Two years prior

The fury of the stars was falling out of the sky.

Commander Marana Hux was completely out of control. The thrusters of enemy ships bled into a frenzy of lines, the cockpit reeked of fuel and smoke and sulfur. Her dashboard, viewscreens, every part of her console was flashing red as her TIE fighter spun downwards, the ship screaming at her its need to be saved and the machine's inability to do so. Every maneuver attempted was futile.

The commander yanked her on her joystick, the fighter spinning off-kilter and plunging down despite her protests. Her comms-the one thing that should have been shrieking in her ear, the one thing that should have been yelling over the rest of the chaos, were empty static.

"Axis!" The desperate cry flew out of her throat as Mara's stomach dropped, "Zipper! My left engine is down-"

A valve ruptured behind her seat. White vapor poured into the cockpit, the hissing cutting off any chance to be heard. Mara's vision was obscuring, her sensors absolutely unusable. Hell- her engine wasn't offline, it was gone.

Heat, vapor, ear-splitting sounds of her TIE's dying controls. Mara was sputtering out curses in between violent coughs as she tried to have any control respond.

She would have seen the missile coming, those X-wings weren't equipped with anything in their arsenal to blow her wing clean off, it didn't make sense. Not even her thrusters were responding. There had been no X-wing behind her, she would have seen the missile coming.

"Mayday, day, Finalizer respond!"

Her head was spinning, her body was spinning. The iron taste of blood leaked onto her lips. Debris flew off the hull. The ship was whirling out of her control and hurtling towards the planet's night-caped surface. Her Silencer twisted itself into a death spin, its menacing shrieks now a final plea.

Mara pulled on her trigger in one last attempt to have her ship do anything. Bolts shot out on the other side of the transparsteel. Her canons were online.

Sparks and fumes flooded her senses. Every alarm blared. The commander jerked her joystick about and her fighter wildly flung itself away from the ground rapidly approaching to give her a clear view of the sky . Her end was inescapable. All of Mara's attention could go to was who she could take with her.

Moonlight glinted off the black T-70 X-wing for a fraction of a second.

The targeting computer was a mess of fractured pixels. No use, just good old-fashioned guesswork that made her the pilot she was. There was no strategy left, just guts.

Mara's hands gripped the trigger- one, two, three, a flurry of shots arcing through the dark. She didn't see if they found their mark before she wrenched the eject handle up.

Ratakka, four miles outside abandoned First Order base

Light flooded through her cracked lens and the back of her eyes burned. Her helmet bored into her face, a stiff muscle in her neck protesting any movement of her head. With one motion to position herself upright, a violent ache ran up her spine and she groaned. Maker and stars above, everything hurt.

Where was Axis? Where was Zipper?

The woman didn't know how long she'd been unconscious in that position, but the telltale cramps in her back and neck indicated it had been some time. She finally sat up with a wince at the pangs of pain running across her back. She went to move her hands and was met with resistance. They were bound behind her.

"Goddamnit." Mara rasped out through a broken modulator, coming to the conclusion she was being kept prisoner when the binders didn't budge, locking her arms at her sides.

"You're awake. Great. You snore really loud."

The broken lens wouldn't allow her to view the new environment around her at all, let alone the face of the person talking. It wasn't the voice of any First Order pilots she flew with. Human male? Didn't matter, she decided she hated whoever the speaker was already. Who just ties up a poor, innocent stranded pilot?

"And who the hell are you?" She choked out, her voice distorted by her helmet's damaged modulator. The restraints holding her hands in place had to be some type of metal and were tight enough to make her teeth grit. They were created to cut into her wrists. Asshole.

"Someone who's not going to tell you their name," He answered in a lively tone that did not fit their current setting, "Until you tell me yours."

Mara remained quiet. Where was she? Why wasn't she in her TIE? Where were her squadmates?

She struggled against her restraints while she recollected what had happened. Her squadron's death. The quick shot she pulled off that found its mark. The crash. A fire. Crawling towards a small cave carved into the mountain of red rock.

Wonderful, one of the natives has me. Just my luck.

