Rebel

Chapter 5

"Come on. Come on!" I hear, someone gently slapping on my cheek, I open my eyes to see Rey sitting over me. I groan.
"Are you okay?" I ask Rey, she looks taken aback.
"Yeah. You?"
"Fine." I say, anything but, "Still fine." She helps me get up. Putting my arm around her shoulders, she turns back to the man who was standing.
"Follow me." She said, we run into the shipyard, dodging shots from the TIEs overhead. We race towards a ship.
"We can't outrun them!" The man says.
"We might!" Rey says supporting me as I got as fast as I can, my side now feels like a ball of fire, "In that quadjumper!" She points with her staff.
"Hey, we need a pilot!" The man says.
"We've got one!" Rey and I say, groaning at my choice to say something.
"You? And the crazy shot lady?" The man says, "Uh! What about that ship?" He says pointing to a closer ship half covered with a tarp.
"That one's garbage!" Rey says, as soon as she says that the TIEs make a screaming pass over and blow up the quadjumper into a fiery ball of flame, just like how my side feels, I think, now half delirious. We skid to a stop, "The garbage will do." Rey says, we race towards the ship, going up the ramp, Rey supports me through the hallways, "Gunner position is down there!" She says, the man splits off to the turrets.
"You ever fly this thing?" The man asks, Rey rushes with me into the cockpit, setting me down in the co-pilot's seat, I give a cry of pain as I see stars.
"Sorry!" Rey whispers then responds to the man's question, "No! This ship hasn't flown in years." She starts to flip switches, "I can do this. I can do this." She says to herself. The thrusters fire and the ship lurches unsteadily into the air, its nose hitting the ground. Every jerk of the ship sent a fresh wave of pain though my body. Rey yelps as the ship hits the ground, the nose destroys the shipyards entrance. Luckily we make it into the air, I hear the man say something. "What?" Rey calls back, the man must have finally figured out the radio, as we heard him.
"Stay low!" He says, "It confuses their tracking!"
"Yeah," I mumble, "makes everything look squishy, wee." Rey looks worriedly at me.
"BB-8 help Alex, and hold on!" Rey says, I head BB-8 come up to me, and a seatbelt come across my chest, BB-8 chirps, "I'm going low!" Rey calls back to the man, while everything starts to go fuzzy, Rey sends the ship into a nosedive. I can faintly hear BB-8 crashing around. The TIEs fire at us, hitting the ship, "What are you doing back there?" Rey asks, "Are you ever going to fire back?"
"I'm working on it!" The man says, "Are the shields up?"
"Not so easy without a co-pilot!" Rey exclaims, trying to reach over me to get the shields up, "Alex, flip that." She tells me, I reach my arm up and fumble with the board, "That one!" Rey says, I flip the switch, "Got it!" She calls back to the man. The TIEs scream after us.
"We need cover, quick!" The man yells.
"We're about to get some!" Rey says to the man, "I hope." She then whispers, she takes a sharp turn around a sand dune and then I don't see anything at all.
——
Rey looks over at Alex who is now unconscious, that's probably a good thing for what I'm about to do, she thinks to herself, pulling ships controls back she speeds though the crashed star destroyer, clipping edges. The man fares no better in the gunners seat, not able to hit the TIEs. The ship shakes as one TIE laser hits home, "Damn it." The man curses, Rey pushes the engine to its limit as she narrowly avoids a crashed star destroyer, forcing one of the TIEs to break off. "Come on, come on!" The man says, sending a burst of lasers at the TIE, his shots hit their mark and the TIE goes crashing to the ground, scavengers rushing to get parts.
"Nice shot!" Rey calls to the man.
"I'm getting pretty good at this." He said to himself, he had a short moment to himself before the other TIE came screaming around the corner, the lasers hitting the ships cannon, the man tries to move the cannon before calling up to Rey, "Uh, the cannon's stuck in forward position. I can't move it. You gotta lose him!" Rey looks ahead, seeing a star destroyer looming up ahead of them, she flips some switches.
"Get ready!" She calls.
"Okay." The man says looking back, "For what?" Rey doesn't respond as she takes the ship in a spinning turn around the corner of the destroyer, jetting past the TIE and into the star destroyers engines, the TIE following close behind, the man looks around the darkened area, "Are we really doing this?" Rey doesn't respond as she flies the ship through the star destroyers depths, the TIE still following them, it blows up a support in front of them, sending a ball of flame over the ship as Rey ducks in the cockpit, she looks up to see a closing gap in the star destroyer.
"Oh, no." She says frantically flipping switches, the TIE hones in on the ship and Rey takes a sharp turn out of a hole in the star destroyer, she flies up into the sky and cuts the engines, flipping the ship for a perfect shot, the man blows up the TIE and Rey narrowly misses the ground, clipping a fallen ship part.
"Whoo!" The man yells as they fly up into the atmosphere, and into space. He quickly climbs out of the turret and goes up the ladder, Rey hurriedly goes to meet the man.
"Nice shooting." She says to the man, as he says at the same time.
"Now that was some flying."
"Thanks." She responds
"How did you do that?"
"I don't know."
"No one trained you?"
