Chapter Text
‘On your right, three o’ clock!’
Poe banks, and the phaser blast streaks harmlessly past. Still, a little close for comfort. He yanks the centre stick sideways, and the hull of the old Z-400 Tug creaks like a glacier as it rolls in the sky. Poe grimaces as more white fire smears the cockpit.
‘I got him, I got him,’ Jess Pava crackles through his headset. Orange flame bursts open in the black and the smuggler corvette goes down. ‘Boo ya!’
‘Nice one,’ Poe grins, and drops the tug into another roll. The hemisphere of the planet below fills his screen, soft blue streaked with chunks of the wrecked corvette burning up one by one as they hit the atmosphere. His mother’s necklace lifts out from beneath his collar and pats him on the cheek as he completes the roll. ‘Let’s take down the mothership.’
‘Sithspit.’ Jess’s tug comes into view alongside him, smoke guttering out the back. ‘Photon engine’s fried, Black Leader.’
‘Fall back,’ Poe orders, and the whump of another blast makes his hair stand on end. BB-8 chirrups from their perch. ‘I see it, BB.’ Poe grits his teeth and rockets up and away, the clapped-out old tug groaning like its joints are about to pop.
The biggest smuggler freighter is rusted mud dark like its been to the Jevux quadrant and back without a grease down. At some point in the BBYs this thing was a simple Ghtroc class freighter, but now it bristles with enough retro-fitted gun turrets – and something suspiciously like a battering ram – to turn it into a murderous interstellar porcupine. Less 'smuggle cargo' , more 'privateer other people’s cargo'.
Poe patches through a ship hail, and BB bloops nervously. ‘This is Commander Max Reebo of the Krant-Bothawui Trade Enforcement Union,’ Poe calls, ‘Unidentified smuggler vessel, you are ordered to stand down and return to the Splice.’
The line crackles as the freighter declines to answer. Two phaser cannons protruding either side of the ship’s body glow white hot, getting ready to fire again. So much for trade enforcement. Lucky for Black Squadron, those cannons take a good eight seconds to recharge. Or at least they did on Poe’s last count.
Poe jams the centre stick forward and blinding white fills the view screen as he races towards the larger craft. His target sight flickers red as he locks on and slices the freighter with a few bursts of fire before shooting down beneath the hull. For a moment Poe’s caught between the hulking mass of metal overhead, and the bright cerulean curve of Krant below. It’s beautiful, Poe thinks. A beautiful pain in the ass.
Bursting back out into sky, Poe spots Karé Kun and Snap Wexley playing cat and mouse with the final two smuggler corvettes. The tugs circle the smugglers with all the grace of two senior citizens poking at angry wampas. Poe tries not to think of poor, beautiful Black One, long since gone up in smithereens. Kylo Ren can fuck a sarlacc. He grimaces as he manoeuvres the tug upwards and it creaks unhappily, BB-8 moaning in sympathy behind. Well, he’s flown worse.
‘If we can do a bit more damage to that main freighter we should have them. Javos, see if you can line up a clear shot to keep the corvettes busy. Kun and Wexley, on me!’
‘Roger that, Black Leader!’
The two tugs drop down towards him, and Poe rams the control column forward again, the porcupine in hot pursuit. Closer, Poe thinks. The three of them race in formation, a neat arrow and a target for the porcupine that’s too good to resist.
The blue glow of atmosphere surrounds him, and his target screen beeps as the freighter gains. This time the cannon barely misses them, and sweat tickles his forehead as the wall of heat blasts past. Come on. The translucent mist of atmosphere races by, smearing the clouds and sea far below into a symphony of blue and white. Snap’s tug swings to port to avoid the path of some low-orbiting comms tech, which careens by, antenna unfurled. What is it with Bothans and satellites?
