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The First Order has the best holosimulators in the galaxy, but nothing could have prepared you for this.
It is your first battle. You are a stormtrooper. Your designation is FN-2187, but your comrades call you 87 for short. Never around Captain Phasma, of course: Eight-Seven is too close to a nickname, which is too close to a name. She once shut down your attempt to call FN-2000 Zero, because even a name that literally means nothing means too much.
The air is heavy with smoke. Every breath you take is a sensory disconnect between what you see and what you smell, as your helmet’s filtration system kicks into gear. Stormtrooper armor is meant to be temperature-controlled as well, but its limits become more obvious with each new blaze of fire. Sweat trickles down your back.
You move, automatically in step with the other members of your squadron. You don’t have to think about where you’re going. You’ve run this simulation a thousand times.
Environment: village (small, desert). Objective: search and seizure. Strategy: containment. Drive the villagers out of their homes with flamethrowers and herd them together. Shoot at anything or anybody that shoots at you, looks like they might shoot at you, or happens to be in your way. When in doubt, err towards aggression.
Not that there’s any room to doubt. Or to think—being a stormtrooper of the First Order requires very little thinking. Every decision has already been made. You just have to carry them out.
Turn to page 3.
More shooting and fire and explosions: background noise in a holosimulator, but harder to filter out now in practice. Ahead of you, a parked X-wing discharges a blast that blows two stormtroopers clean off their feet. You don’t see where they land.
A laser blast passes very near your head. You look around for the source. Instead, you see FN-2003 fall to the ground. Hit.
FN-2003 is your friend. You have never called each other friend, not out loud, because friends are as forbidden as nicknames in the eyes of Captain Phasma and the First Order. But that is how you feel. And you know that is how he feels.
You want to help him.
If you choose to keep fighting, turn to page 7.
(Page 7: You follow the training coded into your every muscle. You don’t break stride. Your target—FN-2003’s attacker—is a man in a light brown jacket. You fix him in the crosshairs of your blaster and strike him square in the back. He falls, dead.
Thanks to you, the First Order recovers the map to Skywalker with no further difficulty. You’re awarded the stormtrooper equivalent of a medal: a commendation that appears on your service record and implies that you could be headed for a promotion.
With a promotion comes a name, the better to distinguish yourself from your subordinates. The name will even be of your own choosing.
You think about it at night, imagining yourself as a captain—perhaps with shiny chrome armor of your own—but you always draw a blank on names. You cannot imagine yourself as anybody—or anything—other than FN-2187.)
If you choose to check on your friend, turn to page 6.
You drop to your knees beside FN-2003, not sure what you can do, willing to do anything. He reaches out to you, most of his glove gone, and smears your helmet with his blood. Dead.
You get up, unseeing, swaying like you’re back on the ship coming in for a landing. You feel woozy. There’s never any blood in the holosimulators. You never noticed that until now, but now you realize it must be for the same reason they issue the masks: dehumanization. There is nothing impersonal about blood.
You follow the training coded into your muscles. You stand where you’re told to, and then fall into line as you’re told to. Everything looks wavy, incandescent, and you don’t know what’s the heat and what’s your own discombobulation.
“Kill them all.”
“On my command!”
You lift your blaster. The villagers huddle and scream. They do not wear helmets, and you can see their faces, every terrified expression, every freshly bleeding wound. For the first time, you wish you could smell the smoke in the air.
“Fire!”
If you follow the command, turn to page 11.
(Page 11: You can feel Captain Phasma’s eyes on you, even through your mask and the thick smoke and her mask, and when she shouts the command you let loose your fire.
You keep your eyes closed the entire time, not knowing where your blasts land: villagers or empty air or even fellow stormtroopers. But this only makes it worse. Every scream you hear you believe yourself to have caused.
Back on the ship, you duck into a corridor and wrench off your helmet, panting. You retch violently, and then you are vomiting into your helmet.
(At least the thing is finally living up to its reputation as a glorified bucket.)
Captain Phasma finds you and says, in a clipped tone, “Good work today, FN-2187.”
“Thank you, Captain,” you should say, but if you try to speak you’ll be sick again, so you keep your mouth clamped shut.
“But who gave you permission to remove that helmet?”
A week later, you take a wrong turn in the Star Destroyer and find yourself surrounded by children. New recruits. One boy—can’t be more than five or six—runs straight into you and goes crashing to the ground. The dummy grenade he was holding rolls down the corridor. You retrieve it, kneel down to hand it to him.
“Thanks,” he says softly, looking up at you with an expression you can’t quite place. Reverence or fear? Both, maybe.
“No problem,” you say, trying to give him a reassuring smile, but then you remember you’re wearing a helmet. “What do they call you, kid?”
“FN…” the kid says, clearly struggling to remember the combination of letters and numbers he’s just been saddled with. “2003.”)
If you decide to lower your weapon, turn to page 14.
You lower your weapon. Even though you’re choosing not to shoot, you feel defeated. Every shriek pierces your heart like a laser blast to the chest.
You can feel Kylo Ren’s eyes on you, even through your mask and the thick smoke and his mask. You know you are doomed. When Captain Phasma tells you to submit your blaster for inspection and report to her division, you know it again.
There is no way out. There is no lie you can invent, no explanation that can excuse you, no place to hide. There is no way off this ship.
Unless—you think of the man in the light brown jacket, the one Kylo Ren paralyzed and had brought on board. You know he’s a pilot for the Resistance. Maybe—
It’s an insane plan, but what other choice do you have?
To stay and face the consequences of your decision, turn to page 24.
(Page 24: You’re amazed when Captain Phasma doesn’t execute you on the spot. But of course, that’s not the way the First Order operates: even traitors are not without their utility. You catch a glimpse of the notation they add to your service record: NC-1.
Cannon fodder, is what that means.
Your next battle takes place somewhere in the Ileenium system. You and the other NC-1s are first off the gangplank, deployed right into a nest of Resistance fighters. Nobody has told you that you’re a diversion; nobody needs to. It’s immediately obvious that everyone in your squadron will die.
You make it five minutes before a laser blast brings you to your knees. It takes you a further ten minutes to die.
You spend most of that time praying for another laser blast to put you out of your misery. Your helmet knocked askew and your vision blurry with tears, the scene around you looks muted, distorted. Faceless stormtroopers fall, one by one, at the hands of Resistance fighters: determined-looking, passionate, some with tears in their eyes. They’re all yelling something you don’t quite understand.
It sounds like they’re saying For Poe!)
If you choose to make a run for it, turn to page 21.
The Resistance pilot sees through your lie in an instant.
“You need a pilot,” he deduces.
“I need a pilot,” you concede. You barely resist adding “I need a pilot really fucking bad,” because you can’t imagine how that will help.
He looks at you, and you know what he must see: a stormtrooper, a desperate man, a coward. Someone who has never done anything simply because it’s the right thing to do.
The pilot smiles—a hero’s smile, no doubt about it—and says, “We’re gonna do this.” A decision.
(Even better: a we.)
Somehow, despite your palpable terror—which makes you finally, ironically, grateful for the helmet—you make it to the TIE fighter without being caught. You make it out of the hangar without being killed. You even manage to have something like a conversation amidst all the flying and shooting and dodging, complete with mutual introductions and an impromptu christening.
And you’ve just about made it out of the Star Destroyer airspace without being blown to bits when Poe Dameron says he wants to return to fucking Jakku, of all places—and for a fucking droid, of all things.
You’re trying to make him see the idiocy of this plan when you hear a whistle like a derlac call—or, you realize too late, like a missile fired from a ventral cannon—and the world goes dark.
You wake up alone in the desert.
Fucking Jakku, you think, for just a moment, before panic swoops in and grabs you by the throat. No sign of Poe. Just miles and miles of endless sand dunes, unforgiving blue sky, and there—a plume of black smoke. You move toward it, calling out for Poe, desperate to hear him answer.
He doesn’t answer. You’re left with nothing but an empty flight jacket and a smoldering pile of sand where the TIE fighter used to be. Where Poe used to be.
If you decide to try to find your friend, turn to page 36.
(Page 36: It’s a stupid decision.
Poe is almost certainly dead—trapped in the wreckage of the TIE fighter, drowned in sand, and exploded. You’re probably just transferring some residual guilt about FN-2003’s death to this guy. The guy who killed him. (Not that you really blame Poe for shooting to kill. The way you see it, he didn’t have a choice.)
So it’s stupid, but he gave you a name, he helped you escape the First Order, and it’s your fault he’s probably dead. It’s not going to be your fault he dies if he’s not dead already. (It’s possible the heat exhaustion is already starting to get to you.)
You embark on a basic spoke pattern of search and seizure, wondering whether your holosimulation training will prove as inadequate here as it did on your last mission. You shed pieces of armor as you go, partly to mark where you’ve been but mostly because you feel like it might be welding to your skin in the heat. Returning from your second spoke, you feel certain that you and Poe are both dead men.
You find Poe five minutes into your third spoke. He’s lying motionless against the gentle slope of a sand dune, facing away from you, his feet half-buried in the sand. You run the last few steps to him, skidding on your knees as you drop to his side, your heart in your throat. You grab his shoulder and pull him over, face up.
He’s breathing. Unconscious. Your body floods with relief; you nearly choke on that heart in your throat.
“Hey. Hey, Poe Dameron, hey, wake up, wake up,” you say, more a whisper than a shout, your mouth already parched and dry. You start shaking him, slapping his face: anything to get him to wake up.
His eyes flutter.
“Wha—?” he says. (You’re being generous in your interpretation; the sound he makes is more of a mumble-moan than a word.) He blinks rapidly, and you notice grains of sand sticking to his eyelashes. You want to brush them off, but fear you’d only make it worse; instead, you shift to block the sun from his vision.
