"Since he had just told me his story I knew I could trust him. But the story of my past is a hard one to tell."
I wake up very confused and surrounded by sand. So much sand. Why am I in so much sand?
Jakku!
Poe!
Finn!
I flip over onto my stomach and try to get my bearings. So far it's just a bunch of sand. I notice my feet are tangled in some sort of string. Looking past the string I can see that it's attached to some kind of netted parachute and lying face first in the sand next to the parachute is Poe.
"Poe!" I yell, untangling my feet from the string. I went to my feet and started stumbling down the sand dune towards the pilot. "Poe!"
When I get to him I flip him over and see his chest heave up and down again. Thank the stars. After assessing him for any major injuries and not seeing any, I look up and around for Finn.
I don't see anything nearby, not even our crashed TIE fighter. Not too long after, Poe seems to come to his senses.
"Wha-, where are we?" He asks sitting up.
"Jakku." I reply. "And I don't know where Finn is."
The two of us stand up, only struggling a little bit, and attempt to fully assess the situation. The day is just starting to end and we are going to need some place to go soon.
"What about the droid?" I ask Poe. He seemed pretty passionate about getting back to him as soon as possible. Which happened to be part of the reason why we are on this planet in the first place.
"I don't think I'm in any condition to go anywhere." Poe says. Apparently my assessment hadn't been that thorough. He was clutching his arm and appeared mentally and physically exhausted. He was favoring his left leg over his right.
"Oh," I say. "What about the map?"
"We'll have to come back." Poe says, adjusting, and wincing as he places the slightest bit more weight on his right foot. "We have to get off this planet, the droid can take care of itself."
"So what's the plan to get off the planet?" I ask.
Poe still appears to be in pain from his leg, so as he's speaking I grab his arm and guide him down to sit back on the ground. "I have this tracking thing." He pulls out a small, round, coin shaped object from his pocket. "All we have to do is break this seal and the resistance will know where we are."
He hands me the disc and I flip it through my fingers. "And why didn't you use this on the base?" I look up from the coin and to Poe's face.
"I thought about it. I'll admit it." Poe sighs, either in pain or in thought before continuing, "But I really didn't want to lead the resistance somewhere that I knew they weren't entirely prepared for. I mean sure we prepare but we never really knew the threat we're up against. But now we do and we can prepare a little more to really get at them."
I sit for a moment and look back down at the coin in my hands. It's odd to hear someone talk about defeating the First Order so confidently. I had always had dreams that I would one day escape from their base but it never went so far to thinking we could stop them.
This moment is incredibly controversial for my mind. I have a chance to be free by refusing everything I had been programmed to think. And I was ready for it. This is what's going through my mind as I break the seal on the tracking disc and watch it light up, signifying that the resistance was on its way.
I toss the tracker onto the sand between me and Poe before looking up to his eyes. He looks back at me. I don't know if he knows the significance of what just happened.
"So what's your story?" I ask him, genuinely curious. I pull my legs into my chest and lean my chin on my knees.
Poe sighs and leans back on his arm, wincing as he does this. "Well, I was born and raised on the planet of Yavin 4. My parents were members of the Alliance. My first few years I spent with my grandfather, until my parents finally retired to raise me. It was my mom who taught me how to fly. I was six years old, sitting on her lap in the old RZ-1 A-wing. Then, two years later she passed, unexpectedly."
There was a slight pause where we both looked out at the setting suns, signifying that night was upon us.
Poe sighs once more before continuing. "Then eventually I left Yavin 4, had a brief stint as a Spice Runner, and somehow found my way to the Resistance. This was when I decided to follow in my mom's footsteps and become a pilot. Eventually I somehow worked my up to be one of the best. 'Leader of the Black squadron'." Poe waves his hand through the air as he says his title. "And now I may have just signed my death warrant as I told a storm trooper my resistance title."
I mustered up a laugh and pointed to myself. "Defector, remember?"
"Right, right." Poe leans back so he's fully lying down against the sand, arms resting behind his head, only wincing slightly at his attempt to look cool. "So what about you? How does a storm trooper become a storm trooper and why would one want to leave?"
I lie down next to him and look up at the stars. Since he had just told me his story I knew I could trust him, but the story of my past is a hard one to tell.
