by Cavan Scott
The seeker wasn’t impressed, beeping menacingly as it swept forward. But then it exploded in a blaze of sparks! It crashed to the ground, its circuitry sizzling before it finally lay still. BB-8 looked up through the smoke at Finn, whose blaster rifle was still raised from shooting down the droid.
BB-8 squealed in delight, rolling toward the former trooper, his various attachments snapping back into place.
“Yeah, I’m happy to see you, too,” Finn said, stepping to the side before the excitable droid could trip him up. “What happened to Poe?”
BB-8 emitted a series of shrill whistles that hurt Finn’s ears, though he didn’t understand them.
“I’m guessing they know who we are. I knew it was too good to last.” He checked the charge on the blaster rifle. “Well, it looks like we need to mount a rescue mission.”
BB-8 wheeled back slightly as Karkan and the others hurried up behind Finn.
“Don’t worry,” Finn said quickly as BB-8 rolled back into the alley. “They’re with me.”
“And I’m afraid we’re the bearers of bad news,” the Tevellan said. “Your friend has been taken to the command walker. You can’t storm it alone.”
Finn frowned. “Poe would for me.”
“But what about our children?” Tarina reminded him. “You said you would help us.”
Finn sighed. There was no way he could do both.
WHAT DOES FINN DECIDE TO DO?
RESCUE POE—TURN TO PAGE 130.
RESCUE THE CHILDREN—GO TO PAGE 98.
“AN EXCELLENT IDEA,” said Poe. “We’ll come with you.”
“Of course,” Varak said. “Please, follow me.”
He led them to the command walker, and they rode a hover platform up to the giant machine.
Once inside, they headed straight for the command deck, and Varak ordered his petty officer to send a message to high command.
DO THEY LET HIM SEND THE MESSAGE?
YES—GO TO PAGE 39.
NO—HEAD TO PAGE 58.
IN HIS HEART OF HEARTS Finn knew what Poe would really do.
“Where are your children being held?” he asked, and Karkan smiled gratefully.
“In warehouse four. The stormtroopers have converted it into a barracks.”
Finn hefted the rifle. “Then how do we get in?”
The Tevellans took Finn and BB-8 to a quadrangle of four buildings close to the docked TIE fighters. Peering around the corner of an equipment hut, Finn frowned as he saw two stormtroopers guarding the main entrance to the warehouse, each wielding a chunky stun baton.
“We’ve been digging a tunnel across the quad,” Menon told him, beckoning Finn inside the hut to reveal a muddy hole hidden beneath loose floor tiles. “I’m afraid we haven’t gotten very far.”
“At least you tried,” Finn said. “Most people just roll over when the First Order marches into town, but not you. You’re fighters.”
“Not that it’s done us much good,” Tarina said.
“You’re being too hard on yourself,” Finn said, putting down his blaster. “There must be something here we can use.”
He pulled a thick drop cloth from what he hoped was a pile of equipment, only to discover a heap of old junk.
“Maybe we could try somewhere else,” he said, and was about to leave when BB-8 ran over his feet to cross the cramped storeroom.
“Ow! Watch where you’re rolling!”
BB-8 was trying to move a steel sheet from a bulky shape that was propped against the wall.
“What have you found?” Finn asked, shoving the scrap metal aside. It was a gonk power droid, its casing eaten by rust and one of its legs missing.
“What good is that old thing?” he asked as BB-8 babbled so fast his usual bleeps almost merged into a single note.
“You need to slow down,” Finn said, raising his palms to shush the overeager astromech. “I don’t understand you.”
“But I do,” said Tarina.
“Yeah?” Finn asked, turning to face her. “What did he say?”
The Tevellan smiled at him, the power droid’s missing leg in her hands. “He wants us to strip the gonk.”
“Strip it of what?”
Tarina’s grin widened. “Everything!”
GO TO PAGE 104.
POE SWUNG, and his fist connected with Varak’s jaw at the exact moment the major pulled the trigger. The punch was good, but the stun bolt was better. Poe was thrown back, crashing to the sloping floor.
