Chapter Text
“Help me! For fuck sake, help me!” A man pleaded, the words drenched in panic, crackling through the headset. “I won’t make it, ther-“
She heard an explosion, it blew out the audio for a moment before another pilot’s fear picked up. She swallowed the lump at the back of her throat, the one that died, he hadn’t used his call sign, she didn’t know who he was. But one thing she did know was that he left this world afraid and desperate, that’s if the tone in his voice was anything to go by.
She silently counted the number, the ones that begged, the ones that were cut off half way through a sentence, the explosions that followed. Each one signalling the end of another Resistance member, too many names for her to recall everyone.
She hadn’t prayed in years, never really believed in it, but she found herself reciting prayers in her mind that she had heard from her parents. Ones that pleaded like the man did, so that she wouldn’t be next. She hoped whatever heard her would be kinder to her than they were to the others.
She slammed her weight to the right, pulling at the controls and veering off to avoid the oncoming TIE-Fighters. She tried her best to return fire accurately enough to hit one of them, grunting out roughly as she watched every shot miss. Her eyes flicked to the monitor, watching more dots join the group of three behind her. Four more. She had no chance, she knew that. She was fucked.
The training drilled into her head all came flooding back at once, a hundred manoeuvres, all the tips and tricks of the trade that Poe had taught her over the years. Nothing could help her, she wasn’t that naive, there was no way out. This was it.
Tears stung at her eyes as she tried to blink them back, her chest feeling hollow, a familiar ache sitting in the pit of her stomach. She scrambled to the communications buttons, finding the station Poe was on, the one she knew he would hear her from.
“Poe? Poe! Are you still there?” She heard her own breaths through the headset, quick paced and shaking. “Poe! Come in. Do you copy?” She tried her best to hide the wobble in her voice.
“I copy, pilot.” His voice impossibly smooth. “I’m here.”
She wondered for a moment if he really just was that confident, even in the face of near certain death, or if he could just put on a convincing front. She never was able to tell, and no matter how many times they were in danger, he would always respond in the same voice to her.
“I’ve got seven behind me… I panicked, cut away…” She scanned the skies, looking for him. “They were picking us off, one by one, I didn’t want to be next, I’m…”
There was nothing to be done now, she needed to gather her nerve and tell him, she just didn’t know how. She watched the other X-Wings whiz by her, chased by their own TIE-Fighters, dealing with their own issues.
“I’m sorry.” She had to force the words from her mouth, her throat dry as a bone. “I ain’t gonna make it Captain.”
She spotted him in the distance, fighting his own battle, swirling around the sky like smoke from a fire. He was a better pilot than she was, he wouldn’t have made such stupid mistakes.
“Don’t you dare!” His voice cracked, a tone she hadn’t heard in years flowing through it. “Where are you?”
She flinched softly as she heard a bang from his end of the headset, it drew her from the moment briefly before she blinked herself back into the thick of the battle.
“I said, where are you? Tell me.” He was beginning to sound more desperate. “Tell me your location! I’ll track you, I don’t care how long it takes.”
She was quiet, her focus on trying to dodge as many of the blasts from the growing number of TIE-Fighters behind her.
“I’m far away from you.” She kept her eye on his ship as it darted around. “Poe… When I go down-“
“Stop!” His voice raised suddenly.
“When I go down! And I will! I will go down.” She reiterated it, she wasn’t foolish enough to believe she could escape this fate. “I don’t want them all on you, and if you’re close, they will be.”
“Do you think I could do this without you?”
Of course he could, he did without her before. She knew that. He’d be able to again, he was strong enough. Not like her, he didn’t need her, not like she needed him. She owed him her life, among other things.
“I can’t, I couldn’t, I won’t!” She could hear his own panic rising, threatening to bubble over like a boiling pot. “Adren! Where the fuck are you?”
“That doesn’t matter now.” She steadied her voice, trying to pull him back from the edge. “You won’t have a choice, you’ll need to do it without me.” She felt tears well again. “You’ll need to learn to live with it, Poe.”
She pushed the controls forward, planning to get as close to the ground as possible. She sniffled, watching blaster shots whiz past her cockpit.
“Where are you!” It wasn’t a question anymore. “Adren!”
