In This Twilight || Closed

“That’s ridiculous, BB-8,” Poe Dameron spoke to the orange and white, spherical droid at his side as he tweaked a few wires and circuits on his X-Wing ship. The Astromech BB-8 droid merely let out a few beeps, some of which sounded remarkably sassy for something that wasn’t supposed to possess a great deal of personality. The X-Wing pilot shifted a bit to level the droid with a look as he spoke, “That’d never work and you know it.” The single ocular device on the machine merely looked up at the man and he would swear to himself that he must’ve gotten a special one of the bunch. Any other BB-8 units he had been in contact with had been so…robotic. His seemed to test him on occasion or beep back at him like a child back-talking a parent.

Poe merely shook his head, the battered, brown leather jacket shifting on his shoulders as he replaced the exterior plating onto the panel he was working on with a drill bit before stepping away from the ship. He’d test his modifications to it later. The crew was working on refueling it and he wanted to spend the last bit of sunlight on the Resistance base in D’Qar as leisurely as possible. The droid beeped at him impatiently again, its “head” bobbing back and forth in a way that had Poe laughing. He’d only had the droid for a few weeks now, barely enough time for the built-in AI to figure him out and recognize his mental patterns and strategies. It was interesting to fly with something other than another pilot and he quite enjoyed having the BB-8 unit with him on the few missions he’d been on since getting it.

“It is not going to blow up,” he told BB-8, who performed the droid equivalent of rolling its eyes by swiveling its head around and letting out some lower toned beeps. “I’ve been flying for a long time and I know what I’m doing.” He stepped away from his ship, he glanced at the surrounding base. He knew it was probably safest that the facilities on D’Qar were underground, but it meant he spent most of his time beneath the ground instead of above it. The droid followed him closely, rolling along beside him almost silently. Poe rarely got to spend too much time with his feet on the soil of a planet, beneath an atmosphere that was generated naturally and not in some falsely humidified ship.

The Captain got a few salutes as he strode by a few of his fellow squadron pilots, offering them one of his signature crooked grins as he strode toward the far edge of the base the Resistance had built upon. The vegetation around them was thick and covered the planet in a haze of humidity, which would alter his view of the sun setting, but it would still be worth it to have a few rare moments to himself…and BB-8.

---

The crunching and squealing of metal against metal that resounded in Cirilla’s(or her more commonly used callsign of Jackknife) TIE/sf ship and in the external audio comms of her helmet could not have been good. She had just docked it in the elite forces hangar bay of the Finalizer, noting the imposing command shuttle that belonged to a certain Knight of Ren just beside where she normally docked and used extra care when maneuvering. As the leader of her squadron, she had been running drills with them without their gunners to familiarize them all to a few of the new pilots. Frantically and as quickly as she could with the cramped space in the cockpit and with her thin body arm, she climbed out of her TIE fighter.

She was immediately met with the smell of spilled oil and sparking circuitry and knew that things definitely were not good. The newest pilot to their squadron had attempted docking next to her TIE and apparently rammed into it. To her horror, it had pushed her ship directly into the black-triangular ship that belonged to Kylo Ren. Her stomach dropped and anger boiled up within her. She had a reputation of being the best pilot in the First Order and as leader of her squadron, this debacle was going to reflect poorly on her. Cirilla was, for lack of a better term, was fucked.

“Sorry, Jackknife,” the dingus, with the callsign of Snake Eyes, shouted to her as he surveyed the damage. Her gaze spun from the sparking panels on the command shuttle’s wing to the pilot in a flash.

“You’re ‘sorry’!?” She exclaimed, her respirator-addled Coruscanti accent echoing throughout the otherwise silent hangar bay. It was as if every being and droid inside the room knew just how screwed they all were, regardless of their involvement. “Do they not teach you the basics of docking on the Absolution?!” She nearly screamed at him, fogging up the visor of her helmet she was so furious. She was breathing heavily, pulse hammering in her ears and she could have seen red. The other pilot stammered a little, slowly stepping over to her. The amount of reports and damage control she was going to have to go through was going to be astronomical. “Do you even know who’s ship that is?” She asked in a growl at Snake Eyes, shaking a hand toward the large black ship in the hangar.

“You see where Captain Dameron went?” Toma leaned her hip against the workbench that Jarik was staring at, the pile of circuits and hydrospanners looking rather precarious. Jarik let out a soft hum as he shrugged his shoulders. “You do know that whatever you’re trying to do, you could just save time and look it up on a datapad?” At that he jerked his head up, scowling at her. She held up her hands and grinned. “I’m just saying, it’d save you some time.”

“Yeah, but odds are, it’s gonna tell me that I need a kriffing fusioncutter, and I really don’t feel like walking all across the hanger for it,” he said. “I thought I saw him heading towards the south end? All I know is that little droid of his was following behind him like some youngling.” Toma laughed softly. BB-8 was quickly becoming one of the more well-known droids on base. It rolled around, whipping around corners if there weren’t too many beings around, chirping at anyone that would listen to the thing. “I’m gonna toss that grav-ball into the wall next time it comes over telling me that I’m doing the wiring wrong.”

Toma snorted. “I’m pretty sure that Damer- Captain Dameron would have your head if you hurt an inch on that orange and white casing.” She drummed her fingers against the cool durasteel, watching Jarik glare at the workbench for a few more seconds before heading off in the direction that he’d mentioned. General Organa had told her about a potential mission coming up, one that would actually deal with recon against the First Order. The mere thought about it made her veins hum with excitement. She’d been stuck on base for months since she’d first been recruited. About a week or so in, the itch to just leave had settled in, making it hard for her to just sit still and be content with decoding messages through a little computer-port for hours on end.

She jogged forward, smiling as she glanced up at the sky. It was pretty, the colors blending together in a way that made her mood lift even more. She turned her head forward, smiling a little as she spotted Poe and his droid. She couldn’t hear it, but she could imagine the little, trill sounding beeps that the droid let out. “Captain Dameron,” she called, slowing down to a walk as she neared him. She’d heard some others call him Poe, but she’d never felt entirely comfortable with that. “General Organa wants to see us,” she said, offering him a faint smile. “She said to tell you sooner rather later, too.”

---

The smug bastard walking beside Ren was making it difficult for him to meditate on the Supreme Leader’s warnings. He had been told time and time again to channel that raw anger into something controlled, something more lethal that what he’d been producing. It had been getting easier, but when he’d docked in the Finalizer two days ago, and felt the insufferable presence of Hux, what control he’d had was gone, flung off into deep space without a single chance of returning. There was just something about him, how he looked upon the Knight of Ren with such a patronizing look. It reminded Ren of –

His teeth tore at his lower lip, biting down until he felt a sharp sting. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth behind that mask, and he channeled that pain into something he could focus on. It was easier to remain in control when he could latch onto something so similar to his trainings. Outwardly, no one would have suspected a thing. His back was ramrod straight, his steps a little longer than usual so Hux would have to scurry to keep up with him. The man in question was going on about something or other, something useless that was going on aboard the Finalizer. Something about a new group of clone troopers that he was hoping to implement.

“- I’m sure that the Supreme Leader would be pleased to hear that their results are more than optimal, even higher than your little group of –“ Hux was cut off by the sound of metal screeching against metal. A few beings yelled out in the distance. Hux stared down the hall towards the hangar and sighed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it was one of your patrols. You should really get them under your control.” Kylo Ren took a deep breath in and tried to center himself. Hux was a general. It would be frowned upon if he murdered the man then and there. It would be even more frowned upon by the Surpreme Leader, who had continuously chiden him for acting out in a way that would encourage insubordination. So he did the next best thing. He glanced around the hall, noting that it was empty, and pinched two fingers together. He could feel the Force swirling all around him, flowing through him, the power welling up and pushing out. Hux started choking behind him. He didn’t let it go on too long, just enough for the blithering idiot to fall to his knees and gasp.

With that, Ren strode forward. The blood was still filling his mouth, but not as much. The rage had calmed down enough to a controlled boil. Maybe he needed to choke Hux more often. He stalked into the hangar, various workers falling silent as he went passed them. Behind the mask, the corners of his mouth twitched into a barely there smirk. The rage that was emanating off of Cirilla was admirable. He didn’t recognize the other pilot, which mean that he was new. The stammering must’ve meant that he was really new. “Which one of them did this?” He asked, his voice crisp and harsh. He already knew which one it was. The fear was coming off of him in waves. Even if Ren hadn’t been Force sensitive, he would’ve felt it. He looked up to survey the damage, the rage starting to rise up once more. That was his ship. How was he supposed to get off this kriffing station and get away from Hux? “Was it one of yours?” He asked, stopping at Cirilla’s side. He didn’t turn to look at her, instead keeping his gaze on his only way out of there.

Poe breathed in deeply as he continued walking through the open air landing strip.The air around him was slightly humid and an even deeper haze settled across the trees that lay across the horizon. There were times, though it didn’t happen very often, that he’d forget what the surface of a planet could feel like or what their climates could bring. Most of the planets he visited were like D’Qar—vast swaths of trees brimming with life and a fairly balanced mix of rain and sun. He favored planets like these over ones that were coated with ice, snow, or sand. Just as he slowed his pace, he noted footsteps in his direction, but purposely ignored them for the sake of just soaking the planet around him in. He was sure that BB-8 noticed whoever it was that was approaching him first and let out a few beeps and whirrs of noise.

The pilot turned his head slowly at the sound of his name—his formal one, at that—being called. His gaze remained on his surroundings for a moment or two longer before drawing his eyes to the woman that had come to a stop beside him. He was grinning crookedly before he could stop it at the sight of her smile—like a knee-jerk reaction. When he heard the General wished to speak with them, he knew he was probably about to get his next mission assigned to him. What took him back was the fact that she said the word “us” and mentioned the General wanting him to be quick about it. “Sure,” he said with a nod of his head before turning back to gaze up at the quickly fading sunset. He offered it just another moment before nodding his head back toward the base. “I’ve got time now.”

He started off toward the center of operations in the base, knowing that either General Organa or someone who knew where she was would more than likely be there. He’d seen the woman that had approached him a few times around the base whenever he’d get back from a mission. In passing, he’d asked what her name was, out of curiosity or just wanted to get to know the faces around the base, he couldn’t tell. “Fleck? Toma Fleck? Right?” He asked, though he was pretty positive that’s who he was speaking with. He turned his head to glance over at her for a moment, carding a hand through his hair.

“I’ve seen you a few times on base and I’ve just never gotten a chance to introduce myself officially. I’m Poe or Captain Dameron.” He offered her a steadfast crooked grin as he studied her for a few moments. His first thought was of how pretty a smile she had and that she found she still had something to smile for. Too many got lost in their cause, got caught up in all the negative and forgot what drove them to join the Resistance in the first place. This was another refreshing thing about being on base: smiles were hard to come by on missions or in space. “Did the General say anything about what she wanted to see us about?” He questioned, brow going a bit pensive as he glanced ahead. He nodded toward a few of the other squadron pilots as he passed, offering them a small smile before turning his attention back to the woman.

---

Cirilla was having a hard time containing her anger. Hours upon hours she had spent with the TIE techs modifying and customizing her ship—within First Order regulations—had been compromised by the idiot who was standing before her without an explanation for his actions. The ship was perfectly customized to her completely and now she’d probably had to walk through the arduous process of ensuring nothing was damaged with a tech. Not that she minded spending her time on such things, she just didn’t like the circumstance that brought it about.

Silence fell across the hangar, even more than before she had started yelling and she wondered what had caused it. Slowly, she turned and her stomach dropped even more. The only other owner of the damaged ship had showed up. Cirilla was hoping to have had more time to get a plan together, to get repairs underway, before having to approach the Knight of Ren or send a message. When he spoke, her gaze turned to Snake Eyes and found him looking remarkably paler than before. Good. He deserved every bit of what he was feeling. Fear and embarrassment were clawing at her insides beneath the wrath that hovered over both of them. “Sir,” she said, striking a proper salute before her hands rested once more at her sides.

