CONSTELLATIONS | Poe Dameron

CHAPTER X

BB-8 and I made our way to the base of the star fighter. Poe came around the side of the ship decked out in his orange flight suit.

"Alright doc. You ready to fly?" He asked as he handed me a suit of my own. I nodded enthusiastically, trading my bags with him so he could store them away while I changed. When I climbed up into the ship, Poe looked back at me from the cockpit and let out a low whistle. "I'm not sure which I like better on you, a flight suit or my jacket.." he put his hand on his chin as if he were truly pondering it before I shoved his shoulder with an eye roll.

"I look good in everything," I said while sitting in the chair to his right, buckling myself in. I shifted my gaze to him with a joking smile which he scoffed at.

"That may or may not be true," he said with a wink. "I'm curious, did you know General Organa before you came to base?"

"No, but I have spent a lot of time with her since I've been here. Especially when I first came on board. As you know, my uncle Gavin was the one who made it possible for her brother to destroy the first Deathstar, so we bonded on old family stories a good bit."

"Ah, that explains it then."

I tilted my head, confused by what he meant. "Explains what?"

"Just how protective she is over you," he said with a shrug.

Okay, now I was really confused. "I... what do you mean? How would you gather that?"

"It's something I picked up on is all. She mentioned something briefly the other day when we saw you above the hanger." He then turned to his droid, clearly done with our conversation. "BB-8, everything good to take off?" BB-8 gave the affirmative and set himself in his dock behind our seats, ready to head out. Poe placed his helmet on and I did the same with mine after doing a quick braid down my back.

"Commander Dameron to flight deck, are we clear for take-off?"

"This is the flight deck, you're clear, Commander," I heard through the head piece. He looked over at me with a huge grin. "You ready, doc?"

"10-4, Dameron. Let's do this!" I was ready to see the stars up close again. As he flipped the necessary switches and pointed the thrusters towards the ground, I thought back to my father and the number of times I had been his co-pilot when I was younger. I swear I spent more time in a ship than I did with my feet on the ground, and the giddy feeling I always had made its way into my chest, starting a flutter into my limbs. We rose from the ground and out of the hangar, and I looked over at our pilot to see a deep look of concentration across his features. He was in total control of this craft, and I felt safe in his hands as we rode further into the atmosphere.

Once we broke the atmosphere, my favorite view rose in front of us. I strained against my restraints to look around the sky in awe. There truly was nothing like it that you could find on any planet. No, this was something specific and special to the space above. The stars stood out against their black curtain and you could make out a soft aura of color surrounding each one. Even being so far away from them, it still felt as if we were flying amongst them.

A soft laugh caused me to turn to Poe, "You'd think this was your first time up here."

"Maybe my couple-hundreth time, but it's just as wonderful as the first time I saw it, ya know?" He kept his eyes on mine, nodding his head before turning back to the controls.

"Okay, we can jump to lightspeed from here. Shouldn't be too long before we reach the Inner-Rim, then it's a relatively short flight to the Colonies from there." I heard him communicating back to base through my helmet, but was content just staring out of the window in silence as we broke into lightspeed. At some point when we entered the Inner-Rim, the lack of sleep the evening before caught up to me, and the hum of the ship carried me off into sleep.