Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Two shuttles zoomed overhead, arcing away from the base with an X-wing flanked on either side. They were outbound, so identifying them wasn’t really necessary; but Mey-Gon figured it would be good practice, so she held up her scanner and pointed it towards the shrinking ships. Within a couple seconds, all four identification codes populated onto the screen of her device with the approved symbol alongside each one.

Troop transports and fighters. No doubt they were on their way to prevent another First Order attack, and hopefully they would make it in time. Mey-Gon remembered well the terror of facing down stormtroopers alone when help had come too late. And she also still recalled the aftermath she’d witnessed in the towns where help hadn’t come at all. Part of her longed to go on a combat mission too, just to really feel like she was fighting the First Order; but she probably wouldn’t be much help, considering her training results.

Leia required that every Resistance member be combat trained - from the lowest mechanic to the top command - just in case the base ever came under attack. Even with all her stunt experience, Mey-Gon knew she was no fighter. She wasn’t particularly fast or strong, and outside of memorizing choreography, she had no instinct for combat moves. Weapons training had produced similar disappointing results. She knew how to handle various kinds of blasters and rifles, but her target accuracy averaged around 37%. Practice would improve both skills, hopefully, and she was determined to prove herself worthy of a real battle someday.

She tried to twirl the scanner around in her hand but fumbled it and winced as it clattered to the platform floor. While she picked it up and inspected it for damage, she heard the hum of an approaching speeder and knew that her replacement would be taking over in a minute. Luckily, the device had survived the drop and shouldn’t give the next shift any trouble. That was the last thing Mey-Gon needed tacked on to her reputation.

Besides combat training, Leia also preferred everyone to be cross trained to do several jobs, so that, in emergencies, someone was always qualified to jump into any position. Most beings trained for a few duties but excelled in a particular one and stayed there mainly. Mey-Gon had bounced from position to position over the past couple months and never really got the hang of anything. At first, Leia had tried to keep her close by assigning her to the control room, but the systems and codes were far too technical for her; so she tried maintenance, but had to rely on droids for most of the mechanical jobs. From there she’d been shuffled through various duties where her lack of skill couldn’t cause much damage.

“Hey!” she greeted cheerfully, peering over the edge of the platform at the girl jumping out of the speeder below, “That time already?”

“I’m sorry!” the girl scrambled for her chrono, “Am I early? We don’t have to change shifts yet, if you’re not ready.”

“No, no, you’re on time. I was just...” Mey-Gon frowned, “Come on up.”

As she triple-checked that she was leaving the radio and scanner in good condition, she tried not to let the frustration show on her face, lest it be misinterpreted by her replacement. Making friends was proving hard enough for her already. Maybe it was the fact that she hadn’t worked in one position long enough to become part of a team, or maybe it was the general confusion or nervousness that a lot of beings seemed to develop when interacting with her. All her life, she’d been surrounded by people trying very hard to be her friend, so she had never had to make this much of a personal effort before. It was yet another thing she was discovering she had no natural talent for.

“Sharp eyes, safe skies,” Mey-Gon smiled as she handed over the scanner. It was something she’d thought up over the last few hours of solitude, and she was quite pleased with herself for it.

The girl just blinked, then broke into a nervous grin and nodded, “Yeah...you too…”

Mey-Gon held in her stiff sigh until she had climbed down from the platform and hopped into her landspeeder. Maybe there was a reason she kept getting assigned to solo duties away from the base lately. She didn’t mind this post - the jungle out here was beautiful - or the occasional supply runs up to the fleet hidden in D’Qar’s orbital ring, but the constant distance from her Resistance comrades did little to improve her social skills.

The route back to base took several minutes, so she lifted her knees to the steering bar and used her arms to rearrange her hair into a more flattering style, now that she didn’t have to wear the helmet anymore. She liked to look nice whenever she was off duty, and she was eager to get out of this uniform. Eagerness was no excuse for sloppiness, though, so she slowed down as she entered the main thoroughfare of the base and navigated her way to the hangar garage where all the land vehicles were stowed, amongst other things. There were even a few swoop bikes tucked away somewhere, but Leia had made it clear they were for missions, not joyrides; and Mey-Gon had yet to be sent on a mission.

With the landspeeder parked securely in its spot, Mey-Gon climbed out and unclasped her uniform jacket, leaving it open to expose the fine pink blouse she had been wearing underneath. She was pleased with how well it reflected her personal style, even when tucked into the tailored trousers that went with the drab jacket. It would have to do until she got the chance to change into one of her dresses for the evening. As she walked around the parked vehicles, she spotted two Ithorian mechanics chattering melodically in their language as they rubbed down an astromech droid straight out of an oil bath.

“Hi, guys!” Mey-Gon waved and the chattering stopped, “Need any help?”

There was an awkward silence as the Ithorians tilted their heads to and fro to look at her through one eye at a time. She had no capacity to read their expressions, if they were even wearing any, and didn’t really expect an answer, since they were incapable of speaking Basic; so the awkwardness hung there until the droid tootled a friendly reply. Mey-Gon wanted to kick herself when she realized that she couldn’t understand droids either and there was no elegant way out of this stupid attempt at casual interaction. Her only solace was that the droid was BB-8, and that meant Poe was probably nearby. He was one of the few people who did talk to her occasionally, and there was an inexplicable comfort she got from being around him. Perhaps it wasn’t inexplicable, actually, but she didn’t want to think about it too much.

“Okay, carry on,” she backed away from the mechanics and heard them pick up their conversation again as she made her way toward the front of the hangar.

“Mey-Gon!” a familiar voice called when she neared the flight simulation pods.

“Relix!” she brightened and changed course to see what he was working on.

Other than Leia, Relix was probably the person Mey-Gon spent the most time with and was the closest thing she had to a real friend on this base. Of course, he was friends with just about everybody, but somehow he still took the time to include her in some of his projects and social activities. He was good at nearly every job, so whenever Mey-Gon got reassigned, she could always count on him to show her the basics. Unlike most of the others, Relix never acted awkward or impatient with her, and was consistently positive and encouraging. He was the nicest, most genuine human she’d ever met; and despite joining him often at the blaster range, she couldn’t actually imagine him shooting anybody, not even a stormtrooper.

“Are you done for the day?” he asked as she approached, and his BD unit, which he called Codey, chirped at her in greeting from where he was perched on Relix’s shoulder.

“Just got back from my last shift at the lookout point,” she nodded, peering into the open control panel that he was leaning over, “Trouble with the sims?”

“They keep going out of sync,” he swept a hand toward the other three pods, which the pilots used to simulate different battle scenarios together from the safety of the hangar, “But I’m pretty sure the glitch is coming from this one.”

“It’s definitely this one,” groaned a female voice and Mey-Gon looked up to see a human pilot leaning out of the pod they were working on.

“Hi, Tallie,” Mey-Gon greeted.

“Hey, Mey-Gon,” she returned, not exactly coldy, but warily, then looked at Relix, “Did you find the source yet?”

“Oh yeah, I got it,” he assured her, “It’ll just take me a couple minutes to clean it up and reboot the program.” He shot Mey-Gon an eager grin, “If you want to wait for me, I was thinking we could go work on your ship. I’ve been brainstorming different ways to coax a little more power into the sublight engines.”

“That sounds great,” she brightened, “Take your time, Relix. I’ll wait for you.”

Despite her initial attempt to donate her private light corvette to the cause, Leia had insisted that Mey-Gon keep ownership of it. As a result, she was now one of the few beings in the Resistance to have a personal transport; and it was a privilege that didn’t go unnoticed, like most of the other privileges that she enjoyed as a favored friend of the general. Still, she only ever used it for the occasional trip up to the fleet on supply missions or as a sanctuary of privacy when she was having trouble sleeping in her assigned bunk in the barracks. As much as the corvette had comforted her with its familiarity and reminders of her old life at first, they were both slowly transforming into something new in the service of the Resistance. Relix and his mechanical friends had been dying to give the luxury transport a military makeover, from weapons to shields to engines. He was constantly enthusiastic about making new modifications and Mey-Gon was always eager to try them out. It was one of their favorite projects to work on together. She was even considering giving the ship a proper name in honor of its transformation, though she hadn’t settled on one yet.

As Relix and Codey turned their full attention back to the open control panel, Mey-Gon wandered over to the break station and grabbed a cup off the shelf. Out of habit, she rotated it under the light and frowned at the dirty smudges around the lip. It may be a garage break station, but she still couldn’t understand why other beings cared so little about cleanliness. Then again, it wasn’t like she would be using it to drink purified comet glacier water, like she used to have imported to her mansion. She meticulously wiped the cup clean, then filled it with tap water and sipped delicately as she moved back toward the pods to wait for her friend. He was calling back and forth with Tallie inside the pod, asking her to check things every time he made an adjustment under the hood.

Mey-Gon leaned against the outside of the next pod over, carefully watching the exchange over the top of her cup. She’d always been good at studying people and imitating the traits she chose. There was a stark difference in the way Tallie - and almost everybody else, for that matter - talked to her, compared to the way they interacted with Relix. What did he do differently? She needed to figure it out and try it, herself.

Suddenly the hatch she was leaning on popped open, bumping her forward and sloshing her next sip of water down her chin and onto her nice blouse. She groaned and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand.

“Oh, hey, Mey-Gon,” Poe hopped out of the pod, “You joining in for the next sim?”

“What? No,” she shook the water off her hand in exasperation and glared at the spreading wet spot on her chest, “Why are you so determined to embarrass me?”

“Embarrass you? How?” he smiled innocently, even after glancing down quickly at the evidence of the spill he had caused, “Are you nervous?” he teased as he pulled a small bottle from his pocket, “Maybe you’d like a little liquid courage.”

“I don’t get nervous,” Mey-Gon said defensively, even as she eyed the bottle, “...but I would like some.”

“It’s yours,” he tucked it into her hand and relieved her of her cup, draining the rest of the water into his own mouth before elaborating, “Some girl up on the flagship gave it to me, but it’s not really my taste. I figured you’d like it.”

As she uncapped it and took a few experimental sips, she witnessed Poe half-heartedly wipe the water cup off with his shirt then walk over and set it back on the shelf she had taken it from. She made a mental note to thoroughly wash all break area dishes before using them from now on. When he returned, she couldn’t help but hum approvingly at the smooth flavor of the amber liquid, “I do like it. How’d you know?”

He grinned and leaned in close, whispering, “Because you’re an alcoholic.” She made an indignant noise and bumped him away with her shoulder, making him laugh as he shrugged, “Well, I only ever see you at the bar anymore.”

“That’s because I don’t get sent off on hotshot missions all the time, like some people.”

His smile tightened, “That’s because Tatooine would freeze over before the general put you in harm’s way, like some people. And not just because your combat scores are so low.”

“Why do you know my combat scores, Poe?” she scowled, actually embarrassed this time.

“I’m gunning for a promotion,” he explained proudly, “and every good commander should know the strengths and weaknesses of those around them. What I don’t know is your performance in a fighter, so hop in and we’ll load up a new battle scenario.”

It was tempting, terribly tempting. Mey-Gon missed the speed, maneuvers, and competitiveness of racing so much. The slow, safe life of base duty the past couple months had left an aching pit in her stomach that used to be filled with passion and adrenaline. Plus, there was something about starfighters, especially X-wings, that she had always been attracted to. She’d been dying to train in one, but never had an excuse until now. Normally, she’d ask Relix to be the one to instruct her through something new, because he was never judgmental; but there was such sincere interest in the look Poe was giving her that she felt maybe she could trust him as a teacher too - at least when it came to something he loved as much as he clearly loved flying.

“I would...” she admitted slowly, “but I don’t know how to fly stick.”

“Seriously? It’s completely intuitive,” he lifted his forearm up in between them, then grabbed her hand and held it down on top of his fist, moving his arm like a flight stick as he identified the directions, “Pitch, yaw, roll left, roll right...see? Easier than the yoke in your corvette. You can just follow my lead in the first round; I’ll be your wingmate.” His smile betrayed just how excited he was about finding someone new to fly with, but Mey-Gon was still distracted by having her hand trapped between his, so she simply nodded. Poe turned his head to call toward the other pod, “What do you say, Tallie? You and Relix against me and the princess?”

Tallie exchanged a look and a playful shrug with Relix, then she called back, “Sure, we should be all synced up again now.”

Poe looked back at Mey-Gon, quite pleased with himself, for some reason.

“Fine,” she pulled her hand back to uncap the bottle for one more quick drink before the looming humiliation, then tucked it away into her jacket, “but go easy on me until I get the hang of it, all right?”

“You’ll do great,” he assured her, then helped her up into the simulator he had been using, “Here, this one’s all set up and ready to go. I’ll jump in one of the other pods.”

Mey-Gon settled into the seat and looked around at the replica cockpit, feeling her heartbeat start to speed up in anticipation. Suddenly her view was obstructed by Poe leaning over her in the confined space as he pointed out various buttons and switches.

“Okay, most of the control panel should be familiar,” he rattled, “Pretty standard, like any cruiser. You’ve got your various indicators, monitors, warning lights, inertial damper...this one is deflector shields, targeting scope...trigger controls here on your flight stick, this one for laser cannons, this one for torpedoes. Here’s your comlink, which goes through your helmet…”

He grabbed the helmet off the top of the panel and fitted it carefully over her hairdo then adjusted the mic angle to line up with her mouth. It was a completely different design than her swoop racing helmet, but Mey-Gon probably could have figured it out herself. Still, she was more amused than annoyed at the way Poe was fussing over her. Whether she embarrassed herself in this first simulation or not, it was just nice to find something new to share with him - something that disrupted his usual cool demeanor and had him looking even more excited than her. And she had to admit she was pretty excited, not just about trying her hand at piloting a fighter but also about finally getting a chance to see Poe in action too. The man had a reputation for a reason.

“Okay,” he leaned back, “That’s about it. Just buckle in the harness - I’ll let you do that yourself - and when I close the hatch, the screen will-”

“Oh, excuse me! Wing Commander Dameron,” a distinct voice rang out from the hangar floor and Mey-Gon saw Poe’s eyes narrow in annoyance.

“What is it, Threepio?” he asked without even turning.

She perked up to peer over his shoulder at the gold droid. Almost everyone seemed to develop the same look Poe was now wearing whenever C-3PO interacted with them, but Mey-Gon was delighted by his presence. Protocol droids reminded her of rich, well-traveled beings and made her feel like she was on Hosnian Prime again or some other important place. If she hadn’t found such a good publicist, she might have employed a protocol droid, herself, back at the height of her success.

“Ah! Miss Niek,” he lifted his arms, “Just who I was looking for, in fact. General Organa requires your attendance.”

“Oh,” Mey-Gon bit her lip, momentarily tempted to have Leia wait until she’d passed at least one round in the simulator, but the temptation fled as quickly as it had come. She met Poe’s eyes apologetically as she pulled the helmet off and smoothed her hair back, “Sorry, Poe. Princess business.”

His genuine look of disappointment cracked when one corner of his mouth twitched in appreciation of her joke, “Next time, then.”

“Next time,” she promised and let him help her down out of the pod.

“I’m sorry, but have you seen Lieutenant Nalen?” C-3PO asked her, “He is being requested as well, and I’m aware he was working here not long ago…”

“Yeah,” Mey-Gon nodded then yelled toward the most distant of the four pods, “Relix! We have to go!”

“Coming!” he yelled back.

“Hey, Poe,” Tallie called, relief audible in her voice, “Since it’s just us, do you want to attempt a pass at stage eleven?”

“Yeah, let’s go for it,” he hopped back up into the pod, his energy returning.

Mey-Gon lowered her head to rub self-consciously at the wet spot on her shirt before finally clasping her uniform jacket back up. Maybe it was better that she didn’t slow down the practice exercises for the real pilots, after all. Her desire to have some fun was ultimately a waste of their valuable time.

Chapter Text

“How are you doing, Threepio?” Mey-Gon asked, looking for a distraction from her discouragement.

“Oh, very well, miss,” the protocol droid burst, “How kind of you to ask. It’s been quite a busy day in the command center and I-”

“Oh, hey!” Relix said in surprise as he finally joined them, “What are you doing here, Threepio?”

“Leia wants to see us,” Mey-Gon answered quickly.

Nevertheless, the droid carried on as he led the way out of the hangar, “As I was saying, it has been a very busy day with all the data pouring in and the missions to monitor. I was evaluating efficiency with the central computer when Princ- I mean, General Organa approached me to track down your last known location and retrieve you for a briefing.”

“A briefing with the general, huh?” Relix raised his eyebrows and looked at Mey-Gon, “It must be important.”

Codey cooed in agreement as he clung to his owner’s back.

“I doubt it,” she sighed, “not if I’m being requested. I probably messed up at the lookout station too and she wants you to train me up for another new position with some unlucky department.”

In true Relix fashion, he tried to put a positive spin on her potential failure, “It’s good to try everything, though. Look at me, I don’t have a permanent station either.”

“That’s because you’re skilled at all of them. Every group is happy to have you,” she looked at the equipment team unloading a new cargo shipment as they laughed and shouted at each other, “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly welcome in any of the gangs around here.”

“That’s not true…” Relix paused to wave to the guys who had called out hello to him, and only him; then he was quiet until they’d walked on a little further, “It’s just because they don’t know what to make of you yet. The rest of us, we’ve all been in the trenches together, gotten each other out of a jam once or twice. But so far, you’ve kept out of trouble. The only one who’s really seen you in action is Poe, right?”

“If you could call it that…”

“And he seems to like you.”

She let out a scoffing laugh, “I think he just feels sorry for me.”

“I don’t think it’s that,” he grinned, “But, anyway, don’t worry. The others will see what you’re made of someday too.”

Mey-Gon projected a grateful smile, but wondered deep down if what she was made of was even good enough. Prestigious artist guild awards, championship racing titles, and accolades for philanthropy were as good as useless when it came to analyzing scouting data or repairing the landing systems in a troop transport. As they entered the command bunker, she noticed that the buzz of activity seemed to be more frantic than she’d ever seen it. For the brief time Mey-Gon had attempted to cover duties here, the information had been too fast and nuanced for her to understand. After misunderstanding one staticy transmission, she had cost a rescue operation nearly a day of progress and was lucky nobody had died as a result. She had picked up more of the lingo since then, but she couldn’t imagine operating at this pace; and she was pretty sure the others weren’t ready to welcome her back yet anyway. She was confident her new post would be somewhere far less critical to the Resistance.

Relix was busy scanning the room too as they neared one of the briefing annexes; and suddenly, in his distraction, he collided with someone who was rushing out of the area. With lightning quick reflexes, he caught the datapad that had been knocked out of the girl’s hand and held it out to her.

“Wow,” she breathed, reaching for the device, then looked up at his face with panic on hers.

“Sorry about that, Kaydel,” he said smoothly, “I wasn’t looking. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Lieutenant Nalen,” her voice was quiet and her eyes darted around nervously, “Terribly sorry, though.”

Mey-Gon took the liberty of jumping in, “So rude, Relix. I think you owe her a drink. You’ll join us at the bar later, won’t you, Connix?”

“Oh-uh…” she stuttered, “Tonight?”

Even Relix looked a little confused now, but Mey-Gon couldn’t help herself. She loved a bit of drama and romance; and this was one of the juiciest cases she’d encountered in a while. As outgoing and carefree as he was with everyone else, Relix’s one weakness was Kaydel Connix. He always seemed to try just a little harder to make her smile and cared just a little more about her reactions. As for poor Connix, the girl was quick, sharp, and capable most of the time but fell victim to the worst flusters when she was star-struck. At first Mey-Gon thought it was just because of herself, but she also saw elements of the same awe in Connix’s eyes when she dealt with Leia. Then she witnessed the blushing and stammering that befell the young operations controller when Relix came around. It was obvious to everyone how distracted the two were by each other, though neither would embrace it or act on it. Mey-Gon was rooting strongly for some development and wasn’t above giving it a helpful nudge.

“This way, please,” C-3PO prompted from the stairs when he realized they were no longer following him.

Mey-Gon gave him a look that he clearly didn’t understand. In fact, she realized it was a little closer to the look Poe usually gave the droid.

“I should get back to my project,” Connix breathed and hurried away.

Relix watched her go and, after a mournful hum from Codey, he said thoughtfully, “I guess we’ll have to go to the bar tonight, just in case she shows up.”

“I guess we will,” Mey-Gon smiled, “Let’s hurry up and get this meeting over with.”

“Briefing room, huh?” he finally focused on where they were headed as soon as they fell in behind C-3PO again, “Maybe it really is something important.”

She still had her doubts, but those fled as soon as they entered the room and saw Leia and Commander Parma standing around a projection table studying a starmap. Mey-Gon and Relix exchanged glances and approached the center of the room with a bit more seriousness than they had been prepared for.

“Miss Niek and Lieutenant Nalen, as requested,” C-3PO announced.

“Thank you, Threepio, that will be all,” Leia dismissed him, and allowed a warm smile to interrupt the stress on her face when she made eye contact with the newcomers.

Mey-Gon smiled in return. Although the rest of the Resistance didn’t understand her, she had always found a kindred spirit in Leia. Even now, the general was wearing a sharp dress ensemble with matching jewelry and an elegant hairdo, but she commanded enough respect that meticulous style never subtracted from the gravity of her presence. Somehow Mey-Gon needed to earn that kind of regard too, or else everyone would always look at her the way Parma was now - like she was a background actor trying way too hard to get a close up.

Commander Parma wasn’t in her flight suit, but she looked just as serious and intimidating as ever in her officer’s uniform. The Weequay woman was apparently an old friend of Han’s - very old, judging by the deep wrinkles in her grey face, and from a very particular part of Han’s past, judging by the scars and chipped horns. She was one of the most experienced pilots in the Resistance, and Mey-Gon couldn’t think of any reason that they should find themselves in the same briefing room.

“And now, the reason for the strange coordinates,” Leia concluded whatever discussion she and Parma had been having over the starmap by switching it to a hologram of a small space station “This is the Illuminant , elusive base to a nomadic Force cult.”

“Force cult?” Mey-Gon repeated in surprise and leaned forward to inspect the image closer, “Light or dark?”

Relix looked confused but intrigued, “Are we being sent on a mission?”

“Neither,” Leia answered Mey-Gon first, then nodded at Relix, “And, yes, this is a rare opportunity that we cannot afford to miss. Unfortunately, with the increase in First Order attacks, I have too many operations to coordinate and I cannot go myself.” She looked genuinely regretful as she admitted, “But you are both uniquely suited for this particular task.”

Despite the general’s obvious reluctance, Mey-Gon couldn’t contain her eager smile, “You can count on us! What’s the mission?”

Leia hesitated while giving the younger woman an unsure look, then she turned her attention back to the table and cycled through a few more holograms as she spoke, “For years, this cult has accumulated one of the most exclusive collections of artifacts from Force-centric cultures. Very rarely do they allow outsiders to view the collection; and, even then, it is only for the purpose of buying, selling, or bartering. We have learned that they will be sharing their exact location with interested parties in twenty-seven standard hours and one of my intelligence officers is in play to receive those coordinates. For now all we have is the system, so you will head there tomorrow in your ship with Commander Parma in her A-wing and await directions to the traveling base, itself.”

“Then we’ll get to see the collection?” Mey-Gon’s eyes were nearly sparkling with excitement.

“Yes,” Leia finally softened some of the tension on her face, “And, if the rumors are true, it will be even more impressive than any of the museum exhibits that you loved so much. You’ve got an eye for historical props , to put it one way, Mey-Gon - especially in the style of Jedi or Sith artifacts.”

Relix was looking more and more lost, “So why do you need me? I’m no expert on this kind of stuff.”

“To authenticate,” Leia answered, giving him a long look, “I don’t want you bringing back any fakes or forgeries.”

“I mean, I guess Codey can scan things and quickly cross-reference with the holonet,” he wasn’t convinced.

“If it’s real, you’ll know it,” she assured him with a smile as mysterious as her previous expression.

“And what exactly are we looking for?” Mey-Gon asked.

“Locations,” Leia explained, enlarging a hologram of various ancient data storage devices, “Secret locations sacred to the early Jedi or Sith. Look for anything that may contain coordinates or a map or directional clues to these holy sites. Be careful because there are many Force-worshipping cultures that may be represented in this collection, but I am only interested in the locations associated with Jedi or Sith. Even if there is nothing among the collection, your fellow visitors will likely be historians and enthusiasts as well and may know of some leads.” She raised an eyebrow at Mey-Gon, “You’re good at improvising. I’m sure you know how to steer a conversation to get just the information you’re looking for.”

The former actress nodded confidently.

Finally, Parma spoke up, “Do you anticipate an ambush or a double-cross by this cult?”

“No,” Leia assured them all, “They have a very discrete reputation and are terribly protective of their collection. They would not allow anything to jeopardize that.”

Annoyance crept onto the alien woman’s face, “Well, if there won’t be any trouble, then why-?” She cut herself off as soon as she realized how insubordinate the complaint sounded.

“Why send the top squadron commander as an escort on a peaceful mission?” Leia finished for her, anyway, “Because there are very precious assets involved and I don’t want to take any risks.”

Parma narrowed her eyes and cast a quick look toward Mey-Gon, even as she replied obediently, “Understood, General.”

Mey-Gon stared hard into the hologram and tried not to let her frustration show. Even when she finally got an assignment, it was still wasting the time of more valuable members of the Resistance. Maybe Poe was right about why she never got sent on missions, if these were lengths Leia would go to in order to keep her safe.

Luckily, Relix jumped in with a practical question to get the briefing back on track, “Are we going on behalf of the Resistance, officially? Or will we have aliases?”

“It is best not to approach this deal under a political banner,” Leia shut down the projector table, “So Mey-Gon will be posing as a wealthy collector, Lieutenant Nalen as her assistant, and Commander Parma as her security. Uniforms will be provided before your departure tomorrow. Mey-Gon, I trust you already have some wardrobe that will fit the role.”

“I’m sure I have something,” she started to smile, looking forward to having an excuse to wear one of the nicer dresses that had been aboard her ship when she fled her old life, but then she paused, “What if I’m recognized?”

“Then rumor might spread that you’ve gone into hiding to work on a secret collection of Force artifacts,” the general grinned, “It’s not the strangest theory out there about your disappearance. But don’t worry about the cult turning you over. They have no allegiances and will barter with anyone, even outlaws.”