No avail came from trying to break the binders by pure force of will. Luckily, an old trick that served her well from her planet-hopping days came to mind. Mara sucked in a quick breath before twisting her thumb just the right way. A flash of fleeting pain, extra pressure applied where it needed to be; her hand slid out. The raw wounds on her left wrist stung from the exposure to air, but she ignored it to immediately take off her helmet. Finally, sight was restored.

The cave was dark save a frail emergency light trying to fight the shadows in the middle of the room. The ceiling was only a few feet above her head, the walls jagged and coarse. No way to stand up, no feasible exit. She felt more cramped than before when she couldn't observe her surroundings.

"Damn, that was fast. How'd you get out?"

The voice came from her left side. The man's figure was mostly covered in shadow. The first thing she noticed was the banged-up boots that'd seen better days. The second was the tied orange jumpsuit around his waist and she realized how deep in trouble she really was.

My whole squadron's gone and a Resistance member just tied me up.

She blinked somewhat at the man's question, then held up her left hand, "Double-jointed thumbs."

She couldn't see really his expression in the dark, only heard, "Huh."

I'm stuck in a cave with a Resistance pilot who may have killed my squadron.

The weary shock she'd woke up in began to subside. Mara, now deciding she was done with useless small talk, felt her side for her blaster. Nothing there. He'd taken all her weapons. Dammit. Not only was she in a cave, but with a Resistance member who had half a brain and seemed to want her as a hostage.

With wrists still raw from the bindings, she searched her surroundings for any object that might be of use against him. She didn't have too many choices and in a mad rush to catch him off guard, she decided to chuck her helmet at the stranger.

"Ow!"

Without further warning, Mara attacked. Lunging forward the few feet between them, she reached for her blaster and knife right beside him, but a grip on her wrist stopped her.

She finally caught a glimpse of her captor's face, which was covered in dirt and dried blood. Dark brown eyes glared at her blue, but what caught her attention was the fact that most of his facial features were littered with bruises and cuts. His crash must've been far worse than hers by the shape he was in. This didn't inspire any pity for his cause on her part.

The man tightened his grip on her wrist while slowly muttering, "I wouldn't do that again if I were you-"

Mara cut him off with a right uppercut to the jaw, wrenching out of his grasp, "Good thing I'm not you."

Her vibro-knife was within reach. She tried to react faster than her opponent to grab it and in her mad scramble to do so, somehow managed to haphazardly kick out her leg and knock the emergency lantern out of place. The shadows shifted, the light illuminating where the weapon was vanished, and the woman fumbled in the dark to feel out for a blade, a blaster, a goddamn rock to throw at the guy, anything that would give her an advantage.

Somewhere in the darkness, a hand tightened around her shoulder. Without any more warning than that, Mara was violently yanked back. She shot out an elbow behind her and hit the man's form hard enough to produce an aggravated grunt, so she rammed her arm back against him again. Ribs. All she had to do was focus on cracking a few ribs-

The artificial light was battered over again- by her or him, she didn't know- when the enemy pilot simultaneously let go of her shoulder and rolled out from under her. Mara fell back against the hard rock, the straight shot of pain exploding from the back of her bruised head not helping her confusion but certainly spurring on her spite.

He can't get a gun. All she could make out was the back of a figure before she shot up, wrenching him back from the other side of the cave by hooking her forearm under his jaw and shifting her weight back. A hand went to pull at the restraint but she secured the hold around his neck by clutching her right wrist. He strained against her grip. Mara seethed through her teeth while tensing her muscles to keep him in place.

"I should have-" The stranger managed out a comment through his strangulation, still putting a notable effort to try and pry her arm off of his neck with one hand, "I should have led with 'I'm not gonna kill you.'"

He was going to get free eventually. She flung her left arm out and felt the ground for the blade, "Yeah, I'm gonna make sure you don't."

The hilt was cool under her touch when she seized it. Mara's instinctual plan was to plunge the knife into some important artery, but he tore her arm away from his neck first. A glint of light bounced off the barrel of a blaster as he turned back to face her.

Of course, this guy had a gun the whole time.

The hit went into her arm and her blade only nicked his leg as she fell back. The knife was taken from her and she was forced back into her previous spot by a stiff kick.

Mara suppressed a scream, knocking her head back against the rock wall and yelling out, "What the hell was that for?!"

"What do you mean 'What was that for'? You threw your helmet at me and tried to stab me."