She had managed to get a look at the damage Kylo Ren had done with a lightsaber to a radar panel once. Because if it, he was the only thing—person—she feared. The Force was something foreign to her, so she was completely unaware of his capabilities beyond being able to slice her in two without her even being able to prepare. “This poor excuse of a pilot in front of me, sir,” she managed to growl through clenched teeth, turning an acidic gaze to Snake Eyes who ducked a bit under her words. Behind him, she could see maintenance and repair crews tentatively working on a way to move the ships without causing more damage, as they were all sandwiched together. When Kylo Ren stopped beside her, she risked a glance over at him for a moment. Her gaze lingered on the saber hilt at his belt before returning to Snake Eyes.

“Barely,” she balked. “He was only just-“ Her words were interrupted by the sound of screeching metal once more. As the crews and moved the culprit ship, the wing of her ship that had been hit buckled and the whole ship tipped to fall on one side with a loud crash, the opposite wing scraping up the side of the epsilon-class, black shuttle beside it. She stared at it all with a mix of shock, anger, and fear and she drew in a deep breath of air—deep enough that her armor pressed uncomfortable around her chest. All movement ceased as she stared wide-eyed at her ship, then Ren’s ship, and then to Snake Eyes. A fine tremble of more anger than fear tore through her and she was sure her hard breathing was audible through her respirator and the edges of fog on her visor crept into her vision once more. Her hands trembled at her sides before she clenched them into tightly wound fists, synthetic leather gloves squeaking with the movement. “I would expect the notification of your demotion to sanitation to come quickly, HB-0101,” Cirilla spoke in a tight voice, the slightest bit of a quiver beneath it. She was a hair away from snapping. “And unless Commander Ren has anything he wishes to address with us, I would highly suggest you leave the hangar immediately.”

Toma had seen that crooked grin of his directed at others on base, but it was the first time that it had been directed at her. She could feel her heart squeeze a little, a small pang in her chest that tried to tell her that he was attractive. And he was, objectively. He had a charming personality and his eyes were kind. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her vest and looked to where he’d been gazing at. It was pretty out there, a far cry from some of the other bases that she’d heard about. She and the General had been around each other enough by then that she’d started to hear some stories about years long passed. Apparently, Hoth had been an absolute nightmare with the cold.

“Right, yeah,” she said, blinking a little in surprise. Captain Dameron was practically the poster boy of the Resistance. She hadn’t expected him to know her name. Falling into step with him was easy. While her legs weren’t the longest around, she’d learned how to scurry along as a child, making sure that she wouldn’t be lost in the big crowds of whatever planet her parents were on that month. The thought of her parents had come fast and out of nowhere. She kept the small smile on her face and banished the memory from her mind.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Captain.” Her smile grew a little as she glanced over to him. She held his gaze for a moment before ducking his head. He’d always stuck out to her. Most of the other captains were hard and rough, more focused on the mission at hand than remembering what they were even fighting for. Granted, it was difficult to remember what it was that they were really doing when your colleagues were dying all around you. She reached up to push some hair out of her face, and gave a shrug of her shoulders. She should be nonchalant about this, like she was used to being tapped for missions.

She pressed her lips together for a moment. “She mentioned something about a recon mission? As far as I know, there’s been some intel received that they’re working on something, but we’ve got no clue what it is.” She couldn’t help the bubble of adrenaline sliding through her as the next words left her lips. “She was making it sound like we were being tapped to go on a mission together. I’m not sure where, though, or when. She made it seem urgent enough, though.”

---

Kylo Ren blinked behind his mask. He was thankful that it hid his features. The other Knights of Ren seemed to have a better handle on their emotions, their faces like a blank canvas. His, on the other hand, always seemed to be covered with splatters of red-hot anger, or a blackened hatred. He was adept at keeping his emotions locked in tight when it came to the Force, his own Force signature calm and cool and collected. It was his face that was the traitor.

His lips curled into the barest of snarls as the pilot paled considerably. Good. He should fear Kylo Ren. They should all fear him, really. And most of them did. He could feel it, their fear out in the open for him to draw upon. It enveloped him like a warm blanket. When he’d been younger, he’d let it suffocate and drown him until he was nothing but a pathetic mess, curled up onto the ground with his knees into his chest as the Supreme Leader looked down open him with a frown. Eventually, though, he’d learned that it was a comfort of sorts. It pushed and prodded him along, daring him to get better and reminding him that he was the one with the power. When they all feared him, then he could rule.

She’d gotten out four or so words when the screeching began. He didn’t flinch, but his mouth settled into a white, thin line as he glared at his ship. He didn’t want to think about how long it would take to repair, how long he’d be stuck there with Hux. If he was the laughing sort, he might have chuckled at the crews attempting to figure out how to get the ships away from one another. It would be futile, he knew it. But he’d be damned if he didn’t make them do it. It was a hopeless kind of hope, that maybe they would get it fixed in a short amount of time. While he didn’t know the full extent of the damage, he didn’t doubt that it was extensive.

There had been around five or ten seconds where Kylo Ren had actually decided on letting the man live. A demotion would be punishment enough, as would the inevitable ostracisation from the rest of the troop. Those who made that big of mistakes never lasted long. So he’d figured sure, he wouldn’t do anything else. He opened his mouth to respond, to dismiss them both, when he could feel Hux walk into the room. There was nothing but smugness radiating from the ginger-haired rat. Because it had been Ren’s idea for them to diverge away from the clone troopers, saying that it was more cost effective to just children and train them up from the start, as opposed to wasting credits on genetic engineering. Ultimately, this was Ren’s fault. And Hux knew it.

The rage in his veins snapped and his arm lifted out, his hand clenching. He slowly squeezed, imagining that he could feel the man’s throat constrict between his hands. Instead, all he heard was choking and spluttering. He was seeing red. He wasn’t sure how long he held it for, but it was long enough for him to feel the man’s life force flickering out. He let go then, knowing that if the man did die, it would result in nothing but an admonishment for Ren. He straightened his spine, turning his head just enough to look at Cirilla. “That’s all.”

Poe could hear BB-8 chirping behind them, saying something about the quick pace they had taken up to cross the distance to get to their destination. He also mentioned something about the fact that they’d only just gotten to rest for a bit and Poe was once again reminded of just how human-like the little droid could be. When he caught sight of the slight surprise on her features at how he’d known her name, he grimaced internally. Despite being “suave and debonair”(words of his squadron, not himself), he was thoroughly dedicated to his work and made it a point to learn as many names as he could. The reputations of his parents led little to not know who he was, so he wanted to make sure—when he could—that others felt important too.

He pulled a bit of a face at the use of the term Captain in reference to himself, though he still managed to keep on smiling through it. “Just call me Poe. Captain sounds too…stuffy,” he said with a soft chuckle afterwards. He tried to recall how often he’d seen Toma around, to pick up from context clues on what exactly she did, but his sightings of her had been so brief. “Have you been at D’Qar long?” He questioned, turning his head to watch her for a moment. He worried his bottom lip between his teeth for a moment. The question probably sounded better than he thought it did. He had to remind himself that he couldn’t familiarize himself with the entirety of the Resistance, that just wasn’t possible. Poe knew they all played important parts in bringing the First Order down, hence why he tried to get to know everyone he could.

“A recon mission?” He repeated softly, gaze narrowing slightly with thought. He’d just gotten back from not two days from a mission, not a recon, but he was surprised at how quickly he’d been approached with another. Truth be told, he hadn’t gone on too many missions of that nature. What had prompted the General to risk a recon mission? His gaze slid over to her as she mentioned the two of them being selected for the mission. Together. His curiosity, it seemed, to peak with this. What exactly did Toma do that she was chosen to come along with him? He nodded in recognition when she said that the mission had seemed urgent enough.

“Alright then,” he said, looking over at her with the same crooked grin as he had worn before. He knew the risks that came with missions of any kind, but he enjoyed those risks, especially if it meant the Resistance would come out on top. “Hope you can keep up,” he said jokingly, punctuating his comment with a wink. He hadn’t meant it in a bad way at all—he wanted to keep a levity about the mission, regardless of how serious it was. Thankfully, the center of operations wasn’t too far from entrance and he soon spotted General Organa amongst the monitors and displays.

---

Cirilla wanted a black hole to open up in the floor and consume her. She was a top pilot—she deserved much better than dealing with this sort of ineptitude—and yet, her days were filled with similar mishaps of the sort. They were human, after all, but Cirilla was shrewd and known for her precision. She would not tolerate failure or weak links in her squadron. Snake Eyes, fortunately enough, was found to be a weak link before it really mattered, so she supposed she should have been thankful enough for that. If he’d pulled that shit in a dog fight, flying erratically and poorly, they’d all be put at risk.

There were a few quiet moments in the hangar where she expected at any moment for a ringing hot, crackling lightsaber to strike through Snake Eyes and then her, especially after the additional damages caused by the crews trying to move the ships. However, when Ren stretched out his hand, her entire body tensed up—the flinch barely noticeable—as she watched Snake Eyes suddenly start gasping and choking for air. Her eyes widened sharply, staring at the outstretched hand in terror. Was she next? Was this how she was going to die? Her anger faded away so quickly, replaced by ice-cold terror. She wasn’t prepared when he just barely turned to her, almost flinching again. However, when he spoke, she mirrored his posture, straightening her spine and leveling her chin to the durasteel floor.

She nodded tersely in recognition of what he’d said and caught sight of the red-headed General striding toward them. Cirilla, despite her devotion to the First Order, did not care for the General too much. However, she would never say such a thing out loud. The only time I like seeing that man in the hangar is when he’s leaving on a ship, she thought darkly. He’d cracked down on their regulations too many times—she believed he didn’t fully understand how detrimental each code and rule meant to how efficient their ships ran. If he says one word to me about this, I’m decking him. Consequences be damned, she thought, thankful for the helmet that blocked the glare she sent in his direction.

Cirilla marched past Snake Eyes, purposefully crushing her heel down close near his fingers in a childish gesture, as the man was now gasping frantically on all fours and strode toward the mess of ships and the crews working to maneuver them safely. There was some survival instinct that was screaming at her for turning her back to Kylo Ren, but she ignored it. “Alright,” she called to them as she stopped a safe distance away and placed her hands on her hips, “I need the command shuttle up for maintenance first. Everyone needs to focus on the damage to that. And, please, try not to cause the ships any additional damage.” As she looked at the state both the command shuttle and her own ship were in, all she could think about was the bottle of Correllian whiskey she had tucked away in her barrack—the damage was extensive, but mainly superficial. Though, no matter how long it took, she’d not rest until the ships were back in working order.

Just call me Poe. Toma’s fingers fiddled with the hem of her vest. She was fine with the other captains, able to joke around with them and call them by their first names with ease. But something about Captain Da – Poe made her pause. There was a good chance that a chunk of it was because of the way that she’d heard some of the other soldiers talk about him, how he was so young yet practically considered a legend already. She’d heard story after story about his piloting skills, but had yet to see it in action. Maybe then she would get it. She glanced around her, her smile growing as she nodded at a young woman that she’d gotten to know a few weeks back when they’d been stuck together during a string of nightshifts. She glanced back to the man at her side and shrugged.

“A couple of standard months, I think.” It was five and a half to her count, give or take a week, but she didn’t want to admit that; she didn’t want to admit that she’d been counting the days until she got to go off on a mission of her own. “I came in with the batch of recruits that had been picked up in Corellia,” she added, wondering if he’d say anything of it. There had been a handful of them in that group, small enough that everyone had gotten to know one another on the flight to D’Qar. They hadn’t known each other long enough to become friends, but she was vested enough in their future. She also might end up being a little bitter if they managed to get off planet while she’d been stuck with decoding whatever messages came through.

She let out a soft hum, not bothering to respond in any other way. That was as far as she knew. It was hard to tell just what was important and what wasn’t. It seemed that more often than not, everything was urgent these days. Or maybe it wasn’t urgent so much as General Organa made it seem urgent with the way she’d gesture with her hands, or frown at some of the soldiers that she’d known for so long. Toma had noticed the bags under the older woman’s eyes for a few days now. With every passing night, the bags grew darker and the woman’s patience grew a little shorter. Her gaze flickered over to Poe as she raised a brow. “You’re worried about me keeping up?” She asked, smirking faintly. She ignored the wink. That was a little too much for her process.

