The Last Janitor (Part 2): Leadership of the Resistance

THE LAST JANITOR

EPISODE I

LEADERSHIP OF THE RESISTANCE

The FIRST ORDER reigns.

After the destruction of the Republic’s capital planets, Supreme Leader Snoke has taken control of the galactic government, and now spreads his power ever further throughout the star systems.

Only Leia Organa’s band of RESISTANCE FIGHTERS stand against the might of the First Order. A special division of the Republic military, they now search for allies in the Outer Rim, which is still untaken by First Order forces.

Resistance Commander POE DAMERON has led an attack on one of Snoke’s powerful Dreadnoughts, against all orders. The confrontation resulted in the destruction of not only the Dreadnought, but also the entire Resistance bomber crew, leaving Dameron with an unexpected sentence for his actions....

  

 

The sound of a slap echoed across the bridge of the Raddus. “You’re demoted.”

In the hallway leading from the bridge, a man, cleaning the floors, shook his head and sighed. “Here we go,” he muttered. He edged his supplies closer to the doorway and listened to the conversation that followed.

A young man’s voice stammered in confusion. “We took down a Dreadnought!”

“At what cost?” replied the first voice—that of an older woman, whom the janitor knew to be Leia Organa.

“You start an attack, you follow it through.”

“That’s what I say,” the janitor grumbled.

“There are things that you cannot solve by jumping in an X-Wing and blowing something up!” As she continued, stating a need for him to learn that, the man in the hallway muttered “Ehh, like what?”

Apparently, the same thought entered the young man’s mind. “What kind of problems? Military problems? Problems like battleships trying to blast us all out of existence? I mean, I’m a Resistance commander, what kinds of—”

“Captain,” Leia corrected. “And as for problems, how about the First Order fleet on our tails, following us through hyperspace? Something that shouldn’t be possible? We’re barely out of range of their cannons now. Can you keep them from tracking us with your X-Wing? Maybe you can blow them up one by one until you find the tracker. Or until you get all our fighters killed. Whichever comes first.”

The janitor groaned. “Oh, now—” He cut himself off with a sigh, and continued listening. The young man’s voice spoke again. It was slightly further away, and quieter, but the words could still be heard.

“Whatever you say about me, there were heroes on that mission.”

“Dead heroes. No leaders.”

Light footsteps could be heard leading away further into the bridge. Then a frustrated sigh, and heavier stomps came closer. The man in the hall busied himself with looking busy with his work, knowing full well how soon it would be interrupted.

Sure enough, a young man with dark hair and a Resistance uniform stormed through the door. “I don’t believe this!” he said to himself. The janitor called over to him, acting natural.

“Well, Poe, what’s the matter with you? What, did that billiard ball droid of yours stick his head in a light socket again?”

The young man turned, noticing the other for the first time, and his scowl softened. “Oh. Bernard. You wouldn’t believe what just happened.”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard. Big demotion and all.”

“How’d you hear about it already?”

“Who didn’t hear it? Boy, she really took it out on you, didn’t she?”

The young man clenched his fists and drew his breath through his teeth, seeming to try to calm himself. “I don’t want to talk badly of General Leia, but it seems like she’s trying to make me look bad. I mean, no trial, no court-martial, just demoted me right in front of my crew.”

“Yeah, the Princess doesn’t seem to be much for military courtesy nowadays.” Bernard looked up, seeming to notice something behind Poe. “H-hey, watch the bucket! Watch the—”

His warning was too late, though, and the sound of a splash was heard. Poe turned around. His little orange-and-white droid, BB-8, rolled backward, observing the puddle of water and cleaning fluids with a little beep-whir.

Bernard shook his head. “They never watch the bucket,” he muttered. “Nobody ever watches the bucket!” Poe tried to suppress a smile. Bernard sighed. “Well, now I gotta go down to the supply room and refill. Guess I’ll talk to you some other time, then.”

“I don’t have anything else to do. I could come with you.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, if it’s no trouble.”

