Chapter Text
Max tries to work through how he got into this mess. Why in hell he was flying close enough to the Citadel to be caught up in a dogfight. What he was doing in the Ausva cluster in the first place, after avoiding it for many years.
Blood rushes to his head, making it hard to think.
Maybe it's time you laid them to rest, he recalls, an echo of a voice. Maybe that's what they want, for you to go home.
That was on Jakku, when he was checking up on her. On... shit, he knows her name, why can't he think of it.
Blood runs across his face, staining his vision red. He's having trouble thinking much of anything right now.
—
Furiosa circles the War Rig, ostensibly checking the engines before the run. It's a parade, really, a show of strength for the Immortan. She raises her robotic arm and the crowd cheers, the clamor following her as she enters the ship.
Her crew, the Ace and two War Boys, do final checks before takeoff. She stands in the center, watching them, keeping her feet firmly planted over the subfloor storage chamber.
"'Bout to bring in the live cargo, then we're good to go, Boss," the Ace calls.
Furiosa taps her foot twice, then makes her way to the pilot seat. She grips the gearshift and waits.
—
Rey!
Max comes awake with a jolt. That's her name. The girl on Jakku. The one he met in a sandstorm, on the run from slavers. He brought her a new nav system, and she was really happy. Her family had not come back for her. Yet, she had said. Maybe that's why she was so adamant that there was something for Max out here. Something besides hanging upside down with a head injury, somewhere deep in the bowls of Joe the Hutt's feudal city.
Max is starting to think he has some seriously rotten luck.
A taser shocks his spine, sending his muscles into wild spasms. His feet are released and he crashes to the floor, with barely the presence of mind to shield his head. There is shouting. There are hands everywhere, and then he is in motion.
—
The women cling together tightly in the hold, their arms and legs intertwined, their frantic heartbeats pressing against each other's skin. Dirt falls through the slats above as the crew races about the cabin.
They hear a pair of boots stop overheard, see the faint outline of the Imperator, their savior. She does not look down at them, but taps her boot twice. Hold tight.
They hold their breaths until they feel the engines start. Cheedo whimpers as the Rig lifts off the ground, and Dag pulls her tight to her chest. The momentum of the ship pulls them to one side, then the other.
"Why aren't we going up?" Capable whispers, barely audible over the engine's rumble.
Flyby, Toast mouths, pressing a finger to her lips.
Angharad closes her eyes and tightens her arms around her swollen belly. She can hear the cheers of the crowd, praising Joe as if he were a god. She can hear the screams hidden further down, deep within the winding burrows of the Citadel.
Tears sting her face as she feels the ship pull up beyond the stratosphere.
—
Furiosa eases the gearshift to a cruising speed, her eyes locked on the nav system. 4,000k. 4,500k. She breathes steadily. 6,000k. Far enough outside Ausva's gravity well. She slides her hand along the control column and nudges a switch.
The ship lurches forward with a metallic grind.
"What was that?" one of the War Boys calls from his turret.
Furiosa leans over the status panel. "Something's wrong with the thruster on the rear tanker." She turns in her seat. "Morsov, Slit, go check it out." The War Boys spring to their feet and take off running.
The comms crackle with voices from their escort war machines. "Imperator, everything all right? Your back engine's gone dark."
"We're on it," Furiosa reports back. "Hang close."
The intercom buzzes from the rear of the Rig. "Boss, we can fix it but we can't find any repair kits back here. Morsov must have left 'em."
"I did not!" the intercom buzzes again with a crackle of static.
"Mediocre, Morsov!" Slit jeers.
Furiosa presses the call button to interrupt their catfight. "Ace is coming with a repair kit. Sit tight and don't kill each other before then." She nods at Ace and turns back to the flight panel.
Ace hesitates. "Boss, what's going on?"
She ignores him.
"Furiosa," Ace urges.
Furiosa turns and locks eyes with her second-in-command, ice in her stare. "Are you going?"
He hesitates for a moment. "Yes, Boss."
Furiosa wipes sweat from the dark skin of her forehead and stares hard at the view screen, counting the seconds. Her escort, three scrapped-together war machines, fly in tight formation with the Rig. She eases her shields up, praying they don't notice and do the same. Furiosa rests her hand on a lever hidden beneath the dashboard.
Morsov buzzes in over the intercom. "Hey Boss, Ace is looking at it now, but someth—"
Furiosa jams the lever, and the rear tanker detaches from the Rig. She ignores the alarms blaring through the cabin and punches through a series of commands.
Voices call from the subfloor chamber. "Furiosa, what's going on?!"
"Stay in there!" Furiosa roars over the cacophony.
The escort starts to fan out. The comms buzz. "Imperator, the tanker—"
The Rig blasts an EMP, and the closest war machine goes dark. Furiosa punches the hyperdrive, and leaves the Ausva cluster behind in a blur of stars.
