Mara didn't mean to go to sleep, she actually fought it off for awhile.

BB-8 had returned from the hiding spot the droid had run to after the animal attack. The astromech kept drilling into the mess of metal and rock, and the hole kept growing larger. Mara watched the little guy work in an effort to stay awake. But as the sun rose over the plain, her eyelids kept drooping.

Don't go to sleep, don't go to sleep, don't go to sleep......

She replayed the chant over and over again in her head. She couldn't just doze off in the company of a Resistance member and what seemed to be animals that took a liking to human flesh. She also didn't want to wake up to find herself abandoned, alone on a planet that was inhabited by carnivorous beasts. Yes, she couldn't stand mystery Resistance man, but that didn't mean he wouldn't be of use. 

Mara's grand plan was to stick with him and his droid until the threat of clawed animals was eliminated or her brother finally showed up and rescued her. 

The only fatal flaw in her scheme was that Armitage would constantly bring up this event to tease her. That was the best-case scenario. The worst would be the newly appointed general exercising his power to demote her for such a shoddy execution of their discussed evacuation procedures.

She could live with a demotion. All she had to do was tolerate that stupid excuse for a pilot a little longer. So she was intent on staying awake.

Overall, her plan failed horribly. She blamed the painkillers.

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

"No buddy, I don't like her either, but she's probably got enough info stored away in that head of her's to be worth it."

Beeps and blurbs wafted through the edge of Mara's mind and slowly led her back to a drowsy consciousness. She stirred slightly, her arm jutting out to the side and catching the Resistance man's attention.

"Wakey wakey, Blondie. Time to start moving."

She winced as bright light obscured her vision. The painful ache in her back made it uncomfortable to sit up, but she did. Using the back of her hand to wipe a tired glaze from her eyes, her first observation was to see that the opening was much larger now. The man tapped her shoulder before he climbed outside.

Mara peered around the cave to find most of it empty now. Her blaster and knife were gone along with the small torch and medical kit. All that was left in the cave was the broken parts of the X-wing, fallen debris, and her cracked helmet. He must've packed everything while she was sleeping.

Dammit

"How long was I out?" She asked while she crawled out of the dreaded cave.

"A few hours. I took a quick rest before I packed everything up." The man offered her a hand to help her up, which she readily ignored. Instead, she gripped onto the rock next to her and pushed up. One step and she was free.

The first noticeable thing she saw was the smoking remains of her TIE Silencer. The wreckage was only a few yards away among the rock structures. The ground under her was an incline, then flat rock before the rest declined into sand. Behind them was a high plateau, which swirled together with colors of red, orange, and various hues of browns. She hated this place already.

"So....." The man said as he spun around to get a look at everything, "It's a desert planet."

Mara nodded slowly, sighing rather harshly before glancing once again at her demolished fighter, "Yeah, it looks like hell."

"A nap didn't help your mood."

"Clearly." She mumbled, turning back to get a better look at what trapped them in the cave.

She was somewhat surprised, but not completely taken off guard. The right side of the fighter that stuck out of the rock was painted black. Mara's eyebrow raised slightly at this but gave no indication of being a teeny, tiny bit impressed.

It was the same black fighter that had taken out two dozen TIE fighters near KAPPA-2722 over seven months ago. The same fighter that'd been on her tail every single engagement since then.

She was somewhat impressed. This particular pilot had given her a run for her money more than a few times. He was good, no denying that. Better than her? No.

Mara took a second to analyze the pilot that had given her a challenge over the last few months. Now standing up and able to size him up, she saw that he was a few inches taller than her with an okay build, dark hair, and probably only had a few years on her. 

"So you're the one who's been attempting to take me down the last few months?" She spoke with squinted eyes, crossing her arms.

The man nodded, but before he could say anything, she shrugged and headed towards her TIE's crash, "I thought you'd be taller."

"And I thought you'd be less whiny. What are you doing?"

"Going to my ship!" She called over her shoulder, "See if there's anything salvageable."

Mara stopped short and stood in front of the TIE. In its conception, it had been made as a prototype for her alone to test and continued the longstanding Imperial tradition letting aces pilot the first preliminary models. Now, the left wing was almost completely blown off and the hull had caved in. A trail of various, mangled parts of the ship was strewn in the sand. The glass window that she used to gaze out of to look at the stars was completely shattered. A small fire still burned beside the ship. The inside was utterly destroyed.

Her pair of wings was now nothing more than a heap of broken parts.

The blonde stood there for a while and just stared at her beloved one-man fighter. Her distorted reflection gazed back at her from what was left of the outer window. Instead of the First Order commander and aerial strategist that many called her now, she saw the empty eyes of a betrayed teenage girl. The same girl who watched her stolen ship that she cherished so much be consumed by flame. The laughing of those she once called friends mock her. The poor, little girl who thought she was all grown up when she attempted to join a notorious gang of smugglers after running out on a woman who could've loved her. Who believed she could take on the entire galaxy by herself.

Mara felt as if she were that girl again. One who's sky had been tore away from her. Stripped of the ability to fly, left with only more scars and more shame. Grounded yet again, with her feet dragging against the desert along with an enemy.

The only thing that made this so much worse than a similar situation years ago was the fact that all of her pilots were dead. The men she had trained and flew alongside with for months were gone. Their fighters were in similar shape; either in space or crashed on the ground. They were most definitely gone, but even if one was still breathing on this horrid planet, there would be no hope. There was no one coming back for him, unlike Mara's situation.

Her thoughts drifted back again to her conversation with Armitage. Her last conversation with him had put another gaping rift in between them, but he'd come back for her. For her pilots?

They could have no soul for all I care, as long as they do what the First Order commands.