Parma bit back a scoffing snort, which Relix covered quickly with a friendly pat on Mey-Gon’s back, “Plus you’ll have me and the commander there to cover for you. It’ll be fine.”

Leia nodded her thanks at him then folded her hands in front of her, “Meet me back here tomorrow at eleven hundred hours and I’ll have your mission packets.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the trio answered immediately and Parma made her exit first.

Just as Mey-Gon and Relix neared the door, Leia spoke up again, “Mey-Gon, if you wouldn’t mind staying for a minute...”

She caught Relix’s eye, “Meet you at the ship?”

He nodded, “See you there.”

Chapter Text

As Mey-Gon walked back across the room, Leia lowered herself into a chair and allowed an exhaustion to show on her face that she must have been holding back before. Her eyes grew distant as she lost herself in thought for a moment. Mey-Gon claimed the seat beside her and waited patiently for her to share what was on her mind.

“How do you feel about this mission?” Leia finally asked, “If you have any reservations, I can find-”

“I can do this, Leia,” Mey-Gon insisted before the general could further consider taking away this chance to show everyone what she was made of, as Relix had put it, “I know I’m not good at anything else around here…”

“You’ll find your place eventually,” she murmured with sympathy.

“...but this is something I can do,” she said confidently, then added, “Maybe you don’t even need to send the commander with us. I’m sure there’s something more important for her to do.”

Leia waved a dismissive hand, “Don’t worry about her, Mey-Gon. She’s a bit rough around the edges and doesn’t understand where you come from, but she’ll protect you.”

“Nobody understands where I come from,” she burst, “and until I get a chance to prove myself, they’ll never take me seriously. I can’t even be sent on a low-risk mission without a bodyguard!” She sighed out the rest of her anger, then lowered her head sadly, “I don’t know how to talk to anyone; there’s such a difference between us. They call me ‘princess,’ you know.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a princess. Mey-Gon,” Leia smiled and reached over to take her hand, “You and I come from worlds where everyone close to us was there for their own gain. Weakness diminished our value, so we learned to carefully craft our interactions with others. That carefulness comes across as very insincere to regular beings. You have to learn to let your guard down with your teammates now.”

It made sense, but Mey-Gon recalled Relix’s words and shook her head, “If I don’t get into the trenches with them, then I won’t have any teammates. Maybe if you sent me on more missions…”

“You’re not qualified,” Leia declared, patting her hand once more before drawing hers back, “I’m only sending you on this one because it’s safe and because you know more about...”

“About Jedi?” she finished after the general trailed off, “Leia, why are we hunting for holy sites? Should I be looking for something more specific in this collection?”

“I don’t know,” Leia admitted quietly, lost for a few seconds in that distant look again, “It’s Luke that we truly need to find. When Ben betrayed us and my brother left, he didn’t tell anybody where he was going. R2-D2 powered down before we could learn anything. Our best guess is that Luke went to one of the locations he had been researching for years. He was always looking for clues to lead him to ancient temples of the Sith or Jedi. If he found the way to one of those, I’m sure that’s where he went to study and rebuild himself.”

Mey-Gon didn’t know much more than the average citizen about what had happened to Luke Skywalker. The holonet was full of rumors, but most were about as far-fetched as the ones surrounding her own disappearance. The official news stories only reported that there had been a deadly disaster at the secretive Jedi school and that Master Skywalker had disappeared not long after. In response to Mey-Gon’s initial concern for the family, Leia had only confided a little more information to her - that Ben had rebelled and caused the disaster before disappearing as well. It was vague, but Mey-Gon was at least a little relieved to hear that Ben wasn’t among the dead. She’d never spoken to Luke, herself, but she knew a few things based on Leia, Han, and Ben’s stories about him. One of the things she thought she knew had her confused now, though. Despite Leia’s usual resistance to personal prying, Mey-Gon prompted gently anyway, “Can’t you feel him through…?”

“No, he’s...he’s gone,” Leia looked down at her hands sadly, then straightened up when she realized how that sounded, “Not passed on or fallen to the dark - I’m sure I’d feel that - but he’s disconnected from me somehow. We have to find him the hard way.”

Mey-Gon paused a moment before voicing her suspicions, “Is this just personal or are things really that bad? Do we need a Jedi master to come fight?”

Leia took a deep breath and narrowed her eyes, replacing the rare glimpse of vulnerability with her usual serious self, “We’ve been analyzing the First Order’s raids for the past few years, now. The amount of resources and equipment and personnel they’ve taken is massive. Whatever they’re up to, it’s bigger than anyone realizes. And their leader, Snoke - Luke and I both felt it some time ago - he’s no military leader, he’s a creature of the dark side. He’s the one that corrupted Ben when I wasn’t there for him. Luke may be the only one who can defeat Snoke and save my son.”

“The First Order is led by the dark side?” Mey-Gon repeated with wide eyes, “If that’s truly what we’re up against, then we need to find their base. We need to rally more support. I can’t just keep taking up space here where nobody wants me around, anyway. I should be on missions. I could do undercover work, I’m more than qualified for that.”

“No. You’re already too notorious. If you were discovered you’d have to fight your way out,” she shook her head, “We can’t risk it. I’d much rather have you in the control room-”

“Then I’ll improve my combat scores, send me-”

“I’ll train you on code analysis, myself, if I have to!” Leia insisted passionately, “But I’m not sending you away too!”

Mey-Gon blinked at the phrasing and the flash of desperation in her friend’s eyes. Is that what Leia thought had caused her to lose everyone? Did she blame herself for not keeping them close? Well, whatever reason Han, Ben, and Luke had to go their own ways, Mey-Gon had no intention of following their example.

She forced every ounce of determination she could through their eye contact, “... I’m not going to abandon you, Leia.”

The tension of the moment passed, and Leia’s face softened to something sadder, “I’m sure you mean that, but those are words I no longer believe.”

Mey-Gon nodded in reluctant understanding, even though it still stung, “I guess I don’t blame you.”

Leia leaned over and wrapped the younger woman in a hug, both of them relishing the harmony that they’d always seemed to share and forgetting the selfishness of their argument. After the embrace, the general rose to her feet and Mey-Gon quickly followed her lead.

With a sigh, Leia headed towards the doorway, “I’m afraid things are a bit busy here tonight, so I won’t be sitting down to dine; otherwise you’d be welcome to join me, of course.”

“That’s all right,” Mey-Gon smiled, “I’m sure Relix and I have a lot of prep to do before tomorrow too. See you at eleven hundred.”

After they parted ways, Mey-Gon moved quickly through the bustling command bunker and into the cool evening air of the outdoors. Her landing pad was the most remote one on the base, which was perfectly fair, but sometimes made it not worth the walk. When she finally arrived at her ship, Relix already had a hovercart full of parts parked near the thruster ports and one of the panels removed. Codey was standing on the cart, arranging tools and positioning a work light.

“Everything okay with the general?” Relix asked as Mey-Gon grabbed a pair of work gloves and joined him at the open panel.

“All good,” she assured him, “She’s just a little nervous about sending me on a mission, but I think we’ll prove her wrong.”

“I hope so,” he raised his eyebrows, “But I really have no idea how to authenticate cult relics. Hand me a servodriver, please.”

Mey-Gon hovered unsurely over the cart for a second until Codey pointed at one of the tools. She thanked the droid with a wink as she grabbed the tool and leaned in to hand it to Relix.

“Thanks,” he grunted, “So what makes you an expert on religious artifacts, anyway?”

She leaned against the hull and folded her arms, “Well, I’m mostly familiar with Jedi stuff...maybe a few Sith items. I guess I’ve always been fascinated by Jedi, anything I could find on them in books or museums - whatever wasn’t destroyed by the Empire...”

Relix chuckled, “I just remember that one animated holoshow when we were kids. My friend and I used to run around with sticks like they were lightsabers.”

“I know the one,” Mey-Gon laughed, “I bet most people are only familiar with the fictionalized versions of Force-users. Even after all my historical interest, I guess I really learned the most from playing a Jedi on the holoseries.”

“You played a Jedi?” he turned to her in surprise.

“You didn’t know that?” she grinned, “Very popular series. I was nearly done recording the fourth season when everything fell apart. Connix is a big fan, though. You should ask to borrow her copy, or maybe you guys can watch together…”

“Anglebeam,” he held out his hand abruptly.

“Right,” she sighed, stepping back out to the cart and looking to Codey for help again, “Anyway, when I was cast for the part, I really dug into my research. Leia was a great resource and even her son, Ben, got stuck answering questions for me whenever he was home from training. Doesn’t get much more authentic than a real life modern Jedi. So I guess that’s what makes me the closest thing to an expert on this base besides Leia, herself.”

“Sounds like the perfect mission for you, then,” Relix shook his head, “I still don’t know how I’m supposed to spot fakes, though.”

“Well,” Mey-Gon stared in at the patchwork of modifications that covered the engine casing, “You’re great at building things. Maybe you’ll be able to see weld lines or synthesized material that the rest of us might not notice.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“It’s an important mission, Relix,” she assured him, “Leia wouldn’t send you unless she knew you were the most suited for the job.”

“You’re right,” he agreed, giving her a grateful smile, “I wonder if we’ll also be assigned to visit whatever location we find the coordinates for.”

From the way their conversation ended, Mey-Gon doubted Leia would be sending her out again any time soon, but she forced a lighthearted tone anyway, “If that’s the case, let’s try to find directions to a nice beachside holy site.”

Relix laughed, “Deal. Now, grab the moobian torsion valve, then come hold these wires for me. I should have this done in a flash.”

“Are we in a hurry?”

“Well…” he paused awkwardly, “I’d like a little bit of time to clean up before we go to the bar.”

“Oh, yeah!” Mey-Gon brightened at the reminder of potential romantic intrigue, “You can use the refresher in my ship, if you want, so you don’t have to walk all the way back to the barracks. We’ll definitely want to look our best for the bar tonight.”

Relix must have been genuinely eager as well, because he worked quickly, sparing less time than usual to explain to Mey-Gon what he was doing. It was fine because she really didn’t grasp the mechanics anyway. All she understood was that this adjustment would result in a slight boost to her engines at the cost of burning fuel at a higher rate and possibly dimming the cabin lights imperceptibly. By the time they wrapped up, the sunset was fading towards night overhead and they knew the bar would be getting crowded soon.

While Relix washed off in the refresher, Mey-Gon changed into one of her casual dresses and lounged on the couch to wait. She dabbed the tiniest amount of beauty cream onto her face, indulging in the rare pampered feeling. Her secret supply of luxury serums were hidden in the ship’s bedroom closet, and she had been using them as sparingly as possible. There was no way she’d ever be able to afford new product after this stash ran out. Besides her elegant blaster from Leia, Mey-Gon’s high-end creams were her most prized possessions. She wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to the simple soaps in the barrack refreshers - they did absolutely nothing beneficial for her skin or hair.

Chapter Text

By the time the two left Mey-Gon’s ship and headed towards the bar, it was dark and most everyone would be done with their regular shifts for the day. There was little else to do for recreation around the base, so the single drinking establishment filled up pretty quickly at this hour. In actuality, the bar was a rusty old cargo container which had been converted into a social hotspot with the help of some mismatched furnishings and hasty electric wiring. It was certainly the sketchiest facility Mey-Gon had ever frequented; but Ethad, the usual bartender and a fuel technician by day, was surprisingly skilled at mixology. She was happy to see him at his post as she and Relix entered the noisy building and looked around. There was no sign of Connix yet, but even more disappointing was the lack of open seats for their little party.

“How about over there?” Relix raised his voice over the music, as he pointed toward a crescent-shaped couch hugging a round table. It was already claimed by Bastian, Sara Bel-Sun, and L’ulo L’ampar. Sara was cuddled up next to Bastian, who had an arm around her bare green shoulders, but the couple was spaced far enough apart from L’ulo that a few more bodies would easily be able to fit on the couch if everyone squeezed together.

Recognizing the occupants, Mey-Gon frowned, “With the pilots? They’re the most cliquey gang on this base. I doubt they’d want us sitting with them.”

“It’ll be fine,” he assured her, already leading the way over, “Hey, rocket jockeys!”

“Relix!” they cheered, immediately scooting over to make room, “Join us!”

Resisting the urge to cross her arms uncomfortably, Mey-Gon followed her friend into the makeshift booth and tried to remember what Leia had said about letting her guard down. Every greeting she could think of was calculated and artificial - exactly the opposite of what she needed - so she remained silent, waiting for some kind of natural way to join the conversation that had already burst to life between Bastian and Relix about the latest Sienar prototypes.

Seemingly sensing her awkwardness, L’ulo leaned forward, fanning his green fingers towards her, “It’s...Mey-Gon, right? Which department are you with now?”

“Yeah,” she perked up, “I’m still bouncing around, haven’t quite settled on a team yet.”

She had known a few Duros in her life and could tell by his face that L’ulo had some years under his belt, but she still found herself surprised by the gravel in his voice. He must have been much older than she guessed.

“Clearly you should be the test pilot for all these experimental speeders,” he chuckled, then leaned over to explain to Sara as he pointed across the table at Mey-Gon, “I once saw a replay of this young lady crash most spectacularly in a mid-tier swoop race. Such a shame, I thought, to break a nice human in anything less than the pro league. Clearly she is more indestructible than I and the sports announcers gave her credit for.”

Mey-Gon felt her heart sink. Of all the broadcasted highlights of her career to be remembered for, why had he only seen that one? Then again, Sara did look a little impressed at the story, so maybe it was worth addressing. “The track walls are a lot softer than they look,” she said simply and was rewarded with a round of laughter from L’ulo and Sara that made Bastian and Relix pay attention.

“Hey, Bastian,” Sara elbowed him, “Weren’t you notorious for a string of crashes at one point?”

He held up a hand defensively, “That was just in training. I’ve only had to eject once from a real starfighter...”

As the pilots and Relix launched into branching stories about names of other pilots and battles that Mey-Gon had never heard of, she sat quietly and tried to keep the smile on her face matched to the level of enthusiasm the others were displaying. The conversation was so lively and overlapping that the others hardly noticed her lack of participation, and she didn’t want to derail the flow by asking for further explanation. After a few minutes, it became clear that she didn’t have any anecdotes to add and she found herself zoning out with her gaze locked on L’ulo’s ale.

Waiting until Relix was done commenting on one of Sara’s speculations about another pilot, Mey-Gon finally bumped him with her arm, “I’m going to grab us some drinks.”

Before he could protest or offer to pay, she slid off the couch and stood, turning to flee towards the bar. Immediately, she had to dance sideways to avoid colliding with Snap Wexley and Poe, who were just approaching the table with drinks in their hands.

“Nice moves,” Snap snickered.

“Well, well, well,” Poe couldn’t contain his cheeky grin, “What a surprise to see you here.”

“Joke’s on you, hotshot,” she mirrored the smile, “I have a mission tomorrow.”

This actually caught him off guard and his expression shifted to something more like a proud parent, “Look at you, princess! You have to tell me about it after you grab your drink. I’ll save your seat.”

“Sure,” she agreed and backed away toward the bar while the two pilots arrived at her table to a round of cheers from the occupants.

Everyone squeezed in even closer toward the middle so that Snap could fit on one side next to L’ulo while Poe claimed her vacant seat on the other side next to Relix. The rowdy conversation that she hadn’t been a part of erupted anew with the newcomers joining right in. The sound of it followed her all the way to the bar, where she slid into an open bit of counter space and waited for Ethad’s attention.

“Hey, your highness,” he finally stopped in front of her, “The usual?”

She smiled tightly, glad Poe hadn’t heard that, and nodded, “If you please. And also an ale for my friend.”

Already preparing the glasses, he raised an eyebrow at her, “You know you have to pay for that one too, right?”

“Holy moons, Ethad, I know now!” she huffed and he burst into laughter, wandering off to grab the bottles.

On her very first visit to the bar, there had been a dramatic misunderstanding when Mey-Gon hadn’t known how or when or even that she was supposed to pay for her drinks. It wasn’t her fault that she’d never encountered this step in the process before, though that proved to be an unbelievable excuse to everyone else. Eventually, she and Ethad had smoothed things out, but the joke still lingered and had only managed to solidify her reputation as out-of-touch royalty even more.

While she waited, she turned to watch her table, taking in the jovial scene with an analytical eye. Everyone seemed so happy to be talking to one another, so genuinely interested in what the others were saying. Their expressions, their body language, everything radiated a natural comfort and camaraderie. They truly cared about each other. Once upon a time, she had been determined to earn fame and praise in the Core worlds; but suddenly it seemed like such a vain, worthless dream. She could see now that a few true friends were worth more than a whole entourage and a trillion fans.

She felt her gut ache as she thought back to all her nights spent in fancier clubs than this, with higher-shelf liquors than this, surrounded by more influential beings than this, all giving her immeasurably more attention than this. At the time, she believed that she had a team like those pilots, but here she could see the real thing; and the farce she had lived before became clearer than ever. She realized now that nobody in her entourage had really cared about her, but it had always been in their best interest to pretend they did. And the truth was that she never really cared about them either; after all those years of playing the same social game, she didn’t even miss them. At least her comrades in the Resistance were honest about their disinterest or pity. Maybe after this mission, things would change. Maybe she’d finally prove something to them and they’d care about her too.

“Hey, Mey-Gon!” Ethad shouted, and she turned to see him shaking an empty bottle, “Last of the brandy for your drink. It’s your lucky night!”

She gave him a thumbs up, then noticed that the man next to her was suddenly staring. Hopefully he hadn’t ordered the Haidoral fig brandy after her. Slowly, she moved her gaze over to study him and the expression he was wearing. It had the overwhelmed shock of recognition that she’d seen on the faces of countless fans over the years, but there was something far more emotional in his eyes. He was a thick middle-aged human with a worn face and streaks of grey in his short beard. She couldn’t remember having met him before, not even around the base, so he must have been a new arrival.

“You’re Mey-Gon Niek,” he finally said with reverence, “Yes. How did I not notice?”

She tried very hard to let her guard down, as Leia had instructed, but found that the polite smile automatically plastered itself on her face anyway. Well, at least she’d have more to contribute to a conversation with a fan than she did with the pilots.

“I’ll never forget,” he continued, the emotion growing, “watching you help my mother move debris from her doorway after the attack...”

Her smile dissolved. This wasn’t a fan. It was someone from one of the many disaster scenes she’d visited with her relief organization, the Galactic Initiative for Dedicated Entertainers. Someone who had witnessed her show up briefly for a charade of hologenic moments of charity in an attempt to boost her public image. Hopefully, by seeing her here now with the Resistance, he would realize how sincerely she believed in the cause and would forgive her previous selfishness.

“I’m so sorry…” she started, but he cut her off with a shake of his head and a bittersweet smile.

“It’s better now, so much better,” he assured her, “After you and the G.I.D.E. came and the story of what happened to our town was publicized, a new company moved in and rebuilt the factory, bigger and busier than before. The town is thriving again, everyone has jobs. We’ll never forget what you did for us. And I came here to make sure that what happened to us doesn’t have to happen to anyone else. I never dreamt I’d ever actually get to meet you face to face and...” he shook his head again with tears in his eyes, then lurched forward and trapped her in a smothering hug, “I can never thank you enough.”

For a moment, her eyes went wide and she could see in her peripheral as someone from her table started to stand up, but then she wrapped her own arms around the man and squeezed back just as vigorously, shutting her eyes and mind to everyone else in the bar for a moment. Maybe she was just a useless princess to the rest of them, but here was proof that she had made a difference in the galaxy and she would find a way to do it again.

“I’m so happy to hear things are better now,” she said as they finally released each other, “and I hope your mother’s doing well too.”

“She’s doing great,” he beamed, “and wait until I tell her about this.”

“You probably shouldn’t,” Mey-Gon chuckled, sliding some credits onto the bar as Ethad set down her drinks, “I’m kind of a fugitive right now. Better that nobody knows where to start looking.” She hesitated, then scooted her cocktail over in front of the man, “Here. My treat. It’s a special from my planet. Since I got to see your home, it’s only fair that you get a taste of mine.”

He looked overwhelmed again, but she smiled at him so confidently that he couldn’t dare refuse, “Thank you.”

She patted his arm and picked up the ale, taking it with her back to the noisy table. The little couch already looked to be at maximum capacity, and she thought about just dropping off Relix’s drink and leaving. It wasn’t like the others would notice her absence anyway. Somehow, though, her return was marked with a considerate shuffle from the pilots to make room and a cacophony of laughter as everyone found themselves nearly sitting on top of each other. Mey-Gon claimed the resulting space, pressing in as closely against Poe as she dared and bracing herself on her outer leg, which was still halfway off the edge of the cushion.

She reached around to slide the ale to Relix and he leaned back to smile at her over Poe’s shoulder, “You’re the best!”

Mey-Gon just laughed. At least there were two people who appreciated her now.

The conversation around the table resumed with a burst of energy, barely fazed by the interruption. They were still gossiping about someone Mey-Gon didn’t know, so she started to zone out again, wishing her meager Resistance salary afforded her enough credits to buy herself another drink. Or maybe Connix would show up after all and she could give up her seat to the girl and go back to her ship to drink the bottle that was still in her jacket.

“Hey,” Poe said, shockingly close when he turned his head in her direction, “Everything ok?”

“Totally fine,” she automatically responded with an interview smile, then winced, reminding herself that she was supposed to start being genuine if she ever wanted true friends, “I mean, I’m just thinking about things.”

There was something strained in his voice and face, though he was clearly trying to sound casual, “Did that guy at the bar say something? Do you know him?”

“No, he just remembered me from...something...” she struggled, unsure of how to explain their connection without sounding like the elitist he already thought she was. She honestly wasn’t even sure how much Poe already knew about her past. They had never really talked at length about themselves to each other; every conversation just seemed to be a series of good-natured competitive quips. It seemed like a safe enough habit to fall back on now, “I don’t suppose you know who he is, Wing Commander? Seeing as you know every troop well enough to remember their combat scores.”

His smirk betrayed admiration for her attempted jab, but mainly it was a cocky smirk of victory as he countered, “Clearly the man is infantry, not even part of my branch. I’m sure you’ve learned the different divisions by now.”

The patronizing tease disarmed her for only a moment before she thought of the perfect riposte and turned toward him, once again finding herself flustered by how close he was. She opened her mouth to respond just as the rest of the table burst into a roar of shouts and laughter in reaction to something Snap had said in the other conversation. Poe couldn’t suppress a bemused smile as he looked back at her amid the noise. The momentum of their squabble fizzled out and they both seemed to surrender to the fact that this was no place for a private conversation.

Suddenly the music cut out and a long tone rang in its place, repeating twice. By the end of the third tone, the entire bar had gone frozen and silent as they looked toward the speaker.

“Attention,” it sounded like Connix’s voice, “The following personnel are to report to command for immediate briefing and departure: Stalker Company, Tremor Strike Group, Transport Delphi captain and crew, Red Leader, and Red Two.”

Mey-Gon felt Poe tense up next to her and she remembered that, in the sky, he was Red Leader. Several other beings in the establishment were also part of the summoned groups, and the silence left behind by the announcement ending was slowly filled with slaps on the back and murmured well-wishes. Mey-Gon had heard base-wide mission rosters like this dozens of times and stopped caring when she realized her name would never be part of them; but it felt a lot different to sit with a group of friends when some of them were being called away to fight. The tension in the air was undeniable. Across the table, Bastion and Sara were wrapping up a long kiss and he was whispering something to her while Snap and L’ulo scooted out of the booth to clear the way for Red Two to make her exit.

“Well,” Poe slid his mostly-full glass over in front of Mey-Gon and nudged her with the arm that was pressed against hers, “Looks like you owe me a drink next time.”

“Deal,” she stood up to let him out.

As soon as he was standing in front of her, he reached out like he was going to pull her into a hug, then hesitated and simply patted her arms instead, “In case I’m not back by tomorrow, good luck on your mission.”

“Thanks,” she nodded, “I’ll tell you all about it when we’re both back and having that drink.”

He smiled, then stepped past her to where Sara was waiting. The two pilots exchanged a quick fist-bump before heading towards the door along with the several others in the bar who had been summoned. Mey-Gon lowered herself back down onto the couch and wrapped her hands around Poe’s drink, thinking that she should be happy to have the alcohol now, but whatever this actual feeling was, she didn’t like it.

“He’ll be all right, dear,” L’ulo said and she looked across the table to see that he was giving her a knowing smile, “That boy bounces off danger like you bounce off racetrack walls.”

She blushed but couldn’t help laughing along with the rest of the table. The stress was gradually easing out of the room as Ethad got the music restarted and conversations began to spring back to life.

Bastian sighed, “That’s three active missions just today. Something’s up.”

Mey-Gon took a long drink to hide her face as the discussion and speculation spiraled away. She wasn’t sure how confidential her private conversation with the general was meant to be. If things were really as bad as Leia expressed, then more and more of the Resistance would be getting sent off to fight. Frustration flared up anew when she thought about the fact that the top commander was being sent as her bodyguard for a shopping trip while pilots like Poe and Sara were putting their lives on the line in battle. She glanced at Relix, wondering if he would rather be on a more important mission as well, and noticed that he looked a little more slumped than before.

“Sorry, Relix,” Mey-Gon said quietly, “Looks like she’s not going to make it tonight.”

He perked up immediately when he realized she had noticed, “It’s fine. She’s got a really important job. And I’m still glad to be here with so many other friends.”

“Cheers to that,” Snap agreed, lifting his glass over the center of the table.

Everyone else grabbed their drinks and raised them together, echoing the cheers. Knowing the requirements of the social cue, Mey-Gon joined in the toast, though she felt like a complete fraud. These weren’t her friends - at least, not yet. She made quick work of the remaining alcohol in her glass, secretly wishing Poe had ordered something stronger, then made her excuses as soon as it felt appropriate. The pilots kindly wished her a good night and Relix promised to catch her in the morning before their appointed meeting time.

Chapter Text

There was too much on her mind to go right to bed, so Mey-Gon grabbed her jacket from her ship and hiked up her skirt for a trek into the dark jungle behind the landing pad. She’d been keen on exploring since she first arrived; and once C-3PO assured her that there were no native predators and the area had been cleared of creepervine, she made use of some of her ample free time by discovering a few favorite spots within walking distance of the base. A serpentine river passed close to this side of the perimeter, and she had been overjoyed to find a couple red sandy banks along its edge. She reached one now and sat down to look up at the night sky. It was no private beach, but the sand under her legs was still warm from the day’s sun and the splashing of the river was just as relaxing as the sound of waves. Her homeworld didn’t glow protectively overhead, but the glittering ring that hugged D’Qar was nearly as comforting.