Toma straightened her back when she spotted General Organa. Despite having gotten to know her, there was still a little hum of adrenaline that coursed through her. General Leia Organa was the woman that she’d grown up practically worshipping. She’d ran around her parents’ ship, climbing down into the smuggler’s compartments, pretending to be Leia on one her many adventures. “General Organa,” she greeted, nodding her head as the woman turned to her.

General Organa looked between the two of them, nodding her head once before she spoke. “We intercepted a message for the First Order, and we’ll need someone to check it out. I was hoping that the two of you would be up to it.”

---

Kylo Ren felt it. He’d felt the fear that was emanating off of her, wrapping around him in its warm comfort. But before that, he’d felt her sharp anger. It had stretched across his consciousness enough that it had almost distracted him for a moment. If he was being honest with himself, it was intoxicating. He watched as she stepped away. He raised a brow in response. There was something there, something that was needling him in the back of his mind. When was the last time that anyone had just turned away from him in such a manner? He was used to people being afraid of him. That was nothing new. But this was different. She was ignoring it. He listened as she spoke, the people scurrying to follow her orders. Hux came up to him and stopped at his side. It took everything within him to keep his hands from clenching into fists.

“Who is responsible for this?” Hux’s grating voiced sounded throughout the hangar, unnecessarily loud. Everyone already knew that he was there, just waiting to put in his pointless opinion. Ren felt the annoyance twitch at the back of his mind. He imagined taking his lightsaber out and halving the man right there. The wound would be cauterized instantly due to the heat that the saber put out, which meant that there wouldn’t be much in the way of cleanup. Supreme Leader Snoke would be upset, though. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to spend the next year at the mercy of the great being’s anger. He’d experienced it before, and the phantom pains still occasionally lingered.

Ren nodded towards the man on the ground. He was averting his gaze, still massaging at his throat like someone had wrapped their fingers around it. The Knight of Ren rolled his eyes. The man should’ve been standing up, already on his way out of the hangar. He glanced over to the ships, scowling at the sight of his. If the pilot had any sense, he would have raced out of there the second that Ren had released him.

“Who is in charge of that man?”

“The command is Cirilla Holt’s, I believe.” He’d waited a few seconds to answer the general, as though it had taken him some time to remember her name. In fact, he’d known about her for some time. He’d heard about her skills, how she was one of their top pilots. He’d heard the tales spoken softly amongst the lower level soldiers of her anger. A couple of months ago, one of the Knights of Ren – Thriehl Ren – had said that her temper could have matched Kylo Ren’s. He’d rolled his eyes at that, and stalked way.

“Holt, is it?” Hux called, his voice rising to a level that grated against Ren’s ears. His hands clenched into fists on their own accord. Hux pointedly ignored the Knight, fixing his gaze onto the masked pilot standing there with her hands on her hips. “This is your command?”

Poe shot a glance over to Toma as she admitted how many months she had been with the Resistance. His brows lifted slightly despite himself. Five months could have been ample enough time or not enough time at all, depending on her skill set. To him, five months passed in the blink of an eye, too quickly for him to truly grasp the passage of time. For her, it may have been different, depending on what she had done prior to arriving at the Resistance. “You’re still quite new then,” he told her with a grin. Poe didn’t know a time before there was the Resistance or some sort of entity of the sort for him. There were brief moments, particularly after an arduous day or after losing a fellow pilot, when he wondered what it would be like to be uninvolved in all of it. Those thoughts usually didn’t last too long. "Corellia? You know much about ships?" He questioned curiously. He knew that generalizations about the inhabitants of planets were typically wrong, but it was common knowledge the people of Corellia typically built ships or were smugglers.

The air in the base was slightly muggier than the outside, Poe noticed. Probably due to the fact they were underground and the antiquated circulation systems. He drew in a deep breath, nodding again to a few Resistance members that he knew before returning his attention to Toma. That grin was still playing around his lips, dark eyes flickering over her features to try and gauge her reaction before continuing on or trying to explain himself. “Maybe,” he murmured noncommittally with a shrug of his shoulders as his grin grew even wider at the sight of the smirk that she wore. “Do you think you can keep up with me?” He questioned. Her answer, however joking it seemed, would be important to how he’d probably have to approach their mission. Too confident of an answer, and he’d probably had to ground her somehow and with a not confident enough answer, he’d have to try and remedy that.

As his gaze lay on the General, he frowned a bit. She looked a little more tired than usual, but wouldn’t dare mention it to her unless asked. Something big was about to happen, he just knew it. General Organa was usually a beacon for the Resistance—a strong voice to help motivate the troops that Poe desperately tried to echo. He stopped as Toma did once he reached the General and offered her a small nod and smile of recognition. “General,” he said softly, the grin slowly falling once he realized the woman didn’t return the expression. He realized why once she told him why she’d asked for the two of them.

“The reason I’ve asked for the two of you is a bit more…personal, in nature, which is why I’ve picked the two of you,” she said, dropping her voice a bit as so they wouldn’t outright be heard in such a busy room. “Fleck, despite this being your first mission—”Poe’s eyebrows shot up slightly at this and he shot the young woman behind him a sidelong glance before returning his attention to General Organa once more“—you’ve shown true promise in your work and I know you’ll treat this mission with the utmost discrepancy. And Poe…well…we’re going to need a pilot like you for it…”

Poe nodded once, eyeing the General for a moment. He wondered if he should prompt her to keep going or if he should remain quiet and let her speak on her own time. The woman seemed to lose herself in thought for a moment, gazing down at a map in front of her for a moment. “It’s no secret who my father was…not now, at least,” she said, lifting her gaze to divide it between the two in front of them. “We have reason to believe the First Order is going for an artifact that once belonged to Vader—Kylo Ren, is in particular quite interested in retrieving it, according to the message,” she continued, the danger the mission would hold for them written plainly on her face. Poe was up to the challenge, of course, but he now realized how dire it was.

“All I need for you to do is get to where this artifact is before they do and try to decode whatever messages they may send during their time there. We have reason to believe they won’t be out in full force, so it’d be a good time to gain some intel on them without risking too much. Hack into their comm-links and datapad communications, if you have to. But whatever you do, you are not to engage them in a fight.” She leveled a rather motherly looking stare at Poe, tilting her head down slightly and pursing her lips. “Is that understood?” She questioned, as if she were addressing them both but emphasizing her words to the ostentatious pilot that stood before her. “Do you accept this mission?”

---

Cirilla took note of the swath of oil that was seeping onto the floor from the bottom of her ship, knowing that it’d have to be cleaned up sooner rather than later lest someone slip in it and another mishap occurred. A heavy sigh left her and she set her jaw for a moment, eyes slipping shut as she felt the burn of anger clawing at her insides once more. She could deal with it. She was dealing with it. Once the ships had maintenance underway, she would be able to focus her energy into fixing the issue instead of the man who’d caused it all or the General that had just entered the cavernous room.

She was set on ignoring him until she heard his voice boom throughout the room and her body tensed at the sound of it. Here it comes, she thought as she grit her teeth, the end of my career. Slowly, she turned to face the Knight of Ren, the General, and the man who was behind all of this. Her gaze focused on Snake Eyes—it was easier to divert her attention to him—as she listened to the High Command speak. She vaguely heard the mention of her name—the birth name she was allowed to keep instead of being assigned a two letters and some numbers—from the vocoded voice of Kylo Ren. There was a slight surprise at the mention of her name, especially coming from him, but knew that her name more than likely was common knowledge amongst the higher officials. Instead of answering the General as he barked to her, she strode over HB-0101 and stopped beside him.

“Leave,” she told him, her voice low and hollow, and he shot up from the floor and out of the hangar quickly. There was one annoyance down. Now, to get rid of the General and get back to cleaning up the mess. Cirilla focused on him as she closed the distance between them before stopping and striking a salute. “Yes, this is my command, sir,” she replied, tone flat.

“Care to explain what happened, Holt?” He questioned, hands clasped behind his back. Cirilla stared up at him for a moment, connecting all the ends that could have lead to this happening. No, this wasn’t entirely the fault of a bad pilot, she realized, but a regulation he’d passed down to them. Irritation and anger swelled in her once more and she drew in a deep breath of air.

“Sir, you ordered all TIE ships to have their auto-docking features disabled,” she told him bluntly with a deceptively calm voice, gaze focused on him intently from behind her visor. “Had someone consulted an actual pilot before this happened and regulations made, I’m certain this wouldn’t have happened and not only would two TIE/sf not been damaged, but the command shuttle as well. Perhaps next time you shouldn’t listen solely to someone in an officer’s uniform before passing a mandate. The ones who fight your battles for you matter too, General.” She was speaking before she could think it out thoroughly, mouth running faster than her mind. There was an edge of insubordination to her tone, she knew, and the spots of angry red color on the General’s cheeks proved that. He looked like he was gnawing on his words, jaw working against what he was going to say before saying it.

“Three weeks sanitation duty in this hangar—” Cirilla’s body tensed visibly as he said this, opening her mouth to immediately protest but he kept talking. “—and you’ll not be allowed flight privileges during this time, either. You’re lucky I don’t demote you altogether, Princess.”

Ah, so he had heard of her before. The nickname ‘Princess’ was one she’d heard many times behind her back, a stab at what could have been her future, should her parents have survived long enough to guide her path. Boldly, she took a step forward, looking up at him because of the height difference between the two of them. She was seething once more, the fear she had previously felt becoming a distant memory, and she was snarling up at him beneath her helmet. “Yes, sir,” she hissed through clenched teeth, turning on heel and marching off hastily in the opposite direction.

“This is you last warning, your highness,” Hux called after her smugly as she quickly crossed the hangar floor to the armor storage for the pilots. She did not react outright, but her shoulders ticked slightly closer to her ears. Her boots echoed harshly on the floor, her posture was rigid, and her hands were clenched tightly into fists at her sides. Cirilla entered into the pilot’s “locker room” quickly, needing to hide herself away before she exploded. As the doors slid shut behind her, her helmet was off-decompressing with a hiss-and she threw it clear across the room with a loud bang and crash as it collided with a rack of pilot armor and toppled it over.

Toma gave a shrug of her shoulders. “New enough, I guess. My parents tried to help out whenever they could.” Granted, her parents weren’t anything like his parents, but they’d supported the Resistance in their own way. They’d helped along the occasional information to Resistance bases across the Mid and Outer Rim from time to time. Sometimes they’d even had a guest aboard the ship for a day or so, transporting a being from one planet to another. It wasn’t often, only maybe once every other month or so. Those had been her favorite times when she was younger, always jumping around bugging the being for their entire story. She tilted her head at him, cocking a brow at his question. The corners of her mouth twitched upwards into a small smirk. “Sure, I know about ships.” She felt like he was asking her something else, something that was hidden in his question. Everyone in the karking galaxy knew that Corellia was known for three things – gambling, ships, and smuggling. She knew about ships. She knew about the other two just as well.

She glanced towards him, catching his grin. It was nice. It complimented his features well, making his eyes appear a little darker than usual. More important, though, was that it seemed decently genuine. “I can handle myself just fine, Capta- Poe.” Her smirk shifted into a warmer smile, the corners of her eyes crinkling. “You don’t have to worry about me.” There was a small part of her that was concerned about keeping up with him, but she trusted her instincts well enough. Whatever the mission threw her way, she’d be able to handle it. It’d be fine.

Her chest dropped a little at the mention of this being her first mission. She kept her gaze solely on the general, trying to grasp at what the mission could possibly be. If it was personal, then odds were it dealt with Kylo Ren. The thought made her blood run cold. She’d never come across the man, and she hoped to keep it that way. She’d take any mission that was given to her, but she’d pray to the Maker that she wouldn’t have to go up against the Sith-Lord-in-Training. She’d seen the holovids of him, the imposing stance that he seemed to take. Even though the little holograms, it felt like there was something wrong about him. There was a darkness to him that she couldn’t fathom, not when his mother was pure Light.

