The Force Awakens

Chapter 39

Wind and sand stung Finn's cheeks, and without protective goggles he could hardly keep his eyes open. He had no idea how Poe was piloting this thing, it was like no speeder he'd encountered before. Come to think of it, he had no idea how Poe did a lot of things.

"Ripping speeders, lightspeed skipping," he yelled to Poe. "How do you know how to do shifty stuff like that?"

"Just stuff I picked up," Poe said.

"Where?" Finn pressed. Not in the Resistance, surely. Leia and Poe tried to keep their operations above board as much as possible. Poe had been Finn's very first friend outside the First Order. But it turned out there was plenty he still didn't know about the pilot.

Before Poe could respond, the skimmer jerked sideways with an impact. Finn smelled blaster scorching as more laser bolts missed, sailing past them.

The First Order had found them. Stealing the speeders had probably triggered alarms and informant networks all across the valley, which was still better than getting caught and arrested at the festival. But now two treadspeeders pursued them, each one carrying two troopers. Their treads kicked up sand in their wakes as they closed fast.

Finn and C-3PO clung to the steering vane as Poe began evasive maneuvers, swerving back and forth to make them as difficult a target as possible. Off to their right, running parallel, Rey was doing the same. Netted bundles of goods swung around in the cargo basket, threatening to spill. Finn yanked out his blaster and started firing, but Poe's veering made his shots go wide.

Behind me, Rey and Chewie's luck with their weapons were just as terrible. Still, their shots were making it dangerous for the First Order speeders to close the distance, so Finn kept at it. Gradually, he sensed a rhythm to Poe's maneuvering, and he timed his shots accordingly, getting closer and closer to his target.

Almost there...just a little to the left. He lined up the shot, anticipated Poe's swerve...

Right before he pulled the trigger, the rear passengers of each treadspeeder, launched into the air with jetpacks.

"They fly now!" C-3PO said.

"They fly now?!" Finn yelled.

Poe gripped the tiller. "They fly now," he echoed, because of course they did.

Finn got off a few experimental shots with his blaster, but hitting a flying object from the back of a swerving skimmer was harder than impossible.

"Annie!" Poe yelled. "We should split—"

"Split up," I yelled back, finishing his sentence.

"Yeah!"

We peeled off, me angling right with Chewie, Rey, and BB-8 toward a dust grain farm. Poe steered Finn and C-3PO leftward into a narrow rocky canyon.

Our pursuing treadspeeders split up just as Poe had hoped. But his breath caught when he realized both of the flying jet troopers had disappeared, as though I were their true quarry.

The canyon closed in around them. Poe's driving took them so close to the walls that Finn could have reached out and scraped them with the tip of his blaster.

The treadspeeder was gaining on them. "Hold on!" Poe yelled, aiming directly for the canyon's wall.

"Oh, my!" said C-3PO as Poe lifted the skimmer's nose, and suddenly they were racing up the cliff's edge. Goods shifted to the back of the speeder. C-3PO's golden grip on the steering vane slipped, filling the air with a horrible metal-on-metal screeching.

Finn had completed minimum stormtrooper training with speeders, but even he knew that repulsorlift technology wasn't robust enough for them to continue skimming a cliff wall for long. And in an outdated junker like this, things were probably even worse than he knew.