Her brother's words rang clearly in her head. A lump formed in Mara's throat. When the Order came for her, there would be no funeral for them, no memorial. No one would mourn their deaths. No one would remember their sacrifices. Her pilots who she had trained would be cast aside as expendable. 

Speeder, Zipper, Thirds, Axis. All gone.

It would be like their lives meant nothing.

She would make sure they would be honored. She'd make Armitage remind the troopers of the Order's best pilots. Her squadron would get the respect they deserved.

Mara looked back at the man standing near the mouth of the cave, who continued watching her. She snapped her head back and went to retrieve her weapons.

She found her batons secured to the bottom of her seat, as well as a second blaster that had been completely crushed on impact. Nothing else was salvageable, so she started to back out. Just before exiting the crash, something flashing on the control panel caught her eye. Bright, distorted letters flashed through a cracked screen. A schematic of her fighter showcased the damage done.

She became very confused.

The damage the hit had done was astonishing. On the outside, Mara guessed most of the fighter had been destroyed in the crash, but the overview displayed on the screen proved that her entire left wing had been taken out by one hit. The only way that was possible was if tracer missiles were used.

The Resistance hadn't had tracer missiles with them. Only light X-wings, no cruisers of any kind that carried that type of weaponry.

Her brows knit together in a fine line across her forehead as she became perplexed. No, that wasn't right. Only the Finalizer, the First Order starship, had been equipped with anything of that caliber. Before Mara's mind could wander on the topic further, the man yelled her way.

"Hey, we might want to make it to the base before nightfall!"

She scoffed under her breath and yelled back, "And I would like to have you dead, but we can't always get what we want, can we?"

"You're gonna keep that whole death threat thing going, huh?"

"As long as you keep acting like a shabuir, then sure." The pressure of frustration made her chest feel tighter while she fastened her batons to her belt.

A moment passed where no remark was made back before the man called, "I don't even know what that means!"

Mara didn't feel like explaining Mando'a insults to the stranger. She just walked back over to the wrecked X-wing, glancing over her shoulder a few times at her precious, ruined Silencer. She let out a large breath that served as some goodbye and finally turning her back on the ship.

When she approached the cave again, the man was talking with his droid.....an incredibly cute droid.

This was the first time she fully saw the astromech and the little thing was one of its kind. Instead of a more can-like structure, it was shaped like a ball. It's little 'head' rotated back and forth in a childlike manner, assessing her as she came back up.

Why does the Resistance get all the cute things? It ain't fair.

Mara looked over the plateau, trying to figure out if she'd seen any structures like it on her basic evaluation of the planet. Nothing clicked.

"So I say," The man stood beside her, observing the same territory and pointing to the horizon, "We make for your old base. Probably our best bet for some type of communication or ship."

"Unless you blew it all up. That'd be inconvenient."

"What a contribution to the conversation. Are you always this pessimistic?"

"When I'm stranded on a desert planet with an enemy pilot and some type of carnivorous beast with no hope of getting off, yes, I think being cynical is quite appropriate. Besides, I'm either always right or pleasantly surprised."

He kept a trained eye on her, wondering if the woman truly had no hope for survival or was just pretending. She was of higher rank, he knew that for sure, so her chances of waiting it out and getting picked up by the First Order were higher. The Order also didn't have the best track record for going back for people. Either one was quite possible.

Her unspoken intentions were also unnerving to the man. It was obvious she had no regard for his life, but she also was smart. She was either biding her time and waiting for the right moment to kill him, or she was keen on using him to help her survive long enough.

BB-8 rolled up behind the two, beeping and informing them of their whereabouts.

Mara still had some trouble distinguishing the droid's words, but the man answered that for her, "BB-8 scouted about a mile out, and he says there looks to be some type of civilization not far from here."

"Not possible," The blonde kept her eyes on the terrain, "This side of the planet has been abandoned for years."

"Maybe your info's outdated."

"Unlikely. Armi- My superiors," Mara corrected her speech quickly, passing it off as a mumble, "always survey an area before planting a base. If not, they take the native's children and use the resources."

The last sentence left her lips, but the words still burned like acid at the back of her mouth.

Hypocrite, she chastised herself, you get all mad about your pilots dying then you go and keep telling about kidnapping new ones.

Mara set her jaw, still looking over the terrain in front of her. No, there wouldn't be a civilization.

"Great, kidnapper," The man voice raised slightly with anger at her last answer, "Enemy pilot, fascist....the more you tell me about yourself, I become less and less inclined to keep you around."

The vexation that cut into her at his comment might've been mistaken for guilt. Maybe it was guilt. What Mara was quite aware of was the trivial annoyance that heightened whatever tumultuous state she was already in. It coincided with every time the pilot opened his mouth.

She turned a spiteful glare on him, "Yeah, coming from a guy who works for the New Republic. That's where that Resistance found you, right? Didn't the original Republic breed clones? And the Jedi everybody was so crazy about, didn't they take kids and raise 'em up?"

The words were more of a malicious retort than anything else and she barely had the gall to deliver them. Yet there was truth there- Mara had spent most of her childhood overhearing her father brag about how he'd train elite soldiers from birth and how he'd found inspiration for his methods through the practices of the ancient Jedi Order. Brendol Hux had no love for dead sorcerers, but was regularly amused at the thought his First Order soldiers in some ways were the legacy of the Jedi.

Resistance Asshole didn't find humor in that irony or the implication he was a hypocrite. He scoffed, looking as if he would've said more but decided against it, "Ever noticed how that idea got ditched once the Empire fell? Whatever you're trying to say, it's gonna fall apart real quick."

And she knew it would. 

Just focus on surviving for now. Stupid questions of 'morality' come later.

Mara didn't attempt to argue anymore, favoring to ignore the statement and jump down onto the next rock formation, "You wanna get to that place before nightfall? I suggest we start moving."