Poe’s screen flashes red, indicating the phaser cannons are firing up again. Just a bit further. He counts down in his head from eight, and with two seconds to go, swings down. BB-8 wails. The porcupine swoops down too, and Poe grins. They got greedy. ‘Now!’ He slams the tug up, just in time to feel the jolt of their tail clipping the atmosphere. Snap yelps as his tug bounces once, and then they’re away. The porcupine isn’t so lucky, and metal screeches as the bottom of the freighter drags into compressed air, glowing orange. The whole ship bounces and skids along the top of the stratosphere, losing a couple of gun turrets on the way, trying to avoid plowing straight down without heat shields engaged.
‘Yee-ow!,’ Another ship races by – the Falcon. ‘That was some sweet flying, Poe!’
Poe can’t help but grin at Finn’s enthusiasm. ‘You three took your time.’
‘Consider this an apology,’ Rey’s voice comes through clipped and clear, and Chewie roars a welcome. ‘We’re locked on to the freighter now.’
‘They’re turning tail,’ Poe says, as the porcupine lumbers its way back up from low orbit towards the remaining smuggler corvettes, trailing smoke and debris from the bottom of its hull. ‘Form up behind me.’
‘Firing at your word, Commander,’ says Rey, and Snap, Suralinda and Karé fall in an arrow formation, Jess hanging behind, her tug yawing from the failing engine.
‘They’re just making a living,’ says Poe. ‘Let’s send them off with as little hassle as possible.’
A spray of warning fire, and the three surviving smuggler ships line up at the jump point and thin out into the dark before vanishing. Away from the Splice, away from the hyperway junction at the entry to the Bothan sector, and back towards the Outer Rim.
‘Alright!’ Snap whoops.
‘Man,’ says Finn, ‘Shame they ran away. I had the quad lasers lined up and everything.’
‘Black Squadron,’ Poe looks out at the vast emptiness, tinged with a thousand lights and the milky smudge of the distant galactic Core. ‘Let’s go home.’
Poe presses the button to release BB-8 from their cradle in the cockpit, and pushes open the hatch of the tug. Cool air rushes in, tinged with the sweet scent of pine. At least Krant is warmer than Crait. Ghost Base is buried within a forest filled valley, and craggy, snow-capped mountains loom in the distance. Tall conifers spring up everywhere there’s no concrete, shuddering banks of multi-coloured needles across the tarmac of the landing strip. Between the bright branches of the trees Poe can make out the stark silhouettes of the laser turrets which defended the camp decades ago. Another war, another rebellion. The conifers are already starting to reclaim the turrets, springing up between the struts so they look like they’ve grown up through the forest.
The rest of Black Squadron land their squat, rectangular tugs on the landing strip, engines powering down as the mechanics bustle forward. ‘Good work, BB-8,’ says Poe, lifting them down onto the ground, and the little droid spins happily. Jess gesticulates at her spluttering engine and Suralinda starts to rewrap the end of her hair braid with deft blue fingers. Poe motions them all over for a debrief.
Karé pulls a face as she joins him. ‘If I’d been in my wing, I would have had those corvettes for sure.’
‘I know you would,’ Snap pulls her in for a quick kiss. ‘Sometimes I wonder if this Base is more trouble than it’s worth.’
‘I know it’s a pain in the ass,’ Poe yanks off his gloves. ‘We all know it. But protecting the Splice is small price to pay for the Bothans harbouring us right under the First Order’s nose.’
‘Yeah, yeah, Black Leader,’ Snap waves a hand at him. ‘We know. Important, secrecy, Bothan allies, bleh-bleh bleh.’ He drops another kiss on Karé’s blonde head.
‘You two are gross,’ Jess shrugs, ‘Plus, space dickheads make good target practice.’
‘I signed up to shoot bucketheads, Dameron,’ Suralinda bares her sharp incisors. ‘Not smugglers. Who knows what side small fry crims are on. It doesn’t feel right.’
‘I don’t like it either, Sura,’ Karé butts in, ‘But we’ll do whatever it takes to keep this Base going. You follow the order to defend the cause. That’s a soldier’s job – a pilot’s job.’
'And the more we practice in these tugs the quicker the jobs will get,’ says Poe, ‘And the more we can send all the small fry packing before anyone gets hurt.’
