"Seal that door!" Poe ordered upon seeing the commotion in the hanger break out.
Connix did so, overriding the controls to keep them locked inside. No one was getting through that door without force, hopefully buying them enough time.
All that was left to do was wait.
It seemed C-3PO had other ideas, beginning to shuffle his way towards the second door to the bridge.
"Threepio, where do you think you're going?" Poe called warningly to the golden droid, having spotted him immediately.
"It would be quite against my programming to be party to a mutiny," C-3PO defended, sounding rather indignant. "It is not correct protocol!"
White sparks began to fly off the door before he could reach it. Someone had begun to cut through from the other side – it would not be long before they would break through entirely. Numbers were unknown, but Poe could wager at least ten of Holdo's loyalists would be on them.
"Finn! We're ready to make the jump!" Poe called into his commlink, only to be met with silence.
The door continued to spark, forcing the small band of mutineers to pull their blasters and take what cover they could behind control panels.
Poe's face was drawn into a worried frown as he fumbled for his sidearm, taking refuge behind the primary flight console. He used it to steady his somewhat shaky arms as he raised his blaster, keeping it trained on the bridge entrance.
Chaos was unfolding on the other end of the commlink. It was distorted, cutting in and out as its holder was wrestled to the ground. Shouting surrounded them from the enemy, easily and undoubtably outnumbering them. And then silence.
"They didn't make it," Poe realised under his breath.
Nova had been right. Their plan was shot.
The door was blown apart seconds later, sending smoke and debris across the room.
Poe straightened, instinctively retreating from the blast, his grip on his blaster tightening. Ready to face whoever entered, presuming it to be a selection of bridge officers, possibly even Nova.
His guard dropped as the General herself emerged from the smoke, still dressed in her medical gown, leaning on a stick for support. Her expression was grave as she faced down the disgraced captain.
Before he could so much as speak two words, Leia revealed her blaster, firing off a single stun-shot. It hit Poe square in the chest, sending him backwards until her hit the wall, unconscious by the time he crumpled to the ground.
Connix and C-3PO raised their arms in surrender, guilt and anxiety ruling their demeanours.
Nova stepped out from the smoke, motioning for the officers to quietly remove the mutineers from the bridge, before heading over to where Poe was lying. She crouched down beside him, brushing her thumb across his cheek. She would not deny it had been an immensely satisfying sight to see him fly into the wall, but she still had to admit it was a little harsh.
Standing back to full height, she stepped aside to let the officers pull him up onto a stretcher to take him down to the hanger, watching on in silence.
---
"That one's a troublemaker," Holdo mused, watching from Leia's side as the unconscious pilot was moved on board a transport. "I like him."
"Me too," Leia said with a smile, shooting Nova a knowing look.
Holdo nodded thoughtfully. "They're good for each other," she muttered to Leia, gesturing to Nova with her piercing blue eyes.
"They are," she agreed.
The younger woman made no visible response, but chewed the inside of her cheek. She and Poe were not perfect – even under the best circumstances that would be impossible – but as it was, they tried in their friendship, and were good for one another. A balance and an anchor in a divided galaxy. A fraction of stability in the turmoil of war.
Leia rested a hand on her daughter's arm. "Now, time to board your transport."
Holdo raised an eyebrow at her friend. "For the transports to escape, someone needs to stay behind and pilot the cruiser."
Leia stopped, head and heart dropping with a sigh, her voice going quiet. "Too many losses. I can't take anymore."
"Sure you can," Holdo said, managing a sad but determined smile. "You taught me how."
The Resistance General tried to reflect her Vice Admiral's smile. "May the Force be –"
She stopped, finding Holdo speaking with her.
The two women shared a watery laugh, deferring to one another.
"You know I've said it enough."
Holdo clasped the older woman's hand, giving it a squeeze. "May the Force be with you, always."
Nova stood quietly by, providing support for her mother when it came time to board their transport, leaving Holdo behind in the slowly emptying hanger. She gave her one final nod before turning her gaze away, placing her hand atop her mother's in comfort as the shuttle door hissed closed behind them.
She avoided looking at Poe's still unconscious form as she moved to the cockpit, hoping the sight of open space would take her mind off things. Flying had always been a freeing thing for her, even if she was not the one behind the controls – the vast expanse of dark, punctuated by the light of an endless number of stars, gave her mind some quiet and peace, even in the most uncertain times.
"How we looking?" she asked the pilot.
"Cloaking device activated," they responded. "We should be off their scopes."
"Let's hope this works," D'Acy muttered.
