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THE SANDS OF PASAANA. A FLASH OF BLUE LIGHTNING. A VOICE. Nova groaned shortly after she fell to the ground, and as she opened her eyes she was surprised to see they were in some sort of tunnel. To say she was grateful was an understatement, but now they had to figure out how to get out. Her mind momentarily wandered back to the vision, which had been annoyingly vague. Was it the past or the future?
"Solo?" Poe called out, and her gaze shifted upward, landing upon the pilot who stood just a ways away.
"Nova?"
"Over here," she murmured, wincing as she tried to push herself up, for she had landed on her arm. He rushed to her side, crouching down.
"You okay?" he asked her gently, taking her other arm and helping her stand. Even after she was upright, though, he didn't let go, for their gazes had locked and he found himself rather distracted—as did she.
"Yeah, I'm fine. You all right?"
"Yeah." They stood like that a moment longer, though they quickly pulled away from each other as Finn stood as spoke.
"We're fine too," he muttered, brushing himself off, Rey doing the same thing just behind him. Chewie rounded a corner with C-3PO. The Wookiee roared to them, asking if they were all okay.
"Other than being covered in sand, yeah, Chewie, just peachy," said Nova, suddenly quite aware of how much sand littered her clothes, face, and hair.
"What is this place?" asked Finn, bringing their attention to the tunnels they found themselves trapped in.
"This isn't the afterlife, is it? Are droids allowed in here?"
"We're still alive, Threepio," Nova told him gently.
"I thought we were goners," sighed Poe.
"We may still be."
"Relax, we'll find a way out of here," the Jedi Knight told not just the droid but the others as well.
"Right," said Finn with an air of forced determination.
"Which way out?" Nova hesitated.
"Well I haven't quite figured that out yet." The tunnels were silent for a moment as they looked around, then finally:
"So, what was it?" Rey asked Finn.
"What?"
"What we're you going to tell us?"
"When?"
"You were going to tell us all something right before we sank," Nova added over her shoulder as she continued to look for an exit, and had it not been for the darkness that surrounded them, they all would have seen color rise to his cheeks.
"I'll tell you later," he dismissed, but they weren't letting it go that easily.
"We're gonna die in sand burrows and we're all keeping secrets?" Poe countered, and the general gave him a look.
"Nice," she said sarcastically, and he gave her a weak shrug.
"I'll tell you when you tell us about all that shifty stuff you do," Finn retorted, and Poe promptly decided to change the subject, much to Nova's amusement.
"I don't want to know what made these tunnels." Finn almost called him out, but C-3PO continued on with the topic at hand, ruining his chance.
"Judging by the circumference of the tunnel walls—"
"I said I did not want to know. Not." He then paused, for something down his way caught his eye.
"What's that?" He was quickly joined by the rest of the group.
"Is that a speeder?" Finn asked.
"If it is it's an older model," murmured Nova, crouching down to examine it.
"Looks like we're not the only ones to get caught in this particular sinking field."
"Perhaps we will find the driver," Threepio hoped, but they all knew the truth. BB-8 chirped in reply.
"Yep, BB-8, I think dead, too," muttered Poe, but the protocol droid's attention was on something else.
"Oh my, a hex charm..." Nova's gaze snapped to what he was referring to.
"A what?" asked Poe, and the droid began to reply, but Nova was one step ahead.
"It was a common symbol among Sith loyalists," she murmured.
"Ochi was a Jedi hunter, it fits..."
"This was Ochi's?" asked Finn.
"It has to be," Nova replied, finally standing upright once again.
"Luke sensed it," added Rey.
"Ochi never left this place."
"And he ended up down here," Finn finished for them.
"He was headed for his ship," said Poe.
"Same thing happened to us, happened to him."
"So how did Ochi get out?" Rey was quick to reply to Finn, for something else had caught her attention.
"He didn't." They all followed her gaze to Ochi's corpse, reduced to nothing but bones.