Varak rubbed his jaw but got back to his feet and kicked Poe to make sure the traitor was unable to move. Supreme Leader Ren wouldn’t be happy that he had wrecked a walker, but the capture of Poe Dameron might be just enough to save Varak’s career.
What he didn’t expect was for the viewport behind him to erupt in a blaze of sparks. Varak turned to see Finn and Karkan standing on the other side of the wrecked screen, blasters aimed straight at him.
“You might want to surrender,” Finn said, stepping onto the control deck.
Varak grinned. “I don’t think so.”
Finn shook his head. “Typical First Order thinking, right down to the—”
He never got the chance to finish his sentence. He hadn’t seen the seeker droid float up behind him and his traitorous cohort. Barely operating but still loyal, the seeker jabbed its shock prods into the two rebels, draining the last of its battery to disable them before dropping to the ground itself.
Varak smirked at the stunned fighters. In the space of a few minutes, he had gone from having one prisoner to three. Yes, this would definitely please Supreme Leader Ren. Maybe he’d even get a promotion.…
THE END
CAN YOU GO BACK AND MAKE BETTER DECISIONS?
FINN GROANED as he realized the only choice left to him. If he remembered his training, there was an access hatch on top of the AT-AT that could be triggered if one knew where to find the hidden switch. The problem was getting up there. He could climb, but it would take too long. His only other option was to fly.
Trying not to think about what he was doing, Finn sprinted for the TIE fighters at the far end of the plant. Getting BB-8 up the boarding ladder wasn’t as difficult as he’d feared it might be. The astromech used his adjustable arms to haul himself up, and once inside, the little droid maneuvered himself behind the flight controls.
WHO SHOULD FLY THE TIE FIGHTER?
FINN—TURN TO PAGE 128.
BB-8—TURN TO PAGE 108.
TROOPER TR-4018 frowned beneath his helmet as a gonk droid waddled toward them. What was wrong with that thing? It looked as if it could barely walk, let alone power anything.
As if to prove his point, the gonk came to a shambling halt. It made a couple of guttural honks and waited, as if TR-4018 was supposed to know what it was saying. Even the thing’s vocabulator, limited though it was to one noise, was on the blink. TR-4018 looked over to his buddy on the other side of the warehouse door. TR-1004 was staring straight ahead, ignoring the droid. That was just typical. TR-1004 followed orders to the letter, not because he was obedient but because it meant he never had to show initiative.
The gonk honked again.
TR-4018 sighed. “What do you want?”
The droid shuffled a few steps toward the door.
TR-4018 shook his head. “Sorry. No can do. No one is allowed in or out of that place.”
The droid honked and honked and honked and honked.
“Oh, let it in for Snoke’s sake,” TR-1004 said, finally breaking his silence. “What difference will it make? The thing’s a walking battery!”
TR-4018 couldn’t believe his ears. TR-1004 was actually thinking for himself, although TR-4018 was pretty sure he just wanted the droid to shut up.
But he was right. What difference would it make?
“Go on then,” TR-4018 said, hitting the door control with his elbow. The droid honked once in gratitude and shuffled in, leaving the two stormtroopers in blissful silence as the door closed behind it.
Inside the
building, the gonk continued down the corridor before coming to an unsteady stop by an alcove. Shuffling around as if to make sure no one was looking, it backed into the cubbyhole before its casing snapped open, a lid popping up at the top of its blocky body.
Finn gasped for air as he stood up. He stretched, feeling his spine pop. That is what you get for listening to BB-8, he thought, although he had to admit the droid’s crazy plan had worked. Getting inside the casing had been a tight squeeze, even with all the gonk’s internal components removed, but at least BB-8 had left him with a rudimentary sound box to make the power droid’s signature honk.
Clambering out of the empty casing, he ran to a side entrance to open the door for Karkan and the others, BB-8 rolling at their heels.
“Okay,” Finn said. “Where are your kids?”
The warehouse had been separated into smaller rooms, most filled with supplies and equipment. Karkan led them to the back of the building, where another stormtrooper stood guard in front of a set of double doors, this time with a blaster pistol.
