Finn clambered from the gunner’s turret, heart racing with adrenaline. He raced through the hallways, almost colliding with the scavenger girl.

  “Now that was some flying!--”

  “Good shooting! Thanks! I--”

  “How did you do that?!--”

  “I don't know!--”

  “No one trained you? No –”

  “I've flown some ships, but I-”

  “That was amazing!”

  “--I've never left the planet! You got him with one blast!

  “You set me up for it!”

  “Haha! It was perfect!”

  Finn couldnt help grinning as heat crept across his cheeks.

  “It was pretty good.”

  He locked eyes with the girl as silence fell over them. His heart was calming down, and he was suddenly aware of how clammy his skin was. She was grinning too, her posture relaxed and elated.

  BB-8 rolled into the girl’s shins, beeping for attention. She bent down to examine him.

  “You're ok. He's with the Resistance. He's going to get you home. We both will.” She looked back up at Finn, “I don't know your name.”

  His tongue almost tripped before he spoke.

  “Finn. What's yours?”

  “I’m Rey.”

  The droid beeped at him. Finn didn’t speak or understand binary, but the droid sounded doubtful. The joy of the moment soured in his mouth. He had lied to her. Told her he was Resistance, instead of a stormtrooper.

  She smiled up at him.

  “Rey, listen-” he began, but the sound of a shattering pipe interrupted him.

  Steam burst from underneath a grating across the lounge. They both flinched before Rey raced towards the noise, calling after him.

  “Quick, come help me with this. BB-8, find us some tools!”

  Rey pulled off the grate and fearlessly dove into the steam. The little droid chirped and rolled to a mess of metal lockers. Bouncing into one with blue symbols across it, a collection of industrial items and boxes spilt out.

  Finn rushed to the lifted grate, now billowing steam.

  “Whoa! What's going on?”

  Rey made an exclamation of satisfaction from below as an alarm started blaring. Finn’s stomach lurched as he felt the freighter being forcefully pulled from hyperspace. Rey’s head popped up from above the steam, pulling a small set of goggles away from her face. She had damp hair clinging to her.

  “It’s one of the spinny ones.”

  Finn didn’t know the first thing about spaceship engineering. Rey looked away and ducked back below. BB-8 rolled forward, dragging a loose bag of what looked like tools behind him.

  “Grab me a seven-sided wrench.”

  Finn pawed through the bag until he found something which looked like what Rey had requested.

  “Here. How bad is it?”

  “If we wanna live, not good!”

  Finn regretted that he had asked. Rey popped her head above the steam long enough to grab the tool her offered, then went back into the underbelly. The alarm subsided for a second before a second wail pierced from the other side of the ship.

  “They’re still hunting us.” He called, more to distract from the noise. “A hyperjump like that only buys us time. We need to get to a secure system.”

  “One of those wire threaders. BB-8 said the location of the Resistance base is ‘need to know’. If this junk needs to get far, I need to know!”

  Finn felt his hands go numb. He tossed her his best guess at the tool before she went down again. BB-8, beside him, watched her disappear before looking directly at him.

  He hesitated. He could come clean. Would Rey forgive him? She was kind and good. But he was a stormtrooper. He remembered the blood and smoke of his first loyalty test. He remembered the hollow look in the eyes of the serviles he stood guard over in the under fortress of Corelia. He remembered the Rodian man from Jakku, killed by him without even a shirt on.

  There was a limit to forgiveness.

  Finn turned to BB-8 and crouched until he was at eye level with the little guy’s lens. He spoke quietly and urgently so that Rey wouldn't overhear.

  “You gotta tell us where the base is.”

  BB-8 beeped a tritone of notes.

  “Sorry, little guy, I don’t speak that. Alright, between us, I'm not with the Resistance, okay?”

  The droid rolled back, beeping in vindication. The arc welding tool popped forward and sparked threateningly.

  “I'm just trying to get away from the First Order. I was telling the truth about Poe. You tell us where your base is, and I'll get you there first. Deal?!”

  The droid held still, considering. He still looked suspicious, but his lens had tightened at Poe’s name.

  Rey rose from the steam, and BB-8 tucked the welder digit away.

  “Hand driver thingy with the plas- ah got it!’

  She grabbed a cylindrical tool attached by a soft hosepipe to a heavy box. Finn moved to untangle the pipe so she could move it freely.

