╔════════ 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘 𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐄
'𝐠𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐬' ════════════╝
━━ -ˋˏ★ˎˊ- ━━
...NIIMA OUTPOST, JAKKU
𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐅𝐄𝐄𝐋 𝐇𝐈𝐌?
Poe's presence was calm. It was easy golden sunlight. It was swearing she could feel him through the walls, and then suddenly he was standing in front of her as a stone in a temple was lifted. It was a night of scattered stars, standing high above the terra below with only the cold, midnight wind and an incendiary warmth of something so careful, it would be a miracle if it survived the darkness. Then it was steadfast, it was laughing so hard her ribs ached and she had tears in the corners of her eyes.
But can you feel him now, when the memory is shattered and in pieces on the ground?
"Poe didn't make it."
Bee moaned, completely dejected in the face of such a loss. Lyra stumbled back in the sand. Her batons were in her hands, but the songsteel had lost its reassuring weight. Light-headed, she was reduced to nothing more than a particle of sand.
"That's not possible. Poe was--is the best pilot I've ever seen," she corrected herself. There would be no past tense in her words about a man who was still alive. "There's no way."
The man considered her for a moment, another realization washing over him. He glanced at the shoulder of her own jacket where the red starbird patch was. "You're the other pilot, the one he said he was coming back for," he said soberly. "I tried to help him, I'm sorry."
Lyra shook her head once, doing everything she could to keep herself from falling to the ground and never getting up again. Every muscle in her body was numb, but it was nothing compared to the ache that had started in her chest. It was all-consuming and it hurt like hell.
She couldn't believe him, even when she knew he was telling the truth.
Bee rolled off the way they had come. Rey reached out a hand and put it on Lyra's shoulder, trying to comfort her without even fully knowing why. The man was looking at her with such pity, she wanted to scream at him. But she held her tongue. It wasn't his fault.
"Don't let him go anywhere," Lyra muttered to Rey as she followed Bee. Letting Rey figure out what to do with this guy was the least of her concern. For all Lyra cared, she could take him out with a swipe of her staff and they would move on with the day.
Out from beneath the tents Lyra just stood and looked out beyond the outpost. Empty sky, miles of sand.
Bee scooted up close to her and gave a sad, solitary beep. Is he gone?
She nodded her head down at him, blinking. But she didn't really believe it. How could she? Call it denial, call it exhaustion, but there was no way Lyra Endellion was going to believe Poe Dameron was just dead. After everything, he was not gone.
But can you feel him?
She reached for the sound of his voice, the feeling of safety in knowing he was out there somewhere making good on his promise to come back to her. But it was all smoke and silence. The Force showed her the truth.
"Poe is gone," she said quietly.
All she could see was his face, looking at her as he told her that she had to go. She remembered the feeling of pure warmth when he was around her, when he would playfully grab her by the arm and stand so close. The way he smiled at her from across the room. Everything about him that she had disregarded for years and now it was too late.
For all her life she had known that there were parts of herself that would never see the light of dawn. They needed to stay buried and pulled tight against her chest. But Poe had proved her wrong so many times. She had gone blind from looking at his light, his optimism, his hope. And now that was gone and the knot in her chest was pulled tight and crossed over itself in the dark.
I'll come back to you.
A lie, she thought bitterly.
The sky above was still as blue as cornflowers, and there was no question that she would have to keep moving on. She would complete this mission, whatever it took. It felt like an unclimbable mountain, one made from the harshest elements from the depths of the galaxy and it was still dragging her through the dirt at every new turn.
She let herself have five more seconds. That was all the time they could spare.
"Let's go, Bee," she told the droid. "We don't have much time."
She felt the weight settle in her throat, one that she knew would never go away. Lost time and missed chances had always been like friends to her, but now it seemed they were back with a vengeance. Long had she feared her sins would continue to come back and haunt her, and today they well and truly had. It was a list of wordless regrets miles long, and suddenly Poe Dameron's name had taken the spot at the top.
Lyra approached the two of them, and whatever they had been talking was cut short.