"Most troopers don't initially want to become troopers, we're forced into it. Usually they do it at a young age, so our brains can be more easily manipulated." I pause thinking of how to word my history. "I was taken when I was eleven. Torn away from my family and forced into a program I absolutely despise and goes against everything my family has ever stood for. I had to leave my sister behind. She was only seven and she was left to fend for herself."
Yet another pause as I process the words I had spoken into existence. This was the first time I was actually telling someone my story.
Poe breaks the silence, "Della-" I cut him off, realizing I need to get the rest of my story out.
"They brainwash us. They teach us how to kill from the moment we arrive back on the base. I remember the youngest recruits being around five. They encouraged us to not form relationships. To keep to ourselves and do as we're told." I take a second to breathe, realizing the truth of what I was about to say. "I thought about... I almost did. I was going to do it. I really, really wanted to do it."
Poe's hand finds mine atop the sand as tears prepare to fall in my eyes. "But I knew I couldn't. I knew that somewhere my family was waiting for me to come back. But all I could think about was how disappointed they would be if they could see where I was. All that I had done. But at the same time I knew that they would accept me back in a heartbeat."
The two of us lie there for a little while longer, staring at the stars. Our hands were still intertwined before I suddenly became super hyper aware of that fact and released his hand. "Sorry," I sit up and wipe my almost tears away. "I'm sorry that I just released all of that on you. I just haven't had anyone to talk too in twelve years so the moment I got a chance I went for it."
"No, no. It's fine. I understand." Poe says, sitting up as well. "I would probably be in a simillar state if I had been through all of that."
I play with the sand beneath us as we fall into yet another round of silence. This time it's not quite as uncomfortable as it was earlier. Poe lifts his head to look up at the sky as I sniffle in an attempt to collect my thoughts and feelings a little more.
"The resistance base is not that far from here. Assuming that they got the signal that we're here it shouldn't be to long until they get to us." Poe says. I look up to see his face carefully reading the night sky. "Hopefully they don't encounter any First Order Fighters who may have been on our tails."
For some reason this shocked me. I had just admitted to everything that happened to me while under the First Order and just hearing their title spoken out loud again brought a chill to me bones. I take a few deep breaths. After all, Poe only said their title to acknowledge the fact that they could still be an issue.
I suddenly remember that I'm still in my storm trooper armor, minus the helmet. This makes me feel very suffocated. It's too tight, too much. I claw at my throat and gasp for breath.
Poe notices what's going on and breaks his gaze towards the sky to help me. "Hey, breathe. We're fine."
I cough and scramble to get my fingers underneath the collar of my armor. Poe notices this and reaches over to help me slide it over my head, leaving me in just the thermal undershirt. I lean back against the sand dunes and take a couple deep breaths, closing my eyes to focus on myself.
"You good?" Poe asks.
I nod my head. "It's just, I really don't want to go back there. I just can't."
"You're not going to. I'll personally make sure of that." Poe responds.
My breathing finally slows to a normal pace and I realize I should probably take off the rest of my Storm Trooper armor before the Resistance comes for us. I tell Poe such and am thankful for the thermal under layer that is often associated with the armor.
Not to long after, Poe perks up. We had both been sitting on the sand in silence when suddenly he tilts his head up to the sky. He stands up as quickly as he can with his various undetermined injuries and I am fast to follow.
Soon a ship comes into your view. Poe throws his hands into the air and hollers out into the void that is space as the ship comes closer to us. I assume that this ship is the resistance coming to rescue us.
I suddenly get nervous. What if they see right through me? What happens when they find out I was a Storm Trooper? Is that when they torture me for information? What about when they decide that they don't need me anymore? What happens then? Do they just send me out into space to die? What if they don't take me in at all? After all, the tracker was initially mean't for one person.What if, when they get off that ship, they take Poe and not me? What if Poe really just doesn't care about me and abandons me to go back to the resistance? What if-
"Della," Poe is grabbing my hands and trying to pull me towards the ship. "Come on, we've got to go."
I let my feet move as Poe practically drags me towards the ship. My nerves are high as we cover a sand dune and come across the resistance ship and a pilot who was just exiting out onto the sand.
"Jessika Pava!" Poe calls out to the pilot across the sand. "I never thought I would be so happy to see your face."
This new pilot, Jessika looks to Poe with a huge smile before noticing Della to the side of him. "Who's this?"
"This is Della," Poe says. "She's been helping me."
"Is she on our side?" Jessika said.