Eight-two

This is the Star Wars fanfic I mentioned in the What are you working on? thread! You can also read it on AO3. This is a collection of short fics in a canon divergent AU post-The Last Jedi, but it does feature spoilers for The Rise of Skywalker, so watch out if you haven’t seen it.

Finn jolted awake with a yell.

It took a few moments of hyperventilating for his brain to remember that he was safe in his bed in the Resistance barracks—for whatever measure of “safe” there was in the middle of a war. He thought of what his physical therapist had taught him and took a deep breath in through his nose, held it, and exhaled through his mouth. He repeated this a few more times to stabilize the pounding in his chest before groping in the darkness for Poe in the neighboring bed. “Poe! Poe!”

Poe groaned as Finn shook him awake. “This had better be an emergency,” he croaked.

“Poe, I had a really weird dream!”

Silence. “…Okay? Do…do you need to talk about it?”

“Emperor Palpatine was alive and Rey was his secret granddaughter. And he had a secret base with these giant star destroyers that all had planet-killer lasers, and Rey blew up Chewie with these force lightning powers except she didn’t and it was an accident anyway and you were a spice runner and we mind-wiped Threepio but Artoo had a backup of him and General Organa died trying to save Kylo Ren who turned good and mmph—?”

Poe put a hand on Finn’s mouth. He rubbed his eyes with his other hand, then dragged it down his face. “That all sounds…completely ridiculous and wildly implausible, and I can see why it would upset you. But is there a reason you’re unloading all this on me at”—he looked at a timepiece on the wall—“ass-o-clock in the kriffing morning?”

Finn faltered. “Well, I was wondering if, you know, it might be some kind of vision, like Rey has sometimes.”

“It was just a dream, Finn. Just the other day Rey told me about a dream she had where Chewie gave birth to a porg, and last month I had a dream where I had to retake my pilot license exam with the General as my proctor, and any time she wasn’t deducting points from me she was making out with Admiral Holdo in the back seat of the X-Wing.” Someone snickered and Poe shot upright. “Jessika Pava, I swear if you repeat that to anyone, I will kill you,” he hissed. The snickering got louder, then petered out.

Poe closed his eyes and took a deep breath before continuing sotto voice. “Look. Dreams…are sometimes just dreams. That’s all I’m saying.” He paused. “Why would you be having force visions, anyway? You don’t even have the force.”

“Oh.” Finn looked away. “Right. Yeah. No force here.”

“Hey,” Poe said, putting a hand on Finn’s shoulder. When Finn finally made eye contact again, he squeezed it. “Sleep well, okay?”

“You too,” Finn said. Satisfied, Poe flopped back down on his bed and rolled over. After a moment, Finn laid back down, too, but didn’t close his eyes. He looked at the jacket hanging on the bedpost, and in the stillness of the barracks, it fluttered.

Thanks for sharing this, tale! I don’t share as strong feelings about Rise of Skywalker as you, but I like this as a lighthearted dig at its more nonsensical story elements. I do think you’ve done a great job of capturing the characters’ speech patterns. I heard their dialogue in the actors’ voices, which is a huge accomplishment. A lot of fic writers struggle with that, myself included, and you nailed it.

I left you kudos on AO3. Looking forward to another update!

It took three whole months, but I finally got a new chapter done! And just like I figured, I wound up planning a whole plot arc lol. Continuing to play fast and loose with the sequel trilogy canon, their objective here is not what it was in the movie—brownie points if you can guess it!

“Hey!” Finn said, maneuvering through a gaggle of pilots as he crossed over to the base’s command center. “Rose!”

Rose looked up at him from the outdoor comms station she was tinkering with. “Hey yourself,” she said with a grin. “What’s up?”

“Me and Rey and Poe and Chewie and BB-8 are about to take off in the Falcon,” he said. “The General gave Rey a special mission, and she’s taking the rest of us along with her.” He paused. “And you, if you wanna come.”

Rose blinked. “Me?” She set down her tools and her face scrunched as she considered the offer. At last she shrugged and said, “Nah, I’m good.”

