Flying in Circles

"Ace Leader to Organa Actual, requesting clearance to land."

"Organa Actual to Ace Leader, please transmit transponder code."

You know who I am. "Roger that, Organa Actual. Stand by for codes."

"…codes verified Ace Leader. Please proceed to hangar two."

"Roger wilco. Ace Leader out."

Shutting off the radio, Torra Doza sighed. The process had been mundane by the second time she'd done it. Now, over a dozen sorties against the First Order later, the process was close to maddening. There was a saying that in the depths of space, the only scream one could hear was that of a TIE fighter. She suspected that if she did scream out right now, the universe would find the person who coined that saying, slap them over the head and yell "you were wrong!" Flying through the shield that separated hanger 2 from the vacuum of space, Torra wondered if she screamed now, the people would hear her above the din. Certainly as the cockpit of her E-wing retracted, she figured it was a 50/50 chance.

"Ah, the star princess returned."

Torra closed her eyes – forget screaming. How about groaning?

"Heard the First Order gave you a run for your credits."

She looked at the deck hand. "Where'd you hear that from Pug?"

"Eh, word gets around."

"Yeah, well, word's wrong." She began climbing out of the starfighter as the rest of the Aces landed in the hanger. She wasn't the tallest person in the Resistance, but even so, she loomed over Pug – a squat k'nossoss whose name she couldn't pronounce, hence "Pug" – named after a long extinct species of dog that she'd never seen.

"So you say Princess." Pug turned to his datapad.

She'd have rather exchanged that species for the deckhand that decided to call her "princess" over and over by virtue of her genitals.

"You can add four to the list," Torra said.

"Hmm?"

"Four." She held up her fingers. "Four."

"Yeah yeah human, I can count." Pug worked his magic on the datapad, his twelve fingers doing their magic. "Didn't you get five last time?"

She remained silent. She had, and she'd rubbed it in, but…

"Slipping, slipping," Pug sneered. "Fate of the galaxy's in our fingers-"

"Hands."

"…and you're letting it scamper away."

It's 'slip,' you mynock. She forced a smile. "Trust me Pug, when this is all over, and peace and freedom's been restored to the galaxy, who do you think is going to be on the roll of honour?"

Pug scowled as only a k'nossoss could.

"Now then – let's have it."

Still scowling, he gave her a black marker.

"Thank you."

Torra returned back to her E-wing. It was a bit of a paradox really, she reflected – the E-wing was designed as an escort, yet she was using it to take point in her squadron. Still, the ship was her baby. Like with all babies, you had to show your love. So while some babies drew on the walls, others needed drawings on them. In this case, four black straight lines to match all the others.

"Twenty-four," Pug said. "Huh. One more and you'd get another silly stripe thing."

Torra put the lid back on the marker and tossed it over.

"Like, I never got the whole 'fence thing' humans do when doing kill counts. I mean-"

She let him talk – she had to let him clear her from the hangar. Trying to speed things up would get into another debate between the worth of base ten vs. base twelve.

"…and a fence? Seriously? You're on a starship, who needs fences out here?"

Stars and galaxies, I swear if you don't shut up…

"…well, anyway." Pug tapped his datapad. "You're free."

"Thank you. Really." Torra forced a smile that resembled a lemon-sucking grimace. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yep. See ya Princess."

One airlock. All it would take is an airlock.

She walked across the flight deck to her second – Kaleeb di B'nall. A duros. He was finishing his own flight roster, and his own kill count.

"Three," Torra said, as she walked over, seeing twelve kills reach fifteen, getting the 'fence' that Pug had spoken of earlier. "Not bad."

"I'm getting better." He looked over at her, with the same blank expression that so many duros had. "Course, one may say that it's as nothing to the First Order."

She couldn't hide her frown – "ever heard of chipping away at the boulder?"

"I have. But the analogy only holds true if the boulder does not grow over time, or chip back."

"First Order isn't growing Kaleeb. Or haven't you heard that they can barely hold onto their own territory right now?"

"I have," Kaleeb said. "Whether that is the truth or not…well, time will tell, no?"

Torra forced a smile – not the lemon-sucking one she'd used on Pug, but rather the same smile her father had given to her when he tried shielding her from how dark the galaxy was becoming. "Time will tell," she murmured.

Her father was gone of course. As had the rest of the old Ace Squadron. Succumbed not to time, but to fire. She was the only one left.

"So what will you do now?" Kaleeb asked. He smiled…she thought, it was hard to tell with most duros. "Shall we met at Seven-Forward?"

"No." Torra yawned. "I'm beat. Besides, Kaz will be missing me."

"Ah yes, of course." He shook Torra's hand. "See you on the flight line then."