“No more than usual,” Bernard shrugged.

 

**

 

Once the mess was cleaned up, the two men went down to the end of the hallway and stepped into the service elevator. As the doors closed, they continued their conversation.

“You know, Poe, what I don’t get is that you didn’t really do anything crazy. I mean, fighter pilots were always doing stuff like this back in the Imperial Wars. Do you think you would’ve ever heard of Han Solo, o-or even Luke Skywalker himself, if they hadn’t taken a few risks like that—several risks?”

“I guess not,” Poe replied, dejectedly. “But General Leia doesn’t see it that way. Not anymore.”

“Well, it might just be she’s just a little out of it—she did lose her husband about a week ago, you know.”

The young pilot looked down sadly. “I know. I hated to hear that—Han was a good man, and when I was growing up, almost a second father to me. But General Leia never lost her nerve on a mission before, not even when all this started with the First Order five years ago.”

“Yeah—that was when her brother went missing, right? Or was that before? Somebody needs to publish an outline of this thing.”

“No, that was when it happened.” He sighed. “I guess this is different, though.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Bernard paused, studying Poe. “But… I wonder if there’s more to it than even that. Maybe she just wanted to make sure she didn’t lose anybody else.”

“Yes, but this is war. If she didn’t expect casualties from the mission, she—”

“No, now, I wasn’t talking about the bombers, though that’s probably part of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean someone close to her. Eh, she already lost her husband this week, she might be worried about losing someone who’s just about as reckless a pilot as he was.” The elevator doors opened, and Bernard stepped out.

After a pause, a flash of realization passed over Poe’s face, and he followed. “Wait, are you talking about…”

Bernard nodded. “Now, I’m just guessing, of course, but it wouldn’t surprise me.” He glanced back at Poe, and saw an expression of deep surprise, and something that looked like honor and pride. Bernard smiled, then feigned a grave look. “It’s… it’s too bad, really, if it’s true.”

“Too bad?” BB-8 whirred quizzically as well.

“Yeah, yeah. It’d probably be the reason she kicked you down a rank or so. If she was that worried about losing you. Course, she could’ve also just got mad at you for being such a reckless hotshot.”

Poe decided to play along, and lifted his eyebrows in mock-confusion. “Who, me?”

“Are you kidding? It’s what you’re best at!” They both laughed.

“Well, either way, I’m demoted.”

“And either way, we’ve still got that fleet on our tails. Now, see, that doesn’t just not make sense—from what I can tell, it oughtta be impossible! Not that I know much about hyperspace.”

“I know. And even if we make the jump to hyperspace again, they’ll just follow us, and we’ll be out of fuel. We’ve got, what, eighteen hours left as it is? And we—” Poe cut himself off. “What is…?”

“What? W-what are you looking at?” Bernard looked around.

They were now in the pod bay. The supply room was just around the corner from it, and their journey was almost over. However, they were met by a strange sight. A young Oriental-looking woman was dragging around a large cleaning caddy—and a man was lying on top of it.

“What in the world—” Bernard began, then broke off and stormed over quickly. “Rose Tico, just what do you think you’re doing?”

“My duty to the Resistance, that’s what.”

“What’s this all about?” Poe asked, just coming up.

When she saw the young captain, Rose saluted (only a bit sloppily). “I caught a deserter!” she proclaimed proudly. As if on cue, the dark-skinned man groaned.

Before she could explain further (if she had been going to), Poe rushed over to the man on the cart and sat him up. “Finn! What are you doing out of the medic bay?”

The man shook his head quickly before putting a hand to it. “Getting thrown across the room, apparently.” He flexed the fingers on his other hand and grimaced.

The name suddenly snapped in Bernard’s head, and his fingers followed suite. “That’s it. You’re that Stormtrooper, aren’t you? The—the one that helped destroy Starkiller Base?”

“Oh.” Finn looked slightly uncomfortable with the recognition. “Um, y-yeah. That was me.”