HOW DO THEY GET PAST THE TROOPER?
USE THE GONK DROID AGAIN. GO TO PAGE 116.
RUSH HIM. TURN TO PAGE 135.
“WHAT MAKES YOU THINK you’re the pilot?” Finn asked, only to receive a litany of beeps from BB-8 in reply, no doubt at least half a dozen reasons why Finn taking the controls would be a recipe for disaster.
“All right, all right,” Finn said sulkily, dropping into the gunner’s seat and glaring as BB-8 performed a perfect takeoff.
They streaked toward the AT-AT, and Finn aimed for the hatch on the back of the mechanical beast. He pressed the triggers, sending laser bolts bouncing off the walker’s armored hide.
The other fighters were already on their tail, but BB-8 flew better than Finn ever could, a by-product of studying Poe for years.
They shot over the top of the walker, Finn blowing the hatch off its hinges as they came around for another pass.
BB-8 shot an enemy fighter from the sky as Finn leapt from the assault craft, landing with a skillful roll on the walker’s broad back.
Diving through the open hatch, Finn dropped down into a narrow corridor on the top level of the lumbering machine. A trooper lunged at him, raising his blaster, but Finn was ready and grabbed the barrel to jerk it toward him, throwing the stormtrooper off balance.
Finn brought the rifle back up, smashing the butt into the front of the trooper’s helmet, and the buckethead went down, his weapon still in Finn’s hands.
“Finn, is that you?”
Finn spun around at the sound of Poe’s voice. It was coming through a cell door, which Finn opened with a well-aimed shot.
“Not bad,” Poe said as he bounded out of the cell.
“You can thank me when we get out of here.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Poe said. “Not until we bring this thing down.”
“How?”
Poe ran to a weapons rack and pulled another rifle from its clasp. “How much damage could one of these do if the power pack overloaded next to, say, the walker’s reactor.”
Finn grinned. “Enough!”
Soon Poe’s rifle was wedged next to the AT-AT’s fuel pump, the power cell gradually building to a fiery detonation.
“How long have we got?” Poe asked.
“Not long enough,” Finn replied. “How are we going to get out?”
HOW DO THEY ESCAPE THE WALKER BEFORE IT BLOWS UP?
RAPPEL FROM THE DEPLOYMENT
PLATFORM—GO TO PAGE 112.
GO THROUGH THE TOP HATCH—TURN TO PAGE 131.
A TROOPER’S BLASTER lay discarded on the floor. Poe dove for the weapon, but he had no chance of reaching it before Varak pulled his trigger. Stun waves washed over him, and he crashed to the ground.
He had been so close…but Varak had come out on top. Now Poe was a prisoner of the First Order.
THE END
CAN YOU GO BACK AND MAKE BETTER DECISIONS?
“I WAS HOPING you could tell me,” Poe said.
Finn looked around for an escape route. “Most AT-ATs have deployment platforms. We could rappel down to the surface.”
“Sounds good to me. Let’s go!”
Reaching the platform meant climbing down a level and finding the equipment they needed to slide down.
“This is taking too long,” Poe complained as Finn struggled into a harness. “The reactor will blow any minute.”
Before Finn could stop him, Poe had opened the armored door and the wind was whipping in.
“We’ll have to jump!” he shouted as a First Order petty officer appeared from the command deck.
Finn twisted, stunning her with a single shot “Are you crazy? We’ll break our necks.”
“Not if we do it properly!”
Finn clipped a cable to Poe’s harness before doing the same with his own.
“Ready?” he asked the pilot.
Poe nodded. “Ready.”
They leaned out the door, letting the cables take their weight before jumping. They dropped, their descent swift but controlled. A shout rang out from below. Finn spun around to see a stormtrooper taking aim from the ground. He never made the second shot. Above them, the reactor blew, severing their lines and taking out the back of the walker. Poe and Finn tumbled to the ground, landing hard before the wreckage of the AT-AT came crashing down on top of them.
