VII

The great sweep of the external observation portal on the Star Destroyer Finalizer allowed anyone standing before it an uninterrupted view of the vastness of space. Suns and nebulae, mysteries and conundrums, all were laid out before the viewer. It was a view intended to awe and inspire, hence the presence of the portal where visual pickups and monitors would have sufficed just as well.

Kylo Ren regarded it in silence. He had been trained in contemplation, was skilled in deliberation, could remain meditating just so for hours at a time.

But he was losing patience.

Approaching from behind, all Lieutenant Mitaka could see was a tall, caped figure silhouetted against the spray of stars. He did not look forward to having to make the report. It was his responsibility and he had no choice. Nor was it the first time he had been compelled to deliver bad news to a superior officer. But Kylo Ren was different. Not precisely a superior officer but something else. At that moment, Mitaka would rather have been anywhere else in the civilized galaxy than alone in a room with Kylo Ren.

The caped figure did not turn. He did not have to. Mitaka knew Ren was as aware of his arrival as if he had watched him approach. He was tracking the lieutenant with something other than eyes.

“Something to report, Lieutenant? Or have you come, like myself, to marvel at the view?”

“Sir?”

A gloved hand rose to take in the sweep of light and energy arrayed before them. “Look at it, Lieutenant. So much beauty among so much turmoil. In a way, we are but an infinitely smaller reflection of the same conflict. It is the task of the First Order to remove the disorder from our own existence, so that civilization may be returned to the stability that promotes progress. A stability that existed under the Empire, was reduced to anarchy by the Rebellion, was inherited in turn by the so-called Republic, and will be restored by us. Future historians will look upon this as the time when a strong hand brought the rule of law back to civilization.”

Mitaka forbore mentioning that the Republics had developed their own codes of law. To do so would have been . . . indelicate, and he doubted that Ren was in the mood for a political discussion of any kind. Standing at attention, he presented his brief report.

“Sir. Despite our best efforts, we were unable to acquire the Beebee-Ate droid on Jakku.”

Now Ren did turn. Mitaka would have preferred it the other way. He always found it unsettling to have to gaze at the metal mask beneath the cowl.

“It was destroyed? Do not tell me, Lieutenant, that the droid was destroyed.”

Mitaka swallowed hard. “No, sir. At least, not as far as we are able to determine. Reports from the ground indicate—­”

He was interrupted. “No aerial survey results?”

“Two TIE fighters accompanied the recovery party. Contact has been lost with both and it is assumed . . . it is assumed they encountered unforeseen difficulties.”

Ren sneered softly. “You equivocate like a senator. Go on.”

“Reports from our troopers on the ground indicate that the droid escaped capture by taking flight aboard a stolen Corellian freighter, a YT model. An older craft but in the hands of a competent pilot, a capable one.”

Atypically, a touch of uncertainty colored Ren’s response. “The droid stole a freighter?”

“Not exactly, sir. Again, according to these preliminary reports, it had help.” Mitaka was starting to sweat. “We have no confirmation, but brief glimpses by our troopers correlated with the location of an earlier crash site lead us to believe that trooper FN-2187 may have been—­”

He broke off as Ren reached for the lightsaber at his belt, activated the weapon, and raised the intense red band high. Expecting a swift judgment, Mitaka closed his eyes. After a moment, finding his head still attached to his neck, he dared to open them once more. Ren was slashing at the console nearby, at the walls, at the deck, rending and ripping, slashing long lines of bleeding metal into the very fabric of the ship. His rage was terrible to behold. Mitaka strove to remain perfectly still, to control his breathing, to become as invisible as possible lest he become nothing more than an inadvertent recipient of Ren’s fury. Whether by chance or design, Ren spared him.

Shutting off the lightsaber, the taller man turned to the wretched bearer of bad news. He spoke calmly, as if his mad, destructive rampage had been nothing more than a brief interlude: an illusion.

“Anything else?”

At least the worst of the report had been delivered, Mitaka knew. And he was still alive. He allowed himself to relax ever so slightly.

“The two were accompanied and likely abetted in their flight by a third party, presumably local. A girl.”

Reaching out, a black-gloved hand clutched the startled lieutenant and pulled him violently forward. That metallic visage was now close, closer than Mitaka had ever been to it. As the officer struggled to breathe in that remorseless grasp, Kylo Ren’s voice took on a timbre lower and more menacing than any the lieutenant had ever heard.

“What—­girl?”