"So both of you knew him?" Rey asked her, cocking her head toward the other guy. He was standing up now. "Since you're both from the Resistance?"
Lyra tilted her head, looking at the guy in Poe's jacket. He was avoiding her gaze, knowing he had just been caught in the lie he was spinning to Rey. She wanted to call him out for it, but then he looked up and Lyra understood.
He was escaping. A defector. Someone who had really, desperately tried to help Poe make it out. A little selfish, but he was trying to do the right thing in a place where he could be killed for it. She was too numb to do anything else. Her brain was on autopilot now, her instincts forced to take over in her place.
She just looked at him. "Yeah, Poe was--he was the pilot I came here with."
His shoulders sagged. Lyra would let him have his relief, but she had about a million questions for him. And she sure as hell didn't trust him, not when he had clearly just lied to Rey. And apparently, he thought he would get away with it.
"What's your name?" She asked him.
He considered the question for a moment. "Finn."
Bee started to beep wildly, aiming his head at the sky. Lyra looked up, but she didn't have to. She could hear it in the distance, the echoic screeches of TIE fighters coming closer by the second.
"We need to go," she said.
As she turned, she noticed the stormtroopers ducking through the tents. Both were armed, and both of them looked like they were there for one reason and one reason only. They ran towards them, blasters raised and ready to fire.
Finn nodded like he understood, taking it upon himself to grab Rey's hand.
"What are you doing?" Rey demanded. Lyra didn't even have it in her heart to laugh.
"Come on!"
A blast of laser fire ricocheted around them, hitting a cleaning unit and spewing steam. Over crates and yanking her way past curtains, Lyra took up the lead. Rey yelled out from behind her as another shot came a little too close. Lyra took another turn, but she couldn't tell where they were anymore.
"Let go of me! I know how to run without you holding my hand!" Rey yelled, pushing in front of Lyra and leading the way. "Lyra, keep BeeBee-Eight close!" She called out. "This way!"
Lyra turned behind her and saw that the troopers were falling behind. Sand flew up behind Bee as he rolled, keeping an even pace with Lyra. Rey looked around, trying to find a way to get them out of harm's way and in a split-seconds decision, she burst into a deserted tent.
"They're shooting at all of us!" Rey held onto the tent pole, completely bewildered.
"Yeah. They saw you with me," the jacket guy said, rummaging through the stuff on the table. He was looking for a weapon, anything to use to defend himself. "You're both marked."
Lyra, knowing it wasn't the time but needing to say it anyway, glared at him and his inflated sense of importance. "We're all marked because we're with the droid."
"Well, thanks for that!" Rey shot back. Bee rolled back a little, deeply offended at the outburst.
"Hey!" Finn said, whipping back around to face Lyra and Rey. He was shaking from fear and adrenaline as he pointed an accusatory finger at them. "I'm not the one who chased you down with--with sticks! Does anyone even have blasters around here?" he yelled.
Calm and collected, Lyra pulled her own blaster out of its holster. She could sense the stormtroopers were close and would soon burst through the tent. With one arm raised, she turned and pivoted on her heel. Two shots echoed from her weapon and both of the stormtroopers were on the ground.
Finn looked at her with absolute fear, but then his expression shifted. Both of them looked up at the same time as the sound of ion engines growing nearer. Lyra just kept her face on the tent flaps above, wondering how in the hell they were getting out of this one. The First Order wouldn't care if they were dead. As long as Bee was left unharmed and the map intact, they would care less about three collateral damages.
"Stop taking my hand!" Rey insisted as Finn once again grabbed her in preparation for their escape.
They burst out of the tent, all four of them turning towards the sky. A TIE passed right over them, making Lyra's blood boil and her muscles tighten. Her boots kicked up sand as they sprinted, but it was no use.
One of the TIE's had pulled up for a second approach, firing on the tent they had just come out of. The explosion rattled in her ears. It was like a tidal wave that sent them all flying into the air and then hard on the ground.
