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chapter fifty: one man revolution
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AS THE TRANSPORTS draw closer to Crait's surface, Indira can see the mineral planet's landscape beginning to come into view. At first, it seems to be covered in snowy plains that are streaked with lines of red and intersected by ribbons of blue water. Tall, thin mountain ranges border the plains, giving the ground below a cold and uninviting appearance. In an odd way, it reminds Indira of Starkiller base. The memory of just how cold it had been there makes her shiver slightly and she jams her hands into her pockets out of reflex to keep them warm.

     As if sensing her discomfort, Leia approaches and sets a hand on Indira's shoulder. Indira shoots her aunt a fleeting smile before looking outside once more. The two of them stand together, taking in the new scenery in solemn silence, until they are joined by a third presence.

"We're not equipped for cold weather," Poe murmurs anxiously, brow furrowed and mouth tense.

"We don't need to be," Leia reassures him. "That isn't snow. It's salt."

Indira squints at the planet's surface. "Really?"

Her aunt nods knowingly. "Yes," she says. "But don't feel too bad. You aren't the first ones to have been fooled by Crait's appearance."

     Poe gives her a curious glance. "You've been here before," he correctly assumes.

"When I was young," the general confirms. "You know, back before the hyperdrive was invented."

     That manages to win reluctant smirks from both Indira and Poe, which makes Leia smile. She watches with a fond twinkle in her eye as the two young people roll their eyes at her.

      "It was a mining colony once," she tells them, once her joke has worn off. "Abandoned because of a labor dispute that ate into the profit margins. The mining company built a shelter with blast doors to guard against crystal storms. That was what caught my father's eye, back when he was putting the Rebellion together. His techs added a shield against orbital bombardment, but the real work had already been done."

     As Leia speaks of the old Rebellion days, Poe's eyes light up and he leans in closer, listening intently. Any information he could get his hands on about the Alliance and their struggle against the Empire was enough to hold his attention for hours. He was always hungry to learn more about the Resistance's predecessors — the ones who had fought the same fight against their own oppressors; the ones who had won.

     "So there was a rebel base here?" He asks.

     Leia shakes her head. "No," she says. "The Alliance didn't exist yet. By the time it did, the Empire had changed its patrols, and my father worried that ship traffic in the area would be detected. We considered Crait as a new principle base after Yavin — did a survey and even brought some equipment ... but there were some complications."

      Indira raises an eyebrow. "Complications?"

     Her aunt gives her an amused look. "A story for another day," she replies. "The coordinates for the base went into my files after the peace treaty with the Empire. Files that I kept for myself, just in case."

     "Well, I suppose this qualifies as just in case," Poe muses.

     She nods gravely. "I suppose it does," Leia agrees, pulling her comm link out. "Now, let's hope the codes for the blast door still work — or else we're going to look very foolish camped out on the front doorstep when the First Order arrives."

     As the transports grow nearer to the hidden base, Indira sees Leia mutter something into her comm link just before they make their landing approach. Shortly after, the large blast door rolls back to reveal the base's inner workings. The ships glide in through the door without issue, touching down seamlessly inside the darkened, gloomy hangar.

Slowly, the remaining members of the Resistance exit their transports. Indira finds the shift from spacecraft to terra to be a bit disorienting. Her knees feel like jelly as she takes her first steps on solid ground for the first time in what feels like years, but in actuality had only been a few days. Still, she has to exercise extreme self-control to keep herself from falling to her knees in gratitude and feeling the earth beneath her hands.

       As the last few troopers leave their ships, the first proximity alarm is raised. Indira frowns as she watches Leia hurry towards the blast door to peer out of the darkness of their hideout into the vast expanse of salted earth. From her place inside the shelter, Indira can just barely see the dotted outlines of ships approaching in the distance. The First Order was hot on their heels.

      "They're coming," Leia announces grimly. "Shut the door."

STEFAN NAKADA WAKES up slowly, at first, then all at once. He's aware of two things immediately: his whole entire body hurts and someone is tugging on his shoe. Well, more specifically, they are tugging on his ankle and dragging him across some sort of solid surface. The pilot forces his eyes open, half-heartedly kicking away whoever is dragging him, and discovers that the world around him is on fire. He blinks once, twice, three times before letting out a raspy cough to clear the smoke in his lungs.

     "Rose?" He croaks once he can finally speak.

       The technician drops to the ground beside him. "Stefan!" She cries, grabbing him by the collar of his uniform to hoist him to his feet. "There's a shuttle back that way. We've gotta go!"

      "Wha —" Stefan shakes his head in confusion. He'd thought he was dead. The last thing he remembered before waking was Phasma's execution order and a blinding white light. None of his current surroundings made any sense. "Where's Calrissian?"

      She shrugs helplessly. "I don't know. I looked for him, but I couldn't find him."

       "Shit," Stefan mutters, leaning heavily on her shoulder as they limp towards the shuttle. "Shit, shit, shit."

      "HEY, WAIT UP!" A familiar male voice shouts. "STEFAN! ROSE!"

      They both stop in their tracks, turning to look over their shoulders at whoever is calling. In the distance, a battered and bruised Finn limps towards them. He waves an arm in the air at them and Stefan feels his heart start to pound before he smiles and waves back.