“I’m going low, less chance of an explosion, better chance of living.” She was tired of sugarcoating it, she would probably die, but she wanted the odds in her favour. “I see a clearing, in the tr-“
Her sentence was cut short, her X-Wing shaking with the force of a quake. She snapped her gaze left, to where the rumble had started, a dry chuckle bursting from her.
“What was that?” Poe whispered.
“Half my wing is gone, they shot it off.” She gripped the controls as tightly as she could, trying to steady the shake. “I’m fucked, Poe.”
“You can survive it, you can’t…”
“Chances are I’ll burn up when I hit the ground.” She looked back to where he was. “I’m sorry.”
“Adren. I see you!” His voice picked up. “I see you!” He swung his X-Wing around in her direction. “I’m coming! Hold on.”
“Poe…” She shook her head as she spoke. “You won’t ma-“
She felt another rumble, throwing her forward as a second blast fired into the mechanics at the back of her X-Wing. Everything set off at once. Warning lights, red, orange, yellow. Beeping, fast and slow, alarms. Everything was loud, so loud. There was too much happening, she didn’t know what to hit, what not to hit.
She didn’t know what to do.
“Poe.” It was plea, desperate, she needed him to tell her how to fix it. “The ship, I can’t… It won-“
She started dropping altitude, fast, far quicker than she ever had. She tried to lift the controls up, to level her X-Wing out again, but she couldn’t even guide the steering anymore.
“Poe!”
“Adren, get control!” He shouted into the headset so hard, it crackled again, making his words choppy. “No, no! Adren, fuck! Get control now!”
“I can’t!”
“I love you. Adren, please, try!”
She couldn’t land it, there was no chance. Not even Poe could and he was far more talented at flying than she was. But the engine was shredded and the wing torn off and with Poe speaking to her in a tone she hadn’t often heard from him, fear dripping from his voice. She knew better than to hope.
She took a shaky breath, lifting her hands from the controls and crossing her arms, wrapping them over her chest, fingers gripping her shoulders so tight they ached. The hairs on her body stood on edge as a chill ran over her skin, this was it. She braced for impact, she had no choice.
“Poe!” She called out. “I lov-“
Her words were cut off as her X-Wing clipped the top of the trees. The realisation hit as she was thrown side to side, the headset being knocked away from her. She was another one, she was afraid and desperate too, another name that they could add to their list of the dead.
She would never be forgotten though, not completely, not while Poe lived.
Her X-Wing took down more trees, each bump clattering her head into the sides of the cockpit, she was too dizzy, too disoriented to hold on as tight as she should’ve at the end.
She watched the ground close in on her far too quickly and she squeezed her eyes shut, pulling in one last breath. Her X-Wing impacted with a crash loud enough to make her ears ring and she felt her body be thrown forward.
This is it. This is death. The world went black.
Her eyes snapped open, she was flat on her back, staring at the sky above, barely able to focus on anything other than the colours of blaster shots and explosions, her head pounded like a drum. She drew in the biggest breath she had taken in years and then immediately regretted it, her right hand shooting to her ribs and half curling into her flight suit.
It was a different type of pain than what she was accustomed to. Sharp. Intense. One that didn’t go away. She closed her eyes again, trying to breathe softly, every one she drew in dredging the pain back from the depths. She had broken ribs, she was sure of it, she’d never broken them before, but she could imagine that this is what it felt like.
She groaned out, her teeth clenching, grinding off one another as she tried to adjust herself. She felt heat and let her head fall to the right, fragments of the X-Wing were strewn around the forest, half hanging out of trees. She squinted her eyes, trying to focus them further.
Fire blazing. The burning wreckage of what she just crashed in, she couldn’t take her eyes off it, the orange hues tainting the colours of the forest. Her heart felt like it had jumped into her throat. Thank fuck I was thrown. She hadn’t planned to burn to death, it would’ve been an unpleasant way to go.
She tried to pull herself up, into a sitting position, so she could make a plan and get to safety, so she could get back to Poe. Her body twisted in pain, forcing a yelp from her lips, and she stopped dead. It was like poison had run up her veins, a tingling feeling lingered on her left side.
She forced her gaze away from the wreckage, to the pain. The bright orange burn, the smoke, the heat, it stung her eyes, she blinked a few times, letting tears brim as she tried to focus on her body.