"Yeah. See you…"

She watched Kaleeb head off, joining the other pilots of Ace Squadron. She couldn't make out their voices through the din – the shouts, the scrapes, the beeps of astromechs. This was her life, she told herself. The life of everyone on the Organa, a Skywalker-class carrier built by the Resistance in the shipyards of Celestron – one of dozens of bases that had popped up across the galaxy over the past two years. The namesake of this ship and its class had given the people hope. There were only three such carriers in existence, and they followed the same tactic – stay hidden, launch fighter sorties on the First Order, and hope that the regime of Kylo Ren would collapse through a thousand cuts.

On one hand, it was working. On the other...she frowned, and started walking across the hangar bay. On the other, the First Order had an awful lot of blood to spare.

"Ace Leader."

"Hey, Torra."

She nodded at the deckhands and pilots calling out to her, hoping that they got the message that she wasn't feeling like conversation right now. Her mind was elsewhere – partly from the tales her father had told her of the battles before her time. In the Galactic Empire, it had been decisive battles that had topped the regime of Palpatine. Scarif. Yavin IV. Endor. Jakku. The Empire was like a serpent, with all the venom located at the head. The First Order was the same, but the head was nowhere to be found. All she could do was fly sorties and try and shed as much blood and venom as possible. Doing so with a squadron of ace pilots…none of whom were the same as those she'd flown with on the Colossus.

Blood. Fire. They'd taken them all. In a span of days, in the desperate retreat to Crait, she'd lost them. She had been there the day the Resistance was reborn…after so many had died. All she had now was Kaz.

Couldn't protect me forever, could you? She wondered. Her father wouldn't hear her of course, but…

Wish you were here.

Silent words, but still spoken in truth. Silent words that matched the silence of the corridors of the Organa. It was 18:10, ship-standard time, and she'd be expected in the briefing room at 0600 tomorrow. In the two hours she had to herself…well, she didn't really have them to herself, did she? She sighed as she reached the door to her quarters, drawing out her ID card. Kaz would be waiting for her. And Kaz was nothing if not loud.

Home again.

The door hissed open and she walked in. Kaz, sitting on the floor, looked up at her.

"Mama!"

She smiled – a smile that, for the first time in the last hour, was completely genuine. She knelt down and watched as the two-year old waddled over, leaving his toys on the ground behind him. All hopes and thoughts of silence evaporated as she embraced the drooling two year old. Her light. Her life.

Her son.

"Back!" Kaz yelled. "Back back back!"

"Yes, mummy's back." She knelt down and kissed him on the forehead. "Did you stay good?"

"Good! Good-good!"

She took a quick look around the room – Kaz had indeed remained "good" as far as she could tell, but then, what could a four-by-six room provide for a two year old besides the toys she'd either bought, or made with him? The Organa had many things, but a daycare wasn't among them.

"Bad guys?" Kaz asked. "Did mummy beat bad guys?"

She put her nose against his and rubbed it. "Mummy beat bad guys."

"Tickles!" Kaz exclaimed. He gestured towards his play area. "Bad guys beaten."

She smiled. Kaz turned away, so he couldn't see the sadness behind it. Kaz Doza lived in a world where his mother beat "bad guys," and that was it. He didn't know that every time she did so, it was in the fear that she wouldn't come back. That one day, the door of this room would hiss open, and a faceless Republic CO would tell her son that his mother wasn't coming back, and that they were going to find…what, she wondered? An orphanage? The galaxy was awash with orphaned children. She knew that the Organa and this room was no life for a child, but with the alternatives being so much worse, what else could she do? Quit?

Part of her wanted to. But every time she did, she thought of Kaz. Not Kaz Doza. Kazuda Xionho. And with those thoughts, that kept her in the cockpit. Kept her kill count as high as possible.

"Mummy?"

"Hmm?" She looked at her son, who was holding up a piece of four-legged cardboard at her. "Oh, sorry. What's that?"

"Bad guy! Bad guy go boom!" He dropped the object. "Boom!"

"Oh." She sat down and held Kaz in her lap. "And is that Luke?"

"Luke," Kaz said, pointing at a stick figure made out of iron holding a twig – one of the few actual pieces of wood on the ship. "Luke beats bad guy." He held the stick figure and used it to knock over the other stick figure – to the untrained eye, they looked the same, but Torra had spent enough time with her son to know which was which.

"Boom," Kaz said. "Bad guy dead."

Torra kissed her son again. I wish he was.

Wishes didn't count for much these days, she reflected. She could wish that the First Order would up and die. Wish that General Organa was still alive. Wish…She held the carboard figure (an AT-AT, even if Kaz didn't know the name), letting Kaz use "Luke" to hit it over and over. She had a lot of wishes. Most of them involved bringing friends and family back to life.

"Boom!" Kaz exclaimed.