      "Where the hell have you been, Finn?" He shouts, cupping his hands over his mouth.

       "I found Rey," Finn explains as he closes the distance between them. "Or, well, technically speaking, Rey found me. Actually, we sort of found each other — on second thought, you know what? It doesn't matter. But, she has the Falcon in the secondary hangar. We have to get down there —"

His words die off as the sound of heavy footsteps overpower his voice. From the smoking rubble of the hangar, a squad of armor clad figures emerge. At the head of their group is Captain Phasma, leading the charge as usual. When the chrome plated soldier sets her eyes on Finn and Stefan, an enraged growl escapes her lips.

"Traitors!" She screams, raising her rifle to fire at them.

Out of pure instinct, Stefan closes his eyes and braces for impact. The pilot flinches when he hears the sound of aggressive gunfire. His eyes remain tightly shut for several seconds before he realizes that none of the blaster bolts have hit him. Hesitantly, Stefan cracks his eyes open before his jaw drops in disbelief at the sight of BB-8 piloting an AT-ST walker. The astromech droid fires the guns of the two-legged killing machine again, forcing Phasma and her goons to back off.

"What the hell?" Stefan demands, watching in complete and utter disbelief.

He stands frozen to the spot, gaping at the normally amicable droid's sudden violent streak, before Rose grabs his hand and pulls him away. They run as fast as they can, sprinting for the shuttle with Finn right behind them, until a violent tremor rocks the ship and opens a fissure in the hangar deck.

     "No!" Rose cries out as the trench separates her and Stefan from Finn, Phasma, and her troopers. "Finn!"

      Finn looks at them helplessly from across the void before forcing a brave expression onto his face. "Go!" He shouts. "Get out of here!"

      "No, not without you," Stefan yells back, determined.

     Finn looks as if he wants to argue, but is unable to respond when Captain Phasma attacks him from behind. The commander and her former soldier engage in a heated battle, yelling and trading insults while the remaining stormtroopers watch them duel from the sidelines.

     "Disrespectful, disobedient traitor," Phasma snarls.

     Finn bares his teeth at her. "You call for order," he shouts; voice faint from the other side of the fissure. "You beat us down." He gestures to the other troopers. "But when your shiny neck was threatened on Starkiller base, you squealed like a whoop-hog!"

     "We have to help him," Rose says anxiously, grabbing Stefan's arm. "He's completely outnumbered. The troopers —"

     "No, wait a minute," Stefan hushes, holding up a hand.

      The pilot's brow furrows as he watches Finn continue speaking. As the other man drops his voice lower, it becomes impossible for Stefan and Rose to hear his words, but Finn's impact is visible even from a distance. Phasma's soldiers waver. Their guns drop. Whatever Finn is saying, it's working. For a moment, just one moment, the veil is torn back from their eyes as he makes them see the real, ugly truth hidden behind the First Order. For a moment, Finn is the leader of a one man revolution.

     Stefan feels the tiniest bit awestruck, observing the scene as it unfolds with widened eyes, until the illusion abruptly breaks and shatters. Before the troopers can react, Phasma shoots and executes four perfect kill shots, eliminating the soldiers Finn had been so close to swaying to his side. With an enraged shout, Finn rushes at her and before he is knocked to the ground. Rose gasps and tugs on Stefan's arm again, causing the pilot to nod furiously.

     "Okay," he agrees. "Now we help."

     He sprints towards the abandoned shuttle, boarding the vessel as quickly as he can before throwing himself into the pilot's chair. Stefan forces the ship into gear, taking off immediately after Rose buckles herself into the shotgun seat. Behind them, BB-8 rolls into the front cabin and lets out a string of frantic beeps.

     "I know, I know," Stefan replies, feeling stressed. "I'm doing my best!"

     The pilot flies the ship through the hangar, spotting Finn and Phasma near the edge of the chasm. As he swoops in low to get closer, Finn fires off a weapon that sends Phasma tumbling over the edge of the chasm to her doom.

      The ship touches down a few feet away from where Finn is still standing, allowing him to board the vessel quickly. Around them, the hangar is beginning to disintegrate; a sign that it was high time for them to leave. As Rose sets a course into the navigation system, Stefan forces the ship out of the collapsing structure. Just as they clear the wreckage of the Supremacy, Finn comes stumbling into the cockpit with a worried expression.

     "Rey," he says, sounding distressed. "I never found Rey!"

     "I'm sure Rey is fine," Stefan tries to reassure him. "She probably escaped on her own before the hangar collapsed."

     Finn shakes his head quickly. "Not if she was waiting for us to find her," he replies tersely. "What if she was hurt? What if she didn't make it out —"

     "Don't do that to yourself," Rose interrupts, her hand drifting to the necklace around her neck absentmindedly. "Don't think like that, Finn. Rey will be fine. She'll follow Leia's beacon back to the Resistance and you'll see her again."

Finn collapses into one of the remaining seats in the cabin, feeling sick to his stomach as he looks out the window of the ship to the dark expanse of space.

Rey, he thinks mournfully. Where are you, Rey?