Kneeling by the opening in the deck, Finn struggled to peer down into the depths. The constant hiss of escaping vapor made it difficult to hear or see anything. He badly wanted to shut off the blaring emergency alarm but didn’t dare move away while Rey was still below and out of sight. Nor did he trust the droid to do it, fearing the worried mechanical might hit the wrong control. While a BB-8 model contained a lot of storage, he doubted the schematic for an old freighter was among the information on tap. Furthermore, this particular vessel had undergone a considerable number of modifications, not all of which might be hospitable to uninvited visitors. Booby traps, for example. As Rey worked out of sight below, he wondered if she had considered the same possibility.

Make the wrong adjustment and they could blow up the ship. Or the ship, responding on its own to unknown preprogramming, could blow them up. He hoped they hadn’t escaped the clutches of the First Order only to eliminate themselves.

A head popped up, surrounded by vapor. Perspiration streamed from Rey’s face. “It’s the motivator. Grab me a Harris wrench!” She pointed behind him. “Check in there.”

Turning, he unlatched the storage container she had pointed to and began rummaging through the contents. As a stormtrooper, he was trained to deal with certain emergencies. These included but were not limited to troubles of a mechanical nature, such as how to do basic repairs on a speeder and other ground transport vehicles. So he knew what he was looking for. He only hoped he could find it.

“How bad is it?” he yelled back at her as he continued to sort through the container’s jumbled contents, silently cursing the unknown owner of the ship. Whoever it was, he was no genius at organization. The tools and replacement components filled the container in the most haphazard, disorganized manner possible. “If we wanna live,” Rey’s voice echoed from below, “not good!”

The ship gave a nasty jolt, reminding Finn of their rapidly degrading situation. “Look, they’re out hunting for us now; we gotta get out of this system now! The longer we stay sublightspeed, the more certain the chance that their sweep scans will pick us up. I don’t want to have to try and outrun a Destroyer!”

Rey ignored him and glanced at the nearby droid. “Beebee-Ate said the location of the Resistance base is on a ‘need to know’ basis. If I’m going to take you two, I need to know!”

She disappeared below, once more leaving Finn and the droid alone in the shuddering, alarm-filled lounge. Busy as she was attempting to make the necessary repairs, he felt he could try to stall her. But that would only postpone the inevitable reckoning. Or he could ignore the query. Same inescapable result. He could lie, invent something—anything. Blurt out the name of any system, any realistic destination. Anything to get away from this world and the attention of the Order. A quick sideways glance showed that the droid was watching him. That wouldn’t work, either, since if nothing else BB-8 would contradict him. The only reply that would suffice was the true one, and he didn’t have it. He edged over toward the droid.

“Okay, look—­we have to know the location of the Resistance base. You heard Rey. She thinks she can get us there—­but you have to tell us where it is.” The droid emitted a flurry of rapid, soft beeps. An impatient Finn waved them off.

“I don’t speak that, but I think I got the gist. You just accused me of not being with the Resistance, didn’t you?” The droid’s body inclined forward slightly: a mechanical acknowledgment. “Right. Okay, just between us—­no, I’m not. I’m a regular trooper who’s gone rogue. By my actions, I’ve renounced my oath. In the eyes of the Order, that makes me something worse than a Resistance fighter. I don’t know from the Resistance. All I’ve heard are stories and rumors and Order propaganda. But I do know what’s right from what’s wrong. That’s why I’ve done the things I’ve done. That’s why I find myself in this mess here and now.” He paused for breath.

“All I want, all I’m trying to do, is get away from the First Order. I don’t care where I end up as long as it’s clear of their influence. But you tell us where your base is and I’ll help you get there first, before I do anything for myself or on my own.” He gazed straight into the droid’s visual pickup. “Deal?”

BB-8 cocked his head to one side and said nothing. Finn felt no shame in pleading.

“Droid, please.”

He held the stare until a weary Rey appeared again. “Pilex driver, hurry!” As Finn returned to the storage container and began searching anew, she took the moment to query him once more. “So, I didn’t hear. Where’s your base? Where’s our destination?”

Searching through the pile of tools and odds and ends, he murmured tersely to the watching droid, “Go on, Beebee-Ate. You tell her.”

Nothing from the droid. Not a sound, not a hum. Finn was on the verge of despair when the spherical mechanical finally uttered a short sequence of beeps. Rey looked surprised.

“The Ileenium system?”

Locating the requisite tool, a relieved Finn passed it to her. “Yeah, the Ileenium system.” Where the hell was the Ileenium system? he wondered. “That’s the one. Let’s get this crate fixed and head there as fast as we can, huh?”