  “So where’s your base?”

  Finn kept his eyes down so she could’t meet them. He glanced towards BB-8, pleading.

  “Go on BB-8 tell her… Please”

  The little droid held still. Finn knew that he was grasping at straws. There was no way BB-8 would reveal such sensitive information to them. The secrecy of the Resistance was legendary. They had compartmentalised information and protocols. His mouth felt dry. The little droid would see Finn thrown out an airlock before he told them the location of the base.

  BB-8 gave a mashed set of beeps like an overlapping tone.

  “The Ileenium system?” said Rey in surprise before dragging the now untangled tool below.

  “Yeah, the Ileenium system, that's the one. Get us there as fast as you can.”

  Finn had no clue what had happened. His heart felt like it had jumped into his throat, his chest was beating like mad, and his skin was hot. The little droid met his eyes. The little lights on his head were blinking strongly.

  Finn grinned, mouthed thank you and gave the guy a thumbs-up. The droid chirped a happy response and flicked out a lighter appendage. The flame flickered on in a mimicry of a replying thumbs-up.

  “Right! Then you’ll be safe if I can get you to the Ponemah terminal. I need pipe tape.”

  “What?” said Finn, head whipping around to try and find Rey through the steam, “What about you?”

  Rey popped up and met his eyes. Finn quickly broke contact and started searching for whatever tape she needed.

  “I need to get back to Jakku.”

  Finn looked at Rey with disbelief. That planet was kathnip to these people.

  “Why would you want to go back to Jakku?!”

  “The pipe tape would patch a leak that would stop the ship from filling with poisonous gas.” Rey deadpanned in response.

  Finn resumed searching for the tape.

  “No, that one! No. No. The one I'm pointing to!”

  BB-8 rolled against his side and indicated a roll of silver and black material. Finn grabbed it and, at Rey’s nod, threw it to her.

  “Rey, you have a ship! You can go anywhere. Surely getting off Jakku is a lot of people's main goal?”

  He regretted the words the moment he said them. Just because he was alone, that didn’t mean she was. Rey could have a life which he had made her run away from: family or friends.

  A pit settled in his stomach. Maybe she had a partner whom she had left behind? Not knowing if they were safe from the First Order raid.

  The alarm cut off. The silence rang in Finn’s ears. The cloud of steam dissipated to reveal Rey leaning with her back against the wall of the access shaft. Her face was a scowl of annoyance.

  “Well it's not my goal, and why is none of your business!”

  Suddenly, all the lights overhead cut out. More than that, the ever-present hum of engines and electricity died. The ship had lost power.

  BB-8 began to glow as a ring of light around his head dimly lit their surroundings. The faint illumination was enough to show Rey’s worried face. She looked around at the darkness before glancing at Finn. His own face reflected her fear.

  Rey pushed herself out of the service shaft, still damp from the steam. Finn and BB-8 followed her through the dark corridors, their movements echoing hollowly off the metal floors.

  The cockpit was still lit by the dim lights of the console. Many of the displays were dark, and those that weren’t were dotted in red error lights. Rey was already bent over the controls, running her fingers between indicators.

  “Someone's locked onto us. All the controls are overridden.”

  BB-8 trilled. Rey looked up at Finn.

  “He says there is some kind of tracker signal. He couldn't hear it before, over the noise of the ship.”

  Finn felt his stomach muscles clench. Trackers came in two varieties: precise or loud. Whatever was causing the signal was probably some kind of anti-theft measure they had unknowingly triggered. With the slapdash nature of this ship, Finn could guess they wouldn't bother with the finicky nature of a precise, narrow signal.

  For the ship to be shutting down now, it must have received a return signal, especially encoded to cause this lockdown. With a loud signal, anyone would be able to find them. Locking down the ship made no sense if you were just going to set it up as a sitting duck for the closest person to steal. Unless you had made sure you were the closest person.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “Oh no,” moaned Finn.

  He clambered forward, placing a knee on the frozen console deck to peer out the cockpit window. Rey protested the uncouth movement until she saw how intently Finn was scanning the space outside.

  The vista of twinkling stars was boundless and empty. Curves of distant nebulae graced the dead space like the brushstrokes of a cosmic giant.

  “See anything?”