“Well, you did good! Not only did you leave the First Order, but you also went right back into their base to help blow it up. Something like that takes real courage.” He held out his hand. “Name’s Bernard Walton.”

Finn glanced apprehensively from Bernard’s hand to Rose, but shook it anyway. “Finn.”

“Good to meet you.” Bernard nodded in approval.

“Finn, are you okay?” Poe pressed. “I mean, last I saw you, you were unconscious from the wounds you got when Ren attacked you on Starkiller.”

“Speedy recovery, I guess. When I woke up, there weren’t any doctors around to give me specifics. Except for falling out of bed, I felt fine. So I got dressed and left.”

“Well, what I really wanna know is how you ended up on my cleaning cart,” Bernard put in. “I mean, if you’re so well recovered, I just don’t see how she could’ve…” The janitor trailed off, noticing movement from Rose, who had slowly taken something from her belt and slipped it behind her back. His eyes narrowed. “What is that?”

Rose put on a very fake innocent look. “What’s what?”

“Hand it over.”

She stepped back. “No.”

“Rose…” He stepped forward, and Rose began to dart away. I say ‘began’ because she didn’t get far—Bernard grabbed her arm, stopping her flight. “Oh no.” She whipped halfway round and tried to pull away. “You give that to me right this minute before you kill somebody!”

“NO!” She flailed and squirmed like a fussy toddler, trying to keep the object in her hand out of Bernard’s reach. “You can’t take it! It’s mine!”

“It is not yours, and—” He finally took hold of her wrist and wrenched the thing out of her grasp. “—And you know it.” Rose folded her arms and pouted.

“Wait, what is that thing?” Finn inquired.

“That is a volt key.”

Poe’s eyebrows went up and he whistled. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I think so. Why?”

“Well, the ground crew uses them to jump-start engines when the battery’s dead. Newer astromechs like BB-8 have them built in, in case it chokes out mid-flight.”

“And apparently,” added Bernard, glaring at Rose, “some of our ground crew have decided it’s a taser! You know, I thought I put this thing away.”

“You didn’t hide it well enough.” When Bernard frowned, she actually stuck her tongue out.

Poe let out a laugh, and even Finn had to suppress a grin. The sound made Bernard and Rose both turn and glare at him. “And what exactly’s so funny about this?” asked Bernard.

“You two! I don’t know if you realized it, but ever since Rose and her sister joined, you’ve been at each other about one thing after another.”

“I guess this kind of thing happens all the time, then?” Finn asked.

“Oh, sure. This is nothing new.” He stepped closer and added, in a more confidential (and amused) voice, “They’ve been stuck with each other for two years, and it’s driving them crazy!”

“Ha, if you wanna talk about crazy, tell me about Rose Tico with a volt key,” Bernard said loudly, obviously having heard them. “I’ve told her I don’t know how many times that it’s not supposed to be used on people—a-and isn’t that sort of the definition of crazy?”

“But it’s a far more powerful non-lethal weapon than a regular stunner!”

“Which is exactly why you are not supposed to use one! Especially on people!” He shook his head. “Ahh, I give up. Common sense just doesn’t work on this one.” Bernard held up the volt key and looked at it. “Well, I better put this away. You all go on and talk, I’ll back back in a minute. And when I get back,” and he waved the thing in Rose’s general direction, “I’m gonna need you to come back to the upper levels and help me out with the cleaning.” Without waiting for an answer, he started to walk away.

Rose persisted, though, and gestured to Finn. “But what about him? He was trying to desert!”

“I was not!”

“You were in the escape pod! You were deserting your post! Bernard!”

“He never had a post to begin with,” Bernard shouted over his shoulder, “least not on our side.” As he walked around the corner, he just heard Finn starting to ask what they’d been talking about when they came up. But then the noises of the pod bay made it just unintelligible enough. Besides, he wasn’t really listening. He was too busy muttering  “Don’t know where these kids get their cockamamie ideas…”

 

**

 

Bernard came to a door on his right. He pushed a button to the side of it, and the door to the supply room opened. Once inside, he set down his bucket and started to reach for the supplies. But then he looked down at the volt key in his hand.