"I didn't shoot you!"

"It's only a flesh wound." The man defended himself between bated breaths, rubbing the side of his neck, "Stay on that side and it won't happen again-"

Not a second passed after her outcry and the woman had ripped off a device on her life support vest with her available hand. With an aggravated groan, she flung it in his general direction and was satisfied when it struck him across the temple. The man's features twisted at the pain of the metal's impact, but his aim never deviated from her chest.

"Stop throwing things or this'll end this quick."

The barrel of the gun pointed at her crumpled form and the burning wound on her bicep were the convincing factors. She relented, swallowing thickly and spitting out, "Kriffing sculag."

He returned the slight with more mockery than malice, "Helmet-throwing fascist."

It sounded like how someone would scold a child. Mara huffed out a sneer but didn't rush at him again just yet. He wasn't trying to kill her or had decided against doing so for the time being. To save herself from a gaping hole in her chest, she managed to rein in an ounce of self-control if only to assess the true extent of how supremely screwed she was.

The woman went to examine her arm carefully. Pulling back the burnt fabric of her black flight suit, she cringed at the sight of her wound that had already begun to blister. No bones had been hit, just her skin singed off. But oh, it stung.

She clenched her teeth in pain while glancing around the area for some kind of emergency kit. The man kept his blaster trained on her as Mara shifted forward, grabbing the small light from the middle of the enclosure and shining it around.

The red bedrock encased them like a tomb. The cave itself was barely four feet tall and allowed them no room to stand or even stretch. The ceiling above looked like a jagged painting, all kinds of muted reds and oranges that bled together throughout the eroded sediment. The wall to their left offered no other way out. The right side was the problem.

A jumble of rubble and debris sealed off whatever entrance must have been there. Shattered tranparisteel made the rock glisten when the artificial light illuminated it, the only remnants left of the cracked screen of an X-wing cockpit. The chair and console were almost unrecognizable. Wires were strung every which way, the upholstery torn and shredded pieces strewn everywhere.

What interested her the most was the salvaged communication unit close to the man's side. The long-range commlink was easy enough to recognize and she had seen enough destroyed ones over the years to know when radio was beyond repair. That dented piece of junk was and evidently, this pilot had hoped to fix it to no avail.

To her knowledge, it appeared as though the enemy pilot couldn't send a distress signal. That scored one point in her favor. Mara 1, orange-wearing asshole 2.

Mara placed the light back in the middle of the cave with a loud sigh before facing the man in front of her once more, "So let me guess, you crashed into the cave I crawled into and trapped us both in here?"

He shrugged while keeping the blaster aimed at her chest, "Something like that. You shot me down at an angle so that my fighter would crash here. So, this is actually all your fault."

"Believe me, I didn't want to get stuck with a Resistance scum and no resources." She let malice flood her tone as she said the last words. The man immediately readjusted his posture and blatantly took offense.

"I wouldn't call the person who decided not to kill you 'scum'."

"Stupid move by the way." Mara commented frankly. She continued to look around her for anything useful and was met with little success.

"Do you really think I want to stay in a warm cave with a rotting body?" He watched the blonde while she shifted around, making it very evident he didn't trust her whatsoever, "You're more valuable alive. Until you try to kill me again."

"Maiming is not killing," She muttered and laid back down against the rock. Her arm felt as if it was on fire. Sure, the nerves where the actual blast had impacted were dead, but the skin around it was ablaze with pain. Then there was the sore back and a host of other inconvenient injuries.

"Right. Forgot. A stormtrooper couldn't kill something if it dropped half-dead right in front of them." He stated and Mara kept her jaw from dropping open.

She was beyond irritated with the enemy in front of her and exclaimed, "You actually think I'm a stormtrooper? Me? You have the IQ of a bantha!"

"You're wearing a stormtrooper's flight suit," He pointed to her torn outfit before gesturing to his crash, "Flying a TIE fighter, which a stormtrooper pilots, and are a solider for the First Order. Correct me if my deduction skills are wrong, but that kinda implies that you're a stormtrooper!"

She was offended. Yes, the First Order troopers weren't the most effective troops, even though she served among them. Their pilots were a fantastic exception. The men she worked with personally? Outstanding. The ground troops? Not so much. Perhaps she was just biased, favoring her aerial team over standard soldiers.

