LN-2737 steered her commandeered shuttle through the hanger bay, desperately hoping whatever luck had gotten her fake orders past the first trooper would hold up for just a minute or two more. Just long enough to input hyperspace coordinates... long enough get clear of the tractor beam... long enough to-

The bay rumbled, and the huge hanger doors began to grind into movement. If she knew any real curses, she'd have given vent to them, but with her limited, First-Order-approved vocabulary all she could do was grit her teeth and lean forward, slamming the engines into full thrust.

The shuttle leapt forward, abandoning all pretenses of innocence.

"Rebel!" she called out desperately. "Get in here." The young man appeared right at the edge of her vision, hovering uncertainly between the consoles. "Sit down," she ordered. "Have you ever piloted a ship?"

"Once," he replied, though she did not like the grimace he let slip as he spoke. "Co-piloted it, technically."

"Good enough. Get on the navigation computer and start running coordinates for a hyperspace jump."

The young man sat down, then hesitated.

"Every second counts!" LN-2737 barked, veering into the center of the bay. Seconds...

"I don't know how to use a navcomputer."

By the old empire... we're doomed.

The shuttle zoomed through the rapidly-narrowing corridor between bay doors and out into open space. "Get out of the chair." LN-2737 punched in a straight autopilot and vaulted over the center console to the co-pilot's chair. "On the sticks. I don't trust the autopilot. Keep us at maximum speed and steer away from the destroyers."

He obeyed promptly, thank the Emperor, and the shuttle wobbled somewhat as it jerked back out of autopilot. LN-2737 hunched over the navigation computer for a heartbeat, then began inputting the first set of coordinates that came to mind.

Come on... just a little more time.

The communications console crackled to life. "Shuttle Diomediun, return to Hanger Bay 3 immediately and prepare for boarding."

The navcomputer still had to process the coordinates, familiar though they were. LN-2737 hit the button to respond to the hail.

"Acknowledged, but unable to comply, Domination Control. Orders were to deliver the rebel prisoner to the Resurrection without delay."

"Consider any former orders regarding prisoners to be rescinded. Return immediately."

LN-2737's finger hovered over the button, her mind racing to think of some excuse. The rebel kept glancing at her, his dark eyes wide. Looking to her to solve the problem.

Some rebel.

The navigation computer gave her the response she had been desperately trying to figure out. A simple alert, explaining that the shuttle was ready to jump into hyperspace. Without really knowing why, she hit the response button one more time.

"No more orders, Domination Control."

Even as the communicator clicked off, her hand hit the hyperdrive controls. The shuttle shuddered, then the dark space around them vanished in glowing streaks of white and blue.

Silence.

LN-2737 hovered, tense, over her controls, waiting for something to go wrong. After a moment she looked up at her co-pilot, only to find the rebel kid still grasping the control sticks so tightly his knuckles had gone white.

She let out a long pent-up breath, leaning back in her chair. For a long minute, neither of them spoke. LN-2737 stared up at the ceiling, arms hanging limply over the edges of the chair, while the rebel kid clung to the steering and watched the stars streak past with a fixed, almost disbelieving expression.

Finally, LN-2737 broke the silence.

"What sort of co-pilot are you?" After a pause, during which the rebel didn't even seem to think about replying, she continued, "We chase down and capture the so-called 'best pilot in the Resistance', but his co-pilot doesn't even know how to use a navigation computer?"

He finally released the sticks, following her lead by taking several moments to just catch his breath. Then, "I'm... not his co-pilot." He met her probing gaze and his expression turned defiant. "I'm not even a member of the Resistance, either. D-" he interrupted himself, apparently still wary, "- my friend and I were just trying to get off Jakku. I'm a scavenger. Nothing more."

LN-2737 unlatched her helmet again, bending her head as she pulled it off. She turned the bulky helmet around in her lap and stared at her faint reflection in the black visor.

Her reflection looked wild. Not even Squad-leader would have let her get away with this.

An awkward cough drew her gaze back to her young – not rebel – scavenger companion. He had swiveled around in his chair to face her over the central console.

"I'm Raey," he volunteered, holding out a hand, still trembling from adrenaline, towards her. "Thanks for the rescue."

LN-2737 hesitated. Then, slowly and deliberately, she began to pull off the armored gauntlet of her right hand.

"LN-2737," she replied finally, and met him sweaty palm to sweaty palm.

"Do... you have a nickname or anything?"

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

"No."

"Can I just call you LN, then?"

"If you want."

Raey nodded, satisfied, and stood with a slight wince. A peculiar look, curious but discerning, came over his face as he began examining the inside of the cockpit.

"What is the plan now, LN? I don't suppose we can break into the other ship – what was it called? Resurrection? - and rescue my friend and his droid, can we?"

LN looked back down at her helmet, scowling at the dark reflection. "Not a chance. Do you have any idea how lucky we were just to get out of there alive? And that was just the Domination, the Admiral's ship. The Resurrection is the flagship of... of Kylo Ren and his Knights. We would be walking into a rancor den."

Raey stopped next to a circulator vent, rubbing a finger thoughtfully over the polished screws.

"I... suppose that makes sense," he admitted reluctantly. "But if we're not going to rescue Dameron, what are we going to do? Where are we going?"

LN let her helmet fall off her lap to one side, then turned and kicked it into a corner. "Right now, we're going to an emergency rendezvous point in the middle of empty space. After that, and after I make sure the shuttle's location tracker is offline, I don't know. Anywhere."

"You don't have anywhere in mind?"