“Better put this away first. Don’t want Rose getting it again.” He scanned the shelves for a good spot to hide it. Canisters, buckets, boxes—none of them seemed quite the right size or place for a volt key. Then he got an idea.

Bernard took a rag and dried the inside of his bucket, then set the rag and the volt key inside. He found the lid and fastened it on. Then he took the bucket and lifted it up onto one of the higher shelves he could reach.

“Ahh, that oughtta do it.” Since Rose was a full foot shorter than him, he was fairly satisfied with his work, and turned back to his initial task. Soon, he had a new, full bucket and was on his way back to the others.

The minute he came up, though, he knew it was a mistake. They were all right in the middle of a discussion, and no one seemed to notice his presence.

“But there’s no way we’d be able to do it!” said Poe.

“Do what?” Bernard asked.

However, Rose continued. “No, no, I think there might be a possibility. I’ve read all about these types of systems. It’s complicated, but there’s always a way to do it.”

“Do what?” he repeated, louder.

“Yes, and I think I remember hearing about this back when I was with them,” put in Finn. “It’s on the main ship, the Supremacy. They posted special guards to protect it. Why post guards unless there was a way you could do it!”

“Do what?”

“That’s kind of a leap in logic, but you forgot we’re still not on their ship! There’s no way we can get close enough—and besides, none of us have the technical know-how to do it.”

“DO WHAT?!” Bernard finally shouted, getting their attention. He added, muttering, “Kids these days, just don’t know how to communicate.”

“Oh, sorry, Bernard,” Poe said. “These two think there’s a way to scramble the First Order’s tracking signal so we can escape.”

“There is.” The words registered a second later. “There is? Well, stuff me with feathers, and call me a pillow. That’s wonderful!”

“The problem is, none of us know how to crack their code, and from what Rose can figure, it’s a pretty complicated process.”

“Oh. I shoulda figured there’d be a catch. What I wanna know is how did Rose know all that about tracking systems?”

Rose smirked at him. “Guess these kids that think they know everything just cause they can punch a few buttons on a computer are a little more vital than you thought.” Bernard frowned back at her. It was apparently a long-running argument between them.

“What we really need is some kind of master codebreaker,” Poe continued. “Someone who’s familiar with this kind of work, and is willing to help us. The only question is, where can we find one?”

“Don’t look at me,” said Bernard. “I haven’t touched a computer since before I joined the Resistance.”

Finn snapped his fingers. “You know who’d know about stuff like that? Maz Kanata.”

“What? Who’s that?”

“She was one of Han Solo’s friends back on Takodana. She had all kinds of information about—”

“Well, that’s all very well, but do you have any idea how to contact her? I mean, it’s not like you’ve got her on speed dial.”

“There’s probably something about it in our database,” said Poe.

“Well, if that’s what we’re doing, we might as well look up something about codebreakers ourselves. I mean, we can ask somebody to—”

“We can’t ask someone about that!” Rose protested. “This is a secret operation!”

“Yeah, secret,” Bernard scoffed. “You know, this whole idea might—it just might—be vital to the survival of the Resistance, and you wanna keep it a secret? Next you’ll be telling me you want the whole fleet to jump-crash!”

The others all looked confused. “What?”

“Jump-crash! You know, back about fifteen years ago, they found out that…” He quickly gave up, and waved his hand. “Ohh, never mind. It’s no good if you have to explain it.”

Poe considered. “I think you’re right, though. There’s no reason to keep it a secret. We’ll look in our database. Let me see, who’s the best person to ask?”

“Well, there’s no shortage of computer geeks around here. Don’t know if all of them have access to the main database, but—”

Poe snapped his fingers. “We’ll call Davin. He’s on one of the other ships, but he knows more about the database than anyone.”

 

**

 

“Fascinating! To discombobulate the devices of the enemy, and make the jump to hyperspace while they are left in the dark! Ha-ha!” The holographic image of a young man—Davin—chuckled, then straightened and cleared his throat. “Metaphorically speaking.”

