42. That was her number. Now with the resistance, 42 must cover her past life which proves difficult when she cannot tell her true name. And that Dameron guy . . . He needs to stop asking questions.
Follows The Rise of Skywalker
We had barely left the festival when stormtroopers started firing at us.
I was thankful I had grabbed my gun before I'd left the Resistance Base.
Rey turned around and fired her pistol at the troopers. It hardly did any damage at such a range.
Two of the stormtroopers began to fly from the back of their speeders, propelled upward with jetpacks.
"They fly now?" Finn yelled.
"They fly now!" Poe shouted, panicked.
I pulled my rifle off of my back and fired once upwards. One trooper came crashing down.
The remaining stormtroopers began firing in front of our speeders, kicking up sand and making it difficult for all of us to see.
Poe turned his speeder down a narrow rocky passageway. I turned and followed suit.
Our speeders raced in tandem between the narrow walls of sandstone. I turned around for a second to see if the troopers were still following but couldn't get a clear view.
"Did we lose them?" I called.
"Looks like it," Finn yelled.
"Excellent job, sir!" C3-PO exclaimed.
Another stormtrooper emerged from behind a boulder.
"Terrible job, sir!" the droid scolded.
From the back of my speeder, BB-8 activated a color-dust bomb. It sent up a puff of golden powder, blinding the trooper on our tail. He ran his speeder up over a rock, sending himself sailing into the air. Rey took out her pistol and fired up at the underside of the craft. The whole thing came crashing down in a firey cloud behind us.
"Nice one, Rey!" Finn called.
One trooper was left.
Finn launched a rope at him. It began to wrap around the wheel of the speeder, hooking the stormtrooper like a fish.
"Poe!" Finn yelled.
Poe banked his speeder sending the captured trooper and his craft into the cliff face. The men cheered at their small victory.
An abandoned ship appeared on the edge of a cliff. Sand covered most of its windows giving it camouflage. As we flew closer to the desired target, Rey mumbled something about the ship.
"What did you say?" I asked.
In the second that I'd turned around, the remaining flying trooper had shot our speeder, sending the lot of us toppling head over heels.
Luckily, this planet was made of sand so the fall wasn't excruciatingly painful. Unfortunately for us, we had landed in quicksand.
As we sunk down into the earth, I felt my feet become free.
I also felt my helmet begin to slip off as I was pulled under which prompted me to begin cursing.
"Cover your eyes!" I yelled once my mouth was free beneath the surface.
***
Poe
"Did she just say to cover my eyes?" I thought aloud.
As the Mando slipped through the dirt, she wasn't wearing her helmet.
I couldn't possibly cover my eyes now.
She looked like a wild bird. For a split second, her eyes met mine. They were the color of an ocean against a white sand beach, but much more dangerous. She held her fist up threateningly.
"Right!" I slapped my hand over my eyes, still trying to remember her appearance.
Her skin was rather tan for the amount of time she must have spent beneath her helmet. Her rust-colored hair was braided loosely. The strands curled around her face in a disheveled manner. Her eyes were piercing, fierce, tough as the Falcon . . . beautiful.
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I scolded myself mentally. I couldn't fall for her. I didn't know why but I just couldn't.
"You can open them now," she said softly.
I stood, still staring.
"Close your mouth, Dameron. You'll catch flies," 42 said sharply.
I exhaled a breath I didn't know I'd been holding.
"Poe!" Finn called in another section of the tunnel. "You over there?"
"Not a word about this," the Mandalorian warned.
I nodded. "Yeah, we're over here!" I called back.
The rest of the group rounded the corner to meet us.
