After they ate cake, Rose and Kat headed into the main control area of the Tantive IV. Leia told them that all of the old holos should still be there despite anything the Empire could have done to the ship. So, the two friends set about fixing things since instead of wiping the control center of the information saved, the Empire decided to break the screens and paneling protecting the hardware system.
The pair worked in silence, mostly. Both would hum whatever song randomly would pop in their heads from time to time or even talk to themselves as they worked on something particularly puzzling or frustrating. They had managed to remove all the paneling when Connix came in. "The General requested you both to join her for an update. General Calrissian sent a message saying that the team just left and were trying to dodge the First Order."
"Thanks, Lieutenant. We'll be there shortly." Kat smiled, dismissing the other woman.
✧☆✧
Just as Rose and Kat arrived at Leia's side, Snap came up to the three women. "General, Colonel, Lieutenant." He said in greeting. "We're getting reports of a raid at the Festival of Ancestors."
All three women practically sighed together. "This mission is everything. We cannot fail." Leia said.
"Any word from Poe or Rey?" Kat asked.
"Falcon's not responding." He said, fearful of what that could mean.
Rose looked towards Kat, watching as her friend's face fell before rolling her eyes. "Do you have to say it like that?"
Snap looked to Rose, defensive. Rose might be a lieutenant now but he was used to informing Kat and Leia for a lot longer than she had an official title. "Like what?"
"Do me a personal favor?" Leia asked. "Be optimistic."
Snap nodded. "Yes ma'am." He continued to nod as he tried to think of a way to sound optimistic with the not so great news. "Uh, this is, this is terrific. You're not gonna believe how well this is gonna turn out."
The three women looked at him in various degrees of disbelief. Rose, fed up, sighed, and walked away while shaking her head.
"Hey, Wexley?" Kat asked, interrupting him.
"Yeah, Colonel?"
"Why don't you go find Kare and ask her to help you with that optimism." She gave him a bit of a pointed stare before following after Rose.
He just looked to Leia, who gave a small shrug. "It could use a little work. Thank you, Captain."
✧☆✧
Kat found Rose already back at work, fixing the wiring under one of the desks. "They probably haven't made it back to the Falcon yet and honestly I don't think Poe would even let them go back to the Falcon if the First Order is after them."
Rose looked over to her friend, incredulous. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"I'm just trying to offer up a different solution than whatever's going through your head right now."
She laughed, shaking her head. "Well, maybe work on your delivery a little bit. It wasn't very cheerful."
Kat sat down next to Rose. "You know comfort isn't exactly my strong suit, especially when I'm running a mission." She sighed. "They are fine though. I do believe that."
Rose smiled. "That's better. Now help me with this wiring? It looked like at least someone was smart enough to try and detach things while everyone was going ballistic in here."
They had barely gotten back to work when Kat's commlink began to ring. She quickly put a hold on the wires and moved to sit on one of the jump seats in the room. Hope filled her chest as she answered. "Poe? Please tell me you have good news."
Poe let out a heavy sigh. Finn, Rey, BB-8, and C-3PO were all in the back of Ochi's ship while he remained in the cockpit to call Kat to give her an update. Things on Pasaana were a complete failure, not to mention he had to tell her about yet another loss to her family. "It's not the greatest, Kat."
"I really don't like the sound of that. Are you all okay?"
"Mostly." He sighed once more. "Listen, Kat, we've had a loss."
Rose whipped her head around to face her friend, worry written all over it. "Finn okay?" She called out so she could be heard.
"Yeah, Finn's fine. It was Chewie. He was taken by the First Order and Rey tried to bring the transporter back by the Force but Ren started to pull on it too until it became too much of a strain on Rey and it blew up."
The moment he said the Wookiee's name, Kat's heart dropped but as he continued to tell what happened, she started to hold back tears. "No," she gasped out. "No, I don't believe it. He can't be gone."
"I'm so sorry, Kat." He leaned forward, shoulders slouched over with the added weight of yet another loss. He pinched the bridge of his nose, giving her some space to grieve before moving on with the update: there was currently no plan because the one thing they had needed to continue had been lost with Chewbacca.