“Sounds just like my cousin,” Bernard mumbled, rolling his eyes.

“We need to know who can scramble the signal, and where we can find them,” explained Poe. “Can you find them for us, Davin?”

“Indubitably!” Davin began clacking away at a keyboard. “Simply cross-reference codebreakers and tracking devices… no thank you, only within the past forty years…” The young man raised a finger as if in triumph. “Ah-ha! Success!”

“Okay, who do we have?”

“Well, many of them are deceased—Imperial assassination suspected.” He wrinkled his nose. “However, there are still a number available. The nearest is reported to reside in Canto Bight on the planet Cantonica, renowned for its high-class social wagering establishments and—”

“In English, Davin!” Bernard sighed.

“Oh. It’s a well-known casino planet.”

“Gotcha.”

“Hmm! It appears as though he actually worked on the project with the First Order, but escaped. He worked for some time as a freelance technical consultant for the Resistance, but has since left his position.”

“So he may be open to coming back to work for us again,” Poe said.

“Perhaps.” Davin chuckled again. “According to this report, he was well-known for his proclivity toward wearing a red pin in the shape of a ‘carnation,’” and he pulled up the image. “Although it’s clearly a dianthus plomini, commonly known as a plom bloom, which, although in the same genus, is quite different. I should really revise these pages.”

“Focus, Davin! We need more basic information—name, description, anything.”

“Of course,” he said quickly. “My apologies. His name is—”

Suddenly, the sound of an alarm blared through the speakers. Davin’s eyes widened, and he looked over his shoulder. “Oh my.”

“What’s wrong?”

“The red alert! Something’s—” His transmission staticked, then cut off.

“Davin? Are you there?”

“I don’t think you’re going to get him back, Poe,” Bernard said solemnly, and pointed out the porthole window. “Look!”

Outside, they could see part of the Resistance fleet—the rest was spread out to the other sides of the ship. One of the ships, a rather sizable one, displayed on its surface a large explosion. Even as they watched, another appeared further down. The recognizable forms of First Order TIE Fighters swarmed around the dying ship like flies.

Poe’s eyes widened and he slammed his hand into the thick glass of the window. “Oh no, Davin!” But he couldn’t do anything except watch as the ship was slowly destroyed.

“Is that his ship?” Rose asked. “I mean, are you sure—”

“Yes, I’m sure.” He groaned and ran a hand through his hair. “We can’t keep going like this. We have to do something.”

“Well, now, we just can’t let this lie,” Bernard said. “Eh, Davin gave us some information, and I say we oughtta use it.”

“We need to send out a team right away to find this codebreaker and bring him back to scramble the tracker.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right.”

“Finn, Rose, do you think you could make it to Canto Bight?”

“What? No, now, wait a minute—”

“What?”

“Well… don’t you think you oughtta talk to Leia about this first?”

“Come on, Bernard, don’t you remember what just happened? She demoted me for taking risks in the field!”

“Whaddya think she’s gonna do if she finds out you sent a team on a risk like this without clearing it or something? At least tell her what you know.”

Poe seemed hesitant at first, and looked away. But when his eyes caught the light of the explosions on Davin’s broken ship, he sighed. “You’re right. We have to talk to her about it, as soon as possible. Maybe she—”

Poe never finished his sentence. An unseen explosion rocked the ship, and the foursome were nearly thrown to the floor by the impact. Red lights flashed, and alarms sounded.

“What was that?” Rose cried.

“What do you think it was?”

Above them, Leia’s voice sounded through the speakers. “Red alert! First Order TIE Fighters are making an attack run. All pilots and ground crew, report to Hangar B. Time to jump in an X-Wing and blow something up.”

A confident smile crossed Poe’s face. “Let’s go!”

 

**

 

As they made their way up a level, they saw everyone around them rushing to their posts. Finn was somewhat at a loss for what to do. But Bernard, Rose, and Poe knew their duties, and headed straight for the hangar.