“It’s me, Finn,” you say. The words come spectacularly easy. Finn feels like the truth after a lifetime of lying. “The, uh, stormtrooper. Former stormtrooper. We crashed. On Jakku, which I guess is where—Are you okay?”
A smile spreads across Poe’s face.
“Hey, Finn,” he says, voice scratchy. “Good to see you.”
You laugh—exuberant, astonished, not believing your own luck. You take his face in your hands and kiss him soundly on the forehead. He doesn’t seem to mind.
Poe knows Jakku well enough to have an idea about which direction to head, a state of affairs you like much better than pick a direction and hope for the best. You take turns passing his jacket back and forth to shield yourselves from the sun. It’s a long walk, but you trust him, and not just because you don’t have any other choice.
Eventually, you arrive at something called the Niima outpost. There you find water and—more importantly, according to Poe, although you’d like to disagree—his droid, in the company of a pretty young woman.
She regards you with suspicious eyes until BB-8 beeps his approval. “So you’re with the Resistance?” she asks Poe. The way she looks at him when he confirms it is exactly the way a hero should be looked at. He wears it well. You look away.
The girl seems relieved to return BB-8 to his proper owner, but there’s something in her eyes you can’t quite name—a certain wistfulness, maybe even disappointment. You wonder what choices have led her to this place. You want to ask her name, but stop yourself at the last second: what would be the point?
You’ve only just parted ways when the shooting starts.
They’re aiming at all three of you: you and Poe and BB-8. Poe grabs your hand—or maybe you grab his, or maybe you both reach at the same time—and you run through the maze of tents together, dodging explosions, BB-8 at your heels.
You manage to steal a quad-jumper and get off the planet, finally leaving the whole godforsaken system behind. Poe whoops as he takes the jumper into hyperspace.
“We make a pretty damn good team, don’t we, Finn?” he shouts over the roar of the engines. You grin, giddy and relieved over yet another narrow escape. The First Order recedes deeper into space behind you.
“Eat my stardust!” you shout, and Poe laughs.
You deliver the map to General Organa together. Poe gives you far more credit for its retrieval than you think you deserve, but you choose not to object, if only because you’re not sure how. The version of your story he tells makes you sound almost heroic. Especially when he adds, “And he has information he can give us on the First Order’s big program. The new weapon.”
So you give them the information, and suddenly you find yourself in the middle of a plan to blow up a planet. Because it’s the right thing to do.
There’s a part of you that still wants to run, to put the First Order even further in the distance, to keep going and going until its shadow can’t touch you. But Poe looks at you like no one ever has. Like the way that girl looked at him. Like you’re somebody, not just a string of letters and numbers programmed to kill.
So you stay. And, okay, it’s not like you’ve got anywhere else to go. And there are still days when you want to run. You don’t know if you chose this or just sort of fell into it, but when Poe smiles at you—not the hero’s smile, but the private one that’s just for you—you don’t think it matters either way.)
If you choose to go in search of water, turn to page 43.
There’s no way Poe is still alive. You take his jacket, choose a direction, and hope for the best.
You nearly die five times over between the crash site and what passes for civilization on Jakku. (At least, that’s how it feels. You could be exaggerating, but if there’s ever an excuse for that, you think wandering dehydrated through the desert should count.)
When you finally find water, you nearly spit it all back up again, because it’s just that revolting. You drink more. It’s not so much a choice as a biological impulse. The happabore sharing your trough pushes you over before you’ve quite had your fill, but before you can get up, you hear a loud crash and turn to look.
You see a young woman fighting a group of attackers. An ambush.
To turn away, turn to page 18.
(Page 18: Not my job, you think, and you’re immediately reminded of what your job is: stormtrooper of the First Order.
Or was, anyway. You’ve left that behind.
You think of FN-2003. You think of Poe.
Fuck it, you think, and scramble to your feet. You have to try to help.
Turn to page 63.)
To try to help, turn to page 63.
Your decision to help turns out not to mean so much: you don’t even manage to reach the girl before she successfully throws off all her assailants. You pull up short, amazed. The men lie in groaning heaps, while the girl—scrappy, you think—kneels beside a burlap-covered lump, pulls the sack off to reveal an orange-and-white BB unit.
Wait. BB unit, orange and white—
The girl is staring at you. Running towards you. Wait, what?
You don’t actually wait. You don’t stop to think; you just take off running. (Call it another biological impulse.) You run alone through the maze of tents, dodging people and stalls.
You glance over your shoulder, not breaking stride. You don’t see her. Maybe, you think wildly, the universe is finally granting you a lucky break—
And then the girl slams you to the ground with her staff.
And accuses you of being a thief.
And the one-of-a-kind orange-and-white BB unit shocks you. Repeatedly.
“Stop it!” you roar, after the droid interrupts your well-mannered plea for them to back the fuck off with yet another zap to your leg.
“Where’d you get it?” the girl asks, still aggressive. “It belonged to his master.”
You look between her and the droid, your mind racing.
To come up with a lie, turn to page 166.
(Page 166: The last thing you need is to be connected to an escaped Resistance pilot and the First Order, even in the mind of a droid and a random desert-dweller. There could be stormtroopers out looking for you right now. Hell, there probably are; it’s not like you made it very far.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say. You yank your leg out of the way too late: the droid zaps you again. “Ow! Motherf—”
You physically bite your tongue, trying to clear your mind, trying to think. This is harder than you thought it would be. The First Order didn’t require much from you in the way of thinking, let alone improvisation. And none of the holosimulations had been like this.
“I—found it,” you say lamely. The girl practically growls, clearly disbelieving. “Hey, hey,” you say, directed mainly at the droid, your hand extended in a stay back gesture. “I did. I was—out. Walking around. Passing through. And I saw all this black smoke—it was a ship, crash-landed from somewhere, I don’t know where. I tried to find a way in, to rescue h—someone—whoever might’ve been in there—” For all you decided to lie, you sure are veering uncomfortably close to the truth now, and your throat starts to close up as you relive it. You clear your throat and end up coughing. “Anyway. All I found was this jacket. And then the ship exploded and, uh, sank. In the sand. Other way around, actually. Anyway, I don’t—I don’t know who it belonged to.”
The droid doesn’t zap you, but it doesn’t retract its zapping arm, either. Its head swivels to look at the girl. She sits back on her heels, looking skeptical.
“You were out for a walk? In the Sinking Fields?”
“Yeah, I—” You let out a strangled groan of frustration. “Look,” you say, and push yourself up off the ground. The girl stands too, holding her staff in a defensive position, eyes narrowed. “You want the jacket so bad? Fine. Have it.”
You shrug off the jacket—struggle out of might be more accurate, as your acute levels of frustration do not easily lend to smooth motions—and chuck it at the girl. She catches it easily.
You feel a pang, thinking of Poe, but tamp it down angrily. It’s your fault he’s dead, anyway. What were you thinking, wearing his jacket?
“Sorry about your friend,” you tell the droid. “Now just—leave me alone.”
“I still don’t believe you—” the girl starts to say.
“I don’t care!” you yell, already walking away, trying to put as much distance between yourself and them, yourself and Poe, yourself and the First fucking Order as possible. You have to get off this planet. Out of this entire godforsaken system.
You glance back over your shoulder, not breaking stride. The girl isn’t following you, at least. Now you just have to find a ship to stow away on, or someone willing to take passengers in exchange for honest work. You see a shipyard ahead—junkyard, maybe—and a prominent stall with a sign that includes the words off-planet. You grin, moving closer. Maybe now the universe is deciding to grant you that lucky break—
And then you see the stormtroopers.
Turn back to page 24.)
To tell the truth, turn to page 148.
“It belonged to Poe Dameron. That was his name, right?”
Neither the droid nor the girl contradicts you—nor, more importantly, tries to hurt you again—so you figure you’re on the right track with this truth-telling business.
“He was captured,” you continue, “by the First Order. I helped him escape”—you emphasize this bit, trying to make them see you’re not the bad guy, not anymore—“but our ship crashed. Poe didn’t make it.” Your throat starts to close up as you relive it. The droid rolls away from you, downcast. “Look, I tried to help him. I’m sorry.”
The girl regards the droid for a moment, concerned, then looks back at you. Appraising.
“So you’re with the Resistance?” she says.
To choose honesty again, turn to page 227.
(Page 227: “Uh, no,” you say.
Her face falls, then shutters. You almost wish you’d done the easy thing and lied, just so she wouldn’t look at you that way. But you were honest about Poe’s jacket—you might as well go all in.
“I’m a stormtrooper. Was a stormtrooper.”
She sits back on her heels, clearly alarmed. You expect another electric shock from the droid, but he rolls behind the girl instead, hiding.
“I’m not anymore,” you say quickly. “I left. Deserted. Like I said, I helped Poe Dameron escape. I don’t want anything to do with the First Order ever again. I swear.”
The girl stands, and you spring up too, wary in case she decides to hit you again. She lifts her staff slightly, and you flinch. But she just holds it across her body, a defensive position. Her expression is defensive too. Guarded.
“BB-8 says—” she starts.
“Poe said—” you say, overlapping.
BB-8 interrupts you both, beeping furiously.
“What is it?” the girl asks. You both move to look.
Stormtroopers.
“Oh look, it’s your friends—”
“They are not my—”
The stormtroopers look your way. You stop arguing.
You take off, grabbing her hand without thinking. She yanks it away, furious. You don’t blame her. She thinks you’re a stormtrooper. You are a stormtrooper. (You think of FN-2003’s hand reaching out to you, covered in blood.)
So you don’t hold hands, but you run through the maze of tents together, dodging explosions, BB-8 at your heels. They’re definitely firing at both of you, which you think makes her amenable to escaping together—plus, it’s not like there’s much choice. Even the choice of transport is made for you when the quad-jumper blows up before your eyes.
Part of you hopes that narrow escapes with alarmingly risk-taking pilots and baffling weaponry systems don’t become a regular feature of your new life. But part of you hopes that they do, because that was exhilarating. Especially the part where nobody crashed and burned and died at the end.