She plucked the small liquor bottle out of her jacket and swigged a mouthful. This was the good stuff. She raised it toward the sky in silent thanks to the poor girl up on the fleet who had given it to Poe. Before she had even brought her hand down, the sound of engines swelled up around her and she watched as the dark shapes and running lights of three ships passed overhead then curved their path up toward space. Two X-wings and a U-55 orbital loadlifter, she could tell from her training as a lookout. There was a pressure on her chest as she watched their lights shrink into the distance, so she swallowed another drink and stared out at the water instead.

The next day’s mission would be an easy one, but maybe it would still prove something to Leia. With more and more troops being deployed for defense operations, she would have to utilize Mey-Gon eventually. Maybe Relix was right. Maybe if they did a good job retrieving the coordinates, then Leia would also trust them to scour the location and bring back Luke. Either way, Mey-Gon promised herself that she would work every day on improving her combat scores as soon as they got back.

She lingered on the riverbank until the setting and the alcohol had sufficiently soothed her restlessness, then she walked back to the barracks. These living quarters were located through one of the gaping entrances under a verdant hill and the three long hallways ran deep into the underground space. At a couple places, the rows of doors were interrupted by large refresher facilities, and Mey-Gon thanked her lucky stars that she had the luxury of privacy back at her ship from time to time. The common facilities made sense for a military, but it was taking a lot of getting used to. Even when racing or recording holos on location, she had always been provided a private dressing room for showering and biological necessities.

At last she reached her door and eased it open carefully, in case anyone was already asleep. Like every other room, hers was furnished with a table, a few long shelves, and three sets of bunk beds. Three of her roommates were sleeping and one was sitting on her bed, awash in the light of a datapad she was studying. The woman looked up and nodded at Mey-Gon before returning to her reading. All of her roommates were cordial like that, though a couple of them acted more nervous around her, but none had been quite as friendly as Relix or Poe. She knew Relix, at least, was in a completely different hallway, but she wished either of them were assigned to her room. It would be easier than trying to make friends with people who always seemed to stop talking whenever she walked in.

She moved to the row of trunks at the back of the room and opened hers, taking out her sleeping gown and changing into it before folding away the jacket and dress she had been wearing. As she climbed up onto her bunk, she noticed that the bed below her was still empty. Either he was out unusually late, or he had been in one of the teams that got sent on a mission that day. She mentally wished him well either way, but at least she wouldn’t have to worry about her tossing and turning keeping him up.

Despite the fact that she didn’t have a work shift that day, Mey-Gon’s chrono still woke her up in the morning at the usual early hour. It was probably for the best, since she would need more time than normal to get ready. A couple of her roommates were also up and getting dressed for their shifts, one was already gone, and one was still asleep. The bed below her looked untouched, but she tried not to think the worst. Sometimes missions were long like that.

She grabbed a casual dress and her toiletries bag and headed to the refreshers, claiming an empty shower stall to make a clean start of the morning. The hot water quickly reenergized her and by the time she was grabbing a mug of caf from the mess hall, Mey-Gon was actually starting to feel excited about the pending assignment. She would have to get completely ready in her ship, since that’s where she kept her nicest gowns, accessories, and beauty products; and quality was essential when playing a “wealthy collector.”

As she walked briskly down the thoroughfare, she passed a certain landing pad and turned to look at it out of habit, but found that it was empty. Usually her beautiful black and orange X-wing sat there, a stunning totem of her old self; and she would have liked that reminder today, in particular. Posing as a wealthy collector wasn’t too far off from the part she’d played as an affluent arms buyer in Canto Bight. Her hair was still the bright copper color that had inspired the orange part of the ship’s paint job, but instead of the provocative black dress that made negotiating with weapons dealers a lot easier, she figured she’d wear something a bit classier to study Force-centric artifacts. She was always disappointed when that X-wing was gone, but now she found herself looking at the vacant landing pad with the same uneasy feeling that her bunkmate’s empty bed gave her that morning. Poe would be fine, she assured herself; she had her own mission to concentrate on.

The act of digging through her closet and pulling out dresses that she’d had no reason to look at for months was enough to hype Mey-Gon up and make her forget all about her worries. It probably wouldn’t be necessary, but as she decided on her wardrobe, she couldn’t help thinking of a backstory and personality for this collector character she would be playing. She settled on a slinky gown with an asymmetrical neckline and long gloves for sleeves. The gold material was soft and flowy, but reflected light like liquid metal. It certainly broadcast the “rich” part of her character with bold certainty. To complete the ensemble, she braided her hair into an elegant updo and fitted a gold headpiece across her forehead with charms that fell like a frame on either side of her face.

As she stared into the mirror to work on her makeup, she marveled at the fact that she would have unironically dressed up like this for an average night out not so long ago. Of course her glam team would have done a better job on her hair and makeup, but she still would have looked in the mirror and seen herself. Now she saw a character. These days she was more used to seeing her reflection with a simple ponytail and dull uniform jacket. She wondered what she’d look like in a flight suit, but shook her head just as soon as the thought snuck in. Leia had been pretty clear about dangerous jobs like that; and even if Mey-Gon could fly starfighters like she raced swoops, her combat scores would still disqualify her from battle situations.

“One thing at a time,” she told herself, and the woman in the mirror certainly looked like the confident kind of person that knew how to accomplish her goals.

The long walk back to command earned her more stares than she’d gotten since her first arrival. It was a sunny morning on D’Qar and Mey-Gon was an exceptionally shiny figure at the moment. She was a little early, but when she arrived at the bunker, Relix was already outside, leaning against the vine-draped wall with Codey balanced on his shoulder.

“Oh, damn, girl!” he jumped when she walked up, “I thought you were Threepio for a second!”

Mey-Gon waved her hand dismissively, already feeling in-character, “It would be very tacky for a woman of my status to match her droid.”

Relix laughed and looked at Codey, who hummed and did his interpretation of a shrug, “Well, I can’t wait to see what my costume looks like now.”

Chapter Text

They entered the command bunker and wound their way across the tech stations toward the briefing annexes. It looked nearly as busy as the day before, but there was no sign of Connix. She must have taken a later shift after working so long the previous night. Mey-Gon looked at the row of operators and wondered who would be the lucky one monitoring their boring mission. Some of them appeared to be pretty stressed at the moment, and she tried not to speculate about which of the active assignments they were following.

Commander Parma was waiting in the briefing room when Mey-Gon and Relix walked in, and she sighed when she caught sight of them, folding her arms and barely suppressing an eye roll, “We’re going to a museum, not a wedding.”

Normally, Mey-Gon was more careful around the commanding officers, but being in this outfit had her feeling particularly feisty, “Actually, this is pretty casual for a wealthy collector at an exclusive viewing. I think I got it for a night club.”

Parma wasn’t impressed, grumbling, “I can’t believe I’m playing bodyguard to the kind of club girl that Han and I used to smuggle spice for.”

“I doubt that,” she deadpanned, even though she was pleased to finally find out a little about the commander’s seedy past, “Our glitterstim was top-source imported. None of that diluted Kijimi garbage you smugglers like to trade.”

Her eyes were narrowed, but there was a hint of a smile on Parma’s lips as she snorted and walked away to lean on the projection table.

Relix, however, was looking back and forth between the commander and Mey-Gon with his mouth hanging open before he whispered harshly, “You never told me you were a glit-biter!”

“Settle down, Relix,” she whispered back, “You can’t run in the circles I ran in without hitting a little spice now and then. But it was all expensively refined - not nearly as addictive.”

Codey made a scolding tone and Relix nodded in agreement.

Thankfully, Leia entered before the tiff could escalate, and everyone stood up at attention. She was carrying a small box in her hands and C-3PO followed behind her with a pile of folded clothing in his arms.

“Oh, my!” the droid exclaimed, “Miss Niek, that is a particularly stunning garment, if I may be so bold.”

She could see Relix’s smirk from the corner of her eye even as she tried to maintain a professional tone, “Why thank you, Threepio.”

“I knew you wouldn’t disappoint,” the general said with a smile as she looked up and down at Mey-Gon’s ensemble, then moved her gaze between Parma and Relix, “Threepio has uniforms for you both. I believe all of you will perfectly portray the roles we discussed for this mission. The final piece is this.” She indicated the box she was holding, “The cult you will be meeting does not allow recreational viewers near their collection. You must have something significant to trade or sell.” She handed the box to Relix, “Authenticate this, please.”

“Yes, General,” he sounded unsure, but obediently took it and opened the lid as Codey leaned over his shoulder to get a clear view of the reveal.

Mey-Gon watched with interest as he pulled out a loop of black cord with a red crystal tied to the bottom. If she had to guess, it was probably a kyber crystal. That was the only type of gem a force cult would be particularly interested in; but they probably had dozens of such crystals, so it might still be a tough trade. Something about Relix’s reaction made her doubt herself, though. He was holding the stone almost at arm’s length and was staring at it with an uncomfortable expression on his suddenly-pale face. It seemed highly unlikely, given their conversation about historical knowledge, but did he somehow recognize something that she didn’t?

“You don’t like it?” Leia asked smoothly with a glint of approval in her eyes.

“No offense, ma’am. It’s…” Relix blinked as though he didn’t want to use the word, “...beautiful. But I think it may have been exposed to something?”

“It certainly was,” she nodded and took the cord out of his hand, holding it up for all of them to see as she appeared to brace herself for the explanation, “It’s a kyber crystal…” Mey-Gon nodded in satisfaction until Leia continued, “...from Darth Vader’s lightsaber.”

Relix recoiled slightly, Codey’s photoreceptors whirred, and Mey-Gon gasped; but Parma actually stepped in for a closer look.

“How?” the commander asked.

Leia pressed her lips together tightly, something bitter straining her features, “Luke recovered the weapon after Endor. There were two crystals inside, so he kept one and gave the other to me.” She shook her head, “It’s an heirloom I’m ready to be rid of.”

Mey-Gon flinched when Leia moved her arm toward her, but she gathered her nerves and held still as the cord was fitted over her head like a necklace and the crystal came to rest heavily against her chest. It was such a horrible thing to carry around one’s neck like simple jewelry; but if it removed the burden from Leia, then Mey-Gon was ready to wear it without question.

“There,” Leia held her hand over the crystal, almost like she was pushing it away, and remarked admiringly, “It doesn’t bother you at all, does it?”

Mey-Gon swallowed, not wanting to be disrespectful, but she’d always been honest with Leia, “Oh, it bothers me, all right.”

The general smiled and drew her hand back, looking relieved at last, “This should afford you any trade you wish once you have studied the collection.” She turned to Relix, “And the reaction you felt, Lieutenant, is the mark of a true artifact. Perhaps not always so unpleasant, but there will be a reaction. Trust your feelings.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, the earlier unsureness now gone.

“Commander,” Leia nodded at the Weequay woman, a silent understanding passing between them for a few seconds before she looked back at Mey-Gon, “The coordinates for your holding point will be transmitted to you and the commander once you’re in the air. As soon as we have instructions from the cult, we will transmit those as well.” She turned to the protocol droid, “Threepio, give them their uniforms.” As C-3PO distributed the many pieces of clothing between Parma and Relix, Leia took a moment to step close and grasp Mey-Gon’s bare shoulders before stretching up to kiss her cheek, “May the Force be with you.”

“May the Force be with you,” Mey-Gon murmured back through a growing smirk, “We’re going to be fine, Leia. You know I’ve completed riskier missions for you before, going alone to meet with black market distributors and such.”

“Yes, and look how that turned out,” Leia smirked back, then laughed as her young friend’s expression fell into a pout, “But this time, you will be fine.”

“Right,” she was still pouting, “So get on. I’m sure some other missions need you, General. We’ve got this under control.”

Leia nodded and exited the briefing room with a lingering smile on her face. This left Commander Parma in charge, and she already looked grumpy, even though she hadn’t unfolded any of the clothes in her arms. Meanwhile, Relix was eagerly holding up pieces in front of himself with one hand while balancing the rest of the already-crumpled pile in his other arm.

“All right,” Parma got their attention with a sharp bark, “You heard the general, we lift off together and await our coordinates. I will be charting the hyperspace course to reach them, then I’ll transmit the route to you. What’s your ship’s identification?”

“RT-582,” Mey-Gon replied.

Parma acknowledged this with a grunt and looked at Relix, “Be sure to set your comm frequency to seven and stay on my wing until the jump point.”

He glanced at Mey-Gon, and she answered, “I got it.”

“You’re not piloting, Lieutenant?” the commander eyed Relix with disapproval.

He shrugged, “It’s her ship.”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly through her nostrils, then grumbled as she brushed past Mey-Gon, “Just stay on my wing. We’re in the air in fifteen minutes.”

Mey-Gon snapped off a quick salute to the officer’s back and rolled her eyes over to look at Relix, “I guess we better hurry if we want to make it to the ship in time. You can change once we take off.”

Of course, she had forgotten that crossing the base with Relix was a completely different process, and within a minute of exiting the command bunker, one of his friends gave them a ride out to the distant landing pad on a cargo sled. This afforded them enough time for a quick lap around the ship to do a preflight visual check.

Mey-Gon ran her gloved hand lovingly over the beautiful chromium hull of her ship. After the Galactic Civil War, Rendili StarDrive had shifted the design of their light corvettes from military to luxury in order to appeal to the broader market. Smaller than a yacht but with a similar sleek profile, the RT-5 series still boasted ample room for storage and entertaining, making it the select private transport for the more reclusive rich and famous. All Mey-Gon had known when picking it out was that it was pretty and it was easy to fly - perfect for those trips when she wanted to be alone. She didn’t actually have sufficient knowledge to do a proper inspection, but she knew enough to be able to tell if something was really wrong; and as she circled the ship, everything looked right.

Relix, who was certainly more of an expert than she was, agreed that the ship was ready to go and they moved in to the cockpit, dumping his disguise in the lounge on their way. Piloting was easily managed by one person; but, nevertheless, there was a second chair behind the pilot’s seat, and Relix sunk into it with the satisfied smile of a person who didn’t often get to feel this quality of cushion design wrapped in fine leather. Codey hopped up onto the dash to observe, careful about where he placed his appendages. The control panel now had the same hodge-podge appearance that the inside of her engines did, thanks to Relix’s modifications. There were all kinds of new displays and buttons and levers for her to contend with, but the added features were worth it.

With the engines primed and the chrono showing them right on schedule, Mey-Gon keyed the comm, “Ground control, this is RT-582, requesting clearance for lift off.”

“Copy that, RT-582, you are clear for departure.”

The corvette rose carefully off of the landing pad and rotated until they could see Commander Parma’s A-wing gliding towards them from across the base. The fighter pulled up and began the climb away from the planet.

“ Stay on my wing ,” Mey-Gon did an impression of the commander’s voice as she followed her toward space.

Relix laughed enthusiastically and tried his own imitation, “ Don’t even think about making your own hyperspace calculations .”

As soon as she finished laughing, Mey-Gon fixed Relix with a serious look over her shoulder, “So what exactly does ‘stay on my wing’ mean, anyway?”

He held his hands up to represent the positioning and she nodded her thanks, trying to replicate it by bringing her ship just behind and to the side of the A-wing. “Perfect,” he nodded.

“You get to fly often?” she asked after a minute.

“A few times,” he admitted, “But I’m not assigned, and only a couple battles outside the sims.”

“I’d like to try that too, sometime. Would you teach me?”

He leaned forward and raised an eyebrow, “Are you sure you don’t want to ask someone else ?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you-,” Mey-Gon was cut off by the sound of her computer receiving a transmission and she looked down at the display to see the coordinates for their destination.

Normally, she’d select for the navcomputer to calculate the best hyperspace route, but Parma had insisted on doing that, herself. Mey-Gon double-checked that her comm was on the right channel for conversation between their ships, then she waited. Finally the computer chimed again, indicating the download of a data package containing their hyperspace course.

“RT-582, confirm receipt of the calculations,” Parma’s voice crackled into the cockpit. 

“Calculations received, programming to navcomputer now,” Mey-Gon answered as she hit the corresponding buttons on her dash.

“Good. Follow me to the entry point, then we jump on my mark. Copy that, RT-582?”

“Copy that, Commander,” she closed the channel for a second with a sigh, “She knows my name, do I have to keep answering to my ship code?”

“You’ll learn,” Relix shrugged, “Out here it’s all about callsigns or ship IDs, even if you’re comming with someone you know. When you dock up here with the fleet, you hail the flagship as Raddus , right?” He looked out as they passed by the orbital ring that hid the larger Resistance ships.

“Right.”

He pointed at the A-wing in front of them, “And when you’re with a fighter, you use their callsign. So now the commander is actually Blue Leader or Blue One, if we all had numbers.”

Mey-Gon thought about this for a moment, “So I should really come up with a name for my ship.”

“Unless you want to be RT-582 forever.”

“No, I-”

“RT-582,” Parma’s voice interrupted, “We’re approaching the jump point, prepare for hyperspace.”

Mey-Gon looked at Relix with a tight smile as she answered, “Copy that, Blue Leader.”

“Lightspeed in 5...4...3...2...1.”

With the movement of a lever, shifting engine power from sublight to hyperdrive, Mey-Gon launched her corvette into the hyperspace lane and let the navcomputer take over controls. According to the route the commander had chosen, they would reach their coordinates in just over two hours.

Relix stood and stretched, picking up Codey and heading for the doorway, “Well, I guess I better get changed.”

“And I’m going to mix a drink,” Mey-Gon followed him.

“It’s barely noon!”

“Maybe on D’Qar, but we’re in hyperspace. Time is relative.”

The lounge sported a kitchenette corner that used to be fully stocked with everything Mey-Gon could ever need for entertaining. Now the shelves had dwindled to a miserable selection that probably wouldn’t last her much longer, and it was highly unlikely she’d ever have the chance or the credits to dock somewhere and restock. She was secretly relieved when Relix declined her offer to mix a cocktail up for him as well. By the time she turned around, he had changed into his blue-grey tunic and trousers and was trying to affix the navy half-cape to the clasps on his shoulder and chest so that it would hang asymmetrically down his back. Gloves and a hat still sat on the couch, next to Codey, who was looking on with interest. The outfit actually complemented the lieutenant’s tan skin and blue hair pretty well.

Relix turned in a circle as soon as the cape was in place, “Do you think the commander has the same uniform?”

“Well,” Mey-Gon thought about it, “My team never had matching suits, besides my pit crew; but rich collectors are a bit more particular about that kind of thing than rich working people. I’m sure she’ll hate it, whatever it is.”

Looking down at himself in disgust, Relix switched into another impression of Parma’s voice, “ I’m supposed to be security, not some casino valet! ”

Mey-Gon abbreviated her chuckle and scowled through her own impersonation, “ If any holos of this get out, I will bury both of you deeper than an undiscovered spice vein on Kessel. ”

“Damn, you’re good at that,” Relix shook his head as he laughed.

She shrugged, taking a casual sip of her drink, “It’s a living.”

“Then you have to help me,” he looked down at himself again, “I have no idea what a rich person’s assistant does, and I don’t want my acting to blow our cover.”

A smile crept onto Mey-Gon’s lips over the top of her glass. Finally, the tables had turned and her expertise actually mattered; this really was the perfect mission for her. And for once, she would be the one teaching Relix something.

“Well,” she said, “we’ve got two hours to perfect it.”

Chapter Text

By the time the navcomputer chime summoned them back to the cockpit for the return to realspace, Mey-Gon and Relix had worked out the details of their characters and rehearsed a few possible scenarios that they might encounter at the collection. After recounting so many stories about awards shows and galas, Mey-Gon felt like this step back into her world was a comforting vacation. She’d spent the last couple months feeling constantly out of place at the Resistance base, but what would they say when she brought back the key to finding Luke Skywalker and gaining the upper hand in this struggle?

“Now what?” Relix asked.

Mey-Gon snapped back from her thoughts, “Now we wait for the cult to publish their exact location to our agent, then Leia will transmit it to us. At least we’re in-system now, so it’ll be a short trip from here.”

She looked out at the view as they floated in position behind the A-wing. They were near the border of the Mid and Outer Rims in a sparsely populated system that was marred by a red glowing cloud of nebulous material. Whatever radiation that thing put out was probably the reason for the lack of life in this section of space, but that also made it a good place to lay low temporarily. She rotated her chair so that the passenger seat was beside her now and reclined a bit for the long wait.

“You nervous?” Relix asked and she looked over to see that he was eyeing her hand, which had subconsciously started playing with the crystal around her neck.

“No,” she dropped her hand, “Just thinking about the mission.”

“I don’t know how you deal with it,” he shook his head.

“Deal with what?”

“The uncomfortable energy that thing gives off,” Relix gave a small shudder, “It would make me nauseous to wear it that long.”

She frowned, “Yeah, it’s pretty sick, I guess; but if I don’t think about it, I forget it’s there. That’s why you’re a better authenticator. You must have an instinct for this stuff.”

“We’ll see about that,” he stared thoughtfully out at the red cloud, “So what do coordinates to a hidden holy site look like, anyway?”

“Well,” Mey-Gon sifted through all her memories of museum trips and research and playing with props on set, “There’s the basic data chip or cube, of course. Then there’s the rare holocron - though I’m not sure we’d be able to access the information to check, anyway. If it’s really old, maybe even a bound book. But anything with a map might be useful - globes, star chart designs in art, anything that indicates a location. We’ll look at all of it.”

Relix nodded, “Even the ones we’re not sure about and don’t seem worth trading for, I’ll have Codey take a scan of so we can inspect them later.”

The droid chirped eagerly, whirring his photoreceptors in readiness.

“Sounds like a plan,” Mey-Gon smiled and reached over to tap her steering yoke lightly, sending the ship into a slow roll. They would still remain stationary behind Blue Leader, but at least their surroundings would be more interesting while gradually rotating around their viewport. Plus it would probably annoy Parma if she was monitoring them, and that was an amusing thought.

Relix reclined his chair also to enjoy the view as he continued to ponder, “General Organa said Jedi or Sith only, but the cult collects artifacts from any Force-centric culture. How do we tell it all apart?”

“The Jedi had certain symbols, certain styles I think I’d recognize,” Mey-Gon recalled, “Maybe the Sith too, to some extent. But even if we identify a dozen potential coordinates, the odds of us finding the one where-” she stopped herself. As far as she knew, the ultimate goal of tracking down Luke was still classified, otherwise Leia would have mentioned it in the briefing with everyone. To cover for her hesitation, she shifted the subject, “- well, never mind that argument. Is it true that Corellians never consider the odds?”

He chuckled, “Who told you that?”

“I used to date a guy…” she trailed off with an embarrassed wince.

“See, the thing about us is,” Relix folded his arms behind his head, “we know what we want, and we don’t let superstition get in the way.”

“Statistics aren’t superstition,” she whispered, then quickly added, “I guess that’s why you’re still honed in on Connix, even though she’s extremely distracted.”

He blushed, but didn’t take the bait, “It’s why I’m in the Resistance instead of working in a mechanic shop in Coronet City.”

Mey-Gon decided to let the romantic drama drop and prod into her friend’s past instead, “So you’ve always been a mechanic?”

Codey chirped something inquisitive, and Relix nodded, “Sure, go ahead.”

A moment later, a looping hologram projected from the little BD unit of a cluttered workshop and a young boy and girl clambering over a speeder. Mey-Gon leaned forward to get a closer look and smiled, “Is that you?”

“Me and my best friend Tas,” he grinned too, “We worked on speeders, but that’s not all…”

The next couple hours passed with nonstop stories and holos to back them up. Codey had quite the chronicle of Relix’s life in his memory bank, and Mey-Gon dug up a couple of her own forgotten publicity packages in her ship’s hololibrary. When the chime of an incoming transmission interrupted them, they had to remind themselves that they were on an assignment. The package downloading into the ship’s system was a new set of coordinates, no doubt from the cult by way of the intelligence agent.

“RT-582,” Parma’s voice crackled into the cockpit, “Destination coordinates have arrived from home base. Did you receive?”

“Copy that, Blue Leader,” Mey-Gon watched the progress bar reach full, “Coordinates received.”

“Stand by for hyperspace route.”

“Standing by,” she took her finger off the comm button and leaned back with a pout, “My ship is more than capable of calculating routes too.”

Relix waved his hand, “Let the commander do her stuff. She’ll be more agreeable if she feels like she’s in control of this whole thing.”

The computer chimed again with the receipt of navigational instructions and Mey-Gon had barely plugged them in when Parma gave her the hyperspace countdown and they once again jumped to lightspeed. This was a much shorter trip - only a few minutes before they reemerged in realspace and observed an entirely new surrounding.

Mey-Gon hissed in a breath when she saw how close they suddenly were to a mass of giant asteroids. Many of them bore dark, perfectly circular holes, indicating that the rocks had once been mined and probably bled dry of any valuable ore. She looked down at her coordinates again and realized that their destination was one of the larger asteroids slowly drifting through the others in a perfectly-spaced dance. It was the easiest one to get to, and the others were all large enough to avoid; but where there were large rocks, there were also small rocks.

“I’m so glad you juiced this up,” she said to Relix as she reached forward and nudged a little more power into her shields, “Debris fields like these could majorly dent up my hull.”

“This cult really doesn’t want uninvited guests,” he remarked, “They must have some good stuff.”

Careful to stay on the commander’s wing, Mey-Gon followed the fighter into an orbit of the target asteroid until they saw coming over the horizon the structure of a space station latched onto the rocky surface like some sort of sea creature clinging to an aquarium wall. It had multiple retractable arms splayed out with a number painted onto the end of each one, clearly separate docking bays on what was probably originally a service station.

An accented voice crackled to life from the comm, “Corvette RT-582, this is Station Illuminant . You and your escort are to proceed to docking bay three.”

“Copy that, Illuminant ,” she replied and switched to her private frequency with Parma, “Blue Leader, do you copy bay three?”

“I copy. See you inside.”