"Bones," gulped Poe who sounded about ready to throw up.
"I don't like bones."
"What's so bad about bones?" Nova asked him, and if nothing else it got his attention away from the remains.
"Oh, you mean other than the fact that they're creepy and tell us that there's no way out of this hellhole?"
"Would you have rather seen a rotting corpse?" she countered, fully facing him and crossing her arms over her chest.
"Yeah, you know what? Maybe I would. Sure a lot less creepy than bones."
"You're disgusting."
"Says the woman who isn't creeped out in the slightest by—"
"Guys," Finn called to them, and they looked to see the others standing together, all looking their way.
"You two can flirt later, we found the clue." The pair stole one last glance at each other before joining the others, only mildly embarrassed.
"Threepio was just gonna translate the words on this dagger so we know where to go," Rey said, but all C-3PO brought was bad news.
"I am afraid I cannot tell you." They all gaped at him.
"20.3 fazillion languages, and you can't read that?"
"Oh, I have read it, sir. I know exactly where the holodisk is. Unfortunately, it is written in a code I cannot decrypt."
"They always said the Empire was crafty," Nova muttered bitterly.
"If you can find a code breaker, I'm sure we can—Serpent!" Once again, their attention was diverted, but this time it was to something much, much worse than an old speeder.
"Serpent! Serpent!"
"Get back!" Nova ordered, grabbing and igniting her lightsaber as Finn, Poe, and Chewie all pulled their blasters. Poe, more so by instinct than anything else, put out his arm in front of Nova in a protective sort of way that did not go unnoticed by either of them. The serpent hissed at them, and to their shock Rey took a few steps forward. Completely unarmed, she slowly approached the creature.
"Rey," said Finn warningly, and Nova put out her own arm to keep him from going after her.
"Let her do this," she told him, for she knew Rey was going to attempt to connect with the creature. Assuming she didn't get herself killed, it would be an excellent practice opportunity.
"I'm gonna blast it," Poe whispered as Rey neared the serpent.
"Don't blast it," Nova and Finn replied in unison. They all watched as Rey connected with and healed the serpent before it finally slithered away from them, revealing an exit. Finn and Poe stared at Rey in shock, whereas the corners of Nova's lips turned up into a small smile.
"I just transferred a bit of life," she told them simply.
"Force energy from me to him."
"Very impressive," congratulated Nova. BB-8 said something along those lines as well.
"You would've done the same," Rey told them both. Poe looked to all of them.
"That's really great and all, but can we get out of here now? Please?"
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THE GROUP WAS GRATEFUL to reach the surface, but they were even more grateful that the First Order had yet to catch up. Not wanting to stick around to see that happen, the group headed straight for Ochi's ship—after all, they couldn't go back to the Falcon, not yet anyway. Nova tuned out Finn, Poe, and Threepio's argument, staying to the back of the group with her hand resting absentmindedly on her blaster. She glanced back, and it only took her a moment to realize that same view was the one she had seen in her vision.
"Are you all right?" Rey asked her, taking her gaze away from the barren desert that surrounded them.
"Yeah, I just...I got a bad feeling about all this."
"Me too," the younger woman replied. Their bad feelings, as it turned out, were warranted, for they both stopped in their tracks for the same reason.
They sensed Kylo Ren, and judging from the distant rumbling of a ship, he was close.
"What is it?" Finn asked them.
"I'll be right behind you," said Rey, and as much as Nova wanted to stop or accompany her, she knew she couldn't. Rey was to be the one to destroy Kylo Ren, she knew that much; she couldn't mess with it.
"It's okay." Neither Finn not Nova we're entirely reassured, but they nodded and made their way up the last little stretch to the ship.
"Why can't we go with her?" her trainee asked softly, and she could tell he was scared for Rey—not that he was alone.
"She needs to do this alone," Nova told him.
"I don't like it, but it's her battle, not ours." Finn understood, and with that they entered the ship, which Poe and Chewie were already beginning to start up.