The two of you meet in the corridor, flush with relief and giddy excitement. You overlap in your praise of each other. You can’t remember ever feeling like this before. You don’t even know what name to put to it, only that you want to stand there and smile like an idiot at her forever.
BB-8 beeps, insistent. The girl turns away to kneel at his side.
“You’re okay,” she says, and then hesitates, looks up at you. You see it in her eyes as she remembers: you’re a stormtrooper. Not to be trusted. She looks back at the droid. “I’m going to get you home, BB-8. I promise.”
(An I, not a we. You’re not surprised.)
“Poe said he’s carrying a map to Luke Skywalker,” you say, in case this information is helpful.
Her brow furrows ever so slightly. She stands up, still looking guarded, but her voice is surprisingly gentle when she asks, “I don’t know your name. Do—do you have one?”
You are surprised. Poe Dameron was taken completely off-guard by the fact that you didn’t have a name, and this girl hasn’t given any indication that she’s met a stormtrooper before you.
Maybe she just understands what it’s like to not really know who you are.
“Finn,” you say. A twitch of the mouth, a rueful smile. “It’s brand new.”
“I’m Rey,” she says.
She doesn’t quite smile, but the way she looks at you has already changed, you think, at least a little. Less wary. Less closed-off and fearful. Given time, you might even get her to trust you.
You kind of want to tell her everything, your whole sob story from beginning to end: how you were taken from a family you’ll never know and raised to do one thing, how you refused to do that thing when the crucial moment came. Apparently this whole truth-telling thing is difficult to stop once you’ve gotten going. But this sudden compulsion to share isn’t even about the truth, so much as—confession. Comfort. A genuine desire to get to know this girl, and to have her know you, whoever you are.
A blast of steam bursts from a grate in the lounge, and Rey rushes to attend to it, calling, “Help me with this!”
“How bad is it?” you ask, urgent, once she’s had a look at the damage.
“If we wanna live, not good!”
So it’s a life-or-death thing, but even as you frantically search through a pile of tools, trying to figure out what the hell any of them actually are, you have to suppress a smile. It’s also a we thing.
It’s not much. It’s enough.)
If you choose to go along with the lie, turn to page 172.
“Obviously,” you say, springing to your feet. You can’t believe your luck. This girl’s (admittedly understandable) misconception is exactly the good break your messed-up day needed. “Yes. I am. I’m with the Resistance, yeah.” You lower your voice, like you’re sharing a secret, and repeat, “I am with the Resistance.”
The repetition actually makes you feel committed. Hell, you almost believe your own lie.
Wildly, impossibly, she seems to believe you too. The way she looks at you sends shivers down your spine. Like she’s impressed.
Like you’re a real goddamn hero.
You feel ashamed.
You don’t dwell on it; this is too good an opportunity to pass up, and besides, you’ve got bigger things to worry about. Like the stormtroopers headed your way, firing their blasters—
You take off, grabbing her hand to pull her along through the marketplace. She protests, loudly, but you barely hear her, intent on the whole not dying in an explosion thing.
You run through the maze of tents together, dodging explosions, BB-8 at your heels. You escape together, by the skin of your teeth—plus whatever the droidal equivalent of teeth is—making it off-planet with one final maneuver so incredible that you might have to revise your stance on holosimulation versus reality.
Once you’ve both calmed down enough—at least to the point where you’re no longer shouting “That was amazing!” and “It was perfect!” in each other’s faces—she asks your name. You tell her.
“I’m Rey,” she says, and smiles at you, sweet.
You can’t bring yourself to smile back. I’m lying to you, you think, and it feels about as monstrous as anything you ever did for the First Order.
To keep your mouth shut, turn to page 255.
(Page 255: The thought of the First Order reminds you of why you lied in the first place. When I’m a stormtrooper is your truth, what choice do you really have?
You need to get as far away from them as possible. That’s what matters. Rey is—incidental.
(You tell yourself this, but you don’t quite believe it. Feels a lot like lying.)
So you don’t say anything, and the moment stretches out a beat past comfort. And then a blast of steam bursts from a grate in the lounge, and Rey shouts, “Help me with this!” and you swallow your guilt for another moment.)
To come clean, turn to page 206.
If you’re going to be travelling together—especially with BB-8’s mission looming over you—then it has to be better to come clean now rather than to let the lie fester. Like ripping off a bandage, you tell yourself.
“Rey—” you start to say, taking an unconscious step forward.
A blast of steam bursts from a grate in the lounge, setting off loud alarms. Moving quickly on Rey’s command, you help her lift the grating so she can go below.
You feel a mixture of frustration and relief at the interruption. It seems like every time you make a choice based on noble intentions—to help Rey fight off those thugs, to come clean now—it’s quickly rendered moot. Maybe it’s a sign. Doing something because it’s the right thing to do just doesn’t work for you.
(Look how it worked out for Poe, even: the Resistance hero dies, and the fucking stormtrooper walks away clean and clear. With the hero’s jacket and a false claim to his job, to boot.)
“It’s the motivator!” Rey says. “Grab me a Harris wrench—check in there!”
You search frantically through a pile of tools, trying to figure out what the hell any of them actually are. “How bad is it?”
“If we wanna live, not good!”
So it’s a life-or-death thing, which just reminds you of what you’re fleeing from.
“They’re hunting for us now,” you say. “We gotta get out of this system!”
You hold out the wrench, and Rey snatches it from your hand.
“BB-8 said the location of the Resistance Base is need to know. If I’m taking you there, I need to know!”
She catches the next tool you throw at her and disappears below again.
You contemplate telling her the truth. Not only for her sake and the sake of your guilty conscience, but because there’s actual galaxy-impacting consequences at stake here with BB-8’s mission, and “the location of the Resistance Base” isn’t something you can just bullshit. This is your moment to come clean.
(Of course, you thought it was your moment before.)
If you decide to tell her the truth, turn to page 174.
(Page 174: “Rey, listen,” you say.
“I am listening!” You can’t decide if not being able to see her face makes this easier or harder. She pops an arm up, making grabby-hands. “I think I need—yeah, Pilex driver next. Hurry!”
You practically dive for the thing, grateful for the momentary distraction. You put the driver directly into her hand, and it disappears again.
“Your base?” she says, even more urgent. You don’t know how she’s able to concentrate on saving both your lives and interrogating you at the same time; you can barely tell what tool is what.
“Uh,” you say, stalling. “What do you need next?”
“Bonding tape, in a minute.”
You put all your concentration into searching for something tape-like, which actually proves a bigger challenge than anticipated. BB-8 indicates the tape at just the right moment; when she pops up again, you’re able to hand it right to her.
“Rey, listen,” you say again, because you’ve run out of tools to hand her, and you’ve decided it is better not having to look directly at her for this. “Look. I’m not with the Resistance, okay?”
You hold your breath. There’s a long silence—speaking-wise, at least; the alarms continue to blare, and you can hear her working below. Finally, all at once, the steam stops and the alarms shut up and Rey reappears, looking like she doesn’t understand.
“What did you say?”
You take a deep breath. Face to face, then. She lifts herself easily out of the open grate, perfectly agile. You stand up too.
“I’m not with the Resistance,” you say. You force yourself to meet her eyes.
“But you said—”
“I know what I said,” you interrupt. “I lied. I was—like I said, I’ve had a pretty messed-up day, alright? And I was telling the truth about helping Poe Dameron escape from the First Order, and you just—assumed I was with the Resistance, and, I don’t know, I went along with it, because it was easier, and because you were holding a weapon on me—”
You realize it sounds like you’re blaming her for your lie, which is hardly fair, but you just want so badly to make her see you’re not the bad guy here. Not anymore.
“Wait,” she says. You can see her mind racing, recontextualizing. Her expression is a twist of shock and—something not quite decided. Anger maybe. Betrayal. (Whatever it is, it’s a far cry from the way she looked at you when you first said you were Resistance.) “So if you’re not Resistance—then who are you? And how did—why did”—she waves a vague hand, clearly frustrated, in BB-8’s direction—“with his master? The escape?”
“I was a stormtrooper,” you say. “With the First Order. I was there when he was captured. I—deserted. I needed a pilot to get off the ship.”
It’s hardly the full story, but she doesn’t look exactly receptive to a sharing session right now. She looks mutinous. When you say the word stormtrooper, her face turns ugly, and you think of the stormtroopers chasing you on Jakku, how Rey nearly died in an explosion.
“I just want to get as far away from the First Order as possible,” you say. You spread your hands wide—an open gesture, pleading. “I’m sorry.”
You see the conflict in her eyes, he lied to me warring with at least he admitted it and we escaped together warring with stormtrooper. You know it can’t help your case that you only gave up your lie when it became factually unsustainable.
She turns away from you, a sharp motion.
“I have to get BB-8 to his base,” she says, and something in your chest crumbles into dust.
BB-8 rolls speedily toward her, seeming eager to get away from you. She kneels down, and you watch her back, helpless, as she asks something you can’t hear. BB-8 beeps his response. Rey nods, stands.
She seems to steel herself. She turns her head slightly, just enough so you know her words are directed at you, but not far enough that she has to look at you. “I’m going to check if the pods still work,” she says. “If one of them does, I’ll drop you off at the nearest inhabited planet. Probably Ogem. Otherwise, I’ll leave you at the Ponemah Terminal.”
“Rey…” you say, but you don’t know how to finish the sentence. She doesn’t look back at you anyway, her shoulders tense as she heads into the cockpit.
The ship goes dark.
For a split second you think it’s something Rey’s done on purpose, like some sort of punishment. And then you realize that’s insane.
“Somebody’s locked on—all controls are overridden,” she’s mumbling when you enter the cockpit.
“That can’t be good,” you say. She doesn’t respond, but the look in her eyes says she agrees.