“Doing the best I can down here.” Rey vanished again. As soon as she was out of sight, the grateful Finn gave BB-8 a thumbs-up. The droid responded by shooting out a welding torch in imitation of the human’s gesture.

She wasn’t gone long, nor was her attitude any more relaxed when she reappeared. “Bonding tape, hurry! If I get the ship working again, I’ll drop you two off at Ponemah Terminal, but that’s as far as I can go. Ponemah’s still neutral territory. You should be able to make contact with Resistance representatives from there.”

For the third time, Finn found himself plowing through the disorganized tool container. “What about you? What are you going to do? If anyone besides those two TIE fighter pilots saw you with us, your likeness is gonna be plastered all over this quadrant! If the Order doesn’t haul you in for questioning, reward-seekers and bounty hunters will be scouring every port in hopes of picking you up. Better for you if you stick with us.” He threw BB-8 a quick glance. “The Resistance will protect you.”

She shook her head. Vapor continued to geyser upward around her, though not as much as before, Finn noted.

“I gotta get back to Jakku!”

“Back to Jak—­ Why does everyone always want to go back to Jakku? There’s nothing there! Sand and junk and rocks and sand and quicksand and sand—­I don’t get it!” Picking up what looked like a sealer, he turned to toss it to her.

“No, that one!” She pointed, but her stance was none too steady and her hand kept weaving around. Doing his best to follow her directions, he hefted another instrument. “No! The one I’m pointing to!”

“I’m trying! And you’re not pointing real well, you know?” His exasperation nearly overcame his fear.

“That one! If we don’t get a patch on down here, the propulsion tank will overflow and flood the ship with poisonous gas.”

He tried another device.

“No.”

Another.

“No—­that one, to your left! No!”

Sidling up alongside Finn, BB-8 used his head to indicate the appropriate sealer. Hopeful, Finn picked it up. “This?”

By now he was surprised when instead of bawling “No!” again, she replied with an emphatic “Yes!” He tossed it to her, watched as she caught it easily and once more disappeared below. Leaving the tool container, he returned to the opening in the deck and called down to her. “You’re a pilot. You can go anywhere. Why go back? You got a family there? Back on Jakku? Boyfriend? Cute boyfriend?”

As the flow of vapor finally slowed and then ceased, so did the interminable alarm. Rey’s reappearance coincided with the return of comparative silence within the lounge. She broke it immediately.

“None of your business, that’s why.”

The sudden dimming of lights put a halt to any incipient argument. They flickered but did not go out. All three of the lounge’s occupants regarded their newly altered environment. BB-8 beeped nervously.

“That can’t be good,” Finn murmured.

“No, it can’t be,” Rey agreed as she climbed out of the opening. Together, they headed back toward the cockpit.

This time Finn settled into the copilot’s seat. Looking back at him was a dead console. One did not have to be trained as a pilot to infer that a dead console did not bode well for future voyaging.

“It’s the motivator, isn’t it? That’s the component you were so worried about.” When she didn’t reply, his heart rate increased. “It’s worse than the motivator?”

Focusing on the console in front of her, Rey replied without looking up from the instrumentation. “I fixed that; this is something else.” Without much hope, she tried several controls before sitting back, defeated. “Someone’s locked onto us. All our controls are overridden. They’ve taken control of life support, too, for that matter. Easiest way to get us to cooperate.”

“Who’s taken control of us?” Tapping the scanner to remind him that it was useless, she could only shrug helplessly.

Nothing being visible through the front port, he left his seat and headed for the overhead observation dome.

“See anything?” she called back to him.

“Yeah.” There was no need for elaboration. She would see for herself all too soon. Oddly enough, the sight allowed him to relax finally. There is no point in overexerting oneself when all hope is gone.

The other ship was gigantic, an enormous bulky freighter. The cargo bay door was open, and against the open hangar that loomed above, their stolen vessel appeared no bigger than an escape capsule. Its instrumentation frozen, its engines powerless, and its weapons systems dead, the paralyzed ship was drawn inexorably upward into the cavernous opening.

Returned to the cockpit, a defeated Finn slumped into the copilot’s seat, his gaze fixed forward as he spoke. “It’s the First Order. They’ve got us. It’s all over, Rey.” Behind them, BB-8 beeped querulously. Having nothing encouraging to say, Finn did not reply.