Suralinda nods, mollified. Behind them, the Falcon sinks down from the pale, early evening sky. Red and blue pines rustle and sway in the updraft. Karé squeezes Poe’s shoulder as she passes, but his stomach still knots at Suralinda’s words. Not much feels right anymore.
Finn trots down the gangway of the Falcon, smile bright, and the tension bleeds out of him. ‘That was awesome!’
Poe grins. ‘Not too bad yourself, buddy.’
‘I didn’t even do anything,’ says Finn, grabbing him into a one-armed hug. ‘Just watched some awesome flying from my two favourite pilots. Three favourite pilots,’ he adds, as Chewie ducks under the fuselage with a groan. ‘Blaggalal!’ says the porg on Chewie’s shoulder, the same note as the Wookie but two octaves higher.
Rey steps down from the Falcon with a faint smile on her face. ‘Commander.’
‘Rey,’ Poe nods. She’s so young, but she’s always slightly formal with him, and it puts him on edge. To be fair, he hasn’t known her long – but then Finn hasn’t known her long either, and she and Finn just clicked. But that is definitely a Finn thing, Poe thinks. Finn clicks with everyone.
Finn laughs, poking Rey in the waist, and Poe ignores the familar twinge of envy that follows. Rey is important to Finn, and that makes Rey important to Poe, too.
He just needs a while to figure it out, is all.
‘Of course you guys show up when the party’s almost over,’ says Jess, coming up beside them with a grin, ‘All pyow pyow and zippy, while the rest of us are sweating like sand people in those tugs.’
‘Still sulking?’ Poe grins, and Jess scowls. ‘They got one of Jess’s engines,’ he explains to Finn, ‘That’ll teach her for forgetting she’s all squat and bulky now.’
‘I’m not sure I like zippy,’ Rey says with an eyebrow raised, ‘But the Falcon is fast. Very fast.’
‘Oh, for sure,’ says Jess. ‘The fastest of them all. So fast, that did you know that back in the day Chewie and Han Solo made the Kessel run –’
‘In twelve parsecs,’ Rey finishes with her, and frowns. ‘Of course I know that, Han told me himself.’
‘Well, it’s a good story, Rey,’ Jess’s voice is slow, teasing. ‘You can tell it again to the recruits we’ve been brushing up for the new squadron. I’m sure they’ll be very impressed.’
Rey’s frown deepens into a scowl, and she turns to Finn. ‘Does she mock you like this?’
Finn gives a diplomatic shrug.
‘Alright,’ Poe shakes his head. ‘Let’s get in while the canteen’s still on shift.’
‘Bururfllfalla!’ says the porg. Chewie moans that he’s going to go find the other Wookiees in their new tree house, and Poe and Finn leave Jess to harass Rey while she sorts something out inside the Falcon.
Sunset glows lemon yellow behind the mountains, casting gold over the leaves of the forest. As they head back to the doors of the hangar bay Poe spots Rose fixing a mobile refuelling station. Since he sent her and Finn on their mad caper around Canto Blight she’s been spending her time with the flight mechanics, although she’s technically assigned to elsewhere in maintenance. She’s good and she works hard, so Poe doesn’t see any issue. Also, he’s the one who sent her on a wild shyyyo chase. Also, she saved Finn’s life, and that means more than he knows how to tell her. He gives her a nod as he passes, and she blushes.
‘Rose!’ Finn looks both delighted and surprised to see her, as though she is ever anywhere else than the hangar these days. ‘Wanna come get some food with us?’
‘Commander Dameron!’ A familiar tinny voice and Poe turns to see C3PO trotting across the tarmac, Artoo trundling behind. ‘The General wishes to speak with you in her quarters.’
‘We can save you dinner,’ Rose smiles shyly at Poe.
‘Yeah Commander, you gotta go talk to Leia,’ says Finn seriously. ‘Very important mission, very important debrief. Three smugglers sent to smuggle elsewhere.’
‘Hey,’ says Poe, raising an eyebrow, ‘A Commander’s life is full of excitement.’
Artoo and BB-8 bump casings, and BB gives a boisterous whistle.
