027. GHOSTS NOW GREMLINS

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"You're part of the first order, can't you do something?!"

Finn hadn't realized that Evangeline had entered the room until she answered his question, "Not anymore. Someone else took his place."

"What does she mean by that?" Poe raised an eyebrow and directed his question toward Kylo Ren before facing Evangeline, "What do you mean by that?"

"There's a new supreme leader," Rey answered as she entered the room with BB-8 on her heels.

"Why don't we just throw a party while your base is under attack," Kylo Ren muttered under his breath.

"Not now, Ben," Leia reprimanded her son.

How many people were in the room? Finn looked around and silently began to count. Poe, Rey, Leia, BB-8, himself, Evangeline, another droid and one of the other generals that Leia had briefly introduced to him. The room had certainly grown crowded.

"He does have a point," Evangeline said, "Something should be done about the First Order."

"We've got pilots taking care of things as we speak," Poe replied.

"Funny that you aren't one of them," she retorted, "Find yourself grounded to your room?"

Poe tried to protest, but Leia held up a hand, "We can argue later, we need to evacuate the base while the fighters buy us some time."

"Where to?" Poe asked, "We barely managed to find this place in time to lay low for a while."

"And who's fault is it that the First Order now knows our location?" Leia asked rhetorically, "Forget placing the blame and start evacuating the base. We'll figure out where along the way."

Finn didn't have time to protest the lack of a plan since he was practically forced out of the room to begin spreading the news that they were evacuating. However, things only seemed to look worse once Finn returned to the hangar and half of the open space was on fire.

"What happened here?!"

"One of the x-wings returned and started firing upon entry. Apparently we were infiltrated by more than one spy. She escaped with the prisoner by stealing one of the shuttles."

Finn turned to face the golden droid who explained what happened.

"TF-3617," Finn stated and looked at Poe, "Must've been your replacement that Oryll found."

"I knew I was irreplaceable," Poe said, forming a grin.

"Wipe that stupid look off your face and get on one of those shuttles, Dameron," Leia commanded as she entered that hangar.

Although several ships were damaged, enough remained unscathed for the remainder of the fleet to evacuate. Most, if not, all of their supplies had been left behind as the First Order ruthlessly proceeded to bomb the base structure. It had withstood quite the attack, but even it had its limits. Several fighters had been lost, but a fair amount of the fleet had managed to escape. Finn had been busy during most of the attack so he didn't fully know what the casualties were, but enough damage had been done that they were once again flying through space aimlessly.

Once they had enough breathing space, Leia and General Kallus had left to discuss their next move with the other higher ranking members of the fleet. Han had also followed her from the room. It had been weird seeing him alive and breathing, and for an instant he had completely forgotten about the living dead while dealing with the chaos of the First Order. However, now that things had calmed down again, he was forced to face the situation.

"So how are they alive again?"

Evangeline glared, "How many times are you going to ask?"

"When I'm no longer confused, then you can trust that I'm done asking."

She sighed with annoyance, but tried her best to answer his question. According to what she knew, she had been connected to the living force via Supreme Leader Seth's machine. When he asked how that worked, he was met with a huff and an "I don't know. It just does". When he and Poe blew up the machine, it had interrupted the process and created a link to the cosmic force. Another confusing term that didn't receive any further explanation. Somehow the jawas disconnected the link and in response, the cosmic force spat the four deceased out as living beings.

"I'm sure there's more to it that we don't yet understand."

Evangeline immediately shut up as Luke spoke. Finn raised an eyebrow, but said nothing as the girl stood and left before he could. He then looked at Luke. Although Rey had managed to follow the map's instructions to find him, Finn hadn't been able to meet the Jedi before he had died. To be in the presence of such a great legend and war hero, well he was speechless nonetheless.

"How long have you known her?"

Finn blinked before he realized that the jedi had been speaking to him, "Who me? We're practically strangers. We met in a shady alley when she threatened to stab my friend."

Luke nodded his head pensively, "She's more aggressive than I remember."

Finn didn't know much of what had happened in the Jedi's life aside from what little Rey had told him; however, from the tension that grew in the room anytime that he, Evangeline, and Kylo Ren stood near one another, he could assume that things hadn't ended well.

"Was she one of those who trained under you?" Finn broke the lingering silence.

Luke nodded, "She was one of the younger ones and was practically raised in the temple for that matter."

"How many did you train?"

"Too many to remember them all by name," Luke's tone grew sour, "but not enough to reinstall the jedi order."

Finn hesitated, but he was curious, "How many survived?"

