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chapter nineteen: the battle of takodana
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     THE SHOCK FROM C-3PO'S words is palpable on General Organa's face. Though she does her best to keep her composure, Indira can plainly see how shaken the older woman is by the sound of her estranged husband's name. Blinking rapidly, the general steels her face back into its normal mask of cool collectedness. "Then I guess we've got a trip to make," she says lightly. "Alert the fleet and prepare the ships. Have the pilots set their courses for Takodana."

     She doesn't stick around after that, leaving the hangar quickly before anyone can get another word from her. Indira watches her go, a small frown on her face, before she shakes her head and forces herself to focus. Snap, Karé, and Jess are already running in the directions of their ships as the hangar begins flooding with people; all Resistance members hurrying to their stations as the general's order spreads throughout the base. Realizing that Poe is still standing next to her with a similarly dumbstruck expression, Indira grabs his hand and tugs.

     "You, ship," she instructs, pulling him towards where Black One is waiting.

     Poe allows himself to be dragged, shaking his head slightly as if almost in a daze. A delighted grin covers his face as he comes to a stop just before his ship. "Did you hear that?" He asks, nudging her arm. "They found Bee!"

     "I did hear that," Indira says with a nod. "So you'd better hurry up and get yourself into your ship if you want to see him soon."

     "Right, right," Poe mutters, still smiling as he climbs the ladder of his beloved black and orange T-70 X-wing and situates himself in the cockpit, taking in the full extent of all the repairs she had done on the ship during his absence. "Wow," he says after whistling lowly, glancing down at Indira. "Wow! She looks great!"

     He turns in the seat to examine the ship further. "And those power couplings?" He waggles his eyebrows at her. "I'm gonna have to rough her up more often if this is the end result."

     "Oh, I don't think so," Indira warns, crossing her arms reproachfully. "You'll have to find yourself a new technician if you do that."

     "I wouldn't dream of it," Poe replies, grinning down at her. "I don't want anybody else. I've already got the best."

     Indira feels her cheeks warm at the compliment and bows her head slightly. "Flattery will get you nowhere."

     "It isn't flattery if it's true," he counters, rummaging around in the cockpit of the ship to slip his orange flight suit on over his civvies. He zips the suit up to his neck, tugging on the different straps to adjust it slightly.

     Indira scrunches her nose as she looks up at him. "You know, sometimes you're not half bad," she admits, setting her hands on her hips.

     "Really?" Poe asks, resting his chin in his hand and propping it up on the side of the ship. "Is that so?"

     "Yeah," Indira says, taking a few steps backwards. "Keep it up, Dameron, and I might actually start to like you."

     "Oh, well we can't have that, can we?" He replies sarcastically, pulling his helmet on over his head and snapping the visor down.

     She shrugs her shoulders. "Worse things have happened."

     Poe looks over at her sharply, mouth dropping open slightly. "Wait, what?!"

     She grins and waves at him. "I'll see you around, Commander," she calls, ignoring his question as she turns on her heel to assist some of the other pilots still preparing for takeoff.

     "This conversation isn't over!" Poe shouts, cupping his hands over his mouth and Indira shakes her head, laughing silently to herself. "We're continuing this discussion later!"

     As she works her way through the hangar, Indira finds Kali pulling on her uniform just outside of an X-wing ship. Her eyes widen at the sight of her friend and she calls her name before running over to her and embracing the other girl for the first time since her trip to Yavin Four.

     "Everything went well?" Kali asks when they pull apart and Indira nods in confirmation.

     "Really well," she replies, taking in her friend's appearance. "Are you flying out?"

     Kali beams with pride. "I got a promotion while you were gone," she tells Indira, eyes dancing with excitement. "Captain Kali Kilam reporting for duty — callsign Blue Nine!"

     Indira's mouth drops open. "Kali, that's fantastic!" She exclaims, hugging her again. "I'm so proud of you!"