"I've flown some ships but I've never left the plant. Your last shot was dead-on."
"That was amazing."  BB-8 circles worriedly around their feet, trying to get Rey's attention.
"You got him with one blast!"
"You set me up for it."
"It was perfect."
"That was pretty good." BB-8 beeps sharply, Rey turns to look at him.
"Alex!" She exclaims, her face paling, she runs with the man into the cockpit, where Alex is limp in her chair, blood soaking her shirt and dripping on the chair. "Help me with her!" She says to the man, he comes running up.
"Oh." He says covering his mouth gagging, "That's not good."
"Come on!" Rey says, unbuckling the seatbelt that was holding Alex inplace, Rey and the man carry her to the back of the ship where there is a small bed, they place Alex down carefully, "Grab me some bandages, or bacta patches. Hurry!" The man nods and pulls open drawers, while Rey rolls up Alex's shirt, revealing blood soaked bandages, she grabs a knife and cuts them away, the blaster wound is oozing blood, and the skin is charred and a yellow-ish color, Rey grabs water from the storage compartment under the bed, pouring some over the wound, trying to wash the blood away. She grabs a bottle of disinfectant from BB-8, and pours it over the wound, Alex gives a groan and twitches under Rey. "Stay asleep. Stay asleep." Rey says to Alex.
"Got them!" The man says, handing bacta patches to Rey, she quickly presses them to the wound.
"Help me turn her on her side." Rey says, the man nods and helps roll Alex on her side, Rey presses more patches to her back on the exit wound, she then takes a bandage and wraps it around Alex's torso to keep the bacta inplace. "There." She said, brushing the hair out of her face with the back of her hand that had the least blood on it. The man offers Rey water, she takes it gratefully and drinks some, pouring the rest on her hands to get the blood off, BB-8 chirps behind her, looking at the man. Rey turns to the droid, wiping her hands off, "You're okay. He's with the Resistance." She says, BB-8 looks at the man who looks away from BB-8. "He's gonna get you home. We all will." She continues standing up, turning to the man, "I don't know your name." She says.
"Finn." He says, then asks, "What's yours?"
"I'm Rey." She says, giving a small smile, "That's Alex." She says gesturing to Alex. Finn nods.
"Rey I-" he is cut off as a pipe bursts. Rey turning quickly.
"Help me with this. Quick!" She runs over to the grate that has steam coming up, she grabs the edge of the grate as Finn grabs the opposite side.
"Whoa, what's going on?" He says, they lift the grate up, Rey quickly jumping down, reaching into the machine parts.
"It's the motivator." She says, quickly assessing the damage, "Grab me a Harris wrench, check in there." She points to a box of parts, Finn frantically goes though the box.
"How bad is it?" Finn asks.
"If we want to live, not good." Rey replies ducking back down in the hole,
"They're hunting for us now. We've gotta get out of this system!" Finn says as Rey pops back up.
"BB-8 said the location of the Resistance base is 'need to know'. If I'm taking you there, I need to know!"
"This?" Finn says, tossing the wrench at Rey, she catches it and ducks back down, while Finn goes over to BB-8 whispering quietly, "You gotta tell us where your base is." BB-8 beeps shaking his head, "I don't speak that." Finn says, "Alright, between us I'm not with the Resistance, okay?" BB-8 rolls back, "I'm just trying to get away from the First Order. But you tell us where your base is, I'll get you there first. Deal?" BB-8 moves his head to the side, "Droid, please!" Finn says, following BB-8s movements. Rey comes back up.
"Pilex driver, hurry." She says, Finn turns around to search for the part, "So where's your base?" Rey asks. Finn turns to BB-8.
"Go on, BB-8, tell her." BB-8 looks back and forth between Rey and Finn, "Please." Finn whispers to BB-8, who then turns back to Rey and beeps something.
"The Ileenium system?" She says.
"Yeah, the Ileenium system." Finn says, tossing the pilex driver to Rey who goes back to work on the ship, "That's the one. Get us there as fast as you can." He says giving BB-8 a thumbs-up. BB-8 returns the thumbs-up with a tiny blowtorch of his own.
"I'll drop you two at Ponemah Terminal." Rey says, "I need the bonding tape, hurry!"
"What about you?" Finn asks, looking at Rey.
"I gotta get back to Jakku."
"Back to Jak-" Finn says, annoyed, "Why does everyone wanna go back to Jakku?" He holds up a circular part. "That place is-" he is cut off by Rey.
"It's not that one," Rey says as Finn picks up different parts, "No. No." she says pointing at a part, "The one I'm pointing to. No." Her voice rises as the tension grows, "No. No! If we don't patch it up the propulsion tank will overflow and flood the ship with poisonous gas!" BB-8 rolls and points his head at the tape.
"This?" Finn asks, holding up the tape.
"Yes." Finn tosses the tape to Rey, she ducks back down as Finn crawls to the opening.
"Hey, Rey, you're a pilot. You can fly anywhere. Why go back? You got a family?" He says, "You got a boyfriend? A cute boyfriend?"
"None of your business, that's why." Rey says poking her head back up. Then the power cut off leaving the ship in a red light.
"That can't be good." Finn says.
"No, it can't be." Rey says.