Saga - ST Sooo....what about that Death Star Ram, then? (Post-TLJ one shot)

Sooo....what about that Death Star Ram, then?​

Plot bunny struck whilst I was planning another story, and had to be written instantly.​

CHARACTERS
Finn - Former First Order stormtrooper, and person who cares most about Rey.
Rey - Force Sensetive jackie-of-all-trades, and person who cares most about Finn.
Chewbacca - Wookiee co-pilot aboard the Millennium Falcon Corellian YT-1300 freighter.
Baille Harte - Corellian Resistance officer who still idolises her adopted parent, Mitch Nifesta.
Aeron - Dilonexan native, turned Resistance Vanguard (heavy weapons specialist).
Max - Abednedan pilot for the Resistance.


Finn backed away from the unconscious Rose as other survivors took over her care, and straightened, running his hand through his hair. "Just before she lost consciousness, she was talking gibberish, and kissing people for no apparent reason." He warned the Resistance' medic, Major Kalonia, the woman flashing him a look from beside the patient.

"Okay, thanks for the warning."

Around him, the last remaining personnel of the Resistance sat on chairs or down on the deckplates, mostly dazed, some a bit teary.

He paused, staring at nothing, as thoughts coalesced in his mind.

He knew more about First Order tech than any of his compatriots, having been trained on all of them with his fellow cadets, before they had been divided off in their own specialities and competencies.

He knew how to operate that battering ram energy weapon, but that knowledge had been of no use when on the business end of it.
However, coupled with an intimate idea of how long it took an All Terrain MegaCaliber Six (AT-M6) to turn around to face an attack from behind, he could see an idea to strike back at the First Order whilst Kylo Ren and his forces were combing the Crait Rebel base.

"'Scuse me, excuse me." The former stormtrooper forced his way towards the cockpit, first seeing the starfield outside that showed that they had not yet gone to lightspeed, then looked down at Chewie and Rey as he stood between and slightly behind their chairs, his hands resting on the tops of both seats. "Turn us ar-" He paused, staring down past Rey's bare shoulders to her gold-tinted metal brassiere, and the cute Porg rubbing its scalp against them. "What are you wearing?"

"This is General, uh, Leia's slave girl outfit from..." She glanced across at Chewie, who studiously ignored her, concentrating on the Millennium Falcon's controls, one hairy paw pulling a lever back; then looked up at Finn with a resigned look. "...one of our past escapades."

"Oookay." Finn glanced from her to the top of Chewbacca's head, and back to her. "Why?"

"Chewie made me put it on."

His eyes widened as he repeated the question, this time silently mouthing the 'Why?' at her.

Instead of responding, she gestured towards the back of the cockpit, and rose from her chair, gently placing the Porg that had been in her lap, onto her just vacated seat.

"Remember not to sit on that." Finn warned, eliciting chuffing laughter from the Wookiee co-pilot.

She moved to follow him, then jumped at the sound of a muffled smack, and slapping a hand over the lilac silk draped over the back of her smarting thigh, turned to glare at Chewie. "Hey, knock that off! I'm still Captain, even if I look like this!" She pushed Finn through the doorway out into the short vestibule that led to the main part of the freighter, and sealed the door to the cockpit behind her, immediately wrapping her arms around his neck, and resting her cheek into the chest of his white shirt, while, after a pause of uncertainty, he embraced her bare torso.

"Finn, I may have made an error." She confessed into his chest.

"You? What sort of error?"

"On the way to find Luke, Chewbacca was pining and wailing about Han being killed; apparently they were together a long time. So, for a bit of peace and quiet, I sort of...made him think that I was Han."

Frowning, Finn looked over her head to stare at the sealed hatch. "And he bought that?!"

"At first! I told him I had had extensive rejuv treatment and a sex change, to explain away the obvious differences. And it helped that General Organa hugged me first, when we returned from Starkiller Base. I told him that she obviously recognised me as her husband, and was perfectly fine with my personal choices. But now he's saying I don't talk like Han, I don't smell like Han. He's having doubts."

"Well, you know he will rip your arms out, if he ever figures out that you have been drokking with him."

Rey grimaced, and looked even more worried. "I know."

Finn patted her on the back. "And the costume?"

"Apparently, Han said he would wear this, if he ever became a femme; and Chewie was finding it a bit suspicious that I was still going around in pants, no matter how tight. It is possible that he has figured it out, and is messing with me, but with my arms at stake, I can't really call his bluff, can I?"

"Well, not now we have lost the Medical Frigate, no."

"Finn?"

"Yeah?"

"You cannot call me 'Rey' for the time being. You'll have to call me Han, or Captain Solo."

He nodded, his chin gently tapping the top of her head. "Sure. Sure thing. Oh yes!" He released her and backed off a step, looking urgently into her face as she released her hold on him as well. "We have to return to Crait. I have an idea to kill Kylo Ren if he is still inside that Rebel Base."