It was Finn’s turn to blink. “What? I mean—I thought, after Canto Bight and everything—”

“You know, after everything, I took some time to think,” she said solemnly. “It was nice spending time with you and BB-8, and there were some great moments. But there were so many more moments where we got in serious trouble. And I realized?” She shrugged. “A life of adventure just isn’t for everyone.” And she managed to keep a straight face for about two more seconds before she snorted, then started cackling.

Finn stared at her, his mind feeling not unlike that one time Slip had unhooked him during a zero-g exercise. “So…” he said. “Does that mean you are coming, or—”

“Are you kidding me? I’ve had a bag packed for weeks!” she said, producing such a bag from beneath the comms unit and scooping her tools inside. “Of course I’m coming!” She looked around the station, trying to decide if she needed anything else. Finn opened his mouth to ask if he could help, but before the sound could leave his throat, his eyes were drawn to a pile of bits and bobs of machinery. He hesitated, then added those to Rose’s bag. “Ooh, spare parts, good thinking!” she said.

Finn nodded, unsure if he had been thinking.

Rose closed the bag and hefted it over her shoulder. “Hey! New guy!” she called.

The bearded human she was addressing coughed as he approached. “Um, actually, my name is Beaumont, and—”

Rose pulled him underneath the comms unit. “This unit’s still gotta have a new power cell installed and a diagnostic run, and then the General’s gonna want an updated report on Star Destroyer specs. Think you can handle that?”

“I—mechanics aren’t my specialty, but I can—”

“Great, thank you so much!” She gave him an encouraging slap on the back, and he jerked and hit his head on the underside of the comms unit. Rose winced. “Sorry. Thanks again, though!”

She stood, and turned to Finn. “Well?” she asked. “You got anything else you need to grab? Anyone else?” He shook his head, and she said, “Then let’s get going!”

–

“So,” Poe said as he settled into the Falcon’s copilot seat opposite Chewbacca, flipping switches on the console to prepare for takeoff. “Where we headed, Rey?”

She hesitated. “I’m…not sure,” she admitted.

Poe swiveled in his seat. “Hold up. This is your secret mission, straight from the General herself. How do you not know where we’re going?”

“It’s—look,” Rey said with a huff, “just give me a moment, all right?” She dug around her bag and pulled out Luke Skywalker’s broken lightsaber, cradling the twisted metal and the fractured crystal in her hands. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

Poe glanced at Chewbacca, who only shrugged. The two of them sat quietly as they waited for Rey to finish whatever force stuff she was doing. “Be with me,” she murmured. After several long moments, her eyes finally opened. Finn and Rose entered the cockpit with BB-8 at their heels just in time to hear Rey tell Poe and Chewbacca, “Kijimi. That’s where we’re going.”

“Kijimi?” Finn and Poe said at the same time. “That place is a First Order hotbed!” Finn exclaimed, while Poe said, “No, we cannot go there!”

“We have to!” Rey said, brandishing the torn lightsaber hilt. “I don’t know what it is, but Kijimi has what we need!”

“I believe you,” Rose said, and everyone turned to her. “If Kijimi has what we need, that’s where I’m going. No, it’s not gonna be easy, but what so far has been?”

BB-8 chirped and whistled in what Finn assumed was agreement. If he was being honest with himself, something inside him resonated with Rey’s words, confirming their truth on a level he couldn’t explain or deny. He looked at Rey and nodded. “I’m in.”

Poe threw his hands in the air. “I wasn’t saying I’m not in,” he said. “I’m just—reasonably—concerned about how exactly we’re gonna pull this off.”

As Finn recalled, he’d been the one to point out the First Order presence on Kijimi, not Poe. He had a nagging feeling something else was going on. But Chewbacca growled, playfully shoving Poe’s shoulder, interrupting Finn’s train of thought. “Okay, okay! Kijimi it is!” Poe said, swatting Chewbacca’s arm. “But we’re going in with a plan, got it?” He punched in the coordinates, and the Falcon started to hum.

“We’ve got the whole trip there to come up with something,” Rey said. “We’ll be fine, right?”

Poe only sighed. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” he muttered.