Star Wars VIII: Stand of the Republic

19: Getting Help

Poe and Finn entered the hangar bay and found Rose shoulder deep in the engine of an x-wing. Rolling along behind them was BB-8 as they'd stopped off at Poe quarters and acquired his droid as they'd need him for navigation.

"Wait here while I go talk to her," Finn suggested to Poe.

"Good idea," Poe accepted, in no way eager for the meeting and the inevitable confrontation.

Finn briskly walked across the bay. Seeing no reason to wait, BB-8 followed Finn, beeping contentedly. 

 "Rose," Finn called out as he approached.

The technician paused what she was doing and looked around for who'd said her name. When she saw Finn, she smiled and extracted her arm from the engine. Her right sleeve had been rolled up so as to not get caught on any of the internal components. She wiped the pale blue engine coolant from her arm with a rag.

"Something I can do for you?" Rose asked, shoving the rag into the back pocket of her olive colored jumpsuit.

"There is," Finn confirmed. "We need your help."

"We?" Rose questioned.

"Me and, uh...well..." Finn stumbled over the words. He scratched the back of his neck as he looked toward Poe. "Him."

Rose followed the direction of Finn's gaze.

"Him?" Rose demanded, pointing an accusing finger toward Poe. "Forget it!"

"Rose, wait," Finn insisted, taking hold of her arm as she tried to turn back to the x-wing. "Poe help me escape from the First Order. I wouldn't be alive if not for him."

"Then you're the exception," Rose fumed. Hostility filled her dark eyes. "He got my sister killed. I'm not having anything to do with him."

"Then help me," Finn countered. "We've got a serious problem, and if we don't do something about it, a lot more people are going to die, maybe all of us. Are you going to stand by and let that happen?"

Rose stared at the wall before closing her eyes. Although she sighed, her jaw was clenched tight.

"What's the problem, and what do you want?" she asked without turning around. Her tone was noncommittal.

The work crews in the bay were concentrating on their jobs, and the noise they produced was considerable, but Finn, still holding Rose by the arm, drew her closer to the wall of the hangar and as far from everyone else as possible before saying anything.

"Vice Admiral Holdo is planning to evacuate everyone on transports," Finn began.

"I know that," Rose confirmed. "Their sensors are tracking the large cruisers, so they won't notice the transports."

"They will if they look out the window," Finn pointed out. "I used to serve on those ships. The whole front of the bridge is nothing but windows. They will see the ships, and they will shoot them down."

"What are you wanting to do?" Rose questioned. "Start a mutiny?"

"No," Finn denied. "We want to take a fighter or transport beyond the interdictor's range, jump out of the system before the rest of the fleet and call in reinforcements. Whether in the cruisers or escaping to the planet, we could use more ships to fight the First Order."

"Why can't you just ask Holdo?" Rose inquired.

"She wouldn't listen to me," Finn rejected. "She had the fleet locked down because she's afraid of a spy revealing her plans, now I suggest letting a lone ship fly off on its own. How do you think she'll respond to that?"

Rose nodded thoughtfully.

"Because I used to be with the First Order," Finn went on, "she'll think I'm the spy. We can't tell her."

"Even if we bring in reinforcements, they're still liable to lock us up for this," Rose protested. "This is a serious breach of orders."

BB-8 whistled ominously.

"Do you want to follow her orders to the death?" Finn asked. "How well do you know the Vice Admiral? Do you trust her with all our lives?"

Rose bit her lip and looked over her shoulder to see if anyone was watching. Her expression darkened when she saw Poe, but her gaze didn't linger for long. She turned back to Finn.

"Alright," she conceded. Taking a step closer, she stabbed a finger toward his chest without touching him. "I want something clear. I'm helping you, not him."

Finn glanced toward Poe before answering.

"I think we can work with that," Finn agreed. He nodded toward Poe, and the fighter pilot hurried over.

"While I'm gone, I'm going to need someone to keep an eye on things around here," Poe said, he kept his gaze centered on Finn as Rose was glaring at him, fingers curled into fists at her sides.

"What do you want us to do?" Finn asked.

"Try to convince Holdo of what we're doing," Poe told him. "It's unlikely she'll listen, but if you announce it to the whole room, she won't be able to silence her top ranking officers as easily as she will us."

"We'll take care of it," Finn promised. Seeing Rose's expression, he stepped between them to block her field of view before speaking to her. "Let's go."

Rose headed toward Poe's modified x-wing, the black painted fighter sitting prominently in the middle of the hangar. Taking a tool from her belt, Rose opened an access hatch under the nose of the craft and climbed halfway inside, wedging herself between bundles of cable and cylindrical conduits to reach the navigation system. It took only a few moments to remove the navigation lock she'd installed on Holdo's orders, freeing the system.

Extracting herself from the fighter, Rose sealed it up and made a point of looking at Finn and not at Poe.

"It's ready," she told him.

"Everyone's going to know I'm not supposed to be flying this thing," Poe warned. "When I start it up, alerts are going to sound everywhere, so I'll wait until you reach the door before I climb aboard."

"Good luck," Finn wished him.

"To all of us," Poe agreed.

Finn and Rose headed for the exit while Poe wandered casually around his fighter as if visiting an old friend. BB-8 rolled underneath the ship and was drawn up inside by the automatic lift system. The droid opened a number of panels on the sphere of its main body and interfaced with the fighter. The moment Finn and Rose exited the bay, BB-8 whistled to Poe. The pilot scrambled up the attached ladder as BB-8 switched on the power core and warmed up the engines.

Warning lights flashed red across the bay as alarms began blaring from the intercom system. Security had detected them.