You scramble onto your chair and the control panel, struggling for a better view, nearly tipping over without something to grab to steady yourself. Your heart drops straight to your stomach as you catch a glimpse of the gigantic freighter reeling you in.
“It’s the First Order,” you breathe.
Rey doesn’t seem like she wants to participate in your poison gas plan, once you propose it—probably has something to do with how she no longer trusts you—but in the right-this-very-minute life-or-death circumstances she doesn’t have much of a choice. You hide together, BB-8 in tow, and it might be awkward if the terror weren’t so overwhelming.
When Han Solo, possible war hero, boards the ship with some big hairy moaning thing and finds your hiding place instantly, the resulting confusion overrides both terror and awkwardness.
Han Solo echoes Rey almost exactly when he suggests packing you into a pod and dumping you on the nearest inhabited planet. Except he means both of you.
“Wait! No—we need your help!”
Your heart swells a little, and then you realize the we Rey’s referring to is herself and BB-8.
“This droid has to get to the Resistance base as soon as possible,” she says. “He’s carrying a map to Luke Skywalker.”
You don’t get much more out of Han before the latest crisis reveals itself: rathtars, of all fucking things. And then a couple of death gangs, just to sweeten the pot.
You and Rey crouch in the freighter’s crawl space, hardly daring to breathe.
It’s even worse than the last time, because you don’t have a weaponized gas leak at your disposal, and there’s no chance of these surprise guests turning out to be friendly. (Not that Han Solo and Chewie are friendly, exactly.) And it’s worse because you don’t know where you stand with Rey.
There’s distance between you now. Even with so much at stake, even with rathtars and death gangs and the word fugitives hanging in the air, you can tell she’s only really acknowledging your presence when it’s absolutely unavoidable. Is she hoping you get caught, so that she can be rid of you? You wish you could have a break from the nonstop threats to your life to talk to her, to try to explain yourself better than you have so far. You think you could get her to understand.
And then the rathtars attack.
All thoughts of distance and relationship uncertainty disappear from your mind. You grab for her, and she grabs for you, and you run together, pulling each other through corridors and around corners.
You scream Rey’s name when a rathtar grabs you, and she screams yours.
When find yourself on the floor, wrapped up in a still-twitching tentacle that’s no longer attached to anything, Rey appears only a moment later.
“It had me!” you say, stating the obvious, trying to make sense of it. “But the door—!”
“You’re welcome!” she says, and you understand: she saved you. You think maybe she meant it in a slightly biting way, but instead she sounds wholly genuine. Biting is not in Rey’s nature, you are sure, any more than letting you die. Even liar and stormtrooper that you are.
You make it back onto the ship, and she and Han pilot you off in yet another risky narrow escape—so it is becoming a habit—while you try not to let the big hairy moaning thing kill you while you attempt to bandage his wound.
You manage, barely. Han Solo even thanks you for it, and you do your best to suavely accept his gratitude. The effect is ruined, somewhat, by your leaning forward and accidentally hitting some button that causes an old hologame set to flicker to life.
“So, fugitives, huh?” Solo says, while you fiddle with the controls, trying to find the off switch.
“The First Order wants the map,” Rey says. “I have to get BB-8 to the Resistance. And Finn…”
She looks at you. It’s the first real, purposeful look she’s given you since you told her the truth. She lifts her chin slightly, and you realize: she’s testing you. She’s giving you a choice, weighing you, seeing how you will measure out.
She’s not aggressive, Rey, but she’s stronger than she looks. Unbending.
Before the death gangs and the rathtars she was ready to punt you off-ship at the next available opportunity, and you feel like she’d still be willing now, depending on your response.
But now you’ve had another escape, another rescue, another near-death experience together. That shouldn’t mean anything, maybe, in the wake of your deception. Shouldn’t, but does. Nothing forces trust or forges bonds like saving each other from being devoured by ravenous beasts.
Rey looks at you, looks at you, and you swear you see the slightest hint of a smile in her eyes, the same soft look she’d given you when she first introduced herself. She’s giving you a chance. To make good, to see this through. All you have to do is choose.
If you decide to help Rey complete her mission, turn to page 141.
If you decide to keep running, turn to page 93.)
To talk to BB-8 instead, page 165.
This is hardly a good moment to have a sharing session, what with the poison gas and blaring alarms and all. You decide to take advantage of Rey being belowdecks by having a man-to-droid chat with BB-8.
“You gotta tell us where the base is,” you say. He beeps and you wave him off, impatient. “I don’t speak that. Alright, between us, I’m not with the Resistance, okay? I’m just trying to get away from the First Order—but you tell us where your base is, I’ll get there first. Deal?”
Rey pops up and demands a Pilex driver before you can get a straight answer from BB-8—not that you’re entirely sure what a straight answer would look and/or sound like—and you hold your breath when Rey looks expectantly at him at your prompting. Your relief when BB-8 keeps your secret is nearly overwhelming.
That relief is short-lived, because Rey wants to return to fucking Jakku for some damn reason.
Even your raging disbelief at that is short-lived, because the First Order locks onto the ship’s control system, and suddenly Jakku sounds like a tropical vacation in comparison.
Your terror doesn’t last long either, and by this point you’ve given up keeping track: all you know is there’s suddenly a war hero and a big hairy moaning thing on board, and then there are rathtars and death gangs and a handful of fresh new near-death experiences, and then you’re back on the ship and the big hairy moaning thing is trying to kill you while you do your damnedest to patch it up. You manage.
“Good job, kid,” Han Solo says, once he’s checked on Chewie. “And thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” you say, trying to look and sound deserving of thanks. Instead, you lean forward and accidentally hit some button that causes an old hologame set to flicker to life.
“So, fugitives, huh?” Solo says, while you fiddle with the controls, trying to find the off switch.
“Finn’s with the Resistance,” answers Rey. You wish she wouldn’t sound so appreciative. “I’m just a scavenger.” Or so self-effacing.
To speak up, turn to page 245.
(Page 245: “About that,” you say, forcing the words out quickly, before you can think better of it and stop yourself. “I’m not Resistance.”
You find the switch and turn the hologame set off. Only then do you look up.
Your words still hang in the air. Like accepting the lie in the first place, coming clean was a split-second decision, a say-it-now-or-say-it-never prospect. You’ve said it. Apparently. You’re a little surprised by the decision, belatedly, not entirely convinced the deed is done.
But they’re staring at you, so you must have done it. Han Solo looks strangely unfazed—just a little annoyed, maybe, like he’s barely resisting rolling his eyes. Rey looks blank and shocked and uncomprehending and disbelieving all at once, like she’s waiting for the punchline. BB-8 looks alarmed. Somehow.
“What does that mean?” Rey says, and you flinch, because you were expecting anger, but not hurt. You feel like a monster. Like exactly what the First Order raised you to be, a person—barely that, even—who would not hesitate to fire when ordered.
“Means what it sounds like,” Han says, and you can hear the dislike coloring his voice. You’re not surprised; it’s obvious he and Rey have some sort of freaky pilot-related synchronicity going on, something that’s created an instant bond between them. (If Poe were here, you think, he would’ve been part of it too.) “He lied to you, kid. He’s not Resistance any more than I am. Hell—less.”
“I am a fugitive,” you say. You want so badly to prove that not everything has been a lie. “From the First Order.”
“What for?” Rey says.
“I deserted. I was a stormtrooper.” The look on Rey’s face when you say the word makes your heart plummet to your stomach. “Rey, I only did it so you’d trust me.”
Rey looks like she’s about to cry. This is not how this was supposed to go. (You don’t know how it was supposed to go, which is maybe where the problem started.) But when she speaks, she sounds angry.
“How can you—sit there, and say that, so casually?” she spits.
Casually? Of all the allegations you were expecting to have thrown at you, casual wasn’t one. (You should just stop expecting things, you think; maybe then you will stop feeling constantly blindsided by the unexpected.) Your hands are shaking. You don’t feel remotely casual.
“Rey, I—”
“You’re a stormtrooper, and you lied about being Resistance so I would trust you—”
Han snorts.
“Tale as old as time.”
“No, that’s not what I—” you say. “I just needed help escaping. I didn’t care about—”
You clam up. Hearing yourself, and your own words spit back at you, and Han’s interpretation of the whole thing—it does sound bad. You should have said it differently.
You miscalculated, you realize. You barely calculated at all.
This entire time, you’ve been encountering opportunities for honesty, and after careful consideration you’ve found excuses not to take each one. And every passed-up opportunity compounded your guilt. It’s been growing and growing inside you until you couldn’t take it any more, and now the truth has erupted out: fragmented, messy, distorted.
This was the wrong moment, the wrong environment. Wrong words, wrong timing, wrong demeanor.
Too late, you see what Rey saw: an offhand admission in the middle of a totally different conversation. Sure, Rey told Han you were Resistance, but that was less an occasion to confess than a blink-and-you-miss-it moment on the way to something else that nobody but the guilty party would notice passing by. And you did it immediately after escaping capture as a fugitive, as though you simply no longer had any reason to maintain the lie now that the opportunity to sell you to the nearest death gang has passed. And you’ve made no real attempt at justifying your actions. Everything you’ve said so far has come out so wrong.
You want to explain, really explain, to tell Rey how you were taken from a family you’ll never know and raised to do only one thing, how you decided you weren’t going to kill for them, how you ran, how she—and Poe Dameron—made you feel ashamed, made you want to be a better man. But it feels all wrong to say that now. If there was a turnoff in the conversation that would lead there, you’ve long since blown past it. You wish Han weren’t here. It doesn’t matter.
You waited too long. After everything you’ve been through: your first escape from Jakku, the gas leak, being boarded by Han and Chewie, the death gangs, the rathtars. The more you and Rey grew to know and depend on one another, the worse the lie became. Now you’re a twice-over traitor.