"I'm not a stormtrooper." She bit back, not furthering the conversation anymore.

This seemed to baffle the man. He cocked his head to the side, narrowing his eyes in something akin to disgust, "So you joined that fascist reboot voluntarily?"

Mara's gut twisted, knowing she had said something along the lines of his statement to her brother hours ago. Still, she snapped back quickly, "And you joined that little rebel cell voluntarily?"

"I joined the Resistance because of people like you who wanted to revive the Empire," He responded, his grasp on the weapon in his hand tightened, "And establish evil galactic domination all over again."

Mara folded her arms over her chest, then realized that was a bad idea due to the growing pain in her arm, "Everyone has a pastime."

"Killing innocent people is a very sick excuse for a hobby."

"So is spouting propaganda and pretending you're a good pilot."

"I don't need to pretend."

Geez, the misplaced confidence on this guy,"Hey talking-tacky-jumpsuit, read the damn room. Remember how you ended up here? You were gunned down. By me. Yeah, you're a real ace."

"And one shot from one of my pilots took you down. You really wanna keep score?" The man leaned forward, the vague annoyance he'd greeted her with becoming something more brazen, "Your entire squadron was gone before you went down and that base? Bombed to hell."

In her brief moments after waking up, her memory finally returned to the battle. Yes, her whole squadron was gone. The debris was scattered in the stars or littered across the planet's surface. They were all dead within twenty-four hours, either by her own side or the opposing.

A lone thought flashed to the forefront of her brain and set her teeth on edge- The stranger in front of her could have killed Axis or Zipper.

The burning sensation setting her arm alight fueled another sudden spark of anger. She could kill him. She could make another go for the blaster right now. Her head swam with fragmented recollections of the moments before she fell, trying to place if this individual pilot was to blame.

No, no. Not this one, not if this man was who Mara thought he was. He couldn't have gunned down either of her pilots if he'd crashed in the same spot as she did. Yet some Resistance fighter did and now all of four of the men she'd personally trained were dead.

Her tone still came back just as sharp when she decided not to attempt to murder the stranger again just yet, "You aren't looking too victorious though, are you?"

Axis and Zipper are dead. The whole squadron is dead. Suddenly, the anger towards her brother returned. He ordered her to leave one of her men behind, executed another because a second reconditioning wasn't an option, and threatened her because she was angry about their deaths. 

Mara's stomach churned with hunger and some kind of shame. Dead. Her men were dead.

 "I will be once we get out of here." The stranger stated, still maintaining his side's win. He went back to examining the trashed radio beside him. He looked back at her one more time, eyes bouncing across her form and surroundings to try and gauge if she'd attack him again. After a second, he dropped the blaster to his lap and started to splice two wires together.

"Get the hell out of here with your 'we'. There's no goddamn 'we' here," Mara corrected without hesitation and motioned to the comms unit, "and that thing isn't going to help us."

"Us?" He lifted an eyebrow at her own contradictory choice of words and she went back to contemplating murder.

She air-quoted with her available hand, "There is no 'we' in the sense of 'us' getting out of here. You're not going to contact your Resistance with whatever's left of that. Screaming for help might give you better chances of being heard outside of orbit."

The man lifted his shoulders to shrug, "Already tried that. Now I'm trying this out, and when I contact my Resistance, we're gonna take a nice trip back to my base.

Armitage would come, or the more likely reality, send a rescue unit out for her before then. He would have to. If not, she'd just have to stall the enemy until her brother did manage to find her, "Yeah, that's not gonna happen."

"What, are your people showing up first?" He posed the question Mara knew he would've eventually gotten around to asking, "Word around town is that the First Order doesn't come back for its lost guys. What, do they come back for officers?"

Her rank badge on her black flight suit was enough to out her as a superior officer. Her little speech about not being an average stormtrooper was just as incriminating. Avoiding the question was the obvious choice.

This guy wanted a hostage. He had spared her thinking she was some high-value flight commander he could squeeze information out of.  Oh, that was not how this was going to go down. 

Mara let her good hand move towards the mess of the ruined cockpit. Her hands grasped around a sheared-off piece of titanium alloy, the metal clinking against the mess she pulled it from. At the sound, the pilot immediately dropped the wires and had a blaster back in hand.