"I hadn't thought that any survived," Luke shook his head, "but it seems aside from Evangeline those that did survive joined the knights of Ren."

Finn was silenced after that, unable to think of anything else to ask the jedi that would matter. He hadn't been there to see the devastation at the creation of Kylo Ren, but darkness could be heard in Luke's tone as he even implied the event. The next question caught him entirely off guard.

"How long do you plan to hide your own sensitivity to the force?"

"What?" Finn asked in confusion, "I think you're mistaken, Rey's the one who's sensitive to the force or whatever. She does that thing with her mind where she convinces people to do things that scares the living force out Poe and myself and she can move things with her mind and... well I haven't done any of those things."

"You've repressed it, but it's there," Luke said, "Search within yourself and you'll find examples where the force has guided you."

Finn's eyes widened as Luke decided to end the conversation there and walk away. For a moment, he refused to be confused any longer. Rey was the jedi, not him. He was just Finn, an ex-stormtrooper trying to amend for his past. Finn had started to follow the old jedi, but was stopped by Poe.

"The general needs us."

"Great," Finn rolled his eyes, "Did she figure out what she was going to do about our last mission?"

Poe shook his head, "I took the liberty of asking about that, but she says it's about something else."

Finn knit his eyebrows together before following Poe toward a private wing in the medical hall aboard the cruiser. He quickly had to cover his ears as a blood-curdling scream alerted him that something was wrong. He followed Poe into the room, who had similarly covered his ears. Evangeline writhed on a cot and between screams muttered things incoherently. For some reason, Kylo Ren still hadn't been contained and stood beside Leia. Finn also noticed that he had somehow retrieved his crossguard sometime between Hondo's ship and now.

"Who let him in here?" Finn raised an eyebrow.

"Finn," Rey's voice alerted him of her presence.

He was temporarily taken back to his conversation with Luke.

"I did," Leia answered his question, "He's the one who noticed something off about the girl and he also notified me that the two of you were there when something like this had happened before."

"Yes, general," Poe nodded his head, "but Ren was there as well."

"Concussed," Kylo Ren finally spoke, "so my memory is a bit hazy. The jawas fixed her, right? What did they do?"

Poe shook his head, "Honestly, I have no idea. They waved some crystals in the air and started chanting-"

"They didn't fix anything," Finn interrupted, "They only prolonged whatever this is."

"How do you know?"

"Well, if they had fixed it, she wouldn't be screaming now would she," Finn stated, but he refused to say it was because a feeling in his gut told him so.

"How can we help her then?"

Finn found the question odd, especially coming from the former supreme leader's mouth. Finn hadn't personally known the man while he served beneath the First Order, but he had heard many awful rumors of what he had done. He had experienced firsthand what happened to those who got in his way back on Starkiller Base, and the sith lord had been dealing with several major injuries then. He refrained from imagining what would happen when he was at full strength. So this little moment of compassion certainly sent Finn for a loop as it didn't match the character that he knew about.

"Well?" the question was snapped with little patience.

Now that matched the sith better.

"I'll call in a team of medics," Leia informed, "but other than that I'm afraid there isn't much more that we can do."

Kylo Ren frowned, but not like Finn had seen him do before. The expression was different. It became even more foreign when Rey placed a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him. An action Finn liked even less. However, the screaming immediately stopped and Evangeline looked at peace. A single medic entered the room and pushed past those at the door's entrance. Ren seemed to grow more concerned with Evangeline's silence than her expression of pain.

"She's unconscious, but breathing," the medic explained and Ren relaxed.

"What took so long?" Ren asked with a false tone of impatience.

"We were dealing with several other injuries," the medic replied coolly, "Many much more severe. Not to mention that we needed to stabilize a comatose patient. These transitions aren't easy on the medical team, you know."

It was as if the medic had no idea who he was speaking to, or simply didn't care as long as he could do his job. Within a matter of seconds, he ejected everyone but himself and his patient from the room. A few other members, presumably from the medical team, had permission to enter the room, but otherwise everyone else was expected to remain outside. Finn was unable to determine if the tension in the room increased or decreased when the silence was broken.

"Leia," Finn almost didn't recognize the voice belonging to Kenobi, "It appears that we've encountered something that should be discussed."

Another problem no doubt. Great. Finn's eyes widened when he turned to face the old jedi but instead he was met by a complete stranger. The ginger appeared calm; however, the man beside him holding Vader's mask conveyed the exact opposite reaction.

"Discussed sooner rather than later, this matter would be better," Finn just about screamed when the small, green gremlin emerged from behind the younger Kenobi and spoke.