PHOENIX ━ dameron

008 | bird in flight

"She's trying to recruit her–" Poe said before he could stop himself. "Which you're also not supposed to know. You don't exactly abate suspicion when you do shit like this."

"I wouldn't have to sneak around if I wasn't being accused," she countered. "Anyway. What do they think you're doing, if no one is allowed to know?"

"Outstanding work for General Organa. Apparently, I'm really behind on a ton of paperwork."

Lyra let out a loud laugh. "That's the best she could come up with?"

Poe pursed his lips. His jaw was set, and his nerves were frayed. "I came up with it."

"Oh." She schooled her expression. "Then that explains why it's the worst cover story I've ever heard."

"Sorry, we don't all lie for a living," he seethed in response. "It doesn't come as easy to someone who knows how to tell the truth."

"Get out of my office."

That was the end of the conversation. Still, even with the tense interactions they had managed to narrow down the prisoner transfer list to usable data. Lyra hadn't seen him before he had flown out, and no one else knew where he was going or why.

Lyra was waiting for him to get back, though. She had a sliver of an idea, an inkling towards a solution that Poe would either disregard or have a hard time admitting. Lyra had found a thread-bare connection between the prisoner data and the Resistance, and a way to figure out who was their spy.

For the time being, though, the days were running their course as they normally did. It was strange. Even when the past came to haunt you, the present rolled on as if it couldn't care less.

"Move it to the left," Reeve was saying.

Lyra shifted the sheet of metal above her head. Her arms were extended all the way. "Is that good?"

"No, move more, I can't get to the seam. Damn, they don't make anything for left handed people, do they," she muttered from above.

"Reeve, I can't even see," Lyra whined. Nevertheless, she still moved.

"I'm your eyes, and my eyes are telling me that you don't know what directions are. Your left, my right."

Lyra shifted the other way.

"Perfect. Don't move."

"I can't move," Lyra groused, but the reverberating sound of the high-powered drill cut her off.

Eden was taking over combat drills for the day, which left Lyra with some free time. For Reeve, though, this was an opportunity to have an extra set of hands help her with ship repairs.

"Beautiful," Reeve sang as she set down the drill. She ran her grease stained hand over the back of the Y-Wing with pride.

Lyra stepped back. When they had walked out to assess damages, the ship's entire inner wire work had been exposed, but now it was covered by the sheet of metal Lyra had been holding up. Reeve's droid rolled around between them, whistling along to an old space rock song. ST-L8 was another one of Eleni's hybrid droids created for specialized mechanical work. Stella was tiny, perfectly sized for getting into small areas and far more mild-mannered than Elgie.

"I just have to get a weld on it, and then I'll have another ship checked off. One more thing on Oddy's extensive to-do list will be finished." Reeve blew a curl out of her eye. "And then I'm sure he'll add more stuff to it."

Reeve muttered something intelligable about Oddy as she breezed past. Her work station was normally a heaping mess of spare parts and tools, but today it was all neat. Reeve was striving for a promotion and as much as she didn't appreciate Oddy, he was the only one who had the authority to give it to her.