“Of course, General.” Toma’s words were quieter than she’d meant them to sound, but they were strong nonetheless. The look that General Organa was giving Poe almost made her pause. She wondered just how headstrong the man was. She’d heard the stories of him defying his orders when he saw a chance, despite what may happen. ‘Reckless’ was a word that was applied to him with reverence from most. “We do,” she said, speaking up for the both of them before she really thought about it. She could feel her cheeks warm as she glanced over to Poe. She hadn’t really meant to answer for him, the words sliding out before she could stop them. “Sorry,” she murmured. She turned back to the general and gave her a small nod. “When do you want us to head out?”

The general looked between the two of them, regarding them carefully before sighing. “They’re getting the ship ready now, so as soon as you can leave.”

---

Kylo’s lips stretched into a wide, almost feral grin as she began to – quite calmly, he might add – tear the general down. Hux’s irritation grew with each second, with each syllable that Holt spoke. But it was nothing compared to the irritation that was swelling within her. It was fascinating. Most underlings would shake and tremble at the potential demotion that awaited them, but she was different. He detected no fear there, just a deep annoyance at the man. It was something he could identify with, really. He actually had to hold back a bark of laughter when she mentioned fighting his battles.

She really was quite brave.

He wanted to argue with Hux, but bickering between higher ups was a horrible thing to get into. If Snoke caught wind of his top Knight of Ren bickering with some general, there would be hell to pay. Instead, he let him speak, relishing in the way her emotions were rolling off of her. He could detect every single one, and it was fascinating. He took care to keep his back straight, hands at his sides as Hux called her ‘princess’. It caught him off guard for a moment as he began to wrack his brain for her information. He may have heard something mentioned a while back, something about her parents, but he couldn’t be sure. Asking anyone would raise some eyebrows, but he wasn’t too concerned with that. He watched as she stalked off, his gaze flickering over her form slowly. Normally he wouldn’t indulge in such a thing, but her anger was making his mind a little hazy.

“The two of you would get along quite well,” Hux muttered, shaking his head as he headed off towards the hallway. Ren kept his gaze forward, refusing to even acknowledge the man. But the words were stuck in his head. He needed to get off the Absolution. The longer he remained here, the longer he felt as though he was going to suffocate. He had things that needed to be dealt with, things that needed to be found. His mind was brought back to the possibility of finding his grandfather’s helmet and his hands clenched into fists. There were rumors floating around, and he’d found a promising one. But he knew as well as anyone that items as precious as that tended to disappear quickly. He gazed at his ship, and realized that he needed to take action.

Without really thinking about what he was doing, his feet began to carry him forward. A lesser man would have had to weave his way through the various beings that were darting around, but Ren just continued in a straight line. Everyone else got out of the way. He reached out with the Force to find her. It took him a few seconds, but he detected her easily enough. He let that gentle pull tug him forward until he was entering what he assumed to be the pilot’s ‘fresher. The doors slid open and he raised a brow as the sight of the helmet flying across the room.

His gaze flickered over to her, and he froze. She was, for lack of a better word, pretty. He hadn’t expected her to look like that. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but it wasn’t that. He kept his composure though, tilting his chin upwards a little as he clasped his hands behind his back. “I’m reinstating your flight privileges,” he said without warning. “You’ll be piloting a ship for me.”

Poe listened closely to Toma as she spoke of her parents and how they’d helped—he assumed they were Resistance supporters, but not directly part of it like his parents had been. He nodded a few times as he thought over what she’d said. Though he didn’t want to outright diminish their involvement, they either didn’t help out at the bases that Poe and his parents had been to, else he would have probably caught wind of her or them before now. There was a part of him that wanted to ask where they were now, but thought better of it. Parents could be a tricky issue to tackle and they’d only just met; he didn’t want to delve too deeply into their past just yet…if they even got to that point. Instead, he distracted himself with the smirk that flittered across her lips at the mention of her knowing ships. Poe thought it fit her features well and lit her eyes up in a cheeky sort of way. “Good,” he replied simply, “that’ll make two of us.”

He sent her a sidelong look as she caught herself before calling him captain again. His brow lifted slightly but he grinned over at her like he was trying not too laugh. It was an easy thing for most of their recruits to get caught up in, calling their so-called superiors by rank. Others were more stringent on it, ran things more militaristically, but Poe wasn’t like that at all. The time for being strict was when there was danger, but they faced so much destruction and death that he thought they all deserved to be relaxed when they could. When she added that he didn’t have to worry about her, he nodded a bit. That was a fair enough answer. She’d try to carry her own weight, which is really all he could ask for.

The pilot listened to General Organa speak, pleased that BB-8 didn’t chirp up beside him and try to put in his own opinion—not that he thought either women would understand the droid. The orange and white machine remained silent, just behind Poe’s leg. His brows lifted slightly and he was sure he appeared a little surprised when Organa mentioned the fact that this was Toma’s first mission. This was an important turning point in her career with the Resistance and this mission seemed extraordinarily important to the general. Poe listened to her closely and attentively, wanting to make sure he didn’t miss any information about the mission.

He was about to reply to the shorter woman when he took note of the look he was giving him. Poe knew he should feel a bit sheepish under her gaze, to feel like he needed to duck beneath the collar of his jacket bashfully. He knew he had a problem sticking with orders that he questioned a bit and tended to improvise his own plans out in the field. Nothing had even royally backfired yet, but he knew that with each plan or mission he altered, he ran the risk of ruining it all. This was one of those missions that he knew he couldn’t fail, nor could he take liberties with…especially not with the way General Organa was peering at him now.

“Understood, General,” he replied, staring poignantly back at her to let her know that her words had sunk in and he knew she was not to be trifled with on this matter. When Toma spoke up beside him, his head turned abruptly to face her. Of course, he would have accepted any mission from the General, regardless if it was taking down General Hux himself to go fetching her laundry, but he hadn’t expected Toma to speak up for him. A slow grin curled his lips as she turned to look at him, brows ticking skyward for a moment before turning to the General and supplying her with a curt nod in response. The grin was mirrored on the older woman’s features, as if she knew something the two of them didn’t.

Poe should have been surprised at how quickly they were expected to mobilize to leave, but considering the nature of what faced them, he supposed haste was better than taking their time. “Of course, General,” he replied with a bright grin. “We won’t let you down.”

“I know you won’t,” General Organa replied, dividing a glance between the two of them with a crooked grin. “It’s why I picked the two of you. Now, get going and get back to me in one piece.”

---

Cirilla was drawing in and expelling shaky breaths of air, eyes slipping shut as she tried to dial down the anger that was bubbling within her. If the fact her ship would probably be wrecked for more time than she wanted to think about didn’t anger her, now she was doomed to clean floors and messes for weeks. On top of that—and this was what probably angered her the most—was the fact that the General had brought up her past. From anyone else, she could quickly shut them down, bite back at them. With the General, he was in the High Command, part of the “triumvirate”, and if she bit back, she’d probably end up in sanitation permanently or dead. Death was not an option and no one was going to take away her ability to leave the ship. To fight. To fly.

So, she was forced to sit and seethe and do nothing at all. Every muscle in her body was tensed and her teeth were gritted together tightly as she ran a hand over her hair and tried counting back from ten. That typically helped when she was as angry as was. Maybe she’d start from twenty today, judging from how angry she was. She’d barely wrapped her mind around the fact that she needed to calm down before the doors were sliding open and the sound of footsteps entered the room.

She spun to face the door and stiffened immediately when she saw Kylo Ren staring her down. That spike of fear cut through her once more, gaze darting toward his lightsaber before she straightened up again. Was he going to kill her for what she’d said? Had General Hux gotten him to do his dirty work for him? Or would he think he could talk down to her now that he saw the youthful face she typically hid behind her helmet? Her chest was heaving as she stared up at him, hands still in fists at her sides and spots of bright red painting her cheeks. Cirilla was prepared for whatever retribution he brought, to hear the lightsaber screeching to life before rending her in half. But then, Ren was speaking, and she was sure confusion read plainly on her face and the anger she had previous felt left her so quickly it almost made her head spin. Was he going against the General’s orders? Her brow furrowed slightly and her gaze narrowed as she studied him closely.

Piloting a ship for him? Wasn’t he a pilot himself? Why would he need her? She questioned him and she questioned herself as she let his request sink in. Her icy blue gaze drifted to the floor that lay between the two of them as she tried to reason out what was going on. There were so many questions she had to ask, but she was sure Kylo Ren wouldn’t appreciate the deluge she could feel rising within her. He could have asked any pilot—one who wouldn’t piss the General off for being reinstated—but she’d been asked for whatever reasoning he’d had behind it. A bit of a crooked grin curled her lips for a moment at the thought of how livid the General would be before she lifted her gaze to meet the visor that was staring her down. She tucked the strands of hair that had fallen out of the mussed bun at the base of her skull behind her ears as her expression smoothed out and she saluted once more.

“Yes, sir,” she replied, posture straightening as she relaxed to let both hands rest by her sides. Hearing her voice without the respirator altering it always felt weird: it sounded too soft, too proper, and reminded her too much of how her appearance could so easily deceive others into thinking that she was weaker than them or that she wasn’t a threat. “When shall I report and to which ship?” She asked, knowing neither of them had a ship to their name that was operable. She didn’t want to seem too eager, but all things considered, this was her chance to be able to not only fly again but to work closely with the Knight of Ren and serve the First Order.

Toma wasn’t sure if the uptick of her pulse was because of the impending mission, or the way that Poe was grinning at her. It was slow and smooth in a way that almost reminded her of some sticky syrup she’d had once on Endor. She’d been five or so, and all she could remember of the place was sticking her hand in some jar and lifting out sticky fingers coated in the brown goo. It had been almost sickeningly sweet, but she’d loved it. The curl of his lips was similar to that, but it wasn’t sweet. There was something about him that made the word ornery come to mind. She turned her attention back to the general, who was grinning at the two of them. The sight made her pause.

“Where exactly are we headed, General?” She asked, quirking a brow at her. The adrenaline was starting to pump through her veins. She had a small pack that was ready to go in her quarters, something that the recruits had been encouraged to keep ready in case something came up at the last minute. All she would have to do was grab that, and they would be off on whatever adventure laid before them. It was taking every ounce of self-control to keep from bouncing on the balls of her feet. She stole a quick glance to Poe, wondering if he felt the same excitement that was welling within her. It was difficult to imagine getting used to heading out on missions.

“Nar Shaddaa,” General Organa answered. Toma felt her stomach dip. She’d handled being on Corellia when she was a kid. While she hadn’t lived there full time, she’d spent enough of her childhood slipping in and out amongst the crowd that she was comfortable among that sort. But Nar Shaddaa was a whole other beast.

“You mean the planet that’s ran by the Hutts?” Her words were strong, but she couldn’t help the little raise in her voice at the end of the question. The general regarded her with a nod of her head, something twinkling in her eyes.

“And some of the galaxy’s worst bounty hunters.” That didn’t really make Toma feel any better about any of it. Her first mission out, and she was being thrown straight into the krayt dragon’s den. “The two of you will be fine. Now go.” With that, she turned to Threepio and started murmuring something to him.

Toma turned to Poe, the nerve-filled grin tugging at her lips. “I’ll go grab my stuff and meet you back here in ten?” She questioned, praying that her voice sounded calm, cool, and collected. In reality, it probably sounded like some youngling that was finally allowed out on her own for the first time. Then again, it was hard for her to tell. “I’ve just got to grab my pack, and I’ll be ready.”

---

It was different when she was without her mask. He understood, of course, that the soldiers in the First Order were sentient beings, most of them being humanoid. But there was a stark contrast to viewing those soldiers with their helmets on, as opposed to being without. He felt – irrationally – that it was similar to viewing someone naked. She was laid bare before him, the expression on her face flickering through emotions as though she were a book, open just for him. Even if she’d had the helmet on, he would’ve known the moment that her fear gave way to confusion. It washed over him, filling his senses and almost distracting him for a second.

He swallowed at the sight of her grin. Maybe pretty wasn’t the right word for her. Pretty was too feminine, too soft. Her grin was a bit crooked and her hair was slipping out of the regulation bun. Intriguing might have been closer to what she was, but it still refused to sit right with him. He watched as she saluted him. The satisfaction rolled across his body. He hadn’t been concerned that she would turn him down, but the chance had always been there. If she had, it would have most likely been easy to compel her to do his bidding, but it was easier when they just agreed.