She sniffled, trying to reign in her emotions for the time being so she could help plan their next move. They could still lean on Lando. They could go back with the First Order now gone.
At the sound of her sniffling, Poe's head popped back up. He hated that he wasn't there to physically comfort her. "Hey, hey, no crying while I'm not there. I can't wipe 'em away if I'm not there."
She let out a sound that was mixed between crying and laughing. "Does this mean you're coming back to base?" Maybe that would be better. They could regroup then head back out. If only they weren't on a time crunch.
"No." He shook his head, hating that had to be his answer. They couldn't return, not now. It would take up too much time. "Right now we're hiding out in an asteroid belt to wait out the First Order. We ran into Lando Calrissian though and he was helpful so maybe we'll head back and talk to him once the coast is clear. Cause we found this dagger that had the location of the Wayfinder on it but even though C-3PO was able to read it, they can't translate Sith. Something about being against protocol so maybe there's something to be done there. Oh! And did you know that stormtroopers can fly now?" He said, trying to make her smile at least a little.
"They fly now?" She asked in disbelief.
Poe chuckled a bit at the sense of deja vu. "Yeah, they fly now. Jetpacks and everything. How're things on your end?"
"Well," Kat let out a small huff, "Rose and I have been working on these memory banks of sorts to try and see if there's anything useful on it since the Tantive IV was kind of a big deal before Vader took it out of commission. Leia said there should be plenty of old holos on here with information stolen by our parents, essentially."
"Sounds like you've got your work cut out for ya."
She laughed a bit. "Yeah, sure is." Silence fell over them, not really wanting to say goodbye but knowing they both needed to return to what they were doing. "I think going back to see Lando would be the best plan right now unless you find some other way to get Threepio to translate what was on that dagger. Just be careful going back. They probably still left a few guards there to patrol the festival."
"You got it. I'll talk to you soon, Kat, and hopefully with some better news."
"May the force be with you."
He repeated the sentiment before the connection ended. Kat set the commlink to the side and soon she had her arms full of Rose. "I'm so sorry, Kat."
"I just can't believe he's gone too." She began to cry again.
"This might sound a little crazy but hasn't Leia felt all of the deaths from your family so far? So if she hasn't appeared yet, then maybe that could mean he's not really." Rose tried to comfort.
Kat gave her friend a watery smile. "Thanks, Rose, but to be honest, I'm not entirely sure. After all, she could be staying away right now to save me from any more bad news. I should probably go and find her actually, give an update."
"Why don't we finish this first? See if we can't find some good news to go along with it?"
She nodded. "Alright, let's see if we can't find those specs."
✧☆✧
Kat and Rose got a few of the consoles running again but there were far too many files to sort through. So they stopped working on the consoles and began sifting through the files, organizing things as best they could, sending the specs for any of the old Empire ships to their current command center.
When the commlink began ringing, they were about halfway through. Kat sighed in relief, grateful for the break. "I'm gonna go get us some food. I'll be back." Rose said, using it as time for a break for herself.
Kat nodded and answered the commlink. "Where are you? It's been far too long since your last update."
"We're on Endor. That's where the blade led us." Poe said, letting out a huff of frustration as he worked on another spot that the Falcon needed fixing after their crash landing. Rey went off on her own. He and Finn got into an argument. This whole thing was not going how he had hoped. As he worked he couldn't help but repeat Finn's words and his own wish of Kat actually being there instead of miles away. Then he realized it had been a while since his last update so he figured while everyone else seemed to be set on doing their own thing, he would check in while he worked.
"You alright?"
Poe let out a sigh. He really shouldn't be surprised that Kat picked up on his frustration. "Not exactly. Rey just went out to the Death Star wreck by herself with extremely dangerous waters. Finn wants to go after her but we can't at the moment because the Falcon isn't in the best shape at the moment and apparently he and Leia know what Rey's going through but no one wants to seem to inform me of what's going on so here I am fixing the Falcon, alone, because no one wants to listen to me." Maybe he called more to vent than to update. If she went with them then maybe this wouldn't have gone sideways.
