and shook the ruined craft, it could only be a matter of seconds.
Poe Dameron’s stomach flip-flopped as he watched, powerless from the ground, as the X-Wing locked into a final tailspin. He flicked through the patrol schedule in his mind. It was shift change—could be any one of six pilots he didn’t know very well. A fleeting moment of relief: Iolo and Karé weren’t back on shift until next morning.
“Is that… one of us?” Next to him, Finn watched in rapt horror.
The ship careened out of view from the patch of sky above Kothal’s bustling market square and north, toward the edge of town.
Poe broke into a run. Without looking back, he knew Finn was hot on his heels.
Even if they got there fast, there was no telling what the impact would do to the pilot. Crashed spacecraft mangled bodies in unimaginable ways and the ghastly images flashed unbidden through his brain. He shoved the intrusions aside.
Travelers and locals yelped, jumping out of the way as Poe and Finn tore between market stalls and down the alley toward Kothal’s edge, tracking the smoking fighter above as its descent built in speed. Buildings thinned and long, reedy grass sprung up alongside sporadic trees that thickened into a forest, towering over Poe and Finn as they ran.
They felt the impact more than they heard it, the monumental THUNK of durasteel meeting earth nearly knocking them off their feet. Poe urged his legs on faster, boots beating a frantic rhythm along the forest floor. Several trees thundered down ahead, kicking up a shockwave of dirt and smoke. The X-wing’s overtaxed frame gave one last, mighty screech then skidded to a standstill, nose burrowed in the dirt, silent.
The wall of charcoal smoke made it impossible to see, at first. Poe and Finn fought their way through the debris of downed trees, coughing. Snapped trunks stuck out like spikes guarding a fortress. The crash would have been heard for miles, but Poe yanked his commlink off his belt and thumbed it to life.
“This is General Dameron. I need all available medics, Silver and Bronze Squadrons one klick north of base. Now.”
As they scaled the smashed left wing of the fighter, the canopy hydraulics hissed as it opened.
“They’re alive!” Finn said.
Poe bit back his instinctive response. Smash those things hard enough, they just popped open. No guarantee the pilot was still alive. In fact, chances were slim to none.
But Finn was right.
The pilot’s helmet was busted in on the right side, chin to their chest, but their shoulders moved up and down in a stuttering, ragged movement of breath.
Poe wedged his boot in the space between the flight console and canopy seal, the other against the back of the cockpit and reached in to slide the pilot’s helmet off as gently as he could. Ashy blond hair flopped out, and the pilot lifted his head.
“Torin!”
Ten months prior, before Crait, before Jakku, before Finn… Resistance pilot Torin Baz had left on a simple recon mission in the Beta Rhama system and never returned. Squadrons deployed to canvas the area and surrounding sectors, without success. Torin Baz was up until now considered missing in action—really just an evasive way of saying dead .
Years ago, they stood shoulder to shoulder in formation each morning at the Academy, the complete antithesis to each other: Poe, with his curly, obsidian hair and short, athletic stature; Torin, the towering, ruddy Tanaab farm boy who’d never left home until he enlisted. Like Iolo and Karé, he’d followed Poe to the Resistance.
Torin coughed, crimson flecking his lips and chin.
“Poe?” he gasped, and relief smoothed some of the pain etched into his brow. The left half of his face was a bloody mess, like a bucket of it had been dumped down from his hairline. The gash there gaped and Poe gulped back the quiver of nausea at the bright white sliver that had to be skull. Torin’s chin dropped to his chest once more.
Poe looked down at Finn, who searched his face, mirroring the immense shock he could hardly yet register.
“Hang on, kid.” Poe turned back to Torin. “Help is coming.”
* * *
“You’re going to Lothal.”
“Come again?”
“I need you and Finn as acting generals there.” Leia folded her arms and leaned against the holo-projector. The swampy air of the Klosslands made everyone else on base shiny with sweat. Somehow, Leia just continued to glow. “Karé, Iolo and Vrees will be joining you. You leave tonight.”
“Now just hold on a second.” Poe raked a hand through his hair. “Why are we being sent to the middle-of-dusty-nowhere-Outer-Rim? You need us here, where the action is.”
Leia chuckled. “They need you out there. And there will be no action for the time being. This is the time to re-group. We need every base up and running smoothly.”
“No action—You’re grounding us? Everyone?”
“Yes.” A smile played at the corner of her lips, but didn’t brighten her eyes. “This one’s going to be a hard one for you. But there is a time for offense and a time for defense. Right now is the latter.” Her features darkened. “Crait was a big blow. Most of the galaxy has bowed to Kylo Ren’s threat to anyone showing allegiance to the Resistance. We don’t have the manpower to launch an attack at this point.”