Along the way, Bernard and Rose split off from the others. They cut through a maintenance area, rather than follow the main hallways—a shortcut known only to the ground crew. They easily arrived before Poe, and began prepping the X-Wings for flight.

A few minutes later, Bernard finished his check on the first X-Wing. He began to move on to the next. However, as he made his way there, he happened to glance at the hangar exit, which the X-Wings would’ve flown through in a minute or two.

“Well, now, wait a minute,” he muttered to himself. “Looks like there’s a fighter going out already, or… what is that…” His eyes suddenly widened as he realized what it was, and where it was heading. “Oh no. TIE Fighter! Hey, there’s a TIE Fighter coming!”

He tried to get the attention of the pilots, waving, pointing, yelling. “Come on, somebody open fire!” But the only pilot who noticed him simply cocked her head and looked confused. She couldn’t hear him.

Bernard sighed in exasperation. He then headed over to one of the other X-Wings—the one Rose was working on. He grabbed her arm and, without explanation, ran with her towards some large, heavy equipment standing off to the side.

She tried to pull away. “Bernard, what are you doing?! I’ve got to—”

“Don’t argue, there’s no time!”

As soon as they were close enough, he pushed her behind the equipment. They barely made it in time. The TIE let loose two powerful blasts, which hit some fuel canisters. An explosion rocked the hangar. It was so powerful that, even sheltered by the equipment, the two were knocked unconscious by the blast.

Rose came to first, minutes later. She couldn’t see the destruction from her position behind the equipment, perhaps twenty feet from the wall. But the smoke tipped her off that something was very wrong. The young woman peered around the side and gasped. The hangar was in flames. Most of the X-Wings were incinerated by the blast, and not one living soul was in sight.

Rose heard the sound of groaning behind her, and turned around. Bernard was lying on his back, trying to get up. She rushed back and helped him sit up, but as soon as he was upright, he swatted her hands away. “Stop fussing! I’m fine!” He shook his head quickly, and put his hand to the side of it. “I think. Hoo… How about you, though? All in one piece, looks like?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.” Rose looked down, perhaps a little awkwardly. “You saved my life, you know that?”

He was silent for a moment. “Yeah, well… don’t let it get around.” Then he smiled a little.

Barely audible over the flames, they heard the sound of coughing, coming from somewhere in the hangar.

“You hear that?” Rose asked.

“Yeah, looks like we’re not the only ones still kicking. Come on, they probably need help. Let’s go find them.” They got to their feet and Bernard started to go.

“Bernard?”

“Yeah?”

Rose smiled. “Thanks.”

“Ehh, you’re welcome,” he shrugged. “Now, let’s get going already.”

 

**

 

Elsewhere on the Raddus, Finn was pacing in front of the medical bay. He’d been pacing patiently for the past ten minutes, but his patience was slowly wearing off. However, he was interrupted by the sound of feet and voices, getting closer. He looked up.

A crowd of around a dozen people were walking down the hallway toward him. At least, most of them were walking. One or two were being wheeled on a cleaning caddy, just as he had been earlier. Some were being helped along, limping. And at the front of this little group were Bernard and Rose, looking somewhat sooty.

“Rose! Mr. Walton!”

“Hi, Finn.” Rose, arriving first, gave him a wide smile. It soon vanished, but it was there.

“W-what’s all this?”

“Ahh, all the survivors we could find in the hangar,” Bernard explained, helping a young pilot along. “Not many, but…”

“Wait, you two were in the hangar?”

“Well, yeah. Hey, call somebody out here to get these folks to a hospital bed, will ya? Most of ‘em are in pretty bad shape.”

“Sure,” Finn said, seeming slightly mystified, and did as he was told. Medical droids soon came out with gurneys and took the wounded in to be cared for. After it was done, Finn turned to them once more. “What about you? How’d you end up in such good condition?”

“Oh, we just happened to be in the right place when it happened. Nothing much to tell.” Rose glanced at him, but he ignored her. “Where’s Poe?”