You wish you could take it all back and start again. (You don’t know how far back you would take it. Somewhere in your past, you know, amidst the million branching paths you could have taken, there must be the right one.)
“Rey…” you say, but you don’t know how to finish the sentence.
“I don’t want anything to do with you,” she says, turning away, a sharp motion, and something in your chest crumbles into dust.)
To bite your tongue and say nothing, turn to page 222.
You let them talk. You keep your attention on the hologame table, fiddling with the controls. Finally you manage to turn it off.
To your relief Han and Rey have turned their attention to BB-8, making it safe for you to reengage with the conversation. (As though you can pretend you didn’t hear them talking about your alleged Resistance affiliation, as though that would somehow absolve you of the guilt of letting the lie fester, pretending there wasn’t yet another obvious opportunity for honesty. Your guilt multiplies with every one you let slip by.)
With Rey’s encouragement, BB-8 fills the room with his dearly held starmap. You move through it, planets and star systems circling your head in lazy arcs, and it’s impossible not to feel awed. You’ve seen a holographic maps before, of course, but never one that purports to lead directly to Luke Skywalker. When Han Solo turns reflective, starts talking about temples and apprentices and Jedi, you feel like you’re being swept away by some ancient force, the accumulated myths and legends of an entire galaxy concentrated in a single moment. You forget who you are. (To be fair, it’s not difficult to forget what you barely know.)
The Millennium Falcon comes to ground on a planet awash in green, and as glad as you are not to have finally escaped the orbit of Jakku, worst planet in the galaxy, it’s still a harsh return to reality. If anything, you’re even more on edge now. You’re too near the First Order here, too far from where you want to be—which, circuitous logic aside, is best defined as as far from the First Order as galatically possible.
Rey and BB-8 disembark first, but you don’t follow. You approach Han Solo instead, as he rummages around in a built-in storage unit.
“Hey, Solo,” you say, getting his attention. “I’m not sure what we’re walking into here—”
“Did you just call me ‘Solo’?” Solo says, giving you a weird look. You blink. Proper etiquette of address is so far from your mind right now, it’s on another fucking planet. (Technically, it’s back on your bunk in the Star Destroyer, section 36B subsection V of your Imperial Stormtrooper Corps Field Manual: Correct Forms of Address for Superior Officers.)
“Sorry,” you say. You’re still trying to gauge who Solo is to you. More friend than foe, obviously, and you can’t deny he’s been helpful thus far, and there’s the whole Rebellion general/war hero thing to think about.
But he also kind of seems like a dick.
You wonder whether he appreciates the kind of danger you’re in should the First Order get its hands on you. Probably he encounters that sort of danger all the time, but you’d sure as hell like to be done with it forever. You’re desperate for some kind of reassurance that you’re not walking directly into a trap.
“Han—Mr. Solo.” (You’re still not sure what’s right. You don’t care.)
If you decide to tell Han Solo the truth, turn to page 188.
(Page 188: “Uh,” you say, eyes darting about, lowering your voice in case Rey comes back on board. “Listen, you gotta help me out here, man. I’m not actually Resistance.”
Han glances at you, slightly raises his eyebrows.
“No shit, kid,” he says.
Whatever reaction you were imagining, that wasn’t it. He barely seems interested in this conversation.
“Well…” you say, wrong-footed. “What should I do? With, uh, Rey, and—”
He shoves a blaster at your chest and moves past you. “Don’t care.” He gives you a friendly slap on the shoulder, hand slipping off as he moves away.
After a long moment of staring at the wall, you turn to follow.)
If you decide to try impressing him with your imaginary importance, turn to page 196.
You’re not sure how telling Solo would help, and besides, you’re pretty sure he’s more on Rey’s side than yours. The two of them have some freaky pilot-related synchronicity going on that you don’t really get.
You lean into the lie instead, trying to leverage your importance—you imagine yourself as a very high-ranking Resistance agent, crucial to the cause—to suss out the danger level here.
Solo brushes you off with some cryptic statement about women always learning the truth. Which confirms two things you already suspected: one, that he definitely likes Rey more than you, and two, your seams are starting to show. You’re amazed you haven’t erupted yet, guilt and fear and apologies flowing forth like lava. You are just barely holding it together.
The castle is loud and crowded and not as seedy as it could be, and every single person inside looks suspicious to you anyway.
Han said Maz Kanata could be trusted, but he can hardly vouch for everyone in her hall. He also warned you not to stare, which is hardly an issue: you can barely focus. Are those Gungans in the corner looking at you? Has one of those sabacc players at the next table over already put in a call to the First Order?
All you want is to secure Maz’s help and get the hell out of here. When she starts going on about darkness and evil and the need to stand and fight, you can’t fucking take it anymore.
“There is no fight against the First Order!” you erupt. “Not one we can win.”
There are no options here, no branching paths to choose between. There is escape or there is death. This, at least, is not a decision you need to agonize over. You don’t know how the rest of them can sit there so calmly and talk about the coming darkness as though it’s something they can choose to stand against.
You don’t flinch when Maz Kanata crawls across the table and peers into your face. (Okay, you do flinch. But you stand your ground all the same.)
“If you live long enough, you see the same eyes in different people. I’m looking at the eyes of a man who wants to run.”
“You don’t know a thing about me,” you say, trying to keep your voice from shaking. (You don’t add the obvious: you’re not sure you know much about yourself, either.) “Where I’m from. What I’ve seen. You don’t know the First Order like I do. They’ll slaughter us. We all need to run.”
Maz retreats, wearing an expression you’re not eager to name. Han makes a face into his drink. Only Rey looks stunned.
Stunned morphs into disbelieving when you ask her to come with you to the Outer Rim.
“What about BB-8?” she says. “We’re not done yet. We have to get him back to your base.”
You don’t think you’ve ever met a person so sincere and honest in your life. (To be fair, most of the people you’ve met have been First Order.) And she still thinks you’re a hero. You look at her, and you think how easy it would have been, in some slightly sideways universe, to have first met her on the opposite side of things. You imagine seeing her through the sight of your blaster. You hear the order to fire.
“I can’t,” you say, and you get up to leave. You don’t see what choice you have.
The smugglers Maz pointed out aren’t exactly friendly, but they’re responsive enough. Rey barges in before you’ve got very far.
“What are you doing?” she demands.
“Don’t leave without me,” you tell the smugglers, and you take her aside.
“You can’t just go,” Rey says. Her eyes search your face. “I won’t let you.”
If you choose to maintain the lie to the bitter end, turn to page 259.
(Page 259: “I have to,” you say. “Rey, you don’t know the First Order like I do. We should all be running.” You’re just repeating yourself now, but you don’t know what else to say.
You can’t tell her the truth. Not after everything you’ve been through. And not if this is the last time you’re ever going to see each other.
“But you’re a Resistance fighter,” she says, and you wince. “You have to—”
“I don’t have to do anything,” you interrupt. She looks at you, shock and confusion coloring her features. If you were worried about tarnishing her image of you—her memory of you—by telling the truth, it occurs to you that maintaining the lie might actually be worse. A Resistance fighter who’s given up the fight. A poor way to repay Poe’s memory, but then, so was lying to begin with. And keeping his damn jacket.
“Take this,” you say, taking it off. Poe and Rey have more in common with each other than either ever did with you; you feel sorry that they never got to meet. Instead you got in the way and didn’t do much good for either of them.
“Finn…” Rey says, the beginning of an objection, but you push the jacket into her hands anyway.
“I can’t fight anymore,” you say. You know it’s not much of an explanation. Maybe a Resistance fighter who’s given up the fight is enough to shock Rey into realizing how pointless that fight is. Maybe this way you can save her. If you admitted the truth about being a stormtrooper, you think, that would just encourage her to say you should fight instead of fleeing. Her hand is in yours, still wrapped around the jacket, and you squeeze. “I have to run. Please, Rey, come with me.”
“I won’t let you leave,” she repeats. There are tears in her eyes. You see BB-8 over her shoulder, waiting for her, and you know she will not be convinced.
“It’s not your choice, Rey. It’s mine.”
You see the hurt in her eyes. She pulls her hand back, and you let her go. You take one last long look at her.
You turn away, a sharp motion, and something in your chest crumbles into dust.)
To confess the truth at last, turn to page 70.
You don’t see much point in lying now. It’s the end of the line. You care more about her safety than you do her opinion of you. After this, you’re never going to see her again, one way or another.
“I’m not Resistance,” you say, and after holding back all those times, it’s a relief to speak the words. The next sentence is harder, the lie more precious to you: “I’m not a hero.”
Rey tries to starts to say something, but you stop her.
“I’m a stormtrooper. Like all of them, I was taken from a family I’ll never know. And raised to do one thing. But my first battle, I made a choice. I wasn’t going to kill for them.”
(And you’ve been making choices ever since—some you regret, some you don’t. It turns out that striking out on your own means a nonstop barrage of decisions to make, paths to take or avoid, options to choose between—all without a helpful manual to demarcate right from wrong. It’s exhausting. Part of you wants to go back to taking orders. You don’t say this, though, because the rest of you, the wiser part, knows that this overabundance of choice is better than the alternative.)
“So I ran,” you continue. “Right into you. And you looked at me like no one ever had. I was ashamed of what I was. But I’m done with the First Order. I’m never going back. Rey, come with me.”
Rey swallows. You know she has every right to hate you.
“Don’t go,” she says.
Something blooms to life in your chest.
After everything you just admitted, she still wants you to stay. This is what it’s like, you think. Caring about someone, calling them by their proper name. You want to be worthy of it. You want to be worthy of the name you were given, of Rey’s trust and the soft look in her eyes—but you are also scared to death.
If you decide to stay, turn to page 288.
(Page 288: “Okay,” you say. You hear yourself speak as if from very far away.
“‘Okay’?” Rey repeats. She’s tremulous, disbelieving. “Really?”