     "Thank you," Kali says, practically glowing with pride. She shifts the helmet in her grasp before nodding towards her ship. "I've gotta get going, but we'll catch up later, alright?"

     Indira nods quickly. "Of course! Go, go," she instructs her friend, shooing her towards her blue and white painted X-wing. "And Kali?"

     Her friend pauses her ascension of the ship's ladder, stopping halfway between the cockpit and the ground. "Yeah?"

     "Be safe," Indira tells her. "Please."

     Her friend nods seriously. "I will," she promises before shimmying her way up the rest of the ladder and hopping into the cockpit.

     Indira takes a few steps backwards from the ships, waving to her friend as the X-wing squadrons leave the hangar one at a time, making their way into the open skies of D'Qar before disappearing in bright flashes of light as they jump to lightspeed. When she can no longer see any of the remaining starfleet fighters, the technician turns on her heel towards the main Resistance transport. Indira knows that the transportation vehicle will need prepping if the general is going to Takodana too, so she starts running manual checks on the ship's functionality.

     She's in the middle of checking the engines of the ship when a piercing siren blares across the base, causing Indira to wince and clasp her hand over her ears. Every alarm on the base seems to be screeching at full volume, lighting up the settlement with red, flashing emergency lights. Indira stumbles back slightly, swaying on her feet as she feels the air leave her lungs in a short gasp. From within, she feels an overwhelming wave of pain and terror wash over her, causing her knees to buckle. In her head, the voices of millions of people cry out before they are suddenly silenced, leaving behind a quiet that is deafening and Indira's legs give out beneath her.

     Before her body can hit the ground, someone catches her by the arms and helps to keep her upright. Indira sags against them, stunned into momentary silence as she tries to process what she just felt.

     "Easy, easy," a female voice says calmly over the deafening sound of the alarms. Indira turns her head slightly, eyes wide with shock as she looks at the person holding her up; a short, dark haired girl with a round face wearing the mustard colored uniform of the Resistance's ground crew. Her brow is furrowed with concern as she watches Indira's face. "You okay?"

     Indira shakes her head, gripping the fabric of the girl's uniform to keep herself upright. "I need to see General Organa," she stutters, unable to think of anything else.

     "Then let's go," the girl says determinedly, slinging one of Indira's arms over her shoulder so that she can support her weight as they walk.

     Still lightheaded, Indira leans on the shorter girl as they make their way towards the command center. "Your ... your name is Rose, right?" She asks, trying to distract herself from the feelings of pain and suffering broadcasting their way into her mind.

     The girl looks at her with shining eyes. "You know my name?"

     Indira forces her lips into a pained smile. "I've been trying to learn everyone's name around here," she tells her. "And besides — you're a technician; like me."

     Rose seems to glow at that. Her face brightens and she straightens her shoulders with pride, lifting her chin up. "Yeah," she says. "Yeah, I am."

     Before they're able to make it to the command room, the two girls are intercepted by General Organa and a group of her advisors. The expression on the older woman's face is more grim than Indira has ever seen it before and when she meets her gaze, Indira instantly knows that whatever she had felt in the hangar, the general had felt it, too.

     "Go on ahead to the transport," Leia instructs her advisors, coming to an abrupt halt when she sees Indira. "Fire the ship up. I'll only be a moment."

     Without another word, the group carries on, leaving the general behind with Indira and Rose. Though she still feels shaken, Indira forces herself to stand on her own two feet without Rose's support. "Thank you, Rose," she tells the younger girl sincerely, steadying herself by placing a hand on the wall beside her. "I've got it from here."

     "Good work, Tico," General Organa adds, nodding at the maintenance worker.

     The dark haired girl's eyes widen with disbelief as she realizes that the General Leia Organa knows her name, too. "Thank you, General," she says, beaming with pride as she salutes the older woman. Seeming to know that she's no longer needed, Rose gives them privacy and walks in the opposite direction.