* * * *

Crait

The view out of the Corellian freighter's cockpit canopy showed the red-splotched white salt plains skimming by underneath them, as the tiny grey cliff faces loomed in the distance, jutting up slightly from the horizon, but growing larger and more noticeable as they zoomed closer.

BB-8 whistled and blooped in the back, Poe confirming to anyone who cared, that the droid had amended their telesponder to identify them as the base' caretaker, should anyone in the First Order spot their approach and try to send an auto interrogation.

The cliffs loomed larger, and the line of black All Terrain MegaCaliber Sixes became noticeable against the craggy grey.

"Raise shields." Rey-Han (Rhan) instructed. "Double front."

Chewbacca gruffed, the flowing brown hair on his hand covering about five buttons as he pressed one of the them.

* * * *

Finn and three Resistance volunteers, two males and a female, waited by the main hatch, clutching blaster rifles and ready for them to land, and for the ramp to deploy.

A heavy shuddering, and the sound of something hitting the lower hull, vibrated the floor under them, unbalancing the stormtrooper, him falling into the wall.

"You okay there, Ice Tiger?" The woman on his team, enquired from his knee level, where she was squatted on one knee, both hands planted in front of her for increased stability. She had introduced herself as Baille, earlier.

"What's happening?!" He called out, after flashing a reassuring smile down at her.

Poe ran past, heading for the belly turrets. "Those things that were pulling the ram; they're armed!"

"Well, there's a joke about the Dilonexan farmers, going begging."

"Oi!" Protested Aeron, a dark-haired male Resistance fighter from the agriworld, Dilonexa XXIII, weighed down by an old HH-15 projectile launcher, that he had been lugging around since the First Order fleet had first popped into the D'Qar star system.

The Abednedan pilot, Max, feeling useless since the entire hangar of X-Wings aboard the Raddus had been destroyed, had volunteered to come along. He still wore his slick orange flightsuit and white harnesses, due to not having a change of clothing.
He chuckled at his team-mate's expense.

Poe slid down the ladder that led into the lower turret, his voice floating up from there. "BB-8, go with Finn!"

* * * *

"Rraaraaarugh!" Chewbacca observed, as they raised the Falcon's nose slightly above the x-axis (horizontal), so that the incoming fire that had erupted from the rear corners of the two dark grey blocks on either side of the superlaser, hit their lower hull; and used the freighter's thrusters to back them away from their intended landing spot, directly behind the ram.

Torpedoes? Rhan glanced across at the intense-looking Wookiee. Had she heard him right? What would Captain Solo say?

"Well, uh, I don't like to use them, as we aren't going to get re-supplied anytime soon. But I guess this is in a good cause." She ran her gaze across the controls, taking note that they were armed with concussion and proton torpedoes. "I won't arm the proton ones, as we don't want to irradiate the battlefield." She smiled as she received a grunt of affirmation from him.

* * * *

"Okay, we are going to the rear of the ram-" Finn paused to look from Baille to Aeron as she smirked aloud, while the heavy-weapons specialist shot her a glare, and muttered about a hostile work environment. "-as soon as the ramp sets down, with Captain Harte taking the right rear corner; Max, the left rear corner; and Aeron with me. We should be back aboard the 'Falcon long before those AT-ATs and AT-M6s have a chance to turn round to bring their weapons to bear. Our real problems will be if any of the walkers have knelt down to deploy troops, or if there are any scout walkers that can be sent back to us."

Harte spoke up, then, adding, "Captain Dameron will do his best to keep any ground forces off us. Hopefully long enough for us to get the shot in."

All nodded and waited.

Soon enough, just after the twin shudders through the deckplates that suggested they had fired torpedoes, the hatch before the quartet, curved up into the ceiling recess, while the vestibule where they squatted, brightened considerably with the light reflected off the salt flats before them as the ramp lowered, it's edge touching the ground, and then the ship's telescopic legs shrinking as the freighter's weight settled.

"Deploy!" Finn yelled, E-11 in his raised fist as he charged down the ramp, glancing ahead and to his right to check both areas, then cutting left to run under the 'Falcon and towards the imposing black-grey block that was the Death Star Ram that had already blasted open the heavy door of the old Rebel Base beyond it.

Preceded by the wheeling BB-8, the four warriors sprinted to the back of the Ram, and took up their positions, with the Resistance people kneeling to create as small a profile as possible, whilst Finn hopped up onto an almost invisible step that jutted out the rear of the Ram, and pressed something that slid aside a large rectangular panel about three feet wide, and four high, giving him access to the electronic innards.

The ground THUMPED with heavy footsteps of the two nearest walkers, black and monstrously high, slowly turning on the spot to bring their forward cannon around, their head already turned in as much as they could.