“He’s inside.” And he nodded back toward the medical bay.

Bernard’s eyes widened slightly. “You’re kidding. Is he okay? Did he get caught in the explosion?”

“No, no, he’s fine. He was right at the hangar doors when the blasts hit, and the explosion blew him back into the hallway. He’s just waiting for news on the General’s condition.”

“The General?” said Bernard and Rose, almost simultaneously.

“Yeah, last we heard, she—” Finn broke off. “You didn’t hear about what happened, did you?”

“No, what is it?” Rose asked.

“First Order TIEs blew up the bridge. Almost everyone was killed.”

“Oh no.”

“Almost?” Bernard asked.

“Yes. General Leia survived.”

“How?”

“That’s the strange thing. When the blasts hit, she was pulled out into space like everyone else on the bridge. But she… well…” Finn hesitated.

“Well?” Bernard emphasized.

He sighed sharply. “This is gonna sound crazy, but… she floated back to the ship. Like she was being pulled back by some invisible rope, or—”

“Force?”

Finn looked at him. “Yeah. That’s exactly what it was like. Well, Poe and I saw it out the window, and rushed over to get her inside. When we got her, she was unconscious, and her vitals were low. They said she’s fighting it, though. But that’s the last I heard about it. Poe’s in there now, waiting to find out how she is.”

“Wow,” said Rose, awe in her eyes.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. I mean, Kylo Ren used the Force to stop laser blasts, but… but this—”

“It’s pretty amazing, all right,” Bernard nodded. “You know, I seem to remember her brother taught her how to use the Force and all that for some of the years before he went missing.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He tsked. “What I don’t get is how come she never used the Force before now.”

“Huh. That’s a good point. I mean, a lot of time passed, and we haven’t heard about her becoming a Jedi or anything. And you haven’t seen her use the Force before either.”

 “Oh, who cares about that?” Rose groaned. “As long as it kept her alive, does it really matter where it came from?”

“YES!” said both men simultaneously.

She rolled her eyes. “Men.”

The sound of footsteps came toward them from the medic bay. They turned and saw Poe coming out. He was instantly met with a barrage of questions about Leia. Was she alright, was she alive, did he tell her about the plan, and a host of others too jumbled to transcribe.

“Everybody quiet!” he snapped. Everyone’s talk silenced. Poe’s face and voice were plain evidence that the news wasn’t good.

“Is… is she dead?” Rose asked hesitantly.

“No. No, she’s still alive. But she’s in a deep coma.”

“Mm. Getting blasted into space does that to you,” stated Bernard, as the other two murmured in concern to one another. “How bad is she hurt?”

“That’s the thing. She doesn’t really have that many injuries, besides cuts and bruises.”

“But she’s in a coma,” Finn said slowly.

“Yes. Her vitals are low, it’s almost like her energy is being drained away.” He added, incredulously, “But no injuries.”

Poe stood there silently for a moment, staring at the floor. Bernard looked down. He knew better than anyone there how much this was affecting the young captain. Especially after all those things he’d said to him earlier.

He looked back up at his face in concern and set a hand on his shoulder. “Poe?”

Poe sighed and continued. “She’s stable, and she’s still fighting… whatever this is. The doctors can’t understand it. Physically, there’s nothing much wrong. But unless they can figure this out, or she wakes up on her own…” He clenched his fists at his sides. “She might as well be dead.”

“There’s still hope,” Finn said. “As long as she’s alive, there’s hope for her.” Poe still looked unconvinced. “Hey, it could be something to do with that, uh, Force… thing, that she did. And if it is, Rey or Luke could probably fix it when they come.”

“Who?” asked Bernard. “Oh, wait, is that that girl that helped blow up Starkiller with you?”

“Yeah. After we found out where Luke Skywalker is, she went to ask him to come help us. She’s been gone the whole week. She could be on her way back right now.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Poe said, then cocked his head to the side. “Looks like the leadership of the Resistance is in new hands now, though.”