Suddenly, the hollowed-out hull of a crashed Super Star Destroyer loomed in front of Finn’s window.
“Get ready,” shouted the girl.
Ready? Ready for what?
He felt the ship bank and career down, angling for a rear exhaust port of the Super Star Destroyer. She wasn’t thinking about taking them in there, was she?
“Are we really doing this?” Finn shouted.
For what seemed like an eternity, the two ships dangerously raced through the Destroyer, the freighter not able to make any ground and the TIE fighter not able to line up any successful shots.
Just when it seemed like they were going to be blasted to bits, his pilot whipped them out of a narrow hole in the side of the Super Star Destroyer. Finn was thrown back roughly as the freighter leaped straight up into the sky and flipped upside down so that the pursuing TIE fighter was right in front of the forward-locked cannon. Finn grinned and fired.
The TIE fighter exploded in a shower of sparks.
Finn cheered as the pilot angled their ship toward the blackness of space. Stripping himself of his restraints in the gunner’s seat, Finn watched briefly as the sandy planet of Jakku became smaller and smaller in the viewport.
The last time he’d left that planet, he thought he was flying to his doom. This time, he’d fought his way to freedom from the First Order, made a new friend, and found a valuable droid, and he was picking up a mission for the Resistance that could change the course of the galaxy.
Not bad for a few days’ work.
FINN RAN TOWARD THE COCKPIT only to almost collide with the pilot, who was rushing back to celebrate. Words of praise exploded from both of them.
“That was some flying! How did you do that?” Finn couldn’t believe they’d pulled off the last maneuver.
“I—I’m not sure,” she stammered excitedly. “I’ve flown smaller ships, but I’ve never left the planet.”
Finn couldn’t believe it. “No one trained you? That was amazing!”
The young woman blushed slightly and smiled. “And you? Your last shot was dead-on. You got him in one blast!”
Finn smiled back with a hint of self-satisfaction. “You set me up for it…but that was pretty good, wasn’t it?”
Their words faded away into silence as they continued to smile at each other. It had been a while since Finn had felt that comfortable with another person, and he could see she felt the same way.
BB-8 soon rolled into the corridor and began to chirp at the pilot with some urgency.
“You’re okay,” said the girl, kneeling in front of the little droid. “He’s with the Resistance. He’s going to get you home. We both will.”
The lie burned inside Finn. Why did I have to say that?
The young woman straightened up and looked at Finn. “I don’t know your name.”
Finn realized that he didn’t know hers, either. “Finn. What’s yours?”
“I’m Rey,” she replied with a smile.
Finn had to tell her the truth. She was too nice to be lied to.
“Rey…” Finn started, but before he could get anything else out, an explosion in the lounge startled both of them. Rey pointed to a floor grate that was gushing steam, and they rushed over to pull it free.
Rey leaped below to check things out, leaving Finn alone with BB-8 to wonder what had happened.
A few seconds later, Rey’s head popped back up. She had a panicked look on her face. “It’s the motivator. Grab me a Harris wrench, it’s in there.” She pointed to a storage box behind him.
Finn had no clue what a motivator was. Or a Harris wrench, for that matter. “How bad is it?” he asked as he searched through the various tools.
Her answer wasn’t promising. “If we want to live, not good.”
Finn grew anxious. “They’re hunting us now and we’ve got to get out of this system!”
“Beebee-Ate said the location of the Resistance base is ‘need to know,’” Rey replied. “If I’m taking you there, I need to know!”
Finn tossed the wrench he had found to Rey and then motioned for the little droid to roll toward him. If he could convince BB-8 to tell them where the base was, they’d all be safe from the First Order. And Poe’s mission to get the map to the Resistance would be complete. All he needed to do was get the little droid to cooperate.
“You gotta tell us where your base is,” he pleaded.
BB-8 shook his head and beeped at Finn accusingly.
Finn looked at the droid blankly. “I don’t speak that.”
He might not have understood what BB-8 said, but he knew it wasn’t good. However, this was their only chance at survival. Finn was going to have to be completely honest with the little droid.