—
Tie fighters strafe the outpost, and she's running, quarterstaff useless against the onslaught, a boy grabs her hand and they're running—
Max jolts awake to hear the blare of alarms. He tries to move but he's locked somewhere with barely enough room to sit up. He jangles the bars, trying to dislodge the lock.
[Hey, stop that] a series of beeps echo madly through his steel chamber, resolving slowly into words. Max recoils violently when a rusted white droid pokes up in front of the bars. It seem to consider him curiously.
The droid whistles low, moving through system checks of its weapons systems in order. [I’m supposed to stay here and guard you, Bloodbag, but if this alarm keeps going I'll have to check things out upstairs.]
Max furrows his brow. "Blood... bag?" His words come out slow and cumbersome.
The droid turns to him brightly. [You've got good blood! You'll bring a real shine price for the Immortan at the meat market. He was so pleased.] It beams at Max. [You're very lucky, my parts are mediocre, not worth anything. Now stop thrashing, or I'll pike you in the spine before we get there] it finishes, releasing and then retracting a heavy skewer.
Max tries to sort through what the droid is saying but nothing quite makes. He slumps back and stares hard at the lock. If it opens he can be free. He needs it to open. Desperately, he wills it to open. His head pounds.
The lock does not budge.
Max flinches as rapid images flash before his eyes: the girl—Rey—running through the sand, running for a ship, almost to safety! He feels her elation, and then terror as it explodes—
Max is thrown back against the cell wall as the cargo ship leaps into hyperspace. The droid shrieks as it tumbles across the floor. The ship shudders, the cell door jangles in its frame—
And the latch comes open.
—
Toast shoves the grate off the top of the storage chamber and gasps a breath of fresh air.
Furiosa whips around. "It's not safe yet."
"We can't breathe in there," Angharad protests, lifting herself out and holding a hand to the other women. "Besides, you made the jump."
"I only knocked out one ship, the rest will be after us soon," Furiosa says as she checks her radar. "We're going to have to make a few more jumps before we set a course."
The women ease into the small cabin, stretching their cramped limbs and passing around a canteen of water.
"We did it," Cheedo whispers, as if afraid to say the words aloud. Dag smiles sweetly at her.
"Not yet," Toast mutters, glancing warily at the viewscreen.
Furiosa adjusts the coordinates on the nav system, watching the radar as she makes her calculations.
She puts her hand on the hyperdrive. "Strap in, we're going to make another jump."
The doors to the cargo hold hiss open, followed by the whine of a blaster charging up to fire.
Furiosa whips around to see a man charge into the cabin, his face half masked with blood and grime. He casts his gaze around wildly, then locks the blaster on her.
—
Max feels dangerously exposed. He reaches for his scarf to hide the scarred-over slave brand, but finds it missing. It must have been taken along with his ship and his jacket.
The pilot tracks his every move, eyes shining bright under her dark forehead. He keeps the barrel trained on her.
Sharp breaths escape from the cluster of women in white, all eyes on him. He shifts his grip on the blaster.
Their voices rise in whispers around him. We're going to the Green Place of the Many Mothers. What's wrong with his eye? The pupil's blown wide. Is he coming with us? No, he's a crazy smeg who eats schlanger!
Joining them come the voices he came here to bury. A kind voice twisted into harrowing screams, a child's cries plunged into silence.
The light in the room pulses, growing too bright or fading toward darkness.
A voice emerges from the chaos, one of the women on the ship. She approaches him, the light illuminating her scarred face.
"You will put down the gun, and proceed peacefully," she says, her voice stern, yet lofty.
Max blinks, and stares at her in confusion.
The woman closes her eyes and begins again. "You will put down the gun..."
Max feels the words worm into his brain, wriggle through his nervous system and try to arrest his grip on the blaster. He grits his teeth and squeezes the trigger.
She gasps as the blast grazes her leg. A stream of blood trickles down her calf.
"Angharad!" the other women scream, alternately beckoning her and sneering at Max. The red one comes between them, shielding her. Angharad stands her ground.
The pilot charges his blind spot and sends him sprawling. The blaster skids across the floor, and they grapple for it, throwing elbows into jaws and boots into guts. Max gets the gun, and she gets her metal hand around his throat.
Everyone is shouting and trying to get between them and someone is pointing at the viewscreen—
"Furiosa! They're here! Joe's war party!"
She—Furiosa—glances at it, and growls in frustration. She turns back to Max and loosens her grip ever so slightly.
"You want out of here?"
He scowls at her, the answer etched in every tensed muscle in his body.
She scowls right back. "This is your only hope."
The War Rig takes its first hit, and the world shudders around them.