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He holds a blaster to the man’s side, hauling him roughly down the corridor. Though the prisoner is exhausted—who knows just what they’ve done to him—the Stormtrooper maintains a brisk pace, trying not to look around too wildly from within his helmet.
“Turn here,” he rasps, guiding him down another hallway. The Stormtrooper’s breathing is labored, his nerves sparking at what he is about to do. They say every man has a breaking point; though he feels far from human, the Stormtrooper has finally reached his.
He keeps his voice low so as to be nearly inaudible over the marching of boots and the whirring and beeping of machinery. “Do as I say and I can get you out of here.”
The prisoner stumbles, looks up at him with piercing, if still slightly unfocused, blue eyes. They dart towards a pair of soldiers walking their way.
“Why?” A harsh, throaty whisper.
The Stormtrooper ignores him. His reasons are entirely his own. “Can you fly a TIE fighter?”
“Answer the question,” the man shoots back.
“Answer mine.”
The prisoner huffs out a humorless laugh. “I can fly anything. Now, tell me, why are you helping me? You with the Resistance?”
It is his turn now to take a misstep. He doesn’t know who or what he is anymore. His voice drops to a growl that sounds far steadier than he feels. “You’re not the only one who needs to get out of here.”
A smirk blossoms amid the impressive bruising on the man’s face. “And, let me guess. You need a pilot.”
He takes off his helmet as soon as they’re inside. His compatriot stares at him, an unnerving curiosity that gets under his skin.
“What?”
“It’s funny,” the Resistance pilot says, though his voice says it’s anything but. He gestures vaguely at the other man. “I never realized there were… people inside those things.”
The Stormtrooper shrugs, takes his seat in the back cockpit, blue eyes sweeping around for any sign of trouble. So far, so good.
“I’m Poe, by the way,” he says, coaxing the TIE fighter to life. Off the Stormtrooper’s look, he shrugs. “Short for Napoleon. Don’t judge. It’s bad enough my last name is Solo.”
Solo. He inhales sharply. Of all the pilots he could have found...
“No relation, though, I assure you.” The man’s grin does little to soothe him. “If anyone asks, I go by Deveney.”
The Stormtrooper sets his jaw, toggles between his weapon selections, before settling on missiles. He almost misses Poe’s next question.
“What about you? You have a name?”
It is said lightly, but the Stormtrooper doesn’t miss the uneasiness in the man’s tone. Poe really isn’t sure. The Stormtrooper shrugs again.
“I think,” he clears his throat, starts again, “I think my name is Illya.” The name is strange on his lips, strange to his ears, but there’s something in the act. A reclaiming of his identity, an honoring of ghosts.
The air is heavy with implication, the unspoken questions that such a statement brings. Before Poe can start to pity him, he quickly adds, “They took me when I was young. I don’t remember much.”
A long pause, then...
“So, Illya, huh,” the pilot says. “I think I’ll call you ‘Peril’. That work for you?”
He grunts, noncommittal. It really is the same to him, though it is rather… nice to have something more personal. He prefers ‘Illya’, but Peril isn’t too bad.
Illya manages a small smile as he takes aim at the gun emplacements and parked TIE Fighters. Soon enough, the other Stormtroopers will open fire. He would prefer to be in the air long before that happens.
“Let's hope you are as good as you say you are.”
He hears Poe laugh before the TIE Fighter lifts off with a roar, ripping the charging cables straight from the bay.
Gaby appraises the droid as it rolls along beside her: an orange and white BB Unit. Classified, it had told her. She had rolled her eyes at that, but now she wonders…
A new string of beeps. She’d like to think it was making small talk to help settle its nerves, but its latest message cuts her to the bone.
“You’re waiting for someone,” she murmurs. Then, even softer, “I am too.”
The droid looks at her, seemingly patient to wait. Gaby sighs. “My father. He’ll be back.” I hope. She chases the thought away with an angry shake of her head. She had already waited eighteen years for him. Surely, she could wait a while longer.
“Come on.” Gaby’s voice is sharper than she intends, but she doesn’t apologize for it. “Niima is this way.”
Illya stumbles into the marketplace, exhausted, parched, and grieving. He’d made a friend, a friend, and now Poe is gone. All he has to remember him by is a jacket... and a mission that has somehow fallen upon him to complete.
He spies a water trough nearby, and not caring that it is used for animals, he falls to his knees, gulping down the filthy liquid. He coughs, disgusted, but goes back for more.
A commotion breaks out nearby and Illya lifts his head, water trailing down his chin. He wipes his face, pushes to his feet.
A young woman, small, but with no shortage of presence, being accosted by two, rough-looking men. He can’t hear them, but it’s clear they’re after something.
Illya starts when he realizes what he’s seeing.
It’s Poe’s droid.
Before he can intervene on her behalf, the woman is taking on the thugs with a shocking ferocity. She lacks the finesse that comes with training, but there is a certain athletic grace to her movements that Illya finds incredibly captivating. She is not fighting, he thinks, so much as dancing, and within her, within him, he recognizes that primal, no-holds-barred scrappiness borne of a difficult life.
The young woman is a survivor. She radiates a desperate intensity, an intense desperation, and Illya feels weak with it. Emboldened as well. He goes to join her, to protect her, but the girl needs no rescuing.
In a moment, her assailants are writhing on the ground and unlikely to get back up again any time soon. Illya almost manages to smile at that.
The grin dies on his lips, however, when she turns to face him. Their eyes meet, and he swears that time stands still… until she charges at him, the BB unit close behind.