Mey-Gon couldn’t help but smile as they cruised into the assigned docking bay and set down next to the A-wing. The mission was finally underway and she was determined to make Leia proud. It was the first taste of excited adrenaline that she’d felt in a while and she suddenly realized how much she missed this kind of thrill. Relix looked a little nervous as he stood up and let Codey climb into position on his shoulder; but she knew after all their practice, he would play the part just fine. She stood as well and smoothed out her dress, then ran her gloved finger across her headpiece to make sure it was still sitting straight on her forehead. Finally she touched the kyber crystal and took a deep breath in and out.

“Let’s get that map,” she said and led the way back to the ramp, already fully in-character by the time they reached the docking bay floor. Relix dutifully followed in silence and a step behind his boss.

Chapter Text

When Parma, fully regaled in a uniform matching Relix’s, met them at the bottom of the ramp and led the way toward the access tunnel, Mey-Gon began to wonder if the Weequay woman had actually done bodyguard work before. She seemed to know just the right spacing to maintain and kept her head on a swivel as they walked.

“Welcome, seekers,” a human representative greeted them at the entrance of the tunnel, but contradicted his words by blocking the path.

Mey-Gon noted the robes that he wore and the skull cap with horn-like protuberances. The man’s dark skin was painted with yellow markings around his face. She’d never seen anything like the style of these disciples in all her studies, so the cult must have kept their secrets well.

“We’re here to view the collection,” Parma said bluntly.

It took a considerable amount of Mey-Gon’s acting ability not to scowl at the commander’s performance. She wasn’t even trying to play the right character! But, as a subordinate, Mey-Gon didn’t dare contradict Commander Parma; and as her pretend wealthy employer, she also didn’t dare waste her time arguing with the help. She tried to maintain a neutral, borderline bored expression.

“Our collection is not for viewing,” the cultist replied, “We invite today only traders, buyers, and sellers. What do you offer?”

“My...mistress,” Parma struggled over the word like chewing on gravel, “Is wealthy, obviously, but has also brought an artifact for trade. This crystal is from the lightsaber of Darth Vader.”

Despite how casually she’d said it, the man’s eyes went a little wide and he stepped forward. True to her role, though, Parma blocked his way with a snarl.

“I understand your duty to your mistress,” he held up his hands, “But I must authenticate.”

Parma looked to Mey-Gon, who nodded, and the bodyguard stepped aside to allow the cult member past. He reached out and brushed a single finger reverently over the crystal, nodding to himself. Mey-Gon glanced back to make sure that Relix was watching carefully how a real Force authenticator worked.

“You are welcome, seekers,” the man said, far more sincerely this time, “However, only one may enter to observe the collection.”

The three Resistance members looked at each other in disapproval at this turn of events. Mey-Gon knew that she was probably the most logical choice, if only one of them could move forward; but she would really prefer to have Relix and his unique instinct with her. In the old days, she’d been able to sweet talk her entire entourage’s way into the capped-off VIP section of the clubs; and more recently she’d learned a lot about haggling and negotiating on her trips to Canto Bight. Surely this cultist couldn’t be any harder to manipulate than a bouncer or an arms dealer.

Parma jumped to argue first, though, “Unacceptable, I am charged with the safety of my mistress and I have no assurances that the conditions beyond this bay are secure.”

“I do assure you,” the disciple held up his hands, “the security of our collection is unparalleled, and we extend that same protection to those who are privileged to enter. Your mistress will be safe.”

“She’s not going in alone,” she insisted with a threatening growl.

“That’s enough,” Mey-Gon snapped, stealing control from the commander and trying to ignore the barely suppressed glare that the alien woman was giving her, “I will be very disappointed if I came all this way and am unable to make any deals for my collection.”

She inhaled deeply as she stared down the tunnel behind the cultist, appearing lost in thought. Finally, she pushed her shoulders back and chin up, fully aware how tall and imposing she looked when utilizing her posture this way. She reached up and touched her necklace, purposely drawing the man’s gaze to it again and catching the naked hunger in his eyes. Leia was right, an artifact like this was the perfect negotiating tool.

Ignoring the disciple completely now, Mey-Gon whirled on Relix in frustration, “You will make up for this disappointment. How could you not have known about this condition? All this way for nothing! Prepare me a gin and tonic at once. It’s a long flight back.” She started walking back toward the ship and Relix and Parma dutifully scurried into position on either side of her, though she could feel their confusion.

Right on cue, however, the man shouted, “Wait! Mistress, you are still permitted and welcome to enter!”

“I understand that, young man,” she stopped and speared him with a glare over her shoulder before turning slowly around to berate him with increasing indignancy, “But I came here to make trades. You are not the only collectors that specialize in these relics. I have carefully transported dozens of select items from my own collection on my ship - this crystal is but one highlight - and I was looking forward to many potential trades. But my assistant here is my curator and I cannot be expected to remember everything on my own, and I certainly will not be reduced to carrying artifacts back and forth, myself. My servants are essential to my dealings, and I will not be stripped of them. We will return my items to their vault.”

The man’s eyes were wide and he dipped his head, “Your situation is completely understandable, Mistress. I could make an exception and allow your assistant to pass with you.”

She drew out her silent consideration, hoping that he would throw in a pass for her security as well, but it appeared she’d pushed her luck to its limit, so she nodded slowly, “Very well. I suppose I could make do with just my assistant.” Mey-Gon looked at Parma, “Stay here and guard my ship. The collection within is more priceless than this token.” She flicked her necklace casually, “I will send for more items if I find something here worth trading.”

The commander was hardly even attempting to remain in character anymore and clenched her jaw tightly, undoubtedly frustrated with being unable to fulfill her assignment from Leia; but there was also a glimmer of humor in her eyes as she dipped in a sarcastic bow. She clearly hadn’t expected Mey-Gon to be able to handle the situation, and seemed reluctantly impressed now that it had worked.

When Mey-Gon and Relix approached the tunnel again, the cultist, who was nearly drooling over the prospect of a ship full of potential trades on the level of what he’d seen so far, suddenly snapped back to attention and pointed at Relix, “No droids, I’m afraid.” He tilted his head toward Mey-Gon with a patient smile, “We cannot risk our exclusive collection being recorded. You understand, I’m sure.”

“Of course I do, my boy,” she hid her disappointment, “The droid can stay with my security officer.”

Codey made a discouraged sound as Relix handed him off to Parma, and all their plans for using his scanner to increase their data gathering went out the airlock. It was completely up to them to choose and bring back the right item, against all odds.

Leaving the bay behind them, Mey-Gon and Relix entered the tunnel and followed it down into a larger hallway which all the docking bay tunnels dumped into. One end of the hallway dead-ended with an entire wall of transparisteel, offering a view of the shadowy asteroid field outside. The other direction promised a long walk to a bright doorway, so they headed that way. Mey-Gon turned her head to look out the large viewports that punctuated the hallway every dozen meters or so, and she could see another ship approaching the station. She wondered how many beings even knew about this collection, and, of those, how many would be lucky enough to get to see it. Even without the exclusive access to rare artifacts, it just felt good to be dressed up again and in a different setting than the jungle base. It felt especially good to finally be doing something that may actually help the Resistance.

Through the bright doorway, they found themselves in a round foyer occupied by a few other cult members. One woman waved them over to where she was standing in front of another doorway. She was much older than the man who had greeted them in the docking bay, but she wore similar robes and had the same yellow markings on her face. 

“Welcome, seekers,” she spread her arms, “We are honored to do business with you today. I must warn you not to touch anything; the sting of the lartus is not only painful, but poisonous as well.”

“Lartus?” Mey-Gon repeated, both in confusion at the name of a creature she’d never heard of and in alarm at the sudden possibility of being poisoned.

“Our biological security system,” the woman smiled, “We find it more reliable than the kind that can be sliced.”

“Understandable,” she nodded distantly, suddenly realizing that Relix’s inability to hold an item for authentication was yet another setback.

“If you wish to make a transaction,” she continued as she stepped aside from the entrance, “come and let me know.”

“Thank you,” Mey-Gon acknowledged and led the way into the collection room, at last.

She and Relix paused a few steps in to really take in their surroundings. The room was hardly larger than the foyer they had just left, and far more dimly lit. A strange meditative soundtrack filled the space and made the whole experience feel more eerie and dramatic. There were a few other beings in the room, hovering as closely as they dared to the collection. The artifacts, themselves, were displayed all the way along one wall on shelves that stacked like steps up to the standard eye-level. Each item had its own little spotlight, illuminating the item brighter than the rest of the room.

Most notable of all, though, was the creature that floated in the center of the display, bobbing gently in the air like it was swimming in thick liquid. The lartus, no doubt. It consisted of a transparent, gelatinous bulb with two iridescent orbs, which may have been eyes. Out of this bulb trailed thousands of long, thin tentacles, as fine as hairs; and they spread out along the edge of the display, creating an ever-shifting barrier between the public and the collection. Every once in a while a ripple of colorful light would run out from the bulb along the length of each swaying tentacle.

“Whoa,” Relix murmured, immediately mesmerized by the creature.

He walked forward to get a better look at the central body mass, and the lartus actually rotated curiously and floated closer as well. Mey-Gon had no interest in getting stung by a poisonous blob, so she kept a respectful distance and focused on the artifacts. Immediately in front of her, she could see statues of various sizes, weapons, ritualistic costume pieces, and a large taxidermied creature. Nothing was labelled and nothing seemed to match the item next to it, whether by culture or time period. Only the truly knowledgeable would know what they were looking at, and for most of the items, she didn’t have a clue. None of them so far seemed to have any markings that might hold the coordinates to a long-lost holy site.

“Come on, Relix,” she pulled him away from the lartus, which had taken quite the interest in him.

“Right,” he focused up and followed her slowly along the display, “None of this looks like…”

Mey-Gon took another couple steps, her eyes scanning the various crystals and robes and belts. Her heart even skipped a beat when she saw two lightsabers on display. She fondly remembered her prop saber from the holoseries, and she rotated her wrist out of habit, wishing she could give the weapon a flourishy spin right now. Suddenly she realized that Relix was no longer beside her and she looked back to where he was frozen. In front of him were illuminated a pile of shattered glass and a lumpy grey mass that looked like a carbonite stalactite or a monstrous broken tooth. Neither of these displays seemed to have any relevance to maps.

“Relix!” she hissed and he tore himself away to rejoin her.

A couple steps over, they both paused and stared in disbelief at one of the items. Looking back at them was a warped, eye-less black helmet. It certainly bore a strong resemblance to Darth Vader, but how could his helmet still exist? How could it be here?

“Can you authenticate?” she whispered to Relix, even though she was already having that sick feeling he had described in regards to the kyber crystal.

“Even from here,” he nodded, similarly struggling to get the words out, “Yeah, that’s the real deal.”

Mey-Gon grabbed her necklace and stared hard into the melted hollow eyes. This was the face that had terrorized the galaxy, the last face seen by an unknown number of Jedi as they were slaughtered, the face that haunted Leia from ruthless torture sessions - the face of her father. From what Mey-Gon understood, Luke had destroyed the armor; and yet here it was. She never thought in a million years that she would ever lay eyes on it, herself. It certainly wouldn’t lead them to any holy sites, but she wondered if they should attempt a trade for it, anyway, just so they could jettison it into a sun and be rid of Vader’s remains for good.

“Let’s keep moving,” Relix suggested uneasily.

“Okay,” Mey-Gon nodded and tore her gaze away from the twisted visage.

Chapter Text

A little further down, they finally came across their first promising item - a book - and leaned as close as they dared to the swaying tentacles. The tome appeared to be in excellent shape, with only a little dirtying along the edge of the pages. It was lying open with a full sheet of handwritten text visible. The writing wasn’t in Basic and didn’t appear to contain any recognizable numbers, so there was no evidence of helpful coordinates; but it was impossible to know what the other pages might hold. The cover of the ancient item might also reveal clues in its decorations, though they couldn’t see that either.

“Is it Jedi writing?” Relix asked quietly.

Mey-Gon shook her head, “I can’t tell. What I wouldn’t give for C-3PO right now.”

“We’re not that desperate,” he disagreed.

“It looks like a journal from a Cularin monk,” someone said and they both looked over in surprise.

Standing quite nearby to them, but unnoticed before in the dim lighting of the room, was a mysterious human girl of indeterminate age. What was visible of her pale face stood out brightly against the high collar of the long black robes that she wore, with hints of red detail here or there peeking out from under the strap of the bulging shoulder bag that she wore across her body. Even her hair, pulled back into a practical ponytail, was dark red. Her eyes were obscured by a strip of tinted plastoid that didn’t seem to serve any purpose besides hiding more of her identity.

“You can read that?” Relix asked, impressed.

“I’m well-travelled,” her explanation sounded a bit judgmental.

Mey-Gon bristled at the implication. She had travelled to more worlds than most beings would in their entire lifetime. However, Cularin was farther into the Expansion Region than she had ever dared to go. Even when she had ventured into more accessible Outer Rim worlds with the G.I.D.E., she had always had a team to do all the interpretation for her. Perhaps commoners actually had to learn multiple languages for themselves.

“What does it say?” Relix finally asked.

“Something about the souls of Alderaan disturbing his meditation,” the girl leaned back with an amused smirk, “Nice.”

“Alderaan?” Mey-Gon repeated unsurely, “But the Disaster was only a few decades ago. Why would it be mentioned in a book? And, really, why is this book in such good condition? They’re usually thousands of years old...unless this one is a fake?” She looked to Relix.

He scowled at the journal for a second, then gave her an unsure shrug.

The dark-clad girl folded her arms, “Not everyone has embraced data, you know. Some beings still prefer the aesthetic of a book.”

Mey-Gon couldn’t help but frown, “How impractical.”

“Hmmmm, and here I would have pegged you for style over practicality, myself,” the girl looked her up and down, clearly passing judgment on the flashy gold ensemble, “Nice necklace, by the way.”

It certainly matched the stranger’s style, Mey-Gon had to admit. She wondered if this young woman might have something useful to them that she’d be willing to trade for the necklace. It would be a good backup option if they didn’t find anything promising in the cult’s collection. Mey-Gon eyed the shoulder bag the girl wore, stuffed with something round. If it was a globe of some forgotten planet, then that might be just the kind of location guide they could use.

“Thank you,” Mey-Gon finally said, touching the kyber crystal, “It’s for trade. What did you bring?”

“Well,” she lifted the flap of her bag and reached in, casually pulling out a humanoid skull, “From a sacred cave on Dathomir. Probably a Force witch or something.”

Relix’s mouth dropped open and Mey-Gon recoiled with a small gasp, placing her hand over her chest in offense. The girl’s smirk returned, clearly pleased with their reactions; and she shoved the skull unceremoniously back in the pouch.

“Are you a grave robber?” Mey-Gon whispered.

“Not usually, but I’m not opposed, if the job calls for it,” she shrugged, “Are you hiring? I’m Ana Ren.” She stuck out a hand.

Knowing that they needed as much information as possible from anyone who would give it, Mey-Gon reluctantly took Ana’s hand and gave it an amiable shake. Deciding to work the employment angle, she started to steer the conversation, “Do you know of any other sacred sites, Ana? I’m in the market for real estate with unique historical flair, preferably Jedi.”

“Not so interested in Jedi,” Ana dismissed the option immediately, “What about battlefields? I’ve investigated some very interesting massacres that aren’t even marked by monuments. Most people wouldn’t even know something happened there.”

“I’ve seen enough massacres, thank you,” Mey-Gon replied casually, though she could tell that this revelation had succeeded in impressing the mercenary, “I’d like to seek out a holy site next, maybe a temple - something old and forgotten. I was rather hoping to be inspired by something in this collection.”

“Old and forgotten. I understand,” Ana nodded, “The less filthy masses poking around, the better. You want somewhere like that?”

She pointed to a large stone slab a couple meters down on the display shelf. The three of them walked towards it, squeezing as close as they could without disturbing the other visitors hovering in the same area. From the tool marks and the bits of plaster still adhered to the edges, the stone appeared to be just part of a larger structure. It had a symbol, very similar to the Jedi crest, carved into the center and obscured by deep gouges - a clear attempt to scratch the icon out.

“Is that from a temple?” Mey-Gon wondered out loud as they inched closer.

“It does look pretty old,” Relix agreed, “And it feels like...something…”

“Maybe if we put our trades together, we could get that rock,” Ana suggested, “Run some tests on it, analyze where it’s from, and go see if there’s more.”

“It’s from Tython,” an old man next to them said helpfully and pointed, “You can tell by the desecration of the ancient symbol of the Je’daii Order represented there.”

All three of them turned to look at the man - a tall elderly human with a wizened face and soft, dark blue clothing - but he was still staring at the stone slab. Mey-Gon felt a small rush of excitement at the first good lead they’d found. The ruins of an ancient order was just the kind of thing Leia had asked them to look for.

“Is Tython a system?...or a planet?…” she prompted.

“Both,” he answered, “The system is somewhere in the Deep Core, where navigation is very delicate. Control of the planet was battled over by the ancestors of Jedi and Sith for thousands of years.”

“Battles, you say?” Ana perked up.

Mey-Gon channeled her own excitement back into her act, “Ancient, Jedi and Sith, probably a temple...this is exactly what I want.” she nodded to Relix, “Note down Tython, won’t you?”

“Good luck to you,” the old man chuckled, finally tearing his gaze away from the stone to look at Relix, then Ana, “My order, the Church of the Force, has been searching for such sites for many years, but the Empire guarded knowledge of what few hyperspace lanes may have existed to reach Tython. That knowledge disappeared with it.” His blue eyes moved to Mey-Gon and something subtle changed on his face as he carefully remarked, “That is a fine pendant, young lady. I have seen one other like it.”

The way he said it was so deliberate that she probably would have visibly caught her breath if she wasn’t such a professional. Instead she crafted her reply with the same tone, “Yes, it has a twin. I would very much like to see them reunited.”

For a moment, the man stared at her face, studying her carefully and clearly weighing his trust. Then, out of nowhere, the entire station shuddered and everyone flinched and looked around as alarms began to wail.

“We should go,” Relix grabbed Mey-Gon’s arm.

“Sithspit,” Ana cursed, “I didn’t even get to make a deal.”

Mey-Gon hesitated, looking back at the man and dropping all pretenses, “Do you know where he is?”

He looked like he wanted to trust her, but wasn’t sure about it. Either way, he hadn’t started to flee the room like all the other guests, “Why are you looking?”

“His sister asked me to,” she responded, still hoping to keep her information vague for anyone that was listening.

The station shook again, this time more violently and a sudden gust of wind tugged at them, followed by a pressure change that popped their ears as some part of the structure was exposed to vacuum and sealed off quickly. Too close for comfort, the lartus’s poisonous appendages flailed out with the moving air and the animal’s panic.

“Good luck!” Ana finally ran for the door.

“Mey-Gon!” Relix insisted.

Turning her most desperate expression on the man, she tried one last time, “Do you know where he is?”

“I don’t,” he answered and put one hand on her shoulder, “But I know where to start looking. We need to get to my ship.”

She nodded, “Let’s hurry.”

Relix held back for a moment, “Don’t wait for me.”

Mey-Gon didn’t dare waste anymore time, herself, but she glanced over her shoulder and saw him carefully approaching the panicked lartus with an outstretched hand, “Relix!”

“Go on!” he shouted, not even looking at her, “I’ll catch up.”

Chapter Text

Mey-Gon and the old man hurried through the foyer and into the long hallway. Ana was paused there, staring out one of the large windows while everyone in the distance scrambled for the entrances to their docking bays. As she neared the first window, Mey-Gon could see TIE fighters buzzing past the station on low runs and she felt her heart seize up in her chest. Her first irrational thought was that the First Order had tracked her down to finish the assassination, but she certainly wasn’t important enough anymore to warrant that kind of effort.

“It’s him,” Ana snarled in annoyance, falling into quick step beside them as they passed.

“Who?” Mey-Gon asked.

“What’s that stupid new name?” she asked herself, “Oh yeah, Kylo . Only he would come after this kind of stuff. The rest of the First Order doesn’t really care about wiping out all memory of the Jedi .” She said this last part sarcastically like she was doing an impression of someone.

“Kylo?” the old man repeated, “Is that what he calls himself now?”

Ana raised an eyebrow, “You knew Ben?”

Mey-Gon was beginning to feel very left out of some greater knowledge, but there wasn’t time for a full story. For a moment, she wondered if they were talking about the same Ben she knew, but the odds of that were slim.

“Looks like the First Order,” Relix interrupted, finally catching up to them.

“Yeah, and I’m not in the mood,” Ana gave them a short wave, as she turned down one of the docking bay tunnels, “Maybe I’ll see ya at the next one!”

“Like they’re gonna have a next one,” Relix muttered.

“Come with me,” their elderly companion urged, aiming for another tunnel, “I have something that may help you.”

“We have to hurry, sir,” Mey-Gon warned, even as she followed him.

“This better be a map,” Relix shook his head.

“I am Lor San Tekka,” he explained, “Leia will know my name. For years, Luke and I travelled the galaxy searching for the rumored holy sites of the Jedi. Our research led us in many fruitless directions, but I believe he may have actually found one. I will give you my best guess for now, but I shall redouble my efforts to locate some of the other sites.”

“Thank you so much,” Mey-Gon gasped in relief as they ran.

“Quickly! Get aboard!” a man was standing on the ramp of the ship in the docking bay that they had entered.

“One moment, friends,” Lor promised and rushed up into the ship, quickly explaining things to the crewman as they disappeared inside.

“We should go,” Relix shifted uncomfortably after a few seconds, as the sound of blasterfire started to echo from deeper within the station.

“This is our mission,” Mey-Gon protested, though she was already backing up slowly towards the tunnel.

“Here!” Lor reappeared at the top of the ramp and tossed a small object towards them, which Relix caught, “I will look for more!”

The repulsor engines kicked in before the ramp had even started to raise and the whole ship lifted off the bay floor. For a moment, the two Resistance members looked at the old datacard in Relix’s hands, but then he shoved it into his pants pocket and took off running for the tunnel with Mey-Gon only a step behind. The sound of shooting and screams of agony grew clearer the closer they got to the main hallway, but neither of them slowed until they burst into the open and had to swerve to avoid tripping over the body of one of the cult members. It looked like the young man who had greeted them when they landed, but Mey-Gon tried to shake the image from her mind as she followed Relix into the entrance to docking bay three. The only dead bodies she’d ever seen before were those of stormtroopers, one by her own shots and the rest courtesy of Poe’s rescue attempt, but their live forms haunted her nightmares more than their corpses.

“Relix,” Mey-Gon gasped when she noticed the blaster bolts lancing through the air in the bit of the bay that was visible at the end of the tunnel.

“I see it,” he slowed his sprint to a jog, “But we’re unarmed. We may just have to make a run for the ship. Quick takeoff, okay?”

“Of course,” she agreed, still slightly concerned with blundering into the middle of whatever battle the commander was involved in; though maybe the distraction would work to her advantage.

Suddenly, a shot rang out from behind them and Mey-Gon saw the blue energy rush between her and Relix. She could feel the tingle of a stun blast on the outside of her arm, so it must have just grazed her, but Relix caught a little more of it and he stumbled forward for a couple steps before one leg stopped cooperating and he tumbled to the floor, clutching the numb arm with his good one.

“Don’t move!” a filtered voice shouted from the back of the tunnel and Mey-Gon froze next to Relix. That voice was straight out of her nightmares and she didn’t even have to turn to know that it belonged to a stormtrooper.

“Go! You can make it,” Relix whispered harshly.

She stared at the end of the tunnel. The docking bay was so close and the shots were no longer flying back and forth. Either Parma was now dead or victorious, but Relix’s fate wasn’t sealed yet. She’d left a comrade in the middle of an attack before, and she would never do it again. If the First Order wanted them dead, they wouldn’t have shot a stun blast. With her arms raised in surrender, Mey-Gon slowly turned around and stepped in front of Relix. Lifting her eyes, she felt everything inside her turn to carbonite as soon as she looked down the barrel of the rifle and into that white helmet’s soulless face. She was a fool for thinking she’d been ready to go on a mission. What kind of Resistance soldier freezes up every time at the sight of a stormtrooper?

Left with no other choice, Relix raised his responsive arm and struggled to his feet, keeping most of the weight off the stunned leg. Mey-Gon glanced back at him, but a slight motion in the docking bay beyond caught her eye instead. It didn’t look like a stormtrooper, so she felt the smallest glimmer of hope that the commander was still moving around out there. The sound of a muffled voice croaking out orders drew her attention back to the enemy and she noticed the approach of two dark figures and another trooper. Responding to the garbled instructions, both stormtroopers moved forward, keeping their blasters aimed at Mey-Gon and Relix until they took up position behind them and twisted their arms into a painful lock against their backs.

“Move,” the one gripping Relix barked, and he limped into motion.

A million thoughts rushed through Mey-Gon’s head as she marched forward against the force of her own arms pressing into her spine. First of all, she was glad the stormtroopers were behind her now so that she wasn’t frozen in place at the sight of them anymore. Better to be walked to her doom on her own two feet than stunned and dragged unceremoniously. She kept waiting for Parma to spring out of the docking bay and blast all four of their captors with perfectly aimed shots like some kind of action holo hero, but it never happened.

Her next wild plan was to break free, grab the datacard from Relix, run until she found the nearest communications terminal, and transmit the coordinates to Leia. There were a million things wrong with that plan, though, starting with the fact that, although she remembered being placed in this exact hold in combat training, she couldn’t remember the technique for breaking out of it. Relix probably remembered how, but he was in no condition to pull it off.

Resigned to waiting for some other opportunity to present itself, Mey-Gon focused on the black-clad duo leading the way in front of them. She realized that, despite the obvious attempt to project darkness and intimidation with their appearance, they were actually less frightening to her than the stormtroopers. In fact, they looked like they could be generic villains from the low-budget children’s holoseries she had starred in very early in her career. Both had rounded helmets of varying impractical design with eye slits which must have been impossible to see through. Their outfits and accessories were unique from each other and yet equally unremarkable. For weaponry, one carried a war club like some primitive phrenbi player; and the other bore a cumbersome cannon that either swallowed his arm or replaced it, she couldn’t tell.

As they were led down the long window-lined hallway, they had to maneuver around the strewn bodies of more robed cult members. Mey-Gon struggled to swallow her disgust and anger. She tried to distract herself by wondering if the lack of other guests’ bodies was a good or bad sign for her and Relix. The answer wasn’t any clearer once they were forced back into the collection room and saw three other visitors that had been at the viewing with them earlier now kneeling against one of the blank walls under the guard of another couple stormtroopers. Ana Ren was among the hostages, her visor now missing, revealing sharp dark eyes which looked up at them with more annoyance than fear. Mey-Gon and Relix were shoved down to their knees at the other end of the row and left under the supervision of the guards there.