"Let's see what we got. Let's get those converters fired up." Chewie roared in reply, and the ship began to spring to life.
"What a filthy ship!" said C-3PO, who was promptly ignored. They all made preparations to get the hell out of there, and Finn grew impatient with each passing second.
"Where is she?" he murmured, staring out the front windows in the hopes of seeing anything at all. Nova and Poe exchanged a worried glance—not for Rey, but for Finn.
"Finn, help me out over here," Poe called to him, earning a grateful glance from the general. She did agree, however, that they needed to leave, the sooner the better, because where one First Order agent was, many would soon follow.
"Chewie, tell Rey we got to go," Finn said as he went to help Poe. Nova's bad feeling about the whole situation persisted, and perhaps it was for that reason that she made a decision.
"I'll go with you," she told the Wookiee, and the two left the ship once again. The two pulled their blasters and held them at their sides as they descended the cliff. Rey had already destroyed Kylo Ren's TIE Fighter, but the fight was yet to be finished. Nova looked to Chewie.
"You take right and I'll take left. Once we make sure there're no reinforcements we'll see if Rey needs any help." He nodded and went his way, and with one last look at the pair in the sand she went hers.
Nova moved with caution, taking slow and soft steps as she rounded the side of the cliff. The silence of the dessert only concerned her further, because even though she could only hear the roar of Ochi's ship she knew the First Order had to be out there somewhere—
"Freeze, animal!" It was quiet, but she knew what she heard, and as she peeked around the back of the cliff she could see that Chewie was surrounded by Stormtroopers. Her heart wrenched in her chest as she came to realize just why she had felt so terribly about everything.
She knew she couldn't break him out, they were far too outnumbered for that, and they'd notice if she went up to the ship—not only that but she'd practically be leading them up to her friends. She knew what she had to do.
"Dameron," she murmured into her comlink, which she had withdrawn from her pocket as she stepped further away from the battalion of troopers who thankfully had yet to notice her.
"Solo? What's up? Everything okay?"
"Dameron, get Rey and Finn and take off, Chewie's been captured and I don't have much time."
"What?! No, no way I'm leavin' you!" Suddenly it all made sense—it was his voice she had heard in her vision after sinking through the sandpit. She had heard him say that very thing, and that thought alone caused a lump to form in her throat. She could hear the troopers as they drew near, for they had surely heard her.
"Poe," she said, using every ounce of strength within her to keep herself together, because for some reason her mind was intent on falling apart.
"Get out of here, that's an order."
"Nova—" But she switched off her comlink just as the troopers came into view. She slipped it away and holstered her blaster, then placed her hands in the air.
"Easy, fellas," she told them, and thankfully her emotions seemed to calm down, for they had only surfaced so intensely in the first place because she was thinking of Poe Dameron.
The troopers looked her over, then looked to one another no doubt because they knew who she was. They closed in, two of them depriving her of anything she could use to defend herself or call for help. Only then did they slap the cuffs on her wrists, and just like after the mission on Jakku she was held very tightly by a pair of troopers who marched her around to the transport. Chewie roared in anguish over seeing that she too had been caught.
"No worries, Chewie, we'll get out of this," she reassured him quietly, but even she wasn't too sure of that. After all, she had weaseled her way out of many scrapes in her lifetime, it was only a matter of time before her luck ran out.
"All right," said one of the troopers who she only assumed was the commander.
"Let's go, get on the transport." Nova stole one last glance back at the ship before she was pulled into the transport, grateful that at least her friends were safe. She didn't know what was going to happen next, but she did know that things just got a whole hell of a lot more complicated.
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note:
God this chapter was filled with script, but I hope me adding / changing bits made it nice to read nevertheless! Anyway because of it being a lot of scripted events I was able to write this way too quickly lol, so here we are! Also yeah don't think about the fact that Poe, Finn, and Rey all think Nova's dead for a bit :')