The shuttle took off smoothly, following the thirty other identical to it that held what remained of the Resistance. Perhaps it was a pitiful sight, but on the inside was a flicker of hope.
She heard Poe awaken behind her; crashing back to the last moments of reality he remembered. Adrenaline fuelled and angry.
Leia called to him from her seat, her presence seeming to ground him into the moment at hand. She nodded for him to join her, looking out towards their looming destination.
"What is that?" he asked, following her gaze.
"The mineral planet, Crait," D'Acy supplied. "An uncharted hideout from the days of the Rebellion."
"That's a rebel base?"
"Abandoned, but heavily armoured," she confirmed. "With enough power to get a distress signal to our allies, scattered in the Outer Rim."
Nova kept a comfortable distance from Poe, standing beside D'Acy silently, looking out towards Crait.
Most of what could be seen of the planet was shrouded in shadow, but what light could escape glowed a ghostly white.
She had never heard of it in the stories of the Rebellion she grew up with, or in her more recent years on the run, but it was to be expected. Not every star and system could be charted on a galaxy-wide level, even in a hundred lifetimes.
"Holdo knew the First Order was tracking our big ship. They're not monitoring for little transports," Leia gently explained.
Poe sunk into his seat beside her.
"So we could slip down to the surface unnoticed, and hide 'til the First Order passes," he realised aloud. "That could work."
Leia's expression remained kind, resting a hand atop Poe's, taking the chance to gently slip the cloaked binary beacon from his wrist.
"But why didn't she tell me?" he asked plaintively.
"The fewer who knew, the better," she said. "She was more interested in protecting the light than she was seeming like a hero."
Poe's expression was one of quiet guilt. Reality hitting him like a punch to the gut. All he had to do was trust – he was a solider, that was his job. But he had failed, and almost destroyed everything he cared for in the crossfire.
Glancing to Nova, he found her expression hard – jaw clenched and eyes cold, arms folded across her chest. He sighed when she refused to meet his gaze for longer than a second, though he knew he deserved it. He did not expect forgiveness from her any time soon.
Behind her, he could see the rapidly shrinking form of the Raddus, still taking every hit to its shields that that First Order could send. He forced himself to focus on it, rather than the disgruntled blue and white BB unit that was eyeing him from beside their master's ankles.
The quiet of open space was pierced by a blast, shaking the shuttle as it passed to impact with another of their craft, tearing it apart. Another followed, and another. Whittling down the fleet blast by blast.
Nova whipped around as panic began to break out on the transport, bumping into a technician in her hurry to reach the closest viewport. Craning her neck to look past her own reflection in the transparisteel, she was barely able to make out that the blasts were coming from the flag ship Supremacy. She flinched as another flash flew by, impacting with the transport ahead of them. She forced herself to keep a calm exterior – panic would not save her, or anyone aboard the shuttle.
She glanced at Poe when he came to her side from the cockpit, finding he looked just as frayed as she felt. It seemed he was forcing himself to watch on as bit by bit, their defenceless fleet was picked apart. Perhaps he had been right and abandoning the Raddus truly did spell the end of the Resistance.
She half expected him to say 'I told you so', but no such retort came.
All he could do was look on in despair.
Only six transports remained. A mere fifth of what they had set out with.
Behind them, nearly out of their line of sight, the Raddus' engines hit a last burst of power, painstakingly turning the flagship back to face down the enemy fleet still pushing towards them.
"Our cruiser's priming the hyperspace engines," Connix said, looking up from a sensor screen. "She's running away."
"No she isn't," Poe frowned.
There was nowhere to run, everyone knew that. He had been on the bridge, and had seen no course in the navicomputer – until he had input one himself. The jump point for which was now behind the First Order fleet.
The Raddus jumped to hyperspace in a streak of light, colliding with the Supremacy. It tore the wing in two, the explosion's tendrils reaching out to force their way through the rest of the fleet. The initial white light expanded into a ball of orange as the wing of the Mega-Destroyer began to crumble away.
Nova watched on in silence as soldiers around them celebrated – the sacrifice weighing heavy on her. She flinched away involuntarily as her mother reached to take her hand, shutting her eyes against the unwanted contact. Whether the comfort was for her benefit or Leia's, she could not stand it in that moment.
Behind her, Leia sighed quietly, returning her hand to rest atop her walking-aid.
Poe continued to force himself to look on at the destruction, feeling an unshakable level of guilt coming to rest upon his very being.
The transports, now unhindered, continued their passage to Crait, followed by a solemn silence.