There were three other generic villains standing with a couple hovercrates near the display on the other side of the room, and Club and Cannon sauntered over to join them. Somehow, the new trio was even more ridiculous, with their comically large, inefficient weapons: a scythe, an ax, and a cleaver. One of them spoke - it was impossible to tell which one and even more impossible to understand what he said through the distortion of the helmet - and the stormtrooper who had escorted Mey-Gon stepped up obediently and reached through the lartus’s swaying tentacles to try and grab one of the artifacts. Immediately the flashing filaments coiled around the joints in his armor and the trooper jolted and gave a sharp cry before collapsing into a twitching heap at the base of the display.

Relix took a deep breath and, on the other side of row, Ana snickered inappropriately; but Mey-Gon gasped, shocked that she’d been standing so close to such a deadly creature earlier. Suddenly a buzzing sound sprang to life and Club brought his weapon up over his shoulder for a widely telegraphed swing that caused everyone near him to take a step back. The war club sizzled straight down into the jelly-like body of the lartus and the resulting splat sound was nearly drowned out by the muffled groan Relix tried to suppress. He was wincing and folded so far over that Mey-Gon could hardly see his face anymore as she listened to the squish of blow after blow landing in the creature. She finally looked up when another dark figure entered the room and she saw that the lartus was now nothing more than a mushy puddle on the floor. Its tentacles, no longer dancing with light, draped limply across the edge of the bottom shelf like the vines on D’Qar.

The newcomer was helmeted and dressed in black like his fellows, but with less armor or accessories and no obnoxious weapon. In fact, Mey-Gon’s breath caught when she spotted what appeared to be a lightsaber of strange design hanging from his belt. She noted the change in body language when the others acknowledged this figure’s presence - they respected him or answered to him in some way. He paused in front of the display and brushed aside the now harmless tentacles, picking up the warped helmet of Darth Vader. For a long moment, he stared at it, then he set it carefully into one of the hovercrates.

“Load everything onto my ship,” he ordered through the static-y buzz of his helmet’s speaker, then spun to face the row of hostages.

Chapter Text

Mey-Gon lowered her face and tried to catch Relix’s eye, but he still looked to be in pain. If they were going to fight their way out of this, she needed him; but if it was up to her alone, she’d do her best to talk their way out. 

“Ana?” the leader of the dark forces said, suddenly in a higher, less threatening pitch.

There was a pause, then Ana responded flatly, “Your dumb goons broke my glareshades, Kylo.”

He rushed forward and held out his gloved hand to help her up, but she ignored it, climbing to her feet and folding her arms. Mey-Gon watched the exchange in shock from the corner of her eye. How mixed up was this girl in the First Order? Had they accidentally said too much in front of her?

“You fools!” Kylo whirled on the rest of the gang, “Did you not recognize Ana Ren? She commands you, the same as I!”

“I’d rather not,” she glared.

“What would you have your Knights do?” he asked.

Knights?! It was all Mey-Gon could do to suppress the scoffing snort that would have accompanied her eye roll at the lofty title these thugs had appointed for themselves. What an insult to all the worthy warriors that had come before them!

“I don’t need them or you to do anything for me,” Ana answered coldly, “I’d like to be on my way now, in fact.”

It was impossible to tell under the helmet, but Kylo paused at the rebuff as though a little hurt. He quickly covered it by whirling on his knights again, “Trudgen, Ap’lek, escort her to her ship.”

Cleaver and Ax quickly stepped forward and followed Ana toward the door. Mey-Gon tilted her head to try to make eye contact with the girl. If any part of their earlier alliance had been true, maybe she would still be willing to help them. Ana glanced down as she passed with a raised eyebrow as though to say “good luck” and then she swept from the room with her armed guards close at her heels. The remaining knights and surviving stormtroopers started loading up all the artifacts into the hovercrates or hefting into their arms the items that wouldn’t fit. They trickled out of the room one-by-one with their haul of loot as Kylo paced in front of the hostages.

“You are here because you are all collectors,” his distorted voice growled at them, now back in its threatening register, “This cult tried to hide their collection from me. If you turn yours over nicely, then perhaps you won’t suffer the same fate as them. So...” he stopped in front of the first trembling prisoner, an Ozrelanso male two bodies down from Mey-Gon, “...where is your collection?”

“I-I-I..” the man stuttered until he was interrupted by a harsh buzzing noise and flash of red light as the blade of a lightsaber ignited next to his head.

Mey-Gon gave a small gasp that was covered by the loud whimper of the threatened man. She’d seen lightsaber hilts plenty of times. She’d fought with a simulated blade on multiple acting projects. She’d even seen a real one ignited over a holo call once with Ben when he was feeling rebellious and generous enough to show off, despite the rules against such frivolous lightsaber usage. But this was the first time she’d ever seen one fired up in person. It was both thrilling and terrifying. She was already scrambling a cover story in her mind because there was no way she and Relix would be fighting their way out of this now, even though her partner had finally suppressed his grief and was paying closer attention.

“I’m just a professor!” the Ozrelanso burst, “I only wanted to make a purchase for study in the coming semester. The university doesn’t hold a collection-” Before he could even finish, the humming blade drew a line across his shoulders and the man’s head slumped sideways, the rest of his body following it to the floor.

Mey-Gon brought a hand up to cover her mouth and clenched her eyes shut. Real terror began to creep into her chest, and, as it always had since she was a child, transformed quickly into a cold adrenaline jolt that she could feel through her entire bloodstream. It seemed to slow down time and push out all emotion in favor of the analytical, calculating kind of thinking that had served her well in plotting out racetrack decisions in fractions of a second. She accepted the logical fact that she and Relix were likely to die in the next minute or so; and that their best chance, slim though it was, was for her to lie up some tempting haul for this Kylo guy and string him along in a way that required him to keep them alive. Luckily, lying was her specialty.

“Tell me where your collection is,” Kylo had moved to the fat tattooed man next to Mey-Gon, his glowing blade following closely.

Stubborn and brave, the man lifted his chin and snarled through a heavy accent, “You will never acquire the sacred items of my clan.”

He inhaled deeply as though he was going to try to spit on his butcher, but Kylo’s blade was faster. This time Mey-Gon could smell the burning ozone and melted flesh as her neighbor was murdered in one quick cut. She braced herself, trying to clear her mind and resist the urge to lean away as the tip of the blade swept toward her ear and froze. Kylo was strangely silent all of a sudden, so she lifted her face to look up into the blank mask of his helmet.

“You…” he said, his distorted voice changed in pitch again, “Stand up.”

She glanced at Relix, and saw that he was watching carefully and poised to move; but for now, their fates balanced on her actions alone. Slowly, she rose to her feet and found that Kylo only stood a few inches taller than her when she drew herself up to her full height, which seemed preferable to cowering before death.

“You.” he repeated, darker this time, and reached out with his free hand to touch the crystal she wore, “This should be mine. And she gave it to you ?”

The bitterness and familiarity carried clearly through his voice, despite the harsh filter, and it momentarily shook Mey-Gon’s careful plans. Did he know her? Did he know Leia? Did he know what the necklace was? There was only one person it could be and his name had already been brought up when the station first came under attack. As unlikely as it was, she had to recognize the terrible possibility.

“Ben?” she asked, her adrenaline advantage fading as she desperately searched the voids of his helmet’s eye slit and all her emotions rushed back in, “What have you done?”

The fingers that were resting against the kyber crystal suddenly wrapped tightly around it and yanked downward. He probably meant to tear the necklace off of her, but the cord was sturdier than he anticipated and it dug sharply into the back of Mey-Gon’s neck, violently jerking her forward. In an awkward motion, her face collided with his chest and they both staggered for balance. Pain summoned back her focus and in a flash of clarity she noted how soft the impact had been - he wasn’t wearing any armor under the robes. In the next moment, he shoved her backwards so forcefully that the impact against the wall knocked the breath out of her and left her vision blurry. Through the haze, she could see the red lightsaber now pointed straight at her face.

A yell erupted from Relix and he started to jump to his feet when Kylo let go of his saber with one hand and stretched it towards the lieutenant. Relix stopped moving and Mey-Gon heard a strange sound from his direction. She blinked rapidly, forcing herself to focus until she could see that her friend was clutching his neck and making gasping sounds like he was choking. Immediately, she threw her hands up in surrender, carefully avoiding the crackling blade of light that hovered in front of her face.

“You’re right, you’re right,” she called Kylo’s attention back towards herself as she grabbed the necklace and worked it off over her head, “It’s your heirloom. Take it.”

He didn’t make any obvious moves, but there was a subtle relaxation in his outstretched hand and Relix dropped to the ground, gasping in measured breaths as he tried to recover. Mey-Gon held out the crystal, but Kylo still hesitated, tilting his head as though sensing something.

“You’re stalling,” he accused and looked around, “Did my father come with you?”

Any doubts she may have still held fled with that question. She was sure of his identity now, and that knowledge uncorked the pressure of many pent up emotions she had been harboring since learning the truth of Ben’s disappearance and the avalanche of consequences that had come after it. To think she had been worried about him! And this was what he had become? How dare he bring up Han!

“Your dad left, Ben,” she said bitterly, concern for her life fading the angrier she got, “After what you did…” clenching her teeth, she threw the crystal at him and he caught it against his chest, “You tore us all apart!”

For a few long seconds he paused, then he slowly tucked the necklace into his waistband and lowered his voice to a static-y growl, “You think you know what it’s like to be torn apart?”

With a snap-hiss, the lightsaber blade disappeared and the hilt was returned to Kylo’s belt so that he could reach up and unseal his helmet. Mey-Gon’s tension was already diminished by the absence of the weapon, but as soon as the blank mask was lifted away, her heart was buoyed even more. Unmistakably, it was Ben Solo. Part of her had been worried that the helmet hid some sort of gruesome injury; but there he was, staring back at her with the exact same face she’d seen over occasional holo calls or generic family holiday greetings. It occurred to her with sadness that this was actually the first time they’d ever met in person.

She distinctly remembered the last time she’d seen Ben before he disappeared. It had been a couple years ago when she was on a call with Leia and he had been home on a short break from training. He walked past in the background and half-heartedly wished her a happy Life Day. Now he was probably going to kill her. The irony was almost funny. Still, the hatred she’d felt a minute ago was having a hard time finding purchase now that she was looking into his eyes. They looked far too conflicted for the eyes of someone who had just cut down two beings in cold blood and choked her friend. Ben seemed to realize this too, and the hesitation was instantly replaced with cold cruelty.

“Don’t be so relieved, Mey-Gon,” he recognized her mood shift and, in a single swift movement, snatched his lightsaber hilt back into his hand and thrust it forward, pressing the emitter end against her chest and holding his thumb poised over the ignition button.

Mey-Gon held perfectly still, the moment dragging out like an eternity thanks to her cold adrenaline rush. She was sad and scared and angry and defiant all at once, but the logical part of her that was in charge calmly resigned to the fact that there was nothing she could do.

Ben flicked his gaze down to Relix, who had finally caught his breath and was staring up at them in helpless horror, “If I let him go back and tell her about this, would it finally break her, do you think?” He twisted the hilt slightly, so that it dug in more directly over her heart.

One small motion and she’d be dead before she even felt anything. There were worse ways to go, she thought with little comfort. At least she could glare into Ben’s eyes as he did it and hope that it might haunt him for a while. As for Leia, she could only trust that her friend would absorb this loss with the same strength she’d used to endure all the others.

After another few seconds of their unblinking stare-down, Ben finally lowered the weapon, “No, not with a lightsaber. You’d probably be honored.”

Despite his cruel sarcasm, she had to recognize that it was true. Relix slumped slightly with relief in her peripheral, but she only felt disappointment. She honestly would have been honored to die by lightsaber, and now she feared what kind of uniquely torturous fate awaited her at the hands of someone who knew her well enough to design a nightmare. Even worse, it seemed that Mey-Gon’s pain was merely a weapon Ben wanted to wield against his mother. In shock and heartbreak, she wondered how it had come to this.

“What did Snoke do to you?” she whispered, not entirely meaning to ask it out loud.

“I don’t have to explain anything to you anymore,” he snapped, “You’re supposed to be dead, but of course you ran to her for help. A mistake. She would’ve thrown you away too, you know.”

Mey-Gon’s mouth fell open in genuine astonishment, “Is that really what you think happened? I wouldn’t even be here if she’d given up on you!”

Rather than pick up on the implication that Leia still cared about him, Ben furrowed his brow in suspicion and asked in a low voice, “Why are you here?”

Even if Mey-Gon had a good answer to that, she suddenly found herself unable to speak or even suck a complete breath into lungs that refused to fully expand. Her entire body was frozen in place with the exception of her eyes, which she darted around desperately for an explanation. It couldn’t have been a stun beam because she was still standing and conscious. The claustrophobic panic of being caught in an invisible trap made her wish that she would just pass out faster than her shallow gasping allowed.

Suddenly, Ben thrust his open hand toward her head, and she would have winced if she could have; but he simply spread his fingers to cup her face without touching it. She could feel the charms from her headpiece start to vibrate lightly against her cheeks and she moved her eyes side to side, but only the black leather of Ben’s glove was visible. For a split second Mey-Gon wondered what in the galaxy he was trying to do, but then all speculation about his action fled along with all concern for her immobility or Relix’s safety. Hazy darkness crept into the edges of her vision and the view of Ben’s palm in front of her face was replaced with ghosts of Mey-Gon’s own thoughts from the mission briefing. She pictured Luke Skywalker and felt the hope swell up in her - a hope shared by Leia that this was the solution to their problems. Luke could save Ben, defeat Snoke, and bring down the First Order. She imagined a dozen different possible temple ruins, any of which might be the one he had disappeared to. She needed to find him. Excitement spiked as she remembered that she had a lead! Lor San Tekka’s face floated into her memory along with the thought of him and Luke hunting together for clues that might lead them to the sacred sites, as Lor had explained. The excitement was dampened by spikes of confusion battling up through her consciousness and disrupting the visions. Why was she thinking about these things right now? Weren’t there more important things she needed to focus on?

Flashes of Luke and temples and Lor continued to flicker, but she stubbornly forced them down and tried to concentrate on what was actually going on in front of her. Ben’s palm flexed before her and the burning pain in her lungs and dry eyes rose up to steal the focus from her random memories. Suddenly, all her awareness snapped back to the present along with control of her body, which now felt too achy and weak to stay upright. Her knees buckled and she dropped to a crouch, gasping in air and blinking rapidly to clear her vision and mind.

“You want to find Luke,” Ben said thoughtfully above her.

Mey-Gon scowled as she continued to catch her breath. How could he know that? Why had she even been thinking about that? Had he read her mind that clearly? Could Jedi even do that?!

“He can’t save me,” he sneered sarcastically as he continued, “and he can’t stop us. You always were so gullible for inspiring stories, Mey-Gon, but this plan is just pathetic. If you think Luke is your last hope, then your Resistance can watch as I hunt him down first and destroy him.”

The lingering panic was making it harder to straighten out her thoughts, even now, but before she could think of a reply, the foyer outside their room erupted with a sudden burst of blaster fire, an anguished cry through a helmet’s filter, and the clatter of armor hitting the ground. Mey-Gon, Relix, and Ben all looked curiously toward the doorway, and a second later a blaster slid through across the floor and bumped into Relix’s foot. He snapped his gaze toward Mey-Gon and the moment their eyes met, they both burst into action.

Mey-Gon sprang up from her crouch, launching herself toward the distracted ex-Jedi and driving her shoulder into his unarmored chest. As they both fell, she saw the flash of a tight-beam stun shot and felt the slight tingle of it charging the air near her. Ben hit the floor hard and Mey-Gon landed on top of him, struggling to roll away as her long dress snagged on his belt and twisted around her legs. Relix sprang up from his own pose on one knee, where he had fired the shot that miraculously hit Ben mid-fall and missed all the parts of Mey-Gon that had been tangled up with him. Pushing at their unconscious assailant’s body, Relix freed Mey-Gon’s dress from Ben’s belt and helped her to her feet.

He quickly tucked one hand into his pocket, then held the blaster at the ready, ordering hoarsely, “Let’s go.”

Mey-Gon hesitated, looking down at the unconscious young man and battling with her conflicting thoughts and urges. Why had Relix stunned him instead of killing him? Was it because she had been so close and he was scared of hitting her? But then, why didn’t he finish the job now? Why was it up to her? She could go for the lightsaber, but she had no idea how to unclasp it from his belt, and what if he woke up as she struggled with it? She could just strangle him immediately with her own hands. No, she couldn’t. This was Ben. No, it wasn’t. This was Kylo. She needed to find Luke.

“Mey-Gon!” Relix’s voice rasped into her awareness.

She physically shook her head against the jumbled thoughts and lashed out with an angry kick at Ben’s helmet, which launched it across the room and into the corner of the display case, gouging a deep dent into the mouthplate before it bounced back along the floor. Relix was already moving out the door in a military-style sweep when she joined him and they looked over the carnage of the foyer.

Chapter Text

A dead stormtrooper now lay amongst the bodies of the cult members, and sitting against the wall under a smear of blood was Commander Parma. She was conscious, but dark stains radiated out from burned holes in her uniform at her shoulder, ribs, and thigh. Codey was tucked behind her waist under the cover of her cape and the little droid sprang out with a squeal upon seeing his owner.

“Codey, give me a hand,” Relix held out his arm for the droid to jump up onto and spun back towards the control panel next to the collection room doorway.

“Commander,” Mey-Gon rushed forward and squatted down, “Can you walk?”

The Weequay woman bared her teeth as she growled, “How do you think I got here?”

“I’ll help,” she offered anyway and hooked her arm around the commander’s back.

Parma threw her arm over Mey-Gon’s shoulder and groaned with the effort as they both leaned into each other and pushed themselves up onto their feet. Despite the fact that the commander was slightly shorter than Mey-Gon, she was surprisingly heavy and the human began to worry that she might not be able to move them both fast enough. She bent her knees and pulled Parma tight for better leverage, wincing both from the commander’s wheeze of pain and the wet feeling of blood starting to soak into the side of her dress.

The slam of a blast door falling into place drew Mey-Gon’s attention back to where Relix and Codey were just stepping back from the ravaged control panel. The collection room and the enemy inside it were now sealed off by doors thick enough to keep out explosions or the pressure of vacuum exposure. Her friend looked focused now, and Mey-Gon was relieved. Someone needed to take the lead as they fought their way back to the ship and neither she nor Parma were very good candidates at the moment.

“That should buy us a minute,” he said hopefully as he slipped his shoulder under the commander’s other arm and hefted most of the weight off of Mey-Gon.

Codey trotted to the entrance of the windowed walk and peered around the corner, chirping the all clear and leading the way. Together, Relix and Mey-Gon moved forward as quickly as they could, following the trail of blood drops and picking their way around the bodies of another two stormtroopers in the long hallway. Parma chuckled between them, and Mey-Gon thought she detected subtle gargling resonating from the laugh.

“Thank you for coming for us, Commander,” she said.

Parma simply grunted, all of them suddenly distracted by the sound of a lightsaber piercing through the blast door in the distance behind them. Mey-Gon and Relix started walking so fast that the injured woman simply lifted up her feet and let them carry her.

“Stay sharp, Lieutenant,” she said through gritted teeth as they neared the series of doorways that branched off into the separate docking bay tunnels, “Most of them went down number six, a couple down number one.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Relix lifted the blaster in readiness.

This motion didn’t come a moment too soon, because Codey suddenly gave a whistle of warning from the corner ahead just as the scythe-wielding knight marched out of one of the tunnels. He started twirling his weapon in an intimidating flourish as soon as he spotted them. Without even hesitating, Relix fired a direct stun shot that dropped Scythe like a sack of jogan fruits.

“Don’t bring a blade to a blaster fight,” he muttered.

Mey-Gon made sure to step directly on the knight’s groin with her heel as they crossed his body to head toward the tunnel entrance for docking bay three. Running footsteps alerted them to the approach of more knights with worthless close-range weapons from the other tunnels, and the Resistance trio continued moving steadily forward as Relix fired down the hallways. Every shot hit its mark, but the distance would weaken the effectiveness of the stun beams; and they were sure to be pursued all the way to their ship. Mey-Gon again found herself wondering why he wasn’t using lethal settings, but this triggered the memory of Ben’s unconscious face, which in turn triggered the urge to find Luke. She was a bit alarmed at her sudden inability to control her train of thought, but this wasn’t the time to figure out why; and it also wasn’t the time to question Relix’s methods.

They entered the number three tunnel, and Parma wheezed out a relieved noise at the sight of their destination.

“Almost there,” Mey-Gon agreed.

Codey turned and scampered back past them, warbling some kind of explanation.

“Thanks, bud,” Relix grunted in response but didn’t slow.

Mey-Gon wanted to turn her head to see what the little droid was doing, but she needed to keep up with her partner’s pace. The effort of the journey so far had caused beads of sweat to start rolling down her face and into her eyes, making it even more difficult for her to concentrate. After a few seconds, she heard the blast door slam closed behind them, sealing off their tunnel from immediate pursuit. She smiled as Codey raced past their legs again and positioned himself at the entrance to the docking bay, scanning for any sign of an ambush and whistling when he found none. Relief washed over Mey-Gon like a cold shower when they finally staggered into the docking bay and she took in the view of her beautiful ship waiting to carry them back to safety.

“The A-wing!” she gasped, realizing the issue as soon as she saw the fighter, “Commander…?”

“I’ll fly it,” Relix offered immediately and ducked out from under Parma’s arm, leaving Mey-Gon supporting the woman’s full weight.

“Relix!” she yelped, struggling to hold onto the commander and continue dragging her forward.

“Those TIEs are probably still out there,” he shouted as he ran towards the A-wing and Codey raced after him, “so keep your shields up, make for the jump point we already have programmed,” he glanced over his shoulder with a slight grin, “...and stay on my wing!”

Mey-Gon groaned and stretched one arm out to punch in the access code to lower her ramp, “Commander, you need to try to walk now.”

Parma had grown more delirious and weak over the journey, leaving her unable to stay upright on her own, but she made a noble effort. Mey-Gon continued to act as her crutch, guiding her all the way into the cockpit, where the commander collapsed into the passenger seat. Leaping for the pilot’s chair, Mey-Gon immediately engaged a quick-start cycle for the engine systems and kicked on the repulsarlift to get her into the air next to Relix’s A-wing.

“Ready?” his voice crackled over the comm.

“Yeah, sure,” she frowned, reaching forward to make sure her shields were at maximum power. This would be the first time she’d flown into hostile space and she’d never even had a chance to watch the actual pilots run through so much as a simulation. “Do...do I call you Blue Leader now, or…?”

Behind her, Parma led out a garbled groan.

“Just Relix,” he answered, “Let’s go.”

He led the way out of the bay door, kicking into high speed almost immediately and skimming low along the surface of the asteroid. Mey-Gon followed him closely, feeling her momentary thrill crystalize into focused determination the way it used to in the first few seconds of a swoop race. A glance at her proximity screen revealed two other small ships in the immediate vicinity - TIEs, no doubt - and their icons quickly changed course to intercept her path.

“Incoming,” Relix announced.

Paranoid, Mey-Gon touched her shield controls again, making sure they were still, indeed, at full power, “What do we do?”

“Get to the jump point as fast as you can. I’ll try to keep them off you.”

She looked at the navigation display, calculating that they would round the curve of the asteroid enough in the next several seconds to finally pull up and make a direct run out through open space toward the jump point. Her corvette would be a slower, larger target for the enemy fighters, but she was still determined not to make it easy for them. Thanks to Relix’s modifications, she was adequately shielded, slightly faster than factory standard, and fitted with a modest weapons system.

“Go, go!” he shouted, just as the laserfire started to stab down out of the darkness at them.

Mey-Gon swerved and climbed but her ship was so wide that it took the hits anyway. Her shield indicator fluctuated and recovered while her hull status remained unchanged. Not a single blast had gotten through the shields! With this comfort, she continued to pull away from the asteroid and spin to present a shifting profile to her attackers. The A-wing peeled away from her view and looped around, presumably to engage the other fighters. Suddenly her proximity screen populated a large obstacle between her and the entrance to the hyperspace lane - an unbelievably large obstacle. She momentarily abandoned her complicated flight course and pointed the corvette’s nose toward the obstacle so she could establish visual confirmation. If her breath and heart hadn’t momentarily stopped, she probably would have gasped dramatically at the sight of the looming super star destroyer.

“Relix!” she jabbed the comm, “We’re not getting to that jump point!”

“Holy moons!” he cried, “Back into the asteroids. It’ll prevent the tractor beam from getting a lock.”

“Asteroids aren’t a better option!” she cried to herself, even as she pulled the ship into a sudden sharp turn that flipped them back toward the giant debris field.

Her view was momentarily blinded by a peppering of lasers impacting against the forward shield before she blasted past the pursuing duo of TIEs, scattering them on either side of her. The proximity display indicated that six more enemy fighters were swooping in to chase them into the asteroids. She tried to follow Relix, but the A-wing was so much smaller and faster that he could maneuver through more precarious paths than her. Her shields started to bear the brunt of another attack and she saw an open space approaching that would allow her to split her attention safely, so she reached one hand over to weapon controls and directed a sweeping spray of shots back towards her pursuers. Her aim was nonexistent, but they clearly hadn’t expected her to have weapons at all, so the attack caught them off guard. Their evasion cost them precious distance and she weaved through the tight spaces of the shifting asteroids in front of her, giving the TIEs even more to worry about.

Suddenly she saw the light of an explosion from the corner of her window and a couple seconds later another explosion illuminated the surface of the craggy asteroid she was skimming past. She lamented the fact that her viewport arrangement didn’t allow her to see very far beside or behind her to know what had happened, but the proximity screen clearly showed two less enemy ships. She cut her speed suddenly and veered away from another rock that careened into her path, leaving the A-wing to swoop past her and loop back around.

“Thanks for getting them off my back,” she commed Relix.

“Keep up the fancy flying,” he replied and she lost sight of him as they split directions to avoid a tumbling rock twice the size of her corvette.