"I acted on impulse," LN snapped, then immediately regretted it. Her voice lowered again. "I saw an opportunity to escape, and that was it." To get even as far as they were had been an impossible dream only a day ago. A dream she repeated over and over in her head as she listened to her squad move about and breath until the lights went out. Sometimes it was in a bloodbath of blaster shots all the way to the hanger where she would fly away alone, filled with guilt. Sometimes she and the rest of her squad pulled off an elaborately staged escape, all of them onboard and not an alarm to show them off. But one thing they all had in common was the afterwards.

There wasn't one. As soon as the shuttle, the tie-fighter, the stolen ship of any kind had left the Domination behind, the dream faded out, and she began again from the beginning.

This was past the end. This was unknown space.

"Where do you want to go?" she asked abruptly, looking toward Raey. He jumped – somehow he had managed to pry a panel off the wall without a sound and was now finger-deep in the internal wiring of the lighting system.

"Good question!" he said a little too brightly, shoving the panel back into place with a rather guilty look. As if she somehow hadn't seen what the scavenger was up to. "I always told myself that if I ever got off Jakku, I'd head straight for the heart of the Republic - Coruscant. Do you know where that is?"

It occurred to LN that, perhaps, her new companion was not a very galaxy-wise individual. He looked expectantly at her, his back now pressed against the panel he had tried, and failed, to shove back into place, an almost goofy attempt to look innocent making his brown eyes wide as an ewok's.

LN found this a bit disconcerting. She looked away, the eye-contact making her think guiltily of FL-2218. He didn't like to look at her, or anyone, eye-to-eye. I wonder if they'll blame him. They couldn't... she had clearly acted alone.

They can. They might.

She steeled herself and banished the thoughts, though she knew they would be back when she tried to sleep. "Coruscant... I don't think that's a very good idea. You may not be a rebel with the Resistance, but the First Order thinks you are. That command to all channels marked you as possessing the information the Knights have been after all this time, which means the First Order will come after you. Coruscant has eyes everywhere. If you take my advice, you should lie low for a while, away from people."

"That was Jakku!" protested Raey. "That's as low as you can lie. And what do you mean, I have the information they want? I'm a junk scavenger; unless they want to know how to pull a tie-fighter apart without damaging it, my knowledge is pretty worthless."

She narrowed her eyes, trying to see any deceptive tics. He didn't seem to be lying, but...

"Are you saying you don't have the coordinates?"

"I don't even know what coordinates you're talking about."

She looked away. "We will figure something out. I need to disappear and you need to disappear, so perhaps we can still help one another." LN rose, picking up the bits of armor she had abandoned on the floor. "But first, I need to get out of this armor. We should be in hyperspace for a few minutes more, so just try not to break my ship while I'm out of the room."

Raey watched the stormtrooper leave, a stubborn set to his jaw. "I don't break things," he muttered, but only after she was in the other room. "I take them apart. Carefully."

.

.

Lightsabers did not leave a trail of blood. They killed effortlessly and moved on, clean as light itself, and all they left behind were corpses and the smell of burning flesh.

MK-4414 stood where he had stopped, still and silent as a statue. They all did, even as the Knights prowled down their impeccable halls and tore them apart. The screams of stormtroopers and the searing of metal sliced apart came closer, but MK-4414 did not move.

The lights in the hallway flickered. Somewhere out of sight, a furious red lightsaber slashed through a wall panel and into the power conduits on the other side. Energy surged through secondary systems, lights faded and then flared back to life, and then something blew. The white lights that glowed in-between dark grey wall panels went out in sequence, like candles blown out by a breath, and MK-4414 was plunged into blackness.

In the darkness, he let one specific finger begin to tap out a frantic rhythm against his armored leg. His heart raced, and his tapping finger with it. It was almost noiseless – his trigger finger had no metal covering to protect, or slow, it – but when the first gleam of red flickered off the wall the slight movement went still.

Black armor, black mask, black cloak that trailed on the floor with swift ripples of movement, every metallic surface reflecting the harsh red of the weapon in hand. Two dark figures lurked behind, lesser shadows that could barely be seen after the glow of their master's lightsaber. MK-4414's breath caught in his throat and stayed there.

Not just a Knight... not like the minions who had come to collect their prisoners or relay orders. This was The Knight. The New Sith. The Return of the Empire.

Kylo Ren.

The red lightsaber was angled to burn through the wall as the Knight strode furiously forward, leaving a trail of glowing hot metal behind. MK-4414's wall. A dozen troopers stood in-between himself and that blade, and another dozen stood on his other side. Across from him stood another line of armored men, as stiff with suppressed fear as MK-4414.

The stormtrooper did not move.

The Knight reached them, and the lightsaber began to hum. The Knight barely looked as troopers died, marching over their fallen bodies and flinging the lightsaber back and forth, decimating both lines equally in his deadly rage.

MK-4414 refused to flinch. He refused to close his eyes. He stood at attention, and somehow his pounding heart began to slow again as death came quickly forward. Even now, there was a rhythm to that rage. Even The Knight was not immune. Each death, each stroke of that lightsaber, each angry step... it fit within the march.

The tip of the lightsaber hummed past MK-4414's cheek, melting his helmet and burning his hidden flesh. The stormtrooper beside him took the brunt of the attack, crumpling wordlessly to the ground in two pieces. Someone on the other side of the hall fell, screaming, and the Knight walked past them without finishing the job. MK-4414 stood still and silent, pain throbbing through his face with each heartbeat, as the silent shadows of the Knight slipped past him, their faces hidden by the depths of their hoods. MK-4414 saw, ever so briefly, the gleam of an unnaturally yellow eye as the one closer to him glanced sideways, then they were past.

A dozen scattered stormtroopers stood, unable to move, with their dead on either side. None of them could question it, and none of them dared to run. Orders were orders. The Domination, and her crew, had fallen under the ire of the Knights of Ren. Now, they had to pay for it.