     Indira turns towards the general immediately, opening her mouth to speak before she is cut off. "I promise I'll explain everything on the transport," she says, beckoning for Indira to follow her to the ship bay. "But we need to get on that ship immediately. The First Order has destroyed the entirety of the Republic and the Hosnian System."

     "What?!" Indira demands as they turn the corner, thinking of her home planet in tattered ruins. "How? What sort of weapon would have enough magnitude to destroy an entire planetary system?"

     "I don't know," Leia mutters, approaching the active transport. "Even the Death Star in its prime wouldn't have been capable of accomplishing such destruction. Whatever did this ..." she trails off, shaking her head. "It's something far worse than that."

     Something far worse than that. Indira doesn't like the sound of that. The Death Star had been a revolutionary weapon; the most violent and cruel killing machine to exist in the history of the galaxy. Much of its design had come from the ingenuity of a scientist named Galen Erso, whose work with kyber crystals Indira had become familiar with during her time as a student at the Hosnian Flight Academy. The thought of a weapon with even greater destructive capability than the Death Star in the hands of the First Order sends a foreboding chill down her spine.

     She climbs the ramp of the ship quickly, sticking close to the general's side as the ship's doors close behind them. Instantly, the transport takes off from the ground and soars into the open skies. Indira watches from the window beside General Organa as D'Qar grows smaller and smaller in the distance, heart aching at the thought of the Hosnian System being blown into pieces. Hosnian Prime had been the first home she had ever known; the planet where she had grown from a child to an adult. All of her memories belonged to that planet — both good and bad — and now it was gone; another thing blown to hell by the First Order.

     "Everyone I ever knew lived on that planet," she mutters, thinking of her former classmates and friends that she'd left behind. Her school, her home, her mother's empty grave — they had all been obliterated in an instant. Tears fill her eyes and run down her cheeks before she can stop them and she swipes at them quickly, brushing them away.

     "I felt it," she says, voice wobbling as she glances over at the general. "In my head and in my heart. They were ... they were all so afraid and then it just stopped."

     General Organa takes the hand of the younger girl and squeezes it, knowing the pain of losing one's home planet better than anyone else. The fact that Indira could feel the loss in her heart only further confirmed the general's suspicions about the girl's bloodline — though she didn't dare to let herself think any further on that. Leia could still remember the moment the Death Star had fired its beam on her beloved Alderaan, instantly killing her adoptive parents and all the loved ones she had left behind. It had been the largest instance of genocide in the history of the galaxy and Leia had sworn to never let it happen again, but she had failed.

     "What happens now?" Indira asks after taking a few moments of silence to grieve. "What are we going to do?"

     Leia sets her jaw with determination, staring out the window as the ship makes its jump to lightspeed. "We're going to find BB-8," she says, "and then we're going to find this weapon and destroy it."

     Two planetary systems had been destroyed under Leia Organa's watch, but there would not be a third.

      She would not fail again.

     THE TRIP TO TAKODANA is one that is made in almost absolute silence. There is little conversation from the passengers on the convoy; just a heavy underlying tension that grows stronger as the ship grows closer to its destination. Indira sits at a table with a radio centered in the middle of it alongside General Organa, Lieutenant Connix, and C-3PO by one of the transport windows.

     The radio itself had been dialed to the same frequency as the starfighter ships that had flown ahead, listening for contact from the X-wing squadrons who were scouting the planet for any sign of trouble. So far, there had been nothing but radio silence, but a crackle on the radio makes all three of the women sit upright from their slumped positions.

     "Black Leader to base," Poe's voice says, breaking the silence. "Do you copy?"

     General Organa clears her throat quickly before leaning in towards the transmitter. "Go ahead, Poe. We copy."

     "General, we're picking up scans of First Order ships on Takodana," Poe says. "Several TIE fighters and transport ships. Do we have permission to engage them in combat?"