The twin All Terrain Heavy Haulers that had dragged the superlaser into position, had been reduced to smoking square crowns of jagged black metal. Bits of each still rained out of the sky, throwing up plumes of white powder as they impacted the flats around them.

"Do you know what you are doing?" Aeron enquired, glancing up towards the former stormtrooper.

"More than I did on my last mission." Finn retorted, referring to the failed trip to Canto Bight. Rose' crashing her speeder into his, making no sense, then kissing him, had given him pause to consider that she didn't know what the heck she was talking about.

He pulled thin component-encrusted wafers from their slots, made adjustments, thumbed them back in. "Almost there."

THUMP

One of the wafers fell out of its slot with the shudder, Finn having to bend his knees to get a hand low enough to catch it before it dropped too far. Glancing at it, he gave it a little toss to get it right side up and slotted it back in.

Max looked about from his corner, scanning the clear blue skies. "Hadn't there been an Upsilon-class shuttle with those ridiculously long fins?"

"Well, it isn't here now!" The Captain retorted from her corner, peering round it. "Heads up, Scout Walker coming in!"

The spherical orange-and-white droid rolled past her, whistling and bleeping.

"Did he just say 'I've got this'?"

"If we're still alive in five minutes and I haven't fired a shot, then I guess so!" The heavy weapons soldier chambered a round, sliding an HH-15 torpedo into the black pipe, and hefting the thing onto his right shoulder, getting it comfortable, and where he could lean his right eye to see through the targeting scope.

THUMP

Finn remembered that he and Rose had been saved by the droid somehow hijacking a parked Scout Walker aboard the Supremacy, though if he had to design a droid least capable of climbing one of those things, a ball-shaped body would probably be what he came up with.

Even R2-units had jet thrusters in their legs.

* * * *
Rebel Base Crait

Deep inside the main cavern of the deserted Rebel Base, General Armitage Hux took a call, frowning down at his comlink while two Snowtroopers flanked him, standing back two paces, with their blaster rifles at port arms, clasped close to their armoured chests.

"What's back?" Hux responded curtly, listening to the reply. "The Millennium Falcon? Well shoot it out of the sky, Man!"

The people inside one of the AT-M6s told him that a team had gone to the back of the Death Star Ram, whilst another voice chimed in that she had analysed their attack plan and that there was a danger.

"Well, of course there is a danger! It is facing in here whilst we are still inside! Hux out." He stowed that comlink and raised his wrist one, so that he could talk to the platoon inside the base with him. "This is Hux. Emergency Withdrawal to the front of the base, and when you get outside, drop into that trench. Emergency Withdrawal, emergency withdrawal, out out out." And because, when he wasn't being tossed about by failed jedi, he could be quite the cool cat, he added, "Hux. Out."

The red-haired officer looked towards the side-room, and sighed, not wanting to warn the jumped up Kylo Ren, but if he didn't warn him, and he somehow survived, he would probably make things very unpleasant for the General.

Sighing again, he pointedly ignored the jagged hole at the front of the cavern, to stalk across the debris strewn floor towards the open door, whilst to his right, white-armoured troopers started to appear out of the darkness, singly or in pairs.

Hux put a gloved hand on the door frame and leaned in to face the back of the seated Ren.

"Supreme Leader-"

"General, I do not wish to be disturbed."

"Alright, fine. Take your time." Armitage turned, caught by the blank, dark eye lenses of his guards. "Now, don't judge me."

"Sir." Said one.

"What did one mantellian flutterplume say to the other avian?" Asked the other.

Hux was never great at Twenty Questions at the best of times. "How in-?"

"Let's get the flock out of here."

"Ah. Yes, let's." Hux led the charge, accelerating toward the opening with his coat flailing behind him as his troops kept pace.

Inside the room, Kylo had a inkling that perhaps he had not grasped the gravity of the situation. "General?"

* * * *
Rear of the Ram

Almost done, Finn winced as Chewbacca roared into his ear over the headset.

"Thanks, Chewie!" He acknowledged. "Rey, Han, whatever; what did Chewie just say?"

"He said troops are starting to appear at the entrance. They seem to be panicked."

"I bet they are."

THUMP

Although the ground vibrated from a AT-M6's step, it was the forewarned AT-ST that stepped into view, maybe forty metres beyond the kneeling Harte, their droid somehow attached to the vehicle's left thigh joint, the boxy cabin with the guns slowly swivelling to face them.

"Gives new meaning to the term, ball joint."

Phoom!

A missile left Aeron's weapon, hitting the front of the thing and rocking it back on its gimbles, then a moment later. BB-8 was dropping off the leg and rolling clear, just before the leg he had been on dropped into the spot where he had landed, throwing up a plume of white powder.