  With no light outside the ship to illuminate them, finding anything would be a game of contrast and shadow. Finn watched the stars, trying to soften his eyes to become sensitive to one of the distant lights winking out as an object passed in front of them.

  A chill crept up his neck as he sensed movement. Finn craned his neck to look directly above them. A solid line of darkness was slowly creeping forward, leaving black where stars should be.

  The shadow of something massive was blotting out all of the stars above them. No, not just above them. As the shadow inched forward, the stars to their sides and below them disappeared too.

  They weren’t just being approached. They were being consumed.

  Industrial red lights studded the inside of the maw, swallowing them. A colossal freighter was holding its hangar open to scoop them inside. The opening of the hangar's mouth showed a window into open space. A window which was being closed at a glacial pace by two metal doors.

  Finn fell backwards in awe. The movement of ships was something you abstracted on a Star Destroyer with its sparse viewports. It was another thing entirely to feel the horizon close on top of you. Rey was gripping the edge of the console with white knuckles.

  “What do we do? There must be something...”

  Finn looked at her, shaken out of his reverie by the darting of her eyes. A hollow clang ran through the ship. A contact arm of some kind. His mind raced. They were being boarded. Even if they weren’t First Order, they were willing to stall and invade a freighter. The First Order had openly put a bulletin out about the droid. They couldn’t let them take control of the ship. Finn set his jaw.

  “You said poisonous gas.”

  “Yeah, but I fixed that”

  “Can you unfix it?”

  Rey looked at him, confused, before a light dawned in her eyes. They jumped out of their seats at the same time. Finn searched through the cockpit lockers while Rey dashed back to the open grate. BB-8 looked between them in bafflement.

  The third locker had a set of old hazard suits, complete with gas masks. Finn grabbed two and ran back to the lounge area, BB-8 following on his heels.

  Rey had kicked the tools into the access shaft. There was no steam, but Rey’s cheeks were bulging comically as she held her breath. Finn threw her a mask before securing his own across his face.

  A chipped grinding noise rattled through the ship. They were running out of time.

  Finn jumped down with Rey. BB-8 rolled to the edge before giving a shrill tone. Finn wrapped his arms around the droid along with Rey. The little guy weighed a ton. They struggled to get him down into the hatch. Finn glared accusingly at him once he was on the floor. BB-8 stared back innocently.

  Rey dragged the grate back over them with a metallic thud just as the lights blared back to life.

  Finn’s breath felt loud behind the mask. The slits of light from the other side of the grate light their little space in uniform patches.

  The main door to the ship opened with a hydraulic hiss. Through the tiny gaps, Finn could barely make out the shapes of two figures cautiously entering the freighter. One was the size of a human. The figure was sunk into his hips with a blaster stretched in front of him. The other was massive. The second figure was difficult to make out, dressed or covered in brown fur. They held a large blaster with two symmetric stabilisers curving back towards the butt of the gun.

  Finn shifted to try to get a better look. Rey lightly touched his elbow to keep him still.

  He looked up at the figures again and cursed silently. They were both wearing gas masks. How had they known? The interlopers stalked forward silently, making slight hand gestures between eachother.

  Was the poisonous gas part of their plan? They had a signal which was capable of sending the ship into a standstill. Did they have a similar one to fake a malfunction which dropped them out of hyperspace? Who would put so much effort into securing a freighter like this? It was junk!

  The large figure had moved into the lounge. He was a huge furry alien. It could have matched the description of a wookiee, but Finn had only seen them in holos. The wookiee-like thing was peering at the area. They reached their long, furred arm out to gently touch the open cache where the tools had been stored, still open from when BB-8 had cracked into it.

  Finn saw with horror as the wookiee leaned in close to sniff the locker before making a low huff at his companion. The other figure was an older man. He was dressed in slick pants and a scuffed leather vest. His hair was steely grey, and he had a layer of stubble across his jaw.

  They carefully moved around the space. The wookiee reached into a compartment behind one of the cupboards to pull a large red valve lever. Finn heard Rey give a small gasp beside him. He guessed that meant the poison gas wasn’t going to last long.

  The man was scanning the room with suspicion. He froze, his eyes fixed on something. Finn felt his breath hitch. With the specks of vision, Finn struggled to see what the man had found. He peered until he could just see the edge of a yellow object on the floor.