"Whoa whoa whoa, let's not do that again."

"Jumpy?" She poised, still grimacing at the burning sensation branding a new scar into her arm.

The stranger gave a tight grin that bore no sense of ease, "Just a little."

Mara kept a grip on the sharp object. She had been a hostage before, but not in places like this Force-forsaken cave in the middle of some Outer-Rim planet. Certainly not at the mercy of a Resistance member. "This isn't a prisoner situation."

The stranger's irritation grew, "You literally had cuffs on a minute ago. I'm actually pointing a gun at you right now."

"You have no backup, a busted comm unit, and your fighter's smashed into the side of a cliff!" Her temper flared, "You have no authority here. Zilch. None. Naasad"

"I'm trying to keep both of us alive right now!" He argued as their angered voices echoed off the bedrock, "Can you stop running your mouth and screaming for one minute-"

"Don't kriffing shoot somebody and expect them to be civil-"

He was coming to his wit's end, matching her raised tone, "Did you not try to stab me after I spared your life?!"

"For what? You're keeping me around for what!?" She yelled back, her voice cracking from dehydration, "So I can go get tortured in some half-rate cell for information?"

Mystery-Resistance man looked as if he was going to snap back, but bit down on his lip instead. He sucked in a tight breath as the cave fell back into an eerie silence at the break in their conflict. He raised on hand up in a mock surrender, lowering the pistol but not letting it go, "You're going to be asked a lot of questions in a very nice cell if we ever make it out of here. Or is the First Order gonna show up before that?"

Yes, Armitage would have the remaining squadrons sweeping the area for any life forms. She was surprised she hadn't heard the shrill scream of TIEs already doing passes. Dimly, she wondered if their scans could pick up her under the mass of rock. Would this planet's minerals interfere with their sensors? Is that why she was still here?

The question now was would they find this goddamn cave before the Resistance did-if the Resistance did. That's what she needed to know. If he was trying to fix that radio, chances were he wasn't too hopefully the little miltia they had would be coming back around to pick him up.

"I guess we'll see." She stated not relinquishing anything further.

Her brother would come and take great joy in humilating her for the complete failure of leadership she had displayed. Mara went into battle without a clear head. She was smart when it came to aerial warfare; her status as one of the best tacticians in the Order proved that. Instead, she was still mad. That cost her the rest of her pilots' lives. Their blood was on her hands just as much as it was Armitage's.

Now, she intended to go back and make it right. Once her brother came for her, which he would, they'd imprison or kill this Resistance fighter and she'd make amends for her squadron's deaths. Somehow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Why are you beating the wall with a rock?"

The man watched as Mara hit the wall opposite of the crash with a piece of the debris from the wreckage. The two had been quiet for a few hours and only exchanged glares from each side of the cave. Since then, Mara had begun hitting the cave with the rubble.

She grimaced in pain as her other arm continued to hurt, but continued to pound, "Because I will die without water. If you did research on Ratakka previously, then you would know there are natural water canals flowing through the cave rock. Other crevices in this mountain lead to the inside, which has pools. The water leaks through sometimes into hollow rock, which can be broken."

"So you're going beat against it until you get a stream of water?"

She looked over at him and sighed, "Did you not listen to anything I just said? Yes."

He shifted slightly to the right, and pointed beside him, "Like this drip that I forgot to mention?"

Sure enough, a crevice held a small stream of water. Only when she illuminated it with the light could it be seen. It was a sorry excuse for a water source, languid drips that only fell into a small tray every few seconds.

Mara shined the light directly into the man's face and sneered while he winced, "You could've told me earlier. I've been hitting this stupid wall for nothing!"

"Yes."

"You do realize that I'm in so much pain because you shot me?"

"Yes."

"When did you even find it?"

"While you were busy growling at a wall."

"You could've told me to stop!"

"But you looked so content growling at the wall."

Mara scowled as the man shrugged, then glanced at the tray while he continued to speak, "I honestly don't care what state you're in, as long as you can tell me as much information about the First Order as you can. Then I'll give you water."