The Scout Walker tried gamely to stay on one leg, but that was a feat too far, falling after its lost leg and exploding on impact with the flats, shrapnel audibly whizzing past.

"Argh!" She shrieked, dropping her blaster beside her and clasping both hands to the top of her shin, just below the hem of her skirt, blood squirting between her fingers.

"Karma." Aeron muttered, eyeing her as he pointed the launcher down, and chambered a second round.

"I heard that." She dropped back against the back of the Ram, grimacing up at Finn. "What are you doing? Doesn't that thing have a 'Fire' button?"

"Yes, but I have to disrupt the command and control."

Bits of charred rubble dropped out of the sky, either plinking onto the Ram's topside, or hitting the ground around them.

"You're thinking like a stormtrooper, still." Max advised from his own corner. "You're Resistance now. Just shoot the damned thing."

"Alright, fine." Finn leaned further into the alcove and stabbed a fat red button, a hum of power immediately audible from the power generators that must be in the main part of the Ram.

"Finn, you did it!" Rey called into his ear. "It's creating a beam. A bit thin right now, but strengthening. Get back here!"

"Alright, guys, fall back."

THUMP

Aeron slung his launcher back over his shoulder and scooted forwards to scoop his tormentor up off the floor, cradling her close as he turned to head back to the 'Falcon.

"And not a moment too soon, that big walker on my side is almost turned round." Max reported as he stood stiffly up from his crouch, keeping his eye on it as he backtracked.

Finn jumped out, and stooped to collect Harte's weapon from the floor. He slapped the Abednedo on the arm, indicating their freighter. "Come on. Poe's got us covered."

Baille rested her head against Aeron's shoulder as he ferried her at a run, back towards the ramp. "I'm only allowing this cos this is a clear Condition Mauve. Universal colour for emergencies."

"Mauve? What happened to red?"

"According to my Dad, that's only Corellians, Hoatzeri, and now Dilonexans, I guess." She grimaced, a sharp sting of pain from her wound, coinciding with them running under the hull. "To the rest of the universe-" She paused to eye the route to the boarding ramp, including the mess of vertical supports that flanked the thing. "-don't hit my leg, don't hit my leg, don't hit my leg."

"Falko's Name, I've known sheep less whiny than you." Aeron got her safely into the ship, turning towards where they had the unconscious Rose. "Doc', we got another one. Shrapnel wound to the leg, just below the knee." He carefully set her down on the deck. "Easy there Captain, you are going to be fine." He looked behind him to check on the rest of the team. "Is everybody aboard?"

Max ducked in, followed by Finn, who turned to slap the illuminated control panel to the right of the open hatch, bringing the barrier snapping down.

"All aboard! Get us out of here!"

* * * *

Chewbacca growled at the shout from back in the main part of the ship.

"I know, Pal. Back seat drivers, eh?" Rey and Chewie gently bumped fists on top of each other, then raised the 'Falcon's nose, as before them, the flat-faced mountain slowly seemed to shrink in on itself, the top edge softening like a slightly failed souffle.

The AT-M6s on either side of the Death Star Ram continued their inward turns, their forward cannon, appearing like horns on the lower jaws of their 'heads' finally able to target the spot where Finn's team had been placed.

One fired a scarlet beam past their bow, not yet turned far enough to hit the rising ship.

The view of the mountain and the line of First Order vehicles blurred out of sight to their left as they turned the ship to the right, aiming towards the aqua-coloured firmament, and sublighted outta there.

FIN​

 

The first part certainly went in a direction....

 

Thank you for reading. Though I do not understand the comment.

 

Just that you took Rey and Chewbacca to rather unusual places.

 

Okay, gotcha.

 

Thank you for reading and reviewing, @Findswoman .

I enjoyed writing this one, and re-reading certain parts; eg. having Baille involved, and getting in the sheep jokes; and I am pleased to find someone else who is just as glad to see Finn front and centre, and getting the job done.

The costume thing between Rey and Chewie was not part of the original plot bunny, but it occurred to me that Mara Jade had not been on Ach-to in The Last Jedi to reverse the mind trick Rey had done to Chewie in my Island Surprise story.

Thanks again for reviewing.

 

This is such a fun entry. Everything from Rey wearing Leia’s slave outfit and Chewie’s odd requests to the crazy Porgs and ‘Mr. Supreme Leader Kylo Ren’ ,as we shall call him, being clueless once again.

Rose not making any sense and kissing people for no reason---golden! Finn knows what he’s talking about, people.

I’m guessing Millicent taught him all about being a cool cat, right?

 

Thank you for reading @gizkaspice , and for leaving a review.

Glad you found the romp fun, and liked some of the spots I liked, too. Eg. Rey's outfit, Chewie's requests, and addressing Rose.

My only regret is that there was no room in the narrative for her to wake up, and to be told her speeder licence was suspended.

Many thanks!