“Five more,” she confirmed on the screen and sent back another wild volley of laser fire at the remaining TIEs, even as she used her other hand to corkscrew away from the debris shattering out from two colliding asteroids, “Do we have a plan?”

There was a pause and then Relix said, “You’re not gonna like it.”

“I already don’t!”

“We’re halfway through this field,” he continued anyway, “If we make it to the other side, we’re going to have to jump straight to hyperspace.”

“Those TIEs will be on top of us before we can even start running new calculations,” Mey-Gon protested.

“And they may be sending more ships around on an intercept course,” he added, “So no time for nav.”

“No time for nav?” she repeated in confusion.

“We’re going to have to eyeball it,” he explained, “Pick a direction with empty space and microjump. You can run calculations for the long trip from wherever you land.”

“Microjump blind?!” she cried, “You’re right. I hate this plan.”

“As soon as we reach the edge, we split up and make our jumps. They can’t follow us.”

“This is suicide,” she muttered, twitching the yoke sideways to swing around a cluster of rocky objects, hoping that they might block some of the fire directed at her by one of the TIEs that had caught up. Her shields were taking a beating, both from the enemy lasers and from deflecting the smaller debris in this asteroid field.

Dodging and twisting at full speed, she cut her path as close as possible between the erratic dance of the giant rocks. Relix was darting even faster, looping around to take shots at the TIEs or draw some of them off to give Mey-Gon’s shields a break. Every time the A-wing was on a different path and she could spare a hand, she sprayed wild fire in the direction of the enemy ships. At some point, one of them disappeared from her screen and she felt the thrill of possibly logging her first kill, though the credit just as likely belonged to an asteroid.

“We’re almost through,” Relix announced, “Get ready to jump.”

“Copy that. This is crazy,” she shook her head as the asteroid field started to thin out and she could see glimpses of open space in the distance.

“No odds, just get it done,” he zoomed past her, “See you back at base.”

Mey-Gon watched the A-wing break around the last asteroid and adjust its heading slightly before disappearing into hyperspace. She tried not to be distracted by the laser fire erupting around her as she burst free from the obstacles and aimed for the emptiest point of space she could determine with her naked eye.

“Han Solo be with me,” she muttered, kissing her gloved fingers before she grabbed the hyperdrive lever and pulled it down.

The starfield had barely stretched into lines of light when she shoved the lever back up again and let out a gulping gasp of relief. Despite the whine of protest from her abused hyperdrive engine, the ship was still miraculously in one piece. A grey planet hung in the distance, possibly close enough along her heading that the gravity would have pulled her out of hyperspace a millisecond later anyway. Whether or not she would have smashed into it was another matter. The important thing was that, according to the proximity screen, she was now alone in the quiet void.

Mey-Gon sunk back into her seat and dragged a hand down across her face, allowing the state of heightened focus she had been in to slowly drain away with the release of a long, deep breath. She briefly reflected on everything she had just come through and indulged in a moment of pride and relief. Against all odds, she was still alive and, for the moment, safe.

For a moment, she wondered if Relix had successfully completed his own microjump; but as soon as she felt the stab of panic in her gut, she banished the thought. After all they had endured together, she realized that she had finally made a real comrade and friend; and she didn’t want to entertain the thought of losing that already. She just needed to get back to base and believe that he would be there too.

As she reached out to the nav computer to begin calculations back to D’Qar, a raspy chuckle crackled from behind her and she jumped, turning to the passenger chair with wide eyes. She had completely forgotten that Parma was back there!

“Not bad, princess,” the injured woman grimaced more than smiled.

“Commander!” Mey-Gon scrambled to locate the Ileenium system coordinates and began running them through navigation, “I’m so sorry! I’ll get us back to base as fast as I can.”

After several seconds of calculating, the computer presented a route and Mey-Gon fed it to the hyperdrive, maneuvering the corvette to line up with the invisible hyperspace lane entrance. She wasted no time in jumping back to lightspeed and turning over controls to the hyperspace navigation system for the two and a half hour journey.

Chapter Text

“I’ve got a medkit onboard,” she said as she leaped from her seat, “Hang on and I’ll see what I can do.”

Mey-Gon remembered seeing her manager grab the medkit from a utility closet once, when she had dropped a wine glass on her foot. She’d never had to use the contents on her own, but she was pretty certain she could figure out how to apply a bacta patch. How much good it would do against the internal damage of multiple blaster wounds was the more concerning issue. With kit in hand, Mey-Gon returned to the cockpit and rotated her chair around to face Parma’s, which she reclined as far back as it would go. She held her expression as neutral as possible while peeling off the commander’s outer layer of costume and exposing the extent of her injuries. She tried to remember everything she knew about Weequay physiology, which admittedly wasn’t very much. The one relevant rumor she could recall was that their thick, tough skin made the species more resilient to blaster fire, and wounded Parma’s solo rescue operation definitely lent credence to this theory.

One of the medicine tubes in the kit listed “pain” and “infection” among the symptoms it treated, so Mey-Gon shook a few tablets out and dropped them into Parma’s mouth, hoping that she had the saliva to dissolve them. The commander worked her jaw around for a few seconds while Mey-Gon peeled off her long gloves. They were filthy now and she needed her fingernails to open the bandage packages anyway.

“You know,” Parma finally said hoarsely, “you’re actually pretty good under pressure.”

Mey-Gon looked up from her struggle with the packaging and noted that the commander’s eyes looked less dilated than before. She hoped that was a good sign, but the talking definitely seemed to be. She smiled modestly at the reluctant compliment, “It’s always been a gift.”

The first bandage was finally free and Mey-Gon stood and leaned down over the shoulder wound, placing the bacta strip carefully and blinking in annoyance as the charms from her headpiece dangled down into her view. She pulled off the accessory and tossed it onto the floor, shaking her hair free from the braided updo that had already been falling apart, then she grabbed the next bandage.

Parma was watching her closely now, “What does a holovid diva know about war anyway?”

“It was just a job,” Mey-Gon frowned, “I believe in so much more. But if that’s all you think I am, why did you risk your life to save me and Relix?”

“Lieutenant Nalen is one of my brightest soldiers, and you - you’re just a civilian,” she scowled in disapproval, “but I’m loyal to the general, and she would never forgive me if I let anything happen to you.”

Embarrassed, Mey-Gon fired back, “What does a smuggler know about loyalty anyway?”

“It was just a job,” Parma echoed quietly.

Mey-Gon paused and they locked stares. The insults came naturally to both of them, but lacked the usual bitterness. Whatever sharp opinions they had held about each other on the way into the mission were now dulled. Blood and sweat had watered the seeds of respect. Parma looked away to stare out the window, blinking heavily as the medicine continued to do its work.

After a while, she mumbled, “You really should be allowed on more missions. You’ve got what it takes where it counts.”

Mey-Gon finished placing the last bacta strip and flopped back into her seat, “Well, do me a favor and stay alive until we get back to base so you can tell that to Leia, yourself. She won’t believe it if it comes from me.”

“Turn up the heat in this party boat and I’ll do my best,” Parma snarked through her drowsiness.

As she reached for the environmental systems control board to comply, Mey-Gon remembered one of the other few facts she had heard about Weequays - they came from a desert planet. Warmth would probably aid Parma’s body with the recovery, so she turned the temperature up as high as she dared. Soon, the commander was asleep and Mey-Gon tried not to let the silence amplify her worry. Had she administered the wrong medication? Or too much of the right one?

She rubbed her temples and reclined her chair, tucking her legs up onto the seat so she could curl sideways. In the stillness, she was finally registering the soreness and exhaustion in her own body. A savage headache had been building up for a while and now it was overwhelming. She opened her eyes and reached for the medkit, pulling out the pain reliever again and popping one tablet into her mouth. As she worked it around her tongue, she looked down at the state of herself.

The blood and filth would be impossible to clean out of this fabric - her dress was completely ruined! A flash of amusement sparked through her annoyance when she realized that this was the first frivolous thought she had allowed herself in the last hour. The battle high was definitely fading.

Between the warming air and the pain medication and the exhaustion of the mission finally catching up to her, Mey-Gon found it harder and harder to keep her eyes open to monitor Parma’s lifesigns. Her sore body was being successfully numbed by the drugs, though her head still throbbed terribly. She tried to picture something relaxing, like the beach or the riverbank, but her thoughts kept jumping back to Ben and lightsabers and temples as though being yanked to these images against her will. She remembered the face of the man who had given them the datacard, but his name was lost. Parts of her memory were so scrambled now, impossible to access or see clearly. She needed to find Luke. For some reason, no matter how far her mind strayed, no matter how her dreams shifted, that one thought continued to rise unbidden to the surface. Luke Skywalker.

A chime startled her awake, and Mey-Gon blinked away the drowsiness to find that she was still curled up on her chair in the cockpit. The air, thick with the smell of blood and bacta, was so hot and stuffy that sweat was dripping down from her hairline and soaking the back of her dress against the leather seat. She looked over at Parma just as the hyperdrive cut out and reverted them to realspace. The commander was still breathing very slowly, but hadn’t stirred at all in response to the chimes. That probably wasn’t a good sign.

Mey-Gon righted her seat and spun it back around to face the control panel, the sight of D’Qar injecting her with some energy. She made sure her ID was transponding so that her approach wouldn’t raise any alarms with the sentinel satellites that monitored the system, then fed full power into the sublight engine and grabbed the steering yoke with both hands.

“Commander,” she said, softly at first, then raised her voice, “Commander!”

Parma didn’t move.

“Hang in there,” she muttered and swung into a counter-rotational orbit to locate the continent that they called home.

According to her instruments, the Resistance base was currently deep in the nightside hemisphere, obscured under thick storm clouds. Mey-Gon looked at the commander again then dropped her ship into a steep dive. There was no time to take the comfortable route. She hissed when they hit the atmosphere so hard that it shook the entire corvette and Parma’s limp body slipped down in the seat, but she didn’t slow. The friction of her speed was starting to set off hull temperature warnings and the turbulence through the clouds nearly bounced the unconscious woman off her chair completely.

“Base, this is RT-582, do you copy?” Mey-Gon broadcast, squinting for any kind of visibility through the storm.

“Copy, 582,” came the bored girl’s voice, “Welcome back. Your landing pad is clear.”

“Thanks. Is traffic clear? I’m coming in hot.” 

“Uh...yes, you are,” the operator sounded more interested now, “All clear.”

“Good,” they broke through the bottom of the clouds at last and Mey-Gon could see the lights of the base in the distance, “Requesting medical staff to meet us upon landing.”

“Medical?” she repeated with full attention, “Copy that. Scrambling them to your landing pad now.”

Raindrops were vaporized before even touching the surface of the corvette as it rocketed toward the base, probably leaving an annoying sonic boom in its wake for any poor creatures trying to sleep below. Mey-Gon cut her speed at the last possible second to execute a definitive landing on her usual spot, then she jabbed the ramp controls and jumped out of her seat. Hooking her elbows under Parma’s armpits, she dragged the heavy woman in short bursts across the lounge and back toward the ramp.

“Commander, please,” Mey-Gon grunted, reaching the limits of her strength, “Try to stand.”

There was no response, so she heaved the body up against her chest and tried to ease her way backwards down the ramp. The rain-slicked surface nearly claimed her footing, but when Mey-Gon stuck her leg out for balance, it caught in her skirt. She struggled for barely a moment before she heard the dress rip at her waist and her tangled leg was unable to catch her from falling completely backwards. She hit the ramp and Parma hit her, then both women tumbled down to the ferrocrete pad.

For the first time in a long time, Mey-Gon’s mind was completely blank as she lay on her back at the bottom of the ramp, staring up into the dark clouds that were dumping cold rain onto her. It was almost peaceful.

I have to find Luke , she finally thought, followed quickly by, I’ve killed the commander.

She was just pushing herself over onto her hands and knees to crawl toward Parma when the light of the approaching medical vehicle flicked into view through the rain. They skidded to a stop and a medic jumped out, reaching the commander just as Mey-Gon got her rolled over. Before she could even confirm if the woman was still breathing or not, a second medic had moved into the way, helping to load Parma onto a stretcher. Mey-Gon climbed to her feet and found herself under the scan of a hovering triage droid, which buzzed back to the vehicle once it determined that she had no severe injuries. 

“Get in the speeder!” one of the medics yelled to her anyway, as the other fixed Parma’s stretcher into position.

She reached back to seal her ship then trudged toward the vehicle as steadily as her aching muscles could carry her.

“Mey-Gon!” she heard a distant shout and paused when she saw a figure running full speed down the thoroughfare, soaked cape flapping behind him.

“Relix!” she cried and forgot all about her soreness as she ran to collide with him in an overjoyed hug, “I didn’t want to think-”

“I told you we’d make it!” he panted.

“Let’s go!” the driver of the medical vehicle interrupted, “Both of you!”

Relix and Mey-Gon dutifully hurried to hop into any empty space they could find and hold on as the speeder raced back toward the main part of the base. The cold rain, which had been refreshing at first after her overheated cockpit, now started to make Mey-Gon shiver. She pushed back her wet hair and wiped at the sheets of water that were beating into her face as they sped along. The comfort of being home suddenly sunk in even deeper as they flew past the landing pad that held her black and orange X-wing, apparently returned unscathed from its recent mission. A few seconds later, the speeder veered into one of the bunkers and they were met by a medical droid that escorted Mey-Gon and Relix to one curtained-off exam room while Parma was floated off to an operating room.

“How’s the commander?” Relix asked while he changed into the simple white exam gown.

“Alive when we landed, but not conscious,” Mey-Gon looked at the droid, “I’d like to be informed of any updates on her condition.”

“Be still,” it ignored her request and began moving a scanning appendage down Relix’s body, announcing after a minute, “Damage to the carotid artery and trachea. Lie down.”

The droid was efficient, but had the worst bedside manner Mey-Gon had ever seen. She supposed it was fine for an unofficial army, and Relix didn’t even seem bothered as the droid wrapped some kind of dressing around his neck and clipped a brace together over it. A quick injection completed the treatment and the droid turned to Mey-Gon.

“Be still,” it ordered and executed the same slow scan as she tried not to shiver in the thin, loose gown that was already starting to soak up the cold water dripping down from her hair, “Minor abrasions and contusions. Erratic cognitive disruption. Possible concussion. Lie down.”

It activated a hover stretcher next to the exam bed and Mey-Gon climbed up onto it nervously, flinching as she received her own injection and every minor scrape was treated with an antiseptic field generator. A concussion would explain her headache and could be eased, but no amount of bacta was capable of repairing damaged pathways in a person’s brain. Erratic cognitive disruption, it had said. The broken memories. The constant and uncontrollable redirection of her thoughts to Luke Skywalker. What had Ben done to her?

“You will both remain here under observation until the morning,” it pulled a pillow and blanket for each of them off a shelf, dropping them unceremoniously onto the beds, “Notify me immediately of any change in your pain levels.”

Mey-Gon waited until the droid had put itself on standby mode in the corner before she pulled the blanket up around her face and flopped over to look at Relix, “Do you still have the datacard?”

“Codey has it,” he affirmed, “I figured the Resistance was more likely to recover him if I crashed. He’ll chat with the central computer soon enough and find us here, I’m sure.”

The mission was over. They had the information they had set out to find and now they were home. Relief weighed down heavily on Mey-Gon, or perhaps it was the injection, but she was suddenly exhausted all over again. The little nap in hyperspace hadn’t been as restful as she would have liked. Still her mind continued to jump from one thought to another, rather than ease into unconsciousness. Something that had been nagging at her since their escape flashed before her now.

“Relix?” she asked, “Why did you only stun them?”

He was quiet for a while, but she could tell by his breathing that he wasn’t asleep yet. Finally, he answered, “I don’t like how death feels when it’s that close. Even worse if I’m the one who causes it.”

Suddenly she recalled his reaction to the slaughter of the lartus and understood. Another feeling, like the nausea from the kyber crystal. Evil. Death. Somehow he felt them. But this left her even more confused.

“If you’re a pacifist, then why did you join a militia? They call us extremists, you know?”

He let out a single humorless chuckle, “Pacifists don’t make the galaxy a peaceful place. All the things I hate will only be worse if the First Order isn’t stopped. Someone has to fight them.” After a long silence, he asked with the same reluctant accusatory tone, “Why did you know more about the mission than I did? Are we really looking for Luke Skywalker?”

It seemed she wasn’t going to escape that name any time soon. She guiltily confessed, “Luke was looking for holy sites before he disappeared. If we’re lucky, we brought back the same coordinates that he found. That was our real mission. I don’t know why Leia told me. I wish she hadn’t, because now the First Order knows.”

Despite the neck brace, Relix struggled to turn his head so that he could give her a reassuring look, “It’s not like you told them. The general can’t blame you. I’ll back you up.”

“Thanks,” she smiled.

Things were quiet for a minute - or as quiet as they could be in a medical bunker with a storm raging outside - until the approach of scampering metal feet made Mey-Gon open her eyes. She peered over the side of her stretcher just as Codey skidded under the curtain into their room and jumped up onto her lap. He warbled something inquisitive while his photoreceptors fixed on her face.

“Wrong bed,” she whispered, pointing over toward the exam table where Relix was lying.

“Codey!” Relix greeted happily after the droid hopped over, “Yes, yes, we’re both fine.”

“Wipe his recent memory, won’t you, Relix?” Mey-Gon sighed.

“What?!”

“He’s got a scan of me with no makeup and soggy hair. I can’t have that getting out.”

Relix snorted, “Codey, save that for blackmail in case she threatens you again.”

“Ugh!” she rolled over and pulled the blanket over her head.

With no further interruptions, both humans finally succumbed to their well-earned weariness and slipped into deep sleep. Predictably, Mey-Gon’s dreams were agitated and bounced between the cold faces of stormtroopers to the pain and anger in Ben’s face to the distant vision of Luke and a desperate urge to find him. If it weren’t for the medication and pure exhaustion, she probably wouldn’t have been able to stay asleep at all.

Chapter Text

Raised voices finally pulled her awake and she found that her body felt rested but her head was still dizzy and sore. There was no telling how many hours she had been out, but the light on the distant ceiling suggested that dawn was just breaking outside the bunker entrance where it sounded like the rain had died down as well. The voices grew closer and more familiar until the curtain of the exam room was thrust aside and Leia marched in, followed closely by Doctor Kalonia.

At first, Mey-Gon was a little scared by the fierce energy on the general’s face, but as soon as their eyes met, it melted away to relief. Without a word, she swept forward and trapped Mey-Gon in a tight embrace just as the younger woman had managed to sit up. For some reason, this was the moment that all the emotional stress of the mission decided to bubble to the surface. Mey-Gon felt embarrassed and angry at herself for letting a simple assignment get so out of hand. She felt terrified for her future with the Resistance. She felt panicked that she’d be blamed for whatever state Parma was currently in. She felt heartbroken that she would have to tell Leia about Ben. And she still felt desperate to find Luke.

Leia finally leaned back and held Mey-Gon at arm’s length, shaking her head wordlessly and suppressing some kind of frustration. Mey-Gon tried to look apologetic through the sudden tears in her eyes and Leia just smoothed back her hair, which had dried into unkempt waviness. She didn’t feel quite as embarrassed about her appearance when she realized that Leia also had her hair down and unstyled, and she wore a simple pair of trousers and a heavy coat. She had probably rushed over without fully getting ready as soon as she saw the night report upon waking.

“Lieutenant,” Leia finally spoke, acknowledging Relix as he slid off his bed to stand at attention once the doctor had removed his neck brace.

“General...” he started, but paused as Kalonia held up a finger for silence and leaned in for a closer examination of his bruised throat.

Mey-Gon winced at the sight of the injury and tried to scoot her own brightly bruised arms out of view. Leia noticed anyway and slipped a little further back into that protective anger she had been brimming with when she first stormed in.

“I’m going to check on the commander,” she announced, “Do not leave this exam room.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mey-Gon and Relix responded immediately.

“Emdee,” Doctor Kalonia activated the droid that had been resting in the corner, “Run a check up on them both.”

She swept out of the room after Leia, and the droid got to work. Relix was scanned and cleared first with nothing more than a prescription for a bit of salve to help with the bruising. As Mey-Gon stood for her scan, she began to wonder what was taking so long in the other room. The droid cleared her medically, but confirmed that there was still some strange activity on her brain scan that would just have to heal itself over time.

“Emdee, how’s the commander?” she asked as she sat back down on the stretcher and tried to think about anything else besides her own prognosis.

The droid paused, a light on its face blinking as it scanned through updates before responding, “Conscious.”

Relix exhaled a sigh of relief and Mey-Gon nearly jumped to her feet, “Can we see her?”

“You are not to leave this exam room,” it reminded them.

She pouted and looked around the little room, hoping to find some change of clothes or at least a mirror so she could make herself presentable before facing Leia again. No doubt the next interaction would be more official than the last.

The sound of running footsteps gradually caught her attention and she saw a blur as someone raced past the open bit of curtain on their way to the other room. Her heart skipped a beat, wondering if something had suddenly gone wrong with Parma. Then the footsteps stopped and ran back until Poe Dameron was framed in the entrance to their room, wide-eyed and disheveled, with his shirt untucked and inside-out, his hair still pressed flat on one side from his pillow, and his face unshaven. For some reason, this made Mey-Gon’s heart race more than the thought of Parma’s medical complications, and she tilted her head down to face the floor, crossing her arms self-consciously in front of her.

“What happened?” he demanded, a bit aggressively, as he stepped into the room.

“Uh,” Relix generously took the heat by sliding to his feet and saluting, “Well, Wing Commander, there was a First Order attack on the station while we were inside. Did you want the details or will you be going over the debriefing later?”

Instead of answering, Poe took a deep breath in and out, then his tone softened, “Are you okay?”

“Emdee says I’m good to go,” Relix affirmed, “Um, Mey-Gon’s got something...I don’t know if she wants me to…”

“Relix,” she hissed, “It sounds worse if you say that.”

Poe dropped down into her eye line and locked in to her gaze with some kind of intensity that was only enhanced by the nonexistent state of his grooming, “Are you okay?”

“Just dizzy,” she said, and she meant it.

He nodded with a quick smile intended to show his relief, but he still looked bothered by something. Mey-Gon tried to search his eyes to figure out what was wrong, but suddenly he wouldn’t look at her. He stood up and ran his hand through his hair, evening out the flat spot at last.

“The night report mentioned the commander…” he started.

“Ex-commander,” Leia interrupted, surprising everyone with her sudden entrance.

“No!” Mey-Gon gasped.

Leia held up her hands to halt the reaction as she continued, “Parma has resigned her commission.” As Mey-Gon caught her breath with a hand pressed dramatically over her chest, Leia turned to Poe, “I would like you to step up as her replacement. Do you accept?”

It took him a moment to straighten out his thoughts, but then he nodded confidently, “Yes, General. I accept.”

“Then congratulations, Commander Dameron,” Leia shook his hand and, in a gesture of maternal tenderness, reached up and patted the newly-commissioned officer’s scruffy cheek, “Your parents would be proud, Poe.”

Mey-Gon observed the exchange with a growing curiosity and a small bit of jealousy. She thought Leia only ever displayed that kind of familiarity with herself. And what did she mean about his parents? Who were they? Did Leia know them? What about Luke Skywalker? She bit her lip and winced against the derailment of her thoughts again. Fear settled over her that this wasn’t something that would just heal itself, like the medical droid suggested. Even more frightening was that she still needed to tell Leia about it.

“However,” the general resumed her professional tone and turned toward the injured pair, stepping toward Relix, “Before she resigned, the commander promoted you to captain and assigned you to a permanent position in Blue Squadron. Do you accept?”

Codey chirped in support and a broad smile broke out across Relix’s face as he stuck out his hand, “Yes, ma’am. I accept.”

She should have felt happier than she did, but Mey-Gon couldn’t help that her heart also sunk as she watched Leia shake Relix’s hand, sealing the promotion. Poe, now the commander over all the squadrons, would be busier than ever; and Relix, her closest friend and first real comrade in the trenches, was suddenly bound up into the pilot clique too. She’d never get to see either of them as frequently as she used to. After finally coming this far, she was being left behind. Alone again.

“Congratulations, Captain Nalen,” Leia nodded, then sighed and turned to Mey-Gon at last, “And the commander also had some things to say about you...as well as a promotion to the rank of ensign.” She swallowed stubbornly, “Do you accept?”

Leia looked like she was barely restraining herself from using a Jedi mind trick to force Mey-Gon to refuse. It made the younger woman hesitate briefly. She knew that Leia was just being overly protective, especially after the way this last mission had turned out. Officially enlisted and ranked, Mey-Gon would be under a lot more pressure to perform. She would be required, and not just encouraged, to improve her combat scores. She would be part of the ranks available for any commanding officer to assign to any mission. Leia would have a harder time sheltering her. For a long time, Mey-Gon had known why she wanted to fight. Now she knew who it was they were really fighting. The only thing left was to learn how to fight.

“I accept,” she stood and reached out her hand.

“Then welcome to the navy, Ensign Niek,” Leia gripped her hand tightly in the shake, her face unreadable, “But as far as I’m concerned, you’re never leaving this planet again.”

Mey-Gon frowned, her stubbornness matching Leia’s in a way that only she could get away with, “Is that what Commander Parma would have wanted?”

“Parma’s account of the events were hazy at best,” Leia countered, and nodded toward Poe, “Commander Dameron is your commanding officer now.”

Poe subtly shook his head like he didn’t want to get dragged into this, but Relix jumped to his friend’s defense, “General, Commander, I think Ensign Niek is more than qualified for missions. If you could just see what I saw-” he was interrupted by a hesitant chattering from Codey, to which he responded in surprise, “You did?”

“What is it, Captain?” Leia prompted after more beeping from the little droid.

Relix explained, “I guess when the commander came after me and Mey-Gon, she had Codey tap into the station’s security system to keep track of where we were. He still has a recording of the entire incident.”

Mey-Gon felt her blood turn cold. She never wanted to relive those events. Would Leia make her watch it and explain what was happening?

“I would like to review that recording,” Leia seemed to be having the same reluctant thoughts, but she ultimately proved stronger, “Have your droid transfer the file to my computer at once.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Relix nodded at Codey, who hopped down from the bed and scampered to plug himself into the dataport on the wall.

“Commander Dameron, these are your people now, so you will analyze it with me,” she ordered, “Get dressed and meet me in my office.”