"Boom," Torra whispered, laying the AT-AT on the ground. Her eyes lingered to the desk table that separated her bed from the small cot one of the deckhands had helped her make for her son. Specifically, the paper-folded fighters that were there. "Want to play starship?"

"Starship!" Kaz exclaimed. He waddled over to get them.

Starships. Boom. That had happened at Starkiller Base. At D'Qar. In the space between that world and Crait. Starships had gone boom, and as the slowest chase in galactic history had played out, that had only left her with Kaz. The last two members of the Resistance who had ever served on the Colossus, now thrust together by chance or fate.

"Pow!" Kaz exclaimed – a paper X-Wing was pursuing a paper TIE fighter (or interceptor, she couldn't be sure – she wasn't good at folding paper planes). "Pow pow pow!"

She watched her son do the dance that she had once partaken in – flying through rings around the Colossus, going through their holes. On the Raddus, caught between a dwindling fuel supply and perusing Star Destroyers...

"Boom!" Kaz exclaimed, the TIE fighter falling to the ground by the AT-AT.

She felt a rush of warmth enter her as the memory entered her mind. Warmth. A lot of it, mingled with sweat, groans, gasps, and…well, suffice to say, by the end of it, Kazuda Xionho had 'flown' most excellently.

"Mummy?" her son asked.

It had just…happened, she reflected. Some weird mix of affection that had been building for months, coupled with the fear that they had nothing left to lose. That faced with death, all they could do was fly.

"Mummy, you're not watching!"

They had certainly flown away from the Raddus. Had flown all the way down to Crait.

"Mummy?"

Even when others hadn't. So when the First Order had deployed its forces, without hesitation, they had each strapped in a V-4X-D ski speeder and flown off into battle.

"Mummy, what's wrong with your eyes?"

When Kaz had been blown out of the sky, the only solace she could take was that his death would have been relatively painless.

"Mummy!"

"Hmm?" She looked down at Kaz the Younger. She 'fixed' her eyes.

"You're sad mummy. Why are you sad?"

"I…" She caught her throat, and put Kaz back on her lap, kissing him again. "I'm not sad Kaz. I'm here. You're here."

Kaz didn't say anything. He held his paper starfighters limply. In this moment, he was nothing like his father, or the person his mother had once been. Always ready with a wisecrack. Always…always…

It had taken her a month to learn what she'd gained upon the Raddus in those scant hours between life and death. It had taken a further eight for Kaz Doza to become the newest member of the Resistance. She'd barely been sixteen at the time, and now? "Mother at eighteen" had never been on her list of desires.

"Come on," Tonna said, picking her son up. "Time for bed."

"But I'm not sleepy!"

"I know, but mummy has to get up early to fight the bad guys."

Kaz pouted as she put him in his cot. "You've always got to fight bad guys!"

"Yes, well, there's a lot of bad guys to fight." She put a finger on Kaz's nose. "But don't worry. One day, I won't have to."

"But isn't fighting bad guys fun?"

"I-"

"When I grow up, I'll fight them with you."

"I…" She forced a smile. "Well, when you're older. Maybe." She kissed him on the cheek. "Now go to sleep Kaz."

By the Force, please no. She dimmed the lights – dark enough to get Kaz to sleep, light enough so that she could get in some reading. Please let the war be over by then.

It occurred to her as she took off her flight suit and got into nightwear that her prayer of the war ending would technically be granted if the First Order won. In which case she'd be dead, and her son either with her, or worse, taken in to be a slave. An unthinking, uncaring instrument of death.

She loved him. Even after nine months of vomiting, even after seeing his father look back at her every time she looked at the wonderful child they'd created But whether that love could survive the First Order…she didn't know. Certainly his father hadn't survived those maniacs.

In silence, she got into bed and picked up a copy of Republic and Rebellion. In about eight hours, she'd be in the briefing room. Ready to go out and kill "bad guys."

Sometimes, it felt she was still flying in rings. Still flying in circles.

"Night mummy," Kaz said.

"Goodnight Kaz."

She smiled, and not just because the book was getting interesting.

Least in this circle, she wasn't alone.

A/N

So, apparently Star Wars Resistance starts a few months before the events of The Force Awakens and by extension, The Last Jedi. So, does that mean that the characters are all pretty much doomed considering how mangled the Resistance is by the end of the last film? In honesty, probably not - if they do go beyond the timeframe of TLJ, I'm guessing that they'll have the excuse of the cast being elsewhere at the time aside from characters taken from the sequel trilogy.

And of course, I doubt anything like this will actually happen (bar Kaz and Tonna at least being shipped, because of course people are going to ship cartoon characters), but since the cartoon has yet to be released, I get to be in that sweet spot of playing faster and looser with canon than I would otherwise. So, um, yeah.