“Yeah. Yes. Okay.” You are certain that you are saying yes to certain death, but if it’s for Rey—fine. It’s not like you’ve got much of a life to leave for, anyway. “I’ll stay.”
She smiles, touches your face, takes your hand. She turns to lead you back to Maz’s table.
“Do you hear that?” she says, coming to a sudden stop. You nearly run into her. She’s looking down a staircase. It curves quickly out of sight, but still seems to descend unnaturally fast into total darkness.
“What?”
“That—It sounds like a girl. Crying. Screaming.”
She starts to head off, and you tighten your fingers, still intertwined with hers. A reflex. She stops and watches you, wide-eyed, as you listen very carefully. You realize this means she trusts your judgment.
“You don’t hear anything?” she whispers. “It’s so loud. How could—”
“I don’t hear anything,” you say. The staircase is giving you the creeps. You don’t know much about the Force, but you feel like screams only one person can hear can’t mean anything good. “Let’s keep moving.” You push gently on her elbow, and she moves forward reluctantly.
You’re with Maz and Han when the First Order attacks.
You have vague plans of getting to the woods to hide—“We have to protect BB-8 at all costs,” Rey says, “He’s what’s most important,” and you agree, except you think she is—but you barely make it out of the castle before you’re caught in battle.
You and Rey both have blasters from Han, which keep you from being completely defenseless, but hardly make you a match for stormtrooper weaponry. (You should know.) You do a lot of ducking.
You manage to take out a few stormtroopers, sniper style. Only when one of them calls you a traitor—in FN-2199’s voice—do you realize that this is your unit. The helmets do their job well. You wonder whether you’ve killed anyone you know.
You get hit.
It’s a stray blaster shot from a nearby skirmish. FN-2199 never even got the chance to touch you. You feel the laser rip through your lower abdomen, and for the first time since you crash-landed on Jakku you wish you were wearing your armor. Rey kneels by your side, presses her palm against the pain. You don’t remember falling.
You hear Han and Chewie nearby. Hopefully they’re providing you with cover. You want to get up, to help, but your vision is fading in and out and your brain feels fuzzy around the edges. You hear a barked command, more authoritative than the rest, but you don’t recognize the words. A strange silence. You wonder if this means the battle is won or lost. You want to look at Rey to gauge the circumstances, but turning your head makes you woozy. You close your eyes instead.
You open them again, seconds or minutes or days later, when you hear a familiar roar overhead. You see an X-wing swooping across the red-streaked sky and think, through a haze of fog, that’s one hell of a pilot.
They get you on a Resistance ship as soon as one touches down.
(As you board, you catch a glimpse of Maz Kanata standing in the rubble. She’s watching Rey very closely, and through her goggles her eyes are almost suspicious.)
A med-droid sticks a needle in your arm, and you black out instantly.
You’re still on the Resistance ship when you wake up. But it’s not moving anymore, and you see trees outside the window. You must be on D’Qar.
Rey is there—curled up next to you, eyes closed, lightly dozing. You know she hasn’t left your side.
Your fingers search out your wound. Instead you find a bandage. It’s not as big as you thought it would be, just a small patch on the lower left of your abdomen, right above the hipbone. You don’t look beneath, but you can guess at the procedure: skin sutured together, maybe a blood transfusion. They haven’t taken you off the ship and brought you into a med bay, so it must have been addressable with basic first aid.
Your stirring rouses Rey, who blinks awake. Her eyes focus on you, and she smiles, soft.
“Hey,” you say. “How’d we do?”
She takes your hand. You are glad to feel the strength in her fingers.
“We’re done, I guess,” she says slowly. “BB-8’s back where he belongs. They’re saying he’s the only thing keeping the First Order from destroying this entire system.”
“That sounds good.” Your words feel laughably meager in response to a system existence-level threat. You were afraid before, when you thought the First Order was going to capture you, but now that Starkiller Base is operational you feel a whole new level of fear, terrible and awe-inspiring.
“The Resistance is coming up with a plan to take out the weapon, I think,” Rey says, like she’s feeling the same way.
You struggle to sit up. It’s easier than you expected. You are relieved to be reminded that the pain of an injury does not always correlate with its seriousness.
Rey looks concerned anyway.
“You should just stay here,” she says. “They said you’ll be fine, but you shouldn’t move any more than you have to.”
Her eyes dart to the little window behind you, and you suspect it might be her who doesn’t want to leave this ship. Considering her excitement about the Resistance, and her weird bond with Han, you don’t know why she’d be avoiding either.
Maybe it’s a matter of temptation.
General Organa stops by to offer her thanks, but it’s a brief affair, harried. She also offers you both the opportunity to stay and aid the Resistance—to make good on your lie, you think—but Rey turns her down. She has to get back to Jakku. You don’t object.
“In a better world, we’d hold a medal ceremony,” the General says with a wry smile. “But under the circumstances, I’m afraid all we can manage is to give you a ship. It’ll just be a small shuttle, but it should get you to Jakku.”
You finally deboard the rescue ship, only to cross a few yards of tarmac to board the new ship. You take a deep breath of D’Qar on the way, trying to store up the feeling of lush verdancy to get you through the dry days of Jakku.
Han catches you before you board. He gives Rey some tips on piloting the shuttle that she probably doesn’t need but seems to appreciate anyway. He claps you on the shoulder, which is more than you expected. You’ll take it.
Rey hugs him, and you could swear he goes misty-eyed for a moment. He clears his throat, gruff; she turns away and furtively wipes her eyes.
(As you board the shuttle, you swear you catch a faraway glimpse of a familiar face, but you know it must have been a trick of the light: Poe Dameron is dead.)
You live on edge for months. But apparently Jakku really is the last place in the galaxy the First Order would think to look for you—and besides, you figure, it’s unlikely that either of you are the high-priority fugitives you once were. You yourself are nothing more than a low-ranking deserter, and Rey is just a scavenger. For a few days you were both accidentally entangled in something big and important, but that’s over. The map is out of your hands. Neither of you are of any inherent value to the First Order. You are but grains of sand.
You build a life on Jakku with Rey. She tells you she’s waiting for her family, but nobody comes. You see a faraway look in her eyes, like she’s thinking of bigger things, being pulled in multiple directions. Sometimes she wonders aloud about the Resistance, whether they’ve found Luke Skywalker yet, what BB-8’s next mission is. Poe Dameron’s jacket joins the Rebellion helmet Rey has stashed away, the detritus of a more significantly lived life. Sometimes she dons them both and sits outside hugging her knees, and you know she’s remembering what it’s like to fly amongst the stars.
Still, she refuses to leave Jakku.
You look into her eyes and feel like somebody needs to break a hard truth to her. You don’t think it can be you—you don’t have the authority, and besides, what the hell do you know about truth? So no one ever does, and the look in her eyes remains perpetually unresolved. But her eyes for you are always kind and sweet.
It’s not much of a life, probably not one either of you would have chosen if you were given your pick. But the First Order makes that impossible. And Rey feels she has no choice. She’s too busy waiting.
When she smiles at you—a private smile, just for you—it almost doesn’t matter.)
If you decide to run, turn to page 34.
“Take care of yourself, Rey,” you say, meaning it more than you’ve ever meant anything. You take one last long look at her, and you turn to leave. (You take another last look a few steps later, but Rey, staring down a staircase with a haunted look in her eyes, doesn’t notice.)
You’ve barely stepped onto the gangplank when the air around you pulses with frisson. You look up at a red-streaked sky. The accompanying roar is unlike anything you have heard before, yet it reminds you of a tiny village on a desert planet—villagers screaming, blasters firing.
Starkiller Base.
If you decide to leave anyway, turn to page 90.
(Page 90: You barely make it off the planet before the First Order fleet swoops in, but they blow right past the smugglers’ junker. Slim yells from the cockpit: “We’re being scanned! For…droids?”
“Lucky we don’t have any, then,” growls Big Head. He seems intent on getting out of the system as soon as possible, which you can appreciate.
You turn back to look at the receding planet. It really is incredibly green.
You hope Rey made it out okay.
She did. She must have. She’s fine. She must be.
You shouldn’t have left.
Maz was right. Or you were right, and Rey was wrong: she should have left with you.
But if it was a choice between staying with Rey and leaving on your own, you should have stayed. You should have stayed.
It’s too late.)
If you choose to stay, turn to page 101.
You turn back, barely having to think about it. The decision is made so quickly you’re hardly conscious of making it.
You find Maz and Han right away, but Rey isn’t with them.
Maz takes you downstairs, hands you a metal rod and says you need to give it to Rey. A beat late, you realize what it reminds you of: Kylo Ren’s lightsaber. The Jedi had lightsabers, you remember. Luke Skywalker, and—and—you’re not sure. Having been raised by the First Order, your Jedi-related knowledge is scattered and contradictory and probably largely propaganda.
The room shakes around you, and you stop wondering why Han looks so incredulous or what any of this has to do with Rey. You have to find her.
The lightsaber surprises you. It’s easier to wield than you thought it would be: lighter and more balanced. You’re holding your own pretty well—until suddenly you’re not.
You cheat death, but accept surrender.
Then: the Resistance.
The real Resistance. At some point while you were maintaining the fiction of your affiliation, you kind of forgot that the Resistance really exists. Sure, there was Poe—the classic hero straight out of a recruitment poster, there and then gone—but it blows your mind to see them in these kinds of numbers, here in the plain light of day.
An X-wing swoops across the red-streaked sky, and you whoop and yell, relief flooding your body and making you dizzy. “That’s one hell of a pilot!” you shout. In all the excitement, you nearly forget to wonder where Rey is.
You see Kylo Ren striding out of the forest, Rey’s limp form in his arms.
You don’t stop to think. You don’t weigh your options. You don’t choose between two different paths. You charge toward the ship, screaming her name.
You’re too late.