She saw red soaked into her uniform and she whined out, the noise dripping in pain. Jagged edges worked their way into her view as she shook her head softly, her eyes widening, a gag forcing its way from her throat as she took in the extent of her injuries.
She got as low to the ground as she could, still half expecting to die. Staring down at her leg, the left one, she almost wished that she had.
It was bent in a way it shouldn’t be, her knee doubled in on itself. Metal and glass sticking out in shards, bone splintering through skin, sinew and muscle open to the air, blood drenching cloth.
She whimpered out softly, moving her arms towards it, to do something, bandage it, stop the bleeding, anything. As she rose her left arm, it somewhat flopped to the side, she stared at it, not really comprehending what had happened for a few seconds. It was the same as her leg, blood, flesh, bones, debris. It was unusable.
Her eyes shot wide, it hurt, worse that anything she had ever felt before, but she somehow knew that the feeling was dampened, she felt numb, in her mind, from shock, adrenaline, she didn’t know. But it still really hurt.
Don’t scream. Don’t scream. She clenched her teeth, suppressing the clawing that tried to force a noise from her throat. She knew it would draw attention, that someone she wouldn’t want to find her would. Stay quiet. Stay quiet.
But she had to sit up, she had to move herself, she couldn’t lay under the trees and wait forever. She planted her right foot on the ground, trying to wrench herself up with her good arm.
She wanted to stay quiet, but it’s not something she could speak into existence, as her body rose and the smashed remnants of her limbs shifted, a tortured sound left her. Somewhere between a scream and a screech, she didn’t know, she’d never heard anything like it from her body before. Ever, even after all she’d been through.
She dragged her arm onto her lap, cradling it against her chest, biting down on her tongue to suppress a second scream and whining out again instead. She heaved in breaths, wincing with every one, tears welling at her eyes, threatening to spill. She couldn’t move, there was no way, this was it. She placed her hand on her blaster strapped to her hip, closing her eyes, she could end it all. Right here and it wouldn’t hurt anymore.
She could do it, no one would know, there would be no shame, her body was destroyed. She unclipped it, tightening her grip around the handle, her breathing picking up. She tilted it up, hooking the barrel under her chin, her head leant back, a tear rolling down her cheek.
“Do it, pull the trigger.” She whispered to herself, but no matter how much she wanted it in her mind, her hand refused to comply. “Do it! You’re weak, they were right. Pull the fucking trigger.”
A rustle in the leaves behind her interrupted her plan and she spun her head to it as quickly as she could, flinching at the sharpness of the movement. She swung her arm around, aiming the blaster to the bushes, staring at them as a person emerged.
It was one of hers. Her muscles slackened and she scoffed. Thank fuck. The woman could get her to safety. Her hand shook as she held the blaster up, the weight of it pulling her arm closer and closer to the forest floor, she lowered it, throwing it to the side.
“Help me.” She could hear the fear in her own voice. “Please.”
“Adren?” The woman’s voice was familiar. “Oh fuck, Adren!”
She watched the woman step forward, crouching down by her, she saw her face, clearly for the first time, blinking, forcing herself to focus on it. Odana. Another pilot, she must’ve crashed too, albeit in a safer manner.
“Odana, help me, please.”
She watched her brow furrow, her gaze flickering across her arm, then down to the twisted mess of flesh where her leg had once been.
She gasped softly, shaking her head. “We need to call this in.” Odana pulled out her radio, twisting at the dials. “I could move you with the arm, but that?” She gestured to the leg. “Is beyond running, beyond standing.”
She felt cold. Her head wobbled from side to side, her breaths came shallow. Please let someone answer. She feared the First Order would have knocked out the signal for their communications. She wouldn’t last much longer, she wouldn’t survive if no one answered the radio, she would slow Odana down.
We’d both die, we wouldn’t make it, I wouldn’t last.
She grunted out, it burst from her, her eyebrows scrunching down. She blinked, over and over again as a splitting pain shot through her head, she slammed her hand to her face, pushing her palm into her eye, the burn intensifying. She rocked herself back and forth, snapping her head back, a short yell forcing its way from her throat.
“Adren? What’s wro-“ Odana went silent as leaves began to crunch under heavy footfall. “Quiet.” She whispered.
“No. You wouldn’t last five minutes.” A deep, twisted voice rung out from behind the bushes. “And you’re right, you’d cause her death too.”