Kyber Heart - Poe Dameron

Chapter 47

"Teach me how to cheat?" he mumbled, resting his head on her shoulder in an effort to appeal to her.

"No, it's more fun this way."

They slipped into the cockpit together and took their seats. Poe sat up front in the pilot's seat beside Chewie while Nova sat behind them, reaching up to cut the sub-light engines and bring them out of hyperspace. The ship hummed as they began to navigate the icy tunnels.

The Sinta Glacier Colony was usually quiet, but that fact did little to calm her anxieties – worlds in the Mid Rim and The Colonies were a dangerous place to be during a war, let alone a war you were on the weaker side of.

But where allies could be found, they were important to preserve and utilise.

"T minus five!" Poe announced, swinging the Falcon around smoothly into a tight nook within the structure.

"Nice move," Nova said, impressed that he had not clipped the sides on the ice walls.

A cocky smirk formed on his lips as he looked at her. "Thanks."

Chewie let out a low grumble from beside them.

"We're not!" the couple protested, though they knew he did not mean anything by it.

The ease of their mission was short lived, as a sizeable squadron of well-over a hundred TIE fighters brought them back to their displeasing reality. They screeched through the tunnels, skimming the sides and surface, swaying uncomfortably. Closer and closer; their engines roared and howled like wounded beasts. Their black bodies and silver-accented wings making them look like large and volatile bugs, closing in fast.

"Finn, we're about to be cooked!" Poe warned.

"We're almost there!" Finn called back. A brief pause, and then: "We've got it!"

Nova pushed her crumpled and dirtied sleeves up to her elbows as she strode out of the cockpit to the guns, ascending the ladder to the top turret. Her body moved like clockwork, pulling her headset on, placing her hands on the controls; she was almost itching for the coming fight.

The Falcon shot off back into the vast chasms, closely followed by the swarm of fighters. A shower of green bolts had begun, and the tight spacing made it hard to avoid.

A loud thud and the ship shuddering let them know they had swung too far and too fast, colliding with the wall at a corner.

"Watch it!" Nova yelled.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I know!" Poe apologised profusely amid Chewie's complaints.

"We are not having a repeat of Bastatha, Poe!" she added, guiding the cannon around to get a clear shot. Her finger squeezed the trigger harshly as the targeting systems beeped, though she struggled to hit a single ship.

"I said I was sorry!"

Finn was fairing a little better than Nova, as after only a few missed shots he was able to send one TIE crashing and burning to the ice. "I got one!"

"How many are left?" Poe asked.

"Too many!"

Nova grimaced; the seat and cannon jolting into position again. "Any ideas?"

A tense silence momentarily reigned over the comms as the group frantically searched for a solution, until it presented itself. A mining structure holding the mouth of chasm up and open – with a few blasts it was bound to crumble.

"Good thinking, Chewie," he grinned. "Guys, we can bolder these TIEs."

"I was just thinking that," Finn agreed. "Nova?"

"Be my guest," she said, eyes narrowing as her sensors screamed every incoming enemy at her.

The Falcon flipping, setting Finn's turret in the prime position to take out the structure while Nova focused on the TIEs. She found her focus, allowing her to land some clean shots on the fighters and send them barrelling into each other. But it was not enough – with each one destroyed another three appeared.

The moment came, and Finn hit his mark of the structure, releasing a shower of sparks. The Falcon sped underneath before it could fall.

Many of the TIE fighters were not so lucky.

"Ha!" Finn exclaimed triumphantly. "Get us back to base!"

Nova sighed and slipped the headset off, taking a second to breathe while the blue light of hyperspace danced across her face, tugging at the glove that covered her left hand.

It was regrettably a short second.

She dropped herself down to the main deck as quickly as her body allowed. Finn was there to steady her; the pair kept a firm hold on each other's arms as they stumbled into the cockpit, the ship swaying beneath them.

The Falcon lurched out of lightspeed, well within atmosphere and far too close to the planet's dangerous surface.

"Poe!"

"I know, I know," the pilot yelled, frantically hitting controls before they jumped to lightspeed again, but not for long.

Again, they dropped, this time on a gas planet.

A few too many fighters were still on their tail.

"What the hell are you doing?" Nova demanded.

"Lightspeed skipping," Poe replied, leaning back to haphazardly chart his next jump.

"How do you know how to do that?" Finn asked incredulously, still gripping Nova's shoulder to stay upright.

Poe ignored the question.

They continued to jump from system to system, each time leaving with less and less TIEs on their tail.

Chewie howled in protest.

"Yeah, well Rey's not here, is she?" Poe shot back irritably.

"Hold together..." Nova muttered to the ship, her heartbeat racing with each jump.

Only two fighters remained as they made their next jump to a world covered by a blanket of green fog, out of which rose a huge beast, opening its maw of a mouth as they approached; ready to swallow them whole.

"Last jump, maybe forever," Poe said, gripping the controls a little lighter. "Hold on!"

Nova held her breath as with one final push, the Falcon sped forward into the depths of hyperspace once more.