     The older woman's eyes harden. "Yes," she replies without hesitation. "It's imperative that the First Order does not reach BB-8 before we do. Use whatever force you deem necessary, Commander."

     Indira can practically hear his grin over the radio. "Then this should be fun," he says. "Blue Squadron, did you copy that?"

     "We copied that, Poe," Jess's voice says over the radio. "Whatever force you deem necessary."

     "Those bastards aren't even going to know what hit them," Snap chimes in enthusiastically. "It's been a while since we've had a good dogfight."

     "General Organa," the transport's captain interrupts, drawing their attention form the radio. The young woman salutes the general quickly. "We're about to drop out of hyperspace on Takodana."

     The general nods in acknowledgement before returning to the transmitter. "You catch that, Poe?"

     "Yessir," Poe replies. "We'll be sure to clear a landing spot for you."

     Indira glances out the window as the ship begins its descent from hyperspace, exiting the flashing blue tunnel of light and dropping into the wondrous atmosphere of the Mid Rim planet. Instantly, she is taken aback by the sight of all the greenery that coats its landscape, surpassing even the natural beauty of D'Qar. As the ship grows closer to the surface, Indira can see the Resistance's starfighters soaring over a watering hole miles below them. Clouds of mist cloak the X-wings from view, hiding them from the eyes of their enemy, who were already preoccupied with an ongoing assault on a castle-like settlement in the distance.

     "Alright, Blue Squadron," Poe's voice crackles over the radio as the ships grow closer and closer to the enemy fighters. "Follow my lead. Go straight at 'em; don't let these dogs scare you."

     "Copy that," Jessika confirms.

     "We're with you, Poe," Snap adds.

     From a distance, Indira can see Poe's distinct black X-wing ship take the lead at the head of the squadron of fighters soaring over the river. Immediately, he and the rest of the starfighters are met by enemy combatants and the dogfight ensues. Having been caught off-guard, the First Order ships are ill-prepared for a fight. Their flying is clumsy and disorganized, making them easy targets for the Resistance fighters. Still, Indira can't help but admire how strangely beautiful the X-wings are as they blaze into combat, performing maneuvers that nearly take her breath away just from watching.

     Her eyes follow Poe's ship as he swoops in at a low angle, targeting TIE fighters and troopers alike with unfailing accuracy before looping around in a tight arc to take down another enemy ship. "Wow," Indira admits, impressed. "He's incredible."

     "Never seen your boyfriend in action before, huh?" Jess teases over the comm unit, startling Indira, who had forgotten that the radios were still picking up their frequency.

     Instantly, her face heats up and her cheeks turn beet red. "He's not my boyfriend!" She protests, blushing even harder as she hears the sound of laughter from the various pilots on the radio.

     "Not yet," Poe chimes in. "But what do you say, sweetheart? Wanna go on a date with the best pilot in the Resistance?"

     Indira closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose before letting out an exasperated groan.

     "Okay," Poe replies, not missing a beat. "I was anticipating a more enthusiastic response, but I can work with that."

     "Focus, hotshot," General Organa interjects with a roll of her eyes, coming to Indira's rescue. "Fly now; flirt later."

     "You really think I'm not capable of doing both at the same time?" Poe jests and the general's eyes narrow into slits.

     "Dameron," she warns. "You're practically begging for that demotion now. Is that what you want?"

     "Nossir," Poe replies quickly, shutting up as the rest of his team bursts into laughter.

     Leia gives Indira a knowing wink before stepping up into the cockpit to speak with the pilot. Outside of the transport, the dogfight draws to a close as the First Order ships retreat from the rebel forces, leaving the Takodana establishment in smoking ruins. The general instructs the pilot to set the ship down near the ruins, locating a relatively clear space for the transport to make its landing with a dull thud.

     "General, do you want us to pursue the enemy ships?" Poe's voice pipes up over the radio one last time.