Lyra coughed, trying to get the sand out of her mouth. She struggled to stand, and she had to bite her lip to keep from screaming in frustration. The sharp pain radiated from her shoulder, right where she had landed on it. She made her way back over to Rey, who was kneeling over Finn. His eyes were closed, and he wasn't moving.
Rey shook him and he sat up, looking straight at her. Without thinking, he asked, "Are you okay?"
He had a good heart, that much was clear.
Rey looked back at him like it was her first time hearing those words. "Yeah," she said softly, nodding her head. Then, she held out her own hand for him to take. "Follow me."
Running in the sand was difficult. Running in the sand while being chased by a ground squadron of stormtroopers and TIE fighter airstrike was something she never wanted to have to do again. It wasn't the first time this had happened to her, either. Last time, it ended with Georgie detonating a few kilos of explosives in the air above them.
The TIE fired a perfect line of shots, exploding the tents one by one. They hit a fuel tanker, and a plume of flames burst forth and into the air. Finally, they made their way underneath the gate at the front of Niima outpost. In front of them was a makeshift landing field littered with all kinds of ships.
The firing wasn't going to stop, and they were out of cover.
"We can't outrun them!" Finn shouted.
"We might!" Rey called out behind her. "In that quadjumper!"
Lyra didn't know how old the ship was, but she had a feeling the ion drives would fail as soon as the ship tried to leave the atmosphere. They needed to stay low and shake the TIEs before they got any further, anyway. It might be enough to buy them some time.
"Uh, what about that ship?" Finn yelled and turned his head to look at another possible option for their escape.
"That one's garbage!" Rey dismissed.
In another volley of fire, their escape was cut short. The little quadjumper was reduced to flame and ash and the three of them and the droid skidded to a halt. For a second, all they could do was gawk at it.
"The garbage will do," Rey reasoned, changing their course and running in the other direction.
At first, Lyra didn't know what to make of it. Then the form of the freighter became clearer, and a slew of memories rushed back at her. She recalled Leia mentioning once that Han Solo had put out some kind of reward if anyone found his ship. Leia hadn't taken it very seriously, but she had told them anyway, just to humor her husband. Ellis swore he was going to find it and keep the damn thing for himself. Lyra knew she would most likely never see the ship again.
How fitting that the Millennium Falcon be an aid in her escape, once again.
Explosions rattled the ground as they ran up the extended ramp and into the Falcon. Bee was close behind, zipping by and almost taking her out in his rush to safety. Lyra was in first, moving down the circular hallways and barking orders like an old routine.
"Gunner position is down there!" Lyra said, turning her head back to Finn.
She had made the dangerous assumption that he could indeed fire a gunner. For all she knew, he had been a sanitation worker for the First Order. All she could do was hope that the Force was indeed with them.
She and Rey continued to the cockpit.
"You ever fly this thing?" the stormtrooper shouted, his voice echoing up and through the hallway.
"Not technically," Lyra muttered, looking down at the control panel. Buttons lay at the edge of her fingertips just waiting to be pressed. She had sat in the co-pilots chair one time and one time only. Han Solo hadn't let her touch anything, worried she would somehow crash the ship with one wrong move.
Lyra was thinking, and she was thinking hard. The quickly-forming strategy in her head might be an awful one, but it could also be their best shot.
"This ship hasn't flown in years!" Rey supplied, looking at Lyra to take the pilot's chair.
"You have to fly, Rey," Lyra decided, quickly sitting in the co-pilot's seat and switching on the auxiliary power. "I won't be able to reach the navicomputer, and I have no idea what Unkar Plutt did to this ship. You do."
Rey's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates as she looked down at the seat with abject horror. "I haven't-- I've never flown anything like this before!"
"But you've been on it, haven't you?" Lyra asked. "You know exactly what Ukar Plutt did to try and modify this ship. I haven't piloted a freighter like this in years, you told me that you practice all the time on that stripped flight simulator."