Kat sat, blinking for a few moments as she processed through his angry rant. Rey and Finn's predicament was interesting, something Leia could probably shed light on later. What she really wanted though was to be able to comfort him more than with just her words but they would have to do. "Well, it sounds like emotions are high everywhere, which is understandable because this mission holds a lot of weight."
"Thanks for the reminder."
"I wasn't done yet." She glared at the commlink in her hand, hoping he could feel it from where he was. "As I was saying there's a lot of stress and you've got yourself a rogue agent. It sounds like you need to get to the Death Star wreck. So what can you do right now, this very moment that will help you reach that goal while also keeping everyone safe?"
"Fix the Falcon," he said.
"And look at that, you are. It's going to work out Poe. You're doing the best with what you got."
"You really couldn't have come with us? I'm pretty sure they would listen to you."
"This is a first for everyone. I wasn't able to plan out every detail and this isn't one of your standard missions. You're doing fine, Poe. Everything that I would've done. Well, from what I've heard so far. You got the Falcon back? Start there because you owe me an update, Commander."
Poe chuckled, grateful for Kat's words. They still didn't dull the ache of wanting her there beside him, however. Their conversation would just have to be enough. "Yeah, it was on Ren's Destroyer. We snuck on after we wiped Threepio's memory on Kijimi so we could learn the location of the Wayfinder." He paused, waiting for her reaction to that news. When all he got was okay, he was a little shocked.
"You're not gonna ask about Kijimi? Or freak out about Threepio? I mean I'm kind of oh and two with watching out for your family members but good news, Chewie is actually alive and we saved him from the Destroyer too."
"Artoo's got a memory back up for him so it can be restored but you should have definitely led with Chewie's alive." Kat grinned, relieved that her uncle was in fact alive. "And is there a particular reason why I should be worried about Kijimi? Although I guess I am curious as to why? Was that the only way to get Threepio to translate?"
"No. There's not a reason you should be worried about Kijimi." He briefly wondered if Kat knew the dealings of the planet and if she would make any assumptions. "I have some contacts there and that's how we were able to wipe Threepio's memory. Wiping his memory was the only way to get him to read it. Apparently, it was against his original protocol."
While Finn had teased him about his seeming spice runner past, his friend brought up a good point about Kat knowing. He wondered if she had known or what she would do if she found out. It was before he was officially a part of the Resistance. He went undercover for the New Republic Defense Fleet near the beginning of the cold war. Leia was the one that called him away, recruiting him for the Resistance and leaving him with some unfinished business on the planet. So maybe he was a little more concerned about Kat finding out about Zorii.
"Poe, we all have some shady contacts. My main contact from Naboo's home planet is the same one as Count Dooku."
Well, her reaction seemed promising. He'd save his confession of sorts for later though when they were face to face. "And here I thought you were gonna bring up Ren. Oh! Speaking of the First Order. You'll never guess who was the spy."
Kat rolled her eyes but played along with the same amount of enthusiasm. "Who?"
"General kriffing Hux. Who woulda thought?"
This time Kat laughed. "No way! Him?!"
"Yup. He saved us from a firing squad and took us to the Falcon."
"He what?!"
Poe winced at the volume in which she yelled. He probably shouldn't have mentioned that. "Yeah, Chewie, Finn, and I got caught, they were gonna kill us, and uh, before that I may have gotten shot. I'm fine though, really. Just my arm. Probably gonna scar but other than that, totally fine."
"Poe!"
"The plan is to not have any more mishaps. We just gotta get Rey back from her solo mission."
"It better!"
"So, how are things going on your end?" He asked, hoping to steer the conversation back to more neutral territory.
Kat let out a huff, not happy about all of this latest development. "We've got three units running. We're about halfway through all the files when you called so I'm having Connix and her team analyze them until we can get to them."
"I'm glad to hear yours is going far easier. I should probably let you go so I can fix things here and hopefully stop Finn from doing something too stupid like go after Rey himself." Poe then groaned in realization. "Yeah, I'm going to let you go. Finn's probably gone after Rey himself. I'll call with an update soon."
With that, the connection ended and Kat let out a heavy sigh. She really hoped that all would be well soon. Now to get back to these files while she waited on Rose to return with food.