‘Hey, hey. Don’t be ridiculous, BB,’ says Poe, ‘We both know his screwdriver is much bigger than yours.’
‘Go on, sir.’ Rose’s mouth twitches. ‘We’ll babysit BB, I think they’re due for a proper clean down. Isn’t that right, baby?’
The little droid vibrates happily as Rose reaches down to pat them on the frontispiece. ‘Alright,’ Poe smiles. ‘I’ll catch you later.’
‘Most uncouth,’ says Threepio primly as he leads them back towards the base, Poe following behind. ‘Artoo, I don’t know why you bother trying to befriend them.’
Artoo bleeps a series of colourful droid expletives, and Threepio smacks him on the casing.
The General stands on the narrow balcony which backs onto her chambers. Along with the hangar it’s one of the few parts of Ghost Base with a second storey, since most of the complex is underground, carved into Krant’s hard granite. Technically, the General’s quarters are also underground. They’re inside a hollowed out crag protruding from a rupture in the forest floor.
Leia’s slate grey cloak shifts in the evening air, the milky eyelets of Krant’s asteroid moons focussing one by one above the darkening tree tops.
‘Ma’am,’ says Poe, coming to parade rest at the doorway.
‘At ease, Poe,’ she says, wry smile ghosting her lips. ‘Successful day for Black Squadron, I hear?’
Poe joins her at the balcony railing. ‘Only one casualty, and it was their side. Oh, and one of Pava’s engines’
She nods. ‘And your young protégées?’
‘My young pro…oh.’ Poe nods. ‘Finn and Rey make a fantastic team with Chewie. Although we cleared out the smugglers before the Falcon got back from manoeuvres.’
‘Makes a nice change, since Finn seems to spend most of his time saving your ass.’
Poe chuckles. ‘My ass is grateful, Leia. It wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him.’
‘And don’t we know it.’ She presses his hand briefly. ‘You pilots have put up with a lot since we’ve moved here. We all have. I know how much it means to have grounded your wings.’
‘They’re the signature starfighter of the Resistance,’ says Poe, the same words he’d repeated over and over to the other squadron leaders. ‘If we don’t look like an enforcer branch of the Krant-Bothawui trade union, we’ll be dead before we have a chance to regroup. To recruit.’ He feels the familiar flame ignite in his belly and resists the urge to pace. ‘The Bothans welcomed us into their sector when no-one else would listen, when we barely got out of Crait with our lives. And since we lost the New Republic shipyards we can’t afford to lose another T-85 in a smuggling skirmish. If flying second rate ships is the price we pay to lie low, fan our spark to a flame, I’m damn glad to pay it.’
He looks out into the night, resolved. Leia is looking at him with one eyebrow raised, and Poe clears his throat, embarrassed.
‘And anyway,’ he adds, ‘After the new recruits have worked their way around those tugs, they’re going to fly the X-wings like pros.’
‘I couldn’t have put it better myself, Commander.’ Leia says gently. ‘You’re going to make an excellent General.’
Poe struggles for a reply, but she’s already pointing to the horizon, a brighter disk slowly rising above the mountain tops. ‘You see that moon? It was called Geddes. When I was last here, before we took back this base from the imperials, there were plutonium mines out there. From down here you used to be able to see the little lights trails of the freighters entering the asteroid orbit.’ She shakes her head, ‘Millions of tons in raw materials, millions of credits spent terraforming a colony, and the Empire bled it dry in a two decades.’
‘They abandoned it,’ says Poe. ‘And the New Republic abandoned its operations on Krant.’
‘Well, the Empire did,’ she says. ‘And officially, so did the Bothans. But in the past two months here, telemetry have picked up three ships making regular rendevouz with Geddes from Bothawui. And the communication readings we’re getting from the asteroid are mighty busy for a so-called disused mining colony.’
‘Repurposing old mines can save money,’ Poe shrugs, ‘The Bothans have a hand in every pie in this sector. As for the whole thing being officially dead, when was the last time the Bothans did anything above board? They’re probably mining for the black market.’