They weren’t going to the Ileenium system, he knew. Not now. The likelihood of them even returning to Jakku was infinitesimal. Their fates would be decided on board the ship that was presently pulling them in. Decided and expeditiously carried out. The First Order was nothing if not efficient.

So close. In spite of what he had done, in spite of his own personal rebellion nearly succeeding, it had all come to nothing. Useless. Poe Dameron was dead. Soon he, and this poor girl, would join the Resistance pilot. Whatever map or other information BB-8 held would be forcibly extracted from the little droid, after which his memory would be wiped, his AI circuits removed, and the remainder probably recycled as scrap. Finn grunted softly. That was more than he and Rey could hope for. All he could do for her now was apologize for having inveigled her into a mess that was a consequence of his own making. He might relay that truth to the individuals presiding over his disposition. Plead on her behalf. But as an ex–­First Order stormtrooper he knew that his words, however eloquent, would buy Rey only as much time as it took for him to speak them. He was bitter and resigned.

He also knew that if given the chance he would have done the same all over again. The only thing that separated him from his comrades, the only thing that defined him as an individual, was his unshakeable sense of what was right. That much, at least, he could take with him.

“What do we do?” Rey was saying beside him. She kept trying the controls, to no avail. “There must be something.”

He still could not look in her direction. “We can die.”

She refused to accept it. “There have to be other options besides dying!”

He sighed heavily. “Sure. We could run—­if the engines could be powered up. We could try and fight—­if the blasters would function. We could step into the matter transporter—­if such a thing existed.” He shook his head dolefully. “No, we’re dead. We don’t even have hand weapons to try and hold off a capture te—­” He stopped abruptly. Now he did turn to her.

“Earlier, when you were working below: You said something about volatile chemicals? Mixing to create poisonous gases?”

She eyed him uncertainly. “Yeah, but I fixed that. There’s no blending now.”

His tone was deliberate, his stare unflinching. “Can you unfix it?”

It took her a moment to realize what he was driving at. When understanding came, her expression brightened. Together, they left the cockpit and headed back toward the lounge, BB-8 trailing close behind.

The emergency masks they removed from their storage stations were designed to protect against loss of atmosphere. They most emphatically were not intended to substitute for the environment suits that were employed during extravehicular excursions. But for the plan Finn had in mind, they should do just fine. Working together, they succeeded in wrestling the droid down into the service area below the deck. Once all three had safely managed the short descent, Finn pulled the blown section of decking back into place over his head. Fortunately, it had come loose in one piece and was unlikely to be noticed by preoccupied intruders. At least, not right away. It would have to suffice.

Next to him, Rey was working hard to undo the results of her earlier repair.

“This’ll work on stormtroopers?” she wondered as she manipulated the tools she had used earlier and left behind.

“Standard issue helmets are designed to filter out smoke, not toxins. To cope with the latter, a trooper needs to engage one of several special filters, depending on the specific contaminant. Identification is the province of one or two squad leaders. Having brought this ship on board theirs, I doubt anyone will think to check for airborne pollutants. It’s not like leading a ground assault, or forcing entry to an enemy warship. This is just an old freighter. Any kind of internal defense, much less something as nebulous as a gas counterattack, would be the last thing a squad sent to take its crew into custody would expect.”

Rey was plainly impressed. “You Resistance guys really know your stuff.”

He smiled uneasily. “You know what they say: Know your enemy.”

Abruptly, the ship’s internal illumination returned full strength. Even concealed within the service corridor, they could hear the muted sound of the ship’s ramp lowering.

“Here they come,” Finn whispered. “Hurry!”

“I am hurrying!” Her fingers worked nimbly at the seal she had applied.

“Really hurry!”

“I put this seal in place to keep us alive, not counter a hostile boarding,” she hissed back at him as her hands flew. “I made it to last. Don’t expect me to take it apart in a couple of minutes! Does this look like I’m taking my—­”

“Chewie, we’re home,” Finn heard a man say. Then the covering in the deck above them was ripped away. Hands raised in surrender, hoping that the least they could expect was not to be shot out of hand, they found themselves gazing up at . . . not a stormtrooper.

The man holding the blaster on them was not wearing a helmet; not even a protective visor. There was nothing to interfere with his angry expression. It filled a face scarred with know-how, aged by experience, and world-weary—­characteristic of someone who had set foot on dozens of worlds. His eyes were hazel, his gray hair tousled, and he wore the look of a man who had seen too much, too soon, and been forced to deal with idiots all too often. His evident age notwithstanding, the hand holding the blaster neither shook nor wavered. Eying him, Finn felt he knew the type if not the man. His only fear then was that the man might shoot first and ask questions later. Thankfully, he did not.