It feels wrong to be on the Falcon without Rey. You rush off the ramp at D’Qar, desperate, searching, mind running in circles. And then you see something that makes your brain stutter, short, and go totally blank.
You squint. It couldn’t be. But it looks just like—and BB-8 is—but—
Poe.
“Poe Dameron?” you say. The name feels strange in your mouth, like saying it aloud will either pin him down or cause him to disappear completely. You wonder whether you’re dreaming. Maybe you’re still in your bunk on the Star Destroyer. Would that really be more painful than all this?
But then he looks at you, stands up, smiles, and you move forward without thinking. You break into a run and then you’re crashing together, clinging tight, closing your eyes and breathing deep, hardly believing that after all the unbelievable shit you have been through since you last left your bunk, this, this, is real and true. Poe is alive.
And he wants you to keep his jacket.
“You’re a good man, Finn,” Poe says, and something blooms to life in your chest.
“Poe,” you say, “I need your help.”
(What you really mean is that you need another miracle. You don’t give a fuck about being greedy.)
Poe brings you to General Organa. She’s nothing like any general you’ve ever met, which you figure counts in her favor.
The Resistance surprises you at every turn, actually. There’s a lot…more of it than you would have guessed: more people, more going on, more competence and expertise and efficacy. The First Order generally led you to believe that the Resistance was little more than a ragtag collection of idiots and savages, and even if you hadn’t quite bought into that, you still didn’t picture this.
The revelation that there is so much going on gives you a burst of hope—and then fills you with despair.
All you want is to rescue Rey. Every second that you let go by without accomplishing her safety feels monstrous. But the Resistance has its own agenda, and everyone here has their own assignment in service of that agenda. Right now, all the focus is on the threat posed by Starkiller Base, and you want to scream at them, to grab every passing officer and pilot by the shoulders and give them a good shake, to make them see, dammit—Rey is the only priority here. Who gives a shit about Starkiller Base? They took Rey. That’s all that matters.
You know this is irrational, even if you don’t examine that knowledge very closely. You can barely conceive of a system existence-level threat, whereas Rey’s capture is so real to you it feels like you are the one being tortured. (Is she being tortured? Could they be torturing her this very moment?) You know intellectually that there’s a greater good at stake here, but you don’t feel it. You were a stormtrooper in the First Order. You were taught to never think big picture. (Of course, you weren’t supposed to do much feeling either, let alone caring about your fellow troopers.)
The threat from Starkiller Base feels too big to even fight. The way you see it, the universe looks just like itself: an infinite field of impenetrable darkness, dotted here and there by tiny, flickering, feeble spots of light. Evil is just too powerful, too inevitable, to fight on anything like a grand scale. How could Starkiller Base possibly be stopped? You don’t harbor any delusions of grandeur or stunning heroism; you barely believe that you can save yourself, let alone an entire star system full of people.
But Rey isn’t an entire system. She is one girl, and you want her back.
You’re so distracted by your thoughts that it takes you longer to realize than it should: you’re part of the inner circle of the Resistance. You look around the hastily thrown-together strategy session, full of important-looking faces, and you’re struck by the irony. You wish Rey were here to see this. (Of course, her absence is kind of the point.)
The most surprising thing, probably, is that it quickly becomes apparent that you actually deserve your spot in the inner circle. You’re startled by what they don’t know—stuff you figured was common knowledge—and impatient about filling them in. You’re willing to tell them anything if it will hurry this meeting along. In your efforts to get to the saving Rey part of the agenda, you become a veritable font of useful information.
So it’s no surprise when Han turns to you for the next step in the shield-disabling plan.
“What do you got?”
You hesitate.
If you choose complete honesty, turn to page 237.
(Page 237: Considering recent events, you don’t think you should lie, even by omission. If you hadn’t lied to Rey in the first place, she probably wouldn’t be in danger.
“I’m not sure,” you say slowly. “I know where the main control room is, but I don’t really know how the shields work. I worked sanitation.”
There’s chatter—a discussion you’re not privy to, decisions you’re not asked to chime in on. And then:
“Okay,” says General Organa, clapping her hands together. You straighten up, on high alert: it’s plan time. Gotta be. “Finn, you’re going to stay here with us.”
“What?” you say, alarm bells ringing in your head. “No, I can’t. I have to get Rey—”
“We’re going to get your friend,” she says, in a voice that’s meant to soothe.
“I won’t leave without her,” Han says, gruff. “That’s a promise.”
“But the more people we send on the mission, the more dangerous it becomes. Han and Chewie are going to make the landing, and Lieutenant Connix is going to go with them. She’s the closest we have to a planetary shield expert, and she thinks she can disable them.”
“But I’m the one who knows all the corridors and access tunnels—”
“I know,” General Organa says, smiling. She seems to anticipate everything you say, even as you grasp wildly for a trump card. It’s unnerving. “They’ll wear holocams, and we’re going to put you on a comlink headset, okay? That way you can guide them through. So you’ll be doing your part to aid the rescue mission, but you’ll be doing it from here.”
You can tell you’ve lost. Poe’s already in the midst of a rousing speech about this plan. Lieutenant Connix presses a headset into your hands, then leaves to board the Falcon.
Everyone splits. You watch a group of pilots begin to gear up for their live-or-die mission. Poe claps you on the shoulder before he leaves.
You sink onto the chair they offer you, here in the safety of the base.
The holocam stream doesn’t kick in until after Han and Connix make the landing. The wait is unbearable. Horrible images flash through your mind—the Falcon crashing, the Falcon caught in a tractor beam, the Falcon bouncing off the shields and hurtling through hyperspace—before the feed finally flickers to life.
You see everything from Lieutenant Connix’s perspective: a little nearer the ground than you’re used to, but otherwise the same Starkiller Base you remember. You direct them to the flooding tunnels, heart pounding in your chest. It’s strange, the disconnect between what you can see and hear and what you actually feel and know. When Connix rounds a corner and comes face-to-face with a First Order lieutenant, you flinch backwards in your seat. You watch, useless, as Han manages to knock him unconscious—an old-fashioned blaster-butt to the head—and then you direct them to the nearest garbage chute. You feel crucial and extraneous at the same time.
Two similar close calls follow in quick succession, and you flinch both times.
“You sure this is the best way, kid?” Han growls, when they’ve had to duck around a corner to avoid yet another passing trooper contingent.
You don’t answer; he wouldn’t be able to hear you anyway, since you’re linked with Connix. You can tell he’s cottoned on. You’re guiding them to the control room, but the route you’ve chosen isn’t the most direct nor the emptiest: you just thought they might be holding Rey in this precinct.
You’ve been scoping out the surroundings as much as you’re able, hating Connix for every corner and doorway she doesn’t peer into, any one of which could lead directly to Rey. It hasn’t been a very effective search so far.
“Kid, I swear, we’re gonna get her,” Han says, apparently reading your mind. “But we need to disable the shields first, or else we’ll all be dead and it won’t matter either way.”
You hesitate.
You chose the galaxy over the girl without meaning to. If you had pretended to be—you don’t know, a shield technician or something—they would have sent you with Han. And then you could have saved her, shields be damned.
But Han is right. You know he is. And you don’t doubt his desire to see Rey safe, too. (Besides, with Connix working on cracking the lieutenant’s datacard even as they sneak through corriodors, it can’t be long before she’ll be able to check you on your directions.)
You deliver them to the control room, where you instantly revert back to uselessness. Han and Chewie handily take out the guards. It takes five tense minutes, but Connix manages to deactivate the shields with the extra access the datacard gives her. One mission accomplished.
One to go.
Before you can direct them back into the access tunnels, Han spots her.
Connix doesn’t turn to the right angle. You nearly go out of your mind.
Then, suddenly, she’s there. Rey. Solid and whole and real and alive. Right in front of you. You itch with the desire to reach out and hug her.
Instead, you lean back in your chair, taking deep breaths. You got your second miracle.
Chewie says something you don’t understand, and Rey glances at Connix’s holocam and smiles. You smile back, dopey. It’s not like she can see you. She can’t even really talk to you, not without using Connix as an intermediary, which would be…awkward, probably. You don’t care. The mission is over, both parts. The worst is done. All that’s left is to bring them home.
Kylo Ren kills Han Solo.
Your scream echoes in the empty room. You want to be able to reach out and grab Rey’s hand, to pull her away or just to hold it, but when you tighten your hands into fists your fingers only grasp air.
You rip off your headset and throw it to the ground, yelling in frustration. And then you scramble to pick it back up. You hate being able to do nothing, but you can’t not watch, either. It’s torturous either way.
You have never in your life felt so helpless as now, trying to piece together the action from Connix’s heavy breathing and the dizzying blur of the holocam stream. You wish desperately that there was something you could do.
You want to be there.
You want a bigger stake in saving the day, saving the people you care about. Not because you want to play the hero, but because if you want something done, you have to be willing to do it yourself. Because it’s the right thing to do.)
If you choose incomplete dishonesty, turn to page 152.
“I can do it,” you say.
You have to rescue Rey. You don’t care what it takes.
Poe claps you on the shoulder as you pass each other by. You turn to watch him go. You don’t know whether you’re likely to make it back, but you hope to whatever mysterious Force may or may not govern the universe that he will. You drink in the sight of him, just in case.
You don’t think of much as you cross the frozen terrain of Starkiller Base. Han grumbles something you don’t fully catch about snowy planets and military bases, but you don’t bother asking him to repeat. You are focused on your goal. You have to rescue Rey. You don’t care what it takes.
“The flooding tunnels are over that ridge. We’ll get in that way,” you say.
(One good thing about your sanitation rotation: you got to know those tunnels really damn well.)
“What was your job when you were based here?” Han asks.
To maintain your deception, turn to page 299.
(Page 299: “Uh,” you say, “I was a shield technician.”
Han searches your face. You try very hard to look like a shield technician.