Poe had to agree, as much as it devastated him. “So what is it you want us to do out there, General?”
“Regular patrol. The First Order has been eyeing the Lothal sector for weeks now.”
“Just like the good old days, huh?”
“Keep the mayor soothed.” That mischievous glint in her eye briefly peaked through the weary gray. “You’ve got your work cut out for you with that one.”
“I’m sure we’ll get along just fine.”
Leia paused, turning to look out at the holo-map suspended above the projector. “Do you remember Torin Baz?”
“Of course. They ever find him?”
“Still missing. Kothal Base has been struggling to keep their heads above water ever since. They could use some new faces.”
“You’re not budging on this.”
“No.” She gave his shoulder a squeeze. “This is where the real work lies, Poe. Not in covert recon, not even in bombing Star Destroyers. This is where you’re really going to need to dig deep.”
* * *
And she was, of course, right.
Poe’s life had always been a revolving door of staying busy. Now, time stood still. At least that’s how it felt when you’d been in active combat for the better part of a year and everything just slammed to a stop. It was the worst place for him to be. He didn’t thrive here; he floundered. Poe Dameron did not flounder. If there was a bright side to be found in any situation, no matter how dim, he’d run with it. Recently, not so much. He paced. His leg bounced under tables. Last week, their mess hall table had vibrated with the incessant rhythm. And he’d nearly jumped out of his skin when Finn’s warm palm landed on his knee to stop it.
They’d been at Kothal Base for three weeks now (was it four? He’d lost count. Every day looked the same). In the last seventy-two hours, he’d been awake for sixty-five. It was the quiet. The quiet was the problem; it was endless. At night, it tiptoed under his skin with little, spindly legs and sat there, an invisible itch that would finally drive him up and out of bed after hours of tossing, turning and flipping his pillow to the cool side ad infinitum.
Sleep had always come to him so easily. For months prior, he’d found it where he could, dropping in and out of it on command; in corners, on cold floors, you name it, he was out like a light. But now that he actually had the time and the safety (illusions be damned) to clock those glorious, full eight hours; it refused to come.
Tonight again, instead of sleep, Poe had sought out his perch on top of a building that perimetered Kothal’s market square. It was as close as he could get to space without being in his cockpit. The tower, by far the tallest structure in town, was the first distinct shape he’d picked out as they made their first descent into Kothal. Its roof was an enormous cupola with a derelict scouter’s platform big enough to fit three people. From up here, the purple aurora in the Kothal sky turned the night to black liquid speckled through with glitter.
Poe slid off his perch on the roof and scaled back down the side of the building. The smack of his boots echoed through the somnolent market square as he took the long way back to base, so his walk would take him past City Hall. The mayor’s face, curled in that snide, trademark snarl popped into his head, and it chipped away at the confidence Poe had been building all week, brick by brick, steeling himself for their meeting now just a few hours away.
Mayor Jordance Greer remained on good terms with General Organa, but the same couldn’t be said for the fighters actually stationed on Kothal Base. The disdain Greer held for them was palpable in how little time he allotted to meet with Resistance command staff regularly and the distaste on his face he made no effort to conceal whenever they did.
Worse still, was Greer’s immovable stance on Kothal’s weapon prohibition. No energy weapons of any kind were permitted within the city limits–a law firmly in place since the fall of the Empire, created by Greer himself. A cause near and dear to his heart, clearly. For Poe, so was keeping his people alive. Leia had been sugar-coating Greer’s temperament. Feathers were going to be ruffled at some point, why not bright and early in Poe’s tenure as general here?
If he wanted any hope of swaying the man later today, he had to sleep. Lack of sleep made him a little too quippy. Mayor Greer didn’t do quippy.
* * *
When Poe’s alarm dredged him from the fitful sleep he’d dropped into an hour prior, he was not in the mood. At this point, he’d need nothing short of a miracle to channel Leia’s diplomacy with Mayor Greer.
Finn was waiting for Poe when he returned from the first patrol shift, Iolo and Karé flanking him. He tamped down on the flutters in his belly when he caught sight of Finn, leather jacket tucked under his arm, hands in his pockets as he leaned against a fuel station several ships down.
“General.” Finn’s smile was infectious and had the instant effect of brightening Poe’s mood.
“General.”
His hair had grown significantly since they first met. What used to be close-cropped, tightly coiled curls were twisted into short locs on top of his head. Poe liked it. To be fair, there wasn’t much he could say he didn’t like when it came to Finn. He followed the trajectory of Finn’s hairline to the rich, sepia-brown skin of his face, his ample nose. Full, soft lips. Poe’s heart fluttered. Gorgeous just didn’t quite cut it—
“Big day!” Finn clapped him on the back, snapping him back to the present. “You ready for this?”