“Right away, General,” Poe looked a little embarrassed, but nodded and hurried out of the room.

Leia looked between Relix and Mey-Gon, “And you two will join us for a full debriefing in three hours.” She took a deep breath and exhaled her tension, adding sincerely, “It’s a relief to have you home.”

“Thank you,” Mey-Gon replied in the same tone and the energy between them diffused completely.

With a nod, Leia turned and left.

After a few seconds, Relix spoke, “We should probably go see Commander Parma.”

“Let’s go,” Mey-Gon agreed.

As soon as Relix had scooped Codey back up onto his shoulder, he led the way out of their exam room and toward the more advanced recovery rooms. Doctor Kalonia was on her way out of the first one when she spotted them and gestured to the door in approval. They smiled their thanks and crept in to find the ex-commander encased in a clear flexpoly bacta suit from the neck down. She turned to regard her visitors and her wrinkled lips pulled back into a toothy smile when she saw who it was.

“How are you feeling?” Mey-Gon stepped up to the bedside and looked at the overwhelming amount of equipment hooked up to the suit. And to think she had tried to treat these wounds with a simple medkit.

“Ah, so that ’s what you really look like,” Parma eyed Mey-Gon with a snicker, and Relix had to press his lips together to suppress his own laugh.

Mey-Gon narrowed her eyes, “Back to normal, I see.”

“Well, I was recovering until you walked in here looking like The Silent about to perform some kind of healing ritual,” her sneer persisted, “White doesn’t flatter you at all.”

“So my stylist used to tell me,” she shot back, “Unfortunately you bled all over my other dress and they’ve probably incinerated it as a biohazard by now.”

“Good, it was tacky,” Parma said definitively and looked at Relix, “Captain Nalen, I’ve recommended that General Organa pull the flight data from my A-wing to analyze that run you did through the asteroid field. Unfortunately, I was stuck in the princess’s laser magnet of a cruise ship, but what I managed to see of your performance was very impressive.”

“Thank you, Commander,” Relix said proudly, trying to ignore Mey-Gon’s scowl.

“And furthermore,” she continued, “The way you adapted and took charge of the situation speaks to a strong potential for leadership in your future. You deserve every bit of the promotion and more.”

“Thank you, Commander,” he sounded even happier than before.

“I know most of Blue Squadron prefer X-wings, but you’re welcome to continue flying my A-wing. I’ve no need for it in retirement.” Relix’s mouth fell open and Parma grunted in satisfaction, “I’d rather it go to you than one of those Defence Force dropouts.” She tilted her head up to study Mey-Gon’s defensive posture, “And as for you, kid-”

“Ensign,” Mey-Gon corrected.

“Right,” she smirked, “You’ve got guts, Ensign.”

Mey-Gon waited, but when it was clear there were no further compliments coming her way, she sighed, “Well, speaking of guts, I need to go clean my ship. You kind of made a mess in my cockpit.”

Parma raised one bony eyebrow ridge, “Do you even know how to clean?”

“Of course I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I’ll ask a droid,” Mey-Gon whirled for the exit and heard Parma erupt into wheezy laughter.

Relix said his quick goodbye and hurried after Mey-Gon, who was smiling despite the testy exchange. Kalonia offered them boots and coats to cover them for the walk back to their rooms through the chilly morning air, which Mey-Gon was determined to do as swiftly as possible before too many people woke up for their shifts. Relix insisted on going back to the corvette with Mey-Gon to inspect it for damages, so they agreed to change quickly and meet up outside the barracks.

Chapter Text

Half of her roommates were still sleeping when Mey-Gon crept into her room and spotted her uniform jacket folded neatly on top of her bunk, courtesy of the laundry droid’s rounds. Soon she would be issued a bar badge to signify her rank and the breast wouldn’t be so embarrassingly empty. She walked to her trunk at the back of the room and started digging around for a practical pair of trousers and blouse to match the jacket. Debriefing seemed like an official kind of activity that a good ensign wouldn’t show up to in a casual dress. As she pulled out her selected items, she noticed with curiosity that the trunk next to hers was propped open and empty. She glanced back to the bed under her own and saw that it still looked untouched.

“Welcome back,” one of her roommates whispered as he squatted in front of his own trunk and yawned, “You were on a mission with the commander, right?”

Mey-Gon nodded with a wry smile. Word sure got around the base fast. It hadn’t even been a full day since they left, and she certainly hadn’t told anybody about her mission; but she wasn’t surprised he had found out a few details. This particular young man had a habit of occasionally starting conversations with her, then panicking and bailing out as soon as he had exhausted a single topic. It was kind of endearing and she wondered if they would have more to talk about once she really started her new training, though she seemed to recall that he was an engineer and not strictly navy, like her, or army, like their missing roommate.

She tilted her head toward the empty trunk curiously, “Did he move?”

“Ah,” the boy’s face fell, “No. Battle on Uchinao. Ludin didn’t come back. The quartermaster droid cleaned out his belongings last night.”

“Oh,” she didn’t know what to say next and that old panicked look crept onto his face.

“Memorial’s tonight, if you want to go,” he said, quickly adding with a nervous laugh, “Not with me, I mean, just if you want to pay your respects and all.”

“Yes, of course,” she said distantly, “I should go. He was my bunkmate, after all.”

Scrubbing gore out of her ship, debriefing Leia on her son’s sadistic turn, and then a memorial. After a day like this and her new mental issues in play, there was no way she’d be sleeping well that night.

Either he was reading her thoughts or drawing on the gossip he knew about her, but he made sure to inform her, “Memorials are short, and we usually go to the bar afterward.”

Well, she would have arrived at that solution one way or another; better to make it seem like she was following custom when she showed up. At least she had one thing to look forward to now.

“Anyway,” there was the bail to break the awkward silence, “Got my shift in a few. See you later.”

“Later,” she smiled and closed her trunk carefully as her roommate hurried away.

She took her outfit and bag of toiletries back to her bed, staring at the empty bunk while she changed. How had she been lucky enough to survive what she did, but he wasn’t? Did the Force determine such things? She slipped into her uniform jacket, relieved to have her bruised arms covered up for the day. She very nearly hadn’t been lucky.

In the refresher facility, she claimed a free vanity station to properly wash her face and apply all the beauty creams her skin had been craving. As she rubbed some onto her neck, she found that the back of it was slightly tender; and after some twisting around, she spotted the bruising peeking above her jacket collar. A vivid memory flashed through her mind of the black cord wrenching her forward by the neck as Ben tried to rip the kyber crystal off of her. Bruising was the most merciful outcome of that whiplash. She would just have to wear her hair down for a while. At least she had her oils now to make it more presentable than it had looked all morning. A conservative application of makeup was all she had time for, but it still gave her a sense of comfort to have that mask back in place when she stared at her reflection.

Ensign Niek.

Things were about to get interesting.

When she reunited with Relix at the entrance to the barracks, she was pleased to see him in his uniform as well, with Codey standing close to his feet. His lieutenant’s rank badge gleamed proudly on his jacket for the moment, but he looked every bit a captain. He even wore his collar open to show off his bruises like a trophy.

Their first stop was the mess hall where both of them filled up thermoses with hot caf. Word of their mission’s aftermath must have already started spreading around the base, because Mey-Gon could see the strange looks she and Relix were getting. Next, they swung by custodial to grab some cleaning equipment and consult the resident droid about removing blood stains from leather, then they started the long trek out to Mey-Gon’s landing pad. She was happy that the rain had stopped, but the morning was still gloomy, cold, and overcast. Her corvette’s chromium hull reflected the grey sky between streaks of dark burn marks. Apparently the shields hadn’t blocked everything.

“Thank you,” she suddenly said to Relix as they did an inspection lap around the ship while her ramp lay open to air out the inside.

“For what?” he asked modestly.

She chuckled, raising her eyebrows, “Um, for giving my ship modifications that probably saved me and the commander...for coming up with the plan to get us out of there...for defending me in front of the general…”

“She needs to know how you handled yourself in the face of...what you faced,” he said seriously, “Everyone does. Your reputation around here is unfair. You could have left me behind; you could have saved yourself, but you didn’t. You stood up to that...that...” he swallowed hard, “That was the general’s son, wasn’t it? The one you talked about when we were discussing Jedi?”

“Ben Solo,” she nodded, and her chest burned at the sound of her own voice saying that name now, “Kylo is what Ana called him.”

“And your...disconnect,” he said delicately, tapping a finger against his own head, “He did that?”

“I don’t know how it happened,” she admitted, “He asked why we were there and, for some reason, I thought about it. I shouldn’t have thought about it. Now I can’t stop - it’s still... stuck in the front of my mind where he wanted it. I’ve never met Luke Skywalker, never even spoken to him, and now finding him is all I can think about.”

Relix nodded first with empathy and then with determination, “Well, let’s see where Lor San Tekka thinks he is.”

As he reached toward Codey, who popped open a hidden compartment to reveal the secure datacard, Mey-Gon felt a piece of her mind click into place. Lor San Tekka was the name she had forgotten, but now it was back where it belonged. Thank goodness Relix had remembered it. 

They hurried into her ship and planted themselves around the media console. Relix inserted the card and they watched in anticipation as the projectors activated and a scrolling block of text floated to life in the air. The print was tiny, but before Mey-Gon could reach forward to enlarge it, the image flickered and they saw a brief glimpse of a starmap glitch into view. The projection continued to distort, flashing random text and images, too skewed to see any one thing clearly.

“What’s wrong with it?” Mey-Gon asked and she could see the color drain from Relix’s face.

He didn’t speak as he ejected the card and turned it over and over in his hand for inspection. The look on his face was not optimistic, and Mey-Gon felt her stomach churn with dread. After everything they’d been through to get this information…

“It was in my pocket,” Relix realized, his voice suddenly hoarse again, “When the stun beam hit my leg. It must have scrambled the card.”

Worse than the prospect of having failed the mission, Mey-Gon found that she was more anxious about losing the lead on Luke.

“Maybe I can fix it,” he suddenly stood up, “Data recovery is tedious, delicate work, but it can be done.” He looked apologetic, “I’ll do as much as I can before debriefing.”

She nodded, “I’ll see you there.”

Relix picked up Codey and left the cabin at nearly a run. There was nothing Mey-Gon could do to salvage the results at this point, so, as usual, she found herself reduced to cleaning up after the First Order’s violence. Her cockpit was a mess and no matter which products she used or how hard she scrubbed, she couldn’t get the stains out of the expensive nerf leather seats. She had no idea what a normal person did in this kind of situation; her only instinct was to ask her butler droid to arrange for replacement seats to be installed. She missed Emkay so much sometimes, and she’d still never fully allowed herself to deal with those frantic moments where she’d lost him. Even if she could ask Threepio for help now, she could no longer afford this level of luxurious furniture. There were some scrap ships dumped a few miles away; she had spotted them from the lookout post when she was bored on one of her shifts. Maybe she could drag some cleaner seats out of those…

Her eyes started to tear up at the thought of her elegant cockpit turning into an even bigger patch job than it already was. Poor RT-582 would end up looking like the Millennium Falcon by the end, inside and out. This triggered the unwelcome return of Luke Skywalker to her thoughts and she took a deep breath, fighting back even thicker tears. If Relix couldn’t repair that datacard, then Kylo had broken her for nothing.

It could be worse , she reminded herself, thinking of Parma in the recovery room or the empty bunk in the barracks.

The cockpit was as sanitized as it was ever going to get, so she abandoned it and took the cleaning tools back to custodial. Nobody was there when she returned to her bedroom to lay out a dark dress for the evening’s memorial gathering. It had a shorter skirt than her usual floor length style, which would probably leave her way too cold for this weather, but she couldn’t risk getting her legs tangled up again. A mission bonus would have been deposited into her account by now and she planned to drink all of it away before staggering back to her bed.

When the appointed time came, Mey-Gon walked to the command bunker, fussing all the way to make sure that her jacket looked crisp and professional for her first official mission debriefing as an ensign. The door to Leia’s office was closed and she decided to wait for Relix before knocking. He arrived shortly, a bit out of breath and distracted looking.

“Did it work?” Mey-Gon whispered.

“It’s going to take some time. A lot more time,” he panted, trying to keep his voice down too, “I pulled a few words, but nothing useful yet. I’ll get it, though…”

They froze as the door slid open, revealing Leia staring out at them from across her desk, her expression terribly serious. Poe was planted on a chair in front of her, slouched forward with his elbows on his knees; and when he turned his face toward the open door, Mey-Gon thought he looked a bit pale.

“Come in,” Leia directed.

Chapter Text

Mey-Gon and Relix stepped inside and stood at attention before the desk. The energy was completely different than every other time Mey-Gon had visited Leia in her office. Was this what debriefings were always like?

In a moment of confusion, Poe stood up and scooted his chair towards Mey-Gon. At first she was distracted by the sharp sight of him wearing his full dress uniform for the first time she could remember, and then she realized what he was doing and wondered if there was some kind of protocol she didn’t know about that called for the lowest-ranking being to be seated during a debriefing. She looked unsurely at Leia, and Leia looked at Poe with the same odd curiosity, then gave a small nod of permission to Mey-Gon, who sat down in the chair with her most attentive posture while Poe stepped back to stand by Relix.

Once the odd shuffle was complete, Leia cleared her throat, “The commander and I have reviewed the security footage and direct records from your droid, Captain Nalen, along with the flight data from the A-wing. Unless you have anything else to add about this escape, I would prefer to be debriefed solely on the mission up until the point of your capture.” Her jaw tightened sternly, “Why was Commander Parma separated from you? You knew she was there for your protection.”

“The cult wouldn’t allow all of us in,” Relix answered, “They were actually only going to permit one of us, but…”

“I improvised,” Mey-Gon jumped in, “That’s why you sent me, after all. I managed to get Relix in as well. It was the best I could do under the circumstances.”

Leia accepted this with a nod, “And did you find anything in the collection that matched your target?”

“There may have been some things,” Mey-Gon shook her head as she tried to picture the items that had caught her attention most, “But we didn’t get a close look at any of them, and they’re all gone now anyway.”

“Yes, we saw the part where they were loaded up,” Leia began, “But-”

“Where does the recording start?” Relix asked all of a sudden, then nervously fumbled, “So that we don’t bother covering what you already know, ma’am.”

Mey-Gon and Poe both turned to give him a strange look, but Leia indulged him, “It begins with the two of you in stormtrooper custody being escorted down a hallway by the Knights of Ren.”

“Knights of Ren?” Mey-Gon repeated and Relix suddenly shared the same surprised expression, but she had to turn away as soon as Poe looked at her with something in his eyes that made her nervous.

“Yes,” Leia confirmed, “According to our intelligence, that is what they are called. Their leader…” she added reluctantly, “calls himself Kylo Ren.”

“There was a girl, the one who got released first,” Relix jumped in, “She was named Ana Ren.”

“Could they be related?” Poe suggested.

“No,” Leia, Mey-Gon, and Relix said at the same time, making the commander flinch in surprise.

“She might have been First Order,” Mey-Gon elaborated, “But not by choice. I got the impression she was an independent operator. But...Kylo…” she made sure to use that name, “he seemed to respect her somehow? So did the Knights.”

“We’ll have our intelligence look into it,” Leia made a note on her datapad then looked up with suppressed disappointment, “So you were unable to recover any artifacts.”

“Actually, we met someone else,” Mey-Gon leaned forward, “Lor San Tekka. He said you would know his name.”

Leia’s eyes grew distant but gradually brighter with a hopeful light, “Yes. He was an old family friend. He sought out Luke in the very beginning and they travelled together for years, tracking down texts for the academy.”

“And he helped Luke research the locations of ancient temples,” Mey-Gon looked to Relix again.

He picked up her thread, “Lor gave us a datacard. He said it might be a place Luke would have gone. But...it…” he looked frustrated with himself.

“It was damaged during our capture,” Mey-Gon saved him, “But Rel- I mean, Captain Nalen is fixing it. He’ll get the information off of it, for sure.”

“That will take time,” Leia understood, “And now the First Order knows what we’re looking for.”

Mey-Gon’s heart sank, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to-”

Leia held up a hand to stop her, “It wasn’t your fault. End of issue. We will only focus on what to do next.”

“Ma’am,” Relix spoke up, “Lor said that the datacard contained just one of the possible locations, but he has other research he would look into.”

“Did he say how to reach him again?” Leia asked, clearly invested in this line of planning.

“Well, no,” Mey-Gon explained, “We were under attack and it all happened so fast. He got away, but we could track him down…”

“The First Order took control of that station,” she argued, “They have access to its security recordings as well. Kylo would know Lor San Tekka as well as I do, and once he sees the exchange between you, the hunt will begin. Lor will go into hiding.”

“I could find him,” Mey-Gon offered, “Let me go undercover and-”

“Absolutely not,” Leia snapped.

“But he could lead us to Luke!” she insisted, the desperation stuck on a loop in her head.

“We have-”

“I’ll do it,” Poe interrupted suddenly and everyone stopped to look at him, “I’ll find Lor San Tekka. With your permission, General, I’ll have the analysts compile leads while I put together a team to follow up on them, headed by myself.”

Leia gave him a grateful nod that she didn’t even try to hide from Mey-Gon, “Thank you, Commander. Permission granted.” She waited for a couple beats before asking, “Is there anything else of note which you would like to add to this debriefing?”

“No, ma’am,” Relix answered while Mey-Gon just stared straight ahead blankly.

Leia looked at him, “Captain, I would like to be kept updated on your progress with the damaged card.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You and Commander Dameron are dismissed.”

Mey-Gon could feel both men staring at her but she didn’t move until she heard the door shut behind them and their voices start up a muffled conversation from outside. She slumped forward into much the same pose Poe had been in when they first entered, “Leia…”

“Thank you,” she said softly, the bluster of the debriefing gone, leaving just a weary woman, “You could have killed him and you didn’t.”

“I didn’t talk any sense into him either,” she burst, “And he’s not going to stop...” the heaviness of the realization began to settle on her, “and everybody he kills from now on...their blood is on my hands.”

Leia looked into her eyes, “It is a life debt that I bear equally with you.”

Mey-Gon frowned in confusion.

“You were fond enough of Ben, but after what he did…” she stopped for a deep breath and blinked a few times, “You spared him for my sake.”

It hadn’t occurred to Mey-Gon before that maybe she had restrained herself for fear of facing Leia again, but now it suddenly seemed like the obvious reason. For a moment, she wondered if her friend was using some kind of persuasion technique to help ease her guilt, but her mind was currently a volatile enough place already. She didn’t want to think about it, or maybe she couldn’t even if she wanted to.

“Perhaps I did,” she finally said.

“We’ll find Luke,” Leia determined with an attempt at a hopeful smile, “He’ll know what to do.”

Luke. The one thought that slipped so easily to the front of her mind and clung there without effort. It was going to drive her crazy. As she pushed the Jedi Master from her immediate thoughts, she wondered why Leia would rely on her brother to get through to Ben rather than go after him herself. Surely he would respond better to his mother than his uncle...unless she really had thrown him away, as he claimed. Was it guilt over that neglect which drove her to guard Mey-Gon so fiercely? She refused to believe it.

“I’m sorry you had to see Ben like that,” the younger woman finally softened, “If there wasn’t a recording, I would have spared you the details in debriefing.”

“And I would have believed your version, never fully knowing what he put you through,” Leia smiled sadly, “You don’t have to protect me, Mey-Gon, I’m strong enough.”

She stared flatly at the general, letting the words hang between them in the silence.

Finally, Leia broke into a broader smile, “All right, maybe we both are; but I still outrank you, so I’m allowed to be protective.”

She stood and crossed around from behind her desk, so Mey-Gon quickly stood as well, expecting another relieved hug, but instead Leia reached her hand out and placed it over her young friend’s heart. At first Mey-Gon was confused by the struggle in Leia’s eyes, but then she realized - this was the same spot Ben had pressed his lightsaber.

“It wouldn’t have broken me,” Leia said cautiously, reassuring herself.

Mey-Gon nodded, accepting the confession with no offense, “I was counting on that.”

“And this,” she reached up to touch the taller woman’s head, “Will heal. He didn’t break you either.”

Suddenly, Mey-Gon’s mouth felt dry and she wanted to cry with gratitude, but she felt the need to match Leia’s strength, so she forced out a steady, “Thank you.”

Leia nodded and returned to her desk, “You’ve given me a lot of work to do, Ensign. Work in the right direction.”

“My pleasure, General,” she recognized the dismissal and backed up through the door as it slid open.

Leia graced her with a smile which Mey-Gon returned just before the door slid closed again in front of her. She spun around to make her escape from the command bunker, but froze when she saw Poe leaning against the opposite wall, staring at her with his arms folded uncomfortably. Her eyes darted back and forth to see if he was waiting for someone else, but they were alone in the hallway. Despite this fact, he still tossed his head toward the corner like he wanted her to follow him, which her body did immediately before she could even think about it. As soon as they rounded the corner to what turned out to be a dead-end alcove crammed with old equipment, he grabbed her sleeve and tugged her forward gently. She stepped closer and he wrapped both arms around her, pulling her to his chest as he rested his back against the wall. Without meaning to, she let out a choked sigh of relief; and he tightened his hold, taking a deep breath as well.

This was different from the hugs she’d shared with Leia or Relix or even the man at the bar. This wasn’t apologetic or celebratory; it just felt like home. Mey-Gon didn’t know why it was happening or what he wanted her to do, but she did know that this was the most comfortable she’d been in months. Suddenly, her injuries didn’t ache, her mind was quiet, and all her fears were so far away that she couldn’t even remember what they were. There was just warmth, compression, a clean masculine smell, and the sound of his heartbeat. It sounded a lot more agitated than she felt. She tucked her chin over his shoulder, closed her eyes, and gripped the fabric of his uniform jacket in her fists, clinging to this moment, but waiting for him to break it. He took another deep breath, followed by another adjustment of his arms. He sounded upset. Maybe she needed to say something first.

“I’m okay,” she assured him softly.

“I know,” he didn’t relax the hold at all, “I just really didn’t enjoy watching that recording.” All of him felt tense, “I’m so sorry.”

She didn’t want him to be tense, and she didn’t want him to feel sorry for her any more. Suddenly, the idea of Poe watching her get threatened and thrown around was more humiliating than the actual ordeal. It scared her how much she cared what he thought - how desperately she wanted him to admire her as much as she did him. He was probably just being protective, like Leia, but his sympathetic affection triggered so much more in her. Feelings were definitely there - she couldn’t ignore them any more - feelings that would only make things very complicated if she acted on them now. She opened her eyes and stared at the wall, her defenses flaring up; and, in the struggle to think of a response, she defaulted to their usual snark.

“What are you sorry for? Were you supposed to rescue me from this one too?”

“Of course not, you royal pain in the ass,” he finally released her enough that he could lean her back and look at her face with exasperation, “I just don’t like the fact that every time I see you in danger, I’m either too late or too far away to help.”

Embarrassed, she dropped her eyes, “It’s my own fault for not fighting back like I should have. You’ve every right to be frustrated with me.”

“You didn’t fight back,” he acknowledged, then pulled her back into a more relaxed embrace, “but what you did was incredibly brave too.”

“Thank you,” she mumbled through a reluctant smile.

After a while, Poe finally let out a satisfied breath and dropped his arms. Mey-Gon missed them immediately, but restrained herself from whining and took a step backwards so they could look at each other.

“So,” he said casually, the intimate moment apparently over, “What are you doing tonight?”

She gave him an impatient glare, “What do you think I’m doing?”

He couldn’t stop himself from grinning, but chose not to tease, “Mind if I join?”

“You might as well,” she tried not to sound too eager, “I still owe you a drink from the other night. Plus there’s your promotion to celebrate, Commander . Congratulations, by the way,” she reached out to touch his old rank badge, then broke into a sly grin of her own, “...and you’re welcome.”

Poe raised an eyebrow, “Should I be thanking you? It’s not like you purposely drove Commander Parma mad enough to act recklessly and then nearly got her killed so she’d have no other choice but to retire and I’d get promoted…” his expression grew suddenly serious, “...did you?”

She let out a laugh loud enough that she immediately covered her mouth. Nothing scandalous was actually going on, but there seemed to be an unspoken understanding that this whole encounter should be a secret. Poe glanced back at the corner to the hallway and bit his lip nervously. The sight of this gesture made it harder for Mey-Gon to keep the rendezvous as innocent as it had been so far, so she opted for retreat instead.

“Sorry,” she whispered and backed up before anyone could come investigate, “See you tonight, Poe.”

He looked a little disappointed at the abrupt end to their alone time, but didn’t protest as she disappeared around the corner for both their sakes. She hadn’t really expected to leave the command bunker smiling after that debriefing, but here she was.

Chapter Text

Her first instinct was to find Relix and work on the datacard, but she didn’t know the first thing about data recovery and would probably only be a distraction. With no duties to report to for the day, she decided to just take a long lunch in the mess hall.

It was clear that word had definitely been spreading all morning about the shift in leadership. Mey-Gon heard Parma’s name spring up from whispered conversations as she passed with her tray of rations in search of an empty table. She began to worry that the little joke between herself and Poe was also crossing the minds of everyone else in the Resistance. Would that be her new reputation? The one who got other people injured on missions?

She made sure her hair was covering her neck while she ate and stared down at her food. As she bit into one of the berries in the fruit mix, the skin burst and her teeth squished down into the gelatinous center with a sound similar to the war club landing in the lartus. Mey-Gon froze and some of the juice spilled over her lip. She snatched up her napkin and spit the rest of the berry into the cloth, wiping its remains from her mouth; but the mental chain reaction had already been set off. Knights of Ren. Kylo Ren. Suffocation. Luke Skywalker.

It was frowned upon, but she considered throwing away the rest of her lunch. She had no appetite anymore. What time did the bar open?

“Hey,” someone interrupted her thoughts and she looked up to see Connix sitting down at the table, flanked by two other girls from the control room.

“Hey,” Mey-Gon returned, grabbing her bread and taking a bite in an effort to look normal.

“You guys were amazing,” Connix said sincerely, and it didn’t escape Mey-Gon’s notice that she had used the plural.

One of the other girls huffed out a breath, “I swear, I probably would have just burst into tears.”

“You’d be dead, for sure,” the second girl smirked at her friend, “That’s why we don’t get the violent assignments.”

Connix nodded, offering Mey-Gon an apologetic look, “We had no idea the general had brought you in for the dangerous jobs.”