Mara threw the rock back onto the pile while she sighed, probably for the millionth time since she'd ended up in this situation. Her throat had gotten increasingly drier as the minutes ticked by. A human could go two or three days without water, and the lightheadedness she experienced told her that she'd need some soon. The slow drips enticed her throat while her mind played with the idea of revealing anything to this man.

"Tell you what, I'll throw in a little extra if you answer at least two questions." The man's right hand moved, which alarmed Mara at first. He didn't reach for a blaster, instead, his hand went to the left pocket of his jacket. He unzipped it and pulled out two small, white capsules.

"Pills for the pain in your arm. I'll give you some wrapping I salvaged from the medical kit so it won't get infected."

"Generous," she mumbled as she eyed the capsules, "Unless those are poison or some type of drug that'll make me talk more-"

"And why would I have those in my jacket? What kind of things do you think we just keep around?" He closed his palm and drew back the suspected painkillers. Mara swallowed as she thought, the hurt in her throat became more prominent as she thought about the water. The wrappings would keep her wound from getting infected, and the pills would help immensely. But the information? No, she wouldn't commit treason against Armitage.

But in the end it wouldn't really matter, would it? Whatever she told him would never make it to the Resistance before her brother's men came for her and imprisoned the man before her.

"What do you want to know?" The question slipped out of her mouth, and the man was immediately surprised at her compliance.

"Giving up so easily?" He prodded while Mara's face showed extreme discontent.

"Just give me the pills and water."

"Answer my questions first."

"Fine." She huffed and clenched her jaw.

The man shifted once again, then pointed towards her uniform, "You're a commander, at least that's what your rank badge says. I'd like a name."

Mara almost replied with her own title only to bite her tongue. Revealing she was Hux's sister and main aerial tactician? Probably not the smartest idea.

"Captain Phasma," She blurted, which confused the Resistance member, "Overseer of the FN Corps training."

The man, who had just claimed she was a pilot commander, was extremely puzzled, "That sounds fake, but okay-"

"It's not my name." She replied simply. Her anger against Phasma had gotten the best of her. She had been the one who suggested killing one of her pilots to her brother, and the one who ordered the rest of the AT squadron to execute one of their own. If worse came to worse, she'd be the one ratted out.

"Her true rank is higher than her title suggests. She helps with stormtrooper training and where to attack at the right time. She's second only to a handful of First Order members. She deems which soldiers are fit to bear the name 'stormtrooper'." Mara watched as he listened and nodded slightly before he asked another question.

"Base of operations?"

"Really?" She questioned, almost caught off guard by such an outrageous question, "You're expecting me to just tell you that huge confidential information? You've got to be kidding me."

He didn't even seem to be fazed at her objection, "Do I look like I'm joking? Tell me."

She raised an eyebrow, her ignorant nature wanting to test him, "What if I don't? What if I lie?"

"Then you don't get water, or painkillers, or bandages."

"I need at least some of those things to live. If you really want me to stay alive, you'll give it to me eventually."

"Or I'll just shoot you again."

"Sure you will."