“You bet.”
“You didn’t sleep, did you?”
“Nope.”
They entered the central hallway of base and wove their way past the mess hall, where Iolo and Karé were already digging into trays at a table to the right. Poe returned Karé’s wave with a small jut of his chin, pointedly ignoring the playful grin and bounce of her eyebrows, as he and Finn followed the passageway to the sleeping quarters.
Kothal Base had served as a satellite post for troopers during the Empire, and though it had long been repurposed, it retained the sterile, Imperial-white walls. The corridor tapered, lights dimming. They stopped in front of Poe’s room.
“Give me a second to change and we’ll head to City Hall.”
A group of Sullustan engineers bustled up the corridor, so engrossed in their conversation they didn’t bother with hallway etiquette. Finn stepped forward to not get trampled, so close Poe could smell the earthy freshness of his aftershave. After the engineers passed, Finn looked up. They met each other’s gaze. Poe could have leaned forward and touched Finn’s nose with his own … Or his lips…
The intercom broke the spell, the loud blare of the call for the next patrol squadron to report to the hangar bay for shift change.
Finn stepped back.
Poe remembered how to breathe again. “I’ll just—I’ll be right back.”
Once safely shut in on the other side of the door, Poe melted against it with a long exhale. The pleasant yet disconcerting fluttering inside his diaphragm, like the flap of dozens of tiny wings, was new to him in its intensity. He’d never felt this way before about someone, of that he was certain. It was exhilarating. Also, terrifying. It made him sweat.
He and Finn had shared a striking connection from the moment they met. Minutes turned to hours when they got to talking, and many nights to morning, without either noticing. Every time they touched, it was electric. For the first time in his life, he just couldn’t find the words for it. No hiding behind a quick quip, no smartass retort. They knew most things about each other they’d never told another being before in their lives. So why was it so impossible to tell Finn how he felt? The possibility of rejection? That he’d imagined it all? That the overwhelming pull he felt for Finn was just a fleeting product of their tumultuous meeting–having cheated death together… Multiple times.
Poe decided (again), as he yanked a shirt over his head, he’d add this to the list of things filed away for consideration when he’d slept and the resulting throb in his temples was gone.
* * *
Clothes swapped for less conspicuous garb than his bright orange flight suit, and his heartbeat slowed to a more reasonable rhythm, Poe joined Finn again. They made their way back the way they’d come, then past medbay and incident command, to a door at the very end of the winding hallway. Poe tapped the datapad on the wall beside it and it slid open into a dusty alleyway just a few paces from Kothal’s market square.
Built into the base of a craggy mountain side, Kothal, the colloquially known “supply run” town, once crawled with Imperial troops who bled the town dry. With the Empire gone, Kothal had returned to its sleepier, pre-Empire state, feeding and replenishing a steady flow of travelers and Lothalites alike.
At this hour of the morning, the square teemed with activity: vendors shouted over one another, children played, little feet stamping across the cobblestones, overlapping conversations and laughter echoed, with the faint burble of the fountain at the center underscoring it all. Poe and Finn turned westward, away from the busyness and toward City Hall.
“Poe!” A familiar voice sounded behind them. “Hey, Poe!”
Kemi Lum, long, sandy braids swishing, jogged up to join them.
“Hey, Kemi,” Poe said, slowing just enough for her to fall into step behind them.
“Where are you going?”
“City Hall. Where are you going?” Finn chuckled. He had more patience for the kid than Poe could muster. She was excited about something today, a little breathless, skipping along behind them to keep up the pace.
“I need to ask you guys something.” The words tumbled out.
Poe stopped so abruptly she almost smacked into him. Finn looked equally surprised. “No.”
“No—What do you mean no?!” Her ever-wide eyes were enormous with indignation. “You don’t even know what I was going to—Just like that?”
“Yeah, just like that.”
“Hey…” Kemi scampered up alongside him as he resumed his stride toward City Hall. “Hey—Wait!”
“You’re sixteen—”
“I’ll be seventeen in eight months.”
Poe stopped again. His frustration was probably as poorly concealed as it felt because her mouth slid shut at the look on his face. He blew out a breath, softening. “Kemi. You have your whole life ahead of you. This isn’t a game, or fun—it’s dangerous. Even more so right now. The Resistance is no place for a kid.”
Her eyebrows drew together in disappointment. “I bet you were my age when you realized your world was too small for you.”