‘Poe,’ she turns to face him, and her flinty eyes glint with excitement. ‘Two of the mines are functioning again, but their output is pitiful. Our readings suggest enormous electricity usage and data bank activity from inside that asteroid. They’re masking something, Poe. They’ve turned that moon into a planet sized communication satellite.’
‘Shit,’ says Poe. ‘I mean – sorry, General.’
‘Shit indeed, Commander’ says Leia. She turns back out to face the pale moonlight. ‘The Bothan trade union was mighty quick to strike a deal with us in the state we were in. I have a suspicion the Splice isn’t the only thing we’re defending for them.’
The hairs on the back of Poe’s neck stand on end. ‘You think we’re protecting the Bothan spynet.’
Leia nods. ‘And you’ve spent the last two months making your squadrons indispensable to them.’
Poe grins. ‘It’s about time we had some bargaining power.’ His mind already racing. ‘Emmat’s no fool, and Connix is all over communications. They’ve probably worked it out too. We should inform the whole Resistance as soon as possible.’
Leia sighs. ‘Poe, you know I hate keeping everyone in the dark. But once the cat’s out of the bag you can damn well be sure the Bothan council will hear about it. I’m sure they have their moles here, just as we do on Bothawui.’ She purses her lips. ‘I’m not quite ready to call the Bothans’ bluff. We need to hang on to our trump card.’
She’s right, of course, and Poe nods. ‘Because if they know that we know,’ he says sagely, ‘Then we’ll know that they know that we know. And if they know that we know that th –’
‘Shush,’ Leia slaps him on the arm, ‘I’ll have your X-wing impounded.’
‘X who?’ Poe says. ‘I’ve got my tug and she flies like a dream.’
‘Does she hell,’ Leia growls, and he smiles back, the two of them falling into companiable silence.
New Geddes hangs fat and yellow above the horizon, dark lines of cloud tracing over its surface. The General’s knuckles tighten around the balcony railing.
‘What is it, Leia?’ Poe asks softly.
She swallows before speaking. ‘I sense something, Poe. Something out there in the dark. Not Kylo Ren, not Snoke… something else. I don’t want to worry everyone yet. Not until I’m sure.’
Poe’s stomach sinks slowly into acid. Another Sith Lord – or something like it. Just what they need. Just when we thought the galaxy was giving us a break. ‘If you feel it, Rey will feel it too. Maybe you can work out what it is.’
Leia nods. ‘I think it’s been brewing a long time. Waiting.’
‘Waiting…for what?’ he asks, and his voice cracks. ‘For Luke’s death?’
‘Perhaps for the Resistance’s losses.’ Leia looks at him, her eyes bright with worry. ‘Or perhaps for a new piece to come into play.’
‘What kind of new piece?’ Poe asks, like a broken record. ‘A new person?’
‘I can’t say for sure. I don’t want to speculate. Not yet.’ Leia grips him with her gaze. ‘Not yet.’
‘And until then?’ So many questions – he hates the not knowing.
‘Keep doing the job, Commander.’ Leia says softly. ‘And keep doing it well.’
Poe has his dark moments. Not a lot of them, but they’re there. But now Finn’s there too, and even after everything he’s been through, Finn is just sunshine. Warm laughter spills from the doorway of Rey and Finn’s room, and Poe can’t help smiling as he turns the corner. When they’d dragged the remains of the Resistance into Ghost Base after Crait, they were few enough for couples and families to take whole dorms to themselves. Still, Poe had asked Finn if he wanted to come and bunk with a couple of other male pilots. Turns out, Finn and Rey already had bagged a double room. Finn spared Poe from the question he’d immediately struggled to formulate by shrugging and saying that the First Order always had mixed gender dorms. Chewie, meanwhile, raised his hairy eyebrows at the idea of sleeping underground, and currently split his time between his room on the Falcon and a multi-storey tree den he and the four new Wookiee recruits were building up the trunk of an especially sturdy pine.
Rey, Finn, and Rose are piled up on Finn’s bunk, backs to the wall and giggling madly. Rose’s cheeks and eyes have taken on the shiny glaze of someone who’s had too much of the good stuff.