  One of the tools they had used to fix the malfunction. They had missed one. Finn looked back at the man only to find his eyes locked in the gaze of the invader. The man held the gaze, his blaster swinging to target Finn under the grate.

  “Chewie,” the man said softly.

  Finn didn’t have enough time to so much as swallow before the grate lifted into the air like it weighed nothing more than a blanket. The sudden light was blinding. Finn threw his hands into the air in surrender, feeling Rey next to him doing the same.

  Finn tried to think of something to say, some plea or bargain to make. The words died in his throat.

  “Where are the others?” The grizzled man asked, “Who is in charge here?”

  “It’s just us! We flew here!” Rey’s voice was high with tension.

  The man’s face morphed into an expression of incredulity, his eyes wide.

  “You?!”

  Finn felt a touch of offence creep in under the fear. They were young, sure, but they didn’t deserve this level of disbelief.

  The massive wookiee gave a low noise partway between a moan and a roar. He was still carrying the oversized rifle but had kept it pointed away from them.

  “No, it's true. There’s no one else on board,” said Rey, looking at the alien. Finn was stunned she could converse with it. The First Order had categorised wookiees as a low species. And more to the point, Rey was a scavenger from Jakku.

  “You can understand that thing?”

  “Hey!” said the man, wiggling his blaster to ensure that Finn didn't forget it was there, “mind your manners. ‘That thing’ can understand you too.”

  He gave his companion a placating look before stepping back from the access shaft.

  “Come on, outta there.”

  They clambered out of the hole. BB-8 deployed a hooked, magnetic arm to pull himself up with apparent ease. The man examined them as they stood in the light of the lounge.

  “Where’d you get this ship?”

  “Niima Outpost.” Explained Rey.

  “Niima Outpost on Jakku? That junkyard?”

  The blaster was held more casually now, so Finn let himself revel in the small vindication that someone else had recognised that abominable planet as the terror it was. The old man was conferring with his companion.

  “Told ya we should've double-checked the Western Reaches! Who had it, Ducain?”

  Rey took a second to compose herself.

  “I stole it from Unkar Plutt. He stole it from the Irving Boys, who stole it from Ducain.”

  “Who stole it from me!” He was tapping his own chest with his blaster now “Well, you tell him Han Solo just stole back the Millennium Falcon for good.”

  The name twigged something with Finn. He had done his time as an inspection enforcer in the gateway to the Home Regions. Some of the ships on the kill or contain list came with references to the First Order’s history. Crimes committed and death counts of precursor citizens.

  The Millennium Falcon was infamous. It had the second-highest death toll to it’s name. The ship which had destroyed one of the relic battle stations of the Old Empire, the Death Star.

  With chilled blood, Finn suddenly placed a name he had heard earlier: Luke Skywalker. Not on any current lists or any lists Finn had ever used in the field. A single mandatory briefing where Finn had sat in the auditorium with the other officer cadets. The only living Jedi master, an indescribable danger whose footsteps were drenched in blood The Butcher of Yavin.

  If this was the Millennium Falcon, then Skywalker had stood on this ship. Possibly where Finn stood now.

  Solo was strutting around the ship now, kicking some of the furniture as he bemoaned the previous owner’s alterations. Han Solo. Known associate of Skywalker. Consort to the current leader of the Resistance, General Organa.

  Finn felt like he was standing outside his body. These people weren’t real. They were statistics and history. You didn’t meet myths; they descended upon you. You caught a glimpse of their shadow as the heavens fell and thanked your training for surviving.

  “Hey! Some moof-milker put a compressor on the ignition line!”

  While Finn was drenched in fear, Rey was awe-struck. Finn could see the wonder in her eyes as she beheld the aged captain.

  “Unkar Plutt did,” she said quickly, ”I thought it was a mistake too, puts too much stress- ”

  “-stress on the hyperdrive,” said Solo, overlapping her.

  He looked at Rey quizzically. Finn held his breath.

  “Chewie, throw 'em in a pod, we'll drop them at the nearest inhabited planet.”

  Finn flicked his eyes between them. This wasn’t a terrible outcome. It got him out of here, not in any good shape, but if he kept his head down, he would figure something out.

  “Wait!” protested Rey. “You can’t. We need your help!”

  Finn cursed in his mind.

  “My help?” imitated Solo in faux offence.

  Or maybe actually offence. Was he going to kill them now?

