FREE FALLING ━━ p. dameron ✓

forty six

Soon after dropping out of lightspeed, my mom sends coordinates to where the First Order is supposed to be. It was given to us by a new spy.

Poe and it's X-wings glide into Bogano's atmosphere. I click a few buttons and flick a few switches. "I'm off their radars. If they're even here." I add.

"Me too. Make sure you glide in, no thrusters." Poe says. I nod, even though he can't see me.

I turn off my thrusters, causing BB-12 to beep.

"Calm down buddy. We'll be fine." I say. In reality, I'm saying that to myself. For some reason, my heart is thumping so loudly I'm surprised Poe can't hear it over the comlink.

Our two X-wings finally glide to the ground. We land our ships and climb out. This shouldn't take long, we just want to look around the planet.

"BB, stay here and keep the ships going." Poe says.

"You too BB-12." I say.

The droids beep in response. Poe and I turn around, pulling out our blasters.

"I have a question." I whisper to him as we creep around crates and what looks like abandoned stormtrooper transports.

"Anything."

"What does the three squeeze hand thingy mean?"

"Oh. It means I love you." Poe says. He says it with an air of unimportantance.

I turn to him in shock, stopping my slow walk. "You've been saying I love you for that long?" I think back to when he first squeezed my hand. It was right after he got demoted and I told him I felt useless.

Poe stops walking as well. "At first it didn't mean I love you. It meant I care about you and I need you. But after the transport incident, I realized I couldn't live without you. I knew then that I loved you."

"Oh Poe-" I start, taking a step towards him. My sentence is cut off by a loud bang.

My head snaps up and in the distance I see a large battalion of stormtroopers. I drop to the ground and roll behind a crate. Poe does the same.

My breathing is harsh as I hold my blaster to my chest.

"This was a mistake." I whisper to Poe.

He nods his head, a dark curl sticking to his forehead. "Huge."

I hear the battalion getting closer and closer.

"We need to get out of here." I say.

"I know. I know. What do we do?" Poe asks. "Once they walk past these crates, they'll see us."

I nod, beginning to formulate a plan. Before I get the chance, the battalion stops walking.

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding, and peak around the corner.

The main trooper is commanding his battalion. All eyes are trained on him.

"Poe." I hiss. "We could make a run for it. We'd just have to stay low."

"I...alright fine." Poe says. The two of us hunch over and begin to run to, our X-wings. We're nearly there when I hear someone yell- "Hey!"

"Crap." I mutter under my breath. I stand fully up and twist around, firing my blaster.

I catch the command trooper in the shoulder and he falls to the ground. The rest of the troopers, still in shock, don't fire quite yet.

I hop into my X-wing and BB-12 lifts it up from the ground. So does BB-8.

The troopers now realize what's happening and pull out their blasters. They try and shoot our ships down.

"Poe!" I yell into the comlink. "They have more firepower than us! They'll bring our X-wings down!"

"What're you going to do?" He asks.

I don't answer his question and instead pop the top of my ship, even though it's still rising.

"Keep her steady BB-12!" I say to my droid. He beeps at me in fear.

I climb out onto the wing of my X-wing. I nearly trip and fall. Poe yells into the comlink. I ignore him again, and fall onto my knees.

I crawl onto the middle of my ships wing. I hold out my blaster, and shoot the troopers. I have a pretty good shot at them, seeing as they don't have anywhere else to go. I hit more than a few.

Once the troopers are out of range, I begin to crawl back to my cockpit. By now, we're nearly out of Bogano's atmosphere. And there's little air.

I suck in as much oxygen as I can, nearly blacking out before tumbling into the cockpit. BB-12 closes the top and I'm hit with a rush of air. I breath it in gratefully.

"Birdy. You're crazy, you know that?" Poe says.

I let out a laugh. "Yeah. Yeah I know. But you had to fall in love with me for some reason right?"

Poe sighs happily. "I fell in love with you for so many reasons."

I sit up in my cockpit chair, taking the controls in my hands. I glance out the window.

"We've got a lot of company." I yell. Poe sighs over the comlink.

"Yeah I see them. Look, just jump to lightspeed."

"But what if the TIE's have the same tracking mechanisms the Star Destroyers do?" I ask. "And by the way, I've just counted four Destroyers enter the atmosphere."

"The TIE's can't have that advanced of tech in them yet. And, let's just hope those Destroyers didn't see us." Poe says.

I sigh nervously. "Let's hope."

I press a button, pull a lever, and soon, I'm surrounded by the glowing lights of stars as they zoom past me.

As Poe and I head back to base, I have a nagging suspicion that those TIE's are going to be trouble. A lot of trouble.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TROS came out today and can I just say that I hate Zorii

word count: 1082