“All right, between us, I’m not with the Resistance, okay?”
BB-8 rolled back from Finn, clearly offended and skeptical.
“I’m just trying to get away from the First Order,” Finn continued. “But you tell us where your base is, I’ll get you there first. Deal?”
BB-8 tilted his head to the side, as though weighing his options.
“Droid, please!” Finn begged.
Just then, Rey’s head appeared again from the floor. “Pilex driver, hurry!”
Finn went back to the box of tools. Pilex driver?
“So where’s your base?” asked Rey.
Finn gave the droid a desperate look over his shoulder. “Go on, Beebee-Ate, tell her.”
BB-8 looked back and forth from Finn to Rey. Back and forth. Back and forth. The moment felt like an eternity.
“Please!” Finn whispered to the droid.
Finally, BB-8 issued a series of beeps toward Rey.
“The Ileenium system?” Rey looked confused.
“Yeah, the Ileenium system, that’s the one. Get us there as fast as you can.”
Finn played along as he tossed her the tool she needed.
Rey returned to her work, and Finn turned to smile at the droid, giving him a thumbs-up. The droid, using a welding torch, returned the gesture.
“I’ll drop you two at Ponemah Terminal. I need the bonding tape, hurry!” said Rey.
“What about you?” Finn asked as he searched for the tape.
“I gotta get back to Jakku,” Rey replied as though that were the most obvious fact in the galaxy.
“Back to Jak—why does everyone want to go back to Jakku? That place is—”
But Rey cut him off. Finn was having zero luck finding the bonding tape and she had needed it two minutes prior.
“It’s not that one. No. No. The one I’m pointing to,” Rey instructed as Finn fumbled with various spools of tape.
“No. No. No! If we don’t patch this up, the propulsion tank will overflow and flood the ship with poisonous gas!” Rey exclaimed.
BB-8 needed to intervene. He rolled over and inclined his head directly above the spool of yellow tape Rey was pointing to.
“This?” Finn asked, picking up the tape.
“Yes.” Rey breathed a sigh of relief as Finn tossed it to her, and she got back to work.
Finn still didn’t understand why Rey would want to go back to Jakku, of all planets. He inched over to where Rey was working down below.
“Hey, Rey, you’re a pilot. You can fly anywhere. Why go back?” Finn asked. “You got a family? Got a boyfriend? A cute boyfriend?” he added quickly.
“None of your business, that’s why,” Rey said sharply.
Just then, the lights inside the ship shut off and Finn felt the engines power down.
“That can’t be good,” Finn whispered.
“No, it can’t be,” Rey agreed as they ran toward the cockpit. Rey climbed into the pilot’s chair, toggled a couple of switches, and then sat back in frustration.
“Someone’s locked on to us,” she said. “All controls are overridden.”
An odd mechanical noise reverberated through the ship. It sounded as though it came from above them.
Finn climbed up onto the copilot’s seat to
look out the window, pressing his hand on top of Rey’s head to steady himself.
“Get off,” Rey grumbled. “Get off!”
But Finn was too terrified to take any notice. Bathed in red light, all he could see was the outline of a massive ship swallowing them into its hangar bay.
He sagged back in his seat, stunned. “It’s the First Order,” he whispered.
“What do we do?” Rey asked. “There must be something.”
If only they hadn’t been distracted by the repairs, they might have been able to make a jump to lightspeed.
The repairs! The propulsion tank! Finn knew what they could do.
“You said poisonous gas…” Finn prompted.
“I fixed that!” Rey snapped.
“Can you unfix it?”
Rey stared at Finn for a second, but she quickly understood his plan. They could flood the ship with poisonous gas, taking out any stormtroopers who tried to board. They rushed back to the lounge and grabbed some gas masks. Finn climbed below the floor grating.
“Come on, Beebee-Ate.” Rey encouraged him as she led the droid to where Finn was standing.
