Chapter Text
*0*
According to Black One’s instruments, it wasn’t the storm clouds that made Poe crash. It was the planet’s gravity.
He shouldn’t have been pulled in, was the first panicked thought. It didn’t make sense; he had experience piloting through lightning storms, he could do this. Not in his sleep, of course, but he’d successfully done it before. He couldn’t figure out how everything had gone so wrong.
He’d been bait, the best pilot suited for drawing out First Order fighters and getting away clean. The ambush seemed to have gone off well, although he’d been mid-escape while the rest of the starfighters had converged on his tail. They’d done a lot of damage, he was sure of it- he vaguely recalled letting out a hoot of laughter, of hearing it echoed back to him from his fellow pilots.
But there were several fighters still coming after him, and he remembered taking a hit. He remembered starting the jump to light speed…
Things blurred funny there, running on automatic. He remembered cursing under his breath when the Black One shook. Furious movements formed less from conscious thought and more from muscle memory, his hands knowing more about where he was heading than he did. He programmed in coordinates, he must have-
-But the planet rocked by lightning storms was not a place that he knew. His navigational system was screwed, broken pixels that meant nothing. BB-8 was talking to him, and Poe attempted to calm the droid down, assure him that everything would be fine, that Poe had it under control.
“Come on baby, we got this, we got this,” Poe was muttering to himself.
The Black One spiraled down to the planet anyway.
*1*
Poe woke up to a sharp, agonizing pain in his side, and a frantically beeping BB-8. “It’s all good,” he coughed out, wincing as he twisted his torso trying to detach himself from the cockpit. “Still beating the odds buddy.”
In spite of the throbbing in his side, he managed a laugh of disbelief. He was moving, all his body parts appeared to be attached, and the ship seemed to still be functioning…
He undid his harness, leaned forward- regretted the action immediately- and started a diagnostic. He’d worried about the pain in a minute, he had to know if the Black One was okay, if he could either send out a distress signal or get her back up in the air.
“Fuck!” He shouted as the results came back, punching the wall of the cockpit.
Two of the starfighter’s four laser cannons were completely wrecked. There were issues with the engine, of course, but those Poe could fix with a little assistance from BB-8. That wasn’t what pissed him off.
No communications. No hyperdrive. No escape.
The next step getting up and out of the cockpit, figuring out his surroundings. Just because he couldn’t take to the sky right that moment didn’t mean that there wasn’t somewhere on this planet where someone could help him. He just had to figure out where he was. Poe checked for his blaster and then finally- almost closing his eyes, not really wanting to see the damage- checked his side. He sighed in relief; he wasn’t bleeding, although he could feel the entire side blossoming into terrible bruising. He was fairly certain nothing was broken, but the injury was already impeding his ability to move.
He snatched up his emergency kit- there were flares, there was a rebreather in there, and there was first aid- and then rescued BB-8 from his perch atop the starfighter. BB-8 was as distressed as Poe had ever heard her, and she rolled around him as if she wanted to attempt to evaluate the damage.
“We’ve gotta scout out the area, okay? Just keep quiet for a little while, and then you can get on my case later,” Poe assured her.
There was thunder and lightning in the distance, but fear of the storm didn’t explain the twisting in Poe’s gut.