HAN trudged through the snowy forest with Chewbacca and Finn. His legs ached, and the freezing wind was fierce when it gusted through the trees. He was getting too old for this sort of thing.

Han also didn’t like leaving the Millennium Falcon half-buried in a snowdrift. He’d given her a good-luck tap when he’d disembarked. He didn’t know what he’d do if he lost her again. The fact that he had found her against the greatest of odds—19,077,000 to 1, C-3PO had told him—gave Han hope that maybe, at the end, everything would turn out all right.

Finn indicated a break in the forest ahead. “There’s a flood tunnel over that ridge. We can get in that way.”

It all felt a little too easy to Han. “You sure the tunnel isn’t safety screened?” he asked. “We can cut through ordinary stuff, but—”

“There’s no screen at all. A screen would defeat the tunnel’s purpose.”

Han looked at the kid. “You said you were stationed here. You never told us your specialty.”

“Sanitation,” Finn said.

“Sanitation? How do you know how to take down the shields?”

“I don’t know how to take down the shields, Han,” Finn said matter-of-factly. “I’m here to get Rey.”

Chewbacca grumbled. Han spun on Finn. “Anything else you’ve overlooked? Anything else you’ve forgotten to tell us? People are counting on us. The galaxy is counting on us!”

“Solo, we got here, didn’t we? We’ll figure it out.”

“Yeah, how?” Because Han was all out of ideas.

Finn flashed a crooked grin of his own. “We’ll use the Force.”

“I haven’t got time to explain it to you, kid, but that’s not how the Force works.”

He couldn’t have explained it if he did have time. He didn’t tell Finn that.

Rey hurried down passageway after passageway, carrying her former guard’s blaster rifle. Metal plated some walls while others showed jagged rock, offering nooks and crannies to duck into when she sensed anyone approaching.

She arrived at a narrow walkway that had been built along a wall. On its open side, the walkway lacked a railing to prevent plunges down a deep chasm. But beyond the walkway, Rey saw a means of flight out of here. TIE fighters were docked in a hangar.

Stormtroopers guarded the doorway. Chatting among themselves, they hadn’t noticed her. Neither had the stormtroopers she heard approaching. But if she didn’t do something soon, one or both patrols would discover her.

Rey strapped the rifle over her shoulder and dropped over the side of the walkway.

She didn’t fall into the chasm. She hung. Gripping the edge of the walkway with her fingers and bracing her feet against the wall. She’d had practice doing this sort of thing. Salvaging on Jakku had necessitated many similar precarious climbs. The important thing was never to look down.

Surveying the area under the walkway, Rey glimpsed a hatch on the far wall.

She lifted one hand off the edge and moved it a half meter before setting it down, testing the grip. She did the same with a foot, finding shelves in the stone that held. Continuing this process, Rey crept along the walkway. Balance was vital. She never looked down.

Within reach of her destination, she elbowed the access panel. The hatch opened. She crawled through, into a maintenance bay.

A repair droid trundled toward her, then continued past to perform some preprogrammed function. Rey hastened across the bay, not trusting that another droid would be so ignorant.

Finn knew the layout of the dark flood tunnels like he knew how to clean his rifle. He could travel through the maze with a blast shield over his eyes and still get where he wanted to be.

He guided Han and Chewbacca through the sludge to an unmarked portal in the sewers. It was intended only for emergency transport of cleaning supplies, but those in the sanitation crew often used it as a quick entrance point into the base.

Finn tapped a code and the portal opened.

“The less time spent here, the better luck we’re going to have,” Han advised.

“Yeah, I know,” Finn said.

He took them through the corridors that he recalled were less frequently patrolled. He chose well, because they encountered no one.

Their first glimpse of real activity in the base gave Finn pause. Another stormtrooper headed in their direction, wearing a black cape and chrome armor that had been polished clean since the raid on Jakku.

It was his old commander, Captain Phasma.

Finn’s worry vanished when he realized she would be the key to disabling the shields. He and Han ducked back while Chewbacca stepped out, disarmed her, and pulled her around the corner.

Finn raised his weapon at her helmet. “Captain Phasma, remember me? Still want to inspect my blaster?”

Phasma struggled in the Wookiee’s grip. “Yes, I remember you, Eff-Enn-Two-One-Eight-Seven.”

“Not anymore. My name is Finn. A real name for a real person. And I’m in charge now.”

With the Wookiee clutching her arm and Han’s pistol joining Finn’s to point at her, Phasma had no choice but to go with them into the shield control room.

No one was there. Since the shields ran on automatic systems, techs visited only to troubleshoot any issues. Architects hadn’t even considered potential intrusion. Who in their right mind would sneak so deep into the First Order’s main military base?

Finn preferred not to be in his right mind when it came to the dictates of the First Order. It was his one true advantage. Its officers were so blinded by their own training regimen, they could not predict what someone like him—an anomaly—would do next.

He planted Phasma at a console and ordered her to initiate the deactivation. When she refused, he pressed his blaster harder against her helmet. “Do it.”

She did. A few keystrokes were all it took to bypass the automatic systems and start the sequence to shut down the shields.

Finn watched the shield generator levels decline. “Solo, if I remember correctly what they told us about the shield system, we don’t have a lot of time to find Rey.”

“Don’t worry, kid. We won’t leave here without her.” Han kept his blaster trained on Phasma. “But what do we do about her? Is there a garbage chute or trash compactor nearby?”

“Yeah, there is.”

When the shields were fully powered down and the consoles had been blasted beyond repair, they dumped Phasma down a chute into the base’s sewage. Finn felt sorry only for her armor.