  “This droid has to get to the Resistance base as soon as possible. He is being hunted!”

  Finn could see it in the way Solo’s hips moved. His chin tilted up, and he rolled his eyes. Solo wasn’t a Resistance diehard. He wasn’t going to help them unless there was something in it for himself. Unless it was personal.

  BB-8 didn’t seem to recognise the connection between the old captain and the map to Skywalker that he carried. If Finn kept his mouth shut, they would be thrown off the ship, taken out of the realm of historic figures and Lord Ren’s bruising aura. Finn would be able to get out, leave Rey and BB-8 behind and finally complete his escape from the First Order.

  And they would be hunted down. Rey, with her headstrong optimism and the adorable BB-8. They would be chased through any shadow that the First Order could glare into. They had both put trust in him based on empty promises and lies.

  Just like Oh-Three and Zero had. Before he led them to their deaths.

  Just like Poe had. Similarly, dead in his wake.

  He just needed to keep quiet.

  “He's carrying a map to Luke Skywalker,” Finn said quietly.

  Solo froze. Behind Finn, the wookiee, Chewie, huffed out a sound and made a low growl. Solo searched his face. The aged eyes skirted across Finn, trying to pick out if it was a bluff.

  “You knew him right?” Finn pressed.

  Solo’s face seemed to be cast in shadow. A low sinking entered his voice, all of the cockyness gone.

  “Yeah, I knew him. I knew Luke.”

  There was a distant metallic clunking noise that rang through the freighter like a bell. It was coming from the larger ship, the one which had swallowed them. Solo scowled at the ceiling, all the vulnerability gone from his face.

  “I swear, if a Rathtar's gotten loose.”

  He swaggered out the main door of the Millennium Falcon in a hurry. Chewie followed close behind him. The oversized blaster was slung by his side as he bickered with the old captain in his strange wookiee-speak.

  Finn stood stunned by the sudden change in tone. He glanced at Rey, who matched his expression of bafflement. Then Solo’s words caught up to him. He broke into motion to chase down the old man.

  “Wait -a what?! You're not seriously hauling Rathtars on this freighter?”

  “I’m hauling Rathtars. What are you? A permit inspector?”

  Solo was standing at a sub-control deck in the massive hangar of the heavy freighter. The Falcon looked small inside the oversized ship’s larder. Finn could see the display listing the specifications of a ship, and the docking clamp override warning lit in red. Solo grit his teeth as Chewie rapidly adjusted controls for the ship.

  “Oh, great. It's the Guavian Death Gang. They must've tracked us from Nantoon.”

  Solo stalked further into the ship freighter, and Finn kept close behind him.

  “What’s a Rathtar?” whispered Rey from behind him.

  Finn almost jumped out of his skin. The scavenger could move silently when she wanted to. Finn glanced at Solo’s back before murmuring back to her.

  “Y'ever heard of the Trillia Massacre?”

  “No?”

  “Oh. Don’t worry about it then. I’m sure everything’s fine.”

  The wookiee gave a series of gruff wuffs and growls as he pulled up the rear. Finn noted the excellent hearing he must have.

  “See!” called Solo, stepping up to crack a hatch to a higher deck, “Like Chewie says: Empathetic creatures, hearts bigger than my head. I got three of 'em going for the final event of King Prana’s Kill Game ”

  “Three?!”

  Solo shushed him with his hands as the metallic clicking of an airlock door cycling rang out.

  “Get below deck and stay there until I say so. Don't even think about taking the Falcon.”

  “What about BB-8?”

  “Great idea. He’s collateral. He stays with me until I get rid of the gang, then you can have him back and be on your way.”

  Chewie effortlessly lifted the droid under one arm while climbing to the upper deck. Solo followed him up and looked down on them from the open hatch. Finn felt like his mind was awhirl with information.

  “What about the Rathtars? Where are you keeping them?”

  A horrid clang sounded over Finn’s shoulder. Spinning around, he saw a large transparasteel door. Slammed against the door, and the source of the noise was a large slimy tongue. The tongue was as thick as Finn’s waist and bristling with razor-sharp teeth. The appendage pulsed and writhed wetly. Suckers pinched against the transparent walls like a hundred angry mouths.

  All inches away from Finn’s face.

  “That’s one,” noted Solo before slamming the hatch closed on them.