“I got him,” Finn said as he pulled the droid into the space below. But the little guy was much heavier than Finn had expected and nearly knocked the wind out of him.
“I’m okay,” Finn exhaled. “Beebee-Ate, get off me.”
BB-8 burbled to himself as Rey dropped in and pulled the grate over their hiding space. Then Rey started fiddling with some wires. “Do you think this will work on the stormtroopers?” she asked.
“Yeah, their masks filter out smoke. Not toxins,” Finn answered, realizing that he sounded a bit too knowledgeable on the subject.
She was still working when they heard the heavy blast door of the ship open above them. Then there were footfalls. But they didn’t sound to Finn like the heavy boots of stormtroopers.
Either way, they had run out of time. Someone or something ripped away the grate above them. They were trapped.
FINN AND REY were surprised to see an older man and a Wookiee standing above them. Where were the stormtroopers?
“Where are the others? Where’s the pilot?” the man asked.
“I’m the pilot,” Rey replied, still wearing her breathing apparatus.
The man looked at her unbelievingly. “You?” The Wookiee roared.
“No, it’s true!” Rey answered the Wookiee. “We’re the only ones on board.”
“You can understand that thing?” Finn asked, surprised.
The man snorted. “And ‘that thing’ can understand you, too, so watch it.
“Come on out of there,” he said, lowering his blaster and gesturing to them to climb out of the hole. “Where’d you get this ship?”
“Niima Outpost,” answered Rey.
“Jakku?” The man sounded surprised. “That junkyard?”
“Thank you!” Finn exclaimed, giving Rey a glance. “Junkyard.”
The man turned to the Wookiee. “Told you we should’ve double-checked the Western Reaches. Who had it, Ducain?”
“I stole it,” Rey blurted out. “From Unkar Plutt. He stole it from the Irving Boys, who stole it from Ducain.”
“Who stole it from me!” the man added angrily. “Well, you tell him that Han Solo just stole back the Millennium Falcon…for good.”
Rey was in awe. “This is the Millennium Falcon? You’re Han Solo?”
“I used to be,” Han answered, wandering down the corridors of his old ship.
“Han Solo the Rebellion general?” Finn asked.
Rey looked at Finn as if he were insane. “No, the smuggler!” she said, correcting him.
Finn turned to the Wookiee. Surely that guy would have an answer. “Wasn’t he a war hero?”
But the Wookiee just shrugged.
Rey was still starstruck. “This is the ship that made the Kessel Run in fourteen parsecs!”
“Twelve,” Han boomed. He had walked through the ship and was returning to confront Rey and Finn.
“Hey, some moof-milker put a compressor on the ignition line.”
“Unkar Plutt did,” said Rey. “I thought it was a mistake, too. Puts too much stress on the—”
“Hyperdrive.” Han finished her sentence with her.
He seemed a little impressed by Rey’s knowledge, but that obviously wasn’t going to stop him from kicking them off his ship. “Chewie, throw them in a pod. We’ll drop them at the nearest inhabited planet,” Han ordered as he walked off.
“Wait! No!” Rey cried, following close behind. “We need your help.”
“My help?” Han clearly did not like the taste those words left in his mouth.
“This droid has to get to the Resistance base as soon as possible!” explained Rey.
“He’s carrying a map to Luke Skywalker,” Finn chimed in, close at their heels.
Han froze in his tracks. He turned, his face somber. Finn hadn’t meant to cause the old man pain, but Han needed to know how important this was.
“You are the Han Solo that fought with the Rebellion,” said Finn. “You knew him.”
Han nodded ever so slightly. “Yeah, I knew him. I knew Luke.”
They were all silent for a moment, but the silence was broken by a distant metallic ka-chunk outside the Millennium Falcon.
Han looked exasperated. “Don’t tell me a rathtar’s gotten loose,” he said, rushing off the Falcon into what Finn now recognized as an enormous commercial freighter. Chewie, Finn, Rey, and BB-8 followed at his heels
“Wait, what? Did you just say ‘rathtars’?” Finn exclaimed. “Hey! You’re not hauling rathtars on this freighter, are you?”