“Where are the others?” While there might be cracks in the man’s countenance, there were none in his voice. “Where’s your pilot?”

Hands still raised, Rey gulped. Who was this hard-faced intruder, and where were the First Order stormtroopers? “I—­I’m the pilot.”

Unblinking eyes regarded her with obvious disbelief. “You?”

She nodded. “It’s just us.” She nodded once to her left. “Us and a droid.”

A second shape appeared above and beside their inquisitor. It was likewise most definitely not a stormtrooper. It was also much, much bigger than its blaster-wielding companion. A battery of sounds issued from between thick lips, something halfway between a moan and a question.

“No, it’s true,” Rey responded. “We’re the only ones on board.”

Finn gaped at her. “Wait—­you can understand that thing?”

Beating Rey to a response, the man holding the blaster on them warned, “And ‘that thing’ can understand you, so watch it.” Still aiming the weapon in their direction, he stepped back. “Get outta there. Come on up. No funny stuff. We’re watching you.” His attention focused on Rey, he almost smiled. When he did, there was a hint of something half playful in his demeanor. But only a hint. And there was nothing whatsoever lighthearted about the blaster he kept pointed in their direction.

As he emerged from the service corridor, Finn found himself looking up at the man’s companion. And up, and up.

Impatiently, their captor gestured ever so slightly with the muzzle of his blaster. “Where’d you find this ship?”

“Right here.” She saw no reason not to tell the truth. “I mean, down on the surface. Niima Outpost, to be specific.”

Dropping his lower jaw to signify his disbelief, he stared back at her. “Jakku? That junkyard?”

“Thank you!” Finn said. “Junkyard!” His original opinion confirmed, he shot Rey a look that was pure I-told-you-so.

Looking away from them for the first time since they had emerged from below, their captor addressed his towering cohort. “Told ya we should’ve double-checked the Western Reaches! Just lucky we were in the general vicinity when the ship powered up and its beacon snapped on.” He turned back to Rey. She was trying to make sense of the mismatched pair standing before her and failing utterly.

“Who had it?” he continued. “Ducain?”

Again, she thought: no reason to prevaricate. “I stole it from a salvage dealer named Unkar Plutt.”

Brows narrowed as the weathered visage wrinkled even more. “From who?”

“Look.” Taking a chance, Rey lowered her hands so she could spread her arms wide. “I don’t know all the details for sure. I’m not privy to Plutt’s private accounting. But talk says that Plutt stole this ship from the Irving Boys, who stole it from Ducain.”

“Who stole it from me!”

In addition to anger, their captor’s voice was filled with righteous indignation. To Rey, it sounded a little forced. Definitely this man was not now and never had been a stormtrooper or anything like it. What he had been, maybe, was someone not unlike herself. A bit of a businessman, a bit of a con man, a bit of an adventurer. And since he was older, it was only reasonable to assume that he had been a bit more of all of those things than herself. What his intentions toward them were she could not yet guess. But the fact that he didn’t know who Unkar Plutt was was definitely a plus on his side. He would be unlikely to immediately turn them over or try to sell them to someone he didn’t know. Where he stood in relation to the First Order remained to be seen. Thus far, at least, he didn’t strike her as someone overly interested in politics.

Her hurried speculation as to their captor’s possible motives was interrupted when he took a step toward her. Finn tensed, but neither the blaster nor the man’s free hand came up.

“Well, you tell him when you see him again, you tell him that Han Solo just stole back the Millennium Falcon for good!”

Whirling, he holstered his blaster and headed for the cockpit, his lofty associate at his side. Either he was satisfied with her answers, Rey thought, or else he didn’t care. With his back to them as he headed in the opposite direction, neither Finn nor Rey caught the change of expression from the suggestion of a smile that had threatened to crack his heated glare to a wide, contented grin. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t his countenance that awed them: It was his name.

Han Solo.

A legend of the Rebellion against the Empire. Trader, pirate, con man, and fighter extraordinaire. It was hard to believe he was real, Finn thought. Solo was history come to life.

No longer under the gun, or even restrained, and abandoned in the lounge as if their presence was less than insignificant, Rey and Finn exchanged a look.

“What now?” Finn gestured in the direction of the corridor that led to the cockpit. “He—­he just left us here.”

“We could wait for one of them to come back,” she suggested.

He nodded slowly. “Yes, we could do that. Just sit here and wait.”

Without another word they broke for the cockpit.