Little does he know, the Millennium Falcon was also soaring away from the wreckage of the Supremacy at that very moment. Rey sits at the controls of the freighter, piloting the ship as if it is in her blood to fly it. In the back of the vessel, she hears Chewbacca fussing loudly over the new addition to their crew — an unconscious elderly man that the Wookiee had recognized and picked up during his brief stint onboard the Supremacy. Rey hadn't known who the man was, but Chewbacca had insisted he was a friend of Han and Leia's and refused to leave the ship without him.

As Rey steers the ship, following the beacon Leia had given her, she feels a familiar consciousness brush against her own. The sensation feels like warmth and comfort; a stark contrast to her cold and unsettling Force encounters with Ren.

Finn, she thinks back. I'm alright. We will see each other again.

THE PROXIMITY ALARMS blare louder and louder as the enemy ships grow closer in the distance. Poe Dameron watches from the center of the hangar as a Xi-class light shuttle pulls away from a squadron of stray TIE fighters, speeding towards the half-open blast door at an alarming velocity. "Go, go, move!" The pilot shouts, ordering people away from the doors and herding them further into the base. "Get that shield door down and take cover!"

     "Poe!" A woman's voice cries out.

     He turns quickly to find Indira standing a few feet away. "What are you doing?" He asks. "You should be —"

     "That shuttle isn't slowing down," she warns him, "and it's moving a hell of a lot faster than those doors. It's coming in."

     Poe glances outside, watching as the craft pulls further away from the TIEs. Indira was right; the door wasn't closing fast enough and — with the ship's current acceleration rate — it would most likely be able to slip through the open space and force its way into their base.

     "Oh, hell," he mutters under his breath, scrubbing a hand over his face before cupping his hands over his mouth to yell. "Move it, people! Get out of the way! That ship is coming in here, whether we like it or not! Soldiers, find cover and have your weapons at the ready to engage with any hostiles that exit from that shuttle. Everyone else, get as far away from the door as you possibly can!" He pauses and looks at Indira. "That includes you, Beren."

     The technician purses her lips and stares at him impassively for several seconds before she picks up a spare rifle from the ground. Indira pumps the handgrip, forcing the weapon to eject the old cartridge of ammunition before she snaps the weapon back together and cocks it.

     "I'm staying," she replies with finality.

     Indira raises a brow at him, as if she is daring him to challenge her, but he doesn't. Instead, Poe just nods before looking back towards the door at the swiftly approaching ship. "Okay," he agrees. "But we both really need to take cover right now."

     He grabs her by the wrist and pulls her behind a heavy stack of crates just as the shuttle comes crashing into the blast door. Poe shields her body with his own, making sure Indira is covered from any stray debris. The top of the shuttle is sheared off instantly, leaving the vessel in a decapitated state. It slides through the hangar in a shower of sparks before skidding to a stop with an earsplitting screech.

     As soon as he deems it safe, Poe stands back from Indira and takes a few steps away. Without wasting another second, General Leia Organa steps forward from behind her shelter and opens fire on the ship. Immediately, Poe follows suit along with Indira and the other soldiers.

     Three pairs of hands emerge from the shattered window at the top of the shuttle, raised up in surrender as their owners yell frantically. "Don't shoot!" A familiar male voice shouts from inside a ship. "It's us!"

     Poe raises a hand. "Hold your fire," he orders. "Hold your fire!"

     As the shooting comes to a stop, three frightened heads poke out of the top of the ship. Poe squints in disbelief as he takes in their faces; his mind barely able to process what his eyes are seeing.

     "Finn?" Leia Organa asks, daring to speak the words Poe wouldn't.

     "Finn!" Poe cries after she says it, relieved to know that his mind wasn't playing tricks on him after all. "Stefan, Rose! You're not dead!" The pilot's eyes widen as another thought rises to the forefront of his mind. "Where's my droid?"

     Immediately, the bottom hatch of the ship flies open and BB-8 comes rolling down the ramp like hell on wheels. Poe drops to his knees, tossing his gun aside to enthusiastically rub the droid's round belly.

     "Buddy!" He exclaims, pressing his head to BB-8's dome as the astromech chimes energetically. "I'm so glad to see you!"

     For a moment, things don't seem nearly as dismal as they had before. BB-8 is back in one piece. Finn, Rose, and Stefan are alive. In spite of everything, those small mercies feel like tremendous victories to Poe. Hope swells inside of him and he nods intently as BB-8 relays his crazy adventure back to Poe through an intense series of bells and whistles. However, when the pilot catches sight of Finn, Rose, and Stefan's crestfallen expressions as they take in the sight of their scarce numbers, he sobers up quickly.

     Rose looks aghast. "Is this all that's left?"

     Poe swallows thickly. Out of the four hundred people who had survived the initial evacuation of D'Qar, there were now less than a hundred left. Poe wishes that he could say something comforting in response to Rose's devastating revelation, but he can't.

     All he can do is nod his head.

a/n: for those who aren't aware ... finn's scene with phasma is an actual deleted scene from tlj. don't know why r*an decided to cut it from the movie, but finn deserves better!

EDITED ON:
11.12.19