“Report as soon as possible,” he answered, thinking over the second part. His lips moved upwards, curling into a smirk behind his mask as the answer settled over his mind. It was a horrible idea, really. One that would result in him being punished by the Supreme Leader. His Master allowed the petty arguments to continue so long as neither of them truly stepped out of line. But Ren was already in deep shit when it came out that his ship was useless. Despite it not being his fault, Supreme Leader Snoke had already warned him that the next time something was destroyed that was somehow connected to him, there would be hell to pay.

So he figured he might as well throw himself into the pit.

“Take the general’s ship.” His words were crisp, practically popping the ‘p’ as a grim sort of smugness settled in his bones. He made sure that his stance remained the same even as he imagined the look of shock, and then rage, that would appear on the general’s face. A part of Ren wished that he would be able to experience it in person. But the calling for his grandfather’s helmet was too much. It was a siren song, one that had seduced him long ago and refused to leave him. “I assume you’ll need the access codes?”

Though Poe had just returned from a mission, he felt the rush of adrenaline coursing through him once more at the thought of what lay before him. Despite himself, he was interested to see how Toma would handle herself, being it was her first mission and all. The general was still grinning over at the two of them, a spark of hope in her gaze as she regarded them closely. He shot a sidelong glance over to Toma, brows lifting slightly as if in silent question, but he quickly looked away in favor of focusing on the general instead.

Toma asked the question before he’d gotten a chance to inquire about their destination for their recon. What General Organa answered would dictate how he would pack and how he’d approach it all. He weighed over everything the general had told him up until this point, wondering exactly where they’d be going. Since she’d emphasized the fact this was something personal to her, he knew this would be a mission he especially couldn’t make his own decisions regarding this. He’d have to follow their instructions to the line, lest he risk disappointing the general.

The answer they received gave him pause and he could feel Toma react in the same way beside him. Nar Shaddaa was probably one of the most rough and tumble places he could think about and he knew that it would not prove to be easy. They’d not only have to worry about however many First Order personnel they ran across, they’d have to worry about the crime syndicate that ran the planet. He found himself watching Toma for a moment, to see if he couldn’t read her for a reaction. She was questioning the general before he could and he found himself glancing toward General Organa to weigh her reaction.

Her answer didn’t help the slight anxiety he felt toward this situation. Dropping himself onto a planet full of crime, Hutts, and bounty hunters? Fine. Dropping a young Resistance recruit with him? He was nervous that he’d end up with getting her hurt or killed. He was honored that General Organa trusted him enough to accomplish this, but there was a slight sense of unease that had settled into the pit of his stomach. He offered the older woman a nod before he turned to Toma as she looked over at him.

Despite the fact that she was grinning, he knew she probably felt just as nervous as he was. And when she spoke, it had only solidified it. It was that moment he realized that he couldn’t appear nervous, at least for her sake. So he grinned over at her and gave her a nod, pushing down his worry for the moment as she spoke. He could see it in her eyes; the excitement of going on a mission, and an important one at that. “Sounds like a plan,” he told her softly, eyes drifting over her features as if he were trying to read her. If there was anyone in the Resistance who could get her through this mission safely, it was him. And that’s probably why General Organa picked him. “Take however long you need to make sure you’re ready, alright?” He offered, that grin of his stabilizing itself .

---

Cirilla found herself eyeing the tall, shadowy figure that stood in the doorway. She was not entirely sure of the situation, but she knew better than to question Kylo Ren in regards to it. Fighting to keep her expression as neutral as possible—she wasn’t used to having to be so cognizant of how her features typically gave away exactly what she was feeling—she thought through exactly what was going on. She’d had no close interaction with the Knight of Ren prior to this moment and for as unsure she was about the situation, she knew she could not falter. For the first order she had received from the High Command to come directly from Kylo Ren was a great honor, in her eyes. She absolutely could not let him down.

She wasn’t surprised by his insistence of her reporting as soon as she was available, as he’d entered the room with a sense of urgency about him. Good thing pilots traveled lightly and had a rucksack of looser fitting leisure wear and whatever was deemed as necessities in their barracks, just in case they were called unexpected to another ship. As particular as Cirilla was, she would have preferred a more solid answer than as soon as possible, but she knew she’d be able to get anywhere on the Finalizer quickly. She knew the battlecruiser like the back of her hand.

Her eyes widened dramatically at his ship of choice before she could even try to hide the expression. His choice of words was making it seem like she would be going alone and sparked anxiety in her veins. Still, the General had made her incredibly mad and here a powerful Force-user was telling her to utilize the General’s ship. Slowly, that wicked grin was playing around her lips once more, something darker flickering in her gaze for a moment as she imagined the turmoil the fact that she would be piloting the General’s ship would cause. Did Ren dislike the man as much as she did? She realized her expression may give away too much of what she was feeling to the Knight of Ren and she cleared her throat, licking her lips before her expression smoothed itself out once more. Could he read her mind and tell what she was thinking regardless?

“Is that an order, sir?” She asked, the grin twitching at the corner of her mouth once more, rebelliously trying to give away how much she was going to enjoy this. They were about to cause an exorbitant amount of trouble for the General; no matter what Kylo Ren’s mission held in store for her or what consequences faced her when she returned, it was worth it. “I do need the access codes. For a ship the General seems to never use, he won’t even let the best pilot of the First Order near it,” she retorted, her mouth running faster than her mind again. She looked away, marching over to her helmet and picking it up from the mess of armor on the floor and placing it back on. Quickly attaching the respirator hose to the front of it, she adjusted it on her head for a moment, the suit vac-sealing itself around her with a hiss, before turning to Ren.

“Shall I need any artillery for this task, sir? I am most skilled with a sniper rifle, but I’m proficient with any weapon provided.” She knew there wasn’t much time to gather things, nor was she sure of how much cargo room the General’s ship held, as she’d never been inside, but she wanted to be prepared for whatever faced her.

Kriff, Poe looked as though he’d just word that they were going to Naboo for some diplomatic mission. He was just grinning at her, easy as could be. And that made the nerves well up in her so much more than they had been, filling the pit of her stomach with unease. Maybe this was a bad idea. What was the general thinking? Sure, she’d been in fairly sticky situations before, but this was a whole other thing. She’d never been to the smuggler’s moon, instead making sure that she avoided it in her travels before she had joined the Resistance. She’d heard the stories, heard the old wives’ tales surrounding the place. It was where criminals went to wheel and deal, where they went to disappear.

But she also knew that she needed to be brave. If she was being entrusted with this mission, then that meant that certain beings – including General Organa – believed that she could do this. And she’d be damned if she wouldn’t at least try to succeed with this mission. So she mustered up a small grin of her own and looked Poe in the eyes, nodding. “Alright,” she replied, ignoring the way she could feel her hands trembling just a little at her sides. She watched him for a moment longer, hesitating for just a second before she turned and headed in the direction of her quarters.

She weaved in and out of the small groups of various beings that were clustered around. Every so often she would have to press against the wall as a pilot or someone higher up ran down the hall. It wasn’t often, but it was enough to know that something was going on. Something bigger than just trying to intercept some codes from the First Order. She’d heard rumors of something, but that’s all anyone seemed to know. Something existed, the First Order had something, someone had done something. It was frustrating, to be honest.

She stopped in front of her quarters, typing in the code on the datapad. The door whooshed open, making her smile a little as she stepped inside. She shared it with another being, a humanoid girl named Narris. She was glad, however, that Narris was out. It would make it easier to think. She snatched her pack up from the end of her bunk and rooted through it. There wasn’t much, just a change of clothes and some rations, her blaster tucked into the side of it. She looked down at her current outfit and frowned. It didn’t necessarily scream that she was in the Resistance, but it wasn’t what someone trying to stay inconspicuous would wear. She slipped off her vest and shirt, sliding on a long-sleeve tunic and shoving her arms into her brown jacket after. She stepped into the ‘fresher, giving herself a once over in the mirror before nodding her head. That looked better.

Within a few minutes, she was heading back down the hallway towards the hangar. She paused as she headed inside, looking around at everything before she spotted the ship. It wasn’t hard to figure out which one she was supposed to head towards – there were beings scurrying around everywhere, tossing things inside as they rushed to get it ready. Her heart flipped as she started forward, hoping that everything would go well.

---

Satisfaction rolled through him as her eyes widened. He was thankful – not for the first time – that his helmet hid his facial expressions. It would have been unbecoming of him to grin so wide, to be so proud of himself for eliciting such a reaction from her. He wasn’t ready, though, for a grin to stretch across her lips. Something in her eyes made his heart beat a little faster, and faintly, that concerned him. Nothing that needed to be dealt with then, but something to be thought of at a later time. His gaze hyper-focused on her mouth as her tongue darted across them, the sight sending a bolt similar to lightning zipping down his spine.

“That’s an order,” he responded. The words came out a little slower, but he figured that she wouldn’t notice. Ren was finding it almost heady, the way that she had visibly perked up when he’d mentioned the general’s ship. Did she too dislike him as much as he did? It had seemed as though every other being on the Absolution – and in the First Order, for that matter – practically worshipped the ground that the ginger-haired man walked on. Granted, there were a few higher ranking soldiers that didn’t necessarily enjoy the man, but that was different than this. He had a feeling that if he reached out to search her thoughts, he would find that she enjoyed the idea.

He had planned on merely sending the access codes to her datapad, but he paused. There would be record of that exchange, one that would be easily looked upon. While he’d never had confirmation, he didn’t doubt that any electronic correspondence was being monitored. It’d be stupid of them not to monitor it. He could remember his teachings of the ways of the Sith, how there were only two in the end. A Master, and an Apprentice. The only way for the apprentice to become the master was to kill the master. He wasn’t stupid. He knew where his ultimate goals lay. To expect less of him would be an insult. “I’ll put them in myself. If you reach the ship before me, inform anyone that asks that it’s for an inspection that I’ll be executing myself.” The sniveling man had mentioned time and time again that there were things for the Knight of Ren to complete, and Kylo figured that it would be fitting to use such an excuse.

“A sniper rifle won’t be needed. A blaster would be more appropriate, or something that can be wielded in close quarters.” He could remember the one time he’d been to Nar Shaddaa, the memory coming to him unbidden. He was seven, his hair wild and curly, always falling down into his face. A flash of brown fur shuffled through his mind, the feeling of his small hand in a bigger one, the sound of that deep voice, the one he’d always looked up to saying-

“We will be onboard and in the air in fifteen minutes,” he snapped, shoving the memory as far back as it would go. He turned on his heel and left the locker room, hands clenched into fists. He was pressing so hard that he could feel his fingernail through his glove. He wanted to break the skin, to feel the pain that would distract him from the ghost of his father’s voice, telling him to watch his back, kid. That Nar Shaddaa was a dangerous place, and that he needed to stay near him the whole time. Kylo Ren’s stomach twisted.

When Toma met his gaze, Poe stared right back at her, trying to suss out if she were really as apprehensive about all of this. Now would be the opportune time for him to approach it, should she not think she could do it. He could tell from the grin that she wore that she was nervous, but who wouldn’t be? The general of the Resistance had pegged her for her first mission-one that just so happened to be on the most dangerous planet he could think of, inhabitant-wise. However, he continued to grin at her and offered her a small nod. When she turned to leave, he let his gaze follow her for a moment before he let out a heavy sigh and carded a hand through his already tousled hair.

BB-8 chirruped beside him and he shot the droid a look. “Yeah, I know,” he murmured, “it probably won’t be a good idea to take you.” The orange-and-white robot let out a soft noise of sadness, head drooping forward a bit. Poe immediately felt guilty, though he knew it was for the best. BB-8 would just be one more thing he’d have to worry about there. Being that BB-8 was a newer model, the droid would more than likely be snatched up before he would even be able to realize it.