What she said wasn't exactly true, but she needed to give Rey a reason to fly. It had been a wild guess, but it seemed like Rey knew each of these ships pretty intimately. Offhandedly, Rey had mentioned that she practiced all the time with an old X-wing simulator, staying up until the wee hours of the morning just trying to challenge herself. It was a lonely way to live, but it made a good pilot. Lyra knew Rey needed to be the one in the pilot's chair. She would know the landscape of Jakku better than Lyra ever could.
"Just sit down and get us out of here! It's no different than any other ship." Lyra said through gritted teeth, trying to engage the pre-lift sequence as fast as humanly possible. All relevant instruments seemed to be working as the whine of the computer filled the cockpit. "We can't fly on auto, or they'll just track out flight vectors. Manual is our only shot."
Rey sat down, looking a little dazed. But as her hands moved across the panel, Lyra saw she was correct. Rey knew exactly what she was doing.
Then they were moving upwards. The ship took flight and hovered about ten feet above the ground. For a second, Lyra thought they were home free.
And then the ship careened back down, starboard side dipping into the sand below as Rey frantically tried to fix the steering.
"Just level off!" Lyra said, trying to brace herself so she didn't roll right out of the copilot's chair.
Rey nodded, gaining confidence. She leveled the ship off just in time to take out the entry archway to the Niima Outpost. But then they were off, soaring high into the blue sky above Jakku.
"Yes!" Lyra laughed.
Finn yelled, "Stay low!"
"What?" Rey screeched.
"It confuses their tracking," Lyra explained, desperately trying to find the shield controls.
Rey pulled the throttle back, sending the Falcon into a stomach-churning loop. Behind them, she heard Bee give a panicked whirring noise as he was thrown through the air.
They narrowly avoided hitting the TIE's on their way back down.
"Let me know when you're going to start firing!" Lyra yelled, hoping that he had at least figured out how to pull the trigger. Without any anti-aircraft fire, they wouldn't make it to the atmosphere.
"Try sitting in this thing!" He shot back. Lyra heard the jerking noise of the gunner, and she knew he wasn't having a very easy time. But there was nothing she could do.
Finally, Lyra found the control and flipped the shield generator on.
Another shot hit them, and this time it hit the bottom of the ship. While Rey focused on flying, Lyra turned around in her seat. "What are you doing back there?"
"I'm workin' on it!" Finn shouted. "Are the shields up?"
"Yes!" Lyra bellowed, gripping the armrest of her seat so hard her knuckles turned white.
Then, finally, he started firing back. She could hear the squeal of the targeting computer from where she sat, but all of his shots were missing. She couldn't blame him, the gun turret was all original and was probably unlike anything he had ever trained with before. If it wasn't for the shields, they would have been debris in the desert by then.
"We need cover, quick!" he called, realizing that their plan wasn't going to work.
"We're about to get some!" Lyra shouted, pointing at the field of wreckage up ahead of them. "What do you think?"
"It should work. I hope," Rey whimpered, swinging the control around and narrowly avoiding a sand dune.
Lyra saw one option, and it wasn't good. She knew from experience that TIE's weren't able to change direction very fast, not like the Falcon should be able to. Keyword, should. If she survived the next hour and found Han Solo, she was going to let him know how dated this hunk of junk really was.
"Straight ahead!" Lyra shouted, "Then pull up! We might lose one of them!"
Rey did what she said, expertly banking to the left just before they smashed into the hulking form of the Star Destroyer. The TIE tailing them had no cover left, a perfect shot if Finn could get one off.
And he did. The little TIE spun out of control, caught off guard by the sudden wild burst of fire.
"Nice shot, Finn!" Lyra yelled. She at least owed him a little positive reinforcement.
But there was still the issue of the second surviving TIE. They buzzed through the debris field, but it was impossible to shake off their tail. They were taking too much fire to last for much longer, the shields wouldn't take much more.
And then, with another rattling shake of ion blasts, Finn gave them the bad news. "The cannon's stuck in forward position, I can't move it. You gotta lose him!"
Lyra looked in front of them. They had enough space, they had enough time. The question was, did they have enough luck?
Luck is for people without skill, she thought. Rey had the skill, and that would be enough.