     "No," the older woman says, shaking her head. "We have bigger problems to worry about than a few TIE fighters and shuttles. Tell your squadron to head back to the base for a debrief. There's some business that needs to be taken care of here, but we'll be right behind you."

     "Roger that, General," Poe replies. "Make sure you pick up my droid."

     "I wouldn't dream of leaving him behind," Leia promises, turning to leave the room before pausing. "And before I forget — good work today, Commander. You did well."

      "Thank you, General," he replies, earnest and sincere. Indira knows the compliment means more to him than he'll admit after the hellish ordeal he'd been put through at the hands of the First Order. "I'll see you on base."

     Leia affirms his statement before turning to leave from the ship, making her way towards the transport's doors. Unsure of what to do, Indira hangs back awkwardly for a moment before choosing to follow behind the general. She watches as the doors to the transport lower, revealing three figures of various shapes and sizes standing just outside the ship doors. The first is an older man with greying hair dressed in a leather jacket, the second is a large Wookiee covered from head to toe in thick brown hair, and the third is so familiar that Indira nearly gasps when she sees him. BB-8 rocks back and forth on its ball, beeping nervously beside the two taller figures.

     Indira's eyes flit over to the general and she opens her mouth to alert her to the droid's presence, but when she catches sight of the woman's stunned expression she immediately goes quiet. Slowly, General Organa steps forward onto the transport ramp, her eyes trained on the face of the man before her, and Indira begins to put two and two together as she realizes the identity of the man in the leather jacket.

    Han Solo; General Organa's estranged smuggler husband.

     The husband and wife regard each other carefully; both of them still and unmoving amongst the smoke and embers from the battle as their eyes lock for the first time in years. Neither of them speak, cloaked in a silence that spans nearly a decade of absence from each others' lives.

     However, the moment's sanctity is abruptly shattered as a humanoid figure plated in gold steps between them, brandishing a red arm. "Goodness!" The protocol droid exclaims. "Han Solo! It is I, Cee-Threepio. You probably don't recognize me because of the red arm." He turns around to look at Leia. "Look who it is! Did you see who —"

     Before he can finish the sentence, Indira steps forward and encloses her hand around the droid's wrist, yanking him away quickly. He lets out a squawk of protest, but otherwise allows her to remove him from the situation without complaint as she drags him off the ramp of the ship to give the estranged spouses some privacy.

     "Let's wait this one out, Threepio," Indira advises the protocol droid. "You can catch up with your friend later. He and his wife deserve some time alone, don't you think?"

     "Oh dear," C-3PO says before nodding. "That was terribly rude of me to barge in on them like that. I'll have to apologize."

     Indira laughs slightly. "It's probably fine," she tells the droid. "Just give them some space for now, yeah?"

     A string of excited beeps from behind her has Indira spinning around quickly. She barely has time to crouch down before BB-8 rams into her knees, nearly knocking her into the dirt. "Bee, it's so good to see you!" She exclaims, listening to the droid's frantic series of whistles and beeps. "We all were so worried about you!"

     Indira strokes his head sympathetically as the little astromech retells the series of events that had taken place over its past few days of separation, hearing one exciting tale after another. When he finally pauses to allow her to speak, Indira makes sure to clarify one big thing for the round droid.

      "Poe is fine," she tells it quickly. "I know; you didn't know, but he'll be waiting to see you back on base. I promise."

      At that, BB-8 releases a loud whistle of excitement, rolling around in circles to celebrate the fact that his master is, in fact, alive and not dead. The sight of the droid's pure excitement helps to warm her heart briefly, though she knows that there's no time for celebration. Their forces had secured one victory, but the fight was nowhere near over. The war had just begun and the stakes had never been higher than they were now.

     "Come on, Bee," Indira says after a moment, nodding her head towards the transport as she watches the general and her husband part ways. "Let's get you home."

EDITED ON:
08.26.19