To Tend Our Wounds: PART II OF 'TO CURSE THE DARKNESS' (Kylo/OC)

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"Look, you can't take your pistol with you. If they find it on you, your cover is blown," Ren told her, yanking the First Order-issued gun out of its holster. "If they wouldn't recognize me, I'd be the one to go, but even I would leave my lightsaber behind. Besides, it's not like it did you any good, anyway."

"That's not fair," she replied, referencing the meeting with the informant that had gone bad. "I didn't want to hurt any bystanders."

"You want fair?" he asked. "You're in the wrong business for fair," he said, tucking her firearm into the back of his belt. "Now, I want you to go in, make the transmission first and then send the evac code. Even if the evac code doesn't get through, we need to get what's on that datachip back to the fleet if any part of this mission is to be a success."

"Then what?" she asked, "we can't spend another night out in the wastes."

"I'll try to find us somewhere to lay low and wait for the exfiltration team to come get us," he said, "that's our only option. We can't take on a whole garrison or whatever they've got here, we don't even know what we're up against anymore."

"Alright," she replied. "If I'm not back in a half-hour..." she hesitated, knowing the danger she was facing.

Ren could see the fear in her eyes.

"Ellie—" he began.

"Please don't call me that, Commander," she replied softly, looking down to fuss with her gloves.

"Ellie," he whispered, this time cupping her chin to tilt her eyes up to his gaze and placing a kiss on her chapped lips before she could object again. "You can do this."

~~~~~~

Ryelle kept her head down and her profile tight as she passed down the narrow alleyways of Manax Outpost. This location was rougher than Dolom, full of seedy dives and aggressive denizens on the make. She was grateful it was daytime as she couldn't imagine how bad this place was at night.

She kept sneaking glances up at the transmission antenna near the center of town as she wound her way through side streets and tight passageways in search of the communications center attached to it.

Finally, Ryelle rounded a corner at a building that was almost directly under the aerial, and she tried to look relaxed, like she belonged there. Her recon skills told her to give herself two escape routes and to look for hidden doorways and surveillance equipment, and that skillset served her well. While staking out her escape routes, she noticed there was a doorway just around the corner from the comms center entrance, and two surveillance cameras overhead. She thought she saw a dead spot they weren't covering, and she passed through it while crossing over to the entrance she needed.

Ryelle then took a deep breath before scanning the street as she touched her lockpick tool to the entry's digital panel which popped easily and quietly, and she sent up thanks to the galaxy as she let out a silent sigh.

She slipped inside the facility and took in the interior. There were comms panels everywhere, lights blinking and power humming, but not so loudly that she couldn't hear voices down a hallway close by. She stood on a gangway that ran the circumference of the octagonal room, the antenna emerging from the floor three stories below and jutting up through the roofline above her.

She had to find the exact panel where she could get the datachip uploaded quickly. She searched along them, keeping an ear out for the personnel whom she knew were just down the hall, and between her heavy parka and her nervousness, she could feel sweat running down her back. She finally spied what she needed and slipped the chip into the port, dialing the receiver channel back on the Finalizer that would pick up the data they needed to hunt down the Amaxine traitors.