"We can't lose him," Lyra said to Rey. "This ship isn't maneuverable enough. You have to get the gunner up somehow."
"I've got it," Rey assured her, not deviating in her course into the body of the Star Destroyer.
Lyra gaped, watching as sparks flew off the side of the Falcon like pyrotechnics. The inside was a maze of metal tubes that criss-crossed in front of her eyes, and welding scars showed just how much effort had gone into creating the hulking ship only for it to turn into rust in the Jakku desert. The TIE was missing them and taking out every pipe that they flew past with shots of heavy-ion fire. They flew through a cloud of flame, and Rey and Lyra instinctively ducked as they passed through it.
"Oh no," Rey gasped. And at the same time, Lyra said, "Oh boy."
At the last second, Rey punched it and turned the Falcon out and back up towards the open sky. Then they dove into a free fall. Rey cut the engines, and all Lyra could hear was the sound of her breathing as they waited for their gunner to fire.
And Finn did. It was absolutely perfect, one of the riskiest moves she had pulled off and definitely something Ellis and Georgie approved. While Rey pushed the ship into a climb, Lyra worked on switching the system over to automatic controls. Jakku was becoming nothing more than a peach-colored orb in the blackness of space, and Lyra finally allowed herself to breathe.
"That was impressive," she grinned, and she couldn't be more impressed at how well Rey had handled the whole situation.
Rey smiled, still in a daze. "I didn't think I could do it. I've never flown anything more than scraps."
While Rey stood up and rushed back toward Finn, Lyra slid into the pilot's chair. Now that they weren't being chased, she could try and get them into friendly territory. It was too risky to send a signal straight back to D'Qar, not so soon after they had almost been gunned down.
Bee, shaken up from all the rolling, pulled up next to her and started to complain. How long until we get back to D'Qar?
Lyra looked out at the stars in front of her. Sweat and sand were starting to dry on her forehead, and when she moved her mouth she could feel the dryness of her skin. What once was a safe haven was turning into a living hell. Facing D'Qar and knowing Poe wouldn't be there too was a fear she hadn't even realized she had until it was staring her dead in the eyes.
"Almost, buddy. We'll get there."
Then she heard the sound of alarm bells ringing out. Lyra checked the instrument panel, momentarily confused as to what was going on. She didn't see anything wrong on her end. Rey had even primed the fuel pump, so there wasn't a chance the engine was going to blow. Or maybe there was. Reeve would have known, but Lyra was unfortunately lacking in mechanical experience.
"Lyra!" she heard Rey yell.
Quickly, she shot up out of the seat. In the open common area, she saw a plume of hissing vapor filling the room. There should be atmospheric filters in place, but after the years on Jakku, Lyra assumed they were filled with sand. They weren't doing much good because Lyra had to squint as the thick smoke flooded the space with white.
"What's going on?" Lyra said, earning a sharp stare Finn. He didn't trust her, and he had evidently become very protective of Rey. A wonderful situation.
"Not sure," Rey said. "Hopefully it isn't the motivator, a ship this old is bound to have one," she told them, peering down into the source of the smoke. "I'll go check it out, you two stay here."
"You're going down there? You don't even know what the problem is!" He said, looking at Rey like she was positively insane.
"Well, the only way to know is to go down there." She ducked her head and then she was gone.
Lyra turned toward Finn, sizing him up. Every time Lyra looked at him, she had a heart-stopping gut reaction because her mind saw the jacket and thought Poe before she could stop it. "So, you're with the Resistance? It's so strange that I don't recognize you."
"You can't seriously know every member of the Resistance," Finn said, trying for bravado. She was surprised he was still able to meet her eyes. "There's so many of us, we've just never crossed paths."
Every extra detail of this unfurling disaster was ringing in her ears. "I'm the Resistance's Commander of Covert Operations. I really don't think you want to play this game with me."
Finn's mouth parted but no sound came out except for, "Oh."
Lyra moved over to the wall at the side of the ship's hull and switched off the blasted emergency alarm. She winced as her shoulder muscle strained.