“We thought you were just here to use the Resistance as a hide out,” the smirking girl admitted.

Mey-Gon assured them, “No, I really do want to help, but I’m still figuring out how. I’m sure everyone thinks the same as you did, though.”

“Not after seeing that ,” the girl who would have burst into tears shuddered.

“Seeing what?” Mey-Gon frowned.

Connix cocked her head curiously, “You don’t know?” She pulled out her datapad, “Everyone’s been sending it around…”

Mey-Gon felt her heart drop as Connix turned the screen around and showed a flattened holorecording on a loop. It was slightly distorted and desaturated, but the scenes were unmistakable. All of them were from the high angle of a security camera, the first couple showing a few seconds of the confrontation between Kylo, Relix, and herself. The threat was clear enough by the two dead bodies on the ground next to Mey-Gon and the dead stormtrooper further back in the room, draped with the limp tentacles of his killer. But the real shock came from the split second of action that it showed - Mey-Gon hitting the wall and a lightsaber rising to point at her, inches from her face, while Relix started to jump up from his kneeling position. Before any of the actions could complete, the cliffhanger scene glitched forward and Mey-Gon saw herself leaping up for the tackle that took down Ben as Relix whirled and shot his blaster with barely a moment to aim. The stun beam hit its mark and Mey-Gon safely rolled off of her human landing pad, then the image glitched again. This time the high angle was looking over a hallway littered with bodies, while Mey-Gon and Relix carried Parma between them. The scythe-wielding knight appeared just long enough to get dropped by Relix’s shot, then the glitch brought the loop back around to the lightsaber scene.

Mey-Gon leaned back, her eyes glazed over as she fought off the sick feeling rising in her gut. There had been a public relations company that specialized in scrubbing most of the holonet clean of content which their clients found potentially damaging. Her publicist had needed to employ them a couple times when embarrassing holos of Mey-Gon leaked and started to cause trouble. She couldn’t exactly call them now.

“Nobody’s going to want to pair with you in combat training now,” one of the girls’ snickering snapped her back into the moment.

“They say you and Relix saved the commander,” Connix smiled proudly.

Mey-Gon blinked. The rumors were exactly the opposite of what she’d feared. In fact, now that she thought about it, the recording’s only clips were the few from their ordeal that looked particularly heroic. Her anxiety started to ease as she recognized the change in the air. The girls across the table were looking at her the same way she’d seen the pilots looking at each other as they swapped stories in the booth the other night. They were truly interested. They cared.

“Well,” Mey-Gon replied carefully, “the commander saved us first.”

A couple guys from the equipment crew suddenly sat down at the table as well, “Wait, back up! Are you going to tell us about Parma’s last stand?”

“Is that what they’re calling it?” one girl gasped.

“It’s catchy!” the other cried.

“Let Mey-Gon tell it!”

As Mey-Gon recounted the highlights of their escape that mainly flattered Relix and Parma, a few others joined her table and soon it was rowdy with stories and speculation. She was excited to finally feel like part of the group, but feared that it was only temporary. Leia had more or less forbidden her from future missions. She still had no skills to benefit any crew, so their interest in her would fade; but at least nobody would have any doubts about her courage and loyalty to the cause.

Gradually, the little crowd that had gathered around the table started to return to their shifts and Mey-Gon finished her lunch in the company of a few stragglers before heading back to her room. She climbed up onto her bed and checked her chrono planner for any indication of what her new duties might be, but nothing had been assigned to her task list yet. For a while, she laid back and stared at the ceiling in the silence, though her mind was anything but silent. She dreaded the challenge of actually trying to fall asleep that night, and the dreams that would inevitably follow. It was actually a relief when her roommates started showing up from the end of their shifts and getting ready for the memorial. By the way they greeted her, she assumed they’d all seen the video that Connix had shown her. It was a welcome change.

She changed into her short dress and covered the thinly-strapped top with a dark leather jacket to keep her warm, then followed her roommates out to the memorial plaza. Thanks to the thick clouds still blanketing the sky, the evening was darker and colder than usual; but fortunately nothing more than a few stray raindrops bothered to fall. Amongst the gathering handful of beings in the dim light, Mey-Gon saw Relix and took up position next to him.

“You really are friends with everyone,” she sighed.

He gave a guilty shrug, “Maybe. How did you know Ludin?”

“Roommate,” she answered simply, and noted the looks she and Relix were getting now that they stood together, “Did you leak that holo?”

“What? Me?” he tried to sound shocked, but failed the act so miserably that he immediately responded to her judgmental glare with a hushed confession, “Well, yeah, I did. But they need to know what we’re up against out there. And now that I’ve seen what you’re made of, everyone else should see it too. I’m sorry I didn’t ask you first.”

Mey-Gon was quiet for a minute. His strategy had worked; and though she was embarrassed, the effect of the leak was ultimately beneficial to her. She would be more easily accepted now, but it was still up to her to work her way onto a real team.

“Thank you,” she finally said and he smiled.

There wasn’t time to discuss the matter any further because Commander D’Acy stepped up to start the ceremony. Sure enough, the memorial was a short affair. After the commander’s brief speech, a few of Ludin’s closest comrades said some words; and Mey-Gon couldn’t help but wonder what anyone would have said about her if she hadn’t made it back from her own mission, which she very nearly didn’t. From the sounds of it, Ludin had been a good man. She wished they’d had more of a chance to be friends, but he had always been so quiet and nervous around her.

There were no remains to cremate, so some of the attendees set out for drinks immediately after the remarks were through. It was still early enough that there was room at the long, curved bar when they arrived, so they lined up all the way down one side, with Mey-Gon taking the seat closest to the wall and Relix claiming the one beside her. Her exposed legs were happy for the warm air inside the establishment and she knew that a few drinks would heat up the rest of her in no time. Ethad approached the group and poured ales for most of the soldiers, but when he reached Relix and Mey-Gon, he started pouring two shots of Corellian whiskey before they could even tell him their orders.

“On the house,” he said quietly, “I saw what you did. Fearless as Jedi, you two.” He put down a glass in front of Relix, “I know a few troops who are going to be logging more time at the range trying to replicate that precision shot.” He set down Mey-Gon’s glass with wide eyes and a shake of his head, “And you may be the first person in history to tackle a Sith, unarmed. You’re insane.”

She smiled and lifted the drink, “To insanity.”

Relix laughed and clinked his glass against hers while Ethad joined with a pantomimed gesture before moving off to serve the other patrons. Mey-Gon enjoyed Corellian whiskey well enough, and she especially enjoyed the heat it spread down her chest as she swallowed this shot in one gulp. Relix, however, savored his a little longer, smiling with nostalgic contentment.

“Does your homeworld have a specialty, Mey-Gon?” he asked after he finished the last sip of whiskey.

“Well, I was particularly fond of some wines from my local vineyards,” she sighed at the memory, “But out here you might get lucky to find a bottle of our fig brandy. Ethad mixes it into a nice cocktail. Maybe you can all have that at my memorial.”

“At your memorial?” he frowned, “That’s a morbid thought.”

“Sorry, my thoughts are a bit…”

He patted her back, “They’ll be back to normal in no time. Maybe no more toasting to insanity, though.”

“Insanity is splitting up for blind microjumps in an unfamiliar system,” she mumbled.

Relix smiled, “I guess the Force was with us.”

“Now there’s something I could toast to,” she signaled for the bartender, desperate for a stronger buzz to dull her mind, “Ethad!”

“One second, your highness,” he waved off her shout as he ducked under the bar to dig out some bottles.

As they waited, Mey-Gon suddenly found herself tugged sideways by the unexpected appearance of Tallissan Lintra, who leaned in between herself and Relix with an arm thrown around each of them. The pilot called over the bar, “Hey, Ethad! Three shots of Kowakian rum for me and my friends.”

Mey-Gon blinked at the word and the surprisingly chummy physical position, “Thanks, Tallie. That’s very kind of you.”

“Happy to welcome our newest member of Blue Squadron,” she squeezed Relix’s shoulder then narrowed her eyes at Mey-Gon, “And they never mentioned you were a warrior princess.”

Mey-Gon sputtered so hard, she was grateful she hadn’t been in the middle of drinking. Tallie and Relix burst into laughter as well, pausing only for the arrival of their drinks. They touched glasses together, then threw their heads back and drained the dark liquid, all of them recovering with teeth bared in reaction to the sweetness. The expressions sent them all into another fit of laughter and Mey-Gon was pleased to feel the slow heaviness of the alcohol finally starting to take effect.

“Seriously,” Tallie slammed her glass down and hooked her arms over their shoulders again, “Impressive work. And you’re welcome to join us at the booth whenever you want.” She patted them both on the back before throwing some credits on the bar for their drinks and walking away.

Mey-Gon and Relix turned to look at the booth she was returning to and saw a few other pilots seated around the table there. The tightest clique on the base, despite the sudden friendly streak. Now it was Relix’s clique. She could tell he wanted to go sit with them, but she knew it would just end up like last time for her. Somehow the alcohol made her selfishness stronger than her diplomacy and she stalled him from suggesting the move.

“You’re going to be a full-time pilot now, Relix,” she sighed, allowing the jealousy to be audible, “Taking the fight back to the First Order.”

“You’re in the fight now too,” he reminded her encouragingly, “And now everyone’s seen how serious you are. I’m sure you’ll be on a team soon enough, maybe even a pilot. We could be squadmates!”

“Ha!” she gave a bitter laugh, “A girl can dream.”

He smirked, “Well, then, maybe I should leak some of your flight data too. That asteroid run wasn’t some rookie parade route, you know.”

“Thanks,” she acknowledged, sadly stacking her empty shot glasses and Tallie’s into a tower, “But you heard the general, I’m never leaving the planet again.”

“Yeah, I heard the general,” Relix looked over his shoulder, then back at Mey-Gon, “She said she’s not the only one in charge of you any more.” He turned around further this time, “Hey, Commander.”

Mey-Gon sat up and twisted around to see Poe standing behind them. The commander was back in his casual clothes, but still had his hair slicked back neatly with some oils.

“Relix,” he greeted him with a handshake, subtly setting the informal tone by using his first name, then he nodded, “Mey-Gon.”

“Perfect timing, actually, Poe,” Relix stood up, scooting his seat closer to Mey-Gon in the process and tossing her a wink as he squeezed past, “I was just about to go have a chat with my squad. Take my seat.”

Chapter Text

“Sure, thanks,” Poe slid into the chair, staring straight ahead like nothing was happening.

Ethad approached immediately, “Anything I can get you, sir?”

“Whatever he wants,” Mey-Gon jumped in to answer, “Put it on my tab. And I’d like another whiskey. With ice.”

Poe thought for a moment, “I’ll just have an ale-”

“Actually, ignore him,” she held up her fingers, “Make it two whiskeys.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ethad grinned and set to work.

“Thanks,” Poe said reluctantly, “But that’s a little strong. You only owed me an ale.”

Mey-Gon hummed in disapproval, “I owe you a celebration, and you’ve got some catching up to do.”

He eyed the tower of glasses in front of her and raised an eyebrow, “Are you trying to get me drunk?”

“That’s generally the idea,” she grinned as the whiskey was set in front of them.

Sure enough, he made a face after the first sip and it took all of Mey-Gon’s self control not to tease him about being a lightweight. She didn’t want to get called an alcoholic again. She hid her smile behind her own appreciative sip, happy with the level of buzz she was reaching and happy with the company. Relix looked perfectly content over with his squadmates as well, and she tried to ignore that stab of jealousy again.

“So,” she turned to Poe, picking up where she and Relix had left off, “are you ever going to let me leave the planet?”

“Maybe,” he gave her a very senior officer kind of look, “When you’re ready.”

She pouted, “Is that why you stole the Lor San Tekka mission from me?”

“Look,” he explained, “you may have gotten his attention this time, but it’s going to take a lot more than a beautiful girl to get him out of hiding with that Ren gang running around...”

He paused, probably to make sure she wasn’t bothered by him bringing up the name of her tormentor, but she was too busy feeling warm about the compliment. It was stupid. She’d been praised and flattered all her life, until such words had lost all ability to have a sincere effect on her. And yet here she was with flutters in her stomach over an offhanded descriptor. She swallowed the giddiness with her next sip of whiskey.

“So I was thinking of forming a new squadron,” Poe continued, “Specially picking some pilots that can handle the kind of operation that-” he stopped and frowned, looking over at her, “Are we really going to talk about work?”

She shook her head, “Not if I can ask you something personal instead.”

“Go ahead,” he agreed, taking another drink in preparation.

There had been something tugging at her curiosity since that morning in the medical bunker, so she asked, “How does Leia know your parents?”

“Oh,” Poe broke into the kind of smile that Relix had when he tasted the Corellian whiskey, “They fought together in the Rebellion.”

“Really?” Mey-Gon leaned forward in genuine excitement, grabbing his arm, then pulling her hand back immediately when she remembered they were in public.

“Yeah, both of them,” his smile broadened, either from the contagion of her enthusiasm or from his own pride, “Mom was an A-wing pilot. She even flew with Leia and Luke on different missions.” Her mouth fell open and this only made him happier as he continued, “Dad was a sergeant on the ground, part of Han’s team at Endor. They both retired some time after the war, but I guess Leia remembers them.”

“That’s incredible!” Mey-Gon gushed, “They must have some amazing stories.”

The smile got tighter and she knew she’d messed up, “Well, Mom died when I was pretty young, but I do remember her stories. Clearly they had the biggest influence on me,” he chuckled, “She talked about this one battle…”

While Poe recounted various war stories he’d heard from his parents, Mey-Gon found herself as fascinated by his narration as she was by the stories themselves. He was so passionate about his parents’ accomplishments, so proud of them. Clearly he’d had a lifetime of inspiration leading him to his current position in the Resistance. Mey-Gon had always felt similarly about the Galactic Civil War, consuming as much as she could through media and museum visits; but she’d known so few veterans personally, besides Leia and Han. It had been a longtime source of disappointment to her that nobody in her family had risen up to fight the Empire. How amazing it must have been to grow up hearing these stories first hand! It had certainly brought a light to Poe’s eyes and a warmth to his voice that she’d never observed before, and the endearing effect left an ache in her chest.

At some point, he seemed to realize how long he’d been monopolizing the conversation with his enthusiastic stories, and a flash of embarrassment crossed his face, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to carry on like that. I guess I don’t get the chance to talk about them often.”

“I don’t mind a bit,” she assured him as he took a long drink, “I think it’s all fascinating. I wish I could have met them, but I suppose hearing you tell their stories is the next best thing. And Leia’s right - I think they would be very proud of you.”

“Thanks. I really hope so,” he smiled gratefully, and Mey-Gon noticed that he was fingering his necklace again, which he’d done subconsciously a few times during his rambling.

“What is that?” she asked, nodding towards his hand.

“It’s…” he looked oddly self-conscious as he pulled the chain the rest of the way out of his shirt, revealing a simple ring, “...it was my mom’s.”

“May I?” she asked eagerly, lifting her hand.

He nodded, but there was something apprehensive in his eyes. Normally, Mey-Gon would have dedicated a few more brain cells to figuring out what was wrong with him, but she was too buzzed to deny her curiosity about the jewelry. She had a weakness for accessories, and the chance to get a closer look at one owned by such a heroic woman of the Rebellion was an opportunity she didn’t want to miss out on, regardless of Poe’s strange hesitation.

Rather than taking off the necklace, he simply leaned forward and set the ring in her hand. She cautiously leaned forward as well, turning it between her fingers for inspection and trying not to get distracted by how clearly she could smell Poe’s hair product now. It was a surprisingly simple band - nothing like the exquisite pieces lined up in the jewelry displays she had abandoned in her mansion on Haidoral Prime. It was old and unpolished, delicate yet sturdy. It had been worn by a fighter pilot through some of the most famous battles Mey-Gon had read about. She wished she could have known this woman, and seen for herself the source of the pedigree that still flowed so strongly through her son. This ring was every bit as impressive as the sacred Force artifacts Mey-Gon had just examined at the cult’s collection, only this time she could touch it. The urge to try it on - to feel what the Rebel pilot had felt - was too strong, and she didn’t even second guess before slipping it halfway down her index finger. Too small. Maybe a different finger?

Poe swallowed hard and quietly tried to continue his reminiscing, “Mom was the one who taught me how to fly. I used to…” he trailed off as Mey-Gon found a finger with the right fit.

His silence broke her out of her own mesmerized state and she tore her eyes away from the ring to look at his face instead. It was distractingly near and frozen in the most vulnerable expression she’d ever seen on him. He suddenly looked so young, so defenseless - a million parsecs from the cocky hotshot pilot she usually bounced insults off of. This piece of jewelry was clearly more than just an heirloom to him. He spoke of his parents with admiration and pride, but there was also something more. She removed the ring and passed her finger over it one more time before pressing it back against his chest respectfully.

“You loved them?” she realized.

“My parents?” he looked confused and yet relieved as he tucked the necklace back into his shirt, “Yes, of course. I didn’t always get along great with my dad, and mom wasn’t even there for my difficult years, but we loved each other a lot. Did you not…?”

“My parents were very supportive. I can’t complain,” she explained, “But in my culture, independence is highly valued, love is something you choose carefully, and family is just an optional responsibility. As soon as I could successfully pursue what I wanted to do, I left home. My parents and siblings...we haven’t spoken in years. There was no more need to, once I could take care of myself.”

Poe looked sad, and they both paused for a drink before he carefully asked, “How old were you?”

“Thirteen.”

He gave a low whistle, then smiled guiltily, “I was sixteen when I left. Craving independence, like you, chasing what I loved to do.”

“So you joined the Defense Force?” she winced, her opinion of the New Republic’s official military still sour.

“I had other jobs first,” he shrugged and stared into his glass elusively, “Piloting and stuff.”

“X-wings?” she pushed.

“No, just...any ship I needed to,” he took a long drink, summoning back some of the casualness and cockiness she was familiar with, “I wanted to learn to fly everything, so I did.”

Compared to the animated way he’d described every twist and turn of his parents’ stories, Poe’s sudden vagueness was perplexing. She had thought he’d be just as eager to boast about his own rise to glory, but his whole energy had changed when pressed to talk about himself. More and more, he was turning out to be much different than the man she had assumed he was when they first met, and he was certainly starkly different from all the others she’d ever known. She wasn’t sure if it was a good or bad sign that he didn’t seem very concerned with impressing her, like most men she’d been on dates with...not that this was a date. The confusion left her more off balance than the whiskey.

“What about you?” he changed the subject to put her on the spot instead, “What was your life like before you were rolling down the roof in your bathrobe?”

She gave him a scolding look that made him break into the kind of smile she was more used to seeing on him. Now it was her turn to feel awkward. He had been so infuriatingly modest about his own past that she didn’t know much more about his life story now than before. Whereas, she had lived most of her life in the public eye and had no idea how to play down her accomplishments when faced with such an open-ended question. Her publicist had trained her well how to lay out the highlights of her career in every kind of interview; and unlike Poe, apparently, she had an interest in trying to make a case for herself.

It was a fine line to walk, juxtaposing a casual tone with the recounting of obscene fame and fortune, but she tried to be as honest as she could while still attempting to maintain some approachability. Despite her best efforts, though, Poe looked more and more uncomfortable with each personal milestone she described.

Eventually, he just took a long drink and said, “So, what I’m hearing is: you’re out of my league.”

Mey-Gon sighed, suppressing her momentary panic with an impatient glare and a switch to her subtly sarcastic voice, “I don’t know if you remember this - it was a long time ago and probably didn’t leave much of an impression - but you might recall a night where you witnessed me tumbling down my roof in a bathrobe…”

Poe pursed his lips and shook his head thoughtfully, “Nope, not ringing any bells.”

“Well, I’m sure you can imagine it,” she couldn’t help her sly smile.

“Vividly,” he grinned.

She was relieved that she hadn’t alienated him enough to lose their shared sense of humor; but she still wanted him to see that her past was very far from the path she was on now with him, so she continued in a more serious voice, “That was me losing everything: my career, my wealth, my reputation. That was me running away from a New Republic arrest warrant and a First Order death sentence. That was me abandoning every league I’d ever clawed my way up into, just so that I could come here and be grounded by some ace pilot, son-of-Rebellion-heroes, ridiculously-talented, distractingly-handsome commander.”

He got the message and hid a suddenly embarrassed smile behind his whiskey. Mey-Gon tipped back the last of her drink and felt the rush of her confession start to fade. It sounded so humiliating to condense her fall from grace into a quick summary like that, and in front of the one person she wanted to impress so badly. She suddenly felt overheated, so she wriggled out of her jacket and twisted to hang it on the back of her seat. The slightly cooler air was a relief against her skin, and it didn’t escape her notice that the disrobing had drawn Poe’s attention back to her. Then she realized that he was looking at the deep bruising on her forearms, and she quickly tucked her arms under the bar self-consciously, letting them rest on her lap as she stared at her empty glass. Poe took a deep breath, and she could see creeping back into his expression some of the sadness and frustration that he had worn during their private moment in the command bunker.

“How’s your head?” he asked softly.

“A bit messy,” she admitted, even more quietly, “The alcohol helps. You help.”

He was still for a beat, then he drained the last of his drink and set down the glass, dropping his arms under the bar as well. After a couple of hesitant seconds, she felt his fingertips run lightly down her arm over the bruises. Her breath caught and she rotated her wrist so that he couldn’t feel her goosebumps. When his fingers reached her palm, they spread out and slipped in between hers, intertwining and locking into a tight grip. She kept her expression neutral, but her insides felt like they had vaporized and floated away. Poe wasn’t nearly as good at acting inconspicuous and turned his face completely away, like he was inspecting the far wall with sudden interest.

Mey-Gon curiously moved her other hand over to trace the back of his from wrist to knuckles to fingertips. She’d never encountered the rough natural texture of a working man’s hand before - no laser smoothed pores, no moisturized skin, no manicured nails. The stunt performers had often spoken of calluses, but she’d never felt one before now. It was fascinating and endearing and somehow grounding in her turmoil.

Eventually, Poe turned back to her, clearly having spent his time on more serious thoughts than her, and said in a low voice, “How did you know his name?”

Understanding immediately what he meant, she tensed, “Leia didn’t tell you?” He shook his head and she hesitated, but with the recording making the rounds, it wouldn’t stay secret for long, “That was her son. I knew him as Ben Solo, but now he’s...something else…”

Poe thought about this for a long time and his expression hardened, “I don’t care who he was. If I see him, I’m going to kill him.”

“I hope you’re never that close,” she clamped down on his hand, but then she remembered what Leia had said during the debriefing and knew that it was a real possibility, “Is that why you took the Lor San Tekka mission from me?”

He didn’t answer and, for a moment, she could feel her mind teetering on the verge of derailment again; but then his thumb began stroking the back of her hand and the sensation stole all her focus. She took a deep breath, clearing her head, and tried to be logical. Poe was far more capable of handling himself in dangerous situations than she was. Everything in her heart screamed that she’d rather face down Kylo Ren again than risk Poe having to do it, but the reality was that her protective instinct meant nothing in the hierarchy of the Resistance. Leia and Poe could keep her on D’Qar forever, but she could never keep them safe the same way. There was only one option: Poe wanted to put together a team, and Mey-Gon would just have to work hard enough and improve fast enough that she qualified. It was the only way to stay with him, and suddenly she was desperate to keep him close.

“So…” he broke into her thoughts with a softer tone, “Is ubuuga caviar really as amazing as all the rich people say it is?”

She chuckled and relaxed her hand after she realized she’d been squeezing his pretty hard for a while, “Um, it’s...it’s more of a right of passage to pretend to enjoy it. I always had to pair it with a lot of champaign.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“Rude,” she scolded through her smile and leaned over to elbow him.

Mey-Gon was too tired and too buzzed and too comfortable to sit back up once she was leaning on him for the jab. For a moment, Poe enjoyed the position with a contented hum that he probably hadn’t meant to be audible; but then the entire spell was shattered when he pulled his hand away and slid off his chair. She probably would have fallen over if not for him propping her up and easing her down onto her own feet.

“You should get some sleep, Mey-Gon,” he urged gently, “I’ll walk you back.”

“Yeah,” she managed to say, though the sudden lack of contact with him left her feeling shockingly naked.

He kept a respectful distance as she slipped back into her jacket and nodded over the bar toward Ethad to make sure he had pulled sufficient funds from her account to cover the drinks. Even as Mey-Gon and Poe left the establishment and began walking toward the barracks, they were separated by an arm’s length. It was disappointing, but she was beginning to understand. Cushy assignments and exclusive privileges were one thing when she was just a civilian volunteer working around the base, but now she was enlisted. The optics of a commanding officer getting involved with a subordinate of the lowest rank was even more unacceptable. Neither of them would be truly trusted by their teammates if there was any suspicion of favoritism.

Mey-Gon’s first instinct was to pursue it anyway and keep it quiet - in fact, the drama and intrigue of a secret relationship was even more appealing than the traditional option - but ultimately, Poe would have to choose whether she was worth it or not. He had far more to lose. He was clearly struggling through the same internal debate as they walked; she could tell by the way he kept looking over at her and then looking away. The silence was broken up by some casual banter, which came so easily to them; but it lacked the energy and cleverness they usually dedicated to their exchanges. She could extract no clues about the direction of his thinking or what he ultimately wanted from her. Maybe he still hadn’t decided yet.

Things still weren’t clear by the time they arrived in front of the door to her room and she slowed to a stop, “Well, this is me…”

He remained quietly thoughtful as she inched backward toward the door, then he glanced back and forth at the handful of other beings milling about their business in the hallway. When he looked at her again, there was something stubborn and rebellious in his eyes that gave her a spark of hope. He didn’t move any closer, but held out his hand and she reached to put hers into it.

Quickly, he brought her hand up to his face and pressed a kiss against the back of her fingers, then released her with an insuppressible smile, “Goodnight, Mey-Gon.”

The brief contact with his lips had sent something like an electric jolt through her entire system, but somehow she managed to reply, “Goodnight, Poe.”

After she passed through the door and watched it close between them, she swallowed and ducked her head, moving to the trunk at the back of the room to grab her nightdress before any of her roommates noticed her stupid smile. It occurred to her that she suddenly didn’t feel as nervous anymore about trying to fall asleep. She certainly would need a solid night of rest before her first day of official duties as an ensign.