Poe raises an eyebrow at the disarray of empty packets and the pale mostache under Finn’s nose. ‘I see you’ve been cooking up the space crystals.’
‘No,’ says Rey sadly. ‘Just sugar. This happens most nights.’ She slowly undoes another packet and begins shovelling the contents into her mouth. ‘I tell him to stop but he doesn’t listen.’
‘Poe!’ Finn beams, and then sneezes. ‘You want some of these candy chips? They’re a bit powdery.’
Poe takes a closer look at the wrappers. Yes. Candy chips. Ah, wholesomeness. He hovers in the doorway, feeling like the weird uncle gatecrashing a kids’ sleepover.
‘Actually, I was…’
‘Aw, snuggle up, dude,’ Finn says, shaking the chip bag at him. ‘There’s always room for more on the bunk. Shove over,’ he pokes Rey, and she elbows him back. ‘Oi.’
‘I would offer to get snacks, but seems like you already raided the stores,’ Poe gingerly takes seat on Rey’s bunk opposite, and a handful of the glittery chips. Mother of Kwath, they really do taste appalling.
‘Finn was just telling us about the fatberg,’ says Rose. ‘And then – go on, tell it Finn.’
‘Fuh wha’?’ says Poe. Great, so now the chips have glued his teeth together.
‘A fatberg,’ says Rey, ‘When so much grease goes down the drain that it builds up into a great big fatty mountain. It’s crazy, I know!’ she adds, because Poe is staring at her in abject horror, but that’s less to do with the fatberg and more to do with the fact that he’s pretty sure he can feel his teeth rotting out of his skull.
‘So inside the sewage system on Starkiller Base,’ Finn says, with the cadence of someone who’s regaled others with this tale many times, ‘Which is big, by the way, because at full operational capacity that thing could host two million people – and believe me, with the shit they serve up to stormtroopers?’ He shakes his head and whistles. ‘The sewage system was being used a loooot. This thing must have been building up down there for years, like you’d never believe.’
Rey makes a retching noise. Rose is doubled over from silent laughter.
‘So I’ve just been assigned to maintenance, and we get told to go release a pipe blockage,’ Finn continues, ‘And the droids can’t fix it. At least, the boss didn’t tell us that, but I know the last round of droids that went in didn’t come back.’
Poe’s put another handful of chips in his mouth before he realises what he’s done. He supposes they’re not as bad as he first thought.
‘We go down in the dark, me and three other guys, and the smell – man, it was unbelievable. Like, the worst day of my entire life. Pitch black, we’re deep within the core – and then we find the droids. Stuck in the fatberg. Forty feet high, it’s blocking the entire pipe, and you can see bits in it, like –’
‘We don’t wanna know!’ Rey yells, ‘Skip to the end!’
‘It’s important to the story,’ Finn protests, while Poe says ‘I want to hear it,’ and Rose shakes her head back and forth and then up and down.
‘There was loads of stuff in it. Like, really weird things, not just poop, like someone’s boot, all this broken plastisteel, and I’m pretty saw I could see this model star destroyer made out of like, kids building blocks. We were like, how is this all down here? Anyway, we blasted the fatberg,’ Finn shrugs, ‘For like ten freaking minutes. I’m telling you, this thing was the size of the Falcon. And then it broke, like an oily dam, and this tidal wave of poop –’
‘Noooo,’ says Rose, rocking backwards and forwards with tears in her eyes. ‘Noooo, make it stop.’
‘Thirty tons of backed up shit, and the wave just kept going and going. I threw up in my helmet. FY-9346 went under that day,’ says Finn sagely, ‘As did FG-2322. Brave souls, all lost to the poop tsunami. I held onto one of the droids, so I floated. We only found FD-7378 two days later when she turned up inside a water treatment tank on the other side of Base.’
Poe chews dementedly on the candy likes it’s bangcorn at a holo screening.
‘See, that’s the point where I would have defected the hell out,’ says Rose, waving a chip bag. ‘Not waiting till the murder civilians bit.’