"Why weren't you flying?" Finn asked her as he gained some of his confidence back. "If you're a commander, you must know how to fly."
"Rey is a pilot in her own right. She's far more familiar with Jakku than I am, it would have been a mistake to just jump in the cockpit without thinking. Also," Lyra continued, curling up her lip. "I don't think you're in a position to be accusing me of what I do and don't know."
He lowered his voice, and the mask he had been putting up melted away. He suddenly looked human, and the honesty in his voice was painfully clear. "I didn't mean to lie to her."
"It doesn't matter what you meant to do," Lyra shook her head with no trace of anger. He was trying his best, and she needed to stop projecting her own emotions. "What matters is why you did it."
Lyra stopped talking just as soon as Rey poked her head back up again, saving his secret for a little while longer. But she intended to find out what Finn's deal was, sooner or later.
"It's the motivator," Rey said, her voice tight and eyes wide. "Grab me a Harris wrench, I might be able to fix it."
Lyra crossed the room in three steps, bending over a box of tools that had seen better days. She sifted through it, searching while they spoke.
"How bad is it?" Finn asked, leaning over the hole in the floor.
"If we wanna live, not good," she heard Rey say, the panic in her voice evident.
"We've gotta get out of this system," Finn said as Lyra finally found the Harris wrench.
She handed it to Rey, who promptly ducked back down. "BB-8 said the location of the Resistance base is 'need to know'. Lyra knows, she'll get us out of here."
Lyra took that as her cue to leave. She smiled wryly at Finn. "I'll work on getting us out of here. Finn can fill you in on where we're headed."
Lyra left the room without pausing to see the look on Finn's face. She knew she shouldn't mess with him, but she didn't have the heart to play into his little coverup any more than she had to.
The closest Resistance-friendly airspace would be Ponemah Terminal. If she could get them there, she might be able to either ditch the ship, or find a way to pilot it back to base without catching the attention of the First Order. As much as she didn't want to leave Han Solo's ship behind, she might not have any other choice. It was a pretty well-known piece of junk.
She sank the weight of her body into the pilot's chair, switching the main computer back over to manual control. With her free hand, she typed the coordinates into the datapad and waited as the system charted a course. Once it had run its calculations, she tried to set them on their way. But nothing happened. In fact, the opposite happened. The emergency lights flipped on as the main power shut down. She could feel a tug in her chest, the one she felt when something was about to go horribly wrong.
Frantically, she worked to try and get them out of the tractor beam. The freighter had appeared out of nowhere, there had been nothing on her scanners for miles. A cloaking beacon wouldn't have shown up anyway, but there was part of her that knew it wasn't the First Order. This was someone else.
Behind her, she heard the thundering footsteps of Rey and Finn as they came out from the galley.
"All my controls are overridden," Lyra explained, jumping out of the chair to face them. "Someone's locked onto us."
Above them, she heard a dull clanging. Finn jumped up, hopping onto the control panel in an attempt to get a better look at what was going on.
"See anything?" Rey asked, craning her neck to figure out what was going on.
"Oh no," was all he said back.
Lyra could see it too. Large bay doors had opened up wide enough to swallow their tiny ship whole. A freighter was pulling them in, and there was no telling who was about to try and board their own ship.
"It's the First Order," Finn said, sounding like he had lost all hope. He looked up into the yawning freighter with eyes so full of resignation, it took Lyra a moment to continue speaking.
"No," Lyra said, taking in the sight above her. She shook her head and a loose chunk of gray hair brushed across her eyes. "No, it isn't. This ship doesn't match any First Order serial I've ever seen."
"Then who is it?" Rey asked. "You know better than either of us."
Lyra bit her lip. She did, in fact, know who it might be. "It's no one good."
━━ -ˋˏ★ˎˊ- ━━
lyra every time finn says he's with the resistance:
the best part of this section is lyra and finn having beef with each other and rey having NO clue what is going on. you'll see more of this in upcoming chapters, but finn does indeed know who lyra is and who she was in the First Order. he's up to date on his galactic history folks.
--Nat <3