“You,” she snarls.
Illya begins backing away, slow and deliberate, his hands raised in surrender. He is more than a match for her, he knows, even without a weapon, but he is reluctant to put them in such a position.
Eventually, he runs out of room. Illya supposes he should be amused by the situation—pinned against the wall by this tiny (and decidedly beautiful) woman with the glittering, brown eyes—but he’s already seen what she can do with that quarterstaff.
“What’s your hurry, thief?” she hisses. “That jacket doesn’t belong to you.”
His eyes widen slightly, keeping a close eye on the droid, who has somehow procured a taser-like appendage. “It was Poe’s,” he says, seeing how the BB unit responds to that. “We were escaping the First Order when our ship crashed.”
He swallows, raw emotion welling up inside him. “He didn’t make it.”
The droid hangs its head, beeping feebly, its companion’s face softening ever so slightly. Illya continues, motioning to the robot. “I was sent to find your droid here.”
“You’re with the Resistance?”
Her voice is hushed, reverent almost. Clearly, that means something to her. Illya hesitates. “Y-yes,” he lies. “I am with the Resistance, yes.”
“BB-8 says he needs to get back to your base.” Her eyes are bright, warm, her lips curving into a wry smile. “Some sort of secret mission. Well above my pay grade.”
Illya finds himself smiling back. He drops his voice, confidential. “Apparently, he’s the key to finding Luke Skywalker.”
The woman stares at him oddly. Hope warring with disbelief. “I thought he was a myth.”
Just then, the droid starts beeping insistently. They follow BB-8’s ‘gaze’ and Illya stiffens. Two Stormtroopers heading their way.
“We need to go,” he growls, grabbing her hand and pulling her in the opposite direction. The woman tries to yank her hand away, but he holds on even tighter, that strange, protective instinct kicking in again.
Laser blasts cause the marketplace to erupt in a haze of screams and confusion. Illya and his companions dodge debris and passersby, smoke stinging their eyes. They zigzag among the tents, putting distance between them and their pursuers.
The young woman is fast, but his long legs soon outpace her. She struggles against him a moment, eventually wresting her hand from his grip.
“I know how to run without you holding my hand!”
Illya nods, already missing the feel of her slim fingers, her calloused palms scraping against his. A new sound joins the mix, and he whirls around, confirming what he already knows.
TIE Fighters.
He curses and begins to pull her along again.
“Stop. Taking. My. Hand!”
Illya ignores her, pulls her closer as the TIE Fighters careen into view, blasters kicking up sand and sparks around them.
“They’re shooting at you,” she gasps.
“They’re shooting at both of us.” Illya somehow manages to convey a shrug, embarrassed more than indifferent. “Sorry.”
The woman rolls her eyes. “Yeah, well, thanks for that. What are we going to do about it?”
“Do you have blaster?”
Were she not still attached to him by the hand, Illya imagines she might hit him with her quarterstaff for his stupidity. Of course she doesn’t have one.
And then, because he’s curious and can’t seem to stop himself, he shouts over his shoulder, “What’s your name?”
“Are you kidding me?” she growls, and Illya immediately lets go of her hand. He chances a look back at her, the apology caught in his throat when he sees what has caught her attention: the TIE fighters fanning out to surround them and quickly gaining.
He hears the woman yell, a warning perhaps, but doesn’t register the words amid the explosions around them. Her head is colliding with his chest and then, he is falling.
They hit the ground hard.
Illya’s head is ringing, momentarily stunned in the aftermath. Black spots are forming in his vision, and he blinks, confused, at the beautiful face hovering just above him. He swallows. She is straddling him, he realizes, knees bracketing his hips, chest heaving against his own.
He has no idea what to do with his hands. The scream of the TIE fighters up above decides it for him: Illya wraps his arms around her, pulls her in tightly, and rolls, covering her with his body. He looks down at her as the ships pass, gaze sweeping over her for any sign of injury. “Are you okay?” he croaks out.
She seems taken aback by that, as if unused to having anyone care about such things. Something twists inside him. She’s not the only one.
The woman nods and he quickly releases her, though it is a moment before either of them move. The droid beeps somewhere to Illya’s left, startling them both into action. The woman pushes to her feet and offers him her hand.
“It’s Gaby,” she says brusquely. “My name.”
His fingers close around hers as he pulls himself up, noting, not for the first time, their difference in size. He gives her hand a token shake, smirking despite their present circumstances. “I am Illya. Nice to meet you, Gaby.”
The names—his and hers—fall easily from his lips. Naturally. As if there is something still human left in him after all.
He doesn’t have time to dwell on that because the dust is beginning to settle around them. The TIE fighters will be back any moment. He is about to say something when Gaby tugs on his hand.
Illya catches the flash of her dark eyes, the determined set of her jaw, before she starts to pull him along. “Follow me.”
“We can’t outrun them.”
“We’re not going to.”
Gaby inclines her head towards a quad-jumper in the distance. There is another ship nearby, older and half-covered in tarp. A contingency plan. He nods.
The droid beeps something unintelligible to the woman. “What did it say?” Illya snaps.
“He asked me if I was a pilot.”
“And are you?”
She arches an eyebrow at him, cool even amid the blaster fire. “I’m a scavenger.” There is something like a smirk ghosting over her features. “I’ve taken enough of these apart to know how they work.”
“Is not the same as flying one,” he grouses.
“I guess you’ll just have to trust me then.”
And for some, inexplicable reason, Illya does.