“Bullshit,” he says, like a realization. “Out with it, kid. What aren’t you telling me? What was your real job?”
Turn to page 313.)
To admit the truth, turn to page 313.
“Sanitation,” you answer.
He’s confused. “Then how do you know how to disable the shields?”
“I don’t. I’m just here to get Rey.”
He’s somewhat less than pleased.
“People are counting on us!” Han yelps. (It’s like a higher-pitched version of his regular growl; you may have to downgrade your assessment from less than pleased to downright pissed.) “The galaxy is counting on us!”
“Solo, we’ll figure it out!” you say, surprised by how much you actually mean it. “We’ll—use the Force!”
“That’s not how the Force works!” Han cries.
(Say what you will about the First Order—and you can think of plenty—but they were very good at distributing manuals. You wish the Resistance had that kind of forethought.)
It might just be a Force miracle when your plan to capture Captain Phasma actually works, from the moment you find her striding unaccompanied down a corridor to the moment you see the words SHIELDS DISABLED flash across the screen. (Does the Force do miracles? You don’t bother asking.) One mission accomplished.
One to go.
The success of your planning so far is galvanizing, which makes it all the more annoying when Han doesn’t seem to be paying attention as you strategize. Until you see why.
Rey.
(When she hugs you, you are so stupidly glad for all the decisions that have led you to this moment. Even the objectively shitty ones.)
“Escape now, hug later,” Han says, which: fair point.
Your luck holds. The four of you make it outside without being caught. X-wings and TIE fighters roar through the rapidly darkening sky.
More TIE fighters than X-wings. The ratio worsens as you watch. Poe, you think.
“They’re in trouble,” Han says, echoing your thoughts. And then: “We can’t leave. My friend here has a bag of explosives. Let’s use ‘em.”
To disagree with this plan, turn to page 266.
(Page 266: You imagine Poe swooping overhead in his X-wing, depending on you. You lost him once already. Then you found Rey—and then you lost her and found Poe again. And now the whole damn cycle is starting back up.
How can you live with yourself if you save Rey but don’t save Poe? If you leave now, without planting the explosives, they’ll probably shoot him out of the sky. But if you stay behind to help Poe, aren’t you further endangering Rey? Is it even possible to save them both? (You don’t think of yourself.)
It’s too much to hope for. Too much to even dream about. The idea that Rey and Poe and the entire galaxy could all be saved is laughable. Hell, the idea that anybody, anywhere, could be made safe from the First Order—it’s impossible. They’re too big, too powerful. You went down this road already when you decided to lie to save Rey. You’ve made your recent choices based on the people you’ve come to care about, but all you’ve wanted this whole time is to run. Run with those people by your side if you can, but run. So far that hasn’t changed.
So you can’t save everyone. But you’ll be damned if you lose them all. You’ve already committed to saving Rey, whatever it takes.
“Solo, I got what I came for. I even brought down the shields. For me that was just a fun bonus. We need to get the hell out of here.”
The words come out sounding harsher than you intended. Probably because you don’t fully believe them. You feel stuck. Every option here has potentially fatal consequences for somebody you love. You weren’t going to like yourself no matter which of them you chose.
Rey looks shocked, like she did back on Takodana when you said you wanted to run. Han shakes his head. “You remind me of someone, kid. Guy I used to know. Don’t take it as a compliment.”
“We need to get back to the ship,” you say, ignoring him. “If we go back in, we’re screwed. No way all of us make it out alive.”
“Finn, we have to help,” Rey says. “If we can do something—”
“We’ve already done all we can—”
“We don’t have time to argue!” Han interrupts. “You don’t have to come with, but we’re your ride off this place. We’re going back.” He and Chewie take off, back toward the junction station. Rey gives you a split-second look, then follows.
What the hell choice do you have? You follow.
The look she gave you is not one you wish she would.
You’ve missed it, you know you have. The big hero moment. Your chance to live up to the way both Poe and Rey looked at you. If you didn’t deserve those looks then, you sure as hell don’t now.
And it doesn’t matter that you’re going to help plant the explosives anyway, because you already made your choice, and it wasn’t the right one. It’s the difference between being dragged into a fight, kicking and screaming, and walking in with your head held high.
Either way, you figure, death feels pretty much the same.)
To agree to plant the explosives, turn to page 118.
You think of Rey, and you think of Poe, and then you think of the galaxy.
That entire star system, gone in an instant; a streak of red across the sky. All those planets, all those cities, all those homes, teeming with billions of faceless people. Unfathomable.
You think of the villagers on Jakku, huddled and screaming as their homes burned around them. They are not faceless to you. Their faces are burned permanently into your memory. Dead now, every last one.
You think of all the children taken from their families and trained to kill.
You think of FN-2003, rotting in the desert where the First Order left him.
You think of Maz Kanata, and you imagine evil stretching its hand across the galaxy, a vast shadow, swallowing stars. You think of all the people counting on you—not just Rey, not just Poe in his X-wing, but the people you met on D’Qar, the whole Ileenium system, everyone everywhere threatened by the First Order.
It’s not just about saving the people you’ve come to care about. It’s not even about being a hero. It’s about saving the galaxy. Because it’s the right thing to do.
“Let’s go,” you say, and the four of you charge toward the station together.
You’ve made your choice. And now that you have, everything else is easy. You’ve already decided the person you want to be. You care about Rey and Poe—and Han and Chewie—and everybody back on D’Qar—and the entire galaxy. Your path is clear; all you have to do is see it through. Forks in the road are no longer cause for crisis.
You help set the charges.
You watch Han Solo die.
When Rey—screaming, crazed—shoots at the stormtroopers, you drag her away.
You run through the woods. (This time, at least, you know running is the right decision.)
When you stop running, it’s because you’re out of options. Except—not quite. You can choose to stand your ground. You power up the lightsaber.
When Kylo Ren knocks Rey unconscious, there’s no option there either—but only because now that you know who you are and where you stand, only one path merits consideration.
“Come and get it,” you say, and prepare to fight.
You wake up surrounded by gleaming chrome and rhythmic, low-pitched beeping. A med bay. You’re back on Starkiller Base. You’ve been injured in the line of duty. They’ve recaptured you. They’re going to torture you. They—
You look to your right and see Poe.
The confused jumble of thoughts and panic in your mind begins to clear at the sight of him. Things come back to you; you regain your bearings. You must be back on D’Qar. Poe looks like been sitting there a while. His jacket—must be new—is draped over the armrest of his chair, and indents in the cushion indicate a recent shift to get comfortable. His hair is messy, closer to bedhead than windswept. He wears it well anyway.
He smiles when he sees you looking. (Not his hero’s smile, you think. It’s softer, more personal. It reminds you of Rey.)
“Where’s Rey?” you ask. “Is she okay? What happened with—” You shut up so Poe can answer your first two questions, the most important. You bite down on your third, about what happened with the mission, and grit your teeth to avoid giving voice to the fourth, which is what the hell happened to me? There’s a burning pain all up and down your back and your arms. Your head feels like shit, too.
“Rey’s fine. Have some water.” He says it gently, but it’s an order, not an offer.
You have some, your ears thrumming with she’s fine she’s fine and your eyes drinking in Poe who is also, apparently, fine, and even though you still have a million questions you force the water down and force yourself to wait.
You drink until Poe is satisfied, and then he explains.
You nearly died fighting Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren may have died fighting Rey, but probably not. (“How do we know for sure?” you ask, and he answers, enigmatic, “General Organa says he’s alive.”)
Rey is fine. She went to find Luke Skywalker. Poe doesn’t say why she went, and not, say, himself or General Organa or literally any other member of the Resistance. You don’t ask, because any attempt you make will probably just come out petulant. “She visited you before she left,” Poe says, “more than once, actually,” and that does make you feel better.
Also good news: the mission was successful. Starkiller Base was blown up. The galaxy will live to fight another day. So will the Resistance.
(Bad news: so will the First Order.)
“So now what?” you say, struggling to sit up a little more. Poe reaches out to help, adjusting your pillow so it’s easier to lean against.
“‘Now what’ what?” he says.
“What’s next? What do we do?”
He laughs.
“Well, you’ve got to get better first. That’s nonnegotiable. And then?” Poe shrugs, smiles. “Whatever you want. Rey is safe, Starkiller Base is gone. I’m still with the Resistance. You can join me—us. If you want. You don’t have to. We can get you on a ship out of here, wherever you’d like to go, as far away from the First Order as possible. Or you could—I don’t know. Become a moisture farmer on a desert planet somewhere.” You make a face, involuntary, and Poe laughs again. He leans forward and grabs your hand. “I’m serious. Whatever you want to do, Finn—it’s up to you.”
You turn this over in your mind. Up to you. Freedom. This is a brand new experience for you: the feeling of infinite choices.
You could go anywhere in the deep wide galaxy. You could go after Rey. You could wait for her to return, be here to hug her when she does. You could sign up with Poe and make good on your lie. You could savor his aliveness. You could savor Rey’s. You could savor your own.
You could introduce them to each other, Rey and Poe. Clearly they’ve already met, but—you could introduce them in terms of what they’ve come to mean to you. You could tell them that. You could forge a life where you get to see them both every day. You could ask Rey what she thinks your last name should be. You could ask what hers is. You could spend your time comparing scars. You could find General Organa and tell her how sorry you are for her loss. You could go pay your respects to Han. You could seek revenge. You could seek justice. You could dedicate your life to fighting evil. You could go back to sleep. You could drink more water. The choice is yours.
The choice is yours.
Dr. Kalonia comes in, accompanied by a med-droid holding a tray. Poe scoots aside to make room, but doesn’t let go of your hand.
“I’m glad to see you’re up,” Dr. Kalonia says, her eyes kind. She gestures to the tray. “You must be hungry. What would you like?”
If you reach for the grapes, turn to page 306.
If you reach for the breakfast roll, turn to page 327.