Poe turned and began to make his way to his barracks to pack or…more like find what clothing he had that were clean enough. He hadn’t really had time to unpack or do any sort of washing, as easy as it was. Thankfully, his barracks weren’t too far from the center of operations or the hangar, for that matter. The corridor was fairly empty when he marched down it, and for that he was thankful. He was sure his concerned expression would have caused a stir, as he typically wore a carefree sort of expression. It wasn’t that he thought this mission was impossible, but he’d never forgive himself if anything happened to Toma. On his typical missions, he only really had to worry about himself or his squadron and they never really touched down anywhere.

Quickly, he rifled through the contents of his bag, weeding through a few of the dirtier clothes and replacing them with clean ones. He didn’t have many clothes anyways. And honestly, the more that he thought about it, the dirtier his clothes, the better. They were headed to a planet full of criminals with no end to the city on it. If he arrived with pristinely clean clothes, it was bound to raise eyebrows. But, he didn’t want to be off-putting to Toma either. With a hum, he looked through more of his clothes, making sure nothing had the starbird insignia of the Resistance on it or bore the look of someone who was in the Resistance.

When he was happy with what he’d picked, he turned and strode out of the room past BB-8, the droid trailing behind him as he marched toward the hangar. He couldn’t spend this entire mission on edge, it would prove to be a distraction and that could end up with one or both of them getting hurt. As he strode into the hangar, he told himself that everything would be fine and they had no reason to worry. Outside of the otherwise rough crowd of the planet, they had no reason to be worried about the First Order. He definitely wasn’t going to be engaging them in any sort of combat, not with Toma relying on him. He didn’t exactly know if she could pilot a ship or not. He stopped just beside the ship they were to take, eyeing it closely before spying her entering the hangar.

With a heavy sigh, he turned to BB-8. “You mind yourself while I’m gone, okay? And make sure no one messes with any of my stuff thinking they can play prank,” he told the droid, which answered him with a cheery little noise or two and a bobble of its head.

---

The main reason Cirilla wanted a confirmation of the order Ren was giving her was to see if maybe, just maybe, there was another being in the First Order that disliked General Hux as much as she did. Though, there was the fact of her being able to cover her own tail should Kylo Ren recant and deny the fact he’d told her to take the general’s ship. Not that anyone would believe her word against the one of his, but…it reassured her slightly to hear him tell her it was an order. She was a good little soldier after all and she would follow nothing less.

“Yes, sir,” she responded to him, letting him know that she understood the excuse he’d use to gain access to the ship. As much as she would have liked to get a look at the ship she’d be piloting by herself, she understood his logic. Having him put in the codes would take some of the blame off of her, should they return to a slew of trouble—which they more than likely would. She nodded sharply when he advised her to bring weapons more suited for closer ranged combat. Good. All her weapons but her heavy blaster and sniper rifle were kept within the confines of her barracks. His snapping at her sent a sharp reminder to her of just how she needed to mind herself. One wrong move could have the Knight of Ren attempted to choke the life from her or splitting her in two with his lightsaber.

She remained still for a few moments after he left before drawing in a deep breath of air. Cirilla could manage to prepare herself within ten. Immediately, she started toward her barracks. She didn’t have that many clothes to wear in her spare time—truth be told, she didn’t have much—but she’d pack what she had. Thankfully, her journey down the dark, durasteel corridors proved uneventful spare some sanitation droids whirring along and she punched in the code for her barracks and entered the room she shared with her fellow female pilots. There were few of them, and for that she was thankfully. Cattiness was not something she could abide by. Hastily, she chucked all of the regulation clothes she had into her bag, making sure she packed a few of her warmer compression tops and leggings in case where ever they were going was cold. Her blasters were next to be packed, sitting just on top of her clothing.

Once she was sure she had everything, she turned from the room and made her haste toward the private hangar bay the general’s ship was in. Why Ren’s command shuttle hadn’t been docked there was beyond her, but it was too late to question that now. Both of their ships were damaged and she was afraid of what lack of capabilities she’d find in the general’s ship. Did he even really need one? The sight of two of the sanitation crew ducking against the polished wall as she marched by brought a grim smile to her lips. The Special Forces unit had always been met with such a reaction, as they were few and were trained to be deadly fighters. They were expected to lethal in air, but even more-so on a solid surface.

Gaining entry to the hangar bay had been easy, though she could feel the looks cast in her direction as she marched on, her armor rustling together the only sound in the expansive room. It was a shame to waste so much docking space for the one ship, but she supposed that said enough of the general. As she neared the ship, she adjusted her duffle bag on her shoulder, eyeing it warily. It wasn’t a large ship, by any means, but it looked a bit…outdated. “What’s your purpose for being here?” A tech barked from somewhere beside her. They were glowering at her as they closed the distance between the two of them and the look caused her to bristle slightly.

“I am to accompany Commander Ren on an inspection of the general’s ship,” she replied without faltering.

“And your bag?” They questioned, eyes darting to the black bag at her side. She merely stared at him, setting her jaw beneath the security of her helmet.

“Would you be asking Ren these questions? He asked me to bring my tools with me. I didn’t think to question him and I don’t think you should be questioning me now,” she replied, respirator-thick words as sharp as a knife. She could not fail this mission, not even before they left the ship, and it was apparent that she was not to be trifled with in her tone.

Toma took in a deep breath, letting her eyes drift shut for a moment as she tried to make herself relax. The hangar was noisy, but it was the kind of noisy that made her feel at home. The clanging of tools against the ships, the low murmur of the soldiers talking with one another, the occasional burst of laughter – it was all the sounds that she’d been surrounded with all of her life. She opened her eyes and let out that deep breath. She could handle this. She could do this. Some things had changed in her life, but the basis was still the same. She was just going to be on a ship headed to a planet filled with criminals and gangsters.

She’d been through the routine enough times when she was younger. Nar Shaddaa could be handled in her sleep.

Sidestepping a rather hulking trandoshan, she shot Poe a grin as she made her way towards him. “Hey,” she greeted, offering him a small nod before crouching down to scratch at the top of BB-8’s metal head. She smiled faintly at the little droid, her fingers dragging gently along the metal top before she straightened up. “You leaving him here?” She asked, already figuring that she knew the answer. If Nar Shaddaa was as bad as she’d heard – and odds were, it was worse – the little orange and white droid would be snatched the second they landed.

She glanced over to the ship, her eyes narrowing as she looked it over. It was a make that she was familiar enough with. She’d never been in one before, but the controls were probably similar to what she’d flown before. “Is this a VCX-100 light freighter?” She asked, her brow furrowing as she stepped a little closer to it. She lifted her hand up and ran the tips of her fingers over the cool durasteel. A tech stepped by, and she set her bag near her feet so it’d be out of their way. She glanced back towards Poe and grinned a little. “I’ve never flown one of these, but I think I should be able to pick up the controls fairly fast,” she said, starting to mumble the words as she turned her attention back to the ship.

There were similar ones back on Corellia, which made sense, since a lot of the freighter type ships were made by the Corellian Engineering Corporation. There’d been a small part of her that had been hoping for a YT-1300 F light freighter, but she had a sneaking feeling that the general might stray away from those style ships. It would have been hard to have to look at the same kind of ship that Han had day in and day out.

A tech approached the two of them and gave Poe a short nod. “All the pre-flight checks are finished, and you’re looking pretty good. She’s ready to head out when you are, Captain.”

---

His footsteps clanked through the hallway, coming down with soft thuds against the durasteel floor. His hands unclenched, although it took a large effort upon his part. Those memories would arise at the worst of times. He’d learned to keep them at bay when the Supreme Leader was near, but it was harder when the great being’s presence was distant. His nostrils flared as he called upon the constant simmering rage. Memories of his past were unproductive to say the least. They tugged his focus away from the present, away from his mission.

He typed in the code to his private quarters. The door swished open and he stepped in, glancing around briefly. Kylo Ren didn’t have much there, just the basics. He grabbed what credits he had stashed away in a drawer, shoving them into a bag along with some common clothes that he’d picked up when he’d been on Coruscant a few standard months back. He’d only heard a single rumor of the mask then, but it had been enough for him to start planning, and preparing. He would stick out in Nar Shaddaa in his Knights of Ren garments, and the mask would slip from his grasp once more. He snagged the blaster that he kept hidden underneath his pillow, frowning at it. He hated them. They were beneath him, nothing compared to his saber.

Kylo Ren left his room within minutes from the time that he’d entered it, struggling to walk as he normally did. He held the straps in his fist, the bag bumping up against his thigh with every other step. It wasn’t necessarily a normal sight to see, but it was common enough that most of the beings he passed ignored him. Or pretended to, anyway. It was difficult to ignore one in such high command. He strode towards the private hangar, spotting Cirilla the moment he was inside. It was hard not to notice her, her voice quiet but strong all the way across the hangar. He continued forward, frowning when he realized that she was being questioned.

“Is there an issue?” Ren’s voice carried throughout the hangar, and he suppressed a smirk at the sight of the tech straightening his back. Most of the time he didn’t even notice such things. He could remember it had been different when he was younger. There would be an excited dip in his chest at the proof of the power that he held. He had reveled in it then, wanted to bathe in that respect. He tilted his chin upward as the tech audibly swallowed, Ren coming to a stop just beside Holt.

“I was just –“

“You were what?” His words were as sharp as a vibroblade. He didn’t move a muscle, just standing there as he waited for the tech to respond. It took a second or two before the being stepped to the side. Ren almost wished that his mask was off, so that way the being could see the blank, almost bored expression on his face. “You’re dismissed.” He gave a flick of his hand, and the being hurried off. He strode over to the dataport, his fingers nimbly typing in the code.

He waited until there was significant distance between the two of them and the tech. “Are you familiar with this ship’s cloaking device?” He asked, taking care to keep his voice quiet. He knew that it would be useless until they were out of the hangar, but he needed to know if he would have to be the one to pilot the ship. Now that they were close to leaving, the nerves were settling in his stomach. He hated them, despised them down to his core. They were weakness, but a weakness that he couldn’t exploit. Pain was a weakness, but he could draw on it to make himself more powerful. That fear that caused the nerves to well within his chest, that was useless. A hindrance, even. “We’ll be stopped if they see if our course.”

Poe dropped to a crouch and placed a hand on the droid that had been his constant companion since he’d had it. He was feeling a bit reluctant to just leave it, but knew that BB-8 would just be fine. The droid was one of the most clever he’d ever met; it’d find something to keep itself occupied with. His gaze darted up from BB-8 to meet Toma as she stepped towards them. An easy sort of smile curled his lips as she crouched beside the two of them to show a bit of affection to the droid. “Hey,” he shot back at her, eyes lighting up when he noted her grin. It looked like they had both had time to try and prepare themselves.

“Yeah,” he replied through a sigh, gaze dropping back to BB-8, “I wouldn’t want to run the risk of having him get stolen and being distracted by trying to get him back.” The droid turned to look at him with his photoreceptive lens before turning to Toma. Poe drew in a deep breath of air and stood up, eyeing the ship for a moment. Good, there wasn’t any sort of lettering, numbering, or logos on the outside that would give away their affiliation. It would just make it that much easier for them to blend in. His head turned to face Toma for a moment, slightly impressed by the fact she immediately knew the make of the ship.

Though, she was from Corellia, where the ship was made. He shouldn’t have been that surprised, but most non-pilots and anyone else who wasn’t involved in their fleet didn’t know a think about ships. “Yep. It’s been a while since I’ve flown something this…large…but I’m sure we’ll fair just fine,” he told her, watching as she inspected the outside of the ship. Something about the way she was studying the ship, and BB-8 now that he was thinking about it, pulled him in and he found himself watching her intently. When she turned back to him, he offered her an even wider grin at what she was saying. He took a step next to her, nodding a bit as she spoke.

Again, he knew he shouldn’t be surprised that she’d flown a ship before, but there just weren’t that many female pilots. “Good,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest, “it’ll at least mean if anything were to happen to me, you can still get off the planet.” He eyed the ship for a moment before adding, “At least make sure you watch take-off, engaging the hyperdrive, and landing. Those are typically the most difficult things about piloting,” he told her. As the tech walked up to them, he gave the tech a nod of recognition. “Thank you,” he said with a smile. “You guys take it easy for the rest of the day, yeah?” The tech nodded and walked off with a bit more bounce in his step and Poe turned to Toma.