‘We were used to getting ordered to do shit. Literally,’ Finn scratches the back of his neck. ‘I couldn’t get the smell off me for a week. Maintenance was really not my most glamourous moment.’ He grins. ‘But you know what? I found a command medallion, just there in the fatberg. Traded it in and got extra rations for a fortnight. Just so I could do my best to block up all the pipes all over again.’
‘Good soldier,’ says Poe, toasting him with the chip bag. ‘Shitting for the Resistance.’
‘Shitting for the Resistance,’ Finn nods proudly.
‘That is the most disgusting story I’ve ever heard,’ says Rey. Her eyes are round and glassy, and she makes a grabby hand motion at Poe. ‘More chips.’
Poe chips her. His fingers are tingling, and so are his eyeballs. Hee hee, sugar is weird.
‘Hey by the way,’ Rose slurs. ‘Maintenance is glamourous. It’s sexy. We make everything go fast and go shiny. Like pipes, and central heating. That’s super sexy.’
‘Pipes don’t go fast. That’s not what they do. Pipes don’t go.’ Rey doesn’t quite seem sure of herself.
‘But they do go shiny.’ Rose raises a finger.
‘Point accepted.’ Finn nods sagely.
Poe stares at the packet in his hand, which is now looking distinctly blurry. Huh. That’s never happened to him from a sugar high before. ‘Where did you get these candy chips again?’
‘Uh…some guy,’ says Finn. He and Rey look at each other. ‘The Rodian from Stiletto squadron. Ts…Ta…’
‘Tselko,’ finishes Poe.
‘Yeah, that’s it,’ Finn grins, ‘Tselko. Great guy. Says he has bags of the stuff.’
‘Ah, fuck,’ says Poe.
‘What is it?’ says Finn, ‘Do they have e-numbers?’
‘They’re only banned on Krant,’ Rose hiccups. ‘Not on Bothan.’
Finn looks at her. ‘What?’
‘Oh, well I guess that’s fine then,’ says Poe. ‘Only banned on one planet. Let’s all just get out of our minds on the stuff.’ He snatches the packet Rose and Rey are sharing, and they scowl.
‘Oooh, the big shot Commander, laying down the law,’ says Rey. ‘You get to boss us about now?’
‘We were having fuuuuun,’ Finn moans. ‘This is worse than the First Order.’
Rose folds her arms. ‘Technically none of us report directly to you. You can’t stop us eating it. This is a democracy.’
‘That’s not how it works,’ says Poe, shoving the chips in his jacket. ‘I think we’ve had enough. I’m being the responsible adult.’
‘Whatever. As a responsible adult, I only answer to the General,’ says Rose, suddenly sitting bolt upright. ‘Leia! The commander’s taking our chi –‘ Finn claps a hand over her mouth, as Rey dissolves into silent giggles.
‘Okay,’ Poe’s wobbling slightly as he stands, ‘Chips are officially confiscated. Good night, you can all thank me when you’ve come down.’
‘Rey,’ Finn says. ‘Use mind control to make him give them back.’ He’s dragging on Poe’s jacket. Poe’s trying to peel his hands off and look stern, but Finn’s grinning at him, all warmth, and Poe’s head is increasingly fuzzy.
‘You’re asking me to abuse my power?’ says Rey. ‘Okay then.’ She screws up her eyes. ‘Sorry, can’t. Too high.’
Poe’s world goes sideways as all five foot nine of Finn barrels into his legs and his back hits Rey’s bunk. Chips fly everywhere. ‘Commander down,’ Finn grins from atop him. ‘Quick, while he’s trapped!’ Poe scrambles madly, laughing as he tries to free his arms from Finn’s grip. Their legs tangle as they wrestle over the edge of the bunk, and Poe’s face smushes into Finn’s chest as they hit the floor. He smells like engine oil, like Krantian pine needles –
‘Now kiss,’ says Rose.
Poe abruptly has a coughing fit. He rolls out of Finn’s grasp and groans. ‘I give up. You’re all on report.’
‘Whoo hoo,’ says Finn, holding handfuls of the candy aloft. ‘Victory for the Resistance! Let the party continue!’