Some escape!
THE END
CAN YOU GO BACK AND MAKE BETTER DECISIONS?
BEFORE THE MAJOR COULD REACT, Poe swept out a foot, taking Varak’s legs out from under him.
He was running before Varak even hit the ground.
“Come on, buddy!” he shouted at BB-8 as he raced in the direction of the med shuttle, but the only reply was a strangled electronic scream.
Varak’s seeker droid had jammed a shock probe into the astromech and was pumping countless volts into his little body.
“Poe, move!”
Finn appeared suddenly, pushing Poe out of the way as Varak’s stormtroopers fired. Blaster bolts sizzled over their heads as they sprinted for the med shuttle, Finn all but pushing Poe up the ramp.
“Get us out of here!” Finn yelled as laser fire bounced off the tiny ship’s hull.
“But Beebee—”
“Just do it!”
Poe fired the engines as if on autopilot. The med shuttle launched into the air, making the jump to hyperspace as soon as they had cleared the planet’s atmosphere.
“We made it!” Finn cheered, but Poe was in no mood to celebrate. They had left BB-8 in the clutches of the seeker droid. It wasn’t just that the astromech held most of the Resistance’s secrets in his memory; he was Poe’s friend.
Would he ever be able to forgive himself?
THE END
CAN YOU GO BACK AND MAKE BETTER DECISIONS?
A FEW MINUTES LATER, Finn was back in the gonk droid, faking an argument with BB-8, who, like Poe before him, was throwing himself into the role, beeping at the top of his vocabulator.
His back on fire and his eyes streaming from the smell of burnt wiring and oil, Finn dutifully pressed the button that generated the gonk’s grunts and counted the seconds until he could get back out of the box.
Fortunately, it wasn’t long before the stormtrooper came to investigate the noise.
“What’s going on?” he asked the squabbling droids. Finn and BB-8 booped in tandem just long enough for Menon to sneak up behind the trooper and bash the buckethead against the wall. The trooper slid to the floor, and Finn tried to flick the switch that would release the gonk’s lid. It didn’t work. He panicked, slamming his palms against the top, but he only succeeded in falling onto his side. He floundered inside the cube, desperate to get out, finding it difficult to breathe.
“Get me out of here! Get me out!”
BB-8 zapped the offending hinge with a shock prod. The lid sprang open and Finn spilled out on the warehouse floor.
“I thought you said we weren’t supposed to mak
e any noise,” Menon complained. “That’s why we couldn’t use blasters.”
“You try being cooped up in there,” Finn gasped, accepting Karkan’s hand to get up. “Next time, you’re in the droid!”
He looked around for Tarina, but she was already racing to the unguarded door. All Finn’s grumpiness evaporated as she hit the control and was suddenly swamped by a wave of young Tevellans, all of whom were overjoyed to see her. Karkan and Menon joined the crush, laughing and hugging the children.
Yeah, Finn thought. This was the right thing to do.
Behind him, BB-8 beeped. Finn turned to find the droid opening the door to a room that had been converted to a small armory. His jaw dropped at the sight of racks of stun batons and boxes of detonators. There was enough there to equip a small army—or at least a handful of Tevellans.
They’d rescued the kids. Now it was time to take back the bacta plant.
WHAT EQUIPMENT SHOULD FINN TAKE?
STUN BATONS—HEAD TO PAGE 139.
DETONATORS—GO TO PAGE 121.
THERE WAS ONLY ONE THING to do. Finn had survived one perilous climb in the past twenty-four hours; he might as well attempt another one.
Checking there were no stormtroopers on patrol, he ran up to the towering machine. From what he could see, the AT-AT was a standard model, which meant that it had a hatch up top as well as the usual side deployment platforms. There was no way he could break in through a platform, but there was a chance, albeit slim, that he might be able to open the hatch.
After telling BB-8 to find somewhere to hide, Finn started his ascent, climbing up onto the nearest footpad. He had made it to the first knee joint, his fingers shaking from having to cling onto ridges in the metal, when a shout rang out from below.