“I’ll meet you in the ship whenever you ready,” he said, adjusting the strap of his bag on his shoulder before turning and stepping up the gangplank to the interior of the ship. He glanced around it for a moment, noting it had a kitchen and a few bunks off to one side. Hopefully it’d be stocked with enough food to last them for a while. He wasn’t sure how long it’d take them to find a place to dock on a planet that was all city. Slipping the bag off of his shoulder, he placed it into a closed container off to the side and made his way to the cockpit to glance over the control placements before take-off.

---

Cirilla drew in a deep breath of air, gritting her teeth together as she fought against wanting to outright yell at the tech in front of her. The acidic words were about to spout from her, intent on intimidating the tech away, but the sound of a deep, vocoded voice echoed from the entry of the hangar and her head spun to find Kylo Ren, with a bag not too dissimilar from hers at his side, as he strode toward the two of them. A dark grin curled her lips at the sight of the tech immediately going from this uppity asshole to absolutely terrified. Ren couldn’t have had better timing because she probably would have incapacitated the tech had he pestered her any further. As Ren stopped beside her, she spared a glance over at him, finding that she quite liked seeing him mad at others when she knew it more than likely wouldn’t be directed at her. He had power, both in presence and the Force, and she respected that…at least when she wasn’t on the receiving end of it. She was pleased to see the tech to be stunned a bit, as if he hadn’t believed that she was here on Ren’s order. Her gaze followed him as he walked off.

She turned back to the ship, noting it was one of the earlier models of the XI-class light shuttles, nothing like the command shuttle at all. It’d work for what they had to do and it’d probably be easier to pass it off as stolen, should anyone ask, since it wasn’t state-of-the-art. The only thing that concerned her was the lack of weapons on the ship. They’d be at a disadvantage should anyone try to engage them in a dog fight. She turned to Ren as he spoke quietly and she tucked her thumb beneath the strap of her bag. “Yes, sir,” she spoke just as quietly, unsure if the tech would try to listen in to them. She studied the Knight of Ren for a moment, an idea coming to her suddenly and only solidifying once he spoke. So, they had been thinking the same thing.

“I’ve got an idea, sir,” she murmured, a broad grin curling her lips. She took one more cursory glance around the ship before marching toward the gangplank that had dropped down. Once it landed on the hangar bay floor she was entering the ship. It was far too big for the two of them, and the sight of the interior reminded her that she would soon be traversing space with the master of the Knights of Ren. She could fly any ship just as well, but the fact that she would be in such close quarters with the Force-user set anxiety coursing through her. Cirilla entered the ship and made her way toward the cockpit, noting the wider viewport than she was used to. In fact, it extended farther than what her helmet allowed being seen in her peripherals. She’d have to go without it.

“Kriffing hell,” she grumbled beneath her breath, all but yanking her helmet off. Now, she would not only be traveling with Kylo Ren, but now she didn’t feel safe enough to do so with her helmet. Hopefully, she’d do a better job at hiding her expressions, but she was not about to risk both of them for the sake of concealing them beneath her helmet. The suit decompressed around her once more and she tucked her bag and helmet beneath the pilot’s seat.

Immediately, she was prying open a durasteel plate beneath the pilot’s console and slipping inside on her back with just her legs sticking out. She immediately began poking around with some of the circuitry and wires, trying to find where she knew the tracking device to be. While it’d prevent them from being found, should they need rescuing, it’d also prevent them having the general gather the whole armada of the First Order to find them where ever they went. She still hadn’t asked where they were heading, but she was sure she’d need to know soon, if she would be piloting them. With a soft hum, she found the small circuit board with a flashing light on it and pulled off all but the wire that connected it to the tracking and comm systems. She’d have to leave that until they were just about to engage hyperdrive.

“This little guy would get picked up in a second,” she murmured. BB units were starting to become more common throughout the galaxy, but Poe’s little droid had a tendency to be more outspoken than most others. She caught maybe every fifth word that the droid said, but what she’d heard – and moreso, what others had told her – the droid’s personality was more developed, more sentient-like than most other droids. She’d seen similar cases, like Threepio and the stories that she’d heard of Luke Skywalker’s R2 unit, but she hadn’t ever come across one that was just like BB-8. And a processor like that, that could be worth a lot of money to the right buyer.

A grin curled Toma’s lips when he confirmed her guess. “I’m sure you’ll be able to handle her just fine,” she said. She was having trouble keeping her grin confined. The more she looked at the large ship in front of her, the more the excitement started to pulse through her veins. Danger aside, she was going on a mission. Her childhood hero had specifically requested her to go on a dangerous mission that was directly related to Vader. If someone would have told her that when she was ten, that she’d be doing such things, she would have laughed right in their face. Then again, back then, the First Order had only been rumors, nothing more. Hell, she couldn’t even remember knowing that they were called the First Order, just that there was a bad group of beings like the Empire.

“I’ve got a feeling that if anything happens to you, I’ll be in trouble.” She looked from the ship to him, pressing her lips together so she wouldn’t mouth off. She knew that he was just being helpful, and honestly, take-off and the hyperdrive were her two biggest worries. Still, her pride didn’t being reminded of that. She gave a nod as he spoke to her, her heart pounding painfully in her chest. It was easy to watch him walk onto the ship, looking as though he just belonged there.

For her, on the other hand, walking onto that ship felt a little bit harder. Once she stepped aboard, that was it. It was official. She was on a mission. She took in a deep breath through her nose, held it for a few seconds, and let it out in a slow whoosh through her mouth. “You can do this,” she mumbled to herself. The little BB unit beeped up at her. She had no clue what it said, but smiled anyway. “Thanks, buddy.”

Toma took a deep breath once more and started towards the large ship. Once inside, she felt a little more at peace. She’d grown up on freighters like this. It was just like her childhood. She dropped onto a bunk and glanced around the kitchen. It wasn’t much, but that was to be expected on ships like this. The luxury cruisers were the ones that had the fancy kitchens. In this one, she was just glad that there was a caf machine. She took her time in walking towards the cockpit, glancing around at everything before she made her way to Poe. “Everything looking alright?” She asked once she reached him.

---

There was something to be said about her confidence. Every other solider – whether it be a pilot, a tech, literally any being that was below him in rank (even a few that were technically above him) – always waited for his cue for them to leave. It could be something as small as a nod of his head or a wave of his hand, but they waited. Holt did not, instead choosing to head towards the ganglplank as though she owned the place. He thought back to Hux calling her ‘princess’. Maybe at some point in time, she or her family had owned something as grand as the Absolution.

He strode after her, but paused at the top of the gangplank. He typed in the code, waiting until everything was sealed up before heading to where he knew the quarters were. While the general’s ship was impressive enough, it wasn’t anywhere close to the grandeur that he’d seen on some other ships. This one had shared quarters, just a couple of bunks shoved together in a room. Usually, the ship was used for shorter trips, ones that only took a couple of hours to get to. There was an actual room that had been customized for the general’s private quarters, but he didn’t bother finding it. There’d be time later to pry.

He dropped his bag onto the floor next to a bunk and headed back out towards the cockpit. He frowned for a moment, spotting her bag and helmet underneath the seat, but Holt was nowhere to be found. Tilting his head to the right a little, he spotted a plate set to the side, her legs sticking out. The image was comical in a way. His nerves were getting to him, he could feel it. Most days, a sight like that would make his eyes roll and he’d bark out a question, demanding to know what was going on. Instead, his insides twisted as he let her work. He’d spent years searching for this helmet. He’d yearned for it, built it up so much in his mind that he’d even dreamt of it.

But he needed to focus. He glanced around, realizing almost instantly why she’d taken her helmet off. Of course. Anyone that flew the ship regularly wouldn’t have worn a helmet. Hux preferred to take higher ranking officers and make them do the menial tasks for him, like chauffeuring him around the galaxy. Ren knew that the moment would come when she would have to see him without his mask (for he couldn’t just walk around Nar Shaddaa with it on), but he’d thought that there would be more time. He could put it off, but his pride was getting to him. He didn’t trust her enough to pilot this solely on her own. He’d be able to do it better, anyways.

He took in a deep breath and reached back to undo the locking mechanism. His heart gave a painful squeeze as the suit let out a shhh, decompressing as he lifted it off. The cool air of the ship hit his face, and he frowned. He took a seat in the copilot’s chair, looking over the controls. “Do you know what you’re doing?” He asked, a sharp note to his voice.

Poe couldn’t help but to let her words resound in his mind as he stood in front of the control console. He still didn’t know what she did within the Resistance and not everyone was a soldier. Hell, even he wasn’t the best when it came to combat. He could aim a blaster and shoot, but he was a pilot. Flying and shooting things was what he did best. A heavy sigh left him as he straightened up, watching as the hangar bay buzzed around the ship. The seriousness of this mission was sinking in, especially when he realized that Toma potentially had little to no blaster training. Nothing could go wrong with this mission or both of them could end up dead.

Pushing his hair out of his face, he drew in a deep breath of air and turned as Toma entered the ship. He had to keep reminding himself that he wouldn’t let her see just how out of character this mission had him feeling. It wasn’t often he felt like this and it wasn’t a feeling he particularly liked, but he knew there wasn’t much he could do other than to push it aside and ignore it. Though, he did wonder, what could seriously go wrong outside of being caught by the First Order or Ren himself? That was definitely not the direction he should have guided his thoughts, as it started a deluge of everything that could go wrong on Nar Shaddaa. He distracted himself with checking a few of the controls.

He heard her speak and he turned around, offering her a small grin. “Yeah, it’s all good,” he replied with a nod of his head. He leaned back against the chair casually, crossing his arms over his chest as he studied her for a moment. “A bit bulkier than I’m used to…but, like you said, we’ll manage,” he told her with a shrug of his shoulders and an easy sort of smile. His eyes darted toward the area where the bunks were and a thought crossed his mind. “You can go ahead and claim the bunk that you want. I really don’t have a preference,” he murmured, gaze drifting back to her for a moment.

“I can’t tell you the last time I flew something that had room for a bed, let alone a kitchen,” he continued, turning back around and settling down into the pilot’s chair. He began to toggle a few switches on the console in front of him, taking down the comm headset from a hook on the wall and leaving one earpiece off so he could hear Toma. “It’ll be a nice change of pace.” His gaze ran over everything, even though an the pre-flight checks had been completed, he always liked to reassure himself that everything was good. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the techs; it was just that a second set of eyes never hurt anyone, especially when it came to space travel.

He worried his bottom lip between his teeth as checked a few of the readings on a few of the displays. A crooked grin curled his lips despite the nerves that had twisted his insides as felt the engines of the ship come to life. There was nothing like flying. It was in his blood and was a part of what kept him going. He looked over his shoulder, warm gaze meeting Toma. “You want to copilot for a bit?” He offered, figuring that having her as his copilot would be a good chance for them to get to know each other a little better. He didn’t know what kind of excuse they’d give for being on Nar Shaddaa, but if they were complete strangers going into all of it, it wouldn’t do either of them any good. D’Qar wasn’t too far from Nal Hutta and Nar Shaddaa, but it’d give them enough time to at least become familiar with each other.

---

Cirilla drew in a deep breath of air, the particular smell that came from the circuitboards, wires, and inner workings of ships helping calm the anxious energy that had set her body buzzing. Her gaze roamed the backside of the console, making sure there wasn’t any additional tracking or route-tracing device that she could have missed. The woman’s brow furrowed slightly when she heard the sound of a suit decompressing, wondering if Ren had taken off his helmet or not. Surely, he would keep it on…unless he wanted to be able to have a wide range of view out of the viewport as well. When he spoke, something about his vocoder-less voice distracted her for a moment. It was deep, yet soft and smooth, quite unlike the lower, static-edged tones that came from his mask. His voice was…pleasant—such a dichotomy to how he was generally perceived.