He had to hand it to her; she was good. “Yeah. It was way too small.” He shook his head at the radiant smile tugging up at the corners of her mouth. Finn laughed out loud, and the sound melted more of the tension between Poe’s shoulders. “You can be our eyes and ears in town. But no tailing, no sneaking in places, no fighting—nothing like that, you hear me?”
It was clear Kemi heard nothing past the first part of what Poe said, but she nodded vigorously, beaming, and sauntered off back in the direction of the market.
* * *
When the First Order annihilated its way through any and every treaty they had signed with the New Republic, Lothal held its breath. Then, they watched, powerless, alongside the rest of the galaxy, as entire planets were decimated by weapons devastatingly similar to those older Lothalites were still trying to forget. The younger generations had only heard the stories, but the fear in their elders was tangible enough to impress even on them the gravity of the galaxy’s current political state.
The zero-tolerance, no weapons law was Greer’s first act as mayor, right at the fall of the Empire. The constant threat of violence, the blaster-rifles slung over every shoulder; it had to end there. They had suffered too much.
The fines were steep—jail times could be even steeper. General Organa agreed to respect this precedent: the Resistance were allowed weapons on base, outside the city limits, on patrol. Poe couldn’t fathom this law holding up even in times of peace—let alone all out war.
He’d hoped sharing Leia’s title of Resistance General might do a little of the work for him. Was he ever wrong. Mayor Jordance Greer, with his big-jowled face and layers of ostentatious robes (who wore that many layers on a hot, dry planet?), was a tough nut to crack.
And he didn’t like Poe. To be fair, Poe had been dead-set on bypassing Greer’s precious weapons clause from the day he set foot in Kothal. He couldn’t allow his people off base unarmed, not with Lothal in the First Order’s sights.
But that wasn’t all, and he wisely chose not to share this part of his argument with Greer. The faith the galaxy had in the Resistance had taken a blow with the news of Crait. There weren’t many chomping at the bit to join anymore, even less who wanted anything to do with the Resistance at all. It was a miracle the mayor had even agreed to their meeting. Maybe the scales were finally tipping in Poe’s favor.
No sooner did Finn and Poe arrive at City Hall were they ordered to wait outside by the grumbling Ugnaught standing guard at the doors. Not the warm welcome Poe was hoping for, but he couldn’t let that dampen his resolve.
Then, they waited.
Twenty minutes passed. Then thirty. Poe tapped his foot. Paced a circle into the dust. Stood. Sat.
Finn stifled a chuckle. “You good?”
“Oh, yeah, I’m good.” This was taking too long. Self-doubt was creeping up.
Finally, the mechanized door slid open with a hiss, and a human male hobbled out, too-large robes dripping off his frail form. The mayor’s aide.
“Generals. The mayor has come to his decision. There will be no exemption granted.”
Heat flushed up Poe’s neck. “I was under the impression we were meeting the mayor to discuss this.”
The aide wrung his hands. “Yes, sir, but Mayor Greer has made his wishes clear. He simply has no exemptions to give.”
“Thank you.” Finn side-stepped between the trembling aide and Poe, spinning him around by the shoulders and down the steps.
Poe let himself be pushed along back towards the market square, seething. “That’s it, huh? No discussion?”
“We’ll take another crack at it. Give him time… Let’s see how Kemi’s liking her new job, yeah?”
Poe composed himself, if only a little. “You’re right. Besides,” he patted the metal concealed at the small of his back. “What Mayor Greer doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
* * *
The market was the busiest they’d ever seen. The canvas stalls lining the edges were packed with sentients, brimming with supplies and food. Even the alleys and doorways jutting off between the stalls in haphazard places were filled. The patch of sky above streamed glinting slants of sun into the fountain. Not a cloud in sight.
“Looks like Kemi is taking her job very seriously.” Finn nodded toward the eastern corner of the market, ahead of them, where the craggy mountain face spilled out onto the cobblestones. Where two stalls were split by the rock, Kemi perched atop the little slope, eyebrows scrunched in concentration as she surveyed the crowd.
“This should keep her busy for a while,” Poe said. Finn just laughed, and Poe found himself smiling. Maybe slowing down wouldn’t be such a bad thing. After all, it only meant more time with Finn.
A gasp from across the square startled them, and the hubbub of the market dropped at the harsh echo. It belonged to a man leading a nerf through the center. He’d stopped his animal and was looking up at the sky, shielding his eyes from the morning glare.
Others were looking up now, too. Murmurs rippled across huddled groups, tight, anxious. Collective horror built from gasps to shouts. A zing of adrenaline coursed through Poe’s legs, ready to propel him into a fight as he followed the frantic crowd’s eye-line to the air.
Tumbling out of the sky was the smoking outline of an X-Wing T-70.