"Try me."

~~~~~~~~~

Mara's obstinance prevailed and she sure wasn't happy about it.

The constant pain in her arm grew each minute it seemed. Her throat became drier with each passing drip she heard hit the plastic tray. Still, she couldn't possibly give in to the stupid Resistance member's question.

But oh, she hated it. Whenever she even flinched in discomfort over her arm or stared too long at the water, he'd crack a smile and tell her all she had to do was answer the question. At this point, her chances of dying grew higher and higher. All she had to do was answer the damn question. It wouldn't matter in the end anyway.

But she couldn't. She just couldn't. Her pride forced her not to. She couldn't let this stupid, smug, Resistance scumbag just win. No, that wasn't an option.

But on the bright side of things, he hadn't shot her yet.

The light that had spilled out through the cracks between the damaged X-wing heavy rocks had faded, replaced by the dark. The heat in the cave had gone down with the sun, which was refreshing. Now you could barely see anything at all besides the small lantern expelling weak light in between the two.

The wind blew softly outside and carried far off sounds her way. At first, she thought nothing of the faint groans in the air. Then the sounds grew clearer and sharpened into shrill beeps. Mara glanced over at the fallen rock with curiosity. What would be making that noise on a mostly deserted planet?

The man's face burst into a grin before inching closer to the rubble, "Buddy? BB-8?"

Mara's eyebrow shot up as the beeps continued. He nodded fiercely as he continued to converse with what the blonde assumed was a droid, "Yeah, I'm okay, but I need so help. Can you try your best to get rid of these rocks?"

A beep in response. Mara's binary was rusty, but she thought it replied 'yes'.

"Why are you talking to a droid? How is it even here?" She asked blatantly.

He turned her way, "I ejected him before I crashed. He comes in handy."

"Can he do anything about - ow!" Mara gestured towards the mound of debris the droid was behind and winced when the pain in her arm told her that wasn't a good idea.

He sat back down against the wall and used her show of weakness against her, "You know, all you have to do is say the name of one of your major bases and that pain can disappear for a few hours-"

"You know, I've said no a lot," Mara spit back, "Which might hint that I'm not going to answer that question, no matter how many times you ask it."

"Fair enough," The man lifted his hands in the air as a sign of surrender, "Have it your way and suffer. Now help me move this side of the wing."

Mara sighed once again, "We both tried that at different times. It doesn't work, it's too heavy."

"We could try together, which astonishingly might work. If we do, we'll get out of this lousy cave and work on getting off this stupid planet." He presented the idea while Mara formulated her own.

Yeah, she thought to herself, the faster we get out of this cramped place, the faster I can kill you and the easier it will be for the First Order to locate me.

The sound of a tiny drill started on the other side of the crash while Mara finally complied, "Fine. But you know what would make it go faster? If my arm didn't sting so badly-"

"Only if you give the name of the system will you get those painkillers."

"Then I'm afraid I won't be that much of a help."

~~~~~~~~~~

More minutes flew by as the two adversaries worked through the night. They pulled away debris while the droid drilled into the fallen rock. Within the first hour of work, a small hole had been carved out.

Mara peered through the opening and was met with the eye of a droid. She took the light from the middle of the room and shined it towards the astromech to get a better look at him.

All she could see was a round head and a bent antenna. It beeped back at her and said something along the lines of asking who she was. Mara didn't answer instead she reached her hand through the hole. She pushed it through the mess of cut rock and sharp metal.

She felt the droid's metal 'hand' poke at her. It prodded her fingers with childlike interest as she felt the smooth rock outside the cave.

"See anything?" The Resistance member questioned while she felt the surrounding area.

"Besides your droid, nothing." The blonde responded, "And the endless rock- gah!"

BB-8 screeched while Mara struggled to retract her hand. All she felt was multiple of the droid's prongs stick into her flesh.

"What's happening? What's wrong with my droid!" The man came closer to the opening while she tried to free her hand.

"Your stupid pet just stabbed me-" She was cut off by the sound of an animalistic yell, and whatever sank into her skin before bit her again. Mara repressed a scream as she continued to try to wrench her hand back into the cave.

Hands wrapped around her waist and she was pulled back. Her wrist was finally freed from the small hole. She glanced down at her hand, blood running down to her arm as she held it up. Bite marks on her fingers buzzed with pain while more hissing sounded from outside.

The two stayed quiet and watched the clawed paw reached through the opening. It outstretched towards them as the clawed tried to paw through the wreckage. Mara cradled her injured hand and looked at the man beside her. He nodded.

Whatever that was, it definitely wasn't a droid.

The paw was retracted as the hissing faded. The animal seemed displeased with its findings because it went away. It was a few, tense minutes before either of them even spoke.

"What was that?" The man breathed quietly, then faced her. The blonde seethed through her teeth at the sight of her bloody hand.

She managed to suppress a yell and furiously nodded, "I don't know but it bites, it bites hard."

"You know, painkillers will help that."

Mara took in a large breath and glared as hard as her eyes possibly could convey, "I said no and I mean......yeah that stings."

"All I need is the system." He then shifted over to the tray of water.

The woman, in a great amount of pain and thirst, finally broke down, "Fine, just give me the damn pills you Resistance ass-"

He reached his jacket pocket, a huge, smug smirk of victory displayed on his face, "I need the name of the system first."

"The Pressylla system!" She begrudgingly admitted and kept a constant glare, "Okay, now just give me the damn pills!"

This concludes the first part of the Ratakka flashbacks!

Sorry this took so long to get up, but ta-da!! Next update will come much sooner.