She blinked a couple of times as she stared up at nothing in particular for a moment before realizing that she had been asked a question. “Uh…yes, sir,” she spoke softly, the sound of her own voice in such a closed off space causing her to wince slightly. She slowly turned over in the small space, extracting herself from the panel access without managing to bang her head on anything. Letting the tracking device hang from the single wire outside of the console access, she replaced the panel covering the access and situated herself back in the pilot’s chair. Cirilla kept her head ducked slightly, gaze focused on the throttle and yoke in front of her—whether out of reverence or hesitance, she didn’t know.

Finally, her curiosity won out and she slowly lifted her gaze to glance at him from the corner of her eyes. Her mouth fell open with slight shock when she realized that he was human and how young he looked. He couldn’t have been much older than herself. Cirilla’s bright gaze briefly wandered over his features; his dark curly hair, a slightly crooked mouth, and set of soulful eyes. Suddenly, as though she realized he may perceive her as staring(something she knew all too well), she diverted her gaze back to the yoke. “I was just preparing to disable the tracking device installed on the ship, sir,” she explained herself, gloved hands resting almost too daintily in her lap. “If you didn’t trust me, I could leave the comm wire attached, but I have the feeling you don’t want us followed, sir.” Her gaze flitted over to him once more as she tucked her hair behind her ears.

There was a certain sort of shock that was lingering around her, seeing the fearsome Knight of Ren without his helm. It reminded her that he was humanoid enough, that he had his weak spots, however small they may be. Drawing in a deep breath of air, she looked away from him to focus on her pre-flight checks. She figured it’d be better to distract herself with that than to stare for too long at him. She’d been the recipient of too many lengthy stares every time she took her own helmet off. While he may be different, it always made her feel a mixture of angry and vulnerable.

The ship hummed to life as her gaze flickered around the lights that lit up on the panel. Her hands deftly moved across the controls, tongue peeking ever-so-slightly out of the corner of her mouth as she invested her entire attention into starting up the ship. Once she reassured herself that the ship was in working order and that every check was performed, Cirilla drew in a deep breath of air and settled back into the chair, hands resting on her lap once more. “All checks are clear. I'll need the coordinates soon enough. Requesting permission to take off, sir,” she said, eyes finding him for a moment before settling out the viewport.

“She should handle fairly easy. They fly pretty smooth,” Toma said, giving a shrug of her shoulders. “Granted, she’s no X-Wing, but I’m sure you’ll be alright.” There was something of a teasing smile playing across her lips. She followed his gaze towards the bunks, glancing over to them. “I just kinda figured that I’d take whichever one I passed out in for the night,” she chuckled. She looked them over for another moment, trying to imagine just how long she’d have to sleep in those bunks.

Turning back to Poe, she leaned against the wall, shaking her head slowly. There were enough stories floating around about Captain Dameron, Best Damn Pilot in the Resistance. She felt like the man could fly anything that had an engine and some wings. “The kitchen isn’t much, but it’s got a caf machine and something to heat up our rations with, so we’re miles above any other ship in the Resistance,” she said. A smirk curled at her mouth. There was actual caf on the ship. She wasn’t going to have to fork over a handful of credits for a cup from some shady vendor.

She watched him as he went through some of the readings on the displays. The nerves in her stomach settled down a bit at the sight. Poe has done this before. He was experienced, and he knew what he was doing. They would be fine. They would be perfectly fine, and they were capable of handling whatever would come their way, so it would be alright. She reached up to shove some hair out of her eyes as he turned to her, her heart jolting in her chest.

“Oh, uh, yeah. Sure,” Toma said, a wide grin appearing on her features. She walked over and sat in the copilot’s chair, her hands running over the arms of it. The seat of it was worn down a little, which meant that it had been probably been sat in thousands of times. Briefly, she wondered where the Resistance had even gotten a ship like this. She ran the tip of her finger across the dash, just below the bottom row of buttons.

“So when we get there, what’s the plan?” General Organa would have told them if they were supposed to act a certain way or under a specific cover, but she hadn’t. And since Poe was the one that had been on all sorts of these missions – she thought – then he would know what to do. “I mean, we can’t just say we’re Resistance, obviously.” She let out a huff of laughter at the thought of that. That’d be a shit show. “Are we smugglers?”

---

He relished in that little pause as she spoke. For a moment, he even allowed himself the smallest of smirks. There was something about the way that he’d been the one to inspire that little uh. Ren wondered if she was the sort to be so impressed with the higher brass of the First Order. He’d come across some soldiers like that in the past, the kind of soldiers that would die for him merely because he was a part of the First Order. Not because of the orders that they’d received, but because he was so high up. Those kind of soldiers tended to rankle him for some reason.

Ren composed his features as she started to emerge from the space. He settled back into the seat, averting his gaze to the viewport. He couldn’t help but be aware of her, though. It wasn’t as though he was picking up anything that was unusual. The Force rippled around her the same as it did with any being that wasn’t Force sensitive; just a general signature of life. But he was aware of her nonetheless, watching her out of the corner of his eye. As far as he could tell, she hadn’t actually looked at him.

When she did look at him, he didn’t even have to be watching her to know it. There was a ripple of something emanating off of her. Shock, maybe? His lips pressed together in a straight line. It was easier to keep that composed than anything else. He wondered what it would be like, to see a Knight of Ren without his helmet. When he’d finally laid his eyes on Supreme Leader Snoke, he’d been filled with reverence and fear. His Master was a being unlike any he’d seen before, whereas Kylo Ren was a mere man.

“Leave the comm wire attached until we engage the hyperdrive,” he said. He had a feeling that she would have done exactly that, but a prickle of annoyance was ticking at the back of his mind. Trusting her wasn’t even related to the matter at hand. He could halve her in mere seconds. He looked over the displays that were blinking, suddenly overcome with the memory of him in a ship that was a far cry from this one. Someone else had been in the pilot’s chair then, a grin that was a mirror of Be- He clenched his right hand into a fist, taking care to keep it out of sight of Holt. The search for Vader’s helmet was breaking his focus. They just needed to get to Nar Shaddaa, and get on with it.

He looked over to her, eyes dropping to her tongue just out of the corner of her mouth. She was mostly the same without her helmet, but there was something disarming about it. He didn’t like it. “Permission granted,” he murmured, sitting back in his chair. His heart was pounding hard in his chest. He was doing this, he was really doing this. “Set the course for Coruscant. Once you disengage the comms, we’ll be heading to Nar Shaddaa.”

Poe let out a short laugh as Toma mentioned the ship they were in not flying like an X-Wing. “You’ve got that right,” he told her, eyeing her with a broad smile before diverting his gaze out the viewport and grasped at the yoke. It definitely felt a bit weightier than an X-Wing’s, but there wasn’t any ship he was convinced he couldn’t pilot. It wasn’t that he was cocky, he was just confident in his piloting skills, which he definitely didn’t see as a bad thing at all. His eyes swept over to her as she spoke again. “Fine by me,” he told her with a shrug of his shoulders.

His mouth couldn’t help but to water at the sound of caf and means to heat up their rations by. It reminded him that there was definitely benefits to flying other ships than the ones he was used to. Bunks and a kitchen were a luxury to him. “I’m honestly just glad to get a bunk, to be honest. The kitchen is a nice addition.” With the missions that he typically went on, they called for more artillery than comfort. That thought prompted him to note the frontal turret controls just in front of him and the dorsal turrets at the controls in front of the co-pilot’s seat. There wasn’t much to defend themselves by, but it could be possible. “Out of curiosity, how comfortable are you manning a turret, in case I need you to?” He questioned, eyes slipping over to her.

He hated the fact that he had to kinda bring the mood down slightly with questions about her qualifications, but they had to be asked eventually. “It’s not that I need you to feel obligated to anything,” he said, eyes slipping over to her for a moment, “I just want to get to know you and exactly what you can do a bit better.” He offered her a small smile, hoping that he didn’t make her feel inferior by any means. One of the pilots had told him once that just knowing what he’d done in his past, made them feel slightly inadequate.

Once Toma lowered herself down into the pilot’s seat, he waited for a moment or two before increasing the throttle and pulling up on the yoke. The ship slowly lifted from the ground and he carefully urged it forward and out of the hangar bay. Once he cleared the barrier, he was almost momentarily distracted by the view of the sun setting against the dense forests that surrounded the base. Slowly, he increased the throttle and sent them soaring up and out into the planet’s atmosphere.

He spared her a sidelong look as she questioned him, brows furrowing together slightly as the surface of the planet beneath them grew smaller and smaller. Poe knew he could probably just kick it straight into hyperdrive, but he always felt safer clearing the atmosphere of a planet first. He also kind of wanted to get a good look at D’Qar before leaving. As she continued speaking, he shot her a crooked grin and let out a soft laugh. “Yeah, that’s true. I hadn’t really had much time to give it all thought. It was kind of left up to us to decide, I guess,” he said, directing his gaze back in front of him. He gave her suggestion some though, gaze narrowed and lips pursed slightly before nodding a few times. “We can go with that. I guess we’ll need to build up some sort of story too. Like how we met, what our typical cargo is: that sort of stuff.”

He shot her a look for a moment before returning her focus to what lay outside of the viewport in front of them. “Why don't you go ahead and prepare the hyperdrive while we’re making it out of the atmosphere?” He asked, nodding his chin over in the general area of the hyperdrive. This may have been a test to her knowledge of ships, but she’d picked the ships make out—there was a chance she knew the inside workings of a ship too.

---

Cirilla had to keep herself reminded of just how serious this was. She was flying a ship for Kylo Ren, who was no stranger to piloting himself and whose skill was the only one her’s came second to(or so she had been told). She was about to steal General Hux’s ship, after he’d stripped her of flying privileges, and had begun the process of disabling the tracer chip on the control board. She still hadn’t been given a reason as to why she was being asked to pilot—not that she would ask—but she’d been given orders. Orders that she knew better than to disobey.

Oddly enough, she felt as jittery as the first time she’d ever flown a ship; a feeling she thoroughly detested. This anxious sort of energy proved only to be a distraction and was something she hadn’t felt in the longest time. And to think, she had felt so confident up until this point. Her eyes slipped shut for a moment and she drew in a deep breath of air through her nose. She didn’t expect for him to take his helmet off either and she was sure that wasn’t helping anything either.

“Yes, sir,” she replied softly, pulling her eyes open and focusing directly ahead. She had to keep reminding herself to not look over at him, which hadn’t been something she’d had a problem with before. Perhaps it was because she’d only know him so long as just the helmet that he wore. Surely, that had to have been it. To combat her curiosity, she kept her head down and eyes on the controls. Cirilla didn’t know what would happen to her if she offended him, but at the same time she knew exactly what would happen. He could pilot the ship on his own and could survive without her. Perhaps she was just someone to blame it all on. Her stomach dropped suddenly at that thought and she swallowed hard.

Her jaw set for a moment, a hint of anger peeking through her fear and she had to bite her tongue to keep herself from outright asking him why he’d brought her here. Instead she nodded once as he granted her permission to take off, reaching out to grasp the yoke tightly in her hands. Her pulse was beating hard through her body, drumming in her ears. Under any other circumstance, the rush of adrenaline would be welcomed, but she couldn’t help but feeling like she’d just had her own fate sealed for her. She drew in a deep breath of air as he requested their coordinates be set first for Coruscant. Cirilla barely kept the look of disgust off her face, her upper lip curling ever-so slightly at the mention of the place as she punched in the coordinates, but the place that followed—the place they were to be actually going to—was far worse.

Cirilla’s wide-eyed gaze slowly swung over to him, wondering what business he had going to Nar Shaddaa. She kept her eyes on his, blinking a few times as she pushed back the questions she had, though it was becoming increasingly difficult. Suddenly, as if she remembered her place, she turned sharply back to the viewport. “Yes, sir,” she breathed, jumping into motion as with the flick of a finger, the ship hummed to life beneath them. Without wasting any time, she was zipping out of the empty hangar bay and into the void of space. Once she was clear of the battlecruiser, she prepped the hyperdrive, unfazed by how quickly it responded to let her know their hyperdrive was ready. Letting out a sigh, she sent them into hyperspace with the press of a button. Almost immediately, she had reached down, detaching the comm wire from the tracking device. Tossing the useless circuit board to the ground, she entered in new coordinates, barely feeling the shift in direction as the ship barreled forward, now toward Nar Shaddaa.