Han nodded. “I’m hauling rathtars,” he said as he activated a panel of screens that showed different images from around the ship. One of the screens showed a transport vessel docking with their ship.
“Oh, great! It’s the Guavian Death Gang, must have tracked us from Nantoon,” Han said.
Rey looked at Han and Finn. “What’s a rathtar?”
Han walked down a long narrow hallway lined with cargo containers as he explained. “They’re big and dangerous. I got three of them going to King Prana.”
Finn went weak in the knees. “Three! How did you get them on board?”
Han sighed. “Used to have a bigger crew,” he admitted before opening a hatch in the floor for them to hide under. “Get below and stay there until I say so. And don’t even think about taking the Falcon.”
“What about Beebee-Ate?” Rey asked.
“He stays with me until I get rid of the gang, then you can have him back and be on your way.”
“What about the rathtars, where are you keeping ’em?” Finn asked just as a terrifying THWACK answered him. A slimy, thick tentacle had hit the window of a cargo container behind them.
“There’s one,” Han said as Finn backed away and started scrambling down through the open hatch.
Rey looked concerned about Han, but Finn was concerned about them.
“What are you going to do?” Rey asked.
Han just smiled. “Same thing I always do, talk my way out of it.”
Chewie let out a moan of disagreement.
“Yes I do,” Han replied. “Every time.”
Finn didn’t know which one of them was right, but at least someone had a plan.
FINN AND REY were jammed together under the floor of a ship once more. Finn could hear Han trying to negotiate his way out of his predicament. But things weren’t going well for the smuggler.
“Han Solo, you’re a dead man,” said the Guavian Death Gang’s leader, Bala-Tik.
That silver tongue Han had boasted of earlier didn’t seem to be working. Beside Finn, Rey was getting antsy, and she crawled quietly through the space to see exactly what Han and Chewie were up against.
Through the grated floor of the ship, Finn and Rey could see six gang members, all wearing red-and-black armored suits and carrying blasters.
As Han was trying to placate them, a
second band docked with the ship and trapped Han, Chewbacca, and BB-8 in the middle of the corridor.
Rey wanted to see the new arrivals as well, so they crawled under the floor until they were near what Han was calling the Kanjiklub Gang. To her dismay, they were also heavily armed. The gang’s leader, Tasu Leech, spoke in a language Finn couldn’t understand.
“Your game is old,” Bala-Tik said. “There’s no one in the galaxy left for you to swindle.” He glanced at BB-8, who was hiding behind Han’s legs.
“That BB unit,” said Bala-Tik. “The First Order is looking for one just like it…and two fugitives.”
Finn and Rey froze, neither one daring to breathe.
They heard Han lie: “First I’ve heard of it.”
Finn and Rey could hear the gang members starting to search the ship. They needed to move. But as they crawled under the floor, Rey stopped near a set of fuses.
“If we close the blast doors in that corridor, we can trap both groups!” Rey whispered.
“Close the blast doors?” Finn asked. “From here?”
“Resetting the fuses should do it,” Rey said as she pushed various controls.
All of a sudden, the lights went out, a series of doors opened, and ghastly roars echoed through the ship.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Han said above Rey and Finn.
“Oh, no,” said Rey.
“What?” Finn didn’t understand.
“Wrong fuses,” Rey answered.
Above them, utter chaos erupted as three angry rathtars broke loose onto the already tense scene.
“Kill them!” they heard Bala-Tik shout. “And take the droid.”
Rey and Finn began a headlong crawl back to the landing bay. Above them, Finn could hear telltale sounds of a firefight. He hoped Han, Chewie, and BB-8 could make it back to the Falcon, but at that moment, Finn and Rey were the only ones without weapons on board a ship filled with rathtars and gang members.
“This was a mistake!” Finn yelled.
“Huge!” Rey agreed.
The two scrambled up through an unlocked hatch and began running down corridors, looking for a way back to the landing bay while keeping an eye out for rathtars.
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